Monday, March 23, 2009

Why does Biblical guidance not work?



How many times have you heard someone tell a depressed person, "Cheer up!"? Then the depressed person immediately becomes happy, right? Of course not! It usually brings them down even more! Why? Because "Cheer up" is something we need to tell ourselves when we are down, not others. When others are down, my response should not be to tell them what to do, but rather to ask myself what I can do to bring them a smile. They already know they need to cheer up, and if they knew how, they would have already done so! If I really care, I can spend some time with them so they won't be lonely, or I can take the time to listen to all they are going through. But telling them to "cheer up" is better left unsaid!

I read an interesting article yesterday entitled Pharisees Ancient and Modern. The author points out the following observations about the Pharisees:

They knew their Bibles.
They were disciplined in prayer.
They fasted twice a week.
They gave about a third of their income to their church.
They were moral.
Many were martyred for their faith.
They attended church regularly.
They were evangelical/orthodox.
They were evangelistic. (Jesus said they would even cross the ocean to win a convert!)

So why do the Pharisees get such a bad rap? I submit 2 reasons: 1) They were legalistic, holding the words of the law as their highest authority; 2) They used the Scripture to keep everyone else in line.

Look back at the characteristics of the Pharisees. Were they different from us? It should scare us if they were not, because Jesus was harder on them than on any sinner we have record of him encountering!

When I see the sin of a brother, what is my reaction? I don't believe God calls me first and foremost to admonish him with Scripture. I surmise, rather, that the Scripture is intended to guide me in how to respond to him. Just as it is counterproductive to tell a depressed brother to cheer up, it is equally counterproductive to merely tell a sinful brother (that, by the way, is a description of us all!) to stop sinning. If he saw the need and knew how to stop, he would have already done so.

What were the Pharisees lacking? Love. A word so overused and misused that it has almost become meaningless. Yet it is the key to the entire Gospel. God is love (1 John 4:8). 1 Cor. 13 tells us clearly that we can do all these things perfectly, and yet, if they are not done in love, they are nothing. Do I love my brother enough to apply the Scripture to my own proper reaction to him, rather than sounding it as a gong to him, or as a clanging cymbal? Do I love him enough to lay down my prejudices (prejudice is not just about racism!) and befriend him as an equal? To spend time with him? To take him to a ballgame or go jogging with him?

Why does Biblical guidance not work? Because we are applying it to the wrong person! If applied to my own life, it is transformational, for me and for all those around me!

Friday, March 20, 2009

What America is all about...

poverty_foodstamps

Gentle Reader,

I don't know about you but I have had it with those who claim to American Christians (Catholic or Protestant) and yet complain about those 1 in 4 people who live below the poverty level "They take our taxes , because their lazy!" The homeless don't deserve help they just want handouts. I'm a "Republican" and I believe in pulling yourself by your bootstraps" "Those Democrats caused all the problems" There is a expression in Iowa "Hogwash"- look it up!

Let  me once and for all set the record straight! It was the greed of some that has caused the problems that  many of you are now facing. The greed of Wall street, the greed of certain Senators , congressmen, Governors and bureaucrats of all sizes and shapes , War contractors businessmen and women who decided that taking  care of "Number One" was more important that look out for the person who was weaker, less advantaged,  disabled, homeless hungry or in some way needed our help and was ignored. Now we have a president who has come back to where we should have been all along. My Bible tells me that there is enough wealth in the world to feed every man, woman and child, to cure every disease and to eradicate every ill. . . If we would only set aside our petty (yes I said petty) differences and remember what our past president said in 1961 

"To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required--not because the communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich."

JFK 1961

Comment: It is not a liberal idea or a conservative idea it is a Christian idea!

 If you are so taken to grab all you can get then this country is not for you, If you feel that you have been taxed to death try living in a third world country where the people there would love to make enough to feed their families and have so much left over that they would pay a tax on their excess.

1Ti 5:8 But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.

Wake up America this is you chance to show what you are made of. Pitch in, help out and don't let the greedy get you down.

Denis  

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Happy St. Patrick's Day


Happy St. Patrick's Day
Originally uploaded by ♥babybee
From Himself and Herself

Thursday, March 12, 2009

The coming evangelical collapse

Gentle readers,

This was sent to me and I felt that it needed a much wider readership than it may receive. Please read with and open mind and a prayerful heart. I have been contacted by more than 1500 American church "who want to go in a different direction" No longer is Scripture being held out to the churches and the membership. What do we do as pastors?

An anti-Christian chapter in Western history is about to begin. But out of the ruins, a new vitality and integrity will rise.

We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.

Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the "Protestant" 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.

This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.

Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I'm convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close.

Why is this going to happen?

1. Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake. Evangelicals will increasingly be seen as a threat to cultural progress. Public leaders will consider us bad for America, bad for education, bad for children, and bad for society.

The evangelical investment in moral, social, and political issues has depleted our resources and exposed our weaknesses. Being against gay marriage and being rhetorically pro-life will not make up for the fact that massive majorities of Evangelicals can't articulate the Gospel with any coherence. We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith.

2. We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we've spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.

3. There are three kinds of evangelical churches today: consumer-driven megachurches, dying churches, and new churches whose future is fragile. Denominations will shrink, even vanish, while fewer and fewer evangelical churches will survive and thrive.

4. Despite some very successful developments in the past 25 years, Christian education has not produced a product that can withstand the rising tide of secularism. Evangelicalism has used its educational system primarily to staff its own needs and talk to itself.

5. The confrontation between cultural secularism and the faith at the core of evangelical efforts to "do good" is rapidly approaching. We will soon see that the good Evangelicals want to do will be viewed as bad by so many, and much of that work will not be done. Look for ministries to take on a less and less distinctively Christian face in order to survive.

6. Even in areas where Evangelicals imagine themselves strong (like the Bible Belt), we will find a great inability to pass on to our children a vital evangelical confidence in the Bible and the importance of the faith.

7. The money will dry up.

What will be left?

•Expect evangelicalism to look more like the pragmatic, therapeutic, church-growth oriented megachurches that have defined success. Emphasis will shift from doctrine to relevance, motivation, and personal success – resulting in churches further compromised and weakened in their ability to pass on the faith.

•Two of the beneficiaries will be the Roman Catholic and Orthodox communions. Evangelicals have been entering these churches in recent decades and that trend will continue, with more efforts aimed at the "conversion" of Evangelicals to the Catholic and Orthodox traditions.

•A small band will work hard to rescue the movement from its demise through theological renewal. This is an attractive, innovative, and tireless community with outstanding media, publishing, and leadership development. Nonetheless, I believe the coming evangelical collapse will not result in a second reformation, though it may result in benefits for many churches and the beginnings of new churches.

•The emerging church will largely vanish from the evangelical landscape, becoming part of the small segment of progressive mainline Protestants that remain true to the liberal vision.

•Aggressively evangelistic fundamentalist churches will begin to disappear.

•Charismatic-Pentecostal Christianity will become the majority report in evangelicalism. Can this community withstand heresy, relativism, and confusion? To do so, it must make a priority of biblical authority, responsible leadership, and a reemergence of orthodoxy.

•Evangelicalism needs a "rescue mission" from the world Christian community. It is time for missionaries to come to America from Asia and Africa. Will they come? Will they be able to bring to our culture a more vital form of Christianity?

•Expect a fragmented response to the culture war. Some Evangelicals will work to create their own countercultures, rather than try to change the culture at large. Some will continue to see conservatism and Christianity through one lens and will engage the culture war much as before – a status quo the media will be all too happy to perpetuate. A significant number, however, may give up political engagement for a discipleship of deeper impact.

Is all of this a bad thing?

Evangelicalism doesn't need a bailout. Much of it needs a funeral. But what about what remains?

Is it a good thing that denominations are going to become largely irrelevant? Only if the networks that replace them are able to marshal resources, training, and vision to the mission field and into the planting and equipping of churches.

Is it a good thing that many marginal believers will depart? Possibly, if churches begin and continue the work of renewing serious church membership. We must change the conversation from the maintenance of traditional churches to developing new and culturally appropriate ones.

The ascendency of Charismatic-Pentecostal-influenced worship around the world can be a major positive for the evangelical movement if reformation can reach those churches and if it is joined with the calling, training, and mentoring of leaders. If American churches come under more of the influence of the movement of the Holy Spirit in Africa and Asia, this will be a good thing.

Will the evangelicalizing of Catholic and Orthodox communions be a good development? One can hope for greater unity and appreciation, but the history of these developments seems to be much more about a renewed vigor to "evangelize" Protestantism in the name of unity.

Will the coming collapse get Evangelicals past the pragmatism and shallowness that has brought about the loss of substance and power? Probably not. The purveyors of the evangelical circus will be in fine form, selling their wares as the promised solution to every church's problems. I expect the landscape of megachurch vacuity to be around for a very long time.

Will it shake lose the prosperity Gospel from its parasitical place on the evangelical body of Christ? Evidence from similar periods is not encouraging. American Christians seldom seem to be able to separate their theology from an overall idea of personal affluence and success.

The loss of their political clout may impel many Evangelicals to reconsider the wisdom of trying to create a "godly society." That doesn't mean they'll focus solely on saving souls, but the increasing concern will be how to keep secularism out of church, not stop it altogether. The integrity of the church as a countercultural movement with a message of "empire subversion" will increasingly replace a message of cultural and political entitlement.

Despite all of these challenges, it is impossible not to be hopeful. As one commenter has already said, "Christianity loves a crumbling empire."

We can rejoice that in the ruins, new forms of Christian vitality and ministry will be born. I expect to see a vital and growing house church movement. This cannot help but be good for an evangelicalism that has made buildings, numbers, and paid staff its drugs for half a century.

We need new evangelicalism that learns from the past and listens more carefully to what God says about being His people in the midst of a powerful, idolatrous culture.

I'm not a prophet. My view of evangelicalism is not authoritative or infallible. I am certainly wrong in some of these predictions. But is there anyone who is observing evangelicalism in these times who does not sense that the future of our movement holds many dangers and much potential?

• Michael Spencer is a writer and communicator living and working in a Christian community in Kentucky. He describes himself as "a postevangelical reformation Christian in search of a Jesus-shaped spirituality." This essay is adapted from a series on his blog, InternetMonk.com .

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

The Secret of the Universe


The Winding Acient stairs at Thoor Ballylee



Nowthat we're almost settled in our house


I'll name the friends that cannot sup with us beside a fire of turf in th' ancient tower,


And having talked to some late hour Climb up the narrow winding stair to bed:


Discoverers of forgotten truth Or mere campanions of my youth


All, all are in my thoughts tonight being dead.


Gentle Reader, come in come in I've been expecting you!


Well good Morning,

If I'm a bit late its because I stayed up until 3 a.m. so I'm not really with it! I want to share with you the true story about love (no not the mushy kind but real true genuine kind of love that men can understand!)

During the U. S. Civil War. there were two friends, George Wyett and Richard Pratt and as the war progressed the army came to George's house because He was a farmer and said "we need every able bodied man " You'll have to come a fight", That night as George was trying to explain to his wife and 6 children that he would have to leave them and in all likelihood would not return. When there was a knock on the door and Georges old friend Richard Pratt came who was just passing by. The old friends talked way into the night and so George had Richard stay the night. Early in the Morning the army banged on the door and the solders said as Richard open the door "You have to come with us right now"

So Richard slipped out and went off to war in the place of the family man George Wyett In time George received news that his old friend had died in battle. And again the army came by and said "Are you George Wyatt?" "Yes" Then you'll have to come with us, every living man is drafted to fight" "I can't go " said George I'm not alive!"
But they hauled him off to the General . When they checked the records sure enough the records stated that George Wyett had died in battle. And since the army only wanted living men and according to the records George was already dead they couldn't call him up again!

You see Gentle Reader, Richard Pratt took George Wyetts place. Richard Pratt (Greater LOVE hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.).
Gentle reader, Christ came to die! For you and for me! And we don't have to live in sin anymore (When Christ died He took our place) When God died for our sin we died, When He was buried we were buried, when He arose from the grave we arose with Him! No wonder the Apostle Paul could say " Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,
knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin." (Romans Chapter 6 verses 4-6) "
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy VICTORY?"

Never forget this little true story Gentle Reader, according to God's records your dead! Don't answer the door anymore to sin and the grave. (You don't live there anymore)

I love you all,

Denis


Sunday, March 08, 2009

Ireland and the World

Ireland


It's all about the Land


Gentle Reader,


In Ireland a man is worth something if he has a bit of land. A wee place that he can call his own. That is the way of the world also. We all need something tangible to call our own. A bit of property that no one can take away, a place we can feel safe, a bit of comfort. But today in America the "land of opportunity" and place of vast expanse. The "Great American dream" has been stolen by the "greed merchants" look around you Gentle Reader! It's a sellers market the price of gasoline, food, everyday items that we all take for granted. They are rapidly disappearing and what hasn't been stolen has been whittled away so that you are in so much debt there is no way out. What will you do Gentle Reader when it is all taken away from you and you are left homeless, hungry, or sick and have no one to care for you ? Who will you count on? Your 401K,? savings account? friends? relatives?


Ireland Ballinskelligs Bay Ring of Kerry


So Gentle Reader, one must decide what is truly important For "For what is a man profited, if he shall GAIN the whole world, and lose his own SOUL? or what shall a man give in exchange for his SOUL?" (Matthew 16:26)


"Now imagine you and the Lord Jesus walking down the road together. For much of the way, the Lord's footprints go along steadily, consistently, rarely varying the pace. But your prints are a disorganized stream of zigzags, starts, stops, turnarounds, circles, departures and returns.


For much of the way it seems to go like this. But gradually, your footprints come more in line with the Lord's, soon paralleling His consistently. You and Jesus are walking as true friends.


This seems perfect, but then an interesting thing happens: your footprints that once etched the sand next to the Master's are now walking precisely in His steps. Inside His larger footprints is the small 'sandprint', safely enclosed. You and Jesus are becoming one.


This goes on for many miles. But gradually you notice another change. The footprint inside the larger footprint seems to grow larger. Eventually it disappears altogether. There is only one set of footprints. They have become one. Again, this goes on for a long time. But then something awful happens. The second set of footprints is back. And this time it seems worse. Zigzags all over the place. Stops. Starts. Deep gashes in the and. A veritable mess of prints.


You're amazed and shocked. But this is the end of your dream. Now you speak. 'Lord, I understand the first scene with the zigzags and fits and starts and so on. I was a new Christian, just learning. But You walked on through the storm and helped me learn to walk with you.'


'That is correct.'


'Yes, and when the smaller footprints were inside of Yours, I was actually learning to walk in Your steps. I followed You very closely.' 'Very good. You have understood everything so far.'


'Then the smaller footprints grew and eventually filled in with Yours. I suppose that I was actually growing so much that I was becoming like you in every way.'


'Precisely.'


'But this is my question. Lord.. Was there a regression or something? The footprints went back to two, and this time it was worse than the first.'


The Lord smiles, then laughs. 'You didn't know?' He says. 'That was when we danced'."


Love, Denis


dance4