Is There Any Hope For A Spiritual Renewal?

Is there hope for spiritual renewal in America?  A few days ago we looked back to a time when the economic situation was worse than it is today and learned that America successfully weathered that storm.  Is there a time in American history that we can look back to where there was a serious moral decline?  The answer is yes. 

In the time period following the American revolution up to about 1800 America experienced a significant moral and spiritual decline.  Most of the concepts that we would include under the heading of secular humanism arose in France about the time of the American revolution.  When France came to our aid in the Revolutionary War it created a great deal of goodwill toward France and made people very open to French ideas.  The country was soon flooded with atheistic literature and in a very short time a school of American writers rose up and began to support these new ideas.  The most prominent was Thomas Paine, who wrote brilliantly in support of the American revolution before he turned his talents to an anti-Christian crusade.  His book, "Age of Reason" probably sold over a million and a half copies, a simply amazing print run for that day and age.

The "Bible" of secular humanism, the French Encyclopedia, was widely read in America during this period.  Apparently they even had shadowy George Soros type figures financing the decline.  Many of Paine's books and the most damaging French books were either given away or sold at below cost.

While things didn't get as bad as they are now, the decline was serious and it seemed to be gaining momentum.  An observer in Connecticut noted that, "Infidel opinions came in like a flood."  From Kentucky:  "Youth became blasphemers against God.  If a young man of real ability had decided to enter the ministry it would have excited astonishment."  Another observer from Virginia stated that he expected every educated young man he met to either be an agnostic or an atheist.  In about 1795 a student a Yale estimated that there was one believing Christian in each of the freshman  and junior classes, about ten in the senior class, and not one believer in the sophomore class. 

More and more people decided to live together without getting married.  The occupant of the White House, Thomas Jefferson, did not believe in the inspiration of the Bible.  He was a big fan of the French revolution and French ideas.  Jefferson's secretary of war, Henry Dearborn, had this to say about Christian churches.  "So long as these temples stand we cannot hope for good government."

The forces of darkness were very confident.  Paine said, "I have gone through the Bible as a man would go through a wood with and ax and felled trees.  Here they lie and the priests may replant them, but they will never grow."  The French philosopher Voltaire claimed that by the early 1800's the bible would have passed "into the limbo of forgotten literature."

So what happened?  There were still a lot of people alive who remembered the great outpouring of the Spirit of God that took place in the 1740's.  They began to pray.  And starting in 1799, God began to answer.  For the next 35+ years, there was always at least one community somewhere in the United States that was experiencing a revival; an unusual outpouring of the Spirit of God.  Hundreds of thousands of people became converted.  The entire moral landscape of America was transformed.

Pray for revival.  The situation is NOT hopeless.  Pray for revival until revival comes or until the day you die.  And when you get to heaven, if revival hasn't come yet, keep praying.  There is still hope for America, just as there is hope for all the other nations of this world.  Prayer is the key. 

"Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up."  (Luke 18:1 NIV) 

Is There Any Hope for the Economy?

"Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up."  (Luke 18:1 NIV)  "I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— for kings and all those in authority."  (I Tim. 2:1, 2 NIV)

The United States of America is trillions and trillions of dollars in debt.  Meanwhile nations like Greece and Italy are dealing with unsustainable debt and will probably cause the collapse of the Euro.  Many observers believe that what is happening in Greece and Italy right now is a picture of America's not so distant future.  And if the American financial system totters and falls we will probably take the rest of the planet with us.  It all seems so hopeless.  Is there a way out?

Absolutely!  They key to our survival is the Christian church.  Prayer is our only hope.  Less watching the news and more praying about the news is the key.

Perhaps a little history lesson will help us to understand what is at stake.  By the end of the American revolution the economic situation was much, much worse than it is today.  The government was massively, hopelessly in debt.  They had printed way, way too much money and inflation was raging totally out of control.  Washington despaired of being able to provide for his troops.  It took a wagon load of money to purchase a wagon load of supplies.

And don't be tempted to think that people were wiser, holier, and more prudent then than we are now.  The states weren't willing to pay the federal government what they had promised to pay and the federal government didn't have any way to make them pay up.  What this means is that the people of that time wanted something (national defense) that they weren't willing to pay for.  Does that sound familiar?


As a result Washington's army was months and months behind in paying the troops.  Their diet was inadequate and they frequently went dressed in rags and without shoes.  The troops were in danger of being discharged at the end of the war without any money to pay the expenses of their trip home.  Some of Washington's officers were working on a secret plan to march the army to the capitol to demand justice.  Only the presence of George Washington and the love that his army had for him saved the revolution from turning into some kind of military dictatorship.  The wise men of Europe expected our whole democratic experiment to collapse.  If Las Vegas had existed then all of the smart money would have been betting against the future of the United States.

After a few years of independence enough people realized that the government simply wasn't going to work.  So after a great deal of debate we ended up with a new constitution and a new political leader, our first president, George Washington.  And George Washington and Alexander Hamilton put together a plan that brought us out of national bankruptcy and on to a sound economic footing.  I won't bore you with the details, but I want to emphasize the main point.  The economic situation was worse then than it is now and wise men found a way out.

Let me share a prayer burden with you.  We all need to pray that God would give the people in power the same kind of wisdom He gave to Old Testament leaders like Daniel and Joseph.  We need to stop looking horizontally at the (seemingly) hopeless situation and start looking vertically up to the heavenly solution.  There is hope and that hope is prayer offered to God the Father in the name of Jesus Christ.

Why We Can't Get Along

"When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. "  Galatians 5:19-20

This is the definite Bible list of what's wrong with human nature.  This is what sin has done to us.  A lot of what is on the list is about what you would expect:  sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, drunkenness, and wild parties.  That sounds like what you would expect from a Biblical description of sin.  But let's look at the other half of the list:  hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, and envy.

A few years ago a man in California plaintively asked a now famous question:  "Why can't we just get along?"  And this is the reason why.  Sin, by it's very nature, is divisive and quarrelsome.  This is human nature 101.  What can we learn from this?

We can be more understanding of the political process.  Go back two paragraphs and look at that list again the next time you see the battling talking heads on the TV.  There never has been and never will be a time in which the people in politics put the good of the majority above all other values.  There are exceptions, but they simply prove the rule.  If you want leaders who will be noble and enlightened you'll have to wait for the millennium.

We can be a little more thoughtful about the way we do church.  If you are the devil, and you understand that all this stuff is in human nature, you are going to constantly attack local churches by trying to get a small group of people together to get rid of the pastor.  When we get into church disputes are we really being motivated by principles or is a weakness in our nature being manipulated by evil spirits?

We can be really careful in our relationships at work and at home.  If you reread that list you might wonder if anybody could ever stay married to anyone else for a lifetime.  And you should certainly have a clearer understanding of why there is so much gossip and office politics at work.

How should we respond?  We should love everybody and forgive everybody.  We should be "the very soul of kindness."  And we should always keep a careful watch on ourselves.  There is a lot of junk inside of me.  I have to hold tight to Jesus if I am going to walk in love and be willing to forgive those who sin against me.

Blind Captivity

"The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will."  2 Timothy 2:24-26

I've been praying this passage as a prayer for a Christian woman who has abandoned and divorced her husband.  And every time I pray it seems backwards.  I would expect a knowledge of the truth to lead to repentance.  Wouldn't you?  The devil has you confused ("held captive by him to do his will").  So the Holy Spirit begins to reason with you.  He helps you to understand what you are doing is wrong and why it is wrong.  And because of this you repent.

That's not what the passage says.  The passage says that the repentance is a gift from God and the knowledge comes after the repentance.  You don't repent because you came to your senses, you come to your sense after you repent!  Does this mean that the devil can build some kind of a stronghold in my life (a "snare" that holds me "captive to do his will") that is so strong that I can't think my way out of it?  Does he bring us into a state of pure moral blindness where we simply can not see the truth any longer (at least as it applies to the sin that binds us)?


So all of a sudden, while praying for this woman, I find myself asking if I shouldn't begin to pray this for me!  In what areas of my life am I so blind, so completely given over to Satan's control, that I can't even begin to see things from a godly perspective until God Himself rescues me by giving me the gift of repentance?  Where am I acting so irrationally that I literally need God's help so that I can come to my senses?


Let us pray.

A Penny for Your Thoughts

So imagine yourself holding up a penny at arm's length.  Then visualize how small one of Lincoln's eyes would be with the penny held out at the end of your arm.  The director of the Hubble telescope aimed his telescope at a piece of the night sky just about that size and kept it aimed at that tiny point for ten days.  They picked a piece of the sky by the Big Dipper, a boring part of the sky that didn't have any bright stars or any galaxies that they knew of.  And this is what they found in that little piece of the sky the size of Lincoln's eye on a penny held out at arm's length.

They found thousands of galaxies that they had never seen before.  And each galaxy had 100's of billions of stars.  Intrigued by their amazing discovery, they wondered if they had happened to aim the telescope at a part of the sky that was unusually crowded.  So they repeated the experiment with a part of the southern sky and they found the exact same thing.  As a result of this research they now believe that are 50 billion galaxies, each one with hundreds of billions of stars.

Not only that, in the middle of next week we have to move my dad into a different nursing home.  His Medicare funding has run out so he has to find a new place.  He has a free ride with the VA, but the closest VA nursing home is in Freeport, IL.  None of us live in Freeport, IL.  I'm the closest and it's a little more than two hours away.  The good news is that a dear friend of mine runs a nursing home 1.2 miles from my house and is going to see if she can get a contract with the VA.  But that could take months.  In the meantime I have to leave my dad with strangers and that just seems wrong.  Hopefully they will be the same kind of people who work at my group home, people who really care about their residents and who will treat him with love and respect.

What is the connection between outer space and my dad?  It's found in Romans 8:18.  "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us."  This verse teaches us that being a Christian does not give us an exemption when it comes to suffering.  I don't know that the new home will cause my dad to suffer all that much.  Dad has no memory of your visit after you leave.  He's very happy to see you while you're there, but he doesn't remember it.  So he won't be suffering because I can't get up to see him every day.  Also, dad has always been a very stoic kind of a guy.  He became very accepting of the nursing home he has been living in a remarkably short time.  I think he'll probably adapt to the new place just as quickly.  But he won't be home and he won't be with family.  He could come to live with us but he requires 24 hour supervision and none of us can afford to quit our jobs.  And we don't have the money to make the house accessible.

So what do I do with all of this, other than just learn to accept what I can't change?  I can do what Christians always must do, what God Himself bids us to do.  Like the Hubble telescope I can look up and beyond.  It can look at the big picture.  And the big picture is that my God made 50 billion galaxies, each one containing 100's of billions of stars, without breaking a sweat.  And all of the incomprehensible vastness of space is not big enough to contain my God.  He is bigger than space.  And this infinite being has big plans for my dad.

These plans are so glorious that all of the suffering that you can experience in a really horrible human life is nothing compared to how wonderful it is going to be in the life to come.  The beautiful, perfect mind that created all his is going to spend "the ages to come" expressing the "surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us."  (Ephesians 2:7)  The infinite, perfect mind of God will spend the rest of forever finding ways to be kind to us.

There is a greatness about the souls in heaven.  On earth we might call it "gravitas."  There is a nobility.  You may be an airhead in this life, but you won't remain an airhead in heaven.  Those souls have been fully enlightened and they are creatures of great wisdom.  They are also creatures of great and profound joy.  They live in an ongoing celestial high where the drug of choice is the love of God which gives you an everlasting high that never stresses or strains you in any way.  My mom has already experienced this transformation, and the odds are that my father will experience it before I will.  But the day will come when we will all be together again.  And we will see more clearly than we can right now that in the grand, cosmic scheme of things that it was not possible for God to create a universe with free will beings who could avoid all suffering.

If you could somehow come to us in that place and ask us, "Was it worth it?  Were the trials and pains of your earthly pilgrimage a price too high to pay to come to this place and to be as you are right now?"  This is what our answer would most surely be.  "'The sufferings' are 'not worthy to be compared with the glory' in which we now exist."

25 “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27 And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? 28 And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, 29 yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! 31 Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ 32 For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6 NASB)

This passage teaches us not to worry about our finances. Jesus refers to those who worry as those of “little faith.” Faith is the cure for worry. Small faith results in great anxiety. A large faith is the key to inner peace which is much more valuable than great wealth. Note that Jesus wants those with small faith to grow and increase in their faith.

Faith can be strengthened through meditating on a line of reasoning or teaching. Jesus seeks to increase their faith by making simple arguments that anyone can understand. By meditating on these arguments and repeating them over and over again you can grow in faith. These are some of the things that you can and should be saying to yourself.

“God feeds the birds of the air even though they don’t plan ahead and work to guarantee their food supply. God will provide me with food because I am much more important than the birds. God is willing to clothe the flowers, even though they only live for a very short period of time. God is willing to clothe me. I am more valuable than a flower.”

“Worry doesn’t do any good. I can’t add one single hour to my life by worrying. On the other hand, I can waste many hours of my life by worrying. If I put God’s kingdom first in my life God will provide for my basic necessities.”

Teachers in the “faith movement” place a strong emphasis on confessing your faith. They say that you can go from a weak faith to a strong faith by confessing a promise of God over and over again, preferably out loud. On the basis of Matthew six I think we would have to say that the faith teachers are right on this one. Jesus is giving us arguments that we can repeat to ourselves over and over again so that we can grow in faith and inner peace.

We should note that there is no promise here that God will give me luxuries. There are other passages that would seem to indicate that God will help us financially to do better than the simple necessities of life, but first we must have our hearts right before God. Paul echoes what Jesus is saying in Matthew six when he exhorts us in I Timothy 6:8, “But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.”

We live in times of tremendous financial uncertainty. There are those who fear that we may actually slip from a recession into a worldwide depression. It would be a very good thing for every Christian to confront this fear with bold and biblical thinking.

What would happen if I were to lose my job and be unable to find another? What would happen if I were to lose my cell phone, my cable TV, and my internet access? What would happen if my computer and my X-Box were to break (as they inevitably will) and I would be unable to replace them? What if I could no longer afford a car and had to rely on my bicycle, walking, and public transportation? What would I do? How would I survive?

I would be just fine. I would put God first and trust Him to help me with the real necessities of life. The sun would continue to rise and set. And my personal happiness would continue to be in direct proportion to the amount of time I spend seeking God. With more stuff or less stuff, my personal happiness seems to be dependent on the whole God inside thing and how much time and attention I give to Him.

I can’t close without making one final point. Those who want to say that man is just a part of nature and that a man is not intrinsically more valuable than an animal are in direct disagreement with Jesus Christ. He says I am more important that a bird or a flower. I am a created being made in the image of God. I have a right to be here. I have a right to thankfully (and responsibly) use the resources of this planet. If someone wants to argue that point (and in these days, many do) don’t argue with me; argue with Him.

It's just a bump in the road

So here's the deal.  My dad just went into a nursing home.  He's 89.  And I guess the smart money would say that he probably won't be able to rehab to the point where he can go back home to live with my stepmother.  So how do you deal with that?  How should I feel about that?

This is my coping mechanism.  I'm planning to go on a wilderness canoe trip.  With my dad.

We used to do that every year when I was growing up and in my early adult years.  My dad was a very strong guy.  After I got married Nancy went on two of these trips with us.  On the first trip, while Nancy was carrying a pack in this swampy area, she suddenly found one of her legs sinking into the mud too deeply to get out.  I mean she was absolutely stuck.  Going nowhere.  And wondering how she was going to get herself out of this.  And here comes my dad, probably in his early sixties at this point, coming down the trail behind her.  He has his own pack on.  And without breaking stride he grabs the corner of her pack with one hand and all of a sudden Nancy and her leg are being levitated out of the mud.

Not only is my dad strong, he is a great fisherman.  One year I decided to mimic him the whole trip.  When he fished, I would fish.  I would try and throw my lures in the same general area where he threw his.  I would use the exact same bait he used.  By the end of the week he was more than 20 fish ahead of me.  I have no idea how he did that.  On the second trip we took together he asked to be let out of the canoe so he could go up this creek that was emptying into the lake we were on.   I thought the creek was way too shallow to have anything interesting in it, but about a half hour later he comes out with three big bass on a stringer.

So how do you take a man who is confined to a nursing home on a canoe trip?  Obviously you don't.  I'll have to wait until after he's dead.  And then I'll have to wait a little longer until after I'm dead.  And then I'll have to wait until the resurrection.  And then we'll go on the canoe trip.  Accompanying us will be my younger brother who used to take these trips with us.  He has a bad case of MS and, barring a miracle of divine healing, won't be taking any more canoe trips in this life.  (I neither predict nor rule out such a miracle.)

The lakes will probably still be there, but we'll need a new map and we'll have to start from scratch in terms of learning exactly where the best fishing holes will be.  I would expect the topography to be radically transformed.  There is this major event that will happen (in my theological opinion) immediately after the resurrection of the Christian dead (the rapture) but before we (the resurrected Christians) actually return to this planet.  "And the stars of the sky fell to the earth … and every mountain and island were moved out of their places."  (Revelation 6:13, 14)  This may be the most terrifying physical event in human history and I would expect it to dramatically rearrange those wilderness lakes.

Nancy and I just got back from our 24th Rocky Mountain Honeymoon.  We've been on 25 trips to the Rockies, but one of those trips involved other people, so it doesn't count as a honeymoon (hi Scott & Linda!).  To count as a honeymoon trip is has to be just the two of us.  When I was a younger man I put together a string of about 25 wilderness canoe trips.

So how many trips can we expect to take after we're dead and brought back to life?  Well, the Bible speaks of Christ returning to the earth and ruling the planet for 1,000 years.  If that is a literal 1,000 years I would hope to put together a string of about 1,000 mountain trips and 1,000 canoe trips (I'll be taking at least two trips a year!).

Can I tell you a little secret about our just completed mountain trip?  We took it easier than we used to.  For the first time, instead of disappearing into a wilderness area carrying everything we need on our back for a week we took two small trips of three nights each.  That means we only had to carry half the food at one time.  And instead of driving home non-stop (one drives while the other sleeps) we drove part way and spent the night in a nice motel, almost the kind of thing you would expect normal people to do on their vacations.

We're getting older.  The day may come when we won't be able to do anything but car camp.  And then the day may come when we won't even be able to do that (I'll pitch a tent in the back yard of the nursing home!).  And when that day comes it will be time to start planning the next 1,000 trips.

Here is an amazing statement, one you should spend a lot of time meditating on.  "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us."  (Romans 8:18)  The man who wrote that statement had been whipped so many times that he couldn't have had one square inch of skin on his back that wasn't pure scar tissue.  Over the course of his ministry he had received 195 lashes on his back as a punishment for preaching the gospel.  Every single one of those strokes would have broken the skin (this was over the course of five different whippings).  He was also beaten with rods three times (I don't know how many strokes) and stoned once.  He survived three shipwrecks, and in one of those he spent 24 hours clinging to a wooden plank in the middle of the ocean.  In addition to this he experienced "many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure."  (See 2 Corinthians 11) 

And after enduring all that he said that there was something waiting for him after he died that would make all of the suffering seem like it was nothing.  It would be like someone offering you a brand new Porsche for $25.00.  The sufferings of this life are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

So my dad's body has finally failed him and he's in a nursing home.  But that's not the end of anything that really matters.  It's just a bump in the road.  Join me as I write (in advance) one of the trip notes from a trip that won't even happen until after the resurrection. 

"Our first evening in the wilderness.  We had a rugged day of travel to get to this lake, and we've found a decent campsite on a small island.  The topography is all different and we are going to have to find campsites and fishing holes from scratch the way we always have when we travel into a new wilderness area.  While Dad and my brother Wayne and our two sons set up the tents I cooked supper over a wood fire.  Then we headed back out in our canoes with our fishing poles."

"As usual, Dad just knows where the fish are.  You would think that I should be able to figure this out by now but I still don't have a clue.  There is something so beautiful about the way the fishing line undulates out off the end of the rod as the bait goes flying across the water.  As we fished we were serenaded by the eerie cries of a loon at the other end of the lake.  We brought back five Walleye for breakfast.  Day one.  Trip one.  999 trips to go.  Thanks be to God."

Faith #3

To have faith is to be absolutely sure that something is going to happen before it actually happens.  The classic Biblical definition is found in Hebrews 11:1.  "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."  If you are assured of something it means that you are certain about it.  It means that you are absolutely confident about it.  It means that you have no doubt about it.  Faith is absolute confidence without any doubts.

Jesus taught us to "have faith in God.  Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be taken up and cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him."  (Mark 11:22, 23)  You can see from this that my definition of faith is taken almost word for word from the words of Jesus.  Faith is being absolutely sure that something is going to happen before it actually happens.  Jesus said that the person must believe "that what he says is going to happen." 

Jesus then goes on to violate good grammar.  "All things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you."  (Mark 11:24)  "Believe that you have received them" is past tense.  "And they will be granted you" is future tense.  Jesus is saying, "Once you believe with absolute conviction that you are going to receive what you have asked for, it's as good as yours.  From that point on, consider your prayer to have been answered, even though the answer is not visible yet."

Jesus said that the man "who does not doubt in his heart" will see his prayer answered.  His younger brother James says virtually the same thing.  "But he must ask in faith, without any doubting."  (James 1:6)  "The one who doubts … ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord."  (James 1:6, 7) 

One of the real keys to understanding Biblical faith is to see that faith is a heart (spiritual) thing, not a purely mental (intellectual) process.  Jesus said that he "must not doubt in his heart."  You may (or may not) have nagging doubts in your mind, but if in your heart, in the core of your being, you believe without any doubting, then what you are believing will come to pass.

A story is told about a woman who sat in church and heard a sermon on Luke 17:6 where Jesus said, "If you had faith as a mustard seed, you would say to the mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea'; and it would obey you."  This woman had a mature oak tree on the left side of her back yard that provided a beautiful patch of shade  -- to her neighbor's back yard!  For many years she had wished that the tree could be replanted on the right side of her yard so that the shade would fall on her yard instead of her neighbor's, but you can't really move a mature oak tree.  Or so the woman thought until she heard the sermon on Luke 17:6!

So one day, as the woman was doing the dishes and looking out the kitchen window at her back yard, she decided to use faith to move the tree from one side of the yard to the other!  If you could use faith to transplant a mulberry tree from the ground to the sea, why not an oak tree from one side of the yard to the other?  So she closed her eyes and began speaking to the tree.  "Oak tree, move to the other side of the yard!"  Over and over again she said it.  Doubt tried to enter her mind but she blocked it out.  "Oak tree, move to the other side of the yard."  Over and over again.  Using will power she was blocking all doubt from her mind.  Once she was sure that she had blocked all doubt, she said one last time, "Oak tree, move to the other side of the yard!" and opened her eyes.

And there was the oak tree, still stuck in the ground on the wrong side of the yard.  The woman stared at the tree and muttered something under her breath.  What she muttered under her breath came out of her heart.  Everything else that had come out of her mouth had come directly from her brain, but this comment came straight from her heart.  "I knew it wouldn't work!" she muttered. 

Faith isn't something in your head; it's a conviction in your heart.  Let me put it to you this way.  To have the kind of faith that would enable you to move a mountain, or even a tree, would require a miracle.  I call it the pre-miracle miracle.  Unless the Spirit of God does a miracle in your heart you can't believe without any doubting that your mountain will actually move.  More on that next week.

Some concluding observations.

It is possible to "move mountains" by faith.  Jesus wouldn't have told us to do it if it wasn't possible.

It's not as simple as you might think the first time you read Mark 11:22-24 or else everyone would be doing it.

Understanding the difference between believing with your head and believing with your heart is absolutely vital.

Exercising this kind of faith is itself a supernatural thing that can't be done apart from the operation of the Spirit of God.

And last but not least, since it all has to be done in harmony with God, no miracles get done, or mountains moved, apart from His will. 

Faith #2

I have two ideas that I want to get across to you today, two rather simple ideas.  God's wants to answer our prayers.  And God wants to answer our prayers because God is good.

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened."  (Matthew 7:7, 8 NASB)  Now if that was the only passage in the Bible that taught us about prayer, and you were a new believer just reading that passage for the first time, you would probably expect every single prayer you offered to be answered.  If you've been a Christian for awhile you know it's not quite that simple; but that shouldn't weaken the message that the Son of God is attempting to communicate in this passage.  Jesus knew exactly what He was saying.  He said it the way He said it for a reason.  He wanted to give us the impression that God wants to answer our prayers.  God intends to answer our prayers.  We should expect God to answer our prayers.

"If you abide in Me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you."  (John 15:7 NASB)  In the passage in Matthew we didn't have any conditions mentioned for answers to prayer.  In John 15 Jesus introduces a condition.  We have to abide (live) in Christ and His words need to abide (live) in us.  If we can somehow fulfill this condition we can ask whatever we want and it will be done for us.  I'm not asking you to focus on the condition today.  We'll talk about living in Christ and having His world live in us later.  The emphasis I want to make is that God wants to answer our prayers.  He intends to answer our prayers.  He is telling us that we can get to the point where we can have anything we want ("ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you").

If you don't agree with the underlined sentence then you don't have a problem with my teaching; you have a problem with the teaching of the Lord Jesus.  Just to be clear, a person who lives in Jesus and who has Jesus words living in Him (the condition for getting whatever you want) is going to want different things that the person who does not live in Jesus and have Jesus words living in him.  A person who lives in Jesus is going to be flowing in beautiful harmony with the mind and will of God.  How does you heart respond to the statement underlined in the previous paragraph?  If somewhere deep in your heart you find yourself saying "that simply can't be true," that my friends is unbelief.  And it has to be dealt with.

What is it about God that makes Him so generous?  Both Jesus and His younger brother James direct our attention to the goodness of God when teaching about prayer.  James teaches us that "God … gives to all generously and without  reproach."  (James 1:5  NASB)  Jesus tells us that "if you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him?"  (Matthew 7:11  NASB) 

As I was meditating on those verses I began to get a sense of the all of the goodness in the heart of God.  God doesn't just want to bless us, He yearns to bless us.  He is very passionate about His desire to do good to us and for us.  The goodness of God is like Niagara Falls.  The force of gravity pushing that water over the falls is tremendous.  God's goodness is like the force of gravity and His blessings are like the water.

But did you know that we can turn Niagara Falls off?  A certain percentage of the water is diverted into a hydro electric power station.  If they want to they can divert all of the flow of the water.  They can turn Niagara Falls off.  I suppose they do this by flipping a switch.  They flip a switch and a door in the bottom of the river bed opens and all of the water flows down the hole and into the power plant.

There is a switch inside of each one of us.  The off position is labeled "unbelief."  The on position is labeled "faith."  As we learn to get the switch moved into the "faith" position we are going to begin to get very, very wet with the blessings of God.  When most people teach about faith they put the emphasis on the switch.  We have to have faith.  We sometimes come perilously close to teaching people to have faith in faith.  But we aren't supposed to have faith in faith; we are supposed to have faith in God.  And our ability to have faith in God is only as great as our sense of who and what God is. 

So this week I would encourage you to begin to let some of God's words live inside of you.  I would choose this simple phrase.  "God gives to all men generously and without reproach."  Write it down.  Say it to yourself over and over again while walking, driving to work, or doing the dishes.  Think about that Niagara Falls illustration and the goodness of God.  Think about the love and goodness of God coming rolling over the falls and splashing down all around you.  And as you think about it, pray and ask God to give you a revelation of His goodness in your heart.

God's wants to answer our prayers.  And God wants to answer our prayers because God is good.

 

Faith #1

One of the most significant developments in North American Christianity in the last forty years has been the growth of the faith movement.  Word of faith preachers teach that it is God's will for us to experience physical health and financial prosperity and that if we are not experiencing these things it is due to a lack of faith on our part.  This rapidly growing movement is very controversial with many prominent teachers labeling parts of it as being heretical.  The greatest controversy seems to be centered on three main areas:  to what extent does God want us to prosper financially; to what extent does God want to heal us physically; and to what extent are we to be considered "gods" (note the small "g") because we are created in the image of God.

My purpose in writing today is not to enter into controversy in any of these three areas.  My purpose is to examine what the faith movement is teaching about faith itself and to apply it to areas of the Christian life other than prosperity and healing.  I believe that the doctrine of faith is one of vital importance to both the church of God as a whole and to individual Christians.  Faith is the key to receiving everything that God has for us.  Without faith it is impossible to please God.  Faith is the key that brings the promises of God to life and causes the power of God to be manifest in our lives.  Faith has applications far beyond physical healing and financial prosperity and we can learn a great deal from the word of faith teachers about how a Christian can grow and develop their faith.

I can't think of a better place to start studying faith than by sitting at the feet of Jesus' younger brother.  In the first chapter of the Epistle of James he wrote, "but if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him."  (James 1:5 NASB)  The promise seems simple and clear; in fact he sounds very much like his older brother.  "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you."  (Matthew 7:7 NASB)

James and Jesus both base their expectation that you will receive an answer to prayer on the goodness of God.  James points out that "God … gives to all generously and with reproach."  Jesus tells us that "if you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him?"  (Matthew 7:11) 

I think that there are two important lessons we need to learn at this point.  The first lesson is that we need to be very careful to keep our hearts and minds clear from anything that would cause us to doubt the goodness of God.  When trials arise it is so easy for us to begin to doubt the goodness of God.  A clear understanding of God is essential to strong faith.  In fact, I think a lot of faith teachers sort of misplace their emphasis in this area.  We don't have faith in our strong faith, we have faith in God.  I would say that a man's faith is just as great as his knowledge of God, and no greater.

The second lesson is that God will answer prayer, but He will only answer by giving us that which is good.  "Your Father who is in heaven" will "give what is good to those who ask Him."  Real Biblical faith operates in harmony with the will of God.  There is no promise in the Bible that will enable you to claim something in faith that is contrary to the will of God.  I might think that it would be "good" for me to win the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes right now, but God may not see it that way.  God knows that "the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil" (I Timothy 6:9 NASB) and that a good man should be "free from the love of money" (I Timothy 3:3 NASB).  He knows that it would be harmful for me to have more financial prosperity than soul maturity (3 John 2).  So He might decide that winning that money wouldn't be "good" for me and because of that He might not answer that prayer.

But then James goes on to expand upon the prayer process with an emphasis on faith.  "But he must ask in faith without any doubting."  (James 1:6 NASB)  Once again He sounds remarkably like his older brother who told us that we could move mountains with our words, but only if the man speaking in faith "does not doubt in his heart."  (Mark 11:23 NASB)  Jesus goes a step beyond James by locating the part of our being where faith is exercised:  the heart.  Satan may be attacking, putting thoughts of doubt in your head, but when you have the full assurance of faith your heart remains untroubled by these thoughts as it rests on the promises of God.

James adds this critical information.  A man who doubts "is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.  For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord."  (James 1:6, 7 NASB)  Have you ever noticed that before?  Faith doesn't just apply to prosperity or healing; it doesn't just apply to receiving wisdom or moving mountains; a man with doubts in his heart should expect to "receive anything from the Lord."  If I can't receive anything without faith then faith must be the key to receiving everything that God has to give me.  Faith is critical.  Faith is central.  Faith is important.  Faith is a really, really big deal.

How can I grow in faith until I reach the point where I can ask God for something without doubting in my heart?  That is the question that is before us and that is the question we shall seek to answer in the days to come.

Quotation of the day

Happiness is nothing but that inward sweet delight, which will arise from the harmonious agreement between our wills and the will of God.—From the book "Joy and Strength," quoted in Tozer on the Holy Spirit

Where do we think we're going? (Part 4)

We've been talking about being heavenly minded and receiving heavenly rewards.  By way of review, here is the basic

concept.  If you are a Christian every single good thing you have ever done has been permanently recorded and you will receive a reward for it in the life to come.  Now you may be wondering, "Why would God make a big deal out of little acts of kindness?  Why would God reward me for reading my Bible or praying or going to church?  I should be doing those things anyway!"

The answer to the question has to do with what's inside of us and where we live.  What is inside of us is a nature that has been contaminated by the power of sin.  It's easy to be bad.  Imagine what would happen if you just let yourself go, if you started to live by impulse alone without self control.  Most of us would be in jail before the end of the week. 

And if that weren't bad enough we have to contend with what the Bible calls the world and the devil.  The "world" is the society you live in with it's lifestyle and values.  Trying to live for God on this planet is like standing waist deep in a stream while trying to walk against the current.  There is a relentless pressure pushing you in the wrong direction.  And then there is the devil.  He really exists.  He has minions.  And they do tempt you.  They attempt to mess with your mind and twist your thinking.  And they have had thousands of years of practice in the manipulation of human souls.

You've got all of that going against you.  So this is how I would sum it all up.  For a human being, born with a sin contaminated nature, and having to struggle against the devil and the world, goodness requires a gritty determination that is very precious in the sight of God.  (Yes, I know that we can't overcome these forces on our own and that we have to rely on Him for the strength to do right.) 

So how, exactly, is this going to work?  How is He going to acknowledge and reward us?  I can't tell you exactly because I don't know exactly, but here are a couple of ideas.

Every time you meet someone for the first time in heaven God could introduce you to that person by doing a "data transfer" directly into your mind.  What kind of data would God be transmitting to you?  Think about a grandparent raving about their new grandchild. Imagine what it would be like if, when the new grandparent showed you pictures of the new grandchild, you were actually able to feel exactly what the grandparent was feeling for that child.  Imagine what it would be like if you could share those emotions along with the pictures.

God has recorded every single thing good thing that you have ever done because this information is important to Him.  It pleases Him.  And so when you meet someone for the first time you might get a sudden revelation of every single good thing they ever did and with that information you would also feel exactly what God feels when He thinks about that information.  You would actually feel the love, the tenderness, and the pride God feels when He thinks about that other person.  And they would have the same experience as God "introduced" you to them!

Here's the other idea:  reality TV!  John said that everything was being written down when he wrote the Revelation.  I wonder, if he was writing it today, if he would say that everything was being filmed?  Please keep in mind that every single thing that has ever happened could, very easily, be reproduced as a film from the mind of God who sees everything and remembers everything.

A few weeks ago a young man I know was at a wedding.  That evening, after the wedding, another wedding guest made a "move" on him.  This woman knew he was engaged to be married but apparently that didn't matter to her one bit!  They were staying at the same motel and it was only by saying "No!" repeatedly and forcefully that he was able to keep this woman out of his room (not to mention his bed).  To which we might be tempted to respond, "Ho hum!  Okay, he did the right thing, but was it really that big a deal?  Do we need to give him a Merit Badge or something?"

But that's not the way that God looks at it.  To God, every act of goodness is an important moment.  He records it.  He cherishes it.  He will reward us for it.  That reward could include something very much like our reality TV.  God might honor us by taking episodes out of our lives and turning them into entertainment in the life to come.  Wouldn't it be cool to be able to see the demon perched on this woman's shoulder (if there was one at that moment, there is no way to know for sure) whispering in her ear?  And to be able to see the thing jump over to the young man and whisper in his ear?  And then to see the young man, a committed follower of Jesus Christ, say "No!" not just to the young woman, but to his own sinful desires, to the way most of the world operates, and to the evil spirit behind the whole thing?  That episode of reality TV could then go on to explore the implications of how the young man's life turned out.  It could show the impact of the sin (had he committed it) on his later life and on his family.  Would this sexual sin have opened the door to further infidelities?  Would it have been the first step on a course that would have eventually lead him down a path that would have resulted in dishonor to God and the life long emotional scaring of his wife and children?  Then the TV program could go on to record the way his life did turn out.  We'd be able to see the whole incident from God's point of view.

In some way God is going to acknowledge us and honor us for the good we do in this life.  The actually process by which He does this will probably be much cooler than either of the two ideas that I have suggested.

God is recording the fact that you are reading this blog right now.  He knows what else you could be doing with this time.  He knows how many millions of web sites there are and how you could, if you wanted to, be spending your time on something entertaining instead of trying to saturate your mind with His truth.  (Although I would like to think that some of my wilder ideas might also be at least a little bit entertaining.)  It's not wrong to read for entertainment on the web; I do it all the time.  But when you give that time to God instead of using it for something frivolous you are taking a small piece of your life and giving it to him like an offering.  He notices and He remembers.

Let me sum up by sharing with you the words of a morning prayer that I wrote.

Heavenly Father, it is my sincere desire to live for the praise of Your glory this day. 

I want to please You in everything I do. 

I want to do all my work for You. 

Make me ever mindful of the fact that You are keeping score and that seemingly insignificant actions will bring future rewards. 

Help me to understand that there are no insignificant actions - that the cameras are on and the film is rolling

My life is my ministry. 

Every day is a sermon.

Every human interaction is a witness. 

Every moment counts. 

What I said at Bob and Beth's wedding

Robert and Bethany, our hope for you is that in your marriage you will be able to live the dream.  D  R  E  A  M.  Dream.

D is for daring.

Dare to dream that you will be able to keep your wedding vows.

You are about to make a commitment to one another that includes the words “for better or for worse until death do us part.”  I’ve often wondered if some couples would be more honest if they were to promise “to have and to hold as long as you don’t get on my nerves too much, in which case I’ll drop you like a bad habit!”

Your wedding vows, the promises that you make to one another in the sight of God, are the foundation of your marriage.  By understanding what you are actually promising and making a whole hearted commitment to those vows you start off on the right path in your journey together.  By looking back on those vows and recommitting to them when the going gets tough you stay on course in your determination to live your lives according to the will of God.  Your wedding ring is a symbol of those sacred promises.  Every time you look at it or adjust it on your finger, may you be reminded of the sacred promises that you will make this day.  

As you dare to believe that you will keep your wedding promises, may you also … 

Dare to believe that you can keep the flame of romance alight.

Romance is like a fire; it will burn as long as it has fuel.  Most marriages don’t maintain an even heat when it comes to the fire of romance, and that’s okay.  To some extent it’s probably inevitable.   But when things begin to cool off, it’s up to somebody to get up and put some wood on that fire.

If you ever end up staying in a cabin in the winter where the only heat source is a wood fire in an old iron stove, along about 3:00 AM somebody is going to have to make a decision.  Do I stay in bed under the covers, where I’m actually quite warm, or do I get up and expose my body to the chill that is creeping into this room so that I can put some wood on the fire?  Do I sacrifice comfort now, or do I wait until the morning when I’ll have to get up in spite of the fact that it will probably be about 35 degrees in this cabin?  

 

Don’t think that marriage is the end of flirting and “putting the moves” on the other person.  If it’s getting a little chilly, get up out of that bed and throw some wood of the fire.  You’ve already learned how to capture each other’s hearts.  Don’t let those skills atrophy.  Continue in hot pursuit of one another.  Dare to dream that you can keep romantic love alive.  It takes a little work, but it’s certainly better than the alternative, which is emotional frostbite.

R is for being realistic

One thing I believe with all my heart:  you take Robert and add Bethany and you end up with something the world has never seen before and will never see again.  That’s not to say that you can’t learn from what others have experienced; you can.  But when you take two human personalities and mix them together there is a sense in which you are like a mad scientist mixing together two chemical compounds that have never been mixed together before.  It’s like Forest Gump’s box of chocolates.  You never know what you’re going to get.

The next few years may be among the happiest of your life, but they could also be some of the most challenging times you will ever face.  More than likely they will fall somewhere in the middle of that scale, but the fact of the matter is, no one knows exactly what will happen.

This is what we do know.  The materials you are mixing together are both wonderful and terrible.  You have two people born in the image of God and born again by the Spirit of God.  And that’s wonderful.  But you also have two sinners washed clean by the blood of Christ but not yet made perfect.  And therein lies the potential for difficulties.

If I might offer you some simple advice, I would suggest that you both go ahead and skip your first marriage and consider this your second marriage.  In a first marriage people have a tendency to love, not what they are marrying, but a collection of spare parts that they believe they can rearrange and reconstruct into a suitable spouse.  They are excited to be marrying this person, but of course, there are a number of changes that will need to be made.  And they honestly expect the other person to make all of these changes while the other person has their own little secret laundry list of improvements that they intend to make on the first person.

Five to six years later after a great deal of heart break and thousands of dollars in legal fees they are done with their first marriage and they then go on to marry the person that they will probably spend the rest of their life with.  Battle scarred and much wiser, they now realize that “what you see is what you are pretty much going to be stuck with” and they are much more willing to be realistic and accepting of the second person.

“What you see is pretty much what you are going to be stuck with.”  Yes, there will be some compromises along the way and you will change each other to some extent, but you have to be realistic.  And that’s just another way of saying that you have to be wise.  And now I think that it would be wise for us to go on to the letter “e.”

E is for enjoy

The apostle Paul tells us that “whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence, and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.”  (Phil. 4:8)  And that would make a great motto for any marriage.

I told you a few minutes ago that there were wonderful ingredients about to be combined as you join your life together.  What Paul is telling you to do is to focus on those wonderful things and to remain focused on them.

I just got done telling you to be realistic.  Now I’m going to tell you to be realistically idealistic.  Most people will tell you to that you can’t keep the kind of feelings you are experiencing right now alive.  Most people will tell you that you can’t really keep the magic alive.  And most people would be wrong. 

Let me give you an example.  I’m going to get personal here.  This is what you get when you ask a family member to do the service.  You get personal fatherly advice mixed in with the sermon.  Thirty three years ago I asked a young woman to marry me and she said yes.  And this amazed me.  I’m an oddball.  I know this about myself.  And it was amazing to me that anyone would want to spend her life loving and living with me.  And it amazes me still.  I’ve never gotten over it because I’ve decided that I don’t want to get over it.  I’ve decided that I won’t take it for granted.  I focus on it.  I dwell on it.  

For as long as Bob can remember he’s been listening to me rant about his mother.  People who listen to me talk about my wife are fascinated when they finally get to meet her.  They keep checking out her back, expecting to see little bumps in her shirt where the angel wings are folded.

All these years I’ve been telling you something about your mom.  True things about your mom.  But I’ve also been showing you something about me.  I’ve been showing you what I have chosen to dwell on.  I’ve been demonstrating what Paul meant when he said “whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence, and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.” 

There will be irritants and there will be disappointments.  The power of sin within and the example of the world around you will move you to dwell on the negative.  And you must not allow yourself to do that.  You must continue to keep at the forefront of your hearts and minds the things you are thinking and the thoughts you are feeling this day.  Your soul is like a garden and the positive things about your spouse, the things that made you fall in love in the first place, are the flowers that you must grown in that garden.  You must, as the apostle says, “dwell on these things.”

And let continue, for just a moment longer, to develop this whole idea of your soul being a garden.  You want the flowers of love to bloom there, but you must always be vigilant to keep the weeds out, and that leads us to the letter “a.”

A is for always forgive and forget

God is omniscient.  He knows everything.  How many grains of sand on this beach?  He knows.  How many sparrows are alive at this moment in North America?  He knows.  But there is one thing He has chosen not to know; there is one thing God has chosen to forget.  God refuses to remember any sin He has forgiven through the blood of Jesus Christ. 

If your soul is a garden then anger, bitterness, and resentment are the weeds; and since you are both imperfect people things will happen that will make those weeds grow – if you let them.  Those weeds will eventually strangle the flowers of love and leave you barren and empty inside.  And someday, in a season of testing and temptation, some dark spirit will be delighted to find all of that garbage in your soul, and he will know exactly how to use it as he attempts to destroy your marriage. 

So if you find yourself starting to dwell on some defect in your spouse, make yourself stop.  Pray for your spouse and then make yourself think of all the reasons why you choose to spend your life with that person in the first place.

Is it really possible to live this way?  Can you train your heart and mind to be like this?  Can your love, as it says in 1 Corinthians 13, really “keep no record of being wronged?”  Can you be like God and actually forgive and forget?

Yes.

You can do this and if you will do this you will find that this is nothing more or less than the gateway to joy.  

So let us boldly go through this gateway to joy for it is on the other side that we will find the letter “m.”  And “m” is a very happy letter indeed because it’s rather hot out here and I will soon have to stop because I am about to run out of letters!

M is for maintaining your walk with the Lord

If you want to keep your love alive, live as closely as you can with the Spirit of God, who is the Spirit of love.  There can be no substitute for time spent in His presence, speaking to Him, listening for His voice, and meditating on His word.  These spiritual disciplines will continually renew and refresh the life force of God that dwells within you.  Communion with God is the path of blessing.  Never forget that, and never, ever stray from that path; and if you do this God will comfort you, strengthen you, guide you and bless you all the days of your life. 

Here are some photos from the wedding