Tactics #3

So what is a tactic in the spiritual life? How do I actually get into this fight? What am I supposed to do? The answer is found in Romans 12:2. “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (NASB)

The devil conditions and trains us by developing thought patterns within us. A sinful impulse can arise from the direct influence of a fallen angel or it can arise from the sin infection that taints our natures. Most of the time when people say, “I feel tempted to so something,” they are not being subject to direct satanic manipulation at that moment; they are dealing with a programmed, habitual response built into their sin nature by the evil ones.

The concept is very simple. A thought comes into your mind. This thought is connected in some way with pleasure. You want to feel pleasure. You know you shouldn’t even think about that thing, but it seems hard to stop. The longer you think about it, the harder it gets to resist the impulse. And eventually, you give in. You give in because you have no plan. You don’t know any tactics. You have no idea what concrete steps you might take to win the battle.

What we are going to do is to teach you what to think about when you are tempted. It’s just that simple, and just that hard. For this to work, you’re going to have to memorize some of these ideas, or carry them around on note cards or a PDA. You are going to have to build a new habit by thinking about the same things over and over again when you are tempted. Through grit and determination you will learn to fight the good fight of faith and you will start to win some of these battles.

To some of you, this may sound like psychology. This may sound like something a human being can do in his own strength, and most of you have been taught that you can’t do anything in your own strength. It all has to be done through the Holy Spirit’s power. I couldn’t agree more. We have to be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might, and that power can only come through the Holy Spirit.

Long time readers of this blog will remember that I place a major emphasis on the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit. There is a time and a place for deeply emotional experiences. I’m not opposed to any of that. But the basic function of the Holy Spirit is to impart truth to your inner being. Truth and life are synonymous in the Kingdom of God. Jesus said that He was the truth and the life. Living truth breathed into our innermost man by the Holy Spirit will set us free.

But how does this connect with the grit and determination needed to learn new thought habits? Is this something I have to do myself or does the Holy Spirit do it for me? The answer is that you do it together.

Tactics #2

The New Testament teaches us that we are in a battle with dark, spiritual powers. We sometimes act on a strategic level when we pray. About twenty years ago I was led to start praying that God would appear to people in closed Muslim countries in dreams and visions to give them the gospel. Years later I started receiving reports from a number of organizations who export gospel materials into some of those nations. They were hearing from a significant number of people from a wide array of closed, Muslim countries, who were all telling the same story. A man appeared to them in a vision. He said His name was Jesus. He told them some of the basic facts about Himself. The people who had these experiences were writing to ask for more information about this Jesus person. I suspect that many of you could share stories with me about how God has used you in some small way in strategic prayer.

But what about tactics? As I never tire of pointing out, the fallen angels know what they are going to do. Do you know what you are going to do?

The New Testament tells me that the truth can set me free as I am renewed by the transformation of my mind. How can I transform my mind?

The Bible tells me that with every temptation there is a way of escape (I Cor. 10:13). Can you give me three examples of ways you’ve found that help you escape from a temptation? The enemy knows how to tempt. Do you know how to escape?

I can be snared by the devil and held captive to do his will. What is a snare and how do I escape?

In 2 Cor. 2:10-12 Paul reminds the Corinthians that they were not ignorant about Satan’s schemes. How about us? Could you, off the top of your head, explain two or three tactics of Satan and what you might do to combat them? It’s like the church is calling people to get in the army and go through that door of the building where enemy troops might be, but it is failing to train the troops exactly how they might go about doing that.

Any theory of holiness that doesn’t stress these things is out of balance or incomplete. Whatever it means to be “dead to sin,” it does not mean that I don’t have a fight on my hands. I may or may not be able to enter into John Wesley’s perfect love, but there is no state I can enter into where I won’t need the full armor of God as I engage in the struggle. I don’t care if you can speak in six different kinds of tongues and sing in four more, you need to be able to detect, avoid, or escape from the snares of the devil.

I was taught a little bit about wrestling in gym class as a kid. Basically wrestling is about moves and counter moves. Back and forth, back and forth, for everything that you try and do to me there is a counter move I can use to defend myself. The guy who can think and act most quickly will probably win because he can come up with attacks faster than his opponent can remember how to come up with the counter moves.

Wrestling is up close and personal. And it’s just like spiritual warfare. Satan knows what he’s going to do. Do you know what you’re going to do? I hope you will stick with me as I continue to develop this topic. Pray for me that I will get it right. And whatever theories of holiness you have been taught, always remember that while we are in this life we “wrestle against . . . principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world.” (Eph. 6:12 KJV)

ALERT!!!!!

I have always told people that they could go to brothermark.net to find the blog. When you went to brothermark.net it sent you automatically to the real address of the blog: mac61107.blogspot.com/.

If you already have the blog bookmarked then you may not have to change anything. But just to be sure you might want to go mac61107.blogspot.com/ and bookmark that so that you will be able to find the blog in the future.

I hate to give up the brothermark.net domain name, but they have upped the fee and I don't think it's going to be worth it to pay for it when blogspot is free.

Tactics #1

Goodness is neither easy nor automatic. We are born in sin, which means that sin is in our natures like some sort of an infection. When the fallen angels attempt to manipulate us, they find the poison in our natures acting like an ally, helping them in all they do. So what to do? How can I find the power to live a holy life?

There are a lot of theories out there. You may never have heard of the deeper life or the Keswick teaching or of the Wesleyan doctrine of perfect love because the church is not much interested in teaching holiness in these days. And that’s not a good thing.

I’m not going to bore you with a blow by blow analysis of all of the theologies of holiness out there. What I am going to insist on is something that seems very simple, and very clear to me. Any teaching that disregards or ignores the importance of good tactics in spiritual warfare is either unbalanced or incomplete.

In warfare strategy deals with the big picture. I’ll surround your nation with a sea blockade to keep you from receiving vital resources needed to fuel your war machine. I’ll put some of my nukes on submarines so that if you wipe out my land based forces in a surprise attack I can still rain destruction back on you. These are examples of strategy. Strategy is big picture stuff.

Tactics are how the little guy in the field learns to fight and survive. We’re in a four man rifle squad and we are under fire. Unfortunately, we have orders to advance even though we are under fire. How can we move ahead without all of us getting shot? Three of us will fire at the enemy, hopping to discourage or diminish their fire, as the four guy advances. We always have three firing as one advances. This greatly increases our chances of survival. That’s a tactic.

You have to enter a house in a town that may contain enemy combatants. You will kick in or blow open the door. This is followed by a grenade or two thrown into the first room of the house. Three or four guys rush in as soon as the grenades explode. You had better believe that each and every one of those guys know exactly which corner of the room his weapon is supposed to be pointed at as they go through the door. This is another example of tactics.

Troops doing house to house searches know what they are going to do when they go through a door. The devil knows what he’s going to do. Do you have any idea what you should do? (To be continued)

Always Adore the Perfect Mind #3

(Still reflecting back on my days at the Prairie Bible Institute. If you haven’t been reading along, please go back to the May 12 posting and start there so the whole thing will make sense.)

Am I sorry I went? No. Did I receive some awful, awful emotional wounds because of the interaction of the deeper life theology, my youthful idealism, and seasonal affective disorder? Yes. When I was unable to “enter in” to the deeper life, I could only conclude that I was sinfully unwilling to surrender some part of my life. The guilt that accompanied this made the seasonal depression much, much worse.

Did I hear clearly from God and obey correctly? Would He really lead an idealistic kid with seasonal affective disorder to go north to school where I would receive less sunshine in the winter? Wasn’t there someplace in the sun belt where I could have learned the same things?

As far as I can determine, I believe God did call me to go north to school. Why? Let me tell you what I do know, what I am sure of. Never argue with the Perfect Mind. Obey Him as best you can. Understand that you are never going to understand any more than a tiny fraction of what He knows. Obey. Adore. Worship. God is the most beautiful of all beings, and His perfect mind is indescribably beautiful and infinite in perfection. Always love and trust the Perfect Mind. Always obey Him as best you can.

Always Adore the Perfect Mind #2

(Continuing my look back on my college days at Prairie Bible Institute. In order to make good sense out of this you should have read the posts starting with May 12 leading up to this one.)

On a less important note, I really enjoyed the western prairies of Canada. I would have appreciated more trees, but it was still beautiful. My first year it stayed below zero for the entire month of February. A warm day might get to -5. Lows were in the -20 to -30 range. One unforgettable night I stood outside and watched the thermometer record a temperature of -50. We’re talking the Fahrenheit scale here.

My best buddy, Dave Wright, got me into horseback riding. Out of the many rides we took, two are unforgettable. The one was a three day ride way up north by Edmonton. The wheat had been harvested. The farms were huge and way, way far apart. I don’t remember encountering a single fence. We rode around like Cossacks on the prairies for three days. I was the least experienced rider and I had the horse with the roughest gait. I can still remember how proud I was to be the least sore person in the days following the ride. It turns out that the muscles used to ride a bike come in very handy when you are going on long horseback rides, and I had spent a lot of time on my bike that summer.

The second memorable ride was in answer to a cry for help. A couple girls from the neighborhood had gone riding, and as the sun set, it got too cold for them to make it back home. So they called my buddy Dave. (For reasons that still aren’t clear to me, Dave was much more likely to have contacts with surrounding females than I was.) “We’re freezing. Could you boys come out and ride our horses back to town, letting us drive the car back in?” Of course we could.

About twenty below. Dead calm. Not a cloud in the sky. No moon. Have you ever seen the stars in a place where it can get really, really dark? No street lights near by. A population density of less than one person per square mile. The heavens were declaring the glory of God. Radiant night sky. The Milky Way was dazzling. We had just received a new dusting of snow. I can still hear the crunching sound of the horses hooves in the dry snow on the road as we rode at a walk beneath that amazing sky. The girls had been riding bareback, so I was nice and warm in the parts of my body in direct contact of the horse. We would get off to walk every once and awhile to keep the circulation in our extremities going, but we didn’t want to stay off the horses too long because the horse sweat on the inside legs of our blue jeans had a tendency to freeze up. The town of Three Hills, where the school was, was somewhat above us, almost as if it was on a ridge from where we were at. It was all lit up with street lights and it looked like the New Jerusalem just descended from heaven. (To be continued . . .)

Always Adore the Perfect Mind #1

(Please make sure you read the previous three posts “I was bad” before you begin this one.)

When I graduated from high school I went to the Prairie Bible Institute at what I thought was the leading of the Holy Spirit so that I could learn to become a better Christian. This had mixed results.

Years later I came to the conclusion that there were some serious theological mistakes with the deeper life teaching and with any other teaching that includes any kind of crises experience as the ultimate key to holiness. So the purpose of these posts is to deal with the whole issue of crises experiences, not to knock my former school. With that in mind I want to pause to sing the praises of the Prairie Bible Institute and the people who trained me back in the early 1970’s before I go back to the original argument I am attempting to make..

My first year it cost me $350 American for seven months of board, room, and tuition at PBI. A state subsidized University would have cost more than ten times that amount. One of the reasons that they could so this was the incredible sacrifice and dedication of the faculty and the staff. If I had graduated, gotten married, and joined the Prairie staff as a janitor, I would have made the exact same pay as the President and founder of the institute. Everybody got paid the same. Very little. So you could get a very inexpensive education there.

They taught me the Bible, they taught me a great deal about prayer, and they trained me for the ministry. I wonder if there has been a single day of my life where I haven’t used or applied something that I learned during those four years. I got to see idealistic adults really trying to live what they believed. Would I have ever taken the time to wrestle with the Old Testament prophets if I hadn’t gone to Prairie? I doubt it. And I wonder if anyone I studied with would have had the balance and good sense that Ted Rendall showed as he guided us through Isaiah and Jeremiah. Where else would I have spent the time I spent there pondering the relationship between law and grace?

It wasn’t only what I learned there, I got the foundation for almost everything I’ve studied ever since. I lift my eyes up from the computer screen to the wall of books behind it and I see names like Matthew Henry, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and JC Ryle. I got acquainted with them all at Prairie, and they have been my companions ever since.

And the people! I made some of the best friends I have ever had at Prairie. Wonderful people. Idealistic people. Some friends were students and some were on staff. Such lovely, lovely people. Three of my four years there my Uncle Forest and Aunt Minnie lived in Three Hills. Their home was always open to me. The fellowship was wonderful. And Aunt Minnie is one of the most accomplished cooks in the history of Western Civilization.