Oswald Chambers
May 26
Thinking of Prayer as Jesus Taught
Pray without ceasing . . . —1 Thessalonians 5:17
Our thinking about prayer, whether right or wrong, is based on our own mental conception of it. The correct concept is to think of prayer as the breath in our lungs and the blood from our hearts. Our blood flows and our breathing continues "without ceasing"; we are not even conscious of it, but it never stops. And we are not always conscious of Jesus keeping us in perfect oneness with God, but if we are obeying Him, He always is. Prayer is not an exercise, it is the life of the saint. Beware of anything that stops the offering up of prayer. "Pray without ceasing . . ."— maintain the childlike habit of offering up prayer in your heart to God all the time.
Jesus never mentioned unanswered prayer. He had the unlimited certainty of knowing that prayer is always answered. Do we have through the Spirit of God that inexpressible certainty that Jesus had about prayer, or do we think of the times when it seemed that God did not answer our prayer? Jesus said, ". . . everyone who asks receives . . ." ( Matthew 7:8 ). Yet we say, "But . . . , but . . . ." God answers prayer in the best way— not just sometimes, but every time. However, the evidence of the answer in the area we want it may not always immediately follow. Do we expect God to answer prayer?
The danger we have is that we want to water down what Jesus said to make it mean something that aligns with our common sense. But if it were only common sense, what He said would not even be worthwhile. The things Jesus taught about prayer are supernatural truths He reveals to us.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Meditate on the Word of the Lord
by John Piper
Psalm 1
How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked,Nor stand in the path of sinners,Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,And in His law he meditates day and night.3 He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,Which yields its fruit in its seasonAnd its leaf does not wither;And in whatever he does, he prospers.4 The wicked are not so,But they are like chaff which the wind drives away.5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,Nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.6 For the LORD knows the way of the righteous,But the way of the wicked will perish.
If this is Prayer Week, why do we begin with a message on Psalm 1 that doesn't mention prayer, and focus our attention on the Word of God and not prayer? The central point of this psalm is made in verse 2: "But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night." The person who delights in God's law so much that he meditates on it day and night is delivered from the ways of the wicked and sinners and scoffers, and is made fruitful and durable and prosperous. That's the point. Delighting in the law of God is the central issue. So why begin Prayer Week with this psalm and this focus on delighting in the law of God?
Well, where is this psalm? It is the beginning of the book of Psalms. And what are the psalms? Many of them are prayers. In fact, the Psalter is the prayer book of the Bible. Millions of Christians go to the Psalms to find words for the cry of their hearts in the worst of times and the best of times. So I begin Prayer Week with Psalm 1 because the Bible begins its prayer book with Psalm 1.
But why does it? And why should we? The reason is that in the Christian life -in the life of God's people - prayer and the Word are connected in such a way that if you disconnect them, both die. Let me sum up the connection between prayer and the Word in three ways. The Word of God inspires prayer, it informs prayer and it incarnates prayer. Just a word of explanation on each of these.
Connection Between the Word and Prayer
The Word of God inspires prayer. This means that the Word commands us to pray, and makes promises to us of what God will do if we pray, and tells us stories of great men and women of prayer. James 5:16-18 does all three. First, "Pray for one another so that you may be healed." There's a command from the Word. Second, "The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much." There is the encouraging promise. Third, "Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months." There's a story to inspire us. So the Word inspires prayer by telling us to do it (like a doctor telling us what's good for us) and promising us good things if we will do it, and telling us stories to encourage us in our weakness.
Second, the Word of God informs prayer. This means that the Word tells us what to pray and becomes itself the content of our prayer. When you know the mind of God in his Word, you pray the mind of God in your prayers. For example, in Acts 4:24-26, the early church prayed like this: "They lifted their voices to God with one accord and said, "O Lord, it is You who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them [see Exodus 20:11], who by the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of our father David your servant, said [quoting Psalm 2], 'Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples devise futile things? The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ.'" This is the way powerful saints have prayed throughout history. O may the Lord fill our payers with the great purposes and promises of God that we learn from his Word. The Word informs prayer.
Third, the Word incarnates prayer. This means that prayers are often invisible and concealed in the soul and in the closet and in the church. But their effect is to be in the open in the lives of other people and among the nations. How does that happen? God usually advances his purposes in world evangelization and personal transformation and cultural reformation by direct encounters with the truth of his Word. The Word incarnates our prayers. Prayers become effective through the truth getting into people's ears and minds and hearts.
People don't just start believing on Jesus because you pray for them. They need to hear about Jesus. "How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?" (Romans 10:14). "Pray for us that the Word of the Lord will spread rapidly and be glorified, just as it did also with you" (2 Thessalonians 3:1). Prayer empowers the Word and the Word incarnates prayer. Saints don't just become more holy because someone prays that they will. They need to see the truth: "Sanctify them in the truth. Thy Word is truth" (John 17:17). Cultural slavery to injustice and greed and dishonesty and sexual immorality does not just change because we pray for it. The agent of reformation is the truth: "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (John 8:32). Prayer must be incarnated in declarations and demonstrations of the truth.
That's probably enough to explain why we begin Prayer Week with a text on the Word of God. The Word inspires, informs and incarnates prayer. They go together, because Word and Spirit go together. Word without Spirit is intellectualism. Spirit without Word is emotionalism at best, and probably syncretism. But the Word and the Spirit are kept together when we depend on the Spirit for help in all our dealing with the Word, and express that dependence in prayer.
The Blessing of Delighting in God's Word
Now let's consider Psalm 1 and focus on delighting in and meditating on the Word of God. First, let's think about the blessing that comes from delighting in and meditating on the Word day and night. The Psalm begins, "How blessed is the man. . ." So you are drawn in right away: do you want blessing in your life? The word means "happy" in the rich, full sense of happiness rooted in moral and mental and physical wellbeing.
But now who is this happy person? The one who does not do something and the one who does do something. The happy person does not "walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers!" (verse 1). But what does the happy person do? Verse 2: "But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night." So, instead of finding his pleasures in the words or the ways or the fellowship of the wicked, the one who is truly happy finds pleasure in meditating on the Word and the ways of God. ("Law," Torah, = instruction: God's Words about God's ways.)
Now the point of the psalm is to say that when you experience the Word of God like that - as so delightful and so satisfying that it captures your mind and heart day and night and weans you away from the counsel and path and seat of the world -when you experience the Word like that, you are blessed. You are happy.
The Person Who Delights in the Word of God
Then, in verse 3, it gives us three illustrations of that happiness. The first one is that the person who delights in the Word of God and meditates on it day and night will be "like a tree firmly planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in its season." The second one is that the person who delights in the Word of God and meditates on it day and night will be like a tree whose "leaf does not wither." And the third is that the person who delights in the Word of God and meditates on it day and night "will prosper in all that he does."
Let's think about each of these for a moment.
1. Fruitful
If you delight in the Word of God and meditate on it day and night you will yield your fruit in season. You will be a fruitful person. O for more fruitful people! You know them. They are refreshing and nourishing to be around. You go away from them fed. You go away strengthened. You go away with your taste for spiritual things awakened. Their mouth is a fountain of life. Their words are healing and convicting and encouraging and deepening and enlightening. Being around them is like a meal. This is the effect of delighting in the Word of God and meditating on it day and night. You will yield fruit in season.
2. Durable
The second illustration of your blessing if you delight in the Word of God and meditate on it day and night is that your leaf does not wither. The point here is that the hot winds are blowing and the rain is not falling and all the other trees that are not planted by streams are withering and dying, but in spite of all the heat and drought, your leaf remains green, because delighting in the Word of God and meditating on it day and night is like being planted by a stream. The happiness of this person is durable. It is deep. It does not depend on which way the wind is blowing or whether the rain is falling. It gets its life from an absolutely changeless source: God in his Word.
The person who delights in the Word of God and meditates on it day and night speaks like the prophet in Habakkuk 3:17-18: "Though the fig tree do not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will exult in the LORD, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation."
(A Thought on Y2K)
This might be a place to say a word about the Y2K scare. Do you want a prophetic word about Y2K? I have two prophetic words about Y2K. First, the greatest need on January 1, 2000, will not be basements stocked with food and water and generators, but hearts stocked with the Word of God. You will be fruitful, you will flourish, you will be life-giving not by seeking the very things the world seeks (Matthew 6:32), but by delighting in the Word of God and meditating on it day and night. What the world will need and does need from the church is the Word of God that fits us to say, "Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . .. In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us" (Romans 8:35-37).
The other prophetic word about Y2K is this: Nothing is going to happen on January 1, 2000, nothing, that is as bad as what is already happening to persecuted and starving Christians in Sudan. Or to the staggering number of orphans in Malawi and other AIDS-devastated countries of Africa. Or to survivors in Honduras and Nicaragua. Or to lonely, dying old people in dozens of skilled care centers around the Twin Cities who have outlived their families. There is something that smells of hypocrisy in the talk about stockpiling supplies in our homes to "minister" to others in the coming Y2K crisis when there are more places to minister this very day that are worse crises than anything that is going to happen a year from now. Y2K will happen to someone every day in 1999 - many of them within your reach.* Delight yourself in the Word of God, meditate on it day and night, and then take the fruit of your life and go minister to the lost and the hungry and the thirsty that are already so many. Then you won't even notice when Y2K happens.
3. Prospering (Really?)
3. But now that leads to the question raised by the third illustration of blessing and happiness in verse 3. "And in whatever he does, he prospers." Really? What does this mean? Does it mean that, if you delight in the Word of God and meditate enough, your business will make a big profit and your health will always be good and there will be no food shortages or car accidents or violence against your house?
Well, there are some reasons to believe that such a person will have some of those blessings. For example, when you delight in God's Word instead of walking in the counsel of the wicked and standing in the way of sinners and sitting in the seat of scoffers, you will be doing the kinds of things that God approves of, and he is likely to bless what he approves. And when you are delighting in the Word of God, you are trusting it, and we know God works for those who trust him and wait for him (Isaiah 64:4; 2 Chronicles 16:9).
But there are reasons to believe that God does not always spare his most faithful people. There are many passages of Scripture that tell us "many are the afflictions of the righteous" (Psalm 34:19; cf. Acts 14:22). Psalm 73 expresses the reality that often the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper. The answer of that Psalm and this one is: Behold what becomes of them in the end (Psalm 73:17).
Psalm 1 says, "The wicked are not so, but they are like chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish" (verses 4-5). When this Psalm ponders the value of being wicked or of delighting in the Word of God, it measures the value finally by what happens at the judgment. There may be some prosperity in this life for the wicked, but in the end they will be swept away like chaff, but those who have delighted in the Word of God will go on flourishing because God sets his eye and favor on them. He "knows" their way.
So the blessing, the happiness, referred to in verse 1 is a life that is nourishing and fruitful for others, a life that is deeply durable in the face of drought and a life whose "labor is not in vain" (1 Corinthians 15:58), but succeeds in God's good purposes into eternity. That's the blessing of delighting in the Word of God and meditating on it day and night.
What Is Meditation?
Now what does this meditation involve? The word "meditation" in Hebrew means basically to speak or to mutter. When this is done in the heart it is called musing or meditation. So meditating on the Word of God day and night means to speak to yourself the Word of God day and night and to speak to yourself about it.
Here is where I plead with you to get involved in the Fighter Verse memory program or some other pattern of Bible memorization. Unless you memorize Scripture you will not meditate on it day and night. But O the benefits and delights of knowing communion with God hour by hour in his Word. If you have ever wondered, What is hour-by-hour walking in fellowship with the living God? the answer is: it is his speaking to you by his Word through your memory and meditation and illumination and application and your speaking to him words of thanks and praise and admiration and desire and seeking for help and guidance and understanding. The Word is the basis for your hearing him and for his hearing you. The depth and solidity and certainty of your walk with God and your communion with God will rise and fall with whether God's own written Word is the warp and woof of the fabric of your fellowship.
Let me just give you an example of how this works in my own life. As I was coming to the end of the year and reading the final pages of the Old Testament in the Minor Prophets, I was moved by Micah 7:18. It is the foundation of a favorite hymn of mine, "Who Is a Pardoning God Like Thee?" by Samuel Davies. So I memorized it and carried it around on the front burner of my mind for several days. It says, "Who is a God like thee, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever because he delights in steadfast love."
One of the insights that I discovered and tasted with tremendous pleasure was that God does choose to be angry, but his anger is limited. Why? Because he "delights in steadfast love." This means that anger is not God's favorite emotion. He "delights" in love. This has huge implications - practical ones -about my life and my own anger and love as I rest in him. And theological ones, as I ponder the levels of willing in God: willing to be angry in his holiness at sin, and yet not delighting to be angry the way he delights to show steadfast love. I was fed by this text for several days before I moved on to another front-burner text.
So I urge you to memorize Scripture, and meditate on it day and night. It will change your life in many good ways.
What if Meditation and Prayer are Drudgery?
Finally, we must ask about this delight. The deepest mark of this happy person in Psalm 1 is that he delights in the Word of God (verse 2). Bible reading and Bible memory and meditation are not a burden to him, but a pleasure. This is what we want. What a sadness when Bible reading is just a drudgery. Something is wrong.
What shall we do? Well, we will say more next week, but let's close considering this. We struggle with Bible reading and memory and meditation because we don't find pleasure in it. We have other things we want to get to more. TV or breakfast or work or newspaper or computer. Our hearts incline to other things and do not incline to the Word. And so it is not a delight.
Did the psalmists ever struggle with this? Yes they did. Take heart. We all do. How shall this be changed? This is Prayer Week, and so the answer we will stress is that it is changed through prayer. This is what I will focus on next week. We must pray for God's enabling to help us delight in his Word. This will be clear from the way the psalmists pray. I hope you will come back and hear the help that the psalmists give us not only to pray without ceasing, but to do it with delight.
© Desiring God
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Psalm 1
How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked,Nor stand in the path of sinners,Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,And in His law he meditates day and night.3 He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,Which yields its fruit in its seasonAnd its leaf does not wither;And in whatever he does, he prospers.4 The wicked are not so,But they are like chaff which the wind drives away.5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,Nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.6 For the LORD knows the way of the righteous,But the way of the wicked will perish.
If this is Prayer Week, why do we begin with a message on Psalm 1 that doesn't mention prayer, and focus our attention on the Word of God and not prayer? The central point of this psalm is made in verse 2: "But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night." The person who delights in God's law so much that he meditates on it day and night is delivered from the ways of the wicked and sinners and scoffers, and is made fruitful and durable and prosperous. That's the point. Delighting in the law of God is the central issue. So why begin Prayer Week with this psalm and this focus on delighting in the law of God?
Well, where is this psalm? It is the beginning of the book of Psalms. And what are the psalms? Many of them are prayers. In fact, the Psalter is the prayer book of the Bible. Millions of Christians go to the Psalms to find words for the cry of their hearts in the worst of times and the best of times. So I begin Prayer Week with Psalm 1 because the Bible begins its prayer book with Psalm 1.
But why does it? And why should we? The reason is that in the Christian life -in the life of God's people - prayer and the Word are connected in such a way that if you disconnect them, both die. Let me sum up the connection between prayer and the Word in three ways. The Word of God inspires prayer, it informs prayer and it incarnates prayer. Just a word of explanation on each of these.
Connection Between the Word and Prayer
The Word of God inspires prayer. This means that the Word commands us to pray, and makes promises to us of what God will do if we pray, and tells us stories of great men and women of prayer. James 5:16-18 does all three. First, "Pray for one another so that you may be healed." There's a command from the Word. Second, "The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much." There is the encouraging promise. Third, "Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months." There's a story to inspire us. So the Word inspires prayer by telling us to do it (like a doctor telling us what's good for us) and promising us good things if we will do it, and telling us stories to encourage us in our weakness.
Second, the Word of God informs prayer. This means that the Word tells us what to pray and becomes itself the content of our prayer. When you know the mind of God in his Word, you pray the mind of God in your prayers. For example, in Acts 4:24-26, the early church prayed like this: "They lifted their voices to God with one accord and said, "O Lord, it is You who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them [see Exodus 20:11], who by the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of our father David your servant, said [quoting Psalm 2], 'Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples devise futile things? The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ.'" This is the way powerful saints have prayed throughout history. O may the Lord fill our payers with the great purposes and promises of God that we learn from his Word. The Word informs prayer.
Third, the Word incarnates prayer. This means that prayers are often invisible and concealed in the soul and in the closet and in the church. But their effect is to be in the open in the lives of other people and among the nations. How does that happen? God usually advances his purposes in world evangelization and personal transformation and cultural reformation by direct encounters with the truth of his Word. The Word incarnates our prayers. Prayers become effective through the truth getting into people's ears and minds and hearts.
People don't just start believing on Jesus because you pray for them. They need to hear about Jesus. "How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?" (Romans 10:14). "Pray for us that the Word of the Lord will spread rapidly and be glorified, just as it did also with you" (2 Thessalonians 3:1). Prayer empowers the Word and the Word incarnates prayer. Saints don't just become more holy because someone prays that they will. They need to see the truth: "Sanctify them in the truth. Thy Word is truth" (John 17:17). Cultural slavery to injustice and greed and dishonesty and sexual immorality does not just change because we pray for it. The agent of reformation is the truth: "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (John 8:32). Prayer must be incarnated in declarations and demonstrations of the truth.
That's probably enough to explain why we begin Prayer Week with a text on the Word of God. The Word inspires, informs and incarnates prayer. They go together, because Word and Spirit go together. Word without Spirit is intellectualism. Spirit without Word is emotionalism at best, and probably syncretism. But the Word and the Spirit are kept together when we depend on the Spirit for help in all our dealing with the Word, and express that dependence in prayer.
The Blessing of Delighting in God's Word
Now let's consider Psalm 1 and focus on delighting in and meditating on the Word of God. First, let's think about the blessing that comes from delighting in and meditating on the Word day and night. The Psalm begins, "How blessed is the man. . ." So you are drawn in right away: do you want blessing in your life? The word means "happy" in the rich, full sense of happiness rooted in moral and mental and physical wellbeing.
But now who is this happy person? The one who does not do something and the one who does do something. The happy person does not "walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers!" (verse 1). But what does the happy person do? Verse 2: "But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night." So, instead of finding his pleasures in the words or the ways or the fellowship of the wicked, the one who is truly happy finds pleasure in meditating on the Word and the ways of God. ("Law," Torah, = instruction: God's Words about God's ways.)
Now the point of the psalm is to say that when you experience the Word of God like that - as so delightful and so satisfying that it captures your mind and heart day and night and weans you away from the counsel and path and seat of the world -when you experience the Word like that, you are blessed. You are happy.
The Person Who Delights in the Word of God
Then, in verse 3, it gives us three illustrations of that happiness. The first one is that the person who delights in the Word of God and meditates on it day and night will be "like a tree firmly planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in its season." The second one is that the person who delights in the Word of God and meditates on it day and night will be like a tree whose "leaf does not wither." And the third is that the person who delights in the Word of God and meditates on it day and night "will prosper in all that he does."
Let's think about each of these for a moment.
1. Fruitful
If you delight in the Word of God and meditate on it day and night you will yield your fruit in season. You will be a fruitful person. O for more fruitful people! You know them. They are refreshing and nourishing to be around. You go away from them fed. You go away strengthened. You go away with your taste for spiritual things awakened. Their mouth is a fountain of life. Their words are healing and convicting and encouraging and deepening and enlightening. Being around them is like a meal. This is the effect of delighting in the Word of God and meditating on it day and night. You will yield fruit in season.
2. Durable
The second illustration of your blessing if you delight in the Word of God and meditate on it day and night is that your leaf does not wither. The point here is that the hot winds are blowing and the rain is not falling and all the other trees that are not planted by streams are withering and dying, but in spite of all the heat and drought, your leaf remains green, because delighting in the Word of God and meditating on it day and night is like being planted by a stream. The happiness of this person is durable. It is deep. It does not depend on which way the wind is blowing or whether the rain is falling. It gets its life from an absolutely changeless source: God in his Word.
The person who delights in the Word of God and meditates on it day and night speaks like the prophet in Habakkuk 3:17-18: "Though the fig tree do not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will exult in the LORD, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation."
(A Thought on Y2K)
This might be a place to say a word about the Y2K scare. Do you want a prophetic word about Y2K? I have two prophetic words about Y2K. First, the greatest need on January 1, 2000, will not be basements stocked with food and water and generators, but hearts stocked with the Word of God. You will be fruitful, you will flourish, you will be life-giving not by seeking the very things the world seeks (Matthew 6:32), but by delighting in the Word of God and meditating on it day and night. What the world will need and does need from the church is the Word of God that fits us to say, "Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . .. In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us" (Romans 8:35-37).
The other prophetic word about Y2K is this: Nothing is going to happen on January 1, 2000, nothing, that is as bad as what is already happening to persecuted and starving Christians in Sudan. Or to the staggering number of orphans in Malawi and other AIDS-devastated countries of Africa. Or to survivors in Honduras and Nicaragua. Or to lonely, dying old people in dozens of skilled care centers around the Twin Cities who have outlived their families. There is something that smells of hypocrisy in the talk about stockpiling supplies in our homes to "minister" to others in the coming Y2K crisis when there are more places to minister this very day that are worse crises than anything that is going to happen a year from now. Y2K will happen to someone every day in 1999 - many of them within your reach.* Delight yourself in the Word of God, meditate on it day and night, and then take the fruit of your life and go minister to the lost and the hungry and the thirsty that are already so many. Then you won't even notice when Y2K happens.
3. Prospering (Really?)
3. But now that leads to the question raised by the third illustration of blessing and happiness in verse 3. "And in whatever he does, he prospers." Really? What does this mean? Does it mean that, if you delight in the Word of God and meditate enough, your business will make a big profit and your health will always be good and there will be no food shortages or car accidents or violence against your house?
Well, there are some reasons to believe that such a person will have some of those blessings. For example, when you delight in God's Word instead of walking in the counsel of the wicked and standing in the way of sinners and sitting in the seat of scoffers, you will be doing the kinds of things that God approves of, and he is likely to bless what he approves. And when you are delighting in the Word of God, you are trusting it, and we know God works for those who trust him and wait for him (Isaiah 64:4; 2 Chronicles 16:9).
But there are reasons to believe that God does not always spare his most faithful people. There are many passages of Scripture that tell us "many are the afflictions of the righteous" (Psalm 34:19; cf. Acts 14:22). Psalm 73 expresses the reality that often the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper. The answer of that Psalm and this one is: Behold what becomes of them in the end (Psalm 73:17).
Psalm 1 says, "The wicked are not so, but they are like chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish" (verses 4-5). When this Psalm ponders the value of being wicked or of delighting in the Word of God, it measures the value finally by what happens at the judgment. There may be some prosperity in this life for the wicked, but in the end they will be swept away like chaff, but those who have delighted in the Word of God will go on flourishing because God sets his eye and favor on them. He "knows" their way.
So the blessing, the happiness, referred to in verse 1 is a life that is nourishing and fruitful for others, a life that is deeply durable in the face of drought and a life whose "labor is not in vain" (1 Corinthians 15:58), but succeeds in God's good purposes into eternity. That's the blessing of delighting in the Word of God and meditating on it day and night.
What Is Meditation?
Now what does this meditation involve? The word "meditation" in Hebrew means basically to speak or to mutter. When this is done in the heart it is called musing or meditation. So meditating on the Word of God day and night means to speak to yourself the Word of God day and night and to speak to yourself about it.
Here is where I plead with you to get involved in the Fighter Verse memory program or some other pattern of Bible memorization. Unless you memorize Scripture you will not meditate on it day and night. But O the benefits and delights of knowing communion with God hour by hour in his Word. If you have ever wondered, What is hour-by-hour walking in fellowship with the living God? the answer is: it is his speaking to you by his Word through your memory and meditation and illumination and application and your speaking to him words of thanks and praise and admiration and desire and seeking for help and guidance and understanding. The Word is the basis for your hearing him and for his hearing you. The depth and solidity and certainty of your walk with God and your communion with God will rise and fall with whether God's own written Word is the warp and woof of the fabric of your fellowship.
Let me just give you an example of how this works in my own life. As I was coming to the end of the year and reading the final pages of the Old Testament in the Minor Prophets, I was moved by Micah 7:18. It is the foundation of a favorite hymn of mine, "Who Is a Pardoning God Like Thee?" by Samuel Davies. So I memorized it and carried it around on the front burner of my mind for several days. It says, "Who is a God like thee, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever because he delights in steadfast love."
One of the insights that I discovered and tasted with tremendous pleasure was that God does choose to be angry, but his anger is limited. Why? Because he "delights in steadfast love." This means that anger is not God's favorite emotion. He "delights" in love. This has huge implications - practical ones -about my life and my own anger and love as I rest in him. And theological ones, as I ponder the levels of willing in God: willing to be angry in his holiness at sin, and yet not delighting to be angry the way he delights to show steadfast love. I was fed by this text for several days before I moved on to another front-burner text.
So I urge you to memorize Scripture, and meditate on it day and night. It will change your life in many good ways.
What if Meditation and Prayer are Drudgery?
Finally, we must ask about this delight. The deepest mark of this happy person in Psalm 1 is that he delights in the Word of God (verse 2). Bible reading and Bible memory and meditation are not a burden to him, but a pleasure. This is what we want. What a sadness when Bible reading is just a drudgery. Something is wrong.
What shall we do? Well, we will say more next week, but let's close considering this. We struggle with Bible reading and memory and meditation because we don't find pleasure in it. We have other things we want to get to more. TV or breakfast or work or newspaper or computer. Our hearts incline to other things and do not incline to the Word. And so it is not a delight.
Did the psalmists ever struggle with this? Yes they did. Take heart. We all do. How shall this be changed? This is Prayer Week, and so the answer we will stress is that it is changed through prayer. This is what I will focus on next week. We must pray for God's enabling to help us delight in his Word. This will be clear from the way the psalmists pray. I hope you will come back and hear the help that the psalmists give us not only to pray without ceasing, but to do it with delight.
© Desiring God
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What Is Palm Sunday?
by Fr. Mark Korban
The feast of Palm Sunday is a recreation of the historical events immediately preceding Jesus’ death and resurrection. It’s a prelude to Holy Week and, in particular, the suffering of Holy Friday. The Feast of Palms is a reminder of the victory to come in the resurrection, a victory achieved through the cross. Palm Sunday reminds us that there are no shortcuts to Pascha.
To understand this feast it is helpful to look at the first Book of Maccabees with its record of successful struggle against the Greco-Macedonian occupation of Israel. These events occurred less than two centuries before Palm Sunday. With the collaboration of some of the Jewish leaders, the Seleucid king, Antiochus Epiphanies, had defiled the Jewish temple by erecting a statue of Zeus in it as part of an attempt to Hellenize Jerusalem. Those who would not follow pagan custom were summarily arrested and executed. If discovered, mothers who circumcised their baby boys were killed along with their babies. One of the Jewish priests, Mattathias, along with his family, decided to resist the king’s orders. Though a thousand of his followers were slaughtered at their desert retreat, Mattathias survived and with his sons organized a fighting force which today we would call a guerilla army. Following Mattathias’ death, his son, Judah Maccabees, led the resistance. Through a series of raids and military campaigns, the Maccabean forces killed thousands of foreigners and eventually regained the temple, which they repaired, cleansed and reconsecrated. The remembrance of this event was instituted as the annual feast of Hanukkah. Interestingly enough, part of the celebration of Hanukkah involves the waving of palm branches.
Those welcoming Jesus to Jerusalem certainly had a vivid memory of the Maccabean uprising. Many were hoping for a messiah who would deliver them from Rome the way the Maccabees had delivered their ancestors from the Greeks. Judas Maccabees was viewed as a new Saul or David, even praised as “the savior of Israel.” This is what the people wanted on that first Palm Sunday: another David, another Judas Maccabees. For many of those in the crowds, this was why they waved palms and shouted, “Hosanna!”
Jesus knew what they wanted but didn’t give it to them, at least not what they expected.
See now, your king comes to you; he is victorious, he is triumphant,humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Mt 21:5)
This prophecy is from Zechariah. But what a difference between this king and a worldly king entering Jerusalem astride a war horse! Jesus chooses to ride a humble donkey. In doing so he is showing the people and especially his disciples that he is a different kind of king.
Writing in the fourth century, St. John Chrysostom noted: “[Jesus] is not drawn in a chariot like other kings, not demanding a tribute. Nor surrounded by officers and guards. Then the people ask: ‘What king has ever entered Jerusalem riding upon an ass?’”
His entry seems to border on theater. It is almost comedy. Jesus knows how weak and ridiculous he looks riding on a donkey as he makes his “triumphal” entry. It is the triumphal entry of a king such as the world has never seen before.
His act calls to mind his earlier words: “You know how the gentile rulers lord it over their subjects… It is not to be so among you.” (Mt 20:25)
Jesus wants his followers to understand what true kingship is. It is humble. It serves. As Zechariah makes clear, it does not oppress or kill. Zechariah says in the very next verse after this Palm Sunday prophecy:
He will banish the chariot from Ephraimand war horses from Jerusalem.The bow of war will be banished.He will proclaim peace for the nations. (Zech 9:10)
The chariot and war horse are instruments and symbols of war. The new king banishes both. He proclaims peace to the nations.
In three of the four Gospel accounts, after his entry, Jesus goes to the temple and cleanses it of its defilement as did the leaders of the rebellion recorded in the first Book of Maccabees, but unlike the Maccabees brothers, Jesus does it without harming anyone. His whip serves to drive out the cattle.
If ever there was an opportunity for Jesus to lead a violent uprising, this was it. The people were available and aroused. They were ready for violent action if called upon. But Jesus made no such call. His teaching was clear: destruction of enemies is not his way to freedom and liberation from oppression. In a few days he will show them – and us – his way. His way is the way of love, suffering and martyrdom. His way is not the violent love of slaughter and warfare but the nonviolent path of self-giving love. And although his way looks weak, “a folly to the Greeks and a stumbling block to the Jews,” it doesn’t end with martyrdom and the grave. Beyond martyrdom is the resurrection. The victory of Jesus’ way of love is resurrection.
Another place where palm branches are waved is recorded in Revelations, chapter 7. Here we see the Christian martyrs standing in front of the throne of the Lamb, holding palms and shouting “victory” to the Lamb. This is the victory of love over hate, the victory of love in the face of murderous enemies. This kind of love leads to resurrection. This the martyrs experienced. In Christian art, the palm is a symbol of the martyrs.
There is a juxtaposition here. The people led by the Maccabees are waving palms after reclaiming the temple through slaughter and bloodshed. In contrast, Jesus and the martyrs reclaim the living temple, not through shedding the blood of others, but by shedding their own blood. The heroes of the Maccabees are military fighters. The heroes of the Church are the martyrs, the spiritual fighters. Jesus is offering a choice on Palm Sunday: the way of seeking freedom that leads to the misery and horror of warfare or the way of freedom that leads to the cross and resurrection: the victory of love over evil. The Hosanna-shouting crowds in Jerusalem wanted the way of the Maccabees, but Jesus says to his disciples, “Follow me, take up your cross and follow me.” There is life and victory and freedom beyond the cross, but for the Christian in the fallen world, there is no way around the cross. There is no Pascha without Holy Friday.
The way of worldly kings is different than the way of Jesus the king. The Maccabees won back the temple from their Greek overlords through violence but they eventually lost it again to the Romans. The results that worldly kings and leaders offer are at best temporary. Jesus offers a way to put an end to evil permanently. He gives a choice, but if our decision is to be his followers, our choice must be his choice: the cross and martyrdom.
I recall a photo of a 12-year-old boy who lost both his arms in the initial bombing of Baghdad. He also lost both his parents and many of his relatives. He was lying in a hospital bed and asked the reporter who was photographing him: “Is this what you meant by bringing us freedom?” He was experiencing an attempt to bring freedom through violence and the imposition of suffering. It is a model that Jesus rejected. The freedom he gives us is self-sacrificial. He offers himself without causing others to suffer.
We don’t completely understand how the loving acceptance of martyrdom brings about redemption and the overcoming of evil, but if we believe in Christ, if he believe he is the Second Person of the Trinity, then it is a matter of trust in him. We trust that he knows what he is talking about. After all, if Christ doesn’t know what he’s talking about, who does?
So as we wave branches on Palm Sunday, we would do well to keep in mind that we are crying “Hosanna” for the victory that comes through the cross, in whatever form the cross may take in our lives. The way of the cross that Jesus chose is our way too. We bear the cross that he asks us to carry and we also share in the joy of resurrection.
Fr. Mark Korban, his wife and six children have lived for many years “close to the earth,” in a beautiful hay bale home far out in the country, which they built themselves. Fr. Mark is a carpenter. As a priest he is attached to The Sign of the Theotokos Church in Montreal, with the assignment as missionary priest to the Eastern Townships of Quebec. He has a small mission which meets in their home, in a little chapel they have built, dedicated to St. John the Evangelist.
The feast of Palm Sunday is a recreation of the historical events immediately preceding Jesus’ death and resurrection. It’s a prelude to Holy Week and, in particular, the suffering of Holy Friday. The Feast of Palms is a reminder of the victory to come in the resurrection, a victory achieved through the cross. Palm Sunday reminds us that there are no shortcuts to Pascha.
To understand this feast it is helpful to look at the first Book of Maccabees with its record of successful struggle against the Greco-Macedonian occupation of Israel. These events occurred less than two centuries before Palm Sunday. With the collaboration of some of the Jewish leaders, the Seleucid king, Antiochus Epiphanies, had defiled the Jewish temple by erecting a statue of Zeus in it as part of an attempt to Hellenize Jerusalem. Those who would not follow pagan custom were summarily arrested and executed. If discovered, mothers who circumcised their baby boys were killed along with their babies. One of the Jewish priests, Mattathias, along with his family, decided to resist the king’s orders. Though a thousand of his followers were slaughtered at their desert retreat, Mattathias survived and with his sons organized a fighting force which today we would call a guerilla army. Following Mattathias’ death, his son, Judah Maccabees, led the resistance. Through a series of raids and military campaigns, the Maccabean forces killed thousands of foreigners and eventually regained the temple, which they repaired, cleansed and reconsecrated. The remembrance of this event was instituted as the annual feast of Hanukkah. Interestingly enough, part of the celebration of Hanukkah involves the waving of palm branches.
Those welcoming Jesus to Jerusalem certainly had a vivid memory of the Maccabean uprising. Many were hoping for a messiah who would deliver them from Rome the way the Maccabees had delivered their ancestors from the Greeks. Judas Maccabees was viewed as a new Saul or David, even praised as “the savior of Israel.” This is what the people wanted on that first Palm Sunday: another David, another Judas Maccabees. For many of those in the crowds, this was why they waved palms and shouted, “Hosanna!”
Jesus knew what they wanted but didn’t give it to them, at least not what they expected.
See now, your king comes to you; he is victorious, he is triumphant,humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Mt 21:5)
This prophecy is from Zechariah. But what a difference between this king and a worldly king entering Jerusalem astride a war horse! Jesus chooses to ride a humble donkey. In doing so he is showing the people and especially his disciples that he is a different kind of king.
Writing in the fourth century, St. John Chrysostom noted: “[Jesus] is not drawn in a chariot like other kings, not demanding a tribute. Nor surrounded by officers and guards. Then the people ask: ‘What king has ever entered Jerusalem riding upon an ass?’”
His entry seems to border on theater. It is almost comedy. Jesus knows how weak and ridiculous he looks riding on a donkey as he makes his “triumphal” entry. It is the triumphal entry of a king such as the world has never seen before.
His act calls to mind his earlier words: “You know how the gentile rulers lord it over their subjects… It is not to be so among you.” (Mt 20:25)
Jesus wants his followers to understand what true kingship is. It is humble. It serves. As Zechariah makes clear, it does not oppress or kill. Zechariah says in the very next verse after this Palm Sunday prophecy:
He will banish the chariot from Ephraimand war horses from Jerusalem.The bow of war will be banished.He will proclaim peace for the nations. (Zech 9:10)
The chariot and war horse are instruments and symbols of war. The new king banishes both. He proclaims peace to the nations.
In three of the four Gospel accounts, after his entry, Jesus goes to the temple and cleanses it of its defilement as did the leaders of the rebellion recorded in the first Book of Maccabees, but unlike the Maccabees brothers, Jesus does it without harming anyone. His whip serves to drive out the cattle.
If ever there was an opportunity for Jesus to lead a violent uprising, this was it. The people were available and aroused. They were ready for violent action if called upon. But Jesus made no such call. His teaching was clear: destruction of enemies is not his way to freedom and liberation from oppression. In a few days he will show them – and us – his way. His way is the way of love, suffering and martyrdom. His way is not the violent love of slaughter and warfare but the nonviolent path of self-giving love. And although his way looks weak, “a folly to the Greeks and a stumbling block to the Jews,” it doesn’t end with martyrdom and the grave. Beyond martyrdom is the resurrection. The victory of Jesus’ way of love is resurrection.
Another place where palm branches are waved is recorded in Revelations, chapter 7. Here we see the Christian martyrs standing in front of the throne of the Lamb, holding palms and shouting “victory” to the Lamb. This is the victory of love over hate, the victory of love in the face of murderous enemies. This kind of love leads to resurrection. This the martyrs experienced. In Christian art, the palm is a symbol of the martyrs.
There is a juxtaposition here. The people led by the Maccabees are waving palms after reclaiming the temple through slaughter and bloodshed. In contrast, Jesus and the martyrs reclaim the living temple, not through shedding the blood of others, but by shedding their own blood. The heroes of the Maccabees are military fighters. The heroes of the Church are the martyrs, the spiritual fighters. Jesus is offering a choice on Palm Sunday: the way of seeking freedom that leads to the misery and horror of warfare or the way of freedom that leads to the cross and resurrection: the victory of love over evil. The Hosanna-shouting crowds in Jerusalem wanted the way of the Maccabees, but Jesus says to his disciples, “Follow me, take up your cross and follow me.” There is life and victory and freedom beyond the cross, but for the Christian in the fallen world, there is no way around the cross. There is no Pascha without Holy Friday.
The way of worldly kings is different than the way of Jesus the king. The Maccabees won back the temple from their Greek overlords through violence but they eventually lost it again to the Romans. The results that worldly kings and leaders offer are at best temporary. Jesus offers a way to put an end to evil permanently. He gives a choice, but if our decision is to be his followers, our choice must be his choice: the cross and martyrdom.
I recall a photo of a 12-year-old boy who lost both his arms in the initial bombing of Baghdad. He also lost both his parents and many of his relatives. He was lying in a hospital bed and asked the reporter who was photographing him: “Is this what you meant by bringing us freedom?” He was experiencing an attempt to bring freedom through violence and the imposition of suffering. It is a model that Jesus rejected. The freedom he gives us is self-sacrificial. He offers himself without causing others to suffer.
We don’t completely understand how the loving acceptance of martyrdom brings about redemption and the overcoming of evil, but if we believe in Christ, if he believe he is the Second Person of the Trinity, then it is a matter of trust in him. We trust that he knows what he is talking about. After all, if Christ doesn’t know what he’s talking about, who does?
So as we wave branches on Palm Sunday, we would do well to keep in mind that we are crying “Hosanna” for the victory that comes through the cross, in whatever form the cross may take in our lives. The way of the cross that Jesus chose is our way too. We bear the cross that he asks us to carry and we also share in the joy of resurrection.
Fr. Mark Korban, his wife and six children have lived for many years “close to the earth,” in a beautiful hay bale home far out in the country, which they built themselves. Fr. Mark is a carpenter. As a priest he is attached to The Sign of the Theotokos Church in Montreal, with the assignment as missionary priest to the Eastern Townships of Quebec. He has a small mission which meets in their home, in a little chapel they have built, dedicated to St. John the Evangelist.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Changing Your Behavior- by Neil Anderson
Galatians 5:16 "Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh"
A careful distinction must be made concerning your relationship to the flesh as a Christian. There is a difference in Scripture between being in the flesh and walking according to the flesh. As a Christian, you are no longer in the flesh. That phrase describes people who are still spiritually dead (Romans 8:8), those who live independently of God. Everything they do, whether morally good or bad, is in the flesh.
You are not in the flesh; you are in Christ. You are no longer independent of God; you have declared your dependence upon Him by placing faith in Christ. But even though you are not in the flesh, you may still choose to walk according to the flesh (Romans 8:12, 13). You may still act independently of God by responding to the mind-set, patterns and habits ingrained in you by the world you lived in. Paul rebuked the immature Corinthian Christians as "fleshly" because of their expressions of jealousy, strife, division and misplaced identity (1 Corinthians 3:1-3). He listed the evidences of fleshly living in Galatians 5:19-21. Unbelievers can't help but live according to the flesh because they are totally in the flesh. But your old skipper is gone. You are no longer in the flesh and you no longer need to live according to its desires.
Getting rid of the old self was God's responsibility, but rendering the flesh and its deeds inoperative is our responsibility (Romans 8:12). God has changed your nature, but it's your responsibility to change your behavior by "putting to death the deeds of the body" (Romans 8:13). You will gain victory over the flesh by learning to condition your behavior after your new skipper, your new self which is infused with the nature of Christ, and learning to transform your old pattern for thinking and responding to your sin-trained flesh by renewing your mind (Romans 12:2).
Prayer:
Lord, knowing that I am no longer controlled by sin is such a liberating concept. I can walk today in freedom from my old self, the world system, and the devil. Praise Your name!
A careful distinction must be made concerning your relationship to the flesh as a Christian. There is a difference in Scripture between being in the flesh and walking according to the flesh. As a Christian, you are no longer in the flesh. That phrase describes people who are still spiritually dead (Romans 8:8), those who live independently of God. Everything they do, whether morally good or bad, is in the flesh.
You are not in the flesh; you are in Christ. You are no longer independent of God; you have declared your dependence upon Him by placing faith in Christ. But even though you are not in the flesh, you may still choose to walk according to the flesh (Romans 8:12, 13). You may still act independently of God by responding to the mind-set, patterns and habits ingrained in you by the world you lived in. Paul rebuked the immature Corinthian Christians as "fleshly" because of their expressions of jealousy, strife, division and misplaced identity (1 Corinthians 3:1-3). He listed the evidences of fleshly living in Galatians 5:19-21. Unbelievers can't help but live according to the flesh because they are totally in the flesh. But your old skipper is gone. You are no longer in the flesh and you no longer need to live according to its desires.
Getting rid of the old self was God's responsibility, but rendering the flesh and its deeds inoperative is our responsibility (Romans 8:12). God has changed your nature, but it's your responsibility to change your behavior by "putting to death the deeds of the body" (Romans 8:13). You will gain victory over the flesh by learning to condition your behavior after your new skipper, your new self which is infused with the nature of Christ, and learning to transform your old pattern for thinking and responding to your sin-trained flesh by renewing your mind (Romans 12:2).
Prayer:
Lord, knowing that I am no longer controlled by sin is such a liberating concept. I can walk today in freedom from my old self, the world system, and the devil. Praise Your name!
Thursday, February 14, 2008
The Discipline of Hearing- by Oswald Chambers
Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops —Matthew 10:27
Sometimes God puts us through the experience and discipline of darkness to teach us to hear and obey Him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and God puts us into "the shadow of His hand" until we learn to hear Him (Isaiah 49:2 ). "Whatever I tell you in the dark. . ."— pay attention when God puts you into darkness, and keep your mouth closed while you are there. Are you in the dark right now in your circumstances, or in your life with God? If so, then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will speak while in the wrong mood— darkness is the time to listen. Don’t talk to other people about it; don’t read books to find out the reason for the darkness; just listen and obey. If you talk to other people, you cannot hear what God is saying. When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message for someone else once you are back in the light.
After every time of darkness, we should experience a mixture of delight and humiliation. If there is only delight, I question whether we have really heard God at all. We should experience delight for having heard God speak, but mostly humiliation for having taken so long to hear Him! Then we will exclaim, "How slow I have been to listen and understand what God has been telling me!" And yet God has been saying it for days and even weeks. But once you hear Him, He gives you the gift of humiliation, which brings a softness of heart— a gift that will always cause you to listen to God now.
http://www.rbc.org/utmost/index.php
Sometimes God puts us through the experience and discipline of darkness to teach us to hear and obey Him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and God puts us into "the shadow of His hand" until we learn to hear Him (Isaiah 49:2 ). "Whatever I tell you in the dark. . ."— pay attention when God puts you into darkness, and keep your mouth closed while you are there. Are you in the dark right now in your circumstances, or in your life with God? If so, then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will speak while in the wrong mood— darkness is the time to listen. Don’t talk to other people about it; don’t read books to find out the reason for the darkness; just listen and obey. If you talk to other people, you cannot hear what God is saying. When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message for someone else once you are back in the light.
After every time of darkness, we should experience a mixture of delight and humiliation. If there is only delight, I question whether we have really heard God at all. We should experience delight for having heard God speak, but mostly humiliation for having taken so long to hear Him! Then we will exclaim, "How slow I have been to listen and understand what God has been telling me!" And yet God has been saying it for days and even weeks. But once you hear Him, He gives you the gift of humiliation, which brings a softness of heart— a gift that will always cause you to listen to God now.
http://www.rbc.org/utmost/index.php
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Is The Church a Facilitator of Programs?
As I watch God change the lives of men and women, I am troubled that they then seem to be directed- by the church- to the program that seems to best suit their "need". It seems to me that "The Church" should be "the program"... meaning that they should be encouraged, discipled and given pastoral care. Who should do this? Us... you and me and the church leadeship. How should we do this? By befriending, teaching and caring for them.
I am discouraged when our best advice is to send "them" to the program which has a name which fits their past. Are they not new creations?.. are they not now a "sibling in Christ"? Do we treat them as a family member... or a patient?
The Bible teaches that once God "saves us", He then sees us as His child... along with the many others who have responded to His call to "be saved". The Bible teaches us that we are to find fellowship with like minded individuals... not those who have a common background, but those who have a common future (and a common present... children of God). The Bible teaches that those who have been saved are to invite others to join the family of God... and to then to disciple them. The church has fallen into a complacency which requires programs and therapists to fix "their family members"... or do nothing at all! What kind of comfort is in that? What kind of family is that? Let us stop "sending them away"... to the "place where they belong" and lets make them feel like part of a family... in the Church.
I am discouraged when our best advice is to send "them" to the program which has a name which fits their past. Are they not new creations?.. are they not now a "sibling in Christ"? Do we treat them as a family member... or a patient?
The Bible teaches that once God "saves us", He then sees us as His child... along with the many others who have responded to His call to "be saved". The Bible teaches us that we are to find fellowship with like minded individuals... not those who have a common background, but those who have a common future (and a common present... children of God). The Bible teaches that those who have been saved are to invite others to join the family of God... and to then to disciple them. The church has fallen into a complacency which requires programs and therapists to fix "their family members"... or do nothing at all! What kind of comfort is in that? What kind of family is that? Let us stop "sending them away"... to the "place where they belong" and lets make them feel like part of a family... in the Church.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
thoughts about the "12 steps"
but first... from the Holman Bible Dictionary...
Religion:
"Relationship of devotion... to God... or gods (of your understanding)..."
Church:
"an assembly, local body of believers (in redemption thru Jesus only), or the universal body of all believers"
"The Church and the World"
"The Bible presents the church as sharply distinct from the world. The church is to be composed of regenerate believers called out of a world hostile to the gospel of Christ. As such, the church is called to confront with the reality of coming judgement and the gospel of redemption through Christ (only). The Bible presents the church as an alternative society, called to countercultural life in The Spirit."
my thoughts:
As I witness "the church" embracing worldly organizations such as Alcoholics Anonymous, and the 12 steps- which will be forever inextricably linked to A.A... I am perplexed as to how one can match up the formation of the 12 steps with the teachings of Jesus. I watch people suggest that it (A.A.) is not a religion... then hear them base their sole sufficiency in "the god of their understanding"... thus the practice of religion (according to the Holman dictionary). I am confused as to how we can be "called out of a hostile world" yet adopt their practices as equal to that of the church. How can we be "yoked" to the practices of the world and at the same time be "separated". Are we so desperate to coerce people to look to Jesus that we have to massage their view of a Holy God? Throuout history people have tried to make God and the church more palatable for those who need Christ... yet my observation is that it only leads to "easy beliveism" (which really only hurts the one who thinks now they are ok with God) and a blurred line of demarcation between true believers and the world. (see above "The Church and the World")
The further attempt to integrate the 12 steps of A.A. with the Bible I find to be nothing more than offensive to the Gospel of Jesus.
I strongly encourage anyone who is involved with, or entertaining involvment with, worldly practice, and attempting to integrate it into their Christian life to heed the words of the Bible instead! I could recite verse after verse... but my challenge is not to hastily write a rebuttal, but to spend your own time investigating the very word itself!
please download this e-book and read:
http://www.psychoheresy-aware.org/12stepsbk_online.html
Friday, December 21, 2007
Drunkard/Alcoholic-- is there a difference
20 YEARS A DRUNKARD BUT NEVER AN ALCOHOLIC... IS THERE A DIFFERENCE?
testimony by Gerwin McFarland
(this is a lengthy article... but well worth the read)
Back in my drinking days when someone in a bar asked what the difference was between a drunk and an alcoholic, I’d grin and reply, “us drunks don’t have to go to meetings.” That was when I was a practicing and experienced drinker, in my late thirties. However, there truly is a difference and I’ll begin by stating my definition of drunkard: anyone who drinks four or more alcoholic beverages every day and gets drunk three or more times each month. I secretly knew that drinking was a problem for me but I kept right on making jokes and continuing in such foolishness, until I hit bottom. I’m certain that all drunkards have reached that lowest point of all lows and have chosen to deal with the problem in a variety of ways: some continue in the same destructive lifestyle; others try to quit on their own and still others try the way of the “recovery movement.” The path that I eventually chose did not happen instantly but began with the moment that I finally decided to do something positive about my messed-up life. However, within a few short years it would enable me to say that I was a former drunkard! If you are a potential problem drinker, I hope that you’ll read my story and be encouraged to strive for a new and better life. That life-changing day for me began early on a morning not unlike hundreds of others that I had experienced in recent years. It was similar in that I knew that I had been really blitzed the night before: foul taste in my mouth, pounding headache, that tired, achy feeling all over and the shame of not remembering any details of the last hour or so before I passed out. But this particular morning was far worse because of two other things: I was 38 years old and should have been at home with my wife and four kids but instead had been kicked out of that home the day before. That was my major problem as I awoke about 5:30 a.m. Adding to my shame, I was in my car and it was parked in the driveway of a home that I’d never seen before! After starting the car, I backed out, drove to the nearest intersection and discovered that I was about eight blocks from my favorite tavern in Moses Lake, Washington. I drove to a restaurant and was thankful that there were only a few customers there as I quickly made my way to the men’s room. As I washed my face and straightened out my hair I saw the lump on my right forehead and the bruises and scratches on my right cheek. Because I also had very sore spots on my right elbow and shoulder, I assumed that I had taken a bad fall the previous night, in the tavern or on the way to my car. I also guessed that I had then been driving around, deciding where to spend the night when I had probably spotted a police car and ducked off the main drag, parking temporarily in that driveway where I’d awakened. With engine and lights off, I had probably stared at the rear view mirror and decided to wait and watch for the patrol car for a few minutes but instead had passed out. Leaving the men’s room, I ordered a cup of coffee to go and returned to my car. I sat in the car, sipping the coffee and pondering these recent events in my life: my wife informing me that she had started divorce proceedings and that I had to leave the home, according to the legal notice she handed me, signed by the Grant County Sheriff. She had packed all my clothes and personal belongings in a suitcase and smaller bag, which were now in the trunk of the car along with the legal document. I drove to a fast-food place and had more coffee and a breakfast sandwich as I continued this review of the most recent events in my life. How did my life get so messed up? By my third cup of coffee, my mind was in fast reverse to 1949, the summer following my graduation from high school in Grants Pass, Oregon. I had only drunk beer three or four times during high school but did not care for the taste of it. I joined the Army when I was 17. After basic training and clerk-typist school, I was assigned to Tokyo, Japan, serving in General Headquarters, Far East Command, under the command of General Douglas Macarthur. One week after I arrived in Tokyo, the Korean War began. During my stateside training periods I had drunk beer several nights a month and gradually developed a taste for it. After a few months in Tokyo I had several friends, mostly from the same office that I worked in. We all enjoyed drinking beer, some a bit more than others, but in a year or so I was up to speed with the “regular” drinkers. I got buzzed frequently and quite drunk several times a month. I was discharged a few months before my 21st birthday and spent less than two years at the University of Oregon before quitting and going to work in the consumer finance business. I had been one of the “party animals” in college, heading for Robinson’s Tavern or spontaneous parties as often as I could afford it, However, I was now a young married man working for modest wages. My wife and I attended parties about once a month and I did moderate social drinking with business associates a couple of times per month. In retrospect, my drinking habits then were drastically different than when I had been in the army. Now, as a young, married career man, my drinking “hobby” was curtailed primarily by insufficient income. By age 33, there were major changes in my life. I had been divorced, remarried and found myself living in the small town of Ephrata, Washington. I was a finance man in the construction business. It was there that I eventually got into the sales of farm buildings and began earning more income. I also began drinking more. It was during this period that I became a “working drunk,” that is to say I got up every weekday, went to work and earned an adequate income. But my hours away from work were heavily involved with drinking and it was beginning to take its toll on my life in several ways. I had been involved in commission sales for about 5 years but now I was bringing less income home for two reasons: I was not working as effectively as I had earlier in my sales career and I was spending more money on booze, sometimes during weekdays. In addition, my marriage was also deteriorating, primarily because of my drunkenness. My wife also enjoyed drinking, but not to the life-dominating extent that I did. At this point in our life, we were arguing fairly often. I frequently abused her verbally, especially on those nights that we had both been drinking. I was having problems in several areas of my life but ignoring them all. I was jolted into a reality check when I was required to move out of the home. And here I was the next morning, finishing a fast-food breakfast, reminiscing over my life history and wishing I could live it all over again. Over the next week I arranged to move in temporarily with an acquaintance from the tavern. I also decided to greatly reduce the quantities of my daily drinking. Instead of drinking from about 4:00 p.m. until bedtime (euphemism for “passing out”) I would stop at the tavern after work for three beers and then fix something for dinner at my friend’s place. About 8:30, I would stroll back to the tavern for a couple of more beers, winding up in bed sober before 10:00 p.m. I loved our four children but had lost daily contact with them, being relegated instead to weekly visits for a few hours. I also loved my wife and told her so in a phone conversation a couple of weeks after moving out. I also told her about the drastic cuts in my drinking habits. I begged her to give me another chance, but she wanted no part of me. I hated this domestic mess I was now in but recognized that I had brought it upon myself. Drunk, sober, or somewhere in between, I found myself weeping on many nights. I also finally acknowledged to myself that booze was my major problem and that I could not “cut down” on the amounts consumed but had to quit entirely. I meant it and made that very difficult decision to quit altogether, but knew that such a major transition would be quite difficult. We had become “slightly religious” during the last few years of our marriage, attending a Lutheran church in Ephrata, Washington, once or twice a month. We’d each been exposed to Christianity as children but had lost any serious interest by junior high school. As married adults, we expressed belief in God but had never seriously investigated Him. There were a few men in that church we occasionally attended that I considered to be “fanatics.” They brought their own Bibles to church. They spoke about the Lord, in restaurants and other public places, as though they actually knew Him! They were never embarrassed about saying “praise the Lord” in public. I didn’t understand such activity and wanted nothing to do with them. However, when it finally began to sink in that I was not going to talk my wife into reconciliation, I recognized that I had “hit bottom” in life and knew that I needed help. I decided that I wanted to know more about God and found myself calling one of those “fanatics.” We talked a lot in his home the next night and almost daily thereafter, frequently with one or two of those other “fanatics.” They were helpful and kind, answering my questions and praying with me. One of them gave me a Bible and I began reading select chapters daily. By this time, I had moved back to Ephrata (about 20 miles from Moses Lake) and rented a small room. Some of what I read in the Bible each day confused me, resulting in my always having questions for them when we met. They also explained the Gospel of the kingdom of God. Very briefly, it is “bad news and good news.” BAD NEWS: You are a sinner. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” – Romans 3:23; “The wages of sin is death (eternal separation from God).” – Romans 6:23. GOOD NEWS: Christ died for you. “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” – Romans 5:8. You can be saved through faith. “For by grace you have been saved (delivered from the penalty of sin) through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, that no one should boast.” – Ephesians 2:8, 9. In other words, there is absolutely nothing that we can do which would be righteous enough to cancel out our debt of sin and to reconcile our separation from God How about being kind, honest and loving? Sorry, and neither will membership in a particular church. (More on that subject later) God is Love but He is also Just. For all those who are now in a correct relationship with Him, such status was attained only by the Grace of God, because of their repentant faith in God and their acknowledgment of the atoning work of the sacrificial death of Jesus for their sins. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf…” (II Corinthians 5:21) As an adult, I had never been agnostic. I held a vague belief in God but had simply been indifferent towards Him, to the extent that I had never learned about Him and what, if any, were my responsibilities towards Him; and I hadn’t learned much more during the one or two sermons we heard each month at that church in Ephrata. I had been meeting with these godly men (the “fanatics”) for breakfast and/or a morning prayer several times a week for about a month when it all began to make sense to me. Late in April of 1971, I made a commitment to Jesus and asked Him to become the Lord of my life and to forgive me of my sins. On the night of my 39th birthday (May 9, 1971), I had been in my room reading the Bible, praying and reviewing the events of my life in recent years. Foremost on my mind were the divorce proceedings, my many talks with these men and my recent commitment to Jesus. That night was the first time that the Holy Spirit revealed something to me. He showed me (in my heart) that my “commitment” had been half-hearted, with strings attached. Specifically, that I was only interested in getting my family back, although I was serious about giving up drinking. I kneeled at my bedside and acknowledged all this. I also confessed to the heavenly Father that I was a sinner and knew that my major problem in life was not booze but the fact that I was separated from Him by sin and therefore destined to spend eternity in hell. I repented of my sins and asked Him to forgive me in Jesus’ name. I also asked Jesus to be the Lord of my life and to assist me in being obedient to Him and His written Word, both outwardly and in my heart. I was now born again, having been born from above. “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13)
It took a couple of days for the results of this act to fully sink in. I then knew what it meant to be “set free” in Jesus. “and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.” (John 8:32) He had paid my debt of sin on the cross of Calvary. He was my Lord, raised from the dead, and His Spirit indwelt me. I was going to spend eternity with God! I had been forgiven by God for all my sins. I was now going to experience new life in Christ Jesus. I couldn’t wait to tell my wife, thinking that she would not only be delighted for me, but inclined to discuss reconciliation. Boy was I in for a surprise! She believed me but was skeptical, based on her unpleasant life with me in recent years. She was happy for me about my recent personal decisions but not enough to change her mind, and proceeded with the divorce. In retrospect, I cannot fault her decision. I settled into my new life, starting each day with a time of reading the Bible and praying. The Lord built me into a fellowship of true believers from all walks of life. My closest friendships were with a few people in that Lutheran church; later, I developed other close friendships through a non-denominational men’s group that met each week for breakfast. Several years later, in Orange County, California, I learned that in some very large congregations, there were special group meetings whose focus was dealing with the problems of alcohol abuse. All who attended were either true believers who Jesus had delivered from drunkenness or were serious inquirers into Christianity, who currently were dealing with the sin of drunkenness. These groups were sort of a Christian version of an AA meeting. I attended a few of them but eventually decided that all new converts were far better off by simply getting fully involved in a fellowship that taught and practiced sound doctrine. Before we were redeemed, we all had sins which had “easily entrapped us” [Hebrews 12:1]. Why should new or old believers spend a lot of time dwelling on that past sin in a group setting? I believe that the key to Christian growth is to be built into a fellowship that teaches and practices sound doctrine, based solely on the Bible. We can grow in knowledge there and eventually be able to help others who are struggling with sin. I was enjoying learning more about the Kingdom of God and looked forward to a regular prayer meeting that I had begun attending each week as well as spontaneous meetings after dinner at some of my new friends’ homes, plus church on Sunday. Sunday was my best day, beginning with picking up my children in the morning. We were always glad to see each other and then off to Sunday school and church. During the summer, we would have picnics in a park after church and other times lunch in my little apartment, followed by other fun activities. Like most problem drinkers, I had been drinking more each year than in previous years. For example, at age 29 I was drinking 8-10 beers each evening, stopping at dinnertime. Then I started having liquor before dinner and wine with dinner. By the time I was 38, I was drinking beer and/or liquor after work and before dinner, then wine during and after dinner. I once measured my daily consumption by “proof ounces,” and determined that my total daily consumption of all alcohol [age 38] was about the equivalent of one quart of liquor per day. Because of this continual, daily intake, I had been extremely nervous on my first day of abstaining from booze. The temptation to drink was strong but I had been praying a lot and the Lord helped me to resist temptation. Things were a little better the second day; also the third. After two weeks I felt like a new man, physically, emotionally and spiritually. I was drawing much closer to God and the Bible was becoming a little easier to understand. I learned from my mentors that this was due to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. In spite of my enjoyment of this new life, I did have a problem with “backsliding” during my first few years as a True Believer. There had been countless temptations to drink and I resisted most of them with the Lord’s help, but fell off the wagon about one month after my conversion. I got drunk on a Friday night and continued drinking Saturday afternoon and night. I stopped by Sunday but did the same thing a couple of months later. I “fell off” about 5 times during the first year and 4 during the second year. During the third year of my new life in Jesus I noticed that the time elapsing between these incidents got further and further apart. After abstaining for 16 months during a period that began in 1976, there were a couple of incidents in 1977 and I got drunk for the last time on January 2, 1978. “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the Kingdom of God.” (I Corinthians 6:9,10) Now read the incredible freedom expressed in verse eleven: “Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” Thanks be unto you, Most High God. I am not a drunkard, but a former drunkard! “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come” (II Corinthians 5:17) I now believe sincerely that if I had persevered in prayer during those major times of temptation during my first few years as a believer, that the incidents of backsliding would have been far fewer. However, for over thirty years I have been rejoicing , not because I am a former drunkard, but that my name has been written in the Lamb’s book of Life [Luke 10:20]. How about you? After reading all the above scriptures and my testimony, are you ready to acknowledge that you are separated from God by sin? He loves you and His mercies never come to an end! Repent, turn to Him and ask for His forgiveness, in Jesus’ name. However, if you are still not convinced but know that something is wrong between you and the Creator of the universe, then consider this brave agnostic’s prayer. “God, if you are real, I want to know you! Please reveal Yourself to me as I read a portion of the Bible”. Then, read the Gospel of John and the Book of Romans. If you are sincere in that prayer and your search for Him, you will know [in your heart] within a short time that He and His Word are the truth! Then, you must make a decision --- either to accept His loving offer in repentant faith, receive his forgiveness and to spend eternity with Him, or to remain in your present state, destined to experience the wrath of God for eternity. Some reading this will think that it does not apply to them because they are not sinners but good persons. Well, you probably are, if you compare yourself to other human beings. But God will not judge you by Man’s standards. He holds all of us accountable to His standards of righteousness, declared in writing in the Bible: His Word. According to that, we have ALL sinned and NONE is righteous. While it is impossible for any of us to attain righteousness in our own strength, in His love and mercy He has made a way -- the atonement for all of our sins by the sacrifice of Jesus, the Lamb of God, on Calvary. That sacrifice was made for all in the world who would believe on Him. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3:16) Still others reading this may think that they’re okay with God because they’re members of a major Protestant denomination, or the Roman Catholic Church, or the Mormon Church. If you are thinking that way, think again. In effect, you have examined God’s plan for the eternal redemption of your soul and are saying, “well, that’s nice God, but I’m just as comfortable with the ‘membership route.” What blasphemous audacity! There are NO acceptable substitutions for His way, regardless of the religious rituals and sacraments that you may be practicing. “Church membership,” or church attendance, will not atone for the sins that separate you from God. You must be born again! "Jesus answered and said to him, 'Truly, truly, I say to you unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.' Then Nicodemus said to Him, 'How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born can he?' Jesus answered, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.'” (John 3: 3-6) Still others may think that they’re okay with God because they answered an altar call 20 years ago[for example] and said the “sinner’s prayer.” That’s good, if you’re following Him in a walk of faith and obedience now, but if you’re still living the same old life you did before you said that sinners prayer in the past, that is evidence that you really don’t believe. [See the explanation of the parable of the sower, Matthew 13:20-22]. I described my definition of “drunkard” early in this article. I will finish with my definition of alcoholic: drunkards who have given themselves a new name with a nice, clinical ring to it and who are indeed victims --- not of alcohol, but a belief system that is contrary to God’s Word. Here’s another way to look at it: whereas Jesus offers hope, freedom and eternal life, the “Recovery” system offers not only victimhood but absolutely no hope, in this life or eternity!
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Their book goes into greater detail about the ungodly origins of the “12 Step” programs including the so-called “disease” of Codependency. More information about their books is available at http://www.psychoheresy-aware.org/
testimony by Gerwin McFarland
(this is a lengthy article... but well worth the read)
Back in my drinking days when someone in a bar asked what the difference was between a drunk and an alcoholic, I’d grin and reply, “us drunks don’t have to go to meetings.” That was when I was a practicing and experienced drinker, in my late thirties. However, there truly is a difference and I’ll begin by stating my definition of drunkard: anyone who drinks four or more alcoholic beverages every day and gets drunk three or more times each month. I secretly knew that drinking was a problem for me but I kept right on making jokes and continuing in such foolishness, until I hit bottom. I’m certain that all drunkards have reached that lowest point of all lows and have chosen to deal with the problem in a variety of ways: some continue in the same destructive lifestyle; others try to quit on their own and still others try the way of the “recovery movement.” The path that I eventually chose did not happen instantly but began with the moment that I finally decided to do something positive about my messed-up life. However, within a few short years it would enable me to say that I was a former drunkard! If you are a potential problem drinker, I hope that you’ll read my story and be encouraged to strive for a new and better life. That life-changing day for me began early on a morning not unlike hundreds of others that I had experienced in recent years. It was similar in that I knew that I had been really blitzed the night before: foul taste in my mouth, pounding headache, that tired, achy feeling all over and the shame of not remembering any details of the last hour or so before I passed out. But this particular morning was far worse because of two other things: I was 38 years old and should have been at home with my wife and four kids but instead had been kicked out of that home the day before. That was my major problem as I awoke about 5:30 a.m. Adding to my shame, I was in my car and it was parked in the driveway of a home that I’d never seen before! After starting the car, I backed out, drove to the nearest intersection and discovered that I was about eight blocks from my favorite tavern in Moses Lake, Washington. I drove to a restaurant and was thankful that there were only a few customers there as I quickly made my way to the men’s room. As I washed my face and straightened out my hair I saw the lump on my right forehead and the bruises and scratches on my right cheek. Because I also had very sore spots on my right elbow and shoulder, I assumed that I had taken a bad fall the previous night, in the tavern or on the way to my car. I also guessed that I had then been driving around, deciding where to spend the night when I had probably spotted a police car and ducked off the main drag, parking temporarily in that driveway where I’d awakened. With engine and lights off, I had probably stared at the rear view mirror and decided to wait and watch for the patrol car for a few minutes but instead had passed out. Leaving the men’s room, I ordered a cup of coffee to go and returned to my car. I sat in the car, sipping the coffee and pondering these recent events in my life: my wife informing me that she had started divorce proceedings and that I had to leave the home, according to the legal notice she handed me, signed by the Grant County Sheriff. She had packed all my clothes and personal belongings in a suitcase and smaller bag, which were now in the trunk of the car along with the legal document. I drove to a fast-food place and had more coffee and a breakfast sandwich as I continued this review of the most recent events in my life. How did my life get so messed up? By my third cup of coffee, my mind was in fast reverse to 1949, the summer following my graduation from high school in Grants Pass, Oregon. I had only drunk beer three or four times during high school but did not care for the taste of it. I joined the Army when I was 17. After basic training and clerk-typist school, I was assigned to Tokyo, Japan, serving in General Headquarters, Far East Command, under the command of General Douglas Macarthur. One week after I arrived in Tokyo, the Korean War began. During my stateside training periods I had drunk beer several nights a month and gradually developed a taste for it. After a few months in Tokyo I had several friends, mostly from the same office that I worked in. We all enjoyed drinking beer, some a bit more than others, but in a year or so I was up to speed with the “regular” drinkers. I got buzzed frequently and quite drunk several times a month. I was discharged a few months before my 21st birthday and spent less than two years at the University of Oregon before quitting and going to work in the consumer finance business. I had been one of the “party animals” in college, heading for Robinson’s Tavern or spontaneous parties as often as I could afford it, However, I was now a young married man working for modest wages. My wife and I attended parties about once a month and I did moderate social drinking with business associates a couple of times per month. In retrospect, my drinking habits then were drastically different than when I had been in the army. Now, as a young, married career man, my drinking “hobby” was curtailed primarily by insufficient income. By age 33, there were major changes in my life. I had been divorced, remarried and found myself living in the small town of Ephrata, Washington. I was a finance man in the construction business. It was there that I eventually got into the sales of farm buildings and began earning more income. I also began drinking more. It was during this period that I became a “working drunk,” that is to say I got up every weekday, went to work and earned an adequate income. But my hours away from work were heavily involved with drinking and it was beginning to take its toll on my life in several ways. I had been involved in commission sales for about 5 years but now I was bringing less income home for two reasons: I was not working as effectively as I had earlier in my sales career and I was spending more money on booze, sometimes during weekdays. In addition, my marriage was also deteriorating, primarily because of my drunkenness. My wife also enjoyed drinking, but not to the life-dominating extent that I did. At this point in our life, we were arguing fairly often. I frequently abused her verbally, especially on those nights that we had both been drinking. I was having problems in several areas of my life but ignoring them all. I was jolted into a reality check when I was required to move out of the home. And here I was the next morning, finishing a fast-food breakfast, reminiscing over my life history and wishing I could live it all over again. Over the next week I arranged to move in temporarily with an acquaintance from the tavern. I also decided to greatly reduce the quantities of my daily drinking. Instead of drinking from about 4:00 p.m. until bedtime (euphemism for “passing out”) I would stop at the tavern after work for three beers and then fix something for dinner at my friend’s place. About 8:30, I would stroll back to the tavern for a couple of more beers, winding up in bed sober before 10:00 p.m. I loved our four children but had lost daily contact with them, being relegated instead to weekly visits for a few hours. I also loved my wife and told her so in a phone conversation a couple of weeks after moving out. I also told her about the drastic cuts in my drinking habits. I begged her to give me another chance, but she wanted no part of me. I hated this domestic mess I was now in but recognized that I had brought it upon myself. Drunk, sober, or somewhere in between, I found myself weeping on many nights. I also finally acknowledged to myself that booze was my major problem and that I could not “cut down” on the amounts consumed but had to quit entirely. I meant it and made that very difficult decision to quit altogether, but knew that such a major transition would be quite difficult. We had become “slightly religious” during the last few years of our marriage, attending a Lutheran church in Ephrata, Washington, once or twice a month. We’d each been exposed to Christianity as children but had lost any serious interest by junior high school. As married adults, we expressed belief in God but had never seriously investigated Him. There were a few men in that church we occasionally attended that I considered to be “fanatics.” They brought their own Bibles to church. They spoke about the Lord, in restaurants and other public places, as though they actually knew Him! They were never embarrassed about saying “praise the Lord” in public. I didn’t understand such activity and wanted nothing to do with them. However, when it finally began to sink in that I was not going to talk my wife into reconciliation, I recognized that I had “hit bottom” in life and knew that I needed help. I decided that I wanted to know more about God and found myself calling one of those “fanatics.” We talked a lot in his home the next night and almost daily thereafter, frequently with one or two of those other “fanatics.” They were helpful and kind, answering my questions and praying with me. One of them gave me a Bible and I began reading select chapters daily. By this time, I had moved back to Ephrata (about 20 miles from Moses Lake) and rented a small room. Some of what I read in the Bible each day confused me, resulting in my always having questions for them when we met. They also explained the Gospel of the kingdom of God. Very briefly, it is “bad news and good news.” BAD NEWS: You are a sinner. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” – Romans 3:23; “The wages of sin is death (eternal separation from God).” – Romans 6:23. GOOD NEWS: Christ died for you. “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” – Romans 5:8. You can be saved through faith. “For by grace you have been saved (delivered from the penalty of sin) through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, that no one should boast.” – Ephesians 2:8, 9. In other words, there is absolutely nothing that we can do which would be righteous enough to cancel out our debt of sin and to reconcile our separation from God How about being kind, honest and loving? Sorry, and neither will membership in a particular church. (More on that subject later) God is Love but He is also Just. For all those who are now in a correct relationship with Him, such status was attained only by the Grace of God, because of their repentant faith in God and their acknowledgment of the atoning work of the sacrificial death of Jesus for their sins. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf…” (II Corinthians 5:21) As an adult, I had never been agnostic. I held a vague belief in God but had simply been indifferent towards Him, to the extent that I had never learned about Him and what, if any, were my responsibilities towards Him; and I hadn’t learned much more during the one or two sermons we heard each month at that church in Ephrata. I had been meeting with these godly men (the “fanatics”) for breakfast and/or a morning prayer several times a week for about a month when it all began to make sense to me. Late in April of 1971, I made a commitment to Jesus and asked Him to become the Lord of my life and to forgive me of my sins. On the night of my 39th birthday (May 9, 1971), I had been in my room reading the Bible, praying and reviewing the events of my life in recent years. Foremost on my mind were the divorce proceedings, my many talks with these men and my recent commitment to Jesus. That night was the first time that the Holy Spirit revealed something to me. He showed me (in my heart) that my “commitment” had been half-hearted, with strings attached. Specifically, that I was only interested in getting my family back, although I was serious about giving up drinking. I kneeled at my bedside and acknowledged all this. I also confessed to the heavenly Father that I was a sinner and knew that my major problem in life was not booze but the fact that I was separated from Him by sin and therefore destined to spend eternity in hell. I repented of my sins and asked Him to forgive me in Jesus’ name. I also asked Jesus to be the Lord of my life and to assist me in being obedient to Him and His written Word, both outwardly and in my heart. I was now born again, having been born from above. “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13)
It took a couple of days for the results of this act to fully sink in. I then knew what it meant to be “set free” in Jesus. “and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.” (John 8:32) He had paid my debt of sin on the cross of Calvary. He was my Lord, raised from the dead, and His Spirit indwelt me. I was going to spend eternity with God! I had been forgiven by God for all my sins. I was now going to experience new life in Christ Jesus. I couldn’t wait to tell my wife, thinking that she would not only be delighted for me, but inclined to discuss reconciliation. Boy was I in for a surprise! She believed me but was skeptical, based on her unpleasant life with me in recent years. She was happy for me about my recent personal decisions but not enough to change her mind, and proceeded with the divorce. In retrospect, I cannot fault her decision. I settled into my new life, starting each day with a time of reading the Bible and praying. The Lord built me into a fellowship of true believers from all walks of life. My closest friendships were with a few people in that Lutheran church; later, I developed other close friendships through a non-denominational men’s group that met each week for breakfast. Several years later, in Orange County, California, I learned that in some very large congregations, there were special group meetings whose focus was dealing with the problems of alcohol abuse. All who attended were either true believers who Jesus had delivered from drunkenness or were serious inquirers into Christianity, who currently were dealing with the sin of drunkenness. These groups were sort of a Christian version of an AA meeting. I attended a few of them but eventually decided that all new converts were far better off by simply getting fully involved in a fellowship that taught and practiced sound doctrine. Before we were redeemed, we all had sins which had “easily entrapped us” [Hebrews 12:1]. Why should new or old believers spend a lot of time dwelling on that past sin in a group setting? I believe that the key to Christian growth is to be built into a fellowship that teaches and practices sound doctrine, based solely on the Bible. We can grow in knowledge there and eventually be able to help others who are struggling with sin. I was enjoying learning more about the Kingdom of God and looked forward to a regular prayer meeting that I had begun attending each week as well as spontaneous meetings after dinner at some of my new friends’ homes, plus church on Sunday. Sunday was my best day, beginning with picking up my children in the morning. We were always glad to see each other and then off to Sunday school and church. During the summer, we would have picnics in a park after church and other times lunch in my little apartment, followed by other fun activities. Like most problem drinkers, I had been drinking more each year than in previous years. For example, at age 29 I was drinking 8-10 beers each evening, stopping at dinnertime. Then I started having liquor before dinner and wine with dinner. By the time I was 38, I was drinking beer and/or liquor after work and before dinner, then wine during and after dinner. I once measured my daily consumption by “proof ounces,” and determined that my total daily consumption of all alcohol [age 38] was about the equivalent of one quart of liquor per day. Because of this continual, daily intake, I had been extremely nervous on my first day of abstaining from booze. The temptation to drink was strong but I had been praying a lot and the Lord helped me to resist temptation. Things were a little better the second day; also the third. After two weeks I felt like a new man, physically, emotionally and spiritually. I was drawing much closer to God and the Bible was becoming a little easier to understand. I learned from my mentors that this was due to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. In spite of my enjoyment of this new life, I did have a problem with “backsliding” during my first few years as a True Believer. There had been countless temptations to drink and I resisted most of them with the Lord’s help, but fell off the wagon about one month after my conversion. I got drunk on a Friday night and continued drinking Saturday afternoon and night. I stopped by Sunday but did the same thing a couple of months later. I “fell off” about 5 times during the first year and 4 during the second year. During the third year of my new life in Jesus I noticed that the time elapsing between these incidents got further and further apart. After abstaining for 16 months during a period that began in 1976, there were a couple of incidents in 1977 and I got drunk for the last time on January 2, 1978. “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the Kingdom of God.” (I Corinthians 6:9,10) Now read the incredible freedom expressed in verse eleven: “Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” Thanks be unto you, Most High God. I am not a drunkard, but a former drunkard! “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come” (II Corinthians 5:17) I now believe sincerely that if I had persevered in prayer during those major times of temptation during my first few years as a believer, that the incidents of backsliding would have been far fewer. However, for over thirty years I have been rejoicing , not because I am a former drunkard, but that my name has been written in the Lamb’s book of Life [Luke 10:20]. How about you? After reading all the above scriptures and my testimony, are you ready to acknowledge that you are separated from God by sin? He loves you and His mercies never come to an end! Repent, turn to Him and ask for His forgiveness, in Jesus’ name. However, if you are still not convinced but know that something is wrong between you and the Creator of the universe, then consider this brave agnostic’s prayer. “God, if you are real, I want to know you! Please reveal Yourself to me as I read a portion of the Bible”. Then, read the Gospel of John and the Book of Romans. If you are sincere in that prayer and your search for Him, you will know [in your heart] within a short time that He and His Word are the truth! Then, you must make a decision --- either to accept His loving offer in repentant faith, receive his forgiveness and to spend eternity with Him, or to remain in your present state, destined to experience the wrath of God for eternity. Some reading this will think that it does not apply to them because they are not sinners but good persons. Well, you probably are, if you compare yourself to other human beings. But God will not judge you by Man’s standards. He holds all of us accountable to His standards of righteousness, declared in writing in the Bible: His Word. According to that, we have ALL sinned and NONE is righteous. While it is impossible for any of us to attain righteousness in our own strength, in His love and mercy He has made a way -- the atonement for all of our sins by the sacrifice of Jesus, the Lamb of God, on Calvary. That sacrifice was made for all in the world who would believe on Him. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3:16) Still others reading this may think that they’re okay with God because they’re members of a major Protestant denomination, or the Roman Catholic Church, or the Mormon Church. If you are thinking that way, think again. In effect, you have examined God’s plan for the eternal redemption of your soul and are saying, “well, that’s nice God, but I’m just as comfortable with the ‘membership route.” What blasphemous audacity! There are NO acceptable substitutions for His way, regardless of the religious rituals and sacraments that you may be practicing. “Church membership,” or church attendance, will not atone for the sins that separate you from God. You must be born again! "Jesus answered and said to him, 'Truly, truly, I say to you unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.' Then Nicodemus said to Him, 'How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born can he?' Jesus answered, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.'” (John 3: 3-6) Still others may think that they’re okay with God because they answered an altar call 20 years ago[for example] and said the “sinner’s prayer.” That’s good, if you’re following Him in a walk of faith and obedience now, but if you’re still living the same old life you did before you said that sinners prayer in the past, that is evidence that you really don’t believe. [See the explanation of the parable of the sower, Matthew 13:20-22]. I described my definition of “drunkard” early in this article. I will finish with my definition of alcoholic: drunkards who have given themselves a new name with a nice, clinical ring to it and who are indeed victims --- not of alcohol, but a belief system that is contrary to God’s Word. Here’s another way to look at it: whereas Jesus offers hope, freedom and eternal life, the “Recovery” system offers not only victimhood but absolutely no hope, in this life or eternity!
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Their book goes into greater detail about the ungodly origins of the “12 Step” programs including the so-called “disease” of Codependency. More information about their books is available at http://www.psychoheresy-aware.org/
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