Category: Faith

Utterly Done and Undone

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This dark morning I arise

Not of my own doing,

My heart pounding and lungs heaving

Through no conscious will.

The things I control, I fail to control.

Two faced, oil and water, opposite poles,

I’m a hypocrite, and I know it.

What hope is there for me?

I can’t even follow the path I chose,

I am incapable of sustaining my own way.

Integrity is lost in the trying.

My only hope is in One who died for me.

He died, and rose, of His violation alone.

My heart pounds and lungs heave because of Him.

I am aware and I live because He gives me life.

I am utterly done and undone.

The Making of New Wine Skins

prayer is more about developing relationship with God and understanding the will of the Father than it is about our own needs and desires

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Jesus speaks of the need for new wine skins to hold new wine. We are the wine skins God desires to prepare. When we are born again, we are born of the Spirit.[1] Paul says we become new creations: “the old has passed away; behold the new has come”.[2]

Jesus says we need new wine skins to contain the new wine (of the Spirit).[3]

We often have a very anthropomorphic view of God. Many of us come to God through our own desires, wants and needs. That isn’t wrong. Jesus invites us to come. He invites us to seek, to knock and to ask. He tells us that a good father will not give his child a stone when his child asks for a fish. God expects us to come to him for our needs and even our desires.

We can’t remain in that posture (of seeking our wants and needs from God), however, and grow into the kingdom God desires for us. We can’t remain in the position of asking God only for our own wants and needs and grow in newness of life. We need to transition and mature into the new wine skin God desires us to be.

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Race: Building Bridges in a War Torn Country

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Are we counted among the bridge builders? Or are we bridge burners?

kevingdrendel's avatarPerspective

 

Dr. Martin Luther King Junior’s legacy lives on in his son. He says here in the video above that he is a bridge builder, as a swarm of journalists try to get him to burn that bridge. I am deeply impressed with admiration for his response.

If you haven’t watched the video yet, please watch it.

We live in a sharply divided nation that is polarized on many issues. Race is just one of them, but race is one of the most visceral and difficult of the issues we face. Dr. King preached a message of love and unity in a world of hatred and disunity. In some ways the world is little different than it was when he was alive.

Modern secularists believe that mankind has advanced as a species, and we have technologically and in many ways, but some things are no different now than when we…

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Trump, the Prosperity Gospel and Truth

We are warned on the one hand that many will be deceived by those who come with power and signs and wonders. On the other hand, we are warned not to speak against the Holy Spirit who moves with power and performs signs and wonders.

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I posted an article about the dangers of the prosperity gospel and the spiritual advisers to Donald Trump who preach it.[1] Somebody responded that we can’t understand them unless we have been baptized in the Holy Spirit. This got me thinking.

I can understand where my friend is coming from.

I came to Christ in the living room of a charismatic Methodist insurance salesman. It was a sense of the miraculous that drew me to God, along with the message itself. I went to a charismatic church for two (2) years in college and (6) six years after college. I attended charismatic and Pentecostal churches for years after moving to Illinois. I am familiar with the baptism in the Holy Spirit.[2]

But we need to be careful here.

Continue reading “Trump, the Prosperity Gospel and Truth” →