Over the past year since America elected a new President of a different political party, I have started to notice that the typical American church life is changing. The more I see of the changes, the more it reminds me of the last time a US President of the same political party currently in power was in office.

Ladies and Gentlemen…. The pattern is repeating itself all over again.

Gone is the hyper Word of Faith gospel seeking money to give you more money and blessing. Back is the Christian militant mindset of ‘the persecuted ones’ needing money to fight the secular humanists on the school board and in Washington, DC to eliminate sin.

Gone is the “Wild at Heart” men’s ministry mindset where the defined characteristics of what made man a man was lined up in a Biblical perspective. Ned Flanders, butterfly kisses, and feminized dads are making a comeback where guy things are now being deemed once again as ‘flesh’.

Gone is the evangelical wife who stood beside her husband and supported her husband. The dominant and angry Christian woman who would throw her husband under the bus is making a comeback.

Gone is the public display of being seeker sensitive. The church has now gone into bunker basement bomb-shelter mode distrusting all visitors as being ‘the enemy’.

Gone is the church of compassion. The Anger Agenda Army is coming back with a militant vengeance.

Gone is the church that focused on teaching people to overcome temptation. Back is the church that wants government to eliminate temptation.

Gone is the church that focused on lifestyle. Back are the mega-fasts, pop-culture profit$, media messiahs, the 2 Chronicles 7:14 rallies, and the repent-a-thons for the invent-a-sins.

Gone is the compassion. Back is the conspiracy.

Gone is the power. Back is the paranoia.

Gone is the compelling. Back is the compensation.

Gone is the need to repent and turn from individual sins. Back is the identificational confessions no matter if your great great grandparents participated or not.

—-

Didn’t we hear the conspiracies in the liberal 1990’s that eventually never happened? Didn’t we experience God’s Government in the 2000’s that would overturn Roe vs. Wade that never happened?

One prophet calls it the final gloom and doom because of the change in power. Another prophet celebrates because all he needed is ‘love’ while another prophet calls it God’s judgement for God’s Presidency failing to eliminate the gays, place prayer in the public schools, capture Osama Bin Laden, outlaw the lottery, and ban abortion.

and as the late billy Preston used to sing…

Will it go round in circles
Will it fly high like a bird up in the sky

Yes, it is going around in circles, in the same patterns we are seeing again and again. People trying to either eliminate temptation (or delay it until their death for their children to deal with it) when the Bible talks about overcoming temptation or people are choosing to run to the hills proclaiming that the sky is falling.

Ladies and gentlemen, repent-a-thons, extra money in the offering plate, a stacked Congress / Supreme Court, feminized dads, homeschooling, and 2 Chronicles 7:14 rallies will not change things. Change only occurs one heart at a time and if the the book of Acts teaches us something, the change happened to a small group of people. Entire nations were never changed via evangelism of government leaders. In fact, those nations persecuted Christians worse but the Gospel survived, and thrived no matter how much the government went after them.

These people in Acts were beaten, flogged, and some of them died for Christ. And our definition of persecution… the DEMONcrats?

You want to see persecution today. look at Voice of The Martyrs. Go to this page and watch the video.

The persecution is coming. The temptations are coming. How are we going to overcome. Not by elimination of temptation. Only by the guarding of the Word of God in our hearts and by the supernatural impartation of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

It’s time we begin once again to start retaining the true Scriptures in our minds and hearts before they either become revised from the original meaning or become books that get burned in fires. Just because ‘the opposite’ party is in political control does not either prohibit us from being Christian nor does it stop us from preaching the Gospel.

The pattern is now repeating itself. Do we get sucked back into the vortex and use the same old ineffective tactics used back in the 1990’s and retreat to the bomb shelter or do we rise up above it all and go out and fulfill a Great Commission, repent of our sins, and live out the Gospel?

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The Pattern Is Repeating Itself

Entitled “Theology of The Holy Spirit 101″

It is in this chapter that the author decides to lay down the basic groundwork for the theology of the Holy Spirit. The chapter starts out with the author remembering his seminary studies where he would read dissertations from both sides of a theological concept, saw valid points from both sides and did not really know which side of the issue he believed in. All of this lead to a memory of a professor who said a very shocking statement

If you’re fifty-one percent sure, preach it like you’re one hundred percent

Chan calls out the statement as deception and I wholeheartedly agree. In fact, when I read that statement, I was reminded of the old rule I was taught in school in reference to true / false tests

If any part of the statement is false, the entire statement is false

I wonder in the midst of the “education mindset” that seems to be taught today… I wonder in the midst and mindset of all of these charismatic “revivals” like Lakeland… if the true / false rule has been changed to

If any part of the statement is false, the entire statement is still true

Because it seems to day that in the realm of revisionist history education and also in the realm of the wacked out statements of men like Todd Bentley and Bob Jones that even though lies and deception are mixed in their words, the statements are held as not only truth, but ‘golden nuggets’ of “new revelation”.

However, in light of the popular verse Galatians 5:9

A little leaven leavens the whole lump.

A little falsification in a statement makes false the entire statement. I guess people like Bentley and Jones would have to rewrite the Scripture to say

A little leaven just adds volume to the whole lump.

—

From here the author begins his foundation building by going to Acts 2 and he brings out the points of change, repentance, baptism, and infilling of the Holy Spirit. It seems that we easily see the baptism and the ‘infilling’ as described via the hyper-emotionalistic realm but it seems that we never see the change and the repentance take place. Just another round of the emotions and another new Charismatic dance step or Holy Ghost Hokey Pokey.

From this point until the end of the chapter, the firmness of the foundation is laid forth where Chan lays out the basics (with a brief explanation)

The Holy Spirit is a person.
The Holy Spirit is God (Trinity)
The Holy Spirit is eternal and holy
The Holy Spirit has His own mind and prays for us (Romans 8:27)
The Holy Spirit has emotions
The Holy Spirit has His own desires and will
The Holy Spirit is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient

Followed by things that should be a part of our life when baptized in the Holy Spirit (with a brief explanation)

Holy Spirit helps us speak in precarious situations
Holy Spirit is our comforter, adviser, and encourager
Holy Spirit gives us power to be God’s witnesses
Holy Spirit gives us power to put to death sins we can not conquer
Holy Spirit gives us spirit of adoption where we are God’s children
Holy Spirit convicts us of sin before conversion and during our walk
Holy Spirit gives us freedom and hope
Holy Spirit brings forth the Fruit of the Spirit

In summary, this is the foundational building blocks needed for life in the Holy Spirit along as being used by the author as the building blocks for the rest of the book.

After reading this chapter, I thought about something in reference to when Joshua led the Israelites across the Jordan river to enter into the Promise Land. For many years, theologians have always symbolized this as going to heaven. However, I have always thought of this more in reference of entering into the Spirit-filled life.

There were blessings like the grapes, milk, and honey.

There were enemies that needed to be conquered and never intermarried and compromised to

The entire Old Testament after this point is the synopsis of that life where the blessings of grapes, milk, and honey were experienced and at the beginning, enemies were defeated. However, we eventually see how the compromise took place to where there was intermingling and intermarrying that eventually led to the eternal and lifelong struggles those people loved by God faced. All for the admonition and warnings for us to heed on how to live the Spirit-filled life and learn from the mistakes and not intermarry with the enemies of God.

I will leave you with something to think about. I find it funny that all of these charismatic revival obsessed people love to mention bridal paradigms and preparing to meet the ‘bride’ have gone off and intermarried with very nasty spirits in the form of kundalini, necromancy, and divination while at the same time, try to pass it off as being The Holy Spirit. Amazing!

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Review: Forgotten God – Chapter Three

Before I get started, I am still catching up on many e-mails. The past weekend leading into the earlier part of the week, I had that awful, nasty, and weakening flu bug that has been going around. I had the normal symptoms but for some reason, I also had an extreme sensitivity to light and therefore did not cut the computer on for two days.

Internet Monk – Michael Spencer Update, 3/9/2010 – It is now reported that “his cancer is too advanced and too aggressive to expect any sort of remission”. iMonk is still in my prayers along with the JollyBlogger and Matt Chandler

Talk To Action – A Call to Censor the Religion Blogosphere – There are people out there who want all Christian blogs to go through some sort of a religious authority before being posted!!! – Amazing! If it wasn’t for the independent bloggers, we would have never seen the apologetic coverage against the Lakeland Revival. God stopped that revival and many everyday people who blog were very instrumental in getting that information out.

Alternet –
Heads Up: Prayer Warriors and Sarah Palin Are Organizing Spiritual Warfare to Take Over America. The New Apostolic Reformation, the largest religious movement you’ve never heard of, aims to take control of communities through ‘prayer warriors.’ Discusses the religious right and dominionism referencing this article exposing the true hidden agendas of the NAR.

Moriel – Eschatology and Double Cross – “The Theology of Disillusionment” – interesting article comparing the current American political climate to the political climate of first centurt Israel.

Crossroads – How Satan Works – interesting fact of history here.

Gospel Masquerade – A Word to the Weary Warrior Very uplifting word of encouragement

Christianity Today – The Lost Art Of Catechesis Interesting insight on tried and true ways of teaching the Gospel.

J. Lee Grady / Fire In My Bones – Do You Need Some Holy Ghost Drāno? – When I first saw this title, all I thought about was Suzanne Hinn’s Holy Ghost Enema. However, the article has some good points.

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Articles of Interest 03-12-10

Slaughter of The Sheep – City Council to MorningStar: Renovate PTL Hotel or it will be Demolished – Wow! That famous hotel that never was completed in the Jim Bakker / PTL era is still not completed, and the The York County City Council has given MorningStar until the end of June to get it up to code. The Phoenix Preacher has a very interesting observation about it all.

First Things – In Search of the Next Revival? – we don’t need another stinking revival. We need to go back to the Bible

The Seeker (blog at Chicago Tribune) – Did trainer die because SeaWorld ignored the Bible? – someone from the AFA thinks so. Oh by the way, speaking of the AFA

Charisma Magazine – Don Wildmon Resigns From American Family Association – They all are stepping sown. Interesting to say the least

The Grey Coats – The Grey Coats Blog – Wow! I did not know until googling for some research that these guys were back at their old wordpress.com address. I remember when they started out there, went to their own domain, and lost track of their whereabouts. Glad to see them back online.

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Articles of Interest 03-05-10

Entitled “What Are You Afraid Of?”

Fear of rejection has paralyzed me more than once.

Francis Chan starts out this chapter talking about this subject. From past experiences to potential reactions concerning the contents of the book, he begins to unveil that even though his thing is with rejection, there are other things that other people fear that inhibit, influences, or even paralyzes them. With me, it is the fear of rejection, again as I never have been able to handle rejection no matter how harsh or how ‘kid gloves’ it was handled. I have read books about it and charismatics have tried to ‘pray this thing’ off of me but for some reason….. I still deal with it.

You know, many theologians try to portray God like the manufacturing engineering concept of “just in time” where a product is not built well in advance, but just in time for the shipping truck to arrive and take the product to the end user. I have always had this deep seated fear that God will not move ‘just-in-time; in due time’ but will be ‘late’ costing me much anxiety, duress, sleepless nights, loss, etc. that I would never be able to recover from. In pentecostalism, all I saw was a people who lived day-by-day and from one ‘just-in-time’ met need during a crisis to another ‘just-in-time’ met need during a crisis and repeated the cycle constantly in the wake of a quasi prosperity gospel where needs are non-existent because you are supposed to already have what you need to not only survive but to overcome as a victorious conqueror. It just didn’t add up and when the need was answered late or was never answered, some great Satan came against them (but if it was their buddies, secret sin was to blame).

They prayed. They invented sins to confess as sin. They fasted. They prayed harder. They read the Bible more…..

But as the author had fears about how the content of his book would be received once it was published, I still have fears about this trek for 2010 of once again wanting to partake of the presence of the Holy Spirit. I fear that I would lose that balance of getting into the Word these past ten years and somehow slip and ‘relapse’ into the hyper-emotionalism or relapse and get ‘re-deceived’ again and have to repeat this entire process all over again. I feel that at this stage of life in my early 40’s, I must get this down pat and right this time around because I just simply can not afford spiritually to be wrong again and say “oops” in a trivial and flippant manner and laugh it off and try something else to become ‘right’.

And these are fears that I must just simply overcome… Multiplied by another fear that after all of this time and toil, the Holy Spirit simply doesn’t show up and I wonder why He didn’t show up.

Like I had stated in earlier post concerning this book, It appears that modern Christian sees the Holy Spirit in two ways. Either the way of theo-academics where it appears where the Holy Spirit is another word mentioned only at weddings and infant baptisms. Or the way of the oppressed pentecostal who sees the Holy Spirit as a driving force in a ‘liberation theology’ mindset where a Moses will rescue them from a Pharaoh and eventually snuff out their enemies, those who they disagree with, and the theo-academic ones who they believe sold out the Gospel and are responsible for the ‘quenching of the Spirit’ mindset that they feel has permeated Christianity. But the hard thing that pentecostals seem to not be able to do is to separate the Holy Spirit away from their need of a liberation theology and the penteparanoia that everyone is out to get them and only them because everyone else in their opinion ’sold out’ Christianity and the end result is a lethal hodge-podge of elitism, dominionism, and vengeance. Or they seem to not be able to seperate the the Holy Spirit away from their need of a prosperity theology and the belief that more money means they are more anointed and loved in the eyes of God.

But there are many people out there who do fear that the Holy Spirit will come and tell them to go to Africa or act like an idiot to be ‘a fool for Jesus’. It seems to be that surrendering to the Holy Spirit to crucify the flesh is not enough. I’ve seen those who ended up going to Africa and saw so much demonic activity that it forever warped their Christianity. I’ve seen people who did bizarre things to be ‘fools for Christ’ only to become very foolish and made out to be idiots. Yes, the Holy Spirit may tell you to go to a person who makes you uncomfortable and give them a word of knowledge. The Holy Spirit may tell you to pray for someone’s healing that they never told anyone they were sick.

How does one rectify the non-comfort zone when it was prevalent in pentecostal / charismatic theology that you purposely did uncomfortable things because doing faith was formulated in the concept of doing very uncomfortable things (called “Spirit”) automatically was a sign and automatically meant that you were “killing the flesh”. You became the literal fool (for Jesus of course) because you felt as if you were defeating ‘flesh’ to be a remnant member. You went on a missions trip because it was the cool Christian thing to do and making you more uncomfortable was equated to making you more spiritual and more victorious in defeating the flesh.

And if doing uncomfortable things was not enough, doing uncomfortable and diametrically opposite things made it worse, but in their eyes made you more spiritual

The world (flesh) takes a left, we (the Spirit) take a right.
The world (flesh) drinks Coke, we (the Spirit) drink Pepsi.

And that is an answer that I do not have, but I felt as if I have repented for over and over again for some of the craziness I did and called it “God”. But over the years, I have learned that it all should lead you and others to the Cross of Calvary and not to the opinions and personal ideologies made corporate theologies of others. I do not want to quench the Holy Spirit while at the same time do not want to become the President of the Nutjobs for Jesus club either.

Where is that middle ground of being able to experience the Holy Spirit knowing that there is a risk and a sense of becoming uncomfortable praying for that stranger, giving that word of rebuking wisdom to the one going astray, while at the same time not quench in fear of being wrong and/or not go kooky and start acting like those people on the stage at Lakeland who were manifesting other spirits?

The author does a great job expressing both sides of the equation and bring us to the understanding that from the theo-academic side, we do need the orthodoxy of proper Biblical exegesis while from the charismatic side, we do need the “radical” side of being willing to do whatever and go wherever the Holy Spirit leads withing reason even if it does not make sense or makes us slightly uncomfortable.

For this is the delicate balance that I need…

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Review: Forgotten God – Chapter Two

For example, if statistics exist to indicate that the majority of small-scale inner city drug trafficking are performed by members of a certain race who loves high-priced used luxury cars, wears their jeans very low, etc.; then the profiling of those members of a certain race could lead to increased traffic stops and drug searches.

But oh no! That’s a liberal concept. Really? What if I told you that it has already happened in the church…..

What if I told you that it happens every Sunday in a church when a visitor enters the sanctuary you frequent every Sunday morning. You look at their body shape, their wardrobe, their children, their mannerisms and before you have even had the chance to meet that visitor, many presumptions have already been performed in your mind such as:

That family with the dirty clothes and the three sloppily dressed kids. They are not here to learn how to be better Christians. They are here for the ‘church handout’ and will leave for another church when the handout stops.

That middle-aged single man with the pooched out stomach and not the best of looks and being a social savant. He’s not here to learn more about Jesus. He’s here either to try to con some woman into being his wife. He must play video games or “m” at internet porn at 3 AM, or worse yet, he looks like one of those pedophiles you see on the nightly news when the mugshot photos are shown. Hide my kids. Ushers, track and tail him all the way until he is safely out of the parking lot.

That woman with the weird mannerisms acting hyper-charismatic. She’s not here to be a part of the church. She’s here to infiltrate a demonic presence of the Jezebel Spirit. She’s here to seduce the married men. She’s here to gain some influence to build an army to split the church. She’s manifesting demons.

That person who is known for their moderate political views and not a true-blue, card-carrying member of the Religious Right. Sooner or later, they will come out and say that the Bible is not infallible. Sooner or later, they will support gay rights. Sooner or later, they will want to allow abortion and euthanasia as life-choices. They are not ‘real’ Christians

That person who sits still while the rest of the church is doing the charismatic conga line, rolling on the floor, and making Toronto Blessing type animal sounds. They are not ‘real’ Christians. They are infiltrators, agents of Satan, Cessationalists, Pharisees, full of ‘religious spirits’. Tag his every move and scan the Internet for their anti-Charismatic blog and call the lawyers.

Why is this done occasionally? Usually because at some point in our life, we actually met one person like those examples that did manifest those characteristics. You met the one poor looking family that asked for a bag of groceries from the church food bank that left when the bags stopped showing up. You met the one creepy looking single man who would hit up on the ladies until they all said no. You met the one hyper-Charismatic woman who convinced a man that they were soul mates and a family was broken up. You met the one Christian democrat who decided to eventually become a universalist.

Because of the actions of that one person, it began to become within us the presumptive stereotype turn profiling that since that one person did conform my suspicions, then everyone who acts the same way or looks the same way will in turn manifest the same behavior patterns of

All poor people in the church want a handout

All single men in the church are closet sex perverts.

All Christians who vote democrat will eventually turn gay, become universalists, be nice to a Muslim at Wal-Mart, and will continue to ‘love’ their daughter after she revealed she had an abortion.

And I could go on and on. If we didn’t notice that this is done every Sunday morning. We haven’t realized that we have written books on how to ‘pente-profile’. And when this was done, “The Pente-profiling was turned into a “Pente-Process” on how to heal the sick, judge other Christians, and cast out devils.

Two well known Christian books that are notorious for doing this are

How to Heal the Sick by Charles and Frances Hunter

and

Pigs in the Parlor: A Practical Guide to Deliverance by Frank and Ida Mae Hammond

Have you ever read these books? If so, you will learn that all people who hurt in their lower spine must have one leg shorter than the other, so sit them down in a chair, lift their legs up, and pray. You will also learn that all Christians have at least one demon and there is a chart showing all the ‘master demons’ and their subordinate demons and that you have to deal with all of them before you can call the person fully exorcised.

Not only does profiling turns into process. It eventually turns, in extreme cases, into entire foundations of theology.

Especially when the theology turns into “reverse profiling” of

Real Christians vote Republican, stand holding an anti-abortion sign every first Sunday in October, marry and have at least five kids, homeschool, have feminized dads with ‘bully/enforcer’ type moms, drive minivans and SUV’s with loads of anti-abortion bumper stickers, etc.

Do we do this in order to make ourselves feel ‘better’ and ‘more spiritual’? Do we do this to raise our self-esteem by lowering the self-esteem of others?

You know, there are extreme charismatic churches that ‘penteprofile’ via ‘penteparanoia’ and teach the ushers how to profile in order to detect in the name of “protecting” their pastor. In some of these extreme Charismatic churches, there are actual people called ‘discernment teams’ who view everyone coming in and if someone piques their interest as either ‘demonic’, ‘enemy’, or potential skeptic, these people alert other members of the team, the pastoral staff, and the prayer warriors in order to have more ‘pentepolice’ eyes watching to see if they can pick up signs that the person under suspicion will start “manifesting” and disrupt the service while praying spiritual warfare during the entire service to ’silence the enemy’.

If profiling isn’t done in these methods, how about pente-pigeonholing where we take people and pigeonhole them. Well, since you are divorced, we do not recognized you as being recovered and a complete person until you attend our divorce care program. Well, since your mother died, you are not fully bereaved until you attend and successfully complete our grief recovery program. Since you did not embrace this last move of God, you are not spiritual enough to be a leader within this church and need repentance counseling.

Jesus never waited for demons to start manifesting and go into all of these numerous proactive measures to try to prevent manifestations. He did the Father’s business and when the demons manifested, he dealt with them and went onward in his business to do the will of the Father. Jesus never profiled all tax collectors as cheats. He told Matthew to follow Him and be his disciple. Paul never profiled the territorial spirits of the cities where he founded churches. He wrote epistles instructing the elders and members of those churches on what needed to be addressed and corrected while encouraging them. Jesus never profiled all sick people as being full of secret sin, lacking faith, or disagreeing with him. He dealt with whatever problem was there and healed the person. Paul never told the Acts church that real Christians hold protest signs and call their Senators to protest the Christian oppression. He testified of the power of the Cross via the preaching of the Gospel no matter if a ruler repented or not.

When will we stop profiling, stereotyping, and pigeonholing people?

When we fully realize that God doesn’t really need us to act like we are proactive to sort out people and place them into their marginalized cubbyholes and categories. Better yet is when we finally decide to follow the Bible instead of the advice given by church growth seminars to find our niche market and niche demographic, instead of following instructions given by spiritual mappers to get rid of people we don’t like, and instead of following opinions called ‘God said’ given by theo-politicians who place their sovereignty and providence in the political system than Jesus Christ.

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Spiritual Stereotyping aka Penteprofiling

For some odd reason, I do not have the best memory. I never did well in literature class when we had to memorize approximately 200 lines from various William Shakespeare works (and it never came up again after high school in my real world); or the preamble to the Constitution; or the Ten Commandments, or the Bill of Rights and the thing that really bothers me is

I have a hard time memorizing Bible verses….

I can memorize enough parts (after reading it over and over again) of a verse enough to type the part I remembered into Google to get the book, chapter, and verse it is tied to. Most of the time, I know it is in the correct book but takes me forever to get the chapter and verse. Without Google, I am clueless and I spend forever finding the verse I am looking for.

My buddy “Triple-P” can not only quote a verse verbatim (KJV only), he can tell you exactly where it is at and even quote the verse before and after.

I read and read, but for some reason, retaining what I read over the long haul is something that I am very inadequate at doing. It is something that I desperately feel that I need to be doing more of because between liberal Bible scholars and charis-erratic revival junkies that are trying to rewrite the Bible and also the perilous times that will come to pass one day where getting a printed copy of the Bible will be harder to find. I can really see the day where we as Christians will eventually have to rely on our memories in order to not only meditate on the words of God, but to meditate on the correct words of God.

What is the best way to memorize Bible verses especially the epistles of Paul in the New Testament (the worst difficulty I have)? Is it reading it more and more above and beyond what I am already doing? I really do not know and am looking for some suggestions that are genuine and authentic and NOT based on some quazi new-age visualization or hypnosis techniques and would appreciate any suggestions (new age methods will be deleted if left in the comments).

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That Elephant May Never Forget…

Jesus Needs New PR – website seeks to restore stephen baldwin (compares stephen to job from the bible) – Matthew Paul Turner, whose blog I have been reading alot of as of late, has discovered a web site called restorestephenbaldwinDOTorg that is asking for money to give to Stephen Baldwin because of all the ‘persecution’ he’s been through. Turner actually thought the web page was fake until one of the major ‘official Christian film critics’ has a YouTube video endorsing the project

Polycarp – 10 People Who Give Christianity a Bad Name – too bad the list was only for 10 people. I could name a whole lot more like Rev. Ike, James Dobson, all the televangelists on late night BET, Gene Scott, Benny Hinn, Todd Bentley and all those who frequent The Elijah List, and many many others

Crossroads – “The “Hurting People” View Doesn’t Always Lead to Good Doctrine” – Very astute observations. In those private and scathing e-mails you don’t see, I get unjustly accused of this by many people.

Cerulean Sanctum – The Christian Singles Mess – boy is it ever a mess and the writer nails it down. I can really go off on a rant here but all it does is give me a splitting headache and more of those private and scathing e-mails rebuking me and calling me ‘bitter’

Let’s remember to pray for Jollyblogger (David Wayne). His update is at the link provided. Also Internet Monk (Michael Spencer) has updated his readers on his fight. Also, let’s don’t forget to continue praying for Matt Chandler of the Village Church is his fight with a brain tumor.

Phil Cooke – The Change Revolution Ministry Flash Points – How a pastor acts, dresses, etc. does make an impact on how others view them.

pjmiller / Soli Dei Gloria – Some fantastic heretics I have known – Very interesting insight on Dominionism.

Rick Hiebert via the Bene Diction Blogs On Blog – Todd Bentley nibbles the Morningstar ordination cheese – comments about the Todd Bentley ordination and the travesty of it.

Slaughter of the Sheep – Holy Ghost Hokey Pokey – from the same people that ordained Todd Bentley comes The Holy Ghost Hokey Pokey. What’s next? The Holy Spirit Macarena? or The Stanky Legg In The Spirit? or Soulja Boy Crank Dat Spiritual Warfare?

Beyond Grace – Revisionism and Emma’s Gender Change – Again – Good catch Bill Fawcett!

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Articles of Interest 02-27-10

Entitled “I’ve Got Jesus. Why Do I Need The Spirit?”

After I read this chapter, there was a thought that immediately came to my head.

Dueling Holy Ghost

A musical tune done in a parody to the ole “Dueling Banjos” song except that it would be two popular instruments instead of banjos. A trumpet and a country twangy guitar. The trumpet in symbolism to the mainline denominations and the country twangy guitar in symbolism to the pentecostals.

Because all my thoughts after reading this chapter kept referring me back to a dualistic mindset concerning the Holy Spirit. On one side of the fence, we have the trumpet mindset where the Holy Spirit is viewed and received only in the terms of theology and academia. On the other side of the fence, we have the country twangy guitar where the Holy Spirit is viewed by the emotionalism of jerking, shaking, dancing, running around the church and speaking in tongues (in some churches, it is taught that you do not have the Holy Spirit inside of you unless you speak in tongues).

It seems to me that what is called the “Holy Spirit” of today is in reality a extreme reaction from the consumer success-driven church (that has defined the Holy Spirit in theology and academia) to the opposite extreme reaction that only the country road, agrarian (and extreme cases the aberrant snake handlers), impoverished, tongue-talking, trailer-park living but Cadillac driving, ‘poorer the purer’, churches were the ones that openly proclaimed themselves as the only ones ‘anointed’ and ’spirit filled’ when everyone else viewed them as the embarrassment to Christianity because many of these churches did go way off into some bizarre teachings such as the snake handlers.

While the mainline church that defined the Holy Spirit through theology and academia were trying to proclaim themselves as “Christians”, the other side of the old dusty road church were already defining themselves as the ‘last-days remnant Christians’ and that Heaven was going to be an eternal country hoe-down so you better get used to it and some of those saints actually told those mainline Christians that they were not real Christians and that Jesus would tell them “Depart from me, I never knew you”.

Then you had a tripartite group called the Charismatics that defined the Holy Spirit through signs and wonders, “words”, and some went to the extremes of revivals and ventured further into soaking and making animal sounds.

One extreme brought out the equally opposite extreme that when it hit a stalemate branched off the third group. Nowhere in all of this was the middle and correct way of yearning for the Holy Spirit while members of each group were quick to point out that they knew it all while the others were all wrong.

In fact, the author stated a very interesting fact about the always right mindset when he stated:

Most of us assume that what we believe is right (of course we do — it is why we believe what we believe) but have never really studied for ourselves. We were simply told, “This is the way it is” and didn’t question….

And we didn’t question because of cultural norms, naively believing that because someone was a “Christian” they were always right, “touch not mine anointed”…, or because “it felt good, we did it”.

One of the most revealing things that the author addressed in this chapter was the concept of the fact that deep down inside, we really believe that we really do not need the Holy Spirit while acknowledging that he does exist and is a part of the Trinity. From the purpose-driven church growth experts who use talents, experience, education, toys, wealth, influence, and affluence as the barometer deeming a person as ‘anointed’ and ‘possessing the Holy Spirit’ to the pentecostal / charismatic who defines their barometer as when they dance, gyrate, speak in tongues, and fall out in the spirit, we have wrongly misguided our focus not on the supernaturally natural character of the personal, but on what they ‘bring to the table’ either in monetary value or in “shock value”.

There is something deeply wrong here when what we remember from a time of coming before God on Sunday morning was the ‘rocking’ praise band, the speaker preaching the ‘goatee gospel’ in hip terms, or the fact that someone ‘gyrated’ or the tongues were so prevalent that the pastor did not speak. And we proudly proclaim that “God Moved” measuring by results instead of regeneration, retaining the Biblical word that was spoken, and repentance.

All of this stuff, and we see no signs of change, reform, or repentance. But we expect the other side to change, reform, and repent to our way of thinking called ‘God’ when we have the same head knowledge of God manifesting differently in chaos, confusion, and disorder.

And the author realizes this when he continues his train of thought into the concept that we should be seeing people infilled with the Holy Spirit act radically different when compared to those that do not and the reason why is because of our view of the Holy Spirit as “head knowledge” and not heart-changing knowledge.

I should know, I went from the hyper emotionalism to the theo-academia mindset for these past ten years. Never denying the existence of the Holy Spirit, but preferring to be over cautious not to act out ‘in the flesh’ because I saw alot of flesh called Spirit that turned not only into a faith called formula, but a pentecost called ‘profiling’ where those that did were holy, anointed, spirit-filled, and set-apart and those that did not were called Pharisee, doctrine of devils, enemy, and religious spirits.

Why do we need the Holy Spirit? Because we need the power of God to be at work in our lives to change and reform us to where we know and walk out the fact that we are a new creation. We need it as the Comforter to guide us and bring us into wholeness. We need it to be able to walk out life by daily carrying our cross and daily crucifying the flesh.

In many ways, when Joshua took the new generation of Israelites into the promised land, what we saw here was not the typical analogy taught by Bible scholars of entering into heaven. Instead, what we saw in the Old Testament was a foreshadowing of how the Spirit-filled life needed to be lived out. Yes, there were enemies and giants that were supposed to be defeated and never mingled with. However, there was also large fruits and also a land flowing with milk and honey.

Unfortunately, those people made treaties and some of them intermarried and went off into Baal worship. And the warning and admonition in the parallel reference to the Spirit-filled life is to learn from this and never make treaty with the enemy of our soul thinking might and power will conquer all and never intermarry in alliance with people that will draw you away from God Almighty.

That is why we so desperately need the Holy Spirit. Not to over-discern or learn a new charismatic bunnyhop dance step. God Forbid! But the real reason is we need that power within the authority given to us by Jesus Christ to say no to the temptations, wiles, and the Flesh while learning self-control in the use of the Spiritual Gifts that God Almighty gives us.

And the real barometer of the Holy Spirit at work within us when we live out life is to see the reform and change from embracing the enemy to eliminating the enemy, from acting in the flesh to walking in the Spirit.

At the end of this chapter, Francis Chan pays a small but fitting tribute to a person who he believes truly fits the description of embracing the Spirit-filled life in the midst of tragedy, Joni Eareckson Tada as a way of showing a testimony of a person who resonates and radiates the Holy Spirit in everything she does from writing books, public speaking, and charity work.

Holy Spirit, fall afresh on me!

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Review: Forgotten God – Chapter One

It used to be when reading books, one would skip over the introduction. Usually, introductions were approximately three pages long where the author thanked lots of people and told about some experience he went through while writing a book….

yada yada yada…..

However, I was sent an e-mail by someone who had read this book and told me their opinion (favorable) of the book that placed this phrase in capital letters

READ THE INTRODUCTION, TRUST ME!!!

I decided to take this person’s advice and read the introduction before starting the first chapter. Wow! They were right. In fact, the introduction in this book really should not be an “introduction”. It should have been entitled “Chapter One” because the content within all eight pages of the introduction section sets the tone, mindset, and direction that the author is going to embark upon throughout the entire book.

The premise that Francis Chan is trying to communicate here is that the Holy Spirit is either forgotten or missing in most churches today. From the ‘entertainment’ mindset of the late 1980’s throughout the 1990s to the churches that are just completely 100 percent lecture, Chan reiterates that in reality, the church is not empowered to live differently from any other group of people unless the Holy Spirit is in their midst. Without the Holy Spirit, churches are just another irrelevant social organization no matter how ‘culturally relevant’ they claim to be.

One of the things that Chan addresses in this introduction is the fact that we will have to not only address, but eventually lay aside the baggage, abuses, misconceptions, extremisms, fears, and stereotypes we have when we hear the words “Holy Spirit”.

And this is the honest and heartfelt desire of me, is to get through the baggage, abuses, misconceptions, extremisms, fears, and stereotypes without denying how real and accurate they really are and learn once again to sense and receive the authentic and genuine presence of the Holy Spirit without years later wondering if this was just ‘another Christian cool thing to do’ but knowing that the presence of the Holy Spirit is real, genuine, authentic, and supernatural.

And after reading the introduction, I still believe that I am still ready.

Next post, I will be discussing chapter one of Forgotten God by Francis Chan.

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Review: Forgotten God – Introduction

“Don’t Throw The Baby Out With The Bath Water”

Ten years ago, I broke that rule…..

In order to save my “spiritual sanity”, I had to break that rule and eventually did throw out both the baby and the bath water. Don’t worry, it was not a literal baby I threw out. What I did “throw”, however, would be very shocking to many Christians.

I threw out the Holy Spirit (“baby”) and the dirty bath water (wrong teachings, bizarre MAN-i-FESTations, creepy sights and theological blunders) and for the next ten years of my life, I spent the majority of my time sorely focused primarily on one thing

The Word of God (retaining it is another different issue)

When I finally reached the end of the rope in charismania and it’s chronic, repetitive, and chaotic mega-fasts, kookiness, repent-a-thons, and 2 Chronicles 7:14 rallies and decided to leave my previous church in the Spring of 2001; I left with a hunger for more of the correct Word of God but still believing that the Holy Spirit was still alive and operating in the Earth today (but not manifesting in hidden agendas of the NAR, revival junkies, religious right, and the spiritual mapping super apostle nutjobs). However, I was in a deep trepidation because all I ever seen was the mindset that “Word” churches were always ‘dry’ and that “Holy Spirit” churches were always a three-ring trinitarian circus with the freak show exhibit available for an additional price and tried my best to avoid the topic whenever I could.

After months of searching, I eventually settled into (and eventually joined years later) an Evangelical Presbyterian Church that was Reformed, but at the same time was truly seeking out the genuine movement of the Holy Spirit in decency and in order that had once been embraced many years earlier by a pastor who believed that both the Sola Scriptura of the Word of God and the genuine signs and wonders of the Holy Spirit could co-exist at the same time. And all that I primarily did these past ten years was to simply pray and just read (again and again) the Word of God while still believing that the Holy Spirit is still working on Earth today.

Throughout these past ten years, there were many ‘false moves of revival’ that came and went and many people shouting out that they had the Holy Spirit. However as time came and went, all I saw was movements that relied too much on man-made momentum through bizarre MAN-i-FESTations and holy hype to keep their machines running instead of the true power of God. And part of my fear was both wasting energy on another ‘move’ that left no change and impact with scattered souls while at the same time exchange one set of kookiness for another set of circus freak show acts.

To Fast Forward seven years from the spring of 2001, it was then that I finally felt that I was ready to once again become more receptive to the matters of the Holy Spirit and what happened in that Spring of 2008? The Lakeland Revival / Florida Outpouring. From the first e-mail from a deeply bothered friend who was watching the revival live and sent me a link to the video stream and me watching this, I immediately knew that this was not the move of God. Instead of spending time that summer still seeking the genuine move of the Holy Spirit, I ended up having to spend that summer not only speaking out against it for the obvious and blatant heresies, but at the same time feeling deep down inside that there is a genuine move of the Holy Spirit at work in the Earth but definitely not through Bentley, Strader, the NAR, Morningstar, and the Revival Alliance which led me deeper to the Scriptures.

After the Lakeland Revival came and went, I continued on with life and my Spiritual walk and in the spring of 2009, a friend of mine e-mailed me and asked me if I had ever heard of a pastor named Francis Chan and ever read a book he wrote entitled “Crazy Love”? At that time, I had not heard of the author and made a promise to “one day eventually” procure a copy of the book (like I do with many other book promises) and “one day eventually” read the book.

I never read that book.

Because in July of 2009, I was using Twitter’s search engine to do some research and came across a tweet about a web page called christianaudio.com that offered the audiobook version of Crazy Love in mp3 format as part of their free audiobook of the month club. I ‘bit’ and decided to download the audiobook to where I could listen to it in my spare time. What I eventually did was to upload the audiobook into my mp3 player and while working out at the gym, listen to the book being read. There were times in that gym where I had to hold back the sheer emotion and yearning that I felt while listening to the audiobook while walking a treadmill. The contents of that book did leave a lasting impact on me but most importantly, further fanned the flames and desire of wanting to feel and sense once again the Holy Spirit.

Months later, I had heard that Francis Chan had written a new book entitled Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit and once again, this book became another promise to “one day eventually” procure a copy of the book (like I will one day procure “Introverts in The Church” by Adam McHugh; “Raised With Christ” by Adrian Warnock, “Deep Church” by Jim Belcher, “The Gospel-Driven Life” by Michael Horton, and “Mere Churchianity” by Michael Spencer) and “one day eventually” read the book.

After the 2009 holiday season and the 2010 New Year rolled in, my senior pastor began to start mentioning his earnest desire to see the presence of the Holy Spirit in operation within the congregation specifically mentioning that the ‘kookiness’ would not be tolerated. The desire was so prevalent to where the elders offered the church sanctuary as a place once a week where members of the church could pray specifically for a move of the Holy Spirit to once again come into the church along with preaching some sermons about the Holy Spirit. To this day, I have not attended those meetings due to scheduling conflicts but I have sensed since the New Year a closer yearning for the Holy Spirit to move in my life.

Last Sunday, I was on my Twitter Account and as I was doing some
research via Twitter’s search engine, I came across this tweet from a guy by the name of Mark Watson (twitter id = “Watson_Mark”) that stated:

If you would like to participate in a discussion of the Holy Spirit and enter for a free book click here. http://is.gd/8mQHb
1:59 PM Feb 14th from Seesmic

I clicked on the link provided and it took me to Watson’s blog where he announced that He wanted to do a book discussion on the book “Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit” by Francis Chan. In order to get the discussion rolling, Mr. Watson agreed to give out five copies of the book based on this condition:

“To receive a book you have to leave a reply on this post and tell why you want to join in the discussion. I will select five from the best entrants.”

I decided to leave a comment on his blog

Mark:

I saw your tweet while doing a Twitter search on Francis Chan that led me to your blog.

I am very interested in receiving a free copy of Forgotten God by Francis Chan while at the same time, engage in conversation with you about the contents of the book. I am familiar with the author and with what he preaches because I own and have listened to the audiobook of his last book Crazy Love.

In order to save my ’spiritual sanity’ these past ten years, I had to completely run away from all of the craziness, chaos, and confusion prevalent within the holiness / pentecostal / charismatic movements (defined by them as the Holy Spirit) almost ten years ago into a reformed theology at an Evangelical Presbyterian church that is amazingly yearning for the real power of the Holy Spirit done in decency and order.

And part of that process to restore my spiritual sanity and security was to just get more firmly grounded in the Word to the point where I turned away from people and concepts mentioning the words ‘holy spirit’

Ten years later, I now firmly believe that I am at a stage in my Christian walk where I am ready to once again sense and partake in the correct, decent, and orderly mannerisms, movements, and manifestations of the Holy Spirit as described in the Word of God (Bible) and not described by some kooky manifestations and gyrations.

This desire to end my ’self-imposed exile’ of the Holy Spirit has been in the inner working of my being for the past year and is one of the many subjects of many late night prayer sessions. This desire has also been recently refueled and further deepened within me after seeing these two videos

The Big Red Tractor

and

The Forgotten God Trailer

—–

I hope that I will be one of the five people chosen to receive the free copy of the book and to also join you in the discussion about the contents of the book. I thank you in advance for the opportunity

The next day, I was chosen to receive the book and participate in the discussion and submitted my address for receipt of the book. The following Saturday, I received the book from Amazon.com’s Phoenix warehouse in my mailbox in perfect condition and am looking forward to reading and discussing the book over at Mark Watson’s blog and at the same time end my Holy Spirit exile because I now feel confident, healed, and ready to deeply and further embrace the Holy Spirit in a proper way like I have never experienced before.

I am looking forward to reading the book, engaging in conversation about the book, and experiencing the Holy Spirit in decency and in order not because of Chan’s book, but because of the promises of John 14:15-31 and John 16:4-15

Every once in a while, there is a retired Presbyterian pastor who is a member of our church that will preach the Sunday sermon when pastoral staff was sick, or went to the national convention, or to give the pastors a break. Before he begins his sermon, this man prays and he always begins his prayer with this phrase that is not a formula of his Faith, but an expression of his innermost desire:

Holy Spirit, Fall Afresh On Me.

Where I would experience a deep sense of anxiety a year ago when I heard those words fearing some nutjob would go kooky in the church sanctuary, I am now ready (once again) for that same desire (with decency and order) in those words to become an everyday “supernaturally natural” working reality in my own life. When the retired pastor prays that statement now, all I want to do is add three words to the end of that statement……

Me too Lord!

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I Am Ready Once Again

AOL News (via e-mail from Diane at Crossroads blog) – Wife of Televangelist Benny Hinn Files for Divorce and Charisma Magazine Wife of Evangelist Benny Hinn Files for Divorce – What is it about all of these high-profile charismatic, dominionist, and hyper prosperity doctrine preachers that always seem to have marriage problems and file for divorce? Is this the “Holy Ghost Enema” versus the “Holy Ghost Machine Gun”? If they do get divorced, will Benny ‘curse’ her like he is well known for doing to his enemies?

Phil Cooke, The Change Revolution – How did you decide where to direct your gift to help the people in Haiti? – I voted for the “Gave through a ministry or charity I trust and have supported before”

Rick Hiebert via Bene Diction Blogs On – “Todd [Bentley] has committed adultery”–John Paul Jackson Even though I disagree with John Paul Jackson on most things, he got this one right. By the way, the earth is round… LOL!

and finally…

For someone proclaiming U.B.U, ole “Ed-Pac” is looking and acting like someone else… Pathetic

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Articles of Interest 02-20-10