Sunday, June 29, 2008

A Friend...

On June 18th I posed a question...just what is a friend?

In talking with my wife and others it seems that each persons definition hinges upon expectations. Sure, there are textbook answers...but they don't address real life. Each of us has expectations of a friend: trustworthy, honest, encouraging, always there, one you can turn to no matter what...the list goes on. At the core of this is us... what is it that WE expect others to do or meet up to. But what happens when people don't meet our expectations? Are they no longer our friend? Were they never really our friend? Maybe its NOT all about us!

Friendship is a choice! You choose to be a friend...it doesn't just happen. Many have heard that the Bible says, A man that has friends must first show himself friendly. It's a choice. We won't always like what our friends choices are. We won't always like what our friend has to say...but it's a choice to be their friend.

True friends know us for who we really are. True friends are committed to walk the journey of life with us no matter what. True friends have the right and responsibility to call us into check when we need it. True friends are those you can call on at any time. Sounds like family...but it's more. True friendship is a choice. Family is family...they don't have to make a choice, or they don't get to make a choice. "...there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother". (Proverbs 18:24)

Three questions:

  • Am I a true friend?
  • Do I have a true friend?
  • Do I know THE true friend who sticks closer than a brother?

Everything you could ever imagine a friend to be is wrapped up in THE One who will never leave you or forsake you.

  • John 15:13
    Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
    John 15:12-14 (in Context) John 15 (Whole Chapter)
  • 1 John 3:16
    This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
    1 John 3:15-17 (in Context) 1 John 3 (Whole Chapter)
  • Sunday, June 22, 2008

    A Spirit of Fear...or A Spirit of Power

    2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJV)

    For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

    That is an EXTREMELY powerful truth, but have you ever really thought about it? A spirit of fear...one of Satan's strongest webs. We fear all kinds of things and we become week and/or paralyzed. We fear others. We fear that people might find out who we really are on the inside. We fear the unknown. We fear the future. We fear the doctor. We fear the test results. We fear our mailbox and the bills within. We fear making a decision. We fear stepping out of our comfort zone. When we are ruled by fear...our comfort zone begins to close in on us and get smaller and smaller.

    When we are bound by a spirit of fear...we cannot have a spirit of power, a spirit of love or a sound mind. Satan knows that! Fear feels like the same type of anesthesia that we get when we go to the dentist...it numbs us and makes it hard to move. We feel swollen and can't feel anything, we just sit and drool. Things just don't work right. God knows this too! This is why He reminds us that HE didn't give us a spirit of fear. It is the attack of darkness that gives us a spirit of fear. When we feel overwhelmed with a spirit of fear it takes a focused effort to pray, to praise or to just reach out to another and be honest about our fear.

    Fear CANNOT co-exist with spiritual power. Fear CANNOT co-exist with true love. Fear CANNOT co-exist with a sound mind.

    When you or I begin to feel the grip of fear...claim God's Word. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. You and I can claim this because of the power of the Blood of Jesus! HE broke that bondage.

    Read Psalm 139.

    The warfare is hard and at times very scary. Don't be consumed by fear. If you cannot break that bondage in prayer and with praise...turn to one or two close to you. Pray together and claim victory. Praise together and unleash the power...there is power in praise!

    Thursday, June 19, 2008

    Father...or dad?

    If you are anything like me you sometimes just wish you could talk to your dad.

    My dad left when I was 8 and was never really a part of my life till I was in college. By that point I had a relationship with Christ which taught me about forgiveness and allowed allowed me to do it. Over the years we worked to re-connect and establish a relationship. No longer was he just my "father" but he became my "dad". Things were going great and our relationship was growing. He was becoming a part of our family. My wife and girls loved him dearly. Then, he died a few years ago. There was so much I still had to learn from him. Stuff I wanted to do with him. Just thinking about it and typing, the pain of losing him begins to resurface. I long to just sit and talk with him sometimes. Maybe to go for a trip together since we never did that. To spend a few more hours in the shop together, so that I can really pay attention and learn the skills of woodturning. My father-in-law has also died...so he isn't there either.

    Through all of this I have learned that God truly is my heavenly Father. He IS my DAD. It's not a formal "father/son" relationship. No, He is the real deal and he loves me for who I am. I am an image of Him. When those feelings of missing my dad creep up...I wonder, is that how God feels about me. Does He miss me that much when I wander off and do my own thing? I am drawn to turn back and just unload how I am feeling...and He always loves me back. He is waiting for me, preparing my path back to Him. He continues to bless me just as I do to my girls. There may be times when I get frustrated with my girls, but I NEVER stop loving them and longing to be with them. If I know how to do this...how much more does my Heavenly Father...my dad.

    Wednesday, June 18, 2008

    What is a Friend?

    I would like to pose a question...just what is a friend?

    I have had this discussion with my wife a number of times. It is clear that the definition hinges around expectations. I mean sure, there are textbook answers, and we will look at a couple. But what is it REALLY?

    Here is what you would find at Wikipedia:

    Friendship is a term used to denote co-operative and supportive behavior between two or more beings. This article focuses on the notion specific to interpersonal relationships. In this sense, the term connotes a relationship which involves mutual knowledge, esteem, and affection along with a degree of rendering service to friends in times of need or crisis. Friends will welcome each other's company and exhibit loyalty towards each other, often to the point of altruism. Their tastes will usually be similar and may converge, and they will share enjoyable activities. They will also engage in mutually helping behavior, such as exchange of advice and the sharing of hardship. A friend is someone who may often demonstrate reciprocating and reflective behaviors. Yet for many, friendship is nothing more than the trust that someone or something will not harm them. Value that is found in friendships is often the result of a friend demonstrating the following on a consistent basis:

    Here is what you would find at Dictionary.com:

    Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This

    friend Audio Help /frɛnd/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[frend] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation

    –noun

    1.a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.

    2.a person who gives assistance; patron; supporter: friends of the Boston Symphony.

    3.a person who is on good terms with another; a person who is not hostile: Who goes there? Friend or foe?

    4.a member of the same nation, party, etc.

    5.(initial capital letter) a member of the Religious Society of Friends; a Quaker. –verb (used with object)

    6.Rare. to befriend. —Idiom

    7.make friends with, to enter into friendly relations with; become a friend to.

    Now that we have gotten past the formal stuff...what do you find in real life? What is a friend? Post your response below by making a comment. I will take those responses and share my thoughts next week.

    Saturday, June 14, 2008

    More on warfare...and how to win!

    This is taken from Sylvia Gunter's book Prayer Portions.

    Praise As Warfare

         Greetings from the trenches.  I am not sure what battle you are facing today, but I know you are facing one.  We are all living in the middle of a war.  One of our most powerful weapons is praise.  Praise is a warfare strategy that has been winning wars throughout the ages.
    2 Chronicles 20:22
    "When they began singing and praising..."  The Israelites used praise as God's appointed weapon for winning a tremendous victory.  They had not even reached the battlefront when God acted and completely destroyed their three-fold enemy.
    Acts 16:25-26
    Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns.  Suddenly a violent earthquake shook the foundations of the prison.  The prison doors flew open, and prisoners were set free because of praise.
    Joshua 5:14, 15 and 6:2
    Joshua bowed to worship, and God told him that Jericho was already in his hands.  As the Israelites marched around the city, they walked out the victory already won in worship.
    Judges 7:15
    Gideon bowed to worship, returned to his camp, and reported, "Arise, God has given the enemy into our hands
         It is sometimes more important to persevere in praise than to continue to petition.  Why?

    Because in praise, we take our eyes off people and stop fighting on the human level.  We focus our spiritual eyes on God and see beyond ourselves and our problem to lay hold of His infinite ability,  availability, and sovereignty.  Praise stirs up our faith to stand in His almighty name.
    Because God has already judged Satan, and he is a defeated foe.  Praise executes upon him and his spiritual rulers the judgments that God has already written (Psa. 149:6-9).  God has already handed down the sentence which will be put into effect by the praises of His people.
    Because praise acknowledges the victory Christ already won.  Jesus is far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name in this age (Eph. 1:20-21).  His victory over Satan was legally accomplished at Calvary, but Satan is contesting His rule.  Christ's victory is currently credited to the church.  God is using warfare to teach His people massive, continual, aggressive, militant, offensive praise to overcome spiritual forces of wickedness.  Praise speeds victory in our prayer battles.
         Praise is adoration of God for who He is, His person, His character, His names.  It is loving God because He is God.  The Bible gives more exhortations to praise than to pray, because God is altogether lovely, holy, and completely worthy of our worship.  So, troops, let's use our valuable weapon of praise for the battles we are facing today and see how God delivers us.

    From Prayer Portions, page 115-16. © 1991, 1992, 1995 Sylvia Gunter. Available at www.thefathersbusiness.com

    Friday, June 13, 2008

    Mad Yet?

    Okay...you have had a chance to read the posts for this week. Are you mad yet?

     Are you ready to fight?

    If your mad and ready to fight...get ready because Satan is ready. The last thing this demon of deception wants is you and me to be educated about his methods and enraged about his deeds. When we get fired up about the Thief who has come to steal, kill and destroy...the Thief will no longer be subtle in his attacks.

    Busyness will become barrage! The attack will come on multiple fronts. Prepare yourself...but how!

    Purpose now to take time daily with God, before you start your day.

    Purpose now to call one or two others who you trust implicitly and who will pray with you for power, discernment, protection, stamina and strength to endure the battle. Don't just endure, but fight with purpose!

    Thursday, June 12, 2008

    Excerpts...part 4


    Subtle Attack—Looking for Agreements
    05/30/2008


    The devil has more temptations than an actor has costumes for the stage. And one of his all-time favorite disguises is that of a lying spirit, to abuse your tender heart with the worst news he can deliver—that you do not really love Jesus Christ and that you are only pretending, you are only deceiving yourself. (William Gurnall)
    Satan is called in Scripture the Father of Lies (John 8:44). His very first attack against the human race was to lie to Eve and Adam about God, and where life is to be found, and what the consequences of certain actions would and would not be. He is a master at this. He suggests to us—as he suggested to Adam and Eve—some sort of idea or inclination or impression, and what he is seeking is a sort of “agreement” on our part. He’s hoping we’ll buy into whatever he’s saying, offering, insinuating. Our first parents bought into it, and look what disaster came of it. The Evil One is still lying to us, seeking our agreement every single day.
    Your heart is good. Your heart matters to God. Those are the two hardest things to hang on to. I’m serious—try it. Try to hold this up for even a day. My heart is good. My heart matters to God. You will be amazed at how much accusation you live under. You have an argument with your daughter on the way to school; as you drive off, you have a nagging sense of, Well, you really blew that one. If your heart agrees—Yeah, I really did—without taking the issue to Jesus, then the Enemy will try to go for more. You’re always blowing it with her. Another agreement is made. It’s true. I’m such a lousy parent. Keep this up and your whole day is tanked in about five minutes. The Enemy will take any small victory he can get. It moves from You did a bad thing to You are bad. After a while it just becomes a cloud we live under, accept as normal.
    (
    Waking the Dead , 152–53)

    Wednesday, June 11, 2008

    Excerpts...part 3


    The Thief Wants It All
    05/31/2008


    Any movement toward freedom and life, any movement toward God or others, will be opposed. Marriage, friendship, beauty, rest—the thief wants it all.
    So, it becomes the devil’s business to keep the Christian’s spirit imprisoned. He knows that the believing and justified Christian has been raised up out of the grave of his sins and trespasses. From that point on, Satan works that much harder to keep us bound and gagged, actually imprisoned in our own grave clothes. He knows that if we continue in this kind of bondage. . . we are not much better off than when we were spiritually dead. (A.W. Tozer)
    Sadly, many of these accusations will actually be spoken by Christians. Having dismissed a warfare worldview, they do not know who is stirring them to say certain things. “Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel” (1 Chron. 21:1). The Enemy used David, who apparently wasn’t watching for it, to do his evil. He tried to use Peter too. “From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things . . . Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ‘Never, Lord!’ he said. ‘This shall never happen to you!’ Jesus turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan!’” (Matt. 16:21–23). Heads up—these words will come from anywhere. Be careful what or who you are agreeing with.
    When we make those agreements with the demonic forces suggesting things to us, we come under their influence. It becomes a kind of permission we give the Enemy, sort of like a contract.
    Some foul spirit whispers, I’m such a stupid idiot, and they agree with it; then they spend months and years trying to sort through feelings of insignificance. They’d end their agony if they’d treat it for the warfare it is, break the agreement they’ve made, and send the Enemy packing.
    (
    Waking the Dead , 154–55)

    Tuesday, June 10, 2008

    Excerpts...part 2

    This just fits...

    This week I am going to post from a series of devotionals that came from Ransomed Heart Ministries. This series of devotionals are all excerpts from books written by John Eldredge.

     

    There Is No Escaping This War
    06/01/2008


    Remember, when Jesus boiled his whole mission down to healing the brokenhearted and setting prisoners free from darkness, he was referring to all of us. Our modern, scientific, Enlightenment worldview has simply removed spiritual warfare as a practical category, and so it shouldn’t surprise us that we can’t see spiritual strongholds after we say they don’t really exist.
    If you deny the battle raging against your heart, well, then, the thief just gets to steal and kill and destroy. Some friends of mine started a Christian school together a few years ago. It had been their shared dream for nearly all their adult lives. After years of praying and talking and dreaming, it finally happened. Then the assault came . . . but they would not see it as such. It was “hassles” and “misunderstanding” at first. As it grew worse, it became a rift between them. A mutual friend warned them of the warfare, urged them to fight it as such. “No,” they insisted, “this is about us. We just don’t see eye-to-eye.” I’m sorry to say their school shut its doors a few months ago, and the two aren’t speaking to each other. Because they refused to fight it for the warfare it was, they got taken out. I could tell you many, many stories like that.
    There is no war is the subtle—but pervasive—lie sown by an Enemy so familiar to us we don’t even see him. For too long he has infiltrated the ranks of the church, and we haven’t even recognized him.
    (
    Waking the Dead , 159–60)

    Monday, June 9, 2008

    Excerpts...part 1

    This just fits...

    This week I am going to post from a series of devotionals that came from Ransomed Heart Ministries. This series of devotionals are all excerpts from books written by John Eldredge.

    Why Does Every Story Have a Villain?
    05/29/2008


    The question is not, Are we spiritually oppressed, but Where and How?
    Think of it—why does every story have a villain?
    Little Red Riding Hood is attacked by a wolf. Dorothy must face and bring down the Wicked Witch of the West. Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi go hand to hand against Darth Maul. To release the captives of the Matrix, Neo battles the powerful “agents.” Frodo is hunted by the Black Riders. (The Morgul blade that the Black Riders pierced Frodo with in the battle on Weathertop—it was aimed at his heart). Beowulf kills the monster Grendel, and then he has to battle Grendel’s mother. Saint George slays the dragon. The children who stumbled into Narnia are called upon by Aslan to battle the White Witch and her armies so that Narnia might be free.
    Every story has a villain because yours does. You were born into a world at war. When Satan lost the battle against Michael and his angels, “he was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him” (Rev. 12:9). That means that right now, on this earth, there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of fallen angels, foul spirits, bent on our destruction. And what is Satan’s mood? “He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short” (v. 12). So what does he spend every day and every night of his sleepless, untiring existence doing? “Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against . . . those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus” (v. 17). He has you in his crosshairs, and he isn’t smiling.
    You have an enemy. He is trying to steal your freedom, kill your heart, destroy your life.
    (
    Waking the Dead , 150–51)

    Sunday, June 8, 2008

    Ammunition of the Enemy

    As we journey through life we come to points of decision. Sometimes these are daily. For some it may be multiple times a day, but for all of us we come to a point where we must make a decision...right or wrong, left or right, up or down. At that point of decision a stake is driven in the ground.

    For this post we are going to assume we made the right choice, the wise choice, the choice to follow God instead of the world.

    At this point...the assault begins. The Enemy puts the "red dot" on us and begins the offensive. For most of us the most effective offensive is by simply overwhelming us with busyness. Yes, busyness...

    What is it that keeps you and me from spending a few quiet moments with God daily...business.

    What is it that keeps you and me from spending that time we know we should spend with our kids...business.

    What is it that keeps you and me from spending quality time with our spouse building strong lines of communication...business.

    How many times do we say, "sure...just let me finish ___________". Maybe our response is "not right now but maybe next week"? I am as guilty of this as anyone and maybe more. Satan knows that by simply entangling me in business, I cannot accomplish or fulfill the truly important commitments I have made before God. Once I find myself ensnared in business I feel like the fly caught it the spiders web. The harder I fight to get free the more I am restrained and enslaved in business. But how do I get free? I have to on purpose STOP! I need to just stop and pray. I need to just stop, pray and relax. Once I do this God can take back over and free me. It amazes me how He can multiply my time and I begin to accomplish a whole lot more. I feel good about what's accomplished and I am once again making a positive difference.

    For me, the ammunition of the Enemy which has the most stopping power is business. What stops you in your tracks?