A New Obedience

Saints,

I recently finished a year as a middle school band director--a position which seemed to "derail" my life. I thank God that role is finished for me.

As I have turned my attention toward the Father once again, I struggle with my motivation. Why did I put God on a "back burner?" What has become of my passion for Him? 

Check out this wonderful reminder of God's love--the real power of the gospel!

"As the gospel is believed through the power of the spirit, our selfish, hardened hearts burst alive with righteous and godly passions. As we behold the glory of God in the face of Christ, Paul says, we are transformed into glory (2 Cor. 3:18-4:14).

Religion, then, can tell you what to do--namely, to "love God with all your heart, soul, and mind" and "to love your neighbor as yourself"; but the gospel alone gives you the power to do it.

The gospel produces not just obedience, you see, but a new kind of obedience--an obedience that is powered by desire. An obedience that is both pleasing to God and delightful to you."

YES! Let that sink in.

That is an excerpt from a book Lisa kept "hounding" me to read, Gospel, by J D Greear, page, 18.

Beginning to feel alive again...

Steve

Prayer and Suffering

Saints,

I pray that we continue to be drawn into deeper intimacy with Jesus. I know God will answer this prayer because Jesus asked for the same thing as recorded in John 17.

Be encouraged by these words from Paul Miller, in his book A Praying Life, from the chapter on “Learning to be Helpless,” page 59.

“If we think we can do life on our own, we will not take prayer seriously. Our failure to pray will always feel like something else--a lack of discipline or too many obligations. But when something is important to us, we make room for it. Prayer is simply not important to many Christians because Jesus is already an add-on. That is why, as we’ll see later, suffering is so important to the process of learning how to pray. It is God’s gift to show us what life is really like.”

What are your thoughts on your suffering and intimacy with Jesus through prayer?

Blessings,

Steve

A Few Words on Intimacy

Men

Here are a few words from A Prayer Life written by Paul Miller--a NavPress book.

"Jesus' example teaches us that prayer is about relationship. When he prays, he is not performing a duty; he is getting close to his Father. 

Any relationship, if it is going to grow, needs private space, time together without an agenda, where you can get to know each other. This creates an environment where closeness can happen, where we can begin to understand each other's hearts.

You don't create intimacy; you make room for it. This is true whether you are talking about your spouse, your friend, or God. You need space to be together. Efficiency, multitasking, and busyness kill intimacy. In short, you can't get to know God on the fly.

If Jesus has to pull away from people and noise in order to pray, then it makes sense that we need to as well." p47

I hope these words encourage you!

Blessings,

Steve

What Does More Prayer Look Like?

Men,

What does more prayer look like?

More prayer looks like each Christ-follower driven by God-given faith. That faith initiates, propels, sustains, and motivates Spirit-led, Bible-based, Kingdom-focused prayer in Jesus name.

More prayer looks like a young husband who can’t stop thinking about his new beautiful bride—just like we can’t stop thinking about Jesus and what is important to Jesus.

More prayer looks like praying alone, like Jesus praying all night on a mountain.

More prayer looks like praying with others, like Jesus praying with His disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane.

More prayer looks like prayer driven by righteous anger like Jesus as He drove out the money-changers from the Temple.

More prayer looks like heart-ache as Jesus demonstrated “offering both requests and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death and he was heard because of his devotion.” Heb. 5:7

More prayer looks like “knowing that you know that you know” God is with you.

More prayer looks like truly standing on God’s promises—not letting go—knowing He will do it!

More prayer looks like we have been with Jesus.

More prayer looks like husbands fighting for their wives, fathers and mothers fighting for their children, and wives fighting for their husbands.

More prayer looks like every Christ-follower consumed with deeper satisfaction in Jesus.

More prayer looks like the church truly living and behaving like the Spirit-empowered world-changer she really is!

More prayer looks like “Paul-like” life change of people in our families, communities, city, region, and the world.

More prayer looks like “pursuing His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to us, as well.” Matt 6:33

More prayer looks like “the God of endurance and comfort giving us unity with one another in accordance with Christ Jesus, so that together we may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Rom 15:5-6

More prayer looks like David asking the Father to, “Teach me your way O Lord; I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart to fear your name. I will give thanks to you, O my Lord, with all my heart, and I will glorify your name forever.” Ps 86:11-12

Father, we ask for You to re-define our lives as lives of prayer, lives of whole-hearts after You, lives of Your kingdom as our priority in Jesus name, Amen.

Blessings, Steve

How to be Sexually Pure

Men,

This is a short message to help point us in the right direction. Many of us desire sexual purity. We want to honor women. We want to honor our Creator by not having even a hint of sexual immorality.  My question is how? How do we live pure lives?

Well, the traditional religious approach is to do more, try harder, and struggle more to be pure. Typically, our own human efforts result in failure. Then, we start the cycle over and "try harder."

I submit  a different approach. Remember that God's strength is made known through our weakness. Please consider victory through "giving-up," or surrender.  All we need was accomplished by Jesus through His death on the cross. It is God's power that overcomes sin, not ours.

Men, it is time to show the world God's power over sin, lust, and immoral thoughts and behavior.

Father, glorify Your name in us.  Yes, we will be the men you created us to be. True men. Real men. Pure men.

Steve

Give Your Attention to the Father

Men,

Let’s be real. There are times when it is hard to pray.

I love the Pixar movie Up. I can relate to Doug the dog. Doug has a gadget on his neck which translates his thoughts into human language—he can speak Mandarin, French, Spanish, or English all at a turn of the dial. It is fun to hear him speak “dog thoughts.” In one scene he is speaking about how loyal he is and how much he loves his master etc. Then, he suddenly turns his head and shouts, “Squirrel!” The dog completely interrupted himself. He was distracted. I can relate. Can you? Yes, especially when it comes to prayer.

This is one tactic I believe the enemy seeks to use in our lives—distraction. He may not be able to push us to give up on Jesus or keep us from speaking about our Savior. Even so, he may seek to fill our time with anything but prayer. It’s as if, the enemy’s mantra is, “Just keep them from praying!”

One timed I asked a missionary friend who was serving in Asia, (we are all on mission by the way—yes!) what role prayer played in her work? She stopped to think and then answered, “Prayer is the work.” She shared how she learned how to not say Amen… Her prayer was constant. She had grown more aware of the spiritual battle around her. She sensed the need for constant connection with the Father.

If we love Jesus, then our purpose is to worship and enjoy our Savior and be a conduit of God’s love to others—Jesus declares this in Mark 12:28-31. It is God’s battle. It is God’s plan. It is God’s purpose. It is God’s glory. It is God’s power. It is God’s results. If we think otherwise, if we think we can do it all on our own, then we deceive ourselves to believe that we can influence this eternal spiritual battle through mere advertising, marketing, project management, and business savvy—in short, by man’s effort.

So what are we to do? The answer is really more about “be” than “do.”

Though these words were written long before Jesus walked the earth, they still carry great truth.

Hosea 6:3,

“So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord. His going forth is as certain as the dawn; and He will come to us like rain, like the spring rain watering the earth.” (NASB)

Hosea uses an action word in this passage which paints the picture of “hunting” or “chasing after” God. You might be thinking that this sounds like a lot of hard work. Well, yes and no. No, it is not hard work in that we can’t work ourselves into connection with God—Jesus did this. And yes, in that, as Jesus said on the cross about His own work, “It is finished.” Jesus did the hard work. So what do we do? It's as if we cooperate with the Spirit as He drives us to chase after more intimacy with the Father.

Brothers and sisters may I suggest that we take time to come to our father in undistracted prayer and say like Daniel said in Daniel 9:3,

Father, here I am. You have done the work to enable me to be here in your presence. You first loved me--now I love you. Just like Daniel, I now "turn my attention to You." Lord, show me how to pray. Please lead this prayer time.


Father, You began the work and You are faithful to complete it. We surrender. We offer ourselves as intercessors. Please fill us with your Spirit of intercession—lead us to pray as You will. Help us to pray--we choose to press in.

Desperate for more of God, Steve

Can We Trust the New Testament? by Al Walmsley

Can We Trust the New Testament? (Al Walmsley)

- Do you believe the Bible is the word of God?

- Is it true?”

- Is it historically trustworthy”

- Two questions which must be asked when investigating the reliability of the New

  Testament

            1.  Do we have an accurate copy of the originals?

            2.  Do those copies tell the truth?

- Question 1

            - We have earlier manuscripts (mss)

            - We have more mss (~5700 Gk mss alone)

            - More accurately copied mss (Mahabharata: 95%.  Iliad: 90%.  NT: 99.9%)

            - More abundantly supported mss (18,000 non-Gk mss.  36,000 quotes)

            - So how do we know we have an accurate copy of the NT?

                        - By applying the Bibliography test:  The one applied to all ancient writings

            - Bibliography Test addresses to questions

            1.  How many mss do we have?

            2:  What is the timeline (amount of time between the original writing and the copy of

                the mss)?

            - Quest. 1:  How many mss?

                        - General rule:  More copies, the easier it is to recreate the original

                        - Compare copies and find and resolve errors

            - Quest. 2:  What is the timeline?

                        - General rule:  The closer the mss is to the original, the more accurate the copy

                        - John Ryland Fragment:  segment of John’s Gospel dated 117-138 AD –

                          undisputed

                        - Magdaline Fragment:  Dated around 60 AD – disputed

                        -Nine fragments of N found mixed with Dead Sa Scrolls dated 50-70 AD

Author	Book	Date Written	Earliest Copies	Time Gap	No. of Copies
Homer	Iliad	800 B.C.	c. 400 B.C.	c. 400 Years	643
Herodotus	History	480-425 B.C.	c. 900	c. 1350 Years	8
Thucydides	History	460-400 B.C.	c. 900	c. 1300 Years	8
Plato		400 B.C.	c. 900	c. 1300 Years	7
Demosthenes		300 B.C.	c. 1100	c. 1400 Yrs	200
Caesar	Gallic Wars	100-44 B.C.	c. 900	c. 1000 Yrs	10
Livy	History of Rome	59 B.C. – 17	c. 4th Cent. partial.  mostly 10th Cent.	c. 400 Yrs c. 1000 Yrs	1 Partial 19 Copies
Tacitus	Annals	100	c. 1100	c. 1000 Yrs	20
Pliny Secundus	Natural History	61 – 113	c. 850	c. 750 Yrs	7
New Testament		50-100	c. 114 (frag.) c. 200 (bks) c. 250 (most of N.T.) c. 325	+50 Yrs 100 Yrs 150 Yrs 225 Yrs	5366

Source:  The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict, 1999. Josh McDowell. Page 38

            - Diocletian (Roman Emperor)

                        - 303 AD:  ordered destruction of all mss and Christian books

                                    - Hundreds, maybe thousands, of mss destroyed

                                    - Could re-build entire NT from quotes from early church fathers

                                                - With exception of 11 verses (mostly from 3 John)

            - So beyond reasonable doubt, we have an accurate copy of the original

2.  Question 2 of Bibliographical Test:  Is what we have today true?

            - Expected Testimony          

                        - Messiah would be a man (Gen 3:15)

                        - Line of David (Jer. 23:5, 33:15)

                        - Born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2)

                        - God and Man (Is. 9:6)

                        - Visits the Temple (Mal 3:1)

                        - Dies in 33 AD (Dan 9:24)

                        - Rises from dead (Is. 53:11)

            - Early Testimony

                        - 33 AD:  Cross

                        - Mid 50’s:  Mark and I Cor

                        - 62 AD:  Acts (Luke written before Acts), James

                        - Mid 60’s:  Romans, II Cor, Galatians

                        - Paul dies in 68 AD, so his writings were complete by then

                        - 70 AD:  Temple destroyed.  Believed most of the NT written by 70 AD

            - Eyewitness Testimony

                        - Luke 3:1-2

                                    - Mentions exact date (29 AD)

                                    - Eight historical figures

                                    - All eight lived at same time

            - Embarrassing Testimony

                        - Apostles looked dim-witted

                                    - Didn’t understand Jesus teaching (Mk.  9:32, Luke 18:34)

                        - Uncaring

                                    - Fell asleep in the Garden

                                    - Didn’t try to give him a decent burial

            - They were rebuked

                        - Peter called “Satan” (Mk: 8:33)

                        - Paul rebuked Peter (Gal 2:11)

            - Were cowards

                        - Peter denied Christ three times

                        - Disciples hid after the Crucifixion

                        - Women were brave

            - Were doubters

                        - Disciples denied Jesus arose

                        - Doubted after the Resurrection (Mt 28:17)

            - Jesus

                        - Considered out of his mind by his own family (Mk. 3:21, 31)

                        - Not believed by his own half-brothers (John 7:5)

                        - Called madman (Jn 10:20 and a drunkard (Mt. 11:19)

- Excruciating Testimony

            - Disciples suffered for their beliefs/faith

            - What did they have to gain by making up a story?

                        -Had every reason to deny the whole thing to save their lives

            - Why would they die for a lie?

- We have overwhelming evidence to believe what was written was true

- Beyond reasonable doubt it is safe to