I read a post by Jason today about the need for holiness to again be championed by the church.  It seems to be an essential element of our ability to help the light of Christ shine in this world.  My comment took on a life of its own so I am asking you to read Jason’s article but I am modifying my comment to post here. 

I am in total agreement with Jason that there is a serious need in the church in America to come back to holiness.  Since the light of Christ can never be overcome by the darkness of the enemy, the dimming we ascertain is due to the position we have “between” the light of Christ and the darkness of a lost world.  If we were all transparent enough to allow Christ’s light to shine through us as He intended, we would see the darkness fleeing the light.  Instead we obfuscate when we should be helping to illuminate. 

I believe holiness is the key to our transparency.  Jason asked the following…

“With this said, what do some of you think about the lack of holiness being preached and expressed in the church today? (note: I am not talking about dresses and make-up”

I believe this is a very real factor in the equation. Holiness is mostly omitted or confused with legalistic ideas.  And we certainly don’t live as separated from the world, soldiers in the army of God.  Look at Dees post over at Hope Aflame.  We are so tied into the world it is no wonder the skeptics see no difference between us and them. 

Our constant need for “stuff”, for “entertainment”, for “acceptance”, for “influence”, ad infinitum, is diametrically positioned in relation to our mission to reflect the light of Christ.  When are we going to get it through our thick, titanium clad skulls that this is not about us.  It is about our neighbor and our enemy over us and about Jesus over even them. 

But serving Christ cannot be done if we never serve the others first.  And we can only do that by allowing the light to shine through us and that takes the transparency that is only achieved by holy living.

Jason also asked…

Also, do you feel that Pentecostal churches are feeling pressure to abandon the gifts of the Spirit in our services with the fear of people being uncomfortable?

I have to say that it may be that God Himself might be tired of some of the things we have been calling gifts and manifestations for so long.  Before going any further let me assure all that I am a FIRM believer in the supernatural gifting and moving of God in this time and place.  The very way God brought me to my knees in repentance and to salvation is all the evidence of this that I need.   

But what I mean about God being tired of our “antics” is this. 

Just look at what the vast majority of Pentecostals are seeking and being thrilled at in any given revival.  Slain in the Spirit, speaking in tongues, shouting, jumping, running the isles and I have even heard many boast of people jumping on the back of pews and running them.  Not sure what they call that. 

My question is simply, how do these things truly glorify God.  My falling down on the floor at the altar, which has happened by the way, did what for any lost soul?  Speaking in tongues has been elevated to the level of being worthy of worship itself.  Aren’t we to worship the gifter and not the gift?  Shouting, running, jumping does exactly what to help fulfill the great commission?  And I won’t even say anything about pew back running or picking up hot coals with bare hands or gold dust or gold teeth or…

What saddens me, and I wonder if it saddens God also, is our acceptance that this is all there is and we go away thrilled with the great service or revival.  Where are the miracles that really have the potential to impact lives?  Where are true, verifiable healings?  Where are all the truly changed people?  Where are the lasting deliverances from the activity of the adversary? 

I have experienced many, and am not bothered by any, of these things.  And even on occasion felt closer to God because of it.  As I said, I am saddened, but only because I know there could be so much more.  Are we just settling for what makes us happy at the moment?  And as far as it goes, if God is willing to allow us to have this level of gifting even though we are not very holy, what would we be able to do if we really did come back to holiness?

Some of the new, more postmodern Christians are probably not willing to accept or be comfortable with some of what we call Pentecostal gifting and manifestations.  But I would like to know if they could handle a paraplegic getting out of a wheelchair or a blind man gaining his sight in one of their altars.  I believe they would find this to be cause to sit up and take a fresh look.  I know I anxiously await it in my church. 

I just wonder if we might need to get rid of some of the excess first.

And I don’t have to wonder at all about the necessity to live a holy life before and for our God and King.  There just is no question about this.

Transparency is the need in this moment of darkness.  Then, and only then, can the Light shine through.

Love you all   

Tags: America, army of god, christ shine, darkness, Entertainment, Healing, Holiness, Love, Miracles, neighbor, Pentecost, Pentecostal, Salvation, Self, Supernatural, transparency

There was a time in my life, not too long ago, that I did whatever seemed right in my eyes.  In other words, whatever I wanted.  If I wanted to watch a vampire movie, or movies filled with profanity, nudity, violence, gore, destruction, or read a book or listen to music with the same things, then I did and thought nothing of it.  And I am sad to say that I didn’t keep much of it from my kids either. 

Then I got saved.  I accepted the call from our Lord to follow Him.  So everything changed, or did it?  This is a response about the discussion from Tuesday. 

1Co 6:12  “All things are lawful for me…”All things are lawful for me,”…

1Co 10:23  “All things are lawful…. “All things are lawful…

According to Paul, in these verses, I can pretty much still watch, read, and listen to what I want.  This whole concept known as the grace and mercy of God has freed me from a legalistic definition of the Law in an attempt to reach and serve God.  And some certainly do live a life, even after “accepting” the call of God, that show us that they believe what Paul said here wholeheartedly.  Paul even repeated this four times in only two verses. 

I, as an atheist, watched people for a lot of years do exactly what I did and called themselves Christians.  So naturally I concluded, along with a lot of other observations, that God was not real.  But this was a large part of the conclusion.  Christians and atheists were doing so many of the same things so, what was the big deal about a supreme being.  But look at the following verses in their fullness.

1Co 6:12  “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be enslaved by anything.

1Co 10:23  “All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up.

I left the emboldened parts out originally to point out how it seems that Christians read the verses, based on their perceived lives.  Based on the choices of countless Christians I have watched both before and after I joined their ranks, I have to conclude some have never paid attention to the three concepts Paul stated about all things. 

In the first verse Paul has been talking about different types of sinners, not sin, but sinners.  And he has concluded that the believers at Corinth used to be these sinners but are now washed clean by Christ.  Then he does let us know that all things are lawful because of that cleansing. 

Looking at the next verse in context we find Paul again concluding that whatever he does is lawful.  But in both cases he is quick to let us know that it is not really good for us, because all things do not help us in mission, in our freedom, or in our witness.  Read chapter 6 and 10 of 1 Corinthians with this in mind.   

A real relationship with Christ brings change.  We become new creations and I stand as a witness to this.  When I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ, some of the things I did for entertainment became vile to me.  So I knew instinctively that they were vile to the Holy Spirit because His taking up residence in me was the real change that had occurred in my life.  Dee concluded that Jesus being in the room would decide her choices and she is right.  We just have to remember He is in the room.

The questions we really have to ask ourselves about entertainment choices are; does it help us in our mission?  Does it help us in our freedom?  Does it help us in our witness? 

Does it help us in our mission?  Probably not in most cases.  As Laura stated about Seventh Heaven and such shows, they may actually hinder us because of the false gospel that is being presented.  Our mission is to reach the lost with the good news and make disciples of them.  The very idea behind entertainment implies a suspension of mission. 

I do not think it is terrible to take a break from the warfare and work we are to be doing for the Kingdom, but God gave us an example of six days work and one day of rest.  But it seems most Christians do the opposite.  They might actually do something for God on one day by going to church but then they take six days to relax from the real work by ignoring the things of God. 

Does it help us in our freedom?  Jesus freed us from our slavery to sin.  But many of us are so willing to visit it again and again like some really exciting, fun, and enjoyable relative.  The implications beneath the quote that Heath provided point to the reality of the intoxicating hold that ungodly things can have on us. 

Most of the comments had some suggestion of the idea that we need to be conscience of the effect on our spirit that our choices have.  We can become addicted to entertainment and addiction is the exact opposite of freedom.

Does it help us in our witness?  The very heart of the whole matter is how our choices can affect our witness.  Reread what I used to think about Christians.  People who see absolutely no beneficial difference in the narrow path and the wide highway are not going to creep along on the narrow.  Why should they. 

Finally, if you love your children, you have to filter what they watch, read, and hear.  There is absolutely no way that the correlation between the rise of violence, sexual promiscuity, death, the demeaning of women, and other things that are accepted in all the mediums of entertainment and the rise of the same in real society today, can be dismissed.

So to conclude I am offering these thoughts to ponder.

Do you watch The Shield but would never watch Charmed?  Do you watch Friends but would never watch Will and Grace?  Would you read Jeff Lindsay but never Stephen King?  Is country and western music okay but gangsta rap taboo? 

If you answered yes to any of the above, you might want to ask Jesus which one he would rather enjoy. He is right there with you.

Love you all

Tags: atheist, Death, Entertainment, fun, gore, Grace, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, Kingdom, Mercy, nudity, profanity, rap, Sin, spirit, vampire, violence, witness

Halloween just passed and I ignored the topic here and am not actually writing about it now either.  But it did come to my mind when I started thinking about today’s town hall discussion.

There are Christian sites out there that have people saying how much they like certain vampire book series, Harry Potter books and movies, heavy metal secular music, rap filled with violence and profanity, supernatural movies, books and other such things.  Some Christians think such things are a little inappropriate, some a terrible, foul stain on either ones spirit or ones witness, and some see nothing at all wrong with it.  There are also games with a lot of violence and supernatural aspects to them. 

There are a lot of different sides to the issue and there are also a lot of different levels of objectionable material in the various medium that I mentioned.  There are also many things like tarot cards, mediums and spiritualists, Ouija boards, etc.  I bring these up to let you know I am not talking about these or Halloween or actual witchcraft and others. 

I want to stay focused on types of entertainment. 

So how do you see these things? 

Do you participate and what does it take for you to say; no, that is not for me? 

Do you draw any lines that separate what is objectionable between adults and children? 

Let me know what you think.

Love you all.

Tags: Christians, Entertainment, Halloween, Harry Potter, heavy metal, ouija boards, profanity, rap, Supernatural, tarot cards, town hall, vampire, witchcraft, witness

It’s time to get back to our discussion on warfare strategy that I started a few posts back.  I have been busy redesigning my page and in discussion, more than normal, in the comments on the last post.  Thanks everyone for your input.   

I originally talked about how it is time for us, the Church, to reassess our warfare tactics to bring them in line with the increasingly effective tactics of the enemy.  Then we looked at seven major strategies that our enemy seems to be using in this nation at the present time. 

Then I decided to expand the thought on our response and what is needed to combat each area specifically.  I hope some of you actually got something from it.  To date there are no comments, so maybe I am way off base.  I hope not.

This brings us to the next topic in this discussion.

Entertainment.  Let me start by just reiterating what I said before.  What we need here is a return to personal introspection and Godly reflection.  These seem to be from another era for most.  I believe we must constantly look at God and to God to appreciate who He really is, and who we really are.  Then we can look at ourselves and actually begin to like ourselves.  When we actually truly like ourselves, we won’t need as much outside entertainment. 

Boredom.  We all need something to do.  We work hard in jobs we despise.  We spend time with people we do not like, for various reasons.  We go places for our loved ones that we really can’t stand.  We poke and we plod through most of life and we get bored. 

So we go for it whenever we can.  Entertainment.  Something to take away the dull pain that is existence itself.  Football, baseball, basketball, pro, college, little league, even t-ball.  Races, boxing, wrassling and wrestling.  All types of sports at all levels.  And if you think the enemy is not involved, just look at how popular women’s beach volleyball is getting. 

Let’s go on some more.  Movies, television, DVDs, music, 15 different gaming systems that we just must have.  Bowling leagues.  Game nights.  Parties.  Dancing.  Dining.  Internet.  Blogging.  And a whole lot of things that people do that I would never mention here, just to pass the time.

I could go on and I am sure you could also.  We are all just looking for something to do.  Why is life so dull and painful that almost all of us succumb to this enemy tactic that is simply designed to keep us from our God? 

The enemy wants us to be occupied with anything but the things of God.  Even when we do not have a thing to do or that we can do, where do our thoughts go?  Usually they become preoccupied with finding something to do. 

Our strategy is simple.  We need to send that demonic boredom away and make doing the work of the kingdom a constant driving force in our lives.  If we will truly grab hold of what God has done for us and the enormity of the task He trusts us with, we will see the urgency and realize how little time we have to accomplish our work.  And if doing His work does not bring joy to you, then maybe you are not where you should be.  I actually hate to say what I just said.  But it needs to be done. 

True joy comes from helping someone see the need for salvation.  True joy comes from spending time with our Father.  The angels in Heaven throw their parties every time someone gets saved.  (Luk 15:10) 

Now that’s entertainment!!

All the rest is just wasting time. 

Love you all

***Your comments are welcome***

Tags: Boredom, Entertainment, Strategy and Tactics, warfare