Imperial Valley Christian Center

Interesting Links

Here's some links from around the web that I thought you might find interesting.

Bubble Boy Christianity

I've always been amazed at the emphasis that evangelical Christians put on identifying heresy.  It seems to be one of the main subjects of their religious education. I sometimes imagine evangelical seminaries and Bible schools having game nights where they play, Name That Heresy. Future pastors,theologians and ministers compete against each other to see how few of a religious opponents words they need to hear before they can identify his heresy.

Game Show Host: This so called minister was from Texas but his ministry headquarters were in Tulsa, Oklahoma and he was close friends with Oral Roberts.

Contestant #1 Future Pastor: I can name that heresy in 10 words.

Contestant #2 Future Professor of Theology: I can name that heresy in 5 words.

Game Show Host: Name that heresy…

Most evangelical ministers seem to be more familiar with the various heresies than they are the Bible. They can tell if a preacher's a Pelagian, or a Manichean, an Arian or a Montanist faster than you can say, "Please turn in your Bibles to…" Why waste time studying the Bible when learning to recognize heresy is a much faster route to all, acceptable, truth.

I shouldn't let the Catholics off the hook, but they've apparently narrowed all the heresies down to one, " Are you now or have you ever been a member of any church other than the one true, Catholic and apostolic church? " At a Catholic internet forum I was reading, someone had asked about a particular healing ministry. The healing minister had at one time been a Catholic Priest and the poster's parents had enjoyed one of his books and the poster wanted to know more about the healing minister. It didn't take long for a Torquemada wanna be to come on-line and assert that the healing minister was teaching heresy because he had suggested that the Catholic Church had missed it in the area of healing. Torquemada Jr. claimed that since the Catholic Church was the body of Christ, it was Christ, and to suggest that the Catholic church had missed it in any area was the same as saying that Christ had missed it. Okay, well there's not much you can say to that. The one thought that came to mind was, " I wonder if that's what he tells the altar boys."

Anyway, I said all that to get to this. This emphasis on heresy, by Christian churches, is an artifact of Bubble Boy Christianity. I mean "bubble boy" like the "boy" in the Seinfeld Episode who had to live in a

Answered Prayer…#2 Fly by your Believe-O-Meter and ignore your senses.

In part one we saw that Jesus guarantees the dependability, the reliability, the certainty of prayer. There are no stronger words Jesus could use to guarantee that we would receive what we ask for when we pray than, “…you shall have them…,” but at the same time he lets us know that we have a part to play.

Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. (Mark 11:24)

We must believe that we received the thing when we prayed.  Believing that you received isn’t just something you do for 5 seconds at the moment of prayer and then forget, it’s a process. That’s why I like to compare it to growing a garden. Sometimes this process happens so quickly you don’t even realize a process is involved, but other times the process may take place over weeks, or months and often years, just like growing a garden. If we want to receive we need to learn to stick with the process until the answer comes. This process involves believing before, during and after our prayer.

Before you pray, believe you will receive.
Before we pray, as we come before God to ask for something, we must believe that we will receive. We must expect God’s answer to be yes. We must be confident that God will give us what we ask. Can you see how that would make it easier to believe that you receive the thing when you pray?
Most people think the key to prayer is figuring out how to convince God to give us the thing.  So we cry, or bargain, or nag, or get a million people to help us beg hoping that somehow we’ll hit on the combination that unlocks God’s penny-pinching, tight wad fist. But Jesus taught that God wants to answer our prayers. Jesus taught that God’s “Yes.” to our prayer is preordained and that as a result we should be overflowing with confidence when we pray.  Jesus said,

What Is Love?

What is love?

Sometimes it's difficult to determine what love is.

There's a guy who hangs out down next to the highway on the street going between WalMart and Target. He holds a cardboard sign saying something like, "Vietnam Veteran, Please Help." Is it love to give to him? If I don't give to him does that mean I'm not walking in love? What if he's a con-man? What if he's not really a Vietnam Veteran but just a vivales as they say in Spanish? Is it still love to give to him? We could make a rule or law out of giving to guys who stand on street corners asking for money. It might even make us feel that we were particularly good if we gave to every such person. But is it always love to do so? Does love give money to a man so he can buy drugs or alcohol? Does love give money to a guy who's just evading responsibility? Is it love to help him buy his drugs? Is it love to support his dishonesty? Is it love to support even just his laziness.

Christians like to make a big deal out of helping the poor. "I go down once a week and work at the homeless shelter aren't I special."  My mom remembers going with a church group to help feed the homeless in our small town. (The weather is really nice here during the winters and so along with snowbirds from the Northern U.S. and from Canada we get an influx of homeless people from the coast.) They had prepared some sack lunches or something to distribute to the homeless.

Getting Your Prayers Answered … As Easy As Losing Weight!

My question for Jesus has always been, How do I do this:

24 Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. (Mark 11:24)

Now the first thing you need to see from this scripture is that Jesus is guaranteeing that we can receive what we ask for when we pray. This is the normal way that prayer is presented in the Bible, i.e. as a sure thing. That may seem a little strange to us who have been raised on a steady diet of religious rationalizations for unanswered prayer but it is, nevertheless, the case. In the Bible answered prayer is  a certainty. No mealy mouth, namby pamby, lets leave some loopholes just in case, promises for God. No, He leaves that to the theologians,when God talks about prayer He guarantees results.

Chutzpah, Jesus' Word for Faith revised.

What does "faith" mean?

What does it mean to believe?

That's a pretty important question for anyone interested in being a serious Christian because so many of the Bible's promises are conditioned on faith. For example:

Matthew 17:20 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

One of the best explanations of what Jesus meant by the word "faith" was advanced by Robert Lindsey. LIndsey is one of a group of scholars including David Flusser, Brad Young, Marvin Wilson, Shmuel Safrai, Joseph Frankovic and others who are working to explain how the words of Jesus would have been understood by Jesus' audience, i.e. first century Jews. Along these lines Bob Lindsey suggests that the English word which best corresponds to the actual word that Jesus used for faith is  "chutzpah." Here's a nice explanation of this I came across from a book by Francis MacNutt called, Healing. Mr. MacNutt used to be a Catholic priest and has a pretty well known healing ministry. Here's the blurb about "chutzpah" from his book:

"A few years ago I got an entirely new understanding of faith that has been most liberating. It came from the late Bob Lindsey, who had been pastor of the Narkiss Street Baptist Church, the largest English-speaking church in Jerusalem. Bob, a Southern Baptist, became involved in the healing ministry and himself had been cured of diabetes through prayer. Bob studied the gospels with a Jewish rabbi and really understood the Hebrew culture in which Jesus lived. So when Bob was visiting the States I thought he would be the perfect person to ask: "What is the meaning of 'faith,' as Jesus himself would have understood it?

" Without hesitation Bob said, "Chutzpah." Now, chutzpah is a Yiddish slang term meaning something like 'nerve' or 'brass,' 'extreme confidence in action.' In today's terms a person with chutzpah is someone who 'goes for it.' A classic Jewish story about chutzpah describes how a boy murdered his mother and father, and then threw himself at the mercy of the judge on the grounds that he was an orphan. Now that's chutzpah!"

So when Jesus tells us to have "faith" when we pray, he means for us to have confidence, boldness, assuredness, even brashness. The English word which I think best defines "chutzpah," is audacity. To have faith is to have audacity. To have faith in God is to be bold, assured and brash. To have faith in prayer means to be audacious in praying. Most Christians have little confidence in receiving what they pray for. Most think of prayer as  thoroughly unreliable. They have absolutely no idea if their prayer will be answered. In other words, where prayer to God is concerned, they lack chutzpah, they have little faith.  The Christian with chutzpah, on the other hand has a confidence so bold, so brash, so assured of receiving what he has asked of God that most Christians would consider him to be arrogant and impertinent and presumptuous and they might even say, "What Chutzpah!"

Let me show you from one of Jesus' parables, the one normally referred to as the Parable of the Importunate Friend, that this is exactly the attitude that Jesus expects us to have when it comes to prayer.

Jesus Became Poor So You Could Be Rich

2 Corinthians 8:9 For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.

This is my favorite prosperity scripture.

-It’s in the New Testament, so you can’t argue, as many like to do about the prosperity promises from the Hebrew Scriptures that it's just for the Jews.

-It’s meaning is clear. Too clear perhaps for those driven into paroxysms of hate by us prosperity preachers and who are, as result, also driven to correct and amend it.

-It follows the typical redemptive pattern of Jesus substituting himself for us:

Galatians 3:13…being made a curse for us…14 That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ…

2 Corinthians 5:21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

1 Peter 2:24 Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

-It fulfills the covenant God swore to Abraham and his descendants, e.g.:

Deuteronomy 8:18 But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.

- It’s good news for the poor, and they could really use some good news and Jesus said he came to proclaim good news to the poor:

Luke 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor…

- And it speaks to the most important concern in the lives of all but the super-ultra-spiritual, i.e. money.

In spite of all that, most Christians immediately reject the plain meaning of this scripture. I’ve had people in my own church, people who like my ministry, come and say to me after the sermon, “But pastor you know that scripture doesn’t really mean that.” Well, in fact, I know that it does mean that. So I want to demonstrate that the plain meaning of this scripture is indeed the correct meaning. To put it another way, I want to show you that 2 Corinthians 8:9 means what it says.

Hmmmm.

I liked this riff on one of the cartoons of one of my favorite writers, Hugh Macleod, whose book Ignore Everybody I really enjoyed.

Still More Greek Philosophy vs. Christian Doctrine

I post these quotes mostly for my own amusement, but also because most Christians have very little conception of the influence of Greek Philosophy on Christianity. And many of those who promote this syncretism think it is a good thing. They are not offended by accusations that they have imported Greek philosophy into Christianity but are proud of it. They think it's a good thing. See for example, Pope Benedict's Regensburg speech.

Anyway here's another quote about the negative effect that Greek Philosophy has had on understanding the words of Jesus and Paul. This is from pg. 168 of the paperback version of Marvin Wilson's wonderful book, Our Father Abraham: Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith:

Even More Greek Philosophy vs. Christian Doctrine

Here's a good quote about the influence of Greek philosophy on Christianity. Sometimes the thought comes to me that Greek and Roman religion has survived inside of Christianity and some of the most

doctrinaire Christians you will find are those who defend that Greek philosophical religion. Here's the quote:

Saint Patrick

"St. Patrick's Breastplate," a prayer supposedly composed by St. Patrick is so encouraging, such a wonderful example of how we should all pray that I wanted to share part of it here.

Patrick was an amazing guy. For those of you not familiar with his story here's a blurb, which I believe was first printed in Christian History Magazine, but I found it online at: Signs, Wonders &
St. Patrick, By Mary Cagney

"…Patrick faced the most opposition from the druids, who practiced magic, were skilled in secular learning (especially law and history) and advised Irish kings. Biographies of the saint are replete with stories of druids who "wished to kill holy Patrick."

"Daily I expect murder, fraud, or captivity," Patrick wrote, "but I fear none of these things because of the promises of heaven. I have cast myself into the hands of God almighty who rules everywhere…"

Patrick was as fully convinced as the Celts that the power of the druids was real, but he

Walking In Love

Just finished a multi-part series about walking in love and I learned so much about love I wanted to share it here. Here's my points, 1. Why we need to learn to walk in love. 2. What is love., 3. How can we possibly do that?, 4. The love fight., 5. What to do.

1. Why we need to walk in love.

a. So that our prayers can be answered.

1 John 3:21 Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. 22 And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. 23 And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.

Everybody loves the, "…whatsoever we ask we receive…" part of that verse, but the condition for receiving it is that we have confidence toward God. We can't have confidence toward God, i.e. chutzpah or faith, if our heart is condemning us. If we harden our heart when our brother has need, which is what the preceding verses discuss, then our heart will still be hardened when we go before God to ask for something. It is standard practice in Christian circles to credit God for unanswered prayer, but as anyone with a particle of sense and a paucity of theological education could see from the above scripture, if our prayers are not answered the fault is not in our God but in ourselves. If we want to receive what we ask God for when we pray then we need to learn to walk in love. Most Christians have no idea what it means or how hard and painful it is to walk in love.

Us word of faith preachers are constantly asked about suffering, aren't Christians supposed to suffer? Most American evangelical Christians want to credit their "suffering" for stupidity and hardheartedness to "suffering for the Lord". They try to make a virtue out of the suffering which they have merited for failing to follow after God. They excuse the suffering they endure for failing to walk in the spirit by attributing it to the service of God. But suffering is blessing those who curse you, doing good to those who despitefully use you, helping your brother when he is in need. Real suffering is walking in love.

Dad Hagin used to tell a story about when he was a young pastor during the days of the great depression. A traveling minister had come to town on the bus. He was very discouraged and was trying to get home and had run out of money. He came to the service at Dad Hagin's little church. He didn't ask for anything but as he was leaving dad Hagin felt impressed in his heart to give the man ten dollars he had been saving. These were depression days and $10 was a lot, lot more money that it is today. Dad had been saving that money to buy Christmas for his wife and two little kids. If he gave the evangelist the money there would be no Christmas for his family. He struggled with it for a while but finally obeyed the leading of his spirit and gave the evangelist the money. That is suffering for the Lord. Failing to receive answers to prayer because you never walk in love is not suffering for the Lord that's being a knucklehead.

Dad Hagin said that several years later he was called to pray for a woman who was on her death bed. As he was there praying for her with several women he felt impressed in his spirit to say to the woman, rise up and be healed. He mulled it over for a little and then decided to obey the leading of his spirit and said to the woman, '"Rise up and be healed," and as Dad Hagin liked to say, the woman did, God did and she was. While they were celebrating this marvelous healing the Lord spoke to papa Hagin and told him, "If you had not obeyed me about that money back then, I would not have been able to use you to heal this woman right now."

If we want our prayers to be answered we need to learn to walk in love.

The Coming Evangelcal Collapse, sounds right to me.

Drudge links to this blog post reprinted in the Christian Science Monitor, arguing that evangelicalism, in the United States is about to collapse, http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0310/p09s01-coop.html

This sounds about right to me. I've been saying for years, to anyone who would listen, which basically means Becky, that Christianity in the United States was about to end. I sometimes think I know what it must have been like to be one of the last Priests of the Roman God's; just before the Christians started crucifying them.

Hey Nietzsche, acting like the old Prophet Elijah, called out Christianity well over a hundred years ago. He said, "Your God is dead that is why he doesn't answer by fire." Evangelical Christianity responded with a bumper sticker. If the leaders of American evangelical Christianity were alive in Elijah's day they'd be the ones trying to explain away, in extremely erudite and scholarly language, the fact that their God had not answered by fire.

No matter. God is not dead. He still answers by fire those who have the chutzpah to call fire down from heaven. The kingdom of God is not co-equal with American evangelicalism perhaps now we will finally bury that odious, bubble boy religion, doctrine of the sovereignty of God. The faster they die off and stop wasting God's money on trying to get, "The World" to like them, the better off the Kingdom of God will be.

More Greek Philosophy vs. Christian Doctrine

Another couple good quotes on one of my favorite subjects. From Justo L. Gonzalez's book,  A History of Christian Thought, Vol 1, From the Beginnings to the Council of Chalcedon:

pg. 50 " Among all the ancient philosophers, it is Plato who had the greatest influence on the early development of Christian thought. Of his teachings, those that most concern us here are the doctrines of the two worlds, of the immortality and the pre-existence of the soul, of knowledge as reminiscence, and of the Idea of the Good."

Most Christians don't realize that early Christianity was heavily influenced by Greek philosophical thought. Its influence really stands out when you look at how early Christianity departed from Jewish thought. So, for example, the average Christian has come to believe that the future life consists of our spirits living in a spiritual place called Heaven, as opposed to the Jewish idea of the resurrection of our dead bodies at some future time. Here's another quote:

Greek Philosphy vs. Christian Doctrine

Okay, here's a subject near and dear to my heart, the influence of Greek Philosophy on the development of Christian doctrine.

It has seemed to me for years that much of traditional Christian doctrine was the result of trying to force the Bible to fit into Greek philosophical categories. This was, to me, particularly evident with respect to the idea of the Sovereignty of God; which seemed to be a complete import from Greek philosophy. It's very hard to square the idea of conditional covenants and conditional promises which abound throughout the Bible, with the idea that God is causing everything that happens. If God is causing everything that happens then what is the point of telling you to not commit adultery? If God is controlling all that happens then what is the point of Jesus saying, "…believe that you receive them and ye shall have them."

The argument for the sovereignty of God must go something like this (I'm saying, 'must go' because as many times as I have heard Christians invoke the sovereignty of God I've never heard anyone set out the argument for it much less any real scriptural defense of it.):

Romans 5:5

Here's another entry from the Greg Marquez Commentary on scripture.

Romans 5:5 And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

The love of God, not the love for God, is shed abroad in our hearts. This is a regular theme of Paul's. We are a new man, a new creature, made in the likeness of God. Part of that new creation includes God's very own love. We have God's love in our heart. That is why Paul does not set us up a bunch of rules telling us how we should live or walk. We don't need rules for walking in love we have God's love in us. What we need is to let God's love rule in our lives.

The rest of the scripture seems to make very little sense. It's difficult to understand a direct connection between "not ashamed" and God's love being shed abroad in our hearts. As a result some modern translations have translated, "not ashamed" as "does not disappoint".  Which still doesn't make much sense if you're expecting a logical connection between, "does not disappoint" and the love of God being shed abroad in our hearts.

I think if we look at the context though we can see what Paul is saying, and it's pretty powerful stuff. First let's look at the phrase, "not ashamed'.  which according to Thayer's consists of two words:

Romans 1:18

I want to share some thoughts about scriptures I've been studying and meditating on.

Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. 17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

This passage of scripture has given rise to a great deal of commentary, and controversy, most of it having to do with the phrase in verse 17, "the righteousness of God." I intend to deal with that phrase in more depth as well but right now I want to focus on what I take to be it's parallel in verse 18, "for the wrath of God is revealed…" By parallel I mean that Paul is comparing two opposites, the righteousness of God is revealed in verse 17 and the wrath of God is revealed in verse 18. My take on it is this, if I can figure out what he means by the wrath of God being revealed then I will know what he means by the righteousness of God being revealed, because they are, if not direct opposites, at least opposed to each other.

I've been meditating and studying on this passage of scripture for some time and today realized that Paul is not saying that the wrath of God has now been revealed, i.e. that it is in a permanent state of being revealed, but rather Paul is  saying that, the wrath of God when it is revealed, is done so in response to the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. In other words when people engage in ungodliness and unrighteousness the wrath of God is revealed against them. He is saying essentially the same thing he says elsewhere for example:

Colossians 3:5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: 6 For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:

and

Ephesians 5:6 Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.

and even

Galatians 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. 8 For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.

The important take away from this understanding of the "wrath of God being revealed" is that the verses that follow, (Where Paul talks about how people can know God even without the Word of God because God is revealed to them in nature and how their refusal to acknowledge God leads them further away from him.) are not describing the wrath of God or the results of the wrath of God but are describing the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men which causes the wrath to be manifested.

The Money Comes By Faith

So we've established that God has promised to prosper us, we've seen that this promise is received by faith like everything we receive from God, now I want to talk a little about what faith is.

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But How Does The Money Come?

We've spent a great deal  of time (Not enough apparently judging form the comments at  YouTube.) trying to establish that the Bible teaches that God wants us to prosper. In fact, we demonstrated that the Bible teaches that God has promised to give us power to get wealth. We then established that the Bible teaches that these promises of prosperity belong to the Christians, they are not "just for the jews," as some like to say.

So if you're convinced, as I am, that God wants us to prosper the next questions is: But how does the money come? That's what we want to start talking about here.

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Faith is …

We  Previously  discussed the importance of faith and one of the things we saw was that, at least according to the Bible, our faith can heal others:

James 5:14 Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: 15 And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.

The word "save"  here is the Greek word for healing and so most modern Bibles translate it heal or restore or make well. If we can learn to pray the prayer of faith then we will be able to heal the sick. In order to pray the prayer of faith we're going to have to learn what faith is.

Faith has two parts, we could call them revelation and action. Revelation is the inside part of faith, the spiritual part it is that which motivates, directs, informs, instructs … the second part of faith, i.e. action. Without both you don't have faith. Action without revelation is what we derisively refer to as religion., i.e. action with no spiritual motivation. Revelation without action the Bible calls  "dead" faith.

Here I want to discuss the first part of faith, the revelation part.

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Why God Wants You Rich

We've been teaching on the subject of prosperity for quite a while now, but before continuing I want to discuss the why of prosperity. Why does God want you to prosper? There's more that one reason that God desires are prosperity. Prosperity is good and God is a good God therefore he desires our prosperity… God has promised to prosper us, to keep his promise we have to prosper… It takes money to help the poor so we need to prosper in order to be able to help them. But I believe the most important reason God wants us to prosper is to free us from dependence on the world system. He wants us free to serve him. He wants us free to do what he has created and called us to do. God has promised to prosper us materially and financially so that we can be free to serve him. That's what this message is about.

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You Gotta Have Faith

This is the first episode in a series on the ABC's of Faith. Here I discuss the importance of faith.

The promises set forth in the Bible present a problem for the Christian. For example Philippians 4:19 says "and my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." Well then how come my needs aren't supplied? One obvious answer is that the promise is a lie, it's not true, it's con, but that's hardly an acceptable answer for a Christian. So Christians have come up with a variety of ways of explaining the discrepancy between reality and the promises.

Some Christians say that the promises are for a future time. "Eschatological"  is the favorite word of many Christians. These Christians might say, 'This promises is true but will only be fully true in some future world.' Other Christians respond that the promises are spiritual. What they mean by spiritual, other than not susceptible to disconfirmation by the senses, isn't particularly clear. In this example they might suggest that the needs referred to are "spiritual" needs.

While both of those answers help to resolve the discrepancy they don't seem to fit the simple meaning of the scripture. If someone wrote you a letter telling you they would take care of all your needs, you probably wouldn't expect that they were promising to do so at some unknown point in the future. Neither would you expect that they were talking about spiritual needs.

I believe there is a better solution to the problem of unfulfilled Biblical promises, faith. Faith is the requirement to receiving from God. Without faith none of the Bible promises will become real in our lives. It is faith that pleases God, that receives answers to prayers and accesses the grace of God. It is faith which allows us to inherit the promises and receive the blessings. It is through faith that we can be healed, heal others and do the works of Jesus.

In this episode I discuss the importance of faith. These are my Keynote slides with audio attached.

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The Promises Belong To Us

Continuing on the theme of prosperity. I've shown you so far that the Bible teaches that God has promised to prosper us. That God swore an oath to Abraham and that part of that promise was that he would give Abraham and his descendants power to get wealth. At this point some people say yes Greg but those promises have nothing to do with the Christian. So in these next two lessons I want to show you that the promises God made to Abraham and his descendants belong to us.

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The Science of Success #2

Changing your mindset is the second part of our discussion of Mindsets, The New Psychology of Success, by Stanford Professor Carol Dweck. How do we change our mindset? First we have to learn to recognize fixed mindset thoughts and then we have to replace them with growth mindset thoughts.

These are my keynote slides with the audio attached.
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The Science of Success

I've really been enjoying and at the same time agonizing over the book, MINDSET, The New Psychology of Success, by Carol S. Dweck, PH.D., a Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. The book presents the results of over 20 years of research into the question of why some experience more success than others.

"For 20 years, my research has shown that the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life. It can determine whether you become the person you want to be and whether you accomplish the things you value."

The views she is talking about are our old friends, nature versus nurture, genes versus environment, i.q. versus effort. She doesn't really get into the the issue of whether some people are naturally more intelligent or talented than others, that's all besides the point. What her research shows is that people with a fixed mindset, i.e. they believe that their intelligence, creativity, abilities and talents are fixed and cannot be increased, tend to be less successful than people with a growth mindset, who believe that their intelligence, creativity etc. can be developed. The interesting thing is that it doesn't matter if your fixed mindset is high or low, that is if you think you're smart or stupid, if you're a positive thinker or a negative thinker; either way a fixed mindset will impeded your success.

The book is filled with examples of the two types from the world of sports and business and sketches of her tests of the theory with elementary school children and college students.

After thinking about it for several months, here's my take on what Prof. Dweck has discovered. The definition of success for a person with a growth mindset is growth and improvement. Have I improved? Am I doing better today than yesterday? These are the questions a growth mindset uses to evaluate performance. If I have improved then I am a success. If I have not improved then I need to change the way I'm studying, or practicing or preparing.

On the other hand a fixed mindset asks, What is my I.Q.? Am I smarter than the others? Am I better than everyone else? Am I worse than everyone else? Being discovered is the definition of fixed mindset success. If he hasn't been discovered he thinks it's because someone is against him, or he's not good enough or no one will help him.

The growth mindset person sees the trophy, the medal, the promotion, as a mere byproduct of the growth that he has experienced. For the fixed mindset person the trophy, the medal, the promotion, is the point, they are the outward manifestations of his inward superiority.

The irony is that the fixed mindset person ends up sabotaging himself because his fixed mindset world view also makes it difficult for him to take risks, or to develop his abilities, in other words, to grow. The fixed mindset person doesn't, after all, believe in growth. As a result fixed mindset people become quite frustrated.

Prof. Dweck's studies give a scientific basis for something that Coach Wooden, of UCLA Basketball fame, discovered long ago: Focus on effort not winning. The factors which determine whether you will win or loose are not all within your control, but the effort you put in to developing and executing your game is.

I don't believe that I can overstate the importance of this book. I've been reading self help, positive thinking, motivational books since at about 10 years of age I picked up a Norman Vincent Peale book that my mom had checked out of the library. Those books, all good, are trying to deal with the problem by attacking the fruit of an individuals mindset. Prof. Dweck is attacking the problem at the root. This book was for me a very uncomfortable read and forced me to analyze my own mindset and much to the chagrin of this basically fixed mindset person I've discovered that I am in many areas a fixed mindset person. OUCH! But what's worse is realizing that many of the things which I have said and done, thinking I was encouraging others and building them up to achieve success, were in fact helping them to fail. OUCH! OUCH! Well the good news is that you can change your mindset.

Anyway, here's my riff on Prof. Dweck's work. These are my Keynote slides with the audio from the Sunday, January 13, 2008 service.

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Here's some links for more on this topic.
The books website which includes a lot of information, links to articles, interviews and a test of your mindset.
Malcolm Gladwell's article from the New Yorker about talent, Enron and mindsets.
A really good article form Stanford Magazine, about Prof. Dweck and her research. Gives more detail about her background and early research than any of the other sites. Also includes some nice visuals illustrating the difference between mindsets.

 

God Swore He Would Make Us Rich, video

In this episode we're still on the subject, God Wants You Rich, and we're looking specifically at Deuteronomy 8:18

But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.

The context of this scripture is that the Children of Israel are about to enter into the promised land. Moses describes what a great land it is, a land where they will not lack anything, where they will live in goodly houses and their gold and silver will multiply. He then warns them against thinking that it is through their efforts that they have become rich and as result turn away from God. But that they must remember it is God who has given them this power to become rich.

A few points we should see from this scripture.
    - God is not against people being rich. He is so not against it that he gives them power to become rich.
    - God's idea of rich is: no lack, fine houses, gold and silver multiplied.
    - God gives this power to get rich in order to fulfill the covenant he swore to Abraham, Issac and Jacob.

What I would really like you to see is that this covenant promise is your God given right.

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God Desires Above All Things That Your Prosper, Video

This is the first episode in a new series, God Wants You Rich. In this first program I briefly deal with the origin of the Christian idea that material things are bad, or that material things are not as important as spiritual things.

The Apostle John wrote that he desired above all things that we prosper and be in health even as our souls are prospering. In spite of this most Christians think that prospering is a bad thing or at best a not very important thing. If they ever hear this scripture, 3 John 2, most Christians conclude that it must not mean what it obviously says. In fact the opposite is true. John is trying to be direct and to the point. I believe John wrote this specifically to counter gnostic ideas that were already effecting Christian thought toward the end of the Apostle John's life. John links prosperity and health with having a prosperous soul to make the point, a point so radical to modern Christians, that material well being is just as important as the prosperity of your soul.

John was a Jew. In fact, all of the founders of Christianity were Jewish. Jesus was Jewish. Mary was Jewish. Joseph was Jewish. Peter, James, John, Matthew and the Apostle Paul were all Jewish.The Bible is a Jewish book. But this idea about the evil or the unimportance of the material world is not a Jewish idea. The Jews believed that the material world was good. That gold was good. That the things of this life were good. That the pleasures of this life were good. They believed this because the Bible said that God had created the world and said it was good. (Check out this link to Amazon's page for Thou Shalt Prosper a book written by a Jewish rabbi. Or search the book yourself for the word "Gold" and read pages 26 and 27)

On the other hand Greek philosophy assumed that material things were evil or inferior or imperfect. (For a little background on that check out this link to Amazons page for Our Father Abraham, or search the book yourself for the word "Plato" and read pages 168 and 169.)

So here's the long and the short of it. Modern Christianity's attitude toward material things has much more in common with the Greek philosophical attitude toward material things than it does with the Jewish, i.e. Jesus', Peter's, James', John's, Paul's, attitude toward material things. How did this happen?

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This Made Me Feel Loved

God Wants To Answer Your Prayers on Squidoo

Here's a link to a Squidoo lens I'm building on the subject of, God Wants To Answer Your Prayers. If you have any suggestions for books, tapes, articles, links that would build people's faith in God answering their prayers let me know and I'll include them. Here's a link to Squidoo's home page so you can build your own lens.

Video: We're Disciples Too

One last little blurb about Jesus reigning through the Church and then we'll move on to what it takes for the church to reign or put differently why isn't the church reigning? I was reading Luke 10 where Jesus sends out the seventy and the verse that stood out to me was,

Luke 10:2 Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.

We're the more laborers. God calls many but few enlist but that's a different sermon. The point I want you to see is that we're laborers just like those disciples. What did Jesus tell those laborers about their job:

Luke 10:9 And heal the sick that are therein, and say unto them, The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you… Luke 10:18 And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. 19 Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

That's what we're supposed to be doing… redeeming mankind from the hand of the enemy.

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Why Prayers Aren't Answered

If you only read what the Bible had to say about prayer, i.e. without commentary, or tradition, you would, undoubtedly, conclude that God wants to answer our prayers. You would conclude that prayer is in fact, a sure thing, a certainty. You would conclude that answered prayer was guaranteed. Here, try it and you'll see what I mean, Matthew 7:7-8, Psalms 91:14-15, Matthew 21:22, Matthew 18:19, John 16:24, 1 John 3:22, 1 John 5:14.

And yet we seem to have great difficulty getting our prayers answered. Then, when we fail to receive the answer, in order make ourselves feel better about our lack of results, we invent all manner of theological or philosophical explanations for our prayer failures.

You can't know God's will.
You just never know what God will do.
It must not be God's will.
God is sovereign so it's wrong for us to try and hold him to his promises.
The promises related to prayer just apply to spiritual things.
God always answers but sometimes his answer is no.
God always answers but in his own time.

But none of these answers satisfies. And none of them provide what we really want, i.e. the asked for thing.

Why aren't our prayers answered?

VIDEO:The Purpose of Christianity, Review

Before moving on to the next point I'm taking this program to review what I've been teaching for the past several months. That's pretty good I think, distilling 18 months of teaching into 28 minutes. Here's the outline of that 18 months of teaching:

1. Before Jesus came Satan was the king of the world. The world, mankind were under his dominion. The Bible sometimes calls Satan's kingdom the reign of death or the power of darkness.

2. Jesus came with the good news that the time was fulfilled, the reign of God, the Kingdom of God, the

VIDEO: Jesus Reigns Through The Church #2

Here's more on Jesus reigning through the Church. As I was teaching this same series in Spanish, for our Spanish broadcasts, I came to understand it better myself. Here I discuss how the prayers in Ephesians 1, prayers Paul prayed for the church at Ephesus, are actually prayers that the Ephesians might come to know what God has created them, and us, and all Christians, to be.

The prayer is, I'm pretty sure, a Hebrew parallelism, i.e. Paul repeats the same idea in different ways. When we read it in English we tend to think he's talking about three different things. Here's the prayer and I've numbered the three items which I believe are parallels.

Ephesians 1:16-23
16 Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers;
17 That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: 18 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know

Here Paul is praying for the Ephesians, (It applies to us as well though.), to know something. Why doesn't he just tell us what he wants us to know? Why doesn't he just explain it to us? Well in some sense he is telling us, but he doesn't want us to know it with our intellect but in heart, our spirit. He wants us to receive a revelation of it. He wants us to KNOW IT.

What is it he want us to know:

1. what is the hope of his calling, and

2. what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, 19 And

3. what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe,

When we read this in English we tend to think that he is talking about three separate things. When however, we understand that Hebrew is full of parallelisms like this, in other words the same idea repeated in different ways for emphasis, it occurs to us that this might be one of those. And I think it is. Paul is repeating the same idea in three different ways. He wants us to get it.

In the first clause he prays for us to know what God has called us to be. What the hope, the purpose, the end state, of his calling us is? Then he prays for us to know what is his inheritance in the saints. Not what our inheritance is but what is his inheritance. "His" means God's. What do we become to God as the result of our becoming saints? What ever it is it involves a lot of glory. "…the riches of the glory," Paul says. Whatever it is that we become to God, it is a very, very, very, glorious thing. Finally he prays that we would know, "what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe."

The first thousand time I read this I thought he was talking about the power that God makes available to us

Jesus Reigns Through The Church

Jesus is in the process of reigning. I Cor 15 tells us that the end will come when he has accomplished the purpose of his reign; which is to put down, i.e. conquer, all rule, authority and power. The last enemy which he will put down is death. These, rule, authority and power, are not men or man made institutions but spiritual forces which oppose the Reign of God upon the earth. This opposition to God's reign upon the earth manifests itself in sickness, poverty, destruction. Jesus does this reigning through the church. Jesus has given the church authority to reign. The Church is the one which is supposed to be engaged in the putting down of all rule and authorities and powers.

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VIDEO: Jesus Is Reigning

Jesus came to become King of the earth. Most Christians kind of have the idea that someday he will return and actually begin to reign. But Jesus is reigning right now. He is reigning until he puts all of God's enemies under his feet. These enemies aren't people they are the spiritual forces who do not want to relinquish their hold on their former subjects, mankind.
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God Wants To Answer Your Prayers, Audio #5

This is the last in our series of 5 lessons, God Wants To Answer Your Prayers. God has promised to give us the desires of our heart but most Christians give up on prayer. We give up on prayer because we have the wrong picture of prayer. Our attitude toward prayer is the same as that of a gardener who takes a seed throws it out in his backyard and stands there waiting to see if anything will happen. That's not how prayer works.

Here's three things I know about prayer:

#1 Before you pray you need to build up your faith, otherwise your prayers will have no power. You may look like you're praying but your prayers will be dead. Faith comes from hearing, reading, studying, meditating in God's Word.

#2 After you pray you have to guard your prayer and you have to water it with thanksgiving.

#3. You will reap in due season if you faint not.

Audio:  MP3 about 40 minutes.    Large File 42 Mbs(Good for burning your own CD)    Small File 13 Mbs(Good for just listening.)

God Wants To Answer Your Prayers, Audio #4

 This turned into a sort of review of the past three messages.

The first point I was trying to make in this series is that our picture of prayer is wrong. We think that God is the one withholding the answer and that we somehow have to get Him to release the answer. But the Bible teaches that God wants our prayers answered, He desires to answer our prayers. The Bible talks about prayer like results are gauranteed. Jesus talked like answered prayer was a certainty, a sure thing. So God is not the problem, He's not the hangup, He's not the one witholding the answer. He says, "Ask and ye shall receive." God says "Everyone that asketh receiveth." God says "Whatever you ask in prayer believing you shall recieve." That's God's attitude toward prayer.

The second point was that in order to think about prayer correctly we should think about it like growing a garden. You could say that it's God's will for everyone to have a beautiful garden. But everyone doesn't have a beautiful garden. Why? Because it's not God's will? No, because they haven't done what is necessary to have a beautiful garden. Prayer works the same way.

The third point was that when our prayers aren't answered instead of putting the responsiblity for prayer failure on the will of God we should ask instead where we have missed it. There are conditions to our prayers being answered.

Audio: MP3     Large File 42mb (If you want to burn a CD)    Small file 13mb (If you just want to listen.)

God Wants To Answer Your Prayers Audio, #3

This is part 3 of our series, God Wants To Answer Your Prayers: Why didn't God answer my prayers? This is the question we ask when it looks like our prayers haven't been answered. But this is the wrong question and whenever you ask the wrong question you get the wrong answer.  It's the wrong question because it assumes that the answer to our prayers is totally dependent upon God. The right question is: Why weren't my prayers answered? This at least leaves a little room for our responsibility in prayer and the Bible does teach that we have a part to play.
Audio: MP3 about 35 minutes and 10 mb.

Prayer Is Not A Slot Machine!

In the last post I argued that the Bible clearly teaches that God wants to answer our prayers and yet Christians complain that their prayers are not answered. The way Jesus and the apostles John and James and Paul talked about prayer it was a sure thing.

John 16:23 And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. 24 Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.

1 John 3:22 And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.

James 1:5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

But prayer doesn't seem to be a sure thing. Why?

God Wants To Answer Your Prayers, Audio #2

Prayer: It's A Garden, Not a Slot Machine.

Last post we saw that, at least according to Jesus, prayer is pretty much a sure thing. Ask and it shall be given you, for everyone that asketh receiveth, if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask it shall done for them, all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer believing ye shall receive, whatever you ask the father in my name he will give it you, Ask and ye shall receive that your joy may be full … etc.

The point I wanted to make in this message is that prayer is a sure thing but sure in the same way that growing a garden is sure. Anyone can have a garden. No one sits around bemoaning their lack of a garden saying, " I guess it must not be God's will for me to have a garden." We all understand that if we want to have a garden we can have one but effort will be required on our part. No one prays, "Lord if it be your will give me a beautiful garden." Answered prayer is a certainty. It's a sure thing.  It's as sure as growing a garden.

MP3: About 41 Minutes

God Wants To Answer Your Prayers, Audio #1

This is the first in a five week series, God Wants To Answer Your Prayers. Most people tend to see God as the obstacle to their prayers being answered. We think that God needs to be convinced to move on our behalf. We believe that God has to be talked into the notion of answering our prayers. We try making Him feel guilty, arguing with Him, promising Him, threatening Him, wearing Him down all to try to get Him to do that which is so easily within His power, answer our prayer. But these ideas are completely contradicted by what Jesus said about prayer. The Bible teaches that God wants, it's His desire, He yearns to answer our prayers. Here's some links to the scriptures referenced in this message:
Matt. 7:7-11, Matt. 18:19, Matt 21:22, Mark 11:24, John 16:23-24, James 1:5, James 5:14-15, 1John 3:21-22, 1 John 5:14-15, Luke 11:5-9

Audio: MP3 About 40 Minutes about 20 Mbs.