What is true, what is beautiful, and what is moral?
The great divide in Western culture today is between the absurdity of post-modernity and the transcendent truths of Biblical Christianity.
Category Archives: Musings
Developing a Biblical Worldview: Origins – God or Chance?
Does no one, plus nothing, times blind chance equal everything?
Or did God create the material world of cause and effect?
This PowerPoint presentation helps frame the issues as our culture struggles over whether to place faith in God or chance.
The Church in the New Testament: Its Form, Function and Purpose
Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride! In this PowerPoint presentation, all that you think of as “church” is about to be challenged so God can woo us back to being, once more, the multi-faceted, wonderful, exciting Body of Christ.
Scientific Faith
Whether or not you believe in the “Big Bang”, it is worth noting that it requires belief in an initial “singularity” of zero volume with infinite density and infinite energy. The dictates of the Big Bang theory, therefore, mandate faith in nothing which nonetheless contained everything.
Contemplation
Why is belief in something so impossible under current scientific laws acceptable, but belief in a God who is eternal and transcendent not acceptable to the neo-atheists – many of whom seemingly accept the Big Bang uncritically?
Such neo-atheists must rely on faith, having chosen to believe that:
No one plus nothing times blind chance = everything.
That requires more faith, it seems to me, than belief in an eternal God who created the universe.
Given the leap of faith required to accept the Big Bang theory, there is raging debate in the scientific world on whether our universe instead is simply the newest incarnation (or possibly an extension) of an eternal “multi-verse”. Some neo-atheists are now jumping on that bandwagon, as though it allows them to avoid the need for faith.
Reboot
God seems to be laying a foundation for yet another of His periodic, history-changing interventions in the affairs of man. Over the last two thousand years there have been many such paradigm shifts, and it’s naive to think that our current, settled status quo will somehow be exempt from the unsettling but progressive advance of His Kingdom.
Paradigm Shifts
This newest paradigm shift is starting with pioneers who realize that God’s primary goal in history is to change not only individuals but also whole cultures and nations — as per the Great Commission.
Likewise, as with all prior interventions in history, His will is being applied to more and more aspects of His creation here on earth, just as it is in heaven — as per the Lord’s Prayer.
We also are coming to realize that the Kingdom of God — His will being done on earth (including all spheres of human endeavor) as it is in heaven — is bigger than the church. Nonetheless, we are beginning to understand that His Kingdom is not going to advance much further unless the church re-discovers her New Testament roots.
Admittedly, there is comfort in the familiar status quo of “church” as we’ve all come to know it. Some, however, are so hungry for God’s Kingdom — as it continues to progressively advance through history — that they’re willing to hit the reboot button and look afresh at God’ s purposes.
Repentance, Forgiveness and the Kingdom of God
Recorded before a group of men in the local jail, this 55 minute audio teaching explains how we find peace and freedom when we allow God, through authentic Biblical confession, repentance and forgiveness, to change what we think, believe and perceive. That, in turn, allows us to know the righteousness, peace and joy that comes from finding and doing His will — which is what the Kingdom of God is all about.
This teaching arises from hundreds of intense pastoral counseling sessions through Fulcrum Ministries. In those sessions, I’ve seen how God uses Biblically authentic confession, repentance and forgiveness to bring quick resolution and lasting freedom from the lies, hurts and deceptions we carry from life’s circumstances — including routine disappointments to extreme situations like sexual abuse, occult ritual practices, childhood abandonment and many other life-crippling situations.
Improbable Church
The church that meets together at my home each Friday evening to share a meal, encounter God and minister one to another is an improbable assembly of believers and even not-yet believers. We 
cut across races, cultures, nationalities, social status, and so many other lines – producing a rich tapestry of interwoven lives.
It reminds me of Adullam’s cave, where “every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented” went to flee from Saul. While there, God began the process of forging them into leaders who eventually established and became pillars in David’s kingdom. 1 Sam. 22:2.
Likewise, if you saw us you would laugh and wonder, “what can God do with these people?” Yet, isn’t that God’s way: to establish his Kingdom on earth by transforming lives, cultures, nations and history not with the ordained, but with the ordinary?
Worship
This is another YouTube video posted by a friend on Facebook (give credit where credit is due!). It’s a hilarious spoof on worship.
It’s good, sometimes, to laugh even if it’s at ourselves!
Regeneration
A friend posted this short video on Facebook and it’s too precious, timely and relevant to pass up. As you listen, may God mercifully and lovingly wound you in order to heal you.
It’s by Paul Washer, who I first mentioned in a blog back in March (see God Is Not Passive). His burden for the Church touched my heart then, and continues to do so now.
Pimping the Gospel
As I’ve previously ministered in other parts of the world, I’ve been alarmed at the growing influence of the so-called “prosperity gospel”.
The prosperity message is simply the latest incarnation of the historically persistent “gospel of self” that’s been a blight on the Church since the beginning. Going back to Simon the Samaritan in Acts 8, there’s always been those among us – with gifted personalities and beguiling, mesmerizing spirits of seeming sincerity – who pimp the gospel for personal gain.
Such God pimps – including John Hagee, Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, Joel Osteen and their minions – are all over the airways peddling their seductive gospel of “self”.
The Lost Art of Dialogue
As last Friday’s church met over a shared meal (nothing fancy — KFC this week!) around a kitchen table, someone asked a question that opened up a great discussion on God’s sovereignty and human will. We must have spent at least an hour in dynamic exchange — with amazing questions, comments and seeking Scripture together as God’s truths opened up for everyone.
Evangelical Prophets or Martyrs?
I vividly recall leafing through World magazine back in 2006 and reading the unsettling but hardly surprising news that Randall Terry – 
the firebrand evangelical who formerly headed Operation Rescue and was then financially wiped out following a series of lawsuits by pro-abortionists – had joined the Roman Catholic Church.
“Unsettling,” because it provides further evidence of the growing weariness and disillusionment I’m seeing among spiritual “entrepreneurs” who’ve been laboring within evangelical circles to expand the Kingdom of God in all spheres of life and culture.
“Hardly surprising,” however, as those “on point” for the Kingdom increasingly seek refuge from the prevailing pop-theology (or dare I say lack of theology) and me-focused brand of Christianity that pervades evangelicalism (which includes charismatics and Pentecostals), animates many of our local church and national leaders, and cuts believers off from the great historic doctrines and creeds of our faith.
Participatory Church
Recent events forced me to confront the troubling truth that “church” for the last several decades has been a habitually disappointing part of my spiritual journey. This could be saying more about me than about the state of the church, except that I hear the same lament from many other believers.
The Gift of Mercy
Of the seven spiritual gifts listed in Romans 12, the last – but, I believe, the greatest yet least appreciated and most abused – is mercy.
As I watch and sense what God is doing with an emerging new spiritual generation, I see that their dominant characteristic is mercy. I also have begun to realize that God wants to use “mercies” (those with the primary spiritual gift of mercy) as catalysts to unleash additional gifts in others. That, in turn, will bring this rising generation to new pastures where God wants to dwell among us.
This doesn’t mean everyone in this new spiritual generation has mercy as their dominant individual spiritual gift. But as a whole, they nonetheless seem to collectively exhibit the main motivations of mercy – which are a deep, personal craving for the presence of God and for genuine intimacy with others.
As a result, this rising generation has little interest or patience with the moral and cultural wars of my generation, or with our prevailing hypocrisy as we tried to fix everyone else but failed to exhibit God’s presence in our own lives. Nor can they understand the focus on programs and institutions – with a resulting lack of authentic community – among older Christians.
The Church in D Pod
This Sunday, like most Sundays, I will be fellowshipping with the “Church in D Pod” at the local jail.
D Pod is a unit housing around a hundred men, and God has been pouring out his new wine in an exciting way among those inmates.
A couple of months ago, I started shifting my focus from “conducting” church services “for” the men. God was challenging me to start mentoring and training them instead to “be” the church by learning to minister one to another.
At the same time, God sovereignly arranged for two brothers from Africa — where Christians generally are way ahead of their American brothers and sisters on these issues — to be jailed in that unit. They, too, understood the concept of ministering one to another and started fostering authentic fellowship among the men.
The Growing Idolatry of Civil Government
“The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” ~ Margaret Thatcher
Some may think we’ve not yet sunk into the clutches of socialism — 
which happens when we have a state-run economy. But consider this: In 2009, federal and state governments will consume 40 percent of the United States’ TOTAL gross domestic product.
This means that nearly half of all the wealth generated in America this year will be taken by civil government to fund its ever expanding control over more and more of our lives and our economy. As a result, we have run out of money while undercutting the means for producing future wealth.
Yet the federal government seeks to expand its reach even more.
New Wine Sucks
As God brings forth new wine in a new generation, there’s a fundamental dynamic that can’t be ignored. To put it bluntly, new wine sucks!
In my younger days, I was an amateur wine maker. So I know what Jesus means when he says, “no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says, ‘The old is better.'” (Luke 5:39)
The Charismatic Movement is Dead
On June 30, 2009, no less an authority than J. Lee Grady, the editor of Charisma Magazine, declared that “the Charismatic Movement is dead.”
New Wine And Old Skins
Here’s an interesting article, reprinted below, on how people will stick to what they believe or think even in the face of contrary facts or circumstances. As I’ve watched people react to challenges and controversies 
over the last couple of months, and to God bursting old wine skins as he brings forth new wine, I can believe it!
Isaiah 9:6-8 tells us that God’s Kingdom, from the incarnation onward, has been and will continue to be ever advancing. As such, God is constantly fermenting new wine — and providing new wine skins to contain it — as his progressive plan of redemption moves forward from one spiritual generation to each successive spiritual generation (which can include individuals of all ages!). God’s active and ever expanding intervention in history is clear, and his tendency to discard the old while bringing in the new is repeatedly seen in Scripture.
Yet it never failed to fascinate me, as a graduate student in church history back in the 1970s, to see how — time and time again — most Christians reject God’s new wine of new anointing for new generations. Instead, they choose to stick with their old wine and old wine skins.
Fellowship and Light
Self Delusion
“This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” I John 1:5-9 (KJV)
Rick Warren Disavows Support for Prop. 8
This article (see full text here) confirms my worse fears about Rick Warren, who has shown a troubling tendency to fall into the false trap of thinking that “compromise” is “compassion”. Worse still, he then publicly lied about prior comments he made on the issue of “gay marriage”.
The great thing about America is we have the right to be wrong. But that doesn’t mean we must have state-sanctioned sin. I minister a lot to people dealing with homosexuality, and showing grace to those in bondage to homosexuality does not mean compromising the truth. Grace and truth are not either/or, but yes/and. Grace without truth is sloppy agape that leaves us in bondage, while truth without grace is death. But when we reach out with both, there is life.
This is Exhibit A on what happens when our “leaders” fear man more than God. God help us all if we allow ourselves to be reduced to this type of of “leadership” in the Church today.
Woundedness
On Sunday I taught men in the jail, using Psalms 116:5-7 (ESV), about moving from woundedness to life. I challenged them not to settle for mere comfort when confronting hurt, but to embrace life instead.
Gracious is the LORD, and righteous;
our God is merciful.
The LORD preserves the simple;
when I was brought low, he saved me.
Return, O my soul, to your rest;
for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.
When hurt and wounded, too often all we can muster is a desire for God’s comfort or soothing presence. Although he’ll sometimes do that, what he really wants is to move us past woundedness into brokenness – that low place where we are willing to surrender to him. Only then can we hope to experience the bountiful life, both in us and around us, that comes from finding and finally doing God’s joyous will.
Them Dry Bones
It’s a beautiful Sunday morning here in Virginia, but I’m stuck with a lingering cold and sore throat. That gives me a good excuse to skip church and my ministry commitments later this afternoon in the local jail.
So what to do? I just let my ADD dog out and he’s happily occupied digging a new hole in my otherwise nice green yard, there’s some good coffee brewing (I’m partial to Gold Coast from Starbucks – two level scoops per 14 oz.), the light of a crisp blue March sky is streaming through my sun room windows, my favorite worship music is playing in the background on my iPod, and I’m relaxing in my over-sized Lazy Boy recliner thinking on the things of God.
I guess that makes this as good a time as any to bang out some thoughts on effective New Testament leadership.
God is Not Passive
I’m seeing others who also are quietly moving forward, with fire stirring in their spirits, to proclaim true repentance, Christ’s Lordship and the Kingdom of God rather than conformist, complacent Christianity.
These co-conspirators are being compelled by God to preach outside our churches because too many of our pastors have been unwilling, so far, to be jarred out of their desire for peace, stability and the comfort of long-standing personal relationships. For those pastors, complacency has become a hindrance to God’s progressively expanding Kingdom.
Rethinking Missions
If evangelical Christians have the equivalent of a “sacred cow,” it must be foreign missions. At the risk of martyrdom, I hereby declare that it’s time to slay that cow (or at least herd it into different pastures)!
Crossroad Junction 