God in a box

I’m currently reading the book, “God’s Forever Family” by Larry Eskridge which is a definitive work chronicling the Jesus Movement from 1966 to 1976 across America. I’m especially interested in this account since I lived through the Jesus Movement and was part of it, but more about that in another post. The Jesus Movement began around 1966 in the hippie subculture of San Francisco’s Haight-Asbury district. Some of the early converts in the Jesus Movement included Jim and Judy Dopp. Larry Eskridge writes:

Jim was a native of Des Moines, Iowa and had served in the Marines. Married after a 3-month whirlwind courtship in 1959, they headed out to California and ended up in Berkeley. Hoping to pursue his dream of becoming a comedian like Lenny Bruce, Jim began working in clubs and strip joints as well as maintaining a regular job as a factory sales rep for the Philip Morris Tobacco Company. On Sundays, the Dopps attended the local Lutheran church–despite the fact that they were fairly doubtful about there even being a God. Along with being Republicans and admirers of Barry Goldwater, they were members of Berkeley’s Sexual Freedom League.

They found themselves caught in the allure of the Bay Area drug scene, as well as a desire for spiritual truth. After experimenting with LSD a couple of times, Jim Dopp dropped by the home of his new found friend Ted Wise in October of 1966 to visit and smoke some joints. Dopp recounted that during that visit, Wise leaned close to him and shared his own revelatory insight about “the Rat that lives in the cellar of our soul.”

Affected by the marijuana, Dopp lay down on the floor and began to contemplate Wise’s words with the lyrics of a Bob Dylan song that was playing in the background. While he lay there, he began to meditate on his spiritual condition and came to a profound realization:

 

I finally got it. I was a rat. And it was my soul that was repenting. I thought to myself, “Maybe there is a God.” I hadn’t considered that possibility in a number of years, when suddenly a peace came over me, my breathing became easier. My chest became lighter. And I said, letting out a long sigh, “Oh, Father forgive me.” Immediately the entire weight that was on my chest was gone, and the rush of relief from my heart was one of exultation….My eyes were closed and there was a bright light in front of me. I felt such happiness.  I had never known anything like this before….I understood in an instant that God is my Father and I am his child…They joy, peace and love that I had in my heart for God and others was just incredible. Never had I realized anything comparable before….”

Here’s what really caught my attention: As the Dopps embarked on their new found odyssey with Jesus, they were hanging out with their friends, dropping LSD and leading others to Jesus. Steve Heffner, a dj on one of San Francisco’s rock stations, visited Ted Wise and quizzed him as to what he was up to. Wise whispered to him, “Jesus Christ, man….He’s gathering his church in this period and a lot of people are going to be coming to the Lord…that’s what’s happening, man.” With that, Wise shepherded Steve Heffner on his first acid trip. Afterward, he recalled that it was immediately after coming off the acid that he had seen the light:

“All I know is that when I took LSD, I was a seeker, and when I woke up the next morning, I was a Christian!”

Now, this is the place in the story where some of you reading this are saying, “That’s not God. God wouldn’t do that.” And that’s my point, why not? Why can’t God bring someone to know Him while they are on an acid trip. And, I’m not advocating drugs. I’ve never used drugs, but I do find Sudafed helpful to keep me awake at times.

By the way, these early believers in the Jesus Movement in San Francisco and elsewhere eventually stopped using drugs as they grew and matured as followers of Jesus. They all can point to the day and time when the Spirit of God convicted them that their drug use was a crutch and a poor substitute, getting in the way of their witness and becoming a stumbling block to others. As someone once said to me, “When we come to God, He cleans our ‘house’ one room at a time.” Eventually, God got to the room where they kept their drugs and cleaned that out, but He did so in His own good time. Were they still saved, while doing LSD? Of course they were. Does God’s grace not extend to and beyond the use of LSD, or alcohol, or whatever? Of course.

As I read this, I thought of all the ways that we “box God in.” We ALL put God in a box, saying or believing that He can’t do this or won’t do that. We LIMIT God and what He will do to bring others to the knowledge of Him, or what He will do in our daily lives to show us that He is the strong and mighty God, the Creator of the Universe.

I’ll follow up on this post with a few more thoughts. But what about you? Do you have God in a neat, little box? In what ways have you boxed God in?

 

Obama to Ukraine: “If you like your country, you can keep your country!”

In the current post cold-war conflict with Russia, it’s Putin over Obama, 5-1. This is what happens when you elect “President Cool.” He’s more at home filling out the brackets for March Madness on ESPN than he is standing up to a Russian dictator, or so it seems, because image is everything.

In the final debate of the presidential campaign, President Barack Obama sarcastically made fun of Romney making Romney out to be a novice who lacked understanding of complex world issues. Here is what Obama sneeringly and sarcastically said to Romney in the final debate:

“Gov. Romney, I’m glad that you recognize that al-Qaida is a threat, because a few months ago when you were asked what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia, not al-Qaida. You said Russia … the 1980s, they’re now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the Cold War’s been over for 20 years,” Obama said.

Obama, you’re so funny, so clever. Romney was right then, and you as you are so often were wrong and clueless.

I have a theory though, and I’ve heard it posited at a few other places, but here goes. I actually believe that Obama is in league with Putin. Obama is not putting up any opposition to Vladimir as he invades the Ukraine. Obama is a Marxist and he doesn’t believe that the U.S. is any better than Russia or Iran for that matter.

I suspect that the reason Obama is

Teddy Roosevelt: “Walk softly and carry a big stick.”

NOT arming the Ukraine with weapons, and not restoring our missile defense system in Poland which he dismantled because we are now in the post-Cold War 21-first century where everyone plays “nice”, and not immediately giving the green light for oil and gas exploration to be expanded here in the U.S so we can fill the void in Europe’s energy needs if Russia cuts them off, is because Obama WANTS Putin to succeed. I believe that behind the scenes Obama has cut a deal with Putin and is helping Putin restore the old Soviet Union, and maybe even expand it further to include all of Germany in the next few months or years.

Remember when Obama made the off-handed remark caught on open mic, to the Russian President Dimitry Medvedev:

 “This is my last election. After my election, I’ll have more flexibility” (referring to missile defense). Everything you see

Obama to Medeyev: “I’ll have more flexibility after I’m re-elected.”

Obama doing is the flexibility that he promised the Russians. He is so “flexible” that he’s willing to let them carve up Europe, just so that Communist Russia can once again inflict more pain and hardship on a greater segment of the world population.

We’re now seeing Obama carry out his promise to the Russians and showing them how flexible he can be. He’s bending over backwards to accommodate Putin, and I’m sure that somewhere down the road, Obama will be richly rewarded, as the good Marxist that he is.

The Conspiracy to Snuff Out E-cigarettes

Let me go on record saying that I’ve never smoke a cigarette in my life. When I stand near a chain-smoker, I sometimes gag because they reek of nicotine. However, having said that, I will defend the right of smokers who are being marginalized as “lepers” in our present-day politically-correct culture.

Chicago has a ban on E-cigarettes in public places.

We have the self-appointed smoke-Nazis, who have made it their business to ban cigarettes anywhere and everywhere. I live in a city that is controlled by smoke-Nazis and they have banned smoking in our city, period. These leftist-liberals in my city are just like those in Colorado, or New York City—they love exercising power and control over the lives of others. Some restaurants have gone out of business because of the smoking ban in my city. But here’s the rub: The smoke-Nazis aren’t satisfied with turning ordinary Americans into criminals for smoking, they are NOW going after those who use E-cigarettes.

We have over 40-million smokers here in the U.S. and E-cigarettes provide a potent dose of nicotine to satisfy a smoker’s craving, but also allow for the ritual of inhaling and exhaling a smoke-like mist, which is composed almost entirely of water. Most E-cigarettes have a LED-tip that glows red, but without tobacco, without combustion and without smoke. The ingredients are recognized as being safe.

E-cigarette sales have exploded over the last few years and provide a healthful transition from harmful cigarette smoking.

Despite any evidence of harm from E-cigarette vaping, there is a bizarre trend sweeping our country to enact measures to ban, restrict the sale of E-cigs or tax E-cigs as if they are actually cigarettes. Excuses being made for attacking E-cigarettes range from “We just don’t know what will happen in the next five to ten years,” to “We don’t know what’s in them.” Yet, the irony is that many leftists in cities like Denver, Boulder, Portland, or Seattle want to regulate or ban E-cigarettes but they support the use and public sale of marijuana. How can marijuana get a pass while E-cigarettes are subject to all this scrutiny and phony trumped-up concern?

Why do all these public health groups want to ban, regulate or tax E-cigarettes when the facts show that they are basically harmless? I believe that this is because they want control over almost every aspect of our lives. They want to determine what size soda you can drink, what kind of buttered popcorn you can eat. They want to mandate what kind of food your child can bring to school, and they’ve banned sodas from school vending machines. These are the same do-gooders who want to tell you where and when you can light up a cigarette and if that weren’t enough, they want to include E-cigarettes.

The misguided, public crusade by do-gooders like the American Cancer Society, the FDA, and local governments against E-cigarettes is more harmful than any E-cigarettes. It’s another effort to abridge our liberties and freedoms by the Nanny-state which has deputized themselves as your protector because they think you’re too stupid to make wise decisions, therefore they will do it for you.

Did you ever learn the ABC’s of the Christian faith?

When I was in kindergarten, I remember learning my ABC’s. We sang a simple song which helped us to memorize the alphabet. I’m sure you sang the same song: “….now I know my abc’s. Tell me what you think of me?” What would my professors in college have thought if instead of reading history, philosophy or psychology, I asked if I could sing my “ABCs” again and again. Most likely they would’ve thought that I was a mental case and nowhere near being ready for college, or maybe they might have thought they were being “pranked”. 

Along these lines the writer of Hebrews says that if we want to move on to maturity as Christians, we need to leave the elementary doctrine of Christ (the ABC’s of the faith) and move on to more difficult matters which require greater study and concentration.

But here’s the rub: What the writer of Hebrews considers as the elementary teachings of the Christian faith, most Christians today would be dumbfounded to explain. Here are the ABC’s, the basics of the Christian faith according to the book of Hebrews.

When you become a Christian, here’s what you need to KNOW and DO as presented here in Hebrews 6. Here are your ABC’s:

1. Repentance from dead works that lead to death. This could be a reference to paganism, but certainly would include repentance from our trust in this world system. As the Apostle Paul stated, all things that were of worth or prestige for him, he counted as the excretion that you flush down the toilet. In other words, Paul, who had excelled at learning, put no trust in his academic endeavors. Do we get our identity from a piece of paper hanging framed on the wall, or does our identity come from Christ? What do we value as important? True repentance means valuing ONLY those things that are kingdom values. 

Dead works can mean anything that we participated in that gave our life meaning and purpose, apart from Jesus and His saving grace.

2. Faith towards God. This is spelled out more fully in Hebrews 11 where examples are given of those Old Testament saints who exhibited authentic faith toward God. Hebrews gives us a picture of what “real faith” toward God looks like. 

3. Teaching about baptisms. What baptisms? I believe the writer of Hebrews is talking about John’s baptism of repentance, and then the New Testament baptism into Christ. According to the community of believers in the book of Acts, baptism meant that you were burying your old man in the waters of baptism and being raised to a new life in Christ. Many churches today baptize new believers as a symbolic act, but that is not what the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 6:3-4. Paul is talking about a spiritual reality that takes place when a new believer is submerged into the waters of baptism. There’s NOTHING symbolic about it. Also, baptism was the way that Christians announced their faith in Christ to the world. They didn’t walk down the aisle of a church, or pray the sinner’s prayer—they announced to the world that they were following Jesus by following him into the waters of baptism. 

4. Teaching about the laying on of hands. What’s that mean? In many evangelical
   

   Hundreds being baptized at the monthly Calvary Chapel baptism at Corona Del Mar, CA.

   churches, you’d be hard-pressed to see an example of the “laying on of hands” but here in Hebrews, it’s referred to as one of the elementary teachings of the faith. The “laying on of hands” which is still practiced today in many charismatic and Pentecostal churches around the world, was associated with baptism. The laying on of hands was done to impart a blessing, or to impart the power of the Holy Spirit to the believer. 

Acts 8:18 says that Simon saw that the Holy Spirit was given through the laying on of hands. Paul writes to Timothy to fan the flame of the gift that was given to him through the laying on of hands. So, we lay hands on believers for prayer, for imparting the power of the Holy Spirit, for healing, for blessing. The elders in the church at Antioch fasted, prayed and laid hands on Paul and Barnabas before sending them off to Cypress. I could give many more scriptural examples but you get the idea. 

5. Resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. What is this all about? It should more accurately be translated “judgment in the coming age.” This is teaching about life after death, about rewards for the good and punishment for the wicked. The resurrection of Christ was the first fruits of a harvest where subsequent believers would be resurrected and given new bodies. 

The teaching on eternal judgment would include that those who are unbelievers will be judged as Paul writes in Romans 2:5, “Because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.” The teaching on judgment would’ve included God’s righteous judgment which observed the suffering of his saints on his behalf and the assurance that their faith would be rewarded. Finally, teaching on eternal judgment would include the Great White Throne judgment in Revelation 20:11 where the dead were judged according to the book of life, and according to what they had done.

I’ve just scratched the surface touching on each of these elementary teachings of the Christian faith. But the sad fact is that most Christian churches don’t teach these ABC’s of the Christian faith. Sadly, I have to admit that as a pastor, I too failed in this regard. I taught these basics in bits and pieces but not to the extent that those in my church could articulate what they really meant with any real understanding.

The point that the writer of Hebrews is making is not that we go back over this ground but that we MOVE on to maturity in Christ. But how can we move on to maturity if we’ve never studied the basics? It’s not that we’ve forgotten our ABC’s of the Christian faith—it’s that we have NEVER learned them. We’ve just been getting by on the equivalent of grunts and hand signals, like some primitive tribe.

In California, a “bait fish” is MORE valuable than human lives! Let them eat smelt!

In today’s WSJ, Allysia Finley interviews a grower from the Central Valley of California who expresses his anger and outrage over the siege that farmers and growers in the fertile central valley have come under by politicians, regulators, and environmental-terrorists.

Here’s the Cliff notes version of what’s going on:

They (the regulators and environmentalists) have taken water from the farmers to try to restore fish in a dry river. They made the farmers flood fields because they don’t flood anymore, and then paid to have owls trapped and relocated. They allow San Francisco to take water but not farmers. They refuse to build reservoirs to trap rainwater and then dump excess rainwater in the ocean, instead of using it to irrigate the farms.

The delta smelt-more valuable than human beings.

Now the politicians and regulators are taking away the water after allowing perfectly good water to run into the ocean during a drought to save a stupid bait fish called the smelt. 

I added my two cents to the discussion on the community forum which so far has about 240 comments. Here’s my contribution to the discussion over this issue which is going to result in higher food prices (that’s really going to help the poor!):

The lunacy in California where a fish (the smelt) is considered as valuable or MORE important than the livelihood of these farmers goes all the way back to Darwin’s theory of evolution. If you don’t believe that man was created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27), and if you believe that we “evolved” from nothing (ex-nihilo–out of nothing), then man is NOT special, has no special claim on the order of species, is considered no more important than a “smelt” fish or a rat or some insect.

This is the worldview of environmentalists, animal-rights’ activists, and most who subscribe to Darwin’s theory of evolution. They can’t make a case for man at the top of the food chain. He is nothing special, so that’s why they make bone-headed decisions to dump thousands of gallons of rain water run-off into the ocean (to protect a stupid fish).

It really DOES matter what you believe. Those who believe in evolution can’t make a case for the value of man as having preeminence in subduing the earth as stated in Genesis. But those who believe that God created man in his image and told him to take care of the earth and gave him the right to name the animals (which means authority OVER), KNOW that environmentalism is based on a flawed belief system that is shaking its fist at God and believes in creatures rather than the Creator, who is the Lord God Almighty!

Here is a challenge….go for a week without eating anything grown, raised, or made from products produced on a farm.

 

John Kerry’s Global Warming Tour Generates 12 Tons of CO2

John Kerry’s Global Warming Tour

How did we luck out? We not only have a Secretary of State who is a decorated war hero (he fought in Vietnam as he has told us on many occasions, and received the purple heart for a self-inflicted wound), but who knew that he was also a scientist. Who would’ve thought? I didn’t even know this resume enhancement until just a week ago Sunday when he  compared the threat of climate change to the threat of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, all on based on the notion that climate change is “settled science.” But, not everyone agrees that the science is as settled as Kerry (otherwise known as Sec. of Ineptitude Clouseau) says.

There is NO such thing as consensus in science.

Fred Singer (Austrian born American physicist and professor of environmental science at the Univ. of Virginia. See below for more info on Prof. Singer’s credentials) writes:

“If scientific consensus exists, it’s manufactured. Science does not work by way of consensus. Science does not progress by appeal to authority. In fact, many of the major scientific advances usually come from outside the consensus; one can cite many classic examples, from Galileo to Einstein….In other words, the very notion of a scientific consensus is unscientific.”

Dr. S. Fred Singer

Dr. Singer goes on to say,

“Thanks to the revelations of the Climategate e-mails, we now have a more skeptical view about the process which is used to vet publications.  We know now that peer-review, once considered by many as the ‘gold-standard,’ can be manipulated — and in fact has been manipulated by a gang of UK and US climate scientists who have been very open about their aim to keep dissenting views from being published.  We also know from the same e-mails that editors can be bullied by determined activists.

In any case, the peer-review process can easily be slanted by the editor, who usually selects the reviewers.  And some editors misuse their position to advance their personal biases.”

We are reminded of the dangers of consensus science in the past. For example, in the 18th century, more British sailors died of scurvy than died in battle. In this disease, brought on by a lack of vitamin C, the body loses its ability to manufacture collagen, and gums and other tissues bleed and disintegrate. These deaths were especially tragic because many sea captains and some ships’ doctors knew, based on observations early in the century, that fresh vegetables and citrus cured scurvy.

Nonetheless, the British Admiralty’s onshore Sick and Health Board of scientists and physicians (somewhat akin to the current Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) dismissed this evidence for more than 50 years because it did not fit their consensus theory that putrefaction (or internal decay) caused scurvy, which they felt could be cured by fresh air, exercise and laxatives.

Since 1998, more than 31,000 American scientists from diverse climate-related disciplines, including more than 9,000 with Ph.D.s, have signed a public petition announcing their belief that “…there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.” Included are atmospheric physicists, botanists, geologists, oceanographers, and meteorologists.

“We should not allow a tiny minority of shoddy scientists and science and extreme ideologues to compete with scientific facts,”

Kerry told the audience gathered at a U.S. Embassy-run American Center in a Jakarta shopping mall.

“Nor should we allow any room for those who think that the costs associated with doing the right thing outweigh the benefits.”

This is part of a six-day Kerry trip through Seoul, South Korea; Beijing, China; Jakarta; Indonesia; Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, then back to Washington.

In case you’re wondering, flying first class from Washington to Seoul to Beijing to Jakarta to Abu Dhabi and then back to Washington runs up roughly 12.16 metric tons of carbon dioxide, according to CarbonFootprint.com, which uses data from the EPA and Department of Energy.

The average American generates about 19 tons of carbon dioxide in a year. So in one week, just from flying from meeting to meeting, Kerry generated about two-thirds the carbon output of the average American in one year.

Clearly, he should cut down on the air travel and set an example for the rest of us. After all, we shouldn’t “allow any room for those who think that the costs associated with doing the right thing outweigh the benefits.”

—————————————————————————————-

Fred Singer trained as an atmospheric physicist and is known for his work in space research, atmospheric pollution, rocket and satellite technology, his questioning of the link between UV-B and melanoma rates, and that betweenCFCs and stratospheric ozone loss,[2] his public denial of the health risks of passive smoking, and as an outspoken critic of the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming. He is the author or editor of several books including Global Effects of Environmental Pollution (1970), The Ocean in Human Affairs (1989), Global Climate Change (1989), The Greenhouse Debate Continued (1992), and Hot Talk, Cold Science (1997). He has also co-authored Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years (2007) with Dennis Avery, andClimate Change Reconsidered (2009) with Craig Idso.

Before Jimmy Fallon, there was the “king of late night”

Tonight, Jimmy Fallon, takes over the hosting spot on the Tonight Show. He’s an incredible talent and the perfect choice for a younger generation. Some are likening Fallon to Johnny Carson, who hosted the Tonight Show for 30 yrs, from 1962 to 1992. I actually think Jimmy Fallon will be even greater than Carson because IMHO he is more versatile–he’s often so “off the wall” and his musical bits and impersonations are hysterically funny. As Fallon settles into the well-worn chair of the Tonight Show, there is another sense in which I hope he never becomes like Johnny Carson.

I’ve just finished Johnny Carson, by Henry Bushkin, who was Carson’s lawyer, wingman, fixer, confident and best friend. Bushkin has written a revealing account of one of the most popular, celebrated entertainers of the 20th century. For many years, he was the highest paid entertainer ever, he was the king of late-night. Johnny was also the most enigmatic, complex, mercurial person to ever dominate the television landscape.

On camera, Carson was charming and witty, but off-stage, he could be petty, vindictive and downright mean. He became a man who was full of himself with a huge ego that had to be stroked constantly by Bushkin and others. There is one story among many which reveals Johnny’s out-of-control narcissism even to the point of becoming despotic. The author, along with his companion at the time, Mary Hart (from

Johnny and Joanne Carson

Entertainment Tonight) and Johnny and his 4th wife, Alex, were vacationing on a chartered yacht in the Mediterranean. They stopped at a small island near Cannes for dinner. The yacht captain booked them a table for dinner. The captain handed Johnny a walkie talkie (this was several years before cell phones came on the scene), and said “We will be waiting here at eleven-thirty to bring you back to the yacht, but if you have any change in plans, call us.” Johnny then hands off the walkie-talkie to Bushkin who reluctantly accepted it. He told the ship’s crew to come back at two o’clock so that he and Mary could enjoy the sights a bit longer.

The author writes, “We headed back a little before two. As we neared the dock, we could see several people standing by the yacht’s tender, and one was Johnny….I thought to myself, what is going on? Before I could say anything, the captain of the ship was blurting out his apologies. “Mr. Bushkin, I have told Mr. Carson that I was very sorry that I was six minutes late in arriving, but he refuses to accept my regrets.”

Johnny snarled an expletive and said, “I didn’t pay $150,000 to have you late in picking me up. We will be leaving the boat tomorrow morning. Call you headquarters and have them arrange a flight from Nice to Los Angeles for the five of us. I will not stay on this boat any longer.”

Bushkin writes, “I was dumbfounded. We all were. Johnny had actually arrived at the dock five minutes early, five minutes before the tender was scheduled to arrive. He refused all efforts to get him to lighten up. He just sat there and fumed for three hours. We spent the next couple hours in the saloon of the yacht trying to reason with Johnny. By four a.m., he was willing to accept a new captain. Henry Bushkin writes, “That was the last vacation I took with Johnny.”

Johnny Carson was a deeply flawed individual and you can’t hold that against him because we all go through life with certain degrees of brokenness. It’s a rare person who can’t admit to having any flaws. But at the root of Johnny’s neurosis was his mother, Ruth, a cold, distant woman who was immune to all of Johnny’s charms. She would never utter a complement or ever acknowledge Johnny’s success at anything in life. The night before that incident on the yacht, Johnny admitted to Henry, “I don’t have much talent for happiness. I never have. My mother saw to that.” Throughout his entire life, Carson suffered from having been raised by a cold, affectionless mother. The author reveals Johnny Carson as a little boy inside a grown man’s body, who was never loved and never really felt like he was accepted by his own mother. He spent his entire life trying to please his mom and seeking her approval.

As I read this candid, revealing account of Johnny’s life, I wish Johnny could have known that there was one who truly loved him just the way he was, with all his brokenness and faults. I wish Johnny could have known that Jesus died so that he could be loved and accepted by God, the Father. For his entire life, Carson sought the approval of his mother, but he could have known that God already approved of him, warts and all. God already knew that Johnny was “damaged goods” and God stood ready and willing to pour out his love upon Johnny, a love that he had never known, yet had constantly sought. He often said that he wanted to be loved for himself and he didn’t trust people and their flattery because he was so often afraid that it was disingenuous. For certain, he could trust himself to the one who created him and cared about Johnny–more than any other human being.

Johnny needed a whole lot of “fixing”–we all do. We all need to be loved and accepted, just for us–not for our looks, our abilities, our fame, fortune, intellect, or what we can bring to the table. When it comes to knowing God, we need to be emptied of ourselves, because we are all so “full of it” and we need to admit that apart from Jesus, we can’t be saved. We all need a savior, and if we don’t come to Jesus, we’ll turn to something else. But as Pascal writes,

“There’s a god-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man that can only be filled by God alone, made known through his son, Jesus Christ.”

We’ve all tried to fill that emptiness with everything but Jesus. Johnny Carson tried to fill that emptiness with women, fame, fortune, talent, money, success, and alcohol, Yet, he still found himself lonely and empty because he tried everything, but Jesus. Jesus could have saved Johnny, from himself, and Jesus alone could have “fixed” Johnny in a way that no one or no thing could–not all the fame or fortune or awards or adulation. Jesus is the only one who could heal Johnny Carson’s brokenness, as well as yours and mine. When all is said and done, nothing else really matters except knowing Jesus and being known by Him.

1 John 1:1-4 (NLT)
1  We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life.
2  This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us.
3  We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
4  We are writing these things so that you may fully share our joy.

Ready or not: The U.S. will become an Islamic nation.

“Allahu Akbar. I bear witness that there is no god but Allah.

I have written numerous posts on Islam to such an extent that some might think I hate Muslims. I don’t at all. I love them and often pray for Muslims in different countries to come to know Jesus as the only true God.

Experts Predict: The U.S. will be an Islamic country within the next 30 yrs.

      Thank Allah for little girls??

Recently, Renee and I have been watching a series of messages by the esteemed Bible teacher, David Pawson on the Christian response to Islam. Christians can’t have a credible response to Islam until they first know who and what they believe. Dr. Pawson cites studies by experts which predict that Great Britain will be an Islamic country by the year 2025 (11 yrs from now). And, the U.S. is not far behind. It is estimated that by the year 2050, the U.S. will be an Islamic nation. Personally, I don’t think it will take that long. Everywhere you look, you can see that Islam is making inroads here in America, and almost has protected status from our media as well as our educators. In many public schools, a Christian cannot speak about his belief in Jesus but Islamic students are given ample opportunities to explain Islam under the guise of diversity and religious tolerance.

Stark Contrasts Between Islam and Christianity:

Here are a few stark contrasts between Islam and Christianity. Nowhere in the Quran is Allah referred to as love or having the attribute of love. Would you want to worship a god who does not possess and demonstrate love, mercy, and forgiveness? Allah, the god of Islam, is always angry and ready to enact vengeance on all those who don’t believe in him or submit to his ways.

However, in the Bible, we read that in 1 John 4:7 that “God is love.” We also see this love demonstrated by God, the Father, offering up his son to die on the cross for the sins of the world. Here also is another place where Christianity and Islam part ways. Islam believes that there is only one God, Allah, and he is a God who is unapproachable. He gives you a set of rules to live by such as praying 5 times a day and making a pilgrimmage to Mecca at least once during your lifetime, and that’s about it. But he does not intervene in the daily affairs of his people. However, the God of the Bible, Jehovah God, made a covenant with his people and is concerned about every aspect of their lives. He hears and answers prayers. He heals, delivers, sets captives free. The God of the Bible revealed Himself to Moses as “I AM.” Whatever you have need of, “I AM.” The God of Christianity hears and answers our daily prayers, and has revealed himself to us through his son, Jesus Christ, and he has come to live within us through the Spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is appearing to Muslims through dreams and visions

                                Nabeel Qureshi, “Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus”

One of the awesome ways that we see YHWH, the One True God of the Bible, reaching out to Muslims is through dreams and visions. In most Islamic countries, Muslims are not allowed to read the Bible, they can’t read Christian literature, or watch Christian teaching on video. Sadly, most Muslims will never have personal contact with another Christian believer. But here is the good news! God is communicating His love to Muslims through dreams and visions. The irony is that these countries are trying to protect their people from any encounter with Jesus Christ who is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6), but they can’t keep God from entering the dreams of Muslims and revealing Himself to them while they are asleep. How awesome is that!

In the latest issue of Christianity Today, Nabeel Qureshi, shares how God called him off the Minaret, and asked him to forsake his family to follow Jesus. I encourage you to follow the above link and read the story of this young man who was from Mohammad’s tribe and while seeking to better know Allah, while in medical school here in the U.S., God spoke to him through a vision and three dreams. (Read more).

Also, you might be interested in I Dared to Call Him Father is the fascinating true story of Bilquis Sheikh, a prominent Muslim woman. Her unusual journey to a personal relationship with God turned her world upside down-and put her life in danger.

We’ve succeeded in making the Gospels ordinary and mundane

I am reading a thought-provoking book, “How God Became King:The Forgotten Story of the Gospels” by N.T. Wright, and to make a point, he relates a wonderful scene from Peter Shaffer’s play “Amadeus.” There, the cynical old court composer Salieri contrasts his own operas, telling and retelling great tales of legendary heroes but through stale and tedious music, with Mozart’s astonishing ability to take characters off the street and create something truly magical. “He has taken ordinary people,” says Salieri, “ordinary people–barbers and chambermaids–and he has made them gods and heroes. I have taken gods and heroes…and made them ordinary.”

And this is the point that Thomas Wright (an Anglican bishop and esteemed theologian) is attempting to make in his book (How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels). We have succeeded at making the Gospels ordinary, and often all we are given in Sunday sermons is a set of “talking points” or “cliff notes” from the Gospels rather than the words and life of Jesus himself. Sadly, I have to include myself in this indictment.

The purpose of Wright’s excellent book is to suggest that not only have we misread the gospels, but we have made them ORDINARY–we have cut them down to size, we interpret the life out of them rather than setting them free to generate an entire world of meaning in all directions, a new world in which we would discover anew and afresh what it means to follow Jesus.

Mozart paying obeisance to Antonio Salieri

The main point that Thomas Wright makes is that Jesus came to do MORE than just die for our sins and give us our golden ticket to heaven. For many Christians, that is the sum total of the gospel message, and in that sense, we have not really read the Gospels. Instead, we have emasculated them of all their power and glory into something that exists for our own selfish ends. Unfortunately, that’s how many of us have been brought up to read the New Testament. We read it with the mindset: “What’s in this for me?” “What does God want to do for me?” We make the gospels all about us, and not about Him.

How God Became King, challenges our presumptions and assumptions about the Gospels. The author contends that the Gospels are the story of Jesus as being Israel’s God and Savior, and how he came to establish his rightful place as King of the Jews and the King of kings. He came to earth, incarnated in human flesh, to establish the kingdom of God, which clashed with Caesar’s kingdom as well as the kingdoms of this world, and is still at odds with the kingdoms of man that we are surrounded with to this very day.

Unfortunately, we have “de-Judaized” the Gospels and instead of Jesus announcing that he has come for the lost sheep of the house of Israel as their Messiah, we somehow made it all about us. It’s not really about us, it’s about Him and his proclamation of the kingdom of God as well and his victory over sin and death on the cross, where he secured his rightful place as King of kings and Lord of lords.

Jesus raises the widow’s son from the dead, Luke 7:11

In Luke 10, when Jesus sends out the 72 disciples with the instructions to heal the sick, cast out demons and proclaim that the kingdom of God is at hand, he is informing us that this is what he intends for His church today. This wasn’t just a first-century thing, but this is the business of the Father that we need to be about today. Instead, we’ve allowed ourselves to become weighted down with way too much “churchianity.” The 21st century church is not having much impact on the world because surprisingly, we’re not as centered in the Gospels as we might think. We need to get to know our Savior who not only died for us but is reigning and ruling as King of kings, and wants us to pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Just as we need to go to a chiropractor for an adjustment, where he puts things back in proper place, Wright’s book, “How God Became King ” has given us a theological adjustment, a fresh perspective on how to begin to read the Gospels and see Jesus as coming to establish His kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

My preview of Obama’s SOTU: From our Dictator-in-Chief

This brief post, in the interest of saving you save time and trouble, is a condensed digest of what President Obama will lay out in his SOTU speech tonight. Fortunately, I’m one of the few to channel Obama’s thoughts and I know in advance what he’s going to say this evening. Here goes:

This is our guy, our President, our esteemed dictator. He will double-down on all his failed policies. Maybe it was Einstein who said that you continue to do the same thing and expect different results, you’re insane. So from the Oval Office of Insanity, expect to hear more of the same proposals that we’ve heard for the past 5 yrs. 

There will be the usual reference to rebuilding our infrastructure with “shovel-ready” projects (however, he’ll neglect to tell us one minor detail–that every project will need 3000 permits before work can commence.)

Along these lines, Obama will strike a conciliatory tone with Congress. He’ll do the “bait and switch” routine. I want to work with congress (so that he sounds bi-partisan) but if I can’t (and we know that he doesn’t want to) I’ll go it alone and make some unilateral decisions, otherwise known as “executive orders.” This end-run around Congress,  which is charged in the Constitution with “making the laws” is another effort on Obama’s part to ignore the checks and balances of the Constitution. One would think that our “so-called” constitutional scholar in the Oval Office would know this, but chances are, he was smoking some weed (by his own admission) when they covered that subject at Harvard law.

When he references Congress, listen for this great line from his advisor, Dan Pfeiffer: “We need to show the American people that we can get something done.” Where has he been for the past 5 yrs? In another country? Or just out playing golf? Don’t bother answering these two rhetorical questions. 

You won’t hear Obama reference his “over-used” popularism line, “Income inequality” and instead, he’ll opt for a more positive term, “opportunity.” Listen for the word “opportunity” to be used twenty or thirty times throughout his SOTU tonight. However, when Obama says “opportunity”, that’s “code” for more government spending, new government programs, more handouts, and mandating fairness by making companies hire those who are dunces and brain-dead just to give them an opportunity.

Obama will mention education as always, but this just be another bone thrown to the government educators and education unions. He always wants to give government teachers more money so that can continue to graduate students who can’t read, write, spell, do math, speak English, or tell time– they certainly don’t know anything about the history of our nation. But all high school grads have been inculcated in the subject of victimization, and well as the evils of the United States and capitalism. They also have a firm grasp on carbon pollution, and how evil companies like BP and Exxon are polluting this planet.

To summarize Obama’s thoughts in the State of the Union tonight: 

• The Constitution? Who needs it when you can rule by decree? 

• A Government of Laws? Who needs it when you can rule by decree? 

• Separation of Powers? Who needs it when you can rule by decree? 

President Obama will emphasize his intention to use a unilateral presidential authority, and he plans to bypass Congress whenever necessary. Now who will define “necessary”? That’s the role of dictators. That’s the role of our dictator-in-chief, Barack Obama. You can rename the SOTU to the State of the Coup, since we now a Dictator running our country.