I'm no longer writing this blog for others to read - and in fact, it has been such a long time since I promoted it that few will likely read this. And that's okay. It was a good exercise of humility. Sometimes, you may pour yourself into something only to find few people will ever know.

In any event, this is the first post of a true blog nature; I'm simply going to log my speech endeavors as I pray for special grace, whether God chooses to answer by healing (my first choice), anointing my own efforts to improve my speech, or by withholding action all together.

I've found desiringgod.org to be of unique comfort. John Piper and the other writers of the site do such a solid job of bringing it back to scripture, often in a light that I never would have otherwise seen. An entry I found last night: http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/we-should-pray-for-healing

In it, they mention that if we find ourselves lacking faith (read: trust) God will do something we ask Him or want to ask Him to do, we can begin by asking Him to give us more faith. The question I have is: What about when I ask for faith He will do something He does not plan on doing?

For future use, I direct myself back to the tail-end of the sermon Johnny Hunt, our church's pastor, delivered yesterday, August 7th (9:30 service). He made reference to Galatians 3:3 in which Paul rebukes the Galatians for reverting back to fleshly efforts when the Spirit has been given to them. At least that was the context in which Johnny placed it. He mentioned that we should be wary of attempting something only God can do in our own flesh. I need to listen to it again, but it felt like the last quarter of that sermon was directed right at me. Still, nearly everything he mentioned has crossed my mind at times. He was being so very vague: speaking of "frustrating" obstacles that feel like we'll never get past. All I could do was look out at the congregation - thousands of people - and feel like there's not even one of them that could know what he's talking about apart from me, simply because of the vagueness on Johnny's part was yielded so very specifically on mine. Stuttering.

That's the very thing with which I am most frustrated; ought I pour my efforts into improving my speech by reading books, attending support groups, practicing, diving in head-first to the deep end of attempting to overwrite my stuttering with better speech habits? Or is that relying on myself in lieu of God when I should be spending that time and effort in diligent prayer? It's a given that I haven't "fixed" my speech to date. But being something that I can't seem to do on my own, should I pray for God to strengthen me so I can? Or should I pray that God would work on my behalf entirely, healing me?

Yet both of these prayers, seemingly on opposite ends of the spectrum, are made all the more difficult when it seems like God has answered neither in the past, save for a simple comfort in the middle of the worst times. I trust that, if he has chosen to act in ways that seem like he has withdrawn, it's only in His wisdom. Systematically, I know He will wipe every tear away when we enter into the New Earth and the New Heaven. But in the meantime, it makes it no easier - I see all the things I would secretly love to do pass by. Things I would rather pour myself into if he would heal me. I'd love to teach Sunday school (or even join a Sunday school class). I'd love to preach again. And I think I would be good at it, Lord allowing. I would like to put myself in a position to possibly lead the orchestra at church when our director retires. I can't do that on my own ability. I need God to do something about my stuttering. Yet guidance seems totally absent. My own ability to assess my speech seems to be all the weaker while the demands seem to be piling skyward.

Maybe God is allowing me to come to a very lowest point in an effort to show me how good and powerful He is.

From the DG post:

"Should we pray for healing? Yes! The New Testament instructs us to ask God to distribute this gift for the glory of Jesus. Pray for the sick. God will only answer these prayers with good! Don’t settle for little faith and low expectations. Stir up faith! Earnestly desire this gift. With Paul, earnestly desire healing for the common good of your church. With the saints of Acts, ask for this gift as witness to the world of the gospel of the kingdom.

A word of warning: Since healing is a harbinger of Satan’s demise, he will oppose and thwart it wherever he can. Similar to sharing the gospel, expect to be assaulted with self-doubts, accusations, fears, and various discouragements when you plan to step out in faith. Often we need to press through a season of adversity before we see a breakthrough. 

How should we pray for healing? The Bible provides a few models but no formulas. Basically, ask God. It’s the prayer of faith that heals the sick (James 5:15)."

IS FLUENCY MY GOD? | PART 5

PART 5

In Matthew 6:10, Jesus is demonstrating a model of prayer to the disciples. In the last post, I carried on about what it can mean to pray for God’s coming Kingdom. In Jesus’s prayer, He follows his mention of the Kingdom by praying for the Father’s will to be done: “…your will be done / on earth as it is in heaven.” 

This line, even at the first reading, doesn’t seem remarkably difficult to understand. But could it seem strange to the new Christian who hasn’t prayed much before? After all, you seldom have to ask a person for him to do what he already has the will to do. And if God is all that Christians say He is, then what difference could it make if we, as small as we are in comparison, pray for his will to be carried out?

To understand how important and distinct this part of the prayer is, we need to dissect it. We need to see how complex the topic of God’s will is. 

I was recently listening to *Bill Craig’s Defenders podcast. In the particular segment, Dr. Craig was discussing God’s omnipotence versus our own free will. He presented an alleged problem: if God is all knowing and he knows everything that will happen in the future, does that mean that he foreordains everything he knows to happen in the future, thus eliminating our ability to freely make our decisions that will, in appropriate and logical sequence, cause and flesh out the future? What about God’s knowledge of hypothetical events? Does God know what would have happened if I had of done things differently? 

Consider what God’s will has to do with any of it and watch how the questions get harder: If God wills for something to happen, will it happen without fail? What if God wills for me to do something particular but I freely make decisions that cause me to fail? Would that be me failing or God failing? You can see how quickly the snowball compounds. You can see how easy it is to get frustrated and cash out without any answers. 

These are all questions that are beyond the scope of this post - and I hope that is obvious. But maybe it can be simplified for the rank-and-file Christians such as ourselves to a more practical question: how do I pray for God’s will to be done when it is such a complicated matter to understand? 

First of all, I hope that the Christian reading this understands that God’s will is not something you will understand. Consider the example Jesus sets. In Gethsemane, Christ perspired blood as the weight of sin began to be placed on him, just hours away from the cross. Jesus prayed: 

"Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me. Yet not my will but yours be done.”

Don’t forget that this is God praying. Jesus was fully God and fully man - but despite being fully God, he submits to the Father. If you see nothing else here, at least see the example Jesus sets. If God in the flesh believes that obedience is important, how much do we, as the mere creation, need to be reminded of the importance of obedience? 

An ongoing in-house debate I’ve observed among Christians has been over the question does God whisper to the Christian’s heart? It’s common to hear somebody say “God is calling me to do this” or “God told me to do that” - but is has He really spoken to that person? This is a matter of special revelation versus general revelation. The first of which meaning God’s giving of a message directly to a person while the second meaning God’s giving of a message to many people. The debate lies with special revelation and the extent to which God uses it. I doubt many people are claiming that God is unable to use special revelation to communicate with people or that He never does. But the debate revolves around whether it is truly a common occurrence. And this could be a stumbling block to the new Christian who asks “how do I know what God is calling me to do?” This person might start looking at every gust of wind and heads-up penny as if it’s a sign from God - and perhaps, miss the most obvious movements of the Lord.

I encourage you to research this topic extensively and search Scripture regarding it - the point of this post isn’t to take a side on this topic. But it’s important to bring this debate up in order to say this: you don’t need a personalized message from God to know Him and His will. 

And atheist friend once told me “I would totally change my mind on God if He wrote a message to me in the clouds or something. I just need a sign that He’s really there.” But this looks awfully childish when considered by the Christian whose reality is a desperate dependence on the Lord and studies the Bible because they know that God has already spoken. You don’t need a message in the clouds to hear from God - God has already spoken. I like how evangelist Tony Nolan once said:

  “The Bible was inscribed over a period of 2000 years in times of war and in days of peace by kings, physicians, tax collectors, farmers, fishermen, singers and shepherds. The marvel is that a library so perfectly cohesive could have been produced by such a diverse crowd over a period of time which stagers the imagination. Jesus is its great subject, our good is designed, and the Glory of God is its end.”

So why pray for the Lord’s will to be done? He holds the entirety and eternity of creation in His hand and yet He would have us pray that His will be done? In writing this post, I got stuck at the preceding question for some time. At this point, it’s been several months since my last post - and this one will have been one of the most challenging. The more I wrote, the more questions I had to study. But I think the most satisfying answer can be summed up with an analogy C.S. Lewis provided in his long-beloved work, Mere Christianity:

“It may be quite sensible for a mother to say to the children, "I'm not going to 

go and make you tidy the schoolroom every night. You've got to learn to keep it tidy on your own." Then she goes up one night and finds the Teddy bear and the ink and the French Grammar all lying in the grate. That is against her will. She would prefer the children to be tidy. But on the other hand, it is her will which has left the children free to be untidy. The same thing arises in any regiment, or trade union, or school. You make a thing voluntary and then half the people do not do it. That is not what you willed, but your will has made it possible.”

Lewis was speaking on a different topic - that of free will and its repercussions, both desirable and undesirable. But his analogy is beautiful. A person who is praying for the Lord’s will to be done is likely not praying for his own will to be carried out instead. That person is aligning his will with the Lord’s without knowing what challenges or hardships may come about by doing so. Would you rather God’s will be done instead of your own even if it means a difficult time for you? You may be humiliated, beaten, scorned, imprisoned, killed, or even literally crucified for your obedience to the Lord just as Christians living in nations where it is illegal to possess a Bible or proclaim Jesus’s name. What if the United States, abruptly or over time, becomes similarly hostile toward Christians? Such a day would be sobering. Like a crushed blossom that rewards its destroyer with its perfume, the true followers of Jesus would cling to Him dearly. The true Gospel would be preached; watered-down, feel-good sermons would likely not be worth martyrdom. 

So when you pray for the Lord’s will to be done in your life, are you prepared release your perfume when crushed? Don’t confuse my challenge as a declaration of doom and gloom for every Christian. But the challenge remains. Jesus told us that whoever denies Him to man, He would deny before the Father. But what if you were imprisoned for professing Jesus’s name? Would you denounce Christ? Would you even pretend to denounce Him just to appease your oppressors? 

How are you doing in your everyday obedience to the Lord? If you’re anything like me, you would probably claim that you would gladly be martyred for Christ’s sake - yet you aren’t faithful in the everyday, mundane, unseen things. How can we ever tame our rebellious nature when we’re put on the spot if we can’t do so in our most private and personal dealings? That’s a real problem and the answer is simple: prayer. 

When I pray the way Jesus has instructed the disciples in Matthew 6:10, it isn’t prayer for God’s ability to carry out His will but for my ability to set my own aside. As always, I’m not claiming that this is an exhaustive analysis of everything Jesus exactly had in mind when He told the disciples how to pray. It’s more than this, but not less than this. 

And thankfully, we have an example to look to in Jesus. He could have chosen not to die on the cross. He could have chosen not to even show up into our fallen world. But instead, He submitted to His Father’s will. He came and lived in the perfect obedience to God that we will never be able to replicate. He was beaten, flogged, and literally torn to shreds before being nailed to a cross (use your discretion regarding this link). On the cross, placed on Him was the full weight of the debt of every person who would accept Him as having done so. This debt, having been earned rightfully by every person for their rebellion against God whether they acknowledge it or not, was the same debt that Jesus freely and willfully accepted and paid. And in exchange, He allows us to enter into the right standing with God that He earned, as if that debt was never on us. He exchanges with us the weight we can never bear for the righteousness we can never earn. He died having been the propitiation for our sin. This is good news for you and me. It can be good news to anyone who will accept that He did so. This good news is called “the Gospel”. But there’s bad news too, for many people deny his offer to accept their debt. And they will instead be held accountable. There is coming a day that all will be judged by the Lord. Some will have had their debts paid in full. All others will owe much more than they can ever pay. 

The same will that we pray to have carried out is the will Christ obeyed when He carried out the Gospel. I don’t know about you, but my will would never have been so clever or powerful. If you have trusted in Jesus and accepted His offer, I ask that you join me in an effort to refocus our prayer to be about what He wants to be done instead of what we want to be done. If you have not placed your trust in Christ, I implore you to ask Jesus to intervene for you just as He has offered to do. 

*William Lane Craig is a Christian apologist and philosopher who has garnered a reputation for his success in debates with some of Christianity’s most vocal critics. As an extension of his ministry, he offers a compilation of free podcasts on the iTunes store called the “Defenders” series. But this “series” is more like an extensive survey that covers a wide variety of topics helpful for anyone who is serious about apologetics - or Scripture, for that matter.


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The Stuttering Christian

DAILY POST | 3.31.14

Daily Post for 3.31.14

DAILY POST | 3.30.14

Daily Post for 3.30.14

http://thestutteringchristian.com/The_Stuttering_Christian/3.30.14.html

CHRISTMAS | CHRIST CRUSHED FOR US

Merry Christmas to the mirror blog readers! As you know, I normally mirror every blog post on the blog mirrors on Blogspot, Wordpress, and Tumblr. But for this post, I ask that everyone come to the main site to read this one.

DAILY POST | 12.23.13

Here's today's daily:

12.23.13

IS FLUENCY MY GOD | PART 4

PART 4

YOUR KINGDOM COME:

I’ve mentioned in other posts that I didn’t “grow up in the church” - what ever that means. But I’ve been going to church long enough to know that the phrase “God’s Kingdom” is spoken more often than it is understood. It’s one of those stand-by, catch-all phrases that can be peppered throughout dialogue to make it sound more spiritual and well-informed than it is - and I know all of this because I’ve done just that.

But what does it actually mean to refer to “God’s Kingdom”? Is God’s Kingdom the Church? Is it a coming era? Is it a Book-of-Revelation thing? Or is it some distant, fantastical, literal place with clouds and harps?

Sadly, no matter how much I learn about the reality of God, my mind wants to jump to the latter description. Maybe that’s just the hard-pressed image that television has imprinted within me - but in any case, it’s too important of a matter to allow for so much confusion. 

As with all of these posts, I don’t claim that I can fully encompass a topic or perfectly explain a concept. I try to write with a “it’s more than this, but not less than this” mindset. 

Scripture is full of kingdom-related diction: kings, thrones, armies. And imagine how much that must have resonated with people during Jesus’s time on earth; contextually, the Jewish common folk in the region of Galilee lived in a time of confusing rule. Rome held ultimate authority over Judea - likewise, a governor was assigned to oversee the region. Under the umbrella of Roman reign existed, in the case of Galilee, a state-appointed kingship held by Herod. Meanwhile, the Jews were obligated to follow mandates made by the Sanhedrin, the Jewish council that can be compared to a local government. And to further complicate things, both Scripture and extrabiblical sources suggest that tension had grown between Jewish leaders and Rome. The common people were then left to make sense of their position in such a convoluted chain of command. 

But imagine the hope that must have filled these hearts when Jesus spoke to them about a coming Kingdom of God. No wonder the disciples were eager to hear more about it. Consider Jesus’s descriptions of the Kingdom of God: like a mustard seed that grows exponentially (Mark 4:30-33), leaven that pervades throughout flour (Matthew 13:30), and a master who pays laborers mercifully and abundantly (Matthew 20:1-16). This is an awfully gracious description considering that Jesus could have simply said “the Kingdom of God is beyond your ability to comprehend”.

Scripture speaks largely and often about the Kingdom of God. And not simply what it is, but what it will be. The religions of the world try to make sense of the world. But to follow Jesus is to worship, obey, and uphold a relationship with the Maker of the world - regardless of how much or little sense you can make of the world He has made. And in HIs love for us, He has given us His word. 

Part of that library of literature is the book of Revelation. Now let me clarify that there are many interpretations of the book of Revelation, many of which are based on dangerous, awful theology. Other interpretations are difficult to confirm or deny and, to complicate things, may only differ slightly among many variations. I say this to emphasize that you must read Revelation for yourself. And more than that, most people feel overwhelmed by such thick text. But instead of allowing the text to confuse you, pray that the Spirit would speak to your heart.

That in mind, it would be a daunting task to try to exegete the entire book of Revelation with my lay knowledge. So instead, I’d like to simply share a part of what Scripture says.

1 - Satan will be defeated.

Revelation 20:7-10 lays out Satan’s final defeat: “…the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet are too, and they will be tormented there dat and night forever and ever.” But notice the word “them” in verse 10. “Them” refers to the “saints”, that is to say, the children of God. Make no mistake: if you are not running toward God, you are running toward the deception of the devil’s hand. We often think of ‘the devil’ as he is depicted in television - red with horns. In reality, he’s willing to be whatever he needs to be to be enough for you to turn from God. This excerpt from Revelation is merely a sliver of what it says about Satan, the beast, and the false prophet - and it’s beyond this post to go into detail about them.

But what you need to get from this is that the future for Satan is already laid out: he, like all adversaries of God, will be defeated.

2 - God will judge all.

“Then I saw a large white throne and the one who was seated on it; the earth and the heaven fled from his presence, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne. Then books were opened, and another book was opened – the book of life. So the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to their deeds. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and Death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each one was judged according to his deeds. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death – the lake of fire. If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, that person was thrown into the lake of fire.”  Revelation 20:11-15

We Christians like to think that, because we are ‘saved’, we don’t have to own our actions as someone would if they were not ‘saved’. Yes, all who are not in Christ are already condemned just as Christ was condemned in the place of those He has saved - but you, I, and everyone we have ever known will stand before the Great White Throne and own our actions (dang, I could have made that really rhyme if I wanted to). We don’t often think or talk about it, but salvation and judgement are two different events. And as frightening as that is, take comfort in that Jesus has paid for our shortcomings. While countless souls will be unable to give an account before God that is spotless enough to earn salvation, those in Christ have been given the spotlessness of Christ and have no need to fear the judgment. Except for Christians still alive when Jesus returns, everyone will experience the first death. But nobody in Christ will taste the second death.

3 - Everything will be new. 

This is the part that so many people misunderstand. We often think that we live, we die, we go to Heaven, and that’s it. In reality, we don’t ultimately end up going to be at home with God. Rather, He brings a new home to us in which He will reign, He will dwell with us, and He will be the very light that illuminates the Kingdom (Revelation 21:23). Yes, at the present age, a believer goes to the presence of the Lord when absent from the body (2 Corinthians 5:8); that’s where we get the idea of ‘going to Heaven’ when we die. But there is coming a new heaven and earth as explain in Revelation 21:

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had ceased to exist, and the sea existed no more. And I saw the holy city – the new Jerusalem – descending out of heaven from God, made ready like a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying: “Look! The residence of God is among human beings. He will live among them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will not exist any more – or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the former things have ceased to exist.”

Theological hat now set aside: 

To the non-Christian reading this, I realize how this must come across. It may sound too fantastical to be real; but it is. Nothing I can say can truly convince any skeptic that this will all happen. And to anyone who is both skeptical AND a Christian: if you have believed in all the things that Jesus has done that earthly reasoning insists can not happen, what wager is there in putting faith in God and believing that He will bring about these things?

There is still a great deal of mystery surrounding everything mentioned in this post. Nobody knows every detail about the coming of the Kingdom. Let’s bring it back to the context of the model prayer in Matthew 6. The first half of verse ten says “may your kingdom come”. If you read the entirety of Revelation and then come back to this little line, you’ll have a much heavier perspective. But in the end, we still have the question of “what does this line mean?”. All that I’ve just spoken about is, in an ultimate sense, the final coming of the Kingdom. However, why would Jesus teach us to pray the bringing of God’s Kingdom when it is only God who can carry out such a thing? Surely He does not need our permission or our aid.

But consider everything we’ve seen so far in this series: “Our Father in Heaven / hallowed be your name” - We’re praying to God the Father and for Him to be seen as bigger and greater than all else. We’re praying with the mindset of “You, God, are above me and I am for You”. Perhaps praying for God’s Kingdom to come has much less to do with any ability of our own to do the final bringing of His Kingdom and much more to do with the submission of our own will to His in order for us to live out our time on earth as a citizen of a Kingdom that is coming — and less like a prisoner of the kingdom that is fading away.

[END OF PART 4 OF SERIES]
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The Stuttering Christian