tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44305869083639557772024-02-07T18:27:52.511-08:00Converging Zone NetworkThe Premier Network To Connect People With Purpose - Come Join us at www.convergingzone.comRobert Ricciardellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02160368258138662091noreply@blogger.comBlogger447125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4430586908363955777.post-15568944758291136462011-07-28T10:04:00.000-07:002011-07-28T15:03:35.329-07:00Who Are You? by Greg Austin<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><div style="line-height: 12.0pt; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-line-height-rule: exactly; text-indent: .5in;"><em><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Mendacity is a system that we live in.</b></span></em><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="line-height: 12.0pt; margin-left: 1.5in; mso-line-height-rule: exactly; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">-<em> Brick, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”</em><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 1.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><i>Honesty is the thing. In all things, honesty must be the first thing. Without some certain foundational understanding of truth, no man can truly achieve or attain any life worth living.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">We talk about it as though it were a universal, comprehensible absolute; we assume that everybody ‘knows it’ and ‘gets it.’ We ignore the subject because to linger too long there would signify either absurd simplemindedness or at the least, theological shallowness.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And there is this: We have used, overused the terminologies until they have become meaningless, lost in a morass of pseudo-theological blather. ‘Born again’ is no longer popularly employed nor considered to be spiritually pertinent since Jesus counseled only one man in all of the gospel accounts to be thus changed. ‘Saved’ has taken on meanings ranging from suddenly becoming radically heaven-minded to helping little old ladies cross automobile clogged intersections. ‘Hell’ has become a threadbare metaphor; Scripture itself is presumed to be merely allegorical. The ‘absolutes’ of former generations of Christian scholars are considered no more permanent than the weather on any given day and place in the world.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What once was called ‘the church’ is infused on one hand with budding Universalists, and on the other with extreme, rabid religious Exclusionists. To the latter, any relationship with the Divine must exist in laboriously formulated limitations, confines and restrictions. To the former, the title of the old psychobabble book, <i>I’m Ok, You’re Ok</i><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn1" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[1]</span></a> delineates their approach to Kingdom qualification. In the view of the Universalist, whatever one believes or does not believe is sufficient to ensure eternal life, regardless of the name or names of the god or gods one embraces and venerates – or not - in his journey towards the divine life.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Jesus Himself addressed the restrictive spirit when He rebuked the Pharisees who <i>travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a <span class="highlight">son</span> <span class="highlight">of</span> <span class="highlight">hell</span> as yourselves.</i><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn2" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[2]</span></a><i> </i>He addressed the spirit of Universalism when He declared; <i>I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.</i><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn3" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[3]</span></a><i><o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And while there are feverish and stubborn arguments for either extreme case, the typical, common man or woman is simply not interested in theological wrangling of doctrines and teachings. With the Greeks who came to Philip of Bethsaida in Galilee in John 12, ordinary people still inquire, <i>S</i><i>ir, we would see Jesus.</i><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn4" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[4]</span></a><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If Scripture is true in the sense of Webster’s original definition, “a transcendent fundamental or spiritual reality and fidelity to an original or to a standard,”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn5" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[5]</span></a> then we must, if we are to be intellectually and spiritually honest defer and submit to Scripture’s factual authority.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Without wishing to engender debate here about the authority of Scripture, suffice it that we must, at the most rudimentary levels find at least tacit agreement that the Scriptures have come to us from God and are the foundational, overarching <i>w</i><i>ords of eternal life</i> that Simon Peter attributed to his Rabbi, Jesus.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn6" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[6]</span></a><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Spiritual Transformation or Mental Assent?</b></div><div class="MsoNormal">There are, in this writer’s opinion and experience, far too many confessors of Christ who have been intellectually convinced of the claims of Jesus and of the concepts of Scripture but who have not been essentially, fundamentally changed, literally re-formed by confessing heart-belief in the crucified, resurrected Christ and by inviting Him to reconstruct their lives at the center and core of their beings.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Call it what you will, use whatever terminology is comfortable and comprehensible to you, ‘Born Again,’ ‘Saved,’ ‘Converted,’ or any other expression, the bottom line requirement for those wishing to enter into Christ is found in the word, ‘transformed.’ Returning to Webster, ‘transform’ is ‘<span class="ssens">to change in composition or structure,’ or more specifically, ‘</span>to change in character or condition.’<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">An early mentor and friend put it this way, “when a man comes to Christ, even his dog ought to know he’s been saved.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn7" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[7]</span></a> In other words, once we have encountered Christ and submitted our lives to Him, more than joining a like-minded spiritual community, we will be essentially, fundamentally changed – transformed by a mysterious, yet entirely comprehensible power and influence ensuing from the singular act of Jesus’ sacrifice of His life on a cross two millennia ago.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Paul, the prolific writer of the bulk of our New Testament exhorted the Romans, <i>D</i><i>o not be conformed to this world, but be <span class="highlight">transformed</span> by the renewing of your mind.</i><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn8" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[8]</span></a><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">He reveals to the Corinthian church that <i>we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.</i><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn9" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[9]</span></a><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">To the Philippian church, Paul gives hope when he writes of both our present and future state, <span class="versetext"><i>o</i></span><span class="versetext"><i>ur citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.</i></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn10" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><i>[10]</i></span></a><span class="versetext"> </span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Scripture is clear: Transformation is essential to conformation. One cannot experience reformation without transformation. It is utterly impossible to enter into the Kingdom of God by making a mental adjustment to include Christ in our lexicon and lifestyle. We must, at the most fundamental level, be transformed, which is the core concept of the term, “converted.” The very human nature in each of us must be spiritually altered, changed, not merely improved upon or rehabilitated, but radically, vitally and fundamentally restored by a mysterious and miraculous act of heaven in our lives.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Transformation begets Reformation.</b></div><div class="MsoNormal">As previously advanced,<i> one cannot be reformed until he has first been transformed</i>. A person cannot act the part of a Christ follower in order to become a Christ follower. It is spiritually impossible to “fake it until we make it,” but one must first be transformed, changed in his inner being by accepting as fact and as dynamic reality the substitutionary death of Jesus at Calvary.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">For those who commit themselves, their very souls and their eternal hope to Christ, these are no longer “in Adam.” This removal from the Adamic family indicates a fundamental change in both spiritual DNA and the destiny of a man or a woman, <i>for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.</i><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn11" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[11]</span></a><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Those who come to Christ in simple and honest appeal for transformation forever are removed from the Adamic family and are placed into the “Christ family,” the “Family of God.” <i>For </i><i>you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of <span class="highlight">adoption</span> by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’</i><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn12" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[12]</span></a> <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Rest in Christ</b></div><div class="MsoNormal">From the demarked and decisive moment when a man or a woman receives Christ’s sacrifice and the forgiveness of heaven, he or she is now accounted by God as being “In Christ.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn13" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[13]</span></a> The Pauline use of the Greek <i>en</i> in Romans 8:1 appears to be an innocuous and passive word, hardly worth even a pause in our reading until we understand it’s literal meaning; <i>“a relation of rest.”</i> “In Christ” we have a relationship that affects a “rest.” In plain language, when we come to Christ in faith, we henceforth<i> belong to Christ.</i> We are exclusively “His” and even our physical bodies become <i>t</i><i>he temple of the Holy Spirit who is in <span class="highlight">(us)</span>, whom <span class="highlight">(we)</span> have from God, and <span class="highlight">(we)</span> <span class="highlight">are</span> <span class="highlight">not</span> <span class="highlight">(our)</span> <span class="highlight">own.</span></i><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn14" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[14]</span></a><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">We who have entered “into Christ” have been rescued from our sins, redeemed by Christ, and placed in a spiritual condition of rest from our former works and from every other attempt at changing ourselves for the better by Him <i>who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, <span class="highlight">not</span> according to <span class="highlight">our</span> works, but according to His <span class="highlight">own</span> purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began</i>.<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn15" name="_ftnref" title="">[15]</a></span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><i>His</i></b><b> Work, <i>Our</i> Rest<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal">Coming to Christ is the beginning point, the genesis of “new life.” This is the start of an eternal adventure of knowing, at increasingly deeper levels, the essence of the Person of Christ and of becoming, day by day, by way of His continual transformative power, like Him.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Thus He provided for us the indwelling, ever-faithful and constantly accompanying Holy Spirit. Jesus came to His disciples following His resurrection from the dead and in one of the most compelling and transitory moments of their collective relationship with Him, <i>He breathed on them, and said to them,</i> <i>‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’</i><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn16" name="_ftnref" title="">[16]</a></span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">Jesus had previously revealed to His followers regarding the Spirit, <span class="versetext"><i>He dwells with you and will be in you.</i></span><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn17" name="_ftnref" title="">[17]</a></span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Following His resurrection, Jesus appeared to His disciples on several occasions, primarily to provide them with the comfort of the knowledge that He was no longer dead, but that He was fully and eternally alive, and that having risen from the dead He was no longer controlled by human conditions.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This need for comfort was of such primary concern to Jesus that He promised even in His leaving, His forthcoming ascension into heaven, He would not <i>“leave you comfortless” </i>but that He would <i>pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever.</i><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn18" name="_ftnref" title="">[18]</a></span><i><o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 1.5in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">“The Holy Spirit would be another Comforter, but the comfort would be of the same kind. Indeed, our word ‘comfort’ does not properly represent the thought of the text, which rather is, to strengthen, to sustain: the Holy Spirit would not be merely a consoler of woes, a soother of fears, in the sense of our word comfort, but He would quicken their understandings, strengthen their zeal, and energize them for doing and enduring such things as divine providence might permit to come upon them for their correction in righteousness, and in order to make them "meet for the inheritance of the saints in light." <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 1.5in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">Thus it is that those who receive the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the truth, the Spirit of love, the Spirit of the Father, the Spirit of Christ, are enabled to <i>see</i> Jesus, and have a new life begun in them.”<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn19" name="_ftnref" title="">[19]</a></span> <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 1.5in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Holy Spirit and Christ are one; they are “together” at an intimate and intrinsic level. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of Christ has come to make Jesus real, relevant, understandable, embraceable. <i>The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father <span class="highlight">will</span> send in My name, <span class="highlight">He</span> <span class="highlight">will</span> <span class="highlight">teach</span> <span class="highlight">you</span> all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to <span class="highlight">you</span>.</i><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn20" name="_ftnref" title="">[20]</a></span> <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Holy Spirit comes to us to enable us to <i>walk according to the Spirit</i> and so gain power to resist a life <i>according to the flesh.</i><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn21" name="_ftnref" title="">[21]</a></span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In the Spirit and by the Spirit, the believer possesses the ability to walk according to the Spirit. It is this truth and enablement that provides the power to overcome the sin that lurks behind the scenes in our lives.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This reality, that the very Spirit of God, the Spirit of the resurrected and life-ruling Christ dwells within us in order to teach us, to enable us, to persuade us and to empower us is essential to living a victorious, satisfying life in Christ. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Human emotions are subject to fluctuation and vacillation. A person may “feel” connected to Christ one day and on another day “feel” hopelessly lost. Emotions, feelings are the least accurate indicators of our spiritual condition. Truth must reign supreme, because truth, and fact do not change, are not affected by the fickle emotions of our hearts.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Because truth never changes, it therefore does not ebb or flow. Truth, simply “is.” And because of the knowledge of the truth that through the activity of faith and by God’s grace, we understand that we are “in Christ,” and we understand that we are securely, firmly and eternally, “in Him.”<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn22" name="_ftnref" title="">[22]</a></span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Residing within the being of the believer in Christ, twenty-four hours of every day of his life dwells, exists and is available the power to walk “according to the Spirit.” The solitary qualifier of that position is the individuals’ own volition, his will. If we “will” to walk according to the Spirit, we have the power and ability, through Him to walk in obedience to God and to crush the very inclination to disobey Him. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 6.0in;">This ability allows us to walk in what the Scriptures denote as “newness of life.” <i>For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.</i><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn23" name="_ftnref" title="">[23]</a></span><i><o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 6.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">So Paul concludes, <i>If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.</i><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn24" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[24]</span></a><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">And the conclusion which may be drawn from the Apostle’s logic is this: Godly, human behavior is dependent upon seeing, recognizing and believing the basic truth of our identity in Christ. And Scripture provides that identity when it says, <i>as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.</i><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn25" name="_ftnref" title="">[25]</a></span><i><o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">Allow the truth to pierce through the barriers of objection and unbelief until you see it: “Sons of God.” Permit heaven’s supreme truth to penetrate past the untrue and false judgments and curses that others may have layered upon your heart. Please, don’t rush by this, blindly assuming you comprehend the ramifications of this divine sonship. Permit the Spirit, now and here to speak to your heart, to cement the reality of your true identity in Christ deep in the core of your being. It is this relational position, provided by His atonement that makes us, that enables us to rise above the course of natural, fleshly and corrupt spirits and to lift our heads and see our position in Him clearly.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">Basic psychology tells us that only when we have a clear idea of our identities can we truly, from our core act and think and live according to the knowledge of who we truly are. In other words, we cannot act like something until gradually, finally we become that person.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">The singular process of becoming different, divorced from what the Bible describes as our lives before Christ intervened for us as being <i>without Christ, . . . aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world</i><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn26" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[26]</span></a> is being changed, transformed at the very core of our being by implementing faith in Christ and so becoming something different from what we were. And when we believe what we actually are, what the Scriptures insist that we are in Christ and what God the Father declares that we are; we begin to live our lives in a “Godward” direction. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">At the risk of redundancy, <i>Transformation engenders Reformation.</i> No human being can be reformed until he is first transformed.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">In Christ, we find a new identity, a “God” identity. The more we understand our true identity in Him, and the more we believe the truth of the revealed Scriptures, that God’s assessment of us is true under all conditions and in all circumstances, regardless of our changing emotions or shifting feelings, the more we begin, supernaturally to live in a manner that brings glory to God’s name.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">So we find in Paul’s instruction to the Roman church a title that he has not previously revealed: He calls the believer in Christ “sons.” <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">To those who had claimed that they had Abraham as their father, Jesus said, <i>You are of your father the devil,</i><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn27" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[27]</span></a> but to those who claim God as their father through Jesus, the Son, He says, <i>those who are led by the Spirit are sons of God.</i><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn28" name="_ftnref" title="">[28]</a></span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">Further, and in the same context, Paul writes, <i>You did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, Abba, Father.</i><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn29" name="_ftnref" title="">[29]</a></span><i> </i><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">To the Galatian church, Paul writes<i> . . . because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!</i>’<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn30" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[30]</span></a><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">In Christ and through Christ, we become “sons of God.” And the process of becoming such is specified: It is through the legal act of “adoption.” In Christ, we are adopted into a new family and we are henceforth called “sons.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">Sonship provides liberty, authority, permission, security, identity. None of these were ours before and without Christ. All of these become ours as a portion of the benefit of becoming God’s true sons. Through Christ we become sons of the living God and have at our disposal all the power of heaven in order to overcome evil.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">Regardless of temporary setbacks or moments when the child of God is overwhelmed, he will never be fully overcome; he can never be ultimately defeated because within the believer lives the very Spirit of Christ, Who is the very <i>hope of glory.</i><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn31" name="_ftnref" title="">[31]</a></span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">In Romans, chapter six, Paul declares to those who would follow Christ, <i>Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.</i><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn32" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[32]</span></a> It is through this God-born relationship we are made and constituted to be sons of the living God. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">This relationship, this knowing that we are indelibly, everlastingly “in Christ,” is the starting point, the beginning of the miracle of “transformation.” We are, unmistakably and unconditionally “sons of God” if we have trusted in the full offer of salvation through Jesus Christ, our Lord and if we are sons, then we are <i>heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.</i><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftn33" name="_ftnref" title="">[33]</a></span><i><o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">We might move towards this new concept, this requirement to “suffer with Him,” but that topic must wait its turn. Sufficient for the moment is to capture and to marvel in the reality of our position in Christ – we are <i>sons.</i></div><div style="mso-element: footnote-list;"> <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /> <div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[1]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <u>I’m OK, You’re OK</u>. Thomas A. Harris, M.D., 1967, Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[2]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Matthew 23:15</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[3]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> John 14:6</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[4]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> John 12:21</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[5]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Merriam-Webster Dictionary</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[6]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> John 6:68</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[7]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Rev. David C. Crabtree, from a sermon preached in Des Moines, Iowa, 1972</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[8]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Romans 12:2</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[9]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> 2 Corinthians 3:18</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[10]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Philippians 3:20,21</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn11" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[11]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> 1 Corinthians 15:22</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn12" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[12]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Romans 8:15</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn13" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[13]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Ibid</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn14" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[14]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> 1 Corinthians 6:19</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn15" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[15]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> 2 Timothy 1:9</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn16" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[16]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> John 20:22</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn17" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[17]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> John 14:17</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn18" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[18]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> John 14:6</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn19" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[19]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> He Shall Give You Another Comforter, Author unknown.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn20" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[20]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> John 14:26</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn21" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[21]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Romans 8:1</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn22" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[22]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Romans 8:38,39</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn23" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[23]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn24" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[24]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Galatians 5:25</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn25" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[25]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Romans 8:14</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn26" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[26]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Ephesians 2:12</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn27" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[27]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> See John 8:39-44</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn28" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[28]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> op.cit.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn29" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[29]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Romans 8:15</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn30" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[30]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Galatians 4:6</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn31" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[31]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Colossians 1:20</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn32" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[32]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Romans 6:14</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4430586908363955777&postID=1556894475829113646&from=pencil#_ftnref" name="_ftn33" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[33]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Romans 8:17</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div></div><!--EndFragment--> </span></div></div>Robert Ricciardellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02160368258138662091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4430586908363955777.post-43074764029564985212011-06-02T15:05:00.000-07:002011-06-02T15:05:30.890-07:00I'll Stand by You by Jeremy Lopez<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">I wanted to take a moment to share with you some of my story. I remember receiving Christ into my life at an early age. Going through the 'regular' routine like we all do of being taught the scriptures. Learning more about who Christ is and what He has done for me. I remember being in the word of faith movement and so many other movements of God. I strived "working" so hard to find out more about the truth so I could tuck it underneath my belt and "know it," memorize it so it could be "life" to me and I could "help" others get on the "right path." A number of years ago I began to discover who I really was and what I had become. I had become someone who lives by the letter of the law instead of realizing my relationship was not built on a book but on a Father in heaven who loved me. He tells us, "you didn't choose me, I chose you." It is so easy to become a worshipper of the Bible rather than a worshipper of God through His precious Son Jesus.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">I forgot the Word within the Word. I forgot the author was a person who cared, loved and accepted me just the way I am. Why? Because I didn't choose Him, He chose me. If I chose Him, He could have easily rejected me and said, "no thanks. This inn is full." But He chose Me just how I was, which means, He takes out what needs to be taken out of me. He does the cleaning, not me. I just yield my mind over to Him to let it be renewed. But please remember like I said earlier, He chose Me! Just how I was!</span></div><div class="mbl notesBlogText clearfix" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><div><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><strong>The Kingdom of God is Relational</strong></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I see how others forget that the kingdom of God is relational not doctrinal or traditional. It is built upon covenant more than anything else. I watched a very close friend of mine of over 20 years who knew this principle but somehow by the influence of others in the system, go back from relational and covenant to word bound. So now, he will not speak to me or even some others with his heart, he speaks to me only by giving me scripture. What happens when we lose ourselves with speaking not from our heart to love, accept, comfort and show compassion; instead we skip the heart and only "speak the word." Have we forgotten the Jesus behind the "word" (Bible)? The same Jesus who didn't throw scripture at people but loved people. Jesus spoke scripture to the enemy when He was in the desert because He knew the word could be used as a sword in battle to defeat.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">But when the woman who was caught in adultery saw Jesus, He didn't say, "the Bible says, 'Thou shall not commit adultery!'" He looked at her and said, "I don't accuse you." It wasn't even the fact that she was caught in the midst of it. No repentance. No remorse.....just caught! But because He LOVED her and desired to build a relationship with her, he told her, "I don't accuse you." Could she go back to living in adultery? Yes. Was Jesus guaranteed that she wouldn't? No. But He still desired to love her and wanted a better life for her but He still did not turn His back upon her! He still did not say, "let's put her through a time of 13 years of recovery." He just wanted relationship with her.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Let me talk to you about the kingdom of God for a moment. What is the kingdom of God? It is built on covenant, not doctrine, not tradition and not how spiritual we can be. It is supernatural! Let me give you an example. If you went to your natural father and told him something about you that he would not agree with, what would he do? If he truly has a father's heart he would say something to the effect of, "I might not agree but you are still my child and I love you." My natural dad and I do not always agree with things we believe but the idea that my dad would cast me out and say, "you're no longer my son" would be nothing I have ever known since my dad has a father's heart to say, "you're my son and nothing will ever change that fact." </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Probably many of you, maybe like my friend above, never had a dad who had a father's heart. Maybe many of you feel your natural "father" because he is a doctrine or tradition worshipper does not possess a true father's heart. Please hear me now! YOUR FATHER IN HEAVEN IS ABOUT RELATIONSHIP WITH HIS CHILDREN.....ALL OF HIS CHILDREN. He does not care about your doctrines, your traditions or your opinions. He wants your heart. He wants his son or daughter to say, "good morning daddy." I remember many great men of God like, David VanCronkhite, Jack Taylor, Bob Mumford, David Huskins and many others have the father's heart. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">So many people in the system of the church are more concerned with Jeremy Lopez's gift or office as a prophet more than even getting to know the real me. Why? Because so many ministers and people don't really want to know you, they would rather have your gift or office to use it and than turn when they're done and move on. I have said it before and I will say it again. I love all people! I told my friends and family years ago that I would never leave them but many will leave me. I have seen it with a close friend of mine of over 20 years and many others just like many of you out there have because relationship and covenant are so important to me. More important than if we agree or disagree, if you believe in the rapture or no rapture, if you believe this or that.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I will never forget the day I met David VanCronkhite, a mighty man of God and a close friend of mine. I tried so hard to figure him out by asking what he believed or did not believe. He never answered me but he just kept saying, "love wins, love wins, love wins." I never really realized what I was doing since I had been caught up in the system of those who created it in the church. I was just like one of them! Trying to figure out if David and I could be friends based on if what we believed was the same. I finally realized I too had been caught up in the matrix of the system. My relationship with him and so many others could not be based on if we agree in doctrines. Why? Because I too, allowed doctrines to come between me and building the kingdom by loving others and building relationships just like my Daddy in heaven does with me and all of His other children.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><strong>The Church Should be a Place of Safety</strong></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Take a look at your life for a moment. How many people have you hurt or kicked out of your life over doctrines and beliefs? The Jesus in the word is still wanting nothing more than relationship with His children. Are we mature enough to say, "I love you.....regardless?"</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The church should be a place of safety, love, protection, etc. but instead we have created it to be a place of beliefs and doctrines. To put it another way, it has become a "bible cult" not a "house of prayer for ALL nations." All people are welcome to come to the house of God. ALL PEOPLE!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">If there is something God wants to work out in them, let Him do it. When we become people who use His precious word to hurt, "straighten up" or even massacre, we become Pharisees. Someone who uses something that is meant to heal, deliver and comfort as a tool to pound, beat and hurt. I am a grace man. It's sad that people hate people that display grace to all. But ask yourself this question: "When you approach the throne of God one day, will God say, 'well done, you used my word to straighten people up, you told others who did not line up with what you believe that they are not welcome, come on in you wonderful servant.' Or do you want the Lord to say, 'well done thy good and faithful servant. You loved those who were hurting, different from you. You allowed everyone and anyone into My house to pray to find the way for a better life for them. You kept on loving them, humbling yourself to love and show them grace. Because if you have done it to the least of these, you have done it to Me.'?"</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Please note, I love every one of you. I stand with you and for you no matter who or what you are because I see Jesus in you.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I love you and your Daddy in Heaven loves you too.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><strong>Jeremy Lopez</strong></span></div></div></div>Robert Ricciardellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02160368258138662091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4430586908363955777.post-62135545194888195482011-05-27T06:24:00.000-07:002011-05-27T06:24:50.701-07:00Identifying the Antichrist by Joseph Mattera<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div><span style="font-size: large;">Much has been made since the end of the nineteenth century regarding the “last days” and identifying the antichrist. During World War II a number of preachers even had scriptures to prove that Adolf Hitler was the antichrist and that they were the last generation. Numerous best-selling books have been written regarding the mark of the beast, the false prophet, and the identity of the antichrist and when he would appear. Every time there is an oil crisis or another war in the Middle East, you can count on preachers like John Hagee to come out with best-selling books regarding this as a sign that we are in the “last days.” </span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span> </div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div><span style="font-size: large;">The following points will clearly establish the biblical definition of the antichrist: <br />
</span> </div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">I. In 1 John 2:18 the Apostle John said that he was living in the last days when the antichrist would appear.</span></span> </div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span> <div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
1. Obviously, “last days” couldn’t refer to the end of the world over 2,000 years ago. Some try to get around this by saying that we are now living in the “last of the last days,” which amounts more to eisogesis than biblical exegesis. </span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span> </div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div><span style="font-size: large;">2. Examining other passages dealing with the last days clearly shows that Peter, Paul, John, and others thought they were all living in the last days (Acts 2:16-17; 1 John 2:18; 1 Peter 4:7; 2 Timothy 3:1; Jude 17-19; Revelation 1:1). </span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
A. One can only conclude from this that “last days” was not referring to something thousands of years later but rather it was the “last days” for the Jewish Levitical system of animal sacrifices, and the “last days” for the Jewish nation that was to be destroyed in one generation from the crucifixion. This would then officially inaugurate the new “kingdom age.” (Read Matthew 24:34; Luke 9:27; Hebrews 12:27-28.) Remember: The apostles and the early church were all Jewish believers who were speaking of the judgment of God on the nation of Israel for rejecting Jesus as Messiah. </span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
B. The last days of Israel came in A.D. 70 within one generation of the death of Christ, when the Roman army surrounded Jerusalem and desecrated the holy temple. The abomination of desolation is referred to in Luke 21:20. </span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span> </div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">II. The Apostle John identifies the antichrist as people who didn’t continue in the church, thus identifying it as the “last hour.” Read 1 John 2:18-19.</span></span> </div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br />
</span></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">III. The Apostle John also identifies the spirit of antichrist loosed in the world as those who don’t confess that Jesus “has come in the flesh.” (Read 1 John 4:2-3.)</span></span> </div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span> <div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
1. He was obviously referring to those attempting to bring platonic Gnosticism in the church. Gnosticism, which was a heretical cult that did much damage to the church in the first few centuries, believed that the flesh was evil and that only the spiritual world was good. They even taught that the god of the Old Testament was evil (the god of the flesh who created the natural world and needed animal sacrifices to be appeased), and that the god of the New Testament was good; that true Christianity was really about attempting to get free from the flesh and to live in the spirit. </span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span> </div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">IV. The antichrist is a false spirit that brings false doctrine into the church; it is not a single person.</span></span> </div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span> <div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
1. Never once is the term “antichrist” used in the Book of Revelation or any of the other epistles besides 1 John and 2 John. Yet most writers never refer to the antichrist as a spirit of false doctrine that takes the power and relevancy of Jesus away from the flesh or natural realm. </span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span> </div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">V. A new kind of Gnosticism has crept into the church during the past 120 years.</span></span> </div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span> <div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
1. The church has fled the cities to find a sort of paradise in the suburbs or countryside. </span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span> </div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div><span style="font-size: large;">2. The church has just concentrated on spiritual things and abandoned cultural and societal reform, unlike their predecessors in America who started most of the Ivy League colleges and universities with the intent to develop Christians to lead the nation in every realm of life. </span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span> </div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div><span style="font-size: large;">3. The Evangelical church has now espoused an escapist theology and is now focused on going to heaven and the rapture than the focus of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6, in which Jesus told us to concentrate on His will “on earth as it is in heaven.” </span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span> </div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><strong>VI. The ironic thing is, those preachers and authors focusing on the “last days,” identifying one man as the antichrist, the rapture, and the mark of the beast, have actually fallen prey to the spirit of antichrist</strong> because they take the practical application of the cross of Christ away from the realm of the flesh. That is to say, their escapist teaching is semi-Gnostic because the kingdom cannot be totally applied in the flesh or natural realm. It is almost like saying Jesus Christ has not come in the flesh like 1 John 4:2-4. That is to say, their teaching implies that the cross wasn’t for the reconciliation of the natural created order but just for our eternal spiritual life in heaven. Colossians 1:20 says that Jesus came to reconcile both things in heaven and on earth. Thus, redemption is for the natural realm of the flesh in the created order, not just the spiritual realm in heavenly places. </span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span> </div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><strong>VII. Best-selling books like the Left Behind series by Tim Lahaye are taking kingdom focus off the earth and into the next world, something totally foreign to the teachings of the apostles and Jesus</strong>, who actually prayed in John 17:15: “I pray not that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one.” Thus, praying against the rapture mentality! </span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span> </div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div><span style="font-size: large;">Unless we rid the church of this new Gnosticism, Christians will continue to live a dualistic life in which they just care about their inward piety and holiness, and leave the stewardship of the planet to the heathen. Dualism is causing the church to separate from the institutions of politics, law, education, economics, science, history, and philosophy, and is the major reason why the cultures in Western Europe and North America are continuing to erode. May the church fulfill its mission and become the salt of the earth and the light of the world. </span></div></div>Robert Ricciardellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02160368258138662091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4430586908363955777.post-10828783079645148002011-05-07T23:44:00.000-07:002011-05-07T23:48:13.613-07:00Thoughts on Killing Osama bin Laden by Dr. Greg Austin<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"></span></b></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b></b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">For What It's Worth . . . </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My Thoughts on the Killing of Osama bin Laden</span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Seldom in a lifetime do we witness events that will remain fresh in our memories forever. Most events, even most breath-taking events are pushed away as other concerns, obligations, priorities press for our full attention.</span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Yet there are those events that none experiencing them ever forget: For a generation slipping away from us, there are the painful recollections of the Great Depression of the 1930’s and World War II in the 1940’s. The next generation witnessed the assassination of John Kennedy in Texas on a warm, October day in 1963. The same generation experienced the Vietnam War and its turbulent aftermath. </span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">For many of the current generation, there are memories of the Space Shuttle Disaster, the attack on the World Trade Tower, the Pentagon and the crash of United 193 in the fields of Shanksville, Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001. Recently the world witnessed the cataclysmic events the shook Japan and touched the world with shock and sorrow. </span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">And now we add another Day that will remain in our collective memory for so long as we live. On Sunday, May 1, 2011 the headlines blazed around the world: “Osama bin Laden is dead,” prey to a flawlessly performed mission by American Special Operations forces. </span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">The military part of my brain understands and recognizes the need for mission success regarding the bringing of Osama Bin Laden to man’s court of justice. </span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Regardless of speculation concerning bin Laden’s degree of responsibility for the events of September 11, 2001, there is ample evidence to warrant his being branded as a terrorist and as a threat to not only the United States, but to the free world, at large. There is no point in debating Osama’s level of culpability regarding any individual terrorist act. Indeed, there is general agreement in the U.S. and in other nations of the need for the United States and/or coalition forces to complete their long-stated and pursued mission of capturing or killing this man.</span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Of necessity, military members must unquestioningly follow every lawfully given order that is issued. The men and/or women under military authority do not have the luxury of investigating, quizzing their superior, and then deciding whether they feel justified in following orders received. The entire structure of the military institution is built upon unhesitating obedience to those in command, so long as those commanders provide orders that are lawful in their spirit and substance. If a commanding officer were to order his troops to invade a location and to rape women and murder children, such an order would not be considered “lawful.” In this case, troops would not be bound by military orders to comply, regardless of who issued those orders. But when the order received is legal – as defined by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is the Congressional Code of Military Criminal Law to which every service member is obligated by oath and by law, these orders must be carried out with complete obedience. Without this kind of fidelity, no war could be effectively prosecuted, and no victory could ever be won.</span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">There is strategic advantage to the U.S. and our allies in killing Osama bin Laden. While the public at large may not recognize the immediate benefit brought by the death of the terror leader, and while bin Laden may not even have been actively plotting the next terror attack to be launched, as the Founder and Leader of Al Qaeda, his perceived and symbolic position as the man in charge has now been concluded. The message sent and received among the enemies of the free world is this: No one is immune, no one can forever escape the reach of a nation provoked and angry.</span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How Should We Then Respond?</span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">The question of our response to the news of bin Laden’s death is one that must be considered by those who claim to be followers of Christ. Specifically, what is the proper attitude of believers in Jesus to the news of the death of Osama bin Laden? How should the “Christian” demeanor and attitude differ from those outside of Christ?</span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">As a former member of two branches of the U.S. military, I am supportive of our nation and of its military institutions. I am not a died-in-the-wool “Peacenik.”</span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">But I am a washed-in-the-blood believer in Jesus Christ. And for what it’s worth, my redeemed mind abhors even the necessity of taking any human life. I understand that need, but I don’t like it. </span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I do not, I cannot rejoice over the death of any human being, regardless of the crimes committed. Despite the heinous, monstrous character that causes a person to commit unthinkable atrocities, there is no joy in bringing such a one to justice. Indeed, I can find no reason to rejoice in the killing of a rabid dog, for whom there is no other potential remedy than death. I can recognize necessity without experiencing jubilation over the act or the result of a death. </span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How Can Two, Opposite Reactions be Reconciled? </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">On the one hand, I agree with the military and political decision to take the life of Osama bin Laden, while on the other hand I am did not rejoice when the mission was accomplished.</span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">At a strategic level, the death of bin Laden does not end or mitigate the violent hatred focused on America by radical groups, nor do I think it resolves much beyond accomplishing Mission Success and the freeing of valuable assets to pursue other targets for our military. There always will be a “The King is dead; long live the King” system of succession so long as core issues of disagreement are ignored or denied. Bin Laden is dead; enter the “new” Bin Laden, ad infinitum. </span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">As stated, I cannot rejoice, shout, wave a flag, or become terribly excited over this death. I hope last week’s events mark the end of some degree of evil operating in our world, and that the day will hasten when we can see the conclusion of the wars that continue to result in the loss of good American lives, and the attending grief brought to family and friends through their deaths and injuries. </span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Don’t Bother Me With the Details, I Just Wanna Be Happy</span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Americans are obsessed with the quick "fix." We’ve got instant glue and instant coffee and we want our disagreements with nations or cultures to be likewise instantaneously fixed without our getting caught up in any kind of soul-searching, value-determining, heart-wrenching and compassionate reasoning.</span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">We love to identify a problem, focus on an appropriate and specifically un-messy cure, (no pictures of blood, please) and then simply forget about the whole matter, act as though it never happened, and move on with the next version of iPhone or iMac or iSomebody and iDeserve it. </span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">If only killing the problems facing society were as simple as killing bin Laden was. Beyond administering human justice, I'm not sure his death cures the much of our overall problems. I don't think that bin Laden was the Arab version of General David Petraeus. I don't think Usama was the "on-ground" military genius of Al Qaeda or the Guerrilla Extraordinaire of the Taliban. Figurehead? Indeed. Inspiration? Definitely. But the excited throngs jumping and shouting in front of the White House need to understand what bin Laden's death has given us tactically and strategically - and that's not much, in my humble and admittedly limited opinion.</span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I am currently reading a very fine history of the winning of the West in America. The book is titled “Blood and Thunder” and contains the heartbreaking story of the conquest of the Navajo people of the Southwest. Colonel Kit Carson, along with nearly 500 soldiers entered the mystical Canyon Chelly in what is now the State of Arizona in order to complete the subjugation of this blatantly murderous and thieving people.</span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">On a frigid February morning in 1864, a group of haggard looking Navajos entered Carson’s camp under a flag of truce. Their intention was to finally and fully surrender to the United States Army. </span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Carson was shocked by what these cold and starving people told him. “We would have come in long ago, but we believed this was a war of extermination,” they said.</span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Carson explained to them why the United States Army was rounding them up. “The government wants to promote your welfare. The point is not to destroy you but to save you, if you want to be saved.”</span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">According to news reports, Bin Laden was to have been given opportunity to surrender, to “save him” if he wanted to be saved. The ground commander of the assault team had full authority to kill on sight. We have been told that Bin Laden declined the invitation to surrender. A few days later, we learned that, in point of fact, there was no “capture if possible” order given: It was a “kill order” from the beginning. And then we learned that, well, perhaps the SEALS of Team 6 could have decided to save or slay, depending on the situation. I personally have difficulty with the offered scenarios except for the second one: The commander of this operation is himself a U.S. Navy SEAL. No operational SEAL, Delta member or any other member of the U.S. Special Operations Command would ever burden a ground commander with the responsibility of deciding, in the heat of battle to capture or to kill. Events happen too quickly in combat for the luxury of running through a “what if” laundry list of choices. The men who stormed the compound in Abbatobad had enough on their minds as they cleared courtyards and stairways and halls and rooms without having to think about what they would do when they came face to face with their objective. This kind of operation is the ultimate “point and shoot” mission.</span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">The point with bin Laden, I think, was not the point of Kit Carson and the American government in their desire for the Navajo nation. This was a “we are here to destroy you, not to save you” mission.</span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">And by every account, in May of 2011, Osama’s efforts to hide from the long arm of American justice came to a sudden and permanent end. </span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Patriotism in America this week is at high tide. Celebrations have swept through cities, American flags have been brought out of closets and basements and have swept the freshly purified air of the stench of the recently deceased Terrorist-in-Chief.</span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">And a question lingers in the wake of the carnival-like atmosphere that attended the announcement: “Got him!”</span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">The question looms, largely unheard and certainly unanswered: “What, in fact have we got?”</span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">And will we ever learn? As a race, as the human family, are we learning? Will we learn that ignorance breeds hatred, and hatred gives birth to death, and death is the scourge, the curse, the fruit of all that is wrong around, and within us? Evil, at its essence is not something that attends the way of the criminal and the maniac and the sorcerer, but evil is that dark thing that pulsates in our own breasts, that feeds and grows in our blindedness and that will not come out, will not die, save by the entrance of the True Light that gives light to every man that comes into the world. </span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I am not a simpleton. I know that there are complicated issues that defy human answers. But I also know there is a God Who promises us, day by each new dawning day to lead us higher, to show us peace of greater value, to lift us above the condition of lower life-forms, and to fill us with His love, His grace, His mercy.</span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">And so, Osama bin Laden joins the ranks of Idi Amin and Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini and Ghengis Khan and Caligula and Nero and, I suppose another tyrant here or a monster there.</span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">And when the dancing crowds return to their routine lives again, when they get back to their jobs, their schools, their pastimes, when the world has washed itself of the memory of the latest to die, will we have a better world than we knew a week ago? Will we have learned anything worthwhile in the process? </span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Will anybody next week remember a young sergeant or captain or a seasoned Colonel, watching a distant valley or a steep ridgeline in Afghanistan? </span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Will we know ourselves any better after our emotional display of either giddy celebration or of somber contemplation this week? </span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Will we hunger for greater answers, for better ways to bring heaven’s peace to planet earth?</span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Will we understand the heart of the Father any better? Will we, who claim to be followers of the Father’s Christ find a way to better mirror His character to an out-of-sync world around us? </span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">As the next week dawns and the calendar moves forward, will we be those who have joined hearts to witness, in our own day the fulfillment of heaven’s desire, articulated when Jesus taught His friends to pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven?” </span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I hope that we will.</span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0e774a; font-family: arial, sans-serif; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.gregaustin.org/">www.gregaustin.org</a></span></span></span></div></b></span></div>Robert Ricciardellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02160368258138662091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4430586908363955777.post-37609125588850819672011-04-24T07:10:00.000-07:002011-04-24T07:10:48.423-07:00Poke The Box by Seth Godin<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6IapqgokfNU" title="YouTube video player" width="480"></iframe><br />
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Edited Review by C.E.<br />
This is another good read by Seth Godin in his new book, Poke the Box.. <br />
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Not too long ago, I read Seth Godin's "Tribes." It was very thought-provoking and filled with an incredible array of truth and ideas around the concept of Tribes and how it relates to our daily lives in the marketplace. <br />
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So I ordered "Poke the Box" and Seth overwhelmed me with his passion and force. I read the book and listened carefully for all the take-aways from the book that I could grab.<br />
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If "Poke the Box" communicates nothing else, it presents this one message with a megaphone voice: "Go!" "Start now." "The worst thing you can do is nothing."<br />
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You've got to be out there trying and risking failure, or you'll be irrelevant. There are too many people out there and too many tribes so that if you do nothing or are too cautious, thinking that you can control the whole process, the chances are you'll end up marginalizing yourself. The important thing is to be out there, thinking, inventing, trying, and experiencing, for that is how we learn and create. <br />
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Poking the box, therefore, means being willing to poke, to get things started, and to stir things up. And that's something that I personally need to hear, for my tendency is to caution and fearfulness. "Poking the Box" is the culmination of many other books I've read that have also convinced me to begin now and take the initiative. One of the most important times I did that was when I dared to write a daily Bible devotional for every passage of the New Testament. I had a lot of reasons why I couldn't or shouldn't do this or why I'd never complete it. But God told me to start one day, and so I did.<br />
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Poking the Box is about recapturing all of the moments in your life when you started something new and were jazzed about it and the world seemed wonderful and mysterious again. Poking the Box is about recapturing that feeling by taking real action in something you've already been thinking about but haven't had the guts or inspiration to carry out. Read "Poking the Box" for yourself, and see if it doesn't re-energize you to find old dreams or execute new ones! <br />
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When should you poke the box? When the cost of poking the box is less than the cost of doing nothing. It also means working hard and committing to finishing. <br />
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"The market is waiting for people to step forward," Seth says. And so are the tribes that we lead and that each of us are a part of. If you're a religious leader as I am, then so are the people of God, who all too often have become fearful and weak. <br />
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Thank you, Seth, for giving me a little more courage to "Poke the Box" in my chosen field! Who knows what you, yes YOU, may come up with if you too "Poke the Box"! <br />
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I'll close with some quotes from "Poke the Box." Like me, you may not completely buy into them, but they are certain to "poke" you: <br />
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"There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth. Not going all the way and not starting." (Siddhartha Gautama) <br />
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"Please stop waiting for a map. We reward those who draw maps, not those who follow them." <br />
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"Poking doesn't mean right. It means action." <br />
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"This might not work" isn't merely something to be tolerated; it's something you should seek out. <br />
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"Risk is avoided because we've been trained to avoid failure." <br />
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"Reject the tyranny of picked. Pick yourself." <br />
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"Where did curiosity go? Initiative is a little like creativity in that both require curiosity. The difference is that the creative person is satisfied once he sees how it's done. The initiator won't rest until he does it." <br />
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"The people arguing on behalf of accepting the status quo are the ones who, years ago, set out to change it. As disillusionment sets in, people stop poking."<br />
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</div>Robert Ricciardellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02160368258138662091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4430586908363955777.post-32495046552174983462011-04-24T06:49:00.000-07:002011-04-24T06:49:26.513-07:00Carrots, Eggs, and Coffee by Brian Klemmer<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/LwvapHrpxQk" title="YouTube video player" width="640"></iframe><br />
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<strong><em>--Leaders change the situation instead of being changed by the situation </em></strong><br />
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What are you most like: a carrot, an egg, or coffee?<br />
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A carrot starts out firm, but when you put a carrot in boiling water it becomes limp. An egg starts out with a hard shell and is soft in the middle, but place it in boiling water and the inside becomes hard. And when you put coffee in boiling water, it changes the water completely.<br />
What challenges have you been experiencing in your career, family life, physically or spiritually? Think of any of those situations as the boiling water.<br />
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Some people are like carrots. Oh, they act tough enough, but the challenges of life soften them, they wilt and won’t stand up for themselves any more.<br />
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Other people are like eggs. As they confront challenges they get hard on the inside. They’re calloused, they become unable or unwilling to feel and do not allow themselves to connect and relate with other people.<br />
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Leaders are like coffee. When thrust into the challenges of life they actually change the situation.<br />
Have you been a carrot, egg, or coffee? Buy some coffee, even if you don’t normally drink it, and put it in a bowl on your desk. Let that “trigger” you to be a leader who, like coffee, changes the situation you are in for the better.<br />
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As a child, I saw people as one of two types: There were the nice caring compassionate people. They didn’t seem to make much happen, didn’t date the nicest girls or guys, and weren’t movers and shakers. Then there were the people that made things happen, but they were often arrogant, hard, and self-centered.<br />
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It didn’t seem fair. I wanted to be compassionate and caring and yet able to change the world. I wanted to be what I now call a “Compassionate Samurai:” a warrior with a heart for service and contribution.<br />
That’s what it will take to change things, like the fact that one out of every eight children drops out of school in the USA, rampant illiteracy in the world, a marriage that is not working, or a satisfying career in an uncertain economy.<br />
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Carrots and eggs won’t do it. This week, be like coffee. Be a Compassionate Samurai, a warrior with a heart for service and contribution who alters the world you live in.<br />
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<strong>TAKEAWAY!<br />
Leaders change the situation, so even after they leave, things are different than when they arrived. </strong><br />
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<strong>Action Step #1 </strong><br />
Buy a bag of coffee and put it on your desk as a trigger device.<br />
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<strong>Action Step #2 </strong><br />
Write a brief paragraph describing the biggest challenge you face in your life right now. Then, write another short paragraph on exactly how you’d like your life to be in that area right now. And finally, write a sentence that describes one specific action you will take this week--no matter how big or small it seems to you--to change your life to being exactly how you’d like it to be.<br />
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<strong>An Example </strong><br />
Early in my career in the seminar business, my mentor sent me to San Diego to save the failing market there. The seminars were so poorly attended they were considering closing down our San Diego office.<br />
When I arrived, I noticed that a lot of teenagers were hanging around the office. The environment and feeling created by all those kids was driving away the more conservative, successful business people we also wanted to bring into our seminars.<br />
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Like attracts like.<br />
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The teenagers were good people who deserved to be supported and served, but it was hurting our bigger market. So I created another place for the kids to hangout and made it clear they were not to be around our office.<br />
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It was not an especially popular action for many of our seminar graduates, but it changed how the rest of us thought about the organization and who we attracted. Within a short period of time, San Diego was a thriving market for our seminars.<br />
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That is what coffee is all about!<br />
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<em>“What we are depends mainly on what we look for”<br />
--John Lubbock </em><br />
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</div>Robert Ricciardellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02160368258138662091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4430586908363955777.post-16556113876660787772011-04-24T06:22:00.000-07:002011-04-24T06:22:40.626-07:00Treading Upon Lions and Serpents by James Ryle<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: large;">“You shall tread upon the lion and the cobra, the young lion and the serpent you shall trample underfoot” (Psalm 91:13).<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The symbolism of this language must not be dismissed; not should we pass too quickly from pondering its weighty significance for our lives today. For the language used in this verse is consistent with a recurring theme found throughout the entire Bible.<br />
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In the Garden of Eden we first see Satan in the guise of a serpent. Then moving forward to the writings of Peter in the latter pages of the New Testament, we are told that our adversary, the devil, “goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.” (1 Peter 5:8).<br />
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Lions and Serpents. These are two of the devils favorite disguises. He also likes bats, hornets, spiders, scorpions, cockroaches, and all sorts of creeping things. He likes buzzards, but not eagles; ravens, but not doves; flies, but not honey bees.<br />
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He is a nasty sort of being, and associates himself exclusively with those earthly creatures that provide him a suitable cover for his onerous presence. However, deceitful to the core, he also dresses himself up as “an angel of light” from time to time, and thereby dupes countless souls who are too gullible to see through his costumes.<br />
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But may it never be said of us! May we walk the crimson path in the footsteps of our triumphant King, following closely all the way and seeing His victory become our own. May we walk by faith and tread upon lions and serpents. May the confession of the first disciples now find life upon our lips in these days so close to the End – “Lord, even the devils are subject to us in Your Name!” (Luke 10:17).<br />
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I love the Lord’s response to those early disciples – “I know,” He said, “I was watching as you went forth in My Name, and I saw Satan fall from heaven like a bolt of lightning!”<br />
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Then He added these words, “See what I’ve given you? Safe passage as you walk on snakes and scorpions, and protection from every assault of the Enemy. No one can put a hand on you. All the same, the great triumph is not in your authority over evil, but in God’s authority over you and presence with you. Not what you do for God, but what God does for you — that’s the agenda for rejoicing.” (Luke 10:18-20 The Message).<br />
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Whether it be bold opponents who come against us straightway like roaring lions, or treacherous adversaries who, like serpents, work their schemes against us with charm and subtlety – both alike shall be trodden down by the man and woman whom God protects.<br />
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May YOU be such a person! </span></div>Robert Ricciardellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02160368258138662091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4430586908363955777.post-38846699083754326152011-04-24T06:18:00.000-07:002011-04-24T06:18:16.908-07:00Un Corazón que No se Ofende by Francis Frangipane<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><h3 class="post-title entry-title"><span style="font-size: large;">Os daré corazón nuevo, y pondré espíritu nuevo dentro de vosotros; y quitaré de vuestra carne el corazón de piedra, y os daré un corazón de carne. (Ezequiel 36:26)</span></h3><div class="post-header"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span></span></span></span></i></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span>Dios tiene un nuevo corazón para nosotros que no se puede ofender, un corazón “inatendible.” Amados, poseer un corazón que no se ofende no es una opción o un lujo; no es una cosa pequeña. Un corazón ofendido está en peligro de tornarse en un “corazón de piedra.” <br />
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Considerad: Jesús nos advierte que, a medida que nos acerquemos al final de los tiempos, la mayoría de las personas se ofenderán de tal manera que se apartarán de la fe. Escuchad con atención su advertencia:</span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span>“Muchos tropezarán entonces, y se entregarán unos a otros, y unos a otros se aborrecerán... y por haberse multiplicado la maldad, el amor de muchos se enfriará” (Mateo 24:10-12).</span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span>“Muchos… se ofenderán.” ¿El resultado? El amor de “muchos” se enfriará. Mi oración es que escuchemos Sus palabras con temor santo. </span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span>Cuando permitimos que una ofensa permanezca en nuestros corazones, provoca consecuencias espirituales graves. En el versículo antes citado, Jesús nombró tres resultados peligrosos: traición, odio y amor frío. Cuando alguien nos ha ofendido, incluso alguien que nos importa, debemos acudir a ellos. <i>Si no hablamos con ellos, comenzaremos a hablar sobre ellos.</i> Traicionamos esa relación, hablando con malicia a sus espaldas, descubriendo sus debilidades y sus pecados.</span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span>Tal vez enmascaramos nuestra traición diciendo que estamos solamente buscando consejo, pero cuando volvemos la vista atrás vemos que hemos hablado de forma negativa a demasiada gente. Nuestro verdadero objetivo no era buscar la ayuda espiritual para nosotros mismos, sino buscar la venganza hacia aquel que nos ofendió. ¿De qué manera tal acción no es una manifestación de odio? Para un alma ofendida, el amor frío, la traición y el odio son un camino hacia las tinieblas. </span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span>La mayoría de las personas no se tropiezan con las rocas; tropiezan con piedras, cosas relativamente pequeñas. Tal vez la personalidad de alguien en autoridad nos molesta y muy pronto nos ofendemos. O, un amigo o un familiar no cubre nuestras expectativas, y la ofensa entra en nuestra alma. Amado, si queremos “perseverar hasta el fin”, tenemos que confrontar las cosas que nos molestan.</span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span>Cuando Jesús nos advierte que nos hace falta perseverancia, nos está diciendo que es más fácil comenzar la carrera que terminarla. Entre ahora y el día en que usted muera, habrá muchas ocasiones para que se ofenda, y necesitara vencerlas. Tal vez este usted en un momento así ahora mismo. ¡No subestime el peligro de guardar una ofensa!</span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span>Nadie planifica apartarse; nadie dice, “Creo que hoy voy a desarrollar un corazón duro y frío.” Tales cosas entran en nuestras almas sigilosamente y es ingenuo suponer que nunca nos puede ocurrir a nosotros. Conozco muchas personas que se han ofendido de forma constante acerca de esto y aquello. En lugar de tratar con las ofensas, orar sobre ellas y entregárselas a Dios, las llevan consigo hasta que su peso imposibilita su caminar con Dios. Quizás hoy va bien, pero puedo garantizarle que mañana ocurrirá algo que, inevitablemente, le decepcionará o dañara; le golpeará alguna injusticia, exigiendo que reaccione en la carne. ¿Va a encontrar más amor, y por tanto, continuara su crecimiento hacia la semejanza a Cristo? ¿O va a permitir que esa ofensa consuma su vida espiritual?</span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span>La Raíz de la Ofensa </span></span></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span>Una ofensa puede atacar nuestras virtudes o nuestros pecados, nuestros valores o nuestro orgullo. Puede penetrar y herir cualquier dimensión del alma, tanto el bien como el mal. Una vez prediqué una serie de sermones acerca del chisme. La mayoría de las personas vieron su pecado y se arrepintieron, pero un núcleo de chismosos se ofendieron mucho y, finalmente, dejaron la iglesia. Cuando el Espíritu Santo expone el pecado en el alma de alguien, si rechazamos la oportunidad de arrepentirnos, a menudo nos ofendemos con la persona que trajo la enseñanza. Para decir la verdad, la mayoría de las veces, no tengo ni idea de quien, específicamente, necesita escuchar lo que estoy enseñando, pero Dios sí lo sabe.</span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span>Pablo insta a Timoteo a “redargüir, reprender; exhortar” (2ª Timoteo 4:2). El no dijo “exhorta, exhorta, exhorta,” pero en la mayoría de las iglesias lo único que recibimos es exhortación. Por supuesto, necesitamos que se nos anime, pero también hay momentos en los que necesitamos ser redargüidos y reprendidos. Hoy en día hay predicadores que tienen miedo de predicar la verdad por temor a la reacción de la gente, y que dejen la iglesia. El resultado final es una iglesia de personas que se ofenden fácilmente y no pueden crecer más allá de su incapacidad de recibir corrección. </span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span>Las personas no cambian únicamente por medio de la exhortación. En todos nosotros hay áreas que necesitan ser confrontadas y disciplinadas. El pastor que se niega a disciplinar y corregir a los que están en pecado, está desobedeciendo a Dios. Es incapaz de llevar a las personas hacia cambios en sus vidas que realmente los transformarán; no van a “perseverar hasta el fin” si no se les puede corregir (Mateo 24).</span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span>Necesitamos convertirnos en un pueblo que dice, “Señor, muéstrame donde necesito cambiar.” Estoy hablando de madurar. El necio menosprecia el consejo de su padre: Un hombre sabio recibirá una reprimenda y prosperará. “Mas el que guarda la corrección vendrá a ser prudente.”(Prov. 15:5).</span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span>La Ofensa Personal</span></span></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span>Con frecuencia es nuestro orgullo el que sufre ofensas más fácilmente. El orgullo nos lleva a esperar más de lo que merecemos. El orgullo es una forma de auto-adoración. Dios debe destruir nuestro orgullo, y para hacerlo, permitirá que las ofensas expongan lo que nos falta en humildad. No está mal esperar aliento por nuestras buenas obras, pero no podemos ofendernos cuando no ocurre así en el tiempo que esperamos.</span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span>Años atrás, cuando era un pastor novato, participe de una conferencia donde el líder principal decidió saludar personalmente a cada ministro y su esposa. Saludó a la pareja que estaba a nuestra derecha y luego giró hacia un miembro de su equipo para hacerle una pregunta. <span> </span>Un momento después volvió la mirada, pero nos pasó de largo y se dirigió a la pareja a nuestra izquierda. Todos los que estaban a nuestro alrededor vieron que fuimos salteados. Nos sentimos avergonzados y ofendidos. Pero mi mujer, sabiamente, observó que podíamos permitir que esta situación nos dañara, o lo podríamos utilizar como una inversión para aprender a ser sensibles a los sentimientos de otros. Esta ofensa nos enseñó como otros se sienten cuando son ignorados. ¿Pueden ver esto? Usted debe hacer que la ofensa se convierta en una oportunidad para ser más como Cristo.</span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span>Las ocasiones para sentirnos ofendidos son casi interminables. De hecho, a diario se nos brinda la oportunidad de ser ofendidos o de poseer un inofendible corazón. La promesa del Señor es que nos ha dado un corazón nuevo: un corazón blando, vulnerable que se puede ser lleno de Su Espíritu y abundar en Su amor.</span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span>Señor, perdóname por sentirme ofendido con tanta facilidad y por cargar ofensas. Padre, mi corazón es necio y débil. Concédeme el corazón de Jesús que no se ofende. Amén.</span></span></span></i></span></div></div></div>Robert Ricciardellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02160368258138662091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4430586908363955777.post-80162897350084029772011-04-24T06:15:00.000-07:002011-04-24T06:17:11.195-07:00Unoffendable by Francis Frangipane<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: large;">"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezek. 36:26).<br />
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God has a new heart for us that cannot be offended, an "unoffendable" heart. Beloved, possessing an unoffendable heart is not an option or a luxury; it's not a little thing. An offended heart is endanger of becoming a "heart of stone."<br />
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Consider: Jesus warns that, as we near the end of the age, a majority of people will be offended to such a degree that they fall away from the faith. Listen carefully to His warning:<br />
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"Then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another . . . and because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold" (Matt. 24:10-12 KJV).<br />
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"Many" will "be offended." The result? The love of "many" will grow cold. My prayer is that we will hear His words with holy fear.<br />
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When we allow an offense to remain in our hearts, it causes serious spiritual consequences. In the above verse Jesus named three dangerous results: betrayal, hatred and cold love. When we are offended with someone, even someone we care for, we must go to them. If we do not talk to them, we will begin to talk about them. We betray that relationship, whispering maliciously behind their back to others, exposing their weaknesses and sins. We may mask our betrayal by saying we are just looking for advice or counsel, but when we look back, we see we have spoken negatively to far too many people. Our real goal was not to get spiritual help for ourselves but to seek revenge toward the one who offended us. How is such action not a manifestation of hatred? For an offended soul, cold love, betrayal and hatred are a walk into darkness.<br />
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People don't stumble over boulders; they stumble over stones, relatively small things. It may be that the personality of someone in authority bothers us, and soon we are offended. Or, a friend or family member fails to meet our expectations, and we take an offense into our soul. Beloved, if we will "endure to the end," we will have to confront the things that bother us.<br />
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When Jesus warns that we need endurance, He is saying that it is easier to begin the race than finish it. Between now and the day you die, there will be major times of offense that you will need to overcome. You might be in such a time right now. Do not minimize the danger of harboring an offense!<br />
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No one plans on falling away; no one ever says, "Today, I think I'll try to develop a hardened heart of stone." Such things enter our souls through stealth. It is only naiveté that assumes it couldn't happen to us. I know many people who consistently become offended about one thing or another. Instead of dealing with the offenses, praying about them and turning the issue over to God, they carry the offense in their soul until its weight disables their walk with God. You may be doing fine today, but I guarantee you, tomorrow something will happen that will inevitably disappoint or wound you; some injustice will strike you, demanding you retaliate in the flesh. Will you find more love, and hence, continue your growth toward Christlikeness? Or will you allow that offense to consume your spiritual life?<br />
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<b>The Root Of Offense</b><br />
An offense can strike at our virtues or sins, our values or our pride. It can penetrate and wound any dimension of the soul, both good and evil. I once brought a series of messages about gossip. Most people saw their sin and repented, but a core group of gossips were greatly offended and ultimately left the church. When the Holy Spirit exposes sin in someone's soul, if we refuse the opportunity to repent, we often become offended at the person who brought the teaching. Instead of humbling our hearts, we are outraged at the person who exposed us. Truthfully, most of the time, I have no idea who specifically needs to hear what I'm teaching, but God knows.<br />
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Paul told Timothy to "reprove, rebuke, exhort" (see 2 Tim. 4:2). He didn't say, "exhort, exhort, exhort," but exhortation is what we receive in most churches. Certainly, we need to be encouraged, but there are also times, beloved, when we need to be reproved and rebuked. Today, there are preachers who are afraid to preach truth for fear people will react and leave the church. The end result is a church of easily offended people who cannot grow beyond their inability to accept correction.<br />
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People don't change by exhortation alone. There are areas in all of us that need to be confronted and disciplined. The pastor who refuses to discipline and correct those in sin is in disobedience to God. He is unable to lead people into any truly transforming changes in their lives; they will not "endure to the end" if they cannot be corrected (see Matt. 24).<br />
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We need to become a people who say, "Lord, show me what needs to change in me." I'm talking about growing up. A wise man will receive a rebuke and he will prosper. But a fool rejects his father's discipline (see Prov. 15:5).<br />
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Personal Offense</b><br />
It is often our pride that suffers offense most easily. Pride leads us to expect more than we deserve. Pride is a form of self-worship. God must destroy our pride, and to do so, He will allow offenses to expose what we lack in humility. It is not wrong to expect encouragement for our good works, but we cannot be offended when it doesn't happen in the timing we are expecting.<br />
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Years ago when I was a young pastor, I attended a conference where the main leader decided to personally greet each minister and spouse. He greeted the couple on our right and then turned to his staff to ask a question. A moment later he returned, but passed us by and went to the couple on our left. Everyone around us saw we were bypassed. We were embarrassed and offended. But my wife wisely observed that we could allow this thing to hurt us or we could see it as an investment in sensitivity toward other people's feelings. The offense taught us how others feel when they are ignored. Do you see this? You must make that offense become an opportunity to become more Christlike.<br />
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The occasions for taking offense are practically endless. Indeed, we are daily given the opportunity to either be offended by something or to possess an unoffendable heart. The Lord's promise is that He's given us a new heart - a soft, entreatable heart that can be filled with His Spirit and abound with His love.<br />
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Lord, forgive me for being so easily offended and for carrying offenses. Father, my heart is foolish and weak. Grant me the unoffendable heart of Jesus Christ. Amen.</span></div>Robert Ricciardellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02160368258138662091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4430586908363955777.post-88834838048959574732011-04-24T06:13:00.000-07:002011-04-24T06:13:36.030-07:00All of God by Dudley Hall<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: large;">Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Hebrews 13:20-21 (ESV)<br />
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After we have finally concluded that Jesus has acted for us in securing our salvation from the penalty of sin, we often try to appropriate the resulting peace through our own efforts to believe and/or behave.<br />
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Just as God acted on behalf of Jesus when he was dead, he has acted on our behalf to work in us that which we have no ability to do. How much did Jesus initiate his resurrection? It was not his actions that precipitated the great miracle. It was the love of the Father that raised him. Jesus is the benefactor of God's action on his behalf. In like manner, we are dead even to the ability to sufficiently lay hold of the promises of the new covenant.<br />
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God promises to write his law on our hearts and our minds and that we will know him intimately. God's work in our hearts is as necessary as his work on the cross or in the grave. If he doesn't change our hearts we will spend our energy trying to embrace the promises of the new covenant just like the Old Testament people found themselves worn out trying to qualify for those promises.<br />
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It is God's desire to have a relationship with us based on trust. His goal is our hearts. It was the heart-issue that made the first covenant incapable of making us righteous. The New Covenant addresses that weakness. The blessing it promises is that God will do whatever necessary to place the proper fear, trust and love in our hearts. We can only trust him to do that. Our faith is not measured by feelings of strength or circumstantial evidence. It is the place of quiet desperation where we breathe a sigh of faith. "Lord, do in me what you promised. I cannot muster enough faith to merit your grace. I can only trust that your promise is true."<br />
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The same God who led Jesus from death will perform in us to cause us to love and trust him. He is faithful, and his covenant is in effect.</span></div>Robert Ricciardellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02160368258138662091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4430586908363955777.post-25349278199712676282011-04-24T06:10:00.000-07:002011-04-24T06:10:03.995-07:00Burying Your Ego By John Maxwell<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: large;"><span><span style="font-family: Cambria;">Best known to Americans as the Mexican general at the Alamo, Santa Anna consistently made catastrophic political and military blunders. During the course of his public career, Santa Anna lost 1/3 of Mexico’s territory in warfare, and sold another 30,000 acres to the United States to finance his attempts to suppress revolt. PBS, in its series <em>Perspectives on the West</em>, cites egotism as the cause of the general’s failures as a leader:</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span><span style="font-family: Cambria;"> </span></span></span> <br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span><span style="font-family: Cambria;">The dominant figure in Mexican politics for much of the 19th century, Antonio López de Santa Anna left a legacy of disappointment and disaster <em>by consistently placing his own self-interest above his duty to the nation</em>.</span></span></span></div><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span><span style="font-family: Cambria;">The self-proclaimed “Napoleon of the West,” lacked neither courage nor charisma, but he suffered from a marked deficiency of humility. During war, Santa Anna routinely overestimated his skill as a military commander and underestimated his opponents. In peacetime, he used state money to finance a lavish lifestyle, and extravagantly spent money to erect self-glorifying monuments.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span><span style="font-family: Cambria;">Santa Anna even funded an ornate state funeral for his leg! He had lost the limb fighting against the French, and after the battle he returned the amputated leg to his ranch home for burial. Three years later, when he ascended to the presidency, Santa Anna ordered the leg to be exhumed, placed in a crystal vase, and escorted by military parade to Mexico City. Upon arrival, the leg was interred during an elaborate ceremony involving cannon salvos, poems, and other tributes to the greatness of General Santa Anna.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><strong><span><span style="font-family: Cambria;">KEEPING YOUR EGO IN CHECK</span></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span><span style="font-family: Cambria;">As evidenced by Antonio López de Santa Anna, leaders who are overly concerned with self-promotion eventually wreck their legacies. And, in their efforts to exalt themselves, they often end up looking ridiculous. Since pride can have disastrous consequences, what practical steps can leaders take to keep their egos in check?</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><strong><span><span style="font-family: Cambria;">Seek Feedback</span></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span><span style="font-family: Cambria;">Humble leaders know they cannot succeed without the combined contributions of all other members of the team. Accordingly, they avoid any action that might constrain input or intimidate anyone else from voicing a concern. Leaders with humility actively court outside opinions, and they rely on a trusted inner circle to point out their blind spots. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span><span style="font-family: Cambria;"></span></span><span style="font-family: Cambria;"> </span><strong><span><span style="font-family: Cambria;"> </span></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><strong><span><span style="font-family: Cambria;">Delegate Decisions</span></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span><span style="font-family: Cambria;">Prideful leaders clutch tightly to control, believing they are best suited to make every decision. In doing so, they feed their ego and enfeeble their team. On the contrary, wise leaders, genuinely believe that they do not always know best—so they do not insist on making all decisions. Instead, they empower their teammates to contribute their expertise and to exercise independent judgment.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;"> </span><strong><span><span style="font-family: Cambria;"> </span></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><strong><span><span style="font-family: Cambria;">Express Gratitude</span></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span><span style="font-family: Cambria;">Leaders who show thankfulness seldom fall prey to pride. By giving credit to someone else, leaders uplift their teammates and keep themselves grounded. Routinely appreciating the strengths and merits of others reminds a leader of his or her dependence on a talented team. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;"> </span><strong><span><span style="font-family: Cambria;"> </span></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><strong><span><span style="font-family: Cambria;">Practice Servanthood</span></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span><span style="font-family: Cambria;">Great women and men are always willing to make themselves little. Their field of vision expands beyond their own interests and takes into account the needs of others. By sacrificing time to serve another person, leaders affirm the value of their relationships and stave off superiority complex.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: grey;"><div style="color: black;">Content from Leadership Wired may be used, but must be accompanied by the following credit line in its entirety: </div><blockquote style="color: black;"><em>"This article is used by permission from Leadership Wired, John Maxwell's premiere leadership newsletter, available for free subscription at <a href="http://cl.publicaster.com/ClickThru.aspx?pubids=8365%7c465%7c641700%7c698163&digest=%2bI6gsqniGm2m8z%2bWfTCnYA&sysid=1" target="_blank">www.johnmaxwell.com/<wbr></wbr>newsletters</a>."</em></blockquote><span style="color: black;">This information cannot be used for resale in any manner</span>. </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span><span style="font-family: Cambria;"><br />
</span></span></span></div>Robert Ricciardellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02160368258138662091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4430586908363955777.post-7814796946607771012011-04-11T07:36:00.000-07:002011-04-11T07:36:00.872-07:00Learning Models in the 21st Century by John Chasteen<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: large;"><b style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Understanding the Shifting Learning Models in the 21st Century</b><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Don't Ask "Are We Teaching." But Rather, "Is Anyone Learning? "</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Learning models in America are rapidly changing. This is due to the fact that a contemporary generation no longer processes life as the previous one did. In light of this reality many of us run the risk of becoming out-dated and even antiquated in our approach to teaching and equipping the body of Christ.</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The question we should be asking ourselves is not “are we teaching,” but rather “is anyone learning?” </span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">For most, the change will present a major paradigm shift in the way we currently perceive learning. Some even believe that the sun is setting on many of the previously accepted learning modules. For many who are of the Baby Boomer generation and older, challenges abound. I know because I happen to be a part of this generation.</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So what are some of the adult learning models that are shifting in America? And, how do we as the church embrace them and leverage them to reach a generation for Christ? Here are just a few for our consideration:</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><b style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">1. A Shift from the Greek model to a Hebraic One</b><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Most Western models of learning are built upon the Greek method of education. This model says that learning comes from the simple acquisition of information and knowledge. Give me a book, an article or more information and I will know it.</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Hebraic model says that you cannot truly learn something by the mere acquisition of information; rather, one learns by combining information with experience and participation. This is why Jesus called the disciples to “be with him.”</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><b style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
2. A shift from a Monological style of teaching to a Dialogical One.</b><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Jesus rarely taught through the means of a monologue. When we study his methods we find that most of his teaching, especially in the temple, turned into dialogue or a discussion. Why? Simply put, because adult learners learn best through processing and interaction with information. They perceive truth at a deeper level through interaction with the topic and with others. </span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The postmodern learner longs for community and relationship in all areas of life, but especially the classroom. They learn best by hearing others views, and at the same time assessing their own thoughts and experiences. Maybe as teachers we need to endeavor to open up more conversational space in the classroom instead of trying to fill it with our expert information. i.e more discussion and interaction.</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><b style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
3. A shift from top down lecturing to a style that promotes personal discovery of truth.</b><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Studies show that adult learners learn on a deeper and more meaningful level when they discover truth for themselves. (Malcolm Knowles) If this is true, then the discovery process itself, becomes imperative. Could this be why it is recorded that Jesus himself asked over 300 questions during his ministry? I think possibly so.</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Powerful questions is a tool that forces one to process his or her inner life and engage truth at a personal level. Do you know how to ask powerful questions?</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><b style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Conclusion</b><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">New models of learning are emerging today due to a wide variety factors, many of which we do not have time to address in this article. However, it would suffice to say that many of the influences are the result of a postmodern shift in culture and the rapid rise of technology. Many models that have served us well in the past are now irrelevant and need to be discarded. </span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So have you learned how to navigate these modern shifts in learning? Even more important, are you willing to change?</span></span></div>Robert Ricciardellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02160368258138662091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4430586908363955777.post-67813754669475021032011-04-06T20:13:00.000-07:002011-04-06T20:14:21.263-07:00Pride Comes Before the Fall by John C. Maxwell<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><h2 style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">An ancient Hebrew proverb warns, "Pride comes before the fall," and sometimes the adage is swiftly fulfilled. As a case in point, consider the story of American snowboarder, Lindsey Jacobellis. Cruising toward victory in the gold medal race of the snowboard cross, Jacobellis immodestly attempted to showboat on the second to last jump. She lost her balance maneuvering in mid-air and crashed to the snow. By the time she recovered and glided to the finish line, she had to settle for the silver medal.</span></h2><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Jacobellis paid a penalty for pride, yet other people appear to ooze arrogance while thriving professionally. </span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Muhammad Ali's brash egotism did not prevent him from triumphing in the boxing ring. Charlie Sheen's sickening smugness may have burned relationships at CBS, but he has never been more popular, selling out several nationwide tour dates in a matter of minutes. The conceit of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has been noted by competitors, colleagues, and friends alike, yet he ranks among the world's wealthiest men.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">What can be said, then, about pride? Is arrogance really as dangerous to leadership as some people would insist? On the surface, it seems that pride does not necessarily hinder success. However, I maintain that pride is every bit as destructive to the welfare of a leader as the ancient proverb forewarns.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The True Nature of Success</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Along with the propensity to see themselves as superior to others, Muhammad Ali, Charlie Sheen, and Larry Ellison share in common the attainment of enormous "success." However, each also appears to have left a wake of destruction relationally. While their pride may not have cost them professionally, privately it seems to have taken a toll.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">In its truest sense, success involves more than material wealth and career accomplishments. When considering the implications of pride, we must remember to see the whole picture. An individual may be standing atop the world with respect to a career, yet still "fall" to the deepest depths. In my estimation, success happens when the people who know you the best, love and respect you the most. In light of this definition, arrogance is utterly incompatible with success.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Many people with talent make it into the limelight, but those who have neglected to develop humility rarely experience satisfaction that endures. An excess of pride alienates them from connecting with others. Consequently, they bounce from relationship to relationship until the star of their celebrity finally burns out.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: grey; font-size: xx-small;"><em>"This article is used by permission from Leadership Wired, John Maxwell's premiere leadership newsletter, available for free subscription at <a href="http://cl.publicaster.com/ClickThru.aspx?pubids=8365%7c168%7c641700%7c698163&digest=FWA%2fCjs1rZ4%2fMleXcykH3A&sysid=1" linkindex="16" target="_blank">www.johnmaxwell.com/<wbr></wbr>newsletters</a>."</em></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div></div>Robert Ricciardellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02160368258138662091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4430586908363955777.post-26514663170639711932011-04-06T20:11:00.000-07:002011-04-06T20:11:24.884-07:00Seven Hallmarks of a Leader by John C. Maxwell<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><h2 style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">Benjamin Franklin once said, "there is perhaps not one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive. Even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility."</span></h2><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Another of America's founding fathers, John Adams, battled against arrogance as well, "Vanity, I am sensible, is my cardinal vice and cardinal folly; and I am in continual danger, when in company, of being led...by it."</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Most leaders have an abundance of ambition, talent, and confidence, but few possess the humility necessary to sustain influence over time. Many shun humility, seeing it as a sign of weakness or self-doubt. Yet, in reality, humility is the pinnacle of wisdom and assuredness. Here are seven qualities humility brings about in the life of a leader.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong>#1 Responsibility</strong></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Humble leaders readily accept responsibility for failure. When things go wrong, they instinctively look within to understand what they could have done differently instead of looking outward for someone to blame. Willing to take ownership of mistakes, humble leaders are quick to fix them; they do not wait for someone else to solve a problem.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong>#2 Objectivity</strong></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">In the words of Ezra Taft Benson, "Pride is concerned with who is right. Humility is concerned with what is right." Humble leaders do not consider their own ideas and projects to be sacred. They do not insist on having their way, but on following the best course of action—regardless of who suggests it.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong>#3 Open-Mindedness</strong></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Humble leaders have awareness of how much they don't know. As such, they're inquisitive, quick both to listen and learn. Secure in their abilities, they are unthreatened by the input of others. Not only do they welcome feedback, they solicit it.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong>#4 Flexibility</strong></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Whereas prideful leaders rigidly adhere to an initial strategy long after it proves to be unfruitful, leaders with humility nimbly switch courses as soon as warning signs appear. Unafraid to admit having made a bad decision, they're able to adjust quickly.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Humble leaders have no qualms about abandoning a product that's past its prime—even if they personally had created it.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong>#5 Inspiration</strong></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Humble leaders are appreciative people. When they experience success, they're quick to shine the spotlight on others. Mindful of their dependence on others, humble leaders regularly express gratitude for the contributions of their teammates. Their thankfulness inspires those they lead and boosts team morale.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong>#6 Respect</strong></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Humble leaders heed John Andrew Holmes' advice: "Remember that the entire population of the universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others." They see life as far bigger than themselves, and add value to other people by serving them. By committing themselves to the success of those within their sphere of influence, leaders gain respect and earn loyalty.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong>#7 Connectedness</strong></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Humble leaders embrace the Law of Significance: "One is too small of a number to experience greatness." They recognize that their vision cannot be accomplished in isolation, so they invite others to join them in pursuing it. They cherish relationships and intentionally cultivate friendships. They view life, not as a quest for individual glory, but as an adventure to be enjoyed in the company of fellow travelers.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: grey; font-size: xx-small;"><em>"This article is used by permission from Leadership Wired, John Maxwell's premiere leadership newsletter, available for free subscription at <a href="http://cl.publicaster.com/ClickThru.aspx?pubids=8365%7c168%7c641700%7c698163&digest=FWA%2fCjs1rZ4%2fMleXcykH3A&sysid=1" linkindex="17" target="_blank">www.johnmaxwell.com/<wbr></wbr>newsletters</a>."</em></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div></div>Robert Ricciardellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02160368258138662091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4430586908363955777.post-50378302063482550592011-04-06T18:46:00.001-07:002011-04-06T18:46:44.930-07:00Everything is Spiritual by Rob Bell<object width="410" height="341" id="veohFlashPlayer" name="veohFlashPlayer"><param name="movie" value="http://www.veoh.com/static/swf/webplayer/WebPlayer.swf?version=v5.6.0.1053&permalinkId=v6409215CzE4KfhG&player=videodetailsembedded&videoAutoPlay=0&id=anonymous"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.veoh.com/static/swf/webplayer/WebPlayer.swf?version=v5.6.0.1053&permalinkId=v6409215CzE4KfhG&player=videodetailsembedded&videoAutoPlay=0&id=anonymous" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="410" height="341" id="veohFlashPlayerEmbed" name="veohFlashPlayerEmbed"></embed></object><br /><font size="1">Watch <a href="http://www.veoh.com/watch/v6409215CzE4KfhG">Everything is Spiritual</a> in <a href="http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/category/faith_and_spirituality">Faith & Spirituality</a> | View More <a href="http://www.veoh.com">Free Videos Online at Veoh.com</a></font>Robert Ricciardellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02160368258138662091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4430586908363955777.post-34477130818612524082011-03-31T10:46:00.000-07:002011-03-31T10:46:13.841-07:00Entering His Rest by Chip Brogden<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: large;">"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Mt. 11:28, NKJV).<br />
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"Come to Me." Come to Me. Not a church. Not a man of God. Not a teaching. Not a group. Come to Me, and learn of Me. I will give you rest. No one else can give you the rest. You cannot earn the rest. The rest is the gift of God.<br />
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If you are a born-again, child of God then you have done this at least once in your life. The moment you said, "God, I cannot save myself. I trust in the finished work of Christ to save me, Jesus be My Savior and Lord," that is when you stopped trying to earn your salvation through works. You entered into rest. You "retired" from being your own savior. And most people have learned that it is settled from that moment on. You would not dream of going back to the days of trying to work for your salvation. You're saved and you know it.<br />
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That is how you begin the Christian life. But there is more to the Christian life that just getting saved. That is the first step into a larger world. Jesus is continually calling out to you, saying, "Come to Me, and I will give you rest." That is a progressive thing. It is a daily thing. Every day we come to Jesus, everyday we hand over something else, every day we learn to rest in Him, and trust in His life.<br />
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What does it look like? Well, so many Christians struggle with sin. They struggle with their feelings, their emotions, their memories. They worry, they fret. They are in bondage to fear. They are in bondage to bad habits. They are in bondage to their past hurts. They experience many defeats and very few victories.<br />
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Can we not trust Jesus to give us rest from these things as well? If we can trust Him and believe Him for salvation, can we not trust Him and believe Him for victory? That is what He means when He says, "Come to Me, and I will give you rest." This rest that we enter into is intended for every area, not just salvation. How very pitiful if we can only rest in salvation but we have no peace, no rest, no freedom from the constant stresses and disappointments and fears of this present time.<br />
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The principle of the Sabbath rest is applicable to every area of your life, not just salvation. Are you ever troubled with anxious thoughts? Of course, from time to time we all worry about something. But when we have entered into His rest we no longer worry about it. Outside of Him there is plenty to worry about; but when we come to Him, and stay in Him, He gives us rest, and it is impossible to rest and worry at the same time. A worried person cannot sleep, and certainly cannot rest. A person who is resting in the Lord does not worry.<br />
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Mark 3:14 is a special Scripture for me, and it illustrates this very important point. It says that Jesus called twelve disciples, that they should BE with Him, and that He might send them forth to preach. We are anxious to go out, to be used, to go to work; but Jesus is more interested in the relationship, in being with Him, in learning to rest in Him. Remember the Sabbath day, get that principle deep down in your spirit, before you launch out into the doing.<br />
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Of course I come into contact with a great number of people who are coming out of the religious system, and they are usually full of a lot of anxiety and excitement. When they ask me for advice, I counsel them to take a year off and "do nothing" for awhile. What I mean is, religion has kept you doing, doing, doing for God. There needs to be a season of rest. You need to experience a Sabbath day and just "be" with Jesus in terms of spiritual activity. Oh yes, that sounds so nice, but I have seldom met anyone who could do it. They come out of church, and before you know it they start a home church, or they go looking for fellowship with others, or they get restless and end up going back to church where things are more familiar. The idea of just being with Jesus and resting for awhile is completely foreign to their understanding.<br />
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Regardless of where you are in your journey - a new Christian, someone who is just coming out of religion, or someone who has been in the wilderness for a long time now - you cannot get away from this principle of the Sabbath day. It is about relationship. Being with Jesus. Coming to Him and resting in Him.<br />
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Are you content to just be with Jesus? Is Jesus enough? When Jesus is enough then you are resting. We you feel something more is needed, and you start looking outside of Him, then you become rest-LESS.<br />
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What if we took a position with the Lord that says, "I am content to just be with You. If you see I am lacking something, I trust you to bring it. But I am not seeking anything outside of You. That includes fellowship with others, ministry, spiritual experiences, or anything else. You are enough for Me." God can do something with that. Now you are getting aligned to the Sabbath principle. I'm not seeking, or striving, or trying to make anything happen. I am content, I am resting in the Lord. And that is the life of faith, the life of trust, the life of rest...</span></div>Robert Ricciardellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02160368258138662091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4430586908363955777.post-11039541829145949632011-03-29T19:56:00.000-07:002011-03-29T19:56:09.004-07:00Elitism -Impaired Vision Through Filters by Milt Rodriguez<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: large;">“When the days grew closer for Jesus to be taken up to heaven, he was determined to continue his journey to Jerusalem. So he sent messengers on ahead of him. On their way they went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him. But the people didn’t welcome him, because he was determined to go to Jerusalem.<br />
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When his disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them, as Elijah did? But he turned and rebuked them, and they went on to another village.” Luke 9:51-56<br />
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Elitism: the Corporate Filter<br />
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Now we come to one of the most powerful filters around: elitism. What exactly is elitism? You could define it this way: the consciousness of or pride in belonging to a select or favored group. It’s when a group starts believing their own reviews and begins thinking that they are special. This filter is a little different than most because of it’s corporate nature. It’s a group mentality and a group deception. And it tends to go something like this:<br />
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We are special because we have deeper revelation or more accurate doctrine than all of those other groups.<br />
We are special because we are more anointed with gifts, instances of healing, and miracles.<br />
We are special because we follow so-and-so leader or preacher and they have more revelation, are more anointed, or sell more books than others.<br />
We have a special calling and place in history that no one has ever had.<br />
We are special because we know the Lord better than most and love the brethren more than most.<br />
We are not really that interested in anything or anyone outside of our own church or movement.<br />
We love all true believers but we are much more advanced spiritually than they are.<br />
We look strange to most Christians because of our maturity level in Christ.<br />
We follow so-and-so because he is the only man God has truly raised up for this generation.<br />
<br />
I have personally heard all of the above statements (and more) come out of the mouths of some of God’s people. Once I was at a conference and there was a tiny group there that was spouting off some of these statements with reckless abandonment. No one could stand to be around them. It was a very graphic demonstration of what my co-worker Frank Viola calls the B.O. of the body. Everyone else knows you have it except you! And it really does stink to high heaven.<br />
<br />
Of course, this is the basis for every sect, denomination, and just about every movement within institutionalism. The “we are superior to you” attitude is the very foundation for every denomination and that includes the groups that call themselves “non-denominational”. They have camped out around a particular truth, person, or way of doing things and told everyone within and without the group that this is the best (and really) only way. But this particular malady is not only found within the institutional church.<br />
<br />
Elitism in Groups Outside the Religious System<br />
<br />
This spiritually cancerous filter isn’t only found within the institutions. It is also widely spread throughout house churches, simple churches, missional churches, emergent churches, and organic churches. I have personally been in one house church and one organic church where this disease had been propagated as leaven in a lump of dough. This attitude caused untold damage to the saints of God and resulted in isolation, broken marriages, division, immorality, poor health and much more. Some have even left their faith completely.<br />
<br />
Some of the history of groups throughout the centuries that stood outside the religious system is tainted with such stories. Some of these had awesome revelations of Christ with wonderful teachings and strong churches that dared to walk the line of the centrality of Christ and His Cross. And left all to follow Him so that He would have the fulfillment of His eternal purpose. But they fell into the trap of believing they were special and therefore superior to the rest of God’s people. That heart attitude will kill a group or movement faster than anything I have seen.<br />
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Safeguards Against Elitism<br />
<br />
Now we all think that what we are currently doing is the best way, right? Of course we do or we wouldn’t be doing it! I honestly believe that the way that I am going is the way that God has directed me and firmly will hold to this position no matter what. I would be a fool to do otherwise. However, I cannot say that “my way” of following Christ is superior, therefore I AM SUPERIOR. This is the best way FOR ME. I cannot say if it is the best way for you or not. For me, authentic organic church is the only way to go. But that doesn’t make me superior to anyone. There must be grace, acceptance, and freedom within the Church of the living God.<br />
<br />
So here are a few ways that we can help to safeguard ourselves against the plague of elitism:<br />
<br />
* Promote and encourage a healthy attitude of love and acceptance for all of God’s people.<br />
* Learn to abide in Him so that His humility is displayed through us<br />
* Visit other groups, attend conferences, and read books by other authors than those of your own movement<br />
* Develop and maintain relationships with believers outside your own little group<br />
* Always think the best of other believers and treat them as you would want to be treated </span></div>Robert Ricciardellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02160368258138662091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4430586908363955777.post-15861337572373765272011-03-29T19:43:00.000-07:002011-03-29T19:43:44.340-07:00A Vanishing God by Frank Viola<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Jesus often comes to us in unexpected ways and unexpected means.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Think about how He came to Earth. For centuries, Israel had waited for a political Messiah. They expected Him to lead a rebellion and free Israel from Roman oppression. But how did the Messiah make His entrance? He came in a way that made it easy for His own people to reject Him. He came as a frail baby, born in a feeding room for animals. There He was. The promised Messiah who was expected to overthrow the Roman Empire and set Israel free from oppression. A needy Nazarene born in a manger.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">When Jesus grew up, He ate and drank in their presence and taught in their streets (Luke 13:26). Yet they didn’t recognize Him. He was unassumingly modest. A mere craftsman; the son of a craftsman. He grew up in the despised city of Nazareth, fraternizing with the despised and oppressed. But more startling, He befriended sinners (Luke 7:34). As such, the people of God didn’t recognize Him. Why? Because He came in a way that made it easy for them to reject Him. And what about the disciples?</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Read the story again. Jesus continued to break out of their expectations. He couldn’t be pinned down, figured out or boxed in. The Twelve were constantly confounded by Him. His teachings were offensive. His actions scandalous. His reactions baffling.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">But the greatest offense of all was the cross. It offended everyone—both Jew and Gentile. The only crown the promised Messiah-King would accept was a crown of thorns. Look at Him again. A suffering Messiah, a defeated King. It’s easy to reject Him.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">One of the Lord’s most faithful disciples teaches us this principle well. Mary Magdalene was the first person to see Jesus after His death and resurrection. Do you remember what she did as soon as she recognized Him? She grabbed Him, and she wouldn’t stop clinging to Him. Jesus responded, “Stop clinging to me” (see John 20:17, Greek text). Why did Jesus tell Mary to stop clinging to Him? Because Jesus had somewhere to go. He was on the move. Jesus was poised to go to Galilee to see the other disciples and then to ascend to His Father.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Note the principle: He was moving forward, but she was clinging to Him. Jesus was in effect saying to her: “Mary, stop holding on to me. There’s a new way to know me that’s different from what you’ve experienced thus far. Let me go. I must move on.” Do you remember the disciples who walked on the road to Emmaus?</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Their hopes were shattered by Jesus’ horrible death. Suddenly, the resurrected Christ began walking beside them, yet their eyes were blinded from recognizing Him. However, when He engaged in the very simple gesture of breaking bread (something He had done frequently before them), their eyes were opened. He then quickly disappeared from their sight.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">These stories hold a critical insight. You cannot cling to the Christ you know today. He will vanish from your midst. Jesus Christ is an elusive Lover. Seeking Him is a progressive engagement that never ends. He doesn’t dance to our music. He doesn’t sing to our tune.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps He will in the beginning when He woos us, but that season will eventually end. Just when you think you’ve laid hold of Him, He will slip out of your grasp. He will appear to you as a stranger. But on second glance, we’ll discover He’s no stranger at all. Emmaus will be repeated.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">We all wish to cling to the Lord who we know now. We all wish to hold on to the Christ who has been revealed to us today.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">But mark my words: He will come to us in a way we do not expect—through people we’re prone to ignore and inclined to write off. Perhaps they don’t talk our religious language. Perhaps they aren’t theologically sophisticated. Perhaps they don’t use our vocabulary. Perhaps they don’t share our insider knowledge nor parrot our religious idioms.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">So we cling fast to the Lord we recognize—receiving only those who talk our language, use our jargon and employ our catchphrases—and all along we end up turning the Lord Jesus Christ away.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">What, then, does Jesus do after we fail to receive Him when He comes to us in an unexpected way? He moves on. And the revelation we have of Him ceases to grow. Jesus Christ is richer, larger and more glorious than any of us could ever imagine. And He comes to us in ways that make it tempting to reject Him.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">When Peter, James and John saw the transfigured Lord on the holy mountain, Peter wanted to build a tabernacle for Jesus, Moses and Elijah and remain on the mountain to enjoy the encounter. But God would not allow it (Matthew 17:1-13).</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">There is something in our fallen nature that, like Peter, wishes to build a monument around a spiritual encounter with God and remain there. But the Lord will not have it. He will always break free from our frail attempts to pin Him down, box Him up and hold Him in place. And He does so by coming to us in new and unexpected ways.</span></div><br />
Excerpted from REVISE US AGAIN, Chapter 10, Your Christ is Too Small</div>Robert Ricciardellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02160368258138662091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4430586908363955777.post-35998939699404944352011-03-19T10:55:00.000-07:002011-03-19T10:55:33.827-07:00Video - Robert Introduces Converging Zone Network<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/I1inta6MmOo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Robert Ricciardellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02160368258138662091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4430586908363955777.post-34831453898616612522011-03-13T21:37:00.000-07:002011-03-13T21:37:44.643-07:00America Ripped Asunder by Regis Nicoll<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: large;">Look at the society we have become: We are a bi-polar nation, a bureaucratic, centralised state that presides dysfunctionally over an increasingly fragmented, disempowered and isolated citizenry.” Phillip Blond, quoted by David Brooks<br />
<br />
The United States is breaking apart. That, according to a bracing piece earlier this year by New York Times columnist David Brooks. As Brooks tells it, public disdain for politicians and widespread cynicism about the political process have combined to tear at an already enfeebled social fabric.<br />
<br />
It began with two revolutions from opposite ends of the ideological spectrum.<br />
<br />
Brooks writes,“First, there was a revolution from the left: a cultural revolution that displaced traditional manners and mores; a legal revolution that emphasized individual rights instead of responsibilities; a welfare revolution in which social workers displaced mutual aid societies and self-organized associations.<br />
<br />
“Then there was the market revolution from the right. In the age of deregulation, giant chains like Wal-Mart decimated local shop owners. Global financial markets took over small banks, so that the local knowledge of a town banker was replaced by a manic herd of traders thousands of miles away.”<br />
<br />
The first created a welfare state and the second a market state. Together they displaced small, local businesses, “weakened families, increased out-of-wedlock births and turned neighbors into strangers,” all which required a gargantuan government to administer programs and audit the market. Ironically, both revolutions, which were aimed at increasing personal freedoms, ended up putting the individual under greater state control. Of course.<br />
<br />
Once traditional morality is jettisoned, so is moral duty, leaving only legal rights and a litigious society overseen by a Leviathan state to adjudicate disputes between competing interests.<br />
<br />
Whether of the right or the left, libertarianism, removed from external moral standards, atomizes society into self-interested individuals alienated from each other, fearing that any loss of personal autonomy will result in a little death to self.<br />
<br />
Great Britain is a case in point. Phillip Blond, director of British think tank ResPublica, notes that in Britain, these two revolutions have led to a bloated centralized government and a country with “rising crime” and “four million security cameras.” His solution? In a nutshell, “subsidiarity.”<br />
<br />
<b>Subsidiarity</b><br />
<br />
According to the principle of subsidiarity, the responsibility and authority for any action should be left to the lowest level competent to handle it. In civil society, the levels are three: the individual, “mediating” institutions, and the state.<br />
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As the name implies, “mediating” institutions are those that stand between the individual and the state, protecting the former against the overreaching tendencies of the latter. They include churches, schools, civic organizations, volunteer associations, and, foremost, the family.<br />
<br />
Subsidiarity is the basis of federalism, whereby the powers of government are divided between the central authority and its constituent parts (e.g., states), recognizing that civil affairs are most effectively governed by those closest to them and most directly affected by them.<br />
<br />
Subsidiarity means that the concerns of the individual (like whether or not to buy health care insurance) are best handled by the individual, concerns of the family (like decisions about the rearing and education of children) are best handled within the family, the concerns of the neighborhood (graffiti, gangs, and feral teens) are best handled within the neighborhood, and likewise for the city, county and state.<br />
<br />
For instance, recognizing that charitable institutions are closer to the needs of people than the state, Blond recommends that more state-run services be run by charities. Blond doesn’t give specifics, but consider welfare and entitlement programs.<br />
<br />
Such programs have greatly benefited individuals who are permanently disabled or temporarily in need of assistance. But administered by bureaucrats in the withdrawn centers of governmental power, they have created an underclass held captive in a perpetual orbit of dependence and idleness. It is a condition helped along by misery merchants who secure their messianic role by keeping the downtrodden in their back pocket.<br />
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For most of its history, the Church took responsibility for the comprehensive care of its own. But with the social programs spawned by the New Deal, the Church began abdicating that responsibility en masse. It is time that the Church, along with other faith-based organizations, reclaim its role from the overweening state.<br />
<br />
Subsidiarity requires a virtuous society, where character informs the space between what the heart desires and what is morally right. Without virtue, law, not character, must fill that space. When individuals renege on their pledges, when companies operate unethically, when parents fail to exercise responsible parenting, the state, using the full force of law, must step in.<br />
<br />
For example, when disagreeing parties fail to reach a decision over their disagreements, the magistrate can be counted on to impose a decision guaranteed to further alienate and embitter. Hence, the timeless warning of Jesus: “Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison.”<br />
<br />
But when people take seriously their moral duties and resolve their disputes at the lowest levels, the need for a paternal state is reduced. Regrettably, that is far from our current situation.<br />
<br />
<b>A mosque and a convent</b><br />
<br />
In the ongoing brouhaha over the mosque at Ground Zero, we've heard a lot about rights and a lot about wisdom. But one thing that we haven't heard much about is responsibility.<br />
<br />
Rights are about what we can do, wisdom is about what we should do, but responsibility is about what we are obliged to do. Responsibility is doing what is morally right over what is legally allowed. It is character operating in permissible spaces of social action.<br />
<br />
In a free society, rights and responsibilities go hand-in-hand. Honoring our individual freedoms while serving the common good can only work when rights are exercised responsibly.<br />
<br />
For example, although the neo-Nazi group Aryan Nations has the rights of free speech and assembly, it has the responsibility to refrain from exercising them in front of the Holocaust Museum. Likewise, adults have the right to own and view sexually explicit material. But they have the responsibility to do so away from the eyes of children.<br />
<br />
In the same manner, Muslims have the constitutional right to build a mosque anywhere they desire, consistent with local zoning laws. However, those who would do so in lower Manhattan, especially those who claim that the motives are to promote tolerance and better interfaith relations, are obliged, as citizens of a pluralistic nation, to build one with sensitivity, compassion, and respect for the victims of individuals whose actions were informed by Islamic teaching.<br />
<br />
Which begs the question: If Muslims should refrain from building a mosque near ground zero, should Christians do the same in communities that would be upset over the building of a church? They should, and have.<br />
<br />
In the 1980’s, a group of Carmelite nuns set up a convent at Auschwitz. A Christian presence on a site where over 1.5 million Jews were executed was an immediate affront to Jewish sensibilities. The Jewish reaction was understandable to many, but others wondered how a mendicant order devoted to contemplative prayer could offend anyone. Sound familiar?<br />
<br />
For years the convent was a festering sore in Jewish-Christian relations; then Pope John Paul II stepped in. Although everyone agreed that the nuns were acting within their legal rights, the pope knew that they were not acting rightly. So in 1993, he ordered the Carmelites to move to a different location in the province. In his statement, the pope expressed regret that the decision to do the right thing wasn’t made at a lower ecclesial level. Did I mention that subsidiarity is a core principle of Catholic social teaching?<br />
<br />
In the same way, if the Muslim community does not stand down from its decision to build a mosque near the sacred soil of the fallen towers, what it’s doing is sure to be anything but salve to American-Muslim relations.<br />
<br />
The controversies over the convent and mosque are emblematic of our sad condition: a fractured society of self-concerned selves, straining against the little death of putting the concerns of others above the desire to exercise their untrammeled freedoms.<br />
<br />
While the first controversy was settled, eventually, by what was morally and civilly right, it remains to be seen whether the second one will, or whether it will only widen the crack in Humpty Dumpty’s shell.</span><br />
<br />
SOURCE: www.breakpoint.org</div>Robert Ricciardellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02160368258138662091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4430586908363955777.post-77422930526123582752011-03-13T21:15:00.000-07:002011-03-13T21:15:46.005-07:00Transition and Change by Stephen Gray<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: large;">What is God saying? This question has been raised a great deal lately as I travel. It seems like everyone knows there is a transition under way. To answer the question of “What is God saying," we must understand that often God is speaking about things that are coming and deal with future movements. We see this in the ministry of John the Baptist as he preached repentance and a coming kingdom. I personally find that God speaks on different levels. Such as He speaks to me personally and then about the things he wants me to do and then about the things He is doing. I also believe God wants to share many things with us if we will take the time to press in and listen. My word to you is that God is speaking profoundly right now and you need to know what He is saying to you. So many struggle in the matter of knowing how to hear God. When in fact the real problem is taking the time to hear from God.<br />
<br />
God is speaking directly to the church about change! There is a powerful move of transformation moving in the body of Christ today. Your spiritual growth is under God’s microscope and He is making the necessary changes to bring about faster and greater growth. Two words I heard this morning were sovereignty and providence. It means God is everywhere and involved in everything. God does not cause tragedy although He does allow it even to His people. It is perhaps the greatest change agent not just for his people but also for civilization itself. Always has been and always will be. Today for the Christian trials and testing is epidemic in the church at a rate never before seen. Why? Because God is growing faith at an incredible rate because we will need it for the days ahead. Not to survive but to become the fruitful bride He desires. It is a time to examine your fruitfulness!<br />
<br />
We must understand the pull of religious works and performance for value is at an all time high. Song of Solomon 1:6 warns us of the danger of such action.<br />
<br />
“Do not look upon me, because I am dark, because the sun has tanned me.<br />
My mother’s sons were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards,<br />
But my own vineyard I have not kept. “<br />
<br />
“Mother’s sons” is a reference to man or religious people. They are angry because you desire intimacy from the king (Jesus) and are not caught up in their worldly pursuits. They put pressure on you to keep the “vineyards” plural meaning the works of man. “But my own vineyard, singular, I have not kept, meaning your true purpose.<br />
<br />
Here we are warned of religious exercise that causes us to run around doing things for God and all the time forgetting that God’s priority for each of us is to be “CHANGED.”<br />
<br />
For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Romans 8:29</span></div>Robert Ricciardellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02160368258138662091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4430586908363955777.post-84224853285585792892011-03-13T21:08:00.000-07:002011-03-13T21:08:24.802-07:00Stay Teachable! by David Orton<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: large;">To fear the Lord is to be taught of the Lord.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">In fact, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">But this wisdom is so beyond human ken it must be supernatural. Therefore, only by imbibing the “spirit of the fear of the Lord” (Isa 11:2) will we be filled with the desire and the ability to learn His ways.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">But how does the “spirit of the fear of the Lord” work?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The majesty of God</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">First, confronted by the majesty of God, my stubbornly held autonomy is broken and I inwardly bow.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">In awe of Him I yield and lose myself in the divine embrace. Relinquishing to Him my very personhood He becomes my King and I his slave. My rebellion dissolves and I am given a new spirit – one that trembles at His word. And so, every futile attempt at self-salvation is relinquished. Laying aside my rights and my will, even in the face of injustice, I entrust myself to Him as a faithful Creator. And finally my broken and contrite heart becomes a sacrifice that is acceptable to God (see Psa 51).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Teachable relationships</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Secondly, the spirit of the fear of the Lord flows through into teachable relationships, especially with those whom God sets in Christ’s body as spiritual overseers and shepherds of the flock.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">If our hearts have been conquered by the fear of the Lord we will pursue wisdom and counsel. We will seek out teachable relationships with authentic men and women of God in whom we can confide. The habit of our lives will demonstrate the humility of heart that seeks out the wisdom of the wise.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">As the wisdom writer declares,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; But fools despise wisdom and instruction.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Proverbs 1:7</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Without consultation, plans are frustrated, But with many counselors they succeed.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Proverbs 15:22</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, But a wise man is he who listens to counsel.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Proverbs 12:15</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Whether we are wise or a fool is shown by whether we have heart relationship with spiritual teachers who are intimates of God. The wise are always teachable, seeking out the wisdom of the wise. Fools, on the other hand, are wise in their own eyes, preferring their own counsel. In fact, they scoff, making light of the teaching of the wise.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">A wise son accepts his father’s discipline, But a scoffer does not listen to rebuke.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Proverbs 13:1</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The loss of the fear of the Lord and consequent refusal to engage in teachable relationships is the source of much demonic disorder in the body of Christ.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion (disorder) and every evil thing are there. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">James 3:13–17 NKJV</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
The anointing that teaches</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Lastly, you may exclaim, “Aren’t I a priest of the new covenant, with direct access to Christ Himself? Why do I need relationship with spiritual teachers?”</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The answer is, “Yes”, to the first question and, “Because you are proud”, to the second. The kingdom of God operates on laws of humility and interdependence. This is why the ecclesia functions as a body, each member connected and dependent on the other.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Even so, as John explains there is an anointing that teaches.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">1 John 2:27 NAS</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Clearly, the Holy Spirit is the divine Teacher operating through human teachers who are given, according to Ephesians chapter four, as gifts to the body. Otherwise, John, as an apostle and teacher, would not be writing these very words.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If you have imbibed the spirit of the fear of the Lord and received those whom God sends as wise teachers the Holy Spirit will witness as to whether their words are true or not.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">And so, the believer’s greatest ability is always their teachability.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">SOURCE: www.lifemessenger.org</span></div>Robert Ricciardellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02160368258138662091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4430586908363955777.post-11796349481721861182011-03-10T23:15:00.000-08:002011-03-10T23:18:58.206-08:00Important Insight from President Obama by Frank Viola<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">A few weeks ago someone posted a vicious comment on this blog which personally attacked a friend of mine who is engaged in serving the Lord. <a href="http://frankviola.wordpress.com/about/" linkindex="43">It wasn’t approved</a>, of course. The person who posted the comment claims to be a Christian. I responded to the person privately with an opening question: <br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;"><br />
</div><div style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="color: #3366ff;">“How long have you known [my friend’s name] personally, how well do you know him, when was the last time you spent time in his presence, and what did he say when you shared these things with him face-to-face over coffee?”</span></div><br />
I then went on to defend my friend.<br />
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The words of Martin Luther King, Jr. are very dear to me: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”<br />
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When Bill O’Reilly interviewed President Obama earlier this year, he asked him this question: “Does it disturb you that so many people hate you?” Obama answered: “You know, the truth is that the people—and I’m sure previous presidents would say the same thing, whether it was Bush or Clinton or Reagan or anybody . . . the people who dislike you don’t know you.”<br />
“But they <i>hate</i> you,” O’Reilly probed.<br />
“The folks who hate you, they don’t know you. What they hate is whatever fun-house mirror image of you that’s out there, and they don’t know you,” Obama said. “And so, you don’t take it personally.”<br />
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Whether you support Mr. Obama or not, his words contain searing insight. And they are worthy to be remembered.<br />
<br />
Here are some related thoughts to keep in mind. This is especially for those of you who have put your hand to the plow of God’s work . . . or you plan to someday:<br />
<ul><li>People write things on the Internet that they would never dare say to any human being in person.</li>
<li>If you love and serve God, some people are going to hate you . . . no matter what you say or do. Sometimes it will be because of jealousy. Sometimes it will be for some other fleshly reason. Accept it, and don’t try to please everyone. Be faithful to your Lord. His opinion is what matters most. If you are walking with Jesus Christ, those who know you well will love and support you. Accept all opposition as coming from the hand of God. Satan may mean it for bad, but God means it for good. Romans 8:28 is still valid.</li>
<li>Historically, Christians have suffered the edge of the sword at the hands of their fellow Christians far more than by the hands of non-Christians.</li>
<li>Remember the words of Aristotle: “There is only one way to avoid criticism: Do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.”</li>
<li>When someone thinks the worst of you and judges the motives of your heart, they are virtually always reading what’s in <i>their own hearts </i>back into yours. They are unwittingly exposing what’s inside of them (Matt. 7:1-5). (The person who wrote the vicious comment about my friend was imputing evil motives to his heart. Whenever a person does this, they are playing God. We have not so learned Jesus Christ. “Love thinks no evil,” Paul said, but always believes the best of others. “Unto the pure all things are pure, but unto the defiled, nothing is pure.”)</li>
<li>Most of all, keep in mind the words of your Lord: “Beware when all men speak well of you” . . . “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.”</li>
</ul><a href="http://frankviola.wordpress.com/" linkindex="44">http://frankviola.wordpress.com </a><br />
<ul></ul></div>Robert Ricciardellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02160368258138662091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4430586908363955777.post-6508596880337956902011-03-09T00:06:00.000-08:002011-03-09T00:06:54.172-08:00Agape Road in the Marketplace -Video - by Robert Ricciardelli<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/10873114" width="400" height="225" frameborder="0"></iframe><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/10873114">Rob Ricciardelli</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user2886069">BIT Statement Processing</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>From KEYS conference 2010<br />
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</div>Robert Ricciardellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02160368258138662091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4430586908363955777.post-3218225088347085412011-03-08T20:55:00.000-08:002011-03-08T20:55:03.169-08:00Tribes by Seth Godin - Video<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Converging Zone uses the word tribes often to be inclusive in our uniqueness. Seth Godin does a great job of describing tribes and how we are all a part of them in some way. This is from a marketing perspective, but also applies to many areas of life. We are all part of creation, many tribes, but part of one big tribe called humanity. </div><object width="446" height="326"><param name="movie" value="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"/><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><param name="bgColor" value="#ffffff"></param><param name="flashvars" value="vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/dynamic/SethGodin_2009-medium.flv&su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/SethGodin-2009.embed_thumbnail.jpg&vw=432&vh=240&ap=0&ti=538&introDuration=15330&adDuration=4000&postAdDuration=830&adKeys=talk=seth_godin_on_the_tribes_we_lead;year=2009;theme=not_business_as_usual;theme=media_that_matters;theme=the_rise_of_collaboration;theme=unconventional_explanations;event=TED2009;&preAdTag=tconf.ted/embed;tile=1;sz=512x288;" /><embed src="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf" pluginspace="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" bgColor="#ffffff" width="446" height="326" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" flashvars="vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/dynamic/SethGodin_2009-medium.flv&su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/SethGodin-2009.embed_thumbnail.jpg&vw=432&vh=240&ap=0&ti=538&introDuration=15330&adDuration=4000&postAdDuration=830&adKeys=talk=seth_godin_on_the_tribes_we_lead;year=2009;theme=not_business_as_usual;theme=media_that_matters;theme=the_rise_of_collaboration;theme=unconventional_explanations;event=TED2009;"></embed></object>Robert Ricciardellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02160368258138662091noreply@blogger.com0