Contemplating God Changes How We Pray

(Greenfield Village, Dearborn)

Years ago, on a clear August night, Linda and I stepped out of our house to see the anticipated Perseid meteor shower. We stood in the darkness of our yard. She leaned into my arms, and I held her as we looked at the perfectly clear starry sky. 

I have never gotten over the feeling of wonder and awe and smallness that comes when I look into the vastness of space. I wanted Linda and I to see just one meteor together. We waited and waited until it finally came, streaking across the vast black canopy!

My experience with God is like this. As I meditate on God’s stunning creation I am given insights into the being of God. In God there is a greatness and a perfection that dwarfs the cosmos.

This is about God’s essential attributes, to include omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, atemporality[1], nonphysicality, omnipresence, and all of which are ascribed to a necessarily existing (everlasting; without beginning or end) Being.

This Most Perfect God who loves me and invites me to communicate with him is beyond comparison. 

So it is that, when I survey God’s wondrous analytic predicates, my praying life is transfigured.

---

[1] An excellent discussion about God’s relationship to time is found in God andTime: Four Views, by Gregory Ganssle and Paul Helm.

How to Spot Bad Reasoning: Formal and Informal Fallacies

 

Here's a nice little article on formal and informal fallacies. (I taught logic at our community college for eighteen years.)

Logical fallacies: Seven ways to spot a bad argument

A Fool Scoffs and Mocks Others

 

                    (It's going to be 90 today. I thought I'd post a winter scene. Bolles Harbor.)

I'm using Tim Keller's devotional book on Proverbs. It's excellent. Like Proverbs, it's relevant and applicable.

Here is the July 27 entry.

If a wise person goes to court with a fool, the fool rages and scoffs, 

and there is no peace. 

(29:9) 

CHOOSE YOUR BATTLES. Fools rage or, we would say, “rant.” They scoff and mock their opponents, rather than making an argument or a case. Ranters and scoffers do not persuade or build bridges They merely “energize the base”—that is, they preach to those who already agree with them and confirm the views and biases people already have. Today this is the main form of public discourse. 

The realism of this proverb shows that sometimes engaging a ranter is unavoidable. We are told to expect a long and painful process. But we must enter it maintaining other commitments, such as not despising the ranter (July 25) and always treating people respectfully (May 10). We are never to do to the ranter what the ranter is trying to do to us—to marginalize and demonize rather than convince. In the New Testament we are directed to, as much as it is within our control, live at peace with the people around us (Romans 12:18), even those who rage and scoff. 

Do you rant? Do you enjoy reading or listening to ranters?

Prayer: Lord Jesus, you answered your opponents wisely and brilliantly but patiently and constantly. How I want to give back to my critics—with verve—the same disdain they show me. But I want to be like you, not them. Change my heart to make it so. Amen.

(Tim Keller, Kathy Keller. God's Wisdom for Navigating Life: A Year of Daily Devotions in the Book of Proverbs.)

IDENTITY #4: From Persona to Personhood

 

                                       (Mears State Park, Michigan)

In the absence of God,

 people are left alone to create their identities.

PERSONA 

"A persona, in the word everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor. This is an Italian word that derives from the Latin for "mask" or "character", derived from the Etruscan word "phersu", with the same meaning. Popular etymology derives the word from Latin "per" meaning "through" and "sonare" meaning "to sound", meaning something in the vein of "that through which the actor speaks", i.e. a mask (early Greek actors wore masks)." (Wikipedia, "Persona")

AKA - the false self; "hypocrite" ("mask-wearer"); fake; phony

PERSON 

The real self; who you really are; the "true self," made in the image of God

Forty-three years ago I was sitting on the seat of a rusty tractor in the middle of a field, in a wildlife area, just north of Lansing, Michigan. I went there to pray. For several hours. That was one of the first times I did this kind of extended praying. It turned out to be the beginning of something new God was doing in me.

I was reading Psalm 139. I got to verses 23-24, which read:

Search me, O God, and know my heart;

test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting.

The thought came that I should ask God to do this. To search me out. 

My heart was filled with restlessness. All the busy stuff I was doing only seemed to increase my inner agitation. So I said to God, "Do it." 

God told me, "John, I would love to. You need to spend much time with me, over a lifetime, so I can search you out, remove your anxious thoughts, and lead you in the way everlasting."

"John, you can take off the persona." 

Maintaining a persona is hard work. I did some acting in my college theater department, and it takes a lot out of a person. God told me, "John, I don't care for the mask; it is you that I love." So, before God, I allowed him to peel away the persona and get to me. This is a process, and continues to this day.

It was both hard and good to hear God say those words to me. It was hard, because my persona was something I was accustomed to. To remove the mask was to enter into new territory. It produced, initially, feelings of wanting to hide from God. 

It was also good. Looking into the face of my all-loving God, with hidden parts of me exposed, was fear-and-trembling good! It still feels unbelievable. God knows me, God searches me out, God sees to the root of my being, God knows my true heart. And God loves me? Unbelievable, yet true.

When we wear our persona-mask before people we lie to them. In our inner insecurity and unlovableness we posture before people. We brag. We create and display our persona on Facebook. We are pity-filled. We crave human approval, and fear disapproval. We want others to recognize our hotness. We want to be hotter than thou.

This gets subtle, as I know personally. At times my caring for others has been a mask that hides my need for them to approve of me. True personhood, on the other hand, cares and loves others, whether one benefits from this or not.

That... is freedom. To know God and be known by him. To love God and experience God's love towards us, personally. This is not some theoretical thing, but an experiential reality. In this regard experience, not theory, breeds conviction.

You are loved by God. Go to him.

Ask God to search out your heart, remove the persona, and transform you into the person he has created you to be. Which is: in his image.

Heaven, the Soul, and the Afterlife (Coming Fall 2024)

 

HEAVEN, THE SOUL, AND THE AFTERLIFE

RENEWAL SCHOOL OF MINISTRY

 

You may have heard it said that some people are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good.  But turn this on its head and we see that some people are so earthly minded that they are no heavenly good. In this class we will focus on a Christian understanding of heavenly-mindedness, and hope in, life after death.

We will respond to questions like these.

What happens to us when we die?

What will the afterlife be like?

How does the Bible describe the afterlife?

Why is it important to understand that you have a soul?

How can we know that persons have souls?

Will we be with our loved ones in eternity?

What will we do for all eternity?

How does belief in everlasting life inform how we now live on earth?

This is a four-week class. Monday nights. 8-9 PM EST. Begins Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (9/16, 9/23, 9/30, 10/7)

Class sessions will be both in person at Redeemer Church in Monroe, Michigan, and live-zoomed.

Registration begins in August. $10 for the four class sessions.

INSTRUCTOR: Rev. John Piippo, PhD

John Piippo has taught spiritual formation, prayer, and presence-driven leadership in seminaries, conferences and retreats, around the United States and the world. John has written six books: Leading the Presence-Driven Church, Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God, Deconstructing Progressive Christianity, 31 Letters to the Church on Discipleship, 31 Letters to the Church on Praying, and Encounters with God.

John currently is a Visiting Professor at Faith Bible Seminary (Chinese) in Flushing, NYC, and an Adjunct Professor at Payne Theological Seminary (A.M.E.) in Wilberforce, Ohio.

John was Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Monroe County Community College for eighteen years (Logic, Philosophy of Religion, Western Philosophy)

John and Linda have been pastors at Redeemer Fellowship Church in Monroe, Michigan, since 1992. 

John has a PhD in Philosophical Theology from Northwestern University, and an M.Div. from Northern Seminary. 

John regularly blogs at johnpiippo.com.  

Character Matters

 

I am a case study in character formation. Because I have needed it so badly.

N.T. Wright, in After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters, identifies four cardinal virtues that characterize actual followers of Jesus. They are: humility, charity, patience, and chastity. This "composite of virtues" is what True Humanity looks like. Jesus exemplifies such humanity. 

Jesus-followers are to look like Jesus, just as a disciple is to look like his mentor, as a student looks like his teacher.

Wright writes:

"It is thus more or less impossible to speak of God with any conviction or effect if those who profess to follow Jesus are not exemplifying humility, charity, patience, and chastity. These are not optional extras for the especially keen, but the very clothes which the royal priesthood must “put on” day by day. If the vocation of the royal priesthood is to reflect God to the world and the world back to God (the world, that is, as it was made to be and as, by God’s grace, it will be one day), that vocation must be sustained, and can only be sustained, by serious attention to “putting on” these virtues, not for the sake of a self-centered holiness or pride in one’s own moral achievement, but for the sake of revealing to the world who its true God really is." (p. 247)

Forget speaking of God to others if your heart is proud, miserly, irritable, and perverted. Obviously, Jesus hasn't made an impact on such a person's life, so why would anyone listen to them, about anything? 

Christian character matters, not as a means to gaining God's acceptance, but as marks of real, transforming Christianity.

The Jesus-follower who follows Jesus into his ever-presence will inexorably be morphed into a humble person who is free from the need for self-congratulation and self-adulation, into a loving person whose heart's modus operandi is dialed into the needs of others, into a person who can wait because their heart has great enduring staying power, and into a pure thing whose sexual desires have been freed from the objectification of others.

All of this is, contrary to our kingdom of darkness culture, counter-intuitive. Yet it is the road to freedom, and people truly free in Jesus possess these interior qualities.

Speaking In New Jersey on Transformation into Christlikeness

 

Linda and I travel to Edison, New Jersey, on Friday. We will be speaking at Stelton Baptist Church.

SAT. NIGHT

“Your Identity: Finally Find Where You Belong”

 

SUNDAY MORNING

“How to Live a Spiritually Transformed Life”

 

SUNDAY EVENING

“How to Do what Jesus Did”

Yearn For the Ocean Before Building the Ship

 

(Battery Park, NYC, the Statue of Liberty in the distance)

"If you want to build a ship, don’t summon people to buy wood, prepare tools, distribute jobs, 

and organize the work, 

rather teach people the yearning 

for the wide, boundless ocean.” 

 (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

As churches, what do we envision? Many attempt to build ships (the methods of ministry) before the people have acquired a yearning for the wide, boundless ocean ( = the vision of the God's kingdom). Dallas Willard, in The Divine Conspiracy, points out that Jesus' eyes envisioned a God-bathed, God-permeated world. Jesus craved to sail the high seas of His father's kingdom. The desire to bring others on this adventure drove all that he said and did. Given this desire, "ship-building" comes naturally.

The first task in spiritual formation is bringing people to that place of yearning for the beautiful kingdom of God. I've seen people transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit begin to catch Jesus' vision of the kingdom, only to be encouraged by the church “to buy wood, prepare tools and distribute jobs." Ship-building becomes more of an obligation than a delightful joy.

We must, within our churches, re-imagine what God's own life is like ("heaven"), and then bask in the reality of His vastness, goodness, justness, and love. We must recognize how indispensable this yearning, this ferocious desire to explore the vast, boundless ocean, is. Building the church without the peoples' deep longing for heaven on earth is wasted energy.

Anthropic Non-Progressivism

 

In technology, in medicine, in the sciences, humanity has progressed. For example, when I was in grad school at Northwestern University, I bought a refurbished IBM Selectric typewriter for $900. This thing was heavy enough to do serious medieval damage to anything it was launched at. My dissertation was 450 pages long. If I had to edit something on page 20, guess what I had to do. I typed and re-typed and re-typed my doctoral dissertation on this thing which, at the time, was state of the art.  Thankfully, at this moment, I am writing this post on my Asus laptop computer. 

That's technological progress. But humanity, as a whole, has not morally and spiritually progressed. I am calling this anthropic non-progressivism. Here's an example from Walter Rauschenbusch's Christianity and the Social Crisis. He writes,

"History is never antiquated, because humanity is always fundamentally the same. It is always hungry for bread, sweaty with labor, struggling to wrest from nature and hostile men enough to feed its children. The welfare of the mass is always at odds with the selfish force of the strong. The exodus of the Roman plebeians and the Pennsylvania coal strike, the agrarian agitation of the Gracchi and the rising of the Russian peasants—it is all the same tragic human life.

(Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis in the 21st Century: The Classic That Woke Up the Church, p. 1.) 

Understanding Comes First

(Monroe County)

To answer before listening— that is folly and shame.

Proverbs 18:13

I wrote a letter to a young person whose marriage was struggling. There's a lot of fighting and yelling in this marriage. One of them keeps repeating past failures to the other,. The  other called me and asked "Why do they have to keep reminding me of mistakes I've made in the past!"

Here's the note I sent to them. 

Dear _________:

Understand ______. 

Understanding always comes before evaluation. 

Linda and I spend little time evaluating each other,

and tons of time understanding one another.

To understand is to love; to be understood is to be loved and to feel loved.

Understand why ______ feels a need to repeat things to you. It's probably because they feel you are not really listening, 
or because they cannot trust you. 

You do not need to defend yourself.

Work to understand why they feel the need to repeat things to you, 

and they will begin to feel understood, 

which is to feel loved.

Communicate with me as needed, and we'll talk on the phone again.

Blessings,

PJ

Making judgments without understanding is the cause of many relationship breakdowns. To judge without understanding is foolish. Here's the order of relational priority:

1. Understand.
2. Evaluate.

In knowledge and relationships understanding comes first. Which is a way of saying that love is greater than judgment.

(After sending that note I went looking for a book in my library - To Understand Each Other, by Paul Tournier. This is one of the books that shaped Linda and I in how we approach relationships and marriage. We used to give newly married couples a copy of it. For those who value depth and wisdom, Tournier's works are must reading.)

***

One of my books is Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God.

Spiritual Transformation Conference in New Jersey - July 27-28

Linda and I will travel to Edison, New Jersey, to lead a "Spiritual Transformation Conference," July 27-28.

Where: Stelton Baptist Church

Sat. evening, July 27. 7 PM.

Sunday morning, July 28. 11 AM.

Sunday evening, July 28, 7 PM.

Stelton Baptist Church
334 Plainfield Ave
Edison, NJ 08817
732-985-1484
steltonbaptistchurch@gmail.com

7/23/2023 - The Fear Of The Lord - (Speaker: Dr. John Piippo)

I'm Still Beating These Drums

 

                                                     (Eldoret, Kenya)

I am a small voice sounding a drum from deep in the jungle. Here are some of the drums I beat when I was in Kenya.

I told the Kenyan and Ugandan pastors that the #1 thing they need to do, as pastors, is stay tight with God. Abide in Christ. Dwell in the shadow of the Almighty. Send roots to the river of God. Live, 24/7, in the fortress of God. That's what you need to do. And that's what your people need you to do. Because what they need is not you, but God. They need "Christ in you, the hope of glory."

Dwell in God's presence and he will free you from the illusion of your indispensability. I told these African pastors that they are not needed by God. God can and will accomplish his purposes with or without them. But God loves them and wants to use them. And he will, if they trust in him and abide in him.

We can't change other people. Only God can do that. So I told the pastors: "Today you can let go of your striving to change other people." 

Some of them told me how novel and freeing this was. I added, "But God can change you." 

The change happens as we hang with God. You cannot consistently nurture the "in Christ" relationship and remain unchanged. And, as a bonus, make God your Shepherd (in practice, not theory; viz., trust in him) and he "restores your soul." So, you don't have to "work on your own self." Just step into God's presence, stay there, and the Restorer of Souls starts to strip away all that has covered over your soul to get to the original "in God's image" psuche. 

The changes God works in you will not be just for you, but for others. This is called influence. We cannot change other people. But what God works in us can and will influence other people, by God's Spirit.

Today, I will abide in Christ. As he speaks, I'll obey. This is the place of all authentic formation, transformation, renewal, restoration, and in some cases resurrection. This is the place of my need, and my influence.

 

One Simple Secret to a Healthy Marriage

 

                                                                     (At Toledo Zoo)

In a month Linda and I will celebrate our 51st wedding anniversary. We are both thankful for having these wonderful years of life together!

We're not the perfect marriage. Acknowledging this helps us be better life partners.

One thing that has helped us is that we communicate about and coordinate our busy schedules, meetings, desires, and obligations. We do this every day, usually in the morning, or the evening before.

We ask each other questions, such as...

"What is your schedule today?"

"What do you want to get done today?"

"How can I help you today?"

"What time will we have together today?"

"Are you OK with me doing this (_______) today?"

"What do we need to do together today?"

"What commitments do we have this week?"

"What shall we do for dinner tonight?"

"What do you need to talk about?"

We ask questions like these. Because we do this all the time, responding to them often takes little time.

We want to share expectations, and be on the same page.

We let each other know what we are up to. For example, Linda might tell me, "I'm doing laundry this morning. Do you have clothes that need washing?"

I always let her know where I am going. Today, e.g., I said, "I'm going to Panera Bread to get a coffee." And later, I said, "I'm going upstairs to work in the office."

This is not rocket science. We always let each other know what we are doing and where we are going, even if it's just going outside to water the flowers. And, we are willing to give up our agendas for the sake of the other.

Linda is excellent at keeping a datebook. We meet together, and she brings her datebook with her. She says, "Remember, John, that we have the graduation party this Saturday at 1."

We communicate like this because we are not single anymore. We are doing life together. 

Coordinating our schedules is a way of honoring one another. In doing this, expectations become clear. Uncommunicated expectations breed marital conflict.

For us, this is one secret to a healthy marriage.

Amusing Our Infantile Selves to Death

 

 

Over 2000 years ago the Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote:

"It is indeed a strange thought that the end should be amusement, and that the busyness and suffering throughout one’s life should be for the sake of amusing oneself." (In Skidelsky, Robert; Skidelsky, Edward, How Much is Enough?: Money and the Good Life, p. 96)

And yet, this is where we now are as a culture, amusing ourselves to death. Think of the people of Panem in The Hunger Games. Think of Philip Seymour Hoffman consenting to the needle of happiness that one day would suffocate him. Think of the increase of happiness studies and "happiness economics" that have their statistical fingers on the pulse of our satisfaction.  Economic growth has been divorced from any humanly intelligible end. (See Ib.) 

(See especially Neil Postman's prescient, prophetic Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse In the Age of Show Business.)

Spiritual Formation Happens in Connection to Community

                                            (Redeemer kids)

Spiritual formation is the shaping of the human heart into Jesus-likeness. Paul's prayer in Galatians 4:19 expresses this: 

My dear children, I feel the pains of birth upon me again, and I will continue in labor for you until the Anointed One is formed completely in you. (The Voice)

We see this idea in Romans 12:1-2, where the word "transformed" is from the Greek word metamorphe. Meta-morphe is a "change of form." It is like a caterpillar changing into a butterly, only more profound (because, I think, it involves changing of essential, not merely contingent, attributes).

Offer your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice to God, a sacred offering that brings Him pleasure; this is your reasonable, essential worship. 2 Do not allow this world to mold you in its own image. Instead, be transformed from the inside out by renewing your mind. As a result, you will be able to discern what God wills and whatever God finds good, pleasing, and complete.

Dallas Willard writes: “Spiritual formation can be understood as the process by which true Christlikeness is established in the very depths of our being. Spiritual formation” is “a term for those processes through which people are inwardly transformed in such a way that the personality and deeds of Jesus Christ naturally flow out from them when and wherever they are. When we talk about spiritual formation we are talking about framing a progression of life in which people come to actually do all things that Jesus taught. So we are obviously going for the heart. We are aiming for change of the inner person, where what we do originates." 

·     

 Jeffrey Greenman - "Spiritual formation is our continuing response to the reality of God's grace shaping us into the likeness of Jesus Christ, through the work of the Holy Spirit, in the community of faith, for the sake of the world."
- Jeffrey Greenman, Life in the Spirit: Spiritual Formation in Theological Perspective, p. 24 

Spiritual formation into Jesus-likeness happens as we are connected to community. Henri Nouwen helps me here. He writes, 

"Spiritual formation requires taking not only the inward journey to the heart, but also the outward journey from the heart to community and ministry. Christian spirituality is essentially communal. Spiritual formation is formation in community. One’s personal prayer life can never be understood if it is separated from community life. Prayer in the spiritual life leads to community, and community to prayer. In community we learn what it means to confess our weakness and to forgive each other. In community we discover our own woundedness, but also a place of healing. In community we learn true humility. Without community, we become individualistic and egocentric. Therefore, spiritual formation always includes formation to life in community." (Nouwen, Spiritual Formation: Following the Movements of the Spirit, Kindle Locations 309-315)

Inner Healing Sermons

 

                                                                     (Lake Michigan)

Here are three sermons on inner healing.

Breaking the Chains of Shame

Healing for Damaged Emotions

Overcoming Failure: Part 1

Why Is There Something Rather than Nothing?

                                                           (Holland State Park, Michigan)

Pourquoi y-a-t-il quelque chose plutôt que rien? 

Why is there something rather than nothing? 

This question became my own as an undergraduate philosophy major at Northern Illinois University. 

Philosopher Michael Gelven introduced me to The Question, via Martin Heidegger. I had just been converted from a weak deism and practical atheism (the same thing?) to Christian theism. Welcome to the Big Questions of life. 

Years ago I read Jim Holt's book on this question, Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story. It's both excellent and sad.  

It's excellent. Extremely well-written. Holt is a good scholar as he comes to grips with hard philosophical, theological, and scientific concepts. He really captures a representative, eclectic scholarly group. Big names are interviewed - Richard Swinburne, Adolph Grünbaum, David Deutsch, Andre Linde, Alex Vilenkin, Steven Weinberg, Roger Penrose, John Leslie, Derek Parfit, and the late John Updike. Wow!

Holt takes us on an intellectual and existential tour de cosmos. In reading his book I have again been captivated. The Big Question seems more important than ever. I think on such things, and my soul feasts.

It's sad. This is how Holt's book ends. This is not all bad. He writes exquisitely about the death of his mother and the time he personally spent at her bedside, loving her with words and actions. I'm thankful he wrote about this. He chronicles her last breath. Holt writes:

"I returned to the room to be alone with my mother’s body. Her eyes were still a little open, and her head was cocked to the right. I thought about what was going on in her brain, now that her heart had stopped and the blood had ceased to flow. Deprived of oxygen, the brain cells were frantically but vainly attempting to preserve their functioning until, with gathering speed, they chemically unraveled. Perhaps there had been a few seconds of guttering consciousness in my mother’s cortex before she vanished forever. I had just seen the infinitesimal transition from being to nothingness. The room had contained two selves; now it contained one." (p. 273)

Not according to me, or Richard Swinburne.

My mother's bones were musical. She moved, slightly and perceptibly, to music. She was grateful that her two sons played guitar and sang. A few days before she died I was with her in her room in the nursing home. It was bedtime. I brought my guitar to play for her. I played soft, beautiful, exquisite music on my guitar, in love and honor for her. She lay on the bed. She heard my guitar. I finger-styled with all the excellence I had. Suddenly a voice from the room next door shouted, "Shut that thing up!!!" I stopped playing for a moment. Then, with utmost softness, I played for her again. I wasn't going to deny her this pleasure and comfort.

A few days later I was in her apartment, and the call came that she was gone. Out of the foundational miracle of Somethingness grows the conviction that my mother had not now become "nothing." 

God created, in the beginning. The One who powerfully created and sustains all that is, is more than able to recreate and raise my mother on that Final Day. From nothing, nothing comes. Ex nihilo, nihil fit. 

Unless... God.