Praying Is Bigger Than I Can Think and Wider Than the World

Worship at Redeemer, 12/13/15

In praying I encounter and experience God. In praying I know God and am known, reciprocally. Praying is a core way of abiding in Christ.

The biblical claim is that God has come to make his home in me.[1] God and I converse in the living room of my heart. When this is actualized the listening part of praying takes center stage. This is actual, real praying, and has little or no relation to reading books about prayer or saying "I believe in prayer but can't find the time for it."

In praying I am introduced to a world of moral and spiritual vastness. I communicate with the Maker of Heaven and Earth! James  Houston writes:

"Prayer is wider than the world, deeper than the heart, and older than the origin of humanity, because prayer originates from the very character of God. Its possibilities are infinite and so our explorations in prayer can be vast."[2]

When I was studying Old Testament theology in seminary one of the scholars I became familiar with was Walter Eichrodt. Houston gives this beautiful quote from Eichrodt,  illustrating the scope and sensitivity of a praying life.

"The man who knows God hears his step in the tramp of daily events, discerns him near at hand to help, and hears his answer to the appeal of prayer in a hundred happenings outwardly small and insignificant, where another man can talk only of remarkable coincidence, amazing accident, or peculiar turns of events. That is why periods when the life of faith is strong, and men have enthusiastically surrendered themselves to God, have also been times rich in miracles."[3]

To pray is to explore and venture into the vast, limitless regions of God’s beautiful kingdom. Praying is bigger than I can think and wider than the earthbound world.

---

[1] John 14:23

[2] James Houston, The Transforming Power of Prayer: Deepening Your Friendship With God, 75.

[3] Ib.

What a Disciple of Jesus Looks Like

Some of our Redeemer kids on Sunday morning (12/13/15)

Jesus came to make disciples, not "deciders." I've seen way too many people who "decided" to follow Jesus but never did. Disciples, on the other hand, live lives that are productive and reproductive. They reproduce the life of Christ in others. They make disciples. This is Real Church, a disciple-making community. What do disciples of Christ look like?

A disciple looks like their teacher. Disciples do what their teacher does. Jesus says, "whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father." (John 14:12) That makes sense, since a disciple will do the stuff their teacher has been doing.

In my serious guitar-playing days I was playing somewhere in the Midwest, every weekend, for a stretch of 10 years. I remember one guy who saw me play and wanted to take lessons from me. He wanted to play like me. I was teaching at Nielsen's Music Studio at the time. He made an appointment and took a series of lessons. I taught him to do what I did. That is the essence of the teacher-disciple relationship.

Jesus taught his disciples to do what he did, in the way he did things. "This is how you will know that you are my disciples," Jesus said, "by how you love one another." A disciple of Jesus loves like Jesus loves. 

A disciple of Jesus casts out demons, thereby freeing people from oppression and the things that inwardly plague them. Disciples of Jesus experience God healing people physically, through them. In Luke chapters 9 and 10 Jesus sends out his disciples to do what he has been doing. This is like sending my guitar students out to do their first public gig. It's time to perform. It's time for you to do the stuff, instead of watching me do it.

Jesus' disciples saw Jesus loving people, delivering people from demonic oppression, and healing people physically. They even saw Jesus raise Lazarus from the grave. Since they were followers of Jesus they naturally wanted to do the same, out of love. So Jesus discipled them to do the same things he did.

When Jesus had called the Twelve together, 

he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, 

2 and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.

Luke 9:1-2

10 When the apostles returned, they reported to Jesus what they had done. 

Luke 9:10

After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go... 

9 Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’...

17 The seventy-two returned with joy and said, 

“Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.” 

Luke 10:1, 9, 17

George Ladd writes: “Jesus’s ministry and announcement of the Good News of the Kingdom were characterized by healing, and most notably by the casting out of demons. He proclaimed the Good News of the Kingdom of God, and He demonstrated the Good News of the Kingdom of God by delivering men from the bondage of Satan.” (Ladd, Gospel of the Kingdom: Scriptural Studies in the Kingdom of God, 47. Emphasis mine.)

British New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham writes: Jesus "saw the kingdom arriving in the sorts of things he was doing: bringing God’s healing and forgiveness into the lives of people he met, reaching out to those who were pushed to the margins of God’s people, gathering a community in which service would replace status. These are the sorts of things that happen when God rules."  (Bauckham, Jesus: A Very Short Introduction, p. 38. Emphasis mine. And, BTW, this is a beautiful little book on the Real Jesus. Tolle lege!!!)


These are the sorts of things that happen in the life of a disciple of Christ, because they are the things our Teacher did:

• Love
• Proclaim the Good News of God's Kingdom
• Deliver people from demonic oppression and darkness
• Heal people physically

And raise the dead. (Yesterday morning at Redeemer one of our family members shared a testimony of seeing this happen last week, at least as far as they could determine.)

Disciples of Jesus look like Jesus.

Jesus' Church makes disciples.

Real Jesus Sermon #3 - Online

My third Real Jesus message can be heard HERE.

Why Isn't Everyone Healed?

Warren Dunes State Park, Michigan

Over the years I’ve seen people healed of emotional and physical illnesses. One of them was my grandmother. She lived with my family 6 months out of every year when we were growing up. When she was in her mid-80s she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She decided not to have it medically treated. The cancerous tumors in her breasts grew. My mother used to bathe her, and visually and physically saw the hard tumors growing.

Grandma knew she was going to die. She had lived a long life, and was ready to leave this world for another one. She even bought the dress she wanted to be buried in.

When Grandma had spent what we assumed would be her last 6 months in our home, she went to live with my aunt and uncle, who cared for her during the other 6 months. One day my aunt called. She told my mother that, while bathing Grandma, she noticed that the tumors did not appear to be there. My mother could not believe this, yet wanted to believe it. Mom personally traveled 400 miles to visually inspect Grandma and confirm this.

Grandma lived for 12 more years, and bought two or three more dresses to be buried in. She died at age 97. What happened? How can we explain this? I, and my mother, concluded two things:

1. Grandma once was cancer-filled, and then one day the cancer was gone.
2.  God healed Grandma.

I’ve heard of and personally seen other things like this. (For some really good, current, encouraging stuff see Eric Metaxas's new book Miracles.) 

I’ve also prayed for people who have not been healed, at least as far as I can tell. Which raises the question: Why? Why do I not see everyone healed when I pray for them? 

I’ve thought long and hard about this over the years. I don’t have all the answers. I don’t think I can, given my quite-limited point of view, expect to have all the answers. Nonetheless, when I am asked this question, here’s how I respond.

1. Sickness and disease are not caused by God. God hates sickness and disease.
2. Sickness and disease are in this world because we live in, as Jesus referred to it, “this present evil age.” We live in a fallen world that’s ruled by Satan, who is called “the Prince of this world.”
3. Some diseases are part of living in this fallen world. The entire world is crying out for redemption (release) from this bondage.

4. The "age to come" in all its fullness is not our present reality. So, my physical body wastes away even as my spirit is being renewed.

5. See some of the resources I cite below.

Why did God create a world like this? Why a world where such suffering was even allowed? For me the answer is this:

- God is love. That is, God, in His essence, IS love. God cannot not-love.
- Therefore love is the highest value for God.
- God created persons (and spiritual beings) out of love.
- Genuine love is only possible if created agents have free will.
- Therefore God gave created agents free will.
- This is risky, since free will implies that one can choose to not love God.

From God’s end, giving his created agents (that's us) free will is worth it,. This is because God is love, and love is the highest value for God. Much of this world’s suffering happens because of people exercising free will to hurt themselves and others.

This is no mere theory, no abstraction from reality. It is an explanation of reality. As a pastor I’ve been around a lot of death and dying, to include in my own family, even my son David. How do I continue to find hope in such a world?

My understanding of what Jesus taught about the kingdom of God provides answers for me. Jesus talked about “the age to come” where will be no sickness, no struggle, no tears. When God invaded earth in the form of a Person, the “age to come” invaded this present evil age. Jesus once said that, “If you see me cast out demons by the finger of God, you can know that the kingdom of God is in your midst.” That is why I pray for the sick to be healed today, and will continue to do so. 

I am part of a faith community. This makes a huge difference. I know people (even Christians) who would never pray for someone to be healed. In a faithless community one should not be shocked that healings are not seen. 

Sometimes a deeper spiritual healing is needed. Some illnesses are, at root, spiritual and emotional. I have found that, for example, a person who lives for years with bitterness towards others and refuses to forgive others can be especially subject to physical illnesses. The account of Jesus' healing the lame man let down through the roof (Mark 2:1-12) implies that the forgiveness of the man's sins had some connection with his ability to pick up his mat and walk.

Don't lay blame on the person who is sick. When Jesus prayed for sick people he never blamed them for their sickness. For example, Jesus rejects his disciples’ assumption that the blind man in John 10 was blind because either he or his parents must have sinned.

Persist in prayer. When some sick people are not healed through prayer, it may simply be because we haven't prayed long enough to bring the healing to completion.

***

FOR FURTHER READING SEE:

Randy Clark, "Creating an Atmosphere for Healing."

In Francis MacNutt’s classic book Healing he is gives 11 reasons why people may not be healed:

1. Lack of faith
2. Redemptive suffering
3. False value attached to suffering
4. Sin
5. Not praying specifically
6. Faulty diagnosis (is it inner healing/ physical healing/ deliverance that is needed)
7. Refusal to see medicine as a way God heals
8. Not using natural means of preserving health
9. Now is not the time
10. Different person is to be instrument of healing
11. Social environment prevents healing taking place

J. Lee Grady, "When Christians Die of Cancer"

John Wimber, Power Healing. Chapter 8, "Not Everyone Is Healed."

Charles Kraft, Defeating Dark Angels: Breaking Demonic Oppression In the Believer's Life.

Frost & the Glory of God

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

- Psalm 19:1

I went outside to start the car early in the morning. The sky was very blue, and there was frost on the car window.

I pointed the car to the blue sky, then took this photo of my frosted window from the inside of the car. The brown thing on the right is a telephone pole.

Then, I cropped some of the detail on the left, and it looks like this.

Losing My Religion to Join the Revolution

Jerusalem

Greg Boyd begins his The Myth of a Christian Religion: Losing Your Religion for the Beauty of a Revolution this way:

"Once upon a time I embraced the Christian religion. Frankly, I wasn't very good at it. Religion just isn't my thing. For a while I felt like a failure. Some religious folk consigned me to the fire. But over time I've come to see my religious failure as a tremendous blessing. Because when I lost my religion, I discovered a beautiful revolution. This may surprise or even offend you, but Jesus is not the founder of the Christian religion." (K 61-68)

Indeed. Greg's excellent book reflects a small but powerful Jesus Movement made up of people who are leaving churches that are more "Christian-religious" than "Real Jesus."

Way back in the 1970s, when I was found by Jesus, the word was that Christianity was not a "religion." I even wrote a song about this. I was totally taken by Jesus, and still am. Want Jesus? Begin with the Gospels. You'll see Jesus battling against relIgion, since the religious spirit shuts the door to the Kingdom of God.

The Kingdom of God. This is the hermeneutical key to understanding the Real Jesus. Greg says: "What Jesus was about had nothing to do with being religious. Read the Gospels! He partied with the worst of sinners and outraged the religious. This is what got him crucified. What Jesus was about as starting a revolution. He called this revolution "the Kingdom of God." (K 68-77)

What does Christianity-as-religion look like? In America, it looks like America. It wears the garment of prevailing culture. There is a "radical contradiction between the lifestyle Jesus calls his followers to embrace, on the one hand, and the typical American lifestyle." To do that is not incarnational (like Jesus) but is acquiescent. Incarnational Jesus-living lives in culture while revolting against un-Jesus aspects of culture, thereby transforming culture. (For more on this see H.Richard Niebuhr's classic Christ and Culture.) 

What does the Kingdom of God look like? Greg says: it looks like Jesus.

He writes: "It struck me that the Church in America largely shares - even celebrates - the typical American lifestyle. Research confirms that the values of Americans who profess faith in Christ are largely indistinguishable from the values of those Americans who do not. How could this be if the Church is God's man "vehicle of salvation?"" (K 100-118)

When I was working as a campus minister at Michigan State University I was told about a certain notorious atheistic student who was creating chaos in the lives of some Christians. The atheist was informed that he should meet with me. He agreed, as did I, and we met. He grew up in a "Christian" environment and came to reject it. I asked him about what this looked like. As he described the Christianity he left I began to think, "The Christianity you left wasn't Christianity at all. You left a religion that, as far as I can tell, looks and sounds little like Jesus. So the "Christianity" you are now attacking isn't the real thing." 

Had he been exposed to the beautiful revolution I wonder if he would have left? How sad it is to see deconverted religious Christians attacking a 19th-century fundamentalist-religious American Jesus, or a 21st-century fog machine Entertainment Jesus, or the Jesus of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. 

A lifetime of studying the Gospels have convinced me even more what I discovered back in the 70s; viz., that Jesus didn't come to earth to start a religion. That was when I lost my religion to join the Revolution.

Craig Keener on Homosexuality and the Bible

New Testament scholar Craig Keener has written two articles on homosexuality and the Bible. The first deal with the textual issue - viz., what does the Bible say about this? The second concerns how Jesus-followers are to respond to gay-oriented persons.

See "Distinguishing multiple issues in churches' debates over homosexual practice, part 1," and "Part 2."

Highlights of the first article include:

• "My primary vocation is as a Bible scholar, and I need to explain the text faithfully." Right. The issue here is: what does the biblical text say, as opposed to what we might wish the text would say.
• "I believe that the biblical passages about homosexual behavior are fairly clear... most exegetes, whether they agree personally with Paul or not, still regard Romans 1 as disagreeing with homosexual practice."
• "I would be happy to be persuaded otherwise, but so far it continues to appear to me that this is where the exegesis strongly points."
• For more read the article in its entirety.

The Euthyphro Dilemma

One of my MCCC philosophy students stayed after class tonight and asked me about the "Euthyphro Dilemma." I'm re-posting this for him.

Atheist philosopher Alex Rosenberg, in his debate with theist philosopher William Lane Craig, referred to the famous Euthyphro Dilemma (Plato) in his attempted refutation of Craig's moral argument for God's existence. Rosenberg, in Atheist's Guide to Reality, assumes the Euthyphro Dilemma is a genuine dilemma. But it is a false dilemma, as various philosophers have shown.

The E.D. goes like this. We are, supposedly, presented with two horns of a dilemma; this means we are going to get "gored" any way we answer. Horn #1 is: God commands what is good because he sees that it is good. Horn #2 is: Something is good because God commands it. If we embrace Horn #1 then we must admit that there is something outside of God, which can be called good. If we accept Horn #2, then we must admit that the commands of God are arbitrary. Either way we get gored.

Craig argues that this is a false dilemma, because there is a third alternative; viz., that God commands what is good because he is good. That is, the essence of God is goodness. "Goodness" is an essential attribute of the being of God. Craig writes:

"So moral values are not independent of God because God’s own character defines what is good. God is essentially compassionate, fair, kind, impartial, and so on. His nature is the moral standard determining good and bad. His commands necessarily reflect in turn his moral nature. Therefore, they are not arbitrary. The morally good/bad is determined by God’s nature, and the morally right/wrong is determined by his will. God wills something because he is good, and something is right because God wills it.This view of morality has been eloquently defended in our day by such well-known philosophers as Robert Adams, William Alston, and Philip Quinn."

"The Euthyphro Dilemma," writes University of Wisconsin philosopher Keith Yandell,  "is bogus." This is because the E.D. exemplifies a false dilemma. A false dilemma, in logic, is an either-or statement that does not exhaust the alternatives. For example:America: either love it or leave it. Oh really? Are there no other alternatives? But of course there are!

Here's Plato's Euthyphro Dilemma.

1. Either (i) God approves of something because it is good, or (ii) something is good because God approves of it.
2. If (i), then the ground or basis of something's being good lies outside, and is independent of, God.
3. If (ii), then something is good because God arbitrarily chooses it - what is good depends on mere divine voluntarism, sheer choice not constrained by reasons.
4. Therefore, either the ground ort basis of something's being good lies outside, or is independent of, God, or something is good because God arbitrarily chooses it - what is good depends on mere divine voluntarism, sheer choice not constrained by reasons.

One who accepts the E.D. takes statement 4 to mean: Either morality is independent of (monotheistic) religion, or morality simply amounts to what God arbitrarily chooses. 

But this settles nothing. Yandell writes: "There are alternatives in addition to the two that the Euthyphro argument consiers. The argument would succeed only if there were not." ("Theology, Philosophy, and Evil," in For Faith and Clarity, ed. James Beilby) Here are some other possibilities.

• (iii) a necessarily existing God exists and is perfectly good by nature; this what God wills, God wills in accord with God's nature, not arbitrarily.
• (iv) God exists with logical necessity, and God necessarily has thoughts the propositional content of which is the true principles of morality.
• (v) God exists, though not with logical necessity, and God is good by choice; God wills in accord with God's character and not arbitrarily, and this character is what it is due to God's free choices.

The E.D., therefore, "should begin with a premise at least as complex as this:

(1*) Either (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), or (v).

"But then the rest of the argument will not follow. The conclusion would then be much more complex:

(4**) Either morality is independent of (monotheistic) religion, or morality simply amounts to what God arbitrarily chooses; or a necessarily existing God exists and is perfectly good by nature; thus what God wills, God wills in accord with God's nature, not arbitraril; or God exists with logical necessity, and God necessarily thinks thoughts the propositional content of which is true moral principles; or God exists , though not with logical necessity, and God is good by choice; God wills in accord with God's character and not arbitrarily, and this character is what it is due to God's free choices.

Yandell then goes on to show that choices (iii) - (v) are genuine. Perhaps there are even some other alternatives? Yandell concludes, "It is sufficient to note that the Euthyphro argument fails to establish the intended dilemma for theists."

Dr. John Piippo - "Prayer and Healing" 04/18/15

"Immanuel" and Me (The Presence-Driven Church)

In Nairobi (This woman's foot was healed)

If God is not with me, experientially, then what good is he? I need God to walk before and with and behind me in this dimly lit world.

I am not smart enough to guide my own life, much less assist others on the way.

I am not powerful enough to halt the eroding wasting-away of my physical body, much less heal others.

I am not loving enough to overwhelm my enemies.

I am a flower that emerges from the ground, blooms, then quickly withers and dies. I am an ocean wave that comes and goes.

I am weak in time and space, body and mind, strength and soul, a virtually unknown speck of matter in an ever-cycling faceless mass of humanity.

I am weak. But Thou are strong.

This is my wisdom:

• I need help.
• People are not enough for me. 
• God is loving, powerful and omniscient.
• I need God with me.

This is The Promise of Christianity. I cling to it.

“The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son,

and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).

- Matthew 1:23

Christianity is not mere religious, skull-boring ritual. Nor is it mind-numbing entertainment-induced "happiness." In Christ the ancient prophecy has taken on human skin and bone. God has come near, to us.

This is what I need, "Immanuel," God with me. I require, presently, His presence. Christianity is all about His ever-presence, not in theory, but in experience.

This is why I am a Christian. I follow Jesus because I know Jesus. I have been met by him. I talk with him throughout the day. I have tasted His redemptive goodness and my eyes have seen His power and glory. I have a bookshelf of journal entries cataloguing the adventures of Immanuel and me.

James McDonald writes:

"A real encounter with the living God changes everything. First, it magnifies the Lord, and then it puts me and my ego and my sin and my burdens all in their rightful place.

That is what church is supposed to do and be. Not an encounter with the glory of God in creation but an encounter with God in a different, even more awesome way that only church can provide. However, church today as a weekly experience with the manifest glory of God is the greatest lack we face. The lost are not found because God’s glory is not revealed in church. Children wander because church is pathetically predictable or shamefully entertaining but hardly ever authentically God." (MacDonald, Vertical Church: What Every Heart Longs for. What Every Church Can Be, Kindle Locations 56-61)

Yes, I study about Jesus. But all this about-Jesus-research is only valuable as it leads to Real Church. "Take me to church" means "Take us into Your presence."

Take us to the water where we shall drink, for we thirst.

Take us to the healing altar, for we are weak.