Expectation and Unbelief

Speaking of the Holy Spirit, Horatius Bonar said, "We have not honored the Spirit of God. It may be in words (only) that we have recognized his agency, but we have not kept this continually before our eyes..." He is saying that we have only paid lip service to the Holy Spirit's work. This is also true, but my thought today as I write is not about the working of the Spirit, but about prayer.

We had a speaker last night at our annual Valentine's Banquet that our church gathers to share, and he made a comment that he did not know what to make of a Christian who prays, but does not expect to be actually heard and answered. Lip service to the God of Heaven and Earth when Christ died to split the veil and give us access, baffled him. I was convicted by the Spirit immediately.

There are many reasons that our prayers are not heard or answered. We could have a besetting sin in our lives that breaks us from close fellowship with God and keeps us from prayer. We could be praying for the wrong things, praying "amiss" as James calls it, seeking only selfish things to heap upon ourselves. We may not being fervent or persistent enough. We simply might not be asking, as Jesus told us that we do not have, because we do not ask. Peter says that if husbands do not live with their wives with understanding and honoring her will not have their prayer heard. However, maybe the greatest hindrance to prayer being effective is our unbelief.

We know that unbelief caused Jesus to do no miracles in Nazareth. We know that it caused Jesus to be astonished at some Galilean cities when they saw miracles and explained them away. It constantly brought judgment throughout the Old Testament who did exactly what God told them not to do, or did not do what he told them to do. In the case of the Pharisees, it caused most to be lost forever, even though they were the most religious people in Israel.

Think about it. They knew that they were commanded to pray; so they did. They knew that they should want to pray; so they prayed. They knew that they were supposed to live holy lives of moral purity and ceremonial obedience to be heard in prayer; so they worked hard. Yet, they did not believe that Jesus was the Christ. They did not believe that God could raise up children to Abraham from stones or make them cry out in praise if he desired. They did not believe that Jesus was a prophet because he healed on the Sabbath. One moment after death, how many wished that they had cried out with the epileptic boy's  father, "help my unbelief."

We know we are supposed to pray; so we pray as many minutes as we can for as many things as we can think of. We try to be unselfish by praying all too generically that God would bless this or that. We go through the motions, but do we truly believe that God hears, and God will answer? Do we truly believe that God can and will move in a situation? Are we fervent and persistent only when there is a very desperate situation that directly affects us or a close friend? Do we believe when we pray, or just going through the motions to make ourselves feel better, as though God was pleased that we gave lip service to intimate communion with him?

Maybe we should all (myself being the chief of offence) pray the prayer of the father, "help my unbelief," and repent from our lack of faith, trusting in the gospel and the transformed life it brings to aid us in pursuit.

Miracles to Test Them

I am still reading in Exodus some in my devotional time and I saw where God tested the people.

Then the LORD said to Moses, "Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not." Ex 16:4

The people were tested by hardship and impossible situations regularly, and they failed regularly, and they complained regularly against Moses, Aaron, but ultimately against God. But in this passage, Moses told them that God heard their complaints and would provide.

Here God tells Moses He would rain down bread from heaven to test the people to see if they were really walking with Me and obeying Me. He was going to test them with blessings and provision rather than hardship! He wanted to see if they really trusted Him, really believed He was for their good and able to provide, really would give Him the glory, and really would do as He instructed (which was to only gather enough for the day), when things were grand. Again, many of them failed, and gave Him no glory. This pattern of faithlessness eventually cost them 40 years in the wilderness and hundreds of thousands of lives.

Wonder if God has/is testing many of us with blessing to see if we really trust God? What if we have a financial windfall, and if we really trust Him, we might give it away rather than store it up? The manna rotted if they stored it up. What if God is testing the American church, being the richest church in the world, to see if they really will "go unto all nations and make disciples?"

Wonder if we pass or fail? Do we give Him real glory for our blessing or lip service? Do we obey His word in good seasons, or only in bad ones? Do we forget Him if we think that we don't need Him? What will it cost us?

Be a good steward of your blessings and miracles!

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1.02.28

Christians and Halloween II

All I know is that this is definitely an issue where all the answers are not clear, and also that many parents think about. And that Lew and Matt need to get together and study Rom 14 together ;) . If I had know that this blog post was going to generate so many comments, I would have waited to respond to my parents until now, because the discussion has been interesting and helpful for the most part. I am simply going to post my response to this young couple. Some of you may think I am too harsh, and some will think I am too lax, but this is just where I come down. And I don't think to be a "good Christian" that you necessarily have to agree with me. Ultimately his is a matter of liberty that should be approached with thoughtfulness, biblical honesty, care for other brethren, and not flaunted or
legalized. I hope that it is helpful at some level.

Thanks for your email. That is a tough question. Let me say up front that the bible doesn’t speak specifically about Halloween. And that I don’t think there is necessarily a right or wrong answer, because of no explicit biblical prescription. And I do think that well-intentioned bible believing Christians can disagree on this, and will come down on both sides of the issue. I don’t think it is a hill to die on. That having been said, I do think that there on principles in the bible that can be helpful. And you will find lots of material on both sides on the internet, some good and some bad.

But I will tell you both what I think, and what Erika and I do. But the bottom line will be that you and Jason will have to talk it out and figure out the path that God would have you and your family on.

If it were solely up to me, I don’t think I would encourage my kids to participate. Obviously there are some dark overtones with a celebration of the undead. And the whole observance verges on occult practice and is devoid of anything godly. But much of the same can be said about Easter and Christmas. Do the research on those and you will find mostly pagan roots, and things unhelpful to biblical teaching. But we don’t completely jettison those holidays. And I don’t think that Satan is out more on that night than others, or anything weird like that. Some Christians go way overboard in my opinion.

Erika and I have mixed feelings about it all. We were both raised trick or treating, and it didn’t seem to do much damage. And I guess I don’t have the backbone, and Erika doesn’t have the heart to refuse to let them go out and get candy. So we participate, I guess. But like Christmas and Easter, we just emphasize the right things, and don’t make a big deal about it. We don’t encourage them to dress up in scary stuff. We don’t decorate the house or the yard with ghosts and black cats. We carve pumpkins, but we put crosses in them instead of faces. And in general we don’t make a big deal of it all. We let the kids dress up as princesses or musketeers, or pumpkins or whatever. At Christmas we don’t mention Santa much, but obviously it’s everywhere, and if the kids ask, we tell them the truth, but we make the focus of Christmas Jesus, and the same with the Easter bunny. But we don’t go overboard on getting them to disbelieve in Santa either. And we get them gifts for Christmas morning. And sometimes they ask, and we don’t lie, but don’t make a big deal of the non-Christian parts. It’s all in how you approach it.

If you all decided that your conviction was to keep your kids from Halloween, I think that would be fine. However, don’t harp on others who don’t feel that way. But if you feel the liberty to participate at some level, I definitely think that there are lines to be drawn and limits to set. I am not sure that this is an issue to fight over, but I do believe it is an issue to be thought through from a Christian standpoint. I may blog about it and see what kind of response I get.

I hope this helps, sorry I couldn’t give you more clear guidance. But I believe it is an area where we can rely on the Spirit, and do what we feel is best.

Blessings,

And just by the way, Lew wrote a very humorous blog post on Halloween that you will get a kick out of. You can read it here.

Thanks for reading...

A Plea for Multi-Generational Parenting pt. 1

In recent days I have seen several grandparents brokenhearted when grandchildren choose paths that are culturally, but not morally or biblically pleasing. And it causes so much pain. And these are fine Christ-following people, and so you wonder what went wrong. Should we expect our children and grandchildren to follow in the way that we lead them in?

Psalm 78:5 "For He established a testimony in Jacob, And appointed a law in Israel, Which He commanded our fathers, That they should make them known to their children; 6 That the generation to come might know them, The children who would be born, That they may arise and declare them to their children, 7 That they may set their hope in God, And not forget the works of God, But keep His commandments..."

I realize that there are no guarantees in parenting, no perfect parents and no perfect kids. And I definitely don't claim to have all the answers in my five or so years of parenting. But I see the trend of apostasy among our young people (upwards of 80%), and it is alarming! And so as a parent, I ask, what can we do? What can I do now to help pass on the faith later. Over the next three or four posts, I would like to offer some suggestions.

1) We must parent with our grandchildren in mind. Even though my children are three and five years old, I must think about how to communicate biblical truth to their children, and their children's children. This will require extra effort. Parenting is hard work, no doubt; but to do it biblically, we must begin to think further ahead than their college years. Going the extra mile will be required. We must think harder, search harder, work harder than is the culturally expectation of parents.

I think it is fair to assume that children left to themselves will practice less of the faith that we taught them. So we should shoot for overkill. Not in a smothering kind of way, but simply in a blood-earnest, seizing the moment, passionate to use every minute kind of way.

I think this will mean that we are intentional about establishing family traditions that will be markers of faith that can be carried on to our grandchildren. The Israelites had markers posted, so when their children asked about them, they could continually tell the story of God's deliverance. Are their traditions around holidays, or weekly traditions that allow the story of our faith to be retold? Is the decor of your home pointing to Christ? Do we use weekends and leisure time and vacations as ministry opportunities? We must share our stories of God's deliverance in our own lives, not just our testimonies. Our children should also have milestones in life that we make much of as they grow. Things, events, times that they can look back on and see Christ working in their lives. As parents we must continually help our children to see when God is working. And we must continually provide those opportunities for them to serve the needs of others and watch Him work.

I know it's cliche' but a failure to plan, is a plan to fail. Evaluate early if you are planning for your grandchildren!

Thanks for reading...