Stop Praying and Start Praising
I, like Mark, find myself in prayer patterns asking for the same thing over and over again, trying to take the nagging widow route to God’s ear. But he reminds us in this post that sometimes we just need to be confident that He’s going to provide what we ask for. Enjoy!
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Stop Praying and Start Praising
This one is tough to explain, but as I was praying on the rooftop of Ebenezers about some miracles I’m believing God for I heard that still small voice of the Spirit: stop praying for it and start praising Me for it.I think there are moments when you’ve got to stop asking for something and start celebrating what you believe God is going to do as if it has just happened. This isn’t some Jedi mind trick. It’s faith. Faith is able to praise God BEFORE the miracle happens. Why? Because it believes it will happen as much as if it has already happened.
Maybe you need to stop praying and start praising?
Knowledge Makes a Secure Man Humble – Don Miller
Knowledge Makes a Secure Man Humble
Knowledge Makes a Secure Man Humble
by Don on January 25, 2010
Years ago, when I worked at a small publishing company outside Portland, I’d get together every couple days with a former seminary professor named Ross Tunnell. Ross had left seminary work and was doing graphic design, but was widely considered to be one of the smarter Old Testament teachers in Portland. I made a deal with Ross, saying that if I bought lunch, he’d teach me the old testament. And Ross took me up on that offer. We probably met more than fifty times over two years. It was a terrific arrangement.
Ross passed away only a few months ago and I’ve been thinking about those lunches, of all that I learned. But last night I remembered the greatest lesson Ross ever taught me. I was thinking about this lesson because while surfing around on the internet, I saw a minister somewhere speaking very arrogantly about how he had some bit of theology figured out and somebody else didn’t. I think maybe it was a moment of weakness for said minister, but nevertheless it helped me remember something Ross once said.
We were driving back from a conference in Salem and I was going off about some bit of scripture, explaining it to Ross as though he’d never come to the same revelation. I must have talked for about ten minutes, perhaps condescendingly (a way of speaking that prevents true dialogue, and also prevents anybody from disagreeing with you, at least in public) and Ross just sat there and listened. I don’t even recall what scripture I was talking about, but when I was done, and when I looked over at Ross to give an affirmation to my unparalleled intellect, he sat quiet. Finally, I asked what he thought. And Ross just stared straight ahead and said “I think knowledge puffs up.”
I was embarrassed, to say the least. There have been a thousand times since, though, that I wish Ross was standing next to me when I’ve made equally as embarrassing tirades.
Of our fifty or more meetings, that’s the lesson I remember best: Knowledge puffs up.
And I think this is the thing that ruins many a seminary student. Knowledge. It’s not that knowledge is bad, it isn’t, it’s good, very good according to Solomon. It’s just that knowledge is incredibly powerful and dangerous. It has to be handled with care, like a radioactive material. It can easily explode and kill many, pushing people away from the church (unless of course they agree with you.)
A good test for me is to come back to the fruits of the spirit. Is my knowledge producing these characteristics: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self Control?
If we acquire knowledge before we are emotionally healthy, that is if we are insecure, we are going to use it to boost our own ego and compare ourselves to others. The desire for knowledge will be like a need for a drug, then, pacifying a wounded spirit through comparative associations. Entire theological camps have been built and bolstered by this needy, angry, gluttonous desire for knowledge. But if we have confidence, if we are secure, knowledge humbles us. We realize that we did not invent truth, we simply stumbled upon it like food on a long journey. Knowledge will then produce the fruits of the spirit.
Seeking knowledge, then, is like tending a vineyard. It’s just farming. But you aren’t the one who produced the fruit, God is. You’re just a farmer, just a guy who makes and distributes wine. It’s blue-collar work.
Ross was one of the most humble men I’ve ever met. And he was also one of the most intelligent. Those two combinations are sadly rare. These days I’m wishing I knew what he knew, in more ways than one. Goodbye old friend. And thanks for the lesson.
What Drug Cartels and Christians Have In Common
Not recognizing our cars. « Stuff Christians Like – Jon Acuff
#659. Not recognizing our cars.
Nov 25th by JonIt’s always good to have a friend who is a cop and I’m excited to say I just met one. His daughter goes to kindergarten with mine and we walked around together on Halloween night. I peppered him with the kind of questions a 7-year old boy would ask McGruff the crime dog but he humored me. And then, he told me something a little surprising …
International drug cartels use caravans of different cars to run drugs through Georgia.
I read about that in article but secretly hoped the organizational savvy of cartels that are now using a Wal-Mart approach to outsourcing their crimes was exaggerated. He assured me it was not. Here’s how it works:
When a drug cartel is going to drive drugs up from Miami or Texas, they use three different cars …
The first car is kind of the “smoker” car. Its only job is to go 100MPH and smoke out any cops that might be on the highway. Its role is to get a speeding ticket and pull the cops out of their hiding places.
The second car is the disguised car. They often use unassuming elderly couples in boring looking vehicles to actually move the drugs. This car looks normal but could be carrying millions of dollars of drugs.
The third car is the popper. Its only job is to protect the car with the drugs. When the popper sees the police chasing the disguised car, it speeds up and pulls in front of them. The popper then slams on his brakes, forcing the cop car to rear end it. The cop car’s airbags pop off. When that happens, the car is automatically disabled and turns itself off. The cop is now officially out of the chase.
I was fascinated listening to him talk about the strategy involved in an operation like that, but realized ultimately that approach wasn’t that original of an idea. For me, the sin in my life works in a pretty similar fashion.
The smoker sins in my life are the big, neon, obvious stuff I deal with. These are the things I see coming a mile away. To be honest, those are usually lust and porn related. Right before an important speaking engagement or a key moment with God, something will unexpectedly tear down the highway of my life. A contact from my old life will email me after years of silence. Like a cop watching a car do 100MPH I’m tempted to get distracted or lost chasing the smoker.
The disguised sins in my life are harder to spot. These are the things that look like really great opportunities. They’re not so obvious in their deviousness. It just looks like an SUV with a family on vacation, but inside the shell of normalcy are hundreds of pounds of poison. Right now, these are probably new opportunities I’m being offered. It would be really easy to say yes to every opportunity I get to go speak or write. I could say yes and yes and yes over and over again, not realizing that doing so means I’m saying no to my family. No I won’t be there multiple weekends in a row for my daughters. No I won’t pour into my own family because I’ve got pour into a freelance project instead. Some of the opportunities I need to say yes to, but some aren’t the right fit and distinguishing between the two is a challenge.
The popper sins are those ones that stop you dead in your tracks. You’ve spotted the disguised sin. You’re eliminating it from your heart when all of the sudden something pulls in front of you, slams on the brakes and your car is disabled. For me, that’s pride. I’ve started to feel self righteous and prideful about how I am deliberately growing the Stuff Christians Like ministry. And what was initially a good thing, me going after the disguised sin of over committing myself turns into something gross. It turns into pride and I find myself with busted air bags on the side of the road with a car that won’t work.
I’m not sure if you ever feel the same way, maybe you don’t have three cars in your life that are constantly trying to wreck you. But if you do, I encourage you to think about them. Start to see them coming. Know deep down that the drug cartel’s methods are tiny and ill planned compared to how the devil is plotting to ruin your life right now. And pray that when God shows you what those three cars are, He’ll show you what to do.
Today, let’s play fill in the blank. Finish these sentences:
1. My smoker car is ____________
2. My disguised car is __________
3. My popper car is ___________
