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F.A.Q Message Series – Ask Anything

This Sunday I can promise you that we will be talking about what YOU are interested in because I am going to be taking YOUR questions! I have heard for years that people feel like pastors never speak on tough issues or never fully address the concerns people have…well – this is your chance.

I will give my best shot @ answering your deepest, funniest, craziest, most serious questions about anything related to God, the Bible, Christianity, the Church, or anything in between. Submit your question by clicking the link below (your name is optional) and I will attempt to answer as many of these as possible in both services on Sunday. Ask anything. Don’t worry, I can take it.

Click here to ask away!

Pray for Abby Sunderland!

I have been following the progress of Abby, a 16-year old sailor who is seeking to sail around the world by herself.  She is reportedly lost at sea (in the middle of the Indian Ocean) right now.  Please pray for her, that she is safe and out of harm’s way right now.  Pray that she will not die at sea but live!  Read the news reports below.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Search is on for teen sailor Abby Sunderland (latimesblogs.latimes.com)
• Rescuers search for Calif teen on solo world sail (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Solo sailor Abby Sunderland reportedly lost at sea (sports.espn.go.com)

ht: heaven invading washington

William Booth Vision of the Lost

Here is the copy of a vision William Booth had regarding the lost and hurting.  Do not read it unless you are ready to respond to the conviction of the Holy Ghost.

On one of my recent journeys, as I gazed from the coach window, I was led into a train of thought concerning the condition of the multitudes around me. They were living carelessly in the most open and shameless rebellion against God, without a thought for their eternal welfare. As I looked out of the window, I seemed to see them all . . . millions of people all around me given up to their drink and their pleasure, their dancing and their music, their business and their anxieties, their politics and their troubles. Ignorant – willfully ignorant in many cases – and in other instances knowing all about the truth and not caring at all. But all of them, the whole mass of them, sweeping on and up in their blasphemies and devilries to the Throne of God. While my mind was thus engaged, I had a vision.

I saw a dark and stormy ocean. Over it the black clouds hung heavily; through them every now and then vivid lightening flashed and loud thunder rolled, while the winds moaned, and the waves rose and foamed, towered and broke, only to rise and foam, tower and break again.

In that ocean I thought I saw myriads of poor human beings plunging and floating, shouting and shrieking, cursing and struggling and drowning; and as they cursed and screamed they rose and shrieked again, and then some sank to rise no more.

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Why I did not get the HTC Evo on June 4th

I really want(ed) that new HTC Evo.  That thing is pretty!  I did not order it and I did not wait in line for it. Why?  Couple reasons.

Right now I have a window to fix and I still have to finish setting up my home office. If I got this thing I would spend way too much time playing with it. So Evo, maybe later.

Sunday Musings

• Couple quick thoughts about service.
• Worship went long but it was needed.  Is it possible to worship God for too long?
• I really enjoyed preaching the last 2 weeks.
• The more I study how God has moved in the past, the more encouraged that we are on the right path
• Whoever took pics . . . can you put them up?
• At the end of the message, right before I started the prayer, the presence of God fell so hard I thought i might fall and take the podium with me.  the fear of the Lord struck me.
• I am typing this at my new desk and looking at my new monitors.  My old desk was a piece of junk hand me down when I got it 8 years ago.  My old monitors were so bad the colors were never right.
• Took my kids to VBS today.  Church planter summer camp.
• Went to 5 guys somethingoranother and got a burger after church yesterday.  The jalapenos there are hot.
• Went to the birthday party of a friend that is on staff at Calvary Ftl.  Steve Williams is a great guy.  Happy 40th.
• Its 94 today.  Yikes.
• Podcast is up.
• Insert witty, challenging, Googled quote here.
• Onward!

The Name of God is Jesus

There is a specific cult that uses a straw man argument to set a person up for their belief system.  They talk about the importance of using God’s proper name because all people want to be known by their proper name . . . right?  The confusion that follows goes something like this,

Do you know God’s proper name?  I know you are a loving Christian who wants to really know God.  But how can you say you know Him if you don’t even know His name?  We know His name because we truly know Him.  Come with us and you can know Him also.

Sounds perfectly logical.  But it is a trick of the devil.

The next time someone knocks on your door with a copy of their magazine asking these questions let them know you can both have fellowship knowing the name of God, JESUS.  They probably won’t be excited about that answer.  This is how you will know that they are not really Christians.

Summer To-Do List

Friday is a pretty big day for me in my weekly schedule.  But for my kids, it is normally just another day.  The difference today is that it is the first day of summer.  That is so important, Isaac made a list of things he wants to get done today.

Extra-Biblical Revelatory Nonsense

I rarely do this but I want to post something the prophet Loren Sandford wrote a few years ago.  It really sums up much of the nonsense I see in the Spirit-Filled church today.

“I have been calling us to a new simplicity and purity. What we have had is an intrusion of extra-biblical stuff posing as “revelation” and established fact that has no place in Scripture. The effect has been to create a division between two groups of people – the elite who have this special knowledge that they believe makes them mature or more gifted vs. those who don’t have that knowledge or who don’t have that attitude about themselves. The latter group simply lays down their gifts and eventually goes away.

I’m convinced this is the reason why churches where the Spirit is allowed to move are almost always small while the seeker sensitive churches tend to be large. The seeker sensitive churches are entirely accessible, simple and intelligible, untroubled by esoteric knowledge gained from extra-biblical sources. Charismatic churches have endless barriers of weirdness built from all that extra-biblical nonsense that passes for truth. People turn away from the barriers and go where things are simple and intelligible. So while they don’t allow for the things of the Spirit, the seeker sensitive churches grow and charismatic churches don’t.

It’s all so unnecessary. We can have both worlds, but we’re going to have to stop accepting as truth these things that have no basis in God’s Word. We’re going to have to stop making things so mysterious and complicated. For instance, never did Paul send in an advance prayer team to spiritually map a region, study its history and identify its territorial spirits so that the gospel would be successful there. Never did he do silly things like bury communion elements in the ground. Never does any human being in Scripture summon demonic powers into the heavenly court for judgment as I’ve heard done so often in recent days. Nowhere are we given authority to convene any heavenly court. Several times recently I’ve heard it stated as fact that if you’re a cancer survivor you have more authority to pray for cancer. Nonsense. We’re healed by his stripes, not by surviving the disease we’re praying to heal. These are just a few examples of the kind of thing that has infiltrated us and every other charismatic church I know.

It’s time to come back to the simplicity of doing things the way they are modeled for us in the Bible. We ask. God does. The words don’t need to be perfect. The revelation doesn’t have to be complete. We just have to talk to our Father.

So I’m calling us to a new purity of devotion and a simplicity of approach that makes it all so much more accessible to the average guy and that doesn’t create a spiritual elite that kind of puts everyone else down. Our average Joes and our timid ones have simply laid down their gifts and walked away.

But that’s changing. The more I’ve spoken this into us the more people have picked up their gifts and begun to walk in them. Sharing dreams. Visions. Words. Praying aloud. Having fun again. Growing again. I think we probably spent 45 minutes last Monday talking through all this – and some bit of time today as well. It’s healing our fellowship. God shows up just as He did before, but it’s sweeter and more restful. People feel safe to take the risk and move forward.”

Things That I Am Thankful For Today

Ever had a bad day?  I mean a really bad day.  Yeah?  Then you understand my yesterday.  This broken window was not even the worst of the day.

I woke up this morning thinking about how I still am not done dealing with the issues of yesterday when I decided that yesterday is not going to define my today.  You get to choose what to focus on.  Today, I am going to focus on all the great things that are happening in my life.

In that spirit I wanted to post a short list of some of the things I am thankful for today.

• My marriage.  Folks will tell you that as time goes on, you and your spouse will drift apart.  That only happens if you and your spouse are not submitted to the God of Love.  My marriage is better today than it has ever been.  I am thankful that my wife has grown as our family has grown.  I hope I have done the same.
• My kids.  My son broke said window and he tried to give me money to help pay for it.  These kids have no idea how thankful God brought them into my life.  I tell them all the time.  Anastasia tells me she knows because I tell her all the time but I keep insisting that she has no idea how much I love them and how thankful to God I am for them.
• My home.  The economy the last five years threw my family into a spin.  We were never in danger of losing our house.  No matter how bad things got, we never feared we would be homeless.
• Coffee.  Of faithful friend.  You help me regulate that internal mechanism that determines so much of my day.
• The call to south Florida.  I know great people happily serving God in awful places.  The weather is beautiful here.  I love living near the beach.  I love Delray Beach.  I love seeing the sun.  I love hot summer days.  I love flat landscape.  I love palm trees.  I even love all the lizards (not their droppings everywhere).  I love old cars with big tires, tinted windows and loud stereos pumping Miami bass.  I love long shorts year round.  I love the mixture of cultures.  I just love living here.
• Air conditioning.  Without it that last bullet point would be off the list.
• Wifi.  My office is in Panera Bread.  I spend less than $20 a month on rent instead of a grand because of wifi.
• Google voice.  transcribed emails sent to your phone.
• The bulleted lazy man’s blog post.  When only three people read your blog it is foolish to spend too much time on it.
• Khamille Barbosa.  Joined to The Mission.  Tireless worker.  Prayer warrior.  Sanctified wife of Sergio.  I just got an email from her with notes for this week’s Connection Group.  Most folks are not even out of bed and she is doing volunteer work after she hosted a women’s meeting last night, will host a Connection group tonight, will attend setup and prayer Friday night, host worship practice Saturday, and help lead worship Sunday.  And still if I asked her to do something she would not hesitate to say yes.  Fellas, stop praying carnal junk about your future wife.
• My blackberry.  The world in my pocket.
• Two working cars.  I could call this one and a half working cars but for the sake of this post we are being positive.
• My wife’s chicken parmesan.
• The many faithful volunteers at The Mission.  Without them we would have a far crappier service and my life would be far more miserable.
• Watching folks get baptized in the Holy Ghost.  If I did not get to preach any more this is what I would miss the most.  There is nothing like watching the glow on someone who gets filled and speaks in tongues for the first time.

I could go on and on with this list but you get the idea.  What are you thankful for today?  Write it down.  Or better yet, call some people and let them know.  It will make your day all the better.

A Question About Film Making

I am sitting in the theatre watching the trailers and a question came to mind, “Is demonic channeling a required class at film school these days?”