I found this fascinating...

I saw this on my friend's facebook: "I learned something amazing today! Einstein was a Jew and he says in his own biographies that much of the information he "discovered" came to him in colorful visions by God the Creator of the Universe."

I had to ask to hear more. She replied: "Jim Kaseman talks about it in the series 'Spiritology 101' - He says he was reading a biography on Einstein and it was quoted from Einstein that he saw 'Colorful visions from the God of the universe' that showed him different discoveries such as quantum physics, different mathmatical equations, etc :) I understand that he was a believing Jew as well... so I thought that was really cool to learn and had to share!!" She then adds, "Its cool because so many people thought he was crazy due to the fact that he would sit in an empty room with a pen and paper and write down what came to him... when I think he wasnt crazy...but it was God speaking to him and showing him amazing things most of us can only begin to understand... God is so cool :-)."

I found that fascinating and had to share...

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I think in the Christian life, many try to approach God to put something in (quiet time, fasting, etc.) to get something out of Him. However, this tends to not work so well. He is not after us trying to earn something through working at it from Him but through blessing His friends that are close to Him as an act of grace. A major hindrance to receiving can be trying to put something in to get something in return. It works far better to go all in and then watch how He blesses more than we can ask, think, or imagine - but to know that there is no way that we could work hard enough for His goodness and blessing. If we keep thinking we have to work hard for His blessing, than we will keep trying to work harder to earn what He could have given for free if we just wouldn't have thought that we somehow earned what He previously did. Thankfulness is the proper response!

Blessings to you!

Trust

We were never meant to limit God to what we have seen him do before. Rather, any gifting that He has done through us is also an opportunity to recognize that it was Him - and that if he could do through us what He just did, that He can be trusted for much more. If we internalize gifts too much, we can focus more on them than on the One who worked through us. Perhaps those that get the most done in the kingdom are those that can trust Him for the most! There is a simplicity in child-like trust and having Him be the source and simply loving others rather than making man the source and trying to control and command in order to get agendas (even good or Holy Ghost annointed agendas) to try to come to pass. Obviously, trust is only going to grow through spending substantial time in relationship with the one that we are learning to trust. Also, it will occur through having a healthier relationship through removing wrong mindsets about who they really are...

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And some quotes:
"[The Apostle] Paul is saying that to manifest the gifts of the Spirit without love is to seperate the gift from the Divine Giver." -Howard Ervin Spirit Baptism p. 120

"Divine initiative always courts a human response. Nonetheless the assumption is often made that the Christian is not to seek the manifestations [gifts] of the Spirit. It is frequently phrased something like this: 'If God wants me to have them, He will give them to me.' On the surface this affirmation sounds convincingly pious... [However,] There is a rather obvious error in the tacit assumption that graces acts irresistably upon the passive, even indifferent child of God... There is a divine/human synergism. The divine initiative does not function by arbitrary decree... God's gifts are for those who eagerly desire them or else Paul's words are meaningless (e.g. 'desire earnestly spiritual gifts')." -Ervin p. 132

Believing for things to be getting worse and worse until the rapture comes.... might be severely hindering the church!

Believing for things to get worse and worse until the rapture comes.... very well may be hindering the church and keeping Christians from transforming society.

If Martin Luther felt things were only going to get worse and worse and then the rapture would happen (so he may as well not do anything), there would have been no Protestant Reformation.

If the Pilgrims felt that the religious persecution they were facing was just a sign that things were getting worse and worse until they were raptured out, they might not have ever come to the New World.

If the founding fathers would have just accepted that things are supposed to get worse and worse until they were to be raptured out, they would have never started America and had the freedoms that we now do.

If Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, and others would have just accepted that slavery/segregation is just a sign that things are getting worse and worse until the rapture occurs, we still would have these atrocities today.

If you and I accept that things are getting worse and worse until we get raptured out (because we are just strangers passing through), we will likely accept things happenning that should not and might make future generations pay.

Are there perhaps things that we are accepting as being from God that He is wanting us to fight against because they are NOT from Him?

NOBODY knows when the end will come. I am tired of hearing people say that it will happen in the next ten years because of how dark things are getting (because we have a recession). Look at history - how about Europe in the Middle Ages when a third of the people died of the Bubonic Plague and London burned down (amongst tremendous corruption in the church and many other issues). Things have been far worse. I am tired of hearing people believing and expecting the worst - God help us so that we do not receive things getting worse and worse for ourselves and loved ones by believing for it and through feeling disempowered to do anything as a result!

For a different view of eschatology, see Victorious Eschatology by Harold Eberle (especially where he talks of the rapture). This is not to say that I am Post-Millenial either. It is to say that there can be rather negative implications to how we live life and what we will let occur if we are only focused on the negative prophecies regarding the latter days.


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Every gift you have is reproducible in others (who will honor that gift on your life). That means EVERY gift. So perhaps our primary focus (for the sake of kingdom expansion) should be on the reproducing over the using of the gift... Or using of the gift in the process of demonstrating to others how it works.... The only hindrance from the spiritual father's side is pride in thinking how hard I sacrificed to get/grow in the gift...

Quotes

Some of these come from my friends' facebook statuses -I'm just quoting the original, but thanks for tossing them up on fb! Some of these were my statuses that I didn't want to lose in time... sorry for the repeat if you already read them. However, I need to read many of them more than once :).

"Pride only, the chief of all iniquities, can make us treat gifts as if they were rightful attributes of our nature, and, while receiving benefits, rob our Benefactor of His due glory." -Bernard of Clairvaux

"Compassion is the heart of God for that person and at that moment you get a live download of the overwhelming compassion of God for that person. And every time compassion comes, it opens the doorway to the gifts of the Spirit in operation. Compassion will open the gifts of the Spirit." -Faisal Malick (The Destiny of Islam in the End Times, p 47)

"Faith isn't simply trusting God in lack; it is trusting Him for increase on what you already have been given." -Billy Jones

"Over-obsession with the gifts at the expense of relationship with God can cause one to limit what they will believe God for to their gifting. Under-obsession with the gifts, though, is disobedience to God (1 Cor. 12:31) and will often cause people to never fully become who God has created them to be." - Me (used as my status)

"Any part of one's life that they can't talk to someone else about is not a healthy part of their life."-Me (To clarify: I didn't mean they need to tell EVERYONE about it. But if a person has issues that they can tell absolutely no one, that is not what I see the Bible identifying as living in the light. It is through the context of relationships that people heal and grow. As AA says, "You are only as sick as your secrets.")

Human history is the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy. - C.S. Lewis

"Striving and working harder is a poor substitute for encountering God's heart in kingdom ministry. It just is not anywhere near as effective." -Me

"Healing the sick is only a peripheral part of the Gospel if you aren't the sick person." -Me

"The rate at which God does things supernaturally through our lives should prompt people around us to be discontent with living in their comfort zone and create hunger for something more. How will they hunger for more if they do not see that more is available?" -Me

"Real slavery is living your life trying to gain favor with people. Real
freedom is living your life because you have favor with Christ." -Tullian Tchividjian

"There is something about encountering the Lord that satisfies an ache... Learning how to seperate oneself to encounter the Lord is essential." -from my notes of Bill Johnson 10/7/08 speaking to first year at BSSM

Quote on how to know God's will

This might just be my favorite quote on knowing God's will...

"In his book Decision Making and the Will of God, Garry Friesen has done a masterful job of critiquing the view that God always has one particular thing for you to do in a given case, that correct decision-making depends on your finding out what that thing is and that if you miss it, you will only be in God's permissive will at best - and a second-class citizen in the kingdom of God. Arguing against this extremely harmful view, Friesen remarks,

'The major point is this: God does not have an ideal, detailed life-plan uniquely designed for each believer that must be discovered in order to make correct decisions. The concept of an "individual will of God" [in that sense] cannot be established by reason, experience, biblical example, or biblical teaching.'

So, the perfect will of God may allow, for a particular person, a number of different alternatives. For most people, for example, a number of different choices in selecting a partner (or none at all), various vocations, educational institutions or places of residence may all equally be God's perfect will - none being in themselves better or preferred by God in relation to the ultimate outcome desired by him.

The sincere seeker should assume that this is so and should move forward with faith in God if no specific word comes on the matter concerned after a reasonable period of time. All of this is consistent with there sometimes being only one choice that would perfectly fit God's will for us. Our choices must be approached on a case-by-case basis just as life is lived one day at a time, trusting God.

Just as character is revealed only when we are permitted or required to do as we want, so also the degree and maturity of our faith are manifested only in cases where no specific command is given. It is not a great and mature faith that merely does what it is told. Rather- in the words of William Carey as he went out to India as a pioneer missionary - such a faith is one that "attempts great things for God and expects great things from God." It actively gets on with the work to be done, the life to be lived confident in the good-hearted companionship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Human initiative is not cancelled by redemption; it is heightened by immersion in the flow of God's life. People with a mature vision of God and extensive experience in His ways have no need to be obsessively anxious about doing the right thing. For the most part they will simply know what is right. But their confidence is finally not in a word from the Lord but in the Lord who is with us." - Dallas Willard Hearing God pp. 207-208 All italics are his.

And one more great quote for you...
"It is absolutely essential to the nature of our personal development toward maturity that we venture and be placed at risk, for only risk produces character... [We have all too often tried] to use our ability to hear God as a device for securing a life without risk. When it does not work - as it certainly will not - we begin attacking ourselves, someone else, or even God for being a failure." -Willard p.210

Life really isn't about trying to live in safety but it is about being free and secure in God's love to try, fail, learn and succeed. A risk-free, performance-based Christianity can be a real problem due to how it keeps growth from occurring and stunt God's kingdom from advancing...

His presence

It is obvious when reading the Bible that the Christian life includes following principles and obedience. However, there is a deeper realm than simply seeking to follow rules that God is after - it is the realm of deep friendship. This does not negate obedience, but it shifts focus from simply trying to obey and applying the right principles to the realm of relationship.

I just watched this clip again from The Matrix: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_dqwkIuUm8 - I really think it illustrates a principle I am trying to make. There is a realm in God's presence that changes everything that I think we (the church) have only begun to scratch the surface of. Let me illustrate a quick example of this with a testimony. A buddy of mine just did some healing meetings in England. After they were done and everyone had already left the church, a man in a wheelchair showed up to the church (he apparently thought the meeting was at a different time). As he came to the door, he found he could not go in and that the church was locked. However, at the door, he felt the presence of the Lord very strongly and was instantly healed - this paralyzed man walked normally out of his wheelchair. There is a principle of praying for the sick - and then there is the realm where God's presence just takes care of it without a Christian in sight. It is like when the man was buried in the same tomb as Elijah but he was resurrected when he touched the dead prophet's body - there is no principle for dead-raisings occurring in this manner. I really believe there is a realm of God's presence that God is wanting to open up upon people that breaks all limitation and boxes that we have put Him in regarding how we think He can work through us.

God's Will

I might sound a little like Pastor Bill on this post, but this just needs to be said...

I've heard others say it, but: "if sickness is God's will, why go to the doctor to get medication? Wouldn't you be hindering God's will from happening?" Or do we go to the doctor in order to find out what God's will is? Apparently, if they have a medication for it, then it is God's will for the person not to have their sickness; but, if the doctor can't help them, then God wants them sick. So essentially this theological position states: Go to your doctor to discern the will of God for your sickness. Whatever he can do for you is what God's will is for you.

Where in the world does this sort of theology come from? I can't find anything remotely like this in the Bible. What if the doctor is an Atheist? Is an Atheist doctor really the best person to discern what God's will is for your health? If this theology is right, then it would logically follow that getting a second opinion or pursuing alternative health methods must be the equivolant to questioning God or being rebellious to His will.

Do you really think that everything that happens on planet earth is God's will? If so, then when people are abused or killed that God willed that to occur? Using this kind of reasoning, Adam and Eve eating the fruit in the garden must have been God's will too. This is absurd. Would the woman with the issue of blood been healed if she just accepted that this was God's will for her and did not seek Jesus? Would it really have been God's will if Naman were to have died of the leprosy he had instead of going to someone with a healing ministry?

Some might say, "Well, God allowed it." Just because God does not turn us all into zombies so that no one has free will, does not mean that God premeditates the destruction of people or cause all of their medical problems and other hardships. What kind of God is that? "Well, he disciplines his children" some might say because Hebrews 12 talks of that. There is a major difference between a father disciplining his daughter in love and a father wishing his daughter to be molested in order to teach her a lesson. The first is healthy, the second is abhorent. And some in the church would attribute this sort of attrocity to God or would blame God for allowing it. How come these people do not also blame God for allowing Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden? The only thing I can think of is that this must be what happens when people do theology without relationship - those that try to work hard to understand God get a distorted picture of Him. Studying about the Lord was never meant to be seperate from knowing Him. Both study and knowing Him need to be in the lives of Christians!

"I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly." -Jesus