• There is a Star Trek Voyager episode where there is an alien race conducting medical tests on the crew, but the people cannot see them. No one knows that they are there, but they do have headaches and medical issues. But then the doctor (He is a special doctor that really is not real but a hologram. He is a “Holadoc”) thinks of changing one of the character’s vision (For non Star Trek people, 7 of 9 is a special character who had been abducted and altered by a race called the Borg. Anyways, what you need to know is she can have her vision altered). Then 7 of 9 can see these aliens doing this. Here is the connection to our Christian life: we also have spiritual warfare going on but we cannot see it. (Eph 6:12) They could not see these aliens doing this and we also cannot see the Spiritual Warfare going on, but it is going on. 
• see Eph. 6:12

Today I received the following question via email:
I just had a question about some reading this morning from Luke Chapter one verse 15 is below:15 for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born.
How can John be filled with the holy spirit before he is born? I thought the only way to be filled with the spirit is through recognition of our sin and need for God- our repentance and invitation for Christ to be Lord of our lives.
I am confused about the lack of decision on John’s part. Or is this more of the conversation about how much freewill do we have- the elect, predestined and those He foreknew and
such we see in other parts of the new testament? Was this a special circumstance?
Below is my answer:
That is a very good question and I plan to handle this passage this Sunday. Depending on the translation it can also say that “he will be filled with the Holy Spirit from birth.” Whether John was filled with the Holy Spirit from birth or before birth doesn’t matter as much with with respect to your question. How did he get filled with the Holy Spirit? In our times it is certain that we do not receive the baptism of the Spirit until we receive Christ. But John was a prophet similar to an Old Testament prophet and in the Old Testament time period people received the Holy Spirit in order to fulfill a role that God has them to do. Later on in Luke 1 John leaps in his mother’s womb when Mary comes around (verse 41). I think that could be the Holy Spirit’s effect on him. In the Old Testament, specifically Psalm 51 we have people who would say, “Do not take the Holy Spirit from me.’ It was definitely God’s sovereign plan. Though today we receive the Holy Spirit as we receive Christ. To sum it up, John received the Holy Spirit because he was a prophet similar to the prophets of the Old Testament.
Thanks for your questions. I love questions like that. Please never hesitate to ask. God bless.

Here are two interesting articles:

What is a Christian?

What is a Christian?

What is an evangelical?

What is an Evangelical?

I found these very interesting!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-stearns/goodbye-christian-america-hello-true-christianity_b_2082649.html#slide=1024917

I have a book in my office which is called Is God a Republican or Democrat? I have never read the book, but you can barrow it if you want. Abraham Lincoln said something like: The question is not “Is God on our side?” but “Are we on God’s side?”  That is an interesting quote. Last week I read a Scripture that goes along on with this quote:

Joshua 5:13-15:

¹³ Now it came about when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand, and Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us or for our adversaries?” ¹⁴ He said, “No; rather I indeed come now as captain of the host of the Lord.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and bowed down, and said to him, “What has my lord to say to his servant?” ¹⁵ The captain of the Lord’s host said to Joshua, “Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so. 

The issue is not a party, political issue, but an issue of being on God’s side and having faith and confidence in God. In Joshua chapter 6 the Israelites defeated Jericho and they did this because God was with them. As we vote, and we should vote as it is an awesome right, we should remember that we serve God and we can trust in Him regardless. God is in charge regardless of local, state and national elections. If you read Daniel chapter 5 you’ll see that God worked through might Babylon and later Persia to bring the Hebrew people back to their land. God accomplishes His will through His people and even through people who wouldn’t consider themselves His people. 

On another note: This Sunday one of the verses is Titus 3:14:

¹⁴ Our people must also learn to engage in good ^[a]deeds to meet pressing needs, so that they will not be unfruitful.

notice in the translation above (NASB) we see the word engage. That is the possible name for our Saturday night service, We as Christians must engage each other, engage in our relationship with God and engage the world. I love that word and I love this verse. You’ll hear more this Saturday and Sunday. (By the way, engage is a good Star Trek term)

blessings, 

Pastor Steve

2 interesting articles:

Survey: One in five Americans has no religion

http://timothytennent.com/2012/10/09/are-there-really-any-atheists/

I recently read a book which Bonnie Kingsly recommended. The book tells the life of Louis Zamperini. Zamperini was in the 1936 Olympics  held in Germany. He was famous for setting records for how fast he could run the mile.

Later he was planning to enter the next Olympic competition but it was canceled because of WWII. Zamperini entered the war and served on a B 24. He was shot down and spent 47 days at sea and then around three years as a Japanese prisoner of war. He was badly mistreated in the POW camps.

Following the war he dealt with post traumatic stress disorder. This caused him to plunge into alcoholism which brought on a host of other problem. He was married and had one child, but his marriage was being threatened with divorce. Every time he closed his eyes at night he was plagued with memories of his time as a POW. He was filled with hate and wanted to kill one particular guard (Mutsuhiro Watanabe (nicknamed “The Bird”), who was later included in General Douglas MacArthur’s list of the 40 most wanted war criminals in Japan. Finally in 1949 as the 31 year old Billy Graham was preaching an evangelical crusade in Los Angeles, Louis wife gave her life to Christ at the crusade. She eventually convinced Louis to also attend. Louis attended once and was convicted but left in anger during Graham’s invitation. Louis’ wife Cynthia convinced him to attend again. He did and started to leave again during the invitation. But he was convicted and went forward giving his life to Christ.

Following the conversion his life changed dramatically. He went home that night, and at the time when he would usually drink alcohol to excess, he dumped his alcohol down the drain. His hate was changed to forgiveness. His marriage lasted until his wife’s death. He never had nightmares of his time as a POW again. He later went back to Japan and spoke to the guards who were accused and convicted of war crimes. He forgave them. But the one guard who was the worst to Louis, Mutsuhiro Watanabe (nicknamed “The Bird”), was thought dead and Louis never was able to talk to him. Later they found out he was alive and Louis was scheduled to meet with him and wrote the letter below. But he was not able to meet with him as Watanabe declined the invitation. Someone was supposed to take the letter to him, but no one knows if Watanabe received it. The letter is below:

To Matsuhiro [sic] Watanabe,

As a result of my prisoner of war experience under your unwarranted and unreasonable punishment, my post-war life became a nightmare. It was not so much due to the pain and suffering as it was the tension of stress and humiliation that caused me to hate with a vengeance.

Under your discipline, my rights, not only as a prisoner of war but also as a human being, were stripped from me. It was a struggle to maintain enough dignity and hope to live until the war’s end.

The post-war nightmares caused my life to crumble, but thanks to a confrontation with God through the evangelist Billy Graham, I committed my life to Christ. Love replaced the hate I had for you. Christ said, “Forgive your enemies and pray for them.”

As you probably know, I returned to Japan in 1952 [sic] and was graciously allowed to address all the Japanese war criminals at Sugamo prison… I asked them about you, and was told that you probably had committed Hara Kiri, which I was sad to hear. At that moment, like the others, I also forgave you and now would hope that you would also become a Christian.

Louis Zamperini

Hillenbrand, Laura. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. Random House, Inc.. New York. 2010. Specifically pages 396-397 for the letter and pages 368-398 for Louis conversion and life transformation.

Pages: 78-88: This is the final chapter besides the conclusion.

I love the opening of this chapter:

In the 1930s, German church leaders defended Adolf Hitler as a leader who didn’t smoke or drink, encouraged women to dress modestly, and opposed pornography. Alcorn writes: If that’s your checklist, Hitler was a swell guy.

Alcorn says that “nothing’s colder than dead, legalistic, orthodoxy.”

Isn’t that true though. But we do need to focus on truth, don’t we? It is such a difficult balance. Towards the end of the chapter Alcorn writes: “Truth hates sin, grace loves sinners.” I find that very well put and if we can combine this paradox in our lives and be full of grace and truth, I think we will live like Christ. Grace should never give us a license for sin and truth should never give us a license for legalism.

A good quote:

• “If we minimize grace, the world sees no hope for salvation. If we minimize truth, the world sees no need for salvation. To show the world Jesus, we must offer unabridged grace and truth, emphasizing both, apologizing for neither. The Colossian church ‘understood God’s grace in all its truth’” Col 1:6). (page 87)

In a few weeks I will begin blogging on another short book by Randy Alcorn called “The Treasure Principle.” This deals with giving.

Please comment on this book and have a blessed week!

I read this on James MacDonald’s Vertical Church blog:
Evangelism Breakthrough Starts Here
SEP
20
2012

My mom, who went to heaven in July 2010, was the most effective personal evangelist I have ever known. It was extremely common during my childhood to see my mother sitting at the kitchen table with her Bible open in earnest conversation with another mom who lived on our street. Some of these were friends, some became friends, and some remained friends though they did not respond to the gospel. I have never sensed my mother’s friendship was a bargaining chip in evangelism. She found the biblical balance between influence and boldness. My mom led to Christ a woman named Shirley, who lived to the north of our house and now resides in heaven; in the two houses directly across the street, she reached Judy and Marg and a fourth woman (whose name escapes me) who lived behind us. What’s more incredible is that even after moving three times since those days in the 1970s, she continued to influence each of these women for Christ. They remained friends until my mom died, and the three still living were all at her memorial service. But what of the woman to the south and the other neighbor women who had equal opportunity to hear my mother’s bold witness but refused it?
When Harvest started, I wanted our people to experience success in personal evangelism and thought a lot about the women my mother reached versus those who refused the very same messenger with the very same message using the very same bold method. Hidden inside the stories of the women who responded to her compelling witness for Christ are stories that shatter their apparent similarity, revealing what God was doing to ready their hearts. In each instance where my mom was able to win and disciple a woman for Christ, there was an overarching life issue that ripened that woman’s heart to the good news of Jesus. Understanding that difference is the key to effective evangelistic ministry in a Vertical Church.
Same Lesson, Different Location and Time
Lest you think I built our entire evangelistic ministry on my mom’s witness pattern, let me show it to you in Scripture, and then how we seek to implement it in our Vertical Church. What did Jesus mean when He exhorted every future evangelist? “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are already ripe for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life” (John 4:35-36). Please don’t miss what Jesus is saying about the people He wants you and your church to get the good news to.
Stop saying the harvest is months away; it’s today.
All around us this moment are people ripe to the gospel.
Look past the preference of who you want saved and locate those God has ripened.
I can reap now where others have sown, if I look for the ripe fruit.
Gathering ripe fruit is reaping souls for eternal life.
In Vertical Church, we seek to adopt the most biblical language possible. In evangelism, we refer to people ready to respond to the gospel now as red apples; they are ripe to the gospel. For that reason we refer to people not yet ready as green apples. If you take that thinking out of John 4:34–38 and into Jesus’s interactions with people, it changes the way you see the Gospels and gospel work today. Jesus Christ constantly cut through the crowd filled with green apples to focus His energy on the red ones already ripe for His message. He left a crowd of green apples to talk with Zacchaeus, the lone red one. He turned to the desperate woman with the issue of blood even though surrounded by masses. He stopped for the centurion determined to see his daughter healed, He embraced the woman shamed by her sin whom the crowds despised, He talked at great length with Nicodemus who longed for more than his formulaic religiosity. In every instance Jesus invested in the ripe red apples, those with strong readiness abandon the life they knew for something better. Repeatedly Christ even explained His rationale: “The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10), “Those who are well have no need of a physician” (Matthew 9:12), and there is “more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15:7). Jesus gave time without limit to the red apples He met, but would hardly give the time of day to the green apples. Without insulting those not yet ripe, Christ did refuse them. When the rich, young ruler came to Jesus, he asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 18:18). How many churches in our day would have that guy’s name on a card or serving as an usher in a matter of minutes? “He seems so interested, so passionate, so hungry for the things of God.” But Jesus used the law to elicit his prideful assertion that he was not sinful: “All these things I have kept from my youth up; what do I lack?” Christ responded to him, “Go, sell everything you have and give it to the poor” (Luke 18:21-22). Why did Jesus say this? Not because divesting his wealth would gain him eternal life, but because his refusal to do so revealed his unreadiness for a God other than the god of his possessions.
This revealing of a green apple’s unripeness was common with Christ. In the closing verses of Luke 9, Jesus had three quick encounters with green apples as He walked down a road. Two expressed a desire to follow Christ; the third He invited. In each instance Christ responded in a way that revealed the person’s unripeness: “You’re not ready to follow me, I don’t have a place to lay my head down,” “Leave the dead to bury their own dead,” “Followers don’t look back; you’re unfit” (Luke 9:57-62). Too shallow, too superficial, too slow, in each instance Christ turned the green apple away. But when people become aware of personal sin, open to complete life change, humbled enough to see their needs, they are ripe, red, and ready for a gospel witness. Those are the ones Christ sought out.
Excerpted from Vertical Church.