Aside

This was a recent devotion which I read:

Unveiled Faces

16But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. 17Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. —2 Corinthians 3:16-18

On fire, white hot, rocked to the core, gripped by His greatness, unbelievably contagious; these are all phrases describing one who has experienced a breakthrough, victory over sin, and  transforming growth. Great! The question is, “How do I get there?”

The answer lies in beholding God’s glory . . . with unveiled face. This is defined earlier in the passage as trusting in Him as Savior. When sin and self-reliance are put down and God is lifted up, God’s children with unveiled faces can be more than formed through raw human effort. They can be transformed by His glory pouring over them. This divine transformation (also known as sanctification), purifies us from one degree of glory to another. 

We may think, “Yeah, I believe in Jesus, but I still feel stagnant.” Here’s what we do:

Think of God’s glory as sunshine and get a “glory tan.” Bask in His glory with nothing veiling His impact. Give Him control over your life.  We say, “Great, I get that, and I have been trying to give Him control, but I am holding back or something.” That’s common. Here is a secret; there is one simple step to basking completely unveiled, allowing His glory to pour over you.Breathe. Spiritually breathe. It’s a Bill Bright term, and man, does it capture the essence of that thought. To spiritually breathe we must exhale and then inhale.

Exhaling is breathing out the junk, confessing and repenting of any known sin. Exhaling is getting it clean before God. Exhaling is completely removing the veil between us and God’s glory. It is essential to transformation. To seek any change without being unveiled before God’s glory is just fleshly behavior modification. Remember, God’s glory is where the divine power of change resides.

Inhaling is then claiming any promises of His character, of His person, of His relationship with us. Inhaling is setting your feet on the Rock, our Savior and standing firm. Do not be satisfied with one breath a day, week, or month. You are spiritually suffocating if you do.

So it’s time to start breathing. It’s time to start exhaling and inhaling regularly throughout the day. You will be basking in the radiant glory of the Almighty. You will be on fire! You will betransformed from one degree of glory to another! —Tim Harkness

Star Trek and spiritual warfare

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  • 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

Holy Spirit question

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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.

Who’s side is God on?

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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

Unbroken

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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.