God bless you dear reader. You are not alone in your struggle. God is right there with you.
When we struggle in life, we must turn our hearts to the Lord and seek Him, seek His face and draw nigh unto Him. It's not a time to ignore God and seek counsel from others. When we neglect the One who has all of the answers, we are setting ourselves up for defeat. We do not want or need to be defeated. Our victory is found in Christ Jesus and His holy word. There are no shortcuts to living victoriously. Everyone struggles. But, the way you deal with the struggle will determine the final outcome. So choices are huge. How you choose to react to situations and circumstances is huge. We don't always have to blame everyone else for our problems. We don't always have to fly off the handle and scream at someone to make us feel better. When and if we feel like this, we need to find a quiet place to spend some quality time with God. Take some time to pray in tongues. If you are not baptized in the Holy yet, ask the Lord for this wonderful gift. Acts 2:38-39 says this gift is for you, the believer in Jesus. Receive this gift of speaking in tongues. It edifies or builds us up.....it builds our faith to put us in a position where we actually believe God, hallelujah. Sometimes, we just don't believe what God has told us in His word, therefore, we live a defeated life. Our hope is in God. Our hope is in His word. Sometimes we get depressed because our focus is not on God. We have shifted gears somewhere and have gotten our eyes off of the Lord and His word. Get back in the word! It's God's word that helps transform and renew our minds. Oh my, how we need our minds renewed. The mind is where most of our problems originate! We are not thinking right. We have gotten off track somewhere......we have strayed from what God has said and we have believed something totally opposite of what God has declared or promised. Stop right now and praise God for His word and praise God for all the good things that He HAS done for you.....come on......stop looking at all the negative stuff.......focus on what God has done for you! Come on. He has done some pretty awesome things for you and sometimes you need to remember where you used to be. God has saved you for a purpose. Oh yes. He has plans and purpose for you. Don't let the struggles destroy you. Allow the struggles to make you stronger than you were before. Get your focus back. Go out and take a walk and pray in the Spirit for the duration of this walk. Praise God for His many blessings. Praise God for your salvation. Praise God that He has delivered you from the powers of hell and you are on your way to heaven! You have so much to be thankful for. It may look bleak right now, but you need to praise your way out of this mess! Paul and Silas praised their way out of that prison cell!!!!!! Come on. Get your praise on!!!! God is for you, not against you!!!!! Put some praise and worship music on and worship the Lord for about an hour!!!!!!! Watch God move in your life!!!!! You are victorious in Him!!!!!!!
Donna Kazenske
Friday, October 9, 2015
Saturday, October 3, 2015
What is Revival?
Revival, in its truest essence, is the manifest power of God lifting humankind to the proper standard of supreme life and righteousness. Revival occurs when God reveals His mind to us regarding His ideal vitality for His body in the earth. A revival is a revolt against anemic, watered-down, knock-off Christianity. A revival is essentially an unfiltered and unadulterated manifestation of God. Revival raises the trajectory of your expectancy and spiritual aspirations to higher glory. It creates a longing for more of His power and character to manifest in your life at unprecedented levels. Revival is bringing to completion everything promised in the divine purpose of God in order for His people to see full restoration. Revival is never being satisfied to park the car of your walk halfway up the mountain. (Sean Smith - From his book entitled, "I Am Your Sign")
Saturday, September 19, 2015
What a day to be alive. :-). God is moving all over the world and He so desires to use His people to do exploits for His Kingdom purposes. We must awaken to the things of God and throw off the complacency and compromising attitudes. We must live our lives according to God's word and do all that He is requiring us to do. He will empower us as we step out by faith to obey Him. :-). These are exciting times. Let's get on fire for God so that others will want what we have. :-)
Thursday, September 10, 2015
Thursday, June 18, 2009
The Desert Fathers - Borrowing from the East
by Ray Yungen
Catholic priest William Shannon in his book, Seeds of Peace, explained the human dilemma as being the following:
This forgetfulness, of our oneness with God, is not just a personal experience, it is the corporate experience of humanity. Indeed, this is one way to understanding original sin. We are in God, but we don't seem to know it. We are in paradise, but we don't realize it.1
Shannon's viewpoint defines the basic underlying worldview of the contemplative prayer movement as a whole. One can find similar quotations in practically every book written by contemplative authors. A Hindu guru or a Zen Buddhist master would offer the same explanation. This conclusion becomes completely logical when tracing the roots of contemplative prayer. Let us look at the beginnings of this practice.
In the early Middle Ages, there lived a group of hermits in the wilderness areas of the Middle East. They are known to history as the Desert Fathers. They dwelt in small isolated communities for the purpose of devoting their lives completely to God without distraction. The contemplative movement traces its roots back to these monks who promoted the mantra as a prayer tool. One meditation scholar made this connection when he said:
The meditation practices and rules for living of these earliest Christian monks bear strong similarity to those of their Hindu and Buddhist renunciate brethren several kingdoms to the East ... the meditative techniques they adopted for finding their God suggest either a borrowing from the East or a spontaneous rediscovery.2
Many of the Desert Fathers, in their zeal, were simply seeking God through trial and error. A leading contemplative prayer teacher candidly acknowledged the haphazard way the Desert Fathers acquired their practices:
It was a time of great experimentation with spiritual methods. Many different kinds of disciplines were tried, some of which are too harsh or extreme for people today. Many different methods of prayer were created and explored by them.3
Attempting to reach God through occult mystical practices will guarantee disaster. The Desert Fathers of Egypt were located in a particularly dangerous locale at that time to be groping around for innovative approaches to God, because as one theologian pointed out:
[D]evelopment of Christian meditative disciplines should have begun in Egypt because much of the intellectual, philosophical, and theological basis of the practice of meditation in Christianity also comes out of the theology of Hellenic and Roman Egypt. This is significant because it was in Alexandria that Christian theology had the most contact with the various Gnostic speculations which, according to many scholars, have their roots in the East, possibly in India.4
Consequently, the Desert Fathers believed as long as the desire for God was sincere--anything could be utilized to reach God. If a method worked for the Hindus to reach their gods, then Christian mantras could be used to reach Jesus. A current practitioner and promoter of the Desert Fathers' mystical prayer still echoes the logical formulations of his mystical ancestors:
In the wider ecumenism of the Spirit being opened for us today, we need to humbly accept the learnings of particular Eastern religions ... What makes a particular practice Christian is not its source, but its intent ... this is important to remember in the face of those Christians who would try to impoverish our spiritual resources by too narrowly defining them. If we view the human family as one in God's spirit, then this historical cross-fertilization is not surprising ... selective attention to Eastern spiritual practices can be of great assistance to a fully embodied Christian life.5
Do you catch the reasoning here? Non-Christian sources, as avenues to spiritual growth, are perfectly legitimate in the Christian life, and if Christians only practice their Christianity based on the Bible, they will actually impoverish their spirituality. This was the thinking of the Desert Fathers. So as a result, we now have contemplative prayer. Jesus addressed this when he warned His disciples: "And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions, as the heathen do." (Matthew 6:7)
It should be apparent that mantra meditation or sacred word prayer qualifies as "vain repetition" and clearly fits an accurate description of the point Jesus was making. Yet in spite of this, trusted evangelical Christians have often pronounced that Christian mysticism is different from other forms of mysticism (such as Eastern or occult) because it is focused on Jesus Christ.
This logic may sound credible on the surface, but Christians must ask themselves a very simple and fundamental question: What really makes a practice Christian? The answer is obvious--does the New Testament sanction it? Hasn't Christ taught us, through His Word, to pray in faith in His name and according to His will? Did He leave something out? Would Jesus hold out on His true followers? Never!
Understanding this truth, God has declared in His Word that He does not leave it up to earnest, yet sinful people, to reinvent their own Christianity. When Christians ignore God's instructions in following Him they end up learning the way of the heathen. Israel did this countless times. It is just human nature.
The account of Cain and Abel is a classic biblical example of spiritual infidelity. Both of Adam's sons wanted to please God, but Cain decided he would experiment with his own method of being devout. Cain must have reasoned to himself: "Perhaps God would like fruit or grain better than a dead animal. It's not as gross. It's less smelly. Hey, I think I will try it!"
As you know, God was not the least bit impressed by Cain's attempt to create his own approach to pleasing God. The Lord made it clear to Cain that God's favor would be upon him if he did what is right, not just what was intended for God or God-focused.
In many ways, the Desert Fathers were like Cain--eager to please but not willing to listen to the instruction of the Lord and do what was right. One cannot fault them for their devotion, but one certainly can fault them for their lack of discernment.
Notes:
1. William Shannon, Seeds of Peace, p. 66.
2. Daniel Goleman, The Meditative Mind 1988, p.53.
3. Ken Kaisch, Finding God, p.191.
4. Father William Teska, Meditation in Christianity , p.65.
5. Tilden Edwards, Living in the Presence , Acknowledgement page.
Catholic priest William Shannon in his book, Seeds of Peace, explained the human dilemma as being the following:
This forgetfulness, of our oneness with God, is not just a personal experience, it is the corporate experience of humanity. Indeed, this is one way to understanding original sin. We are in God, but we don't seem to know it. We are in paradise, but we don't realize it.1
Shannon's viewpoint defines the basic underlying worldview of the contemplative prayer movement as a whole. One can find similar quotations in practically every book written by contemplative authors. A Hindu guru or a Zen Buddhist master would offer the same explanation. This conclusion becomes completely logical when tracing the roots of contemplative prayer. Let us look at the beginnings of this practice.
In the early Middle Ages, there lived a group of hermits in the wilderness areas of the Middle East. They are known to history as the Desert Fathers. They dwelt in small isolated communities for the purpose of devoting their lives completely to God without distraction. The contemplative movement traces its roots back to these monks who promoted the mantra as a prayer tool. One meditation scholar made this connection when he said:
The meditation practices and rules for living of these earliest Christian monks bear strong similarity to those of their Hindu and Buddhist renunciate brethren several kingdoms to the East ... the meditative techniques they adopted for finding their God suggest either a borrowing from the East or a spontaneous rediscovery.2
Many of the Desert Fathers, in their zeal, were simply seeking God through trial and error. A leading contemplative prayer teacher candidly acknowledged the haphazard way the Desert Fathers acquired their practices:
It was a time of great experimentation with spiritual methods. Many different kinds of disciplines were tried, some of which are too harsh or extreme for people today. Many different methods of prayer were created and explored by them.3
Attempting to reach God through occult mystical practices will guarantee disaster. The Desert Fathers of Egypt were located in a particularly dangerous locale at that time to be groping around for innovative approaches to God, because as one theologian pointed out:
[D]evelopment of Christian meditative disciplines should have begun in Egypt because much of the intellectual, philosophical, and theological basis of the practice of meditation in Christianity also comes out of the theology of Hellenic and Roman Egypt. This is significant because it was in Alexandria that Christian theology had the most contact with the various Gnostic speculations which, according to many scholars, have their roots in the East, possibly in India.4
Consequently, the Desert Fathers believed as long as the desire for God was sincere--anything could be utilized to reach God. If a method worked for the Hindus to reach their gods, then Christian mantras could be used to reach Jesus. A current practitioner and promoter of the Desert Fathers' mystical prayer still echoes the logical formulations of his mystical ancestors:
In the wider ecumenism of the Spirit being opened for us today, we need to humbly accept the learnings of particular Eastern religions ... What makes a particular practice Christian is not its source, but its intent ... this is important to remember in the face of those Christians who would try to impoverish our spiritual resources by too narrowly defining them. If we view the human family as one in God's spirit, then this historical cross-fertilization is not surprising ... selective attention to Eastern spiritual practices can be of great assistance to a fully embodied Christian life.5
Do you catch the reasoning here? Non-Christian sources, as avenues to spiritual growth, are perfectly legitimate in the Christian life, and if Christians only practice their Christianity based on the Bible, they will actually impoverish their spirituality. This was the thinking of the Desert Fathers. So as a result, we now have contemplative prayer. Jesus addressed this when he warned His disciples: "And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions, as the heathen do." (Matthew 6:7)
It should be apparent that mantra meditation or sacred word prayer qualifies as "vain repetition" and clearly fits an accurate description of the point Jesus was making. Yet in spite of this, trusted evangelical Christians have often pronounced that Christian mysticism is different from other forms of mysticism (such as Eastern or occult) because it is focused on Jesus Christ.
This logic may sound credible on the surface, but Christians must ask themselves a very simple and fundamental question: What really makes a practice Christian? The answer is obvious--does the New Testament sanction it? Hasn't Christ taught us, through His Word, to pray in faith in His name and according to His will? Did He leave something out? Would Jesus hold out on His true followers? Never!
Understanding this truth, God has declared in His Word that He does not leave it up to earnest, yet sinful people, to reinvent their own Christianity. When Christians ignore God's instructions in following Him they end up learning the way of the heathen. Israel did this countless times. It is just human nature.
The account of Cain and Abel is a classic biblical example of spiritual infidelity. Both of Adam's sons wanted to please God, but Cain decided he would experiment with his own method of being devout. Cain must have reasoned to himself: "Perhaps God would like fruit or grain better than a dead animal. It's not as gross. It's less smelly. Hey, I think I will try it!"
As you know, God was not the least bit impressed by Cain's attempt to create his own approach to pleasing God. The Lord made it clear to Cain that God's favor would be upon him if he did what is right, not just what was intended for God or God-focused.
In many ways, the Desert Fathers were like Cain--eager to please but not willing to listen to the instruction of the Lord and do what was right. One cannot fault them for their devotion, but one certainly can fault them for their lack of discernment.
Notes:
1. William Shannon, Seeds of Peace, p. 66.
2. Daniel Goleman, The Meditative Mind 1988, p.53.
3. Ken Kaisch, Finding God, p.191.
4. Father William Teska, Meditation in Christianity , p.65.
5. Tilden Edwards, Living in the Presence , Acknowledgement page.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Religion vs. Christianity: What’s the difference?
“Why are you Christians always sending missionaries overseas? People have their own culture, their own religion, why don’t you just leave them alone?!” This is one of the most common statements we hear as we lecture on college and university campuses throughout the United States and around the world. Students and faculty often jeeringly ask us, “What is so special about Christianity, different from every religion in the world?” To be sure, this is a very significant question; and probably one of the most significant questions that any Christian could ask themselves: what is so special about Jesus Christ?
Our family has a close friend named Lou. Lou grew up in the nation of Thailand and he was a Buddhist for the first 20 years of his life until he met some Christian missionaries who introduced him to Jesus Christ. If you were to ask Lou today, “What is so special about Jesus Christ and Christianity different from every other religion in the world?” Lou would share with you the following story:
“When I was a Buddhist I felt like I was in the middle of a large lake. I was drowning and I didn’t know how to swim. As I struggled to keep my head above water, I looked out towards the shore and saw Buddha walking up to the edge of the lake. I was going under for the third time, when suddenly Buddha began shouting out instructions to me, teaching me how to swim. Buddha shouted, ‘Kick your legs and paddle your arms.’ But then Buddha said, ‘Lou, you must make it to shore by yourself.’ As I desperately struggled to follow the instructions of Buddha, I looked out towards the shore again, but this time I saw Jesus Christ walking towards the edge of the lake. However, Jesus did not stop at the edge of the lake. Jesus dove into the lake and he swam out and rescued me! And once Jesus had brought me safely back to shore, then he taught me how to swim, so that I could go back and rescue others!”
You see, this is the key difference between Christianity and every other religion in the world: Christianity is not a religion! What are religions? Religions are about human attempts to make our lives right with God, through our good works, sacrifices, rituals, and money. However, Christianity is not a religion. Christianity is about God entering human history to graciously save men and women through His Son Jesus Christ. It is only by placing our faith in Jesus Christ and submitting to his Lordship that we will be saved.
A relationship with God will never be found in any religion, because religions only offer swimming lessons to people drowning in the sea of sin. And it doesn’t matter how sincere or devout you are in your religious faith and practice, because the sea of sin is eternally immense. The only hope for men and women drowning in the sea of sin is Jesus Christ. God entered human history in the person of Jesus Christ; he dove into the sea of sin in order to save desperate and drowning people. If you’ll allow him to take you there, he’ll hold you in his loving arms and bring you safely to shore. And after arriving safely to shore, then your swimming lessons begin, so that you can go back and rescue others!
By Jason Carlson and Dr. Ron Carlson of CMI
Christian Ministries International is an organization that seeks to equip the church in response to the challenges of the world’s religions, cults, and various apologetic issues. CMI can be found on the web and contacted through: www.christianministriesintl.org.
Our family has a close friend named Lou. Lou grew up in the nation of Thailand and he was a Buddhist for the first 20 years of his life until he met some Christian missionaries who introduced him to Jesus Christ. If you were to ask Lou today, “What is so special about Jesus Christ and Christianity different from every other religion in the world?” Lou would share with you the following story:
“When I was a Buddhist I felt like I was in the middle of a large lake. I was drowning and I didn’t know how to swim. As I struggled to keep my head above water, I looked out towards the shore and saw Buddha walking up to the edge of the lake. I was going under for the third time, when suddenly Buddha began shouting out instructions to me, teaching me how to swim. Buddha shouted, ‘Kick your legs and paddle your arms.’ But then Buddha said, ‘Lou, you must make it to shore by yourself.’ As I desperately struggled to follow the instructions of Buddha, I looked out towards the shore again, but this time I saw Jesus Christ walking towards the edge of the lake. However, Jesus did not stop at the edge of the lake. Jesus dove into the lake and he swam out and rescued me! And once Jesus had brought me safely back to shore, then he taught me how to swim, so that I could go back and rescue others!”
You see, this is the key difference between Christianity and every other religion in the world: Christianity is not a religion! What are religions? Religions are about human attempts to make our lives right with God, through our good works, sacrifices, rituals, and money. However, Christianity is not a religion. Christianity is about God entering human history to graciously save men and women through His Son Jesus Christ. It is only by placing our faith in Jesus Christ and submitting to his Lordship that we will be saved.
A relationship with God will never be found in any religion, because religions only offer swimming lessons to people drowning in the sea of sin. And it doesn’t matter how sincere or devout you are in your religious faith and practice, because the sea of sin is eternally immense. The only hope for men and women drowning in the sea of sin is Jesus Christ. God entered human history in the person of Jesus Christ; he dove into the sea of sin in order to save desperate and drowning people. If you’ll allow him to take you there, he’ll hold you in his loving arms and bring you safely to shore. And after arriving safely to shore, then your swimming lessons begin, so that you can go back and rescue others!
By Jason Carlson and Dr. Ron Carlson of CMI
Christian Ministries International is an organization that seeks to equip the church in response to the challenges of the world’s religions, cults, and various apologetic issues. CMI can be found on the web and contacted through: www.christianministriesintl.org.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
