Prayer of St. Patrick

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!
A truly remarkable man - worth looking into his history!


I arise today
Through a mighty strength. the invocation of the Trinity,
The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,
Through a belief in the threeness,
Through confession of the oneness
Of the Creator of Creation.

I arise today
Through the strength of Christ’s birth with his baptism,
Through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension,
Through the strength of his ascent to the great white throne.

I arise today
Through the strength of the love of Cherubim,
In obedience of angels,
In service of archangels,
In hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In prayers of patriarchs,
In predictions of prophets,
In preaching of apostles,
In faith of confessors,
In innocence of holiness,
In deeds of righteousness.

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven:
Light of sun,
Radiance of moon,
Splendour of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of wind,
Depth of sea,
Stability of earth,
Firmness of rock.

I arise today
Through God’s strength to pilot m:
God’s might to uphold me,
God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s eye to look before me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak to me,
God’s hand to guard me,
God’s way to lie before me,
God’s shield to protect me,
God’s host to save me

From the snares of devils,
From the temptations of vices,
From everyone who shall wish me ill,
From everyone who thinks ill of me,
Far and near,
Alone and in multitude.

I summon today all these powers between those evils, and me,
Against every cruel merciless power that may oppose my body and soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of paganism,
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that corrupts man’s body and soul.

Christ shield me today
Against poison, against burning,
Against drowning, wounding, accidents, sickness and disease,
Against loss and misfortune,
So that there may come to me abundance of reward.
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,

Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man, woman and child, who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

So be it, Amen

(Adapted from St. Patrick’s Breastplate, How the Irish Saved Civilization, Thomas Cahill, Toronto Doubleday 1995)

Everything

A friend sent an email asking if I'd seen this video. It was posted on GodTube, a Christianized version of Youtube. I hadn't heard of Godtube before but I think there is a place for it - as long as it doesn't remove Christians from interacting missionally with their culture.

I often ignore the "have you seen this" links or quickly browse through them to see if anything catches my interest. I thought I'd briefly check this one out and watch the first bit. I was surprised by its impact. I was questioning it with my intellect but at the same time it snuck up on me and struck deep at the heart level. It reminded me of my time with street kids. It's not short (almost six minutes long) but check it out.



The name of the song is Everything. It's by a band called Lifehouse and you can find it on their album, No Name Face - I've posted the lyrics. (Rather vague and not really a major theological treatise but goes well with the skit.)

Everything
Find Me Here
Speak To Me
I want to feel you
I need to hear you
You are the light
That's leading me
To the place where I find peace again.

You are the strength, that keeps me walking.
You are the hope, that keeps me trusting.
You are the light to my soul.
You are my purpose...you're everything.

How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?

You calm the storms, and you give me rest.
You hold me in your hands, you won't let me fall.
You steal my heart, and you take my breath away.
Would you take me in? Take me deeper now?

Cause you're all I want, You're all I need
You're everything,everything

The Problem of Evil (according to Hollywood)

Often, there are times when watching a movie, that I yell at the TV screen (in my mind at least) shouting: "Just Pray!!!" The story writers in movies and TV effectively portray life-threatening situations, fearful circumstances, times of mind-numbing pain and anguish and at times blatant evil. The ways people respond to these situations are as varied as life itself - except for one glaring omission. People don't pray. God is rarely, if ever, seen as a solution.

Movies and television shows rarely show a spiritual response to what are in essence spiritual problems. This is especially true in the horror genre where authentic evil is being presented. [A caveat should be made here. I don't watch horror/slasher/occult movies - ever. This includes movies like Harry Potter and Ghostbusters. I don't like them - mostly because of their poor understanding of the supernatural, bad (actually destructive) theology, the promotion of fear, and their glorification of violent evil. I've seen scenes from some of these movies - usually through previews or reviews but refuse to watch the movies themselves.]

The solutions proposed in most movies seem to lie in a narrowly defined parameter of acceptable responses to these life crises (usually escape/fleeing or having a hero appear or rise up from the group to save the day). The most disconcerting types of solutions are those offered when the story is dealing with something that is blatantly evil - often supernaturally evil. Here is where the responses don't make any sense.

The first style of response is usually human Ingenuity - a scientific response to a supernatural evil. A movie like "Ghostbusters" is typical of this response. The heroes in Ghostbusters get rid of all the ghosts, apparitions, etc., by zapping them with their containment machine. The strange, unbelievable thing about this is that they completely accept the reality of supernatural, spiritual evil but propose a scientific, materialistic, non-spiritual solution - and suggest it works. I guess Hollywood makes dreams come true.

The second solution to the evil threat in many of these movies is the glorification or maybe the beatification of the occult. This usually involves using "good magic" or witchcraft to defeat the "evil or bad magic/witchcraft." This is the approach of the Harry Potter books and movies. There seems to be no awareness that evil cannot be used to defeat evil and that a house divided against itself will fall.

Jesus talked about this in Matthew 12:
24But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, "It is only by Beelzebub,[d] the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons." 25Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, "Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. 26If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? 27And if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your people drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. 28But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

The third solution is the most distressing to me. This is where the protagonists actually become evil to defeat evil. They become the thing they are battling to somehow use the power of the evil force to overcome the evil they face. Afterwards there is some deliverance or rescue of the hero that needs to take place to deliver them from evil - but again it is some human or scientific force that is able to do it. In this situation there is at least the recognition that the evil is supernatural and that they cannot overcome that power with their own strength. The scary part is that the solution advocated is to become evil like your enemy to defeat your enemy. So to defeat a vampire you must become a vampire. Movies like "Van Helsing" and now a new movie "30 Days of Night" advocate this approach.

In all of these films God and the power of the Cross is neglected, negated or ridiculed. Prayer is seen as ineffective and the option used only by the weak or by the sniveling. I suppose when light is removed from the scene, there are only varying shades of grey. When there is no acceptance of the reality, goodness and power of God in Jesus Christ, the only place to turn is human effort or witchcraft.

It causes me great concern because there are many who are raised on a steady diet of this stuff - especially children [which to me is one of the real dangers of the current expression of Halloween with its strong emphasis on the occult and the violent, bloody aspects of the horror genre]. It is also unbelievable that there wouldn't be anyone in any of these movies who, if faced with this circumstance, is actually praying. Hollywood is producing movies portraying real evil. Okay, then provide real solutions to evil, and those solutions need to involve the Cross. "They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death." Revelation 12:11.

Marc Newman says it this way in Movie Ministry:

The problem with this kind of Problem of Evil is that it makes people feel helpless and hopeless in the face of the real, supernatural evil that most suspect is really out there.

Audiences deserve better. Evil is not eternal. Perhaps we in the Church need to do a better job of explaining the reality of the spiritual world. We must not leave that job to Hollywood. When we enthusiastically tell of our own encounters with God's redemptive goodness, it exposes these fraudulent attempts, such as 30 Days of Night, to debase supernatural warfare (albeit fictional) by turning it into a mere materialist turf war. "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places," the Apostle Paul tells us (Ephesians 6:12). And Hollywood does better when it gets that part right.

Cramming Prayer

I used some of the material found in my Slowing Down posts (here and here) to write an article for a local prayer newsletter called "The Kneeling Army." It's not all original stuff but I like how it turned out. Here it is.

Cramming Prayer
By Michael Krause (with a little help from my friends).

Some people relax or refresh themselves the way many college students cram for exams – instead of routinely giving space to rest, they hold their collective breath as their schedules fill with meetings and phone calls and e-mails and movies and … Discovering the stress of this breakneck pace, these same busy folk schedule a weekend off – but to pull it off, they must first work extra hours to clear their schedules, then go out of town to get away from the interruptions or take a whole week off, which then requires three days of recovery. In other words, they “cram” into their busy schedule some relaxation but have to get out of their regular, daily life to do it. Ever try to cram in some relaxation? It helps, but it doesn’t solve the problem. Just the expression “cram in some relaxation” creates tension.

Some people pray the way college students cram for exams …

Cramming reveals a basic misunderstanding of life – and many of us (me included) try to cram in prayer. We go about our daily lives trying to cope with the pressures of living: get up, make breakfast, make lunches, get the kids to school, get to work, make your boss happy, deal with cranky co-workers, stay late, rush to get the kids home, make supper, take the kids to lessons, or the mall, go shopping, pick up the kids again, get ready for bed, sleep, get up … Then when a crisis comes - like a sick child, being laid-off/fired, a new job, a new house, a crisis at work, a parent with cancer, an urgent deadline - we desperately cram in our prayer, frantically, anxiously hoping it will be effective.

Prayer needs to be like breathing, a regular rhythm of breathing out the concerns of our hearts and lives, then breathing in the restorative life and words of God. It is daily. It is hourly. It is moment by moment and needs to be as steady as breathing – part of the rhythm of life. But we often think prayer is effective only if it involves deep, intense, long times of intercession or contemplation, instead of it being natural and organic – like breathing. We are also too often in a hurry to go somewhere else or do something different to take notice of the fact that God is right there – closer than our next breath.

John Ortberg describes his attempt this way: “I called a wise friend to ask for some spiritual direction. I described the pace of life in my current ministry. The church where I serve tends to move at a fast clip. I also told him about our rhythms of family life. I told him about the present condition of my heart, as best I could discern it. “What do I need to do,” I asked him, “to be spiritually healthy?” Long pause. "You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life," he said at last. Another long pause. "Okay, I've written that one down," I told him, a little impatiently. "That's a good one. Now what else is there?" I had many things to do, and this was a long-distance call, so I was anxious to cram as many units of spiritual wisdom into the least amount of time possible. Another long pause. "There is nothing else," he said. "You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life."

Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day. Hurry destroys souls. Thomas Merton said: “The rush of life is a form of violence.” And Carl Jung wrote, "Hurry is not of the devil; hurry is the devil."

For most of us, the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith or never pray. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them. We will settle for cramming prayers instead of a life of prayer.

Paul said it this way: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:6-7

Unseen Things (Guest Blog)

I read Fred Peatross' blog Abductive Columns fairly regularly and actually get an email newsletter from him every week or so. This one encouraged me in the ongoing battle to walk in such a way to affirm that faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of thing unseen. So I've posted it in its entirety. Be blessed. Happy Thanksgiving!

Our Stories and their Eternal Effect

You've seen the wildlife programs, I'm sure. The lion prowls in the tall grass, its tawny coat blending with the surroundings. What's the lion's strategy? Does he go charging into the middle of a herd of adult zebras? No. He stalks the herd, crouching, watching, waiting. Then a young zebra strays from the herd and the lion springs from the grass, runs the zebra down, tears it to pieces, and devours it.

When seeing such brutality, one can't help but think that something has gone terribly wrong with nature. The truth is, it has. Nature reflects the fallenness of the world. What we see in the natural realm is a shadow of what takes place in the spiritual realm. Thus, when Peter describes the devil, he pictures him as a roaring lion that prowls the earth, looking for some victim to devour.

Despite how safe our neighborhoods may seem on the surface, we live in a war-torn world where the forces of good and evil are engaged in the most intense battles. Here and there in the Scriptures, the veil is lifted, and we are shown something of the battle being fought over us.

While serving under the rein of a Persian king, Daniel received a vision of God, after which he prayed and fasted for three weeks. At the end of those three weeks an angel came to visit Daniel.

'Relax, Daniel, don't be afraid. From the moment you decided to humble yourself to receive understanding, your prayer was heard, and I set out to come to you. But I was waylaid by the angel-prince of the kingdom of Persia and was delayed for a good three weeks. But then Michael, one of the chief angel-princes, intervened to help me. I left him there with the prince of the kingdom of Persia. And now I'm here to help you understand what will eventually happen to your people. The vision has to do with what's ahead.' (Dan 10:12-13)

Before the angel left, he lifted the veil a little further.

'Do you know why I've come here to you? I now have to go back to fight against the angel-prince of Persia, and when I get him out of the way, the angel-prince of Greece will arrive. But first let me tell you what's written in The True Book. No one helps me in my fight against these beings except Michael, your angel-prince.' (Daniel 10:20-21)

What's comforting about this incident is that Daniel's prayer was heard, and help was dispatched immediately. What's unsettling is that for a 'good three weeks' the will of heaven was thwarted because of opposition in the spirit realm.

How formidable must the opposition be to have delayed such a warrior? How fierce the combat to have lasted so long?

Thinking about the combat raises some questions about the battles fought over you and me. How many battles, I wonder, were fought over us as children? And how many are still being fought over us as adults?

How fierce are the assaults-and how valiant the defense? How long did they rage? At what cost were the victories achieved? At what cost the defeats? And how many attacks never reached us because some angel fought his heart out, taking the blows that were meant for us?

And what about those who are still praying? Whose prayers seem to go unheard? I can't say for sure but my guess is the angels are fighting their hearts out.

Ethics and Authenticity

I’ve been thinking about the concept of Ethics and Authenticity. Too often, in our Christian life we've been taught to live out our lives through ethics – “In this situation do that.” We have learned to study principles in the Bible and systematically apply them to various situations in our lives. If this situation comes up, look to this Scripture to find this principle and apply it to your life. Much of our preaching and teaching has followed that pattern. So our preaching becomes “how-to” sermons or lessons in application and we read less and less of actual Scripture in our gatherings.

The danger of this type of living is that you don’t actually have to be a Christian to live ethically. Often many non-Christians live more ethically than many in the church. To live ethically one need only to study the Bible and learn it’s key principles and begin to create a behavioural system out of it. This is what is happening in most of our workplaces – both Christian organizations and secular businesses (I will not go on a tangent about how we split the sacred and secular here). We are establishing mission statements, vision and values documents and codes of conduct. These are our ways of directing and controlling people.

The problem is that we get to know the Bible and its principles but not the One who gave it to us. We know the words but not the Word. Authenticity is about being the same on the outside as you are on the inside. That doesn’t mean that every thought and feeling and desire is expressed to the world but that the things that are being lived out in your life are the things going on in your heart. It doesn’t mean we stop doing something bad because others are watching us. Rather our desires begin to be transformed along the lines of Jesus’ character. It means living without a mask. As Christians it means actually knowing Jesus and his voice and living out our relationship with the Father through Jesus. The difficulty with this way of life is that it is sometimes messy, complicated and not easily controllable by an external authority.

Jesus said in John 5: 19Jesus gave them this answer: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.
He said this in response to those who accused him of breaking the Sabbath and blaspheming. This was Jesus’ ethic – do what he sees the Father doing. This is dangerous and can get you in trouble – or even killed.

I think ethics are good for many things. It helps people act better. But as Christians I think living our lives according to ethics only leads us to be “nice.” Living our lives by listening to what the Father is saying and doing only what you see the Father doing will cause us to lead dangerous lives. It is messy and complicated. Sometimes there will be those who justify their silly or sinful actions by saying “God told me to do it!” That is where Scripture and the Law come in – they reveal sin and give us a foundation upon which to build and measure and judge. But if we live our entire lives by only living by ethics we are destined to live as nice bland citizens. However if we continue to learn how to live authentically, with eyes to see what the Father is doing and ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church, we will see more Martin Luthers and Martin Luther Kings; George Muellers and George Whitefields; Madame Guyons and Mother Theresas; men and women who listen and obey.

Confluence

con·flu·ence n.1. a flowing together of two or more streams, a point at which streams combine, or a stream formed by their combining. Also called conflux.

An interesting confluence happened in the past couple of days. I meet with a number of groups to pray for the city of Toronto and the GTA region. We have been wondering and praying about how to overcome some of the evil influences in our city with the rise of crime and violence and traffic accidents and spiritual apathy. In our prayer and discussions one of the chief things that came out was that when we focus on evil we actually accentuate or even glorify that evil and miss what God is trying to do and say.

Then I got an email from someone who spoke about the same thing in the context of a Christian response to the Halloween season. "Interestingly, I was listening to a teaching on the way home - he was talking about redeeming time, and specifically focused on Halloween as a specific time where through the ages there has been much demonic defilement, reinforced again and again over the years, that the actual time seems defiled. His strategy? Worship gatherings. To redeem the time (the date on the calendar) by filling the air with worship of the One True God to displace all the demonic worship. Here's my thinking. I think if we gather [a prayer team to confront evil activity or teaching], it would "give it place." However, what if we were to just have a worship gathering - or several worship gatherings that night, as others have suggested? We don't have to focus on or even mention anything about evil at all - Halloween is enough of a reason to implement the strategy of "displacement".

I also just read a review of N.T.Wright's book "Evil and the Justice of God" and the reviewer (Samuel Wells in Christian Century) says:

"In a lucid treatment of this perennial conundrum, N. T. Wright argues that pondering the "problem of evil" is an activity that displaces us from the business of implementing the healing, restorative justice of God. The problem of evil is philosophically located in theoretical analysis of an inherently distant God-that is, the deist God of the Enlightenment. By contrast, Wright engages with the scriptural God, revealed through narrative rather than theory and addressed through lament, obedience, discipleship and faith rather than through dispassionate analysis-in short, the God of Jesus Christ. Christ's death and resurrection, the promise and embodiment of forgiveness, and the hope of God's final victory make the people of God a people who bring into the present a reconciliation that is assured in the future."

That's a long way of saying that focusing so much on evil means we have a deficient view of God. Focusing on evil displaces us from our position as worshippers of God, as seeing Him in His incarnation, and often blinds us from seeing Him at work in the world.

So our response to evil - implement the healing, restorative justice of God through worship, prayer and action.

More Meanderings

As well as writing, there have been a couple of other things happening.

Wednesday I was at another funeral - but this time I was the musician. That has never happened to me. I played an hour of background music on guitar and sang two songs during the service itself. It was a sad service because it was a six week old baby that passed away from a heart birth defect. The father did a masterful job describing his daughter and all they went through as a family. This little girl, Brooke, was born on April 5th - my daughter's birthday. There were times I had a hard time keeping it together. The family did something wonderful in memory of little Brooke - they established a fund to be given ton one family every year to help with their accommodation costs as they stay in Toronto to be with their child at Sick Kids Hospital. I was honoured to be part of the service.

Saturday we attended our neighbour's Bat Mitzvah party. Tamar, the Bat Mitzvah girl, has always struck me as a shy quiet girl. Boy was I wrong. She loves to act and sing and be in front of people. All the three children in the family did great as they all participated - they do like being in front of a crowd - and they did a great job.

Sunday was the Global Day of Prayer. We went down to Ricoh Coliseum - along with thousands of other - to pray for our city and our country and worship. It was, at times, very moving - surprisingly moving actually. I found myself in tears a number of times as I was impressed at how passionate people are and especially at how much God cares for the people of the city and the world. Millions of people all over the world were praying as well in most of the nations of the world. Check out the global website here and the Toronto website here.

While you're checking out websites, you should check out Kirstyns's. She was also at GDOP and was moved to begin praying for the media in our country. Check out her comments on her blog.

Virginia Tech

After a tragedy like this what can you say and what can you do? Scott McKnight posts a thoughtful response at Jesus Creed which I copied below. What can we do? We can pray. We can comfort the afflicted. We can mourn with those who mourn. We can allow ourselves to be in relationship with the wierd and the difficult people around us even though it's hard. When we say "of course" to Jesus when he asks us to love even the least of these, we don't always know what we are getting into. Lord help us notice the lost and lonely. May we not pass them by.

Virginia Tech: What can we do?
by Scott McKnight
We can pick up the pieces of rubble left aground by the cold-blooded murdering of 32 Virginia Tech students, but we cannot make sense of the senseless shards of rubble we find. A professor who perceived that the young man was deeply troubled and fellow students who knew the same; lives of 33 familes now wrecked and young adults who will not return for the summer; security measures that can never be secure enough to block tragedies and police investigations that didn’t take the turn we wish had been taken. What can we do? What do you think?

We can hold the entire school, the families, the police force, the medical doctors and nurses still tending to the wounded and all involved unto our God as an offering in the hope that we can heal the grieving and guide our country.

But we can’t make enough laws to prevent troubled, isolated individuals from penetrating into the fabric of a reasonably-safe garment to unravel parts of it.

We can be more sensitive to the troubled and more vigilant in seeking help for roommates, students, acquaintances, and those we encounter whom we believe are a threat.

But we can’t find our way into the inner world of everyone so that we can with breathless certainty discern those who might explode at any moment.

We can fight for justice, establish better laws, and live out our vocation in peace and justice and love. And we can urge the media to remove the videos of the murderer — those videos can have no redemptive value.

But we can’t create a completely safe world, a perfect environment, or a society in which no one with evil intent can ever enter.

We can live by the Jesus Creed, but we can’t force anyone to live by it.

For these reasons, and more beside, we can pray what Jesus taught us to pray:

Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.

Praying the Gates

Tonight we prayed the gates (compass points) of Thornhill (some of them at least - in the driving sleet).

The city of Jerusalem is a paradigm for many things Christian: the city of God, the hill of the Lord, Mount Zion, the new Jerusalem (Kingdom of God), the church, the dwelling place of God, etc. It is of course a literal, physical city - both throughout Scripture and in current events. Historically the Scriptural writers used many metaphors to describe the relationship between God and man. The Psalmist writes refering to Jerusalem:
3. Who may ascend the hill of the LORD ?
Who may stand in his holy place?
7. Lift up your heads, O you gates;
be lifted up, you ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in. (Psalm 24)

We prayed that the King of Glory would come and possess our city for His Glory and for His purposes. We prayed along the lines of some of the prayers found here.

Although it was probably one of the worst nights of the year to be outside praying, I felt like we connected with God and that there was something very significant accomplished. Prayerwalking (praying onsite with insight) really is effective and we sensed God was with us and had gone before us.

Palm Sunday and Passover

These two holidays do not always coincide but this year they do. It was quiet in my neighbourhood today. Most of my neighbours are Jewish and Passover is one holiday that almost everyone observes with a seder or at least a family meal with some of the traditional elements included.
As for Palm Sunday, we didn't have palm branches but we did talk about the gates ( 7 Lift up your heads, O you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. 8 Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle. Psalm 24).

Sunday evening I participated in a Palm Sunday Prayer Assembly at the Toronto Chinese Pentecostal Church down on Duncan Mills Road. It meets in a ten story office building and occupies most of the the first floor and the basement. Kind of an interesting concept. I took a couple of pictures of the space inside showing the pastor (Josephine Kok) leading our prayer time.

Dexter Quinlan ... also shared about the Global Day of Prayer coming up on the next major Jewish festival - Pentecost Sunday, May 27th, 2007 at the Ricoh Coliseum.

I had a chance to speak and spoke on the significance of Nehemiah to city wide prayer. I've included my main points below.

Who are the gatekeepers? - the people who live in the neighbourhood – the hands and feet of Jesus
a. Nehemiah – was concerned that the city walls and gates were broken down
Nehemiah 1
1 The words of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah: In the month of Kislev in the twentieth year, while I was in the citadel of Susa, 2 Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem. 3 They said to me, "Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire."
4 When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. 5 Then I said: 7 We have acted very wickedly toward youI was cupbearer to the king.
-
b. Went to Jerusalem and challenged and organized the people and everyone worked one beside the other
Chapter 2:17 Then I said to them, "You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace." 18 I also told them about the gracious hand of my God upon me and what the king had said to me. They replied, "Let us start rebuilding." So they began this good work.

c. Each one did his part
Chapter 3: 17 Next to him, the repairs were made by the Levites under Rehum son of Bani. Beside him, Hashabiah, ruler of half the district of Keilah, carried out repairs for his district. 18 Next to him, the repairs were made by their countrymen under Binnui [g] son of Henadad, ruler of the other half-district of Keilah. 19 Next to him, Ezer son of Jeshua, ruler of Mizpah, repaired another section, from a point facing the ascent to the armory as far as the angle. 20 Next to him, Baruch son of Zabbai zealously repaired another section, from the angle to the entrance of the house of Eliashib the high priest. 21 Next to him, Meremoth son of Uriah, the son of Hakkoz, repaired another section, from the entrance of Eliashib's house to the end of it.

d. Satan is disturbed when we take our position and exercise our authority
Chapter 2: 10 When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard about this, they were very much disturbed that someone had come to promote the welfare of the Israelites.

e. Expect opposition and ridicule
Chapter 2:19 But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official and Geshem the Arab heard about it, they mocked and ridiculed us. "What is this you are doing?" they asked. "Are you rebelling against the king?"

f. Satan has no part of the city
Chapter 2:20 I answered them by saying, "The God of heaven will give us success. We his servants will start rebuilding, but as for you, you have no share in Jerusalem or any claim or historic right to it."

g. Fight on behalf of your families – motivation is to be moved with compassion
"Don't be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes."

h. Guard the territory given you
Chapter 4: 9 But we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat.

i. Call out for help – respond to others calls for help when attacked
4:19 Then I said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, "The work is extensive and spread out, and we are widely separated from each other along the wall. 20 Wherever you hear the sound of the trumpet, join us there. Our God will fight for us!"

Ask

I've been continuing that email conversation.

Every day is a gift. Every sunrise, every breath, every salvation, every healing. There is a strength and beauty to that approach and we need to walk in humility to accept God's purpose and plan for us. John Piper says: We are creatures, and our Creator is not bound or obligated to give us anything - not life or health or anything. He gives, he takes and he does us no injustice (Job 1:21).

But if we live like that without anything more, then we become ... fatalistic: "Que Sera Sera, whatever will be, will be." (Are you old enough to remember that song?) Then everything is up to fate. God will do whatever He pleases and we just have to accept it. Kill all desire. Accept the world as it is. Don't open yourself up to caring for anything or you will be disappointed. The promises of God will only be fulfilled in heaven. For now just hang in there knowing at least there is a God and He will do what is right in the end. But what abut the "journey of desire?"

The missing ingredient in this is relationship - we have a heavenly Father. As with any friend or a parent with a child there is a give and take. As a parent I want to meet the needs of my children. I don't want to see them sick or hurt or taken advantage of. I want to make them promises and keep them! If I promise to go to my daughter's basketball game and don't show up she is going to know that something is wrong. "Daddy wouldn't have promised and then not come." Now I may not promise to be at all her games but because she talked to me that morning she will KNOW whether or not I will be there.

I also recognize how I respond to my children if there is attitude from them. If they ask with selfishness or act in pride or are just plain rude with me I respond differently. Sometimes I don't say anything at all. Kirstyn will yell a question at me from the top of the stairs and I won't even acknowledge that I heard her. They need to correct their attitude before I will address their need or their question. Sometimes they get frustrated and say "Forget it! I'll do it myself!"

That's how we ask God for things sometimes. I want an answer from Him NOW! I'm not always where I'm supposed to be so that when I ask him for something he will often respond by pointing out something else that he wants me to deal with first. So I need to respond to that other thing first. Then I have to go back to my original request. Sometimes I'm not willing to change my attitude and I ask with wrong motives. Sometimes I just want to do it my own way. However prayer is give and take - a back and forth. Growing in that relationship is what Christianity is really all about.

We can sometimes act like the prophets of Baal yelling louder because WE DON'T KNOW if God heard or not. We try to work up a spiritual fervor because we are not sure that God is listening. We try to come up with exactly the right formula, the right prayer, quote the right scripture, work up the same feelings, have the same tone of voice. That is the same as casting a spell - it's witchcraft. Say these words in this order and add this special spice, turn around three times and jump in the air and say hallelujah. Poof! You have your answer. Works like a charm!

God will not be controlled. We can't control Him and we can't control the world. It is fallen and broken and people get sick and die and babies are born with deformities. That's what the world is like. But God wants us to respond to Him in all that. He wants us to ask Him what to do and how to do it. He will respond differently every time. It is hard work to ask him and hear him every time. That is where the resistance from the devil comes into play as well. He tries to distance us from the personal immediate presence of God. But He wants us to ask.

That's why knowing how to hear from God is so important. This whole life is about learning how to relate to our Creator. He wants us to become more like him and we will find ourselves in situation after situation that will cause us to seek his face for answers. If we don't seek him out, we can passively accept the world the way it is. We will still have salvation. We will still have life everlasting. God will still love us. But I don't think we will become what we were really meant to be or do all that he was really calling us to do or see all our dreams come to pass.

Who Are We?

I had this theological email conversation that I thought might be interesting.

Someone asked me ...
I'm quoting from this book I'm reading. Is it truth?

"One of the reasons we are not as Christ-centred and cross saturated as we should be is that we have not realized that everything- everything good, and everything bad that God turns for the good of his redeemed children- was purchased by the death of Christ for us. We simply take life and breath and health and friends and everything for granted. WE think it is ours by right. But the fact is ... that it is not ours by right. We are doubly undeserving of it.

1. We are CREATURES, and our Creator is not bound or obligated to give us anything - not life or health or anything. He gives, he takes and he does us no injustice (Job 1:21)
2. And besides being ceatures with no claim on our Creator, we are SINNERS. We have fallen short of his glory (Romans 3:23). We have ignored him and disobeyed him and failed to love him and trust him. The wrath of his justice is kindled against us. All we deserve from him is judgement (Romans 3:19). Therefore every breath we take, and every time our heart beats, everyday that the sun rises, every moment we see with our eyes or hear with our ears or speak with our mouths or walk with our legs, is, for now, a free and undeserved gift to sinners who deserve only judgement."


My Response ...

It is the one side of truth.

We are sinners. Sinners "deserve" judgement and aside from the grace and mercy of God every human being is destined for destruction. Although born in a sinful condition no one has lived up to even the promises they made to themselves let alone the standard of holiness imposed by God's Law. Because He is all powerful, He doesn't need us or anything else. He is not required to do anything for us nor are we able to demand anything from Him. However, if we stop here the sense is that we are God's throwaway old toys. It gives the impression that we have no value because we are sinful, that we are just replaceable, interchangeable, mass-produced, defective parts that God may or may not be willing to repair.

However there is another side to that truth.

It is that we are created in His image and have a value that is beyond knowing or describing. He took the initiative to make us knowing we would fall and sin. He placed us in this world so that we should find the joy of finding Him and His purposes for us. He is the one who made our emotions and crafted our desires and placed in us a hunger for the eternal. He was the one who initiated our ultimate redemption. He paid the ultimate price in sending His Son to die for us. He created the world to be the dwelling place of man and created man to be the dwelling place of God. So He has committed Himself to us, to our eternal well-being and to our development as His children and His army and His bride. So, no, He is not required to give us anything or to do anything for us BUT He has committed Himself to our welfare, to the development of our character and growth for His ultimate purpose. And so He has given us great and precious promises (to which He has bound Himself to keep) for us to walk in. Most of all He has given us Himself, as Saviour, as Father as the one who desires our best and knows our beginning and our end.

If we only look at the first side we are only sinners saved by grace and unable to lift our heads. If we look only at the second side we become proud and boastful, taking advantage of grace and exalting ourselves beyond measure. But if we hold both in tension (which we need to do with every single truth from God) we come closer to understanding the reality of who He is and who we are.

What do you think?

Dreams and Visions

Do you ever dream? Ever had a vision? In Acts chapter 2 Peter stands up explaining the events that were happening in Jerusalem by quoting from the prophet Joel:

17" 'In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams."

I'm not sure if I'm considered an old man or a young one. Maybe that's why there are times when I dream and other times I feel like a visionary. I also take dreams and visions with a grain of salt. Sometimes they inspire and sometimes they just confuse but most of the time they are interesting fodder for discussion.

All this to say this morning I attended a prayer meeting for pastors in North Toronto. During our worship I glimpsed a scene from before the throne room where we were worshipping God in the presence of angels and of the heavenly host. I seem to have this "vision" often as I worship God. This Isaiah 6 type experience where the angels cry holy and everyone bows down to worship. I'm not always sure if I am thinking it up in my mind or if it is coming from God - but it does help me to focus on the greatness of God and it reminds me that there is non-stop worship before the throne of God 24 hours a day (if there is time in heaven).

As I had this vision, I noticed something different this time though. I felt (sensed) that the angels were being "briefed" as if for a battle and that they were drawing strength from the throne for the battle that was ahead. It was as if as they (and we) were ministering to the Lord that the Lord was ministering back to the angels and to us in an even more powerful way. The sense I got was that there was preparation going on in heaven for a significant event or battle that would be coming in the near future.

The significance for me is that God is calling me to be ready. Part of being ready is being in a place to hear His voice and committing myself to "minister to the Lord" through worship and praise. As I do that He will minister to me, building me up and making me ready for whatever is to come.

This Sunday

Tomorrow at Hills Church we continue to experiment with "hearing from God." Our guests will be Mary and Rob Lee from Acts Fellowhip. They were with us two weeks agao and gave us something to think about. The biggest thing was to recognize that God is talking to us all the time. We don't always have ears to hear nor the propensity to listen. The other thing is that it seems that we expect the voice of God to be booming and sound like he does in that Bill Cosby comedy sketch about Noah. Instead it's usually "a still small voice" that sounds a whole lot like the thoughts that flow through our minds. We are going to try to listen "out loud" with each other.

This can be a bit intimidating for some and I've been doing some emailing to describe what it's like. I quoted a portion below ...

As for "part two", I've had a few conversations with a couple of others about that (listening to God corporately) - some excited and some anxious. The conversations I've had reveal many of our preconceived ideas about hearing from God. I think we have tended to over spiritualize it so that we can't relax and see it as a natural part of our lives. I think God is talking to us all the time - about ourselves, about others around us, about our situations, and has been since we were born. Much greater clarity comes when we get born again because His Spirit takes up residence in our hearts. The difficulty is that we haven't learned to distinguish between our thoughts and His thoughts - because many times at first glance (so to speak) they both sound the same. It's the training of opening our ears and pressing in and listening intently that helps us discern the difference.

We actually do this all the time when we pray in small groups. How do you know what to pray for? People don't usually give really specific prayer requests outlining what to pray for. We actually listen to God as we pray and then pray out what we hear. (Granted we can just go through the motions and mimic other prayers that we have heard but that's not exciting or rewarding.) I've heard you pray and I know (and so does everyone else that hears you) that at certain times as you pray for someone, you have really heard from God. Others have done it too and we all know that the prayer came from God. Those are the powerful prayers. Unfortunately they are too few and far between and the reason is that sometimes we just go through the motions (me included) instead of taking some time and effort to ask God "Father, how do you want us to pray about this?" and then listen for a bit.

This learning to listen to God is actually very much like the "small group prayer" thing, except that we separate out the process to identify what we are actually doing. For example if someone asked for prayer for "a friend" what would I do? I would think about that person, picturing him in my mind and think about what he might be going through. I would focus on God, thinking "spiritual" thoughts maybe asking Him how I should pray. Then I would begin to pray while listening to God for what to pray. I would start with what I know (pray blessing and comfort and guidance) all the while searching in my heart/spirit for that insight that God almost always brings as I pray. Then I get an impression or picture of what to pray. So then I pray in response to the picture. My prayer would be describing the picture and praying God's presence into that situation to bring hope, future, healing, release - whatever. So the picture is God speaking to me and my prayer response is me talking with God.

That's what I think Rob was trying to communicate as he shared the pictures and impressions that he got. But really, they all started with a simple picture or image or impression and then he prayed or spoke into that picture. When we learn how to see and hear, it helps us in our prayer life, it helps in our exhortation of one another. I think it really helps in evangelism if we can discern the stuff God is saying to us as we interact with those who are coming to know God. The timing and method of delivery will require both sensitivity and courage but that can also be learned.

I was hoping that "part two" would be a non-threatening way of practicing how to hear from God. I've done that exercise before and it is easy and enjoyable. It's especially interesting in a group of people you have never met before because some of the stuff is right on. What normally happens is that we start by just sharing one word or one image that comes to our mind about someone else.

Hope that helps a bit and I hope I'm not just rambling and answering questions that you aren't asking.