All posts tagged: Victory

Too hot for him to handle

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A few years ago one of best friends lived in Accra, Ghana. He got his monthly pay check one beautiful Friday just before he left work. His first stop was at a local bank where he cashed his check than sped to the local market to get supplies for the weekend. After walking around for a few minutes, he reached into his pocket to retrieve his wallet. To his surprise, it was gone together with every penny he had to his name. He didn’t know that someone had picked his pocket and lifted his wallet. He sat down in disbelief wondering how he was going to get through the month. Well, being a godly, praying man of God, he bowed his head and said a prayer. After the amen was said, my friend decided to stay seated for a few more minutes, as he braced himself for a few difficult days ahead. All of a sudden, a young man showed up with my friend’s wallet in his hand . The young man shaking and sweating, …

Defenestration

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Webster-Merriam People’s Top Ten Favorite Words and how the Bible might have something to say about it. Part 1 Defenestration:  a throwing of a person or a thing out of a window; or a usually swift expulsion or dismissal. Defenestration comes from Latin (de- means “from; down, away;” and fenestra means “window”). The word first appeared in English in 1620. Have you ever been kicked out of a church? Have you ever been kicked out of your job? Maybe you know how it feels  to be kicked out of school or dumped by a girlfriend or a boyfriend. How do you model genuine faith in those times. There is a young woman in my church going through the feeling of being dumped. She now sits on the other side from where she used to in church and the guy is claiming that she should not come to church because this is his home church. But she says he is the one who needs  to find another church because this is her home church as well. They are mean and …

Edging God Out – Episode Four

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Therefore it says, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. Ephesians 5:14 Today we are going to talk about the fourth lesson in the story of a prophet going down. Jonah not only refuses to share his faith, cultivate intimacy with God in his presence, care deeply for the welfare of others, but today we see him edging God out of his prayer life. The bible tells us that Jonah was asleep at the bottom of the ship. Someone may say well, hold it right there, Jonah prays in the belly of the fish.. That’s prayer! You are right, that is prayer – but that is not a prayer life. Unfortunately, for a lot of people, the only time they pray is when they are in trouble or when they want God to do something for them. They seem to have no use for God or no relationship with him when things are going great. Prayer is more than just coming to God for something – it is …

Spiritual Warfare 101

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Part 2 Powlison’s Intentions Truly all Christians believe in spiritual warfare; we all believe that Christ delivers us from evil. Powlison seeks to answer two crucial points of confrontation regarding spiritual warfare. The first question engages how we understand the Christian life. What are we fighting? How does the evil one actually work? How does he exert—or attempt to exert—his dominion? The second question engages our practice of the Christian life. How should we fight? What is the way God delivers us—and tells us to deliver ourselves and each other—from bondage to the devil? What is the mode of warfare? Our Common Ground The large majority of Christians give assent to four propositions, whatever our other differences. We are involved in spiritual warfare. Jesus Christ is the triumphant Deliverer and King. The modern age deadens people to the reality of spiritual warfare. Errors and excesses occur in deliverance ministries. If deadly rationalism saps spiritual vitality on the one hand, the exorcistic mentality spawns mutant spiritualities on the other. Both the disenchanted world of modern rationalism and …

Spiritual Warfare 101

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Part 1 Reblogged from Between Two Worlds Several years ago I read David Powlison’s book, Power Encounters: Reclaiming Spiritual Warfare. (Sadly, no longer in print—though I believe a second edition may be forthcoming.) I found it extremely helpful and persuasive. I took notes, and thought it might be worth posting them here. Reclaiming: Spiritual Warfare “A great deal of fiction, superstition, fantasy, nonsense, nuttiness, and downright heresy flourishes in the church under the guise of ‘spiritual warfare’ in our time…. But the warfare we need to wage engages and implicates our humanity, rather than bypassing it for a superspiritual, demonic realm.” Reasons for the Urgency We live in a society where the modern agenda has largely failed. We live in a society that has become increasingly pagan. Missions, anthropology, and modern communications make us aware of the practices and beliefs of animistic cultures. We live in a society of high-profile bondage to “addictions.” Bizarre or troubled behavior, often related to experiences of extreme abuse, seems to be appearing more frequently. Many people have sometimes experienced an …