So the question is.. Which is the Superhero?

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The Dire Straits

As I write this we are nearing the end of a period of mourning for traditional Hebrews. Every year, there is a 3-week period designated as time of mourning over the destruction of the Holy Temple. The 3 weeks that began on July 9, 2009 (or Tammuz 17 in the Hebrew calendar) and ends on 30 July (Av 9) contain the anniversaries of tragic events in history. Here are just a few of the events that happen during this period.

Tammuz 17

• This is the day Moses smashed the tablets of the covenant because of the Golden calf
• This is the day that temple services were stopped when the Babylonians invaded Jerusalem in 423BC
• This is the day that the walls of Jerusalem were breached by the Romans in 69AD

Av 9

• This is the date Solomon’s temple was burned in 423BC
• This is the date of the destruction of the temple in 69AD
• This is the day that God decreed that the Exodus generation would die because they wouldn’t enter the Holy Land out of fear of the giants that lived there.

For Hebrews this is traditionally a period of fasting and contemplation. There are no weddings, or other joyous events during this period. The weekly readings are from the prophets focusing on sins, penalties, and repentance. They also read from Lamentations, which is where one of the names of these 3 weeks comes from: "Bein haMetzarim" ("Between the straits", from Lamentations 1:3 "All her persecutors overtake her between the dire straits.”)

The purpose of all this is to learn from the mistakes of the past. A key element in all of these tragedies is that they all came from people deciding to put their faith in something other than God. The calf was made because they thought God had forsaken them. The spies put faith in themselves, not God, and so they realized they could not defeat the giants in the Holy Lands.And the temples were destroyed because Israel had chosen to put their faith in other gods, idols, or themselves at various times.

It was not God’s desire that these things happened. On the contrary, this SHOULD have been a great time of celebration and blessings from God. God brought his people to their dire straits and asked them to choose to trust Him. If they had chosen differently, these would be stories of victory and celebration not tragedy.

God is asking us every day to choose.

Do we put our trust in HIM? Or in something else?

It’s easy to trust the things in front of us. They are readily there and the enemy points to them and says, “you can trust this.” Haven’t you ever felt a draw that you could put your faith in something other than God? Your job? A friend? Your spouse? Your money? Or worst of all… yourself?

The Bible clearly teaches us that our trust MUST be in God. People and things will let us down eventually. I can enjoy, and put SOME trust in other people or things, but I have to temper that. I might lose my job. My friends might move away or have their own failings. My money might run out. My spouse might have a hard time, or even die. And eventually, my own strength will run out.But we CAN trust in God through everything. He does NOT fail. He does NOT grow weak. He will NOT forsake you. No matter what you are going through, God is bigger than the giant in front of you.

But he does want to know if we will CHOOSE to trust in Him, or in something else.

That is the purpose of dire straits… to find the answer to that key question.

We all have our giants before us, and they are scary and dangerous. But God promises that He is bigger than our problems, and that He will deliver us through it. And God is always right.

Our fear is that our giants are going to stop us, but the dire strait is not a roadblock designed to hinder us. On the contrary, it is to focus us back to God. It is a mechanism for increased productivity. Hydraulic power plants, rockets and garden hoses employ the same techniques to squeeze a greater degree of power and velocity from the element they constrain. In the same way, we are pressed to create a greater degree of power within us. Assuming we trust God and we choose to go through the narrow space God has prepared for us, we can obtain that power. If we choose to not trust Him, we lose that opportunity to advance, and have to live with the consequences.

In these times we can feel the pressing of our problems and fear that we might repeat mistakes of the past. Instead, this should be a time to rejoice and refocus our faith in God and his promises to us. We rejoice because God is trying to press us through to a great victory. We get that victory if we focus on Him. That is God’s plan for us in this time. God’s plan is to redeem all of our past mistakes and crush our giants.

This is why many Hebrew sages say that the Messiah’s birthday should be 9 Av.

That’s right! If they are right, the same day the temple was destroyed is the day that the Messiah was born.

Merry Christmas!

A word from Chuck Pierce that came to me on 3 July and started me on this study: "A new corridor is forming and I will narrow your way. You must narrow your desires. I am sanctifying desires and narrowing the corridor through which you will walk. You are entering into new alignments and assignments, and coming into a place that will bring you forth into a realm you have not known. You will come from a dark place into light, but the corridor that you have been in is beginning to narrow to push you through into the new.”

Questions to Ponder:

1. How are you being pressed at this time? Can you identify your giants?
2. Can you think of a situation when you put your faith in something other than God? What happened?
3. What burdens might God be asking you to lay down during this season? As you make this list ask yourself how you feel about laying these things down. Is it easy or hard? What is making it easy and/or hard?
4. Are you able to see God working in this pressed place? If so, what does that look like? If not, what is helping to sustain you?
5. Think back to a period of pain and destruction in your life (like the destruction of the temple). Has God transformed those times of mourning into times of restoration and redemption? If the answer is no, do you trust God to make that change?

Intimacy and the Heart of God

By Jaima

Have you ever wondered how Abraham was able to make peace with God’s promise, which had yet to be fully realized at the time of his death? Yes, he was a great man of faith, but where did that come from? He had no church, no pastor, and no family heritage to encourage him. The answer lies in his relationship with God. Abraham had to know the heart of God, had learned to trust him and had developed an intimate relationship with him. They had to have a proven relationship where the nature of God’s heart towards Abraham had been consistently and persistently revealed over time and found worthy of confidence. Abraham and God had established an intimate relationship that can only come from an intentional pursuit of each other and each other’s heart. How was this accomplished? Prayer.

Prayer can mean substantially different things to different people and there are many approaches to prayer detailed in theological writings. But at it’s core, prayer is designed to move us into a greater intimacy with the most high, a personal ongoing conversational dialogue. When the scriptures say we are to pray without ceasing (Thessalonians 5:17), the point is for us to include God in all of our daily routines, our moment-by-moment busyness as well as our life changing choices. He desires to be just as real to us at the grocery store as in deep prayer in a church sanctuary. God wants us to share all of ourselves with him, our fears, our hopes, our everyday concerns. Like any true covenant relationship, he wants to be the priority in our life, and he wants us to pursue relationship with him. How? Through prayer. Prayer is our doorway for opening up dialogue with God. Too often, however, we approach prayer as either the opportunity to approach God with our laundry list of needs or as our last resort when all else fails us.

I grew up reciting a few specific prayers in our church prayer book along with a couple of psalms. In and of themselves, they were fine. Except God calls us to more. He wants our whole heart, our whole attention. He is fiercely jealous of our attention. The book of Hosea points out the lengths to which God is willing to pursue us even when we refuse to recognize him as our path of life. “I will heal their waywardness and love them freely…” (Hosea 14:4). While the prayers I learned were fine, they did not really open up conversation with God. Where was the invitation for God to respond? How did I allow him to direct me, guide me, answer me? I just used to say my prayers and then moved onto the next thing. How many of us would call up our spouse and tell them hello, ask them to pick up some milk on the way home from work, and then hang up, never once listening for a response? No wonder so many people are confused about the role prayer should play in their Christian walk. Those types of conversations do not lead to great intimacy in a marriage nor do they draw us deeper in our relationship with God.

The other common vision of prayer is the last vestige of comfort when all efforts on our part to alter a challenging situation have failed. When someone is hurting or we are in despair, we may turn to prayer as the only thing left. And prayer can bring comfort in those dark places. But it can also bring so much more. If I tell my spouse I am having a bad day, he can offer me words of comfort or give me a hug. But if I ask, he can offer so much more – a different perspective, or a strategy to deal with the challenge before me, a reminder how God has met me in other dark places, an encouraging word to fight the good fight. God would like to do that for us as well. We need to stay present and engaged with him in our prayer time, and allow him room to respond.

Too many times we expect God to stay in the box we know and understand. If he doesn’t meet us there, we assume he did not answer our prayers. While God will meet us there, we are limiting his ability to act on our behalf. Many times we do not need God to answer our prayers in the manner we ask. We really require a different perspective on the situation at hand, a Godly perspective, and maybe even a little divine guidance on what strategy he would recommend. We must fight to remain still enough to hear his response. In Revelations 3:20 God promises “If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and him with me.” What a wonderful promise.

In order to approach God in prayer as a conversation, we need to understand God’s heart towards us is good. God wants more for us than we want for ourselves. He is the ultimate restorer of our souls. Jesus came not only for our salvation, but also for our resurrection and restoration. God wants us restored to our original design, accomplishing his kingdom purposes in our daily lives. In I Peter 5:10 it says “And the God of all grace…will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” God wants us to be more than what we see in ourselves. We are limited by our flesh colored glasses, but he sees clearly all we were originally intended to be, before our falleness separated us from God and ushered in doubt about God’s intentions towards us and our relationship with him. In moving into the fullness of our original creation, allowing Jesus into our hearts that have been circumcised unto God (Ezekiel 11:19 & 36:26, Romans 2:29), God receives all the glory, praise and honor. Many times we pray with both hands over our ears, afraid of God’s response, afraid he will say no to our petitions. Yet if we truly understand the heart of God, the “no” is not really a problem because we can trust that God is looking out for our greater good and is about a work greater than we can see in our small moment in time.

My prayers now are often like the half finished sentences I have with my husband. I will start a sentence and my husband will finish it for me. I do the same with him. It comes from the familiarity developed over years of conversations and shared experiences allowing us to see into each other’s hearts. Now my conversations with God are similar. I will start off thinking of something weighing on my heart yet if I listen, God will answer me, even without my asking, and lead me into a fuller picture, a more complete picture. When someone asks for prayer, I will go to God and ask him how he would like me to pray on that issue. Instead of approaching God with my agenda, and manipulating him into answering my concerns, I find prayer much more effective if I ask God how he wants me to handle a specific request or issue. Prayer has become a living integrated part of my life. Instead of being a chore or the last resort of a desperate heart, prayer has become an energizing, power-filled relationship that constantly affirms God’s abiding presence, renewing and transforming me from the inside out. God is more real, more tangible, more alive. So like Abraham, I have the blessed assurance that God is about a mighty work regardless of how much is visible on this plane of existence. God is calling all of us into deeper intimacy, a more personal relationship with him, as we approach him in prayer.

Stars

One of my early memories of time with my father is of a time when I was about 5 years old, perhaps 6. He and I were in the back yard of our house in Cincinnati. I’m sure I was up past bedtime, but it was time with Dad, so it was worth it. There, over what had to be several nights in the cool air, he taught me how to find the constellations in the night sky. I can only remember one of those evenings, but it’s very clear in my mind. I remember him naming constellations, and I would look up, and find it in the night sky. I was pretty good if I do say so myself. The Apollo moon missions were in their prime, and space was a big deal to me as a small boy. I used to build 3 stage “Apollo” rockets with my Lego sets. So, the stars held a tremendous amount of wonder and beauty to me. I can remember especially how easy it was to find the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper, or as I was quick to point out to the ignorant, “Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.” I loved locating the North Star. The constellations seem easy to locate in the sky. I can remember thinking how obvious the little dipper seemed to be. The thing that sticks out in my memory is how brilliant those stars looked back then. They seemed to almost jump out of the sky at you. Like someone once said, they were like diamonds on black velvet.

Today, I sometimes step out on my back porch here in Denver, and just take a moment to again gaze in wonder at the stars in the sky. Denver is blessed with clear nights quite often, and I still love to step out and enjoy the view. I can’t remember all the constellations that I once knew. But I still can locate the important ones. Like Ursa Major, Orion and his sword, and of course, I still take the time every time I see the stars to find the North Star. I’m not sure why, but I suppose it’s an homage to those nights with my Dad. Somehow, I feel like if I can find that star, I know I won’t get lost. It’s a habit, and one that always brings an inner smile to me.

Last week I had to drive to Omaha. Circumstances dictated that I had to drive overnight to get there in the morning, so there I was, in the middle of western Nebraska with 3 kids, a dog, and my wife in the middle of the night driving down the interstate. I looked out and saw a star struggling to shine through the clouds. I could only see one star, it wasn’t that bright, and I couldn’t name it if I tried. But it spoke to me. Then I remembered the lyrics of a song.

Then I slept one night in Abraham’s field
And dreamt there was no moon the night he died…
Counting stars.

Selah….

I suddenly remembered something I had noticed the last few years. The stars are harder to see now than they were when I was child. Ursa Minor, or the little dipper as I called it when I was not showing off, is almost invisible to me when I go look for it. Go look when you get a chance. When I was a child, it was clear in the sky and it was easy to see that constellation. Now I have to locate the north star from Ursa Major, and use it as a reference to locate the other stars in the constellation because the rest of the constellation is so faint. Let’s be clear here, the stars are not dimmer, they are just harder for us to see. There are many reasons that a scientist could give you for this phenomena, ambient light from the cities, pollution, sometimes clouds are in the way, perhaps my eyes are getting old. Taken all together, I think it’s fair to just say that “life” as we know it is dimming the view.

Now if I noticed a difference in the stars over just a few decades, can you imagine what it must have looked like to Abraham 4000 years ago? When we read of God’s promise to have his children number like the stars in the sky, it sounds like a bold promise to us, but imagine how much bolder that must have been to a man who’s only ambient light was a campfire? When the only pollution in the sky is the smoke from that fire? The stars on a clear moonless night must have been absolutely breathtaking. Imagine the Milky Way spreading across the clear night from a shepherds field back then. Think of the joy he could have felt every night as he thought about that promise. Think of how big that promise is today, but how much bigger it must have seemed then.

The message I got that night while driving through Nebraska was that God’s promise didn’t diminish over time, but my ability to see it has. His promises for Abraham, and for me, are just as bold, just as big, and just as breathtaking as they always were. But sometimes, life clouds the view. We can’t always see the depth or breadth of his promises because sometimes there’s pollution in the way. Sometimes we’re in a city and the light of stuff around us makes it harder to see. Sometimes it’s cloudy. Sometimes, it’s daytime. The stars are always there. God’s promise is always there. Being able to see it is a great reminder of those promises. But I should always take solace in the truth that just because I can’t see the star doesn’t mean it’s not there.

I needed that word. The next 5 days were very hard, and the word carried me through the week. Sunday night, while driving back to Colorado, exhausted, frustrated and tired after a tough week, my wife and I got another celestial show. A brilliant shooting star fell slowly through the night sky as we drove home. It was another reminder that God’s always putting on a show for us, and even when a star falls from the sky, the number of stars in the sky never diminishes. God’s word is always just as big as ever.

So, take a moment and go look at your stars. If you can get out of town and climb a mountain to get a glimpse of the clear sky do it. Take the time to think for yourself about God's promises to you during your life. Look at those promises God made to you over the years that now look dim and distant. Dust them off in your heart, and remind yourself how bright and brilliant and breathtaking his promises are. God’s promise for you is still there. No matter how cloudy the night, the stars are always shining. So, take a moment to find your North Star, and smile at the maker and finisher of your dreams.

And now, from the "You have to be kidding" dept...

How far has the home of the King James Bible gotten from the path?

A CHRISTIAN charity is sending a film on the Christmas story to all 26,000 primary schools in Britain after hearing of a young boy who asked his teacher why Mary and Joseph named their baby after a swear word.

The Breakout Trust raised pound stg. 200,000 ($482,000) to make the 30-minute animated film It's a Boy, with the voices of Joe Pasquale, Cannon and Ball, and Steven Berkoff, and music from Sir Cliff Richard.

It tells the story of Jesus's birth through the eyes of three quails.