Really, do you believe in miracles?
Read this story from Fox News: PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — A 28-year-old man was pulled from the rubble of a market in Port-au-Prince on Monday and has been admitted to the University of Miami’s field hospital in the capital, adjacent to the airport, according to hospital officials.
It isn’t clear how long the man, whose first name is Evans, was trapped, the officials said. The man appeared disoriented; he said someone had brought him water while he was trapped.
He was found at the Croix Bossal market, where he sold rice, and his family said he had been missing since the devastating earthquake on Jan. 12.
Footage shot shortly after he was admitted to the field hospital showed a severely emaciated man in a checkered shirt.
“I thought he was dead, but God kept him from dying,” his mother told CNN.
Scientists say that survival beyond 10 days, for someone who is trapped, requires an unusual combination of circumstances, including an uninjured, healthy victim and access to water and air. But a defining feature of the Haiti quake has been the remarkable number of people rescued from collapsed buildings.
In another report it is said that the man who was pulled from the rubble said that a man in white was bringing him water. Could it have been angels or could it have been Jesus? Here is the CNN video report. I like the way they try to explain away what it appears (I stress appears) to have happened.
In my reading through the New Testament I see miracle after miracle and have seen them happen in the lives of friends. I do believe in miracles – not so much in men walking about with power in their hands healing people – but God doing miraculous things everyday that we try to explain away after we pray that God will do it. God saved me and that too is a miracle to me.
What about you, do you believe in miracles?
After a fun Superbowl game there was the show Undercover Boss. I did not have too high of hopes for it and really was playing around on the laptop and was not really watching it at first. I started watching and really liked it. Tonight’s show had the COO and President of Waste Management going undercover. The back story was what caught me, he has a special needs daughter and and you could see the love for her that he had. He visited various parts of the business in different place and got a good view of the people that work for him and what they do. He did the jobs and actually got fired because he was so bad at one of them. It is a good show that shows the need for leaders to realize what and how their decisions affect those that work for them.
He is the take away – I think the idea behind this is great. I know of many Pastors who have no idea how the decisions they make affect the people who volunteer and work for them. I would like to see the pastor work with the children when the speaker goes over by 25 minutes. I would like to see the pastor work with the youth and see how hard it is. I would like to see the pastor in the nursery. I think we pastors sometimes forget that these things are hard on those who for the most part are not getting paid but do it out of love. We have maybe even do those jobs in the past but we have forgotten what it is like and have memories that only remember the easy days.
What are your thoughts – do we pastors need to go and work in the various areas of the church? Do you think we sometimes forget about those who serve?
What is the best vaction that you have ever had and what made it so great?
About 5 years we took a vacation to Busch Garden and Water Country USA. It ws awesome- we laughed and had fun as family. We really enjoyed the Water Country part. It was a vacation that I kinda threw together at the last minute but it turned out to just be too fun. I really cannot give a good reason why but again it is something that my daughter remembers.
What about you – any vacation stand out?
I have been leading the charge in the church that God has blessed me to be the Pastor of to read the New Testament through in 30 days. Let me just say that I am learning so much and gaining so much. God is really using this to wash me in his Word and this is a great thing.
I have also been so encouraged because of how many people have thanked me for challenging them to it. I honestly hear comments from people nearly everyday. It is so exciting as a spiritual leader to see people embracing God’s Word in this way. This is not about me asking them to do it but truly a God thing.
I have at the end of the 30 days a celebration service planned – I am really looking forward to hearing what God is and has done in the lives of those who are following through.
If you ever get a chance – do it!
What are you excited about that is happening in your life right now?
Yesterday was groundhog day – Feb 2. I grew up not too far from Punxsutawney where it is done and to be honest in the movie “Groundhog Day” the blizzard is suppose to hit my hometown. The movie is really what I want to talk about. Every year I watch the movie on Feb. 2nd (I watch it other times too). I used to just think it was a funny movie but then after seeing it a couple of times I got it – I got the message. Now I watch it every year to remind myself of the message.
The movie is about a weatherman named Phil Conners (Bill Murray) from Pittsburgh who has to cover the groundhog festival in Punxsutawney Pa. He is a selfish and self-centered jerk who treats people poorly. He gets stuck in Punxsutawney because of a blizzard. The problem is that every night when he goes to sleep he wakes up and it is Feb. 2nd all over again – groundhog day. He remembers what happens but no-one else does and he has no consequences for anything that he does on that day but just wakes up at 6am on groundhog day.
He uses this for selfish things at first and then you think he starts to change but he is selfishly trying to pickup his producer. He learns all about her to try to be with her. It fails and then he gets depressed and tries to kill himself because he is living the same day over and over. Then something happened, he tells his producer what is going on and she does not believe him but says it if is true he has a gift and that is when things change.
He then begins to do things for others, learn about others, serve others, and improve himself. He begins reading books, learning new skills, and helping people. He does what he can to serve others as far as even trying to help those who die on that day to live. He changes from a selfish jerk to a selfless servant who loves and enjoys life and when he does this everything changes – he gets the girl and gets to Feb. 3rd.
What is my point in telling you the plot of this movie? I think that too many people are stuck living the same selfish life over and over each day and are missing out on what Jesus tells us to do. Jesus tells us to be servants and when we do we will see our lives change into something wonderful and exciting.
I missed out on this for a long time and was living my own groundhog day and that is why I watch this movie every year – to remind myself of this! What about you?
The third type of doubt is volitional doubt. The person willfully doubts or simply chooses not to believe in the face of overwhelming facts. They could be choosing to doubt for a number of reasons, such as choosing to not repent for a known sin or apply the truths that they know to their lives. These are people who doubt that God could ever save them or did ever save because of the young age that they originally put faith in Christ. They think that their is no way that they could ever have peace and when they do they deny it or come up with some new reason why they can not have it. They lack motivation and are really rebelling against the Lord.
This is the hardest type of doubt to help someone with by far, so what do you do with this type of person? The first thing is trying help the conform to the will of God be helping them see unconfessed sin. This is not easy at all because they are refusing to see it, so you need to prayerfully consider this before ever approaching them. Secondly you take them through the steps we talked about in Part 2 but you need to be careful that they do not fall into the following lies that Habermas pointed out: For example, one might say or think that, “I can’t control this habit” or, “Past events are making me do what I am.” Some criticize their own person: “I’m so worthless that I deserve my problem.” Other common responses include the misbelief that, “Others can be committed believers, but I just can’t do it” or, “It takes too much work to change a habit or to more fully obey the Lord.” Also very harmful to the overall goal of conquering volitional doubt is the lie that, “I can’t increase my faith.” Habermas continues with the following: The chief purpose in this step is to remove the misbeliefs which we tell ourselves in order to both clear the major obstacles which often keep the believer’s will from being exercised and to utilize the administering of truth to actually start the healing process. In other words, Misbelief Therapy can both weed out harmful thinking which affects an individual’s ability to act, as well as allowing truth to motivate the person to the godly action which he wills.
The third thing that needs to happen is their faith needs to be challenged and it needs to be put to action. This is going to look different for each person the goal is to get them to grow in faith and this is done however you can get this to happen.
All of this could be rejected by the volitional doubter and that is what makes this the most difficult to deal with.
Have you ever been around a volitional doubter? How did you deal with them?
They fail to see three things: that God only can save them (it has nothing to do with them),
Thought I would post so more thoughts from the Blackaby Spiritual Leadership Conference that I attended last week. I am doing it to share with you and refresher for me:
You have to learn the history of the church you serve.
The older the church the harder to change the culture.
Celebrate the history of the church (Nehemiah 13)
When dealing with temptation; always remember the cost of failure.
Temptation is always a personal thing with a hook in it just for you.
God has given all of us the ability to flee temptation.
Change will occur; so we either lead people to change or we ambush them with it.
Change is a capability, both for organizations and it’s leaders.
Change is not something you can catch up on.
Leadership is not for the faint hearted.
Leaders do not leave bad places but go to them to lead people out.
Leadership requires prayer and a relationship with God.
(favorite of day two) - Never let Critics set the adgenda!
Leaders take time to think, pray, and read.
God will never set you to fail – we need to find God’s solutions.
Not as good of quotes on day two but a couple of them really make me think.
Friday is a day I just tell you some fun thing and ask you a fun question. So here it goes….
What is your guilty pleasure television Show or shows you like to watch?
I have a list of favorites but I have a couple of shows I like to watch but I am not too sure why – guilty pleasures I guess. Those shows would be for the past year or so I have come to love the show Ax Men on History Channel (Swap Loggers I just found on either Discovery or TLC and like it) and I have also found a show called BBQ Pit Masters that is on TLC that I enjoy. The are just silly shows I like to watch.
Now it is your turn – what silly shows do you like to watch as a guilty pleasure?
(Lurkers this is an easy one to comment on!)
Last time we dealt with doubt we looked at factual doubt and this time we are going to look at Emotional Doubt.
Sometimes people have a state of mind or attitude toward God that creates the doubt. It can come from depression or anxiety that can stem from psychological or medic issues. It could come from a view of God that is skewed which could be things like God does not answer prayers or it could be things like God being blamed for things like children being abused. It could also be based off of feelings. Habermas put it this way, it is an attack on the feelings that has someone believing that God and religion are fantasy which he used from C.S. Lewis in the Screwtape Letters.
The are many reasons for the emotional doubters to doubt but in anyway one of the ways to deal with this is through looking at Philippians 4:6-9 which says:
6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 8 Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. 9 The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.
I remember from class that he shared these points from this passage as a way to begin to deal with this emotional doubt:
1) believing prayer – pray believing that God will answer.
2) thanksgiving – have a heart that is Thankful to God for that which you have.
3) edifying thinking – having thoughts that focus on the good and positive things in life.
4) practice – keep doing this over and over.
He also discussed some research done by some others on volitional doubt which suggested getting to the truth by:
1. Locate your misbeliefs.
2. Remove them.
3. Replace misbeliefs with the truth
These two ways of dealing with the doubt of this type are not quick fixes but they are things that need to continued to be practiced. Habermas wrote this: One biblical means of confronting emotional doubt is to pray with thanksgiving (even for one’s emotions), replacing the anxious thoughts with edifying ones. Continual meditation on these concepts (practice) is also commanded (Phil. 4:6-9). A biblical approach to depression includes praising God (Ps. 42:11; 43:5). A psychological model for healing anxiety, depression and other problems, also making use of similar biblical principles, recommends locating, removing and replacing our misbeliefs which we tell ourselves. And as we have been careful to mention throughout, this is not to say that other methods, such as the use of medicine, are not also needed in appropriate cases. But at each of these points, Scripture notes that God is the Source behind the healing, not our own self efforts or even the practicing of certain steps.
Any thoughts?
I spent the last 2 days with 9 other leaders from the Church I serve at the Blackaby Spiritual Leadership conference. If you ever have a chance to go – do it. Let me just share some of the things I wrote down over the past couple of days:
The Spiritual Leader must be God oriented.
The Spiritual Leader leads people to God’s agenda.
Jesus was all about the Scriptures- he started his ministry combating Satan’s temptation with Scripture and ended his life on the cross quoting the Scriptutres.
God lays his heart over the leaders as a pattern to allow him to fill in what is needed or cut out what is not.
Behavior is a reflection of your heart.
The Spiritual Leader needs to know God’s heart before they can share it.
God desires to shape the Leaders heart.
Difficult times is when God will refine our hearts.
People today are not seeking God as much in prayers – just answers to their prayers.
Vision will always flow from your relationship with God.
The people will need to sense that the leader has been with God before they really follow it.
Everyone has influence, they are either gaining it or losing it.
Spiritual Leadership is really two things: 1. Prayer life and walk with God 2. Character
God desire’s that we are always growing.
Reading is a key to the leader and a key to their growing.
Being Lukewarm is a rut.
The call of anyone – First is to God himself and second is to an assignment.
If you are playing it safe, then you forgot your call.
These are day one’s thought – I will post more later.
Any thoughts on any of these? Some rich stuff in here.
