At the root of idolatry is misplaced worship. And when we find rest only when we have the validation and approval of other people, we are not worshiping God, but idols. Matt Ballard explains in this MP3 entitled What's That Sucking Sound? Dealing With Approval Addiction. Notes (including the Approval Idol Test) are available here.
From Jill Carratini at Ravi Zacharias' Slice of Infinity:
In our impervious boxes and minimalist depictions of the Christian story, we comfortably live as if in our own world, blind and unconcerned with the world of suffering around us, intent to tell our feel-good stories while withdrawing from the harder scenes of life. In fact, to pretend as if Christianity does not at times function as a wishful escape from the world is perhaps another kind of wishful thinking. There are some critiques of Christianity we ignore at our own peril.
In reality, the stories Jesus left us with are so much more than wishful thinking and his proclamations of the kingdom among us are far from declarations of escapism. The story of Rachel weeping for her slaughtered children and Lazarus waiting in agony at the gate of someone who could make a difference are two stories among many that refuse to let us sweep the suffering of the world under the rug of unimportance. The fact that they are included in the gospel that brings us the hope of Christ is not only what makes that hope endurable, but what proves Freud and Marx entirely wrong. For Christ brings the kind of hope that can reach even the most hopeless among us. And Jesus hasn’t overlooked the suffering of the world anymore than he has invited his followers to do so; it is a part of the very story we tell.
“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty.”
- John Fitzgerald Kennedy
“Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.” – Benjamin Franklin
What July 4 Means To Me
by Ronald Reagan
For one who was born and grew up in the small towns of the Midwest, there is a special kind of nostalgia about the Fourth of July.
I remember it as a day almost as long-anticipated as Christmas. This was helped along by the appearance in store windows of all kinds of fireworks and colorful posters advertising them with vivid pictures.
No later than the third of July – sometimes earlier – Dad would bring home what he felt he could afford to see go up in smoke and flame. We'd count and recount the number of firecrackers, display pieces and other things and go to bed determined to be up with the sun so as to offer the first, thunderous notice of the Fourth of July.
I'm afraid we didn't give too much thought to the meaning of the day. And, yes, there were tragic accidents to mar it, resulting from careless handling of the fireworks. I'm sure we're better off today with fireworks largely handled by professionals. Yet there was a thrill never to be forgotten in seeing a tin can blown 30 feet in the air by a giant "cracker" – giant meaning it was about 4 inches long. But enough of nostalgia.
Somewhere in our growing up we began to be aware of the meaning of days and with that awareness came the birth of patriotism. July Fourth is the birthday of our nation. I believed as a boy, and believe even more today, that it is the birthday of the greatest nation on earth.
There is a legend about the day of our nation's birth in the little hall in Philadelphia, a day on which debate had raged for hours. The men gathered there were honorable men hard-pressed by a king who had flouted the very laws they were willing to obey. Even so, to sign the Declaration of Independence was such an irretrievable act that the walls resounded with the words "treason, the gallows, the headsman's axe," and the issue remained in doubt.
The legend says that at that point a man rose and spoke. He is described as not a young man, but one who had to summon all his energy for an impassioned plea. He cited the grievances that had brought them to this moment and finally, his voice falling, he said, "They may turn every tree into a gallows, every hole into a grave, and yet the words of that parchment can never die. To the mechanic in the workshop, they will speak hope; to the slave in the mines, freedom. Sign that parchment. Sign if the next moment the noose is around your neck, for that parchment will be the textbook of freedom, the Bible of the rights of man forever."
He fell back exhausted. The 56 delegates, swept up by his eloquence, rushed forward and signed that document destined to be as immortal as a work of man can be. When they turned to thank him for his timely oratory, he was not to be found, nor could any be found who knew who he was or how he had come in or gone out through the locked and guarded doors.
Well, that is the legend. But we do know for certain that 56 men, a little band so unique we have never seen their like since, had pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. Some gave their lives in the war that followed, most gave their fortunes, and all preserved their sacred honor.
What manner of men were they? Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists, 11 were merchants and tradesmen, and nine were farmers. They were soft-spoken men of means and education; they were not an unwashed rabble. They had achieved security but valued freedom more. Their stories have not been told nearly enough.
John Hart was driven from the side of his desperately ill wife. For more than a year he lived in the forest and in caves before he returned to find his wife dead, his children vanished, his property destroyed. He died of exhaustion and a broken heart.
Carter Braxton of Virginia lost all his ships, sold his home to pay his debts, and died in rags. And so it was with Ellery, Clymer, Hall, Walton, Gwinnett, Rutledge, Morris, Livingston and Middleton. Nelson personally urged Washington to fire on his home and destroy it when it became the headquarters for General Cornwallis. Nelson died bankrupt.
But they sired a nation that grew from sea to shining sea. Five million farms, quiet villages, cities that never sleep, 3 million square miles of forest, field, mountain and desert, 227 million people with a pedigree that includes the bloodlines of all the world. In recent years, however, I've come to think of that day as more than just the birthday of a nation.
It also commemorates the only true philosophical revolution in all history.
Oh, there have been revolutions before and since ours. But those revolutions simply exchanged one set of rules for another. Ours was a revolution that changed the very concept of government.
Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people.
We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should.
Ronald Reagan
President of the United States
From NewsMax
From Benjamin Franklin, during the debates and discussions surrounding the writing and acceptance of the U.S. Constitution.
"The small progress we have made after four or five weeks' close attendance and continual reasonings with each other--our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many noes as ayes--is, methinks, a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the human understanding. We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom, since we have been running about in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for models of government, and examined the different forms of those republics which, having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution, now no longer exist. And we have viewed modern states all round Europe, but find none of their constitutions suitable to our circumstances.
"In this situation of this assembly, groping, as it were, in the dark, to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings. In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of dangers, we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance?
"I have lived, sir, a long time, and, the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth--that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings, that 'Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.'
"I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed, in this political building, no better than the builders of Babel. We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded; and we ourselves shall become a reproach and by-word down to future ages. And, what is worse, mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing governments by human wisdom, and leave it to chance, war, and conquest.
"I therefore beg leave to move that, henceforth, prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service."
The one word in the book of Revelation that used to either fuel my fear or stoke my pride, depending on my “performance,” is the word “overcomer.” As a young Christian in the late 60’s, I remember many last-night-of-the-retreat talks and fiery sermons prepping me and my friends to work hard to become an “overcomer”, ‘cause only the “overcomers” would survive the last days and finally make it to heaven.
The biggest, darkest, most evil problem was that most of those talks I heard, 99% of the time, “left behind” the gospel! The onus of overcoming fell squarely on my shoulders as a spiritual performer! But earlier is the book of Revelation we are given the gospel-key to overcoming: “They overcame him (the devil and his assaults) by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony…” (Rev. 12:11)
In other words, overcoming is a gospel issue. It is only by professing faith (the word of our testimony), in the finished work of Jesus (the blood of the Lamb), that we can be assured of inheriting the new heaven and new earth as sons and daughters of the living God!
In recent years, I have become more and more convinced of a strong sentiment that is pervading the Church: people are tired of being entertained, tired of seeing things hyped for an emotional response, tired of anything that seems facke or insincere. Why? People are hungry for the real power of the living God! People are hungry for the real power of the living God! People are hurting, and a church program that just gives a pat on the back isn't going to cut it. People need the power of God. One taste of God's presence will strike such a chord in the hearts of the hurting that they will not be able to relicate that taste anywhere else. All of the fullness that comes from being in God's presence makes everything else pale in comparison. There is no substitue for it.
--David M. Edwards
Perimeter Church Pastor Bob Cargo looks at Psalm 95. A. W. Tozer once said that worship is the missing jewel of the church. Worship has been rediscovered today, after being neglected by the evangelical church for decades. Says Cargo:
Worship is back on the radar screen, but my observation is that worship is often twisted and misunderstood. It's hijacked. It's dumbed down. It's jacked up. It's turned into something that's a mystical experience or an incomprehensible event and now maybe that we have rediscovered this jewel, it's time to clean it off and look at it carefully and really understand what God has in mind when He calls us to worship.
Today is the last day to submit your song to the Catalyst Music Project:
We believe there are new anthems and worship songs being written on the hearts of our generation across this nation and around the world. This is a call to leaders who have a vision to share these songs with the body of Christ.
Introducing the 2009 Catalyst Music Project --worship songs for the next generation. Upload your recording before July 1, 2009 for a chance to have your song included on the Album.
Here on earth we have people who are willing to wait in line for hours for one glimpse of some earthly monarch or celebrity--yet we think nothing of running here and there through our week without ever accessing the King's presence on purpose.
--David M. Edwards
The Catalyst Podcast interviews Louie Giglio, founder of Passion Conferences and sixsteps records.
Right now, you're maybe thinking 'I know this, I've heard this before, I'm well aware that worship is all for God and to God, and not for me'. But let me explain. Here are three of the many ways we can make worship about us, ranging from the blindingly obvious to the subtle. Check them out, see if any of them ring any bells with you.
A year or two ago I picked up a book entitled "Worship Matters" by Bob Kauflin. It was one of about ten books I bought while attending the National Worship Leader's Conference in Austin, TX. I am sad to say that I had pretty much had forgotten about it and it has remained on my bookshelf since returning from the conference.
Recently I have been in a season of anxiety. The kind of anxiety that overtakes your life and holds you captive to say the least. The benefit of this season is that it has pushed me into the Word of God. It has caused me to seek the Lord more passionately. Instead of watching TV I go to our bedroom and I read scripture, I read books, I journal, and I pray. That is my nightly practice right now.
As I was sitting in my office yesterday at the church I glanced up at my bookshelf and Worship Matters stuck out to me. So I grabbed it and through it in my back back along with my Bible and journal. Last night I read the first two chapters. I could have kept reading but I was so overtaken with the content and the scripture that it caused me to fall face down and begin to pray in confession to God. I am guilty of stealing from God.
As my eyes read across the words it was as if I was reading my own life story. His words could have come straight from my own personal journal. This is what I read.
"I started seeing a reality that dominated my life-the reality of my sinful cravings.
My problems-emotional, physical, and otherwise-stemmed from battles within
my heart of which I'd been largely unaware. Yes, I wanted God to be exalted
in my life, but another agenda was ruling my heart. I wanted people to approve
of me, admire me, applaud me. To be honest, I wanted people to adore me. I had
an incessant passion to steal God's glory. I was a lover of myself rather than a
lover of God. And it was killing me"
I could hardly believe the words I was reading. That's it! I am about me more than I am about Him. I am guilty of idolatry. I have somehow blurred the line of excellence with acceptance. You see I am always trying to do everything with excellence. A common phrase I use with my team is that excellence honors God and inspires people. I believe that is true. But our excellence must never become about anything other than Worshiping Him.
Being on stage carries an incredible responsibility. Let me challenge you to examine your heart, your motives, and your desires. My prayer for you as well as for myself would be that we never steal God's glory! We never love ourselves more than we love God. Our entire purpose is that of directing Glory to Him. For only He is truly worthy!
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Interesting article in a UK newspaper on the worship of Michael Jackson. Writes William Langley:
In the sense that Michael Jackson's life was a celebration of strangeness, his death, at the age of 50, lays the groundwork for something much stranger. Call it deconstruction, call it deification; the passing of the man invites an evaluation of the myth. "No one knows the truth," he said in 1987. "No one knows what, or who I am. And the longer it takes them to discover this, the more famous I will be."
Jackson's fans, as opposed to those who merely like his music, consider themselves to be different from the fans of other performers. The issues that consume them tend to have less to do with his talent than his meaning. Obsessive, wary, emotional, occasionally hostile to outsiders, they have come to see Michael as some kind of sui generis American miracle – part human, part spiritual – and themselves as the witnesses to its authenticity.
"They are unlike anyone else I've met," says Michael Joseph Gross, author of Starstruck, a recently published study of fan worship, "in that they consider they are performing a moral duty. They see themselves as the attendants of a holy innocent, representing what they perceive to be his values – generosity, humility and love in a world where goodness is persecuted." A conspicuously motley bunch, Jackson's fans were bound together by the belief that, for all his fame and money, Michael had had a rotten deal in life. Firstly, at the hands of his cosmically ruthless father, Joe, then from the media, and much of the entertainment industry itself which treated him as a freak show, and finally from the authorities who tried to put him in jail. It was painful to behold, and the only remedy was to love Michael more.
This form of worship drew its energy from pop-cultural notions of redemptive faith and martyrdom, and it proved immune to changing fashions, career slumps, personal dramas, as – in all probability – it will to his death. The ranks of Jackson's "true believers", as Newsweek magazine has called them, understood what was expected of them, and wherever they gathered the familiar contours of celebrity fandom exploded into an entirely new topography.
Jackson's passing is tragic, and the idol worship by the throngs of people at the gates of his property who never knew him outside of a record turntable or CD cover is as well. But also tragic was his life--an unhappy half-century lacking the most basic and simplest pleasures and relationships of life. But perhaps the saddest and most telling quote yet is this one:
Eight years ago, Michael arrived in Britain to address the Oxford Union wearing a surgical face mask, but his speech was informed by good sense and personal experience. "I come before you not as an icon of pop," he said, "but as a representative of a generation that no longer knows what it is to be children. What I really wanted was a dad. I wanted a father who showed me love, and my father never did that. He seemed intent on making us a commercial success. But what I really wanted was a dad."
When Saul heard their words, the Spirit of God came upon him in power, and he burned with anger. - I sam 11
The spirit brought anger. God made Paul angry. Doesn't it seem like we are taught to avoid anger? A Christian always has a mild temperament. He may be a bit frustrated, but he doesn't get angry, right? Could it be that God has been stirring up people to be angry and we have avoided it because we have been sissified?
Like Randy Stonehill writes, "We need some angry young men . . . ones who will not bow from a fight." (From Angry Young Men.)
Maybe we need to let our anger rise. Not to sin in our anger, but to allow God to guide our emotions.
Maybe our goal is not to have level emotions. Maybe it is to have those emotions controlled by the one who made us.
What is making you angry?
Scot Longyear, Resonate
photo by darkpatator
15 On the seventh day the Israelites got up at dawn and marched around the town as they had done before. But this time they went around the town seven times. 16 The seventh time around, as the priests sounded the long blast on their horns, Joshua commanded the people, “Shout! For the Lord has given you the town! 17 Jericho and everything in it must be completely destroyed as an offering to the Lord. Only Rahab the prostitute and the others in her house will be spared, for she protected our spies.
20 When the people heard the sound of the rams’ horns, they shouted as loud as they could. Suddenly, the walls of Jericho collapsed, and the Israelites charged straight into the town and captured it. - Josh 6
God had promised Israel that the promised land was close. For 7 days they marched around Jericho. That must have been weird.
On the final lap of the final day they shouted as if God had given them the town. Strange thing is, they didn't have the town yet. The wall was still standing when they shouted. They had to shout as if the wall was down. The result: Walls fell.
I'm not a big "name it and claim it" guy, but there is something about believing so strongly that God is going to do something that you act like he already has. If God said it is to be, it is as good as done. Might as well act like it.
Last week Michael Hyatt said that he wrote on a piece of paper "I am a New York Times best selling author." That was before Michael had ever written a book. Today he is a NY Times best selling author.
While a struggling comedian, Jim Carey is said to have written himself a check for $1 million.
When our sanctuary was less than 1/3 full, a friend of mine told me that I needed to spend time in that empty room and picture it crammed full of people.
Maybe it is time to shout as if what is not, really is. If it is from God (and not a plan from our own mind), it is as good as done. Might as well celebrate it on the front end.
How about you? What is your wall? What is the thing God is promising to do with your life? Shout as if it has already happened. Throw a celebration party for the accomplishment that has yet to be realized. Write it down. Own it. Anybody can shout once the wall is down. It takes a crazy person to believe that what is not yet will soon be.
God speed to you, crazy wall-shouters.
Scot Longyear, Resonate
9 There is a wide-open door for a great work here, although many oppose me. - I Cor 16
I tend to think that if the door is wide open, there is none who oppose me. That is simply not the case. Just because there is opposition, that does not mean the door is closed. People will always oppose me. They will oppose you. They will always try to stand in your way or drag you back down. As long as God is asking you to do things, as long as he is opening the door, I don't care who opposes me. Let the blind lead the blind. As long as there is an open door, I will take the opposition.
What about you? What is the door you are avoiding because of opposition?
Scot Longyear, Resonate
Great things happen when we worship God: You might be in need of an earthquake to loose your prison doors--it starts with worship. You might need a clear call from God as to what direction you should take--it starts with worship. You might need God to pour out a frsh anointing on your life, commission you into a ministry, or release you into your destiny--it begins with worship.
--David M. Edwards
...we should be discerning about mimicking the culture rather than truly entering into it. We tend to make relevance a value in and of itself, and that may or may not be right in light of the gospel...
...nothing could be more relevant than the God who made us and came to live among us in Jesus Christ. The real danger is noth that we pursue releveance too much but too little; it's too much about our culture and too little about God. So pastors, worship leaders and church ministries spend a great deal of time on Christian subcultural packaging that is intended to carry the gospel indistinguishably into secular culture....
...This type of relevance often means mimicry of human culture instead of the heart and passions of God. The church that gives in to the wrong kind of relevance runs the danger of losing its saltiness and finally having nothing to offer.
-Mark Labberton
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