Signing off

I've decided to shut down this blog. There are several reasons for this:

1. As is obvious from the dates on the posts below, I have not updated this blog consistently for a very long time. I don't have the time or the interest in maintaining this space anymore. 
2. The posts which have generated the most interest here are things that I am not interested in discussing anymore, while the articles that I felt strongly about seem to have been mostly ignored. 
3. There are several posts that I wrote 3 years ago or more in which I defended the legitimacy of IHOPKC. Although I do not necessarily retract anything that I wrote at that time, I am not comfortable with having those posts pulled into a current controversy under very different circumstances.

The domain name www.todayandthatday.com will expire in May 2014, and at that point this site will go away.

If you are interested in what I am doing now, you can look up our current ministry on Facebook at www.facebook.com/RhopThailand.

From Everywhere to Everywhere

One of my favorite aspects of the house of prayer and missions school that we are planning in Thailand is the cultural cross-pollination that we will see.

We envision a missions school in which half the students will be Thai believers, and the other half will be internationals - from America, Europe, Latin America, East Asia, or wherever. 

The international students will come for ACTS School just like they would come to Kansas City, but they will get something Kansas City cannot offer. 

International students in our school will live together with Thai students.  They will pray together in the prayer room, minister together around  northern Thailand, and play together on their days off. And then they will go out for a 10 week outreach together. The window into another worldview and the cultural immersion experience that they receive will be priceless.

And our Thai students will find that the Gospel, the Scriptures, and the Holy Spirit are unrestrained by cultural barriers. The same Holy Spirit that empowers the Church in America empowers the Church in Thailand, and He wants every tribe, every tongue, and every culture to be redeemed in the kingdom of God.

Missions in this time of history is no longer about Westerners going to the East or Northerners going to the South. It is truly a global Christian movement now, and workers are being sent from everywhere to everywhere.

I am excited to see what God will do in the Thai church with Thai missionaries trained side by side with internationals, and what God will do in the hearts and minds of young adults from the West when they pray and live and witness with Thais who know Jesus from a perspective they never thought of.

Fully Equipped Laborers for the Harvest

At the beginning of the IHOPU Student Awakening in 2009, the Lord put a prayer in my heart that would grow into a significant mandate for me. 

In the first days of that move of the Holy Spirit, when I was a third year student, there was a “Student upper room,” where we kept an intercession set going while ministry was going on in the main auditorium.  As I thought of the large numbers who were experiencing the joy of the Lord, being set free from self-hatred and besetting sins, and getting healed downstairs, the following verses captured my heart:

And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” (Matthew 9:35–38)

I prayed this prayer earnestly in the days and months that followed. In my campus ministry years, I had been taught that the word “laborer” in this verse meant an ordinary, untrained field-hand.  The implication was that anyone could be a laborer if they would merely do something for Jesus.  But as I began to pray this verse, I realized that this interpretation did not hold up to scrutiny.  If “laborers” were untrained and common, why did Jesus say there were “few” of them?  And why was the primary command not simply to “go,” but to “pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out” laborers?  In fact, the word translated “send out” is a very forceful word – it is usually used in the New Testament for casting out demons!

Furthermore, the fact that Jesus saw the crowd as “sheep without a shepherd” strongly suggests that the laborers must be well-equipped for their task.  The language of “shepherding” in the Hebrew Scriptures refers to leaders of the people – the prophets, priests, and kings of Israel. (e.g. 2 Sam 5:2, Ps 78:71-72, Jer 23:2, Jer 50:6, and esp. Zech 10:2).  Laborers who would solve the problem of sheep without a shepherd suggest the promise in Jeremiah 3:15 of “shepherds after My own heart” (cf. Acts 13:22).

I have come to believe that this prayer for laborers represents the Lord’s desire to send out ambassadors who know Him so well that they accurately represent Him to people around them.  They will be “after His own heart,” because by knowing Him, they will feed others with the knowledge of God.  I see three dimensions of a fully-formed laborer after God’s heart:

• His word is in their mouths.
• His compassion is in their hearts.
• His power is in their hands.

Two and a half years later, that prayer continues to burn on my heart.  I believe that God desires to finish the task of evangelizing the nations in partnership with people who are “after His heart,” who, like Paul, have counted every lesser thing as rubbish in comparison to the excellence of the knowledge of God, and have become ambassadors trained and equipped to cry out to all nations, “Behold your God!” (Isaiah 40:9)

The answer to this prayer is not simply more missionaries graduating from Bible college and seminary.  Deep Bible study is necessary, but contemporary theological training is not, by and large, producing men and women who know their God and do great exploits (Dan 11:32, NKJV).  Fully-equipped laborers will be formed as the first apostles were – sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to His word.  Prayer, not education, will be the first priority of these laborers.

The Courage of the Creator

“Christianity is the only religion on earth that has felt that omnipotence made God incomplete. Christianity alone has felt that God, to be wholly God, must have been a rebel as well as a king. Alone of all creeds, Christianity has added courage to the virtues of the Creator. For the only courage worth calling courage must necessarily mean that the soul passes a breaking point and does not break.” – G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (“The Romance of Orthodoxy”)

If we could look from the perspective of heaven, perhaps it would not be very surprising that when God visited His people He would be regarded as a troublemaker and a rebel. He had warned them for centuries that He was not on their side. Either they were on His side, or they were against Him. Looking frankly at the history of Israel, most of the time they were opposed to Him. He had spoken to them in judgment, in deliverance, in blessing and in cursing, and still they persisted in their own way.

So He came to them as a subversive. He began to put the world right by turning it inside out and upside down. The poor are rich, the persecuted are joyful, suffering is pleasure (2 Cor 12:10), and death by crucifixion is glory. And what is highly exalted among people is an abomination to God (Lk 16:15). The age to come will vindicate those who side with God, no matter how foolish they look now.

We have been invited into the Grand Conspiracy to fix the world by turning it on its head. But we immediately run into our own fear. Turning the world upside down and making pretty much everybody mad is scary stuff. We’d be a lot more comfortable if we could preach moderation. Or if we could pick a side and make sure “the good guys” win. But we don’t get to do that. Our King took no one’s side except His Father’s, received no honor from human beings (Jn 5:41), and was utterly fearless. We learn what courage looks like by looking at Jesus. There’s never been a Man more brave.

The Spiral of Adoration

The Hermeneutical Spiral is a book that I never read, but the title changed my life. Well, perhaps “changed my life” is an exaggeration, but it really helped me understand Bible study. The idea is that knowing what whole books are about helps understand what individual verses mean, which in turn helps understand the whole book, which helps understand the verses, and so on. The process of understanding the Bible is “the parts interpret the whole interpret the parts, etc.”

I’d like to suggest that something similar happens when we meditate on the Incarnation. It has been well said that we completely miss the significance of the stable in Bethlehem unless we keep fully in mind Who it is that is lying in the feeding trough. The story slides into sentimentality unless we remember that the helpless Baby born in squalor is the very God who created the heavens and the earth with a word… who in judgment for sin, wiped the entire human race from the planet except Noah’s family… who demolished the global superpower Egypt to rescue slaves and make them the His own special people... who sent them into exile when the rebelled against Him… and promised them a restoration beyond hope. Unless we remember that it is this same God of creation, covenant, exodus, exile, and restoration who is now lying in a manger, we miss the entire point of Christmas.

But we need to go one step farther. God incarnate in Jesus reveals the God of Sinai in ways that are unthinkable otherwise. How would we know about the humility of God if it were not for Jesus? His gentleness with sinners? His joy? Gratitude? Courage? The Son interprets the Father for us.

As we meditate on the Incarnation, let us remember that it is Yahweh who became flesh – and that through His flesh He revealed what we could never have known about Him any other way. It is in this “spiral of adoration” that we will find ourselves, as Wesley wrote, “lost in wonder, love, and praise.”

Jesus didn't call us to comfort

In the news today, another well-known Christian singer has come out as a homosexual. I found what Jennifer Knapp had to say about her story to be interesting:

The Signal - Christian singer Jennifer Knapp comes out as a lesbian
“I still consider my hope to be a whole human being, to be a person of love and grace. So it’s difficult for me to say that I’ve struggled within myself, because I haven’t. I’ve struggled with other people. I’ve struggled with what that means in my own faith. I have struggled with how that perception of me will affect the way I feel about myself.”

I will not attempt to say that I fully understand what she has experienced in the tension between sexual attraction to her own gender and what the Bible says. I have no first-hand experience of same-sex attraction, so I will frankly say that I don't "get it." But I do have first-hand experience of powerful and overwhelming urges to do things which our society considers normal, but which the Bible condemns as sin. In fact, for a large part of my life, I have felt trapped in a habit (or even an addiction) which I cannot seem to escape, despite trying virtually everything that has been recommended to me. Over and over again, I have felt how much easier it would be to give up the struggle, quit fighting it, and simply live the way it seems most Americans do.

But when I look at the Bible, I find that rather than "being a whole human being" who is free from internal struggle, what the New Testament urges is much closer to my experience of constant internal battle.

The writer of Hebrews described this life as a footrace, and suggested that we should do whatever it takes to be free of encumbrance so that we can run this race to the finish line. (Heb 12:1-2) The finish line, it is clear from the context, is the end of this life. (Heb 11:39) So the Christian life can be compared to running a marathon which lasts your entire life. There may be glory in a marathon, but it not comfortable or easy.

Peter and Paul both take comparison up a notch and equate this life to a war. Peter urges Christians to abstain from the lusts of our flesh, because they wage war against our souls. (1 Peter 2:11) Paul encourages Timothy to "share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus" (2 Tim 2:3-4), and writes to the Ephesians that they are to put on a full suit of spiritual armor to withstand every attack of demonic forces against them. (Eph 6:10-20)

Most disturbingly of all, from the very lips of the Master Himself, we are told that this life is a voluntary process of self-execution. He calls us to live in such a way that it is like giving ourselves up to humiliation, torture, and a slow, agonizing death by one of the most horrific means of execution ever devised. That is what "Take up your cross" means, after all. And of all the great leaders in history, this Man is the only One who can with absolute unquestionable authority call us to that voluntary self-destruction.  He is not asking us to do anything He did not do first! (Mt 16:24-25, Lk 9:23-24, Mk 8:34-35)

Today we are constantly hearing that it is too hard and too unkind for Christians to insist that those with same-sex attraction resist it just because the Bible says so.  In light of the strong – and even ruthless – words we have just surveyed from the Founder and the fathers of our faith, such arguments seem anemic and pathetic.

The reason that anemic and pathetic arguments carry so much weight today, however, is because the contemporary American Church is by and large anemic and pathetic. Gay activists are very nearly right in saying that Jesus never talked about homosexuality (though note His restatement of God's intention for male and female in Mt 19:3-9 and parallels). The issues to which He did apply His call to violent holiness have a much broader application:

• We have to die to religious pride. (Lk 18:9-14, Mt 7:1-4)
  
• We have to die to love of money. (Lk 16:10-15)
  
• We have to die to idle and unprofitable speech. (Mt 12:36-37)
  
• We have to die to our right to be angry. (Mt 5:21-26)
  
• We have to die to even looking lustfully at another human being (of either gender). (Mt 5:27-30)
  
• We have to die to getting what is due to us. (Mt 5:38-42)
  
• We may well have to suffer persecution and even die physically. (Mt 5:10-12, Rev 2:10)

Internal struggle - even internal warfare unto continual death to self - is what Jesus calls us to. Let us forget our ignorant dream of being comfortable and happy in this life and instead do whatever it takes to be holy. What we will find is that there is a better joy, a better peace, and a better comfort - a comfort beyond imagination - coming in the age to come for those who refuse to give up. 

And even in this age there is a downpayment of that joy to be had. People really do find freedom from all kinds of besetting sins, including same-sex attraction.  People really can, by the power of the Holy Spirit, live with an increasing measure of holiness in this life. I really do have hope that in this life I will have consistent and lasting victory over sinful habits.

But victory only comes to those who fight.

Finney: How great sin can precede revival

I've started a discussion group in my Biblical Studies class to read through Finney's Revivals of Religion together and to pray through what he taught. This week, the following quote caught our attention. Surely, when heresy is growing in the Church, when those giving up on the Church are increasing, and when sin is being justified, promoted, and boasted of all around, we are living in times of "outrageous wickedness."

If so, then let us repent of our "carnal policies that only make things worse," follow God's prescription, and humble ourselves and pray!

Charles Finney: Lectures on Revivals of Religion, "II. When a Revival is to be Expected":
But sometimes the conduct of the wicked drives Christians to prayer, and breaks them down, and makes them sorrowful and tender-hearted, so that they can weep day and night, and instead of scolding and reproaching them, they pray earnestly for them. Then you may expect a revival. Indeed this is a revival begun already. Sometimes the wicked will get up an opposition to religion. And when this drives Christians to their knees in prayer to God, with strong crying and tears, you may be certain there is going to be a revival. The prevalence of wickedness is no evidence at all that there is not going to be a revival. That is often God’s time to work. When the enemy cometh in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord lifts up a standard against him. Often the first indication of a revival, is the devil’s getting up something new in opposition. It will invariably have one of two effects. It will either drive Christians to God, or it will drive them farther away from God, to some carnal policy or other that will only make things worse. Frequently the most outrageous wickedness of the ungodly is followed by a revival. If Christians are made to feel that they have no hope but in God, and if they have sufficient feeling left to care for the honor of God and the salvation of the souls of the impenitent, there will certainly be a revival. Let hell boil over if it will, and spew out as many devils as there are stones in the pavements, if it only drives Christians to God in prayer—they cannot hinder a revival. Let Satan get up a row, and sound his horn as loud as he pleases; if Christians will only be humbled and pray, they shall soon see God’s naked arm in a revival of religion.