From Slice of Laodicea, hosted by Ingrid Schlueter: an interview with Pastor Dustin Segers of Shepherd’s Fellowship concerning Christian bloggers maintaining balance,focus and righteousness in their lives with regards to blogging in general and as a ministry, specifically anyone called into discernment.  I do hope readers take the time to listen to this interview in full, Pastor Segers has in my opinion some solid advice for us all to consider and take to heart.

File under: Avoiding Distractions

Christian doctrine etc;

The Marshian Chronicles  and Lindsay Brooks of Apologetics.com have posts from earlier in the week that personally speak to and challenge me to step up even more in proclaiming my faith in Christ.  Part 1 of the post from The Marshain Chronicles is here and Part 2 is here.  I mentioned a few days ago about working on a friend of a friend’s PC.  Well the back story to this "friend of a friend" is that they are Mormon, and during our interaction,I felt a need to witness to this young man about the true Jesus of the Bible (sans John Smith), I didn’t though because of not "feeling" that the timing was right.  I don’t know, maybe there’s truth to it, maybe me just dragging my feet in this particular instance since I didn’t have an established relationship with the young man.  As I’m making this entry though, it does occur to me that somehow, some way, I do need to talk to this young man about his involvement with the Mormon church and His relationship with Christ.   

Lindsay Brooks offers his 2 cents worth regarding proclaiming the Gospel, and The Marshian Chronicles also gives some practical advise and words to ponder to go along with what the believer is told in 1st Thessalonians 5:

1st Thessalonians 5:19-22
19 Do not put out the Spirit’s fire; 20 do not treat prophecies with contempt.

Technology

As much as I enjoy technology, be it computers or AV equipment, I am a slow adopter.  For example, I’s only been in the past 3-4 years that I’ve fully embraced Windows XP as my preferred Windows OS (a long time Windows 2000 holdout).    Likewise, I was a diehard fan of the Musicmatch Media Player.  Even after Yahoo acquired the software and "reinvented" it, I held out on the legacy version as my default media player, forsaking Windows Media Player.  Over the past six months or so Musicmatch has become less and less appealing to use, as Yahoo has made efforts to migrate users to it’s home branded media player.

After a day of frustrations with installing Musicmatch about a month ago, I finally gave in and abandoned the app for Winamp.  For the old Musicmatch fanboys that are looking for a comparable replacement, I highly suggest giving  Winamp a try.

Need a tool to convert your media files or graphics to different formats? Check out the freeware media converter know as Format Factory.  The interface is a little buggy/quirky, but the utility itself has performed wonderfully.

Grace and peace be with you.

As a very generalized example, I used Democratic presidential nominee Obam’s call for "change", and the frenzied response of supporters.  The idea being that those (not all inclusive) that are in support of Obama seem to respond (emotionally and in an almost cult-like following) to his message of change, but the question remains… "What change is proposed?".  Saying you want change is one thing, saying you have a vision or plan for change is another.   In another way think of someone professing: "I’m Christian", yet their life merely reflects being a "good person" by man’s standards of morals and conduct rather than being Christ led and thus Christ-like in attitude,behavior, etc.  Essentially it’s just a word with no godly weight or sense of Holy Spirit led conviction to it.

Updated 20080907 at 2:33 pm
Hmmm!?… reference the statement:  "In another way think of someone professing: "I’m Christian", yet their life merely reflects being a "good person" …"  My Pastor practically said the same thing in today’s sermon.

The thought that finally impressed upon me however was that regardless of a Christian’s political interest or involvement, we ought not to think of political figures as messiahs that will bring about moral change through the political process.  The Jews seemed to have made a similar mistake in their assumption that the messiah would free them from the occupation and influence of the Roman Empire.  They thought that political reform was His mission, at least in part.  I’m not discounting the possibility of a godly man or woman being used by God to address this country’s moral deficit however, I think that the call by God is for each of us to fix our eyes on Him and His Word, to be ambassadors of Christ that are an effective catalyst for spiritual change at a localized level.

By influencing those people in our immediate sphere of influence (family,friends,co-workers,employees,neighbors,etc) we can effect a change that works from the bottom up versus putting too much stock and energy in hoping for politicians to employ God’s message and values to the people from the top down.

Grace and peace be with you.

Source: “An Apple a Day: Treasured Selections from Apples of Gold” by Jo Petty

Grace and peace be with you.

If one is not aware of Todd Bentley, the short of it is that he’s a charismatic "prophet" associated with Fresh Fires Ministry.  Bentley led what’s been described as a franticly paced revival in Lakeland Florida over the past 2-3 months.   Bentley has had a questionable past, and seems to have become a quick and rising star on the scene of evangelism (?).  As for the revival itself, some of the questionable things to come form this "revival" include reports of healings  accompanied  with violence, heavenly visitations ("Third Heaven") and encounters with angels; specifically one named "Emma".

Apprising Ministries, Apostasy Watch and Marsha West have already done a well enough job commenting on this story so I won’t go into detail adding my 2 cents worth to what’s already been written about the bizarre happenings of the revival. What I do want to add however is some spiritual food for thought in retrospect.

The first thought comes from 2nd Thessalonians, and pertains to all spiritual deception not just the Florida Outpouring Revival:

2nd Thessalonians 2:9-12
9 The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, 10 and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie 12 and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.

Honestly, I don’t know whether to take those verses as pertaining strictly to the false prophet being delusional in their own self crafted schemes or the people flocking to the deception?  This next verse however is in my opinion definitely addressing those that practice and preach false doctrines, and counterfeit works.  It’s something that many folks obviously missed before hopping on the Florida Outpouring Revival bandwagon:

Colossians 2:18-19
18 Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions. 19 He has lost connection with the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.

Also see: 2nd Timothy 4:2-4

And Jesus said: "So be on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time." (Mark 13:21-23)

Grace and peace be with you.

At the end of the post, which is a summary (outline) of the sermon over the Beatitudes  (Matthew 5:3-12).  I noticed 8 points of application to the sermon that hit home, and that I thought would be neat to share.  The points cover areas that God performs "reconstructive surgery" of the heart.  I’m not sure if I’m up to #8 yet.

Grace and peace be with you.

Thanks to E.B. for posting my comment, which I do hope was and is uplifting.  Be sure to read the first link!  E.B. speaks of some simple truths about God and one’s relationship to and with Him.

File under: "Wow" with a big ‘ole exclamation point.

Grace and peace be with you.

Soooo.. with all of that said.   More on discernment.

I was in the process of replying to a reader comment  from the Emergent Motivational Posters post this evening (ok, yesterday evening by the time I actually get this posted, but I’m filling it under yesterday); and we we’re exchanging some ideas and thoughts concerning discernment, in particular the Emergent Church doctrine/theology.  I won’t rehash the entire conversation here, but one of the questions or thoughts that came up was about how EC leaders, speaking for the whole I gather, have a warped sense of SIN and REGENERATION BY THE HOLY SPIRIT is.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist taking at least a little step upon the the ‘ole soap box.  The short of what I understand from reading EC propaganda is that their "gospel" is along the line of social transformation with a jesus twist.  Yes, no capital "J" on that jesus, because he is not the same Jesus that I read about in the Bible or pray to.  The jesus of the EC seems to be everyone’s homie, that’s just happy to have been  able to be crucified.  Not really sure why he was pleased to be crucified as the EC doctrine, or at least Rob Bell seems to not make it clear that the purpose of the crucifixion was to redeem us because of OUR sins against him.  For more in depth reading and commentary, I suggest heading over to Apprising Ministries headed up by Ken Silva.  You’ll find plenty of informative posts concerning EC doctrine and it’s leaders there.

Anywho… one of the comments by the reader regarding our discussion of the EC’s failure to comprehend the gospel was along the lines of a paraphrased passage: "Be ye transformed".   The Bible passage that came to mind for me is from Romans:

Romans 12:2
2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Kind of hard to understand God’s holy and sinless agenda if your trying to approach Him from your naturally sinful and unregenerate perspective, don’t you think?

Grace and peace be with you.

Our response to God greatly determines His presence in our lives. If we seek God with all of our hearts, then we will find Him (Jer. 29:13-14). The Lord wants to have fellowship with us, but He will not force a relationship upon us. We cannot reject fellowship with God and expect Him to remain near. He does not merely follow us throughout our day in case we need His assistance. If we continue to forsake Him, a time will come when we desperately need Him and He will not be near (Isa. 59:1-2).

It is an affront to sovereign God to treat Him like a servant who should wait upon us. God will relate to us on His terms, not ours. God desires a close walk with us. He will make His presence real and personal if that is our desire. If we repent of our sin and seek God on His terms, we can look forward to intimate fellowship with Him (James 4:8-10). We are to continually seek Him, not content to enter a new day without the assurance that God is walking beside us.

Do you say you want to experience God’s presence while your actions reveal otherwise? If you say you want to know God better but neglect studying His word, are you truly seeking Him? Have you regularly forsaken the place of prayer? If your actions reveal that you are genuinely seeking God, then He promises that you will find Him (Matt. 7:7).

Henry and Richard Blackaby
Experiencing God Day-by-Day

He went to the doctor and the doctor was able to have him fitted for a set of hearing aids that allowed the gentleman to hear 100% .

The elderly gentleman went back in a month to the doctor and the doctor said, "Your hearing is perfect. Your family must be really pleased that you can hear again!"

The elderly gentleman replied, "Oh, I haven’t told my family yet. I just sit around and listen to the conversations. I’ve changed my will three times!"

Grace and peace be with you.

Acts 17:11
Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

I. What is Discernment?

From a Biblical perspective discernment implies scrutinizing for accuracy, validity or truthfulness, etc;.

Webster’s Dictionary defines discernment as:

1. To see and identify by noting a difference or differences; to note the distinctive character of; to discriminate; to distinguish.

2. To see or understand the difference; to make distinction; as, to discern between good and evil, truth and falsehood.

John MacArthur’s definition of discernment:

In its simplest definition, discernment is nothing more than the ability to decide between truth and error, right and wrong. Discernment is the process of making careful distinctions in our thinking about truth. In other words, the ability to think with discernment is synonymous with an ability to think biblically.

First Thessalonians 5:21-22 teaches that it is the responsibility of every Christian to be discerning: “But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil.” The apostle John issues a similar warning when he says, “Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). According to the New Testament, discernment is not optional for the believer-it is required.

Citation from “The Vital Importance of Biblical Discernment” by John MacArthur (http://bible.lightsource.com/11531806/)

II. Biblically speaking, what is the purpose of discernment?

1. To avoid being deceived

• 1st Timothy 1:3-4
• 1st Timothy 1:8-11 (Note verse 10! “contrary to sound doctrine”)
• Mark 13:5,22-23 (warnings directly from Jesus!)

2. To know and recognize the true Jesus Christ from the false christs (antichrists)

3. To distinguish Biblical fact from “fiction”, to recognize Orthodox Christian doctrine from worldview “religion”/man made doctrines

4. To be obedient to God and His Word

• 1st John 4:1
• Ephesians 5:6-7
• Colossians 2:8

5. To become matured Christians

• Wisdom - James 3:13-17
• Discipline
• Discretion
• Knowledge - Ephesians 4:12-16

6. Love (1st Timothy 1:3-5 Note verse 5!)

1st Timothy 1:3-5
3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer 4 nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God’s work—which is by faith. 5 The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

III. Why study and discuss discernment?

1. The Bible tells us to be discerning (1st Thessalonians 5:21-22, 1st John 4:1)
2. To be obedient to God and His Word (1st John 4:1, Ephesians 5:6-7, Colossians 2:8)
3. To become matured Christians (Ephesians 4:12-16, 1st Timothy 1:3-5)
4. Concerns over the many misleading spiritual leaders, sects, movements, and religions masquerading as being of God and “Christian” in the Orthodox sense.

IV. Warnings directly from Jesus!

Matthew 24:4
4 Jesus answered: "Watch out that no one deceives you.

Mark 13:22-23
22 For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and miracles to deceive the elect—if that were possible. 23 So be on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time.

Luke 21:8
8 He replied: "Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them.

V. How does one become a discerning Christian?

1. Discernment is imparted by the Holy Spirit - 1st Corinthians 2:12-14

• Not “learned” or “taught” from self-help or self-esteem books
• Not based on our wisdom (human intellect) nor solely on our experiences See: Proverbs 3:5-6

1. Referring to the Bible for direction & spiritual nurturing
2. Relying on God’s wisdom, not ours - 1st Corinthians 1:25-30
3. Habitual prayer and reading of God’s Word - it’s vital that this is a regular part of your daily walk with Christ
4. Application of what God’s Word says, to your life
   These are components of spiritual nurturing which result in spiritual maturation.

Grace and peace be with you