Monday, March 25, 2013

Does the Bible teach that God may refuse to answer prayer..?


God may refuse to listen to your prayers when...

- You are not a born-again believer in Jesus (Psalm 18:41, 2 Samuel 22:42)
- You're living in unrepentant sin (Psalm 66:18, Proverbs 15:29)
- You're living disobediently to God's Word (Isaiah 1:15, Zechariah 7:13)
- You're not treating your wife properly (1 Peter 3:7)
- You ask with wrong motives (James 4:3)


The following is additional clarification to what I believe the bible is teaching through these texts as well as others that support this.

My hope is to address some things, which I believe could be used to counter these teachings. To start quite simply, I stated God "may" refuse to listen...I was very intentional in phrasing it this way because I'd like to give God the freedom to behave as God - not that he needs it from me - but more so to not make presumptions and declarations in principle to how God must behave. To state it another way, I don't believe God is bound by formulas or anything of that matter; though He is a God of order and wants us to see Him as faithful/reliable, He also doesn't fit in a box that we often times like to put Him in. The Bible presents God as incomprehensible, yet as a God who seeks to be known by us through the condescending self-disclosure He provides through creation(the world), His Son Jesus, and His written Word. Simply put, the teachings of Scripture don't give us authority to define God on our own terms...

Now to consider some things that I believe could be used to refute these teachings. I believe strongly we must let all of Scripture form our view of God; not what's comfortable, not what's palatable, or trendy/culturally informed, or what's safe . 

Argument...1) That God is different in the OT and the NT - 

Response: The Scriptures very clearly teach that God is the same for eternity, which means He is the same God from the beginning of the writings of Scripture in OT to the roughly 1,400 years later at the end of NT writings. I would agree that God does interact with His people differently in the NT because of the new covenant of grace ushered in by Jesus. Another way to understand this is that the OT is the New concealed, and the NT is the Old revealed; the idea is known as progressive revelation. In the NT the Old is directly stated as being authoritative Scripture, the clearest example is 2 Timothy 3:16 and 2 Peter 1:16-21.. 

Argument 2) Because God is gracious there are not severe consequences for sin, and ignoring His Word - 

Response: A new covenant of grace is taught in the Scriptures to demand more obedience and not less (Rom 6:15-18). The less we think of, or see our sin clearly for what it is will cause us to see the sufficiency of Christ and the power of the Cross that purchased our new covenant of grace as less valuable than it truly is. So motivating the presentation of these teachings is to magnify and exalt the power of Christ's love and conquering of sin and death, not to present God as mean or cruel. 

Argument 3) Because Jesus died for sins everyone is always acceptable to God, even their prayers - 

Response: The bible very clearly teaches that those who don't believe in Jesus for salvation are enemies of God (Philippians 3:18, Colossians 1:21, Psalm 5:5), always wicked in all they do (Ephesians 2:1-3, Hebrews 11:6, Romans 14:23), sons of satan (John 8:44, 1 John 3:10), and have wicked hearts (Jeremiah 17:9, Romans 3:10-23)... 

Argument 4) Worship and idolatry are just what people did in the OT and that's not applicable today for us - 

Response: To think that worship and idolatry is an archaic, or simple issue of bowing and killing stuff before a graven image shows a false view of what worship and idolatry are. Worship is essentially what do you give yourself to, and thereby reflect (in your words, thoughts, actions, and intentions) in life the most. Idolatry is Worship in reverse; essentially it's been perverted, polluted, distorted, sin marred, and become a corrupted version because we give ourselves and reflect what doesn't deserve to be Worshiped. Idolatry is the exchanging of the truth for a lie (Romans 1:18-23). We make idols, and therefore worship our emotions, families, money, sex, drugs, food, media, security, safety, occupation, comfort, knowledge, reputation, acceptance, value, identity, material possessions, etc...Many of these things are inherently good, but they become false gods because of sin. Anything that is not God, but is ascribed to God could be idolatry because it's exchanging the truth of who He is for a lie.

Argument 5) God's justice, wrath, goodness, faithfulness, righteousness, and holiness act separately from His love, grace, mercy, forgiveness - 

Response: For God to be loving He must remain true to Himself. God is always acting as all of who He is. God doesn't choose in one moment to be gracious to the repentant because He's ignoring/not being just. And God doesn't choose to be just in a moment instead of loving to others. While God is being just He is being loving, because it would be an unloving thing to be unjust and ignore sin. Everyone has sinned and rejected God's infinite gift of salvation and His Son Christ, so we all are always very ill-deserving of far more than what we receive; meaning that whatever we receive (including the sinner in Hell) God is being merciful and good and loving to us because He could always give us infinitely more of what we deserve than what He actually does....

Finally, I'll use two illustrations that I hope will shed light on what I think the bible is teaching on this topic. 

Scenario #1
There is a king. The king has one beloved son that will inherent his kingdom. The king leaves. The king puts someone in charge of his kingdom. That steward kills the king’s son. The steward is now a murder, committed treason, and works to steal the kingdom. The king returns. What should the king do? He would be very just to have the death-penalty exacted on this person. The king would also be very just, and good, and righteous and loving to uphold the law for having the murderer, thief, and traitor exiled. The steward/murderer approaches the king upon his return. Instead of begging for his life, he assumes it, and instead asks for more of what would please him and help him steal the kingdom. He ignores what the king would desire and has asked him...How would you respond in this situation?

Scenario #2 - 
There is a husband. The husband has always loved his wife. The husband has been completely faithful, always provided and protected his wife. Some might say this husband is perfect. In fact this husband paid a 10million dollar bail for this ladies death penalty sentence because she was a prostitute and murderer on the streets. This husband still loves his wife unconditionally in spite of her dark past. One day the wife approaches her husband and asks for $100. He gives it because he loves. This happens dozens of times. The husband gets suspicious. The husband does research. The husband discovers his wife spending all the money he's giving his wife to sleep with other men, buy cars and tools for other husbands that are not hers. The husband knows his wife's wicked and adulterous schemes. The wife doesn't know he knows. The wife asks for more. The husband would be very just, very good and very loving to not listen to her requests for more of the money that hurts her, hurts others, hurts their marriage, and hurts him. How should the husband respond to his adulterous wife? How would you respond to an adulterous spouse? How hurt would we be by this scenario if we were the spouse being betrayed in horrible ways?...

In conclusion my motivation for presenting these teachings of Scripture is to move us toward evangelism, to be serious about pursuing Christ, to highlight that Christ paid an awful price, that Christ is sufficient for all sin, to encourage us to pursue biblical repentance from sin, encourage obedience to God and His Word, give clear teachings of the Scriptures, expose the truth of the bible, and because God's grace and love and forgiveness made available by Jesus' sacrifice are truly the most amazing realities that by faith we can lay hold of. 

Let us praise the One who paid our debt and raised our lives up from the dead!

Friday, February 8, 2013

A cynical, but honestly truthful response to john lennons "imagine" lyrics..

"Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky"...You're right, then Jesus died for nothing and this life is meaningless; eat and drink for tomorrow we die(maybe, we don't know because we don't have answers)

"Imagine all the people
Living for today"...Hey great idea, we should all ignore the fact that our choices have very serious consequences for tomorrow and even the next generation. God says He punishes the sins of the wicked to the 3rd and 4th generation, but blesses the righteous to the thousands

"Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do"...It's very hard to do. Good luck ignoring all the different beautiful skin colors, cultures, people groups, nations, languages, clothing, art, skills and trades...The value of something is based on the uniqueness and diversity of those who appreciate it. In heaven those who are saved will come from all nations, tongues, and tribes to praise God, proving once for all that He is the most worthy thing in existence.

"Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too"...I'm not so thrilled that this means you're not willing to stand up for anything, except the belief that we shouldn't stand up for anything. Besides you can't live without religion. By the dictionaries definition it's a set of beliefs that orchestrate how you comprehend the existence of all things, what you value, and human origins. So by saying things like "I don't believe in God," "Heaven doesn't exist", "We should all live like this and such," is making your own "religious" statement. By the root meaning of the word it means to reconnect to something/someone. So whatever you reconnect to the most is your religion.

"Imagine all the people
living life in peace"...Think about your own worldview for a second, just one please...You can never achieve utopia through tolerance and acceptance because that would mean you'd have to accept and allow someone who believes that it's their right to kill, steal and do whatever they want without throwing a fit at them, and yet the reason you want peace is because awful sins like this happen. You're saying we want everything to exist, except you because you don't think or behave like us. At what point to you want the evil in the world to not exist. The war level, the murder level, the stealing level, the lying level, the swearing level, the thinking, the feeling, the motive level. You gotta be consistent, and as soon as you say you're not as bad as most people you've proven the Bible true when it says that our tongues and hearts are only wicked all the time by lying about it.
I am a Christian

I was reading a book about John Calvin by William Stacy Johnson - if you're interested in reading it - and towards the end was inspired to write this short list of "I am..." statements. My hope is to capture the true meaning of these words, people, or movements, and redeem them from where they have ended as we know them today. I do not endorse the idea that truth can be found anywhere, or even things that are helpful, but rather I hope that we're all encouraged to pursue and think critically about the things we say we believe, and even more critically about what we do about with what we claim to believe.

I'm catholic because I believe in the universal body and church of Jesus Christ.
I'm orthodox because I believe we should find the truth and proper ways of living for God.
I'm reformed because I believe we should fashion, shape, and make fresh to all the truth of Scripture.
I'm methodist because I believe what we practice and how we practice matters because it reflects what we believe.
I'm lutheran because I believe Martin Luther was a wise man, and as anyone who seeks to genuinely follow Christ should be respected as an image-bearer of God.
I'm baptist because I believe you must be born again to enter the kingdom of God.
I'm charismatic because I believe followers of Christ should have in them a zeal, and passion for God's glory unmatched by all else.
I'm evangelical because I believe the Gospel of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection as the message of God's only provision for our sins needs to be told to everyone daily.
I'm universalist because I believe Jesus calls everyone to repent from sin.
I'm exclusive because I believe Jesus is the only way to God the Father, to salvation, and to eternal life in heaven.
I'm protestant because I believe we should humbly, graciously, lovingly, and truthfully stand in protest against injustice, oppression, false religion, sin and evil; so that all may have equal opportunity to find joy in following Christ for God's glory.

What are you..?

Monday, January 28, 2013

9 Sinful Views of Sin


1) "Sin is just breaking some rule"...Actually sin is violating who God is, and breaking relationship with Him.
2) "Jesus died so I'm forgiven"...Actually Jesus died so that you'd stop sinning
3) "If I don't confess every single sin and forget one I'm going to hell"...Jesus died for all sins; past, present (meaning your current thoughts on God falling short of who He really is, thereby making Him something less than the true God which is idolatry), and future.
4) "God knows my heart, and what's there is what counts"...Your life is a reflection of your heart, so you can't say my heart is good, but my life is bad.
5) "Sin is fun, life is boring so sometimes I allow it in my life"...If you love Jesus sin is never fun
6) "It's not a sin if no one gets hurt"...No matter what sin hurts someone, especially you, and Jesus when He was killed
7) "It's only sin if I get caught"...God knows, you're always caught.
8) "If it's very popular - even in Christian culture - it must be okay"...Jesus was a rebel, He was counter-cultural. We are called to not be of this world, just passing through.
9) "Everything must be a sin issue, even when it's not a sin"...Sometimes it's difference of opinion, or conscience. And some times things just happen in the case of Job or Jesus. Open bibles. Open discussion, not open war.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Often times the most consequential and significant choices, or events in life that we make and go through are not really our choices, but God's.

Here I am, in a river of questions.
Can I pour my heart out to a listening ear?
I see this life, its valley's and mountains
And I think of all the roads that brought me here
I've questioned my reasons.
The life I'm living. I've questioned my ability
to judge wrong from right.
I've questioned all the things that I've ever called certain
My race, my religion, my faith, my mind.
I've questioned significance, meaning and relevance.
Does the work I'm doing really matter at all?
Well I've questioned my friendships, alliance, dependence
Who will still be here when I fall?

But the one thing I don't question is you
God, You really love me like you say you do.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgrigf-Ca48