I was reading this morning in Charles Kraft, Defeating Dark Angels.  He made the point that to heal, we must treat the whole person because everything is interconnected.  Physically, emotionally, spiritually, etc., we are all connected.  Things happening in one part affect other parts.  A person goes to a medical doctor, but he only treats the physical part.  Or someone goes to a counselor, but they only address the emotional part, etc.  So people do get help, but they rarely get full healing.

What if the church became a center for healing?  What if Christian doctors and counselors partnering with Christians trained in pastoral care,  inner healing and deliverance could work as teams to bring at least the opportunity for pervasive healing to someone?  It would be difficult, with all the professional egos and those who feel that their discipline is most important, but if the whole team had a heart for the Lord and the commitment and skill to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit (the source of all healing), it could be revolutionary.

Father, I pray that you would raise up churches who would become centers of healing.  Father, you love this sick and dying world.  It is your desire to bring healing and help.  So father, bring together like-minded followers with these skills and put them together to bring blessing and healing to the nations.

I took my wife up to “Top of the World” in Hacienda Heights to watch the sunset the other night.  I had been there before, but had never hiked up the hill.  Now I understand why it’s called that!  It was very romantic–highly recommended.

Next time I will take some pictures and post them.

I’ve been led by the Holy Spirit to read some Charles Kraft this summer.  In “Behind Enemy Lines,” Kraft addresses whether Christians can be demonized.  (Many use the term “demon possession,” but this language is not biblical. Demons that dwell in or around people can exercise varying levels of influence on them depending upon their history and actions.)  Kraft has helped deliver hundreds of people from the influence of demons, including many Christians.  He writes:

The way the Holy Spirit enters [a Christian] is, I believe, by uniting with the spirit, the “heart” or innermost being of a person who gives him or herself to God.  I have tested this scores of times by commanding the demons (under the power of the Holy Spirit, who forces them to tell the truth) to tell me if they live in the person’s spirit.  They consistently reply something like, “No, I can’t get in there.  Jesus lives there.”  Then, when they are commanded to tell when they had to leave the Christian’s spirit, they give the date of the person’s conversion.

I conclude, therefore, that demons cannot live in that innermost part of a Christian, the spirit, since it is filled with the Holy Spirit (see Romans 8:16).  That part of us becomes alive with the life of Christ and in inviolable by the representatives of the enemy.  Demons can, however, live in a Christian’s mind, emotions, body, and will.  We regularly have to evict them from those parts of Christians.  I suspect that one reason a demon can gave greater control of an unbeliever is because it can invade even the person’s spirit (p. 91)

He later points out that most Christians he counsels are not demonized, and that those demons who are in Christians are usually weak.  If they are present, it is usually due to the person’s pre-conversion involvement in the occult or a few other scenarios.  Here’s an account of a very weak demonization of a Christian from Defeating Dark Angels:

I was discussing demonization with a couple of pastors during a seminar lunch break.  The topic was quite unfamiliar to them.  One of them I’ll call George, began to share with us a lifelong problem he had had with fear.  Though George had been in counseling for some time, his fear had not been overcome.  Indeed, he said, he was highly anxious at that very moment.  After a silent prayer, I looked straight at George saying, “If there’s a spirit of fear here, I command you to leave, in the name of the Jesus.”

Shock was on George’s face as I looked directly at him but talked “past him” to the demon inside.  For a pastor who wasn’t sure he believed in such things, the approach seemed awfully direct, and I seemed overly confident in my diagnosis of what lay behind his problem.  Then amazement filled George’s face as he said over and over, “The fear is gone!  The fear is gone!”

…My theory is that a fairly weak demon was living within him, whose assignment was to use fear to hamper his effectiveness as a servant of Christ.  My analysis is that the demon did not cause the fear.  Talking with the pastor, I discovered that he had experiences in early childhood that predisposed him to fearfulness.  This weakness allowed the demon in during his early life, providing the “food” on which the demon fed to keep him off balance.  I think the demon had been very greatly weakened as the pastor dealt with the problem through counseling.  All that remained, then, was for the demon to be banished once and for all.  And that seemed to happen that day at lunch (p. 31-32)

This story does not seem to be typical for Kraft, as he normally spends 90% of his time with people in either pre-deliverance or post-deliverance counseling.  Obviously he had discernment from the Holy Spirit in this particular case to do what he did.  He compares demons to rats who feed on garbage.  If we want to be rid of the rats, we clean up the garbage.  We repent of our actions, renounce past choices, seek God’s healing for deep wounds that cause bitterness in our hearts, etc.  When we clean up the garbage within, the demons have no legal rights (turns out demons are very legalistic…interesting) to remain and then can be removed.

If I want to do the ministry of Jesus, I need to learn how to war against the enemy in order to help set people free.  Lord, please give me the discernment to know the enemy’s work and the wisdom to do battle against it.  And may I keep love at the center, avoiding the errors of seeing demons around every corner or not seeing them at all.

¹⁴Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. ¹⁵He taught in their synagogues, and everyone praised him. ¹⁶He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. ¹⁷The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

¹⁸“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:14-19)

The Lord has given me two directives for this summer.  One is more about studying and equipping, and the other is about loving and shepherding.  The studying directive is to read the works of Charles Kraft and become more knowledgeable in the area of spiritual warfare.  So I ordered a bunch of Kraft books from Amazon, and they arrived a couple days ago.  I grabbed the shortest one (hey, I want to start out successful!), called The Rules of Engagement.

One of the first points he makes is one I have learned in recent years that has been revolutionary for me.  I used to not get as much out of reading the gospel accounts of Jesus’ life because of what I thought about Jesus.  Jesus healed a blind guy. Jesus turned a small lunch into food for 5,000.  Jesus walked on water, yada yada yada. Well, of course he could do these things, he is divine.  (side note, I’ve been enjoying this video.)  It is not surprising that the second person of the Trinity, God himself, would do these things. But how do they relate to me?  I can’t do those things.

But more study has revealed something else.  Something that changes everything.  It starts with a question.  Could God be tired?  Could God be hungry?  Could God not know certain things?  No, of course not, as he is all-powerful, all-knowing, fully self-sufficient, etc.  And yet Jesus experienced these things during his time among us.  He didn’t know certain things.  Jesus was tired.  Jesus was hungry.  Jesus clearly experienced many of the same limitations that are common to man.  And to be our redeemer, our sacrifice, our high priest, he had to.  He had to be fully man to pay the price for our sins and to experience our sufferings.

So how does God do this?  Scholars call this the “kenosis” or “emptying” of Christ, based on Philippians 2:1-11.  The idea is that Jesus voluntarily set aside (but did not lose them) the use of his divine attributes so that he could experience full humanity during the time of his incarnation on earth.

And there is lot of evidence for this view.  Consider, there are no recorded miracles of Jesus prior to one of the key events in his life: his baptism. During his baptism, the Holy Spirit came down upon Jesus.  Why would the son of God, the second person of the Trinity, need the Holy Spirit?  Because he had “emptied” himself.  After his baptism, he not only does miracles, but is described by Luke shortly afterwards as being “full of the Holy Spirit,” and in the “power of the [Holy] Spirit.” And Jesus often went away from others to pray.  Why would he need to pray if he was using his divine attributes?

So what does this all mean?  It means everything!  It means that we can do the works of Jesus because we can be full of the same Holy Spirit!  “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12).  When Jesus turned to the woman at the well, and said, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband” (John 4:17), how did he know that?  I believe he had what the apostle Paul calls a “word of knowledge” from the Holy Spirit.  And we can have them to!  We can see people healed by the Holy Spirit’s power.  We can cast out demons by the Holy Spirit’s power.

But this is not automatic.  The Holy Spirit cannot be manipulated or controlled.  Just by wanting to see the Holy Spirit do these things doesn’t mean we will see them.  As Paul says, the gifts must be earnestly desired.  They take practice, and proficiency in the use of the gifts emerge over time, and even with much experience, the Holy Spirit is still in control.

I am an infant in terms of understanding the practice of these gifts.  But I am in community with those who know much more and am trying to learn all I can.  If the church is going to “preach good news to the poor…proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind [and] release the oppressed” (Luke 4:18), we must rely on the Holy Spirit, just like Jesus did.

But it’s ultimately not about power, but love.  After all, God could scare us all into heaven by a demonstration of his power.  But he is after something greater.  The use of power is governed by the constraints of love.  Sounds like a future post!  =)

I have been learning in recent years the difference between a “good idea” and the Holy Spirit’s leading.  Sometimes we come up with something to do for ministry or otherwise that just sounds really good, or involves a perceived benefit that is consistent with scriptural principles.  But when we seek the Lord intently, His still small voice suggests a different direction.  The experience is often so surprising, that we need to pray again, and ask others with spiritual discernment to confirm it.  I have had two such experiences lately.

First, I was asked during this last school year to consider being a candidate for a spot on the board of directors of a national organization I belong to.  I was certainly honored by the invitation.  It would involve being flown to a couple meetings during the year, put up in a hotel, etc.  Moderate commitment, high honor.  Sounded like a great idea.  But as I went to the Lord in prayer, the Holy Spirit said that this opportunity would be a distraction for me, a fork in the road away from my calling.  So I politely declined, but that was hard.  I really wanted the honor and influence.

Second, this summer I had this great idea about leading a small group of former students and others in our circle of relationships.  In conjunction with the group, I was going to create a resource (small book) that would help those seeking God to understand what true relationship with God looks like.  The group was going to be awesome, with times of intimate worship, praying for each other, and sharing our hearts.  But when I went to the Lord more purposefully, He redirected me.  He gave me two specific things to be about this summer.  Neither one was to run this group.  Or write that book.

What if I had done either or both of these things?  Would the Lord have blessed them?  I don’t know.  God is constantly taking our Plan B’s and turning them back into Plan A’s, so he is gracious and merciful.  He works with us where we actually are, not where we should be in an ideal world.  So I personally believe he would have blessed both of these ventures, but to a limited extent.  In other words, I believe there would have been some fruit (good results) that would have come from both of these things.  But in the end, I believe they would have been a bit empty, leaving me wondering why God didn’t do more.  I think this is where many in ministry are at (including me): ‘why doesn’t God do more?’  I’m sure there are lots of answers to that question, but one answer may be that we are pursuing ‘good ideas’ rather than the H0ly Spirit’s leading.

In 2 Samuel chapter 7, David has a period of peace and rest, and wonders why he lives in a nice palace while the Ark of the Covenant and God’s presence among the people resides in a tent (the Tabernacle).  He wants to build a beautiful temple for the Lord.  Even the Lord’s prophet Nathan thought this to be a good idea, saying “Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the LORD is with you.”  But that night, the Lord spoke to Nathan, and told him that it was to be David’s son, Solomon, who would build a temple for the Lord.  Interesting.  It sounded like such a good idea—so good that the “man after God’s own heart” and the Lord’s anointed prophet were about to go for it.  But for God’s own purposes, He had other ideas.  And this I know, God’s purposes always work out better than our own.  And I believe we would almost always choose them if we could see with His eyes.  But since we can’t, we must seek and trust.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.”  Proverbs 3:5-6

“As a man prays, so is he.” -A.W. Tozer.

Came across this quote from Tozer.  Powerful.  I need to pray.   (HT: Campus Crusade for Christ, Jesus Film project.)

I had the great privilege and honor to be the speaker at Senior Honors Night last Friday night.  I was chosen by the seniors of the student government at Los Altos.  I have been somewhat overwhelmed by the response to the message.

In my speech, I talked about how what’s important tends to get lost in the platitudes of graduation time.  Seniors need to know how real life goes, and real life doesn’t always go according to plan.  I shared about our own trials with losing our son and with my wife’s cancer.  My main point was that material success can’t be counted on, can be lost, and won’t satisfy.  What we all really need is to learn to love.  But what is love?  Is it that emotion we feel at graduation or when we are “falling in love.”  No, that is merely an aroma of it. I told the story of Robert McQuilken as an example of real love (click to get his story).  Real love involves choosing to love even when it’s hard and we don’t feel like it.  Our world is desperate for this kind of enduring, committed, beautiful love that can transform our relationships, our careers, our very lives.  Everything else in this world can be taken from us, but what we do for love remains.

I was immediately caught off guard by the response of the audience.  I was humbled and a bit embarrassed.  Not to mention the fact that I was really sick and had to duck out early.

But since then my heart has been a bit heavy.  Because I was not able (because this is, after all, a public school) to give the rest of the story.

The rest of the story is that we, in the natural, probably cannot love like Robert McQuilken.  We cannot give out that which we have not received.  What enables someone to sacrificially put others’ needs before their own without getting their needs met in return? I believe it can only be done when one has been changed by and is secure in God’s love.  The Father fills us with his love (Romans 5:5).  And the only way to access God’s love is through relationship with Christ.  Once we are “in Christ,” we have access to the resources through the Holy Spirit that enable us to live this kind of life.  Of course, not all Christians seek this to the extent that they are changed much.  But in those that do, healing, beauty, and love can flow like streams of living water.

Without God’s love filling us and it overflowing out onto others, attempts to love others sacrificially usually devolve into codependence–the need to be needed, the living out of one’s identity as a slave to others, the martyr complex.  This kind of life breeds bitterness and resentment.  “Why don’t they appreciate all I have done for them! I’ve given up everything for them!”  Codependents seek to get life by giving themselves up for others, rather than finding life in the heart of the Father.  We cannot ultimately get life through other people, but we can experience the life we get from the Father with other people, and that is what makes our joy complete. When we are tranformed by the Father’s love, the people around us become wonders rather than curses.

So if you really want to love well and get to actually eat the double-double (inside joke from my speech), pursue God and all He has for you.  Everything else will leave you wanting and will not remain.

Providentially, my pastor preached on being found in God’s love just this Sunday.  What a perfect part II to my speech.  Listen here.

The Lord is working me over regarding my motivations.  I feel a certain calling to ministry, and sometimes have a sense about where God is leading me and my family.  But the question comes up: “why do I want to do this [particular ministry]?”  In my honest moments, I must admit that part of my motivation is to be known, to be vindicated–in essence, to be famous.  This has been a particularly painful revelation, as I know the hazards of being double-minded.

God even spoke to me through a movie I saw recently: “The First Knight.”  Sean Connery is King Arthur, and Richard Gere is Lancelot.  Lancelot falls in love with queen-to-be Guinevere, and proceeds to attempt to win her, despite her pleas to respect her honor.  Lancelot then accepts a position at the Round Table with mixed motivations.  He wants to serve the King, but is really there to win Guinevere.

But he responds to the love of the King, and even finds some degree of healing for his deepest wounds and fears through his service of the King.  But when the opportunity presents itself, his original desire manifests.  Lancelot and Guinevere are caught in a passionate kiss, and the betrayal is complete.

However, through repentance and the surprising grace of the King, they are restored and actually inherit the kingdom.  Lancelot eventually got his desire, but only after he became a whole-hearted son of the King.

Father, I repent of any desire to get credit, to be famous, or to be vindicated.  May my love for you be pure and whole-hearted.  May I be a faithful son of the King.

These were the words of a Muslim neighbor of a friend of mine, who attended worship with us on Easter Sunday.  We heard testimonies of healings, including one I posted on earlier (will link later), and left with the assurance that God is alive and that He is for us.  Our pastor also quoted from Joel Rosenberg’s new book about the growing Christian revival in Muslim countries, with countless stories of supernatural appearances of Jesus.   I need to get a copy of that.

I have been noticing lately how much of the humor and banter in our culture comes from a “too-cool,” cynical or sarcastic posture.  And I am so thankful for my wife, who has modeled for me an enthusiastic, encouraging, and sympathetic heart.  God has used her to help deliver me from needing to be “cool.”  I am much more free to be who God made me, and the best part is, I don’t really care what the cynical, sarcastic, too-cool crowd thinks about it!  They are only responding that way because they have been hurt or are insecure, and are protecting their hearts from being vulnerable. Cynicism and sarcasm are the ultimate defense mechanisms. Like all of us, they need love.

Sorry to some of my faithful readers (I think I actually have a few!) for not posting much lately.  My busyness will continue through early May, and then I will have time to post more.