The Third Floor

Here's a first draft of my sermon for Sunday, June 6.  The scriptures for the day can be found by clicking here.  There is a link for the audio at No Other Aid.

Most of us... or at least many of us who are together enough to get together in church today... most of us are getting by pretty well.  Honestly.  If our lives were falling apart chances are we wouldn't be getting together with a group of well behaved people like this.  Many times I've heard about how hard it is for some to come to church because they're afraid that they might cry, or because they might stand out from the crowd.  I long for us to be a church where it's okay to be real.  Because when we're real, and when we do cry out to God or fall apart or plead for mercy, that's when we will truly know the reality of God.

Today we're having an open house over at the parsonage.  You're all invited over this afternoon between 3:30 and 8:00.  It's a celebration for Jonathan and Nga Sin and Haneul,  Our graduates.  Congratulations to them and to each one.

But you know something about our open house?  It's not really an open house.  There are some parts of the house that you won't see.  It's the first floor that's open.  Oh, and you can go down and play ping pong.  The second floor and the third floor, they're not really part of the deal.  Especially the third floor, our room, the attic.  I don't even think I picked up my socks.

So what does all this have to do with the "supernatural"?  And what does our open house have to do with the scriptures?  Let me try to explain.  These things really do fit together.

What we usually do at church, and what we usually do in our every day lives, at least what we do out in public, it's like our open house on the first floor.  The place is pretty clean.  We'll greet you with a smile.  There's food and punch and they're be lots of smiles.  It's a great house and we're very thankful to live in it.  But please don't look in the closed rooms!  And don't go up to the third floor.

The first floor of our house, and most of what happens here at church on any given Sunday, it's what we might call the public or the "physical" world.  Most of what you learn about in school is first floor stuff.  Stuff you can see.  Math, reading, science, music, art--there may be deeper meanings to these things, but most of what we deal with everyday is in the physical world.  And, in order to get along well in this world, we try to behave ourselves.  We ask "how are you" and expect people to say "fine."  That's the first floor.

But there's a second floor to life.  It's stuff you can't see.  You can't see what I'm thinking right now.  You can guess, but you don't know.  The second floor is what is going on in your brain and mine.  It's our feelings--our real feelings--our thoughts--our real thoughts--not just what we SAY we're thinking or feeling.  The second floor is a more personal place.  It's not open, usually, to just anyone.  Some of us are more open with our second floor than others.  Some of us have an easier time letting it out.  I'm an extrovert.  Pretty much, with me, what you see is what you get.  Others have themselves more together than me.  Sometimes, I'm kind of a mess.

That's the second floor.  That's the area of psychology and counseling and psychiatry.  That's the place for deeper personal relationships.  It's not always clean and not always quiet.  It's often a place we go when we just can't keep it together.  I would hope and pray that you know the church is a safe place for you to fall apart--but you may not be able to do that here when everyone is all together.  That's why we've got a prayer room set aside.  That's why Nate and I have our offices--often, those are places of tears.  The second floor.

And from that floor there's a doorway to another place.  The first floor is the physical universe, the second floor is the place of thinking and feeling, and the third floor--that's the place of the spirit--the place where there's not usually a direct connection with the physical--it's the place beyond the physical and intellectual and emotional--it's the place described in Second Corinthians 4:18--We fix our attention, not on the things we can see but on the things we cannot see--for the things we can see are temporary--but the things we cannot see--they last forever.

In the beginning--before the beginning actually--all there was was the third floor.  I know that's a strange thought, but it was from the spiritual place, from the place beyond the physical, it was from that place that God--God is the original inhabitant of the third floor--it was from the spiritual that God spoke "LET THERE BE LIGHT!"  It was from the third floor that God created all the stars and planets and our earth.  It's from the third floor that God breathed into you the breath of life.  And it is that third floor that hears us when we cry out to God in Jesus' name.

In our two desperate Bible stories--in our two desperate Bible stories from First Kings 17 (17-24) and Luke 7 (11-17) we have widows--one probably in her 20s and the other in her 40s--we have widows who have had such devastating losses that they can no longer behave themselves.  The first woman, in First Kings 17--she says--probably yells--or cries--What have you got against me, o "man of God" (that's sacrasm)... What are you doing?  Are you just here to tell God about all my sins and to make my son die???--and... in Luke 7--there's a funeral going on and people are not being quiet.  There is weeping--deep, heart rending cries--this woman has lost her only son.

These women--centuries apart in time--they are the same.  They have left the first floor of the facts--there sons are just dead and nothing can be done--and they have moved up to the second floor--crying--angry--devastated.  They would not fit any more in our church service--I wish our church was a place where people could cry without shame--right here... because when people move from the first floor where everything is organized and sensible--and when they move up desperately to the place where they just can't handle it anymore--then there seems to be access--access to the third floor--access to God--from whom all good things come--and for whom NOTHING is too hard.

So what happens in these stories?  In these stories God hears!  Elijah carries the boy in the first story.  He carries the boy literally to the second floor of the house where he was staying--to a private place--and he CRIES to God--"O LORD MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU DONE THIS?  Have you brought disaster even upon the widow I'm staying with?  KILLING HER SON?"  In desperation he lays himself down on the boy's dead body.  I don't know why.  What people do when they are desperate and in tears doesn't often make sense.  He lays himself down on the body three times and cries "O Lord, O my God, LET THIS CHILD'S LIFE RETURN!  Let him LIVE!"  And, listen--listen what happens as Elijah is up there on the second floor of the house:  The Lord listened to the voice of Elijah; the life of the child came into him again, and he revived...  Elijah took the child, brought him down from the upper chamber into the house, and gave him to his mother.

My friends, for some reason it seems necessary to leave the first floor of propriety and "put togetherness" in order to get desperate--and when we do that's when we can see God--or at least see God at work--at least know the power of the Most High.  But as long as we're down here, on the first floor, where everyone is put together, where we're handling things on our own, is it any wonder that we wonder about the reality of God?  Truly, it's when we're desperate, when we know that we can't handle things on our own, that's when God, the highest of all higher powers, that's when God can be seen.

I don't think we should ever be ashamed of moving from the first to the second floor.  There are plenty of reasons to do that.  There are so many who still do not know God.  There are so many who, instead of crying out to God, are just going down in the basement to be entertained, or who are crying down there all alone.  We have a task to carry people, to carry them in prayer, to carry them in love, to bring them to the Lord and to never give up, even, and especially when it looks like everything is desperate, even when it seems everything is lost.

But you know what is the most amazing thing?  God hasn't been content to stay up there on the third floor, listening for our cries.  He has chosen, through his Son Jesus, to come down to the first floor, to live with us in our every day lives, to party with us and to share life with us.  And, through his Holy Spirit, to live in with us in our private moments of tears and joys and thinking, revealing God's truth.  God doesn't wait for us to come to him, he comes to us.

That's what we experience today in the Lord's Supper and through God's Word.  God comes down to us through these physical forms, in the bread and wine, in the physical sounds that reach our ears, and he comes to us to touch us and let us know that even when we are holding it together, even when we are able to hang onto our composure, even if we never fall apart or see a miracle, that he is still with us, that he still loves us, that he gave his life for us at our worst, that he will never abandon us, even at the moment of our death.

Truly, God is faithful.  Truly, God is love.  We do not need to be afraid.  Go ahead.  Collapse in God's arms.  He will carry you.  And, in the end, he will raise you from the dead, in Jesus' name.

www.equalsharing.com

Spiritual Battle (part 3)

As I've been reading through the battles of Joshua, I recognize this truth:  The key to success in spiritual warfare is surrender.  Surrendering to God.  Letting Him have his way.  Submitting to Him means success.  Resistance to His will means failure.  This happens over and over again.

This means, in the spiritual battles today, God's people never manage or manipulate or try to "run" things to ensure success.  If we rely on any human strength, if we rely on our own schemes and plans, we will fail.  Success never comes when we do things with power.  We surrender to God as we surrender to His Word.

So we pray, pray pray.  Tomorrow night we meet for prayer at 6:30.  It's the most important thing we do.  Submitting to God in prayer.  If we want God's Will to triumph in our lives, there is nothing else we can do.

We read from Psalm 119 tonight at Baccalaureate.  As we gathered with our high school soon-to-be graduates and their families, as we wish success for them, we realize that it only comes in submitting to the Lord and His Word.

Here's the Psalm:

⁹⁷ Oh, how I love your law!
    It is my meditation all day long.
⁹⁸ Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies,
    for it is always with me.
⁹⁹ I have more understanding than all my teachers,
    for your decrees are my meditation.
¹⁰⁰ I understand more than the aged,
    for I keep your precepts.
¹⁰¹ I hold back my feet from every evil way,
    in order to keep your word.
¹⁰² I do not turn away from your ordinances,
    for you have taught me.
¹⁰³ How sweet are your words to my taste,
    sweeter than honey to my mouth!
¹⁰⁴ Through your precepts I get understanding;
    therefore I hate every false way.
¹⁰⁵ Your word is a lamp to my feet
    and a light to my path.
¹⁰⁶ I have sworn an oath and confirmed it,
    to observe your righteous ordinances.
¹⁰⁷ I am severely afflicted;
    give me life, O Lord, according to your word.
¹⁰⁸ Accept my offerings of praise, O Lord,
    and teach me your ordinances.
¹⁰⁹ I hold my life in my hand continually,
    but I do not forget your law.
¹¹⁰ The wicked have laid a snare for me,
    but I do not stray from your precepts.
¹¹¹ Your decrees are my heritage forever;
    they are the joy of my heart.
¹¹² I incline my heart to perform your statutes
    forever, to the end.

Whether we are high school graduates or older or younger, when we do not conform to God's Word, we fail. We can debate any issue, but we must do so on the basis of God's Word, or we will fail. Success only comes in submission and surrender to the Lord through His Word--the Word as centered and known most clearly in Jesus Christ. I know no other way.

*REMINDER added Thursday, June 3 - "Spiritual Battles" are NEVER against other people.  The main "enemy" is our own fear and anxiety, and our own reactions to those feelings.

www.equalsharing.com

Supernatural

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty the King of creation!
O my soul, praise him for he is your health and salvation!
Let all who hear
Now to his temple draw near;
Joining in glad adoration!

I had hard time singing that song yesterday afternoon.  We were up at Lindstrom for a wedding and I nearly lost it as our daughter Naomi stood up front next to her childhood friend Emily.  Emily had been at our house most days for many years, or Naomi had been over at her house, and as I sat in church, with my wife on my left and Naomi's boyfriend on my right I could hardly sing at all.  They had arranged it so the wedding party was facing the congregation.  I saw Naomi and Emily singing and was filled with thankfulness--thankfulness overflowing into tears for how faithful God has been over the years.

Praise to the Lord, who o'er all things is wondrously reigning
And, as on wings of an eagle, uplifting sustaining.
Have you not seen
All that is needful has been
Sent by his gracious ordaining?

We'd gone over early to our old hometown so I could visit a dear spiritual warrior friend at her home.  Sylvia always challenged me to go deeper with God.  She studies the scriptures and praying that I and others would be surrendered to God's Truth.  We met about 18 years ago when I came to Taylors Falls, and even back then she was suffering from scleroderma. She will tell you how faithful God has been to her, but now she's suffering so much that she asked me to pray that she would die.  We read Galatians 6 about the armor of God, Second Corinthians 4-5 about our earthly bodies, and First Corinthians 15 about the resurrection.  Then we prayed for God to take her home--and for continued faith and patience until that day comes.  Please pray for her, and for her husband Les.

Praise to the Lord, who will prosper your work and defend you;
Surely his goodness and mercy shall daily attend you.
Ponder anew
What the Almighty can do
If with his love he befriend you.

Now I'm back in Cokato and am looking at the scriptures for this coming Sunday. All of the scriptures push the supernatural.  Jesus raises a young man from the dead (Luke 7:11-17).  Elijah does the same (1 Kings 17:17-24).  In Psalm 30 we join with them and others who have experienced God's mighty power and, finally, we begin a several week long reading of Galatians where it says plainly that the good news of Jesus is not "from human origin."  It comes directly from God.

Praise to the Lord! Oh, let all that is in me adore him!
All that has life and breath, come now with praises before him!
Let the amen
Sound from his people again.
Gladly forever adore him!

When I tried to join Naomi and Emily and the congregation in singing that song I was just overcome.  I just have to pray and praise in thanksgiving--for God's work in the lives of Naomi and Emily, for God's work in the lives of Sylvia and Les, and for your continued work in our lives here.  Hallelujah, God, you are so good!

I praise you, Lord God, that you do not leave us to live life on our own, or to figure you out by ourselves.  I praise you for your Word, which reveals you to human beings!  I praise you for being higher and better and more wonderful than we can imagine, for sustaining young and old, rich and poor, those who are sick and those who are strong.  I praise you, Father, for being real, even if my eyes, for now, cannot see you.  Draw me, Holy Spirit, nearer and nearer to you, so I may never depend on my own strength.

www.equalsharing.com

The Spirit of Truth

Here's a draft of tomorrow morning's sermon.  Not only are we recognizing high school graduates tomorrow, tomorrow is also The Day of Pentecost.  This festival has been celebrated since ancient times by the Jewish people as the "Feast of Weeks" or, in Hebrew, Hag ha-Shavuot, commemorating God's gift of the Ten Commandments and the harvesting of wheat.  It occurs 50 days (7 weeks) after Passover, at which time Jesus suffered, was executed, and rose from the dead.  The Christian account of Pentecost is found as chapter 2 of the New Testament book of Acts.  The assigned reading is verses 1-21.  We will also be reading Psalm 104:24-35; Romans 8:14-17 and John 14:8-27.

THIS is an important time.  High school seniors are graduating.  We're moving closer to the June 23 meeting.  And, this day, today, this is the actual day when, about 2,000 years ago, the Spirit of Truth came down on about 120 disciples, gave them courage and miraculous communication skills, and by that evening the church had grown by 2,600 percent.  And all of these things--high school graduation, our June 23 meeting and the explosive growth of the church--it's all based on Truth.  The truth we learn, the truth we know and the truth God gives us as a gift to the world.  This is an important time.  A time of Truth.  A time for the Holy Spirit of God to work within us, among us, and through us--not because we are anything special, but because we have been given the Spirit of God--the Spirit of Truth.

In our Gospel we have these words from Jesus:

If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.  This is the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.  You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

If my some miracle you can trust God's love, if you know the truth about yourself, that you are a lost sinner saved by Jesus, if you know who you are and the truth of Jesus' love, then the Holy Spirit of God's Truth has done his work!  By that work of Truth, you are born again!

It's a miracle because so often we avoid the truth.  We don't want to know who we are any more than we want to know just how much sludge and oil is pouring into the Gulf of Mexico.  We don't want to think about how our lives and our lifestyles indirectly hurt the creation and the poor of the world.  We do not want to remember how we have done damage through our pride, our stubbornness and our unwillingness to work out our differences in a peaceful and respectful way.  We don't want to know how much is hurts God when we fail to pray, when we fail to trust, when we gossip and try to control others.  But when God comes to us we come to know the truth--the truth of our damnable sin--and the truth of his far greater love.

And because of Jesus' love, we never have to be afraid of the truth.  That's what I'd like to say to our graduates this year.  You never need to be afraid of the truth.  Because God is the truth, and because God sends his Spirit of Truth, you never need to be afraid of your questions, you never need to hide your mistakes, you never need to pretend you are anything other than what you really are.  God knows all that.  God knows everything there is to know about you and God loves you just the same.  Let your minds expand.  Learn all you can.  Let your hearts be open.  Let God's love pour in like a river.  When you are hurting and wounded, come to a Christian adult who can pray for you and share this truth--God will always love you, no matter what.

I'd say something similar to the members of this church as we come up to the June 23rd vote.  You do not need to be afraid of the truth.  Let your minds and your hearts expand.  Talk with one another.  Learn all you can.  Don't come up to June 23 without doing some learning.  Think of that date as a test date for our church.  Not a final exam--this first vote on ELCA affiliation is not a final thing.  It is a first vote.  Disaffiliating from the ELCA takes two votes.  I think this vote is coming too soon because many of us just haven't learned enough yet... but our church council voted to bring this before the congregation a month from now.  There is no reason for fear, no reason to believe God will not lead us.  So take a breath, learn all you can, and come prepared for this first vote on the 23rd.  A letter from the council will be coming out to you shortly with the particulars.  In any case, hear Jesus' words: Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.  Be in prayer.  Pray for faith to trust God even at this time.

Finally--about that "explosive growth" of the church.  It is the Spirit of Truth that brought that growth.  If you read through the whole second chapter of Acts, you'll see how the Spirit of Truth made that happen.  The disciples had been in hiding.  For weeks they barely moved.  Then God came and made them change!  You never need to be afraid of God's changes!  When changes come that are in agreement with God's Word, we can let our joy just explode!  That's what happened to those disciples.  When God came they just let Him in.  No barriers, no walls, no boundaries.  God came and took them where they never expected to go.  God did that through signs and wonders, miracles and gifts of deliverance and healing--and, especially, through the Truth of the Word of God.

Peter was the spokesman.  He preached a sermon that we heard just a part of from Acts 2.  The sermon goes on to speak the truth.  We human beings, no matter who we are or when we have lived--our sins, whether we meant them or not, whether we know about them nor not--our sins were the reason Jesus died.  Those sins--those sins against the commandments God gave--You Shall Not Covet, You Shall Not Bear False Witness, You Shall Not Steal, You Shall Not Commit Adultery, You Shall Not Murder, Honor Your Father and Your Mother, Keep the Sabbath Holy, Keep God's Name Holy, Love God Above All--every time we miss the mark intentionally or unintentionally on those or any other of the commandments in God's Word--it's as if we put Jesus on the cross with each one.  Because Jesus is the only one who could pay the price for our treachery, for our disloyalty, for our treason against the one who loves us more than we can imagine.  But we never need to be afraid of that truth.  Accepting that truth, and preaching that truth, it opens the door for saving, freeing, precious grace.  Grace that never ends.  Grace that brings blessing every day.

When God's truth comes to us, we, like the people who heard Peter preach, we say "what shall we do?"  And, through Peter, and through this preacher today, you hear the same message.  Do not hide from God's truth.  Admit your sin.  Ask for his grace.  Give up your games.  Take Jesus instead.  Let God be your Abba Father.  Let Jesus be your savior.  Let us pray God's Spirit into you.  And then live in this new family--this new family of believers.  This new family of prayers and lovers and givers and forgivers--people who let new beginnings come over and over again--who never hold grudges--and who are never afraid.

That's the new beginning God has to give.  And that's the new beginning we can speak to every hurting, precious soul out there.  We let the truth be known.  The truth about ourselves--we never pretend we are good--only that we have a good God.  That's the truth the Spirit brings.  And when we speak that and live that truth boldly, when each of us takes our place in letting God have his way with us, I believe God will open the floodgates for a new beginning, a new beginning based on nothing but what the Spirit of Truth gives through the precious Word of God.

Jesus died for you.  Because of you and because he loves you.  And he rose again to give you new life.  That is the truth.  The truth that brings new beginnings.  And whether we're graduating, voting, or just going out to proclaim that truth to our neighbors, we never need to be afraid.  That truth is available for you today.

www.equalsharing.com

What About This?

One of the Bible passages assigned for Sunday, May 16, begins like this:

"One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave-girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. ¹⁷While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, ‘These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you^* a way of salvation.’ ¹⁸She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, ‘I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.’ And it came out that very hour" (Acts 16:16-18).

What are we to make of this?  The Apostle Paul released a slave from bondage!  But look how he did it!  It was an act of powerful deliverance.  Just by speaking, in Jesus' name, the powers of God were released and the "evil spirit" that was binding that young woman and annoying Paul--that spirit left her "that very hour."  This upset not only the spirit, but the owners who were making money at her expense.

What are we to make of this "supernatural" stuff.  Are there such things as evil spirits?  I wrote about this just after midnight yesterday in a post entitled "Reasonable But Beyond Our Sight."  Jesus dealt with the spiritual world on a regular basis during his ministry.  The first Christians did too.  Can we easily just ignore it?  I don't think so.  I think it is good to be aware.  Not to be "impressed" or obsessive about evil and evil spirits, but, not to be ignorant either.

We Lutherans have pretty much lost any awareness or belief in the powers of darkness.  It just seems so spooky and unreal.  Normally we push it aside as unenlightened, superstitious, a relic of pre-scientific times.  I'm not sure that is wise.

We ought to be aware that many Christians are continuing, or reclaiming, the ministry of deliverance similar to what Paul did in Acts 16.  I came back to the church and heard my initial call to the ordained ministry through a "charismatic" church and conference.  I've seen the fruit of programs like "Alpha" that include teachings about the supernatural.  That's part of what we've been learning and praying about at the prayer school this week.  This wing of the Christian church is reclaiming a part of our Christian heritage that has been covered over for a very long time.  I'm still processing what it means for me.

Here's a small part of what we learned today.  I think it is a very interesting theory.  See what you think.

Until about 325 AD Christians regularly experienced miracles, healings and deliverance from the powers of evil.  This changed when Christians made a compromise with the Roman Empire.  The church was institutionalized and was given political authority but at the same time took on some non-Christian qualities.  For example, from that time and after the major Christian festivals were connected with pagan holidays.  This seemed to be connected with the end of supernatural ministry among Christians except in isolated areas far from Rome.  The Irish benefited from the miraculous missionary work of Saint Patrick, for example, who, according to what I learned today, was not a part of the Roman Catholic Church.

Okay... take a deep breath... there is more...

According to what I learned today, the "pagan" influence, tied with some of the institutions and traditions of Christianity, not only tied the hands of "ordinary" Christians (non-clergy), reserving ministry for just a few, it also brought actual "strongholds" of evil spirits, such as the "spirit of divination" referred to in Acts 16 into the mainstream culture of the church.  These spiritual forces of evil--which are named in the Bible--have inhibited or limited the Christian experience of the gifts and fruit of the Holy Spirit, making the church lack joy, love and power.  In the end, these things have made the church into a self-serving institution.

That's just a bit of the theory we're learning here.  I'm not sure what to think.  But I have seen evidence of God's power at work in prayer in ways that can't be explained by mere positive thinking.  I have also seen people suffer terribly from what seems to be organized and powerful evil influences.  So, I will continue to learn, and continue to pray.

And (another deep breath here!), when I see someone suffering under what just might be an evil spiritual influence, why wouldn't I do as Paul did, taking the authority of Jesus to bring peace and freedom to one of God's beloved children?  Or do I think I'm so much wiser and sophisticated that none of this "supernatural" stuff could really be true?  If we are dedicated to setting people free from physical slavery, why not from spiritual or emotional bondage?  After this week of prayer school, I think I'll be ready, when it seems clear enough, to take action instead of standing meekly by.

In any case, I will always preach Jesus first.  I won't get sidetracked from the shining center of the Christian faith: Jesus Christ and his love his grace and his peace.  This area of the "supernatural"--which Martin Luther knew was real--it can be overemphasized.  We always need to focus on Jesus first.  Every prayer, every act of charity and service, every part of daily life, AND every release from bondage--every good thing comes because of what He has done in his saving death and victorious resurrection.  Nothing good comes from me.

As always, I encourage you to respond.  Part of the purpose of this blog is to share so you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, can correct me, push me, and share your own questions, so together we can serve our Lord. Comment below or talk with me in another way.

May the peace and power of our Lord Jesus and his Holy Spirit be with you always.

www.equalsharing.com

Reasonable But Beyond Our Sight

It's late at night after the second day of the "prayer school."* On Tuesday we moved on from the basics of prayer to teaching on "spiritual warfare" prayer against evil forces.  Not only did we learn, we also prayed.  We prayed about things I've never spent much time thinking about.  We prayed for divine protection in the realms of the spirit.  We prayed prayers that take the "binding and loosing" authority from Matthew 16:19 quite literally.  I'm still running it all through my theological filters.

Here are a few quick thoughts before I go to bed--thoughts directed at my own skeptical self and at others who doubt the reality of things beyond what we can see with our own eyes. Though some of these things I'm learning here may be hard for me to accept when I get back home, there are reasons to pay attention to spiritual reality and learn how to deal with it:

1.  Anyone who prays is betting that there is a "spiritual reality" beyond what we can discern with our senses.

2.  Anyone who trusts Jesus as his or her savior from sin and its consequences is a believer in spiritual reality.  Otherwise trusting in a 2000-years-ago sacrificial death and resurrection would make no sense.  Christians believe that changes were made in the spiritual realms because of what Jesus did.

3.  The scriptures clearly state that Jesus and his disciples believed in the reality of spiritual beings such as God, angels, the devil and demons.  Can we throw out those beliefs and remain true to the Christian faith?

4.  When we experience unexplainable goodness or, on the other hand, has come up against situations where evil seems to be deeply entrenched, it is not unreasonable to think that we are encountering spiritual realities of goodness or evil.

5.  If God is "personal," that is, if God is anything other than a mindless "force of nature," and if God creates people with personalities, it's not unreasonable to think that God could also have created other personal beings, beings that may, like God himself, not have physical bodies, but, instead, be spiritual in nature.

6.  If prayer makes a difference in the lives of people here on earth, why couldn't it also make a difference among those who we cannot see?

I'm asking these questions because we're learning at this "prayer school" about prayer that deals with things far beyond the things we think about on an every day basis.  This world view takes the Bible seriously.  I'm still working this through, still praying and discerning, but I'm not ready to throw it out.

Of course, as we were warned in a presentation before Tuesday's main teaching, it's easy to put too much emphasis on angels and demons.  It's only part of the story.  But, if the scriptures and Jesus are correct, it's not a reality that we ought to ignore.

What do you think?  Comment below or email me anytime.

-------------------
*see yesterday's post

www.equalsharing.com

Time to Pray

This coming Sunday the assigned gospel is from Jesus' prayer as recorded in John 17.  Jesus here is praying that we would have the kind of relationship with him that he has with his Father.  Jesus spent a lot of time in prayer.  In fact, the Bible says he is praying now, interceding for us, coming before God the Father with our needs!  So, if we're going to have the same kind of relationship with him as he does with his Father, doesn't that mean we will spend time in prayer too?

I'm spending this week at a prayer school* and prayer retreat up at Mount Carmel Bible Camp near Alexandria, MN.  It's a nice getaway... I'm considering it "continuing education" which is a part of my job... the prayer school is being led by Pastor Bjorn Peterson, currently on the staff of the ELCA's Grand Canyon Synod's Prayer Ministry.

But this prayer school and retreat is much more than education, and far more active than a retreat.  If this first day of this prayer school is any indication, things will be happening here.  Here, we won't just learn about prayer, we will pray.  Because we know prayer is important for Jesus, it's time well spent.

So, please let us know how we can pray for you this week.  Call me or text 763-291-3499.  Send an email -- I'll be checking email occasionally.  You can connect with me by facebook too.  Is anything making you feel anxious or afraid?  Are you weary or burdened?  Let us pray with you.  Don't try to go it alone.  Jesus is praying that we would be united with him in the same sort of relationship that he has with his Father.  And that means praying together--or at least sharing our concerns so we can pray together over the miles when we must be apart for now.

The peace of the Lord will come and be with you as you join with others to pray, in Jesus' name.

-------------------------------
*The prayer school is focused on "Strategic Level Intercession and Warfare Prayer" based on Ephesians 6:10-20 and a Christian spiritual interpretation of the the Old Testament books Joshua and Judges where warfare plays such a central role.  It's the first prayer school on this topic that Prayer Watch International has ever sponsored in the United States.  We'll be having a different week long prayer school at our church next week, May 17-22.  The focus of that week is Listening--Listening for God's "voice" in scripture and through the Holy Spirit.  You're invited to come for all or part of the week.  Let me know if you would appreciate some financial aid to help you attend.