James 4:3 ” You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss (wrongly, evilly, with wrong motives), that you may spend it on your pleasure (passions, lusts).
To ask ‘rightly’ involves transforming you passions, not changing your prayer - because what is IN you determines what comes OUT of you.
Canceling Christmas?!?
So think this through with me…
We have a whole section of the church up in arms because Christ as been removed from Christmas and now we have a whole range of the baby boomer leaders like Ted Haggard, Bill Hybels, Ed Young, taking church out of Christmas.
Doesn’t this seem to totally go against our message of – Being Passionate Pursuers of Christ? Or maybe that is not the message these churches are committed to portraying.
Maybe it is really just unveiling the heart of Commercial Entertainment Christianity in the western world.
The celebration of Christmas is a celebration of the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Period. Full Stop. End of sentence. It is not a shared faith event. It is not something we have in common with any other religion or belief system.
We take time out of the hustle of life to do this - It is not a holiday. We get together to worship Christ with family, not to evade the worship of Christ through the excuse of our family.
Maybe the issue is that these so-called church leaders don’t encourage their people to live a life of Consecrated Christianity, just convenient Christianity – one that doesn’t mess with holiday plans.
Would the Islamic world change the dates of Ramadan – No. Why? Because it is sacred to them, not commercial, not convenient.
They would not cancel the celebration of Buddha’s birthday in Tibet just because they had multiple services during the week before.
Oh here is a thought…. instead of trying to reduce our worship of Christ to a 22 minute sound byte we might take a WHOLE week to give praise and thanks to God for the glory of His salvation and the gift that is Christ Jesus and it could all culminate in a wonderful celebration on Sunday.
Nahhh… it would interrupt the game.
Christmas is the largest church attendance day by unsaved people in the year in the USA. If these churches were really interested in bringing a living Jesus to a dying world, then they would not only be having Christmas, but the BIGGEST outreaches of their year would be happening this Sunday. They would be offering the greatest gift of all, Eternal Life and freedom from Hell - oh that's right we can’t say hell because it's not Seeker Sensitive - just as well no Seekers are going to come looking for Jesus on His Birthday, bugger if your one of the Three Wise Men.
Or maybe church to these Baby Boomers is no longer about the passionate pursuit of Christ and the celebration of His incarnation. I don’t know, I just can’t see Paul, John, James, Wiggelsworth, Wesley, Finney, Lloyd-Jones or Spurgeon canceling Christmas BECAUSE it fell on a Sunday.
Every Christmas for us at Hillsong Church in Australia was the BEST time of year. Jesus, Fun and Family go together, not apart. The kids would bring their presents. The services were full of Carols and the sound of mechanical robots going off all over the auditorium, so it can be done in a large church, it just depends on what is important to you I suppose.
Well at least you'll be rested up for the after Christmas shopping sales fellas - I'm sure you won’t cancel that.
I hope Santa brings you all a truck load of coal. Bah Humbug!
So … this is like really weird.
Is it for Squirrel Juice or what is the story?
But the real issue is that someone has this in their house.
AND someone made this because they actually thought it was cool - a little bit like teenage girls wearing their pajamas to Starbucks for coffee in the morning or men with mullets or people thinking that men - real men - are actually going to see the BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN movie.
We all know that isn’t going to happen. Hollywood and the Squirrel - they have both lost their head.
The media of LA and New York - representing real people! (Oh stop, you’re killing me, let me pick myself up off the floor, that's funny).
Yeah like… no one will see the Passion. Narnia will be a flop, God is dead and Christmas is just another holiday all great lies being portrayed as truth.
Walking the Line is out for 5 weeks and STILL making more money than it - $1million last week. While a Romp in the Woods with Heath only grossed $700,000 in its first week! Aeon Flux, the world’s worst movie did $500,000 in its 7th week!
It's not a movie - it's a FLOP
Narnia beat them all at $9.1 million last week, a total of over $90 million over the same 8 period days as "Real Men Wear Tights in Oregon".
Now here is the thing - they only released this dribble in 69 movie houses, Narnia in 3,680, why? Because no one wants to see it. No one except Hollywood sees men as having anal sex as art. So they put it out there to strain the limits of acceptability and convince everybody that the content is widely acceptable and valued by everyone. And they do it with a subject like Nancy cowboys to try and macho up the topic and appeal to a wider audience. Knock yourself out fellows, better luck next time.
Oh yeah, the pajamas you’re wearing really do go well with your mullet - frappucino anyone in my cool new squirrel coffee cup?
Just started back at the gym – been several years since I have worked this hard. Really the last time was when I was playing Rugby Union in college.
Went and committed to a personal trainer and he is very good. Very fussy. Very focused and I am sure he has a personal grudge against me, at least on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursday between 7-8 am.
I have been working with him now for 4 months and I am now just starting to get my strength back. Too many years on airplanes, too many years sitting in front of a computer.
We spent the first couple of months rehabbing old football injuries and the last couple laying a foundation for the future.
Life’s like that. Business is like that. Church is like that.
Building anything is like that – it takes time to get strong.
Watching my kids grow is a blast. They start weak, but they don’t stay that way. So it is with us. Our concern should not be with ‘if we grow’ but ‘how we are growing’ because we all will grow.
Don’t try and rush the natural process of growth and development. I tried to in the gym and put my schedule back by 2 weeks because I blew my back out. My fault, I did too much too soon and I did not allow my body to catch up to where my memories where!!!
But now I have a foundation laid.
I can build on it for the future.
How long till I am back to a level of fitness I will be happy with….. 12 to 18 months. Why so long? Because if it is worth it, it takes time.
Our walk with Christ, our calling, our business, our ministry – it all takes time.
And what is nice for me is I have a coach in who believes in me and pushes me to get the best out of me.
What about you?
Who is pushing you to become all you are called to in Christ?
Who is urging you on to achieve how you want to achieve?
We all need someone who loves us enough, not to care about our pain but push us to our potential.
That is what church is suppose to do for you. If you don’t have someone pushing you, maybe we can help you at the Christian Leadership Center in Keller, Texas. We meet on Tuesday nights at 7pm with the sole aim of help Leaders within the Body of Christ become all they all called to be.
Selah
(ps - Tuesday is National Back & Butt Day at Womacks Gym and I can barely sit while I type this - thanks Ken!!!)
This is kind of weird for us, we are used to sun and sunburn!
Our Christmas Dinner is BBQ of fresh fish and seafood followed by a stroll on the beach. Not this year. This will be our first Christmas in the USA, maybe a white Christmas ?
There are two things when squandered can never be regained - what are they?
Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but deep people.
"It was evident that faith in God cannot be transmitted from generation to generation without new manifestations of the power of God. The generation that followed Joshua still had their priests, but apparently these knew nothing of the power of God. The main result of their powerless ministry was that "every man did right in his own eyes."
One of my greatest struggles has been the struggle for personal righteousness. Not self-righteousness, that is a different devil, but the struggle to be and live a holy life.
I have tried to do this from the outside when it can only really come from the inside. I can no more make myself a follower of Jesus Christ than I can save myself or heal myself.
Holiness is an external manifestation of an internal work, of that I am convinced. Holiness is not how you speak, act or dress - that is culture. It is the inner transformation that makes us Christians and reveals the true nature of our relationship with Christ.
But the striving to obtain that which is unobtainable - that is the issue.
The answer? I think it lies in the ongoing life long commitment to live worthy of the name Christian.
It is given by grace, can not be obtain by works but in our pursuit of Him we become transformed.
Clint Herring has been a personal friend of mine for several years now. He sits on the mission’s board of the International Men's Network, and is the co-founder of the Christian Development International.
Clint is Mississippi’s fore-most land developer and above all else is a passionate pursuer of Christ.
At his current development in Jackson, Mississippi, called the Township at Colony Park, he is taking 130 acres of vacant land and turning it into the premier residential/retail and commercial property in all of Jackson. Over 3000 people will reside and work there – and the beauty of it all is right in the middle is a church. Not a warehouse with church written on the top, but a church.
Clint was raised by his uncle in Arizona, then married Terri. Terri is the most successful political lobbyist in US history for the pro-life movement. They have three boys and reside in Jackson.
At 20 Clint and Terri started Kerioth Corporation with $18 to their name. Clint has had to overcome poverty, brokenness, lack of fathering and setback after setback. He is now turning his efforts to facilitating a reformation within our nation.
Clint and I have been concerned for sometime about the state of the Pentecostal/spirit-filled movement and its lack of solid biblical training and support for new church planters and growing ministries.
Christian Development International is the starting point of that.
We hope to help facilitate the planting of 1000 churches in the USA, 10 of which will be in the Dallas area. One of which will be modeled on the Township at Colony Park Model.
For further information please visit us on the web at www.clctx.org. And please visit Clint’s website www.kerioth.com
Our office number is 817-993-0047.
Seating is limited to 80 people. Please RSVP.