This is part 4 in a series on Kingdom conflict leading up to a conference on the role that Kingdom conflict plays in Christian counseling in the DC area. For more information, please e-mail me.
When we experience Kingdom conflict our greatest weapons are those that bring us into the presence of our LORD. Worship is a great one of these but let’s think about some of the other ones. But what are some other ways to enter His presence and enter His house?
“My house shall be known as a house of prayer.” Now this means that the temple, is literally a place in which prayer occurs, but it also means, and in my opinion this is the more important, that the house of the Lord has it’s walls, foundations, and roof made up of prayer. When we pray in earnest, with all our heart and being, it builds up the house of the LORD, a place where we can then enter and seek refuge. But what does that kind of prayer look like? Because we can pray against things until we’re blue in the face and still fail to overcome our trials. This is because it is more powerful by far to build up than destroy, to fight for something, instead of against it. Read more…
Anyone who has ever watched a war movie has heard the expression “standing orders.” What does this mean? It means that it doesn’t matter what the circumstances are there are some things you always look for. It might that no matter what the first goal is take prisoners of war, or it could be that the first course of action will be to asses the needs of civilian populations. As Christians our orders are pretty simple “Love the LORD with all your heart…and love your neighbor as yourself.” “Heal the sick, cleanse lepers, cast out demons and spread the news of the Kingdom of God.” “Go and make disciples of all the nations.” Now my buddies over at Daily Discipleship, Pursuing a Life of Significance, and Campfire Cowboy Ministries do a great job with these I really encourage you to take a look over there if you feel like these are places you want to grow (I probably get half my ideas and materials from them anyways – thanks guys!)
But there’s one other set of orders we don’t usually think about in Ephesians 6:13. “Withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.”
What? You might ask. “What’s he one? Dude, why aren’t you sharing?” Well I’m on Jesus and THIS is sharing. :-p Read more…
This is part of a blogging series that the Idea Camp with help from Dan King put together leading up to their conference in Las Vegas. I’ve written about all the subjects so far and each topic has a link to a list of the other blogs in the series. On my blog, all posts for this topic are marked with the hastag #ICSEX.
He went into a brothel with an undercover cop to see the operations. They were escorted to a room with a two-way mirror behind which a number of girls were sitting or standing with numbers around their necks. The idea was to “order by number” as it were. Complete anonymity for the client and complete dehumanization of the prostitutes. He looked at the girls and saw dead eyes, empty expressions and a complete loss of life, except for one: girl 146. She had fight in her eyes. She had life still. At most, she was eleven years old. Read more…
It may not be the best thing about Christianity but it certainly ranks up in my personal top ten favorite things, and that is that we are set up for success.
Now I’m sure we’ve all heard the expression “set up to fail” which usually means that someone asked us to do something and then aligned every possible circumstance so that we would fall flat on our face. I sometimes think of this as when a supervisor walks over to me and says “I was watching and saw where you made your mistake,” about an hour after I’ve made the mistake and moved on to the next thing. Read more…
Are these bars a prison?
Do they hold me back
In the black
The dark dank disgusting detritus
Of lost lives
Lost husband a wives
Who aren’t even given
The base dignity
Of being a forgotten memory?
Are these bars before me?
The lock and key
Never seen
To be seen
Or opened?
Am I in prison for some
Crime
Of mine
Long forgotten in the deep
Annals of a fallen Empire? Read more…
