downpour...chapter 2

"There can be no personal revival without a right view of God."

"...your entire life revolves around your view of God."

"At the core of our sinfulness is our desire to usurp God."

"Yes, in all of us is a self-centered bent to get me up and to get God down. There will be no downpour until that sinful inclination is reversed."

"When God is humanized and man is deified, holiness is lost. Everything gets our of perspective. The first step in personal revival is to get God in His rightful place."

"When God is recognized as being above me, beyond me, highly exalted, over me, and totally separate from me, I am getting in position for a downpour."

"When I know God's place, I can know my place--then things start to fall into place".

"When God is recognized for the infinitely holy being that He is, you don't stand around questioning His decisions".

"God has deemed that the central, defining characteristic of His being--the word that is to be spoken in heaven, eternally and continuously, the characteristic around which all other aspects of God's nature revolve--is this: holiness".

"We can't come close to overdoing our expression of praise and worship. Sincere worship, given from the heart, is never over the top, or too much, because He is worthy".

More on Jesus' Lost Tomb...

Here are some additional articles on the "Lost Tomb" story from Baptist Press:

'Jesus tomb' documentary ignores evidence, logic, experts say

'Lost Tomb' is pure sensationalism, Mohler says on 'LKL'

Has the family tomb of Jesus been found?

And this from the Catholic News Agency:

‘Lost Tomb of Jesus’ documentary claims unfounded, hype, archeologist says

The Lost Tomb of Jesus?

The Discovery Channel plans to run a documentary entitled, "The Lost Tomb of Jesus", on March 4th. The opening paragraph from the shows promotional piece at DiscoveryTimes states,

"New scientific evidence, including DNA analysis conducted at one of the world's
foremost molecular genetics laboratories, as well as studies by leading
scholars, suggests a 2,000-year-old Jerusalem tomb could have once held the
remains of Jesus of Nazareth and his family."

Now, if true, that's a startling statement! The documentary will suggest that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a child together named Judah. The article states,

"Five of the 10 discovered boxes in the Talpiot tomb were inscribed with names
believed to be associated with key figures in the New Testament: Jesus, Mary,
Matthew, Joseph and Mary Magdalene. A sixth inscription, written in Aramaic,
translates to 'Judah Son of Jesus.'"

The obvious conclusion that film director James Cameron is communicating is that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a relationship resulting in the birth of at least one son. Therefore, Jesus did not die on the cross. He did not rise again. He is not God. It's of interest that there were no bones found in any of the burial boxes even though there were three human skulls discovered. The original discovery of the tomb and the burial boxes was not seen as significant by the Israeli Anitiquities Authority at the time of discovery more than fifteen years ago since the names are extremely popular for the time period in which they lived. Amos Kloner who is the archeologist who oversaw the excavation project says that Cameron's conclusions are, "nonsense". According to Kloner, "It makes a great story for a TV film, but it's impossible. Jesus and his relatives were a Galilee family with no ties in Jerusalem. The Talpiot tomb belonged to a middle-class family from the first century." Kloner insists, "...the names found on the coffins had been found in tombs before"

So what do I think? "He is not here, but He has risen" (Luke 24:6).

You can read more at www.thisislondon.co.uk and at The Jerusalem Post.

downpour...chapter 1...

"Revival begins here: with a profound awareness of God's absolute holiness, our absolute sinfulness, and our complete inability to bridge the divide that separates us. Revival always begins with God reaching down to us--not in a trickle of blessing, but in a deluge of Himself that covers our past and welcomes us to begin again" (p18).

"The call to return to the Lord begins with the recognition that some things have to go" (p21).

"...there is no downpour without returning and there is no returning without repentance" (p22).

"If you want to experience a downpour of God's mercy, you have to come back to the place where the water flowed before" (p22).

"Everyone is converted by faith at a moment of time in some sort of crisis...'As you received Christ Jesus the Lord', Paul declares in Colossians 2:6, 'so walk in him.' The crises are not supposed to be left in the rearview mirror as we begin to grow in Christ. There needs to be a regular interval of turning and returning to the Lord where the chords of commitment that bind our hearts to His are tightened up again" (p24).

"Take it from me, if you've known Christ for three or four years, you probably need another crisis" (p25).

"When we talk of personal revival, we envision a passionate pursuit of the knowledge of the Lord" (p31).

"Pressing on to know the Lord means waking up and giving that pursuit everything you have" (p31).

"Why does God approve pain's intrusion into our personal experience? God is trying to bring about another crisis...Whatever the particular point of pain is, the circumstance you would most change, the unwanted source of shock and sadness that you beg God to reverse or sesolve...God has a purpose for that pain. And it will not go away until the reason for its arrival has been completed in you. Worse, when God has finished His work in that part of your life, He will move on to another area He wants to change in you. God is relentless in His pursuit of us. His love is not a pampering love; it's a perfecting love. The pathway to revival is through pain" (p34).

"God would rather see you anywhere else than living in rebellion and resistance to His will. Once you come to the cross of Christ, God's will for you is your sanctification. If you're not advancing in that process, God will take you to some awful places so that His purposes in you might be accomplished" (p38).

"God would rather see us in a world of hurt than not be the prize of our highest affections. God is willing to do whatever it takes to bring us to that level of relationship" (p39).

I never thought I would see this...

I was walking through the base exchange today at Buckley Air Force Base in Denver and what did I see? The brand new "Your Best Life Now" Game. My first reaction was laughter...followed by a brief search for hidden cameras. I'm still not sure if this a case of marketing gone ary or if it perhaps is a great innovative ministry idea. What do you think?

Here is a review of the game that I found HERE.

downpour...

I have just begun reading "downpour" by James MacDonald. It is subtitled, "an encounter with God that will soak you with joy". For the next several days, I want to publish what I consider to be the most interesting quotes out of each chapter.

Introduction

"I believe that life is too short to waste time reading or writing books that only entertain. This is a book to change your life" (p1).

"This is a book about personal revival" (p4).

"Revival is renewed interest after a period of indifference or decline" (p5).

"Revival is not long lines of anxious sinners waiting for a turn at the microphone to reveal their most secret sinful something. That's not revival. Revival is not emotional extravagance..." (p5).

"The Bible does not invite us to seek a revival, ask God for a revival, or pray that revival will come" (p5).

"...we don't have control over moves of God that affect entire cities or regions. What we can affect is the experience of 'being revived' personally" (p6).

"Don't attempt to be revived if you have never been 'vived' in the first place" (p.6).

"Revival involves an increased hunger for and delight in God's Word after a difficult season of life" (p7).

"Revival involves a disdain for sin and renewed desire for obedience to God" (p7).

"Revival brings increased commitment to and interest in personal prayer" (p7).

"Revival is: God, gladly at the center of my life, experienced and enjoyed" (p7).

"If enjoying a happening relationship with God were easy, everyone would have one" (p8).

Hispanic Seminary Classes at Cornerstone...

Cornerstone will have the honor of hosting seminary classes for hispanic pastors in the area beginning in a few weeks. Our church will be one of two sites in Colorado where this training is offered. You can read more about it here. At present there are 30 students statewide who are registered--10 of which who will be attending classes at Cornerstone. The training is being provided by Bautista Universidad de las Americas (BUA), a Southern Baptist seminary in San Antonio, Texas. Most of our hispanic pastors in Colorado are bivocational and would not otherwise have the opportunity to recieve theological training in Spanish.

CBGC Church Health

I had the honor of helping to distribute some of our state mission offerings back into six our Colorado churches this morning. I serve on the Church Health Committee of the CBGC Executive Board and each year I have the honor of helping to allocate these resources. Our committee met by telephone this morning and considered several requests for funding. In addition to the Church Health Committee, we also have a Missions Committee and a Prayer and Evangelism Committee that make distributions to individual churches from our Nicey Murphy State Missions Offering.

The following six churches received their funding requests.

Trinity Baptist Church, Gunnison, $1000, Discipleship Conference.
Summit House Church Network, Dillon, $2000, High Capacity Coffee Machine for Big Red Bus. The Big Red Bus is highly effective evangelism tool—kind of like a block party on wheels.
Hope of Israel, Denver, $2000, High Speed CD/DVD Duplicator.
CrossPointe Community Church, Highlands Ranch, $2000, “Reaching America” mailout.
Immanuel Community Church, Fort Collins, $2000, Resource Evangelism Project and the completion of a welcome/coffee center.
Emmanuel Baptist Church, Meeker, $2000, Complete bathroom facilities in children’s area and purchase video projector.

The Church Health Committee has a total of $19,684.34 to distribute to Colorado Baptist churches in the area of church health. $8,684.34 remains for other requests that may be submitted throughout the year.

Evangelism Support Group...

I met with two other pastors today and our Director of Missions to begin a "Personal Evangelism Support Group". The purpose of the group is to simply provide accountability and motivation to be involved in sharing our faith on a more regular basis. Each of us has admitted that we hardly ever witness outside of our profession. In other words, we would be hard pressed to find someone that we brought to Jesus that wasn't somehow related to our work. We will be meeting every other month and exchanging email updates every week. We're focusing on intentionally sharing our faith with people we meet and developing ongoing relationships with the unsaved. My goal is to simply share the gospel this week with someone who doesn't know that I'm a pastor. Secondly, I am developing a relationship with the parent of one of my son's wrestling team members. I'll let you know how it goes.

Reagan's Legacy...

Where would you expect to find a statue giving honor to President Ronald Reagan? California? Washington, D.C.? How about Katowice, Poland and Poland's capital, Warsaw? Both Polish cities are in the process of building tributes to the man that most Poles believe was most responsible for the fall of the Soviet Communist empire. You can read more here. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could honor our nation's heroes with the same enthusiasm? Any chance that there could one day be a statue of President George W. Bush in Afghanistan or Iraq?

No "Friendship" Bread for Me...

I have officially sworn off "Friendship Bread" for the remainder of my life. One of our ladies shared last night in Bible Study a startling story about friendship bread that ocurred at a former church that she had been involved in. Several mothers of young children had gotten together to share the birth of one particular lady's final child. As a present, the lady gave each of the women who were present a baggie containing friendship bread. Some time later, she asked some of them if they had enjoyed the bread. She then shared that she had used her breast milk to make the dough! Yikes!

Pre-Cursors to a God-Movement...

Dr. John Avant says that there are three pre-cursors to a movment of God in a Church.

1. Great Commission Prayer - One or two people must be praying! Coggin Avenue was not a praying church but there were two people (out of 400) who were praying daily for God to do a work.


2. Pioneering Risk - Dr. Avant says, "The move of God came when I didn't care anymore if I was fired!" He refused to meet again with the personnel committee because he would always walk out of the meetings defeated. He didn't care if they fired him! That freedom allowed him to begin taking risks...like beginning a Sunday School class for gang members.


3. Revival of Radical Evangelism - When he quit worrying about pleasing the right people, he was able to return to an evangelistic lifestyle.