ver.: 21 February 2008
Take a look at these letters from people who are asking spiritual questions :
> How can I stand in the gap for him
until he is able to
> believe or surrender to God?
You just do it. Your task of prayer does not depend on whether the guy's surrendered to God or not. You pray for him from Christ's love for him, in you. No demon is a match for people praying together before God; the devil's already beaten. With others, lay the need for healing his body and soul before God in Jesus' name. On your own and in group, keep at it. There's no magical formula, just the persistent pouring out of the heart.
There's an episode in one of the Gospels where Jesus was surrounded by big crowds, so big there was no chance that a paralytic could ever make his way through to Jesus for His healing touch. But his friends undertook the difficult task of lifting an otherwise-helpless man to the roof and then easing him down to where Jesus was. It wasn't the paralytic's faith that made the difference, for we don't hear about his faith. It was the friends who had great faith (that Jesus would and could do it) and love (that they would undertake this task). It was their faith that Jesus praised. Your role is like the friends hauling the paralytic, taking this man before God and pleading for his healing.
> If, in Matthew 16, Jesus refused to provide a
"sign" to the people
> of his day, then why would he show forth a sign today,
beyond what
> he has already done in scripture? <
The fact is, He was doing signs all the time in full view of everyone -- every healing, every prophecy, every act of good, every sermon of truth. At the time those Pharisees asked him for a sign, He had just healed many people who came to him when He was on a mountain, and had fed 4000 people using little food. Jesus was doing such things so often that people were expecting it from Him. All signs were glimpses of what is to come -- the Kingdom of God's Son showing itself Now. He didn't do signs just to do them, or do them because someone wanted to see something strange. They were acts of the Kingdom breaking in, signs of God's love for what He created -- which is all that a sign really is. But what those Pharisees wanted was a sign of a kind they wanted -- they would read no other. Just like they wanted a Messiah of the kind they wanted -- they would heed no other. So Jesus gave them the sign of Jonah (of course, they didn't get that one either). Jesus' statement was about stubborn people, not signs. It was already all out there for them to see, they were just trying hard to look the other way. This is still true today. Jesus did signs after meeting with them, no less than before, but they were only for those with ears to hear.
> I know that many counterfeit signs and wonders will be
displayed
> in the last days. Isn't that what we're seeing
today?<
Quite possibly. The key to signs, like deeds, being
'counterfeit' is that it takes one's attention away from God
and what God wants of us as shown through Scripture. Signs
(especially small-group or private and unheralded) often do a
good job of pointing to Jesus, but (especially TV and
arena stuff) point very much away from Him. I think we
have a much bigger problem with counterfeit thinking,
counterfeit preaching, and counterfeit visions of the
future than we do counterfeit signs. As common as
counterfeit signs are, these other counterfeits are everywhere
and pull on all of us.
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> Any ideas where I can find at least
a primer on what to say
> - or not to say- to someone who is "converting" to
paganism?
I really don't know of any primers, although some marginally useful stuff is on the Web -- marginal because usually it's very fundamentalist, and the people checking out Wicca and Woden-lore and Druid belief have often been burned by precisely those fundies.
People who become 'pagan' are usually well aware that the deities of paganism do not really exist as beings -- though don't ever tell them that! And their practices and beliefs are not really identical to the pre-Christian religions they claim as their predecessors -- thankfully.
They go into it for two main reasons :
(1) Frustration -- especially at institutions, and the easiest to toss out of one's life is the church. Often these people found themselves rejected by the institutions, or terribly mired down in their attempts to assert their role within its framework. This is especially true of women. The new paganists can be shockingly spiteful and vengeful about it -- all will seem calm and fine, then something tumbles out of their mouth that shows how totally fed up they are. Pagan gods or faceless forces are more fun, they don't get in the way, and they have a certain countercultural style to them. They become good to hide behind, and good to label enemies by.
Christians are frustrated about institutions, too. But a wise Christian understands that institutions are how human beings deal with groups of each other. Christians believe in loving people and serving people not just as persons but as part of a society and a nation and a world. Such dealings are horribly ineffective, and often impossible, outside of an institutional framework. But, in any institution, the people in the institution will tend to defend their own institutional position. It becomes a matter of ownership and control to the institution-holders. Christians seek better ways to act in concert, but ultimately any way we develop is sinful, because we who are in it are sinful. It can hurt. Big time. Today's pagans generally have a very low ability or willingness to accept this and go on.
The only ways, ultimately, to avoid institutional frustration is to either become isolated from the institution (like, say, a hermit) or to control it. Which brings us to reason #2.
(2) Power. Paganism believes in the magical power of words (spells & incantations), cards, stars, and crystals to manipulate the forces of spiritual power to do one's bidding. One can be taught these secrets, but ultimately one gets more of it by using it more. While there is some surface talk about using power to benefit others, the truth is that paganism (including Wicca, despite its attempts to reimage itself as benign and kind and just and focused on wholeness) is about becoming a powerful person who makes a real impact. To someone who feels powerless as a person (especially young women), this can be magnetic. Empowerment is a good thing, most of the time, but the truth is that its goodness depends on what you're empowered to be and do. Theirs is a zero-sum vision of power, where somebody else's spiritual spells and contacts can void yours. Sometimes just viewing yourself as a real 'player' itself makes you more of a player than someone who backs off or (spirits forbid) who serves for the sake of serving.
The truth is that the desire to have power over others is insatiable and evil. The urge for power controls you, not the other way around. We aren't meant to have 'power over', but only and solely 'power for'. If we follow Christ, we renounce 'power over'. Of course, that sounds like a wimp God, the ultimate wuss of all wusses. But God doesn't have to prove His might to you. You are not only not the center of the universe, you are just one among many other equal ones, and you are wrong to want to be more. The only thing that makes you more than that is the depth of love you let the Holy Spirit build into you. The question then is how to build a strong enough sense of self to enable love to carry out good service. That comes through finding each person's gifts and empowering them to use those gifts to build others up. That can't be fully or rightly done by yourself, and unfortunately, sooner or later that throws us back to #1, institutions and institutional frustrations.
>I always thought that
Galatians 5:22 where the fruit of the
>Spirit is mentioned that one of the fruits was temperance
or self-control.
>If so, then how can a person be under the influence of the
Holy Spirit by losing control of their body?
Fair question.
As best as I can figure it, the pentecostal claim regarding
these experiences is that the experience itself is a change of
control from egoistic self-control to that of the Spirit's
control. Then, as the Spirit creates a New You, control is
handed back. Only then does this New You show the fruit of
self-control. (As I explain in the foreword, I've never been
through it, so I don't know for myself.)
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> if God does "slay people by
the Spirit", what changes occur in a
> person once they get up?
I look at it as an opportunity, a physical phenomenon with potential spiritual consequences. That is, it's something that the Spirit can use to crash their inner gates and clear away the jungle that's choking their soul, but what comes of it depends on them and what they do next. That also is to say it depends in part on the church and what in the Spirit it does with them.
If they wake up the next morning, look in the mirror and say, 'naaaah...', then it's like a reasonably good rock show, a trip but nothing much more, and they'll bring the garbage back into the house of their heart. If that church teaches them a bunch of platitudes that wear thin in the face of daily life, and takes them no further or deeper, they'll probably fade off of it and be back to their usual self. (Only, a bit more cynical.) But many people look into that mirror the next day, say, 'I don't know, but I'll trust it anyway and see where it takes me'. They take that scary next step, and perhaps another. Which is followed by another, in growing trust.
The Spirit does not set up home in someone who spits in the face of the Divine. The Spirit, even in full power, does not take your heart captive. The Spirit asks in and leaves when expelled, left to knock on the door from the outside instead of opening you up from the inside. So, if you shrug off the experience after a while, or stop allowing yourself to grow, or even take up with the earlier life of fear, greed, selfishness, lust, or thrill, the Spirit is not in you, and can only call from outside of you. (The latter is one reason why the Word must be told -- it is the foremost way the Spirit speaks from outside.) Too many people I know have gone through this part of the experience.
In short, the 'slain' experience is one of many experiences that act as a starting (or re-starting) point, a first step. From there, the 'slain' need to keep stepping. Step into a fellowship which cares to show how a Christian life of obedience, grace and freedom is lived, and just plain cares. Step into studying the Bible, alone and with others. Step into worshipping God regularly because God is worthy of it. One step, then another, and before they know it, it's a journey, they're going somewhere worth going.
That's my take on it. I haven't gone through it, but others
around me have, and I see where they went. I can't say how it
goes with you, for the Spirit deals with each of us
differently.
more on being 'slain
in the Spirit'
or, back to top
> You ought to read the Celestine
Prophecy. It catches
> the vibe of what is coming.
Gosh, I hope not. James Redfield's *Celestine Prophecy* is a novel. A weird work of fiction that's no more spiritually revealing than Carlos Castaneda's drug fictions of the '60s-'70s. And just as bad a read; I tried to force myself to read it through, but it's so vapid I failed. All of existence, it seems, is transforming into higher and more brilliant states (or levels) of vibrations, and intelligent life will evolve into beings without bodies melded into the wholeness of all of the universe..... riiiight....suuure....
Redfield's a bit like the kid who hung onto belief in an invisible companion into his teen years. I look at him and wonder, 'has he really started to believe in this foggy stuff he made up?' (Not the novel-ness of it, which he knows is fiction, but the equally-fictional ideas underlying the story.) I wish I could say something positive about it. But I can't.
[[ P.S. : Since that letter, someone applied the same approach to the Bible that Redfield used on prophecy. That's really all the DaVinci Code is. Novel creations disguised as truth. At least that one's a better novel.]]
> Can you please tell me what is Discernment of Spirits?<
Discernment of spirits is when your mind combines with a spiritual 'sixth sense' or intuition about what lies behind something that is being done. This sense is a gift from the Holy Spirit. Like all gifts, it is to be used with love, and used thoughtfully so that it is kept within scriptural lines. In practice, this sense can be wrong - not so much in detecting motive or purpose as in detecting possible effect. You can detect the spirit rightly, but still show poor judgement in what you do with it.
> Just a couple of days ago I had a dream that my brother
was
> shopping for clothes, that very same day I came to know
that
> he actually did that.
That is not spiritual discernment. It can match many other descriptions (dream interpretation, psychic activity, or merely knowing your brother and his routine well). Shopping for clothes is not an act that springs from a spiritual problem (unless, like Imelda Marcos, he obsesses over owning stuff). You didn't sense it as being evil or good, you just dreamed he was shopping for clothes. Discerning the spirits is a detection of the spirit that is at work behind an action or speech.
> Are there different types of Discernment?
Yes. There is the gift of discernment (the
Spirit-given sense or intuition of what lies behind something),
the skill of discernment (the use of wisdom and
factual knowledge to reveal the markers that show the real
purpose or motive or spirit behind something), the
talent for discernment (for some, the skill or gift
comes much easier and works more thoroughly than it does in
other people), and the processes of discernment (how
those who lack the gift or talent or skill can still figure out
what lies behind an action or happening; also, how a body or
group of people do so). Some people are good in all of these.
Since I haven't seen you at work in a situation which (unlike
your brother's shopping) has something spiritual hanging in the
balance, I can't tell if you have or use any of these. Those in
your life, those around you, are the only ones in a position to
know. Think about your actions in such situations; ask others
who were with you when such things happened. They have a better
clue than I do.
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