Thinking Right Thoughts About God

I have been reading "The Knowledge of the Holy" by A.W. Tozer. Here are some quotes:

"What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us."

"The gravest question before the Church is always God Himself."

"Only after an ordeal of painful self-probing are we likely to discover what we actually believe about God."

"Perverted notions about God soon rot the religion in which they appear."

I feel I have gone through a bit of that "ordeal of painful self-probing" during the last few months, and it was painful. But I am the better for it. Bob George identifies a principle in his book "Classic Christianity": "If truth sets you free, then error binds you." We must think right thoughts - the truth - about God to be free.

One of my errors that bound me, for years, was that God was not always good. I would ask "How could He let that happen?" Not realizing that what I was really doing was judging God and saying my concept of goodness was higher than His. How arrogant! It was painful dig out and realize this about myself - but freeing to be rid of it. God is always good!

We all have faulty misconceptions about God in our hearts. Find them and right them as best you can.

Healing Conference

Dana and I attended the Healing Conference down at Heritage this week. Bill Johnson spoke Tuesday and Wednesday. It was an amazing time and we left very encouraged by what we saw and what God was speaking to us.

The picture on the right is of a sign that was posted all around the Heritage facility. I thought it was hilarious.

One of the more dramatic moments almost didn't happen. As is Morning Star's custom, they have prophetic ministry available for conference attendees. I didn't really have high expectations for this and almost didn't sign up for a time slot. In fact, it was only because I saw the line wrapping around the hotel lobby to sign up that made me pause and think twice about it. I reluctantly signed up and got one of the last slots available - others were turned away soon afterwards. Boy, did I almost miss a real blessing.

When our time slot came, we sat down with 3 individuals we had never met before. They calmly explained the process and then started with a simple prayer. After a moment of waiting, they began to give us one of the most simple, direct and applicable prophetic words we had ever received. There was no guessing about the meaning, no trying to connect the dots. It was clear and simple. We took many notes during the session and when we walked away, we realized that we could've just wrote "Keep doing what you are doing". It was very encouraging and empowering.

One of the takeaways from the conference teaching was the concept of walking in the presence of God. It sounds real profound, I know. But in our culture, we prize knowledge and principles - we want understanding without responsibility or first-hand experience. When the disciples asked Jesus about the blind man in John 9, they asked "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" They were seeking understanding about the man's situation instead of compassion and power to deliver him. It was academic to them. They addressed Jesus as "Rabbi" or "teacher" - even after seeing Jesus do miracle after miracle.

The world does not need explanations with no power to deliver, but rather the Presence of God, Christ in me the hope of glory.

Still percolating on a lot of what we heard - More to come...

J

Rick Joyner on Lakeland and Heritage Outpouring

Rick Joyner has published a series of newsletters concerning the recent events in Lakeland Florida and at Heritage in Rock Hill SC. They give a great perspective from someone who has studied past revivals and moves of God. There are 3 parts (so far):

Part 1: http://www.morningstarministries.org/Publisher/Article.aspx?ID=1000031456
Part 2: http://www.morningstarministries.org/Publisher/article.aspx?id=1000031549
Part 3: http://www.morningstarministries.org/Publisher/article.aspx?id=1000031954


I will be attending a 3-day conference on healing at Heritage next week. Bill Johnson is scheduled to be the key speaker. Should be fabulous considering what is going on down there right now.

J

Christ the Healer - Part 2

I've long believed that God does heal and have heard many testimonies of this. Even as a child, I remember praying for my own healing for various colds and ailments. As I said in my last post, I think most Christians believe God can heal, I'm just not sure most believe He is willing to heal - every time.

Where does this mentality come from? One place that it comes from is our experience. When our experience does not line up with our doctrine, we tend to change our doctrine rather than demand an experience from our doctrine (thanks Bill). I'm not suggesting that we live in denial or that we should always understand every situation - I just think we should keep swinging. I once saw Joan Fitzgerald pray for a friend in a wheelchair - he was not instantly healed. Did she stop praying for the rest of the crowd around her? Nope. She didn't make any excuses or try to explain why he wasn't walking, she just simply moved on to the next person and kept praying. Just a few people down the line, was a girl with hearing problems. Her ears were instantly opened. I talked with her mother weeks later - the healing was real and lasting. I'm sure she was glad that Joan kept swinging!

If you look through the gospels, you will see that many times Jesus healed ALL who were brought to Him. He refused no one.

What assurances do we have that healing is available to us and everyone around us - without exception? Isaiah 53:4-5 states:

Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

We like to do two things to this scripture:

1. Divide it into two pieces. We take the promise of forgiveness of our sins but leave the equally stated promise of healing of our sicknesses.


2. We tell ourselves that the healing mentioned is just spiritual, not physical.

Matthew 8:16-17 brings us the needed clarity:

When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: "He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases."

Jesus bore our sicknesses just as He bore our sins. He came to redeem ALL that was lost. Healing is available to all who desire it - just as with salvation.

And now for something complete different...

Google sometimes places funny quotes on top of my email client. Today's quote led me to a whole slew of quotes by stand-up comedian Emo Philips.

• My computer beat me at checkers, but I sure beat it at kick boxing.


• How many people here have telekinetic powers? Raise my hand.


• I was walking down fifth avenue today and I found a wallet, and I was gonna keep it, rather than return it, but I thought: well, if I lost a hundred and fifty dollars, how would I feel? And I realized I would want to be taught a lesson.


• Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.

Reminds me a lot of Steven Wright's stand-up routines. Here are a couple of his:

• Cross country skiing is great if you live in a small country.


• Ever notice how irons have a setting for permanent press? I don't get it.


• Everywhere is within walking distance if you have the time.


• I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol.


• I hooked up my accelerator pedal in my car to my brake lights. I hit the gas, people behind me stop, and I'm gone.

Well, they're funny to me anyway...:)

J

Healing Evangelists

I've been reading a lot lately about the healing evangelists of the 1950s. People like William Branham and Jack Coe. I ran across the God's Generals website and they have a great list of short video clips you can watch (here is a great one of Branham telling a lady her name and her address and healing her of cancer - another one of cancer falling off a lady's nose into the hand of Jack Coe). Some are more dramatic than others. Some you may look at with skepticism. I find that my skepticism is mostly rooted in how they present themselves or how their character may have faltered. So, I have to look past that and try to see what God was, and is, doing. John the Baptist certainly did not present himself well in animal skins - but he was a powerful vessel for God. King David was not without sin - but he was dear to God. These guys had faults and were human, but they also were obedient to what they felt God was calling them to do.

I wonder how many more are out there and have been disqualified either by others or by themselves for their shortcomings? We, like Paul exorted Timothy, must not receive a "spirit of timidity" but rather should "fan the flame of the gift" given to us. Paul said "I care very little if I am judged by you...indeed, I do not even judge myself" (I Cor. 4:3) What is he saying here? That we should not examine our lives and root out sin? Not quite - it is a matter of degree. He goes on to say "My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me." In other words, he could examine himself to the extreme but still have sin that he has no knowledge of - therefore it is better to let the Holy Spirit reveal sin along the way. We have work to do, and we cannot make ourselves perfect, or expect others to be, before we do it.

Christ the Healer

I am currently reading F. F. Bosworth's "Christ the Healer". It has been eye-opening. If you have any interest in miracles and healing, this book is required reading. He makes a very convincing case for bodily healing being part of the atonement of Christ - that just as He bore our sin, He also bore our sicknesses. I am not through with it yet and will certainly be posting more about it later. But one thing I will say now, and this is something he addresses in the book, is that most people believe God can heal, but they are not convinced He is willing to heal them - and that is the sticking point.

What do you think? Is Christ always willing to heal?

J

Men Before Me

This is a picture of my grandparents on my dad's side. That's my dad holding what appears to be an official Red Rider BB Gun. My uncle Joe is in that contraption that I think is a stroller. Not yet born is my uncle Wayne.

Interestingly, I just found out that my wife and I share the same wedding anniversary date as my grandparents - August 10. I have a lot of good memories of visiting them in Savannah GA. A time I will never forget is when it was just me and Grandpa sitting on the back of his blue pickup truck - just talkin'. He told me about his times in the Army and I distinctly remember him describing the intercom box in his barracks as the "bitch box". I remember feeling so grown up just sitting there with him. I couldn't have been more than 10 years old at the time.

My granny is on the left. She died when I was in middle school. I just always remember her being in the kitchen. She used to bake corn in the oven with bacon on top. And we all know that everything is better with bacon.

A Simple Truth For Men

KPIC recently held an all-night prayer meeting. Sometime between the 2AM muffin break and fighting the 4AM sleepys, my mind wandered around the differences between men and boys.

I thought back to my early days as a teenager and wide-eyed christian. I was 16 years old, my parents were in the midst of a divorce and separated, and I was hungry for a safe place. I could not articulate this at the time, of course. But now, looking back, I know that is what it was. There were a few good men who took time to encourage me and teach me. I would show up at their doors, unannounced and uninvited, and (to borrow a phrase from my friend Kate) "insert myself into their life". They would stop whatever it was they were doing and talk and listen. It was great - for me. Now, as an adult, I realize what an inconvenience this was for them. Two of them were married, one had kids of his own - but yet they never made me feel that I was intruding. They created a safe place for me.

Men create safe places. They take responsibility for those around them. They defend, encourage, lead and love those in their care. They are not passive.

Those men for me were Jeff Campbell, Tad Taylor and Bill Perry. Thanks guys for creating a safe place for me at such a crucial time in my life.

Friendship

I have been thinking more and more about friendships and the importance of them. This process has also forced me to re-evaluate how I view people in general. A couple years ago I began looking a little closer at the disciples - what really stuck out at me was how they were related to each other. Jesus seemed to call most of them in pairs - brothers (such as Andrew and Peter) or good friends (such as Philip and Nathanael). And even then, some of them were from the same town and probably knew each other or were at least familiar.

It seemed Jesus knew that each disciple needed someone else in the group that they really trusted. So it is with us. Relationships, and more pointedly friendships, are what keep me in the game. I used to foolishly think that I had some radical devotion to Christ that I was able to somehow call upon to keep me going. That I was some sort of spiritual lone ranger. Looking back now, I see how much people played a part for me - and I am humbled.

Sometimes in the church, we can be too "ministry" minded. What I mean is, we begin to view people as projects rather than valuable individuals. You don't respect "projects". You don't learn from "projects". There is no give and take with "projects". When I finally realized about age 30 that I might not have all the answers after all, the people around me started taking on new significance. Before then, I basically put people into 3 tiers (usually without much thought or interaction with them):

1. The Significants - These are the celebrities in our midst. The one everyone is clamoring to get to. The ones, when they speak, we give our full attention to and dare not interrupt.
2. The Peers - People we view to be like us and on the same level as us on the spiritual maturity scale.
3. The Projects - The lowly people who need my help - bless their hearts - but couldn't possibly help me.

Dudley Hall makes a great statement in his book "Grace Works" - he says "We feel significant when we spend time with significant people". That cut me. Not only did I realize that I unfairly put The Significants on a pedestal but that I, in some ways, defined my own worth by their opinion of me. I, in turn, passed that attitude down to The Projects and smugly felt like they looked up to me and needed my approval.

What finally really freed me of this unholy mindset was I Corinthians 4:3-5. Here it is in the NIV (emphasis mine):

"I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God."

I finally realized that I, really and truly, had faults. And that I was always going to have faults this side of heaven. For the first time, I really became comfortable with that realization. This, of course, implies that everyone has faults, including The Significants and The Projects. I began to see that all people had value and that value could add some quality to my life - if I would just take the time to seek it out.

I'm trying to walk this out now. It is one thing to realize a thing, it is another to apply it to your life consistently. I still fail at this, but at least now I know what to shoot for. To not reject the rejected and to accept the Significants as broken vessels, just as I am, and not demand perfection from them.

How should we live? - Part 1

The book of Acts, chapter 3, tells us of a time when Peter and John ran across a beggar in front of the temple. The guy was crippled. Peter called to him and said "Look at us." The beggar turned toward them "expecting to receive something" - money, of course. Peter declared to him, "Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk." Then he took him by the hand, pulled him up onto his feet and the man walked and leaped for joy, shouting praises to God.

God used this passage several years ago to open my eyes to a new understanding - a revelation - about how I am supposed to live and pray. If I had been Peter in this story, my prayer for this man would've probably been something like this: "Lord, if it is your will, I ask that you heal this man." And then I probably would've trailed off into some sort of vague prayer about blessings and God drawing close to him. I did have faith that God heals, but yet I felt I was missing something because I never really saw results.

One day, when I was meditating on this scripture, God opened my eyes and I felt I truly read the story properly for the first time. It was so obvious, but yet I couldn't see it until my presuppositions were stripped away. No where in this passage is a prayer to God uttered. He is not addressed directly and He is not petitioned for His help. Peter knew that he had something on the inside already. Look at his statement: "What I have I give to you". He was addressing the man, not God, and he was saying he had something already that could change the man. What did he have?

Number 1) He had a revelation of healing. He had seen Jesus do it. He had done it himself before when Jesus sent them out two-by-two. He knew that God desired to heal.
Number 2) He had the Holy Spirit. Pentecost had just happened. The Spirit was poured out like never before. Jesus told him He would send a helper.
Number 3) He had a revelation of his responsibility to obey Jesus' command to "Follow me."

Now, don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that Peter did all the healing and God had nothing to do with it. Far from it. Peter was simply walking in partnership with the Holy Spirit and being a vessel, an ambassador. In that moment, he knew that God desired for that particular man to be healed. Once he knew this, he simply had to declare it as truth and watch it happen.

I wonder how many times Jesus walked by this man, whom the scriptures say was "laid daily at the gate of the temple"? Surely He had seem him there begging. Was He being callous to this man? I think not. Jesus, ever obedient to the Father, knew it wasn't the proper time. But when Peter and John came along, God was ready and had orchestrated together just the right mix of people at just the right time. So when the power of God was released and the man was healed, it resulted in the gospel being preached and hundreds, if not thousands, coming to Christ (Acts 4:4).

It is not enough that we have the correct doctrine, we must also have the agreement of heaven.

A Good Name

Reading the local paper here in Raleigh, I ran across an article about rising fares for the city buses.  The transit marketing director said that only about 35 percent of riders wil pay the full fare.  The mass transit marketing director's name is.....wait for it....Stacey Carless.  No kidding.

J

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http://www.jasonmwilliams.com/

Not sure if I'm going to make it...

There is an awful lot of red over there in that graph.  I'm currently standing at 32,742 words in <a href="http://www.nanowrimo.org/userinfo.php?uid=128318 ">my novel</a>.  I'm supposed to be at 50,000 words in two days.  I'm beginning to accept the fact that that's probably not going to happen.  However, I am determined to finish the story - maybe I'll shoot for 40,000 words instead.

I think looking back on it, I just cared too much about the story to JUST WRITE.  I kept editing what I had written and worried too much about what somebody may think of it when they read it in December.  Forgetting all along that this was supposed to be a ROUGH DRAFT.  I kept wanting it to be a GOOD rough draft - good enough that people would actually want to read it.  And that, I think, was the problem.

I didn't possess "literary abandonment" as the Nanowrimo website loves to put it.

Oh well, there is always next year!

J

--
http://www.jasonmwilliams.com/

Watch "Resonance" on Google Video

Very cool video demonstrating resonance. Looks like it is a speaker under a piece of sheet metal with some sand sprinkled on top.

Resonance

2 min 4 sec - Oct 29, 2006
Average rating:   (245 ratings)

Picking up steam

Alright, the novel is getting back on track. I'm almost at the halfway mark, with 10 days to go. That's going to put me on a pace of about 2500 words a day. Definitely do-able. But with Thanksgiving coming up, it is certainly going to be a challenge. Definitely taking the laptop out of town with me and hopefully won't offend the fam that much.

Plot is coming together and just cranked out a painful passage where the main character has a big loss in his life. "What happened?" you ask? Well, if I told you that I'd spoil the surprise wouldn't I? You'll just have to wait to find out!

J

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http://www.jasonmwilliams.com/

Bad counter widget

Ugh.  I just realized last night that the widget to the right is not giving me accurate goals to shoot for.  I don't know if it is a bug in their software or it doesn't do what I thought it did.  In any event, this is the 10th day of the month, and according to the widget I'm only 1200 words in the hole which is not bad at all.  But, in reality I should be at about the 17,000 word mark about now.  Which is about 5000 words behind.  Big difference.

I know what I'm going to be doing this weekend!

--
http://www.jasonmwilliams.com/

Novel is up and going

It's starting to get some legs.  I'm up over 4000 words now and chugging hard.  Hoping to use all this enthusiasm to build a good buffer going into week 2.  I'm thinking this weekend should be pretty productive.

J

Day One Over

Well, Day One has passed of NaNoWriMo.  I'm at 1300+ words.  Not a bad start, right?  Good news is I have my ending now in mind.  I like it a lot, so that's good motivation.  Last night, I was so sleepy I couldn't finish the scene I was working on, so tonight I think I'm going to treat myself to a Starbucks Frappuccino at about 10pm - that should keep the wheels turning for a while!

J

1 day, 11 hours left!!

Only 1 day and 11 hours before the madness begins. I've added a word count ticker on the sidebar so you can see my progress. I'm pretty pumped about the whole thing and eager to get started. I'm trying not to think too much about my plot because I want to be free to go where the character/story takes me.

I have a general idea of the beginning, a couple of ideas of how it might end up and a title: Singularity. I've also done a little character sketching (I guess that's what you call it) and have determined my main character's physical characteristics and personality.

Access to Healing

Jesus said "He who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do
also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My
Father." (John 14:12)

This has had a resounding effect on me during the past year. I have
long asked God to move through me in power. Paul declared that the
"kingdom of God is not in word, but in power" (1 Cor. 4:20). God has
been doing some incredible things lately. I've personally ministered
healing to numerous people for things like kidney stones, back aches,
eye problems and shoulder pains. It has been incredible to watch and
be a part of. Usually there is instant relief from the problem.

All this to say, I wanted to just take a moment here and ask whoever
is reading this blog: Do you need prayer? Is there something you need
healing for? Jesus said to "Ask, and it will be given to you" (Matt.
7:7)

Leave me a comment and I'll be glad to pray for you.

I'd also recommend the book "When Heaven Invades Earth" by Bill Johnson.

Grace.