Spiritual Peace 3 Seeking God

I have learned a lot about ways to encounter the Holy Spirit over the past few years. Frankly, I never really heard much about prayer and meditation in my youth. The only time prayer was mentioned was "The Sinner's Prayer". 

What a total disaster it was to be ignorant of encountering the Holy Spirit. The emphasis on evangelism is usually great but then we dropped from the radar screen. We are essentially told to live by our own will and ability without the anointing of the Spirit, even though Jesus said, "Without me you can do nothing." 

I am not sure why many Ministers are so poor at teaching and disciple-making. It is basic to the Bible and the Christian life. Maybe because we are obsessed with talking heads. We who came to Christ are to live holy lives on our own. How is that working for you?

Anyway, I have tried to learn how to Seek God in prayer and meditation. When I first started to teach about about it several men attacked me for being a Buddhist! If I am so was Paul!

Meditation is biblical and essential to Seeking God. I am more of a Puritan than a Buddhist! Here are thoughts from the Puritans.

Puritans and Meditation

The scholar Puritan E. Calamy took time to address the need for meditation in the lives of young gentlemen, kings, nobles, great persons, soldiers, generals, captains, learned men, scholars, and women. Other Puritans have stressed meditation's particular usefulness to ministers; this was a typical thought due to its usefulness to many specific functions within this vocation. 

As scholar Tom Webster notes, John Rogers stressed: 'To preach painfully, what preparation is required hereto? What Reading, Meditation, Prayer, Labor of the mind?”

Thomas Taylor said, “To preach effectively, the minister 'must by Study, Prayer and Meditation store himself with things new and old, for a vessel must receive in before power out'."

Yet, primarily, the focus on application of meditation was on the continuing sanctification of each individual. 

Indeed, Puritan John Ball calls application "the life of Meditation." He relates application closely to the affective aspects of this discipline; he would have been aware of the Scriptural teaching to diligently keep the heart, for from it spring all the issues of life.

             

It is not a slight thought of the mercies of God which will affect your hearts, but it must be a dwelling on them by meditation. -E. Calamy

We might say that both the Puritans and the Catholics knew how to Seek God.

See my book, Power Christian Thinking for more insights about Renewing the Mind.

Russian Friendships

Despite the conflicts and problems that plague US and Russian relationships today, our personal friendships with the Russian people remain strong and caring. We pray often for our friends and are eager for them to visit us whenever possible.

We were recently visited by a long time friend, Anna and he husband, Nikita. Anna has been coming to the USA since she was a small girl. It began when her mother studied with us back in 1994 just after the USSR collapsed. Now Anna is a college graduate and married.

Anna attended some elementary and high school here and was also given a scholarship to take advanced classes in college. She is a very keen student.

The photo of them was taken before we ate a wonderful dinner prepared by Nikita who is a budding chef. What a smart girl is Anna!

Call or write if you want more personal information on how to pray for Anna, her husband and parents.

Spiritual Peace 3. Prayer is Seeking God

I recently posted about there being three ways to pray.

Seek God
Speak with God
Soak in God's Presence

I covered ways to Seek a God but want to add to my thoughts on that part because it is so important. Seeking God does not require a lot of energy, excitement and activity. In fact, many depressed people and addicts have discovered the importance of Seeking God's Presence when they are down.

I remember a time soon after experiencing a very rough time of having friends attack and destroy me. It was probably the worst time of my life and I became angry, hurt and depressed. During the lowest part of that period I found relief by Seeking God. Through the "Slough of Despondence I was somehow able to encounter God in a very few places.

One was listening to certain music. The Hallelujah Chorus was my favorite. I never failed to connect with The Lord as I listened, wept and cried out to Him for relief. God met me and used scriptures and songs I knew by hear to convict me of my errors and show me why I had opened myself to the betrayal by people I thought cared for me.

I was not glad to see my part or my sins, but over time even that part of Seeking and Encountering the Holy Spirit Became a blessing.  I was unable to provide the energy I needed to Seek The Lord but the music got through to my heart

My book, The Healing a Release of the Holy Spirit might help you understand our need to connect with God. 

Developing Spiritual Peace and Joy 4

Renew Mind Don’t conform to the world’s thinking but be transformed by renewing your mind. RO 12:2

Do not let anxiety overcome you because of life’s problems. Pray and thank God and you will have peace. Think on the things that are true, honorable, pure, right, lovely, a good reputation, excellent, stuff worth our affirmation, and dwell on them mindfully. And practice what you know. Philippians 4: Selected

The long term key to peaceful thinking and joy is developing the mind of Christ. Until I learned about how the brain works I wanted to renew my mind and think like the Bible said, but I was stuck. I was stuck in the old, Stinking Thinking patterns I developed as a child. 

The Bible says, "When I became a mature adult I put away childish things." I desperately wanted to do that but I did not know how. I was determined to think correctly, feel peacefully and show nothing but love, peace and kindness to others. 

I failed miserably. When I failed I had a flood of negative thoughts and ruminations about how bad I was. I would beat myself up and angrily accuse myself of all kinds of bad things. Did that give me peace? NO! Did it teach me how to think like Christ? NO!

When I was head of a Christian in-patient psychiatric unit I discovered that just about every resident was actively thinking like me only worse. The hated themselves. Some had been through tough times of trauma, abandonment and even abuse so they came to the conclusion that no one loved them because they were flawed. 

That is bad enough, but even worse was the fact that THEY AGREED they were trash. So, they treated themselves like trash. As a result, I asked every person one question followed by another.

1. How is God treating you?
Resident: Great! God is good.

2. Are you treating yourself as good as God is treating you?
Resident: That would be wrong. I can't do that. It is pride. 

Read my book, Power Christian Thinking for more insights. 

Worse Than Spanking

There are several recent events that have hit the front pages and caused quite a furor. The main even has been about a football player who took a switch to his little boy. The Twitter feeds, TV Talk shows and Sports' shows have focused more on this event than winning and losses.

As a result of photographs and videos the emotional responses of talking heads have been about as reactive
as the father who gave the spanking.

Let me say up front that I think the whipping was wrong and inappropriate. As a father, grandfather and teacher of kids I can understand that we can get angry at a child but we ought never take our rage out on another person. 

But the issues surrounding the event as as clear as the Mississippi River-muddy!

The father has 9 or 10 children by as many women. He is a "baby father" not a father that actually knows and nurtures those children. His abandonment of the children he sired is many times worse than his spanking one with a switch. Don't people realize how destructive sex outside of wedlock is for the children and mothers? 

Is that too radical? Am I wrong? Is spanking, even the kind that can leave welts not much worse than impregnating a woman and leaving her and the child? NO, NO, a thousand times NO!!

Nope! The statistics show conclusively that children who lose or never have a parent are very likely to have serious emotional/addiction/illness problems as youth and adults. In fact, early death is one result. (Look at the enclosed chart for a summary!)

This man is a brute to drop his seed and produce children he never nurtures. If people are to lose their jobs for unethical, immoral, harmful behavior make it abandonment not spanking.

He was too reactive and mean to switch the child but he is murdering the souls of ten children by abandoning them. The welts on the child are visible and sickening but temporary. The trauma caused by a serial sex thief on the unattended children is invisible and life long.

 Spanking will not result in early death! Abandonment will.

See my book Breaking Free on family healing and growth.

Have to Have Spiritual Peace and Joy 3

We have covered Spiritual Basics and Positive Power and today we will share about:

Assertive Approach to God Hear me and answer me. My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught Psalm 55:2

It is almost impossible to read the Psalms without concluding the writers were very aggressive when asking a God to bless them. There are constant demands for God to hear them, be with them, destroy their enemies, etc. 

I like to suggest that there are three simple ways to pray. 

Seek God

Speak to God

Soak ourselves in and with God.

Today, Seek God. By this I mean learn to assertively ask for the Holy Spirit to be in us and with us in a discernible manner. Scripture is clear that Christians will uniquely have God with them and in them, but by Seeking the manifest presence of the Spirit we are doing everything we can to have experiences with the Spirit that we can feel, hear and find relief. 

This leads me to move from just Speaking to God but asking the Spirit to Speak to us. This must move us from Asking to Meditating. Meditation is a learned skill that requires time, energy and self discipline. Perhaps the biggest challenge is time and focus.

Our lives are filled with interruptions and busyness. Some seem like good actives but Seeking God through meditation can be better.

Meditation usually leads us to Contemplation or "Resting in a God". In a John 15 Jesus says we are to "Abide in the vine for I am the Vine". 

See my book Power Christian Thinking for more on this topic.

Russian Friendships

We are enjoying a visit from Anya, the daughter of a friend in Russia whom we have known for 20 years. She spent months at time in the USA and even attended school here on several occasions.  Anya is a specialist in languages and received a scholarship to study in Iowa.

I have visited with her family in Moscow and shared meals, discussed world issues and had great fellowship.

Anya and Nikita were married recently and she brought him over to visit with her American "families". Nikita is a designer, photographer and cook! He fixed this beautiful meal of Amish Chicken, Sweet Potatoes, Idaho Potatoes, and Spices. YUM!!

Pray for our ongoing Russian/American Friendships!

See our web for information how you can support us.