A Prayer for More Prayer, For a Spiritually Stronger Church

If pastors, an anybody else too of course, spent a lot more time in prayer, a LOT more time in prayer, payer for their congregations, prayer for their sermons, prayer that God would deepen the spiritual life of the church, or any such prayers, just lots lots more of them, hourse every week, I suspect we'd start to see revivals in churches, and that deepening of spiritual life in individuals, and more convicting sermons and a general livening of the whole Christian Church. Hours more, hours and hours more. This is my own prayer. Amen.

Apology

Listening to the previous two posts through the "read aloud" function reveals that there are lengthy sections of total gibberish and all I can say is I'm so very sorry for that. I can't see well enough to correct the problem beyond a word or two if I concentrate hard on it, which is of course why I created all that gibberish in the first place. And I was trying SO hard to position my fingers. I suppose it's time to give up, it's just hard to make thqat decision as long as I can see at least vaguely.

Abortion Ponderings

Since abortion is in the news right now, because of the leak of a potential ruling by the Supreme Court thqat would throw Roe v Wadd to the states, some of the usual opinions are heard here and there. One is that it's hypocritical to be pro life and yet support the death penalty. I always feel obliged to answer this one because it's so wrongheaded. There is nothing contradictory about the concern to defend INNOCESNT life while at the same time believing that the criminally guilty should be punishable by death. Capital crimes are capital crimes, that's what the death panalty is for. The only rational argument against the death p3enalty is the unfortunate fact that too many innocent people are wrongly convicted of capital crimes. I condsier that to be a reasonble argument against the death penalty in such a judicial system, but as a principle, no, there are cro,es tjat deserve deatj/ Ommpcemt imbprm baboes dp mpt deserve death.

On the dark horse podcast another question came up today: the sirtuation of the rape victim who gets pregnant. Should she be condemned to carry the rapitis's baby to birth? Drat, I meant to see if I could find a statistic on how many rapes issue in prengnancy but I forgot. Anyway I certainly agree that it is a serious burden on the rape victim on top of the rape itself, but if I'm consistent the preservation of an innocent life has to be the first consideration. I do't se any way around this. the only solution I see has to be that special care should be taken for the comfort and support of the woman. The churchews that provide Crisis Pregnancy Centers probably already focus on this special need but if not they should. Perhaps a convicted rapist would work to pay for the care of the woman and child while in prison. There are possible wsays to help mitigate the prolem that hneedf to be thought about.

Bret Weinstein brought of an interesting issue with respect to the rape situation. From his evolutionary point of view he figures that the rapist's gen3es might possible contribute to an increase in the birth of rapists because of hos he thinks of genes as related to behavioral possibilities in the offspring.

I found this interesting because from my Christian point of view behavioral characteristocs are veru ;ole;u tp be omjerotecdd becaise
tje soms pf tje fatjers
ARE omjeroted/ {rpbab;u mpt tjrpigj tje gemes bit tjrpigj wjatever s[orotia; [atjwau we a;; omjerote tje som pf aAdam as well as the soms pf tje fatjers om pir pwm [erspa; amcestru/ bit we a;; omjerot everulomd pf som frp, pir amcestprs becaise we are a fa;;em race amd tjere os mp argi,emt O cam fomd om amu pf tjos tp lo;; a babu becaise ot ,ogjt omjerot tje [rp[emsotu pf a ra[ost fatjer/ Raose tje babu as a Cjrostoam . get ot saved. tirm ot awau frp, sicj somfik; ex[ressopms/ Ot os foftu [ercemt ;ole;u tp be a gor; amuwau/

A Lot of Us are LIving a Subnormal Christian Life

The point of a spiritual renewal project such as I've been pursuing is to get the world and the flesh out of your life and receive exhorations and encouragement to a stricter Christian life. Soaking up good Christian teaching, books, sermons, long sessions listening to the Bible, prayer and even fasting when possible, staing away from the usual worldly input, it all helps.

Read the scriptures. How clear it is that we don't possess the spiritual power that should be ours. I guess some think this tepid level of spiritual life is all we're promised but that's not how I read it. "Rivers of living water" says Jesus, those who believe in Him will experience. Don't tell me the Church in general has this spiritual experience. Don't tell me even the best preachers and teachers have anything like it. They may have a fair amount of success at winning converts but it looks pretty feeble compared to the scripture if you ask me.

I want that living water. I want the spiritual power that implies of being able to represent God Himself to the unsaved so that God influences them instead of me. One thing I've been learning over this last month is how much of my life is mired in fleshly attempts to live the Christian life. I picked teachers to read who are stronge on that message, how fleshly and worldly today's church is.

Do we really "walk in the Spirit" if we don't even really know how to identify His presence in our lives? Isn't it too often simply assumed that we are walking in the Spirit because we know we have the Holy Spirit if we are believers, so we don't need any personal experience or evidence of it beyond that basic recognition. These writers I'm reading think otherwise. Tozer, Murray, Nee, Lloyd-Jones. >bri
>br? Dp we deny ourselves. die to ourselve Dp we lmpw pir p;d ,am. pir f;esj. os cricofoed wotj Cjrost amd dp we lmpw jpw tp act pm tjat Mpt veru we;; ot wpi;d see,/ We [reacj om tje f;esj amd assi,e tje S[orot os tjere. amd Je [rpbab;u os. bit mpt om tje [pwer we meed. we wrote b;pgs om tje f;esj amd jp[e Je giodes sp,e pf ot a;tjpigj we dpm t lmpw of Je os pr mpt fpr sire/

Just a hint at what I've been hearing and thinking about for now.

End Times According to the Pre=Tribbists, And My Usual Reservations

Jan Markell's Understanding the Times radio is heavy on the Pre-Trib Rapture scenario this week and I'm going to post it although I have personally pulled back from it. this program shows some opponents of the view who are awfully condemnatory against it, and I'm certainly not with them. I just keep having problems putting the scriptural sources together to build up that scenario that they are so sure about. And I object to their own characterizations of everybody who raises questions about the scenario as having some kind of nefarious motives or mental incompetence or whatever. I think there are genuinely legitimate questions BASED ON SCRIPTURE that make the Pre-Trib system shaky. I've spelled out a lot of my questions in previous posts and won't repeat them here. I still think there are valid elements in the Pre=Trib view, I just don't think it holds up as one coherent story line so I'm expecting some rearranging of parts and reinterpratations of some of the scriptural sources to characterize the final reality. Meanwhile I'm dedicated to an intense spiritual renewal on a personal level and the possibility of a revival to deal with theis corrupted world, and if the Rapture intervenes, graet, if not such a strengthening is desperately needed by both me and the Church.

The Spiritual Project A Month Into It

Since April first I've been pursuing spiritual strengthening with a passion. It started with a familiar thought that what is going on in the world is beyond human means of correction, it's God's doing for one thing, God's judgment on a corrupt world, becoming more corrupt as part of the judgment process, and it's beyond us to deal with such a trend on that level. I've thought it of course for some time, but one day I just got fed up with myself and decided I have to act on this recognition. I'm giving up any hope in human means and focusing exclusively on God. I soon got even more disgusted with myself as I realize how much of my Christian life has been misspent for so long, how much time I've squandered on political and other human systems when I should have been doing what I'm now doing, putting enormous energy into seeking God. Reading the books I've posted here and more besides, well listening to them since I can't see well enoughj to read any more, so many wonderful books in audio formats online, what a Blessing from God. He's dealing with me personally and taking the project in His own direction. I may write more later as it keeps unfolding, or I many not, at least not for some time. I'm seeking God Himself for His own sake, and seeking the power the Church should have and doesn't.

Another Brief Bleat About Evolutionary Assumptions.

Today's Dark Horse Podcast with Bret and Heather, No. 124is one in which they spend most of their time on biolobical phenomena which of coursse they discuss from their evolutionary perspective. So I'm writing this brief response as usual just to make my usual point that nothing they discuss validates the evolutionary persepctive at all. Everthing they say about the flora and fauna today is easily explained by the Creation of God. They mock the idea at one point but the mockery is a silly straw man. Nothing they report needs any other explanation. They are always talking about adaptations that a created creature would make, they don't need eevolution to explain it. Or they are talking about microevolution which is a misnomer since it has nothing to do with the theory of evolution, it's really just normal built-in variation, built into the genome of any given creature. NO OTHER EXPLANATION IS Required. tHEY ARE NEVER EVER TALKING ABOUT EVOLUTION, SAYING ANYTHING THAT REQUIRES AN EVOLUTIONARY EXPLANATION. nEVER.