The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families
From: kentam, 7 hours ago
by Steven R. Covey
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Monday, May 26, 2008
Sunday, May 18, 2008
20Minutes of Music & Slides for Meditation
Spirit
From: kentam, 17 minutes ago
20 Minutes of beautiful music and slides for meditation and relaxation
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Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Music & Slides For Meditation
Music & Slides for Meditation
From: kentam, 5 hours ago
Stunning music and slides for relaxation & meditation. Please download for full effects.
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The Ragamuffin Church - Part 4
We Don’t Do it for ShowIt is human nature to want to look good for others. It seems to me that some Christian leaders and organizations (just like some politicians and political parties) seemed totally obsessed with image.
Notice what Jesus had to say about this:
Matthew 23:5-7 - Their lives are perpetual fashion shows, embroidered prayer shawls one day and flowery prayers the next. They love to sit at the head table at church dinners, basking in the most prominent positions, preening in the radiance of public flattery, receiving honorary degrees, and getting called 'Doctor' and 'Reverend.'
Matthew 23:25-28 - "You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You burnish the surface of your cups and bowls so they sparkle in the sun, while the insides are maggoty with your greed and gluttony. Stupid Pharisee! Scour the insides, and then the gleaming surface will mean something. "You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You're like manicured grave plots, grass clipped and the flowers bright, but six feet down it's all rotting bones and worm-eaten flesh. People look at you and think you're saints, but beneath the skin you're total frauds.
It seems to me there are various ways the church has made an art of trying to look good. I want to list just a few of them;
1. Denial
People in church are discouraged from ever being too real. And this starts at the top. When preachers preach, you will very seldom hear them speaking of their own struggles and failures in their personal lives, marriages, as parents or dark temptations. If they ever do refer to any of these, it’s almost always in the past tense, with the emphasis on how THEY gained victory.
The result is that the “ordinary” people in the church soon get the unspoken message that there is no place or time to disclose their own sins and failures. So they never get ministry for their pain. (And there’s a helluva lot of hidden pain in the church!)
So, a couple who’s marriage is in trouble, will rather hide their torment in an effort to look good. Now they’re cut off from human comfort and spiritual resources and their marriage slides ever closer to destruction.
Paul says in Galatians 6:2 that we should “carry each other’s burdens”, and in so doing will be fulfilling the law of Christ. But when deny our burdens for the sake of looking good, they can never be carried by others.
2. Don’t Talk
Church members are regularly told either directly or indirectly: “Don’t talk!”
Again, this implies that certain things should never be revealed because it might result in the group looking bad. When church members are forbidden to talk about matters such as leadership decisions or how money gets spent, it encourages gossip. Because people cannot voice their opinions in a legitimate way, they resort to speaking to others in a hidden, negative and destructive manner.
In a church communication should flow freely. If it doesn’t it becomes an outright denial of Christian fellowship. People should have access to each other’s opinions and concerns. An inability to tolerate freedom of expression, honest questions and straight talk is a hallmark of an abusive system.
3. A Call to Unity
I have realized that many (if not most) times when leaders in a church call for “unity”, it just an effort to control things. Gene Edwards says, “Beware the leader bearing an inordinate dose of unity.”
No one ever wants to be accused of causing disunity in the church, but in reality it’s often just a ploy to bully people into submission in the name of unity.
So the issue is this: Is it Christian unity we’re looking for, or unchristian uniformity. Because unity and uniformity are not the same thing! If the call for unity includes people keeping quiet and unquestioningly towing the line, then it is not true Christian unity.
4. Phylacteries, Big Bibles and Special Voices
The Pharisees were big on doing things for the show. Check what Jesus said about it;
Matthew 23:5 - "Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long.”
The phylactery was a little box that contained a portion of scripture, which the Pharisess fastened to their foreheads in order to publicly demonstrate their devotion to the law. So symbols of devotion became more important than devotion iteslf. It seems not much has changed.
Today we don’t wear phylacteries, but we do have modern day equivelants. For some it might be an extra large black King James Version. For someone else it might be lacing sentences with “Praise the Lord, brother!” Or perhaps it’s the “preacher’s voice” that many ministers take on the moment the get into a pulpit. I suppose they feel it helps them to sound more like the voice of God. For some it’s the clothes they wear to church.
I’ve realized that when we put so much emphasis on looking good for Sunday morning church, and put so much emphasis on setting the standard in the doing of worship, there is usually emptiness and death on the inside.
Jesus said about it:
Matthew 23:25 - "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.”
5. Places and Titles of Honour
Jesus pointed out that the Pharisees had a need for the most important seats in the synagogue. Now there’s nothing wrong with honouring one another, but the Pharisees demanded it. It makes me sick to my stomach when I see the prima-donna preachers today who demand honour – refusing to minister somewhere unless they get to fly first class, get paid a minimum fee, and have various other demands met. When I read Matthew 23 it seems that Jesus identifies people’s need to be great as being a source of false faith.
These Pharisees wanted to be greated as “rabbi”, which literally means “My great one.” In groups today “The great one” might be “Pastor” or “Senior Pastor”, or “Reverend”, “Bishop” or “Elder”.
Matthew 23:8-12 - "But you are not to be called 'Rabbi,' for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth 'father,' for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called 'teacher,' for you have one Teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”
Unless a title is used to merely indicate a function, it sets the titleholder apart from the common people, and as we know there is no class system in God’s Kingdom. I personally think that a leaders need for a title in order to enhance his or her authority, is in direct proportion to a lack of true authority.
The Ambition of a Servant
People who flaunt their devotion, promote their position and push for power are doing so out of insecurity. A confident person doesn’t need to show or prove anything. So Jesus says “The greatest among you will be your servant.” (Matt. 23:11). He’s not calling us to become doormats here, but describing the secure, God-affirmed leader.
A good leader can have ambition, and can have a high self-esteem. But he will use his ambition and self-worth to seek greater opportunities to serve. Not to be served. Jesus came to be the greatest servant of all.
John 13:3-5 - Jesus knew that the Father had put him in complete charge of everything, that he came from God and was on his way back to God. So he got up from the supper table, set aside his robe, and put on an apron. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the feet of the disciples, drying them with his apron.
We’re called to be like Jesus. We can be ambitious, and we can be successful. But our success will not be determined by how many people we control, but by how many people we can openly and honestly serve. You can’t wash someone’s feet when you’re standing on a pedestal.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
I wept when I saw these...
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
In Praise of Mothers
In Praise of Mothers
From: kentam, 4 minutes ago
Beautiful pictures, poems and quotes affirming the mothers of the world
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Monday, May 5, 2008
The Ragamuffin Church - Part 3
Keeping Faith Rooted In Reality
There needs to be a balance between a healthy faith life and keeping things rooted in reality.
The fact is, as we have already established
beyond any doubt, that we are all sinners saved by graced – nothing more than spiritual ragamuffins. And we should never lose sight of that. Because the moment we do, we put ourselves beyond grace (God’s unconditional favour), and that is a dangerous place to be in. The grace of God not only saves us from being eternally lost, but it also sustains us;
Ø It keeps us in relationship with God
Ø It gives us strength and wisdom for daily living
Ø It offers ongoing cleansing from sin and guilt
Ø It is the alpha and the omega of our faith
Ø It is the one thing that sets Christianity apart from every other faith.
When we abandon grace, we get into deadly legalism, which will ruin an authentic relationship with God. Stephen Aterburn says that, “When all you do is jump through hoops to try to get to God, it is easier to either give up or get weird trying to earn God’s favour.” The church today is littered with both.
Rebecca’s dad died when she was very young. Her mom struggled to keep food on the table, and had to work two jobs. When Rebecca was fourteen she started working too, to keep the family going. Her mom was a woman of faith, who trusted God to provide for her family. She prayed, and regularly attended church. Rebecca went to church with her mom, but it was something she did out of routine and respect for her mom. Somehow she couldn’t relate to the message that was preached at church. The pastor consistently preached a message that said when you became a Christian, there wouldn’t be any more problems. Life would become easy, and life would be full of miracles that took care of all needs. Faith in Christ was presented as an insurance policy against pain in the present. So Rebecca started to wonder, If God is so loving, and if he really cares so much, why isn’t He helping us? If there really is a God, why does He allow my mother to struggle so much?
Because the message didn’t match her real life experience, she abandoned the church and God and started looking to anything that would bring relief. It started with alcohol, then drugs, then sex, until she contracted an incurable disease.
Rebecca’s story is a common one. The expectation of an easy life has caused more people to run from church and God than any other wrong belief.
The message that accepting Christ causes all problems to vanish is not a balanced faith message. Faith in God didn’t help James who was killed with a sword by Herod, or John who was beheaded by Herod, or the missionary Jim Elliot who was killed by Auca Indians in Ecuador, or Cassie Bernall who was shot in the Columbine School massacre after she said, “Yes, I believe.”
Psalm 23:4 - Even if I go through the deepest darkness, I will not be afraid, Lord, for you are with me.
That’s the expression of a healthy and real faith. Not only that God’s presence will go with us, but that there will also be some dark, deadly shadowed places in our lives. They exist in my life and they exist in your life. Just this week I was comforting a family who had lost a loved one through a heart attack at the age of 35. The brother, tears running down his cheeks, said to me, “I just don’t understand why this stuff happens. Four years ago I buried my child, and now I’m going to bury my brother.” Indeed, we don’t understand why. But these things are a reality of our lives. A healthy faith gets us through these dark times. An unhealthy faith believes these things don’t happen to God’s children.
Look what else David wrote;
Psalm 40:12 - I am surrounded by many troubles - too many to count! My sins have caught up with me, and I can no longer see; they are more than the hairs of my head, and I have lost my courage.
That is a healthy expression of faith. Because it’s true. It’s real. It’s the way things are and David never had a problem saying it like it was. A healthy faith helps us embrace who we are, what we are, and where we are.
The issue is this (once again): We are sinners, fallen people, who live by grace 100% of the time. We have to embrace this fact. We have to embrace the fact that we are nothing more than ragamuffins. That’s the way it is. That’s the black and white of it. That is reality. And we must either deny our vulnerability or deal with it.
Discomfort is very real. Conflict is very real. Pain is very real. Disappointment is very real. An unhealthy faith will deny this dark side, and that creates an even greater conflict within us, that causes us to question our faith, our acceptance by God, and sometimes even our salvation! But in reality we all thrash around in slimy pits from time to time.
David said;
Psalm 103:13-14 - The LORD is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate…For he understands how weak we are; he knows we are only dust.
I know of some people who teach that a Christian can reach a level of spirituality where he no longer sins. Now that’s not only unbiblical, it’s just plain unrealistic. Reality means understanding and accepting the truth about who and what I am. John couldn’t have said it simpler;
1 John 1:8-10 - If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth. If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.
Look carefully at what he’s saying: If we choose a path of self-deception and so doing deny what is obviously truth, we are actually calling God a liar! And when we do that we cut ourselves off from the grace of God – which is the very air by which we live.
The final kind of unhealthy/unreal faith I want to discuss is the concept that God causes EVERYTHING to happen. I can’t tell you how many times, next to the open gave of a loved one times I’ve heard people say, “God did this for a reason. I don’t know why He chose my loved one, but I guess He knows what He’s doing, and at least one day we’ll understand why.”
I need you to know that is an UNHEALTHY faith. Pain has enough problems of its own, without people having to try and figure out why God singled them out to inflict pain on their lives. It is true that God WILL USE every problem and pain to achieve good things in our lives, but God does not CAUSE bad things to happen. The problem with thinking that God is the author of pain is it causes people to see God as schizophrenic. Good to His children one day, but a grim joker who hurts them the next. Deep down this causes insecurity in people’s faith, and subconsciously at least they never know whether they can really trust God.
A good healthy faith accepts that pain and problems are simply part of the fallen world in which we live, and that not one of us are exempt. But when I get real about it, I am in a position to allow my pain to draw me closer to God. Pain does not become a barrier, but a bridge to God.
The fact is, as we have already established
beyond any doubt, that we are all sinners saved by graced – nothing more than spiritual ragamuffins. And we should never lose sight of that. Because the moment we do, we put ourselves beyond grace (God’s unconditional favour), and that is a dangerous place to be in. The grace of God not only saves us from being eternally lost, but it also sustains us;Ø It keeps us in relationship with God
Ø It gives us strength and wisdom for daily living
Ø It offers ongoing cleansing from sin and guilt
Ø It is the alpha and the omega of our faith
Ø It is the one thing that sets Christianity apart from every other faith.
When we abandon grace, we get into deadly legalism, which will ruin an authentic relationship with God. Stephen Aterburn says that, “When all you do is jump through hoops to try to get to God, it is easier to either give up or get weird trying to earn God’s favour.” The church today is littered with both.
Rebecca’s dad died when she was very young. Her mom struggled to keep food on the table, and had to work two jobs. When Rebecca was fourteen she started working too, to keep the family going. Her mom was a woman of faith, who trusted God to provide for her family. She prayed, and regularly attended church. Rebecca went to church with her mom, but it was something she did out of routine and respect for her mom. Somehow she couldn’t relate to the message that was preached at church. The pastor consistently preached a message that said when you became a Christian, there wouldn’t be any more problems. Life would become easy, and life would be full of miracles that took care of all needs. Faith in Christ was presented as an insurance policy against pain in the present. So Rebecca started to wonder, If God is so loving, and if he really cares so much, why isn’t He helping us? If there really is a God, why does He allow my mother to struggle so much?
Because the message didn’t match her real life experience, she abandoned the church and God and started looking to anything that would bring relief. It started with alcohol, then drugs, then sex, until she contracted an incurable disease.
Rebecca’s story is a common one. The expectation of an easy life has caused more people to run from church and God than any other wrong belief.
The message that accepting Christ causes all problems to vanish is not a balanced faith message. Faith in God didn’t help James who was killed with a sword by Herod, or John who was beheaded by Herod, or the missionary Jim Elliot who was killed by Auca Indians in Ecuador, or Cassie Bernall who was shot in the Columbine School massacre after she said, “Yes, I believe.”
Psalm 23:4 - Even if I go through the deepest darkness, I will not be afraid, Lord, for you are with me.
That’s the expression of a healthy and real faith. Not only that God’s presence will go with us, but that there will also be some dark, deadly shadowed places in our lives. They exist in my life and they exist in your life. Just this week I was comforting a family who had lost a loved one through a heart attack at the age of 35. The brother, tears running down his cheeks, said to me, “I just don’t understand why this stuff happens. Four years ago I buried my child, and now I’m going to bury my brother.” Indeed, we don’t understand why. But these things are a reality of our lives. A healthy faith gets us through these dark times. An unhealthy faith believes these things don’t happen to God’s children.Look what else David wrote;
Psalm 40:12 - I am surrounded by many troubles - too many to count! My sins have caught up with me, and I can no longer see; they are more than the hairs of my head, and I have lost my courage.
That is a healthy expression of faith. Because it’s true. It’s real. It’s the way things are and David never had a problem saying it like it was. A healthy faith helps us embrace who we are, what we are, and where we are.
The issue is this (once again): We are sinners, fallen people, who live by grace 100% of the time. We have to embrace this fact. We have to embrace the fact that we are nothing more than ragamuffins. That’s the way it is. That’s the black and white of it. That is reality. And we must either deny our vulnerability or deal with it.
Discomfort is very real. Conflict is very real. Pain is very real. Disappointment is very real. An unhealthy faith will deny this dark side, and that creates an even greater conflict within us, that causes us to question our faith, our acceptance by God, and sometimes even our salvation! But in reality we all thrash around in slimy pits from time to time.
David said;
Psalm 103:13-14 - The LORD is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate…For he understands how weak we are; he knows we are only dust.
I know of some people who teach that a Christian can reach a level of spirituality where he no longer sins. Now that’s not only unbiblical, it’s just plain unrealistic. Reality means understanding and accepting the truth about who and what I am. John couldn’t have said it simpler;
1 John 1:8-10 - If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth. If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.
Look carefully at what he’s saying: If we choose a path of self-deception and so doing deny what is obviously truth, we are actually calling God a liar! And when we do that we cut ourselves off from the grace of God – which is the very air by which we live.
The final kind of unhealthy/unreal faith I want to discuss is the concept that God causes EVERYTHING to happen. I can’t tell you how many times, next to the open gave of a loved one times I’ve heard people say, “God did this for a reason. I don’t know why He chose my loved one, but I guess He knows what He’s doing, and at least one day we’ll understand why.”
I need you to know that is an UNHEALTHY faith. Pain has enough problems of its own, without people having to try and figure out why God singled them out to inflict pain on their lives. It is true that God WILL USE every problem and pain to achieve good things in our lives, but God does not CAUSE bad things to happen. The problem with thinking that God is the author of pain is it causes people to see God as schizophrenic. Good to His children one day, but a grim joker who hurts them the next. Deep down this causes insecurity in people’s faith, and subconsciously at least they never know whether they can really trust God.
A good healthy faith accepts that pain and problems are simply part of the fallen world in which we live, and that not one of us are exempt. But when I get real about it, I am in a position to allow my pain to draw me closer to God. Pain does not become a barrier, but a bridge to God.
John 16:33 - “The world will make you suffer. But be brave! I have defeated the world!"
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Quotes from The Ragamuffin Gospel
Great Quotes from the Ragamuffin Gospel
From: kentam, 2 hours ago
A Selection of inspirational quotes taken from The Ragamuffin Gospel.
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