The magic number is 121!
Peace,
Allan
Month: May 2009 (Page 2 of 4)
“We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” ~Romans 8:23
Our God is unfolding a plan that provides fully for our eternal future, a plan that leads to ultimate glory for his children. And, as his people, we should be filled with confidence and assurance that the God who began a great work in us will indeed bring it to completion in the day of Christ.
God does work in all things for our good. We know that. That good is especially related to our final glory. But it also includes the benefits of being a child of God in this life. As we’re groaning. God uses our sufferings to build Christian character, to conform us to Christ, to prepare us for that glory.
Nothing will ever touch us that is not completely and totally under the direction of our loving Father. Everything we do and say, everything others do to us or say about us, every experience we will ever have, it’s all sovereign-ly used by our God for our good. We don’t always understand it. We don’t always enjoy it. But we know our groanings are not in vain. They serve an eternal purpose that’s being worked out by the Creator of Heaven and Earth who groans right along with us.
Peace,
Allan
It’s bigger than we think it is. It’s good to be reminded.
I can’t tell you how excited I am to be a part of a church family that embraces the vision and the mission of our God to seek and save the lost. Missions giving, missionary support, local community outreach, and benevolence all play central roles in what’s planned and what’s done here at Legacy.
I wish everybody could come up here just once before the week’s over and spend just half an hour in the Church Planting Movements Conference. Missions Resource Network is hosting the event here at Legacy. It started yesterday and it continues through Saturday. Between 80 and 90 church planters from every single continent on this planet are meeting upstairs right now praying, planning, networking, teaching, and learning how to better evangelize the lost of this world.
You should see our upstairs youth center! An inspiring blend of different colors, cultures, languages, ages, backgrounds, worldviews, political systems, economic situations, and talents. All together in one room, in one place, with one common goal to spread the good news of salvation for the one world in the one Lord and Savior, the crucified and resurrected Christ!
I’ve had a chance up there to visit with George Hall, a friend of mine who’s planting churches all over Guatemala, dozens of them in the past ten years. Yesterday I caught up with Brian Robinson and his wife, Kristen, old friends from Oklahoma Christian. They’ve just sold their house in Tyler and are taking their family of six to Rwanda for a 14-year missionary commitment. We helped them here in the office yesterday with faxing and notarizing some of the paperwork on their house. Every person has an amazing story. Every family up there has a godly vision, an unquenchable fire to seek and save the lost.
Mark Hooper tells me the potential exists for several thousand churches to be planted all over the world in the next 20 years due to the efforts upstairs here this week! Praise God!
What a jarring reminder, what a much-needed wake-up call, that this eternal Kingdom of which we claim to be citizens has no national borders. The Kingdom we belong to knows no political boundaries, no cultural walls, no language barriers. Christ died for all. Period. And his love compels us to take that great news of salvation to every man, woman, and child on the globe.
It’s bigger than we think it is. It’s good to be reminded.
When I was at Austin Grad, part of the requirements in Allan McNicol’s worship class was to visit three churches, three different worship assemblies, from different faith streams, and provide an analysis. I’ll never forget the Assembly of God service we attended in a modest area of North Austin. I can tell you everything about that morning. In detail. Come on, I wrote a six-page paper on it. But the thing that stuck out the most to me that day and still inspires me to this moment were the flags hanging from the ceiling in their worship center.
There was an American flag. And a Canadian flag. And a Mexican flag. There was a flag representing Brazil. Puerto Rico flags and Venezuela flags and Japanese flags. Flags representing countries in Africa and Asia. Not just flags from countries in which they had supported missionaries. Not just flags from countries in which there were Assembly of God congregations. They were proudly displaying flags from every nation on the planet. Yes, Iranian flags, Iraqui flags, Afghanistan flags. Over 300 different flags. Every flag from every country. An unmistakeable reminder, a multi-colored impossible-to-miss message that we are one in Christ, that his Kingdom knows no national borders.
I’d love to hang 300 flags from the ceiling at Legacy.
Because when God adds us to his Kingdom, we join a Kingdom that has outposts in Iraq and China and Russia. They belong to us and we belong to them. Disciples of the King. Past, present, and future. Every nation, every tribe, every language, every people. Spanning the four corners of the globe.
It’s bigger than we think it is. It’s good to be reminded.
Peace,
Allan
It was only a matter of time. We should have seen it coming.
God have mercy on us.
Thomas Nelson publishing has put out what they’re calling The American Patriot’s Bible, a NKJV version of God’s Holy Scriptures “targeting the spiritual needs of those who love our country.” In their own promotional materials they tout this new Bible as using the history of the United States to connect the people and events of Scripture to our own lives. “The story of the United States is wonderfully woven” into the Bible by these people. And now they’re selling it, complete with a glossy cover depicting, not the cross of Christ, not the empty tomb, not the historical and traditional symbols of the Christian faith but, the American flag, George Washington, and the Declaration of Independence.
Please, don’t buy this Bible.
To borrow the words of Greg Boyd — and I agree with him with everything I’ve got — this Bible is “idolatrous, dangerous, and profoundly damaging to the Kingdom. I feel compelled to denounce it in the strongest possible way I can.”
The goal of this Bible and its publishers is to tie American patriotism to the Christian faith, to make the two one. To be a Christian is to be patriotic, according to this Bible. To be patriotic is to live the way God calls us to live. The teachings of Christ “results in the purest patriotism.”
This Bible claims that the phrase “One nation under God” in our country’s pledge of allegiance strengthens the spiritual weapons mentioned in 2 Corinthians 10:5 which “forever will be our country’s most powerful resources in peace and war.”
This Bible equates John 3:16’s “God so loved the world that he sent his only Son” with Colin Powell’s quote about sending our soldiers into foreign lands to fight for freedom. Same thing. See how God-like we are? This Bible claims in other notes and charts and quotes in the margin that fighting for liberty has always been at the heart of our religion. It quotes General Douglas MacArthur saying that sacrificing (and, of course, killing others) for country represents “the noblest development of mankind.” The commentators on the pages of this Bible add, “as long as other Americans serve their country courageously and honorably, his words will live on.” Whose words? God or MacArthur? In this Bible, it’s hard to tell. And that’s by design.
John 8:36, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed,” in this Bible, is paired up with a long commentary on the Bill of Rights. In direct opposition to our God’s demand that we actually give up all our rights.
Joseph’s statement in Genesis 45 that God had sent him to Egypt to preserve life is equated in this Patriot’s Bible with our country’s Declaration of Independence. Don’t you see? God sent Joseph. God sent the Declaration of Independence. Same thing. See how blessed we are?
Israel’s demand for a king in 1 Samuel, in this Bible, teaches that Americans have a duty to vote.
??????
Please read Greg Boyd’s review. Click here. It’ll take probably three or four minutes to read. But you need to read this. Please. I’m begging you to read it. He says it much better than I can. This is important. These are teachings that go completely against the whole of Scripture, wrapped up in Scripture’s suit and tie. This is Satan — yes, I’m serious — the wolf sneaking around in sheep’s clothing.
The fact that there’s a market for this kind of Bible is disturbing to me. It’s a sad statement about the state of God’s Church and his people in this land that there would be demand for it. This is the kind of thing that perpetuates the practice in our churches of praying for our American soldiers and their families, but not praying for the Iraq and Afghanistan soldiers and their families. We pray for the success of our soldiers, the completion of our country’s mission, but not theirs. As if God is on the side of the U.S. As if our politics and our economic systems and our wars are the righteous will of God and nobody else’s is. This is the sort of stuff that keeps us thinking that God’s will for the world is salvation in Christ AND democracy AND free enterprise. All three. In that order. We think. These are the blasphemous teachings that keep Christians in this country feeling good about asserting personal rights and personal freedoms, at the expense of others, in direct violation of our Savior’s teachings. This Bible weakens the Kingdom.
Please, don’t buy it.
And may God have mercy on our souls.
Peace,
Allan
“I know that I am not a great preacher, but I can certainly tell the difference when the text takes over, as opposed to when I try to ‘convince the crowd’ out of my own capacities. When Spirit-passion takes over, when the text speaks for itself, then both we and the listeners are transported into another world, into the dominion of God. What an immense privilege it is to display the Kingdom and invite the Christian community to participate more fully in it.
Our times are characterized by so much competition between churches to attract members. Pastors feel that their sermons need to be great in order for their congregations to grow, and that is usually understood in terms of growing in numbers but not necessarily in depth — fatter, but not stronger. That is put crassly, but it fiercely distresses me that the work of proclaiming the Gospel is being reduced these days to consumerist and competitive marketing terms.
We don’t preach to attract crowds; we preach because we are overwhelmed by the splendor of God’s love and overflowing with eagerness to proclaim his mercy.”
~Marva Dawn, A Royal “Waste” of Time
Watching Mark Cuban and Josh Howard in the aftermath of the Mavericks’ heart breaking Game Three loss Saturday evening, I was reminded why I don’t root for that team. It was nauseating. It was amateur. Juvenile. Bush League. Sickening. Disgusting.
It was embarrassing.
Cuban running onto the floor to curse out the referees, shoving cameramen, spewing profanity at game officials and reporters and Denver Nuggets’ players’ moms. Howard having to be restrained as he angrily went after referees.
Are you kidding me? Cuban acts like a three-year-old girl throwing a tantrum in a grocery store or on a daycare playground. It’s embarrassing. It’s humiliating. And it happens all the time.
It’s beyond the owner to see that his team missed four free-throws in the fourth quarter, two in the final 2:12. He doesn’t 
understand that his star player, Dirk Nowitzki, missed 6 of his last seven shots and didn’t hit a bucket in the final seven minutes. Dirk’s missed three-point attempt with a two point lead and nobody under the basket to rebound with eight seconds to play was typical. And it killed them. Not to mention giving up that dunk to Carmelo Anthony on the play before. Typical. Killer. And it has nothing to do with Antoine Wright’s pitiful foul attempt at the end.
I hope the Mavs get blown out by 40 tonight. I hope Cuban’s suspended for the first ten games next year.
It’s embarrassing.
Peace,
Allan
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