Dynamite Praying

Dynamite Praying

Since Jim was a boy, it's always been a custom in his family to usher in the new year with fireworks. It's legal where they live. Recently, he told me about the New Year's Eve celebration he remembers more than any other. The church was having a traditional watch night service where everyone prayed in the new year. In fact, the pastor was praying right at the stroke of midnight. At the same time, not far from the church, Jim's dad was taking time out to bring in the new year a little differently. Not with fireworks - with dynamite! He had some dynamite left from a construction project and he thought it would be a great idea to set it off at the stroke of midnight - which he did! Suddenly, everybody in the church was startled by this thunderous explosion outside. The pastor never missed a beat in his prayer.

A prayer meeting and an explosion; maybe those things should always go together. Consider the model prayer meeting in Acts 4, beginning with verse 24, our word for today from the Word of God. The powerful council that had arranged for Jesus' crucifixion has now ordered Jesus' disciples to shut up about Jesus or else. Peter and John reported this to the believers a very volatile situation. Here was their response.

"When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God: 'Sovereign Lord,' they said, 'You made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. You spoke by the Holy Spirit through Your servant David: 'Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?' Indeed, Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against Your holy servant Jesus. They did what Your power and will had decided beforehand. Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable Your servants to speak Your word with great boldness. Stretch out Your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs...'"

Now, here's the result of their prayer: "After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and they spoke the Word of God boldly." Here you go: powerful prayer - explosive results. Let's pray like that if you want to get results like that. We can learn some of the secrets of dynamite prayer from how these early believers prayed under life-threatening pressure. First, you focus on the greatness of God rather than the greatness of the problem. This prayer is actually more about who God is than anything else. Great prayers always are.

Secondly, pray God's words back to Him. The early believers actually prayed God's promises and God's words right back to Him. We should pray on His promises, too. Thirdly, pray specifically for your response to the situation. They prayed for boldness. The situation isn't what will decide this. It will be how you choose to respond to the situation. Finally, pray for things only God could do - boldness when you feel like running - miracles to show people God's glory.

Frankly, our prayers are often so small, so predictable, so unworthy of the great God with whom we're talking. When you pray to a very big God for very big things, beginning with big things to happen in you, prepare for something explosive to happen. That will be the sound of your God blowing the lid off things!

Ron Hutchcraft

Do people mistake you for Jesus?

Do people mistake you for Jesus?

A group of salesmen went to a regional sales convention in Chicago. They had assured their wives that they would be home in plenty of time for Friday night's dinner.

In their rush, with tickets and briefcases, one of these salesmen inadvertently kicked over a table which held a display of apples. Apples flew everywhere. Without stopping or looking back, they all managed to reach the plane in time for their nearly missed boarding.

ALL BUT ONE!!! He paused, took a deep breath, got in touch with his feelings, and experienced a twinge of compassion for the girl whose apple stand had been overturned.

He told his buddies to go on without him, waved good-bye, told one of them to call his wife when they arrived at their home destination and explain his taking a later flight. Then he returned to the terminal where the apples were all over the terminal floor.

He was glad he did.

The 16 year old girl was totally blind! She was softly crying, tears running down her cheeks in frustration, and at the same time helplessly groping for her spilled produce as the crowd swirled about her, no one stopping and no one to care for her plight.

The salesman knelt on the floor with her, gathered up the apples, put them back on the table and helped organize her display. As he did this, he noticed that many of them had become battered and bruised; these he set aside in another basket.

When he had finished, he pulled out his wallet and said to the girl, "Here, please take this $40 for the damage we did. Are you okay?" She nodded through her tears. He continued on with, "I hope we didn't spoil your day too badly."

As the salesman started to walk away, the bewildered blind girl called out to him, "Mister...." He paused and turned to look back into those blind eyes. She continued, "Are you Jesus?"

He stopped in mid-stride, and he wondered. Then slowly he made his way to catch the later flight with that question burning and bouncing about in his soul: "Are you Jesus?" Do people mistake you for Jesus? That's our destiny, is it not? To be so much like Jesus that people cannot tell the difference as we live and interact with a world that is blind to His love, life and grace.

If we claim to know Him, we should live, walk and act as He would. Knowing Him is more than simply quoting Scripture and going to church. It's actually living the Word as life unfolds day to day.

You are the apple of His eye even though we, too, have been bruised by a fall. He stopped what He was doing and picked you and me up on a hill called Calvary and paid in full for our damaged fruit.

Please share this. Sometimes we just take things for granted, when we really need to be sharing what we know.

GOD BLESS YOU AND YOUR FAMILY!

[Shared by Jeena]

Strange Words for a New Mom

Strange Words for a New Mom

Visiting people who are in the hospital; it's not necessarily everybody's favorite thing to do. A lot of times it's hard to know what to say to the person; especially if their condition is serious. But there are some visits where it's easy to think of things to say - like when you're visiting a new mom or her new baby. All you have to say is, "Aww, she's beautiful!" or "He's so smart; so alert" or "That's the cutest baby I've ever seen!" See, you're supposed to say these things even if the baby still looks all red and bald and wrinkled. But that first Christmas... well, one of the first people to see Mary's baby didn't follow the usual script.

Following the Jewish custom, Mary and Joseph brought their baby boy to the temple to be circumcised, just eight days after that first Christmas. God had someone waiting for them there - an old man named Simeon who had been told by the Holy Spirit that he wouldn't die until he had seen the One he called "the Lord's Christ." He actually held the baby in his arms and praised God for sending Him.

But then came those strange words for a new mom. In Simeon's words is the shadow of great pain for Mary and great hope for you and me. In Luke 2:34-35, our word for today from the Word of God, "Simeon...said to Mary, His mother: 'This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel...the thoughts of many will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul, too.'" It's not exactly what a new mother wants to hear.

But eight days into His life on earth, Simeon is foreshadowing the end of Jesus' life. The Bible tells us that 33 years later "near the cross stood His mother" (John 19:25). And surely, as Mary saw her boy nailed to a cross and pierced by a soldier's spear, that sword Simeon spoke of must have pierced her soul.

So as we sing our "sleep in heavenly peace" and "joy to the world" carols, let's not miss the shadow looming over the manger. It's the shadow of a cross. But that cross was not some tragic twist of fate. It was the plan of a God who loves us very much. It was His plan to give you and me a chance of going to heaven instead of hell; to enjoy the relationship with God we were made for but we've missed because we're running our own lives.

And if there had been any other way to erase your sin from God's book and to pay for your sin, believe me, God would have done it. All your goodness, all your religion, all your Christianity; it can't pay sin's death penalty. Someone had to die to pay it, and Someone did - the Son of God.

The writer of the classic carol, "What Child is This" expressed it powerfully, "Nails, spear shall pierce Him through, the cross be borne for me, for you; hail, hail, the Word made flesh, the Babe, the son of Mary."

So you've had your Christmases, you've celebrated Jesus' coming. Have you ever had your Good Friday where you stand at the foot of that cross and say the two words that are the difference between heaven and hell, "For me, Jesus, what You did here was for me. And I'm giving me to You." That is the only way you can receive the gift of eternal life that He died to give you.

If you've never done that, if maybe you've known about Jesus all your life but you've missed this step, let this be your Jesus-day. You'll have a lot more to celebrate than just Jesus' coming to earth. This season you'll celebrate His coming into your life. If that's what you want, tell Him right now, "Jesus, I want to belong to You. I am taking for myself what You died for on the cross." Oh, what a new beginning that will be.

A lot of people have found help at our website, encouragement, and important information about how to begin their relationship with Jesus Christ. So, I want to give you that web address in hopes that you'll check it out at your first chance today. It's real important stuff - www.YoursForLife.net

It wasn't just Mary's heart that was pierced on that awful day on Skull Hill. We can only imagine the anguish in God the Father's heart, watching His Son be broken for you. So God will never forget what you do with His Son.

Ron Hutchcraft

What We Want vs. What We Need

What We Want vs. What We Need

So in the course of time Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, "Because I asked the LORD for him." 1 Samuel 1:20

Did you get what you wanted for Christmas today? Or did you get what you needed?

What we want and what we need do not often go hand in hand. I should know. There are things that I have wanted in my life for a long time now, that apparently the Lord has not seen to be necessities. At least not yet.

I know he knows what is best for me, but it is still hard to wait. And it is difficult not to look longingly at what others have received and wonder why I, too, cannot be the recipient of such things in my life.

This kind of struggle is not new to any of us. And Hannah, who we read about in the first chapter of 1 Samuel, is a great example of how to live when what you want is not yet something God says you need.

For years Hannah had wanted to become a mother. To bear a child. To give her husband, Elkanah, a son-just like his other wife, Peninnah.

Being barren was considered a disgrace for a woman in those times, so Hannah most likely felt ashamed and alone and perhaps like a societal outcast. Instead of turning away, though, Hannah took her sorrow and her request for what she wanted to the Lord.

We don't know for sure how long she waited (perhaps years) -- and we don't know the exact purposes of God's timing in her life -- but we can still learn a great deal from Hannah's example...

a. She was persistent and continually sought the Lord. She did not give up and stop asking the Lord for what she wanted. Like clockwork, Hannah kept bringing her request to God, year after year at the temple in Shiloh (v. 7). No doubt her want continued to drive her to the Father and most likely deepened her relationship with him.

b. She was blessed with a lifeline. I am quick to forget that the beauty in the midst of Hannah's pain is that Elkanah loved her very dearly (if not more than Peninnah). I am sure this buoyed Hannah to make it through the years when she may have wondered if God would ever answer her prayer for a child. God was gracious in giving her a loving husband (v. 5, 8).

c. She did not give in to ridicule or naysayers. Even when Peninnah (who was fruitful and had children) provoked her and taunted her because she was barren, Hannah did not add insult to injury (v. 7). She did not become nasty and retaliate when ridiculed for her condition or her faith.

d. She shared her "want" and was encouraged by others. When the high priest Eli observed Hannah praying in the temple and inquired as to her condition (he thought she was intoxicated because she was praying silently, but her lips were moving-v. 14), she shared with him what she was asking of the Lord. When Eli saw what was really going on, he encouraged her and asked God to answer her request (vv. 12-17).

e. She gave back to God what he had given to her. When God blessed Hannah with a child, she did not cling tightly to him. She kept her promise, let her son go and dedicated him to the Lord (v. 11, vv.21-28). How unbelievable is that? To accept and then release back to God something he has given to you that you have prayed and prayed and prayed for? That is model faith!

Like Hannah, are you waiting on the Lord to give you something you want in your life today? A new job? Reconciliation in your marriage? Blessing in your finances? A cure from illness? To find your soul mate? Victory over an addiction? A baby?

Each of us has something we want in our lives. But is up to God to decide if this is something we really need. May we continue to come to him with joy and thankfulness, as we acknowledge that he knows what is best for us in our lives.

Laura MacCorkle

Decorated From the Inside

Decorated From the Inside

Last Christmas, a friend gave us one of the most unique ornaments I've ever seen. As soon as you see it, you think how

beautifully and exquisitely this glass decoration is painted. But what's amazing is that none of that artwork is on the

outside of the ornament. It's been painted entirely on the inside! For centuries, the Chinese have perfected this "inside

painting." Through a small opening in the ornament, the artist repeatedly inserts a miniature brush to paint the artwork. Of

course, the process is painstaking and time consuming. It takes two days to just paint one ornament, but the result is a

beautiful, one-of-a-kind miniature masterpiece.

It takes quite an artist to make something beautiful from the inside out, and God is the master of that! Every one of us

needs His beautifying touch, because every one of us carries our share of ugly inside us. And it keeps spilling out in our

words, our attitude, how we treat other people, and it causes trouble. It causes hurt.

It's like there's this Grand Canyon between the person I want to be and need to be and the person I really am. The battles

are different for each of us, but we all battle our dark side; things that the people close to me hate, things I hate, things

God hates. The ugliness of self-centeredness, of our destructive anger and the scars we leave with it, the deceit, the

passions, and the addictions that we can't seem to master; all those things I say and do that hurt people I love and often

people who don't deserve it. We want to change. We can't.

And we're frustrated by so many attempts we've made to be the right kind of person, to finally find some inner peace, to

find a purpose that just gives every day some meaning. We look to religion to help us be what we need to be, but there's a

problem. Religion basically tries to redecorate us from the outside and it keeps coming off! Jesus said of some very

religious people in His day, "On the outside you appear to people as righteous, but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy

and wickedness" (Matthew 23:28). There's some of that in all of us.

But for those of us who are tired of being one thing on the outside and something very different on the inside, for those of

us who want to beat our darkness and become the person we need to be and we want to be, well for us the Bible has

liberating good news. It's found in 2 Corinthians 5:17, and it's our word for today from the Word of God. "If anyone is in

Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" The Bible tells us that Jesus does what no religion

could ever do. Like those Chinese artists, He beautifies us on the inside so we're genuinely changed and we're

permanently changed.

All of the ugly stuff and the dark stuff in our heart is summed up in one Bible word - sin; rebellion against God and His

laws. I've tried to be the god of my own life, and it's not working.

That's why Jesus came. Our only hope of sin's power being beaten was for God Himself to conquer it, which He did when

Jesus paid the debt for our sins on the cross. Then when He conquered death on Easter Morning, He proved there's

nothing He can't conquer.

This makeover miracle in your soul begins from the moment that you are, as that verse said, "in Christ." Not just around

Christ, but really belonging to Him. He did all the dying for all your sin. What's left is for you to put your total trust in Him

as your Savior - your deliverer from your sin.

If you're ready to begin a relationship with Him, right here in this Christmas season, He came into the world this time of

year. Let Him come into your heart. Just tell Him, "Jesus, I'm Yours." And if you want to be sure you belong to Him, to

have this new beginning, would you go to our website. There's a lot of information there that has helped a lot of people at

that point in time. It's YoursForLife.net.

Just ask anyone whose let Christ in. When you get Jesus, you start becoming a person you never dreamed you could be.

He will make you new on the inside as soon as you open the door.

Ron Hutchcraft

The Same Old Story

The Same Old Story

In the twenty-three years that my wife and I have been doing youth ministry, we have dealt with a lot of teens who have gotten themselves into some dire straits. In fact, I thought there was nothing that could possibly surprise us anymore.

I was wrong.

There is one teenage girl that we know that I had to tell you about. However, before I do, I want you to understand that in our youth ministry, we always strive for confidentiality, to protect both the teen and the teen's family. So it is with great trepidation that I share this with you for I know that some of you will figure out who this girl is. But I am hoping that by the end of these few pages, you will understand why I had to share what I am about to tell you.

But before you rush to judgment, I want you to hang with me here. In fact, more than anything else, I want you to put yourself in this teen's shoes. Try and feel what she must be feeling.

This young girl is 14 years old and she comes to the stark realization that she is pregnant. Not only does she realize that her life is going to drastically change, but to make matters worse, she is afraid to tell her boyfriend. Normally she can go to her boyfriend with any problem. He is a pretty stable, understanding and dependable guy. But this time it's different. You see, the baby is not his.

She lays awake that first night thinking about all the people she has to face that next day.

Her parents.

She has always been worthy of the trust her parents have put in her. In fact other families have remarked to her parents how they wish their daughters were more like her. But now she has to stand before them and explain how she got pregnant. And if that is not bad enough, she is going to have to explain to them that the father of the baby is not the young man that her parents think she should marry.

Her boyfriend.

She loves her boyfriend more than anyone! Well, almost more than anyone. How is she going to face him? Where is she going to get the courage? It would almost be easier if she could tell him that it was just a big mistake and that she is oh, so sorry for it. But she can't lie to him. She will have to look into his trusting eyes and tell him that she willfully chose the path that led to this little life growing inside of her. She knows deep down inside, that if she had to do it all over again, she would make the same decision, and end up in the same precarious situation. "Please God! Please let him understand and not abandon me. I need him so much right now!"

Her friends.

Right or wrong, they have always put her on a pedestal. Always looked to her for answers. Always modeled their life after hers. But she knows instinctively that they will not understand. In fact she knows that she may never be able to explain to them what made her do what she did.

So she lays there in bed, afraid, overwhelmed, and reaching out to God for strength to face what is ahead of her.

The next day she finally gets up the courage to tell her boyfriend. He reacts just as she feared he would react. He is going to leave her.

She becomes distraught and questions God: "Why God? Why? I know that I am in this situation because of a decision I made, but please don't take my boyfriend away from me! I desperately need him now!"

This unnamed teen goes to bed that night more afraid than ever, feeling every bit the young child that she is.

Her name? Normally I wouldn't give that to you. But in this case she asked that her name be known so that others will understand what she has gone through and be encouraged.

Her name is Mary and she lived 2000 years ago.

Have you ever thought of the Christmas story in this way before?

Think about it! You are a 14-year old girl and an angel appears to you and says, "I'm going to place a baby inside of your womb." Most 14-year old girls I know would say, "I'm sorry, but that doesn't fit in with my plans for my life. I have my whole life ahead of me and I can't be held back by a baby! How am I going to go to prom now!?"

How does Mary tell Joseph? Have you ever thought of that? She has to go to her future husband and say, "I'm pregnant and the baby is not yours."

The conversation may have gone something like this:

Mary: "Joe, before you get angry at me I want you to know that I didn't cheat on you."

Joseph: "Come on Mary! You know full well that we have not known each other in the biblical sense, so the baby can't possibly be mine!"

Mary: "Joseph, you have to believe me. I did not have sex with anyone!"

Joseph: "Please Mary, don't do this to me. You know that I love you and care for you. But I can't listen to this."

Mary: "OK, Joseph, I won't lie to you." (She pauses, searching his eyes for the understanding that she knows is not humanly possible.) "The baby is from God."

Joseph: "Mary! Please! This is not like you! In fact, I am beginning to think I don't even know you any more!"

Mary: "You have to believe me Joseph!"

Joseph: (The wheels already turning in his head as to what he needs to do) "Mary, you know that I love you. But I won't stand for this. I have every right to put you away from me publicly, but I don't have the heart to do that to you. I won't marry you now, but I will allow you to find some dignity and not make a big deal out of this. But go you will."

Mary: "Please Joseph! You've got to believe me! Why would I make something like this up!"

Joseph: "Enough! I don't want to hear another word."

And he walks away, leaving Mary distraught and worrying.

You know the story. An angel appears to Joseph and verifies that what Mary says is truth.

Hopefully by now you are not thinking of the story of Jesus' birth as the same old boring story that we read every Christmas season!

Stop your busyness and ponder with me these next few weeks.

Think of God as a fetus, leaving Heaven and all of its splendor and becoming one of the most fragile things on Earth: a human baby. An animal baby is more able to defend and adapt when they are born than a human is.

As a writer, I would never have written the story this way. If I'm going to write the story of God coming to Earth, He's going to be on a white stallion when He rides out of Heaven. Every hoof-beat will leave lightning-like sparks on the streets of gold and peals of thunder in the air. The stars will line up as letters in every language that will blink: "The King of Kings is Coming!" He's going to burst through the ozone layer in a fiery explosion that will rock the foundation of the earth and send humans and animals to a prone position on the ground. Then He's going to circle the entire earth from east to west and the clouds will trail behind Him like a pure white flowing robe. There'll be the deafening sound of heavenly trumpets and the majestic pureness of millions of angels' voices hitting your ears as if they were right next to you.

That's how I'd write it.

God says, "Nope. He's going to live inside of an unwed teenage girl and He's going to be born in a stable." Which is a really nice word for a cave where smelly animals live. There was manure and urine on the floor, and the stench was almost unbearable. Priceless paintings and works of art did not hang on the walls in this nursery. No, if you were to look on these walls you would see cobwebs.

Psalm 33:6 reads, "By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth." The One who breathed galaxies into existence, now depended on an umbilical cord for His oxygen. Amazing!

In your wildest dreams, can you equate the deity of the King of Kings making his entrance into this world through the human process we call birth.

Instead of noticing a crown of purest gold on his head, you notice the cone-shape of his head as he was forced through the birth canal. Instead of wearing the finest robes money can buy, he is wrapped in rags.

Instead of a finely crafted bed made by the most gifted craftsman in the land, he is laid in a feeding trough. Don't give me this "manger" stuff. Manger sounds too romantic. God was put in a feeding trough where cows put their tongues to lick up food. That's where the King of the universe slept.

He who sustains the entire universe is now being sustained through the milk of a teenage girl.

If Mary could have written a book, it would be on the New York Times' Best-Selling List. The title of the book would have been, "I Changed God's Diapers." Have you ever thought of that? Someone had to change the God of the universe's diapers. This gets a little gross, and I'm used to talking to youth, so forgive me, but, human waste was next to Jesus' skin. Is it hard to imagine Jesus in such a mundane and human way? In fact it is almost irreverent. But the God of the universe loved us so much that he was willing to humble Himself and give us the most precious Christmas present ever given: His Son Jesus.

May we never let ourselves say, "The same old Christmas story," ever again. And may we never get so caught up in the hustle and bustle of the holiday season to not stop and ponder about what an amazing God we have.

May this Christmas, and every Christmas from here on out, never lose it's magic or it's meaning.

Michael T. Powers

God Is Not About YOUR Success

God Is Not About YOUR Success

"I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life" (John 12:24-26).

God is all about your death so that HIS success can be realized through you! This is why the Church is having such little impact - there are too many believers who have not yet died to their old nature so that Christ can live fully through them. When believers come to the end of themselves they will lose their lives to Him and live through the power of the Holy Spirit and begin to see the reality of a living gospel that impacts lives, workplaces, cities and nations.

"Much of modern Christian enterprise is 'Ishmael.' Born not of God, but of an inordinate desire to do God's will in our own way - the one thing our Lord never did," said Oswald Chambers. The psalmist describes what it means to live in our own strength:

"Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat - for he grants sleep to those he loves" (Ps. 127:1-2).

How does one die so that Christ can be our all and all? It usually takes a crisis of significant proportions for most people to relinquish the control of their lives. It means we come to the end of ourselves and our striving to control the events in our lives and we finally come to the place where we can say, "Lord, I surrender. Please take full control of my life."

Have you come to this place with God in your life? Let go and let God make you a success His way.

Os Hillman