If I were to call you a humanist would you deny it? Would you want to fight about it?
A simple working definition of Humanism is someone who emphasizes a person's capacity for self-realization through reason; while rejecting religion and the supernatural…
According to the Humanist Manifesto of 1933 humanism regards the universe as self-existing and not created... man as a part of nature that has emerged as a result of a continuous process…and that the traditional dualism of mind and body must be rejected.
Now I would bet we have a hundred percent on the “I’m not a humanist list.”
But what if you are more affected by Humanism than you realize? What if while aiming and claiming to be a follower of Jesus Christ and a Christian in the purest sense, you were by action a humanist?
At any point in our lives either privately or in a church setting that we begin to operate in our own strength and our own abilities we become affective humanists.
When we fail to passionately pray for the power of God to be poured out in our lives we are being humanists. When we fail to realize that apart from Christ we can do nothing...we are in being humanist. When we reject the miraculous and the supernatural and the intervention of God we are being humanists.
Christianity has no greater enemy in all the world than Humanism. Humanism is the face and force of atheism. Atheism immediately gets the attention of everyone, but humanism sounds so, so human. And there in lies the danger.
When all we do and all we claim and all we expect is what humans can do, we are affective humanists. When we fail to throw ourselves upon the grace and mercy of God, we are humanists. When everything we design and do can be explained and accomplished by mere humans we are humanists in the purest sense. Whether it is by creed or deed, when we give no room for the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in our ministries…we are nothing more and nothing less than Affective Humanists!
As believers we claim the Divine Creator reached down to man as the Suffering Redeemer in order to provide for each of us the Holy Indwelling. And we either choose to live our lives affected by Him or affected by humanism. Reject humanism expect a miracle!
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
a call to prayer
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Abraham Lincoln, November 1863.
And here we are 145 years later and a man who then would have been nothing more than a possession is now able to become president of the United States of America.
For all the things that can be said to describe President Elect Obama, he is a man. Equal to and with all other men. Regardless of race, religion, or nationality he has taken the powerful words of Abraham Lincoln to their highest potential.
Regardless of your politics, prejudice or passion we are Americans.
If you are a part of my intended audience you are a Christian. You are a part of the most noble and honorable and compassionate people upon the face of the earth. You above all others understand that we are, under God all created equal. Because of our place at the foot of the cross and our position in the Lord Jesus Christ we all inhabit the highest and most lofty position possible.
It is in that place of high esteem and great expectation that I call upon you to engage in a great war, a war of prayer. Now more than ever we need to pray for Mr. Obama. He now holds the most difficult position in the world. And added to the pressure that comes with the office he now bears the burden of being the first black man to fill the position. He faces a level of expectation and criticism unlike any man before him.
We must pray for him with all of our hearts. Not that he will do the will and whim of a party or people. But that he will be able to hear the voice of God and yield to the Spirit that alone can turn the hearts of great men. We must pray for his safety, his health and his wisdom.
We must claim as our prayer the words of Lincoln, “that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom— and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
And here we are 145 years later and a man who then would have been nothing more than a possession is now able to become president of the United States of America.
For all the things that can be said to describe President Elect Obama, he is a man. Equal to and with all other men. Regardless of race, religion, or nationality he has taken the powerful words of Abraham Lincoln to their highest potential.
Regardless of your politics, prejudice or passion we are Americans.
If you are a part of my intended audience you are a Christian. You are a part of the most noble and honorable and compassionate people upon the face of the earth. You above all others understand that we are, under God all created equal. Because of our place at the foot of the cross and our position in the Lord Jesus Christ we all inhabit the highest and most lofty position possible.
It is in that place of high esteem and great expectation that I call upon you to engage in a great war, a war of prayer. Now more than ever we need to pray for Mr. Obama. He now holds the most difficult position in the world. And added to the pressure that comes with the office he now bears the burden of being the first black man to fill the position. He faces a level of expectation and criticism unlike any man before him.
We must pray for him with all of our hearts. Not that he will do the will and whim of a party or people. But that he will be able to hear the voice of God and yield to the Spirit that alone can turn the hearts of great men. We must pray for his safety, his health and his wisdom.
We must claim as our prayer the words of Lincoln, “that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom— and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Preparation not Prevention
It occurred to me the other day that another one of the Porky-Jesus ideas that we have is the purpose of our quiet time.
Have you ever gotten up late or so tired that you decided that you were going to have to forgo your quiet-time? You heart was not set on evil; it was just set on sleepy. You had not decided to make a pact with the devil or align yourself with the “powers of darkness.” You just did not have a quiet time, this time. And off you go into the day.
And as the day unfolds or unravels as the case maybe, you decide after a flat-tire or a traffic jam, or a cup holder full of coffee that what has gone wrong with your day was the absence of a quiet time. You conclude that if you had taken time for a quiet time you would not have lost that document, or picked your hose, or whatever it was that prompted the contrition.
But as I got to thinking about that approach and thinking about passages like the spiritual armor passage in Ephesians…I was reminded that we do not have quiet times to prevent difficulties and challenges in our day. We have a quiet time to prepare us to respond and be like Jesus no matter what trick, trap or mishap we or the devil might spring in our life.
The quiet time is not to make my life easier, it is to make it easier for people to see Jesus instead of my flesh! Our quiet time is where we pick up our cross, or renew our crucifixion so that it is Jesus living in us that encounters the dung of life!
So, in the morning...when you have your quiet time…ask God for combat boots not silk slippers. Ask Him for a sword, not a butter knife. Ask Him for a fire proof shield not a parasol. Ask Him to help you smell like the Rose of Sharon, no matter how deep the manure gets!
Have you ever gotten up late or so tired that you decided that you were going to have to forgo your quiet-time? You heart was not set on evil; it was just set on sleepy. You had not decided to make a pact with the devil or align yourself with the “powers of darkness.” You just did not have a quiet time, this time. And off you go into the day.
And as the day unfolds or unravels as the case maybe, you decide after a flat-tire or a traffic jam, or a cup holder full of coffee that what has gone wrong with your day was the absence of a quiet time. You conclude that if you had taken time for a quiet time you would not have lost that document, or picked your hose, or whatever it was that prompted the contrition.
But as I got to thinking about that approach and thinking about passages like the spiritual armor passage in Ephesians…I was reminded that we do not have quiet times to prevent difficulties and challenges in our day. We have a quiet time to prepare us to respond and be like Jesus no matter what trick, trap or mishap we or the devil might spring in our life.
The quiet time is not to make my life easier, it is to make it easier for people to see Jesus instead of my flesh! Our quiet time is where we pick up our cross, or renew our crucifixion so that it is Jesus living in us that encounters the dung of life!
So, in the morning...when you have your quiet time…ask God for combat boots not silk slippers. Ask Him for a sword, not a butter knife. Ask Him for a fire proof shield not a parasol. Ask Him to help you smell like the Rose of Sharon, no matter how deep the manure gets!
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