Brown's Daily Word 6-1-09

Good morning,
This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. It was Pentecost Sunday yesterday. Praise the Lord for the way He sent the Holy Spirit upon on His people on the day of Pentecost. We read in Acts 2:1-4, "And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
John Wimber was a product of the Jesus movement in the 60’s. He met Christ in a dramatic way, and began reading the New Testament, beginning with the Gospels and then he went on to read the book of Acts. He was excited about what he was reading, but when he went to a church he was disillusioned. The polite and tidy service was over exactly on time. Wimber looked at some of the people around him and said, “When are you gonna do the stuff?” “What stuff?” they wanted to know. He said, “You know. . . the stuff!” He had been reading about the conversions, healings, deliverance and other miracles that took place in the early church recorded the book of Acts. But instead of signs and wonders, he saw no sign of anything that would make him wonder, except the deadness of the ritual he had just sat through. Rick Kirchoff has said, “When God sends forth the Spirit amazing things happen: barriers are broken, communities are formed, opposites are reconciled, unity is established, disease is cured, addiction is broken, cities are renewed, races are reconciled, hope is established, people are blessed, and church happens. Today the Spirit of God is present and we’re gonna’ have church. So be ready, get ready. . . God is up to something. . . discouraged folks cheer up, dishonest folks ‘fess up, sour folks sweeten up, closed folk, open up, gossipers shut up, conflicted folks make up, sleeping folks wake up, lukewarm folk, fire up, dry bones shake up, and pew potatoes stand up! But most of all, Christ the Savior of all the world is lifted up.” Chuck Colson reported that columnist Jonathan Rauch believes that America has made “a major civilizational advance” in recent years. Colson says, “Rauch, a longtime atheist, is thrilled about a phenomenon he calls ‘apatheism’ [apathetic theism]. It’s not that people don’t believe in God anymore, Rauch writes in the Atlantic Monthly — the majority will still say they believe. . . . On the whole, the people Rauch describes haven’t been putting much thought or effort into their faith. They’re looking for comfort and reassurance, not for a God who asks anything of them. Hence the rise of ‘apatheism,’ which Rauch defines as ‘a disinclination to care all that much about one’s own religion, and an even stronger disinclination to care about other people’s.’” Colson went on to talk about writer David Brooks, who noticed a trend a few years ago and coined the term flexidoxy [flexible beliefs]. Flexidoxy describes the form of religion practiced by many educated young Americans as opposed to orthodoxy. Basically, it means that people have become flexible in their belief system and look at religion as a giant smorgasbord from which they can pick and choose the beliefs that most suit them. They become the center of their own faith and adapt it to what they see as important. Some time ago, I read about 27-year-old Aron Ralston who had his right arm pinned by an 800-pound boulder in a climbing accident. He had gone hiking in Bluejohn Canyon, adjacent to Utah’s Canyonlands National Park. He was an experienced climber, who had already climbed 49 other peaks in Colorado which were each over 14,000 feet in height. He thought about what it would be like to die on the mountain and have his family find his body, or perhaps never know his fate. Ralston, a former engineer for Intel and an avid outdoorsman, thought about his options. After five days of being pinned, and having run out of food and water, he decided to apply a tourniquet and amputate his arm below the elbow with his pocket knife. He then rigged anchors and rappelled to the canyon floor with his one good arm. He walked downstream until he was spotted by a Utah Public Safety Helicopter. What the news did not say much about was that this Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Carnegie Mellon University credits his faith in God for ability to do what he had to do. He is a deeply committed Christian who often plays the piano in the United Methodist Church in Greenwood Village near Denver, Colorado. Because Aron wanted to live, he was willing to cut away everything that was holding him back. It is that kind of commitment and zeal that will enable us to experience Pentecostal power. When you are willing to cut away everything that is holding you back and walk out of the canyon of bondage, then the Holy Spirit will come to you in new ways and you know a life that you did not know was possible.
The Bible says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily hinders our progress. And let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us” (Hebrews 12:1, New Living). The apostle Paul did this, for he wrote, “Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).
In Christ, Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFaIGSyENsY