Pagan power and housekeeping.
I was just combining the two old posts from the 'Prayer Blog' that no one added anything to for months and I just couldn't delete this blog. It is about my pagan friend Steven, who is fighting the power of God the whole way to redemption.
Pagan Power?
How do you show God’s power to a pagan or to a culture that is too busy for God? How can you convince a skeptic that God is real? Can you? I can’t.
This past month God has been hammering my thick skull with this point: ‘Jim, you can’t do My work. No matter how hard you try Jim, you are still a sin-sick, grace-filled PERSON. I am God. You aren’t.’
So I am thrust back into the proper position – I’m asking YOU to pray to God that He would show HIS power:- To Steven, my pagan friend. He has been asking good hard questions and saying, ‘I will NOT compromise my beliefs and experiences.’ But he is still (miraculously) interested in this God (‘your God of the Bible’) who sent a blood sacrifice of His own Son for me. Steven is throwing down the gauntlet to ‘my God’ to prove Himself more powerful than his pagan experiences.
How can I show him God’s power? His own sin? His need for a King and Savior? Only God can do that. Will you ask?
How can I show God's power to a culture that is addicted to self, comfort, sex, instant everything. There is a subtle pressure to preach and live like pastor’s are cultural helpers – just here to make everybody more successful.
Pray that I will and Crosspoint will be honest and winsome as we present the Truth. THEN PRAY that God will open the ears of the deaf, give sight to the spiritually blind and heal the sickness of successful people who don’t even know they are sick!
So pretty much I’m saying either the Holy Spirit shows up and transforms people (like me) or we ought to pack up and go back to the suburbs.Which God is more powerful; the God of Heaven and earth or the God of this world?
Thanks for faithfully praying for us in our mission to ‘Be One to Win Everyone’
Graced
Jim
1 comment:
Jim,
It sounds like Stephen needs the same kind of intervention from God that I did to jump my analytical hurdle... but his sounds like a spiritual hurdle. I was reading the Bible and praying for Him to show me His will.
I also had some "supernatural" experiences during my search that were "real", but I question the source of those now. I realize they may have been created by Satan in order to pull me off the path to truth. I'd love to explore that question and those experiences with you some day.
I will pray that God show Stephen His power, but could Stephen be convinced to read the Bible and pray? Even a prayer to a god he's not sure exists? Can he do this without compromising his beliefs?
It seems to me that if Stephen is even open to the possibility of the power and authourity of God, then it's not a moral jump to me to pray and read. By even entertaining the possibility that his pagan beliefs are not based on reality, I think he's already crossed that line.
If he prays with a sincere heart and reads God's word, I have faith that God will act in his life and provide the experience and evidence Stephen needs.
Thanks for sharing. It's thought-provoking!
Chris
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