If a teacher fascinates with his doctrine, his teaching never came from God. The teacher sent from God is the one who clears the way to Jesus and keeps it clear; souls forget altogether about him because the vision of Jesus is the only abiding result. When people are attracted to Jesus Christ through you, see always that you stay on God all the time, and their hearts and affections will never stop at you.
What has crippled many a church, many a Sunday School class and Bible class, is that the pastor or teacher has won people to himself, and the result when they leave is enervating sentimentality. The true man or woman of God never leaves that behind, every remembrance of them makes you want to serve God all the more.
So beware of stealing the hearts of the people of God in your mind. (2 Samuel 15:6) If once you get the thought, ‘It is my winsome way of putting it, my presentation of the truth that attracts’—the only name for that is the ugly name of thief, stealing the hearts of the sheep of God who do not know why they stop at you.
Keep the mind stayed on God, and I defy anyone’s heart to stop at you, it will always go on to God. The peril comes when we forget that our duty is to present Jesus Christ and never get in the way in thought.” --Oswald Chambers
(Thanks Carol)
Sunday, November 07, 2010
Thursday, November 04, 2010
S.O.I.L. : School of Intimacy and Love internship
We're working hard at developing an initial internship for IHOP-LI that has depth, challenge and intimacy built into it's structure. It will be raw, immature and transparent but we believe that it will be worth every effort on our part and yours to "endeavor to persevere" (Chief Joseph and then "Outlaw Josey Wales").
You may ask yourself ....(And you may ask yourself How do I work this ?And you may ask yourself Where is that large automobile ?And you may tell yourself This is not my beautiful house !And you may tell yourself This is not my beautiful wife !Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down Letting the days go by/water flowing underground Into the blue again/after the money's gone Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground - Talking Heads) I DIGRESS - I know - I'm easily entertained. As I was saying.... You may ask yourself "Why would I do an internship" at a House of Prayer?" (Particularly this one...) Well, you shouldn't do the internship unless you speak to the Lord about it and together count the cost.
I'm not really speaking about finances (although that is part of it). Instead, I'm referring to a commitment of time and the reality of how hard it will be to sit still in the fire of God's Love in the Prayer Room. It will seriously stretch you as you allow the pain and perseverance of a season sitting before the Lord help you gain insight into His heart for the world and pray into the field of love He wants you to sow into. I'll be posting the curriculum and time frame soon. In the meantime, I thought I'd start the conversation in your soul for you by bringing the idea up in the first place. As you ponder whether you are able and willing to engage in this particular "endeavor", perhaps you'll find the following post somewhat inspirational.
"Why Story? by John Eldridge
The deepest convictions of our heart are formed by stories and reside there in the images and emotions of story. As a young boy, around the time my heart began to suspect that the world was a fearful place and I was on my own to find my way through it, I read the story of a Scottish discus thrower from the nineteenth century. He lived in the days before professional trainers and developed his skills alone, in the highlands of his native village. He even made his own iron discus from the description he read in a book. What he did not know was that the discus used in competition was made of wood with an outer rim of iron. His was solid metal and weighed three or four times as much as those being used by his would-be challengers. This committed Scotsman marked out in his field the distance of the current record throw and trained day and night to be able to match it. For nearly a year, he labored under the self-imposed burden of the extra weight. But he became very, very good. He reached the point at which he could throw his iron discus the record distance, maybe farther. He was ready.
My Scotsman (I had begun to closely identify with him) traveled south to England for his first competition. When he arrived at the games, he was handed the official wooden discus-which he promptly threw like a tea saucer. He set a new record, a distance so far beyond those of his competitors that no one could touch him. He thus remained the uncontested champion for many years.
Something in my heart connected with this story. So, that's how you do it: Train under a great burden and you will be so far beyond the rest of the world you will be untouchable. It became a defining image for my life, formed in and from a story.
As Eugene Peterson said, "We live in narrative, we live in story. Existence has a story shape to it. We have a beginning and an end, we have a plot, we have characters." Story is the language of the heart. So if we're going to find the answer to the riddle of the earth-and of our own existence-we'll find it in story. "
(The Sacred Romance, 38-40)
You may ask yourself ....(And you may ask yourself How do I work this ?And you may ask yourself Where is that large automobile ?And you may tell yourself This is not my beautiful house !And you may tell yourself This is not my beautiful wife !Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down Letting the days go by/water flowing underground Into the blue again/after the money's gone Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground - Talking Heads) I DIGRESS - I know - I'm easily entertained. As I was saying.... You may ask yourself "Why would I do an internship" at a House of Prayer?" (Particularly this one...) Well, you shouldn't do the internship unless you speak to the Lord about it and together count the cost.
I'm not really speaking about finances (although that is part of it). Instead, I'm referring to a commitment of time and the reality of how hard it will be to sit still in the fire of God's Love in the Prayer Room. It will seriously stretch you as you allow the pain and perseverance of a season sitting before the Lord help you gain insight into His heart for the world and pray into the field of love He wants you to sow into. I'll be posting the curriculum and time frame soon. In the meantime, I thought I'd start the conversation in your soul for you by bringing the idea up in the first place. As you ponder whether you are able and willing to engage in this particular "endeavor", perhaps you'll find the following post somewhat inspirational.
"Why Story? by John Eldridge
The deepest convictions of our heart are formed by stories and reside there in the images and emotions of story. As a young boy, around the time my heart began to suspect that the world was a fearful place and I was on my own to find my way through it, I read the story of a Scottish discus thrower from the nineteenth century. He lived in the days before professional trainers and developed his skills alone, in the highlands of his native village. He even made his own iron discus from the description he read in a book. What he did not know was that the discus used in competition was made of wood with an outer rim of iron. His was solid metal and weighed three or four times as much as those being used by his would-be challengers. This committed Scotsman marked out in his field the distance of the current record throw and trained day and night to be able to match it. For nearly a year, he labored under the self-imposed burden of the extra weight. But he became very, very good. He reached the point at which he could throw his iron discus the record distance, maybe farther. He was ready.
My Scotsman (I had begun to closely identify with him) traveled south to England for his first competition. When he arrived at the games, he was handed the official wooden discus-which he promptly threw like a tea saucer. He set a new record, a distance so far beyond those of his competitors that no one could touch him. He thus remained the uncontested champion for many years.
Something in my heart connected with this story. So, that's how you do it: Train under a great burden and you will be so far beyond the rest of the world you will be untouchable. It became a defining image for my life, formed in and from a story.
As Eugene Peterson said, "We live in narrative, we live in story. Existence has a story shape to it. We have a beginning and an end, we have a plot, we have characters." Story is the language of the heart. So if we're going to find the answer to the riddle of the earth-and of our own existence-we'll find it in story. "
(The Sacred Romance, 38-40)
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