The Life of the Mind

Our post-modern culture has neglected the mind, apart from material matters like medicine and meteorology. I’ve been told by Washington Square Park/NYU mavens that 40 years ago all manner of political and philosophical opinion were being promoted from the Park by book tables, pamphlets, and preachers. Ideas mattered! One such atheistic observer encouraged me that I am the last Socrates of the Park.

Why the demise of ideas? Well, we’re told that they don’t matter, even worse, that they have no basis in reality. For example, multiculturalism assures us that there are no objective standards by which we can judge other cultures. Consequently, we can’t pass judgment.

This is tragic and prevents us from confronting the problems we find in other cultures. Muslim reformer and former Dutch Parliamentarian, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, laments this fact. In her book, The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam, she points the accusing finger at multiculturalism and Western intellectuals who don’t apply this concept consistently:

• These same liberals in western politics have the strange habit of blaming themselves for the ills of the world, while seeing the rest of the world as victims. To them victims are to be pitied, and they lump together all the pitiable and suppressed people, such as Muslims, and consider them good people who should be cherished and supported so that they can overcome their disadvantages. The adherents of multiculturalism refuse to criticize people whom they see as victims…They are critical of the native white majority in Western countries but not of Islamic minorities. Criticism of the Islamic world, of Palestinians, and of Islamic minorities is regarded as Islamophobia and xenophobia. (xvii)

Ali argues that this unwillingness to judge according to moral universal standards is detrimental:

• Because multiculturalists will not classify cultural phenomena as “better’ or “worse” but only neutral or disparate, they actually encourage segregation and unintentionally perpetuate, for instance, the unsatisfactory position of Muslim women. State subsidies for nonstate schools allow Muslims to have their own schools…in which young girls are indoctrinated…with very conservative Islamic practices. (63

Western self-imposed moral blindness is ubiquitous and has resulted in neglect of the abused:

• But in the bigger countries, no NGO yet monitors the number of times an honor killing is committed in a [Western] member state, or the number of times a girl is circumcised, or the number of times a girl is removed form school and forced into a life of virtual slavery. (170

Meanwhile, many Islamic Study departments in Western universities are more committed to indoctrination than in the things that should characterize the university:

• Yet, in spite of having Arab and Islam faculties, most universities in Europe serve as activist centers to further the Palestinian cause, instead of research and teaching centers for Muslim students. (169)

However, having degraded the life of the mind in regards to moral questions, the West now lacks the heart and rationale to stand against intimidation:

• The present-day attitude of Western cultural relativists, who flinch from criticizing Muhammad for fear of offending Muslims, allow Western Muslims to hide from reviewing their own moral values. This attitude also betrays the tiny majority of Muslim reformers who desperately require support – and even the physical protection – of their natural allies in the West. (176)

Consequently, the pushiest prevail, undermining the West’s claim of being just. It should come as no surprise that the life of the mind is also disparaged within the church. Doctrine and the Biblical teachings of the church have been set aside, allegedly because “doctrine divides.”

Sadly, many churches have replaced the primacy of Scripture with goal of experiencing God – unmediated mysticism – claiming that the mind and our fixation upon Scripture is just an impediment. The deceased but now popular Henry Nouwen advised that we clear our minds by the simple repetition of a single word:

• “The quiet repetition of a single word can help us to descend with the mind into the heart…This way of simple prayer…opens us to God’s active presence.”

Never mind that Jesus taught against placing our faith in mindless repetitions:

• And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. (Matthew 6:7)

In The Signature of Jesus, Brennan Manning has given similar advice:

• “The first step in faith is to stop thinking about God in prayer…” “Contemplative spirituality tends to emphasize the need for a change in consciousness…we must come to see reality differently.” “Choosing a single, sacred word…repeat the sacred word inwardly, slowly, and often.” “Enter into the great silence of God. Alone in that silence, the noise within will subside and the Voice of Love will be heard.” (Quoted by Ray Yungen, A Time of Departing, 83)

Evidently, Manning is content to overlook the counsel of Scripture:

• Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly…But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper. (Psalm 1:1-3; Joshua 1:8)

According to Scripture, blessedness is not a matter of clearing our minds of God, but rather, of contemplating both Him and His Word!

Spiritual Disciplines guru, Richard Foster, reinforces the errant idea that the mind is necessarily a hindrance to the Christian life:

• Imagine the light of Christ flowing through your hands and healing every emotional trauma and hurt feeling your child experienced that day. Fill him or her with the peace and joy of the Lord. In sleep the child is very receptive to prayer since the conscious mind, which tends to erect barriers to God’s gentle influence, is relaxed. (Celebration of Discipline, 39)

Instead of Jesus’ admonition to love the Lord with all of our heart, soul and mind, Foster would gladly have us dispense with the conscious mind, which “erect barriers to God’s gentle influence.”

In contrast to this, the early church understood that the life of the mind – what we understand and believe – is foundational for every other aspect of the Christian life. There had been a conflict between two groups of “believers.” One group insisted that circumcision to become a Jew and to follow the Law was necessary for salvation. Meanwhile, Paul and Peter argued that this requirement would cause Gentile believers to stumble. They recounted instances of God’s miraculous workings among the Gentiles, proving that God had accepted them without circumcision.

James then confirmed their testimony with Scripture (Acts 15:15-19). Although they might have been concerned that the conflict would cause division, they had a greater concern - the truths of God and the preservation of the Gospel. The Spirit had revealed to them that salvation was purely a matter of the grace of God, and this truth trumped everything else! Consequently, to resolve the confusion they formulated this letter to be sent throughout the Christian world:

•  “The apostles and elders, your brothers, to the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia: Greetings. We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said.” (Acts 15:23-24)

Among other things, this letter reflected the fact that their thought-life was important. As long as thinking was conflicted, they remained “disturbed.”

What we think determines everything else – our self-concept, attitudes and treatment of others, relationships, and even experiencing God! If I believe that He forgives and cleanses me of my sins when I confess them, I am going to feel grateful and intimate with my God. However, if I belief that I must first earn that forgiveness, then I will remain doubtful, depressed and resentful.

The life of the mind is paramount. What we believe is critical to everything we say and do. Consequently, because the Apostles had resolved this theological problem by the Holy Spirit, the church grew:

• As they [Paul, Timothy and Silas] traveled from town to town, they delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey.  So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers. (Acts 16:4-5)

Burying our confusion will no more “strengthen” us than a house built without a foundation. Without resolving this fundamental truth, our lives rest upon the shifting sands. Indeed, there are many truths upon which our house must find its support. This requires a steady diet of Scripture meditation – the very thing now regarded as counter-productive.

The Joys of Free-Sex

At least it should be joyous, according to many segments of our intelligentsia. However, it seems that another free-sex experiment has bitten the dust.

The Children of God – recently renamed The Family International (TFI) - had emerged in 1968 from the Jesus People Movement:

• Founder David Berg adopted evangelical views on many doctrines, but over time his teachings supplanted the Bible. Cult watchers criticized Berg’s teaching that female disciples should use sexual favors…to convert men to Jesus. More notoriously, the group once had an open attitude about sexual contact between adults and minors. Both practices ceased by 1987… (Christianity Today, April 2012, 14).

Happily, TFI has continued to move back into Biblical conformity. One scholar stated,

• “I don’t know of any comparable group that has changed so quickly or so fundamentally altered such a large number of its beliefs and practices.” (14)

This reversal raises an important question. Why have the many experiments in sexual libertarianism failed?  Why does a practice, which can be so pleasurable, so readily find itself in hospice care? Of the many U.S. communes that had been based on sexual permissiveness, none remain, as far as I know. What was it that these various groups encountered that had closed the door so decisively on this experiment?

Perhaps we humans weren’t endowed with a “blank slate” that can be programmed according to will, as sexual libertarianism assumes. Perhaps we have a human nature that is only amenable to a limited degree of reprogramming – a nature pre-programmed with jealousy, oxytocin, the need for commitment, dignity, honor, and sexual fidelity, and all of those other things that provide for a stable environment for children. And perhaps when this nature is violated, there are painful health, relational and psychological consequences, like when you violate the nature of a car by putting oil in the gas tank.

When we buy a car, we get an owner’s manual telling us how to care for the car. This assume that we cannot treat the car in any manner we’d like. It too has a nature - characteristics that require certain care.

We know enough about cars to know that we can’t experiment by depriving it of an oil change. We also know enough about alternative sexual lifestyles to know that experimentation comes only with a high price tag. Despite the claims of the Man-Boy-Love-Association, we know enough about the consequences of pedophilia to know that it is nothing more than child abuse. I have yet to hear a glowing testimony of someone sexualized as a five-year-old!

We also know of the ills of adultery. One psychologist sung the praises of his adulterous open-marriage to our therapy group. However, he later admitted that when he saw his wife enter their home with her sex-partner, he had to be hospitalized for two weeks. His nature could not handle his chosen lifestyle.

Why is Western society so myopic? Perhaps it wants to be. Perhaps it’s addicted to immediate gratification. Sounds juvenile? In any event, our God mercifully allows us to reap the consequences of the “pleasures” we demand:

• Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the Lord, since they would not accept my advice and spurned my rebuke, they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes. For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them. (Proverbs 1:29-32) 

The consequences are there. We merely have to be willing to open our eyes to them.   

My Question

I often write about the positive fruits that grow from the soil of Christianity. However, many respond negatively to these essays, insisting that the fruits haven't been that positive. Here’s my response to a non-Western Christian friend who took strong issue with my post, “Why the West has been Best,” arguing that such arrogant claims will not engender love for Christianity.

"Thanks for responding. Please know that I appreciate and value your viewpoint, even though we may disagree on a number of points.

  

Regarding Love: People really disagree about what it means to love. I think that we have to answer the question according to the person and needs of the one we are trying to love. So let me start with the youthful Christian in the West.

In the secular West, we have been fed - indoctrinated - with a steady diet of all the bad that has come out of Christianity. In fact, many non-Western scholars, like the Chinese, admire the West and attribute the success of the West to Christianity. They are perplexed by what they find in universities like Harvard - the rejection of traditional Western values - and interpret it as a form of self-contempt.

Even worse, Christians who attend such universities emerge after four or seven years with the understanding that Christ has not made a positive impact on civilization and that the church has utterly failed. Therefore, they routinely try to remake the church into something else - something it is not - convinced, by the barrage of politically-correct dogma, that the church should be ashamed of its contribution. They understandably gravitate into the modern and now-esteemed philosophies, convinced that the church requires an overhaul. They therefore campaign for women's rights to an abortion and homosexual marriage and are more inclined to embrace non-judgmental forms of practice – meditation, visualization, mystical practice – in favor of theology.

What then does it mean to love such people? I think that Western Christians need to see that there is another side of the story that has purposely been left out - the great contributions of the church, and that Christ does make a difference even on the national level.

What does it mean to love the Muslim? Ex-Muslim and now atheist, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, writes that what Muslims need is to hear the truth, especially since everyone around them, even the West, indulges them with exactly what they want to hear, lest they riot. By refusing to hear any criticism of Islam, they are in denial:

• The West needs to help Muslims help themselves, and not support them in their illusion by avoiding the underlying questions…This change can only begin by subjecting the sources of Islam to thorough critical examination. (The Caged Virgin, 13-14)

Love sometimes must take the form of tough-love and confrontation. Speaking as a Christian and not a Westerner, I think that there is a valuable place for people like you who want to love the Muslim in nurturing ways in hope that they will awaken to the love of Christ. Many at Jesus-for-Muslims believe this way, and I certainly admire much of the good work that they have done.

However, I also think that people who confront and debate Islam, like the people at abnsat.com, are also providing a valuable and loving service, even though they might be despised by Muslims for what they perceive as unloving, critical conduct.

Your Brother in Christ, Daniel”

However, I later tried to build a biblical case for my position and was finding difficulty in doing so. This doesn’t mean that my position is necessarily mis-guided, but it does cause me to hesitate.

I certainly welcome the feedback from others on my stance.

Freedom and Prostitution

Prostitution is now widely regarded as victimless and therefore, should be legalized. After all, shouldn’t we be free to fulfill ourselves in this manner! However, not everyone is of this opinion. Tania Fiolleau had once been a prostitute. She had also been an “overseer” of brothels who once employed hundreds of women.” Now, Fiolleau and other former prostitutes are denouncing the Ontario Court of Appeal’s decision to legalize brothels. Why? On her website, Fiolleau argues:

• First, the impact of migrant trafficking is an estimated 120 to 400 million dollars a year and accounts for roughly 8000 to 16,000 people arriving in Canada a year illegally. Vancouver B.C is also a major port for human trafficking. This goes a lot deeper than your typical prostitute on the street corner soliciting drivers. About twelve 15 to 30 year-old Asian girls are trafficked into Canada each week on visitors or work permits and then sold into prostitution. These women are working in brothels, and many of these are unlicensed establishment disguised as therapeutic massage centers, nail pedicure places, etc.  These women do not want to become prostitutes; they did not grow up with dreams of one day becoming a sex slave or being pimped.  Many of these are ‘tricked’ into coming on work visas and then forced into prostitution.

• Second, the demands for young prostitutes is very high as customers prefer the services of adolescents for their own sick reason and they are also ‘perceived’ to be more clean and less likely to harbor sexually transmissible diseases. Many teens are recruited into prostitution by friends who are already part of the trade and youths who have left broken or abusive homes. They are, in turn, susceptible to offers of shelter and emotional support and are often tricked into prostitution. The average age of entry into prostitution in Canada is 13 to 14 years old. Most of them are recruited or coerced into prostitution and many are leaving abused homes.

• Approximately 80% of women in prostitution have been victims of rape. Prostitutes are raped on average of eight to ten times per year; they are the most raped class of women in the history of our planet.  In a study, several prostitutes showed many of the same characteristics as soldiers returning from war. 76% of prostitutes met criteria for PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). That number is higher than soldiers and Prisoners of war.

• Legalizing prostitution becomes an incentive for women to enter the trade if we keep it legal…Once they enter the trade the statistics show that less than 3% of prostitutes can exit. They get addicted to the money, they get addicted to drugs, they lack education and they can’t get out.

• Statistics show that two-thirds of the children born from prostitutes end up prostitutes as well or in jail.

• The diseases that are spread are vast.

• In a 1998 report of prostitutes across five countries, 92% of women said they wanted to escape prostitution immediately and they would if they had resources.  Women who sell themselves are often coerced, forced or drugged into it—sometimes even at gun point.

Later, Fiolleau told LifeSiteNews that prostitution is a physical and psychological destroyer of women. “As the years go on they develop drug habits. Every single time that you sleep with a John, it chips away at your soul. Eventually you are the walking dead and then you try to take your life. I see it over and over and over again.”

Prostitution is no less a victimless crime than outright murder. However, it’s far more seductive. It is ironic that the feminist movement claims to have taken huge steps to liberate and elevate women. While employment and educational doors have swung open, she has also been reduced to a sexual object to be gawked at, grabbed, undressed, used, discarded, and often murdered. She has been told that what she does best, where she derives her greatest joy – child rearing – is beneath her dignity. Instead, she has been “dignified” by a stressful career from which she must return home to her children who still need diapers changed.

What promises liberation and sexual freedom can enslave. The things that we want can kill, and this is not just true of drugs. Peter described this irony regarding false teachers and their alluring false teachings:

·        For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity--for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him. (2 Peter 2:18-19)

Indeed, our choices can “master” us. All of this raises the question: “What kind of society do we want?”  However, it raises an ever more fundamental question: “What is freedom?” Is freedom a matter of indulging all of our passions whenever we want them fulfilled? Is freedom a matter of imbibing heroin or pornography if this is what pleasures us? Won’t our pursuits and addictions deprive us of freedom? Heroin certainly is a freedom killer. Many argue the same thing about pornography – that it kills normal relationships, addicting us to images and fantasies, undermining our commitment to families.

“Choice” is now equated with “freedom” – whether regarding prostitution or porn – but should it be? Perhaps, instead, it’s more like what Jesus taught:

·        Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?  (Matthew 16:24-26)

Perhaps, then, freedom is a matter of restraining our passion. For Jesus, freedom is also a matter of knowing and embracing the truth:

·        To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31-32)

   

Why the West has been the Best

Last night, I heard Pakistani Muslim turned atheist, Ibn Warraq, in a panel debate on “Why the West is Best.” Here is the substance of his presentation:

• The great ideas of the West—rationalism, self-criticism, the disinterested search for truth, the separation of church and state, the rule of law and equality under the law, freedom of thought and expression, human rights, and liberal democracy—are superior to any others devised by humankind. It was the West that took steps to abolish slavery; the calls for abolition did not resonate even in Africa, where rival tribes sold black prisoners into slavery. The West has secured freedoms for women and racial and other minorities to an extent unimaginable 60 years ago. The West recognizes and defends the rights of the individual: we are free to think what we want, to read what we want, to practice our religion, to live lives of our choosing.

• In short, the glory of the West, as philosopher Roger Scruton puts it, is that life here is an open book. Under Islam, the book is closed. In many non-Western countries, especially Islamic ones, citizens are not free to read what they wish. In Saudi Arabia, Muslims are not free to convert to Christianity, and Christians are not free to practice their faith—clear violations of Article 18 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

• The edifice of modern science and scientific method is one of Western man’s greatest gifts to the world. The West has given us not only nearly every scientific discovery of the last 500 years—from electricity to computers—but also, thanks to its humanitarian impulses, the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International. The West provides the bulk of aid to beleaguered Darfur; Islamic countries are conspicuous by their lack of assistance.

• Moreover, other parts of the world recognize Western superiority. When other societies such as South Korea and Japan have adopted Western political principles, their citizens have flourished. It is to the West, not to Saudi Arabia or Iran, that millions of refugees from theocratic or other totalitarian regimes flee, seeking tolerance and political freedom. Nor would any Western politician be able to get away with the anti-Semitic remarks that former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad made in 2003. Our excusing Mahathir’s diatribe indicates not only a double standard but also a tacit acknowledgment that we apply higher ethical standards to Western leaders.

• Nor does the West need lectures on the superior virtue of societies in which women are kept in subjection under sharia, endure genital mutilation, are stoned to death for alleged adultery, and are married off against their will at the age of nine; societies that deny the rights of supposedly lower castes; societies that execute homosexuals and apostates. The West has no use for sanctimonious homilies from societies that cannot provide clean drinking water or sewage systems, that make no provisions for the handicapped, and that leave 40 to 50 percent of their citizens illiterate.

From where did the West derive its principles of greatness? Warraq cites Athens, Rome and Jerusalem. However, Jerusalem was the prevailing inspiration of the Founding Fathers. John Adams, 2nd U.S. President and Unitarian, regarded the Bible as foundational:

• Suppose a nation in some distant Region should take the Bible for their only law Book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited! Every member would be obliged in conscience, to temperance, frugality, and industry; to justice, kindness, and charity towards his fellow men; and to piety, love, and reverence toward Almighty God ... What a Eutopia, what a Paradise would this region be. (Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, Vol. III, p. 9)

On June 28, 1813, in a letter to the Deist Thomas Jefferson, Adams wrote:

• The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.  

If Adams is correct, then we should expect to see a gradual deterioration of Western society as its Christian principles are eroded.

Sorrow, Praise and the Psalms

What do we do when our hopes and dreams fall far short of our expectations? We can rephrase this problem a little differently for the Christian: What happens when the circumstances of our lives fall far short of the promises of God, leaving between these two extremes a confusing chasm?

The Psalms can teach us a lot about this chasm and how to deal with this tension. The Psalmist often cried out about this disparity between his life and what his God had promised him. Often, he complained to God about His “failure” to bring his life into conformity with His promises. In Psalm 43, the Psalmist complained that, instead of rescuing him from his evil and God-rejecting enemies, God had “rejected” him – the righteous one – in contradiction to His promises! However, it’s important to realize that the Psalmist wasn’t merely kvetching. He began his Psalm with an expression of trust:

·        Vindicate me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation; rescue me from deceitful and wicked men. (Psalm 43:1)

Clearly, he knew that God is faithful and worthy of our cries for help, or he wouldn’t have turned to Him. Nevertheless, as the Psalmist turned to God, he was also reminded of the fact that he had a beef against Him - his feelings and life-circumstances tell him that God has “rejected” him and he was understandably angry – that must first be resolved.

How can we turn to God, when we know that we are angry with Him and think that He has been unfaithful. We intuitively know that we are being hypocritical when we put on a smile and ask God for something, while we are dissatisfied with him. We first have to lay our cards on the table in hope of resolving our issues, and we all have them!

   

·        You are God my stronghold. Why have you rejected me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy? (Psalm 43:2)

In essence, he is saying that things shouldn’t be this way, even worse, that God has failed him. God had promised to be his “stronghold” – his protective shield – but instead, the Psalmist finds himself “oppressed by the enemy.”

This just shouldn’t be. It is the Psalmist who had been wronged! It is he who had placed his trust in the Lord, while the others had rejected Him!

How did the Psalmist live with this tension, this disappointment? For one thing, he was transparent before his God, telling Him just what he felt. However, he didn’t take matters into his own hands and bolt, as many of us do when we feel betrayed by God. Instead, he had the wisdom to know that, despite his grief, disappointment and anger, God was his only hope. He had nowhere else to go. He therefore had to remain teachable. He had to trust in God, but his feelings were dragging him in another direction:

·        Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell. (Psalm 43:3)

Our fears and pains often close in upon us like a bear-trap, gripping our minds into ruts of obsessive thinking. We need our Lord to lift us up with His “light,” His mountain-top perspective, bringing us into a place of truth.

Our feelings don’t always shed light. Instead, they can be like back muscles in spasm at the slightest misstep. We require a divine perspective powerful enough to overshadow the gloom and doom like a bright light that dissolves the shadows. The Psalmist knew that he was suffering from emotional myopia and that he needed God’s light to help him to see beyond his gloom:

·        Then will I go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight. I will praise you with the harp, O God, my God. (Psalm 43:4)

The light would restore him to sanity and also bring him back so he could see God as “my joy and my delight.” We don’t always see how our shadows blind us. Our pain causes us to focus in narrowly open ourselves and to lash out at everything else. I would guess that repeated spiritual failure had taught the Psalmist about his blindness and his utter need for God’s light.

I thank God for teaching me how foolish and blind I can be. He has stripped me of much of my self-trust. Mercifully, He has broken me so that I’d have to cry out for His light to regain a stance of praise.

While the Psalmist’s circumstances might not warrant praise, he knew that praise is the doorway into the transcendent light that can banish all the shadows of confusion and deception. Some might think that praise is a manipulation to get what we want from God. However, if praise is manipulative, it is intended to “manipulate” our feelings – our mental rut – not God:

·        Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. (Psalm 43:5)

The Psalmist had first issued his plea to God, but now he preaches to his own soul. In view of a millennium of God’s recorded compassion and graciousness, his soul was not acting reasonably by charging God with rejecting him, and he knew it. Consequently, we don’t need to see His deliverance before we praise Him. We can start praising Him now, anticipating His future mercy.

In actuality, the Psalmist had every reason in the world for hope and praise. Praise is not contrary to truth, although it might be contrary to our present circumstances. Instead, it is the highest expression of truth – a veritable cry of assured victory. Praise acknowledges what we believe and have always professed – that God will rescue us, despite our present pain and failures!

Our behavior must be liberated from the tyranny of the now – our feelings and mental ruts. Praise is liberating. It places our focus on the one source of hope, freeing us from fear and self-obsessions. As we praise Him, our problems often begin to melt as the morning fog.

Praise is soul-medicine. Isaiah wrote about donning “the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness” (Isaiah 61:3). Praise is one of God’s gifts to us. Knowing this, the Psalmist counseled himself that the elixir of praise was the very medicine that his “downcast…soul” required.

Many who don’t receive enough sunlight get depressed. I think that the same can be said about praise – we need large doses of it - especially now as we praise the Son.

   

Prayer: Does it Give Us a Blank Check?

Praying to our Lord is powerful thing. James claims as much

·        The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. (James 5:16-18)

I would assume that James specifically chose the example of Elijah to demonstrate that prayer has to be according to God’s will. Praying for a drought hadn’t been Elijah’s idea of an effective means to deal with Israel’s sin. It was God’s:

·        Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, "As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word." (1 Kings 17:1)

Elijah had merely spoken God’s words – God’s will. Likewise, Elijah’s prayer for rain was at God’s promptings, according to His will. He caused Elijah to hear the rain coming even before there was a cloud in the sky:

   

·        And Elijah said to Ahab, "Go, eat and drink, for there is the sound of a heavy rain." (1 Kings 18:41)

In no way did James envision prayer as a blank check. Instead, he warned:

·        You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. (James 4:2-3)

If our prayers stem merely from our own will and desires, we should have little reason to expect that we will receive. John also had a very high estimation of the power of prayer:

·        I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked of him. (1 John 5:13-15)

John assures us that if we ask “according to His will,” we can bank on what we have asked for. I often ask God to make me more like Him and to teach me His ways. I know that I have what I’ve requested and thank God prematurely for them. However, if I ask that I might live to 100 or at least to have my teeth healed, I am not certain that I will receive these, because they might not be according to His will. In fact, the Lord has taught me to only desire His will. Consequently, I don’t want my ideas or my will anymore. I just pray that His will might be done, and this posture maximizes my joy and peace.

In contrast to this, the prosperity preachers insist it’s God’s will to give us everything and that we have to verbally claim our blessings. (Although God does want to give us everything, this will only take place when our will is perfectly aligned with His, and that will only happen in the next life.) Along with many other TV evangelists, Pat Robertson, claims that we can take hold of our blank check by speaking things into existence as God does:

·        “Pat Robertson states, ‘Most people ask God for a miracle but many omit a key requirement—the spoken word. God has given us authority over disease, over demons, over sickness, over storms, over finances. We are to declare that authority in Jesus’ name.’ ‘We are to command the money to come to us.’” (Michael Horton, The Agony of Deceit, 128)

We do not have the power “to command the money come to us.” We are utterly dependent on Jesus (John 15:4-5). Of course, the prosperity preachers will counter, “Of course, it’s through Christ, and we need to ask with authority.” However, it must be according to His will. Commanding money is not according to His will (James 4:1-3). In fact, we often don’t even know how to pray according to His will:

·        In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. (Romans 8:26-27)

Furthermore, the Spirit doesn’t intercede for us according to our will but according to God’s!

TV preacher, Joel Osteen, claims that:

·        “Our words are vital in bringing our dreams to pass. It’s not enough to simply see it by faith or in your imagination. You have to begin speaking words of faith over your life. Your words have enormous creative power. The moment you speak something out, you give birth to it.”  “Just look in the mirror and say ‘I am strong, I am healthy. I’m rising to new levels, I’m excited about my future.’ When you say that, it may not be true. You may not be very healthy today, or maybe you don’t have a lot of things to look forward to, but Scripture tells us in Romans we have to call the things that are not as if they already were.” (Christian Research  Journal, Hunter)

In contrast, the Scriptures are entirely about truth. We are always supposed to think, speak and walk in His light – His truth (Psalm 51:6). Many of the prosperity preachers illegitimately quote Romans 4:17 to justify claiming things that aren’t:

·        As it is written: "I have made you a father of many nations." He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed--the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were. (Romans 4:17)

Although God can “call things [into existence] that are not,” there is nothing in this verse that suggests that we have this power. In fact, James warns us against making this kind of faith-confession:

·        Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit." Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that." (James 4:13-15)

We are just a passing “vapor.” We are in no position to make bold claims about what we will accomplish. What we say has to accord with the vaporous quality of our lives. We have to speak according to our humble condition. We don’t have the authority to call things into existence that aren’t. Instead, our claims have to be according to the One who can make promises that He will fulfill – the One who promises that “if you ask anything in My name, I will do it” (John 14:14)!

Well, what does it mean to ask in “My name?” It doesn’t merely mean to pronounce a set of letters: J-E-S-U-S. It means far more – to ask according to Him!

Many verses instruct us to “believe in the name of the Son of God” (1 John 5:13). This cannot mean believing in a set of letters pronounced together. Salvation isn’t about having the right letters or pronunciation but about the right Person and Gospel! Therefore, when we ask in His name, we are asking according to Him and His will. No blank check here!

The prosperity preachers will counter:

   

·        The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit. (Proverbs 18:21)

They claim that in their tongue resides supernatural power to call things into existence which aren’t. However, is this power supernatural or psychological? Clearly, our tongue possesses psychological power to tear people down or to build them up. Further, this context – nor any other - gives us no basis to believe that the power is supernatural.

Other prosperity preachers claim that we can only have this authority if we have established our credit in heaven first. Joyce Meyers claimed that we first need a bank account from which we can draw:

·        “Unto every man is given the measure of faith, and faith is a powerful force.” “It says in Romans 4:17 that …we have a God who gives life to the dead and He calls things that be not as though they already existed…If there’s something in your way, speak it.” “When I talked with Dr. Roberts today and we talked about this seed-faith thing, he said…when you give you get a receipt in heaven that when you have a need you can then go with your receipt and say ‘You see, God, I have got my receipt from my sowing and now I have a need and I’m cashing in my receipt.” (CRJ, Hunter)

Meyers suggests that we can have such a favorable heavenly account that God owes us. However, such an idea is foreign to Scripture. God is never in a position that He owes us anything:

·        "Or who has first given to Him and it shall be repaid to him?" (Romans 11:35)

Everything we have from God comes as a gift through by grace through faith. Paul had warned the Galatian church against thinking that they received anything from God because of their good works (or heavenly bank account – Gal. 3:1-5).

Similarly, Jesus warned His disciples against thinking that they were in any way deserving of anything from God:

·        “So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, 'We are unprofitable (“unworthy” NASB) servants. We have done what was our duty to do.’”  (Luke 17:10)

Even if we have performed flawlessly, we have no claim upon God! In contrast, the prosperity preachers arrogantly claim that they are “worthy.” Instead, the road to blessing is through seeking the will of God:

·        But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:33)

Receiving “all these things” is not a matter of taking authority, claiming your blessings, or of establishing a heavenly bank account. It is a matter of seeking and trusting Him before all else.