Demons have a knowledge of God... HUH?

Yep, demons certainly know God. Let me explain.

There is a vast gulf between the knowledge of God and to personally know God. The difference is the relationship status. I have a knowledge of the President, but I do not know him personally. Demons know God, but only do they know Him outside the saving relationship of Jesus Christ. Only His saints cry "Abba Father" or in other words "Daddy." No demon would ever call God their daddy, nor do they have a relationship that is personal. Now, don't get me wrong... IT'S PERSONAL! but that personal business will be squared away in their destruction. (Actually, it was conquered on Easter, but we will get to that in a minute)
We have to know that demons are pretty intellectually sound when it comes to their knowledge of God. They know all the grand powers and sovereignty that God commands. They know His deity, they know the implications of the atonement, they know exactly what happened on Easter and they know theology pretty well. And appropriately, they know their ultimate fate, but they don't care. That is the difference They want to bring down as many people as they can with them. They know how God operates and they certainly know the meaning of the cross. But again, they certainly don't cherish that Easter morning. For us, Easter morning is a celebration of victory, but for the demons... it's a striking reminder of their death blow.
Now here is where it gets personal. Anyone who is outside the "Abba Father" or "Daddy" relationship is in the same boat with the demons. This is hard for us to comprehend since we know many friends, family, and loved ones that are rejecting the love of Christ on Calvary's tree, but being on the Lord's side means being against Satan and his army. Strikingly, the opposite is true: not being on the Lord's side means being with Satan and his army. This is the hardest part about being a Christian (in my humble opinion). Seeing so many not fully embrace the cross of calvary for the forgiveness of sins is heartbreaking. I am brought to tears at this reality. And it is only by grace that you and I have had our eyes opened. So I only boast in the cross... for I have nothing in myself to boast of. I boast in my Father in heaven who is so grand! I boast that our Father who art in heaven is my Daddy.
This Easter weekend, reflect on this wonderful relationship that He has with us. He cares for us with intensity! Did God merely tell of His love... nope, He showed us.

John 3:16 For God loved us so much that He gave His only Son Jesus Christ. That whosoever believes in Him should not join in the army of the demons, but have an everlasting relationship with God almighty... who will call Him Daddy. (Paraphrase mine)

Happy Easter to the Saints of our crucified and RISEN SAVIOR! Amen and Amen.

Seeker Sensitive Pastor: Real Men of Genius

Either I am a "study to much on church movements" type of guy or you too will think this video is hilarious. Hope you enjoy... if you are offended by this video, I echo a blog I recently read that says, "Lighten up!"
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Please read this... it should change your perception of your Christianity.

The Acid Test of Being a Christian

by Dr. Tim Keller

"See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is." (1 John 3:1-3)

The mark of knowing God is that you see God's love for you as a miracle. Notice this [text]: it says "how great". In the old King James it says "behold, what manner of love." Here it says, "how great a love" [NAS]. There is a Greek word that is used here that they are translating as "great" and the problem with the word is that it is an idiom. Idiomatic expressions are very hard to translate literally. We have an idiomatic expression: "its raining cats and dogs." Ok so if you are trying to translate that into Cantonese, German or into Japanese -- if you just say literally in those languages "it's raining cats and dogs" they will look at you: "what are you talking about?" You will have to find an idiomatic expression that is parallel or coordinate to that. Literally it says "behold, what country this love comes from" What this statement is really saying is "from what planet... how unreal...off the scale".

Remember there was a movie called "The Fisher King"? You wouldn't since hardly anybody saw this. Amanda Plummer plays this really klutzy, mousy, wallflower who has no friends. Robin Williams takes her out. At the end of the day he takes her in and says "I want to talk to you". She says "no, no, if you got to know me you would not like me. I am tired of rejection ... it was nice to go out. But everyone who gets to know me doesn't like me, so thanks." And Robin Williams says, "I do know you. I know that you think you are awkward. I know that you think you are clumsy. I know that you are kind of clumsy but I want you to know that I know who you are and I love you, and I will never leave you and I will never or forsake you." And she looks at him and its as if she is looking into the heart of what she thought was an enemy and she sees there understanding and love and she says, "Are you real?". This is a miracle that you love me.

[like this movie] This is saying, here is the way you can tell whether you are a Christian or just a moral person ... a Christian or a religious person. A real Christian is a person who says, "it is an absolute miracle that God's loves me. "It's just a miracle that I am a Christian." This is actually an acid test; let me just lay it on you here at the end. There are two kinds of people that go to church: there's religious people and real Christians. And the way you can tell the difference is that a Real Christian is somebody who sees everything that comes as a gift. In other words a real Christian sees that you are totally in debt to God, but a religious person is someone who is working hard and making an effort and trying to be good, going to Bible studies and just saying "no" everywhere, and denying themselves a lot of pleasures, and so forth, and a religious person is someone who is trying to put God in their debt. That is the difference. A religious person is someone who is trying to save themselves through their good works. A religious person is somebody who thinks they are putting God in their debt since they have tried so hard. A Christian is somebody who sees themselves as in God's debt.

Here is the acid test: If you are a Christian you have a spirit of wonder that permeates your life. You are always saying "how miraculous", "how interplanetary", "how unreal". You are always looking at yourself and saying, "me a Christian ... incredible, miraculous, unbelievable, a joke!!! " but a person who is trying to put God in their debt - there is none of that spirit of wonder at all. For example, when you show up to get your paycheck. I am assuming that most of you work hard for your money. When you show up for your paycheck do you say "Ah, BEHOLD!!!, you've paid me, you've given me money!!! Oh!! Are you real?." No, you don't do that, you say "of course you paid me, I worked." If you ask a religious person who does not understand the grace of God. you say, "Are you a Christian?" They say "Of course I am a Christian, I have always been a Christian. Sure I am a Christian. " My friends, if you are a Christian there is no "sure" about it and there is no "of courseness" about it, not a bit.

The acid test is your spirit of wonder stays there even when things go bad. You see when things go bad, when problems happen, here you can tell the difference between a moralist and a Christian. A moralist says, "what good is all my religion, what good is going to God, I have tried hard to be a Christian, I am trying hard to be obedient to God, and what good is it? God owes me." And you see you get mad. You say, "I have been trying hard and look what's going on in my love life, look what's going on in my career", and you get bitter. Why? because God owes you. But A Christian keeps that spirit of wonder. A Christian may say "my career has not gone too well, my love life has not gone too well, it's astonishing... Its amazing that God is as good as He is to me. Its all grace. Its all grace. That spirit of wonder. That sense of being a miracle. That everything that comes to you being an absolute mercy. That is an acid test. In fact, in some ways I have made a dichotomy that is unrealistic. Christians, to the degree that you behold the free grace of God, to the degree that you meditate on it and you let it become a holy fire in your heart, to the degree you experience and behold the love of God, to that degree you are going to find that to difficulties you will be able to say "oh well, my Father must have a purpose here because He loves me, and besides that, He does not owe me a good life. He owes me a far worse life than I've got." You can handle anything. And when good things come you will say "Behold! what a miracle" And the very fact you can get up in the morning and say, "I am a Christian. Who would have thought it?" There is a spirit of wonder about you, and if you have lost that you are slipping back into moralism, you are slipping back into thinking "well I guess what it means to be a Christian is just to do." Here is Christianity:

And can it be that I should gain
an interest in the Savior's blood!
Died he for me? who caused his pain!
For me? who him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be
that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

The wonder is a mark that you know the Lord. The ability to handle anything with that sense of almost childlike wonder. That sense of being a miracle. That tells you that you know him.

Let us love and sing and wonder,
Let us praise the Savior's Name!
He has hushed the law's loud thunder,
He has quenched Mount Sinai's flame.
He has wash'd us with His blood,
He has brought us nigh to God.

Excerpt from the Sermon Series: Beholding the Love of God: Knowing that We Know God - 1 John 3:1-3" Redeemer Presbyterian Church (PCA)

Brand New Statistics on American Christianity!

A massive new study of the American religious landscape reveals big changes and powerful trends shaping the future. The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life surveyed 35,000 Americans in one of the largest research projects yet undertaken.

The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey report is over 140 pages long, but the Pew Center for Research has provided a helpful summary. Among the major findings:

• Most Americans (78.4%) identify themselves as Christians of some sort. This Christian majority seems to be a settled fact for some time to come, with trends such as Hispanic immigration bolstering these numbers.
• America's Protestant majority -- a mainstay of American life from the colonial era to the present -- is in decline and Protestant Christians will soon become a minority. The survey revealed that only 51.3% of Americans now identify as Protestants.
• Evangelicals are now the largest single group of American Christians (26.3%).
• Roman Catholics (23.9%) are the second-largest Christian grouping, though almost a third of those born into Catholic homes no longer consider themselves as Catholic. In all, almost 10% of all Americans are "former Catholics."
• Mainline Protestant churches and denominations continue to lose membership and now represent only 18.1% of the population.
• Buddhists (0.7%) outnumber Muslims (0.6%).
• Mormons (1.7%) and Muslims report the largest families.
• Those identifying as "unaffiliated" represent a fast-growing segment of the population (16.1%), including atheists (1.6%), agnostics (2.4%) and "nothing in particular" (12.1%).
• At least 27% of families are interfaith to some extent. The percentage rises to 37% if spouses of different Protestant denominations are included.
• Among younger Americans (ages 18-29) almost a quarter claim no religious affiliation.
• The Midwest is the most representative region of the country, while Evangelicals are concentrated in the South.

Here is a particularly important section of the report:

More than one-quarter of American adults (28%) have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion -- or no religion at all. If change in affiliation from one type of Protestantism to another is included, roughly 44% of adults have either switched religious affiliation, moved from being unaffiliated with any religion to being affiliated with a particular faith, or dropped any connection to a specific religious tradition altogether.

The first wave of media reports pointed to this section of the report, while pointing to the larger issue of religious diversity and the growth of "nothing in particular" as a response. The "switching" phenomenon was a leading focus of the report summary, with Pew researchers arguing that "religious affiliation in the U.S. is both very diverse and extremely fluid."

What are we to make of this? The report is a credible and extensive review of the American religious landscape. Taken as a whole, the data point to big changes on the horizon. The loss of a Protestant majority will lead to further adjustments in the cultural worldview. Clearly, America is more of a mission field than ever before.

There are some caveats about the research as well. These affiliations are self-reported, meaning that some of the individuals may have little affiliation, knowledge, or commitment behind these identifications. Nevertheless, that has always been a limitation on these surveys.

The issue of "switching" should attract a great deal of interest. In one sense, this is the inevitable product of religious liberty and religious diversity. But it also reveals that many Americans are looking for something they have not found in the tradition and affiliation of their childhood.

Even so, the research methodology probably understates this phenomenon. A member of a liberal Presbyterian church who switches to a conservative Presbyterian church is still a constant Presbyterian in the survey.

Evangelical Christians and churches should look at this report closely. There is a wealth of data here that helps to define the mission field we face in America. There are danger signs. Here are several points of concern:

• Our evangelism is not keeping pace with growth in the population. Evangelical churches are growing, but falling behind in the task of reaching Americans with the Gospel.
• We are losing many young people and many of those who switch from evangelical identity switch to "nothing in particular."
• Evangelicals are accustomed to being part of a Protestant majority, but that majoritarian posture is about to be taken away (and already has been in some communities).

All this reminds us of the complexity of our context and the immensity of our challenge. We cannot look at this data with mere interest. These numbers represent real people who desperately need to hear the Gospel -- and to see authentic Christianity made visible.

Prosperity is garbage!

Oh that we would have the same passion for ANYTHING that replaces the gospel of Christ!
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