Tag Archives: faith

Uncle Tom and the Gift Of Tongues

Posted on by under The Stories

The Daily Post has asked us to…Describe a memory or encounter in which you considered your faith, religion, spirituality — or lack of — for the first time.

You can see how others met this challenge at

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/in-good-faith/

As a boy of thirteen I had an intense spiritual hunger. I suppose I had always leaned toward the spirit world.  Growing up the first books I remember borrowing from the town library were stories of the Greek gods and the writings of Uri Geller and other famous psychics.

I don’t remember a time when I didn’t believe in the supernatural or in a higher power but my search for that higher power began in earnest at the end of my eighth grade year. I remember telling my mother that I thought some day I would become a minister. She scoffed at the idea because at that point no one in our immediate family even really believed in the biblical God. My grandparents were believers but they didn’t wear their religion on their sleeves or anything like that and their pastor at the time was more in tune with Universalism than Christianity.

I met a girl in school whose family members were committed Jehovah’s Witnesses and she began witnessing. Through a series of events my parents found out and insisted that if I was really interested in church then I was going to go with my Uncle Tom. They thought he was crazy but at least they knew he was harmless  and crazy.

So began my journey into the Christian faith and away from the neo-paganism I had known. The story is long and convoluted but suffice it to say the first time I heard someone deliver a message in tongues and another person give the interpretation, I was hooked. Uncle Tom and the gift of tongues showed me the way to a real personal and supernatural relationship with God through Jesus Christ. God can and will use anything to bring a seeking soul to Himself.

Heaven Pt. 153: The Persecution Of the Saints

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles

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O God, the nations have come into your inheritance;

they have defiled your holy temple;

they have laid Jerusalem in ruins.

2  They have given the bodies of your servants

to the birds of the heavens for food,

the flesh of your faithful to the beasts of the earth.

3  They have poured out their blood like water

all around Jerusalem,

and there was no one to bury them.

4  We have become ha taunt to our neighbors,

mocked and derided by those around us.

5  How long, O Lord? Will you be angry forever?

Will your jealousy burn like fire?

6  Pour out your anger on the nations

that do not know you,

and on the kingdoms

that do not call upon your name!

7  For they have devoured Jacob

and laid waste his habitation.

8  Do not remember against us our former iniquities;

let your compassion come speedily to meet us,

for we are brought very low.

9  Help us, O God of our salvation,

for the glory of your name;

deliver us, and atone for our sins,

for your name’s sake!

10  Why should the nations say,

“Where is their God?”

Let the avenging of the outpoured blood of your servants

be known among the nations before our eyes!

11  Let the groans of the prisoners come before you;

according to your great power, preserve those doomed to die!

12  Return sevenfold into the lap of our neighbors

the taunts with which they have taunted you, O Lord!

13  But we your people, the sheep of your pasture,

will give thanks to you forever;

from generation to generation we will recount your praise. Psm 79 ESV

The persecution we see of our Christian brothers around the world is nothing new in practice. Christians and believing Jews throughout the ages have been martyred since the dawn of faith in practice. What is new is the scope. More believers have been martyred in the last century than in the first 19 combined; But that is nothing more than is to be expected. Jesus said,

“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. 17Be on your guard; you will be handed over to the local councils and be flogged in the synagogues. 18On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles.19But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, 20for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

21“Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. 22You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. 23When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. Ma. 10:16-23 NIV

So what are we to do in the light of  the growing persecution of our faith? We are to respond with the same prayer that the 1st century saints responded, “

 “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. 25You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:

“ ‘Why do the nations rage

and the peoples plot in vain?

26The kings of the earth rise up

and the rulers band together

against the Lord

and against his anointed one.b ’c

27Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed.28They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. 29Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. 30Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” Acts 4: 25-30 NIV

It is the prayer of faith that asks for deliverance in the trouble not from the trouble that will bring the shaking of our places of worship into order!

So Pray to be able to speak boldly

Pray for the power to heal

Pray for signs and wonders in the name of Jesus!

Heaven Pt. 152: Inciting God

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles

Therefore the LORD heard this, and was wroth: so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and anger also came up against Israel;

Because they believed not in God, and trusted not in his salvation:

Though he had commanded the clouds from above, and opened the doors of heaven, Psm. 78:21-23 KJV

sodom

If faith is the currency of Heaven, then unbelief is the coinage of Hell.

If faith stirs pleasure within God’s bosom, then unbelief fills His heart with great sorrow.

Psalm 78 indicates His wrath is particularly stirred against nations who have seen God in action or who have a history with God’s miracles and yet refuse faith in their generation for one reason or another.

God has given us great revelation of Himself in our generation. The proliferation of the gospel today is greater than it has ever been in world history. Miracles and testimonies of  miracles abound. Yet still the mindset that was in the ancient  Israelites  tempts us.

Paul the apostle wrote this to the Corinthian Church:

I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. All of them were guided by a cloud that moved ahead of them, and all of them walked through the sea on dry ground. 2 In the cloud and in the sea, all of them were baptized as followers of Moses. 3 All of them ate the same spiritual food,4 and all of them drank the same spiritual water. For they drank from the spiritual rock that traveled with them, and that rock was Christ. 5 Yet God was not pleased with most of them, and their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.

6 These things happened as a warning to us, so that we would not crave evil things as they did, 7 or worship idols as some of them did. As the Scriptures say, “The people celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry.” 8 And we must not engage in sexual immorality as some of them did, causing 23,000 of them to die in one day.

9 Nor should we put Christ to the test, as some of them did and then died from snakebites. 10 And don’t grumble as some of them did, and then were destroyed by the angel of death. 11 These things happened to them as examples for us. They were written down to warn us who live at the end of the age.

12 If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall.  1 Cor. 10:1-12

We stand at a precipice of choice. We know what God has  said. We have heard what God has done and is doing. Our choice is to approach His word and the testimony we have heard with an attitude of faith or an attitude of unbelief. On the one hand we have an example of what happened to those who approached the choice in unbelief. On the other we have the example of the 120 who followed Jesus after His ascension.

On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place.2 Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. 3 Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. 4 And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability…. All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer.

43 A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. 44 And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. 45 They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. 46 They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity—47 all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved. Act 2:1-4, 43-47

I choose the latter and reject the former. How about you?

Pastor Wrinkles: Faith & Hope Pt. 2

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles
Big Rock

Jesus is the sure foundation.

In part 1 of this mini-series we talked about faith. If you missed that session you can find it here:

https://josephelonlillie.com/2013/11/22/pastor-wrinkles-faith-hope-pt-1/

I closed Faith & Hope Pt. 1 by saying ” If it is true that every man has faith living inside of him (like everyone has love living inside of him), then it is impossible to be truly faithless. Being unable to use our faith is not really a faith problem, then. It is a hope problem.”

So in this post it falls to me  to define for us the word “hope”, because fixing a problem (if we have one) always begins with defining what it is. Don’t you agree?

In part one I stated that faith (the Greek word pistis) is always used as a noun. Unlike faith, hope can be used as both a noun and a verb. We can hope for things to happen (verb form)…. OR….We can have a hope (noun form).

The verb form of hope is found in verses like Romans 8:25 “But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” 

Here the verb, hope, is the word “elpizo”  which means “to trust in”. When we put our faith in someone or something then we are hoping in it. Hold on!I am about to turn the lights on for someone.

We now know about the verb form of hope, but what about the noun form of hope? What is A HOPE?

The Greek noun translated as hope in the New Testament is the word “Elpis”-  the object one applies faith to.

But the definitions of hope that really help here are from the Hebrew. There are several words translated as hope in the Old Testament but the two that I find most helpful are the words “tiqvah”  and “betach”

a tiqvah is a cord and my betach is my security or my protection. Picture yourself repelling from a high cliff with nothing between you and a three hundred foot drop but the rope tied around your waist. The rope is your hope. It is your cord (tiqvah) and your security or protection (betach).

Now here is where the issue with faith comes in. You see, I can have all kinds of faith living inside of me but if I am expected to repel down a three hundred foot cliff using a seventy five year old rope that is full of dry rot I am going to have a very hard time using my faith to actually get myself to go over the edge. My problem is not with the level of my faith it is with the trustworthiness of the thing I am being asked to trust (my hope).

Now let’s put that into relationship terms. Many of us put our faith in people who were too weak to hold us up. We got dropped and smashed on the rocks of life. We  made vows we would never trust anyone again. We don’t have a faith problem. We still have all kinds of faith living inside of us. We just don’t think there is anyone out there we can put our faith in. We see no hope…no tiqvah…no betach we can attach our faith to.

This is what Paul was talking about when he wrote, “11 Don’t forget that you Gentiles used to be outsiders. … In those days you were living apart from Christ. You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the covenant promises God had made to them. You lived in this world without God and without hope.” Ephesians 2:11,12 NLT

We cannot truly walk by faith until we meet someone who is strong enough to keep us from smashing on the rocks beneath the cliff called life. Jesus Christ is the only true hope of the world and until we make him our hope we succeed at nothing other than causing more injury to our faith.

Pastor Wrinkles: Faith & Hope Pt. 1

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles

One of my readers recently used a quote in her blog that sparked a conversation  regarding the difference between faith and  hope. At a suggestion from her I thought I might create a few posts detailing the ideas of faith and hope as they are laid out in the Bible.

Let’s start with  faith. The word faith is translated 247 times in 231 verses of Scripture. It goes without saying, that amount of mentions makes faith a major topic in the Bible.The Greek word usually translated as “faith is  “Pistis”,  a noun defined as  “a conviction of the truth of anything, belief; in the New Testament it refers to a conviction or belief respecting man’s relationship to God and divine things, generally with the included idea of trust and holy fervour born of faith and joined with it.” (Strong’s g 4102)

My friend Dawn calls faith an intangible, and that it is! The Bible calls it a substance, and it is that as well (Heb. 11:1). Like love, faith cannot be touched or examined with the natural senses( sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste). It is perceived with the soul (the mind, the will and the emotions) and is acted upon by the spirit (the part of us that connects with the spirit world).

The apostle Peter tells us that faith is more precious than gold (1 Peter 1:7) but he also alludes to the fact that faith, in all of us, is mixed with many other unseemly things and so needs to be to be “tried by fire”. I think this truth answers the question many of us have about why God allows certain things to happen to us. If God values faith more highly than anything else in the world but we value anything else in the world more highly than faith, wouldn’t it make sense that God would work to take away that thing   so we can come to value what He sees as truly valuable?

Preachers have declared that faith is the currency of Heaven.  In the gospels Jesus states more than a dozen times that it is faith that buys the power of Heaven into the world for healing, miracles and the greatest supernatural work of God(forgiveness of sins).

I could go on much further concerning faith but in the interest of word count I will close with this. Paul the apostle taught that every human has faith inside of them when he wrote, “For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.” (Romans 12:3 NKJV)  This is our segue into the next post on hope. If it is true that every man has faith living inside of him (like everyone has love living inside of him), then it is impossible to be truly faithless. Being unable to use our faith is not really a faith problem, then. It is a hope problem.

Don’t miss Faith & Hope Pt. 2!