There are two main views when it comes to the eternal security debate. The first view would be that of the eternal security view, which claims that once a Christian is saved, they are saved forever and there is nothing they can do to fall out of grace. On the other side of the spectrum there is the conditional security view, which claims that a Christian needs to continue to persist in God and move forward in their faith. In other words, the conditional view is more works oriented and biased towards Christians, while the eternal view is more of a simple faith ordeal. It is in my opinion that the conditional security view is the most logical and can be supported very well Biblically.

I think one of the most helpful passages that supports this position is found in Matthew 7:22-23. “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’”

Here we have people who are operating in the gifts of the Spirit, which obviously implies that these individuals do in fact have the Spirit, which implies that they are in fact Christians. Despite this fact, we also see that they were not persisting in their faith, but rather that they were “practicing lawlessness” and living in sin. For this reason we see that these very verses correlate entirely to the conditional view. The New Bible Commentary states this point quite well when it says, “Acceptance depends not on profession, nor even on apparently Christian activity, but on whether Jesus knew them. Note the extraordinary authority he assumes as judge; to enter the kingdom of heaven depends on his acknowledgment and consists in being with him.”

The conditional view is also supported by the famous story in Matthew 25:31-46. In these verses, God separates the sheep from the goats by placing people in groups based off of how much they did to help others. Notice that He did not place people in groups based off if they were saved Christians or not, but instead He placed them into groups based off works. Those who did not do such works (the goats) were placed into eternal punishment while those who did (the sheep) were brought into eternal life.

Many simply take this verse to mean that the Christians are the sheep and the goats are everyone else, but they fail to see what is really said here. Now I would not say that this means that those who are not Christians will go to Heaven if they did good things for others, because when one combines these verses with other verses we see that belief in Jesus is necessary for salvation as well. One commentary points out “The basis for entrance was faith, evidenced by works of kindness (25:35–39). No unbelievers (“goats”) would be permitted to enter.”

Outside of these Biblical reasons, I would say that logic is a big part of this argument. I feel that those who take the eternal security view have a wonderful hope and a beautiful story, but an illogical and irrational idea of what Christianity is. It is a watered down view of Christianity and it is part of the reason it becomes so easy for many to say say “Lord, Lord,” while practicing lawlessness. It is not that the eternal security debate is wrong in all aspects, because our Lord is full of more grace and love than we can fathom, but when we live like a pagan, we die like a pagan. To what degree of paganism we can live under is up to God as He is the judge. But when we love a person, we should expect ourselves to show it and we should not even have to ask “how pagan can I be and still get by?” We do not fall into a marriage and simply leave it at that, but we work for the other person’s love. Yet so many times people will apply this to anything except Christianity while they try to figure out how sinful they can be without going to far.

One author made a clothing analogy to salvation and grace. “God provides us with the clothes of Christ’s righteousness. We are saved as we put on Christ. And we grow in Christ the same way we receive Christ, by putting on what is provided for us.” To make a play off of this analogy, I would like to point out that the problem with many Christians is that they wear clothes other than the ones Christ gave them. Satan also has his own clothing store that is quite accessible. The more his lawlessness clothes us, the more we look like a goat and after awhile we eventually look nothing like a Christian.

The biggest objection some would have for the conditional argument would be that it cheapens God’s grace and love for us. I believe, however, that God’s grace and love are the same for us regardless of the conditional view. He still loves us dearly and wants to offer us all the grace He can give, but the mistake is not found in God, but rather in ourselves. It is not God who practices lawlessness or does not reach out to others, but it is we who do so. I would imagine He would want to offer as much grace as possible, but when we live a life like those outside of grace, we become one removed from grace. It has nothing to do with cheapening the attributes of God, but with ourselves cheapening our own attributes. The mistake is in us.

 

Bibliography

Carson, D. A. (1994). New Bible commentary : 21st century edition (4th ed.) (Mt 7:13).

Leicester, England;  Downers Grove, Ill., USA: Inter-Varsity Press.

Hughes, R. B., & Laney, J. C. (2001). Tyndale concise Bible commentary. The Tyndale

reference library (420). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.

Larson, B., Anderson, P., & Self, D. (1990). Mastering pastoral care. Mastering ministry

(122). Portland, Or.;  Carol Stream, IL: Multnomah Press;  Christianity Today.

So I joined up with a couple other SAU folks last night to help out with a charismatic worship service last night. After having done so I feel that it’s going to be much harder to go to a service where the worship doesn’t feel Spirit-led. It just kinda feels empty.

So I grabbed my keyboard, mac, and a mic to back up my friend Vicki andthe rest of the band and about 30-40 minutes later our 6 songs or so were done.

Now I’ve had me many a worship jam, but nothing ever felt so real as this. People were at the front singing there hearts out and making up their own lyrics and just praising God.

I think someone had some kind of shofar or trumpet because every once in awhile there would be a loud out of tune noise that I thought was my keyboard. It was great.

They’ve invited us to lead worship again this Sunday morning for their church service so I’m pretty excited to be in God’s presence with these people again! Feel free to come if you’d like!

10:00
1056 Bryant Ave
Jackson, MI

It’s weird right? People collapsing to the ground all over the place? To the point where you almost have to pile them on top of each other because you’re running out of room up front to lie them down?

That was what life was like last night. We had Mahesh Chavda come to speak at Hillsdale college yesterday. Quite a funny guy! He tells lots of random stories and has a great time and then prays for people. And he also gets quite a few words of knowledge.

In fact, he had all the people who couldn’t read books without glasses stand up, put their hands on their eyes as he prayed, and then take them off and see if anything was different. One man proved it was by coming up and reading right out of a tiny print Bible, something he couldn’t have done twenty minutes ago!

Other people stood for back pains and then people who wanted prayer came down to the front, for the most part getting slain in the Spirit and collapsing to the ground. My job was to catch people on their way down so they didn’t hit the floor. And sometimes it would take more than one of us to catch them.

My first two catches didn’t go very well… I actually kind of dropped them a bit. For those of you who are novice catchers such as myself, people crumble straight down for the most part, not backwards like I expected. So you gotta try to catch them the right way! If somehow the first two people I went to catch read this, I’m sorry! Didn’t mean to drop you!

At one point Mahesh said that he felt the glory in the room had gotten stronger so he lined up the next people, touched them on the head and prayed for them really quick and many of them went down. Not all of them, but probably most of them.

I was one of the ones who didn’t get knocked out. But Mahesh prayed for me really quick, then blew on me (which I suppose is some kind of impartation of the Spirit kind of deal) and I started falling backwards and then realized that I wasn’t actually going down. So I went back to catching. But one these days I shall be slain!

Had an interesting dream this morning. It was like someone was giving a message that really spoke to me. I feel like it was Rob Bell speaking on the Spirit. It was a great message too but sadly that is all I can remember—If that much was even true. At least it was a message that ministered to me, I got that much.

Also just wanted to fill you I’m on some of the healings that happened last week. The dorm healings I mentioned in my “God is Ready to Unleash,” post needs some more prayer. It appears that the three who were prayed for still need prayer to recieve full healing as they’re still in pain (although they might feel a little better or atleast seemed to at the time).

I tell you these things to be honest, but not to make you think healngs don’t happen. That same night a girl was healed of a headache and the next morning someone was healed of foot pain and his feet still feel great ever since.

Go pray for healing for someone today. Even if something doesn’t happen, they’ll still feel greatly loved! I prayed for a girl’s leg last week before she went to the hospital to have it looked at and she ended up having to get it fixed anywho. But she sent me an email later letting me know that it meant a lot for her and sometimes that’s a healing in itself.

Mahesh Chavda is coming to Hillsdale tommorrow night! Lemme know if you wanna come because crazy stuff is going to be happening!

We had a good morning at the homless shelter today. We showed up, had worship, heard a message from my buddy Jason, and then prayed over people.

I met a woman who needed prayer over quite a few things:

Legs
Diabetes (High blood pressure)
Blindness/dullness in right eye

Now it appeared that Dr. Brewer had gotten some kind of word of knowledge about someone having heart problems or blood pressure problems so I invited him over to pray for this lady. He annointed her with oil and then prayed over her diabetes. I then prayed for her eye and legs, as did Brewer.

While he was praying, it popped into my head that her eyes would be healed so well that she wouldn’t even have to wear the glasses that she had on and only seconds after having this thought Brewer started praying for that exact thing.

She took her glassess off and said that she felt her eyes had cleared up a little bit but that they weren’t fully there. We continued praying for them and while they didn’t seem to get too much clearer, we will wait and see what God does over time.

I mention this “over time” idea because we prayed for a blind lady last week.

Nothing happened.

But a woman came in today who had her foot healed at the last service and she said that the blind lady could see now.

Also, a lady gave her life to Jesus today and I guess last time after we left, people we’re talking quite a bit about us and how they had seen healing and all this stuff.

God is making Himself real :)

Still stoked from all the miracles God did last night. We were at chapel band practice this morning when my buddy Rico says, “man my feet have been hurting forever now.” I turned, touched his foot and in about three seconds said something like, “God I pray you’d heal these feet right now,” and then turned back to my piano.

Rico chuckled and I pretty much did too. Then I started thinking about what just happened when all of the sudden I heard:

“Dude… They don’t hurt anymore…”

“Yeah, I know.”

It was awesome! God doesn’t always need a long prayer to heal something. Granted we had to pray about 7 times last night for someone before he was really feeling good, but this guy’s foot was healed in 3 seconds! It’s Biblical too! After all, Jesus did raise the dead with two words.

“Come forth.”

If that ain’t a quick prayer, I don’t know what is.

God is totally about to unleash on this campus and I am stoked! You see, He has put on my heart to show “The Finger of God,” which I must have mentioned on this blog 100 times. I do so because it’s important and you should see it.

So go see it.

This movie has tons of healings in it and because of it, I have had the best night ever after seeing 3 (possibly 4!) healings. And that’s just tonight! That’s more than ever in my life!

So get this: the first healing tonight was at the end of the movie. Sid Roth comes on the screen during the credits to pray for healing. Now I had just heard in an interview with Darren Wilson that people had actually been healed during this portion of the movie, but have had yet to see it myself. I turned the movie off after this prayer, prayed for everyone who came, told them about an event with Mahesh Chavda that we are having November 18th, and also invited them to come to a group on Thursday nights where we learn these charismatic type things.

Then one girl came up to me after saying that she wanted to come to this group so that she could teach her youth group AND that she had been healed of a headache when Sid Roth commanded it to go away! I was completely stunned! I had been in a room where it had happened and could now share this story every time I showed it elsewhere!

Then, everyone who had made it to the ending at midnight on this fine Tuesday night, headed back to their dorms as I did also. I ran into the spiritual life advisor on my floor who asked if I wanted to pray for healing for another on my floor. I was totally up for it and we did! He had a fairly big pain in his ankle/calf and we prayed for it and it didn’t really seem like there was an progress.

So we stayed valiant and prayed again. Still not a whole lot but maybe a slight difference.

Again. A little more.

Again. A little more.

After about six times or so the pain was really starting to dissipate. We continued praying for 100% health and at this moment, he feels much much better. The pain is quite minimal and he could move it more and more after every prayer. Now things like standing on his toes might cause it pain, but that’s a huge difference compared to earlier.

Next we prayed for diabetes. We realized this would be harder to test, but we prayed regardless. I had mentioned something to the guys about listening for a word from God to pray about and one of the guys got one. I had forgotten to mention that God sometimes points out what to pray for by illuminating parts of our own bodies, but he caught on! There was a blood vessel in his head was pounding and so he began to pray for brain troubles that might have caused it just to find out that that was a big part of it. While we can’t firmly know if he has really been healed quite this early in this specific situation, we do know that he felt quite blessed—especially from this specific prayer.

Next we prayed for our spiritual life advisor’s hip. He was having a pain from his hip down to the bottom of his leg. It would pop out of place quite a bit and caused him enough pain to ask for prayer. And so we did. We kept it minimal at first. Two people prayed and that was it. We asked him to check it out. He felt great! In order to make it hurt at all he had to stretch it around quite a bit! We all prayed aloud together after this for 100% and after that he felt no pain.

Seriously, this campus is ready to unleash. This is what we’ve been missing and this is what is starting to happen. Soon we’ll be praying for random people on campus wandering around with crutches (which there are quite a few of lately)!

I actually prayed for a girl I don’t know too well in my psych class the other day. She was on her way out the door in the middle of class to go to the hospital to have her leg looked at. I followed her, prayed for in the hall, and I suppose I’ll know tomorrow how she was feeling after this prayer.

But you know what? Even if she wasn’t healed, I imagine she still felt loved. We have to get over ourselves and just allow God to love through us.

I know satan is ticked right now. I’m not entirely sure, but I felt like I was possibly snapped at by a demon today. There was a rather irrational moment in the day where some hurtful things were said and I felt as though there was more to this situation. Possibly a demon realizing that things were going well for me today and I was psyched to show this movie tonight.

And so I told the people at the movie that satan was ticked that I was showing it and that he was ticked that they were there.

Good news folks.

He’s about to get a whole more ticked.
Because the kingdom of God is about to be unleashed.

One of the widely disputed theological arguments is found in the Christological debate. In this debate there are two main viewpoints. The classical view begs to say that Jesus was both fully God and fully man. He had some of the divine attributes of His Godliness, while at the same time He also had some of the attributes that a human has. In Classical thought, this is what made Jesus fully God and man. The kenotic view on the other hand, says that in order to become fully human, Jesus had to relinquish His divinity. This view still believes that He was fully God, but the difference is that He removed Himself from the areas that made Him God. Personally, I have come to find the kenotic view to be a much truer reading of the text as I see Jesus’ humanity overwhelm His story.

This view of Jesus relinquishing His God-side comes from Philippians 2:7 when it is stated that Jesus “emptied Himself.” Many classical believers argue that there is no proof as to what it is that Jesus is emptying Himself of. One author from The Handbook of Bible Study presents this argument: “It was a lowering, an emptying, to go from living as God lives to living as a slave lives.” It seems that we can’t accept the idea of Jesus becoming fully human because too often we think that focusing on Jesus being more human than divine is a bad thing. But in actuality, it gives more praise to God. A God who is willing to give up His own being in order to get the job done, shows a much stronger view of God than many views do. The Bible Knowledge Commentary points this out quite well in reference to the Gospel of John. “John presented the Incarnation—God manifest in the flesh—as the foundation of the gospel. This is the “glory,” not the “problem,” of the Fourth Gospel.”

I believe that one of the reasons people have a hard time adopting the idea of kenosis is because they do not understand the power of the Holy Spirit. After all, if we say that Jesus was fully man and gave up His divinity, then how exactly did He perform healings among many other things? The answer to this question is that He did these things through the power of the Holy Spirit, which He received in Matthew 3:16 through baptism. It was the divinity of the Spirit that He operated out of instead of His own Godliness as He had set that aside. And yes, I would go so far to say that it was out of His relationship with God and the Holy Spirit that He was able to walk on water and command the weather.

Jesus lived His life in step with God and through the power of the Spirit, as we see throughout the gospels, which goes to prove the kenotic view all the much more. For if Jesus ever exercised His divinity, He would have no reason to even try to connect with God through different forms of spiritual formation. What would be the point in fasting for 40 days (Mt. 4)? Why would Jesus find time to be in solitude with God or pray to God if He could hear His Godly side (Mt. 14:23; Mark 1:35; Luke 5:16; Luke 22:41)?

One of the obvious replies from a classical believer would be that Jesus did so to show us how to live our lives as Christians. However, when I read these passages I do not see a man praying to simply demonstrate something, but praying with a passion that can only be found in true search of God. When He found Himself in the garden of Gethsemane, He did not sweat drops of blood on command (Luke 22:44). No, He was obviously under a lot of pressure and undergoing some intense prayer. And the fact that this intensity lead Him to even ask God to take His cup from Him (Luke 22:43) demonstrates that this prayer was genuine and not simply prayed for the sake of an example. It was a prayer made out of true anguish, demonstrated by the blood He sweat.

However, that is not to say that Jesus’ life was not lived out as an example to believers. Actually “Being both God and man, Jesus simultaneously revealed God’s will for human life and reconciled sinful people to God through his own perfect life and death,” as the Tyndale Bible Dictionary points out. I believe that this is a view that kenotic and classical believers can both agree on, as we all agree that Jesus was both God and man. But it is in my opinion and the kenotic’s that He lived this example out with humanity overwhelming Him rather than out of the divinity He relinquished, making His example all the much more real.

But if this statement is true, then that means we have to deal with one of the biggest objections to the kenotic theory: how did Jesus do so many divine and miraculous things if He was just a human? If we dive deeper, we find our answers. John 14:12 states Jesus as saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works that these he will do…” (NASB). With this verse in mind, we come to see not only that Jesus did supernatural things as an example to believers, but that He did so outside of His own divinity. I say this because the rest of us are obviously not fully God or even partially God, yet we are expected to do greater things. Therefore, we will operate out of the same Spirit in order to do the same things. And if you want to go deeper than that, we could also mention that in the Old Testament, Joshua prayed that the sun would stop moving (Josh. 10:12-14), Elisha brought a dead boy back to life, (2 Kings 4:32-35), and prophets all over the place predicted the future. These can all be related to some of the things Jesus did and these men were completely human.

 

Bibliography

Elwell, W. A., & Comfort, P. W. (2001). Tyndale Bible dictionary. Tyndale reference

library (632). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.

Karleen, P. S. (1987). The handbook to Bible study : With a guide to the Scofield study

system. New York: Oxford University Press.

Walvoord, J. F., Zuck, R. B., & Dallas Theological Seminary. (1983-c1985). The Bible

knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures (2:268). Wheaton, IL:

Victor Books.

 

Or so I was taught yesterday. It was really bizarre actually. I had just finished chapel band practice and had a butt-load of homework to do. Most of it consisted of reading and I was really not in the mood.

I found myself turning on “Where You Go I Go” by Brian and Jenn Johnson and lying on the floor to open up my day by spending time with God for once, rather than just taking off and ignoring Him. On top of that, this song has become significantly important to me as I’ve begun to realize Jesus had to hear from God to do the things He did as He did them in the power of the Spirit (I just wrote a paper on this that will be up soon if you want to hear more on this topic).

So there I was, lying on the ground trying to concentrate on the truth of the lyrics, praying and offering my day to God.

Lyrics to Where You Go I Go :
Where you go I go
What you say I say
What you pray I pray

Jesus only did, What He saw you do
He would only say, What He heard you speak
He would only move, When He felt you lead
Following Your heart, Following Your Spirit

How could I expect to walk without you
When every move that Jesus made was in surrender
I would not begin to live without you
For You alone are worthy You are always good

You are always good
You are always good
Always good
Always good

I had some strange thought that I thought might have been something I had made up, but then I got to thinking it was God.

“Don’t drink pop today. Drink living water.”

Imagine the look on my face.

I managed to regain composure thinking to myself, “WHY!? Why would God say that!? Must be because I’m chubby.” So there I sat, staring at my half full beautifully orange Livewire that I had drank some of before practice:

I actually ate breakfast for once and it was so awkward to drink water. Where was the fizzle? It was so… plain. And now, hours later I’m sitting at lunch. How do I eat lunch without dew? I do not know! So as I am gathering my food I keep reminding myself, no dew today. Remember to get water.

I sat down and began to eat my food and then took a quick trip to the bathroom. When I came back to my chair, there was my lovely looking food and a half consumed glass of Mountain Dew.

Oops.

It’s a habit I guess. I remembered remembering to get water. I just apparently… didn’t. So I didn’t drink the rest of the cup and went and got water. Again… so plain. Same thing for dinner, and around some point in the evening it was starting to make sense.

I actually rely on Mountain Dew quite a bit. Sad, but true. I wake up and I drink dew or some other form of pop to get me started (most of you drink coffee so don’t even start!). I don’t know if it really gives me energy every morning, but I do know that I feel good.  Throughout the day it continually makes me feel refreshed. Like seriously, sometimes I will take that initial sip and my whole body all of the sudden calms down. And saddest of all, pop doesn’t keep me awake all night. It helps me sleep. In fact, freshman year of college I had to go buy a wild cherry pepsi every night otherwise it was hard to sleep without it.

So to get rid of this sustaining thing just for a day was quite difficult for me. But as I continually drank water throughout the day, I could tell that God was trying to say something along the lines of “I am living water. I will sustain you and keep you going. Put your trust in me.”

Really?

There actually was a lesson to all of this?

Some weird thought I had in the morning was actually God trying to teach me something?

Huh. Perhaps it’s time to start listening a little more.

Man Raised From Dead

Been coming across some stories lately about God raising the dead and I thought you might be interested in reading/watching:

Dead Raised
In April we had a mission trip in route to Tecate, Mexico who happened across an accident just north of Los Angeles. A vehicle had blown its front tire and then plunged into the concrete divider in the median. The team was the second car on the scene and began to ask all the passengers involved if they were okay. As they went from one person to the next they came across a 9 month old baby who had been thrown from the car. He was laying face down across the lap of a lady who informed them that he was not breathing. The mother was crying out for her child and gave the team permission to pray. Finding no pulse or breath they began to command the baby back to life calling him by name (Albert). After a few minutes he twitched. He twitched again and fluttered his eyes. From that point on he began to breath and was in and out of consciousness. By the time the paramedics arrived he was alive and very mad about his new oxygen mask. Meanwhile the mother had given her life to Christ and the team had left; just another day in the Kingdom!

 

Fish Raised from the Dead
“Michael Addis of Columbus, Ohio said, “I am not a fisherman, but I now have my  own ‘fish story’ from God.” On Labor Day evening, he promised his youngest son they would get a couple more fish for their aquarium. Ten minutes after he released the fish into the tank, one went belly up. His seven-year-old son was very upset. Michael said, “Ian, it’s OK. That will be my fish.” Five minutes later, the fish was still floating. His wife said, “Maybe we should flush him down the toilet.” Michael said, “No, I still have my receipt. Maybe we can get our money back.”

Then righteous anger rose up in him, and he said, “In the name of Jesus Christ, live!”

Then righteous anger rose up in him, and he said, “In the name of Jesus Christ, live!” And he touched the fish and it jolted up and across the tank. Two of the kids saw it happen.

The last time he prayed for a pet fish (many years ago), it took him two hours to raise the fish from the dead.”*

 

May 9,2008

This testimony is from Michael Proctor of Elisha’s Request Ministries in Washington:

Greg, a man on our ministry team (healing rooms director in Bremerton), had been ministering to an unsaved man who had been in the hospital. Greg arrived at the man’s room in a rehab center, and the man was not in his bed.  At 5 p.m. the man was found breathless and pulseless (no vital signs) in the restroom. They pulled him into the room where the staff verified no signs of life. Paramedics arrived at 5:15 (brain death/damage occurs within about 5 minutes with no vital signs) and began resuscitation efforts, with little hope of success. Greg prayed as he followed the ambulance to the hospital. Forty minutes had passed since the man had been clinically dead, when suddenly he opened his eyes, fully awake and coherent! Greg was able to go to his room where he was admitted to the hospital and led him to the Lord. The man went home to heaven later that night.

Raised From The Dead

July 21,2009A child was raised from the dead after drowning in a pool.  The child had been under a long time and they were trying to resuscitate; there were believers praying and declaring life!  It was on the front page of the local newspaper.

Resurrection Life came to another person.  People were praying for here (but not in the room.) The person died on the table during surgery and the OR staff were  cleaning up and the person came back to life!  Yeah God!  Many were praying for this person.*

Here’s a long one about a woman being raised. Read it here if you’d like because it’s quite long to post up here.

 

It’s stories like all fo these that I can’t wait to see God do in front of me and stories like these that cause me continually try to pray for people’s healings, even when I don’t see anything. Actually, we had some dude speak out SAU chapel awhile back about kidney problems. Some friends and I went to pray for him. It’s initially a bit hard to ask, but once you finally get the faith to walk up to that person, sometimes you randomly get more courage than ever to pray.