Wisdom and Scarcity

Ken was a man born so far back in the country that a town of 4000 looked like the big city to him. He was raised on camp meetings and revival meetings. "The old sawdust trail" was not a metaphor for him. They would literally walk up a sawdust covered aisle to go to the altar at the front of the "church" (read tent) to pray. The highest education he ever achieved was Grade 8. He spent much of his life working in the lumber camps, drawing logs out of the forest with teams of horses. To me, he was an "old timer" in the truest sense of the word.

Over the years I have had a number of opportunities to pray with Ken. A standard phrase in many of his prayers was "make us wise unto the things of God." That is not a prayer I hear very much these days. I hear prayers for wisdom when we are unsure of a decision we need make. That is an appropriate prayer, but it is a different prayer than, "make us wise unto the things of God."

My friend Ken was essentially praying Paul's prayer found in Ephesians 1:17-21

17 "I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him" (NRSV)

Paul says if God answers this prayer, four things will happen

• the eyes of your heart will be enlightened (vs 18)
• you will know the hope of your calling in Jesus (vs 18)
• you will know what riches that your inheritance in Christ brings (vs 18)
• you will know what the resurrection power looks like in your life (vs 19)

I know that I often live with a scarcity mindset. It often feels like I don't have what I need to meet the challenges of life. I often feel like I am scrounging to meet the demands of the stressors in my life. I often pray for God's help, and God's strength to meet the challenges. I often pray that God will change circumstances or meet the needs that I cannot meet. Those are appropriate prayers. Those are prayers that show my dependence on God.

But that kind of dependence while good may not be the best that God has for us. A dependence that comes out of our of scarcity is the poor step sister to the dependency that comes out of an enlightened heart, that is full of hope, that gets the full extent of our inheritance in Christ, and knows what resurrection power looks like. That kind of dependence acknowledges that we do not have what it take, but "Christ in us, the hope of glory" is more than sufficient for all our todays and our tomorrows. He is going to come through.

That kind of dependency comes when the prayer for the spirit of wisdom and revelation is answered. My friend had it right. A great prayer to pray is, "Make us wise unto the things of God."

The Blood Moon -"This is that."

There is a popular show on CBC radio called “This is That.” The program is laid out like a news program. When I first heard it, I was incredulous. The government can’t be thinking of doing that… It took me a while to figure out that I was being spoofed.  It is funny and entertaining program, the way good radio should be. It makes up plausible news stories that contain a few elements of truth. Of course, the whole show is fiction.

          That is a wonderful when it comes to entertainment, but not so good when it comes to how some people use the bible. Last night a fascinating astronomical event occurred. It is called the blood moon. It is a kind of lunar eclipse that cause the moon to appear a reddish brown.

          Pastor John Hagee in his book Four Blood Moons , which became a best seller on Amazon, connected this moon to the prophecy in Joel, that was repeated in Acts 2

Acts 2:20

The sun will become dark,

and the moon will turn blood red

before that great and glorious day of the Lord arrives.

(New Living Translation)

          What John Hagee and others do with prophecy is say, “This is that.” So what this blood moon means is that the coming of the Lord is close.

          The problem, of course, is that there are a few elements of truth. Jesus could come back at any time. The stage is set for the return of Christ. It could happen today, or it may not happen for another 500 years.

          However getting caught up in the “this is that” kind of prophecy often distracts us from life and the gospel. It promotes a fear based gospel rather than a love based gospel. It distracts us from the challenges of the gospel to love our neighbour, and leads us to a theology that is bad for the environment, bad for our neighbours and bad for the gospel.

          The people of God have important business to be about. Our mission is the mission of Jesus.

Luke 4:18 (NLT)

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released,

that the blind will see,

that the oppressed will be set free,

          In a time where the Ebola Crisis is growing, where human trafficking is proliferating, where the poor are hurting, the good news of the gospel is no longer being taken seriously because the people proclaiming it cannot be taken seriously. We need to stop playing the “this is that” game.

          When it comes to prophecy, be careful of the “This is that” kind of interpretations of scripture or you too might be spoofed.