Wednesday 3 September 2014

Tapping into God's Strength by Waiting on Him


Tapping into God's Strength by Waiting on Him

Joey Cochran

Isaiah 40:31 says: “But they who wait for the Lord renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”

Greeting cards on display at retail.
Greeting cards on display at retail. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This is one of the most celebrated and shared verses of the Bible. I’m sure you’ve seen it on greeting cards, framed pictures, and tees garnered with a picture of a soaring eagle.

If you’re like me you’ve had different responses at different times to these products. At one point you wrapped your hands on them anytime you found them. You got a euphoric inspiration from them. Then at other times these products exhausted you. You shunned them as superstitious, sentimental, or just flat out silly.

Though we oscillate between euphorically or exhaustingly responding to “soaring eagle” merchandise, this is not how we should respond to the truths in this verse. These are truths that promote waiting on God. They teach strength and endurance. Let me show you how.

Strength

Have you done a lot of strengthening exercises? I work out a few times a week, and I always find that I am chipper on the days when I work out. I feel pep in my step and a eurphoric sensation that I can take on any task.

It’s remarkable that God conveys that our waiting gives that same sensation. The practice of patience empowers us. It renews our strength. It’s kind of like a video game where the player is able to recover from attack by waiting and avoiding attacks. But it’s entirely different because we are not waiting from something we are waiting into something. We are waiting into the Lord.

Our wait is a wait into the Lord that strengthens us. Why is that? Well Isaiah 40:28 clues us in. Look at the beginning of the verse: “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the Ends of the earth.” This verse tells us who God is. He is everlasting and Creator.
Thus, we derive strength from God because he is the one of unending strength. He outlasts all creation and is the source of all creation. All creation waits on him and depends upon him. Where creation has its start and stop, God doesn’t. So we can plug into God’s unending strength and be empowered by him.

Endurance

Humans are puny and weak without God’s strength. Life’s troubles exhaust us easily, and it’s meant to be that way. The curse of the fall led to toiling work. Our toil is because of our turning from God, and our toil reminds us to turn back to him. So when we are exhausted from all of life’s troubles, we need to turn to God. That state of being turned to him and looking to him is an act of waiting; it brings endurance from exhaustion.

But we don’t just get exhausted from toil. We get exhausted from going, we get exhausted from not knowing, and we get exhausted from waiting. Toil is only part of it.
To fully grip how to develop the endurance portrayed in Isaiah 40:31 we can again look at what Isaiah 40:28 conveys about the character of God. Isaiah 40:28 ends by telling us more about who God is: “He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.”

Now, when we look back at Isaiah 40:31, it makes more sense. Our endurance is borrowed from God’s endurance. Exhaustion from going is endured because God does not faint. Tapping into God’s tireless strength protects us from fainting. Furthermore, our exhaustion from not knowing what’s ahead is endured because God’s understanding is unending. We, then, trust that he knows what’s next for us.

Soar Like Eagles

Have you ever seen an eagle circling or soaring? They can hold their wingspan for a lengthy time and glide on the wind for what appears to be an interminable period. They look graceful, steady, and sure as they soar.

Do those words describe your patience? Graceful. Steady. Sure. Is that the picture of how you wait for the Lord? My patience falls far short of that description. When I don’t know what’s going on, when I am weak, when I am exhausted, then I am much more likely to look like a spazzed dog chasing its tail rather than a strong, enduring eagle soaring on the wind. You know why? A dog is focused on his tail.

Isaiah 40:28 and Isaiah 40:31 teach us to not be focused on ourselves but to refocus on who God is. Look at the enduring nature of God’s character and trust Him to provide strength and endurance through whatever toil or trial you face.

Joey Cochran, a ThM graduate of Dallas Seminary, is the church planting intern at Redeemer Fellowship in St. Charles, Illinois under the supervision of pastor Joe Thorn. You can follow him at jtcochran.com or @joeycochran.

The world Having to face a collective failure

These last few days we not only have seen how ISIS or the fighters for IS destroyed the treasures of culture and unashamed pitiless killed thousands of innocent people and animals. In many countries at the south half of this world several tribes bring suffering to each other and make it that millions of peopel have to flee for the violence.

The West can only look how she is not able to bring a solution in those war-countries. It only can note a collective failure. It also does not manage to get a good working international refugee regime.


English: Logo of the UN World Food Programme i...
Without addressing these inadequacies and putting other policies and strategies in place, the World Food Programme and UNHCR also faces a crisis with a $186 million funding gap.

The UN refugee agency and the World Food Programme (WFP) on Tuesday warned that funding difficulties, compounded by security and logistical problems, have forced cuts in food rations for nearly 800,000 refugees in Africa, threatening to worsen unacceptable levels of acute malnutrition, stunting and anaemia, particularly in children.


English: Ambassador Ertharin Cousin, the Unite...
Ambassador Ertharin Cousin, the United States Representative to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture, addresses volunteers at the Earth Day Tri-Mission Community Project in Rome, Italy. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
WFP Executive Director Ertharin Cousin and UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres, at a meeting with government representatives in Geneva, made an urgent joint plea for US$186 million to allow WFP to restore full rations and prevent further cuts elsewhere through December 2014. For its part, UNHCR needs US$39 million for nutrition support it provides to malnourished and vulnerable refugees in Africa.
"Many refugees in Africa depend on WFP food to stay alive and are now suffering because of a shortage of funding," Cousin said. "So we are appealing to donor governments to help all refugees half of whom are children have enough food to be healthy and to build their own futures."
Across Africa, 2.4 million refugees in some 200 sites in 22 countries depend on regular food aid from the World Food Programme. Currently, a third of those refugees have seen reductions in their rations, with refugees in Chad facing cuts as high as 60 per cent.

Supplies have been cut by at least 50 per cent for nearly 450,000 refugees in remote camps and other sites in the Central African Republic, Chad and South Sudan. Another 338,000 refugees in Liberia, Burkina Faso, Mozambique, Ghana, Mauritania and Uganda have seen their rations reduced by between five and 43 per cent.

In addition, a series of unexpected, temporary ration reductions has affected camps in several countries since early 2013 and into 2014, including in Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Cameroon. Some cuts were also due to insecurity that affected deliveries.
"The number of crises around the world is far outpacing the level of funding for humanitarian operations, and vulnerable refugees in critical operations are falling through the cracks,"
said Guterres.
 "It is unacceptable in today's world of plenty for refugees to face chronic hunger or that their children drop out of school to help families survive,"
he said, calling for a rethink on funding for displacement situations worldwide.

A joint UNHCR-WFP report issued in conjunction with today's Geneva meeting says that refugees are among the world's most vulnerable people and warns that reductions in their minimum rations can have a devastating impact on already weakened populations.

Many refugees arrive in countries of exile already in urgent need of emergency nutritional care. Lacking any means to support themselves in many host countries, they remain totally dependent on international assistance sometimes for years until they can return home or find other solutions. Generally, WFP tries to provide 2,100 kilocalories per refugee per day.

Guterres warned that while a sustained 60 per cent reduction in rations would be catastrophic for refugees, even small cuts can spell disaster for undernourished people. The impact, especially on children, can be immediate and often irreversible. Undernutrition during a child's first 1,000 days from conception can have lifelong consequences, compromising both physical growth and mental development. Numerous studies have shown that this "stunting" leaves affected children at a severe social and economic disadvantage for the rest of their lives.

Even before the most recent ration cuts, refugees in many of the camps surveyed were already experiencing unacceptable levels of malnutrition, despite some progress over the past five years in improving nutrition standards. For example, a programme to prevent and treat micro-nutrient deficiencies has helped to slow or even reverse rising malnutrition rates and associated problems in some areas. But the current shortfall now threatens to negate even those hard-won gains.

Nutritional surveys conducted between 2011 and 2013 showed that stunting and anaemia among children was already at critical levels in the majority of the refugee sites. Only one of 92 surveyed camps, for example, met the agencies' goal of fewer than 20 per cent of refugee children suffering from anaemia. And fewer than 15 per cent of camps surveyed met the target of less than 20 per cent stunting among children. The surveys also showed that acute malnutrition levels among children under five years of age remain unacceptably high in more than 60 per cent of the sites.
Refugees hit by the food shortages are struggling to cope, posing a host of additional problems as they resort to what the report calls "negative coping strategies." These include an increase in school dropouts as refugee children seek work to help provide food for their families; exploitation and abuse of women refugees who venture out of camps in search of work; "survival sex" by women and girls trying to raise money to buy food; early marriage of young girls; increased stress and domestic violence within families; and increasing theft.

The end result, the report says, is a
"vicious cycle of poverty, food insecurity, deterioration of nutritional status, increased risk of disease, and risky coping strategies. Therefore, improving livelihood opportunities and food security is paramount to break this vicious cycle, and ensuring that previous investments and advances in nutrition and food security are preserved."
In addition to urging donor governments to fully fund the refugee food pipeline, WFP and UNHCR are also encouraging African governments to provide refugees with agricultural plots, grazing land, working rights and access to local markets to promote self-sufficiency among refugees. Given the unpredictability of funding, the agencies are also refining their methods of prioritizing those affected by possible cuts to ensure that the most vulnerable are identified and receive the help they need.

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Please do find:
850 Calorie Challenge

850 calories is just not nearly enough…for lunch!
Speak Out for Refugees in Africa

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Friday 29 August 2014

Anti-church movements and Humanism

English: Statue of Denis Diderot by Frédéric A...
Diderot the man who brought the encyclopaedia as work-instrument for free thought
In history the followers of the Nazarene Jew Jeshua found many times that people opposed them, came with false teachings, luring people in false organisations, trying to get them away from synagogue and ecclesia, creating a anti-church movement.

To get some anti-church reaction under way, sometimes the teachers were not afraid to present themselves as martyrs. In 1600 with the execution, or martyrdom to some, of Giordano Bruno for heresy by the Inquisition some consider it to be the beginning of the modern Freethought movement.
In its earliest roots the Freethought movement explicitly organized itself as anti-church, or more specifically anti-dogma and anti-hierarchy.  “Free” “Thought” simply referred to thought free of the control religious institutions.

When you take Freethought to be a philosophical viewpoint that holds free opinions, it should be formed on the basis of free thinking, not bounded to dogma's but following logic, reason, and empiricism and not authority, tradition, or other dogmas. Freethought should then be build on an experience by which people also allow others to think freely and to pose questions and to give answers according to their own experiences in this life on earth.

We would expect from such a free thinker he or she also allow free thinking to the other, but recently we have seen many so called freethinkers and humanists who want to press their own ideas onto others and laugh with those who prefer to keep on the idea of there be existing a Supreme Divine Being, Creator of heaven and earth.

Those ‘freethinking’ people not always are so free thinking as they seem to pretend. More than once they also are anti religion people, though not always atheists or secular paganists.

What we would like to see of those practitioners of freethought or ‘freethinkers’ is that they stimulate interaction of thought.  Freethought holds that individuals should not accept ideas proposed as truth without recourse to knowledge and reason. Freethinkers should strive to build their opinions on the basis of facts, scientific inquiry, and logical principles, independent of any logical fallacies or the intellectually limiting effects of authority, confirmation bias, cognitive bias, conventional wisdom, popular culture, prejudice, sectarianism, tradition, urban legend, and all other dogmas.

For a lot of freethinkers there is insufficient evidence to support the existence of supernatural phenomena and therefore to come to worship and having meetings for holding certain rites, having a formation of religion, would be considered wrong because it would give a sign of a believe upon insufficient evidence.

Toward the end of the 17th century in England the term ‘free-thinker emerged and was used to describe those who stood in opposition to the institution of the Church, and of literal belief in the Bible. Several people had started to examine the Bible and to compare it with the dogmatic teachings of the 'catholic' and traditional state church. They were convinced in what the Bible taught that each should examine the Word of God and could be formed by it. They believe god loved His people so much He was willing to give it enough information so that they could come to learn the Truth. God wants everybody to study His Word and to come to understand the world through consideration of god His Creation (nature, plants and animals).


In 1697 William Molyneux wrote a widely publicized letter to John Locke. 16 years later Anthony Collins wrote his ‘Discourse of Free-thinking,’ which gained substantial popularity. In France, the concept first appeared in publication in 1765 when Denis Diderot, Jean le Rond d’Alembert and Arouet de Voltaire, who disliked the Jews, not because of racial prejudice but because they seemed to him responsible for Christianity, included an article on ‘Libre-Penseur’ in their ‘Encyclopédie.’

The European freethought concepts spread so widely that even places as remote as the Jotunheimen, in Norway, had well-known freethinkers, such as Jo Gjende, by the 19th century

According ne of the oldest still running Freethought publications is The Freethinker, first published in Britain in 1881.
  In line with the reactionary origins of the movement, it’s founder, G. W. Foote, wrote of its purpose: “The Freethinker is an anti-Christian organ, and must therefore be chiefly aggressive. It will wage relentless war against superstition in general.”
However, the earliest roots of the Humanist movement identified itself as a religion.  Like other secular movements, for instance Auguste Comte’s Religion of Humanity, historic Humanism in the US, with a capital ‘H’, was designed as a brand new naturalistic religion. This is clearly seen in a document created by many of the first leading Humanist thinkers, scientists and activists: the First Humanist Manifesto 1933.  It states that:
Today man’s larger understanding of the universe, his scientific achievements, and deeper appreciation of brotherhood, have created a situation which requires a new statement of the means and purposes of religion.
The focus was on a broader definition of religion that included naturalistic and non-theistic worldviews.  Religion was something to be re-thought and updated instead of countered.
Please do find his ideas in: Is Humanism a Religion?

Are you religious, spiritual, or do you belong to a religion, having a faith or interfaith

Many people today feel they have stepped away from religion, and found a way to feed their spirituality without a religion or faith practice.


Religion and its contribution to culture of peace
Religion and its contribution to culture of peace (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Many practice 'out of religion' activities and are convinced they have nothing to do with 'a religion'. But....If they have certain things they believe in, If they use these concepts to better themselves and others, and If their concepts lead them closer to "the source"... is it not a religion or faith practice for them?  You can also ask if spirituality is connected with only religious exercise.

All created in the image of God do have received intelligence and some instinct also knowing good and bad.  Throughout history people looked for ways to form their minds. They created different systems to form the soul (spirit/pneuma/psyche/mind). In this way they also created rites or returning actions which were recognised by others and as such got them labelled under religious and spiritual groups. In their truest deepest form religion and spirituality may belong together.

Faith - is the demonstration of our spiritual beliefs even if it is a combination of various spiritualities
interfaith is the sharing of one's faith with others to gain an understanding of one's beliefs.  When we look at "Interfaith" we may find a situation were the people present a willingness to overlook the borders of the different faithgroups. Those who consider themselves belonging to an interfaith are persons of goodwill who want to reconcile the various opinions, beliefs, faiths and sometimes invention of the wide variety of religions which have developed as a result of the lack of understanding of the true facts of our spirituality.


His Religion and Hers
His Religion and Hers (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
We do not need a religion to question ourselves , the reason why we are here or what we do have to do. When we do use our brains we shall come to an understanding that have in our soul (nephesh) the flesh and the inner soul (pneuma/psyche) our way of thinking which is the one which give more importance to the soul (ruach/breath/wind), the life-breath which keeps us alive. This knowledge having to give importance to psychological and spiritual development gives way to the liberty to look across the many borders set up by religious, non-religous and atheist people.

As explained in the several articles on Spirituality and Religosity on Stepping Toes, "Spirituality" requires no belief or faith, because it has the knowledge of its abilities and experience. Our mind can think and guide our body. Without a healthy mind we shall not be able to get a healthy body.

Today we see that some sort of cross-fertilisation is occurring within and between religions at this juncture of history.
As we are caught up with it and feel the energies of the process positively so we find ourselves sustained by what we are calling "spirituality", and exhilarating tone of life that is a vibrant reality for many - whether our lives are full of suffering and tragedy or just plain humdrum, or remarkably privileged amonst the gross inequalities of our lives. So our old religious homes are actually benefitting from this renewal rather than fading away and dying. There remains however the problems of fanaticism and desperation and exclusivism in religions. Can our spiritualities overcome our new fanaticisms and the continuing oppressive inequalities of our ancient political economies which seem to revive old types of wars of religion?
writes George Armstrong.
according to Rev. Stephen Albert:

WP Religion
WP Religion (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
"Interfaith" is not a religion. It does not have a set of rules that require an adherent to act or perform one way or another. Those who call or involve themselves with Interfaith, may celebrate one or more religious traditions and they honor the many people who believe differently than they. The beauty of interfaith is that once you take the time to investigate the deeper beliefs of a religious group of people, the more they begin sounding just like you. Abigail and I just returned from the NAIN (North American Interfaith Network) conference in Detroit Michigan where 150 or so people from a variety of faiths celebrated the similarities and the differences of the many religions. They were not afraid to ask the "hard questions" and to more deeply interact with new friends and colleagues. For the last two years I have mentioned this yearly conference to this group and, besides us, only Laura Zinn has attended. By the way, her workshops were great and she is a great organizer and presenter. Mark your calendars now to attend the NAIN Connect from July 19-22, 2015 in Regina Saskatchewan Canada. Bring your interfaith friends or even those who believe their way is the only way (They won't come anyway). The events are fun, they feed us great and you will come away with a great respect for whatever you believe. Blessings.


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Additional literature:

  1. Religions and Mainliners
  2. What is faith and is it the only thing required
  3. Faith
  4. Soul
  5. Do not forget the important sign of belief
  6. Living in faith
  7. Science, belief, denial and visibility 1
  8. Science, belief, denial and visibility 2
  9. Ian Barbour connecting science and religion
  10. Religion and spirituality
  11. Looking for True Spirituality 1 Intro
  12. Looking for True Spirituality 2 Not restricted to an elite
  13. Looking for True Spirituality 3 Mind of Christ
  14. Looking for True Spirituality 4 Getting to Know the Mind of Christ
  15. Looking for True Spirituality 5 Fruitage of the Spirit
  16. Looking for True Spirituality 6 Spirituality and Prayer
  17. Looking for True Spirituality 7 Preaching of the Good News
  18. Looking for True Spirituality 8 Measuring Up
  19. Self-development, self-control, meditation, beliefs and spirituality
  20. Experiencing God
  21. The Supreme Being God of gods
  22. Cosmos creator and human destiny
  23. Only One God
  24. God is One
  25. Our relationship with God, Jesus and eachother
  26. Patriarch Abraham, Muslims, Christians and the son of God
  27. Preparedness to change
  28. Being Religious and Spiritual 1 Immateriality and Spiritual experience
  29. Being Religious and Spiritual 2 Religiosity and spiritual life
  30. Being Religious and Spiritual 3 Philosophers, Avicennism and the spiritual
  31. Being Religious and Spiritual 5 Gnostic influences
  32. Being Religious and Spiritual 4 Philosophical, religious and spiritual people
  33. Fruits of the spirit will prevent you from being either inactive or unfruit
  34. American atheists most religiously literate Americans
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Saturday 23 August 2014

Do you believe in One god



 Please do find:
  1. God is one
  2. God of gods
  3. Only one God
  4. A God between many gods
  5. Seeing or not seeing and willingness to find God
  6. The Trinity - the Truth
  7. Christianity without the Trinity
  8. People Seeking for God 1 Looking for answers
  9. People Seeking for God 2 Human interpretations
  10. People Seeking for God 3 Laws and directions
  11. People Seeking for God 4 Biblical terms
  12. People Seeking for God 7 The Lord and lords
  13. The Bible and names in it
  14. Lord and owner
  15. Lord in place of the divine name
  16. Pluralis Majestatis in the Holy Scriptures
  17. Hellenistic influences
  18. Politics and power first priority #2
  19. Politics and power first priority #3 Elevation of Mary and the Holy Spirit
  20. The wrong hero
  21. On the Nature of Christ
  22. Why think that (1) … Jesus existed?
  23. Why think that (2) … Jesus claimed to be something special
  24. Why think that (3) … Jesus rose from the dead
  25. Why think that (4) … God would reveal himself in words
  26. Jesus begotten Son of God #13 Pre-existence excluding virginal birth of the Only One Transposed
  27. Jesus begotten Son of God #19 Compromising fact
  28. Nazarene Commentary Luke 3:1, 2 – Factual Data
  29. Nazarene Commentary Matthew 3:13-17 – Jesus Declared God’s Son at His Baptism
  30. Entrance of a king to question our position #1 Coming in the Name of the Lord
  31. Entrance of a king to question our position #2 Who do we want to see and to be
  32. Marriage of Jesus 2 Standard writings about Jesus
  33. Marriage of Jesus 5 Papyrus fragment in Egyptian Coptic
  34. Marriage of Jesus 8 Wife of Yahweh
  35. Marriage of Jesus 10 Old and New Covenant
  36. In the death of Christ, the son of God, is glorification
  37. 3 Reasons the Resurrection Matters
  38. A fact of History or just a fancy Story
  39. Philippians 1 – 2
  40. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #10 Prayer 
  41. TD Jakes Breaks Down the Trinity, Addresses Being Called a ‘Heretic’
  42. The Third Word: Scripture twisting is blasphemy
  43. Corruption in our translations !
  44. Patriarch Abraham, Muslims, Christians and the son of God
  45. Science, belief, denial and visibility 1
  46. Follower of Jesus part of a cult or a Christian
  47. Being Religious and Spiritual 5 Gnostic influences
  48. Being Religious and Spiritual 6 Romantici, utopists and transcendentalists
  49. Being Religious and Spiritual 7 Transcendence to become one
  50. Being Religious and Spiritual 8 Spiritual, Mystic and not or well religious
  51. Building up the spirit of the soul

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