Thoughts From Chris

This week one of our house churches will be laying hands on a man who is losing his eyesight.  He requested prayer for healing.   This request and the prayer that will be offered by the house church is a great example of bringing heaven to earth – pursuing the advancement of God’s kingdom.

We have been talking recently about covenant and kingdom.  Covenant is about the relationship God has established with us by his grace and the new identity he has given us as his child.  Kingdom is about representing God on the earth as he shares his authority and power with us to advance his will on the earth and war against the kingdom of darkness. 

Author and leader Mike Breen calls this the double helix of Scripture.  Covenant and Kingdom are two major themes that run throughout the DNA of Scripture from beginning to end. 

When this house church meets this week and lays hands on this gentleman for healing, this is a prayer to bring heaven to earth.  When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he told them to pray, “your KINGDOM come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matt. 6:10)

We know that losing eyesight or any other physical challenge is the direct result of living in a fallen world.  Sin and the works of Satan’s kingdom bring death and disease.  Sickness was not a part of God’s original creation and it will not be a reality when believers live in the new heaven and new earth. 

Our friend will one day be completely healed and will have perfect eyesight when he lives on the new earth forever in glory.  In the meantime, while we live in this life, God has given his covenant people the authority and power to bring his kingdom here on the earth.   This is why we lay hands on people and pray for healing (by the way Jesus and the disciples used the practice of laying on hands as a symbolic gesture of God’s power).   God may or may not bring immediate healing, that is up to him, but he will eventually bring the healing, and if he does it immediately, it serves as an example and foretaste of what is to come. 

I want to encourage you as you gather with your communities of faith that you pray, lay hands on one another, and seek to bring God’s heaven to earth, not only in the area of physical healing, but in all the other areas of God’s will in heaven.  This is what it means to be people who bring God’s kingdom to earth. 

One of the common messages teens hear today is the message of abstinence.  The message goes something like this:

“Make a commitment to not have sex until you are married.  God wants you to ‘save yourself sexually’ for your future mate.  Just think of how beautiful it would be for you to give your future spouse the gift of your virginity.  Not only does God want you to wait until you are married, there are also many other practical reasons it is good and right to not be sexually active before marriage.  STD’s are common today among sexually active teens.  You are placing your body and your future spouse at risk if you place yourself in a position to get one of the many STD’s.  Safe sex or protected sex is not only no guarantee against STD’s or potential pregnancy, it violates God divine plan for sexual purity. ”

This is the basic message of abstinence.  The main problem with this message is that it sets the bar too low.  Remaining a virgin until one gets married is a worthy desire, but it is an inadequate substitute for true, godly purity.

The reason the message of abstinence is inadequate is because godly purity is about a heart and mind of purity – not simply the abstinence of a physical act.   Understanding this distinction is critical in pursuing deep and inward sexual purity.  Consider the following verses:

^“For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.” (Matt. 15:19)

“I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl.” (Job 31:1)

^“But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.” (Eph. 5:3)

Sexual purity from a biblical perspective means that sexual thoughts only occur within a marriage relationship.  Sexual purity is a mind and heart issue.  All impurity begins in the mind.  That is the battleground of pursuing purity.  Sexual acts always begin in the mind.  This is why abstinence or avoiding STD’s are inadequate (they address behavior).   Someone can remain a virgin and yet be filled with immorality in the mind and in various kinds of actions.  This also is the impetus for the question, “how far is too far?”  When sexual purity is relegated to curbing behavior, there will always be a question of where the line should be.

However, when purity is pursued in the mind, the line simply becomes anything that instigates impure thoughts.  This is not difficult to determine. 

Practically, we have been trying to plant some initial seeds in the minds of our children (who are elementary age).  The window of opportunity we have capitalized on is t.v.  Television shows aimed at elementary children already begin at a young age with the concepts of boyfriend, girlfriend, kissing, etc.  We have had numerous conversations with our children that these kinds of pursuits are not appropriate for their age and are really more appropriate when one gets into college.  When our kids see these things on t.v. now (even among their own age level shows) their radars go up, and they know these things are not appropriate for them.

As parents we have a great opportunity to plant seeds before they get into middle school and high school when these feelings become much stronger.  We are trying to build parameters in their minds early in the process that romance is really for those who are much older (even though the media begins planting these thoughts into children who are in elementary and middle school). 

Again, this is another opportunity for us as parents to train our kids to know the difference between how the world lives and how followers of Christ live.   They are being inundated already as second and third graders that pursuing romantic feelings is acceptable and normal for kids or even teens in school.  We are doing what we can to shape them in a very different way.  It is helping them develop the muscle of morality when they are still very young. 

We pray almost every day for our kids purity – not just that they will be virgins when they get married, but biblical purity in the heart and mind. 

If you still have children living at home I want to encourage you with the difficult task of training them to be critical thinkers.  Parenting is not one of the easy things of life.  We all need to be encouraged and challenged at times with how we parent.  It is hard work.  One of the many challenges of parenting is the balance of teaching our children to respect and obey authority, while at the same time teaching them that it is OK to question authority. 

My six year old son came home a couple of weeks ago with a book from the library at his school he wanted me to read to him.   As I started to read it, I realized the book was coming from an evolutionary perspective on the origin of life.   Our kids don’t go to a Christian school, therefore, evolution is what they get taught.

Evolution is what many people in our society believe, and so I am thankful they are learning it.  It also gives my wife and I a great opportunity to train our kids how to be critical thinkers – that it is actually OK to question authority.  We want them to learn that not everything their teachers teach is ALWAYS right, that not everything their church teaches is ALWAYS right, and that not even what their parents teach is ALWAYS right. 

We want our kids to be submissive to authority and respectful, but we also want them to learn how to use the lens of Scripture to decipher truth from error and to evaluate what they get taught.  Teachers, church leaders, and parents can and will all make mistakes but everything must be tested by Scripture.

We recently sat our third grader, second grader, and kindergartner down and talked about evolution and then talked about Genesis one.  We want them to know that there is a disparity between what the world often believes and what God says.  It was a great conversation. 

We have also already had some brief conversations about other issues in this same vein like homosexuality, abortion, sexuality, the way our society views boyfriend/girlfriend relationships, modesty in dress, friends they have of other religions, etc. 

Out in the world they will and already are engaging in so much stuff.  We want to train them how to think these things through biblically. At the same time we want them to learn how to respect people who believe differently.  We don’t want them to be judgmental against people who may believe abortion should be a choice or homosexuality is simply an acceptable sexual orientation or that all religions lead to God.  We are trying to train our kids to believe differently based on Scripture regarding these and other things, but we also are just as motivated to train them how to love, serve, befriend, and get along with people who believe and practice things we believe are not right.  We want them to avoid relativism (everyone’s views are equally true), and we want them to avoid arrogance (a prideful demeanor of “I’m right and let me prove to you how wrong you are”).

Like I said, parenting is not easy.  It is hard work.  Whether your children go to a Christian school, public school, or are home schooled, I encourage you to teach your children not only what God says but what the world teaches as well (and teach them the delicate balance of how to respect people who believe differently).  Counsel them how to navigate through a world that will bombard them with challenges to their young faith (as well as the delicate balance of respecting authority while at the same time questioning authority).  We don’t simply want clones of ourselves, we want independently thinking children who are following Christ and influencing other children to follow Christ as well. 

And lastly, let me say, it is not too late to teach teenagers these things (or even adults for that matter), but if at all possible, let’s begin instilling these things in our elementary children.   The earlier we can train them to think critically and biblically, the more potential they will have to be leaders of those around them and not simply followers of the masses.

If you are in the trenches right now with this stuff (like we are), and feel like you fail more times than you succeed (like we do), be encouraged and don’t lose heart.  Keep going after it.  You are not alone.  It is worth it in the end.