Thought for today - 03/31/2012

ON PRAYER

How You Can Live the Lord's Prayer 
The Lord's Prayer is much more than just a model of how best to pray. It's a statement of how to get to know God's heart. And when you live out those words, God will transform you completely. Here's how you can live the Lord's Prayer: 

Our: Realize that the journey to a deeper walk with God can only be fully lived in the company of God's people. Faith is not an individual pursuit; it's meant to be pursued within the context of community. Whenever you abandon the body of Christ, you're abandoning yourself. You can't grow in grace by withdrawing from others. Commit to long-term relationships with people. When you face a difficulty in any of your relationships, don't simply run or battle it out with the other person. Instead, resolve the issue and reconcile. Focus on people over productivity and on relationships over results. Instead of looking at people in terms of what they can do for you, seek to simply get to know them and love them. Don't place people in categories and distinguish between them. Ask God to help you view all people as He sees them -- equally valuable because they're all made in His image -- and to treat everyone with respect and kindness. Remember that you can truly love God if you don't love your brothers and sisters in Christ. Don't let anything divide the unity God wants you to have. Remain committed to each other, living in grace and forgiveness, just as God remains committed to you. 

Father: Experience true love and security from your ultimate Father: God. Remember the Gospel's promise of freedom. Don't slip into a lifestyle of worrying about duties, obligations, rules, regulations, expectations, and demands when God wants you live freely. Instead of trying to live faithfully just because you'd feel guilty if you didn't, let your love for God and your gratitude for His grace motivate you to live faithfully. Rather than letting fear guide your decisions, make decisions with the confidence that God will love you no matter what and will always be there to help you.... Read this in full at
http://www.crosswalk.com/spirituallife/11575955/

Thought for today - 03/30/2012

VERSE TO PONDER
"Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night."
Psalm 90:2-4

Thought for today - 03/29/2012

CONSIDER
"Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make them all yourself."
Unknown

Thought for today - 03/27/2012

PEACE, SECURITY
A submarine being tested had to be submerged for several hours. Upon returning to harbor, the captain was asked, "How did that terrible storm last night affect you?" Surprised, the captain exclaimed, "Storm? We didn't even know there was one!" Their submarine had been so far beneath the surface that it had reached what sailors refer to as "the cushion of the sea" -- a depth in the ocean where the waters below are never stirred despite any commotion on the surface. David Jeremiah says, "In our fast-paced world, it is a challenge to slow down and remember God is in control. We are a society of 'do-everything,' 'go-everywhere,' 'get-it-done' people who mistakenly believe we can handle everything if we just keep going. In reality, we need to become so submerged in God's peace that no matter what's happening in our lives, we are able to remain as calm as 'the cushion of the sea.'
"If you feel overwhelmed, bogged down, or burnt out, add one more activity to your daily schedule: Spend time with Almighty God. It is the only way to reach the depth needed to find true calm in the midst of any storm."

Turning Point Daily Devotional, 4-1-08

Thought for today - 03/26/2012

CONSIDER
"Life is short, and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh, be swift to love, make haste to be kind!"
Henri Amiel

"The Best Gift"

"The Best Gift"
Theme of the week: Get More out of the Bible
Sunday, March 25, 2012

Who Said It … Greg Laurie
Greg Laurie is senior pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, California—one of the largest churches in America. His syndicated radio program, A New Beginning, is broadcast around the world. Greg holds several large-scale public evangelistic events every year called Harvest Crusades. More than 4 million people have attended these events in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Greg has authored more than 70 books including Lost Boy: My Story, Upside Down Living, and Let God Change Your Life.

What he Said … "The Best Gift"
In John 8:31, Jesus says: "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples" (NIV). If you and I want to truly be disciples of Jesus Christ, we must learn to hold to the Word of God.

By most measures, success or failure in the Christian life depends on how much of God's Word we get into our hearts and minds on a regular basis and how well we obey it. The Bible teaches everything we need to know about God. If we neglect the study of Scripture, then our spiritual life will ultimately fall into disrepair.

President Abraham Lincoln once said of the Bible: "It is the best gift which God has ever given man. All the good from the Savior of the world is communicated to us through this Book. But for that Book we could not know right from wrong. All those things desirable to man are contained in it."

Honest Abe was exactly right.

Key Study Passage: Hebrews 4:12-13

Adapted from Let God Change Your Life (David C. Cook, 2011) by permission. All rights reserved by the copyright holder and/or the publisher.

Prayer for the Week
Lord, may I strive to not only read your Word regularly, but to also study it carefully and apply it more consistently

Copyright © 2012 by Christianity Today/Men of Integrity magazine.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/moi/2012/002/march/25.25.html

Thought for today - 03/25/2012

VERSE TO PONDER
"Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you."
Ephesians 4:32

Weekend Bible Study - 03/24/2012

Weekend Bible Study
Theme of the week: Losing My Religion
Saturday, March 24, 2012

In today's Key Study Passage, Paul is once again reminding the Colossian church of their freedom in Christ. This passage was written in response to those who were adding religious requirements to the practice of Christianity in order to earn God's favor. Legalistic regulations were replacing true faith in the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice. These regulations look effective at face value, but they are ineffective for changing hearts.

Key Study Passage:
Colossians 2:13-23

1. What are some rules and regulations that often replace devotion to God?
2. How does the Bible address these rules and regulations? (See vv. 13-15, 20-23.)
3. How can you tell if you've lost "connection with the head" (v. 19)? And how might that connection be restored once it is lost? (See also John 15:1-17; Eph. 4:11-16.)
4. What does the way you live your life say about what you believe about the grace of God?
5. How can you rest more fully in the finished work of Christ?

Spend Time in Prayer: Ask God to reveal any legalistic tendencies you might have; ask him to give you a fuller sense of his grace that will free you to live for him not out of a sense of duty, but rather out of gratitude for what he has done.

Colossians 2:13-23

13 You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. 14 He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. 15 In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.

16 So don't let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths. 17 For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come. And Christ himself is that reality. 18 Don't let anyone condemn you by insisting on pious self-denial or the worship of angels, saying they have had visions about these things. Their sinful minds have made them proud, 19 and they are not connected to Christ, the head of the body. For he holds the whole body together with its joints and ligaments, and it grows as God nourishes it.

20 You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the spiritual powers of this world. So why do you keep on following the rules of the world, such as, 21 "Don't handle! Don't taste! Don't touch!"? 22 Such rules are mere human teachings about things that deteriorate as we use them. 23 These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious self-denial, and severe bodily discipline. But they provide no help in conquering a person's evil desires.


Prayer for the Week
Savior, teach me that I cannot add anything to my salvation through my religion and good works. Help me to rest in the freedom of the gospel.

Copyright © 2012 by Christianity Today/Men of Integrity magazine.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/moi/2012/002/march/24.24.html

Thought for today - 03/24/2012

LEADERSHIP TIPS (BUSINESS, FAMILY, LIFE)
"You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions."
Naguib Mahfouz

Thought for today - 03/23/2012

BELIEF IN GOD
"The very strength and facility of the pessimists' case at once poses us a problem. If the universe is so bad, or even half so bad, how on earth did human beings ever come to attribute it to the activity of a wise and good Creator? Men are fools, perhaps; but hardly so foolish as that. The direct inference from black to white, from evil flower to virtuous root, from senseless work to a workman infinitely wise, staggers belief. The spectacle of the universe as revealed by experience can never have been the ground of religion: it must have always been something in spite of which religion, acquired from a different source, was held."
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), The Problem of Pain [1944]

Thought for today - 03/22/2012

CONSIDER
“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand, instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your account on your thumb-nail.”
Henry David Thoreau

Thought for today - 03/21/2012

"I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power,
together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and
deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses
knowledge -- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness
of God."
Ephesians 3:17-19

A Better Way to Live

A Better Way to Live

Key Bible Verse: Christ offered himself as an unblemished sacrifice, freeing us from all those dead-end efforts to make ourselves respectable, so that we can live all out for God. (Hebrews 9:14, The message) Dig Deeper: Hebrews 9:1-15

Aladdin and I were both driven to chase what our hearts were set on catching. We both performed before a shouting crowd, some of whom were personally invested in the outcome of our race. His supporters were gamblers who laid down bets with high hopes of financial gain, while mine were parents, teachers, preachers, relatives, and friends with the noblest of intentions who pointed me in the right direction and were hoping that I would remain on the "straight and narrow."

Our idle moments were often spent dreaming of the day when we sank our teeth into the prize. However, the prize eventually proved fraudulent. Even the crowd's approval, which we also enjoyed, proved to be less than enough to satisfy our deepest longing.

Today, just like Aladdin, I'm discovering that there's a far better way to live. Like him, I'm realizing that what I've always longed for actually exists. There is a more nurturing way to live than my religion provided—[surrendering my heart to the unconditional love of Christ]. It's not as neatly arranged or as clearly marked as a circular racetrack, and I can't trust the crowd's response to determine whether I'm performing well. Though it's not safe and predictable, it is a life worth living.

—Fil Anderson in Breaking the Rules

My Response: I will reflect on what it means to live life with a surrendered heart.

Thought to Apply: Pride wants to earn divine acceptance; humility simply believes it.—Bob Laforge (writer)

Adapted from Breaking the Rules (InterVarsity Press, 2010) by permission. All rights reserved by the copyright holder and/or the publisher.

Copyright © 2012 by Christianity Today/Men of Integrity magazine.

Thought for today - 03/20/2012

ON PRAYER
"D. L. Moody used to say, "In our prayers we talk to God, in our Bible study, God talks to us, and we had better let God do most of the talking." We certainly ought to spend more time every day listening to what God has to say to us in His Word than we require Him to spend in listening to what we have to say to Him in our prayers."
R. A. Torrey

Chasing a Fake Rabbit

Chasing a Fake Rabbit

Key Bible Verse: But as I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless—like chasing the wind. (Ecclesiastes 2:11) Dig Deeper: Colossians 2:13-23

In dramatic fashion my life (past and present) is a mirror reflection of Aladdin's life. No. Not the one with the magic lamp. I'm talking about a dog whose story I read in the sports section of a bogus online newspaper. The headline read: "Greyhound Bitterly Disappointed After Finally Catching Mechanical Rabbit." The journalist covering the story reported that Aladdin, a greyhound who had spent years racing at the Jacksonville Dog Track in Jacksonville, Florida, had become devastated by the outcome, when he finally succeeded in catching the rabbit, only to discover that it was not real.

"Boy do I feel stupid" was the first comment Aladdin offered reporters. "I've wasted my life chasing around this … mechanical rabbit …. But that rabbit represented something to me. And now, to find out it wasn't even a real rabbit, well it's just devastating …. I'm not going to keep chasing plastic bunnies for the rest of my life. There are real bunnies out there, waiting to be eaten …. It's time I started to live a little."

Trust me. I understand Aladdin's despair and determination. The appalling realization that religion was incapable of providing me a transformed life was devastating. [continued 3/20]

—Fil Anderson in Breaking the Rules

My Response: I will ask the Holy Spirit to search my heart and reveal any "fake rabbits" I am chasing.

Adapted from Breaking the Rules (InterVarsity Press, 2010) by permission. All rights reserved by the copyright holder and/or the publisher.

Copyright © 2012 by Christianity Today/Men of Integrity magazine.

Window Dressing

Window Dressing
Theme of the week: Losing My Religion
Sunday, March 18, 2012

Who Said It … Fil Anderson

Fil Anderson is a spiritual director, conference speaker, writer, and retreat leader. He is the founder of Journey Resources and author of Running on Empty and Breaking the Rules. Educated at the University of North Carolina in Wilmington and Fuller Theological Seminary, Fil served on the staff of Young Life for 25 years. He and his wife, Lucie, live in Greensboro. They are the parents of three adult children.

What he Said … Window Dressing

Religion has only enough power to change the appearance of things. Religion has never been able to get down into and change anyone's heart. It's both a humbling and freeing thing to acknowledge there's nothing we can do that reaches beyond the appearance of things. Only Jesus has the power and resources needed to change what's inside us.

For many of us, religion becomes a container that securely houses "the rules" for successful living. The rules provide the answers to the how-to-please-and-appease-God questions that religion emphasizes. When this happens, our life is reduced to a set of principles, Bible verses, moral absolutes, and formulas. The unmistakable conclusion is that once the rules are understood, we can relax and feel secure because God is no longer a mystery or beyond our grasp. As long as we remain focused on surface issues, life goes well. However, when we hit a stumbling block or two, we face the emptiness of our interior life. Suddenly, "the rules" no longer seem to apply, our life begins disintegrating, and we're forced to change.

Key Study Passage: Colossians 2:13-23

Adapted from Breaking the Rules (InterVarsity Press, 2010) by permission. All rights reserved by the copyright holder and/or the publisher. May not be reproduced.   

Copyright © 2012 by Christianity Today/Men of Integrity magazine.

Thought for today - 03/18/2012

CONSIDER

"You meet a thousand times in life with those who, in dealing with any religious question, make at once their appeal to reason, and insist on forthwith rejecting aught that lies beyond its sphere -- without, however, being able to render any clear account of the nature and proper limits of the knowledge thus derived, or of the relation in which such knowledge stands to the religious needs of men. I would invite you, therefore, to inquire seriously whether such persons are not really bowing down before an idol of the mind, which, while itself of very questionable worth, demands as much implicit faith from its worshipers as divine revelation itself." 

Theodor Christlieb (1833-1889)

Thought for today - 03/17/2012

VERSES TO PONDER

"We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him. We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true--even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life."
1 John 5:18-20 (NIV)

Path of Life Ministries Celebrates It's 400th Weekly Issue Of CONNECTIONS NEWS

400 Issues and standing strong!

Since its Debut edition in 2004, CONNECTIONS has reached thousands around the world "Connecting man to man to God."

Our mission is to lead men to Jesus Christ and provide opportunity for Christian men to grow in their faith and minister to others.

CONNECTIONS is a periodic newsletter of announcements, news, recommendations, articles, and other information helpful to men in our spiritual growth.

We continue to pray that it has been a help in connecting you with God and with other men. We do not leave our sisters out, there are plenty of things going on that will catch your eye as well.

So, buckle-up, grab a cup of coffee and take the journey with us.

Thank you so much for allowing me to be a part of your life each week for the last 8 years.

I pray that God will continue to bless and keep you in His Word.


Min. Frank Coleman
frank@frankcoleman.com
Path Of Life Ministries
http://www.pathoflifeministries.org
http://connectionsnews.wordpress.com/

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Milestone Links:

Issue 1 on May 16, 2004
http://www.pathoflifeministries.net/connections/msmconnectionsdebut.htm

Issue 100 on April 16, 2006
http://www.pathoflifeministries.net/connections/060416.htm

Issue 200 on March 23, 2008
http://www.pathoflifeministries.net/connections/080323.html

Issue 300 on April 18, 2010
http://www.pathoflifeministries.net/connections/100418.html

Issue 400 on March 18, 2012
http://www.pathoflifeministries.net/connections/120318.html

Thought for today - 03/16/2012

LEADERSHIP TIPS (BUSINESS, FAMILY, LIFE)

"Before you become a leader, success is all about growing yourself. After you become a leader, success is about growing others." 

Jack Welch

Thought for today - 03/15/2012

CONSIDER
"The life of holiness is the life of faith in which the believer, with a
deepening knowledge of his own sin and helplessness apart from Christ,
increasingly casts himself upon the Lord, and seeks the power of the
Spirit and the wisdom and comfort of the Bible to battle against the
world, the flesh, and the devil."
Edmund P. Clowney (b.1917), "The Church"

Thought for today - 03/14/2012

VERSES TO PONDER
"We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him. We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true--even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life."
1 John 5:18-20 (NIV)

Can Any Organization Survive With 16% Effectiveness?

Can Any Organization Survive With 16% Effectiveness?

A central mission of the organized Christian church is “to make disciples.”

However, only 16% of church-attending adults are involved in discipleship. Among men the picture is, if possible, even bleaker—men are only half as likely as women to be involved (Barna, 2000). The Christian church has not been effective in making disciples, especially among men, and therefore has failed significantly to achieve one of its central missions.

What does it mean that only 16% of churched people are being discipled? Well, what would you think if only 16% of our Army’s infantry could effectively fire a rifle? Or if only 16% of the patients admitted to your favorite hospital got well? Or suppose your university was only able to graduate 16% of their students? What if 84% of the leaks a plumbing company fixed in your home kept leaking? What if 84% of the time you had to watch a fuzzy TV screen?

Of course, we would go ballistic. Those organizations would be considered outright failures. Yet the Christian church has been shielded from such scrutiny, and the accountability that could lead to improved effectiveness.

We are ineffective because we are not doing what Jesus wants us to do. We are neglecting the Great Commission. Can any organization survive with only 16% effectiveness? We must challenge church, pastors, seminaries, and denominational leaders to lead us back to the core mission, “Go and make disciples.” Therein lies the secret of an effective church.

Thank you Pat Morley

Thought for today - 03/13/2012

CONSIDER
“There are few stronger indications of ignorance of the power and evil of sin than the confident assertion of our ability to resist and subdue it.”
Charles Hedge

Thought for today - 03/12/2012

"Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is
willing, but the body is weak."
Mark 14:38 (NIV)

Thought for today - 03/11/2012

The bravest thing you can do when you are not brave is to profess courage and act accordingly.

Thought for today - 03/09/2012

VERSE TO PONDER
“Make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.”
2 Peter 1:5-7

Thought for today -

CONSIDER
"You and I were created to tell the truth about God by reflecting His likeness. That is normality. How many lies have you told about God today?"
Ian Thomas

Thought for today - 03/07/2012

VERSE TO PONDER
"My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry."
James 1:19

Thought for today - 03/06/2012

"Anyone can count the seeds in a melon. It takes vision to count the
melons in a seed."
Unknown

Thought for today - 03/05/2012

 

FAITH
"Faith is essentially the practice of trust. And our routine failure to properly trust an infinitely wise God reveals something of our own perversity. We all desire to control our circumstances, and faith is a surrendering of that control. So we naturally tend to rebel against faith. But God graciously counteracts this tendency by nurturing us. Like a good parent, he consistently demonstrates his love. And we, like kids, must trust him on this basis." 
James S. Spiegel, Gum, Geckos, and God: A Family's Adventure in Space, Time, and Faith

Thought for today - 03/04/2012

BE GRATEFUL
"To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy,
but to be grateful for all of our lives -- the good as well as the bad,
the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as
well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections -- that
requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only truly grateful people
when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present
moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people
we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot
claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for.
Let us not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where
we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a
loving God."
Henri Nouwen

Thought for today - 03/03/2012

 

LAY DOWN OUR RIGHTS
"There are some things we view as our rights that really aren't. We have the right to speak our minds, but does that mean we always should really say whatever is on our minds? Do we have the right to hurt people with our words just because they're true? As Christians we are to lay down our self-interest and consider others more important than ourselves (see Philippians 2:3-4). This is so different from our culture and what we usually feel in our hearts. But if we're to follow the example Jesus set for us, sacrifice for others can't be dismissed." 
Zach Hunter, Be the Change: Your Guide to Freeing Slaves and Changing the World

Thought for today - 03/02/2012

 

"Fear the Lord and you will do everything well." 
Shepherd of Hermas

When Apostasy Runs Amok

When Apostasy Runs Amok

By Jan Markell

www.olivetreeviews.org

March 1, 2012

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In the early days of all things "purpose driven," I didn't say much. I was, admittedly, skeptical. I had a hunch churches might experience the promised growth thanks to the movement behind "purpose driven," the seeker-sensitive movement; however, it might not be a healthy growth. But as the years moved on, I started hearing about wreckage. Calls and e-mails told me that beloved congregations were caving to all things unsound and even unscriptural. Members were told that the ends justified the means. In other words, numbers trumped everything.

 

So, I began to watch Pastor Warren more carefully. When he praised the freedom in Syria in 2006, I just shuddered. When he spoke to the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and withheld the gospel, I reacted again. ISNA is a front for the Muslim Brotherhood. When he told Alan Colmes to "give Jesus a try for 60 days," I came close to writing him off.  

 

When Rick began featuring occultic "New Agers" in his church sanctuary in January 2011, I further realized that "America's Pastor" wasn't as sound as he had been portrayed.  Rick allowed a year-long effort at fitness to headquarter out of Saddleback Church and concluded the event by cheering that Saddleback members lost 250,000 pounds. Rick, some souls might have been lost during that time because Drs. Amen, Hymen and Oz represent the dark side of the world, not the light of Jesus. These men are secularists. At one time, Dr. Oz even had a link on his Web site that took you to a place where you could learn how to talk to the dead.

 

But Rick did it again coming out of the shoot into 2012 and I am being a bit outspoken about this.  He's leading an effort to heal divisions between Christians and Muslims by partnering with Southern California mosques. He is proposing theological principles that include acknowledging Christians and Muslims worship the same God.

 

A Saddleback Church spokesman says this effort "is a path to end the 1,400 years of misunderstanding between Muslims and Christians." The root of this madness goes back to "A Christian Response to a Common Word Between Us and You"  This was a joint effort between Muslims and Christians to deepen dialogue and relations at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. Pastor Warren was one of the signers, along with hundreds of other Christian leaders. They also acknowledged that neither Muslim nor Christian would try to evangelize each other. Just like that, evangelism evaporates in the minds of major Christian leaders. We've got to all get along! Rodney King, you would be proud of us!     

 

One of the statements of this "Common Word" effort was that religious peace would bring world peace. No, the return of Christ will bring world peace.  Evangelical signers of this document should have known better. 

 

I stand with Joseph Farah on this issue. He states, "If you compare the personality of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob -- the Christian and Hebrew God -- with Allah, Islam's god, the contrast could not be more stark. The Hebrew-Christian God is characterized by love. The Islamic god is characterized by war and vengeance. The Hebrew-Christian God provides a clear path to redemption and personal salvation in a fallen world -- through repentance. The Islamic god provides only one certain path to personal salvation -- martyrdom. The Hebrew-Christian God elevates the status of women. The Islamic god does the opposite.

"The Hebrew-Christian God encourages followers to be a light to the whole world. The Islamic god encourages jihad on the non-Islamic world and, ultimately and unambiguously, calls for the death of unconverted Christians and Jews."

 

Farah concludes, "Into this breech, Warren seeks common theological ground. It would be easier to find common theological ground between Christians and atheists than Christians and Muslims."

  

What becomes immediately apparent is that while making friends with Muslims is certainly an admirable goal, Warren has prioritized the three goals of making friends, building peace and working together on shared social service projects over and above the commandment of Jesus to baptize and make disciples of the whole world.

  

Author Joel Richardson says that rather than obeying the Great Commission and creating disciples of the Jesus of the Bible, Warren is "building a Tower of Babel that leads to nowhere."

 

Richardson concludes, "I would agree in that when Christian groups join together with other groups that have such fundamentally divergent goals and doctrines, the danger is always compromise. Throughout the Old Testament, the commandment of God to the Israelites was to never enter into agreements, covenants or marriages with the surrounding peoples, lest the Israelites would find themselves led away to worship other gods. In such a postmodern culture, these concepts may sound amazingly intolerant, but the wisdom of the Lord's prescription against treaties and partnerships is seen in Warren's agreement not to evangelize his Muslim 'friends' and co-laborers for mutual social causes."

 

The ultimate hope of Christianity is the Lord's return. Islam awaits a Mahdi who would eradicate Christianity. Thus, I agree with Richardson's conclusion: "If Warren was pursuing friendships for the purpose of evangelism, I would openly stand with him in this goal. But I think it is clear that Warren is pursuing an agenda far more in line with the spirit of the age than with the goals of the early Christian Church."

 

Being a critic of Rick Warren costs one plenty! I have lost friends and other loved ones because I have not always been supportive of all things purpose-driven, or market-driven church growth. Do I think Rick loves God and is serving Him to the best of his ability? Yes. I just think "Peace Plans" and global initiatives don't belong in the house of God. Cozying up to Mullahs and uttering words they want to hear produces nothing but a laughing Mullah. Such agendas morph into ideas and plans that are counter productive to God's ultimate call on the church.

   

What we can agree upon is that Pastor Rick Warren needs our prayers. While he vehemently denies that he is involved in the Chrislam movement, actions speak louder than words. My radio co-host, Eric Barger, addressed that topic both on air and at my "Understanding the Times 2011" conference. Contact us for more info. We have complete CD or DVD sets of all conference speakers.