Sunday, July 20, 2008
Hesed Now T-shirts
We are excited to now have official Hesed Now t-shirts available to you with our new logo on it. The logo has arrows that span the globe pointing both vertically and horizontally (i.e. "Becoming Vertically Horizontal"). The best news is that these shirts are only FIVE American dollars (even with a slumping economy). If they need to be shipped, then we will ship it at cost, and not a penny more. We only have adult sizes available at the moment (S, M, L, XL). There are five color combinations to choose from and you can check them out on our t-shirt page. So think of it this way: you can buy five different shirts for the amount you get other t-shirts in stores. Please support Hesed Now by purchasing a few for family and friends. We are trying to use these as a way to promote our site as well as to promote hesed. You can order a shirt by emailing info@hesednow.com or by writing to our address at Hesed Now Ministries, PO Box 23164, Waco, TX 76702. Thanks in advance for the support!
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Unsung Heroes by Brady
Have you noticed that all of the recent superhero movies lately are different from the ones 20 and 30 years ago? New movies like Hancock and Hellboy 2 have the protagonist being slightly less than our memories of Christopher Reeve as Superman. Even the new Spiderman and Batman movies seem to be darker and have the main character always doing deep soul searching, wondering if they should continue fighting evil. I think this phenomenon is happening in more places than our local theater though; I believe it is because we continually ruin the reputation of any who might be able to achieve this status. There is also a blurring line on who the actual hero is and who the villain is. The students we work with are in desperate need of a few heroes, and I truly believe the ones that have the power to play this role are the people they live with. In this day and age, if you are involved in your kid’s life, working hard to provide for their needs and teaching them the truths about God, then you are doing something truly heroic by not settling for mediocrity. There is a real enemy and an actual struggle, and it is one that needs a heroic effort from you. Rest assured that your work is being watched, and your consistency in the daily grind makes all the difference in the world.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
False Prophets by Clint
Lately I’ve been fascinated with false prophets. I am aware of the fact that’s a strange way to start a blog, but it’s something that has been troubling me lately. In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus states, “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven will enter. 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.’” (Matt. 7:21-23) This text is a startling text. It is one of those scary texts in scripture in which you read it and say, “uh-oh.” How can I know God, or how can God know me, when He doesn’t even know those who are prophesying, exorcising, and using His name? Like most, I have never cast out a demon, and I haven’t ever really tried my hand at prophesying, either.
Lately, I’ve come across some videos on the internet of certain preachers and evangelists doing some pretty crazy things. One video had a man baptizing people in the name of the Father, Son, and ‘Bam!’ I don’t know what ‘Bam’ is, and the video was very strange and unbiblical. The sad part is, many treat such leaders as true prophets and true voices of God strictly because of their charisma and showiness. Such leaders are certainly invoking the name of God in everything they do, but is God truly present in their activities? Psychologists would tell you that the sense of belonging and the power of suggestion can drive people to do all sorts of things. Furthermore, emotional experiences can captivate people and convince people of all sorts of things. False leaders prey on such manipulation. Certainly faith is emotional, and beautiful worship comes from a passionate heart, but faith is rooted in obedience and truth. Paul writes, “Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else.” (2 Cor. 9:13, emphasis mine) When Christ teaches the disciples how to pray in the Lord’s Prayer, the emphasis of the prayer is God’s will. Jesus was faithful to pray in God’s will, even in facing death. In the Lord’s Prayer, we see that God’s will is for us to need Him. We need His forgiveness, and His daily bread. Being obedient to God is following His law through Jesus Christ AND being dependent on Him. God is not to be portrayed as a name or being that we use so we can do things for our glory.
Have you ever known a “name-dropper?” You know, the guy or girl that insists he or she is really close with someone popular or well known. They always drop the name and say, “Yeah, we’re really close.” Or, “Yeah, we used to hang out almost every day.” I get the image of high school freshman claiming they hang out with the star senior quarterback in the summer. The thing is, the quarterback might not even know the freshman’s name. So when Jesus says, “I never knew you,” what does that mean? It means that a person can do all sorts of things in His name, and a person can claim to have His blessing and His power, but it doesn’t mean He knows that person. In examining the gospels, you get a clear picture of the people that Jesus knows. He knows people who clearly need Him. He knows people that are honest about their brokenness. He knows those who are humble before Him and do not seek Him for earthly power and prestige. He knows the hurting, the sick, the weary, the broken, the honest, the thief on the cross next to him. And yes, Jesus does know those who prophesy and do great things in His name, but He knows them as they come before Him in need of grace. And those who do things in His name with their own gain in mind while manipulating the faith and hope of others, they are just name dropping for popularity.
Lately, I’ve come across some videos on the internet of certain preachers and evangelists doing some pretty crazy things. One video had a man baptizing people in the name of the Father, Son, and ‘Bam!’ I don’t know what ‘Bam’ is, and the video was very strange and unbiblical. The sad part is, many treat such leaders as true prophets and true voices of God strictly because of their charisma and showiness. Such leaders are certainly invoking the name of God in everything they do, but is God truly present in their activities? Psychologists would tell you that the sense of belonging and the power of suggestion can drive people to do all sorts of things. Furthermore, emotional experiences can captivate people and convince people of all sorts of things. False leaders prey on such manipulation. Certainly faith is emotional, and beautiful worship comes from a passionate heart, but faith is rooted in obedience and truth. Paul writes, “Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else.” (2 Cor. 9:13, emphasis mine) When Christ teaches the disciples how to pray in the Lord’s Prayer, the emphasis of the prayer is God’s will. Jesus was faithful to pray in God’s will, even in facing death. In the Lord’s Prayer, we see that God’s will is for us to need Him. We need His forgiveness, and His daily bread. Being obedient to God is following His law through Jesus Christ AND being dependent on Him. God is not to be portrayed as a name or being that we use so we can do things for our glory.
Have you ever known a “name-dropper?” You know, the guy or girl that insists he or she is really close with someone popular or well known. They always drop the name and say, “Yeah, we’re really close.” Or, “Yeah, we used to hang out almost every day.” I get the image of high school freshman claiming they hang out with the star senior quarterback in the summer. The thing is, the quarterback might not even know the freshman’s name. So when Jesus says, “I never knew you,” what does that mean? It means that a person can do all sorts of things in His name, and a person can claim to have His blessing and His power, but it doesn’t mean He knows that person. In examining the gospels, you get a clear picture of the people that Jesus knows. He knows people who clearly need Him. He knows people that are honest about their brokenness. He knows those who are humble before Him and do not seek Him for earthly power and prestige. He knows the hurting, the sick, the weary, the broken, the honest, the thief on the cross next to him. And yes, Jesus does know those who prophesy and do great things in His name, but He knows them as they come before Him in need of grace. And those who do things in His name with their own gain in mind while manipulating the faith and hope of others, they are just name dropping for popularity.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Wake Up! by Brady
“Sleeping is giving in, no matter what the time is. Sleeping is giving in, so lift those heavy eyelids.” These are the lyrics to a song by a band named Arcade Fire. What in the world is this band trying to say? Let’s suppose that you are one of the lucky ones that gets to live the average 27,058 days (or 74.1 years) on earth, that you will spend 8117 of those days (or around 22.2 years) sleeping. To be honest, I am one of the world’s worst when it comes to sleeping in. I love sleeping so much that I would probably choose to sleep 12 hours a day if I could. But recently I’ve started to realize that this affinity for sleep may be an escape route built into my life that I need battle. I’m beginning to think that, no matter how much I need and love it, sleep actually might be a tool of the enemy.
Paul Valery, a French poet/philosopher, once said, “The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.” But maybe the problem with most people today is that we have lost our ability to dream while we are awake. I’m not sure if it is because we do not believe that we can make a difference anymore or if it is because we are all gradually losing our belief in a transcendent God, but we all are guilty of attempting to numb ourselves to the world’s pain around us. All I need to point to is America’s obsession with one of its favorite pastimes: golf. Ronald Sider points out that it would take $27 billion spent over eight years to prevent 30 million people from becoming infected with HIV/AIDS. This figure is far less than what we spend per year on golf alone. I have seen far too many people become absolutely obsessed with hitting a straight shot on lush grass because they can forget all of their problems while they’re out on the course. While I play golf every once and a while, how many people do you know that play recreationally and don’t let it dominate the majority of their thoughts and time?
Another way I believe that we are “sleeping in” is by the amount of time spent watching TV. The average American spends 4 hours a day (108,232 hours or 12.4 years of your life) wasting time watching TV. Again, while I do not believe TV is the “demon box,” how sickening is it to lose 12 years of your life to inactivity in front of a lifeless screen! We will spend time at work or school thinking about who the bachelor is going to give a rose to (and then not even date after the show is over), but we won’t let the thought that over half of the world lives on less than $2 a day enter our minds. How can this be?
There is an age old question that asks, “What do you give the person who has everything?” In a society where our poor are actually rich comparatively, the answer is “any mindless entertainment which will numb me to the surrounding world.” In “The Broken American Male,” Rabbi Shmuley Boteach says, “The absence of intimate relationship and an inspiring institutional structure explains why deadening ourselves to life has become the all-American pastime, embraced by all strata of society. We’re just not very happy with ourselves or with our lives, so we choose various forms of escape, the drugs of choice being TV, movies, alcohol, marijuana, the Internet, pornography, impulse purchases, and celebrity gossip.” (pg. 61)
As a society, I believe we are all collectively at a crossroad. We are a point which Zechariah reached when he said, “Then the angel who had been talking with me returned and woke me, as though I had been asleep.” (Zechariah 4:1) As a nation, we are the person on the reality TV show about to eat our own feces so someone else can benefit from our stupidity for 5 minutes of entertainment. Someone needs to snap us out of our idiotic ways and we need to wake up so we can see what is happening in the world around us.
The Bible provides us a different worldview, a greater reality to live in, and calls us to live life to its fullest. In Ephesians 5:14, Paul says, “for the light makes everything visible. This is why it is said, “Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”” He is saying that if you take the risk to get out of your spiritual bed, Christ will help you live out this deeper reality. Or maybe Jesus and the Bible are too archaic for you; in that case, Arcade Fire says it this way: “People try and hide the light underneath the covers.” So awake, O sleeper; this is your wake up call. It’s time to get out of bed so that you can start dreaming.
Paul Valery, a French poet/philosopher, once said, “The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.” But maybe the problem with most people today is that we have lost our ability to dream while we are awake. I’m not sure if it is because we do not believe that we can make a difference anymore or if it is because we are all gradually losing our belief in a transcendent God, but we all are guilty of attempting to numb ourselves to the world’s pain around us. All I need to point to is America’s obsession with one of its favorite pastimes: golf. Ronald Sider points out that it would take $27 billion spent over eight years to prevent 30 million people from becoming infected with HIV/AIDS. This figure is far less than what we spend per year on golf alone. I have seen far too many people become absolutely obsessed with hitting a straight shot on lush grass because they can forget all of their problems while they’re out on the course. While I play golf every once and a while, how many people do you know that play recreationally and don’t let it dominate the majority of their thoughts and time?
Another way I believe that we are “sleeping in” is by the amount of time spent watching TV. The average American spends 4 hours a day (108,232 hours or 12.4 years of your life) wasting time watching TV. Again, while I do not believe TV is the “demon box,” how sickening is it to lose 12 years of your life to inactivity in front of a lifeless screen! We will spend time at work or school thinking about who the bachelor is going to give a rose to (and then not even date after the show is over), but we won’t let the thought that over half of the world lives on less than $2 a day enter our minds. How can this be?
There is an age old question that asks, “What do you give the person who has everything?” In a society where our poor are actually rich comparatively, the answer is “any mindless entertainment which will numb me to the surrounding world.” In “The Broken American Male,” Rabbi Shmuley Boteach says, “The absence of intimate relationship and an inspiring institutional structure explains why deadening ourselves to life has become the all-American pastime, embraced by all strata of society. We’re just not very happy with ourselves or with our lives, so we choose various forms of escape, the drugs of choice being TV, movies, alcohol, marijuana, the Internet, pornography, impulse purchases, and celebrity gossip.” (pg. 61)
As a society, I believe we are all collectively at a crossroad. We are a point which Zechariah reached when he said, “Then the angel who had been talking with me returned and woke me, as though I had been asleep.” (Zechariah 4:1) As a nation, we are the person on the reality TV show about to eat our own feces so someone else can benefit from our stupidity for 5 minutes of entertainment. Someone needs to snap us out of our idiotic ways and we need to wake up so we can see what is happening in the world around us.
The Bible provides us a different worldview, a greater reality to live in, and calls us to live life to its fullest. In Ephesians 5:14, Paul says, “for the light makes everything visible. This is why it is said, “Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”” He is saying that if you take the risk to get out of your spiritual bed, Christ will help you live out this deeper reality. Or maybe Jesus and the Bible are too archaic for you; in that case, Arcade Fire says it this way: “People try and hide the light underneath the covers.” So awake, O sleeper; this is your wake up call. It’s time to get out of bed so that you can start dreaming.
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