Working Miracles in Jesus' Name

Someone was casting out demons in the name of Jesus when the dicsiples saw him.  They probably said something like, "You can't use Jesus' name to cast out demons--you're not one of us.  We're disciples.  We're the only ones allowed to use Jesus' name." 

They tell Jesus what happened, probably thinking he'll give them kudos for protecting the "Jesus Inc." brand name.  But Jesus says the following:

Mar 9:39 But Jesus said, "Do not forbid him, for no one who works a miracle in My name can soon afterward speak evil of Me.

Jesus says, "Yeah, they can use my name and the power behind it to do miracles.  Even if they aren't my followers (yet)."

I've tended to be more like the disciples and think that the more spiritual I am the more access I should have to the power of the Holy Spirit.  But Jesus says I shouldn't be surprised if I see miracles from people who aren't Christ followers.  I suppose that also extends to Christ followers who are immature or who have doctrine I think is off-base.

In another place Jesus tells about people who prophesy and work miracles in his name without knowing him.  Jesus says they won't make it into heaven even though they moved in spiritual power.  Being known by Jesus and following him is what saves us. 

So if the non Christ followers or immature can work miracles and prophesy I would think that mature followers should have even more of the gifts of the Spirit at work in us.  Sadly, I haven't seen that in my life. 

So I'm on a journey to unlearn my spiritual prejudices and accept the fact that if Jesus knows me I can do the impossible.

Rollin' Down the Highway

God promises a highway through the wilderness in Isaiah 35.  The desert will bloom, the lame will jump for joy.  And the highway leads to Zion, the city of God.

The unclean won't be able to walk on this road.  It will be for "others".  When you say "others" it's not really clear who these people are.  Except we are told they are not "unclean".  And the promise is that even a fool can find his way if he's on this highway.  No Garmin GPS needed.

The ones who walk this road are the redeemed--those bought back from being in hock to their enemies.

This highway was first for the nation of Israel.  It tells of their return from being captives in Babylon.  But "others" gives this promise a bigger meaning.  Those who follow Jesus are also the redeemed.  So we Christ followers should claim this promise as well.

To often I've let my times in the wilderness be all about feeling dry and alone.  I was not even as smart as the fool who stumbled onto this highway.

The promise for us is that the wilderness becomes a place of springs and a place of healing for us.

I'm asking the Spirit to let me see the highway and not get discouraged if all around me is wasteland.  The word of God promises springs of water in the desert.  I'm one of his redeemed so I'm trusting that he will put me on that highway. 

And the fact that those redeemed are "others" and not exclusivel

Rest

Photo by liber(thepoet);, Flickr

Isa 30:15 For thus says the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel: "In returning and rest you shall be saved; In quietness and confidence shall be your strength." But you would not

Hbr 4:11 Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.

Resting on Jesus is a message we heard from Joseph Prince earlier this year.  The Spirit has been speaking to me for years about not relying on my  own works.  But I've only started to hear the past few months.  The drive to do is strong.  That is the desire to do things in an effort to gain favor from God.

God still expects me to do, he doesn't want lazy sons.  But I'm learning to do the things I do because of my rest in him, not because my doing earns me any points in my "God account".

What struck me was the verse in Isaiah is saying the same thing.  The message of resting in God's grace is fully expressed in the New Covenant Jesus gave by his death and resurrection.  But God has been about us resting in him even from the beginning. 

Wisdom From the Foundation of the World

I’m reading Pov. 3 about the value of wisdom.  This verse stuck out to me.

19The Lord by wisdom founded the earth;

By understanding He established the heavens;

I was reminded of the verse in Rev. 13:8 that the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world.  So the wisdom of God in creating all things includes salvation through Jesus.  

As I read this I get the sense that there is a truth here deeper than I can understand in words. You see, I've always thought of wisdom and salvation as separate. I know my salvation is settled when I was 4 years old. You know the standard question: "If you died tonight do you know where you'll go?"   I never worried about that.

So when I read in Proverbs all the cool things you get when you ask for wisdom, I always thought of it as seeking how to live better. It seemed to me like a way to keep me on the straight and narrow and avoid the immoral woman that Proverbs talks about. That woman drags you to hell, and I didn't want that. So wisdom, to me, was an intellectual reason to keep the law and follow the rules.

But God knows I can't follow the rules. It doesn't matter if I'm saved or not. I'll break the law even when wisdom tells me that it's a stupid thing to do.

So I need mercy and grace. And the sacrifice of Jesus "from the foundation of the world" means that my need of grace is built into the system of the universe. Wisdom isn't something I add on to my salvation to make me live right. Wisdom is grabbing hold of Jesus' sacrifice for the power it gives me to be a son of God. And sons of God are heirs to his Kingdom. Sons of God have authority and power.

Wisdom is living by the Spirit of Jesus.

Word for 2012 in Review

Mine: adj.  That which belongs to me.  This was my word for 2012.

It's one of the first words we learn to say.  Spend time with most toddlers & you'll hear this word spoken with passion.  Parents work hard to teach the concept of "sharing" because no one likes to be around a selfish brat.

So why did I choose such a selfish word for myself?  It comes from Deuteronomy 29:29-- "The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever."

The past several years I've picked words that did little for me.  So I'm pleased and somewhat surprised that this year's word had such an impact on me.  Perhaps the power of this word came from the fact that it wasn't a "motivational" word like the previous words I chose.  Those words had the power of New Year's resolutions--they were my efforts to change or improve some area of my life that was lacking.

The word "mine" was rooted in a quest for revelation.  I wanted to learn what God has given to me--what is mine.

If I wrote out everything God revealed to me I would bore you all and take more time than I can give.  But the word that sums it up for me is "grace".  I've known the concept & doctrine of grace as written in the Bible.  I've studied it and taught about it.  I believe in salvation through grace by faith.  But knowing and possessing are two different things.

Knowing grace didn't keep me from feeling like I need to do good things & religious things to earn God's favor.  Knowing grace meant that when I fall short of good I felt unworthy to talk to God.  Knowing grace was better than not knowing grace, but it fell way short of possessing grace.

The Holy Spirit talked to me about grace through the parable of the prodigal son.  What I realized was that neither son truly knew the grace of his father.  The younger thought he'd have to be demoted to a servant to come back home.  The older thought that his faithful service earned him favor.

 What the father said to both his sons was, "Everything I have is yours."  Somewhere along the line of going through this year I learned to possess this promise.  It is grace.

List Making & Getting Sidetracked Anyway

Brenda is a list maker. She likes the feeling of checking things off her list. And if she does a task not on her list she likes to add it to the list and then check it off. Today was our first full day of working on our house and so Brenda was working on her list last night when she stopped and asked if I had a list of things I wanted to accomplish for the day.

Now, I've had an on and off relationship with lists. Brenda has convinced me of their value in keeping my mind focused on the task to be completed. But my natural state is to flow through the day and take what comes. On most days I can blissfully ignore whatever list I've got and work on things that seem to be more interesting. But the fact that I have a list helps me answer Brenda when she asks what I plan to accomplish.

So when I said, “I'm keeping the list in my head,” I could see she wasn't too pleased. But when I explained that I only had one item on my list, she settled down and listened. My one item for today was to get water working in the house.

Not counting the water meter, we had leaking pipes in 4 places. One leak was in the pipes going to the shower in the master bath—and everything in the master bath is changing. Another leak was for the bar sink in the family room. We can live without that for quite a while. But we had two leaks in the pipes going to the upstairs bathroom. This bathroom we will have to use while the rest of the house is torn up. These pipes had to be fixed.

We're planning to tear out the ceiling in the master bedroom and bath, so I didn't have to make holes we could patch back in. I ripped down the biggest pieces I could. Two pipes had burst because of freezing. The bank must have winterized the house well after the first hard freeze. Once I found the pipes it was a simple job to patch them.

And Brenda ignored her list. She worked on the garage. The dirt and cobwebs bugged her so she vacuumed it out. As she looked at the condition of the walls she decided that they should get a new coat of paint. And now was the best time to do it—before we fill it with our stuff. We talked briefly of going to find our scrapple paints in storage. But we instead opted for a miss-tint gallon from Home Depot—mixed with a gallon of cheap Glidden. As we were leaving the manager asked us what color we decided to paint the garage. I held up the cans and said, “Whatever color we get when we mix these 2 gallons together.” He just shook his head and laughed. We are well known in the Home Depot paint department.

The garage looks good and the water works. We're happy, tired and sore. We're going to have to develop our rehab & construction muscles.

We closed on our house yesterday--the Friday before Memorial Weekend. We were pushing hard to get closed so we could have the weekend to start work on the house. Jackie White, from Accurate Title, worked hard to make this happen. Also, the hand of God was present to line up the timing of events and contacts we had to make. Jackie said there were 4 title companies involved on the seller's side--and one of them appears to be run from a call center in India.

Our first order of business is to get the mold out of the house. We got a dumpster ordered & went Friday night to turn on the water and get started. I knew there was one place I had to fix because the water line that supplies the ice maker was crimped with a pair of vice-grip pliers. I cut and capped that line. But when I turned the main valve a thin spray of water came from the water meter. The bank must have been slow in getting the house winterized and so water froze and broke the meter.

We decided we could live with the small leak for the time we checked out the rest of the house. We turned on the second valve and heard the ringing tone of water flowing through the pipes. We worked quickly through the house checking for flow in each of the sinks. Those on the main level and in the basement were doing fine so I increased the flow and we kept watching to see how they would handle the full flow. But when I checked the upstairs bath, we had nothing getting there. A few minutes later we discovered why--all of the water was going into the master bedroom and bath ceiling. Short video HERE.

We had planned to tear out ceilings in both rooms as well as all the walls of the master bath, but we didn't plan on this work being the first thing we did. But we're learning to roll with whatever comes along. I'm going to install shut-off valves so we can get water to some of the house. Brenda will proceed with her plan of scraping the popcorn texture off the ceilings in the upstairs bedrooms to get them ready for us to live in while we work on the rest of the house. Then I'll start tearing holes in the ceilings to find the broken pipes.

We didn't get the hydrogen peroxide ordered in time for this weekend, but Brenda read online that Borax will kill mold. We're going to do a surface treatment with a Borax solution for now & will use the peroxide when we start tearing into the places we know are saturated with mold.