1984-85 Fashion

Reminds me so much of high school...

Is this what modern demonic possession looks like?

"Trust me, I've got the anointing!"

Listened to the Strange Fire Panel Q&A Session 1 this morning (John MacArthur, Todd Friel, Justin Peters, and Steve Lawson). Had to go dig up the following in the transcript as this was something that's been in my craw lately. When attempting to point out errors in teaching propagated by someone, the attitude was that the person in question "has the anointing" as if it means it's OK for some to teach contrary to scripture because they have a special line to God that allows them to correct His Word (at the same time with the implication that I do not have an "anointing" as if to render my discernment incorrect.) Anyway, here is the relevant response that made me want to jump up and shout "Amen Brother!":

'Well Scripture teaches that if you are a Christian, you’re anointed. If you've been regenerated by God’s Holy Spirit, you are anointed. It is not a feeling, it’s not a buzz, it’s not an experience, it’s a reality. First John 2:20, “But you have an anointing from the Holy One and you all know…” this is not for a select few, it’s not that some Christians have a super special anointing that the rest of the common Christians don’t have. That is…that is a division of Christians into classes, the haves and the have-nots, you know to say, “Oh well, So-and-so is anointed, he has a great anointing." 

If you’re in Christ, you are anointed. There’s no division of classes within Christianity. We are one in Christ, the ground is level at the foot of the cross. So this is a false understanding of a biblical reality. It’s used to manipulate people and it’s used to make light their emotions and their behavior and it’s also used to elevate the whatever false teacher you’re looking at, elevate him to a status that is above everyone else. He has a different source of authority. He has a unique access to God and he gets divine revelation knowledge from the Holy Spirit, from Christ, this pipeline from heaven to various false teachers, and that is…that is their way of insulating themselves against biblical criticism. “Well if you can’t find this in the Bible, don’t worry about it because I have the anointing. God has spoken to me directly. And so if you can’t find it in Scripture, don’t sweat it, I've got the anointing, I've got this inside avenue to God.”'

The session video, transcript, etc... Strange Fire Panel Q&A 1

Born Again Christians? - David Platt

Sad but true... "there are a whole lot of people in our country who think that they are Christians, but they are not. There are scores of people—here and around the world who culturally distinguish themselves as Christians and biblically are not followers of Christ."

Run from the New Apostolic Reformation movement!

How to identify your idols

David Powlison’s list of questions in Seeing With New Eyes are good for a diagnostic test on our lives now and again to help us identify idols.

1. What do I worry about most?

2. What, if I failed or lost it, would cause me to feel that I did not even want to live?
3. What do I use to comfort myself when things go bad or get difficult?
4. What do I do to cope? What are my release valves? What do I do to feel better?
5. What preoccupies me? What do I daydream about?
6. What makes me feel the most self-worth? Of what am I the proudest? For what do I want to be known?
7. What do I lead with in conversations?
8. Early on what do I want to make sure that people know about me?
9. What prayer, unanswered, would make me seriously think about turning away from God?
10. What do I really want and expect out of life? What would really make me happy?
11. What is my hope for the future?

(Taken from a post on TGC.)

Give it a try!  Don't share your results, etc.  This isn't one of those things, it is for you alone.

Blessed Assurance

I have an assurance that brings me peace, comfort, and joy.  Recently I'd been knocked for a spiritual and emotional loop when I tried to apply contrary opinions to the gospel that had been revealed to me years ago at the point when I truly turned my life around and was able to let go of constant doubt and worrying of whether what I was doing was worthy or not and whether I was "deserving" of salvation.

Well, here this assurance is summed up nicely in an 8 minute audio clip: http://www.gty.org/Blog/B120830 

But, mind you there is true assurance and false assurance.  Of what I speak is *true* assurance based on comprehending the objective truth of the gospel, not what some out there are selling along with books prominently featuring their photoshopped uber-white teeth.