March 2018 - davidherin.org

LIE: Prayer is useless

Lie: Prayer is useless, a waste of time.
Truth: Prayer will eventually fill all of our time.

I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had absolutely no other place to go. — Abraham Lincoln

I hear this lie – prayer is useless – whispered in my ear as a convenient excuse to avoid God when I’m not willing to deal with the bigger lies like: God doesn’t exist; God doesn’t care, or I don’t need God. I’m also tempted to believe this lie when I’m not dealing with the sin in my life: hypocrisy if I do pray, condemnation if I don’t (more on the reasons we fall for this lie later). The real tragedy is that so many Christians never experience . . .

LIE: I am defeated, part 2

In the first part I outlined the defeatist mentalities that we can easily assume if we harbor this lie. Then I described two of the foundational truths we need to believe to overcome these deadly lifestyles. In this part 2, I’ll go into the meaning and practice of the third and final truth: that we must take up our own cross.

LIE: I am defeated, part 1

Lie: I am defeated.
Truth: We now share in the final triumph of Christ.
We’ve all felt defeated, either because of weaknesses or sins or failures or a general lack of achievement. The recording in our heads plays an endless loop: ‘you’re lame, worthless, useless, an all-around failure,’ and then the refrain follows – ‘and nothing will ever, ever change.’ Many Christians see no way to switch it off because, in most cases, the reasons for us to feel lame, worthless, useless and a failure, happen to be true. And simply trying to forgive ourselves or tell ourselves that we’re victims of the human condition or even ‘sinners saved by grace,’ doesn’t really help.
Inevitably, this defeated mentality produces some easily predictable lives . . .

LIE: God is irrelevant

Lie: God is irrelevant.
Truth: God is relevant.

The greatest source of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips but deny him by their lifestyles. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable. — Brennan Manning

This lie is often felt but seldom acknowledged.
The question burns: relevant or irrelevant to what? God is irrelevant to . . . me, my life, my finances, my job? or irrelevant to the world, that is, the one I live in: business, science, popular culture? In other words, how does God really matter, that is, as opposed to things we know that matter: health, family, age, technology, weather, government services, education, money, food? You get the idea.