Lessons from Lady GaGa

First of all, she ain’t no lady.

Second of all, it is a testimony to the depravity of our world that tens of millions of GaGa lovers purchase her filthy songs and watch her dirty videos on YouTube. If indeed the kind of records she sells tells us something about the heathens, is it fair to suggest that the type of records sold to Christians tells us something about ourselves?

This is by no means a scientific poll, but I just clicked on the song sample that Amazon offers so you can hear an album highlight. These are the random highlights from five songs from the top ten Christian downloads; see if you notice a theme.

• I don’t know what makes me so afraid.
• You will be safe in His arms.
• You bring me through.
• How you gonna fix it with nowhere to turn?
• You're crying on the floor cuz you can’t take no more.

If this is any sort of mood barometer, Christians are very scared these days. That really isn’t a shocker; the economy is shaky, unemployment is high and there are people willing to blow up their underpants to kill us. Christians are not immune to these concerns and the contemporary Christian music industry has tapped into this zeitgeist.

What is interesting (and troubling) is how

Story Time

Imagine you are at the park when a child falls and gashes her knee. You and her father run to rescue her. Right before you reach her, you both stop short and hold out your arms so she can choose who she wants to help her. Dad does not say a word while you beg her, “Let me hold you. I want to hug you. I will help you.”

Who is she going to embrace? Instinctively she will run to the arms of her father because she KNOWS that he will take care of her. She KNOWS this because he has proven himself faithful to her for years. You can plead and beg all you want, but the child will only find comfort in the one who has proven his faithfulness and ability.

That is precisely where most contemporary Christian music and preaching fails. An artist can sweetly sing that God wants to hug you, and that may make you feel better while you listen, but these lyrics are placebos at best. In order to find true comfort and true healing, you need to KNOW that God is in capable of protecting you. You need knowledge of his abilities, power and past performance. In other words, you need theology.

It does not help to be told over and over, “Let God hold you, He wants to protect you, fall into His arms.” What comforts us is when we see God’s strength demonstrated over and over again in the Bible. We don’t need tunes that tell us to let God embrace us, we need theology set to music that proves that God is strong and is in control over every detail of our lives.

Experiment time

Here are three actual CCM lyrics that I discovered when I Googled, “God wants to hold you.”

I was wondering can you hold me now
You are the only one that's patient when I fall.

Father, I want You to hold me
I want to rest in Your arms today
Father, I want You to show me
How much You care for me in every way

All that I ever wanted was this peace as you
Hold me now, as you hold me now
All that I ever needed was this love as you
Hold me now, forever hold me now

Contrast those gems with these theological statements from the Bible.

• God spoke the universe into existence in six 24 hour days.
• God parted a sea so His children would be safe.
• Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven.

You don’t even need to be told to not worry when you KNOW that God is the Creator, Controller and Conqueror. Knowledge of who God is and what He has done results in comfort.

While I am terribly tempted to plug Exalted Worship (available at www.wretchedradio.com), I am not going to. Instead, let me encourage you in these challenging times to not reach for sugar pill music, but to fill yourself with songs about God’s unchanging truths. Don’t listen to pep talk preaching, but gorge yourself on solid sermons filled with truth.

It is OK to need comfort, God is happy to provide it. God will feed you when you flee to His Word. It may not be as catchy as breathy Christian pop tunes, but it is sweeter than honey, more valuable than fine gold and it (and it alone) will comfort you.

Source: Wretched Newsletter - Burning Bush Communications, Inc.

Believers Never Die

"He removes the scars because He builds from the inside out. And when God steadies a faltering life He puts you on His sure-footing. "

Ravi Zacharias

Canada and Finland; These two countries have become home. I am so grateful to God for having the privilege of living here. Beyond my residences my heart has found my faith and love in Jesus Christ. If I had stayed in Canada and had never come to Finland in the Fall of 2008 I would have never had gone back to Canada to find my new love for my country and above all my new love for the Lord. God had been in the shadows all along guiding me along the way putting my life together with His unerring hand. It is as if God had taken me here to discipline me—He had shown me who I really am.

There is one thing I want to share with you; Keep your faith and remember that God is by your side. You hear a lot of talk about the way God wants you to live, otherwise stated, God's Call. But don't get hung-up worrying about what you are doing. There is no doubt that God prepared me for this life that I now lead connecting the varied and ironic threads of my experience into a beautiful tapestry as He would see fit. I truly do feel that God has framed me for a specific purpose and I believe that for you as well.

Tampere Police Suspend Deportation of Christian Iranian Kurd

In Iran, men converting to Christianity could face gallows

Iranian Kurd Ibrahim Mahmud Ali Palani, 27, who has spent almost his entire life as a refugee, could breathe a sigh of relief on Tuesday after the police in Tampere suspended the enforcement of the deportation order issued by Finland’s Directorate of Immigration.

An appeal against the Directorate of Immigration’s decision from last spring was filed with the Helsinki Administrative Court, which dismissed the appeal on September 17th. The Iranian Kurd, who had set off from Iraq to seek asylum in the West, was to be returned to the country of his birth, Iran.

The administrative court justified its decision by Palani’s lack of political activity. In the court’s view it was unlikely that the officials in Iran would have found out about Palani’s conversion to Christianity while in Finland.

Representatives of the Lutheran Church, the Pentecostal Church, and the Christian Democrats appealed for the suspension of the deportation order.

The new asylum petition refers to a motion being considered in the Iranian Parliament, in which the death penalty is suggested for those abandoning the Islamic faith.

In the first reading, the motion of introducing the death penalty for converts received 196 votes. Only seven individuals voted against it. The ratification of the law still requires another reading.

For Ibrahim Palani, the law would mean mortal danger in Iran.

As a small boy, Palani and his parents escaped the persecution of the Arab population, fleeing from Iran to Iraq.

For the Kurds life also in Iraq soon became dangerous, and Palani set off to seek asylum from Germany and England in 2001.

In England a girlfriend led the man to a Christian congregation. Palani was deported before the renegade Muslim managed to receive baptism into the Christian faith.

In April 2007 Palani arrived at a refugee centre in Tampere, from where he found his way to the Tampere Pentecostal Church later that spring.

Since the closing down of the Tampere refugee centre, Palani has resided at the Kotka refugee centre.

Life seemed to stop and anguish, nightmares, and fears of death started to torment him when he heard of the deportation order, said Palani through an interpreter.

Palani justified his decision to change religions by saying that within Islam so many wrongdoings take place.

“I have familiarised myself with Christianity and I feel it is the right way for me.”
Palani is hoping for a new beginning for his life.


Source: Helsingin Sanomat

The Gospel Message

Do You Feel More Carnal?

Do you feel like you're more carnal and sinful now than before you became a believer? Well don't be afraid! You're just becoming more aware of your sins.

Now I'm not talking about backsliding. But if you are sinning and don't feel bad about your sins then you haven't received the Holy Spirit, and you have to repent(say you're sorry and stop sinning) and ask God to reveal your sins. And if you're sinning and not in battle with your sins then you are not regenerated by the Holy Spirit. Once you hear the gospel and believe it, the Holy Spirit will come and rest in you(Acts 19:5).

Don't worry! Just because you feel more wretched than you did before you surrendered your life to Jesus it doesn't mean that you are backsliding from faith. You just have an awareness of your sins now and God is revealing them to you. This is what is called sanctification. You see one part of yourself you might not have seen before or have not hated. You're growing in holiness and understanding about your sinfulness and you want to get rid of it from your life. And don't just believe it but apply the Word to your life.

James 1:22-27 (ESV)

Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, othe law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless. Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you. (Romans 12:2)

God's Call

In 2 Corinthians 5:20, scripture says "we are ambassador's for Christ." Word Faith and Prosperity gospels tell us that God is calling us to do a certain job. But is this God's call, as it were?

When I chose to come back to Finland I decided against something important because thinking about it made me feel confused, and "God is not the author of confusion" (1 Corinthians 14:33), so it could not be of God. I left Finland due to feelings. I was feeling depressed and missing home. I thought that going back to Canada to do seminary was God's call for me. I based this decision on good feelings.

In Mark 6:45-50, this passage strikes me fatal to view. In verse 49—"they all saw him and were terrified." What was it they saw? It was in fact Jesus. They actually were looking right at Him, they saw Him on the water. And He was there to do them good, with nothing but love in His heart for them. But they misperceived Him, they did not see Jesus as Jesus, and they mispercieved the significance of what they did see. Instead, they saw Him as a ghost, a being that struck horror in their hearts. The emotions that seeing Jesus stirred in them were not peace, joy, love, and closeness to God. They were terrified, they were filled with alarm and fear at the sight of Jesus.

It was Jesus they saw; it was not Jesus they perceived. What they experienced did not mean what they thought it meant.

I thought I was doing God's will by studying seminary. But God doesn't ask us to play certain roles, does He? He calls us to bare witness to the world, to love on another like Christ loves the church, to speak the gospel to the unsaved, and to keep his commandments. But does he call me to be a fireman, a news reporter, or a paediatrician? How can a Christian discern that? If we are to take this logic seriously a Christian would be so confused and ask him/herself questions like, "Am I doing what God wants me to do? Was I supposed to marry this person? Were these kids supposed to be mine?"

We are constantly told, "Do what makes you happy." Is this what God asked us to do? Do what makes us feel good? Or should we live a life that glorifies God! I was looking at feelings as a good sign for a calling (as we are told) for me. Our faith must rest on scripture, not on feelings.

God's hand, His presence in an event, is discerned (we're told) by the feelings of serene peace, joy, love, and/or closeness to God that we feel. If it makes us happy, if it makes us feel close to God, then it is of God. If it's frightening and repellent, God cannot be in it. It sounds disconnected with scripture, yearning for something God never promises, countless Christians read feelings, circumstances, events, hoping to discern God's personal coded messages in them.

We are told that we should find out what God wants us to do and if it feels good and brings you closer to God, then do it. But is it biblical? I just lately had to ask myself this. Why do I feel so confused and frustrated? That's not God! And it's not aligned with scripture from what I know. I by-no-means am saying I know better, but I'm sceptical about this. And I am in no way saying that you shouldn't do what makes you happy. But is it scriptural?

We live in a self-esteem generation with a lot of self-help books. I am concerned that it has seeped it's way into the church and it just doesn't align with what scripture says. What do you think?

Your Challenge

I want to challenge you to find the reason why you believe. It will be a miserable journey but well worth it. Some people may say they believe because, "It makes me happy," or "That's what my parents taught me."

Faith is not a blind leap in the dark. It is not knowing something is true because the evidence leads to it. Faith represents a type of evidence. It is the evidence of the unseen. We have faith because we have good cause to trust God's Word. In light of this, R.C. Sproul said,

"That trust may be provisional until I find that it is not based in substance or evidence. But in the meantime, to trust what we do not see is not necessarily a matter of being irrational. Without reason, the content of biblical faith would be unintelligible and meaningless. So we say that biblical faith is not the same as reason, but that faith is rational and reasonable. The first assertion that faith is rational means that faith is intelligible. It is not absurd or illogical. If biblical revelation were absurd and irrational, it would be utterly unintelligible and meaningless."

By faith we understand the world was formed by the Word of God. None of us were eyewitnesses of the creation. Yet we trust that the universe has come into being by the act of God’s divine work of creation because we have come on reasonable grounds to believe that God’s Word is trustworthy. We can trust God’s Word even for those things that we cannot see because we are convinced that God’s Word is trustworthy and that conviction is a reasonable conviction. John Calvin also argued the point that true faith is not believing against evidence. Rather, true faith involves trusting in the evidence that God has amply provided in and through His Word. That faith is not without what Calvin called evidences; rather, it is a faith that surrenders to or consents to the evidences.

I want you to dig deeper into the New Testament documents and find the facts for yourself. You don't need to have a philosophy major. There are many reliable resources online and at your local Christian book store. Get informed and be prepared to share your faith! Christian apologetics is an important tool for convincing others of your faith. It's also strengthens your confidence. 1 Peter 3:15 says, "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have."

Reference: Ligonier.org