Blog Archives - IRONSTRIKES

Experience or God's revealed truth?

12/22/2016

We have received…the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
1 Corinthians 2:12

My experience is not what makes redemption real— redemption is reality. Redemption has no real meaning for me until it is worked out through my conscious life. When I am born again, the Spirit of God takes me beyond myself and my experiences, and identifies me with Jesus Christ. If I am left only with my personal experiences, I am left with something not produced by redemption. But experiences produced by redemption prove themselves by leading me beyond myself, to the point of no longer paying any attention to experiences as the basis of reality. Instead, I see that only the reality itself produced the experiences. My experiences are not worth anything unless they keep me at the Source of truth— Jesus Christ.

If you try to hold back the Holy Spirit within you, with the desire of producing more inner spiritual experiences, you will find that He will break the hold and take you again to the historic Christ. Never support an experience which does not have God as its Source and faith in God as its result. If you do, your experience is anti-Christian, no matter what visions or insights you may have had. Is Jesus Christ Lord of your experiences, or do you place your experiences above Him? Is any experience dearer to you than your Lord? You must allow Him to be Lord over you, and pay no attention to any experience over which He is not Lord. Then there will come a time when God will make you impatient with your own experience, and you can truthfully say, “I do not care what I experience— I am sure of Him!”

Be relentless and hard on yourself if you are in the habit of talking about the experiences you have had. Faith based on experience is not faith; faith based on God’s revealed truth is the only faith there is.

This devotion was written by Oswald Chambers.

Domestic violence spikes after an NFL loss

12/21/2016

Any diehard football fan can relate to post-loss blues — when your beloved team is outscored by a rival, it’s hard to keep your spirits up or put on a happy face after the game.

And while it’s easy to dismiss such disappointment as nothing more than fan frenzy or simple fanaticism, the latest research suggests that negative emotions triggered by events such as a football loss can lead to more serious crimes and behaviors like domestic violence.

In a comprehensive survey of domestic violence calls recorded by 763 police departments in half a dozen states, economists David Card and Gordon Dahl report in the Quarterly Journal of Economics that NFL losses can result in a 10% spike in domestic violence reports in the hour or so after a local football team has just suffered a loss. The volume of calls doubles when the team loses to a traditional rival, and also surges if the football team loses during the playoffs.

Card and Dahl analyzed the relationship between domestic violence and football losses in order to better understand the factors that contribute to domestic violence, which is the leading cause of injury to women in the U.S. Violence in the home runs counter to the idea that the family is a source of support and in need of protection, and sociologists and psychologists speculate that apart from cases of mental illness, many cases of domestic abuse arises from the need of one partner to exert control over the other.

Even so, says Dahl, the prevalence of domestic violence suggests that other, perhaps more transient factors, may be contributing to cases as well. “A lot of domestic violence doesn’t happen because people like to hit or control people,” says Dahl. “It seems like there is a role for some people basically losing their temper, and hitting an emotional cue that allows them to do something in the heat of the moment that they later regret. That’s where our paper comes in. It doesn’t excuse domestic violence or say that domestic violence is a good thing, but it does help us understand what we can do to help stop it.”

The key, say Card and Dahl, is managing expectations. Their study provided a window into the importance of expectations in modulating emotions, an understanding of which could help address some of the triggers of domestic violence. They correlated domestic violence reports with the days that local teams were playing, as well as with projected betting odds to determine whether the local team was expected to win or lose. In the study, the “key thing wasn’t whether the team won or lost the game, but whether they won or lost unexpectedly,” says Dahl. “It doesn’t matter whether you lose the game, but it does matter in your emotional reaction when you lose the game when you thought your team was going to win.”

In other words, the loss is more emotionally salient if you were expecting to win, and therefore more mentally disturbing and likely to trigger a temper flare and even violence against loved ones. Interestingly, Card and Dahl found that there was no increase in domestic violence reports when teams were expected to lose and then lost. There was also no beneficial effect of lower violence rates when teams won when they were expected to lose. “Upsetting bad news is really bad, and upsetting or unexpected good news is okay, but doesn’t have the same positive effect as unexpected bad news has on emotions,” he says.

Card, who has been studying factors that contribute to domestic violence, notes that in the analysis, he was not able to glean much information on the families affected by violence following football losses because he was only able to collect basic information on reports of domestic violence from police databases, and not from arrests. “We don’t know anything about these families — what kinds of jobs the spouses held, how long they were married, whether they had kids. All of these would be extremely interesting in learning more about who might be most vulnerable to this type of influence,” he says.

Based on the limited amount of data that was available in the police reports, however, Card says the trend appears to cut across racial and economic lines, and apply pretty universally to all types of families. Teasing apart further details on how such temporary emotional triggers can set off domestic violence, however, could lead to improved interventions that could eventually lower rates of abuse, which can have lasting and harmful effects not just on the victims but on entire families as well.

This post is from Time Magazine. For the original post, go to: http://healthland.time.com/2011/03/22/fan-rage-how-home-team-losses-contribute-to-domestic-violence/

Porn usage spikes after Super Bowl loss

12/20/2016

Why do people look at pornography? Some statistics after the 2014 Super Bowl indicate that a wound of "vulnerability" often drives the need to view porn. A mere 24 hours after the Seattle Seahawks crushed the Denver Broncos 43-8 (one of the most lopsided victories in Super Bowl history), one of the world's biggest free porn websites released data about porn site visits.

In the Denver area, at the start of the game, porn use was 51 percent below national average. By the time the shellacking was complete, porn use in the Denver area was 10.8 percent above average site visits—a 60 percent swing in visiting porn websites.

Figures for Seattle—where jubilant Seahawks fans were too busy doing old-fashioned things like hanging out with friends, laughing, talking, and watching action replays—were 17.1 percent below national average, post-game.

Based on these startlingly different responses to the game, British journalist Martin Daubney concluded something that most porn strugglers probably already know: "most men [and women, too] turn to porn not when they are happy, but when they are at their most vulnerable."

This post was written by Preaching Today. This sermon illustration can be found at: http://www.preachingtoday.com/illustrations/2014/march/4030314.html

Porn viewing spikes over Christmas

12/19/2016

The latest review of Google Search Trends shows that the week of Christmas brings a spike of porn related search traffic in the US every year.

While a popular porn site revealed that Christmas Day is their lowest day in the year for site traffic, data from Google Trends reveals that the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day brings a peak in porn related searches equaled only in mid Summer.

The dip on Christmas Day would suggest that people are typically with their families and friends for the holiday. That said, the Christmas period can be a very difficult time of year for those who have lost family members or friends, or may be spending Christmas alone. The search trends following Christmas Day make a lot of sense given that a significant portion of Americans have been conditioned, since they were teenagers, to use pornography to medicate emotional pain.

The Church needs a solution

With 68% of men in the church already using pornography on a regular basis, Churches are in desperate need of a way to help men overcome pornography this holiday season.

The traditional approach that churches have used to address the porn issue is to tell men to try harder – pray more, read your bible more, memorize bible verses… But is this approach really working? A fascinating new cinematic study called the Conquer Series challenges this old approach. According to the film, men are seeking out porn to medicate the pain and worthlessness in their life.

According to the Director, Jeremy Wiles, “they usually find porn at a very early age and it helps them cope with the pain they’re facing in their childhood. But they don’t realize what the enemy is doing to their brain.”

It’s a brain problem

The film series reveals through scientific testimony the effects porn has on the brain – physically changing its structure and deactivating parts of the brain where moral decisions and reasoning are made. What starts out as a moral problem, quickly becomes a brain problem.

“Most men without realizing it are medicating the beliefs they have about themselves: they are worthless, God hates them, if only people knew the real me. So, this increase in shame drives the need for more medication in the form of pornography, which releases dopamine and a concoction of other neurochemicals, and gives them a euphoric ‘high’,” says Jeremy Wiles.

So, why does porn use increase during the Christmas season? As an adult, have you ever been around your parents and felt like a child again? According to Wiles, “Men are acting out around this time of the year partly because Christmas brings together families, which is a good thing, but many men re-experience the dysfunction and trauma they grew up with when their family comes together. They feel like a child again.”

“Trying harder doesn’t work. The answer is not to avoid spending time with family or make a pledge to never watch porn again, rather, it is to get into a process where you can find healing from what’s driving the behavior and learn biblical strategies to find freedom from porn,” says Wiles.

Dr Ted Roberts, host of the Conquer Series says, “We are wounded in relationships, but we heal only in the context of relationships.”

The tide is turning…

Thousands of churches across the nation are watching how the powerful information in the Conquer Series is bringing about real change within the hearts of men in their church. The Conquer Series is a six-disc cinematic DVD series for men that uses war analogies to help men understand the battle they’re facing with pornography. Dr. Ted Roberts, host of the Conquer Series, has helped thousands of men find freedom. It has become “ground zero” in the movement to help men find freedom.

“Churches are in a great position to run a Conquer Group to help men find accountability and connect with others this Christmas Season and into the New Year,” says Wiles.

If churches do that, they will help men break the bondage porn has on their life, and connect with the true meaning of Christmas – that God loves us so deeply that He sent His Son to Earth as a sacrifice for our sins. “When men truly grasp God’s grace, his unrelenting love for them, that there is no condemnation in Christ – it gives them the freedom to not sin anymore,” says Wiles.

Order the Conquer Series as a gift for your church this Christmas.

This post was written by Luke Gibbons. You can find his post here: https://conquerseries.com/porn-viewing-spikes-christmas/

Sunday meditation

12/18/2016

The Death of Me

In Christ's dear kingdom, 'tis not ME:
In Christ's dear kingdom, 'tis not THEE;
But ME and THEE, and MY and THINE,
Their separate life and power resign,
And clasp'd in ONE, become Divine.

The ME claims all things as its own;
And THEE and THINE make self their throne;
But in the soul that's born again,
The selfish MINE and THINE are slain,
And Universal Love doth reign.

Oh sacred unity of soul!
The separate parts in one made whole;
All strifes and jealousies unknown;
All partial interests overthrown;
God All in All, and God alone.

From Christ in the Soul (1872) LXXIII by Thomas Cogswell Upham. His blog is managed by Craig L Adams and can be found here: http://thomascupham.blogspot.com

A ministry of healing & reconciliation

12/16/2016

How does the Church witness to Christ in the world? First and foremost by giving visibility to Jesus' love for the poor and the weak. In a world so hungry for healing, forgiveness, reconciliation, and most of all unconditional love, the Church must alleviate that hunger through its ministry. Wherever we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the lonely, listen to those who are rejected, and bring unity and peace to those who are divided, we proclaim the living Christ, whether we speak about him or not.

It is important that whatever we do and wherever we go, we remain in the Name of Jesus, who sent us. Outside his Name our ministry will lose its divine energy.

For further reflection...

"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus... for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose."
Philippians 2: 5, 13 (NIV)

This devotional was written by Henri Nouwen.
You can find his website here: henrinouwen.org

Not by might nor by power

12/15/2016

My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power… --1 Corinthians 2:4

If in preaching the gospel you substitute your knowledge of the way of salvation for confidence in the power of the gospel, you hinder people from getting to reality. Take care to see while you proclaim your knowledge of the way of salvation, that you yourself are rooted and grounded by faith in God. Never rely on the clearness of your presentation, but as you give your explanation make sure that you are relying on the Holy Spirit. Rely on the certainty of God’s redemptive power, and He will create His own life in people.

Once you are rooted in reality, nothing can shake you. If your faith is in experiences, anything that happens is likely to upset that faith. But nothing can ever change God or the reality of redemption. Base your faith on that, and you are as eternally secure as God Himself. Once you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, you will never be moved again. That is the meaning of sanctification. God disapproves of our human efforts to cling to the concept that sanctification is merely an experience, while forgetting that even our sanctification must also be sanctified (see John 17:19). I must deliberately give my sanctified life to God for His service, so that He can use me as His hands and His feet.

This devotional was written by Oswald Chambers

In the gap

12/14/2016

I looked for someone who might rebuild the wall of righteousness that guards the land. I searched for someone to stand in the gap . . . but I found no one (Ezekiel 22:30).

A pastor went to a local coffee shop and placed a sign that read “Free Prayer” on his table. Soon a customer asked the minister to pray for a need. Since then, the pastor has gone to a coffee shop weekly to intercede for others. Some pour out their hearts, such as a man whose wife had left him and who had lost several friends and family to death. Regarding this man and others, the pastor states, “Sometimes we have to move beyond the shadows of a steeple to take care of our people.”

And so he stands in the gap for others.

During Ezekiel’s day, God was looking for someone to stand in the gap for His people. He said, “I looked for someone who might rebuild the wall of righteousness that guards the land. I searched for someone to stand in the gap . . . but I found no one” (Ezekiel 22:30). God had allowed the Babylonians to attack and cart off some of Judah’s upper crust, and they subsequently killed Judah’s king in a siege that included the plundering of the temple in Jerusalem. But His divine discipline didn’t change the people’s polluted hearts (Ezekiel 22:23-24). The leaders were lousy priests who weren’t teaching the people God’s law, and the prophets were filling the heads of God’s people with false visions (Ezekiel 22:25-29).

Not pretty.

There was no one to intercede for the people (Ezekiel 22:30).

God’s eyes are searching today for believers in Jesus who will stand in the gap for those in bondage—not to the Babylonians, but to sin. One way for us to do this is to pray for and build relationships with people who need the saving grace that only Jesus can provide. He alone can free them from spiritual death and destruction (Romans 3:23-25).

By God’s strength and leading, may we stand in the gap for others today.

This post was written by Tom Felten of Our Daily Bread: odb.org

Irreparably broken

12/13/2016

I sat in front of a couple who were so newly married that their rings still lacked any scuff. They were struggling desperately with issues that were not resolved prior to their marriage.
The wife wrestled with insecurities, anger, and disconnectedness. The husband dealt with denial and an inability to relate to his new bride. He felt as if he was being compared to past boyfriends, despised because of his lack of understanding, and he was frustrated because he felt as if something was being hidden from him. Both of these individuals were broken, and at the end of their ropes.

They said things to each other that could not be taken back, and things had escalated to the point of possible divorce.

As a young pastor, these type of situations make me feel so inadequate. It, however is part of my job, and a calling I have accepted. During these type of conversations and tense moments, I have to pray and trust that God will give me the words to say and hope that some amount of educational memories make their way to my tongue as I speak. This situation was one I have dealt with in the past, but every marital difficulty is like a snowflake. None are exactly the same.

As I inwardly prayed for God to guide my thoughts and speech I looked the wife in the eyes. These eyes were red from weeping, and her mascara was ruined. When I looked into her eyes, I saw pain and a little girl hiding behind a rock. If you know me very well, you know that sometimes God gives me the ability to look into the eyes of someone I am talking to and, I feel, God gives me a mental picture to illustrate what they are feeling. Obviously it is impossible to fully know what the pain feels like, but it helps when knowing what to say to start digging deeper into understanding the core issues. This beautiful lady that sat before me was dealing with deep insecurities, fear, and anger and, as I mentioned I saw a little girl hiding behind a rock. As If she was once hurt and was afraid it would happen again.

At that moment, I felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to ask her a question. A question that would be very risky, and, if I was completely off base, would embarrass me and damage my credibility as their pastoral counselor. “How old were you?” I inquired. She stopped crying and looked at me as if I had uttered a gibberish language. “What?” she answered. “I said…how old were you. How old were you when it happened?” Her eyes became wide and the tears began to flow. The crying became more and more intense and finally, after a little recovery, she spoke. “I was 15”.

Internally, I was extremely surprised that I hit the wound. Then, I continued. “Who did it?” The tears came again and she told me that her boyfriend at the time was the culprit.

This lovely young woman was raped. This was the root of her pain. It had caused a domino effect of shame and she felt as if she was irreparably broken because of what happened. The husband also had past issues that needed to be addressed. I explained that these past hurts had to be confronted and we set up a plan to move forward to address the situation.

I wish I could say that this marriage was fully restored because of my eloquent words and deep wisdom. It wasn’t. Eventually the couple went separate ways, and after this break up, the healing began. It took a few years for this woman to find healing and a healthy relationship. She allowed God to work through her, and even though the past is not erased, she found that the brokenness in her heart was less painful.
She was right. Her heart was irreparably broken. God, however, gave her a new heart that is whole.

I thank God for speaking to me that day. This is the second time something like this has happened in this context.

If you feel like you are broken beyond repair, remember that God wants you to be whole. There is hope for the broken. I promise. Help is available whether you believe it right now or not.

This post was written by Rev Landon DeCrastos. You an find his blog here: https://ministrysauce.com/

Compromised church

12/12/2016

“The chief danger of the twentieth century will be religion without the Holy Spirit, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, heaven without hell.” - William Booth (founder of the Salvation Army)

Like so many other ideas, “tolerance” has been redefined in our postmodern society. Tolerance is something that focuses largely on morality. If one doesn’t embrace the behavior of another when that behavior is celebrated by society at large, then that person is likely to be labeled “intolerant.” This label carries consequences. Being called “intolerant” quickly discredits your views in the arena of public opinion.

Scripture is full of instances where Jesus interacted with people He didn’t agree with morally. Jesus teaches us that love has no boundaries. We are called to love people wherever they may be on their journey. That’s what true tolerance is: being willing to walk with and bear the burdens of others even though we disagree with their choices and behaviors. True tolerance says, “While I don’t agree with you, I love you anyway.”

Today’s view of tolerance requires much more than loving and walking with a person. Today’s tolerance requires that we celebrate a person’s choices. Today’s tolerance strips us of the ability to say that anything is “wrong.” This view doesn’t leave room for absolutes. It teaches us that we are incorrect, possibly bigoted, and certainly close-minded to even think that another person’s behavior misses the mark.

When properly defined tolerance requires one to identify right and wrong, truth and untruth, good and evil. It is recognizing that something that is less than what it should be and deciding that you can live with it. True tolerance means you endure something that you believe to be incorrect. Loving someone is different than celebrating immoral behavior. If you don’t believe something’s wrong, and you embrace it, that’s not tolerance. Jesus accepted everyone, yet with love and compassion, He also confronted their sin and offered them a better way.

Western culture has become a battlefield; truth and morality is what’s at stake. While we must remain tolerant toward all people, that doesn’t mean we should celebrate sinful behavior. The church is being influenced heavily by the cultural undertones of the day. We want to be liked so badly that we’re willing to compromise. What we end up compromising are the very things scripture declares as nonnegotiable. In our negotiations we forfeit the power of Jesus. Without His manifest presence there is no anointing, no transformation, and no sense of purpose.

In many ways the church has become a mere reflection of the American way. Entire denominations are revising the basic tenets of biblical theology as it pertains to Christian practice. Church leaders are legitimizing immorality because it’s become legal. Just because laws change regarding sin doesn’t make it right. We can legalize drug use, but that doesn’t make it right. We can legalize same-sex unions, but that doesn’t make it right. We make it lawful to deport people and rip families apart, but that doesn’t make it right.

Reports of our shifting views make the news all the time. A few years ago an openly gay bishop was ordained in the Episcopal Church. He went on record to say that he considered his relationship with his partner “sacramental.” Since when do the Episcopals get to make “sacred” what God calls an “abomination”?

We are so concerned with what everyone thinks that we’ve forgotten to care about what God thinks. Have you checked out the stats of some of the more “progressive” denominations lately? They’re in rapid decline. Why? Because God does not bless what He has declared in His Word as being wrong. It doesn’t matter what we call it. When the Holy Spirit withdraws from a group of people there’s nothing left to do but go though the motions and gather in powerless huddles hoping for the best.

Recent studies by Barna Research indicates that large percentages of people identifying as Christians see nothing wrong with occasional adultery, abortion, homosexual behavior, casual use of pornography, living together outside of marriage, and the use of profanity. Many of these same people don’t believe in Satan, and hell is merely a contemporary platonic construct, not an actual place. To add to the confusion only 15% of people who identify as Christian actually hold to any sort of biblical worldview.

I’ve interacted with people who adhere to many of the above-described views. A few years ago a candidate who was seeking ordination admitted to a few people in a restaurant if they were ever questioned about their beliefs concerning sexuality that they’d lie. They indicated that their cause was more important than the ordination process. Let that sink in. . . These up-and-coming progressive leaders have a cause that’s more important than anything else, including orthodoxy, scripture, sound doctrine, church tradition, and life-transformation.

This theological confusion is spreading across denominational spectrums. In a day and age where we need hope more than ever before we are offering people theological play-doh. The problem is not that these folks are being disingenuous. It’s just that they’ve accepted a worldview that is far from the one given to us by Jesus, Scripture, the Apostles, and the Early Church Fathers. Beyond that, they’re extremely intolerant of anyone who holds a more centered biblical view.

The immorality of western culture has created instability, confusion, and a church that is void of power. Many people who identify as Christian have aligned so closely with the postmodern religious narrative that they’ve lost the ability to recognize the “anointing” of God. In fact, they don’t even like words like anointing, manifest presence, glory, revival, etc. They rely solely on forms and functions. They can’t hear from God because their minds are muddled by the noise of postmodernity.

This is not who the Church is called to be. We are the Bride of Christ, the Body of Jesus, and the Light of the World. We are God’s ambassadors in a world void of hope and power. The Church is a group of called-out, sold-out, radical world-changers. The Church is on mission through the infilling power of the Holy Spirit as she takes presence of Jesus to communities all over the globe.
However, postmodern pollution has built a dam. The rivers of Living Water have been largely shut off. When the things God calls sin is continually validated in Christian articles, on Christian bookshelves, and in classrooms and pulpits, the source of this contamination is made clear. Yet, the dam is protected and even celebrated in the name of tolerance.

The good news is there’s a leak. God is raising up prophets. The Living Water is starting to seep through the cracks. There is a remnant of committed Christ-followers passionately calling out to Jesus. They are praying earnestly for revival every single day. They realize that the powerless tolerant form of religion that’s currently in vogue will never suffice in transforming the world. So, while these are serious times, they’re also exciting times. May we wait with hopeful hearts for the King of Glory to make His presence known once again.

(Sources: “Trouble with Truth” by Rob Renfroe; “Desperate for His Presence” by Rhonda Hughey; Barna Research Group)

This post was written by Rev Brian L Powell. You can find his site here: https://brianlpowell.com/