Resurrection Archives - Desert Warrior Ministries

“The Road to Jerusalem” – Seeking Jerusalem – Day 50

April 4, 2018

When my daughter was 12 years old, she was full of curiosity. And she would ask very good questions too. But she didn’t always like the answers.
“Why is God hiding?” she would ask. “Why doesn’t he protect me from hurting myself. Doesn´t he love me?” “If God loves the whole world, why doesn’t he just get rid of hell and let everyone go to heaven?” Those were the good questions.
But she had other questions as well. “Who was Cain’s wife?” “Who created God?” and “What is heaven like?” Obviously, we had a lot of talks together coming home from school, walking in the park, sitting in my office.

The Holiness Project – Day 8 "Spiritual Sin"

March 21, 2018

We have been talking about the Sanctification Gap, that chasm between the holiness and perfect love of God as seen in His justice and mercy on the one hand, and the depths of our sin, our selfishness, our inability to love ourselves, much less God or anyone else on the other. That Sanctification Gap continues even after we have been justified by grace through the blood of Jesus Christ. In fact, precisely because it is a substitution, that it isn’t our righteousness, the gap exists because we are not made immediately perfect in love. Our Sanctification is progressive. But that gap between our Justification and our Sanctification also creates a credibility gap, both in our own eyes as well as in the eyes of other people. And so it should. It is a necessary part of our situation as Christians.

Seeking Jerusalem – Day 42 "The Sweet Spot"

March 17, 2018

I remember the early years of Bible College when I was surrounded by other young Christian students and we studied and prayed and discussed and argued to our heart’s content. We went on Mission trips together. We sang songs with our guitars, the Sound of Silence right along with Amazing Grace and Hallelujah. We ate pizza and watched movies but most of all we talked about the reality of God. It was great.
I come from a religious family in the Dutch Reformed tradition and discovered that I was good at public speaking in High School. I won all of Southwestern Ontario and was supposed to go to the Big Apple and speak at the United Nations for the North American Public Speaking Competition. But I didn’t go. I was already committed to a summer mission trip and in a burst of religious zeal, I decided that my priority should be the church. Not that I was a believer really. But I was convinced that I should become a Pastor since I had the gift of the gab.

Seeking Jerusalem – Day 35 "The Culture of Grace"

March 9, 2018

I heard a Vicar (Pastor) from the Anglican church tell a story recently about his encounters with a young man off the streets that we will call, Paul. The vicar’s wife, who was a good judge of character, agreed that they should help the young man and so they put him up for a few days until they could find a more permanent place for him. He ended up staying for a number of months and became a part of the family. When the Vicar and his wife went on a short vacation, they left Paul in charge. Paul invited another friend from the streets over who ended up stealing the wife’s jewelry (hierlooms from her mother with more sentimental value than anything else). Paul claimed he was innocent but he still shouldn’t have invited his friend over when no one else was at home. A lapse in judgment.

Seeking Jerusalem – Day 32 "The Courage of Transparency"

March 7, 2018

We gave it a try. We really did.
The new Pastor asked everyone to get together for a meeting and we all came. I brought my wife and daughter (since they were also involved) and the Pastor brought the elder who had offended. The Pastor was a believer in the power of reconciliation and apparently had convinced the elder to show up. One of the other elders had given the Pastor our names as people the Board needed to reconcile with. When we had stood up for Scottie, a street evangelist who was thrown out of the church for making people feel uncomfortable and always asking for money, we got thrown out as well.
So we all showed up, all of us believers, all of us excited about the prospect of true reconciliation. Everyone except for Scottie. They never did get around to him. They should have started with him. The ministry of reconciliation is spiritual warfare and we were terribly unprepared.

The Holiness Project – Day 29 "Revealing the Glory"

February 25, 2018

He goes on to talk about the “glory” that each of us has, and that it is essential to God´s plans that we reveal that glory, live in that glory and share that glory with others. I would add that the “glory” is not only our creational gifts and abilities, but, first of all, our redemptive glory in Christ. The creational integrated into and providing the real world context for the redemptive. The redemptive empowering and focusing the creational.

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Tag: Resurrection