This is day 12, the final day of the Prodigal Prayer Mission by Kathie Saari.

The Plan of Salvation

Meditate on John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

READ AND PREPARE

How to Lead a Person to Christ by Dr. Richard J. Krejcir including

Billy Graham/Bill Bright Four-Step Process (Campus Crusade):

1. God’s purpose: peace and love. God wants you to experience peace and life abundantly and eternally (Romans 5:1, John 3:16, 10:10).
2. Our problem: Separation, God created us in His own image to have abundant life. He did not make us robots to automatically love and obey Him but gave us the gift of free choice. Hence, we chose to disobey God on our own will, which resulted in our separation (Romans 3:23, 6:23). Our attempts through the ages have failed to bridge the gap (Isaiah 59:2, Proverbs 14:12).
3. God’s remedy: The cross. Jesus Christ is the only answer to this problem. He died on the cross, rose from the grave and paid our penalty (1 Timothy 2:5, 1 Peter 3:18, Romans 5:8).
4. Our response: To receive Christ, we must trust in Him by personal invitation (Revelation 3:20, John 1:12, Romans 10:9). Then pray with the person and make sure they receive discipling. And focus on the basics, which include prayer, Scripture, devotional life, accountability and discipleship.

The Roman Road

The Roman Road is a group of Bible verses from the book of Romans that are used to help people to better understand salvation and to lead people to Christ:

1. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)
2. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
3. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)
4. If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. (Romans 10:9-10)
5. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. (Romans 10:13)

The first thing you have to realize is that YOU ARE a sinner. Secondly, God loves YOU. Thirdly, without God, you are doomed. Fourthly, come clean, confess your sins to God; and lastly, you are not excluded from salvation no matter what you’ve done.

Possibly Related Posts:

• The Sights and Sounds of Enabling
  by Diane Viere and Elaine Altman-Eller
• Counterfeit: Lies We Believe About Work
• Day Eleven of the 12-Day Prodigal Prayer Mission
• Day Ten of The 12-Day Prodigal Prayer Mission
• Day Nine of The 12-Day Prodigal Prayer Mission

This is day 11 of the Prodigal Prayer Mission by Kathie Saari.

Testimonies That Build Faith

Meditate on Matthew 17:20

He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

Testimony 1

Steve Friskup: A Drinking Man’s Salvation

by Christine McWhorter of The 700 Club

CBN.com – Working as a horse auctioneer isn’t just a job for Steve Friskup; it’s a passion. He also loves calf roiping and spending time with his wife, Robin. But years ago, Steve’s favorite activities were overshadowed by his love for alcohol. “I never was a guy who could just have one drink,” Steve tells The 700 Club. “If I had one, I had two. If I had two, I had 12. If I had 12, then some time in the night I was going to become rich, handsome and bulletproof, all at the same time.”

Steve had his first drink at just 9 years old. His parents were Christians, but alcohol was a big part of their lifestyle and always available in his home. Later, as an adult, Steve discovered alcohol gave him something he had always longed for:

It made me liked. It made me popular. It made me fit in. I may not rope as good as anybody. I may not have as much money as anybody else, but if we’re at the bar, you’re going to like me. That’s just how it is. That need for that attention or something.

But the alcohol didn’t just make Steve popular. It turned him into a man he barely knew. He says, “Anything that alters the way a man thinks and alters his morality — it can’t be good. Alcohol somehow demoralized me. I could see it getting worse and wors. It just dumbed me down to a guy that I didn’t want to be. Every time I sobered up I didn’t want to be that guy. That’s now who I wanted to be and I knew it.”

“Money was a big one. I could spend money on the dumbest stuff. I could buy drinks for everybody. I could gamble, just do dumb stuff with money you didn’t have. You go home and you’re trying to keep the lights on for your wife and your little kids and you just spent the stupid money. I was just making really bad decisions.” Steve’s drinking affected his family the most.

“I used language that a man should be crucified for in front of my children. [It] wasn’t abusive; I was just vulgar. Stuff like that. It’s no good. It was no good. I’ll tell you the worst one. I’ve got two daughters and one of them’s never had a drink that I know of. Pretty sure not. The oldest one can’t say that, because her daddy gave her a drink. Little girls [sic] should have never been given her only taste of alcohol in her live [sic] from her dad. That’s what alcohol did for me.”

After partying one night with a friend, Steve woke up with a hangover and a revelation. He was finally tired of his drunken lifestyle: “I got up that morning, and I was sick with a capital S. It was bad. It was like you hit me right in the forehad with a choppin’ ax. I didn’t have any money left and I just laid there in that bed and I thought, “Now, I’ve got to put my game face on and go auctioneer this horse sale and pretend like I’m fine.” I told that friend I said, “I’m not drinking no more.” My friend kidded me and told everybody, he picked on me all weekend.

But Steve was serious about his new commitment. He just didn’t know how to keep it. On the ride home after the horse auction, he decided to talk to God:

That night I called on Jesus for some odd reason. Nobody’s told me how to pray this prayer. I just called on Jesus and I met Him. You know the first thing that the Lord spoke to me: ‘What do you want?’ I said ‘I want to be a good husband. I want to be a good dad. I don’t want to do another thing away from home that I’m ashamed to tell my family when I get back. Alcohol’s turning me loose to be an idiot and I don’t want it anymore. I want rid of it right now! He said, ‘If you’ll give me all of it, I’ll get rid of that.’ I said, ‘I’m all yours.’

It moves me every time of how awesome it is for a guy like me in a cab of a pickup to have your sins forgiven. Heaven is part of the deal, but I don’t think people realize unless you’ve been an old sinner what it means to be sitting in the cab of a truck and have God tell you that your sins are forgiven.

He drove home that night and began a new life. He began r3ading his Bible and going to church with his family. “It was pretty amazing when you pull in your house and you tell your family,” Steve continued, “Get up. We’re going to church. I just got saved.” You don’t even know what that means. They think I must have snorted something up my nose or something and went crazy.” Steve says he hasn’t had a drop of alcohol since then.

“The fear of the Lord will make a man hate evil. As I’ve grown, I’ve got to where I just despise evil. I’ve gotten that way about the alcohol, because it was so dangerous in my life and i didn’t know it.”

Now, the Friskup home is peaceful, and Steve makes strong decisions for his family. He and Robin are pastors of Muleshoe Cowboy Church in Texas. He says, “It’s just what God’ll do. We run horse sales with grown men walking around telling each other they love each other. That’s just crazy. That ain’t how that goes. But that’s what God’ll do.’

Testimony 2

I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this but it seems to me that a lot of people have come to know the Lord at the age of around 20. Maybe it’s just the ones I’ve met? But that is when it happened to me. I was just approaching my twentieth birthday, twenty years ago nw, when someone came right up to my friends and unashamedly told them that he had given his life to Jesus. My friends at that time knew this particular young man and made the most of ribbing him and giving him a hard time. I just listened quietly in the background and when they had finished their taunts I asked him some questions of my own: “What about starving millions? Why doesn’t God do something about it?” and I can’t remember what else. I don’t think his answers impressed me, nor anything particularly of the whole event, but all I know is that at that moment in great simplicity I said within myself, “OK, I believe you, there is a God.”

I had not thought much about it before and I had special intention of ‘going away to think about it’ at that time. However, the next I knew was, wherever I went, whatever I was doing, all that kept going through my mind was, “There really is a God’, ‘there really is someone called Jesus, there really is a heaven and there really is a hell.”

My knowledge of the Bible was pretty much limited to what the cover looked like of a little Gideon’s Testament I had among my possessions (somehow!). My only previous use for this was to press a four-leaved clover inside of it and occasionally tuck it under my pillow at night, in some vain attempt at procuring some comfort from a state of paranoia about my health and death.

My concern for my state of health and fear of death did have some basis in reality. I had severely traumatized y own body by a lifestyle of drug-taking and had on two previous occasions overdose on amphetamine and once at an evey younger age tried to completely asphyxiate myself with my head in a bag of solvent.

Mine is the case of the typical broken-home scenario. I’ll spare the details of the early years, suffice to say that by the time I was 13 I was headlong into crime, girls, self-abuse and the care system, complete with D.C. (detention centre) — the short, sharp, shock treatment. By the time I was 19 I wasn’t looking as though I was going to improve much.

So we come back to my little encounter above. A lone off conversation with nothing especially much to impress, but during the 2 weeks that followed that brief encounter something was still progressing inside of me. In the course of that time that “voice” (not audible but none-the-less very real) did not let up at any moment. It was saying every day : There really is a God, there really is someone called Jesus, there really is a heaven, there really is a hell.”I somehow knew as if by instinct (or the young man told me, I can’t remember) I must repent of all my sins, ask Jesus to forgive me and live a completely different life.

The idea of “giving up” all my vices in life was almost too much to contemplate, but there was something much more powerful growing inside of me that I knew I couldn’t escape — the fear of Hell. I am not saying that the whole purpose of my Christian life now is simply to escape Hell, I am not saying that such a thought is a wonderful motive for giving your life to Christ; but the bottom line for me and my particular thought processes at that time was this: It doesn’t matter how bland, boring, dull and difficult life will be, it will only be temporal — but after that comes the eternal! By comparison there was only one thing a self-seeking sinner could do — turn my life over to Jesus and be saved. Such was my reasoning and such was God’s method of reaching into the depths of me and making me repent of my sing.

The time had come; I knew what I must do, so, alone in my flat one night I decided that I was going to do it. One final thought struck me. It was late in the evening and I had a habit of making resolutions last thing at night about changing my lifestyle. Not for any moral reason, but simply for the sake of my health, which as I said I was somewhat paranoid about. I would make my plans to live a cleaner, healthier lifestyle at bedtime and in the morning would go my way in pursuit of besetting sins. So that evening I said to myelf, “If I really mean this, then I’ll mean it just as much in the morning. ” So I did nothing that night and went to bed.

That was the beginning for me. Needless to say, many are the lessons along the way. Jesus said that He is “The Door”, but He also said that He is “The Way”. One of the most valuable lessons I had to learn as a young Christian was that it doesn’t matter how radical and striking your conversion experience is, unless you continue to walk with God day by day then you are still powerless to live righteously before God. I was greatly helped by reading a book by the title of Abide in Christ. Of course, ultimately it is God Himself who sees to it that you and I will hear the right thing, read the right book, meet the right people at just the right time in order to teach us the things we need to know, as we are able to receive them. Jesus also said that He is “The Shepherd”. The Holy Spirit is our Teacher. God Himself has promised to guide us into all Truth. May He guide you along the paths that to everlasting life, too.

Possibly Related Posts:

• The Sights and Sounds of Enabling
  by Diane Viere and Elaine Altman-Eller
• Counterfeit: Lies We Believe About Work
• Day Twelve of The 12-Day Prodigal Prayer Mission
• Day Ten of The 12-Day Prodigal Prayer Mission
• Day Nine of The 12-Day Prodigal Prayer Mission

We Are the Reason is my fifth YouTube video. It’s one of my favorite seasonal songs. I incorporated tweets from Twitter’s Tworship for the first time.  View my other YouTube videos.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Counterfeit: Lies We Believe About Fatherhood
• Counterfeit: Lies We Believe About Work
• Counterfeit: Lies We Believe About Religion
• Counterfeit: Lies We Believe About Worship
• What Love Really Means YouTube Video

This series on the Biblical metaphor of the eagle resulted from a scheduled tweet series that was my most retweeted ever. This is the fourth post inspired by the success of that series. In the first, we discussed how eagles must soar rather than flap their wings to fly. To do this, they wait upon thermal winds that lift them high above other birds and carry them along. This is the picture portrayed in Isaiah 40:31 where we are told to “wait upon the Lord” and we will “mount up with wings like eagles”. The winds that would topple us, if we accept them and turn into them become the winds that allow us to truly soar. In the second, we considered the patience of eagles as hunters as compared to the Biblical view of “patience”. An environment that is peaceful includes people with patience. Last time we noted that eagles are conspicuously marked; Christians are exhorted to be conspicuous in order to draw others, ultimately to God, as His work is displayed in our lives — we are to be “light” to the world.

Eagles are also majestic. “Majestic” is a word that communicates well, because we all know what it means; however, it is hard to define. Here’s a definition from Dictionary.com

Ma-jes-tic [muh-jes-tik]

– adjective characterized by or possessing majesty; of lofty dignity or imposing aspect; stately; grand: the majestic Alps.

Please notice that even its own definition uses “majesty”, proving how self-evident yet difficult to explain is the meaning. We see the word in 2 Peter 1:16-18:

We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.

In the original language, the word for “majestic” is “megaloprepous”. We’re going to deconstruct this word to glean its full meaning. The word includes the root words “megaloi” and “prepo”. “Megaloi” translates well into English, we see it in a a word like “megastar”.  It’s not enough to be a star, Angela Lansbury is a star (Murder She Wrote, Beauty and the Beast), it’s better to be a “megastar” like George Clooney. Notice that I didn’t need to put movie credits after his name, everyone knows who he is, he’s a big star.

“Megaloi” is more than that though, we see it in the English word “megalomaniac”. An “egomaniac” is someone who is self-obsessed, someone who thinks very highly of themselves, but a megalomaniac is much more extreme; it’s someone who is very, very self-obsessed, to the point of viewing themselves as God-like. Adolph Hitler was a megalomaniac. Now if we extract “megaloi” from these examples, it stands alone as
Really, Really, Really … [fill in the blank]

The word is used twice in Luke 21:11 …

There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.

Here Luke uses the word to describe the end times as a period of …

Really, Really, Really … big earthquakes

Really, Really, Really … big signs from heaven

The meaning of “prepo” is not as obvious, because it is translated into English in various ways. It is “became” in Hebrews 2:10 …

For it became him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many children to glory, to make the author of their salvation pefect through sufferings.

It is “appropriate” or “fitting” in 1 Timothy 2:9-10 …

I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.

The easier part of the meaning of this word is “attractive” or “pleasing” or “becoming”. We know what these words mean, but there’s a missing piece of the puzzle. “Fitting” or “appropriate” implies some standard against which a measurement is taken. What is the standard?

Really, Really, Really … big attractiveness

Really, Really, Really … big fit

Mountains can be majestic (Psalms 68:15):

The mountains of Bashan are majestic mountains; rugged are the mountains of Bashan.

A military procession with flags can be majestic (Solomon 6:4):

You are beautiful, my darling, as Tirzah, lovely as Jerusalem, majestic as troops with banners.

A world power like Egypt can be majestic (Ezekial 31:2):

Who can be compared with you in majesty?

In each of these examples we get beauty (becoming) and power, but threateningly so. In each case the majesty is communicated through our eyes and through our instinct both to appreciate power and its implied threat. Therefore, the meaning of majesty is as follows:

Really, Really, Really … attractive to the eye

Really, Really, Really … perfect fit for our eyes and our instincts

We are perfectly built by God to appreciate both beauty and power. Our eyes and instincts are perfectly fitted to appreciate majesty in God, in man and in nature. Our eyes and instincts are the implied standard, the missing piece to complete the puzzle of the meaning of majesty.

When are you observing majesty? When you see a beautiful eagle, mountain or army procession, you are feeling their majesty. When will you feel every sense and every instinct fully observing and feeling majesty? Your sense of majesty will finally be fulfilled when seeing and feeling Jesus in His resurrected (transfigured) body (2 Peter 1:16-18). You are built to be filled with a sense of complete majesty at that moment.

The next time you worship or pray, will you yield to this idea? Yielding to a vision of Jesus in all His glory on His throne surrounded by His creation is surrendering to your own God-given senses and sense. It’s what you were perfectly created to do.

Just do it.

Please contribute to our understanding of “majestic” by commenting.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Surge
• Eagles Soar
• Eagles are Conspicuously Marked
• Eagles are Patient Hunters
• Fly Like an Eagle

The Shack is a must read.

It’s a mind-bending, spirit-jolting, jaw-dropping walk through the darkest valleys of life experience that expanded my imagination of what heaven is like and why that matters right now. It also put me in the position of deciding to sacrifice myself to save my children with all the attendant emotions and transformed my head knowledge about suffering into heart-felt wisdom about it. Author William P. Young’s fictional story will push your perspective heavenward and give you glimpses of your brief life through God’s eyes, including the perspectives of our Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

I am hearing the cry from theologians about doctrinal error, but it’s not a doctrinal treatise. It’s meant to be read like The Chronicles of Narnia or The Screwtape Letters of C.S. Lewis. Would you argue that Lewis’ rat Reepicheep implies Christians should see a fight in every comment? Is it relevant? The fictional story of The Shack is meant to temporarily transport you into the shoes of the Trinity as they restore a father drowning in his own grief to his full humanity.

To give this book 5 out of 5 stars is an injustice, I give it 5.5 out of 5 stars.

For a consideration of the theology of The Shack I would suggest that you check out an interview with the author where he defends himself.

For an opposing view, please see the article written my mentor, Dr. Norman L. Geisler on his site.

Possibly Related Posts:

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  by Diane Viere and Elaine Altman-Eller
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• Permission to Speak Freely by Anne Jackson (audio version)
• Father Fiction by Donald Miller (audio version)