Joie de Vivre A Wretched Man’s Quest To Follow Jesus Christ

Oprah Winfrey and her good friend Eckhart Tolle continue to lead more than two million down the wide open road to destruction while unashamedly twisting Scripture along the way.

I’m calling this phenomenon Opra-heresy from here on.

On a related note, there’s a new book out called Don’t Drink The Kool-Aid that exposes the spiritual deception extolled by Oprah Winfrey, Marianne Williamson (A Course in Miracles) and Eckhart Tolle. The book is available in paperback and for immediate download as an e-book.

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Foreword: I thought I’d give a little background into how this testimony came about, because it simply demonstrates how often God works wonderfully in us and there’s only goodness when we submit to His will.

For some days now, my wife has told me that she hasn’t been able to sleep well because God has prompted her time and again to write her testimony down.

She asked me why, and I told her testimonies were a good way for us to glorify God through telling others what He has made anew in us. As to why God is telling her to do so I am not sure, yet we need trust that the Lord has need for her to do something that has not been revealed, but it’s all good (Romans 8:28).

We had retired rather late to bed last night. Just 15 minutes later, she was out of bed, and the study light came on while her computer whirred to life. When I popped into the study to ask why she wasn’t in bed, she was quite in tears, telling me that God had admonished her for not submitting to His will, right after prayers.

She had been fighting the burden in her heart to write her testimony down, believing wrongly that it’s rather pointless.

It was the first time she had experienced such a prompting, so I gently told her that that’s what God does with me many, many times over — a feeling so heavy in one’s heart that you go on your knees and cry out saying, “Father, Lord, I’ll obey and do it!”

I made coffee for us and stayed up with her while she completed her testimony which we are now sharing with you. May it encourage and bless you as it has us.

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This article was written by John Piper March 19, 2008.
© Desiring God.

The love of Christ for us in his dying was as conscious as his suffering was intentional. “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16). If he was intentional in laying down his life, it was for us. It was love. “When Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (John 13:1). Every step on the Calvary road meant, “I love you.”

Therefore, to feel the love of Christ in the laying down of his life, it helps to see how utterly intentional it was. Consider these five ways of seeing Christ’s intentionality in dying for us.

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John Piper’s exhortation to constantly make all-out war against temptations that we face, our pride, our fleshly cravings and all-enslaving desires in the sermon featured below definitely spoke to me.

Yes, I am guilty of murmuring and murmuring “oh, how I wish to be free of this” and not do anything concrete about it, much less actually wage war against it!

Perhaps you are a better and more conscientious warrior than I am, but I am sure that there are many like me else we wouldn’t have so much heresy and that many hypocrites in our churches today.

If you are honest about it and have been putting off fighting that giant of a sin — be it pride, sloth, pornography, mean-spiritedness, covetousness, or just about any sin — then I pray you take this as the impetus to begin to make constant war.

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God…

– Ephesians 6:13-17

With reference to the alternate title of this post, it has to do with how the sermon was presented.

If you like how it was set to music, then you might also like how other sermons have been treated in the same fashion by the good folks at 10:31 Sermon Jams. Not all of the treatments are good, but there are gems like the one from John Piper I just linked, aptly titled “WAR”.

There’s another site that does the same thing with some of the better sermons called Relevant Revolution. I haven’t gone through much of their treatments yet, but the one I’ve heard — “Go” by Paul Washer — sounds pretty good.

Shalom Aleichem.

It’s worrying me a little.

I’ve been slow on the adoption of ‘new’ technologies in the past couple of years.

Take, for example, this wonderful technology called a ‘podcast’.

I’ve seen it everywhere, but never really paid any attention to it, nor took the time to find out what it does or how it can benefit me. In times past, I’d have leapt at lapping up every piece of information on how it works and how I can benefit from using it.

No, I don’t know what it is, but for someone like me who’s been in the IT industry for more than a decade, it is a little disconcerting.

Well, as the wise (hmm…) old saying goes “better late than never”, I’ve finally caught up with how useful podcasts can actually be.

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Here are some of my favorite quotes from two of the most faithful and true teachers of God’s Word — John Piper and Paul Washer. I hope that they, too, encourage you and spur you on to examine your Christian walk.

John Piper

“Many people are willing to be God-centered as long as they feel that God is man-centered”

“One of the reasons we are not as Christ-centered and cross-saturated as we should be is that we have not realized that everything — everything good, and everything bad that God turns for the good of his redeemed children — was purchased by the death of Christ for us. We simply take life and breath and health and friends and everything for granted. We think it is ours by right. But the fact is that it is not ours by right. We are doubly undeserving of it.”

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I get both really riled up and sad at the same time whenever I hear or read of those who profess to be serving God fleece gullible people out of their hard-earned money while giving them false promises.

Oh, you wolves in sheep’s clothing! Woe to you!

Just read about this poor woman — Cindy Fleenor’s a 53-year-old accountant, someone smart by academic standards anywhere in the world, and she’s been conned into writing so many checks to these wolves in the shape of Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer and Paula White that she has to borrow money from friends and payday loan companies just to buy groceries!

And when the promises didn’t come about (of course they didn’t, because they are false!), she learned that it was because her faith wasn’t strong enough.

Is it any wonder that she’s now bitter and angry? And the worse thing is that this episode might just push her away from God and she loses the real promise — salvation — because of the misdeeds of these wolves!

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