Adventures in Denver: August 2008

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Moved and Settled (well partially at least)...

July was potentially the busiest month that we have experienced in a long time. We moved from Lawrence, KS to Kansas City, MO (but still Broncos fans mind you), celebrated several birthdays (Elijah, 4; Grampy, 50; Will, 27), and worked like crazy to finish up my thesis (but still just not quite finished). Hopefully, things will slow down to a slow gallop in August! Our new apartment is quite nice, and it is fairly close to my work to boot, so we are happy with all of that. Check it out: www.provincekc.com
Elijah and Stella are doing well, although they seem to have decided to drives us crazy some days (and by us I mean Kim)! Last weekend Kim and Stella and Elijah got to ride the miniature working train at the line creek community center Kansas City Northern Railroad which they said was quite fun (well Stella just made a spitting noise, but surely it was intended to convey her enjoyment remembered). I, alas, was again working on my thesis...I am now officially so so so so ready to just be done with it! Soon, very soon.

Check out more pictures on the flickr bar to the left! That is all for now. Hope all of you have a chance to enjoy the final days of summer, before you know it will be snowing! (Consider yourself warned)

Devotions

Click the link above for the Daily Devotional, daily excerpts from the book "A Day's Journey" by Pastor Jon Courson.

Selected Article from Abiding Life Ministries Intl.

Coming to a Place of Deception

By Michael Wells

James 1:14, “But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.”

Galatians 5:16-17, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.”

I am starting to believe that people are deceived because there is something in them desiring the deception. First, if Satan has the ability to deceive all men, then all men would be deceived. Obviously he does not have that kind of power. So what does he look for in a man that would allow for a deception? Satan is looking for something in the heart of man where the deception can begin. It would be impossible for Christ to deceive any person, for there is nothing in Christ that the flesh desires. True Christianity cannot deceive, for again, nothing in the flesh wants anything at all to do with Christianity.

Christianity has one message for my flesh: “Move over!” So what is it that makes man’s heart open to deception? I believe it is the desire of a heart that says, “I can be God.” Rephrased, it is the desire of the heart to be independent from God. This is why the Mormon religion is so successful; it is cleverer than the early Catholics who embraced the local gods of the people, or just gave them different names. As you know, many “Catholic” countries are rife with blends of Catholicism and witchcraft. Haiti is an example. However, the Mormons offer something more: man can actually become a god. Man can invite his wife to his celestial kingdom, where she can be eternally pregnant. This “deception” has incredible drawing power to those who have suffered under the hand of their unjust god, or who have served a god all of their lives. After all, who would not want to believe that he could become the one who hands out punishment and receives gifts from others?

Such a person is deceived with a ludicrous teaching, but moving past the cobweb to the spider, we see at the root a heart that says, “I want to be God.” Deceptions all offer the flesh something, and Christ is always taking something away from the flesh. When someone converts to Mormonism, or any of the other “-isms,” I never feel that the Mormons won one while the Christians lost one. Instead, I believe that the person, in believing the deception of Mormonism, actually revealed a heart previously hidden that is anti-Christ. Again, we see that nothing is working against us. God is permitting all the “-isms” for the revelation of hearts. The germ of every cult is this promise of keeping the flesh alive through some kind of God-playing. The amazing thing is that it holds any attraction, when it is so much easier to have a God than to play God.