“Leave Her Alone”

“I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or by the does of the field, do not stir up nor awaken love until [she] pleases.” (Song of Solomon 2:7)

My worship team is currently studying through the Song of Solomon together. I was reading through it the other day when this verse struck me. (Note to anyone who happened to stumble across this blog: I am studying Song of Solomon through the classical allegorical interpretation. If you disagree with that, you probably won’t like this post. Fair warning.)

It’s important to see the context of this verse in order to get a fuller grasp of what it means. And no, I don’t think it is primarily about being a flagship quote for the True Love Waits movement, as much as I appreciate true love waiting. ANYWAY.

Helping Haiti

The devastating earthquake that rocked Haiti needs no introduction. Undoubtedly you’ve seen the news reports and heard the calls for humanitarian aid. The need is staggering — what can normal people like you and I do?

There are actually several very practical, urgent ways that anyone can help.

1) Pray. If you aren’t sure where to start, or need some help to stay focused, tune into the live IHOP-KC webstream by clicking here. Most of our intercessory prayer meetings right now are focusing on Haiti.  (Intercession meetings are at 12am, 4am, 6am, 10am, 4pm, and 8pm Central)

2) Give. Support those who are going to the front lines of the quake to minister to the victims. You can view and support the work of Crisis Response International (CRI) by clicking here. CRI is an organization which brings both practical aid and Holy Spirit-led ministry to disaster areas. You can also check out my roommate’s blog by clicking here. She is raising money now to deploy with the CRI relief team to Haiti very soon.

3) Act. Randy Bohlender has been pounding down all kinds of political doors to get Haitian orphans out of the danger zone, and his relentless efforts have opened several easy inroads for you to have a voice in their rescue. This post does everything but call your senator and congressperson for you — click over for information on how to let your representatives know you want to see those children taken to safety. This post does all but send an urgent email for you — click over for a link to contact the Haitian government, along with a ready-made form email, to petition them to ask/allow the U.S. to help them take care of their orphans. This post explains why we should even bother and care — the short version is that a) countless children are being abandoned to starvation, neglect, and squalor, and b) in their current helpless state, these orphans are ripe for the picking for predatorial human traffickers to take them away… and no one will even realize they’re gone. Read all of Randy’s posts. Take them to heart. And take action.

Consider Him Who Endured

…let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. (Hebrews 12:1-3, emphasis added)

“Consider Him… lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.” I love this verse. Perhaps it isn’t terrifically obvious at first glance how this works. After all, I don’t think anyone walked out of a showing of The Passion of the Christ pumping their fists, ready to take on the world. At least for me, thinking about blood, torture, and humiliation doesn’t generally fire me up for action. So how does considering Jesus’ endurance of suffering give our hearts strength?

There are lots of  potential answers to that question. In fact, there are lots of right answers to that question. But one in particular has been striking my heart lately — and here’s a hint: It’s not about inducing a guilt trip.

Quick update, more silence

Things have been in full throttle to onething09 around here, which, in part, explains my blog silence. I’m hoping to get my weekly posts back in gear come January.

I just wanted to drop a couple of quick updates before the craziness hits tomorrow — kind of a “What’s up” as well as a “What’s on my heart”:

• If by some phenomenally small chance you read this blog, but don’t also keep up with IHOP-KC local news, please keep the Loux family in your prayers. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, please click over to their blog and read about. And seriously, also pray about giving to them at this time (info on the right side of their blog).
• I fully expect this conference to be amazing. I expect the Lord to show up in powerful ways and touch many hearts. Please pray that He delivers many from depression, condemnation, self-hatred, and fear, that they may be free on the inside to give 100% to the Lord in confident love and obedience.
• Especially coming, as it does, right after Christmas, I feel a tremendous burden for our conference attendees to become firmly convinced in the identity and nature of Jesus. There is so much deception in the media today concerning who Jesus is, what He’s like, and how He saves us. I believe this onething09 will be a line in the sand for many, where they have the opportunity to break agreement with the lies of the spirit of this age. I believe many will be awakened to the importance of knowing Christ and Him crucified — Christ, the wisdom of God and power of God, whom the rulers of this age could not comprehend.
• At onething09, I will be at the eSchool booth most days in the afternoons and evenings. If you read this blog, stop in and say hi! And maybe sign up for a course or two! (Insider information: we have some reduced prices for onething09 attendees. Rock on.)
• A lot of us at IHOP-KC have been battling various rounds of “the crud” since — oh, I don’t know — October, maybe. Please pray for us, especially as many of us give super long hours to working at the conference, that we would be strengthened and healthy.
• If you can’t come to Kansas City this year, let Kansas City come to you (so to speak). Go to www.ihop.org and look for the banners advertising onething09 for streaming and notes.
• Starting in January, the IHOP-KC webstream will be free. Yes, completely free. Meaning you can hop on the internet and watch the prayer room at any time. Pretty awesome.
• Speaking of free, and of awesome, Mike Bickle has a new website up with all kinds of resources — sermons, podcasts, study notes, transcriptions and more — all for free. Check it: mikebickle.org

I think that’s it for now — but I hope you had a great Christmas, and hope you get to join us either locally or online for onething09.

O (tiny) Tannenbaum…

Editor’s note: (Oh wait, that’s me)… This post is a week later than I meant for it to be, but I think it’s still worth a publish.

Oh, mercy. This is going to be one of those sappy sentimental Christmas-y posts.

…

Yes. Yes it is. Just thought I’d warn you before you click the “Read more”. If you don’t want to read a bit of sappiness (get it…? Tree? Sap?? HA!), check back later.

Role Modeling Made Easy

Recently, while researching different viewpoints about women in ministry (a subject I have not abandoned, by the way), I ran across a certain preacher who was taking potshots at Wonder Woman. He was decrying her as an invention of the feminist movement, which she is. But he especially took offense at how she acts too much “like a man”. Now, admittedly, I’ve never read the comics, but I would seriously doubt that to be the case. If her costume is any indication, I’d say “butch” is not exactly what the comic creator was going for.

I was discussing this with my mom the other day, and we got to talking about role models for girls in the media. The course of conversation brought up another fictitious fighter, Xena the Warrior Princess (who also received a derogatory mention from the above preacher). She’s another example of the entertainment industry’s attempt to offer girls an alternative role model to delicate wallflowers and fainting damsels in distress such as Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, and the like.

The secular media loves these superheroes, because when it comes to role models, it means girls no longer have to choose between being a princess and kicking tail.  In the past, in movies and stories, girls have generally been cast in the roles of: cute, boring, basically useless sidekick who gets captured and needs rescuing; delicate, lovely princess who needs rescuing (or at least has the handsome princes falling all over themselves to woo her); or — if she’s useful and has the ability to hold her own – the plain, spunky tomboy who nobody falls in love with but everyone likes to keep around anyway, because she’s just “one of the guys”. The message was fairly clear. Dainty and delicate was the way to go if you wanted to be an attractive, successful woman.

From a purely secular standpoint, Wonder Woman and Xena seem a little refreshing after that kind of stuff.

When Unprofitable Servants are Served

If you read this blog, I imagine you have been keeping up with the awakening meetings taking place at IHOP-KC. If by some remarkable chance you haven’t heard, the Holy Spirit has been moving on us (especially on our student body) in an unusual way lately. You can watch live meetings Wednesday-Sunday, starting at 6pm (Central), as well as watch some amazing archives and testimonies, at www.ihop.org/watch.

You can read the explanation of what is going on at the IHOP website. Plus, you can go read a couple of great posts by Zack Hensley and Randy Bohlender  with some further thoughts on the meetings. As I consider what has already been said, along with what could be said, and how much I’m still trying to get my own bearings on things right now, it is hard to decide how to write about this. At one level, I have to say something — we are having healings, deliverances, and salvations breaking out after all — but at another level, what can I say? (Except for: ”Seriously folks, if you haven’t tuned in to any of it yet, get on www.ihop.org/watch sometime this Wed-Sunday.”)

This has something to do with the pronounced lack of blog posts so far this month.

Yet as I was reading through the book of Luke recently, I was struck with two passages that exactly speak to what I’ve been feeling about this season of awakening.

Life-Shaping One-Liners

I was thinking the other day about how much my life has been shaped over the six years I’ve been here at IHOP. The great part is that none of it has happened through large, complex, sweeping illustrations and arguments. It’s never a matter of “This teacher put together all those passages, read it through this lens, retold it with a certain kind of spin, and BAM! Suddenly I hang on his/her every word.” It’s a matter of simple, one-line statements that basically say, “Yep, the Bible actually means what it says when it says XYZ.”

When I’m in the middle of an emotional swirl, I don’t have the patience or brainpower to summon that fantastic six-point sermon. What I remember is that handful of words with the umph (and sometimes the “ouch”) behind it to pierce my own mental fog and keep me clinging to Biblical reality.

…I figure I’ve got a few more months of quoting them before I get to pull the preacher trick and just say, “It’s like I’ve always said…”

- I am loved by God, and I am a lover of God; therefore I am successful.

- God is not mostly mad or sad, but mostly glad.

- Love does not have to be mature before it’s real.

- There is a difference between weakness and rebellion.

- God’s correction is not God’s rejection.

- God will use the least severe means possible to bring the greatest number of people to the deepest level of love without violating anyone’s free will.

- Tithing: You can’t afford not to.

- We need a Judge.

What about you? What one-liners stick with you (IHOP or otherwise)? Please share in the comments.

Incognito Legalism

Few things are as universally decried in today’s western Church as legalism. To many of us, the worst possible name anyone could label us is “Pharisee”. We all (rightly) want to avoid that pit of buidling rules upon rules, religiously adhering to stringent requirements that God never commanded. Most young believers today would have no problem identifying and avoiding that kind of legalism. We are culturally geared to not really like the confinements of rules anyway, so we are more than happy to call legalism what it is.

However, there’s an entire other side to legalism that the vast majority of us embrace. Ironically enough, the people most prone to it are the loudest proclaimers of personal freedom. It’s much more covert, but it’s just as real and locks our hearts up just as quickly.

Jesus is not Braveheart

Here I go, stating the obvious again. I seem to have a knack for doing that in my titles. Certainly nothing will draw readers in like telling them something that everyone and their dog already knows. Assuming that their dogs read or watch movies, that is. And it would also be helpful if they had a basic grasp on theology.

Anyway. The point.

I don’t really take issue with drawing theological parallels to movies. I’ve sat under a number of sermons that referenced a movie, or even played a clip from it, to illustrate a pastor’s point. I’ve seen/heard references to Lord of the Rings (particularly The Return of the King), Gladiator, The Patriot… and even Jurassic Park. No, I’m not kidding about that last one. I wish I could remember what point it was supposed to convey. Probably had something to do with spiritual warfare.