Author Archive: Revraney

The Priesthood of Believers is a term that is used to describe the theology behind the truth that all are called to minister in the name of Christ.  Ministry is not just for the paid professional.  The existense of an elder or deacon (or several, whatever the case may be) is not a license for some to minister and others to be passive.

Christ commissioned all who follow Him to minister in His name.  This is not just simply helping out at the church pot-luck dinner once in awhile.  This is a call to a lifestyle of ministry for all believers.

In “Preachers Who Are Not Believers,” a report by Daniel C Dennett and Linda LaScola of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University, there are five case studies of Christian ministers who no longer identify themselves as believers – but their churches don’t know it.

Many of us have known Preachers who have left the ministry for one reason or another, many times due to some loss of faith or confidence, either in the church or even in God. But when preachers lose their faith in God and continue to preach it is a sad commentary indeed on the state of our world.

Different ones who have been interviewed for studies like this mention that they have difficulty believing in many of the extreme stories recorded for us in scripture. Are we looking for a God that we can understand with our own cognitive abilities? I certainly hope not. For any God that I can fully understand is no better than I am and I need a God that is much better than me.

“There have been men before now who got so interested in proving the existence of God that they came to care nothing for God Himself…as if the good Lord had nothing to do but exist!“  C.S. Lewis, ‘The Great Divorce’

Don’t forget to enjoy God today

There was a time when a parent’s main concern was for their children to become honorable citizens.  That sentiment is being replaced by the desire for them to become successful.

‘Darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over all the peoples’ (Isa 60:2).  Man’s sin is universal.  None can escape its clutches.  It covers the earth like a blanket of darkness.  Bringing along with it the gloom and depression that accompanies such darkness.

Where is the hope for mankind?  Is it in the programs of governments and kingdoms?  Is it to be found in the power and might of economies or armies?  No, all of these can fall, as we have seen so many examples in the last century and even very recently.  The landscape of the world’s kingdoms change.  Borders are realigned and economies fail.  None of these can stand against the darkness and provide the hope for deliverance that is needed.

‘But the Lord rises upon you and His glory appears over you’.  ‘Who is this Lord?  Who is this King of Glory’  It is and always has been Christ, the Messiah who was Jesus in the flesh.  Our deliverance is found in Him and only in Him.

‘Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.’  The darkness is dispersed by the brilliant light of the glory of God.  It cannot comprehend such light and must fail and give way to this glory.  This is not only so for the world in total, but for you as an individual.  Our deliverance, your deliverance from darkness like a shroud, is found in the Light, the Lord of Glory, God himself, Jesus the Christ.

In the church we often hear the message that God answers prayer.  Sometimes it seems like this doesn’t line up with our life experiences.  We have all struggled with this seeming conflict.  Often we respond to one another with things like, “He answers but He doesn’t always answer yes” or “God is teaching you patience.”  While there is truth in those statements they can leave us feeling empty.  

A clearer understanding of what the real focus and goal of prayer is can help.  Ravi Zacharias was asked about this in an interview regarding his booktitled “Has Christianity Failed You?”.  I find his answer very helpful.  Here is an excerpt from that interview talking about the real focus and goal of prayer (you can find the entire interview here

DD: Given the amazing promises of Scripture and the way the church often proclaims the message that God answers prayer and the desires of our heart if we just have enough faith, it’s difficult to not feel disappointed when our prayers aren’t answered as we had hoped or in our expected time frame. What advice would you give to the person who once held firm, perhaps even rigid, expectations of God, and now struggles with halfhearted prayers and even resignation?

RZ: If we were to draw out the really hard questions of this book, this area would be where probably more people have faltered or have found what they feel is a legitimate gripe against God. It would be easy to dismiss this in the simplistic answers— you know, “God wants you to be patient,” and “Between the promise and the performance is the parenthesis.” The thing is, the parenthesis sometimes seems terribly protracted, so much so that you never see the performance of the promise. I find it amazing how Jesus dealt with prayer and how in the critical moments of his own calling, he stepped aside to pray. I find it absolutely fascinating that the biblical writers tell us how he prayed and what he prayed. If they had been manufacturing a persona of Jesus, they would never have told us the things he prayed for because clearly his prayers were often unanswered. His high priestly prayer, if anything, is one of the huge gaps between prayer and performance. The parenthesis seems to be very long. Nearly two thousand years have gone by since he prayed that we would be one, and you can’t even find us being one in one church, let alone in all of Christendom. So it says to me, as Jesus reminded us in the Lord’s Prayer, that I need to pray much more about my relationship with God and my understanding of his kingdom than with a wish list in front of me. The thing we may be missing most in our approach to prayer is a clear understanding of what communion with God really means. Such an understanding is able to cover a multitude of unanswered prayers and will give us the confidence of knowing that God is with us and that we can depend on him to sustain us with peace and fulfillment and meaning, even at the end of a dark day or in the midst of a dark night of the soul. Through prayer, God is preparing the wineskin to receive the new wine of grace. This is the work of God. If we think his desire is only to give us what we ask for, we misunderstand the process of preparing the wineskin.