Ep.350: A Sword in his Mouth.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

John opens the Book of Revelation by reporting visions God gave him of the present and future. He says, “On the Lord’s Day, I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet” (Rev 1:10).

I’m not sure what it means to be “in the Spirit”, but the experience allowed John to see visions and hear other-world communications.

When John turned to see the trumpet-voice that addressed him, he saw someone like a son of man, decked out in royal garments, with snow white hair and blazing eyes, with feet like fiery bronze, with a voice like rushing waters and a face like the shining sun (Rev 1:13-15).

This person is like the one Daniel saw in his vision 500 years earlier (Daniel 10:4-13). But the man in John’s vision had an new, disturbing characteristic: a double edged sword coming out of his mouth.

Weird, eh? A sword in the mouth? Commentators suggest this represents the word of God, similar to Hebrews 4 which says, “The word of God is living and active, sharper than a double-edged sword” (Heb 4:12).

The man in Daniel’s vision was fighting the prince of Persia, but we don’t know what weapons he was using. The man in John’s vision doesn’t tell war stories about the Prince of Persia or other spiritual opponents. Perhaps his battle will be conducted with words, using the sword in his mouth.

The man with the sword said to John, “Don’t be afraid. I’m the first and the last. I was dead. Now I’m alive forever. I have the keys to death and the underworld” (Rev 1:17-18). Clearly, this man is Jesus. Can’t be anyone else!

In John’s vision, Jesus was surrounded by seven lampstands, representing the seven churches in Asia. He holds seven stars which represent seven angels (or messengers), one for each church.

A quick summary: Jesus appeared to John, standing among the churches, accompanied by angel messengers. The words in Jesus’ mouth were a sword. That doesn’t sound like a friendly message for the churches. But we’ll look at that next time.

Let’s pray.

O Jesus, you who stood among the churches of Asia, stand among our churches today. Send your messages to us, that we may hear your words, even if they are a sword that threatens our comfort and a fire that burns our complacency.

Help us to see you as John saw you: a royal king, a commanding presence, a fire in our community, a shining sun in our darkness. With your sword, cut away the evil and distractions in our lives. Wound us, purify us, heal us.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.349: Revelation.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

The New Testament epistles advance a program of faith, loving relationships, and moral living. Then comes the Book of Revelation with visions of fire, flood, pandemic, war, and Armageddon. The real Christ and the anti-Christ battle for world domination, and Christians get caught in the crossfire.

I don’t try to put Revelation into charts and timelines. Nor do I think it tells tomorrow’s headlines today. Revelation doesn’t give enough information to put the rapture, the millennium, and God’s great judgment in chronological order.

But let’s start with John at the beginning. John the author, calls his book “the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Rev 1:1). Which means, “Jesus is the author and holds the copyright on this material.”

John states his purpose for writing: “This is the revelation God gave to show his servants what must soon take place” (Rev. 1:1). Two thousand years ago, John predicted catastrophes and victories that would happen soon. We too believe they will happen soon. Perhaps in the next 2000 years of history.

Really? Who rules the earth? Aren’t Biden and Putin and Netanyahu and Xi Jinping the strong men who build their nations they want? No, says John, they are only second rate kings who report to King Jesus, the one Lord who rules them all. Hmmm. That’s not how the news anchor on my TV reports it.

Second, says John, Jesus is:
The one who loves us and freed us from our sins.
The one who makes us into a kingdom of priests who serve God (Rev 1:5-6).

Seems odd, doesn’t it? King Jesus who lets a delusional Putin invade Ukraine, and a vengeful Netanyahu bomb Palestine, and a power-hungry Jinping threaten Taiwan. This King Jesus doesn’t build a military-industrial complex to rule them all, but a kingdom of priests to serve God. How is that a solution to the realpolitik of a violent world?

Third, John says of Jesus:
He is the one who will come in the clouds
and rule the earth (Rev 1:7).

Ahh. That must be one of the things that will happen soon. King Jesus will appear and make his weak and invisible kingdom strong and real.

Let’s pray.

Jesus, we worship you because you are the king over the kings of earth. As the psalmist warned the presidents and dictators and party-leaders of the world:
Kiss the son lest he be angry
and you be destroyed in your way (Ps 2:12).

We worship you, Jesus, because you loved us and freed us from our sins. Free us from the kingdom of darkness. Free us from the powers of this world. Free us from sins that entangle us, from confused thinking that immobilizes us, from self-interest that hinders our service for you and others.

We worship you, Jesus, because you are building a new kingdom. Not based on guns and bombs, nor economic power and trade. But a kingdom of priests who serve God, and wait for his intervention.

We worship you, Jesus, because you will come in the clouds to rule earth. Today may we serve your kingdom with loving works and steadfast faith. And tomorrow, when you demonstrate your power, may we reign with you forever.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.248: Thinking about Idols.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

John finishes his epistle with the words, “Dear children, keep yourself from idols” (1 John 5:21).

Author Timothy Keller says your religion, or your idol, is where your mind goes when you have a moment of leisure (Counterfeit Gods: the Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power).

“The things we daydream about most readily and instinctively when nothing else is occupying our thoughts reveal what we live for and serve,” he says. (https://twitter.com/timkellernyc/status/1423228037332615168?lang=en)

I ask, Where does my mind go at leisure? Can I get along without my daily fix of daydreams and Facebook and world news? Is social media my religion?

What do you do for your daily dose of comfort?

If the places we go to in our minds are idols, how can we get rid of them?

I’ve tried killing mine. But daydreams aren’t easily snuffed. In the pain of life, my mind needs a source of comfort. Or distraction.

My friend the fridge is a favorite escape. But my other friend, wisdom, warns against compulsive snacking. I could try drug addiction or work addiction or trashy novels, but my life and God say, “No!”

Keller says idols cannot simply be removed, they must be replaced. In Jesus’ parable, the unclean spirit left the man. But when it returned for another look, it found the house unoccupied, swept clean, and back in order. So it moved in again, bringing seven spirits worse than itself (Mat 12:43-35).

Keep yourself from idols, John says. Drive out the evil desires and dysfunctions in your life. But don’t stop there, or worse will come. Fill the vacancy with a new set of desires and practices.

Let’s pray.

Our father, I like easy pictures of the Christian life. Like “born again”, a simple one-time event that changes my inner orientation. And “filled with the spirit”, a moment in which the evil spirit in me is replaced with your Holy Spirit.

But these spiritual experiences are just beginnings, invitations to new possibilities, the first step on a long journey, the first glimpse of a healthy and holy land where I might settle.

O father, I repent again, sweeping clean my inner house, resolving against unhealthy daydreams, compulsive eating, and spiritual addictions. I invite you to light my inner life, to renew my mind, to guide my relationships, to direct my journey.

Give me grace and discernment to follow Jesus.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.347: Idols Then and Now.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

John finishes his epistle with the words, “Dear children, keep yourself from idols” (1 John 5:21).

Is this for me? Do I have idols?

Idols represent unseen forces. Through them you communicate with spiritual powers, asking them to manage your life and circumstances. Fertility gods ensure abundant crops and lots of children. The god Jupiter was responsible for Roman life and culture and success in war. The god Minerva oversaw domestic households and craftspeople like stonemasons and carpenters.

What about my idols in the year 2023, the things I rely on to manage my life? The federal government provides my retirement pension. Alberta provides health care. I bow to the great Internet goddess that provides news and entertainment. My credit card prays to Amazon, the god of things, who sends messengers to my doorstep. What more do I need for a successful life?

Timothy Keller’s book Counterfeit Gods: the Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power says:
“An idol is anything we cannot live without. We must have it. It drives us to break once-honored rules, to harm others and ourselves to get it. Idols are spiritual addictions . . .”

Am I addicted to the stock market? To the internet? To the power and privilege of my rich western identity? Are these my idols?

The problem of idols would be much easier if I relied on wood-and-silver images. Instead, I must make an imaginative leap to identify untruthful thoughts and beliefs that guide my life.

Wood-and-silver idols can be thrown in the garbage. But I don’t want to solve my dependency on money by throwing hundred dollar bills in the fire. Nor do I want to solve my food addiction by fasting for 40 days.

Let’s pray.

O father, our world and culture promise satisfaction. But you challenge our motives. You critique our hearts. You call us to step away from our culture to a place where you manage our lives.

Like the children of Israel, we journey through a vast and barren land, looking for freedom from addictions that enslave us. This desert is dangerous and dry, full of alluring idols and lurking serpents. We are hungry and thirsty and lost.

O God, walk with us on this perilous road. Manage our lives, change our circumstances, lead us to food and water and shelter. And make us new people, in a new land, with new loyalties and habits and desires.

You made us in your image, O God, but we dishonor and deface that image. Forgive us, cast down our false images, restore us to your true image.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.346: Eternal Life.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

I used to think of eternal life as future tense. Today I’m here. Tomorrow I die. Then I live forever. Simple.

John has a different view of eternal life. He says,
    The life [which was from the beginning] appeared.
We have seen it and
we proclaim to you the eternal life,
            which was with the father and has appeared to us (1 Jn 1:1-2).

Here, John identifies Jesus, the hybrid God-man, as “eternal life”. This eternal life is not a “state of being” but a person. That’s weird.

Later, John says:
God has given us eternal life and this life is in his son” (1 Jn 5:11).

This eternal life is a gift God has already given us. But what about death? Is that just a bump in the road where the wheels come off my body, but my inner life continues undisturbed?

John also says,
God the father is the true God and eternal life,
And we are in him,
because we are in his Son Jesus Christ (1 John 5:20).

Here, God is eternal life.

I draw two conclusions:

First, John doesn’t give a rational definition of eternal life. Instead, he looks at Jesus, whom he knew, who was raised from the dead. John says, That kind of life is in our future too.

Second, John says, That’s not all. It’s not just future tense, it’s in our present. Why? Because Jesus, the one who lives forever, lives in us.

The true measure of my life is not sickness or health, poverty or wealth. No, its dimensions are set by the source of life that lives in me. Since that source is Jesus,I’m already living my forever life with him.

Let’s pray.

Our father, today is a day of our eternal life.
It is a day for praising you, because we will praise you forever.
It is a day for listening to your spirit, for your spirit will speak to us forever.
It is a day for receiving Christ’s blessing, for he will bless us forever.
It is a day for loving our neighbor, for we will be neighbors forever.

Today is also a day of struggle.
This harvest of new life grows side by side with the weeds of the old life.
This life that dies is a companion to a life that lives forever.
The war between good and evil still rages in my body and my mind.

O father, bring quickly that day when your children will be free, when the old life will be lost, and the new life will live forever.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.345: The Other Trinity.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

John says that Jesus came by water and blood (1 John 5:6).

An odd statement. When I ring your doorbell, I don’t come by water and blood. What does that even mean?

John says further,
There are three that testify:
The Spirit, the water, and the blood;
and these three are in agreement (1 John 5:7-8).

Interesting. But in the King James Bible another threesome accompanies the spirit, water, and blood. That Bible says,
There are three that testify in heaven:
The Father, the Word, and the Spirit,
and these three are one (1 John 5:7-8, KJV, paraphrased).

This is the simplest and clearest statement of the Trinity that has ever appeared in the Bible. But–and yes, there is a significant but. That Trinity verse isn’t found in the earliest and most reliable manuscripts, so most modern scholars reject it. How did it find its way into the Bible?

Imagine some early scholar thinking about the spirit, water, and blood, which agree in their testimony about Jesus. It’s tantalizingly close to the doctrine of the Trinity, but doesn’t quite get there. So our ancient scholar decides to help out his favorite doctrine by making minor insertion into the text.

Meanwhile, what about the Trinity-hinting phrase–the spirit, water, and blood? It seems to me John uses this to bring his letter full circle. At the beginning he said, We have seen, heard, and touched the Word of Life (1:1-2).

Now John concludes: the reality of Jesus is supported by two physical elements–water and blood–and one spiritual element, the witness of the spirit.

Why does he use water and blood as his physical witnesses? I don’t know. But I do know that traces of water and blood followed Jesus all his life. His birth to Mary involved water and blood. He was baptized in a river. His crucifixion was a bloody affair and a Roman spear brought water from his side.

He lived his water-and-blood life by the Spirit. And after the crucifixion, the Spirit raised his dead body to life.

In this simple picture of water and blood and spirit, John completes the circle of his letter. He started with Jesus as a pure spirit, “that which was from the beginning”, who became a human that John could see and touch and feel.

Now John concludes with another picture of spirit joined to flesh:
The Spirit and the water and the blood testify about Jesus,
and these three are in agreement.

Let’s pray.

O Jesus, in our short lives,
We are born in water and blood.
We are sustained by water and blood.
And soon our water and blood will flow into the earth.

But you, Jesus, were with God in the beginning.
You chose to share our time-bound experience of water and blood,
to visit us and live with us and save us.

O Jesus, dwell in our bodies of clay.
Teach us to live as you lived in this physical world.

And after our water and blood flow back to the earth
and our bodies turn to dust,
raise us in new bodies in a new world to live a new life with you.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.344: Unburdened.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

John said,
This how we love God:
by keeping his commands.
And his commands are not burdensome.
(1 Jn 5:3)

God’s commands not burdensome? Really? The Ten Commandments are a light load? Even after Jesus elaborated them?

For example, one commandment says, “Don’t commit adultery”. Jesus added, And that includes even fantasizing about sex (Mat 5:27-28).

Jesus said, Hating your brother, is like murder! (Mat 5:21-22).

He also said, “If your hand offends you, cut it off. If your eye offends you, gouge it out” (Mat 5:29-30).

If I apply Jesus’ standard of amputating body parts to my mind, because of the things I think about, I’d need a frontal lobotomy. Which would solve some of my problems, but create others.

Bible interpreters say, “Jesus didn’t want a bunch of amputees. He used hyperbole to make a point.”

Perhaps. But the hyperbole doesn’t make the commands lighter. It adds weight to already weighty commands. So what to do with John’s opinion that Jesus’ commands aren’t burdensome?

Listen to the rest of John’s statement:
His commands are not burdensome,
because everyone born of God overcomes the world.
This is the victory that overcomes the world,
even our faith (1 Jn 5:3-4).

Strangely enough, my faltering attempts to keep the commands make me believe that yes, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Somewhere beyond me, and growing within me, is a gift of God that disciplines my mind, reforms my desires, and shifts my values.

The spiritual life isn’t measured by whether God meets my expectations, like the store survey that asks, “Did we exceed your expectations?” Rather, God is like a life coach who asks, “Do you know what you really want?”

The psalmist said,
Delight yourself in the Lord
and he will give you the desires of your heart (Ps 37:4).

I know the desires of my flesh: food and sex and entertainment and comfort. But the desires of the heart are deeper.

In CS Lewis’ novel Queen Orual says, “you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years . . . Till that word can be dug out of us, why should [the gods] hear the babble we think we mean?” (Till We Have Faces, ch. 4).

Do you know the speech that lies at the center of your soul? What is your heart’s desire?

Let’s pray.

Our father, I still find your commands burdensome. I like my comfortable, middle-class life in a rich country. I am not sure how to leave it all and follow you. But your call rings in my ears and tugs at my heart. It changes my mind and directs my journey.

I hear people speak of finding their passion. But passion is too shallow a word for the desire of my heart. You are my heart’s desire. I want to please you. To imitate you by loving others. Even to lose my life, if that will help me find life in you.

May your spirit challenge my shallow desires, and draw me to find the riches of my heart’s desire.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.343: Is God Hiding?

Ep343: Our Unseen God.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

John says,
Whoever does not love their brother or sister
whom they have seen,
cannot love God,
whom they have not seen.
(1 Jn 4:20)

Our invisible God presents a problem for my prayers. I had hoped for years the problem would disappear as I grew in faith and matured in relationship with God.

But it didn’t work that way.

One of my favorite authors on prayer, Father Thomas Green, said that when he was young, he expected his faith would be firm and settled when he grew old.

But as he aged, he discovered that faith didn’t become easier–it attracted new difficulties.

My experience is like his. Having been dragged–kicking and screaming–into old age, faith is still a struggle. I’d like a rich harvest of settled insights and obvious decisions, but my faith is still a garden that needs watering and weeding and protection from frost and a fence against carrot-eating rabbits and cabbage-munching deer.

Not that my faith is of the carrots and cabbage variety. But the proofs of Christianity, so strong and convincing in my youth, are weaker now. The grand design of the universe used to reveal God’s greatness. Now it sometimes seems a muddle of incomprehensible dark matter and speed-of-light expansion, held loosely together by formulas I don’t understand.

Faith is a choice. A reasonable choice, given the other options, but still a choice. In prayer I often wait in darkness for the God I cannot see.

Dark matter exerts an unseen force in the universe, preventing it from spinning out of control. Faith is the dark matter of my spirit, holding my life in the life of God. It is the unseen gravity that keeps my life from spinning out of control.

As John who says,
Whoever does not love his brother
whom he has seen,
cannot love God,
whom he has not seen (1 Jn 4:20)..

The strongest apologetic for God is not rational proofs of his existence, but love among his disciples.

Let’s pray.

Our father, whom we do not see, you taught us to know you and love you by knowing and loving each other.

Jesus invited us into his circle of love, saying, “As the father has loved me, I have loved you” (Jn 15:9). And, “By this the world will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (Jn 13:35).

Deliver us from our obsession with rational explanations. Free us from the need to see and prove you. Liberate us from simple but false explanations of who we are and who you are.

There is a cloud of unknowing between you and us. As we face the darkness of that cloud, shine your light in our hearts. Give us grace to know you by faith, and to love others as you love us.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.342: No Fear?

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

I recently read an internet list of the 10 most common fears. It included arachnophobia–fear of spiders; claustrophobia–fear of enclosed spaces; and aerophobia–fear of flying.

Though I’ve dealt with fear all my life, the list wasn’t much help. My fears were never as pointed or definable as “fear of spiders” or “fear of flying”. Mine was a spirit of fear, an assortment of nameless fears that churned my stomach and twisted my view of life.

For years, I had no name for my problem. Then one day in college as I stepped into the winter cold for a 20-minute walk to my dorm, I realized, “This feeling that I feel so often is fear!”

It was a relief to have a name for it. But what was I afraid of? I was afraid of people. I was afraid life would overwhelm me. That I might fail as a student, and as a human. I feared I’d slide into a pit of hopelessness and despair.

What to do about fear, now that I had a name for it? I read John who says:
There is no fear in love,
but perfect love casts out fear
because fear has torment.
(1 Jn 4:18)

The only perfect love I knew was God’s love. Would that be strong enough to dislodge the fear?

I mentioned my experience to one of the elders at church, who said, “There’s another solution to fear. Look at Psalm 57.”
When I am afraid I will put my trust in you.
In God, whose word I trust.
In the Lord, whose word I praise.
In God I put my trust,
I will not be afraid.
(Ps 57:3-4)

Love and faith. Solutions to fear. But they didn’t help me overnight. They are signposts that point me in a lifelong direction, teaching me that the churning fear in my stomach is not a true assessment of danger, that the paralyzing obsessions in my mind are false guides to reality.

I can live in an alternate universe, where God is in control, where trust replaces fear, where love wins forever.

Let’s pray.

Our father, we have had much to fear since Adam fell. We are locked out of the garden, we pull weeds east of Eden. Violence and wars dismay us; hurricanes and wildfires damage the earth; conspiracy theories and obsessions corrupt our society.

But we trust in you. Though you shut us out of Eden, you invite us into your family. Though angels with fiery swords block our return, you send your son to pull weeds with us and show us the way forward.

May faith free our minds. May your love quiet our obsessions. May trust in you drive out our fears. May we walk confidently as your children.

We trust you will have the final say, that our lives and our world and the new world to come will be rooted and grounded in love.

As John says, “There is no fear in love” (1 Jn 4:18).

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.341: God is . . . What?

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

Finish this statement with one word. God is . . . what? What comes to mind for you? God is good? God is holy? God is father?

John tells us,
Whoever does not love
does not know God,
because God is love (1 John 4:8).

God is love, one of three remarkable “God is . . .” statements by John.

The other two?

“God is spirit” and “God is light”.

The first statement “God is spirit” was delivered to the woman at the well, who had had five husbands, and was now in a sixth relationship. Jesus said to her, God is spirit. It is not where you worship that matters, but how. Worship in spirit and truth (Jn 4:24).

I would have advised to Jesus to speak simply to the woman, tell her something she can understand, perhaps something appropriate to spiritual immaturity. Instead, Jesus gave her an advanced lesson in worship–worship God in spirit and truth.

Did she have any inkling of what he meant? Do you know how to worship in spirit and truth? The woman’s takeaway from her encounter with Jesus wasn’t, “At last. Now I have a credible theory of worship!” Her takeaway was, “Jesus is amazing. He knows all about me.”

John also says “God is light” (1 Jn 1:5). Light is a metaphor for God. Maybe it points to holiness and purity, or maybe to transparency and vulnerability. Have you ever thought of God as transparent? He lets us see right through him?

A more scary thought: I am transparent to God. His light shining through me exposes what I hide and what I highlight about myself, my truths and my falsehoods.

John’s third statement is, “God is love”. John says we should love others because God loved us first (1 Jn 4:16, 19. 21).

These are remarkable standards for following God.
God is spirit. Worship in spirit.
God is light. Walk in the light.
God is love. Love one another.

Let’s pray.

Our father, as smoke from summer wildfires darkens my city, I worship you as God of light. Clear the smoke from my eyes. Help me walk in the light as you are in the light.

We welcome your light as the spring sun that warms the soil and grows our gardens. We respect your light as a lighthouse that warns of disaster. We fear your light when it interrogates our sins. We endure your light when it comes as radiation to burn away our cancer.

O father, speak to us in love as well as light. May we be glad when you say, “Well done”. May we believe when you forgive our sins. May we receive from you the healing of memories and the transforming of relationships.

O father, teach us to worship. Our culture worships the body. Free us from the cult of body-building and makeovers and sports and sex.

Remind us that we are embodied spirits, and that you are pure spirit. Teach us to worship you in spirit and in truth.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube