Underground Exiles

Prayer is a practice that requires discipline, and discipline is the one thing I consistently seem to lack. It is an easy thing to fall into a habit of slack, infrequent prayer, and that’s lately what I’ve done.

“Prayer is the nearest approach to God and the highest enjoyment of Him that we are capable of in this life.” - William Law, A Serious Call To A Devout And Holy Life

I am a pattern-oriented kind of guy, and if I don’t set a pattern, then I am not likely to follow through on anything, and I know this about myself. I need a set time and place where I engage in prayer every day, and I’ve let that practice slip.

On this particular topic I highly recommend the work that I’ve quoted above, A Serious Call To A Devout And Holy Life, by William Law. There is much of that particular work that I just don’t find helpful at all, but there is much that I have found very helpful. For instance, there is this quote:

“It is as much your duty to rise to pray, as to pray when you are risen. And if you are late at your prayers, you offer to God the prayers of and idle, lazy worshiper that rises to prayers as idle servants rise to their labor.”

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So if any of you are wondering why I’ve not been blogging as often as I’d promised, just look to your right.

Genius that I am, I’ve managed to break three ribs on the left side of my chest. The real fun part was actually breaking them.  That’ll be a story for another day.

I’ve got a few posts bulk blogged that will be auto-posting in the next couple of days, but after that, I’ll be absent from the blog for a bit. Right now it’s damn near impossible for me to sit, stand, lay down or generally do anything comfortably. I made the mistake of not sleeping in an armchair last night, and I paid the price in pain.

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All things considered, I figure I’ve got nothing to lose. After all, talking about radical Christianity already has the Department of Homeland Security visiting my blog, so why not up the ante?

Once I finish the prayer series this week, I intend to do two series simultaneously. One on First John, verse by verse, and the other on Scientology, which quite frankly scares the hell right out of me.

Scientology has a reputation as being a litigious organization, and has a long history of dirty tricks against folks that speak out against their cult. This is an organization that presents itself as a religion, so I intended to hold it up to intense scrutiny in the light of inspired Scripture.

For some good resources check out this link. These guys have been driving the Scientologists nuts for years.

And while your at it, pray for me, because I’m going to need it. Scientologist have a long history of a practice called “dead agenting“, where there will engage in all sorts of harassment and lies in order to silence anyone critical of their “science-fiction” cult.

Allow me to quote them directly:

“The purpose of [a lawsuit] is to harass and discourage rather than to win. The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause his professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly.”
“A Manual on the Dissemination of Material” (first published in Ability, the Magazine of DIANETICS and SCIENTOLOGY, 1955) Note: this paragraph has apparently been purged from later editions of the “Manual”

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For those of you who aren’t aware, I happen to hold Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church Seattle in pretty high regard. While reading through some articles at the Resurgence I came across this article, which absolutely broke my heart.

I highly recommend reading this, and hope all of us realize that it is often the “tolerance monitors” who are the most intolerant bunch around.

We should all remember that it is our duty to humbly submit to Scripture and its authority, not to stand over it as though we had authority…

Praying for the cross in our own lives requires seeing the cross for what it is.

It’s not a golden symbol just to be hung around our necks as an ornament, or to decorate our walls. It’s not a magical sign we can wave in front of our faces to ward off evil. It’s an instrument of death.

We must bring the cross to bear in every area of our lives, so that we may slay our sin with it, and be crushed under its weight.

A few weeks ago, I realized that Jesus doesn’t say that we are to take up His cross and follow Him, but to take up our cross and follow Him. There isn’t a single person that is qualified to take up anyone’s cross but their own, much less the cross the God-man, Jesus Christ.

Prayer, earnestly pray, that Christ would reveal your cross to you, so that you may shoulder its burden, and get started dying. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said in his book, The Cost of Discipleship, that when Jesus calls a man, He calls him to come and die. The method of our death will be the cross that God has appointed for us from eternity past.

It’s high time that as Christians we pray for the Cross, and get busy dying…