Got a Higher Power? Name Him.

          During Portland, Oregon’s Friday morning show on Channel 12, I heard a reporter change the facts of a story right in front of me! In her intro to a piece featuring a surfer telling of a shark taking a bite out of his board, she referred to what the surfer called “prayer” every time he enters the water as his “pre-surfing ritual.” During the clip he gestured toward the sky and thanked “God” for helping him. I assumed he was talking about the God of the Bible, our Christian God and I was thrilled the channel would allow a mention to God. But . . . well, paste this link in your browser and watch the clip. 

     http://www.kptv.com/story/15771405/oregon-surfer-shark-encounter-was-the-most-intense-feeling

Did you notice how the reporter changed the name of the Being the surfer identified as “God?” She changed the surfer’s “God” to “higher power!” That is not what I heard the man say.

Now I don’t believe she deliberately misled her listeners. I understand what she was attempting to accomplish since I’m a writer and do my best not to repeat words any more often than necessary as I write, but names matter.

My name is “Jeannie,” pronounced with a long e sound Jee’ nee. Like the mythological genie in the bottle. However, it’s not unusual for someone who doesn’t know me to call me “Jenny” like the mule. (My apologies to any readers named “Jenny.”)

So when the reporter changed “God” to the more politically-correct “higher power,” it mattered. There are a lot of “higher powers” out there who are not our God of Love and they are really, really bad dudes. The Bible calls them “cosmic powers over this present darkness . . . spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12). Whether you believe in them or I believe in them or anyone else believes in those evil beings is not the point.

They exist.

They’re malevolent.

They are your enemies.

They all work with Satan who “goes about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour” (1 Pet. 5:8). That means they all want to destroy that surfer. And they want to destroy you.

So if you have a “higher power” know who he is and use his name. Saying “God” works fine,  just don’t be vague in your own thoughts about his identity. Know that your higher power is 
the Creator of the Universe, 
the King of Kings, 
the God of the Old and New Testaments, 
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
And if someone calls him your “higher power” don’t let them get away with it.

How to Use the Bible to Help You Pray

 Since this is the day I post a prayer on my Weekly Prayer blog, 

I thought I'd include ways you can use the Bible 

to teach you to pray and enrich your prayers. 

• Change any scripture into prayer by personalizing it.

“Help (ask this for yourself or insert a loved one’s name) begin to understand the incredible greatness of your power for us who believe you. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead” (based on Eph. 1:19).

• Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal how you should pray. That’s based on Romans 8:26, which tells us the Spirit helps us in our weakness when we don’t know what to pray for.

• When praying for the younger generation, pray Psalm 119 which tells how to live a godly, successful life. (It’s a long chapter so it may take several days or weeks to get through it. Pray only the verses that strike you as you read.)

• After you’ve failed miserably, pour out your grief to the Lord with Psalm 51. Then claim Romans 8:1, “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus . . . “ and Romans 8:38, 39, “ . . . Nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus . . .”

• For loved ones in danger, or for all soldiers and American civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, pray Psalm 91 daily. It is also a great Psalm to pray during natural disasters.

• Pray along with any prayer in the Bible. Start with Paul’s prayers in the early chapters of Ephesians and Colossian then, changing the specifics to fit our own nation, pray Daniel 10: 7- 19.

• Anything God says is a promise. When you find a promise as you read, claim it for yourself. Thank the Lord for it. That sort of grateful prayer delights him.

• Below is a “wrecking ball prayer” to pray daily for yourself, your family or your friends. Written by Barb Martin, based on a concept in Intercessory Prayer by Dutch Sheets:

“Knowing God’s weapons for fighting the stubborn problems (strongholds) in my life are spiritual (see 2 Cor. 10:3 – 5), in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I destroy you, strongholds of (see below).  I declare no weapon of Satan will prosper in _____________’s life.”

(Ask the Holy Spirit to identify strongholds for you. Some possible strongholds: fear, feelings of worthlessness, rebellion, pride, control, defiance, procrastination, laziness, denial, passivity, rebellion, selfishness, lying, intellectualism, strife, self-sufficiency, contention, competition, domination, manipulation, hiding, negativity, anger, lack of wisdom, skepticism, workaholism, god of science or sports, hedonism, self-indulgence, materialism, resentment, occult, religious spirit, stubbornness, adultery, lust, other sexual sins, etc.) 

The above suggestions barely make a dent in the many ways you can turn to the Bible for help as you pray. There is nothing better than praying God’s own powerful words back to him. You can’t go wrong when you do that.

© Jeannie St. John Taylor

Prayer Request.

    People from several countries around the globe are reading my novel  City of a Thousand Gods on my blog and on the online newspaper The Cypress Times. Many of them are from strict Muslim countries where converting to Christianity could result in death. For their protection, I choose not to name the countries. I have no idea if these readers are seeking the True God or are already Believers or if they just like an exciting read. Even if they come from the latter group, I believe that by opening themselves to a story about God they open a path for him to speak to them.

• Please pray that more people from those countries would hear about or stumble onto the book.
• Pray they would feel drawn to the oft-stated theme of the book --  there is ONLY One True God.
• Pray that God would strengthen them and increase their desire and willingness to know the God whose story appears in the Old Testament and continues into the New Testament with the revelation and subsequent death and resurrection of his Son. 
• Pray that the One God would be understood for who he is and not confused with another god.
• Pray for their protection. 
• Thank the Lord for them. They're your brothers and sisters.
• Pray for them to obtain a Bible if they don't have one.
• Pray for the Holy Spirit to flow into and through them. 
• And please remember to pray for the young pastor in Iran who has been sentenced to death for converting to Christianity. Pray for his wife and two children and for the people he ministers to in house churches. Pray for protection, courage and determination that the name of the Lord will be glorified.

Thank you so much. 

New Blog Talk Radio Show -- KRVR, The River

    Monday September 19 marked the third episode of the new blog talk radio show Maxine Marsolini and I host as a team at The River www.blogtalkradio.com/krvr

   I interviewed Jan Coates about her new book Attitud-inize, 10 Secrets to a Positive You. After hearing her stories about a childhood spent with a mentally-ill mother, how she was beat with hangers, locked in closets and sexually abused at age nine while her hair was still wet on the pillow following her baptism at church, I couldn't believe the sparkling forgiving attitude I saw in her. 
    
    Not long before we went on-air Angela Breidenbach, Mrs. America 2009, emailed to say that though she knows Jan Coates, they had never talked about their mentally-ill mothers. So after Jan encouraged listeners for half an hour, Angie came on the line and the two of them shared stories about their mothers. Both mothers had been bag ladies. Both mothers found the Lord before they died. I choked back tears. 


   You can still listen in the archives by entering the site and clicking on that program at www.blogtalkradio.com/krvr. You'll admire both women. I promise. 
   

Views on the Bible Change because of CITY OF A THOUSAND GODS

            One of my goals in writing City of a Thousand Gods was to encourage people to begin viewing the Bible as a book about real people. I hoped they would decide they might enjoy reading. So I was thrilled when a woman in Michigan told me the novel helped her see the Bible as more than the ho-hum collection of Sunday School stories that bored her for years. Before she even finished reading, she delved into the first verse in Genesis, has already made her way to Leviticus and plans to read all the way through.

And she’s loving every word.

What has my Michigan friend discovered now that she’s seeing the Bible through fresh eyes? A book packed with exciting stories of flesh and blood real people she can identify with.

But I have even cooler news for her. The Bible is one single continuously-unfolding narrative with fully-developed sub-plots and beautiful imagery. Written over a period of 1,600 years on three different continents by forty different authors, the story begins with God’s creation of the world and weaves through thousands of years to the end of time -- yet never contradicts itself. Not once.

Even better, the story ends with a twist. We find out that the Jesus, the protagonist who defeats the villain by giving his own life to save all of Mankind, was present in the very first verse of the book. Jesus was the Word who spoke Creation into existence!

The Bible gives me the I'm-thrilled shivers. 

And every bit is true!

Were there Dinosaurs on the Ark?

Okay.  Brace yourself.

Yes. I believe there were dinosaurs on the ark. And I’m not alone. Back in the

1700’s Matthew Henry said, “Notice the beasts going in each after his kind . . . to intimate just as many as were created at first were saved now, and no more” (see Gen. 1:21-25).  

  Google Ken Ham’s Answers in Genesis Series: Dinosaurs in the Bible on the Internet. It’s free and convincing. He says there were only about fifty general types of dinosaurs that would have been on the ark. The average size: sheep-sized. Some were no bigger than chickens so there was plenty of room for all on the ark.

  However, he believes there are numerous references to large dinosaurs in God’s Word that indicate they lived after the Flood. The Bible refers to them as “dragons” or “leviathan” since the word “dinosaur” wasn’t coined until the 1800’s. If the concept of huge dinosaurs on the ark startles you, check out the references to them for yourself by looking up these scriptures:

• Job 41:1
• Psalm 74:14
• Psalm 104:26

If you still can’t picture them on the ark, think of them walking onto the ark as

youngsters.

So where are they now? What killed off the dinosaurs? Ham believes they died off just as numerous creatures of the past have disappeared and like the animals mysteriously facing extinction today may do.

The fossils we find were formed during the Flood.

How was life different before the Flood?

Stunning Details from the Bible

•  It had never rained; a mist came out of the ground to water the plants.
• Humans lived nearly 1,000 years. (The Bible doesn’t explain why, it may be that the ocean of water in the heavens somehow protected people.) After the Flood, rain and life expectancy declined within a few generations (see Gen. 11:10-25).We know the length of those pre-Floodyears was the same as our years because genealogies and time lines can be traced through the Old Testament. When Jacob (Israel) and his sons entered Egypt, he told the Pharaoh that he had lived for 130 years, but his fathers had lived much longer (see Gen 47:9) . If you do the math in Gen.11 you'll find that Shem was still alive at that time.
• Many years before the Flood, people already forged weapons and musical instruments from brass and iron (see Gen. 4:21,22).
• Only eight righteous persons were rescued on the ark. Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives. 
• Noah was 600 year old when his family entered the ark.
• His sons were all in their nineties yet still youthful. We know that because none fathered children until after the Flood. Shem’s first child was born when he was one hundred years old, two years after the Flood. (Since it seems only likely that the only surviving eight people on earth would have wanted to have as many children as quickly as possible to repopulate the earth, Shem and his wife likely suffered infertility as did others later in his direct line, i.e. Abraham and Sarah.)
• The Nephilim (singular Nephal), probably fallen angels, were on the earth in those days. They were supernatural giants who mated with human women and produced what the Bible refers to as “heroes of old”(see Gen 6:1-4) (There are those who hypothesize that stories of Roman and Greek gods and goddesses were based on these fallen creatures.)