Spiritual Diagnosis

Dewaine — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:27:27 +0000

Last night, I read Mark 5:1-20. This is the story where Jesus frees a man from demonic possession and sends the demons into pigs, which immediately run off a cliff. What got my attention wasn’t the man’s freedom or Jesus’ reaction to the man approaching him, it was his diagnosis. Jesus didn’t focus on the man’s behavior or past actions. Instead, he saw the underlying condition, came up with a diagnosis, and treated him.

Too often, I see pastors involved in counseling and spiritual shepherding try to “fix” someone by changing their actions or behaviors. But these seem to be symptoms of a person’s spiritual health. To change a person spiritually, the underlying spiritual disease must be dealt with.

I must admit that I’m guilty of this, too. But hopefully by God revealing this to me last night I can be broken from this flawed system of spiritual shepherding.

Playing God’s Card Game

Dewaine — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:17:07 +0000

Tomorrow is the first class of the New Ethnic 678 junior high youth group, and I’m super excited. We begin our new teaching series called “Playing God’s Card Game.” For anyone who has used e-mail over the past 10 years should recognize the series as an e-mail forward about a soldier who uses playing cards to remind him of the truths of the Bible. This may seem like a cop-out in teaching, but my students need the simplicities.

There are 13 lessons consisting of the following truths:

Ace – There is only one God.
2 – There are two sections to the Bible: Old Testament & New Testament.
3 – The Trinity: Father, Son, & Holy Spirit.
4 – Four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John.
5 – Five virgins who were glorified (Matthew 25:1-13)
6 – God took six days to create the heavens and the earth.
7 – The day God rested after completing His creation.
8 – Eight people in Noah’s family who boarded the Ark.
9 – Nine lepers who didn’t thank Jesus for their healing (Luke 17:11-19).
10 – Ten Commandments.
Jack – Satan, the joker.
Queen – Mary, the mother of Jesus.
King – Jesus, the King of kings.

Cooperland

Spiritual Diagnosis

Playing God’s Card Game