About Politics: “Christianity has not and does not profess to have, a detailed political program. We are given the golden rule, ‘Do as you would be done by.’ But how that should be applied…to a particular society at a particular time is not specified for us. “That is why people who are fighting for quite opposite things can both say they are fighting for Christianity.”

“Most of us aren’t really approaching the subject in order to find out what Christianity says: we are approaching it in the hope of finding support from Christianity for the views of our own party.”

“A Christian society is not going to arrive until most of us really want it: and we are not going to want it until we become fully Christian…He who converts his neighbor has performed the most practical Christian political act of all.”

The real Savior of America is not a political party or leader. It’s Jesus Christ. And his work of transformation begins not with the enactment of laws, or the election of our preferred candidates. His work of transformation begins on the inside of the human heart.

About Morality:
1. The principles of right and wrong are for our benefit. “The moral rules are directions for running the human machine. Every moral rule is there to prevent a breakdown, or a strain, or a friction, in the running of that machine…Every moral failure is going to cause trouble, probably to others and certainly to yourself.”
2. No man is an island. Morality has three dimensions: Inward, outward and upward. Our choices can’t be separated from our horizontal relationships with others and our vertical relationship with God.
3. The individual must be the first to change. “A community that has lost its conscience will never be able to hire enough cops.” (Chuck Colson)
4. The individual has more value than a civilization. “If Christianity is true, then the individual is not only more important but incomparably more important, for he is everlasting and the life of a state or a civilization, compared with his, is only a moment.”
5. Virtue is more than outward compliance with the Rules of Morality. Outward compliance with the rules is not the endgame. A true virtue is not simply an outward act. A true virtue is the quality of a person’s character that becomes evident in what they do.
6. Each choice we make changes us a little bit on the inside. Virtue is more than outward compliance with the rules, but the habits of outward compliance can create change on the inside.
7. The starting point for this character transformation is different for each of us. “Some of us who seem quite nice people may, in fact, have made so little use of a good heredity and a good upbringing that we are really worse than those whom we regard as fiends…We see only the results which a man’s choices make out of his raw material. But God does not judge him on the raw material at all, but on what he has done with it.”
8. Awareness of evil increases in those becoming better and decreases in those becoming worse. “When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still in him. When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less.”
9. This life counts forever. Our capacity to enjoy the future in the kingdom of God is to some extent dependent on how we use our opportunities now, in this life. The vector of our character and life choices now…will extended beyond this world into eternity. 

“Enemy occupied territory - that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed…landed in disguise…But why is God landing in this enemy-occupied world in disguise? Why is He not landing in force, invading it? Well, Christians think He is going to land in force; we do not know when. But we can guess why He is delaying. He wants to give us the chance of joining His side freely.” We live in an Age of Invitation. God didn’t send a sword, he sent a Savior. The Star of Bethlehem was not a Death Star…it was a light in the window inviting us to come home. Now is the opportunity for all of us to freely make our own decision - to “choose sides.”
Three Factors Influential in Lewis’ Conversion:
Good Dreams - “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
Tugs of Sympathy - Lewis was surrounded by close friends who were believers in Christ. His conversion was as much
A True Myth - “The story of Christ is simply a true myth; a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened.”

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on a level with the man who says he’s a poached egg - or else he’d be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let’s not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He’s not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

"And now what was the purpose of it all? What did He come to do? Well, to teach, of course; but as soon as you look into the New Testament or any other Christian writing you will find they are constantly talking about something different - about his death and his coming to life again. It is obvious that Christians think the chief point of the story lies here. They think the main thing He came to earth to do was to suffer and be killed…The central Christian belief is that Christ’s death has somehow put us right with God and given us a fresh start.”

"In Christ a new kind of man appeared: and the new kind of life which began in Him is to be put into us…even the best Christian that ever lived is not acting on his own steam - he is only nourishing or protecting life he could never have acquired by his own efforts…the Christ-life is inside him…actually operating through him. It is not merely the spreading of an idea; it is more like evolution - a biological or super-biological fact.”

“One day we are destined to be creatures so radiant with God’s glory, love, wisdom, joy and power, that if we were to see ourselves now as we will be then, we would be tempted to worship.” “A Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.” God loves us just the way we are, but He loves us too much to leave us the way we a

Highlights - Mere Christianity (Part 2) Episode 23

Lewis is more than a pipe-smoking, ivory tower, arm-chair academic. He had literally/personally agonized and bled in the “trenches” over this question: If there is a God, then why is there so much evil and suffering? He knew first-hand, in a way that few of us have ever experienced, that “something is seriously wrong with our world.”

“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust.”

“If a good God made the world why has it gone wrong?”

“God created things which had free will. That means creatures…which can go either wrong or right….If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having… The alternative is a world of robots…a toy world that only moves when He pulls the strings.”

So, does the sole blame for all the suffering and evil in the world rest on us? Lewis claims we’ve had an “accomplice.” In addition to our own free-will, there’s a malevolent and powerful supernatural being who is active on planet earth. This is “enemy occupied territory.” So these two factors account for a lot of the suffering and evil in the world: Human free-will and the malevolent dark powers.

“What the Devil put into the head of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could “be like gods.” Invent some sort of happiness outside God, apart from God…And out of all that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history - money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery - the long terrible story of man trying to find some thing other than God which will make him happy.

“God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on gas and it won’t run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn…There is no other…Happiness and peace apart from Him is not there. There is no such thing. That is the key to history… civilizations are built up…but each time something goes wrong. Some fatal flaw always brings the selfish and cruel people to the top and it all slides back into misery and ruin. In fact, the machine conks. It seems to start up all right and runs a few yards, and then it breaks down. They are trying run it on the wrong juice. That is what Satan has done to us humans.

My own response…three thoughts:
1. His answers are a good start. See The Problem of Pain for more.
2. I agree about the existence of the devil. See The Screwtape Letters for more insights.
3. Is the human experiment worth it? Apparently, God thought so.

“I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage…that in the world’s finale… something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they’ve shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.” (Dostoevsky) 

Lewis appeared on the September 8, 1947 cover of Time Magazine. This slightly stooped, round-shouldered, balding professor of Medieval and Renaissance English at Cambridge University was an international “rock star.”

One irony…originally Mere Christianity was a series of radio talks! They were never written to be a book! Lewis gave these talks on the BBC during World War 2.

His purpose: “Explain and defend the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times…mere Christianity.”
“When you have reached your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall…That is one of the rules common to the whole house.”
His aim (ch. 1-5): To show that our sense of right and wrong seems to be universal. Because of this, it’s reasonable to believe in some kind of “higher power,” or “being” which is behind this universal sense of right and wrong. This is called the moral argument for the existence of God.

Don’t different cultures have different moralities? “There are differences…but…if anyone will take the trouble to compare the moral teaching of, say, the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Chinese, Greeks and Romans, what will really strike him will be how very like they are to each other and to our own.”

Aren’t moral convictions just culturally conditioned? “If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other, there would be no sense in preferring civilized morality to a more savage morality, or Christian morality to Nazi morality.”

Are people really persuaded by logical arguments to follow Christ? The moral argument is not a club but it is a clue. The evidence for the the Christian faith is strong and for someone who wants to believe - sufficient. But for someone who doesn’t want to believe - no amount of evidence will ever be sufficient. They will always be able to find some reason to reject the evidence. That’s why Lewis calls this first section of his book “A Clue to the Meaning of the Universe.”
 
Two compelling reasons for knowing why you believe.
 
First, there are many who have open hearts and honest intellectual questions about Christianity. We owe it to them to give them a reason to believe. “Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could never have doubted, I could never have believed.”

Second, knowing why we believe can not only help someone else, but it strengthens our own faith. It gives us confidence and peace of mind. Lewis understood the limitations of intellectual argument. Just as important as winning the mind was winning the heart. He knew that the gospel must be presented in such a way that it appeals not just to our intellect, but also to our deepest yearnings. He skillfully uses both logic to convince our minds, but also imagination. In his writings, both non-fiction and fiction, he portrays a world and a future so good, so delicious, that our hearts cry out, “I want that to be true!” 

Highlights - Episode 21 - Teach Us…A Relationship to Be Pursued

Nine prayer practices that have helped me continue to make progress in my own relationship with God.

First: Think more relationally…less transactionally. It’s not what we say, it’s who we’re with. “Prayer is not a button to be pushed; it’s a relationship to be pursued.” (Carey Nieuwhof)

Second: Recognize the value of a prayer model and use it. The prayers of others help us exercise new spiritual muscles…”the law of requisite variety” (Batterson)…a good strategy for dealing with mental distractions.

Third: Combine Scripture meditation with prayer. The transition between meditating on a portion of the Lord’s Prayer/other Scripture and prayer is seamless and natural. “Praying Scripture”

Fourth: Include personal worship time when you pray. Every prayer needs a doxology. Helps us rise above the clouds of our own personal concerns.

Fifth: Practice wordless prayer. “Bonding silence.” This type of prayer helps us move from prayer as “catalogue shopping” to prayer as communion with God.

Sixth: Listen intently and expect God to speak to you. Unless both parties in a relationship communicate, that relationship will eventually die. Prayer is not just us talking with God. It’s God talking with us.

Seventh: Be honest with God. What good does it do to try and hide something from God that he already knows? Rather than happy faces that mask our pain, he prefers authenticity.

Eighth: Make prayer a priority with your time. There’s a reason people talk about walking with God, not “running.” Slow down!

Ninth: Expect awesome encounters with God. Prayer is a conversation that leads to an encounter with God. Theology can become experience. (Keller)

The Deeply Formed Life, Rich Villodas
Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God, Tim Keller
You Can Talk to God Like That: The Surprising Power of Lament to Save Your Faith, Abby Norman
Space for God, Don Postema
Prayer, Philip Yancey 

Summary Notes - Teach Us…This Means War! (Episode 20)
We’re all in the middle of a cosmic conflict between good and evil - a world war. Life is not a playground it’s a battleground. “The whole of the cosmos is caught up in a fierce battle between two rival kingdoms.” (Gregory Boyd, God at War) If you know this is a battle-field and you know the enemy and his strategies, you can reduce your risk substantially! It’s no accident that the Lord’s Prayer is “book-ended” with the identities of the two major players in this conflict - the two protagonists. The very first words of the prayer are, “Our Father.” The very last words are, “the evil one.”
Two notes: First, this is the last part of the prayer but not the least part. It deserves equal time and effort. Second, In the New Testament evil is personified in a sinister, malevolent and powerful supernatural being. “Keep us safe from the Devil.” (Peterson, The Message)
Is the Devil real? I’ve seen and heard too much to consign such beliefs to the dustbin of medieval superstition or to the lunatic fringe of today’s Christian culture. Reasons: 1.) The Bible is a reliable source…2.)Through the rest of church history there is plentiful testimony to the power of Jesus’ name to deliver people from demonic oppression… 3.) Abundant testimony comes from other parts of the world today. 4.) My own participation in ministry times to those who have been victims of demonic oppression confirms all this.
Who is the devil and where did he come from? The devil and demons are created, spirit-beings who rebelled against God. The are unalterably opposed to God, his purposes and his people. Is the devil the source of all the bad stuff that happens? There are multiple sources of trouble in the world. The devil can’t be blamed for everything, but he does take advantage of us when we are under duress.
What are some common tactics of the devil? 1.) Disinformation and lies 2.) Feelings of self-rejection 3.) The impulse to reject others 4.) The lure of idolatry.
Can a Christian have a demon? Possessed? No. Oppressed? Yes. When we are feeling oppressed, tempted, discouraged, confused, fearful, angry or depressed there could be something more at play than just our own emotions. Avoid the two extremes of paranoia and denial. “When a problem does not yield to medical attention, standard psychological counseling, biblical insight, or the usual prayer, it is not unwise to consider the possibility of a spiritual attack.” (Roger Barrier, Listening to the Voice of God)
How does God provide deliverance for us? Through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus our victory over the powers of evil has been won. But we must still appropriate it. There are residual effects…pockets of resistance…a lot of clean-up work to be done…. The victory must be enforced. We must take steps to exercise our new authority over the powers that have already been defeated. It’s why the Bible says things like “resist the devil,” “be strong,” “stand firm,” “be on the alert,” “put on the armor of God.” The battle was won by Jesus, but we still have work to do ourselves. Four strategies: 1. Stay in shape spiritually. 2. Use the sword of the Spirit (the Word of God) 3. Take steps to freedom - reaffirm your love and commitment to Jesus, confess your sins and repent, renounce the devil and all his works and by the authority of Jesus command evil spirits to leave, surrender once again to Jesus and ask for a fresh filling of his Holy Spirit. 4. Get help from others.
Resources: Neil Anderson, The Bondage Breakers and Steps to Freedom in Christ (https:// freedominchrist.com) Restoring the Foundations (https://restoringthefoundations.org ) 

Highlights - Teach Us to Pray: Here There Be Tigers (Episode 19)

“Lead us not into temptation…”

A more accurate and helpful translation: “Spare us from difficult circumstances.” Two reasons - linguistic and theological.

“It’s a confession of our weakness. It’s us essentially saying, ‘Lord, I’m weak. I can’t handle the pressure. I’m vulnerable. Don’t put me to the test.’” (Villodas)

“It’s a vote of ‘no confidence’ in our own abilities…(it) confesses our feebleness as human beings. God expects us to pray that we will escape trials, and we should…we may not be able to stand up under them. They are dangerous!” (Willard)

”The disciple is conscious of his weakness, and does not expose himself unnecessarily…to test the strength of his faith. Christians ask God not to put their puny faith to the test.” (Bonhoeffer)

So, God’s Plan A is to spare us from the hardships/the trials of life, which put us at risk. Once we’re at the beginning of the trial/temptation continuum it becomes a slippery slope. So it’s best to be spared the trials in the first place. That’s God’s Plan A.

It’s unfortunate that we never know, in this life, how many times and in how many ways this prayer gets answered. If God prevents a trial from happening in our life, we’ll never know about it, because it never happened!

This request in the Lord’s Prayer is a reminder to us that God loves to spare his children from hardship. It’s his preferred way of treating us. No parent wants their child to suffer. We can pray this prayer with confidence. God will honor and answer it.

Our second line of defense (Plan B) is protection in the midst of trial. It’s what “deliver us from evil” is about. (Listen to the next episode.)

What to do when Plan A becomes Plan B:

1. Be realistic. “In the world you will have tribulation.” (Jesus) “Imagine a set of people all living in the same building. Half of them think it is a hotel, the other half think it is a prison. Those who think it a hotel might regard it as quite intolerable, and those who thought it was a prison might decide that it was really surprisingly comfortable. So that what seems the ugly doctrine is one that comforts and strengthens you in the end. The people who try to hold an optimistic view of this world would become pessimists: the people who hold a pretty stern view of it become optimistic.” (C.S. Lewis)

2. Be obedient to God. A lot of our troubles are self-inflicted. (I knew better but, stupidly, I went ahead anyway and now live to regret it.) This prayer, “Spare us from difficult circumstances,” does not give us a “Get out of jail free” card when we do something stupid - when we ignore the Manufacturer’s Handbook.

3. Be teachable. God’s greater concern for us is not our comfort but our character. Trials can become turning points… A good prayer in a trial is, “Father, what are you trying to teach me?” The sooner we learn what we’re meant to learn, the sooner the trial can end.

4. Don’t be alone. No one needs to travel alone. God has provided help and that help often comes from others.

God’s witness protection program has a perfect record for those who follow the protocols. He’s never lost a single soul. God will either protect us from the trial - Plan A or he will protect us in the midst of the trial - Plan B. He keeps us out of it or takes us through it.….Either way, we can rest in the assurance that we are safe in Our Father's hands. 

Episode 18
Notes Highlights: Set the Prisoner Free (Part 7 - Lord’s Prayer)

If you are a Christ-follower, there can be only one response when other people wound us… forgiveness. The Lord’s Prayer expects it. On this issue we’re all called to be super-heroes.

Anyone thinking seriously about the Lord’s Prayer has to ask, “Is our forgiveness by God conditional upon our forgiveness of others?”

They are inseparably linked. If I am unwilling to extend forgiveness to others, then I cannot have an authentic experience of God’s forgiveness in my own life. The stakes are high.

The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant - Matthew 18 There’s no question about what this means. To accept forgiveness for ourselves and deny it for others involves us in an unresolvable contradiction. “He who cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he himself must travel.” (George Herbert)

We ignore the high cost of un-forgiveness at the peril of our souls…and our bodies too! Research in the field of clinical psychology….By harboring an unforgiving spirit, the one we damage most is, ironically, not the other person, it’s ourselves! “To forgive is to set the prisoner free and then discover the prisoner was you.” (Lewis Smedes)

But what’s at stake is way more than our physical health…our eternal soul is also at risk. God gives us a “pass” on a lot of things. His grace is amazing! But there’s no grace where we are unwilling to extend grace. It’s intrinsic to God’s kingdom and a pre-requisite to participation in it.

Misconceptions:
 
Forgiveness is not an emotion. It’s a decision. Not warm fuzzy feelings but an act of the will.

Forgiveness is not always instantaneous. Resolving all the residual issues is more of a process and may take a life-time.

Forgiveness is not forgetting. Few people can forget what wounds them. Clara Barton was asked if she didn’t remember a particularly offense. She replied, “No, I distinctly remember forgetting it.” The Bible doesn’t say God forgets our sins, but it does say he remembers them no more. There’s a difference.

Forgiveness is not minimizing the offense.

Forgiveness is not dependent on an admission of guilt by the perpetrator. We can’t be held hostage to the reluctance of the guilty party to come forward. The only behavior we can control is our own.

A single definition of forgiveness may not be realistic. One size does not fit all.

There are two sides to forgiveness. One is passive - letting go. Choose to surrender your right to anger and retaliation. Choose not to rehearse it. This is the passive side. The other side is more active. These are steps toward normalizing the relationship. This is what God does for us…we escape his judgment and become recipients of his favor.

The most powerful inspiration to forgive comes from our experience at the cross….to forgive cost Jesus everything. Is it too much for him to ask us to forgive others?

What if I can’t bring myself to forgive? One question that helps if you’re stuck here: “If you are unwilling, at this point, to forgive, can you pray for the willingness to become willing? It’s a step in the right direction.

Your relationship with God cannot be divorced from your relationships with other people. We can’t be in a right vertical relationship with our Father, if we are not in a right horizontal relationship with others.

“Madam, do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?” (A. Lincoln) 

Highlights: Recovery Begins Here (Part 6 - Lord’s Prayer)

“The central defect of evil is not the sin, but the refusal to acknowledge it.” (Scott Peck, People of the Lie) The practice of denial only allows the evil to grow worse. Recovery can only begin when we acknowledge the sin: “Forgive us our sins.
“Trespasses” and “Debts” are metaphors for the same thing - sin. (cf. Luke 11:4).
Different approaches to the problem of sin:
• Avoid it. In the short run it’s easier to smash the warning light on the dashboard of the car than the stop at the garage and figure out what’s wrong.
• Deny responsibility. “It is now known as the “Twinkie defense.” (Chuck Colson) We’ve constructed a world where all too often it’s everybody else’s fault. Blame it on our diet, our family of origin…etc.
• Resignation. We tell ourselves, “No one’s perfect. To err is human. Everybody’s doing it. Why beat ourselves up over something we can’t help?”

These strategies keep us from taking the steps we need to get better.
Why does God care? Because we have forgotten who we are and what he created us to do. We are all eagles, meant to soar, but we’re living the life of prairie chickens! We were destined for more than what we’ve become! ( Conformed to the Image of His Son, Haley Grandson Jacob) “We may be content to remain what we call “ordinary people”: but He is determined to carry out a quite different plan…He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, a dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine.” ( Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis)
How then should sin be defined? Sin is any action or inaction, word, thought, feeling or motive that doesn’t accurately represent the character and will of God. Sin is anything in our lives that keeps us from fulfilling our created purpose.
Is a generic prayer for forgiveness good enough? Do I need to name my sins? Well, the more specific we can be the better. I like the model of the 12 step program. “Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves and admit to God, ourselves and one other human being the exact nature of our wrongs.”
What if I forget to confess a particular sin? If we come to God in good faith with what we know, he will take care of what we don’t know. Two categories of sin we tend to overlook: Sins of omission and sins of the heart.
What if I don’t want to give up my sin? One strategy: Tell God, “Please make me willing to be willing to give this up.” It’s a start. How many times will God forgive me if I commit the same sin repeatedly? We are works in progress. The Christian life is falling down, getting up, falling down, getting up. As long as we keep getting up…that’s the key.
What about the unpardonable sin? If you are worried you may have committed it, it’s the best evidence that you haven’t. Bottom line: It means to permanently reject Jesus.
How can I be sure God has forgiven me? Residual guilt may be subjective, but objectively, our guilt has been removed. “Problems with assurance usually stem from a lack of understanding about the key doctrine of justification by faith.” (Martin Lloyd Jones) We’re not forgiven because of our doing but Christ’s dying…not our works but his work. The legal principle of double jeopardy: Prevents an accused person from being tried again on the same charges following a valid acquittal or conviction. Our sentence has already been served by Jesus. If you are trusting Christ, your guilt is gone whether it feels like it or not. Case closed!
Our recovery, the way back to our crown starts here, “Forgive us our sins

Highlights: Isn’t Kroger Enough? (Part 5)

“Give us this day our daily bread…” Do we really need this part of the Lord’s Prayer? We regard our food as less of a necessity and more like a hobby. Yes, we eat to live but more and more we live to eat. Isn’t this prayer an artifact from a by-gone era of scarcity?

John Stott cites Martin Luther, “Luther had the wisdom to see that “bread” was a symbol for “everything necessary for the preservation this life, like food, a healthy body, good weather, house, home, wife, children, good government and peace.” So, this prayer encompasses a much broader range of needs. We’re asking for more than just bread or food. Perhaps an accurate paraphrase might be: “Lord, provide for all our daily needs.”

Isn’t it selfish to pray for ourselves? This isn’t the first thing we are told to pray for. The first things we are told to pray are kingdom related. The Lord’s Prayer does give priority to things outside ourselves…BUT, what Dad or Mom worthy of the name does not want their children to come to them with their needs? Furthermore, we are instructed to pray this way.

Isn’t it unspiritual to pray for material things? Our physical needs are important to God. It’s why Jesus healed the sick. It’s why he fed the 5000. Yes, how we worship matters to God, but so does what we eat, how we rest and whether we exercise. God created us to be amphibious! Creatures that would inhabit two worlds - the spiritual and the physical, the invisible and the visible. [ They say the dust in the air comes from mainly two sources: it’s part earth and part disintegrated asteroids. So being made from dust - we are a combination of dirt and star-dust! ] We are dual-natured.

Can’t this kind of prayer be abused? On the one hand, It can encourage irresponsibility and laziness. We have a responsibility to work. “God feeds the birds, but he doesn’t bring the food to their nests.” (Martin Luther) Don’t use this prayer as a pretext for sloth. On the other hand, it can encourage self-indulgent materialism. This is a modest request. There is no justification here or anywhere else in the Bible for thinking that it’s God’s plan for the followers of Jesus to be fabulously rich. The “prosperity gospel” is the unfortunate product of our greed, consumerism and a sloppy, self-serving and twisted theology. We don’t need gourmet cuisine - just bread.

So, is this part of the Lord’s Prayer really necessary? This question is not a surprise to God. (Deuteronomy 8:6-18) We’re not the first to ask it. Don’t forget…behind Kroger, behind Columbia Gas, etc. is God! The ability to create and sustain all the systems that support our lives is a gift from God! Kroger is not enough!

Three important things happen inside me when I pray this:

1. I’m humbled - This prayer is a declaration of dependence. “My head is in the dirt.”
2. I move closer to contentment - This prayer is a modest request. “The person who is poor is not the person who has too little but the one who always craves more.” (Chinese fortune cookie)
3. I am motivated to help with the needs of others. This prayer uses the plural. It’s a prayer not just for me, but for others as well. We are “rich Christians in an age of hunger.” “Don’t refuse to do something just because you can’t do everything.” (Bob Pierce - World Vision co-founder)