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Showing posts from October, 2008

It Pays to Be Happy

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2 Timothy 4:2 tells us to "be ready in season and out of season." Yesterday morning I had an opportunity to minister on the joy of the Lord to an audience at the Charlotte airport. When I arrived at my departure gate, an employee announced on the intercom he was offering free business class upgrades to anyone who would sing a song with "happy" in its title. Initially I thought of songs like "Happy Birthday", "Don't Worry, Be Happy", and "Happy Together." (Keep in mind I used to be a nightclub disc jockey). One man went up first and sang the old children's song "If You're Happy and You Know It." When the employee asked for another volunteer, I quickly raised my hand and then with my laptop computer played "The Happy Song" by Delirious and tried to sing along. Because I didn't have all the lyrics memorized, the employee insisted I dance around instead. So I did a brief jig and then told everyone wa

Lessons Learned From Lakeland

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By now many of you have seen (and perhaps attended) the Florida Healing Outpouring meetings in Lakeland. What began on April 2nd as five days of meetings at Ignited Church by Canadian evangelist Todd Bentley quickly exploded into a worldwide revival thanks to GodTV and the Internet. I was in Lakeland for six days in May and then watched more meetings via GodTV this past summer. In mid-August, it was announced that Todd Bentley was stepping down from public ministry due to failures in his personal life including a breakdown of his marriage. Many ministers have since made public statements regarding Todd and the Florida Outpouring. Until now, I didn’t plan on making my own comments mainly because I do not know Todd personally (although he added me as a Facebook friend). But then a couple of weeks ago, an incident came up that made me decide otherwise. One Saturday morning I attended a men’s breakfast at a church in Virginia. After eating and a time of worship, the pastor preached

Where Is That In The Bible?

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Occasionally, I receive critical messages from people who don’t agree with things I show in my videos. A remark I often hear is, “Where’s that in the Bible?” Certainly I agree the Word of God is our standard in which everything we do and say must be judged. But has it occurred to you that some generally accepted Christian traditions aren't specifically mentioned in Scripture? For example, Sunday Schools cannot be found in the Bible yet most churches have them. The same thing could be said about altar calls for salvation. God uses people in different ways because we are all unique. Jesus Himself did unusual things like spitting and putting mud in people's eyes to bring healing. No doubt things like that done today in our congregations would offend many church folk. John 21 says that Jesus did many other things that were not written down. Those "other things" could have been more radical than what was recorded in the Scriptures. Of course, we must reject all id