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Topic: Contemplative Prayer
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helpforhomeschoolers
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Member # 15
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posted
Oh Duh! ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) Dez is the only one at home now so, I immdiately thought you meant pretend I was buying it for Dez...and buy it for myself. I did not understand. I did not even think about the 25 year old problem child!
Actually, I did send it to her... $4.99 at Christianbook.com! I sent it along with several other things, but you have to open a book for it to do any good!
I think right now she desires to hold on to the desires of her flesh and thus she is afraid to open antyhing that might cause her to be convicted. She wants what she wants right now and she wants His blessing too, and she does not understand the way things work with God.
It is kind of amazing to me the things that the human brain will do to establish as fact the things the mind of your flesh wants to believe.
Say a prayer, if you will for this one. I fear that she has a rude awakening coming. She is a stiff necked one! If it wer not that I can see God's chastening her, I would be much more worried than I am. I have confidence that he will deal with her rebellious spirit, but I am not looking forward to watching the process.
Posts: 4684 | From: Southern Black Hills of South Dakota | Registered: Jun 2002
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BORN AGAIN
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sister helpforhomeschoolers writes quote:
Why??? Why would I pretend I was buying Nee's book for my daughter???
Ah, sister, what am I going to do with you? Did you not say last year or so that you might buy it for your daughter who was going through some difficulty? So I said now, pretend you are buying it for your daughter, but then read it yourself. Oy.
God bless, BORN AGAIN
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BORN AGAIN
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Now, I didn't say that finding a good church with a pastor or teacher/preacher who is "about his Boston baked beans" is an easy matter.
But it is on the other hand easy to find a great teacher, and that is called the Bible (and Watchman Nee's The Normal Christian Life. If you haven't read it yet, pretend you are buying it for your daughter?
God bless, BORN AGAIN
"have faith in God."
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helpforhomeschoolers
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BA: I love you! I my not think that you have a realistic worldview, or view of the state of the union so to speak but I can tell you that your view is much prettier than mine, and there are days that I would much rather have yours.
It is not the one HE has given me to see.
It is 4 Am here and I was wishing I could go climb back in but I have to hit the road soon, so forgive me if my brain is in a mode that is a little philisophical at the moment. But I was reading this an a couple of your other posts and I was thinking about life.
I dont know where you live, but I imagine that you live in a city and your life is more hectic than mine. Sometimes I hear it in your voice. Your tired, there is not enough time; you look forward to the weekend; want to steal away time from work to be with the Lord; I am sure your work is harder and more stressful than mine, your responsibilities greater.
I live out here in the wild west wilderness where the deer and the antilope roam and you can see fields of sunfowers that seem to reach the horizon. Have you ever seen a section of sunflowers! I am sure that it is impossible to stand gazing at a section of sunflowers and not smile! Today I will put in a 14 hour day that will amount to about 10 hours of driving and enjoying the blue sky and sunshine and listening to my Bible on CD, and about 4 hours of work that really is not work.
It occurs to me that God allowed me this place of natural rest and laidback lifestyle because the things I would see as I watched what was going on in the world and in the church ... my worldview, would not be so pretty or so pleasant.
It occurs to me that the very Same God allows you a view of things that is a lot like my field of sunflowers because your day to day would be more like my view.
I dont know if that is true I am speculating of course, but it was just a thought.
You laugh at this article, but BA there are folks out there who cant find a church to fellowship in because of the things that they know in their heart are not of GOD have so infiltrated the churches. This is not in one state. I am personally aware of people in perhaps 10 different states that are experiencing this right now, and for them it is not a laughing matter, it is scary, it serious and it is sad.
Posts: 4684 | From: Southern Black Hills of South Dakota | Registered: Jun 2002
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BORN AGAIN
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sister helpforhomeschoolers, all I can say is that you read some wild stuff. A part of your article says quote:
You need to know that Be Still is reputed to cross “all denominations,” Ecumenical Church Of Deceit speak for “out goes the Reformation.” O yes, this contemplative new spirituality is now a very serious infestation within the evangelical camp itself.
my God, woman, isn't being with the LORD and Yeshua and the Holy Spirit a whole lot simpler than that? I mean, a prairie dog could not understand that stuff.
One thing I want to thank God for, is that although I am educated, God taught me long ago to use simple and small words to say plain things that are easy to understand for everyone and does not require one of dem college degrees to understand.
What a waste of time to say a whole lot of nothing! quote:
Be Still is reputed to cross “all denominations,” Ecumenical Church Of Deceit speak for “out goes the Reformation.” O yes, this contemplative new spirituality is now a very serious infestation within the evangelical camp itself.
O yes indeed.
God bless, BORN AGAIN
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helpforhomeschoolers
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Meditating On Contemplative/Centering Prayer Part 2
By Ken Silva
The Lord’s timing is always perfect; let me explain. I had strongly felt led to put my other projects on hold in order that I might begin to counterattack the Devil’s penetration of the Church of Jesus Christ through his “reimagined” Gnostic spirituality in new evangelicalism. The next day when I went to Slice Of Laodicea, the website of CWN correspondent Ingrid Schlueter where I am also contributor, and I noticed that she had posted concerning a new DVD promoting contemplative prayer entitled Be Still.
Then as I checked my email the very next morning Brannon Howse was also making me aware of this exact same project. Space doesn’t allow further discussion on this pending DVD disaster, which includes “noted Christian authors, ministers and educators” such as Max Lucado, Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, and amazingly enough Dr. Charles Stanley, so I have included the link to Ingrid’s post here. You need to know that Be Still is reputed to cross “all denominations,” Ecumenical Church Of Deceit speak for “out goes the Reformation.” O yes, this contemplative new spirituality is now a very serious infestation within the evangelical camp itself.
Contemplating The Mystic Merton
Last time I introduced The Silent Life (TSL), a definitive book by the late Thomas Merton all about the contemplative practices that grew out of the monastic traditions of apostate Roman Catholicism. In TSL Merton instructs us the monastic tradition teaches that the monk “travels to God by the direct path,” and that he “withdraws from the world.” Merton then tells us the monk does this because “he is essentially and exclusively dedicated to seeking God, rather than seeking souls for God.” [1]
What should immediately jump out here is that we have just received teaching which is actually diametrically opposed to the mission Jesus has for His Church. While praying to God the Father in John 17 God the Son says undeniably – “As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world” (v.17). And our Lord specifically tells us that He – “came to seek and to save what was lost.” [2] The Master would then go on to repeat this mandate for the Christian following His resurrection from the dead – “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” [3] If you think for a moment, most of us have heard the phrase “be in the world, but not of it.” You see there’s a pretty reliable Source from which it originated.
Now I am aware that I have covered Merton in some depth but I have my reason. This was imperative because the guru most responsible for the arrival of the Trojan Horse which unloaded this new spirituality within our Lord’s Church is Richard Foster. That Foster is heavily influenced by Thomas Merton is simply beyond question. For instance in Celebration of Discipline (COD) Foster quotes Merton to open his chapter on “The Discipline of Meditation.” In COD Merton informs us “true contemplation [meditation] is not a psychological trick but a theological grace.” [4]
This is why I have taken such great care to carefully document and expose Merton’s heresy. It must be stated plainly, although many in the Church today have little regard for what the Bible actually says, God still takes His Word with the utmost seriousness. And when He was standing on His planet the LORD God Almighty most clearly said – “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.” [5] This forever slams the door shut in the face of the foolish argument continually pressed forth by Merton supporters that “we just take the good and ignore the bad in his teaching.” But this is what the Lord says – “A bad tree [Thomas Merton] cannot bear good fruit.”
The Transformation Of Mysticism
Last time we clearly established that Merton called the “living spiritual teacher” Thich Nhat Hanh, who just happens to be a Zen Buddhist roshi (master), “a true monk.” [6] Then we turned to Merton’s TSL where I showed you that this “spiritual director” defined a monk as “a man who has been called by the Holy Spirit” who is to “devote his entire life to seeking God.” [7] This can only mean that Nhat Hanh, whom Merton also considered a “brother,” would have “been called by the Holy Spirit” in order to “devote his entire life to seeking God” through Zen Buddhism.
So you should now be able to see why those of us sounding the alarm regarding contemplative prayer consider it such a grave spiritual danger. Lord willing, as we progress we’ll go into more depth regarding the spiritual “enlightenment,” also called “transformation,” that inevitably happens to those who practice this meditation. But for now, from months of studying transcendental meditation, I can definitively tell you that Ron Comer is dead on target in the Foreword to Ray Yungen’s excellent book A Time of Departing when he observes:
Through these mystical [contemplative] prayer practices the church today has opened its door to a subtle abandonment of the gospel… Like two rivers merging together, Eastern and Western religious thought are joining together, thus gaining momentum towards a one world religion in which all paths lead to God. [8]
And with our case made, now Thomas Merton stands as the quintessential example for Gnostic msyticism, as well as for the absolute truth of the following solemn words of Holy Scripture. Through Merton’s example, with his denial of historic orthodox Christian theology, the transcendental meditation of contemplative/centering prayer that he championed is thus revealed to be:
the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousnes
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[1] Thomas Merton, The Silent Life, (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1957), p. viii, emphasis mine.
[2] Luke 19:10.
[3] John 20:21.
[4] Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, (HarperCollins, 1998), p. 15.
[5] Matthew 7:18.
[6] Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step, (Bantam, 1992), p. xi.
[7] Merton, op. cit., p. vii, emphasis mine.
[8] Ray Yungen, A Time of Departing, (Lighthouse Trails, 2002), p. 15
Posts: 4684 | From: Southern Black Hills of South Dakota | Registered: Jun 2002
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helpforhomeschoolers
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Understand The Times
Radio Commentary
by Roger Oakland
www.understandthetimes.org
CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER?
Christians are vulnerable to new waves and fads. A present phenomenon attracting many is called contemplative prayer. What is it? Why is it so popular? It can be documented that contemplative prayer has roots in eastern mysticism. Does this matter or can it be a helpful tool to contact the God of the Bible?
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The Bible warns us about false teachers that promote doctrines of demons in the last days. [1] It would seem reasonable then for Christians to be aware. We are living at a time when many believe that Christians can not be deceived. Many have abandoned the idea that the return of Jesus Christ is at hand. They are too busy playing a role to build the Kingdom of God here on earth through human effort. In fact they are searching for methods to become more efficient in hearing from God and doing His work without studying His Word. Contemplative prayer is one of these methods.
In order to understand what contemplative prayer is we will look at explanations from those who promote it. Listen as I read what Father Thomas Keeting wrote:
The root of prayer is interior silence. We may think of prayer as thoughts or feelings expressed in words, but this is only one of its forms… Contemplative prayer is not so much the absence of thoughts as detachment from them. It is the opening of mind and heart, body and emotions--our whole being--to God, the Ultimate Mystery, beyond words, thoughts and emotions-- beyond, in other words, the psychological content of the present moment. We do not deny or repress what is in our consciousness. We simply accept the fact of whatever is there and go beyond it, not by effort, but by letting go of whatever is there. [2]
Or listen to this statement taken from a Roman Catholic source that will help answer the question what contemplative prayer is and where it came from:
Today’s revival of practical interest in contemplative prayer is witnessed by a flood of books and articles, lectures, conferences and retreats, and its causes can be traced to factors both within and outside the Church. The Second Vatican Council, for example, gave both religious and lay people a new sense of freedom and a desire for spiritual renewal. Groups like the Cursillo and the Charismatic Movement, and later Centering Prayer and meditation groups following the teaching of John Main have helped introduce large numbers of Christians to a deeper life of prayer. When we add to this the spiritual hunger so characteristic of our modern Western civilization and its deeper acquaintance of Eastern forms of meditation and various depth psychologies, we end up with a setting in which practical questions about Christian mysticism naturally arise. [3]
The time we have for this program does not allow me to go into more detail. However, I think the two previous statements are enough to set off an alarm. Ideas being promoted by Roman Catholic mystics, and now widely embraced by non-Roman Catholics, sound strangely familiar. Blanking out one’s mind to arrive at a meditative state has long been practiced as a means of contacting the divine. While it is common to Eastern religion, it is foreign to the Scriptures.
In today’s world where we are told that experience supersedes the revelation of God’s Word, contemplative prayer based on eastern mysticism will become more and more popular. Understand The Times will continue to expose it.
I am Roger Oakland. This has been a biblical perspective to help understand the times.
1935
[1] 1 Timothy 4:1
[2] Thomas Keeting, “Dimensions of Contemplative Prayer,” http://www.centeringprayer.com/OpenHeart/open02.htm
[3] St. John The Cross, “Christian Contemplation Today,” http://www.innerexplorations.com/catchspmys/fromp1.htm
Posts: 4684 | From: Southern Black Hills of South Dakota | Registered: Jun 2002
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