* Yesterday’s sermon had some copyrighted material in it, but you can listen to it online at our new web site. I got a lot of reaction to the Tony Campolo story I told and, if you want to read more, his book The Kingdom of God is a Party is a great one. I had dinner with Tony when he came to speak at our church a few years ago, and he’s as genuine as it gets. You can’t help but get inspired by his passionate faith that is lived out in action. Yeah, he’s controversial…but then again, so was Jesus!
* I drove down to a Salt Lake hospital yesterday right after worship to visit one of our members who had been very sick due to a bad reaction to some medication. I talked to her husband the night before and he was very concerned. I prayed with him over the phone. When I got to the hospital yesterday, he told me that right after we prayed together she immediately started to improve.
Understand, I’m not an expert prayer practitioner, nor do I see myself in the Benny Hinn healer model (actually, I pray I’m not at all like Benny Hinn!). But incidents like this do convince me that there’s a real value to prayer. It’s not so much that fervent prayer gets us what we want–clearly, that doesn’t always happen. What prayer does, however, is put us more firmly in the mind and will of God. When we do that, amazing things seem to happen. We’re going to be exploring that in this week’s upcoming sermon based on I Timothy 2:1-7.
* Says here that OJ Simpson got arrested over the weekend. Now there’s a surpise. He says that the police have not responded well to him since his “acquittal” years ago. If there’s a better illustration of our sins finding us out I’m not sure what it would be.
* After last night’s Red Sox-Yankees series finale, I decided that I’m very glad I’ll be in Israel during some of the playoffs. Too many of those “down-by-a-run, bottom-of-the-ninth, bases-loaded” scenarios can’t be good for the old blood pressure. I’d have to get up at 3AM to watch the games there…not gonna happen (well, ok, it might, but…)
* The Steelers won yesterday in convincing fashion, although they looked bad doing it. No, not their play so much as the throwback unis they wore. Yellow helmets and dark brown jerseys? There’s a reason they were such a bad team early in their history!