Prayers and effects on health and diseases?

As a health care professional, this article published in Christianity Today website this month (May 2009) is very interesting to me.

In this article, the authors looked at the effects of Christian prayers on the health and disease outcomes of patients.

Click here to read the article:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/may/27.43.html?start=1

What the authors did were to analyze many of the studies that had been done before; and I am surprised that there are so many studies on such issue! Click here to view a table of some of the studies analyzed by the authors:
http://home.comcast.net/~gregfung/summarytable.html

From that table itself, you can see the effects of prayers from many of these studies were at best, inconclusive; with some favored positive outcomes after patients received prayers; others no; still others - negative effects!

This article is a real honest discourse, and its findings may surprise you. It is worth your time to read.

What I've learned personally from this article is that: let's treat prayers with a sense of reverence and awe, remembering we are entering into conversation with the Holy God.

Let's not treat prayers as some sort of magical wand that you swing around and zap! you got your desired results. That's plain selfishness.

Let's not treat God as a vending machine as alluded in the article.

Let's not be presumptuous and let's be very very careful of what you promise to your patients, to your relatives, to your friends!

Let's not reduce prayers into some sort of formula or routine to be chanted.

Let's treat prayers with some degree of mysticism, knowing that God cannot be fully known by our limited human understanding. Our God is a sovereign God, and He does what He pleases. Let's be careful lest we elevate our position to a little god, usurping His throne in our hearts.

In the very first place, I personally don't agree with some of these studies, especially in the STEP study as described in the article. I don't agree the way the study was conducted - randomizing some patients to receive prayers, with some do not. As an evangelical Christian, that's ethically not right; no one should be deprived of prayers. This study should not have been done at all.

As described in the article, God cannot be subjected into scientific research.

C.S. Lewis, as described in the article, said it quite humorously:
"Simply to say prayers is not to pray; otherwise a team of properly trained parrots would serve as well as men for our experiment."

In conclusion, I echo what the authors said:

"In all this, we discover that our obsession with whether prayer works is the wrong question. We know prayer works. The real question is, are we prepared for God's answer?"

For those who like intellectual treatise, you can also go to the authors webpage where they described in more details some of the articles that they have analyzed (but that's more technical). Click here:
http://www.intercessoryprayerstudies.com/

Enjoy your reading.

20 Ways To Wake Up Your Quiet Time

This article is from http://www.navpress.com/magazines/archives/article.aspx?id=1.103.9

20 Ways To Wake Up Your Quiet Time
Pam Farrel

Behind closed doors, many of us yawn through our quiet times. Somehow, our routine time with god slowly and quietly degenerates into a boring, predictable rut. As spiritual cataracts grow over our sleepy eyes, we may grow disinterested and frustrated. Such seasons demand a fresh view of the creator. Like any good relationship, quiet times with god need a little variety. Instead of rolling over and hitting the snooze button, try one of these ideas for your next quiet time.

Note: Below are the few that I find helpful. For full article, click on the link above to access the article.

WRITE A LETTER TO GOD about your life. Give it to a friend to mail hack to you in three months. In the letter, talk to God about the areas of your life that are bothering you. Write about how you'd like to grow and what attribute of His you'd like to see more clearly.

WRITE OUT AND PERSONALIZE Scripture by inserting your name into promises relevant to your life or current struggles. For example, I would personalize Ps. 84:11 in this way: "No good thing does God withhold from Pam when she walks uprightly." Many of the Bible's promises come to life and seem more powerful and relevant when personalized in this way Spend some time meditating and praying over verses that you personalize. I once copied a set of verses and strung them together as a personalized love letter from God's heart to my own. I have it framed and hanging in my room. Those personalized verses help me keep a trig view of God.

GO ON A PRAISE WALK. Thank God for everything you see. Take the opportunity to look closely at God's creation, praising Him for His creativity and the beauty of the world He's crafted. After hiking for a while, find a quiet spot to read one of the many psalms that describe His creation. Isaiah 40 and Genesis 1 are two other chapters that will help you focus your heart and mind on God's creative character.
SPEND YOUR ENTIRE TIME WITH GOD SINGING and praising Him. Church hymnals and books of choruses are great resources to enliven your quiet time with personal worship. You might even try creating a song of your own!WRITE OUT a Phil. 4:8 list. What is lovely to you, worthy of praise, excellent, etc.? Hang the list in a place where you tend to be grumpy, such as above the washer and dryer or on the dashboard of your car for that frustrating commute!

PRAY IN A POSTURE you don't normally use. Try praying on your knees, prone, or standing with your face to the heavens and your hands raised in worship. It's amazing how simply changing your posture before God can change your attitude and help you experience Him in new ways.

PRAISE JESUS FROM A TO Z. For example, "Jesus, You are amazing ... Jesus, You are beautiful...." This activity will challenge you to think deeply about who Jesus is and why you love and serve Him. As you praise Jesus using each letter of the alphabet, spend some time meditating on each word you use to describe Him. Thinking deeply about Him is more important than racing through each letter of the alphabet as fast as you can.

WRITE OUT YOUR PRAYERS TO JESUS. You might write them in a journal, or purchase special stationery for these precious letters, as you might do if you were sending a letter to someone you have fallen deeply in love with. At the end of the letter, sign your name, just as you would a normal letter. Something powerful and deeply intimate happens when you record your thoughts and prayers in a letter to Jesus.
REREAD THE NOTES OF THE SERMON from the previous week. If your pastor is doing a series and you know what Scriptures he'll be addressing next, read ahead in the passage to be covered next Sunday. This will prepare you to think more deeply and listen better during the next sermon, as well as helping you remember and apply truth. Find a verse in the text that has helped you grow, and write a note to your pastor thanking him for his sermon and insight on the passage.

READ YOUR FAVORITE HYMN. Spend some time meditating about each of the hymn's verses and its overall message. Find the passage in the Bible that the hymn was based upon, and think about how the hymn describes and reflects that truth. Spend some time researching how and why the hymn was composed. What were the circumstances? Your pastor or worship leader might know about a particular hymn's origin. Your Christian bookstore may also carry books that detail the history of certain hymns. If you're able to locate such information, think about how the hymn reflects the author's response to God during his or her circumstances.

SPEND A PERIOD OF TIME FASTING from food, TV, or a hobby to spend more time with God. If you're able, combine your fast with a day at a quiet retreat center, the beach, the mountains, or even tucked away in a library to reflect upon God's Word and His hand in your life.

HAVE A QUIET TIME WITH ONE OF YOUR CHILDREN or grandchildren. This would probably include reading a passage from the Bible out loud. You can give children a powerful peek into your relationship with Christ by inviting them to share your regular time with God. As you ask them questions about what they see in the passage, you'll teach them to think more deeply about God's Word. Their responses and observations may surprise you, stretch you, and enrich your own perspective.

WRITE ABOUT YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD from a different point of view. Think about how someone else would describe your walk. For example, my teen son might say, "My mom has a radical walk with Jesus. She really got pegged (convicted) by this verse." Several friends from the mission field explained how this activity helped them communicate the parable of the sower to the tribe they worked with. In their translation work, they described the seed that grew as the one that fell on "mulchy" soil. In that tribe, the best heart is one that resembles a compost pile. When you consider your walk and God's Word from the perspective of another, you will think differently, cross cultural barriers, and gain a fresh view of god.

MEMORIZE ONE OF THE PRAYERS of the Bible, such a Mary's prayer in Lk. 1:46–55. Then act the prayer out as a soliloquy.

WRITE OUT A LIST of theological questions you'd like answered. Choose one and begin researching it. "God, what is in your heart toward women?" was a question I had that led me on an exhaustive study of all the women in the Bible, and all the verses with the words woman and women in them.

ABIDING DAILY

Remember, the purpose of all these ideas is to enhance your relationship with God and your intimacy with Him during your quiet time. The goal is to abide ever more in Him. As Fern Nichols, the founder of Moms In Touch, says, " If you seek to abide in the vine daily, you never know what day He might choose to change you life forever." Enjoy the adventure!

Culture Unplugged Video

View this movie at cultureunplugged.com

An Easter Story

The story below is from the URL: http://www.fathershands.com/emptyegg/

Jeremy was born with a twisted body and a slow mind.

At the age of 12 he was still in second grade, seemingly unable to learn. His teacher, Doris Miller, often became exasperated with him. He would squirm in his seat, drool, and make grunting noises.

At other times, he spoke clearly and distinctly, as if a spot of light had penetrated the darkness of his brain.

Most of the time, however, Jeremy just irritated his teacher.

One day she called his parents and asked them to come in for a consultation. As the Forresters entered the empty classroom, Doris said to them, "Jeremy really belongs in a special school. It isn't fair to him to be with younger children who don't have learning problems. Why, there is a five year gap between his age and that of the other students."

Mrs. Forrester cried softly into a tissue, while her husband spoke. "Miss Miller," he said, "there is no school of that kind nearby. It would be a terrible shock for Jeremy if we had to take him out of this school. We know he really likes it here." Doris sat for a long time after they had left, staring at the snow outside the window. Its coldness seemed to seep into her soul. She wanted to sympathize with the Forresters. After all, their only child had a terminal illness. But it wasn't fair to keep him in her class. She had 18 other youngsters to teach, and Jeremy was a distraction. Furthermore, he would never learn to read and write. Why waste any more time trying?

As she pondered the situation, guilt washed over her. Here I am complaining when my problems are nothing compared to that poor family, she thought. Lord, please help me to be more patient with Jeremy.

From that day on, she tried hard to ignore Jeremy's noises and his blank stares. Then one day, he limped to her desk, dragging his bad leg behind him.

"I love you, Miss Miller," he exclaimed, loud enough for the whole class to hear. The other students snickered, and Doris' face turned red. She stammered ... "Wh-why that's very nice, Jeremy. N-now please take your seat."

Spring came, and the children talked excitedly about the coming of Easter. Doris told them the story of Jesus, and then to emphasize the idea of new life springing forth, she gave each of the children a large plastic egg. "Now," she said to them, "I want you to take this home and bring it back tomorrow with something inside that shows new life. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Miss Miller," the children responded enthusiastically ... all except for Jeremy. He listened intently; his eyes never left her face. He did not even make his usual noises. Had he understood what she had said about Jesus' death and resurrection? Did he understand the assignment? Perhaps she should call his parents and explain the project to them.

That evening, Doris' kitchen sink stopped up. She called the landlord and waited an hour for him to come by and unclog it. After that, she still had to shop for groceries, iron a blouse, and prepare a vocabulary test for the next day. She completely forgot about phoning Jeremy's parents.

The next morning, 19 children came to school, laughing and talking as they placed their eggs in the large wicker basket on Miss Miller's desk.

After they completed their math lesson, it was time to open the eggs. In the first egg, Doris found a flower.

"Oh yes, a flower is certainly a sign of new life," she said.
"When plants peek through the ground, we know that spring is here."

A small girl in the first row waved her arm.
"That's my egg, Miss Miller," she called out.

The next egg contained a plastic butterfly which looked very real.

Doris held it up. "We all know that a caterpillar changes and grows into a beautiful butterfly.
Yes, that's new life, too."

Little Judy smiled proudly and said,
"Miss Miller, that one is mine."

Next, Doris found a rock with moss on it.

She explained that moss, too, showed life.

Billy spoke up from the back of the classroom "My daddy
helped me," he beamed.

Then Doris opened the fourth egg.
She gasped.

The egg was empty.

Surely it must be Jeremy's she thought, and of course, he did not understand her instructions. If only she had not forgotten to phone his parents.

Because she did not want to embarrass him,
she quietly set the egg aside and reached for another.

Suddenly, Jeremy spoke up.
"Miss Miller, aren't you going to talk about my egg?"

Flustered, Doris replied, "But Jeremy, your egg is empty."

He looked into her eyes and said softly ...
"Yes, but Jesus' tomb was empty, too."

Time stopped.

When she could speak again, Doris asked him,
"Do you know why the tomb was empty?"

"Oh, yes," Jeremy said, "Jesus was killed and put in there.
Then His Father raised Him up."

The recess bell rang.
While the children excitedly ran out to the school yard ...
Doris cried.
The cold inside her melted completely away.

Three months later, Jeremy died.
Those who paid their respects at the mortuary were surprised to see 19 eggs on top of his casket ... all of them empty.

Paid In Full

When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
(Joh 19:30 NIV)

The phrase "It is finished" is the one word in Greek called tetelestai...... it also gives the meaning of "paid in full".

The tense of this verb is important to us -- perfect tense (tetelestai). In Greek the perfect tense signifies a past action, the effect of which continues into the present. It has been completed and is still complete. The effect of the tense in this verb is a sense of finality.

Moulton and Milligan pored over many of these receipts and contracts to better understand New Testament Greek. They observed that receipts are often introduced by the phrase tetelestai, usually written in an abbreviated manner indicating that the bill had been paid in full.55 The obligation has been completed. The debt has been paid off. Tetelestai -- it is finished.

Read an excerpt about tetelestai:

Was, Is And Always Will Be

Tetelestai comes from the verb teleo, which means “to bring to an end, to complete, to accomplish.” It’s a crucial word because it signifies the successful end to a particular course of action. It’s the word you would use when you climb to the peak of Mt. Everest; it’s the word you would use when you turn in the final copy of your dissertation; it’s the word you would use when you make the final payment on your new car; it’s the word you use when you cross the finish line of your first 10K run. The word means more than just “I survived.” It means “I did exactly what I set out to do.”

But there’s more here than the verb itself. Tetelestai is in the perfect tense in Greek. That’s significant because the perfect tense speaks of an action which has been completed in the past with results continuing into the present. It’s different from the past tense which looks back to an event and says, “This happened.” The perfect tense adds the idea that “This happened and it is still in effect today.”

When Jesus cried out “It is finished,” he meant “It was finished in the past, it is still finished in the present and it will remain finished in the future.”

Note one other fact. He did not say, “I am finished,” for that would imply that he died defeated and exhausted. Rather, he cried out “It is finished,” meaning “I successfully completed the work I came to do.”

Tetelestai, then, is the Savior’s final cry of victory. When he died, he left no unfinished business behind. When he said, “It is finished,” he was speaking the truth........

Matthew Henry expands on what Christ’s death accomplished in four statements, each one beginning with the letter F. The death of Christ provided a . . .

A. Full satisfaction for sin
B. Fatal blow to Satan
C. Fountain of grace opened that will flow forever
D. Foundation of peace laid that will last forever

.......there is more to the meaning of tetelestai. It means all of the above, but it especially applies to the price paid for the sins of the world. Merrill Tenney (Expositor’s Bible Commentary, IX, 185) notes that the verb

was used in the first and second centuries in the sense of “fulfilling” or “paying” a debt and often appeared in receipts. “It is finished” (Tetelestai) could be interpreted as “Paid in full.”

“Paid in full” means that once a thing is paid for, you never have to pay for it again. In fact, “paid in full” means that once a thing is paid for, it is foolish to try to pay for it again.

President's inauguration Invocation by Rick Warren

Almighty God, Our Father, everything we see and everything we can’t see exists because of You alone. It all comes from You, it all belongs to You, it all exists for Your glory. History is your story. The Scripture tells us, ‘Hear, oh Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one’ and You are the compassionate and merciful one and You are loving to everyone You have made.

Now today we rejoice not only in America’s peaceful transfer of power for the 43rd time, we celebrate a hinge-point of history with the inauguration of our first African American president of the united states. We are so grateful to live in this land, a land of unequaled possibility, where a a son of an African Immigrant can rise to the highest level of our leadership. And we know today that Dr. King and a great cloud of witnesses are shouting in heaven.

Give to our new president, Barack Obama, the wisdom to lead us with humility, the courage to lead us with integrity, the compassion to lead us with generosity. Bless and protect him, his family, Vice President Biden, the Cabinet and every one of our freely elected leaders.

Help us, oh God, to remember that we are Americans. United not by race or religion or by blood, but to our commitment to freedom and justice for all. When we focus on ourselves, when we fight each other, when we forget you, forgive us.

When we presume that our greatness and our prosperity is ours alone, forgive us. When we fail to treat our fellow human beings and all the earth with the respect that they deserve, forgive us. And as we face these difficult days ahead, may we have a new birth of clarity in our aims, responsibility in our actions, humility in our approaches and civility in our attitudes—even when we differ.

Help us to share, to serve and to seek the common good of all. May all people of good will today join together to work for a more just, a more healthy and a more prosperous nation and a peaceful planet. And may we never forget that one day, all nations, all people will stand accountable before You. We now commit our new president and his wife Michelle and his daughters, Malia and Sasha, into your loving care.

I humbly ask this in the name of the one who changed my life—Yeshua, Esa, Jesus, Jesus—who taught us to pray:

Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Younger Unchurched Seek Faith that Challenges, Transforms

These interesting facts are excerpted from a post in Christian Post online portal. Click here to access.

Younger Unchurched Seek Faith that Challenges, Transforms

While surveys continue to paint a hopeless picture of young adults and the future of the Christian faith, Christianity will not die out in this generation or any other, insists one researcher and author.

"We have heard them and guess you have too: 'This will be the last Christian generation,' 'Only 4 percent of this generation are Christians,' and 'The sky is falling,'" writes Ed Stetzer in Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and the Churches that Reach Them. "Well, there are some concerns (and big ones at that), but hype does not help."

The latest research to sound the alarm on this generation is last month's Barna Group survey which showed that less than one percent of those between the ages of 18 and 23 hold a biblical worldview (which includes believing that absolute moral truth exists, that the Bible is completely accurate in all of the principles it teaches, and that a person cannot earn their way into Heaven through good works).

Over the past three years, Stetzer – who serves as the director of LifeWay Research – has been studying and interviewing "unchurched" young adults in their twenties. The unchurched includes those who have never attended church and those who only attended as a child.

Ultimately, he found a generation that "is still excited about being spiritual but has lost its appreciation of the value of the church," he told The Christian Post. Some see the church as more of the problem than the solution to spiritual growth, he noted.

According to surveys conducted by the Center for Missional Research at the North American Misison Board and LifeWay Research, 80 percent of 20- to 29-year-olds believe God exists and 73 percent consider themselves to be spiritual and are interested in knowing more about God. At the same time, 67 percent believe the church is full of hypocrites, 77 percent think Christianity today is more about organized religion than about loving God and loving people, and 90 percent say they can have a good relationship with God without being involved in a church.

Open to Jesus and God yet wary of the church, these twenty-somethings are seeking genuine relationships and a faith that challenges and transforms.

"They want a faith that changes them and changes the world," Stetzer commented. "That's what the Gospel truly is."

"Sadly many people have identified this generation as disinterested in a deeper approach to life," Stetzer writes in the book he co-authored with Richie Stanley and Jason Hayes.

The inaccurate stereotypes have led many churches to take the wrong approach when reaching the younger generation, such as offering little biblical depth in teachings.

In Lost and Found, Stetzer notes that more twenty- and thirty-somethings are leaving churches that model after sitcoms in which a sermon is presented with a clever story, a problem is introduced and then "neatly" resolved in a 30-minute time span. "Sitcom content makes the assumption that things can be resolved at the end of church," Stetzer writes. "Unfortunately content of that nature does nothing to embrace the mysterious nature of either God or life. Life is not a sitcom, and the real problems people experience involve deep struggle and introspection.

"Life isn't that clean and all of its challenges certainly can't be resolve in thirty minutes or less."

Turned off by neat and pat answers and hungry for depth, young adults are flocking more toward churches that are offering deeper and more meaty messages (particularly through expository teaching) and tackling tough questions even though they might not be able to give all the answers.

"We need to teach people that the Christian life is not always explainable but it is always livable," Stetzer commented. ...............more................



Written by:
Lillian Kwon
Christian Post Reporter