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PRAYERGEAR.COM / SPIRITUAL RESOURCE SERVICES
NEWSLETTER
January 28, 2000 Issue 29: A Love Letter
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<>< CONTENTS <><
1. Mini-Reflection
2. Prayergear.com product and services updates
3. Subscriber Sharings
4. Cruising Christian Cyberspace!
5. Let us know!
6. Weekly Reflection: "A Love Letter From Our Lord"
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Greetings to all of you and a great welcome to our new
subscribers! I love to be able to (and humbled to be in the
position to) write to you every week around this time. There is
an added blessing for me which I take to heart: Like "real
world" newsletters, newspapers and magazines, these
electronic "e-zines" are one-way communications; I
"talk" to all of you and some of you talk back, but you
can't talk to each other since this is not a listserv or
newsgroup. You are all connected in spirit by your love of God
and His word, a spiritual community within the Body of Christ,
but you don't know who each other are. I don't even know who many
of you are. But I do know you are from diverse cultures and
geographic locations throughout this world; I do know you love
God and hunger for His food; I do know I'm just another beggar at
His table, and, by His grace only, am able to help a little in
showing other beggars like me where His food can be found. I
thank Him and you for this privilege.
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1. ~~ ** Mini-Reflection ** ~~
In some therapeutic programs there's a saying offered to patients
and clients: "Fake it 'till you make it." It has some
merit in that if you practice a desired behavior long enough,
even if your heart isn't into it, you will gradually integrate
that positive attribute. After thinking about this at length, I
suggest it doesn't apply to the spiritual realm of growth. The
Scriptures describe the attributes of God's children and the
behavior of those filled with the Holy Spirit. Some believe that
by practicing these characteristics, they will draw closer to God
and grow spiritually. One problem here. I personally know people
who are exemplary in character and behavior and live by a highly
developed moral code. They are kind, self-controlled, slow to
anger, ready to help their "neighbor," along with other
fruits of the Spirit. However, I also know they are atheists or
at least uninterested in the spiritual realm. They are not filled
with the Holy Spirit.
Jesus predicted many would announce to Him, once confronted,
"But didn't we [do this and that] in Your Name?" Jesus
also predicted He would respond, "Leave Me, I don't know
you." One of my prayers is that I don't act generously or
kindly, that I don't act grateful or peaceful. I pray that I am
those things through no credit due me. And what's the key to
becoming instead of acting? Christ's instruction to "Seek
first the kingdom of God, and all else will be added unto
you."
I know people who have told themselves (and me) that this sounds
like a deal. They need financial help or a way out of a jam, so
they'll seek the kingdom. But they aren't seeking it first, but
second. They are seeking it as a means to something they want
first. Backwards. Won't work. That "all else" is an
enticement by Jesus, yes. But I believe He meant the "all
else" to be the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Anyone who is
disappointed that the "all else" isn't something else
need not seek the kingdom because it will be sought in vain. In
vanity. Anyone who is extremely excited about the "all
else" being fruits of the Spirit will seek the kingdom
delightfully and with gusto. And bearing the Spirit's fruit will
bring many more "all elses". God, our perfect Father,
just loves to bestow gifts on His children and surprise us with
His wondrous ways.
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2. ~~ ** Product and Services Updates ** ~~
After a month of no audio prayers on our web site, they are back!
The written word is powerful, in both the secular and spiritual
worlds. But there is something about the spoken word, with its
intonation, cadence, rhythm, emotion, and heart that penetrates
deep into the soul. I read Christ's words over and over. I can
"hear" them in my mind. But how I would have been in
ecstasy to hear His human voice speaking in the temples or on
grassy hills! There is a power in the human voice that makes us
drive long distances to hear a "speaker" read excerpts
from his book sitting on our desks. We know what he is going to
say, but we still want to hear him say it!
Voice technology on the Internet helps to humanize and endow the
World Wide Web with a heart. We plan to use this technology in
God's Name, and we have plenty of competition from those who are
using it now in the name of other "gods." More about
this down below under "Cruising Christian Cyberspace".
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3. ~~ ** Subscriber Sharings ** ~~
My introduction above talked about my vantage point giving me a
sense of who you, our family of subscribers, are about. We wanted
to create this new section so you can talk to each other, as we
all are each others' teachers. This is your section and thank you
for it! Below are a couple of unedited responses to our question
regarding the practice of prayer:
---- "Prayer can be many things. I believe prayer can be a
cry for help when you're desperate. Prayer can be an expression
of thanksgiving and works directly with our soul to bring peace
and encouragement. I think prayer is how we commune with God
daily, as we go about our daily living. Without prayer, we
perish. It is the life's blood of the believer (along with
fellowship with other believers and sharing the word of our
testimony).
Prayer lifts us up beyond our fallen, human condition to a level
where we can get a "bird's eye" view of life and see
what really matters. PRAYER IS FOOD FOR MY MIND, BODY, SOUL AND
SPIRIT!!
Prayer is critical, but we also need to learn to listen to our
Lord Jesus' responses to our prayers. I believe this is where we
have some difficulty, due to our personal
filter. That is why it is so important to renew our mind daily in
the Word of God, so that our thoughts can remain fully centered
on Him!
Blessings."
---- "I love just "hanging out" with the people I
love. We don't need to talk. We feel energized by each other's
presence. For me prayer is hanging out with God. If I don't pray,
I feel lonely. I don't always talk when I pray. His presence
transforms me! Prayer isn't about getting things. Prayer
transforms me!"
Thank you for your sharings! Please keep them coming! Perhaps
this week you can share your thoughts on "A Love Letter From
Our Lord" or anything else.
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4. ~~ ** Cruising Christian Cyberspace! ** ~~
For the sake of our new subscribers, let me explain that this
section of the newsletter features a Christian web site we
researched, reviewed and recommend for your review and
edification, with hyperlinks to them for your cyberspace cruising
convenience. We have a line up to tell you about. But, after 28
issues of the Weekly Newsletter, this week we are saving this
space for something else, our own cyberspace cruising/outreach
plans.
We mentioned above the power of the spoken word as well as the
written word and how we plan to use both. The newsletter ends
with "A Love Letter From Our Lord" which is also
accessible in a nicer format on our web site. The audio prayer
now available on our web site is a one and a half minute excerpt
from the Letter, grammatically reversed so it is from us to our
Lord, in His words. You can hear it by clicking on the text link,
"Click here for an audio prayer" under the navigation
buttons on the "What's New" page of our prayergear.com
web site. (Please just don't listen, but pray along with us.)
Here is where YOU come in! Do you have a prayer you would like to
reach throughout the world in a spoken format? The Psalms sing
"I will praise Your Name throughout the whole earth"
and here's one way to do that. We can read your prayer on your
behalf, or, should you want your own voice to speak to the world,
send us a microcassette or standard cassette tape to
Prayergear.com, P.O. Box 436, Chatsworth, NJ 08019. (Please keep
all prayers under two minutes.)
And here is another place where YOU come in! It is the desire of
our heart to provide audio prayers through our web site in
languages of countries that are deprived of Gospel resources. It
would be wonderful to have the "Love Letter From Our
Lord" or the "Lord's Prayer" (both from scripture)
available in spoken word in Hindi, Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese,
Korean, Spanish, etc. through the web site. How about your native
language?
Along with the intent of the above endeavor, we plan to start
scanning and publishing on our web site excerpts from the Gospel
of John in the Russian language. Can any of you provide us
translations (either text or spoken) of scripture?
What good will this do? Much! We know (and you can reference our
links to these data bases through the "Cruising Christian
Cyberspace" link on the welcome/home page of our web site)
how many countries are so deprived of the written and spoken
scripture. There are many churches in India and China, for
example, where there is only one Bible for a few thousand
Christians. A common practice is for the pastor of these churches
to tear out the available Bibles pages and hand out one or two to
each Christian. These brothers and sisters in Christ then take
their treasured pages and copy them by hand. At their next
meeting they exchange pages and copy them, and so on until each
family has a substantial portion of Scripture, which must
carefully be hidden to prevent confiscation. Christian web sites
need to post prayers and scripture in as many languages as
possible! Can you help us?
But wait a minute! That won't do any good unless these people
have Internet access, right? They don't, right? During the
"cold war" and era of the "Iron Curtain,"
very few Russians had radios. Yet "Radio Free Europe"
and radio transmissions from the US sponsored transmitters kept
the Russian people informed of another reality. The power of
radio was so threatening that the Soviet government spent
millions to jam incoming radio transmissions, unsuccessfully.
Yes, there are relatively few online computers in Mexico, China,
etc. But there are enough. Enough that the Chinese government is
quite concerned and proactive. Enough that missionaries and the
more (relatively) wealthy nationals do have access. From one
access, thousands can benefit. Jesus spoke only to crowds (yes,
some of those crowds numbered in the thousands) and never wrote
anything down, at least not published. The Truth spreads like
wildfire from a single source, driven by the Holy Spirit.
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5. ~~ ** Let us know! ** ~~
Well, this newsletter is long enough by this point. Since our
Cruising Christian Cyberspace was our longest so far, we'll make
this the shortest: Regarding all of the above, please, talk back
to us. What do you think? What can you teach us? Let us know!
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5. This week's Weekly Reflection follows. Please encourage others
to
subscribe! Share this newsletter with many of your friends and
help spread
the word. That's our only means of growing and reaching more
people, especially regarding our cyberspace outreach plans...your
recommendations to others.
So in gratitude to God for all things, let me bid you grace in
the Name of
our Lord and please keep in touch with us! We are blessed to hear
from you!
John
John S. Hilkevich, Ph.D.
Spiritual Resource Services: Prayergear.com!
~ Education, Services and Products
in the Christian Faith ~
www.prayergear.com
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++++ A Love Letter from Our Lord ++++
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