Robert J Turner

This is an absolutely incredible interview with Rick Warren ,
"Purpose Driven Life " author and pastor of Saddleback Church in
California.  His wife now has cancer, and he now has "wealth" from the
book sales.

In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said:

People ask me, What is the purpose of life?  And I respond: In a
nutshell, life is preparation for eternity.  We were made to last
forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven.

One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my
body-- but not the end of me.

I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend
trillions of years in eternity.  This is the warm-up act - the dress
rehearsal.

God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in
eternity. We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that
out, life isn't going to make sense.

Life is a series of problems:  Either you are in one now, you're
just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one.

The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character
than your comfort.

God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making
your life happy.

We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of
life.  The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.

This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the
toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer.

I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a
dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth.  I don't
believe that anymore.

Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind
of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have
something good and something bad in your life.

No matter how good things are in your life, there is always
something bad that needs to be worked on.

And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always
something good you can thank God for.

You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems.

If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness,
"which is my problem, my issues, my pain."

But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus
off yourself and onto God and others.

We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of
thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for
her.

It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her
character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a
testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.

You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life.
Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder.  For
instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million
copies, it made me instantly very wealthy.

It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with
before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego
or for you to live a life of ease.

So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money,
notoriety and influence.  He gave me two different passages that helped
me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.

First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our
lifestyle one bit.  We made no major purchases.

Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary
from the church.

Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace
Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the
sick, and educate the next generation.

Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years
since I started the church, and I gave it all back.  It was liberating
to be able to serve God for free.

We need to ask ourselves:  Am I going to live for possessions?
Popularity?

Am I going to be driven by pressures?  Guilt?  Bitterness?
Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)?

When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say,
God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more
and love You better.  God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do
list.  He's more interested in what I am than what I do.  That's why
we're called human beings, not human doings.

Happy moments, PRAISE GOD. Difficult moments, SEEK GOD. Quiet
moments, WORSHIP GOD. Painful moments, TRUST GOD. Every moment, THANK
GOD.

This is beautiful and food for the soul.  A friend sent it to me,  I
shared it with you, now pick someone you want to bless. God loves you
and so do I, have a blessed Lord's day!

Being a Christian is like being a pumpkin. God lifts you up, takes you in, and washes all the dirt off of you. He opens you up, touches you deep inside, and scoops out all the yucky stuff–including the seeds of doubt, hate, greed, etc. Then He carves you a new smiling face and puts His light inside you to shine for all the world to see. This was passed on to me from another pumpkin. Now it is your turn to pass it to a pumpkin. I liked this enough to send it to all the pumpkins in my patch. Happy Fall!

Hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, the Celts, inhabitants of Britain and Ireland, observed a festival on October 31st. Unlike modern-day Halloween, theirs was no children’s holiday. The Celts and their priests, the Druids, celebrated Samhain, a festival that marked the eve of the Celtic New Year, which began on November 1.

The fall harvest was complete and winter loomed ahead. The Celts believed the power of the sun was fading. For the next several months, darkness would prevail.

The Celts believed that during Samhain the veil separating the living from the dead was at its thinnest. They believed that on the evening of October 31, evil spirits and the souls of the dead passed through the barrier and entered the world of the living. Departed family members would revisit their earthly homes.

The thought was frightening — and exciting! The Celts believed these spirits and dead souls could torment the living. Crops might be destroyed, babies stolen, farm animals killed. But this was also an opportunity to commune with the spirits and divine the future. The Devil, the lord of darkness, was ordinarily feared, but during Samhain, his power would be called on to foretell the future.

TRICK OR TREAT

The Druids were charged with appeasing the goblins and preventing harm to the people. Huge Samhain bonfires were lit to guide the way of the spirits. Various sacrifices — including human — were performed to assure a good year. Several ancient authors commented on the gory religious rites of the Druids.

It is believed that, like many pagan cultures around the world, the Celts left out food for the spirits, hoping that a “treat” would prevent an evil “trick.”

Centuries later, descendants of the Celts continued to observe the Samhain festival by dressing as evil spirits. They roamed from house to house demanding food in exchange for the “spirits” leaving the home unharmed. They carved demon faces in hollowed-out turnips and lighted them with candles. That night they also practised many customs designed to divine the future. Young people roasted nuts in Samhain fires to see which would crack first and tell them who they would marry. The person who retrieved an apple with his mouth from a tub of water assured himself of a lucky year. Obviously some of these customs (like “apple-bobbing”) have remained with us, strictly as amusement.

ALL HALLOWS’ EVE

When Christianity began to spread through Europe in the third and fourth centuries, the pagan temples were torn down. But pagan worship never completely disappeared. The festival of Samhain remained a primary pagan festival. Belief in spirits may have waned, but many of the old Samhain traditions continued to be practised especially by the children. Primarily in Ireland, children dressed as spirits went from house to house demanding a treat. If they received none, they performed an unwelcomed trick. They were play-acting the part of evil spirits that had to be appeased, just as in the old Samhain festival the people believe they really did have to appease spirits.

In the 700s AD the Church decided to combat this festival by replacing it with a celebration of the Lord of life. Instead of honouring evil spirits and the souls of the dead, the church chose to recognise the saints or hallowed ones who had lived godly lives. The Church seemed to be saying, “All right, if you must have a day to celebrate the dead, then celebrate those who died [in] the Lord.”

So November 1 came to be called All Saints’ Day, also called All Hallows’ Day. The evening before was called All Hallows’ Evening. From that we get the modern name of Halloween.

But pagan customs continued. And with the growth of witchcraft in the Middle Ages, additional symbols became associated with Halloween - black cats, witches, bats, and skulls.

HALLOWEEN IN AMERICA

Irish immigrants in the mid-1800s brought to America the Halloween customs we’re familiar with — costumes, trick-or-treat, carved Jack-o-lanterns, etc. (The Jack-o-lantern is simply an American version of the hollowed-out turnip, mentioned earlier. The pumpkin did not grow in Ireland and Britain.) Unfortunately, they also brought “tricks” with them which often involved breaking windows and over-turning sheds and outhouses.

Even though the practice of actually performing a trick if no treat is given has faded, the custom of children going “trick-or-treating” has become an established American tradition. Only in recent years have parents hesitated to send their children into the streets because of the increased danger of accidents, poisoned food, and menacing strangers.

Nonetheless, despite the dangers associated with trick-or-treating, Halloween is celebrated more than ever. In fact, the night is the second most popular party night of the year (after December 31) for “baby-boomer” adults. Many adults look at it as the one night of the year they can dress up and act foolish.

But while children and adults innocently imitate ancient Celtic customs, darker practices persist. Witches and Satanists still consider Halloween to be one of the strongest times during the year to cast a spell. On Halloween most witchcraft practitioners participate in a ritual called “drawing down the moon.” In this the chief witch of the coven (group of witches) becomes, they believe, a channel for the moon goddess. During this ritual the participants, both male and female, are ’sky-clad” — that is , naked. Stonehenge, the mysterious ancient stone formation in England, is often the site for bizarre gatherings of occultists, some of who believe they are modern-day Druids. (Many people believe that Stonehenge was a Druid religious site.) And evidence persists that some Satanist and voodoo groups offer sacrifices usually animals, but, possibly, human babies.

THE BIBLICAL RESPONSE TO HALLOWEEN

Witches and Satanists are, of course, a small minority. Few people who celebrate Halloween these days ever think about the darkness that underlies most Halloween practices.

A beaming child dressed in a black pointed hat and matching gown with a wart carefully drawn on her nose and a trick-or-treat bag held tightly in her hand is hardly thinking of death or the spirits of departed relatives. Nor should she be.

She’s thinking of candy and fun. She’s glowing because of her delight in her special costume. And she’s anticipating the adventure of her house-to-house pilgrimage.

Merchants also look forward to October 31. The sale of candy, costumes, decorations, and party goods make Halloween one of the major retail seasons of the year.

Surely, no one can deny children or adults all the Halloween fun simply because of its unsavoury history. Can there really be anything wrong with this light-hearted revelry?

Does the Bible have anything to say about celebrating Halloween?

In Corinth, meat that had been sacrificed to idols was sold in the market. People who bought it then ate it in honour of that particular pagan god. Speaking of his freedom to eat food that a pagan had dedicated to an idol, the apostle Paul said, “Everything is permissible” (I Corinthians 10:23). After all, he didn’t believe the pagan gods really existed.

If we apply Paul’s statement to the celebration of Halloween, then one could argue that Christians can dress in ghostly costumes and practice the traditions that have been passed down from the ancient Celts. After all, the supernatural powers they tried to appease don’t have power over those who belong to Christ.

The Bible says that Jesus destroyed the power of death when He went to the cross. By Jesus’ death and resurrection, anyone who gives his or her life to Jesus doesn’t need to fear evil. But Paul didn’t stop with a statement of his freedom. He said, “‘Everything is permissible’ but not everything is beneficial.”

It is in this light that Christians need to examine how to observe Halloween.

THREE REASONS TO EXAMINE HOW YOU CELEBRATE HALLOWEEN

1. What may not hurt you may hurt others.

Paul said that it wouldn’t harm a Christian to eat meat sacrificed to an idol. After all, the pagan gods that the meat had been sacrificed to weren’t real gods. In the same light, he probably would say that Christians are not prohibited from dressing in costumes and going trick-or-treating or attending Halloween parties. After all, “We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one” (I Corinthians 8:4).

But Paul went on to say that by doing what the believer was free in the Lord to do, the believer may be distressing another believer who doesn’t realise he has this freedom. “Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak” (I Corinthians 8:9). The weak ones would be those who still had problems with the idea of eating the food sacrificed to idols.

During Halloween, little children in particular are the weak ones. On TV, in movies, in school, and with their playmates, many children today are exposed to occult influences. We may be opening our children to these influences if we approve of these things in Halloween fun. We adults may be fully aware that we are only spoofing witches and ghosts, but the young many not be so sure.

If we have given our lives to Jesus Christ, then our eternal destiny is safe in the hands of Almighty God. But that’s not true of most of the people around us. There is a valid reason for most people to fear a “lord of death” even if they don’t take him seriously on Halloween. We who have found life in Jesus should be careful that our freedom doesn’t keep others from finding that same eternal life.

2. Some permissible things may hinder your Christian growth.

The Bible encourages us to “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus” (Hebrews 12:1-2). This one night of the year, most eyes are not fixed on Jesus but on a darker image. The Christian’s “race of faith” leads him to eternal life, to a joy that has no shadow. Should we really be focussing on the devil, witches and other dark beings, even for one night?

3. God says, “Don’t imitate evil!”

“When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. Let no one be found among you who…practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium, or spiritist or who consults the dead (Deuteronomy 18:9-11).

If our children dress as witches and sorcerers, if we hang cardboard ghosts in our windows, if we entertain with tales of ghouls and haunted houses what are we doing but imitating that which is evil? We need to make it clear as Christians that witches and evil spirits are not funny and are not harmless, even if the people in witch costumes are only play-acting.

ARE THERE ALTERNATIVES?

As Christians, we have plenty of reason to celebrate. While the world around us focuses on activities honouring fear and death, we can celebrate the One who brings life.

The following ideas might help you celebrate October 31 in a way that’s joyful for you and your family:

1. [Reflect on how God has led you and others in the Past]

Protestants shy away from honouring saints. Their reluctance generally is based on a fear that the honour will cross the line into worship or prayer to saints. We are to worship and pray to no one but God. However, there is a good biblical basis for looking to those who have faithfully followed God in the past: Hebrews 11 has a roll call of believers who have set examples for us. But in his Letters to the Corinthians, Paul makes it abundantly clear that he and other saints are only servants men and women like ourselves who are following God. And it is God and God alone to whom we look in our worship and prayers.

But with nearly 2000 years of church history, we can well remember many faithful believers whose lives can encourage us in our walk with the Lord. That can include not only famous figures from the church’s history, but also the saints we have known personally people in our own family and in our own church who are now [dead]. While the Celts trembled at the thought of their departed kin returning on Samhain, we can celebrate by joyfully recalling our own departed saints. (Christians from many Protestant traditions may want to recall that October 31 is also Reformation Day, celebrating Martin Luther’s beginning the Reformation by posting his “Ninety-five Theses” on the church door.)

2. Hold a Bible study on what God says about the occult and witchcraft.

This might be especially good for teenagers, since they are probably coming into frequent contact with influences of this type. This may sound farfetched to you, but in recent years there has been an amazing growth of witchcraft and Satanism in the U.S. Some New Age cultists are attracted to many aspects of witchcraft, especially the ideas of tapping the “powers of the universe” and of controlling our own destinies.

3. Use trick-or-treating as an opportunity to tell others about the love of Jesus.

Most Christian bookstores carry small pamphlets about the Lord designed especially for children on Halloween. These could be taped to candy and dropped into each trick-or-treat’s bag.

4. Gather for a prayer and praise meeting.

During this night when Satanists and witches covens meet to cast their spells and perform grotesque rituals, it seems appropriate for believers to gather to praise the one and only God.

Praise God for His victory over death, Satan, hell and all evil. (Recall Paul’s words in Romans 16:20: “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.”) And pray for all the people who don’t know that Jesus Christ wants to give them peace with God and eternal life. Pray for all the people who don’t know that Jesus Christ wants to give them peace with God and eternal life. Pray that Jesus will reveal Himself to their minds and spirits.

Whatever you do on Halloween, use this biblical guidelines as you make your plans: “Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (I Corinthians 10:31).

WHAT ABOUT THE LORD OF LIFE?

Halloween’s earliest origins reflect a fear of a lord of death that was common among ancient pagan cultures. However, despite man’s advances in science and philosophy, death remains for many a troubling event that they cannot avoid. The Bible says that we have a spirit that, unlike our physical body, endures beyond the grave. However, the Bible also says our spirit is subject to death as well. But God offers us eternal life for our spirits. How do we get it?

First, we must understand that we all will be held accountable for the choices we make. If we choose to ignore God, we’ll face eternal separation death from Him (Romans 6:23, Hebrews 9:27).

Nothing we can do, no matter how good it may be, can make us good enough to have a relationship with God without Jesus Christ (Titus 3:5, Ephesians 2:8,9).

But God sent Jesus — our Lord of Life — to be the bridge back to right standing with God. Christ’s death on the cross paid the penalty that we faced for going our own way (Romans 5:8, I Peter 3:18). If you want to receive the eternal life God offers, you must invite Jesus into your life to be your Lord and Saviour (John 1:12, Revelation 3:20). Why not invite Jesus into your life right now? Pray this prayer:

“Jesus, I ask you to come into my life. I want to turn from living my life under my own control. Come now and live your life in me. Cleanse me from my sins. I receive you as my Lord and my Saviour. I will live for you all the days of my life. Amen.”

If you prayed this prayer from your heart, you can have absolute assurance that you have eternal life. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life” (John 5:24).