I saw an image in my spirit that had me stop and take notice. I saw a round fired from a rifle that traveled a great distance finally arriving at its intended target and punching a hole in the 10-ring. The image was very familiar to me.
Back in the day, I was a Combat Firearms Instructor. I watched thousands of rounds fired from handguns, shotguns, and rifles punch holes through paper targets at a variety of distances. Pulling the trigger and seeing a hit on a range target was a distinct and immediate experience. What I saw this morning was different.
The round I saw carried the bullet of a prayer of faith that had navigated a great distance over time and space through a variety of spiritual meteorological conditions. It never wavered in its course. As the trigger of that single prayer was pulled the bullet began its journey carried by the precise balance of proper bullet weight and construction and the powder load of God’s faithfulness. It was fired like a sniper who had worked up the dope of a single shot firing from a great distance and striking a target with lethal accuracy.
In the coming days, we will see Spirit-guided rounds of fulfilled prayer arrive and strike with precise accuracy inflicting fatal wounds to the plans of hell. Individuals and families will wake up in the morning free from a generational hostage situation that held the family line in a place of captivity. Over-confident dark spiritual forces that have taken control of governments and institutions of culture will be dropped by these incoming rounds.
Some of these prayers were fired from great distances, even centuries ago, not knowing their intended targets. At the time, the prayers seemed odd and unreal to the ones praying because they lacked a known context, but they prayed anyway. We will see and experience the results of their obedience.
Not every prayer promises an immediate strike in our lifetime. Some prayers must travel through vast expanses of time and space for a scheduled arrival somewhere in the future. Their impact will surprise all who are present to witness their unannounced arrivals.
Garris Elkins
Jacksonville, Oregon
garriselkins@gmail.com
Tag Archives: 2021
Let There Be Light, and Other Divine Commands
It’s pretty clear that when God gave commands in Genesis 1, those things happened.
“Let there be light!” and Bam! There’s light.
And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so.
There’s a principle illustrated here: When God gives a command, power is released in that command to accomplish what is commanded.
For years, I misunderstood this. I heard (for I had been taught) “Be holy as I am holy” as instruction for how I needed to direct my own efforts.
“God says to be holy, so you need to follow all these holy rules in order to accomplish holiness. The best you can.”
“God says, ‘Go and sin no more,’ so you need to know all the Do’s and Don’ts and make sure you follow every one carefully for the rest of your life.”
I’ve since learned that this is complete hogwash. And it’s an insult to God.
God gives me a gift, “Be holy, son; and here is the ability (and the desire) to be holy!” But I had ignored his gift and tried to come up with the same “holy” result through my own legalistic efforts.
What a nightmare.
But once I quit focusing on the list of Do’s and Don’ts and just focused on my Father, once I gave my heart freedom (gasp!) to love him, my desire for sin left, and with it, my choice to sin.
I began to experience holiness. In my life. Mine! My own!
I’ve been reflecting on this process (with substantial thanksgiving!) recently, and then in this context, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2) came to mind.
“Transformed” means changed, in structure, in appearance, even in genetics. Literally.
So how would I even recognize it when that transforming happens to me?
“Think about Easter, Son. Where was Jesus before dawn on that first Easter?”
Jesus was in the grave. He might have been preaching in hell, but he was between death and resurrection. (Around here, we call that “dead.” As in, “Jesus was dead.”)
But Jesus went into the grave as one kind of a man, one kind of flesh-and-blood, and came out another. If nothing else, he could walk through walls, afterwards. I’ll bet there were other changes, too.
He had been transformed, after. So right then, in the grave at that first Easter weekend, Jesus was being transformed.
At that point, my mind was spinning with religious thoughts like “dying to self,” and “being hidden away, cocooned,” and “renewing my mind,” in order to “be transformed.”
Father interrupted my thoughts. “What makes you think I’m not transforming you right now, right here as we talk? As we walk together every day? This isn’t something you do, Son. This is something I do.
“And if I can transform Jesus, even while he was dead, don’t you think I can transform you while you’re not even dead? “Trust me, Son.”
I’m a grateful son. I’m thankful.
And then it hit me: that’s the secret. The sentence continues: “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
Choosing to be thankful, even excited, for who he is and what he’s done and well… maybe just living thankfully, that’s the key that he works through. Or at least one of them.
Responding to Testimony
“You know, Son, If you keep welcoming the testimonies, you might be in danger of seeing those things show up in your own life.” I could hear the smile in his voice.
I thought for a while about what he was saying: receiving the testimony empowers the testimony in my own life. Yeah, that's Biblical.
Then the other end of the scale crossed my mind.
“I wonder if that means that if I were to reject the testimony, that I would stop that work of God in my life, I would actually be working against God's move in my life?”
I felt Father sadly nodding agreement. There was a tear.
I pondered some more.
I could hear someone's argument in my mind: “Does that mean that I need to believe every unverifiable, every unbelievable fairy tale that anybody dreams up?”
He was silent.
I thought about that for a while.
After several miles, I realized that this isn't a binary situation. This isn't “Either I fully believe the testimony & receive it, or else I completely and utterly reject it.” There are times, no doubt, for each of those extremes, but there are other options, other choices, where I believe a portion of the testimony and respond to other parts skeptically.
I thought some more.
It came back to my attention that Father has been reminding me of my own testimony recently: how he's taught me how I don't actually need to form an opinion all the time. He reminded me of how much freedom that has brought me in recent years, to occasionally say, “I don’t know.” “I don’t have an opinion on that one.”
And that’s the answer in this situation. Or at least an answer.
If I don't have the faith (or the will) to believe the testimony before us, have another option, other than closing off the grace of God in my life in that area: I’m not actually required to form an opinion, a judgment, of every single thing that we hear.
It's easy enough to let unbelief disguise itself as the wisdom of not forming an opinion, but we’re mature enough to avoid that, aren’t we?
Use discernment. Duh. That’s why he gave us that gift; use the gift, then trust the gift that God has given. Engage your trust, or don’t, as you choose.
But if it's a good testimony, believe it, engage your faith with it, and look for the grace of that testimony to manifest in your life.
But maybe if it isn’t a testimony you find you can engage your faith with, I don’t need to utterly reject and shut down that move of God in my life.
Running With Jesus
I was reflecting on this recently. I do that regularly, as this is one of the clearer statements in Scripture: Run the race by fixing our eyes on Jesus.
But first, which Jesus do we fix our eyes on?
• The Jesus of the Gospels? “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.” This Jesus?
• The Jesus in Revelation? “There before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God.” This Jesus is certainly more attention-grabbing.
• I suspect rather, we need to fix our eyes – not on Jesus who was – but Jesus who is. Not how he was seen before and described by others, but who he is now and what he’s doing now.
The call is to fix our eyes on Jesus, not stories about Jesus (though they’re good!), not even the miracles that he’s doing even today (though they’re awesome!). But on the person of Jesus.
Now here’s the rub: how do we do that? “Fixing our eyes on Jesus”? How do we do that?
We can take day trips to Heaven and visit with him there [John 3:13]. But that’s short-term.
We can stay in conversation with him throughout the day [1Thessalonians 5:17]. But that’s not “fixing our eyes on….”
Suddenly, I understand why people would consider hiding away in remote monasteries. They can pay more attention to Jesus and less attention to the things of this world.
The more I meditate on this, the more I’m convinced that this is about staying in communication with him throughout my day, “doing life” together with him, talking, listening, watching, learning. This is about running with him.
At least that’s how I’m seeing it today.
Running With Jesus
I was reflecting on this recently. I do that regularly, as this is one of the clearer statements in Scripture: Run the race by fixing our eyes on Jesus.
But first, which Jesus do we fix our eyes on?
• The Jesus of the Gospels? “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.” This Jesus?
• The Jesus in Revelation? “There before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God.” This Jesus is certainly more attention-grabbing.
• I suspect rather, we need to fix our eyes – not on Jesus who was – but Jesus who is. Not how he was seen before and described by others, but who he is now and what he’s doing now.
The call is to fix our eyes on Jesus, not stories about Jesus (though they’re good!), not even the miracles that he’s doing even today (though they’re awesome!). But on the person of Jesus.
Now here’s the rub: how do we do that? “Fixing our eyes on Jesus”? How do we do that?
We can take day trips to Heaven and visit with him there [John 3:13]. But that’s short-term.
We can stay in conversation with him throughout the day [1Thessalonians 5:17]. But that’s not “fixing our eyes on….”
Suddenly, I understand why people would consider hiding away in remote monasteries. They can pay more attention to Jesus and less attention to the things of this world.
The more I meditate on this, the more I’m convinced that this is about staying in communication with him throughout my day, “doing life” together with him, talking, listening, watching, learning. This is about running with him.
At least that’s how I’m seeing it today.
Praying Against Fear
I was investing some time during the Covid debacle, praying about the spirit of fear that I saw creating havoc in our nation. I needed to drive a for a while, and I like making use of the time (“redeeming the time” perhaps?).
I was praying about the grip that fear had in our nation, but I was focusing on how I see the grip working in my family and friends. Father had shown me something of the enemy’s plans in that area, and I could see them at work, like thorny vines wrapping around minds and wills and squeezing life out of them.
(By the way, the whole vaccine issue is powered by a spirit of fear [and some other things]. Some folks are afraid of a virus, or of not complying with authority, so they choose to get a vaccine. Other people are afraid of the vaccine itself, or about the loss of civil liberties, so they reject the vaccine.
Curiously, each group accuses the other of being insensitive and of acting out of fear. And probably most of those accusations are at least partly right. But I digress.)
So I was praying for people I care about. I was praying for courage, praying for an openness to the truth, denying permission for that spirit to be present or to work among them.
And as I prayed for them, I prayed in similar fashion for myself. That’s what I do.
I learned some time ago that my knowledge and beliefs are not actually completely perfect in every detail, so any time that I pray for someone to be open to the truth or for courage to stand against lies, I include myself in the prayers. I’m not above being wrong, after all.
My prayer time started off a little awkwardly; that’s not uncommon for me, as I look for “the vein” of Father’s heart in the prayers. After a little bit, I felt like I found it. I saw how it was working and how to respond effectively to the thing, and I was really enjoying praying for folks I care rather a lot about.
Then he took a sudden left turn. “You need to repent, Son.”
Wait, what? What for? I’ve been careful to include myself when I’m praying for folks on this issue! What do I need to repent for?
And with one glance of his eye, he showed me how I needed to let go of the judgment I had in my heart, both for people who held opinions that were part of fear’s agenda, and for people who were unwilling to really look at both sides of an issue, who never really listened to other people’s heartfelt concerns if they didn’t agree with their own position.
Whoa. What do you know. You’re right, of course. I repented, carefully, with detail.
Then he opened it up a little more. I’d struggled with the same issues of judgment in several other issues. In all fairness, they’re pretty divisive issues, but let’s be honest: we’re quick to divide over an awful lot of issues.
I’ve been walking with Jesus for a lot of decades, but he’s still taking me to school pretty regularly. I sure appreciate his tender mercy.
Adversity as a Test
Chewing on these verses from Hebrews 3 today:
“So, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness.”
I’m drawn to the phrase “the time of testing in the wilderness.” When was that time of testing he’s referring to, anyway?
The first time the word appears in Exodus is shortly after the people escaped Egypt into the wilderness:
“When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place is called Marah.) So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, "What are we to drink?" Then Moses cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became fit to drink. There the LORD issued a ruling and instruction for them and put them to the test."”
[Exodus 15:23-25]
The people needed something, and what they found on their own was not suitable to meet their need, so rather than ask God (or his designated leader at the time), they complained.
God calls it a test. It was a pattern they continued all the way from Egypt to the promised land: they had a need, so they whined, but God came through.
It occurs to me that the whiney people, freshly delivered from slavery, didn’t recognize the tests. I understand why they didn’t recognize the first one: they’d never been tested by God before.
But it happened over and over and over. Every time they had a need, they could have looked to God who had already met every single need they had for escaping slavery and surviving in the wilderness, but they focused their attention on their needs instead. And they whined.
Hebrews interprets this whining as them hardening their hearts. They had the choice in the test: do we trust God, or do we harden our hearts and whine?
I admire God’s patience as the whiny people tested his patience. (Yes, Scripture is clear: they tested him, too.)
Then I realized that when I am faced with a need, that’s probably a test, too.
If God is my provider, he’s going to provide for my needs.
(Note that not every want qualifies as a need. God has not promised to provide for everything I want, just for my needs. I may need to discern the difference.)
So every time I encounter a need in my life, I’m faced with the same choice: do I use this as an opportunity to bring my need to my Father, which keeps my heart soft toward him?
Or do I look at my need, focus on my need, whine about my need, and harden my heart toward my Father who loves me, and who is using this as an opportunity for softening my heart?
“So, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness.”
I’m drawn to the phrase “the time of testing in the wilderness.” When was that time of testing he’s referring to, anyway?
The first time the word appears in Exodus is shortly after the people escaped Egypt into the wilderness:
“When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place is called Marah.) So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, "What are we to drink?" Then Moses cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became fit to drink. There the LORD issued a ruling and instruction for them and put them to the test."”
[Exodus 15:23-25]
The people needed something, and what they found on their own was not suitable to meet their need, so rather than ask God (or his designated leader at the time), they complained.
God calls it a test. It was a pattern they continued all the way from Egypt to the promised land: they had a need, so they whined, but God came through.
It occurs to me that the whiney people, freshly delivered from slavery, didn’t recognize the tests. I understand why they didn’t recognize the first one: they’d never been tested by God before.
But it happened over and over and over. Every time they had a need, they could have looked to God who had already met every single need they had for escaping slavery and surviving in the wilderness, but they focused their attention on their needs instead. And they whined.
I admire God’s patience as the whiny people tested his patience. (Yes, Scripture is clear: they tested him, too.)
Then I realized that when I am faced with a need, that’s probably a test, too.
If God is my provider, he’s going to provide for my needs.
(Note that not every want qualifies as a need. God has not promised to provide for everything I want, just for my needs. I may need to discern the difference.)
So every time I encounter a need in my life, I’m faced with the same choice: do I use this as an opportunity to bring my need to my Father, which keeps my heart soft toward him?
Or do I look at my need, focus on my need, whine about my need, and harden my heart toward my Father who loves me, and who is using this as an opportunity for softening my heart?
Fear As an Expression of the Imagination
Walking with Father recently, he brought up the subject of fear.
There are some things in the world where a healthy respect is appropriate. That’s not the issue here.
We as a species have the ability to imagine what might come about, and, if we want to, to fear that. The fear that begins with, “But what if….” is real.
That’s what Father brought to my attention this morning: the process of imagining what might happen, what things could maybe turn out like, even what surely will happen except for something trustworthy intervening.
The picture he showed me a picture of a very high, transparent bridge. A man on the bridge had suddenly looked down and saw nothing between him and the river hundreds of feet below. He freaked out.
That fearful man didn’t have all the data, but he was responding at least an approximation of reasonably, based on the limited data that he had.
Then Father took a left turn.
“That man on the bridge was imagining what would happen if there really was nothing beneath him.”
I scratched my head and thought about it. We walked in silence for a while.
After a while, Father reminded me of my (not insubstantial) skills at imagining what may happen and responding to those imaginations with fear or regret. There are maybe a lot of us that are pretty good at that.
He kept turning left. “These people who imagine what might happen and respond with fear, these people have a powerful imagination. That’s a powerful gift.”
I confess that I haven’t had much patience for myself or for others when one or the other of us imagines a “what if” and responds in fear. That process has really irritated me, and sometimes I’ve responded in anger or frustration or legalism or some such.
But today, Father showed me the other side of that situation.
I’m going to have to reflect on this a fair bit. Now it’s time to learn to use that powerful tool for the kingdom.
Imagination is a tool. Use the tool for good.
Standard
There are some things in the world where a healthy respect is appropriate. That’s not the issue here.
We as a species have the ability to imagine what might come about, and, if we want to, to fear that. The fear that begins with, “But what if….” is real.
That’s what Father brought to my attention this morning: the process of imagining what might happen, what things could maybe turn out like, even what surely will happen except for something trustworthy intervening.
The picture he showed me a picture of a very high, transparent bridge. A man on the bridge had suddenly looked down and saw nothing between him and the river hundreds of feet below. He freaked out.That fearful man didn’t have all the data, but he was responding at least an approximation of reasonably, based on the limited data that he had.
Then Father took a left turn.
“That man on the bridge was imagining what would happen if there really was nothing beneath him.”
I scratched my head and thought about it. We walked in silence for a while.
After a while, Father reminded me of my (not insubstantial) skills at imagining what may happen and responding to those imaginations with fear or regret. There are maybe a lot of us that are pretty good at that.
He kept turning left. “These people who imagine what might happen and respond with fear, these people have a powerful imagination. That’s a powerful gift.”
I confess that I haven’t had much patience for myself or for others when one or the other of us imagines a “what if” and responds in fear. That process has really irritated me, and sometimes I’ve responded in anger or frustration or legalism or some such.
But today, Father showed me the other side of that situation.
I’m going to have to reflect on this a fair bit. Now it’s time to learn to use that powerful tool for the kingdom.
Imagination is a tool. Use the tool for good.
God’s Practical Beauty
One of the coolest things about God is that he creates beauty in just about everything he does.
This is glorious. I think of it as God finger-painting on the sky. But he only does it in the most unpopulated part of the planet, in the middle of the night when nobody’s looking.
Even when there’s nobody there to appreciate it, he makes beauty.
But this is more than that. The Northern Lights were out recently. These beautiful decorations in the sky are the evidence (yet again) of his tender care for those of us that inhabit this planet.
The light show we see from the ground is caused by
Most of these particles are deflected by the Earth’s magnetic field, and continue their journey into deep space. A small percentage of particles leak through the Earth’s magnetic field and are funneled downwards towards the safe spaces around the Earth’s magnetic North and South poles, where they’re discharged safely.
It’s this light we see when we look at the Northern Lights. It’s God protecting us from the explosive radiation of the sun. Mars doesn’t have a magnetic field, and that’s why Mars has almost no atmosphere. It doesn’t need protecting: people don’t live there.
But even here, as God safely detonates the plasma from the sun’s eruption, he does it with beauty.
God seems to be a big fan of beauty.
Leveling Up in Authority
I was driving somewhere or the other, minding my own business chugging down the freeway on cruise control. I was thinking about stuff. I do that.
Along comes this little white sports car; it passed me, and pulled right in front of me and slowed down, not a lot, but enough that I needed to drop out of cruise control and change lanes. So I did.
Then it sped up again, pulled in front of me again, and slowed down again. I wrestled with the temptation to say some things, but about that time it turned off onto the exit lane. I wrestled some more, and George Carlin’s quote came to mind (“Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?”).
I understand that Carlin was describing human judgmental human nature, not human driving, so I decided not to call the driver of the white car any sort of names; I recognized that whatever things I called him would function as a curse, cuz words do that, so I restrained myself. That’s not Dad’s way. I just kept driving. No big deal.
It was then I “heard” a video game “be-doop” noise in my spirit, and had the sense that I’d just “leveled up.” OK. That was interesting.
“Now I can trust you with authority in your words more, Son.”
Wait, what? That was a test? I had no idea!
I had a million questions, but he was patient with me. (That’s not actually uncommon.)
He reminded me of the parable of the Talents and its lesson: if I’m faithful with whatever he gives me responsibility for, the reward is more of it, and specifically more authority in the Kingdom (Matthew 25: “I will make you ruler over many things!”).
He explained that the principle was true with my words as well. As I’m faithful with using my words in ways that extend and expand the Kingdom, I’ll find that my words will have more effect.
I thought you might enjoy sharing my lesson here.
You’re Not Immune From That, You Know
What better time to discover these issues, I thought, than walking with God? so I began, as has frequently been my practice, to search my soul with him, to unburden my soul, to find whatever was amiss and 'fess up and fix it.
I had been going at the search for a little while when I paused and recognized that Father wasn't joining in it with me. It was like he was just standing back, leaning against a tree, arms crossed over his chest, waiting for me to notice him.
I stopped my search for my dirty laundry and gave him my attention.
"Son, do you remember the counsel you give people about not treating your emotions as always truthful?"
"Yes...." I replied. "The feelings are real, but they may not be telling the truth."
"Yeah. You're not immune from that, you know."
And I realized that he was telling me that my feelings were lying to me, that I didn't have sin in my heart. What I had was an accuser telling me, lying to me, about sin in my heart. Oops.
We talked about it some more, about how hard I've had to work to get past that lie that says that God can't relate to people who sin. He reminded me that any time his kids sinned, he was always, always out there going after them.
"Sin doesn't scare me, Son. But I think it scares you. And sometimes, just the Accuser whispering about sin scares my children off.
"Come here, Son. Let me hug you."
Test for Apostles & Prophets
Some among us are called by God to be prophets, and some are called to be apostles. Therefore this verse applies to these men and women.
Here’s a question for these folks: How are you doing at being foundational?
I sometimes wonder if this is one of maybe two key tests of the effectiveness of apostles & prophets: Are you being a foundation for others to build and grow on.
The other test, remembering Ephesians, chapter 4, is this: are saints being equipped, made more effective in their works of ministry after having been around you? Pretty similar work, wouldn't you say?
Observation: this seems to have little or nothing to do with how many conferences you speak at, how many people are in your network, or how many people greet you in the marketplace as Prophet Jered or Apostle Tiffany.
Success as a prophet or apostle doesn’t seem to be related to how many people you lead (not that it's insignificant), but what the nature of your influence is in their life.
Finish the Work of Church Discipline
I was part of a church one time, where one of the leaders developed what was seen as an inappropriate relationship with his female secretary.
He didn’t respond to counsel (he didn’t agree with their evaluation), and so Matthew 18 was brought out, along with 1 Corinthians 5:4&5 to bring him to repentance.
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“...if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector....” [Matthew 18:17]
“...deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved....” [1Corinthians 5:5]
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This was a difficult gathering, when we obeyed these scriptures. It was, however, done tenderly and lovingly (I have seen these verses wielded in less loving ways at other times).
Over time, the gentleman in question recognized that he had been in error and repented. (Later, he testified that when we talked about “delivering him to Satan,” that it wasn’t a metaphor.)
It’s my observation that this sort of church discipline is exercised from time to time, whether with love or with a cudgel, by churches who value obeying the Scriptures.
I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of a church practicing the rest of that process.
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“The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient. Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him.” [2Corinthians 2:6-8]
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It seems that pretty often, the church whose leader has failed morally is more focused on getting the stain off of their reputation than they are in restoring a fallen brother. And so “church discipline” when it goes this far, has come to mean that we’ll never see that brother again.
That’s not the plan.
The Matthew 18 passage instructs us to “treat him as a tax collector.” You might want to recall that the author of this passage, Matthew himself, was once a tax collector, until Jesus met him.
Or consider how Jesus dealt with the only other tax collector named in Scripture (“Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.”). There was no shunning, no sweeping under the rug here.
The 1Corinthians passage goes on to say that the goal of that process is “that his spirit may be saved.” And if that weren’t enough, the apostle chews them out in his next letter for not going out of their way to restore the guy.
That’s how our Jesus does things: he restores folks. More specifically, he restores relationships with folks that the religious community has written off as embarrassing and inappropriate.
I’m thinking that Jesus is a good model to live up to.
Lessons From Samson’s Failure
This morning, I was watching a video that somebody posted online, a Bible teacher I had never heard of. And as I watched and listened, I realized that the things he was saying were not settling well in my spirit.
He was basing his teaching on the Bible, sort of. And he clearly had a gift, though it was negotiable as to whether his gift was teaching or gathering a crowd.
I decided not to continue under his influence and switched him off. And I kept thinking about it, about the dynamics going on here.
Later, I was working my way through the Book of Judges, and I came across Chapter 13. (Interestingly, the term “Chapter 13” in US law often refers to bankruptcy.) This is where the story of Samson begins. As I listened, it came alive for me. I love it when He does that.
My attention was drawn to the fact that Samson had a real, legitimate gift from God. What he did not have was a discerning heart. Samson’s character was bankrupt.
1. No wine or fermented alcohol.
2. No haircuts.
3. No contact with corpses or dead things.
I have no idea how Samson did with the first vow.
He's famous for obeying the second, at least for a while.
I find it fascinating to observe his complete disregard for the third vow.
(It is beyond the scope of this meditation to consider why obeying his second vow was so important to maintaining his gift, but obeying the third vow was apparently insignificant.
At one point Samson kills a bunch of enemies with the jawbone of an ass: that is just a chunk of dead animal. Another time, he scoops honey out of a dead lion and casually shares it with his mom and dad.)
Sammy was unquestionably gifted by God, clearly the most gifted person of his generation. But he was really stupid.
It appears that he let his gift cloud his judgment.
More than once he put himself into nasty situations with the enemy, excusing it by rationalizing that his gift would get him out of trouble.
More than once, the pretty girls he was hanging around work were clearly working for his enemy and were intent on his demise. They told him so. And yet Sammy did not guard his heart, he did not guard his gifting.
Delilah asked several times how to bind him, how to take him captive. He gave her false answers the first few times, but he should have figured it out when every time, his enemies tried that false answer on him. Clearly she was giving all of his answers to his enemies.
And yet he was so confident in his gifting that he ignored the danger.
That arrogance cost Sam his freedom, cost him his gifting, and even cost him his ability to see. It left him a slave, working for his enemies.
As I was meditating on these chapters, it seemed to me that it's pretty easy for gifted men and women of God in this day and age to fall into the same sort of failure that Samson fell into. It seems that hell is still using these tactics against God’s folks.
I believe that we as gifted believers can and should rely on our giftings. But clearly, there is a limits to that. When we listen more to our gifting, when we listen more to our desires, than we listen to either the Spirit of God, the Word of God or the people of God, that's when it gets really messy.
I don't actually know if the gifted preacher in the video I was watching this morning is falling into Sam’s trap, but as I meditated on this, I found myself praying for that preacher.
I know several people who have gotten seriously sidetracked by their very real, very powerful gifting. Some were famous, some were not. But I have observed these principles in their lives.
Some of them clearly relied on their very real gift to get them out of questionable circumstances. Some of them relied on the very real revelation they were getting more than the revelation of scriptures or the counsel of brothers and sisters in the faith.
Most of them have crashed and burned; some of them are still in that process. It’s not pretty. It is clearly not God's will for their failure, but I observe God's mercy working in it. If nothing else, it stopped them from continuing down that twisted path and compounding their failure.
I suspect that this is a season where God is refining his people. I suspect that He is keeping his gifted sons and daughters on a shorter leash than in previous seasons.
I don't have gifts anything likes Samson or like the men and women that I have watched crash and burn, but I have gifts. Just like you do. I want to be careful with mine.
So I find myself intentionally sharing more of myself with the men and women around me. I find myself intentionally asking God to search my heart. I know that I am not immune to the temptations that took out Samson or the others.
Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
This morning, I was watching a video that somebody posted online, a Bible teacher I had never heard of. And as I watched and listened, I realized that the things he was saying were not settling well in my spirit.
He was basing his teaching on the Bible, sort of. And he clearly had a gift, though it was negotiable as to whether his gift was teaching or gathering a crowd.
I decided not to continue under his influence and switched him off. And I kept thinking about it, about the dynamics going on here.
Later, I was working my way through the Book of Judges, and I came across Chapter 13. (Interestingly, the term “Chapter 13” in US law often refers to bankruptcy.) This is where the story of Samson begins. As I listened, it came alive for me. I love it when He does that.
My attention was drawn to the fact that Samson had a real, legitimate gift from God. What he did not have was a discerning heart. Samson’s character was bankrupt.
Samson was a Nazarite. A Nazarite had only three limitations, three vows:
1. No wine or fermented alcohol.
2. No haircuts.
3. No contact with corpses or dead things.
I have no idea how Samson did with the first vow.
He's famous for obeying the second, at least for a while.
I find it fascinating to observe his complete disregard for the third vow.
(It is beyond the scope of this meditation to wonder why obeying his second vow was so important to maintaining his gift, and why obeying the third vow was apparently insignificant.
At one point Samson kills a bunch of enemies with the jawbone of an ass, which is just a chunk of dead animal. Another time, he scoops honey out of a dead lion and casually shares it with his mom and dad.)
Sammy was unquestionably gifted by God, clearly the most gifted person of his generation. But he was really stupid.
It appears that he let his gift cloud his judgment.
More than once he put himself into nasty situations with the enemy, excusing it by rationalizing that his gift would get him out of trouble.
More than once, the pretty girls he was hanging around work were clearly working for his enemy and were intent on his demise. They told him so. And yet Sammy did not guard his heart, he did not guard his gifting.
Delilah asked several times how to bind him, how to take him captive. He gave her false answers the first few times, but he should have figured it out when every time, his enemies tried that false answer on him. Clearly she was giving all of his answers to his enemies.
And yet he was so confident in his gifting that he ignored the danger.
That arrogance cost Sam his freedom, cost him his gifting, and even cost him his ability to see. It left him a slave, working for his enemies.
As I was meditating on these chapters, it seemed to me that it's pretty easy for gifted men and women of God in this day and age to fall into the same sort of failure that Samson fell into. It seems that hell is still using these tactics against God’s folks.
I believe that we as gifted believers can and should rely on our giftings. But clearly, there is a limits to that. When we listen more to our gifting, when we listen more to our desires, than we listen to either the Spirit of God, the Word of God or the people of God, that's when it gets really messy.
I don't actually know if the gifted preacher in the video I was watching this morning is falling into Sam’s trap, but as I meditated on this, I found myself praying for that preacher.
I know several people who have gotten seriously sidetracked by their very real, very powerful gifting. Some were famous, some were not. But I have observed these principles in their lives.
Some of them clearly relied on their very real gift to get them out of questionable circumstances. Some of them relied on the very real revelation they were getting more than the revelation of scriptures or the counsel of brothers and sisters in the faith.
Most of them have crashed and burned; some of them are still in that process. It’s not pretty. It is clearly not God's will for their failure, but I observe God's mercy working in it. If nothing else, it stopped them from continuing down that twisted path and compounding their failure.
I suspect that this is a season where God is refining his people. I suspect that He is keeping his gifted sons and daughters on a shorter leash than in previous seasons.
I don't have gifts anything likes Samson or like the men and women that I have watched crash and burn, but I have gifts. Just like you do. I want to be careful with mine.
So I find myself intentionally sharing more of myself with the men and women around me. I find myself intentionally asking God to search my heart. I know that I am not immune to the temptations that took out Samson or the others.
Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.