This
story has been bugging me:
Then
he brought Him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple,
and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down
from here. "For it is written: 'He shall give His angels charge
over you, To keep you,' "and, 'In their hands they shall bear
you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.' " And Jesus
answered and said to him, "It has been said, 'You shall not
tempt the LORD your God.' " - Luke 4:9-12
I’ve
been taught, and I’ll bet you have too, to base my choices and my
requests on Scripture. If I can support it from the pages of the
Bible, I’m safe..jpg)
This
passage puts the lie to that. In this story, Luci asks Jesus to do
something, AND HE SUPPORTS IT WITH SCRIPTURE! This is the secret code
we’ve been taught to trust blindly, and the devil is using it to tempt Jesus! 😲
In
this story, it’s pretty clear that obeying this scriptural request was very much not God’s will:
• Luci
(the debbil) was the one making the request.
• JC
had a better understanding of the whole counsel of Scripture, and
recognized that this use (with scripture!) violated the bigger
issues.
• Jesus
only did what he saw Father doing (John 5:19), and apparently Father
wasn’t showing off by skydiving from a clifftop, waiting for God to
rescue him from the law of gravity and from the consequences of his
own choice.
• We
could add that the quote (from Deuteronomy 8) was out of context, but
the worst out-of-context quoter of Scripture that I know is Scripture
itself. (But that’s another conversation).
I
realize that I’ve done this. I’ve done this: I’ve taken verses
as approval for my wishes and choices, and expected God to jump
through my hoops. And then I’ve gotten angry or disappointed when
he didn’t.
Principle:
just because I can find somebody doing it in the Bible doesn’t mean
it’s God’s will for my life. Or that it’s safe.
Principle:
Yes, look for what Scripture says on the topic, but don’t
stop there. Engage Holy Spirit, involve mature brothers &
sisters.
Most
importantly, know your Father’s heart, so when somebody tries to
use Scripture to pull you away from his heart, you’ll know better
and not follow that slimy trail.
Tag Archives: discernment
Issachar, the Cat
Oh
my. God's using my cat to teach me a lesson again. Awkward.
Our
cat gets a healthy breakfast. Then she gets lunch at 1:30 or 2:00.
(She's a very well-fed cat.)
I
don't eat breakfast. They call it intermittent fasting; I have
breakfast at noon. (It keeps me from being a "very well-fed"
human.)
So
I was in the kitchen at noon the other day, chopping up the toppings for the
personal pizza I was going to have for breakfast. And the cat
saunters in, all affectionate, assuming that since I was in the
kitchen, I must be preparing lunch for her.
I
scritched her neck and she purred. Then
she started to yowl when
I didn’t get the hint,
so
I walked away. We repeated the cycle two or three times before she
gave up and walked away and sulked. I
went back to slicing
peppers and shredding cheese.
Then I heard the whisper. "It's easy to misunderstand what time it is if you depend on someone else for that information."
Immediately 1 Chronicles 12:32 came to my mind. "...from Issachar [came] men who understood the times and knew what Israel should do."
Personally, I believe it's more important in these days than ever before in my own lifetime at least, to understand the times and to know how to respond in the midst of these days.
And I cannot (I MUST not) depend on somebody's prophetic word, or what my pastor preaches about, or what that person on Facebook writes about. I must understand the times from knowing my Father, from walking with Jesus, from listening to Holy Spirit.
It's awkward when I get misled by gifted saints who are walking in step with God. It's awkward when I follow what they're proclaiming rather than what Father is whispering.
The Sugar Daddy
I've had a few people in my life over the years that seemed to see me as a sugar daddy. Whatever they wanted, they told me about it and expected me to get it for them.
Sometimes that's been my kids or my grand kids when they were little, and in those circumstances, it certainly is normal, and I think maybe even healthy.
But when people who appear to be adults take that role it gets awkward. It seems that Father is bringing this to my attention rather a lot recently. So I'm thinking about it.
One line of thinking that I have been working on is that if this is uncomfortable for me, does that also mean that it's uncomfortable for God, if I only come to him with my wants and needs?
The reality is that he is not a man, and his reactions are going to be different than mine. But I still think that's going to be an inferior way of relating with him, through the Christmas list.
If nothing else, relating to God through my list of wants and needs is a sure fire way to discern my immaturity. That's the only appropriate for children, young children. With God, it's only appropriate for babes in Christ.
Another line of thinking here has been about how relating through the wish list changes how I deal with life, and not for the better.
That's focusing on my wants and needs, in other words it's focusing on my lack. That's never a healthy way to relate, either to life, or to God.
This leads me to a similar topic that father and I have been discussing recently. It's easy to look at life, it's easy to look at what other people have, and view it in light of what I want, or what I need.
We have all seen those spam ads on social media. "Click like, and share this with your friends, and you will get a chance to win one of these." (First of all, 99% of those are a pure fiction. Nobody ever wins them. They are what is called "Like Farms," and they will sell the social interaction to unscrupulous advertisers later on.")
Or the posts that asked your opinion: " Do you like the red one or the blue one or the brown one?" (Yeah, more "Like Farms. ") These are clear temptations to be unsatisfied with God's provision for you.
A more subtle version of this one is when somebody shares a testimony of what God has done for them, it's a temptation for me anyway, to react with a desire for that blessing rather than praise for what God has done for them. This one masquerades as spiritual maturity, spiritual hunger. It's not. It's the flesh.
Personally, I am working to rid my thinking of, "I want that," or "I want one like that for me." (Remember, this is my process, not necessarily yours.)
Wanting that, whatever "that" is, only serves to stir up the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, or the boastful pride of life. I hear those are not good things.
So yeah, this involves more awareness of my own self. It involves being on guard a little bit more than I used to be. It does not however mean doing away with any desires, goals and aspirations.
If I really do want that, rather than just engaging my flesh to meditate on it, I tried to bring it to Father. It's my goal to discuss it with him, and if it gets his and my approval, then I will ask him for it. I will also probably discuss with him what I need to do in that process, so that I don't retreat him as a sugar daddy.
This represents a change I am working to implement in my life: becoming less reactive, and more proactive, more intentional.
I want to be a mature son, working with him in the administration of his kingdom, not a whiny toddler fussing about my wants and needs.
I remind you again, this is what he's doing in me. He may or may not be doing this in you. On the other hand, if this offends you, if this makes you angry, he may actually want to make a change like this one in you too.
Think of this as an invitation to grow in maturity, if he's taking you this way.
Which Gifts From God Don’t Need God’s Power?
There are three lists of spiritual gifts in the New Testament.
The list that gets most of the attention is the list of gifts from the Holy Spirit:
“But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit [of all]: for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another [different] kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.” - 1 Corinthians 12:7-11
A lot of people are more comfortable with the gifts that Father gives:
“For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think [of himself] more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. ... Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, [let us use them]: if prophecy, [let us prophesy] in proportion to our faith; or ministry, [let us use it] in [our] ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.” - Romans 12:3, 6-8
And then there’s the gifts that come from Jesus, from God the Son:
“But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. ... And He Himself gave some [to be] apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” - Ephesians 4:7, 11-13
I was out walking with God recently, and our conversation drifted to the subject of teaching, since that’s one of the gifts that I work in. We were talking (well, I was talking; that’s how these conversations go a lot of the time) about how teachers come up with the material for their teaching.
I was raised in a couple of traditions. I grew up in a fairly liberal denominational church, where you could preach on whatever you wanted to; it was nice if you could justify it from the Bible, but it wasn’t necessary.
Then I was trained in inductive exegesis (let the Bible teach you what it says; teach on that) in a solidly evangelical tradition. In that tradition, if the Bible didn’t say it (and twisting scripture to make it look like it was saying it was verboten!), then you shouldn’t generally teach it.
Since those years, I’ve discovered that God actually speaks to his kids, and he is not unwilling to speak to me. The most un-nerving is when he teaches me truths that I can’t easily find in the pages of Scripture. For some decades, I was warned against the dangers of teaching from personal revelation; “That’s the way cults are started! <gasp!>”)
[Bunny trail: I’ve since gotten over that. I’ve discovered that a good bit (not all) of the New Testament epistles come from Paul’s own personal revelation. And he worked to make sure my revelation is consistent with the teaching of Scripture, never contrary to it. That seems like a solid standard.]
I found myself reflecting on how some teachings can be intellectual or emotional in its foundation, and other kinds of teachings (and here I reflected on prophetic revelation) requires more: it requires a supernatural element that other kinds of messages don’t.
And this is where God brought me up short.
“Hang on there, Son. Just which gifts and abilities from a supernatural God don’t actually need supernatural power? Which of these gifts do you think you can accomplish all on your own, anyway?”
Oh dear.
If I’m honest, I’ve considered that gifts like prophecy and miracles need to be supernatural, but a whole lot of others just need to be well-trained. In fact, while I’ve seen hundreds of training tools for various gifts (I remind you of my history), only a few gave more than lip service to the idea that supernatural empowerment was actually for the gifts they’re training.
In reality, I think the church is getting past the idea that the gifts of God, even the “less spectacular” ones like serving or teaching or evangelism, can function from skill, rather than from the power of God. But the idea is still ingrained in at least a few of us.
I need to say it a couple more times just to make sure I’m getting it:
• The gift of teaching, without the direction and empowering of the supernatural grace of God, is a mess. It would be a work of the flesh, and that would lead people towards a fleshly destination.
• The gift of pastoring, without the direction and empowering of the supernatural grace of God, is a mess. It would be a work of the flesh, and that would lead people towards a fleshly destination.
• The gift of mercy, without the direction and empowering of the supernatural grace of God, is a mess. It would be a work of the flesh, and that would lead people towards a fleshly destination.
• The ministry of helps, without the direction and empowering of the supernatural grace of God, is a mess. It would be a work of the flesh, and that would lead people towards a fleshly destination.
• The gift of teaching, without the direction and empowering of the supernatural grace of God, is a mess. It would be a work of the flesh, and that would lead people towards a fleshly destination.
• The gift of giving, without the direction and empowering of the supernatural grace of God, is a mess. It would be a work of the flesh, and that would lead people towards a fleshly destination.
Everybody should know that there’s a reason that “The Love Chapter” [1Corinthians 13] is smack in the middle of Paul’s discussion of spiritual gifts: we need to use our gifts with love. Which also leads us to:
• Love, without the direction and empowering of the supernatural grace of God, is a mess. It would be a work of the flesh, and that would lead people towards a fleshly destination.
The Arrival of Long-Range Prophecies
I recently watched a video about a competitive long-range shooter. He did not shoot at 200 or 300 hundred yards. His distance was not 500 or 1,000 yards. He was attempting a shot at 2,240 yards – a mile and a quarter away using a hundred-year-old Swiss Army rifle with open sights. His target was a life-size steel buffalo. Once on target, he made repeated hits. It was an amazing feat.
Prophetic words are beginning to arrive that were sent downrange long ago traveling across great expanses of time and space to be delivered at this moment in history. When the Lord asked His prophets to speak these words those uttering them may have thought they sounded unusual and without application at the time of their inception. These prophets spoke with unqualified obedience. When their words finally arrive at our place in history, they will also appear out of context because they were spoken in a language and with a mode of delivery that might appear strange to our ears.
Unusual will be a word used to describe these incoming prophecies. Do not be dismissive when these words arrive. Unpack them carefully with wisdom and mercy, not with immediate dismissal. Look past the packaging and mode of delivery to discover the core content of the word. Be willing to discern their message with an open and receptive heart. If you can do this you will become a prophetic target of fulfillment and a carrier of supernatural resolutions to the most vexing situations of our day.
From Garris Elkins, Jacksonville, OR
https://nwp.link/LongRangeProphecies
https://garriselkins.com/
The Arrival of Long-Range Prophecies
I recently watched a video about a competitive long-range shooter. He did not shoot at 200 or 300 hundred yards. His distance was not 500 or 1,000 yards. He was attempting a shot at 2,240 yards – a mile and a quarter away using a hundred-year-old Swiss Army rifle with open sights. His target was a life-size steel buffalo. Once on target, he made repeated hits. It was an amazing feat.
Prophetic words are beginning to arrive that were sent downrange long ago traveling across great expanses of time and space to be delivered at this moment in history. When the Lord asked His prophets to speak these words those uttering them may have thought they sounded unusual and without application at the time of their inception. These prophets spoke with unqualified obedience. When their words finally arrive at our place in history, they will also appear out of context because they were spoken in a language and with a mode of delivery that might appear strange to our ears.
Unusual will be a word used to describe these incoming prophecies. Do not be dismissive when these words arrive. Unpack them carefully with wisdom and mercy, not with immediate dismissal. Look past the packaging and mode of delivery to discover the core content of the word. Be willing to discern their message with an open and receptive heart. If you can do this you will become a prophetic target of fulfillment and a carrier of supernatural resolutions to the most vexing situations of our day.
From Garris Elkins, Jacksonville, OR
https://nwp.link/LongRangeProphecies
https://garriselkins.com/
Sometimes we fire blanks.
Sometimes we fire blanks.
But sometimes, sometimes we're actually firing blanks.
Standard
Oh, we don't mean to. We think we are firing powerful weapons of war, kicking ass and taking names.
But sometimes, sometimes we're actually firing blanks.Jesus modeled for us a way to pray that was more about telling the situation how it needs to be, rather than about us whining at God to pleeeeease make it be that way. We are learning to command, to declare, rather than to ask politely. Or impolitely.
That much is good.
The problem is, so often we just fire blanks.
We read the Gospels oh, and we observe how Jesus did it. He said, Lazarus come forth! And Lazarus came forth. He said, I am willing, be cleansed. And the leper was instantly healed.
We look at the model of Jesus, and we make it our model. But we are only looking at part of the model that Jesus gave us. We're looking at his Harvest, not his labor.
I am a member of a few prayer groups. I am embarrassed to tell you how many times, in response to a really dire need, somebody pipes up, blithely commanding all demons to go to hell, smugly decreeing bones and skin and organs to line up, happily commanding this and that, and wrapping it all up with a grin of self-congratulation.
And of course very little actually changes. Nobody really expected it would. I think even that the enthusiastic intercessor himself didn't expect it. And why would he? We get so that we’re commanding everything nowadays, and nobody points out that it's not really changing much of anything. The emperor has no clothes on, but everyone is afraid to mention it.
Yeah, I know. I’ve overstated it in order to make a point. You know this goes on, at least some of the time.
I have been reflecting on how much of Jesus’ life is hidden from the casual reader of his biographies in the Gospels. I suspect that this is on purpose. If we really want to know the secrets, he wants to go find them for ourselves, to do the work of learning, to make the knowledge our own.
The gospels are quick to tell his hero testimonies, how he healed this person, raised that guy from the dead, all before lunch, and without raising a sweat.
That's the part that big, flashy, and easily captures our attention. But it's only the end of the story. We miss the beginning and the middle. And I think that if we don't follow all of Jesus’ example, the beginning, the middle, and the end, we will probably not have the results that Jesus had.
I have been involved in a lot of spiritual war. I have friends who have been in so much more than I have. Some of it has been successful; some has been less successful. Ultimately, I think that Winston Churchill may have had it right. War involves blood, sweat, toil, tears. And healing the sick, raising the dead, these are acts of War. It’s not a quick declaration of victory and move on.
I've been thinking about the topic of rest recently. God is constantly inviting his people to a place of rest. Not a place of doing nothing, a place of doing much, but doing it from the place of resting in him. Kind of a foreign concept to most of us, I think. But it wasn't foreign to Jesus. Jesus seemed pretty big on working from a place of rest. I’m beginning to learn the value of this.
And Jesus was always getting away with Father. Sure, we have our “quiet times,” and that’s a great starting point, but it seemed that Jesus spent all night in prayer sometimes. All night, getting to know what Father was doing and thinking.
In fact, there was one time he spent much of the night in prayer, and it was hard work. He sweat blood. We talk about that in the context of the Easter story, but as he said, “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.” Paul kept up the theme. “These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come.”
I’m not saying that blood is the signifier of a solid prayer life. I’m saying there’s work involved, hard work, if we’re aspiring to declare with the kind of power that Jesus’ declarations had.
There is one more secret, I think, that we need to lay hold of. In John 5, Jesus revealed this secret: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”
The last secret (for this moment) of Jesus’ amazing record was that he was only doing what he saw Father doing.
A whole lot of our failing comes from our making our declarations about things that are in our heart and mind that are not actually things that Father is doing. They may be things that we wish he was doing, things that we think he might want to do, or things that we ourselves want, and we’re maybe just putting God’s name on them.
That’s a whole lot different than seeing what God is doing, or seeing the situation - really seeing it! - in its completed state, and then telling reality to line up with that vision.
This is a hard one to ‘fess up to. But we kind of have to separate our desires from his, separate soul from spirit, as it were, in order to walk how Jesus walked.
I’m so thankful that we’re growing up into Him. We’re going to change the world. In him.
Discerning the Global Reset
The Gospel is always inviting but never tolerant of things that will ultimately harm us. Not agreeing with the ideology of a dark reset that will ultimately destroy individual lives and societies does not make one intolerant. It is an expression of love.
A few years ago, I began to write and speak about a reset that would take place in the Church. It would be a reset that starts us on a refocusing journey where we would begin to see the Church and its mission with new eyes. Instead of getting more complicated, our expression of faith would enter a simpler expression, void of complicated religious baggage, language, and unhealthy alliances.
At the end of the resetting and refocusing, we would enter a resting place, where we would receive fresh revelation about how we can move forward into the future. This revelation would only be available to those willing to reset, refocus, and rest.
Whenever you hear the word “reset,” make sure you discern the spirit using the word. The reset Jesus offers leads to freedom, freedom of our will. This is the kind of freedom only found in the Spirit. The counterfeit reset will lead to control and demands of conformity to agendas that have at their core a spirit of death. Any refusal to follow the dictates of that dark reset will carry the shaming label of intolerance.
As a defining clarity is taking place regarding the two resets, a definition within the Church is also taking place regarding cultural reformation. On one side are those who view reformation as a way to control people and culture, much like the false reset. They see the assignment of the Church as creating a theocracy on earth and directing culture by demands of conformity to a particular expression of faith.
On the other side are those who believe the Church’s work is best expressed in culture as an opportunity to help a culture flourish under the influence of believers embedded within its institutions. These embedded ones seek the highest good for each individual while never backing away from speaking the truth in love. The latter expression of reformation is where the power of God’s Spirit is delivered.
This kind of Heaven-empowered reformation is so powerful that it cannot be controlled by religious or political spirits. It will endure through the tumultuous and challenging seasons of upheaval each society will experience as it matures.
That is the kind of reformation where the reset of Heaven is taking place. The by-product of the reset will draw people to the love of God and ultimately transform the heart of a nation.
Garris Elkins
www.garriselkins.com
A Very Messy Narrow Way
I’ve been reflecting on something interesting recently.
I have some children, and now they have children. And of course, once upon a time, I was a young child myself.
I have some children, and now they have children. And of course, once upon a time, I was a young child myself.
All of these children have the experience of birth in common. A few children take the short cut: someone opens things up and brings them from a world of comfortable, constricted darkness into bright lights and loud noises and then spanks them on the butt. Terribly confusing.
But all the rest take the longer route: their world of comfortable, constricted darkness gets more and more crowded. Then the real pressure comes, and their world gets terribly tight, insane amounts of pressure. And then suddenly all the pressure is gone, and we’re in this wide open space. This guy smacks us and somebody else scrubs us up, and then there’s all that cuddling.
But it’s never that tight, never that constricted, never that narrow a place ever again. We can do anything, we can go anywhere, though it might be a while before we master the right skills.
This is where these curious thoughts have been taking me:
My life in Christ is sort of like that. Somebody who knows what he’s talking about said, “Narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life.”
For some reason, this reminds me of the birth process. Narrow is that gate, and difficult is that way which leads to life. And messy. It’s really messy.
But after the mess of birth, oooooh how much freedom. My world is never again that tight, never that constricted, never that narrow a place ever again. We can do anything, we can go anywhere, though it might be a while before we master the right skills to get around and to be less messy.
Yes, the gate into the Kingdom is narrow. And let’s be honest: it can be pretty messy, too. But once I’ve passed the gate, things in our life in the Kingdom are a whole lot less about “Thou Shalt Not,” than it is about “Ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”
A lot of us have grown up with parents and preachers and other folks who have regularly slapped our hand and said, “Don’t touch!” or warned us not to try this thing or believe that thing. And there are some things that we should maybe not touch yet. Apparently I tried to drive my dad’s car when I was two, and had just crawled out of making mud pies. For some reason, that didn’t go over so well.
Yes, there are some things that we’re not ready for (don’t try to drive when you’re two). Yes, there are some things that would distract us from what’s best (don’t stuff yourself full of cookies just before dinner).
But all in all, there’s WAY more “yes and amen” than “do not touch” in the Kingdom of God.
Go forth. Explore. Discover your freedom.
But all in all, there’s WAY more “yes and amen” than “do not touch” in the Kingdom of God.
Go forth. Explore. Discover your freedom.
“I came not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it…”
Judaizers have been speaking up again. I guess we'd better talk about it.
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”
That is pretty much the standard, go-to verse for people who want to convince you that you need to be in bondage to the Law like they are. Yeah, let’s look at that.
First of all, this statement is found in Matthew 5: Jesus is speaking to people under the Law. He is not speaking to New Covenant believers. He’s speaking in the language of folks under the Law, speaking to people under the Law, but he’s not reaffirming the Law.
Go look at it. Read all of Matthew 5. Jesus is not saying, “Be sure to obey the Law!” He’s saying, “The Law is only the starting point!”
Verse 17 is one example: “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” If you don’t do better than the people who do the law the best, it ain’t gonna get you into the Kingdom. That's what this whole sermon is about: the Kingdom.
Then he gets real serious. What follows is where Jesus deconstructs the Law. “You have heard it said, … but I say to you….” Five times he raises the bar above what the Law had required.
Then he goes on (Chapter 6 continues that sermon) explaining a better way. He doesn’t really talk about the Kingdom for a while, but he gets to it: “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
That very sermon continues on through Chapter 7, too. He’s already dismissed the Law, the godly works of the old paradigm; now he dismisses the godly works of the new paradigm: “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’”
Yeah, that's not the goal either. "Depart from me, I never knew you." It's about knowing him.
Then he finishes preaching wanders down the mountain and demonstrates his new Kingdom by healing the sick and teaching about the Kingdom.
OK. That’s our context. Now let’s look at that specific phrase, “I came not to abolish the Law but to fulfil it…”.
Yes, Jesus fulfilled the Law. Now the Law is fulfilled. What does it mean when something is fulfilled?
My father fulfilled the mortgage on his house. Now that his mortgage has been fulfilled, that mortgage is obsolete, fulfilled, finished, powerless. That’s what “fulfilled” means. It’s done.
So, yes, ALL of the terms and conditions of the Old Covenant (for that's what the law is) are now obsolete, fulfilled, finished, powerless, now that the Old Covenant is dead and gone.
The Torah (the first five books of the Bible, containing the Law of the Old Covenant) is an interesting (and useful) history book. It tells the story of a covenant that God never wanted, and that never worked [Acts 15:10]. We can learn from their mistakes, and we should.
But it is completely without merit as a standard to live by today, if for no other reason than there is nobody, literally not one body, who is still part of the Old Covenant to which the Law applies.
People try to say, “But obeying the Torah (or at least the 10 Commandments) is good. It’s part of making us acceptable to God.
Balderdash! Obeying the Law is an obstacle, a stumbling block to us becoming acceptable to God.
I am so thankful that the Law has been fulfilled! This is such an excellent expression of God’s mercy!
You see, it is not even possible to obey the Torah in our day and age, and it hasn’t been possible for nearly twenty centuries.
A huge part of the law was the sacrificial system. And nowadays, there is no ark of the covenant (it was lost centuries ago), there is no tabernacle or temple (it was destroyed many centuries ago) with an altar to kill bulls and goat on. And James says, "For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all."
More importantly, there are no Levites left to offer those sacrifices to God. The Levites were the only ones whom the law allowed to do that. Even worse, there are no records of Levitical bloodlines, and without those records, nobody could minister if there was a temple. All of the genealogical records (all of the documentation of who’s a Levite and who’s not) was destroyed when the Old Covenant was destroyed as the Temple was destroyed in the conquering of Jerusalem in the first century. [https://nwp.link/WikiAD70] There are many parts of the law that cannot be obeyed now, and stumbling in one point of the law makes you guilty of the whole thing. No wonder it was destroyed.
Scripture predicted that the Old Covenant was going to be done away with and the temple would be destroyed [Hebrews 8:13] and Jesus described it in detail [Matthew 24] a full generation before it went down. Literally, not one stone was left on another. (And because of his warnings, the Christians - the only ones who believed his warnings - escaped that destruction.)
Paul summarized this whole law business quite nicely: "I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!" [Galatians 2:21]
Does that mean that we live lives characterized by rebellion against the Law of the Old Covenant? Where the command is “Do not kill,” do we make murder our habit to lie in order to avoid an old, dead Law?
You can hear how silly that sounds when we see it in black and white. No, we still don’t kill people. But that's not because of the obsolete rule book of a failed covenant that never applied to anybody but Israel anyway.
Rather, we don’t kill because we’re like Jesus and he doesn’t kill. We don’t kill because he’s teaching us to “love one another as I have loved you,” and murdering people isn’t actually very loving.
So throw off the lies that say, “You must study the Torah! You must obey the Ten Commandments."
"Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.” Cast out the efforts to obey as the way to please God. There is no inheritance for you in that path.
Target Fixation
I’m pretty careful about where my attention goes, and about how I handle my words. God’s instructions are pretty clear, and I’ve learned over the years that there’s reason for his instructions.
That command shows up in at least two places:
Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
The other is in Hebrews 12:1& 2: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”
There’s a common thread in these: Guard what your attention is on. You know, I think he’s serious about this.
Have you heard of “Target fixation”? Whatever you focus your attention on, you tend to become like.
In these passages, God’s telling us to focus our attention on stuff that – should we actually put our attention on them – we’d become “excellent” and “praiseworthy” in our character; we’d become Christ-like.
In these passages, God’s telling us to focus our attention on stuff that – should we actually put our attention on them – we’d become “excellent” and “praiseworthy” in our character; we’d become Christ-like.
That’s an excellent goal in itself.
But regardless of the result, it’s still a command. “Do this.” “Think about such things.” “Fix your eyes on Jesus.”
But regardless of the result, it’s still a command. “Do this.” “Think about such things.” “Fix your eyes on Jesus.”
I take him seriously. :)
Are We Mere Men?
I’ve been struck by how much vitriol and, well, hatred that there is toward certain congressional leaders among Christians. I’m struck by how much vitriol and, well, hatred that there is toward President Trump among other Christians. I’m actually quite disappointed in how free Christians are about telling the world of their hatred for various leaders in Washington.
Let me hurriedly add that I have no great love for their political shenanigans! I abhor their apparent willful dismantling of the American constitution. I can see why so many American patriots have such hatred toward them.
But Christians? Really?
I get that we care about what’s going on with our country. I get it that icky things are being revealed. And believe me, I understand that what has been going on with our country over the past several years is pretty bad, about as bad as anything since the Boston Tea Party. I get that.
And I also get that we want to vent our frustration about what’s going on, and our frustration about our political powerlessness.
But this is not how sons and daughters of the Kingdom of God express themselves.
I find myself thinking of 1 Corinthians 3:3: “For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men?”
“Mere men.” What an indictment. But it appears to be a pretty accurate description of so *many* of the angry, hateful, disrespectful comments I’m hearing from Christians, that I’m seeing posted on Christians’ walls. “Mere men.”
Mere men are people who are swayed more by the news media, than they are by the Word of God. I can tell, because the Word of God tells me to “love without hypocrisy” (Romans 12:9) and that our love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Corinthians 13:7) We’re not “bearing” or “enduring” all that well right now, are we?
Then after all that, the Book, the Word of God, our Orders from Heaven, gets even more direct: "I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people-- for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness." (1 Timothy 2:1-2)
This is how sons and daughters of the Kingdom respond.
Politically, we are pretty powerless. But that’s on purpose: we are not primarily a political people. We are born to be a people who live from heaven, toward Earth, who walk in a body among the physical and political places and events of this planet, but fundamentally, the reality is that our primary reality is being seated in Heaven, seated with the Son of God, sharing his throne, at the right hand of the Father’s throne.
Fundamentally, the power we wield is not *supposed* to be merely human. The power that we are born to wield is the power of the Kingdom we’re born into: the power of Heaven. The power that will halt and reverse the damage done by various administrations, various congresses is wielded by the means of prayer: by “petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people-- for presidents and all those in authority.”
We are a prophetic people, but it’s not legit prophecy to declare what’s wrong and how mad we are about it. That’s the work of “mere men.” That’s submitting to the principalities of this world. Outrage demonstrates our failure.
Our prophetic calling is to call out the solution – which nobody else can even see – to the problem – which nobody needs help seeing. Our calling is to draw resources from Heaven and implement them on earth. To implement them in the House and the Senate and the White House in Washington DC. To implement them in the schools and businesses and news organizations in our communities.
Our calling is to be the fulfillment of “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.”
Now let’s see if we can go beyond being “mere men"
– Nor'west Prophetic
Audacious Prayer
Conversation, even online conversation, is a useful tool for discovering what’s in the heart, discovering what you’ve begun to believe that you didn’t realize you believed. These are some of the best conversations in my world.
Recently, I’ve been conversing about audacious prayers, “crazy prayers” with some good folks, and I realized some things that I have begun to believe.
I’ve been burned badly by “crazy prayers” that I’ve prayed which were not on the heart of my Father, but which he graciously answered anyway. Took the better part of a decade to get over one of them. His grace, his kindness during that decade were overwhelming. And I’ve prayed some “crazy prayers” (for things I frankly did NOT believe at the time) at his direction, which he then answered, and which revolutionized my life and my family’s life, others that changed the shape of my neighborhood, my city.
As a result, I’m all for “crazy prayers” that are in His heart – whether they were in his heart to begin with and I just figured it out, or whether they started in my heart, and he’s supporting my free will.
But if I don’t find them in Father’s heart, I’m pretty gun-shy about what I’m asking for, what I’m speaking about.
I believe I’ve come to this: the more audacious the prayer, the more I need to have confidence that it is in my Father’s heart before I speak them out.
But if I hear them from him, if I find even the most audacious, the craziest prayers reflecting his heart, then yeah, let’s do this!
Audacious Prayer
Conversation, even online conversation, is a useful tool for discovering what’s in the heart, discovering what you’ve begun to believe that you didn’t realize you believed. These are some of the best conversations in my world.
Recently, I’ve been conversing about audacious prayers, “crazy prayers” with some good folks, and I realized some things that I have begun to believe.
I’ve been burned badly by “crazy prayers” that I’ve prayed which were not on the heart of my Father, but which he graciously answered anyway. Took the better part of a decade to get over one of them. His grace, his kindness during that decade were overwhelming. And I’ve prayed some “crazy prayers” (for things I frankly did NOT believe at the time) at his direction, which he then answered, and which revolutionized my life and my family’s life, others that changed the shape of my neighborhood, my city.
As a result, I’m all for “crazy prayers” that are in His heart – whether they were in his heart to begin with and I just figured it out, or whether they started in my heart, and he’s supporting my free will.
But if I don’t find them in Father’s heart, I’m pretty gun-shy about what I’m asking for, what I’m speaking about.
I believe I’ve come to this: the more audacious the prayer, the more I need to have confidence that it is in my Father’s heart before I speak them out.
But if I hear them from him, if I find even the most audacious, the craziest prayers reflecting his heart, then yeah, let’s do this!