Tag Archives: Journals

Devotionals, Letters

Returning to the Glory of the First Century Church

Every so often, I hear someone moan wistfully, “If only we could return to the glory days of the first century church! If only we could be as full of faith as they were!”

I think if I hear that again, I’m going to scream.

May I speak plainly? That’s one of the stupidest spiritual-sounding things we could say in this day and age. I make the assumption that people who say that mean well, but come on! Let’s think about this a little bit:

The first century church, the church in the book of Acts, was a wonderful beginning. But they were only a beginning: this was the baby church, in diapers, as it were. I can tell you that I have no interest in going back to diapers. That would be such an epic failure, for the church of today to return to the “glory days” of the first century church! What was for them glorious success would be the worst of failures for us.

● “But,” someone will moan, “There were three thousand saved in a day!” That’s pretty good for rookies. Today, that’s less than an hour’s work in the Kingdom, and some reports suggest that’s closer to 20 minutes’ work.

Let us note that it only happened twice in the Book of Acts that three thousand were saved in a day. Today, more than three thousand people come to faith every single hour of every single day of every single year.

I’m thinking that’s an improvement.

● “But there were signs and wonders!” Somebody is seriously not paying attention. There were fewer than 20 miracles reported in the book of Acts, though there were repots of “lots of miracles.” Nowadays, we have lots of miracles on a regular basis.

I know one group that has a 100% success rate at healing the deaf, and nearly as good success healing the blind. I know two groups that won’t let people become elders unless they’ve raised someone from the dead. I know a group that legitimately calls themselves “The Dead Raising Team,” and they’re successful at it. I can’t tell you the number of successful healing teams I’ve heard about! They’re everywhere, and best of all, NOT just among the leaders, like the book of Acts.

Bethel Church in California reports thousands of documented miracles every time they send their students on outreach. And have you talked to the Healing Rooms movement recently?

Besides, I’m not sure I want more “Ananias & Sapphira events.” It’s my private opinion that even when that happened in Acts, it was an error, and not the will of God, but that’s another story. Surely it won’t be best for folks to fall dead in our meetings, when nobody can agree why it happened!

● “But they had all things in common!” I’ll grant that this is an area that we have room to continue growing in. But I am also aware that we’re talking about completely different cultures here. In that culture, if you couldn’t work, you starved to death. In our culture, the homeless guys on street corners make a (meager) living that in most of the world (or in the first century church) would be considered unmitigated wealth. (http://nwp.link/1s8woOt)

This does NOT mean that I propose that we stop helping the poor! Heaven forbid! This means I propose that we quit berating ourselves simply because we still have poor people among us: Jesus said we always would! (Matthew 26:11)

● “But they sold their homes! That’s dedication!” Well, some of them sold their homes. That was just good business; these were smart Jews! Jesus had clearly declared that the city would be destroyed shortly. It’s just good business to sell a house this week for full price that’s going to be destroyed with the city next week and be worth nothing! And clearly, if they “met house to house,” then not everybody sold their homes.

For the record, I know a bunch of people who’ve sold their homes for the ministry, several more than once. I know of others who sold themselves into slavery so that they could bring the good news to those in slavery, and they died in slavery. Most of these folks haven’t had books written about them, so they’re not known as well. But then Jesus taught us to keep quiet about our generosity, yes?

We could go on.

It is NOT my intent to disparage the excellent start that the Church had, as reported in the book of Acts. That was glorious.

What we have now is substantially more glorious. And that, too, is what we were promised. (See Isaiah 9:7)

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Devotionals, Letters

Prophets, Angels and the Son of God

The author of the Book of Hebrews starts his book out with a bang:
“In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.” – Hebrews 1:1-4
I was listening to Hebrews again today, and I was really struck by this passage. The whole first part of the book is all about how Jesus is so much superior.
In these few sentences, he hits a single topic from a couple of directions that are worth paying attention to, particularly for people like you and me.
First, he declares that the revelation of God in the person of his Son is superior to the revelation of God through the prophets. Since we’re pretty excited about prophets and prophecy, we probably need to notice this.
He’s not saying that God speaking through prophets is bad, only that God speaking through Jesus is the ridiculously superior revelation.
This has application two ways:
First, it’s clear that he was referencing the Old Testament prophets. The revelation of God is vastly superior to the revelation of the Old Testament prophets.
There are a lot of believers whose opinions about who God is and what God wants are influenced pretty heavily by Jeremiah and Ezekiel and the rest of the Old Testament. That is a legitimate representation of God, but it is an inferior representation or revelation of him. The Bible says so (right here, in this passage)!
But second, I believe the principle applies to modern day prophets as well (and you know I love the prophetic movement!): the revelation of God and of his heart from today’s prophets is substantially more complete than ’Miah and ’Zeke, but it’s still vastly inferior to the revelation that is in Jesus.
This is one of the (several) reasons that I try to discourage people from asking every prophetic person they know for a prophetic word: prophecy is good (1Corinthians says it’s the most profitable of the revelatory gifts), but it’s still an inferior revelation to that which you can get just by visiting with the Son of God who lives in you!
The second part of this passage carries that a step further: Jesus is also hugely superior to the angels.
This is a day when God really is unfolding revelation about angels and inviting us to partner with them. But the Word reminds us (right here) that the work of the angels, while still valuable, is an inferior work to the work of the Son of God.
If you continue on in Hebrews, the author will point out that just as the artist is superior to the work of art, just as the heir of the estate is of higher stature than the stable boys of the estate (my paraphrase), so the Son of God also a better revelation of God’s nature than his servants, either prophet or angel.
(It doesn’t hurt that this Son also happens to be the creator of the universe and the “exact representation” of God. I think that makes his job easier.)
I’m left chewing on this: pay attention to the words of the prophets, but pay more attention to the words that Jesus speaks to you. And trust the ministry of the angels, but trust the work of Jesus even more.
Yes, it really does all boil down to Jesus, doesn’t it? It really is all about Him!

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Devotionals, Letters

True Confessions: It’s Not What You Think

I have a confession to make. I’ve been leading you astray. I’ve deceived you.

Let me explain.

I write, from time to time, about some of the interesting interactions that I’ve had with God, and about some of the interesting things I’ve discovered as I walk with him.

And that’s where the deception comes in.

I only write about the interesting stuff. I don’t write about the days and days of nothing in particular going on, because there’d be nothing to write.

Let me explain.

I’m a married man. More specifically, I’m a happily married man. Sometimes, Milady & I will spend the whole evening together in the same room, her reading, me writing, neither of us saying a thing. We’re just happy to be in each other’s presence. Seriously, I was in tears the other day, just thinking about growing old with her. It makes me really happy.

When I’m working in my garden, I can really often feel Father’s presence like that: quietly together. He’s taught me quite a lot there: how to transplant tiny seedlings, how to get more produce from a tiny garden, how to nurture the tender plants, and how, if I get the basics done well, the weeds won’t really be an issue.

I’m also a working man. And I gotta say that it’s not real often (though it does happen) that God speaks into the technical details of a project that I’m working on. And even when he does, I don’t write about it, because most of the story is about tweaky nerdly stuff that nobody outside my field is interested in. God showing me the right path to take a big bus through a crowded parking lot, or the best way to make these particular gears fit properly in a watch: this is not the stuff of interesting articles of faith and maturity.

But it is the stuff of real relationship with God.

I’m convinced that the best part of my relationship with God is not the amazing encounters or the awesome revelations or the impressive miracles. Yeah, those are fine, and I’ll not complain about them (this is a good place to say, “More Lord!” I think).

It’s like a good marriage: I love the times we get to go out to dinner, or where we host a barbecue for some friends, times of intimacy together. But the real strength of the marriage doesn’t come from those: it comes from the quiet, daily, almost ritual times together. We don’t have to talk about who’s turn it is to empty the dishwasher or take out the garbage or cook dinner, because we’re together.

And a love relationship with the Creator of the Universe is actually pretty similar: The fancy dinners are great, but quiet times of everyday life are where the real life & health come from.

So I apologize if I’ve left you with the impression that life in God is not all cool revelations and glorious highlights. Those happen, and they’re fun and all. But the day to day time together, not even really needing to form words: those are the places where the treasure’s found.

And those don’t make good stories to write about.

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Devotionals, Letters

A Season of Healing

This may be more of a “prophetic observation” than a prophetic word.
I’m observing that God is putting a substantial emphasis on healing his kids right now. It’s not like he ever walks away from this topic, but it seems to be near the top of his “to do” list now.

He’s certainly healing us physically, but I believe that the emphasis is on healing the wounds in our souls and in our spirits. Everybody can see if they’re missing a leg. It’s much more difficult to see it when we’re missing the foundations in our inner life.
There have been other seasons where a priority was placed on understanding new revelation, or on learning to hear his voice, or bringing the good news to those who haven’t heard it. And he’s not forgotten those: that’s what we’re all about: knowing our Father and making him known!

If I may extend this a bit: it’s my opinion that we’re entering – rather rapidly – into a new season where it will be “All hands on deck!” as “Life as usual” and “Church as usual” completely lose the “as usual” part.
And if we’re going to be ready to partner with what he’s revving up to be doing, then we really need our souls strong and healthy. Honestly, the likely alternative is to be content to be one of the “last move of God” that persecutes “the next move of God.”
I feel a particular need to urge folks that have been putting off dealing with issues of the soul: it’s time to quit ignoring the issue and take specific steps to get healed up.
As a first step, I encourage you to get alone with God and ask two questions:

1) Father, how do YOU see me? (Hint: if the answer isn’t about love, then it isn’t God speaking!)

2) Father, what is getting in the way of my fully experiencing that? (Hint: it’s most likely about some lies you’ve believed, either about you or about God.)
It is really appropriate to get help with these. Where? Cheat: Ask God to bring you help. But don’t run when they come to you, asking pointed questions about your inner self.

It’s no longer cool to walk with a limp.

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Devotionals, Letters

A Model for Apostolic Ministry

It was a Wednesday night, of course, because in the ’80s, that’s when you had your home group meetings.
This group was already considered a little aberrant, because we discussed more than merely the Sunday sermon. And we had discovered prophetic gifts. In fact, we’d often put someone on a chair in the middle of the circle and ask God for how to pray for them. We were sometimes quite surprised by how much our prayers touched needs we hadn’t known about.
So it wasn’t completely unusual when the home group leader brought some guests to one of our gatherings. Without any more than just their names, he parked them in side-by-side chairs in the middle of the circle, and asked us to pray or them. We gathered around and laid hands on them.
For a while, the prayers were rather generic Christian blessings. We discerned a significant leader’s calling on the couple, but then we paused and pressed in deeper. We waited in silence for more revelation.
A quiet sob broke the stillness, and then another. These were from an intercessor we all knew and trusted, who heard God as well as any of us. We waited while she wept, and then she shifted her position, grabbed the man’s feet, and wept over them. It reminded me of the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears. By this time, the man and his wife were weeping as well, and several of us praying for them were near to tears, but we couldn’t have told you why.
Eventually, the intercessor was able to form words, and what she said through her tears has shaped much of my thinking on the topic. She explained she saw an apostle’s mantle on the couple, on the man in particular. That wasn’t what she was crying about: the Lord had revealed to her much of what that calling would mean in his life, the price that he’d have to pay to walk out that calling. She was weeping for the struggles and the abandonment he’d face, for the betrayals and the accusations, for the opposition he’d face, and for the burden of love he’d carry.
She saw the victories, too, and declared them, but that was the day that I knew something of what it means to “count the cost.”
That was the moment that I concluded that the big man on the big stage with his big congregation and his big budget is not the model for an apostle. An apostle is not just a really successful or really well-respected pastor or denominational leader. The image of a true apostle is not the corner office, not the fancy website, or even the anointed business cards.
Paul’s description of his ministry was not the exception; it was a healthy example of what many apostles will face. This is the model that the New Testament gives us for apostolic ministry:  
“Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again.
Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move.
I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.
Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn? If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.” – 2 Corinthians 11:23-30
I’ve learned that a man, a woman, is not a an apostle that I can trust who does not know tears. 
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Devotionals, Letters

False Teaching, or False Signs

The New Testament speaks time and time again about false doctrine, false teaching, false shepherds. We don’t really pay a whole lot of attention (as a larger community) to these issues, which the Bible emphasizes pretty heavily.
The Book mentions “false signs and wonders” only ONCE, but that’s the thing that gets the attention. And the definition has been expanded: “If you experience _____ during your intimate times with God, that’s a false sign! It’s of the devil!”
Bah!   Er… “No, that would be in error!”
The false teachers that those apostles were warning us about had one thing in common: they wanted to add some form of “works” to the message of grace. It came in various forms:
§         “Obey the Law!” (Or “Obey this part of the law.”) or
§         “Don’t eat meat!” (or some other dietary restriction) or
§         “Respect these Jewish holidays!” (or “…these new [age] holidays”) or
§         “Don’t drink alcohol!”
Fundamentally, the false things that the New Testament writers were warning us about generally were limitations to the freedoms that Jesus brings his people into! It was exactly this context into which Paul writes, “do not submit again to a yoke of slavery!” and he goes on in that context to say, “I wish that those who are troubling you would even mutilate themselves.” (See Galatians 5; it’s really quite graphic.)
This was the greatest danger to the new Church, and the one that so much of the New Testament epistles were specifically written to combat: that there would be people come into the congregations (called “savage wolves” in Acts 20:29) who would want to draw people away our freedom in Christ.
By contrast, we have very large numbers of congregations, where the leaders teach their favorite part of the Law (note that I did not mention tithing!), or about all restrictions about what good Christians should or shouldn’t do. Often, they preach an even more restrictive law to their leaders.
And many of them are warning their followers against what they’re calling “false signs and wonders,” but is really just brothers & sisters getting free. 
Freedom. What a wonderful thing when we experience it. It’s jumping and dancing and celebrating; it’s shaking and falling over and being rocked by love; it’s worshipping with abandon; it’s healing the sick and casting out demons; it’s falling in love with the person of Jesus. 
This is what we were made for! This is exactly why God said, “Let us make man!”: we were made for relationship!
  
We’re warned against these things, as if they were “false signs.” Nah. It’s just freedom. And freedom is our goal.
I don’t understand why this is sticking in my spirit so strongly today. Perhaps someone needs “permission” to hunger for God (if it matters, you have permission!). Maybe you’re asking why all the “Do this, don’t do that” rules are not fitting you well. This would be why: they’re not for you!
It’s easy: It is for freedom that Christ has set you free! Do not submit again to a yoke of slavery!
And maybe let me know if I was writing for you today? 
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Devotionals, Letters

Some Thoughts About the Purpose of the Prophetic

How many times has it happened that a prophet gives a word to someone you know, and you think to yourself, “They missed it! That is SO not them!”
                                               
Sure, it might be a muffed prophecy; the only guy who never muffed a single prophetic word was murdered for it a couple of thousand years ago. Nowadays, we all completely miss it occasionally. It’s like the man said, “Now, we see in a glass darkly.”
But it might not be a failed prophecy. That’s actually the goal sometimes. The goal of the prophetic is NOT to declare what everybody already knows.
The prophets declare the goal, solution, the finished product, the end result of God doing something in the person’s life. And sometimes they declare it as early as when God is just beginning work on the project. They’re “declaring the end from the beginning.” If you don’t know what you’re aiming for, how do you aim?
So when God speaks to a destitute homeless guy, “I see you as a man of substance, a man of wealth,” he’s probably not saying “This is they way you are now, in case you didn’t know.” No, he’s more likely saying, “This is your calling, this is your destiny. If you come with me, this is where you could go. Do you want in on this?”
Or he might say to the destitute homeless guy, “I see you as a leader of men,” and that may not show up the way we expect it to. The English language – especially American English – is not God’s first language. When he speaks of a “leader of men,” he may not mean what you’d mean: a recognized position of appointed leadership or power. 
I’ve known guys that chose to be homeless so that they could reach those that nobody else would reach. Their leadership was often just conversation between bunks in the local mission. They are indeed “leaders of men,” but nobody except the homeless guys they lead recognize it.

Really often, the fulfillment of the prophetic promise doesn’t line up with our expectation of what it would look like. But it does line up with the word.
Second, the prophetic declaration releases God’s resources to bring about that which they declare. 
When God speaks to the destitute homeless guy about wealth, that declaration, when activated by faith, is releasing the grace of God, the power of God, to gather wealth to the guy. Power to accomplish the word is carried by the word.
That doesn’t necessarily mean people will hand him cash money, though I’ve seen that happen. It may mean that God is lining up an educational opportunity, or bringing him an advocate, or giving him an idea for an invention, or lining up other, unexpected circumstances to make it happen. 

And fairly often, it’s true about prophetic words: “If you don’t declare it, it won’t happen.” 
If we want to be in on what God’s doing, we can discern what God is breathing on in the prophetic declarations (1 Corinthians 14:29), and then join in with that. We can add the prophetic word to our worldview and begin to see and relate to people according to the things that God has said to them.
Or we can bury the prophetic declaration, and the power that it carries to accomplish the thing of which it speaks, under our own unbelief and jealousy and resentment, and kill the word.
It’s our choice.

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Devotionals, Letters

Sarah’s Faith

Before they were “Abraham and Sarah,” they were “Abram and Sarai.” They were on the first, and in some ways, the most amazing, adventure with God of all time.

Abe was the first guy to relate to God by faith (as opposed to Adam and company, who went for walks with God, and didn’t really need faith). Abe’s made it, by now, into the history books as The Father of Our Faith.

But it’s the story of Abe’s bride, Sarah, that inspires me today, though I’ll confess it’s from an odd perspective.

In Genesis 18, God promises Abe & Sarah, now old enough to be grandparents or great-grandparents, that they’d have a child, a son, next year. Abraham was a hundred years old; Sarah was ninety. There aren’t a lot of ninety year old women having babies even today with all the miracles of modern medicine.

But in those days? Not only unheard of, it was legitimately unthinkable. These guys knew and understood the birds and the bees. They knew there wasn’t a chance in the world of having a baby, and they’d made peace with that fact decades ago.

No wonder Sarah laughed. (“Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, “After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?” ” Genesis 18:12. Apparently, by now they weren’t even doing the “pleasurable” things you do to get kids.)

Now here’s where it gets really interesting to me: God calls out Sarah for laughing at his promise (even though she only “laughed within herself”) and reaffirms the promise. And the best part (v15): Sarah lies to God about it “I did not laugh.” God, who apparently likes truth, called her on it again.

The story moves on to other interesting things, like God submitting his plans to Abraham, but that’s the part that caught my attention: Sarah essentially calls God a liar, and then when she’s exposed, she lies to his face. “Nope. Not me!”

Now skip ahead a couple of thousand years, to Hebrews 11, the “Hall of Faith.” These are the Heroes Of Faith, the great men and women that God holds up as examples of how to believe God. And Sarah is there! But this time, the story is told from God’s point of view:

“And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise. And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.” (Hebrews 11:11-12)

From Sarah’s perspective (and from Moses’ perspective, as he wrote the book), Sarah appears to have called God a liar, surely didn’t believe him, and then flat-out lied to him, to protect her reputation (or Abe’s).

And God calls that an act of faith. God sees that as “considering God faithful” and believing the promise. God apparently, from the phrase “and so” in v12, considers Sarah’s mighty faith to be the foundational reason that there was an Isaac and a Jacob and the Children of Israel.

If Sarah had been as full of unbelief as she sure looks like in Genesis 18, and as it appears she thought she was herself, then the story would stop right there. There’d never be anybody to Exodus out of Egypt, no Joshua, no David, and no Jesus.

So it occurs to me that we have kind of a messed up definition of what “faith” actually means.  Read Hebrews 11 again, and read it carefully. These are not people that we’d normally consider giants of faith, at least not until Hebrews identifies them for us.

Noah, says Hebrews, “condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.” No he didn’t! He built a thing called a”boat” in a desert to preserve his family from some strange event that the Voice called a “flood.” He did it to save his life!

Moses “refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.” No he didn’t! He fled for his life, afraid the Egyptian cops would have heard about his murder when he tried to help an unfortunate slave out.

This is what sticks out to me: faith – real faith – doesn’t very often look heroic. There aren’t movie cameras rolling, and audiences watching as we Do The Mighty Deeds Of Faith.

That’s NOT at all what God refers to in his only chapter about Faith in the entire book.

Real faith seems to come with knocking knees, sweaty armpits and perhaps soiled undershorts. Real faith appears to sometimes be accompanied by laughing at God’s promises, doing stupid things for reasons you don’t understand, even screwing up in your good ideas of helping unfortunate people.

Here’s my takeaway: I’m going to try to not laugh at God so much anymore. But if I do, I’m not going to beat myself up over it. And if I feel really stupid for following a hunch, or for fowling up a good idea, I’m not going to beat myself up over those either.

And I’m going to try to not give up on God’s promises when it looks like there isn’t a chance in the world of them happening.

Just maybe, God’s writing those stories in his Book.

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Devotionals, Letters

Who Is Your Comforter?

I have it on good authority that someone very competent already occupies the position of “Comforter” in your life (John 14:26). Holy Spirit is a remarkably competent comforter, and he is capable of doing a magnificent job of it.
Now, if you try to bring someone else in to fill that position in your life, there’ll be trouble. You will have invoked the threat of Exodus 20:3: “You shall have no other gods before Me.”
If I go to a prophet, or to a pastor, or to a friend with the intent of getting from them what I should have received from “The Comforter,” then I’ve caused a real problem. I have endangered that prophet, that pastor, that friend. I have set them up “before God” in my life, and God himself promises that he will not permit that. 
If you look at how God handled “other gods” in scripture, you’ll see it wasn’t pretty, not ever. You might review the story of Dagon in 1 Samuel 5. Men set gods up; God knocks them down. 
I do not wish to ever be put in that place, where I am “before God” in someone’s life. Frankly, I’ve had to learn this the hard way.
If you come to me asking for comfort, I may pat your hand, and say, “There, there!” or if you ask for advice, I may offer some (typically, too much, but that’s a guy thing). I’m figuring out how to mourn with those who mourn.
But if I feel that I’m being asked to provide for you what Holy Spirit should be providing, to speak into your life instead of your listening for Holy Spirit to speak, then I will probably point you back to him.
(It’s ironic that people are so often offended at me for pointing them to God. I haven’t figured that one out.)
And if you come to me and say, “God’s not talking to me. Would you give me a word?” you may see me run screaming.
You might be thinking, “If I can’t get it from God, I’ll go somewhere that I can get the word I want.” But I hear it as, “The God I’ve had isn’t living up to my expectations; I’m going to replace him with you.”
Nuh-uh! No you’re not. I’m sorry (on multiple levels) if this offends you, but I will not take the place of God in your life. I’ve seen what happens to other gods in the lives of God’s people. No thank you!
The job of the pastor, and the prophet (and the rest of the ascension gifts!) is to equip the saints! If you’re a saint, then pastors should be equipping you for works of ministry, teachers should be equipping you or works of ministry, prophets should be equipping you for works of ministry, etc.
If ever we ask them to do for us what God should be doing for us, we have seriously erred, and we have tempted them towards something that (in my opinion) should scare the daylights out of them.
Let’s not go there, m’kay?  

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Devotionals, Letters

Terms and Conditions for Trick or Treating

Have you ever seen the fine print on some of the websites out there: “Your use of this website constitutes your agreement to comply, and be bound to, the following terms and conditions…” If there’s ever a legal issue, the case will be decided by how well you and the other party comply with the terms and conditions of the website where the legal issue occurred.
These terms and conditions are very often tricky to find. Sometimes they’re in very small print at the bottom of the page. Sometimes they’re not even on the page you see, but are hidden away on a “Terms and conditions” page that nobody ever sees. But they are binding nonetheless, on every visitor to the website.
1 Corinthians 15:46 says “However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual.” So let’s take this natural principle and apply it spiritually.
I expect to have a larger than average number of visitors to my home tomorrow night. I expect that many of them will be wearing costumes that they think of as valiant or funny or scary. (I expect that I’ll think they’re mostly “cute.”) And some of them will be adults waiting on the sidewalk for their beloved munchkin to return with candy.
But I’ve been setting up some “terms and conditions” that apply to every single person that sets foot on my porch, or my walkway, or even my lawn tomorrow night. (And I may leave them in place indefinitely.) They are not posted publicly, but they will be binding nonetheless, on every visitor to my property.
The terms and conditions that affect them include the following:
● Every visitor to my neighborhood is welcome to bring the Holy Spirit with him or her, their own human spirit, and any angels that submit who are in service to the God of Heaven, but any other spiritual beings, any fallen angels, any demons, must be checked at the gates to my neighborhood, and are not permitted in. (This one’s old news: http://bit.ly/gatekeeping)
● Every visitor to my own property, by setting foot on my property (which by legal definition extends to the centerline of the street, so it includes many of those driving by as well) agrees, by coming onto my property, to be targeted for grace and mercy by the Kingdom of Heaven.
● Every family and every household that receives candy or other nourishment from our home agrees, by receiving from us, to receive nourishment from the Spirit of God and from the Word of God, and to receive New Life from the Creator of Life. If anyone receives something from us by theft, they are still agreeing, by receiving from us, to receive the same nourishment, and the same Life.
● Every guest to our property agrees, by coming onto our property, to receive an angel or angels as their guests and guards, to lead them to the King of Kings, to teach them the ways of the Kingdom of God, and to protect them from harm.
● Every guest on our property, by coming onto our property, receives freely and without cost or obligation, our blessing upon their lives, their future, their family, and their family’s future, blessing for peace, and not for evil, to give them a future and a hope.
● These terms and conditions are subject to change and can be modified at any time without notice. Changes may be effective retroactively. Check with the Holy Spirit for the latest terms and conditions in effect.
So I encourage y’all to set up similar “terms and conditions” for your own property.
Here’s a hint that I’ve learned: I’m relying on the resources of the Kingdom to carry out the terms and conditions I’ve specified. The metaphor of “terms and conditions” was something I worked out with Father in prayer, which was also where these specific terms and conditions were formed.
Have fun. Wreak glory upon your guests!
(Feel free to share this idea with your friends and co-conspirators if you wish.)
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Devotionals, Letters

The Message We Preach

If the message declared to you makes you feel unworthy, alone, then whatever is being preached, whoever is preaching the message, it’s not the Good News. (This is hard for me to acknowledge, because for years, this is the only gospel I heard, the only gospel I knew to preach.)
Never once did Jesus preach, “You’re a sinner, and you’re going to hell if you don’t repent!” Never once did Paul or any other apostle use condemnation or the threat of hell to convince people of the goodness of a loving God.
If the focus is on sin, then (by definition) the focus is not on Jesus, and that’s a problem. It’s a problem, because it’s in defiance of scripture (Hebrews 12:2). It’s a problem because it makes sin the center of our conversation. It’s a problem because what we focus on becomes how we live.
But mostly it’s a problem, because it takes the attention away from the only One who really deserves the attention, the One who’s been dying (literally) to know us, who has been patiently waiting to demonstrate his love to us.
Whatever that is, it’s not the gospel that Jesus preached, that Paul preached.
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Consider this: “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.” ~Galatians 1:8 

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Come join the conversation at https://www.facebook.com/northwestprophetic. 

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Devotionals, Letters

Some thoughts about Prophetic Ministry

Consider Jeremiah 1:5: “I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
Now consider Ezekiel 2:3: “Son of man, I am sending you to the Israelites.”
Jeremiah was called to the nations; Ezekiel was called to the people of God. It seems that those who are called to prophetic ministry, are called TO a people, to a community.
There are a few, but there aren’t very many Jeremiahs in our day and age, people that are called to speak for God to many nations. Frankly, I’ve run into more people who think they’re called to the nations than those who are walking out that calling. Darned few prophets start with national or international ministry; they start with neighborhoods, families, home groups.
Most prophetic folks are called to a community, a region, perhaps a congregation. My own calling (if you didn’t figure it out from the name) is to the Pacific Northwest region, and within that, to the people of God, to Christians in that region, and I can be more specific than that.
I know of a man who is a prophet to children: once they’ve hit their 14th birthday, he’s got nothing for them. I know someone who is primarily a prophet to one man, a young apostle, just getting his feet wet in apostolic ministry. I know another who prophesies over the homes in his neighborhood, in the dark while everybody’s asleep. I know an awful lot of prophetic people called to one home church, one congregation, one community of homeless people.
(This isn’t exclusive to prophets. Apostles are called TO a people as well; see Galatians 2:8.)
In my opinion, this is one of the main reasons that so many prophets are not welcome in the place they’re speaking: they’re speaking in a place that they’re not called to.

Prophetic folks can also be rejected for carrying a message different than the one for which they’re called and gifted to carry. New Testament prophets are to be primarily characterized by two verses: Ephesians 4:12 and 1 Corinthians 14:3:

·         Prophets are an equipping ministry. Note that not everyone called to prophetic ministry is called as a prophet, and therefore not called to an equipping ministry. (Hint: if your ministry is not about equipping saints, then you’re not functioning as a prophet.)
·         People who prophesy under the New Covenant are to be characterized by speaking things that strengthen folks, encourage folks, and comfort folks. There are some exceptions, but not as many as we think. (Hint: if your ministry is more about exposing sin or doctrinal fault than encouragement, then you’re ministering either out of the wrong covenant, or from the wrong spirit.)
There is a reason that our message is called “the gospel of the Kingdom”:
1)      “Gospel” means “good news.” If our news isn’t good, then our message is not, by definition, the gospel. Don’t argue with me; talk to the dictionary and see if you can persuade it.
2)      “Of the Kingdom” of course means that our message is about the Kingdom of God. If our “good news” is about salvation, then that’s a good thing, but that’s a thing that men made up, which they call “the gospel of salvation,” a completely unscriptural term. If our good news is about membership in an organization or about a moral code, those are also good things, but they are not the gospel of the Kingdom. Jesus’ message (Matthew 4:17) was about the Kingdom (and how people need to change their thinking in order to partake). Ours probably should be, too.

If we’re called to speak for the King, then we need to speak for the king, not for someone else, and we need to speak to the one the King sends us to, not to whoever will listen.
That is, if we want to be effective, when we speak for our King.

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Devotionals, Letters

The Ministry of Vitamin K

I was trying to understand some things – I’ll call them “some of the mysterious things” – that Father was doing and saying around me. In the midst of struggling to figure them out, I heard him whisper, “Vitamin K.”

I haven’t thought about Vitamin K for years, possibly decades.
I think he likes messing with my head. And I get that: dads – good dads – are like that: it’s more about making me think, inviting me to come close to hear more, than it’s about handing me answers.
Vitamin K, eh? Well, Wikipedia tells me that “Vitamin K is a group of structurally similar, fat-soluble vitamins that the human body needs for modification of certain proteins that are required for blood coagulation, and in bone and other tissue.”
I needed a little more revelation than that!
This is where we ended up: This is something that my body needs, actually needs fairly desperately. But my body gets all it needs without my paying attention to it, without my understanding it, without my doing anything at all with Vitamin K in mind.

Vitamin K does its job, clotting my blood when I cut myself, and doing whatever it does with my bones (“In bones, Vitamin K takes part in the post-translational modification as a cofactor in γ-carboxylation of vitamin K-dependant proteins (VKDPs).” Yeah. That.), and it doesn’t require the slightest bit of my conscious participation in the process.
I’ve never once needed to tell my body, “OK body. Today, I want you to absorb 120 micrograms (μg) of Vitamin K from the kale and broccoli and chicken breasts that I’m eating for dinner. Then I want you to use that Vitamin K to make my blood clot properly if I cut myself, but not unless I cut myself, and I want you to make my bones do whatever they do when you use Vitamin K on them! Make it so!”   
I just trust that my body will digest the food, find the Vitamin K (and all the other nutrients) and apply them as needed. I don’t need to be conscious of the process for it to work well. For me, that means I need to eat lots of good veggies, some good meat, drink plenty of liquids, but I do that anyway: these are yummy!

So my lesson was this: I don’t actually need to stop and understand every little thing that Father is doing or even every thing that he’s saying to me or around me. In practical terms, that means that I eat healthily: the Word (reading, meditating, studying), in my prayer, in my praise, in my snuggling time, and Holy Spirit will apply them as needed, but I do that anyway: this is yummy stuff!
I don’t actually need to be conscious of the everything that God is doing or saying for it to work well, for it to build me up in my most holy faith. 
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Devotionals, Letters

The Wordless Prayer of Faith

It happened during a gathering in our home. We’d had dinner some time ago, finished the dishes together, and now we were gathered in the living room, with mugs of hot tea, and the warm glow of good friendship.
It seemed good to us and to the Holy Spirit to pray for individuals, for healing. We were all good friends, so there was much laughing and interaction while we prayed. That’s just who we were, and we didn’t feel the need to be different when we were with God.
We’d just finished praying for one person, and they got up from the “hot seat” (really a “hot hassock”: a place for them to sit in the middle of the group, so we could all see and all lay hands on if called for).
One of the women kind of hobbled to the center of the room and sat gently down on the hassock as soon as it was vacant. She announced that she’d hurt her back lifting something incorrectly, and needed it healed, please. We turned our attention to her, and asked God for his prayers for her; if Jesus only said what he heard Father saying, we figured that was a good model for us, so we waited for those prayers.
And we waited.
The silence went on for a while, and it became kind of awkward. The fact that it was silence was unusual: there wasn’t laughing or joking going on; people were listening for God’s prayers for our sister’s back.
And we waited. I asked a couple of the more prophetic people if they had anything, but they didn’t. This was unusual. So we waited.
Then, quietly, a teenager in the back of the room giggled. Yeah, I thought, this is rather odd: all these adult believers can’t even pray for one woman’s back. I can see why she’d laugh.
And her laughter continued. She tried, for a moment, to stifle it, but that never works, and it didn’t work this time. OK, so she’s laughing. What is God saying, for how to pray for this back?
But the laughing teenager was herself funny, and a couple more people glanced at her and chuckled. And they fought it, and they, too, were unsuccessful. And the laughter spread. And nobody knew why.
And soon, nobody was even trying to pray for the woman’s strained back; we were just laughing, loudly, uproariously. We didn’t know why we were laughing, but it was clearly not something we had the capacity to stop!
And after four or five minutes of unrestrained hilarity, the laughter slowly faded back out, ending as it began, with the happy teenager in the corner. Maybe five or ten minutes had passed.
And the woman who had sat down with the hurt back now stood up and stretched. “Aaaah.” she announced. “That’s much better. No more pain. Thanks guys.” And she walked, confidently, completely upright, out to the kitchen for a fresh cup of tea.
We looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders, chuckled again, and decided that we like hanging out with a sneaky God.

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