Tag Archives: perspective

Devotionals, Letters

Preparing for an Uncertain Future.

I’ve been asked recently, “How should we prepare for the upcoming hard times in our nation?” The topic comes up a fair bit in one form or another.
I started to reply to the individual who asked this one, but there are several folks with questions on this topic. Here’s what I observe on the topic:
§         No single prophet will have all the insight on this (or any other) topic. Father promises to reveal his secrets to “the prophets” not “to each prophet.” I won’t have anything close to a complete picture. Having said that,
§         It’s not the prophet’s job [ever] to replace your hearing from God yourself. Take what you hear from the prophets to God to get your instructions for your own situation.
 
§         I believe that fear is the primary danger ahead of us: the enemy is making a pretty strong focus on this sin, trying to drive God’s. If believers resist that temptation, we’ll be positioned to get the rest of it right. (This means, of course, filtering what we listen to, and HOW we listen to it.)
§         It’s my opinion that the disaster prognostications flooding the media are fear-based, and are in error, if only because they’re based on fear.
§         While God is calling some of his children into the prepping community, “prepping” is not the answer. Luke 12:20-21 applies to those who, because of fear, store up all they’ll need to survive Armageddon: I don’t believe that’s actually possible; if we knew all that we needed to store up, that violates the First Commandment, and God has promised to not permit that. (Note: the “first commandment” is more of a threat than a commandment: “You will not be able to have any other gods before me: you set ‘em up & I’ll knock ‘em down!” [http://bit.ly/1nn65Rm])
§         I personally believe that the epic disasters of Matthew 24 and the Book of Revelation are clearly behind us, not in front of us (that is perhaps another conversation, and others believe differently). Nevertheless,
§         That does NOT mean I see blue skies and butterflies. Someone really smart said, “In this world, you will have tribulation.” I suspect that’s related to the fact that we are engaged in the greatest war this universe has ever known. It’s NOT “good vs evil.” It’s about the Kingdom of Heaven vs the lesser kingdoms (of which there are many: “good vs evil” is one; fear is another, and self-sufficiency is a third).
§         It is my opinion that the most critical things we can do are in John 2:5 (“Whatever He [Jesus] says to you, do it.”) and 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. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”) Key: fix our eyes on Jesus. Having said that,
§         This does not mean “Don’t prepare.” It means look at what Jesus is doing and do what he says. He has had me make SOME preparations (we have gotten out of debt, and we grow some of our own food on our city lot, etc).
§         I’m reminded of stories like Matthew 17:24-27 (and we could choose many others!): It appears that Jesus is invested in provisioning us. Which leads to,
§         I believe we’re coming into a season where we rely on the supernatural for our daily lives. We need to (and are, in fact, beginning to) get used to miracles, so that we can multiply food or raise the dead comfortably and consistently.
§         Whatever troubles that come are an opportunity for the Kingdom of God, not obstacles. Even if there is real persecution against believers, upheaval of any sort open people’s hearts and minds to the King of the Kingdom. If we respond in fear we’ll miss the opportunity (see Romans 8:15).
§         Other people may be called to different responses. I am clearly called to a non-political response, but Father has specifically spoken to me about others whom He may be calling to be involved with politics, or even with forceful resistance to evil. Their calling is not my calling, but I need to not hinder them.
§         The story remains unchanging: God’s goal for us is still intimate relationship, his instruction is still to extend the kingdom, by means of the Great Commission.

So what do you hear God saying to YOU about this season ahead of us? 
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Devotionals, Letters

A Purpose for the Battle Against Us

War, it has been said, is hell. It gets tiring.
I find myself looking forward to the end of each battle. I don’t plan to, but I find myself considering “life without a battle raging around me” as a sign of success. Whew! I made it! 
I don’t think Father agrees.
I believe that sometimes God specifically and intentionally brings the battle to me. I get it that I don’t always embrace the “overwhelming conqueror” moniker, and so he needs to help me get there. And yeah, I understand that sometimes I open a door that the enemy would love to exploit.
But I’m coming to believe that he brings the battle to me for another reason. I suspect that he lures the enemy into battle – and it must be with his sons, the enemy wouldn’t survive battle with God for even a nanosecond – as part of His almighty plan to plunder the devil.
In fact, I’m going to go so far as to say that sometimes the battle that I’m in right now, especially the battle that I didn’t expect to be in right now, is really more of an announcement, like the “Coming Attractions” features at the movie house. This is what you’re going to get for plunder after you’ve beaten this puny little stronghold.
We’ve talked about God’s promised wealth transfer. Proverbs 13:22b talks about how “the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous.” I think we’ve misunderstood this.
I’ve heard this taught as a promise we just need to claim: “Receive it by faith,” they shouted (and it wasn’t always during the offering message!). I don’t think it’s as easy as that.
First, I’m not convinced that the “wealth” God is speaking of is merely financial, just as the inheritance we leave to our kids (13:32a) is merely financial (see also Hebrews 12:16).
I’m also aware that Father wants his kids to be overcomers (see Revelation 2 & 3). It’s tough to become a competent overcomer without practice overcoming stuff.
I’m beginning to suspect is combining these two values. He’s luring the devil into our gun-sights so that we can overcome him, and also so that we can take back what he’s taken from us. (Remember that the devil was broke when God threw him out of Heaven; anything he’s gained since then has been by deceit, trickery or outright theft.)
It’s pretty important, and in my own world, it’s increasingly difficult (probably some more of my training, as in Hebrews 12:7-11) to discern exactly what the battle is that we’re fighting. Yeah, stuff is going wrong. Yeah, my soul and my spirit are wrestling with an oppressing thing. Yeah, hope is difficult, or clear thought is a greater fight than usual. But WHAT IS THE REAL BATTLE?
As we discern the nature of the enemy who has been lured against us, we’ll see more clearly how to kick his buttocks up between his ears, but more importantly, we’ll also get a glimpse of the plunder, the wealth, that Father has planned for our inheritance.

— 

If seeing is believing, then what are you looking at?
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Devotionals, Letters

Walmart: To Shop, or Not to Shop

A few years back, a familiar and none-too-pretty tale was played out yet again in the Northwest. (It is by no means exclusive to the Northwest, except that I am more in touch with what happens in the Northwest than other areas.) I’m going to use Walmart as an example, but the issue is not about Walmart. It’s about us.
It started with an announcement that Walmart was considering building a store in a modest-size town. The next phase was outrage from a great portion of the community, various lawsuits filed, for which Walmart had amply prepared and easily won, and sales of bumper stickers proclaiming, “I don’t shop at Walmart!”
Behind the scenes, Walmart built their store, stocked their store, hired employees and quietly opened for business. The Walmart haters still hated. People bought stuff. Employees earned paychecks. Life went on.
It strikes me that there are legitimate reasons for communities to not love Walmart’s influence in their community. Walmart does business differently, and that has social and economic effect on the community.
There are also legitimate reasons for Walmart to do business the way it does, and those business decisions have made Walmart incredibly successful.
And there are people who legitimately need the infamously low-paying jobs that Walmart offers, if only because they can get work nowhere else.
Father whispered to me about the protests recently:
o          If I refuse to shop at Walmart, then I have judged Walmart in my heart and in my actions. That’s not actually good Christian behavior, partly because it opens me up to judgment, and I’d rather that didn’t happen.
o          If a community joins in loud and apparently united outrage against Walmart, then we make its employees (and applicants) outcasts from the community. We create a caste of “untouchables” in our community. I don’t think we really want that to happen, either.
o          If we declare that “Walmart is evil!” (as I’ve heard many times), then we’re also making declaration that they become evil, and we’re releasing the power of evil into those people who are part of Walmart; we’re giving evil a measure of freedom to work in our community. I surely don’t want that to happen!
o          If there’s truth in the declaration, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,” then the prayers of my heart regarding Walmart will be more effective if I spend a bit of my treasure there. I bought some supplies there this weekend; I consider that an investment in my prayers for this economic powerhouse in my community.
In fact, I’ll confess: I’ve been praying for and prophesying to my local Walmart since the very first announcement that they were going to build. I’ve walked through the building’s foundations, declaring that this store, at least, would be founded on righteousness and truth. They had to cap a well to pour that foundation, so I declare  springs of living water in them, particularly that they would be a spring of life to their employees.
I don’t spend much of my treasure there. I believe strongly in doing business with companies that are locally owned, and Walmart doesn’t qualify for that one. Besides, I don’t love the quality of a lot of the products they sell. (There’s a difference between “inexpensive” and “cheap.” I tend to prefer the former.)
Now, I am absolutely NOT trying to tell others whether they should shop at Walmart or how to spend their money. I’m describing some results of our choices.
I was actually shopping at Walmart when Father began to speak to me about this. It was funny, but I felt his blessing flowing through me to the store, it’s employees and its very interesting customers.
But as he spoke to me about Walmart, he included other issues in the conversation. The movie Noah was one. There are many others.  We’re giving away influence in the marketplace when we protest market leaders for acting like market leaders.
We believers have the freedom to spend our money where we wish. But there are real effects to the words of our protests, and there is an authority in our prayers that follows the spending of our treasure.

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Devotionals, Letters

When God Moves From Singular to Plural

I’ve been meditating on the nouns of Genesis One. All of them are about God, of course, and for most of the creation process, all of them are singular: God said this. God did that. God said that it was good. Rinse and repeat.

Everything He makes has a counterpart. Day has night. Sun has the moon. Ocean has land. Every creature is part of its own species, according to its kind.

And then it changed. On the afternoon of the sixth day, suddenly God changes how He’s doing his creating, and when God changes something, I want to pay attention. I want to learn.

Suddenly, God moves from singular to plural, and He changes so completely that He did the plural thing twice in the same day!

The first plural is about him: “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness….’” Now, for the first time, God does something as an “Us!”

Up until this point, it’s just been “creation as usual.” Make a planet. Check. Make some oceans. Check. Make some plants and animals. Check, check.

But suddenly, it’s like God steps up, He gathers His Trinity about him, and now He is fully present: “Let Us do this. Let Us make something to be the counterpart of Us!” This will be His masterpiece.

And God, in His fullness, created his masterpiece, and that masterpiece is another Plural Thing, and it was us! You and me! The first words with which God describes humanity are plural! “These are the one ones made in Our image. Let them have dominion ….”

God did all the rest of creation as a “He,” but when it came time to make humanity, He says, “Let Us do this.” And the product of that creativity is not a thing, and it’s not a species, it’s a race of individuals. It’s a community of humanity to whom He gives authority.

He made us so uniquely that the angels watched us curiously. What a thing He has done. A race, a community. Made in His image. Carrying His authority. Us.

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Devotionals, Letters

Staying Current with Spiritual Technologies

Here you see the nearly 18,000 vacuum tubes and 6,000 switches of the ENIAC, the first electronic computer.
This was once considered the pinnacle of technological perfection! The first machine that could calculate. How very impressive. It was the best thing EVER!
This device was very expensive, took up an entire room, generated an immense amount of heat, and, based on vacuum tubes, it was nonfunctional about half the time.
While it was the fastest calculating device available on the planet at the time it was made, it is so no longer. The handheld calculator my daughter used in junior high school (it cost $7.99) is faster – much faster – than this behemoth ever dreamed of being.
In like fashion, the computing power in a $19.95 wristwatch is greater than the computers that supported the first moonwalk. That, too, was the fastest computer of its day, but its day has long since passed.
The engineers who were (rightfully) so proud of those machines are no more than curators of museum pieces now.
In some ways, there is a tendency for the church to function like this. Father gives us a new gift (or brings back an old one that was in every day use in the Book of Acts), and we’re all excited: “This is the best thing EVER!” we declare, and we blog about it, and hold conferences on it, and a few very brave souls take it to the streets.
But the Spirit is not through moving. Just like there are newer and better computers available every few months, there are newer and better insights, strategies, gifts from Holy Spirit real regularly as well.
If we intend to stay current with the computer world, we would need an upgrade every few months. That’s overwhelming: it overwhelms my mind and my budget! In reality, I don’t need to upgrade our personal computer every time a newer and better one is available. I just need to make sure that the one I’m using is current, that it can run the current software that I need, and I need to stay in touch with where the world of computer development is going, so I know when it is time to upgrade.
If we intend to stay current with what Holy Spirit is doing in the world today, we’d need to fully embrace every new thing he does every week or month or so. That would be overwhelming! It would overwhelm any individual’s capacity for change. I don’t need to be personally involved with every jot and tittle of what Holy Spirit is releasing in the world today; I just need to make sure that I’ve invested myself in what he’s doing, that the move that I’m involved in is the right move to accomplish the task that He’s given me. And I need to stay in touch with the bigger picture of what He’s doing, so I know when it’s time for me to upgrade.
For example, there are a bunch of things that I’m aware that Holy Spirit is doing on the earth today (and I’m confident I’ve not seen it all!). The development of the prophetic gifts has been going on for a few decades, and is now approaching a measure of maturity. The development of apostolic gifts is newer, arguably more complex, and necessarily less mature. The healing movement is in full flower right now, ready to bear good fruit! Father is pouring out immense new understanding of his grace: but the grace movement is still relatively young and unsure of itself. There are signs that God is beginning to release gifts such as are found in Acts 8:39 and 2 Corinthians 12:2; won’t that be exciting!

But the real question is, will we upgrade our gifts, the gifts from Holy Spirit that we exercise, that we have proficiency with? Will we upgrade in order to stay current with where Holy Spirit is moving in the earth today?

Or will we be content with our current gifts, our current grace, our current expertise, becoming stagnant and nearly irrelevant to what God is doing today, sitting in the padded seat of honor on the platform, criticizing the new gifts, the new spiritual technologies? “Who needs those newfangled things? An ‘eye-pad’? What in tarnation is an iPad? If vacuum tube computers are good enough for me, they’re good enough for you! iPads and Androids are HERESY, I tell you!”
It’s a scary thing: moving from being expert in a gift that is not as needful today, since nearly every believer is walking in that gift, moving into the place where I’m as much a beginner as anybody else! The guy on the platform really often resists moving from “the anointed man of power, with the word of God for the hour” to a mistake-prone rookie, the same as any other mistake-prone rookie, nothing special anymore.
I invite us to press in to the newer gifts, not leaving the old behind, into the newer moves of what God is doing on the Earth! I invite us to guard against becoming complacent with the gifts that we’ve become expert in, and become a mistake-prone rookie as we learn new ones! I invite us to guard against criticizing our brothers and sisters who are becoming expert in gifts that are different than the ones that we’re becoming expert in.
And I invite us to pray for those around us who have been the big names, the leaders, the people on the platform with status: they need our prayers and our friendship in this season more, perhaps, than others do.

But regardless of who goes with us, or who stands behind criticizing, let us press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called us heavenward in Christ Jesus. Let us upgrade, always upgrade, our giftings as he offers them!

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Devotionals, Letters

Focus on What we’re For.

Instead of focusing on what we’re AGAINST, maybe we focus on what we are FOR? Instead of focusing on warning people against “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” I propose that we focus our attention and our affection on the Shepherd.
First, it’s easier to keep track of: there’s only ONE God to be FOR. There are too many more wolves out there, and they keep swapping their sheepskins, so you have to kind of study their evil to know what evil they’re representing this week. Ick.
Second, we become like that which we focus on. I’d much rather be like Jesus than like the guys that people are warning us about, the wolves in sheep’s clothing. If I focus on the wolves, I become wolflike. Ick again. No, we aren’t ignorant of them, but we don’t squander our attention or our conversation on them.
Third, if I train people to pay attention to my warnings, or the warnings of others like me, then I am drawing their attention and their devotion away from where it ought to be. Believers in Christ ought to be following Christ, not other believers, and I don’t want to be the one who has to answer Him for why His Bride is turning away from Him and following me. Yikes.
Fourth, if I feel the need to constantly be warning the sheep about wolves, then I have seriously underestimated the sheep. We think of the Bride in white lace, but this one has a ka-bar straped to each boot, and instead of flowers, she’s carrying an automatic weapon in her hands. This sheep is not without formidable resources.
Fifth, we’re commanded to focus on the good stuff. Philippians 4:8 is pretty clear. Hebrews 12:1&2 tells us where to fix our attention. This is a WAY better (and WAY more useful) focus of our attention than the wolflike bad guys.
Sixth, we are NOT the only ones out there working to protect innocents from wolflike bad guys. If we act like that’s our job, then we are completely disrespecting the Holy Spirit and the angels of God. It is not our job to do His job.
Seventh and finally, the power of God in us is orders of magnitude greater than the power of evil. Jesus kept messing with that one. In the old covenant, a good guy touching a bad guy polluted the good guy, and this is what many of today’s warnings are about. But in the Kingdom, a good guy touching a bad guy brings healing to the bad guy: lepers, demoniac, even corpses!

Honestly, any ONE of these is enough reason to put our attention on bigger and better things. All of them together are overwhelming.


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Devotionals, Letters

The chariots and Horsemen of Israel!

My attention today was drawn to the fact that a whole lot of Kingdom-minded believers are being pummeled by many challenges and problems.
A lot of us are facing formidable challenges. Many of us are facing a conspiracy of thousands of little issues that, taken together, threaten to be overwhelming. Some among us are facing victory that is so different than we expected, that is more complicated than we were expecting that it works as a weapon against our peace, breaking our focus. Some of us are feeling overwhelmed, but when we’re asked, we have a hard time identifying what is overwhelming us.
And as I saw that, I realized that it was on purpose: this is for a purpose. This is strategic. There is purpose for this. It’s not Father’s purpose, but the conspiracy of distractions is the enemy working overtime to distract us.
Father brought my attention to Second Kings:
2 Kings chapter 2:
“When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me, what can I do for you before I am taken from you?”
“Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit,” Elisha replied.
“You have asked a difficult thing,” Elijah said, “yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours—otherwise, it will not.”
As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind.  Elisha saw this and cried out, “My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!” And Elisha saw him no more. Then he took hold of his garment and tore it in two.
Elisha then picked up Elijah’s cloak that had fallen from him and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan.  He took the cloak that had fallen from Elijah and struck the water with it. “Where now is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” he asked. When he struck the water, it divided to the right and to the left, and he crossed over.”
  
As I saw this, I heard Father say, “I’m watching to see if you can be distracted, or if you’ll keep your eyes on the prize in the midst of all of the distractions.” We can’t be overcomers without overcoming, and Father really wants us to learn to overcome.

If we can be distracted, even by amazing things like “a chariot of fire and horses of fire,” then we aren’t ready for the double portion anointing. We will still have the testimony of having seen, possibly even ridden in a chariot of fire, and that’s not nothing! But we’ll miss the bigger prize that comes from keeping our focus where it ought to be.
Some of us have not even recognized, not remembered our heart crying out, “Let me inherit a double portion!” and some of us may never have gotten to the point of using words. But that cry really is in your heart.
May I say this to you: Father heard that cry, and it made his heart skip a beat to hear it! This is HIS heart’s desire, children that want more of him, more of his anointing, more of his ways! So it is with giddy joy that He is permitting the distractions: we really have asked a difficult thing, a thing that is only given to overcomers, and so he is giving us opportunity to overcome.
All that is hard to see, but the other part is more hidden. Father stands back and watches, biting his lip, to see if we’ll maintain our focus, to see if we’ll look past the distractions and the discouragements and see the thing he’s doing. But all the while, his other hand is reaching around behind us, touching us, pointing, drawing our attention, even occasionally grabbing our head and pointing it where we need to be looking. He’s doing everything in his formidable power to keep our attention where it needs to be in order that he can have the joy of giving us the double, the triple portion, beyond everything that our heroes and forerunners have had.

He really wants to have a bride that is not completely distracted by the trials, by the conspiracy of distractions, by the complications and nattering voices. He will have a bride that will overcome, and he wants you.

He’s conspiring, conspiring in favor of the cry of your heart.

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Devotionals, Letters

Dead Raising of Another Sort

One of the quietest places for a prayer walk is, at least in my town, the local cemetery. The neighbors don’t seem to be annoyed by my talking out loud in their yard.
I’d been walking in cemeteries all that spring and summer, just wandering around their back sections, talking with my Father. I usually chose the sections where all the gravestones are flat with the grass, simply because I didn’t need to go around them, so I was walking over peoples’ names. Occasionally one would catch my attention and I’d look closer.
Finally, the obvious occurred to me: ask God why this is catching your attention! Oh! There’s a radical thought. So I asked. “Father, why is Jacob Thompson’s grave marker catching my attention so much? What’s up with Jacob?”
In reply, I felt Father’s grief; Father was broken-hearted about this man, who had lain buried here for forty years, and he was sharing his broken heart with me. I felt honored, but I had to admit that I was also confused.
My first thought was that the man died in his sins, and was headed to hell, but it was not that. Father told me some things about his life: he was a Christian, and he loved God. In fact he was a prophet. But the church that he was connected with neither respected nor received prophetic gifts, and so his gift was never used, never really even activated.
Jacob Thompson had carried his gift to his grave, still wrapped, still unopened. This grieved Father.
I have to admit, I felt a little relief. If he was in hell, I knew that was really bad, and I didn’t have a clue how to deal with that. This didn’t feel quite as bad as that.
But I knew enough to realize that if Father were telling me about it, then there was something he thought I could do about it. So I asked. And he gave me a Bible lesson that was unlike any Bible lesson I ever heard in church.
I’ve taught often enough about Spiritual Gifts, and he reminded me of one of the things I teach in those lessons: spiritual gifts are exercised through an individual, but they aren’t for the good of the individual. They’re for the church.
In 1 Corinthians 12:7, Paul teaches us that “But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all.” Peter supports the idea in 1 Peter 4:10: “As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” The gifts God has given us are only for us to steward, and the goal is the profit of the whole community.
Principle #1: The gifts belong the community, though they’re exercised often enough by individuals.
Principle #2: gift has a metron, a “sphere of influence.” This is part of my teaching on gifts. Some are local, some are regional, a few are national, and a very few are global. Reinhard Bonnke’s ministry is global. Mine is not. As I reflected on Jacob’s gift, it seemed that his prophetic gift was given to the church in his city.
So Jacob Thompson had taken a gift belonging to the church of his city to the grave. That felt something like stealing: taking somebody else’s gift, and essentially throwing it away unused. That’s not good.
Next, standing in front of Mr Thompson’s name in cast bronze, Father took me to Romans 11:29: In my NKJV it says, “For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” (The KJV uses that curious term, “without repentance!”)
I stood there, thinking about what “irrevocable” meant. If nothing else, it means that once the gift has been given, it stays given. That means once a gift has been given to the church of a city, that gift stays given. Jacob’s prophetic gift was not his possession, when he took it to the grave, it belonged to the church in his city.
Principle #3: Once given, a gift is never taken away.
Jacob was dead. He couldn’t use a prophetic gift any more. But the church in that city was notdead, and they most certainly coulduse a prophetic gift.
This kind of stuff scares me a little. I could tell we were heading outside of the box, and it’s so far outside of the box of “normal Christianity” as I’d always experienced it, that it felt strange, wrong, cult-like. But it had three things going for it: God was speaking it, the Word supported it, and it was relatively solid logically, given the things the Word had to say about it.
I stood there and discussed it with Father some more, letting him walk me through this radical conversation a second time, and a third. I may be delusional, but at least it was consistent.
So what can I do about that? I was aware that Job 22:28 said, “You will also declare a thing, And it will be established for you,” but I also knew that this was the teaching of Eliphaz the Temanite, who had already demonstrated he had a lousy understanding of God. Fortunately, this time, he’s backed up by Jesus himself: “And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.” [Matthew 21:22].
Conclusion: That which has been taken away can be returned.
So I prayed, and declared a thing: that Jacob’s gift would be returned to the church in his city, and that they’d use the gift, and find profit in it. That was all.
I had a vague sense of something flashing out of the ground, and flying off to somewhere else. More significantly, I felt like I was done with Jacob Thompson. Whatever was holding me there about him wasn’t holding me any more.
I spent a good bit of time debriefing about this interesting incident with Father, and later, with some apostles and prophets I respect. And they didn’t freak out. They reminded me that JohnG Lake’s grave site in Spokanehas been a popular tourist destination, and a lot of people have lain on it, asking for the gift that he carried be imparted to themselves. And a lot of times, it seems that it has happened.
Since then, I’ve had a number of other walks in cemeteries, but they’re more distracting now. One time, I prayed to restore a whole flock of gifts to the Chinese church in the region. Another time, gifts were restored to the local longshoremen. 

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Devotionals, Letters

Healing & Daniel’s Delay

I was healed recently, for an issue I’d pretty much stopped asking for healing about.
It confused me, so I took it to prayer: Why was I healed now? I had prayed about this a lot back when, but now I’d kind of resigned myself to living with the problem. Why now, when I wasn’t even paying attention?
I have discovered three new pieces of this puzzle so far:  
First, the prayers that I prayed – that many of my friends prayed – over and over some years back are still valid. There is no expiration date, it appears, on prayer. Just because I’d stopped praying doesn’t mean the prayers stopped changing things.
Second, God reminded me of the story of Daniel 10. An angel showed up with Daniel’s answer to prayer, several weeks after he began to pray.
He continued, “Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia.” – Daniel 10:12-13
Then Father asked, “If Daniel’s prayer had been delayed, do you think your healing may have suffered the same problem?” Hmm.
I suspect that the same thing happens with healing some times. I suspect that more often, perhaps, than we realize, when we begin to pray for a healing, an angel is dispatched with the requested healing, but he gets held up.
In fact, this is consistent with my experience in this example. I had been prayed for a number of times for healing, and by some people who knew what they were doing in the realm of healing. Several of them had sensed that I was healed, though I experienced no change. If what they were sensing was God’s release of the answer, then my experience could be explained by an angel getting stuck in traffic with my healing in the back seat.
And the third piece of the puzzle of the delayed answer to prayer comes from Revelation 5:8b “Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people.” The pattern, in the book of Revelation, is that when bowls were mentioned, they were slowly filled up, and then poured in a manifestation of what they held.
So the thought is that sometimes, when we’re praying for a person or a cause, we’re helping to fill the bowls. And since we don’t know the capacity of the bowls, we don’t know how much it will take to fill them up. The parable of the unjust judge in Luke 18 supports the same conclusion, “that [we] should always pray and not give up.”
These three puzzle pieces lead me to conclude that the best direction for continued prayer on that person’s behalf may or may not be to continue praying for healing; it may be more effective to pray into the spiritual battle that the angelic delivery service may be experiencing.
Of course, this won’t work as an assumption: every time the answer to a prayer is delayed, to go deal with the heavenly battle, or every time an answer is delayed to assume that we’re just filling a bowl, and so we must keep praying to keep filling the bowl. Obviously, how we respond will depend heavily on good discernment and competent prophetic insight.
On a related note, I have been observing that God has been opening up more revelation recently on two subjects that could play into this subject quite helpfully:
·         He’s been talking about angels, and our partnering with them, which may apply if he leads us to forcefully intervene in the heavenly battle that our delivery angel may be caught up in.
·         And he’s been revealing quite a lot of information about the courts of heaven, by which we may address the same problem from a legal perspective: we may need to get an injunction against the demons holding my angelic messenger for ransom.
For years, I’ve been feeling the need to listen before I pray: “Father, what’s Jesus praying about this right now? I want to pray that!” I’m thinking that this is more needful than ever before.

Is this the time to pray for healing? Shall I go to war? Go to court? Or shall I just give thanks for the prayers that we’ve already prayed that are taking their time ripening? Or shall I keep on praying, in order to fill the bowl?

Our bottom line, I think, can be found in Jesus’ declaration: “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.”

I think that might be good practice for all of Father’s sons.

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Prophecy

2014: Look Again. This is the Year of Psalm 67

Editor’s note: This is not a Pacific Northwest word, but it is a word for the Church, including the Pacific Northwest.
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By Bob Hartley
Going From a Retreating, Misery Christianity to a Hope-Filled, Reforming Christianity
I experienced a series of visitations in the past few weeks that revealed God’s jealous and hope-filled heart of love for His people and plan according to this passage:
“The LORD goes out like a mighty man, like a man of war He stirs up His zeal; He cries out, He shouts aloud, He shows Himself mighty against His foes” (Isaiah 42:13).
God has extensively spoken in past revelations that have laid the foundations for this understanding of God’s zeal to displace what has hurt His children. He has called it “misery Christianity” versus “a hope-filled Christianity.” By this second reformation He will activate and empower 50 million “Hope Reformers” to usher whole cities and nations into great blessings and manifestations of the Kingdom of God in every arena of life.
This is our first report of what the Lord said regarding a 2014 “word in season” with some context and comments added to aid the understanding.
The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary… Isaiah 50:4
Not the Spirit of Terror Year But the Psalm 67 Year
On a number of occasions, I have been taken in the Spirit into a “reformation room.” Situated within is a table of communion where the Lord reveals His manifold faces and nourishes us with the bread of His presence.
In this encounter I was seated at the corner of the table on the Lord’s right side. He strongly corrected us concerning speaking from areas where we were weary, wounded, disappointed, or Hear the clock ticking hopeless. The Lord said, “Stop it! Wait and listen again until you get the hope, the love, and see My solution.” He was in pain over this and desired to help us.
He said that 2014 is the year for Psalm 67:
“May God be gracious to us and bless us and make His face to shine upon us, that Your way may be known on earth, Your saving power among all nations. Let the peoples praise You, O God; let all the peoples praise you! Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for You judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth. Let the peoples praise You, O God; let all the peoples praise You! The earth has yielded its increase; God, our God, shall bless us. God shall bless us; let all the ends of the earth fear Him!”
The Lord said that He will progressively reveal facets of His nature to us that will help us progress in His purposes this year and beyond.
• He said, “There is an epic battle presently raging over Who I am.”
As we continue to look up to Him (see Psalm 121), greater building wisdom and favor will allow us to discern His hopeful ways more clearly than ever before. The Lord linked this experience to the account of Moses praying to see His glory and to know His ways and presence in an ongoing fashion in Exodus 33.
“Now therefore, if I have found favor in Your sight, please show me now Your ways, that I may know You in order to find favor in Your sight…” Moses said, “Please show me Your glory.” And He said, “I will make all My goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you My name ‘The LORD.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy [compassion] on whom I will show mercy [compassion].” Exodus 33:13, 18-19
They will bow their knees God spoke from Psalm 67 that He is going to open up His face and His ways so that He will be seen and known, not only among His people, but also among whole cities, and even nations, that will open their gates to Him. I saw specific nations invite Him, with His gifts and building plan, into their cities. These cities will become radiant with joy and pulsate with the presence of God. They will receive and enjoy many breakthroughs in every area of life. Jesus has also shown me how thrilled He truly is that these people and places are welcoming Him to bless and lead them.
• The Lord spoke, “Psalm 67 is the fifth scene.”
With this, the Spirit took me back, as He has many times, to one of my initial heavenly encounters in January of 1982 in Fort Collins, Colorado, when I was just newly converted. It was so dramatic! After being “taken up,” I saw four visions of earthly situations that were only filled with sorrow, tragedy, despair, and death. I was disrupted and deeply burdened by what God showed me. But, then I saw “The Fifth Scene”!
The first four scenes were real, but the fifth scene was the even greater reality. I saw the Lord high and lifted up like Isaiah did – even though I had never read the passage at that time. The Lord Almighty was higher than the sky and the brilliance of His indescribable presence filled my whole view. He was filled with joy, celebrating and, yes, belly laughing.
I was so perplexed by the contrast of the fifth scene to the first four I had witnessed. I asked Him, “Lord, what about all the terrible evils and human suffering you just showed me?” Then I saw a small dark dot enter the lower left corner of the vision. It floated up a ways and then suddenly disappeared. The Lord authoritatively announced, “That dot represents all the evil of all beings and of all history combined. It’s temporary and fleeting compared to Who I Am. So what are you going to magnify?”
The Lord is going to been seen as “The God of the Fifth Scene” or the “Psalm 67 God.”
• At the communion table He declared, “I Am God All Powerful”:
“Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and lovingkindness…” (Nehemiah 9:32).
• He said, “I am the celebrating, covenant-keeping, sovereign God, and I will bring forth radiant cities and nations of the earth.” (See our most recent Elijah List article.)
He is first offering to us “the Gift of Himself.” This hope reformation is all about a healed and expanded view of God, and what then happens is we feed and feed others on this deeper knowledge of God. This revelation caused me to weep for joy. Though we do truly know the Lord, and yet surely there are many, many things about Him that we have yet to discover.
He told me that we presently know 1% of the 100% of the knowledge of God that He wants to reveal to us in this life, not to even mention what the future age will reveal about Him. It’s not that the divine attributes revealed in Scripture will be contradicted by what we learn, but it’s that we so easily misunderstand and misjudge His great heart and His manifold wisdom and thoughts regarding the people and situations in our world.
As a result, we often unwittingly misrepresent the Lord to the people and the watching world around us. However, Jesus wants to be more accurately “re-presented” in our day by His sons and daughters to a needy and spiritually hungry world. Psalm 67 speaks of causing His face to shine upon us. And He is promising to help us if we humbly acknowledge our need to learn and grow.
Wrapped up in this Gift is a revelation of “The God of the Fifth Scene,” and also a “pattern” for our worship, and a “building kit” for our service. He will unfold to us a practical, stage-by-stage plan for the extension of His Kingdom like He did for Moses, Solomon, and Nehemiah. Psalm 67 speaks of the revelation of His ways. God will reveal a blueprint about specifically how He is seeking to dwell among us here and now, and how this union with Him will lead to a truly apostolic reformation that will eventually lead to the restoration of all things referred to by Peter in Acts 3:19-21.
Psalm 67 speaks to the nations singing for joy and salvation coming to the earth. As we unpack this Gift, we will also experience how divine hope will “heal and expand” our view of God, and our own hearts, too. (We will say more about these things in our coming reports, because Jesus has spoken important and hopeful details about them to us.)
• The Lord said, “I will progressively reveal 12 of My faces that will cause you to advance in My Hope Reformation. This is a year for the Issacharian Reformers to arise.”
“…Of Issachar, men who had understanding of the times, to know what Israelought to do…” 1 Chronicles 12:32
• He also declared, “They will reflect Zechariah 10:3”:
“My anger is hot against the shepherds, and I will punish the leaders; for the LORD of hosts cares for His flock, the house of Judah, and will make them like His majestic steed in battle.
We will be transformed from “sheep” into “war horses.” The Lord instructed all of us to continue to sit at the table, and to keep watching and listening, so that we could see through the dark clouds. He said, “Wait, wait, wait for My Father’s hopeful view,” because He had more things yet to reveal to us…
A New Lens For a Hopeful Prophetic
At the very beginning of this visitation, the Lord held my face in His hands for two hours and repeatedly affirmed that He was delighted in me. I saw Him also holding the faces of others at the table. He kept saying, “I am delighted in all of you.” He kept imparting the essence of Zephaniah 3:17 to my heart…and to theirs…again and again:
“The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty One who will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you by His love; He will exult over you with loud singing.”
It was so good that He did that because I didn’t know at the time how much I would need that deep and warm fatherly affirmation and delight to handle the rebuke over hopeless prophecy and speaking throughout my life.
As this divine encounter took on a more serious tone, He took a fiery coal and put it to my lips to purify my speech. He said this was needed so that I could blow the trumpet He has put to my mouth to faithfully declare His nature.
He then took me, and many others, on a journey through a number of scenarios in our histories where we spoke out of a wrong frame of spirit, heart, or mind. He showed me the damage and discouragement I had caused…even in relation to people I love the most. It was so painful and humbling to rehearse.
• The Lord said, “The words I have given you to speak are a ‘holy sacrament.’ Speaking ‘hopeless words of negation’ only serve to ‘resurrect’ the enemy that I have already ‘obliterated’ for you.”
He took me back to a very dramatic experience I had years ago when He powerfully defeated a terribly intimidating demonic spirit of negation and hopelessness that had tormented me. I witnessed the heat of this battle with my eyes wide open! When had He vanquished this demon by His mighty power, He asked me in an audible voice, “Whom do you fear now?”
Now, in this recent visit, He proclaimed again with strength, “I am your Victorious Warrior.” He said, “You have a choice to ‘resurrect’ this old enemy, but it is not My plan.” Then He showed me times when I had chosen to do this. Ugh!
• The Lord declared, “I intend to bring you into the goodness and blessing of Romans 5:17 so that you may reign in this life:
“‘For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.’“
God spoke He wants to raise us up as true Hope Reformers who partner with Him to “reign in life”…to prevail over the darkness and misery of this world and bring the hope of the true Gospel to the cities and nations of the earth that He so deeply loves. The Holy Spirit said, “God has ‘lifted you up’ out of the ‘miry clay’ of Psalm 40 so that you can ‘mount up on wings of eagles’ to declare Isaiah 40:31 – ‘the glory of the Lord’ that ‘shall be revealed’ and how ‘all flesh will see it together.’“
• The Lord was shouting, “Soar with Me. I want to take you to a place in Me where the enemy’s voice ceases.” I was aware that this era could become like the time of Solomon in which all of his adversaries were subdued on every side. Then He said, “Destruction is not My answer. I have a redemptive plan.”
The Honorable Prophetic
To help me understand an even fuller context for and properly steward the prophetic, the Spirit took me in a vision to the tent of Noah to observe the correct behavior of Shem.
Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father’s nakedness. Genesis 9:20-23
Shem covered his father’s nakedness, and the Lord promised us, “I will cover your shame and nakedness with My mercy,” and He instructed me to make sure that I do the same for my prophetic comrades and the Body at large. He made me aware of the “seeds of superiority” that the enemy would try to sow within us. We were being called to be vigilant to speak from His heart and not allow this to happen. I would have to first embrace the Lord’s correction to me in order to be able to declare to others what He wants me to offer others as a spiritual father.
He instructed me to honor those who are speaking for the Lord for being fathers and mothers in the faith. They have accomplished many good and great things in and for His Kingdom through the years. However, the Lord is saying, “Stop it with the negative words that have not been filtered through a lens of a heart that has been healed by the power of hope.”
The Rebuke
Jesus is issuing a word of correction to many of His beloved leaders in the land. This also extends out to segments of the people of God in general, for as the prophets and leaders go, so go the people. It is a word for all, from the greatest to the least. I saw some dark and heavy clouds of trouble, despair and depression roll across the hearts and minds of God’s people and leaders in all the arenas of life…even more intensely over the last quarter of 2013. I had personally encountered this satanic opposition during these past few weeks, but Jesus kept insisting to keep watching for the breakthrough in the clouds.
Then He warned us all with a very firm, but still loving, tone:
• “Do not speak until I lift you up out of the miry clay, and put a new song in your mouths.” He also declared with intensity, “I do not use the enemy to spank My children!” He said, “I intend to turn the enemy’s assaults and attacks into opportunities for you to partner with Me to transform them into portals of hope.”
He spoke this passage:
“…I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt” (Hosea 2:15).
The Lord decreed,
• “You must continue to watch until you can see and speak from the silver lining, the hopeful place with My hopeful solutions, versus speaking from the dark clouds that release the dark humidity of doubt and despair. Indeed, I have already positioned and am empowering both My angel armies and My Hope Reformers to discern and apply these divine answers.”
• “I will raise you up above the clouds to see My heavenly perspective of these negative situations and challenges and turn them into opportunities to advance in amazing ways and bring reformation to cities and nations. Mercy triumphs over judgment.”
• “Can you hear Me? I am giving you My blessing without reproach. Can you hear Me? Nehemiah did! I have a blueprint…a building kit…to birth the Kingdom Church…an apostolic reformation and the restoration of all things. Can you hear Me?”
The Lord said to stop being like Sanballat…a professional accuser…who twisted the truth by magnifying the challenge instead of magnifying the Lord. Like in the time of Nehemiah, the Lord is commanding us to be happy and rejoice with His plans to build and rebuild.
Questions And Answers: Then the Lord spoke to me about 2014 in response to my questions:
• “Civil war?” “No! Not to worry, hope peacemakers are rising up. Be praying for peace on all sides. Go forth and have fun. It is time to build.”
• “U.S. currency failure?” “No! Not to worry. I have some good plans. Therefore go and build.”
• “Protect ourselves to survive tribulations?” “No! I have you protected and covered like the cities in Goshen. Freedom is granted to live more generously than ever and bring reformation. Go, build and have fun!”
• “Need to hoard food?” “No! However, there will be a few various places where there will be need for food assistance, so be wise. Go and build, have fun, so that you can feed people. See your food multiply, and there will be supernatural and providential miracles in these days. I have My Hope Reformers ready to step in to help alleviate the hunger.”
The Lord continued on:
• The Lord said to all of us in a very kind but very firm tone, “Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it! Stop spreading this misery, this evil humidity that you have been spewing out that settles upon the mountains. If you cannot speak out of life, do not speak out of death. Look again from a better view, from My perspective. You are to get above the clouds. To fear Me is to see what I see.”
• “It is harming, confusing and wounding My people…it puts My cities and nations under a dark cloud. It is speaking out of your own wounds…or your warfare, or your weariness, or your sense of rejection, or your isolation, or your disappointments, or your despair. I am bringing a healing model and restoring My joy to all those who have suffered pain in this life, and it is beautiful.
• “Let Me tell you how to fight with hope and love.” (At this point He laughed and lightened the mood.) “Ask Me this, ‘What would it be like if My servants simply focused on hope and love until the very end? What kinds of amazing solutions would I bring into this world?’“
• The Lord said, “Let’s fight against this enemy together! I do not want both sweet and bitter waters to proceed from the same source. I do want to go with you! But follow Me with joy, love, hope, and adventure in your hearts. Band together and reveal to all ‘The God of the Fifth Scene’ and call them into the Hope Reformation…the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.” (See James 3:11; Daniel 11:32.)
The Hope Reformation Plan
• God said, “This is a Psalm 67 year.”
God is giving us a divine blueprint and a building plan. He is engineering a “new exodus” for God’s people to come out of “misery Christianity” into a hope-filled reformation. The Lord said,
• “I will release My people to leave the bondage and drudgery of religious agendas and traditions and the merely human expectations that require them all to just make brick after brick. I will commission them to go forth into all of life to worship Me in the beauty and wonder of the diversity I have created. They are to give back all their amazing gifts, talents, and daily works in the neighborhoods, streets, schools, and marketplaces as an acceptable offering to Me and I will then use them to glorify Me in all the earth.”
• The Lord said that we will see ourselves, our journey, and comprehend our story within the ancient story of Moses and the children of Israel.
I saw the Lord open up a hope-filled reformation blueprint where He magnifies Himself in supernatural and providential miracles this coming year. He will continue to trump evil with good and cause hope to be the anchor of our souls as we major on adoring Him well.
Bob Hartley (scribed by Michael Sullivant)
Deeper Waters Ministry
Email: deeperwatersofhope@gmail.com
Website: bobhartley.org

via The Elijah List

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