Prophets are perhaps the most misunderstood people walking the earth today. At the root they are a balance to an equation of church government while at the same time living a bold contrasted life to put the Kingdom of God on display in vivid ways that many find unsettling or offensive. Somewhere under all of that is a real person living with a very deep and powerful revelation that it is not they that are alive but it is the Christ nature in them... and through that nature flows every last person, conversation, situation and even every detailed feeling. Sometimes I hear people say "I want to be a Prophet". To that I can confidently say "Be careful what you wish for". There is a false image of what it means to be a Prophet that is nothing more than popular opinion in many circles. I'm writing this blog to help pull back the curtain a little bit and help the average Christian understand this mysterious office and calling a bit better. What is a Prophet? There are three types of Prophets. There are Old Covenant Prophets, New Covenant Prophets and False Prophets. Old Covenant Prophets no longer exist and John the Baptist was the last one of these (Matthew 11:11). Ironically, even though these Old Covenant Prophets are no longer, they are still what most people confuse a modern Prophet to be. Old Covenant Prophets are people like Isaiah, Jeremiah and Jonah. Those original Prophets had some pretty strict rules that governed their accuracy as well. In Deuteronomy 13 and other places the Lord instructs death to those who claim something from God that really isn't. This is where people get confused believing that the Old Covenant is still in effect today when of course it is not. Just as Jesus blood is the blood of the NEW Covenant, (Luke 22:20) the office or calling of the New Covenant Prophet did not exist until Jesus gave it into the earth in Eph 4. It is there we read that the ASCENDED Messiah (key word is ascended) gave these five gifts to mankind. One of those five is the New Covenant office or calling of the Prophet. (Eph 4:11) The rules or instructions about the New Covenant Prophetic are laced throughout the New Testament and are best summarized in a Facebook post from Dr. Lynn Hiles: “Old Covenant Prophets will torment you while New Covenant prophets will Mentor you. Old Covenant prophets call your sin to remembrance while New Covenant Prophets call Your righteousness to remembrance. Old Covenant Prophets declare the problem while New Covenant Prophets Declare the answer." An important distinction. There is a difference between a Christian prophesying which Paul says every believer should aspire to and a man or a woman being created from the womb to be a Prophet which is in the grand scheme of things somewhat rare. You could call these Prophets from the womb "Genetic Prophets" in that it is how their DNA is formed. The life is always in the blood and that is just as true with Prophets. This is why true Prophets usually have healing ministries and offer to pray for others regularly as prayer to a Prophet is simply a bridge to seeing Healing come into a person's life. Genetic Prophets are hard wired to see in very black and white terms. They are often confused or misdiagnosed as a "type A personality" or more recently the "type A behavior pattern", In reality, as the zeal of the Prophetic Revelation mixes with the Spirit of Wisdom, a Prophetic person will come into deep maturity of the calling or office and tend to possess unusual or supernatural Wisdom and Power in thought and deed. Often a "green" prophet or one who is immature will "blast" to borrow a brass orchestral term. Blasting is when you go overboard and play much too hard on a given note, often going flat or sharp as a result.The body of Christ which as a rule is hyper judgemental (especially in the prophetic arena) will often relegate a blaster as a "False Prophet" when in reality they are indeed a valid Prophet but their "blast" has offended or gotten under the skin of others. In a properly functioning church or setting, people are free to "blast" or even to fail entirely with mature prophetic voices on hand to bring gentle correction and this is what public meetings are supposed to look like to a certain extent, but that almost never happens in our churches today because we have replaced Apostles and Prophets with Pastors which is an entirely different conversation. False Prophets/Jezebel Spirit Almost no one has ever seen a real False Prophet or a real Jezebel Spirit. If I had to guess, I would put the number close to 97% or higher to those accused who simply offended someone else, then out of that other person's woundedness or insecurity, they bring that false accusation. In fact, in many Charismatic circles, if someone offends you, he is labeled as a false prophet and if a woman offends you, she is labeled with a Jezebel spirit. These labels are tossed out like candy to cover up offenses and bitterness most believers carry in their hearts... a condition that the very Prophets they falsely accuse are anointed to help mentor them out of. In a very real way, Christians pray prophetic people into their paths and then when they get offended by them, they shun them and go back to God and begin the process again. A Personal Note I can tell you from first hand experience that it is not an easy path to walk. In this season, the modern church at large doesn't even acknowledge our existence and many of those who do are so handicapped with a Pastor led church structure that they never get to enjoy the amazing power of changed lives that could come as a result of properly discerning the body and elevating the Prophetic into it's God designed role of full body leadership. You can usually spot the less mature Prophets as the Pastors who like to control things hold them up as mature when they are really not yet, but what they are is easy to control...which again is another topic for another blog. More soon, M-
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There is great wisdom in getting specific as the meme jestfully suggests. Although that is a bit humorous, it does lead into a topic many don't consider often enough, that being how to get very specific with God. If you have ever been in a romantic relationship then you know that while big events and larger gifts can be great, it is often the smallest details that can make a world of difference. Noticing a slight change in someone's appearance or complementing your significant other on something they said or did can be very powerful. So it is with the Holy Spirit. I have played keyboards most of my life so in 1986 (I was 16) a man of God came to minister in New Albany, Ohio. He talked with me after the meeting and mentioned that he had heard me playing and wanted to know.. and this was the quote he used.. "if God was to give you any keyboard you wanted, what would it be?" I got very religious very fast and said Well, He's God, whatever he would want me to have. "No Son", he said wagging his finger at me. "You must learn to be specific. Faith only works when it gets specific". Nearly 20 years later in 2005 I still didn't own a keyboard but was borrowing one from a local church. I had it plugged into a worship/chat room we ran at the time and hearing me play, a random stranger sent me a message complementing me on my gift. I thanked him. He then said to me verbatim what the man of God said to me nearly two decades earlier... "if God was to give you any keyboard you wanted, what would it be?" I figured I needed to take that more seriously this time so I instantly began to search and found what I wanted. It was close to $1000 and I sent him over a link to it so he could see it. He thanked me and said he would pray about buying it for me. If you didn't know, few things are more common than a Christian saying they will pray about it instead of just saying no to something so I didn't think anything more about it. About a week later I get a letter from Canada, opened it and it was an International Money Order for $1000 US Dollars. In the memo it had one word... "Keyboard". I was blown away to say the least. Even in the excitement of the moment, I wasn't prepared for what the Lord said next. He slayed my pride and changed my life forever ongoing with what he said next. He said to me in His familiar gentle voice, Mark, I have wanted to do that for you for almost 20 years now...but you would not get specific. I was broken and from that day forward I stopped saying things like "Whatever God wants me to have" or "God will do whatever he wants to do". It it's truly Faith, it's going to be specific. What are you believing God for today? Do you need a husband or a wife? If so, how old should they be? What color hair should they have? Do you need money? If so, how much? As in down to the penny, exactly how much do you need? Hebrews 11:1 says "Now, Faith Is... ". Think about those three words before you go any further into Hebrews 11. Now, Faith Is... Perhaps it is time for you to take your prayers to the next level. I would suggest that God is a GOOD God and if you are waiting on Him, you are likely deceived a bit as it is far more likely that He is waiting on you to get more specific. For many, that will require you to set some goals and boundaries. For others it will mean you need to take some time and consider what it is that you really want. Either way, it's time to narrow the focus and get specific. After all, Now, Faith Is... :) More Soon, M- What an amazing journey this life truly is. I turned 46 last week. Over the last year and really over the last few years for me have been extraordinarily reflective in nature. I have been considering what I have accomplished, what I haven't accomplished and what I still want to accomplish in the time I have left on the Earth. A good chunk of my life has been dedicated to my family and for that I have no regrets at all. Fathering three sons and being actively involved in each of their lives at every point is priceless to me. There is certainly a shortage of true Fathers in the earth today. Being a husband to Lori takes a chunk of time as well and again I have no regrets about that either. What a beautiful, incredible and unique woman she is and there is no one else I want by my side as the months and years continue to pass. I was raised in the church and a significant part of my life has been spent in and around churches and ministries. Some of those situations I do indeed regret as I look back on them but some were very wonderful to be sure. I will say that some of the deepest parts of wounding and sorrow introduced to me and to my family have come at the hands of leaders in the modern church. Naive people dismiss that as me not being healed but that is not the case. In fact, when you have been abused, one of the signs you are healing or have been healed is that you can freely talk about it with no shame. That is exactly where I am today with it all. I liken it to a bank being robbed. The bank isn't "playing the victim" or "in need of healing" when it hits the silent alarm. The robber is the perpetrator, not the bank. I am not playing the victim or in need of healing when I expose the wrongs that have been done to my family and I and those who claim such are exacerbating the problem. In churches, leaders have a greater responsibility (Hebrews 13 calls is a more strict judgement) to be extra careful with people. Any overseer should have a good reputation as being a strong family based person of sound and sober thoughts. Sadly, that does not describe everyone in those positions today. More on that in later blogs... The picture I used today says a lot. You will never be free until you free yourself from the prison of your own false thoughts. All of us have had so many things happen spanning so many years in our lives and each of those things have the individual potential to take us a little bit off course from being the real person God intended us to be. Sometimes traumatic events can really pull us off course and then you compound those events over time and you can begin to see where you can really end up a prisoner of your own false thoughts. I've seen it repeatedly where people build what I call "illusion bubbles" for themselves. They get to a place where they honestly believe something about themselves that just isn't factual and sometimes they form an emotional connection with that false person that they believe themselves to be so that any effort to correct them back into reality is met with some pretty harsh resistance. Sometimes that resistance will be that person completely blocking you out of their life. An example of that happened to me last year. A local church Senior Leader felt that he was above Holy Scripture and the biblical rules about gossip did not apply to him and his wife. He felt that his position as a leader made him magically exempt from Paul's warning to not receive or pass on gossip. The Lord used me to bring correction but he was so convinced by his own illusion bubble that he was right, he cut all fellowship with us going so far as to block me on Facebook. You know it's serious when you get blocked on Facebook.. rotflol... but the larger point is very serious. People get these false ideas of who they are and it can really mess you up and end up costing you dearly. In the late 90s I had a bit of an identity crisis of my own. I was (of all things) a professional wrestling promoter. What was REALLY going on is that I was running from the call of God on my life but Pro Wrestling became my ship that was heading away from Nineveh. My "whale experience" was the voice of God speaking audibly to me. His voice broke my pride and restored my love for Him and that would lead to an even longer process culminating in 2007 of Him teaching me how to love myself. Ask the Holy Spirit right now this simple question. Who am I supposed to be? People get all caught up with what they are supposed to be doing but I believe if you can first see WHO you really are then that revelation will by default point you in the right direction of WHAT you are supposed to be doing. More soon, M- There can be great wisdom in letting something go entirely. I mean just releasing it instantly to the Lord as soon as you hear about it so it has absolutely no impact upon what you are doing. It has taken me a lot of years to embrace that as the path to freedom that it really is. There have been no shortage of people in my life who have tried to sentence me to be a failure either by their own desire to see me come to ruin or to somehow justify their dislike of me personally but regardless of their motive, significant efforts have been leveled against my wife and I to derail and destroy our personal lives and ministries. After walking through roughly 20 years of this, I have two words for the haters...thank you. See, Psalm 23 says the Lord prepares a table in the presence of your enemies. When God is starting to do something in the way of restoration or provision, it is very likely he will first put you in the presence of your enemies. After all, that is where God has set up the table to feed you from. I'm not suggesting that he wants you to gloat, but I am suggesting that you need to come to a place where you are comfortable with your enemies incompetence being exposed. The call to love your enemies is not a call to protect their incompetence or underhanded dealings. I turn 46 in a few days and I am firming up on my commitment to walk in the Kingdom based reality of who I really am and not let the haters define me, I mean not even a little bit. I have turned a corner with the new year. Maybe it was the handful of insecure church leaders over the years who brought so much false accusation that even the demons they unknowingly served were confused. Maybe it was the people saying they wanted to know the real me when in reality they just wanted me to use my gifts and talents for their personal gain or enjoyment. Maybe it was the way that my adoptive family who raised me would never open up and let me in to the deeper inner workings of said family or maybe it was finally meeting my birth mother last year and learning more about my actual earthly origins... or maybe it was just a combination of all of that and much more. All I know today is that the battle for life in the battle for personal identity. Every sin is a direct result of you not knowing or understanding who you really are. With identity comes understanding of proper entitlement and expectation. When you begin to see that your life is usually a collection of what you have tolerated instead of goals you have set and accomplished, everything changes for the better. New ideas and goals come to bear and with them the firm commitment to embrace who you really are...and with that comes a disdain for Self Pity and Self Hatred...and with that comes a fresh commitment to back out of relationships that are unhealthy and to prioritize relationships that are centered around your goals and identity. Lastly, I apologize for not updating the blog here for a few weeks. I'm going to try and do that more often here in 2016! :) M- 2015 has been one of the most challenging years for me personally that I have ever walked through. I can't recall a time where I faced more direct resistance from the enemy directly than perhaps 2008 when I first began my weight loss journey and recovery from paralysis . Any of the things I am about to mention could easily take up several blogs by themselves so while I am not trying to minimize any of what happened, I am trying to be brief and summarize. Earlier this year I chose to have an afib ablation which is a surgical procedure where they cauterize areas of the heart to stop the atriums from going out of their normal rhythm. I had fought with afib for years and while I had some success, I could never eliminate it entirely so I gave the green light on it and am happy to report that it was a wonderful success but the recovery from it was stressful to be sure. In addition to moving both of our older sons out of the house this year and dealing with the empty nest that comes with that...twice... Lori and I also went through the local church emotional grinder once again this year having friendships and close relationships interrupted and broken off by insecure church leaders intimidated by us. After 45 years of not knowing who my birth mother was, I found her earlier this year which triggered a cascade of unexpected emotions that I am still processing through. I also have a reasonably good idea of who my birth Father is now which has triggered even more feelings to process through. Someone who I trusted and personally mentored for almost a decade chose to redirect her commitments to a different ministry this year and her loss added fuel to the fire. Speaking of Fire, our ministry's Weekend of Fire Conference, normally held every July had to be rescheduled and done in December which actually turned out to very much be a God thing but the stress surrounding that entire situation was not fun to say the least. Lori's mom has struggled with some serious health issues which as any of you that have ever walked through that know first hand, is never easy. Compounding that is a litany of family drama on her side. I learned my parents (the ones who raised me) are moving out of Ohio so for the first time in my entire life they will be over 1000 miles away and their health is hit and miss so of course I am concerned for them. Our personal ministry, Healing Media Inc has undergone a shift in support where most monthly partners have cancelled and instead God is using one time gifts to help us fund our efforts. Not having that solid monthly support base is new for us and stressful for sure. Our local school district started off our 2015 by misdiagnosing our then 10 year old and then they turned their guns on Lori and I as his parents leading to me running for a seat on my local school board which really opened up Pandora's box against me. From within the school district itself came allegations that I was committing adultery with teachers and paying them to cover it up, that I was a tax cheat, that I could not be trusted and many others brazen lies just to protect their perceived seats of power. Of course most of them engaged in the slime against me were publicly professing Christians which is perhaps the saddest part of it all. The emotional toll that took on Lori was hard to watch. There is more but you get the general idea. One thing that has been a constant is the gentle presence of the Holy Spirit of God Himself. Through every trouble, trial and situation both good and bad I am keenly aware of His beautiful presence. As 2015 comes to a close, I find myself standing at yet another fork in my personal road. I feel the draw of the Lord to minister more and now more than ever in my selfish flesh I want to hide in the cave, tell people to buzz off and just enjoy the Holy Spirit privately... but that is the woundedness in me crying out for agreement. I am called to pour my life into others just as many of you are in this season and just as I would answer my wife's call to help her anytime, anyplace, I hear the Spirit of the Lord drawing me out into the depths of public surrender yet again and I almost instinctively now respond with a "Yes". Lori and I went to several Christian concerts this year and we saw everyone from TobyMac, Third Day, the Newsboys, Michael W Smith and many others. One group that God has used in the last 30 days especially opened up for The Newsboys, it was Hawk Nelson. It's funny how God's presence just seems to saturate a given song in a given season. For me the song "Sold Out" has His unmistakeable touch on it. My soul is wrapped in His unconditional acceptance every time I hear it..which is odd being that it is such a fast paced song. Usually slower songs tend to hold that sort of anointing. When Sold Out comes on at the gym or when I'm out running, I have to be careful or I will find myself off in a corner in tears, it is that strong for me every single time right now. It's not even an emotional thing directly, it's a Spirit thing bypassing my natural and fallen mind and instead He uses it to re-expose me to my destiny. I'm sold out, no longer living just for myself, running after Jesus with my whole heart. With every single step that I take now, with every drop of blood that's in my veins now. I ain't got nothing else to be afraid of, I'm sold out... What about you? What about right now? Would you join me in stepping out without hesitation? You can't face this kind of Grace and leave the way you came! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! M- I keep hearing sobering statistics being offered up that talk about church decline. Here, here and here for example just to name a few. The take away is always the same, on average only about 20% of professing Christians are actively attending church on a regular basis and it is a trend that I don't see turning around any time in the near future. There are about 4000 churches a year that go belly up and disappear but only about 1000 a year that start up and that trend has been going on now since the 70s. So many things could be said and have been said about all of this and I could personally blog for days on end about it all but instead I want to focus today on what I feel the Lord saying to all of us in this hour as we bring 2015 to a close next month. Notice the picture I used for today's blog. It's a tree that has fallen and was once blocking a path. As I was out hiking a few weeks ago I came across this and the Lord spoke to me. He said Mark, you are usually the one to pick up the fallen tree, nurse it back to health and let it take root afresh again which is the normal way to save the tree and reopen the path for others but in this next season of life I want you to leave the trees alone and trust me to come and cut them in half so the path's may be unblocked. This was a pretty big word for me to handle at first and took a few hours to really sink into my heart and spirit before it began to make more sense. Even now it still has fresh meanings but here is the big take away. For this season, I don't have to get as directly involved in "clearing the path" or setting that atmosphere for others but instead it is ok to focus on myself for a while and God is going to do the path clearing for a while. Especially in the 2016 Election cycle as the backdrop, I hear the Lord saying that He and He alone is going to cause some things to take place that will "clear the path" for America once again. The giant trees of an antichrist agenda have blocked many paths but the Lord is not going to heal those trees to live again but instead He is going to saw them in half and separate them for all to see the real agendas of the godless. I believe this has already begun in Chicago and it is only the tip of the iceberg. What was once hidden will be made known. Current heroes will be brought down while unlikely and humble new ones will be elevated in our midst. Once again in 2016 the Lord will confound the worldly wisdom that has crept into the church. Look for unusual partnerships with ministries and secular organizations along with unbelieveable advances in health and medicines in 2016. Things that were said to be years and years away will come to pass in 2016. Also passing in 2016 will be several "generals" of the Faith and to the undiscerning eye this will look like loss but it is actually a clearing, a changing of the guard so to speak. The modern church will continue to lose attendance but that will matter less and less as a true and real groundswell of revival fire for the first time in generations will begin to be teased and the catalyst will be mass death. The little Satan will strike and seriousness about where we as a country are with Jesus will be reintroduced to America's soul. Overall I have the impression that God's move is going to get ultra and uber personal. The Holy Spirit while pouring Himself out on various gatherings and cities is going to microtarget individual hearts. New "kings" of cities and territories will be raised up in the Spirit as Apostolic power is rediscovered by a new generation. Humility will need to walk within the Prophetic however or there could be some big problems. Pray that Wisdom and Humility are in all of our right and left hands respectively. Lastly, the Lord's heart hears the cries of our children who have been abandoned by the local governments that once sought to protect them. The presence of God will again visit local schools and the kids for the most part will recognize Him while the adults for the most part will not. More soon, Mark This is a picture of the theater in Paris, France where ISIS came in and assassinated several dozen people. I know, it's gruesome to look at. It's not glamorized or edited by Fox News or CNN to be more palatable. It's just the raw human carnage, the remains of those who went to stand before God and give account having no idea that their time was so incredibly short. It reminds me of a phrase that actually does not appear in the bible directly but it says tomorrow is promised to no man. While that wording is not present in scripture, the concept certainly is and the point should be painstakingly clear. So much of our lives are spent consumed in the moment. Our computers, jobs, phones, cars and a list of other things all scream for our instant attention mercilessly. There is a never ending stream of attention seeking stuff that always wants our time, attention and focus. What we focus on determines everything else in our lives. What we prioritize will in fact prioritize us. When I was a little boy I had an aunt who died and my family found ourselves at her house going through her things to help settle her estate. One of the things my aunt had kept was a small newspaper clipping that said "at funerals, everyone pretends to be thinking about the dead person but really they are thinking about their own funeral". Having recently been to her funeral, I couldn't help but see the irony in that. I also think it explains much of what people go through when they get news of these terrorist attacks. It brings people face to face with their own mortality because they instinctively know that but for the Grace of God, it could have just as easily been them laying in their own blood on the floor of that theater. We get so caught up and convinced that life is all about us but the cold reality is that the world was here when we got here and it will still be here after we leave. It can be somewhat of a depressing series of thoughts really if not for this one game changing idea and concept... Jesus died for us to save us from that meaningless and lonely existence selfishly wrapped up in our own selves. The other thing that news of a tragedy like this brings is perspective. Often it is much needed perspective that reframes our realities and lets us know what really and truly matters. One of my favorite movie lines is from 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. When Indy is faced with his father's death if he doesn't act immediately, the main villain points a gun at him and says "It's time to ask yourself what you believe". Stories of human tragedy tend to do that, they bring us face to face with what we really believe. A friend of mine made a fantastic observation the other day. He said politics is based on fear and control. He is exactly right. Our once great nation that was at one time led by an overwhelming confidence that God was with us and wanted to not only bless us but use us to bless others has now been overtaken by leadership that traffics in and willfully markets fear. We don't label our enemies for fear that it may offend others. When we do strike against others, it is out of fear that they may do us harm. A Godly leader at the helm of this nation will stop making fear based decision and instead return us to being guided by the timeless principles of holy scripture. Most of those same principles are enshrined within the promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. After all, who better to know what makes us truly happy than our creator. Judging by the news headlines this week, we are certainly not doing a very good job of it ourselves. I continue to pray for the United States of America. Many bible scholars say the reason America is not directly referenced in scripture is because we go too far and our sin ultimately destroys the country before the Lord returns. I have never believed that and even in light of recent events, I still have faith in America. God has indeed shed His Grace on us and if I have learned anything in my 45 years, it is that just a touch of that majestic Grace can change everything. I am praying for a Godly leader to be elected next November and more importantly, for everyone claiming the name of Jesus to rediscover the beauty and simplicity of that personal one on one relationship with Him. After all, He is what really matters. I am back and my blog is with me. First, my picture is Isac and I. I am a blessed and proud papa. :) Over the last few months I took some time away to run for an open seat on my local school board. The political scene is not for the faint of heart as some of you already know and several times through the process I was reminded of how Jesus upset the political structures of His day. His heart wasn't to purposely tee people off but by the nature of bringing God's Kingdom into the earth, man made kingdoms and ideas were going to have to be put down. I have a much better understanding of this now than before I ran. The back half of Matthew 10 was lived out in my own life repeatedly. The pushback from most people was to be expected, after all, it is politics but what really grieved my heart were those publicly calling themselves Christians who would then turn around and say the dirtiest and nastiest untruths, usually about me but sometimes about others too. I am so glad that I am not God because I just don't know how He has such incredible mercy on all of us. Many of these folks worship Him, pray to Him and ask Him for a move of God in their city yet when God brings an answer to their prayer in a package they don't care for, they struggle to understand and tend to reject the very thing that God is trying to use to bless or answer them. This is nothing new as several times in scripture we see examples of this. The Israelites did not recognize Moses as their deliverer. No one recognized Esther as the sole hope for God's people. Old Testament Prophets were repeatedly ignored and not properly identified as having the word of the Lord in their mouths and of course Jesus went unrecognized by almost the entire organized religious organizations of His day, so much so that in John 5 He point blank says that to them. John 5:39 - You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. Before anyone gets the wrong idea, no, I am not saying that I was "Pickerington's Messiah", but I'm sure a few of my haters will spin this blog into that false accusation...remember, it is politics after all. However, the Holy Spirit places certain mantles and giftings on certain people for certain times and seasons. I did indeed carry the mantle to raise the spiritual bar for our school district because God lit a passion in me for it and then showed me something that no one before me to date has found, a legal pathway to decouple any Ohio School District from the clutches of the demonic deception of Common Core. Many of the voters in our district are Christians and they have been praying for these very changes to come...and over 2,700 people did indeed vote for me to come in and make those changes... but as anyone who has ever fought to bring something from the Lord into the natural realm here knows, the resistance gets very brutal and the personal attacks get so outlandish that without a cloak of Wisdom combined with a commitment to forgive quickly, you can get completely lost in the drama of it all. My encouragement to you who read my blog is to pray for the eyes of the Lord. Paul needed to be struck blind for three days and when his blindness was healed, not only did he get the return of his physical sight but he then had the eyes of the Lord as well. I believe these are called "The Eyes of your Heart". Consider Ephesians 1:18 - I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people Notice that last part, the riches where? In people. The eyes of your heart need to be enlightened to see the Jesus in others... and THAT is the great unmaking that we all need much more of in our lives. Here is what in my opinion is the song of the year for 2015 so far. Nichole Nordeman - the Unmaking. Thanks for reading, it's nice to be back. :) There is an old saying that says how long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you are standing on. Anyone who has needed to go and was forced to wait a little bit longer understands that all too well. Someone's perception is usually their entire world and reality. Because our existence is so wrapped up in our individual personal perceptions, taking someone else's perception into consideration can be something very easy to dismiss. I have been pretty hard on the modern church in my public writings on here over the last couple of years primarily because the whole point of Jesus coming, dying and raising again is so people can come to know Him personally and in that personal, first hand relationship they can exchange their own perception for His. That divine exchange truly does change everything but only if it really happens and for it to really happen, it needs to be an organic thing that the Holy Spirit does inside of a person's perception. Unfortunately for most of the impatient church leaders of our day, it often takes time. sometimes, weeks, months or even years. The problem is twofold. First you have church leaders trying to demand a level of behavior from others too early that can only come as a person is transformed away from their old, fallen self into the new, sanctified self. This is a very natural and beautiful process that the Holy Spirit is quite masterful at producing. However, when leaders demand a person keeps a lifestyle that the Holy Spirit has not delivered a person into yet, it puts tremendous and unhealthy peer pressure on person, especially if they are new to the Faith and will inevitably end up in the person not being able to keep that lifestyle.. It is actually quite cruel to do to someone when you think about it. The second part of the problem is leaders tend to misunderstand the difference between authority and understanding. Example: I was at a church a couple of years ago and they had a lot going on for the good. They were closing in on a real new Testament church model but in all of that powerful revelation, there was the main guy on top of the pyramid who despite having New Testament revelation about government, was stuck in Old Testament revelation about the tithe so there was freedom in the worship and ministry, but bondage in the finances and in other matters of the law. in short, legalism. One of the biggest challenges for those of us who are leaders is to not limit what God is doing by insisting it all must come through our current revelation and understanding of Him and how he works. My personal life is shifting directions right now. The Lord has laid some wonderful opportunities before my family and I and with those new open doors has come an excitement and expectation I haven't had for a while. The Joy is truly in the journey and I'll share more on that in my next blog. Thanks for being here and for sharing my blog with others. If I can pray for you, don't hesitate to reach out and ask. Remember, you are only one choice away from your next victory! M- |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
June 2022
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