An "Update"

I try to avoid clichés as much as possible, but sometimes clichés enjoy their presence in our vernacular and pools of thought for a good reason.

The nearness, importance, and desperate need of the harvest is something that ought never leave our minds and hearts. I started tweeting about it but I didn't want to go Rodney Howard-Browne on you guys, so let me just say that this has really been striking thus far into the trip. My perspective is always opened to a new level when I leave the country; that is, my perspective of the harvest.

Everywhere I look here, there is just need. Need for vessels, need for laborers. If the harvest were any nearer, we would be doing the work by accident. The world is so big, and it is also so lost. There are so few who are found, and even of those but a mere handful swing the sickle.

And all the while, God is calling. The blood of Jesus calls out from the ground, even as the blood of Abel cried out to God. The cry is a cry of injustice. Jesus did not wait for a petition from men aware of their eternal plight before coming. He just came, spoke the truth, subjected himself to the cross, rose again, and sat in heaven. He has more than done his part.

I am tired of hearing preachers say we need to go to the lost, I am tired of their congregations nodding their heads and shouting, and I am tired of the lost of whom they speak remaining in darkness.

Whether from inaction or ineffective action on the church's part, the harvest all to often goes untouched. This is because the bridge between the results of active compassion and the spiritual poverty of inactive complacency is suffering. The will of God is accomplished through no other means than the painful crucifixion of the flesh and its subsequent resurrection by the power of God. Indeed, the cross is our model, not our shrine.

When we say we are in need of laborers, we are in need of sufferers. The suffering is that which distinguishes God's laborers. God must first win the battle for your heart if it is from the abundance of your heart that the lost will hear of Him. A heart that is not his will do no good. The degree to which I am purely God's is the degree to which I will be effective in the harvest. It costs the pleasure of the carnal and the ease of the natural to find true satisfaction in God. It costs.

So the need of the harvest cries out to us in their need of the delivering power of the blood, and His spilled blood calls to us for the sake of His cause, which is the harvest.

Now the call of the cross is the call to pay the price. The motivation for the call is the cross itself. "For Christ's love compels us." The cross reveals the love, the nature of God; it is a call to be His. Let's answer his call.

There is much more I have brewing in me, but this will have to do for now. I know perhaps an "update blog" is typically less spiritual, but this is what's really going on with the trip. I can tell you about conferences and outreaches and churches and services and you still have no idea what is happening with me. I'm sure I will write more about that later.

Precious Truth

Psalm 141:6

"When their leaders are thrown from a cliff, the wicked will listen to my words and find them true.”

There will come a day when all will be revealed for what it is. Who you are is set; it is a condition of your heart that has already been determined by how much you are God’s. In this life, we can never expect to act or desire or receive reward for anything beyond the measure already determined by the condition of our hearts. One day, none of this crap is going to matter. All the testing and all the trials, all the challenges and all the distractions, all the temporal things and their pleasures will fade into nothingness and we will be left before God with nothing but who we are. In that day we will either be met with bitter tears and solemn regret or the joy of knowing that we did not shrink back – that we did not love our lives so much as to shrink from death. May it be that I live with such a perspective. Life daily is a fight to keep one’s head above the water of this world so that another breath of the truth might sustain him through the torrent of unrelenting waves into which we are dropped merely by having been born. But O, how precious that breath is! It is life itself, and it is worth every tear, every drop of sweat, every painful stroke and crashing blow to which we are subject. Despite what Satan, all those around us, and even our own instincts and inclinations tell us, it is enough to keep us until that day.

The High Life

Psalm 128:1

“How joyful are those who fear the Lord, all who follow His ways!”

Having experienced little joy and much stress this semester, I was thinking earlier today of the qualifications for joy. That is to ask, why do I have, or perhaps why don’t I have joy, if I know God?

Read the verse again. The fearful, the followers are faithful. They just are.

The joy that comes from God is. That’s it. It simply is. Joy is present. It is, because we are Godly. We are His, we are redeemed, all is finished, there’s nothing to be done or worked for. Joy is. There is no prerequisite to joy.

In looking to receive joy, don’t wait for things to get perfect or even ideal. Don’t wait for a small victory to savor. Don’t wait for a reason to have joy. If your joy comes as a result of positive circumstance, of comprehension, or of anticipation of good, it will go just as quickly as a result of circumstance, confusion, or anticipation of bad. But joy is for the Godly, as much as righteousness is, as healing is, as peace is.

What brings it into reality? Faith. Faith is just receiving the higher truth. Receive the joy that is for the godly. It is. Already.

There is no more victory to be won than that already accomplished by Jesus on the cross. “Take heart, I have overcome the world.” He has done it. Death has no hold, sin is condemned in sinful man, the wrath has been borne, the old is gone, the new has come, the power is present.

In my short experience of Life (capital L), I continually forget and am subsequently continually reminded that everything I’ve ever received from God has been received by faith. I don’t mean I asked God to heal granny and she got better after some rest. I mean when I wanted to receive the Holy Spirit, He didn’t come because I tried or prayed hard. When I’ve wanted His presence, He hasn’t come just because I set time aside for Him to do such. It’s been when I have just stopped worrying, stopped trying, and received. "Faith comes by hearing..." It comes. You don't go to faith, faith comes to you. You must simply hear, and receive.

Mark 11:24:

I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours.

If I am lacking in joy, in health, in wealth, in prosperity, in peace, in righteousness, in victory, in satisfaction – all I must do is receive that which has been made mine, by faith. It already is mine. What freedom there is indeed in the truth!

As a final note, many preach the message of "just receive" whatever you want from God, but their motives are to get you to like them and to appease your itching ears to hear how you might receive the things that you want from God. But God was not made for man; man was made for God, and as such I wish to distance myself from any stigma of this "God, your genie" theology.

Conversely, when I receive from God, it is a result of my enjoyment of, relishing in, and "glorying" in Him. It is not to satisfy what I as a man desire; it is to experience a life that is altogether different (divinely different - ergo by definition, holy) from that which is available to unregenerate man. From such a life God gets glory. That is the kind of prosperity I want. That is the kind of joy I want. Life in the spirit is governed by faith, which constitutes a plane of existence that is altogether different from natural life. And this Life is wrought "from start to finish by faith" (Rom. 1:17).

In summary, it is to the glory of God that I receive Life from Him; and that is why Jesus came. He is the Light that brought Life. Earthly life will never transcend earthly fact; divine Life will always defy earthly truth. It is on us as Christians to live our lives differently, walking in the Light. What a tragedy it is for the untold millions of Christians whose lives -- whose joy, satisfaction, plans, pleasures, peace - never transcend the joys and pleasures and patterns of this world. Be different, for He is different.

Victory!

“Let me hear you say, ‘I will give you victory!’” – Psalm 35:3.

About two weeks ago, much to my dismay, the New Orleans Saints kicked a 40-something yard field goal in overtime to end my beloved Minnesota Vikings’ best season in about ten years. The loss was exceptionally hard to swallow for me, not because of the fact that they ended up with more points than the Vikings, but because (in my view) there was no real victor of the game. Even if the Vikings had won, I would not have been elated, nor would I have felt I had rights to boast to all the Saints fans around me here in Baton Rouge. Why? Because the game was a stressful, blow-by-blow, neck-in-neck struggle the entire time. The outcome came down to about five of the last eight plays being called under review, and honestly the way it ended was little more than a toss-up. The game contrasted heavily with the Saints’ 20-something point victory margin over the Arizona Cardinals the week before, as well as the Vikings’ 34-3 BLOWOUT against the Dallas Cowboys in Minnesota. I am reminded of the chant of the big bad hockey coach on the Mighty Ducks: “it ain’t worth winning if you can’t win big!”

What, truly, is victory? As humans it seems that we care about nothing but the title. The glory that comes with the win. Who’s really to know who was the better team that day? But which is more important: to be esteemed as victorious, or to literally be better? If you look at the intent of the playoffs, the Super Bowl – the goal is to identify the best football team in the NFL. How is that determined? By the teams playing games against each other. But if the outcome of a game does not reflect the true nature of the team, then how pointless! Another example: Colt McCoy, QB of the University of Texas’ Longhorns got injured early in the BCS National Championship Game. The opposing Alabama Crimson Tide ultimately scored more points in that game, but did they really beat the 2009 Texas Longhorns football team? Even though they didn’t, no one really cares. Alabama got the nominal victory recorded in history, the trophy, and all the glory. People simply do not care about anything but what is external.

As Christians, our world (the Kingdom of God) works upside-down. What people see is valued at 0, and what God sees is all that matters.

· “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, which is temporary, but what is unseen, which is eternal.”

· “Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.”

· “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks into the heart.”

While simple to understand, or to give mental assent to, the implementation of this seems to be where I fall short. I find myself wondering why one person has such great favor with leadership at the church, how another person finds so much success in getting people on encounters, how still another seems to enter in so effortlessly in worship, and still another seems to maintain such excellence and maturity.

It has really just been dawning on me lately how easily swayed I am by seeking to “win the game” instead of seeking to be the better team. Something I tell my guys at club and the interns I meet with is this: “At the end of the day, you only are who you are.” Simple, but profound. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got a million people coming to your revival, it’s carnal vanity if you’re not doing it as a result of who you are instead of you striving to be who you want to be so you can be seen, or so you can be affirmed in yourself of your validity, or so you can be fulfilled in reaching some level of ministry that you thought was the ultimate goal of your walk, your destiny. “The flesh profits nothing.”

I have just begun to see this thing inside me that follows me wherever I go. No matter how committed I am to reading the Word, no matter how long I pray in a day, no matter where God positions me in life, no matter what kind of provision he has made and what kind of miracles he has done to get me to where I now stand, I am still hopelessly carnal! If God shows me that life is not about money but about Jesus, then I am so happy and I condemn all the people who look at life and think it’s about money. But now I know it’s about being a Christian. Then pretty soon I’m making sure everyone knows that I know it’s not about money because it makes me look so spiritual to say that it’s about being a Christian. But then God has to correct me and show me that it’s not about just nominally being a Christian but about living holy. So now I throw away my secular music and condemn all the people that listen to secular music and make sure that everyone knows that I know that living holy is really what Christianity is all about. But then God reveals my self-exaltation again and I am driven to my knees in repentance and now He shows me that it’s not just about me being holy but it’s about the harvest. So now I start going to a high school weekly to share a cell lesson with a bunch of kids and condemn all those lazy Christians who are just content to live holy and do nothing for the kingdom. But then God convicts me and shows me that I’ve fallen in love with the praise that comes from getting big numbers and results at club and I need to care not about my numbers but about the true work of God going on inside their hearts, so I repent and condemn all those so foolish leaders who are getting big numbers and don’t bring any kids to encounters and don’t develop any as leaders because they really don’t understand what really counts in ministry like I do. It’s come all the way to the point where saving souls from hell is no longer the purpose for my life. Where I’ve discovered that I’ve wrongly made it my highest desire to be an effective worker in the harvest. Why is that wrong? Because that desire is not from God, it’s from my flesh which wants esteem, promotion, and self-fulfillment.

I’ve just begun to realize that I’m never going to escape the flesh. Like my dad says, “it’s always something.” It never ends. Glory to glory happens when you thought you’ve arrived at glory and God shows you that it’s deeper than you thought it was and it causes your mind to be renewed and your life to be transformed. With each defeat of the flesh, there is a decisive shift in my perspective. Every time I grow, I am soon brought to the realization of the fact that I have again messed it up on some level. The higher I get, the more elusive the flesh is, the more subtle the brand of carnality which plagues me.

I’ve just had this inner ‘knowing’ my whole Christian life that I would do great things for the Kingdom, that God set me apart for a special purpose, that I would be one who would redefine many things, that I would go to the nations, that I would move in signs and wonders, that I wouldn’t be among those who didn’t have the character to sustain their ministries, that I would meet the fullness of success at my time here in 220 and push to the extremity of possibility that there is for ministry here within the parameters God has ordained for me here through His authority, that from there I’d be sent out to serve under another ministry and do the same, that from there something else would happen. But whatever would happen it would be BIG and it’s all about MY DESTINY and me doing this HUGE AWESOME thing for God with my life! Is that desire wrong? If it is flesh, then it’s flesh. If it’s spirit, then it’s spirit. Now do I believe that God has shown me by the spirit some things about my future that will surely come to pass? Yes. But I have just taken myself way too seriously; that is, I’ve considered the things He’s planned to give me things to “cling to” (Phil 2). I’ve held on in my flesh to the idea that I am someone special, that others should lay down their mantles to make way for my ministry, that I would take from others and not give, that God would ensure the fulfilling of these things because I had such a good heart that was just so focused on the cross and cried at all the prayer meetings and wept over the nations and was so broken over lost souls and Jesus not getting what He suffered for. I was so sure!!! I have been so sure of my calling, but since December that has just been taken from me -- my assurance that I’m on this trajectory to MY destiny has been shaken.

What God has shown me above anything is that it’s not about me. It’s all culminated to this revelation of the sovereignty of God in all things, in ministry more than anything, that I can’t work my way into effectiveness, that the goal was never to save lost souls but to glorify God, that the gospel is not about man not going to hell but rather about man going to God, meaning it’s not about me working my way into being the most influential person I can be for other men to not go to hell but rather about me working my way into knowing God such that I am transformed into His image and PURELY as a result of that, I shine as a light on this earth, and as a result of that transformation by the Spirit, inevitably Christ in me will bear the fruit of Christ on this earth and people will see His life inside me and His light dwelling in my body in place of my flesh and as a result He would gain glory, thus removing any need to wonder whether people really got saved at my altar calls, thus exterminating any bit of my ability to make anything more happen than God wanted to happen through me by striving in the flesh, thus disarming any devil in hell from sending a temptation to work FOR God instead of allowing Him to work IN me. Reward in heaven is not based on how many souls you got into heaven, it’s based on how much your life was built with gold, silver, and precious stones and not the wood, hay, and stubble of presumably Godward fruit born in carnal strife. I have eaten my own words: I only am who I am!

I am only as valuable in the Kingdom of God inasmuch as there is “less of me, more of Him.” I am only as valuable to God as much as it is “no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” Paul said, “for I know in me dwells no good thing.” Our battle is “not against flesh and blood”; it is not a fight you can use earthly, fleshly weapons of scheming, plotting, manipulating, positioning, figuring out ‘keys’ and ‘secrets’. Instead of running off and doing such things, we are instructed to “tarry” until we’ve been endued. Until we’ve been baptized in the Holy Spirit. God exists in the world today by means of His Holy Spirit. He does not exist in programs, he does not exist in strategies, he does not exist in buildings, or in ministry models. Like Pr. Joel says, He doesn’t anoint (endue, come upon) programs, He anoints PEOPLE! People whose hearts are His, people who have lost satisfaction in earthly things, in carnality, whose eyes he has opened to see that it is all about HIM! He fills only the empty space in the clay pots of our lives. As we see Him, it empties our hearts of the desire to cling to carnality and opens us up to receive the indwelling of the Spirit of Jesus – Christ in us. The anointed one. How to get an anointing? Get the anointed one, Christos, in you. But as Ravenhill says, the triune God is not going to share space in the case of your heart with you. “No flesh will glory in my presence.” It has to be God that is working in you for it to be His good pleasure that comes in my life. It has to be Spirit.

I have been born of the Spirit: that was when I realized that life wasn’t about money (in keeping with the example I wrote above) but about being Christian. But now “that we have the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit” (Gal 5:25), being “carefully to obey all the commands” He has given me by His spirit. “The Spirit bears witness with our spirit” (Rom. 8). The means of my communion, my “relationship” (as we so vehemently tout in place of religion) happens on a Spirit-to-spirit basis. Nothing else matters. Again, “the flesh profits nothing.”

For all of what I’ve sought to accomplish, at the end of the day if it was me that accomplished it then it was folly. For all that I’ve sought to do in the Kingdom, if it was me that did it, then it is wood, hay and stubble. Back to my original verse for this writing – it says “let me hear You say, ‘I will give you victory!’” Whatever gain I am to make spiritually it is a gain of Christ in me. It is not a gain of me in the world. It is not a gain of me becoming more like Christ. God does not take what we have and fix us up; He kills us (crucified with Christ) and puts His Spirit in us such that it is no longer we who live but Christ. Ravenhill said that’s the greatest thing any man can say this side of eternity. Not “I’ve done more for Him than anyone else.” Rather, “He lives in me.” That’s what life is about. God bringing me to Himself, the curse being reversed as the flesh is exterminated and replaced with Christ, and as a result when I walk it is He who walks in me, when I speak it is He who speaks through me – if where I go and what I do is wrought by the Spirit.

Now returning full circle to my introduction, victory is thus not an external “who can get the glory of having the most visible points at the end of the match”. Paul said to Timothy, “I have finished the race,” and to the Romans, “I have completed the work of the gospel from Jerusalem to Idumaea.” How did he finish? Not every single person in the cities he went to was saved, nor likely had everyone in each of those cities and that entire region heard the gospel. But it’s not about a visible, tangible result that a man could see. A Christian’s life on this earth is not something of Kingship and conquest in the way that man sees it. Look at Jesus, our example! He didn’t come as man thought he ought to come. And the holy spirit he left does NOT work the way man thinks he ought to work. A Christian life is to be SOWN. No glory, no esteem from man, no positioning higher so more people can look and see and be impressed, no one-man armies.

“And Jesus answered them, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” John 12:23-25.

It’s about the glory of God. For Him to be glorified, the kernel of my life must be sown into the ground. You don’t see a seed that’s under the ground. No one cares, thinks anything great about a seed. But if it indeed stays under the ground long enough, it will bear much fruit. That’s all there is to life: sowing it. Victory in life is not ascending to a place of ministry, a pastoral position, a level of understanding of scripture that can be published and marveled at. It’s about sowing my life, man! That means it’s possible to fulfill the will of God TO THE FULLEST EXTENT, to maximize your spiritual potential and NO ONE EVER STINKING KNOW! And that is truly to the Glory of God! That is true victory! It’s being like Jesus. Not being successful in our earthly-defined terms of ministerial fruit and church growth and revivals and the like. It’s about a life being sown into the ground.

I mean really, what do I have to say that people need to hear that’s going to change the world? Do we really need another preacher? Do we really need another song, another sermon, another church plant? I don’t want to minimize any of these necessary things but the point is that none of that is the point! The point is being like Jesus, who being in the nature of God didn’t consider EQUALITY WITH GOD SOMETHING TO CLING TO (if there’s anything worth holding on to, it’s being perfect and glorious, not having nice cars and have a long supporter list and cool graphics on your song screen and a lot of people buying my book and a lot of people responding to my altar calls) but rather made himself nothing. Nothing. Me being a somebody in church circles, in ministry circles is something. I’m to be nothing. “Taking the nature of a servant”. Serving people doesn’t mean I do what I think helps them, nor does it mean I do what they think helps them. I means I obey God with regard to my relationship to them. “True religion” is helping widows and orphans. Laying one’s life down, suffering for. That’s compassion – the word literally means “to suffer with.” That’s servitude. But He didn’t just serve, he died. His life was altogether sown, the earth, the flesh had no hold over Him. He was, with regard to human nature, a dead man walking, even before the cross. He showed us that we’d be tempted by lusts of the flesh and eyes and the pride of life and showed us that by the Spirit they were conquerable. He was victorious over the temptation to be victorious in a way that takes glory from God. He showed us how to reject affirmation and validation from humans or devils and receive only what the Father says about us. He is the ultimate man, the one example of how a man ought to life his life on this earth.

Victory is not when I conquer the world for Christ; it’s when Christ has conquered the world in me. May it be, Lord – take Your place on the throne of my heart!

Pure Bride

"Listen to me, O royal daughter; take to heart what I say.
Forget your people and your family far away.
For your royal husband delights in your beauty;
honor him, for he is your lord."

Psalm 45:10-11

The question has been on my mind lately: Is this it?

Jesus said He's coming for a bride without spot or blemish. His bride, as we are all well aware, is the church. If we are to be the pure bride, then we must become purely of God. Altogether Godly, altogether renewed, altogether taken from the vile, unholy, and impure state we were in and fully brought into the holiness (divine distinctness) which Jesus has made available to us.

So again I ask: is this it?

Is my life, are my thoughts, is my preaching, is my attitude, is the way I spend my time, are my affections -- are they "it"? Is this the life Jesus suffered and bled to make me able to live?

My heart burns to become the bride that He desires; to fully prepare myself for my King. Anyone who has seen Him should have the same attitude, because His worth so overshadows everything else.

Can you imagine what this looks like? A human being living as he ought, truly. The perennial question of humanity will ever be "How should I live?" To what end, and in what manner, ought life be spent? To know the One, the Truth, the Answer -- it is a privilege beyond compare.

Yet again I ask: is this it?

God, put a dissatisfaction in us.

Compelled by Love

I've got nothing on my mind or heart at the moment, so let's just see where this goes as I give an update of what's going on with me.

The internship is still going full steam. It seems like it really always is -- the question is whether I'm on board. There are weeks where I feel ready to leave to Africa and conquer the world for the Kingdom in a moment, and then weeks where I find myself dealing with paltry issues of life entirely absorbed in a natural mindset. I've begun to look for evidence of my spiritual progress not so exclusively in ministry numbers or how I feel this week but how much am I really being changed into Christ's image by yielding to the holy spirit and how much are my people being changed. This must sound cliche but you must understand what I mean. It's no grandiose revelation that fruit -- not loudmouthed speech or an exclusive avenue of spirituality someone has carnally spent themselves on to look good -- but fruit is the standard of measurement of a person's level of conformity to Christ.

See, what I seek is to be changed to change. To be wrecked to wreck. To so assault whatever in me is not like Christ so that I can legitimately gain the authority and power to wreak havoc on the work of the devil. As Paul said, "I beat my body into submission." Masochistic? No, but things worked out such that we have a body fit for destruction. If only we could see that suffering its loss -- not physically through death but by yielding (a most uncomfortable venture) to the holy ghost -- we are made like Him.

I hope what I am saying makes sense. This is one of the most impacting revelations I have gained since being here. It's the concept of humbling oneself to be lifted up supernaturally. This is the practical application of "I must decrease, that He may increase." If we really want God to "take it all", as so many of our songs and prayers cry, then why do we shy away from the smallest leading of the holy spirit? Why don't we lay hands on that person in the wheelchair at the mall? Why don't we confess our foolish words to the person we've been talking badly about? Why do we shy away from being the one whose gas money is spent?

I was talking with my good friend about this. If I have a totally new nature that is like Christ, and yet it is evident that I often live in such a way or do something that is inconsistent with the Spirit of Christ, then what is up? My friend was like, "yeah I'm saved, and I'm not looking at porn or lusting after everything in pants, but why do I still from time to time get those thoughts? If these desires have been crucified, then how can they still exist?"

I believe it is because we have settled for a level of holiness that allows us to look good in comparison to one another without that ever-present holy discontentment for greater conformity to His image. There's no discontentment because we're content. The question we ask here is, "I'm all for being like Christ, but why do we really need that discontentment if we're already for sure saved?" This really is a paramount question, the answer to which distinguishes mere followers from disciples.

This desire for more is not to the end of simply being more spiritual but rather it is to the end of the salvation of the world. It comes from recognizing God's vision for the world -- His purpose in creating everything -- and from there realizing one's place in His vision and from there stopping at nothing to please Him by moving forward in faith meanwhile having the fleshly nature being lost in the translation.

We've got to get our eyes off of the fact that we're going to heaven and onto the realities of the Kingdom of Heaven. This thing is bigger than your eternal destination, and I am sorry if someone's preaching gave you a different idea.

Imagine a church full of warriors -- people who have realized these things and march to the heartbeat of the father, who must become like Him to carry His power to conquer the darkness in the world so that God might get what He wants. That's all there is to this thing -- that the Lamb that was slain might gain the reward of His suffering, that the Father who gave infinitely might enjoy mankind eternally, as was His purpose in the beginning. These people are not concerned with how early the service starts, or whether the air conditioning works. Their eyes are on the King, and their love for God that was birthed in them when His display of love (the gospel) gripped them, such that no reward - even of salvation and all the blessings of heaven -- could ever satisfy, save the reward of pleasing Him. These people would give whatever it takes to see Him pleased. They would become so desperate to please Him that they be driven to confront every remnant of carnality that remains in them so they can live in the caliber of Christ likeness required to see this thing done.

Oh, pierce our hearts!

the Contrast of Truth

Let me say as a preface that all of this blog outside what's written between the [added] cursors was written a few months ago. I had it saved and decided to put it up, along with some ranting from today.

Leave me some feedback, it lets me know who's actually reading this stuff.

I most anticipate writing when I write with no agenda. It eliminates the need to preface a presupposed point with introduction that I tend to get lost in which effectively scraps much of my attempts to write something worthwhile. More simply, it helps me get real, fast. It's sort of like how I feel when speaking publicly -- my strategy has become one to make fun of myself and the situation out loud, hitting all my nervous thoughts such that I am no longer attempting to be someone I am not.

I have realized that I cannot change anyone objectively; that is, in my efforts to help people, there is no power in my vision for a person to experience a change that I can see they need if I haven't experienced it in myself. I can't preach a life higher than the one I live. I can't promote a precept that I don't practice. I can't push a change I don't display.

I observe many placating the call to action that they feel from the Spirit of God by preaching, talking about, or at least accepting in the realm of possibility the Christ-likeness in men that would turn the world upside down. In other words, those with open eyes will see what must be done (the world must be saved), how it will be done (through the true gospel), and through whom it must be done (me), and rather than taking the sensible course of putting into practice that which the Word shows them, they talk. And think.

I just don't want to be stuck in a process so long that the world wastes away and goes to hell while we keep worrying about how we're going to be taken up into heaven.

I don't think we need to worry so much about understanding God as much as obeying Him. We're not going to stand before Him on judgment day and have him say "how much did you know about Me?" but rather "what did you do with the cross?"

There's no greater question. The cross isn't just whether our sins have been forgiven. Think of it as a firefighter who died saving you from a burning building and also left you his million dollar life insurance policy. Most Christians are just content to know they're safe and they forget about the rewards of being saved.

Really, we use salvation and the payment of our sins as a license for fleshly enjoyment rather than a means of full spiritual fulfillment. The rewards of the cross aren't of this world, and because of that they are far better. The rewards of the cross have nothing to do with our carnal desires which is why so few pursue them and fewer use them. The rewards of the cross are what enable us to do all that we want to do.

Jesus told the disciples "ask anything in my name and I will give it to you." Why doesn't that work? Because we ask amiss. Our minds are on the level of "I'm free, let's party!" instead of "He has freed me, let's honor Him!" From the true gospel comes true understanding of the cross which always produces a true desire for the rewards of the cross. The desire is not based out of selfish ambition but rather a humble love and is therefore pure. Because our desires have become His, we can ask anything and it will be according to His will and therefore all the riches of heaven are ours to the glory of God.

[added later:]

The issue this thought brings up is one that's been on my heart to confront in writing. It is the issue of a Christian's perception of his salvation's practical purpose. Like, what does salvation add to life now? Is it career success, good kids, balanced budget, some nice friends, a good church, eternal security? If these things describe the best you can think of that being a Christian practically adds to your life, then chances are your Christianity is totally perverted to serve yourself. Look at what James says:

1What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? 2You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 4You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

Your desires. There's scarcely a battle in most Christians' hearts anymore. They're so settled in what they have because it scratches the God itch (by religiously conceding the loss of a few earthly pleasures, to make them feel spiritual enough to deserve heaven) meanwhile letting them live their lives at a comfortable level of carnality. I hear Christians who say "Oh, I know Paul said 'it's better not to marry', but I could never go without a wife/husband." In one way or another this concept of an unsurrendered desire exists in probably 90% of the Christians I know, whether it be a career, a home, a country, a dream, a friend, movies, some music. People want to hang on to some stuff. Problem is, well, look what Jesus said...

57As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go."

58Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."

59He said to another man, "Follow me."
But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father."

60Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God."

61 Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family."

62Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."

True disciples, true Christians have made up in their minds that this thing is either worth everything or worth nothing. Friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God. You're wholly his or serving two masters. He cannot be your Lord if you are still calling shots in anything. He said "Leave all and follow Me". Having been overwhelmed with the riches of our glorious inheritance over the past few months, I've largely gotten off the message of being truly given to His Lordship. But that is the foundation upon which the house can be built.

A week or so ago we were studying a scripture in prayer stream -- Jas. 5:16.

"Confess your sins to each other and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous man has great power and produces wonderful results."

The foundation is Christ crucified, as Paul talks about in 1 Cor. But what clears the way is true repentance. Without the framework of Christ's complete sovereignty/authority in a life, there is no room for the great structures of powerful ministry to be built through the use of the aforementioned rewards of the cross. In this scripture, we're instructed to confess and pray so we can be healed. In the context of repentance, the healing this speaks of must be the healing of the scars that sin leaves in a person. I believe sin left unconfessed becomes the holes that ministers fall into later on in life (hence why John the Baptist, in his call to repentance, said that EVERY valley would be filled in, and every mountain made low to make way for Jesus). Only then from the standpoint of a whole, fully repented righteous person can we see power and results. I truly believe that the depth of a person's repentance determines the height he reaches in ministry.

I'm now going to attempt to come full circle back to the issue of self-serving Christianity. See, people today haven't repented of anything. They've become convinced of a coming judgment, and we preach that if they sacrifice sex outside marriage, drugs, alcohol, and pay their tithe, they're going to be okay, and even worse, exactly where God wants them to be. Because of this, there is no vision for anything. That's why 90% of the churches in America get less than 5 people saved in a year. Our heartbeat is not that of the Father. No, in fact it looks much more like that of our father, the devil. What do we have that condemned demons do not, if they also believe in God? That's why we think we're still okay, because "Yeah, but we still believe in God!" But we do not have changed hearts! Jesus said we should show our repentance by what we do. If we do nothing, our repentance means nothing.

"For you are not a true Jew just because you were born of Jewish parents or because you have gone through the ceremony of circumcision. 29 No, a true Jew is one whose heart is right with God. And true circumcision is not merely obeying the letter of the law; rather, it is a change of heart produced by God’s Spirit. And a person with a changed heart seeks praise from God, not from people." rom. 2:28-29.

The putting off of the flesh is a MIRACLE. The change of heart that the Holy Spirit produces is the only thing that qualifies a person as saved. A person with a changed heart could not live in Christianity today. My heart was changed, and it made me so dissatisfied that I dared look for something greater than I had seen according to the promises God made me in His word. If I can move a stinking mountain, what am I doing battling pornography? Why is the fight I fight against depression, or gossip, or what have you? No, my battle is the war for the souls for whom Christ gave His all as my example, and my motivation is His heartbeat, put in me by the Holy Ghost.

I believe the time has arrived where we don't want "good" Christians anymore but rather Christians who truly have the heart of God transplanted in the place of their own. From there we capture His vision, and have His power, and who we were and what we cared about and thought was important is all melted away in a love that's too great to understand. This is what life is about!

[end added stuff]

He's itching for us to close our umbrellas that keep the infinite rain of His resources of healing, prosperity, joy, peace, victory, love, etc. and just let Him spoil us.

We believe in a God who loves us unconditionally, yet spend so much fighting to gain spiritual ground in hopes that He might be pleased more with our effort. We endlessly attempt to satisfy conditions of receiving from Him that don't exist.

I'm so ready to just let go and believe God. This is something I say often. Grace coupled with mercy makes the most wonderful gift mankind could ever receive. Salvation from an eternity in hell and the establishment of heaven in your life on this earth all in one bloody package.

Oh, make known to us the riches of this salvation! No longer through endless study, but may we discover You from the inside out. Bear with our weaknesses and manifest yourself through your Spirit. Let us no longer strive in processes and methods but rather receive with the heart of a child from your infinite love. Let us enjoy how good you are to show how good you are. Then you get all you want. Let us conquer by testimony of your greatness, not by any other way.