Papa took me to school the other day.
I was driving somewhere or the other,
minding my own business chugging down the freeway on cruise control.
I was thinking about stuff. I do that.
Along comes this little white sports
car; it passed me, and pulled right in front of me and slowed down,
not a lot, but enough that I needed to drop out of cruise control and
change lanes. So I did.
Then it sped up again, pulled in front
of me again, and slowed down again. I wrestled with the temptation to
say some things, but about that time it turned off onto the exit
lane. I wrestled some more, and George Carlin’s quote came to mind
(“Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an
idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?”).
I understand that Carlin was describing
human judgmental human nature, not human driving, so I decided not to
call the driver of the white car any sort of names; I recognized that
whatever things I called him would function as a curse, cuz words do
that, so I restrained myself. That’s not Dad’s way. I just kept
driving. No big deal.
It was then I “heard” a video game
“be-doop” noise in my spirit, and had the sense that I’d just
“leveled up.” OK. That was interesting.
“Now I can trust you with authority
in your words more, Son.”
Wait, what? That was a test? I had no
idea!
I had a million questions, but he was
patient with me. (That’s not actually uncommon.)
He reminded me of the parable of the
Talents and its lesson: if I’m faithful with whatever he gives me
responsibility for, the reward is more of it, and specifically more
authority in the Kingdom (Matthew 25: “I will make you ruler over
many things!”).
He explained that the principle was
true with my words as well. As I’m faithful with using my words in
ways that extend and expand the Kingdom, I’ll find that my words
will have more effect.
I thought you might enjoy sharing my
lesson here.
Showing posts with label authority. Show all posts
Showing posts with label authority. Show all posts
Thursday
The Private Use of Miracles
It’s right there in Mark Chapter 8, but I’ve never heard anybody teach about it. Here’s the relevant part of the text:
14 Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, except for one loaf they had with them in the boat. 15 “Watch out!” He cautioned them. “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod.”
16 So they began to discuss with one another the fact that they had no bread.
17 Aware of their conversation, Jesus asked them, “Why are you debating about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Do you have such hard hearts? 18 ‘Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear?’ And do you not remember? 19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of broken pieces did you collect?”
“Twelve,” they answered.
20 “And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of broken pieces did you collect?”
“Seven,” they said.
21 Then He asked them, “Do you still not understand?”
-----------------
I get it that the warning (v15) about the influence of the Pharisees (religious spirit) and Herod (political spirit) preaches really well. That’s cool.
And I get the encouragement (v18) that there are three ways of building faith from miracles (seeing, hearing, remembering). That preaches nicely, and I’ve benefited from that lesson.
But in the midst of all this, Jesus is chiding the disciples for their concern about provision (food: bread). The clear implication of the conversation is that Jesus is completely comfortable with using the same miracle that he used twice before for thousands, but using it this time to provide for himself and his 12 disciples. He doesn’t actually come out and say it, but it’s pretty clear nonetheless.
This challenges a belief that I didn’t recognize I had, and it makes me uncomfortable. I find that I’ve believed that miracles are for evangelism, or for public ministry, that somehow using them to cover for my mistake of poor planning was disrespecting the miracle.
But Jesus rather blows up that false belief. (And if that weren’t enough, he does it again in Matthew 17:27, where he sends Pete to get their tax money from a fish’s mouth! And he walked on water just to meet up with his boys who had left earlier.)
As I reflect on my crumbling misbelief, I realize that it includes the assumption that God loves “them” (whoever “them” is) more than he loves me, that he is pleased to provide for hungry masses, but for some reason, I don’t qualify for that sort of miracle.
I call that out as a lie. That’s not true. God loves me. Period. And since he’s an infinite God, with infinite omnipotence and stuff, therefore his love for me is infinite: it is not possible for anyone ever to be loved more than he loves me. Not crowds of sinners, not the 12 disciples, not that missionary in Africa who gets to raise the dead so often. Not even you. He loves me fully, completely, infinitely.
It’s OK. He loves you that much, that way, too.
And apparently, he’s OK with relying on miracles for everyday life, for lunch, for taxes, for meeting friends. Wow.
“I came not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it…”
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or
the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”
That is pretty much the standard, go-to verse for people
who want to convince you that you need to be in bondage to the Law like they
are. Yeah, let’s look at that.
First of all, this statement is found in Matthew 5: Jesus
is speaking to people under the Law. He is not speaking to New Covenant
believers. He’s speaking in the language of folks under the Law, speaking to
people under the Law, but he’s not reaffirming the Law.
Go look at it. Read all of Matthew 5. In that conversation, Jesus is not
saying, “Be sure to obey the Law!” He’s saying, “The Law is only the starting
point!”
Verse 17 is one example: “For I tell you that unless your
righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you
will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” If you don’t do better than
the people who do the law the best, it ain’t gonna get you into the Kingdom.
That's what this whole sermon is about: the Kingdom.
Then he gets real serious. What follows is where Jesus
deconstructs the Law. “You have heard it said, … but I say to you….” Five times
he raises the bar above what the Law had required.
Then he goes on (Chapter 6 continues that sermon)
explaining a better way. He doesn’t really talk about the Kingdom for a while,
but he gets to it: “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all
these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about
tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of
its own.”
That very sermon continues on through Chapter 7, too.
He’s already dismissed the Law, the godly works of the old paradigm; now he
dismisses the godly works of the new paradigm: “Many will say to me on that
day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out
demons and in your name perform many miracles?’”
Yeah, that's not the goal either. "Depart from me, I
never knew you." It's about knowing
him.
Then he finishes preaching wanders down the mountain and
demonstrates his new Kingdom by healing the sick and teaching about the
Kingdom.
OK. That’s our context. Now let’s look at that specific
phrase, “I came not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it…”.
Yes, Jesus fulfilled the Law. Now the Law is fulfilled.
What does it mean when something is fulfilled?
My father fulfilled the mortgage on his house. Now that
his mortgage has been fulfilled, that mortgage is obsolete, fulfilled,
finished, powerless. That’s what “fulfilled” means. It’s done.
So, yes, ALL of the terms and conditions of the Old
Covenant (for that's what the law is) are now obsolete, fulfilled, finished,
powerless, now that the Old Covenant is dead and gone.
The Torah (the first five books of the Bible, containing
the Law of the Old Covenant) is an interesting (and useful) history book. It tells
the story of a covenant that God never wanted, and that never worked [Acts
15:10]. We can learn from their mistakes, and we ought to.
But it is completely without merit as a standard to live
by today, if for no other reason than there is nobody, literally not one body,
who is still part of the Old Covenant to which the Law applies.

Balderdash! Obeying the Law is an obstacle, a stumbling
block to us becoming acceptable to God. Obeying the Law in order to be acceptable is to throw his gift of grace back in his face.
I am so thankful that the Law has been fulfilled! This is
such an excellent expression of God’s mercy!
You see, it is not even possible to obey the Torah in our
day and age, and it hasn’t been possible for nearly twenty centuries.
A huge part of the law was the sacrificial system. And
nowadays, there is no ark of the covenant (it was lost centuries ago), there is
no tabernacle or temple (it was destroyed many centuries ago) with an altar to
kill bulls and goat on. And James says, "For whoever shall keep the whole
law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all."
More importantly, there are no Levites left to offer
those sacrifices to God. The Levites were the only ones whom the law allowed to
do that. Even worse, there are no records of Levitical bloodlines, and without
those records, nobody could minister if there was a temple. Those are gone, literally forever.
All of the genealogical records (all of the documentation
of who’s a Levite and who’s not) was destroyed when the Old Covenant was
destroyed as the Temple was destroyed in the conquering of Jerusalem in the
first century. [https://nwp.link/WikiAD70]
There are many parts of the law that cannot be obeyed now, and stumbling
in one point of the law makes you guilty of the whole thing. No wonder it was
destroyed.
Scripture predicted that the Old Covenant was going to be
done away with and the temple would be destroyed [Hebrews 8:13] and Jesus
described it in detail [Matthew 24] a full generation before it went down. Literally,
not one stone was left on another. (And because of his warnings, the Christians
- the only ones who believed his warnings - escaped that destruction.)
Paul summarized this whole law business quite nicely: “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained
through the law, Christ died for nothing!” [Galatians 2:21]
Does that mean that we live lives characterized by
rebellion against the Law of the Old Covenant? Where the Old Covenant command was “Do not
kill,” do we make murder our habit in order to avoid an old, dead Law?
You can hear how silly that sounds when we see it in
black and white. No, we still don’t kill people. But that's not because of the
obsolete rule book of a failed covenant that never applied to anybody but
Israel anyway.
Rather, we don’t kill because we’re like Jesus and he
doesn’t kill. We don’t kill because he’s teaching us to “love one another as I
have loved you,” and murdering people isn’t actually very loving.
So throw off the lies that say, “You must live by the Torah! You must obey the Ten Commandments."
"Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of
the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman.” Cast out the
efforts to obey as the way to please God. There is no inheritance for you in
that path.
Tuesday
Audacious Prayer
Conversation, even online conversation, is a useful tool for
discovering what’s in the heart, discovering what you’ve begun to believe that
you didn’t realize you believed. These are some of the best conversations in my
world.
Recently, I’ve been conversing about audacious prayers,
“crazy prayers” with some good folks, and I realized some things that I have
begun to believe.
I’ve been burned badly by “crazy prayers,” my crazy prayers, that I’ve prayed
which were not actually on the heart of my Father. He graciously answered them anyway. It took the better part of a decade to recover from one of them. His grace,
his kindness during that season were overwhelming.

As a result, I’m all for “crazy prayers” that are in His
heart – whether they were in his heart to begin with and I just figured it out,
or whether they started in my heart, and he’s supporting my free will. But if I
don’t find them in Father’s heart, I’m pretty gun-shy about what I’m asking
for, what I’m speaking about.
I believe I’ve come to this: the more audacious the prayer,
the more I need to have confidence that it is in my Father’s heart before I
speak them out.
But if I hear these things from him, if I find even the most
audacious, the craziest prayers reflecting his heart, then yeah, let’s do this!
Thursday
Are We Mere Men?

I’m actually quite disappointed in how free Christians are about telling the world of their
hatred for various leaders in Washington.
Let me hurriedly add that I have no great love for their
political shenanigans! I abhor their apparent willful dismantling of the
American constitution. I can see why so many American patriots have such hatred
toward them.
But Christians? Really?
I get that we care about what’s going on with our country. I
get it that icky things are being revealed. And believe me, I understand that what has
been going on with our country over the past several years is pretty bad, about
as bad as anything since the Boston Tea Party. I get that.
And I also get that we want to vent our frustration about
what’s going on, and our frustration about our political powerlessness.
But this is not how sons and daughters of the Kingdom of God
express themselves.
I find myself thinking of 1 Corinthians 3:3: “For since
there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not
walking like mere men?”
“Mere men.” What an indictment. But it appears to be a
pretty accurate description of so *many* of the angry, hateful, disrespectful
comments I’m hearing from Christians, that I’m seeing posted on Christians’
walls. “Mere men.”
Mere men are people who are swayed more by the news media,
than they are by the Word of God. I can tell, because the Word of God tells me
to “love without hypocrisy” (Romans 12:9) and that our love “bears all things,
believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Corinthians
13:7) We’re not “bearing” or “enduring” all that well right now, are we?
Then after all that, the Book, the Word of God, our Orders
from Heaven, gets even more direct: "I urge, then, first of all, that
petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people-- for
kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in
all godliness and holiness." (1 Timothy 2:1-2)
This is how sons and daughters of the Kingdom respond.
Politically, we are pretty powerless. But that’s on purpose:
we are not primarily a political people. We are born to be a people who live
from heaven, toward Earth, who walk in a body among the physical and political
places and events of this planet, but fundamentally, the reality is that our
primary reality is being seated in Heaven, seated with the Son of God, sharing
his throne, at the right hand of the Father’s throne.
Fundamentally, the power we wield is not *supposed* to be
merely human. The power that we are born to wield is the power of the Kingdom
we’re born into: the power of Heaven. The power that will halt and reverse the
damage done by various administrations, various congresses is wielded by the
means of prayer: by “petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made
for all people-- for presidents and all those in authority.”
We are a prophetic people, but it’s not legit prophecy to
declare what’s wrong and how mad we are about it. That’s the work of “mere
men.” That’s submitting to the principalities of this world. Outrage demonstrates
our failure.
Our prophetic calling is to call out the solution – which
nobody else can even see – to the problem – which nobody needs help seeing. Our
calling is to draw resources from Heaven and implement them on earth. To
implement them in the House and the Senate and the White House in Washington
DC. To implement them in the schools and businesses and news organizations in
our communities.
Our calling is to be the fulfillment of “Thy kingdom come,
thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.”
Now let’s see if we can go beyond being “mere men"
– Nor'west
Prophetic
Sunday
Whose Holiday Is It Anyway?
Whose Holiday Is It Anyway?
Point One: Plunder. When you conquer an enemy, the enemy’s property becomes your property.
Point One: Plunder. When you conquer an enemy, the enemy’s property becomes your property.
Plunder has been defined as “the indiscriminate taking of
goods by force as part of a military or political victory.” Foot soldiers
viewed plunder as a way to supplement an often meagre income and transferred
wealth became part of the celebration of victory.
On higher levels, the proud exhibition of loot formed an
integral part of the typical Roman triumph, and Genghis Khan was not unusual in
proclaiming that the greatest happiness was “to vanquish your enemies ... to
rob them of their wealth”. [Wikipedia]
Point Two: Naming rights. When you conquer a territory, you
have the right to rename that territory, and to assign new purpose to that
territory.
“When the territory of the Danites was lost to them, they
went up and attacked Leshem, took it, put it to the sword and occupied it. They
settled in Leshem and named it Dan after their ancestor.” [Joshua 19:47]
See also: Constantinople Turkey, Ponce Puerto Rico, Ho Chi
Minh City Vietnam, Lviv Ukraine, Valdivia Chile, Puerto Cortés Honduras, Al-Sadiyah
Iraq,
Point Three: We are “more than conquerors” and we are children
and heirs of the One who has conquered the world. [Romans 8:37, John 16:33]. “The
kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ,
and He shall reign forever and ever!” [Revelation 11:15]
As conqueror of the systems of this world, Jesus has – and since
we are in him and he is in us, we have – the right to rename and re-purpose
conquered territory. This is ours.

Ä’ostre has been well and truly conquered. So has Ishtar, whose
name does not contribute to our holiday, but who has fallen before our
conquering King.
We have the right by conquest to rename the conquered earthly
holidays, to cancel their earthly origins and publicly display our King’s victory
over them.
Yeah, Easter used to be something else to somebody else. But
it’s not theirs any more, unless we, as the spokespeople of the Kingdom of God
give it back to the conquered demons. Same for Halloween and Christmas and any
other holiday you care to name.
They’re ours now. Don’t give ‘em back!
Thursday
Managing Natural Disasters
I confess, I have some obstacles with how we pray about those events we refer to as natural disasters.
First let me clarify: it's clear to me that we do have both the obligation and the authority to speak to natural disasters and effect change there. I'm just not convinced it's wise planet management to always speak to every act of nature that inconveniences man.
Our species, the race of mankind, is responsible for what happens on this planet. We were delegated that responsibility by the planet's Creator. It's a pretty serious thing, and I take that seriously.
So yes, natural disasters are within the sphere of our responsibility.
Thus far in our maturation as a people of God, I observe three primary ways we deal with natural disasters:
1. We ignore them, because they happen to other people, other places (or because we don't know any better), or
2. We panic before the disaster and mourn and wail after it. or
3. We decide that this event is a bad thing, and rebuke it (with varying results; we're still learning).
In point of fact, an argument can be made for each of these reactions at different times, though I have hesitation about how healthy each of them actually is as a default response.
But the issue that's got me scratching my fuzzy head today is this: where, in this process, do we perform our evaluation of the situation? Where do we assess how much our involvement is actually necessary, and what the best intervention might be?
We live on a planet that has a very long history of things happening to it. Since before Adam and Eve took their first job assignment, the planet has been active: storms spreading water around, volcanoes adding to land masses, forest fires cleaning up the leftovers of life in a busy forest, earthquakes from tectonic plates jostling. You know, those things.
And when mankind stepped onto the stage, we renamed them. Suddenly, they were no longer our planet doing what our planet has always done. Now, suddenly, these are "disasters."
If we want to get overly anthromorphic, we can talk about whether it's fair to the planet to suddenly redefine what had always been its healthy processes, I suppose. I figure that's something analogous to deciding that poop is icky, and making the decision never to poop again. There might be side effects.
Or we could consider how reasonable our expectation is that the planet should suddenly change how the water cycle works, or how it cleans up after itself, or how the planet's geology works, just because our species is covering the planet now and might be inconvenienced by the planet's natural processes.
Here's my point: I don't subscribe to the concept that just because there's a storm, just because that storm soaks soaks cities, blows down houses or destroys a season's crops does not automatically mean that we need to shut the storm down.
There were three experiences that led me to challenge my previous (and in my opinion, irresponsible) practices:
The first lesson came on an extended canoe trip. It had been raining hard enough that we couldn't safely travel the unfamiliar river, so we were stuck in our tiny tents in the rainstorm. The third day, I'd had enough, and I asked Father to stop the rain so he & I could go for a walk.
After a wonderful three hours with him, I noticed the sky: a huge rainstorm was coming in from the east, but just before it reached me, the clouds parted and went around me. I turned around and saw where the storm joined together just west of me. Every place around me was getting well watered, but I'd walked in sunshine for several hours, because Father pushed the storm aside for a little while. The storm was not stopped, only diverted for a couple of hours.
The second lesson came when a couple of very credible prophets warned about a devastating earthquake coming to my region. We live on The Ring of Fire, the planet's earthquake zone, so quakes aren't terribly rare, but this was going to be terrible.
A few intercessors for our region got together, sought God's counsel, and diffused the threat. His instructions were to a) cancel the assignment of the spirit of fear that was riding the (very public) conversation about the quake, and to b) redirect the pent-up tension in the tectonic plates involved so that the release of that tension would not be a terrible quake, but would be diffused in a large number of small quakes.
We did that and the stories stopped, the prophecies stopped, and the USGS commented on the unusual number of moderate quakes in the region. Crisis averted, but not by the brute force of stopping the tectonic plates from moving; by redirecting that energy to nondestructive symptoms.
The third lesson involved a very scary storm heading for a busy coastline. Father instructed us not to pray to stop the storm, but to turn the storm. The next day, the weather forecasters scrambled to explain the unexpected change in the storm's path to their thousands of relieved viewers.
In addition, I've taken some lessons from the realm of physics. I've realized that a great amount of "potential energy" or a great "inertia" can be more easily redirected than simply stopped in its tracks.
To stop a great storm in its tracks would literally require the equivalent atmospheric energy of several hundred thermonuclear detonations, and even if you managed to handle that power well with your prayers, you'd probably end up with scraps, several smaller storms spinning off causing less news-worthy damage in a number of smaller locations. That's a lot of work, whether it's in the natural or in the supernatural. And it's likely to be untidy.
But to change the storm's path, that requires a much smaller miracle, some say the flap of a butterfly's wings, properly applied, might be enough.
So if I've got a family picnic scheduled for this weekend, and there's a very wet weather front on a collision course with my picnic, is it appropriate to exert the requisite energy to stop the weather front, or to stop the front from dropping its rain? That might be a serious disappointment to the farmers in my region who are counting on that rain for their orchards and crops, and to the fish who live and breed in the streams and rivers.
And then, what would happen to the water that would normally have fallen in my region? It would be carried to some other region that isn't used to as much rain. How does the importance of my picnic stack up against frightening and unexpected weather patterns for my neighbors?
Or would it be better to just shift the storm? Shift it early enough and you only need to bump it off course by a few degrees. Not being omniscient myself, I confess that I don't really know what the effects of that would be.
Or should I leave Father's watering system in place, and just find a new location, perhaps one under cover, for the family gathering.
I'm not arguing that one answer is better than another. I am arguing that if we're going to take our responsibility to rule over creation seriously, we need to ask these questions.
"Yep. That looks like a problem. What are the available options to deal with it? Which option looks to be the best, and how do I implement that option?"
I recommend consulting with our omniscient Father on such matters. He has millennia of experience dealing with weather (and forest fires and earthquakes and floods and....). And he likes to keep his hand in matters of this sort.
First let me clarify: it's clear to me that we do have both the obligation and the authority to speak to natural disasters and effect change there. I'm just not convinced it's wise planet management to always speak to every act of nature that inconveniences man.
Our species, the race of mankind, is responsible for what happens on this planet. We were delegated that responsibility by the planet's Creator. It's a pretty serious thing, and I take that seriously.
So yes, natural disasters are within the sphere of our responsibility.
Thus far in our maturation as a people of God, I observe three primary ways we deal with natural disasters:
1. We ignore them, because they happen to other people, other places (or because we don't know any better), or
2. We panic before the disaster and mourn and wail after it. or
3. We decide that this event is a bad thing, and rebuke it (with varying results; we're still learning).
In point of fact, an argument can be made for each of these reactions at different times, though I have hesitation about how healthy each of them actually is as a default response.

We live on a planet that has a very long history of things happening to it. Since before Adam and Eve took their first job assignment, the planet has been active: storms spreading water around, volcanoes adding to land masses, forest fires cleaning up the leftovers of life in a busy forest, earthquakes from tectonic plates jostling. You know, those things.
And when mankind stepped onto the stage, we renamed them. Suddenly, they were no longer our planet doing what our planet has always done. Now, suddenly, these are "disasters."
If we want to get overly anthromorphic, we can talk about whether it's fair to the planet to suddenly redefine what had always been its healthy processes, I suppose. I figure that's something analogous to deciding that poop is icky, and making the decision never to poop again. There might be side effects.
Or we could consider how reasonable our expectation is that the planet should suddenly change how the water cycle works, or how it cleans up after itself, or how the planet's geology works, just because our species is covering the planet now and might be inconvenienced by the planet's natural processes.
Here's my point: I don't subscribe to the concept that just because there's a storm, just because that storm soaks soaks cities, blows down houses or destroys a season's crops does not automatically mean that we need to shut the storm down.
There were three experiences that led me to challenge my previous (and in my opinion, irresponsible) practices:
The first lesson came on an extended canoe trip. It had been raining hard enough that we couldn't safely travel the unfamiliar river, so we were stuck in our tiny tents in the rainstorm. The third day, I'd had enough, and I asked Father to stop the rain so he & I could go for a walk.
After a wonderful three hours with him, I noticed the sky: a huge rainstorm was coming in from the east, but just before it reached me, the clouds parted and went around me. I turned around and saw where the storm joined together just west of me. Every place around me was getting well watered, but I'd walked in sunshine for several hours, because Father pushed the storm aside for a little while. The storm was not stopped, only diverted for a couple of hours.
The second lesson came when a couple of very credible prophets warned about a devastating earthquake coming to my region. We live on The Ring of Fire, the planet's earthquake zone, so quakes aren't terribly rare, but this was going to be terrible.
A few intercessors for our region got together, sought God's counsel, and diffused the threat. His instructions were to a) cancel the assignment of the spirit of fear that was riding the (very public) conversation about the quake, and to b) redirect the pent-up tension in the tectonic plates involved so that the release of that tension would not be a terrible quake, but would be diffused in a large number of small quakes.
We did that and the stories stopped, the prophecies stopped, and the USGS commented on the unusual number of moderate quakes in the region. Crisis averted, but not by the brute force of stopping the tectonic plates from moving; by redirecting that energy to nondestructive symptoms.
The third lesson involved a very scary storm heading for a busy coastline. Father instructed us not to pray to stop the storm, but to turn the storm. The next day, the weather forecasters scrambled to explain the unexpected change in the storm's path to their thousands of relieved viewers.
In addition, I've taken some lessons from the realm of physics. I've realized that a great amount of "potential energy" or a great "inertia" can be more easily redirected than simply stopped in its tracks.
To stop a great storm in its tracks would literally require the equivalent atmospheric energy of several hundred thermonuclear detonations, and even if you managed to handle that power well with your prayers, you'd probably end up with scraps, several smaller storms spinning off causing less news-worthy damage in a number of smaller locations. That's a lot of work, whether it's in the natural or in the supernatural. And it's likely to be untidy.
But to change the storm's path, that requires a much smaller miracle, some say the flap of a butterfly's wings, properly applied, might be enough.
So if I've got a family picnic scheduled for this weekend, and there's a very wet weather front on a collision course with my picnic, is it appropriate to exert the requisite energy to stop the weather front, or to stop the front from dropping its rain? That might be a serious disappointment to the farmers in my region who are counting on that rain for their orchards and crops, and to the fish who live and breed in the streams and rivers.
And then, what would happen to the water that would normally have fallen in my region? It would be carried to some other region that isn't used to as much rain. How does the importance of my picnic stack up against frightening and unexpected weather patterns for my neighbors?
Or would it be better to just shift the storm? Shift it early enough and you only need to bump it off course by a few degrees. Not being omniscient myself, I confess that I don't really know what the effects of that would be.
Or should I leave Father's watering system in place, and just find a new location, perhaps one under cover, for the family gathering.
I'm not arguing that one answer is better than another. I am arguing that if we're going to take our responsibility to rule over creation seriously, we need to ask these questions.
"Yep. That looks like a problem. What are the available options to deal with it? Which option looks to be the best, and how do I implement that option?"
I recommend consulting with our omniscient Father on such matters. He has millennia of experience dealing with weather (and forest fires and earthquakes and floods and....). And he likes to keep his hand in matters of this sort.
Sent
We Are Sent.
There’s a big difference between us going out on our own and spreading the Good News of the Kingdom because we like it, and being sent on assignment to to do the very same work.
We’re sent. We're on assignment. Commissioned by Heaven.
Jesus sent us: “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” [John 20:21]
Think about that first word, “As” for a minute: This is like what Father has done.
You and I are sent under the same terms and conditions that applied when Father sent Jesus to Earth.
Let that mess with your head for a minute. Jesus was sent as the embodiment of Heaven to extend the Kingdom (“kingship”) of heaven on Earth. Every time Jesus confronted darkness, the Kingdom of Heaven emerged victorious. Every time Jesus met someone sick, he healed them.
OK. That stretches me a fair bit. I’m not just a follower, just a “believer”, just a pew-warmer, just “little ol’ me.” I’m sent to Earth with the same assignment, with the same backing, with the same power that Jesus was sent with.
“As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” Whoa.
Now for the second half:
“Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God….” [John 13:3]
How was Jesus sent from the Father? With all things under his power, knowing he had come from God, knowing he was returning to God.
“As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” What does this say about how you’re sent?
And of course, the very next thing Jesus did was to wash the boys’ feet. Isn’t that how we’re sent?
We're sent to wash feet in the power of, and as a representative of, the King of Kings. He's washing feet through you and me.
There’s a big difference between us going out on our own and spreading the Good News of the Kingdom because we like it, and being sent on assignment to to do the very same work.

Jesus sent us: “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” [John 20:21]
Think about that first word, “As” for a minute: This is like what Father has done.
You and I are sent under the same terms and conditions that applied when Father sent Jesus to Earth.
Let that mess with your head for a minute. Jesus was sent as the embodiment of Heaven to extend the Kingdom (“kingship”) of heaven on Earth. Every time Jesus confronted darkness, the Kingdom of Heaven emerged victorious. Every time Jesus met someone sick, he healed them.
OK. That stretches me a fair bit. I’m not just a follower, just a “believer”, just a pew-warmer, just “little ol’ me.” I’m sent to Earth with the same assignment, with the same backing, with the same power that Jesus was sent with.
“As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” Whoa.
Now for the second half:
“Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God….” [John 13:3]
How was Jesus sent from the Father? With all things under his power, knowing he had come from God, knowing he was returning to God.
“As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” What does this say about how you’re sent?
And of course, the very next thing Jesus did was to wash the boys’ feet. Isn’t that how we’re sent?
We're sent to wash feet in the power of, and as a representative of, the King of Kings. He's washing feet through you and me.
Do We Believe It?
We need to consider whether we actually believe the Bible or not.
Jesus said, “I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.” (Luke 10:19)
Here’s the test question: who has the authority to stop the power of the enemy? Who has the authority to stop what he’s doing, to stop the stealing, killing and destruction?
Now here’s the hard part: Who has the authority to stop evil from happening around us? Who has the ability to limit what the devil is trying to do? Who has the responsibility to put boundaries on what the devil does around our cities and countries, around our families and neighborhoods?
I suspect that solving the problem is easier once we determine where the break is: it’s not on God’s part. (No, it’s not just black & white, but the black & white are a big part of it.)
Brothers & Sisters, let’s pick up the authority, the assignment that Jesus has already given to us, and let’s take our responsibility seriously, and let’s trample on snakes & scorpions; let’s overcome the enemy and his nasty work.
“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, here, in my neighborhood, as it is in Heaven. For Thine is the glory, the Power and the. Honor, for ever and ever. Amen.”
Jesus said, “I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.” (Luke 10:19)

Now here’s the hard part: Who has the authority to stop evil from happening around us? Who has the ability to limit what the devil is trying to do? Who has the responsibility to put boundaries on what the devil does around our cities and countries, around our families and neighborhoods?
I suspect that solving the problem is easier once we determine where the break is: it’s not on God’s part. (No, it’s not just black & white, but the black & white are a big part of it.)
Brothers & Sisters, let’s pick up the authority, the assignment that Jesus has already given to us, and let’s take our responsibility seriously, and let’s trample on snakes & scorpions; let’s overcome the enemy and his nasty work.
“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, here, in my neighborhood, as it is in Heaven. For Thine is the glory, the Power and the. Honor, for ever and ever. Amen.”
Dealing With Bible Thumpers
Someone asked me how I respond to Bible Thumpers. Boy did
that make me think.
Yeah, that’s a big issue. It’s big enough that Wikipedia has
a definition of a Bible thumper (aka “bible basher”):
“Someone perceived as aggressively imposing their Christian
beliefs upon others. The term derives from preachers thumping their hands down
on the Bible, or thumping the Bible itself, to emphasize a point during a
sermon.”

I used to be a bible thumper. I’m in recovery now. Here’s
how I try to respond to bible thumpers. I hope it helps bring freedom to you. It’s
a tough one.
I can’t say “Here’s how to do it.” I can only say, “Here are
some things I’m trying.” Some are working better than others.
* Make peace with myself about not needing to have all the
answers. This one was huge for me.
* When I give answers, I try to speak from experience,
including my experience with the Book and my experience with what went wrong,
rather than just quote a platitude from the Book.
* If I have to quote a verse as if it were a platitude, I
explain quickly how this applies in my world.
* I do not look to thumpers for help; I do not expect them
to minister to the real issues of my heart, and I do not let down my defenses
to let their religious spirit have access to my soul.
* If someone quotes verses at me, I sidestep the verse. “I’m
not interested in your skills with copy and paste [or with quoting verses]. I
want to know what you actually think.” Thumpers find this confusing, but a few
get it, some sooner than others.
* Occasionally, if I sense it might do some good, I’ll try to bring some sense into the conversation, asking them to support the doctrine they’re proclaiming. Very often, just looking at the context of (verses immediately before and after) the verse they’re wielding is enough to take some of the wind out of their sails.
* If the thumper gives me permission, or if the topic is a big deal, and there are lots of people by the thumpage, I’ll attempt to correct their abuse, either by addressing the topic with more than verses and stale doctrine, or by talking about what actual conversation is like. I hate doing this because I don’t love confrontation, but some situations call for it.
* Then afterwards, I try to go out of my way to make conversation with the
thumpers whose thumpage I have just upset. My goal is to hear what they
actually think on the topic, and to engage them on why they hold that so strongly, but I’ll take small talk if that’s all I can get.
Note that I am absolutely NOT trying to minimize the effect
of the Scriptures in my life, as some thumpers have accused me. Not at all. But
I want the Scriptures to work in me, guided by Father’s hand as the living and
active scalpel that they are (see Hebrews 4:12).
I’m not willing to submit to someone – anyone, really –
wielding scriptures as a bludgeon on me, any more. And as far as I can
make a difference, I’m not willing to let others bludgeon those around me
either.
So. How do YOU respond to bible thumpers?
Insight About Heaven’s Resources
Maybe you’ve had this experience. You’re praying, usually
praying protection, for someone – perhaps ourselves, more often we’re praying
for someone else. And then it happens: you see or feel the angels that are guarding
them.
Those angels are never wimpy little things, are they? No,
the wimpy little things are the demons opposing you, or at least most of those
demons are wimpy and little; a few are more capable and are worth another
glance before banishing them.

As we prayed, it seemed as if Father was chuckling quietly. “Protection?”
he murmured, as he opened the veil between realms so we could see the protection
that was already in place. Our eyes were drawn up, and up, and up.
Greg is not a small man, but as we beheld the angel that
protected him, suddenly Greg appeared minuscule. Standing tall, he didn’t reach
beyond the calves of the angel who guarded him. Greg was already very well protected, indeed.
Since that day, I’ve “seen” the guardians of many, many
people, and not a one of them is a wimp. And that’s consistent with the nature
of the One who assigns these spirit-beings to protect us: He does not do things
halfway. If He’s going to send an angel to guard his children, it’ll be a formidable
protection!
That’s where I’ve been for years: thankful for these mighty
defenders. But the other night, it changed.
In my dreams that night, I was facing a formidable
assignment, something I needed to do, that I had no idea how I could ever
accomplish that: it was way beyond my abilities, beyond my realm of influence, beyond
my… and suddenly Father interrupted.
“I’ve given you a powerful advocate.” He said. “This task is
not beyond his resources.” The invitation was clear, but that was the moment
that I woke up, with those words ringing in my spirit: “I’ve given you a
powerful advocate. This task is not beyond his resources,” and the sense that I
needed to share this exhortation with the saints.
God has given you a powerful advocate. Don’t shy away from the
dreams He’s given you, just because they’re beyond your own skills and abilities.
Heaven’s resources are with you. You’ve seen them act for your protection. Now,
don’t get all cocky about it, of course, but they’re working with you for your success, every bit as much as for
your protection. This is no longer beyond you.
Let’s take up the assignment, the dreams he’s laid before us, shall we? For we do not work alone.
Father & Sons Development Co.
I don’t know if I’ve ever told you that I’m adopted. I was adopted by my Father at a very young age. I love my Father. He’s the best Dad in the world.
Did I tell you I’m working in the family business? The day I was adopted, I started working with my Dad. My Dad’s awesome like that.
When I was really little, he’d carry me in his arms as he walked through the factory floor. He’d stop and visit with machinists and foremen and janitors, pretty much everybody
Once when I was a bit older, I was building stuff with Legos™ in his office, while he worked on something. His desk overlooked the factory floor, and he saw something that caught his attention.
“Son,” he says. “You know Mr. Davidson? Tall guy. Red shirt. Big mustache?”
“I know him, Pop.”
“Son, would you go find Mr. Davidson and ask him to come up to see me? I’ve got something I want him to see.” And I toddled down the stairs to find Mr. Davidson. Soon he and Dad were talking seriously about something on Dad’s desk, and I added a new wheel to the thing I was building.
There was a time after I’d discovered books! Books are wonderful things! I was sitting in a chair in Dad’s office, sounding out a word, when he interrupted me. “Son, Miz Thompson works on the far side of the factory. Would you find her and give her this note?” He handed me the note, and I ran off to find Sally Thompson. She had a wonderful smile, and she used it on me sometimes.
I never did go to normal school. I would say that Dad homeschooled me, except it mostly happened in his office. Is there such a thing as officeschool? We had the best times together in his factory office.
He’d given me an arithmetic assignment that made me think pretty hard. If Mr. Jacobi needs to build this many boxes by the end of the month, how many does he need to build every day? Eventually I puzzled it out right (Dad showed me where I’d forgotten to carry the one, the first time), and he smiled this great big smile! “Son, would you please take this down to Marty Jacobi – he should be in the lunchroom right now – and show him how well you did this.” He wrote his initials on my math paper.
I found Marty. He gave me a cookie while he looked at my work. I munched, and then he smiled, and said, “You’ve got a real smart Dad, you know!” He was right, of course, but I already knew that!
One day he was reading letters. He had a lot of letters, and he read ’em all. One of them made him smile extra big, and he called me to himself. “Son, would you please go tell Bob Davidson that he’s got a new worker coming in the morning. He’ll want to put Cindy on the Quality Control team right away.” I delivered the message. Bob winked at me and nodded. “Sure thing!” he said.
One Thursday morning, Dad pushed my math books out of the way again, and set down his computer in their place. “Son, do you see this? What do you think that means?” and he pointed to a detail on the screen. This was a math test test, I felt sure. I was ready.
“That looks like trouble, Dad. Not big trouble, but trouble. Especially for the QC department. Um… Is that right?”
“That’s right, Son,” and he printed that page. “Would you explain this to Cindy in QC? And maybe talk with her about what to do with it, and bring me your favorite few suggestions.” Later, he picked one of our ideas, and implemented it. That was cool.
So I wasn’t altogether surprised when he set his computer on my desk some time later. He didn’t point to anything, but asked me, “What do you see here, Son?” I studied it a bit, and talked with him about the three or four things I saw. “What about this one?” “Hmm. I saw that, but didn’t think it was all that important,” I answered. “It’s all important, Son. Especially when this is trending,” and he pointed to the first detail I’d seen. “What happens when these happen on the same day?” I hadn’t thought of that! We talked about it and how to help the folks in the factory when that happened. I learn so much from my Dad.
And a few months later, those two things did happen on the same day. “Well, it happened, Dad.” “Yep, it surely did. Well, you know what to do.” I picked up my notes from our planning, headed down the stairs, and called the supervisors together. I explained the problem, and listened to their concerns. One of the guys had already figured it out, so I let him describe the adjustments we needed, filling in details when he needed help. We had the solution in place before the problem was big enough to slow production down.
Eventually we got to the point where I was really running the factory. Dad spent most of his time talking to individuals, or scheduling contractors for the expansion, and he spent a lot of time training some of the other kids, too. If I ran into a problem, he was always right there to help, and there wasn’t anything that he couldn’t figure out.
Figuring things out comes easy when you’re omniscient like my Dad is.
Did I tell you I’m working in the family business? The day I was adopted, I started working with my Dad. My Dad’s awesome like that.

Once when I was a bit older, I was building stuff with Legos™ in his office, while he worked on something. His desk overlooked the factory floor, and he saw something that caught his attention.
“Son,” he says. “You know Mr. Davidson? Tall guy. Red shirt. Big mustache?”
“I know him, Pop.”
“Son, would you go find Mr. Davidson and ask him to come up to see me? I’ve got something I want him to see.” And I toddled down the stairs to find Mr. Davidson. Soon he and Dad were talking seriously about something on Dad’s desk, and I added a new wheel to the thing I was building.
There was a time after I’d discovered books! Books are wonderful things! I was sitting in a chair in Dad’s office, sounding out a word, when he interrupted me. “Son, Miz Thompson works on the far side of the factory. Would you find her and give her this note?” He handed me the note, and I ran off to find Sally Thompson. She had a wonderful smile, and she used it on me sometimes.
I never did go to normal school. I would say that Dad homeschooled me, except it mostly happened in his office. Is there such a thing as officeschool? We had the best times together in his factory office.
He’d given me an arithmetic assignment that made me think pretty hard. If Mr. Jacobi needs to build this many boxes by the end of the month, how many does he need to build every day? Eventually I puzzled it out right (Dad showed me where I’d forgotten to carry the one, the first time), and he smiled this great big smile! “Son, would you please take this down to Marty Jacobi – he should be in the lunchroom right now – and show him how well you did this.” He wrote his initials on my math paper.
I found Marty. He gave me a cookie while he looked at my work. I munched, and then he smiled, and said, “You’ve got a real smart Dad, you know!” He was right, of course, but I already knew that!
One day he was reading letters. He had a lot of letters, and he read ’em all. One of them made him smile extra big, and he called me to himself. “Son, would you please go tell Bob Davidson that he’s got a new worker coming in the morning. He’ll want to put Cindy on the Quality Control team right away.” I delivered the message. Bob winked at me and nodded. “Sure thing!” he said.
One Thursday morning, Dad pushed my math books out of the way again, and set down his computer in their place. “Son, do you see this? What do you think that means?” and he pointed to a detail on the screen. This was a math test test, I felt sure. I was ready.
“That looks like trouble, Dad. Not big trouble, but trouble. Especially for the QC department. Um… Is that right?”
“That’s right, Son,” and he printed that page. “Would you explain this to Cindy in QC? And maybe talk with her about what to do with it, and bring me your favorite few suggestions.” Later, he picked one of our ideas, and implemented it. That was cool.
So I wasn’t altogether surprised when he set his computer on my desk some time later. He didn’t point to anything, but asked me, “What do you see here, Son?” I studied it a bit, and talked with him about the three or four things I saw. “What about this one?” “Hmm. I saw that, but didn’t think it was all that important,” I answered. “It’s all important, Son. Especially when this is trending,” and he pointed to the first detail I’d seen. “What happens when these happen on the same day?” I hadn’t thought of that! We talked about it and how to help the folks in the factory when that happened. I learn so much from my Dad.
And a few months later, those two things did happen on the same day. “Well, it happened, Dad.” “Yep, it surely did. Well, you know what to do.” I picked up my notes from our planning, headed down the stairs, and called the supervisors together. I explained the problem, and listened to their concerns. One of the guys had already figured it out, so I let him describe the adjustments we needed, filling in details when he needed help. We had the solution in place before the problem was big enough to slow production down.
Eventually we got to the point where I was really running the factory. Dad spent most of his time talking to individuals, or scheduling contractors for the expansion, and he spent a lot of time training some of the other kids, too. If I ran into a problem, he was always right there to help, and there wasn’t anything that he couldn’t figure out.
Figuring things out comes easy when you’re omniscient like my Dad is.
Responding to “Melchizedek Means You Must Tithe!”
Does Abraham's tithe to Melchizedek mean we must tithe?
When teaching on the topic of tithing, pastors generally
refer to Genesis 14, where Abraham was just finishing wiping out four kings in
a war to recover his captive family. Melchizedek, a priest, came out to
congratulate Abe, who gave that priest 10% of the plunder. Here’s the story:
When Abram heard that his relative
had been taken captive, he called out the 318 trained men born in his household
and went in pursuit as far as Dan. During the night Abram divided his men to
attack them and he routed them, pursuing them as far as Hobah, north of Damascus . He recovered
all the goods and brought back his relative Lot
and his possessions, together with the women and the other people.
After Abram returned from defeating
Kedorlaomer and the kings allied with him, the king of Sodom
came out to meet him in the Valley
of Shaveh (that is, the
King's Valley). Then Melchizedek king of Salem
brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abram,
saying, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth. And
praise be to God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand.”
Then Abram gave him a tenth of
everything.
The king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the people and
keep the goods for yourself.” But Abram said to the king of Sodom, “With raised
hand I have sworn an oath to the LORD, God Most High, Creator of heaven and
earth, that I will accept nothing belonging to you, not even a thread or the
strap of a sandal, so that you will never be able to say, 'I made Abram rich.’”
- Genesis 14:14-23
“The tithe precedes the Law!” they declaim. “So when the Law
went away, the tithe stays: You must tithe because Abraham tithed before the Law!” (And they’ll often
reference Hebrews 7, where the story is mentioned in passing in support of a
whole different point.)
I hate that argument: it’s 98% irrelevant to the topic. (A
little bit is relevant: One guy did tithe once before the law.)
But he tithed only once. One time only, Abraham gave 10% of
the spoils of one war to Melchizedek, while he gave 90% to the kings of Sodom & Gomorrah .
He never tithed from any other source, either before or after that day.
So we’re supposed to make application for our lives from
this story. Here are some ways we can apply Abraham’s example of tithing to
Melchizedek:
* Does this mean that we should tithe on the spoils of our
war? Do we get the Pentagon involved in this, or do we limit ourselves just to
wars that we ourselves lead? Are we limited only to foreign wars, or does a
fight with my wife count?
* Does this mean that we tithe after we kill people? If so,
whom shall we kill on Sunday morning? Abe killed people who held his family
captive. Who would that be today?
* Does this mean that we should tithe when a priest brings
bread and wine to our workplace and blesses us (as Melchizedek did here)? In
that case, I should tithe to the traveling sales reps, I suppose. They bring
food to my workplace, though they’re not really priests.
* Does this mean we should tithe only one day in our lives,
as Abraham did? If so, how do we choose which one day we should tithe? Should
it be when we’re young and strong, or when we’re old and wise? And should it be
a work day, or a weekend day? If it only happens once, we should be careful to
pick the right day.
* Does this mean that we should give 90% of our income to
the leaders of “Sodom & Gomorrah ”? I thought we were opposed to the
pornography industry or the sex trade? Or are you saying we should just pick
some worldly politicians and give them our life savings? (Sure glad that
happens only one day in our life!)
My point is this: it is foolishly disingenuous to say, “You
must apply this one detail out of
this story, but ignore all the rest
of it!” That’s religious manipulation at its worst! It is completely unworthy
of the People of God.
Conclusion: This story is clearly not appropriate to use as
a tool to demand that people give you 10% of their income.
But don’t take this too
far.
I am not trying to say, “Do not tithe!” Nor am I saying, “Don’t
be generous!” as some mistakenly say.
I’m saying that the People of God are not subject to the
extortion that the tithe teaching has become: “If you don’t obey this Law,
you’re a lousy Christian!” Many churches today deny members opportunities to
serve, or to receive ministry, unless they’ve submitted to the extortion.
Christians are not under law. We are not required to tithe.
However, note that the law of sowing and reaping is part of our lives in the New
Covenant. Consider 2Corinthians 9:6: “Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly
will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap
generously.” That's for us. That’s real.
And the need for believers to be characterized by generosity,
particularly to the poor, is incontrovertible! Really, 10% is a pretty wimpy
standard for people who have generosity in their soul. Giving from a free heart
is completely encouraged! And we’re free to give where we want to: to missions,
to local congregations, to a benevolence group, directly to needy people, or to
a secular group that does worthy things. And we’re free to donate money, or
time, or sweat, or influence, or anything else we have to give.
So, if people read the story of Abraham and Melchizedek and
then they say, “Well that proves it. I must give 10% of my income to you every
week because Abraham gave 10% to a priest one time!” then somebody is not
thinking clearly. That’s just the spirit of stupid.
But if they read the story of Abraham and Melchizedek and
then they say “That’s cool! I want to
do that!” then more power to them! That’s a beautiful thing!
Just don’t try to make it a law. That would be a lie. And
it’s not good to lie to the people of God.
Wielding Authority to Change the World
I have been reflecting on the changes
going on in the United
States and in the world. Those are both many
and substantial.
But my
thoughts focus not on what those changes are, but rather how we should respond
to them.
Let us
assume, for the sake of this conversation, that many of the changes are
inappropriate, even evil, and should be opposed or reversed.
The
question at hand is this: how shall we oppose the things we need to oppose.
More specifically, what kind of power shall we exercise.
The changes
are being made by the exercise of political power, the power of manipulation
and intimidation, the power of deception, the power of public opinion, and some
would argue that spiritual power is involved. Many of the changes have been by
the use of a combination of these forces.
The
question that appears to be neglected so often is this: what kind of power
shall we wield as believers, to oppose the inappropriate or evil works in our
land? Shall we exercise political power, or manipulation? Shall we wield the
power of public opinion with petitions?
Let’s back
up for just a moment, and ask a slightly more foundational question? What power
has God given us? Or what kind of authority has he given us to exercise on his
behalf?
In this
whole conversation, I’d argue for these truths:
·
Some
forms of power are simply not appropriate for sons and daughters of the Kingdom
to use: deception and intimidation, for example.
·
The
primary tool Jesus gave us was authority, which is not the same as power (that’s
a topic for another article), and the authority he gave us is in the realm of the
Spirit. Let’s acknowledge, however, that authority wielded in the spirit realm
will manifest as changes in the physical realm.
·
Having
said that, there are some believers (I emphasize: not all believers) who are
specifically called by God to represent his Kingdom in the political realm.
These brothers & sisters have the right to exercise authority in that
realm.
My tentative
conclusion, therefore, is this: we as
believers, when we see a political crisis (such as laws against Christians) or the
exercise of violence (I think of ISIS or Hamas), we are not called to exercise the
same force that is being used for evil. We are, instead, called to exercise
authority in the spiritual realm, with the result of change in the natural
realm.
This is the
model of the New Testament.
When they
experienced a political crisis (for example, Peter jailed, in Acts 12), their
response was not to petition the government, and it was not a prison break);
rather, they exercised spiritual authority in prayer, and angels were released
to carry out the results of that authority in the natural realm.
The result
was, ironically, a prison break of sorts, which was what the believers had been
praying for, but also a testimony of supernatural power, which spread
throughout both the church and the government.
And when
they experienced violence (in the person of the Pharisee, Saul persecuting
believers), they again went to prayer. In this case, Jesus himself appeared to
Saul on the Damascus
road (Acts 9), knocked Saul off his ass, and confronted his erroneous ways.
The result
was a conversion, which stopped Saul’s “threats & murder” (Acts 9:1), which
was what they were praying for, but it also resulted in arguably the greatest
preacher of the gospel that has ever walked this planet: the apostle Paul.
I know that
we have brothers and sisters who are called to exercise authority in the realms
of political power, or of public opinion, or other forms of power. I contend
that these are few, and are specifically called by God to those positions of
authority.
But all of
us, the whole Body of Christ, we have all been given authority to wield in the
Spirit. We learned long ago how to wield that authority to lead others out of
sin and into salvation. We’ve learned more recently how to wield that authority
to heal the sick and raise the dead.
It is time
to wield the authority that God has given us – and by doing so, to lay down the
power and authority of the world – in the spiritual realm on behalf of nations,
and people groups and regions.
It’s time
for us to walk away from the weapons of the flesh, and to pick up the weapons
that God has given us, and with them, to change the world.
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The Cleaning Lady
The Cleaning Lady
I’d like to tell you the story of a friend of mine, whom
I’ll call Chantelle.
Chantelle had just found a roommate and a nice apartment,
and they were in the early stages of moving in, when she called me. “I’d like
your help in praying over our apartment before we move in.” She and I had dealt
with some things together before, and she understood that teamwork is valuable.
So we began to pray. We prayed over the kitchen, the dining
room, the living room, and declared the destiny we heard Father speaking about
for the rooms and their activity. During the prayer time, I slipped away, and
tossed a large handful of Dove’s chocolates into her empty room, just so she’s
find a nice surprise.
When we finished praying about the public rooms, we headed
down the hallway, and we both felt something strange, an unhealthy, unclean
presence back there, and we both felt it at the same point, right as the
hallway turned the corner.
Cool! A teachable moment! So we discussed it, discussed what
it felt like, and I proposed that we check the back rooms individually for more
sense of it.
We checked her room first, and there was no sense of that
particular darkness, but there were wrapped dark chocolates scattered on the
floor. She laughed and picked up a couple of them, and we agreed that this room
wasn’t the source for the sense of the unclean that we felt. She offered me a
chocolate and we moved on.
We prayed over the bathroom, blessed it, and ruled it out as
a source of darkness, and moved on, while she nibbled her chocolate.
The roommate’s room. As Chantelle opened her roommate’s
door, we felt the unclean darkness inside. “Aha! I suspect we’ve found a clue!”
The roommate wasn’t home, of course; she wasn’t a believer, and wouldn’t
understand what we were doing. In fact, there was just a small stack of boxes
in the middle of the room.
We discussed the situation. We both sensed that there was
uncleanness on the walls, though they appeared a clean white to our eyes.
Chantelle stepped into the room, spiritual senses wide open, looking to sense
where the unclean stuff was coming from. The closet? Nope. The window? Nope?
This place where the bed obviously went? Nope.
That left the boxes in the middle of the room. They were
just moving boxes, and only two or three of them; they looked innocuous enough.
She popped the last of the chocolate in her mouth and touched the top box.
Bingo! This is where the darkness came from! As we talked about the source of
the presence, she straightened out the foil that had wrapped her chocolate, and
read the quote it contained: “You are exactly where you are supposed to be.” We
laughed!
We didn’t get into the boxes; they weren’t our property, but
we felt the need to address the darkness, particularly, the darkness clinging to
the walls. So we prayed that it would be removed. Nothing happened. We
commanded it to leave. Nothing. We prophesied blessing on the room and its
future. Nada.
I had an idea. “Chantelle, why don’t you ask Father for the
right weapon to remove the darkness?” She gave me a funny look, but we’d done
stranger things than this together. She prayed, and I could see from the look
on her face that she’d seen Him give her something.
“What is it? What did he give you?” She scowled. “A
washrag.” We laughed some more.
But she began to wield the washrag that she saw in the
Spirit against the darkness. In reality, she began to wash the walls with it,
and it was the first time that we saw the darkness give way, though it was a
fight.
After a few minutes, we recognized that this was going to
take all night, and I couldn’t help her, as I was still standing in the hallway
(out of respect for someone else’s room).

So Chantelle handed the washrag to the cleaning lady angel,
and invited her to wield the weapon. Immediately, she began washing the walls,
and by the time Chantelle had reached the door to the room, the first wall was
halfway clean; we could both feel the darkness lifting. That was better! We
blessed the cleaning lady, and invited her to stay. It seemed to us that her
assignment was the back of the apartment, particularly the hallway and the
bedrooms.
We felt the freedom to invite a couple other angles to the
house. A big armed one was stationed outside the downstairs entrance, and Chantelle
assigned another, whom she named Cheese Grater Guy, to the front door, to
remove any “Klingons” from guests to the home.
When we left, we looked back at the bedroom windows, and we
both discerned what appeared to be a cleaning lady waving happily to us from
the roommate’s window. We laughed and waved back.
The really fun part of the story came weeks later, when the
roommate cautiously reported that she “could feel a presence” in the back
hallway. Chantelle replied, “Yep, and she’s staying here! We’re not going to
get rid of that one!”
And the cleaning lady likes cats. Both Chantelle and the
roommate had pet cats, kittens, really, who loved to play with them. But from
time to time, both women could see the cats in the hallway, playing with someone
they couldn’t see with their natural eyes.
Some Experiences with Judgment in the Courts of Heaven
Some years ago, Jesus took me to a new place that I hadn’t
expected: it was a tall, oak, judge’s bench. He took me around the back of the
bench, and up the stairs behind it. But rather than sit down himself, he sat me
in the great chair behind the bench, and when I sat, I was wearing black robes
and I had a wooden gavel in my right hand.

I was charged with judging my brothers and sisters, but
judging from Heaven’s perspective, from the perspective of a King who’s madly
in love with them, who’s unreasonably proud of them, who’s amazed and overjoyed
with their every step of faith. So the judgments that I’ve been invited to
pronounce are about God’s favor on his children; I’ve been charged with finding
them guilty of pleasing their Father, and sentencing them to be loved and
adored for all their natural lives, and beyond! It’s better work than I first
feared it would be; I’ve actually come to love that bench.
But some of the judicial work has been darker than that.
Once, I was praying intensely for a dear sister against whom hell was having a
measure of success. Jesus brought me around to the stairs and up to the bench.
I could see more clearly from up there, and with his help, I saw the cloud of
filthy spirits that were harassing my sister. “Judge them,” he said, and I understood.
I began to recognize their crimes, and as I identified them
– the spirits and their crimes – I spoke its name. As I did, it was as if the
gavel moved on its own, gently tapping, “Guilty!” to each charge. With each
tap, a demon was bound and hauled of. Soon, I got into it, reaching into the Spirit
for the discernment of each spirit and shouting its name, its crime: the gavel banged
and the demon was bound. This, too, was judgment I could get excited about.
I needed to be careful, in my exuberance, to still judge
accurately, according to what was true, not merely because I felt bad for my
sister’s misery: this was a matter of justice,
not pity, and it was a mighty justice
that was handed down that day, and other days like it. I’ve developed the
opinion that this judge’s bench is an excellent place for intercession.
There was one day, though, that I still shake my head about.
It happened some years back, and I’m only now understanding what may have
actually gone on.
God the Father somberly walked up to me, and he was looking
really quite serious: he was cloaked in a rich black judge’s robe, and his eyes
were as intense and alive with fire as I’ve ever seen them. With his eyes fixed
on mine, he slowly opened his robe. I was surprised to see a red plaid shirt
underneath, but before I had opportunity to react in surprise, he pulled a
shotgun from the depths of his open robe, and handed it to me. Startled, I took
it from him and glanced at it. Yep, that’s a shotgun, all right.
I looked up again, and now the robe was gone, and with it,
the stern look from Father’s face. Instead, he sported a red hunter’s cap and a
huge grin, and he held up a shotgun of his own. Movement caught my eye, and I
saw Jesus, similarly attired with plaid shirt, red hat, grin and shotgun.
Father asked, “You ready, Son?” but before I could answer, the air above our
heads was suddenly filled with demons, their leathery wings flapping frantically
as they zigged and zagged about the room.
Father laughed mightily, hoisted his shotgun and fired; a
demon exploded into a black cloud. Jesus cheered and blasted another one. Soon
all three of us were shouting and hollering and laughing uproariously. And
blasting demons to tiny black dust. Shotgun blasts were interspersed with
shouts of encouragement, great fits of laughter and the soft splatter of the
demons shards. They had met their maker, and it had not gone well for them. He
is a very good shot, actually.
I had enjoyed this experience so much that I hadn’t stopped
to ask what it meant until recently; the answer wasn’t particularly surprising;
something about “casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself
against the knowledge of God.” But the experience was, frankly, a great deal of
fun. “Spiritual warfare” and “fun”: two concepts I never expected to put
together.
That hunting party only happened the one time. I think it
was more about teaching me a lesson than a regular part of our business in that
place. He’s a good teacher, by the way: I’ve never forgotten that experience,
though I’ve been slower to learn its lesson.
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.
Sunday
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 the answer to 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.”
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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