Whose Will Is It Anyway?

Let’s just settle the matter: God is good. OK? Are we good on that? 

Jesus is the perfect representation of the Father, and he never gave anybody sickness, never broke anybody’s leg, never killed anybody. He got angry, yes, particularly when religious people put obstacles in front of others coming to know God, but he never brought disaster, never encouraged disaster, never taught his kids that disaster is good, never looked the other way when somebody did bad things.

God is good.

Unfortunately (or at least inconveniently), God’s will is not the only force happening in the universe. If God was the only one who got to choose, we’d see an entire universe full of the stuff Jesus did: healing the sick, raising the dead, deliverance from demons, teaching how good God is.

But that’s not what we see. We see wars, famine, busted relationships, child prostitution, kids disrespecting parents, all manner of evil.

Some people have begun with the assumption that God is the only free-willed being in the universe, and, looking at evil in the world, they accuse him of being either powerless or evil. You can’t reach a wise conclusion beginning with a faulty assumption.


The real reason for this mess is love. Real love. Because real love has to be free; it has to be freely chosen.

One of the evils we see in this life is people trying to force other people to love them. Variously expressed as manipulation, self-pity, stalking, control, abuse, and occasionally murder, it illustrates that love cannot be forced. In order to really have real love you really need to have real free will. Without free will, the closest you can get to true love is a sex slave. Not the same thing.

God has set up this universe to allow real love relationships between his creation – you and me – and himself. Which means that God has given us free will. Not “pseudo free will,” the real thing, absolutely free, dangerously free. We can choose to love him, but we can choose anything else we want to. We can choose to hate God, or other people; we can choose to ignore God, or people, or traffic laws. We can choose to speak only in King James English, or to rub blue mud into our belly button.

There are real consequences to our free-will choices. It may be as simple as ending up with a belly button that is now stained blue. Or my choices may result in someone hating me back, beating me up because I didn’t live up to their expectations of me. Or I may end up in jail simply because I decided that red traffic lights meant “Go” this week, and crashed into someone who foolishly thought that my choices were controlled by colored lights. Free choices result in real consequences.

A whole bunch of nasty things in this otherwise lovely planet have come from people – human beings, made in the image of God – making stupid choices. That’s a lot of the reason we have slums and wars and corporate greed and manipulative leaders: people exercising their free will, and nasty consequences resulting.

And without that free will, we could never experience love. We couldn’t be loved, we couldn’t love. So we kinda have to keep the free will thing. Not that we have the power to change it anyway: this is the way God created the universe; I can’t overrule his free will, and he won’t overrule mine.

But that’s not the end of the matter. There is another free will at play in this game.

You and I – the human species – were not the first beings created with free will. Apparently long before we were created, an angel decided to depose God and become God himself instead. When God objected, the rebellious angel started a war with a third of the angelic host, and was about as effective as a gnat would be in its attempts to stop a volcanic eruption: not so much.

So the rebel Lucifer and a bunch of his friends were chucked out of heaven and landed where? Yep, here: this planet. Good ol’ Mother Earth. (Bunny trail: I wonder if that was the “mega asteroid” that destroyed the dinosaurs? Hmmm.)

So now we’re inhabitants of a planet with at least two intelligent species with free wills: humankind and angel-kind. And Lucifer, now going by Satan, has made “steal, kill and destroy” as his choice. So he steals, kills, and destroys. (We could get into how he implements that choice, but that’s another conversation.)

And a good deal of his efforts are still about gathering a following: he persuaded 1/3 of the angels to follow him, and how he’s persuading human beings to follow him.

One significant difference: humanity was given authority that Lucifer was not: “Fill the earth and subdue it.” We were given authority on this planet; the only way the Lucy & Co can get it is to persuade someone with authority to give it to him. He’s already failed at persuading God, so he goes to work to persuade man: and when Adam submitted to the Lucifer rather than to God, he handed his authority over the planet to Lucifer as well.

It’s a long & exciting story, but the conclusion was that Jesus got that authority back in the cross, and rather than keeping it himself (making all of creation slaves without free will), he handed it back to us. “All authority in Heaven & Earth has been given to me. Go therefore….” It’s our planet, and we have authority here, unless we can be persuaded to make the choice to give that authority away.

We still have our free will, of course: we can choose to eat the apple, to turn the stone to bread, or we can choose not to. It bothers me how many of my human brethren have chosen the apple, the bread, over real freedom; it bothers me how often I’ve chosen them. I’m taking my choices back.

That's a whole lot of free will going on! No wonder so much happens that is not like our good God. 

One of these days, the rebel Lucifer will experience the consequences of his free-will choices on this planet. An eyewitness described that event as a “lake of fire.” And anybody who chooses to follow him will have the privilege of following him there, much to the grief of the One who made them for love. But free will is really free, absolutely free, dangerously free.

I must admit, in some ways, I’m really looking forward to the day that the fallen-angel-without-authority is removed from free circulation upon my planet and among my people. I’m sick and tired of his shenanigans: stirring up hate and murder and destruction, and then blaming it on God; planting hopeless or accusing thoughts in people’s minds and then accusing them for the thoughts he planted. I’m tired of smelling his stink on the planet. I look forward to being free from that foul influence.

So in my free time (that portion of my time that I can actually make a free-will choice about; that is: all of my time!), I’m working to minimize his stench: I’m working to persuade people to “Step away from the lie” and learn to live loved. I’m working to confront lies when I see them, and when those who believe them (including myself) will listen to me. I’m working to put limits on the actions of the fool who wants to steal, kill and destroy. I’m working to let my loving Creator be seen, be loved, be followed in my house, in my neighborhood, on my planet. I’m working to enter his rest, and learn how to better be loved my own self. 


I can ’ t change it all. But I can change me, and that will change the people I can touch. I can’t solve the problem, but I don’t do what I can do, I’m letting the problem continue unabated. Not good.

I want my planet back! 


Care to join me? 

Your Town's Move of God

I'm hearing something in the Spirit, feeling an unction in the Wind. It's time.

If you've been seeing the move of God in other regions, and hoping for it, praying for it in your own community, I believe this is the season that God is blowing on that, encouraging that hope, encouraging that vision, because it's on his heart too.

May I encourage a couple of first steps that you might consider on behalf of your town, your region:

• Pray for the leaders – especially pray for the emerging apostolic leaders – that God is raising up in your region (and note that it may be YOU that he’s raising up for such a time as this). When God does things, he often works through leaders, but those leaders are often not the people in “positions of leadership,” or the people you’d expect.

• Expand your relationships with God’s people in your region. It doesn’t matter if they believe what you believe, or if they worship like you do, as long as they serve the same God you serve. Some don’t, you know. Some serve the agenda or structures of man. But don’t shy away from people who are within those structures, people who do things waaaaay differently than you do.
  
  (Note that "build relationships" is not related to "attend meetings." It probably has more to do with the local coffee shop, or the dinner table, than it does with church meetings.)

• Give thanks for that which is not yet happening, as if it were. Give thanks for the barest little sprout of the thing that God has promised, even if (possibly especially if) it looks completely different than what you expected. The business of expanding the Kingdom is a work of faith, not sight. It’s when we can recognize and bless the tiniest hint of revival that revival is really planted.

• You pursue God. Fan your own passion into a good, healthy flame. Set your own heart to pursue the Kingdom, to expand the Kingdom, regardless of whether anyone else comes with you.
  
  Interestingly, it’s often when we declare that we’re moving forward, whether anyone else comes with us, that people decide they want to come with you. They can’t follow unless someone is willing to lead the way.

• Take ownership. Understand that you are God’s representative in your community. As you take that seriously before Heaven, your prayers will change, and you’ll have more authority in Heaven to move Earth. If you’re praying as a resident of the region, you have more authority than a stranger. But if you’re praying as Heaven’s representative in the region, accountable before God for what happens here, you’ll have both more authority and more passion.

• Recognize the strengths of who and what is in your region already. There’s nothing wrong with driving to another area for a conference, or bringing guest speakers in, but God wants to raise up His voice in your region, not just to your region. Look for “the voice” of your region. Look for the gifts that God has given your community. You’re not above others in the purposes of God, of course, but neither are you below them. God is at big in your little town as he is in New York or Seoul or Redding.

I believe that there is a grace available for this, for spreading the fire, for infecting the entire Northwest (well OK: the whole world, but the Northwest is my focus!) with the move of God. I believe that the time is right to move from a region with a handful of campfires, to an entire region on fire in God.

Prophetic Discernment in the Northwest

I watch trends in the prophetic environment of the Pacific Northwest. From my post as editor of the Northwest Prophetic website, I have an unusually broad view of the prophetic words spoken to, from, and about the Northwest. I see three general categories of prophecies for our region.

I observe that there are a goodly number of prophetic words that are relatively generic “comfort, edification and encouragement.” There’s a second group of words that can be described as speaking to our destiny, our calling, perhaps even our future in the Northwest. And there are some words that are spoken to the region that invoke images of natural disasters: earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis are prominent in them. (This is not an exhaustive list, of course; these are the three main categories; see the NWP website for a more complete list.)

The first group (“comfort, edification and encouragement”) is pretty easy to understand, and it’s not hard to respond to them.

The second group (speaking to our regional destiny) is also straightforward: not complicated to understand, though an appropriate response to these may be a bit more complex.

It’s the third group (invoking images of disasters) that I’m going to focus on here. How shall we respond to images of disasters in prophetic declarations over our region? Many of these declarations include an additional emphasis on the concept of judgment, which I’ll address later.

I propose that there are five basic possibilities for interpreting these disaster prophecies:

1) The prophet made a mistake. (Here is one example.) This may be a false prophecy (the work of serving the wrong God, or serving with a wrong heart) or simply a bad prophecy (it was a good attempt, but they missed it). For whatever reason (and that reason may or may not be important to discern), the prophecy was in error. Frankly, there’s a whole lot of this going around. Remember Harold Camping?

2) It’s a personal word. I recently read a testimony: a prophet declared an earthquake coming to his region in two weeks. Three weeks later, his report was that he must have missed the timing on the earthquake, but could I pray for him? Everything had gone haywire in his personal life for the past week.

I’m of the opinion that the vast majority of what God speaks to any of us about is for ourselves personally, and most of the rest is for our congregation or community of faith. Only a tiny portion is for the greater region or nation. Prophets who think everything they hear is for the nations may be deluded.

3) The prophecy is a metaphor. (Here is one example.) We’re not really discussing natural disasters; we’re talking about an event that’s coming in another realm than the natural (Spiritual? Economic? Political? Social?) that does now, or will at some time, involve some of the effects that a natural disaster involves: this may include upheaval, rapid change, troubles, etc. As an example, God has been speaking to the prophetic community in more than one region about a move of God that’s coming, and he’s consistently been using the metaphor of a tidal wave.

4) It is a literal, but conditional warning. (Here is an example.) We already know that some promises are conditional; some warnings are conditional as well. Not long ago, there were some credible prophetic warnings of natural disasters in my region. Several prophets in the region judged them to be both literal and true, but heard Holy Spirit saying that since we are heirs and representatives of his Kingdom in our region, we had the authority to change what was in our future. We met together, cancelled that particular future, called another, more appropriate future into being, and cancelled our own disaster preparations. The deadline passed without event.

I believe that prophetic promises fit in this category as well: when God promises a move of the Spirit, it’s appropriate for us to pray that event into the region. King David did that here.

5) And it may be a warning about a literal, physical event. (Here is an example.) God may be warning his children in order to take specific action (as here and here). Ancient records teach us that the prophet Agabus warned the church of the Roman destruction of Jerusalem early enough that the Christians escaped.

I believe that specific warnings for specific individuals are not particularly uncommon – they’re part of God leading his kids. But legitimate prophetic words prophesying literal, physical disaster appear to be remarkably rare. (That rarity may be a characteristic of this kind of word, or of the season we’re in, or it may only be rare in the particular group of prophetic warnings I’ve personally been seeing recently.)

When Christians prophesy foolishness, or when we misunderstand what God is saying and talk publicly about it, the people of God look really foolish (see here). As a result, God and his Kingdom look foolish, and (presumably) hell rejoices. May I suggest that this may not be the best use of prophetic gifts.

It’s time to take up the subject of judgment. In the past few weeks, I personally have heard perhaps a dozen prognostications of disaster on this region or that region which have declared that God is judging the described region for certain sins, though the particular sins under judgment seem to vary, depending on who’s making the declarations. As I take these to prayer, I’ve been reminded that God is not, in this day, doing the “judgment through nature” thing that Old Testament prophets were known for.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that God is not doing judgment right now. Since this is not the topic of this article, I’ll quote a few supporting verses and move on:

He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. 1John 2:2

And

For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. John 3:17

And

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 2Corinthians 5:18-19

Apparently, this is a season (“dispensation” for the theologically inclined) in which God’s agenda is about reconciliation rather than judgment. Smiting people is not on his to do list right now.

Here’s where I’m going with this, and I have the same hopes for two groups of people. I’m hoping that these will be heard by those among us who are hearing and seeing images of disaster, judgment, destruction from God, and by those of us who see or hear prophetic words or declarations of disaster, judgment or destruction.

May I suggest that we exercise 1 Corinthians 14:29: “Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge.” It’s interesting that “judge” in the Greek is the root for the word used as the “gift of discernment” in 1 Corinthians 12:10: the command is to discern the prophetic word. The word means to “separate thoroughly,” and includes the concepts of discriminating and deciding what is good and what is not.

Discerning the prophetic word is a requirement of any prophetic word shared publicly, and that includes words declared in public meetings, but it also includes words released in email, on blogs, on Facebook, or by Twitter: just because we are not in the same room where the prophetic word is first spoken is no excuse not to obey the direct command of scripture: prophetic words are to be discerned, judged.

I would also counsel us to consider soliciting wise discernment, judgment, of those prophetic words which we judge are strictly for our own lives and not to be released publicly. Several times, I’ve taken what I’ve been hearing from God personally and submitted it to prophets and other mature believers whom I trust. Sometimes they’ve affirmed what I’m hearing; other times, they’ve helped me fine tune or re-interpret what I was hearing.

Note also that there are two Greek words for “others” (as in “let the others judge”): one refers to “others of the same kind,” and in this case would refer to other prophets. But this verse uses the other word: “others of a different kind,” and would extend the responsibility of judging prophetic words beyond just “other prophets” to “All the other believers who are hearing [or reading] the prophecy are responsible for discerning – discriminating and deciding what is good and what is not – the prophetic word that is given.

The days of a prophetic word being unquestionable are over, if indeed they ever existed in any realm beyond the minds of the lazy or uninformed. Let me say it more directly: There is no such thing as a prophetic word that is beyond questioning, and anyone who insists that their words cannot be questioned should be treated as undisciplined children in the community of faith: they are part of the family, and they’re kind of cute sometimes, but they need to learn discipline before they’ll be able to contribute meaningfully to the community.

There is one more issue to be identified before leaving the topic: the discernment includes the necessity of “discriminating and deciding what is good and what is not.” I believe that a fairly substantial portion of the un-judged prophetic words circulating around right now are mixed: a good portion of the original revelation was legitimately of God, but the interpretation of that revelation was not correct.

Remember the prophet who declared “an earthquake coming to his region in two weeks,” but experienced an upheaval in his own life instead of in the region in that time frame? It’s my opinion that the prophet saw the original revelation clearly (an earthquake is coming in two weeks), but mis-interpreted the revelation (assuming a physical earthquake in the region, rather than a metaphorical earthquake in his own life), and therefore his application was wrong (he had urged everyone to prepare for death and destruction, when a more appropriate response would have been for him personally to prepare for change and upheaval in his own life).

If I could speak to those who speak prophetically and those who hear or read prophetic words to judge the prophetic words carefully: consider and decide: is this a true revelation? Is it from God? Is it speaking to me/to us? Is it correctly interpreted? Is the application consistent with God’s heart? Then receive that which is from God, and reject that which is not.

Even a dumb old cow knows enough to eat the hay and spit out the sticks.

Fixing the Eyes

If I dwell on, if I feed my spirit on, if I meditate on, the things that God has NOT done, or not done YET, then it creates an offense in my heart, whose result is unbelief, and it wars against the Kingdom of God, and everything in my life is tainted by unbelief. I don’t really want that!

Judas had a problem with this, or at least I think that he did: he really wanted the Triumphant Messiah, but Jesus didn’t come as that. Jesus came as the Suffering Servant. All the Boys struggled with this disappointment, but it would have been easy for Judas, the man of action among them, to focus on what was NOT being done.

When Mary broke the Nard on Jesus, Judas saw that poor people weren’t being fed (and that his own pocket wasn’t being enriched) with what that box of perfume must have cost, and that is the only part of that magical evening that he talked about. If you had eyes for it, you could see the Incarnate Son of God being prepared, being encouraged by a heart of love, for the Battle of Eternity that was about to unfold in the next few days. Mary was preparing Jesus to rescue Judas and the entire human race, and all Judas saw was that there were still hungry poor people.

Jesus taught, “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” When I talk about – when I notice – what God has not done, or what is wrong with the world (which God created) or when I discuss the failures of the Church (which he declares he will build), then it reveals where my heart is: focused on problems, ensorcelled by failure. My words reveal that my thoughts, my emotions, are wrapped up with what’s not right, and they empower it. In the same statement (Luke 6:5), Jesus identifies this process as “an evil man, out of the evil treasure of his heart bring[ing] forth evil.”

Ouch. When my words and my actions reflect that I’m meditating on unbelief, it’s evil. When I’m talking about what’s wrong, it’s evil. When I tell people why my day was bad, it’s evil And it brings forth evil. It spawns evil. Evil multiplies because of my talk, and it brings forth evil results.

Saul wrestled with it. In 1 Samuel 13, he fed his spirit only on Samuel’s delay and the people’s unrest, and his resulting choices cost him his dynasty. In 2 Samuel 15, having not learned his lesson, he dwelt on the wastefulness of God’s command, and instead kept “only the best”, and that cost him his kingdom. The divinely-chosen, supernaturally-aided mortal king of God’s own favored nation was destroyed because he was focused on what he saw as wrong with God’s servant, with God’s people, with God’s plan.

That was an easy takedown for the enemy.

And in fact, this is a very old strategy of the devil. The serpent’s temptation of Eve was about what God was not giving (experience of both good and evil), and ignoring what he had made available (everlasting life, intimacy with their creator), and they both fell prey to it, and it cost us (and Jesus) everything, absolutely everything!

If you want to discourage someone, tell them all that’s wrong with them. Tell them about their mistakes, their poor choices. Bring their attention to the injustices around them, to the uncomfortable circumstances that they’re in. Help them see what is wrong, and you’ll help them become what is wrong. Evil will win.

If the enemy was looking for the simplest, most efficient way to destroy an anointed man or woman of God is to get them to focus on their problems, the bad events in the news, the oversights of their family, the bad habits of their co-workers, the idiots on the freeway, the mistakes of the government. There’s lots of very real “wrong stuff” out there. If I put my attention on that evil stuff, then evil will grow in my heart, and I’ll make a small mistake that will cost me – and those around me – everything.

Someone wise once said, “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.” (Somewhere in Philippians 4, emphasis added.)

If you want to make someone dangerous, if you want to make them into somebody that can change the world, that can send hell running for cover, that can actually demonstrate the Good News of the Kingdom, then tell them what’s right. Tell them of their destiny in God; reach into Heaven and prophesy it by faith if you have to, but tell them. Tell them of the greatness of God in them. Show them the good choices they’ve made (they already know about the other ones!), and show them how good came from them, from their choices. Tell them how they’re changing the world.  Better yet, tell his wife, tell her husband, tell their friends, their kids, their pastor, and let them hear you telling them.

The Book says, “Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we're in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he's there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!” [Hebrews 12:2-3, MSG]

Don’t prophesy the problem. Anybody can do that. The evening news does a pretty good job. Prophesy hope. Prophesy destiny. Prophesy the solution.

When we speak of the good, then we’re thinking, meditating, feeding on the good. And when we speak out loud of the good, then we’re feeding others on the good. And when we feed on what’s good, what’s true, what’s noble, there ain’t hardly nuthin’ that can stop us. 

Discerning the Times

Let’s discuss some theory and practice of discerning the times, discerning our times. We live in interesting times.

First, Let’s establish that discernment is a good thing. The Book addresses the topic. First, the Bible celebrates these particular boys who had good discernment:

“… sons of Issachar who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do…” 1 Chronicles 12:32

Jesus is more forceful on the topic.

“When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’; and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times.” Matthew 16:2-3.

Yes, he’s chewing out some religious leaders, but the reason he is chewing them out was because they couldn’t discern the times. Specifically, they couldn’t discern what God was doing, and the Son of God rebuked them for it.

It is that important that we discern what God is doing in our day. In these outrageous times, I am convinced that it is more important than it was in previous generations that we understand our times, that we discern our times correctly.

I want to set something of a foundation for where we’re going. Let’s start with Jesus. He’s a pretty good foundation.

“¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.” John 1.

I feel the need to re-emphasize some basic truths from this passage. There’s nothing new or controversial here.

· Jesus is the Word of God incarnate.

· He was alive before the beginning of creation.

· Jesus is God.

· Creation happened through him.

· Apart from Jesus, there was no creating going on.

One of the stones of this foundation that we’re laying is this: Jesus is the Creator. My point is this: Jesus is that it is well documented that Jesus is creative. I would argue that he is the source of all creativity, the fountain from which all of his creation draws from in their own creativity. Creativity was in Jesus’ blood before he had blood, before blood was invented, before the molecules that would eventually make up blood had been formed.

The New Testament adds to this:

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Hebrews 13:8

If Jesus was creative for that very first week of creation, then the Book says that he remains unchanged. He is still creative. The guy who declared, “Let there be light!” is still that guy. Creativity is a part of him.

“Do not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? Isaiah 43:18,19.

God identifies himself as a God who does new things. We could get technical and point out that “I will do a new thing” is an Active Participle, which “represents an action or condition in its unbroken continuity.” In other words, it could quite accurately (and more clumsily) be translated, “I do new stuff. That’s who I am!”

Then he adds, “You’re going to know it! You’re going to experience my new stuff!”

This is pretty basic: If God does new stuff, then he is doing new stuff. If Jesus – who is unchanging – is creative, then he is still creating, still doing new stuff. If this is who he is, then it’s who he is.

Therefore we should expect new stuff to happen. We should expect God to do new stuff. New stuff in us. New stuff around us. Things that nobody has ever seen before. (The Hebrew word חדש speaks about something that’s brand spankin’ new, and is contrasted with other words that mean rebuilt or renewed.)

I’m making a strong point about this because it seems that whenever someone says, “God is doing something new today!” someone crawls out of the shadows and snarls, “No he’s not!” Their justification for their narrow mindedness generally comes from Hebrews 13:8 (quoted above), or from their own self-centeredness: “I ain’t never seen that before, so it can’t be God.”

It has often been pointed out that the greatest persecutors of the latest move of God are very often the members of the last move of God. But it is to us specifically that God says, “Do not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old!”

“Quit measuring things by the past. Stop looking back to what I did before. That is not what I’m doing now.”

Then the LORD said: "I am making a covenant with you. Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the LORD, will do for you. Exodus 34:10

OK. God is doing new things in our day, things that have never been seen on the earth before. But God isn’t the only one who’s doing things that we have never seen before. How do we discern between the unfamiliar thing that is God and the unfamiliar thing that is not God.

This is the rabbit trail that God led me on this morning. We must be able to discern our times. We must be able to discern that which is God from that which is not God.

Here’s where it got awkward for me, where it became unfamiliar to me: I cannot use my mind for that task. “But I have a good mind! It works well!” I argued. He agreed, and added, “but your mind is limited to what it knows, what it remembers, what it has seen before, and – from that – to what it can imagine. That’s insufficient. You must discern these times with your spirit.”

If God is doing new things in our day, things that have never been seen on Earth, then we must use a tool that is capable of working with things that are new, never before seen on the earth.

May we learn to discern well, to rely on our discernment, and to receive the new and different and unusual things that God is doing.

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9

Bluejays and Swimming Holes

During a time of prayer the other day, I saw a stellars jay picking maple seeds out of the gutters at the edge of the house I was staying at. I love jays, their bright blue boldness and perky confidence.

I had just asked God to speak to me this morning, and immediately the jay caught my attention; so I stopped what I was doing and appreciated his beauty. “Thanks Father, for such a beautiful creation.”

I felt the Lord whisper to me, “This bird was created for this purpose, to give you beauty to enjoy this morning, to draw your attention to Me.” Just by being who he was, he was fulfilling God’s purpose for him.

When I was nine or ten years old, my family went camping across western Canada; it was a hot summer, and we stopped and went swimming every chance we got, and always camped at a river or lake. One day, we found this really great camping place, and we swam and played and laughed until we were worn out, and then we ate smores until we were really full and went to bed.

The next morning, I had a difficult time waking up. After four or five attempts to rouse, my father threatened me: “If you don’t get up, I’m going to throw you in the lake.” Of course I didn’t believe him; he was my dad. He wouldn’t do that. So I didn’t take it seriously.

A few minutes later, I was still in bed, and my dad grabbed my sleeping bag, drug it down to the side of the swimming area, and unceremoniously dumped me out on the dock. “OK OK! I’m up. I’m ten years old, standing there in the cool morning air in my big flannel pajamas; I wanted to go back to camp.

But no! He pushed once, and I made a huge splash. Totally soaked, I climbed back up on the dock, but by that time, he was halfway back to camp, so I took off after him, splashing water everywhere! Eventually, I caught him and gave him a hug, as well as splashed my brother pretty well.

We're going to talk about two truths today, two truths that contradict each other, and yet each is true.

The first truth is this: just by being yourself, you accomplish much in the purposes that God has for you.

For example, Jesus said, in Matthew 5:14, “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.”

OK. What do you need to do to accomplish the task of being a light? Nothing!

In the middle of the night, even a little town like Tenino is full of lights. You can't hide something like that. You can't hide the light that shines out of you, particularly when you're walking among people in darkness.

Jesus says you’re like that; like a city set up on a hill that everyone can see in the darkness. It takes more work to stop being who you are than to continue.

Sometimes, Jesus ministered like this. Remember in Matthew 9, the woman that came up and touched the hem of His garment? She was healed from a twelve-year-long problem.

That happened regularly with Jesus.

Mark 6:56 Wherever He entered into villages, cities, or in the country, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged Him that they might just touch the hem of His garment. And as many as touched Him were made well.

All He did sometimes was just walk by, being Himself.

And if you’re walking with Jesus, then who you are is a powerful ministry. There's no sweat, no fuss, no panic, nothing you can do.

People see you. They recognize that there's something about you that is more than what’s visible.

I sell technical electronic stuff where I work, and one of my customers is Fort Lewis. I was working with one specialist in the Army's Special Forces Group on a couple of complex projects a year or two ago. He'd come into my office a couple of times a week and we'd have a grand time designing these complex technical systems that the federal government was going to pay for.

One Friday morning, he showed up as I expected, but he came into my office kind of quiet, and he closed the door behind him, which he never does, and sat down in the chair. “David, there’s something different about you,” he said. “There’s a peace about you and I need peace. What is it?”

Whoa.

Twenty minutes later, we were praying together, and this Special Forces soldier had his hat in his hand, and was asking the King of Kings to be His Captain and Savior.

That man came to Christ because he came in contact with an ambassador of the Kingdom of God. I accomplished my work in that situation just by being who God has made me to be.

You have stories like that, lots of them. I don’t know your stories. I only tell mine because I was there.

I told you that we were going to talk about two contradictory truths: both were true, and yet they're the opposite of each other.

This is the first truth: Who you are is ministry. Who you are is effective at accomplishing God's purposes on this earth (that's all ministry is). It’s easy. You’re just you, and that’s a reflection of Jesus. Remember: You’re made in His image.

Maybe you cause someone to ask questions about Jesus. That’s ministry!

Maybe you lift a weight off of someone who’s burdened. That’s ministry!

Maybe you encourage someone that they really can succeed. That’s ministry.

Maybe you help someone find an answer to a problem that you had no idea that they had. That’s ministry.

When you walk with Jesus, it’s like someone who fell into the swimming pool fully dressed. When they climb out, you can tell exactly where they’ve been because they splash water every time they take a step.

You're like that: you fall in the pool with Jesus, and when you get out, you splash Jesus all over with every step you take. If it's been a long time since you’ve been in the pool, then maybe you don’t splash as much, but you splash ministry wherever you go. You splash God's purposes wherever you go.

So what do you do with this?

Nothing, really. Just hang out with Jesus, and be who you are.

Well, actually, that’s something we can do, isn’t it? Hang out with Jesus. But that’s something we already do. Get in the pool w/ Jesus. Get in the Word. Talk. Listen. Obey. That kind of stuff. The regular stuff of a believer’s life.

This makes us splash better.

The blue jay wasn't trying to accomplish anything; it was just being blue. You just be you, and be at peace with that. Relax. Rest.

By the way, when you're riding a bicycle, which pedal do you push? They're opposite of each other, you know. Which do you push on?

Whichever one is needing to be pushed.

We've pushed one pedal: who you are is ministry. There's no sweat, no fuss, no panic, nothing you can do. You just are ministry when you walk with Jesus.

Are you ready to push the other pedal now? I'm not going to blow your circuits, am I?

Ministry takes hard work.

Have you noticed that sometimes, ministry is work? If you’re going to be effective in the long run, you’re going to run into seasons when keeping going is a real pain in the Yaktüsk!

In my work of selling technical stuff, most of my customers are churches, and I consider my work to be ministry. I serve churches. They have a need with their sound system, for example, and they call me, and I help them meet their need.

But sometimes, I have to explain technical things to someone who isn't technical, and it tries my patience. Or sometimes, something's gone wrong, and they're angry or confused or offended, and it's hard making any sense with them. Or sometimes, it seems like a thousand little details go wrong with one project.

You've had that happen. You try to help someone, and they take advantage of you. Or you patiently speak truth into their life, and they don't hear. Or worse yet, they do the exact opposite of what you just taught them. Or you have to help them do the same thing over and over and over again.

I had a friend who only called me when he was in trouble. When he called, I wanted to answer the phone with, “Hi Bob. What's wrong now?” He never called unless he was in a panic, and he never applied the scriptural truth I gave him so he was often in a panic, always at the end of his rope, and always expecting me to bail him out. After a few years of it, I got real tired of it!

The thing that drew my attention to this idea so thoroughly was a story in Acts that I was studying when I saw the bluejay that God used as an example for me. I was meditating my way through Acts, and I'd come to Acts 16 and the story of the slave girl with the spirit of divination.

16 Now it happened, as we went to prayer, that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. 17 This girl followed Paul and us, and cried out, saying, “These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.” 18 And this she did for many days. But Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And he came out that very hour.

Now that's ministry!

While I was meditating on this, the Lord drew my attention to Paul's motivation here: he was greatly annoyed. Other translations say he was "wearied out" or "sore troubled" or "grieved" or "vexed." I looked the word up in my Strong's concordance (we have one on the bookshelf for anyone to use who wants).

Here's what it said:

The Greek is 1278 diaponeo {dee-ap-on-eh'-o: }from 1223 and a derivative of 4192, which ends up literally: "through pain" or "by way of great trouble or passionate desire."

Paul was ministering through his pain. There are some times when great ministry only comes through great pain, great trouble or great passion.

By the way, this is normal!

In 1 Thessalonians 2, Paul talks about his ministry among the people there:

8 So, affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us. 9 For you remember, brethren, our labor and toil; for laboring night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, we preached to you the gospel of God.

Paul says similar things in Colossians 1:28:

28 Him [Jesus] we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. 29 To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily.

The word “Labor” here is kopiao: “to grow weary, tired, exhausted with toil or burdens or grief”

So I was sitting with the Lord, reflecting on this: “Lord, if I sometimes get tired in ministry, that doesn't really mean I'm unspiritual or weak, does it?”

He answered, “If my Son Jesus got tired in his ministry and had to get alone with me to restore his soul, what makes you think you won't also get tired?”

So what do we do with this pedal? How do we respond in the times when ministry is hard work and we get discouraged, or frustrated, or weary?

The same way: Get in the pool and rest in Jesus. Get in the Word. Talk to Him. Listen. Obey. That kind of stuff. The regular stuff of a believer’s life.

Even Jesus had to get alone with God to restore His soul. What makes you think you don’t need what Jesus needed?

I believe that many of us are spending too much time sweating FOR God and too little time resting IN Him. And as a result, we’re getting Tired. Weary. Worn out.

I believe some of us are too afraid of getting tired and weary that we won’t get out of the pool and get in among the people.

Both of us have to repent. We need to get in the pool. And we need to get out of the pool and go back to camp.

OK. We’ve pushed on both pedals. Now our bicycle is getting somewhere!

The first pedal: Who you are is ministry! We’re like the blue jays.

To be more effective, get in the pool with Jesus.

The second pedal: Ministry takes hard work! We’re called co-laborers with Christ.

To be more effective, get in the pool with Jesus.

Either way: get in the pool with Jesus.

God’s Easter Eggs.

I love how the Lord plays hide & seek with us. He hides secrets in the most obscure places, like a parent who hides Easter eggs for their kids to find.

We were in Germany for Easter one spring, and we celebrated Easter with our friends. They had two wonderful little kid. We thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could have an Easter egg hunt for them?” So we brought about 40 lbs. of plastic Easter eggs, and candy to fill them with.

And Easter morning, after church, we hid eggs all over the house for the kids. Because they’re not real big, we hid them in fairly obvious places: on the bookshelf, in the middle of the bed, on top of the potted plants. And because they’re not real big, they had a spectacular time finding all the eggs we’d “hidden”. And if they missed one, we’d give them hints, “You’re getting warmer.” If they went too far, “You’re getting colder.”

Then my teenage kids wanted to find Easter eggs, so we hid them again, but this time it was far more obscure. Underneath the congas. Inside the drawers. Under the leaves of the houseplants. We hid them in places that would make them look, that would make them take time to find all the eggs.

And we have video of all this. It was hilarious!

But then the kids wanted to hide eggs for us adults. They were vicious! They taped them up inside the drums, stuck them inside a crack in the walls, kept some hidden in their own pockets. It took us hours! And of course, they took video of it all, and laughed uproariously at us!

It was a hilarious afternoon. We had an amazing time with our German friends, and with our kids and their kids. We were delighted at how hard the kids pushed themselves. (I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t appear to me that children are always willing to push themselves in difficult circumstances. But add a bribe like candy, and watch them go to work!) It was even fun when the children turned the table and made us parents work hard to find the goodies!

God does that with us. He hides Easter eggs for us. He hides things that He expects us to find, that He wants us to find, but we have to go looking for them and, can we be honest, sometimes we have to look really hard for them. Omniscient beings have an advantage when it comes to hiding things.

Places He hides Easter Eggs:

· In his Word. Have you ever been reading or listening to the Word and suddenly, a verse or a concept grabs your attention? It’s like it says, “There’s something here,” but you don’t know what It is that’s hidden here, yet.

· In signs and wonders. The Bible itself declares that signs, wonders & miracles are given as testimony to a message from him. What is the message hidden in today’s miracle?

· In testimonies. A testimony about what God has done is, according to the angel in Revelation, “the spirit of prophecy.” In other words, it’s communicating a message to our soul, but remember, English is not God’s first language. An encounter with God is often a powerful experience, and occasionally a clear message, but it is not infrequent that he conceals even more significant content underneath the first message. Elisha’s instructions to king Joash were clear, but there was considerable meaning that was not quickly accessible.

· In impressions and imaginations. I’ve learned to recognize that if I get stuck on a song or a verse stuck in my head, it’s worth looking for Easter eggs there.

· In the confusing language of dreams. Not all dreams are from God, of course, but those that are seldom have their message clearly visible to a casual observation; they require searching for interpretation, and often searching deeply.

· In the “coincidences” of everyday life. These can be your own language with God. I have one friend who, when he wakes up in the night, always looks at the digital clock; if it’s a certain pattern, he considers it an invitation from God, and thus far, he has not been disappointed by that pattern. Another friend finds Bible verses in the display of the digital clock.

A very wise man observed this pattern in God’s ways. About three thousand years ago, he wrote,

“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.”

I observe a couple of things in Solomon’s statement:

First, this business of “hide and seek” is a matter of glory. I still hold that God has always intended us for glory, that part of the fall was a fall from glory, and part of right relationship with God involves experiencing his glory, and discovering the glory that he meant for us. It brings God glory to hide “Easter Eggs” for us; it is a manifestation of his glory in us when we chase them down and find them.

It’s not insignificant that he’s speaking of kings. Not everybody who searches things out will be discover glory. It is only for kings that searching a matter out brings glory. The Bible speaks of us as kings and priests, of course. Kings are leaders, overcomers, men and women who set the standard, who decree what will happen in their territory and guard it against incursion or lack; it is these who will find glory by searching out the things that God has hidden. Those not part of the kingdom of God, those who are content to sit quietly in the back, those looking for a quick fix-me-up: these will not find this glory; this glory of discovery is for kings.

Okay, let’s get this next point right out in the open in front of God and everybody: God conceals things from us. More specifically, God hides from us some of the things that are good for us, possibly even some of the things that we need to live as we are called to live on this earth. I point this out because I want to kill the sacred cow that envisions God as some sort of Heavenly Concierge, who has all the answers, and can point us directly to anything we want, and all we have to do is tip him a few bucks.

Inherent in this is the need for us to search things out, to work hard to find the very things that he wants us to find and to have. A casual question and a five dollar bill will not provide us with the answers we seek, with the answers we must have. We must search and we must search hard. (Clue: we must search in him!)

What shall we do with Easter Eggs.

As I’ve been meditating on this whole topic, I find some things stand out to me by way of application.

· I need to manage my expectations of God carefully. I’ve been raised to think of prayer not significantly differently than I think of requests to Santa Claus: I can ask, but after that, there’s nothing I can do to influence the answer to my request, so hold the requests lightly. Not so.

· I need to manage how I see myself. It’s easy to see myself as a powerless person, as a victim of circumstances, as an effect rather than a cause. If I see myself that way, if I respond to my life that way, then I disqualify myself for the hidden, for the deeper things of God. Among other things.

· I need to manage my attention carefully. In our hustle-and-bustle society, it’s easy to miss the still, small whisper that says, “You’re getting warmer.” It’s more difficult to catch that whisper when we weren’t looking to find something (that appears to be his favorite time for an Easter egg hunt!).

· I need to manage my focus. I’ve grown used to instant results, instant answers. This is not that. The process of searching out the things God has hidden is just that: a process. Processes take time. The process of searching also takes persistence, diligence, focus.