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 Wordless Prayer of Faith

It happened during a gathering in our home. We’d had dinner some time ago, finished the dishes together, and now we were gathered in the living room, with mugs of hot tea, and the warm glow of good friendship.

It seemed good to us and to the Holy Spirit to pray for individuals, for healing. We were all good friends, so there was much laughing and interaction while we prayed. That’s just who we were, and we didn’t feel the need to be different when we were with God.

We’d just finished praying for one person, and they got up from the “hot seat” (really a “hot hassock”: a place for them to sit in the middle of the group, so we could all see and all lay hands on if called for).

One of the women kind of hobbled to the center of the room and sat gently down on the hassock as soon as it was vacant. She announced that she’d hurt her back lifting something incorrectly, and needed it healed, please. We turned our attention to her, and asked God for his prayers for her; if Jesus only said what he heard Father saying, we figured that was a good model for us, so we waited for those prayers.

And we waited.

The silence went on for a while, and it became kind of awkward. The fact that it was silence was unusual: there wasn’t laughing or joking going on; people were listening for God’s prayers for our sister’s back.

And we waited. I asked a couple of the more prophetic people if they had anything, but they didn’t. This was unusual. So we waited.

Then, quietly, a teenager in the back of the room giggled. Yeah, I thought, this is rather odd: all these adult believers can’t even pray for one woman’s back. I can see why she’d laugh.

And her laughter continued. She tried, for a moment, to stifle it, but that never works, and it didn’t work this time. OK, so she’s laughing. What is God saying, for how to pray for this back?

But the laughing teenager was herself funny, and a couple more people glanced at her and chuckled. And they fought it, and they, too, were unsuccessful. And the laughter spread. And nobody knew why.

And soon, nobody was even trying to pray for the woman’s strained back; we were just laughing, loudly, uproariously. We didn’t know why we were laughing, but it was clearly not something we had the capacity to stop!

And after four or five minutes of unrestrained hilarity, the laughter slowly faded back out, ending as it began, with the happy teenager in the corner. Maybe five or ten minutes had passed.

And the woman who had sat down with the hurt back now stood up and stretched. “Aaaah.” she announced. “That’s much better. No more pain. Thanks guys.” And she walked, confidently, completely upright, out to the kitchen for a fresh cup of tea.

We looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders, chuckled again, and decided that we like hanging out with a sneaky God.

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).

Another thought presented itself. “I wonder if that washrag is for you to wield, or if it’s for someone else?” We prayed. “An angel is to wield it.” “OK. Why don’t you invite that angel in?” She did, and she laughed. “What do you see?” “A cleaning lady!” We laughed some more.

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’ve learned to trust him in that place, and so I didn’t resist him, though my sitting in that chair was more of a novelty that first time than it was about actually judging anything. Since then, I’ve begun to learn some things about judgment, how important it is, how powerful it is, and especially how very good it is.

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.

Why Does God Speak Cryptically

Anyone who has learned to hear Father’s voice has asked the question: Why does he sometimes speak in strange pictures and obscure messages? Why not just speak clearly?

One of the main reasons (in my observation at least) that Father speaks obscurely is because his goals are different from mine. If he spoke clearly, we’d grab that information and presumably do something with it. But neither the information nor the doing is his primary goal.

Father’s primary goal is relationship. And toward that goal, he speaks to us. Most of what he says to us is about us, or is our personal (and probably private) prayer assignment. Most of the tiny remainder of what he says to us is for our metron, our close circle of relationships: church congregation, home group, family, etc. Very little is to be shared, and so he speaks obscurely, in order that we won’t share private conversation too quickly.

And it is an error, in my opinion, to assume that God is speaking literally. He has been pretty clear about that (see 1Corinthians 13:12, Numbers 12:6-8). And so he speaks obscurely is because he’s more interested in you than he is in the information.

So I encourage you to go for walks with God: talk out loud. Tell him about your day, and how you feel about your day. Ask him about his day, and how he feels about his day, or about your day. Talk about your favorite music, your favorite flowers, and why they’re your favorites. Ask about his.

Avoid talking about prophetic stuff for a long while, either the process of prophesying, or the “prophetic words” he or others have spoken to you. This is about relationship, not the business of prophesying.

This is a favorite topic of mine: intimacy with Father on His terms. Anyway, lest I get overly long-winded, I leave you with these two thoughts. They both apply to the subject at hand, though the application is not overly obvious.  

http://bit.ly/DiscernJ

http://j.mp/CleanFridgePrayers

One more detail: it’s pretty clear that the times, they are a-changing. It’s my opinion that this kind of intimacy with Father will be more important, rather than less important, as the world gets more tumultuous and our lives get busier. 

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.

Offense at God Stops the Promises

John the Baptist was aware, perhaps more than most people, that Jesus’ mandate (in Luke 4) included the anointing “To proclaim liberty to the captive...”.

But by Luke 7, John was himself a captive, a political prisoner rotting in a Roman jail, who presumably wanted his freedom. So he sent some boys ’round to ask Jesus, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?”

Jesus let them watch his ministry for a while, and then replied, “Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them.” In other words, “Yeah, I’m the one.”

And then he adds the kicker. He says to tell John, “And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.”

And then Jesus goes on for fourteen verses – this is a pretty long speech for Him – who John is and why he’s awesome. “…there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist.” That’s pretty high praise from the Incarnate Son of God.

One of the greatest offenses we can ever experience is “Why does it happen to them, but not for me?” It’s not hard to get discouraged in those circumstances. It’s hard NOT to be offended. John was offended: Jesus’ cousin, and the prophet sent to announce him. If the greatest prophet in the world got offended, it’s possible that it happens to more people than admit of it.

It’s hard not to see someone else get healed of something that you’ve been asking for healing of. It’s difficult not to be jealous when someone else gets the financial breakthrough that you need so desperately.

And it’s almost impossible (almost – but not quite) to not be offended when the promises that God has declared for you sit there, unfulfilled, despite your best efforts, despite your faithfulness, despite the fact that you have personally prepared the way for that other person that got the fulfillment of YOUR prophecy!

It’s so easy to be offended because of Jesus, especially when he does things that are different than you think he ought to do. When he does things in different ways, with different people, than you think he ought.

And then he adds the kicker. He says to us, “And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.” Our blessing comes from avoiding that offense.

Said another way, being offended hinders our being blessed. One of the greatest hindrances to my promises being fulfilled is when I’m jealous of others’ blessings.

If my reaction to someone else getting a large amount of cash is to wish that it happened to me, then I am, by that offense, hindering God’s blessing in my own life.

If my response to your newfound ministry is to wish that it had come to me (“instead of to you,” or “as well as to you,” it doesn’t matter), then I’m hindering my own release. I’m demonstrating that I cannot yet “rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15), and therefore I’m not yet ready to be trusted with that blessing.

If I can rejoice with others, weep with others, without thinking of myself before I think of them, then I’m getting past being offended with Him.

Fundamentally, if I see your blessing and I think of my lack, that’s a manifestation of self-centeredness. If I see your sorrow, and I breathe a sigh of relief, that’s a manifestation of self-centeredness.

I suspect that Father is breathing on that verse right now: “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.” (Romans 12:15)

If we want to keep up with what he’s doing, if we want to be part of what he’s doing, we’ll want to avoid being offended by Him, and rejoice – or weep – with others.

The God Who Gossips?

How often does this happen to you: you’re minding your own business, and suddenly God points out someone’s fault to you? Sometimes, it’s a dream or a vision; sometimes it’s suddenly becoming aware of what’s going on around you.

I’m hearing of how God is speaking to people – regular people, people without position or influence – about how individual believers are experiencing trouble or lack from pastors and church leaders. 

Clearly, sometimes this is just disgruntled people speaking out. People do that. Why would God point out the failure of pastors and other leaders of local congregations? And so many people dismiss this phenomenon as “not of God,” as if this disgruntlement is the only motivation here. And so people who talk about unlovely things that God has showed them are often labeled as gossips and malcontents or fleshly believers.

Have you read Ezekiel 34 recently? Why don't you read it again, keeping this trend in mind. It’s not a lovely conversation. God himself is calling pastors and leaders to task about how they’re treating the sheep, the believers that they’re called to care for! And he’s not doing it gently. This is obviously a matter that God cares very deeply. But Is God actually gossiping?

Some people – generally people who are enamored with the prophetic or who aspire to be a prophet – read this passage, or hear this complaint from God, and then feel the need to go prophesy it. I understand how “prophesying” what God said is a defense against being labeled (yet again) as a gossip or a malcontent.

But think about it: God tells them something in private, and they feel the need to shout it from the mountain tops. I’d like to suggest that this is not the smartest thing to do. 

Actually, I recommend starting with a question, not an action, and this is where it becomes a little tricky; not just any question will do.

We very often are used to beginning with a question from our souls:

■ Our emotions are part of our souls, and so when we see, hear or feel something harsh or unflattering, it’s easy to let our emotions flare up, and ask questions like, “How could they DO that?” or “That’s icky, why would God show me icky stuff; this must be demons talking to me!” and so it’s easy for the enemy (or my own flesh) to turn it toward accusation of one sort or another.

■ Our minds are also part of our souls, and so when we see, hear or feel something harsh or unflattering, it’s easy to let our thoughts flare up, and ask questions like, “Where is this in Scripture?” “How does this line up with other principles I live by?” “How do I think I should deal with this?” and so it’s easy for the enemy (or my own flesh) to turn it toward confusion.

■ Our will is also part of our souls, and so when we see, hear or feel something harsh or unflattering, it’s easy to let our choices flare up, and we make choices like, “I must tell someone!” or “I must warn them!” and so it’s easy for the enemy (or my own flesh) to turn it toward manipulation and self-importance.

I’d like to suggest that when God shows us uncomfortable things by the Spirit, that we respond to him with our spirit. In fact, I suggest – and I encourage this as a regular practice – that we ask the question of Acts 16:30: "What must I do?" God, you’re showing me this for a reason. What do you want me to do with it?

Talking about someone’s sin without working toward a solution is pretty much the definition of gossip, and I’m pretty sure that God’s not actually a gossiper. If he’s sharing it with you, he expects you to do something with it. If we stop listening before we get to the application, then we’ve left God in an awkward place, leaving both him and ourselves open to the accusation of gossiping. He’s trying to partner with us, but we run off before there’s been any real partnership.

In fact, it’s not unusual for God to bring up a problem with you specifically so you can help him solve the problem. Ezekiel 22:30 (in context) talks about how God sometimes tells people about icky stuff specifically so that they can “stand in the gap” before Him on their behalf. That’s very often the primary role of intercessors: hear what’s weighing heavily on God’s heart, ask how he wants us to respond, and then respond that way.

I’d suggest that the vast majority of the time, when God shows us something un-lovely, he’s asking for us to bring the thing back to him and ask him to do something in that place. He’s bringing it up so we can pray.

Why does he invite us to get involved? Why doesn’t he just go do it himself? He can’t, not without going back on his own word. Psalm 115:16 says, “The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD’s; But the earth He has given to the children of men.” Stuff in the realm of Heaven is his responsibility; stuff on earth is our responsibility.

This responsibility started back in Genesis, chapter 1; that’s pretty early. In v28 he assigned rulership of physical creation to Adam & Eve. If he steps in and does things without consulting with the delegated rulers of the planet (the race of Adam & Eve), then he’s stepped outside of the way He himself set things up to be done. Who can trust a leader – divine or human – that gives us responsibility for something, but keeps the authority for doing it to themselves? That’s not smart.

The ministry of intercession is a very important ministry. When God shows you a problem, begin by asking him for the solution to the problem. “What must I do?” is a really good starting place.

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http://www.pilgrimgram.com/2014/03/the-god-who-gossips.html
Subscribe at www.pilgrimgram.com. 

Asking for What’s Already Been Promised

Dealing with a promise from God – whether a promise from the Scriptures or a prophetic promise – is in some ways a little counter-intuitive.

We tend to think, “He’s promised. He’s God! He’s probably not going to forget!”

No, God’s not going to forget, but that doesn’t mean that we can forget, and just expect the Bluebird of Happiness to drop promised blessings on our heads whenever he gets around to it.

King David was awesome. He’s the most “New Covenant” character in the Old Testament. I love learning from David! In 2 Samuel 7, God makes this epic promise to him.

So how did David respond to the epic promise from God? He walked out on the prophet.

He walked out without even a polite word, got on his face in God’s presence, worshipped, and then did something really strange.

He asked God to do the very thing that God had just promised he’d do.

"Now, O LORD God, the word which You have spoken concerning Your servant and concerning his house, establish it forever and do as You have said. "So let Your name be magnified forever, saying, 'The LORD of hosts is the God over Israel.' And let the house of Your servant David be established before You. [2 Samuel 7:25-26 NKJV]

So David receives the promise from God, and then immediately asks God for the exact thing that God had just promised.

First of all, that sounds like a good way to get your prayers answered: ask God for what he’s already promised.

But more to our point today, it seems like a wise response to a promise: When God promises something that you like, respond by asking him for the very thing that he’s promised.

Jacob does the same thing in Genesis 32, and he, also, knows that he’s doing it: he’s asking God for what God has promised.

It’s easy to complain, “But he promised! It’s up to him to fulfill it! I shouldn’t have to do anything!” I understand that complaint, as I used to whine it at God with some regularity.

Have you ever been to a sushi bar that has thousands of plates of sushi on conveyor belts? They’re kind of fun. All kinds of yumminess rolling on by, and you can reach out and pick the one you like.

I suspect that God’s promises are a little bit like that. Or think of them like a menu: he’s making the offers, but it’s up to us to order what we want off the menu, or to take the sushi we want off the conveyor belt.

Why would God expect that of us? I’m so glad you asked. I believe there are two reasons.

First, he is honoring his promise to us. In Psalm 115:16, God declares, “The heavens are the heavens of the LORD, But the earth He has given to the sons of men.” This is the same commission he gave us in Genesis 1:26: he has delegated authority for what happens on this planet to us: he is asking for someone with that delegated authority to partner with him, to give him permission to do what he has indicated is his will to do. But he won’t go around our authority.

And second, he’s training us, as any good father will, for the job that we’re inheriting. We are heirs of the kingdom of Heaven, and if we don’t learn how to administrate the kingdom with little things (like believing him for the things that he has already promised), then we’ll never be ready for the work he’s planning for us.

This has the additional advantage of changing how our soul deals with things: if I’ve spent time in prayer on the topic, then it’s much easier for me to trust God in that area than if I’ve just seen it on the menu, and assumed that he’ll deliver it to my table.

So when you encounter a promise – whether in the Book or in a prophetic message – my recommendation is that you treat it like God has just described the “Specials of the Day” and order the ones that you want. 

Properly Discerning Judgment

Recently, I'd been asking Father for an upgrade in the gift of discernment, as He’d been emphasizing 1 Corinthians 14:29 to me (“Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge.”). And what do you know, but suddenly I began getting scores of submissions for the www.northwestprophetic.com website, many of them with what I would call a fairly judgment-oriented interpretation.

Cool! I was getting schooled! 

So I brought each word to Him for my lessons, and he’d have me separately discern the revelation portion of the prophecy from the interpretation portion. In those particular prophetic words, over and over, I sensed the Holy Spirit in the revelation, but not in the interpretation. 

“They’re interpreting through their expectations. They’re not listening to me, but they’re listening to what they already believe,” he said.

One illustration from this season: one of the prophecies came from a fairly mature prophet, a mature man whom I knew and trusted personally. It spoke about the county where he lived, and it carried a deadline: two weeks away. The revelation spoke of earthquakes and volcanoes, and I could sense God in it. The interpretation spoke of disaster and judgment, and I did not sense God on it (whew!). I heard Father say, “This is not a literal revelation; it’s a metaphor. The earthquakes are about things that he thought were stable getting shaken, and the volcanoes are about deep, hidden things being brought to light, violently.” I had the fairly strong sense that the word applied to him personally.

I asked the prophet if maybe that word could be metaphorical rather than literal, and he rejected it out of hand. OK. Maybe I’m wrong. But God was not directing me to respond as if it were literal and I did not publish the prophecy on the website.

Three weeks later the deadline was behind us, and no earthquake or volcano had struck. He called me: “That word was right, but I got the date wrong!” and he gave me a new date. Then he added, “But could you pray for me? My whole life is getting shaken, and there’s stuff I thought was way behind me that’s becoming public now!” The revelation had been correct, but the interpretation, and therefore the application, were incorrect.

Frankly, I’m one of those prophetic folks who was always quick to interpret prophecies with words like “judgment” or “the remnant.” He corrected me: in this season, Father asked me, “Son, why do you expect judgment? Everything – every sin – that deserved judgment was paid for in the Cross.”

I have since come to believe that one day, those who rejected his payment for their sin would have the “privilege” of paying for their own sin (Revelation 20:12), but there were no sins – past, present, or future; individual or corporate – that were not covered by the blood of Jesus on the Cross.

This is not to say that I don’t think real trouble is coming to America, and to our region in particular. I actually do believe we’re in for tough times, and I’m asking for more revelation for how to prepare. But from the way I think I’m learning to understand the cross, those troubles are not about judgment, certainly not about judgment from God, and a good number of the prognostications of disaster are errors in interpreting true prophetic revelation. 

More recently, He’s been teaching me more about the power of our declarations as believers. It’s a lot. We’re made in God’s image, and he did his first big project by words: “And God said… and it was so.” That’s my Dad! I'm in his line of work.

Here’s where I’m going: there are a lot of believers who don’t understand the cross very well. (Yeah, I was one for a bunch of decades, durn it.) And a lot of believers have been declaring disaster coming to America, or declaring Mr. Obama’s incompetence, or similar things. Recently, I’ve begun to question whether our declarations of disaster may have a hand in causing disaster to come about, about whether our declaring icky things about Mr. Obama are bringing some of those things to pass, whether we are seeing the fulfillment of our own declarations.

By way of illustration, God himself (Genesis 18:21) seems to declare that the reason that Sodom & Gomorrah were judged was because of the outcry against it. I wonder– if there is judgment coming against our nation, or against “famously sinful” cities in our nation (San Francisco, Las Vegas, New York, New Orleans, etc) – whether the judgment is not from God, but from God’s people.

So I’m pretty careful about speaking un-lovely things about people or nations; I’m really, really careful that I’m not interpreting prophetic words according to my own expectations.

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.

Gatekeeping in my Neighborhood

Several years ago, my family was in a tough way and needed to find a home to rent. We made two lists: things we needed in a home, and things we wanted in a home. Through a series of miracles, financial and otherwise, we actually purchased a house that had everything on both lists. We were elated.

But the elation was short-lived. Our home had everything that we knew to ask for, but there were some things we didn’t know to ask for. In our first week living there, I learned of three drug dealers on our block. I watched drug deals go down at the front door of the house across the street while my kids played in my yard. They knew about that dealer, and they told me about the other two dealers on the block, and which houses they lived in.

This was absolutely not OK with me. I talked to the authorities, and they told me about the standards of evidence that they needed in order to intervene. I talked to other neighbors, and they shook their heads and “tsk tsk’d”.

Then I talked to God. More precisely, I whined at God. “God, why is this going on? This isn’t right! Make it stop!”

It seemed as if he let me vent for a while, and when I paused to catch my breath, He interrupted. “So what are you going to do about it, Son?” Hunh? That stopped my whining immediately. Once my head stopped spinning, I asked more intelligently, “Uh… what can I do?”

He gave me some prayer strategies: some specific ways to address the situation in prayer, rather than through legal means, social means, or whining. The specific strategies aren’t important except that they involved me obeying Him, and they involved me making some particular declarations over my neighborhood. Throughout the process, God used the metaphor of a gatekeeper with me: the one who decides who can come in and who cannot.

So I obeyed: I prayed the things He said to pray for, the way He said to pray it. It was odd stuff, so I did it in the middle of the night and the wee hours of the morning: I didn’t want someone calling the cops on me!

His instruction to me was to establish some "gates" at the entrances to my neighborhood. That felt really weird. I didn't see anything in the natural, looking with my "spiritual eyes," they looked like the gates of an ancient walled city.

Fundamentally, the decree to the "gates" was: "Welcome in the Holy Spirit, and the human spirits of the people who live here, and their legitimate guests. Keep out every other spirit, human or demonic."

Suffice it to say: it worked. Within 30 days, the three dealers were gone. The one across the street sold the house to a family with a daughter the same age as my daughter. The other two just picked up and left, leaving empty houses. All three houses were soon remodeled.

I was stunned. I don’t think I’ve ever seen prayer answered in more detail than I did in this adventure: first our house, then the removal of the drug dealers. Life was good!

Then my next door neighbor invited a woman to live with him. She brought guests: two silicon implants for him, two full-blooded wolves for herself, and a host of demonic co-habitants. Life was no longer good.

I called every government agency I could think of that might have some authority with wolves: federal, state, and local agents told me time and time again: “No sir, wolves don’t belong in a residential neighborhood, but yes sir, she does have the necessary permits for them. There’s nothing we can do about it.”

I ignored the time that they lunged from the back of her Toyota pickup and nearly ate me. But when they tried to eat my daughter (they didn’t succeed, but just barely – she was unscathed), I confronted the neighbor: politely, gently, because he was a wimpy little guy and I didn’t want to intimidate him. But the wimpy little guy got big and snarly when I suggested that the wolves shouldn’t live there: he cussed me up one side and down the other in his rage, and vowed in no uncertain terms that they were not leaving, not today, not ever!

Hokay! That’s not going to work!

So I tried prayer. Again, I whined at God; again, He interrupted, but more quickly this time. “What are you going to do about it?” Again my slack-jawed “Hunh?” Then He went on, “You’re my representative in that neighborhood. It’s up to you. What’s your decision? Do they stay or do they go?”??

That floored me. I didn’t have a theology to deal with that kind of a question, but I didn’t hesitate. The wolves wanted to eat my daughter, and God was saying that it was up to me? “Heck no! They cannot stay. They have to go!” and I knew I was speaking with the authority of a judge announcing a decree.

That very weekend, they moved out. No explanation. The guy that cussed me out and shouted that they were staying, took their wolf-house down himself, packed it into the Toyota truck and moved it away. We never saw the wolves again, or their owner with the implants, except once, and the Police arrived en masse with drawn weapons to make sure that didn’t happen again. No explanation for that either.

Since then, I’ve tried to exercise this authority in other ways, and when I felt that I was following God’s leading rather than my own, I have found that things often unnaturally change.

I have also found that I need to increase my skill in wielding this power: I watched a porn shop close after I made some decrees, only to be followed by another in its place, and that one was more firmly rooted (though it had a “going out of business!” sign on it regularly). A pagan worship center was closed, only to open up again a couple of blocks away. Both have since gone out of business

These are curious stories, and true ones, but what’s the purpose?

I have developed a couple of guiding principles from these events, and the others that surrounded them (this was an interesting season in my life!):

1) God delegates authority to His representatives in an area. (My “area” of influence was only a couple of blocks; others’ territory may be smaller or larger.)

2) He takes that delegated authority very seriously. When He gives authority, He means it.

I guess there’s a third principle:

3) I probably ought to exercise the authority that I’ve been given, and I probably ought to exercise it for good purpose.

I know I’m nothing special. May I suggest these principles for the life of the church in this season? May I suggest these principles for you?

The Pilgrimgram comes from an elder Pilgrim about the thing we call "church." Seldom politically correct, this is what I hear God saying to and among His Church today. Feel free to share it with others.

Metaphors for Wise Warfare

We the church have talked about “spiritual warfare” for decades. In the past, we’ve yelled at demonic strongholds and called that warfare, or we’ve described unlucky breaks in life as spiritual warfare.

God is raising the bar in spiritual warfare. We’ve gotten away with ignorance and immaturity and sometimes foolishness for years. But over the past few years, over the next few years, He’s bringing us into a greater level of maturity.

I have only the highest regard for those who have been involved in warfare these many years. They’ve faced ignorance and opposition and sometimes just plain bull-headedness from the church, and they’ve stood in the gap on our behalf.

That incredible faithfulness notwithstanding, I believe the Lord is moving us into a new level of maturity, a new level of authority in the realm of spiritual warfare. I do not believe that those who have been involved in warfare in the Spirit have been only playing at “war games!” However, when we look back on this place from the place God is taking us to, we will say, “up until then, we were only playing with shiny toy guns. We were only waving our arms and pointing our fingers and shouting ‘bang!’”

Here’s the problem: I don’t entirely know where we’re going; I just know we’re moving forward.

I was discussing this with one of my mentors the other day, and we were using the American Military as a metaphor for spiritual warfare; much of this will be familiar.

Foot Soldiers: The most common role in this battle is the simple foot soldier: we obey orders given us from our officers and noncoms over us. We generally don’t have the strategic overview of the war, or even the battle that we’re in; we just point our weapon as we’re commanded and pull the trigger when so instructed.

Noncommissioned Officers: Other non-officers with more skills and more experience and a tactical understanding of the battle; if we’re wise, we’ll follow their advice, even though they don’t wear the brass of an officer. They may not know the big picture, but they know how to get the foot soldiers through this alive! These are the home group leaders, mentors, deacons.

Officers: These men and women have strategic-level understanding of portions of the warfare; they often receive orders from above, but sometimes they are given the objectives to accomplish, and they make their own plans with the soldiers that work with them. Some are junior officers, some senior officers, and their position in the spiritual army does not correspond to their position or influence in this world: I know pastors of huge churches that are faithful lieutenants, and leaders of a group of less than a dozen who are generals, though there are senior officers who lead large ministries as well.

Joint Chiefs: Currently, I’m not convinced that we have a functional Joint Chiefs; I am waiting for the day when we have something equivalent to the Council of Jerusalem of Acts 15: a council of apostles and elders who represent heaven to the forces on Earth. While there are obvious complications, the Catholic “Holy See” (the Pope and the Roman Curia governing body) approaches this authority within the realm of the Catholic Church.

Commander in Chief: We have but one Commander-in-Chief, and He is not elected.

Air Force: These are the intercessors in our war, and the goal is the same: air superiority over the field of battle. Weaponry includes worship, declarations, prophetic actions, and other weird things that reach the heavenlies, where these warriors are known to visit.

Marines: First troops into the territory, elite, but probably not occupation forces. These are the short term missionary teams, the apostolic equipping teams (which will include prophets and teachers),

Navy: Some of our forces are stationed off the coast, and provide artillery, attack forces and supply lines for the rest of the forces. Some of these folks are administrators, support teams, tacticians.

Army: Ground forces occupy the new territory. These include missionaries occupying new territory, evangelism teams on the streets, home groups and new congregations in previously unconquered territory.

Supply Lines: Any army needs food and ammunition. In our battles, these are the prophets, teachers, pastors and friends: the ones who invest in, who love on and support the warriors. These are also donors who support ministries financially, administrators who handle details so others can minister on the front lines.

Firebase: In the natural, this is an artillery base, esp. one set up quickly to support advancing troops or to forestall enemy advances. In this metaphor, this may be a team of intercessors or prophets.

Intelligence: Agencies like the CIA, Secret Service, FBI. This is clearly the role of the prophetic gifts: prophecy, discernment. But not them alone: Researchers (like The Sentinel Group) can give valuable insight into the demonic roots in a region; prophetic teachers reveal principles and application (strategies and tactics). This is often the primary role of prophetic intercessors. 

Weapons Development: James Bond has his “Q”; the US Military has DARPA (The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency); in the Spirit, the developers of new weaponry come from the revelation gifts, particularly from apostles and prophets.

Boot Camp: The church is developing a large number of training schools across North America to train young men and women: revival schools, bible schools, Masters Commission, YWAM.

Military Academies: Military training schools, like Annapolis and West Point: We’re short on schools to train the officers, particularly to train senior officers in our current warfare.

The Pus of Life: Liquor Puris

I ran across a Latin term the other day, in the context of geek humor, but it made me think. The term was “liquor puris”, a Latin phrase and it means, essentially, pus: the goop that comes out of a pimple or an infection. Yuck.

Nevertheless, as I read about it, I felt the finger of God on it.

Pus, as you’re probably aware, is the byproduct of a serious battle: It’s “actually a sign of your body’s ability to fight infection. Pus means your white blood cells are attacking infections present on or in your body.”

Pus means you’re putting up a fight, you’re fighting off an infection. The infection is the crap that the enemy is trying to infect you with: lies (such as “You deserve this kind of thing”) or identity statements (“This is what you are”), emotions (“I deserve this; I’m this way”), desires (“I want this; I enjoy that”), compromises (“You don’t need to actually live that way!”).

The treatment of a pus-filled infection (as outlined by the WiseGeek) falls into four categories:

1. Time. Just as your body has a natural and effective immune system, which takes some time to work. Your spirit also has an immune system, and your spirit’s immune system – in a healthy spiritual person – will protect your soul (your mind, will, emotions). The regular maintenance of a love-life with Jesus is enough to handle most of our small pus-filled infections (aka “pimples”). This is why we need to live a life of spiritual passion, not (primarily) spiritual discipline: it is a better immune system. And just living a life in love with Him will be sufficient to keep much of the enemy’s drivel from infecting our soul.

2. Topical antiseptic and careful hygiene. The purpose of both antiseptic and hygiene is cleanliness: in this application, not letting infections start and/or grow. Purity is an effective weapon against the enemy. There’s a reason that wisdom teaches us that if there’s an area of our life that we’re tempted with, we maintain a higher standard of purity there, so as to not be tempted. That’s why recovering alcoholics don’t drink socially. (But someone else who is not tempted towards drunkenness may have a beer with dinner.) This is also why fasting is a powerful tool: it works to reduce the natural desire of the flesh to take leadership of the soul, subjecting it to my spirit’s leadership.

3. Heat. Medically, that’s a hot compress to help the pus drain out more quickly. Metaphorically, it’s still a process of turning up the heat. Spiritually, we turn up the heat – we apply external heat – by worshiping more or with greater passion, by sitting under more or more anointed teaching, by participating in more prayer gatherings or participating with more intensity. Turning up the heat is a great strategy to fight off the infections of the enemy. It’s also a powerful tool for igniting passion in our spirit. (I would add that while a life of passion is “the normal Christian life,” that life should not depend on a schedule heavy with prayer gatherings, additional church services or conferences: those are the gravy on the meat, not the meat itself.)

4. Antibiotics. There are times that our body just can’t win the fight. And there times that our normal Christian life – our personal practices and our community practices – just aren’t enough to overcome a particularly vigorous infection. There are times when we need to get ourselves into the hot-seat and get a bunch of seasoned warriors to lay hands on, anoint with oil, and go to battle on my behalf. James 5:14 is not limited to physical sickness. There’s a time to visit the healing rooms. There’s a time to sign up for Cleansing Streams or Sozo Ministry or whatever inner healing & personal deliverance ministry you trust. There’s a time to gather an increased level of prayer support for a season.

Finally, it is probably worth noting that a small amount of pus is typically a sign of good health: it’s a sign that our immune system is working as it should. Similarly, a life without some opposition, without some things that need to be resisted, washed or guarded against is probably not being as effective as we should be.

The reality is that the stuff that makes infections – staphylococcus bacteria, or staph – actually lives on pretty much all human skin; it only becomes a problem when it gets inside the body. We are not intended to live in a staph-free environment. We’re to live in the midst of the world. We’re just not to let infection inside of us.