Saturday
Five Ways of God’s Provision
The Lord’s Flock
Legitimate Ministry
Revival: Future or Present?
Rant: Home Groups
I love the worship of the big group; it’s often really hard to match that in most home groups. And the teaching in the big meeting is often (but not always) really valuable. There are things that you can do in a big group that you can’t do in a little group.
But the reverse is equally true. There are things you can do in a little group that you can’t do in a big group, really valuable things like making great friends, like sharing your heart, like getting prayed for regularly, like laughing together until your sides hurt, or weeping together in the presence of God.
The combination of the two is priceless. In fact, between the two, I often think the home group is the more important gathering of the two. Not always. Not saying the big meeting is insignificant. Just saying home groups are that valuable.
Too often, I’ve found it too easy to be too comfortable in a big church. If I plaster on a big fake smile and don’t linger too long in conversation in the lobby, I can get away without ever having engaged anyone at all. I can’t get away with that in a home group. And I like that. I need that.
We’re starting home groups in our church. It’s kind of hard work, mostly because of all the bad experiences we’ve had before. We have as much un-learning to do as anything else.
Here are some values we have in our home groups:
• The first rule is that church leadership is not making a bunch of rules for home groups. If you want to start a group, go for it. We’ll help, but we won’t tell you what to do. Well, we’ll try not to.
• You can meet whenever you want, wherever you want, and as often as you want. Homes are always a good place for home groups, but so are coffee shops, pubs, conference rooms and the local shopping mall. Take field trips. Wherever you are, the Church is, so have at it! Be creative.
• Teach what you want to teach. All we ask is that you love God and love people. Then teach what you want. Teach the Bible. Teach from a study guide, from a popular book, from current movies. Or don’t include any teaching in your group. We don’t recommend reviewing this weeks sermons unless the group insists. They’ve already heard that.
• Invite who you want to invite. People from the church. People from the neighborhood. People from other churches. People from other home groups. Heck, you can invite people from other planets if you can figure out where to park their cars. Bring in guest speakers if you like. Or not.
• Relationships are primary. More than teaching. More than acts of service. More than prayer. More even than having a meal together! (Oh my!) On the other hand, there’s not much that’s better at building relationships than praying together, or serving together, studying the Word together or especially sharing supper together.
• If you’re leading a group, you’re choosing to submit yourself to a higher standard of accountability than Joe Schmotz in the back row of the church with the big fake smile. But like Paul Manwaring says, “Accountability is not about making sure you don’t smoke. Accountability is making sure that you are on fire.”
We’ll undoubtedly think of more values as we do this for a while. But for now, this is a good starting place.
Visit Northwest Prophetic for a complete archive of regional prophetic words.
Hope Does Not Disappoint
Hope Does Not Disappoint.
Hope Involves the Unseen
Hope is a Fight
Hope Has an Object
Visit Northwest Prophetic for a complete archive of regional prophetic words.
Surviving Mountaintop Experiences
- Elijah goes on to the next big ministry event.
- John reflects on the last ministry event.
- But Jesus gets in God’s presence, and presumably unloads His soul to Him. (Afterwards, of course, He strolls across the storm-tossed lake to check on the boys.)
Visit Northwest Prophetic for a complete archive of regional prophetic words.
Watch Out! Your Mouth is Loaded!
- My theology was corrected by a prophetic word. I had not had much exposure to the prophetic back in 1998 when a prophet declared to me, “But you see, when you don’t know that you have that anointing, you’re just praying, ‘Oh God, would you please….’ But when you begin to understand … you begin to say, ‘Move! In the Name of Jesus, you’re coming down!’” That came from a man I had never met before, instructing me to petition God less (OK, to whine at God less) and to declare the thing that that I would previously whined about. That messed me up, particularly as the prophet accurately nailed a couple of other things in my life: I couldn’t dismiss the word in good conscience.
- I had a couple of experiences that my previous theology did not support. I’ve written about one of them here; I won’t repeat the details in this article, but I’ll just say that God used my application of that prophetic word (using declarative prayer rather than petition prayer) to get me the truck of my dreams. In the other experience, some friends asked me as their home-group leader to make a declaration over them, and we were all surprised at the power than was released that night. It changed their lives, and its effectiveness changed my life.
- I’ve been meditating on what it means to be made in God’s image. One of the conclusions I’ve come to is that I get things done the way He got things done, beginning with “And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.” (In fact, I think this verse is describing the Big Bang, but that’s just conjecture.) When God needed to make something happen, he spoke it into being.
- The NT says that I’m seated with Christ, and that He’s seated at the right hand of Father. Father’s sitting in a throne, of course, which means that Jesus is sitting on the next throne over, or Jesus is in the main throne, and Father’s on the other side: either way, if I’m seated with Christ, I’m seated in a throne. He did say, after all, that I am to reign with Him, and that I’m both king and priest. So I’m in the role of king, seated with my big brother Jesus on a throne, doing the work of reigning or ruling my portion of the Kingdom. So how does a king get his will accomplished? He makes decrees. He issues authoritative statements saying, “This is how it’s to be done.” And everybody obeys. Or if they don’t, the army goes and helps them obey.
- As I’ve studied the prophetic gifts, I’ve come to the conclusion that they don’t just communicate information from God to man. I can’t tell you the number of people I’ve told, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life,” with little-to-no effect. But that was one of the most powerful prophetic words I’ve ever spoken. “Uh, God says He loves you…” and this mountain of a man, well schooled in church teachings, broke down and wept like a baby, actually experiencing the affection of His heavenly Father for the first time in years. The true prophetic word carries information, yes, but it also carries the power of God to accomplish that word. When I was moved by God to make declaration about my dream truck, I got the dream truck (and I learned a big lesson!). If I had not spoken that declaration, I’d still be driving a wimpy Honda and whining my prayers.
Visit Northwest Prophetic for a complete archive of regional prophetic words, or to submit a prophetic word.
Cool blogs:
• The Pilgrimgram • Firefall Zine • Tall Skinny Kiwi • Darpa's Domain • Bill Johnson • The Internet Monk
Resources
• Be a Hero! • Bethel Redding • Graham Cooke • Church Soundguy • End Time Prophetic Vision
Ministries
• Northwest Equipping • Healing the Northwest • Mosaic Northwest • PacificMinistries • Revival Town • Rivers of Grace • Storehouse Ministries
Missions
• Youth With A Mission • Int'l House of Prayer KC • Int'l House of Prayer NW • Int'l House of Prayer WA • Disciple the Nations
The Clock on the Computer
I have a friend who is really enamored of the clock on his computer. It’s his favorite thing about his new computer.
It’s kind of weird. He spent thousands of dollars on the computer. It’s got several gigabytes of memory, dual quad-core processors, many terabytes of hard drive space, a luscious 24” high resolution LCD monitor, and a pair of studio monitors for speakers. I have had some difficulty not being jealous.
And his favorite part is the clock in the task bar at the bottom of the luscious 24” high resolution LCD monitor. The clock! He really loves his computer because of the clock. He spends a lot of time online, looking for ways to tweak it: now his clock displays the time in fancy script, that changes typeface and color along with his whim.
I understand that, as they say, “Time is of the essence.” And I know that his task-bar clock is synchronized with the atomic clock in Denver on a regular basis, so it’s always accurate.
He doesn’t know what he has. He certainly doesn’t appreciate it. I’m afraid this fascination makes him look rather foolish to his friends, especially those that know computers.
Sheesh.
I have another friend that married his wife because, well, frankly because he wants to have sex with her. She’s beautiful, and as he points out, she has big … er… feminine characteristics which are … um… quite prominent.
It’s kind of weird. She actually is a fascinating person: erudite, congenial, funny, thoughtful. She has written a couple of books; they weren’t bestsellers, but they pay her a small, steady income. She keeps a blog that has some amazing insights into our culture and government.
And she completes him in ways that he has no comprehension, enamored as he is of her … “prominent feminine characteristics.”
He really loves his wife, though I think it’s mostly that he loves her enchanting feminine qualities. He spends lots of money on her, and on events where his friends get to see him with her. He buys her lots of clothes, many flowers; his jeweler owes his success to my friend's purchases for his wife. He even encouraged her to consider cosmetic surgery recently, to enlarge those famous feminine qualities. In his devotion, he is missing most of the finer qualities of this stunningly patient and loving woman.
I understand that the physical aspect of marriage is delightful, even spectacular (and no, I’m neither single nor a newlywed!). And I know that loving your wife is a glorious thing for a husband, and that enjoying it is part of His command.
He doesn’t know what he has. He certainly doesn’t appreciate her. I’m afraid this fascination with her physical attributes makes him look rather foolish to his friends, especially those that actually know his wife.
I know some folks who have experienced quite a bit of the revival that God is pouring out right now. They travel from meeting to meeting looking forward to shaking and quivering and falling down when the presence of God touches them, or to receiving yet another prophetic word from the minister-of-the-week.
It’s kind of weird. It seems that there’s so much more to God than just shaking when He touches you. They aren’t particularly growing in character or maturity, though they certainly are in love with God. Often enough, they fall to the floor under His presence. It’s not fake, either on their part or anyone else’s.
They’ve stood in line and received prophetic words and impartations from hundreds of ministers in perhaps thousands of revival services, and yet they haven’t caught on that the prophetic words have mostly been God inviting them to intimacy, to a deeper personal relationship with Him. They’ve fallen deeply in love with one aspect of a relationship with God, and an aspect that looks to me to be fairly shallow: it's true, but it misses so much of who He is and what He's done.
They don’t know what they have. They certainly don’t appreciate all that God is and does for them. I’m afraid this fascination makes them look foolish to some of their friends, especially those who are looking for a greater relationship with God themselves.
OK. True confessions: the first guy isn’t real. The others actually are, though I’ve obviously over-simplified their stories. (The guy in the second story has grown beyond the middle-aged puberty of this illustration, thank God!)
The point is real simple: we get so caught up with some of the good things God has done for us that we forget to go deeper with Him. (Well, maybe with our spouses, too, but that’s only a side point.)
And the antidote is equally simple: let’s ask God to show us new things about Himself, about His love for us, about how He would like to reveal Himself to us this year. Let’s look for new breadth, new depth in God. I know a man (true!) who prays every January, “Lord, who do you want to be for me this year?” and it changes him: he walks in a greater intimacy, a greater wisdom than most of the men and women of God I know.
Too many of our Christian brothers and sisters know God, but have stopped learning, have become comfortable with our limited view of God, and therefore a limited relationship with Him. Let’s not do that. Let’s keep learning who He is, what He’s about. How can we upgrade our worship? How can we Know Him better?
Joy Dawson used to say, "God is greater than your current understanding of how great He possibly could be!" Let's go find out!
Sunday
Two Tabernacles
The House of Worship
The Presence of God
Tabernacles and the Twenty First
Century
Tabernacles and Me
Missing Jesus at Bethesda
This is an interesting story:
John 5:2-9: Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. 3 In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. 4 For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water , was made well of whatever disease he had. 5 Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. 6 When
It seems that there were a bunch of needy folks there, enough that
This is going to be good: we have the Son of God, the Healer, the Great Physician Himself walking in among a crowd of desperately sick people. We would expect to see hundreds of healings, right, and dozens of people repenting from sin. A great revival is going to break out: we have the need, and the presence of the Son of God is there? What could be better?
But out of that multitude, only one person was healed.
I’m stuck by that: the normal pattern is the other way around: everybody who comes to
I know dozens of people like that: they have huge needs. Some of them have prophetic words promising a healing or promising that
And one or two get healed, get their miracle, but most of the people don’t. And often, I’m one of the ones who don’t.
There’s a verse in Proverbs that talks about this:
Proverbs 13:12: Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.
So we have people hoping for a healing, not being healed. We have people with huge needs, and even huge promises of God’s provision. But the hope, the longing, remains unfulfilled, and heart sickness sets in. Now the physical brokenness is accompanied by a brokenness of soul.
I see a principle: Being needy in the presence of God doesn’t change anything. Let me say it another way: making my needs known in God’s presence doesn’t change anything!
That’s not heresy, you know. It’s actually an accurate description of hundreds, maybe thousands of people in the Church.
And, I’m becoming convinced, there’s a reason: Here in the crowd, at the pool of Bethesda, nobody brought their need to
So what’s going on? Unfortunately it’s simple: people were needy in
Some of the people who have unmet needs, who have a heart growing sick, have been in God’s presence with their needs, and they’ve talked about their needs in His presence, they’ve taken their needs out, they’ve taken their sick heart out and looked at it in His presence, but they haven’t actually captured His attention. They (we) haven’t brought the need to Him in such a way that His attention is brought to our place of need.
Being needy isn’t enough. Being needy in His presence isn’t enough. We need to ask. We need to bring our need to Him, and we need to leave it with Him. If we take it back then it’s ours again, and we don’t want that.
That’s hard to hear and it’s hard to say. Sometimes the very act of looking at the wound in our heart, the disappointment, the heart sickness of never having this need met is so painful that it’s a terrifying and exposing experience just looking at the wound, whether in the body or in the soul.
I’ve done that before. I’ve brought my need out and looked at it, talked about it, wished things were different, and some of the times that I’ve done that, I’ve done it in God’s presence. But that isn’t praying. That was whining. I brought out my need, but I never released it to Him.
I’ve done it in worship, too: I’ve been there in an environment of worship, and I’ve been in His presence there, but my attention, my focus, was on other things, some of which were my wants and needs. I missed worship; I had the opportunity to worship Him, but I hadn’t connected with Him. I was in the place where He was, but I missed His presence.
Disclaimer: I am not saying that the only reason that our prayers aren’t answered is because we never actually bring them to