Thursday

An Upgrade by way of a Dream


I had a dream. The next morning I told it to a friend, and as I told it, I realized that God was speaking to me.

In the dream, I had visited with my family, at my parents’ home. At the end of that visit, someone across the way started shooting at us from the undergrowth. Because of the danger, everyone else left, and as he drove off, my dad told me that he had a weapon I could use. It was in the hall closet.

I ran to the closet, and searched under the bed linens. I remember checking the shelf from left to right; I found a tiny handgun, a pea-shooter, really. It didn't even look like a gun; it looked like a tiny tambourine. It was obviously not going to be accurate at any distance beyond a yard or so, and wouldn’t pack much punch. It was a weapon, but not as powerful a weapon as I needed.

After a great deal of hard work and persistence, which were not part of the dream, I overcame the enemy.

Later, as the family was driving back up the driveway, I realized I stopped looking before exploring the whole closet. I dug into the linen closet again. On the same shelf, a bit farther to the right, I found another weapon: a large, semi-automatic pistol, probably a .45 caliber. Next to it was a package of extra ammunition wrapped to protect it from age. It had been there all along for me to use.

On reviewing the dream, I believe God was telling me that He has made another weapon available to me, beyond the weapon of worship that I'd been using, a new weapon that I hadn’t yet. It was a much larger & more powerful weapon. (And indeed, that was my experience.)

I suspect there's a fair bit of this going on, God upgrading his kids' weaponry, training our hands to war.

A Purpose for the Battle Against Us

War, it has been said, is hell. It gets tiring.

I find myself looking forward to the end of each battle. I don’t plan to, but I find myself considering “life without a battle raging around me” as a sign of success. Whew! I made it! 

I don’t think Father agrees.

I believe that sometimes God specifically and intentionally brings the battle to me. I get it that I don’t always embrace the “overwhelming conqueror” moniker, and so he needs to help me get there. And yeah, I understand that sometimes I open a door that the enemy would love to exploit.

But I’m coming to believe that he brings the battle to me for another reason. I suspect that he lures the enemy into battle – and it must be with his sons, the enemy wouldn’t survive battle with God for even a nanosecond – as part of His almighty plan to plunder the devil.

In fact, I’m going to go so far as to say that sometimes the battle that I’m in right now, especially the battle that I didn’t expect to be in right now, is really more of an announcement, like the “Coming Attractions” features at the movie house. This is what you’re going to get for plunder after you’ve beaten this puny little stronghold.

We’ve talked about God’s promised wealth transfer. Proverbs 13:22b talks about how “the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous.” I think we’ve misunderstood this.

I’ve heard this taught as a promise we just need to claim: “Receive it by faith,” they shouted (and it wasn’t always during the offering message!). I don’t think it’s as easy as that.

First, I’m not convinced that the “wealth” God is speaking of is merely financial, just as the inheritance we leave to our kids (13:32a) is merely financial (see also Hebrews 12:16).

I’m also aware that Father wants his kids to be overcomers (see Revelation 2 & 3). It’s tough to become a competent overcomer without practice overcoming stuff.

I’m beginning to suspect is combining these two values. He’s luring the devil into our gun-sights so that we can overcome him, and also so that we can take back what he’s taken from us. (Remember that the devil was broke when God threw him out of Heaven; anything he’s gained since then has been by deceit, trickery or outright theft.)

It’s pretty important, and in my own world, it’s increasingly difficult (probably some more of my training, as in Hebrews 12:7-11) to discern exactly what the battle is that we’re fighting. Yeah, stuff is going wrong. Yeah, my soul and my spirit are wrestling with an oppressing thing. Yeah, hope is difficult, or clear thought is a greater fight than usual. But WHAT IS THE REAL BATTLE?

As we discern the nature of the enemy who has been lured against us, we’ll see more clearly how to kick his buttocks up between his ears, but more importantly, we’ll also get a glimpse of the plunder, the wealth, that Father has planned for our inheritance.


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If seeing is believing, then what are you looking at?

Put your trust in the LORD your God and you will be established. Put your trust in His prophets and succeed.

This is before us today.

We all know that 20:20 speaks about vision. Also true for 2Chronicles 20:20, which includes this declaration: “Put your trust in the LORD your God and you will be established. Put your trust in His prophets and succeed.”

We will be established, we will stand our ground, when we trust what God has spoken to us, what he’s given & done! This is safe territory, and considering the context of the verse, that was a huge declaration! You’ll be OK.

But God is inviting us to receive a NEW word from him (“prophets” speaking of the prophetic community we’re part of), which will take us into a new realm of battle, and into a new realm of victory. You’ll take territory you’ve never had before, territory that you’ll never have to give up.

We can succeed, either playing defense or playing offense. But we score more victories when we take the offense.

God has been speaking to some of us in the Northwest about this, and he used the Superbowl to do it: I’ll summarize it this way: When the people that have spent their lives at defensive suddenly begin to play offense (even from their defensive positions), then the other guy is going to look really bad.

When we add offense to our defense (not a different place, in the midst of our defense), suddenly you accomplish things that nobody has ever accomplished before.

(We could add something about getting the people that have been sitting quietly on the sidelines for all these years involved, but that’s another topic.)

Interestingly, in the original context of our verse, this offense consisted of “Give thanks to the LORD, for his love endures forever.” When we get that down, that’s a big deal in the progress of the battle that we’re facing right now, the battle that looks to be the end of us and our line.

The result of this shift? The result of this declaration? “Jehoshaphat and his men went to carry off their plunder, and they found among them a great amount of equipment and clothing and also articles of value—more than they could take away. There was so much plunder that it took three days to collect it.”

If you’re going to listen to the NEW word from God, if you’re going to take the offense in the battle, then you probably ought to bring a wheelbarrow with you. Because you’re going to need it.