The Burn, E-Courses & "The Baby"

First- thanks to all who came out to keep Long Island's "Home" fire burning before the Lord yesterday and to those who ministered to the Lord from home. We were so honored by you and value your friendship and commitment tremendously. I told many of you to stay home because of the weather and I appreciate you deeply for your desire and thank you because you were one less person for me to worry about yesterday. Love you ALL.

Second- IHOP-KC is offering classes that can be audited or taken for credit online now. You can audit a course for $50 and it's ALOT easier than re-locating to KC for a year (unless of course Dad says to). The material is really great stuff whether you agree with a particular point of view or not and it is worth wrestling with. The classes being offered include those that I took during my internship there and more are coming. There are a couple that I absolutely loved - including and especially Corey Russell's The Eternal Glory of an Intercessor. Here's the link in case you are interested. ALSO - if you are interested in taking a course, we can also choose to do it together and interact with the material and each other together or online. Let me know what delights you.
http://www.ihop.org/Publisher/Article.aspx?ID=1000023673

Finally, I had a dream the morning of The Burn - what else is new. In the dream, I was giving birth to a baby in a really large, warm tiled tub. The birth was fast and relatively easy and although the labor was right on time the baby had the affect of being pre-mature ( about 5 months old or so) (which by the way, that is about how long we've been meeting regularly at King's Corner). As the midwife cleaned the baby, it took weak breaths and didn't cry much. I thought it was still in pretty good shape but the midwife was troubled that it was weak and not crying deeply. Additionally, it had some placenta/skin around the sides of its eyes that I cleaned off so it could see correctly.

I went to breastfeed the baby and it spoke to me and said "Three Stormtroopers tried to stop me." What he was describing was a dream he had as he was being born that symbolized a spiritual experience in reality (kind of like the opposition received by the angel of Daniel's visit). I was only mildly impressed at the baby's ability to speak and realized that although I had conceived the baby with a man I barely knew (the relationship felt a little illegitimate because I barely knew the man when I was first with him and we weren't married when it was conceived) and although I felt like a single parent, I didn't feel like the baby or I were out of God's heart or love. As a matter of fact there were clear indicators that God cared for the baby and had gifted it with dreams and revelation as a matter of His own desire to lay favor on the baby despite the circumstances of its conception. I put my finger in its mouth and felt around only to find that the baby also had a full set of teeth - of perfect little white teeth all the way back to include little molars and I realized it had maturity in advance of its years.

Because of the concern over the baby's breathing I was told to take it to the hospital. As I was waiting at the bus stop with the baby, I looked around and realized I would never be seen at the Hospital even if I did get there. I was surrounded by and counted among the poor and I knew they were not treated well and I thought, "If I take the baby home and care for it and love it, I'm sure it will do well." Shortly after, a tall, large black woman walked up to me and said "Trust your insides. You are right, you'll never get seen in the Hospital. It will take forever and it ultimately won't help it anyway. Take the baby home and love it deeply and help it breathe right and it will do well there."

I went back to my apartment and the baby's family (on the Father's side) was there to celebrate its birthday but I wasn't sure about how they felt about the baby and whether they would claim it as their own and love it. I wasn't even sure how I felt about them and whether I could love THEM. I kept looking at the baby's face which was dark skinned like it's father's family; trying to see its beauty - because at first I wasn't sure if it WAS beautiful, but the more I looked to see if it was, and I mean intently looked at it, the more beautiful it became and while it looked like the Father's family, it started to look more like me as well. I knew that if the Father's family would love deeply it and adopt it as their own it would in fact do very well and become more and more beautiful and eventually, the Father would come and call it his own.

As we prayed yesterday, I began to get some understanding about the dream and wept quite a bit about it. Here's my best shot at explaining it: The baby is the House of Prayer. Breathing - deep breathing - is prayer and the inspiration that comes from meditating on the Beauty of God ("The Beauty of God inspires Deep, Breathing (inspired) Prayer.") Crying is the groans of travail and longing. The Hospital is the Church. The Father's family is exactly that. Dark skinned refers to us in the Song of Solomon "I am dark but I am Lovely" and I believe the admonishment from the Lord is as follows:
a.) as "people of the House" we need to see clearly and set our thoughts and eyes on Him - to contemplate the Beauty of God and praying from that place, we need to travail for the things on His heart - to long for Him - in order to be strengthened

b.) keep looking intently for the beauty of this movement/house/baby/clan and value it - it will become more beautiful as we do

c.) we need to love this baby and adopt it as our own - taking responsibility for its growth and up-bringing as if it is our own and as if it was a baby who's life depended on it -because it does - and if we do this . . . The Father will come.

What I'm trying to convey is this: the baby is not just mine - it is all of ours. Please ask the Lord what He would have you do in order to adopt it into your heart and love it and nurture it as a member of your own family. Then, please let me know what He says.

Much, much love and blessing to all you, t

To Write Love On Her Arms

I ran across this site and movement (To Write Love on Her Arms) and thought "This is where it's at. It's what we're to be about doing. It's what I see in the hearts of the House and The Burn." So I thought I'd share it. Love to all, t

TO WRITE LOVE ON HER ARMS by Jamie Tworkowski

Pedro the Lion is loud in the speakers, and the city waits just outside our open windows. She sits and sings, legs crossed in the passenger seat, her pretty voice hiding in the volume. Music is a safe place and Pedro is her favorite. It hits me that she won't see this skyline for several weeks, and we will be without her. I lean forward, knowing this will be written, and I ask what she'd say if her story had an audience. She smiles. "Tell them to look up. Tell them to remember the stars."

I would rather write her a song, because songs don't wait to resolve, and because songs mean so much to her. Stories wait for endings, but songs are brave things bold enough to sing when all they know is darkness. These words, like most words, will be written next to midnight, between hurricane and harbor, as both claim to save her.

Renee is 19. When I meet her, cocaine is fresh in her system. She hasn't slept in 36 hours and she won't for another 24. It is a familiar blur of coke, pot, pills and alcohol. She has agreed to meet us, to listen and to let us pray. We ask Renee to come with us, to leave this broken night. She says she'll go to rehab tomorrow, but she isn't ready now. It is too great a change. We pray and say goodbye and it is hard to leave without her.

She has known such great pain; haunted dreams as a child, the near-constant presence of evil ever since. She has felt the touch of awful naked men, battled depression and addiction, and attempted suicide. Her arms remember razor blades, fifty scars that speak of self-inflicted wounds. Six hours after I meet her, she is feeling trapped, two groups of "friends" offering opposite ideas. Everyone is asleep. The sun is rising. She drinks long from a bottle of liquor, takes a razor blade from the table and locks herself in the bathroom. She cuts herself, using the blade to write "FUCK UP" large across her left forearm.

The nurse at the treatment center finds the wound several hours later. The center has no detox, names her too great a risk, and does not accept her. For the next five days, she is ours to love. We become her hospital and the possibility of healing fills our living room with life. It is unspoken and there are only a few of us, but we will be her church, the body of Christ coming alive to meet her needs, to write love on her arms.

She is full of contrast, more alive and closer to death than anyone I've known, like a Johnny Cash song or some theatre star. She owns attitude and humor beyond her 19 years, and when she tells me her story, she is humble and quiet and kind, shaped by the pain of a hundred lifetimes. I sit privileged but breaking as she shares. Her life has been so dark yet there is some soft hope in her words, and on consecutive evenings, I watch the prettiest girls in the room tell her that she's beautiful. I think it's God reminding her.

I've never walked this road, but I decide that if we're going to run a five-day rehab, it is going to be the coolest in the country. It is going to be rock and roll. We start with the basics; lots of fun, too much Starbucks and way too many cigarettes.

Thursday night she is in the balcony for Band Marino, Orlando's finest. They are indie-folk-fabulous , a movement disguised as a circus. She loves them and she smiles when I point out the A&R man from Atlantic Europe, in town from London just to catch this show.

She is in good seats when the Magic beat the Sonics the next night, screaming like a lifelong fan with every Dwight Howard dunk. On the way home, we stop for more coffee and books, Blue Like Jazz and (Anne Lamott's) Travelling Mercies.

On Saturday, the Taste of Chaos tour is in town and I'm not even sure we can get in, but doors do open and minutes after parking, we are on stage for Thrice, one of her favorite bands. She stands ten feet from the drummer, smiling constantly. It is a bright moment there in the music, as light and rain collide above the stage. It feels like healing. It is certainly hope.

Sunday night is church and many gather after the service to pray for Renee, this her last night before entering rehab. Some are strangers but all are friends tonight. The prayers move from broken to bold, all encouraging. We're talking to God but I think as much, we're talking to her, telling her she's loved, saying she does not go alone. One among us knows her best. Ryan sits in the corner strumming an acoustic guitar, singing songs she's inspired.

After church our house fills with friends, there for a few more moments before goodbye. Everyone has some gift for her, some note or hug or piece of encouragement. She pulls me aside and tells me she would like to give me something. I smile surprised, wondering what it could be. We walk through the crowded living room, to the garage and her stuff.

She hands me her last razor blade, tells me it is the one she used to cut her arm and her last lines of cocaine five nights before. She's had it with her ever since, shares that tonight will be the hardest night and she shouldn't have it. I hold it carefully, thank her and know instantly that this moment, this gift, will stay with me. It hits me to wonder if this great feeling is what Christ knows when we surrender our broken hearts, when we trade death for life.

As we arrive at the treatment center, she finishes: "The stars are always there but we miss them in the dirt and clouds. We miss them in the storms. Tell them to remember hope. We have hope."

I have watched life come back to her, and it has been a privilege. When our time with her began, someone suggested shifts but that is the language of business. Love is something better. I have been challenged and changed, reminded that love is that simple answer to so many of our hardest questions. Don Miller says we're called to hold our hands against the wounds of a broken world, to stop the bleeding. I agree so greatly.

We often ask God to show up. We pray prayers of rescue. Perhaps God would ask us to be that rescue, to be His body, to move for things that matter. He is not invisible when we come alive. I might be simple but more and more, I believe God works in love, speaks in love, is revealed in our love. I have seen that this week and honestly, it has been simple: Take a broken girl, treat her like a famous princess, give her the best seats in the house. Buy her coffee and cigarettes for the coming down, books and bathroom things for the days ahead. Tell her something true when all she's known are lies. Tell her God loves her. Tell her about forgiveness, the possibility of freedom, tell her she was made to dance in white dresses. All these things are true.

We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless. We don't get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers. We won't solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we're called home.

I have learned so much in one week with one brave girl. She is alive now, in the patience and safety of rehab, covered in marks of madness but choosing to believe that God makes things new, that He meant hope and healing in the stars. She would ask you to remember.

Lent to Love

LOVE to all. Today is Fat Tuesday and tomorrow begins Lent. I'm feeling particularly fat this Tuesday so I thought I'd suck you all into my misery. The lousy Catholic I am - I never actually pay much attention to Lent- can't even contemplate a fast right now - but it is part of the rhythm of Long Island and the Liturgical Calendar so lots of people are paying attention to it.

What is of more interest to me though is the heart of our God over injustice and His desire that we would spend our strength on making wrong things right. That's a fast that pleases Him. That's a fast that can last for more than 40 days and actually be great and outrageous fun because justice brings joy.

This is a particularly strong concern of mine for all of us who serve in the House of Prayer because, in fact, you are all quite generous and kind; fasting your time, energy and finances with remarkable grace. The impact of combining generous lives with prayer and fasting is earthshaking and I believe that you are earth shakers.

Years ago I drew a picture of Long Island with a flag stuck in the middle. On the flag it said "RAW 58"- "a Radical Army of Worshippers who live out the fast of Isaiah 58 on their knees". Who knew it would come true. That's you. You are a people who will walk this out under the grace and care of Our Loving Father.

Vineyard Central in Ohio started a Lent group on their facebook page as a movement for this season with Isaiah 58 at the clarion call. I think it was meant to say "Hey, wake up. Let's do the stuff."

I'm sending a modfied version for a little different purpose. Not to shame us into action but to encourage us. To say that I see your hearts and lives in these sentences and to say your light is about to break. I see you in action and want to urge you on; to encourage you to love being the radical army of worshippers that you are and to admonish us to please be sure to pass these ideals on to the next generations TODAY! While we still can.

Will you pray with us as a House to see Mercy- Justice increase and flow from our hearts and our lives; transforming our relationships and eventually transforming Long Island.

Father, will you help us to respond to the fast of Isaiah 58 as a course of daily living. Will you help us fulfill Mercy-Justice in every arena of our lives and in the places that we still struggle to do so, will you send perfect love to cast out our fear. We love the things that bring You pleasure Lord and it is our desire, even though we don't always line our lives up with it, to see You and live with You in the place Your Glory dwells . So, in the places where we don't trust in Your care and provision, will You grant us repentance and renew our hearts to run with You. We love You SO!

5 Practices for a Justice-ful Lent

1. Immerse yourself in Isaiah 58. A Long Island paraphrase of that chapter is at the end of this email. Read it. Pray it. Live with it. Live IN it.

2. Personally meet someone's basic needs for a connection to another human being. Perhaps the need is simply a hug and some love, a bag of groceries, shelter, or clothing. There are lots of resources available that will help you reach out. Listen to someone. Hear their story and validate them. The first step for many of us might be just to get to know someone. The needs will soon become apparent. If you need help making that kind of connection or want to voluntee time changing ourenvironment, contact Jamie at King's Corner or Lighthouse Mission or the Family Service League. Go to the local Department of Social Services. It is EVERYWHERE. Kindness is where it's at.


3. Connect with someone - maybe even in your own family- who you feel far from or need to reconcile with. Perhaps there's someone in your family you just need to spend more time with. Do that.

4. if you don't already have one, introduce a Sabbath day into your weekly schedule. Reserve a day a week to only do things that bring you joy and honor God. It's not selfish. It's a good, Godly practice with several millennia of precedence.

5. Worship & Pray.

****************************************************

A paraphrase of a paraphrase...

Isaiah 58

"Shout! A full-throated shout! Hold nothing back—a trumpet-blast shout!
Tell the family of God on Long Island what's wrong with their own lives,
face your family Long Island with your own sins!

Friends we’re busy, busy, busy at worship gatherings,
and we love studying all about God...
By all appearances we’re a group of right-living people—
law-abiding citizens, God-honoring, even patriotic Americans...
We often ask God, 'What's the right thing to do?'
We love having God on our side, blessing all our plans...
But we also complain,
'God, why do we fast and pray and you don't look our way?
Why do we humble ourselves on this Island and you don't even notice?'

Well, here's why... God says, I’ll give it to you straight:

"The bottom line on fasting and your pious “suffering” on my behalf - for you it is your own gain, what you will profit from it.
You drive your kids and co-workers much too hard. Your schedules are overcooked!
You ‘fast’, but at the same time you bicker and fight.
You fast, but you bash people I love with your unkind and harsh words.
That kind of fasting
won't do jack squat! Your prayers won’t even get off the ground!
Do you really think this is what i want you do?
Is this a season to show off how humble you are by giving up something meaningless and suffering for me by going to church in a poor neighborhood?
Is this about putting on a pious long face
and parading around solemnly?
Do you call that fasting?
Is that the kind of fast that I, God, would like?

"Here’s the kind of fast I'm after:
break the chains of injustice, the invisible yet real chains all around you, start looking you’ll see them...
get rid of exploitation in your workplace, stop taking advantage of others who make less than you do and complaining about those who make more!
free the oppressed right here in your own backyard!
cancel debts... let people who owe you money off the hook... do you really need to get every penny back? Are you really going to keep score with your closest friends and family?

What I'm interested in seeing you do is meeting some basic needs in those around you:
share your food - a real meal!- with someone who is hungry and can’t afford to go to Friday’s to get whatever they want, whenever they want like you can!
Invite the poor into your home... Are you more concerned about a carpet stain or justice? You know its really me in disguise anyway, right?
put clothes on the shivering ill-clad and cold... go through your closest - it’s cluttered anyway and you could use the space! Give those seldom used garments to someone who really needs them and will use them right away... its cold... do it now!
Be available to your own family. Is there a conversation you have been putting off? Is there a sibling or parent you need to forgive? Is there an elderly grandparent crying out for a visit? Don’t wait... start at home. Today. Call. Visit.

Now here’s the good part!!
Do this and the lights will turn on,
Your lives will turn around at once. That area of life where you feel stuck? It will be a distant memory. I’ll take of it for you if you care of the them for me....
Your righteousness will pave your way.
I, the God of infinite glory will make you secure and prosperous in the ways that matter most.
Oh and when you pray, I will answer.
You'll call out for help and I'll say, 'Here I am. Right here. Totally available. What can I do for you?'

Get rid of all unfair practices,
quit blaming suffering victims, I’ll sort them out not you!
quit gossiping about other people's shortcomings, you have enough of your own to deal with!
Be generous with the hungry, lonely, underserved, underclothed,
start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,
Your life will begin to glow in the darkness,
our shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.
I will always show you where to go.
I'll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—right here in this abandoned and ridiculed Nazareth of Long Island!
You’ll have firm muscles, strong bones Strength to accomplish more than you can now imagine!
Long Island will be like a well-watered garden,
a gurgling spring that never runs dry.
You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, lives up and down the back streets of Long Island!
rebuild the foundations from out of your past.
You'll be known as those who can fix anything,
restore even the old ruins, rebuild and renovate homes all over this forgotten, abandoned place...
Together, with me, we can make this Island livable and thriving.

Keep a Sabbath
and don't use this holy day for personal gain,
Treat the Sabbath as a day of joy,
God's holy day for celebration,
Honor it by refusing 'business as usual,'
making money, running here and there—
Be free to enjoy Me!
Then I'll make you ride high and soar.
You’ll feast on the inheritance of your ancestors"
God himself says so! It’s available to all who want it. These promises are real and available to you today!



Links to IHOP-LI: the Ark House of Prayer On Long Island
Loving Long Island with 24-7-365 worship-filled prayer
http://www.IHOP-LI.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IHOP-LI/
http://www.squidoo.com/IHOP-LI/
http://gworship9.blogspot.com/
http://www.myspace.com/ihoplongisland
http://theburn247.com/longisland/
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7748449673

The Quest For Wisdom - Bill Johnson

What follows is an absolutely brilliant article on wisdom by Bill Johnson as a follow up to the dream and article I sent. Let it roll around with 1Corinthians 1 & 2and Ephesians and then let me know what you think. Lots of love, t

The Quest for Wisdom
In the last few years I've talked about a tragedy of revival, which is that there is no record of revival accelerating in the second generation. Every great move of God has declined in the next generation. But I think I have found one exception; when David was king and he passed the baton to his son Solomon, revival was taken to another level. I think that may be the one exception in human history where things have actually accelerated instead of declined.

Solomon was given one wish. Most of you know the story; God appeared to him and said, "You can have anything you want." There's a reason he was given that choice.
Proverbs 4:3-6 says,
When I was my father's son, tender and the only one in the sight of my mother, he also taught me, and said to me: "Let your heart retain my words; keep my commands, and live. Get wisdom! Get understanding! Do not forget, nor turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her, and she will preserve you; love her and she will keep you.

Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore, get wisdom. I would like to suggest to you that the reason Solomon was given the choice to have anything he wanted is because he had a dad who trained him to make the right choice.

The story about David and his kids is interesting because he wasn't that great a father. Sometimes people in ministry don't translate the authentic relationship they have with the Lord, or the effective ministry they have with everyone else's kids, into the practical setting of their own home. It's one of the great tragedies through the years of failure in the church. David was no exception. He is called the "man after God's heart," yet he had troublesome children that he just didn't correct or raise correctly. He had his deal with Bathsheba, which was a huge mistake. (To show you how God redeems such a horrible sin, David's heir, Solomon, was born through Bathsheba. When God redeems a situation, He redeems it so completely that He turns it into a benefit. It's all the way through the scripture. It's so stunning. The grace of God should stun every person because it's the opposite of even our really good thoughts about what it should be like. It's way bigger than that.)

So here's Solomon; God appears to him and says, "You can have anything you want," and he says, "I choose wisdom." When I was living in Sacramento, California, I was in the garage talking to a friend. I had just heard the story about Solomon making this choice. Somehow it really impressed me. You have to understand, I wasn't known for making great spiritual choices.

I remember talking to this friend and saying, "If you could have anything you wanted, anything at all, and God showed up and said you could have anything, what would you choose?" I forget what he said, but I said, "I'd take wisdom." Now, I was clueless what that meant, but I knew one guy in the Bible did it and it worked really well for him. So I thought, "If I have half a brain I better do it the way he did it." So I said, "I'd choose wisdom," and went on to explain, "That's what happened to Solomon. He had a choice and he got whatever he wanted." Somehow that stuck in my mind all these years, and has actually become a principal pursuit. I know a few years ago we encouraged all the men in the church in Weaverville to read Proverbs every day, just to take a chapter according to the date: "Today is the 3rd, so we're going to read the third chapter of Proverbs." There are thirty-one chapters so it seems to work out. But here's the principle thing: the pursuit of wisdom.
Our understanding of wisdom is somewhat lacking. I want you to go to Proverbs 8 for some additional insight, and we'll try to build a case for this quest for wisdom. In Chapter 8, Wisdom is actually talking. Wisdom "cries out" in verse 1, "I, Wisdom, dwell with prudence" in verse 12, and then starting in verse 22 Wisdom talks to us and says,

The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I have been established from everlasting, from the beginning, before there was ever an earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I was brought forth; while as yet He had not made the earth or the fields, or the primal dust of the world. When He prepared the heavens, I was there, when He drew a circle on the face of the deep, when He established the clouds above, when He strengthened the fountains of the deep, when He assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters would not transgress His command, when He marked out the foundations of the earth, Then I was beside Him as a master craftsman, and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him, rejoicing in His inhabited world, and my delight was with the sons of men.

Wisdom is not a stoic trait; Wisdom is like the party-animal of heaven. It delighted in what God made, the order God made and how it functioned, and His massive delight was in the sons of men. That's because you and I were created for several things. We were created, number one, to live in and dwell in the Glory. "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." That was the original target. Redemption restores us to the original target, which is dwelling and living in the manifest presence of the Lord. The second thing is, Wisdom found its supreme delight in the sons of men because you and I were born to walk in the wisdom of God, and express and display the wisdom of God. Wisdom is generally thought of more as a stoic trait, yet it's celebratory in nature. It rejoices, it celebrates, and it parties in right things.
The other thing I want to point out about Wisdom from this passage is that Wisdom calls itself a "master craftsman." Now, Wisdom was standing next to the Father as the Father would speak. If you could imagine this, the Father would speak, "Let there be light," and light was formed. Wisdom was there working with the Father, designing, establishing boundaries and the nature of the very thing God was creating. It was Wisdom, we find out later in I Corinthians 1:30, that was actually the person of the Lord Jesus Christ working in tandem with the Father. Now, there's a nature to Wisdom that I don't remember ever hearing until recent years. Wisdom was a "master craftsman," so Wisdom worked in tandem with God to create. Wisdom is creative in nature.

When we lived at that same house in Sacramento we had some neighbors called the Blankenships. The father was a very famous woodcarver. His father before him was a famous woodcarver, and they had large pieces of furniture that were all carved out of pieces of wood. They were the most amazing things I'd ever seen. (John F. Kennedy had a piece of this furniture in the White House.) He was very highly revered and respected--a master craftsman. When you think of a master craftsman, perhaps you'd think of a stained glass maker or a glassblower, some kind of artist who is at the top of their field, perhaps a cabinetmaker, somebody who does precise work. A master craftsman is what Wisdom is. It is creative in nature. Wisdom is the creative expression. You know there's wisdom when there is a freshness and a creative nature to what God is doing. Wisdom has always been thought as that which handles knowledge correctly, but it's so much more than that. It is the creative nature of God. Here Wisdom speaks, and says, "I was beside Him on the day of creation as a master craftsman."

We have been given a call and a privilege to walk in wisdom. It's not a sterile call to be smart and live correctly; it is an invitation to walk in the creative nature of God. The call to walk in wisdom is the invitation to partner with the Lord, that His creative ideas, His creative expressions, would flow in and through His people. People are bored, and Christians especially are bored. For some reason, something "got into our water" that makes people sterile, which is the fact that if there are desires, dreams, visions, or aspirations, they get shut down in the name of devotion to Christ. The religious spirit loves routine without purpose and calls it suffering. You were born to live with fulfilled desires.

Solomon is the brilliant example. Here's a man who became the example in all of scripture, with one exception (who is the Lord Jesus Christ), of the wisest person to walk the earth. Picture this: the stories of his wisdom were so extreme that they scattered all over the world. A queen in a faraway country put together an army of people to escort her to come and see Solomon. She had questions. She wanted to see if the stories she'd heard were true. After she got to him she found out, "I wasn't told half the story. It's far bigger than I ever imagined." Do you know what she brought with her as a gift besides the jewels and spices unlike anything Israel had seen before? She brought four tons of gold as a gift. Four tons. How many people do you need just to carry gold, let alone protect it? Here was this army carrying this queen across the known world into Israel so she could sit at Solomon's feet, another king, just to hear wisdom.

I would like to suggest something to you. Both Isaiah 2 and Micah 4 say that the nations of the world are going to stream to the people of God asking for the word of the Lord. In the last days, the people of God embrace the true Spirit of Wisdom, which is always looking for fresh, creative expression. Then the world will come looking for answers and solutions to the dilemmas, the issues of life. When creative ideas, artistic expression, inventions and the whole world is led by unbelievers, the church has embraced a false kind of spirituality. They have shut down the very thing that God created us to be, do, and function in. They have shut down ways to live and ways to do things better. The religious spirit looks to lock people into routines without purpose. We have some sick gratification by just sticking with a routine that doesn't work. Now, I realize things are changing, and hopefully there are not too many in this room who are saddled under that, but so many have a simple religious routine with so little life, so little release of freshness, so little release of power. The mantra is, "We're just holding course. We're just doing what we were told to do." They shut down all the realm of dreams, aspirations and desires. This is the way it's supposed to be: You are one huge creative machine waiting to explode upon an unsuspecting world. That's really the truth.

Let's go to 1 Kings 10:4-5:
And when the queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built, the food on his table, the seating of his servants, the service of his waiters and their apparel, his cupbearers, and his entryway by which he went up to the house of the Lord, there was no more spirit in her.

It is just amazing to me that this queen traveled to the other side of the known world to sit at Solomon's feet and ask him questions. She was stunned by the wisdom, answers, his insight to nature, how things live, and how they function. This is your inheritance as a believer, to have all Solomon had and more, because you're not a disciple of Solomon, you're a disciple of Jesus, who is wiser than Solomon. The queen of Sheba came, sat at Solomon's feet, and this is what rose to the top of her list: "the house that he had built, the food on his table, the seating of his servants. . . How many ways can you seat servants? The food, the way it was delivered, their clothing, the stairs that went from his house to God's house"; every one of those has to do with artistic expression. Food, design of clothing, the way they function in service in some way, everything you and I do has got to be represented in that list somewhere, because it's just an oddball, weird list. They way they were seated, the way they served, the way the food was prepared, the food that was prepared, the house that he built, the stairs--everything had to do with some artistic, creative design.

Now most people check themselves off of that list because at five, all of us were artists. Everyone's an artist at five, but there are very few left by the time you get to ten, right? Why? Part of the reason is that we enter an educational system that weeds out those who don't paint or draw well. Art, in other words, has been reduced to painting or drawing or music or something of that nature, when the businessman who's about to start a business in a new city needs an artistic mind to come in with fresh ideas to create something that's going to work. The politician who's going to run a clean campaign needs creative ideas to communicate his convictions. The school teacher needs the anointing of the artist. The Bible calls it "wisdom," to know how to touch the one child who just doesn't seem to learn. We have a group in the church who work with students who have a very, very difficult time learning, and God has given them wisdom and strategies to see dramatic and immediate improvement.

Here's the thing: We do best serving and fixing problems. That's just what we do best. We don't do so hot when our goal is to become president of this club or to get notches on our Bible. Too many people want to help in the public school system because they want to have souls saved. What's wrong with that? Not a thing, but it becomes obvious to everyone in the school that you're after that instead of wanting to help the school become better. See, to stand alongside someone to help them succeed is what Wisdom did with the Father. Wisdom stood alongside the Father to make Him successful in His creation of all things. To stand alongside the leaders of a community, whether it be a police department as a chaplain, or down at the hospital, as an employee working at a department store; it doesn't matter what field you work in, there are always opportunities to stand alongside someone else and help them succeed, help them be better at what they do.

The people of God have legal access to God's vast realm of mystery. It is His good pleasure to give you the mysteries of the Kingdom. That means all the secrets are your inheritance. Nothing is withheld. The believer has the privilege of engaging in life and finding a problem. Let's say you're a school teacher and there's a massive problem at the school, truancy or whatever. The believer has the responsibility and privilege to enter into the situation and say, "We've got a major problem. God has the answer. In His Kingdom exists the way this should function. I have legal access to His mysteries. I will therefore seek Him for the answer so that this gets fixed." That's called "wisdom." You have just become the master craftsman. You didn't paint a picture, you didn't build a cabinet, and you didn't do a stained glass window. But you walked in the same anointing to carry out God's purposes and plans in a creative, fresh, expressive way where His Kingdom is established.

Anne Kalvestrand is one of our heroes. She just got back this week from Bahrain. She was in a situation working with the U.S. Embassy in Bahrain where they were having discipline problems with high school students. She took the DNA of this house (Bethel), which is made of Kingdom principles. The Bible says that Jesus is the Desire of the Nations; He is what everybody is longing for and they just don't know it. So it's wisdom to have Jesus come and fill the longing of that heart in some way to fix this problem. It's not just a thing of preaching and saying, "Listen if you don't repent you go to hell," it's that we have the opportunity to step in as His representatives of the Kingdom and bring Kingdom order so people realize, "Oh, Jesus is the One that I want." Anne wrote a paper based on what happens in this house (Bethel) regarding discipline according to Kingdom principles and the U.S. Embassy was so impressed by it that it was adopted in Bahrain. Then the U.S. Embassy stamped it and sendy it to all the U.S. embassies, on discipline for high school students. Anne does this very well. She looks for a problem and how to fix it. It's the Kingdom mindset; it doesn't say, "What do I have?," it says, "What do I have access to?

Go to Exodus 31:1:
Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. And I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, to design artistic works, to work in gold, in silver, in bronze, in cutting jewels for setting, in carving wood, and to work in all manner of workmanship. And I, indeed I, have appointed with him Aholiab the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan; and I have put wisdom in the hearts of all the gifted artisans, that they may make all that I have commanded you."

They were filled with the Spirit of God. It's the first mention of someone being filled with the Spirit in the Bible. And yet he was filled with the Spirit for what purpose? Wisdom. Why? He had to build God's house. God just told him, "This is what I want you to build." Moses had to find somebody with wisdom, because wisdom will know how to do what God just said to do. God didn't give a blueprint, He just said, "Go build this." So Moses looked for the guy with the Spirit of God on him. He was filled with the Spirit and wisdom to do artistic design.

In the New Testament, the outpouring of the Spirit is for the demonstration of power. In the Old it has to do with prophetic declaration and wisdom. When the new revelation came, it didn't wipe out the former, it built upon it. Wouldn't it be nice for the church to walk in a fullness of the Spirit that enables us to infiltrate the system, serve to help the schools get better, and help the hospitals be more efficient? Then we would say, "By the way, if you have cancer I can pray for you and you'll get healed!" It's not either or; this is the life we were born for.
So here we find Bezalel. Moses assigns him to the task because he's marked with wisdom. The wisdom he has is marked with creative expression so he would simply KNOW how to do what God commanded them to do.

A story I shared with you some time ago is about a guy named Matt MacPherson who is an archer who developed a tremendous bow. He's a wonderful man and wanted to serve in churches, but churches couldn't afford him. He's a worship leader and wanted to travel and preach. To make a long story short, as a hobby he would build bows and arrows. He was a hunter and liked to shoot bows. He asked the Lord for understanding on how to build a bow, and the Lord literally dropped a blueprint down in front of him with the design of a bow. He now produces Matthew's Solocam, which is one of the most popular bows in the world. In fact, a large percentage of professionals shoot that particular bow. It was developed by this guy who copied a blueprint that was lowered out of the sky. He gets the blueprint, creates the bow, and the Lord speaks to him and says, "Thanks for asking." The Lord went on to say, "I have a lot of good ideas." That is so fascinating to me, that because it mattered to him, it mattered to God, and God spoke to him about what he was pursuing.

We compartmentalize too much. People will come to me and say, "I want you to pray for me. I have a hurt leg, but I really need you to pray for my brother. He's got cancer." Like God can't multitask, or only takes serious things and doesn't do the lesser things. We do the same in our thinking with God, that if He's going to give us creative ideas, He should give it to scientists who are trying to find a cure for cancer. That's really what He ought to do" as though God can't do more than one thing at a time. The whole point is if it matters to you, it matters to Him. That's the deal. I love this because here's a guy sitting in his workshop day after day trying to create a nice bow and God drops down a blueprint. That's brilliant, as the British would say. It's also lovely.

Whether you're working in a department, as a school teacher, a housewife, a den mother for the Girl Scouts, it doesn't matter. Any place you have influence, you have the right and responsibility to look for creative influence. It is not to dominate, nor for self-glorification, but to help the others succeed. There are ideas in music that simply sit here in the realm of mystery, waiting for someone to ask. There are ideas regarding medicine and science, and ideas regarding the simplest of things in life.

It's tragic that hundreds of years ago, if you wanted to hear quality music, you had to go to the church. If you were going to see drama or art, painting, the masters, they were believers. So many of them were in the church; you had to go there if you wanted to see excellence. Something happened some time ago where we were taught that to really follow Christ you had to get rid of everything in your heart that you like to do.

We've gone over this through the years here, but there's the narrow road that we take coming to Christ, the straight and narrow road, and the entrance to the Kingdom. There's only one door, Christ Jesus, and the only way in is "not my will but Yours be done. I give everything I am to you." But something happens as we begin to walk in life in the Kingdom, in intimacy with the Lord. He continually turns to us and says, "Whatsoever things you desire when you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall have them." He starts looking to the desire and the heartbeat, the talents, the gifts, the desires.

He's the one who said, "A desire realized is a tree of life." That's amazing. What's the tree of life? The tree of life was the tree that Adam and Eve were forbidden to go to after they partook of the forbidden fruit. Once you take the fruit of the tree of life, it marks whatever it touches with eternity. So here's Adam and Eve in a sinful condition; if they eat of the tree of life, it makes their sinful condition permanent and unredeemable. So an angel stood guard at the tree of life. Proverbs says you still have access to the tree of life. Let all your agendas get sanctified by your devotion to Christ and then let them rise to the surface because "a desire realized is a tree of life." Your fulfilled dreams and desires are those which identify you and lock you in with an eternal perspective.

That's huge. It's having a cry to write that one song about a message and getting it done. The religious spirit doesn't want you to eat the fruit once you've gotten your desire realized. The religious spirit wants you to say, "It wasn't me, it was Jesus." It's like the guy who sang a beautiful song and was told, "That was a beautiful song." "It wasn't me, it was Jesus." "Well, it wasn't that good. It was good, but it wasn't that good."

Time with God impregnates you with Godly desires. It's the absolute truth. The sperma of His word gets planted in you and things begin to form desires, dreams--and they are there because He not only wants the fulfilled desires, He wants you to get locked into eternal identification, identifying with your place in eternity. It's the fulfilled desire.

What did Jesus say in John 15 and 16? He said, "I want your prayers to get answered so that your joy is full." Why do you think He was the happiest guy on the planet? Every time He prayed for the sick, they got well. When He's praying the day ahead of time and knows ahead of time, "We're going to have a big crowd of folks who will have no food. Oh God, it would be great if you fed the multitudes again." He gets there and the food is multiplied. Why do you think He was the most rejoicing person on the planet? The Bible says His joy was head and shoulders above all His companions. He excelled them all. Why? Because He lived that? "A desire realized is a tree of life." Day after day He went to bed munching on the fruit from the tree of life. "Another day with the Father where He fulfilled the desires of my heart." It's no wonder that Solomon, the man marked as being the wisest man, was also marked as the man who had all his desires fulfilled.

Zechariah 1:18 says,
Then I raised my eyes and looked and there were four horns. And I said to the angel who talked with me, "What are these?" So he answered me, "These are the horns that have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem." Then the Lord showed me four craftsmen. And I said, "What are these coming to do?" So he said, "These are the horns that scattered Judah, so that no one could lift up his head; but the craftsmen are coming to terrify them to cast out the horns of the nations that lifted up their horn against the land of Judah to scatter."

Horns represent spiritual powers. This is amazing. Not since God sent a choir into battle first has He come up with such an outlandish strategy for war. I mean, we thought the choir thing was weird, but we finally learned about praise and found out, "This is amazing; when we praise God, He fights for us." Well, now He's pulling a new one on us. Here are these four horns, these four dominions rising, they're oppressing the people of God, and they're dividing and scattering them. They're running away in fear. Their heads are hanging low. They've lost all awareness of the presence and the promise of God. Look at the wicked work these horns have done. What is God's answer? Here are four people coming with hammers and saws, stained glass and furniture polish. It's a person with a canvas and a paintbrush, a photographer, a musician. It's the creative anointing, the anointing of wisdom. It doesn't just scatter the enemy. The Bible says it terrorizes them. Does that sound fun to anyone else besides me, terrorizing the terrorists?

Listen, you're working at Macy's, and you're thinking, "There's got to be a better way to do this. I bet I could save this department 10,000 bucks a year if we did it this way." You submit the idea to your boss, they do it, and guess what? That creative idea just chased a horn away. It chased away that which divides and causes people to be downcast. What is it doing? It's creative people reflecting the creative nature of their Father. It's an agreement between heaven and earth. It's giving heaven a target for invasion. It doesn't mean you are even a great musician you just sit down and make that special love song between you and Jesus, and you sing that song. That moment of creativity chased away the horn of division and oppression.

We've learned this through the last thirty years, that you can sit with the guitar and start to play and suddenly there's a peace that settles. There were things going on spiritually in attack-mode that are now dissipated. We've learned somehow that God is so moved by that musical instrument that He just settles. My dad and mom took us into this in the early seventies. We've seen that as musicians with the instruments we play, the presence of the Lord settles and the powers that were working against us are broken. It's glorious. The same is happening now, not just for the worship team, not just for those of you who play instruments privately at home, it's every real estate agent who looks for a creative way to present a property. It's every school teacherwho looks to work with a child who doesn't seem to "get it." We know we have legal access to the mystery of wisdom that unlocks whatever is in the heart of that child. It's the musician who gets the song of a lifetime. They wanted to write it and do it well. It's for every single person, whether you consider yourself an artist, or you just have the routine of working in a department store or garage or wherever it might be. Every person has the privilege of creative expression, and when you do, it terrorizes hell, because that's when you look most like the Father.