What follows is a somewhat dated article ( because of a Heath Ledger reference) by Benji Nolot that I finally got around to reading today and realized it was timely - the very thing I was craving in my own heart. I wouldn't be passing it on though if I didn't believe it was timely for all of us as a community of prayer and a challenge to the House of Prayer.
As a member of the Body of Christ and a House of Prayer, it is particularly tempting to wrestle with circumstances and then carve out prayers that appear loving and corrective but are in fact a choice criticism of what is wrong with the world and the church. Frankly, figuring out what is wrong with me, you, the church, the world, etc. is easy squeezy and terribly afflicting to my soul and everyone else's. It doesn't take much to jump into that task at all but I find it is incredibly destructive and food for anxiety. Don't worry about God not finding out about how crappy we all are. According to the vision in "Zechariah 3", Satan stands right next to us and does a bang up job. (But check out God's response. It's worth the read and unbelievably merciful and kind - ah Jesus - thank You for You. )
However, taking off someone's grave clothes and filthy garments; figuring out what is right and beautiful in the bloody, smelly mess of humanity - which includes my own stench by the way; hungering and thirsting for righteousness - especially my own expression of that in Christ; getting up off my tushy and championing true justice; calling forth that which is not as though it was; looking for Jesus in those around us and the circumstances we are wading through . . . THAT'S the challenge. Love is the HARDER task - and yet somehow the most joy filled. It is MUCH harder than the Law - which btw is impossible - just an fyi. Yet Jesus raised the bar by loving us and calling us to Love. AGGGHHH - OH to actually be a lover for a living in spirit and truth. God help us all.
Last week, as I was wrestling with the church and myself , I started "praying" (if that's what you want to call it - I would call it complaining to God) and it seemed like I received a challenge from the Holy Spirit. He basically chastened me for focusing my attention and vision on the church and not on Him and His Great Beauty. "Be Christ centered" was the challenge. "Don't look at the Church at all. Look at ME." Now I know that my prayers for life and the church are immediately changed into declarations of Beauty every time I look at Him and wrestle for His perspective. Still, it is like turning a dinosaur to get me to do it. It is why Mike Bickle is using the "apostolic prayers" to pray blessing over the church and we are trying to steer all those who pray in "the House" to use them as our prayer focus. They are remarkably encouraging and strangely not critical.
My final thought in this vein is a quick lesson the Lord hi-lighted for me yesterday. As I was watching my nieces and nephew for the day, I was repeatedly confronted with the annoying density of one of the neighborhood kids who was a friend of theirs. He was terribly annoying and persistent in trying to do things that were clearly stated as off limits or tattling over whether my nephew said someone they knew was "sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g."Like I care. Anyway . . . . I was sitting on the porch watching him coast by on a scooter and thinking "Lord, that kid is a bit weird, dense and really kind of wacky" when suddenly my five year old nephew followed - speeding by on his bike wearing cowboy boots, speedo swimming goggles over his eyes and a funky baseball cap. He was the epitome of weird, dense wackiness and I laughed, because he looked ridiculous and ABSOLUTELY beautiful to me. I had nothin' but love for the boy and I got the Lord's point of view like a sweet smack in the head. So, read on . . .
Prophets of Beauty
Recently, in the course of conversation, a friend said to me, “we (as people in general) have an obsession with bad news.” I had never consciously acknowledged that before, but I immediately recognized it to be true. Just a few days later I was catching up with some folks I hadn’t seen in a while. As I inquired about mutual acquaintances, every response was colored with negative reports. Had I not been pondering my obsession with bad news, I may not have even noticed these responses as being anything other than normal. I realized how conditioned we are to draw attention to misfortunes, disappointments, failures, and trials. We are curiously attentive to the sensational news that more often than not concerns tragedy, loss and pain.
Our culture serves as a continual reminder of how fallen we are. Last week I was at the gym when I saw a television set flash an urgent news message reporting the death of young actor Heath Ledger, which turned out to be drug related. I noticed that the songs played overhead are often of musicians who have either committed suicide or died from a drug overdose. Driving down the highway I was drawn to a massive billboard advertising a reward for a wanted criminal, his face displayed largely across the entire billboard. It seems that everywhere I look images are flooding my mind with darkness.
The voices of this world are loud and many. They come through emails, media, co-workers, family and friends. I feel a constant demand beckoning me to take notice of the latest story of child abduction, rape, or murder. I feel the pressure to give my attention to hear about what tragic thing most recently occurred, what shocking news that must be heard. These are more than distant voices – they are invasive. I have personally lost three friends to the tragic devastation of drugs and alcohol. Through prayer, I have felt the pain and desperation of those trapped in sex slavery. Even the alarm system on our home reminds me of the danger present just around the corner. I find myself living in a culture where I am tempted to be suspicious of everyone and trust no one. All of these things paint an awful picture of an ugly, fallen world – a world where my preoccupation with original sin causes me to forget original beauty.
In a recent meeting with a worship team from IHOP I reported an answer to our prayers for a town called Svay Pak in Cambodia. Fourteen young girls were rescued from traffickers shortly after two weeks of intense intercession. They now have an opportunity to be placed in a Christian recovery home to live and receive restorative ministry. This home has been very successful in their efforts because, by their own admonition, they recognize that Christ is the true healer. I began to share with our worship team, “…imagine where these girls will be under this type of care in 6 months, a year from now…” I was suddenly overcome with emotion and had to stop, tears welling up in my eyes. A very foreign emotion powerfully struck my heart – the feeling of beauty. I felt the beauty of God shine on me, the understanding of His ability to restore, His desire to give beauty for ashes, His pleasure in turning our mourning into dancing, our sorrow into joy. All the testimonies I had heard about the lives of so many young girls who have been rescued from sex slavery and restored through Christ began to flood my mind. I actually believed they could laugh again, dream again, dance, play, and just be children. I realized that I had become overwhelmed with evil, and that the experience of beauty had become totally foreign.
While heaven weeps, heaven also rejoices – continually. Because somewhere, somebody is finally surrendering their life to God, someone is experiencing the Father’s embrace for the first time, a young woman is being rescued from a brothel, someone’s innocence is being restored, a child is being born, a mother is nursing. In a world drowned in darkness, I must continually fix my eyes upon the Father who is ever bent over humanity with His arms open, patiently waiting and inviting us, His broken children, into His eternal embrace. He is the Father who has felt evil more deeply than we ever could, who has lost more children, cried more tears, and suffered more tragedy. He sees everything – nothing is kept secret from Him. Yet His beauty surrounds Him. He continually expresses Himself in hope, forgiveness, love, patience, care, compassion, tenderness, freedom, and life. He is “the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” He invites me to enter into His beauty, to be transformed by His glory, to embody His nature. Yet, I find it much easier to become cynical, a prophet of doom.
Henri Nouwen accurately defined the condition I am so tempted to embrace, “Cynics seek darkness wherever they go. They point always to approaching dangers, impure motives, and hidden schemes. They call trust naïve, care romantic, and forgiveness sentimental…They consider themselves realists who see reality for what it truly is and who are not deceived by ‘escapist emotions.’ But in belittling God’s joy, their darkness only calls forth more darkness.” As a prophet of doom “I try so hard in so many ways to convince others of how evil the evil really is. How intense the judgment will really be.”
We are not called to deny the darkness, but we are also not called to live in it, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Overcoming evil with good challenges me to step beyond my propensity to be a prophet of doom, to becoming a prophet of beauty. While Isaiah fiercely confronted the social evils of his time, he was nevertheless a prophet of beauty. He dared to describe God as a Bridegroom rejoicing over His bride, as a Mother who will never forget Her child, and a Redeemer whose love drove Him to die an innocent death for the sake of the guilty. He saw the zeal of God to overcome evil by the power of His Spirit. He saw the God whose glory shines brightest in the midst of deep darkness.
Jesus was a prophet of beauty. Rather than find curious fascination in untimely death, He raised the dead. Rather than bemoan the plight of the hungry, He multiplied food for them. Rather than relegate issues of social justice to Human Rights organizations, He healed the brokenhearted, set the captives free, and delivered all who were oppressed by the devil. In the hour of His greatest crisis when He may have been tempted to turn cynical, to curse rather than bless, He cried out, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.” He pointed the way home for all of humanity. Yes, He wept, but He also hoped, believed, and called forth beauty in the midst of darkness.
To be a prophet of beauty is first and foremost to see beauty. I am not called to be curiously fascinated by darkness – I am called to overcome it. I am not called to exploit this world – I am called to save it. A prophet of beauty sees the light in the midst of darkness and dares to trust that that light is true and speaks greater volumes than the darkness that surrounds it. A prophet of beauty moves from suspicion, despair, and “realism,” to faith, hope, and love – moves from intercession to restoration. There are many prophets of doom, but few prophets of beauty. Moses asked God to show him His glory. The Lord then made His “goodness” pass before him. David said he would have “lost heart” had he not seen “the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” I am asking God to show me His beauty in all of its manifestations, that I might also become a prophet of beauty – one who is sustained not by self-righteous zeal and heroism but a fascination with the glory of God which empowers me to see beyond the ashes to the beauty, beyond the mourning to the dancing, beyond the sorrow to the joy.
Benji Nolot, 3/13/2008
Montauk to Manhattan: Every House a House of Prayer
Loving Long Island with 24-7-365 Worship-Filled Prayer
Links to IHOP-LI: the Ark House of Prayer on Long Island
http://www.IHOP-LI.com
http://www.theburn247.com/longisland/
http://www.squidoo.com/IHOP-LI/
http://gworship9.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7748449673
http://www.myspace.com/ihoplongisland
http://www.myspace.com/burnlongisland
http://www.joconetwork.org/ihop-li
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IHOP-LI/
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Don't Fear the Tears
What is it with tears? Why do we find it uncomfortable to cry in front of others? It’s strange that when we have a tearful moment we often say, “I’m sorry”, as if somehow we have done something wrong. Benjamin Disraeli said, “Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.” Perhaps when we cry we reveal something deeper within ourselves. Maybe we reveal the truth. Tears can show what really moves us, what really stresses us or what really hurts us. They reveal the truth that we are human.
Grief and loss are inevitably and justifiably a major cause of tears. Words can no longer express how we feel and our aching hearts overwhelm us to find their voice in tears.
Psalm 57: 8 “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” I have this picture in my mind that one day we will walk through a giant cellar with God, He will draw a bottle from the shelf and say “I remember this vintage, I remember when you cried these tears, I was there”. Pain, sorrow, loss - when we are in those hard places it is difficult to find God. But He’s present, bottling our tears and standing with us.
But what about other tears? Those that don’t come from personal loss, pain or suffering? What about those tears that come unexpectedly and almost take us by surprise? I was speaking at a gathering recently and found myself crying as I spoke. It was not the first time this has happened. I had been talking about an area or people group that I love and I started to cry. I had been recounting a story and suddenly the tears came. I can cry at a news report and I know I am not the only one.
At these times, it’s compassion that brings the tears. Compassion that longs to see change, to alleviate suffering, to show kindness where we perceive a need. Our tears reflect our heart again.
But where tears in times of grief may be part of a healing process, tears of compassion can move us to take action. When we are moved with compassion, we seek to help those that inspired those feelings in us. It is compassion that drives us to see a place changed, a life transformed, a need met, a situation resolved or an injustice righted. This is the very heart of God. Somehow in that moment of tears our hearts connect with His heart.
When Christ’s friend Lazarus died, he wept. But his weeping moved him to action, to prayer. One of the greatest responses we can have to our own tears of compassion is prayer. If these tears remain only tears they are fruitless. When we are moved to tears by what we think, see or hear; when we become affected by the suffering, pain and injustice that many people live under, it should be that prompt which brings us to our knees. Our tears morph into prayers, our cries and groans rise like incense to heaven and the God of heaven himself is moved to listen and to act.
Charles Swindoll said “A teardrop on earth summons the King of heaven”
Don’t fear the tears, don’t rush to brush them away and think of something more cheerful; rather let your heart response drive you to new levels of prayer, intercession and action.
Tracy Heasley is married to Brian and together they are base leaders of 24-7 Ibiza. Tracy is mum to Ellis (11) and Daniel (8) and has lived in Ibiza since 2005, working to establish a permanent 24-7base on the island. She works predominantly in San Antonio, which according to Operation World has more bars pubs and clubs per square mile than anywhere else in Europe. Tracy loves sunshine, windy days, walking, movies, books and chocolate.
Grief and loss are inevitably and justifiably a major cause of tears. Words can no longer express how we feel and our aching hearts overwhelm us to find their voice in tears.
Psalm 57: 8 “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” I have this picture in my mind that one day we will walk through a giant cellar with God, He will draw a bottle from the shelf and say “I remember this vintage, I remember when you cried these tears, I was there”. Pain, sorrow, loss - when we are in those hard places it is difficult to find God. But He’s present, bottling our tears and standing with us.
But what about other tears? Those that don’t come from personal loss, pain or suffering? What about those tears that come unexpectedly and almost take us by surprise? I was speaking at a gathering recently and found myself crying as I spoke. It was not the first time this has happened. I had been talking about an area or people group that I love and I started to cry. I had been recounting a story and suddenly the tears came. I can cry at a news report and I know I am not the only one.
At these times, it’s compassion that brings the tears. Compassion that longs to see change, to alleviate suffering, to show kindness where we perceive a need. Our tears reflect our heart again.
But where tears in times of grief may be part of a healing process, tears of compassion can move us to take action. When we are moved with compassion, we seek to help those that inspired those feelings in us. It is compassion that drives us to see a place changed, a life transformed, a need met, a situation resolved or an injustice righted. This is the very heart of God. Somehow in that moment of tears our hearts connect with His heart.
When Christ’s friend Lazarus died, he wept. But his weeping moved him to action, to prayer. One of the greatest responses we can have to our own tears of compassion is prayer. If these tears remain only tears they are fruitless. When we are moved to tears by what we think, see or hear; when we become affected by the suffering, pain and injustice that many people live under, it should be that prompt which brings us to our knees. Our tears morph into prayers, our cries and groans rise like incense to heaven and the God of heaven himself is moved to listen and to act.
Charles Swindoll said “A teardrop on earth summons the King of heaven”
Don’t fear the tears, don’t rush to brush them away and think of something more cheerful; rather let your heart response drive you to new levels of prayer, intercession and action.
Tracy Heasley is married to Brian and together they are base leaders of 24-7 Ibiza. Tracy is mum to Ellis (11) and Daniel (8) and has lived in Ibiza since 2005, working to establish a permanent 24-7base on the island. She works predominantly in San Antonio, which according to Operation World has more bars pubs and clubs per square mile than anywhere else in Europe. Tracy loves sunshine, windy days, walking, movies, books and chocolate.
Night Watch Article on Pressing in
I just read this kickin' article by Jeff Tyler (Nightwatch ministries) and maybe I thought it was kickin' because it embraces the current move of God with a real kiss while offering encouragement to go hard after wisdom, depth and endurance. I don't know - you always kind of lean toward your own opinions with a "yeah!" "There ya go!" which leaves lots of room for stupidity and error - so ......... in my best shot at heartfelt humility, I want to ask you to read this article and go hard after God for the whole enchilada and if you disagree with it- kudos to you for having a mind of your own and for loving me enough to wrestle with me. Love to all y'all! t
BLESSING – God is moving all over the place, here in the United States and in the nations, as well. There is a sovereign move of God touching lives, states, cities, and nations that is actually going on right now and actually has been for some time. Something major has started. Most of the press, of course, is going for Lakeland, Florida, but things have been happening in Fort Mill, South Carolina, and Graham, Texas, and in Georgia, West Virginia, and many other places, too, here and abroad. We get e-mails at least weekly of new outbreaks somewhere and rumors of outbreaks in other places. I want to say that these outpourings did not come from Lakeland, either. They came from God. We also want to say we have been praying for this for years, and it is really awesome, and we are thankful to see the fruit of this move. We fully endorse this move of God as being “of God,” and we support it. Last week we began to get extreme e-mails from people denying it, especially Lakeland, and calling it a false move brought about by witches and demons and so forth. We warn believers to be very careful of calling what likely is the Lord’s “of the devil.” This is extremely dangerous behavior. Some people apparently say it can’t be God because it came through Todd Bentley, or they give some other lame reason. I am just saying be very careful. Some people simply cannot accept a move of God because of what it looks like or who it comes through. This is what happened in Scripture when the man did not want to get into the Jordan River in order to be healed. His miracle did not come the way he wanted, and pride would not let him lower himself to obedience. When he finally resolved these issues and obeyed, God was gracious and healed him. Whoi cares what it looks like or who it come through? As long as it doesn't violate Scripture, we go with it and bless it! Period!
Part of the problem and issue is that in the west we have our own definitions of what revival is, and this really needs to be addressed and corrected. True revival, or a sovereign move of God, will change society around where it happens. That's the bottom line. That statement defines the whole thing. The crime rate will drop, hospitals and funeral homes will see miracles, and the people in general are changed and transformed in their hearts and behavior. It usually does not fall on one church. It can, but if it does, it usually goes out to the other churches and into the community. That is God’s goal, and it is almost always citywide or at least regional. When Brownsville happened, I am told that everything within about a 50 to 75 mile range changed. The same can be said of Cali when that one hit, too. It affected everything, even the plants and animals in the region. True revival does more than heal bodies and cast out devils. That should be everyday life for the modern believer. True revival changes hearts and brings on true repentance leading to a renewed and holy relationship with Christ. It brings personal deliverance within ourselves.
The Lord has shown me the Valley of Dry Bones in Ezekiel 37 as a wonderful example. When the dry bones came back together with the flesh and all that it entailed, they did not rise up the way they previously were. The dry bones were also changed somehow, changed into a mighty and massive army. That is what true revival is all about – the dry bones gain life again, but they are transformed into a powerful unit of believers, a mighty army that is to march and NOT remain the same. If it is only personal and never goes out into the community then it eventually stagnates and dies. I praise God for over 100 people being totally healed, and signs, wonders, and miracles going on. But without the Spirit changing lives and going outside the house, then it was, simply put, over 100 people being healed. It is wonderful. We love it. But it is NOT revival. It is healing, but it is not necessarily revival. Keep this as a sign to look for when calling moves of God a revival. Check the fruit of it, and see what it really is. It may just be a wonderful visitation. We humans have many ways of being revival killers, too. Be careful of those traps. We don’t want to find ourselves opposite of God. True revival causes major messes, too, and ultimately turns the world and lives upside down! Are we really ready for that? Do we still want that? I hope we are willing to do whatever it takes....
That brings us to a very important question. Why do we want “revival” anyway? It is always the rage to talk about, teach, and discuss. But when we say revival today, it merely means another round of things that did not work in the first place. Why in the world do we want to revive things that did not nor do not work? Why do we want to revive religion, traditions of men, and our precious programs? What are we holding onto? Christians and Christian leaders have been doing this for 2000 years now. I think the Lord is tired of it. I know I am. Revival can be wonderful. Get in the river and swim a while. But what the Church really needs is another “Reformation.” That is the prayer, and that is the issue. We need men to rise up and see it in the Spirit. We need to throw everything away and start over with Christ as the only foundation to build it all on, and furthermore, we need to get back to teaching Jesus and Him crucified like the Apostle Paul. We tend to teach everything around it and all the blessings of it, but we don’t actually teach the Cross and the Blood. So it comes down to Revival or Transformation/ Reformation in your city. Which do we want? Which do we choose? Mike Bickle had a visitation years ago in Cairo, Egypt in which the Lord told him that the expression of the Church and how it does Church would be completely changed in one generation in the Last Days. I believe that is the end time move of God. We've come full circle, and here we are.
Right now there is a gold rush mentality to rush somewhere where people are claiming an outpouring or a move of God is flowing. (Scripture clearly warns of this in the Gospels, too.) I am not against this at all. In fact, we are planning to go to Fort Mill sometime soon, as we can afford it. But we must be aware that this practice of running here and there can be very selfish and even become idolatry. It can also lead to division and being competitive between the churches. “I want to be the one to bring it home to my city.” Are we chasing signs and wonders, or are we chasing Jesus? Many people flocking around all over the country are chasing the wrong things, and it is sad, and grieves the Spirit. We must have a pure heart in these matters. What are we chasing? Have we forgotten that Jesus IS the gold, and the healing miracle is really not? Let’s chase Jesus, then all this other stuff naturally happens.
Sadly, the revival can actually become an idol. The outpourings did not happen because of Todd Bentley or Rick Joyner. They happened because intercessors fasted and prayed and God answered. You can do that anywhere. And now is the season to really do that as God is moving and descending seemingly all over the Earth. I believe in transferable anointings, but they will come to nothing unless intercessors are fasting and crying out for the unique and sovereign move that God wants to do in their city. People tried that in Brownsville and Toronto, too. They tried to duplicate it all over the country and transfer it, but in the majority of times, nothing came of it. That’s because we want the easy way in western churches. It is so much easier to have someone lay hands on us and attempt to transfer something than it is to work for it in fasting and prayer, or work your city toward unity.
Revivals seem to make people deaf, too, just like it did in the gold rush days. Many people are coming from Lakeland having not even listened to the prophets and what they were saying or even weighing that. They see and hear and feel. They get the warm fuzzies, but for some reason, do not listen many times. So, we need to listen. We need to discern. We must weigh it with Scripture, too. We receive prophetic words, and feel like they are to come together immediately, when the Lord could be speaking about something five years down the road. Get past the excitement and get alone with the Lord! It is in the quiet place where He speaks the loudest.
The Word of the Lord to the Intercessors across this nation and all around the world is this. “Steady. Press in. Your job is not yet done. Relax only for a moment in victory and celebrate only a few minutes. God wants to pour out everywhere, not just in five or six places. The job is NOT yet done. Do not be deceived with partial victory. Get back on the wall and back in the battle and push it all the way through until final victory comes. Pull down principalities and powers and demon spirits over the cities and nations of the Earth – not just yours or a few, but all of them. Back on the wall! Back on the wall! Take your place! Do what I have sent you to do! Your hands are trained for war. Steady. Press in. Do the job, and finish well. Don’t get carried away with victory or get too low with defeat. This is not the time to party or play. Do what you were called to do. Steady. Press in. Do the job. Establish the Kingdom. Know for sure that I am coming soon! Prepare the way of the Lord!”
Grace, Love, Favor, & Shalom! We love you on The Night Watch!
BLESSING – God is moving all over the place, here in the United States and in the nations, as well. There is a sovereign move of God touching lives, states, cities, and nations that is actually going on right now and actually has been for some time. Something major has started. Most of the press, of course, is going for Lakeland, Florida, but things have been happening in Fort Mill, South Carolina, and Graham, Texas, and in Georgia, West Virginia, and many other places, too, here and abroad. We get e-mails at least weekly of new outbreaks somewhere and rumors of outbreaks in other places. I want to say that these outpourings did not come from Lakeland, either. They came from God. We also want to say we have been praying for this for years, and it is really awesome, and we are thankful to see the fruit of this move. We fully endorse this move of God as being “of God,” and we support it. Last week we began to get extreme e-mails from people denying it, especially Lakeland, and calling it a false move brought about by witches and demons and so forth. We warn believers to be very careful of calling what likely is the Lord’s “of the devil.” This is extremely dangerous behavior. Some people apparently say it can’t be God because it came through Todd Bentley, or they give some other lame reason. I am just saying be very careful. Some people simply cannot accept a move of God because of what it looks like or who it comes through. This is what happened in Scripture when the man did not want to get into the Jordan River in order to be healed. His miracle did not come the way he wanted, and pride would not let him lower himself to obedience. When he finally resolved these issues and obeyed, God was gracious and healed him. Whoi cares what it looks like or who it come through? As long as it doesn't violate Scripture, we go with it and bless it! Period!
Part of the problem and issue is that in the west we have our own definitions of what revival is, and this really needs to be addressed and corrected. True revival, or a sovereign move of God, will change society around where it happens. That's the bottom line. That statement defines the whole thing. The crime rate will drop, hospitals and funeral homes will see miracles, and the people in general are changed and transformed in their hearts and behavior. It usually does not fall on one church. It can, but if it does, it usually goes out to the other churches and into the community. That is God’s goal, and it is almost always citywide or at least regional. When Brownsville happened, I am told that everything within about a 50 to 75 mile range changed. The same can be said of Cali when that one hit, too. It affected everything, even the plants and animals in the region. True revival does more than heal bodies and cast out devils. That should be everyday life for the modern believer. True revival changes hearts and brings on true repentance leading to a renewed and holy relationship with Christ. It brings personal deliverance within ourselves.
The Lord has shown me the Valley of Dry Bones in Ezekiel 37 as a wonderful example. When the dry bones came back together with the flesh and all that it entailed, they did not rise up the way they previously were. The dry bones were also changed somehow, changed into a mighty and massive army. That is what true revival is all about – the dry bones gain life again, but they are transformed into a powerful unit of believers, a mighty army that is to march and NOT remain the same. If it is only personal and never goes out into the community then it eventually stagnates and dies. I praise God for over 100 people being totally healed, and signs, wonders, and miracles going on. But without the Spirit changing lives and going outside the house, then it was, simply put, over 100 people being healed. It is wonderful. We love it. But it is NOT revival. It is healing, but it is not necessarily revival. Keep this as a sign to look for when calling moves of God a revival. Check the fruit of it, and see what it really is. It may just be a wonderful visitation. We humans have many ways of being revival killers, too. Be careful of those traps. We don’t want to find ourselves opposite of God. True revival causes major messes, too, and ultimately turns the world and lives upside down! Are we really ready for that? Do we still want that? I hope we are willing to do whatever it takes....
That brings us to a very important question. Why do we want “revival” anyway? It is always the rage to talk about, teach, and discuss. But when we say revival today, it merely means another round of things that did not work in the first place. Why in the world do we want to revive things that did not nor do not work? Why do we want to revive religion, traditions of men, and our precious programs? What are we holding onto? Christians and Christian leaders have been doing this for 2000 years now. I think the Lord is tired of it. I know I am. Revival can be wonderful. Get in the river and swim a while. But what the Church really needs is another “Reformation.” That is the prayer, and that is the issue. We need men to rise up and see it in the Spirit. We need to throw everything away and start over with Christ as the only foundation to build it all on, and furthermore, we need to get back to teaching Jesus and Him crucified like the Apostle Paul. We tend to teach everything around it and all the blessings of it, but we don’t actually teach the Cross and the Blood. So it comes down to Revival or Transformation/ Reformation in your city. Which do we want? Which do we choose? Mike Bickle had a visitation years ago in Cairo, Egypt in which the Lord told him that the expression of the Church and how it does Church would be completely changed in one generation in the Last Days. I believe that is the end time move of God. We've come full circle, and here we are.
Right now there is a gold rush mentality to rush somewhere where people are claiming an outpouring or a move of God is flowing. (Scripture clearly warns of this in the Gospels, too.) I am not against this at all. In fact, we are planning to go to Fort Mill sometime soon, as we can afford it. But we must be aware that this practice of running here and there can be very selfish and even become idolatry. It can also lead to division and being competitive between the churches. “I want to be the one to bring it home to my city.” Are we chasing signs and wonders, or are we chasing Jesus? Many people flocking around all over the country are chasing the wrong things, and it is sad, and grieves the Spirit. We must have a pure heart in these matters. What are we chasing? Have we forgotten that Jesus IS the gold, and the healing miracle is really not? Let’s chase Jesus, then all this other stuff naturally happens.
Sadly, the revival can actually become an idol. The outpourings did not happen because of Todd Bentley or Rick Joyner. They happened because intercessors fasted and prayed and God answered. You can do that anywhere. And now is the season to really do that as God is moving and descending seemingly all over the Earth. I believe in transferable anointings, but they will come to nothing unless intercessors are fasting and crying out for the unique and sovereign move that God wants to do in their city. People tried that in Brownsville and Toronto, too. They tried to duplicate it all over the country and transfer it, but in the majority of times, nothing came of it. That’s because we want the easy way in western churches. It is so much easier to have someone lay hands on us and attempt to transfer something than it is to work for it in fasting and prayer, or work your city toward unity.
Revivals seem to make people deaf, too, just like it did in the gold rush days. Many people are coming from Lakeland having not even listened to the prophets and what they were saying or even weighing that. They see and hear and feel. They get the warm fuzzies, but for some reason, do not listen many times. So, we need to listen. We need to discern. We must weigh it with Scripture, too. We receive prophetic words, and feel like they are to come together immediately, when the Lord could be speaking about something five years down the road. Get past the excitement and get alone with the Lord! It is in the quiet place where He speaks the loudest.
The Word of the Lord to the Intercessors across this nation and all around the world is this. “Steady. Press in. Your job is not yet done. Relax only for a moment in victory and celebrate only a few minutes. God wants to pour out everywhere, not just in five or six places. The job is NOT yet done. Do not be deceived with partial victory. Get back on the wall and back in the battle and push it all the way through until final victory comes. Pull down principalities and powers and demon spirits over the cities and nations of the Earth – not just yours or a few, but all of them. Back on the wall! Back on the wall! Take your place! Do what I have sent you to do! Your hands are trained for war. Steady. Press in. Do the job, and finish well. Don’t get carried away with victory or get too low with defeat. This is not the time to party or play. Do what you were called to do. Steady. Press in. Do the job. Establish the Kingdom. Know for sure that I am coming soon! Prepare the way of the Lord!”
Grace, Love, Favor, & Shalom! We love you on The Night Watch!
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Mercy - Bob Hartley
A transcribed word from Bob Hartley, from March 26th in the IHOP–KC Prayer Room
This is a recap of a series of dreams—hundreds in fact—about Marketplace Reformers. These dreams were alarming, stunning, shocking and they were all do to with how Marketplace Reformers had not responded to mercy. The narrator of this dream said, "American Marketplace Reformers were to take people from sorry to soaring." This was to be especially applicable to the nation of Australia.. Shortly a month after this dream, Australia declared a ‘Sorry Day’. Which I knew wasn’t right since it did not reflect true mercy. I spoke to comrades about this in Canberra, Wellington, and Melbourne about this at our recent event in their area.
Marketplace Reformers
[Begins the transcribed prayer]
The Lord began this series of dreams and took me back to memories of 1983. He said in order to understand and call forth Marketplace Reformers, [referring to] political and Church reformers, you would have to see from the beginning what has happened and how and others have gone out to learn compassion on mercy. I saw the people that I knew from 1983 (South Kansas City Fellowship, Kansas City Fellowship, etc). Then all the others, from the present day, arrived in the dream. They were the Hilary's, the Obamas and the John McCains. The narrator was going through details of their personal lives, of which I didn’t pay much attention to because I was still dealing with my own issues. I was nobody else’s judge of how they were starving for mercy or not.
Definition of True Mercy
The narrator started talking about Marketplace Reformers and began to describe what true mercy looked like... Mercy was valuing God, His blood, and the incredible worth that He had placed on human beings. As I went through hours of listening to the narrator address different people and how they responded, the dreams showed me four or five ways where I saw how I measured the willingness of people, not seeing the true willingness of their heart or the value He placed on them. And I had been like Moses—hit the rock twice with other people. I also was dealing with my shame over not receiving mercy in areas that he had died to give me. I turned to the other person next to me and they said, “It will be a harder lesson to learn mercy than we ever thought it would be and yet, that’s what was required of us." And I knew that in the marketplace there was a lazy spirit about this and it was tremendous discipline commitment to learn mercy.
Bridging the gap between Marketplace Reformers & the other Reformers
He spoke to the Marketplace Reformers that they were to reflect mercy and the different faces of God in the marketplace. They were to be different than political or Church reformers. Because of the differences in their callings, the other reformers might misunderstand thoe called to the marketplace. The good news - the Lord would build a bridge to help create a heart connect. The reformers were to reflect a face of God in mercy through patriarchal means, which would lead the marketplace redemption. As a result, they would have the Zechariah 12:10 experience:
"And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace
and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him
as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son."
Simon & the Marketplace Reformers
He spoke to the Marketplace Reformers next and said “You’re like Simon; you were the prostitutes in other ways in the Luke 7 passage.”
"Simon replied, 'I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled.' 'You have judged correctly,' Jesus said. Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, 'Do you see this woman?' I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little." Then Jesus said to her, 'Your sins are forgiven.'"
To the marketplace reformers, He is saying, "I had given you mercy; however, you were incapable to give mercy to the prostitutes when they came in. Even more what you fail to realize is that the prostitutes were really YOU. You have been prostituting yourself in business as a consequence of not giving yourselves mercy."
I saw that we were like David when asked by Nathan what he would do to a man that stole another man’s prized lamb. David was harsh in punishment towards that man, and yet he himself was that very man. In the same way, we are not appraising how much mercy we ourselves need, and are not releasing it to others. And then He said, the only place you’ll understand this mercy is on your knees.
Getting on our knees
We ask that you join with us and pray the Philippians 1:8-9 prayer.
"God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer:
That your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight…"
Pray to receive the true knowledge of discernment of His mercy. In the dream, the Lord was giving everybody an invitation to mercy. I saw us walking on a high ridge path that lead to a place called Mercy. This path, I believe is modeled in the life of Daniel, who lived a holy life, so that they didn’t lessen His mercy toward others or the king himself.
From that place of living like Daniel, He would take us on this journey of mercy and He would tell us more on the days to come, just like he relased in that hour. Let us take the high ridge path to mercy through living a holy and intensely devoted life as exemplified by the life of Daniel. Let us get on our knees, receive His invitation to mercy and encounter Him in the place of love. Now is the time to be merciful. Now is the time to receive mercy. We must freely give and freely receive this, and most of all, we must do it together.
This is a recap of a series of dreams—hundreds in fact—about Marketplace Reformers. These dreams were alarming, stunning, shocking and they were all do to with how Marketplace Reformers had not responded to mercy. The narrator of this dream said, "American Marketplace Reformers were to take people from sorry to soaring." This was to be especially applicable to the nation of Australia.. Shortly a month after this dream, Australia declared a ‘Sorry Day’. Which I knew wasn’t right since it did not reflect true mercy. I spoke to comrades about this in Canberra, Wellington, and Melbourne about this at our recent event in their area.
Marketplace Reformers
[Begins the transcribed prayer]
The Lord began this series of dreams and took me back to memories of 1983. He said in order to understand and call forth Marketplace Reformers, [referring to] political and Church reformers, you would have to see from the beginning what has happened and how and others have gone out to learn compassion on mercy. I saw the people that I knew from 1983 (South Kansas City Fellowship, Kansas City Fellowship, etc). Then all the others, from the present day, arrived in the dream. They were the Hilary's, the Obamas and the John McCains. The narrator was going through details of their personal lives, of which I didn’t pay much attention to because I was still dealing with my own issues. I was nobody else’s judge of how they were starving for mercy or not.
Definition of True Mercy
The narrator started talking about Marketplace Reformers and began to describe what true mercy looked like... Mercy was valuing God, His blood, and the incredible worth that He had placed on human beings. As I went through hours of listening to the narrator address different people and how they responded, the dreams showed me four or five ways where I saw how I measured the willingness of people, not seeing the true willingness of their heart or the value He placed on them. And I had been like Moses—hit the rock twice with other people. I also was dealing with my shame over not receiving mercy in areas that he had died to give me. I turned to the other person next to me and they said, “It will be a harder lesson to learn mercy than we ever thought it would be and yet, that’s what was required of us." And I knew that in the marketplace there was a lazy spirit about this and it was tremendous discipline commitment to learn mercy.
Bridging the gap between Marketplace Reformers & the other Reformers
He spoke to the Marketplace Reformers that they were to reflect mercy and the different faces of God in the marketplace. They were to be different than political or Church reformers. Because of the differences in their callings, the other reformers might misunderstand thoe called to the marketplace. The good news - the Lord would build a bridge to help create a heart connect. The reformers were to reflect a face of God in mercy through patriarchal means, which would lead the marketplace redemption. As a result, they would have the Zechariah 12:10 experience:
"And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace
and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him
as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son."
Simon & the Marketplace Reformers
He spoke to the Marketplace Reformers next and said “You’re like Simon; you were the prostitutes in other ways in the Luke 7 passage.”
"Simon replied, 'I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled.' 'You have judged correctly,' Jesus said. Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, 'Do you see this woman?' I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little." Then Jesus said to her, 'Your sins are forgiven.'"
To the marketplace reformers, He is saying, "I had given you mercy; however, you were incapable to give mercy to the prostitutes when they came in. Even more what you fail to realize is that the prostitutes were really YOU. You have been prostituting yourself in business as a consequence of not giving yourselves mercy."
I saw that we were like David when asked by Nathan what he would do to a man that stole another man’s prized lamb. David was harsh in punishment towards that man, and yet he himself was that very man. In the same way, we are not appraising how much mercy we ourselves need, and are not releasing it to others. And then He said, the only place you’ll understand this mercy is on your knees.
Getting on our knees
We ask that you join with us and pray the Philippians 1:8-9 prayer.
"God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer:
That your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight…"
Pray to receive the true knowledge of discernment of His mercy. In the dream, the Lord was giving everybody an invitation to mercy. I saw us walking on a high ridge path that lead to a place called Mercy. This path, I believe is modeled in the life of Daniel, who lived a holy life, so that they didn’t lessen His mercy toward others or the king himself.
From that place of living like Daniel, He would take us on this journey of mercy and He would tell us more on the days to come, just like he relased in that hour. Let us take the high ridge path to mercy through living a holy and intensely devoted life as exemplified by the life of Daniel. Let us get on our knees, receive His invitation to mercy and encounter Him in the place of love. Now is the time to be merciful. Now is the time to receive mercy. We must freely give and freely receive this, and most of all, we must do it together.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
A word of encouragement
April 22, 2008
Kathi Pelton: GOD IS ASKING US, "WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?"
Recently, my husband and I stood with two of our dearest friends as they buried their precious son, Jason. Walking with them through his brief illness and death these last few weeks was both agonizing and beautiful. The pain and grief has been truly agonizing, and yet, as they kept their eyes fixed on the One who is forever faithful, we witnessed true beauty.
As we watched Jason's casket being lowered into the ground at his graveside service, his two young daughters (ages nine and two) moved as close as they could in order to wave goodbye to their daddy one last time. The scene would have moved the hardest of hearts to tears, and in the midst of it, I heard the Lord whisper to me, "Who do you say that I Am?"
Faithful and True
"I saw Heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice He judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on His head are many crowns. He has a name written on Him that no one knows but He Himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and His name is the Word of God. The armies of Heaven were following Him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean.
Out of His mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. 'He will rule them with an iron scepter.' He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On His robe and on His thigh He has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS." Revelation 19:11-16
Though often we do not understand God's thoughts or His ways, our spirits know without a doubt that He is forever faithful and true. Is God faithful to our friends, who just lost their son in the prime of his life? Is He "true" even though there were many unfulfilled promises that they buried with him? Though my mind cannot comprehend, my spirit cries out, "Yes...He is still faithful and true!"
On the night of Jason's death, I was taken into a brief encounter at the very time of his passing that greatly impacted my life. This encounter was not like having a vision or a dream; it was more like being taken somewhere unknown for a brief moment in time. In this encounter, I was standing in a place with swirling colors all around, and directly in front of me stood a man with curly hair. I knew in my spirit that it was Jason. I reached out to grab hold of him, but as I did, he saw something that I could not see and shouted, "My Husband!" and ran to the One he obviously could clearly see. Jason's words, "My Husband!" jolted through me like an electrical charge and instantly ended the encounter.
This very brief experience literally imparted something so beautifully intimate and full of life to my spirit that it is still difficult to describe. Those words, "My Husband!", carried in them a fulfillment of hope like nothing that I have ever experienced. It was like hearing the hope of all creation fulfilled in one moment, and in one life. I have watched video clips of American soldiers returning from Iraq to the arms of their wives and children, and even those moving reunions pale in comparison to what I heard in Jason's voice. He ran to the One who is forever faithful and true, the One who fills every promise with just one glance of His beauty, and the One who is the only King of kings and Lord of lords.
The God of Bethel
This month marks a ten-year anniversary in my life. In April 1998, I was confined to a treatment hospital for sixty days with a serious eating disorder. Though I was the wife of a pastor and mother of four small children, I had a problem that threatened to take my life. I asked my husband and our church family to help me get into a Christian treatment center so that I could recover and get the support I needed.
I had married young as a new Christian. Within a year after our wedding, my husband and I went off to Bible College together for him to study missions. Due to the fact that I had been raised in an abusive and dysfunctional home as a child, I should have taken the time to let the Lord heal me from the years of pain and wounding that I had experienced. But we were young and in love with each other and with Jesus, and we wanted to be world-changers.
During our years in Bible College, I didn't know how to deal with the pain that would emerge from my past, and I didn't understand the compassion that Jesus has on the broken-hearted. I had quickly developed a religious mindset that falsely believed that Christians didn't have broken places. Oh, how young we were! Therefore, my outlet became the development of an eating disorder that lasted over fifteen years, leaving me void of healing and full of shame.
When I came to the point of desperation and was able to humble myself and reach out for help, knowing that many would not understand, it was as though I entered a time and place in my life that I would call, "My Bethel."
The God Who Speaks
"Jacob called the place where God had talked with him Bethel." Genesis 35:15
Though I look back on my time in the treatment center as my "dark night of the soul," I would also say that it became my Bethel. Bethel means "House of God," and in this time and place, God spoke to me more clearly than I had ever heard before and it became my House of God. I began to learn just who God was to me. Though I had called Him my Savior and Friend, in that time, I began to experience Him as Savior and Friend.
Living in the midst of sixty other broken lives, I began to discover the beauty of humility and dependency. I watched young girls and women who had lived through great suffering come face-to-face with the compassion of Christ and the love of their Heavenly Father. I was one of them. Though some did not recover, those who did stand today as pillars in the House of God. They carry a compassion for the broken and an understanding of the mercy of God like few I have ever met.
In this time, our God is speaking to those who have ears to hear. I sense that this season will mark for many a "Bethel" experience where God has spoken to His people, and it will be like an altar in their lives of moving from darkness to light.
The God Who Overcomes
"Now the salvation, and the power, and the Kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. And they overcame him because of the Blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death." Revelation 12:10-11
Recently, I have become keenly aware that God is calling forth the broken ones and those who have felt the darkness; He is calling them to step into the Light of His love and be transformed. These will become pillars called "Overcomers," and they will know the One who is faithful and true; the One who has written on His thigh the words "King of kings and Lord of lords."
"I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown. Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of My God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of Heaven from My God; and I will also write on him My new name..." Revelation 3:11-13
Just as His name is written upon His thigh, so will His name be written on our lives as we overcome the accuser of God's people. We are in a type of spiritual boot camp where we are learning to overcome the world so that we can go into the world and not be overcome by it. It is a very vulnerable time because we are facing places of darkness. Yet, we are gaining authority through great adversity, and we are being prepared as a great army of overcomers...through the Blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimonies.
The God Who Keeps His Promises
Though most of us entered this year believing with great excitement that we were entering a new day, this new day, for many, has not come in the way we expected. I am sure that our friends who lost their son did not think that this new day would begin with such a great loss. I am also sure that many of you reading this did not expect to face some of the trials that you have encountered in the first months of this year. But do not lose heart! When the Israelites crossed the Jordan into the land that God had promised them, the first things they encountered were fortified walls and great enemies. Remember what Joshua said not long after crossing the Jordan:
"And Joshua said, 'Ah, Sovereign LORD, why did you ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan!'" Joshua 7:6-8
Even great men of faith like Joshua questioned God's ways. God never said that we would not face great battles; He said that we would win great battles. I believe that Jason's family has not yet seen the end of the story of his life. His life will be known as a victory! The battles that you are facing may be fierce and look as if they will overcome you...but through the Blood of the Lamb and the word of your testimony, YOU WILL OVERCOME!
There is great authority in this time being given to those who face such trials and overcome. God is creating pillars in His house. Pillars are made to hold things up! When the storms come and the battles rage, it is the pillars that strengthen the building under siege.
So, who do you say God is? I say that He is King of kings and Lord of lords. I say that He is faithful and true, even when we don't understand. I say that He is the God who keeps His promises, the God who gives us victory, and the God who heals our wounds. He is the Great I Am! He is the Author and Finisher of our faith, the beginning and the end, and our Everlasting Father.
God is asking us, "Who do you say that I Am?"
Kathi Pelton
Light Streams Ministries
Email: jkpelton@sbcglobal.net
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Kathi Pelton: GOD IS ASKING US, "WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?"
Recently, my husband and I stood with two of our dearest friends as they buried their precious son, Jason. Walking with them through his brief illness and death these last few weeks was both agonizing and beautiful. The pain and grief has been truly agonizing, and yet, as they kept their eyes fixed on the One who is forever faithful, we witnessed true beauty.
As we watched Jason's casket being lowered into the ground at his graveside service, his two young daughters (ages nine and two) moved as close as they could in order to wave goodbye to their daddy one last time. The scene would have moved the hardest of hearts to tears, and in the midst of it, I heard the Lord whisper to me, "Who do you say that I Am?"
Faithful and True
"I saw Heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice He judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on His head are many crowns. He has a name written on Him that no one knows but He Himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and His name is the Word of God. The armies of Heaven were following Him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean.
Out of His mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. 'He will rule them with an iron scepter.' He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On His robe and on His thigh He has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS." Revelation 19:11-16
Though often we do not understand God's thoughts or His ways, our spirits know without a doubt that He is forever faithful and true. Is God faithful to our friends, who just lost their son in the prime of his life? Is He "true" even though there were many unfulfilled promises that they buried with him? Though my mind cannot comprehend, my spirit cries out, "Yes...He is still faithful and true!"
On the night of Jason's death, I was taken into a brief encounter at the very time of his passing that greatly impacted my life. This encounter was not like having a vision or a dream; it was more like being taken somewhere unknown for a brief moment in time. In this encounter, I was standing in a place with swirling colors all around, and directly in front of me stood a man with curly hair. I knew in my spirit that it was Jason. I reached out to grab hold of him, but as I did, he saw something that I could not see and shouted, "My Husband!" and ran to the One he obviously could clearly see. Jason's words, "My Husband!" jolted through me like an electrical charge and instantly ended the encounter.
This very brief experience literally imparted something so beautifully intimate and full of life to my spirit that it is still difficult to describe. Those words, "My Husband!", carried in them a fulfillment of hope like nothing that I have ever experienced. It was like hearing the hope of all creation fulfilled in one moment, and in one life. I have watched video clips of American soldiers returning from Iraq to the arms of their wives and children, and even those moving reunions pale in comparison to what I heard in Jason's voice. He ran to the One who is forever faithful and true, the One who fills every promise with just one glance of His beauty, and the One who is the only King of kings and Lord of lords.
The God of Bethel
This month marks a ten-year anniversary in my life. In April 1998, I was confined to a treatment hospital for sixty days with a serious eating disorder. Though I was the wife of a pastor and mother of four small children, I had a problem that threatened to take my life. I asked my husband and our church family to help me get into a Christian treatment center so that I could recover and get the support I needed.
I had married young as a new Christian. Within a year after our wedding, my husband and I went off to Bible College together for him to study missions. Due to the fact that I had been raised in an abusive and dysfunctional home as a child, I should have taken the time to let the Lord heal me from the years of pain and wounding that I had experienced. But we were young and in love with each other and with Jesus, and we wanted to be world-changers.
During our years in Bible College, I didn't know how to deal with the pain that would emerge from my past, and I didn't understand the compassion that Jesus has on the broken-hearted. I had quickly developed a religious mindset that falsely believed that Christians didn't have broken places. Oh, how young we were! Therefore, my outlet became the development of an eating disorder that lasted over fifteen years, leaving me void of healing and full of shame.
When I came to the point of desperation and was able to humble myself and reach out for help, knowing that many would not understand, it was as though I entered a time and place in my life that I would call, "My Bethel."
The God Who Speaks
"Jacob called the place where God had talked with him Bethel." Genesis 35:15
Though I look back on my time in the treatment center as my "dark night of the soul," I would also say that it became my Bethel. Bethel means "House of God," and in this time and place, God spoke to me more clearly than I had ever heard before and it became my House of God. I began to learn just who God was to me. Though I had called Him my Savior and Friend, in that time, I began to experience Him as Savior and Friend.
Living in the midst of sixty other broken lives, I began to discover the beauty of humility and dependency. I watched young girls and women who had lived through great suffering come face-to-face with the compassion of Christ and the love of their Heavenly Father. I was one of them. Though some did not recover, those who did stand today as pillars in the House of God. They carry a compassion for the broken and an understanding of the mercy of God like few I have ever met.
In this time, our God is speaking to those who have ears to hear. I sense that this season will mark for many a "Bethel" experience where God has spoken to His people, and it will be like an altar in their lives of moving from darkness to light.
The God Who Overcomes
"Now the salvation, and the power, and the Kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. And they overcame him because of the Blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death." Revelation 12:10-11
Recently, I have become keenly aware that God is calling forth the broken ones and those who have felt the darkness; He is calling them to step into the Light of His love and be transformed. These will become pillars called "Overcomers," and they will know the One who is faithful and true; the One who has written on His thigh the words "King of kings and Lord of lords."
"I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown. Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of My God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of Heaven from My God; and I will also write on him My new name..." Revelation 3:11-13
Just as His name is written upon His thigh, so will His name be written on our lives as we overcome the accuser of God's people. We are in a type of spiritual boot camp where we are learning to overcome the world so that we can go into the world and not be overcome by it. It is a very vulnerable time because we are facing places of darkness. Yet, we are gaining authority through great adversity, and we are being prepared as a great army of overcomers...through the Blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimonies.
The God Who Keeps His Promises
Though most of us entered this year believing with great excitement that we were entering a new day, this new day, for many, has not come in the way we expected. I am sure that our friends who lost their son did not think that this new day would begin with such a great loss. I am also sure that many of you reading this did not expect to face some of the trials that you have encountered in the first months of this year. But do not lose heart! When the Israelites crossed the Jordan into the land that God had promised them, the first things they encountered were fortified walls and great enemies. Remember what Joshua said not long after crossing the Jordan:
"And Joshua said, 'Ah, Sovereign LORD, why did you ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan!'" Joshua 7:6-8
Even great men of faith like Joshua questioned God's ways. God never said that we would not face great battles; He said that we would win great battles. I believe that Jason's family has not yet seen the end of the story of his life. His life will be known as a victory! The battles that you are facing may be fierce and look as if they will overcome you...but through the Blood of the Lamb and the word of your testimony, YOU WILL OVERCOME!
There is great authority in this time being given to those who face such trials and overcome. God is creating pillars in His house. Pillars are made to hold things up! When the storms come and the battles rage, it is the pillars that strengthen the building under siege.
So, who do you say God is? I say that He is King of kings and Lord of lords. I say that He is faithful and true, even when we don't understand. I say that He is the God who keeps His promises, the God who gives us victory, and the God who heals our wounds. He is the Great I Am! He is the Author and Finisher of our faith, the beginning and the end, and our Everlasting Father.
God is asking us, "Who do you say that I Am?"
Kathi Pelton
Light Streams Ministries
Email: jkpelton@sbcglobal.net
Permission is granted (and you are also encouraged) to reprint these articles in hard copy form, as well as sending them to your own email lists and posting them on your own websites. We ask only that you keep ElijahList website, email contact info, and author contact information intact.
ElijahList Publications
310 2nd Ave SE,
Albany, OR 97321
www.elijahlist.com
email: info@elijahlist.net
Phone 1-541-926-3250
Monday, April 21, 2008
Reese's Pieces
Some of you may have heard me talking about following the Reese's Pieces trail that God lays out for us and how much fun it is to walk out the adventure with Him. This article does an excellent job at explaining it and encouraging us to engage in it. It is a fundamental approach that we take in the House of Prayer pretty regularly and I look forward to exploring the mysteries with you. Found a Reese's Piece just the other day in Brooklyn after representing Long Island at the House of Prayer meeting there. Check out www.thestorefront.cc and let me know what you think.
Also, on another note, there is an interesting worship gathering taking place in Kansas next month called Paradise08. love, t
Steve Witt: ""Moving from Mystery to Clarity
--Learning the Language of Heaven"
(Playing Hide and Seek with God)
"It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the honor of kings is to search out a matter." Proverbs 25:2
Nature's Mysteries
There has been an urban legend that states that bees shouldn't be able to fly. Scientists are puzzled at the unique aerodynamic aspect of the wings of insects, in general. Obviously, the bees fly anyway! It is somewhat of a mystery.
I have hundreds of ducks and geese that live in my back yard. Some of them are domestic ducks that I purchased to populate our small pond. Several years ago, I wanted to move one of them to another pond about a mile away. I captured one of my large, white ducks and placed it in a closed box in my car and drove him to his new home.
After being released from the box, the white duck was surprised and puzzled at his new home, but he seemed to adjust fine. I had some work to do and periodically looked across the field to check on my new tenant. After an hour of work, I glanced to check on his progress. I couldn't see him and became alarmed, thinking a fox or large turtle might have consumed him. I investigated closer, but the duck had disappeared. I searched all over the property, lamenting over the loss of my duck...and the $15 it cost me!
I finished my work and returned home. I shared the mystery with my wife, poured a large glass of iced tea, and headed to my back deck to relax. The prodigal white duck was sitting by my lawn chair! It appeared angry at me. He had walked (he's too fat to fly) across roads, over a stream, and through fields for one mile and found his way back home. I've heard stories like this before, but I have never personally experienced it. It's a mystery.
Beer Parable
Last summer, I began to crave beer. I am not a beer drinker, nor do I even like it. Strange enough, I was craving a certain beer: Guinness. Can you crave something that you've never tasted? Apparently so! It became a joke around our house. Although I had no intentions of buying a Guinness, the strange connection continued for several weeks.
Then on a Friday morning, at 7:15, my prophetic friend, Marc Dupont, called. He began to give me a word about 2008 and, at the conclusion, recommended a book for me to read. I wrote the title of the book down, "Prophetic Untimeliness." In order to purchase the recommended book, I inquired regarding the author's name. Marc responded saying, "Guinness...Os Guinness." It was one of those odd moments. It's another mystery.
Several days later, I devoured the book, and it was life changing. Does God speak through such mysterious language? Bees that can't fly do anyway. Ducks find their way home without maps, and cravings are codes for upcoming books. He hides, we seek. He conceals, we search.
There are many mysteries in life. God is the greatest mystery, with our own destiny running a close second. The challenge of life is solving the mystery of God's communication. Is it meant to be difficult? I suppose that depends on your view of God as a Father.
Easy to Find
My children are all grown now, but I remember when they wanted to play "hide and seek" as a child. They would put their little hands over their eyes and begin counting. Quickly, I made my way to a place that would be easy to discover. Typically, I hid behind the window curtains with my feet sticking out at the bottom. In mere moments, the little kids would scream with glee and hug the daddy-shaped image in the curtain. Loving fathers hide...but not real well. We want to be found! It's a mystery, but not a difficult one. Anyone can play, and everyone can win! God is a loving Father and does the same thing.
Consider this following Scriptural passage in Deuteronomy 30:11-14:
"For this commandment which I command you today is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. It is not in Heaven, that you should say, 'Who will ascend into Heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?' Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?' But the Word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it."
God's mysteries are meant to be solved. They are unto something. They are meant to reveal destinies, plans, strategies, and tactics. He does not hide them far, and invites us to participate. He loves to use terms like seek, ask, and knock.
Trusting the Father
My father used to play a similar game with me. He had a large, old-fashioned, jug sitting inside our front door. When he came home from work each day, he would empty the change out of his pocket into the jug. When vacation time would come, we would empty it, count it, and use it for something fun.
I worked my first real job when I was about sixteen. I came home one day with my first payday. My father must have tuned into my excitement about having cash in my wallet. He looked at me and said, "How much money do you have in your wallet?" I wasn't totally sure, but said, "About thirty dollars." He then said, "I'll give you everything in that jug for everything in your wallet."
This was not uncommon. It was his way of training me to take risks and make quick decisions. I asked him if I could lift the jug, because I couldn't remember when we had emptied it last and how much money it might contain. He declined. I had to take a risk, and I had to make the decision quickly. He told me that the offer was running out fast. I looked at the jug and into his eyes...back to the jug and responded, "You've got a deal." I handed him the thirty dollars and ran to empty the jug. A quick estimate was later confirmed...I had made a good deal. There was over one hundred and twenty five dollars in the jug. Do you know why I made the deal? My father loved me and I knew it! I knew that he would never make an offer to me that wouldn't work for my benefit. A loving God will not tease or trick a son or daughter. That was one of many deals we made over the years. His love empowered me to take risks. He made it easy for me to solve the dilemma, because He loved me.
"...but the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits." Daniel 11:32b
It is essential for every believer to enroll in the school of interpretation. Questions need to be answered about God and about each human purpose. It is easy to back off in discouragement at dreams or circumstances that do not make sense. God is inviting us into a life of discovery...solving the mystery. To those that enroll, a life of epiphanies and glorious revelation will occur. Many marriages end today due to a lazy approach to relationship. Mysteries are replete in marriage and need to be sought out. It takes time and energy, but after all, doesn't anything of value require an investment?
Fear runs deep in our culture today. Thoughts of terrorism, sub-prime mortgage issues, and the teetering economy in general, as well as the diluting of our cultural values, leaves many living in a prison of worry. One of the fastest growing medical industries in the United States is geared toward sleep disorders. Movie star Heath Ledger's recent tragic accidental blending of medications to bring rest is a metaphor for our times. People are without rest. They have questions. They need a pioneering people that know the way and are willing to help others find it.
The Winter '08 issue of Leadership Journal had an interesting article regarding why Muslims convert to Christianity. The article had a thread of common theme throughout it. Muslims are intrigued by the lifestyle of Christians. The "pro-woman, loving God, love-filled, supernatural" lifestyle was magnetic to those that are searching and seeking. They are finding something that has previously been a mystery. They are finding that the Christian experience seems to emphasize a loving God versus the Muslim view of a punishing God. God is revealing what has previously been a mystery to many. They are discovering what many Christians have uncovered...that Jesus came to declare a "year of favor," versus a "day of judgment." The favor ratio is 365 to one. He is more favorable than judgmental.
Tricks of Heaven
God apparently loves puzzles. Why does He use mystery? I search this out in my recent book, "Voices: Understanding and Responding to the Language of Heaven." In chapter one, I tell the story of my son at the age of two. He was a typical toddler, full of energy and eager to play. Many times, I'd come home from work, just wanting to relax. He though, was eager to play, but wanted to get me off of the sofa. I'd lay there and call to him to come and give me a hug. He coyly replied, "No!" Being the lazy man I am, I developed ways to draw him to come to me. I called across the room and said, "Josh...come seg moy yum." I continued to repeat a version of this nonsensical statement over and over again. He was curious. He moved slowly closer, studying my lips, trying to understand what his Dad was saying. Eventually, he was standing right in front of me! Unaware that he had been lured into my trap through a mystery, I reached out and began to tickle him. He would go screaming to his mother. Mystery has the power to draw you in. God uses it to draw us closer to Him and reveal His purposes. Have you ever heard a sound from Heaven that said something like, "Come seg moy yum?" Many of us are unwilling to take the time...pay the price...seek the voice.
Desire is Needed
Moses had been living in the wilderness for forty years. His life was quickly turned upside down by a voice coming from a burning bush. The Bible says that he, "Turned aside to see the great sight." The text then says, "When the Lord saw that he turned aside to look...God called to him" (Exodus 3:3-4). In this case, a simple "turning aside" provided a doorway to revelation. The mystery of a burning bush was solved by simply taking a moment and reflecting. God saw it, and responded. Could it be possible that "intentionality" is needed to solve many mysteries? If we just stop and desire to understand, we might solve the mysteries of life? Many of us are frustrated and say, "If God really wanted me to do this, He would be clear." A simple look at the Gospels clearly shows that much of the time the disciples were confused as to Jesus' intentions. Phrases like, "And they knew not what He meant," occur often.
Jesus began to build curiosity regarding the next phase of God's unfolding plan by cryptic communication regarding His leaving and the Holy Spirit's coming (Luke 24:49). By the time that Acts 2 has appeared, Jesus is gone and they are waiting patiently for...a mystery. One hundred and twenty people are spiritually sequestered in an upper room, excited, unified, and probably very curious! The Holy Spirit came in power with unusual accompanying of manifestations. The followers of Christ had experienced tongues of fire and apparent drunkenness, with a new ability to communicate in seventeen different languages! The mystery of the new age of His Kingdom was unfolding.
Questions Needing Answers
This historic day brought up two major questions in the early Church, "What does this mean?" and "What must we do?" These will always be the two mysteries for the Church to solve. These are the same questions that people have today about every mystery in life. To the degree that the Church is able to answer these questions is the degree of influence it will have in today's culture. The questions demand wisdom, but at a deeper level, they call for a prophetic people. The people that hear from God will rule the day. They will be the lights. They will be the guides.
Many dilemmas face our society today. The challenging battle between traditional medicine and alternative medicine is flaring up, with record amounts of organic foods and alternative treatments being unveiled. Ecological and business concerns are starting to come together. These former enemies are finding common ground and solving the mysteries by finding symbiotic ways of forming alliances. Evangelicals and Charismatics have worn down walls and distinguishing between them is becoming more difficult.
Mysteries have been solved with record pace over the past twenty years. The Church needs to be at the forefront of the revolution of discovery. Where are the people who will hear the voice of Heaven? God has called us to solve the puzzles of life. Nehemiah had a plan to rebuild Jerusalem. Daniel received revelation regarding his King and the future of the kingdom. Joseph saved Egypt and secured the Jewish people during a time of famine. The recent movie, "Evan Almighty," brings this ancient challenge into the contemporary times. It's the story of a recently elected congressman that is given a Noah-like call for the 21st century. It is humorous, yet prophetic. An unfolding clarity came to Evan as he was challenged deeper into God's will for his life. Will we implement the interpretation of God's communication into our current lives? Will we take the time to listen...turn aside...and respond to the voice of Heaven? Our futures may be determined by how we answer this question.
Some mysteries will take greater time. The challenges today can be very complex, demanding a solomonic level of wisdom. How will we cope with extreme mysteries? I believe that 1 Corinthians holds the answer. When you encounter something that comes as a foreign language, what do you do? Consider this passage that speaks to a common mystery in the church of Corinth:
"For he who speaks in a tongue do not speak to men but to God, for no one understands him; however, in the spirit he speaks mysteries...There are, it may be, so many kinds of languages in the world, and none of them is without significance. Therefore, if I do not know the meaning of the language, I shall be a foreigner to him who speaks, and he who speaks will be a foreigner to me...Therefore let him who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret." 1 Corinthians 14:2, 10-11, 13
Mysteries come in many ways. Mysteries are to be interpreted. The onus is upon us. We are learning to be interpreters. Like a foreign language, conundrums of the day will need interpretation. Paul challenges us that when we face a mystery, "Pray that you may interpret." A life of intimacy will begin to unveil the mysteries of the ages. Enter God's language school. Give yourself to understanding His voice.
Learning a Language
There are basic components to learning any language. Learning the language of Heaven is similar. Here are the five paths to successful learning of any mystery...including language:
1. Motivation--Whether it's French, Spanish or Heaven, you must desire deeply to understand.
2. Equipping--The Bible is God's language book. Study it and know how He communicates. You'll be amazed at what you will discover about Heaven's language through the Bible.
3. Environment--Create a church culture that celebrates Heaven's voice and communication.
4. Humility--Every language will humble you as you begin to speak its sounds. Don't be afraid to fail. Find an environment that encourages and celebrates risk.
5. Time--Crash courses will leave you anemic regarding understanding. There are few shortcuts. Take the time to get it right. Learn the voice of God!
Where is the Church heading? How will leadership shift in the future? What is the right model for building a true Kingdom culture? Are tragic situations going to radically change how we live? What is my true destiny? What are the futures of my children?
These are all mysteries...are you up for solving it? We may never understand about the ducks and the bees, but God is willing to help us solve some of life's greatest mysteries. Are you willing to turn aside, be curious, move close and hear the heartbeat of God?
Steve Witt
Email: admin@istevewitt.com
Steve Witt has been a church planter for 30 years. He has been a leader in the Vineyard in Canada and former apostolic team member for Partners in Harvest (Toronto). He served as a business coach for nine years and has done training in over 25 nations. He is currently pastor for Metro Church South in the Cleveland, Ohio, area. Steve is married to Cindy and they have four grown children.
Permission is granted (and you are also encouraged) to reprint these articles in hard copy form, as well as sending them to your own email lists and posting them on your own websites. We ask only that you keep ElijahList website, email contact info, and author contact information intact.
ElijahList Publications
310 2nd Ave SE,
Albany, OR 97321
www.elijahlist.com
email: info@elijahlist.net
Phone 1-541-926-3250
Montauk to Manhattan: Every House a House of Prayer
Loving Long Island with 24-7-365 Worship-Filled Prayer
Links to IHOP-LI: the Ark House of Prayer on Long Island
http://www.IHOP-LI.com
http://www.theburn247.com/longisland/
http://www.squidoo.com/IHOP-LI/
http://gworship9.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7748449673
http://www.myspace.com/ihoplongisland
http://www.myspace.com/burnlongisland
http://www.joconetwork.org/ihop-li
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IHOP-LI/
Also, on another note, there is an interesting worship gathering taking place in Kansas next month called Paradise08. love, t
Steve Witt: ""Moving from Mystery to Clarity
--Learning the Language of Heaven"
(Playing Hide and Seek with God)
"It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the honor of kings is to search out a matter." Proverbs 25:2
Nature's Mysteries
There has been an urban legend that states that bees shouldn't be able to fly. Scientists are puzzled at the unique aerodynamic aspect of the wings of insects, in general. Obviously, the bees fly anyway! It is somewhat of a mystery.
I have hundreds of ducks and geese that live in my back yard. Some of them are domestic ducks that I purchased to populate our small pond. Several years ago, I wanted to move one of them to another pond about a mile away. I captured one of my large, white ducks and placed it in a closed box in my car and drove him to his new home.
After being released from the box, the white duck was surprised and puzzled at his new home, but he seemed to adjust fine. I had some work to do and periodically looked across the field to check on my new tenant. After an hour of work, I glanced to check on his progress. I couldn't see him and became alarmed, thinking a fox or large turtle might have consumed him. I investigated closer, but the duck had disappeared. I searched all over the property, lamenting over the loss of my duck...and the $15 it cost me!
I finished my work and returned home. I shared the mystery with my wife, poured a large glass of iced tea, and headed to my back deck to relax. The prodigal white duck was sitting by my lawn chair! It appeared angry at me. He had walked (he's too fat to fly) across roads, over a stream, and through fields for one mile and found his way back home. I've heard stories like this before, but I have never personally experienced it. It's a mystery.
Beer Parable
Last summer, I began to crave beer. I am not a beer drinker, nor do I even like it. Strange enough, I was craving a certain beer: Guinness. Can you crave something that you've never tasted? Apparently so! It became a joke around our house. Although I had no intentions of buying a Guinness, the strange connection continued for several weeks.
Then on a Friday morning, at 7:15, my prophetic friend, Marc Dupont, called. He began to give me a word about 2008 and, at the conclusion, recommended a book for me to read. I wrote the title of the book down, "Prophetic Untimeliness." In order to purchase the recommended book, I inquired regarding the author's name. Marc responded saying, "Guinness...Os Guinness." It was one of those odd moments. It's another mystery.
Several days later, I devoured the book, and it was life changing. Does God speak through such mysterious language? Bees that can't fly do anyway. Ducks find their way home without maps, and cravings are codes for upcoming books. He hides, we seek. He conceals, we search.
There are many mysteries in life. God is the greatest mystery, with our own destiny running a close second. The challenge of life is solving the mystery of God's communication. Is it meant to be difficult? I suppose that depends on your view of God as a Father.
Easy to Find
My children are all grown now, but I remember when they wanted to play "hide and seek" as a child. They would put their little hands over their eyes and begin counting. Quickly, I made my way to a place that would be easy to discover. Typically, I hid behind the window curtains with my feet sticking out at the bottom. In mere moments, the little kids would scream with glee and hug the daddy-shaped image in the curtain. Loving fathers hide...but not real well. We want to be found! It's a mystery, but not a difficult one. Anyone can play, and everyone can win! God is a loving Father and does the same thing.
Consider this following Scriptural passage in Deuteronomy 30:11-14:
"For this commandment which I command you today is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. It is not in Heaven, that you should say, 'Who will ascend into Heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?' Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?' But the Word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it."
God's mysteries are meant to be solved. They are unto something. They are meant to reveal destinies, plans, strategies, and tactics. He does not hide them far, and invites us to participate. He loves to use terms like seek, ask, and knock.
Trusting the Father
My father used to play a similar game with me. He had a large, old-fashioned, jug sitting inside our front door. When he came home from work each day, he would empty the change out of his pocket into the jug. When vacation time would come, we would empty it, count it, and use it for something fun.
I worked my first real job when I was about sixteen. I came home one day with my first payday. My father must have tuned into my excitement about having cash in my wallet. He looked at me and said, "How much money do you have in your wallet?" I wasn't totally sure, but said, "About thirty dollars." He then said, "I'll give you everything in that jug for everything in your wallet."
This was not uncommon. It was his way of training me to take risks and make quick decisions. I asked him if I could lift the jug, because I couldn't remember when we had emptied it last and how much money it might contain. He declined. I had to take a risk, and I had to make the decision quickly. He told me that the offer was running out fast. I looked at the jug and into his eyes...back to the jug and responded, "You've got a deal." I handed him the thirty dollars and ran to empty the jug. A quick estimate was later confirmed...I had made a good deal. There was over one hundred and twenty five dollars in the jug. Do you know why I made the deal? My father loved me and I knew it! I knew that he would never make an offer to me that wouldn't work for my benefit. A loving God will not tease or trick a son or daughter. That was one of many deals we made over the years. His love empowered me to take risks. He made it easy for me to solve the dilemma, because He loved me.
"...but the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits." Daniel 11:32b
It is essential for every believer to enroll in the school of interpretation. Questions need to be answered about God and about each human purpose. It is easy to back off in discouragement at dreams or circumstances that do not make sense. God is inviting us into a life of discovery...solving the mystery. To those that enroll, a life of epiphanies and glorious revelation will occur. Many marriages end today due to a lazy approach to relationship. Mysteries are replete in marriage and need to be sought out. It takes time and energy, but after all, doesn't anything of value require an investment?
Fear runs deep in our culture today. Thoughts of terrorism, sub-prime mortgage issues, and the teetering economy in general, as well as the diluting of our cultural values, leaves many living in a prison of worry. One of the fastest growing medical industries in the United States is geared toward sleep disorders. Movie star Heath Ledger's recent tragic accidental blending of medications to bring rest is a metaphor for our times. People are without rest. They have questions. They need a pioneering people that know the way and are willing to help others find it.
The Winter '08 issue of Leadership Journal had an interesting article regarding why Muslims convert to Christianity. The article had a thread of common theme throughout it. Muslims are intrigued by the lifestyle of Christians. The "pro-woman, loving God, love-filled, supernatural" lifestyle was magnetic to those that are searching and seeking. They are finding something that has previously been a mystery. They are finding that the Christian experience seems to emphasize a loving God versus the Muslim view of a punishing God. God is revealing what has previously been a mystery to many. They are discovering what many Christians have uncovered...that Jesus came to declare a "year of favor," versus a "day of judgment." The favor ratio is 365 to one. He is more favorable than judgmental.
Tricks of Heaven
God apparently loves puzzles. Why does He use mystery? I search this out in my recent book, "Voices: Understanding and Responding to the Language of Heaven." In chapter one, I tell the story of my son at the age of two. He was a typical toddler, full of energy and eager to play. Many times, I'd come home from work, just wanting to relax. He though, was eager to play, but wanted to get me off of the sofa. I'd lay there and call to him to come and give me a hug. He coyly replied, "No!" Being the lazy man I am, I developed ways to draw him to come to me. I called across the room and said, "Josh...come seg moy yum." I continued to repeat a version of this nonsensical statement over and over again. He was curious. He moved slowly closer, studying my lips, trying to understand what his Dad was saying. Eventually, he was standing right in front of me! Unaware that he had been lured into my trap through a mystery, I reached out and began to tickle him. He would go screaming to his mother. Mystery has the power to draw you in. God uses it to draw us closer to Him and reveal His purposes. Have you ever heard a sound from Heaven that said something like, "Come seg moy yum?" Many of us are unwilling to take the time...pay the price...seek the voice.
Desire is Needed
Moses had been living in the wilderness for forty years. His life was quickly turned upside down by a voice coming from a burning bush. The Bible says that he, "Turned aside to see the great sight." The text then says, "When the Lord saw that he turned aside to look...God called to him" (Exodus 3:3-4). In this case, a simple "turning aside" provided a doorway to revelation. The mystery of a burning bush was solved by simply taking a moment and reflecting. God saw it, and responded. Could it be possible that "intentionality" is needed to solve many mysteries? If we just stop and desire to understand, we might solve the mysteries of life? Many of us are frustrated and say, "If God really wanted me to do this, He would be clear." A simple look at the Gospels clearly shows that much of the time the disciples were confused as to Jesus' intentions. Phrases like, "And they knew not what He meant," occur often.
Jesus began to build curiosity regarding the next phase of God's unfolding plan by cryptic communication regarding His leaving and the Holy Spirit's coming (Luke 24:49). By the time that Acts 2 has appeared, Jesus is gone and they are waiting patiently for...a mystery. One hundred and twenty people are spiritually sequestered in an upper room, excited, unified, and probably very curious! The Holy Spirit came in power with unusual accompanying of manifestations. The followers of Christ had experienced tongues of fire and apparent drunkenness, with a new ability to communicate in seventeen different languages! The mystery of the new age of His Kingdom was unfolding.
Questions Needing Answers
This historic day brought up two major questions in the early Church, "What does this mean?" and "What must we do?" These will always be the two mysteries for the Church to solve. These are the same questions that people have today about every mystery in life. To the degree that the Church is able to answer these questions is the degree of influence it will have in today's culture. The questions demand wisdom, but at a deeper level, they call for a prophetic people. The people that hear from God will rule the day. They will be the lights. They will be the guides.
Many dilemmas face our society today. The challenging battle between traditional medicine and alternative medicine is flaring up, with record amounts of organic foods and alternative treatments being unveiled. Ecological and business concerns are starting to come together. These former enemies are finding common ground and solving the mysteries by finding symbiotic ways of forming alliances. Evangelicals and Charismatics have worn down walls and distinguishing between them is becoming more difficult.
Mysteries have been solved with record pace over the past twenty years. The Church needs to be at the forefront of the revolution of discovery. Where are the people who will hear the voice of Heaven? God has called us to solve the puzzles of life. Nehemiah had a plan to rebuild Jerusalem. Daniel received revelation regarding his King and the future of the kingdom. Joseph saved Egypt and secured the Jewish people during a time of famine. The recent movie, "Evan Almighty," brings this ancient challenge into the contemporary times. It's the story of a recently elected congressman that is given a Noah-like call for the 21st century. It is humorous, yet prophetic. An unfolding clarity came to Evan as he was challenged deeper into God's will for his life. Will we implement the interpretation of God's communication into our current lives? Will we take the time to listen...turn aside...and respond to the voice of Heaven? Our futures may be determined by how we answer this question.
Some mysteries will take greater time. The challenges today can be very complex, demanding a solomonic level of wisdom. How will we cope with extreme mysteries? I believe that 1 Corinthians holds the answer. When you encounter something that comes as a foreign language, what do you do? Consider this passage that speaks to a common mystery in the church of Corinth:
"For he who speaks in a tongue do not speak to men but to God, for no one understands him; however, in the spirit he speaks mysteries...There are, it may be, so many kinds of languages in the world, and none of them is without significance. Therefore, if I do not know the meaning of the language, I shall be a foreigner to him who speaks, and he who speaks will be a foreigner to me...Therefore let him who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret." 1 Corinthians 14:2, 10-11, 13
Mysteries come in many ways. Mysteries are to be interpreted. The onus is upon us. We are learning to be interpreters. Like a foreign language, conundrums of the day will need interpretation. Paul challenges us that when we face a mystery, "Pray that you may interpret." A life of intimacy will begin to unveil the mysteries of the ages. Enter God's language school. Give yourself to understanding His voice.
Learning a Language
There are basic components to learning any language. Learning the language of Heaven is similar. Here are the five paths to successful learning of any mystery...including language:
1. Motivation--Whether it's French, Spanish or Heaven, you must desire deeply to understand.
2. Equipping--The Bible is God's language book. Study it and know how He communicates. You'll be amazed at what you will discover about Heaven's language through the Bible.
3. Environment--Create a church culture that celebrates Heaven's voice and communication.
4. Humility--Every language will humble you as you begin to speak its sounds. Don't be afraid to fail. Find an environment that encourages and celebrates risk.
5. Time--Crash courses will leave you anemic regarding understanding. There are few shortcuts. Take the time to get it right. Learn the voice of God!
Where is the Church heading? How will leadership shift in the future? What is the right model for building a true Kingdom culture? Are tragic situations going to radically change how we live? What is my true destiny? What are the futures of my children?
These are all mysteries...are you up for solving it? We may never understand about the ducks and the bees, but God is willing to help us solve some of life's greatest mysteries. Are you willing to turn aside, be curious, move close and hear the heartbeat of God?
Steve Witt
Email: admin@istevewitt.com
Steve Witt has been a church planter for 30 years. He has been a leader in the Vineyard in Canada and former apostolic team member for Partners in Harvest (Toronto). He served as a business coach for nine years and has done training in over 25 nations. He is currently pastor for Metro Church South in the Cleveland, Ohio, area. Steve is married to Cindy and they have four grown children.
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Monday, March 24, 2008
The Burn: Friday March 28th
Hey all - We're burning before the Lord in worship this Friday (March 28th) at the House of Prayer/King' s Corner from 10 am until at least midnight and I'm looking for those who are interested in taking a "slot" to lead worship. Interested? contact me a.s.a.p. so I schedule you in at the time you prefer. My email is gworship9@yahoo. com Love! t
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Praying for America
(I've listened Asher teach and he's brilliant - with a tender heart toward God & His people. Can we also include Gov. Patterson & Spitzer in our prayers? Love, t)
Asher Intrater is a Jewish believer in Jesus Christ, serving the Messiah in Israel. Asher's perspectives and insights are highly valued in Israel and beyond.
Praying For America
by Asher Intrater
(En Español)
Israeli press briefly covered the story of Barak Obama's pastor, Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ, preaching a sermon in which he repeatedly shouted, "God damn America, God damn America!" (There is no word in Hebrew for "damn" and the statement had to be translated as "God curse America".)
It is not my purpose in this article to deal with the political implications of his connections with Obama, nor with the theological issues of "liberation theology," nor even from the question of Obama's personal faith – as he openly professed that he "found Christ" in that church. I would like to approach it from a perspective of prayer: the need for us to be PRAYING FOR America.
The Jewish people were commanded to pray FOR the nation of Babel (Iraq) when they lived there in exile in the 6th century BC – Jeremiah 29. All Christians are called to pray FOR those in authority – I Timothy 2.
Jeremiah 29:7
Seek the peace of the city where I have caused you be carried away captive, and pray to the Lord for it: for in its peace you will have peace.
No doubt it was difficult for the Israelites in Babel to pray for the nation they felt had abused them. Yet in their generation, Babel was the world leader, just as America is the world leader today. Although it seemed to them paradoxical, praying for Babel's well being would result in their well being. So today, America's well-being is still beneficial for most Christians, Jews, and suppressed peoples around the world.
It is easy to feel resentful against America, even for those who live there. The entertainment industry has spread sexual immorality and licentiousness; the people are often over-fed, comfort-worshiping, and self-indulgent. And yet, would you really want a world without America?
America is the only nation that has made a clear stance against Islamic Jihad. It is the only nation that has consistently supported Israel in the U.N. It is the nation which has produced most of the biblical and faith-based literature that is available. It is the nation with the best form of elections, court systems, and law making in the world. (On Friday, Iran held national elections in which all of the candidates who stood for reform against Ahmadinejad' s regime were disqualified before the voting began.). America guarantees civil rights and freedom of religious expression more than any nation.
Over the last six months the U.S. dollar has fallen almost 25% on the international market. The majority of Christian charitable organizations, as well as evangelistic missions, receive their financing through the dollar. That means this year all those ministries have effectively lost 25% of their support base.
While most true believers in Yeshua (Jesus) would never voice such harsh statements as Reverend Wright, the spirit of revenge and resentment against America has had a subtle influence on many. Much so called "prayer" or "prophecies" concerning America have been nothing more than complaining and accusations before the throne of God. The result has been an inadvertent cursing of the nation and its leadership. Others have had their prayers simply neutralized, figuring it is just best not to pray for America at all.
I believe it is urgent to pray for America right now. Here are a few key pointers:
1. Moral repentance – May there be a sweep of revival across America, resulting in a sincere turning to God, integrity in government and business, a breaking of the spirits of Jezebel, rebellion and lust, a flourishing of true communities of faith.
2. Politics – May godly and righteous people be elected for the presidency, the Congress, the Senate, governors, mayors and judgeships in this year's election in November 2008. May President Bush have an effective and fruitful last year in office.
3. Economy – May the dollar stabilize and rise again on the international market, and may all the charitable and missionary organizations have their budgets met. May godly men and women arise to prosper in the business world.
4. Military – May there be a clear victory in Iraq, with the international terrorist forces being broken and scattered, with a stable and just government coalition of local Iraqis arising to run the country, and with the return of American troops. (And I personally would hope for Bin Laden to be captured or removed approximately 60 days before the elections in America.)
5. Israel – May the U.S. continue to be a loyal friend to Israel in these End Times. (The Israeli papers were quick to note that Wright's "damning" of America was partially connected to America's support of the State of Israel.)
Note: President Bush and other world leaders will be in Jerusalem for the celebration of Israel's 60th anniversary at the same time as the Global Day of Prayer and "The Call, Jerusalem" scheduled for May 11. (In fact, they will be meeting immediately after us in the same auditorium at the Jerusalem Convention Center.) Perhaps you should plan to come take part in this sacred assembly, or at least take the day to fast and pray together with us.
www.frangipane. org
Asher Intrater is a Jewish believer in Jesus Christ, serving the Messiah in Israel. Asher's perspectives and insights are highly valued in Israel and beyond.
Praying For America
by Asher Intrater
(En Español)
Israeli press briefly covered the story of Barak Obama's pastor, Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ, preaching a sermon in which he repeatedly shouted, "God damn America, God damn America!" (There is no word in Hebrew for "damn" and the statement had to be translated as "God curse America".)
It is not my purpose in this article to deal with the political implications of his connections with Obama, nor with the theological issues of "liberation theology," nor even from the question of Obama's personal faith – as he openly professed that he "found Christ" in that church. I would like to approach it from a perspective of prayer: the need for us to be PRAYING FOR America.
The Jewish people were commanded to pray FOR the nation of Babel (Iraq) when they lived there in exile in the 6th century BC – Jeremiah 29. All Christians are called to pray FOR those in authority – I Timothy 2.
Jeremiah 29:7
Seek the peace of the city where I have caused you be carried away captive, and pray to the Lord for it: for in its peace you will have peace.
No doubt it was difficult for the Israelites in Babel to pray for the nation they felt had abused them. Yet in their generation, Babel was the world leader, just as America is the world leader today. Although it seemed to them paradoxical, praying for Babel's well being would result in their well being. So today, America's well-being is still beneficial for most Christians, Jews, and suppressed peoples around the world.
It is easy to feel resentful against America, even for those who live there. The entertainment industry has spread sexual immorality and licentiousness; the people are often over-fed, comfort-worshiping, and self-indulgent. And yet, would you really want a world without America?
America is the only nation that has made a clear stance against Islamic Jihad. It is the only nation that has consistently supported Israel in the U.N. It is the nation which has produced most of the biblical and faith-based literature that is available. It is the nation with the best form of elections, court systems, and law making in the world. (On Friday, Iran held national elections in which all of the candidates who stood for reform against Ahmadinejad' s regime were disqualified before the voting began.). America guarantees civil rights and freedom of religious expression more than any nation.
Over the last six months the U.S. dollar has fallen almost 25% on the international market. The majority of Christian charitable organizations, as well as evangelistic missions, receive their financing through the dollar. That means this year all those ministries have effectively lost 25% of their support base.
While most true believers in Yeshua (Jesus) would never voice such harsh statements as Reverend Wright, the spirit of revenge and resentment against America has had a subtle influence on many. Much so called "prayer" or "prophecies" concerning America have been nothing more than complaining and accusations before the throne of God. The result has been an inadvertent cursing of the nation and its leadership. Others have had their prayers simply neutralized, figuring it is just best not to pray for America at all.
I believe it is urgent to pray for America right now. Here are a few key pointers:
1. Moral repentance – May there be a sweep of revival across America, resulting in a sincere turning to God, integrity in government and business, a breaking of the spirits of Jezebel, rebellion and lust, a flourishing of true communities of faith.
2. Politics – May godly and righteous people be elected for the presidency, the Congress, the Senate, governors, mayors and judgeships in this year's election in November 2008. May President Bush have an effective and fruitful last year in office.
3. Economy – May the dollar stabilize and rise again on the international market, and may all the charitable and missionary organizations have their budgets met. May godly men and women arise to prosper in the business world.
4. Military – May there be a clear victory in Iraq, with the international terrorist forces being broken and scattered, with a stable and just government coalition of local Iraqis arising to run the country, and with the return of American troops. (And I personally would hope for Bin Laden to be captured or removed approximately 60 days before the elections in America.)
5. Israel – May the U.S. continue to be a loyal friend to Israel in these End Times. (The Israeli papers were quick to note that Wright's "damning" of America was partially connected to America's support of the State of Israel.)
Note: President Bush and other world leaders will be in Jerusalem for the celebration of Israel's 60th anniversary at the same time as the Global Day of Prayer and "The Call, Jerusalem" scheduled for May 11. (In fact, they will be meeting immediately after us in the same auditorium at the Jerusalem Convention Center.) Perhaps you should plan to come take part in this sacred assembly, or at least take the day to fast and pray together with us.
www.frangipane. org
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Wisdom for the Generations
I thought I'd pass on what is a well thought out, balanced challenge to the current state of the church and should initiate thought provoking questions.
Last week I had a dream that a variety of people were ministering in the House of Prayer and I was loving that it reflected the resources of many churches and really was being fueled by cooperation. Then, I was alone and it was my slot. As I began to worship a group of young people began to ram the door and I wasn't sure if they were attacking and destroying the House and planning on killing me or just wanting to get in. They broke in, went right past me and through another door into the school building we were housed in and I realized they had no problem with what we were doing, but they were heading to the office area and I knew they wanted change and input. As you read the article, ask the Lord to help discern what is legitimate and what is incendiary and then perhaps we can pray and consider how to respond personally and locally.
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
They Love Jesus They Don't Like The Church
Gary Wiens
Mar 11, 2008
Greetings, Everyone!
Marie and I received this article recently, and we believe it is a powerful word to us who are interceding for the coming generations. Please read it with sober minds and prayerful hearts.
They Love Jesus; They Don’t Like The Church
Michael Craven
This appears to be a growing sentiment among many younger Christians in America today. They love Jesus but they want little to do with His Church. It’s not that they don’t like the their local church or even other Christians—it’s that they don’t like how Christianity in America is frequently represented by many professing Evangelicals, which in their minds is often unloving, judgmental, arrogant, and hypocritical.
This assertion finds support in the data revealed in Barna’s most recent research. For example, “four out of five young churchgoers say that Christianity is antihomosexual; half describe it as judgmental, too involved in politics, hypocritical, and confusing; one-third believe their faith is old-fashioned and out of touch with reality; and one-quarter of young Christians believe it is boring and insensitive to others.” (Kinnamon & Lyons, unChristian, Baker Books, 2007, pp.33-34)
Those outside the Church hold increasingly negative views of Christians as well. Among young people (aged 16-29), roughly 49 percent hold an “extraordinarily negative” view of evangelical Christians and only 3 percent have a “good” impression!
Kinnamon and Lyons summarize the problem well by pointing to the comments of one thirty-five year-old believer who says, ‘Christians have become political, judgmental, intolerant, weak, religious, angry, and without balance. Christianity has become a nice Sunday drive. Where is the living God, the Holy Spirit, and amazing Jesus, the love, the compassion, the holiness? This type of life, how I yearn for that.”
Before you dismiss this criticism as overly simplistic or somehow lacking in credibility, humbly listen to what the next generation is actually saying. Love of Christ, love of one another and humility should compel us to try and understand why so many young people and Christians, in particular, feel the way they do. In my own frequent interactions with younger serious-minded Christians—many of whom invigorate me by their enthusiasm and zeal for Christ—I often find that they are very turned off and even angered by the watered-down, politicized, shallow, culturalized Christianity that has come to dominate American evangelicalism. According to Kinnamon and Lyons, “The Christian life looks so simplified and constricted that a new generation no longer recognizes it as a sophisticated, livable response to a complex word.”
This younger generation of Christians is simply and rightfully frustrated by the fact that this very real condition serves to inhibit their efforts to share the love of Christ with others. In other words, contemporary American Christianity carries with it a lot of negative baggage. So much so that “they feel raising the ‘Christian flag’ would actually undermine their ability to connect with people and maintain credibility with them.” And so, they feel they must “distance themselves from the current ‘branding’ of Christianity.” (Kinnamon & Lyons)
I can tell you from the perspective of one who spends a great deal of time engaged with those outside the faith; a significant portion of any conversation begins with me making apologies for the many misrepresentations of Christianity, the abuses suffered at the hands of misguided Christians, and correcting their many misconceptions—this—just so I can get to any meaningful dialogue. I can fully appreciate the need to “distance” one’s self from the mainstream “brand” of Christianity in order to earn any credibility with the person to whom I am speaking.
This generation sees what many are only recently coming to realize; the Church is in a pathetic state of decadence and decay. It is, to a large degree, fragmented, watered-down, and retreating from cultural relevancy. Biblical and theological ignorance, cultural apathy, and social indifference are a plague upon the American Church and what passes for Christianity in many circles is often a mere shadow of historic orthodox Christianity or worse something altogether different.
I recently spoke with a young man who is training to be a pastor. He was absolutely heartbroken and angry at the state of the Church. He laments the culturalized Christianity that surrounds him. He described the Christian culture where he lives as one in which “So many people live their lives avoiding hell instead of seeking the kingdom of God.” I think he makes an excellent point: for many American Christians; the purpose of their faith is ultimately bound up in going to heaven when they die. In the meantime the real world, the one into which Christ’s kingdom has come and is coming is ignored and the Christian’s purpose abandoned. We end up living for ourselves instead of for Christ. As I have said before, the gospel is more than just the personal plan of salvation; it is more accurately as the Lord himself said, the “good news” of the kingdom. The former has led to narrowly programmed evangelism; the latter fulfills the great commission by means of the two greatest commandments.
What concerns me most is that this reaction among young evangelicals is fraught with peril as are all reactive movements. On the one hand they can, in an effort to accommodate the increasingly antagonistic culture, become so generous in their orthodoxy that they compromise the faith. On the other hand, they can become so angry toward the Church that they fall into an un-biblical ecclesiology that encourages revolution instead of reformation. Both movements are in place right now and their respective “leaders” are gaining converts. In either case, the results will no doubt be destructive.
I believe the Lord is awakening many in this generation. They seek an authentic, life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ and they understand His lordship extends to every aspect of life and culture. I can’t tell you how often I encounter this positive spiritual theme and yet it is almost always accompanied by an equal frustration with the present Church.
What is desperately needed is spiritual wisdom that can carefully guide this generation between these two extremes toward real and orthodox reformation. The younger generation can offer insight that can properly contextualize the full gospel in such a way that it is once again relevant and our generation can provide sound guidance that preserves and promotes a love for Christ’s Church and orthodox theology. We must be willing to listen to each other, to learn and work together being of one mind and one spirit. This we must do for the sake of the Church and the next generation.
________________________________________________
S. Michael Craven is the President of the Center for Christ & Culture, a ministry of discipleship and Church renewal that works to equip Christians with an intelligent, thoroughly Christian and missional approach to culture. For more information on the Center for Christ & Culture, additional resources, and other works by S. Michael Craven visit: www.battlefortruth.org
Last week I had a dream that a variety of people were ministering in the House of Prayer and I was loving that it reflected the resources of many churches and really was being fueled by cooperation. Then, I was alone and it was my slot. As I began to worship a group of young people began to ram the door and I wasn't sure if they were attacking and destroying the House and planning on killing me or just wanting to get in. They broke in, went right past me and through another door into the school building we were housed in and I realized they had no problem with what we were doing, but they were heading to the office area and I knew they wanted change and input. As you read the article, ask the Lord to help discern what is legitimate and what is incendiary and then perhaps we can pray and consider how to respond personally and locally.
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
They Love Jesus They Don't Like The Church
Gary Wiens
Mar 11, 2008
Greetings, Everyone!
Marie and I received this article recently, and we believe it is a powerful word to us who are interceding for the coming generations. Please read it with sober minds and prayerful hearts.
They Love Jesus; They Don’t Like The Church
Michael Craven
This appears to be a growing sentiment among many younger Christians in America today. They love Jesus but they want little to do with His Church. It’s not that they don’t like the their local church or even other Christians—it’s that they don’t like how Christianity in America is frequently represented by many professing Evangelicals, which in their minds is often unloving, judgmental, arrogant, and hypocritical.
This assertion finds support in the data revealed in Barna’s most recent research. For example, “four out of five young churchgoers say that Christianity is antihomosexual; half describe it as judgmental, too involved in politics, hypocritical, and confusing; one-third believe their faith is old-fashioned and out of touch with reality; and one-quarter of young Christians believe it is boring and insensitive to others.” (Kinnamon & Lyons, unChristian, Baker Books, 2007, pp.33-34)
Those outside the Church hold increasingly negative views of Christians as well. Among young people (aged 16-29), roughly 49 percent hold an “extraordinarily negative” view of evangelical Christians and only 3 percent have a “good” impression!
Kinnamon and Lyons summarize the problem well by pointing to the comments of one thirty-five year-old believer who says, ‘Christians have become political, judgmental, intolerant, weak, religious, angry, and without balance. Christianity has become a nice Sunday drive. Where is the living God, the Holy Spirit, and amazing Jesus, the love, the compassion, the holiness? This type of life, how I yearn for that.”
Before you dismiss this criticism as overly simplistic or somehow lacking in credibility, humbly listen to what the next generation is actually saying. Love of Christ, love of one another and humility should compel us to try and understand why so many young people and Christians, in particular, feel the way they do. In my own frequent interactions with younger serious-minded Christians—many of whom invigorate me by their enthusiasm and zeal for Christ—I often find that they are very turned off and even angered by the watered-down, politicized, shallow, culturalized Christianity that has come to dominate American evangelicalism. According to Kinnamon and Lyons, “The Christian life looks so simplified and constricted that a new generation no longer recognizes it as a sophisticated, livable response to a complex word.”
This younger generation of Christians is simply and rightfully frustrated by the fact that this very real condition serves to inhibit their efforts to share the love of Christ with others. In other words, contemporary American Christianity carries with it a lot of negative baggage. So much so that “they feel raising the ‘Christian flag’ would actually undermine their ability to connect with people and maintain credibility with them.” And so, they feel they must “distance themselves from the current ‘branding’ of Christianity.” (Kinnamon & Lyons)
I can tell you from the perspective of one who spends a great deal of time engaged with those outside the faith; a significant portion of any conversation begins with me making apologies for the many misrepresentations of Christianity, the abuses suffered at the hands of misguided Christians, and correcting their many misconceptions—this—just so I can get to any meaningful dialogue. I can fully appreciate the need to “distance” one’s self from the mainstream “brand” of Christianity in order to earn any credibility with the person to whom I am speaking.
This generation sees what many are only recently coming to realize; the Church is in a pathetic state of decadence and decay. It is, to a large degree, fragmented, watered-down, and retreating from cultural relevancy. Biblical and theological ignorance, cultural apathy, and social indifference are a plague upon the American Church and what passes for Christianity in many circles is often a mere shadow of historic orthodox Christianity or worse something altogether different.
I recently spoke with a young man who is training to be a pastor. He was absolutely heartbroken and angry at the state of the Church. He laments the culturalized Christianity that surrounds him. He described the Christian culture where he lives as one in which “So many people live their lives avoiding hell instead of seeking the kingdom of God.” I think he makes an excellent point: for many American Christians; the purpose of their faith is ultimately bound up in going to heaven when they die. In the meantime the real world, the one into which Christ’s kingdom has come and is coming is ignored and the Christian’s purpose abandoned. We end up living for ourselves instead of for Christ. As I have said before, the gospel is more than just the personal plan of salvation; it is more accurately as the Lord himself said, the “good news” of the kingdom. The former has led to narrowly programmed evangelism; the latter fulfills the great commission by means of the two greatest commandments.
What concerns me most is that this reaction among young evangelicals is fraught with peril as are all reactive movements. On the one hand they can, in an effort to accommodate the increasingly antagonistic culture, become so generous in their orthodoxy that they compromise the faith. On the other hand, they can become so angry toward the Church that they fall into an un-biblical ecclesiology that encourages revolution instead of reformation. Both movements are in place right now and their respective “leaders” are gaining converts. In either case, the results will no doubt be destructive.
I believe the Lord is awakening many in this generation. They seek an authentic, life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ and they understand His lordship extends to every aspect of life and culture. I can’t tell you how often I encounter this positive spiritual theme and yet it is almost always accompanied by an equal frustration with the present Church.
What is desperately needed is spiritual wisdom that can carefully guide this generation between these two extremes toward real and orthodox reformation. The younger generation can offer insight that can properly contextualize the full gospel in such a way that it is once again relevant and our generation can provide sound guidance that preserves and promotes a love for Christ’s Church and orthodox theology. We must be willing to listen to each other, to learn and work together being of one mind and one spirit. This we must do for the sake of the Church and the next generation.
________________________________________________
S. Michael Craven is the President of the Center for Christ & Culture, a ministry of discipleship and Church renewal that works to equip Christians with an intelligent, thoroughly Christian and missional approach to culture. For more information on the Center for Christ & Culture, additional resources, and other works by S. Michael Craven visit: www.battlefortruth.org
Monday, March 03, 2008
Anna's Note on Human Traffiking
Everyone: Please read this carefully and methodically. What I am writing I honestly believe is of upmost importance to the heart of the Father. We can be used by Him, partner with him with our prayers and worship to change this situation…… So to get right to it…….I am currently in school getting a degree in political science, and one of my classes this semester is “Human Traffiking and Contempory Slavery”. A sobering subject and quite a party killer! But seriously this thing is so on the heart of God guys, many times in the middle of class I am crazy close to weeping because the Presence and absolute love of God falls on me for his people that are literally(and spiritually) in slavery! We have to be a part of what God is doing in this, I believe so desperately that us crying out to the Father in the midnight hours we can put a stop to this!!!!
Some numbers for you…… 27 million people around the world exist has slaves (sex slaves & labor slaves). 800,000-900,00 NEW people(children of Jesus) are enslaved every year. 80% are women and 50% are children.Selling people is the 3rd largest criminal activity in the world, behind selling illegal drugs and arms. The Int’l Labour Office estimates this generates $32 billion per year .Every year 1 million children forcibly take part in the commercial sex industry. So something that is crazy, and I think just another showing how God has stratigicly placed the Burn.
The other day in class my professor put up a slide showing the “routes” that sex traffikers take victims across the US. The first thing that I noticed was how many of them are where Burns are located or are close too!!!! Here is a short list of some of the cities…..(I have also attached the slide that shows the routes in the US, take a look)Seattle, Sacramento, Denver, Dallas, OKC, Mineapolis/St.Paul, Houston, Detroit, Boston, NYC, Richmond.These are just the major cities!
Most likely, by their proximity to bigger cities, I would guess that every single Burn city has human trafficking go through its limits. And mind you this is only the routes for Sex Trafficking in the US, this doesn’t even include those that are forced into labor. Human Trafficking is something that is happening in our communities, not just overseas!! We need to be lifting this up before the Father!! His children(literally those under 18) are being sold for Sex. His children are being sold to be nannies, and maids, and to pick crops. They are constantly physically, verbally, and sexually abused. We must open our eyes to this, bring this before the Father and plead and interceed for those who can not!! We need to pray that the routes that are taken in and between our cities would be abolished and that the Love of the Father would overtake the traffickers and pimps and that instead routes of the His Presence and His Love would be established!I know that is hardcore guys,, but we need to be hardcore and we need to listen to the heart of the Father for his children. We can be a part of downfall of Trafficking just by Burning!!! Let God Arise and his Enemies be scattered!!!!
No comments
Some numbers for you…… 27 million people around the world exist has slaves (sex slaves & labor slaves). 800,000-900,00 NEW people(children of Jesus) are enslaved every year. 80% are women and 50% are children.Selling people is the 3rd largest criminal activity in the world, behind selling illegal drugs and arms. The Int’l Labour Office estimates this generates $32 billion per year .Every year 1 million children forcibly take part in the commercial sex industry. So something that is crazy, and I think just another showing how God has stratigicly placed the Burn.
The other day in class my professor put up a slide showing the “routes” that sex traffikers take victims across the US. The first thing that I noticed was how many of them are where Burns are located or are close too!!!! Here is a short list of some of the cities…..(I have also attached the slide that shows the routes in the US, take a look)Seattle, Sacramento, Denver, Dallas, OKC, Mineapolis/St.Paul, Houston, Detroit, Boston, NYC, Richmond.These are just the major cities!
Most likely, by their proximity to bigger cities, I would guess that every single Burn city has human trafficking go through its limits. And mind you this is only the routes for Sex Trafficking in the US, this doesn’t even include those that are forced into labor. Human Trafficking is something that is happening in our communities, not just overseas!! We need to be lifting this up before the Father!! His children(literally those under 18) are being sold for Sex. His children are being sold to be nannies, and maids, and to pick crops. They are constantly physically, verbally, and sexually abused. We must open our eyes to this, bring this before the Father and plead and interceed for those who can not!! We need to pray that the routes that are taken in and between our cities would be abolished and that the Love of the Father would overtake the traffickers and pimps and that instead routes of the His Presence and His Love would be established!I know that is hardcore guys,, but we need to be hardcore and we need to listen to the heart of the Father for his children. We can be a part of downfall of Trafficking just by Burning!!! Let God Arise and his Enemies be scattered!!!!
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The Bridge Builder - will allen dromgoole
Jamie gave me this poem describing the reason we are building the House of Prayer and the Burn. Thought I'd pass it on.
An old man, going a lone highway,
Came, at the evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm, vast, and deep, and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fears for him;
But he turned, when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.
"Old man," said a fellow pilgrim, near,
"You are wasting strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again must pass this way;
You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide,
Why build you the bridge at the eventide?"
The builder lifted his old gray head:
"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said,
"There followeth after me today
A youth, whose feet must pass this way."
"This chasm, that has been naught to me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building the bridge for him."
An old man, going a lone highway,
Came, at the evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm, vast, and deep, and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fears for him;
But he turned, when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.
"Old man," said a fellow pilgrim, near,
"You are wasting strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again must pass this way;
You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide,
Why build you the bridge at the eventide?"
The builder lifted his old gray head:
"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said,
"There followeth after me today
A youth, whose feet must pass this way."
"This chasm, that has been naught to me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building the bridge for him."
Monday, February 25, 2008
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
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
Saturday, February 16, 2008
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.
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.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
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.
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
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
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