They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. “Peace, peace,” they say, when there is no peace. (Jeremiah 8:11)

Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. (2 TImothy 4:2-4)

Would someone please challenge my apathy from the pulpit?

“But, you seem like a model disciple!?”

Why?  Because I have a blog about Jesus?  Because I’ve mastered the lingo and syntax of the prayer movement?  Because I lead worship or teach from the scripture?   Please.  Depending upon which hour of the day you run across me I may be apathetic, carnal, spirit-filled, full of faith, or throwing a pity party.  It doesn’t necessarily make me a bad person, you do the same thing.  Whether or not you admit it is your business.  I’m moving from glory to glory, just like everybody else.  The problem is, between glory and glory there is sometimes some inglorious stuff.  It’s just life.

My point is, I have plenty of room for improvement.  I also happen to like it when I get a man (or woman) in the pulpit who will come straight at my apathy and religiosity and speak truth from the Word of God that hurts so much it compels me to repent, change, grow, and mature.  The problem is, nobody is doing that.  Seriously.  It’s been months since I heard a sermon that truly challenged me.  It’s mostly been rainbows and daisies and cuddly puppies and sunshine. 

It’s bad enough that I have to come home and google the two or three guys in the world that I know are bringing the heat just so I can hear a fresh, anointed, spirit-filled message that will challenge me to move beyond where I am.

Please hear my heart on this issue.  If the world were a place of daisies and rainbows and sunshine, then I could justify preaching to that effect.   The problem is, when I look around I see death, decay, immorality, and compromise.  Even in the church.  That’s not the whole picture.  There are victories, and advancement is happening, but people are preaching peace when there is no peace.  “But don’t we need balance in the pulpit?” you ask.  Balance is a buzz word for compromise in this context.  We don’t want to preach the word because the word will cause somebody to get offended…..and it’s August…..and attendance is down because everybody is on vacation in the summer…..and we have to keep our tithes up….so we can’t afford to offend anybody……

Now, I have a prayer life.  So I don’t necessarily need men in a pulpit to challenge me.  God challenges me, and I respond, because we have a relationship.  The problem is, so many people are still relying on the preacher to spoon feed them the word of God, and preachers are responding with namby-pamby sermonettes.

Here’s another problem:

If you claim to be in a five-fold office, you ought to know that the church doesn’t need to hear you speak every Sunday for two straight years, unless you claim to be in all five offices simultaneously, in which case I invite you to recognize that you are not, in fact, Jesus.

Yep.  I said it. 

Half of the problem is when we have so-called “Kingdom” churches where one-fifth of the ministry grace is dominating the pulpit every Sunday.  You let the “pastoral” grace dominate the preaching, and you wonder why nobody has any zeal.  You let the Apostle talk every time the doors are open, and you wonder why nobody has any depth of understanding.  Hello.  There are teachers, evangelists, and prophets who have a role to play in this scenario. 

OK.  I’m done.  It’s my blog, so I reserve the right to rant once in a while.  I attend several churches regularly, so nobody get their feelings hurt, uhm k?

¹¹“Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.

 ¹²“Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:11-12)

I was meditating on this scripture today and the thought occurred to me that if I were to preach the pure, unadulterated Word of God the way that Jesus preached it, many people would not like me.  Jesus uttered these words out of a foreknowledge of what his disciples would go through.  Many would be crucified, beheaded, burned, tortured, murdered and exhiled for preaching the pure Word of God and the good news of the resurrection of Christ.  Do we really think so much has changed in the past centuries?

The only thing that has changed is our gospel.

Of course the Gospel of the Kingdom has not changed, but we have changed it into a thing that is less offensive, more culture-friendly, more politically correct, and infinately less powerful.  Damon Thompson put it like this:

“If you’ve been preaching for 20 years in your town and you’re the most popular guy around, you’re doing it wrong.”

Now there’s a thought.  Jesus preached for three years and made enough enemies that he was brutally beaten, rejected by the masses, and crucified, mostly just so he would shut up (at least from the perspective of the religious leaders).  What effect should the truth have on our culture after an additional two thousand years of humanistic degradation?  I submit that truth applied to our culture will elicit at least as violent a response as it did in Jesus’ time. 

That begs the question:  what are we putting out there in our sermons?  Every time I see Jesus preaching the word, people are leaving with all sorts of emotions.  Some are happy, sad, glad, mad, and overwhelmed.  And we think we’re being radical when we challenge our Sunday morning congregations to tithe or pray?  We think we’re being radical when we slip in an off-hand remark about the homosexual agenda or abortion?  Please.  Our people aren’t even challenged enough to be uncomfortable.  They aren’t even complaining. 

Hear me, the goal is not to cause people to be uncomfortable or complain against us, but Jesus put it out there like it was an obvious and unavoidable side effect of preaching truth.  So, where is your persecution?  Where’s mine?  Are we really as radical as we think we are, or is there yet another layer to the faith onion that needs to be peeled away?

Lloyd Phillips –Lloyd is an apostolic and prophetic voice that is a good friend of my faith family.  We are definately memebers of the same “tribe,” and I defer to him as a mentor, although we really haven’t spent that much time together.  His blog covers spiritual and political matters and is updated about once per month. 

The Paraclete’s Hammer –David McNelly is a brother from another mother, so to speak.  We go back like Converse high tops, having attended the same school and grown up in the same small town.  David is a theological genius of staggering proportions, waiting to be discovered by the world at large.  Friend him now before he blows up and gets international.  Also, if you don’t know what a Paraclete is, I suggest a word study.

Brad Hayes –I can’t say that I’m really close friends with Brad Hayes, but we associate with one another via facebook and IHOP Jax.  I like the spirit on this guy, and I highly recommend following his blogging efforts. 

That’s it.  Just a quick post to recommend a few friends.

I titled this post “The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing” because these thoughts first occured to me while reading A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, in the middle of a chapter called “The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing.”  I began to ponder what it might mean to actually possess nothing, and whether that is something that God would truly call me to do.

What things do I allow to sit upon the throne of my heart, usurping the rightful place of a Holy God?

Well, my kids for sure.  I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I couldn’t sacrifice them if the Lord called me to do it.  I often wonder how Abraham brought himself to do it.  Paul tells us that he had faith in God, and that if God slayed the boy he would surely raise him from the dead.  If you look more closely at the situation, you will see that Abraham had enthroned the promise on his heart at the expense of the one who promised it, and God was merely setting the order of things right.  Of course, we don’t sacrifice children in this day and age, but what if the Lord wanted to martyr them on the missions field, and the result would be an entire people group coming to the knowledge of God?  Would I consent?  Would I harbor bitter anger against God the rest of my days?

What about my riches?  My car.  My television.  My clothes.  Do any of these things prevent me from placing God on the throne of my heart?  One thing we learned from Abrahams story is that when stuff gets put on the throne of your heart, even very good stuff (his son, the promise, etc) it’s fair game to be put on the chopping block by the Lord.  He is called jealous, jealous, and He won’t relent. 

I’ve been trying my best to be more loving, more pastoral, more concerned for the people of God, and the Lord has been doing a work in me to that effect, but I have to make a blunt and honest statement or risk losing my credibility: 

I am sick to death with the materialistic nonsense in the Western church.

How on earth can I justify building another brick and mortar enclosure, and paying millions of dollars for it, when there are people called to the missions field who have not been equipped and financed?  How can I spend $500 on the montly church barbeque and give $25 per month to the missionary “as God enables?”  The list goes on and on.

How can I put $100 shoes on my feet when children in Africa have never had a pair?

How can I eat a $50 meal when 26,000 children will die today of starvation and preventable disease?  Think about it.  If similar conditions existed in our country, every child in our church would be dead by the time you finish reading this sentence.

How can I build a sanctuary when there are homeless people all over the face of the earth?

I’m asking myself as much as anybody else.  At least I’m prepared to do something about it.  I’m not bashing anybody’s building project either, so don’t start in on me about that.  If the shoe fits, wear it.  If the Holy Spirit convicts, respond to it.  Maybe you could do another service or two during the day instead of building a million dollar sanctuary?  The irony of the situation is that once you possess nothing, you can have anything.  This is what I’m learning in this season of separation that I’ve been going through where the Lord requires me to give up my stuff, one thing at a time.  I really don’t need anything. 

I think I’d like to come to America when my family returns from the missions field one day and build a church here.  I’d like to put it in a tent.  A great big, hot, open-air tent.  I’d like to give 75% of the revenue to missions.  I’d like to send people and finances.  You’re probably thinking “nobody would come.”  I’ll bet that you’re wrong.  I’ll bet that people want to break with their selfish “american dream syndrome” as much as God wants them to break free from it.  I bet they would give more, complain less, and show up even when it rained.  I’ll just bet they would.

The language in the US Constitution from the First Ammendment that separates church and state is as follows: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Any reasonable person who knows a bit of history and can read the Constitutional clause can see that it was not the intent of the founding fathers to separate morality from decision making, but rather to prevent the establishment of a state religion for the purpose of tyranny as had been done in England.

In short, separation of church and state is necessary, but separation of God from government is foolish and impractical.

In many cases, the refusal of the church to participate in actively governing the the country results in a moral majority in favor of rebellion against the things of God. Hence, righteousness lays fallen in the street, not because God has judged America *yet, but because His people refuse to govern in accordance with the principles of righteousness.

 ”By the transgression of a land many are its princes, But by a man of understanding and knowledge, so it endures. (Proverbs 28:2)”

Transgressions, by their nature, are rebellions against the established laws of God. The scripture teaches us that our rebellions against the laws of creation result in “many princes,” also known as big government. Bloated, beaurocratic government is the result of iniquity in the land, which is empowered when believers fail in their obligation to rule in accordance with God’s law and the law of the land. Man’s solution for lack of morality is more government, more control, etc. Isn’t the gospel the real answer to this dilema? Don’t we have the authority (as citizens and believers) to establish the gospel in our government?

My personal opinion is that oil spills, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc are all related to the vacated position of rule left open by the people of God as “All creation groans,” but that is another topic for another day.

“See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

I began to meditate upon Elijah and the miracles that he did.  Some of them were quite cool.  That bit about calling down fire from heaven was awesome beyond measure.  He also raised the boy from the dead.  He also multiplied the flower and oil for the widow in Zarephath.  And yet the scripture from Malachi makes mention of none of these significant demonstrations of power when speaking of the Spirit of Elijah that will be infused into the end-times church.  Instead it talks about……fatherhood?

I believe that, from the perspective of the Lord, the most significant miracle that Elijah ever did was raise up a spiritual son with a double-portion anointing. 

Legacy is not a vain pursuit.  We should endeavor to empower our spiritual children to embrace the fullness of the revelation and power that we possess at an early enough age so that they can ultimately surpass what we have done and attain new plunder in the kingdom.  I believe that the “curse” mentioned in the verse is of the Midianite variety:  where would-be spiritual fathers are forced to lie on their death beds and watch an invader take their spiritual harvest from them because they lacked covenant sons to possess the promise. 

It seems as if we’ve almost never had two consecutive generations that, as a whole, have advanced beyond the spiritual authority of their fathers.  I believe we will soon see, and may already be seeing, a generation that will do just that.  I for one am excited about the prospects.

Simply put, when I am around prophetic people, I find that grace to prophesy “rubbing off” on me, and I become more functional in prophetic ministry.  When I spend a great deal of time with extremely pastoral people, all love and sobbing passion, I become more sensitive to the needs of others and in-tune with how Christ regards his people in need.  Am I just that impressionable?  I doubt it.

This is what I believe Paul was describing in the following passage:

¹¹For I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you, that you may be established;

 ¹²that is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other’s faith, both yours and mine. (Romans 1:11-12)

I believe that there is provision for actual impartation of grace from one person to another.  I believe the effect is further intensified when apostolic teams are formed including all of the five fold graces.  Each individual becomes part of a much greater synergistic whole.  This is what is meant by “every joint supplieth.” 

Joints are the places where various body parts come together.  Community is the context for the release of outrageous grace, much of it supplied by heaven and some of it contributed by the gifts of individuals contributing to the whole.  The resulting effect should be an environment of signs, wonders, and miracles brought about by a loving God with an eye towards the combined grace of cooperating people.

I hear a lot of people talking about revolution these days. Usually, I hear it in a context similar to the following:

“We don’t need religion, we need revolution.”

If by revolution you mean a rapid change to a new perspective on life in the Spirit, then I whole heartedly agree with the sentiment. If you mean a radical consecration that the world doesn’t know how to cope with, then we are in kindred spirit. If you mean open rebellion against the Christian establishment, then I’m afraid we are no longer in agreement.

Consider the following: The prayer movement is loosely patterned after the tabernacle of David. You can’t go ten days without hearing a sermon on the Tabernacle of David, or a reference to it, or an illustration about it. That’s cool. I understand the theology around it. But, did you know that David, while worshipping love-sick in the Tabernacle of David, never removed the priests from their divine duties at the tabernacle of the congregation in Gibeon (See 2 Chronicles 1)? In fact, he sent the high priest Zadok to Gibeon (1 Chronicles 16:39) where the Tabernacle of the Congregation was.

What does that mean? It means that David, even in his intense desire to seek the presence of the Lord before the ark of the covenant (this is a metaphor for the prayer movement) didn’t despise the religious establishment of his day (call it the denominational structure, the institutional church, etc). In fact, he took great care to ensure that the establishment was properly administered.

We in the prayer movement have a divine mandate to honor our elders, to minister within the confines of the traditional church, AND to seek the heart of the Lord with ferver and abandon. Our duties as priests and our duties as sons are not mutually exlusive. Revolution is good, and needed in this hour. Rebellion, however, is not of the Lord and should be dealt with as sin at the heart level.

This is just a friendly reminder that we may not, under any circumstances, disrespect or war against the elders of our churches, our pastors, or the older generations, depite their attitude towards the prayer movement and our generation. We will not affect the type of change that we desire to see through rhetoric or rebellion, but through servanthood and love. Living a revolutionary lifestyle means coming before the Lord with a heart to seek his face, as David did, with a right relationship towards the establishment.

I’ve heard the word “judgement” thrown around a lot of late regarding the situation in Haiti.  I’ve heard it said by some people in prominent Bible teaching positions that it was God’s will for Haiti to be destroyed.  While I love and respect these teachers, I have a different perspective altogether.

On the third day of creation, the Lord created the dry land, and along with it the principle of seed time and harvest.  Although the principle of seed time and harvest governs the plants mentioned in Genesis 1:11-12, it is clearly a principle that governs all of the rest of creation as well.  It can be summed up with a simple statement: “Do bad stuff, and bad stuff will happen.”

The principle applies to everything.  Redeemed or unredeemed.  Saved or unsaved.  Kingdom or not.  Every human being is bound by the law of seed time and harvest.  Every nation, civilized or savage, modern or ancient, has felt the pull of this ancient wisdom.  Every major religion recognizes it in one form or another, whether we call it “karma” or “the law of attraction” or “seed time and harvest” makes no difference. It is God’s law.

To say that God willed Haiti to be destroyed flies in the face of scripture.  Consider 2 Peter 3:9 where the writer states, “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”  In light of this statement, must we not conclude that the Lord clearly would not have exerted himself in the destruction of Haiti, since He is not willing that any should perish?

We know that the verse mentioned above from 2 Peter is taken from the context of an exhortation to be watchful for the coming day of the Lord.  I believe this is the proper context for understanding judgement versus seed time and harvest.  There certainly is a coming day when judgement will be the highest order of business on the Lord’s agenda, but until that final day I believe the Lord to be fully engaged in showering mankind with the great mercy he purchased at Calvary.

And yet, despite my high-minded exposition on the subject of mercy, Haiti lay in ruins.  Does this fact counteract my core value declaration that the Lord is always good? 

Remember seed time and harvest.  Even though God’s agenda is mercy, His laws (of natural order and creation) will not be mocked or usurped.  When a city, nation, or people sew seeds of iniquity generation upon generation, the natural law of God will always deliver destruction.  It can be seen in the collapse of every major empire in the history of the World.  It was demonstrated in New Orleans in 2005.  It was demonstrated again in Haiti.

Perhaps this is the “groaning” mentioned in Romans chapter 8?  Perhaps the creation itself and its weather patterns and the movements of the rocks of the Earth and the yielding of the fields are all really related to the righteousness of the people?

Is that insensitive to say?  That unrighteousness could result in calamity?  That God, although He did not actively initiate the calamity, would not step in to stop it?  Let us consult the scriptures and draw a history on the topic. 

No.  I do not believe God judged Haiti.  I believe Haiti judged itself by planting seeds of Vodoo and witchcraft and idolotry and nominal Christianity.  Let it be a lesson to the rest of us.

I’m not saying I’ve got it all figured out.  I’m just saying that I don’t see this type of overt action in the person of Christ until the last day.  That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

The critical question for our generation–and for every generation–is this:  If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends that you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?

I’m living for the reality of a generation rising that will forsake all else for the sake of knowing Him.  I’m exceedingly zealous toward that end.  All over the earth people are arising who are saying, “Nothing is right, nothing is worthy, nothing is entertaining enough for me without the person of Christ.”

Is the church to be relegated to the buildings in which we gather and the ceremonies that we perform, or will we once again connect to Jesus and begin to transform the world from the inside out.  I believe it’s already happening.