“Why are you crying out to me?” said God to Moses. “Lift up your staff … divide the sea …”
God does not answer prayers that he has already given us the authority to answer ourselves, i.e., binding and loosing/heaven to earth (Matt. 18:18), tearing down strongholds of the enemy that hold back blessing (2 Cor. 10:3-5), destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3;8), being impervious to harm (Luke 10:19), taking authority over earthly issues (the weapons of our warfare 2 Cor. 10).
God’s job is love and joy. These He dispenses freely and extravagantly; even embarassingly at times flowing like the full rushing river that heaven is. He takes our dignity and gives us laughter at inopportune moments. Then He laughs! He, of course, has the best sense of humor in the universe.
Our relationship then, when we come into the Presence of Jesus is not to bring Him a list of needs (He expects that we have used the tools he provided us and that we have already taken care of those), but to bow in dumb-struck adoration of the Majesty that paralyzes human flesh. For this stance, He has waited patiently. Our present atmosphere has opened this portal to the delight of heaven, and in relentless exuberant joy, heaven will not allow that portal to be closed again.
Literally tens of thousands of young people, worldwide, have discovered heaven in all its splendor. The Holy Spirit began pouring out a new thing late last century. The momentum has been building for some decades and is reaching the ‘tipping point,’ that place where the uphill push is over and the boulder heads downhill now of its own free will.
Doom and gloom prophets miss God’s promise to ‘heal our land’ if we seek His face. Just to stand in some of the present day Jesus Concerts with between 20,000 and 30,000 youth is life-changing. Their heavenly permission slip is to demand as much of God as they can handle . . . and God is overjoyed to pour out more than they think they can handle. This phenomena is not only America. Seventy thousand worshippers overwhelmed the Cave Church in Cairo on the Global Day of Prayer spilling into every neighborhood around the huge 20,000 seat auditorium.
This was a spiritual earthquake in a muslim nation whose future hang on the edge – not of prayer, but what God’s warriors will do with the tools He provided them.
Jesus would not have rebuked his disciples over the storm if they were not able to quiet it. That would be cruel . . . Jesus very nature is love of the heavenly quality.
“…I don’t fight as one that beats the air…” 1 Cor. 9:26.
He wanted them to understand who they were. Jesus diadactic on His last night with His disciples in John 13-17 is the meat of the Kingdom. His statement in 16:26 “…I’m not telling you that I will make requests to the Father on your behalf, for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and believe that I have come from God,” is one of the most stunning Scriptures in the New Testament. Coupled with His prayer in chapter 17, all flesh should stand “undone.”
Read Jesus prayer over and over. Study it. Meditate upon it. Give yourself in love to its message knowing that oneness and love are flowing from those words into your heart and spirit. A love we have yet to adequately grasp. A love that makes us one as Jesus and God are one. There is no time for relearning the basics of the Bible . . . it is time to step up to the sea, take your staff in hand and divide the sea. Then settle back in the arms of love and simply say, “Dad, look what I did!!!”
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The Islamic Revolution launched in 1979 by Iran may have just come of age.
Is this a “chaos” dry run, or is it the real thing? According to Islamic sources, a Messianic figure will emerge in the last days to save humanity from itself by instituting the pure religion, Islam, as the dominating religion. Chaos and unrest are prerequisites for this figure to emerge from his place of hiding and announce to the Islamic world that it is time to wage the final war leaving Islam standing among the rubble.
Islam calls this messianic figure “The Mahdi.” Tradition is that he disappeared from the Shi’ia stream of Islam (Muhammad’s family line) in the 10th century and lies in hiding for the proper time to emerge. The prerequisites for that revealing are:
- Oppression of human rights
- Economic injustice and oppression
- Compromise and restriction of the pure religion (Islam)
Although there is no real Mahdi, the concept is explosive and ancient. It was probably borrowed from Christianity and Judaism when Muhammad established Islam in 630 A.D. in Medina and Mecca. Although the stream of Islam known as Shi’ite Islam is the most radical in this belief, both currents expect his appearance in the end of time.
The demonstrations have even spread to NYC today and other cities around the world. Many would ask how an Egyptian national problem could erupt into such a widespread conflagration. The push of Islam; a once world empire seeks to reestablish itself as just that – a world empire. Though the Egyptian uprising may have been local, the underlying causes echo the triggers for the emergence of the Mahdi. What may not have started as the cue for the Mahdi to reveal himself, may in fact escalate into that.
The saving grace in previous emergences of The Mahdi (rent these movies: The Four Feathers, and Khartoum) is that there is no unifying cohesion within Islam. In fact there is division and rivalry with murderous potential.
History has lessons to offer if we are willing. The British faced the Mahdi in Africa under famed commander Charles Gordon, after which Gordon’s Calvary, Jesus’ crucifixion site, was named in Jerusalem. His end in Khartoum was at the hands of a self-proclaimed Mahdi in the 1800s.
Prayer for internal strife is the second best strategy. Loving Muslims into the light of God’s Kingdom is prime focus. African Islam is losing 700 souls to Christianity per hour according to Libya’s President of the Sharia University in Tripoli. Al-Jezeera News interviewed him over 16,000.000 Muslims converting to Christianity per annum. Islam is trembling at the costly advance of God’s Kingdom of deliverance there.
We are surely being called upon to activate our deepest spiritual capabilities in this hour. Our time to shine has come. It may be the first time in history when the real solution is at hand: a revolutionary revival of God’s love and grace by ‘seeking His face’ and reaping the Scriptural benefit of that simple act of adoration.
“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land(s).” 2 Chron 7:14 (plural added).
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Linticular cloud over New Zealand
The word I received for the year 2011:
“This year I am overtaking you. I am overpowering you and overwhelming you.
“This year the operative word is ‘over.’
“You will be over your afflictions as I overshadow you.
“You will overturn your world as my affections for you over come you.
“You asked not just for more of Me, but all of Me.
“You cannot contain all of Me but I will enfold all of you.
“It would be impossible to over emphasize my love for you.
“I will oversee your depth in My love to take you places you have never been in My Spirit.
“My Summer harvest will overshadow any traces of Winter in your spirit.
“Over abundance of fruit will be yours.
“Overpowering provision will come to you.
“Over and over I will allow you to plumb the depths of Me without measure. There you will receive gifts to use and impart.
“You will overcome and overturn the camp of the enemy in your family.
“Their captivity is over under your hand – ‘what you decide will be done. At your word I will lift up the downcast. You will deliver even those not innocent by the cleanness of your own hands (Job 22 [end]).
“Overcome My Bride, My Sons, My Beloved.”
“OVERs” of the Word:
The Lord rejoiced over you to do you good.
The cloud stood over the door of the tabernacle
Pass over into the land
Dominion over all the earth
God made a wind to pass over the earth
Let people serve you and nations bow down to you; be lord over your brethren
As he passed over Peniel the sun rose upon him
Shall you indeed reign over us?
He made him overseer over all he had
You shall be over my house
I have set you over all the land of Egypt
Stretch out your hand over the streams, over the rivers, over the ponds
I will pass over you
Place such over them to be rulers over, 1,000; 100s, 50s, 10s
Before the golden covering which is over the Ark of Testimony where I will meet you
Wings over the mercy seat
You shall not rule over with rigor, but in the fear of God
You shall blow the trumpet over your offerings
Over peace offerings
Your cloud stands over them
Let the Lord, the God of all flesh set a man over the congregation
You shall rule over many nations but they shall not rule over you
He that rules over men must be just in the fear of God
Solomon, a wise son over this great people
Cherubim wings over the Ark
Faithful over a few things; ruler over many
The Lord made me have dominion over the mighty
Rule over us
The people made him head captain over them
Spread you robe over your handmaiden
My mouth is enlarged over my enemies
David prevailed over the Philistine
Saul set him over the men of war
By you I have leaped over a wall
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What does God really want us to call Him? This question has been a controversial flash point in the body for some years now with a wide spectrum of emotion attached ranging from studious curiosity to factionalism. However, it really is a simple issue. It came home to me in Jerusalem.
Our visiting professor of linguistics at the Jerusalem University College was put on the spot over pronunciation of the Name. It was the mid 1990s and in the Hebrew course I was taking we had a guest speaker who was a linguistic scholar of notable standing. A student almost immediately asked the question of how to pronounce God’s name.
The professor’s reaction was one of mild irritation, however he answered so beautifully it needs to be relayed. He related what most of us already knew, and that is that no one really knows exactly how to pronounce the four letter name of God recorded in the Scriptures “Yod Heh Vav Heh”. “But,” he said, “If you want me to pronounce the way they would most likely be, it would be something like Ya-ho-wah.” The deflation of the student was almost visible. He was expecting something else.
The fact of the matter is that the Name of God is really transcendent. The four letter name is the perfect combination of past, present and future tense of the verb “TO BE.” It would be impossible to really pronounce that. In fact, the modern Hebrew language does not use the verb ‘to be’ in present tense at all. It is conspicuously absent. One says, “I go to the store” instead of “I am going to the store.” When Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, the ones leading the mob were temple guards and temple police though they had some Roman soldiers with them. They were Jewish, Hebrew speaking guards and police. It makes no sense that he would speak to them in Greek. His answer, “I am He,” knocked them all down backward. Something more than meets the eye was going on. The man with all the power had just pronounced the Name of power.
Hebrew did not always have vowel markings. The continuous presence of Jewish people in the Holy Land guaranteed the language would stay pure. However, Roman destruction came in waves between 70 AD and 150 AD. When it came time to put vowel markings to Hebrew so the Jewish people would not forget how to pronounce the language (at the Roman occupation of Israel, destruction of Jerusalem, renaming the holy city Aelia Capitolina and driving the Jews from the city and many from the country), they chose to use the vowel markings of the word Adonai (Master or Lord) with the four letters of the Hebrew name – whence Yahweh came into being (Jehovah being a Greek pronunciation). But, that is not the pronunciation of the four letter name. So, we are in trouble when we cross scholarly lines as laymen and proclaim to know that name.
What about names?
God revealed Himself by many names in the First Covenant, one of which is my favorite. “Jealous.”
“For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name [is] Jealous, [is] a jealous God.” Exodus 34:14. God is interested in relational intimacy with His followers. Jealousy is such an ungodly emotion, yet, God Almighty declares His name to be Jealous. I’m loving it.
So, let’s take the issue to Scripture. Jesus revealed the extent of that intimacy with his life and death. Just before his crucifixion, in such great duress in the garden that he was sweating great drops of blood, he addressed God intimately. His choice of names is astounding; Jesus called Him Abba.
Three verses reveal that intimacy in increasing degrees of importance:
Mar 14:36 And he said, Abba, Father, all things [are] possible unto you; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but your will.
Jesus himself leads our way into the arms of our heavenly Father with the child-like label: Abba.
Rom 8:15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
Who is the Spirit of adoption who also causes us to cry out like Jesus, Abba, Father? The next usage in the New Covenant tells us.
Gal 4:6 And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
The final word on the Name of God is coming from God himself via His Spirit who dwelling in the depths of our spirits, cries out Abba, Father. The place to really have this branded on your soul is the everyday streets of Jerusalem where small children are heard everywhere crying out: “Oogah Abba!” i.e., “Can I have some cake Daddy?”
So, in the controversy, I choose intimacy. I understand that God is loving, tolerant, and eternally interested in us. And it may come as a surprise to some that Jesus will have a new name that has not even been revealed yet according to the book of Revelation.
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Van Gogh painted several empty chairs. Were they statements about a distant God?
For Christmas I received the coffee table edition of the complete works of Vincent Van Gogh. He is my all-time favorite artist.
The introduction had an assessment of the underlying influence of the 19th and 20th Centuries on artists. I fairly consistently mistrust art critics and authors who imagine they ‘know’ what an artist was thinking when he or she painted. However, this introduction arrested my attention and set me on several hours of reflecting on the big picture. Let me just share his views and what that means to the sparks of creativity that are flooding the present new move of God’s Holy Spirit.
I must first say that Vincent Van Gogh’s letters to his brother Theo Van Gogh are worth reading if you are interested in the inner workings of the artists mind. The name of the book is “Dear Theo.”
Van Gogh’s empty chairs, according to the book, were a subliminal outworking of the influence of the times; an absent God.
Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings
Ingo F. Walther and Rainer Metzger
“The Austrian art historian Hans Sedlmayr gives the title, ‘The Vacant Throne’ to the final chapter of an essay he wrote in cultural criticism called The Loss of the Centre.’ Sedlmayr writes: “It must be added that the artists have been among those who suffered the most in the 19th and 20th centuries, the very people whose task it has been to render the Fall of Man and of his world in their terrible visions. In the 19th century there was an altogether new type of suffering artist: the lonely, lost, despairing artist on the brink of insanity. It was a type that previously only occurred in isolated instances, if that.
“The 19th century aritsts, great and profound minds, often have the character of victims who sacrifice themselves. From Holderlin, Goya, Friedrich, Runge and Kleist through Daumier, Stifter, Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky to van Gogh, Strindberg and Trakl there was a line of solidarity in suffering at the hands of the times. All of them suffered from the fact that God was remote, and ‘dead’, and Man debased.”
(Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s declaration that God was dead ushered in those ‘times’. “God is dead” does not mean that Nietzsche believed in an actual God who first existed and then died in a literal sense. It may be more appropriate to consider the statement as Nietzsche’s way of saying that the conventional Christian God is no longer a viable source of any absolute moral principles. Nietzsche recognizes the crisis which the death of God represents for existing moral considerations, because “When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one’s feet. This morality is by no means self-evident… By breaking one main concept out of Christianity, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: nothing necessary remains in one’s hands.” This is why in “The Madman”, a passage which primarily addresses non-theists (especially atheists), the problem is to retain any system of values in the absence of a divine order.
The death of God is a way of saying that humans are no longer able to believe in any such cosmic order since they themselves no longer recognize it. The death of God will lead, Nietzsche says, not only to the rejection of a belief of cosmic or physical order but also to a rejection of absolute values themselves — to the rejection of belief in an objective and universal moral law, binding upon all individuals. In this manner, the loss of an absolute basis for morality leads to nihilism. This nihilism is that for which Nietzsche worked to find a solution by re-evaluating the foundations of human values. This meant, to Nietzsche, looking for foundations that went deeper than Christian values.”
Nietzsche believed that the majority of people did not recognize this death out of the deepest-seated fear or angst. Therefore, when the death did begin to become widely acknowledged, people would despair and nihilism would become rampant. This is partly why Nietzsche saw Christianity as nihilistic. He may have seen himself as a historical figure like Socrates or Jesus, giving a new philosophical orientation to future generations to overcome the impending nihilism).”
Present day prophets and seers have seen that God’s hammer on the anvil of creativity has sent sparks flying in all directions. Those sparks are setting fires in the arts like unto the Church’s Renaissance mandate to declare in paint and music the glory of God and His intervention into the history of mankind.
Therefore, it is our age of creativity – our reception of the spark – that should “render the reconciliation of mankind”, not the “Fall of Man”. Our rise to a heavenly perspective has unleashed a creativity that affirms that God is not only ‘not dead’ but that He is pouring Himself out on man on a thousand levels; elevating, honoring, saving, empowering, and allowing us to partner with Him.
We are ushering in the upside down world where you die to live, you give to receive. We are flipping the world’s philosophies to view them in absolute reverse context that will open the gates of heaven to mankind in a holy rush of heaven wind. We are taking back all our stolen goods. The New Age cannot keep what it has perverted. One needs only to search “Google Images” and type in ‘angels’ to see that this host of God’s messengers whose mandate is to help mankind, have been hijacked into deep perversion. That day is over as the upside down world portrays them as they are.
The move is on. It is rare that the world recognizes when it is in monumental change. Plato’s words (misquoted by the way), “When the mode of the music changes, the walls of the city shake” are applicable. The music is changing and the walls are shaking. The night the Beatles sang on the Ed Sullivan Show, many knew a major change was in the wind. The following years were historically revolutionary. The next mode change was “Love Song” and the world flipped upside down again. The repairers of the breach were loosed upon the earth and millions were swept into the Kingdom of Light.
Listen closely. Bridal intimacy is the mode change now and it is sweeping the earth. It will use paint, guitar strings, glue, light, sound, voices, pen and ink, Photoshop, Garage Band, cyberspace, keyboards, prayer positions, intercession… the world is convulsing-not yet like it will-but the world is convulsing.
Welcome the Upside-Down World!
Acts 17:6
“But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers of the city, crying out, ‘These who have turned the world upside down have come here too'” (emphasis added).
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Ruth Bell Graham published a Christmas card with an amazing message about to whom God chooses to appear and why. Ruth wrote:
“Those were no ordinary sheep, no common flocks, huddled in sleep among the fields, the layered rocks, near Bethlehem that night, but those selected for the Temple sacrifice, theirs to atone for sins they had not done.
“How right the angels should appear to them That Night!
“Those were no usual shepherds there, but outcast shepherds whose unusual care of special sheep made it impossible to keep Rabbinic law, which therefore banned them.
“How right the angels should appear to them That Night!” – Ruth Bell Graham
Alfred Edersheim, an amazing scholar who lived between 1825 and 1889 first wrote about those shepherds and sheep in his book, The Temple. (Available at Amazon.com). Few others have made mention of this beautiful story in Christmas sermons, however, the info below is from Vinings Church in Atlanta Georgia. This is the essence of the Christmas story. This is God’s character in every age – He who changes not. Thanks to you all at Vinings!
………………..
Open your Bibles to Luke 2 and get ready to have some church with me. Read Luke 2:1-20.
This is the story of the events that took place before the birth of the Messiah who had been prophesied since the beginning of the Story of God in Genesis 3:15. The shepherds were watching these sheep at night and the sky opened with light. Suddenly there is a host of angels proclaiming “The Savior has been born in Bethlehem!”
These shepherds were special. A scholar named Alfred Edersheim first shed light on this last century, and other commentators since, but it is rarely shared in Christmas sermons today. Many of you know believers of God brought animal sacrifices to the temple before the time of Jesus. So at the time of Luke 2 (Jesus’ birth) this practice was still going on. They brought sheep, doves, goats, cows…to the temple to pay for sins committed the previous week. But you couldn’t bring just any sheep, goat or animal. They had to be your best. Unspotted. Unblemished. The sacrifices made were a substitute, a reminder, that one day the prophesied Messiah would be beaten and killed for their sins, once and for all.
Three things you need to know.
First, since some came from far away, they couldn’t bring their animals. Merchants were waiting at the temple to sell animals to these distant travelers.
Second, you didnt watch sheep at night. Shepherds would graze their sheep during the day so they could see wolves and other predators coming to pick off their sheep. They brought them into pens at night for protection. But here these shepherds are watching their flock at night! Why? These sheep were the sheep for temple sacrifice. They were not only unblemished, but they had to stay out at all hours exposed to predators to be worthy of sacrifice. The sheep these men were watching were the sheep prepared for temple sacrifice.
Third, shepherds were already looked down upon. It was a lowly job. You smelled. People didnt want to be around you. But these men were asked to keep the sheep full time and in shifts. Somebody had to do it. It was likely a group of 8 who would sleep on rotation in the watch towers (like “tree stands” for hunters today). The religious leaders (not God) put a restriction on these men because they kept the sheep prepared for temple sacrifice, they were not allowed to bring any kind of sacrifice at all to the temple. They had never made a sacrifice for their sins at the temple because they were “the most unworthy of Shepherds.”
This means these shepherds did not know their status with God. Others could bring their animal sacrifice in, and even buy the sheep these men had watched, but they themselves were not allowed to sacrifice because of a rule the religious leaders had instituted. Surely this all loving God would not condemn these men, but after all, God did require animal sacrifice for the atonement of sins. “So what is our status with God?”
It was to these very men God made the first announcement the Messiah had been born, saying “….peace to men on Earth, on whom his favor rests.” God’s answer? “You are worried about where you sit with me? I want you to be the first to know my favor is upon you shepherds, and to all men. Peace can come to your hearts.”
This wasn’t coincidence that God allowed the announcement of the Saviors birth to come first to them.
Now the favor of God is with men. Emmanuel, “God with us.” He came and dwelt among us to be the final and full sacrifice, so that every person who believes in Him for the penalty of their sins will not have to worry about their status with God (peace).
As you enjoy your church’s Christmas eve service, as you listen to the radio’s Christmas music, as you read the Christmas story with your family Christmas eve night, relax. Your status with God is known. Jesus’ sacrifice means your sins are paid for (past, present, future). God looks at you and sees the perfection of his Son and his eyes are filled with Love for you. Romans 8:1, There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. All worry and stress is over, You can have peace.
Jesus is the central character in the Story of God. All salvation to Old Testament believers was given by faith in his future sacrifice, all salvation to believers since his coming is given by faith in his past sacrifice. Christmas is the season that celebrates the birth of the Savior of the Story of God, which you are very much a part of.
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Albert Durer, famed for "Praying Hands" also drew the feet of his art school roommate. I prefer the face-down position.
I love the hearts of the burning ones. God is raising up an elite force of Nazarites for what’s coming on the horizon. Not everyone is a commando. Not everyone will be a forward troop scout. Not everyone wants to burn and to be burned to the ground, bulldozed and foundation torn up so HE can rebuild. But, there are those determined and destined for it.
Its not a call to pride that you are elite, its about hiddenness. Five star generals who move the troops from the secret place without acclaim and fame. Lovers of the ‘star shaper’ who tattooed our names on His hands.
What is coming on the horizon? It’s a powerful move of the Holy Spirit like never before. The move will need monitoring and training of those who are about to be snatched out of the dark kingdom into light.
Here is what I heard about it:
A PERSONAL WORD FROM THE LORD:
“I am now stacking wood on bonfires throughout the world.
That wood is:
– Outcries from My people for more of Me.
– Cries for healing for the sick, lame, and blind.
– Cries as intercessors walk the streets of their neighborhoods begging for revival.
– Cries for outpouring so powerful that people will be seen running into churches from the streets.
– Cries for new fire that will eclipse past revivals, and yet stand upon the very foundations that those pillars of the faith laid down long ago.
“Soon My Spirit will ignite those dry wood piles of holy expectation. The wave of fire will be catastrophic to sellers of sin. The wave will engulf nations. Rival gods will tremble, burn and sink, sinking into degradation and humiliation as their captives shout out that they have been freed. Proclamations of freedom will continue to fuel that fire which will change history, economies, nations, and peoples. A new mindset will overwhelm My people – a mind that can finally comprehend Me, eyes that can finally see Me, hands that can feel Me, literally feel My power.
“Healing will flow free. ‘Go and sin no more’ will finally be understood not as a warning, but as a powerful inoculation against the magnetic drawing power of wickedness. God’s saints will walk in power never known before. Men will deliver guilty sinners by the cleanness of their own hands, riches will be weighed out in a new balance,
‘…assign your nuggets to the dust,
your gold of Ophir to the rocks in the ravines –
then the Almighty will be your gold and
choice silver…
‘…when men are brought low, you say, ‘Lift them up!
then He will save the downcast.
He will deliver one who is not innocent through the
cleanness of your hands.’ (Job 22:21-30).
“Fearless men and women of God will merely touch the fearful with impartation and boldness from heaven. Favor will cover My people so strongly that men will be drawn to them.
‘Life will be brighter than noonday,
darkness will become like morning,
you will be secure, because there is hope,
you will look about and take rest in safety,
You will lie down and no one will make you afraid,
many will court your FAVOR.’ (Job 11:19 NIV).
“My love will become tangible. Previous manifestations will have been mile markers to this goal. You will see My love, you will smell My love, you will taste My love.
“Old men will rise, Caleb-like, to take their promised mountains. Women will lead, Deborah-like to see into the secret chambers of the enemy (Judges 5). Young men will battle Joshua-like to fell walls of mighty strongholds.
“Fear will become a curious memory.
“Healing will become commonplace.
“Satan’s supply line warehouses to demonic forces – deep behind his enemy lines – will be ransacked by the saints. Those supplies being;
– Intimidation -, which will be changed to courage.
– Sickness will be bound; men’s very bones will become life-surging health factories.
– Fear will be mocked as the greatest lie.
– Timidity will melt like Spring snow.
– The least of God’s saints will realize that all power belongs to the Lover of their souls who freely dispensed that authority centuries ago to his followers.(Luke 110:19, 2 Cor 10:4).
-Love will impact the body of believers, wiping out the fruits of Satan’s spirit; backbiting, gossip, talebearing, depression, anger, rage, harshness, aloofness, self-serving. – all will evaporate in character-changing, powerful love.
-Captives will be loosed – long time captives will cry with joy at such victory.
“Special forces of the Host of Heaven have been dispatched to lead this new generation to the Real Power Source. Miracles accompany them.
“The sticks of wood are like those at the bitter waters of Mara during the Exodus that when thrown into the poisoned water, healed. Whole cities will become clean and fresh and livable that had been polluted.
“My eyes range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Me.” 2 Chronicles 16:9
“Be very strong and of good courage!” You are the “Special Forces!” He is proud of you!
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Burnout? NO! This is not about burnout. It’s about burning, but not burnout.
I’m a product of the Jesus People Revolution, and one of those who has been led by the Lord all over the world. I clearly remember Bible school teaching that the 30 year marker in ministry is a dangerous place: you know it all, you’ve been down all the roads, you are experienced, and bored.
Thirty-eight of those years fit the paradigm, then suddenly things changed. Snatched out of my office and taken to heaven June 1, 2009, I am ruined forever for the ordinary. The Bible is new. Devotions are no longer laundry lists, but love feasts.
I have mulled over all the scenarios that might answer the question, “Why?” The simple answer is hunger. I was starving for Jesus. He knew better than I what my appetite level was. The vision was short, maybe an hour at most, but so powerful that I spiritually limped for three days–like Jacob after the wrestling match with the angel.
It is stunning when you discover that while we go about our daily lives, wrapped in cocoons of dullness, insulated from a fiery heaven, billions worship ceaselessly. Seraphim, fire angels, cry out holy, holy, holy, with voices of magnificent flame, flying and calling out one to another. Each cry of holy produces a vision of a characteristic of His Majesty – bytes of glory, intrusions into the lives of men, creative power pounding the universe with life – neverending.
It is humbling when you realize that Jesus, all majesty and power without end, perfect and holy longs to run hand in hand with you in an environment where neither you nor He tires, has any limitation on speed or direction. He yells like a schoolboy with a lovesick crush and you answer back with a voice that shakes the heavens: love has come to that place we sing about, but know little about: Joy Unspeakable and full of glory. The path is the path of love and the flag He carries states that I am His and He is mine. He holds galaxies in the palm of His hand, yet my name is tattooed there – He shows me.
Creatures with eyes all over, angels in a blinding flurry of praise, oceans of crystal and pavements of sapphire all over arched with emerald beauty. I can’t hold back, I scream, and He screams and we run, and run, and run.
Yes, I’m going crazy . . . I am lovesick along with the Shulamite bride in Song of Songs. I shudder when I read that He is ravished by one look of MY eyes. Yes, it says that. Read it! (SoS 6:5). His Name is like perfume poured out – I long to smell it. He is romantic toward us, perfumes, ointments, fruit, gardens, songs, jewelry, mighty flames of a love so strong it is described with a single-usage Hebrew word that contains His Name, Shalhevet-Jah. Song of Songs 8:6. One can only describe shalhevet-Jah as white phosphorous which once ignited burns even more powerfully under water. What love! My nurse sister described a patient burned by white phosphorous who threw himself into a body of water to try to extinguish it. Bad choice – it licks up water like gasoline. Shalhevet-Jah.
The hunger increases as the days pass. One year and six months later, visitations, visions, open heaven, thin places (places of Christophany/Theophany described by the Celts), Scriptures leaping to life off the pages of the BOOK are daily occurrences. The tazing thing is realizing that this is eternal. It will not settle down into a mush of distant memory – it is living relationship. It is everlasting. I shout at the top of my lungs, He shouts back and we run, and run, and run. Seas of glass mingled with fire, rivers of fire and wheels spinning like fire hurricanes. Can you buy a Disneyland ticket like this? Why would anyone trade the things that are fading, cocooned in mediocrity for eternal joy? Joy unspeakable. All I have written can be said, what is coming cannot be uttered . . . there are no words . . . there are no means of communication adequate, yet, the Spirit searches the deep things of God and reveals them to His servants. I shout, He shouts back and we run, and run, and run.
This lovesickness, rather than feminizing men, taps their deepest hidden warrior, calling it forth to battle. The empire of darkness shudders. Demons scream – the Beloved in combat boots is running, and running, and running – overturning warehouses of demonic stockpiles for the unrelenting war against God’s crowning glory, mankind. Available weaponry makes HIS troops a force to be dealt with. Peace is a missile shattering confusion, doubt, and depression. Love sends the torment of fear fleeing at top speed. The enemy turns to seek less powerful victims and the Beloved runs after, setting captives free – the enemy screams and seeks refuge. Men are healed and eyes are opened. Tears flow and angels come to gather them, they are the diamonds of heaven, the living water from the spirits of men, the evidence of God’s touch.
God is terrifying power and perfect holiness, wrapped in overwhelming love and goodness, extending unmerited favor to all those who love Him to a thousand generations. He clothes His loved ones in favor like a royal robe. That favor radiates like gamma rays touching and changing everything around it. They who are quickened catch the effects; subtle, manifesting, liberating and move to the prize; captives set free. Men suddenly see what they could never see before. Men are set free.
I have jack-hammered the ‘on/off’ switch right out of the wall. I will never again tell Jesus to wait while I entertain myself: I am a Nazarite. He shouts, I shout and we run, and run, and run. This is the beginning. These are the hors d’oeuvres whetting hunger to a fever pitch. His Spirit is loose in the earth, setting fires everywhere, wooing His own to a place of no restraint. Joel spoke it, and His Spirit is being poured out on all flesh. He is speaking and I am listening.
Forty years is a dangerous time. Forty years is a time when nothing becomes something according to Jewish tradition. Forty years is a generation – I am born-again-again. Everything is new, no lists, no boring sessions called devotions – I’m trading for living love. The BOOK is alive making me alive. I am going crazy!
“If we are out of our minds it is for the sake of God, if we are in our right minds it is for your sake.” II Corinthians 5:13
Posted in Intimacy | Tagged burnout, Intimacy, nazarite | 5 Comments »
The New Nazarite 