Ministering to Our World

I realize that my previous post seems very harsh and hard-core. That's not my desire. We all need God's help every day in the areas where we struggle. Each of us face different battles and victory often comes as a process.


"Whom will He teach knowledge? And whom will He make to understand the message? Those just weaned from milk? Those just drawn from the breasts? For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little there a little." Isaiah 28:9-10


Maturity occurs through growth and God is so gracious and gentle with us. "I taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I drew them with gentle cords, with bands of love, and I was to them as those who take the yoke from their neck. I stooped and fed them." (Hosea 11:3-4)


God's words are the nourishment we need to grow strong and healthy in Christ. Peter the Apostle says, "As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious." (I Peter 2:2-3)


The Holy Spirit comes alongside the written word, encouraging us and filling us with joy as we surrender our ways to Him. He never withholds Himself and is present with us, even in the midst of our sins and weaknesses. He isn't afraid to step into our messes and join us in our filth. He only asks that we allow Him to clean us and pull us out.


Graham Cooke writes in his book Coming Into Alignment: "I love the Holy Spirit. He is the happiest, most cheerful person I have ever encountered... He is cheerful, exuberant, and amazingly enthusiastic about us. He loves His role as Comforter, tutor, and come-alongside friend. He gets to talk about Jesus (whom He adores) and equip us to fellowship with the Father. He is an absolute genius at life, a brilliant mentor who knows everything. He has a wonderful sense of humor and is a powerful advocate and warrior. He is never fazed at circumstances but loves to life us up to see more from His perspective. He is a gorgeous, amazing paradox. He is recklessly cheerful and incredibly wise. He is full of majesty and yet astonishingly gentle. He is completely and radiantly Holy, yet comforts us in our struggles and lovingly teaches us the ways of righteousness. He is inspiration, generous, kind, gracious, and endlessly patient in redeeming us to live in Christ." (p68-69)


Francis MacNutt, founder of Christian Healing Ministries, tells us a story in his book Can Homosexuality Be Healed? about two lesbian women who began attending a Bible study. The leaders prayed with them and one received Christ but continued living with the other. As she received unconditional love and read the Word, the Holy Spirit spoke gently to her that she needed to leave her lifestyle. She asked for God's help because she didn't want to hurt her partner. Jesus then appeared to the partner and showed her that it was time to stop living as lesbians. They both "reconciled with God and parted from each other in peace." MacNutt shares, "The Holy Spirit works from inside us, rather than through an imposition of law from without." (p82)


God works within us, transforming us to align us with His very best for our lives. He simply desires us to be sensitive to His wisdom and guidance as we minister to hurting people around us.

Breakout!!!

Wow. Saturday night's church service was  SO powerful. The Presence of God was so thick, all I could do was keep trying to soak in every drop.

It made me think of double-the-atmospheric pressure. Science has researched how creation would have to have been to keep dinosaurs alive because they are these mammoth creatures with nostrils no bigger than a horse’s. The larger the creature, the more oxygen it needs to live, but today’s level of oxygen wouldn’t be sufficient for muscular health. It would be like breathing through a straw for them. However, the giant plants, bugs, and animals that have been found fossilized show that the atmosphere back then would have had double the amount of oxygen in it.

That’s what I felt like at Faith Center this weekend: like I’ve been breathing in Jesus at home, soaking in Him, and then bam—when I enter church, I get hit twice as hard. Wow! There is something to the whole thing of gathering in one accord, with every heart and gaze focused on adoring Him.

Interesting too, because when people are placed in a hyperbaric chamber with double the atmospheric pressure, guess what happens? Healing!!! Intense, saturated oxygen enables the physical body to rapidly replace damaged cells. A little girl had fallen down a pipeline years ago and by the time they rescued her, one leg had turned completely black from the lack of blood flow. Instead of cutting off the limb, they placed her in a hyperbaric chamber. They saw pink flesh return and soon her entire limb was functioning in full strength again. Isn’t it amazing?

I think God’s doing the same thing with His Church. He’s upping the level of grace-filled atmosphere, flooding it with His Presence, like Bill Johnson at Bethel Church has said, bringing more and more into the House. And He’s going to keep bringing more, filling the place with His glory, flooding our lives with His peace, saturating our hearts with His presence so we can’t help but “leak all over the place” (Kevin Dedmon, founder of FireStarters) and people who just walk into Church will be smitten with His love and healing power.

Last night, the Lord kept soaking me at home as I meditated on what we’d prayed over at Corporate Prayer, and I saw fires breaking out all over. Not literal ones but symbolic of the Holy Spirit in people who are saturated with Him, and then all the sudden in the midst of our everyday stuff—bam! God is going to strike us with supernatural anointing. He’s already doing it! He’s breaking out in our midst.

I heard Him say in my spirit, “A wave of My Spirit is going to hit My church and it will be like the breaking of a dam or like the leaping out of flames from a wildfire that can’t be contained. In that moment, the last shall be first, the first last. Those who joined late will see the same effects of My Spirit as those who have been toiling and learning. Don’t let jealousy, resentment, grumbling, or complaining overtake those who have worked long and seen little. Now everyone will see together the results of the fire of My Spirit on a people dedicated to worshipping and adoring Me. Don’t dam it up or try to contain it. Young and old, men and women, learned and unlearned will all be hit by My Spirit together—an outpouring of My passion and goodness that will sweep across America, breaking asunder the religious spirit that has plagued this nation for generations.”

I can’t even imagine what this is going to look like! But I’m all in!!!

Paid in Full

Paid in Full.

Jesus stamped these words on our past: on every mistake, every sin, every riotous thought that hasn’t honored Him. He stamped the words, inked with blood-red stain, on every wrong conception and misperception we have about Him, ourselves, each other, and this world.  It’s not just that He cancelled our debt from back then, but that He continues to pay the debts we incur every time those misperceptions hurt us or wound others.

It’s like going to a doctor for wounds inflicted by jealousy, fear, anger, or even unintentional prejudice—just to name a few of the ways a soul gets wounded. The Doctor removes the bandages that friends carefully applied, anoints the injuries with healing oil, and prescribes antibiotics for infection. Then at the clerk’s counter, the bill gets totaled. XXX amount for the doctor’s expertise; XXX for the medical supplies. Responsible, we write a check to pay the bill even as our hearts pinch with our pocketbooks because the check represents more than money. Each check means trying to do better next time, keeping more rules and all their fine print, and walking on egg-shells to keep from offense. It’s all the stuff Paul tells us in Galatians that the Law demands for right-standing with God. Such a high price for basic health care. But we need soul-provision, and the Holy Spirit is the only soul-physician around.

Then as the weight of our future failures fall heavily upon us, stooping our shoulders and bowing our heads, in walks the CEO of the medical center, the top Executive who pays the salaries of all the people on hHs staff and who owns the building with all its specialized equipment.  But He’s more than the CEO: He’s the Man we’re dating; the Man absolutely in love with every single one of us.

He takes the check we wrote—the payment that comes from bruised pieces of our hearts—tears it into tiny pieces and smiles at the clerk. “I’m covering this account. Every expense accrued on it in the past and from this day forward is paid in full. By Me.”

And it’s just that simple.

We need the Great Physician’s loving care, the generous oil of the Holy Spirit provided through the ministry of His church, and the merciful grace of family and friends. We’ll need these gifts every day of our lives, and we’ll need to give them out as lavishly as we’ve received them. The cost is more than we can ever afford to pay, but our heavenly account already holds our Bridegroom’s sprawling signature with the beautiful words, our guarantee: Paid in Full—For All Eternity.

Paul, former pharisee and appointed apostle, says it this way: "I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a 'law man' so that I could be God's man. Christ's life showed me how and enabled me to do it." (Galations 2:19, The Message Bible)

And just in case we still don't get it, Paul presses home the point: "The obvious impossibility of carrying out such a moral program [of rule-keeping] should make it plain that no one can sustain a relationship with God that way. The person who lives in right relationship with God does it by embracing what God arranges for him." (Galations 3:11, The Message Bible; brackets mine)

And by the way, the CEO, the One we’re courting, He has alot of titles, alot of names. Most of us known Him best as Jesus.