Identity in Christ: Heart Transplant

Becoming a child of God can happen in only one way: We must receive a new heart.


Jesus said that we must be born again in order to enter the Kingdom of God. He said very specifically, "You must be born of water and the Spirit." (John 3:3-6)


Ezekiel prophesied this occurrence in the Old Testament. As a prophet of God, he declared God's promise: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit with in you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them."(Ezekiel 36:26-27)


The prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah made it clear why a heart transplant has to take place. "A man's heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." (Jeremiah 17:9) "Our righteousness is as filthy rags."(Isaiah 64:6)


The Apostle Paul states clearly, "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new." (II Corinthians 5:17) Paul explains further that none of our attempts to earn heaven will ever cover up the sinful nature inherent within each of us. Nor can our good works even begin to compare to the holiness of God. (Romans 3:19-23)


Therefore, God offered a once-and-for-all solution: the death of Jesus on the cross as payment for our sins AND a complete DNA change: sin-riddled heart and dead spirit replaced with pure heart and spirit breathed alive by the indwelling presence of the Spirit of God inside us upon the moment of rebirth. (Ephesians 2:1-5)


Jesus promised to those who embrace Him, speaking of Himself and the Father, "We will come to them and make our home in them." (John 14:23) He declared irrevocably, "The Spirit of truth...dwells with you and will be in you." (John 14:17) The Apostle Paul declares the same truth after Jesus' resurrection, "Having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance." (Ephesians 1:13-14)


This heart transplant guarantees a new identity: Child of God (Romans 8:15-16). The Apostle John, who lived longer than any of the other disciples, rejoices in this amazing identity change: "How great the Father's love that He has lavished on us that we should be called children of God!" (I John 3:1)


Here then is Daddy's heart: That everyone who cries out for the mercy and covering of the Cross will receive a complete heart transplant! Jesus paid for it with His own life. The Holy Spirit performs the surgery and remains within us as the Absolute Guarantor that the surgery "took". He executes a complete coup on the enemy: delivering us out of the Kingdom of Darkness into the Kingdom of Light! (Colossians 1:13)


How amazing that the Father took full custody the moment, we said, "I want You in me!" He didn't just temporarily set up house to see if we mean it, which would put us back under the works of the law, because now it'd be dependent on our actions again instead of simply our cry for His mercy (Galatians 3:3). Rather, as soon as that cry for mercy bursts from the heart, He snaps His fingers and says, "Done! It is finished! The whole price was paid for every sin past, present, and future, and I'm never backing out of our deal. I'm taking that old sinful heart out right now--this instant--and giving you a brand new one. And I'm thrilled to live within you and begin the process of renewing your soul, so that your will, mind, and emotions will grow to reflect My new nature in you." (Romans 12:1-2).


I know there are some people who debate whether a person can lose this new identity, this new heart, and one's place in God's family. After all, there are many Scriptures that urge us to examine ourselves to make sure we are truly in the faith (II Corinthians 13:5). Paul spends several chapters in his epistle to the Romans explaining why we must not continue deliberately sinning, saying that it's not a big deal because we receive God's payment and forgiveness. His payment was His own life!!! (Romans 6) Not only was the payment extremely high and must be received with deepest humility and gratitude, but purposefully sinning brings us back under its power. Refusing to submit to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who will always lead us into Godliness and holiness, opens us back up to the torment of the enemy within our souls (Matthew 18:33-34, I Timothy 1:20).


These verses give severe warning and appeal to our new spiritual DNA. Unbelievers must receive a revelation from the Holy Spirit to turn from self-righteous sufficiency to full dependence upon the redemptive work of Christ (II Corinthians 4:3-4). Scripture also warn us as believers not begin to think we need to earn continual infilling of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul writes the entire letter to the Galatians to combat that heresy. We receive the Holy Spirit by pure grace, and He remains of His own great love for us--Praise God!!!


We humbly yield our lives to Him, and never is our efforts the cause of our salvation, godliness, giftings, or empowering. Obedience and salvation are both EFFECTS of the new identity we have as Children of God!!!

True North

Amazing: People get to burn the American Flag and it's called "free speech" but pastors who quote Romans 1 and I Corinthians 6 are told they engage in "hate speech".


Even when people call wrong right and right wrong, they will only find True Freedom and True Love within the heart of God. He knows how He made our hearts, minds, and bodies to function. Jesus is our Creator and He sets boundary lines ONLY for our Good!


Smashing a compass cannot change True North. May I be a compass that points only to You, Lord Jesus--to Your love, Your mercy, Your grace, Your compassion, Your healing, Your cleansing, and Your promise of All Things New.


I know that some of us wrestle with how to be kind while holding to our convictions. I believe the answer is to focus on the Redemptive Power of God and to walk in humility because we have ALL sinned. However, if we offer God's redemption without explaining what we need redeemed out of, how can Redemption be grasped?


We will not seek medicine unless we realize we need a cure. We do not seek Due North unless we recognize that we have gone astray. Love warns of oncoming danger AND lends the hand to escape it. Yet, no one is persuaded to avoid a looming cliff unless we cry out, "Danger! There is a bottomless ravine up ahead!"


It is God's kindness that leads men to repentance (Titus 3:4-6). AND it is His kindness that warns us of judgment to come. God has drawn very clear boundary lines regarding our relationships with one another for our protection. Evil cannot enter heaven. Sin cannot stand before holiness. Jesus became a man and died BECAUSE of our sins and rebellion. The Good News means nothing when the Tragedy is covered in Self-Righteousness and Amoral Beliefs.


So let me be a compass that points Due North, no matter who raises a fist to smash its workings. Jesus has promised Peace and Joy that don't depend on circumstances and Life with Him Evermore!!!

Thoughts on Love

This is what I've observed about love:


Love finds its worth completely in Christ's love for him/her. Love draws from the Living Waters within, which the Holy Spirit gushes forth from the heart of believers as we walk with Him. Love knows that no one else is sufficient as the Source for the Love we need and others need from us.


Love defines itself according to the Father's heart.
Love takes its standard from the Living Word of God.
Love speaks honestly and respectfully.


Love provides accountability for those under its umbrella of care. When a loved one walks away from that umbrella of care or rebels against accountability then Love prays for their return to the Father's heart.


Love allows the other person's free choice without manipulation. Love grieves over ungodly choices and unhealthy behavior patterns in the other person. 


Love fixes its gaze upon Jesus and isn't swayed by alternative definitions of what love is. Love gazes through the Father's eyes to understand a situation and the other person. Love is Romance with Jesus that flows in the proper way to other people. Love listens to the Father's voice and allows Him to speak specifically and personally in each situation.


Love sacrifices for the sake of the other person. That sacrifice is always for the other person's good according to the Father's heart. The ultimate good for any person is a healthy, growing, and intimate relationship with Jesus. If that relationship is endangered and/or disconnected, right standing with the Father takes priority over everything else.


Love humbles itself before the Throne of God and let's the Father choose according to His knowledge and great love for each individual involved.


Love allows the Father to erect proper boundaries to stop abuse and manipulation of body, mind, and spirit. Love's commitment is to the Holy Spirit and rejects all forms of idolatry, refusing to bow down to any other spirit.


Love submits to the Father as He pulls off labels, exposing the truth about a person's heart and relationship. The Father always reveals the truth for each person's good, in order to heal and restore while always allowing each individual free choice. He even allows us to spit on Him and walk away, yet His love never alters. He is the One who alone can pursue us with unfaltering, relentless passion.


Love recognizes that the Father is the only One able to redeem a rebellious heart and tenderly places that person in His hands, relinquishing responsibility to make the person change. Love never ceases to long for and pray for the other person's best--that he/she walks in wholeness and right standing with the Lord--even when differing choices place the individuals on separate paths.


Love triumphs at the end of time when all hearts that freely chose the Love and Grace of God are gathered as one into the beautiful holiness of the Father's heart.

Lighthouse

“We are born to burn.” ~Bill Johnson, Hosting the Presence

There is one house that is built to burn. It is the lighthouse. It’s whole design is for that one function: to burn with intensity, fierceness, and purpose.

It’s commonplace to look at a lighthouse and think: yes, a fire burns inside it. But what a fire! It’s a fire that burns day and night, in the blistering heat of summer as well as the deadly blizzards of winter. This fire blazes so high and so fierce that small pieces of kindling from the forest just won’t cut it. No, this fire requires massive logs, severed by the sharpest axe and carried by the strongest lumberjack up grueling flights of stairs to the highest level of the lighthouse.

A lighthouse is also a glass house: a house that everyone else can see through. It’s windows around that fire are transparent and clear. They have to be because the light is meant to pierce storms and ink-black darkness. This light is so strong and fierce that going near it could mean death, but to those at sea, it is life-preserving and even life-saving. It’s a light that illuminates the way.

A lighthouse without a fire blazing is an ornament of the past. A lighthouse with pulsating flames serves with relentless determination its greatest purpose. The lighthouse keeper lives within this house, may even have a family in its abode. But if the fire goes out, the lighthouse keeper no longer operates in his true identity and calling.

Jesus called us to be consumed with Him. He is the fire that burns within us. His presence is warm and comforting, but He desires us to remember that He is meant to be more than a fire that flickers in an interior hearth. He designed our lives to be demonstrations of His love and fierce desire. He gives us His Holy Spirit to live within us as the Master LightKeeper, to empower us in our identity and teach us the skills necessary for the trade. Even our successes—those great oaks that are monuments of our most diligent efforts in God’s field—must submit to the Holy Spirit's greatest purpose: keeping the fire of abandonment ablaze in our hearts.

The One Thing

"Rejoice! Rejoice!
Everywhere you see the fires.
Don't ask: Why not me?
Don't look at yourself.
Don't fix your gaze on anyone but Me.
I'm the One who does it.
And I choose--I choose what anointing to pour through each of My vessels: My Beloved children.
Striving. Fighting. Envying each others' gifts. Stop it!
I can't spread My fire when you're constantly looking and comparing.
Look at Me!
I'm the One you need.
I'm the One you've got to fix your gaze on!
Daughter, get this!
Church, get this!
What do you have that I haven't given?
And if it's Mine, why do you judge and compare as if it's yours?
I want My Church pure, blameless, spotless.
You are Mine!
There should be nothing more important than this one thing."


One thing only have I desired, oh Lord, to abide in Your house forever, to gaze upon Your beauty, to be captured by the love in Your eyes, to be enraptured by the glory upon Your face. (Psalm 27:4, my paraphrase)

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!!!

DNA Calling!!!

I think I grew up in a culture of the Church that said, “You’re not…” much more than “You are…” Perhaps that’s why I’ve struggled with insecurity about my identity in Christ’s body for so much of my life. You see, I know who I am to Jesus, but who am I to people in His Church? Whenever I step into a new church group, I usually put out feelers to see what peghole they put me in and conform to it.

But I’m tired of surviving, tired of fearing what people think, tired of cringing every time I try stepping out of the little box the enemy puts me in. I’m going to let other people off the hook and admit it’s me—it’s me listening to the lies of the enemy. He’s the one whispering the accusations and shaming me into keeping to ‘my place’. Seriously?

Our place is in Christ! Seated in the heavenlies at Daddy’s right hand! Our place is in the center of His heart and saturated with the love of His Spirit! So what about those times when Godly correction is needed? During last week’s prophetic worship conference at Faith Center, Graham Cooke said it wonderfully: “Accountability isn’t calling people out on their stuff but calling them up into their true identity.”

So let’s apply this to calling. What if God’s callings on our lives aren’t positions to be attained to but Spirit-infused DNA—the same spiritual DNA that transformed us into new creations the moment of our rebirth? What if spiritual growth isn’t advancing through categories (like church worker, deacon, teacher, pastor, prophet, apostle) but maturing in our ability to express the calling God infused into our spiritual genes from the get-go: the Bride of Christ?

I think that if we, the Church, can see each other as ALREADY who we are meant to be and simply growing in our ability to operate in our Spirit-fused callings and giftings, we won’t be so hard on each other. In fact, I think we’ll say, “Yes, you are…. Let me help you” rather than saying, “Who do you think you are? You can’t do that. You haven’t earned the right to do such and such.”

Granted, increased responsibility comes with increased maturity. We aren’t going to put a baby or child in charge of a church. But a child will seek to act like his Father. A little girl will do her very best to copy Daddy. So let’s show incredible kindness and joy as we see each other stepping out in faith and desire, doing what Daddy has put in our hearts to do. After all, the Holy Spirit is within each of us, and He absolutely delights to do what the Father is doing and help us grow in the calling we were created to walk in.

So maybe a baby lion can’t protect the pride. He’s sure going to practice his roar…and one day, he’ll be big enough to do what he was born to do!

“And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we ALL come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children…” Ephesians 4:11-14