Repairing the Breach

Why I Left the Church

2012-02-14T08:48:00.000-08:00

I come from a lineage of men whom have had incredible vision for the church of God – men who have sought to take the gospel to the unreached of America, the un-churched men that are so often written off by the church. They have sacrificed pride, jobs, and their own emotional states to try to see the things the Lord laid on their hearts come to pass; but the dreams and visions they held to have often been rejected. When my grandfather brought the town drunk into the church and began to disciple him, the church rejected this act of evangelism – my grandfather rejected the church. Similarly, my father has often offered great tools, teachings, and discipleship to churches that have instead held to centrality, popularity, and legalism over the true, gospel living my father proposed. I have watched the church reject these men, and these men fight to follow Jesus despite the opposition they recieved. From a young age, I figured I would fight a similar battle in my own life.

Surely enough, this pain began knocking on my door. When I talked about doing missions among the poor and unreached, I was often discouraged by church leaders who told me I was “too passionate” and need to “slow down.” When I started doing ministry with my un-churched peers, I was told I needed to “submit to the local church” and “bring in a qualified adult to teach.” When miraculous signs began taking place in the midst of broken teenagers, religious leaders of the local mega-churches rejected the signs, wrote me off as a cult-leader, and instructed me to repent and stop preaching lies. Don’t even get me started on what I was told after I baptized someone! I saw what my fathers who walked before me saw, and began to feel what they felt – betrayal, control, pain. I desired so much to be qualified before these esteemed men so that I may have a commendable ministry, but I could never sacrifice my convictions and submit to a church program I deemed the Lord had called me away from! I was tired of fighting, tired of attempting to qualify gospel living to the church! So simply put, I quit the church.

I had a vision once in which the Lord began calling me out of the church: I found myself sitting among non-believers – they were cussing, gambling, drinking, and doing all those things which a “good Christian” would not participate in. My spirit was stirred – I began to share the gospel with them, and they listened. I sat among them, I ate with them, I even participated in their conversations – but this opened a door for the glory of Jesus’ salvation to be revealed in their life. The scenario started over. I again found myself among unbelievers, but this time not a table, a whole room. I was sitting alone – but my spirit felt compelled to share the gospel with this group of unbelievers. This time, instead of sharing a story, I pulled out my Bible, jumped on my table, and started preaching the Word. A few came near, and listened to my story – but most continued with their lives – the harvest was smaller than that of the first scenario. Finally, the scenario again started over. I saw all those same unbelievers which I had previously seen – but this time, they were below me. I was up on a stage, looking down upon this large, sin-ridden group of people. Someone walked over and handed me a diploma, I stepped up towards the ledge, and dutifully preached a pathetic message of repentance. Not one head turned. The only response I got was the occasional jeer to shut-up and go home. The vision ended and the Lord left me with this thought – what kind of impact do you want to make?

Every step I have taken further and further away from a spotlight on the celebrity church show has compelled me to take further steps into the surrounding darkness of what appears to be kingdom anarchy. I have not found many believers in this place, though I have found I am not alone, but I have found Jesus – and I don’t plan to go back towards that spotlight. The further away I get, the clearer the truth of the gospel becomes – and the more I feel the need for its centrality.

But my original move away from the church was not wholly pure. Although most of my motives were to see the kingdom of Jesus come and follow my Bridegroom, my decision had fragments and sections of bitterness, anger, and rejection. Although I was doing house churches and foreign missions and encountering Jesus in a very real way, often even driving by a church building would stir up emotions that any wise man would deem unhealthy! I had not compromised, I had stuck to the mission that the Lord gave me – but I still felt the sting of betrayal and the ever-lurking presence of bitterness.

Jesus, set me free.

“Why should ye be stricken anymore? Ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.” –Isaiah 1:5-6

This is how I feel – stricken – watching the body of Christ rebel against Jesus. I feel that our fruit makes Jesus sick – much like the church of Laodicea from Revelation three. The whole head is sick! The heart, the very mission of God that should compel us to do Church, is growing faint! And this body… there is no soundness in it! It is broken, full of sores and wounds that have not been closed! I feel like one of these sores. I have dedicated my life to follow the head, help move the body, and help repair breaches that have been made – but this church bitterness and brokenness has left me feeling like a sore upon the Body of Christ! This game of bitterness and brokenness seemed never ending.

But hope was offered: “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” –Isaiah 1:18. I believe that this is a promise for the church, but only for those of us who will recognize our sin, repent, and follow Jesus. Jesus wants to heal the church; he also wants to mobilize the church! The things that were joined with this promise were the conditions to give up a pursuit of riches, repent for our sin, and start dealing justly with the widows, orphans, and poor!

From first glance, this seems to take me back to where I started – seeing what I feel like needs to be done, striving to follow Jesus, and yet running into resistance with those who should most support me. But I came across a beautiful, liberating passage the other day – John 15, “I AM the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away: and every branch that bears fruit, he purges, that it may bring forth more fruit.” Jesus is the TRUE VINE! He is the one who we all report to, without him, there is no life. And for all of us who dwell in him, if we are not following him, he just removes us. For some of us, that is a terrifying call to repentance. For others, it liberates us from having to prove ourselves before men, believing that we do not report to the hand or the foot, but to the head. And that the head will sever anything that prevents his mission from moving forward! We’re not called to flow in synch with the Body, but with Jesus, the Spirit, and the Head!

I’ve got this issue. I feel I have this commission from Jesus; but for so long, I have tried to get that commission recognized from men instead of confirmed in the heavens. Jesus was rejected before men, but confirmed in heaven, and he accomplished the task he was given to complete! That really is all that I want – just to do the thing that God wants me to do and somehow not care about what men say about that! And the amazing part? Jesus did this without bitterness, without giving in to a spirit of rejection – he did it in purity, love, and grace! I’m no longer surprised that when I lay down my life to make a sacrifice for a ministry that is not highly esteemed in the church, many people are more excited about my death than my sacrifice! But glory to God, vengeance belongs to him! He resurrected my Lord, and he will resurrect me! I can be free from trying to qualify myself before men so that I can pursue following Jesus, but I don’t even have to feel bitter when they insult me! For once, I feel like I can move the way Jesus intended simply due to the fact that He is enough.

I’ll finish with one final thought – sand. Sand is simply tiny rocks, hundreds of them, crushed and bunched together. Jesus told a simple parable at the end of the Sermon on the Mount about a foolish man who built his house upon the sand, and a wise man who built upon the rock. Truly, I say this to you – the modern church will often require you to build a ministry on many foundations that are not the gospel. You will be asked to build upon education, doctrines, age, experience, amount of people, number of books published, popularity, amount of souls won…etc. These, beloved, are sand. They are tiny, ground up pieces of truth that resemble the larger truth of the gospel but result in a foundation that is far from stable. Jesus told us that the greatest commandment is to love God and love your neighbor as yourself – and that everything else will be fulfilled if we could just do these two things. For so long, I have built a foundation that has been laid partly on the gospel, and partly on my individuality, my acceptance, my popularity, and my success. I’m tired of trying to build a church on tiny rocks, I want the real thing! I want Jesus! The Gospel! The love that forms this solid rock I can surely stand on! Let us beware of these subtle qualifications, these whispers of bitterness or rejection, these desires to please man – let’s stop playing church, and let’s follow Jesus.

I’m in the process of being set free. Free from bitterness, shame, guilt, people-pleasing, rejection, and free to follow the convictions the Lord has laid on my heart. I’m free to follow Jesus, free to love God and love man, and free to quit the “church game” for good. May these realizations only serve in liberating the reader to serve Jesus without feeling like they must find a man-made avenue to do so – there is but one advocate between God and man, one avenue by which we receive our qualification, our anointing, and our voice – and that is Jesus – our Lord, our Savior, our King. Jesus is enough.

The Pharisee Anarchist Debate

2012-02-09T06:53:00.000-08:00

“The foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men; and the weakness of God is stronger than the strength of men.” -1 Corinthians 1:25

Pharisees and anarchists – these, are what I deem to be the two major sub-groups of Christian leaders in the modern-day church. One puts emphasis on education, one on relationships; one seeks to qualify individuals, the other believes all are qualified; one believes in apologetics, the other in emotions. You’ll find most of your Pharisees at your local seminary; while anarchists tend to start house churches and small groups – and although these two are brothers and sisters in Christ, there is, at times, so much tension between the two viewpoints that it seems as if this Heavenly family may split!

Now, for the most part, house church anarchists and mega-church Pharisees get along pretty well – so long as they stay separate and don’t talk about their view points. Most people involved in the anarchist church movement are only slightly abandoned to the idea of traditional church education, leadership development, and organized Sunday-services. And most traditional church Pharisees are only slightly legalistic – believing in essential doctrines, program-development, and seminary training. Each side points out the flaws in the other – when one says, “You’re too man-organized and mind-driven to allow the Spirit of God to reign!” The other replies by saying, “You’re too emotional and ‘spirit-lead’ to have any foundational truth upon the Word of God!”

Now, the argument is just a big game until the leadership gets questioned – then emotional wounds start to go deep. The house-church movement often accuses the traditional church leadership of being manipulative, controlling, mind-driven, and ultimately unfit to practice biblical Christianity. Even if these accusations are not spoken, they are often implied and thought – how worse of an attack can one brother wish upon another than that they would be unable to live out biblical Christianity? But the fault is not just on the brothers who have separated themselves from the traditional church, many leaders that have gone through seminary, organized discipleships, and other leadership-qualifying Christian education accuse house church leaders of being ill-prepared, under qualified, rebellious and unfit to teach and share the gospel message! Another damning attack that tells any uneducated Christian they will be unable to fulfill the great commission.

Now, this argument often strikes chords within most people who have been at all involved in Christian leadership – and I’ve been on both sides of this argument – far left, and far right. Once upon a time, I was the guy that wrote papers on Baptist history, read KJV only, and disqualified anyone who believed differently than I had been taught in discipleship lessons. However, I migrated to the side that started disqualifying anyone who did believe in Baptist only heritage, KJV only Bibles, and thought that discipleship was necessary for church leadership. And I’m not even trying to say I’ve figured out the perfect way to go in this blog post, I’m just trying to resolve some of the conflict within my own head!

Due to my fickleness in church crowds, I have found that both sides have a lot to offer the church. There are often a number of great resources produced from each side regarding church development, there are great spiritual truths that are grasped more fully in some circles than in others, there are usually movements to reach certain unreached people groups, and almost every church I have been to that isn’t practicing heresy is striving to accomplish the great commission! What more could you ask for? Truly, it is not the desire for truth and biblical Christianity that causes us to lash out against one another, but fleshly pride that believes we have found a more perfect thing. Beloved, did not Jesus say that there is only one good – the Father in heaven? Our ways are not, cannot be good! We should spend our time edifying, and qualifying one another! There are people who cannot be reached but for a house church, and there are those who cannot be reached but through the institutional church. God has destined each one of us for a purpose to accomplish, he has set us apart for good works, and he has qualified all of us as heirs with Jesus! Who are we, who am I, to tell a co-heir with Jesus that they are not qualified to work in the harvest field?

Brothers and sisters, the foolishness of God is wiser than men; His weakness is stronger than man. Truly, if the Word of God tells us that the things we do in our flesh is nothing compared to the weakness and the foolishness of God – why do we spend so much time exalting our agendas instead of the cross of Jesus? Let us remember, in the areas we are weak and foolish together, but rely on the Lord, He will receive his due glory. Please, let us strive to encourage, love, and spur one another on toward love. Follow your convictions, listen to Jesus, but let us respect one another.

Beloved, you are qualified to fulfill the great commission. It is not my job to tell you by what means you need to do so – please, follow Jesus and do what he says. If you are striving for something that does not work, seek the Lord in prayer, search the scriptures – Jesus has qualified you through his death and resurrection, surely He will also guide his church.

Thank you, Jesus, that you love us enough to see past our exalted, pride-filled flesh. Help us to love one another the way that you have loved us, to die to ourselves, and to fulfill the commission you gave your Bride while you continued with us on earth.

Please, Don't Lock Me Out!

2012-02-06T09:24:00.000-08:00

Most of us have been here before: I remember riding with my parents as a little kid down into some of the worst parts of Kansas City – or should I say, through some of the worst parts of Kansas City. We would be driving along some road, coming up to some stop sign, when I would hear the all-too-familiar click of the car doors locking. My father would go on to explain how we were in a “bad part of town” around people who “do bad things.” I would then typically look out the window to see cold, stoned, drunk, poor, disabled, and different people standing at a bus stop – just living their lives. They looked scary. They looked weird. Some even looked like they might hurt me or take advantage of me if they had the chance. Naturally, it made sense to lock the doors – I felt safer. I didn’t make eye-contact, didn’t play my music too loud – nothing to draw attention to myself from these strange, ghetto people.

That was then… and through most of my life growing up. Every once in a while, I’d feel a tug of sympathy in some deep place in my heart - a little voice whispering, “That’s me.” But before I could follow the voice to its source, I was driving away, moving on, and those ghetto people would again be forgotten.

I haven’t given any of this much thought. I’ve moved on with my life – growing up, growing older, and growing in my faith. Jesus eventually called me to live among some of these ghetto people, to feel what they feel, and experience the troubles they experience. My wife and I don’t have much: we do our laundry at a laundry mat; I ride the bus to work; there's the occasional fights in our neighborhood; the occassional sighting of a drug-deal; and there’s quite a bit of foot-traffic – we’re part of it! Needless to say, it’s a different lifestyle. Living this way has been a new, interesting experience – but it reached a new height the other day as I was taken back to that childhood experience of mine.

I ride the bus – I’m that man that stands at the bus stop looking poor and cold. And I was standing outside waiting for my bus the other morning, as a sweet, little family drove by – reminding me a bit of my homeschooled family of the past. I thought about them – I bet they were Christians, they had that spirit about them, they looked well-dressed, their kids well-taken-care-of – I bet they even homeschooled. These thoughts were spinning through my head as this family pulled up to the stop-sign next to my bus stop. I wanted to give them a smile, maybe even wave – but my excited eyes were met with cold, judgmental stares. The children gawked at me as if I were some creature; the mother seemed too frightened to even look my direction! And finally, the father of this well-meaning family met my eyes with a cold stare that said, “Stay away from my family, you creep,” and then he did the inevitable – click – locked doors.

I was shocked. Hurt, even. They drove off leaving a trail of judgment that made me ashamed to be a Christian! I knew who I was! I certainly had no intentions of harming them. I know that the father of this little family was just trying to protect his wife and kids, but he, in this process, brought what I would deem an unnecessary act of separation between his safe, Christian world and me! Did I really look that frightening? Was it just because I stand at a bus stop in the ghetto? I don’t even think my part of town is that bad… If I didn’t have confidence in who I was in Jesus, I would even be tempted to feel ashamed of myself, my neighborhood – to feel undeserving of anyone who lives a lifestyle that is nicer than the lifestyle that I live! Or maybe just to feel that they don’t want to have anything to do with me – they don’t care about my own world, my own struggles. What if I ran into them in a church building? Could I introduce myself as “the guy you locked out of your car” – would I be less scary in their safe, church environment? Would I even want to stay at such a place? Yes, this small, insignificant action made me feel this way…

I don’t deem to accomplish anything profound through this blog post. I don’t even mean to condemn those who lock their doors in the ghetto. I just want us to remember our perspectives may not always be right. Jesus told his disciples they would be blessed when the “clothed him when he was naked, fed him when he was hungry, and gave him drink when he was thirsty,” they were dumbfounded, “when have we seen you, Jesus, in any of these states of desperation!?” “Surely,” Jesus said, “Even as you have done it unto the least of these brethren, you have done it unto me.”

Let us remember we constantly carry the presence of Jesus and the church with us wherever we go. Locking out a poor, hungry person from our car may as well be locking them out of our lives, the life of the church, and maybe even the life of Jesus. I’m not beseeching you to do something crazy, but I’m asking you to remember that those people on the side of the road may actually be Jesus… or me! And the actions and attitudes you show and have towards them may not only impact their eternity, but the blessing you receive from Jesus as well.

And please, don’t lock me out.

Glorious Death

2012-01-26T08:09:00.000-08:00

“We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” -2 Corinthians 4:7

I hardly know where to begin this thought – the beauty of death. The glory of what is revealed into our spirits should we put to death that which is of our flesh. There is so much talk of this concept in Christianity, but so little amount of people that applicably display such a lifestyle as Paul described when he wrote that he was, “Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.”

Paul wrote again and again to the Corinthian church about a very touchy subject within the church: Carnal Christians. These are those of us who have been born again, but live in their old man; those who have received the Spirit of God, but walk according to their own mind, will, and emotions. The Word of God was given to us that it may “divide soul and spirit,” that there may be no confusion in what is of God and what is of our Flesh (that is our mind, emotions, soul, and body).

I do not deem that it is necessary to explain the concept of “dying to self” that has been so exalted within the teachings of most of the Church. Denying self is a concept that thousands of people accept – Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and even Agnostics understand the importance of the death of our own desires that life may be given to another area. If there is some confusion around this concept, I would encourage reading Paul’s letters to the Corinthians – and listen for his rebukes against self and his exhortations to pursue spiritual life.

Having said this, my desire is to bring up those areas in which I was ignorant of my own self-destruction prior to the enlightening of the Holy Spirit. Let us not be deceived – self cannot serve God. The Almighty Creator of the Universe, although All-Powerful, has no desire of empowering your flesh to serve God! Jesus died on the cross, and with Him, our flesh also died! In the resurrection, the Father did not give life to our dead souls; God forbid lest we be forever trapped in this body of sin! Rather, God gave life to our spirits inside of us, that our souls would submit to the direction of His Spirit so that we could actually follow God!

Something the Lord recently enlightened me of was my own inability to serve Him. How often have I caught myself teaching because I have the ability in my flesh to explain concepts, reasoning over scripture because I’m good at analytical thinking, ministering to a certain type of people group because I relate well to them, leading worship because I’m good at guitar! Woe is me! How often do I teach in the flesh instead of imparting the life-giving Word of God through the power of the Spirit under his control? How often do I read the Bible without begging for the Spirit to bring interpretation to me? How often do I witness or refuse to speak because of my own feelings of comfort and fear? How often do I praise God out of my emotions or my logic instead of worshipping Him in Spirit and in Truth!

We attempt to process so much of what is spiritual through the means of that which is carnal; and although many of us may experience good things, we fail to experience God things! We go on throughout our daily lives and instead of bearing about the death of Jesus to our souls, we live, move, eat, and breathe according to our souls, not according to our Spirits! And yet, even as I write this – many believers will feel convicted in their spirits, yet conduct numerous scenarios in their minds of how they may overcome carnality! How truly wicked are we! How deep and indebted in our sin have we become! Let us humble ourselves, let us submit to the Spirit of promise, let us be free from the captivity of carnality and experience the free life of the Spirit!

Shall we reach a lost world for Christ? Shall we impart life to those who are dying? Shall we lead lives of holiness and righteousness before God? Let us die to our emotions, and live according to the truth of God! Let us lay down our logic and reasoning and experience the intimacy with the Spirit in our decision making! Let us place aside our self, our people-pleasing, and our comforts and embrace the death and life of Jesus that we impart the same life we have received! For them that will hear, let them hear the good news of Jesus.

Violent Missionaries

2012-01-21T11:37:00.000-08:00

"And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force." -Matthew 11:12

This passage, these words, spoken by the Son of God, were not a call to violent arms, but violent living; not offensive strategy, but unrelenting love. John the Baptist, who gained this 'violent' title, was a man who violently opposed his fleshly lusts and violently loved the Lord. He opposed that dreaded nature of man that so often drags humans down, choosing instead to take affliction towards his body and soul that he would be worthy of being a forerunner for the coming Kingdom.

Jesus said of John, "Truly, there is none that are born of women that are greater than John the Baptist; however, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." Since this time, many monks, preachers, pastors, apostles, priests and thousands of believers have pondered what exactly it means to live in this way that John lived - how to be least in the kingdom of heaven. Some have forsaken all to dedicate their lives to fasting and prayer; others to the ministry of the poor and hungry; still others have gone off and started great movements of the gospel that has transcended generations. However, there is a countless majority that had a desire, whether soulish or spiritual, and never quite made the connection to see God move in such a way that it deeply impacted this world for Christ. For some, the issue was simply their lack of motivation and perseverance, or maybe it was due to selfish motivations from which their ministries arose - but there are those of us who have not actually realized the applicable truth of Jesus' promises.

I do not claim to have obtained understanding of full reality of Jesus' promises; however, I do want to share what I have learned in this journey of learning what it means to be "least" in the kingdom of heaven and to live "violently" for Christ. I would beg of you - do not attempt to mimic those things which have worked for me - test my words. "Wisdom is justified of her children," Matthew 11:19. The kingdom of heaven is not a list of to-do's, though it does require obedience. It is a spiritual kingdom requiring a spiritual life guided by the truth of the Word of God. It requires submission of our mind, will, and emotions to a governing Spirit - God's Holy Spirit.

This being said - how does what Jesus said about the kingdom suffering violence relate to missional living?

Reaching the lost is never easy, although it is much simpler a task than we, as Christians, tend to make it. However, one key that is required to be make a large impact in the kingdom is humility. Humility to actually submit ourselves to lost people. My wife and I have begun trying different strategies in order to reach the lost based on living violently in submission to the Spirit and to others. These tactics are not so much "to-do's" as they are attitude changes within us.

I will start with this statement: How difficult it is to reach out to lost people when we separate ourselves from the world in pride! The very act of church has turned into more of a social club for "better" people that often intimidates, humiliates, and even attacks many of the lost people Jesus died for! "Christian" music, "Christian" friends, "Christian" neighborhoods - all of these have the intent of glorifying God, but actually have a harmful affect on His Kingdom. The Lord never intended to take us out of the junk of this world - that's why we're here! He said in John 17 that he "would not take us out of the world." Why has Christian society attempted to do that which Jesus intended not to do? To separate ourselves? To form what we believe are little slices of heaven where sin is cast away and children can grow up uncorrupted? Jesus prayed that God would keep us from evil in the midst of the world - do we so much doubt God's ability to protect his children that we must homeschool, private school, and churchify our families? These tactics of protecting ourselves from evil are not biblical, nor are they good, they are based out of human knowledge and tactics based in fear and pride that actually demonstrate a lack of trust in the truth of God's Word.

Let us be careful that we do not misinterpret what the Word says – there is only one interpretation, that is that of the Holy Spirit. Our intellect cannot interpret or form strategies based out of scripture no matter how hard we try – to experience what God intended for us in this life, we actually need to place our full faith in what the Word of God says. When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, it was not because they ate of the fruit that gave them a knowledge of evil, it was because it gave them knowledge of the capability of their soul. It cut off dependence from God, exalted their souls – their mind and emotions – above their spirits and cut off precious fellowship with the Lord! It is the pride of believing we can provide what God has promised outside of God's timing, Will, and Word when we sin. Do not be deceived, when the flesh, that is your soul, is attempting to serve God and do His Will, sin is magnified. You cannot serve God with your un-regenerated self, you need to live into the new life in the new man given by his quickening Spirit and the new identity that this reality brings. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for calling him good, “Only the Father is good,” he replied. Jesus understood that his spirit must be dependent and submissive the that which is good, for there is “nothing good” in our souls – our hearts are deceitfully wicked and must be put to death so that our Spirits may be quickened to experience that reality of what Jesus promised us!

This is the violent part. This is the dying to self and the humility that must be realized in our hearts to live out faith in Jesus. It is this – and it is so much more. It is walking in new life in the Spirit and following Jesus in faith! Our identities in Jesus are a required realization that must take place if we are to experience the reality of what God intended for our lives on mission. It is the relationship with Jesus based out of death to self, violent faith, and humble submission that starts the engine that moves the vehicle of the kingdom.

Humility is required to understand our identity, and our identity is key to reaching out with the gospel of Jesus to a lost and dying world. Jesus told his followers in Matthew 5, “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.” This was not a suggestion. Nor was this a “work and obtain this title” type of word. This was, this is, a “you are” statement! Your identity in Jesus states that you are the light of the world! This truth can only be a reality in our spirits, though. Our old, dead self cannot receive the new truth of our identity promised to our quickened spirits! In humility, we must embrace this truth and walk in the communion of the Holy Spirit and listen to the quiet direction He brings to allow this identity truth to come out.

Practically speaking, a major part of humility is faith. Two separate verses that talk about pleasing God say these things “without faith it is impossible to please God” and a “broken and contrite heart, Oh God, thou wilt not despise.” In order to receive in humility what God says about my new man positionally requires that I place myself in situations where His promises must be true!

If we truly are the light of the world, we must receive this truth in humility and place ourselves in a position where we can, by faith, experience this reality! Separation from the world will not allow you to receive the promise of being the light of the world. Missionally speaking, a light is only light in a dark place – a city sat on a hill is only noticeable in a pit. To reach a dying world, you must continually jump into it in faith, believing God can protect you from evil and draw the lost to His son by His promises spoken over your spirit!

Strategy will not reach a dying world – maybe a person or two – but to actually transmit the life-giving love of Jesus, we must actually be dependent on this life through the Holy Spirit. Any dependency on our human flesh, our knowledge, our own soul's good will actually fail and fall short of God's perfect Will. God wants to reach the lost, and he wants to reach them through you – but He wants you to do so through submission to His Spirit and faith in His promises.

Practically, my wife and I are trying to jump into this truth. We fall short. We depend on our soul when we should lean on the Spirit. But we are trying to place ourselves in a place where God's truth needs to be true, where our souls are uncomfortable, where only dependency on the Spirit can bring about the results we desire – more importantly, that God desires. This journey is new for us, and the fruit is still young – but we are actually engaging God in our spirits, and even engaging lost people we previously questioned if we could reach simply by placing ourselves in “dark” places and letting the promise of God's light shine through our dependency on Him! How amazing it is when the reality of God's promises transcend into the natural!

Let us be careful to heed the words of Jesus in Matthew 11:

“For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.”

When one chooses to afflict to soul, to seek after the Spirit, and to live as a light in the midst of the darkness of the world, the religious will oppose you – your own religious spirit inside of you may oppose you! But true violent living and missional living contains a blessing from Jesus – and the fruit of what is done in the Will of God will last forever. Wisdom is indeed justified of her children – the wisdom of this world in failure, the wisdom of God in success. Consider this exhortation, and pray that the Spirit of God will enlighten your heart to understand His intentions. May all that we do be guided by the Spirit and done in humility. And may the eyes of every reader be blessed to see destiny, their ears to hear direction, and their hearts to experience the truth of God's Word. Amen.

Giving Up, Letting Go, and Hanging On

2011-09-16T00:29:00.000-07:00

I've had a wonderful opportunity lately to work in a nursery on a consistent basis with a pretty large group of kids under the age of four. I've really grown to love them... but when they start to get fussy or throw fits over things, and then refuse my advice or comfort... it can be kind of frustrating. It's the simple lessons of giving up, letting go, and hanging on that they just can't seem to get: "In order to get a cool, new toy you want to play with, you may have to let go of the one you're playing with now; I know you want to start the TV, but why don't you let go of the remote you don't know how to use, and let me do it for you; if you really want to make a basket in the goal, you have to try more than twice..."
Obviously, these are just a few examples... but you get the gist of it. But a funny thing happened the other night while I was thinking about these kids: God told me that I'm one of them! I had this dream:

I was playing nerf-gun wars with a few friends of mine in this city-like area. The rules were simple: If you get hit three times, you're out. So we started playing, running around and shooting at each other. Before I knew it, I had two hits on me. Someone began chasing me trying to get my one last hit in order to eliminate me from play. So I took off running - through streets, over cars, in and out of buildings... until I reached this green pasture area and tripped, rolling down a hill. My buddy was coming down after me ready to get the last hit on me, so I quickly turned and started shooting just as they began to shoot at me. But suddenly, we weren't shooting darts anymore - our guns had turned into water guns! We continued firing at one another and soaking each other until a voice said, "It's no longer about winning or losing, it's about who gives up first."

Now, from a glance... this just sounds like a silly dream. But I woke up knowing there was some substance to it, and this is what God has been pressing on my heart for a while. Take a look at this passage of scripture with me:

"Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you." -Philippians 3:13-15

Paul wrote this letter with the intent of getting the believer's mindset right. For Paul, it wasn't about a physical achievement, it was about their heart attitude. He encourages them in this passage to "be thus minded" - not to act this way... to "be thus minded."

So how does all this tie together?

Well, there's three things:
1. It's not about winning or losing, it's about who gives up first.
2. We, as Christians, are little kids. We don't know what to give up, let go, or hang on to.
3. This is a mindset change that pushes us towards our destiny.

So let's start with number one! What on earth does that dream mean?

Well, at the beginning of my dream, success was measured in a very attainable way. Basically, three strikes and your out! Sadly, many Christians live their spiritual lives in a similar way. We so often use our carnal minds to try to discern spiritual things that we try to use worldly goals to reach heavenly prizes, and it just doesn't work like that! We often have this "checklist" mentality that enables us to make spiritual growth a series of achievements. The big problem with this, is that it erases grace, enables men to reach perfection, and disallows the work of the Spirit! And that's a BIG PROBLEM!

If loving my neighbor becomes a task, it means that I can somehow either succeed or fail at doing that task. However, the Bible tells us that we are saved, not by our works of righteousness, but by his grace! I think its safe to say that our "heavenly calling," also mentioned in Ephesians three, takes more emphasis on God's grace completing us than our "righteous acts" fulfilling our destiny. And if our own righteous acts can get us to maturity, what's the need for the Spirit? The bottom line is this: "Spiritual Maturity" really isn't something we obtain, it's something we pursue.

Another part of my dream I didn't mention had me set in a foreign mission field trying to use carnal tactics to reach the lost for Christ. It wasn't working. God then used this seemingly silly analogy to teach me about what Spiritual Maturity and Spiritual Success is really defined by:
"It's not about winning or losing, it's about who gives up first."
Or the amplified version:
"It's not about obtaining or falling short, it's about giving up, letting go, and hanging on to the right things."

So what's with giving up, letting go, and hanging on? How do they relate to Spiritual Maturity and Success?

Well, Paul talks about these three very important concepts in the passage in Philippians 3: He does not count himself to have apprehended; he forgets the things behind him; and he presses forward to things in front of him. Paul tells us that this is the mindset of a mature, success-driven believer!

But the problem is, we don't know how to give up, let go, or hang on.
You see,

I don't want to give up my past life, my sins, my struggles, my pride, my "achievements." I don't want to really lose my life in order to gain whatever Christ wants to give me. I don't want to give up this toy for the cooler toy Jesus is offering me! Can't I have both?

And I really don't want to let go of my ministry, my life. God, you don't understand. I know you created me and all, but I think I should be holding the remote.

And why should I keep trying something that's so hard? Why should I keep pressing towards a life of holiness? Of godliness? I tried that. I missed my shots. I'll go back to my old games now.

But this isn't the mindset the Bible teaches us at all! Paul was a very "successful" Christian. He could say the he "achieved" spiritual knowledge, he could have basked in the fact that he had started so many churches, and he could have talked himself out of pursuing more ministry since he had so much on his plate already! But instead, Paul called himself the chief of sinners and was constantly pursuing fresh revelation; he didn't focus on what was done, but what needed to be done; and he fixed his eyes on God's will and not his own plans.

Brothers and Sisters, this is such an important concept. If we don't learn how to do this properly, we stunt our growth, hurt the body, and lose heavenly rewards. It's not worth that to hold onto our pride! We need to learn to give up our ideas of perfection, let go of our life plans, and press forward in faith for what God has in store! This is the path to Spiritual Maturity - realizing it doesn't end. Realizing we don't attain it. Realizing that following God is a life-long journey that isn't about winning or losing, it's about giving up!

So let's all give up our worldly pursuits in favor of heavenly rewards! Let's give up, let go, and hang on to the things God would have us to, and let's experience the growth and success of living a life according to the Spirit.

And Lord, enable me with your grace to discern if there is "anything in which I am otherwise minded" that you may mold me according to your Will in the name of Jesus!

Judgement and Shaking

2011-09-02T23:21:00.000-07:00

After spending some time in prayer about this, I feel like it's time that I share something God has been showing me over the past few months. The message is simple: judgement is coming. However, I've had some fairly specific ways that God has shown me these things, and I wouldn't necessarily be one to jump and down to get attention and share it - but the things have been coming to pass, and I feel like it's time to put them out there.

While I've been feeling for a while that judgement was on the brink - as I believe most of us believe these days - my true conversion to the "judgement-is-nigh" side didn't really happen until March 6th, 2011. I woke up at about 4 AM and started undergoing some intense spiritual attack. It's hard to explain except that I felt every lie I've ever fought in my entire life was trying to hit me all at once. I prayed in the Spirit until I fell back asleep about an hour later. Sometime during my sleep, I had this dream:

I was sitting three rows back, three rows over of what appeared to be a small, underground church meeting with various church leaders that I knew of. We were all praying and worshiping together when my eyes locked with another leader's eyes. Immediately, his eyes began flashing various dots and dashes at me in a very specific order. Upon waking up, the Spirit immediately told me a few things: the dashes and dots are Morse code, the three seats back is three years, and the three seats over is three stages. I quickly got my computer and figured out what the Morse code meant. It ended up being a reference to a Bible passage: Ezekiel 7:3, "Now is the end come upon thee, and I will send mine anger upon thee, and will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense upon thee all thine abominations." After reading the rest of the passage, I was so filled with awe over the Lord, that I collapsed. My heart broke over my country and I fell to my knees in tears. Three months! That's June of 2011! Lord, give me clarification. Help me to understand.

I pondered this dream in my heart and shared it with a few close people for the next while. A couple weeks later, I had another dream on March 19th, 2011 in Cedar Rapids.

The dream was very specific. There would be an order to a series of earthquakes that was going to hit the United States. My dream started with a map focused on the Central United States around the St. Louis area, I saw an earthquake happen at this location. Shortly after, the map zoomed out and I saw two other earthquakes take place - one around Colorado, and another around the East Coast. These earthquakes happened almost simultaneously.

This dream combined with my other dream lead me to believe that these earthquakes would happen on June, 7th of 2011. I prayed about this date and asked for further clarification. The night of June 6th, 2011 - I had one more dream about everything.

And then I saw myself standing before a car. And the car's name was Judgement. The hood of the car was open and the Lord God said to me: Pour the oil inside the car, but pour only one-quarter of the oil. And so I did so. And then the Lord God said again: Pour the oil inside the car, put pour only half of the bottle. Again, I obeyed the voice. Then the Lord God said again: Pour all the oil inside the car. For the third year has come to pass that my judgement will be fulfilled upon this place, and my vehicle of Judgement will travel the nation because they have not heard my voice. And so immediately I was in the car called "Judgement," and I was riding through the country that was the United States. First, I saw that many small towns and businesses had been abandoned because of great economic difficulties. Next, I saw that great storms and tornadoes were heading across the United States. Specifically, I saw a storm that was traveling through New York so "that I may wake up and know this dream has come from the Lord." Finally, I was driven into a courthouse, where I saw the falling of the freedom in America and a new door open to persecution. All these thing were supposed to happen gradually over a period of three years, until in 2015, things were utterly unrecognizable as America.

I woke up from this dream knowing that the judgement signs would be gradual, but I still expected to see the things come to pass. First, I saw the storm on June 7th, 2011 that went through New York City. Second, on June 7th, 2011 there was the first small earthquake my first and second dreams predicted on the New Madrid Fault line. Then again, on August 23rd, a nearly simultaneous earthquake happened that shook near Washington DC and Colorado. Just like my second dream had said. While all these things: the economy, natural disasters, and government changes have been subtle, they have been coming to pass. And coming exactly as the Lord has shown me. I don't say these things claiming to be anybody, but I say them saying the Lord has fulfilled a word he showed me, and I feel it is a responsibility of mine to share those words with others.

One other important dream I had the other day was this:

I was walking along a long dirt road, where I again saw the signs of judgement. Fallen governments, huge storms, and economic disaster. However, the people I was with refused to recognize these signs as judgement from the Lord. Instead, the put up a little "display shelter" where a great geyser loomed over the city in a seemingly harmless fashion. Above the geyser, the people inscribed, "The Great Judgement" as a mockery of how "great" the judgement was. The Lord God told me in my dream, go over near my judgement. As I did, a huge blast of water from the geyser blew me off my feet and left me in a state of disarray. The Lord warned me, "The signs have been given, do not ignore. My judgement is coming. People will say "it is slow," but when it comes, it will come quickly. (Much like the message in Habakkuk 2:1-3). We are warned in the Bible, people will say, "Peace and safety, and then sudden destruction will come upon them." Just be ready. Be ready.

I do not say these things to scare you, nor spur you into some kind of year-2k type thinking where you store up 20 years worth of canned food. I say these things to warn you of what is to come so that your faith will remain strong, and so that you will draw nigh unto God during these difficult times that we're entering into as a nation. My opinion is not fact, it is speculative. I don't have perfect understanding, but God has shown me some very specific things that have come to pass - and I would warn others that judgement really is coming, and coming soon. And that we should prepare ourselves for the things the Lord has in store for our country.

Go and be blessed in Jesus' Holy Name.

Monuments: Healing

2011-08-24T08:46:00.000-07:00

"And these signs shall follow them that believe... they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." -Mark 16:17-18

It truly is amazing how the Lord heals! I am always amazed at the way that God chooses to heal his beloved! No longer surprised that he does, but still amazed by the way he does it. I've been blessed to be a the example of the "one who lays on hands" and one who "has hands laid on him." I've seen God do some amazing healings over the last few years of my life, and these just happen to be some of my favorite stories. I hope you are edified and that your faith is encouraged!

The Prophet Runs

At the beginning of my sophomore year of high school, I was having some really bad knee problems that were consistently getting worse. I was upset at how much pain I was in and how weak my knee was getting. Finally, after about a month of intense knee-pain, I went to the Lord in deep intercession and begged him to restore the health of my knee.

That night, the Lord gave me an incredible dream. "I saw myself standing underneath a wooden shelter situated on a long, dirt road. I was meandering about without much sense of purpose or direction. Out of the desert, a man came up to me and began talking to me about the Lord. Finally, with a sense of urgency - he told me to run. RUN! RUN! He said. I took off like there was an army after me running down this long, dirt road. Suddenly, I stopped and looked back at this mysterious man who began to announce me as "the prophet of the Lord." Then he began shouting, 'Behold! The prophet runs! Behold, the prophet of the Lord runs!'"

I woke up from this dream with the same sense of urgency that I needed to start running. I jumped out of my bed and darted out into the hall way. It took me almost a minute to realize what was happening: I was running! My knee felt no pain and wasn't collapsing! It was full of strength and health! I ran around my house jumping and bending my knee in celebration of God's healing power! The Lord truly does heal!

However, my knee problems didn't end there. Two years later, I still felt the gradual pain in the side of my right knee every once-and-a-while. I was spending some time in Cedar Rapids, Iowa with some house church friends and they wanted to pray over me before I left. In the middle of the prayer time, one of the women in group stood up and said, "I saw a picture of you running down this long dirt road... you're running and you're growing weary. But the Lord is telling you to keep running! And I see two angels coming along either side of you to nourish and strengthen you. And I see you having pain in your right knee. And one of the angels is reaching down and touching this knee, and giving you a tendon of gold. "

How broken I was as she began to tell me a similar vision to the dream I had been given over two years before. The dirt road. The call to run. The accuracy of my pain. The right leg... everything! After she told me her vision and I announced its accuracy with the pain I had felt in the past. The church prayed for my leg together, and the Lord completely healed it! Never once from that day forward did I feel that sharp pain in my leg ever again! Glory to Jesus!

Peace that Passes Understanding

I had been back from China for only about six months - but these six months had been some of the worst of my life. A gradual, detrimental illness began eating away at my body and mind. "Idiopathic, peripheral neuropathy" - doctor for "we don't know why, but it's shutting your body down." My mind was so eaten away at, that I finally had to be put into a mental hospital for my own stability sake.

I knew I was on the verge of dying. I didn't feel much will to live because of what intense pain I felt 24/7. But the Spirit of the Lord gave me a glimmer of hope even in my darkest times. The Bible says that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God! And this testimony is a tribute to that verse! In my desperation, I began searching the scriptures until I came across the Philippians 4 concept of "peace that passes understanding." I began to pray, read, meditate, speak and live that passage out. I mulled over that verse until it became a reality in my life.

The curing properties of this verse quickly began to reverse the affect of the mental pain all the way back to my body's functions. Not only did my mind heal and allow for clearer thinking, but my body healed back to where I could walk and move like a normal human being in just a couple months! I should have died from that illness, but the meditation upon God's Word transformed my mind and even my body into what God had planned for it to be like! Glory to Jesus!

That Demon Pharmecia

There are many miraculous stories wrapped around a two-year period of my life where I was leading a house church/Bible study out of my garage for teenagers. Many of the guys were ex-gang members, drug addicts, or involved in lascivious sexual behavior. In this instance, a guy came that was addicted to marijuana. He had been coming off and on for quite a while, and really had a good heart to follow the Lord. He had been walking out his faith pretty well, but made a mistake and ended up smoking a few joints.

Towards the end of the evening, he began to confess this sin and talk about how he needed to be able to pass a drug test the next day in order to get a job! Big problem considering marijuana stays in your system for 30+ days, and he had smoked just a few days before. Thankfully, I had a mentor that had come to the group that night to give a testimony, and he knew what to do with this situation.

We all got around this friend of mine and laid hands on him. We began to start interceding for him while my mentor began to talk to him. With a gentle, yet commanding, authority - my mentor said that this demon, "Pharmecia," was not allowed. He rebuked the influence of drugs and the affect of drugs over my friends life. My friend began to get dizzy and looked as if there was some intense battle going on inside of him. Suddenly, he began to vomit black, marijuana out of his lungs! He threw up for probably 2 minutes while the whole group stood their in awe of God's healing power!

Truly enough, this friend of mine passed the drug test the next day without a trace of the drug in his body! Not only that, but he is now walking in righteousness and a life free from drugs - serving and following the Lord with his whole heart! Amen!

Stomach and Back

Ever since I was a little kid, I had suffered from random periods of intense stomach pain. They were much more frequent than the average "stomach ache" an individual may get - and the doctor's even seemed to think they might have known what was wrong with me. Thankfully, the Lord never gave them that opportunity.

This stomach pain was accompanied my junior year of high school with an intense back pain as well. From the time I had been sick my sophomore year of high school, the pain I felt in my back had never fully subsided. But again, God had a plan for eliminating this suffering.

I had taken a trip up to this IHOP (International House of Prayer) service called "The Awakening." I only went a few times over the months that it was running - but was touched by what the Lord did during that time. I happened to be there one night when many people were getting healed - healed from drug addiction, from illnesses, from lameness, from deafness, from bad eye-sight... you name it. I was making it a focus of mine to spend time praying for others during this night of great healing - walking around and laying hands on those whom the Lord was leading for me to pray.

This healing had to be one of the most simple and pure healings I have ever witnessed. I was walking through the crowd that filled up IHOP-U's student building, when a little boy walked up to me and locked eyes with me. He couldn't have been more than 10 years old, but the purity in his eyes kept me fixed into his gaze. Suddenly, with childlike faith, he placed his hand on my stomach - not saying a single word - and sent what felt like fire straight into my gut. This fire ran into my gut, up my esophagus, through my whole shoulders/back/sides/ribs - everything! Until the fire had practically consumed me! And all this time, my eyes were continually fixed with this little boy. He probably only held his hand there for 15 seconds - but it felt like hours as I felt the Lord doing a transforming work on my insides. Then, without so much as a "In Jesus Name" or the typical IHOP phrase, "More!" The boy just walked away and disappeared into the crowd. After that moment, I never again struggled with those pains the same way - I had been healed with purity in Jesus' name!

Sleep Deprivation

These last three testimonies also took place at my little teenage house church towards the end of my time in high school. On this specific night, we had attracted the attention of a boy who was struggling with homosexuality, Satanism, and drugs. He seemed to jump right in to the group, and enjoyed talking about the Lord and about the Bible. But at the end of the study, he pulled me aside and told me a struggle he'd been having.

I was expecting something about the sex, drugs, or demons - but he simply told me "I haven't been able to sleep for a week." Wow! I was blown away. Here was a kid trapped in what we consider some of the most horrible of sins, and he was asking the Christian guy to help him with his sleep issues! I couldn't believe the opportunity I had. I probably had a thousand answers running through my mind about demonic torture and the need for peace that comes from Jesus - but in my moment of thinking, the Holy Spirit kicked in with some words of his own.

I love those times when you are giving advice or preaching, and suddenly it's like you're listening to something God is saying through you instead of thinking the thoughts and then speaking them. This one of those times. I looked the kid in the eyes and told him, "Tonight, you will sleep. Jesus has given you rest. But for the rest of the week you will again find no rest as a testimony to the power of God!" I couldn't believe what I was saying. I almost wanted to reach out and grab those words back! 'What if that's not true!?' I was thinking. The kid seemed equally surprised, and just kind of took what I said and left.

The next week, the kid saw me outside of the high school we went to and came running up to talk to me. "Josh! You won't believe what happened. I slept that night! All through it. The one you told me at least. But since that day, I wasn't able to sleep at all! Just like you said! Will you pray for me again?" WOW! Truly God did something only God can do in this situation! What a tribute to the power and omnipotence of our Lord!

Fading Arthritis

The evening of this particular story was simply meant to be prayer meeting. I had invited a couple of guys over to pray and seek the Lord with me. When one guy showed up, he had casts on each of his wrists. He told me about how he had been to the doctor earlier that day and was diagnosed with severe arthritis because of the strain his job was putting on his hands. I wanted to pray for him right away, but the Lord put a check on my mouth and said to wait.

We entered a time of intercession, and the Lord had me walk around the room, shaking my hands, praying for the loosing of "physical chains" - and he probably had me do this for 45 minutes! Pray, pray, pray. That's what we did. I had no idea what the other guys had going on in their hearts, but the more I prayed, the more excited I got! I felt like chains were falling off of my wrists! I felt the Lord come and place some ounce of the Spirit on my fingers and gird me with strength I didn't even need! I can't explain the feeling outside of it feeling like God had chosen my hand as a temporary habitation!

Suddenly, he told me to go grab the guy's wrists that had arthritis. Everything began to make sense. I needed to break off those chains that had bound his wrists under that stupid curse - that ugly sin! I ran over to him and grabbed his wrists, and lifted them in the air towards heaven. I didn't say a thing. There was no need to. It felt to both of us as if fire was running from my body into his, and he could feel the chains of arthritis melting away from his wrists. Praise the Lord! Two weeks later, there wasn't a trace of arthritis to be found! Not even the doctor could find it! Hallelujah!

Moving Bones

This last story is probably one of the most powerful stories I've ever had a chance to witness. Simply God's transforming power - both in the physical and spiritual realms - will never cease to amaze me. This testimony took place near the end of the time I was leading the little house church with the teenage guys. We were holding one last big "BOB Bash" - basically, an outreach concert. While the heavy-metal/screamo sound definitely doesn't get me into a worship mode, the majority of the guys I worked with were really into that type of music. Needless to say, that type of music and dancing can always be a precursor to various injuries.

Towards the end of the show, one of the band members for the last heavy-metal band broke his arm while swinging his instrument around. All I remember was hearing a loud CRASH and seeing this member run off of the stage. Everyone suddenly rushed back to see what was going on with the guy, people began praying for him, and this band member crawled up on the ground in intense agony over his hurting arm. After they prayed for him, the band went back on the stage to finish the show, while myself and a few other guys walked the hurting band member outside of the main auditorium.

We took him into a hall outside of the main room, laid hands on him, and started praying in the Spirit. I was begging the Lord to do a miracle to show all the non-believers the power of the Lord. After a couple minutes of prayer, I felt the Holy Spirit tell me to take my right hand and put it on his hurting arm. At first, seeing his pain, I was hesitant. But I finally obeyed in full faith that God was going to do something. What happened next was truly amazing. Once my hand was on his arm, I could feel that one of his bones was not in the right place - something had been bent way out of whack. But the moment I put my hand on that broken bone, I began to feel shifting in his arm - things were moving! A second later, the hurting band member dropped to floor in some of the most intense pain he felt all night. But glory to Jesus, this only lasted for a minute! The Holy Spirit MOVED that bone back into place, and this victim started bending his arm and crying at the goodness of the Lord!

After everything was over, the member paralleled the healing to a healing that was going on in his heart. About how he had felt like he was drifting from the Lord, but this healing was a sign of God's unconventional love and transforming power. He rededicated his life to the Lord, along with at least twenty other people that night, and received not only a healing of his arm, but a healing of his heart. Glory to Jesus. Amen.

Monuments: Destiny

2011-08-22T22:31:00.000-07:00

"...That this may be a sign among you, that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones? Then ye shall answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD; when it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off: and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel for ever." -Joshua 4:6-7

Just to be honest with the world, I don't blog or journal as much as I should. God continually does amazing things for me that I neglect to remember or write down, and I feel like that needs to change. So for the next little while, I'm making it my goal to start consistently posting stories about God's faithfulness in my life.

When God dried up the Jordan for the children of Israel, Joshua had them make a monument as a monument to God's faithfulness for generations. While I haven't seen God dry up a river (yet), I've seen him do some things that I certainly can take no credit for! And I want to take some time to draw attention to God's awesomeness over the next few months.

While much of this is a personal endeavor for my own spiritual health, I pray you may find encouragement from the stories I share with you. God-bless and enjoy!

Ever since I was a little boy, God has been writing a "nations" destiny in my life. I sure didn't know it back then, I definitely didn't understand it when I accepted a call into mission work, and I still haven't got the slightest clue of what I'm doing now that I'm actively walking it out! But one thing I know, God has been incredibly faithful throughout each step of my life.

My mom used to read me missionary stories when I was a little boy. I would hear about missionaries smuggling Bibles into the Iron Curtain and standing against persecution in Communist China. I was awed over these stories - and - with a six-year-old's childlike faith - I began asking God to write the same type of stories with my own life.

Somehow, despite my rebellious and stubborn nature, God has managed to write some of the stories I asked for back then already in my young age! I've smuggled Bibles into Communist China, I've watched God pull a veil over the eyes of security while I walked past with "illegal" Christian materials, I've even been protected from Communist Police, Muslim Radicals, Angry Buddhists, and Demon-Possessed Murderers under God's miraculous care! All these are stories for another time. For now, I simply want to focus on God's faithfulness in getting me to where I am today.

I became a Christian after renouncing some deep sexual struggles I was facing at a ripe 10 years of age. It still amazes me how young the pulls of pornography and homosexuality can affect kids in this age. Not long after receiving the Lord, I re-awoke to the desires my parents instilled in me for foreign missions. I dreamed of being one of those "amazing missionaries" again, and began actively pursuing the Lord.

I began growing in my relationship with God, and I'll never forget the day He told me "start learning languages." I was a little confused. It was so deep a conviction, I had to do it. But what God was asking me just didn't make sense. I heard Him say, "Study Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Latin, and Swahili." Whoa. That's an awful lot to take on at once. EVERYBODY told me so. Even people that were supportive of me learning unusual languages thought that the combination of everything at once was a bit much. But I knew what the Lord had told me, and I refused to back down.

After having some people poke fun at me for this endeavor one day, I went to the Lord and prayer and said, "God! You said to do this! Be faithful! Use it! Do something!" I got a piece of paper and wrote on it: WHY LEARN LANGUAGES? HE WILL PROVIDE! I didn't know what I was looking for... or how... or when... but I believed. And as seemingly insignificant as learning languages may seem in comparison to casting demons out of people, I consider this one of the greatest acts of obedience I ever did. Not because of it's importance in my life, not because of its applicability, but because GOD SAID SO, I HEARD IT, and no matter what people told me, I WOULDN'T BACK DOWN.

I continued doing this for about a year-and-a-half until God did something amazing! After signing my life over to a blank piece of paper and asking God to "write my story," I ended up in China at the ripe age of 14-years-old! Not only that... I was working in a heavily Muslim area, and I ended up using my ARABIC to minister to someone! I spent my 8th and 9th grade years dreaming about China and doing mission work with the underground church. I took two trips during these years - one which was a 2-month (1-month by myself) trip into the bamboo curtain! But after my second trip, I got very sick and began to forget about the incredible call God had placed on my heart.

A year-and-a-half passed before God decided it was time to wake me up again. While God used a time of adversity to grow me and prepare me for even more mission work at home and in other countries, it took a good knock to my skull to remind me of his destiny for my life. But in the midst of all these things, I came across my old paper with the words "WHY LEARN LANGAUGES? HE WILL PROVIDE!" I remember again being filled with my childlike faith and I asked God to do something amazing! And he has...

Now, at the still-ripe age of eighteen, God has awaken a "back to Jerusalem" call in my heart. I barely remember any of the languages I studied so intently back in Middle School, but I know why God had me to do it. He was testing my obedience. Whether or not I would follow him even in adversity. And all the while, He was affirming a call to the nations in my spirit by the languages I was learning.

I'm now networked into a group of people with a similar heart. To see the CHINESE speaking people take the gospel back through the silk road, to see the SWAHILI speakers take the good news back up the Nile river, to see the "LATIN" speakers bring what Paul took them nearly 2000 years ago, and to see the RUSSIANS bring Jesus from the North - covering the "four-corners" that Ezekiel and Isaiah prophesy about. And how somehow, all these people groups will minister to the ARABIC speakers that surround and inhabit that middle east.

I sure didn't understand this call when I was six! Nor when I was twelve! And I still haven't got a clue now that I'm eighteen, but I know God is piecing together something amazing. I've had the opportunity to share this burden with quite a few people now, to travel to both China and Uganda, and to see the foundations laid for a God-driven ministry I can take no credit for whatsoever! Who could've predicted God had all this in store when I told me to start "learning langauges!?"

This little story doesn't have much "glitter." There's no miracle, no healing, no near-death experiences... but this story means more to me than just about anything else I've faced or gone through. No matter where I go in life, I can look back at that old piece of paper, and remember that God is faithful to provide purpose if we'll simply trust him! You may not always understand the things that God asks you to do... that's probably a good thing. That means that God is God, and we're not. I figure that this is the best place to start... the weird, quirky little thing I was lead to do that changed my life. God tells us to "be faithful in the little things" - so go for it! Do the weirdness that no one else will do. I promise you that God watches for that. And when he finds those that will be faithful with the little things in life, he gives them more and more and more until they are feasting in the presence of their enemies! Truly, we serve an imaginative, mysterious, and incredible God. Amen.

Why God Made Darkness

2011-07-29T10:48:00.000-07:00

This is a thought I've wrestled with for some time now. Why did God make darkness?

Isn't darkness evil? Doesn't Satan operate in darkness? Doesn't the Bible say that in Jesus there is no darkness at all?

But in the Word's account of creation, the Bible is very clear: God created darkness: "And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night..." -Genesis 1:5 (See also Psalms 104:20; Isaiah 45:7). In 1 Kings 8:12, when Solomon finally made the temple of the Lord, God told him that "he would dwell in thick darkness."

Great. So God made darkness? Why?

I think it's first important to understand something about Satan. Satan HAS NO POWER to create. He has only the ability to twist things that God has created. The Lord created the tree of knowledge of good and evil for a perfect purpose within his perfect timing. Satan had to twist God's Word about this tree in order to get man to sin in the first place. The tree itself was not evil, but Satan used it in a way and time God did not appoint, thereby making it sin, making it evil.

I'm going to be so bold to say the same thing about darkness. Now, there's quite a few beliefs about what was going on at the very, very beginning of creation - and many people believe that there is a gap between verse one and verse two of Genesis one in which Satan rebelled against God. Let's pretend this is absolute fact for a moment, though my point does not depend on this being true. But let's say, hypothetically, that in verse one EVERYTHING is in darkness because God says that He dwells in the midst of darkness because he is the only light eternity needs. However, Satan misuses this darkness - maybe trying to use his own light (Lucifer meaning light-bearer) to be a light in the midst of the darkness God created for himself - and gets himself cast out of heaven. Now, all of this is totally hypothetical. But somewhere in there, Satan MISUSED God's darkness, Satan TWISTED God's darkness, and immediately places a negative connotation on darkness for mankind to wrestle with for eternity.

And what a brilliant strategy for Satan to use! If God indeed dwells in darkness, he would want all of creation to be terrified of darkness and use it for Satanic worship - that way, no one ever finds the habitation of the Lord! Remember, Satan twists what God creates, if God makes something perfect, Satan makes it evil. God made marriage holy, Satan made sex taboo; God made plants and animals, Satan twists it to junk food and drugs; God made water a picture of life, while Satan has used it as a means of death! My guess, is that if Satan is trying to make darkness SO evil, it must be really important for the purposes of God.

So now that this is established, look at Psalms 18:11, "He made darkness his secret place." The Lord dwells in darkness! Darkness is his secret place! The Jewish word for "Night" literally means "a wrapping" - as if God is wrapping something up within this darkness that is waiting for mankind to discover and walk in.

So let's slow down, and let's examine what I consider one of the most powerful passages in scripture - Psalms 18:28-31: "For thou wilt light my candle: the LORD my God will enlighten my darkness. For by thee I have run through a troop and by my God have I leaped over a wall. As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is tried: he is a buckler to all those that trust in him. For who is God save the LORD? or who is a rock save our God?"

Now, another important Biblical concept to understand about the nature of God is that if we have received the Spirit of the LORD then we will be MOVING with God. The Bible tells us in Genesis 1:2, at the first mention of the Holy Spirit, that the Spirit was moving over the face of the deep. And he's still moving today! John 7:38 tells us that he who receives the Spirit of the Lord will have streams of living water flowing out of his belly! The Lord does not want you to receive his Spirit and his blessings and then sit still! Receiving the Spirit of the Lord and follow him!

Another truth about the Holy Spirit. God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit will ALWAYS be exalting one another by the things they move us to do, say, and believe. If what you have in your life does not exalt the Godhead, then something is horribly wrong. And let me promise you this, if the Holy Spirit is in your life, and it is moving you like it should be, then the Holy Spirit of God will move you straight into the darkness so that you can move into the habitation of God and experience the blessings of the secret place of the LORD!

So why does the LORD use darkness? Why do we have to go there in order to experience the blessings of the secret place of God? Why on earth did the LORD CHOSE darkness for his habitation?

Psalms 18:28 tells us that the Lord will first "light my candle." When examining the Jewish words the Psalmist chose to use in this passage, we can see the hand of the Lord writing through David in a very powerful way. The word "light" has a literal connotation with another Greek word that brings out a full meaning that says, "to kindle an understanding." And the word "candle" literally comes from two Jewish words meaning "Fire and plow." So what God is saying in this first thought, is that he wants to lead you into the darkness, into his secret place, where he will light your candle, or "kindle an understanding of God's divine purposes to put fire in your spirit and reveal his purposes for your life in his field!" Why do we meet God in the secret place? To gain understanding! Why do we gain understanding? So that we can have fire in our hearts that spreads out into the field the LORD would have us plow while on this earth!

The Lord continues these amazing promises about the secret place:
"God will enlighten my darkness:" Literally, God will spread out (Hebrew, diaspora) the discoveries of his secret place. What does Paul tell the Corinthians? "Comfort one another with the comfort you have received." When you enter the secret place of the Lord and press into his presence via the darkness he is wrapped in, he will use that time in your life to influence others around you to press through the darkness in their lives as well!
"I have run though a troop:" When you enter into that darkness, Satan DOES NOT want you to be there! He will attack you in every way possible because he knows you are entering into the habitation of the Lord. So he will attack you, he will bring confusion, disorder, and blindness - but God promises us VICTORY over the troop, literally "attacks and invasions," the enemy will send after us.
"I have leaped over a wall:" Literally, I have leaped or rejoiced over a wall or lamentation. Satan will set up walls of despair and depression for us in the midst of darkness, but God promises us that we can, through him, rejoice in the midst of that dark place and move over that lamentation to reach the secret place of our God!

All of this said, it is imperative that we trust God in the mist of darkness. What does Satan say about darkness? They are times of despair, depression, distress, blindness, and confusion. But what does God say? That in the darkness, the habitation of the Lord, we will find joy, direction, comfort, victory, sight, and understanding! The Bible says, "God is not the author of confusion." He DID NOT create the darkness to confuse us, but to give us understanding. He "has not given us a spirit of fear," instead, he created the darkness for us to experience his spirit of "power, love and a sound mind."

So, practically, if you find yourself in a season of darkness and confusion - remember why God created it, and hold fast to verse thirty. "As for God, his way is perfect." That means that it's complete. Jesus said "be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world," the epistles record "greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world" - God has already, which means he will, which means he is, which means it is inevitable that He will complete his purposes in your life and his Will will be accomplished on this earth -- just trust Him! The Bible goes on to say "the word of the Lord is tried" - that word "tried" means "already put to the test!" There's no testing of God's words - Satan tempted Jesus to test God's word and to tempt the Almighty! Why? Jesus understood God was taking him to a place where he needed to depend only on the power of God the Father to bring him out. Lucifer wanted Jesus to lose faith and test God to see if He will do what He promised He will do outside of the Father's perfect timing. But Jesus kept faith that God will complete his Word within the timing He had planned, and that he would be FAITHFUL!

One last thought: "He is a buckler to all those that trust in him." That word "buckler" or "shield" is where the Jews got the name "Ananias"or better known as "Shadrach." Shadrach was one of Daniel's three friends that would not bow down to the statue of the King of Babylon. Because of this, the king had them thrown into a fiery furnace. I promise you this - Shadrach didn't know what to expect, he probably thought death was inevitable - but he stood on the promises of God, he walked in the ways of the Lord, he believed Psalms 18:36, "Thou hast enlarged my steps under me, that my feet did not slip," and even in the midst of uncertain times, he allowed the Spirit of the Lord to move him into the midst of the fire!

Here's a random fact, the middle of the fire is the DARKEST place in the world. All the oxygen is sucked out of the air, and no light remains - that is why firemen have lights. So in the midst of the most extreme darkness in the hottest fire, Shadrach and his two buddies were encountered with another being: Jesus Christ. Who FAITHFULLY met them in the secret place of the Lord! He was their shield! His plans were going to be completed! He ran through the midst of attack! He gave them joy over lamentations! He brought them direction and purpose in the midst of the most confusing times they had probably ever faced! And the King of Babylon knew it too. He brought them back out of the furnace totally unharmed, he was humbled before them and in awe of their God, and he recognized Psalms 18:31: "For who is God save the LORD? or who is a rock save our God?"

The three friends thrown into a furnace took what they encountered in the secret place where they met Jesus, they spoke the truth of what they learned to the King of Babylon, and the King of Babylon made a decree that the God of Israel should be worshiped because of his faithfulness and power shown to these three men! Hallelujah!

Let me tell you the truth, God will lead you straight into the darkness in order to teach you how to trust Him and to encounter you in his secret place. The darkness is not evil, but Satan will attack you in the midst of it, just trust in the provision of the Lord and keep running hard after Him. He will both encounter you and lead you out so that you can proclaim his faithfulness to the World. Amen.

Uganda Follow-up

2011-07-20T10:20:00.000-07:00

Dearest Brothers and Sisters,

First, thank you for your support to the ministry in Uganda this past summer. Truly, none of the ministry that was done could have been possible without the prayers and support of those back home. I'm writing this follow-up letter to share about the amazing things the Lord did while my team and I were in Uganda and also to share a little about my hopes for future ministry in the country over the next couple of years.

Our mission team consisted of myself and two friends of mine that serve as pioneers within the house church movement in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. We left from Chicago on Sunday, June 26^th and spent the next day-and-a-half traveling through Amsterdam, Kenya, and then finally reaching Entebbe, Uganda late Monday night. Praise the Lord! Traveling went smoother than we could have imagined with no significant delays or mishaps.

Tuesday, June 27^th was spent in Entebbe working with Abba House, the House of Friends Orphanage. My team and I were able to create new profiles for the orphans in order to help them receive American sponsors, analyze the property and find the areas that need further work, and spend lots of time simply loving on the orphans. One of my favorite stories from the orphanage was when I had the opportunity to tell these little African kids about some American orphans I work with back here in the United States. I told them how one of these little American girls took it upon herself to spend time praying for the orphans I'd be with in Uganda. Upon hearing this, the orphans at Abba House immediately decided to go into prayer for the orphans back in America – even going so far as to start writing them encouraging letters. This experience alone was worth the entire time it took traveling to Uganda.

Wednesday and Thursday were spent ministering in a small village in central Uganda called Katogwe. They held a small church conference in the village church where we were able to preach and minister to over 100 people from surrounding villages. Some incredible testimonies erupted from our preaching in Katogwe including: a miracle where two children were healed from a disease and a few messages that brought many people into finding freedom from spiritual bondage that had squandered their Christian life. The ministry impact left on the village significantly effected the people as they continued preaching, praying, and praising for hours more even after we left Thursday afternoon.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were all spent in Entebbe resting, preparing to go to Northern Uganda, preaching in local churches, traveling to crusades, and spending more time with the orphans at Abba House. Many of the sermons our team brought to the people of Entebbe involved the idea of setting in motion the principles of evangelism and mission work the people of Uganda so strongly believe in. We encouraged them to travel north – taking the gospel to the unreached people groups of Northern Uganda and Sudan. For the most part, our messages were readily received and the Word of God moved upon hearts bringing about His transformation in their lives.

Early Monday morning, we set out for the two day journey that would be the main goal and highlight of the trip. Our team traveled to Northern Uganda and visited a village called Adilang in the Poder district. Situated about 60 miles south of Sudan, 90 miles east of Kenya, and 10 miles from the warlike Karamojong natives of northern Uganda, Adilang remains an opportune place to start doing ministry. We connected with a Pastor named Peter, who welcomed us into his home, village, and church and allowed us to speak to the people of the area our vision for what God may want to do in Adilang. The Lord opened miraculous doors that allowed us to minister to victims of Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army, to make connections and encourage many local pastors, and even to sit down with the chairman of the province and talk about our desire to work in Northern Uganda longterm.

After everything was said and done, the people were so greatly filled with encouragement that they worshipped for another six hours after we left. The government is also very open to us coming in order to build an orphanage and do other forms of ministry with this people group situated in Northern Uganda. Adilang is a city in great need – with over 50 orphans, 500 fatherless kids, and countless amounts of starving, diseased, and dying people. Because of the recent wars that have transpired, many people are very broken and the church is lacking motivation and influence among the people in the area. Many of the local population is still heavily involved in witchcraft, believing the church has no power to help them after the devastations of Joseph Kony. It appears that the Lord has opened an incredible door of ministry for us to be able to go back to Northern Uganda and start working with these people to reach this dark, unreached area for Christ.

The remaining Wednesday-Friday of our trip was spent preaching in churches in Entebbe and recovering from the labor of working in the North. Again, the Lord opened mighty doors for us to preach about the movement of the gospel and about the importance of true community. One pastor that heard us speak on Wednesday was so moved by the message, he spent the rest of the week following our team around and asking us questions about the Bible and about life.

I have been so blessed to experience the wonderful works of God in Uganda. Two pages cannot even begin to capture the extent of what God accomplished in Uganda – or in the hearts of us who worked with the people there. I would love to answer any questions or speak with you in person about the trip and about what the next steps are to continuing the Lord's work in Northern Uganda. Feel free to email me at joshhulme@sbcglobal.net or to send a letter to:

5800 Northern Avenue

Raytown, MO 64133

May God sincerely bless you in everything you have done to support the ministry that took place in Uganda, for your prayers, and for you financial sacrifices. The investments you have made will have an eternal impact for the Kingdom of the Lord.

With much love,

~Josh Hulme

Taking Back Our Jerusalem

2011-05-03T20:09:00.000-07:00

"And let the peace of God rule in your hearts..." -Colossians 3:15
Peace is a HUGE part of Christianity. Jesus made peace in mankind's relationship with God through the cross. God guides his people with peace. Jesus set us free from fear, and gave us the Spirit of power, love, and a sound mind. We don't have to worry, but have the peace of God that passes all understanding. But despite the Bible's emphasis on peace, we often do not live as if we have truly inherited the peace of God through Jesus' death on the cross. We're worried about tommorrow.

What will I eat?
What will I drink?
How will my family be clothed?

But we should not seek these things, but the Kingdom of God - and peace will be given to us! (Matthew 6).

But here's a big problem. Peace isn't necessarily an easy thing to live in (and Satan knows that), so he attacks our peace, our contentment, and our fulfillment and makes us live in worry or dissatisfaction that causes us to pursue other sin. Those worried about their possessions will serve materialism, those worried about love will serve people-pleasing and lust, and so on and so forth. Satan attacks our peace, and it's time we fight back! But how do we retake the peace of our hearts? How do we allow the Lord to rule?

...Well, this is no new trick of Satan...

He's been doing it ever since the Israelites attempted to retake their promised land! The Israelites crossed over Jordan and experienced mostly victory after victory against the Canaanites; but as time went on, Israel got comfortable, Joshua got old, and the tribes decided they need not fight as hard or follow the Lord's commandments to fully "drive out the inhabitants of the land." In Joshua 16:63, a key verse indicates the beginning of a huge problem Israel would face later in its history: "As for the Jebusites the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah could not drive them out: but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem unto this day."

Now, at the time, the fact that Jebusites are living with the Israelites in Jerusalem doesn't seem like a HUGE problem, but further reading into Judges shows the trouble this would end up causing. Early on in the book of Judges, the problem of Jerusalem switches ownership: "And the children of BENJAMIN did not drive out the Jebusites that inhabited Jerusalem; but the Jeubistes dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem unto this day."

Now, this switch in ownership has a huge spiritual application. Tracing the word Jebusites back to "Jebu" back to its root leads to the discovery of an ancient Hebrew word that means - "to cast down." Applying this personally, and understanding that Jerusalem means "the teaching of peace," we can see that Satan is attempting to use this stronghold of people to cast down the teaching of peace in Israel. As Israel inherits the promised land, they paint beautiful pictures of the individual's walk with Jesus as they become Christians and are set free from personal sin and strongholds. Back in Joshua, we see that Judah - or the original "praise" and joy a Christian feels when first converting - attempting and failing to drive out Satan's armies in Jerusalem. Over time, this corruption of Satan is changed over to Benjamin. For individual Christians, we may read the progression as "Satan first cast down praise, then he cast down our importance, our direction, and our value. Benjamin was the youngest son of Israel - the pride and joy, the important, valuable son - his name means "son of the right hand" - a position of honor, of respect, of importance, of direction -- no longer are we just forfeiting our rights to praise and to live freely with the Lord to Satan, we're surrendering important aspects of our hearts!

When we fail to obey the Lord and let his praise inhabit the peace of our hearts (Don't rejoice in the Lord alway and the peace of God which passes understanding come hand-in-hand in Phillipians 4?), it gives Satan an opportunity to steal away an important part of our hearts and take a powerful stronghold. The fight to get this Jerusalem back becomes harder than ever. In Judges 20, Benjamin had given themselves over to sin and false gods. In Judges 20:12-13, the rest of Israel tells Benjamin (after recognizing the problem), "What wickedness is this among you? Now therefore deliver us the men, the children of Belial, which are in Gibeah, that we may put them to death, and put awawy evil from Israel. But the children of Benjamin would not hearken to the voice of their brothren the children of Israel."

Whoa. Now, because of the original sin, a huge problem has been created in Israel, a major conflict, and one that could only be dealt with through all-out war. In the verses following, the Benjamites prepare themselves for battle, and go out against the children of Israel. But interstingly enough, God has a special redemption plan in order to make things completely right. In verse 18, the children of Israel ask the Lord who should go up and fight against the Benjamites, his answer? Judah! Time to make things right! Time to restore praise to the teaching of peace in Israel! So Judah goes up against Benjamin, and they get demolished. Broken-hearted and crushed, they come back and wail before the Lord. But yet again, he tells Israel that Judah should go up to fight, and yet again, they are absolutely crushed.

Thankfully, the Lord has a special way of exalting broken and cast down people - these are the sacrifices of the Lord (Psalms 51). In James 4, the Bible says, "Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mounring, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up." So after one more wailing and weeping fit before the Lord, God sends Judah up to fight Benjamin for the third time. This time, Judah overcomes, and destroys the wickedness out of Israel, retakes Jerusalem, and restores peace to the people of God.

Most, if not, all of us as Christians have in some way forfeited our peace to the Jebusites in our hearts. In so doing, we've compramised the integrity of our hearts and sold over importance and validity to this lie that we need to be dependent on something other than God. Maybe you've recognized this, and tried dealing with it, remember, the Lord used PRAISE - thanksgiving, joy, a recognition of the character of Jesus - to drive out the sin in Jerusalem, and it didn't happen on the first try. Sometimes he brings us to a place of wailing and weeping before he restores to us what we forfeited in the first place. But praise be to the Lord who will exalt the humble in due time!

And remember, God has greatly used Judah and Jerusalem since that day. King David came from the tribe of Judah, Jerusalem became his capital, the home of the Lord God, and the destined place of our Lord's return. It is the place from which God has named his coming heavenly kingdom, the place where our Lord was crucified, and the place where we can later find reconciliation with God. Had not Judah overcome the Benjamintes, who knows what would have become of Jerusalem. But God had a plan for that place, and he wants to direct the peace in your heart as well. We must humble ourselves, give ourselves wholly over to the Lord, and let the God of peace rule in our hearts.

Amen.

Upcoming Trip to Uganda

2011-04-17T15:23:00.001-07:00

Brothers and Sisters,

Over the last year, God has broken my heart for the fatherless and the abandoned children all over the world – especially ones that are sold into child slavery and sex trafficking. Due to this burden, I began praying about going to Africa into the Uganda/Sudan area to do ministry with orphans and child soldiers – as well as to work on church planting with fellow believers. God has used a multitude of believers around me to confirm this burden – including my parents, pastors, and mentors who have been helping me prepare to walk in this calling. God has also stirred the hearts of some people around me to join in this calling and accompany me to Africa in the Lord’s work. As we have prayed about this, God has started to piece together the first steps of our mission. This summer, we plan to take those first steps to walking in this mission God has burdened us with.

One of the main goals this summer is to make national connections with those who do ministry in Northern Uganda – especially those already working with Sudanese refugees. Our current contact in Uganda is a man by the name of Paul Busulwa. Paul is a native missionary who travels all over the country doing apostolic work. He has agreed to go into Northern Uganda and even to the border of Sudan with us.
My partners and I will leave to go on this trip late in June of 2011, and spend a couple of weeks traveling through Uganda and spending time up near the border of Sudan. We will be flying into Entebbe, where we will do some work with the orphanage already there, and then to Kamuli, where again we will do work with orphans. After Kamuli, our small team of three-to-five people will travel up to the border of Sudan and spend time making connections with pastors and seeking out what the Lord would have us to do there.

Financially, we need to raise about $3000 for traveling expenses (airfare, ground fare in Uganda, immunizations, visas, living expenses, and ministry expenses). More importantly, we ask that you pray for the Lord to give clear direction for this pioneering ministry, safety in the trip, and to open the hearts of the hurting orphans, widows, and refugees that we will be working with once we are there. Any way you can support this mission is greatly appreciated.

I sincerely thank you for taking the time to read this! Our work is being done in partnership with House of Friends ministry – http://www.houseoffriends.org/. If you have any questions for me personally, please email me at joshhulme@sbcglobal.net and I will be happy to answer them. If you feel led to support this ministry financially you can send those to:

House of Friends
PO Box 228
Alma, MO 64001

Please attactch a note specifying that the money you send is for Josh Hulme's mission trip to Uganda. Any donations made to House of Friends will be tax deductible.

Thank you so much for your time,
Stay blessed in the name of Jesus,

~Josh

Why I Like My Glasses a Little Bit Dirty

2011-04-12T17:20:00.000-07:00

This has happened to me twice:

You see, I'm near-sighted (I think). What I mean is, I can't see things that are very far away. So, yes, I wear glasses - especially when I'm driving or in a classroom or something. There have been a couple times where I was running around, goofing off with my buddies, and one of lenses of beautiful, clean glasses just...falls out (I don't get the most expensive glasses). Here's the problem: since I only need them to see things far away, if my glasses are perfectly clean, sometimes I won't notice that I'm missing a lens until I'm trying to see something that I normally can't. *boom* Here comes panic! But by then, it's too late. That lens is looong gone, usually to never be found again.

So from these couple of experiences, I've developed a philosophy: If I keep my glasses just a little bit dirty, I'll notice when there's not that speck floating beneath my left eye anymore; or that ever-so-slight ketchup stain in the corner of my right lens. And the best part? I normally don't have to TRY to dirty my glasses, it just kind of happens. As I walk through life and try to correctly see the things around me by wearing my glasses, they tend to get a little mucky.

Strangely enough, through my semi-clinically-insane approach to vision, God has taught me theology! As I was meditating over my dirty glasses the other, the Lord brought to mind the verse: "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." -1 Corinthians 10:12

DISCLAIMER: I am BY NO MEANS endorsing sin or the pursuit of sin through the thing I'm about to say; I'm endorsing a radical pursuit of the Lord characterized by going deeper and deeper into our hearts and surrendering each part to Him.

Having the appropriate lenses in life is an important thing. Having a God-perspective characterizes followers of Jesus; it is required to have some sort of heavenly vision to call yourself a child of the Heavenly Father! I think that every born-again believer gets a new pair of glasses when they come into that blessed new life. These glasses are through the Holy Spirit, whom the Bible tells us reveals truth to us (John 16:13): it shows us right from wrong, real from fake, important from worthless, the Shepherd from the Wolf - without this new vision, we'd surely be destroyed quickly as babes in the Word!

But reading through the Psalms, there seems to be one more thing this God-vision does: it turns inward, revealing to us the things that are right and wrong. It reveals the true nature of our heart and reminds us what areas we ought to be warring in prayer for. One thing about this glorious light we receive: it reveals the disgusting c-r-a-p that's in our hearts. No fun! But beneficial, and important nonetheless.

John tells us in his epistle, "If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us." -1 John 1:10. I want to use this and the verse from Corinthians about "taking heed" to encourage us to all check our lenses once and a while to not be afraid to jump into the c-r-a-p in our hearts, and let the glorious truth of the Holy Spirit clean them out.

First of all, let's acknowledge a truth. We/you/I are/is not Jesus and can/will/may not have the blessing of living a life absolutely free from sin until the day we see Jesus and are transformed into his image. There is no earthly perfection; and if you think there is, you have pride - go repent. We are human, and we have a flesh that wars against our spirit (Most of 1 Peter, Romans, and 1 John 1:10). Unless our righteousness is as great as God's, we have sin. Period. Did you speak things into existence? Okay then, we have sin.

Now, if we are actively following the Holy Spirit and keeping our God vision, the bottom line is, we're going to get things on our glasses. We're walking out our faith in a dirty world, and things are bound to hop up there that we'll have to allow the Lord to cleanse us from. So if we ever find ourselves in places where we're walking through life and think our glasses are just perfectly clean all the time, we might want to make sure our lenses is still there!

I do not enjoy God bringing up new sin in my life, but I have learned to appreciate the fact that "whom the Lord loves, he rebukes and chastises." So when he goes deeper in my heart, shows me more change that needs to take place, teaches me new things to live out in the Lord, and shows me new areas to become more like him - I know I'm still following him, I know we're still going deeper, and I know I still have my lenses in! So I would encourage you, Beloved, appreciate the convicting words of the Lord - rejoice in them, and follow them! Never stop going deeper - and realize that when you do, things will get a little messy.

And this, my friends, is why I like my glasses a little bit dirty.

A Letter to Us Who Think We Know the Lord

2011-04-11T15:34:00.000-07:00

In my College Composition class right now, we're talking about poetry and learning how to deeply understand a poem by re-writing it in a more personal form. I decided I want to do that today with a passage from the Word. Whenever I begin to feel exalted against the Lord, and my heart exalts itself in pride, I like/hate to go to Job 38 and read until I can't take it anymore. Today, I want to show how these words apply to all of us who think we know the mind of the Lord by simply writing out the message of Job 38-41 in accordance with other Scriptures. Let us remember who we are, that we are "but dust" (Psalms 103) and return to a heart of humility and learning before the King of the Universe.

Thus saith the Lord.
Who are you, Oh man?
That you would say you know my heart?
Who are you that speaks the truth without the Truth?
Where is your way?
For I AM the Way.
How have you enlightened your path?
For I AM the Light.
How have you discerned knowledge?
For I AM the Truth.

Prepare yourself.
For I will come - you must answer.
When I knock, I will be let in.
I will require of you the words you have spoken in vanity,
You will be held accountable for the advice you have spoken,
The "truth" you hold on to will someday meet I AM in perfection.

When I spun out the plans of the world,
When I prepared my ideals,
When I sad, "Let this be so,"
Did you advise me then?

When I spoke your life into existence.
Did you help me?
How then will you tell me why you are here?
Or did you join me as I formed you in your mother's womb?

Who gave you authority to build lives?
Who has endowed you with power from on high?
Have you so much perfection, that I cannot contain it?
Have you so much wisdom, that I cannot know it?
Have you so understood things,
As to teach what I have not taught?

Will your ministry go beyond the ministry of my Son?
Where then, are they which walk that were lame?
Where are the free, who were once bound?
Where are they singing, though they were once dumb?
Create a heaven, Oh man!
And redeem a dying race to live there!

Will your sufferings be so great,
That you cannot lay them at the cross?
Have you so much bitterness,
That I AM not enough?
Have you so much anger,
That my cross is of none effect?

Go now - and join with Satan, you Lucifer!
For you that have borne light,
Will see that the only light you have is mine!
Have you rebelled against my way?
Have you told me what I have said?
Have you formed truth in your mind?
Have you made laws of my heart?
Have you made cages for my ways?
Beware, Oh man:
For I will have my way.
I will fulfill my desire.
I will cause my truth to endure.
I will honor only those who have my heart.
And I will break your cages.

And you will know,
That I AM the Lord.

Forgive me, Lord. Forgive us, Oh God. For we have created our own versions of your way. We have corrupted the truth of the Gospel of Christ. We have required men to learn our ways, and have ignored the ways of the Christ. I know that you are coming in vengeance, only be merciful unto those who love you. Be gracious to those who have called on your name. Be slow to wrath, oh God! Quick to mercy - quick to forgive! We trust in Your goodness; in Your way: be the God who directs us, for we cannot direct ourselves. We are all blind, and the blind cannot lead the blind. But You, Oh Lord, You see! So lead us into all truth, into all love, into all life, into all grace. May we shed this phoney Kingdom of "God," and embrace the Kingdom of Jesus! May we break down our tower of Babel, in which we have said that we will reach unto the heavens, and be like gods! Forgive us, redeem us, perfect us, lead us - you are our Hope, our Saving Grace, our Love, our Everything.

I ask for this in the name of Jesus Christ - that your will may be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Amen.

Liberty to Love

2011-04-01T20:41:00.000-07:00

"This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh." --Galatians 5:16

I used to set out each of the fruit of the Spirit in list next to my bed: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. At the end of every day, I would go through each thing, and try to make sure I did something that lined up with each of the different fruits. Brilliant, huh?

I suppose it was if I was going go for figuring out if I was walking in the fruit of the Josh.

I had the most amazing revelation about these fruits of the Spirit the other day: They're the fruits of the SPIRIT! That means that as I allow the Holy Spirit to fill me and indwell me; as I quiet my soul and listen to his truth speak into my life - the fruit of the SPIRIT happens as a result of him being there - and me being ... well ... dead. "For I have been crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me..." -Galatians 2:20.

So yes, about two or three weeks ago, this concept really hit home with me, but it left me in a place of utter confusion: what do I do now? I've heard so many interpretations of what it means to Walk in the Spirit and how to overcome the fruits of the flesh and live out the fruit of the Spirit - but now that I've realized that my "righteousness is as dirty rags" and that I NEED the Spirit in order to walk in these fruits ... wow, what now? Do I sit around and pray for an indwelling to live these out? But what does that even need to look like? How can I keep my focus right? How can I walk in these things while avoiding turning into a law? And consequently, my pride and self-righteousness...

Truthfully, I'm still struggling with some of these answers in my spirit, but I want to share what the Lord hit home with me this last week. I meet with two other guys on a semi-weekly basis where we confess to each other, pray for each other, and read through passages of the Bible together - it's an awesome group, and I'm so thankful for them! Right now, we've been reading through Galatians. So for the last week or two, I've read Galatians about five times - it's a good way to get to know the book and allow the Spirit to reveal its depth to you! As I was reading Galatians five for about the fifth time, I began to have an epiphany about the entirety of the chapter and how Paul introduced the fruit of the Spirit! Go ahead and read Galatians five, and then I'll share my own little commentary on what the Lord taught me through it.

Now, disclaimer: this IS NOT the divine, only interpretation of this passage.... there are thousands. Good ones. One's probably like this and much, much better than mine -- but this is the humble interpretation of a goofy little Christian that's never had any formal education in Bibleness, I just like to read the words and try to figure out what they mean. So if you disagree, feel free! And help teach me. But I'll say this, after I realized some of these things, the freedom I felt in the depths of my heart reached a deeper level than I have ever experienced prior. And with all that said....

Reading through Galatians has taught me a couple big, important lessons: my flesh sucks, the law is dead, grace is awesome, and liberty equals love. Chapter five, verse one, is a call to "stand fast" in the liberty wherewith Christ has "made us free" - seeing the Galatian's problem, we understand that their bondage was in serving the law and man-made systems of righteousness. "Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" Mmm. No.

Paul goes on to tell them in verses 2-12 that this problem they faced of reverting back to their flesh in order to achieve righteousness...was..well, bad. Verse five, "For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith." Paul even references the warnings of Jesus when he warns the 12 apostles of the pharisees works-based doctrine, "Beware of the Pharisee's leaven," in verse nine when he says, "A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump."

Just the slightest amount of works-based doctrine can REALLY jack up our faith and theology. When I start to say I CAN and God...uh... wait... where's God? See, when we think that our righteousness is in our own power, what's the point of God? I mean, honestly. So let's just establish this truth: In our flesh, we CAN DO NOTHING that is good, right, or perfect in the sight of God. NOTHING.

So how and where does the Spirit come in? Well, it makes since to me that if I'm inhabited by God that the things that are characteristic of him would become characteristic of me. So what does the Bible say that the Spirit is good for? "For by one Spirit are we all baptized..." - 1 Corinthians 12:13 - "Which is the head, even Christ: from whom the whole body fitly joined together... edifying itself in love..." - Ephesians 4:16 - "Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace..." - Ephesians 4:3 - "And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: till we all come in unity of faith..." - Ephesians 4:11-12. I see one MAJOR theme with the Spirit: brotherly love and unity.

So if this is one MAJOR characteristic of God's Spirit, it's probably a characteristic of those who walk in his spirit as well.... as a matter of fact, Galatians 5:13-14 basically reads: "You aren't in the law any more, you're in the liberty of grace and faith! But don't use this liberty as a chance to sin, but serve one another in love, edify each other - for all of the law you used to live by is finished and completed in this truth: love your neighbor as yourself." Whoa. So if we really think about this, we realize that we are walking in the Spirit, inhabited by the Spirit, in fellowship with the heart of God when we simply love our neighbors as ourselves.

Paul uses this phrase of the way we should treat each other to lead up to his famous, "Walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh." Why? Because the lusts of the flesh are TRULY, for believers in Christ, insults and accusations against the body of Christ. Even if it's just a lustful or bitter thought, I accuse my brothers before the Lord with my own sin - even just in my head! When I lusted after that girl, I caused dissension to the body of Christ; when I judged my brother, I cut off the finger of the Lord! That is why when we walk in the Spirit: selfless love towards our brothers for the point of edifying them and building them up: we CAN NOT fulfill the lusts of the flesh. I cannot lust after a girl in order to edify her; nor can I criticize my brother in pride to make him stronger.

I think John caught on to this same principle when he wrote the whole book of first John: how many times does he make the point, "If you can't love your brother, you don't really love God." Part of having the Spirit of God and walking in that Spirit is having a love for what God loves: his people and his children! Instead of focusing on ourselves: turn outward! See that walking in the Spirit isn't about a checklist, but a lifestyle. Not an action change, but an attitude change. This will truly give you freedom from the law, but also not provide an occasion for us to abuse the grace and liberty of God!

This is what the Lord is teaching me and pushing to the forefront of my heart right now: I hope you find this freeing and encouraging. Love one another, and walk in the Spirit, and stay blessed in the name of Jesus. Amen.

When Knowing God Becomes a Bad Thing

2011-03-01T19:12:00.000-08:00

Now, before anybody gets to stirred up about the title, let me give this disclaimer: I believe that there is nothing greater, more satisfying, or more rewarding then seeking a lived out, working, moving, changing, Holy-Spirit-birthed knowledge of the King of the Universe. BUT, I believe the Bible warns us that there is indeed a point in time where our knowledge of God actually becomes a bad thing - if you can, take some time to read Luke 19:11-27.

Read it? Awesome. If you've read anything else I've written, my first blog - "Use It or Lose It" - used the last two verses (Lk. 19:26-27) to talk about the importance of having an active faith and obeying, not just hearing and learning, the word of God. Well, not to be too redundant, but this little blog is over a similar subject, but one that has become increasingly dear to my heart.

The story is pretty simple: a man has three servants. He goes off to a distant land in order to be crowned king, and gives each of his servants some money. One servant earns an extra ten minas, one an extra five, and one doesn't invest at all and only gives back what the king had given him. This makes the king pretty angry, so he take away the mina that servant had and gives it to the obedient servant with ten dinas. The first two servants got the reward of becoming rulers over cities in the king's empire, but this last servant was put to shame and not given anything.

So what does it mean? Well, the King is Jesus, and we're the servants. The amount of money we invest is how well we use what the Lord has given us on this earth - do we invest it? Take risks? Steps of faith? Dare we take the chance to lose the life that the Lord has given us in order to gain even more? Or will we hide our lives and live selfishly? Safe? Wisely? Not really. "For whosoever shall seek to save his life will lose it."

But what I find most interesting about this entire passage is the response of the foolish servant, look at verses 20-23:
"The another servant came and said, 'Sir, here is your mina; I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap waht you did not sow.'
His master replied, 'I will judge by your own words you wicked servant! You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out wat I did not put in, and reaping what I did not sow? Why then didn't you put money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could have collected it with interest?'"

Whoa! Look at what the servant says: "Because you are..." The servant attemted to excuse his laziness and disobedience by saying he KNEW the King. How often do we, as servants of the King, do this today? We claim that we know God and who He is, the "God of the Word."

We say that God is a God of promises.
So why don't we live like He'll keep them?
We say God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
So why don't we trust Him.
We agree that without faith it is impossible to please God.
So why don't we base our lives around faith?
We say that there is none righteous but our Lord.
So why do we try to achieve perfection on our own?
We say that He is strong though we are weak.
So why do we rely so heavily upon our own means?

Can't we see? A knowledge of God becomes a bad thing when we know it, but don't believe it. We take the name of our Lord in vain when we claim to be his bride, yet profane his truth with our own ideas of how life should be lived. The Bible says that the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of man - so why don't we stop relying on what we can "figure out" about the Lord, and start just trusting in what he says? When we get into heaven and see Jesus face-to-face, he will ask us something like, "What did you do with the life I gave you?" How will you respond?

Like servants one and two: "Jesus, here are thousands or hundreds or tens of other souls that I witnessed to, here is a life obedience and faith. I suffered and struggled, I had little upon the earth, but I trusted you, and you always provided. Because of you, my life has become a walking testimony, and now there are many more souls in your kingdom."

Or like servant three: "Well, Lord, I knew you were a God of the harvest. So I kept my soul safe and locked away, so it couldn't be corrupted or stolen or lost. I knew you valued my life to die for it, so I decided I would live it to the fullest and stay safe!"

Which servan really knows the heart of the King? Truly, "The heart is decietful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it?" Who would want to?! This day, let us lay aside what we think we know, and start focusing on where are hearts are with the Lord, where our lives actually line up with what we say we believe - with what we think we believe. Like the old song goes:

Trust and obey
For there is no other way
To be happy in Jesus
But to trust and obey

Amen.

Simple Truths: Darkness Brings Forth Light

2011-01-23T07:48:00.000-08:00

"For thou wilt light my candle: the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness." Psalms 18:28

For a short season of my life, this verse became one of my favorites. I recently read a poem from an Indian martyr that said this:

Truly, living with God is glorious
The darker the night - the closer the dawn
The darker the clouds, the more plentiful the life-giving rains
The narrower the way, the more of God's unlimited help
The greater the troubles, the more the comfort from God
Though the waves get higher, this can never disturb the calms of the depths
Though the storm is violent, it cannot displace the mountain
Those who trust in the Lord are like mountains that cannot be shaken
The person who lives in the shadow of the Almighty will never be disturbed by the heat.

How true that really is! From the beginning of time, one of the beautiful patterns that God has set in place that we, his children, can take hope in is that darkness gives birth to light.

Recently, I've been reading through the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and it has been amazing to see the way that God has brought light out of their darkness - even just in the smallest of ways. Abraham lost faith in God quite a few times (ex. Gen. 12; Gen 20); his wife, Sarah, laughed when she was told she would have a baby in her old age; yet God provided and Abraham and Sarah had a son. Isaac went through a literal darkness - blindness - and was deceived by his younger son for his blessing; but Isaac's family did not fall apart, and God built an inheritance through Jacob to become Israel. And Jacob, quite frankly, was a mess. He lied, was lied to, had multiple wives that fought with one another for favor in his eyes, constantly relied in his own strength instead of God's promises, disobeyed the voice of the Lord about going to Bethel, watched his daughter get raped in the land of his disobedience and his sons commit murder - and eventually, with all his favoritism, disobedience, and trust in his own strength - he almost lost his youngest, most precious, son - Joseph. Yet somehow, through all of this.. well.. crap... God sustained Jacob and turned him into a great nation.

God turns darkness into light. Cloudy seasons into understanding. Stormy times into peaceful victories. The days of Jewish captivity resulted in the birth of the world's Messiah. The death on the cross turned into resurrection unto eternal life. There is a promise that these last, dark days will someday turn into the millennial kingdom and eventually the New Jerusalem. Truly, I have only begun to understand the smallest parts of God's promises towards me, but I know this for sure: God has turned darkness into light in multiple occasions.

This is no deep truth; nor is it a lesson you have probably not heard before. But read through the Bible, and look at all the ways God turns darkness into light - starting in Genesis one with creation - and be encouraged that God's plan for you is ultimately one that breaks forth into understanding and blessing! If you find yourself in a season of confusion right now, a season of doubt, or a season of war - know this simple truth: that God will enlighten our darkness!

"For who is God save the Lord? or who is a rock save our God?" Psalms 18:31

The Greatest Goodbye

2011-01-10T09:05:00.000-08:00

Many times in life, I best cope with things by writing songs about what I'm going through. This last weekend, I put my girlfriend on a plane to go to her home back in Texas. She's lived there for about a year-and-a-half now, but that doesn't make our goodbyes any easier. We usually see each other two or three times each year - a total of about 20 days. It gets hard at times. Furthermore, she doesn't really enjoy it down there. She has friends and family, whom she loves; but the rich culture of where she lives and the typical complacency of the Christians there makes it a hard place for her to be. As if saying goodbye wasn't hard enough, I have to send her to place where God is growing her by fire. But as I was walking away this time, God began to put a song in my heart. I've found that as hard as pain can be, it always helps me to better understand God's heart and to bring me closer to Him. In this case, I wrote a song about what it must have been like for God to say "goodbye" to Jesus when Christ came to earth. Theologically, the song is probably not very correct. But it's one of those things that's interesting to think about and consider - what was it like for God to say goodbye?

How did manage, Lord, to watch Your Son go?

Into a world that You knew was not His home?

Did you turn Your back when He died because of pain?

And when you cried – was that the thunder and the rain?

How did it feel to watch him walk down from his throne,

Knowing that he’d face death and Hell alone?

What was it like when you kissed the Son goodbye?

Did you fight to let go when you hugged him, did you cry?

Could you hold back your tears when you looked him in the eyes,

And said, “Go, my Son, redeem them all and die?”

For surely, there was never such a sorrowful farewell

Met with joyous singing – as your son went to fight Hell

Even though You knew that it would turn out right

Heavenly Father, what was it like to say goodbye?

And when you sent him to his death

Tell me, did you hold regrets?

Did you tell yourself you shouldn’t have let him go?

And when the Father and the Son

Oh the Godhead, three in one

Was separated – did you shake the world in sorrow?

What was it like when you kissed the Son goodbye?

Did you fight to let go when you hugged him, did you cry?

Could you hold back your tears when you looked him in the eyes,

And said, “Go, my Son, redeem them all and die?”

For surely, there was never such a sorrowful farewell

Met with joyous singing – as your son went to fight Hell

Even though You knew that it would turn out right

Heavenly Father, what was it like to say goodbye?

But through fire and through pain

The world would never be the same

The separation that You faced made the redeemed

And tell me, how did You feel

When Christ ascended out of Hell

And with a shout, You crowned Him as the King?

And what was it like, to be united with Him in victory?

Did You hug Him tight and cry with joy in Glory?

Could you hold back your tears, when you looked him in the eyes,

And said, “Well done, my son, you’ve spread eternal life?”

For truly, there has never been such a joyous hello

Than the day Your Son ascended to his throne

And all the time, God, you knew it would turn out right

And Lord You knew, it was worth it to say goodbye

As I consider the goodbye that Christ faced and had in front of him - I look towards the joyous ending of the story. Whether or not I have a joyous "reuniting" on this earth - I know that God will use it for the best, for His glory, to bring about His kingdom. I don't always get how, but I know He's in control. So Lord, here's my sorrow and my grief, turn them into mourning and dancing - only in Your timing. May Your will be done.

My Dad Could Beat Up Your Dad

2011-01-04T20:58:00.000-08:00

John 16:33, "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."

I always get a good laugh when I hear two little boys arguing about whose dad is stronger:

"MY dad could beat your dad up!"
"No way! My dad's a cop!"
"Oh yeah? Well my dad's in the army!"

The argument goes on and on - but we'll most likely never know whose dad would be stronger. I assume that the majority of grown men tend to not get in fist fights to prove to their sons they're the strongest dad in town.

Although I poke fun at the little guys that do this, I've found that I did the same thing today - only with my heavenly father. Let's just say Paul's message of "we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers of darkness" took on a whole new personal meaning for me. I had been around demonic manifestations before, I'd seen and helped deal with them, I'd even managed a small one myself once, but never had I seen anything like the one I just saw a while ago. When all was said and done in dealing with this wickedness, I walked away with physical bruises along with my spiritual battle scars - and I was exhausted. I had seen a powerful demonic manifestation like this one; but at the same time, I had never felt more confident of God's great love and power. It's like Alyssa said, "If our enemy is that powerful, how powerful must our God be!"

And amen to that! But I was still struggling. I was having a hard time recovering spiritually and emotionally from the battle that I had with the demons in that last manifestation. In so many ways, things kept happening, event after event popped up - seemingly just to make an attempt at discouraging me again. The smallest things from seeing creepy shadows to having to fight off another manifestation from someone else, it was like I just couldn't break free from the battle of this thing.

But praise be to God who remains true to his Biblical character! The psalmist wrote, "He hath delivered my soul in peace from the battle that was against me" - how amazingly true is this. Not only does God provide us victory in the battle, but also peace and victory from the battle. It was when I realized this great truth that I spoke boldly the words of 1 John 2:13, "I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one" and those words from John 16:33 became more powerful than ever before - Jesus has overcome!

As I prayed over this truth, an unsaved friend of mine stopped me and randomly said, "I had the weirdest dream about you last night!" Turns out, her dream was a prophetic picture of how God had used me the day before, and a prophetic foreshadowing of the purpose. Hallelujah! For though the principalities of darkness work in fear and in bitterness - only my God can perform works such as these! I suddenly found myself acting like those little boys bragging about their dads being the strongest, "Look at my Daddy! Look at my God!"

And my Daddy is this most powerful! Jesus said it, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." This truth is still truth today - and everyday. Lord, let us live in the love of God that delivers us through the battle, sets us above the battle, and places us in a position of victory - we are the overcoming saints of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Use It or Lose It

2011-01-02T06:34:00.000-08:00

"But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves." - James 1:22

Ever think you know something pretty well only to find out that you really don't know anything at all? I'll never forget some of my greatest blunders with this - Chinese. I was preparing to go on a missions trip to China, and I wanted to be prepared - so I studied, I read, I wrote, I even talked some in preparation for this difficult language; and I was prepared, or so I thought. The first day I arrived in China, I got off that plane, met my Chinese contacts, looked them in the eye, and then they spoke... gibberish. I couldn't make out any of it. I tried speaking back, and received blank stares in response. Let's just say there was a pretty big communication barrier until they found someone that spoke English - the next day. Although the rest of my time in China didn't reflect this experience; this was definitely a bad foot to get off on.

Well, to be completely honest, one of my biggest problems with learning the Chinese language was that I was to shy to try speaking it outside of class (to other ACTUAL Chinese speakers) back in America. I never really had practice outside of sitting in my little room attempting to say phrases that - quite frankly - were said wrong. I had this head knowledge of what the character looked like, what the phonetic spelling was, how each of the letters sounded and what THEIR phonetic spellings were, even where the diphthong was going to be placed - but practically, this was utterly useless. I didn't know how to put all of these things together and actually speak like the Chinese did; I didn't live out this knowledge of Chinese. And even though I THOUGHT I had it figured out; because I didn't use this knowledge, well, I lost it.

Sadly, I've found myself treating Christianity the same way sometimes. Why do I spend so much time studying, learning, and figuring out things in scripture that I refuse to actually live out and practice in my everyday life? Or maybe I read and learn about them and then choose to ignore them. Well, bad news for me: spiritual knowledge works a bit like my Chinese! Use it or lose it.

Luke 8:16-18 says, "No man, when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bed; but setteth it on a candlestick that they which enter in may see the light. For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad. Take heed therefore how ye hear: for whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have."

When we have an encounter with Christ, we should be like the man with the candle. We don't cover or hide this knew spiritual knowledge and divine encounter, we're supposed to set it up on a candlestick. However, so many of us don't do that. We take what we hear in church, what we read in the Bible - and we put it in our box of spiritual knowledge to be pulled out when we need to make a good argument. The biggest problem with this is that this isn't active knowledge! Truth in the Bible is very active: look at John 16:13, "Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come."

So the Spirit actively guides us into all truth; he readily helps us to understand the Word that we read and hear and then to live it out in our lives. But if we just set our knowledge of God aside, and don't even make an attempt to live it out - we actually lose our understanding of it. The last verse of the Luke 8 passage says that we need to be careful how we listen - how we understand the word of God. Similarly, James 1:22 tells us to not just be hearers, but doers of the word. The consequence that each passage presents is very similar as well: if we aren't careful to listen and understand correctly (which means applying it to our lives), then spiritual knowledge will actually be taken away from us; and if we don't live what we learn like James says, we actually deceive ourselves into thinking we understand what the Bible is saying.

I deceived myself with Chinese. I was convinced I knew it based on my study and adherence to grammar rules - but not the applicable, living out of the language. I know I've done this thousands of times with Christianity as well - learning the knowledge and not living it out. Spiritual knowledge is active, it changes and deepens as our relationship with God grows; and our relationship with God gets better as we obey what he has to say to us. There is definitely a blessing attached! For Luke 8 tells us that whoever "has" - whoever listens correctly and lives it out, to him will be given more; a greater understanding of God; deepness in their Christian walk, and intimacy in their fellowship. Overall, it's a choice. Live out our knowledge and get closer to God; don't live it out, and we get further away. Use it or lose it.