Fear Not

In Exodus 3 a man was very afraid. The story of Moses, a man who acted in his calling and prematurely killed a man, a man who settled for a life of wilderness living was interrupted by the manifest presence of God burning in a large tree. Moses was afraid.

Moses wrestled with the fear that each of us recognize. He, like us, fought the primary battle of our life and of our Christian life in the mind. The warfare is in our minds and our spirits must begin ruling our minds. The antidote to Moses’ fear and the secret to the warfare are to know and rest on three things:

• Who you are
• Who He is
• What is you destiny

What the enemy wants to do is make is weak. We are at out strongest when we respond to God and not react to the enemy. The devil wants to create in you, a way of thinking where you are always aware of him. He knows that he cannot beat you so he tries to get you into agreement with him so you can beat yourself.  The enemy cannot change my destiny but he can speak long enough to become part of my focus and we live in reaction to him rather in response to God. We are at our best and most effective when we respond to God. I love Him because he first loved me.

As Bill Johnson says, whenever we believe a lie, we empower a liar. Whenever we are focused on his plans, it means we actually plan with him in mind and he wants to have at least that much influence.

Spiritual warfare is evolving. An incorrect mindset of spiritual warfare increases our striving not our faith. We stomp, march and bind with great fervor and little success. True faith comes out of surrender not striving. Faith is not the result of effort; it is the result of rest. When we allow the enemy to have even some place in our sight, we must lose sight of something else and that thing is the love of God. The love of God is to be THE supreme reality in our mind.

Psalm 23

He makes a table before me in the presence of my enemies. God will place us in sight of our enemies, in the very midst of fear, anxiety, doubt, and depression. They are our enemies, not someone else’s. you should not be afraid when you are asked to rest in the middle of what causes you the greatest angst. This is the place God wants to sit you down and feed you. 

The secret to being in the presence of our enemies is not to work harder or shout louder at the darkness. The secret is to rest. Rest in Him. Intimacy is the place of warfare. It never breaks focus on the one you love. You don’t break focus on the one you love to beat the enemy. When we love him, he arises in warfare. Love Him, give Him praise and thanksgiving. Once you do, He will fight for you.

Isaiah 42:10-13

The most common commandment in scripture is to not fear. It is mentioned more times than anything else. Relational breakdown, hopelessness, business conflict even sickness and disease can be traced to fear. If it is God’s #1, be assured it is our #1 enemy.

Perfect love equips a person to not be affected of the fear of any future crisis, torment, and punishment. When we live in the context of experiencing Gods love, we repel fear.

Soak in the reality of who He has made you to be, in whom He is. Until you know the truth, you have no access to the experience. Knowing the truth will give you access to the experience of no fear.

In great times of warfare, we usually increase or work what we must do is increase our rest on the awareness of the perfect love of God.

It is an absolute fact that Jesus defeated every enemy we face, fear, confusion, death, torment, disease, poverty, anxiety all were defeated by Jesus and learning to live in the consciousness of the love of God and not these things is the very thing that allows us to live a victorious life. Focusing on any of them will lead us to fear and fear will take us into unbelief. Quoting St Bill once again, ‘To the degree I am aware of an assault, I must compensate with an increased awareness of Gods love.’

Jack Hayford said years ago, how would you treat a friend who lied to you as often as your fears do? You would at least ignore him or her if not kill them!

Stop listening to the voice that brings you down into the mire of doom and gloom. They have both been judged and found wanting.

The Battle

All truth is not equal.

Not only that but truth comes to us in layers. This can result in tension. ‘I know longer call you servants but friends’ does not mean we don’t serve. The new revealed truth about intimacy and friendship, builds on servanthood. The new truth takes us to a new level. 

We reap what we sow is one of the most basic laws in nature and is replicated in the Kingdom. You get what you planted. A higher law is blessing, where we get what someone else (Jesus) paid for. Both truths exist at the same time, we learn to live in tension but oh how we want all tension removed!

John 3

“You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.“

Being a teacher meant the marriage between knowledge and experience.  It was not a separate thing. Every revelation of truth led to an experience of that truth that required an experience of the Holy Spirit to lead into that truth.  Every new revelation required a new anointing for the experience of that truth. Greater truth required greater anointing to experience that truth. Satisfaction with good theology must not be the end. Theology should invite us to divine encounter. I got the theology of being born again and then I walked in the actual living experience. We are told of the dangers and we sometimes look down on experience and those who seek an experience. If I need healed, merely teaching good theology on the atonement is not what I want, I want the experience. Good theology should not be deemphasized but should led to an encounter. It is not to make us smarter; it is to give us legal access to experiencing a truth. Truth gives us legal access to previously unknown experiences.

Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.  Faith sees. It sees unseen realities. Faith lives from the unseen to the seen. It lives from the dominion of God to the earth. Heaven to earth.

There are things in heaven we cannot understand if we cannot understand even earthly things. You will live from whatever world you are most aware of. You will reflect the nature of the world we are most aware of. Our mandate is to live from heaven and bring it to earth. It is the essence of the anointed incarnation. So how do we get to heaven while being here on earth? How do we access the heavenly realm? Simple. Psalm 100 – “Enter His gates with thanksgiving And His courts with praise.” 

Thanksgiving brings us to heaven. We actually enter heaven (the gates, the place of great value, the pearl) by giving thanks. We experience Heaven and heavens culture by being thankful. We set our mind on the things above, the Kingdom is at hand!

I have been thinking about John the Baptist.  The KJV tells us in Luke 7:28 that there is no greater prophet. He is the greatest yet he did no miracles.  He was no Kevin Dedmon, Randy Clark or Dan Pietrini!  So why was he the greatest?

I think it is because he declared the presence of heaven on earth. He set his mind on heavenly things. We can only release what you have your heart set upon. John’s anointing was to make straight the path for Christ to come. We make straight paths by declaring what God has revealed to you from heaven here on earth. John was THE greatest prophet because he managed to usher in the King and His kingdom through declarations. This was no trite positive thinking, this was the Kerygma. (Google it, I am sure there is adequate definition out there.) There was no ‘not yet’ in Johns preaching. It was here and coming, the now and the coming of the Kingdom of God 

Setting your mind on things above is not an escape from earth; it is an invitation to change earth to heaven.

Our mandate is to bring every thought in captivity. This is THE battle. Dwelling on things, pure. Considering every trial it pure joy. This is the spiritual warfare. This is what demolishes strongholds. THE issue is not your hurt, it is how you think about your hurt. THE issue is not how you, your people, your causes, your politics have been affected, it is how you think about them and you will always reveal the ‘spirit’ of the place you dwell.

Lift up your heads, (your thinking, your beliefs) that the King of Glory may come in!

Seven Mountains

This is the table from a book by Johnny Enlow called The Seven Mountain Prophecy. Enjoy.

New Year!

Israel did not recognize Jesus as King because they had supposed, gotten used to the shabby facsimile of what a king should look like. Even their best lied, womanized and killed. Their anticipation was not for the vision, it was for the provision – how it would be done.

Jesus modeled something different, He modeled the Father. The revelation of the Fathers love was the true meaning of the Kingdom come.

The same it is with us, when I se the word ‘rule’ or ‘dominion’ we think like a pauper not a prince. When I imagine I am the head, no the tail, I dream of how my insecurities will be diminished and how my weaknesses will be supplemented by a crown, a title, a role. Ruling in heaven, ruling in His kingdom will always look different than ruling on earth.

I believe that in 2012, ruling will be released to the church. I feel that even as a house we will continue our move away from programs as we seek to release every person to pursue his and her anointing; to rule on earth and to become trusted in ruling.

Trusted rulers shape the city. Every believer is a trusted ruler, called by God to lead the earth into life. This is the original mandate that has never been rescinded. Trusted rulers are those with God given capacity and responsibility for influencing the city towards its God-given destiny. As trusted rulers we recognise that God wants more for us than simply fulfilling a function in Church. We have a role to play in cultural and city formation as we live our ordinary everyday lives. Sadly, many people leave churches because they didn’t get a role. They fail to recognise that God has called them to shape culture, whilst fighting over what they can control in Church. As trusted rulers we begin to break free from the mindset that the greatest use of my life is connected to church meetings. Trusted rulers focus on the earth, not just the Church.

In the future expect to see the emergence of trusted rulers led through honor and marked by favor. Our vision is to begin releasing people to run with the vision God has given them, not control it.

Trusted rulers will begin seeing the incarnation as being more that physically presnt. They will see who they are as more important than where they are. These rulers will seek to give away what they have and seek to have what they want to give away. These rulers will be not simply present but will be on a mission to transform culture, one person, one organization, one business, one neighborhood at a time. Trusted rulers know that who they are defines what they do.

In this way the Church will move forward. Everyone. Everyday. Everywhere. Leading the city into faith, hope and love in a thousand different small ways. Expect to see believers increasingly operating with the understanding that it is inconceivable things could stay the same when they enter the room.

Expect to see ordination of film-makers and poets, lawyers and teachers. Expect to see people specifically anointed not only to teach in Church but to teach in schools. Expect increased recognition that there is more power in the pews to transform Chicago than there is on the platform.

The Apostle Paul boasted but he made sure he only boasted about his calling. The anointing is all about the presence of the Holy Spirit on your gift that is recognizable by you and others. This is a year to understand your gift, your call, you mandate and begin accepting it. It is time to boast, not about Bill Johnston, John Arnott or Chris DuPre but about your call, your abilities. Hiddeness will be removed, your light will shine. It is time to arise.

Many of you know this but have experienced the threat of the past, the old fears, the old lies surface during the first 2 weeks of this year. It is inevitable that the enemy would shout, our job is to laugh at his threats as he is, in the words of CS Lewis a small thing with a large megaphone.

more later...

Heaven meets earth

In John Chapter 1 we have the rather obscure story of a marriage, a marriage of heaven and earth. A marriage of grace and truth. A marriage of the word becoming flesh. John also tells us that the result of receiving this marriage is that we become sons and daughters of God.

The image I have is that earth became pregnant on that wonderful day when Jesus arrived. Since that time, the earth has been groaning for the manifestation of those sons and daughters of God. The groaning is not to be confused with the moaning we often think mistakenly precipitates the Return of the King, but the groaning of a pregnant earth longing for the new life! This is a joyful anticipation of good kind of moaning. It is the moaning of a mother who wants the baby born, who can’t wait to see what he or she looks like.

This Glorious Incarnation was the event that provided for the salvation of humanity and the restoration of all things. The Word became flesh so we could be His words in flesh to bring this restoration. Only when the true identity of the church as sons and daughters, as agents of this wonderful mission Christ has given us is manifested will the Kingdom come in more fullness.

The Messianic announcement of Isaiah 60 applies to us here and now. Arise, Shine, your light has come. It is time to shine. It is time to be children of the King and not be afraid. Jesus demonstrated the supreme confidence (some have said swagger!) of a man who knew who He was. The darkness of insecurity, worry, fear and doubt must go as we set our hearts and minds towards being the hope of the earth. Let 2012 be the year you and I; the year when the church local and global shines and illuminates the world.