Big Footprints

Every so often we see someone who comes seemingly out of nowhere and vaults onto a large stage. This person was heretofore unknown or known in a very limited realm or area. Suddenly, he or she becomes a celebrity (in the most general sense of the term) and becomes a household name practically overnight. We say that person "made a splash". This has happened, by my count, at least three times in American politics over the past couple years. You might guess whom I am talking about, but no names please, because any one, or all of them might become more than a splash. Any one of them may leave big footprints, for better or for worse. Time will tell. Am I being to cryptic? Here is a hint. The most recent one was this week. The newly elected, junior senator from Massachusetts made a very big splash onto the national scene. If you insist, the others I was thinking of are a former senator from Illinois, the previous Governor of Alaska, and perhaps even a former Governor of Arkansas who, in spite of being impeached by the United States Congress, just will not seem to go away. (Kind of gave my political views away there I guess.)

Sometimes people splash and no one even notices until the ripples get so far away that the person who started them can scarcely be remembered. For instance, I embrace and practice the teachings that came out of the Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles in 1906. I just found out last weekend who started that. William J. Seymour was a black man in Los Angeles when that was not very popular. It is reported there were churches that would not let him into their services for that reason. Nevertheless, he persevered and became known as the father of that revival. He left some pretty big footprints in my life and the lives of many others.


I wear a size 9, narrow width shoe. I am probably not ever going to leave very big footprints. What I am going to do is combine those size 9 feet with a lot of other people's feet. God made a promise to Moses which He reaffirmed and transferred to Joshua. Remember, Moses was not allowed to enter the promised land because of his disobedience. That is a whole teaching in itself. The promise was that they would possess every place the soles of their feet would tread. (Deuteronomy 11:24; Joshua 1:3) It is interesting that this is one of the first things God told Joshua when he assumed the leadership of Israel from Moses.


By and large, The Church today does not have a very good concept of possessing our inheritance. We do not have time or space to do the complete teaching on that inheritance or who is entitled to it. May it suffice to say it belongs to everyone who has made Jesus Lord of his or her life. In so doing we become the children of God and the seed of Abraham who was the first man to put his faith in the one, true, almighty God. "And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." (Galatians 3:29) You may recall that when Abraham originally entered the promised land, God had him walk the entire length and breadth of the land and build altars at strategic places. In doing that, Abraham was putting God's mark on His land. We have the same authority. (Do not give up yet. Read the next paragraph.)

In the Old Testament we see physical representations of the spiritual truths in the New Testament. When Abraham and Joshua walked the physical ground of the promised land their literal feet were possessing the literal land. When we walk by faith now, we are dispossessing the spiritual forces that cover the land. In Santa Maria, those spiritual forces have blanketed the area with their diabolical schemes and have convinced most of The Church that this is as good as it gets. Oh please. The best estimate is that about 8% of the population in the Santa Maria Valley attends church, any church, on any given Sunday. That is as good as it gets? I think not. I think there is something keeping a lid on The Church in Santa Maria. That has to be obvious to anyone who has had his or her eyes opened to the real situation. It is time to do something about that. This is the time. We are the people. This stinking, religious spirit has had his way around here for much too long.

We have mentioned the Pentecost Walk ministry in these pages before. As far as we know, they are still planning to walk in the Santa Maria valley sometime this year. We plan to be there with them. We may even be doing something additional either before or after that event. We are waiting on the Lord for direction. In the meantime you will not want to miss the next couple posts.

Flashes of Brilliance in a Wasted Life

I really have no idea at this point why I am writing this post. It almost seems to me to be less useful than other things that could be written in this space. However, I do know when the Holy Spirit speaks something into my spirit and He definitely did this time.

I received a little distressing news today. You may remember Jon. He is one of the mighty men. (Sometimes Things Do Change, October 22, 2009). In fact, I used to print out the new posts after I had published them and Jon would proofread them. There were a lot of errors you never saw because he was very good at that. He was also a living testimony of how a person can change when confronted by Jesus. Jon is back in jail. I am not really sure of all the facts, but from what I have heard, he earned his way back. In fact, the word is that he is probably going back to state prison for some number of years. Jon originally came to the mission to avoid making what now seems like an inevitable trip to prison in the first place. He had already been there three times before, if I remember correctly. He had some flashes of brilliance while he was at the mission. He likely took more notes than anyone who has ever been in the program. He is a very intelligent man, probably more intelligent than this writer. He knows the right answers. So what happened?

I hammer and hammer and hammer the teaching about the tripartite nature of man into the men in my classes. It is of seminal importance we recognize how we gather and process information. We receive information from the world through our five senses, from God through our spirit, and from the devil directly into our minds. Then we have to process all that information and decide what to do with it.

The information we hear from the world is, by and large, what we want to hear. Seeing is not really believing either. We see what we want to see. I cannot remember who said, "Believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see." It seems to be true. The devil is very good at telling us exactly what we want to hear. In Jon's case, I am imagining it was something like, "You certainly have a lot of stress in your life. You just need a good fix to take care of all that." Of course he would say it in the first person so we would think it was our own idea.

Jon had possibly the longest flash of brilliance in his life heretofore while he was in the program. His closest friends commented on the substantive changes in his lifestyle and way of thinking. He was doing the things he needed to do until he was not doing them anymore.

The thing about Jon is that he does have a good heart. To be sure, that good heart does lead him astray at times. He knows better. Then again, if we all did what we knew to do, the world would be a much better place. When you think about it, pray for Jon. He will inevitably have another chance to get it right. It is my considered opinion the devil targets the people who have the potential to do the greatest things for God. The end of Jon's story has not been written yet. The Holy Spirit suggested this title, but we have the opportunity to pray there will not be many more wasted years in Jon's life and the flashes of brilliance will come one after the other.

The Winter of My Discontent

Some people think God only speaks in scripture. In fact, if pressed, they may even admit they believe He only speaks in the words of the Authorized Version (King James Version). After all, it is authorized and none of the others are. In case you are confused about that, the King James Version of the Holy Bible was authorized by, you guessed it, King James of England in the wee, morning hours of the 17th century.

Interestingly, the title of this post comes from the same historical period. It is, of course, a take off from the opening line of Shakesphere's Play, "Richard The Third." When the line came up in my spirit the other morning I thought I was going to write about having a bad month starting around Thanksgiving. Judi asked me last night if it were true I had not written a post in a month. It is. I was even surprised it had been quite that long. I thought when Richard spoke this line he was talking about a winter of discontent. Now you know how well Shakesphere and I are aquainted. Of course that is only half the line. The remainder of the line is, "Made glorious summer..."


I did have something of a winter of discontent. Thankfully it only lasted about a month. For those of you who do not know, I am not really a fan of winter. No offense to those of you who are. I simply prefer the sunshine and warm days. I would rather wear shorts and flip flops than parkas and boots. Anyway, I am proclaiming today that my winter of discontent is now past and my glorious summer has begun. What does that mean? Let me try to explain.

Sometime around January 1 of this year, I felt I needed to fulfill another part of my anointing and, "...proclaim the year of the Lord's favor" (Luke 4:19 NIV) I am only about two weeks behind on that. Two weeks behind really is not that bad lately. I had a fever about three degrees above normal on New Year's Day. It only lasted about fifteen hours. My last fever was two years ago and lasted over a week. Things have changed. Things have improved. This is the beginning of OUR glorious summer. It is the year of the Lord's favor. As with everything else in the Kingdom of God, we have a part to play in that as surely as someone had to bring Shakesphere's words to life by playing the part of Richard and speaking those lines.


Last Sunday I listened to my pastor give his "State of the Church Address" to the assembled body. One of the things that caught my attention is that he said God wants to do great things in the church. How he said that also struck me. He said God not only wanted to do great things at Church for Life, but also in "the church in Santa Maria." That phrase kind of sounded familiar to me.


Indeed, God does want to do great things in the church in Santa Maria in 2010. It is to be our glorious summer. It will be the year of the Lord's favor on all who believe and work to make it happen. Have we talked about the works of God? I will have to go back and look. I barely remember last December. I have no idea what all this blog contains without looking. Let me at least give you a teaser, "God works". That is from Romans 8:28 in the NIV. But wait, you get more. God works and we work. See Philippians 2:12-13. Oh great, now we have to discuss what salvation really includes. My guys at the mission do this to me too. Just as I am making a cogent point or trying to wrap up a class someone asks a question that requires a more detailed explanation than I have time to give. If we do not get back to that sometime soon, remind me. (Ok, I looked and we did already discuss salvation. Check out the post from 9/6/09. Those last couple sentences were just too good to delete so I am just adding a little to the end here.)