Admittedly we are speaking by faith here, seeing things that have not yet manifested in time. When a spirit, such as the religious spirit that covers the Santa Maria valley, is present, the darkness it causes is like a shell covering the area, protecting it's territory and not allowing any new birth to happen. God also uses that shell as an incubator to grow a stronger church that will thrive when the shell is finally broken. We are talking about the spiritual realm here. These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. (1 Corinthians 2:13) One can never understand these things with the mind, nor can they be perceived with the senses.
I am about as slow a learner as anyone I know. I will be sixty years old in just four weeks. I probably should not have spent all those years confessing to be a late bloomer. It would be great to have learned a lot of these things much earlier in life. Nonetheless, enlightenment is creeping up and beginning to run all over me. In the spirit, I can literally see the cracks in the shell beginning to form. I would have thought, according to all the teaching I have heard, that it would take some massive spiritual warfare with fasting and praying and standing in the face of one spiritual presence or another for a long time before there would be any movement. What I have come to understand is something much different.
All that is necessary to defeat an evil spirit is to not participate with it. The Holy Spirit can then begin to direct the action behind the scenes, moving people in, out, and around and even having people come in from outside the area. We have mentioned Tom Demaree of Pentecost Walk in these pages. The previous post acknowledged Shari Norvell from Cessors (short for intercessors), but did not mention her husband Scott who directs a parallel ministry called Terraforming. If you are not familiar with that ministry, you owe it to yourself to find out more about it. (http://www.terra4ming.com/) In fact, all three of the people mentioned above are what we like to call John 3:8 Christians. The world does not understand them. The Holy Spirit called them to come to Santa Maria to help us defeat the religious spirit. We cannot even be sure if they recognized exactly why they were here. They were simply answering the Holy Spirit's call on their lives.
Most of my life, I have heard things like, "When God closes one door He opens another." It is not that I did not believe that, I was just a little short on experience. I had a lot of doors slam either in front of or behind me and I only recall one time that I knew beyond doubt God had done it. Now I am living the experience.
I have had several people offer me condolences on the loss of my job a couple weeks ago. Were I still at the Central Coast Rescue Mission, I would still be frustrated that I could not fulfill what God was calling me to do. In fact, I have only within the past few days heard from the Holy Spirit some of the new things He wants me to do. Several people are going to be blessed beyond what they even know to think or ask, and more will be after that. The best expression is probably some variant of, "I am blown away" by the larger things the Holy Spirit is speaking to me now. I will not have room to tell you about all of them now and prudence dictates I wait a few days anyway. I sort of think there is one more change yet to come.
Some of you will understand when I say a part of what I am called to do right now is to be a testimony against some people who are cooperating with the religious spirit. (Imagine the criticism I am going to get for making that statement.) By the way, please send those criticisms as comments to this post. It is our practice to publish all comments as they come to us without editing them. In fact, this time there will not even be any rebuttal to your comments. We will let them stand or fall on their own merits. You may even post them anonymously if you choose. Please allow me to add my disclaimer here. I cannot promise that some of the regular readers will not post rebuttals to your criticisms. I have lately been hanging around with some people who sincerely desire to be John 3:8 Christians themselves. The end.
Showing posts with label Central Coast Rescue Mission. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Central Coast Rescue Mission. Show all posts
Monday, February 7, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
The Change Has Begun
"The winds of change are blowing. More on this later." I posted that on my Facebook wall just a week ago. This is the "more on that" to which it was referring. If you are on Facebook and you read this blog that probably makes a little more sense.
The first, highly anticipated change, happened yesterday by the clock. Sunrise will be in about two hours, more or less. The mission director and the personnel director walked into my office and sat down. After exchanging the customary pleasantries, one of them said words to the affect of, "This is probably not what you were expecting in this meeting." Soon after, the personnel director told me that would be my last day of employment. Whereupon I replied, "This is exactly what I was expecting from this meeting."
Yesterday was my last day at the Central Coast Rescue Mission by their choice. I had so many people telling me that was going to happen soon, I almost felt like Elisha in the hours before Elijah turned the main, prophetic responsibility in Israel over to him. (2 Kings 2) Only there was not an Elijah turning anything over to me, at least not that I know of.
Thankfully, the Lord has been gathering people around me for the past year or so. I was not even aware that was happening until very recently. It simply seemed like the natural course of events, the ebb and flow of relationships. It is very obvious now that it is much more than that. It is a God-ordained gathering of people with like minds and similar visions for what The Church In Santa Maria, CA can and should look like. Let us add "will" look like, by faith right now. We know God has already done what He is going to do--it just has not been manifested in our time yet.
Now we come to the previous post. If you are starting from the top of the page on your computer screen, and are behind at all, you may want to read "Ecclesiaticisms" first. The first comment was written by a person I know, and I know the church to which he is referring. However, let me hasten to add that when I stopped writing that post, I had no idea he would respond to it. The meeting he refers to had not even happened at that point. There may be a factual error or even two in the comment, but it has been our custom to print all comments in their entirely rather than to selectively edit them. I do not know who wrote the second comment. Again, we have always published all the comments, even when the person writing them preferred to remain "Anonymous" for whatever reason. This blog was started in direct response to a call of God to expose the religious spirit that controls churches and deceives people in the Santa Maria Valley. It is beginning to look as though more action will be required than simply writing a blog. (Somehow I knew I was not going to get off that easily.)
The change has begun. It began on Monday of this week when my employment was terminated. Let me don my prophetic hat and tell you, I know what is coming next. I am not at liberty to share that in these pages at this time. I will write about it in this space after it happens, just as I did with this one. I believe I can tell you, there are people, inspired by the religious spirit, who do not want me to have any more influence in the Kingdom of God than I have. Too bad for them the Holy Spirit set me free from my day job to give me more time to ratchet up the work I am doing. Along with my termination, I lost virtually all my public, teaching ministry. That is only temporary. The truth is, the people who have been gathering around me have already made it clear they will not let that happen.
The change in my employment situation was handled on relatively congenial terms even though the company could have accomplished their goal of terminating my employment without getting personal as they did. The next one could get ugly. Let me assure you, I will be there, but will not be a party to the ugliness. Ugliness, wherever it rears it's ugly head is not the way things ought to be done where love rules. Read about the works of the flesh in Galatians 5:19-21. Those have to be three of the ugliest verses in the Bible. I usually feel as though I need to wash my hands, or brush my teeth, or something, after reading them.
Creflo Dollar talked about "agape tests" in a message I heard a few years ago. Those are times God orchestrates the circumstances of our lives in such a way that we can either follow His way of love or our way of selfishness. When we love, we pass. When we let selfishness be the practice of the day, we have to try again at a later time. That puts everything on hold. We are not ready to serve the Master until we can love. I, we, have an agape test coming. According to Dalton Austin and Anonymous, commentators on the previous post, they had, or are currently having an agape test. Still not telling everything I know, I am taking the same agape test they are. My aim, my goal is to pass this test (and the next one) by God's grace so I am deemed worthy of taking whatever the step after that is.
Now that I reread the previous paragraph and think about it, perhaps my termination meeting was an agape test. Maybe the way I ultimately handle the termination is an agape test. Maybe writing this post and not telling everything I know is an agape test. I do know this: I want to be a person God can use however, whenever, and wherever He chooses. You see, it's not all about me at all.
The first, highly anticipated change, happened yesterday by the clock. Sunrise will be in about two hours, more or less. The mission director and the personnel director walked into my office and sat down. After exchanging the customary pleasantries, one of them said words to the affect of, "This is probably not what you were expecting in this meeting." Soon after, the personnel director told me that would be my last day of employment. Whereupon I replied, "This is exactly what I was expecting from this meeting."
Yesterday was my last day at the Central Coast Rescue Mission by their choice. I had so many people telling me that was going to happen soon, I almost felt like Elisha in the hours before Elijah turned the main, prophetic responsibility in Israel over to him. (2 Kings 2) Only there was not an Elijah turning anything over to me, at least not that I know of.
Thankfully, the Lord has been gathering people around me for the past year or so. I was not even aware that was happening until very recently. It simply seemed like the natural course of events, the ebb and flow of relationships. It is very obvious now that it is much more than that. It is a God-ordained gathering of people with like minds and similar visions for what The Church In Santa Maria, CA can and should look like. Let us add "will" look like, by faith right now. We know God has already done what He is going to do--it just has not been manifested in our time yet.
Now we come to the previous post. If you are starting from the top of the page on your computer screen, and are behind at all, you may want to read "Ecclesiaticisms" first. The first comment was written by a person I know, and I know the church to which he is referring. However, let me hasten to add that when I stopped writing that post, I had no idea he would respond to it. The meeting he refers to had not even happened at that point. There may be a factual error or even two in the comment, but it has been our custom to print all comments in their entirely rather than to selectively edit them. I do not know who wrote the second comment. Again, we have always published all the comments, even when the person writing them preferred to remain "Anonymous" for whatever reason. This blog was started in direct response to a call of God to expose the religious spirit that controls churches and deceives people in the Santa Maria Valley. It is beginning to look as though more action will be required than simply writing a blog. (Somehow I knew I was not going to get off that easily.)
The change has begun. It began on Monday of this week when my employment was terminated. Let me don my prophetic hat and tell you, I know what is coming next. I am not at liberty to share that in these pages at this time. I will write about it in this space after it happens, just as I did with this one. I believe I can tell you, there are people, inspired by the religious spirit, who do not want me to have any more influence in the Kingdom of God than I have. Too bad for them the Holy Spirit set me free from my day job to give me more time to ratchet up the work I am doing. Along with my termination, I lost virtually all my public, teaching ministry. That is only temporary. The truth is, the people who have been gathering around me have already made it clear they will not let that happen.
The change in my employment situation was handled on relatively congenial terms even though the company could have accomplished their goal of terminating my employment without getting personal as they did. The next one could get ugly. Let me assure you, I will be there, but will not be a party to the ugliness. Ugliness, wherever it rears it's ugly head is not the way things ought to be done where love rules. Read about the works of the flesh in Galatians 5:19-21. Those have to be three of the ugliest verses in the Bible. I usually feel as though I need to wash my hands, or brush my teeth, or something, after reading them.
Creflo Dollar talked about "agape tests" in a message I heard a few years ago. Those are times God orchestrates the circumstances of our lives in such a way that we can either follow His way of love or our way of selfishness. When we love, we pass. When we let selfishness be the practice of the day, we have to try again at a later time. That puts everything on hold. We are not ready to serve the Master until we can love. I, we, have an agape test coming. According to Dalton Austin and Anonymous, commentators on the previous post, they had, or are currently having an agape test. Still not telling everything I know, I am taking the same agape test they are. My aim, my goal is to pass this test (and the next one) by God's grace so I am deemed worthy of taking whatever the step after that is.
Now that I reread the previous paragraph and think about it, perhaps my termination meeting was an agape test. Maybe the way I ultimately handle the termination is an agape test. Maybe writing this post and not telling everything I know is an agape test. I do know this: I want to be a person God can use however, whenever, and wherever He chooses. You see, it's not all about me at all.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
The Shaking Continues...
This is a breaking news update. (I always wanted to say that.) This week, in the most recent twist of circumstances, another employee of the Central Coast Rescue Mission tendered his resignation effective immediately. He was at the bottom of the staff ladder, but may very well have been standing at least one rung higher by the time the dust settles on the situation we have been attempting to explain here lately. Now, sources tell me, he has been invited to air his concerns to people very highly placed in the larger, corporate structure. To my knowledge that would be the first time something like that has ever been invited, and certainly has been unheard of here during my tenure. It will be interesting to find out what the larger picture is in all this.
In the meantime, we had a little bit of a setback with one of the men who had made great progress in his life and was down to counting weeks rather than months before he would be finished with his program. Without going into a lot of detail, he had a bad day while on pass and decided a little beer would make him feel better. That is not a well conceived idea when the program rules offer zero tolerance for alcohol and the breathalyzers are out because of rumors about other progam clients. When he was tested upon his return from pass his blood alcohol level read 0.01, the lowest reading the machine records. In spite of my best efforts, which included a futile, forty minute phone conversation with his probation officer, an irate judge had him remanded into custody and his case moved to a different court for a probation violation under general law rather than the more lenient, substance abuse laws.
Sometimes my job is very interesting. The public defender in the general law courtroom talked with her counterpart from the District Attorney's office. The three of us then conferenced as it what I wanted as an outcome. I explained that I did not think a 0.01 BAC was worth six months in jail. As God is my witness, the ADA said, "Hell, mine is probably higher than that right now. What is your suggestion?" (No, I will not tell you which ADA that was and if you find out I will have to deny I wrote this. wink) The long and short of the story is the client exhanged 10 days in jail for 30 days away from the program for the positive test. I could rationalize that one all day long, but suffice it to say whenever we have to deal with different judges and different attorneys than we normally do, we take what they are willing to give us. There was definitely, also an overriding good in this one. Let me explain.
The client under discussion has a fiance and three children. His testimony coming back from county jail is that God was working through him to minister to men he never thought would listen to anything about Jesus. He was glowing when I picked him up from the courthouse. I also had a few conversations with his fiance about the situation. She did a complete about face on life in the past couple weeks. We talked about it in some detail and she understands she had not been partnering with him in life. Nothing she did changes the fact he has to decide at some point, as his probation office told me bluntly, he cannot drink alcohol. By the way, I did send an email to the probation officer thanking her for standing her ground and allowing him to go to jail. It has all worked out for the glory of God. Just another indication of the truth of Romans 8:28 that all things end well for those who love God.
While all that is going on, I am being invited to meet with the Executive Vice President and the Personnel Director on Friday of this week. I have no idea what they may propose, but I have, more or less, designed the outcomes that would be acceptable to me. The net result will probably be in the range of nothing changing for me to me being unemployed on Saturday. The Holy Spirit told me a couple months ago that I am bulletproof. I will be employed at the mission as long as the Lord is pleased to have me there. I have actually now become howitzer proof. Nothing except God can move me out. I just have to make sure I do not overstay the intended time and end up with something less than a gracious exit. While He is working all things together for good, God sees that benefits accrue to everyone involved who is walking righteously. Trust me, I have been on the other side of this equation and it is much better to be right and to have a righteous cause than to be chopped down for trying to impress one's own will on a given situation.
As a final note, some have wondered about Jon. I visited him yesterday at the county jail. We all thought he would be off to state prison by now, but it is beginning to look as though he may not end up going at all and/or if he does, it might not be for nearly as long as he had thought. He showed us several pictures of his beautiful baby girl and insisted she is helping motivate him to become the man God has intended for him to be. I believe he is serious and resolute in his stance and I know he has the knowledge and ability to do the right things in the future. God truly does all things well. Obviously, more to come later. God bless.
In the meantime, we had a little bit of a setback with one of the men who had made great progress in his life and was down to counting weeks rather than months before he would be finished with his program. Without going into a lot of detail, he had a bad day while on pass and decided a little beer would make him feel better. That is not a well conceived idea when the program rules offer zero tolerance for alcohol and the breathalyzers are out because of rumors about other progam clients. When he was tested upon his return from pass his blood alcohol level read 0.01, the lowest reading the machine records. In spite of my best efforts, which included a futile, forty minute phone conversation with his probation officer, an irate judge had him remanded into custody and his case moved to a different court for a probation violation under general law rather than the more lenient, substance abuse laws.
Sometimes my job is very interesting. The public defender in the general law courtroom talked with her counterpart from the District Attorney's office. The three of us then conferenced as it what I wanted as an outcome. I explained that I did not think a 0.01 BAC was worth six months in jail. As God is my witness, the ADA said, "Hell, mine is probably higher than that right now. What is your suggestion?" (No, I will not tell you which ADA that was and if you find out I will have to deny I wrote this. wink) The long and short of the story is the client exhanged 10 days in jail for 30 days away from the program for the positive test. I could rationalize that one all day long, but suffice it to say whenever we have to deal with different judges and different attorneys than we normally do, we take what they are willing to give us. There was definitely, also an overriding good in this one. Let me explain.
The client under discussion has a fiance and three children. His testimony coming back from county jail is that God was working through him to minister to men he never thought would listen to anything about Jesus. He was glowing when I picked him up from the courthouse. I also had a few conversations with his fiance about the situation. She did a complete about face on life in the past couple weeks. We talked about it in some detail and she understands she had not been partnering with him in life. Nothing she did changes the fact he has to decide at some point, as his probation office told me bluntly, he cannot drink alcohol. By the way, I did send an email to the probation officer thanking her for standing her ground and allowing him to go to jail. It has all worked out for the glory of God. Just another indication of the truth of Romans 8:28 that all things end well for those who love God.
While all that is going on, I am being invited to meet with the Executive Vice President and the Personnel Director on Friday of this week. I have no idea what they may propose, but I have, more or less, designed the outcomes that would be acceptable to me. The net result will probably be in the range of nothing changing for me to me being unemployed on Saturday. The Holy Spirit told me a couple months ago that I am bulletproof. I will be employed at the mission as long as the Lord is pleased to have me there. I have actually now become howitzer proof. Nothing except God can move me out. I just have to make sure I do not overstay the intended time and end up with something less than a gracious exit. While He is working all things together for good, God sees that benefits accrue to everyone involved who is walking righteously. Trust me, I have been on the other side of this equation and it is much better to be right and to have a righteous cause than to be chopped down for trying to impress one's own will on a given situation.
As a final note, some have wondered about Jon. I visited him yesterday at the county jail. We all thought he would be off to state prison by now, but it is beginning to look as though he may not end up going at all and/or if he does, it might not be for nearly as long as he had thought. He showed us several pictures of his beautiful baby girl and insisted she is helping motivate him to become the man God has intended for him to be. I believe he is serious and resolute in his stance and I know he has the knowledge and ability to do the right things in the future. God truly does all things well. Obviously, more to come later. God bless.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
The More Things Change
Change is inevitable. We all change. Everything changes. A French philosopher once said, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." Apparently France is different.
I started writing this post over a week ago. At the time, all I had was the title and the paragraph you just read. Sometimes that happens. In fact, right now there are five partially completed posts so do not be surprised if you log on one day and think you are a month behind in your reading. It could happen.
The reason I mention that is that since I started writing this post some significant things have changed and rocked my world a little. Of course I am on top of all that to the point I did not make the connection until about 5:00 AM today. (Yes, I know that last sentence sounds odd to the ear. It is an intentional, rhetorical effect.)
The chaplain at the rescue mission left his job in the middle of the week in something like a mutual decision between him and the director. Maybe I should go back to the weekend before.
Sometimes it is difficult for a dozen, testesterone-laden, self-centered, former drug addicts and alcoholics to live together in close quarters. (Another understatement for affect.) Everyone wants to be the alpha male, or the "cock of the walk" as they say in the fields and farms of the midwest. Anyway a few of the men were having conflicts to the point that one of the staff members called me on Sunday last week to tell me something needed to be done to cool things down or someone was going to get hurt. After some investigation, I decided to let that ride until Monday when we could all sit down together.
We spent about forty five minutes talking around the situation and expressing our denial that anything was really wrong with our relationships. (I am using "our" to relate, but I can sometimes enter into denial when I do not want to deal with an issue too.) I pressed the point that the Central Coast Rescue Mission is a Christian ministry and anyone who did not want to be part of such a ministry should pack up and make a bed available for someone who did. We dismissed without seeming to accomplish much. I later found out the man who had positioned himself as victim had apologized to another man for his attitude. He was shocked when the other man not only accepted his apology, but offered one of his own--and then said he loved him. God does great work even when we do not recognize that anything is happening. The Holy Spirit has to put some roots down into a situation before we see anything happening. Sometimes the deep works are the best.
That was Monday. Tuesday the Thrift Store manager gave her two week notice. Wednesday the chaplain left. I learned to spell "shaking" in second grade. At the time, I did not know something like this fit the definition. What is going on? First of all, let me hasten to say any forthcoming remarks or observations should not be taken as being directed toward anyone or as criticisms of anyone or anything that happened last week.
Sometimes we get complacent. It happens to everyone in every area of life. (I am going to say something important in a minute. You will know what it is when you read it.) We fall into routines. Routines are not bad per se. They help us take little mental breaks so we can focus better when we need to. It is like coasting on a bicycle. We get our heart rate stablized so we are ready for the next incline. The problem comes when we allow the routine to become the norm. When we do that, we soon find ourselves hemmed in on every side by lack of inspiration and purpose. We find ourselves in the proverbial rut.
Here it is. That is exactly what the religious spirit has done in the Santa Maria valley. We have done "business as usual" in the churches for so long, we think it is the way we should be doing things. It has become the norm. And, because the spiritual world has precedence over the physical world, the civil authorities operate the same way, from the courts to the police department, to the school districts, to the various focus groups and task forces that seek to deal with some very serious issues confronting the valley. All those things may have helped, but we still have the problems because we have not brought God's power to bear on them. Listen folks, God so loved the world that He did not send a committee.
Many people believe change starts at the top. We can go with that. The problem is, we do not recognize the top. When I say we, that is all of us. We often look to a pastor, mayor, police chief or other person in some position of real or imagined authority to steer us a different direction. Thank God for those people and what they do for society, but they are not the top. Oh we know who is on top. I wonder why we have made Him irrelevant? Maybe that is not fair? Think about it.
As I said in a previous post, I hammer and hammer and hammer the concept of Spirit, Soul, and Body into the men at the mission. It is my firm belief that when the Spirit of God is working through the redeemed, human spirit, we change. There is no other way. So let me ask a question. When we know we have a problem, why do we sit down and try to reason when we should be worshipping then, "...Position your[our]selves, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord who is with you [us]..."? (2 Chronicles 20:17)
We do not need committees and task forces. We do not need to reason together. We need intercessors, prayer teams and prayer walkers. We need to worship God and see Him show Himself mighty on our behalf. We would sometimes make a lot more progress in the spiritual realm if we would just get out of God's way and let him be God.
You do have a part in defeating this religious spirit. May I encourage you in the strongest manner possible to seek God for what your part is and begin to engage? Jesus promised that if we would ask we would receive the answer. (Matthew 7:7) Then come on along. The ride is getting more exciting all the time!
I started writing this post over a week ago. At the time, all I had was the title and the paragraph you just read. Sometimes that happens. In fact, right now there are five partially completed posts so do not be surprised if you log on one day and think you are a month behind in your reading. It could happen.
The reason I mention that is that since I started writing this post some significant things have changed and rocked my world a little. Of course I am on top of all that to the point I did not make the connection until about 5:00 AM today. (Yes, I know that last sentence sounds odd to the ear. It is an intentional, rhetorical effect.)
The chaplain at the rescue mission left his job in the middle of the week in something like a mutual decision between him and the director. Maybe I should go back to the weekend before.
Sometimes it is difficult for a dozen, testesterone-laden, self-centered, former drug addicts and alcoholics to live together in close quarters. (Another understatement for affect.) Everyone wants to be the alpha male, or the "cock of the walk" as they say in the fields and farms of the midwest. Anyway a few of the men were having conflicts to the point that one of the staff members called me on Sunday last week to tell me something needed to be done to cool things down or someone was going to get hurt. After some investigation, I decided to let that ride until Monday when we could all sit down together.
We spent about forty five minutes talking around the situation and expressing our denial that anything was really wrong with our relationships. (I am using "our" to relate, but I can sometimes enter into denial when I do not want to deal with an issue too.) I pressed the point that the Central Coast Rescue Mission is a Christian ministry and anyone who did not want to be part of such a ministry should pack up and make a bed available for someone who did. We dismissed without seeming to accomplish much. I later found out the man who had positioned himself as victim had apologized to another man for his attitude. He was shocked when the other man not only accepted his apology, but offered one of his own--and then said he loved him. God does great work even when we do not recognize that anything is happening. The Holy Spirit has to put some roots down into a situation before we see anything happening. Sometimes the deep works are the best.
That was Monday. Tuesday the Thrift Store manager gave her two week notice. Wednesday the chaplain left. I learned to spell "shaking" in second grade. At the time, I did not know something like this fit the definition. What is going on? First of all, let me hasten to say any forthcoming remarks or observations should not be taken as being directed toward anyone or as criticisms of anyone or anything that happened last week.
Sometimes we get complacent. It happens to everyone in every area of life. (I am going to say something important in a minute. You will know what it is when you read it.) We fall into routines. Routines are not bad per se. They help us take little mental breaks so we can focus better when we need to. It is like coasting on a bicycle. We get our heart rate stablized so we are ready for the next incline. The problem comes when we allow the routine to become the norm. When we do that, we soon find ourselves hemmed in on every side by lack of inspiration and purpose. We find ourselves in the proverbial rut.
Here it is. That is exactly what the religious spirit has done in the Santa Maria valley. We have done "business as usual" in the churches for so long, we think it is the way we should be doing things. It has become the norm. And, because the spiritual world has precedence over the physical world, the civil authorities operate the same way, from the courts to the police department, to the school districts, to the various focus groups and task forces that seek to deal with some very serious issues confronting the valley. All those things may have helped, but we still have the problems because we have not brought God's power to bear on them. Listen folks, God so loved the world that He did not send a committee.
Many people believe change starts at the top. We can go with that. The problem is, we do not recognize the top. When I say we, that is all of us. We often look to a pastor, mayor, police chief or other person in some position of real or imagined authority to steer us a different direction. Thank God for those people and what they do for society, but they are not the top. Oh we know who is on top. I wonder why we have made Him irrelevant? Maybe that is not fair? Think about it.
As I said in a previous post, I hammer and hammer and hammer the concept of Spirit, Soul, and Body into the men at the mission. It is my firm belief that when the Spirit of God is working through the redeemed, human spirit, we change. There is no other way. So let me ask a question. When we know we have a problem, why do we sit down and try to reason when we should be worshipping then, "...Position your[our]selves, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord who is with you [us]..."? (2 Chronicles 20:17)
We do not need committees and task forces. We do not need to reason together. We need intercessors, prayer teams and prayer walkers. We need to worship God and see Him show Himself mighty on our behalf. We would sometimes make a lot more progress in the spiritual realm if we would just get out of God's way and let him be God.
You do have a part in defeating this religious spirit. May I encourage you in the strongest manner possible to seek God for what your part is and begin to engage? Jesus promised that if we would ask we would receive the answer. (Matthew 7:7) Then come on along. The ride is getting more exciting all the time!
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