Business As Usual Is Not Always

Glenn Beck is on television Saturday afternoons. I did not know that. I had to ice my back because I had been to the chiropractor and the adjustment caused some spasming. The best place to do that is in my recliner which just happens to be placed directly in front of the television. I took that as a sign I should turn on the television while I sat for twenty minutes.

All that is to say, Glenn Beck was on. He was talking about civil rights and the struggles in this country in the 1950's and '60's. I do not really remember much about that since there were probably fewer than 100 black people in Santa Maria at the time. We lived outside of town in the '60's and I recall about 5 black students in our high school of 1,700. Racial tensions simply were not a big deal. Well, maybe they were the day a group of Hispanic students barricaded themselves in the band room for fear of the ranchers' kids. Or maybe I was just clueless, but in any event, I hardly noticed any racial tensions.


There are a lot of people in the Santa Maria valley who have no idea there is a religious spirit keeping a lid on God's people. Unfortunately that includes most of the people in most of the churches. The problem with that is that traditional models of ministry will only go so far until that spirit is removed or at least muted. We mentioned that in passing in the previous post.

When we returned to southern California in 1987, we ultimately landed in Santa Maria where I had grown up. For those of you who do not know the story, moving here was the beginning of God doing the things He had shown me over a couple years. Those things culminated in a very specific word from the Holy Spirit's mouth to my ears, so to speak, that I needed to be in Santa Maria. You might want to revisit some of the very early posts if that is not quite enough of an explanation.

When we moved here, people were naturally curious and asked where we had come from. We told them we had been in Davis, California for seven years, but had just recently moved from the San Fernando valley. Several people commented the spiritual warfare in Davis must have been intense. We used to chuckle at that--not because they were wrong, but because they were right--about Davis. What they failed to realize was that everyone in Davis who knew about spiritual warfare knew what the battle involved. The newspaper regularly carried stories about gay rights, the pro-choice movement in town, and similar things.


During the time we were in Davis, we saw some significant victories. At some point in the future we may even find out what part we had to play in those victories. We saw the Scientologists move away because they could not afford to stay. We helped with the formation of a crisis pregnancy center which ultimately led to the end of Planned Parenthood in Davis. We saw more than a few people come to faith in Jesus. We had a part in the first annual, community, Easter, sunrise service organized with the cooperative efforts of the evangelical churches in the city. Some of those accomplishments are more significant than others, but all are verifiable. They really happened. No one can debate them.

When we recognize spiritual victories, or seek to find the causes of those things happening, the reasons are not usually obvious. In other words, why did the Scientologists run out of money when it seems Scientologists never run out of money? Why was the Crisis Pregnancy Center able to replace Planned Parenthood? We know the spirits behind those organizations had to go first. The spirits always have to be dealt with first.

I clearly remember my prayer when I realized the Lord was calling us to leave Davis and head south. I kind of half questioned, half complained that it seemed we really had not accomplished much. The Holy Spirit responded, "I did not send you here for the sake of Davis. I sent you here for the sake of David." I realized those seven years were just continuing education. In addition to the victories mentioned above, there are people from the church we started there who are in various forms of ministry in several different places. Sometimes the things that appear to be wasted motion to us are all part of God's well thought out plan.

At least a part of God's well thought out plan in Santa Maria right now is preparing people, and calling people he has already prepared to be part of bringing down the religious spirit. The first step in that is awareness of the problem, i.e., the existence of a religious spirit. There does not seem to be much else to say except to encourage us all to ask if we are part of the solution or if we even understand this is not business as usual.

The Weapons of Our Warfare, Part 2

"For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)

There is a common misconception amongst many who teach on spiritual warfare that we have only one offensive weapon, the Word of God. Without doubt this misconception comes from Paul's teaching in Ephesians 6 about the armor of God. In that passage (Ephesians 6:10-18) "the sword of the spirit which is the Word of God" is the only offensive weapon mentioned. Some of the other offensive weapons are, the Name of Jesus, prayer, praise, worship, and commands. Before we look at some of them in detail, let us first look at what we are trying to accomplish with them according to the verses above.

A spiritual battle is fought with spiritual weapons. Those weapons are effective for pulling down the strongholds of the enemy. They are able to silence arguments against the works of God, or even arguments against the very existence of God. These weapons bring down everything that attempts to put itself in the place of God. We sometimes miss the fact the thoughts being brought into obedience at the end of these verses are not ours, but those of the enemy we are fighting. Our thoughts should have already been brought into obedience. However, if they are not, we need to stop and make sure they are before we join the battle. This is not really as difficult as it looks at first glance. We simply need to be sure the idols we talked about in a recent post (The Idols in Our Hearts; 7/6/09) have been removed and we are constantly striving to follow Jesus to the best of our ability. He will do the rest. We are to "...work out (y)our own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you (us)..." (Philippians 2:12-13, parentheses mine).

Salvation is not really a topic of this post, but we need to remind ourselves that being born again is only the first step in our salvation. Salvation actually means to be made whole and complete in every way, spirit, soul and body. The new birth saves us from the guilt of sin. The new birth is an essential prerequisite to being able to participate in spiritual warfare. As we walk out our salvation, we are progressively saved from the power of sin in our lives. No soldier would go into battle unless he understood his weapons and how to use them. We usually do not go to war at all or we go to war in the flesh or the soul as mentioned in Part 1. We have had no need of spiritual weapons because we have not discerned the spiritual battle. We hope to change that with this blog. There is a spiritual battle going on right here in the Santa Maria valley. Actually it is more like an occupation. A religious spirit has been occupying the area and we, The Church have allowed it to happen and to continue. If anyone else is fighting it, please make your presence and activities known to us so we can join forces.

We have a friend who was among the first people we introduced to this blog. He asked us to leave him out of this. He did give me a compliment. He said, "You are either a prophet or you are crazy." (Incidentally he is not the first person to say either one of those things--the latter being the more common statement.) Then he said, "I am a man of peace and I am called to live at peace and walk in love toward everyone." If you are reading this, we also have been called to walk in love toward everyone. We have also found what it is we are supposed to be doing and we are doing it with all our heart. The two are not contradictory. Let us be clear. We are not saying he is doing anything wrong by not fighting alongside us. Everyone is not called to the battle. May that also be an encouragement to those of you who are interested and supportive of what we are doing, but do not feel called to take up arms against the religious spirit that is blinding the hearts and minds of people across the Santa Maria valley. We heard a report the same spirit has also been identified in the Santa Ynez valley. That, we think, is interesting.

When we returned in 1987 from an extended time away from Santa Maria, we met some Christians who were amazed at the spiritual battle they thought we must have faced. They were familiar with the Davis, CA area and its spiritual dullness and deception. When we left we had the upper hand in the spiritual battle. The community hospital that had previously done abortions, but no live births was changing that policy. Planned Parenthood was involved in legal issues that would eventuate in their closing up shop. A Christian based, crisis pregnancy center had been established. Even the church of Scientology had left town due to lack of finances. We are not saying we were the reason for those things happening, only that we were a part of it. We chuckled at the notion the spiritual warfare was any more intense in Davis than it was in Santa Maria. Coming into town, we knew there was spiritual warfare going on. We had not identified the enemy as a religious spirit at that time. The saints of God here thought they were winning the spiritual battle. It is almost twenty-two years later and perhaps the battle is just now beginning in earnest.

Obviously there will be at least three parts to this series on the Weapons of Our Warfare. We will discuss the various weapons and how they are used in Part 3.

We need to solicit your prayer covering. It is already becoming more difficult to write this blog. The spiritual interference is beginning to be felt. Please pray the forces of the enemy will be dealt with so we can pursue this writing and this battle.

In the Beginning

Everything has to start somewhere. (I will be catching you up on the intervening years in coming posts.)

Although this blog starts today, the story starts almost 22 years ago. We were relatively, happily pastoring a Foursquare church we had started in Davis, CA when we felt prompted of the Lord it was time to leave there and go back to "a place you have been before". I remember complaining to the Lord that it just didn't seem as though we had really accomplished anything. He said, "I did not send you here for the sake of Davis. I sent you here for the sake of David." I understood that to mean He had been preparing me for whatever was to come next, but I remember being frustrated, thinking I had just spent another seven years getting an education, wondering when I would be finished with that. Little did I know or understand at that point that our education into the things of God never ends.

There were only four places that could have been referred to by that brief word from the Lord to my spirit so, after packing our belongings and the kids we headed first to Santa Maria. At that point it had never occured to us that we might be leaving the ministry or the Foursquare Church. We visited the pastor at the Santa Maria Foursquare Church and were told there were no ministry opportunities available for us. Although we were not told in so many words, the emphasis, as it turned out, was on the words for us. As it turned out the other three places also did not seem to be the right places and largely by default we ended up resuming the life we had left in the San Fernando Valley in 1980. It was August 1987.