The End of the World

It certainly did not seem as though we had only published once this month. Where did the month go? Apparently we have not been as focused as we might have been. We had thought we would get at least one more post written before the world ended yesterday, but neither of those things happened. Whether you sincerely expected the end of the world, considered the possibility, or merely watched from a distance, there are things to learn from the whole experience.

God intends for us to hear Him every day. That is the essence of the present day ministry of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said it was good that He go away because then the Holy Spirit would come. (John 16:7) The Holy Spirit would not be contained within a human body as Jesus was during His stay on earth, but would be available to all believers all the time. What many people do not understand as they read those words is that each member of the Godhead carries the primary work of God on earth individually in each epoch of history. This is a key concept in understanding why we are still here and why the predictions of the end of the world yesterday were errant.

All three members of the Trinity were present at creation. (Genesis 1:1,2; John 1:1) God the Father worked from the time of creation until Jesus took on flesh and assumed His earthly ministry. When Jesus returned to the right hand of the Father (Hebrews 8:1), The Holy Spirit began His ministry on earth. That ministry will continue until Jesus returns for His Church--at some still future time.

This whole concept of the world ending at 6:00 PM, May 21, 2011 started with the teachings of one man. Granted that man is nearly ninety years old and so should be regarded as an elder in the faith. As we waded and sifted through his aberrant teachings, there was one, common thread of error that might have prevented much of the problem. In case you missed the previous post to this blog, we gave some explanation of the problem of spiritual deception. The nutshell version is that anyone can be deceived. Age and experience are helpful in recognizing deception, but definitely do not completely prevent the problem. In fact, the people with the best spiritual insight are often the most susceptible to deception.

One of our areas of ministry has been the teaching of and distinction between the spirit and the soul. The teaching is too detailed to repeat here, but to begin with, the spirit and soul are completely different and separate from one another. (1 Thessalonians 5:23; Hebrews 4:12) The spirit is the God part of us. Its sole purpose is to put us into contact with God. This concept is much easier to understand when we realize the spirit enables contact with God just as our body enables contact with the world. (At least we think that makes it more simple to understand.) Meanwhile, the soul sits between the spirit and the body, processing all that spiritual and physical input through our mind and emotions and then deciding what to do about it by our will.

The concept of the end of the world on May 21, 2011 is a result of a series of mathematical calculations based on interpretations of various scriptural passages, as well as historical and Biblical dates. Guess what? It did not all come together as neatly as some expected. The reasons for this seem obvious. Somewhere in the collective mind (soul) of a group of sincere, but misguided people, a date, a verse of scripture, or a mathematical calculation was incorrect. We have all made mistakes and continue to do so. This one simply got out of hand, like an urban legend going viral on YouTube.

As recently as May 20th, I commented to a Facebook posting it seemed odd someone could say for certain the end of the world would come at a specific time on a specific date, but not be able to discern whether another person were born-again. In fact, most of the people who espoused the concept of the world's end yesterday, are not completely certain if they themselves have been born-again. My point, of course, is that interpretations, and calculations of historical dates are all soulical activities whereas spiritual discernment would enable us to know if we or any other person has been born-again--and when Jesus might return for us. The point is to live as though He could come back at any time.

I sort of wonder if part of the reason God does not want us to know when Jesus will get here is because we might stop doing what we are supposed to be doing. (Assuming were are doing what we should be doing now.) Worse yet, we could be like the Israelites in the wilderness who cast off restraint because Moses was so long in returning from his meeting with God on Mt. Sinai. (Exodus 32)

The people who embraced yesterday as the day the world would end were seduced and deceived. Many of them are sincerely seeking God for His will and His plan. For the time being, they have disqualified themselves as Holy Spirit-led individuals by believing a lie. Among other things, they were taught that the Holy Spirit left all the churches in 1994 because He apparently could not work with them anymore. My understanding is that was the fall back position when Jesus did not return then as predicted. I wonder what they will say this time? At this point I am tempted to quote my own proof texts, but that would probably serve little purpose. We are still here. We may be for awhile yet. Most of you have heard me say I do not do eschatology. Perhaps now you understand why.

Imagine How I Feel

In previous posts, we have discussed the TrueBeliever's Facebook group. They are the ones who believe Jesus will take the true believers away in the rapture on May 21, 2011. They have even set the time as 6:00 PM on that day, but we have not seen any information as to what time zone that would be. Interestingly, the people discussing that possibility seem to be mostly in the good old USofA. We gather they arrived at that time as the same time of day Elijah was calling down fire from heaven during his challenge to the prophets of Baal and Asherah. (1 Kings 18:20-40) We would have to suppose from that the time would really be 6:00 PM (if that is even the right time) in Israel. That would make it 8:00 AM here on the west coast. As of this writing there are about 450 people in the group, including me. I was put into the group by a longtime friend for whatever reason.

Do not count me as one of the TrueBelievers. I am truly skeptical of that date and time for various reasons, but I am much more troubled by some of the other doctrine of the group. I read some of the posts and have chatted on Facebook with a few members of the group. There would not seem to be much point in detailing their bad doctrine except to point out in regard to our personal responsibility to accept Jesus as Lord of our lives, they would be considered hyper-Calvinists. They believe we have no responsibility whatsoever for our own, individual salvation. They believe God has chosen a group of people from before the foundation of the world to be born-again and dwell eternally with Him. Through a complex series of mathematical calculations (bear in mind all mathematical calculations are complex to this writer) they have been able to unlock the mysteries of the Bible as to the timing of events and numbers of those who will be born-again. If you are not in, you are not in. This has caused some pause and even some fear amongst people who belong to the group. They truly do not know if they are among the chosen. It has also given yours truly many opportunities to minister to some of those people. That is what this is post is really about.

I was kind of walking around the house praying the other morning and some frustration, aggravation, and maybe a little anger rose up in me as I thought about the people who have fallen victim to some of the false doctrine. I was complaining to the Lord about the situation, telling Him it was making me angry. I had no sooner gotten the words out of my mouth than I heard in my spirit, "Imagine how I feel."

Preachers occasionally like to remind congregations of a scene in heaven. One never quite knows for sure about such things, but the scene is most likely fictional. The angels in heaven have witnessed the Passion of Jesus and ask the Father what the plan is now that Jesus will be returning to heaven. God responds that the gospel will now be entrusted to born-again men who will preach His salvation to the world. The angels, who have observed mankind for some millennia by that time question God as to His back-up plan should man fail. He tells them there is no back-up plan. That is probably overly-simplistic, but the fact remains that we are the body of Christ. (1 Corinthians 12:27) For now we are sons and daughters of God locked in flesh and blood, but we know that when Jesus appears we will be like Him. (1 John 3:2)

I cannot tell you exactly how God feels about people who do the wrong thing with every good intention because they have been seduced and deceived. I have to think they are not blameless because they did have a part in their deception. We enter into the deception of sin when we are tempted to do the wrong thing and do it because of our own desires. (James 1:14) One has to wonder if the TrueBelievers (on anyone else for that matter) would be quite so sure about their interpretation, analysis, and mathematical computations of the scriptures if they really understood they will be held accountable before God for whatever harm they cause to people who listen to them. (see Mark 9:42) On more than one occasion, I have reminded the TrueBelievers that, "...God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16) God did not keep salvation a secret from anyone, let alone those whom He called. He calls all who He knows will respond. We would have to think by this point in history we would be talking about billions of people. They have the number down to only several million. Again, their math, and I do not understand it, so I remain skeptical. I am already working on a post for May 22nd, you know, just in case. If Jesus really does come that day, I will not be here to finish it. I sincerely hope none of you reading this post will be either.

One of my former pastors gave an invitation to receive Jesus at nearly every service he preached. He was fond of saying, "You know if you have been born-again as surely as you know if you have a driver's license." If you are not sure about either of those check your wallet first. If you do not have a license do not drive. Then check your spirit because the Bible certainly says, "The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God." (Romans 8:16) If there is no witness, you can take care of that immediately by asking Jesus to be Lord of your life. Imagine how God would feel to have you as part of His forever family.

More on John 3:8 Christians

My guess is that it was about 18 months ago the Holy Spirit illuminated John 3:8 so we came to understand this was not simply a random verse (as if there really were such a thing) in the midst of a conversation Jesus was having with a Biblical scholar. John 3:8-The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from or where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit., is presented by Jesus as the norm for a person who has been born again. This is the norm, not the exception! There are at least two levels higher. This is entry level. We will be right back to that.

The world does not, cannot, understand those who are born of the Spirit. I received an interesting comment yesterday, from a man I have had a professional relationship with for the past few years. I had updated him on what we are doing and our vision for the future. He embraced most of the concepts and as we were parting he said, "You are a very interesting man." I said I would take that as a compliment. He assured me it was intended that way. What he was communicating to me is that he did not exactly understand where I was coming from or where I was going, or at least he did not understand what motivated me. I respect this man, his general attitude, and his professional abilities, but from previous conversations, I know he is not born of the Spirit. He cannot be expected to understand my motivations.

Those born of the Spirit do what the Spirit directs them to do. Of course we all have fleshly parts so we are not "on" 100% of the time. We just keep trying to get it right. What the Holy Spirit directs does not always make sense to our rational minds initially. However, it will always make sense untimately if we follow the direction.

We said John 3:8 is entry level stuff. There are at least two levels higher. The first level is a Revelation 12:11 Christian who, "...did not love their lives to the death."

Before I finish that thought, I have to tell you what just happened because it is kind of how my life has been going lately. I wrote the first part of the previous paragraph, but did not have time to look up the verse before I left the house to run a few errands. Standing in line at one place I looked at the tee shirt the young man ahead of me was wearing and it said, "And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony" Revelation 12:11. I immediately recognized that as the first half of the verse quoted above. Okay, back to the point.

I know people who think they would like to be done with this world and spend the rest of eternity in the heavenly kingdom. Maybe my theology is not as good as theirs or who knows, but I am just not ready to die yet. I am not afraid of dying, but I would rather not. In fact if I knew where I am going to die, I would avoid that place at all costs. So perhaps I am getting close to John 3:8, but Revelation 12:11 is still too much of a reach for this feeble mind. But wait, there is more.

Hebrews Chapter 11 is all about faith. You can read it yourself for context if you need a refresher. After giving a brief definition and explanation of faith, the author writes what is commonly referred to as "The roll call of faith." He comments on the faith of people throughout the Bible. He writes of the things they endured for the faith. Then we come to verse 38, of whom the world was not worthy. The world was not worthy? I did not write that. I quoted it.

Those folks lived with such a vision and revelation of God's eternal kingdom that whatever happened to them while they were on earth simply did not matter. That is way beyond me. Because of that attitude, the world was not worthy of them. The world could not understand them, death was an event in an eternal life, and they lived lives that made all others seem insignificant by comparison.

Of course you know I cannot quit without encouraging everyone who reads these words to examine his or her manner of living to determine what kind of life you are living. I used to be young and now I am, well, sort of old. I believe I am doing a better job of living a life pleasing to God than I have in the past. It certainly is not a perfect life. I suppose the world is still worthy of me so I will keep trying and learning and getting better at it by God's grace. Now I think I am done. God bless.

Cracks Are Beginning to Form

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.

A Newly Radical Old Challenge

A few weeks ago, someone mentioned she was hoping for more teaching in these pages rather than an online journal. Okay, when she says she wants more teaching, maybe it is not such a bad idea. (Guess who "she" might be.) We do have to do one thing before we start this.

WARNING: If you pastor a church you probably do not want to read any further.

God made just one challenge in the Bible to test Him. It is recorded in the last book of the Old Testament. The prophet Malachi, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, spoke God's word to us. "Bring all the tithes into the storehouse that there may be food in my house. And try me now in this says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes..." (Malachi 3:9-10) If you have not heard a message, or at least an admonition, from this verse, you probably just have not been around churches or other religious organizations very long. Hold on! You probably have never heard what you are about to read. Due to limited space, there is not a lot of detail here. We are working on recording the full message.

First, take a look at the italicized words in the verses quoted above. The quotation, as is our custom, is taken from the New King James Version of the Bible. The translators of the NKJV did something that is very helpful to us in understanding what God is really trying to tell us here. They took their lead from the translators of the original King James Version in that wherever they added words to the text to make it more understandable in English, they italicized the words.

When we read verse 10 from about the middle of the verse, we see only, "...pour out for you blessing that not enough...") God has already given us an if, then. That is the sign of His covenant with us. In this case it is the covenant that shows how God will meet our needs. If we will bring our tithes into the storehouse, then He will open the windows of heaven and pour out for us blessing. God is not wishy washy on this. If we, then He. But wait, you get more.

Most teachings on this subject are limited to verses 9 and 10 quoted above. That is not the end of the thought. For whatever reason, most people preaching or teaching on the subject of bringing tithes, stop before they get to verse 11 and as a result never get to the really good part. Having the windows of heaven open above us is a great thing. God pouring down blessings through those open windows ratchets that up at least a notch. However, to understand the whole of what He is saying here we have read at least the opening words of verse 11. "And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes..." It would not be a complete promise from God if He opened those windows and poured out those blessings only to have the devourer eat them. In God's economy, you can have your blessings and enjoy them too!

We are running out of room here so we have to hurry. I have no idea at this point how the following quotation relates to this post, but I heard it yesterday and I know it does. Without further comment, here it is. "People have been making choices between a lie and a lie." (Shari Norvell, 1/28/11)

There are just two more things we need to cover. The first one is really a reminder. In order for you to have open windows above you, blessings pouring down on you, and the devourer rebuked out of your life, you must tithe. The second thing will get me into trouble with pastors everywhere. Hopefully, they heeded the warning and stopped reading awhile ago. You need to know this.

The storehouse is not what you have been told it is. Here is one example to verify that statement. If you have ever heard a sermon on these verses, tithing, and/or the storehouse, you have most likely heard the storehouse is the local church. That is where your tithe should be taken. The word "storehouse" appears in the Bible eight times. The most telling occurrence is in Nehemiah 13:13 which talks about the men who were entrusted with the tithes the people brought. The final words of the verse are, "...and their task was to distribute to their brethren." We obviously cannot speak for everyone, but if memory serves, there have been fewer than a half dozen times in a half century of church attendance that anyone has distributed to us out of the storehouse.

Should you need an apology for what I am about to do, you have it. But I am done for now. Selah (And get back to me if you like.)

Ecclesiasticisms

The title of this post may be something that just happens in the middle of the night when the change has begun. (Come to think of it those last three words might have been a better title. Oh well, maybe that is the next post?) Still, I would stake whatever reputation I have on the fact the Holy Spirit actually spoke that word into my spirit.

I am a bit conflicted at the moment. I determined that I was not going to write or say anything about a couple different things until I knew exactly what it is the Holy Spirit is saying. Now, here I am typing and I am not sure what He is saying, only that He is saying something. In fact the only thing I am sure He is saying is, "Ecclesiasticisms." Please allow me to save you a little effort by telling you, I already looked it up on dictionary.com and it is not there. However, if you look up "ism" you can get something of an idea of what the word might mean. That is assuming you know that ecclesiastic anything applies to The Church. An ism in this context is something to which one is devoted. So ecclesiasticism would mean devotion to The Church. (Assuming it were a real word.) Except for one thing. Ecclesiasticism would be devotion to the church; not necessarily The Church. Maybe that is the point the Holy Spirit is trying to make? You see, to be devoted to Jesus is to be devoted to The Church whereas ecclesiastism is devotion to the church, or my church, or your church, or any particular church.

I am devoted to the concept of church. Were it not for church, Christian people would have to come to me to have fellowship because I would not go to them. That is just the way I am. My wife, on the other hand, will go about anywhere to meet anyone for any and every good reason. In fact, she often does not even need a reason. She just wants to be around people. When I go anywhere, I am on some kind of a mission. My mission may be to find something like a piece of hardware, a article of clothing, or a flame-broiled whopper, but I am on a mission. Sometimes she just wants to go. So we compromise and we both go. (Get it?)

I have to quit writing now. I am not sure why, but I think it is because if I keep writing I will get myself into trouble. Hopefully someone out there will finish this post. There should be enough here to elicit at least a comment or two about people who love church, but only attend for the purpose of...

Think Bigger

It has been said a few times in these pages that we do not often write without some inspiration, which we hope has come from the Holy Spirit. However, this post is more than that. If I may be so bold as to say it, this is more than just inspiration. This is a word, perhaps in the category of the charismata, a word of knowledge. This is the first time I have felt one of these posts had something specific to say to a person or some people about what should be being done. I could only guess who that might be, or what it is they should be doing but I have the strongest suspicion that I also will be moved to action by the time this post is complete. (When I originally wrote that, I had no idea it would be months before I would actually complete the post.)


We always think smaller than God does. For those of you who think the word always should never be used because it is too inclusive, I have scripture on that. Of course, those same people should object to the use of never for the same reason, but they rarely do.


The Bible tells us, "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love Him." (1 Corinthians 2:9) That verse seems to be a pretty definite statement that we always think smaller than God does. Put another way, God always has bigger, hopes, dreams, desires, and aspirations for us than we have for ourselves. He knows how much there is for us and when He follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, rather than our own way, all that is opened up and made possible for us. You see, the things we want simply enter into our minds. The things He wants enter into our renewed minds via our spirit from the Holy Spirit.

Some of you may remember the story of Chuck Smith and the founding of the original Calvary Chapel. They had bought property in one of California's high rent districts. As I recall the story from hearing him tell it over thirty years ago, they negotiated a purchase price for the property. It was a larger piece of property than they felt they really needed, but it was all available so they bought the whole parcel. The problem in Chuck's mind was that they were about a quarter million dollars short of the full purchase price. Of course, that was in the early 1970s and a quarter million dollars was a lot of money. He prayed and told God he thought paying interest was not an efficient of use of their money, but since they considered it all God's money, He would have to deal with it. Shortly thereafter, a call came in from a major oil company offering them a quarter million dollars for a corner of the property. They arranged the sale and paid off their debt. This is one, simple example that I am aware of. Would that qualify as a miracle, something unexpected, even more than they could hope for? I am sure it was more than Chuck expected.


Chuck Smith's dream, or vision if you will, came about on the heels of a failure. By his own admission he killed more than one church before he realized that he was called to do something new and different. When he answered the call of God to reinvent himself, so to speak, and teach through the Bible in a small, Bible study group, the group rapidly outgrew several places they tried to meet. Calvary Chapel churches, by whatever name, have now encircled the globe. I know people who knew Chuck Smith as a child and a teenager. They tell me he was "just an ordinary boy". My guess is that history will record something different.


I have to wonder how many others of us are called to some form of greatness. Most Bible College and Seminary curricula include studies of the great, historical revivals. In those studies, the people who someone thought responsible for those moves of God are recorded. Perhaps they are the ones responsible, but perhaps not. When we say they are responsible, it should be obvious that what we mean is they are the human instrument the Holy Spirit used to get the work done on earth.

I will admit this is new territory for me. Mentally I know God wants more for me, but He has already blessed us so much. We have a lot more than a lot of people do. By American standards we are maybe middle class. By the world's standards, we are wealthy. Oh sure there are a lot of other things we would like to have and things we would like to do if resources were available. There is a lot more out there for us. That is for sure.


I was in an individual counseling session recently, asking a client what his plans were for the rest of his life. He was not sure. Then he asked me when I was going to move forward with something I had mentioned I thought was in my future. I told him the money was not here yet so I was going to content myself with what I am doing now. He said the money is never the problem. I really hate it when the guys I teach this stuff to bring it up at inopportune times. He is right of course. The money we see is never all the money there is at our disposal. All we have to do is get the money out of the spiritual realm into the physical. Simple huh? Most things in the kingdom of God are simple. We are the ones who complicate them. As long as I am quoting the program men, another one said, during a discussion about the best way to do something, "it was our best thinking that got us into this program." That was a reference to the fact that he an several other of the men were ordered to be there by a judge. At least I am one step removed, what with being on staff and getting paid to be there and all.

My posts are now out of order a bit. For some reason, I have not been able to finish this post until now. As the author and publisher I always have the right to redo anything the even actually gets published. I am going to change the date on this one so it ends up being closer to the date it is published than the date I started it. I think this one is now done--except to encourage you to think BIGGER!

The Holy Spirit is off the Reservation

When I was younger, I used to watch a lot of western movies on television. It seems to me there were a lot more of them on in those days. They would probably be rated G if there had been ratings, but I digress.


In those western movies, there would often be some kind of conflict between the cowboys and the indians...uhhh native Americans. As you may recall from your study of American history, as the white men moved west, they relegated the indians to reservations. The indians where told where they were allowed to live. They had to stay on the reservation. Sometimes, in those old westerns, a restless, indian brave would take off in search of adventure, a better life, or sometimes just to hunt for food. When that happened, the brave was said to be "off the reservation" meaning that he was not in the place he had been relegated to by the powers that be.


Most of you can already see where we are going with this. The rest of you can just keep reading and I will try to explain the point as clearly and as briefly as possible. For those of you who read these pages regularly, you are probably hoping it will be brief and not expecting too much in the way of clarity. (My own little joke...I hope!)


In churches today we have generally relegated the Holy Spirit to some place where He is not supposed to make too much noise because we have our reservations (pun intended) about what "church" should look like. Church should be done "decently and in order." We even have scripture on that. (1 Corinthians 14:40) The only rub there is we have our ideas about what is decent and in order and the Holy Spirit seems to have other ideas. The rest of 1 Corinthians 14 contains instructions on how to keep order in church services when the Holy Spirit is doing too much. I have a pretty good idea that my church experience is fairly common. I cannot think of the last time I saw the Holy Spirit doing too much in a church service. That makes me wonder if the Holy Spirit would ever be allowed do too much in most churches today. Hmmm....


I do know of a place where the Holy Spirit seems to be trying to get off the reservation. It is not a place really, but I have been receiving calls, texts messages, and emails several times a week from people who are seeing changes in their world as a result of believing and doing more than they could have even imagined not very long ago. I even get to work on a daily basis with a group of men who have what I call "a creeping awareness" the Holy Spirit is beginning to do amazing things in their lives and the lives of their families and friends. Those kinds of things do not happen when the Holy Spirit politely stays on the reservation.


Let me close with a story that I think somehow illustrates the point. It must have been about 20 years ago, a church in Santa Maria built a badly needed new church building. They had been in temporary quarters for a year during construction. We were at the first service in the new building. The worship seemed to be a little more spiritual than usual in the shiny, new building than it had been in the gymnasium. Some of us had the sense true worship was about to break-out as the people were filled with some measure of wonder at what God had done for them. Just then, the pastor stepped to the microphone and said words to the affect of, "Let's not get carried away now. We do not do that here." The pronouncement was not followed by a hush, but some people commented later it felt as though the air had been taken out of the congregation.


I believe the Holy Spirit had been grieved. The church is surviving and some say thriving these twenty years later. The valley is literally strewn with wounded people and staff members from that church--some of whom have told me personally they intend to never darken the doors of a church again. There are also at least two, newer churches made up of people who left that church over the past few years.

If you have reservations about allowing the Holy Spirit to have free reign in your life, you will never truly see the power of God at work in and around you. Yes, we are speaking personally now. God wants to change you into His image. We usually settle for being changed into the image we think (soul) or feel (soul) He wants. Those ideas usually come from someone else (parent, teacher, pastor, etc.) telling us how we should act, what we should do, how we should feel, or what we should think. (Can you say religious spirit?) Find out what God wants for you. Commune with God. Let the Holy Spirit off the reservation and get ready for a wild ride. What could be more fun than that?

The Troubler of Israel

I was in the shower this morning, kind of running over current events in my mind when I recalled an event from almost 23 years ago. I am not entirely sure I have not mentioned it in these pages before, but since I recalled it, you get to recall it too.

The family had moved to Santa Maria, but my job transfer had not come through so I was still in the San Fernando valley during the week. The workdays went from 8:00 AM until 7:00 PM or thereabouts much of the time. Probably the last thing I wanted to do on Wednesday evenings was go to a church service. I am really not sure why I went that night. It was probably a divine appointment, at least it turned out to be. There ended up being about five people in the service after the children and their teachers had gone to do whatever it is children do at such times. The pastor suggested we each take some time to pray individually and then come back together for a time of corporate prayer. I guess five people is some kind of corporate.

The Holy Spirit was in the back of the church waiting for me. I had almost found a place to get on my knees and pray when I clearly heard the question, "Is that you, you troubler of Israel?" I started to laugh. I immediately recognized the reference to 1 Kings 18:17. In case you are not familiar with it, that is the greeting King Ahab gave Elijah when the prophet returned from a camping trip. Elijah's response was that he was not the one troubling Israel, but rather it was Ahab's family who had brought God's judgement upon the nation.

We were doing a good work in a local church in Santa Maria. We were leading a Sunday school class and home group meeting. We were seeing people, healed and set free. I made a couple mistakes in teaching at those meetings. I actually said the Bible teaches that elders are men. That got me a correction in front of the Sunday school class. Then I pointed out to a group of men the pastor would only choose men to be elders who agreed with him. Silly me, I thought that was a no-brainer. When I was a pastor I certainly would not have considered appointing an elder who I thought disagreed with me in any significant area of doctrine or church leadership. (I know it is hard to believe it is as simple and straightforward as it sounds here, but there are people who can verify what I am saying.)

Obviously I could not be allowed to continue ministering in that church or even attend there with such heinous, abberant doctrine. I was invited, not so politely, to leave the church. We had four children ages ten and under. I was not going to expose them to a church fight. So we left. To bring the story full circle, we were invited to come back to the church years later and declined believing the same spirit was still there. At the time we did not realize it was a manifestation of the religious spirit in that church.

It was in the interim time, while the church council was trying to decide what to do with me, that I attended that midweek service in the San Fernando valley. You may not even be able to imagine what a relief it was, 1) to really understand, with certainty and clarity, that I was not the problem, and 2) to have the Holy Spirit joke with me about it. I needed that laugh.

I seem to be in a similar situation as I write this. There are a few essential differences this time. I am over the fear of man. I know there is nothing any man can do to me that can nullify the grace of God in my life. (Thanks for hammering on that Pastor Craig Hamlin.) I recognize the battle this time for what it is--and who it is. It is not about any man or group of men. It is about a foul, evil, religious spirit that has the Santa Maria valley in it's clutches and is fighting to not let go. My kids are grown and gone. I do not have to protect them from any attacks that might come. I am a little bit angry this spirit has stolen so much of my life and whatever ministry would have been done in that time. I am not going to take it anymore. More than that, I am not going to lose. I refuse to lose. There are a few other people catching this vision. Praise God! That is why I am telling this story, maybe for the second time. I am really not sure. I could have looked that up, but then you might have missed something important had this post not been written. I wonder if that makes any sense? See you soon. God bless.

I could not resist. I went back to see if I had mentioned this before. I had, but only a mention in part three of The Workings of a Religious Spirit. If you are interested: http://thechurchinsantamariaca.blogspot.com/2009/06/workings-of-religious-spirit-part-3.html

The Fullness of Time

I am not the least bit embarrassed to borrow a title from another blogger, especially when two things are true. 1) I have known this particular young lady (Deborah Downs Basehore, http://debbase.blogspot.com/2009/08/fullness-of-time.html) since before she was born and 2) It is a scriptural phrase. I cannot say we are good friends, but her parents pastored the church where I was on staff during the time Deborah was in the womb. I have seen her maybe half a dozen times throughout her life although I have been able to see her older siblings on something of a regular basis.


This time I was sitting in my home office, minding my own business, when I pulled up the email introducing me to Deborah's blog. So you know, I preached a sermon by the same title at the Christmas service in the Little Rock, CA Foursquare Church in 1974, as a college senior. I suppose I have taught on the surrounding scriptures at least a handful of times throughout the intervening years. I am not unfamiliar with the phrase by any means.


As so often happens with familiar, scriptural, passages, they sit in our subconscious minds, unused, until the Holy Spirit recalls them when they are needed. When I read the post in Deborah's blog the thought rose from my spirit that our time is not quite full. That is why it seems as though there has been little or no progress in our battle. The army is still being assembled. (I suspect Deborah will be joining us in prayer when she reads this post.) That does make me wonder, however, what it will take for someone with a more prominent voice than this one has been so far, to glimpse the battle and lend that voice.

One of my favorite books all time is Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears A Who. To explain why that is so, probably all I need to do is tell you my favorite movie is Field of Dreams, and I have a print of Picasso's Don Quixote on the wall behind my desk at work. (I have to think a psychologist would have a great time analyzing me.) For those of you who still have not quite caught the picture, each of those stories are about people who faced impossible odds and persevered until they won. Horton only needed the voice of one more "Who" to save Who-ville from destruction. Who knows whose voice that might be in this case. Maybe it is even one of you who are reading this.


I am not a young man anymore, but I do still see visions (Acts 2:17) although I will also admit to dreaming dreams from time to time. I have seen things no one else I know has seen. They were mostly, personal things, but not entirely private things. I have been able to use some of those things to help other people along their way. Make no mistake, these are things born of the Spirit. The proof is in the pudding as the old saying goes. If you hang around long enough, you will get your serving of pudding.


Jesus promised us that He would send the Comforter, The Holy Spirit, to lead us into all truth. (John 16:13) In fact He said it is better for us if He went away so The Holy Spirit could come. (John 16:7) Only one member of the Trinity carries the primary work of God on earth at any one time. God the Father worked until Jesus came. Jesus worked for a comparatively brief period of time before turning the work over to The Holy Spirit who will be working in and through us until Jesus returns. Misunderstanding of this relatively simple point of theology has stifled untold ministry amongst those who believe The Holy Spirit has ceased His work on earth. Those who believe that are never quite so direct with their teaching. They cloak their teaching in a thin veil that says the gifts of The Holy Spirit are no longer needed in The Church. They may not be needed in their church, but they are needed in The Church. God help us if we start thinking we can do the work of the ministry without the manifest presence of The Holy Spirit.


I am not really sure how we got here from there, but the main thesis is still valid. We are not late. We are right on time. Right now it is time to meditate and pray and write. Very soon it will be time for action. That time will be The Fullness of Time.

Of Men and Microcosms

Few people know this and probably fewer people even care, but when yours truly was attending Allan Hancock College as a twenty year old sophomore, I announced to one of my teachers my intention to obtain a Ph.D. in Sociology. I even made careful (though completely misguided) plans to chose a California State University Campus that would not require me to change venues during my undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate studies.


The reason I mention that is that in the prerequisite studies for that degree, we learned about microcosms. Microcosm is defined as "A world in miniature." By extrapolation, anything that is a smaller model of something larger could be considered a microcosm. We often say we are in our, "own little world." Our own little worlds intersect each other's "own little world" and the sum of them is a larger world. That really is not quite as confusing as it sounds at first blush. Perhaps it is easier to grasp if we say that our society is made up of each of us individuals coming together to form a larger community. Without stretching the point too far that makes each of us a representation of our culture, society, or community. That is not quite the idea of a microcosm, but I now either have or have not completely lost your attention.


For those of you who are still here, let us consider governmental representatives as a way to understand what we are talking about here. Without mentioning any of them by name, we are represented in various governing bodies by duly elected officials from our geographical area. We have city council people, county supervisors, a state assemblyman and senator as well as United States Senators and a Congresswoman. Each one of them are individuals representative of each of us individually and collectively. They cast votes for various things in our place. They do what we would do if we were there ourselves. (Ok, I know that is not always true, but the point is still valid.)


Now, suppose you are one of those representatives because any one of us very well could be. All it takes is the right political machine and enough money. In fact, I ran for county supervisor in a faraway land, many, many years ago. I got a few votes, but not really enough to cause much of a ripple in the election. The local newspaper did run an editorial saying they did not think I should be allowed to run, but that is another story entirely.

So anyway there is, of course, a point to this exercise. Do you remember the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch? (Acts 11:26) Christian was a derisive term when first applied to those disciples, those followers of Jesus. The people of Antioch were mocking the disciples as people who followed Jesus. Of course, they did not themselves believe that Jesus was the Messiah. What they were saying is that each of those disciples was a little Jesus, a microcosm if you will. When we think about it, that should be considered quite a compliment. Oh to be like Jesus! Talk about influence.


Now, think about what people see when they see you. Do they see Jesus? If they call you a Christian are they saying it derisively or admiringly? Do they notice your love? The Bible tells us that we Christians will be known by our love. (John 13:35) There is a man in my program who is having the most serious struggle I have personally ever witnessed over whether to make Jesus his Lord. He knows he will have to give up something very dear to him because Jesus would not approve. He also looks at Christians and is baffled by the way we sometimes think and act. He sees the contradiction between Bibilcal Christianity and those who call themselves Christian today. Dare I use the term hypocrisy? Perhaps you have run into people like him?

We have to be honest, there is a lot to dislike in the modern church. It often bears little resemblence to what Jesus left upon his ascension. Sometimes we almost want to ask, "What was He thinking when He left the church to sinful men?" If you have read much of this blog you probably expect me to say something like, we need to tap into the spirit more, "...be filled with the Spirit." (Ephesians 5:18) as the scripture says. Actually when read in the original language, the phrase is, "be being filled with the the Spirit." It shows continuing action. Unfortunately, most of us, yours truly included, spend way too much time doing what seems right in our own eyes. How is that working out for you? You may be doing fine on an individual basis, but I will quote my pastor here. "We are trying to move from it's all about me to it's not about me at all." Oh, by the way, I did just say it.

I just heard some great news over my back fence yesterday. Apparently there is a man of some, quiet influence in town who is taking it upon himself to organize some focused prayer activity. I am going to look up an email address for him and send a link to the blog. Will you excuse me? I am pretty sure I hear the Holy Spirit calling.

The Workings of a Religious Spirit, Part 7

So I was making the bed a couple days ago (yes, Judi was out of town) and the Holy Spirit spoke into my spirit, "It is time to get back on task." There was obviously nothing I could say to that except, "Ok." I had no more than said that when I was aware that something I had been turning over and over in my mind for months (call it meditation if you like) is a working of a religious spirit we had not previously discussed here. The reason we have not is this is something we are inclined to take for granted.

You may remember me saying there was a period in my life when I could offend people simply by walking into a room. I never did understand how that happened. I had even asked a older, wiser brother in the faith about that once. His explanation was that I exuded an air of confidence most people did not have. I never really understood that either. Shortly after we returned to Santa Maria, we had the opportunity to do some ministry in a local church. We discovered that in simply reporting facts of experiences we had with God, people twisted and distorted our reports into some kind of braggadocio about what amazing people we are. To set the record straight for those of you who do not know us very well, we are not extraordinary people. There really is nothing remarkable about us. The prophet Micah asks, "He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8) I am not sure we have ever tried to do much other than that. Sometimes it feels as though we have not accomplished much at all to this point in life. However, God is true to His promises and He has given us some favor with men recently.

I am not sure exactly where that last paragraph came from, but it serves to introduce the fact that a vast portion of The Church does not understand the power given by Jesus as he ascended back into heaven. You may remember the term is "all power". Do not be misled by those who would say that applies only to Jesus because He said "all power has been given to me." The next words are, "therefore go." You can look that up in Matthew 28 if you are not willing to take my word for it. The power given to Him is our authority to go. God is a trinity. We cannot understand exactly how that works. What we do know is that it means God grants the power to Jesus who operated through the power of the Holy Spirit just as we are to operate. The "all power" definitely does apply to us.

This problem in the The Church can actually be answered with a principle from psychology. I know some people are going to object to me even saying that, but bear with me. If you still think I have it wrong after your careful consideration, make a comment. I post them all. The psychological term is "self-actualized". If one were to look at a self-actualized person from the perspective of Biblical knowledge, that person would look very much like someone who lives Romans 12:1-2. Specifically, that person would be seen to have had his mind transformed by the Holy Spirit so that he understands his calling in life is to prove the good and acceptable and perfect will of God in his life. A truly self-actualized person does that on a daily basis. He or she knows where their strength and ability lies--in God. Unfortunately, often all it takes to get into a leadership position in any kind of ministry organization is one's ability to impress or please someone a little farther up the food chain. We see today, many insecure leaders perpetuating insecure leadership by disallowing anyone who is more self-actualized than themselves to be in leadership.

I do not often quote my father in these pages, mostly because he is not a Christian and so he lives, works, and thinks from a different perspective. However, despite a lack of formal education, he became one of the elite managers in our little corner of the aerospace industry, often advising Air Force Generals on how to organize and facilitate projects. One thing he told me about his management style is that he never wanted people on his team who were not smarter and better at their jobs than he was. He said he would assemble the best people he could find, organize them into a team, and give them the tools they needed to accomplish their task. When he left them alone to do that, he was perceived as a brilliant manager because his team produced the desired results.

A religious spirit has to keep the cream from rising to the top. It depends on poor to mediocre leadership to keep a lid on those who are passionate about seeing the Kingdom of God come in all its power and glory. The leaders in place have to be less dangerous to the enemy than the rank and file members.

I told the men at the mission during devotions a few days ago, they were led into substance abuse because it was one way the devil had of neutralizing them and keeping them from becoming the men they should be. It was a new concept to many of them. If I can encourage you to do any one thing here, please seek the Lord about what is keeping you from doing great things in and for the Kingdom of God. Then change that. Be one of those people who are not held back by anyone or anything. "...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." (Philippians 2:12-13)

By the way, if you feel there is any value in being more self-actualized than you are, you might enjoy a trip to http://www.selfcounseling.com/help/personalsuccess/selfactualization.html

Perhaps if We Talked Less and Listened More

Someone somewhere said, "God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason." I feel fairly certain that was said as a sublte reproof because most of us do at least as much talking as we do listening. I suppose it is not really fair to indict all of you along with me, but there is another old saying that, "Misery loves company." I admit, I have done my share of complaining in 58 years of treading this soil. Then again, as most of you know, I am an introvert so my talking is, more often than not, consolidated to times when I have to talk, like when I am teaching a class. It did not always used to be so. I craved attention and was pretty good at talking for the sake of getting it. I could throw out a witicism or a barb with barely a thought about how it might be received. I have also been wounded a few times. Trust me, everyone knew about them. A couple friends even told me to quit talking about the wounds and the people who had inflicted them. I do not think either of them read this blog. They probably do not even know it exists. Then again, my guess is neither of them even remember the incidents. Still, I feel like I need to acknowledge David Saltzman and Nancy Ostini who caught me up short on two separate occasions. Thank you.

I, having said that and you having read that, can agree it is good advice to listen more than we talk, but then again, everyone knows we talk too much and do not listen enough. When we do listen, we usually listen to ourselves regardless of who is actually talking at the time. My in house human communications expert tells me that as much as ninety-three percent of our communications with one another is non-verbal. We are communicating by body language or facial expressions. Even voice inflections are considered non-verbal in this regard. When we attempt to communicate with some other person, we are trying to convey to them concepts in our mind which are not necessarily received correctly. Add to that the fact that we often hear what we expect the other person to say and/or hear what we wish the other person would say and it adds up to something well less than perfect understanding on both ends. The bottom line is that we do not hear because we do not listen.


In the last post, I mentioned I try to keep my spiritual ears open to the Holy Spirit regardless of whatever else I might be doing. Some people think that is kind of freaky or mystical or something. Virtually all those people have either not experienced the Holy Spirit speaking into their spirit or simply did not recognize it when He did. Years ago, while trying to explain the concept to a group of brilliant, young, college students (yes, I was definitely over matched intellectually) the Holy Spirit did speak into my spirit with a simile they immediately grasped. The spirit in man is like the operating system in a computer. Once it is connected to the power (Holy Spirit) and turned on it runs in the background enabling everything else to work. All we have to do activate our spirit. It probably is not productive to discuss whether once our spirit is activated, we need to reactivate it regularly. Maybe we can go there another time.

Scripture does tell us to, "be filled with the spirit" (Ephesians 5:18) I am going to throw in a little Greek lesson here, but I will not charge you extra for it. This phrase is in the Greek present tense. The present tense shows continuing action in present time. When we read the phrase in English we are inclined to think it means to be in a state of having been filled. In other words, we were filled once and we are supposed to stay that way. That would be a different tense in Greek (the imperfect tense if you are interested). By being in the present tense, a literal translation would be "be being filled" or to be in a state in which we are continually being filled. (Scripture actually refers to that as a river and a fountain in various places.) That is only possible when we stay connected to the Holy Spirit. He provides the power for our operating system, our spirit, to run in the background regardless of what we are doing or what is going on around us. This is the state of being Isaiah was referring to when he wrote, "You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You." (Isaiah 26:3) The writer of Hebrews tells us essentially the same thing when he writes, "Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest..." (Hebrews 4:11)

Some of you long time readers are surely asking if I have confused the spirit and the soul. Not at all. The mind is what we use in our effort to activate the spirit. Prayer, praise, and worship are all activities that turn our spirit on. Our soul sits between our body and our spirit, listening to the desires of each of them as they play tug o'war with each other. We decide which direction we will ultimately go. We decide whether to do what Jesus wants or what we want. In spite of the fact we know that going head to head with Him ends in a headache at best, we often stubbornly persist in having our own way. We do this knowing the truth of Proverbs 14:12 that our way will always end in death. It occurs to me that is not always a bad thing. Sometimes that death is to our fleshly desires. That death will end up working out well, but my gosh it is so painful to learn things that way. Why not just make it easy on ourselves and listen to what the Holy Spirit has to say to us--then do it.

Maybe this is my post for old sayings. I am in this for a penny, in it for a pound. If you are coming along, it will not be long before the battle is engaged in earnest. Now would be the time to decide. Our encouragement would be to listen to what the Holy Spirit is telling you. Listen all the time. Then do whatever that is. It will not always make you the most popular person in town. That also is a lesson for another time. See you soon. God bless!

I Have Been Painting

I have been painting the living room, dining room and hallway, so far. That kind of thing tends to cause delays between posts. The fact is I had decided the painting was a priority and if the blog had to wait, the blog had to wait. I did not expect to be writing this post tonight. I know some of you think the blog is more important than painting the house. Truth be told I would like to think the blog is more important than painting the house too. It certainly is a whole lot more enjoyable. I really do not even like painting, but it is one of those things husbands have to do sometimes. We moved into this house nine and a half years ago and most of the interior has not been repainted at all. The carpet was in pretty bad shape when we moved in. We decided we needed new flooring, but of course the walls needed to be painted first. That is what I have been doing.

As I was saying, I had decided the blog would just have to wait. Now I do not know if this happens to you or not, but sometimes the Holy Spirit sneaks up on me in the middle of some other activity. I neglected to mention that along with deciding the blog would have to wait, I had made up my mind to keep my spiritual ears open, you know, just in case the Holy Spirit had anything to say to me. (It just occurred to me that might be the topic for the next post. I could almost do two in the same week if it is. It has been awhile since I did two in the same week, I think.) As I mentioned, He did have something to say to me. What can I do? Obviously, whatever He says. This time it is kind of interesting. I am going to do my best to explain it to you all.

To make it simple, the Holy Spirit said, "Write." What would you do? I asked what I was supposed to write. No answer. But, that bumped my spirit into action. This is sort of how that went.

(Holy Spirit) Write.

(me) Write what?

(my spirit upon hearing that) Sometimes we need to operate by faith. We do not need to know what we are doing before we do it. That is why many people fail to operate in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They will not get started.

I had one of my men ask me about speaking in tongues the other day. He was not sure how to phrase the question, but I correctly surmised he wanted to know why he had not been able to speak in tongues since he had received the baptism in the Holy Spirit. I gave him my stock answer. More often than not, the problem is we are waiting for the Holy Spirit to speak through us rather than doing the speaking ourselves. He said nothing was coming to mind except random syllables. Hello? Last time I checked languages are formed from random syllables put together in intelligible ways. The thing about speaking in tongues is that it is the Holy Spirit who is putting the syllables together. They do not have to make sense to us, or to anyone else listening to us and, in fact, they usually do not. Just start speaking those random syllables and let the Holy Spirit turn them into whatever it is He wants to say.

That is fine for tongues, but what about the other gifts? I am so glad you asked. We know that when we exercise a charismatic gift of speaking in tongues in public there needs to be someone present who can then exercise the corresponding gift of the interpretation of tongues. (1 Corinthians 14:27-28) Since the person exercising the gift of tongues has to operate in faith by speaking out random syllables, it only makes sense the person interpreting the message would also have to use some measure of faith and start speaking words, trusting the Holy Spirit to form them into a message intelligible to the people present. How about the gifts of prophecy, or word of knowledge, or word of wisdom? What if it is time to exercise a gift of healing? You get the point.

It looks like I have written something like a blog entry when I had not planned to. I know I am awesome, but of course it is not me. The Holy Spirit gives the gifts. You probably did not know one of the charismatic gifts is blogging. It is listed right there in 1 Corinthians 12. Check out verse 8. "for to one is given the word of wisdom (blogging) through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge (blogging) through the same Spirit," Maybe neither of those fit. Maybe both of them do. Maybe there are more of you out there who could exercise spiritual gifts, but for whatever reason just have not done it. I am pretty sure I have said this before. If not it might be printed on the box that last pair of sneakers came in. Just do it!

The Anointing, Part 2

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." (Isaiah 61:1,2)

As we mentioned in Part 1, these verses at the beginning of Isaiah 61 are prophetic of the ministry of Jesus on earth. He demonstrated this when He read them in the synagogue in His hometown of Nazareth at the beginning of His Messianic ministry. It is also obvious that the people who heard Him read the verses that day understood them to be Messianic prophecies. When he told them those Old Testament verses were beginning to be fulfilled that day, those who heard Him were at first curious because they had watched him grow up in that town. When He went on to say rather obliquely that His ministry was really only for those who were ready to receive it, they became very angry and attempted to kill Him. You can read that bit of history in Luke 4:18-29.

Again, as we said in Part 1, these verses are also prophetic of the ministry of Jesus' disciples on the earth. No, we do not mean the twelve He chose to accompany Him while He was on earth or even the one who took Judas' place after the betrayal. Of course they would be included in that group, but so would all of us. Yes, really. A disciple is a learner. Most of us do not know much except what we have learned from Jesus. At least we do not know much about spiritual life other than that. Ok, I feel the need to be fair. I should not have included all of you in that blanket indictment. I just know I do not know that much of any real value that I have not learned from Jesus. Sometimes he teaches me through the Bible, sometimes through other people or things those people have written. Sometimes He teaches me directly through the Holy Spirit speaking to my spirit. However it happens, if I learn, I am a disciple--and so are you.

I wonder if you also have the same problem I do thinking about all Jesus might want me to do. I do not know how much that is or how great those things are, but I am pretty sure it is more than I am doing now. In any event, having my ministry compared to Jesus' ministry always leaves me feeling as though I am coming up a little short. I wonder if that might be part of the reason Jesus chose the men He chose to be His first disciples? They were uneducated and untrained men. That is what the religious leaders of the day said. But they also took note of the fact those men had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13) Maybe if Jesus is just too high a standard for us to reach, we can at least relate to fishermen, tax collectors, and other ordinary men.

One can get all the spiritual and religious education that is necessary to do most ministry without ever darkening the door of a Bible college or seminary. One can also end up holding some pretty ridiculous ideas when he learns theology in a vacuum as it were, without the benefit of people wiser and more experienced than himself. By way of illustration of this, perhaps the most ridiculous idea we ever heard is that the original King James Bible is the onlyEnglish version God has approved. As proof, the man who told us that opened to the first page of his King James Bible where it said, "Authorized Version." Talk about deception. He actually believed God, rather than King James of England had authorized that version. We might as well go on to another subject. There does not seem to be much else we can say about that.

Looking back at those verses from Isaiah 61, and taking a step back to get the bigger picture, we can see Jesus' ministry is all about putting things right in people's lives. He came to bring the Gospel (good news) to those who needed some. He came to heal physical and emotional hurts and to free those who were in bondage. Maybe most importantly, He came to show us that with His coming, all that began. All that began. Twice should be enough to say that. We are not awaiting some day in the future to see Jesus work His love, miracles and healings. He is doing it now. He began to do it when He started His earthly ministry. He is doing it now through His Holy Spirit anointed Church. There are some religious traditions that leave the ministry of the Holy Spirit only within the pages of the Bible. The adherents of those traditions actually believe the gifts of the Holy Spirit ceased to be necessary when the Bible was completed. That is just silly. (I could go on, but I dare not lest I never finish this post.)

Now listen, get this straight in your thinking. Although all three members of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit work together, there is only one of them that carries the majority of the work on earth in any period of time. The Father was the one who worked from the creation until Jesus, the Son, began His ministry. Jesus ministered for a little over three years. By His own words, we know He turned the ministry over to the Holy Spirit when He returned to His place at the right hand of the Father. (John 16:7)



The Holy Spirit has been constantly at work on the earth since Jesus returned to heaven. He works behind the scenes as it were. His job is to glorify Jesus, convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgement, and to lead us into all truth. (John 16:8-14)

The apostle Peter, in explaining God's plan of salvation tells us that, "...God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power..." (Acts 10:38) Sometimes the prepositions can help us understand the concepts in the Bible. In this case, "with" indicates the Holy Spirit is the substance of the anointing. The ability, the power, to do the works comes along with the Holy Spirit. This can be a little confusing, but the Holy Spirit is what Jesus was anointed with, while power is what was observed as a result of that anointing. In this case, the power was Jesus' ability for "...doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil..." (Acts 10:38) Wait, you get more.

The apostle Paul tells us, "Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God." (1 Corinthians 1:21) Hang on now. The clear teaching, when we put these two verses together, is the same God who anointed Jesus has also anointed us. That almost sounds too good to be true. It is not. All we have to do is add one more verse from the apostle John and we know we are anointed. "But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you..." (1 John 2:27) Notice that we have already been anointed. That applies to everyone who has made Jesus Lord of his or her life. No exceptions.

To put the bow on this package, a quick recap is in order. We learned the anointing breaks the yoke of bondage. The anointing was given to Jesus. We were also anointed with Him and by Him to carry out His work on earth. That means we have all the ability Jesus had to do the things He did while he walked the earth in flesh and blood. The anointing that gave Him that ability was the Holy Spirit. We have also been anointed with the same Holy Spirit. About all we can say to end this is that we all have the ability to work the works we are called to. All we need to do is to go do them. Whatever God has called you to do, just do it.

The Anointing, Part 1

Please pray for me. I have been struggling. I have to assume it is my fault since we know the Lord does not make mistakes. There have been more random thoughts rolling around in my mind lately then there have been focused thoughts. That is why these posts are so far apart lately. I refuse to do shabby work. There just has not been any inspiration. There has been a lot of stress and distraction lately and apparently I do not handle those things as well as I might.

I started writing a post last night, but that would have ended up being shabby work I think. If one simply wants to write, that is not a problem. The substance of the writing is the point. Perhaps there will be more substance here. Plato said, "Wise men speak because they have something to say, fools because they have to say something." No, we are not often inclined to quote Plato in these pages, but truth is truth. In any event, I guess my soul was quiet enough in the shower this morning to hear one word, "anointing". Now I have something to say.

When I hear a word or phrase in my spirit, other words, thoughts and Bible verses often begin to tumble out. This morning, "ability" was right behind "anointing". Behind that, Isaiah 10:27, "...And the yoke will be destroyed because of the anointing oil." Following on its heels was Luke 4:18,19 which is a quote from Isaiah 61:1,2, which you regular readers may remember are the verses the Lord gave me oh so many years ago as my call to the ministry. About the time I heard those verses today I knew there would be too much information to get everything that needed to be said about the anointing into one post.

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." (Isaiah 61:1,2) Let me add a disclaimer to that.

Believe it or not, I have actually had people say to me that God would not have used those verses to call me to the ministry. Their reasoning (read as soul) brought them to the conclusion that these verses only apply to Jesus, not anyone else. I am not allowed to use profanity in these posts so may I just say, the ignorance of such a belief is, well, beyond ignorant. In fact, I began to protest when I realized what God was saying to me during that time of calling. He assured me He wants me to be just like Jesus. Let me let you in on a little secret. God wants you to be just like Jesus as well. These verses actually represent exactly what God expects us to do as the body of Christ on earth in these last days.

When we see references to the anointing in the Old Testament, as in the verses in Isaiah quoted above, they do not refer to the results of the anointing, but rather to the action or the substance (oil) of the anointing. In other words, we do not see the enabling or ability that results from one being anointed. Instead, we see the noun "oil" or the verb, "to apply the oil". In fact the two passages in Isaiah show us both those things. The yoke is broken by the anointing oil (noun) and the Spirit is upon Jesus because God anointed (verb) Him. We will come back and discuss those two passages in more detail later in this series if not in this post.

Our real anointing comes from the Holy Spirit in these last days. That anointing was not available before Jesus returned to heaven. Many churches will anoint people who are starting in new places of ministry or are being sent out from their fellowship to begin some other ministry. There is, of course, no magic in the oil of the anointing or in the prayer per se, but we are invoking the real power, the Holy Spirit, to work in and through the ones being anointed. The anointing in the Old Testament points us toward the coming of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. He is the real substance, if you will, of the anointing. When He anoints us, we have the ability to do those things in the spirit we would never have been able to do without His help. He also does anoint our own natural abilities so that our minds and emotions are elevated to levels that would otherwise not be possible.

Before we collect too many more passages on the anointing, let us first discuss the two we have already mentioned. In Isaiah 11:27 we are told the anointing oil breaks the yoke. Again, there is no magic in the oil used for anointing. Isaiah is foretelling the future in this verse as he is in 61:1,2 which we will discuss shortly. In context, God is telling Israel they will be punished for turning away from Him. He will use the Assyrians to bring the punishment. Once that is done, Israel will return to God and the Assyrians will be punished for not honoring God. This kind of thing seems to trip some people up. It is simply the classic battle between good and evil. The only real difference here is that God is telling us beforehand what He is going to do. It would all be the same if the Assyrians (God's enemies) attacked Israel (God's people) and were punished for it. We would have no problem with that. There should be no problem in understanding this scenario either. The Assyrians are going to attack Israel because they are just that kind of people. That is what they do. God is going to use that attack and the subsequent difficulties to show Israel His power in bringing them back to their land in peace. He is also going to punish Assyria for attacking His people. The spiritual lessons for us here are that God will bring punishment on us for disobeying His commands. He will also punish those who attack us--regardless of their reasons for doing so.

When we disobey God we allow the devil to place a yoke on our necks. He uses this yoke to make us do his work. His work is to steal and to kill and to destroy. (John 10:10) In an honest moment, most of us would have to admit we do the devil's work much more often than we would like to. The remedy for this situation, the release from the yoke is the anointing. Note that this scenario plays itself out in the lives of believers every day. We sin. When we do not immediately confess our sin and repent, Satan has the legal right to place a yoke on our necks. The thing that removes that yoke is the anointing. That anointing comes from the anointed One, the Christ (the term Christ literally means "the anointed one"). Jesus Christ is still the anointed One. His anointing is also upon His anointed ones, acting in His behalf, doing His work on earth today. It is the anointing that is the ability to do the yoke breaking work that can be done no other way.

Ok, so we are not going to get to Isaiah 61 this time. We will not keep you waiting too long for the second installment, Lord willing. In the meantime, begin to recognize the anointing in your lives and in the lives of others. See you soon. God bless.

Cause and Effect

In the physical world we are pretty good at understanding cause and effect. We know, for example, that if we do not take care of our bodies, we will suffer various health issues. Likewise, if our car breaks down, we can often trace the problem to a lack of proper maintenance. Most of still have a problem believing that if a butterfly flaps it's wings in an Argentine rain forest the effects will be felt very far from that butterfly. Although, of course, that action is a micro-example of the chaos theory which is used to determine the effects of seemingly random occurrences. I really do not know exactly what I am talking about there, but I hope it sounded good.

When it comes to the world of the spirit, that realm where God lives and functions, we are a lot less capable. We tend to think things just happen and sometimes there is simply no explanation for them. We see things happen in the physical world and often do not consider that we are seeing things with spiritual roots or origins. We need to clear that misconception up right now. Nothing happens for unexplainable reasons. The closest that concept comes to reality is if we change a few letters and make the word "unexplained" rather than "unexplainable". Sometimes we simply do not know the reasons. God always does. Not only does He know the reasons things go right, He knows the reasons things go wrong. If we are able to tap into the Spirit of God, we then become privy to things that are beyond our scope of knowledge or understanding.


The purpose of this blog is to make The Church in Santa Maria aware of the presence of a religious spirit over this valley. We are delighted to have people reading and praying and agreeing with us to win the victory in seeing this spirit vanquished. It is interesting to us that, at least to this date, we have not had a backlash from the religious spirit, or have we? I am doing a little "writing therapy" right now. I do not expect to hit the publish button before I go back to bed. It is shortly after 1 AM. I do not do well with much of anything at this time of day. Right now I have an unusual amount of stress to deal with. I will not give details except to say yesterday's staff meeting, my email box, and a bunch of whining from adult men almost did me in yesterday. I actually got angry for a moment and said something I had to apologize for. That has not happened for awhile. That is either confirmation of my humanity or spiritual warfare or maybe both.


Remember, the religious spirit is insidious and entrenched to the point that people who know there is spiritual warfare going on think they are winning. In fact, there can be no victory as long as the religious spirit is holding the reigns. It allows a victory here and there such as happened recently when a large church was given a very large check to pay off the mortgage on their building. God is still working. Make no mistake about that. He could simply wave His hand and vanquish the religious spirit. He does not work that way. He works through His Church to accomplish His will on the earth. He is literally waiting for us.


We have given a lot of information over the past several months about the religious spirit, it's works, and a little bit about how to defeat it. This will be the 47th post to this blog. God bless you if you have read them all! Something tells me that number 50 will be somehow significant. I hope it is the Holy Spirit I am hearing. The stress I mentioned earlier is either going to cause things to get better where we are or move us along to who knows where. It is almost time to rise up and join the battle.


I just received an email from Dani Johnson inviting me to her Los Angeles seminar. I am not going, but part of me would certainly like to. Dani is an awesome business woman and carries a definite, prophetic anointing as well. I mention that because, as a business woman, she mentioned in the email that it takes around ninety days of hard work to know if you are going the right direction in a new business venture. We know we are going the right direction in this spiritual venture. So far we still do not know how well what we are doing is working. We are simply being faithful to our plan, which is to do as the Holy Spirit directs. We are just not quite sure at this point what the next step is. We will be giving definite strategies for winning spiritual warfare possibly as soon as the next post. One thing about being led by the Holy Spirit is there is no point in concerning ourselves with the future because He is holding it and only revealing it at the proper time. I suppose we could worry about it. You know, just because it is unknown and all, but what a futile, waste of time that would be. God has it all under control and His promise is that He will cause everything to work together for our good. (Romans 8:28)

I am not sure whether to call this an exhortation, a word of encouragement, or perhaps even a little bit of comfort. Then again, what is in a name anyway? (That was William Shakespeare was it not?) We are going the right direction. It looks like this time is the time to come together as those who see the battle. Others will join one or two at a time. We might even win the battle and no one will know what happened, how it happened or who was involved. Who said, "It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit."? Oh yes, it was President Harry S. Truman. He was president when I was born, you know. See you soon. God bless.

The Work of God

Sometimes we get it right. Sometimes we get it wrong. That applies to all of us who tread this sod in human form. God never gives ministry to people who always get it right. Nobody does. Let the record reflect: I am not as smart as you probably think I am. My IQ tests put me a couple steps above average and I have a fairly good memory for things I consider important, although it is not nearly as good as it used to be. Still, at family gatherings, I look at several people, including my own children, who are smarter than I am. By the way, for the record, I live right here in this skin. I am not all that impressed. I am just a guy doing my best to do what I am supposed to be doing. There is one thing I do better than most that makes people think I am smarter than I am--and I can only wish I did it better than I do.


The inter-working of the spirit, soul, and body has long been an area of interest to me and is a specialty in my teaching. We have discussed that before. (The Image of God--Spirit, Soul, Body 6-14-09) I claim some level of expertise in that area. It is because of this expertise that I feel fairly comfortable saying, I seem to have an above average ability to function out of my spirit rather than out of my soul. That is strictly an observation on my part and admittedly subject to personal bias. Nonetheless, living in the spirit is something I aspire to do more and to do better, and it is my considered opinion that you should too.


Functioning out of the spirit is foreign to the human nature. As with most things in the kingdom of God, what we think to do, feel to do, know to do, and will to do are almost exactly opposite from what we should be doing. King Solomon recognized this concept when he wrote, "There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death." (Proverbs 14:12) What we think, feel, and do out of our human nature will always be wrong. That is why it is imperative that we think, feel, and do as Jesus would. He was our perfect example of how to live life on this earth, and He operated out of His spirit through the power of the Holy Spirit. Of course, it also did not hurt that He did not have to deal with a sin nature every day.


Most Christians, it seems, think they operate out of their spirits, but most do not. There are a couple axioms that will help in determining how effectively we are operating out of our spirits besides the one from Proverbs mentioned above. The first axiom is that believing is seeing. In our minds, seeing is believing. The word for this is counterintuitive. That means it seems backwards to our intellect (soul). The second axiom is that the physical world is the real world. In fact, the spiritual world affects everything that happens in the physical world. That is not some sort of mystical, or religious science concept, it is simply fact. The enormity of the ramifications of this second axiom are impossible to overestimate. (I know. I actually wrote that sentence in such a way that most people would have to stop and think about it after reading it more than once.) That means if we really understand the second axiom, the benefits to us are huge.


When we understand the physical world is subject to the spiritual world we understand we need to do things differently. One example of this is that we would never try to hoard the resources God puts into our hands. The Bible is full of instructions to give. The great verse we see almost every Sunday of football season in the endzone is the ultimate example of this principle. John 3:16 tells us that God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son, Jesus. Jesus did not hold onto His equality with God, but gave it up to go to the cross for us. (Ph. 2:6-8) God gave His Son. The Son gave His life. We have not begun to touch that level of giving.



I remember shortly before Christmas in 1979 I was ushering at church, probably for a Sunday morning service. One of the men I was working with asked me how I was doing, you know, one of those polite, friendly questions. My answer became a revelation from God to me. I listened to myself say, "I am great! This is my first Christmas with a son." It instantly became very real to me what God had done in giving His Son. I am not giving up my son. (I actually have a word from the Lord that I will not have to give up my son. That is another story.) Do not misunderstand me here. I love my girls. I am not giving them away either, but in that moment I really knew what God had done. Ok so I already gave two of my daughters to husbands, but I told every one at the wedding receptions the daughters and still mine and now I have more sons as well.


The Bible tells us why God gave His Son. He did it because He made the laws by which the universe is governed. One of them says whatever is given will be multiplied and given back. It is called the Law of Sowing and Reaping. Because it is a law it always works. God applied this law in giving His Son because He wanted more sons. There was no way for us to be born again and be sons of God (rather than being just His creations) until Jesus submitted Himself and became the sacrifice for our sins. If one accepts the Law of Sowing and Reaping, he does not even need to be spiritual to understand this. Simply apply logic and we see God giving, Jesus dying (giving His life), people being born again and becoming sons of God.


"...now we are the children of God," the apostle John says, "and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him..." (1 John 3:2) That sounds a little oblique. What does it mean anyway? Perhaps it is not the whole answer, but Jesus has been revealed to us, so at least part of the answer has to be that we are to work the works of God on the earth while we are here. He did say we would do the works He did. (John 14:12) There is also a future element here which is the usual interpretation. Jesus is coming back and our mortal bodies will be changed. Then we will be doing the same work He is doing somewhere else.

This is sort of sounding like the previous post. Suppose we leave this one right about here and start doing whatever it is the Lord is calling us to do individually.

The Weapons of Our Warfare, Part 10

Praying in the Spirit can be a controversial subject in the church. Many people think they are praying in the Spirit because they think they are being directed in their prayers by the Holy Spirit. We will not enter into a debate as to whether those prayers are, in fact, directed by the Holy Spirit. Undoubtedly some are, and equally as undoubtedly, some are not. (This sounds a little like it might get ugly already doesn't it?) Trust me when I tell you, I have pretty much heard all the arguments on both sides of this issue. I used to be a Methodist and then a Baptist. I attended a Nazarene church for a period of time. I embraced Pentecostalism, much to the chagrin of my maternal grandmother who was in eastern Kansas when Aimee Semple McPherson, founder of the Foursquare Church came through there on her way to California. I graduated from a Pentecostal Bible College and an Evangelical (non-Pentecostal) seminary. If, after you have read this post, you think you have an argument I did not do justice here, please call, send an email, or post a comment. That way we might all learn something.


Praying in the Spirit is part of the armor of God. It must be. It says so right there in the Bible. (Ephesians 6:18) Ok, so I had not thought about it quite that way before today. It is obvious really when we think about it. Before we discuss that, though, perhaps we should define exactly what praying in the Spirit really means.


One thing I do know from the discussions I have had about the present day working of the Holy Spirit is that anyone who is willing to discuss the issue with me has as strongly held beliefs as I do on the subject. They also, as I do, hold those beliefs based on their understanding of scripture. It is really not productive to exegete the scripture to show why anyone with such strongly held beliefs is wrong. They have already done that and decided they are right. I am including myself in that. The better way to approach that kind of issue is to just present the teaching and, if it makes sense, let them go back and look at the scripture with a different understanding of the big picture.

Without doubt, as we Pentecostals know from scripture and personal experience, praying in the Spirit means praying in tongues. The vast majority of us know (still talking about Pentecostals) there are two different gifts of speaking in tongues. Most of us know that because someone older, and wiser than us told us so. Rarely did those older, wiser people tell us how they knew that and show us the different gifts from scripture. The dirty little secret there is they probably did not know both of the gifts are shown in the Bible. They simply believed it because the older, wiser people who told them believed it. The term for that is unsconscious competent. They are right, but they do not know why they are right.

Most people, including most Pentecostal ministers, only know about speaking in tongues as the charismatic gift mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:10. We should make the distinction right now that in this gift, God is speaking to His people through one of our own. Again, research this and get back to us so we can discuss it if you disagree.

The other gift of speaking in tongues in the Bible is sort of tucked away and almost hidden apparently. It must be because almost no one seems to know about it or teach it correctly. Most of that problem is our English translations. We will explain that shortly. It is the gift given to believers at some point after they are born again. According to Pentecostal theology, this happens at the time the believer is baptized in the Holy Spirit. That is not what we are discussing right now.

Acts chapter 10 records the beginning of Peter's ministry to the gentiles. In verse 45, the men with Peter acknowledge that a gift was given to the gentiles and 46 tells us they recognized the gift as speaking in tongues. If you have ever heard a teaching on these verses, you have probably heard the gift is the Holy Spirit, or perhaps even that it is salvation. Reading verse 45 in English we see, "the gift of the Holy Spirit". It is almost always taught that the Holy Spirit is the gift. That is what the English text looks like it says. It does not say that in the original Greek. What it says there is, "the Holy Spirit's gift". Does that make a difference? Can you see it? Either phraseology is correct in the English, possessive case. We just do not get the correct meaning as easily with the translation we usually see in English Bibles. For your reference the Greek is in the genitive case which equates to the English possessive case. When we know that, there is no question the gift is given by the Holy Spirit rather than the Holy Spirit being the gift. The gift He gave is the gift of speaking in tongues that Peter and his companions heard.

Now that we understand that, we can see that praying in the spirit is an invaluable piece of our spiritual armor. With this gift we are speaking to God things we would not otherwise know to speak. The Holy Spirit directs our prayers in a different language so that they are perfect prayers. Our minds are set aside as our spirit prays. (1 Corinthians 14:14) Note that this is the same whichever gift of speaking in tongues we are talking about. If you are inclined, as I am, to have your mind get in the way at times, you will appreciate all the more being able to pray in the spirit.

There is no way for us to really understand in the natural what happens when we pray in the spirit. Imagine being in the heat of a battle with danger all around. As you pray in the spirit, you know which way to move and what to do. The Holy Spirit is guiding you away from danger to safety. He tells you when to be still and when to attack, things you could not possibly know for sure regardless of your experience in battle.

Put on the armor of God, and do not forget to pray in the spirit on all occasions. It will protect you even if any of the other armor fails. Our success in battle will be guaranteed.