Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Step Up
Okay, so if we dissect those verses in Matthew, we know Jesus is talking about building our lives on Him rather than on our concept of what is right. That is a no-brainer. All people who plant churches build on Jesus--do they not? I keep remembering the adage from the church of the 1970s that "Healthy sheep reproduce." Assuming for a moment that is true, there are a lot of churches around that do not have healthy sheep because they have stagnated. What happened? The religious spirit happened. That is what happened. We have no idea how long the religious spirit has been entrenched in this valley. We do know Paul Cain, whom some consider a prophet, believed that this valley was significant in the spiritual realm in the 1940s. As far as we know, he has never made mention of a religious spirit here.
Rather than making assumptions, let us go with what we do know. There has been very little, palpable, spiritual progress made in this valley in the twenty plus years we have been back. To be sure, some new churches have been planted, pastors have come and gone, and small churches have grown. How would one quantify spiritual progress?
When John the Baptist sent his disciples to ask if Jesus were the Messiah, they were told to tell John, "The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those that have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor." (Matthew 11:5) Are those things happening here? They are! Not often, not regularly, but they are. It has been awhile since we have seen any of those things happen, well, maybe with the exception of the good news being preached to the poor, but those other things have happened in the not so distant past. God is working. He breaks through now and again, but seldom enough that some people think it is just accidental or maybe coincidental when it happens. One of the things I have learned from my pastor is that we have more results when we are intentional about what we are doing. I would be hard pressed to believe God is any less than intentional in what He does.
God is at work in the Santa Maria Valley. Make no mistake about that. The principle we sometimes miss is that, in this dispensation, this time period in history, God works through people. He works through His Church which has been bought by the blood of Jesus. That said, He works through ordinary Christians. Some consider it a liability to have a Bible College or Seminary education. We understand that concept. The Bible tells us that, "...Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up." (1 Corinthians 8:1 NIV) I had a lot of classes in Bible College and Seminary, but none of them were on love. I received a lot of knowledge from a lot of great men and women, but only the love of Jesus enables us to love. (1 John 4:19 NIV)
Being then enabled to love by His love, all we have to do is put that ability into practice. When I was much younger than I am now, I used to watch the Saturday afternoon baseball games on television. The commentators in those days were Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese, both All-Star players and now members of Major League Baseball's Hall of Fame. One particular Saturday afternoon they were talking about some up and coming young baseball player. Pee Wee said he had a lot of potential. Dizzy said potential is the worst thing a player can have. That did not sound right to me. For some reason that exchange came to mind many years later and I understood what Ol' Diz meant by that. If a person has potential he or she is not yet at peak performance. They can improve. They are underachieving. Hit a lot of you with that one did I not. You know I am not going to take the credit for that. I did not know you needed to hear it. I am not that smart. That was the Holy Spirit who just smacked you, uhhhh, us, in the face.
It is time to step up our game. We have been underachieving for entirely too long. Let me pass along a word of caution here that God gave to Samuel when he was called to anoint the second King of Israel. "...The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7) There is a lot of wasted motion going on in churches throughout this valley. Much of it looks good to man, but God does not have the same opinion. I know I am waxing prophetic here and there is every chance someone will be looking to hand me my head over it, but that has happened to better men than I in the past and will undoubtedly happen again.
We just got back from lunch with a dear couple after church. Not surprisingly this blog came up in conversation along with the whole concept of the religious spirit. It was very comforting to know there are other people who see what is going on in the valley. I was beginning to wonder. God is even now bringing people together from different places geographically and theologically because He wants to see a difference in this valley.
What we must understand is that God has set His hand to do a work here and He will do it. We can either be a part of that or leave it to the next generation, should Jesus tarry, as the previous generation left it to us. (That is an assumption based on the time frame we know. We will update that when/if we get further information.) Wherever God sets Himself to do a work, the devil is right there trying to keep it from happening. This is true whether it be in our individual lives or in our homes, churches, and community organizations. The good news is that, "...When the enemy comes in like a flood, The Spirit of the Lord will raise up a standard against him." (Isaiah 59:19) As you are probably aware, the original Old Testament manuscripts are written in upper case letters without punctuation. According to some Biblical scholars that verse likely says, "When the enemy comes in, like a flood The Spirit..." Oh folks, the Holy Spirit is wanting to come in like a flood and cover this valley with His presence and power. He is waiting for us. Are you up for a swim?
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Denial Cuts Both Ways
We do not talk too much about addiction in our program. It is our belief that the only way to really overcome an addiction is to have our minds renewed toward addictions. It is not really an oversimplification to say God can take away any addictions we have. We generally have no problem identifying some addictions as bad. The aforementioned drugs and alcohol are considered to be bad things to do. Of course, we have just lumped illegal substances together with one which the law considers legal until it is abused and/or causes the person using it to perform illegal acts, such as driving a car while intoxicated.
There is, however, a totally different sort of denial we can fall victim too. Again, we are choosing our words carefully here. A person who becomes addicted to any substance is not a victim. He or she is a willing participant in the addiction, at least in the beginning. We do have a propensity as human beings, to inadvertently fall into the other sort of denial. This one occurs when the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is watered down or diluted. One of my former pastors, Jack Hayford, wrote, "A diluted gospel, produces deluded Christians." A deluded Christian is one who is in denial about how the Christian life is to be lived. (I think I just heard a few people get smacked in the forehead with that one.)
There is absolutely no way to justify being unloving toward anyone. Period. My current pastor, Rob Litzinger, often says, "We have to move from the idea that it is all about me to the idea that it is not about me at all." Is there anything more selfish than spending God's resources on substances to abuse? We are simply trying to broad-brush stroke the idea that we are permitted to do anything we think we would like to do. That concept does not apply if we have made Jesus Lord of our lives. Lordship means He is the boss and we do what He says.
I have mentioned the opposite of love is selfishness (or self-centeredness if you like) have I not? It is still amazing to me how many Christians do not understand that concept. When asked what the opposite of love is, the almost universal answer is "hate". That would be true if love were an emotion. (Incidentally we once heard the pastor of a large, local church say exactly that.) Hate is an emotion. Love is a fruit of the spirit. They cannot be opposites. To be sure, there are forms of love that are emotional. Is it any wonder that we are in denial about being able to walk in love when we do not even know what love is? Wait! What did I just say? We are in denial about being able to walk in love. You may remember that one of the symptoms of a religious spirit is that people have a form of godliness, but deny its power. (2 Timothy 3:5)
I know people who are in denial about being able to walk in freedom from addictive substances. Frequently I see hope start to grow in some of them, as in, I hope I never go back to abusing (fill in the blank). We all have to start somewhere. Any spark of hope will help us at least see the right direction to go. The way to start loving is to act lovingly. The door to acting lovingly is to quit acting selfishly. That is probably enough of that for now.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
The Workings of a Religious Spirit, Part 7
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Big Footprints
Sometimes people splash and no one even notices until the ripples get so far away that the person who started them can scarcely be remembered. For instance, I embrace and practice the teachings that came out of the Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles in 1906. I just found out last weekend who started that. William J. Seymour was a black man in Los Angeles when that was not very popular. It is reported there were churches that would not let him into their services for that reason. Nevertheless, he persevered and became known as the father of that revival. He left some pretty big footprints in my life and the lives of many others.
I wear a size 9, narrow width shoe. I am probably not ever going to leave very big footprints. What I am going to do is combine those size 9 feet with a lot of other people's feet. God made a promise to Moses which He reaffirmed and transferred to Joshua. Remember, Moses was not allowed to enter the promised land because of his disobedience. That is a whole teaching in itself. The promise was that they would possess every place the soles of their feet would tread. (Deuteronomy 11:24; Joshua 1:3) It is interesting that this is one of the first things God told Joshua when he assumed the leadership of Israel from Moses.
By and large, The Church today does not have a very good concept of possessing our inheritance. We do not have time or space to do the complete teaching on that inheritance or who is entitled to it. May it suffice to say it belongs to everyone who has made Jesus Lord of his or her life. In so doing we become the children of God and the seed of Abraham who was the first man to put his faith in the one, true, almighty God. "And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." (Galatians 3:29) You may recall that when Abraham originally entered the promised land, God had him walk the entire length and breadth of the land and build altars at strategic places. In doing that, Abraham was putting God's mark on His land. We have the same authority. (Do not give up yet. Read the next paragraph.)
In the Old Testament we see physical representations of the spiritual truths in the New Testament. When Abraham and Joshua walked the physical ground of the promised land their literal feet were possessing the literal land. When we walk by faith now, we are dispossessing the spiritual forces that cover the land. In Santa Maria, those spiritual forces have blanketed the area with their diabolical schemes and have convinced most of The Church that this is as good as it gets. Oh please. The best estimate is that about 8% of the population in the Santa Maria Valley attends church, any church, on any given Sunday. That is as good as it gets? I think not. I think there is something keeping a lid on The Church in Santa Maria. That has to be obvious to anyone who has had his or her eyes opened to the real situation. It is time to do something about that. This is the time. We are the people. This stinking, religious spirit has had his way around here for much too long.
We have mentioned the Pentecost Walk ministry in these pages before. As far as we know, they are still planning to walk in the Santa Maria valley sometime this year. We plan to be there with them. We may even be doing something additional either before or after that event. We are waiting on the Lord for direction. In the meantime you will not want to miss the next couple posts.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Flashes of Brilliance in a Wasted Life
I received a little distressing news today. You may remember Jon. He is one of the mighty men. (Sometimes Things Do Change, October 22, 2009). In fact, I used to print out the new posts after I had published them and Jon would proofread them. There were a lot of errors you never saw because he was very good at that. He was also a living testimony of how a person can change when confronted by Jesus. Jon is back in jail. I am not really sure of all the facts, but from what I have heard, he earned his way back. In fact, the word is that he is probably going back to state prison for some number of years. Jon originally came to the mission to avoid making what now seems like an inevitable trip to prison in the first place. He had already been there three times before, if I remember correctly. He had some flashes of brilliance while he was at the mission. He likely took more notes than anyone who has ever been in the program. He is a very intelligent man, probably more intelligent than this writer. He knows the right answers. So what happened?
I hammer and hammer and hammer the teaching about the tripartite nature of man into the men in my classes. It is of seminal importance we recognize how we gather and process information. We receive information from the world through our five senses, from God through our spirit, and from the devil directly into our minds. Then we have to process all that information and decide what to do with it.
The information we hear from the world is, by and large, what we want to hear. Seeing is not really believing either. We see what we want to see. I cannot remember who said, "Believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see." It seems to be true. The devil is very good at telling us exactly what we want to hear. In Jon's case, I am imagining it was something like, "You certainly have a lot of stress in your life. You just need a good fix to take care of all that." Of course he would say it in the first person so we would think it was our own idea.
Jon had possibly the longest flash of brilliance in his life heretofore while he was in the program. His closest friends commented on the substantive changes in his lifestyle and way of thinking. He was doing the things he needed to do until he was not doing them anymore.
The thing about Jon is that he does have a good heart. To be sure, that good heart does lead him astray at times. He knows better. Then again, if we all did what we knew to do, the world would be a much better place. When you think about it, pray for Jon. He will inevitably have another chance to get it right. It is my considered opinion the devil targets the people who have the potential to do the greatest things for God. The end of Jon's story has not been written yet. The Holy Spirit suggested this title, but we have the opportunity to pray there will not be many more wasted years in Jon's life and the flashes of brilliance will come one after the other.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
The Winter of My Discontent
Interestingly, the title of this post comes from the same historical period. It is, of course, a take off from the opening line of Shakesphere's Play, "Richard The Third." When the line came up in my spirit the other morning I thought I was going to write about having a bad month starting around Thanksgiving. Judi asked me last night if it were true I had not written a post in a month. It is. I was even surprised it had been quite that long. I thought when Richard spoke this line he was talking about a winter of discontent. Now you know how well Shakesphere and I are aquainted. Of course that is only half the line. The remainder of the line is, "Made glorious summer..."
I did have something of a winter of discontent. Thankfully it only lasted about a month. For those of you who do not know, I am not really a fan of winter. No offense to those of you who are. I simply prefer the sunshine and warm days. I would rather wear shorts and flip flops than parkas and boots. Anyway, I am proclaiming today that my winter of discontent is now past and my glorious summer has begun. What does that mean? Let me try to explain.
Sometime around January 1 of this year, I felt I needed to fulfill another part of my anointing and, "...proclaim the year of the Lord's favor" (Luke 4:19 NIV) I am only about two weeks behind on that. Two weeks behind really is not that bad lately. I had a fever about three degrees above normal on New Year's Day. It only lasted about fifteen hours. My last fever was two years ago and lasted over a week. Things have changed. Things have improved. This is the beginning of OUR glorious summer. It is the year of the Lord's favor. As with everything else in the Kingdom of God, we have a part to play in that as surely as someone had to bring Shakesphere's words to life by playing the part of Richard and speaking those lines.
Last Sunday I listened to my pastor give his "State of the Church Address" to the assembled body. One of the things that caught my attention is that he said God wants to do great things in the church. How he said that also struck me. He said God not only wanted to do great things at Church for Life, but also in "the church in Santa Maria." That phrase kind of sounded familiar to me.
Indeed, God does want to do great things in the church in Santa Maria in 2010. It is to be our glorious summer. It will be the year of the Lord's favor on all who believe and work to make it happen. Have we talked about the works of God? I will have to go back and look. I barely remember last December. I have no idea what all this blog contains without looking. Let me at least give you a teaser, "God works". That is from Romans 8:28 in the NIV. But wait, you get more. God works and we work. See Philippians 2:12-13. Oh great, now we have to discuss what salvation really includes. My guys at the mission do this to me too. Just as I am making a cogent point or trying to wrap up a class someone asks a question that requires a more detailed explanation than I have time to give. If we do not get back to that sometime soon, remind me. (Ok, I looked and we did already discuss salvation. Check out the post from 9/6/09. Those last couple sentences were just too good to delete so I am just adding a little to the end here.)
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Eureka!
I made a serious error when I realized I was out of sync. Yes, it happens to the best of us. I guess it does. Perhaps some of the best of you can confirm that for me? Anyway, I lost my focus for a few weeks. I was focusing on being out of sync. You know that because I wrote about it. I was hoping that by processing what was happening I could get out of it. That was a serious error. I know better. There is only one place for our focus to be and it is not on the circumstances. The author of Hebrews encourages us saying, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith..." (NIV) For those of you old enough to remember Keith Green, he penned a line in a song that said, "It's so hard to see when my eyes are on me."
If you read the previous post you remember me saying that experience leads me to believe getting out of sync is nearly always a spiritual attack. I am chuckling here as I think about having written that without understanding it was the solution in my situation. In fact, as I evaluate what the Holy Spirit revealed to me this morning I realize it might have been a spiritual attack, but I let it get a little out of control. I realized I was out of sync so I focused on being out of sync rather than on Jesus.
I woke up too early today and was not sure I even wanted to go to church. I showered and dressed and sat down to watch a sermon on television. I did not make it quite all the way through the sermon before I fell asleep. I regained consciousness in time to get to the church up on the corner just as they were starting. In truth I probably could have made it to the church I usually attend, but I decided to visit a different one. I am not even sure what the pastor said that sparked the thought--maybe nothing--but I know I heard the word "plateau" in my spirit. So as I listened to the pastor exhort the congregation about the things we need to do to make the Christmas season even more of a blessing in our corporate lives, I was also hearing this post in my spirit.
Sometimes we hit a plateau in the spiritual life. We feel we are not making any progress. You who read this blog are a cut above in the spiritual life or you would not continue reading so I am going to be plain here. Plateaus are very important, but can also be very dangerous places. Sometimes we need a rest. As human beings clothed in corruptible flesh, we can only maintain momentum for a certain period of time. Of course that period varies from person to person, but we all need to rest from time to time. That is the good part. The bad part comes in when we enjoy the rest on the plateau so much we decide to stay there. When we struggle to a plateau the rest and refreshing can be so comfortable we lose a bit of the vision we were working on as we climbed the hill. We forget what we were doing right that enabled us to reach that place of rest. Do not let that be your problem if you find yourself in a place of rest. Enjoy the rest, but listen for the time to move.
Plateaus are the places to rest and refresh. The irony here is that we often bring additional stress upon ourselves by becoming impatient that nothing seems to be happening. I was there. Everything was going so well in my life, I could not think of a thing to complain about. Oh sure, there are always things that I would have changed were I able, but even those things did not seem important. Then I realized I did not even know I had hit a plateau. I just thought nothing was going on. I started wondering if anyone were actually reading the blog. Two of my mighty men got wounded, one critically. (Maybe I can explain that another time.) I just had no idea what was going on. It seemed as thought there was always more to do than I could possibly get done. I was simply out of sync. I am back now. That is not to say anything is likely to change dramatically right away. I am guessing it will be after the first of the year before the Lord calls us to make a push. I am thinking there may be another few things to address before that time. Stay tuned.