The Real Source of Our Conflict

At this time, when so much emotion is swirling about, and when each person holds a passionate and immovable position, it is too easy to forget what is taking place. Death is manifesting its presence, and that manifestation is taking many forms. 

There is a spirit called Death. In the Greek language, he is known as Apollyon. In Hebrew, Abaddon. This spirit is defined as “Destroyer” and “the author of apocalypse.” The definition also includes “ruin, “destruction, “the minister of death,” and “the author of havoc on earth.” These definitions are sourced from a root word meaning “perish.”

The manifestation of Death is not always a final blow, shot, or verdict. It works like the proverbial frog in a kettle giving its dark mission time to misguide us leading us down a path of greater forms of deception and decay until, at last, something dies.

 

When peaceful protests for righteous issues are allowed to become riots that lead to anarchy and eventually death, death will have accomplished its goal.

 

Abortion, once a sad solution for an early-stage unwanted pregnancy, moved its demand for death to mid-term pregnancies, and now to the unimagined horror of late-term abortion.

 

Poverty created by disadvantage and dismissal of those living in the decaying inner cities of our nation has created generations who have only known loss and lack. This disadvantage and dismissal have brought the death-producing mindset of hopelessness to an entire family line.

 

A marriage that began in love and commitment ends in divorce. Death has a mission to destroy the oneness of the earthly image of Christ and the Church by removing reconciliation and forgiveness from the relationship.

 

When Jesus rose from the dead, He disempowered Death. The faith of the Church is built upon that victory. Our response to the resurrection of Jesus is to bring life in all its forms to our conversations and actions. Paul repeatedly preached a message about the implications of resurrection life because it is what empowers the Gospel message by disempowering the ministry of Death in all its forms. 

 

Many are praying against the byproducts of this spirit. There are many examples of these byproducts of Death, along with the ones I noted above. Praying against these manifestations is a good thing, but only if we recognize the root that is spawning such issues and giving them a place in our lives. 

Going to the root cause of the brokenness in our world - Death - will keep us from making enemies of those who are manifesting the byproducts of that dark spirit. It will also help us reevaluate our response to what agitates us and allow us an opportunity to define our real enemy.

 

  

Keep Your Eye on California

As a native Californian having lived in Oregon now for more years than I spent in the state growing up, I have watched California's life and politics with interest. Yesterday, Kamala Harris was selected as Joe Biden’s running mate. Again, my focus was directed to California. 

I was born and raised in California. I love the state’s diversity of geography, climate, and culture. The state is now large enough economically to represent the status of a nation. It is also a state in trouble. Some of its cities are revealing deep despair. People are leaving California in droves. It is not the state of my youth. California has been described as a national indicator of the future direction of the nation. At this moment, it is indicating trouble. It is also destined by the Lord to become a spiritual indicator exhibiting potential for revival and transformation. God loves California, and its people and He has something good planned for the future of the state. 

Four months ago, I wrote a blog article titled, “Out From the Shadow” (linked below). At the time, I knew what the Lord was saying to me, but did not have permission to write in detail. My words appeared like a riddle by design. At the time, I told Jan I felt Kamala Harris would be selected as Biden’s running mate. In the brief article, I said, “One will come forth and walk in the shadow of another. This shadowed one is the primary, not the secondary.”

 

Like some have already expressed they believe Mr. Biden may not have an extended stay in office if elected, for whatever reason. Behind Vice-President Biden now stands Kamala Harris and behind Harris in the shadows, stands the Governor of California, Gavin Newsome. Harris and Newsome both came from the seedbed of the San Francisco political arena. Harris was the city’s District Attorney and later became the state’s Attorney General, and was eventually elected to the state Senate. Newsome was the mayor of San Francisco and later ascended to state politics as Governor. Newsome has been seen by some political observers as a person with presidential aspirations. Also hailing from San Francisco is Speaker Nancy Pelosi. San Francisco is a powerful and well-funded political machine that has produced state and national leaders.

 

What California is revealing to us is the course of a nation’s future in natural terms. Politics, whether you like them or not, do not accurately reveal a nation's spiritual future. Keep your eye on California, not for its politics, but for its spiritual potential. Politics are only natural indicators, not the future spiritual potential of a nation. People in office from any party are not an enemy. They are people loved by God who deserve our prayers. Look past the personalities and platforms to see what God is doing in the state. Begin to pray for those in power and those aspiring to power. Don’t limit your prayers to simply a change of those in office or a particular policy with which you disagree. Keep praying for the hearts of the state’s leaders to experience God’s love. Also, keep praying for God's justice to be revealed so that real change can take place.

 

I am believing in something beautiful and transformative to happen in my home state. God wants to show us that those we might deem as enemies of the good can actually become partners in righteousness. For some, this will be a leap of faith to believe it could be possible because they only know and have been led to believe a negative narrative, not a Kingdom narrative.

 

God is creating a new narrative for California, and that sound is being heard by those with ears to hear. That is the narrative we need to pray into and its where we should invest our resources and energy. Keep God’s heart for California in the forefront of your thinking and call to remembrance the prophecies of goodness spoken over her. 

www.prophetichorizons.com/2020/03/out-from-shadow.html

Defining Freedom

There is a great deal of conversation taking place in our culture about the subject of freedom. Today, I took a look at what Scripture tells us about true freedom. It became for me a meaningful personal reminder and a point of clarity. While some may say this only pertains to matters of the Spirit, I would respectfully disagree. It pertains to everything because it is everything. This understanding takes place at the core of our being and will form the substance of our principles and how we choose to live our lives. 

OUR FREEDOM WAS GIVEN WHEN WE FIRST BELIEVED - Once we believed in Jesus Christ, we were set free. To remain free, we must continue to believe and trust in the Lord. “But the Scriptures declare that we are all prisoners of sin, so we receive God’s promise of freedom only by believing in Jesus Christ” (Galatians 3:22).

OUR FREEDOM IS MOBILE - We carry our freedom with us wherever we go no matter what the circumstance. “For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (II Corinthians 3:17).

OUR FREEDOM IS NOT PROGRESSIVE – It took place once and for all and was made available to us by the death, resurrection, and enthronement of Jesus Christ. It is absolute and forever unchangeable by even the most challenging circumstance of life. “He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins” (Ephesians 1:7).

Today, the Lord is inviting us to live and speak like free people. Our words and witness regarding freedom may upset some who still think their freedom is tied to the promise of a nation or a set of cultural ideals. While those can be noble and good, they do not promise the same freedom found in Christ. Nations will rise and fail, and human ideals will change over time. Only Jesus remains the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Ride-Along

When I was a cop every once in a while, I would be assigned a ride-along. A ride-along is a civilian who has been cleared to ride with a patrol officer to see what life was like on the streets. Of all the people that rode along with me, each one left that experience with a greater understanding of the job.

I wonder what it would be like if we could have a ride-along program in other areas of life. What would it be like for someone to ride along with a small business owner struggling to make payroll and keep the doors open during an economic downturn? What would it be like to ride along with a young, single mom with two kids in tow working multiple jobs just to survive, or riding along with someone who has a different ethnicity or social status and on the receiving end of demeaning comments and behavior? What would it be like to be a politician, an honest one, trying to pass laws that only get passed in an environment of compromise?

Separation from each other’s daily struggles is where the danger of misunderstanding takes place. We judge someone before we know who they are or the struggles they face. It’s easy to lob judgmental grenades into the lap of someone who is living in a challenging situation, of which we have no firsthand knowledge or empathy. Perhaps the most life-changing thing that takes place during a ride-along is getting close enough to see and hear the personal struggles other people are experiencing. It’s in that connection where understanding comes, and a compassionate response can be offered.

Accelerating the Rights Things

I recently read a term I had not seen before - Accelerationist. The word is used to describe people who live on the extreme edges of the social spectrum, either far left and far right. An accelerationist is someone who uses social causes that might not even be their own as a chance to create disorder and invoke people to respond in violence.

While those of you reading my words would hopefully be nowhere near these radical edges, I want to offer each of us a word of caution. Our voice, if we represent Jesus Christ, must be monitored and disciplined to keep us out of the vile stream of ideologies that motivate the dark aspects of fringe accelerationism. Discernment is not just something we relegate to a religious setting to cast out demons or prophetically deliver a word of hope. It is also meant for the public sphere. God gave us discernment to see through the opinions being offered to discover their motivation and to make sure we are not naively being used to foment angst and further division.

Today, I was impacted by the words of Paul. I have included his words below as a refresher for many of us. Paul wrote the following words in a chapter where he was trying to help people deal with relational disagreements, appealing to them to live in the joy of the Lord and to confront the worry that can rob us of our peace. 

“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.  Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4:8-9).

Our thoughts will either accelerate the goodness of God or accelerate agendas contrary to the values of His Kingdom. Paul used the phrase, “Fix your thoughts." "Fix" is a word in the original language that means “to consider, take account, weigh or mediate.” It is not a reactionary word. It implies deliberation, consideration, and moderation. When we fix our thoughts on God, we will accelerate the kind of actions and conversations that an accelerationist mindset has not conceived in their quest to sow disorder and fear or to prove a point. 

God is Offering Us a Great Treasure

As I was pondering what is taking place in our culture, in my mind’s eye, I saw the image of a small clothe bag being held by someone. Immediately, I knew the hand was God’s hand, and the bag was filled with gold. It was a visual metaphor of what God wants to do before we return to some sense of normalcy.

Many of us have been working on a re-engagement plan for our life, work, and ministry. We want that plan to be in place before this season comes to an end, so we won’t miss a beat upon re-engagement. That is good, but it is not the most important consideration. There is something greater. The greater is the treasure within the cloth bag the Lord is holding out to His people. The treasure is reconciliation and restoration.

In the last few months, increasing levels of tension and frustration have manifested in some relationships, causing the exchange of hurtful words and actions. This has created wounding and division. God wants to prepare us to reengage and see our plan succeed, but this will only happen if we are willing to reconcile and allow restoration to take place in our relationships. 

This is not about who is right or wrong. It is about protecting oneness and unity within the Church so that our lives become a living testimony of God’s grace to the surrounding culture. Without a willingness to reconcile and restore, our best-laid plans will not survive the coming reengagement because the plans of God are empowered by love. Without the redemptive power of love, even the best of plans will become hollow and short-lived.

The Clanging Cymbal of Our Opinion

Over the years, I've noticed we can make Scripture say what we want it to say when our opinion on a subject has become entrenched and unmovable. I know this because I have been guilty of the practice. Like you, I have “proof texts” for everything I think an opposing opinion might offer as evidence proving their opinion is superior to mine and vice versa.

This is why Jesus must be our ultimate authority even above our interpretation of a bible text or preferred translation of the bible, something none of the earliest disciples possessed. I know this can sound like borderline heresy to some, but such is the life of faith. There will be times when two believers who both love God and live lives of integrity will disagree over the interpretation of a text or how to represent our faith in culture. In these instances, only Jesus can be the ultimate mediator, not our opinion on Scripture, our worldview, or how we think our faith should be represented in culture.

Living with honor while holding divergent opinions requires a pliable heart. Pliability is not a loss of biblical integrity or compromise of our ethics. It is a manifestation of mature love. Some of the most remarkable men and women I know in God’s Kingdom have very different opinions and interpretations about a life of faith, and yet they are still able to move forward under the banner of love and accomplish great things together. 

“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (I Corinthians 13:1).

Discerning Preference and Conviction

Learning to discern the difference between personal preference and conviction is an important distinction to make. Personal preference is something we all have because we have been uniquely created and live within different lifestyles and social environments. We can yield the ground of our personal preference when we encounter a divergent opinion and not be compromised morally. Conviction is different. It holds fast to our understanding of truth and does not waver. Both preference and conviction must be handled with grace and wisdom, or relationships can be destroyed, and a mission can be aborted prematurely.                                                                     

It is too easy to mistake a preference for a conviction and draw an emotional line in the sand and miss the fact that different preferences and viewpoints are actually an invitation for dialogue, not distance. Truth is what should empower all we do, not our emotions, no matter how passionate those emotions might be convincing us of the rightness of our position or worldview. Our undisciplined emotions can redefine a preference and turn it into a conviction, and that is where a lot of our problems find their origin. 

Lord, help us know the difference.

Have You Noticed?

Have you noticed arguments about the non-essential issues of life and the theological arguments over personal preferences have left the online conversations? When a globally fearful presence is prowling the streets of our cities, we rise to something better in our soul, something God put there when He created us, something that remained hidden in times of self-reliance. Don't waste this time. Something beautiful is taking place.

The Love That Never Disappoints

You have most likely heard the phrase, “If the election were held today…” Those words are typically followed by predictions based on data obtained at a given moment in time. This way of looking at life is not predictive. It is short-sighted and spiritually myopic. This short-sightedness takes place not only in the arena of politics but in every area of life where premature judgment calls are made based on what is, not on what could be. 

God is vastly different in how He sees and creates outcomes. He does not rely on polling research or what the status quo is saying. The Lord relies only on His love when He evaluates our life and our future. The love of God sees our future in an expansive redeemed view unrestricted by human fear or faithlessness.  He sees a future where intersecting events are destined to come together to release a miracle of transformation that has been determined by His will to take place. 

The self-described pundits that surround your life can only evaluate your life based on raw, unredeemed data available at the moment. God sees something beyond the moment - something only visible with the eyes of faith. 

God is not done with you or those you love even if the evidence supports your feelings of discouragement and disillusionment. It does not matter if your “election” was held today or tomorrow or next week. What matters is what God has planned for your life. That is where you should place your hope. His love will never disappoint you.

No Longer

A significant transition takes place in our relationship with God when we longer see ourselves as working FOR God, but WITH God.

That transition takes place when we no longer see ourselves a - 

sinners, but as saints fully redeemed

servants, but as friends of God

orphans, but as sons and daughters

This change of insight into our true identity will radically upset the spirit of religion that desires to control us with a lesser image of ourselves than how God sees us. It will also challenge our understanding of God's love and require that we step out of the cell of a broken identity into the freedom of a new creation.

Mockers and Mockery

Those who mock you are mocking from a place of personal sorrow. They are not sure they will ever have what you have, so their defensiveness uses mockery as a form of emotional insulation distancing them from their sad reality. Be willing to look past the mockery into the heart of the mocker. The insight that comes from that Spirit-led understanding is where God wants you to engage your mockers. Some who mocked Jesus would eventually become His followers. That transformation could only happen because Jesus did not take the mocking personally. He saw through the human brokenness and defense mechanisms into a heart where the hidden human turmoil exists. He spoke words of love and hope to his mockers. Those words, not a witty rebuttal or a well-crafted putdown, went into the heart of the issue and that response changed everything.

Gifts of Access

Many of us have lived with a misunderstood interpretation of Proverbs 18:16,  “A man’s gift makes room for him and brings him before great men.” We thought this verse meant our personal ministry gift is what opens a way for us to gain access to important relationships that a non-gifted person would not be able to enter. While that can be true in some cases, it is not what the verse is saying.

With the advent of more readable translations of Scripture, the understanding of Proverbs 18:16 has being clarified, “Would you like to meet a very important person? Take a generous gift. It will do wonders to gain entrance into his presence.” The verse, when correctly interpreted, means if we are being led by God to meet with someone in a place of authority, we should prepare a gift to bring with us. The gift will open the door and grant us the favor of an audience.

The word “gift” is used elsewhere in the Hebrew text to describe the dowry gift given to obtain a wife, offerings offered in worship, a gift given to a ruler as a gesture of goodwill, or a gift given in secret to pacify someone’s anger. In its original usage, it had nothing to do with our ministry gifts. 

Some of this misunderstanding has created an unhealthy hierarchy in the Church, leading some to believe only certain people with certain gifts can be used by God to speak to people in places of authority. Proverbs 18:16 is actually a verse about wisdom. There are times when a natural gift will open a relational door to deliver a spiritual gift. We need to discern under the guidance of wisdom what that gift might be. This makes all of us, not just the visibly gifted ones, a potential deliverer of a breakthrough word - a word released after the delivery of a gift had opened the heart of the hearer.

Defeating a Dark Agenda

In prayer, I just saw a demon spirit called Dark Agenda running through an open door into the heart of our nation. As the demon ran forward he was focusing his attention on the beating heart of America. 

As he ran forward, he stumbled and then stumbled again and again. He was stumbling over all the prayers offered throughout our history destined for this moment in time. One after another, each prayer became a stumbling obstacle to the completion of the demon's mission. Finally, he stumbled one last time and fell flat on his face exhausted in defeat. Then I saw the Spirit of Truth approach the prostrate demon and cut off his head with one swift cut of His sword. 

Do not become weary in prayer. What you have released by faith in prayer is bringing down a dark spirit that assumed his way forward was secure. God is about to surprise the cynics and enliven the faith of His people. A moment of divine intervention has come.

Accusers and Accusations

An accusation, especially a public accusation, can be devastating. Imagine the sin you deplore above all others. Then imagine you wake up tomorrow morning and began reading through social media to find out, to your horror, you were being wrongly accused of that sin. You would then begin to read statements from people who chimed in to the comment section agreeing with your accuser saying the equivalent of “I had my suspicions!” No amount to public comment or explanation from you would ever be able to retrieve your previous reputation. 

Accusations are a tactic of hell. That is why Satan is called the accuser of the brethren. Be care to whose opinionated wagon of accusation you choose to hitch your honor. Accusers are a dime a dozen. Redeemers are few and far between. Redemption takes courage and will require the integrity of silence in the face of ongoing accusation until a process of restoration is complete. Anyone can publish a list of sins and bring accusation before the full story is known. Be careful. Be wise. Be slow to speak and even slower to believe the first draft of any accusation.

Our Response

There are times when I scroll through Facebook posts that I see someone depicted in a less than noble booking photo or view the image of a person who has committed a horrible act. Lately, I find myself reaching out to my computer screen and touching their image. When I touch them, I pray for God to reveal His love in their brokenness. The other options are to become one of the condemning, and demeaning comments logged in the comment section or dismiss the person with an "I'm sure glad I am not like that person" thought. If we are to represent the Lord in the arena of culture, our response to human brokenness must be radically different than an unredeemed culture or the Pharisaical expressions of God-less religion.

Engaging Our Spiritual Transmission

If a car is put in neutral, it will eventually come to a stop. The engine can be revved, and the car can be a premium grade having all the added options, but without the transmission being in gear, it will go nowhere. The vehicle will eventually lose its ability to make forward progress because of its neutrality.

In a culture filled with so many impassioned and angry voices, in our frustration, it is too easy to seek a voiceless place of neutrality thinking that is a spiritual place to live. Some followers of Jesus who want to appear informed and balanced must be careful they do not put the transmission of their faith into a form of intellectual and spiritual neutral. This can cause the impact of their lives to gradually slow and become stationary without having any real Kingdom influence on the surrounding culture and within the Church.

The only gear that will give you the right kind of engagement is the heart of God. Some good people have come to a standstill because they have wanted to distance themselves from all the trash-talk. In the long run, that choice doesn’t work because it leaves the cultural conversation without the sound of God's heart.

If you find yourself wanting to walk away from all the drama, consider withdrawing to a place of solitude with God for a season. Read the Psalms. Meditate on God’s goodness. Detoxify your soul. Fast. Do whatever you need to do to discover what your voice sounds like when you choose to speak the truth of God's heart in love. 

Seek the heart of God, and once you encounter His heart, you will be able to engage your spiritual gears once again and find your way forward along the noisy and congested cultural highway. Stay engaged and in gear with the heart of God. It is the only gear that will give you the traction needed to move forward and make a difference.

Unfollowed

There are times on social media and in our personal relationships when people will unfollow us because they were afraid of where our faith would take them if they continued in the relationship. People can struggle with another person’s faith because it exposes their lack. It’s important to know this is not personal. 

When this happens, pray for them and bless them in their departure. Someday they might return and if you have kept your heart right you will be able to welcome them back because you did not label their departure as a betrayal. Their departure was a need for personal space to figure things out.  If you can give them that gift of space God will be able to do amazing works of restoration in relationships that seemed to be over before they had a chance to truly begin.

Recirculated Lives

Over the years, friends have given me unique gifts from antiquity. The coin and the frame in which it is displayed sit atop a bookshelf in our living room. There have been times in the last 20 years when I stopped to look at the coin and wondered through whose hands the coin might have passed.

Just this morning, I stopped and wondered that same thing again. This time I heard the word “recirculation.” Just as a coin will recirculate over time to arrive in unexpected hands somewhere in the future, so it is with some experiences and relationships we will have in the course of our lives. When the Roman coin was first minted, the future in which it would travel could not have been imagined by a first-century Roman citizen. So it is with our relationships and life experiences. When these things were first encountered in our history they had a different meaning and context compared to how they will be perceived and interpreted in our future.

I am sensing God is about to recirculate things from our past and bring them into our present. There is a purpose in this recirculation. When encountered they will have a greater value today than when we first experienced them in our past. They will become cherished and displayed as something unique and valued. They will also affirm the goodness of God – the God who increases value in all things over time. Don’t be surprised when God has someone or something from your past return to your present to assume a place of value and honor. This is how God works. His timing creates new value in old things.

Today, I am having lunch with an old friend I haven’t seen in years. Like two old coins, it will be fun to hear where our lives have taken us over the years as God has circulated each of us through various assignments in His Kingdom.

When You Want To Walk Away

If you have experienced a frustrating and painful outcome from a decision or an action made outside your control and now you want to walk away, make sure you are walking into the arms of Jesus, not into the arms of bitterness and anger. Be wise in the choices you make in these moments because other arms are also waiting to embrace you that have unhealthy agendas. 

God is willing to work with you to restore you from the hurt you experienced.  When His plan of restoration is complete, He may not return you to the place where the offense occurred, but that will be His choice, not yours. 

When we are wounded we can make really bad decisions fueled by our emotions that will set us on a sorrowful path leading to a life of regret and a series of never-ending scenarios of future disappointment. The only time our hearts can make wise decisions is when they are aligned with the heart of God, not the wounds caused by others or the pain of our unmet expectations.