Avoiding Unnecessary Conflict

This is a difficult time in our culture, and it has become a dangerous time as well. People are becoming increasingly frustrated, angry, and prone to violence. Be careful how you respond to the emotional responses of people, even on social media. Your well-being may depend on it.

It was a typical night on patrol many years ago. I was a one-man sheriff’s patrol unit working the streets of Cupertino, California. About midnight, I pulled over a car for a traffic violation. The stop was made in a dark and isolated place at the edge of an orchard. As soon as both our vehicles stopped moving, the occupant of the car I pulled over, quickly swung open his door and charged back toward me on a dead run. 

On each car stop I ever made, I had my door open before my patrol unit stopped rolling.  I was already out of my unit standing by my vehicle when the man began his charge.

 

As he ran toward me, I drew my nightstick and took a defensive stance, anticipating a physical altercation. As he got close, he stopped and yelled at me, “What are you going to do with that, hit me?” I said, “Yes, unless you back off, NOW!” He finally backed off, and after a few moments trying to explain my reaction to his action, he refused to be reasonable. l issued him a citation along with a word of advice should another officer ever stop him. At no point in my interaction with the man did he see the error of his ways. He drove off as angry as when I first stopped him.

 

Tempers are short in our culture, and emotions are thin. Some online and in personal conversations are beginning to look and sound a lot like the angry man who charged me on the car stop. If you are one of the angry ones charging every opinion that is different from yours, you might not realize the jeopardy you are creating for yourself and those you love. Dial it back before it gets out of hand. No opposing opinion will ever be changed by unbridled rage. 

"Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry" (James 1:19).

The Smell of Smoke

It is 2:00 a.m. as I write these words.  I awoke an hour ago to the strong smell of smoke. We have experienced smoke from forest fires before, but this was the strongest yet, almost like a billowing smoke warning us that fire was near. Since we are surrounded by forest, I was concerned. As I rustled in bed, Jan said, “I smell smoke.” Immediately I was out of bed trying to find the source.

After a few minutes of checking our property, I got in my truck and drove the roads around our home to see where the smoke was coming from. After about 30 minutes, I returned home. No flames in sight. We were officially “up,” so I put the coffee on and went through my mental checklist of evacuation plans just in case. I called the non-emergency number of our fire department. I was told no reports of a fire. All is well at this point. 

It is amazing how simple things get when you think you might have to evacuate and run for your life. In an emergency, my go-list is simple and prepared. Jan, our dog, a briefcase filled with important documents, a few survival resources, and out the door we would go if needed. I am ready. What I am not ready for is the unknown that would follow. That is in the Lord’s hands. 

If you had to do a spiritual or emotional evacuation with no time to spare, what are the essentials of your faith? Do you know where they are stored? Are they ready to go? While it can a bit disconcerting having to think through the basics of what you would need to take with you in a natural disaster, it is an important exercise to complete. It is also a valuable exercise for a believer if the familiar trappings of your faith are ever removed from your life. 

 

This morning, I am thinking about smoke, fires, and possible evacuation in the natural. Spiritually and emotionally, in this pandemic/riot/election crazy time, I have once again boiled my faith down to just the essentials - love God and love people. It keeps me mobile and unencumbered, able to move with the Spirit wherever He leads. As a result, I have defined what I need to live my faith on the run. That has been a refreshing and affirming exercise. 

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.

 

  

Disarming Verbal Snipers

Beginning in late May, someone has been shooting at vehicles traveling on Interstate 5, the main north-south freeway that travels along the west coast. The shootings are taking place on a 70 mile stretch of freeway in the area where Jan and I live. The shootings have only been bullet strikes to vehicles until yesterday when the sniper’s bullet struck a woman in her shoulder. We would appreciate your prayers. This person needs to be brought to justice sooner than later.  

Like all forms of violence, escalation is always possible because violence seeks to increase its presence when not confronted. Just as the freeway sniper has now escalated the deadly potential of his/her acts of violence, so it is with anything in life. Restraint, not the freedom to do whatever an evil desire demands, is the mark of an emotionally and spiritually healthy person.

While a freeway sniper is a real concern for the safety for those of us who live in southern Oregon, so are the contributing words and actions we might add as kindling to the burning fires of emotion now aflame in our culture. Like the progression of the mindset of a sniper firing at innocent motorists, so it is with us when we respond to cultural stimuli without the restraint of the Spirit’s presence.

I understand much of the frustration happening in this emotionally charged pandemic-election cycle-economic downturn social distancing-wear your mask culture. We want to fire off our disgust at someone. We may start by taking aim at the nearest moving vehicle of dissent, but at some point, our unrestrained words can escalate and become a deadly projectile that creates an outcome of harm, not healing. Words do matter. They can be as fatal as a bullet.

 

Today, take a break from what riles you. Walk away from your computer, TV, or smartphone screen and breathe. Bend down and smell a rose, or walk through your neighborhood and say a warm hello to everyone you meet, or simply stare out a window and dream about something you stopped dreaming about when all this craziness first started. 

When we take time to do these simple things, we interrupt the flow of our thinking and our focus shifts. We are able to redirect our thought process and become more willing to put down the weapons of our dissent. This gives the Lord time to speak to our angst and recalibrate our thinking. Under the influence of His love, a renewed sense of hope and trust will come to wash away our need to fire off comments at every passing opinion of which we might disagree. 

Cities Surrounded by Angels

Evil, like water, will find seek the course of least resistance. In my state of residence, Oregon, evil manifestations of a spirit of rebellion, have found that place of least resistance in some of our cities. Evil will continue to manifest if not challenged. It has now moved its activities from civic structures in the heart of our cities to suburban neighborhoods and has even threatened to destroy a cross that sits in the midst of a Christian college.

 

What I just described are the obvious realities of how evil works. Anyone can see and understand what is happening on a natural and visible level. A rational person knows evil must be confronted with all resources available, both spiritual and natural. What we can miss, as our fear and corresponding anger rises, is what God is doing out of sight as an answer to our prayers. If our faith is too practical and earthbound, we will not consider that angels are being commissioned and assigned by the Lord to stand between us and the forces of darkness. These are not nice or polite angels. They are powerful warriors who will aggressively slice through the works of darkness at the command of the Lord.

There are more angelic forces present in Oregon at this moment than we could imagine. Their numbers would boggle our minds. I have friends who will be prayer-walking today in the streets of Portland and Eugene. For every believer who walks in prayer and worship in opposition to these demonic forces, 10,000 angels will be at your side fighting an unseen battle. The evidence of that victory of that battle will be seen in the transformation of hearts and lives.

The reason why these evil spirits are appearing more volatile and demonstrative is that they can see what many of us have failed to see in the realm of the Spirit. They know their time is short and Heaven’s resistance to their activities will be swift and overwhelming.

Making a Righteous Sound

Speaking the truth in love requires sound. A silent church that hopes to get back to “normal” without addressing the elephants in the room will have missed an opportunity to express the sound of truth in this time of growing anarchy and censorship. Yes, we are to be the hands and feet of Jesus, but we are also to be His voice. An honorable protest is part of our rich cultural history. Violent riots are the work of a spirit of anarchy and never lead to righteous outcomes. Civic leaders who have abdicated their assignment to protect a community will have to answer to a higher authority for their compromise and complicity. Evil taking place even within the smallest part of a city is like leaven. A tiny bit of leaven left unchallenged will eventually corrupt the larger host. We need to find our voice as believers, or someday our descendants will ask why we were silent. The fear of man will not be an excuse that will stand the test of integrity.

Polls, Opinion and the Word of the Lord

Polls and opinions do not reliably reveal the future. It is a prophetic voice, empowered and informed by the Spirit that brings the most trusted revelation of what is to come. Resist the urge to follow polls and opinions. The unreliability of those sources has been proven time and time again that it is God, not our ability to evaluate the future, who will have the last word.

Signs in the Sky

Hang onto your credibility hat. Just when we thought we could not be living in stranger times, activity in the heavens is taking a strange turn. Findings from the Pentagon’s UFO unit were recently reported by the New York Times. One consultant to the Pentagon briefed Defense Department officials regarding some highly unusual items retrieved from “off-world vehicles not made on this Earth.”

Senate majority leader Harry Reid who at the time reviewed the information, commented, “After looking into this, I came to the conclusion that there were reports — some were substantive, some not so substantive — that there were actual materials that the government and the private sector had in their possession.” 

Astrophysicist Eric W. Davis, a consultant to the Pentagon, and someone who examined the so-called off-world materials said, “we couldn’t make it ourselves.”

We are living in a moment of history where great diversions will take place. These diversions will appeal to our natural senses and could create fear in some and wonder in others. As these events unfold, God will reveal greater signs in the sky and on Earth that will affirm His Lordship and authority over even the most unusual other-worldly discoveries. Jeremiah the prophet wrote, “Thus, says the Lord, Do not learn the way of the nations and do not be terrified by the signs of the heavens, although the nations are terrified by them” (Jeremiah 10:2).

As earthly tensions build and fear mounts from things that will upend the brittle foundations of false, human-created security, God will prove Himself faithful above all things. He is seated in the place of ultimate authority. All things are under His feet in a place of submission. If and when things beyond our ability to explain begin to take place, set your eyes firmly on Jesus, and follow His lead. That will be our only place of security as our world continues to struggle in its search for reality.

The Smoke is Clearing Away

The cultural shift some foretold was coming has already taken place. What we see playing out in the streets, courts, and politics of our nation are manifestations of that change. The smoke of conflict is beginning to drift away, revealing what actually happened when our culture made its most recent move. Many of us are now standing in new and unique places. As a result of that change, our faith and worldview have experienced a new focus and clarity. 

Self-control will be seen historically as one of the most significant choices we could have made in this heated social environment. Self-control is not silence, the abdication of responsibility, or relinquishing our duty to live as responsible citizens of our nation and of Heaven. Our dual citizenship creates a unique tension. As citizens of Heaven, our first responsibility is to God and His agenda. Even in our most patriotic moments, we allow the Lord to set the timing and content of our response to what is transpiring in the earthly realm, not our emotions, or the heated relational discord our choices might produce. 

There is so much to say at this time in our developing national history. We must wait for God’s timing to speak, or we will enter the floodwaters of disgust and offense where the impact of our voice will be drowned out because we were the ones who chose the content and timing of what was spoken, not God.  This is the spiritual tension created by our dual citizenship. 

The Most Dangerous Person in the Room

When I was a young cop, my training officer taught me a lot. I watched how he moved through a hostile crowd of drunks in a bar. He was able to read a crowd. One thing he did was to determine who was the most dangerous person in the room. This is the person who, if not approached with discernment and challenged with wisdom, could do the greatest harm. When that person was finally engaged and disempowered, all of their followers who fed off that person’s bravado seemed to lose steam.

There most dangerous people in our culture are not always found in a dingy, smoke-filled bar. Some of them are within the Church. The danger they present is not bullying, but a lack of gritty realism. This problem developed in the last few decades when well-meaning people mixed Christianity with a misunderstanding of biblical reality. As a result, they created a context that was never present in the real world of the first century. Today, these people call Jesus a socialist when, in fact, he and his father ran a carpenter business and had to turn a profit to stay in business. They were more like compassionate capitalists than socialists.  

Content from the Sermon on the Mount has been plucked out of context to justify pacifism in the face of danger. In that sermon, Jesus said if our hand offends us, cut it off. If our eye views something it should not see, we are to pluck it out, and if someone slaps us, to turn the other cheek. All of these commands were issued in the same discourse. I have noticed there are a lot of two-handed, two-eyed people telling others that defending life and limb is not the Christian way. Perhaps Jesus was simply asking if we would be willing to be radically obedient instead of actually cutting off a body part, plucking out an offending eye or sitting idly by as violence has its way unrestrained.  The most dangerous person in the room is not the barroom thug. They can be believers who have created a form of Christianity disconnected from reality. 

People are becoming increasingly nervous. That unsettled feeling has arisen because of a lack of leadership, not just in the institutions of culture, but in the ranks of believers. This happens when we allow our faith to be diluted with an irrational interpretation of reality. Our world is now at a tipping point, more than most of us realize. Courage is not silence and passivity. It looks a lot like what my training officer did when he was outnumbered and surrounded by a hostile crowd in a late-night bar. Courage and truth can disarm the plans of a thuggish spirit before it creates a hellish environment that makes living a good life seem impossible.

A Stream of Distractions

A moment of distraction has been created by a virus and social issues, both of which are important to address, but they are not on the front line of a developing global confrontation. Where our eyes are focused will determine our place in the coming conflict.

At this critical moment in history, God is looking for people who are like the warriors in Gideon’s army who were about to engage the Midianites in battle. God winnowed down 22,000 warriors to only 300 by using a simple test. He told Gideon to watch how his troops drank water as the conflict was developing. The Lord instructed Gideon to select only those warriors who did not submerge their faces in the stream to drink but cupped the water in their hands and brought it to their faces while watching for enemy movement. As it was for the army of Gideon, so it is for us. This is a time to keep our eyes on Heaven, not bury our understanding in a stream of distractions no matter how painful they seem. 

This morning, I wrote to several pastors in Portland, Oregon, a city under assault by dark forces. I shared with the pastors that God is about to release a heavenly invasion in their city that will overcome the works of darkness. The Church carries the destiny of cities, not elected officials or the pawns being used to institute unrighteous agendas.

God will always have the last word and the last, game-changing move no matter how hopeless a situation might appear. Any thinking that does not include that understanding is flawed. Do not allow your thirst for an outcome, no matter how convinced you are that you have the right perspective, to submerge your spiritual discernment in a stream of distractions. Those distractions will keep you from seeing the greater battle about to be waged. 

Stay vigilant and spiritually aware at this hour, even when your thirst for results seems overwhelming. In the coming months, we will see world powers begin to flex their threatening muscles leading some to believe a global confrontation is imminent. While that may take place, what God has planned will dwarf the most fearful predictions, even when truth seems outnumbered. 

Taken by Surprise

We have always been at war spiritually. There has never been a time of peace between light and darkness. Jesus didn’t paint a rosy picture of how truth lives in a world of compromise and deception. Paul wrote about a battle waged in a realm not always visible to the natural eye. 

False battles are currently being offered to divert our attention, once again, from the reality of the actual spiritual conflict taking place on the world stage.  These false battles are waged with the wrong strategy, tactics, and weaponry. The weapons of our warfare are not discovered in the armory of the flesh. Our battle plan is not reactive. It cannot be discovered by watching the latest newscast or social media video of social unrest. How we are to conduct spiritual warfare is only discerned and implemented through revelation. 

What is taking many by surprise has been the sudden and intense manifestation of the current spiritual battle. What we see has been orchestrated and offered to us as a distraction. That offering is creating a reactive response by some, not a strategic plan for battle, or a wise response to the stimuli these events create. 

Today, examine your battleplan, tactics, and weaponry. What army do these components describe? It is not about winning. The Cross and Resurrection have determined once and for all the complete and absolute victory of Jesus. It's about advancing – advancing God's Kingdom in the face of an onslaught of lies and deceit. 

Truth spoken in love is the most dangerous weapon in our arsenal. For the last 2,000 years, that weapon allowed the Church to live and prosper even when oppression and violence tried to stall her mission. 

What Happens When a Bully Gets a Bloody Nose

There are times when a punch to the nose of a bully is all that will stop their quest for dominance. As a chubby insecure pre-puberty kid, I remember landing a punch on the nose of our playground bully after repeated calls for him to leave me and others alone. After that confrontation, he lost his place of dominance. Peace, laughter, and child-like joy returned to our playground.

A bully is prowling the playground of our culture. He is using fear to push people around. During this time, when the truth is being turned upside, redefined, and trampled under the hooves of a spirit of anarchy, it seems like the bully is getting his way. As this bullying spirit tries to gain a greater foothold, a group of David-like individuals is emerging. They will enter the fray and bring down the bullying spirit of deception with a single stone of truth. 

God’s mercy, justice, and compassion, all components of truth, will empower these men and women to execute a strategic punch that will stun and disempower the spirit of fear that motivates the bully.  God's truth will be the sword that beheads the false thinking of this bully. The bully of fear has had his way for far too long. It is time for peace and order to return to our playground. 

Pickup Your Memorial Stone

Amid all the noise, clamor, and disruption taking place in our culture, God wants to reveal His love and power. That love and power will be visible to those whose eyes have been trained to see His goodness.

When Joshua was leading the Israelites into the Promised Land, they had to cross the Jordan River, which at the time, was running at flood stage. The Lord stopped the river’s flow allowing the Israelites to cross over on dry ground. When the miraculous passage was complete, two memorials were constructed.

The Lord instructed Joshua to tell the people to choose a leader from each of the twelve tribes who would select a single stone and build a stone memorial where they would camp the first night after the crossing was complete. This would be a forever memorial to future generations of God’s faithfulness to deliver His people. 

The second stone memorial was built by Joshua. His memorial was built on the dry riverbed, in the middle of the Jordan. When all the people finally crossed over, the river began to flow again, and Joshua’s memorial would be submerged.

The crossing of the Jordan is a word picture for each of us.  We are making a crossing from what we once knew to a future yet to be defined.  Today, we have been given an assignment similar to the assignment that Joshua gave the Israelites. Stop and look for your stone of remembrance of God’s love and power displayed in the last few months. This stone is somewhere in your life. Only the eyes of faith can see this stone. Pick it up and carry it with you as you journey forward. It has a place on the other side of this time of transition where your stone will be placed with other stones of remembrance to remind you, your friends, and your family of God’s goodness.

If you are leading a family, a business, a church, or an entire movement of people, you also have a memorial to construct. Your memorial will be like the one Joshua assembled.  Place your stones where you stand today on the dry ground of your passage. When your passage is complete, it will be submerged and out of sight. In future generations, leaders will remember that your memorial to God’s faithfulness is there, somewhere underneath the future floodwaters of transition. It will give future leaders who follow in your footsteps the courage to step into the floodwaters of transition, knowing that God will always be faithful to reveal a way forward.

“Today, you will know that the living God is among you” (Joshua 3:10).

Choosing to be a Reconciler

If division among believers is not reconciled, dismemberment will soon follow. The Lord does not want His body slashed, cut, and abused by the blade of our most heartfelt opinions, no matter how valid those opinions might appear. As the physical body can heal itself, given the right diet, exercise, and environmental conditions, so it is with the Church – the body of Christ. If we are willing to contribute to those health-producing conditions, God will position us amid strife to accomplish the most profound works of reconciliation.  We seem to forget our Lord was a reconciler, even among those who fervently disagreed with His opinions.

Our "Don't" and "Why" List

The “Don’t” and “Why” of Life

I DON’T confess my sins against my wife to clean the relational slate and just move on. I confess my sins to honor her and the Lord.

I DON’T work out just to stay in physical and emotional shape. I work out so I can stay in a fight as long as possible to protect those I love.

I DON’T read God’s word to gain more biblical facts. I read it to know the Father’s heart.

I DON’T pretend to listen to someone’s opinion while crafting my response. I listen because it might inform and correct my answer before I open my mouth. 

I DON’T vote for a particular political candidate based on their personality. I vote for the platform they represent. 

I could go on with my list. You probably have a similar list.  The reasons why we do certain things is important to know.  Knowing what motivates our reasoning will inform and create our responses to the stimuli of life. 

There have been many times when the Lord reminded me that my Don’t and Why list needed refinement and adjustment. I have even had them in reversed order at times. This struggle is part of the discipleship process. It is never a perfect science. It is a life-long process of revelation discerning what it is creating the content of our conversations and empowering our actions. Be patient with yourself because God is patient. 

Confronting Spirits

History teaches us many lessons. One lesson we have learned is the ugliness of our humanity is not eradicated by laws alone. It requires a change of heart. What we see surfacing at this time is a repeat of human history. Nothing is new under the sun. 

Not many are talking about what is really stoking the cultural fire we are currently experiencing. It has become a conversation limited to issues of politics, race, and preferred lifestyles. What is taking place is more profound than the resulting surface issues we see. It is the manifestation of a battle taking place in the spiritual realm now being played out on earth. Harmful and hurtful human interactions are the ministry of evil spiritual entities influencing people to act in destructive ways toward one another.

Voicing displeasure and taking a stand against evil in any form is a righteous thing to do. But if what we do in response to evil is limited to personal protest and declarations of displeasure, we will not challenge the forces that are waiting to reproduce yet another sad chapter of negative human history.  

Some have come to realize we are not fighting against flesh and blood. For others, the spiritual battle is ignored because it appears to them a less intellectual form of faith.  The latter typically have a more prominent place in the institutions of culture, and in some cases, within the Church.

In the coming days, I am joining friends within my particular stream of faith for a time of prayer, fasting, and lament. That is a good thing. During that time of corporate response, I plan on doing some binding and loosing prayers against the spirits that are empowering our current cultural problems. While I am praying that way towards the enemies of faith and love, I will also be open to rebuking and repenting of the influence those same spirits might have in my own life. Confronting these hidden spiritual influencers is a critical task for people of faith. If we don’t stand in that unseen gap where spiritual warfare is waged, we will reap an unnecessary harvest of sorrow and record another sad chapter of history for future generations to read.

Engaging a New Gear

When I look down at the gear shift area in my truck’s center console, the shift knob indicates several choices that will create motion. The only position that produces no movement is neutral. 

Perhaps my car’s transmission is a metaphor for life. Without engagement, we are left in a motionless state of neutrality. A lot of life can pass us by if we live in a neutral state. Shifting out of intellectual or spiritual neutral requires that we take time to read the road ahead to know what gear needs to be selected. Every road will present us with opposing opinions that will either challenge our neutrality or entrench us deeper in its illusion. Friendships or associations are jeopardized when we shift out of neutral. If we are going somewhere in our faith, we will need to engage a gear that takes us deeper into the important conversations of life, not just allow them to pass us by.

A lot of what we do as people of faith can resemble a muscle car with a large V8 and a heavy cam rumbling in neutral at the stoplight of culture but never engaging a gear and dropping the clutch. The world watches our potential demonstrated expecting more from us than just a great exhaust sound and a nice paint job. 

God is speaking new assignments to unlikely drivers. These new assignments will be given with clear instructions on what gear to select. The choices these drivers make will end seasons of neutrality on critical issues of faith and culture. When God has people speak in His name, offering honest dialogue and bringing righteous solutions to the table, those words and actions will bring about a transformation thought impossible before a new gear was engaged.  These reformers will leave behind a trail of burned spiritual rubber through the heart of culture, moving us forward toward a heaven on earth solution for the most painful issues we currently face.

The Final Gear Check

Every life-assignment requires some form of gear. Gear is that equipment you make sure is ready and functional in case the stuff of life hits the fan. Before an operation, a special forces operator does a final check of their gear to make sure everything is in place and ready to go. It can save their life, the lives of their team members, and ensure the overall success of a mission. An empty magazine, neglecting to bring along a breaching tool, or a malfunctioning communication system is a recipe for death and disaster.

Gear is not always tangible. It can be a mindset. It's having the right personnel on the right team.  Gear can be a mission statement in place and operable. The idea of doing a final gear check applies to a business venture, a government initiative, maintaining an emotionally healthy family unit, or anywhere people are on a mission.

When Paul wrote to the Ephesians, he listed the full armament of a soldier of God. Before he inventoried the gear of a spiritual soldier, he made this statement, “Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm” (Ephesians 6:13). The part of the verse that stuck out to me was “and having done everything.” In other words, it is wise to do a final spiritual gear check before battle to make sure the right gear was on board and ready to use. Paul then went on to list the spiritual gear needed to engage spiritual battle – truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, and the Word.

Before your next spiritual engagement, do a final gear check. Is truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, and God’s Word on you and ready to use? You will need all of this gear to come out alive. Every spiritual conflict will use all of this gear. Having done everything - a final gear check, you will then be able to stand and survive the coming days of spiritual warfare no matter what comes against you or your spiritual team.

Watch North Korea

If the news coming out North Korea about either the death or vegetative state of Kim Jung Un after a failed surgery is accurate, something significant is taking place in Asia. I wondered why the Lord had me hold a word for a few weeks to finally share it this morning on my Facebook wall about God keeping or removing leaders. That word, alongside something I wrote two years ago on this blog about North Korea titled "North Korea - History Will Fast-Forward and Prayers will be Answered." makes me hope for heavenly intervention in that nation. If the information regarding Kim Jong Un is correct, a significant shift will take place in the leadership of North Korea. Friends who are intercessors are beginning to gather tonight to pray into this developing story. The story of North Korea is not finished until God writes the last chapter.