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. 

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.

Until the Lord Speaks

We have become walking and talking encyclopedias offering evidence to support our position for what we think ails humanity. As we stand naively confident in our assumption, we are unaware that soon the Lord will speak. At that moment, all of our best guesses and supporting data will bow in the presence of His revelation. 

Of One Heart

Being of one heart has a greater impact than being of one mind. In a close environment where people work together toward a common goal, hearts that follow after God in love, create a healthy and cohesive work environment. 

The apostle Paul encouraged us in the second chapter of Philippians to be of one mind. That one-mindedness was the by-product of living together in an environment of love. Love is always a matter of the heart.  Many times, we miss what creates a by-product by focusing on the by-product and not what produced the by-product.

If a leader requires all team members to be of one mind, typically, that translates as being in lockstep obedience with the worldview and preferences of the team leader. That requirement actually creates a weakness in the team. It is a false unity and restricts Spirit-led creativity that only comes through a diversity of opinion. It also limits the breadth of expression and insight required to engage greater Kingdom exploits. 

For example, if you are a team leader who releases edicts of how your team should respond to the issues of culture in an attempt to maintain team discipline and portray unity to those outside the team, you are creating followers, not leaders. Work first and foremost at building a team unity around the fruits of the Spirit, not your opinions. If the hearts of your team members are right and expressing love and honor toward each other, even if they say or do something that differs from your opinion, it will all work out in the end because their hearts were right. This is the kind of working environment that creates trust and honor in a team because people know they are loved in their diversity, not only in their conformity.

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 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).

Going Deeper

When something crosses our path and challenges our perspective, our first response is many times crafted from a variety of issues like our unresolved fears, pride, past acts of betrayal, or the pain of relational abandonment. These are surface responses that are reactive in nature. They can hold us captive on the surface until we choose to break free and go deeper. 

This deeper place is where the Spirit reveals truth with greater clarity. It is where we need to go to receive a healthy evaluation of the content of a message that is currently challenging our reality or perspective. This deeper level is where the Spirit brings insight and wisdom that is not crippled by a first-level interpretation fueled by our emotional response to the painful events of life. 

The prophetic voice of the Church is a shared calling for all who believe. It is not limited to a group of people who are known to speak prophetically. God wants to take all of us deeper. The deeper place is where revelation is waiting to be discovered that will shift human hearts and redirect the destiny of nations to align them with the mandate of the Great Commission.

When we finally arrive in that deeper place, we will have an opportunity to humbly allow God's Spirit to counsel us and craft our message. In some cases, we might actually be asked to recraft our message for greater impact.  In that deeper place is where we will discover our prophetic voice, a voice that speaks the truth in love.

Be Careful

Our culture is coming to a collective emotional head in this time of isolation, especially in communities of faith. The number one issue we are all facing is fear - fear of losing control. It could be our fear that the “normal” we once knew might go away and never return. Sometimes this fear is manifested when an opinion is expressed that breaks rank with a narrow interpretation of a critical issue causing someone to be pushed out of the orbit of a familiar relationship they once knew.

When an early Church leader wrote the poignant words, “In the essentials unity, in the non-essentials liberty, in all things love” he gave us a key to help us navigate through this challenging season, primarily through the area called the non-essentials. Non-essential does not mean unimportant. It is referring to something not worth destroying years of relationship over.

What lies between the bookends of essential truth and expressing love is where we can encounter relational jeopardy. When an opinion, which is the realm of a non-essential, is allowed to become essential or a reason not to love, we are in trouble. A single idea expressed outside what was considered acceptable is sometimes all that an individual or group needs as a reason to say goodbye to a relationship, and punish the opposing viewpoint with separation and silence.

We have all been guilty of this offense at one time or another. Our fear, if not disciplined, will weaken our most cherished theology or, worse, destroy the bond of love in our relationships. That is always such a sad and disheartening experience. 

^“So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity” (Colossians 3”12-14).

Before We Come Back Together

Today, as one who served in pastoral ministry for many years, I want to share something with my fellow pastors, church leadership, and those who love and pray for the local church. These are unprecedented times that will require of us deeper levels of wisdom and sensitivity to the Spirit's leading.

When all the social distancing restrictions lift, and we begin to reassemble, be careful that you don't assume you are coming back to something familiar. Yes, we will gather once again in a familiar facility with familiar faces, but everyone will have changed in the absence, including you. It would be wise to explore and understand the implications of that change. Take some of the remaining time of this separation to gather with your staff and primary leaders and talk about the ramifications of what has happened before you make plans to come back together. Your people know what a shared life of faith was like before all of this took place. They need leaders who understand what has happened in their thinking about the Church and how your ministry can help them live in a new world. 

These changes are not physical but philosophical and mission-oriented.  The application of your mission statement may need redefinition to take on new forms of expression, each with the same value as a Sunday morning gathering. The change that has taken place under the influence of this pandemic is more significant than any of us had imagined or fully realized. Those who discern and understand that change will be used by God to lead His people into new frontiers in the coming years, frontiers many of us did not know even existed. 

The Next Generation of Revelation

While the faith once delivered to the Church is unchangeable and true, our ability to grasp the fullness of that faith may not happen in a single generation. What one generation considered either true or false based on personal or cultural interpretation might be challenged by the next generation. The interpretation of matters of faith carries both risk and reward. 

There is something called Meta Induction Theory that suggests our accepted scientific theory can change over time. Pesticides once declared safe are now known to cause cancer. The earth was considered flat until proved otherwise. Germs were unknown because they remained unseen.

Every area of life goes through a process of discovery where our current level of knowledge experiences a process of turnover called “half-life knowledge.” Ideas or our interpretation of those ideas can become obsolete or disproven over time. Some of what our great-grandparents considered as scientific reality is no longer considered true.

A spiritual form of Meta Induction Theory can apply to our faith. In my generation, we have seen the role of women in ministry return to the original intent of God and not be isolated to a few corrective verses that had a specific cultural application. We realized the gifts of the Spirit were for today and not to be left behind in the dusty pages of history. The role of apostle and prophet has stepped back into their rightful place alongside the other equipping gifts.

God is unchangeable. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The rest of what was once delivered to the Church might require many generations to unpack its fullness. We are in a moment of tremendous reset where some of what we thought to be true and unchanging was only the first generation of a much larger revelation. Remain teachable. Hold everything with an open hand. God is placing fresh revelation in the hands of those who are willing. 

Surviving a Spiritual Free-for-all

I was talking to someone recently and shared with them whenever God begins to move, there will always be a mixture of opposing spiritual forces. This is what took place in Acts 16 between Paul and a fortune teller. Paul confronted the demon speaking through the woman, and she was set free. As a result of their actions and the cultural turmoil created by their obedience, Paul and Silas were arrested, beaten, and thrown into prison. 

God is all-powerful, but that does not mean when He first steps onto the stage of a circumstance, all the dark performers will automatically depart. They must be confronted, or they will continue to speak just like the fortune teller did in Paul's day. When God begins to bring wholeness to an individual, a family, or a nation, His presence will expose and dislodge embedded deceptions. It can look like a spiritual free-for-all until a matter is settled by a demonstration of God's power. 

If you find yourself in the middle of a spiritual free-for-all, find out where the Spirit is moving and follow Him. He will be faithful to show you the way forward through the debris field. 

A New Book

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live on the edge of the ever-expanding frontier of God’s revelation on Earth? Our place on that frontier is where we partner with God’s Spirit to accomplish the goal of the Great Commission -  to make disciples of all nations. 

You have a Kingdom assignment in one of the seven spheres of cultural influence, Government, Religion, Economy, Education, Arts & Entertainment, Media, or Family. I have written a book that will help you discover that assignment and your role in its implementation.                                                                                                          

For the last several months, I have been writing a new book titled, “BEYOND – Exploring the Frontier of God’s Expanding Revelation.” It should be ready for purchase around April 1 in both print and Kindle formats on Amazon.

I’m letting you know about the book because today my editor takes possession of the manuscript to begin the editing process. Your prayers would be appreciated. Thank you.

The Danger of Relevancy and Credibility

As warm and embracing as our faith might be to us personally, to some, it will come across as strange, insignificant, or even foolish. One reason why we are seeing unhealthy doctrines entering the church is that, in some cases, our core message has been compromised in the pursuit of relevancy and credibility. For some, the highest compliment of their faith is to be accepted by all. The record of Scripture paints a different picture.

The Epicurean and Stoic philosophers listening to Paul in Athens said of his message, “What’s this babbler trying to say with these strange ideas he’s picked up? When they heard Paul speak about the resurrection of the dead, some laughed in contempt” (Acts 17:18,32). These Greek philosophers were the thought-molders of the culture in their day.

The Roman court dismissively referring to Paul’s faith, “It was something about their religion and a dead man named Jesus, who Paul insists is alive” (Acts 25:19). This “something about their religion” attitude conveyed a feeling of irrelevance toward the message of Christ in the highest civil court of the day.

The believers in Corinth, who in some ways resemble the Church in Western culture, faced a similar issue. In his first letter, Paul let the Corinthians know their faith will not always appear credible to the surrounding culture. Paul wrote, “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the very power of God” (I Corinthians 1:17).

So, how then do we live? We live with an on-going tension between actually wanting to be relevant and credible in the right way, yet not compromising truth. There was something the Early Church carried with them each day that allowed them to move through the rejection of the message they preached. They carried anticipation of the supernatural.  The signs, wonders, and miracles of God confirmed their message in a way that legal or social acceptance could not.  The same is true for us today. An expression of faith without the expectation of God supernaturally confirming our message will always lead to compromise because we will seek an unhealthy expression of relevance and credibility as our solution. This compromise happens because the confirming element of what we preach is something we produce, not God.

“And God confirmed the message by giving signs and wonders and various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit whenever he chose” (Hebrews 2:4).

Premature Labels

I once knew a young man who was trying to find his voice in the faith community. He was sharp and possessed great potential. I believe he had and still does have a calling on his life. Then he made a turn. He turned toward judgment, the premature kind that immaturity is drawn toward. The young man discovered an affinity with those who create labels of judgment and feel it’s their mission to label people and churches with whom they disagree. It was sad to see. He did find his voice, but the sound he was making did not represent the heart of God.

It is too easy to prematurely define people and their motives before we fully understand their reasoning or life-experience. We use our current understanding of truth and reality to craft our premature labels. We have seen this take place in the history of science, medicine, and health habits. The Earth was once considered to be flat. Germs were an unseen and unknown threat, and the benefits of healthy eating and exercise were not yet understood. Those premature positions created labels crafted from premature judgments made before a fuller understanding was realized. 

The most dangerous labeling of all takes place in the area of faith. Be careful with labels. Only God knows how to properly label an individual or group who live outside the context of our current experience or level of comfort.  God’s labels always have a redemptive element. Most of the time, ours do not. When we become a self-appointed label maker, we step into the dangerous territory of accusation.  That is the devil’s favorite playground.

The Sting of Love

If we create a message hoping our audience will accept what we share, and if acceptance becomes our primary motivation, we will eventually compromise truth to hold onto our audience. At some point, we have all been guilty of this transgression. Humility, honesty, and repentance is the only way out of this trap. 

As a young pastor, I remember the day God challenged me on this subject. I still feel that sting today. I am still being stung to this day in other areas of personal compromise. I want to be stung again and again whenever I find out I am more interested in keeping my readers happy and having them enjoy what I write than serving them the hard and sometimes uncomfortable truth. 

If left unchallenged, our compromise will cause the Spirit to withdraw His instruction and leave us with a message crafted only by human wisdom and our version of spiritual reality. In America, we have created a lot of feel-good theology and subsequent worldviews.  This has taken place in our insulated culture absent from the stark realities of life being lived out each day by our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world. We can too easily create a spiritual and emotional Twilight Zone where reality and truth have been exchanged for a fuzzy, photoshopped lie. 

When God expands the sphere of influence of our voice, no matter if our audience is one or a million, we will experience a challenge to our integrity. If we do not allow the challenge to discipline our hearts and the content of our message, any of us can be susceptible to making a weak turn toward compromise.  This becomes especially important if we have allowed our identity to be hitched to a preferred response from our audience. The principles of truth and honesty never change. They walk with us into each new season of life, carrying with them the sting of love.

Wars and Rumors of Wars

“You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end” (Matthew 24:6).

An unholy alliance of nations is forming, a governmental false trinity. These three nations will move in stealth behind diversions. Only those who look with wise eyes will see what is taking place. A fourth, not part of the three, will become reckless once it sees the trinity on the march.  When these events begin to transpire on the world stage, those not at peace with God will be overcome by fear because they believed a lie. God will not be mocked by the treachery of the false trinity or by those who blindly followed a lie declaring it as truth. When you hear of wars and rumors of war, let the peace of God guard your heart. No matter what nations are planning in their foolish backroom conversations, the Lord has a greater plan ready to deliver. When the world begins to shake, that will be the announcement that something new is about to be birthed by the Spirit. Live in expectation, not in fear.

“But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs” (Matthew 24:8).

The Enemy in the Camp

The most dangerous enemy is never the most obvious. He plays the long game. Over time, this kind of enemy will use our naivety, personal compromise, and spiritual blindness to construct his dark plan. The products of this deception are things we would never have imagined or allowed to rule our lives and communities. Trojan horses carrying deception have already entered the public square and, unfortunately, the halls of faith.

This is not a time for false bravado, nor is it time for fear. Neither option will allow us to partner with God in a work of restoration and reformation. We need to ask the Lord to awaken the slumbering areas of our faith. He wants us to see our world with the eyes of the Spirit, not through the lens of human emotion or logic.  What is seen will be a disturbing image for some. 

Once we have clarity of vision, we will be given an assignment that will not look like the assignments of those who continue to live blinded to spiritual realities. In Ephesians 4, Paul said once the Church has been equipped and matured we would look like this, "Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love."

At first, speaking the truth in love will sound foreign and out of step with the false reality being presented.  Those who hear your redemptive words might reject them out of hand. Don't forget, people were created by God to hear the truth, not lies. While the lies might seem to have center stage at this moment, truth will carry the day. The sound of Heaven – truth spoken in love – will eventually displace the sound of lies. 

When the Lord asks you to speak it will require courage to make a sound. Before you speak, discern the difference between personal preference and truth. And above all, make sure you are speaking and acting in love. Love is the only thing the enemy fears and it is the only thing that has the power to dismantle his plan of deception. 

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.

Writing the Story of Our Life

Whenever I write, whether it is a short article or something more substantial, like a book, I do two things in the process. I write the piece first, then I read it. In the writing part, it’s not that I don’t actually read while I am writing, it is just a different phase in the process. When I finally read the finished product, I read the text as someone reading it for the first time. I read as a seeker. It is in that final reading where I see problems with my logic, the delivery of an unhealthy tone, or at times, the need to hit the delete button and start over.

We all write (live) portions of our lives before they become a readable text. In the writing seasons, we are living things out for which we have no prior experience. It is a messy process filled with mistakes. We use the wrong punctuation and words that created unclear text. Because of these error-filled seasons, we can begin to think we will never be able to publish a worthy life. It is in these early stages of editing where our life develops the content of its story. In this private place where we work with the Editor of Heaven, we are fine-tuning the content of our life so that someday it will become a readable testimony bringing hope to others as they write the story of their own life.

I’m hard on myself when it comes to my writing, and unfortunately, I am also hard on myself during the first draft seasons when God is doing something new in my life. We all need to give God the time He needs to turn an immature and incomplete first draft manuscript of our life into something that is easily read by others. In these gut-wrenching times of editing, we develop the text of the finished manuscript. This is where the text of our life becomes readable and relatable and without a lot of fluff. Being willing to work with God through seasons of intense life-editing is where the best sellers in His Kingdom are written. Keep writing. Your story is still developing.

Following Your Passion

I recently saw a creative artistic expression posted by a friend of mine on his Facebook wall. I did not know that particular form of creativity was part of his life. As soon as I saw what he created, I imagined a book he could write. My friend is well-educated and known in his field of expertise as an expert and scholar, not an artist. I shared with him what I saw as a creative collaboration of what appeared to be a spur of the moment expression of an unknown talent (unknown to me) and his years of study and teaching. I made some suggestions to spark his interest in the project. If he ever creates the book, I'll be first in line to buy a copy.

My daughter, Anna, just released a book titled “Living Large on Little.” The book idea was not only a surprise to Anna, but she was surprised how easy it was to create once her life-experience and creative talents came together. Anna experienced the merging of a lifetime of wisdom and creativity that released its expression in the form of a book. That is what I hope to see in my friend as well.

God did not give us our passions to become static emotions without expression. Passion releases creativity. A friend of mine, John L. Moore, is a best-selling author who crafts his books around his passion for horses and ranch life interwoven with his unique life experiences. When you read books from people like my daughter and John L. Moore, you catch something not offered in books written without passion. 

This passion-empowered creativity is not limited to books. Another friend, Cheryl D. Garcia, sculpts beautiful steel art forms from raw metal that grace the small town where I live and beyond. I have another friend who is a winemaker who does the same with grapes, and the list goes on. Don’t allow your passion to be defined as a static emotion without release. Explore your passion and follow its leading into something tangible. This tangible quality may not be a book, a sculpture or wine. You might have a passion to serve and your tangible expression will be to show love to others through acts of service. 

Today, ask the Lord how He wants to use your passion to express His heart to others.  Following that passion might create a season in your life you did not know was possible had you not followed your passion into a place of tangible creativity.