“Saving Nations” by Garris Elkins

The Church has not been called, as its first priority, to save nations.  The Church has been called to advance God’s Kingdom.  In the advancement of God’s Kingdom, nations will eventually be saved.

When we reverse this order and mount campaigns of national reformation at the expense of individual discipleship, we begin to draw on the power source of national pride to accomplish a task that can only be fulfilled by a clear focus on the mission God has given the Church.

Nationalism in any form, even for those of us who feel we live in a great nation, will end up redefining the enemy as other nations and people who oppose our way of life. Nationalism can become, if we are not careful, a blinding force to the real battle that is never a flesh and blood war, but an engagement with spiritual forces in high places. 

Some of these spiritual forces attempting to control the affairs of men and nations are embedded within our own political systems and in the various political parties in whom some place their trust.  The real battle is not nation against nation, or person against person, but against belief systems that undermine the beauty and majesty of God.

When the Church in any nation begins to walk in the fullness of who she is, the controlling spirit of that nation will begin to be compromised. In that compromise spiritual deception will begin to lose its ability to deceive the hearts and minds of the citizens who are under its control and spell. This is the beginning of true national transformation.

The plan of God to bring the nations of this world into the Kingdom of God seems less dramatic and heartfelt to some when compared to our very visual and emotional displays of national pride.  I still get choked up when I see a ceremony to honor a fallen soldier who gave their life so I can live in a freedom that I too easily take for granted. National pride is wonderful and moving, but it will not accomplish the Great Commission Christ gave the Church.

God’s plan for national transformation is to bring the occupants of every nation out of a self-sufficient place of spiritual darkness into the light of God’s truth.  This is done one man and one woman at a time. Maybe the greatest source for a national revival can be found in our loving interaction with a neighbor over the back fence who may not yet know God and who actually opposes all that we hold dear. 

The Lord said, “Go and make disciples of all nations.” He did not say to go and save a nation first.  He sent us to individuals – individuals that can be hard to love at times. The changed life of a single disciple precedes the changed life of an entire nation because the individuals are the substance of the culture.

Whenever our commitment to the personal discipleship of a single human being is displaced by a larger cause, such as national reformation, our efforts will eventually become futile and frustrating.  We can actually end up dividing ourselves from the very people we are called to love because they are lumped into a larger, nameless opposing mass.  This is actually a way that hell wages war against the plans of God.

July 4^th is coming in a few days.  I take pride in what this day means for me as a citizen and for all of us who make up this great nation. While I will experience some strong patriotic emotions on that day, I have come to realize it will not be my emotions of national pride that will motivate me to see my nation change for the better.  What must motivate each of us are the words and passion of Jesus. The mission Jesus gave to His Church is accomplished within the human heart. Unlocking the heart of the individual will eventually unlock the heart of a nation.

“This is the Time” by Garris Elkins

I am sensing this is a time for the Church to discover, and for some to rediscover, the significance of where we are currently positioned in heaven, in Christ, at the right hand of the Father. In order to navigate what is before us we must first grasp this truth and believe it so that our belief becomes a lifestyle more than just a theological understanding of truth.

Today, many are experiencing the nipping, biting-at-your-heels work of hell trying to discourage them and this is causing some to give up. This is a time of spiritual warfare where our greatest assault on the enemy’s camp will be the refocusing of our lives upon the reality of who we are as believers in Christ. That refocusing is the conflict. This battle will be won when we realize where he has positioned us in heaven so we can live in victory now, not in defeat.

This morning, one of my former students, who is now living in his home country in Asia, wrote these words to me regarding a conversation he was having with someone at his church:

“She asked me in what ways I had received the things I asked of the Lord in a way that made prayer seem like it is a way that we ask the Lord to do things for us and I remembered Garris' book, Prayers from the Throne of God. I explained to her my view on prayer and how it changed my walk with Him and was surprised to hear that she had never thought of it that way. If there’s one thing I learned in my time in Anthem, its that I shifted my view on prayer from being on the receiving end to becoming a watchman, calling down what is in heaven that is not yet on earth and having faith that it is when it is not.”

This is a time for each of us to reconsider the great truth Paul wrote to the Ephesian Church – we are now, at this moment, seated in Christ at the Father’s right hand with all the works of darkness in submission under our feet. It from this position we are called to conduct the business of God’s Kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven.

"Quit Waiting For A Revival - Become One!"

Many believers are waiting for the “next big thing” God wants to do. The more I think about these “next big thing” mindsets, the more I have come to realize they are illusions. The next big thing God wants to do is witihin my heart and yours. He wants us to obey His words in John 17 where Jesus said the world will believe His message because they see that we, as the Church, are one – undivided against each other. If you have picked up an offense against anyone in your local church or against a fellow believer anywhere – deal with it. The first step is yours to take. Ask God to forgive you and then go immediately to the other person and ask them to forgive you for picking up the offense, even if you were the “innocent” party. True revival is waiting on the condition of our hearts to change so the people in our communities can see the heart of God living in the people of God.

"Maybe Its Time To Get Weird” by Garris Elkins

I love to read people who understand history and the development of language.  A couple of years ago I was struck by a paragraph within an article written by my Fulbright Scholar and Master of Fine Arts educated daughter:

“When I taught literature to high school students on the Micronesian island of Saipan, I began the year with the Anglo-Saxon text of Beowulf. (That juxtaposition was a bit weird all by itself.) I explained to my seniors that the word “weird” stems from an Anglo-Saxon verb meaning “to become.”  As a noun: wyrd. Unlike our contemporary version, which is slightly negative, wyrd was positive. It was linked to one’s destiny and meant “supernatural.” Wyrd is an ongoing, continual happening—“that which happens.”  (Anna Elkins – from her article, “Toward”, at wordbody.blogspot.com)

My ministry affiliation is within a traditionally Pentecostal denomination. God put me in this family and He has blessed me in so many ways because of that relationship.  I listen to conversations within my own church family and outside in similar groups that have journeyed through a hundred-plus years of history since the great Azusa Street Revival.  Some groups that started off in that Azusa Street experience have, over the years, defined themselves out of that stream because it seemed too weird and unwieldy.

Like most pastors, I have read through the Bible on numerous occasions.  It is filled with lots of very “weird” and unwieldy experiences.  Bushes talked. Rocks spouted water.  People walked across dry ocean bottoms through standing walls of water. People ate bread that fell from heaven. Ax heads floated on water. Prophets were taken up. The sun stood still. Donkeys spoke. Prayer hankies and shadows brought healing. Spit in the eyes released the miracle of sight. Poisonous snakes were shaken off.  Today, similar things are taking place around the world where the Church is actually growing.

In the last few years I have noticed some in the traditional Pentecostal camp are now beginning to repeat a phrase – “We don’t want to get weird.”  I understand why that phrase is being used. None of us want man-made or man-produced anything.  We want the legitimate and real.

As I look across the traditional Pentecost landscape in the American Church, I am actually seeing very little of the good God-weird stuff taking place.  We have become a very manageable crowd.  What we actually need to take place in our midst has a hard time getting past our disclaimers and demands about our concern for becoming weird.

What can happen, and may have already taken place, is that we actually begin to shut out the good God-weird experiences when they show up at our doorstep.  Maybe, like the Anglo-Saxon definition of the word wyrd, we actually become the Spirit-infused people we were intended to be by experiencing things for which we have no logical explanation.  Maybe “weird” is not a destination like many have come to believe, but a process that gets us to where we need to go. Without some element of the wonderfully weird works of God in our midst we will end up living with our own self-crafted image of life and ministry looking back at us in the mirror.

The weird and unexplainable things God does are part of the supernatural journey that actually leads us to our destiny. Like its earlier Anglo-Saxon usage, “wyrd” was something that was supposed to continue to happen and not stop.  When it stops happening in our midst is when we actually become weird in a negative sense.

When we construct a verbal fence with statements like, “We don’t want to get weird”, we are actually stumbling ourselves as we walk forward into the fulfillment of our destiny.  From my reading of the Bible, I find it filled with wonderfully weird experiences. God used these experiences to jump-start the hope of His people and remind them that He is still in the house. 

“Preaching to the Trees” by Garris Elkins

In the late 1970’s, I was a student at Ministries Institute at Faith Center in Eugene, Oregon.  I had the privilege of listening to profound teachers each week.  Names like Roy Hicks, Jr., Ron Mehl, Jack Hayford and Jerry Cook graced our pulpit.  It was a preaching garden and each week we enjoyed it’s fruit.

In Ministries Institute we were required to prepare sermons to preach to the other students in our study group.  There is something special about a group of young men and women trying their best to honor the Word of God and at the same time not be boring to the other students. Most of our sermons sounded the same, but I think God loved it.

At the time, I was also working as a police officer in Springfield, Oregon.  I was working swing shift  – from mid-afternoon until about midnight.  Somewhere in our shift we would take Code 7 – police radio code for our dinner break.  We got thirty minutes to order and eat our meal.  Trying to order, eat and watch your back made eating in a restaurant not such a great experience.  Most of the time I grabbed something from a drive-through or brought a bag lunch and simply ate in my patrol car.

Whenever it was my turn to preach in our class I would skip eating during my meal break and would drive up into the foothills on the south side of Springfield and park my patrol car.  The area where I parked was accessed by a dirt road that ended in a wooded area surrounded by pine trees.

When I parked my patrol car, I let dispatch know that I was “Code 7” and then I pulled out my sermon notes.  I spread the notes out on the hood of the patrol car and began to preach through my sermon, out loud. Since I only had 30 minutes, I began to learn how to manage my preaching time. It’s funny to this day every Saturday morning I do the same thing with my message.  I have been doing this each week for 32 years.  I still work through a message out loud to catch the flow of what I am trying to say.

As I preached across the hood of my patrol car towards the forest my voice would echo through the trees.  I would stop from time-to-time to correct my notes and maybe add something new.  At the end of each message I would always give an invitation for people to come to Jesus.  All of this was done in my best preaching voice – out loud in full uniform, gun and all.

This morning, I was sharing this memory with my daughter and I started to chuckle.  I asked Anna, "I wonder how many stoned hippies were hiding in the trees above Springfield, Oregon in the 1970’s and possibly got saved listening to this cop, student-preacher preach the Word to the trees and then give an invitation."  I can’t wait to get to heaven and find out.

“The Line of Trust” by Garris Elkins

A couple of years ago, Jerry Cook came and spoke at our church.  Jerry is one of my ministry heroes. For the last 30-plus years he has been a mentoring presence in my life through his writing and teaching.  He has also functioned in this mentoring role to many others throughout the Body of Christ.

When Jerry was with us he also ministered to the pastors and leaders in our region of Southern Oregon.  This was a full and abundant time sitting under Jerry’s teaching gift.  In between our meetings Jerry had lunch with Jan and me. 

At some point in our lunch, I began to process leadership with Jerry.  In our conversation, Jerry made a statement that caused me to stop and re-process how I lead and represent God’s Kingdom.  Jerry said, “I never took a position that had me representing an organization to pastors.  I always wanted to remain on the other side of that line so I could represent pastors to the organization.”

Our lunchtime conversation continued on to other subjects, but part of my mind set up camp around Jerry’s comment about the line.  I wanted to personally process Jerry’s comment later so I could glean all the wisdom available from such profound insight.

As I began to think about what Jerry shared, I realized he was not saying that a religious organization is somehow wrong or that those who serve in any official capacity are suspect.  What I came away with was the realization that whether we serve in some official capacity or serve in the deepest and distant trenches of ministry, we all serve a higher reality – we serve the King of a Kingdom and His purposes.

Personally, I am honored to serve in an official capacity in the Foursquare Church.  I have always danced with the line Jerry described.  As I brought Jerry’s comment into my own role, I began to realize this line must be moved beyond all of us and positioned at the feet of Jesus. 

The moving of the representational line - beyond all our serving and leading roles - is critical, if trust is going to be experienced in our ranks.  If pastors realize that those who serve in leadership positions over them will yield to the higher good of God’s Kingdom – even at the expense of organizational survival – they can begin to trust that leadership at a deeper level.  If those who lead understand those in the ranks of ministry also want the higher good of God’s Kingdom, they will not have to be protective of organizational survival at the expense of Kingdom advancement.

The line Jerry talked about was a line about trust. Each of us must discover where that line of trust exists in our own lives and ministry and ask ourselves why it occupies that position.  The position of the line of trust can move back and forth throughout the different seasons of Church life depending on the level of our corporate health at a given moment.

Our conversations and relationships can be inhibited based on where our line of trust exists. The farther the line of trust moves away from the feet of Jesus - toward us and between us - the more we will discover our relational dysfunction. As each of us desire to become more relationally healthy, the most noticeable evidence of that health will be the direction in which our line of trust is moving.

“Can’t I Bless You In Your Suffering?” by Garris Elkins

Each family will go through seasons of challenge and suffering in the course of a lifetime.  As a family, we recently experienced one of those times.  In the end, God showed up and pointed the situation in a new direction, but at the start we felt overwhelmed.

As I began to navigate the early moments of our challenging situation, I felt a need to put all my normal activities on hold until the crisis was over.  I began to cancel certain events and was about to cancel one final appointment on my list, something I really like to do under normal circumstances. As I began to cancel the appointment, the Lord asked me a question, “Can’t I bless you in your suffering?”

The question actually startled me.  I had become focused on the painful event we were experiencing and had assumed a waiting posture until it could be resolved.  Any thought of personal blessing or gain in the middle of the suffering felt like it would have been out of the question.

Somewhere in my mind, I had allowed a false way of thinking to enter my thoughts.  This false thinking said the blessings of God are reserved only for those times outside our times of suffering.  I felt I had to endure this painful situation until the end before it would be appropriate for a blessing to come my way.  As the Lord’s question rang in my ears, I realized I had been living with a limited image of God’s goodness in times of suffering.

We are in a moment of Church history where God is planning to arrive in our places of suffering with blessings in His hand and drop those blessings into our lives in unexpected ways.  As He releases these gifts, He is blessing us as a father would bless a child who is experiencing sadness or sorrow. But there is something more He is going after.  God is going after our limited belief in His goodness.  He is going after pious sounding misconceptions that blind us to His heart.  He is going after terminal thought patterns that releases sorrow instead of joy.

When the Lord asked me the question – “Can’t I bless you in your suffering?” – my response was, “Yes, Lord you can, but don’t I need to get through this first?”

My question to His question revealed a second point of healing God wanted me to experience.  Many of us think we must endure the full length of suffering before God is willing show up with His goodness and provision.  This misunderstanding comes from a mindset that says God teaches us more in seasons of suffering than in times of blessing. God is free to teach us in any way He desires.  Suffering can get our attention and so can a blessing in a painful and dry season.  What matters most is whether through suffering or blessing our focus turns to Him.  

That day I kept the appointment I was about to cancel. When I arrived, I received a tremendous blessing.  The blessing was beyond what I would dare to ask or think in a time of suffering.  I came away a changed person.  God’s goodness changed me.

From the blessing I received from my kept appointment and what I learned of the Father’s heart in the process, came a new vocabulary to use in times of suffering.  That new vocabulary contained words of hope and blessing - the very words I would use later in the day to turn several conversations regarding our personal crisis from despair to hope.

If you are walking through a valley shadowed by death and despair, listen with new ears to the voice of the Spirit.  God is about to bless you in your suffering.  He has things planned for you that are similar to what Paul wrote about in Ephesians 3:20, “Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.”