A Fully Ripened Trust

These are interesting times to be alive. Great truths are being uncovered hidden beneath the rubble pile of contemporary theological error.  At the same time, other forms of deception that first surfaced in the Early Church will attempt to walk back into the Church today and find a place in our current thinking. Only those who have yielded to the process of maturing will be able to safely navigate through these theological storms and end up docked at a place called truth.

I went to the dictionary to check the definition of maturity. One definition described maturity as “ripeness”. Immediately, I thought of the fruit of the Spirit. Fruit requires the maturing process to ripen its essence so that it will have the time required to become edible and sweet tasting fruit. Fruit picked while still green and immature is sour. Immaturity is fueled by impatience with the process.

Maturity helps us not throw emotional and spiritual temper tantrums when faced with uncertain times and when faced with the challenges that arise as we continue to explore the depths of the faith once delivered to the Church. Paul described in Ephesians 4 how fully matured and equipped believers would live in these times, “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.”

We are in a season of theological shaking. The shaking can only cause your fruit to fall to the ground prematurely if you stop trusting. To survive the current shaking and become someone who is fully matured you will need to stay intimately connected to Jesus. This connection is strengthened when you trust Jesus more than you trust a theology about Him. If you chose to trust, when this season is over, your life will express the sweetness of maturity that only comes from having remained connected to the presence of Jesus no matter what was taking place. 

“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit.” John 15:5 

The Fragrance of Our Lives

Our ministry schedule has Jan and I traveling several times each month. Most of the time the host church or conference coordinator arranges a hotel room for our stay. In each hotel we visit, there are things available to us in case we forgot to bring all our toiletries. They are provided in little bottles that contain body lotion, hair conditioner, and shampoo. Normally, the quality of the hotel determines the quality of the items provided.

On one trip, we were staying in a well-known hotel chain. I decided to use the body lotion provided by the hotel instead of mine. Thinking they would have something of quality, I smeared it on not checking the fragrance. Well,…that was a mistake. It smelled like the cheapest of the cheap perfumed lotions. I asked Jan to take a whiff. She said, “That’s really bad!” Back into the bathroom I went to wash off the stench and reapply my own lotion. I learned a lesson that day. Smell before you apply.

2 Corinthians 2 speaks about our lives being a Christ-like fragrance that rises up to God. For the people we come into contact with the fragrance of Christ in us can be perceived in one of two ways. If a person is being saved it smells like life. If they are perishing it smells like death. Paul concludes his thought on fragrance by informing his readers that sincerity is what keeps us smelling like Jesus and not like cheap religious perfume. Sincerity can be translated as clear, pure or genuine. To show the contrast, Paul said he was not an insincere huckster who was trying to sell his “goods” to the Corinthian church. He said, "We preach the word of God with sincerity and with Christ's authority knowing that God is watching us."

The sweet fragrance of our salvation remains pure and pleasing to people when our lives and ministries are free from murky motives; the pollution of pride; and a disingenuousness that lacks authenticity. Anything that is not sincere will not pass the smell check. If any negative odor is being emitted from your life take the time to wash it off like I did with the cheap hotel body lotion. You will come away smelling to the world like God intended.

The day when I washed off the cheap body lotion and reapplied my own, I came out of the bathroom and asked Jan to check me out. She leaned into my neck, smiled and said, “That’s more like it!” Passing the smell test of sincerity will open doors of unique opportunity because we are no longer an offensive smell in the nostrils of the people God calls us to serve.

Instrument Rated Faith

As someone indwelled by God’s Spirit you can always find the way forward. There is never a time when you will be spiritually blind. Faith has given you the ability to move forward when no natural indicators are present to reveal your next step.

As someone indwelled by God’s Spirit you can always find the way forward. There is never a time when you will be spiritually blind. Faith has given you the ability to move forward when no natural indicators are present to reveal your next step.

When I was a young pastor, I augmented our family income as a flight instructor. Along with teaching beginner pilots, I was also an instrument instructor. I taught advanced students how to fly through inclement weather using only instruments, not sight, for navigation.

On one such flight, I had my student depart the Newport, Oregon airport for a night flight to Portland. We had a low ceiling on departure and the same condition was waiting for us at our destination.

As soon as we departed we were in the clouds. The city lights below us gave way to nothing but complete darkness. We were fully enveloped in the clouds. I had instructed the student to make sure he transitioned to his instruments as soon as he got airborne so he would be flying by instruments when we entered the clouds. A few minutes later we broke through the cloud layer and found ourselves on top.

It was a full moon night almost as bright as the full day. The rays of light coming from the moon illuminated the clouds below us. We droned along with a huge moon overhead and a bright pillow of moonlit clouds below. It was a magical flight to Portland. My student used the same instruments to get on top of the clouds as he did when we began our descent and entered the clouds once again to finally land safely at our destination. For the entire flight, he was following an instrument flight path.

A lot of people demand to see the way forward before they choose to obey. Life in the Spirit does not work that way. Some stay grounded refusing to step out into the unknown and miss places of spiritual beauty that are a lot like flying on top of billowy clouds on a moonlit night. They also miss the thrill of finally breaking out of the clouds to see a destination that was hidden by the dense cloud cover of disbelief.

Everybody, believer, and non-believer alike see the same circumstances of life. Faith can help you see through the obvious to bring fresh revelation and direction. The obvious can be just as dense a spiritual cloud cover as a dark night of the soul. If you have trained yourself to fly by faith at all times, when you do enter the clouds of uncertainty, you will be able to continue your journey when others turn around in fear. That is what it means to fly by the instrument of faith. No destination will ever be out of your reach. And no cloud cover of uncertainty will ever be an impenetrable barrier to your forward progress.

Restoring Derailed Lives

It was a simple word. The Lord said, "I am restoring derailed lives."

A derailed life is like a derailed train. A train can run off the tracks and crash if something is wrong with the tracks. In order to continue the journey, the tracks will need to be cleared and repaired before the train can start rolling again.

There are two causes of a derailment. An obstruction was placed on the tracks or a weak section of track was crossed. At some point in your journey, you saw an obstacle ahead and tried to plow through it in your own strength and wisdom or you were unaware of a hidden weakness in a section of the track you originally laid down. Either way, the result was a derailment.

Your destination is still intact and awaiting your arrival. Yes, in human measurements of time you will appear to arrive late. In God’s timing it will be a perfect arrival because He is master over all things, including your adjusted arrival time.

Get some help restoring the tracks of your life-vision. It’s not a one-person job. Take the time needed to make sure all the obstacles are cleared away and the weak sections of your original track are refitted to carry the weight of your calling and blessing. Once you get moving again,  sit back and enjoy the rest of your journey. You have done all you can. The rest is up to God.

Waking from a Dream

Last night, I had a very vivid dream. In the dream, I experienced bright colors and actual conversations just like I was awake. I drove down a new road that has just been excavated leading to a hidden camp secreted in the heart of a city. An armed guard sat on my front bumper as I drove down the road. Guarding the entrance to the camp was a group of non-military security contractors. Each one was heavily armed. They had sealed off the camp from the city. I began to talk with the contractors and promised to bring them back some comfort food to supplement their military-like rations.

When I awakened, I had the sense this was a real-time word for certain cities in the United States.  I began to sort out the meaning and definition of the dream.

The contractors were actually our prayers that had set up a perimeter around a pending plan of evil. They were given a restraining assignment in spiritual warfare. The execution of a dark plan to invade the city and bring violence and destruction was imminent.  The restricting presence of these contractor-prayers was put in place because some in the Church had not abandoned the power of believing prayer.

I sense that in the coming day's plots of evil will be discovered. These discoveries will take place because our prayers will have given local and federal authorities the time needed to find these encampments.

People will ask, “Why did these people not carry out their evil plans?” They will ask this question not knowing that vigilant prayer placed an invisible hedge of protection around our neighborhoods and that hedge of prayer stopped the events of darkness before they could manifest.

Today, I am going to drive through the area of my city where this dream took place. As I drive, I am going to ask the Spirit to open my eyes to see with new insight what the Spirit was showing me in my dream. I am going to ask God to help me see past my preconceived ideas and my narrow understanding of reality to see with Spirit-empowered sight. This is not a time to slumber in our faith or yield to a spirit of fear. This is a time between times where the greatest dangers exist because we have stopped paying attention. Live an awakened life of prayer and you will see what the Spirit is trying to reveal and with that revelation the arm of the Lord will reach out to stay a work of darkness.

The Unveiling

A discovery of God’s original intent of Scripture is taking place. God is unveiling what has been hidden behind walls of human understanding. The primary interpretive tool used in this time of discovery will not be our learned skills of interpretation. Some of these interpretive skills have actually delivered us into our current place of dilemma. In this time of a spiritual and scriptural revolution, an understanding of the heart of God will take the primary lead in interpreting the mysteries of the Word.  Out of context interpretations birthed from an inaccurate understanding of the historical context and the original intent of the author will be exposed. These limited understandings will be abandoned to receive the deeper beauty and intent of the Word which has always been the heart of God, not a preferred theological position.

This will make some fearful and nervous because entire worldviews and church movements have been formed around these misunderstandings. None of these discoveries will lessen the primacy of Christ as our Redeemer or our need for personal redemption and a life of purity. This season of revelation has a purpose - to remove the lid from some of our stagnant little theological buckets and reveal to us the magnificent and expansive heart of God. This revelation will take place to usher in a move of the Spirit held in check because we did not yet see and understand the heart of God. 

With any season of discovery or rediscovery, the false and the true will appear at the same time. Twenty years ago, the Lord said to me, “My ability to lead you into truth is greater than the devil’s ability to lead you into error.” That word was given to help us not live in fear but walk with confidence in the protecting and sustaining love of God.

This is a time when good people on both sides of an issue will provide “proof” texts for their particular viewpoint. Volleys of position will be tossed back and forth over fences of theological division. Be careful about joining these contests. They will not move you forward. They can only entrench you in more of the same. This is a time when the knowledge of the Father’s heart will not only help you discover the intended truth and meaning of Scripture but it will keep you from becoming a voice representing a Pharisee spirit where facts about God, not the heart of God, leads your speech, your conduct and your interaction with the world.

Staying Alive

There was a conversation I had with each rookie cop I trained. On the first night, before we stepped into our patrol car, I said, “I am going home alive tonight and I am not going to let you get us killed.” What I meant was until they learned how to survive on the streets they needed to follow my instructions so they did not make any costly mistakes.

There will be times in some relationships where you might have to issue a similar notice to some of your friends who are not yet mature in their understanding of love. These are people so loose in their life of faith they can put you and others in jeopardy. There are a lot of unnecessary casualties in certain relationships that could have been prevented with an open and honest conversation early on giving the relationship healthy boundaries and a chance to mature and become a safe place.

I made sure each rookie cop I trained understood this concept. It was my job as the mature training officer to drill this reality into their head. Life on the streets can be a brutally honest teacher. So can life in the Spirit.

 When my rookies finally became mature training officers they had the same conversation with their recruits on the first night that I had with them. That ritual conversation prevented unnecessary casualties in the natural and it will do the same in the realm of the Spirit.