Forever Fruit

This morning, I asked the Lord what He wanted me to write. At the moment of my inquiry, I was shown an open hand holding a fresh apricot. The apricot was picked at the peak of perfection. Behind the image of the apricot was a film clip showing the coming and going of each season – winter, spring, summer, and fall. The image of the apricot remained unchanged as each season scrolled along behind the image of the open hand. Then the Lord spoke.

“The fruit you have born is everlasting because I gave it life. Its life and beauty did not rot or diminish as you moved through the challenging and painful seasons of your life. Nothing was lost or suffered decay. All along, I have held the fruit of your life securely in My hand. Continue to abide in Me. I have more fruit to bear through your branches. My seasons of fruitfulness are not bound by natural time or human limitations. I can bear good fruit in your life because you continue to offer Me your branches.”

“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

Pouring Hot Faith

I like to get up in the morning and hit the brew button on our coffeemaker and, within a couple of minutes, have a hot cup of coffee in hand to go along with my Dutch stroopwafel. This morning, the coffeemaker beeped, letting me know the coffee was ready. I placed my cup on the counter and began to pour. Out came clear hot water. I forgot to add the coffee. This is not a good thing to experience early in the morning. The hot water lacked substance. Without the substance of the ground coffee, the water remained just water and did not become the magic liquid, so many of us enjoy each day.

Most of us are familiar with the traditional reading of Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” The word “substance” is a pivotal word in the verse. It has been defined as “confidence, firm trust, assurance.” "Substance" is formed from two Greek words, “under” and “to cause or make to stand.” In other words, our confidence is based on something foundational that is not seen but makes us confident, firm, and assured. It allows us to stand in impossible places of belief and not give up, even when no natural evidence is present to support our faith.

If we do not believe in something not yet seen in the natural world, we will live a version of spiritual life that resembles someone pouring only hot water, not a fresh cup of hot coffee. When we live by faith believing in the substance of things not yet seen but promised, it is because we have anchored our hope in a realm beyond what we can see with natural sight. The greatest possibilities are waiting just beyond the line that defines something as impossible. Only a faith of substance can cross that line.

Uncanny Timing

Today, Jan baked a blackberry pie from blackberries our daughter picked last summer. As the house filled with the aroma of a baking pie, I could sense it was getting done. I got up and walked into the kitchen just as the oven timer counted down the last few seconds, 3…2…1, then the beeping sound of the timer began letting me the pie was ready. The pie looked fabulous. As I sat the pie on the stovetop to cool, I got the sense this will happen for some of you in matters of the Spirit. 

In the coming days, the Lord will cause you to move toward the completion of something before any outward sign alerts you that the time has come. In the next week, expect unusual timing events to take place. Some of you will be prompted by the Spirit to move with uncanny timing to experience a supernatural alignment of your life with what the Lord has been preparing. 

What I Do and Why

There are times, especially when we are new to the things of the Spirit, that we try to find “our gift.” At those early stages, there is nothing wrong with that pursuit. A problem can emerge later on when we become overly focused and enamored with our particular gift at the expense of more important issues.

A few years ago, I had a conversation with the Lord, asking why He had me work for so many years in a pastoral role when that was not my primary spiritual gift. The pastoral gift has never been revealed as my primary assignment in any gift assessment test. Prophet has always come out on top of all the tests I have taken. The gift of pastor belongs to Jan. She is the best pastor I know. We make a great team. 

The day I had that conversation with the Lord He said, “I had you spend all those years in pastoral ministry, even though it was not your primary gift, so you would know how to create a healthy environment for the prophetic movement.” At the time, those words sounded presumptive to me, and they might sound that way to you as well as you read these words. Such are the ways of God.

I write every day. It is a personal discipline and has become the resource pool for several books and a few thousand blog articles. Not everything I write is prophetic like a predictive word. Most of what I write are I Corinthian 14 kinds of words to strengthen people with encouragement and comfort. Some of the Old Testament prophets we quote with regularity only spoke a predictive word or two over their lifetime. We were never designed or assigned to be a predictive prophetic dispensing machine. Waking up to the need to produce a predictive word each day is a fast lane to compromise and a loss of credibility. 

Our spiritual gifts are like seeds we plant in hopes of a fruitful harvest. If the environment where a seed is planted is not healthy the seed will not live long enough to create a generational harvest. I have come to realize the environment in which a gift is delivered is as important as the gift itself. They work together.  In the end, this is called balance. 

Drenched with the Dew of Heaven

In those times, when life feels dry and without the moisture of hope, when you are walking through what seems like an endless desert, a reminder of your true condition is important. The following is a portion of a blessing Jan wrote titled, “Blessing of a Sign.” It is condensed from Scripture found in Isaiah 37:30-32, Leviticus 25:21, and Zechariah 8:12-13.  Stand in the middle of your dry place and declare these words.

Hear God’s heart for you:

      The seed will be prosperous,

      the vine will give its fruit,

      and the ground will give increase,

      watered by the Dew of Heaven.

      So, I will save you,

      and you will be a blessing.

May you be saturated from the Dew of Heaven;

      may you have peaceful, secure growing

      conditions in order to take root

      and to yield its fruit of prosperity.

I bless you with seeds of peace—

      the grapevine heavy with fruit—

      a vintage, triple crop.

You have confirmation that God’s hand

      is upon you:

      you are the heir of His blessings—

      you are both a symbol

      and a source of blessing.

Traveling at the Speed of the Spirit

In a recent TED Talk, the presenter shared that, at some point in the future, hundreds upon hundreds of generations from today, we might travel into the far reaches of space in unimaginably powerful vehicles. Rockets that currently propel us using traditional sources of power cannot reach the speeds necessary to cross the vast expanses of outer space. These journeys are measured in light-years, not miles. The TED Talk presenter suggested we might somehow learn how to enter a parallel universe to move beyond the limitations of time and space that are present in our universe. 

God employed a form of supernatural travel for our ancestors, superior even to what was suggested in the TED Talk. It is superior because it is not limited to the dimensions of a theorized parallel universe. It moves people in the realm of the Spirit where time or space is not an issue.  Consider Philip the evangelist and what he experienced, "When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away. The eunuch never saw him again but went on his way rejoicing. Meanwhile, Philip found himself farther north at the town of Azotus" Acts 8:39-40). 

It is too easy to read the accounts of Philip or Enoch and leave them in the pages of scriptural history as isolated events, OK to talk about but not consider as part of our reality. Perhaps recognizing the possibility of such an event is not our greatest challenge. Our greatest challenge might be our unwillingness to believe this could really happen again. Even worse, we might roll our eyes at the possibility of this kind of miraculous event happening and think that voicing its consideration is equivalent to intellectual suicide. 

In all matters of science, faith, and a work of God’s Spirit will always be able to do more and do it more profoundly than the development of our greatest technologies. God wants us to believe in Him and not be gullible. He also wants us to know that what is considered impossible only becomes possible when we believe. 

The Winds of Personal Drama

Jan and I were in our local shopping mall and came across an arcade game called the Hurricane Simulator. It wasn’t tucked away in an arcade room. The machine was placed right on the main thoroughfare of the mall. The advertisement promises hurricane forces winds and a TV screen playing scenes of hurricane destruction to add both a visual and aural component to the experience. I wasn’t interested, only amused. I can only imagine what it would look like to someone who walked by the machine and saw a person inside with their hair flapping around in the wind and their eyes fixed on an imaginary scene of wind-born destruction.

I told Jan, “I know some people who carry a hurricane level of drama with them wherever they go even if no winds of drama exist outside the issues that are disrupting their mind. They just bring their storms with them.” We laughed and continued walking, recalling over the years, some dear souls who perpetually live in that disruptive mindset. At that moment, I also realized I have done the same thing from time-to-time. We can all carry our drama with us and let it mess with not only our peace but the peace of those who have to live with our dysfunction.

Maybe a better way to live would be to simply step out of our personal hurricane simulator and enjoy the peace of God. It is a peace we must choose to experience. God’s peace is not a false environment like the inside of an arcade machine. It is real and actually beyond our ability to explain or create. It promises to fill us and surround us no matter what is taking place. 

To experience this peace, we need to exercise our faith and step into its presence, exchanging our fear and doubt for God’s peace and security. The beautiful thing about God’s peace is that the admission price to experience its reality has already been paid. We only need to believe it is possible and then make a choice to leave the drama behind.