Life Through The Lens Of Immortality

The revelation of immortality in Christ Jesus, while technically preached by Jesus himself, is otherwise a fairly new revelation for the Body of Christ. Certainly there have been men and women throughout history who have both believed and accessed this reality, but for most of the rest of us, it is either entirely new or something we are on the journey to apprehend. For those who are skeptical or downright rejecting of this gospel message, it can often be because they believe it is inconsequential, a “side issue” in Christianity, or somehow unrelated to living out our faith. I suggest, however, the exact opposite—that the revelation of immortality is the primary means by which we as followers of Jesus Christ can walk in all the promises of God.

Yes, that’s a pretty bold statement, but there’s a reason good reason that I am saying this. Consider first of all that the primary issue mankind faces is that through the fall, sin entered us, and through sin, death—for as the Bible tells us, the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Now, when you understand that’s the primary problem that Jesus came to solve, every *other* problem becomes subsidiary to that. And in truth, it they really do—it’s just a matter of mindset.

Consider that all poverty is death in your finances. Relational brokenness is death in your relationship. Job loss is death in your employment. Even things like being unsure about what to do in a situation and needing wisdom could be viewed as death of your inner peace. Ultimately, most problems in life can in some way or other be characterized as a manifestation of death. Why does this matter? Because immortality is the solution.

How? Immortality is the result of the life of Jesus Christ constantly flowing in and through us, sustaining us in an ongoing manner. In every way that Christ sustains us, death is incapable of manifesting. As Jesus sustains us in our finances, we experience abundance there. As He sustains us in our relationships, we have vibrancy between one another. As He does the same with our jobs, our peace, with our belongings, our bodies, and more, we have abundant life, fruitfulness, and grace abounding in every area—all as a result of the life that Jesus Christ brings and constantly releases to us!

So how do we access this? First, it requires us to shift our mindset to understand that death is actually the problem, then to understand that Jesus is and has always been the solution for death in all of its forms. Second, we have to believe that He provided the solution for us to live forever. As we do this, and as we pursue immortality in our bodies, we will find it carries over into every other area of our lives. There are a few reasons for this. First, as we live in a greater measure of all God has for us, it will naturally touch every aspect of our lives. Second, it has to do with our faith. As we increase our faith and enhance what we expect from God, we will ultimately receive the results. Third, we have been positioned on earth and given dominion over it, so when we take dominion over death in our own bodies, how much more will that dominion extend to creation around us? Consider that death is really the biggest challenge that mankind faces. I mean, demons are a problem, but we’ve been given authority over them and can make them submit and flee in Jesus’ name. But death? That’s really where people get challenged. If you stand in front of a demon and start commanding them, you’ll notice that they respond (even if not always how you expect) to the name of Jesus. But if you stand in front of a dead body to raise it back to life? Well, historically speaking, most often nothing happens—which is part of why I wrote the book Faith To Raise The Dead, to help equip the Body of Christ to overcome in those situations. Overall I do believe there are a few reasons people tend not to return when we pray to raise them, but the point I am making here is that death is honestly a huge challenge for most believers, and in many cases a bigger challenge than dealing directly with the demonic.

If we really want to break through our faith-barriers and all that holds us back in life, then we have to increase the stakes. We must challenge our faith—and the best way to do that is to go after the BIG enemy, death. After all, the Bible tells us that death is the last enemy to be destroyed. That doesn’t mean we can’t have victory over it here and now—it just means that we have to put some effort into it, and we have to start setting our sights higher than we have before. There is a saying (I’m not sure who said it first) that goes, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you will land among the stars.” The idea here is similar. If you set your sights, and your faith, on immortality, defeating death in your body, then you have set your sights so incredibly high that at that point, anything else is easy in comparison. Furthermore, even if for some reason you don’t fully apprehend it, your faith is already going to be high for what God can do and you will certainly see Him move in every area of your life accordingly.

If you want to learn more about the promises of God in scripture regarding immortality, pick up a copy of my new book The Gospel of Life and Immortality today. The book is over 300 pages of rich content—explaining the scriptures, offering useful tips on how to navigate real-world issues, and providing practical steps to help access this revelation. It’s great for personal learning, and for those who are ready to dive in as a group, it can be gone through chapter by chapter in a group setting as well. Grab your copy and one for a friend today!

What We Tolerate, We Empower

I posted something on social media the other day about gratitude, and how important it is to be thankful to God for even small things (In this case it was God showing me that a supplement I had started taking contained an item I have a food allergy to, and I didn’t realize it when I started taking it). While some of the conversation the post generated was nice, one comment was unnecessarily-instructional, informing me how I needed to pray to deal with the food allergy—as though it had never occurred to me before that I’m not supposed to have food allergies and that God has planned significantly better for me. I replied in the most positive way possible—thanking the individual for reminding and encouraging me to pursue God’s best for my body and my overall health. My reply got me thinking, however. How often have I tolerated these food allergies? I’ve had them for years so I’m definitely used to them, and have developed eating habits around them. I have certain supplements I take when things get out of hand because over the years I have found they work well for me. But in the midst of my dealing with the problem as it comes and managing my life around it, how much am I tolerating it because I am used to it instead of addressing it on a spirit, soul, and body level to become totally healed and set free from it?

I don’t actually know, which is why this got me thinking even more. I already do inner healing sessions regularly (I currently work with a woman who is highly skilled in what she does and has been a God-send for me—check her services out at Risen Light Works), so I’ll plan to do one or two that really hone in on any emotional issues and beliefs I have that are contributing to it. That will at least help deal with some of the soul-level issues that contribute. I already have supplements worked out that help me, but what am I doing on a spiritual level to deal with it? Certainly I could deal with demons, but I generally do deliverance in conjunction with inner healing, so I already expect to deal with that. But how am I inviting allergies and/or contributing to the issue in a spiritual level? That’s worth looking at.

We have to remember that it’s not always the big things that cause us problems in life. Certainly big-ticket items like abuse in any form, traumatic events and memories, and massive life stressors negatively impact us, but they’re low-hanging fruit in that they’re really obvious and we don’t have to look far to see their effects in our lives. No, it’s the little things that are harder to notice. Song of Solomon 2:15 says, “Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom.” This verse is a really good reminder that while the big things like trauma, grief, abuse, and other pain can be big destroyers, quite often it’s the little things running around and messing stuff up in our lives. The little things are insidious because they become easy to ignore. A lot of little things can build up and collect over a length of time before anyone starts to pay any notice, but those little things truly do add up. A single termite doesn’t matter, but a bunch of termites will destroy a house.

In order to truly look at this issue, we have to look at the topics of sowing, reaping, and agreement. Sowing and reaping is an extensive subject, such that I have written entire book chapters about it in my book The Power of Impartation. You can also search the term on this website and find multiple other articles I have written about it for free so I won’t discuss it in depth here, but sowing and reaping is definitely a key. Agreements are a separate-yet-related issue. What I agree with I automatically sow into and reap, but how do agreements come into play with health problems?

Agreements have to do with things we come into alignment with. The way we align ourselves and what we align ourselves with causes attractive and repulsive forces in the spirit, and those things directly affect our lives in visible and invisible ways. If I come into mental assent with the presence of food allergies, then I am in unconscious ways deciding that those food allergies are permitted to remain in my body and negatively affect me. If I come into subconscious or unconscious agreement with the presence of allergies in my life, then I will have a hard time getting rid of them. Why? Because I’m the one giving them permission to stay!

So, now I need to identify ways I may be tolerating food allergies in my beliefs and actions. Do I take supplements because I’ve given up and am settling and tolerating them, or do I take them while I am *on the journey* toward wholeness? In honesty it’s probably a bit of both, but that’s where the heart-check comes in. How am I tolerating this in my life? Because what I tolerate, I empower.

That might seem like an unlikely statement—that the simple act of tolerating something bad empowers it—but there is no true neutrality in the Kingdom. There are people and even I believe spirit beings that try to remain neutral, but it’s an impossibility. We are either supporting light or darkness with our actions, but also with our inaction. Inaction has helped many dictators rise to power. Recent lockdowns and shutdowns in the past few years have been able to occur largely because of inaction—that we tolerate evil and wickedness and go along with it just enough to not resist. Passivity and tolerance of evil empowers it because it lets it run free without attempting to stop it. So the question I have to ask myself is “how am I tolerating food allergies?” And what other un-health am I tolerating in my life?

As we identify the things we are tolerating in our lives, unconsciously or subconsciously coming into agreement with, we can them break those agreements, stop tolerating them, and as a result we will even shift things like our physical health!
Often it begins with identification, but once you identify the problem, then you can do something to fix it. I encourage you to take a moment to run a sort of personal inventory on the little problems in your life. What kinds of things have you been tolerating recently? And what do you want to have happen instead?

The Truth Sets Us Free

The Bible tells us that the truth will set us free, and I participated in a really great example of that the past two days. As a float pool nurse, I get moved around the hospital regularly, so I have taken to praying each morning for God to assign me to the location I need to be on that day—and He has been faithful to do so each day. While at work those days, I had the opportunity to speak into the lives of some of the other nurses on the floor, and the results were pretty awesome!

Both nurses in question were having relationship problems, although entirely different in nature. With the first, I was able to explain a bit about how the soul functions in three separate parts—the mind, will, and emotions—and how when our emotions are storming out of control we have to make some choices with our will and choose our thoughts in a cold, calculated manner regardless of our feelings, and that as we do that, we can help shift how we feel in a situation. I also began to declare over her that her relationship problem was going to resolve and all will be well. By the end of the day, her countenance had changed—as had her relationship! The keys I had already given her were working!

The second of the two problems was a little more difficult and while I was able to speak some encouragement and hope into the situation, I was glad I got assigned to the same floor the next day. In fact, I almost didn’t, and at literally the last second my assignment got switched (it was so last minute I literally arrived late to the correct floor for the day) to where I had worked the prior day.

Both the nurses were really happy to see me, and we began our shift as usual with the normal daily tasks and care. During a lull in the day I spoke with the second of the two nurses who shared a bit more of how things progressed with her relationship the prior evening after we spoke—and while it confirmed some of what I had been saying the day before, it still wasn’t good. I reminded her that while she felt like things were hopeless, that a promise from God in Jeremiah 29:11 told her that she has a hope and a future, and encouraged her to shift her perspective to expect that they have a future together and that things will improve.

God was already giving out His freedom-releasing truth, but it gets better! A key part of the problem with her relational issue was actually the same as the first nurse the day prior—emotions and beliefs. The guy she was having difficulty with has a lot of unhelpful beliefs that are causing him problems, and causing her pain. I gave her similar advice on how to manage her side of the situation, but then encouraged her to pray for him so he could find a way out of his struggles.

As we discussed this, I pointed out Hebrews 6:12 which ultimately points out that it is through both faith and patient that we inherit the promises of God. She wasn’t understanding why things hadn’t changed in just a week or two, and I was able to show her how we have to persevere in our prayer and PUSH—Pray Until Something Happens!

As we continued to talk on the second day, I pointed out that she had already turned from negative direction to positive, and now it was walking out the positive. She just had to remain patient. I reminded her that Galatians 6:9 tells us, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” In the end, we just have to keep persevering. God answers our prayers—just sometimes it is piecemeal and not all at once.

I explained the day prior about emotional healing and how it sometimes happens in chunks and layers, not 100% all at once. I shared my friend Praying Medic’s book Emotional Healing in 3 Easy Steps (which she used that night), and I encouraged her to keep going.

By the time we were done, she felt light. I could feel the lightness. It was freedom because truth had set her free. And it was going to set her man free. And bring freedom to her, to him, and to those around them! Yaay God!!

The Rules of Speaking With God

Like the ideas for many of my blog posts, this one began with a conversation with a friend—in this case my buddy Steve. I was sharing with him that I was having a really hard time with the fact that another dear friend of mine not only didn’t get raised from the dead, but that I had a dream the morning of his funeral where he did get raised and when I woke up it took me a minute to realize I had been dreaming. A total mood killer. for the happiness I was waking up with. Anyway, I was telling Steve what God had shared with me about the situation, and how it was the first time in a long time that God told me something different than He normally does in dead raising situations (God always tells me the same thing—what a great job I’m doing, whether they return or not). Steve reminded me of something I knew but had forgotten, and something we have talked about on other occasions—that there are rules in play that may have permitted God to tell me something different this time than He normally does. I get this is an odd concept for most people, so let’s talk about the rules of speaking with God.

Whenever I talk about spiritual rules and laws, most people get offended. I wish it wasn’t true, but they do. Often, people seem to equate the existence of spiritual rules as being the same as living under Old Testament Law, the law of Sin and Death that Jesus came to set us free from. And maybe to some degree they are either the same or related. Its possible. But more to the point, when Jesus died and rose again, physical laws like gravity and rules of Newtonian Physics didn’t cease to exist—so why do we think spiritual ones would just vanish? For those interested in a deeper discussion of spiritual mechanics and how they influence our lives (and how we can use them for spiritual growth), pick up a copy of my book The Power of Impartation—I go fairly in depth on the subject there. For now, however, I want us to focus on one specific area, the rules that govern our interactions with God.

It sounds weird to think there are rules that govern how we interact with God, but there are. For example, Number 12:6-8A says, “he said, “Listen to my words: ‘When there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, reveal myself to them in visions, I speak to them in dreams. But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the Lord.'” God clearly explains how with most people God communicates in certain ways—riddles, visions, and dreams. However, because Moses sees God’s form, there is something different about how God can communicate with the man, so God does it face to face with him. Why does that matter? It isn’t because God isn’t interested in talking clearly to us—it’s because there are rules that dictate how the interactions can occur. Why else would there be prophecies about how one day in the future we would all be taught by God directly instead of through prophets and teachers (Isaiah 54:13; Jeremiah 31:33–34; Hebrews 8:10–11 and mentioned by Jesus in John 6:45)? It is because God wants to talk to us this way but can’t. At least not yet, not fully how He would like to, but we’re headed in the right direction.

Where else do we see this? All over the Bible. God has very specific things He wants to accomplish, but because there are rules that I don’t even entirely understand, He has to have angels give messages, sometimes cryptically, to have people do things they don’t entirely understand—things that probably would go more smoothly if God would just speak more directly and clearly. And many of us have had similar situations, right? Where God tells us something vaguely, or gives us a cryptic warning dream that we only manage to interpret with the benefit of hindsight, rendering the warning entirely useless. I mean, if God really cared, wouldn’t He give us a warning we can understand easily? He would love to because God is kind and loving and good. But He can’t, because of the rules.

God is limited by a combination of things. Often there are limits to what we are able to hear based on our current capacity and ability. Jesus mentioned this in John 16:12-13 saying, “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.” Jesus had more He wanted to tell them, but was limited by their capacity to bear, handle, or manage what He wanted to tell them. The same is true with you and me, and it limits what God can tell us. That is why God takes us from one level of truth to another. He might tell one person something that is true to a certain degree, and then years later as they grow in things spiritual God then says something else that might seem contradictory at first to the previous thing God had said—but God was not lying to the person. Rather, he was sharing one level of truth and when the person grew and was able to handle more, God could share a deeper truth. We see the same thing often with denominations. God will move people from one denomination to another as He is growing them because of the truths that they carry and the depths God wants them to grow into.

God is limited in some ways by the level of demonic resistance. Or maybe, instead of saying God is limited, it might be more accurate to say that our receiving capacity is limited in what messages do and don’t arrive to us successfully. Daniel is a great example of this. In Daniel 10, the man Daniel received a very troubling revelation, and then received an interpretation in a vision, and then he began to fast and pray because of how troubling it was. An angel shows up 21 days later but explains that he was sent the same day Daniel began to pray and seek an answer, but that a demonic prince, a fallen Beni-elohim, the prince of Persia, opposed him as he traveled in the spirit to bring the message, and Michael the Archangel, another Beni-elohim prince had to come and fight on his behalf so he could get the message to Daniel. The spiritual battle over revelation is actually pretty intense at times, and those who do inner healing and deliverance know this to be true. Sometimes during a session all spiritual communication simply shuts down as the enemy tries to prevent all revelation from coming through, and if persistent enough, usually the believers praying will break through and the revelation that brings freedom will begin again. It isn’t that God is unwilling to release freedom, but that the battle is real and the enemy sometimes go into overdrive to stop the communication.

I don’t claim to understand all of the reasons why these things are this way, but I do understand they are this way. There is something really good that knowing this does for us though. Because we now understand the underlying problem, we can do something about it. In the case of demonic interference, we can continue to pray, fast as necessary, and break through the demonic blockades. We can do things to enhance our own weight-carrying capacity in the spirit so that God can release more to us. Fasting and praying in tongues consistently are two good ways to do this, but not the only ones. We can also make sure to not just ask questions of God, but change the questions and change the way we word them and ask them. There is something about how we ask questions that sometimes frees God up to answer them differently. Maybe it’s that asking different questions bypasses ways the demonic were blocking them. Maybe it’s that asking different questions lets God answer them in a way we are already prepared to handle them. I don’t know why it works—I just know that it does. Sometimes there isn’t anything different we can do and we simply have to grow into a new place before we can get different communication from God. Whatever the reason, there is a reason, but as we remain steadfast and persistent in drawing near to God, we can trust that He will draw near to us and that our communication will grow deeper, clearer, and better over time.

Dad, I Want A Truck!

This last weekend was pretty awesome. I got to see my best friend who flew to Texas to preach at the Alvin Healing Rooms, got absolutely blasted by the power of God and had a pretty radical inner healing and deliverance experience during one of the meetings, and God confirmed a number of things to me that He has been speaking to me recently time and time again throughout the weekend (Special thanks to the Alvin Healing Rooms for hosting the event!). While there were so many different things God did for me alone this weekend, not to mention the dozens of others present who He also touched, I really want to hone in on something God was speaking to me about—that He is a good dad who wants us as His kids to understand what He is like.

My friend Steve has recently been reminding me that we really need to deal with our father wounds—the pains in our hearts related to our earthly fathers, as well as the incorrect perspectives and the wrong lessons we have learned about what fathers are like. We all have them—wildly inaccurate views of what being a father is like, and thus have equally inaccurate beliefs about what God, our heavenly Dad, is like. For instance, my dad wasn’t a bad father as a whole. He loved me, would tuck us kids in most nights at bed by literally tucking the sheets around us—and we’d then lay still for a while because we didn’t want to get the sheets un-tucked. My two brothers and I both did that too—because when we got tucked in by him, we felt loved. On the other hand, my dad had an anger problem. From knowing his dad, my grandfather, who was a kind of aloof man and hard to connect with emotionally, I would imagine that for my dad his own father relationship was fractured and that presented challenges for him when it came time to be a good father himself. This isn’t a judgment against my dad either—I believe my dad has done the best he knew how at the time, and when we know better we do better. God is still working on my dad like He is with you, me, and everyone else.

The reason I tell you all this is that because of the way my earthly dad was, one of the things I learned about fathers is that they’re angry, and that on some level, it is your job as a son to fear your dad. To be fair, my mom would wait until my dad came home so he could discipline us so the role kind of got pushed on him to a degree as well, but the end result what that I learned on a subconscious level that dad = fear. Likewise, when it came to dealing with my Heavenly Father, I’ve had the same fear. I mean, I once experienced a miracle of literal gemstones falling from Heaven and hitting my body (you can read about it in my book Gemstones From Heaven) and while I was trying really hard to enjoy the miracle, I was simultaneously really afraid God was going to drop a big one right on my groin. That alone should tell you that I have had some really messed up perceptions about what our Heavenly Father is like. I connected God with fear and pain, so what I expected from Him was, well, not very much.

Jesus, on the other hand, was my Big Brother. I’ve always felt close to him because he is kind. He loves me and cares about me and helps me heal my hurts and pains. And the Holy Spirit and I? We’re friends. But the Father? Well, deep down I’m always watching out for Him because I find it hard to trust Him. Why? Because I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop and Him to do something to justify the fear I feel toward “father.”

Well, God has been upgrading my beliefs, and right now He is working on my view of Him as Dad. My buddy Tyler said something this weekend that God was showing him, and it so ministered to me. He said that God was challenging him about how when one of his kids wants something, he goes out of his way to get them that thing as soon as he can—and God was like “If that’s what you’re like, what do you think I’m like?” It reminds me of that verse in Matthew 7:11 that says, “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” Well, he was like, “Okay Dad, I want a truck!” Well, he shared that with a few of us over a meal after the evening meeting, and I was like “That’s fantastic!” And really, it is. It is such a healthier view of God our Father than I have had for a while. So, I’m working on calling Him “Dad”. Why? Because the term “father” to me is formal and distant. I don’t call my earthly dad “father” so why would I distance God from me by doing that?

Well, not thirty minutes later, I decided to put this idea into practice. I had driven from outside of Austin to Alvin, an almost three hour drive, and figured I would find a place to sleep for the night after the meeting. Well, sitting at this restaurant I decided to pray a quick prayer. “Dad, I really want a place to stay tonight that I don’t have to pay for.” No more than three seconds had passed since I told my Heavenly Dad that when Brenda, the woman next to me, asked where I was staying for the night. I told her I hadn’t found a place yet and she made a nearby hotel recommendation—then following it up with “I haven’t stayed there myself, so I don’t entirely know for sure.” I told her “Well, I literally just finished praying about a place to stay right before you asked me, so if that place is what you suggest, that’s what I’ll do.” And truly, when we left I was going to go find that hotel and stay there for the night.

As Heavenly Dad would have it, just a few moments later she asked me “well, do you need to shower in the morning?” A strange question to some, maybe, but as a nurse I ask lots of weird questions so I’m pretty open about stuff. I told her no, that I had showered that afternoon right before I drove to Alvin, so I wasn’t necessarily planning on showering the next morning. She said, “Okay then, as long as you don’t need a shower . . .” and then she offered me a place to stay for the night at a local prayer room she runs that had couches and a bathroom—really all I actually needed for a decent night’s rest.

Well, the meetings were amazing, I got hugely touched by Heaven as I mentioned before, and after the meetings were done and I was driving home, the sky grew dark and it started raining. It then went from rain to a torrential downpour and I had to slow down because of the sheer quantity of water on the road. As I drove out of the storm it was early evening and the sun was low in the sky, and I wanted to see a rainbow. I began looking around for one but couldn’t see very far behind me and continue safely driving. Well, since God is teaching me this lesson about what He is actually like, I figured I’d give it another try. I prayed, “Dad, I want to see a rainbow!” I continued looking for a few moments and then pulled over. In between the time I prayed and pulled over (because it wasn’t there moments before), a beautiful double-rainbow filled the sky and I could see the whole arch from one side to the other (the pictures don’t do it justice). I could sense God confirming to me yet again that I need to change my view of Him as my Heavenly Dad and that when the Bible says things like “Ask whatever you wish in my name and it will be done for you (John 15:16b)” and “Ask and it will be given to you (Matthew 7:7a)” that God actually means it.

I am continuing this process of changing my view of what my Heavenly Dad is like. I’m having to look at why I believe the wrong things I believe about Him, look at how those ideas got there, and then be intentional about choosing to believe something different (as well as get healing from the hurts associated with those inaccurate beliefs). In this case, I’m also changing my expectations and am starting to expect better from Heavenly Dad than I have prior to now. It’s a process, but God is committed to transforming my view of Him to see Him for who He truly is! What am I doing with this knowledge? Well, the battery in my truck is dead, again, and the engine likes to cut out when you go slowly in reverse. I’d really like a blue crew cab 250/2500 truck that runs well, so my prayer right now is, “Dad, I want a truck!”

Don’t Be Led By Fear

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.22″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.25″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”|||” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.27.4″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]I was chatting briefly with another nurse on the intermediate care unit today and she was telling me how she is retiring soon to take care of her elderly parents, and that while she feels she is doing the right thing, she is really afraid that she might be making wrong decisions at the same time. She told me about all of the precautions she is taking with her parents related to the current year-long medical scare. And she asked me a question.

“Do you think I am going overboard?”

I didn’t really have the time to go into the immense corruption, proof of planning prior to the fact to release such a medical scare, the obvious and constant media lies, the immense dangers of the poison shot, and why random face textiles don’t solve any problems for healthy people.

What I was able to share was possibly more important by far, and it was a simple truth we all need to be reminded of sometimes. What I said was “Whatever decisions you make, don’t be led by fear.”

At the end of the day this woman is demonstrating great love to end her career early and make sure her parents have the best latter-to-end of life they can have. And yet if she makes ongoing decisions based out of fear she will be miserable doing it.

I explained briefly how she has useful medical knowledge that she can use, but that any time she finds herself getting afraid and making plans from that place, she needs to back up and start making decisions based on what she knows, not based on how she feels.

So many times in life we can get derailed by the enemy by giving into the lies in our own minds that push us into emotional fear-based decision-making instead of walking out life in peace even in bad situations because we realize we don’t have to be reactive to darkness—we can continue to make choices from a centered place and not give room to fear.

My encouragement to you is the same as I gave her. We all have lots of things going on in life, but this advice will never steer you wrong:

“Whatever decisions you make, don’t be led by fear.
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Ignorant No More: A Realistic View of Spiritual War

There is little I find more disheartening than when talking to people who should be mature believers but who are somehow still very much asleep to the spiritual realities around us. A recent conversation with a friend highlighted this to me. We were talking about some of the issues in the USA right now—the riots, media manipulation, child trafficking, rampant political corruption, and more. I mentioned that I expected some of these issues to worsen through and after the 2020 Presidential election due to many individuals who are pulling out all the stops to keep from being arrested and tried for treason, sedition, and other high crimes. My friend, who doesn’t like to deal with anything negative, said something like “Michael, can’t we pray and fix all of that? That’s such a hopeless view of things.” No, it’s a realistic view of things because, like it or not, we are in a spiritual war.

Anyone who has followed my blog for some time knows that I have pretty high expectations as far as the workings of God in our lives. Whether inner healing and deliverance, raising the dead, immortality, or spectacular miracles such as gemstones and feathers from heaven, oil, manna, and much more, I am constantly pushing forward to access all that God has prepared for us in Christ Jesus. And yet, it would be the height of foolishness and immaturity for me to ignore the spiritual war we are in, all in favor of focusing only on the positives. In fact, while I value Bethel for many of the good things they bring to the Body of Christ, that is one of their major weaknesses. They don’t like to deal with the demonic (nor teach people how to) because they, of their own admission, don’t want to “give glory” to demons by acknowledging their existence. Well, demons would like nothing more than for us to ignore them because they try pretty hard to remain hidden. Failing to train believers to cast out demons isn’t maturity. Ignoring negative-sounding things in favor of positive-sounding ones only goes so far before it causes problematic imbalances.

Let’s be honest. Do I enjoy knowing that human trafficking exists in this nation in part to provide human sacrifices for people who willingly serve Lucifer so that they and demons both can gain power in the earth? No—nothing about that is enjoyable, and it can be disheartening to know that most of the time there is little more I can do about it than pray. Yet, remaining ignorant doesn’t help those people, and it won’t save the next victim either. Ignoring the undeniable fact that we are in a spiritual battle only serves to tie my own hands and reduce my effectiveness in dealing with the enemy.

My buddy Steve reminded me once that in every interaction he has had with angels during any kind of demon encounter that they were always armed with swords. And the reason that angels carry swords is because they know they are in a war and are fighting an enemy. We have been given spiritual weapons to fight this same spiritual war, and yet sometimes we teach and/or are taught to lay those weapons down because we are too negative or focusing on things that aren’t nice to think about. We need to learn how to be awake to the designs of the enemy, fight the battles in front of us, and yet also fix our eyes on the prize. There is a reason that Jesus is the desire of the nations, but even as we pursue Him we need to remember that as Revelation 1:16 shows us, even Jesus has a sword.

This past December 10th I had to put my dog Rowan down. She was the first dog I had ever had as an adult, and while she was a bit anxious at times, she was a sweetheart. Any time I was doing inner healing and deliverance with someone she wanted to be in the room. And the reason we had to put her down? 100% due to witchcraft attacks on our family. In fact, a few weeks prior to that a witch spoke to me and told me they were going after her because they wanted me to suffer. Super thoughtful, right? Ultimately, Rowan started having tonic-clonic seizures that we couldn’t get under control, then post-ictal she started trying to attack us, and since we couldn’t predict when she would have them it became unsafe for her to be around the kids, so we put her down. It absolutely broke my heart, and the rest of the family was just as devastated. And all because we are in a spiritual war that has real enemies and real consequences.

Sure, we can pray for God to fix things, and believe me, from the time the witch threatened me I was praying over my dog and my family—and yet we still lost the battle. It must be nice to be one of those people who can delude themselves into believing that life with Jesus is all roses and bliss, but that’s not reality. The reality is that while in His presence there truly is fullness of joy, we are still in a spiritual war and we don’t win every battle.

For me, that fact simply spurs me on harder to mature and become all that I must become in Christ to be both a sword against our spiritual enemies and a shield in front of my family and friends, but not everyone responds to problems the same way. What would have happened if the prophet Daniel had decided that fasting until an answer came wasn’t worth it, or wasn’t needed because “finished works” theology told him that fasting isn’t needed any more? I rather doubt that Michael the Chief Prince and the angelic messenger in Daniel 10 would have been able to win against the Prince of Persia if Daniel had not dedicated himself to fasting and prayer during that time.

If we choose to remain asleep to the war then we are relegating ourselves to the sidelines and making ourselves of little effect, and more often than not when sidelined we will either be ignored by the enemy because we are so harmless or we will be attacked relentlessly and destroyed. And neither outcome is acceptable.

I’m not saying we need to become hyper-suspicious of everything around us, nor am I saying that we can never have fun. No, it is important that we learn to live from a place of inner rest, enjoying the goodness, love, joy, and peace of God, and yet from that internal position rise up to put a stop to the darkness that encroaches upon this world God has given us responsibility over. Yes, the elections are important. And yes, the corruption in our political sphere, the Covid-lockdowns, the riots, and much more all need to end. But all of those things need to be put in context of a spiritual war that has been waged for thousands of years (and possibly even for millennia).

Earth isn’t the only battlefield. There are spiritual battles that occur all the time in star systems in far off galaxies and in other dimensions. Our prayers actually have ripple effects through the multiverse and across dimensions into other realms and realities that shift the tide in favor of God’s people throughout all of time and eternity. Our prayers are powerful and accomplish far more than we realize, but it is time that we realign our perspective on reality. It is time that we mature enough that we can both remain idealistic about the plans that God has for us to bring us prosperity and goodness and yet also effectively fight and win against the powers of darkness that seek to stop the promises of God from ever coming to pass. I can’t pretend to know what that will look like for each individual, but we need to examine our hearts, be open to the Holy Spirit dealing with our immaturities, intentional ignorance, and our fears, and learn to stand strong against the evil one. For, as Ephesians 6:12-13 reminds us, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. 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.”

Pursuit Leads To Power

I grew up in the Episcopal Church (my dad is an Episcopal priest), and was introduced to the Charismatic as a whole when I was about 20 years old and in college. Early on, I began a wild pursuit of the miraculous, and during this time I heard lots of different opinions about how to walk in signs, wonders, and miracles, and I want to share with you all some observations and lessons I have learned over the past decade and a half since.

First, I would often get advice from people about how to operate in miracles. They included a lot of random, often contradictory, at times unscriptural, and occasionally downright nonsensical suggestions:

1. Pray to walk in healing, signs, wonders, and miracles
2. Pray to know God
3. Believe in faith that I already have it
4. Praise God for the fact that I already walk in it all even if I don’t really, as an act of faith that I will at some point
5. Stop praying for miracles because I need to get to know God instead
6. Spend time with Jesus, because that’s what the disciples did that set them apart
7. Seek God’s face instead of His hand
8. Go witness/evangelize to people because signs, wonders, and miracles are the work of the Evangelist.
9. Only some people can do miracles, so if I am an Apostle then it will happen, but otherwise it’s just not God’s will for my life.
10. In the Old Testament it was Prophets who operated in signs, wonders, and miracles, so Prophets should be the ones operating in them today.
11. Get filled with the Holy Spirit because Acts 1 says that’s how I will be filled with power.
12. Since I have already been baptized in the Holy Spirit I am good and have all I need, especially since the Bible says I have already been given everything pertaining to life and godliness.
13. Stop being so focused on miracles, as they will lead you astray, and get back to the Word.
14. Get in the Word because reading the Bible will give me an impartation for the miraculous.
15. Pray in tongues
16. Praise in tongues (in this context, they just meant meant “do tongues to music”)

I’m sure there were more, but I hope you see the problem here. That’s over a dozen different things that one should or shouldn’t do to walk in miracles—and while some of the suggestions above are really good, half the time they contradict one another or just make no sense. Understandably, this left me awfully confused about which of the different things I should be doing to walk in miracles, and 15 years later I still greatly desire to do more miracles in spite of having seen some cool healings, signs, wonders, and miracles already.

It took me a number of years to wade through all of the well-intentioned theological double-speak because I was so new to the prophetic and the power of the Holy Spirit, but I eventually figured out some things. One of the things that really strikes me as incredibly illogical are the people who say things like “Just follow Jesus and it will happen” or “Seek His face and not his Hand. Seek the giver and not the gift.” The Bible doesn’t actually agree.

In fact, in Matthew 7:7-11 it says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

Think about that. The Bible (and not just any part but Jesus personally) literally instructs us to ask for things we desire, and that if we do, we will receive them. Anyone who tells you to stop seeking after the miraculous, kindly and gently ignore their advice.

The other one that really gets me is “Don’t focus on that stuff (the miraculous) because it will draw you away from God if you focus on it too much.” I’m sorry, but Jesus spent multiple years going around teaching his disciples to heal and do signs, wonders, and miracles, and suddenly when I want to do the same things Jesus did, it’s a problem that I focus on it and want to walk in it?? Jesus certainly didn’t agree with that line of thinking. In John 14 Jesus said that we should believe in him, and if we can’t take him at his own word, then we should believe on the *evidence* of the miracles that he did. As followers of Jesus, we are supposed to walk in miracles.

My friend Steve once pointed out on social media that while Mark 16 does say that “these signs will follow those who believe,” it’s not meant to be a passive thing but something that brings action. Think of it this way. Let’s assume for a minute that the Holy Spirit dwells within each one of us (which He does), and that because of that we can all operate in the miraculous (which we can). If I were to assume that because I’m a nurse that all of my patients will improve but I never actually do any interventions to help them get better, it would be absurd to expect positive results. Likewise, if we assume we can walk in miracles but never exert any effort to actually do so, it would be improbable to expect that we will see any occur.

I’m not saying one has to purposefully enter dangerous situations or go evangelize on random city streets for hours each day for miracles to occur (although both theoretically could yield some results). What I am saying is that if we never step out to pray for anything to occur, why are we expecting to sit on our laurels and have miracles just fall in our laps? Passivity has never been the way of the Kingdom of God. John 11:12 says, “And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.” If we want to see miracles happen, we need to actually do some miracle-ing. Not-praying for them, not-expecting them to happen, not-seeking them, not-talking about them, not-doing-anything-related-to-them is a highly unreliable way to experience the power of God, whereas if we do the opposite of all of those things, we will see God move.

The Christian life is all about partnership with God. When God wants to do things, He partners with us. In the same vein, miracles shouldn’t only be a passive thing we wait to have occur to us. Certainly there are times God will do things in times and ways we don’t expect, but as a whole we should be actively engaging the supernatural instead of waiting for it to happen to us.

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Why God Does Not Stop Evil

Some people struggle with understanding why God “lets” bad things happen. The “why didn’t God stop it” question has to do with a lack of understanding about sovereignty and God being in control. If God was “in control” like many say, then God is profoundly evil. It would mean that God intentionally causes rape, murder, and all kinds of perverse and wicked things in the earth. And even if we make the argument that God doesn’t personally perform them but “allows” others to perform them out of His infinite wisdom and grace, then God is basically a sadist, taking pleasure in the pain and suffering of others. But that’s not who God is, what He is like, or how any of this actually even works. God isn’t in control—or at least not remotely how people like to think. And this is actually the best explanation for why God does not stop evil.

The idea of sovereignty as is usually applied to God is that God is sovereign which means He is in control of everything in creation and thus whatever happens goes according to His will. This is inaccurate on multiple points. First, sovereignty has to do with being the highest authority over a domain—and that’s all it means. Note that I didn’t say “highest authority where everything goes his way”. I simply said “highest authority”. God as sovereign simply means that there is no one with a higher level of authority that God. But that doesn’t mean everything goes the way God wants it to.

We can look at earthly examples and see this is true of any sovereign. Kings and emperors are also sovereigns—the highest authority in their domain. If a king makes a decree and not everyone follows that decree, does that threaten the king’s sovereignty? Does it somehow make him less of a king because someone disobeyed the order? Of course not. Someone breaking the royal law doesn’t change the king’s rulership in any way—it simply means that if the king wants his rulership to have any value, he has to set up enforcers throughout his kingdom—those who enforce the rules the king has put in place.

We have only to look to the first three chapters of Genesis and we can see that God doesn’t always get His way in spite of the fact that He is Sovereign over everything in all creation. Adam and Eve disobeyed His instructions in the third chapter of Genesis, and mankind has been disobeying Him ever since, but that doesn’t mean that God’s rulership is threatened. In fact, not only is not threatened, but in Christ Jesus, God has appointed us who were once His enemies (Romans 5:10) as chosen enforcers of His Divine Will in the earth. God isn’t in control and things don’t always go His way, which is where we come in.

Did you know that the Bible tells us that it is largely up to us humans to decide what happens in the earth? Psalm 115:16 says, “The highest heavens belong to the Lord, but the earth he has given to mankind.” Again in Amos 3:7 it says, “Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets.” God has chosen to partner with us to influence the earth realm, even to the point that God doesn’t do anything without our involvement in some manner. And this is an important fact to take note of.

God set up laws in the fabric of creation that govern how the multiverse works. God is just, in that those laws govern all creation, He follows His own laws, and those laws don’t care who you are–they are impartial in their function. For whatever reason God gave mankind authority over the earth, and this means that He is bound by that decision as well. If God wants to do things in the earth He has to involve us in some way, so when we think that God hs somehow “allowed” evil, what has in fact happened is that we have allowed evil.

This is a hard pill for some to swallow because it means that mankind, then, is generally responsible for the ills that befall us and not God. It is frustrating at times to be sure, as demons make use of spiritual laws that we are often ignorant of to cause affliction, torment, and ultimately death, loss, and destruction—yet even then, they typically do it with our involvement as well.

For example, if someone has unhealed emotions, then demons use those unhealed places to set up a stronghold inside the person, then they expand their dominion inside that individual. Demons utilize the law of sowing and reaping to attract evil to that person over time through the position of their stronghold, and it works because they are using, even if in a twisted way, spiritual laws to gain “legal” occupancy inside a person. When bad things happen and we perceive that God doesn’t stop it, it’s because demons have expanded the realm of their control inside that person which allows the demons to afflict that person in various ways and ultimately we not only haven’t stopped it, but have made room in our hearts for that evil to exist.

The demonic make great use of the authority of humans in the earth to cause pain and suffering, and they do it by influencing our free will. The Holy Spirit does similarly, influencing us to use our free will to bring life all around us, but He is kind and not manipulative, unlike the enemy. The Holy Spirit invites us into a partnership with Him whereby we can together release transformation into the lives and circumstances around us.

And while we can make the argument that God doesn’t stop evil because it’s our job to, we also need to recognize that God actually stops evil a LOT. We don’t have half of a clue of the many myriad things God has protected each one of us from, but the moment something does make it through, we tend to get upset and blame God for “not stopping” it. No, God gave dominion of the earth realm to us. If something makes it through, it’s our job to do something about it based on the authority He has given us instead of blaming Him for us not adequately taking dominion in our own lives.

This past December we had to put our dog Rowan down. There was a known spiritual component to the problems that led up to the end result, and the entire thing was very upsetting as a result—both because we loved (and still love) her, but also because the spiritual issues that surrounded her death screamed “the enemy won this battle”. While I normally never blame God for anything, I found my own heart tested on this subject, as I found myself thinking from time to time things like “God, why didn’t you stop this?” The truth is that I don’t believe that God is in control and I haven’t for years, but when circumstances come up, it tests what we actually believe and reveals hidden motives in our hearts. God didn’t kill my dog, and He certainly didn’t cause me and my family pain in order to teach me a lesson about persistent subconscious and unconscious beliefs. While God in His infinite goodness certainly works terrible situations like this for my good, He isn’t causing it, isn’t influencing it to happen, and isn’t responsible for it. Humans were responsible for partnering with the enemy to bring harm to my family, and my responsibility lay, at least to a degree, with failing to protect a member of my family.

I don’t say or share any of this to bring condemnation on anyone so if anyone is hearing that from this story I am sharing, that isn’t the point at all (and I don’t condemn myself for it either). I am trying to illustrate that when bad things happen to us, it isn’t because God is permitting evil, it isn’t because we are being tested like Job, and it isn’t because God is giving us a heavy burden to bear because He will only give us what we can handle. All of those are highly erroneous beliefs developed from a poor understanding of God’s nature, and they have no similarity to who God is or what He is actually like.

The Bible says in Proverbs 26:2 that a curse that has no cause cannot come to light, meaning that if there is no access in our lives that negative things cannot have power to influence us. The issue many people have isn’t that a curse is causeless—it’s that we don’t have a clue what the cause is, and assume there isn’t one when the cause is just well-hidden. Many times we don’t know that we have access points for the enemy and the enemy wants to keep it that way. God, however, reveals ways that we can destroy the access that the enemy has in our lives so He can bring us into increasing realms of true freedom. In this process, God also reveals to us the authority He has given us to destroy works of darkness (Luke 10:19) so that we can enforce His abundant life in the earth.

The Glaring Failure of the End Times Church

Most Charismatic and/or Charismatic-leaning churches and denominations tend to agree that we are in the “End Times.” The point of this article isn’t to argue whether we are or aren’t in that era, but to look at a serious failure of the Church as a whole—a failure that for reasons I don’t understand hasn’t managed to correct itself in roughly 2,000 years.

To see what this glaring failure is, let us take a look at John 11:23-26, which says:

“Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’
Martha said to Him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.’
Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?’

See it yet? If not, let me share it with you.

Even though 2,000 years ago, while he was here on earth,Jesus corrected someone on their end-times beliefs, we are still looking toward a last-day resurrection instead of living it out right now. Yes, the glaring error of the church is our end-times view of the resurrection.

Think about it—in John 11, Martha is upset her brother has died. She says to Jesus “I know I will see him again when everyone gets resurrected at the end of time.” Jesus replies by basically saying “Yeah, I get that, but not only can he live right now, but he will live right now” and then goes on to demonstrate then and there what he just told Martha by raising Lazarus from the dead.

The thing I can’t understand is why, 2000 years later, we are still so focused on the end-of-days resurrection that most people completely ignore Jesus’ response to Martha. It has huge implications for our beliefs! He didn’t argue with Martha’s theology or tell her there wouldn’t be an end-of-days resurrection, which leaves us to assume that there will be one. However, we have passed over the fact that Jesus ignored it because when He is present, an end-times resurrection becomes completely irrelevant. How so? Let’s take a look at what Jesus replied to her.

“He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.” In normal-day language, he said “If you die, then you will be raised from the dead and live again, right here, right now. If you are still alive and believe in me then you will never die.”

News flash! The Church has been so focused on the last-day resurrection that we have all but completely ignored the fact that Jesus literally told us that if we believe in Him then we never have to physically die!! And if we don’t die, we will never need an end-times resurrection. Think about the ramifications of that! This is the glaring failure of the end-times church—we have learned to give up when Jesus has told us over and over again that He has planned something totally different for us.

If we don’t actually have to die physically, then wouldn’t we start living our lives differently? Instead of planning for retirement for when we grow old and feeble, would we start making plans like Caleb in the Old Testament? He wasn’t reclining on pillows while someone woke him up after his mid-morning nap and wiped the drool from his chin. While he was in his 80’s he both commanded and led a war charge to take over a new territory—not the picture of someone who had one foot in the grave.

If people like Caleb in the Old Testament can access this while living under an inferior covenant, isn’t it time that we, the children of God, living under the new covenant that gives life, do far better? It is time we get the revelation of the gospel that Jesus and Paul preached—the gospel of life and immortality (2 Timothy 1:10-11) that says that because Jesus has taken the keys of death, hell, and the grave and has destroyed the written code of laws set against us, that we are no longer subject to physical death and have the right and authority to command life into any and every situation. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. It’s been 2000 years, isn’t it time we started doing something about it?

To read more of God’s plan for our future and how to get there, grab a copy of my book “The Gospel of Life and Immortality,” available on both Kindle and in Print on Amazon.