Rewrite The Stars – A Different Governance

I was out late with a friend one evening before my move to Ohio.  We went to a sort of Portland-y food-fusion restaurant and had dinner and these margarita-like wine-slushy drinks that, for someone like me who doesn’t really enjoy wine, actually tasted pretty good.  We talked about a wide range of things, but during the conversation we ended up talking about the movie The Greatest Showman, and she mentioned that she really loved the song “A Million Dreams“.  Having not seen the movie, I wasn’t sure if I knew the song (but it turns out later in listening to it that I actually did recognize it, and the song is absolute fire).  As conversations go, this ended up sliding us sideways into talking about other songs from the movie, and I began telling her about how I really love the song “Rewrite the Stars“, and what the Lord began speaking to my heart the first time I heard it.  I wrote a bit about this in my recent article titled “A New Energy System“, discussing how we are meant not to be governed by the sun, moon, and stars (and other celestial bodies) but rather to govern over them, and in talking about the song with my friend, it made me think of some things I hadn’t shared in that article.  I want to take a look at them here.

If you want to listen to the song you can catch it here

Having not seen the movie I’m not overly familiar with the plot, but from the little I gather there appears to be a bit of a Romeo-and-Juliet-style star-crossed-lovers scenario, which leads to the scene where this song gets sung.  I’m not sharing the entire song here, but the lyrics that stood out to me and how this song communicates part of what I was saying in that blog.

“You claim it’s not in the cards
And fate is pulling you miles away
And out of reach from me
But you’re here in my heart
So who can stop me if I decide that you’re my destiny?

What if we rewrite the stars?
Say you were made to be mine
Nothing could keep us apart
You’d be the one I was meant to find
It’s up to you, and it’s up to me
No one can say what we get to be
So why don’t we rewrite the stars?
Maybe the world could be ours, tonight

. . . . . . .

How do we rewrite the stars?
Say you were made to be mine
Nothing can keep us apart
‘Cause you are the one I was meant to find
It’s up to you, and it’s up to me
No one can say what we get to be
Why don’t we rewrite the stars?
Changing the world to be ours . . .”

 

The song is all about how our destiny is guided and determined by the stars, which is a reference to astrology and astrological determinings, in that the positions of the stars and the messages found in those things are what will determine our path in life.  The first line is a reference to Tarot, with the idea that one’s fate and destiny is tied to what casting cards through divination magic will reveal to us about our future, and as it continues it mentions how fate is keeping the two apart.  Whether through astrology, tarot, or other magical systems, the concept is that fate is this mystical force of pre-determination that has already decided what will and will not occur in our lives.  We could liken it a bit to God preparing good works in advance for us to do, but the difference is that fate is an impartial force whereas our heavenly Father makes plans and then walks them out with us relationally, not stooping to the method of control and removal of free will that fate employs.  Which is part of why I like these lyrics so much.  Astrology, divination, and related oracular arts are all about tying us into determined futures and linking our power and authority and our bloodlines into the future that the fallen angels want to create, and the fact is they cannot do that without our assistance, which is why some of these practices are so imperative for them to seduce people into.

On the other hand, our Heavenly Father has given us power and authority over all of these things, and we get to partner with Him to walk out a much higher calling.  So as the song says, “what if we rewrite the stars?”  The one character seemed to understand that “no one can say what we get to be.”  The demonic and their divinatory practices do not get to overwrite, override, or control our path as followers of Jesus, nor should the celestial bodies, as we are meant to govern over them, not be ruled by them.

The song goes on to ask the question “How do we rewrite the stars?”  And isn’t that what we as believers need to understand?  How do we as followers of Jesus, ones who have been raised up to rule and reign with Him, remove ourselves from under the reign of creation and learn to govern over it?  How do we rewrite the stars?  How do we change the means by which we function in the cosmos, no longer being bound by their mandates and decrees?  I don’t have the answers to all of this, but I do believe that it begins within us.  In my book The Gospel of Life and Immortality I talk about the macrocosm of the universe and the microcosm of the body, and how we first engage the transfiguration of our bodies as the firstfruits, and then from there we will see all creation become transfigured as we, the sons and daughters of the Most High release it from its bondage to decay and death.  I encourage you to pick up a copy of the book, and if you are interested in this subject you can also check out my friend Fiorella Giordano’s course on the New Creation Continuum which discusses related matters.  Be blessed!

A New Energy System

A number of years ago I listened to a conference recording from an event at Seattle Revival Center in which one of the speakers essentially prayed for everyone to become disconnected from the energy matrix of our universe.  At first, this prayer was confusing as I didn’t understand its purpose.  However, as I pondered it further, things became clearer.  It seems strange to think that we would want to disconnect from the energy within the cosmos—that of the sun, moon, and stars, as their various energies all influence our lives on both obvious and subtle levels.  The goal behind this prayer?  To govern over the cosmos instead of being ruled by it.

The concept that the cosmos is governing over us isn’t that difficult to find even in the Bible.  If we look in Genesis 1:14-19 we see God creating what the Bible refers to as “lights”, which in this passage reference what we understand to be the sun, moon, and stars, and Genesis 1 says that they were given authority to govern over the day, night, and to separate light and darkness.  And yet, while God gave those cosmic forces authority to govern certain aspects of creation, we as sons and daughters of God are not meant to be ruled over by celestial bodies.  Certainly we experience a certain measure of their rhythms through times and seasons, but we are meant to be able to transcend those rhythms, not to be governed over by them.

This is one of the reasons why astrology is an unhealth practice for the follower of Jesus.  If we are not ruled over by the various celestial bodies, then it would be impossible for astrology to work.  After all, astrology is generally based on the premise that our position in the universe and the energies from the various stars relative to our position influence the day to day events of our lives, and particularly this is governed on a personal basis on our individual position in the cosmos when we were born.  After all, what we think of as a static location as a planet in the cosmos is roughly the equivalent of a tiny small spinning ball bearing on a rotating top that is whirling around a whirlpool in the bed of a truck that is making concentric ovals as it navigates the parking lot of a circular stadium.  In other words, nothing about our movement through the cosmos is static or “in one place” and even on a scientific level it is possible that the gravitational forces of these various stellar bodies influence us each in some small way.  And while an individual star might not make that much of a difference, tens of thousands of stars added together could reasonably have more considerable effects.  And yet, we aren’t meant to be governed by those forces, but rather as sons and daughters of God we are meant to rule and reign with Jesus Christ over all spiritual and cosmic forces.

The discussion here isn’t really about astrology, but about how to disconnect ourselves from the energy matrix that astrology works under.  After all, the reason astrology works is precisely because humanity has historically been governed by the stellar bodies in question and the spirits behind them.  As sons and daughters of God whose job it is to release the cosmos from its bondage to decay (Romans 8:20), we cannot expect to significantly influence the current system if we are bound by its rules and regulations.

Hebrews 1:3a tells us much about the energy system we live under, and there is much we can learn from it.  It states, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.”  This verse is pregnant with meaning.  First, the son is the radiance, or light energy that comes from God.  Second, it says he sustains everything, which means to continually keep things alive on an ongoing basis.  Third, He does so by his “powerful word.”  A word is a frequency or vibration or energy.  If we put this all together, it basically means that the powerful being of light energy who releases this power from God keeps everything in all creation alive continually by the ongoing emanations of energy that He emits.  John 1:2 also tells us that Jesus is the Living Word who is the fabric of all creation, and from Him all life is derived.  Acts 17:28a says it this way, “For in him we live and move and have our being.”  If for some reason Jesus were to cease emanating His glory into all creation, then we would instantly stop existing.  Science has proven that all matter vibrates, but scientists have posited that it is possible to reach a temperature so cold that matter ceases to vibrate.  When water freezes, we consider it solid, but it forms a still-vibrating crystalline matrix.  At absolute zero, a temperature equivalent to -273.15 C or –459.67°F, some believe it possible to cease all vibration, but I find this improbable.  Why?  The life-energy of Jesus sustains all things, so I find it highly improbable that someone would be able to negate that life energy via technology that exists and works because of that same life energy.

Ultimately, what all this talk about vibrations and the energy of the cosmos means for us is that we need to be conscious of the fact that our goal is to live outside of the constraints of the energy of this realm.  In Genesis 1, God created light on the first day (Genesis 1:3), but it was only on the fourth day (Genesis 1:14) where God created the sun and moon and stars.  We have been living under the power of the created light of Genesis 1:14 when we need to live from the creative light of Genesis 1:3.

If we look back at the garden of Eden in Genesis 2:8-9, we see that all the fruit bearing trees were given for food, but the tree of life was the one that was designed to give life.  This means that the rest of the food God provided wasn’t meant to provide us with the ability to survive, but rather for our pleasure.  In fact, according to Strongs Lexicon, the word “Eden” means “pleasure” or “delight.”

God is bringing this revelation of His abundant life forward at this time, and as He does so, I believe we will learn how to disconnect from the created energy/created light system and tap more deeply into the creative light and creative energy that proceeds directly forth from His mouth.  After all, Jesus himself said “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God”.  There is a promise given to us in a few places in scripture where we will not require food or drink to sustain ourselves.  That doesn’t mean we can’t or won’t, but that as I mentioned above. it is for our pleasure and not for sustenance.  In Matthew 4:4 Jesus quoted a verse out of Deuteronomy to Satan saying, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”  Jesus already knew that it is possible to live on substances other than food.  In fact, He recognized in John 6:51 that it is the “bread that comes down from heaven” that we are to eat instead

If this subject of two systems of energy, one that puts us under subjection to itself and another we are meant to use to govern over the one one is of interest to you, or if you want to hear more about how we can live unbound from the energy of this world system that requires us to consume food in order to live, or if you simply want to go deeper in the mysteries of all of the promises of God, I encourage you to pick up a copy of my book The Gospel of Life and Immortality.  I devote an entire chapter to discussing this topic of energy, light, and how man can live from the Word of God as a higher fuel source for our bodies.  You can also dive into my friend Fiorella Giordano’s course on the New Creation Continuum which discusses related matters.  Be blessed!

 

Jesus, Why Do You Love Me?

For anyone who has followed The Kings of Eden for any length of time, you will know that I tend to write a good bit about personal transformation—inner healing, deliverance, mind renewal, and doing these things with fragmented parts of the soul. I do this because I believe it is a vital part of the life of any follower of Jesus, and that if we want to truly run the race marked out for us as Hebrews 12:1 tells us, we must also do what it says in that same passage to throw off every hindrance and sin. Now, if I never put any of my own teachings into practice then not only would I quickly run out of things to write about on these subjects, but I wouldn’t see any of the benefits myself. I want to share with you something that happened in the past few weeks when I took some time to sit with Jesus and process something I was finding myself questioning inside—something that multiples of parts were asking in that moment and that in some ways I find myself asking from time to time as well: “Jesus, why do you love me?”

It’s such a simple question and at the same time a deeply profound one. Because why does Jesus love us? Because it’s easy for me to look at my own life and see the unlovely things. It’s easy for me to judge myself, to look at things I’m ashamed of, ways I have hurt other people, and identify the things about me that simply don’t match up with His kindness, goodness, and love. And you know what makes it even more scandalous? When I talk to Him about it, He always confirms not just that He loves me, but that He is proud of me

What I settled on in that moment with Him is something also somewhat simple yet profound—that Jesus loves me simply because He determined to. You see, I think that even outside of the fact that the Bible explicitly states it, we all know on some level that no amount of our good deeds can ever earn us God’s love or favor or His pride or pleasure in us. Which means that Jesus loves me simply because he decided to love me. And if He decided to love me aside from anything I said or did, then nothing I say or do will be able to remove that love because it was never a determining factor to begin with. My behavior and thoughts and life choices were never part of the equation to begin with! And that should be a really freeing realization to us—not because it means we now have a license to sin because it somehow doesn’t matter because that’s just foolish. It means that none of the ways that I make mistakes or mess up in life have the ability to change a single thing about His love because they were never part of the decision-making process. It means that I can *trust* in His love for me.

Then I felt like the Holy Spirit directed me to think about raising children. I helped raise step-grandkids over the past decade and a half, and so while I don’t have kids of my own yet, I am familiar with raising children. What the Holy Spirit began to speak to me about was the fact that when one of the grandgirls did something that upset me or was disobedient or maybe was even just clumsy and spilled something on the carpet, it didn’t change my love for them. Was there discipline? At times there was. But it wasn’t because I was angry at them (or at least if in that moment I was parenting from a healthy space it wouldn’t be)—it would be because the discipline was meant to teach them something so they would learn and grow and change, not simply for the purpose of punishment. That meant that discipline also rarely involved pain. I’m not a fan of spanking as a general whole because to me, beating a defenseless child is not a healthy or appropriate means of behavior modification in most situations. The time one of the kids almost walked into traffic I was quite comfortable letting them associate that danger with pain, but for almost any other situation I don’t believe that pain is a tool of discipline. And I don’t think our Heavenly Father is that way either. Why? Because if I can think of it, He already thought of it, and I think it would be arrogant to presume I’m a better parent than Him.

As the Holy Spirit was showing all of this to me, all I could do was cry. And in reality everything I am sharing takes far more words to communicate than what He spoke to my heart in just a few moments, but He is so incredibly kind to me, and I often feel that He is far kinder to me than I deserve—but again, isn’t that the point? That I deserve it because He determined I did, not because of anything special about my actions or choices, which also means that I can’t disqualify myself either.

This past October I was honored to be invited as a guest speaker on my friend Barry Maracle’s Wake Up Into Your Dream Podcast   and Barry asked me a question he asks every new guest on his show—“If you could describe God in one word, what would it be?” While “love” is the safe answer, and is theologically correct, the one that is most important to me personally is His kindness. Jesus has always been so incredibly kind to me in my life. Not just the ways He has protected me throughout the years, both in the ways I am aware of and the ones I’ll never know, but He is always just so kind and gentle with my heart. In my moments of grief and sorrow and pain, He has always carried me with His kindness, spoken to me gently, and encouraged my heart with what He thinks about me.

If you have ever struggled with understanding the love that God has for us, that Jesus carries for each and every one of us, then I want to leave you with one final thought, something out of the Song of Solomon, which in many ways is a message from Jesus to His Bride, you and me. Song of Solomon 4:9 says, “You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride; you have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes. . .” It doesn’t say that He stole our hearts with one glance, it says that with one glance of our eyes we ravish His heart. If that single sentence doesn’t express how wild about us Jesus is, I don’t know what will. I pray that for your heart and mine, that our hearts are open to receive a deeper measure of the love of Jesus Christ that is poured out upon us by the Holy Spirit, and that every barrier, every lie, and every hindrance to receiving that love melts away in His kindness, goodness, and light. May you be well, may you be blessed, and may you be filled with His love today. In Jesus’ name, amen.


 

Establishing Divine Government in the Church

I was at a home group meeting this past weekend with friends and one of the guys mentioned something about being glad he was out of ministry and the hierarchical system of religion, and how even just the word “ministry” brings up negative feelings. I think this is honestly an increasingly common thing that is happening in the Body of Christ as people are leaving denominational churches in droves. There is a measure of necessary deconstruction and remodeling of our belief systems taking place as we encounter new information and then discover that in some churches and groups, asking intelligent questions about our faith is not acceptable. When this happens, we tend to realize that we don’t belong and need to go elsewhere or nowhere, but that regardless of what we do, it’s time to leave where we are now. And in coming out of one such system, my friend’s comment made a lot of sense.

The very idea of hierarchy or government or leadership has become so toxic to some people that it is easy to look at the scriptures from our woundedness and see Jesus promoting an end to all forms of chain-of-command. And yet not only was Jesus was not abolishing hierarchy and government, He was establishing it. We see this first in his own actions, and then further along we see Paul the Apostle elaborating further on what some of that is meant to look like. I think it is incredibly important if we want to function as healthy members of the Body of Christ for us to understand what God’s government looks like and what Jesus was establishing in the earth, and then discuss a key we can use to identify the health of the leadership of a local church Body.

God has a Divine Order that He has established in all creation. We see this in the functioning of the cosmos, in the Divine Councils the scriptures make occasional reference to, as well as what we saw modeled in the life of Jesus and later on by Paul the Apostle. We can see it in Genesis 1 with God placing the sun and moon to rule over the day and night. In Genesis 1:16 and 1:18 where it states that God set the sun and moon to govern over day and night there are two different words used, memšālâ and māšal, both of which essentially mean “to rule/govern”. Even in creation God set up divine government in the cosmos and the scriptures directly state it. Furthermore, He went on to give mankind authority over the earth and its living creatures (Gen 1:28) and directly gave Adam authority (Gen 2:15) over Eden to steward it. In Genesis 1:28 we again see two words used, this time slightly different—kāḇaš which means to subdue or bring under subjection by force, and rāḏâ, which means to dominate, tread down, or rule over in a manner that suggests it is done by force and/or power. The point of sharing all of this is simply for us to understand that in both the terrestrial heavens and the earth God created a divine order and that there is no way to escape this idea of hierarchy.

Adam was given authority over every living creature on the earth, which means from the beginning it was God’s intention to have a leadership structure in the earth. We see the presence of hierarchy even just in one of the names we call God—He is the “Most High God”. In order for there to be a “Most High” God there have to be gods that are less-high than the Most High, otherwise there wouldn’t be a modifier of “Most High” put on the front of the title “God” in order to delineate which God we are referring to. And no, I am not promoting pantheism, but rather a more appropriate understanding of cosmology and God’s divine order and authority structure in the heavens, including but not limited to the Divine Council and the Elohim, of which in Christ we have been included in. (If you want to learn more about this I highly recommend Dr. Michael Heiser’s book “The Unseen Realm” as a good reference tool). 

In Isaiah 9:6-7 it was even prophesied about Jesus of the governmental system He was coming to establish, and this is probably a good part of why his disciples were so convinced He had come to establish another earthly Kingdom. They weren’t confused as to whether He was establishing a kingdom or not, because they were correct and He was establishing one. They were mistaken about what that governing system looked like and what it governed over.

Isaiah 9:6-7 states:
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.”

According to that prophecy in Isaiah, Jesus came to establish a governmental system that would be ever-increasing, and that He would reign in righteousness forever. We actually see mention of this in Romans 5:14 where it talks about how death reigned from Adam to Moses (a reign is a governmental system ruling over something) but in Romans 5:17 it says that those of us who receive Jesus’ righteousness will reign with Him in life! (If you want to understand more about reigning in life with Jesus, pick up a copy of my book “The Gospel of Life and Immortality“). 

Then we get to Jesus’s earthly reign where He appointed apostles. Apostles in the Roman Empire were tasked with governing over colonized areas and spreading the culture and ways of the Roman Empire into that region. By Jesus appointing 12 of his disciples as apostles, he was denoting a few different things—first, that there was indeed a hierarchy, as apostles carried more authority than the rest of His disciples, and second that their job as “sent ones” was to establish the culture of His government. You can’t “apostle” if there is no existing governmental system that you are spreading and expanding. The Apostle Paul elaborated a bit more on this when He explained in Ephesians 4:11-16 about what we now term the “Fivefold Ministry”, which is apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors and teachers.

Each of the Fivefold is vital for growing and building the Body of Christ, and while they are not necessarily more “important” than other people, Ephesians 4 states that these individuals and the ministry grace they embody is a gift of Jesus Christ to the entire Body. If we want to get away from systems of religious control that is perfectly fine, but if we want to get away from the divine order in the Body of Christ that Jesus gifted us, that would be foolishness at very best.
Personally, I operate in the grace of a Fivefold Teacher, and with that comes both grace for the task as well as responsibilities that God has given me to steward on behalf of the Body. It doesn’t make me more important that someone who isn’t a Fivefold minister of some kind, but it does mean that I have a specific job that may differ from what certain others are called to, and a large part of my task is to teach and equip the rest of the Body to walk into greater fullness of everything God has planned for us. That’s also why my books almost always carry not just information, but an activation component of how to practically live out and apprehend whatever the subject of that book is—because information will only take you so far if you can’t actually use it.

If we truly want to live out and walk out all that God has planned for us, both individually and corporately, we must accept that there is in fact a governing structure in the Body of Christ, that begins with apostles and prophets (Ephesians 2:19-22). The purpose of this isn’t for anyone to lord their position over one another, but rather for each of us to play the role we were designed for, and in so doing for the entire Body of Christ to prosper.

Now, I did promise that I would discuss a key we can use to identify the health of the leadership of a local church Body, and it’s actually pretty simple. Unhealthy leaders and unhealthy leadership structure is all about control, whereas healthy church leadership is about guidance and guidelines that help people function in their highest calling without feeling a need to manipulate or control the individual.

I want to be clear about what I am saying with this, as well as what I am not saying. I am not saying that someone can do or say whatever they want in a local Body without care or concern for the influence it will have on other people and then if a leader speaks to them about their immature behavior then that leader is being “controlling”. No, that leader is stewarding a local Body and is looking out for the needs of everyone, whereas that individual is looking out for the needs of himself or herself only. Healthy leadership will come with established healthy boundaries. We should expect that. We should also expect that those leaders will have some sort of accountability structure in place (not necessarily personally with every member of that church, but with certain individuals in and outside of that local church Body) so if there truly are problems that arise, that there are people who can help mediate the conflicts and give additional perspective. However, that doesn’t mean that someone gets to do whatever they want and constantly ask for outside mediation if they don’t get their way. Accountability is also not a system to be used to control leadership any more than leaders are meant to control their members.

What I am saying is that a leader should help guide those under their leadership and attempt to help everyone figure out how they fit into the local Body, either personally or through other members of the leadership team. In other words, if you aren’t personal friends with the local pastor or apostle, that’s actually okay. He or she can’t be best buddies with every single member of the congregation, and it is an unrealistic expectation to hold of them. A reasonable expectation is that there will be someone in leadership that you can connect with, but the very nature of a leadership structure and the need for delegation means that one man can’t do everything. Even the Apostles in Acts 6 chose seven other men to have leadership roles under their ministry specifically because of a need to delegate tasks.

This article is getting a bit longer than I had anticipated, so I want to bring it to a close here, but the underlying point here is that ministry isn’t bad, leadership and hierarchy aren’t cuss words, and we need to value the place that leadership has in God’s system of Divine Order both in the heavens and in the earth. If we want to match what God is doing, then we have to get enough understanding that we can accept the presence of a governing system and then align ourselves with and in it where God directs us to go.  And if you have been hurt as a result of being part of a local church where maybe someone didn’t steward God’s heart toward you as well as you could have hoped, I encourage you to seek out some of the inner healing resources on this site (I have written extensively on the subject of inner healing and deliverance including my coauthored book “Broken to Whole“, recently made into an audiobook) so you can heal and move past the things that have been holding you back.


The Holy Spirit Told Me To Give My Favorite Jacket Away

This past week it got pretty cold in Texas. Now, to be fair, that is according to Texas standards, not those of anywhere that gets regular winter chill. Nevertheless, after living in Texas for four years, I am more maladapted to the cold then ever. I did, however, keep my winter gear from living up north, so while I may feel a little cold, I’m ultimately just fine. Well, this was the first day this winter that it was getting truly cold, and the sun had gone down, so I was wearing my winter coat when I went out. I went to the grocery store to buy food, as one does, then walked back out to my truck to get in and go home. As I was putting my bags in the truck, a guy came up to me and asked if I had any money for food.

He was homeless, looked like he was in his 30’s somewhere, walked with a limp, and seemed a bit cold. In talking to him briefly, I found out his name is Sean. I don’t tend to carry much cash on me, so I gave Sean some food bars I had just bought and a few bottles of water. It gets pretty hot in Texas, so I always keep some water bottles in my truck for exactly this purpose. When someone on the street asks me for something, I feel like I can at *least* give them some water. I handed him the small bag of food and water, and it was right then that the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said “give him your jacket.” Now, I knew which jacket God meant because it was the one sitting on my passenger seat directly in front of me. My favorite jacket. It was kind of a cross between a sweatshirt and jacket as it was a waist-length zip-up with a hood from North Face, so you could really call it either, but I like it and wear it all the time. Or at least I did up until that moment.

I asked him “Do you have any other warm clothes?”
“No, just what I’m wearing.” Sean replied.
“Then take this. Hopefully you’ll be a bit warmer. I washed it yesterday so it’s clean.”

I handed him the jacket and then that was the end of our interaction. As he limped away, eating a food bar and now hopefully getting a bit warmer, I started to reflect on the encounter. You see, I didn’t say at the time that “God told me to give this to you.” I didn’t try to preach the gospel to him. And I didn’t ask him if I could pray for his leg or whatever was causing the limp. As he was walking away it occurred to me that maybe I could say something about God, but it would have made things end on an awkward note because it didn’t flow naturally in the interaction and would have gotten tacked on as an afterthought. And maybe I should have anyway. I don’t know.

What I do know is that Sean was warmer that night and he ate more than he would have otherwise. The passage in James 2:14-18 comes to mind when I think of that evening. It says:

14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.

If in our pursuit of being holy or spiritual we forget to take care of basic human needs such as food, water, clothing, and shelter, then in reality what good is this gospel? Of what value is a gospel that will do nothing whatsoever for one’s current day-to-day life and only comes into play in some theoretical afterlife? What really is that gospel saving us from, or saving us into? And how is this gospel loving if it abjectly ignores human need, lack, and pain? Now that doesn’t mean that we each individually can fix every situation everywhere. But can we change the situation in front of us? And further still, can we learn to trust God to supply OUR needs so that we always have an overflow to give from?

There’s one more piece to this story. As I was driving away, I began talking to the Lord about my jacket specifically because it was my favorite. I have other sweatshirts I can wear. I have a winter coat. I don’t have a lack of things I can wear to be warm—I suddenly had a lack of things I *preferred* to wear to keep warm. So how much was me being selfish, how much was me complaining, and how much was me processing? I don’t think I was being selfish, as I literally gave the jacket away when I was instructed. I don’t feel like I was complaining, or if so only minimally, because I truly did want Sean to be warm and be okay that night. I just also wanted to still have my favorite jacket. So I talked to Him about the mixed feelings I was having, and I didn’t really come to any specific conclusion except that I was going to choose to trust Him to be bigger than the situation and to take care of my desires and likes as well.

Fast forward two days and I was at my aunt and uncle’s house. They live in San Marcos about an hour south of Austin, and my parents had sent some Christmas gifts that arrived late. So early January here I am opening Christmas gifts, and what is the first thing I open? A brand new jacket.

I’m not even kidding. While I was giving Sean my favorite jacket and talking to the Lord about the situation, He had literally already sent me a new one and it was waiting at my family’s house for me to pick up. How often do we fail to trust God to see us through? And how often do we try to figure out ways in the natural that we can work it out for ourselves to somehow come out on top or get ahead or whatever else, not willing to trust that God not only sees and knows, but is faithful to follow through and meet us in those situations.

I think so much of our Christian walk is about learning to trust the only One who is truly fully worthy of it, and in doing so being willing to go anywhere, love anyone, touch anyone, place ourselves in any situation He leads us into no matter how dirty or ugly or unpleasant or even dangerous it may be—simply because we know He is worthy of our trust and all of our love, and so we’ll do literally anything for Him. For me that night it was giving away my jacket. Another time it could be food or money or time or anything else. But as we step out in obedience and trust, God will meet us in ways we could not have expected before—because He is faithful.

 

 

Deepening Trust in God by Hearing His Voice

I was out running errands last week with Bruce my perpetual wingman (He’s my yellow lab/some-kind-of-shepherd dog that God gave me this past year—I’ll write about him sometime soon) which caused me to drive an hour across Austin to pick up some weight plates for weightlifting.  I started getting back into more intentional exercise just under two years ago, mainly running and calisthenic workouts, but more recently started including weights as well.  One of the few nice things about being in a city is that you can easily find people selling used items for great prices, and I was able to pick up weights that would have cost hundreds of dollars elsewhere.  But I digress.  In the middle of all of that, I was getting ready to head back home and had thought I was coming up on a good place to stop and let Bruce out to walk around a little bit before we drove the hour home, but I was wrong.  I was talking to the Lord about this and He spoke to my heart or mind or inside my head or however one wants to word that, to take the next left.  And this is where the dialogue began and He began to speak to me about deepening my trust in Him by hearing His voice.

 

My guess is that many of us have been here at various points in time.  God is talking to us, we aren’t sure if we are hearing Him or something else, and we’re struggling to trust that it’s actually God.  I’ve been in charismatic-and-beyond circles for about 22 years now, and while at first it was a huge struggle to know if I was hearing God or my own thoughts or whatever else, 22 years later it is definitely less of a struggle, but it isn’t challenge-free.  To complicate things further, what I didn’t know when I began hearing His voice but have discovered since then is that in addition to God, angels, and demons, fragmented parts of our own souls can speak to us much like how we hear God, which makes discerning who and what voice we are hearing all the more important (for more info, check out my coauthored book Broken to Whole, in print and newly released on audiobook this past week!)

 

Anyway, since the Lord (or at least what I thought was Him) was telling me to take the next left and I would find a good place to stop and take Bruce for a walk, I was looking for left-hand-turns.  I was a bit outside of the city in the hill country at this point, so drove for a good minute and still didn’t pass a left turn.  I did, however, see a great place over to my right and began to talk to Him about that.  That was when He asked me the question “Why do you struggle to trust me so much?”

 

It’s a great question.  And I don’t entirely know. I mean, if we think about it, God is the only person in the cosmos who is truly worthy of 100% of our trust.  He’s literally the only one who never fails us, never disappoints us, never lets us down, never ditches us, and never does us wrong.  Now, some reading this may be saying “That’s not true, God has let me down plenty of times.” I would strongly suggest that He hasn’t—you simply think He has because of a lack of understanding about who God is, how He works, and the rules He put into place that govern the cosmos.  The Bible says in Hosea 4:6, “My people perish for lack of knowledge” for a reason, and sometimes what we don’t know can and does hurt us.  God has never failed us—but we have failed ourselves with unrealistic expectations, assuming things He never said, expecting God do to things or work in specific ways He didn’t tell us He was going to do, attributed failures and disobedience of other people as being God’s fault, and more.

 

And in truth, that right there is probably the answer to why I struggle to trust God—not because He is actually unworthy of my trust because again, He is the only one fully worth of it in every circumstance, but because of things I believe about how worthy He is or is not.  In other words, I need to take some time with Him and ask Him to reveal the hidden places in my heart where I received pain as a result of my own misunderstandings and all of the parts of me carrying that hidden pain and doubt.

 

As it turned out, the really great place to my right actually was a terrible place to stop.  You see, it really did look fantastic at first, but it’s almost like God knew something I didn’t and was wanting me to trust Him with a simple instruction so He could prove to me that He is trustworthy.  What I didn’t know because I couldn’t see around the next bend until I drove it, was that this “great place” was just inside a gated area that I absolutely would not have access to.  Well, clearly that wasn’t it, so I kept driving and kept looking for a driveway or pull-off to my left.  I went up and down a few more hills and was coming up on an intersection, at which point I was starting to wonder if I was going to end up driving on some wild goose chase with directions I was making up for myself down random roads in opposite directions from where I was wanting to go.  No, as it turns out, just before the intersection there was another turn into a hotel parking lot.

 

Still not sure what was going to happen, I recognized that this was a fairly low-risk proposition to begin with.  If I was wrong, then all I had to do was turn around and get back on the road.  But if I was right and what God said was true, then maybe it would be a good place to let Bruce out for a bit.

 

It was a GREAT place!  (The featured image is another picture I took of the place).  You see, behind the hotel was this dog-walking path they had created for exactly that purpose.  It even had a trashcan at the entrance to the path stocked with little doggie-sized bags for cleaning up after your pet.  We spent about ten minutes there on this really short path.  He sniffed just about everything in sight, marked half of what was visible (I swear dogs have an extra bladder in their body somewhere they just store up for special occasions like this), and had a good time.  Then, we got back in my truck and drove home.

 

It was an interesting learning opportunity for me.  This was a really simple opportunity for God to show me that deep down I obviously have mistrust and distrust of Him that I really need to address.  And because He is kind and good, He took a simple opportunity to reveal that to me while also helping me take good care of Bruce.  And God is pretty cool like that—He cares about Bruce more than I do, and He knows that helping me take care of the little man is also a way He can show me love too—all while revealing some hidden things in my heart too.

 

I encourage anyone reading this to take a moment and ask God to begin to reveal things in your heart that He wants to bring attention to.  As He does this, take some time and ask Him some questions about the “why” and “how” behind it—why is that issue there, how did it get there, and how do you need to address it to fix it?  And if you’re new to hearing God’s voice and aren’t sure how to, I recommend you pick up a copy of my friend Praying Medic’s book “Hearing God’s Voice Made Simple” or Ivan Roman’s book “The Heart of the Prophetic”.  You can also get a copy of “God Speaks”, an anthology by Praying Medic that I contributed to which shares a wide range of perspectives and experiences on hearing God.  I am also including a few links below to other articles I have written on this subject that you will likely find helpful.

 

Four Simple Steps To Hear From God

How To See In The Spirit On Purpose

Numbers, Riddles, and Hearing God’s Voice

Wisdom For Growing In The Prophetic

Interpreting Prophetic Revelation: Oven Encounters

 

 

new year declaration promise purpose faith destiny

Declaring In Faith For The New Year

As the new year dawns, I find myself somewhat pensive.  2024 was filled with a great many changes for me.  A divorce, selling a house, and preparing to move across the country, all while starting a journey to learn more about myself, discover what I like and dislike, and on some level, what makes me happy—things that at least to some degree, I haven’t really known for a long time.  One of the things I have always been clear on is that I want to see Jesus have His full reward and that I want to see the pain of this world, even the cosmos, be wiped away with His goodness, kindness, and love.  And I believe that someday I may even be alive to see it—and I hope that not only am I here for it, but that I have played some role in making it manifest.  As we step into a new year I have found myself doing what many do at this time—pondering what I want to accomplish in this coming year.  And while on some level it is an arbitrary time to ponder this, it is a rhythm most of the world follows, so it works well to do this at this time.

 

For me, having spent my fortieth year in a massive and difficult transition period, it is my hope that year 41 holds something much better.  And, in truth, it almost has to be, so I’m sure it will.  But what I was thinking about as I was looking at goals for this coming year wasn’t just a list of things I want to do.  I mean, I was doing that, but that’s not all I was doing.  I began to think about the HOW.  As the saying goes, “Goals without plans are just dreams.”  I don’t want to just have nice ideas that don’t get given wings, so I began to think about how these things might occur.  Of the many goals I have, the ones that are more relevant to ministry include launching teaching/training courses, publishing multiple books (including “The End of Revival” about the transition of ages we are in right now, and “Understanding The Gift of Encouragement” which is about exactly what it sounds like), as well as partnering with Overseas Missions, a short term missions organization a friend of mine runs, supporting Legacy Church (the church I will soon be relocating to join), and launching a podcast.  I also want to launch a publishing house to help self-published Christian authors write, market, and launch their books.  These are all plans, anyway, and we will see how many of them get accomplished this year.

 

What I got to pondering in the midst of all of this is something my friend Barry Maracle says often—that the gifts of the spirit are voice-activated.  And this extends far beyond just the gifts of the spirit.  If I want to see even a portion of the things I have planned for this next year come to pass then I will need to extend the force of faith over those things, begin to decree and declare them into existence, engage the power of my imagination (ie the power of my spiritual will) to envision those things having already been completed, and in so doing partner with the angelic host and my heavenly Father to see those things that are currently invisible become manifest.  It is easy for me to look at a list I wrote and think of all the human ways I can try to work really hard to accomplish my goals, but it is far more sensible to begin the process with what the Bible teaches us in Hebrews 11—that by faith those things that were invisible were made visible.  That when we engage with the substance or force of faith we have the evidence of the unseen already within us, and that evidence gives rise to substance.

 

It isn’t enough to just come up with a human to-do list.  What we need to do is begin to engage Heaven.  Voice-activate our destiny.  Use the power of our words to co-create with God.  You see, one of the things people get wrong about using sowing and reaping principles (also referred to as “manifesting” or “Law of Attraction” in other circles) is that if we begin something solely with human effort and will then we will also need to sustain it with that same effort and will.  And if we truly want to enter God’s rest and do things His way then we cannot simply rely on our own power and ability to create—we have to co-create with Him.

 

My plan as this year begins, and my encouragement to anyone who is looking to make their own goals for the year, is to begin with a simply prayer.  Ask God to guide your goal-making.  Then ask Him to show you how to accomplish those goals.  Then begin to declare the resources, the energy, the vision, the emotional fortitude, and all manner of divine intervention and guidance from heaven into the situation.  Decree heaven flowing through your entire year.  Release the angelic host on your behalf to go accomplish the will of God through His sons and daughters as you go forth to accomplish all that is in your heart to do this year.  And remember, you don’t have to beg God to do the things He already promised in Jesus, our older brother.  He’s already declared in His word that He has given us everything we need for life and godliness.  It’s time to activate our heavenly supply lines to live in the fullness of the resources He has already prepared in advance for us.

 

I pray you have a blessed year and that all of the things you set your hand to as you engage greater union with the Godhead prosper you greatly, release the life of heaven in and through you, and I pray above all else that you find true happiness and that you delight in Jesus, the Desire of the Nations, in 2025.  God bless you richly and abundantly as we walk into this new year together.

 

 

“There Will Be War in 2024”

I just published an article titled “There Will No Longer Be War Anymore” and noticed it getting almost no response, likely due to its peaceful title and graphic that isn’t attention-grabbing.  I knew that was a risk when I chose that title, so I am doing an experiment.  This is the exact same article but with a title and image that focus on the exact opposite aspect of this message.  I’m curious to see which one will get more traffic (and I suspect it’s going to be this one, which further makes the point of this article).  Read on!



Toward the end of one calendar year and the beginning of the next one there is typically a mass-influx of prophets and prophetic people who seek the Lord for what He is saying about that next year. Some people also go off of the Jewish Calendar citing things like “Israel is God’s timepiece.” Now, while I won’t go into why I believe much of the Body has an extremely flawed and frankly unbiblical view of Israel in this article, what I will say is that whether we pick the Hebraic Calendar or the Julian Calendar system, the trend is still “It’s a new year so let’s see what God wants to say.” I used to do this for myself personally and for friends and family and have fallen out of the habit, but I don’t have anything specifically against seeking the Lord in set times and patterns. What I do have a problem with is the significant number of people who are declaring “War in 2024.” Why?  What we should be declaring  is “There will no longer be war anymore.”

Now, we could argue that by sheer quantity of people prophesying such things that it must mean God is saying it, but I would argue two things: First, its plainly obvious and doesn’t require prophets to tell us this particular detail. Second, even if God is warning of war, why is not the next part of the word “so we need to decree Heaven’s peace in its place”?  I’m a teacher not a prophet so I won’t spend a ton of time in this article judging the words themselves—I’ll let a prophet somewhere do that. What I will do is teach a little about the heart and nature of God and His plans in the earth so we can decide what our response should be to these kinds of words. Let’s break down these two points I am stating in a little more detail.



Impending War is Obvious

It doesn’t take a prophet, or a prophetic person, or even some kind of historian or economist or someone in similar positions to observe that a war has been planned. The military-industrial complex, the money-laundering that happens through war, the penchant for the CIA to intentionally destabilize governments and then have the US military swoop in and “fix” it all while certain players take the opportunity to loot that country’s resources—all of this is a consistent pattern. It really doesn’t take a prophet to see what certain leaders have been pushing toward and leading the nation and the world toward in recent years. I can see this quite plainly and not only do I not watch the news, I haven’t had any angelic visitations tell me about it either. Its just that obvious.

I recently saw a prophetic dream that someone released on social media about a certain situation, and then read some of the comments. One of the comments in particular was rich, memorable, and touches on the point I am making here. The commenter said, “I am old enough to remember when you had to have the dream *before* the event happened for it to be considered prophetic.” The obvious point here is that if you get “revelation” after the fact then how revelatory is it really? And while yes, God can and does explain and clarify things to people in revelation and it doesn’t negate whether that person heard from God, it does speak to the point that we need to expect a bit more from our prophetic revelation. God doesn’t need to give us special prophecies about things that are incredibly obvious. In fact, when we prophesy the obvious it plays to something called “confirmation bias” where we look at the things around us and use circumstances to confirm what we already believe. Since the plan to start more wars is obvious, all a prophetic word is going to do is push on the “confirmation bias” button and suddenly everyone is in agreement with the word and because we already believe it’s true we judge that prophetic word as accurate, only further trenching ourselves in that belief and co-creating it.  Can we please stop helping the enemy by coming into agreement with death, loss, and destruction and co-creating it with them?

What We Govern, We Get

To my second point, here is why all of that is really bad: While prophets and prophetic people are busy declaring obvious wars, I don’t see many of them telling us to decree and command for God’s peace and His divine government to come replace it. And that’s a HUGE problem. The Bible tells us some key things about God’s nature as well as the age we are living in. One of them is in Isaiah 9:6-7a which says:

“For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be upon His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end.”

Friends, this is a generally accepted prophesy about Jesus, but let’s take a second and look at what it actually says. It speaks to His nature and plans, which include His nature as the Prince of Peace, but it goes on to say that “of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end.” So right away we can identify that the plan of God is for peace to increase, not war, but it gets even better. Verse 6 tells us that “the government will be upon His shoulders.” To review simple anatomy, the head sits on the shoulders. The shoulders and the rest of the body are below the head. Since Jesus is the head, and we are the Body, then this means that the government isn’t resting exclusively with Jesus and we have to sit here and wait like idiots for Jesus to appear in the clouds and rescue us. Our job is to take responsibility to govern. So what are we governing? If we can decree a thing and see it established (Job 22:28), then why are we decreeing and establishing wars and not establishing the government of God in peace?

Jesus has literally given us authority to govern what happens in the earth.  The Bible says that when everything has been placed under his feet (again, under the entire Body of Christ) then and only then will He come to turn it over to the Father. Even if someone disagrees with the hints of eschatology in this article, none of that changes our mission and our mandate—the increase of His government and peace. We seem to be really bloodthirsty these days, and it is sad. If we keep coming into agreement with war, death, loss, destruction, poverty, and pain then that is exactly what will happen and it will occur because we, the Body of Christ, have created a platform for it, a blueprint, a place for it to land in the earth.

There is a prophecy in Isaiah 2 where it says that “in the last days” that people will go to what sounds like a physical Zion and be taught by God.  As a result of this we will beat our swords into ploughshares, spears into pruning hooks, and nations will no longer fight or train for war. And because of how it is written, people relegate this to a far off someday, when in reality that entire passage can (and should be) taken somewhat less literally than we normally do.

First, if we want to go with Last Days theology for a minute, Peter the Apostle declared we were there a couple thousand years ago, which means we probably should expect this scripture to apply to us here and now. Second, there are very few actual blacksmiths any longer and we don’t use swords and spears as common methods of warfare anymore, nor do we farm the same way. A comparatively small portion of the world’s agriculture is grown using a beast of burden and a plow.  This means this passage might not be entirely literal in nature and war ending isn’t necessarily going to look like literally turning spears into pruning hooks.  Rather, it embodies a concept that communicates we will each individually no longer engage in war. Finally, the last verse of that particular prophecy gets rather overlooked. Isaiah 2:5 says, “Come, descendants of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord.” The entire point of this prophetic word is to give a glimpse of what the future will look like, and then the prophet directly instructs the hearers of the word to start living it now.

Its really quite simple. We, the Body of Christ, have been given authority and power to govern the earth. We just don’t govern the way earthly governments do because our Kingdom is both not from here and also supersedes earthly governments in authority quite significantly. Swords and spears are the weapons of individuals.  When we stop fighting one another with weapons and start coming into agreement with one another for peace, peace happens.  So we need to embody this prophecy now in our hearts, minds, prayers, and in words of agreement instead of waiting for a someday-event while co-creating more violence, anger, and bloodshed with our God-given authority.  It is time we start governing over these prophetic words of war through our own decrees of peace, prosperity, and declare an end to violence, secrecy, corruption, murder, fear, and more. It is time we began to decree the domain of God manifesting in the earth to protect all those who are helpless in war-torn areas. It is our job to govern over every demonic spirit who seeks to cause anger, envy, strife, covetousness, and more both on an individual and international level. It is our job to release the Godly powers, principalities, thrones, mights, and dominions and spiritual forces in heavenly places to go accomplish all that Jesus has planned and to help establish His righteousness, justice, and peace in the earth.

Our mandate is “Make Jesus’s Kingdom and His will manifest on earth as it already is now in heaven.” So let’s stop lending our agreement to prophecies of war, death, and destruction and be about establishing His government and peace, shall we?

There Will No Longer Be War Anymore

Toward the end of one calendar year and the beginning of the next one there is typically a mass-influx of prophets and prophetic people who seek the Lord for what He is saying about that next year. Some people also go off of the Jewish Calendar citing things like “Israel is God’s timepiece.” Now, while I won’t go into why I believe much of the Body has an extremely flawed and frankly unbiblical view of Israel in this article, what I will say is that whether we pick the Hebraic Calendar or the Julian Calendar system, the trend is still “It’s a new year so let’s see what God wants to say.” I used to do this for myself personally and for friends and family and have fallen out of the habit, but I don’t have anything specifically against seeking the Lord in set times and patterns. What I do have a problem with is the significant number of people who are declaring “War in 2024.” Why?  What we should be declaring  is “There will no longer be war anymore.”

Now, we could argue that by sheer quantity of people prophesying such things that it must mean God is saying it, but I would argue two things: First, its plainly obvious and doesn’t require prophets to tell us this particular detail. Second, even if God is warning of war, why is not the next part of the word “so we need to decree Heaven’s peace in its place”?  I’m a teacher not a prophet so I won’t spend a ton of time in this article judging the words themselves—I’ll let a prophet somewhere do that. What I will do is teach a little about the heart and nature of God and His plans in the earth so we can decide what our response should be to these kinds of words. Let’s break down these two points I am stating in a little more detail.



Impending War is Obvious

It doesn’t take a prophet, or a prophetic person, or even some kind of historian or economist or someone in similar positions to observe that a war has been planned. The military-industrial complex, the money-laundering that happens through war, the penchant for the CIA to intentionally destabilize governments and then have the US military swoop in and “fix” it all while certain players take the opportunity to loot that country’s resources—all of this is a consistent pattern. It really doesn’t take a prophet to see what certain leaders have been pushing toward and leading the nation and the world toward in recent years. I can see this quite plainly and not only do I not watch the news, I haven’t had any angelic visitations tell me about it either. Its just that obvious.

I recently saw a prophetic dream that someone released on social media about a certain situation, and then read some of the comments. One of the comments in particular was rich, memorable, and touches on the point I am making here. The commenter said, “I am old enough to remember when you had to have the dream *before* the event happened for it to be considered prophetic.” The obvious point here is that if you get “revelation” after the fact then how revelatory is it really? And while yes, God can and does explain and clarify things to people in revelation and it doesn’t negate whether that person heard from God, it does speak to the point that we need to expect a bit more from our prophetic revelation. God doesn’t need to give us special prophecies about things that are incredibly obvious. In fact, when we prophesy the obvious it plays to something called “confirmation bias” where we look at the things around us and use circumstances to confirm what we already believe. Since the plan to start more wars is obvious, all a prophetic word is going to do is push on the “confirmation bias” button and suddenly everyone is in agreement with the word and because we already believe it’s true we judge that prophetic word as accurate, only further trenching ourselves in that belief and co-creating it.  Can we please stop helping the enemy by coming into agreement with death, loss, and destruction and co-creating it with them?

What We Govern, We Get

To my second point, here is why all of that is really bad: While prophets and prophetic people are busy declaring obvious wars, I don’t see many of them telling us to decree and command for God’s peace and His divine government to come replace it. And that’s a HUGE problem. The Bible tells us some key things about God’s nature as well as the age we are living in. One of them is in Isaiah 9:6-7a which says:

“For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be upon His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end.”

Friends, this is a generally accepted prophesy about Jesus, but let’s take a second and look at what it actually says. It speaks to His nature and plans, which include His nature as the Prince of Peace, but it goes on to say that “of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end.” So right away we can identify that the plan of God is for peace to increase, not war, but it gets even better. Verse 6 tells us that “the government will be upon His shoulders.” To review simple anatomy, the head sits on the shoulders. The shoulders and the rest of the body are below the head. Since Jesus is the head, and we are the Body, then this means that the government isn’t resting exclusively with Jesus and we have to sit here and wait like idiots for Jesus to appear in the clouds and rescue us. Our job is to take responsibility to govern. So what are we governing? If we can decree a thing and see it established (Job 22:28), then why are we decreeing and establishing wars and not establishing the government of God in peace?

Jesus has literally given us authority to govern what happens in the earth.  The Bible says that when everything has been placed under his feet (again, under the entire Body of Christ) then and only then will He come to turn it over to the Father. Even if someone disagrees with the hints of eschatology in this article, none of that changes our mission and our mandate—the increase of His government and peace. We seem to be really bloodthirsty these days, and it is sad. If we keep coming into agreement with war, death, loss, destruction, poverty, and pain then that is exactly what will happen and it will occur because we, the Body of Christ, have created a platform for it, a blueprint, a place for it to land in the earth.

There is a prophecy in Isaiah 2 where it says that “in the last days” that people will go to what sounds like a physical Zion and be taught by God.  As a result of this we will beat our swords into ploughshares, spears into pruning hooks, and nations will no longer fight or train for war. And because of how it is written, people relegate this to a far off someday, when in reality that entire passage can (and should be) taken somewhat less literally than we normally do.

First, if we want to go with Last Days theology for a minute, Peter the Apostle declared we were there a couple thousand years ago, which means we probably should expect this scripture to apply to us here and now. Second, there are very few actual blacksmiths any longer and we don’t use swords and spears as common methods of warfare anymore, nor do we farm the same way. A comparatively small portion of the world’s agriculture is grown using a beast of burden and a plow.  This means this passage might not be entirely literal in nature and war ending isn’t necessarily going to look like literally turning spears into pruning hooks.  Rather, it embodies a concept that communicates we will each individually no longer engage in war. Finally, the last verse of that particular prophecy gets rather overlooked. Isaiah 2:5 says, “Come, descendants of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord.” The entire point of this prophetic word is to give a glimpse of what the future will look like, and then the prophet directly instructs the hearers of the word to start living it now.

Its really quite simple. We, the Body of Christ, have been given authority and power to govern the earth. We just don’t govern the way earthly governments do because our Kingdom is both not from here and also supersedes earthly governments in authority quite significantly. Swords and spears are the weapons of individuals.  When we stop fighting one another with weapons and start coming into agreement with one another for peace, peace happens.  So we need to embody this prophecy now in our hearts, minds, prayers, and in words of agreement instead of waiting for a someday-event while co-creating more violence, anger, and bloodshed with our God-given authority.  It is time we start governing over these prophetic words of war through our own decrees of peace, prosperity, and declare an end to violence, secrecy, corruption, murder, fear, and more. It is time we began to decree the domain of God manifesting in the earth to protect all those who are helpless in war-torn areas. It is our job to govern over every demonic spirit who seeks to cause anger, envy, strife, covetousness, and more both on an individual and international level. It is our job to release the Godly powers, principalities, thrones, mights, and dominions and spiritual forces in heavenly places to go accomplish all that Jesus has planned and to help establish His righteousness, justice, and peace in the earth.

Our mandate is “Make Jesus’s Kingdom and His will manifest on earth as it already is now in heaven.” So let’s stop lending our agreement to prophecies of war, death, and destruction and be about establishing His government and peace, shall we?

The Angel with the Wing Tattoos

The daughter of one of my patients shared a story with me about a previous visit their family had at the hospital I work at.  Everything I share in this story is what she personally told me:

 

They had been in the hospital at that time for a few weeks when they had been expecting to stay only for a few days.  Her mother had been very sick and was so sick, in fact, that she was near death and began talking to her dead relatives as though they were close at hand (which, if you understand that we are surrounded by the Cloud of Witnesses, she most likely was close to death and was talking to her deceased family.)

She was given a room in the ICU, so a nurse came to move this patient to the new room.  The person who came to the room to move her was a tall blond male nurse with piercing blue eyes with beautiful tattoos of wings on each of his arms.  When he came into the room he told them, “You are safe now because I’m here to take care of you.”  This nurse took them to the ICU, got her tucked in bed, gave her medications, and told both the patient and her daughter to rest.

They were undisturbed for six hours overnight and got amazing sleep, then woke up the next morning, the patient went to a surgical procedure, and had recovered so well that she discharged from the hospital the next day.

When the daughter talked to staff about the  nurse they had that night, she was very thankful for his care and wanted to know who it was—but the hospital had to record of this employee and none of the staff recognized any ICU nurse matching that description.  Because she had been given medications, had vital signs taken, etc., all of that should be recorded electronically on the Electronic Health Record, so they decided to speak with Medical Records to get a copy of their records for that hospital stay.  Per the daughter, this “employee” did not appear anywhere in the medical records as well—as if this nurse who worked with them overnight basically didn’t exist!

 

The daughter was excited when she told me this story, and she told me it was the reason they came back to the hospital when I met them—because they knew beyond a shadow of doubt that angels were actively at work in the building and it gave them a feeling of security knowing that God was taking care of them.

The Bible tells us in Hebrews 13:2, “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.”  There is something about how angels function that, at times, they will manifest in bodily form appearing as humans, and we can interact with them without knowing we are talking to angels.  I firmly believe this is exactly what happened in this encounter they had!

To add some details to consider, any time someone transfers from one unit to another in this hospital, there is a process.  The bed on the new unit has to be assigned and someone has to transfer them in the computer once they arrive—which means someone has to either tell the person to transfer them in the computer, or do it themselves.  This means the angel would have either had to do the electronic transfer himself or tell someone else to—someone who later clearly didn’t remember that conversation with that being.  When a patient transfers units, the offgoing nurse gives a report to the oncoming nurse, so someone would have had to tell the angel something about the patient they were coming to pick up, and if they didn’t do that, the offgoing nurse would have followed up at some point to ensure that report was given if for no other reason than it is a legal obligation nurses have when transferring care.  All documentation in the computer would require some kind of login, and somehow every nurse on the unit would have to have believed that some other nurse was the one caring for that patient including the Charge Nurse who is the one responsible for making staff assignments.  Furthermore, if the Charge RN didn’t initially notice that overnight the patient had no nurse assigned, they would certainly have noticed when it came time to make assignments for the day shift staff.

All of these details and more make this story just that much more profound when we consider all of the big and little details that God had to work out in order to send an angel to take care of his beloved daughter and to ensure she recovered and was able to return to her normal life.  In the same way that God went out of His way for her, God cares about all of the big and little things in all of our lives, and when we pray and ask Him to intervene, we can trust that He will.  Whether it will always be as dramatic as this encounter or not, we have a Heavenly Father who is trustworthy—and who knows!  Maybe someday you will be telling me a story of an angelic encounter you had as well!

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