Appropriation versus Enforcement of Dominion

There is a disconnect or divide among some groups of believers when it comes to walking in the fullness of all that Christ accomplished for us on the cross. There are those who fall more into a “finished works” mindset, who believe that Jesus accomplished everything on the cross and we just have to believe it to receive it. This group tend to take exception to the other group, who usually say things like “Jesus did it all on the cross but now it is our job to appropriate what he did.” I understand why the divide exists because they are both partially correct so I want to offer a third option that I think more fully pulls together the various accurate ideas of each camp under one conceptual head.

The first group rightly believes that when we understand and believe the truth that it brings us into freedom, and it facilitates us operating in the fullness of everything Jesus accomplished. On the other hand, the second group has understood something vital that also needs to be recognized and addressed. The second group realizes that while what Jesus did legally on the cross was complete, the world does not yet fully look like everything He accomplished on the cross. And this is where the idea of appropriation as a Christian term comes from— the notion that to the extent that things are not already on earth as they are in heaven, that it is the job of the believer to make it that way.

I think that these two groups are actually in greater agreement than they think, but both operate in certain areas of error and both are focused on different aspects of the situation. As such, I don’t think that we will make much headway moving forward in unity on this matter without a change in terminology. I propose we move from speaking of Appropriation to talking about Enforcement of Dominion.

Before going further, we need to understand some of the basic errors of each of the two groups, and then define some terminology. What I refer to as “Finished Works” theology and the resulting camp of followers essentially believe that because Jesus accomplished everything on the cross there is now no longer anything else for us to do and we just sit back and believe God and then watch Him do the rest. And when people struggle to live in fullness, the common rationale is that they need to “believe more/harder in the Finished work of the cross” and that will solve everything. Ultimately the finished work group has turned belief into a form of work. Now they don’t phrase it that way, but at the end of the day, that’s the underlying message, and belief/faith just becomes the new form of works.

The appropriation group tends to not focus enough on changing our beliefs and letting our heavenly identity guide what we believe and how we live. That group tends to be more effort-focused in a different way. This group tends toward encouraging spiritual warfare and intercession to tear down strongholds and principalities, prayer walking one’s neighborhood or town, breaking curses, and doing inner healing and deliverance ministry. And while each of those activities can be effective tools to release the Kingdom on earth, they actually work best when they are combined with something closer to a Finished Works mindset. And I say “closer to” because it only works better if they don’t trade out the flaws of the Appropriation mindset for the flaws of the Finished Works mindset.

Before going further, we also need to firmly keep in mind that while ministry is not something that needs to be done in heaven, it absolutely needs to be done on earth, and will continue to need to be done until we are all walking in fullness. Jesus is the one who appointed apostles, prophets, evangelist, and pastors, and teachers to bring the whole Body into unity and maturity (Ephesians 4) because He recognized a few thousand years ago that we aren’t there yet even now and would need overseers that He has appointed over His Body to help shepherd us on the way. And I say all this because no one in their right mind who has also logically thought through what the scriptures say could arrive at the idea that everything is already the way it needs to be and all we have to do is believe. The Holy Spirit doesn’t even think that.

It is the Holy Spirit who has divinely given us empowerment such as “gifts of healing,” and not because Jesus did something incomplete, because the Holy Spirit only ever works in agreement with Jesus Christ. In fact, without the Holy Spirit, Jesus couldn’t be “Christ” because the word Christ means “the anointed one and his anointing” and it is a direct reference to the work of the Holy Spirit in Jesus’s earthly life. This is important because we must understand there is ministry work to be done. We should not be telling people to stop doing or receiving ministry and just to believe that Jesus did it all because Jesus is the one who set up ministry to begin with. However, we do need to shift some of how we do ministry and the focus or approach we take with it. I think this will make a little more sense once I define a few words.

The word appropriate has two meanings; one means that which is fitting or right, as in one is having appropriate behavior in a situation, while the other has to do with taking something for one’s own use, and the implication is usually that it is done without the owner’s permission. In Christian terms, we use the word appropriate to say that we are taking what Jesus did and we are applying it to our life or the current situation. And while that is accurate to a certain degree, the word itself suggests that we’re doing something without permission, which is untrue. And I think there is a level of mindset that it creates that comes into agreement with this idea that Jesus didn’t accomplish certain things so we have to take it and do the rest of the work. And while some of this is nuance more than anything else, I think we are at a place where that nuance has become important, and it has actually become a barrier to people receiving fullness.

This brings us to the word Enforce, or Enforcement. According to the New Oxford American Dictionary, to enforce something means to compel observance or compliance with a law, rule, or obligation. The word Dominion means sovereignty or control, and is generally used in context of a governing individual or governing body having rulership. We need to understand that while God is sovereign, which means He is the highest authority or highest governing body in the cosmos, not everything goes God’s way. God is sovereign, but He is not in full control of everything. As such, it falls to us, the Body of Christ, to enforce his dominion in the Earth. To the degree that rebellious principalities and powers seek to establish their own dominion, it is our job to enforce the dominion of Jesus Christ in the Earth. To the extent that sickness and disease and decay and death want to continue to reign, it is our job to enforce the dominion of Jesus Christ, who reigns in life. We are not appropriating something as if we are taking something that didn’t belong to us to begin with. We are enforcing that which Jesus already accomplished on the cross. To the degree that someone’s body does not yet fully look like wholeness and life, we enforce His dominion. To the degree that decay still functions in the cosmos, we enforce His dominion. To the extent that fallen principalities and powers seek to enslave, afflict, and torment humanity and creation, we enforce His dominion.

We aren’t working for something that we have to earn. We aren’t battling from an earthly perspective to try to bring something from the heavens down. We sit enthroned at the right hand of the Father with Jesus Christ, having fully established all power and dominion on the cross from a legal standpoint in all of the cosmos in all of time and eternity, and we legislate and enforce that dominion in the Earth.

This means that when we cast out demons (and as believers we do cast out demons), we aren’t asking them to leave. We expel them because we are enforcing the domain of heaven. We aren’t asking sickness to please get fixed, and we definitely aren’t asking God to heal someone when He already told us to go do it. We are enforcing His dominion in the Earth and command it to be so. When a Son or Daughter of the Most High who knows their position and authority shows up, Creation’s only option is to bow its head and obey.

It might sound like nuance to some, but I think it’s vitally important we shift our terminology from Appropriation to Enforcement of Dominion. Appropriation sounds a lot more gentle. It sounds like we are tenderly acquiring something that we think we should have. Enforcement is really what we are doing. There are spiritual offenders out there who have transgressed against the Law of Jesus Christ, the Law of Love, and who have set themselves up against His reign of Life in the earth. The Bible says in Matthew 11:12 that the kingdom of heaven is advancing by force and forceful men lay ahold of it. When death, loss, and destruction show up on our doorstep, we are never to treat it passively or tenderly or gently. Spirits who have corrupted and perverted creation and who have chosen to make mankind enemies don’t get asked to please follow the rules. We don’t suggest that maybe they should do what Jesus said. We enforce his rule in creation.

The Bible says that He has already given us everything pertaining to life and godliness. And that’s where the Finished Works crew gets it right. We aren’t asking Jesus to do something as though He didn’t already do it. But sometimes it’s not just about believing the right thing. It’s about actively taking dominion over rebellious spirits and enforcing what Jesus Christ already did and never taking “no” for an answer.

Are Curses Real, And Can Christians Be Harmed By Them?

This is one of a few different subjects I see tossed around on social media from time to time, and especially among those who are deconstructing/remodeling their beliefs to better match New Creation realities in the Kingdom. As people go on this journey of rediscovery of what it looks like to be a Christian, there are quite sensibly a lot of questions about most of the things we have been taught in the past. As such, it is no surprise that the subject of curses would come up. And I don’t think the problem is that people are asking questions. The freedom to question is imperative. The problem is that some of the conclusions people reach are problematic. I want to break the subject down a little from a perspective of the fact that we are already new creations in Christ, from a position of what Jesus already finished on the cross, and also keeping in mind that we have been given a job to transform and transfigure creation.

The first question is pretty easy to answer. “Are curses real?” Yes. Proverbs 26:2 says “Like a fluttering sparrow or a darting swallow, an undeserved curse does not come to rest.” There are some shades of detail to this that I won’t go into here, but Proverbs is quite clear that curses fly forth and have the potential to land. The Bible also quite clearly states of Jesus Christ in Galatians 3:13 that He became a curse to redeem us from them. Jesus isn’t an idiot, and He didn’t spend his time and energy to take curses upon Himself to set us free from something that doesn’t exist. So it doesn’t matter whether we are talking about a generational curse, a curse thrown at you from witchcraft, or any other sort of curse, they do exist, and part of Jesus’s work on the cross was to set us free from them.

And this brings us to the next question, which is “Can Christians be harmed by them?” The short and extremely incomplete answer is also “yes.” Christians can be harmed by curses. But there is a lot more to the subject than a simple yes/no answer that we really should understand about it.

First, we need to understand free will. Every single human alive has been created in the image of God. We have been given free will, and God does not violate our free will even if we are doing something ill-advised or even flat-out evil. Which means if person A chooses to curse person B, then a curse is released from person A to fly to person B because they chose to by enacting their free will. Now whether that curse will actually land or not is a separate issue, and there are multiple factors that can influence that, including: the belief of person B, prayer for protection over their life, angelic involvement, demonic opposition, contracts and agreements in the spirit (which is often referred to as “open doors”), or anything else that creates access for the demonic to attack or afflict someone. This can even include agreements in an individual’s bloodline that they are not consciously aware of because they were not personally the one who made those agreements. This is a result of the principle of Federal Headship, which is found throughout the Bible, and is both one of the major reasons why generational curses exist, as well as the primary reason they are broken in Christ.

The reason I mention all of this is that when it comes to walking on the path of truth, it can be easy to fall into a ditch on either side. On the one side, we have people believing some version of the idea that curses don’t exist, have never existed, or cannot influence believers because Jesus already took care of it on the cross. On the other side, we have hyperfocus into trying to cleanse one’s generational line all the way back to Adam step-by-step through every generation in order to root it all out.

The latter is both a ton of work, and also wouldn’t fix all of it anyway because if you deal with bloodline issues and don’t deal with all the other stuff in the spirit, things in pre-incarnation, etc. then you did a lot of work and yet probably still didn’t catch it all. With the former, you simply ignore the problem to begin with and act like it’s going to automagically go away if you ignore it—which it largely will not. Now, part of where people get caught with this is that both sets of erroneous beliefs have certain things going for them that will yield a measure of fruit. And that measure of fruit becomes the corroboration someone is looking for to tell themselves that their belief is accurate. The problem is that there are aspects of each belief that are accurate or that produce results, but it is by no means the full picture.

So how does believing that curses don’t exist produce results? Faith. In Ephesians 6:16 it tells us that faith is protective. It is a shield, specifically to extinguish the darts of the evil one thrown at us, which could include curses. So if I don’t believe that curses exist, then some of the curses that are sent my way will automatically get extinguished and will not land because my faith that says they don’t exist revokes their right to influence my life. The problem is that for whatever reasons, this doesn’t always work. And truth be told, I can’t honestly tell you why it works for some curses and not others, but that’s just how it is. It might have something to do with the fact that people who believe curses don’t exist quite often also believe that demons don’t exist, which is categorically inaccurate, and opens them up to another set of problems.

If I believe a sentient entity who is attacking me of its own free will doesn’t exist, it doesn’t suddenly make the attack go away. As philosopher Descartes once said, “I think therefore I am.” The converse of that is not true though. If I don’t think something, it does not automagically blip that something out of existence. So maybe some curses that are thrown by people without much demonic involvement don’t take purchase in that individual‘s life because faith is protective, and when other ones do land its because there is more significant demonic influence behind them that overpowers the shield? I don’t fully understand the mechanism behind why some curses land and others don’t in those scenarios. I just know that because faith is protective, people who believe curses don’t exist will see a measure of results from that belief, and those results will serve to them as confirmation their belief is accurate (it isn’t). What they will not see is freedom from any of the other curses that are affecting them that are not influenced by that belief.

On the other side of things, we have people who are trying to manually deal with every curse step-by-step throughout their generational line and anywhere else they find them. To a certain extent, this will also yield fruit because they are actively breaking curses that do exist. The problem with this belief is the exact opposite of those who let curses run amok in their lives because they think they’re not real. In this case, this generational cleansing is a treadmill that is almost impossible to know when to climb off of. It can also generate a certain measure of legalistic thinking that gets us more focused on following or breaking cosmic laws and as a result it prevents us from fully walking in what Jesus already accomplished.

So where should we land in all of this??

Obviously, I’m going to recommend that we land somewhere in the middle. We need to recognize that curses are real. We need to not be naïve, and understand that humans who actively partner with the enemy through witchcraft, voodoo, sorcery, necromancy, and the like can and do send curses on people, and Christians are not exempted as targets. If anything, Christians are primary targets because they are Christians. We need to understand our identity in Christ and the authority that comes with it and break any and all curses—on us, our bloodlines, other people, and anywhere else we encounter them. And we need to also not get so bogged down with all of it that we spend a decade going through our ancestry with a fine toothed comb to pray through anything and everything that maybe could somehow possibly potentially be set against us. And how do we do that? It’s actually such a simple answer that it sounds too obvious to be the truth—we just need to ask the Holy Spirit. It is His job to lead and guide us into all truth and to counsel and guide us, so it is His job to help us walk the middle path in all of this.

We access things in the Kingdom through belief. But it is possible for someone to not even know about curses and yet still be affected by them. And then, if we pray to break those curses, and the curses get broken at that time, the oppression leaves. We could argue that it’s a problem of belief system, but if somebody’s belief system doesn’t include it to begin with and yet they are still being afflicted by it, then there is obviously more to it than simply belief, and there is something we have to do in the moment to enforce what Jesus did on the cross. And when we do enforce it, what Jesus did shines through. This isn’t because we are trying to “do more” than what Jesus finished, or even necessarily because we “don’t believe”. It’s a matter of enforcement. If things do not yet fully look like “on earth as it is in heaven” and if as Romans 8 speaks of, we the sons and daughters of God have not fully removed the decay from the cosmos yet, it isn’t a lack on Jesus’s part of failing to do something on the cross. It is simply that some things require enforcement, and we are God’s enforcement team in the earth.

I’m going to use an adjacent example to drive this point home, and possibly make it a little clearer to the reader using something more tangible than curses The Bible is quite clear that Jesus took care of all sickness, infirmity, and disease of every kind on the cross. And yet in the New Testament there still exists a divine empowerment from the Holy Spirit called “gifts of healing”. On a very real level, if what Jesus did on the cross was sufficient to manifest all healing for everyone without us ever doing anything to enforce it, then a gift of healing would be entirely unnecessary. And theologically, I actually agree that it should be unnecessary. But all of the injured people who check in at my hospital still need help in the moment, so what I think should be theologically accurate doesn’t really matter at that point.

The error of the “Finished Works” teaching of the 2010s is that it explains that the solution to healing (and every other problem) is simply for people to believe harder and believe more, and if they just more fully and completely believe the truth, then it will manifest for them. Which means any problem they have in their life is directly due to a failure on their part to believe what Jesus did, and it makes “belief” the new works. What it does not take into account is how fragmentation works and how one’s core believing something is not always the barrier or the solution (I write on this extensively on this blog and in my book Broken To Whole). It also does not account for the overlap in free will from one person to another and how that overlap affects us. If person A chooses of their free will to injure person B, then person B is most likely going to get an injury. Now because of what Jesus did on the cross, we can command healing and watch it get healed right in front of our eyes. But the injury will probably still occur because somebody enacted their free will upon the situation. Curses are the same. If someone enacts their free will to curse someone, that person will receive a curse (with the exception of mitigating factors as mentioned before). However, it can quickly and easily be broken because of what Jesus did on the cross.

We don’t need to spend time with endless focus on curse-breaking because we can believe what Jesus did is sufficient and walk in freedom by faith. And we can also take authority over curses in our lives as they get revealed to us and enforce the work of Jesus on the cross. Likewise we can live in divine health as a general lifestyle, and yet if an injury comes or an accident happens, we can command it to be healed and walk in wholeness and life once more.

There is much more I could go into detail about regarding fragmentation of the soul and how it influences free will, but this article would end up becoming so long it would be what I plan to someday write on the subject—another book teaching on all of this so we can walk in the freedom Jesus already worked out for us on the cross. Regardless of where you find yourself on this journey we call Christian Life, I encourage you to seek the Holy Spirit to help you walk the middle road where you can live from a place of rest, not needing to re-accomplish what Christ already did, and also not being so rigid in your thinking that when it comes time to enforce what He did, you are ready for the task. Be well and be blessed!

There Is No Such Thing As Christian Reiki

I want to take some time today to expose and expound on something that I see pop up from time to time in Christian circles—people who practice what they are calling “Christian Reiki”. It seems to happen most often when people either don’t understand about the gifts of the spirit and our authority in Christ or when they are legitimately hungry for more and start looking elsewhere for answers. And before going further, I believe the heart motivation of these individuals are in the right place. They desire good things for people and they want to see them healed and restored and have everything that God plans for their life. The problem is the methodology. There is no such thing as Christian Reiki because Christianity and Reiki are inherently in opposition to one another.

Let me clearly and unequivocally state that Reiki is demonic. I cannot tell you how many times I have made that statement to Reiki-practicing Christians and their first response is to tell me that I just don’t understand. Believe it or not, it is actually possible to call something demonic because I understand it, not because I don’t. Sometimes when we call things demonic or evil it’s quite simply because the thing is demonic and evil, not because of ignorance and misunderstanding on our part. And Reiki fits the bill. So what do I mean when I say “demonic”? What I mean is that the function of the practice of Reiki comes from demonic activity. There is no way to practice Reiki without this demonic involvement because if it didn’t include the demonic activity then it wouldn’t, by definition, be Reiki.

Let me explain. In my book The Gospel of Life and Immortality I have a chapter where I explain the difference between primary and secondary energy, what you could potentially consider to be creative light and created light. Creative light is that which comes directly from God and, as you can guess, is the power of creation. Created light is the energy that exists in all things and has already been created. Hebrews 1:3 references this when it explains that Jesus is the representation of God‘s glory who sustained all things by the emanation of his power/word/energy. Created light is the sustenance of Jesus Christ into all creation that allows us to continue to exist. Energy work, or energy healing, is the practice of harnessing that secondary energy and applying it to people and things to heal or restore them. It’s honestly really easy to do, and you don’t need any special abilities to be able to do it. Simply being a human means you possess the bodily technology to be able to do that.

On the other hand, Reiki is a specific school/process/practice of energy medicine that teaches people how to do this. It uses a series of sounds, hand symbols, and hand positions on parts of the body to reach the desired results. There are various things I could say about all of that, but without getting into the weeds on the methodology itself (which could be an article all on its own), I want to hone in on the nature of what Reiki is so we can understand why I not only differentiate it from energy medicine practices as a whole and also why I specifically single it out as being demonic. Keep in mind that by singling out Reiki it doesn’t mean that every other form or version or school of energy medicine practice out there is demon-free, just that Reiki itself is inextricably tainted. And here’s why:

By definition, it is impossible for someone to be a Reiki practitioner if they have not received something called a Reiki “attunement”. If someone uses all of the hand positions and everything else but has not received a Reiki attunement from an existing practitioner, then they are not, by definition, practicing Reiki. They’re just doing energy medicine and borrowing Reiki techniques. For something to be Reiki, it requires a process of impartation from an existing Reiki practitioner. This impartation, called an attunement, is supposed to open up the individual to be able to channel this universal secondary energy all around us. The man who initially received the download about Reiki was a man named Usui who was meditating on a mountain somewhere, and had a spiritual encounter of some kind. During this encounter he was given the basics of Reiki practice, then began to pass this down to disciples. Now, in my book The Power of Impartation I go into some depth explaining what impartation is and how it works, but quite simply impartation is the releasing a spiritual virtue from one person to another, usually through the laying on of hands. It is called impartation because there is a spiritual substance or an energy that is being passed or “imparted” from one person to the other. And this gets to the crux of why Reiki is demonic.

As I mentioned before, it is impossible to practice Reiki if one does not receive a Reiki attunement. A Reiki attunement is a demonic impartation, or said another way, it is an impartation of demonic access to manipulate and utilize secondary energy. It is already an ability we innately possess as humans. We don’t actually need a Reiki attunement to be able to practice energy work because it’s already built into our design. This is the same lie that the serpent gave to Eve when he told her to eat the fruit. The serpent told her that if she ate the fruit that she would be like God. The truth was that in Genesis 1 it tells us she was already made in God’s image, which means she was already like Him. The serpent got her to try to do something extra in order for her to become who she already was. Likewise, we don’t need Reiki attunements to work with secondary energy because it’s already part of who we are. However, when we receive this impartation, when we come into agreement with this demonic form of energy healing, we give certain spirits access to the realm of our soul so they can do whatever they want without our knowledge. People who do this welcome these spirits in while believing the lie that they are doing something good for themselves and for others. The reason I am so vocal about this when I talk to people is because Reiki is a form of demonic entrapment, preying on people’s good intentions. It is the epitome of the enemy masquerading as an angel of light to make it appear that something is good and life-giving when in fact, it is not.

Now, let’s be clear about this—I’m not saying that Reiki doesn’t work. I’m not saying that people who have gone to Reiki practitioners will get no benefits. That’s part of what makes the deception so effective. When somebody receives a Reiki attunement they will be working with secondary energy and they can do stuff with it. I never said it doesn’t work. I said it’s demonic. The agreements that the practitioner has to make are inherently allowing demons access to their soul realm, and if somebody goes to that practitioner to receive treatment, I can’t guarantee that they’re not making similar agreements as well. But because all of this looks and sounds nice and because the people practicing it genuinely care and truly want people to be healed and whole, Reiki often slides under the radar. And that’s why I began my entire article by saying that I believe the heart motivation of everybody involved is really very good. I don’t believe that most people would willingly tell others about a harmful energy practice that opens you up to the demonic if they truly understood it was a harmful practice. They do it because they are genuinely ignorant of the deeper truth about it, and because they want people to be healed and have good lives. Their hearts are in the right place. The problem isn’t their heart motivation, the problem is the agreements they’ve made with demonic entities.

I have wanted to heal people for much of my life. It’s not a coincidence that I’m a nurse. I pray for the sick and expect God to heal them. I very much engage God’s divine healing power to touch others, and while I don’t do it very often, I also can do energy work on people. As I said earlier, it’s honestly not hard. It’s just not half as beneficial as taking power authority over sickness and disease, doing some inner healing, and watching God touch someone and heal them And since doing energy work is largely more time consuming for less results, it’s simply something I rarely do any longer. It doesn’t mean I can’t do it, it doesn’t mean I don’t know how to do it, it doesn’t mean I’m ignorant of it, it just means that I choose not to because there are faster and better ways to do it.

If anyone who is reading this has gotten caught in the trap that is Reiki, I want to encourage you to give it up. And by “give it up” I mean stop practicing it, renounce your participation in it, get rid of your Reiki paraphernalia, and get some inner healing and deliverance to get fully free from the connection with the spirits involved. If you honor God by choosing to walk in His truth, He will set you free and He will bring something along that is even better than what you feel like you are giving up. I understand that it feels like a loss because again, the only people who are doing Reiki are people who want others to be healed. and I love that about you. I love that that’s your heart. And I want you to be free to walk in the fullness of everything that God has planned for you in that, but you will never be able to walk in the fullness of that as long as you are practicing Reiki because to be a Christian and practice Reiki is to serve two masters, and the Bible is pretty clear that doing so doesn’t end well.

If you want to learn more about what I have been saying about impartation and primary and secondary energy, as well as God’s plans for us for life and how to live it out to the fullest, I encourage you to get copies of my books The Power of Impartation and The Gospel of Life and Immortality, both of which are available in print, on Kindle, and Audible.

Specialization in the Kingdom

In the past 20+ years, I have been part of the charismatic movement and beyond, I have learned a decent bit about dream interpretation, and have practiced it enough on my dreams and those of others that I consider myself to be decent at dream interpretation. I have friends who I definitely would consider experts, but most of the time I think there is value in trying to work out a dream on your own with the Holy Spirit. If nothing else, as we work out and practice interpretation of our own dreams, I believe it can help give us clearer insight into some of the ways that God communicates with us on a day-to-day basis outside of the dream realm. However, I want to take some time explaining how I manage dreams and dream interpretation to look at something a bit more expansive—how we specialize in skills and abilities in the Kingdom of God.

As I said above, I’m decent at dream interpretation. However, when I have a dream that truly stumps me, I will reach out to one of my expert friends. But then, because I’m pretty sure they get inundated with dream requests from other people, I try to not just pick and choose when I ask them, but I also like to vary who I ask so I am not always putting it out to the same person.

Well, I had a confusing dream the other day. The basic concept of the dream wasn’t all that complex, but how the symbology fit with my life, and the significance of a few of the key symbols in the dream were still somewhat confusing to me. So I reached out to a friend. And like I said, I took a minute to decide who to ask first before I just randomly asked someone, and it just felt like this particular friend was the best person to ask. So I did. And she agreed to take a look at it and get back to me.

A day or so later, she wrote me and asked me a question related to my ancestral background and inner healing and deliverance. I was intrigued, because I had no idea how she derived that from the dream. It turns out that in-between the time I sent her the dream and a day or so later when she read it, she and her husband had watched a documentary. In that documentary it included some of the same symbols that were in my dream—except this was a documentary about Irish folklore, not dream interpretation. What it appears happened is that when I was stumped on the dream and was pondering who to consult, the Holy Spirit nudged me toward the one person that He knew he was about to give an interpretation to. Now this is an interesting story, but what does this have anything to do with you, the reader, and what does this have to do with Kingdom specialization?

This makes me think of the book of Daniel, where we see that Daniel was given skill in the interpreting of dreams by the Lord. But he was surrounded by people who also interpreted dreams. Daniel’s skill wasn’t made irrelevant as a result of other people also possessing similar skills, but he definitely had more skill and a level of divine gifting that set him apart. However, Daniel was also not everywhere all at once, so I imagine that the interpretive abilities of everyone else also had their relevance. I think these details are important because there are a few things we can derive from this on a broad level for spiritual life.

The first thing is that being surrounded by others with similar specialization or experience does not make you or your abilities irrelevant, nor does it put you in competition with one another. As a nurse, I literally work with a dozen other nurses on a daily basis. My nursing knowledge and skills are not made invalid as a result of other nurses being present, nor does it mean we are competing to see who can “do it better,” but rather we can pull on each other’s areas of more narrow focus or ability as needs arise. I’m not terrible at placing IVs, but I’m also not the expert on our unit. However, if you need wound care done and aren’t sure what to do, calling me for help might be a good idea. Even with my example of dream interpretation, whether mine or Daniel the prophet, having others in your specialty area isn’t a bad thing, nor does it mean the area is oversaturated. We aren’t in competition with one another in the Kingdom—we lift each other up.

Second, Daniel wasn’t the expert at everything. He still needed other people to do whatever it was they did, and he still needed to primarily hit his areas of expertise. In other words, Daniel’s specializations were just that—areas of focus. It didn’t mean he was never permitted to venture outside of that lane, but Daniel knew where his lane was and for the most part he remained in it. One of the things I think that Kingdom maturity looks like is people staying in their own lane to a certain situational degree.

I have a minister friend who is more than happy to speak to his areas of specialty, but when someone asks him for advice or his opinions on things he is not considered an authority on, he has no qualms about telling them he either doesn’t have an answer or doesn’t consider himself qualified enough to give a good answer to that matter, and moves on. This is actually a very reasonable response, and is a mature approach to something we see with specialization, which is what is known as situational authority. If we are at a Body Shop dealing with car problems, no one cares about my knowledge or input. Why? Because I know little about vehicles and next to nothing about how to fix them. If someone suddenly starts having medical problems in that Body Shop they’ll want my help, but otherwise the best thing I can do is sit silently in a chair and let the experts do their job. Maturity knows when to step in and when to sit down.

Whether talking about Daniel being gifted with dream interpretation who sounds like he became exceedingly good at a rapid pace due to his giftings, or me who may have some measure of gifting but also who learned through experience over time, I think there is additional wisdom we can glean from all of this. In your average dream-interpretation situation neither Daniel or I would need to rely on someone else for the answer. While I don’t consider myself to be on Daniel’s level, when things get high-level though (such as needing to tell someone both the contents of the dream they had and its interpretation), even Daniel needed to take extra time to seek the Lord for help. I think there is an element of this type of maturity that we need to expect ourselves to walk in in the body of Christ—where we know when we can dive in and resolve something as Sons in the Kingdom and when to get outside help.

On a general level, wherever I go there should be a solution because I am present. If someone needs healing, I’m there so you get healed. If somebody needs inner healing and deliverance, I’m there so you get set free. Whether it’s raising the dead, dream interpretation, or anything else, I believe that we as individual believers should be well rounded enough that we are generally able to handle circumstances as they come across our path, whether they are our problem or the problems of those around us. And if for some reason, you are not walking at that level yet, that’s okay. We all have areas in room for growth, this is not condemnation to anyone who doesn’t feel like they have arrived yet. We are all on a journey, technically there is no point of arrival. But there is gradually increasing in maturity, and that needs to be a focus of ours. The term “jack of all trades master of none” is something that should apply to most believers, with the exception that I think it should say “master of few”. There is an element of general ability across the board that I believe each of us should possess, and to the extent that we don’t, we should be intentional about learning and growing in those areas. And yet, there is another side of things—what I mentioned before about staying in one’s lane. We should possess general ability, but also be able to recognize specialization.

Ephesians 4 is clear that Jesus gave SOME to the apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers. In Romans 12, we see another list where it lays out workers of miracles. It doesn’t mean that only a special few are permitted to perform miracles, but that there is a specialization where some people are more capable at it than others. This means that not everyone specializes in each of those things—nor should they. If we want to function as a healthy Body of Christ, then we need to understand both generalization and specialization, and operate to a healthy capacity in both. For me, I made a decision many years ago that I need to walk in enough Kingdom power and authority that regardless of the problem and whether anyone else is present who can manifest the Kingdom in an instant, that if I am present that it will be enough. I have by no means fully apprehended that place, but it is something that does drive me to grow in all things Kingdom. This doesn’t negate the need for specialization, as I definitely specialize in areas of healing, whether body or soul, and things prophetic, whether revelatory or interpretive. I still have much room to grow in all of those areas, but it means that I know where I specialize which means I also can be aware of when I need to step up because my skills are best put to use versus when I should step aside and let someone else do their thing.

The good news is that whether in generalization or specialization, Kingdom advancement is Kingdom advancement. My encouragement to anyone who is moving forward is to keep doing so. If someone isn’t sure how to advance, areas of weakness you can shore up, or how to best learn and grow, I encourage you to take some time and ask the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, counsel and guidance, to show you a path forward. If you want to learn and grow in specific areas, then find those who are already blazing a path forward in those areas and read their books, listen to their teachings and podcasts, etc. This site is a great resource for inner healing, deliverance, physical healing, and engaging in the spirit, with hundreds of free articles that also cover things such as faith, miracles, and engaging angels. You can also check out my books on Amazon that cover a range of miracles, raising the dead, theology for life, traveling in the spirit, inner healing, impartation, and more. Be well, be blessed, and advance the Kingdom!

Why Being a Prophetic Feeler Can Be Overwhelming (And What To Do About It)

A friend once wrote me a message and asked me the following question: “Do you have any suggestions for how someone way too empathetic can work with and love whoever they’re helping without being swallowed up by the painful stuff being addressed? Or does that indicate some brokenness in itself?”

I thought this was a really great question, and the answer is both extremely simple and highly complex. The simple answer to this question is “You need inner healing and deliverance.” As you can guess, I will now give you the complex answer, so buckle in.

Quite often when someone is “too empathetic” and they get absolutely steamrolled by other people’s emotional junk, it is usually unhealed emotional wounds on behalf of the person who is receiving the emotional overload. The new vogue thing in prophetic circles seems to be “I’m a prophetic feeler” but in reality most of the time people are just super unhealed and their soul is so open to other people’s emotions that they have trouble having internal emotional and energetic boundaries. This means that there is what I would essentially consider emotional contamination coming from the other person that you are receiving and being overwhelmed by because you lack the internal barriers and protections that someone normally would have in place to prevent that from happening.

As for why this subject comes up and people find it overwhelming, that is because it absolutely can be overwhelming. The key for a “prophetic feeler” is that you must identify

1) what burdens God is giving you and

2) what issues you are picking up on that aren’t yours to bear and

3) what of the burdens you are picking up is due to you being unhealed and far too wide open

“Oh, but Michael, you don’t understand. If it had happened to you then you’d understand what it is like.”

Oh, I understand perfectly well. I avoid most non-God-focused events with large crowds for a reason—not because I *don’t* understand. I don’t even find stores that are very busy and full of people enjoyable. It’s too chaotic and really unenjoyable. I was in Barnes and Noble a few weeks ago and it was packed. Absolutely teeming with people. I expressly remember having the thought at that time that “this is exactly why I avoid these types of situations.” It can be intense at times. I just don’t talk about it very much and haven’t styled myself as a “prophetic feeler” because I don’t really think the title adequately describes what is going on for me.

Now, I have a dear friend who I go on mission trips with and she and her husband are both absolutely awesome. They are some of my favorite people to minister in the nations with. She is absolutely what I would term a “prophetic feeler” (and I’m fairly certain she would say that she is if you asked her), and at times the Lord will have her absorb the painful emotions of others. In my opinion it’s not actually hard to do, and it’s a skill anyone can learn, but yes, some people are more naturally gifted and/or inclined to it than others, and some have a special divine grace for it as well. I don’t know which of those categories I fall into, but I know how to do it and at times have to be very intentional not to.

Well, I was on a ministry trip with this friend and she mentioned how sad she was feeling constantly. In talking a bit, we recognized that she felt that way because she was picking up on and processing some pretty intense emotional stuff that I and another person on the trip were each dealing with. And sometime after she got on her flight, thereby leaving our presence, the emotional difficulty literally just cut off like someone turned water off from a running faucet. Our emotions were literally the source of her problem, and it is because she was engaging in a form of intercession, which among other things means “to bear and carry away.”

Now, on one occasion a few of us did discuss the whole thing about feeling other people’s feelings and carrying those burdens, and she shared how she used to be absolutely floored for a month or so after a mission trip because of all the emotional baggage she picked up and carried away from others. Eventually the Lord intervened and taught her how to release those emotions after she picked them up so she wasn’t carrying hundreds of people’s emotional pain for months or years at a time. And this ties in with what I was saying in the beginning about being too open and absorbing everything. In addition to needing to have a bit more of a firm hold on what we do and don’t absorb is something I think most prophetic feelers also need to learn—how to take whatever they are picking up, give it to the Lord, and fully release it from their own soul. Intercession is, among other things, the ability to “bear and carry away” burdens. It is not bad to be able to bear someone else’s burden, but it is extremely unhealthy to pick up that burden and not set it back down in the loving hands of the One who already pre-planned to carry it away for all of us on the cross.

If you consider yourself to be a “prophetic feeler” and want to get better at managing it, as well as releasing all of the things you’ve picked up from others that aren’t your burden to bear long-term, I have a few suggestions. First, I encourage you to get the book Emotional Healing in Three Easy Steps by Praying Medic. It gives a very simple prayer template that can help you pray through releasing any emotions you are feeling regardless of whether they originated with you or not. Second, I encourage you to connect with an inner healing minister who can help you become more internally healthy yourself and thus address that issue of internal barriers I mentioned earlier (links listed below the article). Third, I encourage you to check out the resources that Freedom Flowers has to offer for emotional health, and specifically I recommend the Yarrow Shield essence which is specifically designed for helping those who tend to pick up other people’s emotional and energetic “stuff” and can get overwhelmed by it.

Prayer Ministers

Integrated Life Strategies – Robin Perry Braun

WhenYouNeedGrace.com – Grace

Transformations Community – Adena Hodges

Risen Light Works – Danielle

Holy Fire Disciples – Mason Ledbetter

Seeking After Signs: What Does The Bible Say?

The Charismatic denominations are a funny place, and if you listen to what every teacher or preacher says about how to receive from God, how to operate in the gifts of the spirit, whether to seek after God’s face or his hand, how to receive answered prayer or see miracles, or anything similar, you are bound to get spiritual whiplash, because every time you turn around someone is going to be telling you something different. One person will tell you to intercede fervently to get your prayers answered. Another will tell you not to pray for them to be answered but to thank God that they are already answered until it happens. Yet another will tell you to “praise” God for it instead of praying—which at best I can assume means that you’re still thanking God but with music this time. It can get very difficult to know whether it’s okay to ask God for things or if asking Him for things is bad because different people will tell you different things. One will tell you to only seek God’s face, which in this context means to engage Him relationally and not ask Him for anything, and then you will receive everything in His hands that He is holding for you. Another will tell you to ask Him for what you need because the Bible directly states to do so, and so you should ask Him for what you need but also believe you have already received it or else you won’t get anything. This is all just plain confusing.

Most people want to know how to get their prayers answered, and some (like me) take it a step further and want to know how to operate consistently in the gifts of the Spirit and live a supernatural lifestyle. Some of us even believe that God wants us to be able to do these things at our command (I do an hour-long teaching about this called Miracles Today, available on Youtube). I want to help bring some clarity to this topic not by doing just one more teaching to give you even more whiplash, but by bringing some *context* to what the Bible says about seeking after signs, wonders, and miracles.

If we quote certain passages with no context and then match them with other passages that equally contain no context, then we can easily come to the conclusion that seeking after and operating in signs, wonders, and miracles is not the will of God for us. I have heard said multiples of times over the years in conversations I was personally in some variation of the idea that we should only seek intimacy with God and then everything else will automatically come to us. The idea is that whether spiritual gifts, financial provision, spiritual power, miracles, etc., so long as we “seek His face” and engage God relationally in love, then we automatically get everything else. I have yet to find that to be true, and challenge anyone to show me that practice consistently bearing the kind of fruit I am referencing. Sure, we can find a few people here and there where it worked out for them, but it doesn’t yield results consistently, which means ignoring spiritual power and assuming it’s going to head my way eventually isn’t actually a reliable means of operating in spiritual power.

It is extremely easy to find believers who love God and yet who also can’t even heal a headache in prayer. There is no special award for being a powerless Christian, but we collectively act like it is the pious stance to take, when in reality what Jesus both did and taught was to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, strength, etc. and also He went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed of the devil. He did miracles all over Israel and taught his disciples to do the same, then passed that mandate on to each of us as well (Matthew 28:20). It is impossible to do a sensible read-through of the Bible and come away with the conclusion that we are not meant to operate in the miraculous, but people manage to do it anyway. Jesus didn’t pick and choose one or the other, and He certainly didn’t teach his disciples to do so either. And if neither Jesus nor the early disciples held this belief, I suggest we shouldn’t either. But let’s take a look at some interactions Jesus had on this subject and see what the Bible says.

In John 6 we see Jesus feeding the five-thousand by multiplying bread and fish. This story is found in each of the gospels, but what is interesting (which you will hear me expound on this more if you go listen to my teaching on Youtube) is that in John 6:5-6 Jesus tests Philip on whether or not he knows how to perform a miracle. You see, the text tells us that Jesus had already pre-planned to perform a miracle, which is the only way He could have been able to test Philip on it. And when does a teacher test the students? When the teacher wants to see how well the students are learning the material. Jesus wasn’t expecting Philip to just love Him a lot and then have the bread multiply on its own with no influence on Philip’s part. No, Jesus was actively teaching His disciples how to perform miracles, which means He can’t be all that upset when we actually obey His teachings and seek out how to do the same things He was already teaching the disciples to do. No, I think Jesus would commend our obedience instead.

It goes a step further though. If we jump down to John 6:25-31 we see the people flocking after Jesus, and Jesus comments that they are not looking for him because of his signs, but because of the food. He cautions them about their motives, which is key to note, urging them to seek a different type of spiritual sustenance, and in response they ask Jesus an interesting question, which is quite telling. John 6:30-31 says, “So they asked him, ‘What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’’” They specifically expected Jesus to perform some kind of miracle in order for them to believe what He was saying, and then they referenced their ancestors eating manna in the wilderness under Moses as the example or template they were going off of.

For us to understand this passage and to provide Biblical/cultural context, it is important to note that the expectation the crowd had of Jesus was a sign, and that this was normal for Jews. Jews grew up hearing about all of the signs and wonders that God performed when bringing the Israelites out of Egypt, and the writers of the Psalms wrote about them often. Culturally, Jews expected to see signs and miracles because their belief in God was largely based on visible evidence and/or testimonies or stories from others of past evidence.

We see this same tendency of Jews to seek after signs noted by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:22-24. It says, “For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.”

Paul didn’t actually have a problem with the Jews seeking a sign, nor did Jesus. And God doesn’t reject wisdom just because Greeks sought after it. God is literally the embodiment of all wisdom, so it would be absurd for Him to be anti-wisdom. The issue was that without a sign the Jews were unwilling to believe, and unless you could logic your way to the Greeks, they were also unwilling to believe. Each of them had a predetermined set of cultural expectations under which God was expected to perform to their satisfaction in order for them to follow Him, and that’s just not how God does things.

We see evidence of this yet again in John 20 when Thomas does not believe that Jesus appeared to the other disciples unless he is literally able to touch Jesus’s wounds. We are going to look at all of John 20:24-31 because the entire passage has some relevance to this topic. It says:

Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:24-31)

Jesus’s issue with Thomas wasn’t that Thomas needed a sign—it was his heart condition of unbelief that was the problem. There is a blessing that comes for those who believe in Him without having seen a sign, but that doesn’t mean that Jesus was anti-signs. No, it is impossible for Jesus to be anti-signs because literally the next verse we read it says “Jesus performed many other signs”. Now, if Jesus was against his disciples having, doing, or seeing signs, would He have made sure to perform a bunch of them right after telling a disciple to stop doubting? Absolutely not. The issue wasn’t one of whether they could have signs or not, it was that they were Jews, and Jesus was trying to break them of the Jewish habit of having to see a sign in order to believe in a Kingdom where faith is one of the primary currencies.

If we were to read some of these passages above at face value without understanding the cultural context of Biblical Jews/Israel, we would think that seeking after signs is a bad thing, and that Jesus gets upset when we do this. In reality, what we find is that Jesus was teaching His disciples to perform miracles, to the point that the last thing Jesus said to His disciples in Mark 16 before He ascended was this:

He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it. (Mark 16:15-20)

If you were Jesus and you were against signs, wonders, and miracles, then why would the very last thing you say to your disciples include a list of the signs they should expect to see if they believe in Him? That line of reasoning makes zero sense. Not only does this passage show Jesus telling the disciples the signs they should expect, but when they obeyed what He commanded them it says that God confirmed their preaching with signs. I think it is pretty safe to say that not only are signs permissible for the believer, but that it is perfectly find to seek after them. Again, the context of not seeking after signs was for non-believing Jews who were expecting a sign in order to believe, where for Jesus’s disciples who already believed, He was teaching them how to perform miracles. The context matters immensely.

There’s a big difference between seeking signs as a requirement to believe and seeking signs because you believe. In the former it is based largely, I believe, in a lack of trust in God. In the latter, it generally springs forth in context of the relationship with Him. In other words, signs are not only not a bad thing to seek, but they’re fantastic. In 1 Corinthians 12:31 Paul told people to eagerly desire the greater spiritual gifts and repeats himself again in 1 Corinthians 14:1. Like Jesus, Paul had no issue with there being visible manifestation of what we believe. The issue isn’t whether something should have a visible manifestation, because it should, but it’s the heart posture from whence that comes that matters most, which is why Paul devoted 1 Corinthians 13 to explaining the importance of tempering spiritual power and giftings with love. It isn’t that love is important and that gifts are not, or that we should only seek love and naively hope the gifts will end up flowing our way. No, we are meant to operate both in immense love and immense spiritual power as followers of Jesus, not choosing one or the other, but doing both in great measure!

If you are a follower of Jesus Christ and you want to see signs, wonders, and miracles, I encourage it! In fact, I have written multiple books designed to help the believer walk in and experience the miraculous, some of which are also in audiobook format.

The books Gemstones From Heaven and Feathers From Heaven are about miracle manifestations, and provide biblical understanding about these miracles, wisdom for discerning the nature of the miracles and what God could be communicating through them, as well as insights into how we can partner with Heaven to experience them.

The Power of Impartation gives practical insight into how we can engage God’s heavenly system to see the supernatural enhanced in our lives and in the lives of those around us through impartation and other related spiritual laws.

Faith To Raise The Dead is a bit self-explanatory as it is about raising the dead—seeing them restored back to life and back to their families by the power of Jesus Christ.

The Gospel of Life and Immortality takes that a step further to encourage us to never even taste death, as well as gives practical insights into how to begin walking that out.

The Beginner’s Guide To Traveling In The Spirit is a basic training manual to help equip the believer to engage the things of God in heavenly places, the result of which should be a greater manifestation of Heaven on the Earth.

Gemstones in the Land: Unlocking Spiritual Inheritance

One of the things about seeing in the spirit is that you sometimes see strange stuff. And when you start to see that strange stuff consistently over time in different situations and locations, it makes you start to wonder why you are seeing what you see, and what it means. This last week someone posted something on social media, asking a question pertaining to spiritual things, “Has anyone ever seen gems in land?” Well, I’ve been seeing them for years, so while I answered on the thread it also made me think “How many other people see this kind of stuff and just have never heard anyone else talk about it?” So, in keeping with what I often do, I figured I’d share the strangeness here for all of you to read, ponder, pray about, and maybe even begin to encounter.

Gems in the land. Coming from a guy who wrote the book “Gemstones From Heaven,” you’d think I would already have some idea about what spiritual precious stones found beneath different properties would mean. At the very least you might consider that in all of my bible-studying that I’d have come across an answer already. Well, I haven’t. What I have discovered, however, are a few characteristics about these stones that are suggestive, at least to me, of what I am seeing, and they have implications for what we as believers can do with them.

First, spiritual gemstones in the land have always, that I have ever seen been far larger than any actual earthly precious stone could be. Normally they are the size somewhere in-between a 5-gallon bucket and a loveseat, but it often seems that the larger the property, the larger the stone. This isn’t an exact science, and the size of the stones don’t seem to scale to the size of the property, and sometimes a place has more than one, but normally I only see one per tract of land.

Second is the color. The actual hue can vary from place to place, but normally they are vibrant colors. When they aren’t, and look black or dark-colored, that is typically an indication of something bad happening—either active demonic activity, the land that has been hijacked by the enemy at some point and is still tied to it, or something else. At any rate, dark colors have never, in my experience, been an indicator of good things. On the other hand, colors that are vibrant suggest that spiritually that property is faring well. If the colors are light but lack vibrancy, then we can bless the land and watch the vitality return to the stone.

What should we do with this information? I guess that depends. I am of the opinion that each nation, landmass, and even property have their own divine inheritance—a blueprint of sorts from Heaven as to what they are best-designed to do and how those who live on and use the land are best able to partner with Heaven to match with that blueprint. I think of it as a spiritual inheritance that God put in creation that has, in many ways, been co-opted by the enemy and which we, as the sons and daughters of God, have been given authority in Jesus to restore to its rightful place. Romans 8:22-23 tells us that all of creation is groaning and waiting for us, the sons and daughters of God, to release it from its bondage to decay. While I don’t pretend to have the whole picture, maybe what I am seeing, these precious stones hidden inside the land, are a means by which we can bless what has been cursed, to take dominion over the earth, and release the realm of the Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven!

Numbers, Riddles, and Hearing God’s Voice

Have you ever felt like someone is following you? Well, sometimes I don’t feel like it’s a someone, but a series of somethings–numbers. Right now it’s the number 111, but at times it has been 1222, 1010, 555, or many others. This began for me almost fifteen years ago, and it started with the number 1222. At that time, if I looked at a clock sometime around noon or midnight it was going to say 12:22. I would be driving in traffic and find myself driving behind license plates with the conspicuous number 1222 written in the license, or even at times a combination of the letter B and 2 (B correlates with the 2^nd letter of the alphabet—I have observed corresponding combinations with letters that match the number scheme that is happening at that time) which might look like 1BB2 or 122B or similar. This happened for months before I finally discovered what it meant—12/22 is my now-wife’s birthday (we were not married or even dating at the time) and the prophetic confirmation that a steady stream of the same number combination “coincidentally” showing up all around me served as a powerful prophetic confirmation in a period in my life when I badly needed it. God in His wisdom knew this in advance and provided for me before I entered the season where I needed it.

Numerology has lots of different explanations for the significance of numbers and many different Christian groups have their own beliefs about what numbers are supposed to mean from a prophetic or symbolic perspective. While any kind of number-meaning-guide can be helpful, I find they often fall short of a clear meaning. I find that most interpretations offer some helpful suggestions, but they can miss the mark as well if someone doesn’t understand that numbers are a means that God uses to talk to us. Sometimes it will be a scripture verse God is pointing to, and other times there is another meaning

For me, it depends. Before we moved to Portland, Oregon back in 2009, for months I would see 11:11 on clocks, license plates, etc. I looked up every single bible verse with four 1’s in it, and landed on Deuteronomy 11:11 which says, “The land you are crossing the Jordan to possess is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven.” I began to declare this every time I would see those numbers, not having a clue what it meant.. I think we might have lived in Portland for a full year before I realized I had moved to a land of mountains and valleys that did nothing if not drink rain from heaven six months out of every year.

There is a principle related to the prophetic and hearing God’s voice that is found in a conversation God had with Aaron and Miriam. Actually, the Lord was rebuking them for speaking out against Moses and his leadership, but the information provided in the rebuke is interesting. Numbers 12:6-8 says, “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 literally descended in a pillar of cloud and told two of Israel’s leaders that He speaks to prophets in riddles, visions, and dreams, but with Moses He speaks face to face. What this says to me is that riddles are one of the ways God will speak to any of us, and having to piece together the meaning of a repeating number sequence seems pretty riddle-ish to me.

While I can never guarantee any specific meaning to any number or number sequence, I have learned a few things over the years. First, each situation is different. What a number sequence meant one time doesn’t necessarily mean it will have the same interpretation another time. And while the meaning can vary from one instance to another, often they will go in “flights” of numbers—where a number will repeat for a few weeks or even months (the longest I have had was sixteen months) and will have the same meaning the entire time. Yet, when there is a break in the numbers appearing or the sequence shifts, it usually means that God is saying something new. Second, you have to search out the meaning. Sometimes it is as simple as a well-known Bible verse like Jeremiah 33:3 which says, “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” Other times it takes hunting, literally combing the Bible for scripture verses and discerning which fits the meaning. On other occasions, like with my wife’s birthday, it isn’t a scripture passage at all and the number has another meaning entirely.

While what the numbers mean and what God is saying to us may vary from situation to situation, one thing is certain: God uses numbers as one of the many ways He speaks to us, and the more we become attuned to the methods He uses, the more readily and easily we will recognize both when God is speaking and what He is saying to us. If you want to read a little more about God speaking to us through number patterns, or other ways God communicates with us, check out an anthology I am featured in called “God Speaks: Perspectives on Hearing God’s Voice” by Praying Medic, myself, Northwest Prophetic, Melody Paasch, Seneca Schurbon (who coauthored Broken to Whole with me) and others!

The Need for Spiritual Sight

I have believed for many years that it is possible to see in the spirit much the same as how we see things physically, yet in the Body of Christ this is a rare thing. My issue is that while it currently is rare, I don’t think it should be. There are many Bible verses that talk about seeing in the spirit, and many of them suggest that it should be normal for us to see in the spirit, or at least more normal than it is right now. Let’s take a look at some of these verses, and consider why we even need to be able to see in the spirit.

2 Kings 6:17, 20 says, “And Elisha prayed, ‘Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.’ Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha . . . After they entered the city, Elisha said, ‘Lord, open the eyes of these men so they can see.’ Then the Lord opened their eyes and they looked, and there they were, inside Samaria.”

In this situation Elisha prayed for those around him to see the heavenly warriors who were arrayed on their behalf, as they were looking only at natural resources available to them in their situation. Has anyone else ever been in a bad situation where they needed to see what Heaven was doing instead of just the forces of the enemy sent against them? Seeing in the spirit is a remedy for that.

In Job 10:4 it says, “Do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see as a mortal sees?” This verse suggests that mortals see with physical eyes, yet the Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that we are new creatures in Christ and no longer “mere men” as Paul chastised the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 3:3. In fact, Isaiah 29:10 suggests that the normative state for prophets is to have spiritual sight. It says, “The Lord has brought over you a deep sleep: He has sealed your eyes (the prophets); he has covered your heads (the seers).” This passage suggests that it is normal for prophets and seers to see in the spirit, hence why God had to cover them to prevent their vision.

There are many other passages that speak to our need and/or ability to see spiritual things, including multiple visions found throughout the Old and New Testaments by various prophets. In fact, in order for the disciples walking to Emmaus to recognize Jesus post-resurrection the Bible tells us their spiritual eyes had to be opened. Luke 24:31 says, “Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.” In Numbers 22:31, the prophet Balaam had to have God open his eyes in order to avoid getting killed by an angel. “Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with his sword drawn. So he bowed low and fell facedown.”

In the New Testament we are told to literally fix our gaze on non-physical, non-tangible realities, prioritizing things in the spirit over things in the natural. 2 Corinthians 4:18 says, “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” Now, the reason for this is because unseen things are eternal in nature and have a more lasting value to them than physical ones. God wants us to be able to engage and interact with the spiritual realms, which is why Paul prayed accordingly in Ephesians 1:18-19a, that “the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.”

If you have never seen in the spirit before, or would like to have it happen more, begin by praying something similar to what Elisha prayed over his servant: “Open my eyes, Lord, that I may see!”

The Power of Impartation—Now In Print and Ebook!

Hey there Friends of Eden!

I am excited to announce that my new book “The Power of Impartation” is available for purchase on Amazon in both print and Kindle, and for you book-listeners, the audiobook will be ready soon! Stay tuned for more details as we get closer to the audiobook launch. I have been working with Steve Bremner, a fellow author, writing coach, and who also does podcasting and audibooks and I’m looking forward to the audio version we are putting together.

This book started out as a two-part blog post here on the website (part 1 is here), which turned into a four-part blog post, and the revelation just kept coming, so a book seemed like the best way to communicate the information. While the subject itself isn’t necessarily new (there are a few other books with the same title), the information within definitely is! Most of the chapter on Mantles is information I have never heard anyone else teach before, and much of the rest of the book is the same—new revelation for a new season.

Impartation in this context is the transferring of spiritual substance from one person to another, and we see it throughout the Bible—Moses, Elijah, Jesus, and Paul all have done this for those around them, and Paul even wrote in a letter to Timothy about when this happened to Timothy. Impartation is a method by which we can share the grace of the Holy Spirit that is on our lives with friends and family and help them to walk in a greater level of supernatural power, releasing the signs, wonders, miracles, healing, and deliverance that Jesus demonstrated and commanded all future disciples to do—and that includes you and me! By understanding what impartation is and what it can do both for and through us, together we can help change the world around us for Jesus.

Click here to go to Amazon now

My website’s tag-line is “an out of the box take on health and spiritual life” because that’s the perspective I tend to write from. I find new ways of looking at and understanding the same scriptures and ideas, and not just “different” for the sake of being different. My goal is always to help people access the promises of God in a greater manner than before through effective teaching that works! This is why I wrote this book, and I am confident that by putting the principles within into action, you will notice the results.

In the book I cover:

What impartation is and how it works
How to accelerate the growth process
The power of revelation knowledge
How mantles and lampstands operate and how to use them
How to steward the gifts of the Spirit
And much more!

Whether you are a new believer wanting to learn and grow or a mature believer who wants to take your spiritual growth to the next level, this book will help supercharge your journey. I am excited about this book, and I hope you are too. You can follow the link below to get a copy today!