A Prophetic Warning at the Moldovan Border – Ukraine 2025

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Some of you have been following my journey on social media over the past few months as I raised funds for a mission trip with Overseas Missions to minister in Ukraine this past September.  Our initial plan was to help train a local church in how to operate in spiritual gifts, to visit and minister to refugees, and whatever other doors Holy Spirit opened up to us.  Our actual trip differed some from the original plan, as it always does, but I believe we accomplished much that God wanted us to and that we deposited things in that nation that will bear lasting fruit.  However, to begin doing any of that, we first had to actually get to Ukraine.  Because of the Russia-Ukraine war, no one can fly directly into the country, so our team had to meet up in Bucharest, Romania, rent two vans, and drive there.  So, we loaded up the vans, as one of the two drivers I accidentally forgot a team member at the hotel (it was only for a few minutes and I never made it out of the parking lot so it’s not as bad as it could have been), we loaded up the vans with all of the team members, and set out for Ukraine.
The drive through Romania was 3-4 hours long, and we were heading to a ferry that would take us across the Danube River and to the Ukranian border.  I forget the reason, but at one point Tyler, the leader and other driver, had me re-route our directions to avoid the ferry.  We had gotten split up, which didn’t really matter because we were going to the same place anyway, and in the end his van ended up at the ferry anyway.  My van, however, did not.  Not knowing they ended up on a different route at that point, I followed wherever the GPS took me, which landed me at the border of Romania and Moldova.  For a brief geography lesson, Moldova is completely surrounded by Romania on the west and south and by Ukraine on the north, east, and south.  Going through Moldova is one method of going to Ukraine.  Except we were going to Izmail, a city south of Moldova that is reachable by crossing into Ukraine directly.  None of which I knew at the time.  All I knew is that I was at the border of the wrong nation, and where I had stopped, it was too late to turn around.  Oops.
I forget if I called Tyler or if we messaged because I can’t find the message thread, but when he found out our van was at the border of Moldova his advice was basically “stay safe.”   Because what I didn’t know at the time was that in the weeks leading up to the trip, God had given a dream to a friend who wasn’t able to join us.  In that dream, God expressly instructed us to avoid the Moldovan border.  And because our initial route avoided Moldova entirely (in keeping with the divine instructions) and I had re-mapped a new route, Tyler forgot about it . . . right until I told him that we were at their border.  So now I’m not only at a border of a nation I didn’t intend to be at, but I discover after the fact that God had given us explicit instructions not to go that way. Double oops.
Now, this may sound like a horrible turn of events, but I actually found it pretty funny at the time, and I still do.  It is just so incredibly human of us to have God give us knowledge and instruction that surpasses human wisdom and yet for us to just bumble along and mess it all up anyway.  And because God is good and He loves us, He makes a way for us anyway.  So in spite of finding out that I had bungled things up quite nicely, I wasn’t worried.  In fact, right when I pulled up to the Moldovan border, God gave me a prophetic word in the form of the license plate in front of me to tell me what His plan was.  I forget the  whole plate, and the letters didn’t matter, but the plate had exactly three numbers, and they were 333.  Usually when I see three 3’s it is in reference to Jeremiah 33:3 which says, “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.”  In other words, even though I didn’t know the details of the situation up-front, God was reassuring me that He was going to tell me whatever I needed to know with wisdom that surpassed my existing knowledge.  And with that, I proceeded to drive forward into the border crossing.
Other than passports, one of the first things the border crossing guard asked me for was an International Drivers License (IDL)—which I did not have.  And had I been paying better attention the language of the Holy Spirit leading up to the trip I would have had one because my mom had actually mentioned it to me days before we left the USA.  But Tyler had done a bunch of research online and the general consensus was that no one ever asked for one, so he didn’t bother mentioning it or suggesting I get one.  Which again was funny because it was one of the first things they asked for at the border crossing I wasn’t supposed to be at.
Once the man found out that neither I nor anyone else in the van had one, he became rather agitated.  He kept saying things like “we are going to have to find you another driver.”  At which point in time I made the comment “If we don’t have the right license, I can simply turn around and not enter your nation, and that will solve that problem.”  Realistically, I could just backtrack, take the ferry the other van was going to use, and skip Moldova.  He didn’t like that answer because he replied, “Then you would still be driving in Romania without one.”  I didn’t understand why he said that at first, but the second time we replayed a similar conversation I realized what was going on.  European border crossings are a bit different than North American ones.  In North America the nation you are leaving generally doesn’t care that you are leaving.  The only nation who cares is the one you are attempting to enter.  This is not how Europe works, or at least the part of Europe we were in.  I wasn’t talking to a Moldovan.  I was talking to a Romanian border guard, who was getting more upset every time I suggested we turn around and keep driving through Romania without an IDL.  Oops again.
He ended up leaving us and checking on some cars behind us, at which point he instructed the driver of one of those cars to come up to our van and show me his IDL paperwork, which that man kindly did, and briefly explained a little to me about international driving laws and agreements between the US and other nations in that regard.  Shortly thereafter this Romanian border guard returned to the van, made some comment to me about me being in the military, that I had better have the correct paperwork on my return trip, then let us pass through.  Now we were heading to the Moldovan part of the border crossing to actually enter Moldova.  (I later discovered that the IDL is a powerful tool of bureaucracy that has exactly zero value for driving ability and it simply mimics a small portion of your license of your existing nation in multiple languages.  It can be acquired in under ten minutes online.  And as they’re basically just copying your existing license info from your home nation as the template for it, it is pointless. A lot of drama over nothing.)
That segment of the check-through was slightly easier because they didn’t ask me for an IDL, and while they didn’t speaking English, both the Moldovan border guard and I spoke Spanish, so we were able to talk with our mutual second-language to get us through the checkpoint.  During that time I also spoke to the man who had come up to the van earlier.  His name was John and and as we talked I found out he was in a position of significant responsibility over a US military garrison somewhere in Germany (It took me over a week to realize that a combination of John being present and me having my passport photo be of me in a camouflage shirt must have given that border guard the impression that I was military, because nothing about the passengers or contents of our van screamed “military”).  John was visiting Ukraine because his wife is Ukrainian and they had not been back in the country for a while.  He also explained that this border crossing was the worst one to use to enter Ukraine and that they always avoid it—but that they had to go this way because this was the only border anywhere close to where they were going that had a veterinarian there.  Because they had brought their dog with them on that trip they needed a vet to review their dog’s paperwork to have him be permitted through.    And this is where some of that wisdom-beyond-knowledge that God was going to provide us came in.  Before we left that checkpoint, John asked me if we had a “vignette”.  Having no idea what he was talking about, I said as much.  He explained that it was basically a toll or road tax that we were required to pay, and that Moldova would expect us to have it at the next border crossing.  Which at that moment, I discovered the next border crossing was only one kilometer away.  Yes, we were crossing at the very bottom tip of Moldova and were going to spend a single kilometer of distance in this nation.  On the other end of that short road was another Moldovan border crossing and then a Ukrainian one where we would get to do this process all over again.  Fortunately, because God placed John in our path, first so the Romanian would believe I was military, and second so we could buy this “vignette” (a 4-euro-equivalent road tax) before arriving at the next border, we were not held up extra at the border as a result.
I stopped at the gas station John recommended, bought the vignette, and then we went to the next border crossing just down the street.  Everyone in line was stopped at that one for almost two hours because a group of Orthodox and/or Hasidic Jews who were making some kind of pilgrimage had a bunch of drugs with them and it held up the line, but that gave me more time to talk to John and see if there was anything else we needed to know so we could cross borders without further hassle.  There wasn’t.  We did not see John or his wife again and made it through the rest of the border crossings without much additional hassle, but his presence at the first border and the insight he gave us into the whole vignette-acquiring process took care of the major issues we were facing at that border crossing, and eventually we were driving into Ukraine and heading to the Green Hall Hotel in Izmail where we stayed for the following week.
There are multiple potential takeaways from this story, such as “heed prophetic warnings,” but the one that stuck with me was to simply trust God to make a way when we need a path opened before us.  He told me up-front with the license plate message that He was going to tell me things I didn’t know, so I didn’t really see a reason to get into fear over the border crossing.  Was I at perfect peace the entire time?  No.  But was I amused and generally enjoying the adventure?  Yes.  Even while we were in the middle of it all, I recognized those were the kind of events that make for a good story and a great memory.  I decided to have fun with it all and just see what unfolded before us.  And as I did so, God came through with everything He said He was going to provide for us.

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What is Pre-Incarnation and Why Does it Matter?

I was on a Zoom call the other day and we got onto the topic of pre-incarnation— the idea that we existed in the heavens in eternity before our spirits incarnated into our bodies and formed a living soul.  What brought it up was somebody mentioning the idea that we choose the type of pain we will experience in our life—and how for some, this can be a difficult concept to reconcile with their belief in God.  Because why would God pre-choose suffering for me? That idea doesn’t seem to match with a good and loving Heavenly Father.  In this article, I will try to help reconcile some of the perspective about a pre-incarnation existence in heaven and choosing our incarnation, with the fact of God’s nature being good and loving and kind, etc.

As with most things, I think we need to begin by understanding Jesus is our model.  When I look at Jesus as our model, I see that Hebrews 12:1 says this of him: “for the joy set before him endured the suffering of the cross. Therefore let us run our race.”  It wasn’t that God desired suffering for us so He sent us to incarnate into the earth.  Rather, it’s that in order to incarnate into a fallen world that needs restoration, it was a fact that we would experience pain, suffering, and problems.  I believe that our Heavenly Father is a good God, and so I believe that He actually gave us a choice with *disclosure* of what we would face.  Our Father wasn’t simply condemning us to some sort of painful 3-D reality, bur rather He invited us into a partnership with Him to restore the cosmos. One that He knew would cost us each individually, but ultimately was going to cost us far less than it cost Jesus.

If I back up a bit and explain this concept of pre-incarnation which I have sometimes referred to as preexistence, there are a few different Bible verses that point to this being a possibility.  I say “possibility” because the Bible doesn’t explicitly state the level of depth of pre-incarnation experience that I’m talking about, but it does hint at the fact that there was some sort of “ before” that we each experienced in some sort of conscious manner.  To explain from the scriptures, I am pulling a quote from my book The Gamer’s Guide to the Kingdom of God.  This comes from the first chapter of the book.

 

“Numerous verses in the Bible point to this reality of predestination or pre-choice.  Jeremiah 1:4-5 says, “Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.’”  This says God had already chosen Jeremiah to be a prophet long before Jeremiah was born, but that’s not all it says.  This passage suggests Jeremiah and God had a discussion about it.  To know someone is an active and ongoing process, not simply a momentary absorption of knowledge.  According to Strong’s Concordance the word know in this passage is the Hebrew word ‘yada’, which is not just a factual head-knowledge, but a perception, discernment, and understanding of a person or thing by experience and acquaintance.  Simply put, God said he knew Jeremiah because he didn’t just know about him, but that God and he knew each other relationally before Jeremiah came to earth as a baby.  Thus, Jeremiah had pre-existed in Heaven.  Furthermore, the word ‘appointed’ in the above passage is the Hebrew word ‘nathan’ which means to appoint, consecrate, bestow upon or put onto.  The very nature of that definition suggests that God didn’t just have an idea in his head but actually held a ceremony of some kind in heaven to consecrate Jeremiah and bestowed that office upon him.

Psalm 139:16 says, “Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”  Simply put, David recognizes here that God actually wrote a book about David before David was even born.  Both this passage and the passage from Jeremiah point to the reality of our pre-existence.  Here, David recognizes and has some memory or revelation of the fact that his destiny—the choices he pre-determined to make before coming to earth—were decided and recorded in heaven before he became a living being.”

 

Jeremiah mentioned God knowing him experientially before he was formed in his mother‘s womb . And I clarify above that it was experiential because the Hebrew word yada means to know something by experience.  It wasn’t simply that Jeremiah was a concept in God‘s mind before he incarnated, but that there was an experiential relational knowledge that God had of interacting with him in some way before he incarnated. Whether there are any other verses that discussed this or not, there are at least two places where the Bible communicates that there is something that happens *before* we incarnate more than simply not-existing or being a thought in God’s mind.

Something else to consider is that in the New Testament in 1 Peter 1:20-21 it says that Christ was foreknown apart from the foundations of the world, ie. outside of space time, but that he was manifest (incarnated) for us at that time.  It is the same Greek word (conjugated differently) as the one in Romans 8:29 that says for those of us He foreknew He predestined to be conformed into Christ’s image. I think no one would argue that Jesus was only a thought in the Father’s mind. And it is the same word used to describe us in “the before.”

A bit more anecdotally, I have a few friends who actually have preexistence memories.  I even once wrote a post on social media asking others to share any pre-incarnation memories or experiences, and in less than 24 hours I had ten different people who either had either had their own experience of pre-incarnation or knew of someone else who had one.  I personally find this to be an interesting phenomenon because most people when they incarnate either at the time of incarnation or sometime in very early childhood seem to forget whatever came *before*. Chinese mythology actually has a belief that explains this to a certain degree.  In Chinese lore, Granny Meng waits at a bridge by the six springs of reincarnation.  Before someone reincarnates they have to drink from her bowl of water or soup or whatever it is, and when they do they forget all memories of their past life. Now, I don’t believe reincarnation is God‘s plan for us, nor is it something I teach.  I do, however, find it quite fascinating that there is an existing cultural mythology to explain this phenomenon of forgetting an existence prior to our current life, as much mythology has at least a grain of truth to it.  This overall idea would explain why there is such a disconnect between who we have always been in eternity and what happens when we incarnate into a body and form a soul.

Now, before going further, I want to be clear about something—this is honestly optional cosmology. You can be a Christian and you absolutely don’t have to believe this. There are some things in Christianity and in life is a whole that we really have the freedom to pick and choose what we do or don’t believe because the ramifications of believing or disbelieving that thing are fairly small. I personally want to know more Truth, if for no other reason than because I believe everything in creation fits together the way it was designed, and I would rather understand the way God made it, free of veil and mystery and confusion. And for a variety of reasons, including the ones I have shared above, this feels right to my spirit, so until God clarifies something further, this is what I believe about this subject.

I want people to know that this is optional not because reading this article automatically forces you to believe what I am saying, but because I think sometimes we get into situations where we feel like we have to make a decision for our theology to move forward.  And I don’t want anyone feeling stuck over this.  Yes, more and more people are coming into revelation about this, and I personally believe that is simply because it is true.  But I also don’t think there’s any real harm that is done if for some reason someone chooses not to believe it.  On the converse, even if it isn’t accurate, provided we take the right perspective on it I also think it has little to no ability to cause harm.

And this may sound like a strange disclaimer to make, but I want to briefly explain something about beliefs, discernment, and harm before we dive back into preincarnation.  We all have things we believe that aren’t true.  The problem is that we *don’t know* they’re not true or we wouldn’t believe them.  Healthy people, anyway, want to believe truth and are willing to adjust their thinking once they learn new information.  So whenever I come across new beliefs that force me to look at making significant shifts in some area of my belief system, especially when it just feels “right/true” in my spirit, I do a bit of a risk analysis.  If I am completely wrong, what is the potential harm of accepting this belief as true over and above what I have been believing before?  If the risks are low and/or approaching zero and the benefits are good or at least no worse than the previous belief, you’re likely just fine to switch to the new belief system, especially if it feels like God is already confirming it in your spirit.

Back to the subject of pre-incarnation, I want to lay out why this matters that we understand this.  If it causes us to believe that God is afflicting us with something harmful then I could see how that would be a very toxic belief.  It would cause us to believe that God is not in fact, good, that He’s not actually very loving, and that He doesn’t actually care about us much at all, because no good Father would intentionally subject someone to the level of abuse and pain that He would knowingly be subjecting us to unless there was a deeper reason behind it.  But I believe there *is* a deeper reason for it, and a good one.  I believe that God spoke to each of us individually in advance and gave us each a choice because we each had a mission to play—a role in the redemption of all creation.  We have to remember that the Bible says Jesus is the firstborn of many brothers, but *we* are the brothers. Meaning, our eldest brother paved the way for the rest of us to come, and the rest of us are here to finish the job in restoring all creation back to full union with the Father. Honestly, it’s a noble mission, and one that I’m rarely sorry for agreeing to.  Is it hard sometimes? Absolutely.  But I believe that’s a significant part of why God gave us a choice in advance—because He knew that things would get tough and be painful and hard at times. But He also knew that there would be joy set before us that would help us to endure every trial and tribulation and problem that we would face.  And then, as I mentioned in a previous article, Jesus already conquered every enemy that we would face, so restoring creation is not an impossible task.  It’s an extremely doable one.

About two years I was in a time of prayer and encounter with the Lord and He showed me the globe of the Earth. And as He did, so, I began to see represented before me in the vision all of the problems and opportunities that humanity was facing at the time He was showing me.  What made it interesting is that while I was very clear that God was showing me both problems and opportunities, there were zero problems and only opportunities. And that seems strange at first until we understand that with the right perspective, *everything* is an opportunity. My friend Barry Maracle has a saying that I absolutely love, but which I am also going to butcher a bit.  The general gist of it is that opposition is not meant to delay or deny you, but to propel you into your destiny.  Every obstacle that we face is an opportunity to conform into the image of Christ Jesus. It’s an opportunity to trust the Father one more time.  But a little bit more this time than the last time. It’s an opportunity for God to reveal a new aspect of His nature as provider, protector, or some other aspect of His being that He wants to reveal to us.  Problems aren’t enjoyable, but with the right perspective, they are opportunities.  I believe likewise that this belief in pre-incarnation is an opportunity.  It’s an invitation, taking one or two deeper steps into fulfilling the plans and purposes of God in this generation.  And I believe understanding pre-incarnation helps clarify some of our purpose and position here on the Earth.

I want to share with you three more examples that point to the reality of pre-incarnation to leave you with more data-points to consider about all of this.  The first example is that of a friend of my ex-wife’s who we will call “Katy.”  She once had a dream where she was talking to an infant girl planning on coming to earth.  Katy told her it wasn’t the right time to do so, and shortly after this dream she had an early first-trimester miscarriage—early enough that she hadn’t even known she was pregnant until the miscarriage occurred.  Katy was not even aware she was pregnant, but her spirit knew and told the baby it was not time to incarnate yet.  Keep in mind that this is only possible if there is a not-yet-incarnated person in the spirit realms who she can talk to in order to tell her not to incarnate into a body.

A second example is that of Kat Kerr, a prophetess who travels and speaks to various churches about her revelation on heaven and who has taken multiple trips to heaven herself.  She speaks in a number of her messages, including at meetings I have personally attended, that we are all spirits that exist in heaven with God beforehand and how we choose to come down to earth, knowing our parents and families and the trials and difficulties we will face, which closely matches what I have been saying.

Third is the well-known minister Jesse DuPlantis who was taken into a heavenly visitation which he recounts in the video and audio recording titled Close Encounters of the God Kind.  In that message, he shares that he saw in heaven a great many spirits going up to the throne where God was seated and these spirits clamored excitedly, asking God to send them to be human spirits here on earth.  As Jesse watched, he saw God take a deep breath and as he exhaled those spirits were sent from heaven into bodies here on earth, much like in Genesis 2:7 where it says that God breathed spirit into Adam and he became a living soul.

Because eternity operates outside of the realm of time, it is not bound by our human understanding of time.  God and each human spirit have decided together when in history we will be born and to what set of parents.  Before conception, we are shown in heaven what our life will be like on earth, including the problems we will face physically, emotionally, and even spiritually.  As hard as this is for some to believe, we chose to be here in this time and place.  We did not create the physical circumstances, but we did pre-know and willingly choose to enter the body that would accompany those traits.  The good news about all of this is that if we agreed with the Father to come here, then it means we were sent on a mission and *also* were properly equipped for the task.  God doesn’t sabotage people.  If He asked us to incarnate here in this time and place, then He already had a plan to meet us at every turn.  He already foreknew the challenge we would face, and in many ways we were picked because we were *more* capable of dealing with those things than anyone else!  Think about it.  No matter what difficulty I face in life, it’s probably a good thing I’m the one dealing with it because anyone else would be less-prepared than I am to deal with that task.  Its my life and God asked me for a *reason*.

 

I hope this is enlightening and encouraging for you, but if nothing else, keep in mind that God the Father and Jesus have been clearly expressed to be one and the same in nature and purpose.  So regardless of what you choose to walk away with as a belief, know that the Father’s nature was revealed in Jesus, so whatever we believe, we have to remember that Jesus is perfect theology, and let our understanding of the Father reflect that.  Be well and be blessed!

God Already Traded His Son For Yours

I was at the hospital last night and spoke with the parent of a patient, and this parent was having a hard time dealing with the circumstances of their injured adult child (for those of you who don’t know me well, I have been an RN for over a decade).  In the short conversation we had it came out that she is a believer, and she shared that she is having trouble holding onto hope in the circumstances.  Now, in these types of not-good situations my job is a little more challenging than some because I actually have two jobs that can be in conflict with one another.  My job as a nurse/employee is not to give people hope, but to give them an accurate assessment of the situation—which in some cases is absolutely bereft of hope, faith, or anything lifegiving.  On the other hand, my job as a son of the Most High is to release life into any and every circumstance and take dominion over everything that opposes it.  This is most especially true in my given sphere of influence, which includes but is not limited to my job as a nurse.

In the conversation with this individual, this person asked me what they could do because they felt they needed to do something to help their loved one recover.  I encouraged them that while it can feel at times like prayer does nothing, God hears and responds to every single prayer we pray, and that prayer is never pointless or hopeless.  This individual then shared that their thoughts and prayers had turned that evening to trying to bargain with God to take their life in place of their child.

It was at that moment that I decided to inject some truth into the conversation in a slightly different direction.  You see, nurses end up wearing a lot of different hats while in a hospital or other care facility.  We are the patient advocate, the waiter/waitress, the electronics technologist, the doctor’s assistant, the pseudo-social-worker, the assistant physical therapist, the state-appointed drug-dispenser, and for me more often than many, the chaplain and therapist.  It certainly is part of my job description to offer emotional support, but given my level of expertise with inner healing, the human soul, counseling-adjacent-conversations, and overall ministry experience, I find myself in these situations more frequently than most.  So, I opted to share with this struggling individual a bit about God’s nature and His plans for their family member.  The goal of this wasn’t specifically to fix any one thing, but to reframe how they viewed the circumstances and their role in it.  I can’t walk everyone through every step of how I might manage something if I was in a similar situation, but I can often give them some insight into a better and more lifegiving path forward, and I can pray for them.

I reminded this individual that God actually cares far more about the well-being of their loved one than they do, and that at no time ever would He require their life as an exchange for their kid—because God already traded His only-begotten Son for theirs.  His plan from the beginning of creation and even before, has always and only been about Life.  Jesus made very clear in John 10:10 that He and the Father were both collectively about Abundant Life, and that death, loss, and destruction are in direct opposition to their will.  No matter the situation, regardless of how bad things might look, there is only ever one response from our Father, and that is to release life.  You see, our Heavenly Father is lifegiving and in Him there is no darkness.  He doesn’t have hidden motives and really isn’t difficult to understand.  We have let pagan beliefs and legalistic old-covenant religion confuse us into believing God requires something from us in order to perform good works on our behalf when He has never required those things of us.  The Bible tells us in Romans 5:10 that even while we were enemies of God that the Father sent the Son.  And it is key to note that we were only His enemies in our own minds, because we were never enemies in His mind.  We have been and will always be His beloved children.  We spoke a bit longer, and after encouraging this family member with some more truth of God’s nature and His plans for their family, I prayed for this person, then we both separated and went about our business (I can’t even claim that I got “back to work” because I didn’t consider what I was doing to be somehow separate from my job).

Bad things happen.  Difficult circumstances come to pass.  Hard times arise, and we can only deal with them as best as we can in those moments.  I don’t pretend to be some super-Christian who has it all figured out.  I firmly know that I don’t.  What I do know is that regardless of the circumstances that our mandate to release life, take dominion over corrupted creation, remove the decay from the cosmos, and to love all creation has never changed.  Revelation 21 tells us there will come a day when Jesus wipes every tear from our eyes, and I am determined to be someone who apprehends the message of life and immortality such that I am alive in-body when that day arrives, and until then it is my task to help usher that day in.  The Bible tells us that truth sets us free, and I think we have so often become convinced that if we bargain with God that we can somehow get His hand to move—when in reality He already moved in the person of Jesus Christ.  It is impossible to trade God anything for anything, and most certainly trade yourself for someone else because He already made the trade.  God already traded His son for yours.  He already bankrupted heaven to redeem earth and everyone on it.  He is madly and deeply in love with you, so no matter what situation, what circumstance, what darkness has been rearing itself in your life, His plans are only, always, and ever for life.  Trust in that.

 

If you want to learn more about God’s plans for abundant life for you and your loved ones, I encourage you to pick up a copy of my books The Gospel of Life and Immortality and Faith to Raise the Dead, as well as my friend Tommy Miller’s books Deathless and Transfigured.

 

 

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.


 

A Night with the King

During the 2023 Peru Mission Trip with Overseas Missions, one of the things we did was hire prostitutes.  Now, it sounds terrible when I say it that way, but the REASON we hired them was so we could have their undivided attention to throw them a party.  You see, our team leader reasoned that since Jesus was known for hanging out with prostitutes and sinners and yet never engaging in any of their activities, we should do the same, and facilitate these women having a night with King Jesus.

Prior to even leaving the USA for Peru we had already known this was part of the plan, so some of us brought party supplies with us, including a kit to make a big purple-and-gold balloon arch.  Some of the local women bought party supplies at a store, then we spoke to Sylvia, the manager of our hotel, to borrow a large meeting-hall, which we subsequently decorated with all kinds of party supplies.  The women didn’t typically go to one of the main city plazas until around or 9 pm, so it was going to be a late night, but we pre-planned for that as well.

Once we were ready for the party, complete with cake and a range of other snacks, we had to figure out which members of the group were going to locate the women who we would be sharing God’s love with.  In the end we all decided to go, so we hailed a bunch of motorcars (which are the local equivalent of taxis) to find women and escort them back to the hotel.

Now, we had a secret weapon with us.  One of the local women has, for the past 13 years, gone and ministered to the women (and some cross-dressing men) in the plaza, so she was able to point out who we should speak to.  But get this.  What sounds like a group of people making plans on God’s behalf took a supernatural turn—something we only found out hours later—but when we arrived in the plaza, even before we had approached anyone, a few of the prostitutes were standing together and they felt a wind go across them and a sense of peace settle upon them.  After we hired the 4 women, they decided to take a separate motorcar to the hotel, and one of them told the others “our services won’t be used tonight.”  The others didn’t believe her at the time—but God had gone before us to prepare their hearts to receive from Him that night.

It reminds me of when Abraham sent a servant out to go find a bride for Isaac and the servant wasn’t sure how to just “find” some random woman.  Genesis 24:39-40, spoken by the servant of Abraham as he tells the story to Rebekah’s family is as follows:

“Then I asked my master, ‘What if the woman won’t come back with me?’

“He [Abraham] replied, ‘I have walked faithfully with the Lord. He will send his angel with you. He will give you success         on your journey.  So you will be able to get a wife for my son.”

In the same way that an angel went before Abraham’s servant so the man could find a wife for Abraham’s son, God sent an angel before us so that these women could have an encounter with their bridegroom, King Jesus.

The women were definitely not expecting a party, and took some time to warm up to us, but eventually they were smiling and having a good time.  We served them cake, chatted briefly, then as they warmed up to us our leader asked if they minded if we shared some things with them that God was telling us about them (ie. prophesy to them).  They agreed, so we began to prophesy God’s plans and purposes for their lives and share wisdom and insight about who God had created them to become.  The more we talked the more it was apparent these women weren’t even selling their bodies because someone was forcing them or because they were young and foolish.  Almost all of these women had families at home that they were trying to feed.  In one case, the woman had stopped the lifestyle and was washing clothes for around 50 soles a day (about $13), but it was backbreaking work and her father had grown very sick and she needed the money to take care of him.  Since she had a means where she could make double her daily income in an hour, it was easy to understand how she went back into prostitution.  These women lived hard lives and were trying to make ends meet, not live some kind of glamorous lifestyle of the rich and famous.  They just didn’t want their families to starve and be homeless.  As such, the theoretical worth of their bodies could be reduced to $15-30USD an hour.  It’s really sad, if you think about it even for a moment.

During the time we prophesied over them, our leader realized that the Holy Spirit was speaking in a particular and unique manner.  You see, earlier in the day when the women had gone to buy party supplies, they bought some roses as well, but only had enough to buy two at first.  Somehow they got the money for four, and brought four roses back to the hotel.  Well, we didn’t know until that night that we would end up with four women, but God did.  Furthermore, one of the women’s names was Rosa, which means “rose” in Spanish.  This was yet another way that God encountered both these women and us, preparing the way before all of us for the night.

We prayed for them, hugged them, and spent time letting these precious women know how valuable they are, now much God loves them, and that He has prepared a way for them.  One of the other local women with us shared her story of how God brought her out of a lifestyle of prostitution and she encouraged them that God had prepared a way for them to leave the lifestyle and still care for all of their needs as well.  All in all it was a powerful night, and the women left with double their normal rate (we wanted to show them double-honor and not just pay “as good as” the men who use and abuse them), the rest of the cake, a bunch of snacks, roses, and hearts full of God’s love for them.

One final detail was that right after we left the plaza and everyone was headed back to the hotel for the party it began to downpour.  This wasn’t a light sprinkle of rain, and no one would have remained out in the plaza anyway.  If we hadn’t gone when we did there would have been no one to minister to that night, and those women wouldn’t have made any money either.  Not only that, but right as we finished the party was when the rain stopped.  God literally took care of all of the details for us because He is far more interested in touching these women than we are.  The Bible tells us that God is a jealous God.  This doesn’t mean that He has petty squabbles over things, but that He will stop at absolutely nothing to restore His daughters and sons to Him and for Jesus to have his full reward—that is the WHOLE Bride presented to Himself without spot, wrinkle, or blemish.  He is committed to completing His work that He has begun in all of us, and this was very evident in how He revealed Himself to these precious women that night.

Guatemala Missions 2021: A Story of Healing and Redemption

My trip with Overseas Missions to Guatemala this November was eventful, to say the least, but there were certain things about it that were more special than others. One, in particular, was very precious to me because it felt like God redeemed a moment in my life that felt like a failure—not my failure, per se, inasmuch as the failure wasn’t by my choice or for my lack of trying, but because the situation did not proceed how my heart desired, and God in His infinite kindness offered me yet another opportunity for change, and to release His life to others.

One of the things I am discovering about myself is that personality-wise, as my Enneagram type is a 2, one who thrives largely on service to others, is that a desire to help others truly is a significant part of my life. As such, when I joined Overseas Missions in 2018 on a trip to India, my wife and I had prepared additional funds for some kind of emergency-need should the situation arise. And it did—in the form of a grandmother whose leg was badly infected with gangrene. Having already spoken about the funds to the leader of the India-side of our medical team, when this need arose she approached me and asked if I would be willing to cover the medical costs for this woman—which I instantly agreed because if she was not treated appropriately, she would die. Our team leader also took the situation seriously and followed up with the local pastors to make sure they tracked the family down to get the job done.

It was only later that night that I found out that the adult son had refused any kind of aid because he didn’t want our money. I still to this day don’t understand what it was he thought I was trying to give, or if in his pride he thought I was trying to take something from him by helping his mother. I will probably never know. I found out in the worst way too—everyone thought I already knew so spoke of it casually, but to discover in casual conversation that this woman was essentially sentenced to death was really hard, and I won’t lie, I ran away from the dinner table crying. Thinking about it now still makes me cry, actually. But that’s why this particular event on the Guatemala 2021 trip was so special to me—because as much as the one in India was damaging to my heart, this one was healing. Now that I’ve told you the background, I want to tell you what God did.

In Guatemala we paired up with a local missionary couple outside of Flores and their team who are growing and expanding Corazones En Accion (Hearts in Action), The Jungle School, and related business Itza Wood, all the while ministering to the local population. The school teaches children all the way through high school where possible (and you can support the children through their sponsorship program), and Itza Wood and other related businesses provide both marketable skills for those in the area, jobs that provide for a better quality of life for entire families, and the income helps support the mission work of Hearts in Action. Overseas Missions’ work this time involved setting up a traveling medical clinic, where we visited different villages and assessed their medical needs, providing medications and other simple treatments and education where relevant, and then armed with information on the physical problems the people suffered, our prayer team healed the sick, opened blinded eyes, and saw the lame walk once again. The leader’s thirteen year-old son took it upon himself to record the testimonies of what God did, and he filled over thirteen pages with healing testimonies from that trip, and he by no means got them all.

 

One day we had driven two hours to deliver food, pipes for a water line, and a message of the good news of Jesus Christ who still saves, heals, delivers, casts out demons, and performs miracles today to a tiny hamlet of seventeen families that was clearing part of the jungle to build new lives on land granted by the government. We saw some pretty spectacular healings (one in particular involved Troy, one of my teammates, which I will tell another time), then left to hold another medical clinic elsewhere. At that clinic, I met Antonio. One of the other nurses was talking to him about his wife Reina and her medical condition. It turns out she had miscarried a baby five months prior and subsequently had been vomiting every day since then, unable to keep food or fluids down. They had already seen a doctor the week prior and the ultrasound of her abdomen showed that her gallbladder was part of the problem. From what we could identify, it sounded like an infected gallbladder, which under the right circumstances is life-threatening, and after vomiting for five months, she was at very high risk.

 

You need to understand that at this point, regardless of what anyone else saw, I was seeing a similar situation to the prior trip. A man whose female family member was headed for imminent death if nothing was done to turn the situation around, and really we were the only ones who would be able to help because truthfully, Antonio didn’t lack for caring—my time with him showed me he is a kind man—he simply didn’t have the money to fix it.

I spoke with one of the missionaries and we agreed to take them to the hospital the next day, pay for the medical evaluation, and work to get her well. When we stopped by Antonio’s sister’s house near Flores where Reina and their son were living temporarily, Antonio met us there. He had taken two weeks off of work (which is a huge deal for them) and driven the two hours from where we met him toward Flores because we were coming to help—but his countenance was low and he had little hope.

We prayed for her, then drove to a local hospital run by Samaritan’s Purse where, upon explaining the situation, they took Reina into their three-bed Emergency Room and began to evaluate and treat her. She got antibiotics for a urinary tract infection, further evaluation on her vomiting, gallbladder, and more. They identified that the bleeding from her ulcers had made her anemic and while she didn’t get a blood transfusion that day, they ended up giving her one a week later and she will probably need another in the near future. They managed her pain, nausea, and she was diagnosed with severe gastric ulcers as well as a gallbladder that needed removal but fortunately was not infected. While that doesn’t sound too medically intense, and in some ways it isn’t, as we regularly treat these issues in the United States with over the counter medications, this was literally going to kill this woman. And why? Because of lack of money. The only reason she had suffered so much for so long was because they didn’t have the money. To me, that is evil.

By the end of the day, things were different. Reina still looked and felt miserable, but to be fair her body was fully depleted in every way. Antonio, on the other hand, had a completely different countenance. Why? Because of love and hope. Think about it—this man had already lost his second child to a miscarriage, and was in danger of losing his wife as she slowly and painfully wasted away and died while he looked on, feeling powerless to do anything to turn it around. But, over the course of a single day, things had changed. By the end of the day he was smiling because God had given him hope again. Not only that, but the Holy Spirit had impressed on the head nurse for our team to bring a lot of Nexium with her from the States in spite of not knowing why she was bringing it—and it was the exact medication they prescribed Reina to help her ulcers to heal. Jesus is so good!!!

And in all of this, God healed something in my heart too. Why? Because this time it actually worked. This time instead of knowing that another person marched inexorably toward death through a lack of intervention and a lack of means, God was able to not only save a life but restore a family, and I was so touched that He had given me the gift of being involved in it. The situation in India was heart-crushing, but the one in Guatemala was heart-healing, and once again revealed God’s boundless and breathtaking kindness that He demonstrates to each one of us. And that’s not all.

It has taken some time for things to turn around for Reina and Antonio. They have incurred ongoing medical costs after that initial ER visit due to follow-up visits, an endoscopy, and a gallbladder-removal surgery, most of which has already been paid for through friends and followers of The Kings of Eden (In fact, I am going to a bank today to transfer those funds to the missionaries there to cover those costs). If you want to donate to cover Reina’s other medical costs during this process, send money via Paypal to Thekingsofeden@gmail.com, and 100% of all funds will be used for medical care (I don’t do “administrative costs”—what comes in will be sent back out). Not only that, but there’s some really great news! I got a text just yesterday from Suzanne, the wife of the missionary-couple of Hearts in Action with some really amazing news! Reina, who, remember, has been unable to eat anything and keep it down for over 5 months, has already gained four pounds and is now able to eat soup and smoothies. Not only that, but she and Antonio are going to get married in 2022! I didn’t know at the time, but they have never gotten married, and this situation has given them the push they needed to get married as well. How exciting! God has done a mighty work of restoration in this couple’s lives. Their son, age 5, had told me when I was there that he was looking forward to going back to their house because they have chickens and he wants to get a dog!

Guatemala 2021 was an amazing trip for many reasons, more of which I will share in future articles, but this aspect of the trip will always remain special to me. God redeemed a loss in my life, and I have been getting to see Him do exceedingly abundantly more this time around than I even expected. If there is any situation in your life where you have lost hope, where you feel that nothing can turn it around, or where you just don’t know if God cares enough to get involved, I want to remind you that if He cares enough to have people travel from another country just to restore the health and life of one single family who did no special great deeds to earn the favor or grace of a Deity, then He certainly cares about you. Antonio told me that afternoon after we left the hospital that God answered his prayers by sending us to help them, and if God hears the cries of a desperate husband in the jungles of Guatemala and answers them, God will answer your prayers too.

 

Did God Allow Job To Be Attacked By Satan?

There is a common view in the Body of Christ that while God didn’t cause Job’s afflictions directly, He allowed them by not stepping in and stopping the attacks. While the little we see of the heavenly meeting-room scene in Job 1 might suggest that God did exactly that, there is a LOT more to the whole Job situation than meets the eye.

Job 1:1 starts off with “In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.”  This suggests that there was nothing the enemy should be able to do to afflict him. After all, it goes on to explain how he would make daily sacrifices for his family. Super upright for his day, right?

Try again.

Job was incredibly bound by fear, and fear is one of the biggest enemy strongholds there is.  Job 1:5 explains that every single time Job’s adult children would have a party (which seemed like it was regularly), he would then make them go through ritual cleansing and he would perform a series of sacrifices on their behalf. Why? On the off chance they might have cursed God silently in their hearts sometime during their revels. If that wasn’t sufficient, it seems Job had a lot more fear too. Job 3:25 says, “What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me.” He apparently feared losing his family, his belongings, and his health because all of that already happened in Chapters 1 and 2, and in Chapter 3 he makes that statement. And while that sounds kind of mundane, I suggest that Job had a high level of ongoing anxiety about his family on a daily basis that stemmed from a deep fear that he fed daily

People like to frequently make the argument that “God didn’t stop Satan” or “God allowed it”, but they seem to ignore two key points. The first is that the ancient Jewish belief is that Satan worked for God, so that in afflicting Job they believed Satan was actually performing God’s will. Jesus clarified for the Jewish people that Satan was an enemy of God and not working for him, but Job didn’t have that revelation. The second is that Job created tons of openings in his life for demonic affliction due to an easily-identified stronghold of fear. Job invited the affliction due to legal access via sowing and reaping of fear, and the enemy capitalized on that and wreaked havoc in his life.

We like to think that God is somehow supposed to wave His cosmic arm and make all bad things go away when it conveniences us, and the rest of the time our choices somehow don’t matter. In reality, our choices, beliefs, and emotions are what dictate to the greatest degree the things that happen in our lives. Certainly there are a number of factors that influence life events, but our choices, thoughts, and emotions are by and large the biggest contributors. When people get up in arms about why God “allowed” Job’s affliction, I suppose one could make the argument that God allowed it by setting up spiritual laws that govern the cosmos that in any way at all made it so Satan could afflict the man, but that is a gross oversimplification of a LOT of things and ignores a number of other highly important issues, free will being one of them. God didn’t make robots, so He also didn’t take total control over the lives and choices of angels, humans, or any other created beings, and neither we nor He would want it any other way anyway—except when it inconveniences us, that is. So if God giving us free will means he “allowed” Satan to attack Job then sure, that would be accurate. Otherwise it’s untrue.

The thing is, God doesn’t change cosmic laws willy-nilly based on our opinion that morning or based on whatever unfortunate thing happened that day. Some people get offended over that fact, but it’s a fact. God cares incredibly much about each one of us, to the point that Jesus willing laid His life down to purchase total freedom from all demonic oppression for us. God cares far more than we will ever realize. Do we really understand that Jesus literally walked headlong into situations that he knew were going to cause him intense trauma and pain, and then continued to walk through those situations when at any second he could have said a single word and stopped the whole thing? He underwent possibly the worst torture a human can undergo, and to make it worse he knew that if he failed, then all of humanity for all time and eternity would be eternally lost. He had the biggest gun in all creation pointed at his family’s head and knew that if He didn’t go through abject torture then every single one of us would die eternally. Can you imagine how hard that was for Him? I can only barely begin to touch on how He must have felt. But Hebrews 12 tells us that He did it because He knew it would be worth it eventually.

God didn’t afflict Job. He didn’t “allow” it. He didn’t “permit” it. Job and Satan worked together to bring calamity upon him, and when all is said and done, Jesus is the one who stepped out of heaven to fix things. He did it with Job, restoring double all he lost, and He continues to bring restoration in our lives as well because God is always, only, and ever good and about abundant life.

Why God Does Not Stop Evil

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

Jesus Reveals His Kindness

Back when I was helping run conferences for a local ministry, the staff and volunteers would aim to start each morning with a time of prayer before we got started and let all the attendees in the doors for the day. This was sometimes a challenge because the doors usually weren’t locked, so there was no real way of keeping people out. Sometimes we would just have random attendees join us for our morning prayer, which was cool in its own way simply because we are all part of the body of Christ and everyone is able to contribute in their own unique way even if they aren’t on the official ministry team for a certain event.

At any rate, one morning we finished praying as a group, and a volunteer had some physical issue they needed prayer for, so I prayed for him or her and the pain left. One of the attendees standing there then also requested prayer because she had back pain that was bothering her. I prayed for her and the pain immediately left, which I thought was pretty good, but what she told me next really touched my heart.

After thanking me for prayer, she told me that she had been praying on the way to the event for her back pain to go because she didn’t want to have to take narcotics and have her mind muddled from pain meds while listening to the message. When I prayed for her and Jesus healed her back, it not only fixed her problem, but it made it so she could be alert and mentally focused for the message that session.

I love all of the cool things that God does when believers gather together, and conferences are usually a great time to see Him move in exciting ways, but some things stick out to me far more than others. This one stuck with me because it is such a poignant and yet exceedingly simple demonstration of the kindness of Jesus.

For ongoing followers of my blog, you already know that one of the things about God that touches my heart the most is His kindness, and one of the ways I see that most blatantly revealed is when He manifests divine healing. Of all of the attributes of God that could totally overwhelm me, if I had to pick a single attribute that first comes to mind, it isn’t his holiness, although that would be overwhelming too. It isn’t his justice, or his goodness, or even His love, all of which could fit the bill. The kindness of Jesus cannot be overstated, because His kindness is a manifestation of His incredible and inexhaustible love.

Author Max Lucado is one of my dad’s favorite authors, and he explains this in a way that I really like. In a blog article on this same subject (https://maxlucado.com/listen/the-kindness-of-jesus/), he put it this way: “We are quick to think of Jesus’ power, his passion, and his devotion. But those near him knew and know God comes cloaked in kindness. ‘Love is kind’ writes Paul. David agrees, ‘Your lovingkindness is better than life’ (Psalm 63:3).” While I can’t pretend that my life is always perfect, I am always certain that God’s kindness toward me will never run out, and that’s something I can rest in.

I pray that your life is touched anew with a revelation of the kindness of Jesus. What are some ways He has demonstrated His kindness in your life?

Resting in God’s Presence

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I got an unexpected phone call the other morning from a brother in Christ, and we began talking about resting in God’s presence, a practice also known as “soaking”. He began to share about times of worship he has enjoyed where the Presence of God would come strongly upon him, but then at some point he would feel that strong atmosphere around him lift off and go away. He said something interesting, “Brother, I don’t like it when it goes away, and I haven’t figured out how to make it stay.” This statement brought further discussion, and we continued to look at the factors involved in resting in God’s presence.

The thing we have to remember about soaking is that when we do this, we are engaging a person, not a thing. The reason this brother couldn’t make Holy Spirit remain is because we don’t have the ability to control Holy Spirit, nor should we. God is God, and He will do what He chooses to do when He chooses to do it. However, while we cannot force God to do anything, that doesn’t mean we don’t have the ability to influence His choices.

James 4:8a says, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. (ESV)” While we cannot force God into remaining near us with His presence when we soak, we can always engage our relationship with Him to encourage Him to remain, and if not remain, to return. When we are in a time of resting in God’s presence and we will feel His presence “lift” or leave or lessen in some way, many times people think “well, I guess that’s it then.” They end their time of enjoying God and continue with their day. What some don’t realize is that if we feel His presence lift, if we re-engage Him, He will usually return with His presence and we can continue to enjoy Him longer.

God is a person, albeit a Divine Person, and we get our human emotions and responses from Him. When someone reaches out to us, we tend to be favorably disposed toward engaging them, and we get this from God. We like being liked, and so does God. If we choose to spend our time in adoration and/or worship of Him, we will find that He graces us with the “with you” presence spoken of in John 14:17. If we want God to come, we simply have to draw near to Him first, and He will respond. If we want Him to return, we simply have to draw near again. This is both the what and the how of soaking prayer. The practice of resting in God’s presence is incredibly simple and is all about engaging Him until His external presence comes, and then enjoying Him once He comes.

Personally, soaking is one of my favorite things to do. I greatly enjoy the sensation of feeling Him on my skin. It’s hard to describe, but there is this sort of weightiness combined with this feeling of air currents on my skin combined with this slight electric sensation. After a while, I simply can’t handle laying in His presence any longer because it becomes too intense. I rarely have an issue with His presence leaving, but when I do, it is often because my own focus wanders elsewhere. When that happens, I simply refocus on Him and His presence, and those sensations that mark His presence return once again.

Sometimes when we take time to do this, at first we may sense and feel nothing. However, as we engage Him time and time again, we will find, often within just a couple weeks or even a few days, that we begin to sense His presence. Resting in God’s presence is incredibly easy, but it might not have instant results. Then again, it may. As we continue to engage God in this manner over time, it usually speeds up the process. What used to take me 15-20 minutes of worship to sense His presence so I could then rest in Him now takes just a few moments of resting and focusing in on Him. Resting in God’s presence is a wonderful way to draw closer in our relationship with Him, and a beautiful way to fill the hunger that we have for Him in our hearts.

If you want to read more about this subject, give a read to another article titled Cultivating His Presence.

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