Notes For 2018

Here are my notes on what is going to happen in 2018.  Four points.  Not comprehensive.  

Do you know the story of when Jesus left his family at about age 30?  This year might be like that.  Do you know about the time when boys become men, when they leave their mom and join the men?  This year might be like that.

Do you remember when you left home to go to college?  Do you remember when you stopped being single and got married?  Do you remember when you became a parent?  Do you remember when you were called up to go somewhere, if you have ever served in the military?  Do you remember when you were tapped for or fell into a leadership role?  Do you remember when you lost your job and had to find another one: things changed but you survived and made it?  This year is going to be like that.

Do you remember meeting your spouse?  Do you remember your first day on campus?  Do you remember the day your marriage ended or someone died?  Do you remember the birth of your child?  And do you remember the day you met that boy or girl that you adopted?  Do you remember when you found out you were pregnant?  This year is going to be like that.

This is going to be a liminal year.  I mentioned all those life events, to bring to your mind what liminality is like.  There is liminality every day and every year: sunrise & sunsets every day and births and deaths every year, seasons changing and new jobs, and all the changes that we face in life.

But there are particular years when liminality is bigger, at large, corporately, society large.  And that is what 2018 is going to be.  You and I are like swimmers in the ocean.  The wave is coming, and we can ride the wave joyfully or have it crash over us.

No matter what, that wave is coming, and we will be disoriented from our bobbing up and down in the swells.  You can resist it, jump up like a cork and let it pass you, or ride the wave.  I imagine that people will do all three.  Three people might be standing before the wave and each one responds differently. 

The wave is coming and how to respond to it will be up to each one of us.  We aren’t robots.  Here comes the move and now we must choose.

Pretty much every revival in the history of the church was embraced by some and rejected by others.  God moves and we have to choose.  Ironically, members of past revival movements often reject new revival movements, that are both from God, but are different.

When Jesus moved out of, departed, or took leave from his family, his hometown, and the business he headed up; he was not exactly given a nice send off and wished well, especially when they discovered his new endeavor.  His change was right and good, but some didn’t get it, and were even opposed to the move.  There is a time to shift and change, move from and into, to walk through a door of  destiny when you must depart in order to arrive.

• 2018 will be a year of departures and arrivals.  We will move on and take leave.  We will say goodbye and say hello.  This means big change.  We can not stay and be at the new place.  We will depart and arrive. The old can not hold the new and must be bid adieu.  After the Hebrew year of 5778 began, last fall, some people in our lives announced their departure plans and today they are already living in their new destinations.  They are first first-fruits people.  I don’t think everyone is going to move, but we are going to make moves, designed by God, in our lives, this year.  This is the year to move into your destiny by moving through change, from one place to another place.  This year is a year where there is a door that is open to be walked through.  We will all move this year, from one place to another place.  
• 2018 will be a year of moving from something and into something: departures and arrivals.
  
  I think that this is a year to move, to depart one thing and go into another thing.  We have to depart in order to arrive.  We will not get into the new place unless we leave the old place.

  It’s time.  We are now ready.  A window of time is here to walk through a door into something new.

  There is a time to stay, but 2018 will be the time to go, to depart.  If we stay, if we do not move out, move on, and move to; it will be a missed opportunity.  There is favor and permission to move this year.

  “Your move.”

  It will not happen if you do not act, if you do not make your move.  There is a path set before us, that we can only see the entryway to.  We have to move into that way, to get into that path, to go down that road; or it won’t happen.

  

  We can not go into the new thing, the new level, or the new and better dimension, unless we also leave the old.  To go there, we must depart here.  We can not arrive unless we depart.

  To stay where you are, but bring in that new thing, is not what God is doing.  That would be like staying with your parents, but still getting married: something not recommended (Gen. 2:24, Matt. 19:5, Eph. 5:31 ).  And that would also be like how Jesus said new wine will burst the old wineskins (Matt. 9:17, Mk. 2:22, Lk. 5:37-8).

  We are going to move from something and into something.  We are going to have to depart in order to arrive.  God has been preparing us to depart, so that we can arrive, preparing us to move from, so that we can move into.

  Did you notice the change in 2017, where you have already begun to reconfigure things?  When we walk with God, he changes us, for the better.  And changed people live differently.

  God has a better life for us, but we have to be changed to enter into it; and that is what has been happening.  People who refuse to be transformed, to change, will suffer unhappiness and needless pain.  They will miss out.  We have to walk in Christ to inherit the promises.  It’s not automatic.  God is placing a door in front of us, but we have to walk through that door.

• 2018 is going to be a year of justice for, in, and through governmental leadership.  There will be justice where there has been injustice.  There have been great injustices at the highest levels of government, particularly but not limited to President Trump and his team, that will be exposed and dealt with for all to see.  There will be exoneration for some and consequences for others.  President Trump will gain and regain his reputation as a champion of justice.  There is a move of God going on, in government; national, state, and local; to expose corruption and injustice.  President Trump and his team happen to be the ones in place while God is doing this.  He and his team may want things cleared out and cleaned up, but this was God’s idea and God is now answering prayers that have been prayed for decades.

• In 2018, people who have been looking for the authentic church, built by God in Christ, are going to find it.  We are going to be surprised to find other people, who are already there.  We are going to be surprised that we don’t have to build the church, but it is already built and being built.  We just did not see it or could not find it, but that is going to change in 2018.  Pioneers are going to find their homes.  Jesus’ church, that he has been building, will become more visible in 2018.  The church at large, especially the church that has Jesus as it’s head, will begin to regain it’s lost reputation this year.  The church that allows Jesus to be it’s head and builder, will be renovated and restored to it’s original design.  It will stand up and stand out as a city on a hill and the light of the world again.  A place of peace and rest.  A gateway and bridge to God and heaven.

• In 2018, Christians will repent.  Repentance will come alive in the body of Christ, corporately.  Together, as a people and a family, we will repent of our sins and the sins of our fathers and mothers.  We will get in touch with our shame, so that we can be healed.  Instead of being shameless, we will repent and get in touch with our ugly, frightening shame; and let Jesus heal us and cleanse us.  We will get in touch with how out of step we have been with Jesus and with heaven.  We will get in touch with how and where the church has just become something in the world, run by worldly values, and not by Christ and by words that come from heaven.  The church will get in touch with it’s own captivity, of being Christians in name only.  It will be more obvious what ‘churches’ have nothing to do with the living God and His Christ and the Spirit of God, but are counterfeits, from the world and by the world, that is at odds with Christ.  False churches that bear the name of Christ or people and tribes who authentically represented and followed Christ in the past, will have the opportunity to repent and change.  Just the fact that some parts of the church do not bear a resemblance to Jesus and heaven, but are from the world, that has not been to the cross and bowed to the Lordship of the living Christ, will become more evident or exposed in 2018.  

Happy New Year!

Come Dancing

My love calls to me:

Arise, my darling.
Come away, my beautiful one.
For now the winter is past;
the rain has ended and gone away.
The blossoms appear in the countryside.
The time of singing has come,
and the turtledove’s cooing is heard in our land.
The fig tree ripens its figs;
the blossoming vines give off their fragrance.
Arise, my darling.
Come away, my beautiful one.

-Song of Songs 2:10-13

Come dancing.  Have you heard God say that?

What would that mean?  I think that when we dance, we have stopped being passive and instead activated.  Dancing is moving.

When I am moving, I can be guided or ‘course corrected’.  The motion of dancing gives me the ability to be guided.  ‘Come dancing’ is similar to, ‘let’s take a walk”, ‘get up and go’, ‘now, run’.

If someone invites you to dance, they are asking you to join the dance, with them or with others.  The invitation implies the plurality of dancing.  People dance solo or privately all the time, but that is not what this is about.

In God’s story, shared in the Bible, His people are His wife and His bride.  God has always been like a husband who loves and shares with his bride.  This includes going away with God and letting God love us.

God would naturally say to us, ‘let me share with you’, ‘let us eat together’, and ‘come dance with me’.

The life that God has always wanted for His people is a close relationship, like in the old hymn, “He lives”, where it has the words, “He walks with me and talks with me”.  Our God is a relational person who walks with us and talks with us.

That is the backdrop of God saying, “Come dancing”.  And “Come dancing” is different than “Let’s dance”.  God is perhaps saying that there is a dance already in progress,  and He is inviting us to join in.

Did you know that the Bible views dancing as wholesome and is commended?

Did you know that God invented dancing?  Dancing is actually a godly thing to do.

You may not be a natural dancer.  One of the most awkward things I ever did was take part in an audition for West Side Story.  I soon discovered that this was not my thing.  

I remember a very popular Christian teacher, who opined about dancing  He said that since it would be awkward to lead someone to Christ, while dancing, we should not dance.  But he was giving an opinion about youth dancing to secular music: it it ok or not ok?  “Not ok”, he said.

From just listening to this one man, I never knew that there was legitimate, wholesome God-endorsed dancing, in the Bible.  Later, I did discover dancing in the Bible, and I thought that while we read of Jewish people dancing, from time to time, that it must just be cultural; because I never saw dancing in church or in any Christian context.

Dancing in the Bible is not liturgical.  Liturgy is the high church word that means ‘service’, and that is where we get the descriptive title for formal church gatherings called ‘church services’.  We say, “Are you holding services?”, to people starting a new church; and the idea is commonly held that ‘church’ means ‘services’ at a ‘building’, with people.  So, people + building + service = church, is what is commonly held to be the definition of ‘church’.  Only one third of that equation is correct or New Testament.

The NT teaches that the people are the church and the the gathering of the church is not about buildings, small or large, nor is it about service or liturgy.  The gathering is about people gathering in Jesus name, for Jesus mission and cause, in his love that we express towards other followers of Jesus, who have also left everything behind for him, to invite people who do not know him to also follow him.

On the other hand, churches, like synagogues, do have liturgies; ‘things we do when we gather’.

Liturgy equals ‘what we do’.  “What’s your liturgy, man?”

An easy example of liturgy or what we say makes a (real) church service, is singing.  It is hard to recall a church meeting without singing.

Many people, by far the majority in my experience, equate church with singing.  We also equate ‘church’ as being something we go to.  But the NT teaches that the church is something we are.

Today, many people think that church is something you go to, to sing.

But, singing is neither what defines or makes a church.  Singing is a liturgical thing we like to do.  And it feels good too.

Same thing with sanctified dancing.  But some Christians who love to sing, don’t see dancing as appropriate.  Yet, they are both things people like to do to both celebrate and worship.

If church is not a building or services, then what is church?  Church is intimate fellowship with Jesus and each other, around Jesus.  The communion with Him and his people involves sharing.  Sharing stories, sharing food, sharing life and sharing our stuff and money.

Church life may include dancing, but it is not part of the liturgy or service, because the duty, liturgy or service of the church that marks or defines the church is loving one another from Jesus love.

The only liturgy or service direction that we were given is to love one another and serve one another and to go out and tell others about Jesus.

Dancing has a place in church life, when if is spontaneous or celebratory.  The people danced in Jesus story of the two sons and their father, in Luke chapter 15.

And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.

“Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing.
-Luke 15:23-5

If Jesus had dancing in a story he made up, that was an expression of celebration and spontaneous jubilation; we can take that as an example of when dancing is a good thing.

In Bible times and today, there has been pagan, cultic and erotic dancing that is not the kind of dancing that believers take part in.  When we suggest that believers can dance in life, or in church, some of us are chagrined, because we think of dancing as worldly.  But the job of the god of the world has always been to corrupt and twist what started off as wholesome.  And redemption means to take those back and put them back to their original function.

Have you ever thought about angels and dancing?  In the same chapter in Luke where Jesus includes the scene of the people dancing, he also says that when sinners repent, that angels experience joy in God’s presence.  The thread, in Luke 15, that ties the reality of angels experiencing joy, with Jesus story of the returned prodigal, is the joy in heaven and celebration on earth.

“What man among you, who has 100 sheep and loses one of them, does not leave the 99 in the open field and go after the lost one until he finds it? When he has found it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders, and coming home, he calls his friends and neighbors together, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found my lost sheep!’ I tell you, in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who don’t need repentance.

“Or what woman who has 10 silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she finds it, she calls her women friends and neighbors together, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found the silver coin I lost!’ I tell you, in the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels over one sinner who repents.”
-Luke 15:4-10

Jesus has music and dancing in his story.  Many Christians are uncomfortable with dancing and especially dancing in church.  Why would people dance in church, they ask.  The answer is Luke 15 and the admonitions to dance in worship in the OT:

Let them praise His name with dancing and make music to Him with tambourine and lyre.
Praise Him with tambourine and dance; praise Him with flute and strings.
-Psalm 149:3, 150:4

 Music with instruments and dancing, for worship, praise and celebration is from the Bible.  Anyone who would say that instrumental music or dance do not belong in the church, has either not read Luke 15, or they do not see Father God and his family there, of which every church is a part of today.  

In the Bible, there is wholesome dancing, that is commendable.  Dancing is also a metaphor.

If God is saying, “Come dancing”, to you; He might be saying, “Let’s go live”.  When we dance, we draw attention to ourselves, because of all the movements.  God might be saying, “Get up and shine”, like the word in Isaiah.

When you come out to dance, you may be dancing before God, with God or with others.  There is a ‘self-esteem’ lift to dancing, because you are out there and visible and vulnerable.  Others might laugh at you or commend you as you dance.  And when we dance, most of us must let go of our pride, because dancing is humbling.

Dancing, in its putting us out there, in humility, makes us recipients of grace.

There has been a time to sit and watch life go by.  But now is the time to get up and dance.

The voice of the bridegroom summoning you to come, is what empowers you to arise and go.

Jesus never planned to have us live passive lives.  Jesus never planned to have us be a holy people who are enclaved from the world.  And He never intended for us to be experts but not practitioners.

Hear God say, “Come dancing”.

The Lord’s Favorite Place

The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.

-Psalm 87:2

The Lord has a favorite place on earth.  His favorite place is the place where people come into His presence.  That is what the gates of Zion means.

The gates of Zion is God’s Golden Gate Bridge.

Zion is a place, a mountain, that is real and symbolic.  Zion is the hill that Jerusalem is built on and Zion is the mountain that the temple is built on.  But today it is a place that points to something.

Zion today, is a word that signifies the people of God.  The Lord loves the gates of His people.  The gates signify the entryway and authority of Christ that believers live in with the Lord.

The gates are the ways and the means.  That is to say, the Lord loves the gates of Zion, because the Lord loves people who are living in Christ.  God’s plan has always been for people to come and be transformed and then to go out with Him, into the world.

The gates of Zion are the place where people are transformed.  People come into Christ, through the gates.  Then people go out into the world as God’s missionaries in Christ, through those same gates.

The gates of Zion signify the authority given by Jesus to his church.  Jesus said, 

“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
-Matthew 28:18-20

Notice that baptism comes before teaching.  The beginning of discipleship is baptism.  This is something I learned recently, from a Baptist friend, who is insightful.

The great commision is to go out and make disciples. And the first thing a disciple does is to get baptized.

Jesus method is to go out and find people, make them disciples and baptize them, where they live.

Baptism is part of mission and evangelism.  I think that if you study baptism in the NT, you will find that it always happens outside of the more formal meetings.  As soon as you become a disciple, you get baptized.

It is natural, powerful and solemn; with prayer, and in the authority of Jesus, which all believers possess.

Jesus simply said, “go out into the world, in my authority. You are all authorized, as missionaries, to make disciples.  And first baptise them.”  There is no mention from him of getting people into the church (meeting houses) first or through catechism or confirmatory classes before the event of baptism.

The gates of Zion, are the authority to say, “you are in”, to people.  And baptising someone, where you find them, says, or is symbolic of, “you’re in”.  Every Christian is authorized by Jesus, to go out, into the world, and find people; to make them disciples and immediately baptize them.

That is the great commission.  That is the assignment from Jesus to all Christians.  This is permission.

The gates of Zion signify coming and going.  Coming into Christ and going out with Christ.  And we do both, through his authority.

And there is also an enemy of Christ in the world.  He also has a kingdom and authority.  A battle is going on between God’s and Satan’s kingdoms.

Jesus said,

“I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it”                                                           -Matthew 16:18b (ESV)

The gates of Zion prevail over the gates of hell.  The gates of hell means the comings and goings or the commerce of the forces of darkness.  Gates also means power or force, and hell also means hades.

The church has authority over the spiritual forces of darkness in the world today, through Jesus.  There is a battle going on and we are on God’s side.

The authority or authorization that Jesus gives his people, is to take territory and capture people out from the hands or clutches of the enemy.  As the church Jesus builds expands, it also extends into areas or spheres where the enemy has held influence, and takes that territory or spheres of influence away from the enemy and takes it for the kingdom of God.

The church and the people in the church, believers; are the soldiers of God, in the world, who put their feet on the ground and take the territory that Christ makes a way to be taken.  The church was never meant to be just a house of refuge, but the mountain that is Zion, and has authority from Jesus.

The way for the world to be evangelized is to take the church into the world.  And this is part of the destiny, calling and inheritance of the church that Jesus has had in mind.

The Lord has a favorite place on earth.  His favorite place is the place where people come into His presence.  That is what the gates of Zion means.

The gates of Zion is God’s Golden Gate Bridge.

Zion is a place, a mountain, that is real and symbolic.  Zion is the hill that Jerusalem is built on and Zion is the mountain that the temple is built on.  But today it is a place that points to something.

Zion today, is a word that signifies the people of God.  The Lord loves the gates of His people.  The gates signify the entryway and authority of Christ that believers live in with the Lord.

 

Preparing For The Rain

You gave abundant showers, O God; you refreshed your weary inheritance.

-Psalm 68:9 (NIV)

The rain is coming.  But are we ready for it?  What can we do to get ready?

I would describe what we need to do is to have:

• Open hearts
• Outstretched arms
• Eyes that are open
• Shoes on our feet
• Clean hands

Open Hearts

Be reconciled.  Get reconciled with God, with yourself and with others.  Do not have anything against anyone.

Forgive everyone, starting with God. Make sure you forgive yourself.  Get rid of, cleansed of all bitterness.

This heart work may require set aside portions of time now to become aware of your heart problems and get free, get reconciled and purge yourself of spiritual toxins, waste and obstructions.

You may have need of heart warming or palliative care from other people right now.  Your heart disease may be killing you or immobilizing you.  Find out how to reverse the disease and get well and be well and receive from God.

Some hearts are damaged and not functioning properly.  People with these hearts are barely living and walking slow, with chest pain at times.  If this is you, seek open heart surgery immediately, from the great physician.

Be honest about your heart.  Take time off of work and check yourself in for surgery.  Sign all the papers and give Jesus everything and then let him heal your heart.

There may be people you need to talk to or see for reconciliation.  You may need to write a letter to them.  Your being reconciled to them does not mean that things will suddenly be like they were in the past.  Do not insist on that or think you have failed when it does not.

The key is for you to be reconciled to all the people that you have had anything against.  Release them from charges you have held against them.  Cancel their debt to you.

Now you are free and they are free.  If they did want to be close to you again, but they are unsafe for you or are just on a whole different path in life, you can lovingly decline the offer, without there being anything negative about it.  

The matter of the heart is to be loving: love God, love yourself and then love others as you love yourself, based on God’s love for you.  In that picture, there are many people that we can not be close to, but we can be reconciled to and hold nothing against them.  

We can not be close to some people, even many people.  But we can be reconciled to them and be willing at any time to be closer to them,  if they become safer to be around, based on God’s love in their life.

The rain is going to fall on us, if we avail ourselves to being under it.  And the main place that the rain goes into is our hearts.  Our hearts are living reservoirs or aquifers for the rainfall.

A person who has a closed heart or a calcified, dry heart; may stand in the rain and even dance in the rain.  But they will have little lasting effect from the rain and will not be able to carry the rain to others for any distance.  

The main place where the rain has lasting impact and can be held to give to others is in the heart.  Our hearts must be ready.  Building a man made container to catch, hold and dispense the rain of God sounds like a good idea, but that is not what God wants and is wrong headed.

Get your heart ready.  Get your heart right.  Get your heart healed. 

The rain of God comes upon the whole body of each person.  But it only changes lives when it comes upon and into a person’s heart.  And it is through our hearts that we live out Christ’s life and share life with others.

Get your hearts ready.  Set aside the time now to get your heart right.  Stop being distracted and get real about your heart today.

There is a time when it is too late.  And you can miss it.  An opportunity for you is imminent and you can choose to miss it if you don’t get yourself ready.

Outstretched Arms

Begin today, if you are not already doing so, to be a person who reaches out.  Reach out to give and reach out to receive.  Be less independent and more communal.

Reverse your style of estrangement and isolation from others.  Sharing is a key component to the Christian life.  Share your needs and meet the needs of others.  

Stop being needless.  If you are ‘the minister’ in your family or community, start letting others minister to you.  You may be the most gifted one, but realize your need for others, for the life in them, for you to be cared for.

Humble yourself by asking for assistance.  Delegate things to others where you have been controlling.

The impact of the coming rain will be spread and multiplied through the web or matrix of our relationships.  This is God’s design.  Today, we can be prepared for being missionaries by just being connected to those around us, right under our noses.

Stretching out our arms to touch and be touched by others is preparing a network that God can build upon.  Many of us are like the little boy, who only had a small lunch in a basket; but he offered it to Jesus.  The Lord takes our small things and multiplies them.

It is a grave error to not honor the small things we have and participate in them, offering them to the Lord.  The person who does nothing and offers nothing is a person who has a heart problem and can not be used by God, transformed by God and blessed by God.

We must do business in our very small circles, with our very small provisions or influence now and bless people in tiny ways, if that’s all we have got.  All you might have is a smile.  Then give that smile.

We need to extend out arms now to others, so that they will be extended and in service, as bridges and aqueducts; when the rain of God falls.  When the downpour happens, we don’t want to then lower our bridges and open our aqueducts and figure out how they work.

Now is the time to stretch out your arms.  Now is the time to reach out to others.  Now is the time to become available.

Now is the time to figure out how your open door policy is going to work or function.  Now is the time to make a path to your door that people can walk on.  Now is the time to venture out of your hiding place.

Eyes That Are Open

After we have got our hearts right and are stretching ourselves to reach out and be available to be touched by others, we need to learn to see.  I grew up in a revival church, where we learned to close our eyes when we worshipped, to focus on God, undistracted.  I also learned to pray for people, hands on, with my eyes open.  I also learned to see with my spirit.

We need to live with God and others, with our eyes open.  Jesus is an eyes open person.  He saw people.

Jesus heart is always wide open to his Father and his eyes are always open to people.  We need to cultivate Jesus style in this.  Some of us do not see people.

Some of us are always struggling to see God and miss all the people.  Some of us are mostly preoccupied with seeing ourselves and with how others see us.  Many of us pass through life with our eyes closed, blocking out the people in the world.

To get ready for the rain, we need to cultivate and learn to live with our eyes open to other people.  We need to learn to be seeing God with our hearts and to be seeing people with our eyes.  We need to not just look at people, but see them with our hearts.

Meet people’s eyes.  Look into the windows to their soul.  Learn to do this.

Jesus can look people in the eyes and ask them, ‘What do you want?’, or, ‘What would you like me to do for you?’, and we can learn to do that too, as we walk with him in the world.

We so often see people as being in our way.  We so often see and look to see people who we want to get something from.  Instead of this, we need to cultivate Jesus style of seeing people and coming as servants and not to be served.

This is why Jesus said, “Open your eyes and see the harvest around you”.  That is what we all need to do right now.

Shoes On Our Feet

Many of us have the wrong shoes on our feet.  We each need to have our feet fitted with gospel shoes.  Many of us are walking through life in an angry rampage and completely misrepresenting Jesus and the gospel of peace.

Take an inventory of your shoes.  Are you wearing the shoes of Jesus or something else you have fashioned?  Do your shoes stomp and kick, allure and purr or are they functional for the bringing of good news to people?

Your shoes can be high fashion, open toed or closed, sandals or boots, athletic or dress up.  What matters is where are your feet taking you?  Your shoes are about where are you prepared to go and what are you prepared for.

One person carries the good news, wearing stilettos; while another person carries the message wearing flip flops.  God fits two people differently, but they have in common that they are prepared to share the good news.  We all need to take care to be ready to share the gospel every day in many different ways, just as we put shoes on when we leave the door of our homes.

Clean Hands

Many of us need to wash our hands.  We have lived lives where we have been doing all sorts of unholy, undignified and unchristian things with our hands.  Two big ones are what you type or text and your pointing your finger in judgement at others.

Christians also take part in many sinful activities that are participated in through using their hands.  The, ‘Cleanse your hands you sinner’, message of James 4:8, is a message to Christians.  It is not meant to condemn, but is a loving admonition to ‘Knock it off’.

Many Christians, from the first century to today, have lived double lives.  We have lived as Christians but not as Christians, in the same lives.  The word of the Lord to us is, the rebuke of, ‘Stop it!’

We must stop living on two paths and only cultivate the path of Christ in our lives.  Churches should stop having recovery groups and become recovery groups.

Many people disqualify themselves from being Jesus’ hand, because of their hands.  Some have shame and guilt and see no way out of double lives.  But there is grace for escape, deliverance and emancipation.  

Many people who name Christ also need deliverance.  Nothing to be ashamed of, but something to be glad of that is a blessing.  We shouldn’t be embarrassed about deliverance, but humbly receive freedom.

If our hearts get made right, if our hearts become cleansed, we will live a different way, exemplified by what we do with our hands and fingers.  Many people do not need deliverance, but need to just begin to learn to walk in Christ, and the naughty stuff, even addictive behaviors will change and just fall off their lives.

Jesus and critters can’t live in the same house.  Our job is to open up every room in the houses of our lives to God and welcome him to live there.  Even in the basements and the belfry.  

The Reversal

The nations will escort Israel and bring it to its homeland. Then the house of Israel will possess them as male and female slaves in the Lord’s land. They will make captives of their captors and will rule over their oppressors.

-Isaiah 14:2

What God has planned and wants to do is a complete reversal in the lives of believers who have been oppressed.  God not only wants to set people free who have been held down, held back, and left behind; but He also wants to put them in charge over those that they were under before.  God wants to take people from servitude to ruling.

God wants to restore his people to their place of rest.  God wants to take his people out of bondage and into a place of stewarding authority.  God is freeing his people, so that they may serve and disciple the nations who previously held them in bondage.

The same people who imprisoned believers and kept them locked in and locked down will become the helpers, guides, and rides to take them to their inheritances and destiny places.  The people of God will capture the people who once ruled over them and be served by them.  The people who were once our oppressors in their homeland or sphere will come with the believers into their homeland or sphere.

A great deliverance and reversal is coming, and when believers are set free, their captors will leave with them and become their servants.  In the awakening that is coming, believers who have been asleep will wake up to God, to their destinies.  When they wake up, they will get up, and they will begin to go towards where God has always wanted them to go: to their homeland, and they will take some people with them, who have not been believers, who will get saved and be discipled and serve the believers who had been in bondage among them.

A great revival is coming, where believers who have become dead in their faith, will be brought to life, raised from the dead or revived.  Their testimony will be so clear and so real, that their pagan or completely non-believing friends, neighbors, or coworkers will be astonished at the change from death to life in these living witnesses, as say, “I want what you’ve got and where you go I will go, so now I will follow you, even to the ends of the earth.”

This will be like the story, in Acts 16, of the Philippian jailer, who got saved when Paul and Silas were freed by the earthquake, and the jailer and his whole family got saved.  Paul baptized them all and they had a meal together.  The jailer served Paul by being the intermediary with the magistrates, for Paul and Silas’ freedom, as well as giving them hospitality.

God is going to set his people free who have been held captive.  And when He does, the people who been around their captivity, will willingly go with, gives rides, and take or transport believers into their promises and serve them their.  This is what is going to happen, again.  God has done this in the past and is about to do it again, because it is what God does.

God sets you free to go into your destiny.  And the people who were there around you, who were part of the system, the tribe, the people, who held you back, and did not recognize you as a son or daughter of God, will suddenly become your servant and serve you, and take you to your place of promotion, destiny, calling, and promise; and not only move you there, but live there with you, as your servant.

Adventure – My Word for 2016

2016 is a year of adventure.

Adventure is defined as (1):

• an exciting or very unusual experience. 
• participation in exciting undertakings or enterprises.

Photo: Pixabay

The root, etymological, or historical meaning of adventure is, “to take a chance”.  Ad means “to” and venture means “risky undertaking”.  A venture is a place of fortune and chance.

Adventure means “a thing about to happen, come to, reach, or arrive at”.  Adventure can involve risk and danger and be a trial of one’s chances, or be a perilous undertaking.  Adventure may also mean a novel or exciting incident, a wonder, a miracle, or accounts of marvelous things (2).

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary:

• A mercantile or speculative enterprise of hazard; a venture; a shipment by a merchant on his own account.
• A remarkable occurrence; a striking event; a stirring incident; as, the adventures of one’s life.
• Risk; danger; peril.
• That which happens without design; chance; hazard; hap; hence, chance of danger or loss.
• The encountering of risks; hazardous and striking enterprise; a bold undertaking, in which hazards are to be encountered, and the issue is staked upon unforeseen events; a daring feat.
•  To risk, or hazard; jeopardy; to venture.
•  To try the chance; to take the risk.
•  To venture upon; to run the risk of; to dare.
  

Synonyms for Adventure (3):

• enterprise
• escapade
• venture
• risk
• chance
• undertaking
• experience
• feat
• exploit
• happening
• occurrence
• deed
• event
• incident
• endeavor
• fortuity
• quest
• fortune
• happenstance
• journey
• passage
• pilgrimage
• attempt
• campaign
• engagement
• excitement
• fun
• initiative
• mission
• opportunity
• pursuit
• tour de force
• transaction
• trip
• accomplishment
• achievement
• activity
• chronicles
• crossing
• encounter
• migration
• outing
• trip

Antonyms for adventure:

• avoidance
• inaction
• inertia
• passiveness
• boredom
• latency
• abstention
• certainty

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1.WordReference Random House Learner’s Dictionary of American English © 2016
2..Online Etymology Dictionary
3. Power Thesaurus

Anchors Aweigh

The phrase “Anchors aweigh!”, means, “Bring the anchors up”, or “The anchors are free of the sea bottom and the ship is underway”(1).  It carries the idea that the anchors are no longer holding the ship in place and it can now sail.

Photo: Pixabay

Anchor occurs twice in the NT.  In Acts 27 and Hebrews 6.  In Acts 27, the anchors were used to keep Paul’s ship from being wrecked, in verses 29 and 30.  Then, in verse 40, they cut the anchors loose, when they were about to make a final run for the beach, and give up the ship:

After casting anchors, they left them in the sea, at the same time loosening the ropes that held the rudders. Then they hoisted the foresail to the wind and headed for the beach.
-Acts 27:40

In Hebrews 6:19, it says that we have the hope of Christ, as the anchor for our lives.  Christ keeps up during life’s storms and anchors us, in himself, as we sail through life.

We have this hope as an anchor for our lives, safe and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain. 

-Hebrews 6:19

“Anchors aweigh”, which means to pull up your anchors and get underway, does not perfectly fit Acts 27 nor Hebrews 6.  But, what about Philippians 3, where Paul writes this:

But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.
Therefore, all who are mature should think this way.
-Philippians 3:15b-15a

As we pull up our anchors and sail, we forget what is behind and reach forward, pursuing our goal of the heavenly prize in Christ.  This is how we think and therefore, function.  Paul says, in the next verses, that if you don’t get it, then let God impart it to you.

If the Lord says, “Anchors aweigh”, I think he is saying, “Be free”, and “You’re underway”.  When Jesus says, “If the Son sets you free you are free indeed”(John 8:36), I think he means it.  He also says to the healed one, “Go and sin no more”(John 8:11).

He sets you free, but you must go and be free.  He heals you, but you must continue in your healing.  We have responsibility for our well being.

“Anchors aweigh”, might mean it is time to begin sailing and you are in fact underway.  Leaving the port is exciting.  The simple truth is that when the anchors are down, you are stopped; but when the anchors come up, you get to go.

“Anchors aweigh” means that your time to go is here.  There is a time to stay, to anchor, to rest, to be hidden in the harbor, to make repairs, to take on supplies, to get your hull fixed, to get your sails mended, and to learn sailing in a class on land.  There is a time for all that, but then comes the time to sail out into the sea.

There is a time to move, to go out, to leave the harbor. When the anchors are pulled up, the ship is no longer anchored.  The boat enters a liminal space in-between “anchored” and “sailing”.  Are you in that space?

There is God’s initiative and our responsibility.  We’ve been filled and filled and filled, repaired, rested, rewired; taught it and caught it, seen it and dreamed it, heard it and spoken about it.  The anchors have been drawn up.  Now God is saying, “Your move “.

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1. Anchors Aweigh, wiki

God is Not Nostalgic

“Nostalgia” by Jon Jaylo, CC BY-SA 3.0

This is what the Lord says— who makes a way in the sea, and a path through surging waters, who brings out the chariot and horse, the army and the mighty one together (they lie down, they do not rise again; they are extinguished, quenched like a wick)—

“Do not remember the past events, pay no attention to things of old.
Look, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. 
Do you not see it?
Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness, rivers (paths) in the desert. 

The animals of the field will honor Me, jackals and ostriches, because I provide water in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to My chosen people.  The people I formed for Myself will declare My praise.

-Isaiah 43:16-21 (HCSB)

God is not nostalgic.  He does not think about the past nostalgically.

 Nostalgia is defined as:

A sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.

Here, in Isaiah, God says,

“Do not remember the past events, pay no attention to things of old.
Look, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it?”

But, in the verses, just previous to this, God identified himself as the deliverer of the people, in the past (history):

This is what the Lord says— who makes a way in the sea, and a path through surging waters, who brings out the chariot and horse, the army and the mighty one together (they lie down, they do not rise again; they are extinguished, quenched like a wick)—

So, we have God identifying himself as the God of the Exodus, but then saying:

“Do not remember, pay no attention to things of old.”  

This is a sort of paradox.

But, the next sentence clears up what God is saying:

“Look, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it?”

The point is this:  The past is not the template for the future.  God is always moving forward into the new order.  We stumble, like someone looking backwards, when we have difficulty moving from God’s order into God’s new order.

The same God who instituted the yearly Passover celebration, where they remembered the Exodus, says, “Do not remember”.  Imagine all their Passover remembrances.  They are now told, “don’t remember”.

This is what J. Alec Motyer writes, in his IVP Isaiah commentary:

Isaiah derives his pictures from the Red Sea event (43:16-18; Ex. 14) and from the wonders of that earlier wilderness journey (19c-20; Ex. 15-17), but he issues an important reminder; the past can teach and illustrate but it must not bind (18-19b).  The Lord always has greater things in store; he is revealed in the past, but he is always more than the past revealed.  (emphasis mine)

We can become so nostalgic for ‘the way it was’, and so preoccupied with our longing to return, that we miss out on the, “spring forth”(KJV), or “sprout forth” (CEB), that God is doing now:

Look, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it?

• “Look”, is a call away from nostalgia. 
• “Something new”, describes it as something not like the old.
• “Even now it is coming”, means it’s popping now.
• “Do you see it?”, means you have to crane your neck and train your eyes to see it, and it is visible!

The point is, that if we don’t look, we don’t see, and if we don’t see, we don’t experience it or let ourselves be blessed by what God is doing right now, that connects to the future.  God is on the move, but we have to turn to it and see it, for us to know it.

Then, we have the “Streams in the desert” word.

Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness, rivers (paths) in the desert. 

Imagine that you are in exile and if you are blessed to be freed to go home, there is a big patch of desert that you must cross.  God says that he will make streams in the desert.  He will make a path and provide sustenance.

God is a now God and deals with us “present – future”.  God deals with our past sin and helps us deal with past sins against us.  But, God is present with us in the present and points to the future he has for us.

We need to get it that God is not nostalgic, but is “now and future” towards us.  Our pasts are our stories and our history, in which God saved us for today and tomorrow.  We are not in the past today and will not go back to the past in the future.

God is doing something now, related to your future.  We need to look and see what God is doing now.  And what God is doing now is what the future will be built upon, so we ought to pay attention and participate with what God is building now.

God is about to do something new.  I think God has been “about to do something new” since the first time Isaiah preached these words.  And God’s new thing(s) have been continually springing, sprouting, and coming forth.  God is never “on a break”, but is always working and bringing new things forth.

Coriander

If you cook, you’ve probably heard of this spice. But did you know that Cilantro is the leaf of this same plant? Did you know that manna is described as being like coriander in Exodus 16:31 and Numbers 11:7? Coriander is an essential ingredient in curry. In Iran, it is used to aid in sleep and for anxiety. In Hebrew, Coriander is tansliterated, gad. The tribe of Gad and the prophet Gad, look the same in Hebrew and are transliterated, gawd. Both of these Gad’s have Hebrew roots in words that mean troops gathering and attacking. I just thought this was interesting.

The caissons are coming

Over hill, over dale
As we hit the dusty trail,
And the Caissons go rolling along.
In and out, hear them shout,
Counter march and right about,
And the Caissons go rolling along.

Edmund Louis Gruber(1879-1941) wrote these words while waiting for artillery ammunition.
He was out of ammunition, but heard his provision coming and encouraged himself with this song. It was early in his military career at the age of 29 when he wrote these words as a first lieutenet. He would later receive three promotions, all the way up to colonel; and served as a temporary brigadier general before his death. He also was related to Franz Gruber(1787-1863), who wrote Silent Night on December 24, 1818. “The Caissons go rolling along” became the official field artillery song and then the official song for the entire army.