Primary Assignment

Tags

Assignment, Doorkeeper, pastor, Watchman

As a Pastor one of the most frequently asked questions I get is, what is God’s will for my life, the second most frequently asked question is how do I hear the voice of God? These two questions reveal many things, one people are not reading their bibles and two people are not being discipled. The Bible is riddled with God’s will for our lives and God’s word is the voice of God, so we need to disciple people on how to understand what they read and how to discern what they are hearing.

I have been an avid Bible reader for over 25 years and every day I learn something new, for the word of God is living and active (Hebrews 4:12). Today, I learned that the primary assignment of every Christian is to be a doorkeeper. I know it is not a glamorous assignment, but it is primary and if we neglect our primary assignment all other assignments will prove to be of no effect. Mark 13:33-34 says, “Take heed, keep on alert; for you do not know when the appointed time will come. It is like a man away on a journey, who upon leaving his house and putting his slaves in charge, assigning each one his task, also commanded the doorkeeper to stay on alert.” The doorkeeper, Jesus said, is to stay on alert.

Other names in Scripture for doorkeeper are watchman or virgin. In Matthew 25 we read of the 10 virgins that were to be prepared and watch, and in Ezekiel 3 and 33 we read about being a watchman who speaks what we hear and see. Jesus says we are to be on alert, so we are not deceived, caught off guard, or unaware of the signs of the times. In these last days, it is critical that we return to our primary assignment to be doorkeepers, who are on alert, watching, waiting, looking, seeking, for the time is drawing near. Deception will increase in these last days, so returning to our primary assignment is critical for our safety as Christians. No one else can be a doorkeeper for your life, you have to do it and this is an every person job.

The Psalmist said in Psalm 84:10, “Better is one day in your courts, than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than dwell in the tents of the wicked.”
It is obvious that we are in the last of the last days, so I say this as a warning and encouragement, it is long overdue that we return to our primary assignment of being a doorkeeper that stays on alert.

Disappointment Fatigue Turned Dreamers

Tags

Disappointment, dreams

Proverbs 13:12 “When hope’s dream seems to drag on and on, the delay can be depressing, but when at last your dream comes true, life’s sweetness will satisfy your soul.” (Passion Translation)

Bill Johnson of Bethel Church in Redding, CA says, how you deal with disappointment is critical to your success in the kingdom. Everyone has gotten their hopes up, only to have something not turn out the way you thought it was going to. Many have heard prophetic words, personal testimonies, or declarations of God’s supernatural provision, only to have your situation not change. Disappointment is a reality that ever person deals with and if we do not navigate the waters of disappointment carefully, we will stop before we breakthrough.

Eric Johnson of Bethel Church in Redding, CA told a story of some gold miners in the southern part of the USA, who dug a mine in search of gold, only to stop 70 ft. short of one of the largest gold mines in America. He tells this story as a reminder to us, that even though we can’t see it, we are closer than we realize to what we have worked our whole life to receive. When it is dark, when all you do is dig, pray, fast, ask, listen, believe, and repeat that over and over again, without obvious rewards for obedience, it is easy for disappointment fatigue to set in.

Kris Vallaton of Bethel Church in Redding, CA says, hope deferred only makes the heart sick when you stop hoping. He goes on to say, if you don’t stop hoping, your heart will not get sick. I love how this church is so encouraging in our reality, that we will get there. I Corinthians 13:13 says, Faith, Hope and Love remain, but the greatest of these is love. There are three things that will remain when you strip everything away, faith, hope and love.

Faith is believing that God will do what He said He will do and that you are who God says you are. Hope is the ability to keep believing, keep dreaming, keep going, even when you are not seeing the breakthroughs you thought you would see by now. Love, well that is deeper and wider than can be expressed here, but it is the greatest of all things and without love you are nothing, so love is still truly the answer for the world today.

So, I am not sure how you are doing, but I wanted to encourage you today that if you are suffering from disappointment fatigue, know others are as well. Also, never forget, hope deferred may make the heart sick, but when at last your dream comes true, life’s sweetness will satisfy your soul. God is not a man that He should lie and you are more than you think you are, so even as disappointment fatigue seeks to steal your faith, rob you of hope and cause your love to grow cold, know that we are literally on the cusp of the greatest breakthrough the world has ever seen and it is closer than any of us realize. I can’t wait to meet all the dreamers, than didn’t stop 70ft. short of the gold mine of God’s presence.

Pain or Passion

Tags

bible, Pain, passion, power

Have you ever heard someone speak and you could feel their passion, but you knew they were angry, resentful, hurt, or grinding an axe? Have you ever said something out of frustration, believing it to be passion? Have you ever listened to a song and their talent was evident but their pain was as well? Or do you have no idea what I am talking about? The bible is riddled with sayings that help us to realize there is a fine line between two opposite sources from which information flows. Knowing the source of our statements, will help us to become more effective in our communication.

It doesn’t take long on Social Media, in church or on the job to see someone’s passion, but the more you listen, the more you hear their frustration or pain. Words reveal our hearts and most people don’t listen to themselves, so they cannot discern their own spirits, let alone someone else’s spirit. However, if we are to mature; if we are to be healed; if we are to become more Christlike; we have to be able to discern ourselves and others. For words carry a spirit and if you accept their words, you also get the spirit from which those words came from. So, we need to be very careful who we listen to, for they may sound passionate, but it could be coming from their unhealed pain.

Proverbs 16:32 says “Do you want to be known as a mighty warrior? It is better to be known as one who is patient and slow to anger. Do you want to conquer a city? Rule over your temper, before you attempt to rule a city.” I used to love the warfare stuff, but once I went through the wilderness and allowed the Lord to heal my pain, I realized that just like Proverbs 16 says, warfare can be fuel for pain, more than it is truly passion. Solomon ties being a mighty warrior to being impatient and angry, but most people cannot discern this, because we have been taught to value being a mighty warrior. Solomon goes on to say, our desire to conquer cities, is tied to our inability to conquer our own emotions, which again, he ties to anger. Anger is a protector of pain, so what looks like passion (mighty warrior or conquering a city) can actually be sourced in pain and we don’t realize it.

Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than a two edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Without the revelation that comes through the word of God, we cannot discern the source of what we are saying, or what others are saying. In the next move of God, Damon Thompson says, “The Lord is opening up a gate of compassion, for the closer we get to the Lord, the more we will love people and be moved with compassion toward people.” If the source of our communication is not love, it is coming from pain and not passion. Jesus did everything from love and if we have not love, we are nothing. I Corinthians 13:2-3 says, “If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.”

The way you can discern if what you or someone else is saying is coming from pain or passion, is to put it through the I Corinthians 13:4-8 love test, for if it’s not from love, it’s not passion, its pain masquerading as passion.

The Wrestling Match

Tags

Character of God, faith, Obediece, Spritual Warfare, Wrestling Match

Ephesians 6:12 “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of this dark age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

When I was growing up my brother and I used to play a game called mercy. We would be wrestling and the first one to say mercy would lose, so the goal was to get the other person in a position where they said mercy. It was possibly the game we played the most, for it took creativity to come up with new maneuvers and ways of putting a person in a position to say mercy. When we were kids, this was just a game, but now that I am an adult, I realize the enemy is in a wrestling match with me and it is not a game to him, it is his passion, his goal, his reason for existence.

Spiritual warfare is a deep and wide topic of which others are more able to speak about it in realms, that I am not interested in plummeting, but there is something the Lord has been teaching me about spiritual warfare that I want to share with you. The enemy does not care about your money, your marriage, your ministry, your job title, your kids, or anything that bears your name. He attacks these things, but these things are not what he is interested in. As believers we hold each of these things in high value, so we seek to protect them, defend them and do whatever we can to not lose them. So, when we sense the enemy attacking them, we fight to keep them, when in reality the enemy is not even interested in any of these things. So, what is he really after?

When Adam and Eve were in the garden of Eden with God, the Bible says the serpent, who was more cunning than any other of the animals came to Eve and said, “Did God really say…” (Genesis 3:1). The goal of the enemy was not to get Adam and Eve out of relationship with God, his goal was to discredit the character of God as being good. He does the same thing with you and I. The enemy has one goal, to discredit the character of God and to get us to discredit His character as well.

How we navigate disappointments is critical to our life in the kingdom of God, Bill Johnson of Bethel Church in Redding, CA says. We all experience disappointments, unanswered prayers, promises yet to be fulfilled, prophecies we have not seen come to pass. The enemy will use these disappointments to wrestle us into discrediting the character of God. He will say things like, did God really say; if He is God why didn’t He heal your _____________; or like he said to Jesus in Luke 4, if you are God, why don’t you throw yourself down from this mountain. You see the only thing the enemy is interested in is discrediting the character of God.

Why does the enemy care about discrediting the character of God in your eyes? Because if He can get to you doubt God is who He says He is and can do what He says He can do, you won’t believe in Him. Your faith in God is dependent on His unchanging nature, His character. If God is not who He says He is, then you will not trust Him and if you don’t trust Him you won’t obey Him and if you don’t obey Him you won’t be able to worship Him in spirit and in truth and that is what the wrestling match is all about. He is seeking to get you to say, God is not who He says He is.

Don’t Miss the Door

Tags

Believe, Christianity, faith, Journey, keep going, Open doors, Perseverance, Walk through

Mark 1:27 “They were all amazed, so that they debated among themselves, saying, what is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him.”

If you have done any airline travel, you know that the gate is open long before the door to your airplane is open. Actually the airplane door is only open for about 15 minutes, just long enough for the waiting passengers to board the plane and get seated. Once the airline door is shut, there is no more getting on the airplane and if you miss your plane, you have to wait for the next available plane.

This analogy depicts a similar reality for us as believers, doors of opportunity open to us, but if we don’t enter when the door is open, that door will shut and we will need to wait for the next door to open. As I was meditating on this thought this morning, I heard in my spirit, don’t miss the door. It was repeating over and over again in my spirit, don’t miss the door. The door, when it opens, has to be walked through, or you will have to wait for the next door to open.

If you are one that has come through the wilderness, feel like you are in or have gone through the Jordan, but have not seen or heard the open door as of yet, it can be easier to miss the open door, for you have gotten so used to waiting. Waiting has stages just like anything else. When we first start waiting, we are checking in to see when our door is going to open, we are anxious, ready to go now, and for many we are in a hurry. As the waiting goes on, we start to get irritated, our attitude goes South, we blame someone or something for the delay and we try to force the door open. Then we come to the stage where we are just exhausted from waiting and resolve we have no control over how long this will take and we sit quietly and wait and wait and wait.

I hear in my spirit, don’t miss the door. You may have been waiting a long time, so long you have gotten complacent in waiting, thinking it may never open and have convinced yourself that is okay, and you may even believe this is contentment. But I hear the Spirit of God saying, don’t miss the door. The wait has been long, the journey has been tiring, and we are with you. Don’t miss the door.

When the people of Jesus’ day saw that He could cast out unclean spirits and teach with authority, they debated among themselves, what did they debate about? The scripture doesn’t say, but my thought is they debated if this was the long awaited Messiah. If we are not careful, we can debate ourselves out of going through the door. Jesus was right there and many missed the door, because they had waited so long and were busy debating whether this was the door. We do the same thing.

We have heard the prophecies, we know the promises God has spoken over us, but remember, it may come in a mustard seed form, so all I can share is what I hear, don’t miss the door.

Personal Experience

I was leaving a parking lot yesterday around the 75th and Wornall area, after having lunch with a friend that is like family to me. As I drove out of the parking lot onto the main street to head home, I heard a loud noise like someone shot at my truck. My body reacted in fear, but my spirit said, you are bullet proof, so I drove home, without checking to see what it was or what happened. Upon arrival at home, I realized by the marks on my truck that someone tried to throw a stone at my window to smash it.

As I pondered this experience I realized there are people at war with me, but I am not at war with anyone. I did not solicit this event, it was done to me, because some people have war in their hearts and so they have to fight someone or something.

When I lived in Malaysia, I entered there as a warrior, with a lot of fight inside of me, but little did I know it was really anger. After 9 years in that country, I had given up all my will to be at war with anyone, I thought I was weak, but the Lord showed me that I was angry then and now I am truly strong.

Jesus was not at war with anyone, but many were at war with Him. If we are not careful, we can make Jesus into our image, rather than us being transformed into His. I truly believed I was a warrior that was forcefully advancing the kingdom, but the Lord showed me in that 9 year wilderness that it was anger and it had to go if I wanted to succeed in the kingdom of God. Jesus was not angry or at war with anyone, and even though it feels funny at times, I know I am not angry anymore and I am not at war with anyone. Even though others are at war with me.