Therefore the Kingdom of Heaven is like a certain King who heard the cry of His servants who were suffering under great oppression from one of His wicked magistrates. He mercifully apportioned a sovereign homeland for these servants, and commanded them to “love one another”, and to “love the foreigner”. Those servants fell down before Him in thanksgiving saying, “Master, thank You for Your merciful gift. Yes. We will treat others, as well as those within the land, with the kindness that You have shown us this day.” Then the King of that servant was moved, blessed them, and forgave them of all their debts.
But these servants went out and beat those who were already in the land, and took others and put them in bondage, so that they suffered under even greater oppression than the King’s servants had. And when others wanted to come and live in the land which the King had graciously given to the servants, these servants declared, “There is not room for ourselves, and for you” – even though these servants had greatly prospered and were filled with much abundance.
And these same servants began to speak evil of those who sought to live in the land, and made more and more laws that said “This land belongs to us, and no one else”, and even though they flew the banner of the King over themselves, they began to do what they had promised the King they would not do. They did not consider how to extend the abundance of the King to others. Instead, they began to beat those who wanted nothing more than to receive the same mercy from the suffering and oppression that the servants had first received from the benevolent King.
So when the King heard what was being done, He was very grieved, and came to these servants and said to them, “You wicked servants! I heard your cry when you were in bondage to a wicked ruler. I gave you a land of great abundance, which was more than enough in which you and your families could live and prosper. I even forgave you all your debts because you begged Me.Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servants, just as I had pity on you?” And the King was very angry, and delivered them to the torturers until they should learn to love like the King, and He even made them pay-back all that was due to Him.
So Our heavenly Father also will do to each of us, if from our hearts, we do not learn mercy, and extend His kindness to others.
An Additional Word for the Bride from (Luke 12:35-48) THE FAITHFUL SERVANTS and the EVIL SERVANTS
35 “Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning; 36 and you yourselves be like men who wait for their Master, when He will return from the wedding, that when He comes and knocks they may open to Him immediately. 37 Blessed are those servants whom the Master, when He comes, will find watching. Assuredly, I say to you that He will gird Himself and have them sit down to eat, and will come and serve them. 38 And if He should come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. 39 But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. 40 Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” 42 And the Lord said, “Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his Master will make ruler over His household, to give them their portion of food in due season? 43 Blessed is that servant whom his Master will find so doing when He comes. 44 Truly, I say to you that He will make him ruler over all that He has. 45 But if that servant says in his heart, ‘My Master is delaying His coming,’ and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and be drunk, 46 the Master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for Him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the unbelievers. 47 And that servant who knew his Master’s will, and did not prepare himself or do according to His will, shall be beaten with many stripes. 48 But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.
As our evangelical family gathered to celebrate, pray and pledge our nation to God, there is one critical question we are wise to ask about the covenant we’ve established with God in this hour…
This past weekend thousands of sisters and brothers in Christ gathered on the mall in Washington D.C. to worship God, honor the heritage of America, and pray prayers of consecration in an event called, “Rededicate 250”. Originally conceived by the current Presidential administration as a ceremony to “rededicate” America back to God, promoters of the gathering billed it as an invitation to “Celebrate the Triumph of the American Spirit”.
The multiple-day festivities platformed heavy doses of preaching, political posturing, historical perspective-setting, and pledging. Several leaders praised President Trump, his policies, and priorities, calling him God’s anointed leader for this age. Others painted glorious pictures of America’s founding fathers; attributing great Biblical faith to their revolutionary efforts in establishing the United States. Still others spoke of our national reliance upon God, our need for prayer – particularly where governmental leadership is concerned. A few knelt in humility, and repentance – albeit for largely unspecified sins, and unrighteous ways.
Many who helped lead this convocation now claim it is a pivotal moment for evangelicalism, and, indeed, God’s living and active blessing upon us as a nation. But what do these words really mean for the Bride, and her integrity to Christ?
• Will we be more equipped to advance the gospel in our culture?
• Will we walk with more miraculous power?
• Will we be more unified in our glorification of Jesus?
• Will we walk with greater holiness in our world?
What does this event spell for our country?
• Will we see more righteous legislation throughout our land?
• Will justice be more prolific?
• Will corruption be loosened from the political system?
• Will America become a greater force for good on the earth?
I believe it’s wise and vital that the American Church, dare ask God Himself how this has all been received in His court room. We may discover that we are at more of a “field of Zophim” (Numbers 23) moment, than a “high-water mark” for conservative evangelicalism in America.
However the Lord understood what was happening in this gathering, it is important that we understand that a transaction was being made, and a covenant was being established between ourselves and the God Who was listening, and moving amongst our lamp stand. Put the other way around, it is extremely important that we don’t discredit what was being bonded, honored, invoked, and prayed in this ceremony. God takes our words and oaths seriously – precisely because He takes His own Words and promises seriously.
In Numbers 23, the prophet Balaam speaks a word of blessing upon the nations of Israel and Judah, when the king of Moab, Balak, is intent on having them cursed. Balaam’s sovereign prophecy begins with: “YHWH is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent.” (Numbers 23:19) What the Spirit of the Lord was declaring through Balaam was that His Word – including His power to bless, or curse, is sovereign. It is perfectly tied to the truthful, forthright, and fruitful character of God Himself. When God speaks, His Word will be fully accomplished. It won’t play games. It won’t cut deals. As Balaam observed, “When the Word goes forth, it will be impossible for us to reverse it.” (Numbers 23:20) In the words of the prophet Isaiah: Once God sends forth His Word, “it will accomplish the purpose for which it was sent.” (Isaiah 55:11)
“For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, 11 so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:10-11)
Here’s the 100,000 dollar question: Do we, the household of God, honestly want the full impact of the Word of the Lord in our midst? In the verses just prior to (Isaiah 55:10-11) The Lord issues this cautionary reminder: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. 9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)
What the Lord is saying is, “Gird yourself to encounter My Word. It’s not going to do things the way you think of doing things. I’m not like you. Truth is, IT’S TO YOUR ADVANTAGE THAT I AM NOT LIKE YOU. I Am the God Who stands above all human history – Who is on neither the side of Israel, nor the side of Jericho. I will be faithful to Myself in all that I do, cutting through unrighteousness, and establishing My glory in every place My Word is released.”
Do we honestly want God to bring us the eternal force of His Word in perfect sovereignty?
Let me be specific here. When the President of the United States takes the Word of God in his mouth; (he read, 2 Chronicles 7 in a taped rebroadcast for the assembly), in effect, entering into covenant with God regarding His blessing upon the land, and the people of the land say “Yes! We want the Word of the Lord’s covenant to be upon us as a people”, we must understand two things:
1. The Lord’s blessing upon us as a people will look quite different than what we expect it to look like. It will demand that we walk in crucified fidelity to His Son; the preeminent Word of God, Himself. We are inviting the Spirit of the Lord to do whatever is necessary to make sure that we, those of us who applied the Word of God to our lives, will come forth from this hour, thinking like, speaking like, and walking like the incarnate Son of God, Who was “despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief”(Isaiah 53:3), and Who observed at the end of seven beatitudes: “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. 12 Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5:11-12)
Do we honestly want to walk faithful to this? Because if we say we do, and we don’t, then the second half of the covenant goes into effect:
2. As our faithfulness binds us to the promise of the Lord’s blessing, so also our unfaithfulness binds us to the Lord’s judgment and retribution. Should we not keep our part of the bargain; should we deceive, oppress, curse, not lay down our lives, wink at abuse, and harbor those who do injustice for the sake of cultural expediency, the Lord will surely (on account of His own faithfulness to His Word) do what He also promises to do in (2 Chronicles 7:20) “I will uproot them from My land which I have given them; and this house which I have sanctified for My Name I will cast out of My sight, and will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples.”
In short, it’s incumbent upon us that we know, and faithfully help others to now understand what the terms of our covenant with God looks like!
While there are several important questions we need to consider regarding how we specifically work out our dedication to the Lord in this post “Rededicate 250” era, it is critical that we soberly consider what we’ve bound ourselves to – and more importantly – in view of scriptures like (Hebrews 12) to Whom we have bound ourselves.
18 For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, 19 and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. 20 (For they could not endure what was commanded: “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.” 21 And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.”) 22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, 23 to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, 24 to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. 25 See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, 26 whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.”(Hebrews 12:18-26)
Every reader of the Bible should understand that God is in the very active process of bringing us wholeheartedly into His redemptive mission; overcoming evil in every place, and establishing hope, and life and the pure glory of His Son – “manifesting the sweet aroma of His glory in every place.” (2 Corinthians 2:14) And now we, as individual believers, the eclectic Church of God, and (by our own accord) our United States of America, have been pledged to make every cost, every sacrifice, and every effort to bring forth this preeminent and eternal will of God in our world.
In the inspired words of the Psalmist: “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to Your name give glory… Our God is in heaven; and He does whatever He pleases.” (Psalm 115:1,3)
Many Americans are greatly concerned about a President who exhibits king-like behavior. They point to his incessant need to name organizations, buildings, and initiatives after himself; and his compulsion to adorn himself with gold, and lofty titles. They balk at his many highly questionable executive orders – many of which have been struck down by courts, and yet still fail to shift his courses of action. They note the level of effusive sycophancy exhibited by his cabinet, and White House staff toward this man. They reference the manner in which he makes official, public decrees and pronouncements to the nation via social media. They cringe at his wholesale repudiation of accountability. They observe the punitive manner in which the free press is treated when it speaks circumspectly about him, his administration, and his policies. They worry about a leader who daily threatens allies, and other sovereign nation-states with prideful boasting, armed incursions, and conquest.
Historically, the Church has ebbed and waned through all sorts of civil government. She often thrives through eras of great dictatorial pressure, while languishing during long periods of economic freedom. While a democratic, constitutional capitalism is enormously desirable, and offers the gospel many advantages, scripture never promises the Church fruitfulness depending on the form of government it is able to surround itself with. Neither God, nor the gospel is that chained to the machinations of human systems.
What heaven is concerned about, is a Church who exhibits idolatrous behavior. For thousands of years, the people of God, under both the old covenant and the new have needed to watch for the encroachment of idolatry – whether in wealthy and educated societies, or primitive and impoverished cultures.
The Bible warns pagans, Jews, and Christians about the constant danger to lay aside the truth of the One True and Living God, and embrace the temptations of idolatry. The Bible also lays out intricate details about how a nation, family, or fellowship can be redeemed from their idolatrous ways. (I’ve written about God’s definition of idolatry, and His passionate ability to set us free from idolatry, here.)
Throughout the ages, the people of God have universally agreed that when four chief dynamics crop up within a people-group, they are engaging in idolatrous behavior. This is the way idolatry operates within humanity – even in our 21c, wealthy, free, and promotion-heavy evangelical family. We dare not believe we are immune to the lure of this devilish ploy, simply because we don’t bow down to edifices made of wood or stone. Here are the four features of idolatry that are common to every generation.
A. Idolatry tells us what is TRUE and what is FALSE. It determines our perception of reality by advancing certain narratives as factual, and real, and other storylines as specious and deceptive.
B. Idolatry tells us what is GOOD and what is EVIL. It defines the elements within the culture that are beneficial, and life-giving. And they identify what will contribute to corporate destruction, and who the nefarious players are.
C. Idolatry tells us what is WISE and what is FOOLISH behavior. It chooses our course of action, and predicts which ones will produce the greatest good. It determines what righteousness looks like, and what unrighteousness looks like; which attitudes and activities will result in the maximum blessing, and which will lead to ruin.
D. Idolatry can also tell us what god, or God is like. Is He tolerant, or intolerant? Is He vengeful? Is He gracious? Does He respond to sacrifice? What kind of obedience does He demand of us? Is He forgiving? This aspect of idolatry varies widely. It can merely lead us to believe wrong things about the True God. Or it can present us with an entirely different god, who is quite unlike the Living God Who is revealed in the Bible.
Right now, depending on what part of MAGA you’re looking at, the relationship of secularists, religious, and Bible-toting evangelicals with Donald Trump is exhibiting at least three of the four classic marks of idolatry. For the last ten years we have increasingly leaned on him, and the pundits, pastors and prophets that mediate him, to tell us what is, and is not true; what’s good, and who’s evil; as well as what the right, and wrong courses of action are – even when it requires that we distance ourselves from respected relationships with experts in the field, laws, courts, organizations, other conservative thinkers, and even the Word of God itself.
I’ve said it before. No other single individual in our lifetimes has played more of a determining factor in how the church, the covenant people of God in America, view what is real, what is evil, and what is the righteous course of action, than Donald J. Trump. The fact that we have allowed this one individual to hold such sway over our mind, heart and will, makes our relationship with him distinctly idolatrous.
To engage in idolatry is to “go to war with God”. To dismiss, or wink at our idolatry is to be careless about enmity with God. This is why the Lord is calling His sons and daughters to His threshing floor in this hour. What does a people established upon the sure mercy and grace of a loving God have to fear in coming to the light of His intimate counsel?
Beloved. We do well to bring our personal, and collective ways before the Lord, and let Him illuminate where, and how we have inordinately given ourselves, even in small ways, to attitudes and loyalties that diminish our trust in God for truth, goodness, wisdom, and righteousness.
“Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am.” (John 17:24)
The Lord is committed to His Bride being WITH HIM WHERE HE IS. (John 17:24) This petition from Jesus, is God asking God for you and I to walk in covenant fidelity with Himself. This isn’t merely about Jesus asking the Father for us to be seated next to Him at a wedding banquet, as uber-glorious as that reality is. It’s ALSO about us living submitted to, and aligned to all the ways of our Bridegroom-King.
Jesus has already pledged to be WITH US, EVEN TO THE ENDS OF THE AGE. (Matthew 28:20) If we are born-again, our Savior-King is faithfully with us in ALL circumstances: heartache, loneliness, affliction, persecution, poverty, abundance, applause, victory and judgment.
What Jesus is seeking, is for our hearts to be filled with divine might, insight, and passion to not be put off by all the noise and the shrapnel of the world, and find our place in the literal Presence of the good Shepherd-King Himself.
And not only this, but to also understand the nuances of His heart. We aren’t with Him as mere servants. We’re with Him as beloved friends, compatriots, allies – indeed as those who are betrothed to this beautiful resurrected, Jewish Man, Who is ordained of the Father to rule the nations of the earth. He wants us maritally yoked with Himself – meaning, that we share in the same authority, vision, thoughts, emotions, strategies, and spirit that He lives in, knowing that our destiny is inextricably linked to Him, and His way in the cosmos.
Right now, what is CHIEFLY on the heart of the Anointed-King are two thoughts:
1. “WHAT IS YOUR WILL FATHER?”
AND,
2. “WHERE IS MY BRIDE? WHAT KIND OF ZEAL, AND FEAR, AND NEED, AND FAITH IS SHE WALKING WITH? IS SHE WITH ME, AS I MOVE ON THE EARTH? IS SHE WALKING IN LOVE LIKE I AM? LOVE TOWARD HUMANITY, AND CHIEFLY LOVE TOWARDS ME?”
Family of God, we cannot BE WITH HIM WHERE HE IS without talking to Him in what He is doing in our lives, and in our world. And we won’t truly be all present to Him without dialoguing with Him about the real mysteries, falsehoods, temptations, and hopes that storm our hearts.
What does this mean practically? John 17:24 is Jesus inviting His Bride into the prayer. This is how, and much of where we ARE WITH HIM WHERE HE IS. Our King is first a Son, Who ever lives to intercede. (Hebrews 7:25) And, the fact of the matter is, we won’t align our hearts to His, on the run – or in a 90 minute Sunday morning experience, an altar call, a 15-minute devotional reading, or even a men’s group Bible study. These are all VERY GOOD things. But unless we’re in the sacred, focused, Word-centered space of honest, vulnerable conversation with Jesus; where we can hear His distinct Voice addressing distinct issues and needs in our personal lives, we won’t know the deep, authentic strength He wants to give us, so that we’re not moved, or swept up in the epic rage that screeches around us.
Beloved. HEAVEN HAS NO BACK-UP PLAN FOR PRAYER. If we thoroughly see the need for us to be close to Him through great seasons of tribulation, THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR INTIMACY WITH HIM.
Jesus says: “Stay close to Me, as I move to save, judge, deliver, rebuke, encourage and dance. Watch, and honor what I do. I’m not lost. I’m keeping perfect pace with the Father. And We’re winning on the earth. Ha! (Yes, He laughs… Psalm 2:4) It’s not even a fair fight… MY BRIDE, I WANT YOU WITH ME, WHERE I AM.”
____________________ JSB • March, 2026
Family. Would you be willing to help us financially? All Nations House of Prayer Southwest is committed to meeting the unique spiritual needs of this hour, and a portion of the hunger of our culture to have holy space where individuals, families, and leaders may encounter the living Voice of the Father.
Over the last ten days, ALL NATIONS has had some of the most extraordinarily prophetically active days of our eight-year existence. The Lord shared this precipitating word with us on February 24, 2026 – five days before the United States and Israel launched their attack on the nation of Iran:
“It’s the threshing-floor or war…”
The Lord is Speaking – not mumbling. His message is not a cryptic mystery. Neither is it complicated. The Lord is making it patently clear, both in the spirit, and the flesh to those who are willing to yield their self-saving notions to faithfully respond to the kairos Word of the Lord.
The Church in America can either come to the Lord in humility, repentance, contrition, and the fear of the Lord, or we will continue to escalate our war against the Kingdom of God through our pride; our abusive ways; our jurist accusations; love of hostility; our self-exoneration; our racial animosity; our political idolatry; our sexual perversion; denials and obfuscation of the truth; our disregard for meekness and peace-making; and our zealous normalization of these qualities within the Household of God.
Of course, 95% of our family considers these indictments hyper-critical, woke, fanatical, and even heretical. But the fact of the matter is, YHWH has never curtailed His judgments simply because His analysis comprised the minority report.
In (Exodus 32:17-18) the Word of God tells us that the Lord hears war much differently than we do. Our festive, political pride, and militaristic crusades sounds like war in our camp to heaven. And right now, by His grace, the Spirit is broadcasting how our celebration is being received in the courts of the Lord.
What does the One Who sits upon the throne hear coming from our evangelical camp right now?
The code-name for our country’s military campaign is #EpicFury. (Of course it is.) In this hashtag, the Lord is giving us the identity of the crusading spirit that our evangelical family is giving “enthusiastic approval” (Romans 1:32) to… And, for anyone who is remotely familiar with the eschatological texts, “#EpicFury should sound exceedingly similar to the phrase David uses in Psalm 2:1 “Why do the nations rage?”
Over the last several weeks, the Church has increasingly found herself defending escalating tirades of furious rage coming from President Trump, and Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth. These curse-laden statements and invocations, frequently issued with the Name of Jesus attached to them, (and even the “reign of hell”) are windows into the the rage that stirs in their souls, and – more importantly – the furious spirit we, the people of God, have been taking into our own bosom.
The American Church stands like a petulant child refusing to submit to the discipline of the Father. In our moment of defiance, the Lord’s penetrating question is this: “How much rage will we allow to consume us as we resist His cleansing light? In our temper-tantrum of defiance, how much of hell’s fury do we want to fill ourselves with?”
Friends, the Lord is kindly, and firmly showing us, the “rage” from Psalm 2 isn’t “out there”, separate from us. It is greatly within us, crouching, waiting for an opportunity to master us. (Genesis 4:7)
Question: What happens to a people who refuse to humble themselves before the Lord’s many warnings? What befalls those who, instead, clothe themselves in raging accusation, self-justifying narratives, and hostile conspiracies?
Often, the Lord responds to the spiritual deafness of His people, with a natural, visual picture of our spiritual condition. In other words, HE USES SIGN LANGUAGE to arrest our carnal senses when we’ve lost our soulish ability to hear His Voice.
If we’re only seeing the attacks on Iran on a socio-political level, we’re missing the SIGN-LANGUAGE OF HEAVEN. We’re not receiving the communication the Spirit wants us to grasp. This war is a blaring siren to the American evangelical Church.
The Lord is saying, “The epic fury I’m concerned about is YOUR EPIC FURY, CHURCH!Repent!! Repent of your defensive self! You call it peace, valor, honor, protection and righteousness – but I call it ‘war’. In your resistance to Me you have filled yourselves with raging self-determination. And you have no vision of how to control it, or how it’s igniting hostility and death all around you. Where will your self-justification carry you? You do not know… Humble yourselves. Come to My threshing-floor. Let me show you what’s seeking to master you in your spirit. Let Me lead you to repentance. Let me restore the fear of the Lord to you. Come and let Me cultivate radical meekness, uncircumstantial joy, earthquake-proof faith, vibrant righteousness, peaceable wisdom, unoffendable tenderness, and the visage of My Son within the core of your being. If you do not, you will be consumed by this epic fury.”
Ultimately, Our Refusal to Come to His Threshing Floor Becomes a Raging Defiance
This is no hour to defend “self” with pithy memes, talking-points from pundits, and “drive-by” human opinions. This is an hour for the people of God to go into the tent, lay face-down before the Lord; be quiet, and allow every whisper of rage within us to be swallowed up by the self-abasing glory of the Lord. This is an hour to be brought to silence before the thunder of His Voice! It’s only in this prostrate posture that our hearts will take root in His.
“Woe to the rebellious children,” says the Lord, “Who take counsel, but not of Me, and who devise plans, but not of My Spirit, that they may add sin to sin… Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel: “Because you despise this Word, and trust in oppression and perversity, and rely on them, therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach ready to fall… And The Lord shall break it like the breaking of the potter’s vessel, which is broken in pieces; He shall not spare… For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: “IN REPENTANCE AND PATIENT QUIETNESS YOU SHALL BE SAVED; IN UNDISTURBED TRUST SHALL BE YOUR STRENGTH… But you would not.” (Isaiah 30:1, 9, 15)
Continued…
____________________ JSB • February 28, 2026 (Updated March 6, 2026) (Updated April 7, 2026)
In an hour of intensifying pretense, darkness and deceit, living and loving with vulnerability in His light is a radical act of prophetic faith.
No one needs to tell us that we’re living through an age when pretense, deceit, and darkness is intensifying all around us. Every day we are surrounded by “competing narratives” (whether they come from social media, news outlets, or face to face interaction with others) – statistics, anecdotes, rhetoric and storylines that bid to win our trust, and our loyalty to silos of thought, faith, political and cultural ideology. A man could claim there is no such thing as gravity and win a great crowd in our world, today* – provided the one making the assertion could convince the insecure, and fickle masses that they could keep themselves from the evil threat in their world by believing something that was so obviously upside-down to common experience.
Our world is filled with people – we often call “leaders” – who are ready to make this claim about any subset of reality they care to comment upon:
“Masks are bad.”
“Killing your baby in your womb is healthy.”
“Feeling contrition about racism and bigotry is nefarious.”
“Threatening to annex another nation/state is good.”
“Empathy is evil.”
“50 year old men having sex with 14 year old girls is normal.”
“Telling a 50 yr old man he can’t be a 30-yr old woman is oppressive.”
“Not being accountable for one’s abuse is fine.”
“Helping others identify idolatry in our culture is divisive.”
“Spending too much time in prayer is dysfunctional.”
There is no end to the type of pronouncements about life in a fallen world that vie for our allegiance – ALL for the purpose of bringing more security and contentment into our short, little lives. And we humans devour these pronouncements, like starving dogs. Reading news reports; doing 15 minutes of “deep dive” google-searches; padding our world-view; building our towers of mutual strength; while assailing the towers of those who threaten our towers.
This was the world that Jesus came into. Humanity then was no different than us. The Romans and the Jews were both seeking security and deliverance from insecurity. They both sought a truth that promised them stability in a world filled with destabilizing enemies.
The Romans largely sought to achieve it through order and military enforcement of their order. The Jews looked for a deliverer from Roman order. And without a deliverer on the horizon, the Jews fashioned religious principles that allowed them to justify murder and insurrection. Both wanted security. Both legitimized the destruction of others in order to obtain it.
By the time we get to Luke 11, Jesus has done a lot of things to win the attention of the crowd. They’ve seen that He can do stuff that others can’t. He can provide lunch for everyone, and He can clear out their sick wards. He LOOKS LIKE someone we can trust to make our lives more secure. And so Jesus finds many being attracted to Himself. The crowds are learning to trust Jesus. But Jesus (rightly) doesn’t trust the crowds.
It was to the crowd that was building around Him that Jesus spoke these words in Luke 11:34-36.
“The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light. But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness. Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is (actually) not darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, the whole body will be full of light, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light.” (Luke 11:34-36)
Huh?
“I came with a touch of arthritis, and seconds on lunch. Why is Jesus talking about my eyes? How can my ‘body be filled with darkness’? What?? Do a miracle, and change the circumstances in our world Jesus of Nazareth!”
Fortunately for them, and for us, Jesus wasn’t swayed by the demanding needs of the crowds. He knew that what was in the heart of all humanity was what needed changing. The world was evil – submerged in darkness – and under the reign of darkness – that was the perpetual order of the age the crowd lived in.
The hope that Jesus was wanting to instill in them wasn’t one that changed the world’s baseline order. It would remain “evil” until He came and deposed its evil ruler. The hope that Jesus was offering to Jew and Roman alike was the promise of freedom from interior insecurity – a security that everyone could have, regardless of their world-condition – a security that came with Him as the chief, and sole Determiner of truth, reality, and salvation.
But here’s the catch. Here was the stumbling block for those who pursued Jesus’ promises. The REAL PROBLEM, and the REAL THREAT wasn’t out there in the world – amidst some exterior consuming force. The REAL PROBLEM was inside us. Me. You. Our families. Our heroes of the faith. Our mentors. Our leaders. Us.
Until we were ready to acknowledge that the greatest destabilizing threat to our well-being was what was surging inside of our own souls – every breath of every day – we were not ready to receive the level of radical leadership that Jesus came to kindle. His Kingdom was one that took root in the nuclear-core of the soul, and then worked its way out with integrity, in every other place the soul went.
Furthermore, in order for the soul to garner this type of authentic, “sufficient for the world”, strength, it needed to acknowledge that it was innately corrupt; broken; deficient; bent on evil; and bent by evil. It needed to agree with Jesus about how wicked and dysfunctional it was. It needed to let Jesus’ Light, illuminate itself to its true condition.
And then, (as if that was not enough) it needed to learn to let Jesus CONTINUE to bring His Light to bear on the inner workings of the individual soul. ONLY THEN would Jesus’ Leadership have sway and gravity within the person – and by extension – in the world.
The devil wants us to believe the evil is out there – threatening our right to have stability, and contentment. Jesus quietly tells those who have ears to hear; those who are weaning their convictions from the thousand narratives in the atmosphere of the evil one; that the real threat, the peril that He’s come to deliver us from; is the evil that colors everyone of our souls.
In a world that’s incessantly pointing at others, who wants to be “that fool” who is gazing into their own soul? Who would believe that the Kingdom of goodness, justice, kindness, faithfulness, love, and beauty could eventually make so many consequential changes in the whole world, while being so intimately administrated within our own hearts?
Jesus.
It takes faith to walk in the thorough way of Jesus. And it takes vulnerability to walk in faith; believing Jesus, and turning down the noise about the looming dangers encircling us.
Don’t believe the hype of those who use Jesus’ Name to fix everything else OUT THERE. That’s living with the light that Jesus calls “actually, darkness”.
Walk in the quiet Light of His Voice that offends you with the truth about what needs “fixing” inside of your self.
…from our Lord, and four sister churches in the first century.
The Lord is speaking the word PERSEVERANCE to His “holy ones” to a degree that I have never heard… As I’ve been praying through the many words, conversations and encouragements of this past week, the Lord has been forging a specific Word (from His messages to the churches at Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, and Philadelphia) for the many who are PERSEVERING through this inflamed season of corporate judgment:
For the Saints in the Church in America • February 21, 2026
“I know your works, your PATIENCE, your TRIBULATION, and poverty of spirit, and that you CANNOT BEAR those who are evil. I know you are dwelling where satan’s throne is. And you HOLD FAST TO MY NAME, and DID NOT DENY MY FAITH. Although you have A LITTLE STRENGTH, you have KEPT MY WORD, and have NOT DENIED MY NAME. You have PERSEVERED and LABORED FOR MY NAME’S SAKE and have NOT BECOME WEARY. I also know you have TESTED those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars. I know the blasphemy of those who say they are in covenant with Me, and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear any of those things which YOU ARE ABOUT TO SUFFER. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, and you will have TRIBULATION, that you may be TESTED. HOLD FAST what you have, that NO ONE MAY TAKE YOUR CROWN. KNOW THAT I LOVE YOU! Be FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH, and I will give you the crown of eternal life.”
We fool ourselves if we believe the enemy of our Kingdom is not strategizing a perfectly horrible outcome to this ten-year plunge into his evil ways. More than experiencing the natural consequences of our departure from faith in Jesus Christ, the devil seeks an end-destruction of those who remain steadfast in their love, and fidelity to Jesus – both spiritually, and physically. (Meaning financial, relational, ecclesiastical consequences – not necessarily loss of life…) Again. We fool ourselves if we believe we’ve experienced the worst. The devil is never one to not take advantage of crossless hostility and incivility. It is for this reason that the Lord is speaking PERSEVERANCE in this hour.
IMPORTANT NOTE: It does neither us, nor our “argument”, nor His Kingdom any good, if we resist the antiChrist spirit in MAGA, while failing to bear our cross FOR Jesus. One form of faithlessness is no better than another. The Lord is breathing PERSEVERANCE into the mouths of His prophets, right now in order to bring His Bride into lifestyles that…
1. speak the truth with integrity to the Spirit,
2. maintain an ear toward the nature of the Lord’s precise judgment upon our family,
3. cultivate an intercessory, “stand in the gap” heart,
4. possess a clear understanding of the Lord’s pattern/invitation to redemption,
5. are personally vigilant to “take every thought captive” so that we retain an obedient, “soul-tenderness” to Jesus, Himself.
Without these five elements, we ARE “falling away” (2 Thessalonians 2:3; 2 Peter 3:17) from the vibrant (Galatians 5:6) “faith with love” that Jesus has purposed for us to walk in.
