The people of God were always meant to be a “prophetic people”.

We were called to interact with the Word-speaking God through the events of our lives for the purposes of discovering a.) the intimate, redemptive nature of our God, and b.) our great need to be intimately redeemed to God.

When God reveals Himself into human circumstances; through great blessings, war, plagues, rewards and even supernatural punishment Isaiah 26:9 states, “…the inhabitants of the world LEARN RIGHTEOUSNESS”; that is, we learn how God wants us to relate to Himself. We learn that God’s heart is much more personal, and His ways much more powerful, and we learn the very opposite about ourselves. We learn that we are much more content to relate to God from a distance, and we learn that we vastly overestimate our ability to successfully live within a fallen world.

At the core of every prophetic event in our world, from the blessing of Isaac to Abraham and Sarah, to Babylon, to the restoration of the nation of Israel, to 9-11, this is the root lesson that God intends for His people to receive: “A.) I Am trustworthy. I want you to come close to Me so that I may extend My faithful leadership over you. B.) Your hearts and your laws, and your customs, and your economics and your politics and your wisdom are not capable of navigating the evil and the threats that are in your world apart from being deeply dependent upon Me.”

When the Philistines were vexing the Children of Israel and they began to cry out for a king, YHWH spoke judgment through the prophet Samuel. “The Lord said to Samuel, ‘It is not you that they have rejected, but it is Me that they have rejected as their king.'” (1 Samuel 8:7) In that moment both people and prophet learned a.) how deeply the Lord desired to personally administrate the affairs of His people, and b.) they learned how profoundly bent the covenant people of God were toward rebellion and independence.

When the prophet Jeremiah relentlessly issued the Lord’s messages of restoration year after year after year to the obstinate house of Judah Jeremiah learned a.) the long-suffering, grieving nature of the heart of the redeeming God, and b.) he learned just how hard-hearted the peoples’ attitudes were toward God’s tender and far-reaching mercy.

When the crowd on Pilate’s portico screamed “Crucify Him!” while appealing to the Roman governor to release a violent insurrectionist instead of their own long-promised Messiah, we all learned just how a.) meek and devoted to our salvation our God is, and b.) how hostile, self-reliant and deluded humanity can become.

We, the household of God, were always meant to be a “prophetic people”. We have a perpetual need to be reminded a.) how passionately our God longs to live with us in scandalous friendship, and b.) how grossly we miscalculate our ability to captain our own souls.

I say all this because for the last several years the Lord has been escalating the prophetic events in our American evangelical culture. I know it’s not popular to state this but 911 was a wake up call from God to a slumbering American Church. He even numbered the day, beloved! He was alerting us to the fact that a.) He wanted to be the center of our economic and military might and b.) we had become profoundly proud in our self-power to chart our own course in the world. Billy Graham, at the National Memorial service days after the catastrophe summed up the prophetic lesson in one phrase: “We have ALWAYS needed God!”

Cut to 2016. Our nation, and more importantly, the household of God (1 Peter 4:17) was about to enter into yet another level of prophetic judgment from the Lord. In an hour when social darkness was ravaging the land, would we elect a woman who was focused on endorsing unrighteousness and duplicity? Or would we campaign for a man who’s entire life had been a testament to the opposite of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount? The choice seemed impossible. Millions of Christian leaders and believers haggled over the axiomatic, Biblical thing to do, as if we could attain circumspection without engaging the prophetic Voice of the Lord Himself. We chose to operate by principle, not prophecy, and in the end 82% of the people of God elected a Saul.

In the days before the 2016 election, several quiet prophetic voices in our nation heard the Lord weeping to us: ‘It is not you that they have rejected, but it is Me that they have rejected as their king.'” (1 Samuel 8:7)

The Lord had been calling His household to transcend the wisdom of the nations, and to a.) invite Him to intimately administrate and reign over our incarnational and intercessory assignment to America. Instead, like restless Israel we b.) chose our champion, who would fight for all the liberty that we said we could handle rightly. And in so doing, we dreadfully miscalculated our aptitude to achieve the Lord’s definition of greatness.

Six short years later… In spite of all our assemblies, our protests, our votes and our cursing the Church in America is much more divided, alienated from truth, adamant about our conspiracies, explosive in our dialogue, and determined in our rebellion. We are no closer to greatness. We do not have the harvest. And we are adrift from the Presence of the Lord.

In the fall of 2019, our little House of Prayer in the mountains of Arizona began to hear the Lord calling His people to “seek His Face” (Psalm 27:8); one on One; where we could see a.) the degree to which our God wanted to be our Present Help in the time of trouble, and b.) where we could discover how genuinely impoverished and unprepared our ways were. We weren’t the only ones. Other believers and Houses of Prayer around the world were hearing the same summons: “Seek My Face!”

The Lord led a handful of us to give Him 100% of our focus – for 180 days – from a time of darkness and blindness, into a new hour of righteous light and prophetic vision. Through this 6 month season He led us through the prophetic lesson: A.) I am a faithful and trustworthy leader and I want you close to Me. B.) You don’t have the ability you think you have to guide yourselves through the calamity and tribulation that has now come upon you.

Now, a scant three years later – and as I look around at the Body of Christ, I lament that we not only have not given ourselves to learning the A’s and B’s of righteousness, I marvel that we (the covenant people of God) can look back over the last 36 months and ascribe no prophetic significance to the season at all!

Rather than see the hand of the Lord in our events, we are hell-bent and content to credit plagues, riots, signs and stolen elections to nebulous and nefarious forces, an attribution and pursuit that teaches us a.) nothing new about Who our redeeming God is, (in fact it diminishes His intimate power in our lives), and b.) calls for no new understanding and appropriation of the nature of our weakness and vulnerability in the world. It’s as if we’ve had our eyes plucked out and dine on delicacies while the people languish in unrighteous captivity.

Our family has given ourselves to seeing much evil and conspiracy, and little eternal and even less contrition in the events of the last three years. With this in mind, it’s vital that we ask ourselves several remedial questions:

1. What did we learn about the zeal of the Lord as He brought 195 nations to a complete standstill in one Passover week in 2020? What did we learn about our own ability to handle a world-wide plague?
2. What did we learn about the nature of our God when both President and prophets falsely predicted the end of the plague at Easter, and then Pentecost, and then once the warm weather came? What did we learn about our own hearts to throw off forces that were out of our control?
3. What did we learn about the justice and compassion of our God for the marginalized and the poor in our nation as millions rose up in lament, anger, protest and violence over the inhumane treatment of numerous black individuals in our culture? What did we learn about our own self-justifying nature?
4. What did we learn about God’s jealousy to be honored in our political activity when He suddenly struck down the very first evangelical leader who openly and resoundingly endorsed our former President? What did we learn about how quickly we can be raised up, and brought low under the hand of God?
5. What did we learn about God’s truthfulness and integrity when thousands upon thousands of evangelical leaders incorrectly predicted that our former President would be reelected (many promising in “a landslide”) in 2020? What did we learn about the willingness of our hearts to be deceived and to operate with no accountability?
6. What did we learn about the redemptive ways of our God as we gathered on the steps of our capital to protest an election that our champion had lost? What did we learn about our own rebellious hearts?
7. What did we learn about our God’s gentleness when millions of us refused to mask and/or be vaccinated against a disease that was killing our weakest neighbors? What did we learn about our own self-determined liberties?
8. What did we learn about our God’s attitude toward generational sin when thousands of Native American children’s graves were unearthed? What did we learn about our own theology of self-justification and American principle of “manifest destiny”?
9. What did we learn about God’s fervor to reverse decades of unrighteous laws, when Roe vs. Wade was overturned? What did we learn about a people who give themselves to unceasing prayer and justice in the land?
10. What did we learn about the steadfast reliability of God when “the red-wave” failed to materialize earlier this month? What have we learned about our incessant desire to run to false-prophets for salvation and consolation in an hour when we desperately want relief from the pressure of God’s judgments upon us as a people?

These questions aren’t ancillary to our walk with God. They tackle the brass-tacks of what we really believe, and where and how we place our faith in a real God Who earnestly wants to govern us through real threat and danger. These are questions that the Lord has eagerly wanted us to bring to Him in His tent of meeting. In many cases He’s prearranged the pressures precisely so we would come into His Presence and inquire in His temple. (Psalm 27:4)

He’s not relenting. He’s promised His Son a Bride without unrighteous spots, wrinkles or blemishes. (Ephesians 5) He’s promised His Son that when He returns His Bride will look and act and think and speak like Him. (1 John 3) If we don’t learn righteousness under the aforementioned conditions, He’s committed to having us satisfied in righteousness through more arduous conditions.

Rest assured. The more arduous conditions are about to come upon us – in order to teach us two things: A. The strong, glorious and redemptive character of Who our God is, and B. the great great need we have to live in vibrant righteousness under His Wings.

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JSB • November 27, 2022

POSTSCRIPT: In the few days that have followed the original publishing of this article the Lord has released yet another level of judgment upon the Church in our nation. The issue has been brewing for years. The headlines of this past week, and our many comments and opinions on the subject tell us the Lord is inviting us into dialogue. The issue centers around our heart-attitude toward the Jewish people. Will we embrace the Father’s heart for covenant Israel? Or will we put our own self first, protect our idol and allow 1930’s Germany to come to our nation – into our churches? Have we really learned the lesson of our fathers? Or will we, join the spirit of the age and exalt ourselves in our own eyes?

We are in the process of being weighed, beloved. It’s a real judgment with real reward, and real consequence. It’s fraught with deception and temptation to alienate. As in the previous judgments in recent years there’s one road home. It’s the road taken by those who choose to be broken in an hour of self-exaltation; who see the wisdom of embracing contrition, and trust that repentance is what will (continue to) lead us deeper into the heart of our King.

When the judgments of the Lord are on the earth, humanity is divided into four categories:
1. Those who don’t know God and don’t know anything about the need for His judgments.
2. Those who may or may not believe in God, and become instruments of His judgment upon the earth.
3. Those who believe in God, but don’t believe they’ve done anything to warrant God’s judgment.
4. Those who believe in God and yield themselves to God through His judgments.

The prophet Isaiah tells us, When the judgments of the Lord are upon the earth, the inhabitants of the earth learn righteousness. (Isaiah 26:9) This means that when the judgments of the Lord are upon us as a people, the pressure that they exert upon our relationships, our social structures and our individual hearts will press us into dialoguing with the Lord so we learn what He values, and what He is calling us to do. To esteem wha the Lord esteems and to be who the Lord is calling us to be – this is what righteous living looks like.

It is only the fourth category of humanity who “learns the ways of the Lord” through the judgments.

THIS, above all else, is the category that we want to be in.

The Consequences of Having No Theology of the Judgments of the Lord

From month to month and crisis to crisis, it has become painfully obvious that our American evangelical family does not believe the judgments of the Lord are upon us. Most of us are in the third category, and not the fourth.

The consequences of this misinterpretation of our circumstances are massive. We, the richest, most free, most self-determined, and mutually affirming Church in the history of humanity, are attempting to navigate “the time of tribulation” (Psalm 27:5) in our own strengths of superior human rhetoric; defensiveness; self-justification; carnal definitions of glory, greatness and power; enlightened concepts of rights and liberties; superior “secret” knowledge etc. Living devoid of a Biblical theology for the judgments of God, the wrath of God, and the fear of the Lord, we are in fact living blind, naked, and impoverished to His ways, and therefore wretched and miserable in relating to Him and others.

This is disastrous. 

Evidence of the disaster is all around us. Increasing hostility between ourselves and the lost. Amplified animosity between individuals and factions within the Body of Christ herself. No consensual “Word” from the Lord. Compounding deceit, delusional narratives and false prophecies. We choose to live in echo-chambers of pretense rather than engage in honest, substantive dialogue with God and each other. And we, the spiritual offspring of those “who turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6) see little evidence of victory over darkness, illness and unrighteousness in our own culture.

The most alarming outcome from having no paradigm for the judgments of the Lord is that regardless of how vividly the Lord bids us to “seek His Face” (Psalm 27:8), we insist (often without guise of pretense) we are operating just fine without a.) humbling ourselves, b.) “inquiring in His temple” (Psalm 27:4), and c.) allowing the Spirit of God to bring us to life-giving repentance. Consequently we operate without a baseline posture of contrition and faith-filled meekness toward our God, and each other.

Beloved. We will gain no ground for His Kingdom from this posture. Neither do we sufficiently prepare the Body of Christ for His glorious return.

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JSB • November 24, 2022

WHY DOES GOD WARN HIS PEOPLE AGAINST EMBRACING CONSPIRACY THEORIES?

From COVID’s nefarious development, 
to motivations for racial sensitivity, 
to masks and vaccines, 
to rigged elections etc., 
conspiracy theories are 
corrupting authentic, grace-filled, Spirit-filled lives in God, 
short-circuiting the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit,
demeaning the depth of His reaching, redemptive mercy, 
AND defaming the character of God Himself.

I believe far too little is being said about the dangerous spirit that is attached to the hydra of conspiracy theories that currently plague our evangelical fellowship.

Conspiracy theories are not new. They exist in every culture, and in every generation. 

The European Journal of Social Psychology defines a conspiracy theory this way: “An explanatory belief about a group of actors that collude in secret to reach malevolent goals – usually prejudiced against a specified sub-group within the culture.” (EJSP, 2007)

Over the last 3 years, conspiracy theories have exploded in our American culture. This is one of the ways that we can know that the judgments of the Lord have fallen upon us as a people. 

Furthermore, as the time of our Lord’s return draws near, conspiracy theories will only become more popular – and tempting to embrace. (Luke 17:23; Matthew 24:23-25; 2 Timothy 3:1-9; 4:4)

The Word of God explicitly admonishes disciples of Jesus to have nothing to do with these fables, myths and speculations. (1 Timothy 1:4; 4:7; Titus 1:14)

The intense social pressures caused by the judgments of the Lord actually stimulate the development of conspiracy theories. The conspiracy theories offer individuals an alarming narrative that encourages them to rise up and maintain control of their destabilized culture – usually in the form of protest or hostility. 

At the same time, and most importantly, the conspiracy story-lines also effectively provide a people-group with an excuse to NOT humble themselves before the Lord Who is bidding them to address heart-issues that are out of line with Jesus’ Kingdom.

This is the reason why the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, unanimously denounce conspiracy theories. They are counter-narratives that encourage the people to walk independent of the wholesale claim that the Lord has upon their lives.

“Do not walk in the way of the people, and do not say, ‘A conspiracy,’ concerning all that this people call a conspiracy, nor be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled. The Lord of hosts, Him you shall hallow; let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread. He will be for you, as a sanctuary.” (Isaiah 8:11-14)
(See also Jeremiah 11:9 and Ezekiel 22:25)

Here are 6 tell-tale signs of a Conspiracy Theory:

The unsettling truth is, EVERY SINGLE ONE of these marks distinguish conspiracy theories that are currently circulating within our American Evangelical family in 2022.

O beloved, these imaginations are far far below our glorious calling!

“If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” (Colossians 3:1-2)

“Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy; let your mind dwell on these things.” (Philippians 4:8)

“See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” (Ephesians 5:15-16)

“(Let us be) obedient in all things… lest Satan take advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices.” (2 Corinthians 2:9, 11)

“Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them. For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord… And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us…” (Ephesians 5:6-10, 2)

6 GOOD QUESTIONS FOLLOWERS OF JESUS NEED TO ASK ABOUT A CONSPIRACY THEORY:

1. WHICH of our ENEMIES is specifically perpetrating this evil? How is the Holy Spirit calling me/us to think about, pray for, and love this enemy?

2. Before God, WHAT REAL EVIDENCE do I/we have that this CHARGE is warranted? Is the evidence great enough to overcome our Holy God’s many warnings against MALICE, HATRED and UNFORGIVENESS?

3. Is this report stirring me to more bitterness and MALICIOUS ACCUSATION than thanksgiving and MERCY-FILLED INTERCESSION?

4. How might the pursuit of this narrative be DRAWING US AWAY from our primary zeal and pursuit of EXALTING the glory of JESUS? How is JESUS being MAGNIFIED through the sharing of this narrative?

5. Is this REPORT calling the Body of Christ to HUMILITY and REPENTANCE before God Who allowed the evil to be perpetrated against us, or is it deterring us from crying out to the Lord in our crisis? Where do we see/experience the Body of Christ responding to this crisis by coming to the threshing floor of the Lord?

6. How is this REPORT stimulating me, and the Body of Christ to BEAR OUR CROSS in meekness, compassion and incarnational redemption for the sake of the gospel? Can I imagine JESUS spending this much energy spreading this report?

FINAL NOTE: One of the chief considerations for a believer in the time of trouble is to guard him/herself from the many temptations to feast from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, rather than cultivate love-filled faith in the Lord and His protection and mercy. If we have more zeal for “inside information about evil” than we do zeal to seek “revelation and exaltation of the glory of our King” our spirits are out-of-whack.

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JSB • November 22, 2022

“And when you see your ‘enemy’ a long way off, do as My Father I would do. Wait at the door with a basin and a towel. When he comes in, wash his feet the way I would. If you have no water, use tears of tenderness at the reconciliation that I have affected. Feed your brother. Eat with your brother. Clothe your brother. Soothe the wounds of your brother. Recognize how miserable he is. Enter into the mutual wretchedness of having been estranged from deep love.”

“Your culture has taught you to ‘love your friend and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do much good to those who hate you, and pray for those who show you spite and even persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:43-45)

“THIS is the way you break a curse. This is the way you break the curse that is upon YOU.” – Jesus

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JSB • November 18, 2022

• Our family and nation has no greater need in this hour than for us to lay aside our 1000 reasons why we SHOULDN’T DO THIS and selflessly bear this dynamic as our daily cross…

• “Therefore be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:38)

• Crazy thought for the day: Could THIS be one of the chief outcomes that the Lord had in mind as He’s brought us into intensified judgment??? “For when Your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness (the way the King would act).“ (Isaiah 26:9)

• Apply this where you will… The “battles” and “culture war” we’re fighting will not be won in the flesh. The strongholds won’t come down until we embrace the conviction that leads us to be in the valley of weeping on behalf of the ones who are estranged from the Father. When the Lord turns hearts they will need to find “family” who aren’t shaming them, but are filled with foot-washing love, humility, contrition, repentance in the fear of the Lord. Unless we incarnate this spirit of holy hospitality we only succeed in further brandishing the curse, and offering prodigals no home of reconciliation, and no joy in returning. (Isaiah 51:10)

• This is the prayer of those who wait for the redeemed in the valley of Baca: “9 Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord! Awake as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Are You not the arm that cut Rahab apart, and wounded the serpent? 10 Are You not the One who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep; that made the depths of the sea a road for the redeemed to cross over? 11 So the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness; sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” (Isaiah 51:9-11)

• O, that we would BE a habitation where “the evil” could come in and be redeemed.

• Forgive us, Father! We’ve not represented Your heart. We have not acted as “Your sons”. We’ve been – I’VE BEEN – the “older brother” – again and again and again and…

• Paul tells us in Romans 12:21, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
Honest question: Where in our communities/culture do we see evil being overcome by good???

If neither we evangelicals, nor the MAGA, nor the deep-state, nor the socialists, nor the anarchists are willing to employ Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, what hope do we have of seeing ANY evil overcome by good???

TRUTH BE TOLD, if we were going to be honest and strict, Biblical literalists NONE of US would EVER have anything to do with ANY of us! Hahaha. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, ³ unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, ⁴ traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, ⁵ having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with these ones! (1 Timothy 3:2-5)

The Church in our nation (my tribe) has been under a season of intensified judgment from the Lord. a.) I hope this isn’t news to you. b.) This is a good thing. It’s not something irregular, or something we should be alarmed about. What should concern us is when we (for any number of reasons) believe that God does not and will not bring us under His judgment. 

There are 5 Biblical reasons why the Lord brings a people under His judgment. This is a major reason we wrote our book, “Seek My Face” a year ago. All of these reasons are designed to produce first commandment love for God in the human heart.

When a people refuse to respond to the Lord’s judgments in humility, contrition, and repentance five other things happen in our lives, and in our world:

1. We do not grow in increased first-commandment love for Jesus. The judgments are meant to produce dialogue. And dialogue produces intimacy and increased love and adoration for Jesus and the ways of His heart. When we do not give ourselves to His judgments (the things He wants to have conversation with us about) our love for Him is stunted and stalls.

2. Sin and unrighteousness goes unchecked and actually proliferates in our lives and relationships. The curse around us (in our lives and in our world) compounds. A pound of sin never sits quietly in the corner. Sin will always corrupt and grow unless checked. Evil begets evil. Unrighteousness begets unrighteousness. The old saying: “There is no honor among thieves” depicts the fact that those who give themselves to sin will, as a natural result, have more sin visited upon them. If we could see it clearly, we’d understand that this is a basic law of physics – as real as gravity – and more weighty than time. It’s only by the mercy of God that sin and the curse of sin doesn’t exponentially envelope us and consume all 7.5 billion of us on planet earth. This causal result has massive implications for the Church on nine different levels; from our pursuit of devotion to God, to how we serve others, to our experience of unity in the body.

3. We fail to grow in Christ-likeness. Our manifestation of Christ in and through us grows dim – it does not grow more vibrant. Apart from humbling ourselves, taking up our cross and obeying the Father, we have no means by which to cultivate true, authentic and Spirit-empowered Christ-like wisdom, character and supernatural power.

4. Our unsaved world does not receive a witness of how to respond to the holy and loving Lord of all the earth. When the judgments of the Lord are on the earth, the inhabitants don’t have a ready-paradigm and example that informs them about how to respond to this God that they have not known. This is the chief reason why the Lord brings His judgments to His household first… (See 1 Peter 4:17-18)

5. The Lord WILL visit us with increased pressure to have “must-have” and vital conversations about our patterns of thinking, and the ways of our hearts. He does this because He’s committed to us living in vibrant, and righteous love. He also does this because He’s promised a “like-minded” Bride (See Philippians 2 and 1 John 3) to His Son at the end of the age. 

To be blunt, this means that if we don’t respond to Him with humble, contrite conversation, He will up the ante. He will place more and more intense pressure upon us, in terms of greater social upheaval, trouble and natural calamity, in order to get us to stop trusting in our own way, and our own thinking, and get us to entertain the idea of coming to Him in our “inability”. Under this construct many eventually turn Him for help simply because we have lost our capacity to control our circumstances.

Ultimately, should we continue to rebuff the Lord’s judgments, He will give us over to delusion and the forces of unrighteousness that by nature would consume us anyway. The ultimate end of this state is to come deluded to THE DAY of judgment and have no awareness that your soul was so lost, and you were so detached from the heart of Jesus. (We don’t wanna be the guys in Matthew 7:23 and Matthew 25:44)

Consequently, I can say with great confidence: increased trouble and pressure is coming. It’ll come upon us – in our generation. It will come because the Father loves us and is committed to us – and to the promise that He’s made to His Son. This isn’t rocket science. This isn’t even being prophetic. It’s simply knowing God; know the record and intent of His Word, and doing the math.

Today is a very good day to cultivate that needed lifestyle conversation with the Lord; to humble ourselves, to embrace the spirit of contrition, and to repent into all that Biblical repentance entails. It would do us well for the fear of the Lord and our heart’s desire for increased first-commandment love to constrain us in this.

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JSB • September 15, 2022

I’m pretty sure I’ve never felt our world groan more than I do than in this hour. 

When you pause, you feel the atmospheric pressure. I don’t need to list the cracks in our culture and where we experience the weariness of humanity. There’s a heaviness on the earth that tells us something needs to break. Systems; the created order; morality; our own fragile frames; even religion all grind with disturbance. You don’t have to be a believer to feel the tyranny of compounding darkness and hopelessness. It weighs on the soul like a wet, wool blanket.

“There are many who say, ‘Who will show us any good?'” (Psalm 4:6)

As I walk through my community, I hear a low hum of desire for “good” that’s become smothered with disbelief and despair. In some it feels like the hope for “good” has been completely extinguished. “Whatever ‘good’ we hope for is only a mirage. It won’t be enough to fill the ache, the chasm, the vacuum inside.” 

And so we groan. 

Our communities, our nation, and the planet is “troubled”.

I’m intentionally using this word because “trouble” is doing what our righteous God designed it to do. It’s causing human hearts to groan. And, because we’ve been entrusted with the stewardship of creation, it also causes everything around us to groan.

What are we groaning for?

Peace. True peace. Not as the world gives. Not as the world has been giving us. Nor the kind of peace we’ve been demanding the world give us. We crave a substantive peace. A sense of order. A sense of immovable truth. A sense of love and being loved. A sense of understandable purpose and meaning.

Again. You don’t have to be a Christian to feel this. You just need to have a heartbeat. And if we listen deeply to the hearts beating around us… that’s… the… groan… we… hear.

We’re groaning for a tangible peace that won’t be exposed as fraudulent or insufficient. All 7.5 billion of us.

There’s only One Source for that kind of peace.
“He Himself is our peace.” (Ephesians 2:14)

But it’s His will that there be many many (billions) of witnesses to that peace.
“Blessed are the peace-bringers…” (Matthew 5:9)
Who are they?
“They’re called the sons of God.” (Matthew 5:9)
The ones “all creation groans” for.

In this hour of mounting trouble, the Spirit is raising up daughters and sons of God who will give themselves to “Letting the peace of Christ rule in (their) hearts.” (Colossians 1:15) and know how to help bring Him and His peace to groaning hearts.

“Letting the peace of Christ rule in our hearts” is job one. (And as a prayer-guy, I can say, this will only be found in corporate prayer… where day-by-day we give the Spirit access to the conversations that are brewing in our hearts.) As we learn to let the peace of Jesus reign within us, the Holy Spirit will equip with the power to do job two: to speak words of eternal assurance; healing; reconciliation; life; destiny and glory under the perfect reign of the Prince of all peace.

“27 Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. 28 You have heard Me say to you, ‘I am going away and coming back to you.’” (John 14:27-28)

I’m groaning for His peace to be manifest within me, and my world.

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JSB • August 19, 2022