I appreciate the sentiment of this meme, but I actually believe the Bible suggests otherwise.
The depth of humanity’s depravity is much greater than something that can be fixed with mere knowledge of reality. It requires submission; the kind of submission that Jesus called for when He invited individuals into His Kingdom: “Deny yourself; take up your cross daily, and follow Me.” (Luke 9:23)
The truth is, simply knowing Who Jesus is isn’t enough – it helps – but our eternal destiny requires more. Specifically, it requires our despairing of our own way, and our submission to Him and His way.
Truth be told, there will be many who believe they know the right things about Jesus who will be gravely undone on the day they meet Him face to face. Many will recognize and acknowledge Him on that day as “Lord”. But Jesus warns us, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the kingdom of heaven—only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 7:21)
The fact of the matter is, our human heart is so corrupt and bent on doing things our own way, that even should we say we know Who Jesus is, we would still vehemently resist submitting to Him. We would still not want to love our enemies; not want to stop coveting; we would still want to hold grudges; we would still want unfettered freedom to determine our own way; we would resent His input into our lives; we’d want to spurn His redirection of our hearts.
In the end, when Jesus returns, the whole unbelieving world will still be opposed to Him and His way (Psalm 2:1-3). They will not hate homosexuality any more than they do now. They will not despise their nationalism anymore than they do today. They will not love the poor any more than they did while they feasted through their lives (ala. the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31) They will not think any higher about wanting to give Him love and praise. And when consigned to their tragic eternal destiny, they will remain in that accursed, angry, defiant state forever. (That indeed is hell…)
This is how bent our soul is under the curse. This is how prevalent its power is over our hearts. This is how badly we need a cross in Christianity. The Lord calls us into His Kingdom! And in order for us to live there we need to apply a cross to our own.
Isaiah 26 is the Word of the Lord for people who are experiencing the judgments of the Lord.
When the judgments of the Lord are on the earth they shift the dialogue that humanity has with God and with others. The chaos, social pressures, lifestyle changes and emotional turbulence that comes with the judgments constrain our hearts into conversations about the issues that the Lord wants to discuss with us. When His judgments are on the earth what we talk about, why we talk about it and how we talk about things – changes.
Sometimes the hardships bolster previously held belief patterns and lifestyle choices. Sometimes the new trouble confronts us with inadequate aspects of our world-view so that our hearts become open to see things through a new paradigm. Having conversations that lead us to embrace God’s perspective is THE point to every judgment of the Lord. The Lord calls this “learning righteousness”.
“When Your judgments are on the earth, the inhabitants of the word learn righteousness.” (Isaiah 26:12)
Whether we’re redeemed or unredeemed, righteous thinking doesn’t come automatically, or naturally to us. It’s a gift that comes from conversing with God about what’s in our heart. What we believe determines whether we’re embracing righteousness or unrighteousness.
It was in conversation with God that Abraham determined to believe God. Romans tells us that when Abraham embraced what God was saying and promising, “it was accounted to him for righteousness” (Romans 4:3). In other words, Abraham “learned righteousness” (or allowed himself to be embraced by God’s righteous order) when he believed what God was telling him about his life-situation.
Again, this is where all the judgments of the Lord are designed to take us.
For example, in March of 2020, a plague touched all 195 nations at the same time. Within a week the whole planet was talking about COVID; where it came from; how to protect ourselves; and how to respond to the civil and economic pressure it was imposing upon us etc. The Lord was forcing 7.4 billion souls into conversations about how vulnerable we were, and where we could find authentic stability and security.
Right now the inhabitants of the earth are having conversations about Russia and Ukraine and NATO. The Lord is allowing the international threat to confront our hearts with questions like, “Why is God allowing this to happen?”“Where can we find justice in a world filled with dangerous and evil intent?”. Every time we ask the Lord, “How do You want me to pray for Ukaraine?” We’re declaring, “We want to learn righteousness!” This is the dead-center, focused objective of all judgment: to bring our naturally wayward hearts and minds into agreement with His Son’s righteous ways. He wants us to think and pray and behave the way His Son does.
God’s righteousness learning process, however, presents humanity with a three-fold problem:
A. In order to learn how Jesus feels about a situation we must enter into conversation with Him. And when He’s brought an issue up, and the whole world is (knowingly or unknowingly) buzzing about the issues that He wants to talk about – well… no one wants to admit that they do not know something about something the whole world is talking about. This is especially true for Christian leaders and teachers. Admitting we don’t know is like saying, “I’ve not sought the Lord’s heart about this matter.” What prophet/pastor/teacher wants to admit that? Consequently, apart from having a humble, ardent, ground-breaking dialogue with the Lord we will and do default to carnal ways of thinking. This is the natural order of the world.
B. Secondly, when the enemy sees that we are not seeking the Lord, he will lead us by the nose with pride and introduce us to false and destructive lies about the circumstances. The Bible calls these false and destructive narratives “conspiracies” (2 Samuel 15:12; 2 Kings 15:15 & 30; Isaiah 8:12; Jeremiah 11:9: Ezekiel 22:25; Acts 23:13). Our pursuit of these figments and evil reports keep us angry, suspicious, malicious, self-justified and disconnected from the heart to heart conversations that the Lord wants to have with us. Bingo. This is the enemy’s goal.
Isaiah specifically warns us from letting conspiracies have this effect upon us: “Indeed this is what the Lord told me quite forcefully. He warned me not to act like these people: ‘Do not say, ‘Conspiracy,’ every time these people say the word. Don’t be afraid of what scares them; don’t be terrified. You must recognize the authority of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. He is the one you must respect; He is the one you must fear (in the time of judgment) He will become a sanctuary. But (He will also be) a stone that makes a person trip and a rock that makes one stumble.” (Isaiah 8:11-14)
C. If our primary response to the calamity that’s on the earth involves our hearts being bound up in conspiracies about rigged elections, globalists, deep state, race, healthcare collusion, church closures etc. etc. etc… we must understand – we’re being distracted from the main event! The Lord is returning to the earth, (Isaiah 40:3-5) and He is actively drawing His Bride to BE WITH HIM WHERE HE IS – in spirit and in truth. The Lord wants to talk to us about the real-time attitudes that are keeping us from leaning upon Him (Song of Songs 8:5). Instead, we’re preoccupied with digging up more dirt about sinister forces that are attached to unsubstantiated storylines. The conspiracies keep us independently eating from “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 3:22) and we never cultivate intimate dependence upon the Lord and what and why He, the Prime Mover, is actually doing on the earth.
What’s the solution?
One. Simple. Activity: PRAYER
“Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourself, as it were, for a little moment.” (Isaiah 26:20)
Prayer is THE ONLY SOLUTION to the judgments of the Lord. As the famous revivalist SD Gordon once observed: “You can do more than pray after you pray; but you can do no more than pray until you pray.”
Prayer. Prayer, where we linger long before the glory of the Lord; where we receive revelation upon revelation of His perfect ability to lead weak people. Prayer, where we learn the importance of being silent before the revealed glory of the Lord. Prayer, where humility and repentance becomes our posture before the Eternal One. Prayer, where we learn the heart and ways and power of our King.
Prayer is where our deep convictions and narratives are forged. If we’re not praying we WILL miss the Lord’s point AND His plan for the judgments that are on the earth.
Millions of Bible-believing Christians will miss the purposes of the Lord during this hour – and perhaps even forfeit the righteous reign of the Lord, for one very simple reason – they never gave themselves to prayer.
“My spirit is broken, my days are extinguished, the grave is ready for me. Are not mockers with me? And does not my eye dwell on their provocation?” (Job 17:1-2)
In my near-death weeks over this last season, one of the attitudes of the heart that became most excruciating was to feel the Lord’s heart re: the spirit of accusation, animosity and mockery. As I wrote in my raw update: “This is the breath of hell.”
I believe this is what Job was describing when he also drew close to death in Job 17: “My spirit is broken, my days are extinguished, the grave is ready for me. Are not mockers with me? And does not my eye dwell on their provocation?” (Job 17:1-2)
The closer Job drew to death, the more he could feel the heat of the Lord’s wrath against mockery, denigration, ridicule and scorn.
Both the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah identify the spirit of mockery among the people of God who are being judged – and the judgment against them was quite severe.
“Now therefore, do not be mockers, lest your bonds be made strong; for I have heard from the Lord God of hosts, a destruction determined even upon the whole earth.” (Isaiah 28:22)
Isaiah observes that when we allow mockery to become a part of our way of interacting with our world, “our bonds will be made strong”; meaning, the spirit of mockery will become a stronghold in our life; in our fellowship; and in our culture.
If I may be so candid: Mockery has become a stronghold in our American evangelical culture. From simple bumperstickers that read: “Let’s Go Brandon!” to endless memes and social media posts that ridicule, jeer and denigrate our political, theological and ideological opponents – our family loves to laugh at our enemy’s expense. In fact, the better we are at calling our foes “fools”, the more applause we give and receive unto ourselves. We love to “drop the mic” on our enemies.
This is no less true for those who mock and deride our former President. Mockery transcends political division. Our whole culture is rife with the spirit. It’s not a conservative vs, liberal issue, it’s a righteousness vs. unrighteousness issue; a crucified or uncrucified issue; an “I’m with Jesus” or “I’m not with Jesus” issue.
Isaiah also observes, mockery is an especially dangerous dynamic to harbor in our soul in the hour when the whole earth is under the threat of Divine destruction. Beloved, we’re living in such an hour.
Our Lord calls this attitude in our heart, “murder”; and strongly warns us that it will be punished with “hell fire”.
Whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ … ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire. (Matthew 5:22)
What this means is when political pundits, evangelical leaders, pastors, prophets laugh at, ingloriously condemn, belittle, sneer at, ridicule, make fun of, and foment half-truths and innuendos and conspiracies about our ideological disputants, (as shown in the few examples below) according to our Savior, we’re in danger of hell fire.
Beloved, let there be no doubt. In (Matthew 7:23) Jesus paints the picture of meeting many “righteous” individuals who can recite impressive Kingdom accomplishments. It is precisely their disposition to mock, curse and not forgive their enemies – all the things that Jesus has just covered in His sermon – that He, THE LAW-GIVER HIMSELF, deems as “lawlessness”.
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS!’ “Therefore… everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.” (Matthew 7:21-24, 26-27)
The prophet Jeremiah learned the wisdom of “doing the will of the Father” and avoiding the spirit of mockery – even at the cost of his own reputation and social comfort.
“I did not sit in the assembly of the mockers, nor did I rejoice; I sat alone because of Your hand, for You have filled me with indignation.” (Jeremiah 15:17)
Jeremiah indicates that the Lord Himself filled Jeremiah’s soul with a loathing “indignation” for the spirit of mockery – and it cost him a seat at the table of influencers in Judah. He refused to engage in the mutual murder that had become rampant among the advisors. He “sat alone”; apparently disconnected from the levers of power that were available to him at the time. He wasn’t asked to give the plenary address at the denominational conferences; he was not perceived as one who had political clout, or rhetorical capital. He was “alone”.
Funny. The man who was alone is the man whose writings have endured. None of the provocateurs, the firebrands, the sages or the rabble-rousers of Jeremiah’s day are even remembered today, except through the journals of the man who refused to be applauded in the assembly of the mockers.
In short, Jeremiah learned the eternal value of being a man who brought his arguments before God in intercession, weeping and dialogue. It was in this forum (the tent of meeting with the Lord) that Jeremiah found efficacious and eternal solutions to the problems of his day.
When faced with the many-headed temptation to mock, deride and murder our adversaries, I am praying for grace to be like Jeremiah.
COMMANDS for DELIVERANCE, PRAYERS for HEALING, and DECLARATIONS of PROTECTION
I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. (Psalm 34:1)
FORGIVENESS
If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. (1 John 1:7)
There are five things we want to do with our sin and unrighteous ways. They all begin with the letter R: 1. We ask the Holy Spirit to help us RECOGNIZE our own sin and unrighteous thinking. 2. We REPENT of all sin and unrighteousness 3. We RENOUNCE any hold that specific sins and unrighteous thinking have upon our lives. 4. We RECEIVE the Father’s forgiveness on the basis of what Jesus has accomplished upon the cross. 5. We allow Him to fill us with His RIGHTEOUSNESS; the order of His government within our lives: humility, purity, love, healing, kindness, joy, faith, peacemaking, etc.
A. Thank You Holy Spirit for helping me RECOGNIZE every wicked way in me
B. Father, I REPENT of __________ and RENOUNCE __________.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)
C. Thank You for this great promise, Father. I RECEIVE Your forgiveness from these sins through the shed blood of Your Son, Jesus on the cross!
D. Father cleanse me from all unrighteousness. Fill me instead with the RIGHTEOUS order of Your Son! Thank You Father.
DECLARATIONS of VICTORY
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy. (Psalm 107:2)
A. I make the sign of the cross upon my life. I declare that I will “deny (the rule of) self” and live “crucified in Christ” under His victory and His leadership.
I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I but it is Christ Who lives within me, and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God Who loved me and gave Himself up for me. (Galatians 2:20)
B. By the grace of God I declare that THE BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST covers my life.
C. O HOLY SPIRIT, fill my life and consume me with the fire of Your indwelling Presence.
D. Holy Spirit, I “put on” (Ephesians 6:11-18) the SPIRITUAL ARMOR.
E. Father, thank You for assigning MIGHTY WARRING ANGELS to encamp around me (Psalm 34:7).
COMMANDS
A. By the authority of the blood of Jesus of Nazareth I cancel every curse, hex, incantation, and/or spell that has come against me. Furthermore, I command every demon connected with any of these curses to be silent and to immediately present yourself to Jesus of Nazareth for judgment. I decree that all curses against me to be canceled and abandoned forever, by the authority of theblood of Jesus Christ.
B. By the authority of the blood of Jesus of Nazareth I command every demon of affliction, disease, death, shame, deceit, unrighteousness, animosity, nightmares, fear, panic, torment and/or sleeplessness to be silent, to separate yourself from me and immediately present yourself to Jesus of Nazareth for judgment.
C. Heavenly Father, I FORGIVE EVERY PERSON who has spoken curses against me. And I ask that You would bless them with the gift of the fear of the Lord and repentance. I also ask that they would be brought into a saving covenant relationship with Your Son, Jesus.
PRAYERS FOR THE LORD’S PRESENCE, HEALING AND PROVISION
We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses… Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:15-16)
A. Father, thank You for Your increased Presence and glory within me.
B. I also thank You for Your healing light that is perpetually healing me.
I command all viruses, infections, toxins, cancer cells and ________ to immediately be removed from me by the authority of the blood of Jesus.
C. Father, renew me and strengthen me with Your righteous order and health. Thank You Father that You’ve made all this available at the expense of Your own Son.
He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? (Romans 8:32)
D. By virtue of my covenant with Your Son, Christ Jesus, I say “yes” and “Amen” to Your strategic purpose for my life. I also say “yes” to all of the promises that You’ve intended for me; including physical healing, the fruit of the Spirit, a long and abundant life that declares Your excellent works, friendship with the Bridegroom, first-commandment love for You, incarnational love for others, and significant supernatural power, all for the increase of Your glory!
My God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory through Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:19)
A. This flag flies as an alarming icon of the carnal spirit of defiance that has astoundingly grown in popularity among praying communities and evangelical churches over the last decade.
B. This spirit has prospered nearly unchecked within the household of God; promoting unaccountable pride, self-determination, and crosslessness within millions in the body of Christ.
C. The flag itself was designed by William Gadsden (a general in the Continental army from South Carolina) and pictures a timber-rattlesnake with 13 rattles; representing the 13 colonies who refused to have their manifest destiny fettered by another.
D. Benjamin Franklin notably advocated the snake as the symbol of the American colonies saying, “the rattlesnake never backed down when provoked” which captured “the temper and conduct of America.”
E. The flag also captured the spirit of why so many 18c Christ-followers (many who emerged from the first great awakening) opposed armed revolution against the King of England…
F. Of all people, people of the Book ought to understand why it’s probably never a great idea to go to war under the banner of snake…
G. In every way imaginable waving this flag enthrones a “spirit of rebellion” – all of which any follower of the One Who crushes the head of the evil one (Romans 16:20) should see with abundant clarity.
H. In 1981 British Evangelical leader, Derek Prince observed: “At the very foundation of America is a spirit of rebellion which is the spirit of witchcraft. Unless this reality is dealt with, 20 years from now, you won’t believe how acceptable witchcraft will be in your nation.”
I. The greatest impediment to revival in our land is not a humanist President, the curse of LGBTQ, or a congress that votes to murder children in the womb all the way to term. The greatest impediment to revival in our land right now is a spirit of open, nationalist rebellion and insurrection that shakes its fist at the judgments of the Lord and dominates the hearts and minds of gospel leaders, ministries and churches in prayer rallies, sermons, books and conferences.
J. This spirit is prospering in the way we’ve challenged COVID, an election, the racial pain of blacks and native Americans, and real and perceived restrictions imposed upon the Church.
K. Not only is this spirit defrauding the people of God and America from the revival that the Lord urgently wants to bring to us, it is also tragically paving the way for millions to hail of a man of ultimate rebellion and lawlessness.
L. Until we recognize, repent of, rebuke this poisonous spirit and replace it with the pure standard of the cross of Christ, we (the Church in America) will experience no sweeping Presence of the Lord in our nation.
M. The two ways are mutually exclusive. We can either continue to wave the banner of “self-rule” or we can submit ourselves to the rule of the One Who is leveling every mountain and making every crooked way straight.
“Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; for the day of the Lord is coming, for it is at hand.” (Joel 2:1)
NOTE: The Lord led our little House of Prayer into 180 days of intensive “Seeking His Face” in January of 2020. On March 7, 2020 we wrote the following – only days before the Lord put 195 nations on the earth in lock-down-mode. Ultimately, our story, the plague of COVID and the other subsequent tumultuous events that have shaken the church over the last 24 months was made into our book “Seek My Face: A Guide to Praying Through the Judgments of the Lord”.
We’d be happy to send you a free PDF of the manuscript, or the print edition. Email us here: xaris4u@yahoo.com
He’s SO gracious, beloved. He’s still calling us to respond to His alarm – but the hour IS turning… You can feel it, can’t you???
MARCH 7, 2020 Kathy, myself and our friends connected w All Nations HOPSW are currently on our 69th day of 180 days of #SEEKMYFACE2020. “Seek My face” (Psalm 27:8) is the Lord’s exhortation to those who are living in a “time of trouble” (Psalm 27:5).
We’re also on day 6 of a 40-day fast. Some have assessed that this 40-day fast is one of the largest, most internationally diverse and focused fasts called in the Church’s 2000 year history. That doesn’t make it better. It’s just sobering to consider that this many believers are currently seeing the need to cry out in our poverty and hunger for the Lord’s sovereign intervention in our world, and our nation.
Typically, Kathy and I spend 5 to 6 hours each day praying and exalting Jesus here at our All Nations Prayer Room in the mountains of Arizona. For the 180 days (until June 30, 2020) we have added 5 additional hours of prayer to our weekly schedule. In the midst of the 40-day fast, we are now adding 7 more hours of private prayer!
I’ve seen enough life to know that we are indeed in a “time of trouble”, unlike anything our nation and Church has faced in my lifetime. I’m also old enough to think in a few years I’ll be standing before the Lord, and in that moment I will have wanted to respond to His exhortation to “seek His face” for myself, my family, and my nation, with a wholehearted spirit.
Occasionally over these days of consecration, we’ve experienced times of ecstatic exhilaration in the Lord (Halleluia! Last Tuesday evening with a dozen+ in our little prayer room, was one of those evenings…) But mostly, the hours of prayer, beholding, worshipping, listening, journaling and travailing are arduous for my flesh. They are very bland, weak and unexceptional.
One of the unique joys of engaging in this level of intense prayer, is doing it with my beautiful wife. The depth of “oneness” that we share in prayer is a source of uber-strength like nothing else in my life, marriage and ministry. To share words of revelation, dreams, warfare and reward in ministry TOGETHER is… well, it just doesn’t get any better than that.
For the last two weeks we’ve been experiencing some incredible warfare on many levels. As we’ve been “inquiring” about the nature of this marked increase of spiritual contention we have both come to the conclusion that it relates to two things that the Lord has called us to soberly and intentionally pray for in our own lives, and in our region/nation:
1. Letting the Holy Spirit bring down the (Jonah 2:8) idols on the high-places in our heart. The high places being the places that our flesh has no capacity to reach on its own. Our flesh normally doesn’t even know the idols are there; like the stuff on the top shelf in your closet. We just can’t see it. We need the Lord’s gracious insight to reach up and show us what’s rotting in the closet of our hearts. This is exruciatingly counter-intuitive work – listening in the spirit to the Spirit, instead of taking cues from our flesh in our flesh.
2. The second issue the Lord is calling us to intercede for is intimately connected with the first. He’s giving us greater sobriety about the nature of His coming presence in our nation. It will, as Joel describes, be “great AND terrible”. (Joel 2:11) The Lord’s wind will uproot institutions AND issues. But He will do so primarily on account of crises in the individual heart, rather than discrepancies over ideological arguments. What do I mean by this? This means the Lord is deeply invested in establishing His Bride in the authentic integrity of her heart, not merely measuring her according to the “correctness” of her (political, social, economic, doctrinal etc.) convictions.
“Rend your hearts and not your garments.” (Joel 2:13)
Beloved, we (the evangelical, Bible-professing, Spirit-filled, praying believers) are massively unprepared for the level of uprooting in our hearts that’s about to take place.
I bless you with the Lord’s close, intimate grace in this hour. He is ready to give His people insight as we inquire, behold Him, and cultivate ears that listen beyond our flesh (and all the noise in our culture), into His Spirit.
“Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low; the crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth; the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
(Isaiah 40:3-5)
Right now two great divergent “ways” are being plowed in the souls of billions on planet earth. Event after world event, one of two ways are being reenforced in our hearts. Just as Jesus told us: One is the way of mass destruction. The other is the massively less popular way unto salvation. But don’t be fooled. The distinction between the two ways is not (indeed, cannot be) perceived in the flesh. It can only be discerned in dialogue with the Holy Spirit. (The good news is, the Holy Spirit has the love, zeal and the capacity to be having this conversation with 7.4 billion of us at the same time…)
He’s SO uniquely qualified to run this planet!
If your heart is steeped in socio-political idolatry you won’t see the true lines of division. You’ll be greatly tempted to see human circumstances according to the human lenses of socio-political division. You’ll forever be reacting to polarizing human circumstances – super-charged with suspicion, animosity, pretense, lust, self-justification and intolerance.
This is an intended strategy of the enemy. He and the antiChrist at the end of this “way” are counting on billions (including religious and secularists) to see and invest themselves heavily in this two-dimensional perspective. One of his greatest “fears” is that people will read the Word of God and discover that he (not unlike the Pharisees and the sinners; the Romans and the zealots; etc.) is playing both sides.
Political conservatism and political liberalism (like legalism and licentiousness) are BOTH in his pocket. BOTH relying entirely upon the power of collective humanism. BOTH are reacting to world events as if they are human-caused at their root. BOTH are lobbying for human-level solutions. BOTH sides have prophets and pundits and pastors and proclaimers of the way. But their vision and their authority is stunted – limited to earth-bound solutions. They presume the enemy lies in “the other camp” and can be overcome by superior wisdom, knowledge, insight, narratives, rhetoric and numbers.
Here’s the key to the deception; both of the camps CAN be overcome by superior wisdom, knowledge, insight etc. because that’s what BOTH are built on. That’s all the enemy has to work with. Lies and “truth”; fear and confidence (pride); hatred and “love”; vows and “principle” (the law)… and as long as the enemy can keep us convinced that the enemy lies in the “other” camp he’ll keep us steeped in his spirit, playing his game under his rules.
NOTE: This is actually a key reason why so many of “our” household “prophets” are being left naked event after event. Their perception is two-dimensional. Even though they create elaborate and fantasmic superstructures and storylines to make it appear that their cues are coming from another realm – their failure (on nine levels) exposes the human (and in some cases, even demonic) earth-bound substance of their words.
It requires faith in the Word of God to see things any differently. But once the Holy Spirit reveals the true distinction to you you’ll be ruined to see world events from any other perspective.
It takes faith in the Word of God to see that God is higher, deeper and in much more control of this world than either of the narratives let on. It takes faith in the Word of God to see that He is the Prime Mover. Plagues, wars, civil-strife and economics are pawns being moved on and off the Divine chess-board. It takes faith in the Word of God to stop responding to the events themselves and to begin the hard diligent work of aligning our hearts to the Prime Mover Himself.
He’s on the move! Isaiah 40:3-5 is underneath, above and within everything that we see being “played out” on the human stage right now. He’s coming!
Unless we see THIS and hold THIS as THE central reality at work in our world, we will (along with the rest of the world) be deluded by the spectacular, shiney events trending in our newsfeeds – and lay down the very things that make for true, deep and everlasting victory; “things” and “dynamics” that Jesus adamantly urged His disciples to hold onto everyday – especially in the minutes before His arrival; “things” and “dynamics” like A. “our cross”, B. “fear of the Lord”, C. “meekness”, D. “forgiveness”, E. “prayer”, F. “dialogue with the Spirit”, G. “God-reliance”, and H. “love” for God AND everyone (not our thin human-powered definition of love) I. “zeal for His manifest presence” (There’s more…)
You want to know if you’re responding to current events in a manner that would please the Father? You want to know that you’re cultivating a life of gold and not wood, hay and stubble? You want to know that your faith is built on substance and not fantasy?
Through each of the events being played out on the world-stage in this hour ask yourself – ask your sisters and brothers – ask your prayer group: Are we growing in these “things” and “dynamics”? THEN we will know we are engaging our world according to the pattern of the Spirit and not the flesh. More importantly: THEN we will know that we ARE being prepared to meet the King our world desperately needs Face to face.
SPIRIT WORD & CROSS 