Humility

Does Jesus Recognize Himself in the Way Our Family Champions Trump?

/ JSB / 4 Comments

A Sober Warning from Scripture, and An Ardent Prayer for the Church in America As Our Uncircumspect Defense of Trump Beguiles Us Deeper Into Unrighteousness

As the days, the weeks, and the months roll on, and MAGA continues to do headstands to sweep the ongoing eruption of evidence regarding Donald Trump’s long, sick record of sexual predation under the rug, it has become tragically obvious: there is nothing that can be found in this man that will restrain our family’s cultish devotion to him. A vast swath of American evangelicalism remains slavishly entrenched in the fog of a very great delusion – defending and championing “Trump” in all circumstances. The facts, contradictions, dozens of credible accusations, and even the quotes from Trump himself, no longer matter. All statements about Trump are measured in terms of whether they paint this one man with positive glory, or negative pall. And negative pall, of any manner, need not apply. All forms of judicious objection are dispatched with assumption, and usually an unhealthy dose of condemnation. We do not suffer one word of criticism being uttered against our President. But we don’t mind issuing many words of criticism against those who bring criticism.

Day after week, and episode after Tweet, our family busies herself explaining away ludicrous, hate-filled, boastful and self-incriminating statements, and executive orders from a man who has lived his entire life in blatant opposition to the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount. We explain away his maniacal aggression and pride. We fabricate story-lines to aid his ludicrous assertions about everything from culture, to religion, to economics to diplomacy. And when his pronouncements become too far-fetched (which happens with greater and greater frequency) we’ve become masters of turning a deaf ear, and a blind eye to the tumult and dysfunction that warps this man’s soul.

We spare no energy to keep this con-man’s golden image creditable. We have become the backstage enablers of Elmer Gantry.

The crux of the problem with this level of obeisance is two-fold.
1.) The redactions we prop up shape, and reinforce our family’s definition of what the anointing of God looks like upon a person, and/or this is how the Spirit of God moves in government;
2.) The way we defend and champion this man and his narratives tells our whole world, “this is what the Kingdom of God is like.'”

And so, when Trump announces that “I myself am peace.” (November 1, 2024 • Warren, MI) and the church remains silent, the world hears our consent: “The ways of Trump are what peace, and achieving peace look like in God’s Kingdom.”

When Trump incessantly threatens other sovereign states and territories, and the followers of Christ nod their approval, we are telling heaven and earth, “Jesus approves of hostile, even militaristic measures, to seize other nations and resources. These actions are compatible with how God’s Kingdom advances in our world.”

When those around Trump claim that he is “saving Christianity”, and even “saving God” Himself, and our evangelical family give these statements a dismissive pass, we are tacitly declaring, “Our God needs aggressive, bold leaders like Trump to bully others into the honor and worship He is deserving of.”

When he and his administration rewrite U.S. history to diminish the truth about our “Christian nation’s” sins against blacks, and native Americans etc., our world hears, “Humility, repentance and contrition are not necessary to the establishment of a righteous nation.” Note that what’s of greatest concern to this Christian Nationalist argument is the glory of the nation – not the integrity of the Bride.

When he and his sycophants backtrack on exposing the truth about Epstein‘s human-trafficking ring, and millions of Christians, and Christian leaders ignore the cries of hundreds of sex-slave victims, while defending Trump from the plethora of incriminating evidence building against him, we are nakedly telling the world, “The Kingdom of God is OK with an individual engaging in sexual predation, chronic adultery, and even child prostitution, as long as he/she is fighting for our definition of “the well-being of our nation’.”

Our loud, confrontative, veneration of this man is the greatest subversion of the ideals of Jesus’ Kingdom in our generation, and one of the most consequential in the history of the Church in America.

However, the Lord has not been silent throughout this hour of hypocrisy and betrayal. The King of the universe has, in fact, been steadfastly judging, and disciplining a wandering Bride through this season. The Spirit has unveiled sordid detail after detail in this man’s character – patiently exposing the dissimulations between his unrighteous ways, and the righteous ways of God’s Kingdom. The length of this process has actually allowed for the fruit of our own unrighteous ways to become more and more evident to us – so we might see where our hearts, and arguments deviate from the way of our King, repent, This is what the judgments of the Lord are designed to do: a.) to show us the ways of righteousness (Isaiah 26:9), and to b.) increasingly pressure us into our own need to dialogue with the Lord (Isaiah 1:18), to c.) lead us to repentance (Revelation 2:21), and d.) to help us transform and renew our minds (Romans 12:2) bringing our thoughts and values into alignment with the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:5). We can either humble ourselves and wholly walk with intimate fidelity through His process of judgment in this midnight hour, or we can continue to make no room for repentance (Hebrews 12:17), bringing more and more dishonor to His Name, and risk losing our inheritance, being rejected by our King upon His return. This is a bonafide, Bible-based threat that looms before our evangelical family after a full, heated decade of adulterating ourselves to this man’s political power.

The New Testament is filled with references to those whose radical love for Jesus becomes diluted by other sanctities. We begin to fasten our allegiance to the promised results of lawlessness, and gradually, episode after episode, our devotion to the intensive, Spirit-empowered pathways of the Lord grows cold (Matthew 24:12). Eventually, we find ourselves drawing near to Him with our lips (Matthew 15:8), while the rest of our “selves” (dreams, expectations, strength, will, zeal and logic), remain enamored elsewhere, increasingly desensitized to the transcendent rhema of our King. The result is, our perspective regarding the health of our own faith becomes distorted, and our walk with Jesus becomes significantly out of step with what He, Himself is saying about our lives. This was the tragic condition of five of the seven churches that Jesus addressed in Revelation 2 and 3. (See Revelation 2:4; 2:14; 2:20; 3:1; 3:16-17). And it’s an arresting theme that is salted throughout Jesus’ gospel teachings.

In both Matthew 7:23, and Matthew 25:12, Jesus lays out two scenes at the end of the age when He will have bombshell confrontations with those who fully anticipate joining Him in eternity. He will end these conversations with the terrifying Words: “Depart from Me. I do not know you.”

These will be the most horrible face-to-face encounters in the chronicles of humanity.

“Depart from Me. I do not know you.”

Can you hear the deafening reverberation among the angels, and all of creation as the Lord of Life painfully, and with perfect justice, turns away church-member after elder, after prophet with this verdict?

Friends. It’s extremely wise for us to slow down, and consider these warnings from Jesus’ own lips. How does He mean for these alarming, future events to equip us to live soberly in the matters which are before us today, in 2026?

Notice. Jesus doesn’t make this pronouncement upon those who
a.) don’t know Him, who
b.) don’t seem to believe in Him, or
c.) desire to be with Him.
Jesus doesn’t say, “Depart from Me, you never knew the right things about Me.” He makes these determinations to those who have been doing the stuff in His Name (Matthew 7:23), and in the face of those who genuinely want to be with the Bridegroom. (Matthew 25:12)

In both of the Matthew texts, JESUS TURNS AWAY THOSE WHOM HE DOESN’T KNOW. This phrase may have one or two meanings. Both of them are terrible.

The first meaning of this statement could apply to those who, in spite of their rhetoric, their theological assertions, and/or their vaunted Christian ministries, actually end up thinking, acting, and looking nothing like Jesus. In essence, Jesus is saying, “I don’t recognize Myself in you.” These ones don’t value loving unconditionally. They don’t forgive. They force their own way. They don’t prize the fruit of the Spirit. They fudged on the holiness they could have enjoyed. They refuse to walk in the deep ways of lowliness. They never cultivated a love for the Father more than everything else in this world. Jesus is saying, “I honestly don’t see Me reflected in the way you live your life.”

The second potential meaning is even more intrinsic and personal than the first. Jesus’ pronouncement is saying, the ones He’s rejecting neglected to make themselves known and vulnerable to His holy and gracious gaze. They never discovered the wisdom of coming to Him with a broken spirit. They never applied the Words of the prophets. They refused to expose their baseline selves to the light of His purifying love. They devalued lives that were intimately pliable, and dependent upon the “new every morning” (Lamentations 3:23) mercies of the Lord.

In essence, Jesus is saying to the ones He’s rebuffing, “You withheld your self from Me. You did not bare your soul, your sin, your proclivity to sin and unrighteousness to Me. You never let Me in to recalibrate your carnal way of thinking and treating others. You kept returning an eye for an eye – living according to the hostile, anti-meek, unholy spirit of the world that you were born in. You gave yourself to conspiracies, bitterness, idolatries, and self-exonerating rhetoric, and never let Me change the root-loyalties of your heart.”

Friends. These texts should trouble us to prayer, and a boat-load of honest counsel with the Spirit of internal Truth.
…
Selah
….

Am I saying that anyone who continues to defend Trump is doomed to hell? Or am I seeking to divide our Lord’s Bride?

This is what I’m saying. When Jesus breaks into our reality, (Luke 18:8) tells us that He will be looking for bonafide faith within His Bride; one that exalts, and trusts, celebrates, and looks like the values that exist in the heart of our King.

The Bible calls that which is not of faith, “sin”. (Romans 14:23) And all sin, is unrighteousness – it is contrary to the character, the ways, and the values of our King.

This is what Ephesians tells us about this unrighteousness.
“Sexual immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be mentioned among you, as is proper among saints. And there must be no filthiness or foolish talk, or vulgar joking, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. For this you know with certainty, that NO sexually immoral or impure or greedy person, which amounts to an idolater, HAS AN INHERITANCE IN THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST AND GOD. SEE THAT NO ONE DECEIVES YOU with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not become partners 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 light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), as you TRY TO LEARN WHAT IS PLEASING TO THE LORD. Do not participate in the useless deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them.” (Ephesians 5:3-11)

Ephesians also informs us that the Lord Himself is actively removing this disqualifying unrighteousness from His redeemed people – His Bride – through “the washing of water with the Word” . (Ephesians 5:26)

(1 John 3:6-8, 10) tells us, “No one who remains in Him sins continually; no one who sins continually has seen Him OR KNOWS HIM. Little children, MAKE SURE NO ONE DECEIVES YOU; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; THE ONE WHO PRACTICES UNRIGHTEOUSNESS IS OF THE DEVIL; for the devil has been unrighteous from the beginning. THE SON OF GOD APPEARED FOR THIS PURPOSE, TO DESTROY THE  (unrighteous) WORKS OF THE DEVIL… By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother and sister.”

In light of the vision that’s in the heart of Jesus for us, His Bride, it is supremely wise (Ephesians 5:15-17) for us to take every thought captive (2 Corinthians 10:5), in order to fastidiously remain true to our King.

As the enemy of our souls continues to tempt us to pitch our faith in Christ, and embrace the wide, forceful ways of unrighteousness, my ardent prayer for myself, and our family is the one the apostle Paul prayed for the saints in ancient Turkey: “We do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may have a walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and long-suffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father Who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.” (Colossians 1:9-12)

The potential retribution for our faithlessness is great. But the rewards for our deep, and vibrant faithfulness to Jesus through this hour is immeasurably greater.

____________________
JSB • (Update) January, 2026

Prayers of Humility, Repentance and Contrition

/ JSB / 1 Comment

Each morning, (from 7:00am – 8:00am) All Nations begins with an hour of humility, repentance and contrition. As we come before the holy God, we revere the honor of His majesty by considering the grace that He extends to us to come into His Presence. We consider our own unworthiness, the mercy He has shown us, and our persistent appreciation for His salvation, the bearing of our cross, our awareness of His judgments that are on the earth, and the call to walk in Christlike meekness and lowliness. This is our way – the way of prayer – before God, and others in our world.

This part of the morning is often more quiet than the rest of our time together. Feel free to join us as we sit quietly before the Lord, listen for His Voice, humble ourselves in prayer, and bring our weak hearts before His eternal strength and glory. 

HUMILITY

We begin our morning by assuming our eternal posture of humility before the Lord. He is our God. And we are His people; His daughters, and sons. As we enter into His courts, we become aware that we are in a holy realm, an atmosphere of pure beauty and majesty.

PRAYER: We bow before You, holy Father! We humble our spirits, our minds, our emotions, and our agendas before You, and Your perfect leadership. Holy Spirit, help us to embrace humility; the attitude that Jesus had toward the Father. We are glad that we belong to You. We yield ourselves to You, and all that You have for us today. Help us to walk without presumption, toward You, and others. Clothe us with this supernatural quality, that we may walk and live and breathe like Jesus.

REPENTANCE

In an evangelical culture that honors self-justification, image-management, and conspiracies more than humility, contrition and the fear of the Lord, the household of God desperately needs to rediscover the blessed wisdom and strength of “radical repentance”.

The latin word for “radical” literally means “to get to the root”. Because sin is primarily a heart issue, and not just a surface issue, repentance, by definition should always be, “radical”.

So rend your heart, and not your garments; return to the Lord your God. For He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness.  (Joel 2:13) 

The word that the Bible most often uses for “repentance” is the Hebrew word, “SHUBV”. SHUBV is a radical term that literally means “to put fire to your house and leave with God”. The Hebrew characters in the word (Hebrew being a pictorial language) actually visualize the activity of a man setting fire to his house.

SHUBV is making a radical life-correction, abandoning an old way of living, to do life God’s way, with God Himself.

It’s the Lord’s kindness (Romans 2:4) to expose the dangerous inadequacy of our ways. His call to SHUBV repentance is an invitation for us to leave our rickety, self-constructed, self-governance and walk under the soundness of His leadership.

In this part of the morning we continue in a spirit of humility, acknowledging our personal sins, and owning the corporate sins of our culture. This is a time of tender listening to the Spirit as He faithfully brings issues and offenses before our minds for us to confess to the Father.

Over the last few years the King has been “burning down our old normals” so that He may bring us into the order of His new, dawning normal. Throughout numerous contentious events He’s been asking us: “How willing are you to have Me? Do you see that through plagues and race-riots and political treachery I am helping you to ‘burn your insufficient house down’ so that you may live in My superior dwelling? Do you understand that I am dismantling your meager perception and human-powered reasoning in order to bring you into My eternal realm? As I am bringing My government to this world I want you with Me, thinking My thoughts, understanding My emotions, agreeing with My judgments and thriving in My wisdom.”

PRAYER:
Father, we ask for You to give us the spirit of repentance; that we would see ourselves, and our ways in the light of Your assessment.
We specifically confess and repent of the following:
• We repent of our culture’s devaluation of human life, from conception to the grave.
• We repent of our culture’s dishonorable norms, values and attitudes toward sex, family, and marriage.
• We repent of our culture’s insensitivity, and often hostility toward Israel, and the Jewish people.
• We repent of the ways we have dishonored people and families of different nationalities and cultures. We ask that You forgive us for being apathetic toward the enmity that we’ve allowed to exist within our hearts re: various people-groups in our nation, and region.
• We repent of our hostile socio-political ways, and our nationalist pride. We ask that You would entirely disentangle us from the idolatry that so easily entangles us.
• We repent of our abusive, manipulative ways that does injustice to the identity and destiny of others with whom we fellowship, and are called to live in humble unity with.
• We repent of the ways we have transgressed Your Son’s explicit exhortations in His Sermon on the Mount. Forgive us for considering these majestic assertions as so small and inconsequential.
• We repent of harming and abusing others as we have considered the issues that flood our world. Forgive us for being impatient, and not trusting You way of “meekness.”

Ask the Holy Spirit to show you other issues in your own heart that need confession and repentance:This is more than a general confession. Your sins were committed one by one; and as much as you are able, they ought to be reviewed and repented of one by one. This is a spiritual work. Ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart and show you what is out of line with the character of Jesus’ heart.

Ingratitude. 
Unbelief. 
Lack of Love for God.
Neglect of the Word. 
Lack of Humility Before the Word of God. 
Lack of Prayer.  
Neglect of Fellowship. 
Casual Compromise in Pursuit of God. 
Lack of Love for Souls. 
Neglect of Family Duties. 
Lack of Care forthe Poor. 
Lack of Love for Other Races/Nations. 
Lack of Watchfulness Over Your Witness. 
Neglect of Your Cross. 
Vanity. 
Pride. 
Love of Things and Possessions. 
Sexual Lust and Sexual Immorality. 
Envy. 
Bitterness. 
Slander, Gossip and Condemnation. 
Self-Determination.
Lying and Deceit. 
Alienation.  
Lack of Forgiveness and Repentance. 
Cheating. 
Hypocrisy. 
Hostility. 
Intolerance. 
Violence. 
Idolatry. 
Dissension. 
Mockery.
Open Defiance.  
Lack of Worship and Praise.  
Self-Justification. 
Evil Entertainment. 
Participation in False Religion.

If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous, so that He will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. (1 John 1:6-10)

CONTRITION

Once we have confessed our sins to the Lord He graciously gives us forgiveness, power to be free from our sin, and a heart-attitude that is sorrowful for the ways our sins have injured His Kingdom, and others.

For behold what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow, has produced in you: what vindication of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment of wrong!
(2 Corinthians 7:11)

This heart-attitude is an essential safeguard against spiritual pride – an ever present enemy to our walk in the Lord. Contrition also cultivates a humble zeal within our hearts, a zeal that quietly enthrones the values that make for future righteous relationship as we increasingly give ourselves to living faithfully unto the reign of Jesus Christ through our lives. We’re not merely “sorry for our sins”. We live with an enlightened passion to live differently, to live like Christ, under the holy power of the Spirit.

____________________
JSB • August, 2025

Manifesting Jesus through Weakness

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Click here for a link to this MESSAGE (Recorded at The International House of Prayer Kansas City)

We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted but not destroyed – always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. (2 Corinthians 4:7-11)

God Has Placed a Treasure in You!
God has placed a great treasure in you! The apostle Paul writes that this treasure is “the Knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).

The treasure that Paul spoke of is nothing less than the real, living presence of Jesus Christ within every born-again believer. Jesus promises, If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. (John 14:23) Paul writes to the Galatians: I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you. (Galatians 4:19) Paul also writes about this stunning reality in his letter to the Corinthians:  Do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?  (2 Corinthians 13:5) Every sacrifice we make to pursue the increase of this treasure within us testifies to His great worth and value.

The Treasure in You is Vibrant!
People who intentionally and sacrificially position their hearts before the burning revelation of Jesus’ glory, with a “yes” in their spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18) are made increasingly brilliant; transformed by an intensifying weight of glory (2 Corinthians 4:17). While it is more fully manifested in the next age, this treasure is meant to shine ever brighter (Prov. 4:18) in this age within our minds, spirits, emotions, will and loving attitudes toward others.

The Treasure in You is Viral!
Around the world, God is expanding His Kingdom and filling believers with His brilliant presence in ways that can only be described as “viral”; meaning, in ways that are very free from the mediation of human agency. We are sober to carry Jesus’ primary mandate to go and “preach the gospel” – but we rejoice (Acts 10:40) whenever we find that Jesus is doing so much of the work ahead, and often, completely independent from us.

Jesus promises to build His Church. (Matt. 16:18) And it is God who commanded light to shine out of the darkness, who has shone in our hearts. (2 Corinthians 4:6)  Each of us are recipients of His mercy and none may take credit for the gracious, transformative activity of His Spirit.

In my opinion, the House of Prayer movement has exploded in sovereign, viral ways. My own introduction to the wealth of IHOP came through a series of God-orchestrated events; not through the strategic intervention of man, or my own deductive reasoning.

In the Fall of 2001 I received a prophetic word from the Lord that took me two days to receive and has taken 15 more years to materialize. In the prophetic word God told me of a movement that would emphasize singing and result in a great harvest, even while much of the rest of the evangelical culture struggled in barrenness, and our nation experienced terror and collapse. The two days that I received this major word from the Lord were September 9 & 10, 2001.

Two weeks later God gave me a dream about Lou Engle leading young adults through a shopping mall praying over closed shop-gates, while Larry Tomczak, a man that I respected as a powerful evangelist, waited to preach. Two days after the dream, I received an advertisement for a One Thing Conference that was held in Kansas City. Two of the main speakers were to be Lou Engle and Larry Tomczak.

Over the next several years, I would write, teach, promote, develop prayer classes and programs with the aim of stimulating individuals to embrace prayer and the Bridegroom paradigm. In spite of my zeal, my advocacy was not the persuasive element that won people to the movement. Often, an individual would show up to a meeting and tell us that they had a dream, a visitation, or an inexplicable burst of passion to pursue Jesus in prayer and worship. Over these years God drew scores of people to His extravagant love. They hungered for Mike’s Song of Song’s teachings, attended IHOP conferences and entered internships as the Spirit kindled their hearts with love for the Bridegroom.

In 2006, I wrote about what I was experiencing with the House of Prayer: “The Spirit is incubating a supernatural (Ezekiel 37:10) army in the House of Prayer that He will release into an asthmatic church and a distressed world. The DNA of this work is viral (Acts 10:44) and it is being borne on the very breath of God.”

In less than 20 years, the growth of the Prayer Movement around the word has been nothing less than viral!

God Cultivates and Enriches His Treasure Within Us in Unconventional Ways
It also pleases God to put His treasure in obscure places. Consider the context of God’s decision to put His treasure in you. There are more galaxies in the universe (300 billion), than there are stars in our galaxy (200 billion). And our God, fills the whole universe! (Jeremiah 23:24) He chooses one solar system on the spiral arm of one galaxy; and then chooses one planet (not even the largest) in that configuration where He chooses to shape little, clay pots; and then he declares: “This is where I will put the treasure that I plan to cultivate and reign with, forever!” Anyone who considers the macro-context of God’s work in us must ask the question: “Why?” From our human perspective God’s choice seems very curious.

He Places His Valuable Treasure within Fragile Vessels in Turbulent Conditions
Receiving the gift of Jesus’s presence in our lives is not the beginning of a sheltered and sanitized lifestyle. Although Jesus operates in a consistently faithful manner, saying yes to His presence is most often like saying yes to a whirlwind. He is lovingly and relentlessly committed to restructuring and refining our hearts to magnify His presence.

In 2006, on my way back from the House of Prayer in Kansas City, God spoke in an audible in-my-ear voice and declared my twenty-plus years of ministry to be breathless. He also placed a weeping burden in my soul (in a very-crowded Phoenix airport) declaring that the evangelical church in America was breathless. I didn’t fully understand it then, but I was entering a turbulent season of radical renovation.

It pleases Him to put His treasure in vessels who are prone to being crushed, perplexed and persecuted so that we learn, as Thomas a’Kempis elegantly observes: “how to trust under His wings and not trust in our own.”

In 2007 Barb, my wife of 23 years, contracted stomach cancer. In a matter of days hundreds of people were praying for her healing. Friends from the churches in our community started to pray 24 hours a day in a little camper trailer outside of our home. Nonetheless, in two, short months, Barb died. Abruptly, I was a 48 year old widower with two twelve-year-old girls – and a very breathless pastor.

Still, it took me another year and a half before I yielded to the changes the Holy Spirit wanted to make in my life and begin a work of liberating “self -less-ness”. In the Spring of 2009; very weak and breathless, I resigned from 20 years of professional ministry to simply meet with Jesus in a tent of meeting.

He Cultivates His Treasure in You through Weakness
One of the first lessons that Jesus taught me in this tent of meeting was the “blessedness of being poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3). The Holy Spirit told me that He could not give me this blessedness because in nearly every aspect of my life I was striving to be rich.

We don’t do weakness well, and we bristle at the admission of our own inability. We want to be a Forerunner, yet we chafe at being forged through weakness.
It pleases the Father to hide His treasure; the formation of His Son, within human weakness for several reasons.

  • He wants to hide us in weakness, because He loves us and longs to heal our wounds as our weakness rests in His strength.
  • God’s treasure hides well in weakness. Satan can smell pride a Solar System away. Weakness is where we learn to trust the depth and breadth of His perfect protection.
  • Weakness is where we learn to trust Him and the strength of His grace. He brilliantly cultivates His treasure in weakness. Even though I didn’t enjoy it in my flesh, two weeks after a recent 21 day fast I wrote about the wisdom of making ourselves weak for His sake: “After the fast I have a deeper awareness of my own barrenness and inability to unlock & release and increase the power & glory of God. I also have an even deeper and growing sense of how much God desires to increase His glorious presence in my barrenness & inability.”
  • He hides His treasure in us in weakness because it’s the way of Jesus. No one had more of the treasure of God within them, than the God/Man Jesus Christ.
    Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God … made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bond-servant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man…HE HUMBLED HIMSELF… and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a CROSS.  – Philippians 2:5 & 8

He Enriches the Treasure within Us as we Bear His Cross
Ultimately, the Holy Spirit brings us to weakness, in order to bring us to death on the cross. The way of increased glory and manifestation of Kingdom power through a believer’s life always comes through our participation in the cross! Bob Sorge notes: “If it were so for Jesus, should we expect to find increase through an alternative route?”

Let’s return to our passage in 2 Corinthians 4, where the apostle Paul declares: “We always carry about in our body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” The grammar and syntax of this statement gives believers one function in their pursuit of manifesting the life of Jesus. The active role of the believer is not to generate a resurrection. Indeed, we cannot! Paul explicitly says that our role is to always carry about in our bodies the dying of the Lord, Jesus. If the apostle Paul said he always did something wouldn’t you want to what that is?

“Carrying about in our bodies the dying of the Lord, Jesus” is a mystery of the highest level; and yet, one way that we practically live it out is by heeding Jesus primary command in (Matthew 16:24) “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.”

“We often speak of our abiding in Christ. But we forget that that means the abiding in a crucified Christ. Many believers appear to think that when once they have claimed Christ’s death in the fellowship of the cross, and have counted themselves as crucified with Him, that they may now consider it as past and done with. They do not understand that it is in the crucified Christ, and in the fellowship of His death, that they are to abide daily and unceasingly.” – Murray, Andrew The Secret of The Cross

We have wanted a church without a real cross and a cross without a real grave. We’ve wanted a glorious Christianity, but we have cared little for the refining fire (Revelation 3:18) through which such a treasure is produced.

Too often, the church has presented the cross as a tool unto self sacrifice, when Jesus taught that bearing the cross is primarily about the sacrifice of self. Consequently, the church has left the idols on the high places of the human heart and failed to teach disciples how to apply the cross to their opinions, attitudes, priorities, mores, ministry plans and ambitions. Bearing the cross is about more than curbing wanton acts and enduring rigorous disciplines; it’s about killing the intrinsic ways of the self!

Five Ways of the Self the Holy Spirit Puts to Death through the Cross

1. Self-Glorification and Making a Name for Ourselves:
It’s essential that we let the cross crucify our ambitious pursuit of the world’s definition of success (applause, material wealth & comfort and credit etc.) Putting the craving for self-glorification to death also includes dying to self-promotion that does not wait on God’s timing, contends with others and/or falsifies self to achieve it’s objective. Self-glorification
is antithetical to meekness.

2. Self-Gratification:
Our whole culture is obsessed with securing inordinate wealth, security, comfort and fame. This preoccupation has greatly consumed the church so that too often we treat the gospel as a self-help or life-management tool that merely has as it’s end-result, to make lives work. Cultivating the treasure of Jesus in our lives involves renouncing a self-absorbed lifestyle of unchecked self-gratification.

3. Self-Determination:
We, like Paul, are BOND-SERVANTS of Christ, Jesus. (Romans 1:1) As a “bond-servant” we are not free to choose our own way. The way of a Christ-bearer is the way of Christ, our redeemer; our Lord; our Master. (1 Corinthians 6:19) “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit Who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?”

4. Self-Sufficiency:
One of the most difficult areas to discern and bring to death is our unbridled reliance upon the wealth of our human ability (ie. Expertise, Wealth, Institutionalism, Sophistry & Religious Zeal etc.) The can-do American Church has an endless amount of resource, ability, energy and creativity to extend the Kingdom of God. Without carrying about in our bodies the dying of Jesus, the American Evangelical community remains hyper-reliant upon her own power to minister, evangelize, build churches, and nourish mature believers. With no parameter, she can build structures and programs that are un-empowered by the Spirit and may even detract from the brilliance of the true treasure of the Church.
“Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ Says the LORD of hosts.” (Zechariah 4:6)

5. Self-Evaluation:
(1 Corinthians 4:3, 5) “For me it is a minor matter for me to be judged by you, or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself… So then, do not judge anything before the time. Wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the motives of hearts. They each will receive recognition from God.” Paul writes that he does not judge himself; he does not evaluate himself along the way. He has given up the right to determine what is valuable; what is of merit; what is worthless, and what is futile within himself. The Lord is free to use it all; the great and the small; the gifts and the weaknesses – for His good. What counts is not our estimation of what we give Him, but His. The wisdom of bringing our self-evaluation to death is that dying to this foul, critical way liberates us from both a haughty spirit and a self-deprecating spirit.

Uncrucifed, these five ways of the self diminish the glory of God, debase the value of the treasure in our lives, attempt to domesticate and subjugate the Spirit, profoundly short-circuit the dynamic power of the church and delude believers into blind allies of self-empowerment.

Too often believers have turned a blind eye to these self-idols, and have raised up ministries that, after seasons of wonderful increase, discover they are plateaued, obstructed and perplexed (2 Corinthians 4:8) rather than fruitfully fulfilling the Spirit’s purposes.

Cross-Bearing 101 for the Forerunner
If weakness unto cross-bearing and death-to-self is where the Holy Spirit is leading the Church, then a chief task of the forerunner is to die first!

In this hour, we dare not spare any part of our lives and our ministries from the scrutinizing fire of the Holy Spirit. The fact is, much of what has been left uncrucifed in our culture has not been crucified simply because the Holy Spirit wields the power of the Cross against so much of our best stuff. And for too long, it’s precisely “our best stuff” that’s been hindering us from receiving God’s I AM stuff. The crucifixion of Jesus tells us that the cross is ruthless in what it brings to death. It not only kills what is objectionable and offensive – but it also brings to death that which looks grand and glorious. Crucifixion of self requires a spiritual violence (Matthew 11:12).

Our primary focus must be our Magnificent Obsession: the manifestation of Jesus (our spiritual treasure) within our lives. John the Baptist’s moniker was not I must decrease and He must increase. He stated the dynamic in it’s right order. His pre-occupation was the increased revelation of Jesus, not on what needed to be decreased in his own life. John says, “He must increase and in the increase of His revelation we find the power to decrease and die.” The revelation of Jesus within our lives must remain the forerunner’s incessant obsession! We cannot allow our conscience to become fixated on what we think needs to be crucified next. That’s the Holy Spirit’s work, not ours!

Through the power of the Holy Spirit, revelations of Jesus can actually help put us to death!

  • Ask the Holy Spirit to give you a specific REVELATION about Jesus (ie. Holy Spirit, reveal Jesus to me as the One Who was pierced. [Revelation 1:7])
  • Ask the Holy Spirit to show you what inside you RESISTS, or is perplexed by this revelation of Jesus. (ie. Holy Spirit, show me where there is any resistance or inhibition to my receiving Jesus as the One Who was pierced.)
  • RENOUNCE (and REPENT if necessary) those aspects of your life that struggle with the appropriation of this dimension of Jesus in your life. Yield all that is not in agreement with this aspect of Jesus to the cross! (ie. Crucify the part of my heart that is slow to believe that He loves me that much. Crucify the coldness within me that fails to cherish the magnificent worth of His sacrifice.)
  • Crucify the aspects of your heart that are indifferent, or opposed to Who He is. (Galatians 5:24) Bring these thoughts and attitudes to a merciless end.
  • REQUEST that Jesus, the treasure inside you, increase (Proverb 4:18) His RADIANCE within you!

Remember, the Holy Spirit’s phenomenal purpose in giving us increased revelations about Jesus is so the incarnational treasure of Jesus, is actually manifested within us.

And it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him. (1 John 3:2)

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JSB • December, 2013