Proverbs

Have you noticed the changes in the church?

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Some of you may have heard about or noticed a transition in the church–a “new breed” of Christians that are arising (especially out of the pentecostal type churches).  Well, there are actually two transitions: some of the church is beginning to adopt New Age doctrine (the emergent church), others of the church are moving into a greater move of the Holy Spirit (we’ll need this outpouring in order to fight the spiritual battle at hand; Acts 2:17-21).

The two transitions seem alike without prudent discernment of the spirits.  Many in the fundamentalist churches are confused or mad about the changes.  The high percentage of Christians throughout the denominations, I think, haven’t even noticed.

I want to make it clear that the Lord freed me FROM New Age thinking.  As a result, I recognize it seeping into the church more clearly than most, and I’m not about to fall back into that movement.  That said, God has power (much more power than the enemy!) and He wants to work through His people as a demonstration of His glory.  I’m sure I’ll discuss both sides in more detail in the future.

What the church needs is to be fully opened to the Holy Spirit, and fully closed to the multiple deceptive spirits.

Fortunately we know that when we ask God the Father to reveal Himself to us that we may know and love Him more, He will not give us deceptive spirits but His Holy Spirit in abundance (Mat 7:11, Luke 11:13).  As long as we’re plugged into the right God, we’ll have the right Spirit.  If you love the Lord, there is no reason to fear what He has for you–He loves you too!

On the other hand, some personalities are so good at being open to new things, that they willingly trust and want whatever friends, family, pastors, etc advertise as being excellent ways to connect to God.  When it comes to spiritual matters, we should never trust anything but the Word of God (Psalm 146:3, Jer 9:4-6, Mic 7:5, Acts 17:11, Prov 3:5).  There are already many false prophets in the world, so it’s very necessary that we test every spirit to know whether or not it’s from God (1 John 4:1-6 and 2 Cor 11:3-4, 13-15).

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The problem with not feeling

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Years ago I went through a long season of not wanting to feel any more.  I had been reading a lot on psychology and Buddhism and hypnosis, and started experimenting with ‘transcending’ my feelings so as not to have emotional pain and unrest.

Actually, I was successful in ‘not feeling’ for a time.

It was a very powerful time in my life–charmingly dark and powerful.  I was also working to develop my psychic abilities, self hypnosis, and vision of the unseen; and I was very successful in my occult interests.

There was a problem though, and I’ll tell you why I wasn’t satisfied with the “New Age” way of living: I became so good at not feeling that I didn’t feel anything.  My family and friends had shown me glimpses of love and joy, but I had stopped feeling altogether–no love, no joy, no peace, and so on–and yet, I remembered that I had often felt those good feelings in the past.  So slowly I began to soften my heart so I could feel the good parts again, despite the additional torment.

It wasn’t until years later that I learned Jesus really can, and wants to, take away all our pain–that regardless of circumstance we can rest in the fruit of His Spirit.  The irony is that to receive the Lord’s peace, we must circumcise our hearts–making ourselves vulnerable by cutting away the skin of our hearts, that the softer part would be out in the open.  This is contrary to our thinking because initially it is so painful to sacrifice even our wounds to a God we can’t see; it takes a great deal of trust and faith.

The alternative, however, is the hardening/thickening of the heart–an empowering of the self in order to block out emotional intrusions by building up a defense barrier.  This is one of the ways which seems right to man, but leads in the end to death (Prov 14:12).  The higher and longer and stronger we build the wall around our hearts, the more we cover up uncleaned wounds, perceive happiness and peace when there is none, and the harder it becomes for the wall to be destroyed.

It’s painful to be vulnerable (thus, the Biblical analogy of circumcision, which I’ve heard is painful as well–and increasingly so with age); but, it’s also necessary to rip emotional problems and wounds out by the roots, which requires entering into the most sensitive places.  And it’s not just about reaching the sensitive places, but about allowing Jesus to adequately and thoroughly heal and cleanse us from the inside out.  The Lord Himself is the only one trustworthy to handle our hearts, so we can put it all in His hands!

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What about the heathen who have never heard?

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I used to justify that Jesus is not the only way to heaven with the emotional plea that surely a god who is love would not judge everyone based on one ‘truth’ since it’s not culturally and readily available to everyone–that would be unjust after all, and the Bible says that God is a just god.

The truth is that Truth exists outside of what we feel or choose to believe. I’ll spend a lot of time in future posts breaking down the little bit that I know about who Jesus is and how I know. For now, let’s leave it at this: we have a very limited understanding of who God is and how He speaks, so let’s try not to limit what we think He can/will do.

2 Corinthians 5 says that everyone has a groaning in their hearts to be reunited with the Father in His heavenly dwelling place. We also have the promise that those who seek the Lord with their whole hearts will find Him (Jer 29:13, Prov 8:17).

The events that happen between the passing thought that something is missing, the wondering what or who is out there, and actually finding that there is a god and that He’s a specific God, is unique for each person—perhaps even drastically unique for some individuals (like the heathen).  I’d like to share a very small portion of my own experience as an example:

Sometime after my third serious suicide attempt—and, by-the-way, I did know there was a God and that Jesus was God at this point; I’d even experienced personal miracles—I had a very unusual encounter with the Lord.

You see, I had been walking in direct disobedience to what I knew was God’s will for me, and yet, was so charmed by the apparent benefits of the devil’s power (I had, somewhat knowingly, made an agreement with the devil) that I wasn’t totally convinced that Jesus was the One I wanted as Lord over my life.

Yet in a moment of intense emotional pain, I walked into my bedroom after an early-release day of high school when the whole neighborhood was quiet, and in my heart felt a groaning that something in my life was not and could not be fulfilled the way I was living it. I don’t remember if I went as far as to make an audible prayer at this moment, but my heart definitely cried inside me something like: where is the Lord!?

Then, I began to hear music—like an orchestra was marching right outside my window (not just a ‘band’ but a full orchestra!). It was the most beautiful music I’d ever heard, and music was so important to me.

I started looking out my windows for the source of this wonderful music, and it was overwhelming loud, but there was nothing to see.  The street was completely empty; no cars in any driveway; nobody.  And it sounded live, but I began checking to see if maybe a radio was on, only to find that, no, they were off.

So I listened.

I laid down on my bed and listened.

And as I did, a man’s voice, deep and gentle, flooded me.  It was an audible voice, and I knew immediately it was the Lord’s.

He sang to me, accompanied by the music, and along with the song came pictures—it was like a panoramic video came before my eyes as small fragments of my life shown in high speed across my vision (likely my entire life, though I could only remember a handful of the images afterward).  To the best of my knowledge, the voice of the Lord was singing to me the song of my life.  It knew and made audible my every desire, my every anxiety, my every hurt—and I remember feeling as if my whole subconscious (which I had been longing to get to through hypnosis) was being audibly presented before me.

This lasted for several hours—I was surprised when I finally arose to see my clock.  And of all the images He showed me, one stood out more than the others: a short glimpse of friends gathering and laughing at an outdoor wedding reception (I could only see the group from their waists down, ironically, but held onto the vision knowing it would occur at my wedding)—and, yes, the vision was fulfilled when I got married several years later.

There’s more to the story, and I didn’t actually return to the Lord directly after this experience, but I’ll leave the other angles and details for another time.

So, back to that poor heathen who wants to know God but is too far physically and culturally from the Bible distribution centers and missionaries…

Why is it so hard to believe that if God can speak to each of us in any way He desires, He can’t also speak to this person?

So, why is it so hard to believe that if God can speak to each of us in any way He desires, He can’t also speak to other people?

He could choose to speak through a missionary, or a suddenly appearing Bible, or creation itself… Or He could speak through an angel, a dream, a vision, or even His audible voice.

Those thoughts about ‘what if somebody else won’t find the Lord’ is preventing YOU from finding Him. Have faith! He’s going to draw those “heathens” to Himself using their environment—just as He’s drawing you to Him using yours! Remember: the Lord’s people will come from every tribe, tongue, people group, and nation—and that means EVERY (Rev 5:9).  There may not be a many in every nation who find Him, but He promises that each person has equal opportunity to search for and understand the truth, even if the circumstances are vastly different!

So, let’s talk about you… You may be pondering my story thinking: ‘My life sucks; I’ve tried to kill myself too; why wouldn’t He have spoken to me audibly?’ Or perhaps you just don’t feel like you hear Him and are wondering if maybe He didn’t “choose you” (He did: 2 Peter 3:9!).

Let me encourage you in this: if you are thinking about the Lord—even to wonder if He doesn’t exist—if you are asking yourself all the difficult questions about who He is, and why He did or didn’t do something, or whatever, then you ARE being pursued by the Lord. He is trying to talk to you! You may have so much traffic, so many voices, in your spirit that you’re confused about which voice is His, but KEEP LISTENING, keep seeking answers! You don’t need the audible voice of God, you just need an attentive ear!

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An encouragement on facing long periods of rough times…

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Julie Meyer (of IHOP-KC) spoke recently on how the wilderness often becomes a door of hope and divine encounters:

Hosea 2:14-15 says, “Therefore, behold, I will allure her / Bring her into the wilderness / And speak kindly to her. (15) Then I will give her her vineyards from there, / And the valley of Achor as a door of hope. / And she will sing there as in the days of her youth, / As in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt.”

Another example of this is when Moses was in the wilderness and then in doing his daily routine the Lord appeared to him in the burning bush–when he turned and looked, God opened the door to him…

She exhorted the church to therefore be clothed with humility (1 Peter 5:5-6), meaning to cheerfully submit to God’s plan even when He gives your dream to another–humility, she said, is the willingness to be ignored by men and serve the lowest of the positions for Jesus’ sake.  We have to find great Joy where He has us–even when it’s the back row.  When we truly humble ourselves, God brings opportunities we couldn’t imagine: 2 Chron 7:13-14, Prov 8:34-35.

I’ve heard and read John Bevere speak with a similar heart about how God transforms us from the wilderness to power in the Holy Spirit. He’s said, roughly, that the Lord is raising people up in the wilderness–training them in a powerful way through obstacles that others aren’t having to go through so that He can give them the Elijah anointing (which was also given as a partial fulfillment to John the Baptist).  The wilderness is like a special boot-camp to strengthen us in the Lord.  Then, we will proclaim the Truth (there will be a stress on repentance) without the fear of man because we have such a strong fear of God.  The fear of God is the beginning of all wisdom.

John the Baptist was trained for ministry in the wilderness, then, “Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the region around the Jordan went out to him” (Mat 3:5).  We don’t have to worry about the details of our ministry if the Lord is behind us because “a man’s gift makes room for him…” (Prov 18:16).

The key is consecration to the Lord–it’s a spiritual wilderness (though sometimes with physical realities).

We are led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit, but come out of the wilderness in the Power of the Holy Spirit.  Think Jesus as He’s tempted in the desert… or Joseph… or Abraham… or Moses… or John the Baptist… and so on… most every powerful leader is trained in the desert before facing the giants–and supernaturally releasing the power and glory of the Lord.

When I asked the Lord why it would take a wilderness experience to find that door of hope and that power of the Holy Spirit, He immediately brought to my mind the following answers:

  • We have to be completely God-focused, submitting to Him entirely (willing to do God’s will even at the loss of jobs, friends, respect, material things, etc).  If God is not our number one love, the wilderness will help us to put that love back into focus.
  • We have to STRONGLY hear our Lord’s voice and be lead by Him alone.  Too often, we rely on crunches (other people’s faith/experiences, religious tradition, …) because they’re available, and we forget to inquire directly of the Lord.  There are so many ways He can speak to us.  Let’s not limit His voice.
  • We have to see the power/things He will give us from His perspective so that we are good stewards of them.  Everything we do must be filtered through a pure Love for Him; we can have no attachment to things (though of course we appreciate them) and Jesus Himself must have a higher place than any power/gift He gives us (though, of course, we are commanded to walk in power, which means first spending a lot of time at His feet).
  • We have to be purified from every encumbrance that is hindering us from running the race.  In this way, the wilderness becomes the place where baptism in fire occurs: it’s a chance for us to allow the dross (wicked/foolish/fleshly desires) to surface so we can ask the Lord to take them out once and for all.
  • We build endurance, maturity, and a rightful view of the Lord’s character despite what others are saying (or not saying) of Him (assuming, of course, we’re pursuing righteousness in the midst of the wilderness experience like Job).  In other words, because there are no physical pleasures to dull our spirits in the wilderness (over-indulgence of the flesh dulls the spirit–which is one reason why we fast), we are able to deeply align our spirit to the Father’s and gain His wisdom, thus maturing, and strengthening us.  Job received a rightful view of the Lord through His trial; His friends (though some of their statements to us may seem ‘logical’) didn’t have it!
  • We connect so strongly to the heart of God that we desire to extend that Love to others.  In this way, we learn how to fulfill the first commandment (to our best ability) and it begins to overflow into obedience.
  • We build Faith that if He can sustain us in the wilderness, He can continue to sustain us no matter what.  We can also encourage others with our testimony.  Faith helps us to walk worthy and confident in our callings.
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