Hebrews 4 - REST!

“So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.” (Hebrews 3:19) Israel was unable to enter the rest and Promised Land of God, not because they didn’t walk far enough, not because they didn’t earn it with their time in the desert, not because their leadership was weak, but because they didn’t have faith.  It is important to notice that faith was not the entry fee to the rest of God.  Faith itself would not have been what got Israel into rest, God would have been who got them into rest.  Faith allows God to move you into proper positioning, it does not earn the favor to move his hand.  Thus, faith is not the ticket, but lack of faith is the disqualifier, for it moves you into a place of wandering where God cannot have his way.  Jesus Christ is the author of faith, and he desires to perfect it in all people. (Hebrews 12:2) 

Unbelief disqualified Israel from entering God’s rest, but his rest has not disappeared, nor has the promise of entering it been revoked!  “Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it.” (Hebrews 4:1)  This is the first of four commands of action that the author of Hebrews give to his audience in chapter 4, “let us fear.”   There it is, the blessed fear of God, but not a fear of punishment, or a fear of God himself disqualifying me, but a holy and burning fear of not being with Him in his rest.  There is a wondrous place in God where your only and most overwhelming fear is that you would screw up the rest and the work of Jesus with your own effort.

The second verse of the chapter illustrates the unchanging nature of God and his message, for, “the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.” The gospel has indeed been preached for all of time.  Here we find out that the Israelites had heard it, Romans 1:20 tells us that all people have heard it through creation, and we know it was brought with the person of Jesus.  So what exactly is the gospel, the author of Hebrews goes on to tell us. “The works were finished from the foundation of the world!” (Hebrews 4:3)  (See also Rev. 13:18, Eph. 1:4, 1 Peter1:20) That is indeed the good news: God did it, it is finished, He is resting and His rest is open for us.  God is not scrambling trying to save people, he is not scrambling to take care of you, he has done his work, and is eagerly awaiting your joining Him in his rest.   “There remains therefore a rest for the people of God.  For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.” Hebrews 4:9-10  That is the mark of those who have not fallen short of the grace and rest of God.  They have stopped working, they don’t know what it is to try, they have entered the glorious rest of God and have no illusion of needing to obtain anything more for themselves.  Believers are resters and resters if I can be so bold are those that rest!

“Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.” (Hebrews 4:11)  I have very often in my life been supremely concerned about obedience and I praise God for that concern, for there are many who call themselves Christian that care not if they obey the Father.  However, so much of my diligence in obedience came outside of the revelation disclosed in this verse.  We are to be diligent in resting, because to do anything other than resting would be to step into disobedience.   To rest is to obey, we must not walk through life trying to get more God, or more blessing, or more breakthrough when God has simply said “Here I am, walk with me!”  So often our Christian activity is nothing more than religious insecurity in the finished works of God.

So what does this diligence look like?  How do we ensure that we don’t try too hard, or start working?  How do we avoid making our attempts to rest just as much of a binding religious activity as everything else we do?  Thanks be to God, he gives us the answer, we sit and let him have his way with us.  We let him reveal the depths of our striving, we let him reveal the depths of his finished works, and thus the depths of our shared rest.  We in faith invite the living “Word of God,” in other words Jesus, to know us and help us know ourselves and Him.  The scripture reads, “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.  And there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.” (Hebrews 4:12-13)  Praise God that we are naked before him and that he wields a big sword! 

God wants to divide your soul and your spirit.  That’s part of his plan in rest.  I want to clarify that this desire of God doesn’t connotate one being evil, or bad, or even necessarily less than.  However, we must understand that the division of these things is good and desired and central to our being able to live in rest and outside striving.  The soul is the hub of emotion, and as such it is the soul that is liable to try to earn favor.  It is the soul that has a tendency to insecurity.  It is the soul that gets nervous about its standing and pushes the panic button of works.  The spirit on the other hand is that which connects us to the realm of heaven.  It is the spirit that is the storage place of faith, and thus the spirit from which we are to direct our actions.  It is only from living from our spirit in the Spirit that we will rest in God.  Again, this does not mean that the soul is bad, without the soul we would be unable to in the faith of the spirit walk in love and grace to those around us.

Further God wants to separate our joints from marrow and subsequently to discern the thoughts and intents of our heart.  We are triune creatures: spirit, soul, and body.  We have already established God’s work to establish our spirits as the command center for our lives, but it is our body, our joints that will carry out everything we do.  Thus God wants to get to the heart of our actions.  He wants to lay our works before him, naked and exposed, and show us where these works are motivated by anything other than faith.  Jesus said that He did nothing apart from the Father.  Thus when Jesus’ works are set before the Father, there is nothing impure behind the working of his joints.  All came from God and all came from love ,for God is love, and thus it is that Paul testifies that if we do all good things without love we are nothing! (1 Corinthians 13:2)

Our bodies are crucial and beautiful and divinely constructed, but there has only ever been one body that without fault.  Praise God for that one, for our Jesus, who is not a “High priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.”  (Hebrews 4:15)  It is thus, because of this faultless lamb that our consciences are able to be cleansed completely. (Hebrews 9:14)  A guilty conscience is what God is seeking to eradicate in the place of rest.  A guilty conscience always stems from lack of faith, and it always drives us out of his presence.  Thus, knowing that fullness and perfection of Jesus Christ and his offering, let us, “hold fast to our confession of Him.”  That is the third instruction.  We are to fear falling out of rest, to be diligent to enter rest, and now the picture gets clearer as we cling to the confession of Jesus Christ as Lord.  This command is singular in its nature, and so wonderfully simple.  Hold on to your confession of Jesus as your perfect lamb, and as you hold onto it two things will happen: all guilt will and shame will fall away, and you will want nothing more than to be at rest with him. 

Thus it is that we come to our final command!  “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”  This is the heart of the Gospel, God finished it so come, rest, and receive.  So often we are afraid to preach the radical nature of the gospel.  The devil has instilled a fear in God’s people of their sinful nature.  The fear is that if we don’t give people something active to do they will just get caught up in sin or lethargy.  Here is the reality.  God is good, he did it, rest with Him, get what he’s got for you, and you will do more than anyone who is trying to get things done.  The only command that we can give to God’s people, as the author of Hebrews shows is to rest in God!  God has purchased rest for us because he wants us to rest in Him.  That is the Good News and nothing more than “rest!” is the gospel.  All else is unnecessary dead works of religion.  So rest and be blessed.

Being Known by the King

I have not written for some time for multiple reasons, but mainly because the Lord has been “learning” me some things.  Specifically, he has been “learning” me His grace.  When he’s teaching me, the blow is soft enough in my Spirit that I can process and communicate with my mind.  However, there have been a handful of seasons in my life where the Lord has been adamant about “learning me” in the depths of who I am about a particular subject.  At these times the shifts that are happening, and the growth that is being experienced are too great and too integral to my person to express clearly in words.  However, as I come out of this season of the extermination of many religious spirits and attitudes in my life, and begin to walk with the revelation of the fullness of the grace and work of Christ, I find myself being gently taught once again.

This morning I want to discuss the correlation between two particular verses that might not be linked in most people’s minds.  I was reading the first yesterday morning and the Lord subsequently began to speak to me about the second.  The first comes in the first chapter of First Kings.  King David is sick and infirm, and lying on his death bed he is unable to stay warm.  Thus, it is decided that a virgin should be sought out to come to lay with the king in order to keep him warm.  A young girl named Abishag is chosen and the Bible says about her, “The girl was exceedingly beautiful; she served the king and ministered to him, but the king did not know her.” (1 Kings 1:4)  As I read this verse the Lord began to unveil my eyes to Matthew 7:21-23 which reads, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.   Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’  Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you, away from me, you evildoers!’”

There will be individuals at the end of time of whom it will be said as it’s been said of Abishag, “They were exceedingly beautiful; they served the king and ministered to him, but the king did not know her.”  And to those, the king will say, “Away from me, you evildoers!”  There are very few Christian people that have not asserted something similar to the fact that all their good works are as filthy rags.  However, there are also very few that live in the complete freedom of such a statement.  If by nothing else, this is demonstrated by the typical understanding of this passage in Matthew 7.  Typically, I believe the average Christians response to these words is to assume one of two things.  Some have used this verse to illustrate the dangers of the supernatural of walking in the prophetic, in healing or in casting out demons.  These individuals have basically used this verse as an excuse not to get uncomfortable in their natural mindsets.  Others I have heard, have gotten closer to the point as they question the motivation of these individuals whom Christ is speaking of.  It is assumed that they must have done these acts out of a wrong spirit or without love, or something of the sort.  The truth of the matter however is that they believed their works were what qualified them for the kingdom.  They did not fully understand the grace of God.  Here’s a question for anyone reading this.  How would you respond if I told you that you weren’t going to heaven?  Would you immediately think of your own faithfulness, they ways in which you have been devoted, or believed well, or worked hard, or performed miracles?  Or could you with security look me in the eyes and say, “I know Christ Jesus my Lord and I am righteous because of his righteousness.  We will dwell forever in unity.”

It is also helpful perhaps to ask think about what we envision or understand when Jesus says, “only those who do the will of my father will enter heaven.”  Do we immediately begin to think about loving people and activity of our own, or do we understand the will of the God as Jesus defined it.  Jesus said, “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.  For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6:39-40)  Notice here that the will of the Father is not associated with our works, but with the work of Jesus.  It is that Jesus would lose no one, and that Jesus would raise us up at the last day.  The only thing that defines us in that statement is that we would look to the son and believe in him.  However, that is not necessarily even giving us something to do, or commanding activity.  Rather, it is listing the characteristics of those who Jesus will raise up.  Scripture says the same thing elsewhere when it reads, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2)  What is our job?  To fix our eyes.  We don’t even have to believe.  Jesus will author and perfect your faith if you behold him.  As you behold him you will begin to understand some things about who he is and faith and work will come.  You will begin to be filled with the same joy that drove Jesus to the cross.  More than that you will understand that you were the joy that drove him to that cross!  You will see that he is SEATED at the right hand of God, which means his work is done, which means the Father’s will is fulfilled, and Jesus will not lose any of those who have been given to him.

Let’s draw back toward 1 Kings and Abishag as I wrap up here.  I want to focus on those words, “given me” that Jesus spoke.  Even in our present tradition, wives are given away to their husbands to be their brides.  We have been given to Christ as his bride.  Abishag was not given to David as a bride, and the description of her as beautiful, serving and ministering was not a bad thing.  If you are serving an infirm king, it is appropriate not to “know” him.  However, when you are given to a king as a bride, that is all that matters!  The church must get the revelation that as the Bride of Christ nothing is asked from us, but intimate beholding.  No husband would be overjoyed at receiving a sandwich and a clean home from his wife on his wedding night.  He wants her, yet somehow Satan has polluted the minds of Christians to make them think that their groom is more interested in their works than he is in them.  Remember that Jesus declared that he would say those whom he didn’t know, “away from me, you evildoers.”  Jesus is only interested in the fruit of his loins, because everything else is tainted with the sin of the first Adam, rather than covered with His own blood as the second Adam.  Jesus abhors bastard fruit that is birthed outside of intimacy with Him.  In ourselves we can produce nothing valuable.  Listen to the intimate language of Jesus, “If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.  If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.” (John 15:5b-6)  Does this sound at all familiar to our Matthew 7 text?  By grace we have been invited into the bedchamber of the groom.  In fact, we have even been made the bedchamber and dwelling place of God.  However, our groom has invited us in because he wants to know us.  He wants us, not our works, and so I ask with Paul, “But now that you KNOW God – OR RATHER ARE KNOWN BY GOD – how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles?  Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?”  (Gal. 4:9)  He goes on to say, “You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.” (Gal. 5:4)  As brides of Christ all service, ministry, and beauty must come from the intimacy of being known.  When we were still sinners we were invited into the bedchambers of the Lord by grace.  However, as soon as we try to earn our standing in that bedchamber we will find ourselves fallen from grace, and standing on the outside of the chamber.  Blessed be the God who calls us and qualifies us as His Beloved!

One of the many broad subjects that the Lord continues to instruct me in is that of destiny, chosenness, election.  Though words such as this are often feared by most Christian people, often for the sake of political correctness, they are certainly biblical concepts, and more and more I believe central to the Kingdom of God.  God seems very concerned indeed throughout the scriptural account to ensure that his chosen know that they are indeed chosen.  Destiny is pounded over and over again into the heads of Israel as a people, and those who moved into greatness with God always possessed this call of destiny.  I heard once that Winston Churchill refused to go into bunkers when the German’s were bombing England during World War II.  He believed he had been placed in the time he was by God to prevent Germany’s advance, and that he could not die until he had done so.  His sense of destiny emboldened him to embolden a people!  Interestingly, the very man who was his opposition also had a great sense of destiny.  Time after time assignation attempts on Hitler proved to fall short, and like many of the Caesar’s of old, he began to see himself as something near immortal.  It is in these two men though that we can make a distinction.  God does not write destinies for individuals for their own advancement.  Satan indeed has and had a sense of destiny and entitlement, but it was not the destiny God had written for Him.  In the same way Hitler, leading what was perhaps the most demonic political movement in the history of the world, showed the same characteristics of destiny to personal glorification.  Churchill’s destiny, though I know not his position with the Lord, seems outwardly to be a divine call.  When God puts a call on your life, you can be sure he intends to see it through, if you will make yourself available.  Jesus walked in this sense of destiny.  How many times did he say, “My time has not come,” or did he walk through a crowd of angry people.  He had heard the call of God on his life, and he knew he could not be touched until the time was fulfilled!  What blessed assurance the call of destiny can be to the soul of the Christian.  Talk about feeling your worth, moving in boldness, and expecting greatness – such is the freedom from knowing in the depth of who you are that your God has purposes for your life.  Without this understanding it is impossible to move into the fullness of the inheritance purchased for us on Calvary!  Destiny is one of the keys Christ has given the saints to unlock the Kingdom of Heaven.

Paul opens up his letter to the Ephesians saying, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.  Just as He chose us in Him before the foundations of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.” (Ephesians 1:3-5)  Oh what glorious gospel news this is!  We have been chosen before God ever made the earth, before he ever made Adam and Eve, we were chosen to stand before Him holy and blameless in love.  If you have heard the ringing invitation from heaven and responded from the depths of who you are in hunger for the salvation of God then this is indeed your destiny, in fact, it is your present reality.  You now, in Jesus Christ, stand perfect before the God who loved you, and you were chosen to stand there before the foundations of the world.  The reality is that because God is eternal, the earth is temporal, you have in reality been standing there for eternity, and will continue to for eternity!  Wrap your head around that if you can, or if it makes you hurt, just praise the One who did it.  It gets better though, Paul not only informs us that we are chosen to stand holy before God, but that we are predestined to be adopted as his children!  You not only get to stand before the throne of God and see the joy of the Father with His Son, and the Son with His Father, but your adoption into that family has been settled in the courts of heaven before Jesus even shed his blood to pay the fees!  Later on in Ephesians Paul writes, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepare beforehand that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:8-10)  I truly believe these three verses are the greatest litmus test to distinguish true sons of the king, from the pharisaic masqueraders.  Countless “Christians” use grace as an excuse to bend their knee to the fear that Satan has planted in their heart.  Grace then becomes a cheap mantra which services as an excuse for lukewarm living. And this is supposed to be glorifying to God.  We have heard Jesus’ reaction to such abuse of his grace: it makes him sick.  (See Revelation 3:14-22)  What Paul is truly saying here is that grace has so full laid a claim on your life that God has actually designed you to do His work on the earth.  Think about this for a second!  You are the workmanship of God, created specifically for good works (not mediocre, mundane, or religious ones), and those good works were set up beforehand by God that you should walk in them!  There are four parts to what he is saying there, and three of them have already been decided: 1 – You are the workmanship, that is the handiwork, the masterpiece, the “Very good” thing of God, 2 – You died, buried, and were risen with Christ to new life and good works, 3- God wrote his desired works, his destiny for you, who are his workmanship, before you were ever created.  Those are the facts, but he has left one thing available for the agreement of our will with His saying, “that you should walk in them!”  In other words God says, “I’ve got a destiny for you through my grace, but I won’t force you to walk in it.”  Think about the ridiculous nature of what many of us say in response to God’s declaration over us.  It goes something like this, “I believe God is super good, and loves me so much, He even sent His Son to die for me, that good, loving God has predestined works for me, but they sound kind of hard, so I think I won’t try too hard and say it’s because I’m living under grace.”

Alright, so I’ve torn that passage apart well enough, and managed to get slightly cynical at the end there in the process.  However, I have to make a few clarifiers before I go on, because there are many Christians who would miss the central point of what God is saying here.  When we don’t know the Lord as our Father, we inherently have an affinity for works which will hold us in bondage.  There are countless people in the American church who are stuck in neutral because they are desperately trying to figure out what God wants them to do with their life, and they aren’t hearing jack.  The problem these people are having is that they are trying to walk in the destiny that God has given them before they get the revelation that God has predestined them as Sons!  There is a reason Paul speaks these declarations of destiny over the Ephesians in the order he does.  They were destined to be blameless, their sin is no more, they are free from bondage.  They were then destined only not to be slaves, but so be sons.  Finally, as sons, and only as sons, they were destined for good works, that they should walk in them!  God always wants sons before good works, because only as sons do good works really come to fruition.  It is for this reason that the Father of the Prodigal Son gave his son such a big shocker.  The son thought for sure he would figure out what work the Father wanted him to do, and then maybe move into some position of favor with him.  Rather, the Father wanted his son first, and to talk about work after celebrating their relationship.  If you are not actively in joyful celebration for your adoption as son, and actively in intimacy with your Father, you will not hear a peep from God about your work list.  Thus, before you can move into your destiny, you have to have the revelation of God’s specific call to your heart as his child!

We see this so clearly throughout the lives of God’s great ones.  You will not be able to find someone who has done great things for God who did not operate in the freedom of destiny.  Paul, in writing to the Galatians says, “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through his grace to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach among the Gentiles . . .” (Galatians 1:15-16)  Do you see Paul’s understanding of God’s hand upon him, choosing him, moving behind the scenes to take him from Saul, and make him Paul the Apostle.  Paul makes it clear that he knows that God was the one who separated Him from his mother’s womb.  Doesn’t that seem like a weird thing to include?  It’s not if you understand the importance of knowing your destiny.  David also got this as he shows in the 139^th Psalm.  The whole thing reflects David’s feelings of being chosen, but check out what he says in verse 13, “For you formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb.”  David too tracks God’s claim over his life back to before his birth.  This is not pride, it is God’s revelation.  We see in the book of Jeremiah, the fearful timid heart of the one who has become known as the reluctant prophet.  What does God speak over him to set him free from his fear?  He says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.”  (Jeremiah 1:5)  God knows the importance of our understanding how important we are to his design.  God could exist without us, and he could defeat Satan without us, but he does not want to.  It is his will to have us in friendship, and to co-labor with us to restore His Kingdom!  He cares about it so much, that he has preconfigured all the details to make you a part of it.  Talk about crazy love!

There is something that God revealed to me about a month ago as I was memorizing 1 Peter.  In the third chapter of this book, Peter discusses Noah and the ark and how Noah and his family were saved through the water in the ark.  He then says, “There is an antitype also which now saves us – baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 3:21)  Think with me back to Noah and his family on that ark.  I want to imagine yourself on that boat, one of only eight people that are left.  You’ve been in this boat for over a year, and step out of it to find a barren world.  You are indeed the only souls left on earth.  Everyone else is dead!  What are you feeling?  This question was posed in a group discussion I had a few months ago, and the common answers were guilty, horrible, ashamed.  These are the answers of people who do not know their destiny.  What you feel when God picks you, tells you to make a boat, you obey in faith, and step out to find that he actually killed everybody else is incredibly CHOSEN!  What you realize as you step out of that boat, from that water, is that God hand-separated you, he spared you.  You draw breath because he showed you mercy.  The only appropriate response at that moment is to do exactly what Noah did, he built an altar and he worshipped his God. (See Genesis 8:20)  When you realize the claim that God has on your life to bring you into life with him, you cannot help but live a lifestyle of worship.  It is from that position and that position only that we can step into the fullness of who we are to be, the image-bearers of God, the Christ-like ones in the world.  Just as Noah was brought through the waters of the flood, you have been brought through the waters of baptism, chosen before the foundations of the world to be holy and without blame before Him!  That is why Peter says that Baptism is the answer of a good conscience toward God.  Knowing we are destined is what clears our consciences, it is what frees us to walk as sons in the good works which have been predestined specifically for us!

Zeal: Tapping into the Father's Heart

Over the past couple of weeks I have heard two sermons from men I respect very greatly expressing the danger of zeal.  Though my respect still stands with both of these men, I must respectfully disagree with their words.  I do not undermine the fact that one can be zealous for the wrong things, but the last thing we need to be doing in the American church at present is to discourage zeal.  It is zeal that is threatening to see revival such as we have never seen.  I am confident that zeal is the make-up of revival.  Therefore, since revival is fundamentally when Christianity actually starts looking like Christianity, zeal is the make-up of Christianity.  I believe zeal is a necessary key in unlocking God’s favor, it is a crucial ingredient to stepping into one’s destiny, and it is absolutely one-hundred percent necessary to be a zealot if one would carry the image of God in the world!

Defining Zeal

The word zeal means to have eager enthusiasm.  Perhaps better it means to be: fervent, impassioned, eager, impatient, fierce, intense.  A zealot is an excessively zealous person, a fanatic!  Religion tells us that we shouldn’t be getting as excited for Jesus as football fans get for their teams.  Thus, we Christians allow football to be the most zealous religion in America.  Thousands upon thousands of screaming fans pile into football stadiums across the country on a weekly basis to fight for their cause.  Currently, the Euro Cup is happening in Europe with sixteen soccer teams from across Europe vying to be crowned the best “football”-country in Europe.  You better believe there are fanatics over there.  In fact they are called hooligans, and they do horrible things in the names of their teams.  However, they have a zeal that is after God’s own heart, even if it isn’t for God’s own heart.  The problem with religion is that God isn’t interested in it.  We have a passionate God, and when his bride fails to be passionate about them, we show all the passionate people in the world that the God of the Universe isn’t for them.  Let us ask these questions of ourselves:  Am I fervent in my pursuit of the Kingdom of God, Am I impassioned and eager to see his will be done on earth, Am I impatient for Heaven to invade earth, Am I fierce and intense in my pursuit of intimacy with my God, am I fanatic?  There was a pretty popular book written recently called, “Not a Fan,”  which decried religious practices of going to church and then going back to normal, worldly life.  I agree with what the author of this book is saying, and it is my life-pursuit to battle the religious monster we have offensively called Christianity, but I would point out that fan is short for fanatic.  I want to see the church get fanatical!  We have a God that is more than worth being that crazy over.  In fact I encourage people to take the titles Satan has twisted for bad, and get that way for God.  For example, I want to be addicted to God, obsessed with God, fanatical about God, possessed with God.  Strong language for a strong God!

Biblical Centrality

Let me spend some time just laying out why zeal is Biblical, and central to God’s plan for his people.  First of all, I will make my case a little more strongly against teaching that would discourage zeal.  If one is going to be a Christian teacher, a pretty good role-model to have would be Paul, and Paul makes this answer very clear for us.  The book of Galatians is written to set straight a church that has drifted from the grace of Jesus to the law of Judaism.  It is a gentile church that has been invaded by Jewish “Christians,” (people Paul calls false brethren Gal. 2:5).  The Jews are trying to force Jewish law and tradition onto these people saved by grace, that they will adopt circumcision and other customs so as to earn their salvation by works of the law.  Paul writes about this situation in 4:17-18, “They zealously court you, but for no good; yes, they want to exclude you, that you may be zealous for them.  But it is good to be zealous in a good thing always, and not only when I am present with you.”  Paul certainly warns them of the false zeal of legalism.  What is the problem with that zeal?  It would make the Galatians zealous for their teachers.  Notice what Paul gives as the antidote for this false zeal:  Be zealous for good things!  It is always a good thing to have zeal for good things.  The antidote for misplace zeal is not caution, it is more zeal for God.  I love what Paul says here because it shows how fully he trusts the Holy Spirit.  Paul makes it clear that he wants the Galatians to be zealous, “AND NOT ONLY WHEN I AM PRESENT WITH YOU!”  The main reason the modern church discourages zeal is because we do not trust the workings of the Holy Spirit.  Pastors don’t want people to be “overzealous” because they believe they will go astray.  Thus, they try to control peoples zeal by means of pastoral baby-sitting.  I am not arguing against submission to leadership, but I am arguing against leadership that would Lord it over those who have been entrusted to them, rather than set a good example for the flock! (See 1 Peter 5)  Paul so trusts God that he does not feel a need to hold the Galatians’ hand as they zealously pursue the Lord.  Remember that this is a people who Paul is chastising for their horribly misplaced zeal, and still Paul has faith enough to encourage them to zeal.  Basically, Paul is saying, my zeal is taking me to other places right now, but you can’t wait to be zealous until I can get to you.  The Lord has kept my path straight as I’ve run zealously, so follow my example and chase good things!

OK, that was the first of my zeal clincher texts.  Here’s the next: “ . . . Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself his own special people, zealous for good works.” (Titus 2:14)  Part of the very motivation for Jesus’ sacrifice was that he might gain a zealous people.  That explains why he is so disgusted with the Laodicean church as he addresses them through John in the book of Revelation.  The Laodiceans are lukewarm and Jesus threatens to spit them out of his mouth for their lukewarmness.  He then instructs them to, “be zealous and repent.” (Revelation 3:19)  We find ourselves in an American church that if it is nothing else is lukewarm, and caution is not an option if we are to taste the fruits of revival.  Jesus gives us a command as clear as any, BE ZEALOUS!  The text from Titus refers to God’s special people that he is bringing to himself.  The only other place I know of that uses that language is in 1 Peter 2 where we are described as, “A chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his special people, that we may proclaim the praises of Him who brought us out of darkness and into his marvelous light!”  We must understand where zeal is going to come from.  Zeal cannot be mustered up, it must come from an overflow.  I challenge you to try and make yourself falsely excited about something.  It’s nearly impossible.  Thus zeal for God cannot coexist with religion.  In fact, zeal is the opposite of religion.  Zeal is the response of the human soul who has heard God’s glorious claim on his life.  If you don’t feel zealous than ask God to give you zeal for His presence that you might soak up an increase of zeal for good works.  The early church understood the purity of zeal, and so they used zeal as a barometer to determine a person’s qualifications to minister.  Paul promises to send a brother to the Corinthians and he states only that he has proved to be zealous in many ways.  So, zeal is central, and so Paul commands the Romans, “Never be lacking  in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.” 

Bearing God’s Image – A Zealot

There is no denying the fact that one of the chief adjectives used to describe God is zealous.  It takes not only a merciful, but a zealous God to save Noah and his family when they are the only righteous people left on earth.  The zeal of the Lord is awesome and mighty always, but it can either be dreadfully frightening or wonderfully bolstering!  The Lord is, “Clad with zeal as a cloak.” (Isaiah 59:17)  “He shall stir up His zeal like a man of war.” (Isaiah 42:13)  Our God is in a war, and he is the victor, “he shall prevail against His enemies”.(Isaiah 42:13)  God almighty cannot lose, but it does not mean he need not fight.  He has fought for our redemption and His zeal has driven him there.  God has several things that he is zealous for, several things that move him to strap on his battle armor, and to come with power.  In Ezekiel, God promises to be zealous for His holy name. (Ezekiel 39:25)  He is zealous for Zion, for Jerusalem, for his people, his land and his house. (Is. 26:11,63:15; Zech. 1:14, 8:2; Joel 2:18)  In other words God is zealous for His Kingdom.  When Jesus teaches us to pray, “Your kingdom come,” he is teaching us to pray right into the zealous heart of the Father.  When we pray that prayer we match our heart with the heart of God.  His zeal will begin to flow through our veins.  I get zealous when I read the different names of this kingdom from Hebrews 12, “You have come to Mount Zion, the City of the Living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem and to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven, to God the judge of all men, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the sprinkling of the blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.” (Hebrews 12:22-24)   That is something I can get zealous about!

That really is the key of Christianity: letting the Spirit of the Living God fill you with the zeal of the Lord that you might indeed be the answer to, “Let your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  The best synopsis of God’s zeal is given to us in Isaiah 9:6-7, which reads, “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder.  And his name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever.  The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.”  That is the zeal of the Almighty God, and we must remember that it will be done.  God does not lose.  However, his grace is so magnificent that he has invited us to be apart of the increase of his government, peace, and kingdom.  The zeal of the Lord sent us Jesus, and in Jesus we are given the synopsis for what our zeal should in fact be.  Jesus cleanses the temple, because zeal for God’s house has consumed Him, or eaten Him up. (John 2:17)  But before he cleanses it from zeal, he uses it as his stage to declare the purpose of his life, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because he has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; he has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”  That is the zeal and mission of our Lord Jesus, and then he says, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you. (John 20:21)  Zeal for the things of God does not always look popular, it drove Jesus to tirade through the temple.  It is our call though, and if we allow Satan’s complacent scheme of religiosity to take hold of our hearts, we will fail to fulfill God’s zealous plans.

Wise Guidance for Zeal

So often in our Christian culture wisdom is misunderstood to be the same thing as caution.  I want to make very clear that this is the farthest thing from the truth.  Caution is against the will of God.  It is discernment that is God’s plan.  Discernment always comes from the mouth of our Father, and thus necessitates intimacy.  Discernment is the gift that allows us to do absolutely foolish things in the eyes of the world, because we have the ultimate insider!  Caution is the demonic mimic of discernment that breeds fear in the Children of God.  Caution I resist, discernment I seek as the source of all wisdom.

Because so many Christian leaders operate out of a spirit of caution and fear, most zealous followers of God are crippled by their “wise” overseers.  God is not into seeing his warriors neutered, and I do not use that word just for men.  Both the daughters and sons of God have been cautioned out of the fullness of what God would have for them.  Thus, it is my heart in seeking God’s zealous heart to establish in myself a teaching on zeal that would bring wisdom, but not suffocate the life-breath of the Holy Spirit.  Let us see what we can unravel.  Before I discuss some rules for the zealous lifestyle, I believe it central to remember that zeal is an attribute of God that we carry in ourselves.  Thus, if we have our zeal focused on what God is zealous for, Himself and His Kingdom, than we will do well.  Satan has two weapons against the zealous – pacify or misdirect.  Do not be pacified, but remember it is a narrow road we walk, and his name is Jesus.  When we stray from that way, our zeal becomes counterproductive to the work of God. 

Be not zealous for selfish gain-

Though this is kind of a “duh” statement, it is a tough thing to walk.  “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Remember that God does not give grace to the falsely humble, but if you are truly living zealously you should see any false humility in yourself go out the window.  Very often, false humility is the lukewarm believer’s excuse for remaining lukewarm.  We must remember our identity, as mighty, spirit-filled, holy sons and daughters of the most high king, and from that point work for our Father’s glory, not our own.  Brie recently did a study on the word ambassador, and discovered that ambassador means, “an agent of the highest rank.”  Thus when God says we are his ambassadors, it is quite an honor, though not quite the honor as our title as his children.  It is that title of Sonship that separates Jesus and us from the angels.  It may seem here that I am not talking much about selfishness, and the reason for that is simply that the more one talks about how selfish they are, the more they tend to focus on themselves.  The key to having self-less zeal is to get so filled up with what the Father has said about you, that you wouldn’t think about glorifying yourself over him!  We live not for riches, for titles, for earthly power.  We live to glorify God, which might mean we need riches, titles, and particularly supernatural power.  These things aren’t bad, unless you aren’t crazy enamored with your daddy!  Paul encourages the Corinthians zeal for spiritual gifts, and says, “Even so you, since you are zealous for spiritual gifts, let it be for the edification of the church that you seek to excel.”  Here is the step of instruction from Paul:  Step 1 – Get zealous for spiritual gifts (you can fill in the blank), Step 2 – Check your heart to make sure it is edifying the Body of Christ and glorifying the Head of that Body!

Be not Self-righteously Zealous

Paul warns the Romans saying, “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.  For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.  For they, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.” (Romans 10:1-3)   I bear witness myself to many Christians that they do indeed have zeal, but often times that zeal lies outside the grace of God.  Often times there is a great zeal, particularly in the hearts of American evangelicals, for discipline, and acts of betterment.  Though these things are not bad in and of themselves, oftentimes the heart driving such acts comes from within bondage rather than liberty.   Very often spiritual disciplines are encouraged because Jesus did them, this is often a false notion.  Jesus’ interaction with the Father was never out of discipline, it sprang from desire birthed in intimacy.  The idea of discipline is one of slavery, and though being a slave of God is admirable, it is not God’s ideal.  I myself have been graced with the revelation of my own Sonship over the past years, and now see the zeal I have always had producing fruit far beyond anything my discipline ever accomplished.  However, I do believe that I was such a zealous slave that I found favor with God to be invited into the house.  To avoid self-righteousness we must get the revelation of the Prodigal Son.  The son understood that the Father loved him enough to bring him back home, but he figured he would have to work as a slave to earn it.  That is sadly much of the churches practical understanding of grace, and it leads very often to camping under the cross to pay tribute to the bloody Christ and his sacrifice but never accepting the grace to step into the fullness of the life he has purchased for us. 

Be not zealous for Flashy Leaders

We all love powerful leaders, and moving speakers, and there is nothing wrong with those gifts.  They come from an anointing of the Father.  However, Satan has crippled much growth of the church by letting movements arise that are built solely upon the sturdy back of a gifted man.  The problem with this is the same problem the Jews had with the priesthood.  Men die, and whatever they are holding by necessity must fall.  Often times the weight of what great men of faith have been carrying crushes their fan club rather than being carried successfully by the next generation.  Thus the short lifespan of so many revivals.  There is a beautiful exchange between Moses and his eventual successor Joshua that gives us great insight into this issue.  The background of the story is that the Holy Spirit has fallen onto several Israelite leaders and two men, Eldad and Medad have been prophesying in the camp.  Joshua, under a spirit of caution, tells Moses to forbid them from doing so, to which Moses replies, “Are you zealous for my sake?  Oh, that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!”(Numbers 11:29)  What beautiful wisdom, and purity of heart from our great father Moses.  Joshua, we see, was offended for Moses’ sake.  Moses was the leader, he was the prophet, who were these fools to try to step into his domain.  But Moses does not have a heart to see his own success alone, he yearns and has zeal for the people of God to live into their fullness. We see this heart bear fruit as Moses, over the years to come builds Joshua to be the leader that will do what he could not, lead the Israelites across the Jordan.  This is a lesson for both great leaders, and the masses!  As Paul makes abundantly clear to the Corinthians, Christ is the only foundation, and the only head of the body.  As the head though, he needs a body, and he is not content with a few strong members, and the rest a bunch of limp-wristed pansies.  Jesus set a precedent for the church when he told his disciples, “you will do greater things than I.”  The reality is that we are not even to put Jesus on a pedestal.  Jesus is our Lord, but his life was simply the forerunner for the redemption of humanity.  He opened the doors for humanity to regain their destiny, and he expected those who would make up his body to do greater things than he, ALL OF THEM!  So, let’s get Jesus off a pedestal, get our church-leaders off a pedestal, and see a generation get zealous for the Kingdom to come through their individual selves with power!

Be not zealous outside of your godly identity

King David and the Israelites saw three years of famine during his reign and God revealed to David that it was due to the former King Saul’s slaughter of a people called the Gibeonites.  The text reads, “Now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; the children of Israel had sworn protection to them, but Saul had sought to kill them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah.”  Notice that Saul was zealous for the same thing God was.  He was pumped up to see Israel and Judah succeed.  Unfortunately, he did not understand God’s heart for doing so.  Thus, he broke a promise that Israel had made, and slaughtered a whole people that he was supposed to be in covenant with.  This same theme has repeated itself countless times throughout history: during the crusades Christians killed people to save their souls, in early colonial America Christians burned witches whom they should have been delivering from demonic control, in present times individuals with a zeal for God’s plan for sexuality and for holiness tell gay people that God hates them, when they should be ministering in the Spirit to set them free form their bondage to sin.  We must remember who we are.  We are ambassadors for God, and his agents for kingdom expansion in the world.  Remember Jesus said that the Kingdom was like leaven in dough, not like hostile take-over!  Just as God called Saul king, he too has called us royalty.  However, Saul forgot that he was a king in God’s kingdom, and began working outside of his kingdom authority, and outside of godly virtue and nobility.  Thus, the authority was eventually taken from him and given to a man with a heart after God’s.  The same thing can happen to us if we become zealous for work that God is not doing.  Ministry is so much easier, so much less effective, and so much less ministering when we act outside of the Spirit’s leading.  Jesus sent the counselor, the Holy Spirit to bring in his Kingdom.  He will only do it through us, but we must zealously co-labor with God, not zealously pursue what we think we would do if we were God.  Such ministry and wisdom is, “not from above, but is earthly, sensual, and demonic!” That which is from above is, “first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruit, without partiality and without hypocrisy.”  (Paraphrase from end of James 3)

Be not historically zealous

In the third chapter of John Jesus instructs Nicodemus about being born again, and in so doing describes the Spirit, and those filled with it as being like the wind.  They are unpredictable, and constantly shifting.  Unfortunately, zeal can often lead us into some uncomfortably, unpredictable circumstances, and all to often the zealous give way to fear, and become historically zealous.  I recently spoke with a man in his seventies who told me that he had been a part of five revivals during his lifetime.  I admire this, but what it shows to me is that he and those he was in revival with were unwilling to go someplace God wanted to take them.  Their zeal had a wall, and thus revival died, and this man is left looking back at the zeal he did have, and longing for it again.  If we put any cap on the Lord, we will eventually fall into historical zeal, which comes when a life is at present not living zealously, usually because they don’t want to go where more zeal would take them.  A beautiful example of this comes in the life of the Prophet Elijah.  Elijah was certainly a man zealous for God.  He boldly challenged hundreds of prophets of Baal to a fire-calling contest, and Elijah and his God not only won, but where the only one’s who left the playing field alive.  However, then this woman Jezebel turns up in Elijah’s life and he stops being zealous for God, starts getting zealous for safety and immediately drops into historical zeal.   His zeal for safety eventually leads him to a cave where God comes to find him and asks him what he is up to, more or less why he’s being a coward.  Elijah replies, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword.  I alone am left; and they seek to take my life.”  Do you see here what I mean by historical zeal.  Elijah is only in the reflective, patting himself on the back for his past labors, and whining about his present situation.  God’s response is to well up fresh zeal in Elijah.  He immediately sent him to anoint kings in Syria and Israel, and Elisha his replacement.  God also tells Elijah that He has reserved for himself seven-thousand who have not bowed to Baal. (See 1 Kings 19:10-14) There are a few things I want to point out from this.  First of all, god is always more zealous for Himself than we are.  Thus, he is always doing more than we think He is.  Elijah thought he was all alone, but he failed to realize God had been working.  Secondly, though I don’t want to bash Elijah too much (he is one of my great biblical heroes), we must recognize that as soon as Elijah’s zeal runs out and gives way to fear, he is sent to find his replacement.  We are only as good to God as we are willing to be zealous for where he will take us.  This is precisely why Elisha, Elijah’s replacement, may be my favorite Biblical brother.  He had a zeal that surpassed that of Elijah, which allowed him to inherit Elijah’s mantle, and build from Elijah’s ceiling, using it as his floor.  Unfortunately, when it came time for Elisha to die, no man could be found zealous enough to carry on with his work.  It is for this reason that we must not only pursue zeal, but inspire it!

Paul: a Case-study in Zeal

Though I could easily go on for pages tracking the heart of zeal in the faithful that have gone before us such as Peter the rock, Simon the ZEALOT, David the giant-slayer, I will hone my energies in on Paul, who previously was Saul.  Paul’s zeal began when he was Saul, and at the feet of the Pharisee Gamaliel.  He speaks in Acts to hostile Jews in Jerusalem saying, “I am indeed a Jew, born in tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of our fathers’ law, and was zealous toward God as you all are today.” (Acts 22:3)  Elsewhere, he writes the gentile believers in Galatia saying, “And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my Fathers.” (Galatians 1:14)  Paul is very clear to make it known that his zeal has been a life trait that has always set him apart.  Saul lived with a passion and fervor that made him rise above the rest of his brothers in the Jewish world.  I believe, he also had a zeal that caught the attention and indeed pleased his Father.  In continuing his letter to the Galatians, he writes, “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me through his grace, to reveal his son in me, that I might preach him to the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went to Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.” (Galatians 1:15-17)  It’s easy to see Paul’s incredible zeal that not only drove him into ministry, whether as a Jew or as a Christ-follower, but actually was crucial in winning the favor of God upon his life!   It absolutely cannot be a coincidence that it was Paul and Peter that Jesus chose to be the leaders of his church after his ascension!  It’s hard to think of two more zealous men than these, and through the glimpses we get of Paul’s interaction with Peter it certainly appears that Paul’s zeal even surpassed that of the great Peter.  I am convinced that it was Paul’s zeal that allowed him to, “run with endurance the race set before him,” (Hebrews 12:2) and to “fight the good fight of faith.” (1 Timothy 6:12)  Paul tells the Philippians that his zeal as a Jew was so great that he was persecuting the church. (Philippians 3:6) However, whatever was to his profit as a Jew he counted loss that he might gain Christ, for whose sake he had lost all things! (See Philippians 3:7-8)  Paul had an encounter with Christ and went from persecutor to persecuted in a matter of days!  However, it was the same zeal that drove him in both endeavors, and I would go so far as to say that God smiled upon Saul even as he killed his future brother Stephen!  As CS Lewis has let us know, God is not a tamed lion, he is indeed wild and zealous, and beautifully, uniquely divine.  Lukewarm, boring, middle of the road kind of people do not have divine DNA, they fail to carry his image, and thus they fail to curry his favor!  Our Father God moved the heart of Stephen to ask for his killer’s forgiveness, of whom Saul was included, because he saw in that murderer: Paul- the Apostle, evangelist and suffer for the Gentiles.  The world probably saw a best of the class know-it all, but God saw the heart of a man who could be his ambassador to the world, who could carry the divine fingerprint!  It was his zeal that set him apart, just as it has been for all those God has used in mighty ways.  You don’t become mighty by being spineless or passionless!  We have a somewhat skewed understanding in the church that God always chooses the underdog, and lifts up the weak to great heights.  This just isn’t true.   Paul was certainly not an underdog.  He was one of the most powerful men in Jerusalem, but he had a zealous heart.  Peter was no more of an underdog than any other fisherman, but he was one who had a heart to drop his nets when Jesus said come.  David was not chosen because he was a weak, little shepherd boy; he was chosen because he was the only one with enough divine heart, with enough courage and zeal to stand up to Goliath and be the King of Israel!   There is a saying that says, “It is not the size of the dog in the fight, but the fight in the dog,” and it is a godly truth.  God is not at all interested in appearances, he’s interested in heart-fight or zeal!  This does mean that looking good on the outside, knowing a lot of things, and speaking better than the president does not qualify you for anything in the kingdom of God.  But neither does it mean that just because you are down and out you are at the top of God’s draft list.  God would always choose a shih-tzu with the heart of a lion over a spineless Rottweiler, but a Rottweiler who would make a lion whimper, that is someone like Paul, that is the kind that wins favor with God, those are the ones destined for greatness!  Don’t bother building up the extras if you don’t have the heart of zeal, but if there’s a burning inside of you that you have quieted in any way, for the glory of God fan those flames and let them burn!  I believe zeal will be the defining quality of our generation, and of this next great move of God, and it will be a zeal that will leave a legacy of even greater zeal, a zeal that will indeed “hasten the day of God!” (2 Peter 2:12)

Precious Faith

Faith.  I have come to believe there are different levels of faith.  While having a great conversation with Langford at Andrew’s parent’s house, Andrew talked about faith building and growing to new heights until eventually we will need no faith for we will be in heaven and have sight. 

This revelation came about as I was pondering (out loud!) my present predicament about believing God’s love for me.  I was talking about how I know Jesus loves me as an intellectual idea, but do I really believe, do I really know Jesus loves me?  I came to the conclusion after Langford asking if I believed I was forgiven.  That is beyond faith for me.  I know I’m forgiven, I would say that I even know that I am loved.  I did not have absolute faith to the degree of knowing that I was precious in His sight—which I see that is beyond love.  Love can sometimes be a duty; something that just is because that is a part of God’s nature.  He loves people.  He loves everyone, which is great, but made me feel lost in a crowd.  I did not fully believe that I was special, precious in His sight.  I had to rely on faith that it was so, and honestly my faith wavered day in and day out.  Maybe I’m precious, maybe I’m not.  And I’d compare against how He was working in other people’s lives and then how He was working in mine to see if I was as precious as others (which is NOT a good thing to do because he interacts with us all differently!).  So I was seeing things happen with others that He was not doing for me and then I would believe Satan’s lies that it was because I wasn’t really that important or precious to my Lover rather than choosing to believe on faith that I am a royal, precious daughter of the King with His Spirit inside of me.  It was a vicious cycle where I’d conclude that I’d go off of faith that I was precious because I really didn’t know for sure.  Then something would happen for someone else and instead of getting excited and praising the Lord, I would look at myself and say I’m worthless because nothing has happened to me.  Why would it?  I’m not precious.  And over and over again I’d decide to live off of faith then almost poo poo the Lord for not doing anything to show me.  OPEN UP YOUR EYES!  Oh, Lord!  You surely did open them up.

It seems like it is such a basic level of faith.  Yet, if I do not know that I am precious, I can not know that He will want to come meet with me or give me His good gifts.  I am loved, I am forgiven but the giftings and power and awe of His presence are for others whom He favors more. 

Praise the Lord, He has been kissing me these past weeks/month to help me believe that I am precious to Him!  He gave me many words from a woman whom I didn’t even know about our time in Missoula not being random (along with many other encouragements which I know were from the mouth of the Lord!).  He gave me a baby shower from several women of whom I didn’t even know half of their names.  Then he gave me a vision through a beloved friend again declaring how precious I am in His sight.  These kisses have hit their mark and are sinking into my soul that I am precious!  Praise the Lord, I AM PRECIOUS!  I’m more than loved, more than forgiven, I am precious and the Lord of lords and King of kings wants to meet with me intimately.  He wants to come and shower me with Himself, His gifts and fill me with his power to bring heaven to earth, peace to the restless and love to the hopeless.  I now know that; these blessings are not just for Andrew or other friends around me.  He wants to give them to me.  But first, He wanted me to know that I know that I know that I am precious in His sight; I am His beloved and He is mine.  It’s all about relationship.  He wanted me to know this before we moved on together in all He has for me because it is the foundation of who I am, of who I will become.  That was and is more crucial than any gift I could receive from the Spirit.  We were not moving on until I knew, until I fully believed with my every being.  I no longer have to believe that by faith; I know I am precious. 

However, faith does not stop their, but continues to build.  I know I am loved.  I know I am forgiven.  I know I am precious and He wants to meet with me.  I have faith that I am gifted in the Spirit.   I don’t see it, I haven’t experienced it.  I have to take this on faith…for now!  The thing is, I can’t get ahead of myself in my steps of faith—I was feeling guilty (bad sign) of not healing people when I didn’t even know if I was precious, didn’t even know if God would want to come when I called!  I know God heals, I know he still works miracles through His people…I just didn’t have the faith He would work through me because I didn’t even know if I was precious to Him.  Andrew may be further along in the steps of faith, but it’s not about comparison.  Comparison is a curse to our faith.  We need to be encouraged by each other, especially when they may be further along, but not to feel guilty, behind or worth any less because of being in a different place.  The question is, what will I do with that encouragement?  What will I do with where I am at?  Am I content, or will I seek for more?!  I need to establish myself in the Lord right where I am at and not jumping ahead to thinking I need to be raising people from the dead when I don’t have the faith to believe I am worth anything in the eyes of God!  He will bring me there in due time. 

That’s what’s so precious about the secret place.  God comes to us, builds us up, pours into us.  A time in the wilderness really establishes one’s relationship with the Lord apart from doing, doing, doing.  It builds our faith—or eliminates our faith—by growing in the knowledge and firm belief of who we are, whose we are and what we are able to do through our Lover, Father, Spirit.  Then when we are released from the wilderness, we are on firm foundation ready to do the will of the Father without questioning every step the ifs, hows, buts because we know our Father and we know we are known by Him, loved by Him and utterly precious.  We have seen Him work and move and are able to rely on him with an unwavering faith in His ability…and His desire…to work through us.

Oh, am I growing in faith…growing in knowing my Lord intimately.  He is pursuing me.  Watch out; He is pursuing you too.  And what a joy it is!  What is your next step in the realm of faith?  May we all continue to go further up and further in.  As we do, we shall be united with our destiny.

Wow!  It has been quite some time since I have posted on here, and there could be pages of updates I am sure.  As I mentioned in my last entry I spent a couple of months at the beginning of the new year writing a book about identity, which was an extremely fruitful time for my spirit.  Since that time, I have been spending the bulk of my time working at Scott’s lawn-service, as my friend Aaron puts it, rebuking weeds!  This job has also been extremely blessed, as for the first time in my life I have been able to memorize mass chunks of scripture.  Obviously, my writing has taken somewhat of a back seat during this season.  Much of my reflection and processing has been done through song-writing, something new I have dabbled with.  Baby continues to grow and Brie and I anticipate the day of arrival with eager hearts!  The next months promise to be a great season of transition.  God has some big things up his sleeve.  We continue to grow in the miraculous, and the realm of the Spirit, and have been blessed with a couple prophetic words from others as we prepare for what is ahead.

Anyway, I wanted to take some time to reflect briefly over a very undeveloped thought that was subtly percolating in my spirit this past weekend as Brie and I went camping.  The thought is centered around 1 Corinthians 3:11-23, and we shall see what we can make of it here:

“For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.  Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is.  If anyone’s work is burned he will suffer loss; be he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.  Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?  If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him.  For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.  Let no one deceive himself.  If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.  For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with god.  For it is written, “He catches the wise in their own craftiness”, and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.”  Therefore let no one boast in men.  For all things are yours: whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or things present or things to come – all are yours.  And you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s”

Peter tells us the second chapter of his first epistle, “Therefore, it is also contained in the scriptures, “Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect and precious, and he who believes on him will by no means be shamed.”  This is the same foundation or cornerstone Paul is talking about in the Corinthians text above, namely, Jesus Christ.  Jesus has been laid in Zion, as the beginning of something great!  I would tell you that it is, “Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the City of the Living God.  Thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, the church of the Firstborn, whose names are written in heaven.” (See Hebrews 12)  This is God’s finished product, his agenda, his to-do list, Mt. Zion, his glorious city.  I looked at the end of the Bible in Revelation, that’s how I know!  Now salvation is equitable to being one of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven.  As God declares, if you believe in Jesus, the cornerstone of the city, you will not be shamed.  Perhaps another time I will go into greater detail about what I think it biblically means to believe on him, but I’ve got to limit myself.  I’m already getting stretched here! 

The Corinthian text clues us in though on a biblical reality beyond salvation.  God certainly wills that none shall perish, and that all will be brought to repentance (See 2 Peter 3) because he loves all people equally.  However, not all have equal favor in his eyes.  Some will certainly perish, but more than that, not all will receive the same eternal reward.  Our work will be tested on the day of judgment, and what we have built well, will be to our favor, and what we have built poorly will be to our loss.  There is a lie of false grace, a misuse of grace, rampant in the church, that says it does not matter what I do in this life as long as I am not sinning.  In some circles it is used to excuse sin as well, but that is a different matter.  What I am talking about, is the statement that looks something like this, “I can go ahead and continue doing ______, because as long as I do it for God’s glory he will be pleased.”  This in and of itself is not necessarily untrue.  I can certainly work at Scott’s and please God.  However, we must learn what pleases him.  Hebrews 11:7, or something like that tells us, “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because in order to come to him, one must believe he exists, and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him!”  So God is pleased with, and REWARDS those who earnestly seek him.  People hungry for his presence please God, but what else is God serious about.  MT. Zion, his church, his everlasting city, his KINGDOM, is what God is working toward.  That Kingdom essentially is his presence, but Kingdom-builders please God.  So what pleases God? Seeking his presence in building his Kingdom, his City, his Church, Zion!

What we see here then is that not matter what we are doing, if we aren’t doing that, it is indeed worthless!  Jesus has enlisted us as builders of His city upon Himself as a foundation, and our work will be tested by fire at the end of time!  I fear that much of the church is going to see a haystack of their life go up in flames to find the small nugget of gold that was their worthy works.  I am determined to have God help my clean up my mountain of Gold, by burning the few stray pieces of straw, wood, and even silver that somehow worked their way into the pile that is my life.  We need to get eternally minded!  If you spend your entire lifetime working for what you think is a great cause, but that never touches the heart of heaven, or adds a single beam to the structure of the eternal church, than you will be destitute for eternity!  The church has got to stop using grace as an excuse to stay a part of mainstream America.  The writer of Hebrews applauds those, “Who were tortured and refused to be released so that they might gain a better resurrection!”  Paul says, “I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it, but one thing I do, forgetting what is behind, and straining on toward what is ahead, I press on to take hold of the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus!”  Are you straining for a prize, are you living to gain a better resurrection?!

Man, I myself even thought as I grew in my understanding of grace, and the lavishness of our Heavenly Father, I would get a bit more easygoing in my zeal and fervor, but the opposite must indeed prove true!  I mean, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of god dwells in you?”  Peter lets us know that we have been given, “exceedingly great and precious promises, that you may be partakers in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lusts!”  The divine lives in us, and he by grace has opened the door for us to once again be partakers in his nature.  “God made man in his image, male and female he created them.”  (See Genesis 2)  It is grace that has allowed us to escape the corruption of the world, and start building for eternity works that will withstand the heavenly fire, but instead grace gets twisted as an excuse to stay in corruption, it is used as a “cloak for vice” (See 1 Peter 2).  Peter goes on to say, “For this very reason, in all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, to brotherly kindness love.”  He later goes on to say, “For so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly, into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ!”  What does that word abundantly mean?  How can an entrance be supplied abundantly?  The answer, some will sneak into heaven, “as through fire,” and others will enter the great city through abundant celebration as, “master-builders.”  We see a glimpse of this picture in the parable of the minas.  The man who earned ten minas is given ten cities, the man with five given five cities, and the one with one has his taken and given to the one with ten.  Two interesting observations here, first of all – there will not be equality in heaven!  Secondly, there will neither be jealousy, nor is there the competitive difference we might see in earth.  In telling the story Jesus says about the one who got five, after he has already spoken about the one who got ten, “you also be over five cities.”  Why does Jesus say you also and then tell the man something completely different than he told the first?  To one he says you be over ten cities and to the other you also be over five?  Ten and five are certainly different quantitatively, but qualitatively, they are both eternal reward well earned, so he says, “you also.”

Let’s go back to the end of the Corinthians passage to close what is once again a disjointed rambling helping me to understand something not quite materializing in my conscious mind.  I would love to talk in depth about choosing foolishness, but I will spare that for the most part.  However, I will say, that I was just yesterday telling Brie how I remember the first time God got me with this verse, “If anyone seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.”  I looked at my life at that point as I was beginning college and realized that I was “worldly-wise” to perfection.  Since that time I have chosen foolishness for the sake of Christ, and am now beginning to taste the fruits of eternal wisdom!  To close though, Paul writes, “Therefore let no one boast in men.  For all things are yours: whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or things present or things to come, all are yours.  And you are Christ’s and Christ is God’s.”  The Eternal City of God is our inheritance, so our fellow-members of that city, Paul, Andrew Wiens, Martin Luther, Bill Johnson, all collectively belong to each-other.  Think of Romans 12 or 1 Cor.12.  We are one body, and thus all members of that body belong to each other.  Easy enough.  Our inheritance is eternal so the world, life and death all belong to us as tools and stepping stones to the eternal.  Again, easy enough,.  But then the last two, things present and things to come are ours.  This very moment of my writing, the next moments coming and the rest of my life, all belong to me, because I have power over how they turn out.   Again easy enough!  Notice what’s missing though: the past.  The past is not ours!  God has been teaching me tons over the past month in terms of understanding the relationship between the temporal and the eternal.  This is another chapter in that textbook.  When we live a  moment in the temporal it becomes eternal.  In fact, it was always eternal, because God foreknew it, but it has officially lost its power in the temporal once it has left.  It can indeed effect the present or future if we are wise, but it has been lost.  It does not belong to us.  I think of it as if every second that I live here in the temporal is immediately transferred to my eternal account.  Everyone has one, you don’t need to be a Christian to have one either.  That account fundamentally represents our lives, perhaps a large bank vault if you will.  And each vault has a door.  On the day of judgment if that door frame does not have the blood of Jesus Christ as the blood of Passover then everything in that vault will be destroyed no questions asked.  However, where there is blood, there will still be fire, to determine what is truly of value in each vault!  What remains is as heavenly reward, and it will all have originated from heaven.  No one will create something in the temporal to withstand eternal flame.  We will only be gifted the eternal to give it away, thus to receive it back again in eternity. 

So what is the point here?  We do not own our past.  God does!  It is locked up in an eternal vault, and it is only the present and future that belong to us. Thus, be free of your past.  If you know you have build up a bunch of flammable junk in your vault be free of it.  The way has been opened for you to be a partaker of the divine nature, and let me tell you when you live in the divine nature you will be stowing away gold with each passing second.  My prayer for well over a year has been that every second I live will have eternal value.  I am just starting to understand what that means.  Jesus Christ is the only man ever to live whose entire life stack withstood the flames.  Let us follow in his example!  He says, “I do only what I see the father doing.” Live to be able to say that about your life!