When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots surrounded the city. ‘O my lord, what shall we do?’ the servant asked. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ the prophet answered. ‘Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’ And Elisha prayed, ’O Lord, open his eyes so he may see.’ Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.” 2 Kings 6:15-17

Few of us are ever aware of the provision and power that God offers us when we face impossible moments in our lives. I admit that I am one who often misses it as well.  I love the story of Elisha when he was surrounded by the army of Aram in the small town of Dothan. The king of Aram was at war with Israel. Each time he set an ambush for Israeli troops, Elisha would receive a word of knowledge from the Lord, warn the leaders of Israel, and the King of Aram’s plans would fail miserably. His initial thought was that a spy was leaking his battle plans to Israel but one of his officers convinced him that the Elisha was the one informing on the King when he said, “None of us my lord the king, but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the very words you speak in your bedroom” (2 Kings 6:12).

The King immediately ordered a nationwide manhunt for the prophet who was to be found and captured. Word got back to the king that Elisha had been seen in Dothan in northern Samaria and so he commanded his army to surround the settlement. The verses above record Elisha’s servant’s response when he peered out from Dothan early in the morning. What he saw was an impossible situation for himself and his master. An army surrounded the small town. He probably assumed that the army of Aram was there to kill Elisha and most likely his servant as well. He saw no solutions and felt totally overwhelmed by his circumstances and the power of the enemy.

What we discover through the story is that the Lord had already responded to the need of Elisha and his servant with the power of heaven which was already poised to do battle on behalf of the man of God. The servant was terrified because he had no faith or experience to see what God had already made available in this impossible moment. Apparently, God left the fate of those soldiers in the hands of his prophet who could have called on the angelic army to destroy his enemies. Instead, he asked the Lord to strike the army blind for a season while he led them to Samaria where they were eventually released. After a demonstration of God’s power on behalf of his people, the text says, “So the bands from Aram stopped raiding Israel’s territory” (2 Kings 6:23).

Here is the lesson. If God is for us, who can stand against us? God is never taken by surprise. When the King of Aram ordered the capture of Elisha, God had already provided for Elisha’s victory. The servant was overcome by fear. Given the chance he would have stolen away in night and hidden in the hills. Elisha, having faith in both the power and the character of God, stood without fear and saw the provision of God that others could not.

We will all face our impossible moments when no strength or resource of our own will provide the victory we need. Failing marriages, children bent on self-destruction, financial crisis, stage-four cancer, or the overwhelming loss of a loved one. We all come to moments when we feel as if we are surrounded by an overpowering force that we cannot stand against. In the moment, pray Elijah’s prayer for yourself, “O Lord, open my eyes that I might see! Lord, show me by faith and by your Spirit, the power and provision that you have already made available to me for this impossible moment. For with you nothing is impossible.”

In this upcoming year, many of us will face circumstances that, from the natural perspective, seem impossible. Our first inclination will be to feel the same panic that Elisha’s servant felt. Even if we remember this story, our first inclination may also be to think that God would send angels to rescue a great prophet but we are not great prophets.   In that moment, remember that you are a son or daughter of the King. You are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. You live under a better covenant than Elisha and you have the Spirit of God living within you. Remember that “all angels are ministering spirits sent forth to serve those who will inherit salvation” (Heb.1:14) and you are an heir of salvation. More than that, God has said he will never leave you nor forsake you.

No matter the circumstance take heart because in the kingdom of God, those who are with us are always more than those who are with them. Graham Cooke often says that every crisis carries an opportunity to discover more of the goodness of God that is always there for us. No problem comes our way that does not already have a solution in heaven. Because our Heavenly Father is good, he is always willing to provide the answer. When the circumstance arises, don’t be afraid but ask the Lord to give you eyes of faith to see the provision that is already at hand. Blessings and faith in the year to come.

This morning I remembered a story my wife Susan had shared with me about a tribe in Africa that takes a unique approach to tribal discipline. When a tribe member breaks one of the tribal laws or social conventions, the assumption is that the individual is essentially good but broken. Instead of punishing the behaviors, they place the offending individual in the middle of the village and for two days, the rest of the tribe surrounds them and speaks positive things and good names over them.

The story didn’t report on the tribe’s assumptions about the benefits of the ritual but I’d like to speculate on a few possibilities. If they assume an evil spirit has corrupted the person, then perhaps they sense they can fight evil by speaking good over the person and in that way drive out the evil influence. They must believe their words have power. Perhaps, they believe the person has forgotten his or her essential goodness and so two days of declarations reminds them of who they are or “reboots” them to their default settings. Perhaps, all the positive things spoken over the offender are designed to call them to a higher standard of living. I have no idea if there has been any Christian influence in the tribe but there is something very biblical and very powerful about their approach.

Now, I am speaking about our tribe of believers only. Ours is the tribe marked by the presence of the Holy Spirit living in us. Mankind, in general, is not essentially good because mankind has a fallen nature. However, once an individual has been born again, has become a new creation, and has the Spirit of God within…he or she must be considered essentially good. God says that we are priests and kings, holy and sanctified, sons and daughters in the household of God, and partakers of the divine nature.

Within each of us is the goodness and greatness of God. This goodness and greatness is the reality that God has placed within us. It is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, but that fruit is a potential that needs to be called out, nurtured, and activated. James says something interesting in regard to this truth. He says, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Ja. 4:29). What is spoken to us and over us has a powerful affect on our identity or our self-image.   We usually live up to what we believe about ourselves and what is spoken to us year after year shapes those beliefs.

There is also a prophetic aspect to the things we speak over another person. In the book of Judges, Gideon is an Israelite hiding his harvest from Midianite raiders. As far as we know, he had no military training. Yet, the angel of the Lord greets him by saying, “The Lord is with you, Mighty Warrior” (Judges 6:12). Gideon was not yet a mighty warrior but the purposes of God for his life had been established from his conception and the angel was prophetically activating those purposes. The Apostle Paul instructs the church at Corinth that prophetic words spoken over believers should always strengthen, encourage, and comfort (1 Cor.14: 3). Those words begin to call out God’s purposes in us and activate the goodness and abilities that God has placed in us through his Spirit.

There are numerous other passages in the N.T. that have the same flavor. Nowhere do I see passages commanding the opposite. The gospel of the flesh and of hell would certainly contain commands and passages such as: Be ye critical and rejecting of one another. Be hateful and demeaning in all that you do. Be quick to point out failure and remind one another of those failures as often as you come together. Be careful to shame one another as if that will produce righteousness. Speak the truth one to another with great disdain and condescension. We could go on…but you get the drift.

However, the Holy Spirit spends a great deal of time telling us who we are in Christ. He goes to great lengths to describe our new identity as children of the Most High God. The writers of the New Testament speak that identity over the church throughout their letters. They usually begin their letters by acknowledging who they are in Christ. For instance: “To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints” (Rom. 1:7). “To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy…(1 Cor.1:2). “To the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus” (Eph.1:1). There is purpose and intentionality in doing that. Most of these churches had flaws that needed to be corrected but the writers began by affirming their goodness in Christ.

Our identity, our holiness, our strength, our glory, and our victories have all been spoken by God and written down. His Spirit wants to put those words in our mouths. As we also declare the word of God given to us, his word once again goes forth. As it goes forth, it accomplishes its purpose. God calls us to be a tribe that surrounds those among us who are broken and declare good things over them. We are to call out who they are in Christ and the destiny he has ordained for them so that God’s word will accomplish its purpose in their lives.

As we speak honor to one another, encourage one another, and speak only words that build up, we help to establish the believer’s self-image – the internal view we hold of ourselves. We always live up to or down to that view. But more than that, we activate supernatural forces that draw those things out of us and make them realities. The words we speak that are God’s words are not only true but also prophetic in nature. As we, like Ezekiel, prophesy over the wasteland of someone’s brokenness, life will come forth. We should speak that same word of God over ourselves, as well, until we see God’s goodness and greatness fully formed in us.

James instructs us to be fountains of fresh water that constantly speak blessings rather than springs of salt water that kill living things by our negative words and evaluations. God calls us to speak life rather than death. That should begin with our spouses and children and then spread to all those we encounter. This doesn’t mean we cannot correct or point out fault but we do so with the conviction that those we are speaking to are valued by God and also have a positive destiny established by their creator. Our words can help them discover that destiny and fulfill God’s purposes in their lives. As we enter the New Year, may we all commit to speak only words that build up and impart life even when others are not as gracious.

I love Christmas. Even though it has been secularized and commercialized, beneath all the misplaced cultural debris, there is still a promise that calls out to the hearts of men. I believe it is the promise of peace, which is the secret longing of every person I know. I’m not talking primarily here about world peace, but rather about the peace in a man’s heart.

The prophet Isaiah spoke to this promise hundreds of years before Christ when Israel was in great turmoil and the future for that little nation seemed dark and foreboding. In the midst of that darkness he declared, “ Every warrior’s boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he 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. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this” (Isa.9:5-7).

On the night of Christ’s birth, the angels echoed this prophecy when they declared, “Peace on earth, good will towards men.” This little verse in Isaiah contains amazing revelations of God’s heart towards his people and a promised world to come. The revelations are much more easily seen this side of Christmas and the cross than they were then, but even then they were full of hope.

Of course, from the days of David, God had promised that an heir of King David would sit on David’s throne and rule the nation in righteousness. The promise had a condition. God would establish the throne of David as long as his descendant was faithful to the Lord by keeping all of his commandments. Many kings in Judah came to the throne, but one by one they failed to finish out their reigns in righteousness. As the years passed, the Jews began to long for the Messiah – an anointed one of God who would be the one promised. He would have to be a descendant of David from the tribe of Judah but he would be the chosen and righteous one about whom the prophets spoke. They, of course, saw him as the deliverer – another Moses who would deliver them from centuries of oppression by foreign nations. Because so many “promising” kings had failed to live up to the standards of the prophecy, some Rabbi’s began to suspect that a man of flesh and blood would never fit the bill so that a Son of God himself might have to enter the world and take his place on David’s throne.

This little section from Isaiah speaks of that Messiah. Interestingly, he would not descend from heaven in power and glory to take his throne – at least, not at his first coming. Instead, he would do the incomprehensible. He would become a child and enter the world through a Jewish virgin’s birth canal who grew up in the backwater province of Galilee. “Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” (Isa.7:14). Immanuel means “God with us.” Again, we see these prophecies from this side of the manger, but for the Jews these bits and pieces of Messianic prophecies it must have been incredibly puzzling and hard to piece together much like the end-times prophecies we struggle to make sense of.

But here is what we do know. “To us a child is born. To us a son is given.” This child was a gift to men. Jesus did not come for his benefit, but only for ours. Jesus was not commanded nor compelled but came as a gift. John spoke of this when he said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son…” (Jn.3:16). The world was a dirty place then – full of sin, violence, idolatry, witchcraft, sexual perversions, wars, and power grabs. It was a world like today, only without the Internet. Yet, in spite of all that, God still gave us a son.

We are told immediately that God sent his son into the world to govern. Man had been given authority to govern the earth in the beginning but had quickly forfeited that rule to Satan. But now, God was promising to take back the rule of planet earth. The government would rest on this child who was also “God with us.” He would establish it, direct it, and sustain it by his power and righteousness.

This son given to us would eventually be known by many descriptive titles: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. For the Jews, trying to connect the dots between a child born of a woman being called Mighty God and Everlasting Father was problematic. They did not have the revelation of a triune God that we have and, even with that revelation we still struggle to get our minds around that concept. But the truth is that no man born in bondage to sin could fulfill that role. Jesus was born capable of sin but not in bondage to it because he was a product of the Holy Spirit rather than a sinful father. The everlasting descriptor gives us what the Jews of Isaiah’s day never had – the assurance that once this righteous king ascended the throne, he would never die and vacate his position to an ungodly predecessor who would call down God’s judgments on the nation once again.

A significant revelation is found in the nature of the kingdom. Notice that he was not described as a king who would come to crush the opposition and establish his throne with the blood of men. He came to establish his throne with his own blood and to love his enemies rather than annihilate them. His throne would be established by wise and wonderful council and, instead of being known as Jesus the Terrible, he would be known as the Prince of Peace. His goal was not to be war and conquest, but peace on earth. He came first to reconcile men to God and then to one another.

Christmas reminds us of that promise that is yet to come in its fullness. As we sense the best about Christmas – love, generosity, joy, reconciled relationships, surprises, etc. – we sense the character of the world to come when Christ will sit on David’s throne and rule with justice and righteousness forever. Think of a world without conflict, without natural disasters, without divorce, without death, without corruption, without cancer, without war, without slavery, and without shame. Think of a world where no hospitals are needed and where terrorism isn’t a word in the dictionary. That is the world to come and those peaceful, quiet, loving, and unselfish moments you sense or glimpse or hope for at Christmas time is the promise of things to come. The angels announced God’s intent – Peace on earth, good will towards men.

That promise still stands and God will fulfill that promise because he declared, “The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this!” Take the best of Christmas and it’s deepest ideas and know that those qualities are God’s ultimate desire for you and for all those who love him. It is just a taste of the good things to come.

I have had two conversations with dear friends in the past week who are struggling with the loss of loved ones.  The holidays magnify that loss. Both had prayed with faith for healing; both eventually lost a spouse to cancer. One loss is a few months old, the other lost his wife two years ago on Christmas Eve. Both had been married for decades.  Both had loving marriages. Now both are still grieving and can’t seem to get a vision for their lives beyond the loss. Both will have to walk out the process of grieving their loss and then moving on. That is not always easy. Those two conversations also reminded me of people I have known who had lost a spouse or a child years ago but who were still unable to get past that moment. For them it is as if life ended when their loved one died and will be on hold until they join that loved one in eternity. The loss of the life of the one still living doubles the tragedy of the one who died.

Loss is part of life.  Those who love us will lose us eventually unless Jesus returns in our lifetime. Some losses seem natural as when a 95 year old saint passes quietly in her sleep while others seem out of time and tragic.  When they do occur, we need direction from the Lord. I think an unexpected template for moving ahead after loss may be found in the Book of Joshua.

“After the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua, ‘Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people get ready to cross the Jordon River into the land I am about to give to them – to the Israelites. I will give you every place where you set your foot as I promised Moses…be strong and courageous because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them’” (Josh 1:1-3,6).

We need to try to grasp the impact of Moses’ death on the nation and on Joshua. Moses was the George Washington of Israel. He had confronted Pharaoh, led the people out of Egypt, and through the Red Sea. It was Moses who had gone up on Sinai in the face of darkness, rock-shattering thunder, and fire. It was Moses who had personally received the Law, directed the building of the tabernacle, and had stood between God and Israel on several occasions pleading their cause. It was Moses who stood face-to-face with God each day receiving directions for the people. And it was Moses who had led Israel to the banks of the Jordon River to take the land after forty years in the wilderness. Moses had truly been the Father of Israel, the mediator, the peacemaker, the prophet, and the one legitimate leader of this nation since its inception.

The loss of Moses must have been staggering. Who could have imagined entering the Promised Land without him? His entire life had been about leading God’s people into Canaan to take possession of the land God had promised to Abraham and his descendants. But at the last minute, God had told him he could not enter the promise land and shortly after that he had died on top of Mount Nebo with no human companion present. The Bible says that God buried him but no one knew where his final resting place was. Israel mourned for thirty days.

Joshua had been his aide and I’m sure Moses had been more than a father to him. I sense that Joshua never anticipated entering Canaan without Moses. Scripture tells us that Moses was 120 years old but “his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone” (Dt.34:7). God simply told him to climb Mt. Nebo one day and he died in the presence of God. The suddenness of his unexpected death must have made the transition more difficult. Suddenly, the mantle of leadership that had been on Moses for 40 years was thrust onto Joshua.

Moses was prohibited from entering the promised land because he had “rebelled” against the Lord in the desert. God had directly commanded Moses to speak to a rock from which he would provide water for Israel, but Moses, in anger, struck the rock with his staff. Water came forth from the rock but not in the way God had directed. God responded, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them” (Num.20:12). As the time approached for Israel to possess Canaan, Moses was taken from them since he could not enter with them. I have to say that my first to response to the consequence of Moses striking the rock seems extremely harsh and even unfair. After the faithfulness that Moses had shown in the midst of an unbelieving Israel for 40 years, it seems that God should have forgiven the moment and allowed Moses to enter the land to which he had guided the Hebrews.

Sometimes we make the mistake of looking at consequences in the natural realm as if they reflect our standing with God in the spiritual realm. Jesus says that to whom much is given, much is required. Leadership is judged more strictly than those who follow because leaders set the tone for those they lead. The issue (sin) that Israel had demonstrated for 40 years was the issue of rebellion, going their own way, and disregarding the word of the Lord. Unfortunately, in a moment of anger, Moses had done the same.

If there had been no consequence for the leader of the nation, the rest of the Israelites would have felt free to disregard the word of the Lord as well when it suited them. I know that Moses was forgiven still held in high regard by the Lord, because on the Mt. of Transfiguration, it was Moses and Elijah who were chosen to meet with Jesus. Trust and obedience would be the key to Israel’s ability to possess the land God had given them and so the consequence of disobedience had to be demonstrated. And yet, I still wonder, how Joshua felt about that as he was dealing with the loss of Moses and the challenges that lay ahead of him. Did the loss of his spiritual father, mentor, and hero challenge his view of the goodness of God? I don’t now, but these men and women of scripture were flesh and blood just as we are, not superheroes. They struggled with the same doubts and fears that we experience in the face of loss and disappointment. They too had to find a way to move ahead.

God’s pronouncement that Moses was dead in the first chapter of Joshua was not news to Joshua. Essentially, God was making the point that for Israel and for Joshua, one chapter had ended, while another chapter was beginning. A man once said, “Life is lived in chapters, and it is a wise man who knows what page he is on.” Moses had fulfilled his destiny, now it was time for Joshua to fulfill his.

Very often, we tie our own lives and futures so closely to another person that if we lose him or her, we feel as if our life has ended as well. But for those who still live, there is always more. Being willing to step into the other things that God still has for you is an expression of faith. It is also the way out of grief and sorrow. Certainly, there is a needed time to mourn. It is longer for some than for others. Israel and Joshua mourned for 30 days, but then it was time to step into the next chapter of life. The same is true for us.

To do so does not mean that the person you have lost was not loved or should not be honored. Many people refuse to go on with their lives or to rejoice in God’s blessings because they feel that to do so would somehow diminishe their love and their loss. You will continue to love and honor that person as Moses has been loved and honored for millennia, but God has more. Life is a gift and a stewardship that is ours to unwrap and live. God told Joshua that it was time to move on because there was still an inheritance to be claimed. In fact, moving ahead and claiming the inheritance was the very legacy Moses had left. There was still a path laid out for Joshua and Israel to follow and everywhere they set their feet, God would give that portion of their inheritance to them. The corollary is important. Wherever they did not set their feet, they would not receive what had already been provided by the Lord.

Our inheritance in the Lord is like a field that he has cleared, tilled, planted, and watered. It has come to fullness and he has given us the harvest…but we must go into the field and pick or glean what is there. It is all ours, but we only enjoy and benefit from that part that we take hold of…the part where we set our feet. After a loss or disappointment, there is still an inheritance that he wants us to go after. There is a time to close the chapter we have been living and move on to the next. Paul put it this way. “Forgetting those things are behind, I press forward.” This is not to say that we forget the people we have loved but we recognize that there is still more of the field to be harvested and to do less dishonors God. Moving ahead into Canaan and taking the land without Moses, still honored his vision and so honored him.

There are times when we must simply make a decision that it is time to move on and steward the rest of out lives. It is time to see what is written in the next chapter. It is time to grab hold of the destiny God still has for us. The same is true after a failure. Failure can stop us in our tracks just like a loss and we can stay stuck in a place of feeling disqualified for years. That is from Satan. David experienced a huge moral failure in his life – adultery and murder – but in Psalm 51, David prayed to God, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation …then I will teach transgressors your way and sinners will turn back to you.” David realized that his shame, his feelings of disqualification, and his own sense of guilt was robbing God of his service. He had already confessed and was already forgiven, but stepping back into a role of spiritual and political leadership was daunting. Somehow it seemed better to pine away with self-condemnation than to attempt to move ahead and fulfill his destiny. Yet moving ahead was the will of God for him. To do less was to give the enemy a victory and to rob God of the fruit that David’s life could still produce.

We will all experience loss, failure and disappointment in life. It is the fabric of a fallen world. The holidays seem to magnify all those feelings because Christmas calls us to an ideal and we live in the real. But whether it is loss or failure that has taken all the momentum out of your life, remember that God still has more for you. Don’t put it off too long. Honor God and you honor those you have lost. Move ahead in obedience and you redeem the failures in your past. This Christmas may you look forward to the chapters that lie ahead while you reflect on the chapters you are closing.

The cost of our redemption was steep on the front in not just at the cross.  It was steep for the Son of God who once sat on a throne of glory in heaven. He shrunk himself down to the size of an ovum and was born in a stable instead of a palace. When Jesus told a would be disciple that the Son of Man had no place to lay his head, he was echoing the circumstances of his birth as well as his public ministry.  Jesus could have descended in glory and lightening when he first came into the world but chose to totally identify with us so he came as a baby,  In doing so, he made himself incredibly vulnerable to the weaknesses, brokenness,  and violence of men. After eventually returning to Nazareth, he grew up subject to rumors that he was an illegitimate child, perhaps, born to Mary and some Roman soldier.

There was also a steep cost for Mary and Joseph and their families back home – their own loss of dreams and reputation, living among strangers for several years, wondering if Herod had anyone tracking them down, and wondering what their beloved families were experiencing back in Galilee.  It would be several years before Jesus ever knew his grandparents and the cost of those in the region of Bethlehem who lost their own sons to Herod was unbearable.

All this is to say that there was an extreme cost on the front end of the arrival of Messiah and well as on the far end at Golgotha. All this is to say that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit thought you were worth the cost. They still do. The great gift of Christmas is your restored relationship with your Father in heaven. Many of us, especially at Christmas time, live with the sorrow that our lives have not played out as we had hoped. We may feel let down, disappointed, or even abandoned by God. But God would not abandon what has cost him so much. He would not leave someone on the side of the road for whom heaven and earth suffered so greatly. You are not forgotten and you have not been devalued. The holidays often put our sense of loss or disappointment under a magnifying glass so that it seems much larger than at other times of the year.

As humans we have a propensity to focus on one thing that we believe would make us happy and then to make that the measure of God’s love for us. Maybe that one thing would be a relationship, a  breakthrough in your career,  a dream home or a “the perfect job.”  Maybe it was the healing of a loved one or the birth of a healthy child. That “one thing” can easily become an idol and an obsession if we are not careful which, in itself, keeps God from answering those prayers. The ultimate prize is always God and his love for us.When  we question that love we need to remember that God’s love for us was settled at the cross.

The key to happiness is not to focus on the one thing that God has not done for you so far or did not do five years ago,  but to focus on everything he has done for you and to give thanks for those things large and small. In every life and circumstance there are blessings both large and small. Each is evidence of God’s love and grace in your life. The apostle Paul declared, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation^” (Phil.4:11-12).

I believe the secret of contentment is first to have faith that God is good. Since “good” is who he is, he can be no other way toward you. He is very aware of what you are going through and is either using your struggle to perfect you for what lies ahead or is in the process of delivering you from that situation. Either way, there is reason to rejoice. To believe that God’s love rules out all hardship, loss, or battle in this life is to deny every story of faithful men and women in scripture who clearly had God’s stamp of approval on them but who also faced life in a fallen world inhabited by the enemy. God’s love does not create the absence of struggle but sees us through the struggle if our faith endures. Thanksgiving for every touch of God and for everything he has done helps to maintain the perspective that is needed in the dark places  of life.

This Christmas, whether you are on top of the mountain or in a valley, remember that you do matter in heaven. You were redeemed at great cost and are highly valued by your Father in Heaven. The Father has left many gifts for you “under the tree” and each has been carefully chosen. Rejoice in the ones he has already placed there as well as the ones he is carefully choosing for your future. Rejoice in his goodness and remember – peace on earth, good will toward men…and you.

This, of course, is the time of year when thoughts turn to Christmas. Our emotional response to Christmas can be complex and varied. For some it raises warm memories of traditional church plays filled with children, family, delicious food, and a warm house filled with love. For others it registers disappointment and memories of not-so-good Christmases stained by alcohol or emotionally toxic family members. For others it raises the grieving memory of making funeral plans for a loved one on Christmas Day and for others sheer loneliness as they sit in an empty house with no one present to share the day that should be about giving and receiving, loving and comforting, laughing and belonging.

As I have been thinking about Christmas this year, the Lord simply reminded me of how much our redemption cost. We tend to compartmentalize Christ’s sacrifice and suffering to Easter – his arrest, his abuse, his crucifixion. Passover and Easter certainly highlight the incredible cost of our salvation but it not only ended that way but also actually began that way.

Christmas cards sanitize the Christmas story so that it is almost unrecognizable. Susan and I have already received a few with Mary and Joseph and Baby Jesus serenely surrounded by adoring animals in a pristine manger along with appropriately awed shepherds and joyous angels. There is some truth in all of that but it misses the point. The Christmas story begins with Gabriel appearing to Mary in the backwater town of Nazareth. Luke tells us that at his appearance, Mary was greatly troubled. The original Greek would amplify this word to mean confused and deeply troubled or distressed. The angel greeted her first but then added quickly, “Do not be afraid.” You don’t need to say that unless someone is visibly shaken and beginning to panic.

Gabriel then goes on to tell her that the Holy Spirit is about to fall on her, impregnate her, and she will have a son whom she is to name Jesus. He will be called the Son of the Most High and he will reign on David’s throne forever. That’s a lot to take in for a 13-year-old Jewish girl brought up simply, humbly, and traditionally. The true implications of what the angel had just said were probably not comprehensible…except the part where she would be pregnant without having gone through a wedding ceremony and without her marriage being consummated with her fiancé Joseph. Surely her first thoughts were about the impossibility of telling Joseph and her family and the almost certain unlikelihood that anyone would believe her.

The liability of being seen as an adulteress must also have loomed somewhere in the back of her mind. Adultery in those days was taken very seriously and was still punishable by death. In Jewish culture, her engagement was considered marriage although the sexual union could not occur until after the ceremony. To break the engagement required a divorce process. Apparently, her worst fears were realized when Joseph discovered she was pregnant and decided to divorce her quietly. Undoubtedly his heart was shattered by her perceived unfaithfulness and he carried as much shame in the tiny village of Nazareth as she did. Her story was unbelievable even to him until an angel confirmed what she had been telling everyone.

We are not told of the family’s reaction to Mary’s pregnancy and her unbelievable story, but Mary and Joseph’s trip to Bethlehem gives us some insight. According to Luke, Caesar issued a decree for taxation that required the head of each household to register in certain cities. Joseph was a descendent of David whose lineage came from Bethlehem, so off they went on a ninety-mile trek with Mary being very late in her pregnancy. She was not required to go to Bethlehem but went anyway on a trip that probably not only put her at risk but the child as well. To me the only explanation is that she was not particularly welcome in Nazareth even by her family and at the birth of her son there would no joyous occasion as she had always envisioned. She had also lost all of her dreams for a three-day wedding feast with her proud family and friends and the wedding night in which she and Joseph would consummate their holy union. So she went with her husband to a place in which they were apparently unknown to discover, on top of everything else, that no lodging was available.

A manger, a small barn or cave, was available where she would have to make do with some fresh hay while being surrounded by the smell of animal urine, feces, and barn rats. No family members travelled with them to help with the birth. Apparently, no midwife was available in Bethlehem. Joseph and Mary must have felt somewhat abandoned by God and family and must have felt very alone and even scared. They were probably wondering where the blessings were for their obedience because, day by day, things had not gotten better but worse.

Outside of Bethlehem, another disturbing scene was unfolding. In the middle of the night, shepherds, who were minding their own business, were suddenly confronted by angelic visitors. Luke simply says they were terrified. Of course, the angel said, “Do not be afraid” and eventually calmed their nerves with news that Messiah was being born to them and could be found in a stable in Bethlehem. Eventually that night, they found the stable and shared with Mary, who must have been exhausted, what had happened.

Another insight to the atmosphere of shame, gossip, and suspicion back in Nazareth was that Joseph, Mary, and Jesus did not return to Nazareth after the birth. As far as we know, two sets of Jewish grandparents had yet to see their grandson. Matthew tells us of the Magi, wise men or astrologers from the east, who had followed the Star of Bethlehem to find this newborn King of the Jews. This was apparently 18-24 months after the birth of Jesus. It looks as though Mary and Joseph had simply settled in there. These unexpected visitors from the east showed up unannounced and brought gifts of gold, myrrh, and frankincense to Jesus. Mary and Joseph must have been relieved to receive such a nest egg for the family and began to believe that peace and blessings were finally coming their way. Maybe he could expand his business or they could build a little home. But they immediately discovered that these were traveling expenses.

Herod, hearing from the Magi that a king was being born just seven miles from Bethlehem, determined to kill this threat to his own throne. Joseph and Mary were warned in a dream to flee the region and so suddenly became political refugees to Egypt. Herod, in order to secure his throne, simply had every male child in the vicinity killed that night – a night that became known in Jewish history as the Slaughter of the Innocents. So far the Christmas story is not just a story of angelic visitations and good news, but also a story of fear, shame, rejection, loneliness, the loss of dreams, and of a little refugee family fleeing their homeland for several years to live once again among strangers where Hebrews had once been slaves.

I’ve been reading through Judges, I & 11 Kings, and I & II Chronicles lately. A number of themes come out of that reading that are clearly warning flags for us. The first and most famous, of course, is the constant cycle of decades of sin, hardship as discipline from the Father, repentance when discipline became unbearable, redemption, blessing, contentment, apathy, decline, more decades of sin, and so forth. This cycle occurs over and over. As you read, you keep saying to yourself, “Why don’t you knuckleheads get it! Just keep serving God and life is good!” But they don’t. It is often because of generational changes in which the parents apparently did not do a good job of teaching their spiritual history or demonstrating faithfulness to their children. We should be aware of spiritual cycles in our own lives and guard against the downward slopes in our own spiritual histories.

Another recurring theme is disappointing and, perhaps, even disturbing. Numerous kings and spiritual leaders among God’s people demonstrated decades of faithfulness to God and often began with a strong revival and restoration of biblical worship. These men would often arise from a generation of parents who had forsaken God. They would seek God with all their hearts, restore the temple and the priesthood that was often is disrepair, destroy idols and shrines set up to worship false god’s, and renew a covenant with the God of Israel. Inevitably these leaders grew in international influence while their nation prospered and usually lived in peace.

The negative pattern is, however, that as these great men of God grew older, they began to lose their faith, walk in pride, and sometimes fell into hardcore idolatry. Even Solomon lost his way in his later years “For when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians and after Milcom the detestable idol of the Ammonites. Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not follow the Lord fully, as David his father had done. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable idol of Moab, on the mountain which is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the detestable idol of the sons of Ammon. Thus also he did for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods” (1 Kings 11:4-8).

As they grew older and closer to death, we would expect these men of faith to have grown deeper in wisdom and to have drawn closer to God, but the opposite was true. Paul tells us in Romans 15:4 that all these things from the past were written for our learning so we need to consider these patterns of spiritual decline so that we don’t fall into the same traps.

So how could these great men who once spearheaded national revivals and won the approval of God get so far off track? The first caution seems to be that of the danger of blessings. It seems that prolonged blessings, which we all desire, are a two-edged sword. As God blessed these men with health, with abundance, and with peace on their borders they became spiritually apathetic. Extended seasons of blessings can create the illusion that we don’t really need God on a daily basis. When a vast Assyrian army is camped outside the walls of your city or an extended drought is destroying the countryside, it’s not hard to be motivated for a season of prayer and fasting. But when life is good year after year, a man or a woman must be careful to keep the spiritual fires burning. Apathy can creep in when no crisis arises to shake out the cobwebs.

It’s amazing how many mature men and women of God who have served him so well for years begin to coast when they see the finish line rather than kicking hard to finish well. Americans, especially, seem to have a retirement mentality not only from a career but also from the kingdom. Suddenly pleasure, recreation, and grandchildren take all precedence over the things of God. Those things aren’t wrong in themselves but still must stay secondary to the call of the kingdom. What if the apostle Paul had decided one day that it was time to retire; he had done enough; the apostolic life had been hard and he deserved some years of ease before stepping across the finish line? Clearly, as you read his letters, that kind of thinking never entered his mind. He continued to set spiritual goals. He continued to press forward to the finish line. He continued to put himself in situations where he needed God to succeed or even survive. I don’t think we need to put ourselves in life threatening situations but we can certainly put ourselves in places of praying for healing, ministering deliverance, counseling a broken marriage, leading a small group, sharing the gospel, and so forth that keeps our need for the presence of God on the front burner. A choice to keep that built into our lifestyle that would be wise as we grow older.

A second reason for these men falling away was simple pride. After a few years of growing influence and success, these men began to believe that their achievements had come by their own brilliance and hard work. They simply forgot that the source of all that they possessed and all they had accomplished was God. When God sent his prophets to rebuke their pride, the response was rarely repentance but most often anger, arrogance, and even violence against the prophet. In many cases, their pride and arrogance cost them and their children the kingdom.

We need someone in our lives to speak truth to us at the first sign of losing our sense of humility and dependence on God. We need those people and should invite those people to watch our lives and speak to us quickly when they see something in us that is misaligned with the heart of God and the mind of Christ. We need to make sure we always have someone in our lives that we can be honest with about our hearts, our thoughts, our motives and our fears. A wise person will invite input and have a person who can sit in as counselor and prophet in his or her life. If you don’t have that person, pray for God to show you that person. You may not like what you hear but it is a safeguard. The kings of Israel apparently surrounded themselves with people who would not dare speak the truth to them when needed and it cost everyone dearly.

The third primary reason for these men of faith failing in their later years was ungodly relationships. Many fell into idolatry because of the influence of foreign wives they had taken or foreign alliances they had made with other kings and nations who did not serve the God of Israel. Compromise sneaks in little by little until the compromise feels normal. When it feels normal and acceptable, then we are always asked to compromise a little more. At some juncture, there seems to be a tipping point in which we give in altogether. Satan, of course, is in the middle of every compromise. He is willing to be patient and subtle. If it takes twenty five years for you to reach your tipping point he is willing to wait.

The truth is, as we get older, we have less energy to sustain long-time battles. In an effort to find peace, we may begin to compromise with the person or the issue (the devil). We need to make intentional choices upfront about our relationships because they will inevitably influence us. I want to stay surrounded by people who are passionate for God and uncompromising in their love for him. On days when my passion for the Kingdom is waning, I can get some heat from these people and rekindle my own flame.

I need to make an intentional decision about who I want to be as I get older and how I want to finish my race. Having decided that, I need to surround myself with people who will help me be that person and help me finish a strong race. Even Solomon was drawn into idolatry through the influence of his foreign wives in his later years and finished his race very poorly. Such misalignment rarely happens over night. It is usually a long process of small compromises. Because of that, we must choose our relationships carefully…especially spouses and best friends. If we have made a poor choice in the past that continually pushes back against our faithfulness to God in the present, we must be even more intentional about connecting with spiritual people whose influence will help us stay on course. Some relationships may need to be jettisoned. Others will have to be managed. Remember, Jesus said that anyone who does not love him more than mother, father, brothers, or sisters is not worthy of him. We cannot put earthly relationships ahead of Jesus without putting our spiritual lives at great risk.

These lessons from the Old Testament are cautionary. We do have the Spirit of Christ in us but they had the Spirit on them. We are susceptible to the same missteps and same failings. Wisdom demands that we acknowledge that we can all be stupid at any given time so we should build walls of protection around us ahead of time. We should make decisions, choose lifestyles that still need the Lord daily, and become very intentional about relationships that will work to keep us on track and out of a spiritual ditch.

A time of reflection, evaluation, and decisions about these things might be in order at the beginning of 2017. A great goal would be to finish as a Paul not as a Solomon. At the end, Paul was able to say, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing” ( 2 Tim.4:7-8). Blessings and intentionality in the year to come.

When speaking about false prophets, Jesus said, “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them” (Mt.7:15-20).

This warning about false prophets suggests than men will come into the church with hidden agendas and, typically, try to draw followers after them for financial gain or to introduce heresies into the church. Jesus suggested that the fruit they bear will indicate whether they are from God or not. These false prophets apparently are intentional about their deception. Their fruit will be a watered down gospel, division in the church, immorality, and an unbiblical view of Jesus and salvation. These men must be recognized, warned, and dealt with by church leadership in order to protect the flock.

Sometimes, however, parts of the body of Christ have been too quick to label someone with whom they disagree as a false prophet who needs to be immediately run out of town. More often, the church has experienced well-meaning people with poor theology which they came by honestly. Lets face it, most of us were introduced to our view of scripture (theology) by those who brought us to Christ and by leaders in the group that became our initial spiritual family. Because we knew very little or no Bible, we received their teaching without any critical evaluation. We also held these preachers and teachers in high esteem because those with whom we had relationships held them in high esteem. If they taught something that we questioned or that seemed to contradict something we had read in scripture, we typically ignored our objections and accepted their theology because “they knew so much more Bible than we did.” That happens in generations of Christians who trust their teachers who trusted their teachers who trusted their teachers, and so on.

What we need to understand is that poor theology can be passed on by well-meaning and good-hearted people and that we can question their theology without questioning the faith or sincerity of those who hold it. I believe that a great deal of poor or inadequate theology has been passed down from generation to generation in the church and that one of the ways we can evaluate theology, like prophets, is by its fruit.

One of the major theologies that concerns me (okay – aggravates me) today has been around for a couple of hundred years but has really gained prominence among evangelicals in the past fifty years. It is the theology that states that the signs of the end times include the worsening of the world and the inevitable weakening and ineffectiveness of the church.   Embedded in this theology is the idea that this weakening and worldwide persecution of the church is God’s plan and is, therefore, inevitable. Since it is inevitable and since we are surely in the end times, we must simply resign ourselves to the decline of the church and the increase of evil until Jesus returns. Those who accept that premise, tend to give up on redeeming nations and cultures for Christ and settle for getting a few more into the kingdom of God before the end while mostly bunkering in and protecting what we have.

The fruit of that theology has been a defeatist attitude, pessimism, and a fatalistic approach to reclaiming our own nation. Many Christians feel helpless and weak in the face of culture and “big moves” of the devil. The only news that is reported about the church is decline and apathy and so many believers are bunkering in and waiting for the end. There is a problem with that view. Just because something is being reported by anti-Christian media outlets does not make it true or the whole story. The church is flourishing worldwide. Secondly, it is not an acceptable attitude for those who are more than conquerors. I was scanning Bill Johnson’s new book, God is Good, and appreciated what he had to say about that mindset. I thought I would share it with you.

“Vision starts with identity and purpose. Through a revolution in our identity, we can think with divine purpose. Such a change begins with a revelation of Him. One of the tragedies of a weakened identity is how it affects our approach to Scripture. Many, if not most, theologians make the mistake of taking all the good stuff contained in the prophets and sweeping it under the mysterious rug called the Millennium…I want to challenge our thinking and deal with our propensity that puts off those things that require courage, faith, and action to another period of time. The mistaken idea is this: if it is good, it can’t be for now. A cornerstone of this theology is that the condition of the church will always be getting worse and worse; therefore, tragedy in the church is just another sign of these being the last days. In a perverted sense, the weakness of the Church confirms to many that they are on the right course. The worsening condition of the world and the Church becomes a sign to them that all is well. I have many problems with that kind of thinking, but only one I will mention now – it requires no faith! We are so entrenched in unbelief that anything contrary to this worldview is thought to be of the devil” (Bill Johnson, God is Good, p.54-55. DestinyImage Publishing).

Can any theology that bears the fruit of futility, hopelessness, and weakness in the Church be good or healthy theology? How can our biblical identity of being sons and daughters of a triumphant King who has all authority in heaven and on earth, walking in power, doing greater things that he did with a co-mission to go out and make disciples of all nations (not just a handful of people within a nation), fit into that defeatist view of our times?

Jesus does not cower and hide away because the world is bleak. He has overcome the world. We are more than conquerors. Proverbs says that as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. As the church thinketh in her heart so is she. What a coup for the enemy that he has introduced a theology into a large part of the church that accepts decline and defeat for the church as God’s perfect and irresistible plan. The kingdom of God does not retreat. The Kingdom of God does not shrink. It is not the nature of Christ to cower. Whatever happened to the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church? Much of the church seems to be like Israel who hid in their tents when Goliath would come out to challenge them. In their own eyes they were defeated before the battle even started. What we need is a church full of David’s who envisioned holding the head of the giant in his hands because his God was way bigger than any Philistine strong man.

Isaiah declared of Messiah, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he 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 (emphasis added). He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this” (Isa.9:6-7).

I see no parenthesis in the increase of his government. I do not see this occurring only in the Millennium. If that prophecy is confined to the age to come, then Jesus is not yet on the throne of David, not yet Prince of Peace, not yet Wonderful Counselor, and so forth. We can evaluate theology by its fruit and make biblical adjustments without calling those who promote it false prophets. If they are preaching their best current understanding of scripture with sincerity, they are not false prophets. They are simply men and women who need to reconsider their theology apart from the orthodox status it has among their denominational leaders. By the way, most of the churches who hold this pessimistic view of a languishing church in the end times are also cessationist churches that believe that God no longer performs miraculous feats on behalf of his people. Powerlessness, of course, breeds despair.

If you have felt despair and hopelessness in your life and your world because of this theology, you have my permission to reconsider your understanding. Anything that works against faith, hope, optimism, and a conquering spirit but instead produces fear and doubt cannot be of God. If the fruit of that view has produced good fruit in your life and church them hang on to it. If not, do some more study with a different set of eyes.

If we know who we are in Christ – sons and daughters, priests and kings, the temple of the Holy Spirit, seated with Christ in Heavenly realms, more than conquerors, ambassadors of Christ, healers, prophets, those who trample on snakes and scorpions, and those who will do even greater things than he did – then we cannot accept a theology that negates everything we are.

From time to time we need to examine what we really believe and what beliefs or theologies are influencing us. What has the fruit been in your life? If your theology or your church’s theology has been Christ-centered, empowering, encouraging, hopeful, demon-kicking, and transformative then you are in a good place. First of all, those qualities reflect the character and Spirit of Christ and any truth from him should bear that fruit in us. If, however, you are discouraged, fearful, dreading the future, and exhausted…that is not from Christ for we have not been given a spirit of fear but of power, love, and a sound mind.

Check the fruit not only of prophets but also of theologies. Ask the Holy Spirit to lead you into all truth and give you a greater understanding of who you are and who He is in these present days. After all, that us part of his job description and no matter what is happening around us, he that is in us is greater than he that is in the world. Our Lord has already overcome this world and we already share in that victory… so be encouraged and blessed in Him today.

Our church heard a good word from pastor Jim Laffoon last night. Jim made the point that God’s greatest challenge on this earth is not Satan nor broken cultures nor persecuting tyrants, but his broken church. That thought is worth some reflection.

The kingdom of God has significant challenges that stand in the way of establishing God’s will on earth as it is in heaven. There is Satan. There are powerful, corrupt, and atheistic governments. There are defiled cultures that rival Sodom and Gomorrah. There are powerful tyrants that persecute the church and there is a powerful, godless media that shapes the mind of the world. And yet, the church is designed and empowered to overcome every one of those obstacles. Jesus said that even the very gates of hell would not prevail against his church. And yet the world, in many quarters, seems to be winning.

The problem is not that the world is bigger and badder than God anticipated. The problem is that the church is made up of a huge percentage of people who are broken and in bondage to all kinds of things and who are not walking in the freedom and power that God offers. The question then is why is such a large percentage of the church broken and in bondage? Jesus said that he had come to heal the broken hearted and to set captives free (see Isa.61 and Luke 4). So why isn’t he doing his job?

Obviously, the problem isn’t with Jesus. The problem exists on this end. To a large degree, the problem is that a large part of the church has rejected or limited the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Jesus told his followers that when he left he would send another – the Holy Spirit – and as a result, they would be better equipped than if Jesus were physically present with them. He told them and us that the Spirit would come to be our counselor, our comforter, our teacher, our guide, and the transformer of our character (the fruit of the Spirit). He was also very clear that the Spirit would come to give us power for ministry.

In the beginning, Jesus commanded his followers to stay in Jerusalem until they received power from the Holy Spirit (Acts 1). He didn’t mean that the power of the Holy Spirit would help them do their best and be their best. He meant that the Spirit would operate in them with a supernatural power that would go beyond anything they were capable of even on their best day. Just fifty days earlier the apostles had shown what their “best” was. They ran away. Peter denied Christ three times. They had no comprehension of the resurrection and they simply hid from the authorities and some doubted even when Jesus appeared in the room with them. However, the moment after the Holy Spirit fell on them and imparted power to them, they stood in the temple courts and boldly preached that Jesus was Lord to the same crowd that had crucified him less than two months earlier. As they did so, they spoke in languages they had never learned.

That is a template for the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the Lord’s church and in the life of every believer. The anointing for personal transformation and power to change the world is found in the full ministry of the Holy Spirit. The supernatural move of the Spirit in us and through us is everything. And yet, much of the church has done its best to minimize the Spirit and in doing so we have minimized the church. The idea that the entire ministry of the Holy Spirit is to simply give us a little insight into scripture and to make us into a gathering of nice people is a real weapon of the enemy.

The theology that the Holy Spirit no longer operates in supernatural power through his people has effectively declawed the Lion of Judah. The church in America is full of demonic presence because she quit believing in the supernatural moves of God or even the supernatural moves of the devil. Recently, a believer from another church in our city went through our eight-week Free Indeed class and Freedom Weekend and was delivered from several spirits. That believer went back to his church and when praying and counseling with one of their members realized that a demonic spirit was manifesting so he cast it out. Not too long after that episode of freedom and supernatural ministry, one of their church leaders told them that they didn’t do that in their church. As a result, many members of that church will continue in brokenness and bondage and will never step into the destiny God has written for them.

The word Christ means “the anointed one.” Jesus Christ is the Anointed One of God. He declared in Luke 4 that he was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy that says, “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, release from darkness for the prisoners…(Isa:61:1). The very things Jesus did required the Spirit of the Lord to be upon him. The anointing was the Spirit of God operating supernaturally through him. John tells us that a spirit of anti-Christ is in the world. I believe that spirit not only denies that Jesus is Lord but works against the anointing of the church by the Spirit. I believe cessationism, the theology that God stopped working in miraculous ways at the end of the first century, is one of the doctrines of demons Paul, warned us about in 1 Timothy 4.

As long as we deny the continuing supernatural ministry of the Spirit in his church and through his church we will continue to be broken and in bondage. We will also leave the world in its brokenness and bondage. We will be an army so handicapped that we will win few battles and hold little ground. Jesus himself promised that those who believe in him would do even greater things than he did. I don’t think he was talking about huge buildings, well run programs, and worship productions that rival Vegas. I’m not against big churches, excellent programs, and powerful worship but Jesus was talking about the supernatural healing of broken hearts and transformed identities. He was talking about casting wheelchairs aside, emptying cancer wards, preaching in languages we have never learned, raising the dead, dismissing depression, and casting out devils in greater ways than he ever did.

The church is broken and the full, unleashed ministry of the Holy Spirit is the antidote. I see more and more churches beginning to recognize that truth but then I see them hesitate to actually embrace the power of the Spirit. My prayer is that God will fill his church and every believer with the fullness of his Spirit so that the world will know that Jesus is truly the Anointed One because his church walks in that anointing. That anointing is available to every believer so I also encourage you to ask for it daily as part of your “daily bread.”  May you be blessed today and represent your King with power and love.

The goodness of God is an essential theological truth that affects everything we do and everything for which we pray. When we consider the goodness of God, however, it is hard not to keep shifting between the fearful God of the Old Testament and the God of grace revealed in the New Testament. When hardship comes and stays for a while, most of us immediately think that the judgment of God has landed on us because that is what we see in the Old Testament – you know…global flood, fire consuming Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot’s wife being turned into a pillar of salt, Miriam being struck with leprosy, and so on. If we are not careful, we see God as a God of vengeance and wrath rather than a loving father, and when we see him that way, it is almost impossible to reconcile that view with the Heavenly Father that Jesus talks about who knows and cares if even one sparrow falls to the ground. When we see God that way we are uncertain that he always wants to bless us or we redefine blessing so that it can contain hardship, persecution, loss, death, and illness. If we believe that God may visit those kinds of things on us because they are good for us in the long run, we will not be able to pray against those things with much faith. If we are not clear on what constitutes the works of God and the works of the devil, we will not know how to pray. John defined the works of the devil as everything Jesus attacked in his ministry – sickness, premature death, demonic affliction, condemnation, hunger, shame, etc.

What we need to recognize is that the cross has made all the difference and that the cross was in the heart of God from the foundation of the world (Rev.13:8). God’s revelation of himself and kingdom truths has always been a progressive revelation revealing some things now and some things later. Even Jesus told his disciples, “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come” (Jn.16:12-13).

In our own lives, we hear and understand the truths of the scriptures bit by bit rather than getting a full download the moment we come to faith in Jesus. Even to the apostles, the New Covenant was unlocked bit by bit. On the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit fell on the church, the leaders were totally unaware that God was going to open the door to Gentile believers. According to scholars, it was nearly seven to ten years after Pentecost when Peter received a vision that God had accepted Gentiles into the church without the need to become proselyted Jews before they were saved (Acts 10). It was such a hidden part of the gospel that it took a major conference in Jerusalem to affirm that Gentiles were welcome in the church (Acts 15). That truth was embedded in scripture all along but no one read the texts with that understanding until the Holy Spirit granted them that understanding.

Since God works through progressive revelation, we need to understand that certain things were emphasized in the Old Testament in order to prepare God’s people for a the Messiah. It has been said that the Old Testament revealed the power of sin, while the New Testament reveals the power of righteousness. In the Old Testament, if a man touched a leper he became unclean. In the New Testament, when Jesus touched a leper, the leper was made clean.

Another way to view the progressive revelation of scripture is to see that the holiness of God was emphasized before the cross while the mercy and grace of God has been emphasized since the cross. God’s mercy, grace, and goodness were always there but holiness was center stage. His holiness and judgment is still there, but in Jesus his mercy and grace took center stage. As parents, we love our children from day one and go to great lengths to protect and provide for them. However, we also begin to discipline our children at an early age to teach them right from wrong and to instill in them a healthy respect for their parents. As children, we all learned to obey our parents first through fear of punishment and only later through love and trust. Children function best by rules (law), while adults live by principles (spiritual wisdom). In a sense, parents emphasize their holiness first before they begin to emphasize love and trust. Perhaps, that is what God had to do for the whole human race.

You might say that God went to unreasonable extremes to demonstrate his holiness before the cross – a global flood, entire cities or tribes being wiped out, etc. However, we forget that the thread of salvation that runs through the entire Bible includes the preservation of the bloodline what would finally bring the Savior into the world. We have no awareness of the level of spiritual warfare that went on through the cultures that God removed in an effort to insure the arrival of our Savior. All you need to do is to look at the efforts of Hitler and the Nazi’s to totally remove the Jewish nation from the face of the earth to know the extent that Satan would go through to prevent Messiah from being born. The allies had to “carpet bomb” Germany to overcome the demonic evil that drove Hitler. Tens of thousands of civilians, including women and children, died in those raids. It was the cost of overcoming evil and the consequences of Germany’s refusal to surrender. God faced the same evils in the past and was forced to pour out judgment himself on cities and tribes even though he would have preferred peace.

Another reality exists in the Old Testament as well as we consider the goodness of God. We often forget the lengths that God went to in order to avoid bringing judgment on those nations. Noah preached for 120 years before the flood came trying to get the world around him to repent. God agreed to spare Sodom and Gomorrah if he could find just ten righteous men in the city. He sent his prophets time and again to turn not just Israel but other nations (Jonah and Nineveh, for instance) from evil before sending judgment. If you read the Old Testament carefully you will discover that pain and destruction has never been the heart of God for anyone. “Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign Lord. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live (Ezek.18:23)?

However, the unrelenting wickedness of some men and nations requires judgment. Is a good that does not resist evil really good? Good must resist evil and if evil will not relent then good must destroy it. No one criticized the allies for standing up against Nazi Germany in World War II because evil, like cancer, has to be opposed. But men have sometimes been quick to judge God for the same opposition to unrelenting evil through the centuries.

Having said all that, the cross has changed the landscape of heaven’s dealing with men. Whereas in the Old Testament, the holiness of God was emphasized, the cross now allows God to highlight his mercy and grace. Jesus came not only to save us but also to point out and demonstrate the goodness of God. Jesus was very clear that he was the revelation of the Father among us. Remember that Jesus is Emmanuel or God with us. Secondly, Jesus said that if we have seen him, we have seen the Father (Jn.14). Whenever we ask God to empower us to do what Jesus did, we don’t have to question whether it is God’s will or not. Whatever Jesus did, the Father wants to do all the time. In order for the church to be the church that God envisions, we must define good and evil as Jesus defined it. Bill Johnson says that our skewed definition of good when we say God is good, keeps us from pushing back against the devil. “Instead of creating doctrines that explain away our weakness and anemic faith, we’ll actually have to find out why ‘the greater works than these’ (Jn.14:12) have not been happening in and around us.”

His point is that our faith for doing the works that Jesus did has been so watered down that we have incorporated unhealed sickness, premature death, birth defects, gender confusion, natural disasters, etc. as part of God’s will that we accept and live with rather than seeing those things as works of the devil that we should triumph over by faith. Jesus said that whoever believed in him would not only do what he did but would do even greater things than he had done. The goodness of God was expressed through the works of Jesus and should still be expressed through those who follow Jesus. The goodness of God and our definition of that goodness guides our prayers and our actions. It is essential that we are clear that God wants to do good to his people and even to the lost and that the good he wants to do is not some strange theological definition that visits suffering on his children to purify the soul.

His love and goodness for us is like that of a loving father who always wants to bless and provide. A loving father never enjoys or is indifferent to the injuries or illnesses of his children. He would never give his child cancer to grow his or her faith. He would never inflict his child with a birth defect to make that child more dependent on him. The heart of a loving and wise parent comes from God. We can know what God wants for us by the things we want for our children. As redeemed people, we know our deepest longings for our children and we can have confidence that those longings reflect the Father’s will for all of his children. So…know today that God is good and he wants to bless you and meet every need in a way that blesses as well. Pray for good things (healing, provision, salvation, reconciled relationships, protection, success, etc.) with confidence because God wants to express his goodness through you and for you today.