Our God is a covenant God. He loves to enter into committed relationships in which both parties are true to their promises as a way of deepening and protecting that relationship. He wants us to be the same. When he enters into a covenant with us, our status changes. Sometimes even our name changes. By the blood of Christ, we are transferred from the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of light…the kingdom of the Son he loves (Col. 11:13). Not only are we suddenly citizens of heaven, but also sons and daughters of the King. Not only does our position change, but our very nature changes. We are new creations. God deposits his Holy Spirit within us as a seal of the covenant through which we have been joined to the Maker of Heaven and Earth. His Spirit then changes our nature and enables us to communicate with God, understand his word, and receive power to extend the kingdom of God on earth. The day we entered into a covenant with God, things changed for us not only on earth but also in heaven.

Covenants made on earth can have implications for us in the spiritual realm. Marriage is one of those. Speaking of the marriage covenant, Jesus said, “What God has joined together, let no man separate.” Notice that God joins the couple together. He is involved in the covenant as a witness and a supporter of the promises made in that covenant. God joins the two in a spiritual bond. There is a record of that marriage on the books in heaven. For believers, marriage is much more than a civil contract. It is a spiritual covenant that goes far beyond what the courts of men might say. I have counseled many, many believers who were going though divorce. Typically, the person I counseled did not desire the divorce. But even when there had been adultery or abuse, the divorce was extremely painful.

We often act as if marriage is simply two people who, like two sheets of paper, were stapled at the corner when they said “I do.” When separated, we expect a little tearing to occur, but why all the pain? When God joins us, he doesn’t staple us, but glues or bonds us together so that we become one. When you separate two sheets of paper glued together, there is an infinite amount of tearing and pain. That is because something happens in the spiritual realm that is far more significant than a courthouse record in the natural realm.

This “covenant effect” goes beyond marriage. In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul says, “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: ‘I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.’ ‘Therefore come out from them and be separate,’ says the Lord. ‘Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.’ ‘I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty'” (2 Cor. 6:14-18).

The word translated as “yoked” is better translated “unequally yoked.” It means to tie or yoke two things together that are different, mismatched, or wrongly matched. The idea would be not to yoke a horse and an ox together….two animals with different natures because they would constantly pull against each other rather than with each other. The Old Testament makes it clear that God’s people were not to marry outside of their faith. They were not to enter into treaties with pagan kings and they were definitely not to worship other gods in addition to Yaweh.

In this text, Paul is using the language of the Old Testament for believers living under the New Covenant. We often apply this section only to marriage, but marriage it is not mentioned in the context of being yoked together. That does not mean that this passage does not apply to marriage but that it does not apply only to marriage. It applies to all kinds of covenants, contracts, promises, and other binding or influential agreements. These are relationships that tie us together in some way that obligates us to another person or organization.

Paul’s admonition is not a suggestion or a statement of “best practices.” The verb tenses are in the imperative mode which denotes a command. Here is the reason. We belong to God and his Holy Spirit lives in us. We are citizens of the Kingdom of God and are his children. We are set apart from the world in a covenant with God. Because of his Spirit, we have a different nature, different values, different goals, and a different God from the rest of mankind.

Those who are not in Christ and who do not have the Holy Spirit within them are under the dominion of darkness…whether they know it or not. They may be active members or passive members of that dominion, but they belong to that kingdom all the same. There is no neutral ground in the spiritual realm. They live under Satan’s authority. If you enter into a promise, a contract, or a covenant with those who are in the kingdom of darkness, you create an association with the one they serve. Through them, he can begin to have significant influence in your life. That is why God says to be separate.

Jesus said that we are to be “in the world but not of the world.” We must maintain a separate identity from the world at all times. We must remember who we belong to and who we serve. We must remember that we are holy and the divine presence lives in us. If possible, it would be best to always work for and with believers. There are times when we cannot. Daniel served Nebuchadnezzar but never compromised his faith. In fact, his faith made him stand out as a man of excellence and integrity. Even if we work for a company that is not owned and operated by believers, we must represent the Kingdom of God there. We cannot come into agreement with policies or practices that violate the mandates of our faith.

There are times we must even be physically separate from the world. If individuals or organizations actively and openly oppose the righteous standards of the kingdom, we must not be part of that at any level. When we apply the standards of 2 Corinthians 6 to marriage, we cannot marry an unbeliever. The primary reason for that is who we are, who we represent, and the holiness we are to walk in as hosts of the Holy Spirit. Secondly, it takes an exceptional believer to rub shoulders with unbelievers day after day and not compromise our faith. If you put a good apple in a barrel with rotten apples, it will soon rot. If you put a rotten apple in a barrel with good apples, it does not become good, but will negatively affect the good apples it touches.

The point is that we are to be careful about our associations, our covenants, and our careers. It is not just about money and upward mobility. We are to remember at all times who we are and not find ourselves unequally yoked with the world. So how can we navigate these waters in our world? The key is that we are not to come into agreement with the ways of the world or be legally tied to those who would cause us to compromise our faith by that agreement. First off all, we should always ask God to connect us with other believers for friendships, business matters, jobs, finances, and, without exception, for marriage. We should always seek to know where those with whom we are about to enter an agreement stand spiritually and ethically. They should also know where we stand in terms of “ground rules” for relationships and business practices and they must know that we will not compromise.

In addition, we must stay anchored to our spiritual family so that their influence always exceeds the influence of unbelievers in our lives. Our primary goal when interacting with unbelievers should always be to represent our Father and to be leaven for righteousness in those relationships. If we find ourselves loosing ground spiritually, we may need to find another job, another career, or another group to associate with. Satan will work through those relationship with unbelievers. Even Solomon became an idolater because of his relationships with foreign wives. Remember you are a child of God and the temple of the Holy Spirit set apart from the world by the blood of Christ. That knowledge should govern every relationship and every agreement we enter into.

Blessings

Some of you may remember Muhammad Ali in his boxing prime. One his most memorable quotes is, “I am the greatest!” Sometimes Ali used hyperbole to hype his next fight, but it is not unusual among athletes and other celebrities to find a few that cross the line from confidence to arrogance. Something within each of us tends to always compare ourselves to others. That is one driving element of competition. In order to feel good about ourselves, we want to outscore everyone else. On a field, a court, a track, or in the gym, we have raw numbers to keep the score. But in life we also keep score. in doing so, we tend to highlight all the deficiencies of others while devaluing their gifts and achievements. We do so to raise our own “grade.” It’s like grading on the curve and we want to push ahead of everyone else by pushing them down…at least in our own minds, so that we can feel good about us.

The Pharisees had a grading system called the Law. They believed God graded them on how well they kept it in even the smallest matters. Jesus confronted them about their legalism one time we he declared, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel” (Mt. 23:23-24).

In this text, Jesus cuts to the heart of the problem. These men believed their righteousness was based on externals..what they did, what they gave, how admired they were, or who they hung out with. What they missed was that God looked at the heart, not the appearance. Too often our cultural heroes gain that status through performance or based on physical beauty, but in terms of caring for anyone but themselves, they often fail miserably. In the case of the Pharisees, they didn’t give much thought to justice, mercy and faithfulness. They only thought about looking good in their actions. In various places, Jesus warned about being like the Pharisees who fasted to be seen by others, who prayed in public to impress, and who made a show out of their giving. Image was everything. There is something in our fallen nature that wants to do the same. Yet God is clearly not impressed by image, but suggests that it may be the ultimate self-deception.

The apostles fell into the same trap at times. Mark records a moment when James and John asked Jesus to let them sit next to him when he came into his glory. The others were indignant that James and John had asked such a thing…because they thought they should have those seats of honor. Jesus responded, “Whoever wants to become great among you, must be your servant and whoever wants to be first, must be the slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mk. 10:43-45).

In the kingdom, whoever would be the greatest would never think of himself that way. We may actually be surprised by those the Father designates to sit next to Jesus when he come in his kingdom. They may be people who had absolutely no fame on earth but were famous in heaven because of their servant’s heart. If I’m honest, every time I think I might be developing that heart, I find myself resenting someone who has taken me off my agenda for a while to do something for them. I, like the Pharisees, may be doing the “servant” thing on the outside, but my heart is far from it and it is the heart that God examines.

Believe it or not, in the kingdom many spiritual leaders still struggle with pride; still jockey for position at major conferences; still keep tab of how many books they have sold, and still highlight the faults of others while excusing their own. We, like the apostles, have not yet arrived at a true servant’s heart. I think the key to turning that around, may be counterintuitive. We often think that I can be a true servant if I only convince myself that I have no importance at all. However, Jesus was the true servant and yet was well aware that he was the Son of God and Savior of the world. It is when we know who we are in Christ and how much the Father loves and values us that we can let go of trying to convince ourselves of our worth by always moving up in the pecking order around us. It is when we are convinced of our value that we no longer have to prove it to ourselves or others.

Perhaps, our constant prayer should be that the Holy Spirit reveal to us how much we are loved, how much we are valued, yer how much of that is not something we have earned, but is simply something that has been given to us by a gracious Father. If I continually compare and keep score with others, I am not yet convinced that I am loved apart from my performance. In the religious world, that is called legalism. Perhaps, our prayer should not initially be to make me a servant, but that the Lord give us perfect security in his love so we can finally be comfortable and satisfied wearing the skin of a servant.

Blessings in Him

When I first became a believer way back in the 70’s, I attended a church that preached grace but practiced works more than they knew. Grace was their aspirational theology, but whether you were counted as part of the faithful in that church was a matter of works. If you were to be counted faithful or a “real Christian” you attended Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night. If there was a blizzard raging outside, you braved the streets to demonstrate your commitment. You were there everynight of a “gospel meeting” (revival) and you were front and center to help staff VBS in the summer. There was lots of pressure to do it all and be at everything. If you missed due to weather or if you were just tired and stayed home, you weren’t excommunicated, but you did feel a palpable disappointment in the air from those who had braved the weather and come even thought they were tired. There was definitely a legalism at work…which was unhealthy and unbiblical.

Dial the clock forward to 2020. In America the pendulum has swung from legalism to almost a hyper-grace where if you have prayed the prayer of salvation, show up at church occasionally and serve only when it is ultra-convenient, you are good to go. In fact, church growth experts count a person who only darkens the door of the church once a month as a regular attender. There was a time when Christians came home from vacations on Saturday night so that they could be in church on Sunday. No sports on Wednesday night, because church came first. If you actually were traveling on Sunday, you still found a church to attend where you were visiting. That might lean toward legalism, but a healthy dose of that commitment to meeting with spiritual family and keeping “church nights” open might not be a bad thing because it does indicate priorities. There is certainly more to our faith than church attendance, but our devotion to our spiritual family is a very big thing to God.

I think if we are honest, many American believers attend church only if they have a date open after they have filled in their calendar with hundreds of other things the world offers. Church attendance and involvement seem to have become very optional in the hearts of “the saved.” We have come to a place where it seems we have defined Christianity as taking our best shot at moral living rather than being devoted to Christ and those he died for.

There is a consistent theme throughout the Bible that God must come first and that he is worthy of our sacrifices since he sacrificed his only begotten Son for us. Under the Old Covenant, the best of the flock had to be offered rather than the defective sheep and goats The first fruits of harvest were to be offered as a reminder that God was the source of those crops. God was angry when Israel only offered their leftovers rather than the best they had. David, when needing to offer a sacrifice to end a plague that was killing thousands in Israel, was offered everything he needed for the sacrifice as a gift. David refused the gift but insisted on paying top dollar. He declared, “I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing” (2 Sam. 24:26). In other words, if it costs us nothing or very little, it is not a sacrifice.

In the New Testament, the church was marked by devotion to spiritual family. When someone had a need, members of the church gave what they had to meet the need and often sold property to do so (Acts 2:42-47.) That was an expression of love for each other that set them apart from the world. Remember, Jesus said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another”(Jn. 13:35). When the church had that kind of devotion to one another, it thrived.

Many American believers think they can love God while having little thought for his church. John tells us, “For whoever does not love his brother or sister (in Christ) whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen (1 Jn. 4:19). Jesus is very clear that love must be demonstrated not just proclaimed. If I say I love my family, but spend no time with them and meet none of their needs, I am proclaiming love but not truly loving. The same is true for spiritual family. Devotion costs us something. It is sacrificial. Sacrificing time, resources, service, emotional reserves, etc. for the church when it is extremely inconvenient is a sacrifice acceptable to God.

I know there are many believers who are truly devoted to Christ and his bride. They live sacrificial lives for God every day. But I also know there are many who claim to love God but only give and serve when it is very convenient. Truthfully, there is no sacrifice in that. My hope is that each of us will evaluate our service to the Lord and his church and decide to offer sacrifices to him that actually cost us something because one thing love does for sure…it sacrifices. And love is the measure of everything in the Kingdom.

Blessings in Him.

Sometimes, we become so familiar with great stories from the Bible and their most prominent themes that we fail to go back and discover important truths and principles that were also embedded in the story. One of the great stories is the account of Elijah’s showdown with Ahab and the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel. As background to the story, Ahab was one of the most wicked kings in the history of Israel. He was married to Jezebel who earned her own reputation for exceptional wickedness. They both led Israel into years of worshipping Baal, Asherah, and Molech. The text in 1 Kings 16 says that Ahab did more to anger the Lord than all the wicked kings before him combined.

During his reign, Elijah was sent by the Lord to confront Ahab about his sins, time after time. However, Ahab, often prodded on by Jezebel, would not repent. As a part of his judgment on Israel, God had Elijah declare that there would be neither rain nor dew again except at Elijah’s word (1 Kings 17:1). The drought would last for three and a half years and would devastate an agriculturally based nation like Israel. Ahab clearly believed Elijah to be a true prophet, but rather than repenting, simply hated Elijah. It is possible that he did not kill Elijah because if he were dead, he could not command the rain to come again.

In 1 Kings 18, the great showdown occurs. Elijah confronts Ahab and tells him to summon all the people of Israel along with the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah to Mt. Carmel. When they arrived, Elijah challenged the people of Israel to quit wavering between God and the Baals and to decide who they would worship. He proposed that an altar be built and that the prophets of Baal would cut up a bull, place it on the altar, and then pray for their god to send down fire to consume the offering. Elijah would do the same and the god that sent down fire would be the true God. Of course, the prophets of Baal called on their god all day and nothing happened. Elijah taunted them until late afternoon. Then he built an altar of stone, put wood on it, put a sacrificial bull on the altar and then dug a trench around the entire altar. He then had the people poor water on the sacrifice, the wood, and the bull until water filled the trench.

At the time of the evening sacrifice, Elijah called on God to send fire upon the altar The text says, “Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench. When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The Lord—he is God! The Lord—he is God!” Then Elijah commanded them, “Seize the prophets of Baal. Don’t let anyone get away!” They seized them, and Elijah had them brought down to the Kishon Valley and slaughtered there. (1 Kings 18:38-40).

Immediately after that, Elijah prayed and declared that rain was coming, and rain returned to the nation. This had to be a spiritual highpoint for Elijah as well as a tremendous vindication that he was a true prophet serving the one true God. You would have thought that his faith would never be stronger, the presence of God never more clear, and the fruit of his labors never more visible than at that point. However, we are told that upon hearing the news about the slaughter of her prophets, Jezebel sent Elijah a message saying that by that time tomorrow he would be a dead man. We would have expected our hero to declare that she would be the one who would be dead the next day and that he, with God’s help, would do to her what he had done to her false prophets.

But the text says, “Elijah was afraid and ran for his life.” We are also told that he ran into the wildnerness, set down by a broom bush and asked God to kill him. He then went on to declare that he was the only man of faith left in all of Israel and totally alone. Why the great reversal after such a spiritual and political victory the day before?

I believe he was simply exhausted after the victory on Mt. Carmel. Spiritual highpoints and spiritual victories can be exhausting. If you have ever engaged in three to fours hours of intense intercessory prayer you know how tiring spiritual warfare can be. If you have ever engaged in deliverance for three to four hours you know that, even after the victory, you are totally spent. After the fire and after the rain, Elijah must have believed that Ahab and Jezebel would hide in their palace fearing for their own lives. But, in anger and lusting for vengeance, Jezebel decided to come after him. Elijah had no more strength. He didn’t have one more prayer left in him and the enemy came after him.

Satan will always come after us when we are vulnerable…especially, when we are exhausted and weary from life, sickness, the death of a loved one, financial strain, or even from a great spiritual victory. We need to expect it. We need to pray against it before it comes. When we are exhausted we lose spiritual perspective. Elijah told God he was the only faithful one left in Israel. God corrected him by saying he had 7000 in Israel, in addition to Elijah, who had not bowed the knee to Baal. Elijah felt alone, even abandoned. Yet angels ministered to him in the desert and God met with him on Mt. Horeb. In his exhaustion, he could see none of that.

Rest is critical for our spiritual lives. In the gospel of Mark, after the apostles returned from preaching, healing and casting out demons, Jesus said, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest” (Mk.6:31). I talk to so many faithful believers who are heavily involved in life and ministry that are exhausted. Many of us feel as if resting is unspiritual and that faith will simply sustain us in our frantic pace. We try to pour in every activity of our culture, work 50 hours a week and then be involved heavily in ministry. In our culture, rest has to be a discipline. We have to plan it, do it, and believe that God is not pleased when we neglect times of rest and renewal because the enemy will take advantage when we ar fatigued. We lose persecutive. We lose the joy of ministry. We are body, soul, and spirit and whatever is affecting one part affects the whole.

Let me encourage you to schedule your rest…every day, every week, and yearly. Put it on your calendar and your daytimer. The Sabbath may no longer be a command, but the principle of regular rest is still one of God’s spiritual principles. When we ignore regular rest and renewal, we violate God’s will for our lives. We need to learn to say no to constant business as much as we need to say no to sin. Evaluate your pace. You may be doing great things for God and experiencing success after success, but the Elijah Syndrome will visit you if you do not rest. Rest and renewal may look a little different for each of us, but find it, treasure it, prioritize it for you and your family. You may want to encourage your pastors to do the same. Life is a marathon not a sprint. If we try to sprint the entire way, we will not finish the race.

Blessing and rest in Him

Why do some things seem to tumble into place as soon as we pray and others take months, decades, or even years?  Is it our intensity in prayer, our faith for God to move mountains, or our personal intimacy with the Father that makes the difference? At times, each of those elements may be a factor.  But often, the same person praying with the same intensity, the same faith, and the same intimacy finds that some prayers are answered quickly while others take time – sometimes a great deal of time.

Dutch Sheets, in his book Intercessory Prayer (a must read for every believer), suggests one possibility for this discrepancy in answered prayers.  He believes that prayer actually releases spiritual power into situations and that some situations simply take more power and, thus, more time to accomplish. The reason it might taker more power or an accumulation of power is because of demonic opposition. I could object immediately to that thought since God has all power and authority and could remove all demonic opposition with a word. However, God has determined to rule the earth through his people and often waits on his people to act or pray before he moves. He has given us authority on the earth and waits for us to exercise that authority for his purposes. James tells us that we “have not because we ask not.” In other words, God is willing and even wants to do many things that won’t be done until we ask.

It also appears that continued prayer is often required to keep the resources of heaven flowing into the situation we are praying for whether that is the influence of the Spirit on the hearts of people or the movement of angels on our behalf. In Daniel 9 and 10, we see the prophet asking God for an interpretation of a disturbing dream that had come to him. After praying for twenty one days, an angel appeared with the interpretation. He told Daniel that he had been released to come on the first day of his prayer but had been opposed by a demonic prince for those twenty one days. He battled that prince unti the angel Michael came to take up the battle for him. I sense that if Daniel had only prayed once and had not continued to pray, reinforcements might not have been sent and he might not have received his answer.

In some ways, prayer is the simplest of things and in other ways it is quite complex. I don’t think there is just one answer to all our questions about prayer, but strongholds do exist in the spiritual realm like walled cities. Remember that Jesus promised the gates of hell would not prevail against his people. From that perspective, hell is not assaulting us, but we are assaulting hell. Our prayers, declarations, and commands lay siege to these strongholds. Depending on the strength and number of the demons opposing God’s will, it will take more time and power to bring down the walls.   This is warfare. Strongholds rarely fall with just one volley. I find it helpful to think of prayers as spiritual catapults by which we continue to hurl stones at the wall of an enemy stronghold in a person’s life, in generations of a family, or in a community.

As we press in and pray, we are assaulting the wall and must continue to bombard the enemy’s stronghold until the wall cracks, then crumbles, and then collapses, sending the enemy scattering into the night. We don’t always know how high or thick the wall is or how long it has been in place when we begin to pray.  We don’t know how skilled and experienced those are who guard the walls for the enemy. So we pray until we experience breakthrough.

Prayer is a weapon. We are responsible to track down the enemy and launch the attack.   As we direct our faith toward a situation and begin to pray, the Holy Spirit releases power into the situation that our heart and prayers are focused on. When we continue to pray, we release the power of heaven into that situation with persistent faith and the wall must eventually fall. When it does, we will see the kingdom established in that place and the enemy in wild retreat.  Undoubtedly, many things related to prayer are still a mystery.  However,  we do know that the one in us is greater than the one that is behind the wall.  We do know that the same power that overcame hell and raised Jesus from the grave is at work within us.

So, in those moments when you are weary and wonder if you should continue to pray because you have seen no change – pray again.  Perhaps, the wall is already beginning to crack and crumble.  Perhaps, the next volley will see its collapse and hearts will be opened, bodies healed, and cities transformed.   In Christ, we have the enemy surrounded. Victory is not always immediate, but it is assured. Just keep launching your prayers in the faith that we are more than conquerors in Jesus Christ…in every circumstance.  Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and never give up (Lk.18:1).

Blessings today in Him.