There are still numerous denominations that hold the position that the Holy Spirit no longer does miraculous or supernatural acts through God’s people and that God no longer intervenes in the affairs of men in miraculous ways.  In other words, these churches teach that since the end of the first century, the Holy Spirit no longer activates the gifts of prophecy, tongues, words of knowledge, miracles, healing, and so forth given to the church.  Since those days, we should no longer expect angels to visit men with messages from God, or bodies of water parting for God’s people, or angels being sent out to defeat the enemies of God without a battle.  According to these denominations, for the last 1900 years or so, God has answered prayers through natural means rather than supernatural.  There have even been books written in the past ten years railing against the deception of supernatural spiritual gifts and the supernatural intervention of God in our circumstances.

I was part of one of those denominations for two decades.  Our people loved God and they loved the Word of God.  They prayed.  They worshipped.  They served.  I have no reason to doubt they were saved.  There was a common denominator among many of the people I fellowshipped with, however.  They all felt as if there was something “more” they should be experiencing, but were not sure what it was.  It just felt like something was missing.

I believe the missing piece was the opportunity to experience God, not just know about God.  If you think about it, the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation is a record of men and women encountering God in supernatural moments. Something happened to them outside the natural order of things.  God walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden.  God directed to Noah to build an ark.  God visited Abraham with angels and promises of a son to be born long after it was physically possible for Sarah.  Then we have Moses and the burning bush, the ten plagues, and the parting of the Red Sea.  These kinds of moments are recorded throughout the Old Testament. Visions and dreams, angelic visits, supernatural victories in war, deliverance from fire and lions, supernatural provision, and so on.  

In the New Testament that theme continues.  E very encounter with Jesus was supernatural…God in the flesh.  Healings, raising the dead, supernatural catches of fish, demons being dispatched, and storms being quieted with a word.  After Jesus returned to the Father, we see tongues of fire on Pentecost, jail breaks facilitated by angels, more healings, deliverance and people raised from the dead.  The church is given the spiritual gifts of healings, tongues, miracles, words of knowledge, prophecy, etc. and was instructed to use them for building up the body of Christ. 

The notion that God revealed himself to his people through miracles, visions, and angelic visits from the beginning of scripture to the end and then suddenly stopped the flow of power and supernatural encounters to his church seems unreasonable and out of character for God. In scripture, the very thing that propelled Gods’ people through each crisis was the expectation that God would move in some miraculous way to deliver them.  That attitude is what the Bible calls faith and without faith it is impossible to please God.

nterestingly, we see the Apostle Paul in Athens in Acts 17.  He is invited to speak to the intellectual elites of the day by sharing the gospel on Mars Hill.  Paul gave his best explanation of the gospel, perhaps using the learning and training he had received at the feat of his mentor, Rabbi Gamaliel, when he was growing up.  A few responded, but not many.  Paul was disappointed.  

His next stop was Corinth, and when he wrote his first letter to them, he recalled their initial encounters.  He said, “When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power” (1 Cor. 2:1-5).

It seems after his experience on Mars Hill, he put away intellectually persuasive arguments and rhetoric and began preaching a simple gospel…but with a demonstration of power.  In other words, he still preached but then enabled those who heard the word to actually experience God through the exercise of spiritual gifts…a supernatural moment.  The pattern of Jesus had been to preach the coming of the kingdom of God and then to demonstrate it through healing, deliverance, miracles (loaves and fish), and sometimes calling people back from the dead.  We can safely assume Paul did the same. After all, a gospel without power is no gospel at all.  

The “more” that most believers are looking for is an experience with God, not just more knowledge about him.  That is the biblical pattern from Genesis to Revelation and should still be our pattern in the church.  Can spiritual gifts and claims of miracles be abused?  Of course. They were abused in Corinth, but rather than telling the people to stop using the gifts or that the gifts were fraudulent, he simply instructed them about how to use the gifts as God intended.   Many believers suffer from a faith that is devoid of power.   Rather than confronting the attacks of Satan they are instructed to simply endure the attacks.  Without the use of the divine (supernatural) weapons that Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 10, we cannot confront spiritual forces.  Therefore, those who believe that God no longer intervenes or that the Holy Spirit no longer imparts power, simply have to take what Satan is handing out.  That is not the character of God nor should it be the character of his people. 

Let me encourage you to seek more experiences with God…biblically balanced and tested.  Those experiences will always have some supernatural component because God is supernatural. And remember that God is interactive not simply observational.  He always has been.  He has always extended the invitation to experience him whether at a burning bush, the Tent of Meeting, or through his Holy Spirit living in us,. So let’s accept the invitation and find the “more” we are looking for.
  

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 Co 6:14–18).


To some of us, this section of scripture sounds like the Old Testament injunctions for the Israelites to keep themselves separate from Gentiles and all their practices. They were not to marry Gentiles (non-Jews), they were not to eat with them and certainly not to worship their gods or participate in activities that honored those gods. There were, of course, foods that were considered unclean and numerous circumstances that would render a Jew unclean for a season, such as coming into contact with anything dead or diseased.

Although those laws were suspended under the New Covenant (bacon is back on the menu!), the principle of separation for the sake of holiness has not set aside. God is a holy God and his Spirit that lives in us is the Holy Spirit. In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, he emphasizes this principle. In a city known for its idol worship and temples to false gods, this reminder was necessary. A great number of those in the church at Corinth were Gentiles who had placed their faith in Jesus but who also had families, friends, and employers who were still unbelievers. Contact with unbelievers was not forbidden, but certain kinds of relationships were forbidden for believers.

Paul describes these relationships as relationships in which two people are “yoked” together. In an agricultural society, everyone understood the concept of “yoking.” Two animals were bound together by a yoke. Where one went, the other was forced to go. When one stood still, the other was greatly hindered from moving. Under the Law of Moses, it was forbidden to yoke different kinds of animals together, such as a horse and an ox. That was to picture the principle of separation between God’s people and others. A relationship in which yoking occurs is a relationship in which two people are bound together by covenants, oaths, and/or influence such as a marriage. It may also extend to business partners or other relationships in which people are tied together by oaths such as in Free Masonry.

In a culture that emphasizes inclusion and the tolerance of all kinds of lifestyles, the church has begun to compromise and has allowed the culture to reach into the church. Many believers think nothing of marrying an unbeliever or an individual from another culture who worships other gods. Many believers never connect their faith with their business practices or associations they belong to.

But Paul was clear. If a person does not belong to Jesus, he belongs to Satan. He is part of darkness not light, wickedness not righteousness. He has the spirit of disobedience in him, rather than the Spirit of the Living God. If we enter into a covenant with that person we, be default, are entering into a covenant with Satan and he has full access to the believer through his or her relationship with the unbeliever. Paul’s injunction is not a recommendation for who you should or should not marry, but is a command. God is a jealous God and does not willingly share his people with those outside our covenant with him.

As a covenant people living in the midst of a depraved culture, we need to love the lost but avoid being yoked with them. Of course, I have known Christians who married unbelievers who later came to Christ. That does not suspend the command. I have known drug dealers and Satanists who have come to Christ, but that doesn’t commend drug dealing and Satanism. We always think we can win those people to Christ, but what we are doing is giving Satan open access to us if we enter into a covenant through some formal act, some oath, some promise or some intimate association with unbelievers.

Of course, we will be accused of bigotry and intolerance if aren’t willing to accept and engage with every person around us, but God knows his children and those that belong at his table. He is quite willing to adopt more children and give them a seat, but those who do not have his Spirit within them, are not his. Part of our problem is that we fail to see ourselves as different from the world and set apart in Christ. Being sons and daughters of God with his Holy Spirit living in us can seem abstract if we simply know about God without experiencing him. Since we “feel” the same as others, we assume being “yoked” with them isn’t problematic.

Perhaps; we need to spend some time asking God to show us who we truly are in Christ and how we need to “come out from among them,” so we can experience the Father in his fullness. This not bigotry or hating, it is reality. If I point out that a child is not mine because he belongs to other parents, would that be an act of hate toward the child or simply a recognition of who belongs to whom? So it is in the kingdom of God.

Let me encourage you to spend some time this week reading over the passage above, asking the Spirit to give you an understanding of it, and asking him to give you a clearer sense of who you are in Christ. Jesus challenged us to be Holy, even as our Father in heaven is holy. Knowing that we are set apart from the world and seeing ourselves through than lens is the first step in being what God has called his to be.

We know the idea of curses in the 21^st century sounds like superstition or something belonging to the realm of fiction.  Most individuals don’t take the notion seriously, including most Christians.  I would venture that the great majority of pulpits in America have never issued a sermon on the topic and very few Christian counselors or healthcare providers would ever role that out as a possible source of a client’s torment, failures, or illness.

However, it is a very biblical topic and a serious reality that often needs to be addressed.  The first mention of a curse pops up only three chapters into Genesis.  When Adam and Eve sin, a curse is pronounced on the serpent, on the earth itself, on the man and on the woman.  The curse calls for supernatural power to produce and maintain some kind of negative consequence for those under the curse.  The serpent would crawl on his belly (he was apparently upright before the curse); the woman would experience great pain in child bearing (both in the birth process and in the raising of children), the earth would produce thorns and thistles and the man would have to scratch out a living on the face of an earth that would resist his touch rather than cooperating with it.

In Deuteronomy 28, God promised abundant blessings for obedience, but then offered half a chapter of curses for disobedience that would be released on Israel if they rejected God.  In numbers 22, we encounter a man named Balaam who was a sorcerer. The king of Moab went to Balaam and asked him to place a curse on Israel so that he might defeat them in battle.  His words were, “For I know that whoever you bless is blessed and whoever you curse is cursed” (Num. 22:6). The king had witnessed his work on numerous occasions and had seen the results.  God nearly killed him to prevent him from issuing the curse because Israel was blessed.  One lesson from the account is that God took a curse uttered by a sorcerer seriously. 

In essence, a curse is an authoritative word that directs spiritual forces to produce negative results in a person’s life…poverty, persistent illness, relationship failures, oppression, loss, untimely death, etc.  When a curse is operating it seems that nothing ever goes right, even when the people involved are doing the right things.  A curse may fall on a nation, a group, a generation, a family, or an individual. There may be numerous causes for a curse but I only want to focus on witchcraft in this blog.

We are in a season of highly increased witchcraft (sorcery) in America. Some research suggests there are more practicing witches in America now than members of some major denominations.   I regularly encounter people who seem to be operating under a curse.…undiagnosable illnesses, spirits in their home tormenting family members, financial stress, relationship issues flaring up suddenly, etc.  In many of these cases, I have asked if there was anyone they knew who might be holding a grudge against them and who also was involved in witchcraft. In many cases, they quickly identify who that person might be – ex-spouses, ex boy friends are girls friends, an irritated neighbor, an angry former mother-in-law, estranged family members, etc.  Some have previously been members of a witch’s coven and had left under threats.  

Suspecting that witchcraft might be operating against them, we then made sure the person we were ministering to had forgiven any of those who had hurt them in the past and even the one who might be cursing them in the present.  We made sure they repented of any known sins they had not submitted to the cross – past or present. In the name and authority of Jesus, we then canceled any curse that had been established against them and canceled any demonic assignment made on the basis of that curse.  We then commanded any demonic spirit involved to abandon its assignment, leave, and never return.  You may even send the spirit back to the person who pronounced the curse. Finally, we asked the Lord to assign angels to keep any other spirits at bay that might try to enforce the curse again and to even prevent the witch from issuing the curse again.  This has typically made a marked positive difference in their situation.   

One thirty-five year old woman, in particular, had a wasting disease that could not be diagnosed.  She was told by doctors that she would die within a few months of they could not find the cause.  As we talked and prayed, she identified her sister’s former lesbian partner who held a grudge because the woman who was ill encouraged the breakup. The lady had been involved in witchcraft and we believe the Holy Spirit revealed her as the source.  We prayed, broke the curse, and her health turned around in just a few days.

When dealing with curses we often look at unrepented sins, generational curses, word curses spoken by family members or the individual himself, or witchcraft that the person has been involved in (tarot cards, psychic readings, fortune-tellers horoscopes, etc.).  These are definitely the first places to look.  However, we sometimes forget to consider that witchcraft might be in play, actively directing spirits toward another person.  As you look for sources of a curse, keep witchcraft in mind and ask the person if they know anyone who has been practicing occult arts that may also be holding a grudge against them. I suspect you may discover that scenario more than you may anticipate. 

The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 2 Corinthians. 4:4

Paul is the apostle who most often mentions spiritual warfare in his letters.  In his letter to the church at Corinth he gives an explanation as to why so many people do not respond to the gospel.  He simply says that the god of this age has blinded their minds. He means that Satan, through lies and deception, has rendered them incapable of understanding who Jesus is, why they need him, and what sin is … in their own strength.

Satan is called the “god of this age” because the world worships him.  He is not deity; he is not eternal; he is a “god” with a lower case “g.”  And yet he has beguiled and deceived the great majority of people who live on this planet.  What we need to recognize is that many of the people we care about who are lost and have proven to be resistant to the gospel, are not bad people…they are blinded people.  What is most important to understand is that they are blinded by supernatural forces, therefore, they will only be able to see by the supernatural power of God.  If we expect them to hear the gospel, analyze it by logic and intellect, and accept it because it is a superior way to live…they cannot. 

Later in the same letter to Corinth, Paul writes, “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Cor. 10:3-5). Notice he uses the language of war…wage war, weapons, divine power, demolish strongholds, and captivity.  But notice also that the war is taking place in the arena of the mind…arguments, pretensions, knowledge, and thoughts. And remember that Satan has blinded their minds.

Before we share the gospel with a highly resistant friend or family member, we need to enter into a season of spiritual warfare on their behalf. A season of praying for God to remove their blindness and give them spiritual sight seems prudent.  As in most cases, demons are also involved in maintaining the deception and erecting strongholds (belief systems) that oppose God’s truth.  Each time we try to share some of that truth with an unbeliever, some demon is whispering an objection to what we are sharing.  A season of commanding spirits to be silent when we visit with that person will be in order and our declarations of God’s word over them will weaken the enemy.  Sharing God’s word with them in a non-confrontational way will allow the seed to begin to take root.  

Like any harvest, it will take time for the seed to germinate and grow so we must be ready for a season of warfare rather than a few days.  We may need to forbid the enemy from snatching up the seed as Jesus points out in the parable of the sower.   We may need to pray for the Holy Spirit to guard and water it, and we may need to persist in loving some unlovable people in our lives.  We also need to guard ourselves against unbelief and discouragement as well.  As we pray for the salvation of another, Satan will whisper in our ears that we are wasting our time and that the person we are praying for is beyond redemption. He will discourage us at every turn so that the strongholds keeping our loved one in unbelief will not be dismantled.

Paul clearly declared in Ephesians 6 that our struggle is not against flesh and blood but spiritual powers.  Spiritual powers must be confronted by spiritual weapons. In many cases, simply presenting the gospel or showing another person Jesus through our love may need to be accompanied by spiritual warfare that prepares the ground. Power is certainly in the gospel but it is also in prayer and the authority of Jesus Christ.  When we pray, power is released toward the object of our prayer.  When we declare scripture, God’s word is released to fulfill its purpose.  When we command spirits, the authority of Christ does its work.  

When Jesus healed the blind he exercised authority and often cast out a spirit that was the source of the blindness.  Surely, when we want to free a spiritually blind person from their inability to grasp the word of God, we will have to do the same.  Blessings in Him.

From one perspective, the life of Jesus is a study in spiritual warfare.  From his birth, the enemy was targeting Jesus.  First of all, Satan incited Herod to kill all the males in the region of Bethlehem under the age of two in order to eliminate the possibility that one of them would grow to be a king who threatened Herod’s throne.  The fact that Joseph, Mary, and Jesus became political refugees fleeing to Egypt while Jesus was still a toddler also put the family in danger.  The fact that angels drew near to pronounce both promises and warnings in visions and in-person tells us that there was much afoot in the spiritual realm.

As Jesus began his ministry, God himself spoke audibly confirming that Jesus was his son in whom he was well pleased.  Then, after his baptism by John, we are told that Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit for forty days of fasting and temptation.  Some versions say that the Holy Spirit drove him into the wilderness.  This would be a difficult introduction to spiritual warfare launched by the public ministry of Jesus.  The language of the gospels suggests that he was tempted throughout the forty days, with an ultimate confrontation at the end.

At the end of his fasting, Jesus had a personal confrontation with Satan who challenged him to demonstrate his deity if he really were the Son of God. He was betting that Jesus had an element of pride and arrogance that would prompt him to demonstrate who he was when Satan questioned him.  After all, Satan was filled with pride and arrogance and would have gladly demonstrated his power if it had been questioned. The first two temptations…turning stones to bread and jumping from the pinnacle of the temple mount… were kind of a dare. In essence, the accuser was taunting Jesus with, “I dare you to prove who you are.”  

The last temptation was to take a shortcut to becoming king and ruling over the nations of the earth, whichis his appointed destiny.  Satan offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if he would simply worship Satan. The offer was to fulfill his rightful destiny without the cross and the suffering.  We all want “a crown without a cross” and Satan tempts us with spiritual short cuts all the time.  Jesus responded with the word of God in all three moments of temptation which is the ultimate way to resist Satan.

Later we see Satan manipulating Judas so that he ultimately betrayed Jesus.  In fact, we are told that Satan entered into Judas just before the final betrayal.  We can’t know for sure, but it seems likely that Satan was in Gethsemane that night whispering that none of us were worth what Jesus was about to go through. On that night, Jesus asked the Father if there was any other way.  Of course, the flesh in any of us would have been looking for an exit from the appointed plan but, perhaps, Satan was amplifying the moment and the fear Jesus was wrestling with.  Remember, Jesus was tempted in every way that we have been tempted, yet was without sin.  As Jesus resisted the temptation, angels came and ministered to him.

I am convinced that we, like our master, are in the midst of spiritual warfare ourselves much more than we recognize.  Failing to derail Jesus, he is busy trying to derail those who follow him.  The problem is in recognizing his activity.  The most effective demons are those who work subtly in our lives to move us out of God’s will inch by inch rather than in catastrophic ways that would immediately raise a red flag in our minds that we are under spiritual attack.  He takes his time, studies our vulnerabilities, looks for things in our life or bloodline that will give him a legal right to afflict us, and studies our wounds to see how to use those against us.  

The best strategies of the enemy leave us feeling as if life and time are simply taking their toll.  Our health issues, our discouragement that moves into mild depression, our insecurities that develop into generalized anxiety, our view of ourselves as victims and questions about God’s goodness or fairness seem to come up like weeds. We have thoughts that we know are contrary to God’s word and we wonder why we think that way. We wonder why we don’t have the faith we once did, why lustful thoughts seem to dominate our imagination, why anger or jealousy begin to define us, and why we can’t forgive certain people in our lives.

In many cases, we simply conclude that we are not spiritual; that we don’t love Jesus anymore and that God tolerates us but is not pleased with us as his children.  We become discouraged and often give up on our spiritual growth or our relationship with God all together.  The truth us, many times the fear, the depression, the bitterness, and the lust are not originating in us, but are demonic spirits constantly whispering those things that stream across our minds as though they originated in our hearts.  Then the accuser fills us with shame and discouragement and tries to convince us that we are beyond hope and that spiritual growth is out of our reach.

Certainly we need to recognize the thoughts that are contrary to God’s word and repent of them, but even more we should recognize the source of those thoughts as demonic and banish those demons from our presence by the authority of Jesus Christ.  Thoughts that persist in the face of repentance and prayer or that press in even harder when we resist, are most likely demonic affliction.  Until the demons leave, the thoughts will gain ground rather than fading away.  My experience has taught me that more of our struggles are spiritual than we think. When resisting thoughts, impulses, or destructive behaviors, we should assume first that a spirit is operating.  We should command the spirit to leave and then deal with the flesh through prayer, repentance, and the word.  We should command these spirits to leave as soon as we see a pattern of thoughts contrary to God’s word and will for us.  We should command them before we start to come into agreement with them. If we assume out thoughts are always our own, those thoughts may become a stronghold that will be more difficult to dismantle.

Satan loves to work in the shadows and make us just miserable enough, tired enough, and depressed enough that we assume it is just life in a fallen world. We then look to doctors and counselors for help when the underlying cause is spiritual.  Until the spiritual realm is addressed, no counseling or treatment will be sufficient.  Paul declares that our struggle is not against flesh and blood but spiritual powers. Let me encourage you to start there when life isn’t as it should be and God’s blessings always seem to slip away. When you recognize a pattern of ungodly thought, make sure there is nothing in your life giving the enemy a legal right to afflict and oppress you. After that, command the thought as if it is a spirit. Command it to leave and never return. If the thoughts weaken then the spirit has left and you and the Word can continue to renew your mind.  If the thoughts press in harder, then command harder until the spirit leaves. 

In 1 Samuel 13, we are told of an incident between the Prophet Samuel and King Saul, Israel’s first king.  In this section of scripture, we are told of a number of battles between Israel and the Philistines.  As they prepare for an upcoming major encounter, Samuel told Saul to take his troops, go to Gilgal, and wait for Samuel to come and offer sacrifices on behalf of Israel before going into battle.  Samuel told Saul he would come on the seventh day to offer the sacrifice (1 Sam. 10:8).  

In chapter 13, we are told that Saul was waiting at Gilgal on the seventh day.   His troops were terrified.  He was frightened and yet Samuel had not yet arrived. As the day wore on, some of Saul’s men began to scatter. Saul decided to take matters into his own hands and he himself offered the burnt offering and fellowship offering that Samuel was to offer.  Saul was not a priest.  He was not authorized to offer sacrifices and yet he did so out of fear of losing his army.  Of course, the moment the last billow of smoke drifted up from the offering, Samuel arrived. 

The text reads, “What have you done?” asked Samuel. Saul replied, “When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Micmash, I thought, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the Lord’s favor.’ So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering.” “You acted foolishly,” Samuel said. “You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command” (1 Sam. 13:11-14). Notice that Saul decided to take matters into his own hands, blamed Samuel, and then said he needed God’s blessing even if he had to obtain it through disobedience. His thinking was skewed like that throughout his entire life.

Ultimately, this event and others like it cost Saul his kingdom and his life. We could take numerous lessons from this passage, but the one I want to emphasize now is the principle of waiting on the Lord.  Saul had received instructions from the Lord though Samuel to wait at Gilgal until the prophet, who was also a priest, arrived and offered sacrifices.  Saul depended on his own abilities and the abilities of his men for victory.  As they began to leave, he apparently had no thought that God could give them victory regardless of their numbers.  In fear, he went ahead and offered the sacrifices rather than waiting on God’s man to arrive. Saul believed that God would honor his actions even though they were disobedient. Saul always felt that the end he wanted justified the means.

There was a test woven into this circumstance.  Would Saul obey God even when it began to look like obedience might cost him his victory?  In a similar incident later, Samuel would say to the king, “Does not God desire obedience more than sacrifice?”  The issue is whether we will trust God and be obedient when things aren’t going according to our time table or our presuppositions about life and what it should look like.

Satan is quick to show up and whisper that God is not going to show up so we must take matters into our own hands.  When that happens, a lack of faith rushes ahead and tries to engineer the outcome we are wanting.  That is not a good idea! Remember Abram and Sarai.

God promised Abram a son, even though Sarai had been unable to bear children.  I’m sure they got busy trying to fulfill that promise, but time passed and nothing happened.  In Genesis 16, we are told that Sarai decided the promise was not going to be fulfilled through her, so she offered her handmaiden to Abram and he fathered a child though Hagar.  From a natural, fleshly perspective that made sense, but it was something that could be accomplished apart from God. God often wants to do something supernatural in our lives that leaves no question his hand was in it.  That brings him glory, increases our faith, and builds relationship with him.  But I have seen many people who waited on a promise or a prayer to be answered for a while…but then decided to make the promise or prayer come to pass in their own way by their own efforts.  

The enemy was busy injecting thoughts that God wasn’t going to come through for them or didn’t care about the need they so desperately wanted him to meet.  So, they moved ahead only to find that the decisions and the outcomes they engineered were catastrophic.  Just as Saul went ahead with the sacrifices, they ran ahead on relationships, marriages, job opportunities, major moves, and so forth.  Just as Saul lost his kingdom, they found the things they engineered did not work out well.

Very often, Satan prompts us to run ahead and take matters into our own hands. God wants to do things by his Spirit.  Satan wants us to operate in the flesh.  Abram and Sarai thought they would help God fulfill what he had promised.  But the way the promise was fulfilled was just as important as the promise itself.  Abram got Hagar pregnant.  But then Hagar began to despise Sarai and flaunt her pregnancy.  Sarai became enraged.  When Hagar bore a son, he was not welcome.  Ishmael and Isaac became estranged brothers and their descendants (Arabs and Jews) have been fighting ever since.  

Certainly, we have a part in many promises, but waiting on the Lord can be a significant part of spiritual warfare because God is aligning all things to birth the answer to our prayer and his promise.  If we run ahead, some ingredient(s) that will make the answer amazing will be left out.  The answer will fall flat, lack flavor, be bitter, or be inedible all together. Satan will have taken the best part and we will be disappointed. Satan will then rush to get us to blame God rather than ourselves for not having the faith to wait.

As we pray for significant things, we may also need to pray for God to give us the patience and even endurance to wait on his answer.  His supernatural outcome will always outpace whatever we can do in our own strength.  

Over sixty years and sixty pounds ago, I was typically the fastest guy in my school.  In the city, there was only one other sprinter my age that was competitive with me in the hundred.  We ran against each other frequently and it was always close.  We began to develop a friendship because we knew we were the best.  One spring afternoon we had a track meet that was open to some of the smaller rural schools in the Texas panhandle.  I still remember lining up with eight of us in the blocks.  My friend was two lanes to my left.  The only question would be which of us would win that day as we showed the country boys how we ran in the city.  

The gun sounded, we leaped from the starting blocks and as we crossed the finish line we both looked each other in the eyes as we humbly tied for last place.  The country boys had smoked us…not by inches but by feet.  We both recognized at the same time what had happened and could only laugh.  We spent the rest of the afternoon in the stands licking our wounds.  Here was the thing…we had measured ourselves against the track teams in our city and grade level and assumed every other track team in the country was like those we competed against each week.  We had a false measure of comparison.  It cost us a race.

From time to time, I visit with people who have a problem with God.  They get how he might send really wicked people to hell, but cannot accept a God who would send “good people” to torment simply because they had not accepted Jesus.  I think that issue is worth a response.

In the first place, God is not sending them to hell, but is feverishly trying to rescue them from the hell they are sending themselves to.  Our problem is, like my friend and I, a false measure of comparison.  We measure the righteousness of men against the righteousness of men rather than the righteousness of God.

We look at an Adolph Hitler or a Jeffrey Dahmer and determine that they were evil and deserve some form of extreme punishment.  But then we look at our neighbors who work hard, pay their bills, go to the lake every weekend with their family, and volunteer to coach little league.  These are “good people.”  They give little thought to God and do not follow Jesus, but they are “good people.”  We make that comparison on the basis of the other people we know who live in   this very perverse world.

In doing so, we assume God grades on the curve and if you are in the top 30-40 %, you get in.  But that is not how it works.  The standard for righteousness is God’s holiness not ours and he is a God who dwells in unapproachable light.  The judgment of heaven is that all have fallen short of the glory of God and that there is none righteous, no not one (Romans 3:10).  In fact, Isaiah declares, “How then can we be saved? All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (Isa. 64:5-6).

Isaiah is pointing out, that based on our own righteous acts none of us can come into the presence of God because the best that the best of us can do is like filthy rags (the rags women sat on during their menstrual cycle in the days of Isaiah) compared to God’s holiness. Isaiah should know because, even though he was a great man of God, he was overwhelmed with is own sense of sinfulness when he received a vision of God. He cried out, “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty” (Isa. 6:4-5).  The word translated as “ruined” here means destroyed, devastated, or to cease.   When Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up, he thought he was going to die because of his own sense of unworthiness and sinfulness compared to the holiness of God. Likewise, Ezekiel, Daniel and other prophets found themselves face down, unable to move or even breath when they encountered the holiness of God or even his representatives.  

The point is that none of us are “good people” by the standards of heaven.  We have just lived in the swamp so long we no longer smell or notice the decay all around us. Some parts stink less than others, but every part stinks. Even people who look good on the outside have all kinds of ungodliness on the inside and God judges not only our actions but our hearts and thoughts as well.  Even the best of us have pockets of pride, lustful thoughts, judgmental hearts, selfish ambitions, jealousy, envy, unforgiveness, lies, and self-justifications.  It is our fallen nature.  So, by heaven’s standards of goodness and righteousness, none of us are “good people.”  

But God, knowing that none of us could stand in his presence on the basis of our own righteousness, provided a righteousness by faith through Jesus Christ who became sin for us that we might be the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus (2 Cor. 5:21).   By our own sin we condemned ourselves to hell, but God in his righteousness and love provided a way of escape, a rescue plan for those who would acknowledge that at their best they fall short, but who trust God to make a way through his Son.

Our own rebellion has condemned us.  God has gone to extreme lengths to save us from our own wickedness.  Our problem is we don’t know wickedness when we see it because we have never seen true holiness.  And yet the grace of God is abundant and he has no desire to see anyone cast into hell.  He declares, “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).  God is not the bad guy in this equation…Satan is.  We need to remember the extent to which God has gone to save us from ourselves.  For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son (Jn.3:16).  There are no “good people” by heaven’s standards, but there is certainly a good God.


 

 

We have had a wave of funerals at our church lately…two this week.  I’m always struck by our desire to prolong life – to live forever if we could.  It is amazing what people will go through to live a few months or a year longer.  Their loved ones sometimes encourage them to go through excruciating treatments just to have a little more time with them as well. When we die, even at an advanced age, it seems wrong – as if the universe has betrayed us.  I believe there is a part of every one of us that does want to live forever.  We want that because it was God’s original intent.  When Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden, they were given free access to the Tree of Life.  As long as they ate from the tree, they would live forever.  That was God’s original for his entire creation.  Sin, of course, inserted a great parenthesis in that intent.

Solomon declared, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men” (Ecc.3:11).  Every culture looks beyond this world for some form of eternal life, whether they look for it in reincarnation, some version of paradise or becoming one with the world soul.  Something tells each of us that physical death should not be the final chapter.

We are entering the Easter season.  It comes early this year but always brings a sense of hope.  It comes as Spring approaches and everything that appears dead begins to show life again. Our rose bushes are blanketed with fresh green leaves.  Fruit trees in West Texas, barren just a week ago, are covered with white blossoms.  Life is emerging again. It is a metaphor for eternal life in Christ.  When we thought all had ended, God had more.  An empty tomb is the promise of eternal life.  Physical death does not have the last word. Jesus has the last word.

His word is, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this” (Jn. 11:25-26)?  Through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, God has restored his original intent.
Jesus is the Tree of Life.  As long as we partake of him, we live.  Our eternal physical life will not be apparent on earth until the Lord returns with his saints and restores the earth to its pre-curse glory. In the meantime, we are with Christ in Paradise.  Ultimately, Satan will not beat the Lord out of anything.  The earth he set in motion with a pristine environment that partnered with man rather than opposing him, will spin through space once again.  God will live with his people and death will not be found in the dictionary.  

I have come to believe that our desire to hold on to life in this world is not so much a lack of faith about God’s goodness and a home in heaven, but is proof that we were never meant to die in the first place.  Death always seems wrong.  So, we comfort one another at each funeral with the hope that God has placed inside of us. We do so because we can, in fact, live forever with those we have loved and thought we lost. As Easter approaches, remember that physical death is not the end even as winter only hides life that emerges each year by God’s grace. Physical death for those in Christ is only the prelude to the eternity God has placed in our hearts. 

Last week I wrote a blog affirming that becoming a follower of Jesus does not mean life will be trouble free.  In fact, Jesus assured us that in this world we will have trouble.  In hostile environments such as China, Russia or the Middle East, that trouble could be for a life time as believers are targeted for persecution by the state.  And yet even in those environments, it seems that certain seasons produce more trouble than others.

In the west, Christians are not so blatantly targeted but may find more subtle persecution in certain environments such as in universities, the entertainment industry, some corporate environments, families, and so on.  If you live or work in a “Woke” community and verbalize biblical values, you will be opposed and probably censored.  There is a price to be paid for our faith in this world.  We need to be at peace with that reality.

After my last blog, someone asked if trouble was simply going to be their lot for a lifetime.  In the context, it was not trouble from persecution but simply from things in life never working out.  There are believers who seem to face a disproportionate amount of loss and failure which might include a number of deaths in a family in a relatively short time, financial stress even though they work hard, promotions going to less qualified people at the workplace, and constant vehicle breakdowns and expenses around the home that just always keep them under water.  Sometimes it is a disproportionate amount of sickness that makes life hard.  Perhaps, you have known those individuals or families.

I believe it is normal for all believers to have seasons of hardship, but not for that to be the standard of their entire life.  In cases like that, it seems that some kind of curse is operating that gives the devil a legal right to afflict or oppress an individual or family. The idea of curses seems very antiquated to most Americans, but it is a very biblical theme.  In fact, in Deuteronomy 28, God spends a great deal of time explaining to Israel that diligent obedience to the Lord would bring abundant blessings, but persistent disobedience without repentance would bring abundant curses that touched every part of life.  Abundant blessings include health, financial prosperity, fruitfulness from their efforts, blessed relationships, peace from their enemies, and even the promise of rain at the right times to bless their crops.  Curses would bring just the opposite…health problems, financial failure, broken relationships, war, natural disasters, and so forth.

There are several sections in scripture that picture Satan standing before the Lord bringing accusations against God’s people.  As he brought those accusations, he was looking for a legal precedent that would allow him to afflict those people on the basis of their sin or the sins of their fathers or on the basis of words they had spoken or oaths they had taken.  Those things may constitute a curse which the enemy can enforce as long as that curse remains.

When hardship, other than persecution persists, and is clearly over-proportionate to what most believers are dealing with, a curse may be operating.  An unrepented sin may clearly present itself as the probable cause of the curse.  Unforgiveness towards others who have wronged you would be the first thing to search for in your heart.  Other ongoing sins that you are excusing would be the next place to look…sexual sin, materialism, an immoral relationship, gossip, judging others, bigotry, discrimination (especially against Jews), ignoring the poor, idolatry, addictions, violence, abortions, etc. are things that need to be identified, acknowledged, repented of and renounced in order to take away the legal right of the enemy. 

Sins of the fathers (Ex. 20:5) is another thing you must consider.  It is not aways easy to know what our ancestors have done that may have opened the door to a generational curse that can be passed down from generation to generation. Violence, defrauding another, adultery, involvement in the occult in any form, molestations, antisemitism, participation in false religions, etc. can be found in most family lines.

You may research your family history for clues or spend a season in prayer asking the Holy Spirit to reveal the root of the curse operating in your life.  When you sense what it is, then confess it and repent of it on behalf of your bloodline. Then renounce the sin and cancel the curse in the name of Jesus.

Words spoken over us by those who have had spiritual authority over us can also establish a curse.  A parent telling us we will never amount to anything or that we will never be loved or announcing that they wish we had never been born can open the door to sickness, business and relationship failures, etc.  If we said those words over ourselves, they can also establish a curse.  If any words like that that have been spoken, they need to need to be renounced and repented of as well.

Ask the Holy Spirit to show you the root of any curse that may be operating.  It is God’s will to bless his people so if curses predominate instead of blessing, seek to know the root. Have those with prophetic gifts and gifts of discernment pray with you to see what they hear from the Lord as well. Trouble will come our way, but God is also a God of blessing who wants to bless his children even in the midst of trouble. Blessing should be the rule of our lives rather than the exception.  

In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

Many have turned their back on Jesus because they believed following him meant they would not have to face trouble or crisis or heart-breaking loss in this world.  When the trouble and trauma came, they felt betrayed by God as if he had not kept his promise to them. I have seen this after someone discovered their spouse had been unfaithful.  I have seen it after the death of a child. I have seen it after healing did not come.  Each one felt betrayed because life did not turn out as they expected and because God did not answer their prayers as they hoped. They had believed for a relatively trouble-free life.

To be sure, there are many promises of blessing, healing, protection, and deliverance in scripture.  However, there are also assurances that those who follow Jesus will experience trouble, persecution, and betrayal in this world.  Some trouble comes from our own bad decisions.  Our walk with Jesus does not exempt us from the law of sowing and reaping.  Bad decisions bring negative outcomes. Some are minor.  Others are catastrophic. David’s adultery with Bathsheba is front and center as evidence.  David repented of his sin but there were still serious consequences from his bad decisions.  The child born to David and Bathsheba died.  His son Absalom conspired to take his thrown.  That son then died in battle.  Because of his repentance, David was forgiven.  His relationship with God was restored.  God walked with him through the consequences, but he still had to deal with the loss and betrayal his sin had triggered.

At other times, we will face trouble and crisis simply because we still live in a fallen world and operate in enemy territory.  Our unseen enemy is very real and works tirelessly to derail us and, if possible, snuff out our faith. Even without his attacks we are broken people living with broken people. Hurts and losses come out of living in a world of broken people with free will. Often it is free will to hurt others.  Sometimes, because the earth has been cursed because of sin, natural disasters will also bring their share of pain.  

What we must remember is that our pain does not come from God but from sin and the accumulation of billions of people reaping what they have sown through their rebellion against God.  Unfortunately, we also reap what others sow…like innocent bystanders being killed because of a drunken drive or a deranged person walking in to a school with an AR15.  

That seems discouraging, but here is the good news.  First of all, we know that God often does protect us and provide for us when things could easily have gone the other way.  He has saved us many times, even when we did not know we were in danger. He does bring healing … sometimes supernaturally and sometimes through the grace of healing.  And yes, he does sometimes deliver us from the consequences of even our own actions and the actions of others…but not always.  However, I have seen time and time again that in our worst moments we are not alone. He brings grace to the moment that sees us through to another day.

And although trouble may come and we may face our worst fears, one promise stands that gives hope to every situation. The apostle Paul declared, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Rom.8:28). The challenge is in accepting that what may be in our eternal best interest is not always what we have in mind. God’s primary commitment to us is to get us across the finish line with our heavenly citizenship intact.  We naturally want everything this side of the funeral to be as smooth as everything in the other side.  We will have seasons like that but we will also have seasons that belong to living in a fallen world. 

All in all, we will get scrapes and bruises in this world that we don’t always understand.  God will not cause those but will use those to shape us, mature us, and prepare us to fulfill the destiny he still has for us.  We may feel like Joseph in an Egyptian prison, but those bitter days prepared him to lead a nation as Pharoah’s second in command.  At other times, we may not sense the good that God is working for us until years later when we look back to see his hand.  Don’t be surprised when trouble comes.  Blessings are promised but so is hardship at times.  God has not forsaken you and his grace will be sufficient.  Ultimately, he is working to get us home with him where there will definitely be no pain or sorrow ever again.