In his book, When Heaven Invades Earth, Bill Johnson has an interesting take on one element of spiritual warfare. He says, “First, God makes us strong and then he stirs up the devil’s hatred toward us. Why? It’s not because he wants to create problems for His Church. It’s because He likes to see the devil defeated by those who are made in His image, who have a relationship of love with Him by choice. We are His delegated authority. It is His delight to have us enforce the triumph of Jesus.”

I believe that statement is true but there is still a part of me that doesn’t warm up to that truth. I don’t like to be roused from my comfort zone to face an irritating enemy. I don’t like my world being rocked when I have just found the right balance and am peacefully coasting along. I find myself, like Rodney King, asking, “Can’t we all just get along?” Unfortunately, the answer is No. We live in a war zone and will until the King returns to cast the enemy and his angels into the lake of fire.

My problem is that while Jesus came to preach a selfless, other-centered gospel, I too often still make it a self-centered gospel. I too often seek the blessings for myself rather than relentlessly looking for others who need them more than I do. I too often worry about my comfort and security rather than the pain, poverty, and discomfort of those around me. As Americans, we tend to be self-centered consumers looking for a church that ministers to us and meets our needs rather than a church that is sacrificing and kicking down the doors of hell. That kind of self-centeredness robs the kingdom and us individually of both power and joy.

Regarding joy, Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” Those who are poor in spirit don’t demand much for themselves and often don’t think of themselves at all. Modern psychologists would say that such a mindset is a sure sign of self-hatred and a sure formula for depression. But Jesus said that those whose focus is primarily on others and not their own glory, happiness, entitlements, etc. are the truly blessed people of the world.

Philip Yancey put it this way. “My career as a journalist has afforded me opportunities to interview ‘stars,’ including NFL football greats, movie actors, music performers, best-selling authors, politicians, and TV personalities. These are the people who dominate the media. We fawn over them, pouring over the minutiae of there lives: the clothes they wear, the food they eat, the aerobic routines they follow, the people they love, the toothpaste they use. Yet I must tell you that, in my limited experience…our idols are as miserable a group of people as I have ever met. Most have troubled or broken marriages. Nearly all are incurably dependent on psychotherapy. In a heavy irony, these larger-than-life heroes seem tormented by self-doubt.

I have also spent time with people I call ‘servants.’ Doctors and nurses who work among the ultimate outcasts, leprosy patients in rural India. A Princeton graduate who runs a hotel for the homeless in Chicago… Relief workers in Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Bangladesh and other repositories of human suffering…I was prepared to honor and admire these servants, to hold them up as inspiring examples. I was not prepared to envy them. Yet as I now reflect on the two groups side by side, stars and servants, the servants clearly emerge as the favored ones, the graced ones. Without question, I would rather spend time among the servants than the stars: they possess qualities of depth and richness and even joy that I have not found elsewhere…Somehow, in the process of losing their lives they find them” (Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, p.117-1180.

It seems that Jesus knew what he was talking about and I think, in reflection, that the less we obsess about ourselves, our needs, our wants, our security, the more room we make for God and the love of God that we crave. The more of God we have, the more joy, authority, and even power we have to fight the inevitable wars on this planet against the devil. God does many things to get us to focus on him. He is not an egotist. He simply wants the best for us. When we are full of ourselves or even full of concern for ourselves there is little room for Jesus.

If we truly want to excel in spiritual warfare, then we must fix our eyes on Jesus not on ourselves. Greatness and joy in the kingdom, come when we seek it for others more than ourselves. The cross is the ultimate example of that truth. In the days ahead, it would be a good practice to check my “self-ometer” from time to time to make sure that there is truly room for God. The more of me that is in the tank, the less room there is for the very things I say I want most that can come only from the Father. Sometimes my own self-focus and concern for self is a more formidable enemy than Satan.

Above all else, guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life. Put away perversity from your mouth; keep corrupt talk from your lips. Proverbs 4:23-24

The “heart” is the innermost part of our being. It is where our deepest beliefs and convictions reside. They color and flavor every experience we have and every thought produced by our intellect. Scripture often alludes to the heart and tells us to keep watch over it or to guard it.    In the proverb quoted above, Solomon called the heart the wellspring of life. The word in Hebrew means the beginning place or source like a spring from which a river flows. So for us, our heart is a source of life from which everything else flows.

Biblically, it is hard to define the heart when it is used in this context. It is much more than love or emotions or feelings which we assign to “ the heart” in our culture. It is more than the brain or even the subconscious although the Bible tells us that we believe in our hearts. It simply seems to be the depository of all that we truly are. Some of what is there is beyond our perception so David prayed and asked God to search his heart and to show him if anything that offended God was operating in his heart. We are told that even Jesus resides in our heart. So there is a spiritual dimension to our hearts, a faith dimension, and a character dimension. Out of all that, our life flows strong and clear or trickles out like a polluted stream.

What we speak affects our hearts. According to Solomon, any choice to speak perverse or corrupt things affects our hearts. Paul tells us in Romans 10:9-10 that if we confess with our mouths and believe in our hearts that Jesus is Lord, we will be saved. There seems to be a connection in that verse between our speaking and our believing. God has created us in such a way that the things we speak get written on our hearts. But there is a cyclical process that also occurs for Jesus tells us that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks (Mt. 11:34). What we speak repeatedly becomes established in out hearts and then what is in our hearts comes forth in words – especially in unguarded moments. What we store there by the words we speak then reinforces the beliefs or attitudes or desires that are there so that the heart reproduces itself by prompting the words we speak.

Solomon tells us to guard our heart, which is the wellspring of life, by putting away perverse and corrupt talk. Perverse talk is twisted or distorted talk. It is talk with a spin. The devil is a master at spinning a lie so that is sounds like the truth or a plausible explanation. It is the kind of language that deflects blame to others and always justifies the one speaking. However, Jesus tells us to let our “Yes” be “Yes” and our “No” be “No.” He calls for strait talk because when we begin to speak half truths and put spin on our stories to justify ourselves or to hide our own failings in the matter, then it is only a matter of time until we begin to believe our own lies. It is only a matter of time until we begin to minimize or justify our sins rather than confessing them and repenting so that God’s grace and the blood of Christ can cover our sin. If we excuse our sins, then God cannot. If we blame others for our decisions, then he cannot forgive.

Corrupt speech again carries the idea of lies and deception. It is speech is that promotes death. Corruption is decay and decay is evidence of death. Satan is called Beelzebub – the lord of the flies. Flies are drawn to corruption. Ultimately, corrupt speech is speech that disagrees with or opposes God’s truth. Jesus said that his words are Spirit and they are life. The word of God produces life and health. A word that is in opposition to God’s truth produces death and decay.

Whatever we agree with we empower and speaking something brings us into agreement with whatever we spoke. If we speak as God would speak, then we come into agreement with him and empower his word in our lives as we deepen its presence in our heart. If our words do not align with God’s truth, then we are coming into agreement with lies and the father of lies, the devil. We then empower him to operate on our hearts. To guard our words is to guard our hearts and to guard our hearts is to guard our lives. Words matter.

Ask the Holy Spirit and those closest to you, to make you aware of any of your words that are not aligned with God’s truth. When you discover those words simply repent, align yourself with the Father, ask the Spirit to cleanse those lies from your heart, and then begin to speak God’s truth in the matter until that truth is your automatic response. Then you will know that your mind has been renewed in that area and God’s word then will be your words and will begin to produce the life the Solomon points us to.

Years are measured in seasons. In much the same way, life is also lived in seasons. Although there is some continuity as we move from season to season, there can also be great differences and those differences can demand different perspectives, attitudes, and strategies to navigate well. We must navigate three feet of snow and eight-degree temperatures in February in very different ways than we navigate 95 degree heat in August.   One extreme requires a roaring fire while the other begs for air conditioning. One requires heavy clothing and lots of layers while the other demands light, breathable cottons. One season is lived primarily indoors while the other calls us outdoors. Just about the time we get one season figured out another presents itself. That change can be frustrating, but on the other hand, most of us are also eagerly awaiting the variety that a new season brings.

Sometimes, the God who created seasons for a planet spinning in space, may also call us to a new spiritual season as well. Sometimes the call comes at unexpected times for us while for God that time was appointed before the creation of the world. Moses is a prime example. The hand of God was clearly on Moses as a child who was marked for a great destiny. As you recall, to avoid extermination by Pharaoh, Moses had been placed in a waterproof basket and hidden in the bull rushes along the Nile by his Hebrew mother. The daughter of Pharaoh found him in the water and adopted his as her own. He was raised in the palace and given the training and advantages of Egyptian royalty. At some point he became aware of his Hebrew heritage and began to sense that somehow he was to be a major player in delivering his people from slavery. One day, he witnessed an Egyptian beating a Hebrew and in a moment of anger killed the Egyptian and hid his body. Within hours, Moses had been discovered and fled from Egypt to the backwater country of Midian where he married, settled down, and became a shepherd. He fled Egypt at the age of 40 giving up every advantage he had as a son in the royal house. Then for 40 years he lived the quiet, unassuming life of a shepherd.
At the age of 80, however, Moses had an unexpected encounter with God in a burning bush and a new season was thrust upon him. Suddenly, out of nowhere, God picked up the thread of the destiny he had assigned to Moses and called him to return to Egypt and finish the job. Moses was not excited. He had left Egypt confused and afraid with a quick demotion from the palace to the pasture. All he had experienced related to the call that God was resurrecting was failure. He no longer saw himself as a leader or a hero. He simply saw himself as a hapless shepherd destined to live and die living in dusty tents in Midian.

With each excuse Moses offered, God responded that he would go with him. Moses continued to push back. “Who am I to do such a thing? Who will I tell them sent me? What if they won’t believe me. I’m no public speaker. Lord, send someone else.” The text tells us that the Lord began to get angry. He had given Moses every assurance and had even demonstrated a coupe of miracles. More than anything, God kept assuring Moses that he would be with him and enable him every step of the way. God never sets his people up for failure.

So what was Moses’ problem? There are probably several themes that created pushback in Moses about this new season to which he was being called. First of all, he no longer saw himself as a leader or anyone special. He had tasted failure and disappointment forty years earlier and he had no desire to taste that again. Secondly, life was comfortable and predictable. It wasn’t great, but he had adjusted to it and found a sense of security and contentment in what he was doing. Now God was wanting to launch him into the unknown. If he were younger that might appeal to him but he was two-thirds of the way through life. Moses died at 120. He was already 80. For us, if we think we might live to be 90, then two thirds of our life would be 60 years old. Most of us aren’t willing to step into a totally new season at that age. But that is exactly what God was calling him to do.

Even though the call to lead Israel out of Egypt and into the wilderness might seem better suited for a younger man, God seems to be more concerned about character than age. He can impart strength but he waits on us to develop character. The Moses who saw himself as a great leader was arrogant and rash. A man who was humble and had shepherded sheep for 40 years could now shepherd people and would lean on God rather than his own abilities. For Moses, the fullness of time for this new season came after Moses himself had been seasoned.

So what if your season is about to change? What if God is not calling you to the next thing (a continuation of what you have already been doing) but a new thing that is totally different from what you have known before? What if he is wanting to pick up the thread of your destiny that you laid aside years ago. Would you be willing to step into that season that would be full of spiritual productivity and adventure? Or would you, like Moses, find every reason to stay where you are and die peacefully but without having experienced the fullness of God and his glory that Moses discovered after he finally said yes.

We are in a season of acceleration. Maybe it’s an “end-times” thing but global and social changes are happening at an incredible pace. I believe God will be asking many of his people to step into new seasons with him that may be an expansion of what they are already doing or something very different from what they have ever known before.

The world is shifting and God has a hand in it. Every shift will open up new opportunities for his kingdom to expand on earth and he will be looking for people to use in significant and, perhaps, unprecedented ways in those moments. If the call comes will you be available? I ask myself that question as well. Perhaps, if we actually anticipate the possibility we will be much more ready to say yes. Pray about it. Dream about it. Even ask for it…if you dare.

A declaration is the act of speaking or pronouncing God’s word and will over a situation. It is an essential weapon to be used in spiritual warfare.   Jesus modeled that strategy in his showdown with Satan in the wilderness after fasting and praying for forty days.

After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.      “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him. Matthew 3:2-11

Satan tried to bait Jesus into engaging in a dialogue with him about his rights and privileges as the Son of God on earth. When Adam and Eve allowed themselves to be drawn into a conversation, they were out maneuvered and manipulated. Sin was the outcome. I don’t believe for a second that Satan could bested Jesus at anything but our Savior modeled a better strategy. He simply declared the word of God over each temptation.

The word of God has authority. When we declare God’s word over a situation, it first establishes His authority and, as his delegated representatives, our authority over the circumstance. If you watch any crime show on television, you know that when police show up at a house, they first have to identify themselves as officers of the law or authorized representatives of the law and then they will still need a warrant or probable cause to begin to exercise their authority. The Holy Spirit within us and the name of Jesus on our lips identify us as representatives of the Kingdom of Heaven. A declaration of God’s word demonstrates the extent of our authority over a situation and establishes that the enemy is in violation of God’s law. That violation gives us probable cause to exercise Christ’s authority and issue commands in his name. The enemy is not always a demon but may also be disease, poverty, conflict, etc.

Paul tells us that the word of God is the sword of the Spirit (Eph.6:17), which can function either as a defensive or offensive weapon. The word translated as sword in that passage is not a Roman sword or a broad sword but a dagger. Daggers are used when the fighting is close – hand to hand. So when the enemy closes in, it’s time to pull out the word of God and use it as a weapon. Solomon said, “Reckless words pierce like a sword (Prov.12:18). If the words of a man can pierce, how much more the Word of God which is sharper than any two-edged sword (Heb.4:12). These passages suggest that the word of God declared over the enemy not only establishes authority but may inflict pain as well. When I was being schooled in deliverance, I used to minister with a man who had done deliverance for decades. On occasion, when a spirit was stubbornly hanging on, James would lay his Bible on the back of the person and the spirit would leave as if the word had afflicted the spirit in some way. That didn’t work for me, but it did for James. He probably had more faith in the effect of the Word than I did.

Another important aspect of declaring God’s word over a situation is that it helps to keep us aligned with the word of God. The enemy is skilled at twisting the truth and introducing doubt just as he did with Adam and Eve in the Garden. The tempter himself came to Jesus and tried to lure him into sin. With each temptation, Jesus answered with scripture – “It is written…” Not only was Jesus wielding the sword of the Spirit but he was keeping himself anchored in the truth of his Father’s words. Those words were true and had authority. For Jesus, that settled the matter and it should for us as well. Any lack of confidence on our part regarding our authority or the Lord’s authority in a matter seems to give the enemy a right or at least the ability to continue his assignment.

When ministering deliverance, we always want to establish our position and authority first by declaring the Word of God. We typically begin with a declaration that we are servants and sons of the Most High God who come in the name of Jesus who has all authority in heaven and on earth (Mt.28:18) and a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord (Phil.2:9-11). We also declare that the prince of this world has been condemned by Jesus (Jn.16:11), that we have been given power to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy (Lk.10:19), and that no weapon formed against those who belong to the Lord will prosper (Isa.54:17).   We may declare similar things over sickness as well when we suspect a spirit is involved.

Our words establish both the Lord’s authority and our delegated authority over the enemy like an arrest warrant. They also remind us of who we are in Christ as we begin to deal with the enemy. In addition, these declarations establish the victory that is ours in Christ and remind the enemy that he too must bow the knee to Jesus. If Jesus used declarations of God’s word against the enemy then how much more should we? The word of God declared through our lips over people, nations, and circumstances is powerful and an indispensable part of spiritual warfare.

Paul instructed Timothy, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). This verse suggests that we are to know and wield the word of God as a craftsman or as one who expertly knows how to use the tools or weapons entrusted to us. Getting the word in us so that the Holy Spirit can pull up the word that we have stored in our hearts whenever the enemy shows up is critical. There is no substitute for time in the Word and the capacity to declare that word over temptation, weakness, or crisis. I’m concerned that too many believers today have substituted good books written by their favorite authors and YouTube sermons for Bible study. Books and sermons are great resources but the Word itself contains the power. Jesus said that his words are Spirit and life. We need all of both that we can get.

Easter is only days away. In a very real sense, Easter is the most significant day of all days for without the resurrection the entire life of Jesus would have been only a gesture of holy living and a presentation of philosophy of life. But, speaking of Jesus, Paul says, “who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: (Rom.1:4). In other words, it was the resurrection of Christ that established without doubt that he is the Son of God and that he will make good on every promise. Easter does not celebrate the cross but an empty tomb.

The account of the last hours of the life of Jesus is so significant that John gives Chapters 13-20 to those hours. While the other gospels race past the Lord’s Supper and the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus in two or three chapters, John slows the camera to a slow motion version of the story which essentially begins in an upper room where the twelve plus Jesus are gathered for Passover. Jesus expressed that he had longed to share that Passover meal with them. I find that hard to grasp because the conclusion of that meal would launch a brutal evening of betrayal, arrest, abandonment, abuse, perjury, beatings, and insults ending with being spiked to a rough hewn timber full of splinters and hoisted into the air to suffer for the next six hours and then to die.

Yet in the middle of the Passover seder, according to the other gospels, Jesus takes some of the unleavened bread that was commanded for the meal, breaks it, and hands it to the twelve saying that it represented his body which he was about to be given for them. He then took a cup of wine for them to sip and told them that the wine would represent the new covenant in his blood. He indicated that his followers were to take these elements on a regular basis until his return because by dong so they would remember him.

If I put myself in the shoes or rather sandals of the apostles, I think both of those statements would have been very confusing. I’m not sure that they yet grasped that this man who had walked on water and commanded storms would be killed in a few hours. Why eat broken bread to represent this physical body and what is this talk about a new covenant when so may of the prophets had already died defending the covenant God had given to Moses for Israel? After all, wasn’t that what Passover pointed to in the first place – the Exodus, the Red Sea, Sinai, and the Law?

I am convinced that most of us as followers of Jesus still do not fully understand the depths of communion which the Lord established at a simple Passover meal 2000 years ago. I’m certain I don’t and yet it was at the heart of the Christian church and their life together for centuries. The early church came together for fellowship and communion rather than preaching and elaborate praise services. They came together on the first day of the week to share a common meal (the agape meal) in which those who had plenty brought plenty to share with those who had little. That was a practical expression of “Love one another as I have loved you.” Then they would take bread and wine to remember the Lord’s sacrifice until his return.

For them, the cup of the New Covenant must have been a breath of fresh air – especially for the Jewish believers who were suddenly out from under the weight of the Law of Moses with its sacrifices and hundreds of laws defining every move of their lives. Covenants were often established by the shedding of innocent blood (animals) in those days and that was a familiar reference point for those believers. The bread that was broken to represent the body of Christ is more of a puzzle. Of course, it represents the physical suffering he went through for each of us but is there more?

Peter may give us some insight into the “more” of his broken body when he says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” (1 Peter 2:24-25, emphasis added). The Greek word that is translated “wounds” in this text speaks of the welts, the swelling, and the injuries that would come from a slave being beaten or whipped. That certainly describes the scourging that Jesus endured at the hands of the Romans.

Peter’s words were surely lifted from Isaiah’s writings when the prophet spoke of Messiah saying, “Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray” (Isa.53:4).

Isaiah discussed two things that Messiah carried for us at his death – sin and sickness. Many modern translations make “diseases” into “sorrows” but the word consistently means disease or sickness or infirmity throughout the Bible. When one and a half million Israelites came out of Egypt the Bible tells us that no one of them was sick or lame because God’s grace had provided health and healing for the journey. One of the major marks of Christ’s ministry was healing. Through his Spirit he gives gifts of healing to the church and a special command to call for the elders of the church, if anyone is sick, for their prayer of faith and that prayer is promised to bring healing (James 5).

In modern times we have tended to confine the blessings of Christ’s death to the forgiveness of sin and spiritual healing. But God is interested not just in our spiritual life but also in our physical well-being. The wounds or the bruises of Jesus not only purchased our forgiveness but our healing. Because of contemporary theology, we tend to have faith for the forgiveness but not for the healing. David tied those two blessings together when he said, “Praise the Lord O my soul and forget not all my benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases” (Psm. 103:2). In Matthew 9, we are told of a paralytic that Jesus healed. He began by telling him that his sins were forgiven. When the teachers of the law questioned his right to forgive sins, Jesus said, “Which is easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk.’ He then healed the man. The link between forgiveness and healing is seen all through scripture so it should not surprise is that they are linked in the New Covenant as well.

As we take communion, we should reflect not only on the love of Christ demonstrated by the cross and the covenantal forgiveness we have in Jesus, but also the healing that has been purchased for us by his suffering as well. Each time you take the bread, you may want to receive healing in the name of Jesus as part of your inheritance for his world as well as celebrating your forgiveness. Blessings in this life as well as the life to come.

A dear friend of mine and our church died of cancer this week. She was (and is) a great woman of faith with an amazing family of faith. We all believed God for healing. She certainly believed God for healing. She, of course, has received ultimate healing in heaven but that is not what we prayed for. So what do we do when we stand on the scriptures, when we know others who have been healed, and when we believed God for healing but our loved one dies?

Often, our first thought is birthed by our disappointment. We may be disappointed in God or with ourselves. We may feel that God has let us down and didn’t keep his word or that somehow we weren’t enough or didn’t do enough to merit God’s healing for the one we had been praying for so earnestly. I know in moments like these I often default to those feelings and thoughts. It’s very human to do so but not very beneficial nor does it reflect the mind of Christ.

If no one was ever healed of cancer or if we believe that God does not heal today then we would simply write it off as something God doesn’t do. We would simply accept the individual’s death as inevitable and pray for a peaceful passing. But when we have seen people healed or, at least, believe that healing is still for today, we are left not only with the loss but also with a myriad of questions. Often those moments create a crisis of faith.

In the midst of loss, they’re a few things that I hang on to. First of all, I need to stand on what I do know rather than bowing to what I don’t know. I know that God is love. I know that he is good. I know that he is compassionate. I know that he is eternal and unchanging. I know that he is present because he has said he will never leave us or forsake us and, in fact, lives within us.

Whatever my questions are that may go unanswered I must frame my conclusions with the things I do know about the nature of God. If you wonder about who the Father is or what he is like you can look at Jesus. Jesus told Philip that if we have seen him, then we have seen the Father. In this life, believers must be willing to live with some mystery about God’s decisions, answered prayers, seemingly unanswered prayers, why some are healed and some aren’t, etc. God has an eternal perspective that we rarely have. Ultimately, our reward is heaven. As Christians we profess that we long to be in the presence of God. We profess that we are restless as we wait for the return of Jesus. We declare that all we want is to enter his presence and hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” And yet, when a loved one crosses the finish line earlier than we anticipated, we are often upset with God.

There comes a time when we must trust his goodness and his grace and even his judgment over our own. The hard part is navigating the waters of loss when we have believed God for healing without taking offense at God or ourselves. We sometime assume that the loss of our loved one was punishment for something we did or didn’t do. There are times when illness is a result of unrepented sin on the part of the one who is ill but repentance opens up the pathway for healing again. In addition, a scan of the gospels reveals that healing was always about grace rather than merit anyway. Jesus healed some godly people but he also healed many ungodly people. He healed some with great faith and some who had no idea who he was. At times he healed every person in the crowd but at the Pool of Bethsaida he healed only one. Our reasoning finds it hard to explain God’s choices and so faith trusts his nature and his character and believes that all of his choices are grounded in love and compassion. We then give thanks for the time we had with the person we are grieving for and trust God for the future. There are simply some things we don’t know.

The truth is that, as believers, we will see that person again if he or she was also in Christ. For them, the separation will only feel like minutes. Not only that but our loved one is now immersed in perfect health and indescribable joy. We grieve for ourselves and if we let him, God will fill the void with his love and with the love of others he has placed in our lives for moments like this.

As the saying goes, “No one gets out of this world alive…unless the Lord returns.” Death was not God’s doing. Adam and Eve chose it when they chose rebellion. It is now a part of every life and we must trust God with it. The contemporary church is just beginning to embrace the reality of healing again and there is much we still don’t understand.

So again, we need to stand on what we do know rather than bowing to what we don’t know. God has a heart for healing. It is his nature for he said, “I am the God who heals you.” If healing were not in his heart, he would not have given gifts of healing to the church nor would Jesus have made that a touchstone of his ministry. So why are so many not healed? I think the problem is on our end, not his and so we must continue to pray for healing while we learn more of God’s ways regarding that.

The loss of a loved one to sickness can have two effects. We may become discouraged and decide that God does not answer our prayers for healing and so we never ask again or we can determine to press in harder for more faith, greater understanding, and the biblical standard of healing. I have determined to go with the second option and I hope you will too. I have seen many healed. I have also seen many godly people who were not healed. But I am also confident that we will continue to see an increase in healing in the church in the days ahead and an increase in the expectation of healing until we are perplexed when someone is not healed rather than being surprised when they are. Be blessed in him to day and if you are in need of his grace may the God of all comfort and compassion, comfort you in all of your troubles (2 Cor. 1:3-4).

The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “O Sovereign Lord, you alone know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’ ”

So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’ ” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army. Ezekiel 37:1-10

There is an expression among some of our contemporary prophets that “prophetic words don’t tell the future, they create the future.” That may sound arrogant, but not if you understand how God has determined to do his work in this world through his people. Ezekiel is a prime example and the familiar story above illustrates the principle. In a vision, God took Ezekiel to a valley that had probably been the sight of a large military battle. The dead were not buried but simply left where they fell. They had been there a very long time and the elements had stripped away everything but the bones. In the story, God is illustrating what he plans to do with Israel, which by all measures has become spiritually dead.

God could have easily set Ezekiel on a high cliff overlooking the valley so that he could have watched God’s handiwork from afar and reported what he saw. Instead, God made him a vital part of the process. God had already determined what he wanted to do but, once again, would not do it until one of his prophets declared his intentions. It’s as if God is always ready to run a race and will always win, but he will not leave the starting blocks until one his people fires the starting gun. Our words are the starting gun. God told him the words he was to declare, but would not act until Ezekiel was obedient to declare the word of the Lord over the situation. As he did, the Spirit of God began to move and amazing things happened. Where there was once despair, hope emerged. Where there was only death, life appeared. In what was once a sight of defeat and desolation, an army stood.

Remember God’s word to Jeremiah as he called the young man to be a prophet. “Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “Now, I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant” (Jer.1:9-10). God’s method is to put his words in the mouths of his people and when they declare that word, he will empower his words to create the very thing that is decreed. God’s original intent was to rule the earth through his representatives to whom he had given authority over the works of his hands (Ps.8). I believe God honors that intent by waiting on those to whom he has given authority to release the word over their rightful dominion before he acts.

Since the Spirit of God lives within every believer, every believer can hear the voice of God speaking to him or her. One of our prime directives should be to listen to God intently to discover the very things he wants us to pray or declare or command over a given situation. We have been taught that prayer is our opportunity to persuade God to do what we want him to do. There is probably a time for that but I’m convinced that the rule of thumb is that we have been placed here to declare the words he puts in our mouths and on our hearts. Jesus is our example and he clearly stated that he only did what he saw the Father doing and only spoke what he heard the Father saying. When we do that, we can have absolute faith that our prayers will be answered.

That doesn’t mean that we never initiate a need or a concern. But after having laid our concern or a crisis before the throne, the best approach would then be to ask the Father how he wants us to pray or what he wants us to say over that situation. I must confess that too often I act as if God is there to represent my interests rather than me being here to represent his.

The truth is that we approach just about every situation or need with a very limited view of all the issues and variables that will affect the outcome. We have no idea of what will transpire six months from the time we decide what should be done in a situation. We usually pray for the easiest road rather than the most beneficial road. We have a very short-term view of life rather than the eternal perspective of the God who has no beginning and no end. It stands to reason then that what he would have us do, pray, or declare would be very superior to what we would try to convince him to do.

All of this is why it is so critical for us to learn to hear the Father and to take time to do so on a daily basis. When he puts his words in our mouth, our prayers and declarations can change entire nations. How much more can they affect the individuals and smaller issues most of us deal with? Paul taught us that “those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Rom.8:14). So what does it mean to be led by the Spirit of God? It simply means that we do and say what the Spirit directs us to do and he tells us what he hears the Father saying. That is what makes us sons and daughters of God. You have heard the expression, “like father, like son.” A true son reflects the father in his words, actions, and motives. A father can be seen in a true son so when we pray or declare what the Father gives us, then we are most like him and accurately represent him on the earth. Let’s listen for him before we pray or declare. It is the way of the prophets and the Son and should be our way as well.

Life without a real sense of purpose is miserable. When I was in my twenties I had already begun to feel the angst of not knowing what my life should be about. Career and love were big on the agenda of a twenty year old but I had no compelling reason to choose one career path over another and my quest for love wasn’t working out. Work wasn’t fulfilling because I was just working to pay the bills and not making enough to chase recreational pursuits or travel the world. Besides, God had wired me in such a way that “meaning” was a central issue in my life and I wasn’t finding real meaning in anything. As a result, I started fighting depression at a time when life should have seemed full of possibilities.

I think the world is full of people who don’t sense any purpose to their lives beyond the day-to-day essentials of life and maintaining the duties of marriage. Even materialism is an effort to find some meaning in a life that has no sense of value or purpose beyond the temporary rush of the new purchase. People drift from relationship to relationship, job to job, and fad to fad trying to find something beyond themselves to give their lives a greater sense of significance.

My sense of purpose finally came through a relationship with Jesus. The realization that God had established a destiny for me was intriguing but still vague in my early years as a believer. It was later when I began to delve into studies on my temperament and spiritual gifts that I started making the connections. Psalm 139 was especially helpful to me. David declared, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (Ps.139:13-16).

As I studied the Psalm, I recognized that God had a very intentional hand in my creation. At the point of conception, he seemed to have shaped me according to his purpose. In fact, he had apparently laid out a plan for my life before I was ever born. I have a choice as to whether or not I cooperate with his plan, but a sense of destiny was forming in me. The question still remained, however, as to how I could discover that destiny so that I could cooperate with God in my life’s plan.

The Apostle Paul added another very significant layer to discovering my purpose in his letter to the Ephesians. He wrote, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph.2:10). The idea of being God’s workmanship echoed Psalm 139 as he had a hand in developing who I was and what I would be doing. That thought then connected with “good works” which God had prepared in advance for me to do. My destiny did not just lie in being saved and going to heaven one day but in the realization that God has intentionally created me with specific purposes in mind.

If God had laid out good works he wanted me to accomplish, then he would have surely designed and equipped me to accomplish those works with some measure of excellence. My temperament and my abilities would both contribute to my capacity to do what God had called me to do. The additional layer of spiritual gifts that the Holy Spirit distributes then became a final clue. A number of temperament profiles exist today to help you understand your “wiring” and with those profiles you can discover a list of career paths toward which those temperaments gravitate. Add to that an awareness of spiritual gifts and you can begin to sense the kinds of life focus you have been designed for. One of the notions that we need to jettison is that careers in the market place are unspiritual while only church related ministries are spiritual. God wants to plant his people in every corner of society in order to reach people who are not attending anyone’s church and to spread the influence of kingdom values in those pockets of culture. Spiritual fruit must be sown outside the church walls and he has designed most of us to do that.

Other general indicators of “your call” are simple.  Has God placed a desire in your heart to do something or to operate in some spiritual gift? Do you find certain things that you do uniquely fulfilling even when it doesn’t place you in the spotlight or massage your ego? Have people told you that you made a difference in their life in a way that drew them closer to Jesus or allowed them to experience God’s grace? Do some things seem easy and intuitive for you while other things just don’t “compute?” Sometimes we keep trying to shore up the areas in which we are weak rather than pursuing and developing the areas in which we can flourish because God created us for those things. Sometimes we are trying to fulfill someone else’s call on our life and pursue those things in order to please a parent or another influential person in our life when God has not created us for those things as well. Frustration and an unfulfilling life is the outcome of that.

When I was in high school and early college, the question was always, “What do you want to do with your life?” Honestly, I didn’t have enough wisdom or life experience to even answer that question. The better question would have been. “What do you think God has created you to do?” You can not always know exactly what God is calling you to do because he will open doors for specific opportunities as you go, but you can discover the direction of your life that he has ordained for you by becoming aware of your temperament (wiring), your gifts, your desires, and those things that intuitively makes sense to you.

I believe we live in a world that has no sense of eternal destiny or purpose but is swimming in a sea of uncertainty trying to find personal significance. Purpose is everything. It makes us part of something bigger than ourselves. It attaches us to others who have a passion for the same purpose. It makes even the small things that contribute to your purpose significant. The ultimate questions for every individual is whether or not they matter and whether or not what they do matters. Purpose answers that and a knowledge that God has established your purpose with eternal dimensions is even more significant.

Helping your children discover who God has made them to be and how to walk that out would be one of the greatest gifts you could ever give them. Discovering that for yourself would be a tremendous gift for you as well. I hope you are clear on the call God has placed on your life or will begin to search for it if you have not yet discovered those things he has crafted you for and established for you even before the creation of the world. Blessings in Him.

One of the great healing evangelists of the early 20^th Century was John G. Lake. In his lifetime he established hundreds of churches in North America and Africa and healed hundreds of thousands. In 1910, he and his family believed that God had called them to Africa to preach the gospel. As they landed on African soil a plague was destroying the country. In less than a month, a quarter of the population had died in one large region. The plague was so contagious that the government was offering $1000 to any nurse who would go there and care for the sick. That was a lot of money in 1910. John Lake and his assistants went to help without charging anything.

He and an assistant would go into homes, carry out the dead and bury them, without ever displaying any symptoms of the plague. When asked by one doctor what he was doing to protect himself he simply stated that as long as he stayed closely connected to God with the life of the Spirit flowing though him, no germ could ever attach itself to him. In an experiment, the doctor took foam from the lungs of a patient who had recently died of the plague and placed it under a microscope. The foam was alive with germs. They then placed some of the foam in Lake’s hand. As the doctor watched through the microscope, the germs died almost instantly as they touched Lake’s skin. By the time Lake and his family returned to America, after five years in Africa, he and his ministry had trained 1,250 preachers, planted 625 congregations, and brought 100,000 men and women to Christ.

At one point in his ministry he moved to Spokane, Washington and established “healing rooms” in an old office building. Historians estimate that some one hundred thousand confirmed healings occurred there. There was so much interest in his ministry and the healings that occurred that local newspapers and the Better Business Bureau investigated his claims and determined that not only were the healings legitimate but that they had not heard half of what the Lord had done through those ministries.

Lake was totally convinced that all disease and disability was from the devil. He hated disease and death with a passion and believed that God did as well. Because of that he never doubted God’s willingness to heal those he prayed for. Was everyone healed? Not everyone, but hundreds of thousands were including late stage cancer victims, paralytics, plague victims, epileptics, and so forth.

There is much more to the story of John G. Lake. He certainly wasn’t perfect but the good news is that God can use imperfect people to do incredible things when they are passionate for God and the kingdom. The second point is that the power of the Holy Spirit makes a huge difference in the fruit that a person or a church can bear for Jesus. Those who want to live for Christ without the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of prophecy, healing, tongues, miracles, and so forth can do so, but will not impact the world as much as those who minister with the gifts. If the gifts are not needed for world-changing ministry then the first century church had no need for them either. However, God chose to equip the church with power on the Day of Pentecost so they could be effective witnesses for Jesus throughout the world.   John G. Lake simply followed in the footsteps of those he read about in the Book of Acts.

One resident of Spokane said, “Dr. Lake came to Spokane.   He found us in sin. He found us in sickness. He found us in poverty of spirit. He found us in despair. But he revealed to us such a Christ as we had never dreamed of knowing this side of heaven. We thought the victory was over there, but Dr. Lake revealed to us that victory was here.”

That would be a worthy prayer for all of us – that God would enable us to impact the world around us in the same way whether a community, a circle of business associates, or simply our family. God is waiting for the next John G. Lake. Maybe it could be you…or me. He simply needs a surrendered heart.

(Much of the biographical material referenced in this article is from God’s Generals by Roberts Liardon.)

For the word of God is living and active. Hebrews 4:12

The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. John 6:63

The two verses above speak of God’s word. The Hebrew passage describes it as living and active. The Greek word translated as “living” means that it contains its own vitality. It is as much alive as humans or animals or plants. The fact that it is living in the same way suggests that it grows and bears fruit. It reproduces. The parable of the soils that Jesus told likened the word of God to seed that would bear tremendous fruit if planted in the right soil.

The Greek word that is translated “active” means more than just moving around or animation. It is a word that means something surging with energy is at work and having effect. It indicates that something alive and powerful is accomplishing a divine purpose in the supernatural realm. This definition takes the word of God for beyond information to be digested or principles for living to be learned and incorporated as a philosophy of life. While we study the word, incorporate its principles, and quote scripture, we can be sure that something is at work in the unseen realm that is accomplishing something we may or may not even be aware of.

The second verse from above was spoken by Jesus and adds to our understanding. Jesus declared that his words were spirit and they were life. What does it mean that his words were spirit? I believe they were spirit in two senses. First of all, his words originated in the spiritual realm. While on earth, Jesus still operated as a citizen of heaven whose perspective was always anchored in the spiritual realm. In addition, he said that he spoke only what he heard his Father saying. To his disciples he said, “Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work” (Jhn.14:10). His words flowed from the spiritual realm to the natural realm, not the other way around.    That is why they possessed power. Secondly, they came to him from the Father via the Holy Spirit. Jesus had just declared that the Spirit gives life. As they came from the Father through the Spirit they were infused with the life-giving power of the Spirit so that when they went out they fulfilled their purpose.

That is how the word of God becomes living and active (Heb.4:12). As they are broadcast they are infused with spiritual power by the Spirit of God. As a result, the words of Jesus created life in various forms. For some it was spiritual life. Men were born again in response to the gospel. For others it was physical life. Thousands were healed and physically restored and many were literally raised from the dead. For others, emotional life was imparted to them as broken hearts were healed. And for even more, life was restored as men and women were set free from bondage to demons and addictions. His words imparted life because his words carried authority and were infused with power. The words that created the universe demonstrated that dynamic in the very beginning.

But what about today? How is the word activated? There is life in a seed – enough to grow a giant redwood – but that life is not manifested until it is planted and watered. The word of God rests on the pages of a Bible or in the heart of a believer. It may do a work in the believer but not in the world that surrounds the believer until it is activated. It is activated when it is spoken with faith. Throughout scripture, God deposited his word in the heart of his prophets and empowered those words when they were proclaimed. Moses declared each plague before Pharaoh and then God produced each one. He put his words in the mouth of Jeremiah and as Jeremiah declared that word over nations, those words came to pass. I have heard today’s prophets put it this way –   prophetic words don’t tell the future they create it.

God’s word is filled with power and purpose. When we pray it or declare it, those words go forth alive and energized by the Spirit to produce life. When we speak healing, hope, provision, or peace over a person, we should believe by faith that something is going to happen because the word has been activated and is filled with energy and purpose. The word is the sword of the Spirit and when we speak the word of God we are wielding that sword.

Read the word, hear the word, pray the word, and declare the word. When we partner with God, he will honor his word. What situation do you need to be declaring the word of God over right now? Find your scripture and activate it in your life or in the life of someone you know.