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 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. (Ezek. 37:1-10)

I want to take a few more lessons from Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones before moving on. This is about God giving life to those things that are dead by all natural measures. In the beginning of Ezekiel’s account, God took him out and led him back and forth through the scene of desolation and then asked him if those bones could live again. Ezekiel had viewed the impossibility from every angle and undoubtedly the natural man would have given these bones no chance to live again. Even acknowledging the sovereignty of God, the natural man would have concluded that if God had wanted these bones to dance again, he would not have let them die in the first place. Death seemed to herald God’s final verdict because, after all, it is given to man once to die and then the judgment. No resurrection. No reincarnation. When a thing dies, it’s time to bury it and move on. It would have been easy for Ezekiel’s reason to come into agreement with that view and if it had, his answer to the Lord’s question would have been, “No way, Jose.”

But Ezekiel did not let the natural man rule the day. In essence his response was, “God, if you want these bones to live again they will because nothing is impossible for you and my faith comes into agreement with that truth rather than what is possible or impossible in the natural.” That is the always the mindset of faith and the mindset that brings victory over the impossible.

Secondly, Ezekiel was told to prophecy over the bones and they would come to life. As he began to prophesy he saw something amazing – bones twitched, moved, and reattached while muscles and flesh formed over the bones. Nothing happened until he began to declare God’s word over the situation and, as he declared it, God’s power was release. Amazing stuff started to happen. I’m certain that Ezekiel’s heart raced and his faith soared. But then it stopped. Everything looked good but when Ezekiel had finished prophesying there was still no life in the bodies. How often have we prayed, gotten excited about something that looked like progress, only to watch it stall out so we decided that our prayer was not going to be answered after all.

However, God told Ezekiel to continue to prophesy but with a different twist. He was no longer commanding bones but the Spirit himself to come and breathe life into these corpses. Sometimes the answer to prayer is a process rather than an event and as the process unfolds we may need to pray or declare with a different emphasis. If we have prayed for God to make an unbelieving husband into a great man of God, our first prayers and declaration must be for the Spirit to birth faith in the man or for the man to have an undeniable encounter with Jesus. After he has come to faith, our prayers or declarations need to change. Salvation is no longer the issue but growth, discipleship, and sanctification.

We need to be sensitive to the process and to ask God what we should be praying for or declaring in the present. Hearing from God in those moments is critical because we may be unaware of the new believer’s greatest need for growth while we pray for something that we perceive as the greatest need. When Ezekiel didn’t see the bones jumping to their feet, he didn’t give up nor did he start declaring what he thought was needed, but waited on the Lord to tell him what was next.

As he declared Part 2 of the prophecy, those bodies began to breathe and stood up as mighty army. God then gave his reasons for raising the dead. “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord” (Ezek.37:12-14).

Just because something or someone seems dead and beyond all hope, it doesn’t mean that God is through with the person, the marriage, or the situation. It is in those moments that God shows himself to be the true and living God. Do not come into agreement with unbelief. Do not stop praying and declaring life over someone or something. Keep going, even when progress seems to stall out or ground seems to be lost, and ask God how you need to be praying or what you need to be declaring in at moment of the process. After all, dead bones can live again – just ask Lazarus and, by the way… Jesus.

“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…Ezek. 37

When asking God to breathe life into a situation, a relationship, or a disease riddled body we must always remember that our faith and action will play a part. God had already decided to raise this army of dry bones from the valley floor but would wait on Ezekiel to declare his word before the power flowed. Notice that Ezekiel was not declaring his own word or his own will but the will and the word of God.

Our first step in changing an impossible situation is to make sure that what we are asking is aligned with the will of God. Are we praying something or declaring something that has his stamp of approval on it? You would think that principle is a given but I have known Christians who were praying for things far removed from the will of God. For instance, I met with a woman once who was frustrated with God because he hadn’t answered a long time prayer for her “boyfriend” to leave his wife and children to marry her. I’ve met with a Christian whose greatest desire was for a former spouse to die and burn in hell. I’m not sure that follower of Jesus prayed for that particular outcome but I know she hoped for that outcome because she told me so in no uncertain terms. I believe she had prayed for it.

Our first assessment should be whether the thing we are praying for or declaring lines up with the will of God as revealed in scripture. We can always pray, declare and command for the sake of someone’s salvation because we know that God desires that all men should be saved. We can always pray, declare, or command on behalf of a failing marriage, a person in bondage to an addiction, a nation that needs to turn back to God, or for a woman not to choose abortion because we know God’s constant heart on those matters. We already have his unchanging word on the matter. Other issues may be a little trickier so we simply need a “rhema” or direct word from God on the issue. Ezekiel didn’t get his command to prophesy over dry bones from the Torah but from a direct word from the Lord.

The key is in praying, prophesying, or declaring the word of God over the issue. God said, “So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it” (Isa.55:11). When God’s word goes forth it fulfills its purpose. In the case of Ezekiel, God’s word was placed on Ezekiel’s lips and he sent it forth by declaring God’s word over an entire valley of dry bones. Jeremiah experienced the same dynamic. “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). Jeremiah would build and tear down nations by declaring God’s word over them. As I said before, God loaded the gun but his prophets pointed the gun at the target and pulled the trigger which released the power of the Holy Spirit into the very situation God was willing to effect on the earth.

Those patterns of how God works in the earth were given for our learning. Just as Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and a host of others in scripture declared God’s word over a matter, we are to do the same. When God’s word goes forth from our lips, it also fulfills its purpose. That is how we speak life over dead things that God wants to make live again. That is how we tear down strongholds and set people free. The desired result is not always immediate. It takes years to build some things as each prayer and declaration adds a brick and months or years to tear down other things. At times we are laying siege to the enemy and every prayer, declaration, or command releases more of the power of God into the situation we are dealing with. When enough spiritual artillery has pounded the walls of a demonic stronghold, the wall will fall like the walls of Jericho. God wants to build up and tear down and he wants to use us to do both. He uses us by placing his words on our lips so that we might send forth the words of God that in due time will fulfill their purpose.

Next Blog: More lessons from dry bones.

“Son of man, can these bones live?” That was the question God asked the prophet in the 37^th chapter of Ezekiel. As I said in my last blog, Israel had been defeated three times within two decades by Babylon- the reigning heaving weight champion of the Middle East in that era. In the final round, Babylon had destroyed Jerusalem, burned the temple and stripped it of all its treasures, and deported the last of Israel’s best and brightest professionals. On top of that, the Ark of the Covenant disappeared and with it the presence of God. No historian, politician, or military expert would have given them a chance to ever rise from the ashes as a nation. A valley of dead, bleached bones of a long defeated army was the scene symbolizing Israel’s condition and the question was, “Can these bones live?”

Ezekiel responded with wisdom. “O Sovereign Lord, you alone know.” The right answer is always, “God, it’s up to you.” Our first step toward breathing life into something dead or dying is to know and acknowledge that the issue is beyond our ability. How often do we keep trying to fix an issue – a marriage on the brink of collapse, a child on drugs who is slipping away from us, a bad situation at work with a miserable boss, etc. – only to keep making it worse?  The right answer is always God.

In the book of Zechariah, the Lord prophesies the return of the scattered Israelites to the promised-land and great standing for them in the world community. The promise would have been impossible for man but not for the God of all the Earth. “ Then he said to me, ‘This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of host’” (Zec.4:6). His point was the same as Ezekiel’s: There are many things in this world that will never happen by the best efforts of men, but can become realities by the Spirit of God.

Other than health or natural disaster, most of our problems in the world revolve around relationships whether between individuals or nations. Relationship problems exist because of emotional brokenness – hate, fear, insecurities, bigotry, loneliness, depression, rejection, etc. manifest in rage, bitterness, addictions, war, violence and so forth. The best efforts of man aim at alleviating symptoms through drugs or therapies that teach us to cope or manage our issues. But the real issues lie deep within the heart which is touched by a spiritual dimension and is God’s special arena. Jesus came to heal broken hearts (Isa.61:1-4) and God promised over and over that by his Spirit he would heal and give men a new heart (see Ps.147:3; Ezek.11:19; Ezek.36:26; Heb.8:10). Dry bones only come to life by the work of the Spirit of God – but we have an essential role in that work.

Once Ezekiel affirmed that only God can give life to the dead, God commanded him to prophesy over the bones. “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” (Ezek.37:4). So why didn’t God just wave his hand over the field of dry bones and have them jump to their feet? The answer is simple – it’s not how God has chosen to work in the earth. God has chosen to work through his people. Most of the time, God chooses not to do something for us but rather with us. Doing something with us builds the relationship between God and us. When my girls were young, I discovered that I could do projects for them (often more quickly and easily), but when we did them together they learned some new skills and we built our relationship by the doing. We were able to celebrate what we had accomplished together. God chooses to work in the same way with his children.

God had already determined to release the power of his Spirit into those bones but would not release the power until Ezekiel prophesied. In a sense, God had already loaded the gun but he left it to Ezekiel to point and pull the trigger. Only then would the power of God’s word be released.

How many of us keep asking God to do something, when we already know it is his will, rather than declaring his will over the issue? We already know that God desires all men to be saved, all marriages to be reconciled, all hearts to be healed, his church to be glorious, etc. It is not wrong to ask God to heal, empower, release etc. but then we need to begin to speak or declare life, healing, restoration, and power over the things we are praying about. Remember, the tongue has the power of life and death (Prov.18:21). As Ezekiel began to declare God’s word over the dry bones, they began to rattle. More in my next blog.

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. Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord. (Ezek. 37:1-14)

This is one of the most poignant and compelling sections of scripture in the entire Bible and is filled with as much significance for us today as it was for the Jews in days of Ezekiel.

Ezekiel lived and prophesied during the days of Babylon’s world dominance. In 607 B.C. Babylon had invaded Israel and deported many of the best and brightest of the nation including Daniel. In 597 B.C. another invasion occurred and more of the Jews were taken. Finally, in 586 B.C. the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem, destroyed Solomon’s temple, and took the temple treasures back to Babylon. The Ark of the Covenant, which stood in the Holy of Holies and on which the presence of God rested, disappeared and has been searched for ever since. The destruction of the temple and the disappearance of the Ark seemed to be irrefutable evidence that God had finally abandoned Israel to her fate because of years of unrepented sin.

By all rational standards, Israel was finished as a nation. After all, it was an insignificant nation by world standards – only 65 miles wide and 120 miles long. Their capital was decimated, the temple which was the center of Jewish faith and culture was destroyed, and all the powerful, gifted, and educated members of Jewish society had been enslaved and scattered through out the Babylonian empire. Israel looked as if it would disappear into history and be absorbed by the nations around it showing up in old manuscripts as only a curiosity – a small nation that flourished for a few centuries and then faded into oblivion.

But God was not through with Israel. To demonstrate his plans for the nation, he led Ezekiel into a valley of desolation and death. There the prophet scanned a lunar-like landscape covered with the bleached bones of a long defeated army left for the wild animals and hot sun to clean. No one had even cared enough or had the capacity to come find these fallen men and bury them. They were alone. The symbolism of defeat, death, despair, and hopelessness fit the mood of the Hebrews who had left Egyptian slavery for freedom but seemed to have had come full circle now as captives and slaves in Babylon. Having brought him to this valley of desolation, God asked Ezekiel the ultimate question, “Can these bones live?”

Maybe you have asked that question about your own life or the lives of others you care about in a different way but with the same sentiment. “Can that marriage ever be put back together after the adultery?” “ Will I ever feel anything but this pain?” “Can someone so broken ever be freed from his addiction?” “Will the child, molested and raped, ever be able to trust and love someone else?” Our world is full of dry bones. Perhaps, there are piles of dry bones in your own life? Can those bones live again? We will begin to look at the way back to life in my next blog.

Now Elisha was suffering from the illness from which he died. Jehoash king of Israel went down to see him and wept over him. “My father! My father!” he cried. “The chariots and horsemen of Israel!” Elisha said, “Get a bow and some arrows,” and he did so. “Take the bow in your hands,” he said to the king of Israel. When he had taken it, Elisha put his hands on the king’s hands. “Open the east window,” he said, and he opened it. “Shoot!” Elisha said, and he shot. “The Lord’s arrow of victory, the arrow of victory over Aram!” Elisha declared. “You will completely destroy the Arameans at Aphek.” Then he said, “Take the arrows,” and the king took them. Elisha told him, “Strike the ground.” He struck it three times and stopped. The man of God was angry with him and said, “You should have struck the ground five or six times; then you would have defeated Aram and completely destroyed it. But now you will defeat it only three times.” (2 Kings 13:13-19)

This is a unique section of scripture because it is an account of one of the last prophetic declarations of the great prophet Elisha. Elisha was an intern of Elijah and at the departure of Elijah into heaven, Elisha received twice the anointing or spirit that his teacher had walked in. Elisha was a powerful prophet but was not destined to be taken up to heaven in a whirlwind (2 Kings 2:1) as his predecessor was, but would simply die of an undisclosed illness. Jehoash, the king of Israel mentioned in this section, was not a particularly godly king but came to Elisha anyway after hearing of his illness. From the context, we can infer that Jehoash had a concern about going to war against Aram (Syria) and had probably come to inquire of the Lord before going to battle.  Even in the grip of his illness, Elisha heard from the Lord and apparently had a heart for Israel even though the nation had been in rebellion against God during most of Elisha’s tenure.

At the coming of the king, Elisha instructed him to take a bow and some arrows and shoot an arrow out the east window. Elisha placed his hands on the king’s hands to symbolize the promise that God would strengthen Jehoash’s hands in battle. This was a prophetic act symbolizing a military victory over Aram. In a sense it was like Moses raising his staff over the Red Sea symbolizing authority over the waters – God’s authority working through his representative.

After Jehoash fired the arrow, Elisha declared that Jehoash would completely destroy the Arameans in an upcoming battle. He then gave the king a handful of arrows and instructed him to strike the ground with the arrows. The better translation is that he was instructed to shoot the arrows into the ground as he had shot the first arrow through the window. Jehoash shot three arrows into the ground and stopped. Elisha was angry saying that he should have shot more arrows because he established his own destiny with the number of shots. More arrows would have brought more victories for him and for Israel.

At first glance, I’m puzzled by Elisha’s anger. He didn’t tell the king how many arrows to shoot into the ground or clearly why he was doing so. However, the king knew the first arrow was a sign of one victory and could have deduced that more arrows meant more victories. My guess is that he still had arrows in his hand when he stopped shooting. Either his faith or his passion for victory or both fell short.

I wonder how often we stop short of God’s promises either because our faith won’t imagine more or because we are content with a little rather than battling for all that God is willing to give us. I have learned through the years that most prophecies and promises are conditional on our response. If God tells us he will do great things through us, the condition is that we prepare ourselves for great things and risk doing more than we thought we could. If he promises to move mountains do we settle for an anthill because our faith can’t imagine the mountain or because our part in moving that mountain seems too hard or too long?

Jude challenges us to “contend earnestly for the faith” (Jude3). I once thought of that as a call to defend pure doctrine. I’m sure that contending may include teaching the truth in the face of opposition but I have also come to believe that it includes contending for the promises imbedded in our faith. Jacob had to wrestle with an angel for an entire night to get the blessing he was seeking. We need to endure in faith, prayer and action refusing to settle for less than the promise implies – for healing, for a nation, for salvations, or for a marriage. God wants us to shoot until all the arrows are gone.

Sometimes I wonder if God is bored because his children ask and settle for ordinary things rather than the extraordinary. Paul tells us that God is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine (Eph.3:20) and so I’m confident that he wants to do that. A strong man who can bench press 360 pounds wants to be challenged to do that and even more. To ask him to bench only 100 pounds is boring and even insulting. We need to ask for more. We need to ask for the impossible rather than the probable. We need to hear the promise or own true prophecy and then shoot every arrow, launch every prayer, and believe the word until we hold the promise in our hands. Don’t give up, don’t give in, don’t settle. Contend.

At Mid-Cities we end every service with a time of ministry at the front of the sanctuary. Pastors, elders, group leaders, and other mature believers stand at the front and pray for whoever comes forward while others are dismissed. On occasion, we invite people to come forward to pray for specific things – healing, spiritual gifts, reconciliation, etc. This morning we prayed for people to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. In general, the baptism of the Spirit is the release of power in the life of a believer for greater intimacy with the Father and for the release and empowerment of spiritual gifts. As I prayed for people to receive a fresh filling of the Spirit this morning, I realized that I was judging what was happening by sight rather than by faith. Paul corrects this human tendency when he says, “We live by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor.5:7).

Many of us fall into the trap of judging what is happening in the spiritual realm by what we see happening in the physical realm. It’s not that the spiritual realm does not manifest in the physical realm because it often does – but not always and maybe less than we think. For instance, how many of us have prayed for healing for two or three minutes (I know… it seemed longer), and when we saw no improvement we walked away believing that God did not answer our prayer. As soon as we had that thought, our faith for healing dissipated.

We judged the effectiveness of our prayer by what we did not see in the natural rather than by the promises of God in the spiritual realm. Interestingly, I have heard ministers with very effective healing ministries say that 50% of the people they pray for are not healed immediately but that the healing manifests 48 to 72 hours later.  Since that is true, we should continue to have faith for healing simply because we have asked according to the promises of God. How often have we quit praying for a healing, a salvation, provision, or a mate simply because we haven’t seen anything in the natural realm that looks like what we imagined God’s answer to our prayer would look like.

Naaman is the classic example. You remember he was the commander of the army of Aram. We are told that he was a great man but he had leprosy.   His Jewish servant girl told him of Elisha and promised that the prophet of her God could heal her master. Naaman took his servants and wealth and departed to meet this prophet and pay him for a word or a prayer of healing. When he arrived at Elisha’s house, Elisha sent his servant out to tell Naaman to go dip in the Jordan River seven times and he would be healed. Instead of rushing off to the river, the text tells us, “But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy” (2 Kings 5:11). Finally, his servants convinced him to go dip in the Jordan and after he had done so, his leprosy was totally cured. Because he didn’t see what he expected in the natural realm, he nearly missed what God had provided in the spiritual realm.

As I was praying for people to receive the baptism of the Spirit this morning, I realized I was looking for manifestations of the Spirit – heat, electricity, people going weak in the knees, or spontaneously beginning to speak in tongues. The people I prayed for did not report any of those experiences and yet my faith should declare that they did receive a filling of the Spirit because God promises that he will not withhold his Spirit from those who ask (Lk.11:13). The upgrade will eventually manifest in the natural because the Spirit impacts the natural but, like healing, it may manifest in a process rather than as an immediate event.

One writer, whose name I can’t recall, explained that when a gift of healing is manifested, a process of healing is released that may take hours or days to fully manifest. The gift of miracles is seen when a sick or disabled person receives their healing immediately. If we are not careful, we will quickly loose faith for the process of healing if healing does not manifest as a miracle.

Whether we are praying for healing, salvation, provision, direction, or revival we must maintain faith based on the promises of God rather than clear manifestations of answered prayer in the natural. God is often working in the spiritual realm, marshaling everything needed for the answered prayer and when it is released the answer comes quickly and powerfully, but until that moment it will not be apparent in the natural. So…keep the faith. When we believe God more than we believe our eyes, our eyes will eventually see much more than we ever anticipated. Blessings in Him.

I attended a fundraiser last night for China Aid in Midland, Texas. China Aid is a faith-based organization that works to overcome human rights abuses in China – especially in the area of religious freedom where thousands of Christians and pastors are still being persecuted and imprisoned for their faith. Bob Fu, a remarkable man and advocate for Chinese believers, is the director of China Aid. He was imprisoned for his faith in China and he and his wife Heidi eventually fled to the U.S. to keep from being “re-educated” again in Chinese labor camps. I have made two visits to China to minister to house church pastors and Christian human rights attorneys and have personally seen the faith and passion of these believers. I met numerous believers who had already been arrested and tortured by security police. Others know that possibility exists for them.   Each one expects to be arrested some day and, perhaps, tortured and imprisoned for their faith and yet they continue to serve Jesus and declare his name. For the Chinese believer there is a real cost of discipleship.

We have seen the cost of discipleship in the Middle East over the past few months as Isis has beheaded, burned, drowned and shot the faithful in Christ and we are beginning to feel the early pangs of persecution even in America. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor who stood against the Nazi’s in WWII and was executed for doing so, said that salvation may be free but it is also costly. There is always a cost to true faith even if the believer is not undergoing persecution. I remember Bill Johnson talking about people who wanted him to pray and give them an impartation for a gift of healing. Some would come and say, “I want twice the anointing you have!” and his reply would be, “So do I. But you haven’t paid the price I have.” He wasn’t saying that we earn our salvation or even spiritual gifts – otherwise they wouldn’t be gifts. What he was saying is that God feeds the hungry not the satisfied and he had expressed his hunger in countless hours of prayers and crying out to God for the anointing he has received.

The danger for most of us Americans is that our faith has been easy and, for most of us, life has been easy compared to the rest of the world. We tend to want everything to be quick and painless. I know that’s my preference, but coming to God has always required a sacrifice and though Christ is our sacrifice there still remains a spirit of sacrifice in our faith. In the life of King David there came a time when he was in need of offering a sacrifice for the nation.

“Araunah said to David, “Take it! Let my lord the king do whatever pleases him. Look, I will give the oxen for the burnt offerings, the threshing sledges for the wood, and the wheat for the grain offering. I will give all this.” But King David replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on paying the full price. I will not take for the Lord what is yours, or sacrifice a burnt offering that costs me nothing” (1Chron.21:23-24). Study, prayer, fasting, serving, giving and being inconvenienced for the gospel reflect a heart of sacrifice that is willing to respond to the cross with a willingness to pay a price for whatever has been freely given – our gift to God in response to his greatest gift.

As we scan the world and see the price the faithful are paying, we need to steel ourselves and be willing to pay a price for heavenly treasures as well. I’m not sure what it will cost us but I know that true discipleship and a powerful anointing of the Spirit will require effort and perseverance on our part. May we be willing to join all those who have gone before us who were willing to give it all for the sake of the cross. Pray a little longer, study a little more, take some risks for Jesus, give generously, miss a meal, above all be inconvenienced for the needs of others and…be blessed in Him.

He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever –Jn. 14:16

This is a rewrite of a blog I wrote months ago but I sense that God is wanting me to revisit the theme. For most of my years in ministry, I functioned as one of the primary pastors in my church that provided counseling for members as well as for other believers from the community. I typically saw problems that you would encounter in any counseling practice – chronic depression, anxiety, anger, shame, addictions, gender confusion, eating disorders, and marriages on the brink of dissolving. Most of these individuals had been Christians for years. The huge red flag should have been that our people, after following Jesus for years, looked very little different from those living in the world who did not know Jesus. They were saved but their lives had not been transformed.

As I met with individuals, I gave them a little insight into their troubles and a couple of exercises to do at home, prayed over them, and sent them on their way. I would see them again the next week and hoped for a little progress. Typically, little or no progress had been made and we would march around the same mountain again. We would work until some identifiable progress had been made and I would release them. I would likely see them again in six months. I had taken graduate courses in Marriage and Family counseling and went to top-notch workshops offered by both secular and Christian counselors. Other than an opening prayer, I heard essentially the same strategies for counseling.

However, as the years passed something kept eating at me. When I read the New Testament, I never got the sense that the church in Jerusalem (or anywhere else) offered counseling from leaders who went to the world’s universities for training nor did the writers of the N.T. encourage believers to work hard to “manage their issues. ” Instead they commanded them to rid themselves of those things. More strikingly, there was no sense that followers of Jesus took months and years of meeting with a local pastor or a therapist to experience healing and significant life change.

What I did see was the power of the Holy Spirit and the authority of Christ healing bodies, hearts, and lives. I saw once broke and even perverse sinners transformed and walking in a holiness that stood out from the world…and it didn’t take a lifetime. Paul clearly expected the church to be the place where the wisdom and power of heaven would reside and where the Holy Spirit would unravel the knots of a believer’s past while drawing the poison out of long-standing wounds. There was no hint that the church would go to the world for help but that the world would come to the church. Yet I (and other Christian counselors) tended to call secular training with an opening prayer Christian counseling. Even Christian colleges offered essentially the same training in counseling and therapy that unbelieving universities offered.

I am not denying that secular counseling can help. But what I am saying is that there is power and transformation available from God’s Spirit that secular counseling cannot touch. Paul is clear that the real battle for the hearts and minds of people rests in the spiritual realm where only divine weapons have impact. The N.T. church seemed to rely much more on encounters with the Holy Spirit and the powerful exercise of spiritual gifts to heal and change those who followed Jesus than wisdom the world might offer.  As those who will “judge angels” (1 Cor. 6:3) and who have the Counselor of Heaven residing within us, we should have much more to offer than secular therapists.

Once I began to allow the power of the kingdom of heaven to invade the counseling room and began to be a catalyst for encounters with God, I began to see the radical life change that I saw on the pages of the gospels. Once I began to speak God’s truth over situations I began to see Christians delivered from anger, fear, depression, addictions, eating disorders, and sexual brokenness in hours or weeks rather than months and years. I saw marriages on the brink of divorce begin to thrive because the Holy Spirit changed hearts rather than people simply changing behaviors. I must admit that when the power of God brings the transformation rather than my “amazing counseling skills” I feel much less significant in the process. In those moments I am no longer the dispenser of wisdom, the Holy Spirit is. But then, I get to see radical change rather than miniscule progress.

The good news of the kingdom of God is that Jesus has come to heal the brokenhearted and set captives free. He wants to release His power into the lives of his children for every circumstance. The Holy Spirit is an amazing counselor full of not only wisdom but also power.   Until a greater portion of the church discovers that, many committed believers who love Jesus will continue to walk for years with a relational limp and a broken heart – never living up to the dream their Father has for them. That is not God’s will for his church. The bride of Christ is meant to be shining, glorious, and powerful. Lets not settle for less. The world needs us and it needs us to be the distributors of God’s power on this planet. “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power” (1 Cor.4:20).

Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner. (Luke 7:37-39)

This is one of the most poignant scenes in the ministry of Jesus and it clearly contrasts the heart of religion and the heart of love. In the days of Jesus, when notable individuals visited a town and were invited to a prominent persons home, the villagers were typically welcomed to come and sit around the perimeter of the courtyard and listen to their conversations. Undoubtedly, most seats were reserved for close friends and family of the host but others could, perhaps, hang around the perimeter if they remained quiet and “invisible.”

On this particular evening, one of the “others” broke all protocol and eased her way through the onlookers to the very feet of the notable visitor. I’m sure that both social tension and eyebrows rose as she did so. First of all, this was a woman and women were not welcome to assert themselves in Jewish culture in the first century. More importantly, this presumptuous woman was notoriously known for her sin and certainly did not inhabit the social circles of Simon the Pharisee. It must have been an incredibly awkward moment for the host who had scored a social coup by having this young, controversial, miracle-working Rabbi accept his invitation to dinner. But now, this loose, very unwelcome woman was in the spotlight rather than Simon. More than that, she was making a scene with her sobbing and her theatrics – pouring perfume on the feet of Simon’s guest and wiping is feet with her hair. I’m surprised that Simon didn’t have his servants escort her off the premises but, perhaps, he saw this as a kind of test for Jesus. How would he deal with this breach of etiquette? If he truly were a prophet would he not know that this woman was a blatant sinner and rebuke her before all the righteous gathered in the courtyard?

And what of Jesus? If I had been him I would have found the moment even more awkward with this woman weeping, pouring expensive perfume on is feet, and wiping his feet with her hair with everyone looking on and wondering how these two might be connected – wondering if there were some revelation of scandal in this moment. I’m sure that for her sake and for the sake of everyone there I would have invited her to meet at a better time in a more appropriate setting. But not Jesus. While she is pouring, weeping, and wiping he simply tells a story that justifies the sinful woman and condemns the righteous Pharisee while calmly accepting her worship and repentance. It is likely that only two people in the whole courtyard were not embarrassed – Jesus, the healer of broken hearts, and this broken woman who had come to the Rabbi with a true sense of desperation about her life.

The religious condemned her and rejected her while the creator of the universe and the sinless second Adam embraced her. The religious focused on who she had been while Jesus focused on who she could be. The religious defined her by her sin and wanted nothing to do with her while Jesus saw her sin as the symptoms of a shattered soul and chose to do something about it. If the religious had ruled the moment, this woman would have disappeared into the night carrying an unbearable load of guilt and rejection convinced all the more that God hated her. Jesus showed a different heart and I believe it transformed her life.

The last look at this woman we get through Luke’s gospel ends with Jesus saying, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace” (Lk.7:50). John, however, may open the door for us a little wider when he speaks of Mary in his gospel. In John’s gospel, Mary has a high profile and is the sister of Martha and Lazarus. These three seem to have been very close friends of the Rabbi. You’ll remember that in the 11^th chapter of John, Jesus stood outside the sealed tomb of Lazarus and commanded him to come forth, performing the most notable miracle in his three-year ministry. In the beginning of that particular account we are told, “This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair” (Jn.11:2).

Some scholars do not believe that the woman of Luke 11 is the Mary who played such a prominent role in the life and ministry of Jesus, but I see no contradictions. She, who had been forgiven much, loved much. I believe love took a broken, sinful woman and restored her hope, her dignity, and her family. I believe love took a nameless woman without purpose for her life and gave her an eternal purpose and a name remembered for more than two millennia now. No wonder she was so attached to this distributor of God’s love and sat at his feet while her sister rattled the pots and pans. No wonder she believed that Jesus could give life to her brother since he had already given life to her.

That is the triumph of love over religion and relationship over ritual. Religion simply categorized this woman as a battered and worn relic of humanity ready for the trash heap. Jesus, however, saw her potential. He reclaimed her and repurposed her. He made her beautiful and useful while most of us would have simply walked by her like junk on the side of a road. I absolutely believe in love over religion but, if I’m honest, I drift away from love and into religion and judgment more often than I care to acknowledge – not just toward others but also toward myself. How often do I judge and reject my own heart, thoughts and actions as I compare them to some cold standard of acceptability rather than through the eyes of my Heavenly Father who never rejects but continues to repurpose me in my life. When I judge and reject myself, I reject others. When I receive God’s immeasurable love for me I tend to love others so much more. I’m betting Mary was a lover of broken people and my prayer is that I will also love as Jesus loves.

Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Lk.12:32-34).

In the context of describing God’s care and the uselessness of worry to his disciples, Jesus speaks the verses quoted above. He said that the Father had been pleased to give the kingdom to his followers. In the same way, the Father has been pleased to give the kingdom to us.   Many believers think of the kingdom as future. For them, the kingdom and the blessings of the kingdom are experienced only after the funeral or in the millennium when Jesus establishes his kingdom on the earth. The verb tenses Jesus used, however, were past tense. The Father had already given the kingdom and it was part of Christ’s rationale for a decision not to worry about how they would live.

In this section, Jesus describes kingdom economics. First of all, he reminds us that the kingdom has been given to us. That means that all the resources of the kingdom are available to us. As children of God and citizens of heaven, we have access to the storerooms of the kingdom – especially when we are on the King’s business and are trusting in him to provide.

Jesus counsels us to sell our possessions and give to the poor. That echoes his challenge to the rich young ruler who was moral and religious but who valued his possessions on earth more than those in heaven. He doesn’t say to sell all of our possessions but seems to be counseling us to sell much of what we have and give it away, especially the excess. This is a persistent theme throughout the gospels. When he sent out the twelve to preach, heal, and deliver he told them to take no money and nothing but the bare essentials. The lesson to be learned was that God would provide. Jesus taught us to pray each day for daily bread. Again, he seems to imply that in the kingdom, we don’t need to store up excess for the future but to use it for kingdom purposes today with faith that our Heavenly Father will provide what we need from the vaults of heaven each day.

Jesus goes on to instruct us to provide purses for ourselves (wallets) that will not wear out and a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted. We have a hand in providing this provision. I believe this teaching can include laying up rewards in heaven for eternal life, but in the context of not worrying about what we will eat, drink, or wear in this world he is talking about an account we can draw on now in this world. Jesus seems to be saying that as we freely give away what he has already given us, more resources will be placed in our account. The more we depend on the Father for provision rather than our own resources, the more goes into our account in heaven now. Biblically, it is hard for a rich man to enter heaven because the very nature of his riches tends to make him self-sufficient rather than Christ-sufficient.

It seems that from heaven’s perspective, a wise man will give enough to kingdom purposes that his situation will always force him to stay focused on God and his resources. That seems to create an “open heaven” for the children of God and his supernatural provision. Most of us have thrilled at stories of people on the brink of financial catastrophe who get the mysterious, anonymous check in the mail for exactly the amount they needed. Many of us would love to have that experience because we sense how faith building it would be. If we were honest, most of us would like to get the supernatural check so that we don’t have to dip into our savings or retirement. However, miracles typically occur only in the context of desperation or a practiced dependence on God. We’re not talking about desperation or dependence because we blew our paycheck in Vegas, but because we have used our resources for the kingdom of God or because we simply encountered a crisis that was out of our control.

In this passage, Jesus simply reminds us that there is no need to worry if we are faithfully serving the Father and are about our Father’s business. The kingdom has been given to us and the more we give away what God has been giving to us, the more he will funnel into our accounts so that we can give that away as well. I believe the principle goes beyond finances and includes our expenditure of time, energy, and gifts as well. What we give generously to God is rolled back into our account with interest so that we can draw on that account now. If we hold back a significant surplus for ourselves, we may not see the miracles we desire because we won’t need the miracles. Not only that, but after a while we may come to believe that we don’t even need God all that much.

Jesus gives wise counsel at the end of this text. Our heart will be focused on the place where we place our treasure. If a man has all his wealth in the stock market, he will check those stocks multiple times a day because his heart is there. If we want our hearts to be focused on God, then our treasure must be in his keeping not our own.

This passage challenges me and, perhaps, challenges you. Kingdom economics (kingdomnomics) stands the wisdom of the world on its head. But if we want to see the supernatural move of God in our lives, it may simply be a matter of economics.