And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?    Romans 8:28-31

I’ve been reading through Romans again and continue to run across so many scriptures that I know have a depth that I can never fully plumb but even small nuggets that I haven’t noticed before enrich me.  One of those sections is the text I quoted above out of Romans 8, which must be in the top five chapters in all of scripture. I just wanted to dig around in it a little more to see what I could find.

One of the most well known and most often quoted scriptures is 8:28 in which we are told that in all things God works together for the good of those who love him. Many times we read that as a scripture promising that God will quickly deliver us from whatever dilemma or ordeal we are facing. However, the word translated as “works” means that God will work together with the circumstances to transform us rather than simply delivering us from the hardship.  God is the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our troubles (2 Cor.1:4).  Without trouble we will never know his comfort.  It is in the midst of hardship and challenges that we discover God and that discovery allows us to become like him.

The core of this text is God’s eternal intention to conform us to the image of Jesus Christ.  His motive for conforming us is love.  According to Merriam-Webster, conform means “to take on the same shape, outline, or contour. It is to make one thing like another; to be similar or identical; to be in harmony with another; or to be in agreement with.”  Ultimately, it is God’s desire to make us just like Jesus and to bring our thoughts, actions, and emotions into perfect alignment with his.  It is not that God wants to clone Jesus but that he wants us to have the same heart and mind as Jesus because in that alikeness is found perfect joy, peace, and love…even in the midst of chaos. It is Jesus sleeping in a boat while the storm rages around him.

Here is what we need to know.  God predestined us to be conformed.  It was his intention to make us like Jesus even before the creation of the world. He is committed to conforming us because he loves us and because he knows that everything we are searching for in life is found in Jesus or found in being like Jesus. The issue we run into is that we resist God’s work in our lives.  But if you read the text, God is committed to the process because he knows our best life and best eternity is at the end of the process.

Back in my teens and college days when I had time and the inclination, my friends and I spent a lot of weekends working on our old cars. We wanted them to look sharper and go faster and so we tinkered with them endlessly adjusting the timing, trying bigger jets in the carburetors, adding dual exhausts, etc. Occasionally, we would try our hand at bodywork.

In those days there was still some metal in car bodies and when there was a dent, you took special tools called body dollies that were pieces of heavy metal with differing shapes that you placed behind the fender or door and then hammered the dent against the dolly to conform to the curve or flat surface behind it. Some parts of the car were fairly pliable while others were very hard and stiff. The pliable pieces were shaped with a minimum of effort, a minimum of pain, and small hammers.  When the metal was stiff and stubborn, we didn’t give up on shaping that piece, we just got a bigger hammer.  God is like that.  If we are flexible and pliable when he puts his hand on us, then our shaping is not so difficult and takes a minimum of time.  However, if we push back, resist, and stiffen when he tries to conform us to the image of Jesus, he won’t give up, he may just get a bigger hammer. It’s our choice.

So why would we resist becoming like Jesus in the first place? Of course, our fallen nature (our natural man) opposes submitting to anything or anyone.  The natural man wants to be in charge and still believes that happiness, significance, peace and security can still be found in the natural realm and clings to that delusion. Satan, of course, is totally opposed to our becoming like Christ because each layer of conformity to Jesus weakens the devil’s hold on us. And so he lies to us and constantly beats the drum declaring that God is holding out on us and keeping the best stuff for himself.  That was his tactic in the Garden of Eden and still is. Satan kills, steals, and destroys and then points the finger at God whom he paints as a God who is out to get us, who takes away the people we love, who is angry and vindictive, or simply detached and uncaring.  Each of those lies becomes a barrier to becoming like Jesus and drawing close to God.

Being conformed to Jesus is being conformed to the Father and the Spirit because they are one.  Jesus said that if we have seen him we have seen the Father.  As we conform to Jesus we align ourselves with the Father more and more and as we align with Him all of heaven becomes available to us as it was to Jesus when he walked the earth. In the gospel of John we are told that in him (Jesus) was life and that life was the light of men (Jn.1:4). People were drawn to Jesus because they saw a quality of life in him that they had seen in no other.  As we become more like Jesus, that quality of life will form in us as well.  It is what Jesus called abundant life.

Ultimately, the wise man or woman embraces being conformed to the image of Jesus.  He or she doesn’t despise difficult circumstances because those are the very tools the Father uses to shape us into being like Jesus.  Paul finishes this little section with the declaration that God is for us!  He has no intention to hurt us but to bless us.  Those blessings have been in his heart since creation and they are deposited as we become more and more conformed.  Cooperating with God in the process seems by far to be the best choice.

When you read early Christian writings there is always a great deal of emphasis on Christ’s admonition to take up our cross daily in order to follow him. The theology of the cross is that God uses hardship to conform us to Jesus and to teach us to make him our source of strength and supply.  In America, where comfort and plenty have defined many lives, the idea of taking up our cross is rarely proclaimed and is even a bit offensive if we are honest. In some corners of the kingdom, a prosperity gospel has been preached which suggests that material abundance and ease are God’s will for his people on earth and proof of his favor. Preachers of that gospel tend to live on lavish estates and raise money for twenty-six passenger jets to fly around the globe preaching to the poor.

I’m not opposed to believers making a great living. It is believers with means whom God can use to fund the kingdom here on earth and actually care for the poor. What I question, even in my own life, is how much I have bought into the notion that sacrificial living is no longer an essential element in pleasing God and drawing close to him.  In fact, American believers tend to see hardship in our lives as proof that somehow God is displeased with us.  If that were the case, then Jesus and those who first followed him must have been very displeasing to God. I am reminded of David’s words when he said, “I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offering that cost me nothing” (2 Sam.24:24).

Taking up our cross daily is not necessarily a call to poverty or persecution.  It is, however, a call to setting our personal agenda aside each day while we genuinely seek God’s agenda for us.  It is saying “No” to the natural man who demands to have his way, demands to be treated with respect, demands his rights, demands to be first, demands to be given the seat of honor, refuses to submit to anyone, and who is always self-focused and concerned about his comfort, his success, and his well-being.

The truth is that most of our pain and discomfort in life comes from our self-focus. It is that focus that measures every interaction to see if we were given due deference.  It notices every ache and pain in our body and keeps score in every relationship.  It takes offense, issues judgments, justifies our own shortcomings and rings the “victim” alarm every time we feel that life hasn’t been fair. Our self-focus keeps pulling the scab off of our own wounds as we constantly rehearse the scenes where those wounds were inflicted and keeps Jesus at bay because we feel such a need to protect ourselves by being in control.

Taking up our cross daily puts the focus on Jesus and others, rather than ourselves.  It actually reduces our pain even though we believe our pain would increase. It is something, I believe, that only the Holy Spirit can do in us, but won’t due without our constant permission. We all want to be filled with the Spirit but if we are filled with self, there is little room for the Spirit to move and work.

In a culture that promotes self-love, attending to our needs first, and entitlement it is difficult to take up our cross.  We would rather pay someone else to carry our cross for us. Unfortunately, that task cannot be outsourced.  The paradox, of course, is that the key to abundant living is dying to our own demands. The key to freedom is surrendering to Jesus…not just the parts we don’t care about but everything. I believe it is also a key to greater anointing and power because when we carry our cross, we will steward those things as Jesus would, rather than for our own affirmation. I need to consider this reality in my own life today.  You might need to as well.

When you get into the business of helping people deal with their brokenness through counseling, prayer, and deliverance, you are never more like Jesus.  However, there is a side effect to going down that road.  As you choose to help people deal with their wounds and their pasts, more and more broken folks will show up in your life. Broken people know broken people, and if you are caring and helpful, they will send others your way. Undoubtedly, God will be entrusting some of these individuals to you so that you can dispense his grace in their lives.

Let me warn you, however, that Satan will also deposit some of these folks in your life.  Those individuals will have the uncanny ability to suck the life out of you for months and months and distract you from some very important things that God has ordained for you.  Many of us that are drawn to healing ministries have a spiritual gift of mercy and compassion.  That’s the way it should be. But sometimes, that mercy gift morphs into a “rescuer” theme that develops in our lives and we can find ourselves in bondage to a mindset that feels responsible for the well-being of every victim or broken person we encounter.

In itself, being a rescuer is very Christ-like. After all, Jesus came to seek and save the lost.  That sounds like rescue work.  I would agree, but Jesus also set some very healthy boundaries around his rescue missions. You should as well. He displayed some of those when he went to the Pool of Bethesda and asked the lame man, “Do you want to be healed?”  Whenever we are working with broken people, that is a question we need to keep in mind. The truth is that not everyone wants to be healed, although everyone says they do.  Some do want to be healed but do not want to do any work to get to that place.  They want you to heal them and then want you to take up their mat and carry it for them.

Over the years, in our ministry at Mid-Cities, we have settled on a position that clearly states, “If you want to change, you have to do the work.”  Our belief is that when it comes to healing and freedom, God won’t do the work for us but he is more than happy to do it with us.  When Israel finally made it to Canaan, God could have cleared the land of Israel’s enemies with one sweep of his hand. He could have sent plagues, a band of destroying angels, or displayed any number of other supernatural acts to drive the tribes from the land.  Instead, he required Israel to go to battle.  He would lead them and assure their victories, but they still had to endure the hardships of warfare.  They had to face the enemy, check their faith, and swing the sword.  In doing so, their character was refined and their relationship with God was enhanced.

People who want their lives to be transformed have to fight some battles.  Our job is to equip them to fight and, at times, fight along with them. But our goal should be to equip them to engage with God and defeat the enemy on a daily basis or simply make better choices in the future.  Those who fall into the trap of becoming a rescuer tend to make the individuals they are rescuing dependent on them  – their wisdom, their gifts, and their resources. Part of the trap may be that the cycle may feel good to the rescuer because he or she see is making a difference in the life of a person and also because he or she enjoys the gratitude and admiration of those they are rescuing.  However, they are not teaching them to fight and they are not teaching them to depend on Jesus.  Everyone needs to be rescued from time to time, but when being rescued becomes a lifestyle for broken people, there is something wrong.

My wife Susan has a very wise saying when it comes to ministry to broken people. She says, “If you are doing more work than they are, something is wrong.” What you notice about Jesus is that his compassion met people where they were, but he did not leave them there.  He didn’t beg people to follow him or stay in one place long to make sure people followed through on his prescriptions for life. He pointed them to God, gave them godly counsel, got them started and then let them be responsible for their next steps.

There are those who truly want to change and are ready to do the work.  Invest in them.  There are others who want you to fix them and their life, but won’t do their part. They want God to magically change their hearts, their minds, and their circumstances while they sit and watch. God doesn’t work that way and neither should we. Let that person contact you when he or she is actually ready to do the work.  Others don’t really want to change, but simply love the attention and care they get as person after person pours into them without seeing much progress. That person needs to repent. And still others, want you to take away their pain but don’t want to give up some sin in their lives that has created the pain. They simply want you to rescue them from the consequences of their actions without changing their behaviors or choices. These too need to repent.

When you have begun to minister to a person who needs healing and freedom, you may have to carry most of the load initially. But that person should soon begin to make progress.  He should be engaged in the fight.   She should be in the word and in prayer.  That person should also make your appointments on time and consistently and must be willing to start aligning his or her life with God’s word and his commands.

Too often, our mercy gift kicks in and we keep meeting, keep rescuing, keep rescheduling for weeks and months because we feel responsible to “save the person.”  It is often necessary to remember that Jesus is their Savior, not us. Too often we enable irresponsible behavior and allow them to continue to see themselves as helpless victims who always need a hero to rescue them from the dragons in their lives.  Too often we keep them from experiencing the very consequences that would have been their best teachers.  God does not require that we fix broken people.  That is his job.  Our job is to give them godly counsel, point them to Jesus, and equip them to live as children of the king if they are motivated to do so.  We are to be responsible to them, but not for them.

As hard as it is, there are times when we just have to cut someone loose to whom we have tied ourselves because we realize we are trying to plant God’s seed in poor soil. No real fruit is being produced. The soil may improve over time, but for the moment, there are better investments for the wisdom, experience, mercy, and gifts God has entrusted to your stewardship.

I think we need to see ourselves as mentors or coaches rather than rescuers.  As we enter into a mentoring or coaching relationship with a broken person, we need to kindly and gently set expectations for growth and the work they need to be doing in order for authentic change to take place. That person should know that our goal is to make him/her dependent on Jesus, not on us and for them to become mature in their faith.  Growth and change will be an expectation in order for us to continue to disciple them. If it becomes apparent that you are working with a person who does not want to change or is not ready to change, you can still love them but you don’t have to pour into them.  We are certainly not requiring perfection.  After all, Jesus had to display a great deal of patience with the twelve who often seemed like spiritual knuckleheads, but they were on a growth trajectory and their hearts truly desired to be men who pleased the Master. I also suspect Jesus has had to be patient with us and give us second chances. But if the person you are pouring into is not displaying change or doing the work over a period of time, you may need to invest in someone else.

I’m not really writing this to instruct you in mentoring, as much as I am wanting to encourage you to avoid the rescuertrap and to even give you permission to cut yourself loose from unfruitful relationships that are keeping you from investing in other relationships that will bear great fruit and give you life rather than sucking life from you.  Remember, God sends some people your way, but so does Satan. A wise person will learn to discern who wants to be healed and who truly doesn’t.

I was browsing through the third chapter of John again this week.  It’s is one of those chapters that, no matter how many times you have studied it, you always know it contains so much more than you understand.  But one thing was evident to me as I read the words of Jesus again as he spoke to Nicodemus.  We should never underestimate the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer and in the Kingdom of God.  When you say it, it sounds trite – as if everyone knows that.  My experience, however, is that most believers don’t know that because they treat the Spirit as a minor player in the Godhead.  He gets an honorable mention on Sundays as one who, perhaps, played a significant role 2000 years ago but since then has been rather tame.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  I am reminded of that when Jesus cuts to the chase with Nicodemus.  Nic was a Pharisee as well as a member of the Sanhedrin.  But to his credit he was a truth seeker, although he still cared a great deal about his position and what other members of the  “good old boys” club thought of him.  He came at night so that he would not be seen with this “questionable” Rabbi. He represented another group within the Pharisees or the ruling council who were not quite ready to condemn Jesus because Nicodemus said, “We know you are a teacher who has come from God…” He came with a list of questions representing this little group.

We must speculate on where he was going with his questions because Jesus sidetracked his dialogue and began to speak about his own agenda.  However,  I feel confident that Nic was going to ask a series of questions about the Messiah and about the nature of miracles and so forth. That would have been an amazing discussion to hear and a spiritual discussion at that.  However, Jesus knew it would have been a futile discussion because this brilliant theologian and descendant of Abraham would not get it.

Jesus simply said. “No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” Clearly, for Nicodemus, that must have seemed like a hard left turn that, perhaps, was leading to nowhere.  What an enigmatic statement that seemed to just come out of left field.  Nic tried to track with Jesus a bit and so protested that a man could not be born again when he is old. Then Jesus added to the confusion by saying that no one could even enter the kingdom unless he was born not only of water but of the Spirit. Here was a man who all his life had been taught that knowledge of the Torah, love for the word of God, and good works would gain him entrance into the kingdom. Jesus simply said that entrance was not based on anything we could do but solely on the basis of what the Spirit would do.

When Jesus said that a man could not see the kingdom,  he meant that a man could not understand, perceive, or experience the kingdom without being born again.  An equally valid translation would be that he could not see the kingdom unless he was “born from above.”  That birth from above was by the Holy Spirit.  In the same way that Jesus was born by the Holy Spirit coming on Mary, we can only be born again by the Holy Spirit coming on us and we cannot see, perceive, understand, or experience the kingdom without the work of the Holy Spirit. If our initial realization of the kingdom comes only by the ministry of the Holy Spirit, then all other experiences and insight into the kingdom can come only by the Spirit as well.

If we place limits on the Spirit, we place limits on our understanding and experience of the kingdom.  In an effort to make God understandable, we miss out on understanding.  In our efforts to keep the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts from being abused, we abuse our own experiences with God.  In order to enter the kingdom, we must be born from above.  In other words, it is not just an intellectual exercise of acknowledging who Jesus is, but God has to do something to us. A new creation (2 Cor.5:17) means that suddenly, we are different and distinctive from the rest of creation. I believe that someday science will be able to measure a shift in brain function, DNA, or genetics that occurs the moment someone is born again.

I do not believe that being born again, being born from above, or being born of the Spirit is simply a metaphor for us as we somehow take on a new philosophy of life. When the Spirit comes power is imparted.  Radical transformation is initiated. Positions shift in the heavenlies as we are seated with Christ. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is rumbling around in us waiting to get out.  All of that begins with the Spirit of God and continues with him until the Spirit himself raises us from the dead. The Spirit is immeasurable power and wisdom and can only be capped or quenched by us.

In too many places, the church still quenches the Spirit in the name of doing everything “decently and in order.”  In my Bible, when the Holy Spirit showed up, fire erupted, people spoke in tongues, people went out and preached in the streets, buildings shook, everyone had a revelation or a tongue or a prophecy, people got healed, and demons got cast out. Some even dropped dead in church for lying to the Spirit.  All that doesn’t seem to fit our definition of  “decently and in order.” Many of our churches could benefit from a little disorder orchestrated by the Spirit.

We have even elevated intellect over spiritual gifts and spirituality.  If you don’t think so, check out the classifieds in a Christian journal where churches are looking for staff members and pastors. The qualifications are rarely based on spiritual gifts, spiritual maturity, intimacy with Jesus, or how many people a person has led to the Lord.  They are most often based on degrees earned in an accredited university or business experience in the corporate world. Jesus himself nor his apostles should even bother to apply. They would not meet the qualifications.

Although the Spirit points us to Jesus, Jesus points us to the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is God along with the Father and the Son.  We should pursue Him with as much passion as we do the other members of the Trinity.  If we fail to do so, we may enter the kingdom as a newborn, but we will remain in that same condition for years to come.  Our problem is not that we don’t know enough scripture, but that we haven’t experienced God enough.  That experience comes through the Holy Spirit.  Maybe we should make a real effort to get to know him.

Deliverance and Discipleship

As he approached his departure to the Father’s right hand, Jesus gave a directive to his followers.  He declared that he had been given all authority in heaven and on earth.  As a result, he had the right to command those who follow him to go into all the world and make disciples of both people and nations.

Ultimately, all that we do should be an identifiable element of making disciples.  Spiritual warfare is the element that produces freedom from spiritual bondage so that those who have been set free can make progress in their walk with Jesus. Deliverance or healing is not a stand alone event but part of our effort to disciple a person.  It is extremely important to realize that if the other elements of discipleship are not established in the life of the believer (faith, identity, prayer, repentance, time with the Lord, and so forth), those who receive healing and deliverance will quickly lose what they have received. Jesus warned, “When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first (Lk.11:24-26).

The man was set free from a demon but the vacancy was not filled with the things of God that are the elements of discipleship. Since a spiritual vacuum remained, the unclean spirit was able to return along with others. The man was then worse off than before he experienced deliverance. Because of that, we must be concerned with fully “discipling” those to whom we minister healing and deliverance.

That process is referenced in John 21 as Jesus asked Peter to affirm his love for him three times – the number of times Peter had denied him.  As Peter professed his love, Jesus charged him to care for the flock of the Chief Shepherd as evidence of that love. He responded to Peter’s responses by saying, “Feed my lambs…Lead my sheep…Feed my sheep.”  In a recent trip to Israel on a study tour, our guide explained that shepherds in Israel will rise early when new lambs have been born to carry them, speak to them, and examine the lamb the for weaknesses that will need attention as the lamb develops.  The shepherd bonds to the lamb, imprints his voice on the lamb, and becomes acquainted with the weaknesses of the little one for whom he will be responsible.  He then will lead the flock into places of protection and nurture and will make sure that they receive their “daily bread” of fresh grass and water. That is the process of discipleship and we are to see to it that those we bring to the Lord or set free in the Lord will receive the care and feeding they need with some special attention given to their weaknesses.

The process takes time.  It will be inconvenient.  It will even be frustrating.  But it is the life of a shepherd and that is what it means to make disciples. “Drive by” deliverance and “on the spot”  healing can be dangerous if we don’t disciple the individual or connect him or her to those who will continue to help that person grow in the Lord. As we continue to press into the realm of spiritual warfare, we must always remember it is not an end in itself but a step in the call to make disciples.

One of the most fascinating stories in all of scripture is the story of Jacob’s night at Bethel which he experienced when he was on the run from his brother Esau, whom he had swindled on several ocassions. We are told, “Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

There above it stood the Lord, and he said: ‘I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.’ When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.’ He was afraid and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven’” (Gen.28:10-17).

Two millennia later, John told us in his gospel, “When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, ‘Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false.’ ‘How do you know me?’ Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, ‘I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.’ Then Nathanael declared, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.’ Jesus said, ‘You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that.’ He then added, ‘I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”’ (Jn. 1:47-51).

Nathaniel was stunned that Jesus had known his thoughts. We can surmise that Nathaniel had been sitting under a tree meditating on the word of God – specifically this story and all the ways in which Jacob had defrauded his brother Esau. Jacob was an Israelite in whom there had been a great deal of deception so Jesus contrasted Nathaniel with Jacob. He then characterized himself as the ladder in Jacob’s dream.

In essence, the gospel of John reveals that Jacob’s dream was a prophetic picture of Jesus who would bridge the gap between heaven and earth. Not only that but, through him, the household of God would become a gateway to heaven. The idea of the church being a doorway to heaven is both encouraging and challenging. We know that ultimately Jesus is the way to heaven but the church presents him to the world. Jesus is the ladder that spans the gap but we open the door for others to know and experience Jesus. In that sense we can open the door or close the door to heaven by our representation of Jesus. That is both a privilege and a sobering responsibility.

Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for being poor gatekeepers to the kingdom of heaven. “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to” (Mt.23:13). These “paragons of virtue” kept men from entering the kingdom because of their legalism and arrogance. They made “rule keeping” the cornerstone of their faith and piled on so many rules that everyone felt the impossibility of “being good enough” from the start. Many gave up before they even started and many felt the condemnation of the Pharisees who considered themselves righteous as they judged all others as those who would not truly make the cut. Pharisees would not even walk on the same side of the street as “sinners” so how could they ever lead a sinner to the kingdom and who would want to go with them anyway?

The Pharisees operated under the Law but some have done the same with the gospel of grace by turning the faith into a list of rules and expectations rather than a relationship based on our immense need for grace because none of us, by our own efforts, can make the cut. Many have felt judged and condemned by those in the church so that the gateway to heaven seemed cold and harsh rather than warm and inviting.

There is also a side to grace that is sometimes abused as well. Sometimes we make grace into a blanket policy that suggests that everyone and everything is acceptable in the kingdom of God and no one really goes to hell after all. God’s love is immense but so is his righteousness. Repentance is a prerequisite to entering the kingdom. If everyone gets in the door, there is no need for membership. The difference in legalism and grace is not the absence of standards under grace, but the basis for meeting those standards.

Under law, you must live up to kingdom standards by your own strength and efforts. Under grace, Jesus has lived up to those standards for us. We are credited with his efforts as long as we have faith in what he has done and a heart that wants to honor him with righteous living although we will have a number of miscues along the way. The kingdom offers salvation wherever we are in life, but calls us to something better, something cleaner, something healthier, and something greater than the world can offer. But it must be offered on the basis of love, grace and humility rather than with judgment and spiritual pride.

The truth is that each of us in a gatekeeper in the kingdom of God. In the eyes of those considering that gate, our lives and our attitudes reflect what is on the other side. If we are judgmental and arrogant, those outside the gate will expect to find a God on the other side who will make them cringe and crawl with fear. If we suggest that there is really no difference between the world inside and outside the gate, other than a “Get out of jail free” card, they will have the sense that nothing for them or their children will improve in this world so they may choose to look for another source of relief for their current pain.

As gatekeepers we must display the character of the kingdom. At the top is faith, hope, and love based on a relationship with a loving God whose grace and Spirit will make life significantly better on this side of heaven and that will make heaven a warm, inviting place for those in Christ rather than a frightening place of judgment and rejection. We are the house of God and the gate of heaven as Jacob put it. Let’s decide today to be amazing and inviting gate keepers for Jesus.

Some of the newest brain research that has caught my attention lately is simply revealing the reasons behind what God has told us to do for millennia. All of us who have raised children experienced a moment of frustration when we told our kids, “Because I said so!” We uttered that final word when our kids kept asking us why. Sometimes our response was a rebuke to their little rebellious hearts, but that other times we said it because we thought they wouldn’t understand our reasoning, even if we told them. Perhaps, this is a time that God has chosen to reveal some of the “whys” behind his commands. The “why” and the “how” of the brain are calling us away from cultural norms in a culture that has forsaken God and, often, plain old common sense.   Let me share some of Caroline Leaf’s thoughts on our culture of busy-ness. I think it may help us.

In her book, How to Switch on Your Brain, she says, “One of the plagues of modern existence is multitasking, which leads to the further plagues of “hurry sickness” and obsessive time management. The truth about multitasking is that it is a persistent myth. What we really do is shift our attention rapidly from task to task, resulting in two bad things: (1) We don’t devote as much focused attention as we should to a specific activity, task, or piece of information, and (2) we sacrifice the quality of our attention. I call this milkshake-multitasking.

This poor focusing of attention and lack of quality in our thought lives is the complete opposite of how the brain is designed to function and causes a level of brain damage. Every rapid, incomplete, and poor quality shift of thought is like making a milkshake with your brain cells and neurochemicals. This milkshake-multitasking, which is the truth behind multitasking, creates patterns of flightiness and lack of concentration that are unfortunately often erroneously labeled ADD and ADHD and that are too often unnecessarily medicated, adding fuel to the fire. And it’s a rapid downhill slide from there if we don’t get back to our God-design of deep, intellectual attention.

What does deep, focused, intellectual attention look like versus milkshake-multitasking? The answer is modeled in Proverbs 4:20-23. ‘Dear friend, listen well to my words; tune your ears to my voice. Keep my message in plain view at all times. Concentrate! Learn it by heart! Those who discover these words live; really live; body and soul, they are bursting with health. Keep vigilant watch over your heart; that’s where life starts’ (The Message).”

Leaf goes on to talk about parts of the brain that decline, which are centers of the brain for health, peace and happiness, if we do spend focused time thinking about deep things – God, life, values, and spend time in prayer as well as healthy introspection. To fail to take bring all thoughts into captivity in Jesus keeps us from achieving the physical, mental, and emotional health for which God has designed us. We are made in God’s image and God is a deep thinker. We need to be as well. When we live on sound bites and spend hours each day scrolling through Facebook or Twitter, we not only become shallow people but unhealthy people – literally.

I remember a line from a book I once read by a Christian author. I don’t remember the book or the author but I remember the line. He said something to the effect that the world does not need more talented people, more gifted people, or more driven people. The world needs deeper people. I agree with him and I believe the same thing can be said of the kingdom of God.

To quote Leaf one more time, she says, “We are told by so-called social media experts that information needs to be in bite-size amounts and in a constant stream of new information before the previous information has even been digested. This is not stimulation; it is bombardment…It is all about balance. Our brain responds with healthy patterns, circuits, and neurochemicals when we think deeply, but not when we skim only the surface of multiple pieces of information…According to the Archives of General Psychiatry, simultaneous exposure to electronic media during the teenage years – such as playing a computer game while watching television – appears to be associated with increased depression and anxiety in young adulthood, especially among men.” She goes on to quote a number of other studies connecting multitasking, fragmented thinking, and a life of sound bites with numerous health and psychiatric issues.

Our Father tells us to be still and know that he is God. Scripture calls us to meditate on his word day and night. He tells us to store up his word up in our hearts (memorize) and to talk about his word when we are on the road. He tells us to choose what we think about and think about godly things on a continual, focused basis. In other words, we need to buck the cultural trend of more is better and believe the biblical injunction that deeper is better. The world says to go faster. God says to go slower. The world says look for more stimulation. God says look for him.

If you, like me, tend to find yourself with less and less quiet time in your life and if you, like me, tend to get hijacked by the busy-ness around us, we need to fight back and we need to keep our children from succumbing to a world of sound bites and information addiction. It goes against out design, our health – both emotional and physical, and against the Word of God. Very often, a believer in Christ must be counter-cultural to be obedient. God has told us for thousands of years what to do to be healthy, peaceful and productive. Now he is showing us why.

We need to live with the understanding that as followers of Christ our primary role in the kingdom is to represent Him. Paul declared that we are ambassadors of Christ (2 Cor.5:20).  We represent heaven on earth and speak for our king. The key to understanding our role as representatives is simply to understand the word. We are to re-present Jesus. We are to fully present him again to the world by doing what he did, saying what he would say, and displaying the same heart he displayed when he was on the earth. We are to live and serve in such a way that people see him accurately in each of us.

Jesus represented the Father when he walked the earth. In the Gospel of John he says, “When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. When he looks at me, he sees the one who sent me. I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness. As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day. For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say” (Jn.12:44-50).

Notice the phrases taken from the text. “When he looks at me, he sees the one who sent me…For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it…So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.” These words echo what Jesus told Phillip shortly afterwards when he said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn.14:9) and “The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father living in me who is doing his work” (Jn.14:10).

Jesus came to show us the Father. He did what the Father would do if he were physically present on the earth. He said what the Father would say in the way he would say it. That is representation. When Jesus left the earth, there should have been no question about what the Father was like. If you wanted to know the Father, you simply had to look at the Son.

We are to represent Jesus by living in the same way he modeled life for us. That doesn’t mean we all become itinerant preachers – although he may call some to do that. It means that we display Him in whatever context we are in. He lives in us by his Spirit just as the Father lived in him. The Holy Spirit is present within us to lead us, remind us of his words, empower us for miracles, and reproduce the heart of Jesus in us so that we can accurately re-present him to the people around us.

Representing Jesus is the function of the church. We cannot display only a part of Jesus and accurately re-present him to the world. If we preach the gospel but do not heal the sick we have not done what he did. If we heal the sick and cast out demons but do not love the broken and the sinful, we have not fully displayed Jesus. If we do not confront legalism and hypocrisy in religious leaders we have not duplicated him or his ministry. If we do not live and love sacrificially, then people cannot see Jesus in us.

I know that is a tall order but that is the goal and it cannot be done in our own strength but only by the power of the Spirit. If our heart is to fully represent Jesus in every setting, the Holy Spirit will certainly empower us to do so because that is the heart of the Spirit as well. He came that he might show Jesus to the world and is quite willing and even excited to do that through us.

Just a few years ago, the fad in Christian circles was WWJD – what would Jesus do? It was on bracelets, tee shirts, coffee mugs, etc. I haven’t heard that so much lately but it truly is the heart of the mission and should be written on our hearts not just on our coffee cups. When that truly becomes our heart’s desire, then I believe we will see the power and the impact of Jesus like never before. As “charismatic” we talk a lot about being “Spirit-filled.” Too often we think of that as simply being filled with the power of the Spirit to fuel our spiritual gifts.  But to be Spirit-filled would actually be a life  filled with Jesus and to be fully like him in every way.

If I’m honest, there are too many times when I am wanting Jesus to represent my agenda rather than me representing his. I am wanting him to make me look good rather that me making him shine. When my motive is me, then I will never see Jesus nor his power manifested in me as he desires and as I desire in my best moments. May the Spirit of God enable us all to re-present the risen Lord in every way and in every circumstance in which we find ourselves. Be blessed in serving Him today.

Deliverance is a powerful tool for setting people free from the grip of the enemy. Not only is it powerful but it is essential. However, at times we may tend to overemphasize deliverance in the process of spiritual transformation. That is understandable because many of us have seen radical and dramatic transformation in believers in a very short time as a result of deliverance. It becomes problematic, however, when we begin to see deliverance as the cure-all for every issue. In some ways we begin to think of it as the quick-fix for people who are stuck or loosing ground in their spiritual progress, but demonization is only one barrier in an array of barriers that can stall out the process of discipleship and transformation.

Deliverance will not make a person spiritually mature but will remove the resistance so that individuals can then begin to grow spiritually as they should. At the end of Free Indeed, our ministry for healing and freedom, we always remind our participants that completing the eight weeks of study and the weekend of activation is not the end but rather the beginning of their growth and maturity.

Discipleship is the process of becoming like Jesus. It is a lifelong endeavor that can be punctuated by significant events where huge growth spurts occur but then we must always settle back into the process. In transformation, there is always a price to be paid by the individual who wants to be changed. That price is a consistent lifestyle of coming into the presence of God through multiple expressions of ancient spiritual disciplines: daily time in the word, prayer, meditation, confession, repentance, thanksgiving, worship, service, listening to God, solitude, memorization, journaling, authenticity, and so forth. We often say that getting free is the first battle. Staying free is the second. The implementation of these spiritual disciplines is what keeps us free.

We are such an instant society that we have come to expect instant spiritual maturity through a weekend conference, an impartation, deliverance, a prophetic word, and so forth. I think all of those things are amazing and I will be the first in line for an impartation, but they can’t replace the work of partnering with God on a daily basis in the change we desire.

Too often we pray for inner healing or cast out a demon without making sure the person we have ministered to is pursuing the Lord on a daily basis and filling themselves with the things of the Spirit. Sometimes we don’t even make sure that the person has repented of the very sin the demon was attached to or has forgiven hurtful people in his/her past. In our hurry to help, we may be setting them up for a worse condition because we haven’t helped them lay the foundation that they will need to maintain their freedom and grow in the Lord.

Paul commands us, “Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:17-18). The verb tense of the word translated as “filled” is progressive which means to be continually filled with the Spirit. When you are filled with the Spirit there is not much room for the devil. A great deal of being Spirit-filled is about being filled with the things of the Spirit which are to be found in spiritual disciplines. It is by “doing the work” that we get in spiritual shape. The work brings us into the presence of God and the transforming power of the Spirit. The work lays new neural pathways that are in agreement with God and diminish the old pathways that agreed with Satan so that our brains are renewed while our minds are being renewed spiritually.

So, as you minister healing and deliverance or give impartations and prophetic words, remember that the person you are ministering to will need to pay a price for continued freedom and spiritual growth. If they are not willing to pay the price of drawing close to God daily, they will most likely lose the ground they have gained and maybe end up worse than they were before their freedom. As those who minister in this arena it is essential that we too pay the cost of freedom in our lives each day.

Philip Yancey once said that the real temptation presented to Jesus in the wilderness by Satan, was the temptation of gaining a crown without the cross. Satan offered Jesus shortcuts without suffering to establish his kingdom on the earth once more. Ultimately, there are no shortcuts. It was true for Jesus and it is true for his people. Crucifying the flesh is a daily demand if we are to be consistent with our spiritual disciplines. Neither the flesh nor the enemy want us spending time with God. But for those who reject the “shortcuts” there is certainly a crown after the cross.

But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way. Now God had caused the official to show favor and sympathy to Daniel, but the official told Daniel, “I am afraid of my lord the king, who has assigned your food and drink. Why should he see you looking worse than the other young men your age? The king would then have my head because of you.” Daniel then said to the guard whom the chief official had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, “Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see.” So he agreed to this and tested them for ten days. At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. (Dan.1:8-15)

Many believers are forced to work or live in environments that are hostile to their faith. It may be a corporation that supports liberal causes, a university classroom with a professor who flaunts his atheism, or a government that declares sin to be a civil right and biblical values to be hate speech and bigotry. How do we navigate such environments? Many believers have decided that a little compromise is the way to survive and even have influence in those environments. The idea is that you must be part of the system to influence the system or you must be “accepted” by the culture to have any impact on the culture. Many have determined to be silent about their values while trying to keep from totally compromising those same values. As our culture become more and more anti-Christ, the question of how to live as a believer and still influence our environment becomes more and more relevant.

Daniel is a perfect example of a believer in that situation. In the first chapter of Daniel we are told that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon laid siege to Jerusalem and the city eventually surrendered. Babylon used a deportation strategy in conquering other nations. The strategy was to take their best and brightest young people, who would eventually become leaders in that nation, to Babylon where they would be absorbed by the culture. In doing so, they got the services of these talented young men and robbed the defeated nation of future leaders who might foment rebellion. Daniel was one of those young men.

Within a short time, Daniel faced a dilemma which called on him to compromise his faith in the seemingly unimportant area of Jewish dietary restrictions. Daniel and other young men from Judah were placed in the charge of Ashpenaz, a chief court official, who was told to serve them the best foods from the king’s kitchen and train them for three years to see who would rise to the top. Having been ripped up from their homeland, these “top students” had landed on their feet. They were placed on an upward career path that promised much in a foreign land. All they had to do was to learn the language, adapt to the culture, and fit in while maintaining the well known Jewish role of over-achiever. In those potential positions of power, they might even wield some influence for their God among the pagans.

Daniel, however, chose the path of uncompromising faith. He respectfully asked Ashpenaz to allow him to eat according to his faith so that he would not be defiled by a Babylonian diet. There was considerable risk in the request. First of all, the request might be seen as an insult in which Daniel would be touting the superiority of his faith and culture over the faith and culture of Babylon who had, by the way, just soundly defeated the Jews. Secondly, the request might smack of ingratitude. Daniel had been given an unbelievable opportunity considering his situation. He could have just as easily been executed or enslaved in years of hard labor. If he didn’t like the program, there were plenty of others who would jump at the chance to take his place. Thirdly, his request placed his overseer in the difficult situation of violating the king’s orders. Making waves was not the way to ingratiate himself to his supervisor and was certainly not the way to the top.

However, Daniel asked to be allowed to serve the king while maintaining the tenants of his own faith. He was respectful and sensitive to the position in which he was placing his supervisor. He made a request and not a demand and suggested a trial period to evaluate the values he was espousing for the organization. He made no demands that others must do as did and no arrogance was found in him. The result was that God gave him favor in the sight of his supervisor and after a trial period, his supervisor found Daniel’s diet to be very beneficial to the program. In fact, his dietary restrictions were adopted into the program.

Daniel served pagan kings for decades while being uncompromising in his faith. He served without bitterness, without deceit, and with unsurpassed integrity. His ability to hear God in the interpretation of dreams saved himself, his friends, and a number of Babylonian career politicians who served as “wise men” or consultants to the king. His witness for his faith and his influence on unbelievers around him came from the excellence and integrity he brought to every job that was assigned to him. The quality of his character and his work ethic caused him to stand out as a light in the darkness. As he advanced, others were jealous and at times tried to have him removed from office and even executed, but his integrity had been such that no grounds for indictment could be found.

Eventually, even Nebuchadnezzar was forced to declare that Daniel’s God was superior to all of his gods. Years later, under King Darius, Daniel was delivered from an unjust sentence to be eaten by lions for praying to his God. After a night with the lions, Daniel walked out unscathed. As a result Darius declared, “I issue a decree that in every part of my kingdom people must fear and reverence the God of Daniel. For he is the living God and he endures forever. His kingdom will not be destroyed…” (Dan.6:26). Undoubtedly, Daniel answered questions about his God when asked but let his life and his uncompromising faith became his daily testimony.

To live and serve in a hostile culture requires faith that God is with us in every situation, in every corporation, and every classroom. At times, we must believe that he will give us favor so that we can live for him without compromise and, at other times, we must believe that he will provide protection when Satan stirs up the culture against us. The key however, is our uncompromising faith, our character, and the excellence we bring to whatever we do. It is found in loving and serving even our enemies and respectfully living out our faith while accepting the risk of doing so. God shows up in big ways for the faithful not for the compromising.

Ultimately, we must desire the promotions of God over the promotions of men. We cannot serve two masters – the culture and gods of the world or the culture and the God of Heaven. If you find yourself in a hostile place today, spend some time with Daniel and his friends for wisdom and encouragement. Be blessed, humble, and uncompromising today in your service and your character. It is that lifestyle that allows others to see Jesus and that causes men to ask about Him.