But when the magicians tried to produce gnats by their secret arts, they could not. And the gnats were on men and animals. The magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.” But Pharaoh’s heart was hard and he would not listen, just as the Lord had said. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Get up early in the morning and confront Pharaoh as he goes to the water and say to him, ‘This is what the Lord says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me.  (Ex.8:18-20)

When the Lord finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the Testimony, the tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God. (Ex.31:18, See also Dt.9:10)

But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you. (Lk.11:20)

This phrase, “the finger of God” shows up only four times in scripture.  The first time it speaks of the plagues on Egypt that ultimately forced Pharaoh to release the Hebrews. The second and third times referred to God writing his commandments on tablets of stone for the Hebrews and the fourth time is found in the gospels when Jesus is speaking about casting out demons. It’s an interesting phrase so I thought we might explore it.

The first three uses of the phrase are all related to the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt to the land God had promised the descendants of Abraham.  God told them over and over again that he was delivering them from slavery, oppression, and bondage in Egypt to make them a people of his own.

It’s interesting that when Jehovah sent the ten plagues on Egypt he described that judgment in the following way.  “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn—both men and animals—and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord” (Ex. 12:12).  He says in another place, “The Israelites set out from Rameses on the fifteenth day of the first month, the day after the Passover. They marched out boldly in full view of all the Egyptians, who were burying all their firstborn, whom the Lord had struck down among them; for the Lord had brought judgment on their gods. (Num. 33:3-4).

Moses didn’t say that God had punished Egypt but, in fact, had brought judgment on their gods.  Scripture clearly teaches that idols are lifeless and powerless in themselves but they do represent demons. When men worship idols (false gods0 and offer sacrifices to them, they are worshipping demons and offering sacrifices to unclean spirits.  Note the following passages.

They made him jealous with their foreign gods and angered him with their detestable idols. They sacrificed to demons, which are not God—gods they had not known, gods that recently appeared, gods your fathers did not fear. (Dt.32:16-17)

They shall no longer sacrifice their sacrifices to the goat demons with which they play the harlot. This shall be a permanent statute to them throughout their generations. (Lev.17:7)

They worshiped their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons. (Ps.106:36-37)

No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons. (1 Cor.10:20-22)

God targeted the real perpetrators of bondage over Israel and that was the demonic realm.  That realm possesses power and uses that power to possess and oppress men.  To answer the challenge of Moses, Pharaoh’s magicians through down their staffs and they became snakes.   They also turned water to blood and summoned frogs just as Moses had done. The Bible says that they had been practicing their “secret arts” or sorcery which calls upon the demonic realm to do their bidding.  It wasn’t long, however, until the magicians realized a power much greater than demons was being manifested.  But when the magicians tried to produce gnats by their secret arts, they could not. And the gnats were on men and animals. The magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.”

Every plague that God sent was a demonstration of his power over a specific God of Egypt. He judged these demons by making it clear that they were powerless before the God of Israel and so were unworthy of any worship or sacrifice. When the text says that the plagues were the very “finger of God” of God, I believe it reveals that God was very personally involved in the redemption of Israel.  In Genesis 2, we are told that God formed Adam from the ground. The text implies that Adam was formed by a very personal touch from God who then breathed life into his nostrils.

We are told that that the Ten Commandments were written on stone tablets by the “finger of God.”  The writing of those tablets was to establish a very personal covenant between God and the Hebrews.  It was likened to a marriage covenant which God made with his bride Israel.  God did not sent a representative to establish that covenant but because was so personal it was written by his own finger.

I believe God took the enslavement of the Hebrews in a very personal way and knowing that our struggle is not against flesh and blood executed judgment on the demons who had prompted Egypt to treat the Hebrews in such a way and who had also seduced many of the Hebrews into false worship. It’s as if God stepped in front of his angels and said, “I’ll take this one.”

Then in the gospel of Luke, Jesus says that demons were being driven out by the finger of God and that deliverance was a clear sign that the kingdom of God had been released on earth.  Deliverance is setting captives free. It is a redemptive act.  It is the same as God leading his people out of bondage to demons in Egypt. He is just leading them out of bondage to demons wherever they may be.  The words of Jesus suggests that God takes deliverance very personally.  He is present and working by his own hand to execute judgment on demons who are oppressing and seducing his people, his bride.

That tells me once again that God is all about redemption and loving relationships with his people. He is not a distant God.  He is not unmoved. He is the deliverer – the redeemer.  In the Exodus story we are told that he heard the cries of his people and moved in power. In the New Testament Jesus heard the cries of his people and he moved in power. When you partner with God to break the power of the enemy in the lives of his people, you are very close to the redeemer and you are about to see the “finger of God” at work.  Be blessed today.

“We were born to live in the realm of the supernatural – the realm of healings, prophetic utterances, angelic encounters, and the gifts of the Spirit.  It should be the most natural thing for a Christian to live a supernatural lifestyle.  If you feel dissatisfied with your Christian walk, it may be because you are missing this all-important element. Jesus didn’t only invite Peter to walk on the water (see Matt. 14-22-33).  By inviting him to risk walking on the water, Jesus was inviting Peter into the realm He lived in all the time – the realm of the supernatural.  And He welcomes us to live there as well. Jesus is looking at you just as He looked at Peter and He is saying, ‘Come.’  He is inviting you to live a supernatural lifestyle.  Can you hear him calling?” (Banning Liebscher, Walking in the Supernatural, p.237).

Why do you think God wrote the biographies of so many men and women in scripture who had supernatural encounters with God, angels, the demonic, etc.?  Think about it. The great majority of those who were walking in fellowship with God experienced dreams and visions, miraculous provision, miraculous deliverance from armies, fire, lions, and enemies of every sort.  They experienced divine favor, divine encounters, prophetic words, unnatural boldness, supernatural strength, and angelic encounters.  Just scan the Old and New Testaments and you will find these things in nearly every life that was attuned to God from Genesis to Revelation.

Children read those things and imagine themselves taking on Goliath, routing armies, healing blind men, blowing trumpets while the walls of a great city crumble, walking on water, and stilling the mouths of lions.  It is not until we encounter adults that we discover that God put all those stories in scripture to show us what he would never do through us or for us but only to show us a multitude of exceptions to the rule rather than the rule.  It seems that God put all those accounts of supernatural encounters in scripture to show us what we could never experience by faith rather than to show us the kinds of things that faith could draw from heaven in our own lives. It seems that God had men pen thousands of scriptures telling us how he used to interact with his people rather than telling how he wants to interact with us today.

I served in churches for 25 years that taught that God did all those things once upon a time, but doesn’t do them anymore.  I’ve never met a person who had simply read the Bible, including the New Testament, who came to the conclusion that God used to do all that cool stuff but stopped doing it 2000 years ago.  They simply assumed that since God did all that cool stuff throughout the pages of the Bible he must still do those things.  We have to be taught that God doesn’t move in the supernatural because we would never conclude that from the natural reading of scripture.

However, I learned that God doesn’t move in the miraculous in our day so well that when I saw the supernatural works of God I didn’t recognize them. If I did see something out of the ordinary I discounted it or found a naturalistic explanation for it. If you think about that borders on blasphemy of the Spirit that Jesus spoke of when the Pharisees witnessed an undeniable miracle but then attributed the miracle to the work of Satan.

When we declare that God used to move in mighty and powerful ways on the earth on behalf of his people but that he no longer does so, the whole story begins to sound like a myth or a fairly tale – once upon a time a great and powerful king used to.  No wonder people doubt the inspiration of scripture. However, those who grow up seeing and experiencing the supernatural moves of God have no problem believing biblical accounts.  Satan has little fear of a God who no longer acts on behalf of his people through miracles and certainly has no fear of a church that only functions in the natural rather than living in the supernatural.  “Christ” comes from the Greek word that means the “anointed one of God.”  Jesus said that the Spirit of the sovereign Lord was upon him because he had anointed him to preach good news.  To be anointed means to carry the Spirit of God and the supernatural power of God as well.  Someone once pointed out that Satan released a spirit of anti-Christ not a spirit of anti-Jesus.  He released a spirit of anti-anointing in a sense.  Not anointing, no power; no power, no danger to the supernatural forces of darkness.

However, if you have the Holy Spirit living in you, you are anointed to live and move in the supernatural just as Christ did.  You are invited to walk on water, still the storms, heal the sick and send demons fleeing. I am convinced that God gave us all the accounts of supernatural encounters in scripture because that is to be the rule for those who follow God, not the exception.  To seek after a supernatural lifestyle is not a pursuit of sensationalism but rather the pursuit of the normal Christian life.  It is high time that the church got after it.  Be blessed today and ask Jesus to work in you and through you in supernatural ways.  It is where he wants you to live.

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.  But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!     As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned! (Gal. 1:6-9).

Occasionally in his New Testament letters, the apostle Paul went “completely Billy Jack” on certain groups who were trying to influence the church. If you aren’t a baby boomer who watched a lot of movies in the 60’s you may have to do some research on that expression.  In his letter to the church at Galatia, Paul runs quickly through a curt greeting and then assaults a group who had come to Galatia soon after Paul had departed.  This was a group who had come to present a “different gospel” from the one Paul had presented.  It was, in fact, so different that Paul judged it to be no gospel at all and declared a curse over those who had brought the teaching.  The curse was for them to be eternally damned. He was so serious about it that he spoke the curse twice.

What in the world would get Paul stirred up so much that if he had been present I’m certain he would have gotten physical with these “teachers?”   In a nutshell, Paul preached a gospel of grace through which salvation comes by faith not by the stringent keeping of laws and rituals through which a man earns his salvation.  Those who came after Paul were Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah but that keeping the Law of Moses faithfully was still a condition of salvation.  Their formula would have been “Jesus + good works + faithful obedience to the Law of Moses = salvation.  Pauls’ formula simply read “Jesus + faith = salvation.”  To add more to the gospel condemns man to a slavery under law.  That’s why Paul felt so strongly about it.  As a former Pharisee he knew how spiritually debilitating living under a religious system could be.

For those of us who have never lived under the Law, that might not seem like such a big deal.  After all, aren’t we as Christians supposed to do good works and keep the commandments of Christ anyway?  Yes, but we do those things as a response to the grace of God that gifted salvation to us rather than as a means to earn our salvation. The difference is worlds apart.

Under any system of religious law we are left to earn our salvation on the basis of faithfulness and good works as defined by the religion.  The problem is that you never really know where you stand.  Somehow I lost my catalogue that tells he how many salvation points are required to get into heaven, how much each good work is worth and how much is subtracted from my total score on the basis of sins and bad attitudes. I also have no way of assessing how much faith is enough faith, how much love is enough love, or how much godly sorrow is required before it counts.  Do Wednesday nights count more than Sunday mornings and do I get bonus points if I drove to church on slick roads? I’m also left to wonder if there are penalties and interest that accrue if sins go unrepented for significant periods of time.

In short, a person can never be sure of his or her salvation if we must earn it or merit it somehow. Islam is a great illustration.  Because it is a religion of works and judgment, a Muslim can never know with certainty whether he will be given access to paradise or not – unless he or she dies in defense of Islam.  Suicide bombers then have the only real assurance of salvation but even then entry is not guaranteed but only highly probable.  But the uncertainty is enough to drive many to blow themselves up along with the infidels in order to get a good shot at salvation.

Whenever Satan wants to derail faithful believers in the kingdom of heaven, he simply introduces an element of legalism into the faith.  He introduces a different gospel.  Ask any pastor who does much counseling in his congregation and he will tell you how many believers stumble through life under the weight of guilt from past sins. He will tell you how many still operate under the unspoken assumption that God’s love is conditional and based on their own goodness or religious performance.  They carry a profound sense of unworthiness that steals their faith in the promises of God.  They don’t feel worthy to ask God for big things and if they do they have no real expectation of having their prayers answered because they are too insignificant or sinful for God to say yes to them.

Multitudes of Christians live with the assumption that continued salvation and the promises of God all depend on them – their goodness, their perfection, and their performance. That is a form of legalism that cripples the church.  Notice how that kind of religious system affected the Pharisees.  If you assume that people earn their way to heaven and you know that not everyone gets in, then you must make assumptions about percentages.  Does the 50^th percentile get a passing grade or must you be in the 70^th or 90^th percentile? If only so many get in, then you are not only invested in doing better but you must also be invested in others doing worse.  The result is that you must tout your own righteousness while pointing out every other person’s failings.  In fact, you might even be invested in helping them fail. Jesus often confronted the Pharisees about their self-righteousness, their willingness to throw stones at others, and their willingness to pile religious demands on the multitudes while not lifting a finger to help them meet those demands. Rules and ritual become the test of faith because only those can be measured.

As believers, we don’t have to have a well-developed religious system like the Pharisees to fall prey to legalism.  Satan will simply point out a few attitudes or weaknesses or past sins that he will highlight as the very things that make us unworthy and unacceptable to our Father.  He gets us to focus on our self and our sin rather than the all-encompassing sacrifice of Jesus so that we feel the pressure to be perfect, to deny our own sin, or to blame others for our shortcomings because we are participating in some kind of vague score keeping.  If we don’t blame others we still always feel unqualified to share our faith, walk in the power of the Spirit, lead in our churches, or ask God to do great things using us.

As I have said before, God isn’t hung up on our imperfections, we are and Satan delights in whispering a gospel to us different from the one we first received.  We were saved by grace and continue by grace.  We serve, we make mistakes, we get up, we dust ourselves off and keep going by grace.  God’s mercies are new every morning and so we are able to put yesterday’s mistakes under the blood of Christ every evening and rise the next morning fresh in the Lord.  We are able to rise ready to serve him and love him in better ways today than we did yesterday – not in order to be saved but because we are saved.

Paul said that it is for freedom that Christ has set us free – freedom to live each day new in the Lord and freedom to know that perfection is not a requirement for salvation.  The faith that we have is enough for today and God will give us more for tomorrow.  Our part?  Refuse to accept a different gospel from the enemy or people who don’t know any better because a different gospel is no gospel at all.  Feel free to be imperfect today in Jesus and love him all the more because you can.  Be blessed in Him.

In his classic book, Mere Christianity, the British author C.S. Lewis (Chronicles of Narnia) tells the story of an “old, hard-bitten officer” in the Royal Air Force who stood up at a lecture Lewis was giving about Christian doctrines and said, ”I’ve no use for all that stuff.  But mind you I’m a religious man too.  I know there’s a God. I’ve felt him; out alone in the desert at night; the tremendous mystery.  And that’s why I just don’t believe your little dogmas and formulas about him. To anyone who’s met the real thing they all seem so petty, so pedantic, and unreal!” Here was a man who had experienced God in a profound way and who felt that studying the word and understanding doctrines about God was unnecessary and, perhaps, boring.  Whenever he wanted to connect with God he could just go to the desert.  That was enough.

If you have read this blog very long you know that I believe God wants us to experience him – not just read about him.  But there is a danger in basing your understanding of God primarily on experiences rather than the word and diligent study.  It takes both. I like Lewis’ analogy to explain the need for both experience and study.

“If a man has once looked at the Atlantic from a beach, and then goes and looks at a map of the Atlantic, he also will be turning from something real to something less real: turning from real waves to a bit of colored paper.  But here comes the point. The map is admittedly only colored paper, but there are two things you have to remember about it.  In the first place, it is based on what hundreds and thousands of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic.  In that way it has behind it masses of experience just as real as the one you could have from the beach; only, while yours would be a single isolated glimpse, the map fits all those experiences together.  In the second place, it you want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary. As long as you are content with walks on the beach, your own glimpses are far more fun than looking at a map.  But the map is going to be more use than walks on the beach if you want to get to America.  Now, theology is like the map.  Merely learning and thinking about the Christian doctrines, if you stop there, is less real and less exciting than the sort of thing my friend got in the desert. Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But that map is based on the experiences of hundreds of people who really were in touch with God…And secondly, if you want to get any further, you must use the map. You see what happened to that man in the desert may have been real, and was certainly exciting, but nothing comes of it.  It leads nowhere.” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 135-136)

Lewis goes on to make the point that if all you ever do is look at the map without going to sea, then the map is useless.  However, if you go to sea without the map, you are in dangerous waters indeed.  I think that is especially true for the deep waters of experiencing God.  Many believers have simply studied the map (the Bible) for years without going out on the waters of risk and the miraculous.  Others however have plunged into the exciting waters of miracles and experiences with God without a map.

I was frustrated and disappointed this past year while attending a conference on healing that was hosted by a church I highly respect.  One of the speakers was teaching a session on healing and in a sentence or two made fun of people who thought you needed to anoint someone with oil before healing.  His attitude seemed to be that his experiences with God had taken him beyond all that.  Well, I believe people can be healed without anointing.  Most of us have seen that happen.  On the other hand, anointing with oil is a clear biblical teaching that should not be dismissed out of hand or treated as if only the immature would still use such archaic approaches to healing.  If it’s on the map there is a reason and we should not begin to assume we know more than the mapmaker.  John tells us that we must always test the spirits to see if they are from God. The first test is whether their directions line up with what’s on the map.

We are moving into a season where the Holy Spirit will not be the only spirit producing miracles and amazing spiritual experiences even in our churches.  If we have not studied the “map” diligently, we may be led off the map into dangerous waters.  Some of the old sailing maps would simply have a warning along the edge of unexplored territories that simply said, “There be monsters here.”  I’m not saying that God will not manifest in ways he has never done before. I think he may expand our understanding of the map so that it feels like new, unexplored territory.  But it will still be consistent with his ways, his character, and his Word.  An experienced sailor who has studied and trusted the “map” for years will know when new directions make absolutely no sense. At least he will sail with caution while keeping his eye on true north.

My encouragement today for those of us who love to experience God is that we also need to become serious students of the Word.  The psalmist declared, “I gain understanding from your precepts; therefore I hate every wrong path. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path” (Ps.119:104-105).  Understanding gained from diligent study keeps us from taking wrong paths and ending up in waters where “there be monsters.” The light or understanding we gain from God’s word gives us light for the path ahead but also instructs us in our walk for immediate circumstances. His light not only keeps us on track but also keeps us from stumbling while on that track.

Without experiencing God we will not truly know him but without the map we won’t be sure that we have truly found him.  If you sail for America but end up in Calcutta, you have not had a successful journey regardless of the adventures you had along the way.  It was exciting, but you are still lost. As we begin this new year, most of us have probably determined to read more scripture.  That’s good.  But let me encourage you not just to read but to study and to meditate on what you are reading. Reading through the Bible in a year is praiseworthy, however, many of us read through materials in school just before a test but still failed the test.  Reading over something is not the same as study. To study is to read, consider, process, share the concepts with others and then test what we have learned.  Please add that to experiencing God this year and we will not only sail but arrive at our intended destination.  Be blessed!

Prophets Without Honor

When Jesus had finished these parables, he moved on from there. Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. “Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?” they asked.  “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor.” And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith. (Matt/13:53-57)

There is nothing more discouraging than trying to share your faith or your understanding of scripture with people who have known you in the past and discovering that you have little to no credibility with them. Sometimes it’s people who knew you before you encountered Christ.  Sometimes it is family members.  I’m not saying that you can never lead old friends, acquaintances, and family members to the Lord.  You can and many do, but on occasion you get no audience.

Jesus experienced the same thing.  In Matthew 13, Jesus revisited his hometown – Nazareth.  He began teaching in the synagogue and, at first, people were amazed and impressed. Matthew says, “They were amazed. Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?’ they asked.”  But their amazement soon turned to resentment and rejection.  These were people who had known Jesus and his family before he left to begin a public ministry and declare that he was the Messiah.  Some of them remembered the scandal of Mary’s pregnancy.  Others remembered him working on their homes or building basic furniture for them.  They remembered Mary and Joseph and their children coming to synagogue and being taught. They may have even remembered Jesus playing practical jokes on friends or always having a runny nose as a kid.

Apparently they had heard great stories about miracles he was performing and witnessed his anointed teaching themselves.  But anointed teaching often challenges dearly held perspectives and “settled theology.” Remember the “Sermon on the Mount” in Matthew 5-7.  Jesus said in several places, “You have heard that is was said…but I say unto you.”  Many of the Jews had grown comfortable with their understanding of God and their view of the world.  The teachings of Jesus implied that there was something lacking in their view of God and how to have a relationship with him.  I’m certain that they at first began to feel uncomfortable with his teachings and then angry as his teaching challenged them.

The first response of the flesh and a religious spirit when anyone suggests that a person’s approach to God or their understanding of his word has been lacking is to take offense and to accuse the teacher of self-righteousness and a “holier than thou” attitude.  That is exactly what happened to Jesus. Suddenly his teaching raised questions about the adequacy of their faith their understanding of the Torah.  It wasn’t long before some began whispering, “Who does he think he is?”  In their own minds, they rushed to discredit his teaching and even his miracles by discrediting him.  They simply recast him in the role of the boy who grew up in a home on the wrong side of the tracks in an ordinary working class family.  In that moment, they refused to see him as he was in the synagogue – the Anointed One of God – but would only see him as the person he used to be.  Few miracles were done that day because of their unbelief. We are also told that even his own brothers refused to believe who he was until after the resurrection.

There are a several lessons to be learned from this account.

1. Sometimes, we are not the one who should be talking to certain friends or family members about our faith or life changes they need to make – sinful lifestyles they need to abandon.  For whatever reason we are so familiar to them that our words carry little weight.  That is especially true when adult children try to speak into their parents’ lives. When the gospel is declared or when we call people to repentance the word carries authority – no matter how gently we say it.  Many parents can never give up their role of authority over children – even grown children – so they can’t receive anything from one of their children that has authority attached to it.  Close friends and siblings are often the same.  In those cases we need to simply ask God to influence them through other people.  Love them.  Pray for them.  Realize you may not be the one to speak to them about their lives.

2.  Sometimes we believe that if God would just do a miracle for our unbelieving friends or family members, they would immediately come to faith and give their lives to Jesus.  Sometimes a miracle and the kindness of God expressed through that miracle does create faith, but not always.  The Pharisees witnessed numerous astounding miracles but never came to faith.  The people of Nazareth heard of many of his miracles and saw a few, but took offense at Jesus rather than believing on him.  I love miracles and believe we should ask God for them everyday.  I’m just saying that miracles do not always open the door to faith. God knows what the key is to every person’s heart and we need to pray for that revelation when trying to reach any person for Jesus.

3.  We need to watch our own hearts when people come to us with a teaching, an insight or even a rebuke that doesn’t line up with what we have always believed.  Sometimes, when people challenge my theology or my motives, I can feel offense begin to rise up in me and something wants to dismiss immediately anything they have to say.  But God calls us to maintain a humble spirit, to be teachable, and to always seek truth.  Proverbs tells us that a wise man receives correction and is thankful for it.

How can we do less and how can we judge whom God will use to sharpen our understanding of his word and his ways or to call us to a heart correction?  Many in Nazareth missed the Son of God because they judged God’s messenger.  I’m certainly not saying to receive every new teaching or even every rebuke.  But consider them, pray about them, and be humble enough to receive those things from people you disapproved of in the past, from those who don’t have your education or income, or even those who seen a bit eccentric.  Remember John the Baptist – camel skin clothes, long hair, and a diet of locusts and honey.  Eccentric!  Be blessed today and be open to hearing from God from all kinds of people in your present or even from your past.

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Cor.10:3-6)

This is the fourth and last segment on Weapons of War which has been a brief look at Paul’s words about divine weapons in 2 Corinthians.  Learning what these divine weapons are and how to use them is crucial in overcoming the enemy, ministering God’s healing grace to wounded people, and setting people free in the name of Jesus.  There are actually many “weapons” or tools that God activates through his people that create faith, heal broken hearts, declare things that God will not do until his people announce them, rebuild shattered identities, and free people from the oppression of the enemy.  That oppression can take the form of fear, condemnation, illness, demonization, curses, addictions, etc.  God has a solution for each of those and most often provides that solution in partnership with his people.

Gifts of the Spirit are at the heart of these divine weapons.  Gifts of faith, mercy, prophecy, healings, wisdom, tongues, words of knowledge, worship, intercession, etc. can all be used to break the power of the enemy in a person’s life.  Some reveal truth and set people free from lies that the enemy planted decades ago.  Some break the power of demons and send them away so that the individual is no longer oppressed or harassed. Some reveal the love of God to a person’s heart and heal wounds that have festered for decades.  Others exercise the authority of heaven on the earth and set things in motion that will eventually bring salvation to the lost and revival to nations. We don’t have time to list them all or discuss them all here.  That would take an entire book.

However, if you hunger for such weapons or such spiritual gifts, then Paul says to earnestly desire those gifts.  Jesus says to ask, seek, and knock.  Peter quotes Amos who told us to go after such things by seeking the Holy Spirit and his baptism.  If you want to these things from God then let me encourage you to do the following.

1. Pray – Ask God for the gifts and understanding of how to use the gifts.  Jesus sent the Spirit so ask him for more of the Spirit.  Ask Jesus to baptize you in his Spirit as he sees fit.

2.  Pursue – Do not just ask for these gifts or anointings, go after them.  Spend time with people who minister in the gift or the weapon you desire.  Ask them to mentor you.  Read books.  Go to conferences. Get equipped with teaching, modeling, and impartations of the gifts from those who operate in them.  If you want the gift of intercessory prayer, hang around intercessors. If you want healing gifts, hang around those who see healing when they pray.  If you want prophetic gifts, find some prophets.

3.  Practice – When you begin to understand how gifts operate or how to ask God for certain things, then begin to practice using your gift.  This is where most people fail.  They believe that a spiritual gift should just operate in its fullness as soon as you receive it.  When people pray for healing, ask for tongues, attempt deliverance and don’t see great things happen they often give up and assume God is not giving them the gift. Spiritual gifts are like other skills and talents.  They must be practiced and developed.  You must be willing to play a lot of rounds of poor gold before you can begin to play great rounds of golf.  Practice.  Risk.  Seek more mentoring as you go.

4.  Persevere – Stick to it as long as the desire is in your heart.  Pray for it as long as the desire is in your heart.  Ask God to show you if there is anything in your life that is blocking the exercise of that gift.  If you find any kinks in the hose, straighten them out.

Go after the gifts.  Learn to use them as divine weapons.  Be blessed and bless others.

We often idealize biblical figures so that we forget their humanity.  We remember David for taking down Goliath but forget his human frailties that surfaced with Bathsheba or his unwillingness to discipline or deal with Absalom.  We remember Elijah taking on the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel but forget that he caved into fear and depression immediately after his victory when Jezebel threatened him. We think of the Apostle Paul as the greatest of the apostles, immovable in faith and writing great chapters about love (1 Cor. 13), but forget that in an ungracious moment he refused to give John Mark a second chance and forever parted ways with Barnabas  – the man who had accepted him into the fellowship of believers after Paul came to Christ.

Being human does not disqualify us from greatness in the kingdom of God, it simply reminds us of our desperate dependence on God to keep those “human moments” to a minimum and to maintain perspectives of faith when we face hardships.  Paul tells us that we “know in part and we prophecy in part” so that we are also operating in the dark at times.  We don’t always have everything revealed to us nor do we always fully understand what has been revealed. Our faith ebbs and flows at times to our own dismay but that is our reality. In Matthew 11, we find John the Baptist in one of those moments.

After Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in the towns of Galilee. When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me. (Mt.11:1-6).

I find it amazing that John the Baptist had a moment of doubt about Jesus being the promised Messiah. Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a relative of Elizabeth, the mother of John.  Luke tells us that John was about six months older than Jesus. When Mary had become pregnant with Jesus she visited Elizabeth who was carrying John in her womb.  Luke tells us, “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit” (Lk.1:41).  Even in the womb John, by the Spirit, seemed to recognize who Jesus was.  Thirty years later, John was the one who declared that Jesus was the Lamb of God.  He was the one who had baptized Jesus and saw the Holy Spirit descend on Jesus in the form of a dove. John declared that Jesus was the anointed one of God, and that his own ministry had to decrease so that Jesus would increase in the eyes of the Jewish people.

And yet, after his imprisonment, he apparently began to wonder if Jesus were the Messiah or if another one was coming.  John was experiencing our humanity for he also “knew in part and prophesied in part.”  Apparently, John was beginning to doubt who Jesus was because things were not unfolding as he had anticipated.  Jesus frustrated many who believed that Messiah would come with overwhelming glory and power, moving quickly to overthrow Roman oppression and restore Israel to her greatness as in the days of David and Solomon.  But Jesus, although a great teacher and healer, seemed to be anything but a man pushing his way to the top to grab power and glory.  He seemed totally apolitical instead of being politically savvy.  He seemed to resist notoriety rather than embracing it.  He talked about loving enemies rather than destroying oppressors. He talked about turning the other cheek rather than organizing resistance against Rome.

As John languished in prison the “kingdom of God” wasn’t feeling so near or victorious.  And so he asked, “Are you really the one or did I miss it?”  Interestingly, Jesus didn’t send him a theological response or quote Old Testament prophecies that had been recently fulfilled in him.  He simply said, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.” On several occasions, Jesus himself had said that you can know a prophet by his fruits.  Words are easy; actions are more definitive.

Jesus pointed to the miraculous works of heaven that were flowing through his ministry to authenticate who he was.  He also pointed to Isaiah’s Messianic prophecy that John must have known by heart. “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners” (Isa.61:1).  Jesus’ ministry of preaching, healing and deliverance fulfilled that prophetic word.  Messiah had come to bring heaven to earth.  The miraculous works of God confirmed that the kingdom had indeed come to earth and in doing so, confirmed that Jesus was and is the anointed one of God – the Christ.

Jesus often healed and delivered simply out of compassion. Many times he told those he had healed or delivered not to tell anyone who had done that for them.  But he also said that his miracles and the miracles of those who followed him were their credentials documenting their citizenship in heaven.  If John the Baptist needed that concrete evidence, then how much more will unbelievers need that evidence today in a world of empty promises and cynicism?  For the last few centuries, the church has offered theology and explanations of why God no longer acts like God rather than concrete experiences with the Creator. When people ask us if Jesus is really the Son of God and Savior of the world, we need to be able to respond as Jesus responded to John.  “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.”  After people experience God we can give them a theology for that experience to stand on.

Experiencing God is not found only in healing or deliverance.  His presence can simply overwhelm people with love or peace. His voice can penetrate unbelief or fear.  Angels can pull people from burning vehicles or he can open up new realities through dreams or visions. Prophetic words can disarm the agnostic and miracles of provision can confirm his care to those who felt alone and helpless. But all of those things are experiences with God.  If God had sent Moses to Egypt with a nicely framed theology instead of demonstrations of power on behalf the Hebrews, the Jewish people would still be serving Egyptians today.

As we pray for people to come to faith, pray that God will arrange an encounter with heaven that they cannot deny. Then share Jesus, the source of every heavenly encounter, with them.  Be blessed today and expect miracles. They point to Jesus.

This past year, John MacArthur, a well-respected preacher in southern California, published a book entitled “Strange Fire” which essentially denies the validity of the charismatic movement and the current expression of the miraculous gifts of the Spirit. It has stirred some controversy among churches in America and has invited division among “cessationist” churches and churches that believe in the continuing ministry of the Holy Spirit through the manifestation of all the spiritual gifts.

I continue to be amazed that people would push back against healing gifts, prophetic gifts, deliverance, and other miraculous manifestations of the Holy Spirit in God’s church.  It’s one thing to say that there are abuses of these gifts and their expressions. I would agree with that.  There were abuses in the first century church.  It is another thing to deny their existence all together and to consider any expression of those gifts to be deception.

In his gospel, Matthew recounts a moment when Jesus cast out a number of demons from two demon-possessed men in the region of the Gadarenes.  These men were so demonized that they lived among the tombs and were essentially uncontrollable.  The demons, knowing that they were about to be dislodged from their “homes” begged Jesus to let them enter into a herd of pigs that was feeding nearby.  Jesus did so and the entire herd ran into the sea and drowned. We are told in Mark 5, where Mark emphasizes only one of the two men, that when the inhabitants of the nearby town went out to see what was going on they found the man (probably both) clothed and in his right mind.

You would have thought that there would have been a great celebration and that revival would have broken out in the presence of Jesus, the great healer and deliverer of his people.  However, just the opposite occurred.  All the people begged Jesus to leave their region immediately. Of course, its possible that they were upset about the pigs and someone’s lost investment in these “unclean” animals, but I think they were responding to a supernatural moment outside of their experience that essentially scared them.

That’s not unusual and even people of faith can be frightened when God intrudes into the ordinary business of life.  In most biblical accounts, every time an angel showed up his first words had to be, “Don’t be afraid.” When God descended on Sinai the response of most of the Hebrew people was great fear.  When Jesus called up a great catch of fish for Peter and his partners, Peter was afraid. When Jesus silenced the storm on Galilee, his apostles were stunned and I think felt that same sense of panic that all men feel when they first encounter the supernatural.

I believe that is a large part of the “push back” against the miraculous move of the Spirit in the 21^st Century.   Men hunger for the supernatural but when it shows up they often panic. What draws men to “haunted houses” or fuels “reality shows” about the paranormal?  Graham Cooke points out that a hunger for the supernatural is part of our DNA which was attached to us when we were made in the image of God. Although the DNA has been fragmented by sin, we still hunger after the spiritual and something that takes us beyond the natural. It a way, that hunger points us home to heaven.

It seems that we hunger for the miraculous or the “supernatural” while fearing it at the same time.  When demons are cast out, some believers invite those who do such things to leave their church right away.  The biblical record is that whenever God showed up in unusual ways, people “freaked.”  That feeling might be evidence of a true encounter with the living God rather than something to be avoided.

That’s not to say that anything goes.  We are to test the spirits and to test prophecies and even the miraculous gifts of the Spirit are to be exercised in an orderly way.  But what is orderly to God may not be orderly to the religious among us who want no surprises in their interaction with God. The response of the Pharisees was first to deny that miracles happened and that those who thought they had seen something had been tricked or deceived.  When they could not deny that a miracle had occurred they simply declared that it was the work of Satan because Jesus or his disciples had not worked in a prescribed manner that fit their theology.  Religion wants to control life and even control God with rules and boundaries that leave no room for the miraculous intrusion of God into life or a church service.

Again, the biblical record shows us that the nature of God is to intrude into the natural order of things in unprecedented and unexpected ways.  “Let’s just march around Jericho seven times and blow trumpets.  Let’s turn the Nile to blood. Let’s have the leper go dip in the Jordan River seven times. Let’s feed five thousand men plus women and children with a few loaves and fish.  Let’s walk on water. Let’s call this guy out who has been dead for four days.” God chose to intervene in amazing ways in the life of his people with moments that were unanticipated, made no earthly sense, and that scared many of the people who witnessed the invasion of earth by the powers of heaven.  Why would he not continue to do so today?

If a hunger for the supernatural is part of our DNA, then when we block the miraculous ministry of the Spirit in our churches, we force God’s people to satisfy that hunger in other places. I’m not saying that we should seek miracles for the sake of miracles but that we should invite the Father, the Son and the Spirit to show up and intrude in the natural order of our lives and church services in any way they choose. At times, it will be unusual and should be unusual because that is how God has always operated.  For those who have never experienced God in those ways, it might even be a little scary.  Seeing demons manifest for the first time and seeing them driven out for the first time can be eye opening. But God is eye opening.

My hope is that in 2014, we will see the miraculous move of God more and more in our lives and churches, but unlike the Gadarenes, we will not beg Jesus to leave but rather to stay. If we want more of God then we will have to invite God in as he is, not as we want him to be.  And…if there is not “eyebrow raising” going on, then Jesus is probably not present because wherever he went, he surprised people and on occasion, even frightened them a little. Be blessed this year and invite Jesus to do the unexpected in your life and even in your church!

According to Bible scholars, the gospel of Matthew is the most Jewish of the gospels in its emphasis on certain things and its style.  The gospel begins with a genealogy tracing the lineage of Jesus from Abraham through David to the earthly parents of Jesus establishing Jesus as a member of the tribe of Judah from which Messiah would come.  Matthew is the one to tell us of the visit of the Magi and the eventual death of innocent Jewish boys in Bethlehem at the hands of Herod. He tells us how Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness fasting and praying in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets and about his showdown with Satan at the end of the forty days.  In Matthew, Jesus calls his disciples to “come and follow” him in the tradition of the Rabbis and his “Sermon on the Mount” is, in many ways, a commentary on the interpretation of Old Testament law by the Pharisees.  In Chapter 4, Matthew tells us in general terms of the healing ministry of Jesus but gives his first specific healing story in Chapter 8 – the healing of a leper.

Leprosy was not only medically significant but socially and spiritually significant as well in Jewish faith and culture. Full-blown leprosy was an infectious disease so that the individual who was affected was marked as “unclean.”  He was to be socially isolated so that no one could touch him and he was not allowed to enter into the temple to worship.  In some cases, it was a death sentence as the disease progressed.  To many Jews, leprosy was seen as punishment for sin – either the sins of the parents or of the individual who had it.  That view probably stemmed from God’s punishment on Miriam in Numbers 12 when she began to rebel against Moses’ leadership.  In that moment God struck her with leprosy and then healed her later at Moses’ request.  David also pronounced a curse on Joab’s house for murdering an innocent man (2 Samuel 3) that included the curse of leprosy.

In the first century, those with leprosy were considered unclean, sinful, loathsome, and under a death sentence from God.  They were isolated and had to walk the streets crying “unclean” so that others would stay away from them.  Any truly religious person would stay far away from a leper because to contact the leper made that person unclean as well so that they could not come into the presence of God in the temple.

In the midst of that cultural environment, an unnamed leper came and kneeled before Jesus asking to be healed. In that moment, Jesus was very counter-cultural.  He actually touched the man which was forbidden by law.  Not only did he touch the man but healed him completely. I like what Bill Johnson says about that kind of healing.  He says that the Old Testament displays the power of sin because if you touched a leper you were made unclean.  The New Testament displays the power of Christ’s righteousness because when he touched a leper he was not made unclean but rather the leper was healed. The righteousness of Christ overcomes both sin and disease in these gospel accounts and in New Testament theology.  Looking ahead to the New Covenant, David said, “ Praise the Lord, O my soul and forget not all his benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases” (Ps.103:3).

I believe this leper was the first detailed account of healing in Matthew’s gospel because it was so significant for the Jews.  Lepers were written off as a lost cause, untouchable, and incurable.  Many thought that their disease was a judgment from God and so felt little pity for the lepers.  And yet Jesus reversed all of that in a moment with a touch and a word.  In that moment the love and the grace of God totally cleansed the man with the implication that he was also totally forgiven.

In the very next chapter of Matthew, Jesus healed a paralytic but began by saying, “Take heart son, your sins are forgiven” (Mt.9:2).  The Pharisees objected to the notion that Jesus could grant forgiveness since only God in heaven could do so.  To their objection, Jesus replied, “Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’?         But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins….” Then he said to the paralytic, “Get up, take your mat and go home.” And the man got up and went home”  (Mt.9:5-7).

The theology runs something like this.  Disease afflicts man because of sin – sometimes his own sin but more often because of Adam’s sin that makes every man subject to death and disease.  If a man is healed it is because the power of sin has been overcome by the cross of Christ.  Healing is manifest evidence of God’s grace and Christ’s all-sufficient sacrifice through which God forgives all of our sins and heals all of our diseases.  Miraculous healing, then, is evidence of God’s grace and the power of the cross to deliver men from sin. Without such demonstrations, the truth of the gospel is not manifested as God intends. Miraculous healing does not always create faith but it always demonstrates the power of the cross and the love of God for sinful men which opens the door for faith.

Healing and other miraculous moves of the Spirit are not ends in themselves but demonstrations of even greater realities – the love and grace of God and the all sufficiency of the blood of Christ. If God is good all the time; if the cross has broken the power of the enemy in my life; and if the blood of the Lamb open the doors of heaven to me now and later – then sign me up.

Those truths are manifested over time in the life of every believer but are manifested in the moment that the gospel is preached or shared when the power of heaven is released through the gifts of the Spirit. Because of that we should earnestly desire spiritual gifts and pursue them as the will of God for his church today.  When we begin to touch the lepers of our day – AIDS victims, drug addicts, late-stage cancer victims, children with birth defects, etc. with the compassion and power of heaven, then we will present Jesus in all his glory to the world and the world will come to him.  Be blessed today.  Ask for miracles and expect them.  It is God’s will.

Have you ever noticed how often Jesus healed on the Sabbath?  In John 9, Jesus healed a man that was born blind.  He had been a beggar and was apparently a fairly well known figure in part of the city.  Jesus spit on the ground, made mud with his saliva and put it on the man’s eyes.  He then instructed the beggar to go the pool of Siloam and wash.  The man was obedient to the command and left the pool seeing for the first time.

Imagine how amazing sight would be for the first time. Suddenly, this man saw only what he had felt and heard all his life.  He had felt water on his skin but as soon as he washed the mud from his eyes he saw water rippling with sunlight sparkling across the surface of the pool.  He saw the faces of familiar voices he had only heard each day as he begged.  He was struck with the endless colors of clothing the crowds were wearing. He suddenly put form and color to the animals he had heard and touched in Jerusalem since childhood. Add to that the shape and colors of buildings, trees, grass, the sky, the sun, and the clouds. The immense amount of new images filling his mind must have been almost overwhelming.  It makes me wonder if part of the miracle was a download of understanding that was imparted to the beggars mind to make sense of what he was seeing.

Of course, as the word of this notable miracle spread, the Pharisees showed up like investigative reporters snooping out a story for the National Inquirer. They remind us that religion devoid of relationship with the Father can be a dangerous thing.  Once again, the Pharisees did not deny the miracle but missed everything about it because it had occurred on the Sabbath. Their response to a blind man who now saw each of their faces was to state that, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.”

Some questioned the miracle and so his parents were brought forth to confirm that this was their son and that he had indeed been born blind. After doing so, the questions were not about the amazing healing and how it had touched the blind man’s heart and soul, but only were designed to discover whom the man was that had broken the Sabbath by healing someone.  To the formerly blind beggar they said, “Give glory to God, we know this man is a sinner.” His reply, of course, was on target.  “Whether he is a sinner or not I don’t know. One thing I do know, I was blind but now I see.”  This blind beggar went on to state some fairly sound theology. “Now this is remarkable.  You don’t know where he comes from yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinner.  He listens to the godly man who does his will.  Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind.  If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”  The Pharisees responded with their usual grace and scholarship – “You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!” And they threw him out.”

Miracles are signs.  They are realities that point to even greater realities.  A road sign pointing you to Interstate 20 is a reality but it points to something greater and more useful. The sign won’t take you where you want to go, it only points you to that which will.  Miracles are amazing things, but they point you to an even greater reality. Jesus himself said that his miracles testified to his identity as the Son of God and his identity as the Anointed One. The giver of the miracle is always a greater reality than the miracle itself. As we seek the gifts of the Spirit and the supernatural power of God, we should never see those things as an end in themselves but rather road signs that point us to the giver of the gifts which should always be out true pursuit.

Having said that, how did the Pharisees miss the point of the healings time after time?  These were learned men who had memorized the first five books of the Bible as a beginning step.  They discussed and debated the Torah over and over. These were men of prayer who had devoted themselves to the knowledge of God.  Jesus himself acknowledged that they searched the scriptures diligently but they missed him.  The scriptures were signs pointing to the greater reality but they missed the reality. Somehow they never grasped the onramp to a personal relationship with God the Father.

God is pouring out a great measure of power and miracles on his church today.  These miracles can again become a divide just as they were in the days of Jesus. The problem will not be in the miracles but in the hearts of those who witness the miracles or who refuse to witness the miracles.  Miracles will come because God is a God of miracles who is still pointing to his Son. He is also a God of compassion and his miracles for healing, freedom and provision still flow out of a heart that is burdened for the brokenness and suffering of his people.

As in the days of Jesus, there will be different responses to the miracles. The best, of course, is belief in Jesus as the one true Son of God.  Some will see the signs and understand the destination. They will absolutely know that Jesus is the singular road to the Father.  Others will get caught up in the gifts themselves and never conform to the image of Jesus Christ in spirit or character.  These men may abuse the gifts or use them for their own ends.  They will tend to discredit the faith.

Still others will deny the reality of the miracles or declare, as the Pharisees declared, that these contemporary miracles are deceptions from the enemy. I believe Jesus healed often on the Sabbath because the Sabbath laws had become a stronghold of religion.  Men had taken it on themselves to closely define the things that constituted “work” on the Sabbath and in doing so violated the spirit of the Sabbath all together.  Jesus declared that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.  The very thing that God had given to bless man with rest and a focus on the love and faithfulness of God became an instrument of victimization.  To deny healing and deliverance on the Sabbath was to deny the powerful expression of God’s love on the Sabbath. In doing so, God was viewed as a God of rules rather than relationship.

Some will do the same today.  In the name of orthodoxy and biblical scholarship, some will deny the heart of God by denying that he still wants to intervene in the suffering of his people and the lost condition of men through displays of power. In the name of scholarship and intellect, men will declare that the signs that once pointed men to Jesus now point men to the devil.  Won’t there be counterfeit signs and wonders in the last days?  Yes, there will be the counterfeit but there will also be the authentic.  Those with the Spirit of Christ who ask the Spirit to lead them into all truth will know the difference.

As Jesus said, “By their fruits you will know them.”  If miracles draw people to Jesus, promote righteousness, heal broken hearts and set captives free, they are from God by every biblical standard.  Those who deny that God still works in power and miracles will simply forfeit the field to the enemy.  People hunger for the miraculous because they hunger for heaven where the miracles of God flood the atmosphere.

When a holy church operates in the true power of God for healing and freedom, then there is a standard against which the counterfeit signs and wonders of the enemy can be measured. Without that, he will be fielding the only team.  The church must seek the gifts but seek the giver even more. Signs are important but point to a greater reality and although signs may be misread, it’s hard to find the interstate without them.  Be blessed.