When word came to Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab and the rest of our enemies that I had rebuilt the wall and not a gap was left in it—though up to that time I had not set the doors in the gates—Sanballat and Geshem sent me this message: “Come, let us meet together in one of the villages on the plain of Ono.” But they were scheming to harm me; so I sent messengers to them with this reply: “I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?” Four times they sent me the same message, and each time I gave them the same answer. (Neh.6:1-4).

Nehemiah had been given favor by God with King Artaxerxes, King of Persia, to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls and restore the gates of the city that had been decimated by the Babylonians. The surrounding tribes who had been enemies of the Jews were alarmed and angry that Jerusalem might be rebuilt and repopulated. Although Nehemiah arrived with letters from the King commissioning the restoration, the leaders of these tribes tried numerous ploys to keep the work form succeeding.

In the text above, Sanballat and Geshem the Arab, leaders of these hostile tribes, asked Nehemiah to leave his work and come meet with then under the guise of making peace. As you read through the Old Testament, you will discover the character of Satan in many of the hostile tribes that opposed Israel as well as in the character of wicked kings who ruled over Judah and Israel from time to time. We become what we worship and these tribes and wicked kings worshipped idols that represented demonic spirits. You will discover that Satan uses the same strategies against you that he used against God’s people then, in an effort to defeat them.

One of his great strategies is revealed here. It is the strategy of distraction. Satan doesn’t employ this strategy against the ungodly or the uncommitted, but rather against the godly who are committed to their relationship with God. Ultimately, Satan’s goal is to keep us from salvation but if he fails in that, he turns to making us ineffective in accomplishing the things that God has called us to do.

Nehemiah was given one assignment – rebuild the walls of Jerusalem which included resetting and strengthening the gates as well. Satan had tried threats, intimidation, and slander to halt the projects but Nehemiah maintained his focus. Finally, these men who had threatened to attack the city, who had ridiculed the Jews’ attempts to rebuild, and who had publically accused Nehemiah of plotting rebellion against the king tried one more distraction – peace.

Think about how appealing peace would have been. The workers had been forced to carry a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other because of the threats of war. Because they had to post guards around the city, fewer men were able to be part of the work force. It is simply hard to do good work when you have to keep looking over your shoulder. Peace would have blessed both the work and the future of the city after the work ended. It would have been tempting to take a break from the building and to sit down with these “heads of state” to carve out a truce.

However, Nehemiah saw it for what is was – a distraction that ultimately would not bring peace but delay and that would remove his presence from the people who were already fearful and discouraged about the mission itself. Satan doesn’t always attempt to destroy the godly with sin. Often he presents numerous “good things” to draw us away from our primary tasks as believers. The “good things” either shift our focus from the main things or spread us so thin that we do nothing with excellence or simply leave many things half done.

The first essential is to know the primary things that God has called you to do and to know the priorities for each. It will be a narrow focus. Your first priority will always be to grow in your love for God and his kingdom. Jesus told us, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you” (Matt.6:33). The second priority will always be to grow in your love towards others. Remember, the two great commandments are to love God and to love others.

Primary among others will be your family. However, loving your family is not the same thing as providing more than your family needs or giving your children everything they want or think they want. Many godly men have put providing for their families ahead of loving God. They have put careers above bringing their children up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. To provide they have given so many hours to the job that they have been an absent parent. Fruitful ministries in church and in the community have slipped into the shadow of great jobs. I’m convinced that “great job opportunities” are not always from the Lord. Like the offer of peace in Nehemiah’s context, these careers can seem like a blessing from God if you don’t stop to count the cost and determine how it fits into your primary mission of seeking God and his kingdom. Affluence, which comes with great jobs, has also taken many servants away from the church on Sundays as the family heads to the lake house every weekend.

Sometimes, the distraction is not to leave but to keep doing more for the church, the community, and our families – more ministries, more volunteerism, more good things – even godly things. Then we become spread so thin that we do none of them well, and eventually burn out as individuals and families. Or we allow our children to be involved in so many things that we lose connection with the main things – all in the name of giving our children opportunities. Opportunities for what? To excel in sports, in education, in social networking? Each of those can be beneficial but often we are distracted by more for our children and find ourselves equipping them to succeed in the world but not in the kingdom. The underlying message for chasing every opportunity for our children is self-actualization (being all that I can be), rather than Christ-actualization as our priority in life.

It takes wisdom to sort out the distractions when they all are wrapped in “godly” packaging. Hearing from God about these things is essential. If you think about it, many of the things in which we involve our families and ourselves are attempts to make peace with the world – to fit it, to belong, and to succeed in the realm that will all burn up sometime. As you step into the New Year, ask God to show you your primary focus. What walls are you called to build for the kingdom? What gates are yours to restore? What territory are you to take back from the enemy? Once you have discovered your assignment, don’t be distracted. Keep your focus narrow and be found faithful in those things. Then you and your family as well as the kingdom of God will be blessed in eternal ways.

Alignment with God is the key to a free flow of power from heaven through God’s instruments on earth.  We are those instruments.  Most of us have had the experience of placing a sprayer on the end of a garden hose, turning the faucet wide open, dragging that hose across our yard in an attempt to water a flowerbed or tree. We have also had the experience of pulling the trigger on the sprayer to see only a tiny stream trickling from the end of the hose.  Typically, as we backtrack we find a kink in the hose obstructing the flow.  The problem was not in the water or the valve; it was in the delivery system which was the hose. Somehow the hose became twisted or misaligned and that twist restricted the flow of water.  Once the kink was eliminated and every part of the hose was realigned, then water flowed powerfully from the hose.

In essence, once the kink was removed, life flowed through the hose to the plants where we directed the water. We are God’s delivery system on the earth. When we are aligned with God, his authority and power flows easily through us as his instruments.  Sin and disobedience however, create kinks and greatly restrict that flow.  As we move toward a new year we need to reflect on the past twelve months to see if any “kinks in the hose” have developed in our lives.  If you read this blog, you probably have a desire for God to work in you and through you in greater and greater ways.  You probably want 2014 to be your greatest year of fellowship with the Father, the Son, and the Spirit and you want it to be a year of breakthroughs in your exercise of spiritual gifts that you have earnestly desired.

As I look back on this past year, I can see kinks that have formed in my life as well as in the lives of people I know, people I have prayed with, and people I have counseled. First of all, 2013 was a year of distractions.  I don’t know when I have felt pulled in so many directions by ministry, family, crises in the life of friends, cultural shifts and so forth.  It was a year in which it was hard to find a consistent spiritual rhythm.

And yet when I look at Jesus, I see a man who knew he faced a brutal death within 36 months of his baptism.  I see a man pulled on by thousands of people clamoring for more healing and more deliverance with each group or community pleading with him to stay longer.  Others pressured him to have political aspirations and to step up and take charge of Israel’s promised destiny.  In addition, he had the responsibility of training twelve rough-cut disciples to be leaders of a worldwide church that would face temptation and persecution at every turn. The twelve alone were a constant source of frustration without everything else that was going on.  On top of that, Jesus was always in the crosshairs of satan who sensed some imminent threat to his kingdom in this Galilean. In the midst of all those potential distractions, Jesus stayed on course and never seemed to be hurried even as the clock ticked quickly toward his death.

This year I need to find his secret. I think that secret was in knowing who he was, having a simple sense of what his life was to be about, and spending extended times with the Father realigning his thoughts, emotions, and vision with heaven, I need to do that more and do it better this year.  I also need to examine my heart to seek if kinks have formed there.  Those kinks may be small offenses I have picked up or resentments about demands others place on me.  They might be ways of thinking that have drifted out of alignment with God’s truth or laziness that has crept into my discipline of study, prayer, writing, and good health.  It could be small fears and anxieties about the future, about financial security, about health care options, or even loss of religious freedoms in our culture.  All of those things can create kinks in the flow of life and power moving through me.

For others I know, grief at the loss of loved ones, serious health challenges, secret addictions, lustful fantasies, unforgiveness and bitterness towards those who wronged them in 2013, etc. can create serious kinks in their spiritual lives. As life dings us, it is even easy to pick up small offenses toward God as well that need to be resolved.  As 2014 arrives in just a few days, it would be good for all of us who desire more of God and more of his Spirit to scan our lives to look for even the smallest things that are out of alignment with God’s heart and God’s truth.  It would be good for each of us to realign our lives through repentance, confession, and the reordering of priorities or whatever it takes to stay in step with heaven this year.

This coming year will undoubtedly be a year of continuing challenges in our culture and in our lives. But it will also be a year of unprecedented opportunities for Jesus to shine in our lives through our faith and obedience to him.  It will be a year of unprecedented opportunities for the power and authority of Jesus to bless others through our spiritual gifts and boldness.  It will be a great year to put down deeper roots into the heart of God so that the winds of change don’t move us.

So…over the next few days you may want to ask God to shine the light on any kinks in your life that might be restricting the flow of God’s love and power through you.  Where kinks have formed, God is quick to forgive, quick to realign, quick to restore and quick to begin to release heaven through his people once again.  There is no reason to hesitate.  We can all begin the year with the unrestricted flow of God’s Spirit moving through us.  Why would we not?  May this upcoming year be an amazing spiritual year for each of us.  Be blessed in Him.

A group I’m leading was exploring the concepts of blessing and cursing in scripture just a few days ago.  Whenever the topic of curses comes up I like to take a look at Balaam in Numbers 22.  Balaam was the guy whose donkey spoke to him while Balaam spoke back as if nothing unusual was going on.  Our conversation went to an odd part of the story.  Here is the gist of the story and the question that came up in our group study.

As Israel moved towards the promised land of Canaan, they camped in Moab along the Jordon River.  When Balak, the king of Moab, saw Israel camped on his border he “freaked.” Imagine waking up to a million or more people camped along your border knowing that these people had just defeated the neighboring Amorites.  With that in mind, Moab in conjunction with Midian, determined to seek the help of a man named Balaam who was known to place both blessings and curses on people with significant effect.  They sent a delegation to him with a fee for divination and asked him to curse the Israelites so that they might defeat them in war.

Interestingly, Balaam said that he would have to seek the Lord about cursing these folks who were new to the neighborhood.  Balaam did so and God responded.  He told Balaam not to go with the men because he was not to curse what God had blessed (Israel).  Balaam told the delegation, “Go back to your own country, for the Lord has refused to let me go with you.”  The delegation returned and reported to Balak what Balaam had said.  Balak responded by sending a more distinguished delegation and more money for the divination fee. So Balaam sought the Lord again on behalf of Balak to see if he could now declare a curse on Israel.  This time the Lord told him to go with the delegation but when he did, the text says, “But God was very angry when he went, and the angel of the Lord stood in the road to oppose him.”

So what’s the deal?  God tells him to go and when he does, God gets angry?  Is God playing games?  Did he change his mind at the last minute or what?  That was the crux of our group conversation.  What does that part of the story teach us about our relationship with God or God’s relationship with us?

Let’s just begin by saying that God often surprises us.  Balaam was not a prophet of God as far as we know and he was no priest. Yet, he enquired of God and heard from him clearly. Perhaps, he had been a prophet at one time but had misused his gift and drifted off into divination. We really don’t know.  What we do know is that God was very clear about not cursing what he had blessed. He was very clear that Balaam was to have nothing to do with that.  And yet, when offered more money and more honor by the enemy, Balaam pressed in again.  Balaam was an idolater.  His idols were money and the praise of men. He wanted that more than he feared God.

The story reveals that God basically told him that he knew what God’s will was in the matter. If he insisted on pursuing those material desires then go for it, but beware of the consequences.  I believe God was angry because Balaam chose to pursue the money even though he knew what the heart of God truly was. He had told Balaam to go with the delegation but to do only what God told him.  I’m speculating, but I believe that while going Balaam was still arguing with God in his spirit.  He was formulating another approach to get God to give him permission or he had decided to do what he wanted regardless of what God told him.  In essence, he was going to rationalize his situation so that he could get the money regardless of God’s command.

We are told later than Balaam dabbled in sorcery and that, although he didn’t speak a curse on Israel, he counseled their enemies to draw them into idolatry and sexual immorality so that their own actions would bring a curse on them.

Here is the point.  We often know what God’s will is on a subject and yet our flesh longs to do or have what God has forbidden.  And yet we look for loopholes and ways to convince God that he should make an exception for us.  Sometimes, we simply determine to do what we want to satisfy our craving with a mind to count on God’s grace later – the spiritual version of asking forgiveness rather than permission.

There may come a time when we have pressed God and pressed God to allow us to enjoy sin or pursue our version of idolatry and then he says, “Go ahead.”  He says it because we are bound to do it anyway.  In that moment he honors our free will without approving of what we are pursuing, knowing that the consequences will be hard teachers, but those are the teachers we have chosen.  It’s almost as if God says to us, “Then go ahead if you are determined, but you’ll be sorry.”  Then we go ahead and when we end up in the ditch we blame God.

How many of us have known Christians who chose to marry an unbeliever against everyone’s counsel or a couple who has chosen to live together even though scripture clearly forbids it?  At some point when we have counseled and plead long enough without being heard, we simply say,” God ahead, but remember when you asked me, I said, “No.”

This story serves as a warning against knowing God’s clear will on a subject while we press ahead trying to convince him that his commands don’t fit our personal situation or while looking for some legalistic loophole to justify our disobedience. The warning is that God may well honor our free will by backing off which we may then take as permission because that is what you have been looking for.

Once you know what God has to say about a matter, it is better to obey him rather than trying to find a way around God’s clear commandments.  Just as it was in the Garden, God’s commandments are not given to deprive us but to protect us.  Balaam did not curse Israel when it was all said and done, but it took a talking donkey and an angel with a drawn sword to settle the matter.  Ultimately, his heart was far from God and he helped the enemies of Israel overcome them. Ultimately, he came to a bad end.

Maybe you have been flirting with the idea of ignoring God’s clear commands because you want something so badly.  I can tell you from personal experience that when I have done it God’s way, I have never regretted it. When I have done it my way, I have often regretted it. Be wiser than Balaam.  Surrender to God and whatever that surrender costs you in the short run, God will more than match in the long run.  Choose God and be blessed.

I’m still wanting to hear about your “best spiritual reads” so others can discover what you were given through those books.  Comment that information to me!

In the book of Nehemiah we find one of Satan’s most subtle and effective strategies for hindering the work of God on the earth. In 586 B.C. the southern Kingdom of Judah fell to Babylon and all but a few were scattered throughout the Babylonian Empire as slaves and servants of the state. The temple and the city of Jerusalem were destroyed and for the most part remained a pile of rubble for seventy years. After seventy years of captivity, God allowed some of the Jews to return and to begin to rebuild.  Zerubbabel led the first return and rebuilt the temple while the city wall remained in disrepair.  Ezra was sent later by God to call the people in Judea to faithfulness and, finally, Nehemiah was allowed by the king he served to return to rebuild the city wall.  There was, of course, great opposition to the rebuilding of Jerusalem by their traditional enemies who lived in the area – the Samaritans, Ammonites, and Arabs.

Although God had ordained the rebuilding of the temple, the city, and the wall of Jerusalem, the enemy pushed back against the completion of God’s vision for the city.  We see the first part of Satan’s strategy in Chapter 4.  As the building began in earnest, the enemies of the Jews began with ridicule.  The first strategy was to criticize the vision that God had given Nehemiah and that he had brought to the people in Jerusalem.  In effect, they declared that Nehemiah’s vision would fail, that it was foolish, and that the Jews had neither the resources nor the skills to finish. For those with a minimum vision or minimum faith, such ridicule is debilitating. Yet, Nehemiah knew that the vision he held in his heart was from God and believed God for the materials and the skill.  The work moved ahead.

The next bit of Satan’s strategy unfolded when conflict broke out among the Jews themselves. Some felt that they were sacrificing much more than others. Discontent and comparison is always an effective strategy of the enemy because it divides God’s people. It also takes leaders away from the primary vision of the kingdom while they settle disputes.  Nehemiah settled the issue with wisdom but the detour cost them time.

Satan’s next move was to have the leaders of Israel’s enemies invite Nehemiah to a summit to discuss what was going on in the region. Nehemiah instinctively sensed that he would likely meet with “an unfortunate accident” on the way to the summit but, more than that, he knew it was another distraction from the enemy.  His response was one that we should remember. “I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?”  His enemies invited him to attend the summit four times and he refused each time.  Undoubtedly the national news agencies painted him as a man who did not want peace or as a polarizing man who would not compromise for the sake of the region. I’m sure he was criticized and encouraged even by some of his own people not to turn down these noble offers to speak about peace.  Yet God had not sent him to compromise with the enemy but to finish the work he had been given as soon as possible.

Next came the accusations that Nehemiah was rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem with a plan to rebel against the king who has sent him there.  If Satan can’t pull you away from the work God has given you, he will work to discredit you and your motives. For those of us who aren’t sure of our motives or who care too much for the opinions of men, those attacks can be very distracting and discouraging.  His response to the accusations was simple. “Nothing like what you are saying is happening.”  Because Nehemiah was building a kingdom for God rather than himself and because he had acted with integrity throughout the project, he was able to dismiss the charges and move ahead.

Finally, he was told that men were coming to kill him and he should simply run away to save himself. The possibility was certainly there that assassins were on the way, but his response was revealing. “Should a man like me run away? … I will not go … He (the messenger) was hired to intimidate me so that I would commit a sin by doing this and then they would give me a bad name to discredit me.”

Nehemiah understood the nature of leadership.  He also understood that if God gave him a vision to complete, then no man could stop him unless unbelief or unrighteousness on the part of Nehemiah entered the picture. The text then says that the work was completed and that when all their enemies heard of its completion, they were afraid.

Each of us has a call on our life by God. He has created us for good works which he has prepared in advance for us to complete (Eph.2:10). Satan’s most frequently used strategies are not direct opposition to what we are doing but distraction and discouragement. On a national scale, those who stand up for biblical values and righteousness are often encouraged by the people closest to them to compromise with the opposition. If they will not, then their vision is ridiculed, their motives are questioned, and their careers are threatened. Sound familiar?

But what about you?  What great thing have you imagined doing for God that you have set on the back burner for months or years because of distractions – busyness doing good things but not the thing God has prompted you to do. What about discouragement – the fear that you do not have enough skill or resources to complete the vision, questions about your motives, or fear of losing something if you step out? How many great projects still sit in the garage of the kingdom of God that have not been rolled out because the enemy has used these strategies of distraction and discouragement against us?

Maybe it’s time to take the vision or the dream back out the box, dust it off, and get on with what God has called you to do. For many of us unbelief has kept us in check – either unbelief that the dream and desire was truly from God or that he will not resource us and protect us while we do his will.  Pray about it. Recommit. Recognize the strategies of the enemy and get back to building the wall. If your vision were unimportant, Satan would never have stood in the way.