The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “O Sovereign Lord, you alone know.” … Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them…Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’ ” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army. (Ezek. 37:1-10)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “O Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’ ” So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’ ” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army. Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord. (Ezek. 37:1-14)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In my last blog, we explored the concept of “confession” which I believe is a powerful weapon in the arsenal God has provided for his people. In its simplest form, confession means that I say what God has said about any issue and not only say it but also agree with it. If I confess sin, then I am saying what God has said about an unacceptable trait, thought, or behavior and, hopefully, am agreeing with him about that in my heart. The third area of confession is simply developing a practice of saying what God has said about others and myself in the Lord.

We all know how important it is for faith to be transferred from a person’s head to his heart. To believe something intellectually is not as powerful as believing that same truth at a heart level. Speaking (verbally confessing) a truth facilitates that transfer. Paul says, “       But what does it say? ‘The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,’ that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom.10:8-9). In this verse, Paul is encouraging us to confess our faith with our mouths rather than just holding it as an intellectual conviction in our minds. He also suggests that the act of doing so facilitates belief in our hearts.

In the Hebrew mind, there is often a causal connection between two things joined together with the conjunction and. For instance, if someone were to say, “I slipped on the ice and broke my wrist,” we would assume that the slipping contributed to the breaking. One helped to cause the other.   In the same way, confessing with my mouth has a connection with believing in my heart. One powerful tool for transforming a belief in my head to faith in my heart is verbally confessing God’s truth regarding any area of my life.

Most of us struggle with our self-image. The world and the enemy love to beat up on us and leave us feeling unworthy, useless, and condemned even as believers. That is not the message of Christ. Jesus came to redeem us and to makes us into something new. That is the essence of being born-again and being a new creation. The New Testament is filled with God’s declarations about who we are now that we are in Christ. Those declarations should form our new identity in Jesus. Phrases such as, “the righteousness of God, fully forgiven, acceptable, worthy, holy, friends of God, temples of the Holy Spirit, empowered, competent, ambassadors for Christ, kings and priests, etc. all apply to every believer. They are part of our new identity that needs to seep down from our heads into our hearts.

The Bible says, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Another way of saying that is, “We live up to whatever we believe about ourselves.” Verbally, declaring who we are in Christ, on a daily basis, is a powerful tool for transformation. Speaking the same things over one another (especially our children) is also very powerful. As we agree with God about who we are, those truths are eventually written on our hearts. When they are written there, our view of ourselves changes and when that changes we change.

There is also a prophetic aspect to our verbal confessions. Isaiah declares that when God’s word goes forth it always fulfills its purpose. God spoke and his words created the universe. We are made in his image. When we speak our words have creative power, especially when his words go forth from our lips. When we declare his truth over any situation, we release God’s power to make those truths a reality (on earth as it is in heaven) whether it is shaping our identity, releasing his promises in our lives, or establishing destiny over our marriage or our children.

Confession aligns us with Christ, revokes the enemy’s authority to oppress us, writes his truth on our hearts, and releases the power of prophetic words to shape our hearts and the future. We should exercise this divine weapon often. It is how your authority as a believer is expressed. God gave you authority so exercise it for his purposes in your own life and lives of others. Remember, “The word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword” (Heb.4:11). Use it against the enemy.

Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him. John 14:21

This short verse out of the gospel of John contains one of the great promises in all of scripture. It offers the possibility that in the future (from the time of the writing) Jesus would show himself to believers. The word translated as “show” is the Greek word “emphanizo.” In various versions it is translated as show, disclose, manifest, reveal, make fully known, appear, make visible, and so forth.

We can understand this promise in a number of ways. We can understand that Jesus is promising a clearer understanding of who he is and how he operates in his church as we study the Word and meditate on it. We could understand him to be promising that we might hear him more clearly as he speaks to us through his Spirit. He might also be saying that he would display his love and power through us as we minister to others so that they might see Jesus in us. We could even understand this scripture in a way that promises that Jesus might even visit us in visions and dreams.

I personally believe that each of those possibilities is in the mix and that this greater and greater revelation of Jesus has the potential to be a life long process as we grow in our understanding and love for him. They key is in understanding how to release the promise. First of all, Jesus offers the promise to whoever has his commands. To have his commands implies both knowing and possessing. Many of us plan on growing in our love for Jesus without being established in his Word. We plan on praying and worshipping our way into an intimate relationship with Jesus while we continue to live life on our own terms.   Certainly prayer and worship are essential to the relationship but in this text Jesus is placing a premium on knowing his commands and taking ownership of them as his directives for living. There is an abundance of believers today who attend church, play K-Love, and pray daily for God’s blessings but who have significant parts of their lives “unsubmitted” to Jesus. They may be ignorant of his commands or have simply chosen to live by those that feel good and reject those that don’t. That will not bring the revelation of Jesus to our lives.

Secondly, he says that those who have his commands must also obey them. He defines that as a true expression of love. Love always directs us to do what blesses and honors the other person. Love is also expressed by submission. In scripture, children are to submit to parents, wives are to submit to husbands and husbands to wives (submit one to another – Eph.5:21) – and we all are to willingly submit to the Lord. Willing submission to the needs or directives of another is an expression of love as we live to please the other person. Willing submission is also a statement of belief that the one giving the directives or commands can be trusted because they love us and would only command us to do those things that will bless us.

Many of us declare our love to God and then live in disobedience. A friend of my wife Susan and mine has had some issues with the law lately and is spending some time in jail. She has written us to tell us how close she has gotten to Jesus since being imprisoned and was telling us about a great time of personal worship the other day. She said the Lord spoke to her clearly saying, “Worship me by obeying me.” That’s a good word for all of us.

Consistent obedience is truly an indicator of how we view Jesus. Is he Lord? Is he wise? Is he right? Is he trustworthy? Does he love us? If the answer is yes to each of those questions then why would we not obey him in all things? If we don’t live a life of obedience then we must answer “No” to some, if not all, of those questions. The way we live displays what we truly think about Jesus.

The revelation and manifestation of Jesus Christ is a precious commodity like getting an hour with the President of the United States or the CEO of a worldwide company. Their time and knowledge is precious and should be entrusted only to those who are trustworthy in the use of that time and knowledge. We are trustworthy if we are faithful and obedient. If we possess Christ’s commands and willingly obey them, then that is a true test of love and if we love the Son, the Father also takes notice. Ultimately, the reward for loving Jesus is his presence. After all, don’t we want to spend our time with those who love us, trust us, and appreciate us? Why wouldn’t Jesus feel the same?

If we want more of Jesus we will have to give him more of ourselves. If you are not connecting with Jesus or getting a greater revelation of him in your life, you may want to run an audit on your life to see if willing obedience motivated by love is consistently on the books. Be blessed and be obedient – even in the hard things. Then Jesus will gladly come to you.

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’ “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!’ ” And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly.” Luke 18:1-8

This is not a welcome parable for most of us but a needed parable. It is a parable about enduring in prayer even when we don’t see God working in response to our cries. Jesus begins by encouraging his followers to always pray and never give up. He wouldn’t have told them the parable if there were not times when we are greatly tempted give up on God and lay aside a prayer and a hope rather than continuing until we see God’s answer.

How often have we prayed for something and when we haven’t seen the result we imagined in a few days, a few weeks, or a few months we stop praying and go on to something else or simply decide that our prayer is not in God’s will? That scenario is especially true when we don’t perceive any progress in the thing we are praying for. This “unperceived progress” comes up most often when we are praying for salvations, healings, reconciliation in relationships, or for a turn around in our nation. We pray, we cry, we fast, and yet we see the relationship, the nation, or a loved one’s health not only not improving but continuing to decline. What do we do with that? Often we simply decide that what we are praying for is not God’s will or that there is something wrong with us so he will not answer our prayer and we give up. Yet Jesus says that we should never give up but keep on praying.

One thing scripture reveals is that God’s promises are certain but his timetable rarely matches our own. For instance, Abraham was given a clear promise by God himself that he would father a child with is wife Sarah. The promise came when Abraham and Sarah were already at an age in which childbearing was highly unlikely. I’m guessing that Abraham was expecting a son before he got too old to enjoy him…say 18-24 months from the time of the promise. Time passed. Abraham was probably diligent in doing his part. Nothing happened. Undoubtedly, Abraham was praying with faith and thanking God for the promise while asking for the promise to be fulfilled right away. Time passed – not months but years.

As each year passed, the likelihood of the promise being fulfilled seemed to diminish as Abraham and Sarah continued to age. In response to their deteriorating circumstances, they decided to do the human thing and take matters into their own hands by putting a little spin on the promise. They determined to have a son through Hagar, Sarah’s servant. It would be Abraham’s son and technically Sara’s son as well since the child of the servant would technically belong to the master or the mistress.   Ishmael was born from that union but God rejected him because he was the not he child of promise. Eventually, the child of promise was born but he was born 25 years after the original promise. The more years passed the more God’s promise seemed impossible – but once again we discover that nothing is impossible with God.

The greatest promises and the most profound prayers seem to take years for their fulfillment. Sometimes, something as easy as a word from God takes weeks of prayer and fasting. There are probably lots of reasons – appointed times, demonic resistance (Dan.10), character development, free will issues, etc. but we may never know exactly why an answer to some prayers take so long. The point Jesus was making is that if the desire is still in our heart and the prayer is based on a promise of God, keep praying and never give up.

As he concluded the “parable of the persistent widow,” Jesus declared that God will not keep putting off his children who cry out to him day and night but will see that they get justice and quickly. If quickly, then why worry about endurance and persistence in prayer? The Greek construction of the sentence doesn’t mean that the prayers will be answered in short order but in the fullness of time, everything will come together and fall into place in an amazingly compressed period of time. But until that appointed time comes, we must continue to pray and to pray with faith believing that God makes good on his promises although every appearance seems to cry out that no answer will ever come.

Some who are reading this blog undoubtedly have given up on answered prayer for something once precious to your heart. Others have simply laid a desire aside rather than deal with the perception that nothing has changed. But so often, God is storing up your answer and when he releases your answer you will be amazed how quickly everything falls into place. Don’t give up. The biblical record is that some prayers and promises take years to answer. Some prophetic words take years to transpire. But the promise is sure as long as our prayers persist. Always pray and never give up.

Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign Lord. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live? Ezek.18:23

The people of the land practice extortion and commit robbery; they oppress the poor and needy and mistreat the alien, denying them justice. I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none. Ezek.22:29-30

One of the great lies of the enemy that keeps people from God is that God is a vengeful, angry deity sitting on a throne in heaven with a score pad just waiting to pour out his wrath on all those who fail to toe the line. Satan loves to paint God as the explosive, abusive father ready to backhand his kids at the slightest provocation. I believe that Satan whispered something akin to that view into the ears of Adam and Eve a millisecond after they sinned in The Garden. How else would you account for them running and hiding from a Father who had only ever shown them love?

However, that is not the God revealed in the Bible. But, you say, what about all the times he judged Israel and scattered them all over the world and what about the flood that wiped out every human being except for Noah’s little tour group on the ark? I didn’t say that God never judges unrighteousness. After all, he is holy. But what we need to understand is that it is never his heart to do so and it only comes after years of unrepented sin and constant warnings from the Lord.

Like a good father, he always wants what is best for his children. He gives them clear guidelines and spells out the consequences for disobedience long before discipline is ever administered. He does not punish weakness or ignorance but only rebellion and even then he tries to find another way.

In the two passages above, Ezekiel reveals the heart of God in these matters. God takes no delight in the death of the wicked but longs for them to repent so that he can forgive and bless. The book of Jonah revolves around Jonah being sent to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, who was a sworn enemy of Israel. Assyria was cruel and brutal in its treatment of captives and, yet, before judging this city he sent a prophet to warn the people. When Jonah vehemently objected to God showing mercy to this nation God responded, “But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city” (Jonah 4:11)? Jonah preached, Nineveh repented, and God withheld judgment. If you look well, that is the pattern throughout the Old Testament. Even before the flood Noah preached repentance for 120 years and God did not open the heavens until “every imagination was evil all of the time”(Gen.6:5).

The second text quoted from Ezekiel is set in the context of Israel’s flagrant sin and rebellion against God that had gone on for years even though God had repeatedly sent prophets to turn their hearts back to Him. But even in the face of unrelenting rebellion God looked for a way to express mercy rather than judgment. His holiness required justice and judgment unless one could be found who would stand before him and plead for mercy on Israel’s behalf as Moses had done in the wilderness. But no one stood and no one interceded for Israel so God was forced to honor his people’s choices and send judgment though it was not his heart to do so. God reveals his heart plainly when he tells us, “Mercy triumphs over judgment” (Ja.2:13).

However, many believers still view God as the angry, stern father who begrudges his children anything beyond the bare essentials and who keeps a belt handy for the slightest infraction. To view God that way hinders everything about our walk with the Lord. If we see God that way we avoid him rather than running to him. We rarely ask in prayer because we think the answer is already “No!” When we do ask, we ask with little faith and pray as if we must persuade God to dispense the smallest of blessings.

But Jesus said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn.14:9). Jesus was hardly the angry prophet ready to punish every transgression but rather was the Lamb of God ready to forgive every transgression. Jesus was incredibly gentle with sinners and broken hearts and was quick to express love, heal hurts, and restore bodies ravaged by disease. It seems that his most frequent emotion identified in the gospels was compassion and instead of making us pay for our sins he paid the price for us. What we see in Jesus is the Father’s heart as well.

We need to know that. One of our greatest weapons is “believing-prayer,” but how can we believe unless we see the Father as a God quick to forgive, quick to love, and quick to say, “Yes?” How can we come before him with confidence unless we see him as a Father who loves to see us come into his presence even with our imperfections and failings? How can we draw close unless we see him as a Father who longs to put his arms around us even if we have been prodigals? If we can’t see God this way then Satan has sold us a bill of goods designed to keep us far from the one who loves us more than we can imagine. If that is the case, we need to quickly rethink our view of God and know this – God has a heart for you.