The gospels are the story of Jesus but they are also the stories of people touched by Jesus.  They are stories of ordinary people suffering in all the ways the world afflicts its citizens.  These people suffered from bondage to sin, physical disabilities, physiological conditions, psychological conditions, isolation, rejection, bitterness, loss, discrimination, hunger, spiritual thirst, and demonic affliction of all kinds. Some even suffered from death which is a fairly serious condition.  Jesus had an answer for each of those things.

Many Christians scan the gospels and accept the miracles of deliverance, healing, raising the dead, and transforming lives as true but attribute those events to the deity of Jesus.  “Of course he could do those things because he was God. But, we can’t expect to do those things because we are not God.” Certainly, he was God, but he didn’t come as God.  His primary identification was the Son of Man.

Jesus has the position of God but came in the condition of man.  He chose to face the devil and life on this planet as a man rather than as God in a man suit.  If he walked among us as God then he didn’t suffer temptation as we did. He never truly felt hunger or fear or rejection. But the writer of Hebrews says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin” (Heb.4:15).  Jesus wasn’t Jesus before he put on flesh.  He was the Word of God and Adoni sitting on a heavenly throne in Isaiah 6. Before he put on flesh he was God and manifested as God in all things. But when he put on flesh, he checked his God and creator- of- the-universe abilities at the door.

At the point of conception in a human body he became Jesus, Son of Man.  Paul declared, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim.2:5). Paul did not say the god Christ Jesus but the man Christ Jesus. I do believe God had given Jesus the right to pick up his divine capacities at any time if he chose to do so.  Jesus said, “The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father” (Jn.10:17-18).  In another place Jesus said, “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels” (Mt.26:53)?   It seems to me that the Word and the Father had a deal.  “Okay, you go as a man, live as a man, suffer as a man, and face temptation like a man but if at any moment you think these people aren’t worth it, you exercise your deity and get out of there.” The miracle to me is that Jesus chose to stick it out as a man even unto death in the face of man’s worst scorn and brutality.

Jesus came to show us how a man could live on the earth when he walked in close fellowship with the Father.  He didn’t come to show us how God could live on the earth in close fellowship with the Father.  That example would have done us no good.  In addition, Jesus sent out numbers of ordinary men who performed the same miracles he did and said that those who believe on him would not only do what he did, but would do even greater things (See Jn. 14:12).   As Jesus walked the earth he touched lives that were radically changed by his love and power.  My point is that he expects us to do the same thing. Jesus expects his church to carry on his mission of preaching good news, binding up the broken hearted, setting captives free, giving sight to the blind, and facilitating radical change in the lives of men and women.

Our church offers a ministry entitled Free Indeed and it is the source of the material in my book Born to Be Free. For the past six years we have watched God dramatically change hundreds of lives in a few weeks rather than in decades. We just finished our most recent installment of Free Indeed and watched eighty people discover the love of the God and the power of the kingdom over a period of two months and a weekend.  Most were changed forever and set free by his touch and his power. People are amazed at what Jesus does in those few weeks but the truth is that we simply teach the basics of scripture – what Jesus did for us at the cross, who we are in Christ, the expectation of radical transformation in the kingdom, how to hear God and receive from him, how to walk in authority, and the basics of spiritual warfare.

We teach these basics over a period of eight weeks and then engage everyone in a weekend of experiencing Jesus through inner healing and deliverance and Jesus always does amazing things.  He does those with the basics of our faith and a lot of very imperfect vessels that serve as leaders – including myself.  People discover who they are.  They experience deep emotional and spiritual healing as well as physical healing.  They are set free from their past, the lies of Satan, and demonic affliction that has hindered their walk with the Lord for years.   In other words, we simply do what Jesus did every day.

My question is, “If we see that much power and transformation from simply learning and doing the basics of our faith, how much greater could our impact be on the world if we plunged into the deeper things of the Spirit and the kingdom?  How much greater impact could we have if we just did the basics in everyone’s church rather than in a few?”  When we take Jesus at his word that we are to do the things he did, faith becomes exciting. When we risk being disappointed because a certain person might not be healed or delivered we find that we are not disappointed because being willing to risk something for Jesus is its own reward.  Not only that, but many, many are healed, delivered, and transformed in the name of Jesus.  How fun is that!

So today, let me encourage you to just trust Jesus in the basics. Believe that whatever he did, he did as a man and as a man or woman of faith, he will do it through you again.   In doing so, he will bless many and you will feel the joy of partnering with your Lord and Savior in radically changing lives and destinies.  Go for it and be blessed!

The New Testament writers are very clear that Satan lays traps and designs schemes against God’s people. We are not to be ignorant of his schemes (see 2 Cor.2:11) so it seems that we should give some thought to the processes by which Satan attempts to pick us off one by one.

I appreciate the way in which Graham Cooke describes one of Satan’s patterns so often used to take God’s people out of the game.  “ The Enemy’s strategy works on that same principle.  He is geared to make us feel dissatisfied with who we are.  He wants us to separate from God, the church, our friends, and any useful function we may adopt in furthering the kingdom. If he can get us to hate ourselves and tell our hearts that we are of no account and, as such, it doesn’t matter if we don’t go the meeting or pray or worship, then apathy will follow.  If we allow apathy into our lives then it will hold the door open to unbelief, condemnation, self-loathing, bitterness, anxiety, fear, misery and selfishness.  All these things spell passivity, a passive acceptance of life, and a demoralized outlook on the things of God.  The prophetic is geared to challenge this whole issue since it is based on the truth of God’s love, grace, kindness, and mercy.” (Graham Cooke, Approaching the Heart of Prophecy, p.50).

Notice the progressive nature of this scheme.  We become dissatisfied with ourselves and, after a while, come into agreement with Satan’s accusations that we are unlovable, unworthy, and incompetent.  As we begin to agree with him on those issues our self-image plummets and we begin to suspect that other people feel the same way about us.  Because of that, we begin to withdraw and isolate ourselves from the very people who love us and give our lives meaning. As we isolate ourselves our fruitfulness begins to wane. Since we are already feeling bad about ourselves we push back against any encouragement to re-engage and against any conviction from the Holy Spirit because we take it all as criticism and rejection.  As we numb our senses to avoid any more feelings of rejection, we slide into apathy and passivity which continues to alienate us from ourselves and isolate us from God and his people. Of course, throughout the entire process Satan is whispering how much God, the church, and our friends have let us down so that our misery is really all their fault.

Satan excels in placing us in mindsets and situations that create a downward spiral.  For instance, Christians who feel a great deal of rejection and who question their own worth and significance often seek to medicate the pain of their self-loathing through pornography.  The temporary rush of sexual fantasies or the endorphins released during the fantasy soon give way to a sense of shame and failure.  The sense of shame and failure depletes their self-image all the more, which increases their need for escape and the medicating effects of more porn, which then creates more shame.  The shame creates secrets. The addiction becomes a secret part of his/her life that is hidden by lies and deception which, in turn, undermine trust in a marriage relationship or family.  The broken trust then tends to alienate one spouse from another which usually leads to arguments, frustrations, withdrawal from church and isolations from friends. The cycle is self-perpetuating and can devastate not only the man or women caught in the cycle but those who love them as well.

Huge numbers of believers have been marginalized by these schemes and traps of the enemy.  The key is to understand the outcomes and the strategies and to take steps to short-circuit the strategy as early as possible in the process.  Not only should we short-circuit the process but also we should create safeguards in our lives to keep the enemy from even getting a foothold.  Let me recommend a few things.

1.An honest evaluation of our spiritual and emotional health.  This is the hardest step as those of us who struggle with self-worth try to avoid acknowledging any weaknesses or sins in our lives because we fear rejection if others were to find out.

2.Choose to have accountability partners in life with whom you will be ruthlessly honest about your struggles.  Give them permission to ask the hard questions and call you back to spiritually healthy dynamics in your life or when you start to withdraw or isolate yourself or begin to make excuses about diminishing spiritual practices and ministry involvement in your life.

3.Recognize areas of weakness and sin in your life and get to work on those areas while they are occasional struggles rather than something that is dominating your life.  Low self–esteem, anger, addictions, fear, compulsions, etc. are all life issues related to our brokenness and sin nature.  They will not get better without taking action both in the natural and spiritual realms.  Unhealed and unrepented, these issues will be open doors for the enemy to gain access to your life and your soul – first a foothold and then a stronghold.

4.When you recognize you are caught in a scheme of the enemy short-circuit his strategy by refusing to go the to the next level in the process.  Refuse to live a lie.  Refuse to withdraw and isolate yourself from church, friends, and family.  Face the shame by telling someone immediately so that the shame does not grow and give the enemy a more powerful stronghold.

If you know you struggle with your self-mage get help immediately by finding healing in the Lord, establishing your identity in Christ, gaining freedom from spirits of rejection, bondage, fear, and condemnation through deliverance, and by getting intercessors to pray with you until that issue is overcome.

5.Know that the longer you put off surrendering your struggle to the Lord and humbling yourself by getting help from the body of Christ, the harder it will be to find freedom and the more it will have cost you before you do.

Ask yourself:

•  Where will I be in five years if I do not get victory over the sin and brokenness in my life?
• What will it cost me to continue to hide and deny my struggles?
• What will it cost my family and my relationship with the Lord if I don’t deal with this now?
• What could my life look like if I found true freedom from my sin and brokenness?

We are not to be ignorant of the devil’s schemes and we must take action as soon as we sense we have stepped into his trap or have vulnerabilities that invite his presence.  Jesus has come to heal and set free and he is willing to do that for you. If we excuse or deny these struggles, we are making ourselves easy targets for enemy.  Jesus has purchased so much for you by his blood and the Father is so willing to gives those gifts to you, don’t let the enemy steal your life and your blessings.  Be wise.  Avoid the traps or at least call for help as soon as you feel the noose tightening around your ankle.  Be blessed and be wise today.  Tell someone the truth about whatever you have been hiding or denying.

Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. (Mark  10:18)

Most of us have heard the expression that God is good – all the time. A friend of mine says it this way.  “God is good and he’s in a good mood.”  Statements like that have developed because people, including many believers, aren’t sure that it’s true. People wonder if God is good only part of the time and only with his favorites. Or they may think that maybe he’s good (moral/righteous) but he still seems to be angry all the time. The question of God’s inherent goodness is vital.

Everything in our faith stands on the truth of what Jesus said.  God is good. It is only when we believe that God is good all the time that we can have faith in his promises.  It is only then that we can develop an unconditional trust in him. Anything less leaves us on shaky ground and yet my experience tells me that many believers, in their hearts,  are still uncertain of that goodness.

Satan’s great strategy in the garden was to undermine Adam and Eve’s confidence in the goodness of God. In his dialogue with Eve, Satan implied that God might not be so good.  He suggested that there were many good things that Adam and Eve deserved that God was withholding from their lives.  He suggested that the warning about death related to eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a ruse to keep them from becoming gods themselves. He suggested that God was a liar and a manipulator who was keeping them from the best things in life. The only evil in the Garden that day was Satan.  But Satan always calls evil good and good evil and so he accused the creator of being much less than a good and loving God.

As soon as Eve entertained the possibility that God wasn’t so good after all, she took and ate.  Her doubts about the goodness of God created distrust in the goodness of his commandments because she had begun to distrust his character.  Once we take the step of doubting God’s goodness then everything unravels.  If we can’t trust God to be good all the time then we can’t trust his commandments to be good for us all the time. When we arrive at that perspective, we will feel compelled to pick and choose the commandments of God that we estimate will be in our best interest while leaving the others alone.  We will have to serve God with reservations and maintain control over the most critical parts of our lives because we won’t be confident that he will always act in our best interest.

I’ve discovered through the years that Eve’s distorted view of God seems to be indelibly imprinted on our fallen nature so that even believers often filter out the goodness of God written on every page of the Bible and camp on those moments when his righteousness and the persistent rebellion of men forced him to release judgment on a man or a nation.  That post-sin filter from the Garden casts God as a perfectionistic, authoritarian Father who gives gifts grudgingly and only to those who have recently earned his approval. He is seen as a Father who gladly sends hardship or even illness to teach us a lesson so that we might do better next time.  He is often seen as a father who delights in “taking off his belt” and dealing out his “righteous” judgments.

When that view overshadows the true revelation of God’s goodness, our trust can only be sporadic, our expectation for answered prayers will vary with our perceived personal “spirituality and goodness,” and we will often view every hardship and loss in life as something God has “done to us.”  Obviously, our walk with the Lord and growth in the Spirit will not flourish in such a mental environment.  These misperceptions of God are the very strongholds (see 2 Cor.10:4-5) that keep us from healing, freedom, and moving powerfully in the gifts of the Spirit.

Those things are predicated on trusting that God is always for us; believing his truth about who we are and what Christ has done for us; confronting the enemy with the confidence that Jesus is who he says he is and that he will back us up with his own power and authority. To receive those gifts from God, we must at least begin to remove fleshly filters that deletes all evidence of his goodness and begin to see the goodness of God through the revelation of the Spirit.

If God is good by nature, then he can only do good things.  He can only treat us in good ways.  He can only send us good gifts and he can only want good things for us.  If he is good by nature then he never lies, never breaks promises, never manipulates, and never discards us.  If he is good, then he opposes evil and delights in helping us overcome the enemy in our own lives. If he is good he always meets our needs and always does what is best for us – even when we can’t see it in the beginning.

Is God good?  Jesus said he is. Is Jesus good?  If you said yes then remember that Jesus is the exact representation of the Father (see Heb.1:3). Once I commit by faith to the proposition that God is good all the time, then my eyes will begin to see his goodness in everything.  I will not blame him for the consequences of my own bad decisions or the bad decisions of Adam.  I will not blame him for the works of Satan and I will not have to stand on my head to explain why a good God would seemingly do such bad things – because he doesn’t.

If you honestly struggle with the goodness of God in your life then take Jesus as his word.  Choose to believe that God is good and always wants what is best for you. Then ask the Holy Spirit to begin to enable you to see his goodness in everything and to discern where God is interjecting his grace and goodness even in tragic circumstances created by sin not by God.   Look for his goodness.  Confess his goodness. Confirm his goodness. Celebrate his goodness.  It will change your life and open the doors to your healing, freedom and the ministry of the Holy Spirit in your life. Be blessed by his goodness today.

For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints,       I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. (Ephesians 1:15-20)

This is a text that I often go to when ministering freedom and healing to broken and oppressed believers. Most of us continue to live with our brokenness because we don’t truly understand who God is, what he has provided for us, or who we are in Christ.  Through the years you have probably known someone that continued to live in a hurtful, abusive situation year after year. Perhaps they were in an abusive relationship or a job where they were underpaid, overworked and never appreciated.  They clearly hated their situation and it was clear that it was taking a toll on them emotionally, physically, and spiritually.  And yet, they would not take steps to free themselves from the relationship or to seek different employment.

I have visited with a number of individuals in those situations.  Some finally made the break after they became absolutely desperate.   I asked them why they had stayed in those hurtful situations so long when everyone they knew encouraged them to get out.  Inevitably the same reasons always surface.  One reason was fear of the unknown.  As bad as their situation was, they knew what they had and feared having nothing at all if they left the relationship or the job.  Most of us would believe that nothing was better than what they had, but fear that the future might hold something even worse kept them where they were.

Others viewed themselves in such a way that they truly believed they didn’t deserve anything better.  The messages from their past had convinced them that they were worthless, low achievers whom no one would ever love or value.  Their abusers or unappreciative employers reinforced those beliefs so they thought life would never offer more because they didn’t deserve anymore.  So … they stayed.

The third reason was that their mothers or fathers had modeled that life for them by continuing in abusive relationships or staying in dead end jobs with a sense of resignation that the world would offer them nothing more. These abused and oppressed people in some way believed that what they were experiencing was “the norm” because they had watched their parents endure it all the years they were growing up.  In some subconscious way they probably sought out what their parents had modeled because that was familiar.

Our spiritual lives can be the same.  Many believers continue to live with a sense of insignificance, a painfully negative view of themselves, oppressive thoughts, addictions, and general sadness because they believe there are no real alternatives for them or because they simply don’t deserve more in this world.  Some even believe that God has visited their misery on them so that continuing in their pain is a way of “paying for their sins” even though Jesus had already paid for every sin.  Many have simply taken on an identity of pain, rejection, and failure.  They can’t imagine being anything or anyone else and so they stay in that place for decades.

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul affirms their faith and love and his excitement about their newly found life in Christ. He then lets them know that he has been constantly praying for them and asking God to give them the Spirit of wisdom and revelation. He says that he is praying for the Spirit to give these believers both of those gifts so that they might know God better.

We can come to know God through study, teaching, conversations, etc. to an extent.  But if our faith and understanding of God stay at an intellectual level then God remains a concept more than a person. We tend to know about God rather than knowing God.  Revelation deposits truth in our hearts – in our core being – and that is where profound change and healing occur.  Wisdom is knowing how God perceives people and situations and acting in accord with God’s view of things.  To know how God thinks is a huge step toward knowing God. To know how he feels about people, especially ourselves, is also a huge step toward knowing him.   Paul is really asking God to reveal both his mind and heart to the believers at Ephesus so that they might truly get to know him.  And as they say, “To know him is to love him.”  To know his love for us is also the most healing thing in the universe.

Paul goes on to say that he has asked the Father to enlighten the eyes of their hearts that they might also perceive what they have in Jesus.  In short, Paul declares that they have hope, riches, and power in Jesus.  They have hope because God has a future for them that is full of life and blessing if they will trust him enough to receive it.  They have the riches of heaven available to them if they will receive his promises by faith.  They also have the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and that created the universe working on their behalf. Most of us have read those truths and promises in scripture and would say we believe them.  But for many of us, the belief is an intellectual position rather than something we have “written on our hearts.”

The work of the Spirit is revelation and revelation writes truth on our heart.  When we get the truth in our hearts it changes things.  Believers who stay in their brokenness and oppression don’t know God, who they are in Christ, or the riches that are theirs if they will pursue them.  They hear these truths but haven’t received them in their hearts.  They need revelation.  They need an experience with God, a fresh and personal word from God, or a teaching to explode in their hearts.  They need the Holy Spirit to give them wisdom and understanding to know what God has just done in their lives and to receive it as a gift from him.

I believe that we need to pray Paul’s prayer constantly for ourselves and for those who are struggling in their faith. We desperately need divine wisdom, the revelation of God’s truth, and for the “eyes of our heart” to be opened so that we might fully understand everything that is ours in Jesus as well as the power our Father is willing to wield on our behalf. When we grasp those things we can let go of the present and step into the future. We can exchange the devil’s view of who we are for the Father’s view of who we are. We can lay fear about the unknown aside and trust that God already has it worked out in marvelous ways.

Today I pray that God will give you the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation that you may know him better and that he will open the eyes of your heart so that you may know the hope, the riches, and the power that are yours in Jesus Christ.  I hope you’ll pray the same for me.  Be blessed.

“In the synagogue there was a man possessed by a demon, an evil spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice,       “Ha! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” “Be quiet!” Jesus said sternly. “Come out of him!” Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him. All the people were amazed and said to each other, “What is this teaching? With authority and power he gives orders to evil spirits and they come out!” (Luke 4:34-36).

This account of Jesus ministering deliverance to a person has several common elements with many other “deliverance” accounts in the gospels. First of all, we notice that demons often attend church with those they are oppressing. Most demonic oppression does not entirely control a person but rather influences them. These individuals will function normally most of the time and in most areas of their lives.  They will go to work, go home, play with their kids, have friends, and go to church. However, there will be a small but significant part of their life over which they feel little to no control.

This demonic influence will manifest as moments of rage that are always blamed on other people, hidden pornography addictions, persistent and powerful feelings of rejection, jealousy, bitterness, envy or self-loathing.  They may be experienced as fear, anxiety, or bouts of depression and illness.  Most demonic affliction does not look like the Gadarene demoniac who lived among the tombs, cutting himself and crying out. Most demonic manifestations mimic emotional brokenness and illness that occurs in the natural realm and so we seek treatment from the natural realm. Since there is a spiritual force fueling these issues in a person’s life, therapies offered by the world will not solve the issue.  At best a person may learn to manage his rage, his anxiety, his depression or his addictions but will never feel totally free of them.

Many of us who are afflicted by demons have experienced that affliction so long that we think every human being must be dealing with the same issues and so we try out best to manage our feelings and dark thoughts and believe it is just our lot in life to do so. Our secret hope is that those thoughts and feelings we try so hard to repress will never get out of hand.  However, the enemy wears us down and sets us up and those thoughts and feeling so get out of hand usually with very hurtful consequences.

The second thing we notice in this account that is common to other accounts of deliverance is that demonic spirits know exactly who Jesus is and recognize his authority over them. They often cry out in despair and fear and ask if he is going to destroy them or send them to the Abyss (See Luke 8:31).  I’ve always found it interesting that Jesus didn’t destroy them or send them to the pit of hell but cast them out of a person with the possibility that they would simply go and afflict others.  The primary point however is that demons were subject to the authority of Christ even before the cross.  How much more are they subject now after he has been given all authority in heaven and on earth?  I also know that demons become very uncomfortable in the presence of God. Those who are demonized and make it to church will often feel agitated or fearful in worship or as people pray over them.  They are not feeling their own agitation, fear or even hate but they are experiencing what the demons are feeling.  Unfortunately, there are times and places where the presence of God is hardly evident in church services so that demons will be quite comfortable in those places.  We also know that Satan loves to steal the word of God from a heart before it can take root and so the demonic is often present in church services doing just that. How often are we distracted during worship or a sermon or have random thoughts of envy or lust or judgment toward someone we notice in the crowd or on the platform?  The enemy is stealing the word.

Finally we notice that it requires power and authority to cast out the enemy.  Power is defined as the force with which one can impose his will on another.  When Michael warred against Satan and his angels in the rebellion, Satan and those who had joined him were cast down to the earth.  That demonstrated that the power of heaven is superior to that of hell.  Jesus walked the earth with power and authority over the demonic, disease, and even death.  He had power because the power of heaven backed up his commands. Jesus said that the Father had put more than twelve legions of angels at his disposal (See Mt.26:53). Authority is not power but is what directs power.  When an artillery officer gives the command to fire, his words don’t have the ability to destroy the target but his word’s have authority to direct and release the power that can destroy the enemy. Jesus carried the authority of heaven with him and his commands directed the power of heaven.  It takes both to cast out the enemy, heal the sick. or raise the dead.

In Luke 9:1, we are told that Jesus gave that same power and authority to the twelve. They immediately went out to preach the gospel and as they went they healed and cast out demons. In Luke 10, Jesus sent out seventy-two others with the same power and authority.  The effects were stunning. “The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name!”  My guess is that the first time they healed or cast out a demon they were just as surprised as the crowds were who witnessed it.  We struggle to believe the same thing.  We have no doubts that Jesus can heal or deliver or that heaven is more powerful than hell.  What we struggle to believe is that Jesus has delegated his authority to us and that our commands will actually direct the power of heaven into a certain situation. But Jesus promised that those who believed in him would do even greater things than he did when he walked the earth.

We’re told by the writer of Hebrews, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word” (Heb.1:3).  Jesus is the exact representation of the Father.  In other words, Jesus re-presents the Father. He does exactly what the Father does in exactly the same ways the Father does it.  We are the body of Christ and his ambassadors on the earth.  We are called to re-present Jesus just as Jesus represents the Father – not just in actions but also in character. Character comes through the Spirit but action comes by faith.  In the context of healing and deliverance, faith believes that Jesus will honor our prayers and commands in his name and back them up with the power of heaven because we act in his authority.  The demons know his authority over them. We are the ones who sometimes doubt it.

If the enemy cannot blind us to the authority of Christ working through his church today, his fallback position is to convince us that only a few select people in the church can command demons.  Then we all wait around hoping one of those guys shows up.  Every believer is an ambassador of Christ and walks in his authority. I believe Jesus sent out the seventy-two so that we would know his authority was not going to be given to just a select circle of men but to all who follow him.  My hope is that we will all walk in that authority today believing that when we pray or command with the authority of Christ, heaven will train its gun on the target we have selected.  Be blessed.

Lies are a great strategy of the enemy to take us out of the game.  It’s simple.  If you hear a lie often enough you come to believe that it is true.  Once you believe that it is true, you will act in ways that seem to confirm the truth of the lie you have believed. Satan is a master at orchestrating such deceptions.

Let me give you a simple illustration.  A young woman is brought up in a home where she experiences a great deal of criticism and rejection.  On occasion she is told that she is worthless and that no one will ever want her.  She stores that lie up in her heart and comes to believe that she is unworthy of love and friendship.  She comes to believe that if anyone ever truly got to know her they would reject her. To avoid inevitable rejection she avoids relationships.   On the first day of school she arrives early and sits in the back where she won’t have to risk much interaction with others students who she believes will reject her just as her parents said. When students come in, she avoids eye contact and appears sullen. If they speak to her she makes little response. Her body language announces that she is not interested in striking up a conversation and so the new students honor her non-verbal sign that cries “Stay Away.”  At the end of the day no one has spoken to her and in some classes no one even sat next to her.  She leaves that day with her belief that she is unlovable and unworthy of friendship reinforced.  The lie she believed about her lack of worth and significance produced behaviors that reinforced the belief.  All she had to do was smile and be friendly to have a totally different experience.

Some lies are planted in our homes behind closed doors while others are planted by our culture through the media and our education system. Several years ago I had a young man whom I had never met come into my office.  I’ll call him Todd (not his name). He was the grown son of some members of the church where I was serving.  He introduced himself and quickly and got to the point.  He simply and bluntly asked me what the Bible had to say about homosexuality.  I read several passages to him from both the Old and New Testaments that clearly stated that a homosexual lifestyle was sin.  He looked devastated as I finished reading the passages.  I asked him why he came in.  He told me his story.  When he was eighteen he went off to college and shared a dorm room with another young man he had never met.  However, they soon became close friends and in their sophomore year left the dorm and shared an apartment.  Todd then told me how emotionally attached they became to one.  It was then than both of them gave into their feelings and began a homosexual relationship.  He felt a great deal of shame about it but couldn’t bring himself to break off the relationship.

As we visited, I asked him if he and his friend had been sexually attracted to one another in the early stages of the relationship.  Todd seemed to be shocked that I had even asked the question.  His answer was revealing.  “No! The thought of it was repulsive but because we felt so strongly about one another we knew we must be gay and so the sex just naturally followed.”  We continued to talk about the possibility that men and women could have deep friendships and emotional bonding without a sexual component to the relationship.  Scripture says that David and Jonathan had such a deep emotional bond that their “souls were knot together.”  Solomon said. “There is a friend who is closer than a brother.”  There is no suggestion that there was any sexual component to these friendships.  They were just best friends.

The cultural lie that Todd had bought into was that love and sex are equivalent.  Somehow we have lost the ability to separate the two – even among friends.  Fifty years ago boys had best friends with whom they shared their deepest fears and greatest hopes. Young girls did the same and even walked around in public places holding hands.  There was nothing sexual about the relationships.  The all grew up, got married, raised children and continued to stay in touch with best friends.  Now the lie is that if you feel emotionally drawn to anyone of the same sex you by definition are gay.  If you are gay then the relationship must become sexual.  That is simply a lie and our media and education system reinforce the lie.

We speak of homosexuality as if it is another gender – male / female / homosexual.  God did not create that category.  He simply made them male and female. I’m not saying that all homosexual relationships are friendships distorted by deception. There are other factors as work in many of those relationships. But I know many are deep friendships that have been redefined and distorted by our culture. Deep same-sex friendships without lust are very biblical and healthy.  Our cultural preoccupation with sex has all but stolen these godly friendships from us.  Those who are caught up in the gay lifestyle are afraid to walk away from it because they fear they are doomed to never have love in their lives.  But love and deep friendship can exist without lust and sex.  Deep emotional connection can occur between friends just as it can with family members.  This cultural lie has cost us on many fronts

Todd was astonished to discover that his relationship with his partner could have remained a “best friends” relationship without sex and without shame.  In that moment he realized that perhaps he wasn’t born with a genetic mandate to be gay. He thanked me for my time and walked out the door.  Two years later I was sitting alone at an airport in L.A. waiting on a connecting flight.  Out of the crowd Todd walked up to me with a young lady next to him.  He introduced me to his wife.  He said she knew everything about his past and that he still had some struggles related to his past  but they were working through all that.

Jesus said, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” If truth sets us free then lies keep us in bondage.  Satan is the master of lies so we must be masters of truth. Scripture is our foundation and if anything is true, then it is God’s truth – whether it comes by scientific discovery or revelation.  It is all God’s truth and will not contradict God’s word.  Whether a lie is planted in our hearts by hurtful families or by cultural propaganda, it blinds us to who we are in Christ and the destiny and glory he has for each of us.  Paul told Timothy not to lay hands on any man quickly.  He meant that Timothy should not be too quick to give authority to a man he had not proven.  The same is true for cultural beliefs and assertions. Don’t be too quick to agree just because you keep hearing it stated over and over.  Weigh it against God’s word.  Do your homework.  Know the truth because knowing it will keep you free.  Be blessed today in God’s truth.

At the cross an all-encompassing exchange literally took place in the spiritual realm. Our condition was assigned to Christ and, by the grace of God, his condition was assigned to us.  Jesus took upon himself the penalty for sin (death and separation from God) that was pronounced in the Garden of Eden and the curse of the Law that condemned sinners.   Jesus not only took on the penalty of our sin but also gave to us eternal life and a secure relationship with God.

Jesus not only paid a debt we could not pay but lavished us with blessings that belonged to him. It was as if the prince himself left his palace and position, put on the rags of a prisoner, stepped into our cell, and as he did so he handed his royal garments and his keys to the palace to us. Of course, he leaves it to us to decide whether we will walk in royal robes and live in the palace or continue to wear the rags of a beggar while the keys of the kingdom rest unused in our pockets.

Here is a question.  “If the prince had indeed entered into your cell, exchanged clothes with you and handed you his keys to the palace…what thoughts or things might keep you from ever moving into the palace and enjoying the blessings assigned to a prince?  Many of us hesitate to receive all that Jesus has purchased for us with his blood. We continue to live as paupers when we have been invited to live as a prince.

By faith in what Jesus did for us we literally have moved from a position of…

• Sin to Righteousness.   God made him, who had no sin to be sin for us, that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Cor. 5:21)

• Alienation to Adoption.   In love, He predestined us to be adopted as his sons in Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will… (Eph. 1:5)

• Slavery to Sonship.    Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out “Abba, Father”.  So you are no longer a slave, but a son. (Gal. 4:6-7)

• Death to Life.  As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sin, in which you used to live… But because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy made us alive in Christ.  (Eph. 2:1, 5)

• Rejection to Acceptance.  Accept one another then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. (Rom. 15:7)

• Poverty to Riches. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.   (2 Cor. 8:9)

• Darkness to Light.  For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.  (Eph. 5:8)

• Alienation from God to Citizenship in Heaven.  Remember that at that time, you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world … you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people.  (Eph. 2:12, 19)

• Cowardice to Courageousness.  For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. (2 Tim.1:7)

• Old to New.   Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone the new has come.  (2 Cor. 5:17)

• Cursed to Blessed.  Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. (Gal. 3:13-14)

• Bondage to Freedom.  He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners.  (Luke 4:18)

• Condemnation to Justification.  Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life, set me free from the law of sin and death.  (Rom. 8:1)

• Weakness to Strength.  I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.  (Phil. 4:13)

• Ruled to Ruling.  You were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of the world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air. …And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms… (Eph. 2:1, 6)

Because of this exchange, we are able to approach the throne of grace with absolute confidence knowing that God’s help and mercy will be available to us (Heb. 4:16).  As we approach the Father to set us free from those things that hinder our life in Christ we can fully expect his help.  Because of Jesus we are no longer cursed, alienated sinners opposed to God. Instead we stand before him as his children with all the blessings of heaven available.  Feel free to ask for those blessings and expect them.  When you receive the blessings of Christ and operate in them, then Jesus receives everything he paid for and rejoices in you.   Remember who you are and be blessed roday.

At our church we are kicking off the winter round of Free Indeed which is the core of our Freedom Ministries.  It is an eight-week study of the transforming power of the gospel of the kingdom of heaven, who we are as followers of Jesus, and spiritual weapons that bring healing and freedom from the oppression of the enemy.  It’s followed by an experiential weekend of healing and deliverance.  We typically have sixty to eighty participants each time we offer Free Indeed. The curriculum used in Free Indeed was the core material from which Born to Be Free was written.

One of our key texts in the study is from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthian church.

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)

As we start off a new year I would like to spend several blog entries exploring this important passage.  Paul begins with a statement that simply assumes that Christians live in a state of war. Of course, this echoes his letter to the Ephesians in which he says that our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against spiritual forces of darkness against which we must take a stand.  In that text he suggests that we need to put on the armor of God every day because we exist in a state of war.

I’ve often mentioned the fact that Adam turned over the dominion God had given him to Satan but with the coming of the second Adam, the Messiah, the kingdom of God was re-established on the earth with a mandate to take back everything that had been stolen by the enemy.   The blood of Christ cancelled any legal claim that the enemy had on the earth so the only thing left was to forcibly evict him from the property.  When Jesus launched his own invasion of the earth, war broke out. We push back the lines of darkness primarily by rescuing captives and establishing the kingdom of God in their hearts.

Of course, Satan does not simply sit and watch his kingdom dissolve. He fights back.  The gates of hell will not prevail against Christ and his church but the enemy doesn’t go away quietly.  In this war, Satan engages every believer on an individual basis in an attempt to kill, steal and destroy.  Some days we hardly sense any interference from the enemy while on other days we experience a full-scale assault against us, our family, and the culture in which we live.  Make no mistake, you have parachuted into enemy territory and he is not only giving up ground grudgingly but is often trying to retake ground he has lost – even in your life.

To ignore the fact that, as a believer, you are at war is perilous.  At the beginning of World War II, certain European nations believed that they had made peace or were in a neutral position with Germany. They simply woke up one day to hear the roar of Nazi tanks in the city streets and the click of hobnail boots on their sidewalks. In there desire to avoid war they ignored the realities around them and rather than mobilize for war they simply woke up as prisoners of the Third Reich.

Paul, then, wants us all to know that we exist in a state if war and should live as soldiers who train, prepare, arm themselves, and take ground or defend ground as it is needed.  The most important things he says, however, is that the weapons of this world are ineffective against spiritual forces.  Jesus has made divine weapons available to us and those weapons are empowered by the same power that raised Jesus from the dead.

The church, in recent years, has too often tried to accomplish Christ’s mission on the earth with worldly weapons. The core of the mission is stated in Luke 4 which is quoted from Isaiah 61.  The mission is to preach good news, heal broken hearts, and set captives free. Many churches have accepted the mission but have armed themselves poorly to accomplish it.

First of all, it requires the anointing of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus said, “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news” (Isa.61:1). A huge chunk of the church has maintained a very limited view of the Holy Spirit and of his anointing on God’s people. In fact, much of the church has adopted a view that desires the Holy Spirit to act in the context of the ordinary rather than the extraordinary or the miraculous.  Instead of going to war with assault rifles and tanks, the church goes to war with BB guns.

In addition, in a effort to fulfill Christ’s mission of healing broken hearts and setting people free from bondage, the church has run to the self-help section of the bookstore and brought into the church weapons of the world – psychology, twelve-step programs, and counselors trained in secular schools.  Each of these offers a level of help and because there is some improvement the church has assumed that “some improvement” is God’s best. In many cases we have simply tried to anoint the weapons of the world with a prayer and some bible verses but that hardly does it.

Divine weapons require working from an entirely different paradigm and require very different strategies. The New Testament does not paint a picture of people coming to Christ and achieving “some improvement.”  What we see is rebirth, radical transformation, and new creations. That goes way beyond “some improvement.”  Divine weapons can take you there. Weapons of the world can only take you part of the way.

In my next blog we will begin to discuss the concept of strongholds and how divine weapons bring down the enemy even when he has maintained a strong position in the past.  Be blessed and remember that He that is in us is greater than he that is in the world!

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.

In his book, The Jesus I Never Knew, Philip Yancey poses an interesting question.  If you had been alive and walking the dusty roads of Palestine in the days of Jesus, what would you have noticed about him when you encountered him? Yancey goes on to discuss the phenomenon of having no physical description of Jesus in the New Testament.  The closest the Bible comes to a description is found in Isaiah’s Messianic prophecy, “He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him” (Isa.53:2).

Yancey goes on to document that no paintings of Jesus appeared until six hundred years after his ascension and those paintings were only imaginative speculations.  Even then, artists painted Jesus to look like the idealized man of their culture.  The Greeks first painted him as a young, beardless man who looked much like their versions of the pagan god Apollo. Yancey documents other views when he says, “One tradition dating back to the second century suggested Jesus was a hunchback.  In the Middle Ages, Christians widely believed that Jesus had suffered from leprosy.  Most Christians today would find such notions repulsive and perhaps heretical” (Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, p. 87).

It’s easy to find those views of Jesus weird and laughable but Hollywood has presented Jesus as tall, blond, and blue-eyed with a British accent on more than one occasion. I just saw a nativity scene with a blond baby Jesus. That is as unlikely as being a hunchback since Jesus was very Jewish and much more likely to have been short with dark hair and a Middle Eastern complexion.  But we simply don’t know.

I continue to think it is remarkable and, therefore, intentional that the gospel writers never gave a physical description of Jesus. In fact, it is rare for the writers to give a physical description of anyone – even the most well known New Testament characters – the woman at the well, Nicodemus, the Roman Centurion, the prodigal son, the woman caught in adultery, etc. The Romans focused on appearance produced hundreds if not thousands of idealized sculptures of all their famous and powerful leaders. But the New Testament writers are silent.

I can think of two reasons that the Holy Spirit may have chosen to omit such a description.  The omission may allow each of us to personalize Jesus in our own imaginations. Maybe each of us needs Jesus to look a little like us so that we can identify with him more easily.  Jesus has been painted as being black, Latino, European, and probably somewhere as Asian.  I don’t think Jesus minds.  After all, after his resurrection he took on many forms that often did not look like the Jesus the apostles walked with for three years.  Jesus wants connection and if we imagine him in a way that facilitates that personal connection then he is probably good with that.

Perhaps, there are few physical descriptions because physical appearance is deceptive. Remember when Samuel went to Jesse’s house to anoint the second king of Israel who would take Saul’s place?  Saul was tall and looked kingly but his heart was not the heart of a king.  He failed miserably.  But as the prophet was scanning Jesse’s sons to sense who would be the next king, he kept making the same mistake. He would judge the young man standing before him by his appearance thinking that the one who “looked like a king” should be king.  In one of those moments, God reminded him that the one who sits on the throne in heaven does not look at the appearance of a man but at the heart. In the kingdom of God, the heart qualifies a person rather than good looks. Perhaps, the Father did not give us a description of his son because we would have spent our time trying to duplicate his looks in our lives rather than his heart.

Isaiah’s prophecy doesn’t suggest to me that Jesus was ugly or deformed.  It just suggests that on the outside he looked like an ordinary man.  He didn’t look presidential and in our media saturated world of image, he would have never gotten the nomination for president because he didn’t look the part – tall, slender, handsome, polished, athletic, thick haired, etc.  By the way, our best presidents have not fit that image. Lincoln was tall but not handsome or polished.  Franklin Roosevelt was tied to a wheelchair, which he kept from the public.  Theodore Roosevelt wore glasses, was stocky, somewhat short and brash.  From all accounts, George Washington would not have struck you as a general or president if you had simply met him on the street.

I think God left us to look at the heart of Jesus rather than his outward appearance. If Jesus had ordinary or even less than ordinary looks, he had something on the inside that transcended his looks.  How many teachers today could hold the attention of crowds for three days while they sat in open fields and went without food just to hear him?  Who among us today could have temple police sent to arrest him but would return empty handed saying. “No man ever spoke like this man!” How many preachers among us today would have sinners flock to him without a world-class praise band and light show and give their lives to the kingdom of God?  Something within Jesus was transformative.  I believe it was the love of God and the hope of eternal life that flowed out of his heart giving life to those who were dying to be loved.

Jesus challenges us. Do we spend more time each day thinking about our appearance and the outward trappings of life or do we spend more time developing the heart of Christ within us?  I’m not saying that Christians should take on an ascetic lifestyle giving no thought to the physical.  Please shower, shave, comb your hair and … ladies put on your makeup.  But at the end of the day, do we think more about the externals of our lives or whether our hearts were directed by the presence of Jesus that day?

Imagine a world where late night television was no longer filled with adds about loosing weight so you could slip on your new bikini or about hair transplants, facelifts or the newest wrinkle creams.  What if there were no infomercials about getting rich quick and grabbing the big house with the luxury status cars?  Instead, what if late night television had infomercials about forgiving those who have wounded you, learning to love the poor, doubling your prayer life rather than your income or loosing excessive anger?

Okay, I know those things can’t be purchased in a box or sold like a product. But my point is that we should hunger after those things more than all the products offered to enhance our appearance and perception by others. If God doesn’t look at the appearance of a man but at the heart, we should have the same priorities. We don’t remember Jesus for his looks but for his life, his words and his heart. The same will be true about us.  Lord, give us the heart of Jesus today in every circumstance and for every person. Be blessed.