Exits

Exits

2 Timothy 2:15 reads:

Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Though I have had this scripture memorized for over 30 years and could easily have quoted it in its entirety, my thoughts would have flowed more like: work hard at knowing the accurate truths of the Bible. But I missed the main point: “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God…”  God is the audience. We have all likely heard, “for an audience of One.” Here it is plainly. God is our audience of One. We are to present ourselves as approved to God. In the end it is God who we will all stand before.

Let’s look at 2 Timothy 2:15 with some of the Greek definitions added. 2 Timothy 2:15 is the imperative mood denoting a command. We are commanded to:

Make hast and exert yourself as one who is tried as genuine and therefore unashamed when you stand beside God as His worker. You, who will receive your pay, because you cut straight ways as you teach the Logos directly and correctly; that is, what is objectively true in things appertaining to God.

As I considered this before God, I saw a picture of a freeway. The freeway represented the objective Truth: Logos. Logos stands eternally as the Word of God, forever fixed in Heaven. Not our own truth or own interpretation, but God’s eternal Word. Along the freeway were many exits, seemingly an exit at every scripture. Exits represent diversions from the Truth of God. They can be unintended misunderstandings or intended deceptions. Exits will never reach where the freeway leads. Error in doctrine is an exit off the Logos: the Word of God. It will lead on a trajectory of error.

People who teach and lead others must know the Bible as God intended it to be know: in truth. The goals is not to make people come to our meetings, because we sound so eloquent having every word fitly placed. That is worldly wisdom. How absolutely boring and empty is such teaching! Teaching, as God intends, is not only biblical truth, but it is anointed. Teaching should produce hunger in the hearer to know the things of God. It is not informational in nature: it produces and deposits something of value in the hearers.

Just because we believe something does not make it true. There are basic rules to interpretation. Decades ago my husband said that if you think you have new revelation from the Bible that you have never heard before, you’d better think twice about what you are thinking. Read some commentaries and talk to others who know the Bible well, because “new revelation” is how heresies are formed. Context is the first rule of interpretation. 

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Turning Aside

Moses said, “I will now turn aside…” What a difference that one decision made! It not only changed the course of Moses’ life, but also that of all Israel. That one choice to turn aside…

Moses was likely about his daily routine when something caught his attention. Moses chose to turn aside to see. Little did Moses know that the Angel of the LORD was the fire in the bush:

When the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, “Here I am.” Exodus 3:4

I wonder how much of God we miss because we neglect to turn aside. 40 years previous, Moses had tried to deliver Israel his way. But now it had been 40 years! Had he lost sight of his destiny. Had that failure 40 years ago changed the purpose of God for him? 

Moses had had a major failure. He went about his calling all wrong. He was impulsive. He was careless. He killed an Egyptian. He ran away.

Think about it… 40 years had passed! For 40 years Moses had been living in a foreign land as a shepherd. Surely in that place, unbeknownst to Moses, God had been preparing him for what was ahead.

Moses once thought he could deliver Israel from Egypt’s grip. His passion qualified him, he thought. But now, 40 years later, we read of a man who feels unqualified:

  ...Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?" Exodus 3:11

Once a prince in Egypt, Moses was humbled and broken. 

Is this where you are, dear reader? Has time taken its toll on you? Has your vision grown dim? Do you have failures in your past that have become mountains blocking your view? 

We all have failures. 

Even those of us who think we don’t. 

We are not disqualified due to our failures. We will be, however, disqualified by unbelief. Our lack of faith. 

Moses’ destiny was realize because 

he turned aside 

to see

God.

If this is you, get up again. Believe God again. Turn aside into your prayer closet. Get a hold of God again. Let Him restore your vision.  

Run your race. 

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The Eye of the Storm: Plant Wisely

The Eye of the Storm: Plant Wisely

How often do we feel so unable to comprehend the dealings of God in our lives? We feel as though we are in a vast void of the unknown. What lies ahead” Am I in the will of God? Is there still something that He wants or even can use left in me?

In these times of Devine reflection it is best to step out of our current and remember. Remember the things He has spoken to us. Remember what we know to be true. Remembering refocuses us. It helps us during the times of the unknown. It also helps us to look outside our natural realm into the spiritual, into the place where the things of God are apprehended by faith.

I am in such a place. There was a tremendous amount of activity in my life the last couple of years. Selling a house, moving, building, moving my mom, selling her house, gathering our belongings from 3 states; then came Christmas, decorations, and getting ready for guests. And during all this I wrote a book: Confronting the Wind. The kids left, the decorations came down, and there I was…

Anyone else ever feel like you are standing on the edge of a cliff? Not like death is on the other side, but an unknown: an empty. It was during this time that I began to reflect with the Lord. I know Him well enough to know that He is never done with us. And that He doesn’t send us into such a place without a purpose. Many scriptures talk about the interactions of God with us in the desert, but I didn’t sense a desert. This was different. It felt like the eye of a storm. 

One day as I was texting a friend this season all came together. Off my fingers I was prophesying to myself what God was up to. “Though Spring is not here, I can and am planting seeds in this season as if it were Spring.” I remembered a prophecy I had given years ago when we lived in Humboldt County, California. “Be careful what you plant in this season, because it is what will grow in the next.” As I wrote I saw how the whispers from the Lord were all echoing the same thing. I just hadn’t seen how it all went together. I recalled that a couple weeks previously my friend, Devon, had sent me a song: Eye of the Storm. The lyrics didn't really speak to me, but now the title did. It was the Lord defining my season: I am in the eye of a storm.

If you are in a season of some downtime, reflect on the Lord. Don’t let the natural reasoning create the paradigm of your season. What is God up to? What is the purpose of your season? You are not just a speck on the planet. You have a purpose. What has God spoken to you that is yet to be fulfilled?

Those mentioned in Hebrews 11 looked beyond the natural into the spiritual. They didn’t let the natural dictate what they believed or how they walked with God. They lived by faith. They believed God.

Recall what He has said.

Focus on what you know to be true.

Plant wisely.

But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him. But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.”

1 Corinthians 2:9-10

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Padlocked Doors

Padlocked Doors

I received Jesus in 1980 in a wonderful Charismatic church. We had our issues, but the Holy Spirit was welcomed and prominently honored as not only relevant, but necessary. We honored His gifts and we honored the Word of God. I'm so thankful I was born-again into such a family of believers. It has imprinted within me that the two – the Word and the Spirit – can and must go together.

Many boast of their adherence to the Word of God. They display their doctrinal statements with such eloquence on the websites: salvation, the Trinity, baptism, eschatology… but where are the gifts of the Holy Spirit? Where do they mention Him and His present ministry? Nowhere. So how biblical are they really?

Do churches not realize that without the Holy Spirit we aren’t even saved? We cannot even understand the Bible without Him revealing the things of Jesus to us. In this age He is everything to us. Why is He so shunned, so ignored? Yes, Jesus died and rose to purchase our salvation, however without the regeneration of the Holy Spirit we are not and cannot be born-again. In fact, it is the Holy Spirit Who takes the things of Jesus and reveals them to us.

The revelatory gifts are messy, like an ox in a stable. There is always a ton of manure that needs to be shoveled, because we, even at our best, still mess up. But what did Paul do in Corinth with so many piles? He didn’t stop the gifts; he didn't say they needed time to mature first; no, rather he used the opportunity to give us the best teaching anywhere in the Bible on the ministry of spiritual gifts in the church. 

Seriously, church is boring without the ministry of the Holy Spirit. In fact, it is unbiblical. 1 Corinthians 14:26 says that when we come together certain things are supposed to be present, gifts of the Spirit are included. Furthermore, we are supposed to burn with passion (12:31, 14:1, and 14:39) for spiritual gifts, especially to prophesy. 1 Corinthians 14:24-25 states that unbelievers will encounter the reality of God through the prophetic gifts when people prophesy in church. 

How can someone who has revelatory gifts of the Spirit be faithful with their gifts if there isn’t a culture within the church for the gifts to flow? Week after week, service after service they must stifle what God is speaking to them and wants to speak through them. Week after week, service after service they die inside just a little.

Is the Holy Spirit being locked out of your church? 

Are there padlocks on your doors?

Does He embarrass you? Is that it?

I have heard many reasons for not having the ministry of spiritual gifts within the church service. None of them work. None of them are convincing. If you, as a leader, do not allow spiritual gifts to operate in the church you shepherd, you are wrong. You are disobeying God. Your boasting of adherence to the Word of God is vapor. Take the padlocks off the doors and let the Holy Spirit work through His gifts. Focus on cleaning up the messes instead of keeping Him out.

My books: Soaring in the Prophetic and Confronting the Wind can be purchased on Amazon. 

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Recognizing God

Recognizing God

So we want to be holy?

That has been our prayer for years. Oh, but that thing in our life now – that difficulty, that person, that need – that is the answer to that prayer: to be holy.

 

How will we respond? 

Do we really want to be more like Jesus?

Will we chose to love? I mean truly love – 1 Corinthians 13 love? The kind of love that forces us to die to our self. The kind of love that forces our character to change. The kind of love that isn’t fun.

Will we trust God? I mean really trust Him? Like the people in Hebrews 11 trusted Him? When it’s so dark we can’t see the way forward, will we trust? Be still my soul! Is He really that real to us?

See, many of us really do want to be more like our Jesus, but that disturbance – that irritant – that is our Jesus today. Will we give Him a cup of water with patience and kindness or will we remain ME driven? God doesn’t have to send us to another country to work with orphans to become more like Him. He may, but really He just needs to rock our little world right where we live. And the easy people to love, our friends, our family, yes He is in that too. But the character building ones… oh they are Him. Not that they are a manifestation of Jesus, but just as Jesus said, if you have or haven’t done it to the least of these you have or haven’t done it to Me (Matthew 25:40-45). That is getting down to our core ME: my Christianity.

So who are we really?

Who is looking back at us in the mirror?

Some of us, as we read this blog, are ashamed of who we have been. Maybe we are faced right now with the uncomfortable reality that we really just aren’t as much like Him as we were hoping we were. That too is a blessing from God. That is the kindness of God. The kind of sorrow that leads us to repentance. God never leaves us here. No He wants to use our discomfort to lead us to change. And He has given us the most beloved Holy Spirit to work in us that which is pleasing to God. He can be trusted to finish what He has started. 

Respond correctly to Him and grow.

“For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted...” 2 Corinthians 7:10a

“In this [living hope] you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ…” 1 Peter 1:6-7