I am writing to to address a subject that I have never publicly talked about before.

It is a sensitive subject for many, and rightfully so.

There’s a whole lot of manipulative nonsense that goes on in the realm of finances in the church today–especially in the “charismatic church” or the “prophetic movement”.

I am going to write extremely candidly and be more transparent with you all than I ever have been about our own personal finances and our positions on giving.

I am doing so because there are so many vast misconceptions about what “living by faith” is really like, what it can be like, as well as what it certainly should not be.  I am doing this because there are a lot of people who have legitimately considered “full time ministry” and I want to clarify why we take some of the positions about finances that we have taken as well as some of the principles that we have learned in the few years that we have been doing this.

Do not take this as me “asking you for money”, because I’m not.  You’re not my Provider — my Father is.

If you do want to give to us and help support us in “our ministry”, I respectfully ask that you follow the same instructions that Paul gave to the Corinthians:

“You must each decide in your heart how much to give.  And don’t give reluctantly or in response to pressure. “For God loves a person who gives cheerfully.” – 2 Cor. 9:7

You will notice that Paul did not say “give what God tells you to give”, or “give your best seed so that He can bless you” or “make sure to be obedient to give whatever the Holy Spirit puts on your heart”.

He specifically instructs the  church to NOT give in response to pressure or reluctantly.

That alone should change everything for you from now on.  I will be putting out a video on this at a later date.  But this part is just some food for thought.

(*click “Read More…” if you are reading this from our home-page…*)

If you want to bless us, then please do so out of the overflow of your heart and your appreciation for us or in gratitude for what you have learned through our labors.

Don’t do it to try and get something from God — don’t do it because you feel like you “have to”, and please don’t ever do it reluctantly.

God loves a cheerful (Greek word: hilarious) giver.  I have been blessed and so I love to be a blessing to others.  It really is more blessed to give than to receive.

However, because there are so many offenses and frustrations built up in the minds of many believers, people can have a tendency to hoard what they have out of fear of lack or losing it all.

Don’t make decisions based out of fear.  And on the flip side of that, don’t ever make decisions to give to anyone for the purpose of trying to get something out of God.  Simon the sorcerer made this mistake in Acts 8:18-20 and Peter wasn’t too happy about it!

You already have everything in Him (Eph. 1:3).  A gift isn’t a gift if you pay for it.

Give out of the overflow of love in your heart for those you are giving to. It really is quite simple.

All of that to say, I want to be very open with you guys about what this can look like.

_________________

My wife and I have chosen to pursue the advancement of the Kingdom of God “full time”.  That means that neither of us have a 9-5 “job” and the vast majority of our finances come in through donations from the people who support us in our “ministry”.

However, unlike most people, we don’t get to “clock out” after 8 hours of work.

The e-mails, messages, and phone calls are almost constant:

- prayer requests

- questions

- suggestions/rebukes/corrections

- requests to meet up or talk on the phone or Skype

- praise reports & testimonies

- expressions of gratitude & thankfulness

- and I certainly can’t leave out the ever-so-wonderful and occasional baseless, vehement, and angry accusation.

We made the decision to live like this two years ago and have never been more ‘blessed’ than we are now.

A few examples:

- The car that I drive (2004 Toyota Camry) was given to me to use when I moved to San Jose without a vehicle.  I have access to it as long as I am in San Jose.

- I’ve been given four hand-held digital video cameras (one on loan that will be returned now no longer needed) to assist us in our video work.

- I have connected with people who work at some very famous computer software companies and they have given me their employee discount on software that I need to edit videos and do graphics work.  In the last year, I have been given easily over $5,000 worth of software for less than $200.

- I was given a 4 foot by 3 foot vinyl banner to assist with outreach as well as a 10ft x 10ft canopy tent.

- Because of one of the relationships we have, I am able to use an iPhone as much as I want for only $40 a month.

- I have not overdrawn my bank account, missed a bill payment due to lack of finances (only a few times it slipped my mind), or been slapped with any late fees even on bills that I forgot to pay.

- The 23 inch LCD computer monitor that I use was given to me.  So was the additional 21 inch one that I use on occasion to assist with graphics work that I do.  So was my very comfortable office chair.

- I have been blessed to be offered the opportunity to design 3 book covers for a very reputable Christian publishing agency.  Two of them were published.  I was paid quite nicely for all three.

- We were given a Canon 3 in 1 Printer/Fax/Copier

- We were given two microphones for our video work, a boom mic and a lavalier mic

- We were given $650 to purchase a brand new computer for us to do our video/graphics work on – paid in full in cash

– We were given a hot/cold water cooler that we use every day

- We live in Silicon Valley, which is one of the most expensive places to live in the country.  Compared to the rest of the country, San Jose‘s cost of living is 61.51% higher than the U.S. average. And yet, we have been blessed with a landlord that is charging us less than $500 a month for rent.

-  My wife and I didn’t pay a single dime out of our pockets for our wedding.

I could go on and on.  I only share these testimonies, not to boast in ourselves, but to boast in the Lord and to illustrate something very clearly:

Our Father is very good and He loves to bless His children. Not only that, but He has a way of making things happen and getting things to us that otherwise we would never be able to obtain.

And yet there are still quite a lot of misconceptions about finances in the Kingdom of God and how to go about obtaining them.

While we do have the option for people to support us financially on our website, you will never see us spiritualize it.

The reality is that we’ve all got bills to pay.

I accrued a lot of credit card debt before I was born again and am looking forward to the day when the majority of the money that comes in to support us is not to pay bills and keep us afloat,  but instead so that we can pay it forward and continue helping even more people who are in worse situations than we have ever been.

The work that we do to keep pouring into all of you guys day in and day out is intense, sometimes very satisfying, and other times very wearisome.

It can often be very difficult and frustrating, and we “work” far more than 40 hours a week to do what we do for those in our sphere of influence.  We do it because we love you.  We do it because of the freedom that comes to so many because of the understanding of the Gospel that we have learned (and are still learning) to steward.

We do everything that we do because we want to see you be victorious and reign in life (Rom. 5:17), demonstrating the King and His Kingdom, and His love & power everywhere you go.

We do what we do because we care and we speak out against the things that we challenge because we used to buy into all of the lies that we come against.

We only tell people what we know works.  Living generously is a wonderful thing — when you understand that you are blessed to be a blessing, you don’t hoard money.  You give it away.  It becomes a vehicle — a means to an end — not the end itself.

And it’s amazing — more money does indeed come in when you live this way.  When you are a good steward of what God has given to you, you will indeed see more come in.  But that’s not the point.

There are a lot of big differences between our stance on finances and so many of the “big guys” — however one of the similarities is that we do understand that if we give out, more will come in.

A huge difference is that giving in order to GET more is not ever our motivation for giving. We give because we love and one of the most practical ways that you can show love to someone is by giving of yourself — whether it is your finances, your time, or even a house for someone who needs a place to stay until they get on their feet.  Love is tangible.

Unfortunately, there are far too many who only love in word and tongue, but not in their actions or in truth (1 John 3:18).

I propose to you that if you are not living a generous lifestyle with your finances, your time, or your possessions, that you don’t really trust the Lord to do what He said He would and have thus been paralyzed by fear.  This also means you don’t understand the love of God and His provision (Matthew 6:33, 1 John 4:18),  and are actually serving money (Matthew 6:24-34).

There is no condemnation in that statement.  What I am telling you is that there is freedom from the fear of lack and disaster in your finances and in every area of your life.

It is in legitimately trusting in the Person of Jesus Christ and the fact that He is faithful who promised to never leave or forsake you.

You can tell what a person really trusts in simply by observing their actions and listening to them talk.  Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks, right?

I have written this to tell you all that there is a better way.

There is a way to live a legitimately generous lifestyle where you are free from the fear of not having enough — and one of the ways that I have honestly broken that off of my own life is by trusting God to provide for me as I radically give and bless people that I care about…whether that is the homeless man on the street corner, or a friend who needs help paying his rent, or a ministry that has deeply impacted my understanding of the character and nature of God and His Kingdom.

It is in learning to lead a lifestyle of generosity because our King is extravagantly generous and we are supposed to be reflecting Him!

It is in learning to give because you love people & love giving, not because you want “your best life now”.

What I am telling you will lead to a better life because it is more blessed to give than to receive.

Another thing that you will have to learn as you begin to live more generously is how to receive a gift when someone wants to give it to you…because you will start to see more blessings come into your life.

It is a natural response from the heart of the Father to continue lavishing blessings on His children as they bless those around them.  We are blessed and then become an avenue to become a blessing towards others.

Think about how frustrating it can be when you legitimately want to bless someone simply because you love them, and they adamantly refuse and continue telling you, “Oh no, really..I’m okay..I don’t need that…”

How does that makes you feel?

Not good, right?  Why?  Because you are trying to bless them as an act of lovingkindness and honor for them as someone that you care about and appreciate!

Again, a gift isn’t a gift if you pay for it.

Learning to give and learning to receive go hand in hand.  We are supposed to have rivers of Living Water flowing out of us at all times (John 7:38).

Unfortunately, because they don’t understand the things I’m sharing here, many people will start seeing blessings come into their life & end up looking more like a swamp than a river.

(All in-flow, no out-flow…)

And they stagnate and then wonder what’s wrong!

I cannot emphasize enough to you how amazingly God has transformed me from someone who was fearful, intimidated, and always freaking out about finances into someone who has now learned how to live generously, steadfast, and trusting in the provision of a Father who is very good and who owns everything.

He is never late.

There have been times that I indeed have started slipping into fear when circumstances began to look tight–but I have conditioned myself to focus on my history with God and meditate on who He is and what He has brought me through (Psalm 63:6).  He is so gracious and wonderful to always bring to mind that He will never fail us.

This is all part of a journey that has been very powerful and life-changing for us.  It certainly has not always been easy. And I assure you that we are all still learning and don’t have it all figured out.

But there are some things that we have figured out and I do my best to communicate those things to you all as best as I know how.

Here are some of my “Never-Will-I’s” on finances in ministry:

- You will never see me manipulating people and trying to sell a blessing.

- You will never see me tell someone to “sow into my ministry”.

- You will never see me tell people that God won’t bless them unless they give.

- You will never see me tell people that if they give, they’ll get a new anointing or special ‘impartation’.

- You will never see me spend multiple thousands of dollars on a suit to wear to some giant stadium crusade where I take three 45 minute offerings telling people how important my ministry is and how vital it is that they support me financially so that it may continue.

- You will never see me prey on weak, ignorant, innocent people who are desperately looking for a breakthrough of any kind by telling them that they will get it if they “send in their best seed” or that the key to unlocking their breakthrough resides somewhere in my latest overpriced book.

- You will never see me tell people that the reason that they are financially destitute is because they have sin in their lives or haven’t been “tithing enough”.

- You will never see me tell anyone that they will prosper financially by “sowing into what we are doing because it is fertile soil”.

- You will never see me preach in a stadium that costs millions of dollars to rent for 2 or 3 days while the city around me spiritually (or even physically) starves to death and is blatantly ignored by the thousands of Christians huddled up in the stadium preaching the Gospel to people who already have received Christ.

- You will never see me try to hold a conference or a meeting that costs thousands of dollars and then try and tell the people who come to hear the Gospel preached and demonstrated that I am “believing God for finances” to pay off the room….by taking multiple offerings over and over.

- You will never see me offer a “free gift”, which may consist of an “anointed prayer handkerchief“, “miracle spring water“, or even an “olive wood necklace from the Holy Land”.

(*As it turns out, the gift is not actually “free”, because in order to obtain it, you must send in your “seed” of at least $57 to obtain it).

There is a whole lot of nonesense that is preached in the church today in the area of finances.  It is my hope and prayer that after you have finished reading this, you won’t be duped into it anymore.

I hope that this article has helped you see some of these things in a new light and given you hope that there really is a way to live a generous Kingdom lifestyle without fear of lack or by bowing to manipulative tactics by greedy, charismatic TV personalities.

In closing, there are a few things I want to make clear.

I would be lying if I told you that there have been an abundance of people that have supported us financially in our endeavors in ministry.

Up to this point anyway, there have generally been a handful of people throughout the years that we have been doing this that have supported us and helped keep us moving forward.  Many of you who are reading this have helped us immensely and we cannot thank you enough!

I do not tell you this in an attempt to try and get anyone to give to us.  I tell you this because it is a reality that most people are entirely unaware of because they have never endeavored to live like this.  It is the destructive nature of the mindset that says, “Well surely, someone else will help! “

Again, I want to emphasize that I only encourage people to give (to anyone) as an outflow of love and appreciation for that person.

We are extremely grateful to everyone who helps us and has continued to help us in any way — whether it is financially, sending encouraging e-mails or messages, or just being there as a listening ear when we need somebody to talk to (that does happen, you know!)

I would also be lying if I told you that it has always been easy and that there have not been hard times.

These last two years of our lives have been some of the most trying, frustrating, liberating, exciting, intense, and at times, yes, frightening years that we have ever lived.

But the people we have met, the freedom we have experienced, the lives we have touched (and vice versa), and the revelation of the goodness and faithfulness of our Father have made it all worth it.

There are a lot of things that we know now that would have prevented a lot of heartache and turmoil if we had known them when we first got started.  I have shared most of those things here.

The key is, again, to learn to live a lifestyle of loving, appreciative generosity to all those that are around you…and to do so in a way where you are not asking for or expecting anything in return.

(Let your giving be done in secret, so that your Father will reward you…Matthew 6:4)

It is in learning how to truly love your neighbor as yourself and to do to others what you would have them do to you.

This turned out to be a lot longer than I had anticipated, but I hope that it has helped you reading it as much as it has helped me in writing it.

Please don’t hesitate to send us testimonies of all of the amazing God-things that happen as you put into practice the things that I have shared with you here!

We love you guys!

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If you do indeed want to help us or any of the great people in “our crew”  financially, you may do so by clicking here.

What you are about to read and see is something that contains within it the potential to change your life and the lives of all of those around you.

It also has within it the potential to offend your commonly held doctrines and mindsets about the responsibility of the church, what Jesus actually did on the cross, and the purposes of prayer, fasting, and intercession.

These are not things that I have put together glibly and I assure you that they are not done with the intention of hurting anyone, tearing anyone or their ministry down, or pointing a finger and thinking that we are better than anyone else.  God is no respecter of persons and the Good News of the Gospel is the same to all who will believe and receive it.

What I am going to be proposing to you here is that the message that you have probably heard about the Gospel, ‘revival’, prayer, and sin is not actually what the Scriptures teach.

There are literally millions of people and hundreds of ministries all over the world that believe and perpetuate the lie that the reason there is no “revival” in America is because of all the sin in the land and the lack of prayer, ‘crying out’, and intercession.

I have nothing against these people or these ministries.  But I am mandated as a Christian to speak Truth (who is a Person and His name is Jesus), to expose the fruitless works of darkness (Eph. 5:11), and to tear down arguments & strongholds of mindsets that exalt themselves against the knowledge of Christ (2 Cor. 10:5).

That is why I do the things that I do.  Because it is only Truth that sets people free.

As you will see in this video depicting the vision that William Booth (founder of the Salvation Army) had hundreds of years ago, this is not an old lie.

This is actually something that goes back to the Garden of Eden and of the same kind of deception that the serpent deceived Eve with.

Moses even fell to it in the book of Exodus.

First of all, Paul says in Romans 5:20 that “where sin abounds, grace abounds more“.

That alone should be enough to have you questioning some very dearly held beliefs about ‘revival’, sin, and why things are the way they are.

Secondly, all one has to do is look around at what goes on in churches, conferences, prayer meetings, and giant stadium events all over the world year in and year out to realize that there certainly is not a lack of prayer and intercession.

What there is a devastating lack of, is a revelation of Jesus Christ and what He did on the cross.  People perish for lack of knowledge (Hos. 4:6).

Many will usually quote 2 Chron. 7:14 and completely ignore the prefacing verse 13 that explains the context to try and validate their position on massive corporate prayer gatherings.

Often, people will quote different verses about prayer to try and validate what they are doing and entirely ignore the points that are made in what you are about to see.

What you will see will challenge you — as it directly challenges a lot of very popular mindsets that are prevalent in the church today.  But I promise you, if you actually lay aside any pre-conceived notions about these things, and look into them for yourself, you will find that I am telling you the Truth.

This is good news — Jesus really meant it when He said, “It is finished!”

News is always something that has already happened!

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Please share this page if you have been blessed by it and realized Truth —  because Truth is the only thing that will set people free.

I’ve had a lot of people ask me to put something together on the topic of “generational curses”.

My stance is simply this — that in Ezekiel 18, God did away with them and as such, they are absolutely illegal in the life of any person (Christian or not), regardless of their family history.

I cannot repent on behalf of someone else — if we could do that, we could get the whole world saved right now in 30 seconds!

“Jesus, I “plead your blood” and repent for all the sins in my nation and in all the nations around the world.  Please save and forgive all those people now.  In Jesus’ name, amen.”

Um…sorry everybody..but that’s not Biblical at all. Most people call that “intercession”.  But it’s entirely the opposite of what the New Testament teaches.

(click ‘read more’ if you’re on my home page)

Let’s see what Paul says in Romans 10:

“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?

And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our message?” Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ. “

- Romans 10:13-17

Add to that the fact that under the New Covenant, Christ became a curse for us (Gal. 3:13) and that we are new creations in Him (2 Cor. 5:17-21) and now our bloodline goes straight to the Father (who I assure you, has no generational curses).

And to top it all off, Jesus never even remotely insinuated that any of the sick people whom He healed were sick because of the sins of their family members — the disciples may have thought this…and probably because of the verses in the Law of Moses that I will address below… (John 9:2), but Jesus quickly corrected them and said“neither this man nor his parents sinned” (John 9:3).

(More on John 9 and the popular lie that God “allowed” the man to be born blind for His glory here)

Now, before anybody flips out, I am NOT saying that “generational curses” or curses of any kind do not EXIST.

I am saying that they are entirely illegal and no amount of your repenting, confessing, fasting, praying, etc. are necessary to get rid of them.  You must simply understand how illegal they are and tell that nonsense to hit the road because they are thieves and thieves only come to do three things: steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10a).

BUT JESUS came to bring us life and life abundantly (John 10:10b).

Again, I want to emphasize, that they are not just illegal for Christians.

They are illegal entirely:

“The word of the LORD came to me: “What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel:

“‘The parents eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’?

“As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel. For everyone belongs to me, the parent as well as the child—both alike belong to me.

The one who sins is the one who will die.” – Ezek. 18:1-3

The generational curse doctrine traces back to when God gave Moses the L

aw and it is always taken entirely out of context and denies the work of Christ on the cross:

“…yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.” – Exo. 34:7b

This is one of the main verses that is used to support the doctrine of “generational curses”.  The trouble is, those who teach it leave out the context of the verse which actually shows that God is GOOD.  They quote half the verse and half a sentence.

Take a look:

“The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin..” – Exodus 34:6-7a

That paints a much different picture now doesn’t it?

Another passage that is frequently used is this:

“You shall not bow down to them or worship [idols]; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, ” – Deut. 5:9

Notice it says “of those who hate me“.  So first of all, if you’re a Christian, I certainly hope you don’t “hate God”!

And also notice that there’s a comma at the end of the verse, which means it’s half of a thought as well.

Religion always quotes half a verse.

Let’s keep looking:

“but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.” – Deut. 5:10

Again, a staunchly different picture from the common teaching on generational curses and “open doors”!

Think about it like this:

If you had a TV that you bought and paid for, and you went outside to cut the grass and “left the door open” while you were outside…and then came into your house and saw a thief stealing the TV that was yours — bought and paid for — do you think the thief could hold up in court when you call the cops on him by simply saying “Well HE left a door open so I have a right to steal this TV!”

Or what if the thief told the judge, “His great, great, grand-daddy stole someone’s TV so now I have a right to steal his TV!”

Of course not.  Do you see how ridiculous these doctrines are?

Nor would you care what the thief’s name was, how he got in there, or how long he’d been there.

He’s a thief.

He has no rights.

(Luke 10:19)

But again, all that to say … if you’ve had anyone in your family line who has loved God for the last thousand generations, that “generational curse” thing wouldn’t even be allowed to touch you EVEN UNDER THE LAW (which we are not because of Christ) because Deut. 5:10 says that He shows love to a thousand generations to those who love Him!

Even WITH all that being said, Ezekiel 18 abolished it altogether.

The soul who sins shall die.

The one who does not receive Christ’s atoning sacrifice for sin will not enter into eternal life.

But each person, and each person alone, is responsible for their own lives.

Which opens up an entire new can of worms on the whole “standing in the gap” for others thing…but I’ll save that for another day

Or you could just watch this

Just to clarify, I am not in the camp that say “you’re healed in Jesus’ name” if the person has a tumor hanging on their neck or whatever.  That’s called denial.  Faith does not deny the facts.  Faith defies them.

Has the payment been made and has God entirely done what He is going to do in regards to healing by sending Christ?

Absolutely.

In the same way that all the sin of the world has been forgiven (1 John 2:2) by Christ’s payment on the cross, that doesn’t mean that ‘everyone is saved’.  It means the payment has been made.

So I can’t say “everyone is born again” if they aren’t.  The way has been made for everyone to be born again in the same way that the way has been made for everyone to be freed from curses, demonic oppression, and physical healing.

God isn’t healing anyone today in the same way that He isn’t saving anyone today.  The payment was made 2,000 years ago.

He is seated:

“But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” – Heb. 10:12-14

You can’t do very much sitting down.

When Jesus said “it is finished”, He really meant it.  He did His part.  He is waiting on us to grow up into Christ and act like sons not slaves.

God didn’t sow a Son to reap orphan slaves who don’t know who their Father is. He sowed a Son to reap sons. He sowed THE King to reap kings (Rev. 1:6).

When people talk about “the finished work of the cross”, that is what they mean.

At least that’s what I mean when I talk about it:  That God has entirely done His part and is waiting for the church to grow up.

That means that God isn’t “doing a new thing”, “releasing” new anointings or revelation, or “going to pour out His Spirit”. He already did (Acts 2:16, 33).

To say that God is “going to release” something is to directly imply that He’s been holding out on us and the generations before us.  Which is entirely not true.  We’ve been given everything in Christ (Eph. 1:3, 2 Peter 1:3, John 1:16, Col. 2:8-10).

Yes, I realize that directly challenges about 99% of the “prophetic words” that you’ll hear in most churches.  But seriously ask yourself – how come nothing ever changes year after year when you hear those same-sounding “words from the Lord”?

Do you realize that there is not a single, solitary place in the New Testament that talks about how God is “doing a new thing” or “releasing” anything new after Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost?

There is no talk of “entering a new season”, “new levels of authority”, etc. and there is especially no talk of “God’s timing” or observing the Jewish feasts or seasons other than to say “Now is the time of the Lord’s favor..today is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2).  That’s good news!

It is FINISHED.  You can’t get anything new…you don’t need anything new.  You have Christ-in-you, the hope of glory!  What else could you possibly need?  You need to grow up into Christ and as you mature in your faith, you learn to use what you’ve been given.

Paul actually spoke pretty openly against the idea of observing special seasons and rituals:

“But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.” – Gal. 4:9-11

God is entirely waiting on His Bride to arise and manifest Himself to the nations.

Lastly, how are His enemies made His footstool?

“The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.” – Romans 16:20

Your feet. Not His feet.

Why?  Because we are His Body.  He is the Head.

The Head gives the instruction. The Body is what moves.

We’ve got an entire generation of the Body of Christ trying to tell the Head that it needs to move when He told the Body to move 2,000 years ago.

Wakey, wakey…:)

Hope this helps clarify.

(More on the “generational curse” stuff here)

This one is quite a bit longer simply because it is such a commonly held misconception about the character and nature of God that it does require me to spend a bit more time laying a foundation for understanding where I am coming from.  Please do not just skim through this.

This is one of the most foundational things that Christians the world over need to understand in order to live a victorious life free from sin, disease, and the bondage that the devil has kept people in for thousands of years.

That said, again, please read through this in its entirety. This is not just an issue of understanding Ananias and Saphira.  This is an issue of understanding the finished work of the cross and what Jesus did to atone for sin by instituting the New Covenant.

One thing that I have noticed throughout the last few years of preaching that God is good and that Jesus took the full penalty for sin is that there are a very small handful of Scriptures that church-folk have been taught are pat-answers to completely contradict the grace and forgiveness that was given in the person and sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

I have also found that any time there are one or two verses or passages in Scripture that directly seem to contradict and come against what the vast majority of the New Testament says on said issues, that there is probably something else going on.

The devil is always the one that wants to accuse, blaspheme the goodness of God, steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10, Rev. 12:10).

Who else would be the one speaking against the all-sufficient, once-for-all sacrifice and atonement for sin and instead come along and say that Jesus’ sacrifice was not enough?

I mean really, just think about it instead of just getting offended because I’m going to poke at a lot of your pet doctrines here.

Let’s start with the basics here.  I will get to Ananias, Saphira, & Herod once the foundation has been laid.

Click “read more” if you are seeing this from my home page!

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Under the old covenant of Law, sin had to be atoned for through constant, repetitious sacrifices by the Levitical priesthood in the temple.

All throughout the book of Hebrews, we see a direct contrast between the ways of the Old Covenant versus what Christ instituted in the New Covenent.

Under the New Covenant, Jesus sacrificed Himself once for all time (which means it was complete and can not be added to) and forever abolished the Old Covenant way of doing things and how people had to relate to God.

“Unlike the other high priests (under the Old Covenant), [Jesus] does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people.  He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.” – Heb. 7:27

Most Christians unfortunately are living their lives with an unhealthy and destructive mixture of the Old Covenant of Law and the New Covenant of the Grace of God through Jesus Christ.

This is what Jesus was addressing when He spoke of not putting new wine into old wineskins (Luke 5:36-38).

We have to keep in mind what Paul said in Romans 5:

“To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law.” – Romans 5:13

“Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act (of Christ’s atonement) resulted in justification and life for all people.” – Romans 5:18

“The law was brought in so that sin might increase.  But where sin increased, grace increased all the more” – Romans 5:20

So, if the law and the Old Covenant was instituted so that people would understand their need for a Savior, and then Jesus came and fulfilled the requirements of the Law (Matthew 5:17), it would stand to reason that there is a much bigger difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant than just a few blank pages in your Bible.

John writes, “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” – John 1:17

You will notice that “grace and truth” are on the side of Jesus — not on the side of the Law of Moses.  Am I saying that something was wrong with the Law itself?  No.  Paul even said to Timothy that the Law is good when it is used properly (1 Timothy 1:8)…but that it is not for the righteous (1 Timothy 1:9).  He also addressed this in Romans 7:7

The issue was not with the Law itself — the issue was with the people and their inability to live up to the standards of that covenant and remain faithful to it.

“For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another.  But God found fault with the people and said:

“The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.  It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned away from them, declares the Lord.

This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord.  I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts.  I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor,or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.” – Heb. 8:7-13

The sin issue was completely settled and satisfied in the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who made atonement to God for the sins of the whole world, not just Christians (1 John 2:2).

That does not mean I am insinuating that everyone is “saved” or that I even remotely entertain the notion of what is commonly called “universalism”.

You are saved by grace (God’s act of sending Christ to atone for sin) through faith (your response to and acceptance of Christ’s sacrifice – Eph. 2:8).

That does mean that the issue of sin was completely, undeniably, overwhelmingly dealt with on the cross.

“For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence.  Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own.  Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world.  But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.

Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.” – Heb. 9:24-28

Most Christians are stuck in an Old Covenant mindset of constantly having to confess, renounce, repent, over, and over, and over, telling God how sinful they are and apologizing constantly for all the sin in their nation.

Most people do this because of a bad understanding of a single verse in 1 John that is taken completely out of it’s cultural and biblical context.  For more on that, go here.

There are entire ministries and people groups that have devoted untold millions of dollars to rent stadiums and buildings as they gather millions of people together to fast and pray, crying out to God for forgiveness…as they ‘repent for the sins of the land’…thinking that if they do this enough, maybe, just maybe, God won’t wipe out our country and kill everybody.  As if somehow Jesus’ sacrifice wasn’t good enough.

They are offering ‘sacrifices for sin’…totally ignorant of and denying the fact that Jesus has already paid for it.

It doesn’t work.

Sin was dealt with on the cross, entirely through Jesus Christ and it had absolutely nothing to do with the religious works of God’s people who were trying to take away sin in their own strength by their own sacrifices.

Now that sure does sound like what the author of Hebrews is referring to in the following passage:

“First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them”—though they were offered in accordance with the law.  Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.”  He sets aside the first to establish the second.  And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.  But when this priest (Jesus) had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool.

For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this.  First he says:

“This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.”

Then he adds:

“Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.”

And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.” – Heb. 10:8-18

Let me just ask you like this:  If God is no longer remembering your sins, why are you? And what makes you think He enjoys it when you’re constantly bringing up the reason for His torture and death on the cross?

Do you think that constantly bringing up how sinful and dirty you are actually makes you more holy?  Because it doesn’t.  Jesus’ sacrifice is what has already made us holy in God’s eyes.

God doesn’t look at the junk in your life.  When He sees you, He sees His Son.  That is good news.

That is why Paul writes:

“For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that One died for all, and therefore all died.  And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again.

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view.  Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.  We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.  We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” - 2 Cor. 5:14-21

God does not count man’s sins against them!  That is the message of reconciliation: That Christ became the atoning sacrifice for sin and once-for-all satisfied the wrath of God towards sin.

Does that mean that there is not a DAY of Judgment for those who have rejected the payment for sin?  NO. There is still a DAY of wrath for those who reject Christ’s payment and atonement for sin.

There is a big difference in the Scriptures between “the last days” (which began at Pentecost) and “the last DAY” when Jesus returns.

For more on understanding my view of the “end times”, read this and this.

What I am saying is that it the day of judgment is NOT today.

Why?

Because Paul writes that now is the time of the Lord’s favor (not His wrath or judgment), and that today is the day of salvation (2 Cor. 6:2).

Now, the next question that probably pops in most people’s minds is that I am saying that it is okay to go out and sin or that God is 100% okay with you going and living a sinful lifestyle.  And that if we just tell people God isn’t counting their sins against them, that they will go out and sin.

How insane is that?

First of all, sinners will sin.  They’ve been told for thousands of years how terrible they are and how angry God is over their sin and people have used the Old Covenant of the Law to back up their points, entirely ignoring what Jesus did on the cross.  And it’s amazing, because they don’t even realize that they are empowering and exciting sin in people’s lives when they do that (1 Cor 15:56).

The power of sin IS the law.  This is why Paul said before the law, he didn’t even know what coveting was…but when the Law came, sin seized the opportunity and it produced in Him every kind of coveting (Romans 7:7-12).

Secondly, I have never said anywhere that it is okay to go out and live a sinful lifestyle.  I have gotten accused of saying that more times than I can count and I tell every one of my accusers to show me one single, solitary place in any articles or videos I have released where I say that it is okay to sin.

And it’s amazing because they just entirely disappear after that and never answer the questions I propose to them!

What I do say is that it is only through recognizing that Jesus became our sacrifice for us, our atonement for sin, NOT THROUGH TRYING TO “LIVE HOLY” or through meaningless confessions of ‘repentance’ as so many frequently preach, that we will actually live free from sin.  You ‘repent’ when you change your mind about things and start living your life according to that mindset change.

It is in considering ourselves “dead to sin, but alive to God through Jesus Christ” (Rom. 6:11) that one actually overcomes sin in their lives.  More on this topic here.

You are not really preaching the Gospel if people do not accuse you of saying that it is okay to sin. Paul dealt with this.  That is why he had to clarify this message of grace in his letter to the Romans:

“What shall we say, then?  Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?   By no means!  We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” – Rom. 6:1-2

All of this lengthy discourse to say the following:

One of the most basic and life-changing revelations that we have received from Scripture through the Holy Spirit is found in Hebrews 1:1-3 and Colossians 1:15…that Jesus is Himself the perfect, expressed will of God.

You have heard it said like this: “Jesus Christ is perfect theology“.

The following passages are why we say this:

“In the past (which obviously means He’s not doing it any more), God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways,  but (which means IGNORE EVERYTHING BEFORE THE ‘BUT’ because NOW something is different) in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.

The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.  After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” – Hebrews 1:1-3

God spoke in the past through the prophets and in many different ways.

But.

But NOW.

He speaks through Jesus.  Who perfectly, 100% modeled the will of God and exactly represented His character and His nature.

That alone should entirely change the way you read the Bible.  That is how I can now read the Bible without getting confused or tripped up over certain passages that seem to contradict things that Jesus said or did.

Let’s keep going.

“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” – Colossians 1:15

So again we see that Jesus perfectly modeled and represented God when He was on this earth.

This coincides with why Jesus said to His disciples, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father”.  And yet the disciples still had a hard time grasping this (John 14:6-12).

Why?  Because there were so many things that they had been taught while living under the Law that seemed to directly contradict Jesus’ teachings and His examples.

It is from all of the following, foundational perspectives that I want to address the very touchy subjects of Ananias, Saphira, and Herod in the book of Acts.

Please do your best to ditch all pre-conceived notions and things you’ve been taught in church on these issues and actually use your brain to think in light of Jesus’ work on the cross and the instituting of the New Covenant that I have just shared.

As I said at the beginning of this discourse, it never ceases to amaze me how so many people who have been brought up in church will undeniably disregard the literally dozens and dozens of passages of Scripture that are in support of the fact that sin was dealt with entirely through the person of Christ.

Some even going so far as to agree, when asked, that Jesus has “taken away the sins of the world” (John 1:29), and yet when we preach that God has dealt with the sin issue and is no longer judging people or nations for sin, they always bring up Ananias, Saphira, Herod, and the book of Revelation.

That’s all they’ve got in their ‘arsenal’, so to speak.

Now with everything that I have shared up to this point in the article in elaborating on what Jesus paid for and all of the Scripture to support the absolute, 100% finished work of Christ in atoning for sin in God’s eyes, doesn’t that sound a bit crazy?

As said previously, in regards to the book of Revelation, yes, I do believe that there is a “day of wrath”, which Scripture calls over and over “The Great and Terrible Day of the Lord”.  I am not going to expound on that subject in this article because it is already extremely lengthy.  Again, if you are interested in my understanding of “the end times”, go here and here.

To understand what happened with Ananias and Saphira, first I need to address a few more things.

“The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” – Prov. 18:21

Jesus illustrates this principle very clearly all throughout the Gospels when He would speak to situations and they would change…whether it was healing the multitudes and telling His disciples to do the same (Matthew 4:23-24, Matthew 9:35, Matthew 8:16, Mark 6:56,  Luke 9:11, Matthew 10:1, Matthew 10:7-8, Luke 10:8-9, Luke 10:19, Acts 10:38), or commanding storms that were about to bring destruction to be still (Matthew 8:23-27), or any number of the many things He did…He was always speaking words of LIFE. He even goes as far as to say that the very words He speaks are life (John 6:63).

However there is a flip-side to the principle of and the power of our words as established in Proverbs 18:21.  We see this reality elaborated upon in James 3.

Jesus also illustrated the other side of the coin:

“Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs.  Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it.” – Mark 11:13-14

“In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots.  Peter remembered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!”

“Have faith in God,” Jesus answered.  “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them.” – Mark 11:20-24

As you continue reading, keep in mind that it was Peter who noticed that Jesus also had the power to curse and bring death by what He spoke.  And yet He never used that power to bring death on anyone who opposed Him, nor even upon Judas who lied to Him…

We even see this power of our words having a similar effect in several passages from the Old Testament:

“Elijah answered the captain, “If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men!” Then fire fell from heaven and consumed the captain and his men.

At this the king sent to Elijah another captain with his fifty men. The captain said to him, “Man of God, this is what the king says, ‘Come down at once!’”

“If I am a man of God,” Elijah replied, “may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men!” Then the fire of God fell from heaven and consumed him and his fifty men.” – 2 Kings 1:10-12

 

“From there Elisha went up to Bethel.  As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him.  “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy!”

He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD.  Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.” – 2 Kings 2:23-24

Elijah and Elisha had been entrusted with a great responsibility to accurately represent the character and nature of God.  They had been given great authority (much in the same way that Moses was given similar authority to perform miracles and supernatural signs in the book of Exodus) and with that great authority came great responsibility.

It certainly does not even make rational sense that God Himself, who perfectly demonstrated His will through  Jesus, who never used that ability to hurt anyone, would want 102 people burnt up with fire and 42 little kids mauled and eaten by bears simply because they had a difference of opinion or because they were poking fun at somebody.

How can I say that?  Because of what Jesus said on the issue.

Seeing as we have already established earlier in this article that Jesus perfectly modeled the will of God, we now have a conundrum with these passages.  Especially in light of the fact that we know it is not God’s will that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9).

Let’s take a look at what Jesus said to His disciples on the issue of “judgment” and “raining down fire from heaven”:

“When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him.

But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem.

And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them, as Elijah did?”

But Jesus turned and rebuked them, saying ““You do not know what manner of spirit you are of; for the Son of Man came not to destroy people’s lives but to save them”. And they went on to another village.” – Luke 9:51-56

James and John sure must have felt quite confused by this!  They certainly (as evidenced by what they said) knew the story of Elijah calling down fire from heaven and destroying people, and I am quite sure they were probably well aware of the aforementioned story with Elisha as well as many other instances throughout the Old Testament where they felt their actions were entirely justified, even in the sight of God!

You will notice that Jesus NEVER SAID: “Call fire down from heaven?  Are you guys kidding?  You can’t do that.”

He said: “You don’t know what manner of spirit you are of“!

Which would stand to reason that they inherently had the ability to do what they asked Him about if they chose to, but in doing so they would be aligning themselves with a spirit that was anti-Christ.

Are you seeing it yet?

The depth of responsibility that we have to speak words of LIFE and not DEATH over people because of the great authority that Jesus has given to us (Luke 10:19) through His sacrifice and His Spirit in us?

Let’s take a look now at what I believe really happened with Ananias and Saphira:

“Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property.  With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.

Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land?

Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold?  And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal?  What made you think of doing such a thing?  You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”

When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died.  And great fear seized all who heard what had happened.

Then some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.

About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?”

“Yes,” she said, “that is the price.”

Peter said to her, “How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen!  The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.”

At that moment she fell down at his feet and died.  Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband.

Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.” - Acts 5:1-10

First of all, remember that Peter was the one who recognized Jesus’ ability to pronounce death over something that was previously alive (Mark 11:20-24).

And that Jesus never exercised that ability over people and He Himself perfectly modeled God’s will.

Yet here we see Peter, speaking “in the name of the Lord”, that now all of a sudden God is really, really angry with this lie that they have told.  Can you picture how intimidating this apostle of our Lord must have been?  Of course Ananias and Saphira knew they were in the wrong.  In no way am I excusing their behavior.

But to insinuate that God is going to strike someone down for telling a lie when Peter Himself denied the Lord by LYING three times is absolute insanity, especially in the light of the revelation of the grace of God and the fact that the issue of sin was entirely dealt with on the cross!

I believe that Peter was so intimidating in the way that he spoke to Ananias that Ananias was gripped with fear that he dropped over dead.

We have all been in meetings where an “offering” is taken for the “man of God” and “his ministry”.

Think of how manipulated and intimidated you felt in those situations — do those people, or do they not, sound just like Peter in this situation?

“If you don’t give, God will release the devourer on you and your household!”

After seeing what Peter clearly assumed was the “judgment of God”, he then pronounces over Saphira the same fate — thus cursing her by the same spirit of religious intimidation and fear that took out her husband.

I propose to you that Peter did not have a full understanding of this grace of the finished work of the cross.   How can I say this?

Let me ask you this:  Is God a respecter of persons?  Isn’t it interesting that later on in the book of Acts, Peter has a vision and admits that it is “now” that he realizes that God is not a respecter of persons (Acts 10:34)?

What does that mean?  That at least prior to Acts 10 (*ahem*, yes, that includes Acts 5), Peter had some messed up theology.

It is clear as one reads through the Gospels and the book of Acts, and especially from the fact that Paul had to rebuke Peter to his face (Galatians 2), that the disciples didn’t always have the best theology or a full understanding (at times) of “the will of God” as demonstrated through Christ.  It confused them because of the mixture of Law and Grace that they were wrestling through.

Much in the same way as it has confused generations of believers since then.

This is why we must always, always, always look to the example of Jesus Christ as our model for what God looks like and what He does and wants to do. Can we learn from other people in the Bible?  Absolutely!  But we must exercise our brains and the discernment that God has given us when we run into passages of Scripture that seem to directly contradict what Jesus said and did, and even at times be willing to say, *gasp*, that the disciples made mistakes!

This is why people get confused.  Because they are trying to reconcile  the actions and behavior of certain people who were just like you and I—people who are learning what we have been given in Christ and how to reveal that on this earth—with the things that Jesus did.

And as I believe I have clearly shown, they don’t always line up.

If you have attended ‘church’ long enough, I am sure you can think of many times when you, or other people, have said things “in the name of the Lord”, that upon later study and revelation, you realized those things actually had nothing to do with the Lord, His ways, or His nature.

In many instances, you probably found that they actually were diametrically opposed to the character and nature of Christ!  So basically, you were telling lies about God…and yet, somehow you were not struck down!

Do you see how shallow and pathetic the argument is that so many bring up to try and say our Father is unpredictably angry and, while yes, Jesus did satisfy the wrath of God towards sin…it just wasn’t quite good enough?

Even with the realization that there are countless people, even right now, who are “lying to God” and yet they continue living their lives without death coming upon them or “judgment” for their sin.

Many of you reading this right now are probably “testing the Spirit of the Lord” by entertaining all those angry thoughts in your head about me as you read this! You’d better watch out!  Or God might just smite you!  Jesus and John said if you are even angry with someone you’ve already committed murder in your heart, right (Matthew 5:21-22, 1 John 3:15)?

Do you see how crazy this doctrine is?

We should be overwhelmed with thanksgiving that God put the punishment for sin on Jesus!  We’d all be in big trouble!

If God is still judging people for their sins, then Jesus died for NOTHING. People will be judged in “the last day” based on whether or not they have received and believed on Christ as their atoning sacrifice for sin.

If someone is truly “saved”, their lifestyle and their actions will reflect as such.  Again, in no way am I saying that those who “practice sin” (read: sinners who have not accepted Christ) will inherit the Kingdom of God.

If you truly have “repented” in the first place, you will grow up into Christ (Eph. 4) and do as He did (1 John 2:3-6).

And now finally, on to Herod:

“On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people.  They shouted, “This is the voice of a god, not of a man.” Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.” – Acts 12:21-23

As I mentioned above, time and again, we need to ask hard questions when we come into contact with Scriptures like these.

I’m not going to directly tell you anything specific about the situation with Herod.

But what I am going to do is ask the same questions that I had to ask myself once I came to an understanding of what Christ did on the cross in taking away sin.

I believe that I have laid a solid Scriptural foundation for what I have presented above on the issue of forgiveness of sins/judgment/etc.  I leave you with the following questions for you to take to God on your own time.

I am not looking to just tell people WHAT to think.  I am interested in teaching people HOW to think.

-  Did Jesus’ once-for-all sacrifice for sin and the fact that God is not counting men’s sins against them all of a sudden go on vacation for this one instance with Herod?

-  Did the disciples really have a solid understanding of everything that was going on in the growth of the early church?  I think it’s safe to say that they didn’t as is evidenced from the situation with Ananias & Saphira and Peter and Paul’s altercation…

-  How many people do you know who claim to see “angels of the Lord” and yet these angels seem to be doing things that are in direct opposition to the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus and His completed work on Calvary?

-  Didn’t Paul himself say that satan masquerades as an “angel of light”? (2 Cor. 11:14)

-  Didn’t Jesus say that the thief is the one that comes to steal, KILL, and destroy? (John 10:10)

-  Aren’t there literally hundreds and hundreds of people who have lived since the days of Christ who have themselves claimed to be God, even have had people worship them as God, and yet they live on and are not “struck down” and ‘eaten with worms’?  That being said, has God all of a sudden, again, become a respecter of persons when it came to Herod?

-  Do angels have free will (as evidenced by satan and those who followed Him)?

-  Is it possible that whoever relayed the report of this situation to Luke, who wrote the book of Acts, saw an “angel of light” strike Herod, and, himself being without a revelation of the atonement of sin through Christ, simply assumed it was “an angel of the Lord” and reported as such to Luke?

-  Could it be that, just like those of us who are still learning about the goodness of God and understanding what Jesus did for us, that Luke didn’t even bother to question this “judgment of the Lord” because he still didn’t even get the revelation that Paul later received about grace?

-  How is it that all of those who are leading cults all over the world and themselves being worshiped as God do not all of a sudden come down with a nasty case of “worms” that causes them to die in front of those who are worshiping them?

-  Didn’t Paul say in Colossians 2:18-19 that it was indeed possible for people to go into great detail about visions that they have seen of angels, and yet these people were simply imagining it in their carnal mind and only believed it was real because they had “lost connection with the Head (who is Christ)” in the sense of not recognizing what Jesus did?

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I know that this article was extremely lengthy but I do pray and hope that it has helped you at least get a more solid understanding of what the cross of Christ has accomplished.  I put a lot of time and prayer into the things I have presented here.

The Bereans did not “study the Scriptures to see if what Paul was saying was false”.  They studied the Scriptures to see if they were true  (Acts 17:11).

There is a difference.  You will find what you are looking for.

My hope that you will take what you have read before the Lord and look into the Scriptures for yourself to see whether they be true.

I personally will not buy into any doctrine that makes the sacrifice of Christ of no effect.

Much love!

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men!” – Luke 2:14

This article by Darin Hufford so well sums up my feelings and experiences with this issue that I just had to repost it.
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“My wife and I made a decision about two and a half years ago that we were going to stop going to the “Institutional church”.  We did not come to this conclusion through bitterness caused by church, we simply made a decision based on things that we had seen and personally felt for years but were (until that time) unwilling to admit.  When I say “church” I am not talking about the Church Universal.  I’m talking about the institution of church that we know today.

For the most part I think “church” is a business.  In fact, many churches readily and openly admit that.  I have a difficult time believing that what we know of “church” today is at all what Christ had in mind.  It’s become a play. Worse than that; it’s become a rerun of a play.  And yet even worse, it’s become a rerun of a play, lead by hijackers.

Someone somewhere along the line got the idea of putting on a “play” for people and calling it church.   The spectators sit quietly waiting for the performance to begin. Each week they start with colorful music and someone leads them in four or five songs. Then the spectators sit down and wait for the announcements.  Once that’s finished, the spectators are encouraged to give money to the “playhouse”.   Then the spectators sit quietly and listen to a guy stand up and tell them what God is saying.

When he finishes, all the spectators file out the door, pick up their children and head for home.  On the way home they discuss the play.  How the worship team did, how the Pastor preached and so on.  Seven days later, they return and experience it all over again.

I call it a “rerun” of a play because if you have been to church for three years or more, that’s exactly what it is.

They basically quit filming new episodes, and are now playing the spectators reruns of old episodes.  It’s the same thing every week.  Perhaps this is why Christ’s ministry was only three years.

After that, He would only be repeating Himself.  Other than a new song here and there, everything else is pretty much the same.  The Pastor reminds you that “Christ took the nails for you”, and you need not to sin, and you need to read your Bible and pray, and (most importantly) you need to come to church every week and put money in the offering, and then it’s over.

Week in and week out, it’s the same thing.

(click “Read More…”)

I’m not blaming the Pastors of America for this.  I honestly don’t think it’s their fault for not preaching something “new” every week.  Truthfully, I don’t think they could even if they wanted to.

I do however; blame them for making people feel like they have to continue coming week after week or else God will be disappointed in them.

This is where the “business” of the playhouse comes in.  People are encouraged to keep coming back because the organization needs their money.  If people ever felt like they could graduate from the institution, and live their lives in the world with what they know, it would be a devastating blow that eventually would destroy the institution.

It is this way because “church” as you and I know it today has been built on the teaching that “once you are in, you are never allowed to leave”.  There is no such thing as graduation or moving on.  We are taught that we must attend every week for the rest of our lives regardless of whether we know the Gospel or not.

If you think rationally about it; it’s a ridiculous notion to think that anyone benefits much from sitting through a re-cap of something they already know week after week.

It’s even more ridiculous to believe that people “need” to be there every week in order to grow spiritually.  My personal opinion is that it’s just not worth going after a certain amount of time.  It’s not even set up for fellowship.

You come alone, you sit alone, you worship alone, you listen to the sermon alone and you leave alone.

Real fellowship happens at Starbucks with a friend or in your home over dinner with people you love.

Yes the Bible does say, “Do not forsake the gathering together” but that’s a far cry from “Do not forsake going to a building and singing songs that were selected by someone else and sitting quietly while a guy talks for forty five minutes about a bunch of stuff you have either already heard or you already knew, and then leaving”. That’s not church; that’s tradition.

All in all I think the institutional church is great for people who don’t have any Christian friends.  It’s a great place to meet other believers.  If you DO have Christian friends however, why would you continue to go?

My belief is that you ARE the church.

When people ask me where I go to church, it’s like asking me where I go to Darin.

I AM the church.  Wherever I go, church is there because I am there.  I am outreach, wherever I go there is an outreach because I am there.  I think the problem with the modern day church is that people “GO TO IT”.

It shouldn’t be a place we go.  Church should be something we become.

I say that the modern day church is a “rerun of a play” that is lead by “hijackers” because I feel that the modern day church has hijacked everything that flows naturally from people who know and love God.  They have institutionalized “heart things” and forced them into a robotic and ritualistic set of traditions.

The problem with the Institution of Church as we know it today is that it almost always seeks to “take over” or “hijack” every living expression that results from authentic relationship.   Then it tries to purchase a spiritual Patent on each individual experience and dictate when and where it will manifest again.

Over time we find that everything that would naturally flow from relationship with God is no longer allowed to flow naturally.  It must now flow under the orders and instruction of those who run the Institution.

Beautiful things such as communion have now become cold and institutionalized.  After all “church” now owns the Patent on communion.  It was originally created so that people who love each other could have dinner together and in the midst of that time of fellowship, they would stop and remember Christ and what He accomplished on their behalf.

They would acknowledge their present freedom and give praise to the One who brought it to them.  Today, however, communion has been reduced to anything BUT communion.

We now sit in neat little rows, and are handed a shot glass of grape juice and a tiny cracker. We partake of it like robot-clones on a massive assembly line.

There is no fellowship, no eating together, no enjoying the company of the person next to you, no interactive conversation about the work of Christ, and no freedom.  You see-dinner with friends and discussions about Christ are things that naturally flow from a person who knows Christ and has freedom.  The institution has hijacked that natural thing and taken away its life.

Another intimate thing that has been hijacked by the institution is Worship.  Did you know that everywhere in the New Testament where worship is mentioned, it is described as something that transpires between the individual and God alone?  New Testament worship is a lifestyle of intimacy between a person and their God.

Today it has been hijacked by the institution and worship begins at 7:00pm and ends at precisely 7:30pm on Sunday nights.  We are told what to sing, how to sing it, when to raise our hands to God, when to clap our hands, when to stand up and when to sit down.  It begins when they tell us it begins and it ends when they decide it ends.

The very life of worship has been strangled out of almost everyone’s personal walk.

Giving is one of the most beautiful “natural manifestations” of a person filled with the love of God.  Unfortunately the institution has hijacked that as well.

A “giver” by today’s Christian standards is a person who gives to the institution.  Almost all teachings on giving today are in reference to giving to the church.  Even the very essence of giving has been turned upside down.  The New Testament teaches “freely you have received, now freely give” and the institution has turned it around and convinced an entire generation that “If you freely give, you will freely receive”.

I personally believe that the day “true giving” was murdered was the day that the teaching of “Seed Faith Giving” was introduced to the church.  “Giving” went from being something a person did out of love for another, to being something we are taught to do in order to get something in return. We are even told how much to give, where to give and when to give it.

The spontaneity of giving from a heart of love (2 Cor. 9:7) has been quenched and beaten into an exact mold to fit the institutions purposes.  I have said many times that the world is unaffected by the giving of the church, because the church doesn’t give to the world, it gives to itself. The church stiffs the world.

Today’s church members cannot even have relationships unless they were formed and directed by the institution.  People are told where to go to “cell group”, who to open up to, what to do when at the meeting and how to do it.  Nothing is allowed to happen on its own.

Everything is pre-determined and laid out in the exact institutional order.  Gone are the days where each person chooses their own friends based on who they “click” with and who they don’t.  Today, friendship is determined and ordered by the leadership and who ever the church links you together with.

If you live on 5th street and Main, and Mr., and Mrs. Jones live close to your area; they become your “home fellowship” group.  You must open up to them and have relationship with them.  Every Thursday evening at 6:00 sharp-relationship begins and at approximately 7:45 it ends.  You are encouraged to NOT have friends outside of the church.  The institution dictates where you can and cannot go after work, who you can go there with and what you can and can’t do while you are there.

If you look closely all throughout the institution, you will find that almost every single area of a person’s life is “taken over” and hijacked by the institution.  Even things like “hearing from God” have been taken away.  People are taught that the way they hear from God is “through the pastor” or “through others in the institution”.

Even the most personal things of all are stripped away. The beauty and honor of being responsible for your children growing up with an understanding of the Heart of God, is hijacked away from you. Now the institution makes no bones about the fact that they believe it’s their responsibility to teach your children.  If you don’t bring your kids to their classes, YOU are failing.

How has this happened? In the beginning, the institution of church served the people.  Today it has been reversed.  The people are taunted and manipulated into serving the institution.

I do believe it’s time for people to take a stand and yell “FREEDOM”!!!!!”  We need to take back what was stolen from us.

I am becoming more and more convinced that the “woman who rides the beast” (In Revelation 17) and drinks a cup filled with the blood of the saints; IS THE INSTITUTION OF “CHURCH.”

If you would like to read more on this I would suggest that you read the [accompanying] article , “The Church that Christ Built.”

- Darin Hufford, freebelievers.com

So much of what I see borders on absolute madness at worst and complete naïveté at best.  The mindlessness of so many blindly believing what everyone says simply because it is popular opinion and shared from an expensive pulpit or platform drives me to a place of frustration that I have struggled with in prayer for as long as I can remember.

I feel the pain of the Father as His children seek so aimlessly after the flash and glitz of the charismatic chaos that has so gripped the demonstration and proclamation of the Truth of the Kingdom.

I love and absolutely believe in the power of God. I love seeing people healed and set free of impossible circumstances simply because God loves them and has a passion for setting captives free.

What I do not love is that the things that Jesus made so simple have been made to be so complex by much of what is considered the ‘normal Christian life’ by televangelists and big name conference speakers.

My heart aches to see the perversion of Hollywood lifestyles that has so influenced the church of Jesus in the western world.  There are new Christian superstars born every minute and so many people are made to feel that they are inferior and lacking in what they carry in their own spirituality because the ‘anointed man or woman of God’ has not yet laid their hands on them.

And so people flock from conference to conference, seeking that brand new teaching or that ‘breaker anointing’ or that ‘healing mantle’ or that ‘impartation of glory’ or whatever it all is…when it is simply some new fad that is being broadcast through the airwaves of charismatic Christian superstardom in order to draw more people into an arena or a church building and hopefully out to the merchandise tables between teaching sessions.

I can’t do it anymore.  I won’t do it anymore.

I cannot put up with this façade of merchandising the Gospel and making people believe the lies that they do not have what they need to spread the message, the love, and the power of God everywhere they go—and all of this without all of the training, all of the teaching series, all the books, and all of the ‘anointings’ and ‘mantles’ that seem to be in such high demand these days.

It is all a bunch of super-spiritual garbage that purveys more than anything a message of lack—that we do not have all things in Christ as the Scriptures say (Eph. 1:3, 2 Peter 1:3, Col. 2:8-10, John 1:16, 1 Cor. 3:21-23).

The truth is this:
“As for you, the anointing you received from Him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you.  But as His anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit–just as it has taught you, remain in Him.” – 1 John 2:27

So if this is true, why do we seek other anointings?

Why do we seek so hard after men to teach us things that only God can reveal?  I certainly understand the perspective of honor—and honoring spiritual leaders and teachers is absolutely vital and important.

What I do not understand is why so much of what occurs is based around a system that thrives only when consumers consume—when so much of the life of the western church as we know it can only survive if people are passed an offering plate or have to register for conference fees or buy overpriced books and CD series.

What ever happened to legitimately trusting God?  What happened to the love and power that so many throughout history walked in?

Have we been so steeped in compromise that the Spirit of our Holy God has been too grieved to consistently demonstrate His Presence and Power in our midst?  Surely, God is no respecter of persons and it has nothing to do with “God’s timing”…God is outside of time.

The deficiency is never on God’s end when things are not happening.  A prayer-less people is a powerless people.  Have we become so focused on ourselves and having a nice church service that we have neglected the importance of knowing God and fallen away from our first love (Rev. 2:4)?

Have we become so busy with maintaining the Christian status quo and keeping up with the new fads and anointings and impartations that we have neglected the simplicity of the words and commands of Christ?

His message was simple enough that children could understand Him.  He meant what He said, said what He meant, and He had no reason to exaggerate.

The only time Jesus acknowledged lack was when He said that the harvest was plentiful but the workers were few.

The fact remains that while so many are stuck like dogs chasing their own tails by going year after year to the newest prophetic conference or reading the latest prophetic word, spending thousands of dollars to go to conferences and meetings and buying books and “soaking” CDs, the rest of the world is perishing and most of it thinks that Christians are bizarre, fruitless, and ridiculous.

And in many senses, unfortunately I would have to agree with them.

I have a hard time believing Jesus was flaky or weird.  I have a very hard time believing that Jesus would tell people to “just go soak in My Presence and then you will be healed“.  I have an even more difficult time believing that multitudes of people would follow someone who wandered around looking like He was drunk or high all the time and unable to stop laughing long enough to speak life to someone or set somebody free.

He had thousands of people following Him.  Sinners liked being around Him because He was the absolute epitome of love in action…both in word and deed and also with the consistent and amazing demonstrations of power.

The last time I checked, most of us in the church of America don’t have multitudes of sinners beating down the doors of our churches wanting to hang out with us.

The hard fact is that there is something drastically wrong with the way we have been taught to do things—and I am certainly not saying that I have all of the answers for how to fix all of this.

Perhaps we should stop trying to save a system (temple worship) that Jesus came to kill.

Perhaps we should actually look at the life of Christ and look to Him as our example instead of Mr. Anointed Famous Preacher Man Who Makes Millions on Books, Conferences & CD Sales.

What I do know for sure is that many of the men and women of God who came before us and who demonstrated and walked in the kind of power that so many today are desperately ‘crying out’ for spent a whole lot more time in private (read: not in public 24/7 rooms) prayer and studying the life of Christ instead of eschatology.

What I do know for sure is that instead of telling people that they must ‘cry out’ and fast more so that God can answer their prayers, that teaching people about the New Creation (2 Cor. 5) and that they have all things in Christ is much more in line with what the apostles taught.

They never would have tried to crucify a Jesus that looked and acted like Mr. Rogers and Dr. Phil.

Did Jesus really die so you that could give a bunch of kids some gold star stickers in a Sunday School Meeting?

Or so you could lay on the floor laughing hysterically for hours while there are people around you who are dying?

Or so you could make a couple million dollars off of desperate people who are struggling to make ends meet, yet they are dropping hundreds on travel & conference fees and sermon series…hoping that you can point them in the right direction?

Woe to you who have falsely marketed, pre-packaged, and sold the Gospel of Jesus Christ and made a mockery of that which He died to give us.

Woe to you who have distorted and defamed the name of Christ by teaching His people that they need something from you and then charging them to get it.

Woe to you who have made His House of Prayer – His people, not a building – a den of thieves by twisting the Gospel to fit your agenda of “crying out” for what He already gave us.

Oh, to see the Body of the Resurrected Christ abandon and defy compromise and the merchandising of Truth!

To see with our own eyes the burning desire for God and God alone that so gripped so many throughout history!

God, help us all to embrace the simplicity, the fervency, the passion, the drive, the desire, the love, the power, and the life that You have called us all to in Your Son!

May the flippancy and frivolousness of our nice church services and programs be to us as detestable as the days when we did not know You!  Grip our souls with the fire to see souls saved, healed, and delivered no matter the cost to our own lives!

Help us to abandon complacency and chasing after the winds of super-spiritual and spooky ‘churchianity’ and embrace the strong-man’s Gospel of love and consistent demonstrations of the power of God that actually works outside of the four walls of a church building!

Lord of the Harvest, send workers into the harvest fields!  Bring to us those who are willing to lay down their lives and their comfort for the sake of the King and His Kingdom.

“Peace if possible.  Truth at all costs.” - Martin Luther

This is a note that was written by a new and dear friend of ours.

She fought very hard against a lot of the Scripture and truths we were presenting in regards to the very popular mindset of “crying out to God for revival”.

It was difficult for her to realize how much she had been lied to.  It was difficult for her to embrace the reality that God does not need to be coerced into “coming” or asked to “send revival”, as it was all she knew.

I will let her testimony speak for itself.

In less than a week’s time, she has grasped a revelation of the finished work of the cross and the freedom that we have already been given in Christ.

No need to fast and beg and repent for the same sins over, and over, and over again anymore to try and manipulate God to “move” when He has already moved by sending Jesus.

For those of you who are offended by what we preach because it comes against the popular message of today and all of the doctrine that the big-name conference speakers preach (& charge you to hear), ask yourself why you are offended and read this.  Ask yourself those hard questions:

– “Why is it that these people keep shouting a message of absolute freedom and seem excited and are seeing lives transformed, yet I am here asking God to ‘come’ and ‘pour out His Spirit’?

– “Why am I trying to get God to answer my prayers the way they did in the Old Testament when Jesus never modeled it this way?”

– “Why do so many of my leaders put out notes that leave out entire chunks of scripture and instead substitute it with a “….” so that it fits in better with their core vision?”

Read this testimony.  Think about it.  Pray about it.

Then go ahead and try to say that you cannot hear the freedom being shouted in her words and that we aren’t “walking in love & honor”.

You’re the one that has been praying and singing, “Shake everything that can be shaken.”

This is what freedom sounds like.  This is what it sounds like when someone wakes up to realize the bondage they’ve been under and the deception of what is popular and well-accepted.

And they will never go back into that jail cell of religious performance again.

This, my friends, is good news.

We will never, ever stop.

(Click “Read More” if you are on our home page)

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“My heart is screaming with the freedom I have finally, truly, irrevocably let in.  And my mind is lavished in the love You have always wanted to give to me, but I never accepted because I was brought up to believe that you worked for affection, that you worked for contentment, you worked for joy, you begged for pleasure, you sought desperately for attention…and so I did.

And in that last moment, I fought You so hard, I said “But mustn’t this, mustn’t  be YOU, the fullness of YOU, the nearness of YOU, the experience of YOU…[shouldn't it] be something I also have to…fight for?”

I didn’t believe You when You said, “Free.”

I didn’t believe you because I kept waking up that dead man and he pointed his finger at me, at the mirror, at Your hands, at Your feet, at Your forehead, all of it covered in blood.  And I never heard Your words to me, because the dead man that You had already taken away kept shouting “This is your fault and you must make up for it.  You must beg to feel His love. You must fast to feel His nearness.”

And soon, the man wasn’t shouting, just whispering so that it was subtle, so subtle, so that I thought I was doing myself and You and everyone else a favor by singing my heart out at conferences and asking You to “Come”.

So I didn’t hear You.

So You wooed me out of a lie.  You shouted on the inside. You told me that I was beautiful, that I was lovely, that You liked me!  You liked me!  You thought I was lovely and perfect.

You told me that I had value, that I was honored, that I was enjoyed, that I was funny.  AND STILL.  I did not hear what You were saying.

STILL, I shouted “Let Your Spirit come!” STILL, I mourned over You as though You were a dead god who I had to bring back to life in myself, not realizing that it was the old man, which YOU YOURSELF had put to death that I was trying so hard to revive.

And then I heard You.  You screamed it on the inside.  You screamed it from all around me.

So gently, but I was so offended because I wanted to make something of myself. I wanted to keep my idols because I felt so safe inside of them. I was afraid.

I did not trust You the way I had said that I did.  And You screamed.

And You said: “This is not about teachers, or doctrine.  This is not about who has more theology or who has the more beautiful worship.  This is about you not knowing who you are. This is about you trying to fill a gap I have already filled! This is about you asking for the things you already have!”

And I kicked and screamed and wailed because you were tearing away my self made security.  You were burning up every idol in the fire of Yourself.

Finally, I let go.

I saw You calling me Your daughter.  I understood.

Finally, I heard it,“It is finished”.

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Looking for freedom?  Tired of “hopping” from meeting to meeting, repenting for the same sins over and over?

Go here.

This is long but radically life altering.

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“It is important that we make a clear distinction between the True Church (the Ecclesia) and the Institutional Church, Organized Religion, or religion in general. The easiest way to begin is to discuss one critical thing that Organized Religion cannot do.

Organized Religion cannot impart Life.

“This is our testimony, that God has given us Eternal Life, and this Life is in His Son: He that has the Son has Life, and He that has not the Son of God has not Life (I John 5:11,12).”

Contrary to popular belief, the Lord Jesus Christ does not live within the matrix of Organized Religion.  The Ecclesia, like our Lord, is Wholly Other.  I can prove it to you beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Can you join a “church” ?  Yes, if you meet their requirements for membership.

Can you join the Ecclesia?  No.  You have to be born into it.  Or, to be more correct, you have to be born-again into it.  It is not a question of joining or not joining, but a question of having Life versus not having Life.  ”He that has the Son has Life; He that has not the Son has not Life.”

Some erroneously believe Jesus founded a movement, or formed a new religion.  No, the world already had movements and religions, and would continue to have them.  He had no intention of starting a new one.  What did He bring us?  What did He contribute to the world?  He committed Himself to us as our Life.

Muhammad, Buddha, Confucius, or Socrates can bring us good teaching, moral excellence, and religious philosophy. For this they may be commended as rendering help and aid to humanity.  But Jesus Christ is different: He brings us Himself as our Life. It is not that He merely transmits some teachings to us, depositing some virtue into the human race, before being taken up into heaven. It is well beyond Him simply being an example for us to follow, the standard by which our morals are measured as we frantically whisper, “What would Jesus do?”.

No, He Himself came to be our Life.  He is Savior, and Salvation.  He is Redeemer, and Redemption.  He is Healer, and Healing.  He is the Giver of Life, and He is Life.

In Him is Life because He is Life.  All who are in Him possess Life, and Life possesses them.  The Life is in the Son.  The Son is in me, and I am in Him.  We share in a common Life.  ”He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him (I Corinthians 6:7).”

(click “read more” if reading this from our home page)

Everyone together who possess Life are called the Ecclesia, the Church, the Body of Christ. The individual members of the Ecclesia are called Christians. They are the in-Christed ones. They abide in Him, and He abides in them.

You ask is not a Christian one who believes thus and so, or behaves thus and so.  We answer that they may very well believe or behave thus and so, but the belief or the behavior, while it may assist us in identifying them, is

not what makes them a Christian. It is the Life. Certainly, Christians have a core system of beliefs and practices.  But the characteristic of a Christian is Life.  It is not even “the Lord of my life”, implying something apart from Him that I still have control over; it is “the Lord AS my Life.”

An intellectual Christianity is what Organized Religion brings.  It cannot impart Life.  What do I mean by an intellectual Christianity?  It is the ABC Gospel.  Perhaps you have heard it:

Salvation is obtained in three easy steps: “A” stands for “admit you are a sinner”; “B” stands for “believe on the Lord Jesus to save you”; and “C” stands for “confess Jesus as your personal Savior.”

What is wrong with that?  Simply this: there is no Life there. “ABC” will not save us.  With “ABC” there is no encounter with Jesus, Who alone is Life.  There is only an intellectual acceptance and affirmation of what is presented as “Three Easy Steps”.

I believe this, I say that, and that makes me a Christian, right?  No, it just makes you religious.  There are many people who “get religion”, but they don’t get Jesus.

Organized Religion has caused Christianity to morph into Churchianity, a gospel which is easy to believe in but progressively more difficult to live up to.

Organized Religion can bring doctrine, teaching, and belief.  Some of it may be morally excellent and good.  Some of it may even sound Biblical, like “Three Easy Steps”.

Nevertheless, Organized Religion cannot impart Life.  Why? Because it has no Life to give.   Jesus Christ is the Life.   And Jesus does not live within the matrix of Organized Religion.  He gives HIMSELF.

How can any man, organization, or movement claim to give away another man, much less impart the very Life of Jesus Christ?

Only Jesus can give Himself as our Life.

You see, then, that the most anyone can do is point people to Jesus as the sole Source of Life.  They may contact Life through us, but we cannot give them Life.  To those bound by Organized Religion, Jesus cries “You search the Scriptures, because you think in them you have Life.  You are content to read about Me, but you will not come to Me that you may have Life (John 5:39,40, paraphrased).”

Come to Me! Not, “Memorize these Three Easy Steps and attend the Church of your choice this Sunday.”  Come to Me!  He is Life.

The Church, the Lord’s Ecclesia, is the synthesis of individuals who have the Revelation of Jesus and have come to Him to receive Him as their Life.  Here is where the confusion begins.

We glibly use the term “church” to describe things which are not the Lord’s Ecclesia.

A building devoted to religious meetings is called “the church”.  Attending a religious meeting is called “going to church.”  Hearing a good message or good music during the religious meeting is called “having church” (a popular tune says “crank up the music, let’s have church!”).

Becoming a member of the non-profit organization which owns the building devoted to religious meetings is called “joining the church”.  Taking responsibility as the founder or being voted in as the director of the non-profit organization which owns the building devoted to religious meetings is called “pastoring the church”.

Making additions to the building devoted to religious meetings or to the membership list of the non-profit organization which owns the building is called “church growth”.

Why are we being so facetious and wordy?  Why do we choose our phraseology carefully?  For the sake of convenience, or just plain laziness, people have grown accustomed to saying “church” instead of “a non-profit organization that owns a building devoted to religious meetings.”

Whatever nomenclature you decide upon, we are drawing the line and making a distinction between “The Church” and “church”.  We hope to impress upon you the difference between what people customarily call “church” and what the Lord considers to be “The Church”.  As demonstrated above, much of what we call “church” is simply Organized Religion.  It is not the Lord’s Ecclesia.

We simply see things the way we have been trained to see them; we do not see things as God sees them.  It is very easy to quantify and describe things in terms of Organized Religion because it is earthy, worldly, natural.  Ask someone on the street.  What is church?  Why, it is that building there with a steeple on top.  What is a pastor?  The fellow who does the preaching.

What is a Christian?  The folks who read their Bible a lot and pray a lot and go to church a lot – you know, doing good works.  You see how easy it is to define?  It is tangible, concrete.  We can get our hands on that.

But the reality is that everything which makes up the Ecclesia is spiritual, and thus, it is invisible to the naked eye.  It is non-corporeal.  It cannot be measured by dollars and statistics.  Now ask the same questions of someone who knows better.

What is church?  The Church, the Ecclesia, is the synthesis of individuals who have the Revelation of Jesus and have come to Him to receive Him as their Life.  Pray tell, where do I find that?

What do I look for?  You can’t do it, it’s like trying to find the wind at 101 North Main Street.  It is beyond geographical description; it is everywhere and nowhere.

What is a pastor?  Someone called to feed the Lord’s sheep as an under shepherd of the Chief Shepherd.  Huh?  You mean preaching?  No, not necessarily.  You mean a doctor of theology?  No, not really.  Oh never mind: what is a Christian?  Oh that’s easy, someone who is in Christ.  What do you mean “in Christ”?  Don’t you mean “believes in Christ?”  No, I mean IS in Christ, in union, one with Him.

So what does THAT look like? How many chapters of the Bible do they read per day?  How long do they pray?  How often do they attend church?  It defies explanation because the truth is it has nothing to do with the external, only the internal.  Like the wind: you can see the effects of it but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it goes; so are they which are born of the Spirit (John 3).

This invisible Life is the characteristic of the Ecclesia. When you can capture the wind in a bag then you can stuff Christians into a building and call it “church”. ” Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21).”

So, from our vantage point here on earth, Organized Religion can be easily seen, felt, touched, experienced, quantified, denominated, characterized, categorized, analyzed, and explained. We can chart its progress and hang the data up on the wall, point to it and say yep, we’ve got this many million converts here, and this many million members there.

Church growth is up (or down), we collected this many billions of dollars last year, and in relation to the rest of the world’s religions we rank number whatever.  We’ve got this many thousands of churches in this part of the world, we have this many thousands of pastors and Christian workers, and we’ve translated the Bible into this many different languages.

Meanwhile, what drives the Real Church, the Ecclesia, is invisible, spiritual, ethereal, in the world but not of the world, hidden, veiled, hard to describe in terms we can understand.  We can’t generate the data and hang it up on the wall.  Even those who know what the Ecclesia is sometimes have difficulty expressing themselves.  Ask them where to find the Church of which they so longingly speak, and they are apt to reply, “I’m not sure if I know where the Church is, brother, but I sure know where it ain’t!”

Now imagine that the Lord wakes you up one night and says, “Come up hither, and I will show you the Church.”  You expect Him to carry you down the street to the Family Worship Center or across the country to where the crowds say they are experiencing revival; but instead you find yourself rising high into the air, leaving the earth behind, and in the blink of an eye you travel beyond the edges of the temporal universe and into the spirit realm, seated with Christ in heavenly places, there in the throne of God.

Seated with the Lord and looking back down upon the world, we find from this perspective that the cathedrals, the church buildings, the worship centers, the sanctuaries, the denominational offices, the seminaries, the tithes and offerings, the membership drives, the movements, all vanish from sight.  Everything melts away.  He does not see the Assemblies of God, the Southern Baptists, the United Methodists, the Lutherans, the Presbyterians, or the Roman Catholics.  He does not see Charismatics or Fundamentalists or Bible Belts or Christian Conservatives or Religious Rights.

He does not see the building devoted to religious meetings as anything more special or significant than the grocery store or barber shop.  He sees pastors, yes, but strangely, He does not see every director of a non-profit organization who owns a building devoted to religious meetings as a pastor.  And it is not just the pastors that are different, from our heavenly observation point.  Everything seems odd.  Backwards.  Apostles are not where you expect them to be, and they are not doing what you expect them to be doing; neither are prophets, evangelists, or teachers.

Yet, they are right where He wants them to be, doing exactly what He wants them to do.  Interestingly enough, He is not concerned with a rise or a decline in church attendance because He does not see the Church as something which can be attended.  Hmm.

Standing next to Him we see as He sees. We realize when we look upon Christendom that all God sees there is His Church, the Ecclesia.  He deems those who abide in Him, those who possess the Son, as those who have Life.  His Church is not declining, it is growing because His Life cannot be contained or restricted.  His Ecclesia is outside the matrix.

His Church is spiritual, and as such, it is eternal, transcending time and space.  Just as He is, and does.

You look upon His Face and see the curve of His smile, so you follow His gaze – and there it is, the living stones and precious gems which make up His Church.  You couldn’t see them before, because you were right in the middle of it while still on earth.  But now, far removed from it all and looking down upon it from the Lord’s perspective, you see that the living stones are being assembled together into a brilliant, gleaming, dazzling building which covers the entire earth!

An angel stands apart from it, shouting, “100% pure: never touched by human hands!”  You zoom in closer and discover that the stones and gems are not literal stones and gems, but people!  Wonderful, beautiful, joy-filled people, joined together into a striking mosaic of vibrant colors, a tapestry of interwoven beauty, a medley of lives in perfect twelve-part harmony, all pulsing with His heartbeat, His Life, His Essence.  You begin to weep at the unadulterated purity of it and oneness of it.  There is no spot, wrinkle, or blemish to be found.

Only God could make something this gorgeous.  Only God.  Only God.  And there in the midst of this wonderful place, you see what makes it so splendid…

There HE is, walking around in the midst of this Temple, adding living stone upon living stone, precious gem upon precious gem, and what do you hear? Singing? Yes. The Living Stones are crying out in praise. And He is smiling, and – whistling! – while He works.  Jesus is building His Church.

Then, as quickly as it began, it is over.

You open your eyes and find yourself back on earth, having returned to your three-dimensional world.  It’s a sunny day, the birds are singing, the church bells are ringing, and you see men, women, and children walking down the street, carrying their Bibles.  You rush out into the road and grab an elderly gentleman.

“Where are you going? What’s going on?  Why are you so dressed up?”

“Get your hands off me, you crazy idiot! It’s Sunday morning, and I’m going to church!”

“You’ve seen the Church??”

“Seen it?  Of course I’ve seen it.  My great-great grandfather helped build that church!”

“No, I mean have you SEEN the CHURCH,” you repeat emphatically. “The Church that JESUS is building!”

“I don’t know what the devil you’re talking about, young man.  Now let me alone, or I’ll be late!”

You let him go and before you know it you are swept along by the crowd and find yourself sitting within the four walls of a building that calls itself “First Hypocritical Church, International.”

The service is just beginning.  The pastor approaches the lectern and announces, “Let’s all stand and sing!”

Not sure what to do, you join in the chorus:

“Know ye not, know ye not ye are the Temple?
Know ye not, know ye not ye are the Temple?
Know ye not, know ye not ye are the Temple?
Ye are the Temple of the Holy Ghost!”

At the end of the song the pastor appears at the lectern again and matter-of-factly shouts, “Isn’t it good to be in the house of God today!”  It’s more of a statement than a question.  And all the people say, “AMEN!”

Hope rises!  The House of God!  Maybe he’s seen it too!  Forgetting where you are, you stand up and excitedly shout “Have YOU seen the House of God, brother?”

“Amen!”  He replies.  ”It’s good to be in church this morning!”

“Amen!”  the people agree.

“No, wait a minute,” you interrupt, mouthing the words ever so slowly and deliberately, as if you were talking to a deaf lip reader. “Have you SEEN the CHURCH, brother?  The Church that JESUS is building?”

All heads are turned now, facing you. T he old man, one of the deacons, whispers, “That’s the weirdo I met on the way to church this morning!”

The pastor is growing impatient. “This IS the church, brother. Hallelujah!”

“But sir,” you press, “KNOW YE NOT YE ARE THE TEMPLE???”

The silence is deafening.

“You are the Temple.  WE are the Temple!  Jesus is building His Church!  I’ ve seen it! It’s a wonderful House of Living Stones, filled with His Life!  We are the Church that He is building!  We are the Living Stones, the Precious Gems!  I saw Jesus, and He was smiling and placing the stones together, and…”

Some teenagers on the back row are giggling.

“I’ve seen it! It’s true! The stones… the jewels… it’s gorgeous!”

The people are looking at the pastor to see what he will do.

Slowly it dawns on you.  You realize that to them you are an alien from another planet trying to communicate something that is so real to you but is totally foreign to the rest of the world.

Desperately you grab the man standing next to you by the shoulders, thinking to shake it into him.  ”You don’t believe me… But it’s true! You sing about it… but you don’t believe it!  YOU ARE THE TEMPLE!  You have to believe me! I’ve seen it! Jesus is building His Church!”

The ushers are making their way over to your place in the pew.

Sweating and shaking, you look around the sanctuary, wild-eyed. “No, something’s wrong here. Everything is different… this isn’t the Church!  I mean, you’re calling it church, but this isn’t what I’ve seen at all.  No, the Church is… is… One Flock with One Shepherd, not divided up into denominations and sects!  It’s a mosaic of people! It’s a tapestry of rich colors!  It’s a medley…” You begin to sob.  ”Listen to me! Know ye not ye are the Temple?!?”

The congregation is uncomfortable and agitated.  The old deacon is ashen-faced, glaring at the pastor to put an end to this.

“Friend,” the pastor finally manages, “if you’ll go with the ushers I’m sure we can better minister to you in private. With every head bowed and every eye closed, why don’t we go to the Lord in prayer right now.”

While every head is bowed and every eye is closed, except the pastor’s head and eyes, the ushers quickly hustle you out the back door and throw you down the steps.

The pastor smiles. “and the church said… AMEN. Amen. You may be seated. Well, praise the Lord. Today my message is entitled, ‘What It Means To Be A Christian’. Turn in your Bibles to…”.

And we who are in Christ Jesus ARE seated with Him in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6).

If God is pleased to grant you this vision of His Church then you will come to appreciate it as a blessing and a curse.  A blessing, because to see things as He sees them is true Wisdom and Oneness with Him and His people.  A curse, because to see things as He sees them will ruin you for life, for you will never again be able to accept the surrogate, the counterfeit, even the good, at the expense of the Holy.

His Church, His Treasure, how holy and pure and wonderful and unspeakable it is!  Before you would casually call this thing and that thing “church” just like everyone else does and find it socially acceptable, but now your skin will crawl and your stomach will twist in knots when you hear others call some building the “house of God”, knowing full well that His House is not this dead thing made with human hands!

It will not be enough for you to then say: “Lord, the Church belongs to You, not to me, not to anyone.  Now I see my mistake.  I take my hands off of it, for it is not mine to control or run.  I repent of trying to build what you wish to destroy, and destroying what you wish to build.  What am I, Lord, but a little stone, a little sheep, a little member of a wonderful Body of Believers?  You are building Your Church, and now I will let you do it.  At last I see.  Only let me find a quiet place to serve You and serve Your people in secret, for I want nothing else for me, but all of it for You.”

No, once you see this, once you take your hands off of His Bride, once you stop beating your brothers and sisters in the Name of God, then you will be jealous over His Church with His jealously, and will be so sensitive and so aware of false pastors and false teachers and false evangelists and false prophets and false apostles – yes, all that would abuse and confuse and rape and pillage His People!  It is a question of seeing! And see, you will!

You will see as He sees, hear as He hears, feel as He feels.  ”He was angered at their hardness of heart.”  Without effort, without trying, you will see right through the false, the quasi-faith, the pseudo-spirituality, the whitewashed tombs full of dead men’s bones.  Once you have had a taste of Real Life, you smell Death a thousand miles away, and your spirit rebels against it, your emotions scream in protest, and you are sick to your stomach with grief, anger, and compassion all at once.

“No! This is not the Ecclesia.  This is not the Lord’s Church.  This is a sham.  This is bogus.  This is nothing but Organized Religion!”

May God have mercy on us, and give us such a revelation of Himself, and His Church, that we may escape from Churchianity and find Life.

We are not suggesting that you challenge the system this Sunday by provoking a public confrontation with some unsuspecting pastor. All the argument in the world will not convince people, nor should we attempt to make people see.

Simply allow them to see.  Look upon the face of Him who sees things as they are, that others may look into your eyes and see Him as He is.  One minute of seeing is worth a lifetime of argument.  God will grant us a discerning heart and eyes to see if we will ask for them, and if we are willing to accept both the joy and the burden that accompanies such a revelation.”

- Chip Brogden

There are literally millions of people and hundreds of ministries that believe and perpetuate the lie that the reason there is no “revival” in America is because of all the sin in the land.

They’ll usually quote 2 Chron. 7:14 and completely ignore the prefacing verse 13 that explains the context to try and validate their position.

First of all, let’s look at 2 Chron. 7:14:

“ if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

The first thing most people look over in this verse is the fact that the “if” is lowercase.  This verse is the second half of a sentence.

“the chicken that is in the refrigerator.”

What?

Why does it say “the chicken that is in the refrigerator”?

Perhaps just reading the second half of a sentence doesn’t actually give you understanding of what the writer is trying to say.

I could be saying, “I want to eat the chicken that is in the refrigerator.”

I could also be saying, “Oh my gosh, someone placed a bomb inside the chicken that is in the refrigerator.”

Or perhaps I could be saying, “Because it has been poisoned, make sure that you don’t eat the chicken that is in the refrigerator.”

I use this ridiculous example to get you to realize that this is precisely what Christians all over the world do all the time — taking scriptures completely out of their context or intended use to try and validate their “ministries” — and 2 Chronicles 7:14 is one of the biggest culprits for this kind of deception because people don’t realize what the verse before it says as well as because they don’t understand what Christ did by instituting the New Covenant.

“When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people,” – 2 Chron. 7:13

Whoa, whoa, wait a second.

So the context of verse 14 is “when God shuts up the heavens so there is no rain” or “when God commands locusts to devour the land” or “when God sends a plague amongst His people”?

Do you see it?

God doesn’t do those things under the New Covenant.

Under the Old Covenant, He had to deal with people according to their sins and the Law.

Now He deals with people according to the One who became sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21) and forgave the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2).  Now He remembers our sins no more (Heb. 8:12, 10:17) and doesn’t count man’s sins against them (2 Cor. 5:19).

Does that mean ‘everyone is saved’?  No.  One must appropriate our salvation by grace (what God already did and has provided) through faith (Eph. 2:8).

Does that mean ‘go out and sin and do whatever you want because God doesn’t care’?  No.  We have died to sin, how can we live in it any  longer? (Romans. 6:1)

But it does mean that the issue of ‘sin in the land’ is not stopping God from “moving”.

And also, in v. 14, God said “if you humble yourself and pray…then I will hear from heaven”.

God’s hearing from heaven was based on their performance under the old covenant.

Under the new covenant, Jesus said, “If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.”(John 14:14)

Under the old covenant, God said, “if you humble yourself and pray…then I will forgive your sins and heal the land.”

Under the new covenant, again, He has already forgiven the sins of the whole world because of Christ (1 John 2:2), is not counting man’s sins against them (2 Cor. 5:19),remembers our sins no more (Heb. 8:12, 10:17), and has made us the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Cor. 5:21).

This is ridiculously good news.

That means that you don’t need to keep offering sacrifices for sin (Heb. 10:1-18)– which is exactly what people are doing when they are hosting these massive prayer/fasting/repentance meetings to try and get God to pour out His Spirit and send revival.

They are buying into the same erroneous mindset that Martin Luther was fighting against during the Reformation — that we must make penance for our sins through our works.

They believe that it is the sin in the land that is holding back the “outpouring” of God’s Spirit (that actually already happened in Acts 2:16-33).

The way that I usually handle speaking with people who believe this way is as follows:

1.) “Are you born again and has God transformed your life from the way it used to be?”

- and -

2.) “In the eyes of God, is there any one sin that is worse than another?”

To which of course most people will say “Yes” and “No” respectfully.

I then will follow up with Romans 5:20 — “where sin abounds, grace abounds MORE” and then I’ll say,

“So you’re saying all the sin that was in your life didn’t stop God from coming in and cleaning you up from the inside out?”

They usually will nod hesitantly and then I will ask,

“So that means what you’re saying is that sin can’t stop the power of God..”

They usually will be catching the point by this time because I have actually empowered them to think for themselves about the issue instead of just telling them what to think.

And then they usually will realize that in God’s eyes, sin is sin, whether it is abortion, tax-evasion, gossip, driving 75 in a 65 zone, or whatever…and that the reason for not having “revival” actually has nothing to do with our need to ask God and plead Him and repent over and over.

They will realize that God has given us the responsibility to “be” revival everywhere by setting the captives free (Luke 4:18-19) everywhere we go because the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in us (Romans 8:11), because we are one spirit with Christ (1 Cor. 6:17), and because as He is, so are we in this world (1 John 4:17).

I hope this helps clarify some things and sets you free from the lies that keep Christians chasing their tails — going after something they already have.

With so many misconceptions of who God is today, it is no wonder the vast amount of confusion that I find so many Christians to be in as I talk with people from all over the world.

The vast overhwelming reality is that most Christians do not have a clue who Jesus is or what He did.  They don’t have any understanding that God is good and what Jesus came to do (and subsequently accomplished), and thus they don’t have a true revelation of Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the expressed perfect image and will of God (Heb. 1:3, Col. 1:15) and He healed all the sick (Matthew 4:23-24, Matthew 8:16, Matthew 9:35, Mark 6:56, Luke 9:11, Acts 10:38).

Because most Christians don’t have a true revelation of Jesus Christ, they don’t have a true revelation or understanding of who they are.  So they have to make stuff up that backs up why they are leading and living powerless, defeated lives.

I don’t know why so many “Christians” are so quick to defend sickness and sin in their lives.  That just sounds like the devil to me.

It is mindblowing how many Christians can quote 3 or 4 verses that might, at face value, seem to support their doctrine of God “giving” sickness or at least “allowing” it.

Yet they will completely and utterly ignore you whenever you bring up all the times that Jesus healed everyone and the fact that He put the onus on the disciples if they couldn’t get the job done—yet He Himself then went and healed the boy they couldn’t heal!

Any parent that does NOT want their children to be healthy and well is sadistic, a murderer, and should be locked up.

No, I am not one of these hyper “prosperity gospel” people.  But you will never, not once, never ever hear me say that sickness is something God permits, allows, gives, or condones in any way.

It is from the pit of hell.

The frustrating part is that the only people who teach this stuff are people who usually are themselves sick and/or not healing the sick.

This is not me diminishing their pain, I am not calling them “lesser Christians”, and I’m not elevating myself as “higher” or “better” than them or any of that nonsense.

I simply am saying that what they are teaching is not Biblically accurate and is not reflected in the life of Christ and is therefore, wrong.

I won’t listen to someone’s theology on healing who isn’t doing it anymore than you wouldn’t listen to someone try to tell you how to play football who has never played.

So then the natural question — why isn’t everyone healed then?

Jesus always put it back on the disciples if they couldn’t get the job done in terms of seeing somebody set free from sickness or oppression (Matthew 17:19-20).

He never put it on the sick person themselves (by telling them it was the sick person’s lack of faith) and He CERTAINLY never chalked it up to “God is sovereign. God is in control.”

I think I’ll get my theology from the Son of God and not the John Piper’s or John MacArthur’s or the Joni Eareackson Tada’s or the Justin Peters’ of the world, thank you very much.

It’s amazing—I currently still wear glasses and yet you’ll never hear me blame it on God!

Oh, brothers and sisters the FREEDOM that comes to trust our Father when you realize He is not a child abuser!