There are often times that I am truly shocked at the level of deception that people can allow themselves to fall into…the kind where the lies that they believe have become so much a part of who they are — rather, who they think they are — that even upon being directly confronted with truth, they have to simply point-blank ignore it.

Is it the cost of losing what they think is valuable to them that causes so many to blatantly deny something even when it is right in front of them?

Have you ever thought about the level of pride and self-deception that had to be so prevalent in the minds of the Pharisees and religious leaders of Christ’s day? I mean, really thought about it?

How can their Messiah demonstrate such undeniable proof that He was who He said He was, yet they still denied Him? The question of how these kinds of things happened so frequently is something that has bothered and intrigued me for as long as I can remember.

To embrace what He taught, what He modeled, and what He called people to would mean that these respected, intelligent, well-educated, and well-liked experts would have to publicly and blatantly admit that they had it all wrong. And not only wrong in the sense of private interpretation of some things they believed…but also wrong in the sense of teaching many, many others a false view of God, His will, His ways…everything.

They would have to admit before all of the people of their day that they were leading people astray into mindsets and practices that would ultimately steal, kill and destroy.

They would have to admit to everyone who revered them that they actually were presenting a god that looked more like the devil than the One who gave them life.

Not such an easy pill to swallow.

I mean, what is it that makes people so adamantly deny that which is so plain to so many others? Some might say it is the nature of deception that one does not know they are deceived, and at some level I certainly agree with this. However, what I am talking about is something on a far different level than simply deception rooted in ignorance.

I am talking about the type of deception that seems to pervade so many in the church today — a kind of willing deception, the kind that requires an intentional hardening of the heart and a conscious decision to deny that which is right before you for the sake of staying complacent and not admitting your error.

That kind of deception is the type that I see more often than not. This unflinching, stubborn unwillingness that, in some sadistic way, creates in people a resolve to blatantly reject the goodness of God that they come into contact with. I have presented to countless people the notion that God is good, that Christ took the sins of the world upon Himself and that our Father is not a child-abusing sociopath who sends sickness or disease to teach some kind of moral lesson.

One would think that most would receive a revelation of the love of God as they see these realities not only in word, but in power and action as people are healed, delivered from demonic oppression, and set free from their sins.

Unfortunately, it is more often than not the other way around. A large majority of those who hear this Gospel not only reject it, but quite frequently will end up railing against it, thinking that they are standing up against heresy and doing God a favor.

I take no issue with wanting to stand up for Truth and pointing people back to the Christ of the Scriptures rather than the made-up Christ of their imaginations or church meetings. Obviously, a lot of what I do falls into that category. The problem that I see with so much of what many have called ‘standing for truth’ is that their points of view very rarely stand up to the scrutiny of Scripture in it’s covenantal or cultural context.

The opposing views always fall apart when bringing everything directly back to Jesus as a plumb line for measuring how to address certain situations (sickness, healing, praying for revival, “God’s will”, etc.) or adamantly neglect to address specific points that are made, and instead attempt to divert the discussion in another direction. These are classic misdirection techniques used often in debates and court rooms when one party knows they have been beat.

All of this being said, I have come to a point in my life and ‘ministry’ that I have grown to accept that the harsh reality is that, as it was in Christ’s day and in the days of the early church, that “everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:12-13).

As much as so many want to deny the existence of any type of evil, or even worse, act as if our enemy has no ability whatsoever to do anything anymore, there is no way to reconcile that view of life and our faith with the frequent times that Christ and the apostles wrote of the persecutions they endured and that we would endure as well.

After all, “no servant is greater than his Master. If they persecuted [Christ], they will persecute [us] also” (John 15:20). I mean, really think about it. What are the kinds of things that Christ endured from the popular ‘religious’ crowd of His day?

They denied the power that He had, they often accused Him of heresy and being demonized, and they willingly, intentionally chose to harden their hearts to the reality of what He was presenting from the Scriptures that testified of Himself. They really thought that they would find life in the texts that pointed right to Him, yet refused to come to Him to receive the very life they were searching for (John 5:39-40) because doing so would mean a complete undoing of everything they thought they knew.

The same is true today. How many bible studies have you been to where there are countless hours spent trying to dissect the Scriptures in order to find some ‘hidden nugget of revelation’? How many small group meetings have you been to where the leader spent weeks in the books of the prophets in an attempt to find some deep, hidden meaning or to ‘hear what God has to say’ concerning the coming year? And if you’re really honest, how many of those studies actually led to an increase in fruitfulness in your life?

And how do you reconcile all of those countless hours spent studying the books of the prophets and the old testament law with Jesus’ statement that “the Law and the prophets were until John the Baptist” (Matthew 11:13) and that now, the message we should be learning to understand is regarding what Jesus called “the kingdom of God”?

The old way of thinking has been done away with. Nailed to the cross.

Obsolete, according to the writer of Hebrews (Heb. 8:13). Does that mean we just should ‘throw out the whole old testament’, as some have slanderously been saying we are preaching? By no means.

What it does mean is that we should allow the old testament to function in the capacity that it was always meant to — to point us to Christ…not to give us a plan or method for ‘holy living’. “The strength of sin is the law”, after all (1 Cor. 15:56).

Have you ever tried to tell a child to NOT do something? How did that work out for you?

Paul wrote of these same issues to the Galatians. The Message translation hits this square on. Please do not just glance over the following passages, as we have grown accustomed to doing, thinking we know it already:

“The obvious impossibility of carrying out such a moral program should make it plain that no one can sustain a relationship with God that way. The person who lives in right relationship with God does it by embracing what God arranges for him. Doing things for God is the opposite of entering into what God does for you. Habakkuk had it right: “The person who believes God, is set right by God—and that’s the real life.”

 

Rule-keeping does not naturally evolve into living by faith, but only perpetuates itself in more and more rule-keeping, a fact observed in Scripture: “The one who does these things [rule-keeping] continues to live by them.”

 

“Christ redeemed us from that self-defeating, cursed life by absorbing it completely into himself. Do you remember the Scripture that says, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”? That is what happened when Jesus was nailed to the cross: He became a curse, and at the same time dissolved the curse.

 

And now, because of that, the air is cleared and we can see that Abraham’s blessing is present and available for non-Jews, too. We are all able to receive God’s life, his Spirit, in and with us by believing—just the way Abraham received it.” (Gal. 3:12-14, The MSG)

Paul states very clearly above — trying to keep the Law of Moses IMPOSSIBLE. And no, God doesn’t want you to “try your best”, either. All of our attempts to ‘live a holy life’ are to God as filthy rags.

How well has that worked out for you so far? Kill your pride and admit that you can’t do it! That system is ‘self-defeating’ and leads to a ‘cursed life’. Do you realize that the only ‘curse’ that believers can even be subject to is the self-imposed one of trying to live up to the standards of the Law of Moses?

“If such is the case, is the law, then, an anti-promise, a negation of God’s will for us? Not at all.

 

It’s purpose was to make obvious to everyone that we are, in ourselves, out of right relationship with God, and therefore to show us the futility of devising some religious system for getting by our own efforts what we can only get by waiting in faith for God to complete his promise.

 

For if any kind of rule-keeping had power to create life in us, we would certainly have gotten it by this time.” (Gal. 3:21-22, The MSG)

As stated earlier, I am not saying that we should simply ‘throw out the old testament’. What I am emphasizing here is that we should allow the old testament to function according to God’s design, not some controlling, legalistic pastor’s. Paul goes on to say that we have already arrived at our destination, which is Christ and embracing His work by faith, resulting in direct, complete, uninterrupted relationship with God.

“But now you have arrived at your destination: By faith in Christ you are in direct relationship with God.

 

Your baptism in Christ was not just washing you up for a fresh start. It also involved dressing you in an adult faith wardrobe—Christ’s life, the fulfillment of God’s original promise.” (Gal. 3:25-27, The MSG)

The reality of all of this is extremely simple. Christ fulfilled the Law because we couldn’t. Christ became sin to take ours away. We are no longer sinners, we are saints. We are not ‘sinners saved by grace’. We were sinners. Then we were saved by grace through faith. We are born righteous, born of God, born in Him, and in Him we live and move and have our being.

So why do so many willingly deny it? Why are so many blinded to the goodness of God in that He perfectly fulfilled the Law through Christ?

I believe it to be just as it was in His day…because there has been erected a man-made system of rules, regulations, and self-righteous traditions that make the Word of God (Christ Himself) of no effect (see Matthew 15).

To embrace the true Gospel of the grace of God as given to us in Christ, we must abandon our own self-righteousness and believe by faith that He has made us righteous. No amount of self-effort, ‘holy living’, repentance, ‘crying out’, massive corporate prayer meetings, fasting, or ‘rending our hearts’ can make us clean in His sight.

Why?

Because we are already clean through the word He has spoken over us (John 15:3).

Believing that actually requires faith that His work was sufficient — that He really meant it when He said “it is finished”…that the writer of Hebrews wasn’t joking when they said that Christ’s sacrifice was sufficient “once, for all time”. It’s a whole lot easier to look at our own works and mistakes and allow those things to cloud our perception of how our Father sees us.

I certainly don’t think that I will love my children any less when they screw up, nor will I “withhold my presence” from them. Quite the opposite.

What makes us think that God is any different? The reality that we believe to be true usually ends up being the one that manifests the most in our lives. Many will say that they believe that God is good, that Christ’s work was complete—however their actions will reflect the polar opposite.

Could this be just the same as it was in Christ’s day? That “these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me…teaching as commandments the traditions of men”? I believe so.

At any rate, why even bring up these things? Why ask the hard questions?

Because everyone is thinking it but so few are willing to open their mouths about it out of fear of losing friends or respect amongst their peers.

And so we are back to the beginning — back to the rampant deception that has enslaved so many — and all of it rooted in fear of man.

The question becomes then, what are you going to do about it?

Have I poked and prodded at anything that you know has held you back from standing for what you know to be true? Have you stayed silent when you knew you should have spoken up?

Do you go to church every Sunday and hear your leaders speaking what you know to be lies, yet you sit there squirming because all you have been taught to do is submit and “honor” them?

How much longer will you do the polar opposite of what the disciples of Christ did when facing similar situations — honoring man before honoring God?

How much longer will you sit idly by while lies are peddled for profit and truth is scorned for the sake of comfort and complacency?

Is there not a cause burning within you? Is there no sense of fiery indignation at the sight of the state of bondage that your fellow man or woman resides in because they do not know the freedom that you know?

Will you rise from the chains of the status quo and stand, defying the tyranny and manipulative schemes of controlling ‘leaders’ who care more about their pocket book than your freedom?

I for one made that decision long ago. It is not an easy path, and it certainly is not a choice that lands you winning popularity contests.

The difference is that I sleep a lot better at night than I did when I was in the people-pleasing boat.

If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ (Gal. 1:10).

I have peace internally while externally, the enemy exerts his best yet futile efforts to distract and frustrate…rather than having internal turmoil at my own inaction and apathy in the face of what I know to be destructive.

I’d much rather deal with the former over the latter.

I don’t sit there squirming in a pew while some pastor stands before hundreds of people spewing lies about the goodness of God and the sacrifice Christ made on our behalf…because I have chosen to defy those things.

I have chosen to stand aggressively and adamantly against them because I know that they come from the father of all lies. I have decided to denounce all that which hinders freedom and rebel against everything that would enslave the very ones that Christ was sent to free.

We can guise our faith in smooth-sounding sermons and happy holiday programs all we want — but at the end of the day, all those programs, books, and podcasts will not change the world. What will change the world is a group of people who actually take their faith seriously enough to do something about it…and that does mean standing up to the monstrosity that is masquerading as the church today.

With so many praying for change…crying out for ‘revival’…whatever language you want to put it in, the reality is that deep down everyone knows that what they are doing is not working.

You wouldn’t pray for revival if you inherently believed that what you were doing was legitimately effecting change and positively impacting the lives of those around you.

I don’t pray for revival because I know that what I’m doing works and sets people free.

My mission is to revive those who are dead — I am revival.

I know who I am and what I am here for.

Do you?

“Abide In Me”

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.” – John 15:5-7, NIV

Taken from a Duracell ad in a Sears Store

The busyness of this life can be one of the most detrimental things in the life of the believer.  Many times throughout the Scriptures, the word for “evil” actually can be translated “toil”.  (John 17:15 is a prime example).   Toil steals life from those who embrace it.  It is draining and fruitless.

The word for ‘remain’ that Jesus uses when He is speaking to His disciples  is translated “to remain with, to tarry or wait upon, to stay in a given place.”  So much of what we can get wrapped up in is a whole lot of labor—busywork that creates in us a sense of accomplishment but at the end of the day, there is little or no good fruit that remains.

Jesus was clear that we are to seek the Kingdom of God first (Matthew 6:33) and that everything else would be added to us.  Can you honestly say that you are doing just that?  If He asked you to leave behind everything that is comfortable and safe in your life and embrace a life of adventure and uncertainty, could you?

Would you be willing to move to a foreign nation where you know no one and can’t speak the language, simply if He asked you to?  Could you trust Him that much?  The level of trust that we need for a true life of faith is only found through times of intimacy with our Lord.  It is what powers us.  It is what gives us life.

Branches cannot survive without being connected to their vine.  The branches in and of themselves cannot generate any kind of life-giving sustenance.  The nutrition that the branch needs can only come from the vine as it remains one with the branch.  We are much the same in our relationship with Christ.

If we find ourselves consistently losing energy, motivation, our dreams, or even provision and health, that is a pretty solid indication that we have removed ourselves from the source of Life.   Let today be the day to reorient your life and turn toward the One who is ever-waiting to speak with you.  The breakthrough you need and have been crying out for resides in the secret place with Him.  Seek Him, and you will the answer that your heart yearns for.

Prayer:

Jesus, I know that there has been so much in my life that has led to a whole lot of fruitless labor.  I have been feeling worn down, beat up, and not even close to living the victorious Christian life that You designed.  Change my heart and help me to make it a priority to spend time with You.  My motivation is for the sake of intimacy—not for the sake of coming to You with a long list of problems for You to fix.  Thank You for creating me to be one with You.  I ask that You would teach me how to effectively and lovingly abide and rest in Your Presence.  Amen.

Sometimes things don’t turn out the way we anticipate they should.

In fact, I think most of the time things don’t turn out the way we think they will.  Therein lies the reason for this writing today: unfulfilled expectations.

I have seen a lot of things happen in this vein over the past few years of my Christian walk.  We form and anticipate the occurrence of certain circumstances, and when they do not happen according to our plan, the opportunity for offense and bitterness to form arises.

The danger of this is evident in Hebrews 12:15: “See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.”

Bitterness is not a symptom of a larger problem.  It is a root issue that causes a lot of opportunities for the devil to wreak havoc in our own lives as well as the lives of those around us…if we entertain it and allow it to remain there.

So what do we do when we don’t know what to do?  What do we do when things don’t turn out the way we had anticipated they would and it seems that God is decidedly silent on the subject that we feel is so important?  How do we process these unfulfilled expectations?

Could it possibly be that most of these kinds of conflict come from an incorrect perception of God’s reality in the first place?

I think so.  Take a look at nature, for example:

Forests...perfect examples of God's order

Here we see a perfect example of God’s definition of “order”.  Trees all growing and pointed in the same direction, but all different types, all different sizes, all different fruits, all different methods of reproduction.  Some plants overshadow other plants, but that does not make the other plants any less important.  It just makes them different.

God is a God of variety.  Nothing He does is the same.  There might be similar types and species that look relatively the same, but they are individual.  Even no two snowflakes are exactly alike.  Obviously the same goes for people as well as situations.

An evergreen tree does not need to be told how to grow.  It simply does what it is created to do.  There are not other trees or plants telling it that it needs to grow like them.  The forest would certainly be a loud place if all of the plants were telling each other that they need to be just like them!  And it certainly would be boring to look at if everything was exactly the same.

Even in the midst of the seeming chaos that is in the forest’s layout, there is a kind of peaceful serenity…although it does not have the kind of man-made order that gardens do (everything in neat, perfect rows…where man can control the amount of fruit that is grown, when the fruit is grown, the size of the plants, where they grow, etc.), there is a powerful sense of the order and nature of God on public display.  He is not boring.  He is very creative.  He is peaceful, and delights in making what some might see as chaotic into a beautiful portrait of His majesty.

Gardens, although they serve their purpose, are the total antithesis of the nature and character of God.  They are controlled by the farmer…their output, the kind of plants that are grown, their very design and appearance.

Too often, we as believers fall into the trap of trying to make our Christian walk like a garden instead of understanding that in many ways, it is a lot more like a forest.  Some things cannot be seen because they are being overshadowed by other things that are currently more visible–and instead of recognizing that God has a hand in all of what is going on in our lives (not saying that God causes all things to happen, mind you), sometimes people want to just pull out the machete of control and hack away at the plans God has for us.  I know I have done this.  It is my prayer that I do it no longer.

The need to be in control is as destructive as a machete slicing through a forest.  It cuts life out of the equation as if it is meaningless.  It inhibits growth.  We cannot acquire “the peace that passes all understanding” until we have surrendered the need to understand.

Pastor Bill Johnson says that when we don’t know what God is doing that we should look to what He has done in the past.  Our history with God should be the lens through which we look into our future…not the lenses that the enemy or other people so want us to wear.  David ‘strengthened Himself in the Lord’ when all of his friends had abandoned him and wanted to kill him for their perceived loss at Ziklag (1st Samuel 30).

Your perception of reality will define your response to your circumstances.  That doesn’t mean that our perception is always in line with reality.

We need to take our focus off of ourselves, our circumstances, and even sometimes the opinions of those around us and find our strength in the character, certainty, and person of Christ.  Nobody can do that part for us.

For example, if you have seen someone healed of an incurable disease, then the next time you encounter what doctors say is incurable, it should not be cause for alarm or anxiety because of the testimony that you carry.  The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy (Rev. 19:10) and the word ‘testimony’ can be translated “to do again”.

The problem arises when we take our focus off of our history with God and try and look into what the devil tries to tell us is an uncertain future.  At the root of everything the enemy tries to speak to us is one phrase: “Has God really said…“ (Gen.3:1).  People get into fear and trouble when they believe those lies.  Again, as Bill Johnson says, “When we believe a lie, we empower the liar.”

Has God provided you with incredible provision?  Has He ever failed to provide you with everything you need?  I know for us, the answer is that He has always been faithful.  His name is Jehovah-Jireh, God our Provider.  This is the lens through which we must envision our future.  Fear has no place when we do this.

If we surrender to the reality that God’s ways look a lot different than ours, then will come the peace that calms our internal storms.  But not before.  Looking to what God has done previously will give us the grid and the map we need to advance to where we are goingl.  This is where many do not see breakthrough…this is the trap so many fall into as the Israelites did when they had come out of Egypt.

To get to the promised land, we must focus on what God is doing and be thankful for it.  This is the key to unlocking the breakthrough you are crying out for.  This is what we must do when we do not know what else to do.

When the Israelites had escaped the bondage of Egypt and then were stuck between the Red Sea and Pharoah’s advancing armies, they began to grow fearful.  Moses’ response to them reveals what we must do when we feel like we are between a rock and a hard place…when we have no place to go, when we have no Plan B but God.

‘Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”  Then the LORD said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on.” ‘
- Exodus 14:13-15

We must not fear.  We must stand firm and watch to see what God will do as we do as God had told Moses to do — to step out in the authority He has given us and speak to the obstacles in front of us to bow to the name of Jesus.  Striving will get us nowhere in the Kingdom.  We need to move on when the way is made for us.  It is in the act of stepping forward when it doesn’t look like there is anywhere to step that God will provide the dry ground for you to walk on.

So fear not.  Rest.  Trust.  Be thankful.  Move on.  And don’t try to make something happen in your own strength–you’ll only end up with an Ishmael!