Saturday, July 19

Chris Biano visitation

Last night was the show at Coffee Station that I helped with for my Chris Biano, an artist from out of town. I had billed the event to the Christians in my own housechurch as a ministry opportunity for evangelism and seeing the Lord manifest among us while we are among others. Although the show (for strangers and outer circle acquaintances) started at 8 o'clock, I invited my Christian family to begin at 6:30pm to invite the Lord's presence, minister to our own needs, and create a welcoming atmosphere for Jesus to be magnified at the coffee shoppe.

I'm very glad that Chris came; I see him as an ascension gift of the Son, as it is written in Ephesians 4:7-8
But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. / Therefore it says, "WHEN HE ASCENDED ON HIGH, HE LED CAPTIVE A HOST OF CAPTIVES, AND HE GAVE GIFTS TO MEN."

However I'm very disappointed in the Body of Christ. What was a precious opportunity to carry Jesus (the Ark of God) on the poles of our lives OUT of the temple four walls was treated as an opportunity to be entertained. I mean: Nobody showed up on time. We didn't have a community until 8pm, when it was too late to cultivate the Lord's presence, minister to Him, allow Him to come in and through us, and prepare the way of the Lord. We did not convene as the Church to do great exploits, but rather as an Audience of Chris or to "support Monty in his endeavor."

I am reminded of the prophet John, who in the spirit and the power of Elijah urgently exhorted the people of his time. Of him, Jesus said
This is the one about whom it is written, 'BEHOLD, I SEND MY MESSENGER AHEAD OF YOU, WHO WILL PREPARE YOUR WAY BEFORE YOU.' (Matthew 11:10)

If we would work the works of the Evangelist, if we would see the mighty acts of the Healer, if we want to see the wisdom of One who wins souls.... we must become like John, the messenger who ran ahead and prepared the way for Lord to come. All else is vanity!

The Lord's name is Emmanuel, which means The Lord Is With Us.

I'll stop writing right now so that I can continue tomorrow to speak grace to all who hear, and not vent, because yes I'm feeling let down.

Thursday, June 5

Finishing The Task

I'm thankful to Father, for Mark Sayers' provocation to ruminate in Hebrews 10:25 . . .
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.
Maybe the reason 15 million christians don't Go To Church is that they reckon church is not a building. Maybe they don't experience the truth of Christ's Commandment by going to church as is the habit of some.

Many find the daily experience taught in the Scriptures among the assembly of Christian friends (at a home, coffee shop, or mall), rather than a Church Service. How's your mileage? Yes, please reply (this is a question and this is interactive media).

Why do we continue to invest time & money in a paradigm with a 1% yield (some would say less) of souls? I'd rather listen to the esteemed research of Mr. George Barna (of The Barna Group) than some Mark Sayers.

Jesus said,
For which of you, desiring to build a tower, doesn’t first sit down and count the cost, to see if he has enough to complete it? Or perhaps, when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, everyone who sees begins to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build, and wasn’t able to finish.’

Or what king, as he goes to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends an envoy, and asks for conditions of peace.

So therefore whoever of you who doesn’t renounce all that he has, he can’t be my disciple. Salt is good, but if the salt becomes flat and tasteless, with what do you season it? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile.

It is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
So let the tower be finished, so let the war be won, for worthy is the Man who began: to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.

To him be dominion, for ever, and ever. Amen.

Thursday, May 22

O Holy Night

Sometimes songs come and linger with me, favorites of the Spirit, so to say. One which has visited this week is "O Holy Night," which is a song celebrating the 1st coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Usually Christians sing this carol around Christmas and it is part of the mixture stirred with shopping malls and home decor and apple cider and candy canes and pine trees and warm clothing. So, it is a bit out of context to be singing this song in the spring/summer: which provoked me to inquiry in the house of the Lord.

If you look at the lyrics this summer, absent all of secular (and religious) holiday distractions, it is a beautiful song, and captures the contradiction inherent in the epiphany. Even the song's title is antithetical: holy ...night?

God always chooses to create a dawn, while the world is in darkness. I wonder what kind of dawn is about to break in my life? (or my city) - if indeed the coming of this song is prophetic - which I believe it is. The God of faith requires that we trust in Him and the intimacy we have with Him, in spite of circumstances and in the midst of them.

Tuesday, May 6

Numbers Racket

In this month's Harper's Magazine, Kevin P. Phillips penned an article Numbers racket: Why the economy is worse than we know indicting the United States government for intentional falsification of vital economic indicators for a few decades.

In fact, he speculates a probable causal link between the credit crisis we're now in with this habit of lying. The problem with lying is that you can't stop: one leads to another and another and another, and the longer it goes on, the more severe the consequences once you're caught or reality catches up.

God save America.

Sunday, April 13

Isabel Allende

I just listened to Northern California resident, author, Chilean feminist and poet Isabel Allende share my heart's passion about life and meaning. I know little about her, but I will learn. She has met success where I have tried and tried. Clearly she has enmity with God, calling the earth God forsaken, and clearly she harbors enmity with men, publicly insulting her husband's ability to sexually perform. But nobody's perfect. And I like this woman. Here is brief NPR audio with her in their this I believe series. (To contrast, I do not agree with her ultra-feminist beliefs latent in all her writings.)

Monday, April 7

Wealth Transfer

Recently, the mini-sermons given at offering collection time have begun to annoy me.

They seeming to always focus on miraculous wealth transfer that ministers experience when they give to one another. The message to the congregation is that when you transfer wealth to me, God will make others transfer wealth to you, and this is preached as an immutable law, illustrated by ministerial experience.

I don't suppose it would occur to clergy that God's usual way is hard work and wealth creation, instead of wealth transfer?

Now I know a good man who has turned his life around, placing hope in God as Savior, who is standing on this Gospel of Wealth Transfer, expecting God to do it for him too. Maybe God will, and hallelujah if He does; maybe God won't. If God doesn't stand behind the Gospel of Wealth Transfer preached by Localchurch clergy, this soul will blame God. God should not suffer disrepute because of bad doctrine promulgated by the self-promoting.

God's way is work; God's way is wealth creation, in general. Business is a line of doctrine which is unfamiliar to churchmen, but, not the Bible. We need our "men of God" in the work world--perhaps with calloused hands or dirty nails--to insert some teaching here.

Saturday, April 5

Babylon

I had a dream some years ago in which I saw Babylon the Great, a city that was beautiful but so very alien to the natural earth. The dream had a practical purpose, to warn my girlfriend of something so she wouldn't get hurt, but it was also a general revelation to me of how the world works. Babylon is built through exploitation, not cooperation or faith or fairness; people exploit people for purpose or gain, and that was building a city. I hated it, although I realized it was effective.

That is, generally, how the world works. And I've learned that it is generally how the institutional Church works too - especially the clergy. Fear, greed, envy, loathing, control, hate, lust, etc are how this world turns; religion is just another sector of Babylon. And if any genuine churchlife emerges which is not Babylonian in operation and spirit, religion will defame it and try to destroy it. In the name of God, of course.

Religion is so effective at this that anyone who does not play its game is considered a hippie, weirdo, heretic, or outcast.

Sunday, March 23

Laodicean Easter

As authentic Christians, we celebrate another Sunday knowing our Lord and bringing friends into the knowing of our Lord! What a glorious day, full of grace.

As authentic Christians, we also recognize that the occasion for the holiday was Roman Catholic religion masking the worship of Easter, goddess of fertility, and we look forward to the celebration of Passover, of which Jesus Christ is the Lamb. We know it is important not to divorce the death & resurrection of our Lord from the biblical heritage, history, and rich culture from which it comes, that of the festival of Passover remembered by the Jews.

We leverage any and every opportunity to witness to our Laodicean neighbors, who are trapped in a synthetic experience of religion, having the name to be alive but dead, and having a form or show of godliness, but denying the real power of revival transformation.

What a great day to be alive! And what a great day to repent from our sins and from our ungodly, Laodicean ways, returning to the One who bought us with His own blood. That's worthy of celebration - repentance from inauthentic faith, hope, and living, toward the living God, live faith, and real hope.

Ah Jesu, what a Savior!! We celebrate you today, and pray that all would come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God.

Friday, March 7

authentic experience

One message which is evident in the Holy Spirit in this hour is that God is wanting His people to come to an experiential knowledge of, and reliance on, Him. (Also He expects reciprocation, that He would come to a knowledge of and record of being able to rely on you.)

Individually, how do we accumulate this authentic experience of trusting and knowing each other?

Well, merely by walking in obedience, living the faith - ceasing from foolishness, self-justification, self-pity, and other stupidity; awakening to the love and the faith of God, who justifies the one who calls on the name of His son for propitiation (1 John 2:2). God is the one who justifies! God is the one who loves. God is the one who bridges the gap. All we must do is realize we are loved, and believe His great love, that He would forgive so greatly and accept so completely. As it is written...
As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.

I pray that you may become established in this present truth: in your practice, and thoughts, and real relationship with the Lord God Almighty.

Experience!!
For I know him whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able.

Sunday, February 24

faithful to the field

When I was a leader in a parachurch in my college days, the Lord sent me a three part dream. One part was about him & me, another was about a guy I was discipling in the faith, and the third part I'll summarize here. It was very simple, but in those days I was very unskilled in the prophetic and in dreams interpretation (I didn't even know anyone who flowed in prophetic gifting back then), so I didn't really "get it" and the Lord had to teach me His message in some other ways.

I was a worker in a field of dirt, who had a bucket I'd been assigned, and I was persisting in doing my insignificant job; although others were in the house partying. The workers who were at assigned stations in the field were few. I thought my task to be almost meaningless, because it was lacked honor, but, I continued to do it, out of a sense of duty. I grew restless hearing the fellowship in the house of those having a good time, tho, wanting to abandon my bucket for some socializing. They were really having a good time. I kept working.

Then I recalled that it had been long since the Lord had visited us; I missed Him sorely as I remembered the pleasure of His presence, and I ached for Him. I wanted Him. I decided finally, in my boredom and sense of missing out, to leave my bucket to go to the chapel in the center of the field. Surely I would find Him there, where religious services were going on!?! when I got there I had that sinking "uh oh" feeling; He wasn't there... When I turned to run to the fields, I was too late: the Lord was visiting and I was not there.

He was fellowshipping with the laborers who were faithful to their stations in the field, although they were not worthy of Him. (I asked Him why he did that since they were not worthy of Him; He answered me that He didn't care about their worthiness, He gave Himself to them because it pleased Him because of His great love.)

The message the Lord tried to convey to me was that He was in the work He had assigned, not in the house nor in the chapel. There are many buildings, programs, and personalities who set themselves up as His Church, but his church is his people under his command, at assigned stations, doing assigned things. When He returns, He expects to find them busy with what He directed.
When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?

It is not for us to judge whether our task is significant; We must not envy those engaged in civilian affairs; All that matters is the Lord and the field. Beware of busiment with religious buildings, programs, or personalities; what truly pleases God is allegiance - faith and obedience - out of a sacrificial heart: Will you suffer loss for the Lord? Will you miss out for Him? Will you stay true, even when in your own eyes the glory of your assignment is small? Will you run to the chapel?

At issue is our trust in the Lord, whether He will do what He said. He is faithful to heal the wounded, restore the defrauded, keep His promises, and make us into the very dwelling place of GOD forever. Despite prevailing winds of the day; it is written,
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and do not lean on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge Him,
and He will make your paths straight.

We are all like sheep, in constant need of reminder of this one thing the saints of the tabernacle of David sang in the city of the high king:
The Lord is good, and His love endures forever.

So the message is this, James 5:7-8,
Therefore be patient, brothers, until the coming of the Lord.  The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and late rains.  You too, be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.
Amen.

Thursday, February 14

Every Member Ministry

In reading the thoughts of some like-minded men, and it occurred to me this week that the way I'm conceiving of churchlife as consisting of pastors & sheep, ministers & ministries, is alien to the apostolic conception of churchlife. Whatever the denomination it may appear in, it is Romism all over again, and the mindset of the Nicolaitans, which Christ hates.

The way that God has ordered the body is described in Ephesians 4, whereby the abilities and functionality and supply is distributed among the members. The sole reason that God gave us ministers and pastors is for the equipping of the holy ones for the work of ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ. The problem with pulling any verse here out of context is that these verses have so often been preached out of context that we no longer get their sense. If you're going to get the same revelation I got, you're going to have to read the chapter and read it again, and after meditating some, read and read again.

The members are Christ's, the sheep are Christ's, and the members are called to be equipped to minister to, not outside the four walls, but to each other, that they may grow up in all things into Him who is the head--Christ--from whom the whole body, joined and knit together (1) by what every joint supplies (2) according to the effective working by which every part does its share. 1. Are we joined together? are we knit into a garment He can wear? 2. To become a supplier, Joe Christian must be given opportunity to speak. If all he ever does is listen in an audience configuration, how does that equip Joe to supply? It doesn't; it continually conditions him as a consumer.

It is time we accept the headship of Jesus Christ, present & personal. He is here today; He is here, I say. He is the same and He does not change. Any denomination who appoints a minister or pastor to assert headship in a way which cuts off the working of the ministry (as described in Ephesians 4) is putting idols in the temple. God's house is holy, and it must be purified from idols if we are to contain revival.

Does revival come and go? If visitation does not lead into habitation, look to the church government for it is out of order.

Rich and Lindy Oliver came to our church and explained to us the meaning of Laodicea -- Laos (Strong’s #2992, meaning “people”) and dike (Strong’s #1349, meaning “principle, decision”). Laodiceans trust in their ability to rule themselves, judging and deciding matters to the exclusion of Christ’s rule within His Church. The Laodicean condition of a church has everything to do with its rejection of God's way and God's form (as prescribed in scripture) for a man-made thing.

Friday, February 1

2008 grants for community service

Target local stores offer grants between $1,000 and $3,000 to charitable organizations in the community focused on arts, early childhood reading, and family violence prevention. (Many branches of the government also offer grants up for bid to non-profit organizations who seek to filfill defined objectives.) What is your church doing to form organizations to compete for these grants?

Some might contend that church shouldn't having any involvement with music or the arts, helping children, widows, or families in distress. The Bible, however, indicates that these are core to the mission of advancing godliness and the gospel in the community.

Saturday, January 26

see the sundial

This week in worship, God gave me a flash vision of a sundial on the earth which emerged in view as the sun (dawn, new day) rose on it. In this vision, I received a phrase: "Know the hour."

In the light of revelation, we can know what hour it is in God's schedule and the world timetable. This is the 2nd or 3rd time the Lord has said something to this effect in the last quarter. So it is probably very important.

Do you know the hour we're in? Are you prepared for what is about to come?

Tuesday, January 8

Myspace

Myspace is a wonderful place for networking with people with leisure time and the self-employed, but it is inaccessible to 98% of the 'real world' of working stiffs who sit behind a corporate firewall. This is the reason why I believe in preferring the openness of the blogging world.

Myspace is great for targetting that section of the population which doesn't have a job in corporate america, which is primarily students (mainly teens). This can give the illusion of participation, when in reality only a special fraction of your contacts have the leisure access to interact there. In college, most people migrate to Facebook, which was created to specifically cater to the needs of University students and alumni. But even Facebook is blocked at the firewall, and thus inaccessible to most of the people, most of the time.

If you want to reach the average man, you cannot stay within the walled garden of any social networking site. Your people deserve more than just a static web site and interaction on myspace; forums and especially interactive blogs are a great way to network and keep in touch.

Saturday, January 5

Fire, Order, Gaze

Tonight in worship I was given several visions. The most significant to me personally was the Lord's Light, the Dawnlight, shined through cloud and darkness upon me. This is the very same light from The Day of the Lord, which is yet to come. It was very good. Then He showed me this light shining upon waters, dark and vast.

I saw the Fire of God, coming upon the earth, well in places, not everywhere. The Fire of God is alive; it is God. I saw cities with blue jellyfishish shields to protect them from God. Our city didn't have a shield, but some neighboring cities did; one name which came to me was Beaumont. The shields are not good.

The Lord gave me the message that He might "shuffle the deck." He has mercy on whom He has mercy, and He choses whom He choses. He did once say "So the last shall be first, and the first last" (Matthew 20:16), with this same meaning. If anyone thinks his order in the kingdom of God is secured, think again. The Lord might be demoting and promoting sometime soon.

I also saw we attracted His gaze. He wasn't present and steady gazing as before, but rather the image of the Lion's Eye formed of dust of the air. The hunger and thirst for Righteousness had drawn Him.

Thursday, January 3

Rejoice!

As 2008 dawned across the city, I discerned a change in the spirit; I could literally feel the gladness caused by the rejoicing of all the people. Their rejoicing was in (the rememberance of the past year and) the anticipation and hope of a new year. Wow, rejoicing is a powerful way to effect real change in spirit.

I reflected yesterday that often the way we feel is not actually a result of events which are observable; sometimes, the way we feel is a result of spiritual warfare or other things which are not directly correlated to recent happenings of memory. This is why the Bible exhorts Christians to: Rejoice in the Lord always; I will say it again: rejoice!

There is great power to effect change by rejoicing. Don't just draw conclusions that the way you feel is a result of events; this is often untrue; I know all too often I make that mistake.

Let's lift our gaze, remember your Hope and Joy, and take up the shield and spear of the act of rejoicing.

1 Peter 1 gives our grounding for this:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade, kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, 11trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.