Happy Halloween

I think it’d be good if we got terrified of a Holy thing. Think about it. There’s an entire industry out there solely off our cheapened desires for a scare.

Regardless, Satan has and is going to continue to make these Apocalyptic films, as absurdly outlandish and horrifically hopeless they are. Why then does such garbage thrive? Perhaps deep down we are all panting to become that “last days” generation – and yet I believe that panting immanence itself could be changed into scoffing if we are giving ourselves to lesser indulgences.

Do I dress up for Halloween and watch movies like Cloverfield? I dunno that’s not really my point, but I would like to see a John the Baptist during this darkened holiday season. Blessed are those who hunger to hear the fear of the LORD.

From Africa To Israel

God is going to change the expression and understanding of Christianity is one generation. It is my urgent conviction that we are in the beginning stages of Christianity’s uttermost salvation and greatest hour. Our present time frame however has initially emerged in hiddenness, and a watchful heart must intently turn aside and see for whom a generation is burning. We are in the “secret” days of equipping holy and violent messengers who will soon manifest a greater authority than John the Baptist to his generation.

In an eath of groaning, travail, and pang, God is birthing a globally unified prayer movement unlike anything humanity has ever witnessed. The great harvest of souls (or the greatest revival ever) will only come in the context of night and day prayer. It will never come by man’s ability to strategically reach the unreached in the far corners of the world, albeit mercy deeds are a needed ministry. Today’s prayer movement, therefore, presents itself as a missions movement with full-time laborers of the gospel, like Anna the Prophetess committed herself before Jesus’ first coming (Luke 2:36-38). Though irritatingly monastic, God is drawing thousands of ministers into the death of waiting, consecration, and perhaps an eventual sending. Where can God’s name become famous or glorified whenever our name and our own ideologies of problem solving are quickly asserted without first encountering our Authority Himself and then hearing His voice? Where can God be found in the works of our flesh? The witness of the gospel is more than a sermon, is more than a conversion, and is more than a self-sacrificed commissioning. The Great Commission of Jesus’ delegation to disciple the nations must not be undermined in its glory as systematically possible upon a few courageous or pumped-up souls. We must restore the impossibility to Jesus’ commandment, lest we further grow in tackling agendas in the name of His gospel.

I believe the greatest hindrance to the Church’s aggression in modern missions is humanism for the poor, namely to Africa. Thousands of believers are pouring millions of dollars into a non-apostolic “hope and future” for African children. This popularised relief is not the ministry of the gospel because it does not testify with any clarity the demonstration of the powers of the age to come. The majority of the finances for the work of missions in Africa ministers a temporal and sentimental relief to a situation which will never be overcome, gratifying the flesh of both the giver and the receiver. Do not those who dwell in the earth fight earthly battles? Do not the carnal minded retaliate their opposition with carnality? There is a grave error in our present thinking which must be brought to light, lest we be overtaken by darkness when the Son of Man lifts Himself up over the nations in Judgment. As the very great and terrible Day of the Lord hastily approaches, God is going to dynamically shift the emphasis of our inward compulsions from Africa to Israel.

Scripture has clearly declared our divine function before God and men as Gentiles; all of our obtaining salvation yesterday, today, and tomorrow hinges around the prophetic centerpiece of God’s conflict with the nation of Israel (Jn 4:22, Rom 9:1-5). We must therefore soberly engage with the burdensome issue within God’s heart before jumping at our every whim to “serve” the needy. I prophesy to the Church that the crisis of food shortage will be understood rightly as nothing in contrast to the revelation of the catastrophic rejection of Israel to her Messiah. By way of Bridal lovesickness, there is going to be release of an apostolic focus, a supernatural perception in the Holy Spirit to wholeheartedly pursue a vision for the fullness of Christ and His Return. Feeding the poor cannot bring Jesus back to the earth, but provoking a Jew out of spiritual complacency will usher in the manifold glory of God and transition natural history into the dawning of a new age (Rom 11:11-15).

For you have the poor with you always, and whenever you wish you may do them good; but Me you do not have always. Mark 14:7

How then do the Gentiles provoke a blinded, legalistic people who hate God to faith and repentance back unto God? This is our finest commission, and the context for provocation is set entirely outside of the means of human wisdom. Oddly enough, the answer is simply “We must through Christ let our light shine.” Being a bright light (or witness) doesn’t chiefly happen by doing outreach, because light is an impartation from the throne of God and abiding within His Presence. Therefore, the Desire of nations Jesus Christ must set the Gentiles aflame as priestly ministers in all the nations of the earth for the sake of His one chosen nation (Isa 56:7, 62:1,6-7, 11). Israel’s darkness then will be boldly confronted by a blazing lamp – a Gentile priesthood that is ignited through an order higher than Levi and graciously extends to the Jew first all of the promises of God unto fellowship. Like Melchizedek before Abraham, our prophetic testimony will have a sure, transcendent anointing to display God’s steadfast heart of mercy and restoration to His people Israel and their land (Mt 6:10, Acts 1:6-8).

Indeed the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the world: Say to the daughter of Zion, surely your salvation is with Him, and His work before Him Isaiah 62:11

Are we presuming to accomplish the Great Commission so readily? Are we busying ourselves with sentiment’s ever shifting course? Are we falling short of the fullness of glory and inheritance because of ignorance? Are we instructing the nations to assimilate into their rightful Gentile function?

May Africa rest on the backburner of our evangelical mandate, and may we be ever inspired to take hold of knowing how the Divine story consummates through Israel (Rev 10:9-11).

The Glory of the Cross

And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was. John 17:5

God made everything on the earth to work together only for me and Him to walk together in agreement. Such a statement’s entirety is not relied upon the truth that I’m predestined for awesome things in His will. At the heart of it all, I am fashioned for His unending, glorious delight (Ps 16:2, 57:2).

Through the unsearchable depths of the cross, God displayed Jesus for His progressive fame into the earth. In loving gaze and profound whisper, my heart is stirred by the Father’s statement to bring everlasting glory unto Self through resolute selflessness, as demonstrated in His crucified Witness (Jn 12:32-33). Of all the ways our Master Creator could reveal Himself, none was found better than His own life. While in my transgressions, He loved me and gave Himself for me. Every painful movement of His marred figure against that stained beam was for even just one bewildered, proud sinner. I could imagine Jesus pleading in intercession, “Father, grant him unto Myself! I yearn for him to be presented before Us in the Beloved forever and ever.”

It is inaccurate to define the glory of God from beholding the glory of humanity as we see. God’s majestic, unapproachable glory is humility. The One, whom upholds all things and is without beginning of days, sets Himself in human capacity upon a cross as a curse, manifesting the exacting infinitude of His eternal glory in a mere three hours. Therefore, God has captured eternal adoration in a fading moment of time before all of the timeless years that were, are, and are yet to come. Jesus’ kingdom, glory, and splendor exhibited at the cross is certain. Every created human will bow forever before the worthiness of this Man.

The cross is truly the lowliest humiliation and loftiest exaltation of created order, demonstrating unto all spiritual principalities and humanistic rule the unstoppable surge of the authority of God into the earth. Perhaps I’ll never understand the fascinating mystery of God’s incarnation unto flesh or the fabrications of His guarantee of the resurrection unto me by His Spirit. But in deep solace, I accept His plan in marvel, possessing mysteries yet only discovering one – Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

In noble victory sits your King upon His throne – a wooden seat to keep Him until His heart overflows.

Bob Sorge’s 1-Talent Anna

And then there’s Anna (see Luke 2:36-38). I call her 1-talent Anna. Nothing in the biblical account would suggest that Anna had any outstanding giftings or abilities. She didn’t have any marketable skills, but she knew she could do one thing: she could be a wife and mother. But after seven years of marriage, God snuffed out the life of her husband. This catastrophe sent Anna reeling. “God, how could You remove the light of my eyes? How could You destroy every vision I ever had for my life? You have taken from me the one thing I could do.”

In the grief of that moment, Anna had a choice. She could become bitter against God, or she could press deeper into God than ever before. Choosing the latter, Anna began to seek God with her entire being. “God I don’t know why You’ve devastated my life. I can’t see Your goodness in my life, yet I declare that You are a good God, and I’m going to seek You until I see Your goodness. I declare You are a loving God, even though it sure doesn’t feel like You love me right now; but I know You are a loving God, and I’m going to seek You until I see Your love in my life.” And Anna began to press into the Spirit of God like never before.

And then one day she heard the voice. “Fasting and prayer? Night and day? Okay, Lord, if You say so.” She turned the furnace up sever times hotter and began to give herself to fasting and prayer, ministering to the Lord night and day.

The months turned into years, and then the voice came again. “MESSIAH?? Oh my Lord, Messiah!!” God had shown her that the Messiah was soon to be born and that by her intercessions Anna was fulfilling a critical role in preparing the way through prayer. With redoubled urgency she travailed in intercession for the Messiah. And then the day came when she held the answer to her prayers in her own arms! I don’t think I’m stretching the story when I suggest that Anna prayed in the Messiah.

Anna is the 1-talent woman who could have become a casualty through bitterness; but because she pressed into the face of God, the Lord turned her barrenness into fruitfulness, and now she is a spiritual mother to the entire household of faith. She thought God had buried her 1 talent, when in reality God was inviting her to a dimension that superceded it.

I believe there is an army that will arise on the earth in the last days that will confound the powers of darkness. They will ask, “Where did this army come from?” The answer will be, “This is the army of 1-talent saints who chose to dig up their talent, clean it off and deploy it for the sake of the Kingdom.” The last days’ battle will be won by a host of 1-talent warriors who will give their all for the sake of the King.

-BOB SORGE, from Envy

Why Pray?

What’s my authority in decision?

The LORD has an amazing plan for our individual lives.  Many believers search in bewilderment for years, waiting on an explicit direction about God’s “will” issued to them.  Surprisingly, the Christian life is not centered upon our talents and how we can use them for Jesus.  This is beneficial, but it is merely secondary.

The hope of our calling is found in intimacy with Jesus Christ, and the forthright path to the knowledge of God through His Son is by a lifestyle of prayer and worship (Matt 22:37-39; Eph 1:17-19).  Regardless of external circumstances, every individual was created to be a holy, passionate lover of Jesus and an intimate partner in executing His plans on the earth.  We believers govern or reign with God by intercession (asking through prayer), and from the place of our steadfast request, we receive what the LORD earnestly longs to give us (Jas 4:2; Isa 30:18-19).  God delights in listening to our cries and in fascinating our hearts through answering.

From Genesis to Revelation, God has chosen intercession as the primary means for mankind to rule with Him.  The best example is found in the Person of Christ, being the Son of God, yet humbling Himself in the form of a Man as the Son of David to be High Priest.  Everything Jesus has done, is doing now, and will do forever is in absolute submission to His Father and most always executed from the place of His intercession (Ps 2:8, 110:4; Heb 7:25; Jn 5:19, Jn 14:10).  This does not negate Jesus’ authority as the express image of God, but rather shows evidence of how God Himself has chosen to orchestrate His kingdom authority.  We must ask because God desires a voluntary partner!

In today’s American Church, many believers have attained a casual, false confidence in “trusting” that God will move and everything, whether great or small, will just happen to come to pass, regardless of the influence of our involvement.  In all meekness, I assert that this presumption is a non-Biblical paradigm of the operation of the kingdom of God.

From the foundation of the world, God has sworn partnership by giving humanity free will in the dominion over the earth (Gen 1:28, Psalm 8:5-6, 115:16). Therefore, man has the right to either delegate his authority to God or Satan.  Can man dethrone God?  Certainly not!   But when man exalts sin and disobedience by intentional choice in the natural, demonic angels are shifted in the heavenlies and are established in power (Lk 4:6, Jn 8:48).   When mankind partners in a corporate agreement with God’s righteousness and justice, the supremacy of the earth is given to His kingdom order (Matt 6:10, Ps 89:14).

No kingdom can be established without a welcoming, submitted body of support.  This life is not a practice game.  We cannot do God’s part, and He will not do our part.

God and Government

I have been advised on numerous occasions to never openly speak about religion or politics with another.  However, when considering the Lord’s deep enjoyment in partnership with humanity, I have inevitably changed my heart to a bold confidence in the earnest expectation of God’s eternal inheritance in us and vice versa.  I pray that my political perspectives do not damper anyone’s faith – but rather exhort us all to hope in the eternal reward through Jesus Christ.

GOD AND GOVERNMENT

God has forever intertwined government and intimacy.  Contrary to popular opinion today, I believe government cannot exist outside of communion with God.  My rationale is contextually simple and is thus summed in one sentence.  There is absolutely no good within man apart from God.  Humanity is inherently depraved and overtly sinful, decaying every succeeding generation and even their own land (Ps 16:2, Isa 54:6).  Despite countless, successive attempts, there can never be one, social institution with any sense of perfection in harmony (Justice) by removing sovereign God for the promotion of an imperfect man.  This helps to explain why God has historically wrestled to consecrate Israel (and all the other nations) as a prophetic kingdom and not a man-appointing political administration.  It’s not that God despises kings (1 Tim 6:15, Isa 33:22, Zec 14:9); He hates rebellion against Himself through ordained authority.

“Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, ‘…Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.’ But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, ‘Give us a king to judge us.’ So Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you; for they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.’ ” (1 Samuel 8:4-7)

At the beginning of Creation, the first assignment God gave Adam in the garden constituted the choice of how to rule the earth – whether by communion with God (intimacy through intercession) or by the consideration of knowledge (personal judgment of propriety).  With perfect leadership, God commanded all blessing and liberty while still presenting us a free alternative in how to exercise our ordained dominion, inasmuch as His decree decided not which choice we should make but that we should be permitted to make it.

“Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’ ” (Genesis 2:15-17)

In all humility, it is my conviction that “we the people” have poorly judged to remove God by severing Church and State.  Six thousand years of humanity’s testimony showcases that all our labors apart from God is cursed with toil and fruitlessness.  Even today, claims are brought spitefully before national councils against our present values and future of dependency in the Lord.  When briefly examining our forefathers and the Anglican Church, I sincerely agree that the English citizens were wrongfully oppressed into bondage through the Church.  That is no dispute.  Any lawful infliction in the name of the Spirit of God will utterly destroy men’s hearts and fail social infrastructure because it voids God’s eternal decree of decision (Gal 2:3-5).  However, I more boldly assert that intimate fellowship, flowing from the place of encounter with Jesus and His law will produce loving, governmental justice in a corporate people.  We must cast off oppressive restraint and implement the law of fascination for the Son of God to the forefront of executive decision (Mt 22:27-40; Isa 11:3-5; Hag 2:7).  Until then, our cheapened humanitarian ideologies of freedom, excellence, and peace will contagiously stray an arising generation of young adults from Him who is Wonderful.

THE END OF THE STORY

As we witness the ever-increasing declination of morality, we each grievously question in our lives, “What man’s leadership is actually capable of accomplishing the feat of true, universal justice?” (Rev 5:4)  Yet from before the foundations of the world, God predestined in Himself the redemptive purpose for corrupted government.  God determined to become a Man.  With unrelenting desire, Jesus Christ marched valiantly unto the depths of the crossbeam and is now resurrected at the right hand of the Almighty, chiefly that His  beloved and redeemed might parade into the heights of kingship with Him from His eternal city Jerusalem.  The government of God is coming down to the earth in unhindered, manifold demonstration.  Every sphere of life both visible and invisible will be brought together as one in Him for all generations, as He is the embodiment of the centerpiece of human destiny (Isa 9:7, Mt. 6:10, Eph 1:8-9, Jn 1:51).

“And they sang a new song, saying: ‘You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God; And we shall reign on the earth,’ ” Revelation 5:9-10

The Harmony of Predestination and the Freedom of Will

“If God rules His universe by His sovereign decrees, how is it possible for man to exercise free choice?  And if he can not exercise freedom of choice, how can he be held responsible for his conduct?  Is he not a mere puppet whose actions are determined by a behind-the-scenes God who pulls the strings as it pleases Him?…Man’s will is free because God is sovereign.  A God less than sovereign could not bestow moral freedom upon His creatures. He would be afraid to do so.” -A.W. Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy

Many times in the Old Testament, God’s elect would cast lots, and on whichever the lot fell, the decision was presented without any personal choice (ex: Jonah 1:7).

The last time casting lots was issued for decision in the Bible was during the election of the twelfth apostle (Acts 1:26).  After believers received the baptism of fire at Pentecost, casting lots seemed to fade as men and women began to intimately discern in the Spirit…but there is always an exception rule, and thankfully, I’ve stumbled upon the best of both worlds.

Paper. Rock. Scissors.

Through the utility of this game, we not only have the power of predestination at hand, but we are also allowed to still maintain our freedom of will in the valley of decision.  That is, we inevitably fall into God’s pre-determined choice while at the same time we actively participate with our own personal, voluntarily choice.  If you ever find yourself in a crisis you just can’t discern with confidence, pray with a witness, and on the count of three: “paper. rock. scissors.“

**this article was not written solemnly, and the author is not responsible for any contemptibly foolish, silly, or inappropriate choices one may religiously perform.