The Craziest of Crazy.

 

Considering Jesus went away so the Holy Ghost would come, it is crazy not to get all the Holy Ghost we could possibe get.  Considering Jesus died to give us the promised Holy Ghost, it is crazy for people not to get all the HOly Ghost they could get.  Satisfied with just a work of regeneration?  Join the crowd of crazies.  But, that is not for me.  Yes, it is good to be born again, to be made a new wineskin.  It is crazy not to understand a wineskin exist to put wine in. Considering the Bible says no one can call Jesus Lord except by the Holy Ghost, it is crazy not be constantly filled with the Holy Ghost. so you can better call Him Lord   Considering the the Holy Ghost is the earnest, the downpayment, the seal of our salvation, it is crazy not to get all you can get and then go for some more.  If the Holy Ghost had not come, there would be no Christianity. We would be lost forever.  Yet, crazy people ignore, reject, minimize and redefine the wonderful gift continuously.

   The beauty of the Holy Ghost is that He is presented to us as liquid. Wine and water!  Things you drink. Wine that warms the heart, makes the face shine, rids us of the spirit of mourning and heaviness and evens intoxicates.  Water, that keeps us from being spiritually dehydrated, dead, withered and joyless.  Like liquid, like water, you can never speak in past tense about drinking.  Don't get too excited about that drink you had twenty-five years ago.  Like water, if that is the last drink you can recall - you is in big trouble.  Some of the driest people in America are Pentecostals who brag about being filled with the Spirit forty years ago. Bone dry!

Don't be crazy.  Be filled!  Don't be unwise concerning the will of God but be ever filled with the Spirit until praise boils out of you, thanksgiving rises up out of your belly and your mouth is filled with laughter and your tongue with singing.  Anything less is crazy. Real crazy.  Don't be fooled by what the world around you says is "normal".   You know, that dead, dry, ritualistic, programmed, people friendly version of Christianity. That is crazy.  You are normal.

A.D.D. (attention deficit disorder)

     My goodness, the problem with "ADD" has been around a long time, even though doctors and people are just now beginning to catch on. Not serious, you say?  Do you know what the failure of Adam was, the failure by which we were all made sinners?  It was "disobedience", which is a translation of the Hebrew word, "parakoe" which means to fail to pay attention or inattention. On the other hand the "obedience" of Jesus, by which we have all been made righteous is "hupokoe" which means attentive listening (Ro. 5:19).

      No, it wasn't the apple eating that got Adam (a trespass).  It wasn't the failure to dress and keep the garden (sin).  It was "ADD".  He didn't pay attention.  He was busy doing something else when he should have been listening to God.  Hmmmm!  I wonder, has that ever happened to any of us?  You know, there was a member of my family that came under a great threat. Victory did come, but it involved a great struggle.  Yet, the night before this threat materialized, just before we went to sleep, my wife and I both suddenly heard the warning of the Lord.  We started to make a phone call and give a warning, but talked ourselves out of it and then the next day it unfolded. You cannot imagine how much trouble could have been avoided had we been paying attention.  Then,  one time when our first child was young and we lived in Maine, I took her to school one day on icy roads. We drove a little Ford Pinto at the time. Remember them ? They looked like a half of a car with a long nose and cut off backside.  Front-end heavey.  I hit a ice as I rounded a curve and the car went over the bridge, front first where the most of the weight was.  At that exact moment, back at home, the Lord spoke to Bev and she dropped to the floor and screamed, for no reason she knew of, "NO...IN JESUS NAME!. That car should have toppled over into the rocky creek bed, but it stopped, at that exact moment,  with the heavy end over the edge of the bridge.  Thank God, on that day, Bev did not have ADD. She paid attention.

    I wonder how many "falls" all of us have had because of ADD?   I am so thankful for God's forgiveness for ADD.  I am so thankful, that even when we do miss Him, His grace steps in and helps us overcome anyway. Wow!  What a God we serve!  Thank God there is a medicine for spiritual ADD.  It is New Wine!  It makes His voice louder in our inner being.

Viewpoint

    Our understanding of the things of God, such as the cross, redemption, man, God's plan for man, etc., may vary depending on how you look at the matter.  By that, I mean from what vantage point you are looking from. Either vantage point can be and probably is, correct with Bible verses to confirm.  Yet, that view may become wrong for you, as you grow in the Lord.  There are three viewpoints that are common among us: the fallen man view, redeemed man view and then the God view.  With the fallen man view, everything is about man; his lostness, wretchedness, dispair,  hopelessness and his past. This view presents a constant focus on the darkness of fallen man. With adherents of this view, their world is not filled with light, but with darkness and underlying fear.  They only hope they can make it to the end.    Then there is vantage point number two, the redeemed man view.  He looks at matters, and sees redemption as all about him.  All that he does, he does for reward and the size of the reward ever looms bigger in his eyes.  Everything is about man for this fellow as well as the fellow with fallen man view.  And, they both have lots of supporting Bible verses to throw about.  Yet,  both views are horizontal  man views.  Both are views through the eyes of flesh and not from heavenly places.  Incidentally, these viewpoints often set these two camps at odds with each other.  One hates that "prosperity, bless-me preaching" and the other hates that "hell-fire and brimestone condemnation" preaching.  And, they often don't mix well.  And, they are both sure they have the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

   When we only view, and refuse to go beyond, the horizontal man view, our values of matters may be greatly out of whack.  We can't see how this, or that, fits in the scope of our man view, so we devalue.  We optionalize. And, in the end, we lose.  With the man view, the value of things is based on the what seems best for man, not God.  So, we easily cast aside anything that might make man uncomfortable.  And, sooner or later, that becomes costly.

    The difference between the man vision and the God vision, which is the third viewpoint, is like looking at a parade through a knothole (man vision) versus watching the same parade over the top of the fence (God vision).  Same parade, very different perspective but through that knothole, you actually see little.  The man vision is like standing on an open plain looking at a line of telephone poles stretching across the plain.  The one you are standing next to is huge, the one at the end of the line is tiny. That is a distorted perspective.  Yet, what you see seems to be nothing but the truth but it is distorted.  Man view makes the things of man huge, and is only concerned with those things that fill his eyes.  He will hug that pole close and build his world around it.   But, when the eyes of our understanding are opened, meaning we have shifted from man view to God view, the view of the same matter is dramatically different.  We see the beginning and the end. We see that all those poles were equal in size.  And, we see the purpose of the whole matter. And, our values change.

   I have found that there is a lot of restance to changing viewpoints upward. Our adversay, if he cannot keep us lost, will keep us earth-bound by vision perspective.  He blinds by ignorance, and I don't mean lack of smarts. We are alienated, Paul says, from the life of God by ignorance.  This ignorance is about not seeing things from God's view.  This ignorance is about letting the man view tell you all there is to know about the things of God.   You know, you can take a quarter, put it over one eye, close the other, and block out the immense sun, but it is a distortion.  Yet, it is how so many view the things of God.  Our eyes are so filled with quarters (the things of man) that the Son is blocked from view. For example, people who hate themselves love to focus on their darkness.  They don't want to hear about righteousness.  They want to hug that pole of remembered, wretched, darkness. They have what the Bible refers to as an evil conscience that steals a bold approach to God.  And, they don't care that that pole is followed by a thousand other poles and the purpose of all is to bring power.  They just know they are a wretched person, lucky to be saved.  Sin, sin, sin, is their obsession, their pole and they hang on to it.   Or, how about the man who has just discovered the prosperity message?  Every verse for him is about money.  Money, money, money, blessing, blessing is his message.  Every teaching revolves around getting more blessings.  That quarter over his eye is all he sees. I remember a prosperity preacher declaring "we don't need more God, we just need more money".  He had an eye full of quarters.   Is the darkness real and do we need to resist it?  Yes!  Is it the will of God to prosper us?  Yes!  But, behind that pole, behind that quarter, there is divine purpose and God wants us to know it and walk in it.  We look for His light, not ours.  And, in His light we shall find light.

The God Fight

  You know, there is a fight going on over God.  You may not know it, but you are a part of the fight, the struggle.  Let me give you one insight on this:   God, as we know is "omnipresent", meaning He is everywhere, all the time.  There is not too much to brag about concerning that.  It means, of course, He is in Australia at the same time He is in Kentucky. But, He is also in the bar at the same time He is in the church.  There is comfort in that, knowing, as a believer, that wherever you go, He is there.  Yet, the most lost soul on the planet can claim that same benefit.   The fight over God which His adversary is conducting, is not over the omnipresence of God, but rather over His manifested presence.  The devil does not care a nickel's worth over the omnipresence but he is at war over the manifested presence.   You see, if all we have is omnipresence, we have little relationship with God.   It is like having a distant relative that you know exists, but you never see them, hear from them, touch them or be touched by them.  And, you are doubtful you are in their will.   Yet, they do exist and that is the depth of your relationship. And, that is not God's plan for us.

   I hate to give the devil much credit, but he has and is putting up a good fight. about this  And, much of his effectiveness comes on the basis of our willingness to settle for the omnipresence and forsake the manifested presence.   All you have to do to see this is just listen and watch how people describe God.  Look at the church world, which for the most part knows only the omnipresence of God.  Even among those who say they believe in the manifested presence of God, how they define that manifestation is a long way from how the Bible defines it.  And, they seem to be perfectly willing to re-define to suit themselves.  Why is that?  It is a part of the fight.

    God has said  in His Word that in His presence is fulness of joy and at His right hand, pleasures forevermore (Ps. 16:11).  Does that match the descriptions of God's presence you have heard?   When Peter was explaining Holy Ghost baptism, he used this verse to help describe what had just happened to them on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:25-28).  Manifested presence of God!  And, there was, just as described, fulness of joy!  There were pleasures!  They behaved as though drunken.  Their tongue was made glad.  Look around at the church world that says they believe in the manifested presence.  Is there joy?  Is there pleasure?  Is there rejoicing?  Is there tongues being made glad?  Is there any semblance?

    Our covenant with God includes the promise of manifested presence, but the enemy works hard to keep the church from claiming the blessing.  Here is the promise: "Repent and be converted that your sins may be blotted out, when times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord", Acts 3:19.  That verse, in a nutshell, describes our new covenant with God.  If we repent, turn around and change our mind, our sins would be blotted out, not just covered over as in the old covenant, and, we will have times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord.  That is a favorite verse!   Here it is in the Kenneth Wuest version of of the New Testament and it is even better, "therefore repent at once, instantly changing your attitude, and perform a right-about-face, in order that there may come epoch-making periods of spiritual revival and refreshment from the presence of the Lord".   Glory, halelujah, I love the times of refreshing in His presence!  It is our promise.  It is our covenant.  It is our expectation.

The center of our focus

     You know, in the church of God, when man becomes the center of our focus, the reason for our existence, the primary recipient of our minsitry, we have missed God.  We have been lured into humanism and likely, do not know our enemy has struck a blow.  And, we have missed divine order. Divine order exists only where we love God first and foremost, with all our being.  Divine order exists only where the Lord Jesus has pe-emminence in all things. The pull of humanism is constantly at work to take our eyes off God, to remove Him from the center of our focus and to turn our focus on man.  And, to do it in a way that leaves us thinking we are Scripturally correct.  Our adversay is very, very good at this.

       When God moves and man messes it up, such as not too long ago in Florida, watch how quickly men dismiss what God did, and throw out the whole thing by focusing on the man that made a mess.  If it had not gone that way, it was already going the other way.  Men were clapping the evangelist on the back and proclaiming his greatness, prophysying of even more greatness, and the same error was going on.  Eyes were being drawn to man. The focus on God was slipping away.  I have been privileged to see God arise so many  times in these last fifty years, and each time there was a wonderful display of God that captured our heart's focus.  In the beginning of every move, it was all about God.  Oh, man was touched, things happened, signs and wonders occured, but God captured our hearts.  And then, as quick as man could, man stole the focus and the move ebbed away as it became about man and not about God.  It seems we cannot help doing this.  I have seen certain men, with an awesome anointing to point the way to God, deliberately turn the move of which they were leaders toward man and away from what God was doing. The result?  Man at center focus.

    In the denomination I grew up in, a slogan arose "Win the lost at any cost".   Lost souls became the center of our focus.  And, the last survey I read, about ten years ago, sixty percent of the membership is no longer baptized in the Holy Ghost. Their focus on God among us is gone.  The love of man took precedence of the love of God.  If any thing concerning man; his salvation, health, wealth, or even eternity takes precedence over God, we are on a slippery slope.  God gave us an order and made it so simple that even a child would struggle to mess it up. It is "one" and then "two".  Love God first with all your being and that is  "ONE".  Then, and only then can you truly move on to loving man and that is  "TWO". It is the simplest of mathematical formulas. One and then two.  Strangely, and in defense of the indefensible, there are those dismissing these two great commands, or at least the first one, saying we are no longer so obligated.

   Too simple?  Seems like it but still, we manage to mess it up.  We flip the numbers.  But, God in any place but first in our love, devotion, reason for being and we are back on the slippery slope. Jesus, for certain, came seeking the lost but that is not the end of the desire of God.  God is seeking from among those formerly lost men that Jesus sought and found,  those who will worship Him in Spirit and in Truth.  Is it enough to just count a man saved?  Is that the end of our duty?  If it is, that makes man a number, not a potential worshipper.  Man seeks man out of pity for man, desperately seeking to save and spare him from harm. Man values man above all, which is the driving force among many well-meaning believers.  Yet, God seeks man for the purpose of worship.  When Israel was brought out of Egypt, God instructed Moses to tell them He had brought them out for Himself, to stand before Him and minister unto Him. Nothing has changed. That still expresses the purposes of God. Isn't it strange, considering this is what God is looking for (Jo. 4:23-24), that so little of our training, discipleship, leadership programs reflect the purpose of God?  As for me, I want to worship and worship more and worship better. There is a song that reflects my heart. The words are something like this "I will always, love and adore you, worship you only.  As long as I have breathe, Lord I promise this, that I will always worship you". Is that the song of your heart?

   

Joined at the heart

    There are times when I am made to realize a oneness in the spirit with another person. It is not that way always, but it should be. Ever wonder why? I think it is because most of the time, we are not around people who operate out of their heart, their spirit. They operate out of their outer man. Their inside man is often buried so deeply we can’t feel the connection. Let me give you an example of a joining of the heart. Have you ever been in a worship service, church, concert or just listening to a CD and someone sang a deeply personal, from the heart song unto the Lord and it so touched you, it became as if it was you singing that song? In fact, you were. You were connecting in the spirit realm. Songs of the heart have a way of joining the heart. Have you ever been in a worship service where the Holy Ghost took control and the crowd, as one, began to sing in the spirit unto the Lord. Oh, I love it!  The sound is so awesome, moving, swelling, rising, getting loud and then soft, directed by the Holy Ghost. Oh, there is a breathtaking oneness in that experience.  Joined at the heart!  Have you ever heard preaching, teaching or sharing that was so from the heart, that you absorbed it like a sponge on water? Joined at the heart!

     Why does this not happen more? I don’t know all the reasons but I do believe one reason is that we are so performance oriented that we can’t be transparent. Fear, guilt, pride, religion, etc., all work against us being able to be transparent about our relationship with God.  Preachers tend not to preach from their relationship with God, they just lecture from their intellect. They are sharing knowledge, not relationship.  Oh, that is good, in a way, but it doesn’t usually connect hearts. Singers are the same. Performance often dominates and we don’t really connect spiritually. Plus, most of the songs, and even most of the sermons, are little teachings,sermons, etc., and that is good, but they are not shared relationship material anyway. Oh, we may love the perfection or the style of the singing, or the oratorical skills of the preacher, but we are not really connecting hearts. It is hard to break the performance bondage. For many years, as a younger man, I did not know the difference between excellence and anointing. In fact, I thought the anointing was on the excellent,  until God set me free. I thought of this not too long ago in a church where an elderly lady was leading worship. She was a bit older, with older songs, and the old me would have been a bit put off by her. But the free me started listening to her heart and I found myself worshipping with her. We connected. Not on the basis of mutual style, perfection, performance or any such thing. Joined at the heart by songs of the heart. 

    Another reason that transparency is a hard commodity to come by is religion. Religion causes us to mask who we really are.  The Pharisees wore the long robes, made loud public prayers and various attention getting rituals, but Jesus said they were a whitewashed gravestone.  What you saw on the outside was definitely not what was on the inside.  Nothing about religion lends itself to honesty, to transparency...appearance is the ruling factor in everything. And, we can't join at the heart where there is no transparency.  Oh, by the way, did you know that holiness is to be transparent? So that what you see is what you get?   A transparent  sinner is more holy than a whitewashed gravestone of a deacon. Without transparency, seldom do we minister, praise, sing, worship, from the heart.  We can only do what we can do while still keeping the mask on.

    You know, back in the 90's, I fell into the River of God.  Oh,  okay, maybe I was drug in,  under prostest, but I got in anyway. And, I am so glad! Glory, halelujah glad!  And, you know what I lost most of?  You know what got washed away the fastest?   My masks!   All my pretenses, all my masks, flushed down the river.  And, I found a freedom to be real.  I found a freedom to stop performing, stop lecturing, stop entertaining, stop keeping up appearances. Oh, 'tis good.  Now, it is so much easier, when the anointing flows from the spirit of another brother or a sister, to just enjoy - being joined at the heart.   My friend, you can have this freedom.  Reach for it.  Pray for it. Do what you have to do to get it. Find the river that washes away your masks, your religious pretenses and role-playing.

Cure For Dryness!

“And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”, Eph. 5:18-20. You can never boast or testify about being filled with the Spirit in the same way you might about being saved. You can look back and say “I was saved fifty years ago”, rightly testifying of your salvation experience. However, you can never do this with the Holy Spirit. You might have first been filled with the Holy Ghost years ago, but that is not what matters now. Are you filled now? That is the question! If not, you are dry. That is why the Spirit is not presented to us in human form, nor is our relationship with Him of a human kind. He is living water. One drink fifty years ago means you are more than bone dry today. That one drink is not going to sustain you anymore than that first sip of water you had as a baby. You need a drink! Lots of drinks. The Amplified Bible says we to be “ever filled and stimulated” with the Spirit. 

    When I was very young I was baptized in the Holy Spirit. It was a wonderful moment. However, my church did not tell me that one drink was not going to last, that I needed to be filled and filled and filled. I had long ago dried out, ceased to become truly Pentecostal, before I found out I needed to keep on drinking. Oh, I had the form down. I was good at acting Pentecostal, but I wasn’t Pentecostal. I belonged to the denomination, but I wasn’t Pentecostal. I was bone dry. A Pentecostal is not one who was filled, but one who is filled. Recently filled. Full! By God’s grace, I found the fountain and started drinking. Oh, it is so good. You see, we were all “made to drink” of the Spirit (1st Cor. 12:13). Anything less leaves us like a fish out of water. Dry. 

    You remember that story of Jesus turning water to wine? It is repeated over and over in the drinking believer. You drink for sustenance and the next thing you know, sometimes when it seems the party is over, the water turns to wine and hope springs up like a daffodil in March, joy erupts, the Son shines, and the party turns to celebration. Yeah!  Drinking is good when Jesus is brewer, distiller, distributor and dispenser.