Is sin more powerful than God?

     Is sin more powerful than God?  Some think so, though they may not say it that way.  Some insist on thinking that the absence of sin will result in revival, that if we get clean enough then God will come and bring revival.  Do you think that way?  You will have lots of company if you do.  However, when Adam sinned, did he clean up so God would come, or, did God come to him as is?   Did Jesus come when sin was absent or sin was present?  Put in a more modern idea, do you have to be holy and pure to get the Holy Ghost or do you get the Holy Ghost so He can lead you to holiness and purity?  Sin does not seperate God from you, it seperates you from God. It makes you hide from Him, not vice versa.  True revival requires you to quit hiding from Him, stop trying to measure up, come out from hiding and seek the reality of God.  Only then can He do His work on us.  While God is looking for us to give us revival, all too often we are hidden from His presence in the forest of religion, burdened with condemnation and historic guilt, repeating the error of Adam, over and over - hiding from God.  

    In our hiding, we are attempting to deal with sin our way, not God's.  We are whiting the sepulcher.  We are dressing up the outside, finding comfort in the shadow of the tree of pretentious religion. We think we are doing okay, since there are so many others behind the trees with us. And, religious leaders are attracted to this approach.  They will preach condemnation, telling listeners that if they got rid of all sin, they could have revival. Then, when revival doesn't come, they can load the folks up with even more condemnation for not being good enough at repenting and self-cleansing.  Of course then, because of the growth of the number of people hiding, they have to build bigger trees, hence the mega-church mentality, people friendly mentality.

   The old time way to revival, which many admire, is to shout "repent" long and loud, insinuating that sin stands between us and God, but did it with Adam?  It insinuates God might come to us if we were only clean enough, but that is not the Bible record.  No, God came looking for Adam. Adam was busy dealing with sin - his way!   Man, without the constant leadership of the Spirit will always put himself in a position to be in control, to take charge and take credit.  "We fasted..repented...chastised ourselves...and God gave us revival".  Really?  That may have appeared to work, but the Bible actually lays out a different approach, one that puts God in the driver seat and us like sheep waiting upon the Master.   It is simple.  If we come to Jesus thirsty for the Spirit, He will give us to drink and out of our belly shall flow rivers of living water and we will have revival (Jo. 7:37-39).   The cost of revival?  Desperate hunger for more of the Spirit, more of our "earnest", more of "new wine", more of living water.  Should we repent of sin?  Yes!  Yes!  And, when you are walking in the fulness of the Spirit, you will do it more often and do it better. 

Responsibility of Wealth / Riches

  Wealth has come, in a general sense, to the Spirit-filled church in America, in the last 50-60 years, at a new level.  However, wealth / riches comes with unique responsibilities we must assume or wealth will hurt, not help.  Money / riches is a power tool that will accelerate work, but it comes with danger.  For example, Jesus said it is harder for a "rich" man to enter the Kingdom.  Easier, he said, for a camel to go through the "eye of the needle", referring to the small gate within a big gate of enclosed cities. To get a camel through, you had first strip it of all baggage and then lead it through. Quite a process.   Take a look at just some of the other responsibilities, perhaps baggage, that come with wealth: 

1. God's purpose:    God's purpose is not for you to be wealthy, but to be a wealthy giver so you can help establish the work of God.  No wealth=no giving. The purpose, even of having a job and getting paid is so that you will have to give.  Don't resist tithing.  If the word bothers you, call it giving.  Get a job, gain wealth, with the intention of giving it away as directed by the Spirit.

2. Cheerful giving: It is not just a giver, but a cheerful one God loves. Maintain your joy in giving.   

3. Don't fall in love with your money:  Love of money is still the "root" of all evil.  When you love money, it becomes a treasure you think you can not do without.   If you love riches (mammon) you will serve it and you "cannot" (impossible) serve mammon and God at the same time (Matt. 6).  If money is "treasure" to you (you love it), you eye will follow the money and become dark.  Your heart will follow your treasure and you will miss the leadership of the Spirit.  Money will become your guide.

4. Beware of choking:  If not on guard, riches will choke out the Word, communications with God (Matt.13). Choked, you will find that the only thing God seems to be saying to you about money.  Every passage in the Bible will be about money, your favorite preachers and sermons will all be about riches.  You are choked. Money has grabbed you by the throat.

5.  Always be on guard.  Riches have "deceitfulness" within them.  Riches are well capable of causing missed directions, wrong decisions, wrong motives.

6. Beware of the "Judas" spirit (demon).  The Judas spirit still comes after disciples of Christ.  It will fasten your eye on money.  Judas carried the "bag", the purse and worried over what was in the bag.  He was a money manager and it got the best of him.

7. Make sure your soul is prosperous :  Some receive riches before they have a prosperous soul and the results are not good.  Prosperous soul?  Joyful, free, not in love with money, in love with God, dedicated to the work of God, minding the things of the Spirit of God, etc.

Does God want us to prosper?  Yes!  Yes! And YES!  He wants us to succeed in every area, including finances, but with finances, comes these and other responsibilities.  Looking at the church of America, with it's wealth, it is not hard to see we have not handled wealth but that wealth has handled us.  We aren't building the church, we are building monuments.  We are reaching the lost, we are reaching the found.  Worse, worse, worse, we are measuring spirituality by wealth. 

Most ancient of battles

  

   When you look at Genesis, you see the perfect will of God being displayed.  That picture also pinpoints where spiritual warfare exists at its highest levels.  What was going on there, is what the enemies of God are striving with all their might to keep from happening now.  First, there was creation culminating with God breathing life into man.  The war over that, over men being saved and breathed upon by the Spirit of God is almost beyond description.  So successful has this war been conducted by enemies, men are perfectly will to settle for being a lump of clay, formed after the image of God, but absent of the life of God.  The Holy Ghost creation (new spirit) baptized and breathed life into (Holy Ghbost baptized) life is constantly under attack.  Even those who say they believe in it resist it.  They resist it by just redefining what it is so they can say they believe, they have, but in fact they do not.

   Secondly, God came down to visit with man.  This is "revival".  This is the promise of Acts 3:19 "times of refreshing (revival) from the presence of the Lord".  The resistance to this is equally as widespread and powerful.  The resistance is clever as well.  One way the enemy has seduced us is by just confusing "revival" (a time of refreshing in God's presence) with "harvest", the product of that time in God's presence.  Harvest is souls saved, prayers answered, victory over our foes, dominance over our own flesh.   So seductive has this war been that people don't know the difference. They spend enormous amounts of energy, money, time and everything else trying to have a harvest while studiously avoiding having revival.

   When you look at the modern church and you see that it is almost totally focused on man (not God), you will see the success of our enemy on display.  Man has learned how, by various means, to have "harvest" of a sorts while resisting revival.  Those means might include anything from threats, fear, lollipops, free houses or just well-meaning displays of the love of the brother.  All the while we are producing a "harvest" by our own devices, revival is forsaken.  Revival is a time with God.  The word "refreshing" (Acts 3:19) literally means revival or...a catching of the breath.  God comes and we catch His breath...and it is reviving!   Many are those who have produced harvest by their own devices who are afraid of "revival" for fear it would disturb their harvest (people).  Too much God might drive away those who weren't converted to God to start with.  They were converted to the religious, manipulative promises of man.

   So successful has this war against the plan of God been, people arn't trained or taught the value of revival.  They may value the harvest, but not the revival.  This has required redefining of revival since it is in God's Word, God's plan.  This has also required redefining, harvest, church, and purposes of God.  It is required elimination of "divine order" (loving God first, with all our beingn and then loving man secondly).  It has almost eliminated and certainly redefined the five fold ministry gifts and what they should be doing.  Now, these ministries no longer see it as their duty or work to lead people to  times of refreshing.  Getting people into God's presence is not on their agenda.  True revival meetings have been abandoned.  Since they have not taught people to value a time in God's presence, the people won't show up for it anyway.  It is as if that whole idea of revival has been cut out of their thinking.  They lead people to salvation, to success, to prosperity, to clean living, maturity...but not to God's presence.  They have redefined maturity only as a stable, productive condition.  Being thirsty for a "time" in God's presence and able to have such a time, is not part of their defining of maturity.   They send the youth off to Bible college and go themselves to conferences where they hope to learn a new earthly methods for have a bigger earthly harvest and they buy  into every scheme offered, except the one that requires hungering and thirsting after a "time" with God.

   We have been redeemed from the curse in order for God to give us the blessing of Abraham.  The religious church does not really want Abraham's blessing. To avoid having it, once again,they redefine it.  Some say it was money, some say it was salvation, some come up with other handy dandy definitions.  Abrahams blessing?  It is so simple, you wonder how anybody could miss it.  God came down for a visit.  The harvest?  You.

   

"Broken" or "Non-broken"

     I read in discussion group about how God wants "broken" people. One fellow said we weren't qualified for leadership unless we had first been "broken".  They meant "broken" in a negative way.  I can't figure out where such theology comes from.  Certainly not from the New Testament.  God is trying to fix the "brokenness" and they are honoring and advocating the brokenness.  "Brokenness" to some in this group was a qualifying factor to be in leadership. My question to them was, "Why are we trying to get people healed?"  If God is looking for "brokenness" then shouldn't we just lead people to the edge of the cliff and push them over?  Shouldn't we be praying for everybody to fall back into sin, marriages to fail, health to fail, businesses to fail, so we can arrive at more "brokenness"?  If "brokenness" is what God is seeking, shouldn't we be praying for the failure of our kids so they can arrive at brokenness earlier?

  Maybe these folks mean well, but I think the word they should be using is "yielded", not broken.  Life, sin, failure,etc., does break us, but that is not a step toward promotion. That makes you a candidate for healing, but not leadership.  God can and does heal the broken and use them for His glory, but He is not asking us to go out and get "broken".  My friend, you don't have to be an ex-gang member, business  failure or divorcee to be used of God.  That idea is nonsense.  But, you do have to be filled with the Spirit, yielded to the Spirit, anointed by the Spirit, led by the Spirit, walk in the Spirit and live in the Spirit.  You do have to exercise some faith and some confidence in who you are in Christ.  You do have to hunger and thirst for more and more of that Spirit in whom the anointing is found.

    This thinking about "brokenness" has a way of coming around every now and then.  I was in a revival years ago where the evangelist wanted everybody to come to the altar and get broken before the Lord.  I tried, but I had too much joy, too much love, too much faith, too much Word, to much of God's mercy, and I couldn't do it.  Couldn't squeeze out a single tear of brokenness.  I saw it again more recently in what was supposed to be a "faith" church. The leadership wanted every one to be broken before the Lord and worked hard to get us there.  He said this was going to usher in revival.  It didn't. It ushered in fatigue.

  This reminds me of a Pastor I heard about, years ago, that got caught coming out of an adult movie house.  He explained, "How can I know what to preach against unless I go in and see".  This is more of the nonsense thinking that has invaded so many.  Did Jesus have to be blind to heal the blind?  Did He have to fall into adultery to forgive the adulterer?  Did he have to be broken to heal the broken? The answer is "No" to all of the above.  He was anointed!  And, the anointing that did all that through Him is available to us- right now.   When we qualify ourselves to do the works He did by our earthly experiences (successes or failures), we may be disqualifying ourselves for the anointing that was on Him.  When we think we have to have been broken by the devil, or graduate from some divinity school, we are moving away from dependency on the Spirit of God and leaning on our flesh.  Broken?  Nah!  Yielded?  Yeah!

Apprehending what has apprehended

   

     Paul, once named Saul, was apprehended by the Lord, by the power of the Spirit, while riding along minding his own business of persecuting Christians. Years later, the now elderly Paul is saying he wants to "apprehend" what "apprehended" him.  He declares he does not count himself as having done that, but that he will forget things behind and press forward to the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. 

  I don't think the "high calling" has anything to do with the calling to be an Apostle, Pastor, etc.  It is the calling of God to come to Himself.  God is forever beckoning us onward to follow hard after Him, to keep reaching, keep trying to apprehend.  It is a life lived, reaching for God, never being satisfied with how much we have.  We can be satisfied with "what" we have, but not with "how much" we have.  

   I can never agree with those who think they have all of God there is to have.  I am always reaching for more.  This is what "glory to glory" is about.  This is the work of the Holy Spirit, apprehending us again and again with the glory of God, leaving us always wanting to to get hold of what has gotten hold of us.  Only in heaven, where He will change our "vile" body into a glorious one like His own will we be able to say "I have apprehended what apprehended me".  Until then, we keep reaching, we keep drinking, we keep experiencing, we keep thirsting and hungering, wanting to know Him more and more, wanting to experience Him more and more.

   Don't be content with how much of God you have experienced or think you have.  No matter what you have or what you have experience, there is more.  Much more!  Don't count yourself as having arrived, as having "apprehended".  If Paul couldn't, neither can you, my friend.  Keep reaching!  Keep pressing toward the mark, heeding "high calling".