The Flip Side of Abusive Leaders

The Flip Side of Abuse

During the several decades I have observed church-anity and ecclesia, I have seen as much abuse of leaders as I have abuse by leaders. I have observed some really strange abuse by leaders, for sure, even to the point of leaders drawing blood on a person’s cheek, grasping both cheeks in their fingers until fingernails left streaks of blood, because a person stated they weren’t completely convinced about the leader’s stand on divorce and remarriage or how long a person’s sleeves should be or whether or not a man can have or not have a beard!

However, the abuse of followers can certainly be equal or worse than the abuse of leaders. The casualty list of abused leaders is growing, the roadside strewn with wreckage, pushed off the highway to make room for the next high-speed train of church growth.

None of us has been called to be abused by leaders. Leaders will suffer as leaders because we must remain vulnerable to kicking, biting sheep, overly-energetic warriors who provide inadvertent friendly fire, and people who justify crucifying us for some imagined religious notion – “we are doing God a big favor nailing you to the cross.” (The worst things ever done to mankind have been done in the name of God; He gets blamed for things He had absolutely nothing to do with!)

As a leader, I have seen people abuse my children in an effort to hurt me. I have seen people attack my wife in an effort to discredit me. I have seen people attack my preaching, my dress, my lifestyle, my decisions, my mistakes of tongue and action, my basic humanness, my hairstyle, and my worst difficulties. Ruthanne and I had people say our ministry was cursed when our oldest son was diagnosed with leukemia! (He is healed!)

Recently, after praying with someone about their marriage, we got the blame because someone’s husband left his wife for another woman: our prayers should have been good enough to stop him from leaving his wife and children, and his actions were evidence that we weren’t really anointed.

Sometimes you laugh at people who justify doing everything they can to hurt you with spiritual ideas and Bible quotes. People you trust with leadership only to discover they are having meetings in which they bring everything you are doing into question, use the trust you have given them to separate people to themselves, and couch all these words in pious lies they tell themselves before they tell them to others. Laugh at the absurdity. Cry for the people damaged by betrayals.

Yet, none of this abuse gives me the right to wall myself away from criticism. Everything I do and say should stand scrutiny, and being wrong is not the end of my leadership. Admitting I messed up may actually cause some people to lose confidence in me because they demand a perfect leader (because their pride says they deserve it). However, admitting I messed up will strengthen the trust levels of people who have honor in their hearts.

So, everything I do as a leader should stand scrutiny, but nothing about my leadership calling requires me to be a victim. The test of my leadership is whether I protect the assignment and God’s people or use my leadership, even when I am abused, to protect myself at the expense of the kingdom. So, leaders suffer more than others. Paul speaks of this, tells Timothy to join him in it, and makes this suffering honorable because it is the stuff honor is made of.

In other words, no matter how badly we are treated, we cannot use abuse as justification for bad behavior. We cannot respond in the same spirit. We cannot control a control spirit. We cannot become angrier than the person with out-of-control rage. We cannot throw stronger acid on someone’s bitterness. We cannot be a better politician than the person operating in a political spirit. We cannot attempt to be a terror to others in order to overcome the fear of man.

Victimization and Victory

You must learn the distinction between victimized and victim. I can be victimized and remain victorious. While not “signing up to be a whipping post” or helping people pick out the whip they will use to beat me up, I remain “in place” during seasons of being pelted with tomatoes, remain calm while being screamed at and spit upon, and continue doing what I’m called to do while tremendous pressures are brought to bear that could distract me.

I believe, of course, in submission to God and to others. The most submitted people in the world are kingdom leaders. They are submitted to God and God’s people. Submission means “placing at the disposal of,” and leaders are servants, broken bread, poured-out wine. The greater our leadership the less of our lives and us belongs to us.

There is an important distinction between submission and victimization. I will give account to God for my calling and assignment. So even when a leader is abusive, I must receive a release from God before walking away. That Divine release from leadership assignment allows me to walk away with everything God gave me during that season. Without Divine release, I walk away empty-handed, forced to start over, diminished by short-circuiting my assignment even when my “walkaway” seems justified by that leader’s abuse of my destiny. (Review David’s honor of Saul.)

This is important because we are sometimes mistaken in measuring the difference between discipline and punishment when we are the one being disciplined! To tell the difference, we must be able to discern the difference between discipline and punishment, and be able to honestly measure how much we want to be changed.

Discipline includes pain. That is, painful experiences stop unwanted action and produce right behavior (according to Hebrews 12). Rebuke isn’t evil. Confrontation isn’t evil. Training isn’t evil. Sacrifice isn’t evil. Radical demands aren’t evil.

Discipline will produce good results in your life and calling. Punishment will kill it, imprison it, and force you to start over again. Running from discipline, correction, confrontation, or just being unwilling to have anybody tell you “No,” will leave you where you are no matter how far away you run. Escaping punishment is a relief, because if you suffer for righteousness, you come out with more than you had when you went in. Avoiding discipline reinforces your spiritual couch-potato flabbiness, feeds your foot-stomping “I’m still 4 years old” syndromes, and guarantees that what you do have will be taken away and given to another until you learn to be faithful with little.

Abused by Achievers, Disciplined by Fathers

Watch carefully the difference between leaders who wish to be achievers as opposed to people who function as leaders. Achievers will use you to achieve their goals or the goals of their family, ministry, or cause and crusade. Leaders will develop you and your capacities for goals greater than you or the leader, and will cause you, the leader, and that higher cause to be strengthened, expanded, and established. That’s kingdom!

Fathers do not see their children as competitors. Achievers will always seek to appear better than everyone else, either by eliminating perceived competitors – ‘get them before they get you” – or sabotaging competitors to prove their superiority. This is the Saul syndrome that throws the spear at David.

The reality is that superiority isn’t the measurement of leadership. Good fathers want their children to do better than they do: “You will do what I do and greater shall you do because I go to the Father, ” Jesus says.

Fathers want a harvest in the next generation greater than the harvest of their generation. They embrace a “He must increase and I must decrease” sentiment and motivation, and they understand that their investment is their children’s gain.

Reassignments

(So, now I am going to get myself into the crosshairs of controversy! Feeling kinda left out for a coupla weeks without the red dot of a laser sight on my chest.)

We should assume that a major shift is happening right now in the kingdom. God is reassigning the leadership of tens of thousands from achievers to leaders, from institutional to fathering leadership. Right now a major kingdom reset is happening! The kingdom realignment demands each of us to examine our motivations, measure how effectively and efficiently we are fulfilling kingdom purposes, and run through open doors into fathering leadership. A shift from the spirit of leadership upon Saul to the spirit of leadership upon David is occurring.

Don’t waste time crusading against the previous abuses. Running into the arms of fathers will be the greatest testimony and influence you could have to those held fast in dysfunctional leadership, as victims of their own comfort, and enslaved to achievers through achiever worship.

Since September 2011, when a great shift came to the ecclesia, I have been seated across from many leaders, saying the same thing: “I am looking for a father.” Their commonly held dissatisfaction with leaders who achieve but cannot father calls for careful change, and they are responding to the Father’s call. This change is as great for the ecclesia as Israel’s coming out of Egypt!

If you are a kingdom leader and the predominate purpose of the ministry you are part of is “to accumulate believers” or worship the achievements of the achieving leader, you will inevitably become frustrated. Not that we won’t have mega-churches anymore or that God hates them! No. Not because the “only Biblical model of ecclesia is -.” No. If your goal is to have an achieving leader so you can represent the kingdom in a spiritual Olympics, you are about to be radically shifted!

 

 

 

Abusive Leadership Avoids Accountability

Everything we do as leaders should stand scrutiny, even stand the scrutiny of our enemies in terms of it being righteous. We suffer for righteousness sake: because we are doing and saying right. “But even if ye should suffer for righteousness ‘sake, blessed are ye: and fear not their intimidation, neither be disturbed.” [1 Peter 3:14]

Jesus didn’t tell His critics to shut up, but He did shut them up, so to speak, by confronting their inconsistencies, biases, and irrationality.

I have had “unannounced visitors” who objective seemed to be: analyze our ministry to see if we have been invaded by an Indian demon. Some sloppy DVD work by a discredited, rejected leader has left quite a few simpleminded people with the impression that manifestations of the Spirit are a result of being touched by someone with this demon.

So, the critics arrive armed with silliness to analyze every song, word, dance, motion, manifestation, and posture of the people. They come in on a mission to find this spirit – it’s gotta be here somewhere – so it isn’t hard to find something that resembles whatever perceptions they picked up from the DVD. Someone worshipping with their eyes closed is enough for one critic to say that these people are “under the influence of the devil.”  My preaching  was misuse of Scripture, “taken out of context,” filled with new age code words, and a general work of deception. I cannot see these deceptions “because I am deceived.” But they can; they’ve seen the DVD.

What to do? What to do? I fain would deal with it. I am neither angry nor arrogant about it. Par for the course. To be expected. And, not so terribly unsettling.

I believe it was Thomas Edison who said we can avoid criticism by doing, saying, and being nothing.

Scrutiny Isn’t Evil

Testing your behaviors and message, or having them tested, isn’t a bad thing, so when these critics get off the highway to find another ministry to critique, I use this as an opportunity. All our leadership should stand scrutiny. So, I made some minor changes to our behaviors simply because they unnecessarily appeared odd and communicated something other than what our worship and ministry assignment is designed to communicate. Being odd for the sake of oddness has no virtue.

I have discovered that people can find something wrong, “unbiblical,” and demonic in nearly any aspect of ministry. The music is a great place to “identify demonic tendencies.” The preaching can be analyzed infinitum for opportunities to disagree about what Jesus, Paul, and other Scriptures writers meant by what they said. Spiritual manifestations are all opportunities to “uncover deceptions of hell!” Amazingly, I have yet to find one thing we do that someone doesn’t find this questionable.

I would like to spit in some dirt, make mud, and anoint someone’s eyes just to see how many experts would tell me that was of the devil. [Hint: Jesus did this. Of course, someone would then say, "But you aren't Jesus so you shouldn't do that."]

I would find it interesting to confront a demon in a ministry setting operating within a Christian because people don’t like to admit demons can function inside the same building with Christians, let alone within Christians. People have two favorites Scriptures to quote to “prove” I’m wrong. [Jesus functioned very openly in front of Jesus wherever He went; that didn't mean Jesus was the problem!]

Dancing makes us really vulnerable to criticism, of course. It happens right there in front of God and everybody, but dancing doesn’t make people demonized or demonstrate their demonization. A person falling down doesn’t determine they are right or wrong. Even speaking something from Scripture in a way that is different from someone else speaks it doesn’t mean you are deceived by a demonic infestation, an exotic Indian spirit that turns the whites of your eyes brown. Strangely, the assumption that anything people filled with the Spirit does can be more likely demonic than seems odd to me. People who do not dance, manifest, shake, shout, or preach are more likely under the influence of a hellish strategy than people sincerely seeking God!

However, I did recognize that good people have learned behaviors they tend toward in God’s presence that are not directly caused by God’s Presence. That is, God is present and these good people are responding to Him, but their mannerisms are sometimes learned more than spontaneous responses. That is not wrong but can be distracting, and by that I mean that distraction is about the worst problem this causes; a distraction to them personally because they could be experiencing God in new ways, and a distraction to others who observed the behaviors because they seem contrived.

Back to the story, these people come without an invite, then they proceed to “discern the spirit” and pronounce a “I have warned you” word over me. “You been told” is their pride’s pronouncement, a deeply held assumption that they have the responsibility to straighten me out.

Argument is a waste of time; however, scrutiny isn’t a cause of panic. Obviously, they didn’t actually have a revelation of something demonic outside their own silliness produced by spending too much time in front of their DVD player, but I want to see my critics as helpful because they require me to look another time at what we are doing and think about why we are doing it.

Everything we do should stand scrutiny, even from the most ridiculous, ill-informed, irrational, and religious critics.

Living by Someone Else’s Emotions and Misconceptions

The Bible makes it clear that our suffering for doing something wrong isn’t worthy of honor, as is our suffering for doing right. So use of the phrase, “If you obey God, you will not suffer!” sparingly. Just the opposite is true, and Jesus, Peter, James, and Paul couldn’t have been clearer about it.

Abusive leaders and people like to make their abuse your fault, not theirs. Amazingly, this effort often works well. “Now, look what I was forced to do because of what you did,” becomes a mantra for their out-of-control behaviors.

“Of course, I shouldn’t have over-reacted like that, but what was I to do? You just weren’t listening.” This works both in leaders and those following leaders as easily and often. The justification for over-reaction and abusive behaviors always tends toward projecting the blame on the victim.

The abusers leaves the impression that their abuse isn’t part of their disposition, a product of their own inner issues, but something forced upon them and revealed through them by the environment, the pressure, the people, the demands, the expectations, the battle – you made me do it!

Hey, I think I’ve heard it all and then I hear something that amazes me in a brand new way. The behaviors of abusers are often excusable in their own minds, justified by some warp of the soul, and perhaps touted as beneficial and redemptive when taken in the context of their inaccurate assumptions. Some abusive leader produces a sadly inaccurate hatchet job, comparing godly leaders to some eastern guru, and people use this silliness as proof that they have some great Biblical revelation.

Its not their fault, of course, because they wish everyone else to live in bondage to their emotions and inconsistencies while they attempt to take the moral high ground by being a bit more pompous and “right with God” than the rest of us. It is avoidance behavior. It is projection. It is a rejection test upon which they base the reasonableness of their holding hands with the accuser of the brethren. When I saw the DVD, which I watched to determine the basis for the criticism, I thought, “Well, the devil couldn’t have done a better job of discrediting revival.”

The point I am making is that criticism shouldn’t become our excuse for abuse. What we do should stand scrutiny without making an example of someone, investing a great deal of emotion in “doing a better job of criticizing them back,” or “bringing down the judgment of God upon their heads.”

What to Do with Criticism – Punishment or Discipline

There is a marked difference between discipline and punishment. Kingdom leaders don’t punish. That’s for God and government to do – the courts, the police, the sword of government that serves God’s design for society, to be a terror to them that do evil. (See Romans 13)

We discipline. We aren’t a terror to them that do evil. We don’t terrorize people and call for their final end, avenging their evil behavior. God has a plan for that. Punishment is the end reward of evil. Discipling produces changed behavior.

When leaders punish, they abuse. When people demonize someone, an end reward for evil, they punish them, mark them like Cain. They abuse because they assume no redemptive change is possible, or they do not wish any redemptive change to occur. They simply want the person to “go away.” Punish is a terror to them who do evil, for sure, but we are not in the business of terrorizing people into submission. We are leading people who submit to leadership and discipline. Discipline generates redemptive transformation, strengthens the will, and produces peaceable, right-action fruit. (See Hebrews 12)

We shouldn’t use Matthew 18 to punish people. We walk through Matthew 18 to produce redemptive change, restoring people and relationships, and reuniting the ecclesia. We walk through Matthew 18 even for the person who refuses to make things right so we can properly respond to that person: “if he will not listen, treat him like an outsider” means that we start all over with the person, the same way we would treat any unsaved person who isn’t part of the ecclesia. Even the ultimate step of Matthew 18 discipline is redemptive, not punishment or banishment.

The instructions of Jesus in Matthew 18 have been pieced out to prove several inconsistent claims and misrepresentations. Read with a proper understanding of what ecclesia is and does, we find, among other things, that Jesus is making discipline available to every person within the called together assembly. To use Matthew 18 to punish people who don’t toe the line leaders set is abusive. Matthew 18 is there more for personal relationships than corporate behaviors. A different process should be used to deal with rebellion, disobedience, and destructive disunity.

In any case, Matthew 18 prescribes restoration through confrontation, not punishment and banishment. While Scripture does say to “avoid people who produce division” including eating with them, listening to their bitter poisons, and taking part in their justifications for wrong-doing, the purpose of re-relating to people who are into “ugly” is to produce changed behavior and to protect your own heart and mind from poison. That is, we relate to them upon the basis of discipline. The discussion we have is about their refusal to make right what they did wrong; not to prove “we are loving” by ignoring their rebellion and abuse toward another kingdom citizen.

Jesus says a person with “a beef” ought to communicate with the people with whom he has the beef, not communicate “ugly” with everyone else. This is punishment, not discipline. This is destructive, not redemptive. This creates more division and fragmentation, cynicism and doubt, not the deeper trust that God has designed for the ecclesia, her ability to heal and strengthen herself in the worst life can throw at her.

If you are part of the ecclesia with leaders who cannot deal with conflict and misunderstanding in a way that produces redemption and peace, you should examine your assignment. What I mean is this, “Am I assigned to this leadership or am I ‘attending church’ for some other personal, less purposeful reason.” You should be able to endure some level of imperfection in leadership dynamics, but you should avoid the more common ills of kingdom dysfunction in which ecclesia has been altered into socialization of Christians and the maintenance of a subculture.

Since the main thing leaders do is make decisions and solve problems, you gotta ask yourself, “How long should I endure following leaders who do neither well.” In the words of the Declaration of Independence: “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

In other words, no one should shallowly or flippantly separate from their assignments, creating division and disunity in the Body without counting the cost that division brings to the whole of the kingdom. No one should believe for a moment they can just “go to church wherever I please to get whatever I want for myself.” However, understanding abusive leadership and separating from dysfunctional leadership will be necessary at times, and when any leadership refuses to stand to scrutiny, that leadership is by definition dysfunctional.

Dunamis Power

(See also Jesus on Raising the Dead)

Jesus was a miracle worker. Consistently. With intent to manifest God’s kingdom power, He confronted the limiting factors of demons, disease, deficiency, and death. He ministered in the power of Holy Spirit. He ministered in this way because this is how things work in His kingdom; He ministered this way because He intended us to minister this way.

“Dunamis” is the Greek term translated “power” in Jesus’ promise to His original representatives: “You shall receive dunamis when Holy Spirit comes upon you.” The term means “being able, capacity, ability, to be capable of.”

Jesus functioned in spiritual power, capacity or capability, and ability that did not come from Him personally that was released through Him. God put dunamis into Jesus so He could release dunamis through Jesus. This power is present to accomplish. Jesus has the capability to do things by spiritual power.

This is a kingdom norm originated with Jesus to set a new norm for the kingdom that He makes eternal. This is the kingdom power with which Jesus intends to influence and impact every nation on earth. This is the kingdom power that is released into the ecclesia and its leaders so this power can be released through the ecclesia and its leaders into every part of the earth.

Dunamis in the Ministry of Jesus

Jesus’ ministry built upon a strong declaration and demonstration: preaching and power. He would demonstrate and preach from the demonstration; He would preach and demonstrate from the preaching.

Jesus released power with His words. He did no magic tricks. He would touch people for sure as well as spit, make mud, send people to wash, forgive sins, and send His Word to places other than where He was. Still, He didn’t use formulas and incantations, release secret sayings, or invoke imagined controllers of the “powers of heaven.”

We often use the word “miracle” as a hyperbole with meanings that range from every baby born is a little miracle to “I am a miracle of grace.” The use of the term in so many ways that do not involve dunamis power shouldn’t keep us from understanding what dunamis power is, how it works or operates, and what the charismata of miracles is.

The word “miracle” is translated from three or four Greek words. So, the “miracles, signs, and wonders” terms are all needed to speak of what the Bible says of miracles. Jesus did signs, wonders, and miracles, and the terms are somewhat mixed together in terms of translation.

John 2:11 – “This is the first of the signs that He did.” [semeion, sign, only translated 2 times as miracle in KJV, actually speaks of something God does to mark, signify, and confirm that what is happening, the cause being pursued, and the message are God’s, and the person speaking and acting is sent by God.

Acts 2:22 – “You men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God unto you by miracles and wonders and signs which God did by Him among you, even as you yourselves know;”

2 Corinthians 12:12 – “Certainly, the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, by signs and wonders and miracles.”

The ecclesia prayed that these acts of God would continue and expand, and they did. Through the hands of the apostles, through those who were not called apostles, and recorded to have occurred wherever the Gospel of the Kingdom was preached and demonstrated.

Dunamis Power is in You!

Jesus made it apparent that the power He was releasing was the power He was carrying. Power came upon Jesus to rest within Jesus so that wherever He was that power was available.

Jesus wasn’t the only One releasing spiritual power in His generation. The Greek and Jewish cultures were filled with miraculous happenings and miracle-workers. Yet, the miracles of Jesus were different:

1. No connection with magic;
2. Miracles happened by spoken words;
3. Faith of Jesus and faith of the one receiving were operational.

The New Testament knows the word “magic,” and notably avoids using this term with respect to Jesus. In fact, the New Testament uses the word “magic” in contrast with and to miracles, signs, and wonders. Jesus is accused of using magic but the charge never sticks.

Jesus gets into trouble over miracles, signs, and wonders: deliverances, doing miracles on the Sabbath, and

The release of power came predominately through commands. He didn’t use potions and pronouncements. He didn’t use magic phrases or ancient sayings that commanded spiritual forces. He was unique in a time of history filled with magic shows.

Jesus made it very clear that He expected people to believe God sent him because of this power demonstration, among other things. He also made it clear that He expected people to believe in God’s power, have faith in addition to His faith both to do miracles and to receive miracles.

Jesus made it clear that faith to engage dunamis power was a kingdom norm.

Dunamis Power is Transferrable and Tangible

Jesus gave power and authority to His disciples while here on earth, then declared that a greater operations of miracles, signs, and wonders would occur after He was gone. He made the clear statement, “Greater than these shall you do.” Jesus always made it clear that the power was working through people, that they were doing the miracles, signs, and wonders because His power was in them.

Jesus miracles could be categorized in this way:

• Deliverances, as many as seven stories
• Healings, many – blind, deaf, diseased, crippled, sickness, ear restored
• Raising the Dead – three stories
• Nature miracles, signs, and wonders – coin in fish, walking on water, feeding thousands by multiplication, miracle fish catch, quieting the storm, water to wine, fig tree dies

Each and all of these miracles, signs, and wonders occur today! The very same anointing that was upon Jesus is available in the kingdom through the ecclesia so that in the Body of Christ, everything Jesus did can be done, and the greater works that He did also can be done. Here and now!

Miracles, Signs and Wonders Have Purpose

Beware the tendency “to do miracles” and “raise the dead” for its own sake. That is, the “forget the big stuff and just go heal somebody” mentality is juvenile, even childish, in motivation and ministry outcome. It is as silly to ignore the strategy of miracles as it is to not do them. As beautiful as the miracle is, a greater purpose awaits: Jesus wants you to know what to do when a miracle happens, because many people don’t. Jesus wants you to be big enough as a person doing miracles to be able to handle what happens after the miracle.

The road is already strewn with the twisted, wreckage of delusion, miracle workers who bought into the hype and press of their groupies, men and women who began to see themselves and their power as the end of the matter more than the kingdom, leaving piles of people used and abused like circus freaks. Because they could see, speak, do, and perform like spiritual X-men, they wanted to treat like rock stars; they avoided accountability.

Beware the tendency to make a “life on assignment to do miracles” proof that “God still does miracles.” (God is doing no such thing!) Suddenly the confirmation gets misplaced. A couple of steps later, you will be using these miracles as proof of something other than the assignment. The timing of miracles and raising the dead will always function consistently with the greater setting of assignment, synchronizing with assignment.

So, this response, valid and Biblical, to set a place and time never detracts from the greater timing of you being “on time” with a miracle! This never detracts from you being trained through shared spiritual experiences, through what happens in front of you and around you as you follow leaders who disciple you. This never detracts from you releasing the same power anywhere, anytime! However, the timing of miracles isn’t in your control. Remember the example of Paul being troubled by the Python oracle girl in Philippi before he releases deliverance; he didn’t do the miraculous the first time he encountered her.

Changing water into wine is a good example. Jesus says to Mary, “It is not My time.” And, the miracle creates a wonderful, glorious mess. In fact, the miracles Jesus did contributed more to His death than what He said; they used His words against Him but the motivation for His death came from His miracles. Because of the undeniable-ability of the miracles, His enemies were pressed to the wall. The raising of Lazarus brings the whole thing to its ultimate.

If you are thinking that I am detracting from the concept that every Christian should be a carrier of miracles and dead-raising power, forget it! The only reason I’m talking to you like this is to prepare you to live with that power released because when you start releasing it your life will be turned upside down! Most of you are not releasing this power within you because you are not ready for the mess miracles create. You want it both ways: “Lord, do miracles through me but don’t make a mess.” Sorry, not gonna happen!

 

Jesus on Raising the Dead

God wants you to see miracles, the dead raised, and believers activated in the power of the kingdom. Can everyone do miracles? Probably not. Can everyone see miracles happen through their prayer and faith? Yes! There is a difference.

I want to talk with you about raising the dead because God is raising the dead. God is doing miracles. God wants you to participate in the working of miracles and raising the dead.

Jesus didn’t make raising the dead, or any miracle, into a “this is so easy, a caveman could do it” exhibit. Beware the concept that miracles that extraordinary are supposed to be commonplace, and especially the idea that anybody is going to become a superhuman “manifested son” anytime soon. Read that God did extraordinary miracles through Paul in Ephesus and recognize that Paul didn’t always walk in the same manifestation of power or simply go city to city doing a same miracle show. [See Acts 19]

Beware the currently-popular impression that God can’t wait to have everybody doing miracles and raising dead people, and the accompanying impression that the only reason this isn’t happening now has something to do with bothersome little things like leadership and accountability, or the fact that the ecclesia is “stuck inside a building.” While the ecclesia has been stuck inside building, that isn’t the blockage to miracles. Miracles happen! Building or no, public or private. While we should be releasing kingdom everywhere, it is spurious indeed to consider that Jesus hasn’t designed the ecclesia to assemble and that a preponderance of miracles should happen within that strategic assembly. The term ecclesia actually means “called together assembly” so we understand that God will do miracles in the assembly, but not exclusively so. Being on the streets and in a building are not two mutually exclusive forums.

We are to do what Jesus did and greater; building or no building, inside, outside, upside, downside. We are to do miracles and raise the dead. We shouldn’t fall into trap of making something common that God’s makes holy, however; God makes miracles special and uncommon because each has Divine purpose. We shouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking we can do anything we want whenever or wherever… Not only is that an exaggeration, it is actually opposed to God’s purposes in miracles, signs, wonders, and dead-raising. God isn’t interested in us turning His miracles into something else.

Miracles are free but it costs you everything to release them. So, before you sign up and desire to walk in this gift and anointing, consider what you are seeking. Scripture does ask us to desire prophecy to edify, encourage, and motivate the ecclesia and touch those who come into our assembly. Scripture does not ask us to seek miracles, signs, and wonders in the same way it charges us to seek prophesy. Scripture most assuredly does not teach us to shun them, deny them, and label any as devilish because we are in the last days either! God wants everyone to pray with power to make great power available: James 5 says we are people with the same human passions as Elijah, and a righteous man’s prayer makes great power available – power to change weather patterns!

Something new is upon us now, and we see an increase of manifestations of God’s power, Glory, signs, and authority. However, I know some good people who aren’t performing miracles, people that no amount of whoopee and hi-fives will position to do miracles. I don’t know anyone who is exempt from praying in faith and moving mountains and making miracle power available. The Bible does say we should all desire to prophesy, but it doesn’t say that everyone who is saved will consistently, everyday, do the same stuff Paul did in Ephesus with sweat rags and work aprons being carried to the sick and demonized.

Since we are doing what Jesus did and greater, we need to look at Jesus to discover our motives and modis operandi for the miraculous. Both are of fundamental importance. To do what Jesus did, we need to do it for the same reasons Jesus did it. We need the same power; and, we need the same motivations.

First on the list of miracles and raising the dead is that someone needs a miracle, someone dies. In other words, some really tough circumstances frame a miracle or dead-raising opportunity. A miracle is a work of Dunamis power, spiritual power working in the physical world. Dead-raising is like ultimate healing-the person will eventually die again, not live forever.

A lying wonder or false miracle, so-called, is easily recognizable to people tuned into God’s purpose and synchronized to His motivations. Deception can be as equally easy when Christians or anyone else walk in wrong motivations and seek to accomplish purposes that vary from God’s. Miracles, signs, and wonders are not given to confirm you but your assignment and your message. No matter how great the miracle, the purpose of God in the miracle is more important that the power display or the people involved.

So, if you are not called to preach, no manner or method of miracle will call you. So, if you are not called to be an apostle, prophet, evangel, teacher, shepherd no manner or method of miracle will call you to be one. If you are not assigned to lead a ministry or ecclesia, no manner or method of miracle will make you a leader. Yet, no matter what your assignment, your prayer of faith can release miracle-working power available because the same Spirit that raised Jesus from among the dead abides in you.

Simply put, people who expect to be recognized as leaders, experts, or preachers who are not called, appointed, or assigned will not get a promotion through working miracles. Along with our teaching that God can use any one of His children at any moment to do anything, we need to affirm God’s strategic leadership that brings accountability to any one of these children. Miracles make the need for accountability greater; they never remove the need for accountability. No one gets to say, “Don’t question my words, life, or motives! I do miracles!”

Jesus on Assignment, verse 7 compare verse 15

The strategy of an assignment only makes sense within the context of the assignment. Jesus knows Lazarus is sick and will die from this sickness. Jesus knows the assignment to raise Lazarus, when and where, will have specific significance to His Messianic assignment. Jesus acts strategically throughout this specific assignment to raise the dead; His behavior is consistent with the greater assignment upon His life.

Beware the tendency “to do miracles” and “raise the dead” for its own sake. That is, the “forget the big stuff and just go heal somebody” mentality is juvenile, even childish, in motivation and ministry outcome. It is as silly to ignore the strategy of miracles as it is to not do them. As beautiful as the miracle is, a greater purpose awaits: Jesus wants you to know what to do when a miracle happens, because many people don’t. Jesus wants you to be big enough as a person doing miracles to be able to handle what happens after the miracle.

Jesus has a non-formalized ministry, so He certainly avoids formulas for raising the dead. Jesus does this to keep us two steps from magic show religion at the very moment we step into the miraculous. He teaches His disciples by shared spiritual experiences, correcting their motivations and false expectations, feeding their wonder while rebuking their juvenile cheerleading and false assumptions about what the miracles will produce for Him and them.

They want the miracles to make Him King so they could have a quick upgrade in respect and self-worth. He wants to show what His kingdom is like, what He does when He is King. They love the miracles because they make them feel that Jesus is winning and they have backed the right leader. They intend to cash in on the kingdom and Jesus’ miracles fascinate them. They misinterpret the meaning of the miracles, and Jesus feeds them full of revelation so they will be ready for the devastating reality of the cost those miracles to Him and them.

Childlike wonder should be part of our worship. Creeping cynicism comes as the pressure to perform mounts around us. The truth is that miracles push us into a crazy new world – a whirling, high-tech Disney ride gets built in people’s minds when miracles happen – and Jesus needs someone to establish kingdom with miracles amid the superstition and sensationalism hell and humanity flashes around them.

After the raising the dead, the dead must live. The living is harder than the raising.

If hell cannot keep you from miracles and raising the dead, hell will work to limit the impact of miracles on building kingdom, even making miracles a stumbling block for deception. In other words, if hell cannot keep the kingdom from releasing miracles, hell will offer the kingdom the wrong way, people, motives, outcomes, and scenarios for miracles to discredit them. hell is happy for your strengths to get stronger as long as your weaknesses get weaker.

The road is already strewn with the twisted, wreckage of delusion, miracle workers who bought into the hype and press of their groupies, men and women who began to see themselves and their power as the end of the matter more than the kingdom, leaving piles of people used and abused like circus freaks. Because they could see, speak, do, and perform like spiritual X-men, they wanted to be treated like rock stars; they avoided accountability.

Jesus on Timing, verse 6 compare verse 17

The timing of assignment is about when the assignment starts and finishes but also the timing of actions and behaviors within the assignment. Always see miracles as assignments; the word “miracle” says “a work of dunamis power.” Always see a life of doing miracles as a life on assignment so the assignment will define the proper motives for the miracles.

Beware the tendency to make a “life on assignment to do miracles” proof that “God still does miracles.” (God is doing no such thing!) Suddenly the confirmation gets misplaced. A couple of steps later, you will be using these miracles as proof of something other than the assignment. The timing of miracles and raising the dead will always function consistently with the greater setting of assignment, synchronizing with assignment.

Jesus keeps us two steps from scheduled ministry, from Day-Timer prioritization of time and sequence. We must avoid the assumption that miracles and raising the dead function in a vacuum, without context. There are no accidental, coincidental miracles. They are timed within a greater strategy of kingdom, and the timing of miracles fit the priorities of the kingdom agenda. The timing is always God’s, not ours.

Jesus also avoids the “magic moment” scenario of the miraculous, the “almanac phase of the moon” timing for miracles. We are going to have scheduled ministry, but this isn’t designed to Day-Timer God! This is the proper response to “they brought to Him the sick” and “they brought the demonized to Him.” It is also a valid response to “call for the elders” if you are in need.

So, this response, valid and Biblical, to set a place and time never detracts from the greater timing of you being “on time” with a miracle! This never detracts from you being trained through shared spiritual experiences, through what happens in front of you and around you as you follow leaders who disciple you. This never detracts form you releasing the same power anywhere, anytime! However, the timing of miracles isn’t in your control. Remember the example of Paul being troubled by the Python oracle girl in Philippi before he releases deliverance; he didn’t do the miraculous the first time he encountered her.

Changing water into wine is a good example. Jesus says to Mary, “It is not My time.” And, the miracle creates a wonderful, glorious mess. In fact, the miracles Jesus did contributed more to His death than what He said; they used His words against Him but the motivation for His death came from His miracles. Because of the undenial-ability of the miracles, His enemies were pressed to the wall. The raising of Lazarus brings the whole thing to its ultimate.

If you are thinking that I am detracting from the concept that every Christian should be a carrier of miracles and dead-raising power, forget it! The only reason I’m talking to you like this is to prepare you to live with that power released because when you start releasing it your life will be turned upside down! Most of you are not releasing this power within you because you are not ready for the mess miracles create. You want it both ways: “Lord, do miracles through me but don’t make a mess.” Sorry, not gonna happen!

Jesus on Target, verse 2 compare 39

The sister who anointed Jesus for His burial anoints her brother for his burial. Coincidental? Lazarus isn’t a reward for her obedience as much as her preparation for Jesus’ burial was preparation for her brother’s resuscitation. She was assigned to anoint Jesus because Jesus was assigned to raise her brother. Strategic obedience sets you up for strategic miracles. Jesus has a target for this miracle: Lazarus. Not everybody else dead. Lazarus wasn’t supposed to be dead yet.

Jesus on Truth verse 4 compare verse 14

The situation requires interpretation based upon the assignment; it can only be properly understood through the lens of assignment. In raising the dead, something greater than “He loved them” is required. Jesus loved them but Lazarus died. Jesus loved them but Jesus is raised on assignment, not because Jesus gets to be nice to His friends.

Jesus on Set-up verse 19 compare verse 45

The stage is designed by the assignment, the staging set tells the story of the assignment. Sometimes no one sees the miracle. Sometimes many see the miracle. The setting matches the assignment. Miracles have assignment tied to them. Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead sets Jesus up for His own death. You ready for that? Miracles will set you up for crucifixion, so don’t be surprised if God crucifies you before He uses you to raises the dead.

Jesus on Passion verse 33 compare verse 38

The passion of people and the passion of the Father are not the same. Something more that faith is required to function in faith. Jesus responds both to His Father and the people. Both. But the passion of the Father alone releases assignment, not the passion of people. Passion and suffering walk together; they are not strangers.

Jesus on Glory verse 40 compare verse 52

Raising the dead to see the Glory of God flows from the groans of purpose, assignment begun and finished, death begetting death, life begetting life, passion begetting purpose.

Culture and Behavior: Great Commission Discipling

Jesus’ command for His kingdom representatives: “Go and wherever you go, disciple the cultures.” While there are other words for “people” and “political” that identify people-groups and nations, the term Jesus used was more about the culture that binds people together and identifies them by their customs and manner of living.

I would propose that we look at culture as the behavior of a group of people that share values and beliefs: what is behavior for the individual is culture for a group of individuals, often millions of individuals. This is overly simplistic, I know, but it helps us discuss what Jesus says.

Note that Jesus didn’t say, “Go, disciple individuals within every culture” as the basis for measuring success. While Jesus certainly meant that individuals within cultures would be born into the kingdom and learn how to function as citizens of the kingdom and members of the ecclesia where they live, He didn’t say that. He says, “disciple ethnos.” He addressed the idea that the kingdom should have influence and impact upon the shared beliefs and customs of the nations to which His kingdom representatives would go. Upon arrival, their Message would have a greater influence and impact beyond the transformation of individuals within the nations. In this way, the earliest kingdom representatives would have both revival and riot!

In many ways, the term Jesus used contrasts Jews and non-Jews. It is often used to denote “the nations” in a way that Jews contrasted themselves as God’s kingdom culture with non-Jews who did not have access to the revelation of Law and Prophets. A kind of “Sodom had no Bible” comparison and contrast between God’s people of revelation and those whose cultures were built with superstitions and false gods, errant world views and philosophies, and customs and manners contrary to God’s norms.

The term is also used to contrast between the kingdom people and the world in the New Testament. Once Jesus established the kingdom, the kingdom of God was available to all people, nations, and cultures. He wanted His kingdom representatives to arrive at these new places and peoples with a Message and authority to influence and impact the foundations of their cultures.

The term, ethos, means “habit, custom, law in the sense of behavior or ordinance. It is used as a technical term for the Jewish form of sacrifice and redemptive worship. This term speaks of the habitual behavior. For example, Hebrews 10:26 decries the “ethos” of some who have forsaken assembling together: the very term “ecclesia” assumes that assembling together will occur, but some short-circuited this innate aspect of the ecclesia, and the word is used to note this as a behavior.

The New Testament predominately uses this term to identify the unique culture of Israel and to contrast that unique culture with the rest of the nations and their cultures. So, in this context, Jesus is saying that the culture God established in His chosen people should be exported to every other people group with the goal of establishing His kingdom culture: “teaching them all that I have commanded you.”

Behavior Change

The first voice of the New Testament, John the Baptist, came to announce that Someone was coming who would fundamentally alter the way spiritual power and authority affected people and cultures. He laid the foundation of this startling announcement with a message on repentance. Within that message was the assumption that repentance would produce changed behavior: “bring forth the fruits of repentance.”

Repentance, for John, meant changed behavior, and John would baptize in water to prophesy that observable change. John did say that the One who was coming later, the One for whom John was preparing them, would have a more powerful and transformational baptism of Holy Spirit and fire. John then noted that the baptism of Jesus would “completely cleanse with fire until the unwanted chaff or waste would be completely consumed.”

In other words, the work of Christ inside would produce the fruits of lifestyle transformation outside.

Behavior change is a fruit, not a source; but behavior change is essential to conversion. Christ alters the inner nature, motivations, and thinking so fundamentally and thoroughly that behavior change is inescapable and inevitable. Fire burns. Passion purifies. Mind renews. All these are fundamental to the conversion of a man from death to life.

The discipling of a man born anew is all about continuing spiritual experiences that fundamentally alter the inner man and produce observable, measurable changes in that man’s behaviors based upon transformation of his mind, motivations, and spiritual makeup.

So when Jesus uses the words “disciple ethnos,” He is referring to the internal changes of a culture, affecting the thinking and presuppositions and worldview, the motivating values, and the spiritual conditions and atmospheres that influence and control. He is referring to kingdom representatives who have a Message, authority, and power to influence and impact the behaviors of nations.

This is the Great Commission. Rethinking each phrase of that commission in this light will create a contrast in your mind between what Jesus was thinking when He said it and what we make it mean to fit that commission and our measurement of success. The accumulation of believers in spiritual cocoons does not approach the measurement Jesus mentions. A Gospel that does not create revival and riot is a Gospel that lacks the fundamental confrontation of culture that Jesus assumes.

Jesus is asking for the Americanization of the nations as we in this nation arrogantly assumed in the past. He was asking for the cultures of all nations to be transformed from within by His Message, authority, and power with such effectiveness that the thinking, habits, and customs of those nations would be changed.

So, measuring the effectiveness of the modern American church on its own culture, let alone the impact of the American church upon other cultures, we would have to say that the accumulation of believers into larger and more sophisticated spiritual subcultures of religious beliefs and practices has failed miserably to fulfill the mandate of Jesus for His kingdom representatives.

I wonder if we are even attempting to disciple individuals with the same goal as Jesus. I am certain we are not approaching an effective attempt to disciple cultures.

How Free Do You Want to Be?

During the ministry of Jesus, many believed on Him because of His Word and works. A period of popularity continued in which people were embracing Jesus’ ministry and leadership.

Jesus says, “If you continue in My Word, you are really My disciples and you shall know the Truth and the Truth shall set you free.”

Now, this sets the tone for our discussion of freedom. The center piece upon which this promise turns is the word “continue.” Jesus is not talking about exposure to His Word as an instantaneous download of Truth. He is talking about a process of progress through which experiencing Truth produces greater freedom.

There is not magic wand of freedom, and the freedom you have come from experiencing truth that comes from continuing in His Word.

Jesus doesn’t say, “You will be exposed to truth and be free.” Or, “You will know about truth and be free.” He doesn’t even say, “You will be convinced of truth and be free.”

He says, “You will be real disciples if you continue in My word, and you will know the truth by experiencing truth. Experiencing truth as disciples will set you free.”

Take care not to quote this section of Scripture in a manner that suggests magic-wand transformation when Jesus is specific about continuing, discipling, and experiencing as a basis for freedom.

More Than Decade of FreedomMinistry

After ministering freedom to tens of thousands of people for more than a decade, I am more convinced than ever that the healthiest ministry of the ecclesia requires strong discipling leadership, that the way Jesus taught salvation, redemption, freedom, and leadership presumed relationships in which accountability was primary and pervasive.

Hear His voice: “You believe in Me? Great! True disciples continue in My word in a way that makes them accountable to live out the consequences of what they believe. In this way, you experience truth that sets you free.”

Of course, I am quick to say that there are many styles of ministering freedom that are valid and successful. Deliverance, inner healing, breaking curse, restoring wounded hearts, and reclaiming the spirit, soul, and body of people from darkness can be done in more than one way. Successfully. People are really free from demonization through power ministries, prayer, authority, in an instant!

However, remember that Jesus isn’t talking about that in this passage. He is talking about living free through discipling. Discipling makes us accountable for revelation that arrives from outside us and for which we are accountable. Leaders make us accountable.

By definition, ecclesia includes discipling. By definition, discipling includes leadership. By definition, leadership includes accountability. By definition, leadership includes submission.

Many people who do not continue in His Word refuse to be accountable for the very issues in their lives that keep them in bondage. The prescription of Jesus for freedom involves discipling, and discipling involves accountability. How free do you want to be?

hell attempts to convince people that leadership is bondage! Wow! Blatantly unBiblical, yet effective strategy to separate people from the leadership and accountability necessary to experience freedom! Jesus doesn’t say, “No man can serve no master.” He says, “No man can serve two masters.” This issue isn’t to not have any leadership! Just the opposite: to have the leadership that disciples truth into your life so you can experience truth in a liberating way.

Are we satisfied with people coming to know Jesus then live decades without the radical life-change knowing Jesus through discipling leadership produces? Are we happy to accumulate believers instead of maturing believers into leaders? Are we lowering the bar to include nearly every lifestyle and behavior, dumbing down the Message to accomplish a goal inconsistent with the goals of Jesus?

If our definition of church doesn’t include the development of leadership, we miss the meaning of the word “ecclesia,” and we fail to cooperate with what Jesus is building. Ecclesia is a legislative assembly of kingdom people; so, we should be producing people who can function with maturity, integrity, and freedom to establish kingdom justice and judgment in the earth. We are not called to find novel ways to tease people into showing up for a religious show once or twice a month.

Strength of Will

Do you really want to be free of addictions? Then, strengthen your will. Fast. Clean your house of the things to which you are addicted. Change the behavior in which you are comfortable returning to that activity. Change the relationships that encourage that addiction. Unplug the technology that opens the door. Throw away the reading materials that tell you it is normal. Stop living by the flesh and surrender to the power of the Spirit!

Do you really want to be free of shame? Then, stop watching displays of shame produced by a trillion-dollar industry bent upon making shame the bondage of choice. Stop listening to jokes, reading books, watching TV shows, and having fellowship with darkness that diminishes your inhibitions! Stop feeding your lust!

Do you really want to be free from the confusion of gossip, murmuring, and division? Then, stop opening your life to evil by listening or conversing with people who exhibit this behavior. Stop opening your mind through your cell phone, email, social network, and conversations to people who bring questions to everything God, your leaders, and you are doing in obedience to God.

Do you really want to be free? Make yourself accountable to leaders who know His word and have the courage and compassion to bring correction to your life. The strength of will that comes from them is what you need while you build the same strength of will yourself. There are few things more fundamental to freedom than accountability.

People who really want to be free don’t continue behaviors, associations, and information processing that contributes to bondage. They change to be changed – the discipline of repentance that activates and appropriates the power of the Cross.

People who really want to be free submit to leaders, make themselves accountable, confess their faults to be healed, cease covering what needs to be confronted. “If you are really My disciples, continue in My word.”

Discipling is not being followed. We “follow” someone’s Tweets. Jesus was talking about leaving something and following Him in a way that made the person’s life available and accountable for discipling. We follow so we can be discipled.

At a very fundamental level, this settles the question of whether or not we should “attend church” by redefining both terms. “Attend” should mean “accountable to leadership to continue,” and “church” should mean “the kingdom assembly Jesus calls together to accomplish kingdom assignments.”

Discipling that is more “learning about the Truth” than “experiencing the truth through accountability to live the Truth” will not set you free. There is nothing more obvious than the reality that just because people know to do right doesn’t mean they will do right. Truth must be experienced to be liberating. Truth must be experienced within a discipling context, leadership accountability and submissive following, to be liberating. We cannot separate freedom from discipling, discipling from leadership, leadership from accountability, accountability from submission without undermining the foundations of kingdom established by Jesus.

Female Angels?

Yep, someone actually asked this question…

…then, someone else actually answered it. Then, someone else said, “Yes, there are because I saw some in a revelatory experience.” Then, someone else actually said, “If you see a spirit being as a woman, she always represents something false or evil.” Then, someone else said, “No, because Jesus made it clear that angels have no gender because they are spirits.” Then, someone else said, “My neighbor is an angel; she’s always upon the air harping about something.”

First, let me clarify that I am speaking of God’s angels. Technically, there are no female or male angels because they are genderless as spirits, but they can assume many different forms and can function with a human body.  They always seem to appear as males in Scripture, but really the Bible is more silent about this than technical. Angels are nonhuman spirits that can take on a physical form consistent with the assignment God sends them to fulfill.

So, clearly angels can take on human form, usually male because the assignment, but can be female as well. “Then lifted I up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there came forth two women, and the wind was in their wings; now they had wings like the wings of a stork; and they lifted up the ephod between earth and heaven.”  [Zechariah 5:9]

Are these female angels? No, angels that appear in the revelation as women in a symbolic sense the same way many angels are revealed to represent what God is doing by what they are doing. The point is that the vision isn’t given to prove angels are female; what is portrayed here represents spiritual condition and happenings. To teach that angels are female or that anytime you see a female angel, it is evil, misses the point. Because visions and revelations are not given to be taught as principles.

We don’t know there are female angels because someone saw angels or someone revealed in female form in a dream, revelation, vision, or visitation. God speaks through all these ways today, particularly to people who are prophetic, but seeing angels in any form doesn’t mean that the angels revealed in that form are like that all the time. Visions of angels do not tell us much about angels that we can teach as fact or as principle. Doing so brings more confusion than revelation.

When we see angels, we can see what God is doing or saying because angels always represent what God is up to, not what angels are up to. Angels, by definition, are dispatched in a messenger form to carry something from God to His people, into a situation, for a purpose. We can see angels as clues to what God is doing or about to do, not to understand the nature of angels or know them personally or get an education in angelology.

We do err to make personal or revelatory experiences into principles.

All our visionary experiences from God arrive in spiritual code that requires interpretation, application, and implementation. God doesn’t give us spiritual revelation so we can write Scripture or build a doctrinal system, or teach the experience as principle. We cannot say, “I saw an angel. This is what angels always do and say and look like and smell like, etc.” The angel you saw then can appear in a different form a second later.

We cannot say, “I visited a place in the spirit and now I know how things are in the spirit” because such experiences are not the basis for teaching “how things are in the spirit.” These valid experiences can help us understand how God speaks and communicates through revelation, but they are not given for textbooks on heaven and spiritual reality.

These experiences can be the appropriate basis for talking about how God gives revelation, how God speaks to revelatory people through spiritual experiences, but spiritual experiences are not a good way to teach spiritual realities. You can write a dictionary of angels from visions.

I have many friends who have open revelations, and I have them as well. They are not drug-induced or altered states of consciousness. They are legitimate, God-inspired visions, trances, dreams, and combinations thereof. It is such a distraction to argue about these experiences and their content as a means of discovering whether or not the vision or dream is “of God” or the person is false or true in a prophetic sense. Blanket statements bump up the confusion instead of resolving it.

Those who don’t believe God speaks this way anymore: ignore. Those who attempt to argue the legitimacy of vision and dreams along the lines of “the Bible never shows a vision of a car, so it is not a vision of God if it has a car:” ignore. Those who argue that they have never had a vision, so God doesn’t speak this way: try to love them anyway. Those who teach their visions and dreams as if they are the basis for principles, creating dictionaries of angels from visions and dreams, and even saying “this is how it is in heaven and the spirit:” need a leader to help them properly communicate revelations. Those who have legitimate visions and revelations and use them to manipulate people, make money, sell themselves as spiritually advanced: should be rebuked by kingdom leaders.

Someone who sees an angel in female form and defends the validity of their experience with heightened rhetoric compounded the problem as much someone making a blanket statement that “there are no female angels with female names.” If someone saw an angel in a female form with a female name that wouldn’t mean the angel was girl, that angels have gender, or that the person is false or the angel is evil! It would mean that the revelation and the name was given to communicate something of what God is doing and the nature of the angelic assistance present at God’s command.

For example, a vision of an angel who appears like Joan of Arc could be a clear representation of what God is doing and what angelic assistance is available in a given circumstance, not that there is an angel named Joan of Arc who is a female angel. Or, the vision might not include an angel, merely a revelation of Joan of Arc. If the person who saw this revelation teaches that there is an angel named “Joan of Arc” who lives in heaven and gets involved in history at God’s command, the teaching brings confusion to the revelation, unneeded and unwanted controversy to the message, and misrepresents what the vision says and means.

In fact, better to not even share about the angel in communicating the revelation unless doing so makes the revelation more accurate. Better to share that God is working in a miraculous way through uncommon leadership, intervening in an unusual way to rally His people to victory in an uncommon way. Better to say, “As Joan of Arc rallied her people in victory, an unlikely champion in an unlikely time, so God is using unlikely people to rally this generation.”

If, on the other hand, someone who reacts to such a vision with “there are no angels named ‘Joan of Arc,’ no female angels, and such a vision isn’t of God,” has stepped over a different line. Technically, there are no female angels named ‘Joan of Arc’ but the appearance of an angel in this form is a revelation within itself; God communicates in code with symbols and people to represent a revelation.

Both outlooks on the vision need a bit of adjustment. It is especially harsh to say, “Anyone who sees a female angel has seen a demon.” Or, “anyone who claims to see a ‘Joan of Arc’ angel is a false prophet.”

Such statements miss the point. Yet, the situation begs needed correction and clarification, but drawing a line that moves true prophets and people of revelation into error because they need correction or clarification in the communication of their spiritual experiences is to move God’s visions and dreams into the same territory.

In other words, leadership is needed more to know what to do with visions and dreams than to experience them. It is usually simple to discern between a God-dream or vision and one of no consequence or from an evil source. It is much more difficult to learn what to do a God-revelation of an unusual form, complex code, or uncommon nature.

Some of God’s best leaders have experienced revelations that included odd creatures that do not exist in nature, angels doing things and appearing as people, angels doing things people do and wearing clothes that people wear. If God is giving any visions and dreams at this time of history – and He is! – we should expect that His revelations will include all the features of revelation the Bible reveals are consistent with His modes and styles of communication.

On the other hand, some needed correction should be available to teachable people about when and how to share revelation, how to communicate such revelation in a manner that brings clarity to what God is saying, and in a form of prophetic communication that is distinct from teaching revelation as principle. Prophetic experiences taught with a “this is how things are and work in the spirit” is not wise, helpful, nor part of the revelatory purpose.

As someone said, “The Bible doesn’t tell us everything about angels but what It does tell is absolutely true.” We learn everything we need to learn from Scripture to recognize God’s work through angels, to discern the spiritual nature and character of angelic beings, and to speak of revelations in revelation protocols.

For someone to say, “I saw an angel named ‘Joan of Arc’ who lives in heaven” probably means that person needs a leader to speak into their lives. The problem is not that the vision included such a revelation, but that the person who saw the angel or representation of a female in the spirit insists that there really is female angel in heaven named “Joan of Arc.” To insist in order to give validity to the vision is to misappropriate the purpose of revelatory experiences, and to open a danger zone for people unfamiliar with God’s legitimate prophetic communication processes.

I have avoided discussion of angels procreating with people, whether or not cherubim and seraphim are angels, fallen angels, and nephilim because this is not the purpose of this blog.

Actually, I’m not really talking about whether or not there are female angels. I am saying that angels can appear, function, and represent human beings physically and in revelations of spiritual reality. And, that proving this true or false misses the point of seeing angels in the first place.

Kingdom Leadership and Personal Destiny

Humanism promotes potential. Kingdom promotes purpose. Humanism deifies determination. Kingdom disciples destiny.

Immediately you begin to apply grace like gravy on mashed tators upon personal potential, you are misappropriating spiritual provision. God is not investing grace into your life so you can be whatever you want to be. Grace is making you the person God created you to be so you can what God called you to do.

Paul says, “I am what I am by the grace of God.” He is not saying that he can be whatever he wants to be and grace will enable him to grasp greater gobs of personal potential. He is saying this in the context of radical personal transformation, the repentance aspect of “I change to be changed” that produces something of destiny foreign to the pursuit of potential.

Potential is so vast and uncharted that a person can explore it for centuries – much longer than their life span – and remain a novice to its extremities. Destiny is so defined that only God can reveal it, enable its realization through transformational experiences, and empower its highest expressions and experiences.

The most selfish and self-centered can become experts at potential while being ignorant of destiny; prove themselves worthy to the world and strangers to God. The most gifted can perform masterfully with personal potential, even spiritual potential, and hear Jesus say, “Who are you? I don’t know you. How did you get in here?” at the summing up of kingdom strategies.

Leadership and Destiny

So, humanism longs for leadership that encourages personal potential, feeds and strengthens the sense of personal performance that excites the soul. Humanistic thinking defines a good leader by what they can do to get me where I want to go and help me do what I want to do. Humanistic motivations would be consistent with the prodigal son’s demand for his inheritance because the purpose of a father would be to give me what I want, what’s coming to me, so I can explore personal potential.

Jesus contrasts potential with purpose. Jesus disciples destiny. Jesus ignores potential, irrelevant to purpose, distracting from destiny, and satisfying to flesh but deadly to spirit. The very thing that humanism celebrates, Jesus is out to put to death!

So much of our modern approach to leadership has drunk the sweet wine of humanism that we have come to despise discipling or redefined it as preparation for “being all you can be” in the sense of potential, not in the fulfillment of purpose. Humanism is often so fully blended that we cannot distinguish the former flavors of kingdom discipling, or these flavors are so camouflaged by humanistic sweeteners that we cannot tell if they are even in the mix.

The first step of discipling is following. If one doesn’t follow a discipling leader, no discipling can occur. Discipling is not distance learning in the sense that discipling is a salad bar or dessert bar from which a person can take samples or pick and choose what best fits the mood or salivates the taste buds. Discipling demands discipline. Humanism asks for Santa Claus. Jesus points to a Cross.

Immediately you begin to follow a discipling leader, you are leaving behind your previous best efforts at realizing personal potential. In no case did a disciple follow Jesus to further their previous efforts at “being the best they could be.” They were each asked to leave that effort in order to pursue being someone they were not and never had the first clue they could be.

Humanism continued to motivate their minds even after they followed Jesus. They continually attempted to redefine His mission and destiny with humanistic potential-driven advice. “Speak plainly, Master,” they said, “you can’t expect the crowds to get what You are selling if You speak in parable and code.” Mary’s other children explained that He needed to spend more time in Jerusalem where the political action was, and His disciples were part of that thinking as well. “When you come into Your Kingdom, then I will be…”

He explains, “I am trying to kill you so you can live. I want you to give up your life so you can rescue it. I will give you a Cross to carry so you’ll get the Message into your personal experience. Success is being like your Leader; if I suffer, you will suffer also. You are happy and satisfied when you are rejected and persecute for selling out to righteousness.”

They are still thinking, “I am gonna be famous, powerful, rich, and recognized sitting next to the Master when He is crowned Messiah!” They project their humanistic definition of potential upon His eternal purpose. He says, “I will be rejected and killed.” They say, “No way! We’re riding this gravy train to the palace!” Even after Resurrection, forty days of explaining kingdom to them, they ask, “OK, are You gonna restore the kingdom to Israel?” Laughable looking back now, but Jesus must have thought, “You are about to meet reality and it will feel like being slapped in the face with a wet squirrel.”

Kingdom Leadership and Destiny

In kingdom, leaders are equipped to see with spiritual eyes. Leaders should be able to see what God wants, what God has created, what God is calling for in us, and grasp that with strong hands to set it into place so it can begin to function.

For example, I have had people not called to be a prophetic or a preacher come to me and say, “I want to be. I have prophetic gifts and I can speak pretty good.” Sorry! Not my call. [Pun intended.] No one can train you to be and do something in the kingdom you are not created to be and called to do. Kingdom leadership invests heavenly assets toward heavenly goals. Kingdom leadership recognizes the King’s plans and positions people to fulfill the orders of the King.

If you are called to preach, you can preach. No amount of public speaking training or communication skill development will call you. While preachers can be trained for improvement and effectiveness, they can be trained to do what they are not called to do. Exhorters may not be preachers. Communicators may not be preachers. Teachers may not be preachers. Preaching is a special kingdom science and discipline that can only function at the request and appointment of the King.

That is an example of the confusion that can frustrate the kingdom when humanism and personal potential march in the streets demanding to be heard. Potential says, “I have a voice, so I have the potential to preach. I hear the voice of God, so I have the potential to be a prophet. I have leadership skills, so I should be seen as an apostle.” Measuring a leader’s response to your life by your own estimation of potential creates false expectations that leader cannot fulfill as a kingdom leader.

Destiny is God’s way of mapping potential, creating the boundaries of your inheritance, and allotting you a portion with which to do business that will establish and expand kingdom. Leaders can equip and position you to produce, but they cannot assign or appoint you that portion. Potential is a vast ocean upon which you will get lost and drift; destiny is a destination you can call home, a place where you can build, grow, and mature, and the address to which God mails your gifts and grace.

The Creator’s Celebration of Women

In the beginning, God created heavens and earth. From the emptiness and darkness, God began a process of differentiation between darkness and light, earth and sea, water above and below the atmosphere, living and non-living, birds, fish, animals, and between all things and man. Then, God made a higher differentiation in man who was created in God’s own image as man and female. God separated from man the female and stood her beside man.

The highest differentiation of the image of God is woman. She is separated from man to stand beside man so that the image of God on earth can now best be seen in marriage as male and female again become “one.” The highest expression of the image of God on earth is the seen in the greatest oneness of man and woman in marriage.

The Primary Covenant

“Permanent selectivity” marks marriage. Remember, that any attack on marriage is an attack on the image of God in man! No wonder hell works so hard to destroy this covenant! To mar marriage is to mar culture, society, children, and family. To mangle marriage is to defeat God’s highest revelation of man.

Immediately God separated woman and brought her to stand beside man, He also clarified that man is not angelic, for no angel shares this beauty and wonder, the mystery of spiritual oneness known only through this covenant. No angel experiences the joining of permanent selectivity united by God to establish God’s image on earth, God’s purpose for man, God’s strategy for rearing children, and God’s building blocks for culture.

The Portrait of Beauty

In this way, we can see the Creator’s celebration of women: God only says “it is good” when female is distinct from male and brought back to stand beside male in covenantal relationship of spiritual, personal, and physical oneness. In Scripture, this is also the best way to understand the Mystery of Christ and His ecclesia.

God bestowed upon woman the beauty of humanity that is not matched by the male. Women are beautiful! Scripture celebrates the beauty of women but calls upon women to maintain a certain mystery about this beauty, a modesty that makes this beauty available more in private than in public. Beauty is difficult to hide and should not be utilized as the main definer of a woman’s value or character.

Women are alluring but their allure is designed for their husbands, not for trips to the mall, glossy magazine pages, TV screens, and street walking. Women do great injustice to their beauty by dragging it along the ground appealing to the worst of man instead of the highest of man.

A Position of Protection

Throughout history women have not always enjoyed the fullest expression of this celebration, for various reasons; but without the proper constraints and conclusions of God’s purpose, the fact that males are stronger than females can lead to women becoming objects, slaves, and “a necessary evil.” Some cultures have produced such horrible treatment of women that we now cringe at their treatment.

While male being stronger than female seems to be an opportunity for women to be taken advantage of, the truth is that God positioned woman beside man’s strength so she would be protected by him. The Creator’s position for women offers her protection when her relationship with man is consistent with God’s design.

Of course, God’s design has been shattered and forgotten in many cultures throughout the world and history, leaving women subject to cruelty and objectification. However, God’s celebration of women was to place them in a position of protection beside a stronger man, not to subject them to a place of slavery but to celebrate them.

The Precious Power

Peter speaks of this positioning: “Husbands, live with your wives with conscious understanding that she is a weaker in some ways you are stronger; you are equal heirs of the grace of life. Honor her and take delight in her.” The weakness or inferior aspect of women mentioned here or not mental, moral, or spiritual. It is a comparative physical limitation and in some senses emotional. The previous verses make it clear that Peter understands that wives have a positional response to their husbands based upon God’s created order that includes submission to their husband’s role in the home and society.

Nothing in this verse or any other verse of Scripture limits a woman’s ability to realize personal success as a woman. Nothing in the Bible limits woman in achieving financial prosperity. In fact, the virtuous woman of Proverbs is an diligent business woman dealing in clothing, real estate, and other market-driven enterprises. Nothing in the Bible makes women non-leaders. In fact, the Bible celebrates many women leaders whose leadership, courage, and wisdom saved cities, nations, and lives, whose leadership turned history as God used them as women in their generations.

None of this precludes the Creator’s celebration of women as positioned to receive protection from their husbands and to be honored by all men. It is difficult to understand a lower low than men taking advantage of women’s weaknesses. Paul talks about silly women being led astray by men whose purpose is to take advantage of them; women who lack a voice of protection or fail to hear a voice of protection that would shield them from men with improper motivations, for example. In particular, the Bible speaks of God’s concerns for widows who have no protections, particularly in cultures and times of history when being widowed might leave a woman with little hope for another husband.

The point is that God celebrates women by positioning them to be treated with honor and respect, and this is a Christian value that should be continued in the ecclesia throughout history! Young men should learn to treat girls with respect, their mothers with respect, and deal with women differently than men. Forget all the silliness you have heard from those who seek to make men and women equal in this sense; and those women who insist upon being treated as if they are men forfeit the best position the Creator has given to them at their own hurt.

Hey, get a clue. Women are more apt to deal with crisis with tears than men, to talk about what they feel than men, to problem-solve with a different set of priorities in mind than men. They should! They are women! It requires a conscious understanding that they are weaker in strategic ways, and to live with this vulnerability in mind.

The Profound Value

Proverbs 31

 

Representing the Gospel

The term used in Scripture for “preaching, announcing, proclaiming good news or Gospel” was appropriated as a more technical term for the preaching of the Gospel. Within that technical use is the thought of representing the Message as well as preaching it.

As a follow up to how David was prepared to face giants, I was considering how both Saul and David had the same anointing to be king, yet David represented the kingdom of God while Saul represented the kingdom the people demanded – “so we can be like the other nations.”

I couldn’t help but ponder the idea that many who have the ability to preach the kingdom Gospel lack the character to represent the kingdom. Perhaps we have, in fact, adjusted the Gospel to what we can personally represent and defined the Gospel by our experience of the kingdom. So, while the Scriptures presume the preaching of the Gospel as a demonstration of God’s power, the power of the Cross, and miracles, signs, and wonders that manifest a “here and now” Presence of God functioning in the life and lifestyle of the one presenting the Message, those  better prepared to preach than represent adjust the Message to their personal level of spiritual experience.

Preaching the Gospel is not just speaking, or being a mouthpiece for the Message. It is declaring the Message with spiritual authority and power that represents the heart, authority, and power of the One who sent the preacher. At no point do we see a picture of the preaching in the Bible that lacks a demonstration of the power and authority of the kingdom! This preaching with power is not located or limited to preaching so people will be saved: it continues to demonstrate authority and power for those who enter the kingdom. Preaching is not just for the lost! In fact, more preaching occurs within the kingdom than occurs through the kingdom because of the needed and necessary preparation of more preachers, sent with the same authority and power!

Preaching the Gospel isn’t about announcing the availability of authority, power, and salvation. Preaching releases salvation, authority, and power to those believing the Message so that their faith isn’t in the preaching but the power!

Paul says that some show a form of godliness but deny the power of godliness: “from such turn away.” So, none of us should be listening as spectators to preachers who cannot demonstrate the power and authority of the Gospel. We should be following leaders who represent as well as preach the Gospel in order to be discipled by their leadership.

Saul continually had a problem with people wandering away from his leadership. David attracted men and women willing to represent kingdom and flourished as a leader, general, worshipper, and king because he could represent the kingdom as well as describe and announce it. Saul’s leadership was based upon people accepting and believing in Saul. David represented the power and authority of God and people followed his leadership because they wanted to follow God; so David represented Someone so well that people followed David to learn how to follow God.

Preaching can be an attraction point to the preacher. However, preaching the Gospel in a way that dead ends with the messenger fails to properly fulfill the meaning of Bible preaching. Even preaching that attracts people because they sense that you properly understand the Message and preach it correctly fails to live up to the Bible’s definition of preaching. Following a leader because he has right doctrine will get you the opportunity to have right doctrine, but following a representative of kingdom Gospel will get you an opportunity to represent the King of the kingdom! One will create a closed ended group. The other will produce an expansion of the kingdom through an “ecclesia.”

In other words, preaching that expands the kingdom in numbers through the accumulation of believers isn’t the same as preaching that represents the kingdom and expands it through more representatives of the kingdom’s authority and power. One will produce a subculture. The other will build an ecclesia that hell cannot hold back!