Revival roles on…

The IHOPU student awakening is still happening, with increases in power, healing, and manifestations. What started in November is now “common”, and I use that word loosely. What is striking me about this awakening is that it takes hunger to perpetuate the move of the Holy Spirit. At first glance that may sound somewhat unscrupulous but I believe its clear in the gospels and in the life of Christ that the most dramatic encounters of heaven touching earth were always where faith (hunger) was being most prevalently exercised by the community receiving it.

My hope is that this hunger only increases, although I am beginning to see the requirement for such a hunger to grow. That requirement involves, of course, gratitude but it also requires abandonment. Why? Because the life of the spirit is limitless and so is the manifestation of His person and activity. If this awakening slows, it may only be because our hearts have dulled. This is not an attempt to make a doctrine out of the awakening for surely, God can and will do what he desires regardless of the actions of men but as a rule of thumb, the Spirit moves where the heart is eager to receive.

How much more can we get in this whole thing? I think that answer lies in the communities grasp of desire. I hear, in all of this, the Lord saying, come out of the world. Be set apart for my gospel and its fruit. The Lord is such a good leader that I feel confident we shall not go back but not going back is not the same as attaining to the fullness that is possible. Sometimes being comfortable is as simple as not pressing forward. Can there be the kingdom where there is no exertion of spiritual force?!

2010
02/08
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I was made to be a violent man!

The world has spoken its vision of man, has delivered its version of violence, uttered its convoluted image of what it means to be strong, forceful, and assertive. All men everywhere are drawn, in some form or another, to the fight, to war, to aggression. The seed of passion for the challenge is within all because it is in the heart of God-Creator-Judge-Warrior-King.

However, mans violent disposition has been raped, misdirected, extorted, and exploited. The desire for mans aggressiveness is not wrong, the way it is carried out is where it goes astray. Violent passion is given by God to be directed against the works of darkness. Jesus is a mans man! He took on an entire kingdom by himself… and won. He did not win through violent physical strength, He overcame by violent spiritual stamina. Meekness is, for the redeemed, through Christ, the most powerful weapon for warfare. Meekness is not only strength restrained but strength fully given over to the operation of the Holy Spirit and His character, markedly in zeal for holiness.

I am a man and I shall be violently obstinate towards wickedness, forceful with compassion, bold concerning the truth, and aggressive in pursuing righteousness. This is the nature of the Judge and I want to be His friend and comrade in the struggle-until He comes and once for all puts an end to the oppression of darkness.

2010
02/05
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Paul’s Gospel; being unashamed of what it is we preach…

Because man is his own master he tends to build systems to surround his senses. One must be born again, of the Spirit, to avoid coming to truth with sheltered reasoning. Philosophy, religion, argument, and reasoning are man’s natural inclination as he tries to approach knowledge of the truth. Therefore, one must be re-born. Once one is re-born, one can begin to grasp the contrariness of the gospel, its contrariness  to the thoughts of man in the flesh. What Jesus came to do, and say, is so utterly different from man’s grasp on truth that another spirit must be given to man for any progress towards the light of the world to be made.

Paul the Apostle was unashamed of the gospel not because it wasn’t offensive, contrary to the pagan religions of Rome, austere, or difficult, but because he had been re-born, made anew, and drawn into the mystery of God’s thoughts on redemption. The gospel is not and can never be about self-sufficiency or gift or ability or works or righteousness because the unregenerate (un re-born) cannot attain to the perfection of any of these realities.

To borrow from Karl Barth, Christianity and its gospel is “deprivation with hope”, not self-sufficiency and assertion. Paul was unashamed of the gospel because he was not advocating his ability to communicate it or his gift in understanding it, he was unashamed because he could take no credit for its weight and implications. There is a difference between being a Christian or living in the realm of Christendom. Paul was unashamed of the other-than-gospel because he was a bondservant to its demands. Paul was a man possessed. The re-birth in the spirit of life through the resurrection of Christ that became Paul’s was precisely the means of leading him to his indebtedness to the gospel. A bondservant is different from an onlooker. A bondservant is consumed unto manifestation, an onlooker is subsumed in assumption of what might be.

2010
02/03
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Who has believed our report? (Part II)

In order to understand anything about this post you may want to read part 1.

In part 1, I wrote of the necessity of the cross being the dividing line between two kingdoms, the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of this world. The cross was the Father’s exclamation point that His leadership and values are not only completely different from the worlds but also far superior from that of the world’s… the culmination of the glory of the cross being the reward of the resurrection, not just for Christ, but for all who might believe in Him.

I ran across this quote today, which I think says what I am trying to say far better than post 1. It’s from Karl Barth in his commentary ˆThe Epistle to the Romans. “The resurrection is the emergence of the necessity of giving glory to God: the reckoning of what is unknown and unobservable in Jesus, the recognition of Him as Paradox (Kierkagaard), Victor (Blumhardt), and Primal History (Overbeck)” (Barth 30).

The reality of the cross was both judgment and reward, judgment upon the fallen world of flesh and men with simultaneous reward of the promise of eternal life that had been stated to Abraham as just that, the promise. Somehow, majestically, Christ fulfilled the law of God and inherited the promise for all mankind. Surely His ways are unsearchable, past finding out, and higher than the heavens are above the earth!

2010
02/01
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Who has believed our report?

Jesus’ submission to the Father’s will (the will that drove Christ into the suffering of the cross) was an act of great faith. It was unwavering faith in the nature and kingdom of the Father that kept Christ steady on the narrow way that led to life. However, it can be heard from many circles that the doctrine of propitiation is now an obtuse doctrine. Many in post-modern camps relegate Jesus’ sufferings only to the realm of passivism and the embracing of good leadership by not contending with his enemies, thereby showing His followers that resisting your enemy is not the way but simply a statement of, watch what I do and follow similarly. I have even heard it said of Christ’s passion and the subsequent doctrine which flows from it, propitiation, is nothing more than a form of divine child abuse and therefore holds no authority in and of itself for Christian living.

But this is not what the scriptures say concerning the necessity of Christ’s suffering. The whole chapter of Isaiah 53 is not only a picture of how He would be afflicted but also an in-depth, perceptive examination of why He was to be “put to grief.” Why did it “please the Father to crush Him?” It was to demonstrate the unflinching power of the bedrock principles of the Kingdom of God. This is not “divine child abuse.” The necessity for Jesus’ passion was not only for propitiation and the removal of guilt through atonement but to show that faith, hope, love, and humility will always overcome the kingdom of darkness. Jesus’ follow through in the will of His Father to live according to the laws of the Father, even unto death,  not only purchased souls for Him but demonstrated the utter superiority of the Kingdom of Heaven over and against the kingdom of darkness, thereby “disarming principalities and powers” (Col. 2:15).

Therefore, it is now evident to us that; love is stronger than death, hope greater than fear, meekness more authoritative than assertion, and submission more influential than control. He has forever drawn the clearest picture of lights’ irrepressible penetration into the darkness and its ability to drive it out of every nook and cranny where it has resided in the context of man’s loathsome existence apart from God.

2010
01/31
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We all fade as a leaf.

It’s amazing that all of man’s idols in the pre-modern and modern era have been physical, tangible idols who can neither see, hear, nor talk. All through the Old Testament the prophets of Yahweh mocked the man-made images as useless things that couldn’t do anything. What pre-modern, spiritual man created from a piece of wood he also worshiped. Isaiah hit this profoundly all through the days of his prophecy. With half of the wood, man created an idol, with the other half he made a fire to keep himself warm. With half he forms an image to bow down to, with the other half he makes a shelter to cover himself. How foolish is this! God finally says through his mouthpiece, “Have your idols of wood save you! They didn’t even create themselves apart from you and yet you worship them!”

But post-modern man is not so foolhardy. No, man today does not worship statues and forms and images. Man, it seems, has grown up from spiritual superstition. Man worships next to nothing these days, save himself. The only real, living thing is man. What started as an experiment by Descartes to begin philosophically with the “I” of man’s existence instead of God’s eternal existence promulgated, very rapidly, into atheism and man’s assertion to divinity. Man has moved from superstitious belief in an other worldly being to a humanistic, me-centered worship. Man’s real idol, is himself.

All very well and good then but let me put this forward. Can man stop nature? Can man evade death? Can man make something come to pass that is outside his immediate sphere? Can man do anything creative, completely and originally creative? No! Man could not stop the earthquake in Haiti any more than he could cause it to happen. Man still dies and plunges into the ground under that cruel tyrant of finitude. Man cannot make something that doesn’t already exist and nothing man has ever done has been completely original. All things in this tangible world that man has touched have been from borrowed ideas or previously created realities. So why this atheism? Why this assertion in this day and age of man’s grandeur?

Man worships himself. Man denies God. But this is really no different from the worship of created images by our pre-modern and modern forefathers. We have only grown up from external idolatry into self-contained idolatry. But, at the end of the day, we are not God and have no power as gods. What we have is borrowed. What we seek is outside of us. What we need comes from somewhere we cannot attain to. What we love eventually turns into the destruction of others. All of man’s striving still ends in finite and painful decay. We all fade as a leaf, here today but gone tomorrow. Surely, surely, there is something else “out there” that we can recognize. All atheism must, of rational necessity, be nihilism. Sad is the state of man’s idolatry. Hopeful is the state of the man who fears the Lord, his wisdom will be justified.

2010
01/27
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Ora et Labora (Work and Pray)

A few years ago I began cutting my teeth in contemplative prayer by reading, incessantly I might add, a small work by a humble monk named Brother Lawrence. That book was Practicing the Presence Of God.

The labor of prayer is a labor of love. It takes skill, determination, honesty, and a relentless faith in the face of overwhelming odds. It has been said that prayer is the highest labor in God’s kingdom. It is the foundation of all spiritual life  and the only way to stay steady in the faith. It is a power wielded by even the weakest saint and a tool that can be picked up by a toddler or a mystic for the very same purpose, oftentimes with the very same result. It is enjoyable and trying, easy and difficult. Prayer is work… and it pays so well. For those who take it up as an occupation it can be a source of extreme frustration. One who has committed to 8 hours of prayer a day is tested intensely after hour one is over. Pressing in, it seems, is not an easy lean.

Through the years I have found the words of the Apostle Paul to “pray without ceasing” both an encouragement and, more than a few times, a scourge. How can this be, this unceasing life of prayer? If it is a command then surely I am breaking it, and horribly at that!

But it is not just an act. Prayer is not only a duty or obligation. It is not necessarily even words. Prayer, for all intents and purposes, is an attitude. Can I pray while I’m eating, working, playing? Can I pray while I blog and write and study? The answer; of course I can… if I am conscious of His presence. My heart is in tune with Him through all hours of the day if my life is one of agreement with Him in all I do and attempt. Prayer is easy in that it is born of the spirit and led by Him for our benefit. It is a challenge, however, in that we must submit ourselves to it in all things. Thank you Brother Lawrence, for your insights and thank you Lord, that you want this more than I do and are committed to teaching me until I learn.


2010
01/26
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Is your head ahead of your heart?

I have been reading a ton lately. From topics ranging anywhere from Celtic spirituality, to the emerging church, to commentary on the Old Testament, to contemplation; I have averaged a good, weighty, book a week, sometimes two. Needless to say, I have been having a dramatic influx of thoughts, prayers, desires, frustrations, and headaches. When did my favorite pastime, reading, become my worst nightmare?!

I was pondering this reality the other day when I finally just decided to “turn off” and wait, silently… just sitting, breathing, hearing. All of a sudden came that still small voice. That voice that has power to rend rocks in two, drive back the storm, cast fire upon water, and spread blackness across the heavens; that voice came so softly, so gently, so clearly.

Nathan, you’ve stopped enjoying me. Aggghhhhhh!! Oh God! the pain, the conviction, the sweet revelation of why my heart had been so stagnant and needy. In my search for the truth, for God, I forgot to look for Him where He usually is, right in front of me, in the stillness of anticipation and longing.

I posted a couple of weeks ago about the necessity for a generation to embrace a contemplative lifestyle in order that we would clear away the noise of the world and hear that timeless, unhindered voice of mysterious love, God incarnate. In my zeal and fervor to get to that place I made the means the ends and forgot about the man. My love of the truth had kept me distant from the person of truth. So, re-alignment this week with the help of the Helper, my comforter and teacher, thank you Holy Spirit!

2010
01/25
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Why do I do this?

Blogging is preaching. It is a gateway for thundering a message beyond what is immediately visible, much like a clasp of thunder in the summer skies, heard from miles away yet unseen. It is not a mere hobby but a resounding echo of the imperatives and implications of the gospel which God has called “good news for all creatures.”

Many times I’ll slap a post up and wonder if anyone will ever actually get around to reading it. But then I think about the fact that I, as a preacher, have this free resource to hone and define a skill that also happens to be a command from God; that of preaching to all creatures.

This post is a shout out to my blogging comrades, especially the ones around IHOP–KC. Preach! Write! Clarify and expound that which the Lord has given to you. You never know if someone may stumble across your words and be pierced with revelation of the beauty of Jesus, maybe for the first time. This is worth doing because it is obedience to the call of the great commission. My platform in this season is this site and I love doing it. This is why I blog.

2010
01/21
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Free Will and Accountability…

“For your iniquities you have sold yourselves.” Isa. 50:1

God has given man an ability to choose. This valuable choice is not limited to simple, daily acts of the will but encompasses all of mans endeavors and ultimately, his eternal destiny. God gives man what he wants because God made man to choose what man wants. Sometimes God takes the initiative to give, other times man receives passively from God as God removes something that would hinder or stop mans reception of what it is that was wanting. It’s not that God has not the power to exercise what man gets or when he gets it but simply that man will get it for himself because of choice, by God removing His hand in certain situations.

“Is my hand shortened at all that it cannot save? Or have I no power to deliver?” Isa. 50:2a

“Indeed with my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness…” Isa. 50:2b

God has all power to do all things. Man has some power to do some things. God has power to create, man has power to destroy. In judgment, God may very well “clothe the heavens with blackness” but usually what happens in judgment upon man is caused by man because of his destructive nature.

Hell is a very real place. In its character it is a place of torment simply by the absence of God’s presence and therefore of any good thing, life, love, hope, truth, etc. Man makes hell what it is because it is the place of man getting what man wants, the absence of God. If they crucified Him before, they would try to crucify Him again; by conscience, doctrine, rage, and argument. Hell is the place of man’s thirst for a “no God” reality.

“Look, all you who kindle a fire, who encircle yourselves with sparks; who walk in the light of your fire…” Isa. 50:11

2010
01/19
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