Given we may be stepping into a conversation about honor, my post on honoring parents may need to come with a supplementary explanation on what I think honor actually looks like.
For a frame of reference, I did not read anything by Danny Silk, and I have no plans to, given Bethel’s model is still coming from an old Ruler Season mindset that I do not find useful, so if you cannot handle that, then I cannot help you.
And I do not devolve into triteisms about honor and love. So, with that out of the way, if you are still game for a different take on the subject, read on.
Textual Considerations
I may be able to provide some Scriptural basis, such as the pieces from the Golden Image in Daniel 3, or how Jesus honored Simon’s place while calling his crap out in Matthew 16.
Why Not Use Material That Has Already Been Written On The Topic?
Honor has zero to do with a lot of what we have been taught, and, in my most recent context in the wider Charismatic Segment of the church, where honor gets folded into poisonous teachings like covering; the apostolic and fivefold; and discussions on topics like authority and submission, we start moving into conversations that lead people to follow antichrist spirits. This sort of material which I am hard passing is precisely why I am approaching this from a clean slate.
Granted, this slate that may come across to some as uninformed. And I am okay with appearing on the surface to be uninformed, for the following reason.
Most of the teaching out there is tainted with a lot of what I classify as Ruler Season (a time period of church history predominately characterized by concerns with authority, structures of authority, protocol, and systems of submission and covering, have been en vogue since at least 1900 till around the deaths of Bill Bright and Billy Graham).
Many times, these organizations say things like, “Fivefold [or insert your denomination’s/network’s/church’s method of church government] is the only biblical way of handling church government or church leadership”, and I simply will not stoop through the morass of Welfare Christianity horse feces to make dependent mindsets feel more at ease.
I cannot and will not help out the mindset that expects me to have been well-read on a topic, especially since my earned authority in this area is significant, and most of the teaching on this topic is compromised by a faulty perception of the fivefold ministry.
The fivefold ministry is a sacred cow in the Charismatic church. And “sacred cows make the best hamburger” (Arthur Burk).
Still interested after that verbal shellacking? Read on.
And some of this is going to get really abstract because I don’t have better more-concretized ways of stating it.
Honor has everything to do with our capacity to parse between what is really happening in our current everyday life (one plane or realm of reality) and what should be happening according to the L-rd’s design (the root of all reality and the “ground of all being”, to quote Paul Tillich).
It further has zero to do with doing whatever the heck our authorities are telling us to do, based on their passing whim, or anything that is in ignorance or violation of our design.
If we can separate reality as we naturally apprehend it from what we recognize G-d wanted to happen, and that comes through becoming studied experts of His design for us….
Then honor becomes a matter of doing that which we were designed to do, regardless of whether or not someone is commanding us to do otherwise.
And celebrating that goal and journey in the lives of others as they hopefully pursue it, and this who shift changes how we as followers of Messiah, both Jew and non-Jew, approach the practical execution of what we believe in the arena of who we are and what we do.
A faith that doesn’t work in reality but only on a couple days of the week while you destroy yourself without the King ‘s solutions the rest of the week is no faith.
You were placed into an office, or series of offices, and that office or those offices are given by appointment from G-d (If you really want to know about the underlying principles of Romans 13:2, you will bump into the four types of authority:
1) Positional authority that comes from who we are in Christ
2) authority of offices into which the L-rd places us (not merely fivefold, but also office of boy/girl, son/daughter, husband/wife, patriarch/matriarch, businessman, lawyer, tribal chief, elder, and these offices G-d recognizes and vests with certain authority.
3) the authority of special annointings: for example, over weather, aspects of nature, time, birds, fish, land animals, etc.
4) and the earned authority that we accrue by walking in certain paths for a prolonged period of time.
Some authorities are earned.
For those who did not hear that, I will say it again.
Some authorities do not come to us just because we are in Christ. While we get a portion of authority from following Him, that’s not all He has for us and He doesn’t give that authority all at once to babies.
So, when you encounter someone not in an office who feels like they have authority in an issue, it may be because they have spent time in the gym. They have earned that authority. This is another application of Romans 13).
For example, I have authority to deal with those classes of people that the Bible calls widows and widowers. Not just those whose spouses have died, but also (and more specifically those whose spouses have cheated on them). I have earned authority in that.
Also, victims of SRA, CRA, those who are DID, and those with PTSD.
One other area I have earned authority is to teach the text of Scripture.
And, conversely, when you come across someone who speaks truth but it feels thin coming from their mouths, they likely haven’t earned sufficient authority to speak to those things.
With those offices come honor. “Honor is for what you do and dignity is for who you are” (Arthur Burk).
Honor is designed to accrue. Honor was made to grow, as does money in an interest-bearing account.
And honor can accrue where authority is earned. Honor can grow where authority is given or earned. I am really trying, though, to stretch your thinking beyond what you have been given, to the potential given in what you earn on one level.
Park that thought, and let’s bring another thought.
Honor of parents, is following the counsel that our parents would have given in a situation if they were aware of, knew, understood, and agreed with and celebrated our design.
Honor of authorities follows much of the same principle. If they were aware of and celebrated what you were made by G-d to do, you follow the counsel they might even-handedly and level-headedly give in a particular situation.
Curious about what an authority WOULD say?
Discern.
Consult the L-rd, who is 100% all the time your father and has never taken a break from that job, and has never not occupied that position. Father has never not been a Father, especially that Jesus was eternally begotten of G-d.
“Sure, David, where is your Scripture for this?”
Well, let’s tease apart Daniel 3.
Nebuchadnezzar, had he been following the L-rd, would have told Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah to not bow to the image. This is why they in part did not bow. That is honoring G-d-given authorities.
If Hilter had been godly, he would have told the people to resist a dictator. That would have been an leader who governs for the betterment of his people and culture and those under his charge, who watches over them.
Our job has always been to look at what we should do, given our idea of the best authority.
Many of our parents do not celebrate our design, and how G-d made us.
Honor and dishonor have nothing to do with obedience and disobedience.
When we honor, we say like Daniel to Darius “O king live forever”
When we disobey, we say, “we will not do this action.”
Honor/dishonor is one spectrum.
Obedience/disobedience is another one.
Can we say both, “O king live forever” together with “I will never bow”?
And yes, we are dishonoring our authorities in the United States when we are dishonoring We the People, and calling them coarse names and by abusive words.
So, the TL;DR (too long, didn’t read) is this. Act as if they celebrated your design and how G-d made you, regardless of how they would respond in natural reality now. And keep a guard over your tongue. Do these things, and you will excel.
This is why it was called CIVIL disobedience. Not douche-rocket disobedience.
We do not verbally abuse others, but we do what they would tell us to do had they been in sync with G-d’s purposes for us.
Genesis 48 has always provided me with some nagging questions. One in particular.
Why would Israel perform what appears to be an adoption of Jacob’s sons and what further could be taken by some to imply a disinheriting of Joseph?
How does this fold into the Genesis 49 blessing given to Joseph?
I would like to suggest the possibility, for the purpose of discussion, and I accept I could be wrong.
But one of my guidestars in dealing with the text of Scripture is that I endeavor to be a student WITH others, and to learn from those who are scholars of the Scripture, as well as those who are not. I have, in teaching have always preferred the round table to the lectern or the pulpit, not that I mind standing behind something.
But I like to sleuth with other believes about the possibilities in the text.
Some have put forth the idea that, because of the discussion of the silver cup of divination (Genesis 44:1-5) showed Joseph left the faith of Adonai.
While I don’t necessarily buy that idea, given the fact Joseph mentions the L-rd later on, and given some of the other interactions they have, I have to say that the adoption of Ephraim and Manasseh can do one of a number of things.
1) Show a replacement of Joseph with two others.
2) Show a intensification of blessing upon Joseph.
3) Show Joseph as defined by the twin realities of Ephraim and Manasseh.
4) I would also be willing to entertain the possibility that the variety and length of trauma was strong enough to create a part in Joseph, that is, a divided identity (along the spectrum of DID).
What tells against the idea of Joseph being disinherited are the statements, “am I in the place of G-d” (Gen 50:19), “you meant evil against me, but G-d meant it for good” (Gen 50:20), and the statements from Israel in 48:21-22 that G-d will be with Joseph and that Israel was passing to Joseph the slope he got from defeating the Amorites.
What seems to tell for the disinheritance of Joseph is the silver cup of divination.
What seems to tell for Ephraim and Manasseh’s adoption alongside Joseph is the statement in 48:5-6 that Ephraim and Manasseh are sons of Israel.
Just some thoughts.
There could also be something I am missing, which, I would love to hear your thoughts on.
This prayer and this post are dead-on accurate, if you have the faith for them, gang. And Seneca’s work and her integrity and authority to lead in this are unimpeachable. #challengeaccepted:
“I had a series of in-the-spirit interactions with Bill Gates last night, and have a better handle on who he is as a person. He’s getting beat up pretty badly right now, and for good reason, but he is a real person with a huge destiny. There’s a rift between who he is and what he does. How can we (because we the believers are the ones in the priestly role here) help mend that rift? I’m gonna take a shot at it.
“Lord I forgive Bill for every act that was/is in violation of your design for him and plan for his life. I honor the gifts within him and the way that you’ve wired him, and I stand with a passion to see those untwist and manifest in a righteous way. Show him the better way, and to each of us that would judge and curse, I ask for a revelation of Bill as your child to them as well, that we would not tolerate the darkness yet still side with the person he is. I repent of judgements I have held. I stand in my position as a NT priest and wash him with the blood of Jesus and declare that his sins are separated from his personhood.
“Father, I forgive Bill, his parents, grandparents, and his great-grandparents. I forgive Melinda, and her parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. (4 gen, if you believe to go back further, go for it.) I forgive all those that have trespassed against them. I wash their feet with the blood of Jesus that the power of their sins are broken. All curses are broken. All sins of defilement: bloodshed, broken covenant, idolatry, and sexual immorality are washed away. Everything false is revealed in your light, Father, and forgiven. All covenants, oaths, or vows of evil are dissolved.
“I bind and cast all demons that have just lost their rights to torment or afflict these people to the feet of Jesus, and say that they may never return. I demand a cease fire on all deception in Bills life effective immediately. I close all portals, gates, doors, or windows of evil. I ask You, Father to burn any residue from their lives, any seeds, implantations, or any fruit. I call the memory of sin erased from the matter of earth. I ask You Lord to heal them of all habits, reflexes, or instincts that have formed in their personalities around the pain of these sins.
“Father, I ask you to intervene in Bills life. Lord I ask you to reveal Christ to him in ways he has never dreamed of before. I ask you for angels to protect him from further attacks and to minister life to his heart. I ask you to send the right people to him to pierce the walls of defense he has placed around himself with seeds of life. I ask for good influences. Thank you Lord for intervening and fighting for him. Help us to get on board instead of burying him under our condemnation.”
These pastors and leaders who are suggesting that, without qualification, Romans 13 means roll over every single time for the government are not pastors who will guard the flock from wolves.
They have abandoned the legacy of the Prophets who spoke up on matters of social justice.
They have abandoned the apostolic legacy for collusion with the powers that be instead of calling out the injustice and seeking for true social justice.
They are rapists and ritual abusers of the highest order.
#justsayin
And this is something for which we will not stand.
Your job, pastors, is to stand the hell up for your flocks and the people G-d has put in your change against corrupted leadership and say enough.
Submission to abusers is not submission. It is being an accessory to abuse and abandonment of the very fabric of which your office is made.
The verse, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities” (Romans 13:1) has joined “Let your women keep silence in the churches” (1 Corinthians 14:34) and “Slaves obey your earthly masters” (Ephesians 6:5) as one of the most abused passages of scripture in history. There is a long history of misusing this text to argue that Christians are always duty-bound to obey the civil authorities. This past week U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions added his name to that history.
According to this absolutist view, to resist the civil authorities is to oppose God. God, it is argued, appointed government both to punish wrongdoers and promote good. Civil and religious leaders across the political and ecclesial spectrum have widely invoked this interpretation as a theological weapon, ascribing punishment and damnation to dissenters.
Based on this reading of Romans 13, evangelical Christians in Germany during the Third Reich believed they could question political authorities only if they were forbidden from preaching and practicing their faith. So they said nothing. As the regime’s evils mounted, these people of faith remained silent and deaf to the cries of the oppressed. That history is grounds for suspicion that absolute obedience to civil government is neither wise nor warranted.
Paul himself did not obey civil authority. Nor did he suggest that the state and its officials must always and absolutely be obeyed. He recognized that the power of law can be used for justice, or for injustice and evil. So he urged his readers to be subject insofar as conscience allows (Romans 13:5). Eventually his own conscience got him in conflict with Roman authorities, for which he was imprisoned and finally put to death at their hands.
When Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested and jailed in Birmingham, Ala., because he violated laws that were being used to maintain policies of racial discrimination and segregation, he wrote a letter to white ministers explaining his use of nonviolent direct action. He wrote, “One may well ask: ‘How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?’ The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘an unjust law is no law at all.’”
Romans 13 is not a manifesto on the divinely ordained power of the state, and it does not call for absolute obedience to civil authorities. Instead it offers a provisional account of the limits of civil authority for all people of conscience.
By invoking Romans 13 as calling for absolute obedience to civil magistrates, Jeff Sessions and the Trump Administration have embarked on a highly problematic path. They are standing on unstable ground that has been used as a license for tyrants and a justification for abuse. In doing so they invite people of conscience not only to oppose, but to disobey, unjust laws.
I urge those who would stop reading Romans 13 at verse one to continue a little further. There they will discover that the true civic duty is not blind obedience to civil authority, but love for God and neighbor. “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law,” Paul wrote (Romans 13:10). Let’s start with love.
Curtis W. Freeman is research professor of theology and director of the Baptist House of Studies at Duke University Divinity School. He is the author of “Undomesticated Dissent: Democracy and the Public Virtue of Religious Nonconformity.”
If we cannot speak up and should not speak up, then worse than the Holocaust, we may even reach genocide on par with abortion, Stalin’s destruction of the Soviets, and Mao’s Great Leap Forward, all of which have killed at that level.
Our job is not to swallow what is handed to us and park our brains at the door.
Choosing to die from something really stupid: A Loss of Feeling
For those who are followers of Jesus and advocates of not preaching and teaching, but mere musical worship and prayer, I have the following to say: the work of unpacking the text is still necessary.
Allow me cite the existence of one document whose existence shows why the task of preaching and unpacking is necessary among groups of believers: The Passion Paraphrase.
The Passion is what happens when the work of robust discussion of the bibical text is squelched in churches, probably because: 1) we are afraid of people shelving the fruit of the spirit, 2) we lack the discernment to know when a conversation is going off the rails, rather defaulting to our natural or soulish faculties, and 3) we mistake vigorous back-and-forth, loud voices, or raised voices for anger or murder or lack of sanity (see #2).
Truly, the Passion is an interpretation of the text to include certain buzzwords that are not in the text, and it is the result of a person who does not lead a translation team or is a translator (I am friends with the person with whom Mr. Brian Simmons consulted on Genesis, and most of that person’s counsel was ignored) working from original manuscripts.
Like so many issues in the Charismatic Movement, we have frequently put disagreement and robust discussion on lockdown, treating those behaviors readily as dishonoring. I have watched as friends dared to call into question what is done in secret or isolation, or to even ask questions about things that unsettle them, called out for dishonoring. And when they leave, they are offended.
We are not having the vigorous discussion that we must have about what is really wrong in many issues in the church.
Another example of this refusal to discuss or question is the probelms with all of the current models of the Fivefold Ministry, and why just about every model of that is broken. Current teaching does not put the apostolic and the prophetic in their proper place at the bottom and alongside other gifts but rather lifts them up to the top of a mountain that should not exist and vests them with an form of authority that is nothing like what Jesus placed on them, and sets them in a heirarchical fashion when that is a violation of the biblical text.
Granted, I am not saying dishonor in conversations isn’t happening. It is. However, there are regularly times when concerns that are raised and concuding discussions with diagreements are treated as dishonor. I am not sorry for saying we need to be reintroduced to vigorous dialogue, debate, disagreement without being gaslighted with words like “heretic” or “dishonor”.
Arthur Burk has clearly called out the garbage and lack of integrity and crap that passes as covering and the fivefold in both of his teachings called High Impact Christians and Tough Spots In Inner Healing, and much of the church has responded with silence and continuance of bad behavior. Just about all of the models proceed from a mindset of control and are empowered by the spirit of Antichrist.
Apostolic has nothing to do with Authority or Oversight. It’s about foundations. Period.
Is it any wonder we Charismatics have given John MacArthur so much ammunition? It’s because there is something really wrong, and we are not correcting the junk, and we are character-assassinating those who speak up. Gang, this must stop. Because the movement is rapidly and continually building a stronghold for the Antichrist in our midst and G-d had to send a Pale Horse plague to get us to stop this nonsense, break us apart into our basic units, and to see how badly we have been controlling one another, so we can see the Spirit of Fear that He is trying to expose to us that we walk in and is controlling us to the point that we have to do whatever the dictators in government say.
For my fellow Americans who follow the L-rd, you have ceded over control and authority of your nation to the few corrupt, and you have failed to recognize your place as the kings in authority (We The People: given the Constitution is the Group of Founding Principles that provide the governing framework for this nation, Romans 13:1-2 and 1 Timothy 2:1-2 point a nation to pray for and submit to whatever individual or aggregate governs that nation. The United States is a nation of laws, and therefore, in the context of the above passages, we look to our earliest documents, namely the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution for guidance on who is in charg. And the Constitution and the Declaration of Indendence both say in their openings that those in authority are the people, the citizens. Ultimate authority rests with us, who elects representatives to SERVE, not RULE. We are those in authority, and, like Jar Jar Binks, we have exhorted our fellow leaders to give emergency powers to the Chancellor, who, with the PATRIOT ACT and the National Defense Authorization Act, created the Department of Homeland Security, which has legalized gross violations of the 1st, 4th, and 10 Amendments.
Likewise, we as Christians have ceded control to these “apostles” and treat them as our covering, when it has been proven repeatedly that covering does NOTHING to augment the safety of a beliver. It is because we have lost the plot that we are getting destroyed, and we are further lulled to sleep by a welfare spirit that teaches us to depend on another man’s or another woman’s gift to tell us what to do. And so we move from prophet to prophet and ask them to have our dreams for us (COUGHCOUGH Rick Joyner, Jeremiah Johnson) and give us our national words, when that was never the way G-d designed it. He designed for us somethign to be sustainable, but we suck each other dry because we demand they give us of their gifts. It was never about us sticking our hose in someone else’s tank and throwing the pump on high so we can drain them. It was about us putting our hoses in the infinence of the L-rd of Bethel and turning THAT pump on high, so we can hear for ourselves.
If we do not correct the problem, worse things will happen, because G-d is trying to return us back to Himself. And if he has to use the panic caused by news of plauges to expose the spirit of fear, and crooked sticks like John MacArthur to reveal our welfare spirit, and actual prophets like Arthur Burk to show us the poisonous, vitriolic cocktail of codependence and slavery we have drunk, then so be it.
How we handle this test determines what happens with the Fifth Head of Leviathan, as he is a national figure and he is obsessed with technology.
Leviathan is the wave series by which our capacity to respond to the Mesmerizing Spirit will be handled.
I am not interested in repeating things that have already been taught on, however, in the interest of full disclosure, I will say that, in large part, what I am about to share derives from a series of teachings by Arthur Burk.
In the next post, I will cover the entity, what it is, and whence I think it derives.
So, apologies for those in my audience who do not understand some of the phrases and terms in this post. I promise I will get to those in turn.
Now, with those disclaimers in place, I will ask you to consider the possibility of the following.
I don’t care how wicked any man is, but I will say this.
Posting stuff that someone didn’t say, or insinuating they did when they did not can open a really nasty door for the 5th head of Leviathan to mess with your communication and sound, and it will assuredly get people to think the worst about you.
Now, this is radically different from posting what someone actually said and then explaining how their thoughts and words landed with you (what you may have heard in it when reading between the lines, and what you felt coming off of someone).
The difference is in one case, you are representing their actual words with accuracy and precision; while in the other, you are not.
If you are going to report on Bill Gates or anyone else, make sure you are quoting first-person narratives, not implied, not insinuations, not “it sounds like something he would say”, not ominous memes, just his or her words.
Not clickbait.
Posting clickbait is killing our capacity to communicate and to be heard from a position of understanding and mercy and kindness and grace. Refusing to steward the actual words of William H. Gates III, or Steven Paul Jobs, as irritating as both men are, can do great harm.
As we sow, we will reap, later and greater than we have sown.
Believers have done a really bad job of studying words out and this refusal to avail us of all available, first-rate research has killed the credibility of our witness in many places.
Tattoos.
Women’s dress.
Women’s leadership.
The church’s blind support of Republicans despite the issue of the military-industrial-congressional complex, about which ONE OF THEIR OWN, A RETIRED 5-STAR GENERAL WHO SERVED IN NORMANDY, WARNED THEM.
The church’s blind yelling about Democrats over one issue.
The church’s abject refusal, largely, to handle welfare of widows, orphans, and the fatherless, and the poor, and the fact that Social Security exists because the church didn’t have the balls and ovaries to pick up and run with this issue as central to their missions.
The church’s obsession with the presence of the fivefold ministry, paired with 1) an absence of excellence in the real execution of the fivefold ministry and 2) a largely profuse refusal to heed the warnings of men and women like Arthur when it comes to the real design of the apostolic and prophetic, both offices which are designed not with authority in mind but blood, service, and death (Revelation 12:11C, the third part, which is badly ignored, when we talk about the blood of the Lamb and the Word of Our Testimony, but ignore the necessary sacrifice in terms of our lives and whether or not we have skin in the game).
Fathering men to a place of sonship as opposed to mere obedience or slavery or even service.
And other areas.
So, as you do your research on whomever, and make your prophetic declarations, or apostolic decrees, be careful with those decrees and decs, and….
Remember that Mr. Gates for all of his Giver foibles and idiocy, deserves the treatment of dignity as we lay out a red carpet of love paired with accurate truth for him to come to the King.
What Is Happening With Mr. Gates and, More Importantly, With Us
We are being tested in multiple ways, and there is nothing more the devil would like to do than mess up our path with the twisting work of Leviathan and the Mesmerizing Spirit to pickpocket us because we were too busy watching the birdie.
The clowns would love to see stewardship fouled up in a massive degree in this country.
It really is safer to post real comments in the right spirit and offer corrective to those words rather than spouting how evil an evil person is. And it protects the ability of others to hear your heart, not to mention your technology, and your capacity to hear others accurately.
Stewarding the reputation of others is the same thing as stewarding your reputation.
You would not want people knowing the worst about you, and hopefully those that do, protect the worst, work with you to process it and honor you as best they can in the process.
We are being handed a HORDE of tests now against Givers and others.
How We Handle This Series of Tests
As you see a Giver who is walking badly in Stewardship, bring that before the L-rd, and ask Him to handle the situation however He sees fit. Ask Him to shine His light whereever He wants, and DO NOT coach Him on where to shine it.
As you was working at responding to this, make sure you walk in high positive numbers in the arena of Stewardship.
Stewardship is doing someone else’s agenda with someone else’s resources. There are a group of parables in the gospels that deal with managers, and talents, and minas, and cities, and giving an account, and wicked, lazy servants, and hard masters. Get to know those parables and the principles of management for the Owner inside and out.
Then, walk out handling accomplishing the agenda of the L-rd especially where you know you will not get credit for it. And learn to manage when you are not being seen.
This is the sort of flavor of coming in the opposite spirit.
If you know you are going to be seen when managing, do so without solely making a name for yourself. Manage in alignment with your design.
Notes On Managing and the Love of Being In the Public Eye
I have previously covered some of the different designs on my series on the Redemptive Gifts. Make sure that you read the above in light of the various and different designs that are present, because humility for one gift may look wildly different from humility in another gift.
Exhorters who are managing in public might exercise a little bit of flair or showmanship, which, if it is a design thing, might not be unwarranted.
Tony Stark (Redemptive Gift Exhorter) doing a well-polished presentation of the Jericho Missile. There is indeed some arrogance here, but there is also some flair and love for theatrics.
Showboating and grandstanding can be part of the package, but they can happen apart from braggadocio, arrogance, or pride.
Exhorters, Mercies, and those with a motion niche can have actions that are part of the package that add flair that can look like showboating or grandstanding but are not. Be careful in assuming you know apart from discernment what is taking place with someone’s actions and behavior.
Servants will want to do this without the limelight being a part of the equation. Do not make everyone behave like a Servant in that desire to not be seen. It will backfire if you try to mangle someone’s design if they are designed for the public eye.
There are gifts that are more public and gifts that are more private. Make sure you know and understand motives and the interior of a person before you correct them. Otherwise, you, when you think you are correcting pride, might be rebuking someone’s design and can create a greater mess than if you just left them alone.
Speaking of Bill Gates, and what I think is possibly going on here. I think he is walking in his design, but doing so in massive negative numbers. Bad Stewardship, and thinking he knows what is best for others.
Our responsibility to combat this is coming in the opposite spirit with whatever earned authority we have accrued in the arena of walking in Stewardship and managing what belongs to others, and multiplying it. Whether it is finances, or time, or friendships, or congregations, or books, or writings, or whatever the resource is. The Factors of Production (labor, natural resources, capital, and entrepreneurship) can be temporal, physical, social, destinological (pertaining to destiny and thus tied to the emotional and psychological components), or official, all of which are spiritual at their roots.
Steward and manage EVERY resource you see.
Don’t. Fail., Gang.
And don’t let the Midianites loose more than they already are.
NOTE: “Midianites” is a reference to the seasonal devouring the Midianites accomplished in the book of Judges during the time of Gideon.
They said to him, “We have had dreams, and there is no one to interpret them.” And Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to G-d? Please tell them to me.”
Genesis 40:8, ESV
Yes, I realize this is discussing a narrative dealing with the concept of dreams and that G-d can provide dreams and their interpretations.
That said, let’s consider the following:
What sorts of other things need interpretation that people like to mess up badly and routinely?
Visions
Situations
Symbols
Circumstances
Historical Events
Prophecy
And while we are at it, Scripture
We are so given toward thinking that Scripture needs to be our standard…
I have no problem with that idea. I also have no problem with the concept that Holy Spirit leads us into all truth.
Not our natural way of thinking…
The problem is, we often do not have a relationship with Holy Spirit such that we feel we can verbally ask Him to help us interpret, and as a result, we do not have the interpration because we do not ask for the interpretation. We do not ask Him to show us what He wants to show us.
If we do not approach the word of G-d with an attitude of asking the G-d of the Word to speak, and to help us interpret, when interpretations belong to him, then where does that leave us.
We have a map and we do not have our Guide with us. He is over there and we have gone elsewhere gallavanting without him because we took our own natural brain and applied that as our interpretive framework, when He designed us. Furthermore, when He designed our spirits to lead, and we let our brains lead, and no wonder we have a soul that is an old man, a spirit that is a baby, and the willpower of a teenager when it comes to resisting pornography, or an addict when it comes to drugs.
G-d was here first, and G-d designed our spirits to be in the lead, but if we have lived constantly with the soul or the body up front, we are going to live as a cripple trying to fight with one hand tied behind us, as per Carol Danvers.
We fought that way because the clowns told us that is how to fight, not realizing that they are taking us to the cleaners (John 10:10).
We were made to walk with and hear him, and we were made to interpret all things by the enablement of the G-d of Interpretations.
Perhaps we would succeed better at Scripture and at life, if we allowed the Great Interpreter to show us how to read these things.
For example, this is just one way we can interpret Pesach (A/K/A/Passover) when we are listening to Him:
A Blessing For Your Spirit
Beloved, I would like to invite your spirit to step to the front and to hear what the L-rd is saying to you in this passage. Interpretations belong to G-d. All interpretations and understandings are in His hand, and given to you because He loves you as His son.
So, I bless you, spirit, to hear from the G-d of Interpretations, and to be filled with His understanding as your spirit comes alive with all that the L-rd has for you. I bless you to connect with Him as you read, and I bless you as you receive freshly-baked manna from His storehouses in heaven.
I bless you to grow into newness on a regular basis, and to fight and throw into the fire all the “maggoty, stinking bread” that you have subsisted on. The old bread that is rotten and stinks with worms that was handed to you by some person and not by Father Himself.
I bless you will fullness of freedom to know that full capacity to read and to understand, in the name of Yeshua.
Before I realized I was a Mercy the first time, about 3-ish years ago, I pondered the Prophet, Teacher, and Exhorter relentlessly.
Of all the gifts, I speak to the Teacher the strongest, because of the relentless nature of the specific attacks and accusations against them. And because of my mind for the Scripture, I have landed as Teacher before with a number of people. But then I realized that I carry the office of Teacher, and Scribe, beyond everything else, and so, that actually explains my penchant for writing and the things of Scripture adequately.
Further, every time Arthur or anyone else discussed Mercy, my Mercy portion (which I now recognize sharply) would always speak forth about it to me. You sometimes just know.
I was not able to see this about myself, because of a number of issues, particuarly woundedness, not the least of which is I frequently have an opinion about most things all the time, and I am pretty good at articulating with a great deal of words what my views are on a particular topic.
Most of the time though, my private life, and my interior castle, are things that have occupied a considerable amount of my reality. Just because I can cut like a Prophet, or hold forth like an Exhorter, or process like a Teacher, does not mean I am always like that. My default, contrary to the views of others, is toward gooey intimacy, and without exception, I have always went the way of mothering and pain avoidance.
But under the plethora of words, and open sharing, and scribal editions, and parchments, and ink, and quills, no one would have guessed that.
As a matter of fact, when I first articulated Jesus coming into my office with a scribal desk, quill, parchments, and ink, it was during a deliverance session, and the person ministering to me assumed that was a negative manifestation. Accusations /insinuations of a religious spirit soon followed.
Most don’t understand that one of my intimate places is in my office, with ink on my hands, writing, penning. It was the first place I hated, because in Kindergarten, I was always losing my box of crayons (my first writing/creating utensils) and when Mrs. Hartley had us writing paragraphs, I recall deeply loathing the exercise. It was indeed my first place of suffering. And the first test I clearly recall knowing where I was constantly being resisted in the spirit by clowns.
I love the slightly-bitter aroma of ink, and the feel of my hands sticking as I lift a sweaty palm from a quickly-written piece. I have never lacked for words to say. The pen
The second time I discussed Jesus as a Scribe, joining me at my desk and scribing with me, and what He called me, I was again reproved, during an inner healing session, where I had to fix and correct in the spirit the work of inner healing being done on me. It’s bad enough to have to ask for help from people who are engaged with inner healing. But to have to pinch-hit and ad-lib counter-deliverance from people who think what you are seeing is demonic is just one of the things I have grown used to doing.
But it is okay. I will continue chugging along with or without others who either understand me or do not understand me.
Some Markers for the Mercy
Instead of my usual list of bulletpoints, for the Mercy, I wish to highlight some dynamics that are not really better-articulated through a list, and rather are better for more fluid writing, and in no particular order.
Beingness
So, we talk about the Prophet being identified for the bold, and ideological way they look at things. Always with a sword out, as Megan Caldecourt once told me in Dalton, GA, back when I was discussing being an Exhorter (yes I have been back-and-forth over several gifts, and it is a running joke within the tribe about which gift I am this month.). They have a sword out even when they don’t want to. The sword is usually draped across their lap, or like a pistol at a poker table.
And the Servant bustling about and taking care of the felt needs and apologizing for existing, or because the gravy is too thin, or the mashed potatoes have a lump in them (for your information, if you have no lumps in your mashed potatoes, you need to repent because lumpy potatoes is correct doctrine of mashed potatoes).
And the Teacher’s obsession with primary sources and their preference for the original langauges and the exposition and the references, and their slow butts and their deliberation, and their big frame.
And the Exhorter’s capacity to derive truths and revelation and their social butterfly status. and the capacity to hold forth and deal with large and diverse groups and get them moving in a particular direction.
And the Giver who just looks for a deal, and sniffs out hidden agendas, and always wants to renegotiate, and has a plethora of divers interests.
And the Ruler/Judge/Deliverer who sets up systems to take over some aspect of the world.
Mercy Gravitations
So, where does that leave the Mercy?
I am glad you asked.
Bryan Trapp, my close Exhorter friend, would tell you about their discussing things in ethereal otherworldly terms.
Mercies are designed to understand beingness. Ethereal. Rest. Satisfied fulfillment. Fullness. Their expression of the character of G-d is in His, pardon the iinvention of the word, isness.
You heard me. Is. Ness. Isness.
In the beginning, G-d did not merely exist. He was. He is’ed.
And we with all of our Ruler-season apologetics and defense of the faith and exposure of heretics, and, and, and this movie that proves his existence, or this book that talks about the manuscripts. That does not prove the existence of G-d, and we do not need to somehow prove that G-d exists or defend Him. Seriously.
As if G-d was like a bump on a log without effective actual kinetic movingness and flow. And as if He needed us poor, witless souls to defend Him.
God does not exist. And those passages that use that term in Scripture are inadequate.
Rather, G-d is the root of all that is. And G-d is the foundation and ground of all being. And, again, if I told you that the remark “G-d is the ground of all being” came from Neo-Orthodox theologian Paul Tillich
G-d IS.
G-d BE.
I AM.
He is ever moving, ever-revealing, and every is-ing.
G-d is not a rock that sits around and does nothing, but THE Rock in a weary land.
Neither are rocks mere inanimate objects. According to Jesus, they have the capacity to speak. It is not a freaking metaphor to say “the rocks would cry out”.
So what was G-d doing while creation was humming along on the seventh day?
He was BEING. He was G-dding along.
He was emantating effulgent, active, effective, holifying, radiance.
Now Bryan Trapp sees my Mercy-ness with my esoteric language bursting forth.
His essence and light were humming forth.
Digression
And now that I have used that word “humming”, I understand that some are going to make the link between sound and light.
There is a connection, but the connection is not as much of a two-way street, or one-to-one ratio as one might think.
Sound is a vibrational wave.
Light is both a wave and a particle.
Sound does not have mass. Light does.
Sound is a disturbance. Light impacts more deeply.
Back to Mercying along though.
More Ether and Greater Fulfillment
Mercies are frequently the most aware of the concepts of being and existing. And they are capable of feeling all the weird feely things all at once. They are usually the ones who peer with ease, deeply into people.
And nature.
And animals.
And creation.
And they love a deep problem. And the subjects they love they love to research deeply, and they love to curate the best books and materials on that subjects.
This is why I have 85 billion commentaries on Scripture.
This is also why I do not have a Nintendo Switch Lite. I have a Switch.
Many times, a Mercy can be pointed out by their tastes in that which is a cut above.
Sometimes, a Mercy can be pointed out because they are often the odd one out that everyone else is making fun of their points of view.
Sometimes they seem as if they are on another planet.
And the frequent obsession with purple. Purple is correct doctrine.
And many a male Mercy has been cast from his dad’s side because he was perceived as effeminate, and if I let that weird son of mine into my garage, he won’t understand, and he will break something because he doesn’t know how to fix things like my other more analytical son over here.
Often, Mercies are not the jacks of all trades.
Though some can surprise you.
And then there is Albert Einsten, and King David.
And the maker of empanadas and street food extrordinaire, John Walquist.
With his gift for fragrance, and his capacity to cultivate ambiance.
Many a Mercy’s love and need for physical touch and intimacy is mistaken for homosexuality. And so the accusations get hurled. And they often either have too many relationships that turn into trainwrecks, or they go to the opposite extreme to prove they can be like every other believer and not need physical touch.
And so an unmet need gets stuffed, lest they get mistreated or misunderstood by others.
And all they want frequently is one loyal friend that will not hold them in judgment as weird as they and their ideas might seem, who can jive with them, and with whom they can build somethng unusual.
Loyal Friends Who Are Registered Democrats And Republicans
After your heads stop exploding, conservative evangelicals, read the following.
One can be a Christian and a Democrat. Or a Jew and a Democrat.
I have a friend who is a Mercy and they are also a follower of Christ, and they happen to be a registered Democrat.
God-For-Freaking-Bid.
Here is the thing. If you are able to handle being friends with someone and suspend judgment based on their denominational or political affiliation, there is no telling what treasures G-d will bring you.
My Giver grandmother, once wanted to host the Democrat Governor of Florida, Bob Martinez, at our local Chamber of Commerce in Starke, and the Republicans who got wind of this got up in arms. And she responded saying, she did not care what their political affiliation was, she was going to connect and work with whomever the governor was. And she got to host him.
Gang, sometimes the best thing, and the most G-d-Oorchestrated thing you can do is withhold judgment. You never know what the L-d will do in your midst and whom He will connect you with, if you just walk with Him.
And Mercies are capable of restraining judgment quite skillfully. And they are judged frequently because of the mentality that it is better to live in a bawdy, gonads-out manner, with not a lick of shrewdness.
What was the line from that movie?
“I would rather stand with G-d and be judged by the world than stand with the world and be judged by G-d.”
The problem with that quote is not the quote itself. Rather it’s this idiotic perception that a dichotomy must always be present.
Well, of course you would rather stand with G-d and be judged by the world.
What you might be missing is there are a crapload of ways to spread the gospel than just with an apologetic-driven and a tract-driven form of ministry.
Some methods of sharing the gospel are so 1920’s that they need to be ditched because they simply do not work anymore. The reason certain movies do not appeal to or convert present-day postmodern, Mercy-season people is because the capacity to coherently speak propositional truth is not the prevailing factor in bringing someone into the kingdom.
Showing an atheist the movie G-d’s Not Dead and G-d’s Not Dead 2 will not convince them.
Rather, not being a serial rapist, adulterer, or child pimp is what is going to win them. In other words, it is about consistency and integrity and grit.
It is about relationship and intimacy, not whether or not they see you as a credible authority or whether or not you have dotted ever I or crossed every T in our presentation of the Romans Road.
In other words, did I bother to give a shit about actually wanting a relationship with that person and connecting with them, and putting up with their mouths and behavior, or am I just in it to put a notch in my belt.
One With the Spirit and Six With The Soul. That Is Not How It Works. That Is Not How Any of This Works.
One other dynamic is that Mercies are often known for leading with their emotions, where the other six gifts frequently lead with their minds.
I know I am likely going to catch grief because I didn’t use the same language here that Arthur used about a Mercy receving something first in their spirits.
There is a large reason for that.
In Nurturing Your Spirit: Basic Seminar, Level 1, Arthur made the comment that “G-d does not deal with us on the level of our souls, but rather on the level of our spirits”.
This is different to what he said in his video on the Mercy that says the Mercy connects with G-d on the spirit level while the other six connect with G-d with their minds.
So, why the disparity? I think I understand why.
When I have watched G-d work with each of the gifts, I have seen Him or felt Him attempt to connect with each first on the level of their spirits. And with a Mercy, the first evidence this has happened is a touch in the emotions. With the other six, there is another point of registering that they have gotten the memo.
Again, this is my take, as is this entire post. And y’all are welcome to take or leave as much as you want.
I am just reporting I have seen, and I think there is a better way to articulate this interaction and differentiation between the Mercy and the other six gifts in how they interact with G-d.
Data Vs. Gut
One other dynamic of the Mercy that differentiates them from the other gifts, is that while the other six like to present data for proving G-d is over here, the Mercy doesn’t do that, but insteads has a gut reaction and knowledge that G-d is somewhere and often cannot expian why or provide a litany of hard data proving G-d is in a certain thing or place.
And this often extends to a lot of their interactions with others. If they have a friend who is getting ready to do something, and there is a danger that no one can predict or see, the Mercy will often get a…something somwhere….and they tell their friend that it might not be wise for them to proceed along that course of their plan.
Mercies can often feel the what without knowing why.
Another indicator you are dealing with a Mercy or that you are a Mercy, has very little to do with how much Mercy you show.
Good, now that I have that out of the way….ahem…
Magnets For Wounded Peeps + Feelings
Mercies also are magnets for every wounded or rejected person in an area. If you have ever been in a situation where someone who is a stranger comes up and dumps their complete lifestory onto your lap, you might be a Mercy.
And Mercies often double as empaths. Or burden bearers. Pick your term. Some might get up in arms because “empath” is too New Agey, and “burden bearer” is a more Christian term, to which I have to shrug my shoulders and let them figure it out.
That is, they feel when people share things.
They feel all the feely feels.
And for those who are irritated with the feeling language and how we have a generation of men who are effeminate. No, we have had feminine men who are in touch with their emotions in every generation, including President Lincoln, and instead of calling us gay or castrated, you need to learn how to accept our love, affection, and embrace, and feeling through a problem, and maybe recognize that some of us are not going to look the way you think a typical man should.
Handling “Incompetence”
By the way, if you are dealing with a Mercy, though they might seem incompetent to help you in your workshop, if you give them instruction on what to do and you are willing to coach and teach a LOT, you might have a reliable worker who because they connected deeply with you, might also be willing to do the DEEP research necessary to help your projects arrive and a place of excellence.
And I know many who will say Prophet and Exhorter are the only visionary and verbal expressives of the bunch, and Mercies are generally soft-spoken, but if you get a Mercy going on a topic they love, or you cross something about which they are zealous, they can get really lippy and mouthy (think King David with Goliath). I know many a Mercy who by their talk can peel the stubborn paint off of a wall, or command a stop sign to say GO. Give them a track and they may outvision and outtalk even a Prophet or Exhorter. Doubly so if they are given to socialization or slightly extroverted.
Granted, that is not the usual way with a Mercy, but I have seen it happen.
On the topic of Churches in Revelation here is your fractal of the names of G-d from Revelation, each with its Fractal of Two
Prophet: G-d of the Seven Stars/G-d Who Walks Among the Seven Lampstands Servant: The G-d Who Came to Life/ G-d The First and Last Teacher: G-d of the Sharp Two-Edged Sword Exhorter: The Son of G-d/G-d with Burnished Feet and Fiery Eyes Giver: G-d Who Has the Seven Spirits/ G-d who Has the Seven Stars RJD: G-d the Holy And True/G-d Who Has the Key of David Mercy: G-d the Amen, the Faithful Witness, and the True Witness/The Beginning of G-d’s Creation
Can G-d Use Me?
The dynamic of this Mercy Season is not whether you are hot or cold, as if cold was a bad thing. The question is “can you be both hot and cold by turns, as needed?” The question is whether or not G-d can used you as the situation demands.
Laodecia was not rebuked for being for or against. Cold was just as good and useful as hot, depeding on the context. The only thing G-d hated was lukewarmth. Sloth. Entropy. Devolving to only ever hunting for the path of least resistance.
So, gang, I bless each of you in this sequence to consider your gift, as you read through the sequence. May your day be blessed and filled with all His fullness and may you walk in extravagent fulfillment.
“So in the morning his spirit was troubled, and he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt and all its wise men. Pharaoh told them his dreams, but there was none who could interpret them to Pharaoh.”
Gen 41:8
Okay, so I am not going to cover a whole lot here pertaining to how the L-rd rescuses us, or other dynamics that usually come out in dealing with this text.
However, I want to cover a dynamic that may not be as regularly-preached from this text.
What Saved The Nation
It would appear, from this text, G-d resuced Egypt through a single catalyst: Pharaoh’s spirit.
True, Pharaoh could have had the dreams, but had his spirit not been troubled, I would suggest he would not have searched for a solution, nor acted when a solution was presented to him.
Deep Cries Out To Deep: The Deep In Us and the Deep In The L-rd
For us to deeply act, we must first be ready to receive the deep that cries out in us, to us, and to the deep that is within G-d who has the solutions to the problem He is showing us.
See, we have a spirit and a soul, and we often mix the two and say they are the same thing.
They are not, rather they are different, and are designed to be different and have different functions. And the spirit is not a metaphor for anything. It is literally breath and the thing that governs our life under the oversight of the L-rd.
In this case, Pharaoh’s dreams caused his spirit to engage with him, and that spirit was troubled, and, as a result, he was provoked to action. Find me someone who can tell me what these spirit-troubling dreams mean.
And fortunately, Joseph knew the G-d of Dreams, who owns the interpretations of dreams.
And old men dream dreams and young men see visions.
More and more, it behooves us to listen to what the L-rd is saying to us in our dreams, and not monk them up with every resourece that has a canned response for every image and metaphor. Our responsibility is to learn how to interpret dreams, and to hold our dreams as precious for us, and to understand that we have all the tools we need on-board and in-hand, including our friendships and relationships, to help us interpret.
Pharaoh’s spirit moved him to seek out one who knew the G-d of Dreams.
The Lesson For Us From The Text
And as our spirits prompt us to action, we do well to hearken to the voice that speaks to us. And to move.
In closing, I would exhort you each to connect with your spirit and to work with your spirit and to listen when your spirit speaks to you, and take him or her seriously.
Be blessed, gang. And we here at TPH are willing to work with you to help you hear your spirit if no one else is available.
