They like to help….and help….and help….and help….and help….
And will not stop helping…..
Meeting tangible needs…
Cleaning…
Praying…
Cleansing…
Praying off death spirits…
No guile…
Willing to stand up to bullies…
And they do not quit when a fight is involved and others are damaged beyond repair…
The just do not quit…
And they have no guile and no agenda…
Until or unless someone breaks them out of that tiny and small vision of serving and obeying…
Like a trauma…
Or a hard word of some sort from a friend willing to deliver that message….
Redemptive Gift Prophets are usually the ones with the chops and the authority to speak to both, and if mature, the blow can be softened by the Servant seeing and hearing the heart of the Prophet…
Candidly, Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America, was, in his early years, possessed of the heart necessary t take on the task of making the world a safe place from bullies, but while his best friend, Bucky Barnes, was present in the early season, Barnes was a constant distraction for Rogers from his missions:
It took the grueling adversity of believing Barnes dead to get Steve into the right place of focus.
Then, being frozen in the ice for 70 years after interacting with another Prophet (Peggy Carter) got him more focused, as he was given the mission of leading the Avengers.
And with us, especially with the Servants, we have to be broken from our lesser goals and embrace the deeper things the King has for us, if we are to walk in our highest calling and the best version of ourselves.
And maybe, just maybe, we will in the process, regain some of what we lost.
In Rogers’ case, he received back his best friend, and then the love of his life, and after the Infinity War and Endgame was able to go onto a third act and another shot at many of the things he had missed out.
Those events, if they do not let the King in to heal them or the memory, can leave them in a low place for much of their lives.
The King attempts to break so many of us out of the mediocrity of the Grand Central Station of Obedience and into something deeper, but sometimes the higher, deeper, broader, more colorful place requires we endure a large measure of productive pain.
And as to Bucky (Prophet), the Prophet’s pain is of a different type and a different pathway, but it is no less significant.
In the case of the Servant, “throwing myself in, follow orders, serve” is NOT enough once the dissatisfaction with the low goal of obedience is quashed for a vision with purpose and an adventure.
The tracks or road or path get laid through obedience, but the adventure only gets embraced through creativity, and that comes only through sonship. Slaves obey, sons create.
Servants, who are so used to settling for something secondary, helping others, or BEING PUSHED INTO THAT ROLE AND ACCEPTING IT, were made to be dialed-in for one thing…
Yet….
GREATER…
…than meeting the felt needs of others: to create an environment wherein the King would be happy to come and dwell. They ultimately must be pulled from their secondary purpose, as with the Prophet from theirs (solving problems and fixing things), and get dialed into their primary purpose (creating the one environment that matters to provide a place that is comfortable and inviting so that the King’s purposes might get accomplished).
It took Steve losing his best friend and his former reality to move into something deeper.
It will take the Servant losing their smaller reality to move into the deeper purpose.
And, sigh, it will not be easy, but it will be worth it.
#PrincipleOfAuthority
The Example of the Servant Who Missed It and Lost Out Bigtime
I am going to leave one line here from one account, and I want you each to catch it, and i want it to sit with you, and I want you each, Servants, to move into greater things, because the typical Servant is adept at the ecosystem and working with the earth, incredibly well, or some dynamic that can become settling, if they are not careful.
Then Saul, went back to his father Kish at Gibeah, having received the kingship and the office, and resumed his lesser task of farming….
Do I need to qualify this by saying that it’s a rant? Do I need to write “trigger warning” because my use of certain words will equal butthurt?
No.
I am about to piss off some religious spirits. Good, ‘cuz in Facebook Land the usual tripe rarely does anything to help the advancement of Kingdom.
First of all, I am a Mercy by design. Don’t get that twisted. Too many believers think that means we show mercy, and then they stick us into a fucking box, but being a Mercy that means so much more than that.
Don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t cuss, don’t chew, and don’t run with the girls that do…..that’s how went the refrain for the last 20 years in a denomination that stole my voice and told me I was a rebel. Good, I don’t mind being a rebel anymore, or one who shepherds rebels and the broken.
Because, Michael and Renee, you have zero business being pastors.
A Mercy is known because they show the heart of G-d. His tender heart. His loving, emotional, accessible, affectionate heart.
And above all, His warm Bridegroom’s heart that viciously rages against all manner of boxes that say “holiness and righteousness look like this”.
“Holy” means so much more than limp-wristed, set-apart-ness. It means we get together our tools that the King has given us, all of them, and we build something together. It means we execute.
Calling “set-apart” as the definition for “holy” stops short and makes me vomit.
The Wright Brothers, their project funded by their bike shop in Dayton that changed the world, that is HOLINESS.
And when we recite the first statement of the Westminster Catechism, we miss the full point.
What is the chief end of man?
“To glorify G-d”
And too damn many believers stop there…..
And they ignore the rest of the story….
The whole statement is “to glorify G-d and enjoy Him forever”
“To enjoy Him forever”.
“No”, the religious say to us, “G-d’s so blasted holy that we are not allowed to enjoy Him”. We are only allowed to glorify Him, and that is used as a club to beat believers upside the head, and abuse them if they come across as too carnal…..
They say “glorify G-d the way I tell you to glorify Him”.
We get told, this behavior or that language doesn’t glorify Him and so we lance, bolt, skewer, dart, and shoot anyone that does not fit our idea of what “to glorify Him” means.
So, ”to glorify Him” comes with so much damned religious baggage that too few people really get to hear what it actualy means. And we tell people do do this approved list of do’s and don’t’s. And we violate or sear the conscience of too many people when we miss the aspect of connecting with G-d that involves enjoying just being with Him.
As a result, we lost the plot, as they say in Australia.
What if you just walked how He hardwired you? What if you embraced your unique design. Even if that does not mean you “preach the gospel” or you are not a church-planter, or you multiply financial wealth, or you develop the next thing?
And what if we got our mouths off of what “glorify G-d” means, and onto what it really means.
It’s not just about obey and be a slave or even a servant alone.
Really, it means “walk in your design and enjoy the journey with the King”.
Too often, we use triteisms that curse or block or trigger people to respond or tune out.
And we need to get this thing so that it is more approachable.
And the heart of G-d is this, and the Mercy that walks squarely in their design says this:
Be what He made you to be. As Chris Pfohl would say, “let your freak flag fly”. Contribute your unique sound to the sound of heaven, and let Him do in you what you were made to do.
Be you. And for those who are scared of this statement, I will qualify it so you can be happy. This once.
Be what He designed when He knit you together in your mother’s womb.
All forms of guilt because we think we did not engage in behavior that glorified G-d even though it was our design, those sins of misapplied guilt based on false information rooted in the religious spirit, will lead to death of some part of us. There is a sin that leads to death. One of those sins is the sin of religious self-flagellation or feeling guilty over some aspect of our design.
Another of those sins is attempting to control the behavior of others through fear or intimidation.
Feeling guilty over something that is part of His design MIGHT be a curse…
Or a heart belief…
Or a spirit belief….
Our overfocus in what we think is glorifying G-d by squelching His good design in us has turned into a religious cultus or occult knot led by an antichrist spirit designed to destroy us.
What Really Is Antichrist?
Also, allow me to define antichrist with a touch more nuance.
It’s the spirit of “instead of”, not “against”.
αντί, preposition in Koine Greek, meaning “instead of”
ANYTHING but the one thing we need. Substitute who we really are for something that “glorifies G-d even though our heart is not in it. Flurry of religious activity. Paired with the religious spirit to bring a flurry of activities that people think glorify G-d, but leaving the heart of the matter out of the work of worship.
Jerusalem, Teacher City, Philistine Curse. One thing. One thing missing from the full package.
Meanwhile, G-d is comfortable with us as us.
He wants us to be us, and He really wants us to do what we enjoy.
As a Father, He most behaves like a Father when He is enjoying us and taking pleasure in us AS we enjoying the things that bring us joy.
I will be honest, we on the East coast, except for Florida, the former 13 colonies, have this dour and sour attitude. I have a couple of close friends from California, land of dreams, that beautiful Exhorter state, and there is a joy and an ease of thought and living among many California natives. You’d never confuse Cali for New York. Or Tejas.
And we in the East need that infusion of the West’s joyful mindset on some level.
So, as you connect with the King, know Him. Yada, KNOW Him. That word, ידע, means “to know something or someone”, and it is found in both places like Proverbs 3:5-6, and Genesis 4:1, when Adam KNEW his wife, Eve.
Know Him, and KNOW that He adores you and adores how He made you, and He is not afraid of you doing what brings you joy, for in that, in your design, He will be glorified. Forever.
And if people want to tune out because I used a cuss word in this one, then let them. This isn’t for them. And I won’t placate the junk because they require it.
Here is the kicker, gang. We can be so adept at knowing the written word of Scripture, which is a good thing, that we do not take the time to u spool and understand our own issues and weak spots and never seek to go on the adventure of sonship to unpack our design and find out our weaknesses and areas where we need to grow, especially in the area of our design.
It will usually take a well-rounded Prophet who is capable of seeing weaknesses to come to the table and teach us how to toss our boxes in the trash and show us what we are made of in order to help us move into a more healed place.
The question is, when the enemy comes with a situation we have not seen, will we sit back and allow ourselves get destroyed because we think we knew how things were supposed to be set up, or will we go back to Father, and ask Him to teach us while we sit at his feet in a new situation.
Too many are too familiar with “the way things are supposed to be”. Sonship, after we have gotten to know the heart of the Father, is all about unpacking design and learning how to creatively build and skillfully fight.
We receive revelation, but then we also develop tools.
And too many think, all we need is a little bit of Bible and that is enough. No, friends, we need to know Him and we need to know ourselves and grow not just with integrity of heart, but also skillful hands.
So, what are you going to do here?
It’s a learning curve to get beyond the book’s text and into using the principles to think and feel outside the box and grow in skill.
This is another chunk of the value an RG Prophet brings to the table.
And enough experience on receiving end of what it should not look like in several dozen facets.
First marriage destroyed through adultery.
Second marriage lost due to interference from control, jealousy, and witchcraft because I work with survivors of Satanic Ritual Abuse.
January 14, 2005 to April 15, 2013: 3013 days.
April 19, 2014 to July 19, 2022: 3013 days.
And both marriages had many lessons to impart to me, and these treasures were not easily excavated. It was a crucible for the silver, and a furnace for the gold…
And I would like to offer the following bits, so thank you to those friends who enabled me to see some facets of a number of right ways of looking at this topic, and I would like to share things that maybe do not get enough daylight.
For those who ask if I am going to touch the egalitarian-complimentarian-headship debate, well, we will see.
But allow me to lead it with a couple of lines of thought….
Three Threads
Thread 0 offered, then set off to the side: Regardless of how I interpret Ephesians 5:21 followed by verses 22ff (I am very much of the view that in the context of the submission that all believers offer one to another, a wife still has a further place to submit in some way to a husband to loves her as Messiah loves His body), we are missing some critical ideas in this topic, because we look at roles, without looking at birthrights.
And design….
Women are not merely to play like they have hammers and swords….
Rather, they are to use them.
Thread 1:
A woman and her sword, once separated, leave her vulnerable in ways she should not be made so.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the L-RD G-d had made. He said to the woman, “Did G-d actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but G-d said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For G-d knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like G-d, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
Genesis 3:1-6 ESV
The chief clown, Lucifer (I call demons “clowns”) came to the woman with her man and spoke to the woman.
For those who say “the man should have spoken up”, I am going to stop you right there.
The attack of the clowns frequently shows us an indicator of design. Husbands and wives are made as foxhole partners. Period. Get that one into your spirit. I implore you. Wrestle with the junk that fights against both of you, and woman of G-d, pick up your sword.
Or your tent peg.
Healed Exhorter/Servant combos in action…
The Other Two Points:
At this point, the issue is not one of submission, but of dominion, and refusing the victim spirit. Also, it is not about blame-shifting, but about fighting together against the real enemy. The real question is not are you loving and submitted to one another. The real questions (and from this, submission and love will flow, as well as a whole host of other dynamics) are these:
“Are you together learning from Father how to build; and how to fight?”
“Not only that, but are you aware of the raw materials you have together with which to build in a creative fashion?”
Point 2: Building
I pose these questions to y’all, gang, because there are times when the Father is not going to give you directions to obey, but is rather going to turn the two of you warriors loose in order to make choices together about what to build creatively.
First, in the early days of your relationship, you are going to struggle because you are going to feel like there is no user manual for building. So you are might desperately struggle with working together as you slap something together because you feel like you have been thrown together with little training. And then, as you grow together, working with one another, synching with one another, you are going to get more intentional about what you are doing, and as you grow more intentional, you can begin to incorporate strategy, and timing, and understanding, and pacing, and wisdom, and you will get able to fold together intimacy with one another together with skill in building.
Slaves obey. Sons create.
Create and build together. There is something there that can be done. He wants to partner with you to enable and endue and empower you two to build.
Point 3: Fighting
Second, to fight together.
Are you also aware of the real enemy that you should both be protecting and covering one another from? Do you have your lover’s six? Can they count on you to protect them and to give the enemy an earful of the Word of G-d Himself, and a faceful of His shekinah on their behalf?
“Having done all, to stand….” As Anne Hamilton has said, have you allowed the Bridegroom Warrior to kiss you into your armor? And that is something husband and wife were made to do in tandem with He who is Adonai T’Sevaot.
Again, as with the building part, you might find yourself clumsy as you work to direct your assaults away from your mate, whom the enemy will tempt you to attack as the source of all your problems, and against the real enemy. This is why you should exercise plenty of descretion when choosing a mate. And if you already have one, then work the best with what you have. This is not a decision to rush into, but rather to wait until the markers and evidence that this will be a redemptive relationship, one in which you can accomplish more redemptively together than apart. When you have the markers there, then a lot of the marriage prophecies and dependence on other people saying “thus saith the L-rd” can fall by the wayside.
Are you a safe place for your mate, and a terror to the enemy that assaults them?
Are you a confidant?
Do you hold secrets back one from another?
Can you share the little things together?
Do you have the common interests on some level?
Is there a cause?
The biblical text that gets overlooked, and I think the King Jimmy puts this best. Matthew 19:5
For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
It’s not about the love and submission (shorthand for the Ephesians 5 text) at this point….
Go beyond the elementary principles to the roots of those things which give life to a marriage.
And at the root of every marriage, let me CAPS out three words in Matthew 19:5.
FOR THIS CAUSE….a man will leave his parents and be joined to his wife….
You have to have a cause….there has to be a reason….a purpose….for the connection….
What’s your cause…..
What’s your reason for wanting to wake up with this man, this woman…
As David said before he fought Goliath….”Is there not a cause?”
Do you have a reason? Is there something you do incredibly well redemptively with this woman that you do not do with another? Or this man?
The cause will show you what to build and what your fight is.
And are there connection points between you and she….or you and he…..?
And is there enough diversity and difference between the two of you to make things interesting.
And is there enough of a draw beyond the superficial that you will last?
I cannot believe I am sharing this cut…..
Oy,
Thanks Tiffany….
Before You “I Do”
Though, a man should be confident enough in his own identity and authority on some level BEFORE HE STEPS INTO A RELATIONSHIP BEFORE IT TURNS INTO MARRIAGE that he will not have married a harpy or yielded his authority and is asking a woman to lead him or make decisions for him OR TO OTHERWISE GIVE HIM HIS LEGITIMACY…
Conversely, a woman should be confident enough in her own identity and authority on some level BEFORE RELATIONSHIPS AND MARRIAGE HAPPEN that she does not marry either an abusive or controlling jerk or a passive, milquetoast man, or an immature manchild who will not listen to her voice when she speaks to him in fullness, honesty, and rawness.
There has to be not merely the biblical text triteism of mutual submission, but also some level of mutual vulnerability, and both parties walking in partnership with Messiah, and willing to work through the tough issues, especially of growth, healing, deliverance, and love with one another.
And G-d did not say we had to be completely healed before we step into relationships or marriage. Nobody in Scripture, including Messiah who was fully human was fully whole without emotional issues as a human before stepping into relationship.
What G-d looks for is willingness and vulnerability, not absence of wounds or scars. The three together of y’all, working through things and journeying on this adventure…G-d looks for people who will just walk with Him and put Him at the center and forefront of their lives.
And couples who will walk together with Him, protecting one another.
It really means something when we war together against the enemy of our souls. And instead of the usual dynamics, we look at life between two battle buddies, two partners in crime, two companions in this eternal adventure.
And we engage with one another without passive/agression.
Some couples choose the way of sarcasm, and that works for them.
The real clincher here though is, are you together on close to a similar page about the L-rd, and the enemy?
And the next question that I would ask is, is there a spirit-to-spirit connection between you and your beloved, because so much happens in that space, when the portions of your spirit, and the portions of your beloved’s spirit actually interact and mingle.
It’s not just about being one flesh. It’s about the joining of spirits and the connection of journeys so that things flow in alignment.
Gang, Mercies are some of the most dangerous warriors to the kingdom of darkness of all the gifts, especially when they are healed and well-trained. This is why, when you can pour love and dignity and confidence into a Mercy and help them see their design, they will flower and bloom and create nightmares for the enemy.
Those who have been healed after having been wounded are so incredible effective, regardless of whether or not they are divided.
Just some thoughts for this afternoon for y’all.
See you all in class this evening, those that wish to come.
When the Father shows you where He is taking you, He also might show you chunks of the process involved in sustaining you there.
It takes a process, and not just a movement to get to a place.
G-d may actually take you a place, due to His faithfulness to keep His word, where you had adequate time to develop the skill, but did not allocate that time to develop that skill necessary to sustain you in that place.
If you will not only ask the Father for your destination in this season, but also the willingness to embrace the character necessary to flourish in fulfillment in this season, He will gladly coach you.
But if you do not, then you may get there, but because the process was bypassed, you may not last there.
Blessing
So, beloved, I invite your spirit to be present. Spirit, if you will, the following is not issued as a command or an order, but as an imploration and an exhortation to listen. I plead with you to hear the word of El Shaddai for today:
Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let ENDURANCE have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Jas 1:2-4 NAS95
Beloved spirit, you were made to occupy a place of leadership in the partnership with the soul. And in that place, you were made to receive from the Trinity the resources necessary to not merely survive, but also to thrive in a place, whereever ______ goes. They have gifts, a design, callings, and aspirations, but those aspirations that flow from their design will not be sustainable without the process that galvanizes _______ and enables them to stick it out in a place when circumstances get difficult.
Testing…trials…these are part of our portion that lead us to a place of endurance in faith. They build the hardiness of sinewy, life-strong muscle that does not buckle. And spirit, I know life can be rough. But it is even more rough when that fruit of endurance has not been cultivated.
So, spirit, I bless you with a revelation of El Olam, the Everlasting G-d, who outlasts every other god in the field and in the realms of eternity and time. He is built to Everlast, so that he might provide you with Ever-Rest.
Spirit, I bless you with a deep love and longevity that will outstrip every adversary, outdo ever accuser, and outwit every serpent.
I bless you to fight for those you love. I bless you to be encouraged against those who would doubt you.
I bless you to travel the many leagues and have strength yet to fight.
I bless you to have the endurance that leads you to overcome and conquer the ancient enemy that would seek destructions.
I bless not just the product of victory, but also the process that is difficult that is a Bessemer furnace that leads you to have and possess the strength to move toward victory.
I bless you with the skill to see what is ahead and what is in you, and I bless you to lean deeply into the heart of your Bridegroom and Father who “trains your hands to war and your fingers to battle” (from Psalm 144:1). I bless you to know what strongholds are present in a place, and what authority you need to cultivate in order to come in the opposite spirit in a place that needs freeing. I bless you also to see what issues you need to deal with personally so you can cultivate and earn the authority necessary.
And I bless you to see the land freed as a result of the endurance you will cultivate for _______.
I would like to invite your spirit to connect in the name of Yeshua.
Spirit, listen to the word of El Shaddai for you for today
Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?”
Genesis 3:1 NAS95
Spirit, there are going to be times when you are in creation dealing with the enemy of our souls. You are likely going to hear him question your place, your love, your heart, your very design, and your purpose.
In this case, the serpent was questioning Eve’s right to stand in the place as a foxhole buddy, and a fellow warrior of her husband. And the church has been doing this for a long time.
And using hammer/bludgeon passages to silence powerful sons of the King, both male and female, when it comes to executing on their design.
Such as:
But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.
1 Tim 2:12-14 KJV
As if Paul, who was taught by woman was actually stating this as carte blanche for all women in all churches.
Now, whether or not Paul was a chauvanist is not my tack on this or the other passages. My issue is one of design. Our women were made to fight, build, and lead just as much as the men.
And given that G-d made us to be compatriots, male and female, we do better when we fight together and lead together, pointing our weapons at the true enemy of our souls.
Spirit, you were made for the fight, no matter your sex. You were made for community and to lead no matter what the soul says, or the culture says, or the church culture says. And this is one issue I brook not one bit of unbiblical foolishness. The King made us to be keepers of one another. And we belong, with equal rights and equal access before the blood and the love of the Holy One of Israel.
So, I bless you, when you are on the land blessing it.
I bless you to recognize the voice of the evil one, and to respond rightly to it.
When the devil opens his mouth to speak YOU HIT HIM!!!! -E.V. Hill @ Promise Keepers-
I bless you to HIT HIM!!!! HIT HIM!!!!
I bless you spirit, to be strong, no matter what, and confident, no matter what, and to HIT THAT CLOWN WITH THE TRUTH.
I BLESS THE SHARP TWO-EDGED SWORD THAT IS IN YOUR HUSBAND’S MOUTH TO ALSO BE IN YOUR MOUTH, BRIDE!!!!
Spirit, I bless you with love and all the tenderness and confidence and affection and truth in every way, no matter what happens.
And after the enemy has fled, I bless you to hear the heart cry of the land. I bless you to hear the love of the Bridegroom your Husband to your heart, spirit. I bless you to hear His voice in the cool of the day. I bless you to abide as you hear and respond to the land. I bless you with His strength in your weakness. I bless you with divine strength in your inner man.
I bless you with love that transcends all your doubts.
I bless you with the revelation of the truth that transcends and CUTS the enemy’s nonsense.
And I bless you to be established in the Truth that is your Bridegroom and Lover and Husband…..For He is both romance and strength, truth and tenderness, cold and hot; mind, heart, and reins.
And He adores you deeply as you connect with the land.
I bless you in that revelation, in the name of Yeshua.
Preaching “just focus on Yeshua” while refusing to embrace the plumbline He brings to His house, when He comes to remove abusers, is not focussing on Yeshua. It is rather focussing some perverse and anemic antichrist of your own machinations.
Focussing on Yeshua means focussing on ALL of Yeshua
If justice begins in the house of G-d, then it begins with those who are designed to execute that justice and decision-making process. Us. Believers who are sober-minded, and walking with Him.
“Stay in love with Jesus” is not enough. Walking with Yeshua, however, in fullness, is precisely the best thing to embrace. Even if it makes some people uncomfortable, and makes people say “that’s unChristlike”.
What is unChristlike is permitting predators in our midst, and refusing to protect victims.
And there are those who will likely want to label me “heretic” for this one. I cannot control how others see me.
The Real Un-Christlike Issue Among Believers: Remaining Ignorant of Iniquity In the Holy Place
Num. 25:6 And behold, one of the people of Israel came and brought a Midianite woman to his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the people of Israel, while they were weeping in the entrance of the tent of meeting. 7 When Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose and left the congregation and took a spear in his hand 8 and went after the man of Israel into the chamber and pierced both of them, the man of Israel and the woman through her belly. Thus the plague on the people of Israel was stopped.
Numbers 25:6-8 ESV
What is un-Christlike is proclaiming a better covenant…
While refusing to weave together the principles already given in the biblical text….
Failing to recognize the fullness of the Whole Covenant that stretches from the back to the front of that book we call Scriptures…
Failing to show allegiance to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and those who have been walking with the L-rd for any appreciable period of time refusing to attempt to walk cleanly with Him in this walk, with very little struggle, and an attitude that says “why bother?”, and playing with things that are deadly, especially those sorts of sins that create an ecosystem that enables predators and victims to flourish, because internal heart patters are not governed, and little to no attempt is made to take thoughts captive and make those thoughts obedient to Messiah.
I am all for a covenant that flows from the Love of the King, in which He enables us to walk freely as sons. What I am not okay with is a covenant that allows us to ignore provisions and instructions as to heart attitudes getting ignored in favor of some mysterious better covenant, and acting as thought the L-rd suddenly discovered what heart attitudes were as a result of the Sermon on the Mount.
The L-RD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Genesis 6:5
Delight yourself in the LORD,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalm 37:4
But the L-RD said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the L-RD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the L-RD looks on the heart.”
1 Samuel 16:7
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”
Exodus 20:17
“when I saw among the spoil a beautiful cloak from Shinar, and 200 shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels, then I coveted them and took them. And see, they are hidden in the earth inside my tent, with the silver underneath.”
Joshua 7:21
There is this little pebble in the Old Covenant that most “better covenant” types ignore to their own trouble. It’s called the Tenth Commandment, in Exodus 20:17. It is the Commandment that deals explicitly with the inner desires of the heart.
Messiah is not here to mediate a better covenant. He is here to show us the way that came through the entirety of the covenant etched in His blood from before the foundations of the world.
And that includes the inner desires of one’s heart.
It’s not our problem that the religious leaders of Yeshua’s day ignored the Tenth Commandment’s existence.
It is a problem, however, when a movement takes that ignoring position and forms an entire view of covenant based on shoddy exegesis that leads to a cheap and easy view of grace rooted in some sort of better covenant that abrogates entire chunks of Scripture.
Desire and the internals of the heart were a theme throughout the entirety of the biblical canon.
Here is one more example of the heart responding to not actions but seen looks of desire.
You are beautiful as Tirzah, my love,
lovely as Jerusalem,
awesome as an army with banners.
Turn away your eyes from me,
for they overwhelm me—
Your hair is like a flock of goats
leaping down the slopes of Gilead.
Song of Solomon 6:4-5 ESV
It is the eyes that overwhelm, the eyes that provide a look and a view that leads the lover to be captivated as though he were surrounded with an advancing battalion of fully-armed troops.
Now, that is inflamed godly, within-the-purview-of-the-Tenth-Commandment desire, that will execute in love and affection and that soon.
HaShem came to deal with the entirety of people through the love of the Bridegroom, and it behooves us to see the fullness of what He brought, and the the reality that He completed all the sacrifices that were necessary to reconcile us to Himself.
Beyond that, there are things we individually choose to do, and everyone should be fully convinced in their own thought as to what the outworking of that process looks like.
But if, in our preaching of the covenant, we show we forgot the Tenth Commandment existed, we neglect the very reason David was able to enter in to offer sacrifices…..
It was always about what was going on in our desires and our internals…that flow into actions.
It is not what goes into a man or woman that defiles them. Rather, it is what comes out of a man or woman that defiles them.
Just some thoughts….especially given there are crowds that appear to devote themselves to forgetting the whole tapestry of the covenant the King made with us.
Do not live as if you are unaware of the capacity of the Torah, the schoolmaster, to speak of the things Messiah came to mess with.
I invite your spirit to be present, in the name of Yeshua.
Spirit, listen ot the word of El Shaddai for today:
The Earth was without form and void…
From Genesis 1:2
Spirit, you are going to come across patches of land that feel tohu ve bohu. Chaotic, waste, empty, messed-up, befouled, vexed, defiled, broken, ruined, and otherwise in not good states. This text says before the L-rd began to refill the land, it was completely wasted and destroyed. The land was in dire need and in outer darkness from a cataclysm of some sort.
Spirit, in this season, I would ask you to be open to the possibility that the L-rd has you in the land and it may be because you and soul were made to bring something to the land it would not otherwise have.
I encourage you to consider deeply whether you have a role to play in the healing of the land.
And I will note, it is not your job to do the heavy lifting, spirit. That is the job of the King. He will work at it. But He does look for human partnerships to bring transformation to creation. This is why, later, it was said, “the L-RD G-d planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed”.
Spirit, you were chosen and placed on a particular piece of land to bring the life of the King to that chunk of land.
So, I bless you to see the vision the L-rd has for that patch of land, and to partner with Him according to that vision.
I bless you to work with the land that is torn-up and chaotic.
I bless you to work even when situations are not ideal. I do bless you to see what you can contribute as you partner with the L-rd to bring the life of G-d in a spiritual wasteland, and maybe even a physical wasteland.
I bless you to see the best when you see the worst.
I bless you with a revelation of the L-rd G-d that is equal to the task at hand.
I bless you in the name of Yeshua to find the life and flow of G-d and to incorporate that life flow into your working with the land.
Be at peace and wholeness, spirit, in the name of Yeshua.
I invite your spirit to be present, forward. I am not your drill sergeant, therefore I am not going to call it to attention. That’s just not my way; that’s not how i do it.
Spirit, I bless you to be present, whether far away or near, whether divided or integrated altogether.
I bless you to be as near to or as far away from me as you need to be.
But I encourage you to listen. Listen to the word of El Shaddai…
“For G-d did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that through Him the world might be saved.”
John 3:17
Spirit, there is a place for the King where He yearns not just for the people in the world, but also the land itself. He does not want to condemn. It’s not His heart to condemn. His Father’s heart is to teach, and to instruct, and to show, and to show cause-and-effect. Spirit, He wants to do this with you. He wants to show you how deeply you are loved.
So, I bless you, spirit, to receive revelation of the not-condemnation of the L-rd. He does not condemn you. He does not condemn where you live. He doesn’t condemn ________ city that anybody else might condemn. He doesn’t condemn Washington, DC. He doesn’t condemn San Francisco. He doesn’t condemn Boston. He doesn’t condemn Moscow. He doesn’t condemn London. He doesn’t condemn Beijing.
But that, through Him, through the Son, the Bridegroom, Who romances the Bride, they might come to know.
So, spirit, I bless you with that revelation. I bless you with a deep, deep revelation of what the L-rd has for you in your place, in your season. I bless you to partner with the L-rd in this season in working with the land to hear what He is saying. “Son/daughter there is a portal over there.”
“There is a structure over there.”
“There’s a Leviathan.”
“There is a Nephilim.”
“There are clowns.”
(That’s my term for demons. That’s my term, not Arthur’s. I don’t call them critters, because I do not think they merit the dignity of any of the members of the animal kingdom, and critters for me are soft and squishy and friend-shaped. I refer to the enemy as clowns because he is a circus show and he deserves to be shut down. At every stop. And thoroughly run out of town. Off the land. He does not deserve honor and worship. I might respect that he has some sort of authority or whatever the case. But there are times when I just do not have time for the crap he brings to the table.)
So I bless you to not have time to glorify overly what the enemy is doing. I bless you rather to know the purposes of G-d for the land, and to spend time on that dynamic instead.
I bless you to hear when the L-rd is saying, “check that structure over there. Look over here. Give a call to this person. Put your heads together. Devise a strategy.”
I bless you to know the strategies. I bless your toolbox to increase. I bless your toolbox of not-condemnation-but LOVE to INCREASE!
I bless your heart and your mind and the eyes of your heart to be opened and able to perceive and see what needs to be seen.
I bless you to know the King’s love and the love He has in this season. And I bless you to see the land move up from negative numbers up to zero and into positive numbers and grow.
And I bless you as you encourage and coach the land.
Be at peace, gang.
Full of the King’s purposes.
Be at peace, spirit.
I bless you with this revelation in the name of Yeshua ha-Mashiach.
