Slaves obey…..and they have zero creative will or desire or tools….and they have access only to what their master gives them…..
Sons create…..
I have a few questions for you. And I have hammered and pounded and beaten this drum forever.
Why the impotent focus on what Bezos and Gates do with their money?
Shouldn’t the focus be on unpacking your own stuff?
Is our job to handle other people’s stuff and see to it other people pay “their fair share”, when fairness is not in the Bible anywhere?
Is our job not to unpack the massive amount of treasures G-d has given us?
Or is it to wonder why someone else had any fulfilling OUR vision and OUR plan for their lives?
Your problem is not Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates or Warren Buffett.
Your problem (or problems) are issues that you personally deal with….
Your problem is between your ears…
Your refusal to see what G-d has given you….
Whether or not we realize it, these issues we have been dealing with for YEARS….they already have a slew of answers to them.
I will again mention two things.
We froth at Amazon, Disney, or other company C, and we miss the issues in government, or we froth at government and miss the evil companies.
But it seems we never put the two together.
And deal with the cohesive whole.
Our excuse? We like either the red or the blue solution. One of two Republicrat solutions.
And we ignore the reality that “what you pay taxes on, you own.”
Meaning, we have paid massive amounts of money into services and companies that have done evil things, and I rarely hear believers attempting to leverage the financial investments in these companies to ask the King to steer these companies in a direction that better aligns with His will.
Further question.
Can we leverage our investment to intercede for that alignment of those companies without coaching G-d as to what his purpose and direction for these companies is?
And we rarely ask Father to shine His light whereever He damn well wants to shine it.
And we rarely down a corporate womb of agreement long enough to ask Father to steer companies or governments because we’d rather talk about the injustice as if a yutz of a businessman can or has gassed Jews.
Or we Yell about the penis-shaped ship long enough to say, “he could end world hunger with those billions.
Forgetting world hunger IS….
Because of mindsets…..
The problem of world hunger and creating the foolish solution of confiscating wealth to end it won’t end it.
You will end world hunger when you end personal hunger.
And you end personal hunger when you stop saying “the answers to my problems belong to someone else”.
And when you stop trying to force people to care for the poor or hungry.
That damn spirit of jealousy that has caused fascists to loot and pillage and burn whole cities is a real problem.
And jailing or interning or concentrating or exterminating a race because you think another race is superior.
Calling for reparations when you fail to heal your own wounds is precisely what gets us to ripping all kinds of things apart.
Failing to understand your Southern brethren because you think you can talk down to him or her and they are backwards…
And using the fire of the world to confront what is ultimately a spiritual problem is how you ensure fractured relationships will continue.
The problem is not billionaires or millionaires.
The problem is misfocussed attention on the gifts and resources of others and a failure to unpack, steward, or use your own.
I just recently pulled out a major cork to some large-scale problem I have been dealing with for 3.5 decades.
And you know what?
I am going to keep on pursuing solutions to problems that have not yet been answered.
Gang, this peanuts of the Billionaires is going to get us nowhere.
The problem is the spirit that wants to keep us blind to our own resources (spirit of Jealousy)
The problem is the spirit that says we have no resources (the spirit of slavery)
The problem is the spirit that says other people are responsible for fixing our own problems (the welfare spirit)
You are not a slave, unless you stop creating and start pointing the finger and expecting that your solution is what Jeff or Bill have.
And world Hunter proceeds from a mindset that I cannot do anything to change my station.
And when Scripture shouts:
HIS DIVINE POWER HAS GIVEN US EVERYTHING THAT IS NECESSARY FOR LIFE
And yet we continue to act as if some people were given the goods and others simply were not….
We can quit making excuses that the solution is someone else’s responsibility….
That is a damn carnal Teacher with selective responsibility or a half-blind, non-principle-weaving and severely-wounded Prophet speaking.
And I simply will not make excuses for the juxtaposition of anyone’s radically-gifted-for-life life and “my problems are solved with their crap”.
This is not how any of this works.
And you won’t work if you think your problems are supposed to be owned by someone else.
Under three things the earth trembles, under four it cannot bear up: a servant who becomes king, a godless fool who gets plenty to eat, a contemptible woman who gets married, and a servant who displaces her mistress.
Proverbs 30:21-23 NIV
When someone with a spirit of slavery is installed into office rather than a problem-solving son, the earth, the land writhes. It does not settle down at ease.
Sidebar: And for the record, those who think I am a rabid Narnian and a supporter of the Dwarf Trumpkin, I have been an equal-opportunity offender.
Our responsibility is to hunt for an unpack what was placed into us inherently. It’s not to look for someone else to fix our junk.
When we beg for someone else to manage and fix our problems for us, we are robbed of the dignity of developing rich tools to fix the problems with which we are faced.
When people are cut off from anything that enables them to see their own dignity, the dignity that will empower them to fix a problem or set of problems, and to see the gifts and tools that are already in their own hand….
When they believe they do not have unless they or a benevolent rogue take what is someone else’s…..
They enable something far worse than real lack….
They enable the mindset of the spirit of poverty and the spirit of slavery, which leads to envy and jealousy, and as a result, they will never get ahead.
Be careful when a politician sets forth a problem, for you have no idea what their solution is to that problem, and it could involve the drafting of another’s time, resources, or gifts.
“However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find fiath on the earth?
From Luke 18:8
Sometimes you build the platform and then the L-rd repsonds, and sometimes the L-rd just shows up and you respond.
There are two dynamics that run very close, inverse of one another, and yet, we must dance between them on a constant basis as belivers.
We are told, by the one group of believers, that if we attempt to do anything for the kingdom, that “all our righteousness is as filthy rags” (even though He has transformed us (2 Cor. 5:17). What, so Jesus saved us and transformed us from one form of filthy rags into another form of filthy rags?
And we are also told by the other group of beliveers, that if we just wait for the L-rd to act, that we are lazy and not bearing the fruit that is the testimony that we are His followers.
Both camps may not understand one another, but they both adject one another in the kingdom.
See, we were made to engage with both, and not to view one or the other as better or worse than the other.
Some days you are going to feel a GRACE to do something, to build, to get a wild hair and construct something.
And some days you are going to feel a GRACE to sit still and allow Him to be with you.
A grace to work, a grace for kingdom-laden effort where you work with dilligence.
Which has the same source as the grace to not act and to see Him act.
There are going to be days and seasons when you are supposed to construct a platform for the King, to marshall resources, to bolt boards and beams and set foundations and pour concrete and run wire and follow a set of prints.
The grace to manage. And even in the midst of revivals and moves of G-d, people still need to skillfully manage resources and supplies. Just because G-d shows up with miracles and wondrous things does not mean that we can stop all management.
We need to arrive on the other end of a move of G-d having passed the test of successfully handling what was put into our hands to use. And to not be swayed by every single need that tugs on us.
There are days when the revival gives us power and authority.
And some days, the power and authority are to say “NO” to the many needs, so we can say “YES” to the specific needs WE are called to handle. Just because resources fall into your lap does not mean you fritter those resources away on the first begging hand that comes to your door.
Are you capable of blessing those G-d tells you to bless, and also of listening to the King when He says “do not bless that person”?
Are you able to pray when the L-rd says to pray (and when He tells you to pray, He will supply the grace necessary to pray) and refrain when He says to refrain, even from praying?
He has designed you to accomplish a limited number of assignments on this earth and in this season.
So, there is truly a male form of faith, in which we build something and the L-rd responds to us.
And there is a female form of faith, in which we wait for the L-rd’s initiation, and He does something that we receive, and then we respond to Him.
Which season is it for you?
Male faith or female faith?
My challenge to you is this: Don’t merely act with one aspect of faith, assuming your form will be always blessed.
Sometimes you will need to execute what seems to you a foreign form of faith in order to move forward in a seaason.
And I bless you to hear when the music changes, so that your dance step changes.
Some days, we work faith in building a platform.
And other days, we lay in our beds and allow Him the prerogative to initiate.
“This is why you were chosen. Because a strong man who has known power all his life, may lose respect for that power, but a weak man know the value of strength. And knows compassion.”
“Thanks, I think.”
“Whatever happens tomorrow, you must promise me one thing, That you will stay who you are. Not a perfect soldier, but a good man.”
Abraham Erskine and Steve Rogers, “Captain America: The First Avenger
Too often, we have grown comfortable witpower after being used to powerlessness, and we allow that power to grant us legitimacy, and we never get healed in our heart, our mind, and/or our spirits.
I think G-d wants to grant us His power and his authority, but He wavers when it comes to granting power to those who are not yet healed or who rely on their own talents, powers, authority, ability, skill in order to create a place where they feel legitimacy.
It is a hard place to be when you trust to your own design and then lose respect fot the power that comes with that design.
But when you allow Father regular and constant input into how you use and allocate the gift of your design (which is one way to define humility), then you are capable of executing when you need to execute, and you are capable of restraining when Father wants you to restrain.
Sure, you can fix a problem, but the question is, “Should you?” And what are the effects that will roll out if you solve that problem for others, instead of allowing them the opportunity to struggle for the solutions? Are you shortchanging others of the struggle they need to earn, not only the power to solve a particular problem, but also the respect that comes with struggling for the power that will ultimately come with mastery.
Sometimes, G-d allows us a struggle so that we earn respect and cultivate humility that is critical in order to skillfully weild the power to [fill in the blank].
“I’ll tell you the probelm with the scietific power that you’re using here. It didn’t require any discipline to attain it. You know, you read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn’t earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don’t take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even know what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you are selling it. [Your scientists] so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn’t bother to stop and ask if they should .”
The following may get ignored because I didn’t use the phrase “thus saith the L-rd to Salt Lake City”. But prophets don’t need to announce they are prophets in order to speak the truth the King gives them. And “thus saith the L-rd” has often preceded manipulative words. So, you each can have the freedom given to men and women to decide what you are going to eat as manna from the King and what you are going to spit out as bones.
I have never lived here in Salt Lake, or Provo, or Orem, or anywhere else in Utah, and I have never had a need to live here, but I think a few things, and I am going to share those things that were thought, about this precious patch of bee-busy land.
Salt Lake City Thoughts
Part of the stronghold built around this city revolves around finding legitimacy around the capacity to bring resources and provide for others and be independent for so doing.
They are great at doing and working with INDUSTRY (the state motto), but the independence that means they, or we, do not need to rely on the counsel and friendship of the L-rd and place our anchor in Him often leads to a form of legalism.
It is good to know your design. But it is horrible to make your design your anchoring place.
So, what may help in dismantling that stronghold is, for those that love and work in Salt Lake City, to come in the the opposite spirit by leaning into a radical partnership with the L-rd in everything that y’all do. Blending your design with and submitting it and it’s flow to His input in all things.
If you do not live and/or work here, or pay taxes here, you have substantially less authority to deal with the junk in the land.
Resist Non-Reality
We have a non-reality in some of the bedroom communities in Charlotte that people who do not pay a cent of taxes to Charlotte can exercise significant authority over Charlotte spiritually.
What you pay taxes on, you own. What you do not pay taxes on, you do not own.
If you want to exercise significant authority in the realm of a business or a city, you might first have to pay some taxes. You might need to live in a place in order to impact it significantly.
Different strongholds exist in different cities, and for those with a victim spirit (none of that here in SLC) they have to learn some independence and building with what the L-rd has already put in their hands, and the L-rd May be wanting to teach them radical Industry.
I know, some may stone me for saying that because “aren’t we all supposed to only depend on G-d and ‘lean not on our own understanding’, David?”
Not when the stronghold is a Victim Spirit and the L-rd is trying to break you of magic wand, welfare Christianity. If your sin of choice is a stronghold of Industry that says “no” to the counsel of the L-rd, you need to learn partnership.
On the other hand, if your sin of choice is the victim spirit and codependence on the L-rd (which is no partnership), the L-rd may be trying to get you to stand up and walk and use the tools He has put in your hands to build with.
May I Cut In, Cuz’ It’s Time To Dance
I know that, in my expression of these two dynamics, the “stay in love with Jesus/Brides Only” crowd will likely be offended with the paradigm of inddustry and work and being sent out by the L-rd and standing up and walking out dynamics.
This is why this is a dance between the two dynamics. Son mode and bride mode.
Sons build and use tools. Brides do intimacy and stay close and receive.
But we dance between receiving and giving.
We dance between bed chamber and kitchen/living/meeting room.
The Mary And Martha Dance
We dance between Mary and Martha.
Martha was a Giver. She owned the house where people met in Bethany. Mary was likely a Mercy.
You need both. And had Martha invited Jesus in to help her with the work (Jesus was a friend and family), Jesus would have come into her world and worked with her. Thanks to C.T. Meyers for that picture.
Jesus did not respond to Martha’s serving. Jesus responded to Martha’s perverted view of Mary’s design.
And we will have to do the dance and find the treasures between the closeness and the industry that is connected as a partnership.
So to the Industry crowd, learn how to partner with the King in your work, and how to invite Him in to that work. He will come to you in tour work where you are.
And to the Intimacy crowd, learn how to be about the BUSINESS of your Husband. You are intimate and in the intimacy, you receive tools so you can take the Kingdom and the Garden to the non-Garden parts of the world. Stand up and start swinging.
It’s not just about being intimate or trying to figure it out (understanding and wisdom and knowledge are not a hierarchy; they are tools).
It’s about doing the dance….
Transformation of Materials Used For Idolatry
And Salt Lake City has Treasures.
To hell with the mindset of “stay away from Salt Lake City because it’s loaded with demons.”
Oftentimes, the only reason a city eats your lunch is because 1) you were not called there, or 2) you are compromised in the area of the stronghold that holds that city or land captive.
Stay in the society where you are and cultivate the opposite spirit and the cardinal virtue tied to the land where you are and the stronghold’s optic, followed by its grip, will shrink.
Deal with the camoflauge and the issues if inaccurate perception.
They are clowns, and the circus deserves to leave town.
Which means SLC deserves a contingent of salty, rugged Christ-followers who will grow in some Giver Virtue.
We don’t cede land to the clowns as unredeemable.
California. Colorado. Massachusetts. New York. Fill in the blank. You don’t cede what you think is one damned inch of land.
Freaking. G-d. Was. There. First.
And just because treasures have been taken and carved into idols does not mean that there are not proper ways of using and working with those treasures.
You want to break the stronghold here? Avoid the slope of turning industry and the can-do attitude into Mammon.
Work, but work with Him. Be intimate, you intimacy people, but when the season of intimacy is done, move out and build and work. Sweat as Adam did. And drink your cold drinks, little ones.
The unique stronghold here is reliance on AND ANCHORING TO the Giver Free Money of Resources that flow to you effortlessly, and Independence.
As you are working to reconcile to your land and reconcile the land to the King, part of that reconciliation might involve having a conversation with the land and asking it what is going on in it. Consider the history. Consider the founding. Consider that the King sent you to a place.
A Blessing For The Industrious Ones
Beloved, I invite your spirit forward.
Spirit, listen to the Word of G-d for you for today.
A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
The L-RD G-d took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to WORK it and keep it.
Genesis 2:10–15 ESV
Spirit, you were made to work. Work is not a sin. Figuring out and pondering, and thinking are not sins. Your mind is not less than your heart, nor are the two of those less or greater than your reins (the RJD/Servant combo of your Adrenals and Kidneys).
They are just different.
Spirit, your place of dwelling is in the Seat of Dominion, in the brain in the Frontal Lobe. And yes, the heart and the reins also are thinking and feeling organs along with the brain
Spirit, the emotions and the toughs are designed to work together. As much as the first six gifts need the emotions, so also the Mercy needs the thoughts.
And all serve different functions.
Spirit, I went on that rabbit trail because this blessing revolves around one thing.
Tools, spirit.
Can I substitute a drill for a hammer in the matter of nails?
Can I sub a screwdriver instead of a wood chisel in the case of woodworking?
Screws and nails instead of glue in the case of broken ceramic?
In all of these cases, the answer is the same. No I cannot, if I am looking for excellence.
Spirit, you are made not only for tools, but also for intimacy. And you are made for kingly interactions in all areas of your life. No matter your Redemptive Gift, you are needed and all of your tools are needed.
And you were made, not to lean on your tools, but on the King.
For those of you with an independent streak, not all of those streaks are demonic or “soulish”. Some of those streaks are out there by the King and they demonstrate and display His goodness to the Giver tribe.
That said, that design of yours is meant for partnership with the L-rd.
So I bless you when you hear the L-rd say, build.
I bless your perspective to be fuller and to go for what is missing.
I bless you to see with the King’s eyes as He releases you to build using your tools.
But I also bless you with the capacity to slow down and hear what the king is saying to you.
I bless you to find all the King has for you in each Sonship and Kingdom assignment.
I bless you to hear the birds and see the light and to feel the wood and to wisely allocate the raw materials as you transform them into something different.
I bless you with the skill to apply gas and brake in sequence.
I bless you to partner with the land where you are and to see your gifts Marshall these tools, gifts, and raw materials and resources to come in the opposite spirit of the stronghold in place where you live.
I bless you to smile at the land where you live, no matter how much junk there is.
Spirit, no matter how much junk there is, the devil cannot tarnish the reality that “G-d was there first”. Not one damn clown beat G-d to any single patch of land on earth.
Even in Deseret, G-d was there before Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and the clowns of that perversion.
G-d put Industry in the land.
And G-d created us for incessant relationship and partnership. Partnership with Him. Partnership with others. And Partnership with the Land.
Spirit, I bless you to smile and show the land a bit of your sunshine as the King imbues YOU WITH HOPE!
I bless you to interact with the land and to speak to the land, not AT the land.
I bless you to listen to the land. And I bless you to take the tools give to you and to flow from stand-up-and-go on the one hand, to partnership and dependence to on and receiving from your bridegroom on the other.
I bless you to WORK the land and WORK WITH the land.
I bless the dance, as my sister from the Old Northwest was blessed in her capacity to receive her daily food from Her Bridegroom while she waited for her passion to take off.
I bless the tools to be connected to the capacity to flow between partnership when you check back in with the King periodically to receive from and being sent out from Him on assignment that means you might trailblazing alone in the wilderness, when the work is hard and the sun is hot.
I bless the land to facilitate you with its gifts without you falling into any traps created by anchoring to those gifts instead of the King.
“Unclean” in the Torah…a curious phrase. I am reading abot leprosy in Leviticus 13, and I think about the ways in which this word is use in the text.
We come to this word and we immediately think, “not clean”, or “dirty”, and as a result of that, we might go to “I am not good enough to appear in the presence of the L-rd”, and then leap to “I must not be good enough for the King’s presence.”
However, I do not think this train of thought fully encapsulates what the L-rd is trying to convey here. I do not think that our swiftness to leap to G-d’s rejection of us because of imperfections is really the right way to go about this.
Whenever I read a passage in Scripture as a pastor and a teacher, I start with the premises that G-d is good, G-d is love, RIghteousness and Justice are the foundations of His place of rule, and G-d desires a personal relationship and interaction with each of us.
That informs my reading, especially of things like unclean, which might tempt us to adjudicate G-d as unjust or unfair or somehow not right or mean-spirited. And thus we are left ot a place of futility. I do not think that is a helpful way of looking at Torah, and while Andy Stanley talked about unhitching our faith from the Tanakh/Old Testament….
I think a more appropriate place to go would be to unhitch our faith from sloppy, abridged, or merciless INTERPRETATIONS of the Tanakh/Old Testament that lead us to quickly pass judgment of the L-rd.
I do not believe “unclean” was used here to simply convey “dirty”, or “can’t come into G-d’s presence”, or “not good enough”, leading us to say G-d is mean or what-not.
And lest someone accuse me of attempting to negate the idea that “your sins have seperated you from G-d”, that is not what I am saying here. G-d is holy, but our idea of holiness often looks something like “free from sin”, rather than “weaving together principles to produce change”.
I think that “unclean” frequently refers to the idea of something that violates the singleness of our basic essence. And oftentimes, sickness, disease, and tragedy do not come into our life because we or our parents sinned. Often times, that comes into our life so that G-d may be glorified (Job 1-42; John 9:1-6).
Truly, it sounds like G-d wants to draw near to those who are broken or compomised (Luke 15:20), or unclean. So, our better solution is not the mindset that we need to stay away from G-d, but rather allow Him to run to us and we run to Him. Leviticus 13 is not about how we stay away from G-d, but how we protect ourselves and others when we are dealing with the junk that could threaten the stability of the larger group. And in the midst of the leper colony, we connect with the Father, who runs toward us.
Even while we are managing a sickness that can threaten our community, the holiness of heaven, with its weaving together of principles to produce change, desires to meet us where we are, outside the camp or inside the camp.
So, as you are looking at these passages, do not merely see them as “G-d doesn’t like me”. Rather, see them as “G-d has a purpose to connect with me in this season”.
So, when you read “unclean”, stop with the nonsense of thinking, “G-d refuses to receive me or look at me because I am a worm bastard sinner”. Think “G-d wants to clean me up and distill and purify my essence so that it is a single and cohesive whole.”
G-d is zealous that our essence be 100% your essence with nothing added…
What do you have in your hand? What do you bring to the table?
That is a key question, gang. And it is potentially dangerous to ask and answer unless we answer it carefully and thoughtfully. Why is that? Because we frequently have a very small idea of what we mean by “tools” and “resources”. We hear resources and we too often think of cash, or liquid assets we see. We often do not think about our relationships, our understanding, our knowledge, in part because we misapplied Paul’s exhortation, and just because we call those things (degrees and licenses and all that other stuff) shit (the Greek word σκύβαλον translates to “shit”), does not mean we reject the idea of using those items to further the plan of G-d in our lives.
Is It Really Junk?
Just because something looks like junk in your life, does not mean that G-d cannot use it.
So, at the outset of your working through approaching the work G-d has for you, toward your places of destiny, remind yourself of all the resources you have at your disposal. Truly, G-d gave you money to manage…
But He also gave you skill (Deuteronomy 8:18), friendships (Proverbs 17:17), work (Genesis 2:15), plans (Jeremiah 29:11, Proverbs 16:1, 3, 9; 19:21), rest (Mark 2:27), and family (Psalm 68:6).
And that word “skill” covers everything you do with your hands, mind, feet, anything you move to act on. The capacity to work and do something, and to do it with skill is a gift from Him. It is not just about being able to do something; it is about recognizing, discovering, and honing your strong suits so that you can do, with maximum effectiveness, the very things you love.
Our capacity to see everything we have in hand becomes a stepping stone.
“Away from what, though?”, you might ask.
The Poverty Spirit
When we only think of resources in terms of a very narrow band of things, then we might miss something G-d wants us to use. For example, the heading above brings to the minds of many Charismatic followers of Christ the conviction and curse that we will not have enough money, that we will constantly be in lack and that it is a demon that is causing this financial lack. While that is part of what the Poverty Spirit does, its full trafficking is in the arena of blinding us to everything to which we have access; its design is to keep us from seeing all of the available resources.
Stewards Don’t Rule, Or Take Authority That Is Not Theirs; They Manage and Protect For Those That Will Come
“Authority is not given to you to deny the return of the King, Steward!” “The rule of Gondor is mine! And no others!”
Yeah…
Truly, Givers are Stewards. And a Steward is a manager, not an Owner, and not a King. They are meant to recognize, gather, and protect resources for the return of the king. Further, a Steward is also given authority to allocate resources in accordance with what he or she knows about the king’s nature. And note what the King gives the Steward to do; The king will usually give the steward a great deal of latitude, provided the Steward is sober-minded and possessed of sound judgment.
Put succinctly, the Steward has the freedom to manage the king’s resources, and they may abuse those resources for a season, or they may manage those resources shrewdly for a season, but at some point there is going to be an accounting of his or her handling of the resources.
Not Indentured Servitude
Our interaction with the King, at many points, does mirror a partnership. Partners discuss and connect. Partners each bring things to the table. Partners work together. Partners walk in transparency one with another. Partners usually have chemistry if they are to survive. Partners walk in loyalty. Partners are authentic. Partners have open communication with one another. Partners synch. Partners love each other. Partners solve problems. And Partners walk in collaboration and encourage one another.
However, we are duty-bound to find the principles that are explicated in Scripture and to EXECUTE. Obedience is part of the equation.
Stewardship is part of the equation.
And awareness and allocation of available resources are also parts of the equation. Adapt and overcome. Sonship. Semper Fi. Do your job, and stop with the complaining that you do not have what you need.
Right now, without extra and added gifts given to you by others, you have treasure, gifts, resources, wealth and assets around you.
How are you managing what you are managing?
Stewardship Is Management of The Resources Given To You
Furthermore, our job and our responsibility are not to steward the resources that are not given to us. Management is not ownership, nor is it control, and the sooner we get that as a church, and especially Stewards (Givers), for whom the ROI in Stewardship is bonkers disproportionate, the sooner we will quit having the stupid effects that manifest from controlling and dictating resources. Take that, William H. Gates III, thou cankerous kakanthropist!
Stewardship is not management of the resources that are not give to you.
It’s not about screwing up the Servant (the atmosphere and the weather patterns) and blocking out the Exhorter’s impact on the planet by spraying ANY FREAKING THING, NO MATTER HOW “SAFE” IT IS.
The second you start managing resources that are not yours, like thrones, or weather patterns, or money, or emotions, or members of a church under your apostolic oversight (which is a satanic contradiction of terms, apostles do not oversee or cover anything), or networks, or families, or nations (the President is not a king)…is the second junk gets Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition.
On one level, Stewardship is accomplishing someone else’s agenda with someone else’s resources.
However, let’s boil it down a bit further.
Stewardship is using given or possessed resources to accomplish an agenda.
So, two things that every Steward (Giver) must answer for themselves, in the context of the Cardinal Virtue of Walking By Faith.
Whose resources are currently in your hand?
Whose agenda are you accomlplishing?
What Resources?
Everything that we have, from the breath in our lungs; the money in our pockets; the books on our shelves; and the knowledge in our brains, minds, hearts, reins, and spirits; to the relationships with our friends, to the bit of creation with which we interact, to the skills in our minds and hands and the understanding we have in both our spirits and souls are all resources. And we are managing each a vast pool of talent and garage full of tools and resources.
Whose Agenda?
Whose agenda are you fulfilling? If you can accomplish the King’s agenda while simultaneously blessing one or more people or creation or time in so doing, whether or not those people see your actions as a blessing, then youu will have accomplished much.
Couple All This With….
Righteous communication…
How did Denethor, son of Ecthelion actually die?
Read the books….seriously, Return of the King, Chapter 7: “The Pyre of Denethor”
“‘Authority is not given to you, Steward of Gondor, to order the hour of your death,’ answered Gandalf. ‘And only the heathen kings, under the domination of the Dark Power, did thus, slaying themselves in pride and despair, murdering their kin to ease their own death.’ Then passing through the door he took Faramir from the deadly house and laid him on the bier on which he had been brought, and which had now been set in the porch. Denethor followed him, and stood trembling, looking with longing on the face of his son. And for a moment, while all were silent and still, watching the Lord in his throes, he wavered.”
“Then suddenly Denethor laughed. He stood up tall and proud again, and stepping swiftly back to the table he lifted from it the pillow on which his head had lain. Then coming to the doorway he drew aside the covering, and lo! he had between his hands a palantir. And as he held it up, it seemed to those that looked on that the globe began to glow with an inner flame, so that the lean face of the Lord was lit as with a red fire, and it seemed cut out of hard stone, sharp with black shadows, noble, proud, and terrible. His eyes glittered.
“‘Didst thou think that the eyes of the White Tower were blind? Nay, I have seen more than thou knowest, Grey Fool. For thy hope is but ignorance. Go then and labour in healing! Go forth and fight! Vanity. For a little space you may triumph on the field, for a day. But against the Power that now arises there is no victory. To this City only the first finger of its hand has yet been stretched. All the East is moving. And even now the wind of thy hope cheats thee and wafts up Anduin a fleet with black sails. The West has failed. It is time for all to depart who would not be slaves.’”
from The Return of the King by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Chaoter 7: The Pyre of Denethor
After these things, Denethor takes the palantir and jumps headlong into the funeral pyre.
He was corrupted because he allowed his communications with the palantir to become corrupted by the tempting of Sauron and as a result, his capacity to hear people’s hearts rightly became corrupted. He was a Steward who wished to become a Ruler.
Givers, also named Stewards, your portion is to release the revelation of wise and skillful management without being fleeced and taken advantage of by hucksters (which are a dime a dozen) to the house of the L-rd and the Bride of Christ.
There is a life-giving agenda that can only be accomplished by the Stewards of the Realm of Messiah, and they have to teach skillful handling of communications media and sound in order to help hearts be heard and fine print be seen.
Denethor failed at his job of communications, holding a device of communication.
Will you fail? I dare say NEVER!
I encourage you Givers to KEEP POUNDING AND KEEP RUNNING IN RIGHTEOUS COMMUNICATIONS with the tools of communication the King has given you.
Your forté is skillful and subtle. To teach people a gentler, more well-timed touch and word. Kindness and gentler touches.
It is no coincidence that Arthur’s Teaching of the Giver in Redemptive Gifts of Individuals was with a lighter touch.
Everything Giver is with a lighter touch.
So, take this important principle, gang, and especially you Givers/Stewards and marshal those skillful words and touches.
Sometimes, the L-rd wants to heal something sovereignly.
Sometimes we have a broken wrist or a gimpy foot or we are blind in an eye
And those are for the glory of G-d to be demonstrated.
And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
John 9:2 (ESV)
And expecting someone to function normally with a compromised wrist or foot or eye is going to eventually breed futility.
The L-rd wants to heal those.
But sometimes we are faced with a problem where we have a muscle that is atrophied from disuse.
And the L-rd expects us to engage in intentional behavior and to begin the process that will eventually make something happen. But for that to happen, we must do something besides waiting for His intervention.
We are, after all, engaged in a partnership with the King.
Our portion and responsibility are to test situations so that we may discern which is the flavor of a situation.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Romans 12:2 ESV
So, gang, what is going on in your situation?
And what is your portion?
A Caveat
I realize some may not be able to hear His voice for whatever reasons. And for those, I would suggest partnering with someone you trust who CAN hear and can help you and will walk and lean into the the problem of hearing with you.
Beloved, I would like to invite your spirit forward in the name of Yeshua.
Spirit, Listen to the word of G-d for you for today.
Some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the great waters; they saw the deeds of the L-RD, his wondrous works in the deep. For he commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea. They mounted up to heaven; they went down to the depths; their courage melted away in their evil plight; they reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits’ end. Then they cried to the L-RD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad that the waters were quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven. Let them thank the L-RD for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man!”
Psalm 107:23–31 ESV
Spirit, not only do we need the right home, and not only do we need the right relationship with the right Father, but we also need the right cadre of friends to engage our destiny with us.
We were made to become people of destiny in the context of community.
Now, some of you in isolation might say “why is that?”.
In order to answer that, I have to tell you a story.
Spirit, I have a sailor friend whose name is Bryan. He is a sailor’s sailor and has always made a home or found a place at sea. From stints in the Navy and the Army Corps of Engineers to tours near Nigeria, he has gone down to the sea repeatedly in ships and done business on the water. He has seen the works of the King on the waters.
And he has shared with me that sailors frequently have inked on their knuckles the words “Hold Fast”. if you wash overboard, that rope to which you are tied may be the last thing keeping you from physical death. In so many contexts, holding onto a lifeline is all that stands between us an eternity.
Likewise, at least four of Jesus’ Twelve fished on Lake Galilee: Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John. And they would have understood in squalls the dangers inherent with sailing.
Unlike a cruise-ship, which is the ultimate form of mothering, military and other sailing and fishing vessels are solid expressions of fathering. The need on a boat is to develop the tools necessary to survive and thrive and return home safely. And often times, in order to thrive on a ship or a boat, you have to take calculated risks relative to your environment. And in all of that, whatever you do, spirit, do not let go of the rope. Hold fast.
And have a crew of mates that you can connect with that will work with you and help you learn the ropes and will have your back and keep you safe.
And it takes a group of people each weaving together their unique set of principles together, and bringing those sets together that helps us move into destiny. One man or woman cannot pilot a vessel alone to do a task alone. Destiny is a community skill. And Several sets of eyes that can see the various aspects are so desperately needed.
And love which flows between brothers and sisters is needed.
So spirit, I bless you for the seasons when you will be abroad. I bless you no matter the nature of the water or the location of the water. I bless you when you must be on the open ocean, or on the lakes or rivers, or in the waters underneath the earth. I bless you when the waters are calm, and I bless you when the waters are boiling out of control. I bless you when there is a red sky at night and at morning. I bless you when you are surrounded by sharks and when the waters are pure sapphire. I bless you to have the right mates. I bless your friendships to be rejuvenating and life-giving, and importantly, life-PRESERVING.
I bless you to find THE RIGHT BERTH ON THE RIGHT VESSEL, and to link up with THE RIGHT CREW. For whatever reason, the following poem feels appropriate here.
I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by; And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking, And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.
I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied; And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying, And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life, To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife; And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover, And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.
Sea Fever by John Masefield
I bless your business and I bless your vision to see the works of G-d in the depths of the deep.
I bless you to be aware of the dynamics of Leviathan, whereever you are, in seven heads. I bless your compass, chronometer, sextant, pelorus, and maps to be true and accurate. I bless your skill in using them.
Spirit, I bless you with a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover. I bless you with lads who will keep you aboard and welcome you into their cabal as they accomplish great exploits in the name of the Captain of Our Salvation.
I bless you, mariners, to hear the voice of your ship and crew. I bless you when the storm is getting worse. I bless you with adventure and safe passage, no matter where the map and route take you. I bless you to know when your ship needs rest, and your mates need a hand, or a look, or a smile, or a heart.
I bless you to sleep aboard your ship when the Captain sleeps, and I bless you to wake when the Captain awakens. I bless you with love to keep your ship in its right alignment. And I bless you to be fathered in the wholeness of cause-and-effect that is critical to the operation of a fathering vessel that carries sons of the kingdom. I bless your reins to provide you counsel in the night seasons. I bless your capacity to see the usefulness of everyone else around you whose gifts are nothing like yours. And, importantly, I bless your capacity and skill at meshing your skills together with theirs, and no matter the conditions, to sail effectively. And to reach not only your destiny, but the desired haven of your home, having accomplished what the L-rd intended you to accomplish.
I bless you with wholeness in your community, as you seek for your place among your tribe. Be at peace, spirit, in the name of Yeshua.
When you remove something that has metastisized at an alarming rate, what instrument do you use? Answer: a scalpel. Or a sword. That depends on the context.
Likewise, when you are in Denial about a result and the truth, and the stronghold is allowed to gather strength, that stronghold rooted in denying or hiding from reality creates an oppression. This oppression, left unchecked, will result in the Fourth Head of Leviathan, which we will discuss in the post on that head.
In order to survive and then thrive, you MUST tear down that stronghold, or fall under its weight. In order to tear down that stronghold effectively, you must deal with the root of Denial.
Denial. We heard it when Bob Jones said Bill Clinton had a mantle of humility. We heard about it when people suggested on one side that the morality of the President has little to do with whether or not he or she can govern. “We are not electing a pastor but a President.” We got to the point with Clinton when he said “he didn’t mean it as adultery”. We suspend judgment when it is our people, but heap it when it is the other party or group.
And meanwhile, Joe Biden is grasping for legitimacy because we allowed the President’s office to get that raucously defiled. This creation of the Office of the President-Elect, complete with Presidential Blue backdrop is a Denial-laced grab for legitimacy, because he has not been sworn in.
And many of us appear not to give a damn nor bother to pray for the toll this passed-around nonsense is taking on the marriages and families of those in positions of influence and public service.
So, Donald Trump can be the wrecking ball all you want until the cows come home.
Bill Clinton can be humble all Bob Jones claims.
Bush 43 can be the one who wants to “restore dignity to the Oval Office” while he commits us to an open-ended battle campaign with zero end in sight.
Clinton can give us surpluses until we are blue in the face…
Both Republicans and Democrats can spend us into oblivion with impugnity…
And we can pass around lists that say Republican are for limited government…
Even though Trump and Bush 43 asked for stimulus packages totaling in the billions of dollars….
However, it will not mean a thing as long as we are single-sided in our attacks and corrections and rebukes.
We still have not come out of our Denial yet, church. Neither have our government officials. And I am not convinced they want to.
The problem, indeed, is that SHIELD is a nothing more than a front for HYDRA. Those of you who have never seen the MCU movie “Captain America: Winter Solider” may not know what I mean by this. So, here are the pertinent movie clips.
And we are conserving and liberating nothing, except for the cancer that is present. Our responsibility is not to let one party or group play us off one another. In ANY arena, political or otherwise.
Spiritually speaking, this Denial and “my-partial-perspective-is-the-whole-picture” mindset is what allows things to grow without our knowledge or consent: In government, in the private sector, in the church and in the academy (looking at you, Liberty University sex scandal).
The Mesmerizing Spirit and this partial-as-whole perspective create a defilement of our times, our seasons, and our capacity to accurately discern the rhythm of times, seasons, and our moving forward in a horizontal manner with the constellation of our relationships in the surround.
When you are vested in the success of a political party come hell or high water, regardless of the actual truth, you have crossed the line into Denial.
When you are vested in the protection of a church’s reputation regardless of who was harmed by the abuse (Mars Hill, Hillsong, the Southern Baptist Convention’s mishandling of Beth Moore who called them out on their sex abuse culture), then your attitude is part of the problem.
When Denial strikes, prophets go hazy with their sight, planes fall from the sky because of imprecise engineering, and whole movements in the church go batty because they lose their focus. I am looking at the German Lutheran church for starters, where Martin Luther, the Exhorter, wanted a number of reforms, but moved to embrace anti-semitism and wasted the latter portion of his life combatting and slandering the Jewish people.
This problem of Denial and non-reality can affect anybody regardless of their gift, but it is particuarly and disproportionately damaging to the Exhorter.
Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, FDR, Ben Franklin, Walt Disney, the Assemblies of G-d, the Apostle Paul, Moses, Solomon, the state of California, Hollywood. All have had seasons where they were massively wide of the mark while being effective in other areas, and for some of them, that distraction and non-reality cost them their birthright.
And yes, when you are a President that says “I alone can do this,” then there might be an issue embodied in that mindset.
Or you are a king who, for the sake of political peace, you marry many foreign women…..
Or you are a daughter of a pagan king and are sold as a commodity to cement your father’s political relations (Jezebel), and you swear you are never going to let another person control your destiny or aspirations….
Or if you are a skilled animator who pressures everyone around you to the point where you think that because you are Walt Disney, no one of your staff will unionize….
This diorama of reality is not about one specific set of pot shots against one person. It is about helping to illustrate the worst of what happens when we embrace non-reality.
Defining Reality
Reality is the latest manifestation of the Fourth Principle. before that, it was referred to as the Principle of Sowing and Reaping, and, before that, the Principle of Pain and Suffering.
By reality, I mean embracing WHAT IS as the L-rd sees it. He sees more fully than we do. So, right off the bat, we are talking about recognizing that we see only part of the picture, or, as one Exhorter put it:
…we know in part, and we prophesy in part
Paul to the believers in Corinth.
Gang, reality means embracing the L-rd’s agenda and applying our part for what it is, into the whole, and refusing to see our portion as the whole situation. Broadly speaking, we regularly see less than the L-rd, for some reason….
So, our responsibility is to ever look to the L-rd for direction and input as we progress into our journey.
We seek His agenda and what of His agenda He has placed within us.
Some Implications of Reality
Our responsibility in hunting for His agenda (Reality) is to refuse the popular phrases or excuses of the Charismatic Movement such as:
” I do not have the time to. research this/seek for that/therefore give me the finished product, because I came expecting….”
“I do not have time to process these raw materials. G-d will send me somoeone who will provide the finished product.”
“I do not have time to do this work or that assignment or that thing over there or this thing over here.”
It is one thing for us to ask for help when we really need it, but to engage in every situation by waltzing in with a bang and a flourish and expecting others to give to you finished products from their resources with zero understanding of the cost to them, or the sequence of Giving and Receiving is something entirely different.
There is an entitlement mindset pervasive in the body of Christ that loves to claim divine intervention for Every. Single. Situation where our poor planning or lack of resources is a factor.
Uttering Praise the L-rd and G-d Came Through when He actually came through is not a problem.
However, when we poorly plan and poorly execute and someone comes in and bails us out and we refuse to thank them for fixing our problem in our blindness, and we refuse to make course corrections or adjustments so we do not have the same problem in the future, then we have a larger root problem, and are not far from walking in non-reality.
We simply have to walk this cause-and-effect thing we call Reality more cleanly. If we are chronically late, for example, then we need to figure out why we are late and fix the problem.
We must intentionally sow good seed in order to reap a good crop.
Now, I am not beating up people who have a wound or some trauma or some junk where G-d is working in a long-term process with them to bring them to a better place. Each of us has some issues and stuff and none of us has arrived at the place of sheer perfection. If you are actively attempting to work at bettering your situation, that is one thing.
But it is entirely a different thing when sloth is part of the equation, and you are allowing life happen to you. The spirit of passivity does not belong to the highly effective son or daugher in the Kingdom; they happen to situations.
You must, in walking in Reality, know the difference between pawning your situations off on others, asking for help if you are stuck, and working at the areas you know something about and have means to fix.
It is critically important for each of us to have a goal in mind and, pending our relentless consultation with the L-rd about those plans, move toward the goal that should result in us possessing our birthright.
And in engaging Reality, we must all learn how to….
Embrace the Right Level and Kind of Pain
Indiscriminate pain avoidance is not the domain of those who wish for Reality. Rather, our responsibility is embracing the right kind and level of pain.
Your Pain….Productive Or Not…You Decide…
You have a score of choices with respect to what you do with your pain. And there are two types of pain….productive or unproductive.
Grossly put, unproductive pain is pain that comes into your life situation from which you fail to derive any lesson of any sort. You do not connect with the L-rd in this pain, and as a result, the adversity brings little to know growth.
Productive pain, on the other hand, is pain from which the L-rd is able to instruct you.
Most pain starts out as unproductive. It is the lesson that makes the difference in whether or not the pain moves from the Unproductive category to the Productive category.
For example, years ago, my father abandoned me and my parents divorced. For a long time I could only feel the sting and the heartache of my father’s absence, and this was compounded by the fact that he died a few years back.
What helped transform this pain from unproductive to productive was me helping others who had lost fathers to abandonment or alcohol or death, and blessing them. Taking care of my sons and my daughter.
Sometimes, walking in the blessings that come from walking in reality means embracing others who need when you are in a place of lack and stepping into places to bless and encourage in areas where you have received little to no human encouragement.
We have a perfect Father, and we lack no father, even if our eathly fathers abandoned us. Given we have a perfect and loving Father, what do we lack in terms of tools, affection, and depth of capacity to love and father others?
Nothing.
Reality dictates that we lack nothing with which to father. Not wisdom or resources. Not heart or spirit. Not emotions. Not understanding, knowledge, or wisdom. And certainly not a sense of justice or the capacity for a heart oozing with compassion. Because our G-d could related to our frailties, we also can relate to the weakness of others, and the lack in others.
Because He received from Our Father, we also can receive and then give to others who lack.
Provided we are wiling to move beyond slavery and into the embrace of our Father and give that embrace to others.
We love, because he first loved us. We have freely received SO MUCH, and so we are able to give even in areas where we have lacked.
This is reality that comes from the Father of Lights who has given us his son. How much will He not also give us all things.
Translation: G-d gave us everything He had in the embodiment of His Son. What’s a little bit of stuff? Especially when we are sent to be life-giving to others.
