I call your spirit to attention in the name of Yeshua, and it is appropriate this time for me to do so.
Prophet portion, I call on you, dearest love.
Listen to the Word of G-d for you for today.
Then Jonathan said to the young man who bore his armor, “Come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised; it may be that the L-RD will work for us. For nothing restrains the L-RD from saving by many or by few.”
So his armorbearer said to him, “Do all that is in your heart. Go then; here I am with you, according to your heart.”
Then Jonathan said, “Very well, let us cross over to these men, and we will show ourselves to them. If they say thus to us, ‘Wait until we come to you,’ then we will stand still in our place and not go up to them. But if they say thus, ‘Come up to us,’ then we will go up. For the LORD has delivered them into our hand, and this will be a sign to us.”
1 Samuel 14:6–10 NKJV
Johnathan, the Prophet, the son of Saul, the Son of Kish, showed his intensity and his fierceness of devotion to the L-rd, even when outnumbered by hundreds-to-one odds.
Prophet, even though you are oftentimes the most beaten-up; the most hammered-on by the body; the most relentlessly-pursued for your incurable intensity; and the most-reviled for your black-and-white, often-simplistic worldview; beloved, you are also THE ONE that the Redemptive Gift Tribes rely on to get the crazy-ass shit done that NO ONE else will do. With few, you accomplish much.
That is your dignity.
Sure, on the way to accomplishing the ends for which you were designed, you will likely piss off a few admirals, be placed in an impossible situation with few resources, be concerned that you might not be able to help everyone in harm’s way, and fight dark things that others might fear, but with you, you carry one of the greatest assets and resources needed for those dark paths. You carry this as free money, Prophet.
Faith and fearlessness.
You were made for the fight. Hardwired for the war. Designed for the hardest and harshest environments.
So, Prophet, I bless you as you gamble on these principles that are your bread-and-butter.
I bless you to be the rallying point for the community to the fight.
I bless you to be the tip of the sword, and the thorn in the enemy’s flesh.
I bless you to know you were forged for the hardness. And because of that, as a precursor to peace and the gathering of community, you were made to lead the charge and protect those of us who are more vulnerable, and for whom faith and fearlessness are harder to handle.
I also bless your heart to find a safe place, one or two or more people who are a place with whom you can rest.
The heart…safely trusts….and that one shall have no lack of gain.
You were made to have a tough and strong exterior, but you were also made, because you have access to great faith without knowing all ends, a tender heart. I see your heart for the people in your tribe. My darling Prophet, you were made to bring the family together in ways you do not yet understand, in high moral standing, and with ethics etched into your very being.
You are a deep light, Prophet. And the King’s heart yearns for you to see it. The way forward, which is why you see the vision in the distance and handle principles so effectively, so you can extrapolate and see what will be, not by the Spirit or the revelation of the moment, but by your design and hard wiring. Your nature is to solve problems with the principles.
It is different with you than with an office Prophet or the manifestation of prophesying.
For this capacity to believe comes because you weave together principles into building blocks to produce change and to see those results far down the road.
I bless that distance vision and the skill of weaving to be unencumbered. I bless you to have strength for the fight. And I bless you to not worry about whether or not you will be justified in the sight of others, for you know your justification will come in the King’s sight because in the fiber of your being, you have all you need inside of you, coupled with the limited resources outside of you and inside of you to solve the problem of the moment.
Prophet, may you know the King’s love in the name of Yeshua.
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.
That was a razz on my Prophet friends, given the tribe, when they make decisions and judgments about items, tend to have a pretty good track record of being right. Not because they are arrogant, but because they are able to extrapolate from principles and see when things are not well-put-together or well-thought-out that the rest of us miss.
Further, they have a heart for justice, and they are centrally impacted by issues of right and wrong.
And given my last post in this series finished up how G-d Wounds and then Heals a Mercy and then dealt with the same issue concerning a Prophet, I was going to start with Servant, and the King said, “no, Teacher.”
Heading In the Right Direction versus Heading In the Best Direction
Sigh….
This is my absolute favorite gift to deal with, without exception, because there is so much potential and so much that gets undersold and mislabelled with the Teacher, so much so that many do not understand themselves. They are known for keeping their heads about them and heading in the right direction, generally speaking. However, so many of them are not known for being dialed in to the best direction of many right directions, which requires some fine-tuning and callibration, that can only be accomplished with the gentle whispers of the Executing Spirit, the Holy Spirit. (Whereas sin and defilement are the violation of principles, holiness actually means “weaving principles together”, and few can tinker and dial things in as well as the Spirit-governed Teacher who leads with their human spirit.
The Teacher, universally almost as slow as the Mercy, is also very deliberate and demonstrates a preference for telling the whole story, and also has a predilection for getting the details and the account of a thing or event right.
However, unlike the Mercy, they tend toward a predilection for the old and the well-researched, as my post on that RG shows, and they often get stuck in their thoughts, whereas the Mercy tends to gets stuck in their emotions. Both gifts can appear a bit absent-minded or head-in-the-clouds, and so they each need to have a couple of close friends that see them as they truly are, and be able to reach them where they are. The Mercy tends to find this in a Prophet or another Mercy, and the Teacher tends to find this in an Exhorter, which are typical pairings for those respective gifts.
A problem with the Teacher, as with the Mercy is the issue of being in control of a situation, versus being out of control. The King will routinely give both gifts situations and circumstances that are not neat and where they do not have control, to see how they respond to those.
See Exhibit A of the Exhorter/Teacher combo: Tony Stark and James Rhodes. And the line that hits me here, is “you got your best friend back”. Rhodey was not in control during this sequence in Iron Man 2 because his suit had been hacked by the fiilm’s antagonist, and the Prophet had to fix that problem.
Again, with the lack of control. This time in Captain America: Civil War. This time, hitting much closer to home.
And then having to be faced with the reality of his circumstances.
The fight needed to be fought, and the Teacher is central to the fight. Central with their humor. Central with their anchoring presence. Central with their safety. Central with their slowness. Central with their strength to endure.
And this whole thing with paralysis sucks…..But it is his consistency that helped Tony stay grounded.
And one other Teacher….who was saved by his divided personality….
Beyond that, there is, as with all the gifts, a certain stronghold that must be dealt with, in proper order, if the Teacher is to submit to the process by which they are wounded or broken, so they can grow into the fulness of what they were designed to be.
One of the major issues with the Teacher, and an issue G-d makes with them is the question of them being in control of a situation apart from His divine empowerment.
Teachers have to get to the point where, in order to walk in fuller authority, they give up their right to know in order to control.
Rather they know intimately, in order to wash feet and be a safe place, and to break the stronghold of witchcraft and rebellion by offensively engaging with those entities directly in the spirit. Further, they must wrestle, hand-to-hand, in close quarters, and submit (think the wrestling definition of “submit an opponent”) the predator spirit that seeks to hold hostage those they love.
They have to find the way that, through the spirit, enables them to marry what they know, to the Fire of the One Who Is All Truth, and allow the Holy Sprit, who is the Spirit that Executes, not merely Sets Apart, to lead them into all truth. It is not the biblical text that leads us into all truth. It is the Spirit of Truth that leads us into all truth. Our own mind, with all its absorbed and accumulated biblical knowledge, trivia, and understanding of the truth, is not what leads us into truth. Rather, it is the Spirit of Truth alone that can rightly divide the written biblical text, and apart from Him, with Torah in hand, we will risk killing the life-giving thing G-d gave to move us into the next realm of divine understanding.
My question to the Teachers in the crowd is this:
Do you want to continue being the one that kills with your cerebrum alone, or do you want the spirit G-d has placed in you to rule over the work of your mind, marry that to the felt work of your heart, and then your reins, and together with the thoughts, allow your emotions to emerge as your heart is strangely warmed by the Holy One of Israel?”
Apart from Him, you are incapable of exegeting at all.
I do not care how much Torah you know. If you do not know Torah Himself, the Word Himself, all your supposed truth is nothing more than the Vale of Ben Hinnom.
We go into all truth and get into all truth, ONLY by the Spirit of G-d.
And trust me, it is going to look really weird, the end product, and it is going to unsettle you and those around you, but as you grow into it, you will see the King’s faithfulness, and the Exhorter Himself walking alongside you will stay with you as you undergo this healing and transformation.
It is going to take time and a process, but it can happen, and Teacher, you are worth knowing, and being more fully known, even as you so fully know so much.
The Ancient One : But you are leaving out the most important part. In order to return the stones, you have to survive.
Going beyond the science and the knowledge acquired, the Teacher has GOT TO STEP INTO THE PLACE WHERE THEY PUT THEIR HEART, FAITH, AND WILL ON THE LINE, AND RISK DANGER WITH HEART AND SKIN IN THE GAME, in order to step up to the next level of who they are, which can invite circumstances that can hurt them in the process, trusting the L-rd to make them and their very, VERY tender hearts whole again. Teacher have to risk emotional exposure in order to be made more whole, bring wholeness to others around them, and to grow reality to a place where the L-rd needs it to be, embracing a potentially painful responsibility, the one thing they are supposed to do, in order to make the potential reality kinetic.
Be at peace, Teachers, for your is the most precarious of the seven gifts, I deem.
You are truly the motorcycles among the gifts. Huge payoffs and incredibly fun when the gift is done right, but also the risk of great destruction when mishandled.
I do not know how deeply this will land and how much sense it will make to those who read it, but for those of us who work with land, the concept will likely make sense.
People tend toward one of seven major designs, we call these Redemptive Gifts. For more on that, start here.
And for the “why” of calling them Redemptive, go here.
Now, as to the rest of the story.
Father has placed some patterns in Scripture that are pretty consistent.
One of those patterns follow the number 7.
10 is another, and so is 12. And so on.
Sidebar: I do not spell the numbers smaller than 100 out because in the midst of a wall of text, numbers stick out visually. I write with mostly proper grammar and syntax, as I am an English major by training. And a grammar cop.
However, as a Mercy, I write for people’s visual comfort as well. And those cues remain important for those who, in this generation, read or take in information visually. Therefore, if I deem using a numeral serves my purpose better than spelling it out, then you, the reader, are going to have bo be okay with that.
To wit, if you do not like that I do not spell numbers (read: I refuse to abide by those standards) or use the Oxford Comma, then you are in the wrong place.
So, back to the topic at hand. Among the patterns that show up in Scripture, 7 is so implicit to the text that lists and groupings show up repeatedly. Even the structure of canon follows a heptadic structure and rhythm.
And many of those lists of items parallel one another and feed into one another. So the Redemptive Gifts of Romans 12:6-8 parallel:
The Seven Trees of Isaiah
The Seven Spirits of G-d
The Seven Patriarchs from Adam running Inverse from Adam as Mercy to Enoch as Prophet.
The Seven items of furniture in the Tabernacle
The Seven Feasts of Israel
The Seven of the Ten Compound Names of Adonai (Names Four through Ten)
The Seven Letters of Adonai to the churches in Revelation
The Seven Presents of Jacob to Joseph
The Seven Statements of the L-rd in the Burning Bush
The Seven Statements in the 120 years preceding Noah’s Altar
The Seven Actions of Connection with the L-rd in Psalm 23
The Seven seasons of the Book of Judges tied to the Seven Curses
The Seven Last Words of Messiah
The Seven Voices in Psalm 29
The Seven Stages of Brain Rot in Romans 1
The Seven Things the L-rd dislikes in Proverbs 6:16ff
The Seven Signs in John’s Gospel
The Seven parables of the Kingdom in the Gospel of Desire
The Seven Items in the Believers Armor, including the Shoes of READINESS
The Sevens galore in Revelation
And more besides.
So, given the L-rd has imbued all of reality, per the biblical text in multiple places, with this pattern, is it really a leap to suggest that certain people of a kind would gather in places that feel like home?
Treasures In the Earth
And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place
Acts 17:26 ESV
And let me add from a chunk of Job 28 to illustrate a concept embodied in the natural by Sutter’s Mill and the Comstock Lode.
Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place for gold that they refine. Iron is taken out of the earth, and copper is smelted from the ore. Man puts an end to darkness and searches out to the farthest limit the ore in gloom and deep darkness. He opens shafts in a valley away from where anyone lives; they are forgotten by travelers; they hang in the air, far away from mankind; they swing to and fro. As for the earth, out of it comes bread, but underneath it is turned up as by fire. Its stones are the place of sapphires, and it has dust of gold. That path no bird of prey knows, and the falcon’s eye has not seen it. The proud beasts have not trodden it; the lion has not passed over it. Man puts his hand to the flinty rock and overturns mountains by the roots. He cuts out channels in the rocks, and his eye sees every precious thing. He dams up the streams so that they do not trickle, and the thing that is hidden he brings out to light.
Job 28:1-11 ESV
There are treasures in the land in the natural, there are plants, animals, ecosystems, and under the earth are minerals, gemstones, precious metals, and valuable substances placed in various places. Bauxite, Diamonds, Sapphires, Emeralds, Topaz, Lead, Uranium, Gold, Platinum, crude oil, Cobalt, Rare Earth Elements.
As the San Joaquin Valley led to the founding of Union Oil, and Salinas and Gilroy led to Garlic and Cherries, and Silicon Valley led to silicon-rooted-technology, and South Africa led to Diamonds, and Northern California led to Wine and Gold, do we not think that there is a spiritual application to this concept. Can G-d place treasures in the land, unique to the land that will draw certain people to that land?
The answer is yes. And, given what we see in the natural reflects the reality of the spiritual realm, then I surmise He distributed his treasures to chunks of land, and as a result, determined that people who resonate with those treasures are going to live there as well.
There are places that look good to a person, and then there are places that feel like home….and there is a difference.
Illustrating the Gifts In the Land Using the Teacher Gift
Now, let me use my beloved Teacher gift as an illustration for this.
Two things we know about the Teacher for these purposes that are easy enough to see. Teachers tend toward 1) Medical arenas, and 2) education and research arenas. Fair enough?
Let’s take the medical, since the education does not really need to be expanded at this point. Teachers teach, right?
Look at the Third Day….
Plants, Vegetation, and Dry land…
Most medical compounds derive from elements found in the Plant Kingdom, things found in the third day.
Thus, the medical arena has this imprint of meticulous research.
Typically.
And the Levites, who were the Teachers of Israel, and handled the Tabernacle, also handled the diagnosis of various ailments, home sicknesses, molds, plagues, and were responsible for the removal of those with plagues from the camp…..well, you get the idea.
This pattern of medical and healing appears over and over with the Teacher.
Johns Hopkins is a good example of this. In Baltimore, a city full of research and medicine. A city full of greenspace. A city full of those dynamics.
A Teacher city.
And these institutions that are typically founded by Teachers, typically reflect that connection with the Third Day, and other teacher dynamics. As patterns emerge in the fabric, when I see something that has that meticulous quality to it and lots of details, I move in the direction of Teacher.
For as G-d enables Teachers to tinker and process slowly, they tend to move together and find their own tribe. Then, they tend to take residence on a chunk of land that feels like home and resembles their design.
As with Prophets, Servants, and the rest.
The Purpose: Manifestation of Sons In the Kingdom To Bring Redemption
And the King intends, per Romans 8, for creation and land to interact with us, you see personalities show up in nature and land and cities.
That is, creation, which includes land, cries out for the manifestions of the Sons of G-d. And the purpose of sons is to bring redemption to bear on all facets of reality. And those that do not know the L-rd can even be instruments in His hand set up to bring the purposes of G-d into a place.
Thus says the L-RD to his anointed, to Cyrus,
whose right hand I have grasped,
Isaiah 45:1
But he [that is, Pharaoh Neco] sent envoys to him [that is King Josiah of Judah], saying, “What have we to do with each other, king of Judah? I am not coming against you this day, but against the house with which I am at war. And God has commanded me to hurry. Cease opposing God, who is with me, lest he destroy you.
2 Chronicles 35:21. ESV
Meaning, G-d can use anyone with their design given by Him from conception, to accomplish his means, and he can humble anyone he darn well pleases.
The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the L-RD;
he turns it wherever he will.
Proverbs 21:1 ESV
In the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; his spirit was troubled, and his sleep left him.
Daniel 2:1 ESV
All this came upon King Nebuchadnezzar. At the end of twelve months he was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, and the king answered and said, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?” While the words were still in the king’s mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, “O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: The kingdom has departed from you, and you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. And you shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and seven periods of time shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will.” Immediately the word was fulfilled against Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers, and his nails were like birds’ claws.
Dan 4:28-33 ESV
Design shows up in these gifts over and over and over again. And there are carnal manifestations that are not submitted to the King, and there are high-functioning manifestations in people who are submitted to the King.
In the carnal Ruler, we see empire building and we see them emotionally unstable.
And in the healthy Ruler we see a fathering aspect that builds sons into effective builders and fighters.
Manifestations of the Gifts in Particular Cities
New York has a nice grid set up, there is an access to the city. It’s a Giver city.
Boston however, these tiny roads curve and go every which way. And they do not care about your opinion about their geography. And they excel in bleeding-edge technology and engineering, and they served as a flash point, together with South Carolina, for revolution. And you better not be a Yankees fan wearing a Bucky Bleeping Dent Jersey in Beantown.
Boston Robbed in 1978
Typical Prophet.
And In Business
And we also note that organizations take on the personality of the founder.
Even4One, founded by an unmistakable Prophet, carries the feel and image of her founder, who from my viewpoint of Prophets, carries some of the sweetest and highest-functioning expressions of the gift.
Sapphire Leadership Group, carries Arthur’s imprint, and churns out ideological material rooted in principles tied to the founder.
And a thousand different organizations, founded by people, who, under the prevenient grace of G-d, are being prepared for expressions of His redemption, even while they do not seek him (Romans 5:8), show the DNA of the founder, and the design of the founder.
And many other organizations do this.
The aviation Industry as a whole, carries the Prophet and Teacher imprints by turns, some see the new cutting edge, and some see the tinkering.
Even the aircraft have feels to them.
And this is just one more expression of the pattern of things created by humans with one of seven designs, designs that were given in their Mother’s wombs (Psalm 139).
Whether or not they like it, humanity, redeemed or not yet redeemed, shows forth his eternal nature and divine power, so that no one may be without excuse.
Creation everywhere sees this pattern everywhere.
Witnesses to his goodness and majesty and love are everywhere, and therefore no one is left without an excuse that will hold on That Day.
The Purpose of Redemptive Patterns And Messaging
Redemptive messaging, placed E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E., and which is the King’s specialty (Luke 16:19; Romans 1) is strewn throughout all of creation and everywhere in the Biblical text, and even in non-biblical texts. What, do we think His arm is slackened or shortened that it cannot redeem no matter what the situation?
And the purposes of these patterns that crop up everywhere, are as witnesses that will testify to the King.
Such as the words of one healed Exhorter:
“You stood by my side all these years while I reaped the benefits of destruction. Now that I’m trying to protect the people I’ve put in harm’s way, you’re going to walk out?”
And because all of these institutions and landforms are peopled by humanity and patterned after the rest of creation, and because they all serve His purposes ultimately, and because the land reflects people, and Chicago is not New York is not Boston is not JAX, we see the trends and patterns. And we are responsible to partner with EVERYTHING the King has made available to us in order to bring the section of creation under our jurisdiction back to Him.
A few more thoughts here, gang. First, from Genesis 19
“The outcry of Sodom”
It wasn’t the people. The Hebrew there literally reads “Sodom’s outcry”. That Hebrew word for outcry was a distress call, such as you would use to call the police. The land was in distress, and the land cried out due to the people’s iniquity.
Second thought beyond that.
Numbers 35 talks about polluting the land, and the consequences for polluting the land (Leviticus 20:22). THE LAND shall vomit you out. Not the L-rd. Not the people. The land will behave as a human whose stomach has become sickened and it itself will reject the people.
The land itself responds to things.
Now, for those who would take this to mean I am arguing for the sentience of the land, well, that is not where I am going.
I am pointing out that the land functions in many ways the way we function at times. We who have redemption and redemptive agency flowing through us.
So, maybe, land responds in some way more than we have first thought….
Also, 2 Chronicles 7:14 refers to G-d healing the land. And this strikes me as the L-rd doing something beyond mere metaphor, and it would behoove us to discern and hear and look at what He is doing in a patch of land for which we are responsible.
Just as land can carry defilement and pollution, so it can also carry a blessing, and we are commanded in Scripture to bless the land and the dwelling places with which we associate.
I realize this second half is a potpourri of land items. And one might say what does this have to do with gifts and treasures in the land?
Well, it strikes me that with the exhortations of promised LAND having treasures in it (milk and honey) that we can see, perhaps there is a mirror of this in the spirit, and in a particular patch of land there is a strong enough pull of those treasures in the spirit that it gathers people of a kind to it to care for it. Maybe the land knows something that we do not…..
These are just my thoughts….feel free to consider and ask questions. And be blessed, gang.
And as a new organization comes into being, there is, at its root, someone responsible for the conception and gestation of that idea. Responsible for the materials, the assets…that are used to bring that organization into being.
Birthing is the job of the Giver. And the protection of that nascent life is the responsibility of the Servant. Without the Giver and the Servant, the new thing is not sustainable.
I can hear the groans now from the crowd now. “Again with this Avengers schtick! David, what the hell does this have to do with redemption?! Or spiritual gifts.”
I am glad you asked that question, or did not ask it. Here is a lovely, protracted response.
In the case of the Avengers, the Giver that gave life to the organization was Phil Coulson. With his death, ultimately. And the Servant that protected its young life, its soul, its heart, its integrity, and kept it from getting twisted off-mission was Steve Rogers, starting from the moment he got suspicious of Phase 2 weapons created with the Tesseract, through the events of Civil War, attempted to help Tony and Bucky find their respective ways back home, through Infinity War, and he was the rallying point for the entire team.
And the purpose of the Avengers was to fight the battles humanity could not otherwise fight. They were made to take a situation that had been made horrid and to improve it, to take what was lost and regain it, restoring it, to compensate for the faults of those for whom they fought.
In other words, they fought to redeem a lost hope.
Aaaaannnnnnnd leave it to the cocky Exhorter to put forth the organization’s vision toward the villian…
Redeem…..
Sound familiar, gang?
REDEMPTIVE Gifts
I have a theory about why the gifts were called “redemptive”….so, bear with me on this as I work through this.
They were called the Redemptive Gifts because these seven designs show us seven flavors of redemption, which is a common theme in Scripture.
We seven were made to, in alignment with the covenant we have with Reality Himself, bring the best of redemption, reconiciliaton, and victory to humanity, to creation, and to the spiritual realm. We were made to redeem….after the acts of our Father, Bridegroom, and Paraclete.
Redemption is a major part of the biblical text.
2 Cor 5:17-21: the King’s chief mission is not to merely save people, according to the way we think of “saving” people. This reality is not meant to merely be one protracted altar call alone, though that does form part of the reality. Rather, it is to reconcile and redeem all of creation to the Father, as much of it as will come in accordance to the call and appeal of the Beloved Lover made through us as His conduits. I dare say too many people think our job is solely one of spiritual geographic transfer of humans; just to remove people from hell, depositing them into heaven. L-rd knows, we hear plenty of altar calls that are only for salvation, baptism, and church membership. Yet, this is not the point or the crux of the ministry we have been handed. Nevertheless, too often, consideration is not given to what happens after we have turned people from hell to heaven. However, a people that has been only relocated like chattel without thought given to fostering love and connection within them, among them, or with them is good for what?!
Exodus 6:6: Father’s ultimate mission was to redeem Israel from Mizraim. True, we are talking about the geographic movement and liberation of an oppressed people from their oppressors, getting Israel out of Mizraim. However, we are also talking about getting the Mizraim out of Israel. Dad wanted to use the season in the wilderness to deliver a nation of slaves from slavery into sonship. From bondage into freedom. Redemption is tied to the rescue from the things that oppress us externally, yes, but it is also about rescuing us from the things that shackle us internally, things that keep us from flowing in the liberty for which Father designed us.
This is another aspect of the Gifts, and the many vareigations of redemption, liberation, and reconciliation, both internal and external. Seven flavors of rescue; reconciliation; restoration; upward-and-forward motion; righteous strategy and warfare; protection; accrual of wisdom, knowledge, and understanding (none of these three are better than the other two, they are just different storehouses and repositories of acquisition). Seven designs, each unique from the other six. Seven perspectives on Kingdom execution, and each one a shadow of its potential without the other six. There is a reason the Prophet wants the news and describes things as black-and-white while the Mercy wants the details and the emotions and the “this is what I feel”. The Prophet activates the Mercy’s mind, and the Mercy activates the Prophet’s heart. Without heart, the Prophet will be a shadows of their potential, and without ethics and integrity, the Mercy’s excellence will never take flight. In another facet, The Exhorter Himself, Yeshua, wounds and activates the Teacher’s arena and brings to them encounter with the Living Word, if the Teacher will ask for it, so their mind is not only emotionally safe, but their hearts are also in play and tender toward those in their charge.
The seven gifts were made to work in tandem with one another. This is why the primacy of love. Because without love, we will not help Further, the process described in the book of Numbers following the rescue of slaves from bondage, is what the King means with all of us: taking a generation of slaves and transforming them into a generation of sons. Sonship is the next and eternal adventure that awaits us post-rescue.
Leviticus 25: Father made mention repeatedly of the concept of redemption of things, of land, of animals, of homes, and of firstborn. Meaning redemption comes to these things, meaning redemptive dynamics were made to touch all of cration.
Romans 8 tells us the following: “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of G-d. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of G-d. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” Meaning, we were made to bring redemption to bear on all of creation, at some level. Now, we can argue to what end that is meant to be, but my contention is, let’s try some things and allow the King to say yes or no to us in our work, and let’s figure out how deeply we can bring redemption to each part of creation, not merely to humans.
2 Chronicles 7:14 gets overlooked. The L-rd promises that, when we repent and seek Him, not that He will heal us, but rather heal our LAND.
Ruth is a story of redemption, moving a Moabite into native Israel, and giving her a new heritage, which was her deepest heart’s cry, even though she was originally a pagan. In Ruth, we see how she showed loyalty to a despairing native Israelite, and herself was provided a home a place, a legacy in Israel, and a son that ultimately became an ancestor to the greatest king of Israel, David, who in turn became the father of the Messiah.
Psalm 26 and Job 5:20: we were made to be Rescued not just from hell, but also from death.
Psalm 130 shows the picture of redemption from generational sin, called iniquity.
And, given we are discussing the Redemptive Gifts, I would contend that, when the L-rd Himself knitted us together and designed us, and those gifts are tied explicitly to design, they were hardwired into us from the beginning. It’s the initial kiss from the King, that came hardwired into us along with our human spirits.
Psalm 139 is fairly explicit in some of its language, so let us proceed there.
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.
Psalm 139:13-14 ESV
All of Him made all of us, for a purpose. I despise dropping a turd of exposition in the middle of one of David’s most lovely poems, but I am going to do that for those that need the cross-reference.
We are his workmanship created in Messiah Yeshua for good works, which G-d prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them, per Ephesians 2:10.
Meaning, before we knew Him, we were created originally in Him for those works, originally designed for those good works. Now, whether or not we walk in those works, and whether or not we ever come to know Him, those choices are clearly ours. However, that does not negate that we were designed by Him for those works from the moment 23 and 23 equaled 46. He gave us those drives, inclincations, momenta, and motivations (another common term for the Redemptive Gifts are the Motivational Gifts) before we even came to know Him.
23 chromosomes from each of the gametes yield a being with 46 chromosomes.
Now, I could say that we are only given gifts by the L-rd following our salvation,
but…
…knowing the King lavishes His love and His prevenient grace (the grace that intervenes ahead of time) on us before we came to know Him…
…given Romans 1 notes the L-rd’s invisible attributes, namely, “His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world” demonstrating we are without excuse as to the outpouring of His knowledge, and built into ALL creations are the seeds of redemption and redemptive power…
…and given it is the heart of the Father to demonstrate His love toward us while we were yet sinners, as Romans 5:8 says, which is a passage dealing with salvation and redemption…
..and given σῴζω in its range of meaning can mean “I save”, or “I preserve”, or “I benefit”…
….it is entirely possible and within the realm of biblical reality that the King hardwired us in such a way that our designed trajectory is such that…
…momentum toward him is easier than away from him, and gifts were given to us, kisses from the King, in order to lead us to Him, that we might find Him….
My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
Psalm 139:15-16 ESV
And redemption was meant to be so transformative in to make things as if the bad had never happened. There is a transformational aspect that pervades all things redemptive.
Our interaction with Him is not merely a salvation issue or a leaving hell issue. It’s an issue of being reconciled to a loving Father, who yearns emotionally for us, from the point of conception. So, I would argue He hardwired us in our mothers’ wombs from conception, not for sin, which the clowns would love to twist, but rather for coming back home. Especially given we are made in His image and according to His likeness.
So, the picture of why these gifts are called “redemptive” strikes me as the Father’s loving intention to place as many marks in front of and inside of us in order to lead us back home to Him.
And, indeed, where can we honestly go that He is not? Where can we go to escape from His presence? Where can we flee from him?
Even in Sheol, the land of the dead, and in Hell, He is there with us.
Were we to make our bed with death, He could still be found with us, and He waits for us as the woman Wisdom, calling and wooing us to himself. Offering her treasures in the street. Peculiar and precious and precocious treasures.
Whelp, the Teacher post is again delayed….But that is okay for the moment.
If you are coming from the previous post in this chain, you will know I just dealt with the Mercy, Spider Man from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, because I love dealing with and analyzing the culture for patterns of the Redemptive Gifts.
Two cuss words ahead….
Reality…..
It’s a difficult thing to grasp….
In fullness…
Frequently, it doesn’t end the way we want it to end.
But, all our curses, and all our pain, and all our offenses, will not change a thing. Our Only one thing present can redeem us, our pain, our offenses, our curses, our janked-up lives.
The Root of Reality….
He sets the lonely in families, but he first does this by giving us battle buddies, partners, lovers, wives, husbands, brothers. Pairs. It takes a couple to make a family. And that couple started, if redemptive, by Father’s initiation, at the Bridegroom’s response, by wooing us to Himself first. And then by enabling us to see reality if we will embrace it. And that may take us embracing a great deal of pain in order to get to reality in fullness.
Families come because Father places us in proximity, and enables us to fight for one another.
And this unity starts and leads to endurance in fullness because husband and wife will fight for one another according to truth and principles. Unity can only come between husband in wife when they will fight for one another first, and then in the context of that, to fight for those given to them. If we stop being foxhole buddies reloading against the real enemy together, then we are fighting with half our fucking resources.
And I am done watching people fight with half their hands tied behind their backs.
I am done watching people insisting on a fighting with a handicap, and resisting the whole of what Father has given us.
You must fight alongside, pointing your weapons at the true enemy.
That’s reality.
Christ does not fight without his bride.
Why would we expect to be able to fight the enemy of our souls without the keeper of our hearts and lovers of our spirits?
In both of my marriages, my wives and I fought on our own.
I have spent 38 years watching couples fight one another with their earned authority or neglecting their earned authority, focusing on one another with their weapons, rather than partnering against the true enemy.
And I am done with this broken-ass paradigm.
If a marriage is to succeed fully, husband and wife must be joined as partners in the fight. Completely.
If there is a division, then that marriage will be hamstrung. Which means G-d must get us to the place of radical interdependency on one another, partnered with the Executing Spirit (whereas Defilement means “to break apart and violate principles”, Holy and Holiness means “to weave together principles to produce change”, and thus, “to execute”; G-d doesn’t just set us apart to leave us in a place, but rather sets us apart TO DO SOMETHING: it’s a number-line and a vector (direction plus motion) not a boundary line like a fence), then the threefold cord can proceed to the set of works for which we were designed.
Gang, you don’t do this without your partner. Which means G-d has to enable partnership.
Russian Epic of Cinderella……
If shoe fits, wear it….
And in this case, the shoes are the shoes from the Armor of G-d, and no they are not called the Shoes of Peace. The Shoes, which parallel the Redemptive Gift of Teacher, are called the Shoes of Readiness.
καὶ ὑποδησάμενοι τοὺς πόδας ἐν ἑτοιμασίᾳ
And having bound on the shoes of/in readiness/equipment/preparation
Aaaaaannnnddd cue Teacher rant, because I know that gift…..
DISCLAIMER: If you think this is only directed at the Teachers, you are sorely mistaken. I only talk about the Teacher because it is the gift I love and know the best.
The Principle of Responsibility is tied to being ready and equipped and capable of handling the situations in perfection and excellence with a well-thought-out-and-well-revealed strategy from heaven that is multipronged and give consideration to a breadth of factors.
Take the text the knowledge and do what Del Tarr said and allow the Trinity to turn that knowledge into “KNOWLEDGE ON FIRE”.
Teachers, your job is to lead the charge on this, as did the sons of Levi did at the foot of Horeb, and put your sword to your belt and handle business. Reading the law and hoping it will deliver on the thing on which you should be acting with skill and zeal is not sufficient.
You must do that thing yourself.
And those shoes, which are part of the equipment of every believer and follower of Messiah means that each believer must also get ready and be ready.
That flows from a Gospel of Wholeness/Shalom, but the outward quality that shows itself in the EXECUTION is readiness…..and that skill must predominate between couples that are the root of a family.
And readiness is how you establish a kingdom. Are you ready to run and fight and build and move and work with what you have been given.
That is the work of sons.
And just as men can be the Bride of Messiah, women too can be sons. Congratulations, life is uncomfortable for everyone.
Matthew 24:44…
Get ready……
And now, maybe I can get to the Teacher in due course.
I was going to go with a post on the Teacher, but then something struck me from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and so I had to run with it. So, here goes…
A Bit More On the Mercy From the MCU, and Then, I Promise We Will Get To the Teacher
Of course, I had to go here for a bit, because there is more than I wanted to say about the Mercy, given the material on the gift keeps bubbling up. So, because I analyze the RG’s in pop culture, there is a significant buildup of material that naturally flows. So, here goes…
Yes….the kid is a Mercy….and had the Exhorter for a surrogate/adoptive father…..
And his wound? It’s being presented with the question, “are you enough without the crutches, and the people, and the relationships, and the tricks, and the gifts, and the resources, and everything that is not the L-rd Himself who must alone stand guard over your heart without any additions?”
Because if you aren’t enough without the suit, then you’ll never be enough with the suit.”
When we first meet Peter in the MCU (Captain America: Civil War), we see as a boy with serious confidence deficit. He hides himself from those who love him and blames himself for the bad things that happen around him. In Homecoming and then Far From Home, we come to an individual with not just problems with self-confidence, but also serious legitimacy issues. From Civil War to Homecoming and Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, there was a deep internal struggle with both his identity, place, and purpose. He did not see himself for what Tony saw in him, even though it took Tony some time to come around to embracing Peter’s inherent value and design, and to father him effectively.
But eventually confidence bloomed and grew in Peter. This deep well took a hit when Tony died. With his father figure gone, he had to develop a different source, and dig a different well.
Unfortunately, this very negative belief about himself that he wasn’t good enough or strong enough to fill Tony’s shoes, led him to give up the resources that Tony gave to him to someone he thought could be trusted. Following that, Beck toyed with him and, because of Beck’s possession of Stark Tech, he was able to fool Peter into questioning the fabric of reality.
Though it was never about filling Tony’s shoes, but filling and walking in his own shoes, and flowing in his design.
Mercies, when their confidence is deeply tested, usually in the area of relationships, may question reality in the worst way. And this will bring them to a crossroads.
They ultimately must come to a place where they rest in the One Thing that will never abandon them, even when everything crumbles around them: the anchoring point of the nature of G-d, Who Is fiercely loving, completely consistent, will not forsake them, and commited to His covenant.
The wounding comes when they are stripped of those things that once brought them confidence, and the healing comes when their internal structure is so aligned with The One Who Is Perfect Reality that the external world deteriorating impacts them in a decreasing fashion. Dependence on the Bridegroom and no one else, not even family, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, spouses, close friends, is what stabilizes the Mercy as they grow through the season that threatens to wound them.
As a result of that, the L-rd pushes the Mercy to adopt a capacity to fix their problems piece-by-piece, without crutches, and as a result, they grow to respond to the following challenge.
As a result, they can either grow into what they were made to do, or shrink back, and their legacy be forgotten or picked up by someone else.
Mercies are going to either bloom or crack under pressure, and as a result of staying the course under pressure, something else comes of them. Something really good.
So, if they bloom in adversity, and they respond to the pressure by leaning hard into the L-rd (Proverbs 3:5-6; Isaiah 54:1-16) instead of relationships governing them, they govern their relationships. And to those relationships they add boundaries, which breaks the spirit of codependency.
Biblically speaking, I think about the confidence John got as a Mercy through living on the Island of Patmos, where he wrote the Revelation and then penned his gospel.
Just some thoughts here…..
Now, onto the Teacher….or not really…but that should be the following post…if I can get off my soapbox long enough to execute…
The major design of a Mercy is to sanctify time as it is and as the King intends for it to progress.
It is not for the Mercy to move or realign the flow of time in accordance with how they wish it would be.
There is a huge aspect of this tied to their birthright.
If a Mercy can hear from the King, and not meddle with time as they wish it were, but seek for the alignment of time as the King wants it, then there will be a huge payoff…
Even if life is pain, and seasons are full of burning, pain.
NO MATTER HOW PAINFUL YOUR LIFE GETS, TO WISH TIME WOULD SPEED UP, SLOW DOWN, CHANGE, TWIST, BREAK, MOVE AROUND, SKIP, AND OTHERWISE BE THAN WHAT IT IS IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE KING’S TIME FRAME….
You stick to your guns and you leave what happened in Time be, and you redeem the days you have.
No matter if the enemy is adultery; or cancer; or a car accident; or a trauma; or an SRA or CRA; or a bloodline; or a tie-in to a demonic throne or dominion; or bloodline; or relative; or abuse; or rape; or incest; or anything else in all of creation.
If it means you soak in His love, you still do not mess with the timestream, Mercy.
Scott Lang (Ant-Man) is a Mercy. And this film is what will happen when the Mercy, in their hard portion of being reconciled to and hunting for the King’s will for Time, seeks to RUN FROM PAIN.
I cannot say how many times I wished my timeline was other than what it shook out to becoming.
That said, right now, you can impact Time and its flow to the King’s purposes, if you will partner with the G-d Who Is and Who Was and Who Is That Which Will Be.
I know it is painful. The timestream can be intensely painful. And sometimes time, instead of healing wounds, can sometimes be the vehicle that seems to inflict wounds.
3013 days one way.
3013 days another way.
Abuse.
Shattering of spirit and soul.
Death.
Destruction.
Cancer.
And then my emotions moving now up, and again down.
Some things just do not seem fair.
And, besides, “fairness” is not a concept found in the biblical text.
Justice and Mercy, however, are.
And you were given Love, not fair, and not fairness.
And G-d’s metric for kingdom dynamics is Justice/Mercy, the Twin aspects of Love.
It is not Love vs. Justice. It is Mercy Paired with Justice as Aspects of Love.
They marry together like red and blue, or peanut butter and jelly, or Linus Torvalds and Giving the Finger To The Corrupt Company NVidia, or broccoli and cheese, or Maine and Raccoons, or Poles and Cats, or Bambi and deliciousness, or Thirty and Aught-Six, or Ferdinand and Nina…
Mercy Gang, you were made for something to handle. And in order to handle yourself, your emotions, and your power under self-control and with gentleness toward yourself, you will have to go through some things that will burnish you and help you learn the meaning of endurance.
And you will either endure or not. Your life is a thread, it breaks or it doesn’t break.
You must lean into Him to endure…
In order to thrive, you must Know Him…
And if you feel broken, then fall into Him, and let Him heal you.
And walk with the King into what He has for you, deep and tender beloved.
For to mess with the timestream will mess with the fabric of essence and reality itself.
Move with you Husband. Know Him. Walk with Him. Seek Him. Rest in Him. Be held by Him. And Seek for the Timestream to flow in accordance with His design.
And give not up your design to sanctify time.
Your responsibility and anointing and design, O Mercy, is to sanctify time as no other gift can.
And you can either sanctify time, move or adjust time, circumvent time, or do nothing.
And the hand of the people of Israel pressed harder and harder against Jabin the king of Canaan, until they destroyed Jabin the king of Canaan
Judges 4:24 (ESV)
Thoughts Here
Gang, I am doing a read-through of scripture, and this text really hit home for the Exhorter, especially given it deals with an aspect of breaking the Canaanite Curse, one of the Seven Curses against design.
Time after time, I, and others, have encountered those who believe the only thing necessary to break a curse is to utter a renunciation, or have a court case, or __________ (fill in the blank with tour chosen thing to utter). And frequently, Exhorters who are built for the long haul of endurance are hunting for the magic spell or incantation or eight key. THE SOLUTION TO ALL MY ILLS.
And while renunciations are excellent, they are not the whole picture.
There must be, resident within the Exhorter, a commitment to grow and increase through consistent righteous actions of sowing and reaping in order to break a stronghold through overcoming.
Exhorters MUST, non-optionally, and non-negotiably, build a reservoir of endurance and strength.
They have to develop life-strong, sinewy muscle (Muscular System of the body is Exhorter) in order to win at many situations.
Press HARDER AND HARDER. Over and over and over. Keep pounding. Hammer to nail. Pull and push and develop. There is a reason that well-built people are referred to as chiseled and cut and ripped. Such adjectives speak of a PROCESS that happens layer by layer.
Such an appearance is pleasing to the eye.
And such an appearance will be the result of building out groups of musculature. In the gym. In the kitchen. In the community. In the secret place. In all of the places.
Gang, especially Exhorters, it’s time to get cut and peel back some things that you have tolerated in previous seasons.
In the beginning G-d created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the great deep, and the Spirit of G-d was hovering over the face of the waters.
And G-d said….
Let there be light…and G-d separated the light from the darkness and principle from principle and idea and concept from idea and concept and complexity from complexity so we can see each building block as it is.
Let there be a dome to separate waters from waters
Let the waters separate from the land, and let the vegetation appear…
Let there be signs to separate days from months and seasons from years….
Let there be well-timed creatures in both the heavens and in the seas…
Let there be systematized animals on the dry land that are constant in their presence that are sensitive to the justice of G-d
Let there be fulfilling respites and strong pushbacks against futility and let those regular respites form a boundary between vigor and apathy.
Genesis 1:1-2:4 paraphrased
Seven boundaries, gang.
Each causing and allowing factories of thought and ideas and action to coalesce and weave together so that we can stave off the serfdom of darkness from the Kingdom of Light.
For, and I surmise you will agree, you do not wish to take the road to serfdom.
For that road is full of stubborn taskmasters, and futilely unproductive pain without respite that continues to grind in a choppy, oilless mess.
You were made to glide as a well-lubricated machine and a joyous son in the mindset of a Light-hearted and systematic Kingdom of Love.
And while Prophets bash, and Givers and Rulers /Judges/Deliverers and Servants order, and Teachers, Exhorters, and Prophets and Mercies reveal and Mercies find flow, and Exhorters gather, and Teachers plumb down….
And Givers/Stewards manage and provide….
There is a deeper connection and division and lines and boundaries that are given to each of the seven gifts to make.
And we will cover those in depth in the coming weeks and months.
But as for now, as I have stirred the pot between the six-colored rainbows and the seven-colored rainbows, I will ask you to consider one thing:
What does white truly look like?
And what are all the different types of light and frequency created on the first day, and how are those different from the waves in the fifth day?
