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.
A number of people have speculated on how senseless it is for vandalism, theft, and destruction of property to occur, given these structures have often been instrumental for the betterment and edification of society.
And they often hurl observations like
“Real smart of you to destroy your own community.”
“How stupid can you be to loot and pillage and destroy that which is meant to help you?”
And I ask the following question:
“What real recourse do these men and women have?”
We have militarized the police, made certain of them untrustworthy, so much so that we cannot breath.
And we have made it so they cannot petition the government for a redress of greivances, especially in light of terrorist attacks.
What other recourse do they have?
If you wound an animal, it is going to write and destroy the nearest vulnerable thing, regardless of the sense it makes.
If you treat someone or a group of someones as totally subject to your whims, you should not be surprised when they engage in behavior that does not make sense.
A slave does not believe it has property, rights, an inheritance, a birthright, or a home.
Jack Frost said that each of us would either live like we have a home, or we would live like we do not have a home.
Gang, these people who are responding in this way in an unhealthy way are acting as if they do not have a home.
Just because the wars are over does not mean we have been delivered from slavery and our chains internally.
We have to lean, not into a flesh-and-blood father for freedom, but into our Heavenly Father for freedom. And we need to be damn sure we are helping those who are bound in a mindset of slavery to a place of freedom in the Father’s affectionate embrace.
“The L-RD said to Moses, “Speak to the people of Israel, that they take for me a contribution. From every man whose heart moves him you shall receive the contribution for me. And this is the contribution that you shall receive from them: gold, silver, and bronze, blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen, goats’ hair, tanned rams’ skins, goatskins, acacia wood, oil for the lamps, spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense, onyx stones, and stones for setting, for the ephod and for the breastpiece.”
Exodus 25:1-7
We often hear the dynamic of financial giving to the church, and frequently, when those gifts are given to the church, she does not steward them well.
Often, when the giving of offerings is mentioned, it is most strongly connected with money. However, from the above passage, money is not the only thing to give, the only medium for exchange, nor the thing the L-rd likes the most.
And frequently, churches in the circles I have run in most recently function on an emergency week-to-week basis. There is no slush fund for widows, orphans, or fatherless. There is zero investment in college students’ tuition so as to assist them in avoiding the evils of debt, something Scripture explicitly commands us to avoid. And college students are missionaries, whether or not we like it, and we are responsible to see to it that their monthly support is met. And the church does not often preach or teach giving passages with a view toward garments, textiles, time, presence, or service. And those garments and leather mentioned in the double fractal of seven in Exodus 25 is treated as wealth.
In short, our view of giving is exceptionally narrow, and our view of what consititutes a legitimate need is even more narrow. Moreover, our views of justice are equally narrow. The church, not the government, was designed to be the primary safety net for the poor.
Another View of Romans 13: Past vv. 1 and 2
Romans 13. Let’s crack a piece of this one open in our next flyover, because it is likely to make us a touch uncomfortable.
And, let us bypass the usual griping about vv. 1 and 2.
The text reads:
For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is G-d’s servant for your GOOD. But if you do wrong, beafraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. FOr he is the servant of G-d, an avenger who carries out G-d’s wrath on the wrongdoer.
Romans 13:3-4 ESV
Each of you know that I do not hold Washington as the leadership, because the Constitution, being our foundational set of principles, set the citizenry as the leaders, and our representatives are those who serve us.
Of course, some have a very twisted view of how authority works, which is why we are in the predicament we are in. We bought into the twisted idea that a politician’s moral fiber was not important during the presidency of Bill Clinton, and now we are stuck with the immoral in Donald Trump. Our lack of consistency in dealing with elected officials is legendary.
That said, even were I to humor the idea that the politicians are the closest analogy to Paul’s use of “kings and those in authority” in 1 Timothy 2:1-4, I would say the following.
The king is supposed to be G-d’s servant for good. And if he is corrupted, or better yet, if they are corrupted, then we do not have a servant for good.
The king is supposed to be an avenger who carries G-d’s wrath on the wrong doer.
Earth’s mightiest heroes….
Yes, I went there….
If those in the government have chosen to expend their authority, then they will lose out on the authority given to them, and the L-rd will hand that authority over to those who will steward it, and to those who will be the avengers for good and for justice.
If elected officials continue to bastardize their offices, then at some point, the L-rd will hand the lion’s share of that authority to those who will move the wheels of justice and those who will seek for the river of righteousness to flow like a never-failing stream.
I speak from personal experience. A prophet threatened me and several of my closest friends at the time. She defiled her office, and the L-rd put a stop to that, stripped her of her authority, and gave it to others who would steward it rightly.
For the good of the Kingdom.
Authority can be seated in offices, it can be seated in our position in Messiah, it can be given for special tasks, and it can be earned.
And when stewarded well, the Kingdom is further extended.
And when the Kingdom of G-d is expanded and increased, it will benefit other people.
We were made to extend the authority of G-d in the context of His kingdom.
And kingdoms are not built by slaves who are grasping for ready-made, completed solutions born out of the simplicity of what we think is the gospel.
The Kingdom of G-d is not built on miracles.
It is built on principles.
It is built with a variety of resources, not merely financial, that are woven together.
It is built inclusive of the frame of suffering. You have to have skin in the game and awareness of the building blocks, mortar, and other materials that make up the structures in the kingdom.
And it is built by sons, sons who understand the εξουσια coupled with δυναμις.
By sons who look for the resources, not just some of the resources, but every single resource.
Poverty is not merely lack of financies and money. Poverty is a mindset that refuses to look for resources because it is convinced of the reality of lack.
Relationships are a resource.
Knowledge and knowhow are resources.
Marriage, family, relationships, friendships.
Land, time.
Humility, perseverance.
Keeping at it when you have parts that beg for suicide.
How well can you succeed at being who you are?
Who He designed you to be.
For as many days as remain to you.
Open your eyes. The eyes of your spirit.
Find all of the resources that belong to you.
You need not just money and gold and precious gemstones coupled with the presence and power of G-d. You need wood, fabric, friends, companions, tenderness, time, land, and authority. The principles that are woven together.
We do not help someone out of poverty by permanently giving them liquid resources.
We permanently help someone out of poverty by giving them the drive, tools, intangibles, and connection that reminds them of their purpose and drives them toward that purpose.
There may be a season where we provide finances for them, but that is not a permanent fix. In order to fix the root problem, we have to help them get at the spirit, the clown, the mindset of poverty that they are stuck in, and root that bastard out.
And we must be willing to play our best long game at helping them out and overcoming.
This is why I ask so many questions. Not so anyone can question my motives, but so we can have a framework to discuss artful solutions to emerge from the mindset that is poverty.
It takes not merely a one-time in-the-black monetary surge. It takes perseverence when you have nothing. It takes forward movement when all you have is a two-dollar yellow pad and a nub of a pencil.
There are scads of unlocked resources in between your ears, in between your lungs, and in your gut.
And your thoughts and emotions, coupled together, can work massively.
We are often taught in the church, by too many people, in two broad and broadly opposing segments among Christ-followers that thoughts are primary or emotions are primary.
The first six redemptive gifts do lead with and work out their problems through the mind, while the Mercy leads with and work through their emotions.
And G-d is trying to couple these two with the kidneys and adrenals and create a trifecta of solutions.
And, indeed, a Mercy can work through their mind effectively.
And a Teacher can work through their heart.
As both should. We lack no resources, and neither does our great King and Father who fathers us through that bevy of resources.
And G-d connects with all seven redemptive gifts on the level of the spirit NOT the level of the soul.
Our trouble is that we have such a hard time unpacking the light G-d put into us, and we desperately need to.
So, here is a blessing to that end.
A Blessing With Respect To Resources and Authority
I invite the fullness of your spirit to come front in all of it’s 6-and-1 glory.
White, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, and Purple…..
Or your chosen color set.
Massively given to parallel the variously named spirits of G-d, led by the confluence of the six called the Spirit of the L-rd, paralleling the Prophet portion.
And I bless you to shine all the confluence of that prismed light toward the path across the stars Father has you on, richly-treasured and endowed with the resources of the King of Glory, for whom the gates open up.
I bless the broken-apart system in your soul and spirit, for those who have parts and those who are the victims of ritual abuse.
I bless you with the love of infinity. I bless you to be safely moored in your desired haven, aboard the ship the King gives you to conduct business and Kingdom affairs.
I bless you like Solomon, who trafficked in a bevy of resources, ivory, gold, silver, bronze, cedar, apes, peacocks, science, proverbs, wisdom, writing, medicine.
I bless you, even in the hardest and worst of seasons, to find something that is of use, and to celebrate that something of use. I bless you to fly with the wings Father gives you. I bless you to synch with the weather Father gives you.
I bless the storehouses of snow, and that Father puts every flake precisely where He wants it.
I bless you with knowledge of the galaxy that Father put into you, and the marshalling together of every resource you have, including the wilderness that is given for your quietness.
I bless the seasons of barley, and the seasons of wheat, and the seasons of both burlap and cashmere.
I bless you to recognize the reality that like the Scarecrow and Tinman in the Mercy continent of Oz, Father has, completed aspect as seen from the present, given you a New Heart and a New Mind.
I bless you to know that you are His son.
I bless you to fight and, with the resource of supernatural strategies, to know how best to allocate your warring resources.
I bless you to know on the battlefield when you are to conserve resources.
I bless you not to react to the clowns and donkeys.
I bless you to RESPOND to your KING’s agenda.
We were not made to react to anything the devil does. Rather, we were made to flow in step with the King’s agenda.
I bless your resources that have been made subject to the negative heads of Leviathan to untwist, and I bless you with the resources that are untwisted and undefiled by the negative heads of Leviathan.
I bless you to fight in accordance with the L-rd’s mandates.
I bless you to find the untapped treasure.
I bless you with the moxie to recognize when it is a season for material and fianancial resources, and when it is a season for immaterial resources.
The Wright Brothers started with a bicycle shop. That bike shop, their day job, financed their mad scientist lair and shed behind the shop, where they ran their experiments. And the city of Dayton MOCKED them at first.
Spirit, at first, people ain’t gonna take to kindly to your thoughts and words.
Do not heed their idiotic kvetching.
Be aligned with the glorious King’s adoration of your initial cries. Even if they sound like infant screams or cries.
I bless you spirit, to grow, as the garden of the L-rd, like the cities of the lush Jordan plain. I bless you to grow like the land of Egypt, which was described as lush and fertile in Genesis 13:10.
I bless you to be comforted with His comfort when others say you are not worthy.
I bless you to ignore the stupidity of others’ soulish counsel.
I bless you to find and execute for the good of others, and as you earn greater authority, even if you are not in elected office, as Deborah, others will come to have you decide their cases.
When other politicians are squadering their official authority, the authority of their offices, I bless you to earn authority and to not squander your authority, so you can steward greater authority, an authority that flows out of love and compassion.
And as you pick up and ask the king to cleanse the authority that others have wasted, I bless you to flourish in the deep places. And I bless you to not just have the authority that gtives you warm fuzzies.
But, rather, I bless you to have measureable, verifiable, sustained change in the areas to which you speak.
Spirit, you are the one in authority that Romans 13 speaks about. May you govern for good, and not evil, or selfishness, or vain ambition.
May all of y’all govern as builders, spirits, collectively, where every politician, including the President, Vice President, and others, have wasted whole swaths of their birthrights.
May you know deep and transofrmational change, and not mere warm fuzzies.
May you experience ROOTED CHANGE in the spirit that is permanent, and in accordance with the finest the kingdom has to offer.
I bless you each with the concordant authority that is each of y’all’s collectively and corporately, and ruggedly individual as well.
May you do the dance between the individual and secret on the one hand, and the corporate and public on the other hand.
I bless you each, spirits, with those blessings, and revelation, in the name of Yeshua ha-Mashiach.
My son, Isaac, is an outstanding example of obedience and submission and helping others.
That said, he sometimes takes it too far and it occurred to me as though he acts like he is living on a plantation.
Let me explain.
Plantation Mentality
Isaac was up this morning, and as per his MO, he was standing at the bus stop under an overcast sky that as threatening with some rain. I asked him to come to the porch in order to sit down. Now, the bus is not incredibly easy to hear, but if you quiet down, you can hear it, and given Isaac’s arm was hurt from a biking accident today, he could not play, and I encouraged him to sit down at the front porch, some 200 feet from the curb, and talk to me. He pushed back that he did not want to be left behind, and that the bus would leave without him, and I pushed back and asked him to calm himself, and not to fret or fear, and that I have a key and a car, and would give him a ride if they left him, which didn’t calm him much.
He was afraid the master was going to whip him into submission if he did not jump and sprint to the bus.
So, we talked, and listened for the bus, and a couple of times he thought the bus had come, and it was just a car. I reminded him that I taught him what a diesel engine sounds like, and just gently told him to continue sitting.
And, discerning the presence of something malicious, I said:
“That is a spirit of fear that you are walking in, and it is keeping you from being able to rest and walk with a sound mind, son. You know how I know this? I walk in the same thing, and when I get in a spirit of fear, I respond by getting angry and mean and cussing and hurting stuff, people, etc. Let’s just calm down.”
And the bus showed up, and we walked together, and I encouraged him to slow his pace and to not freak out over the bus.
It was a set of expectations that was placed on him by that critter, and he rolls over regularly for whatever the source of the pressure might be, and sometimes acts like a slave (I do the same thing myself). And I said, “you are a son, not a slave. I do not want you having the mentality that you have to sprint, risk falling and injuring yourself again, and having to, instead of going to school, going to the ER, and having a doctor fix more issues. The bus driver can wait another 45 seconds while you walk safely.”
And as we walked, surely enough, the bus waited another half-minute, while he walked at a decent pace. And as he got on, and I talked to the bus driver, I was telling her that he needed to learn how to be safer and not panic that she was going to leave him behind.
She thanked me, and drove off, with Isaac on board.
And I saw the picture of Isaac picking cotton as a field hand, and heard the words in my spirit, “leaving Satan’s plantation.”
And I recognized my plantation mindset as well. And began the process of repenting of that mindset.
The Spirit of Fear
It is the spirit of fear that keeps us on the devil’s plantation. Makes us push ourselves and those around us to just slave away to whatever agenda he has for us, and makes us drop our boundaries and our willingness to say “no” and crowds us. And that brings us to the brink of Thyroid and Adrenal Fatigue.
And it prevents us from embracing the Power of Yeshua, the Love of the Father, and the Sound Mind of the Ruach Hakodesh, which brings us to a place of security in Him. When my strings get pulled, I get jazzed up on whatever irritant is tweaking me at the time, and it’s harmful to whatever purpose Father is moving me toward in the given season. And it disconnects me from my timeline.
But…
And G-d through Yeshua did not design us for this. He did not design us to flow in fear of circumstances. And when we violate the design, we come to harm. It is the fear of the L-rd that is the only fear in which we should walk (honoring, and keeping Him our priority, as contrasted to mindlessly being afraid of Him). And when we walk out of the Fear of the L-rd, and in the fear of the enemy or the fear of the circumstances, we disintegrate, and that pretty rapidly.
Gang, it is time for us to come off of the devil’s plantation, and to see the shackles cut from around our feet.
The only way we can do that is by embracing power, love, and a sound mind through the Fear of the L-rd, which is a desire for Him and His honor, in response to the multi-colored expression of His love.
And the embrace of power, love, and a sound mind comes through repentance (which is vastly more than just the starting block of changing the way you think, and moving forward, pointing your orientation in a new direction), and working with blessing and coaching our adrenals.
The Adrenals-Future Post Preview
The adrenals are the landing pad for covenants and agreements.
They are also very spiritual organs.
And, with the brain and the heart, they are one of three thinking organs.
Matt. 13:12 For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
Matt. 21:43 ¶ Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.
Matt. 25:29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
What I am going to say is doubtless going to cause some who view spiritual fathering as the great takeaway in this generation of the church to be greatly disappointed.
I have a spiritual father.
The sad thing, is that, I have always had him, and he was always available.
So, let me explain below.
A FATHERLESS GENERATION THAT NEEDS A FATHER
The fact remains: We have a generation of unfathered men and woman, and it has been this way for decades. I don’t need to cite stats because many of y’all already know them.
In an attempt to stave off this culture, many believers in our generation, Jew and non-Jew, have affirmed the following broken model.
THE BROKEN MODEL
“I don’t have a father. I will ask or beg this or that person to father me or mother me. That person agrees to it.”
And we blissfully proceed down a path to paradise, because, now after all, we have a spiritual father.
THE BAD EXPECTATIONS AND THE NEGATIVE OUTFLOW
What we didn’t explain or understand is that there are these sets of expectations that we bring to the table in a fathering relationship. The “father” has one set of expectations, and the “son” has another set of expectations.
The problem arises when we insert the broken model of fathering that we call “covering” into these relationships. This perverse teaching flows from the spirit of antichrist, and I will cover that in another post.
And what is missing from a lot of these fathering relationships, which I will cover in this post, is the foundation and impetus for fathering relationships: the presence and acknowledgement of the one thing that, as a believer, you and I already have: access to and a relationship with a perfect, loving heavenly Father. 11354
MY INITIATION INTO FATHERING
As a matter of fact, when I became a follower of Jesus, back in 1984, it was precisely in the context of a fathering/filial relationship.
Jesus showed up in my bedroom (whether it was a dream or an open vision that detail is fuzzy to me). He was wearing a plain linen robe and that was pretty much it. Very simple. There was no mistaking who this was. He then asked me, “what do you want?”
Hello, blank check.
Solomon, son of David.
And I can still remember the words falling out of my mouth, though I can tell you to this day, that those words did not come from a wound or any place of my soul; they were just the most logical words I ever spoke. And because of the simplicity and non-woundedness of them, I am believe they came from my spirit.
“I want a godfather.”
And His response, which I won’t easily forget was this:
“I will be your G-dfather.”
From that moment, I was clearly able to articulate that Jesus was the Son of G-d. I was able to say He was the Son, but I was not able to clearly articulate why. In short, this was when I was saved.
So for those of you that like to spit and say, “there is no way, because this or that is how you get saved and it works for everybody”, I can only respond as a Mercy would respond:
“That. So. Doesn’t. Work. For. Me.”
Yes, I am not a Mercy, but I had a whole host of unusual experiences that happened to me that have some Mercy flavor.
See, some people cannot understand that not everybody who becomes a Christian does so through saying a sinner’s prayer at an altar with someone else.
Now, do I have an awareness of sin? Yeah. I grew into that awareness, pretty quickly, and the repentance that followed, I also grew into.
THE IMPETUS AND REVELATION OF WHAT I WAS GIVEN IN JESUS’ INVITATION
But what it took for me to really grasp the idea of the Fatherhood of G-d was a series of very painful, broken relationships that happened after I left the Methodist Church for college. I hooked up with a CP (Classical Pentecostal) Denomination while in college and as many people in the late 1990’s got sucked into a perversion of the fivefold ministry and the “covering” nonsense, and the garbage that came with that. And it came at a high price to the end that I spent 14 years trapped in a combination of a Philistine Curse, the Negative 5th Head of Leviathan (where people could not hear my heart rightly), the Mesmerizing Spirit, and a number of negative Spiritual Structures.
During those years, a set of spiritual structures was set in place by my spiritual mother at the time that caused other people to see me as “crazy” and “unstable”. Those came in the form of a straitjacket in the spiritual realm and sedatives that were pumped into me and labels.
And that nonsense was only broken after I rejected the “spiritual parents” that parented by control, rejected that Mesmerizing Spirit, understanding the one thing I needed was something I already had: namely, that I already have a Father (many joyous thanks to Sandy Landry for helping me there), and breaking up the spiritual structures that affected me deeply (thank you, Megan Caldecourt for the language to explain what those things were).
TO THOSE WHO HAVE…
Today, here is what I know through principle. We don’t need spiritual parents.
Yeah, I will let that bomb explode and then expand on it.
We do not need to go to anyone and beg them to father or mother us.
Now, let’s expand on this.
We started this walk with Jesus as a personal relationship. We love to emphasize, in Protestant Christianity, the notion of “personal relationship with Jesus.”
But, more often than not, we reject it in practice. We have this idea that Jesus saved us, but we are often not interested in cultivating the relationship into a relationship. Many times, we are not willing that He should influence the stuff of our Monday through Saturday reality. We don’t want Him in our job, or marriage, our parenting, our errands, our chores, our lawnmowing, our feeding the birds, our our Facebooking.
And on that last point, so Facebook turns to Faceb****. And so much of our life remains much the same as it did before we met Jesus, because we don’t let that relationship impact our lives.
The passages above say it clearly. If you have, more will be given, but if you don’t have, then what you do have will be taken from you.
Hey, gang of Christians, you have been given a personal Father already. He is spiritual. He lacks no resources to parent you, and yet you are running after this person or that person begging him or her to father you or mother you, when Father wants to be your first spiritual father and your first place of dumping and your first place of crying and your first counselor.
THE REST OF MY PERSONAL STORY
When I hunted for a spiritual father and mother, the relationship with the one Father I had stagnated. Everything was taken away and devoured in many areas.
But when I recognized that I had Him as a Father, then He added to that package some precious people as fathers and mothers, not to suck them dry, but to get some other perspective.
He added and grew the connection between me and Arthur Burk (who is the closest thing I have to a good male counselor/mentor/father type person in the flesh, and the expectations that are there are in the context of Matthew 6:33). Arthur talks honestly and openly about stuff, and there is more of a two way thing that happens there. It’s healthy, at least as how I see it. I act as a son of the Heavenly Father, and hunt for my own resources, and when I have a nut that I can’t crack on my own, I ping Arthur, who says “have you checked over here or here”. And back to tooling I go. Because I am first and foremost a son of G-d.
And the Father also grew the connection between me and Sandy Landry. There is a precious bond that has multiplied there, that is without words. She has…spoken with dignity to me and helped me to receive of the Father’s embrace such that I could become a father myself.
And I am growing into a place where I am able to father others.
THE PUNCHLINE
If we don’t act like we have, then what we do have will be devoured. But if we as believers stop and recognize that we have a Father already, and EMBRACE HIM HAS OUR FIRST AND PRIMARY FATHER, then He will begin to add other things to us.
But the key is that we stop acting like we are slaves and servants, and embrace our identity as His sons. “For we are His offspring” (Acts 17:28).
In Him, not in others, we live and move and are (Acts 17:28).
And we are His workmanship, not the workmanship of another human being (Ephesians 2:10).
Gang, you already have a Father, and He is available.
Until you can receive that Father, you need to stop chasing after this or that person to parent you. And recall that Malachi 4:6 says that in order for someone to father you, their heart has to first be turned toward you. It’s not your begging that makes someone a father or a mother. It’s their connecting with you first. Begging is a sign of the orphan spirit, that can only be displaced.
And that can only have it’s right perspective IF you first have the right Father in the first place. And what better Father can G-d give you than He Himself?
And if Father gives you no-one for a season or permanently, so that He can show you how He directly fathers you, then you might have to go without a human being for a season, so that Father can show you how to receive directly from him.
What does He lack with which to father you?
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