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Need A
Spiritual Tune-up?
from Doug Perry (www.FellowshipoftheMartyrs.com)
- download printable PDF file here
In the last couple
of years I have visited dozens and dozens of different congregations.
Sometimes I will fellowship with four or five different congregations
on one Sunday. As the Lord has led, I've had the great priviledge to
get familiar with more pastors of more denominations than most
anybody I know. I've seen the good, the bad and the ugly in all the
different styles and traditions and doctrines.
The most common
thing that I've seen is that almost universally there is a tendency
toward putting on programs and ignoring the individual. The bigger
the congregation, the greater the tendency. (Read the Undeniable
Axioms article online.) In reality how that manifests always
includes a statement about family and concern for the individual but
then it's offset and negated by the reality of a structure seemingly
engineered to disregard individual needs. However unconscious this
may be, the reality is clearly that millions of Christians are NOT
walking in the fullness of Christ or worse, walking around with
massive oppressions that continue to go untreated.
There are TONS of
people leaving the institutional churches. Millions of them per year.
Why? Because they don't feel like their individual needs are getting
addressed. They may sit through a good sermon that has some life
application, but they don't see or feel the radical transformation
that should come as a part of the normal Christian life. Or worse,
they have a crisis or a need and nobody in the "church"
responds appropriately.
We are NOT
honoring God. We are singing and dancing and pretending everything is
fine while people are bleeding to death in the pews (not to mention
in the streets). Listen to me, God does NOT want you to praise and
worship Him while you're ignoring the person sitting next to you who
is having a crisis! It DOES NOT bring Him honor for you to raise your
hands and tell Him how great He is while you FAIL to act like Him and
heal those nearest to you. Heal them – or at least TREAT them
– and THEN you can go praising and worshipping and telling Him
how great He is. He just DOES NOT want to hear you singing while
you're ignoring people that are crying inside! Your prayers are going
to bounce off of the brass over your head until you act like
Jesus. Just knock it off – or else. He's not going to
ignore their cries much longer.
The church should
be like the TV show "M*A*S*H". If they're having a party
and someone shouts "Choppers!" then the music stops and
everybody rushes into action to do triage. That means rapidly
identifying and categorizing the wounded based on needs - the
bleeding, sucking chest wounds go first, then the broken legs, then
the scratches. AFTER everybody is treated and in Recovery – THEN
you can go back to your party. But what kind of hospital would you be
if you let them bleed to death in the compound because you refuse to
stop singing and dancing because you had a schedule to keep?!
You planned for this party to take an hour and a half and, by golly,
you're going to stay on time no matter what.
Even when Jesus
was right in the middle of a great sermon and had them all in the
palm of His hand, if a paralyzed guy dropped down out of the roof,
Jesus STOPPED TALKING and healed him. THEN He could go on with his
sermon - AND everybody was REALLY impressed because of the miracle
that had just happened in front of them! I'm not sure which would be
the bigger miracle in some churches, that a paralytic rose and walked
away or that the pastor stopped in the middle of a sermon!
The people of God
need to be trained up in how to rapidly identify the physical,
emotional and spiritual warfare oppressing and killing their brethren
and they need to be empowered to go and treat them on the spot. The
music needs to stop until EVERYBODY in your camp is bandaged up.
"Church" will not be The Church until it stops being a show
and starts being a hospital, first and foremost. The reason it's not
that now is because we abdicated to paid leadership to do all the
work for us and they can't possibly keep up. In fairness, many of
them got to liking it and now don't trust the Body to help them - so
it's a vicious cycle. But it's got to stop. The Body has to learn to
care for the Body, whether or not there is a paid staffer. We need
the Gifts of Discernment of Spirits and Knowledge operating in force
and we need to get back to fulfilling the Great Commission - first by
cleaning up the messes in our own congregations, then by GOING.
We can't wait for them to COME - cause when we do, they're mostly not
staying, and it's because they're not getting healed (which is
because we're not acting like Jesus).
If any of this
stuff has convicted you and you realize you played a part in
sustaining a system that hasn't been working or you ever ignored
someone that was bleeding because you had your own agenda, now would
be a good time to find a quiet place, hit your knees and say you're
sorry. Crying helps God know you're serious. You might also want to
admit it publicly to the people affected. How are they ever going to
learn how to repent really good if somebody doesn't show them? Don't
wait for somebody else to do it. It has to start with you.
So what is a
Spiritual Tune-Up?
First it's aimed
at people that already have Jesus, but the process is the same
regardless. A person who is lost could turn their life over and push
through lots of the steps right away and be that much more effective
sooner. It's just a matter of hunger level and God's sense of your
preparedness. The goal is immediate radical transformation, not
gradual incremental change culminating in perfection after death. We
believe that it's possible that God can heal and deliver and restore
and sanctify instantly and we're going to aim for that. If He chooses
to take longer, that's fine, but we're going to ASK for maximum
change in minimum time - even if it hurts. Which it will.
Typically, we
would take a hard look at each of the three factors; Body, Soul and
Spirit. Asking the Holy Spirit to help us discern any areas where
there is resistance to the will of Christ, we would "scan"
through each layer looking for whatever the Lord would choose to
reveal. It might be a physical illness that has a spiritual cause, it
might be a soulish anger or bitterness or unforgiveness that is
blocking Him and bringing down physical curses, or it might be a
spiritual problem of diminished capacity for Him because of
limitations or "filters" that have been placed on God. It
might be a demonic oppression that has really old roots in abuse or
addiction or some unresolved, past sin that opened a doorway and
allowed legal ground for the enemy. All of these are
resolveable within the scope of the power granted to us through
Christ. Some can be settled nearly instantly and done away with once
and for all. Many people have experienced through this process an
immediately lightness at the removal of some old yokes of oppression.
Some experience immediate physical changes as healing to their
illnesses or removal of addictions comes at the same time. We want to
allow God room to act in ANY way He sees fit. We don't want to put
Him in a box anymore! We want to believe that He is big enough to
conquer anything and that He wants us free. He is big enough, right?
And He does want us fully free, right? All the way free? Of everything?
When you do a
tune-up on a vehicle, you want to find anything that is keeping it
from running at peak efficiency. A misalignment, a missing part, low
fluids, bad filters, even burnt out bulbs - anything that needs to be
changed or adjusted so that it can be renewed back to the way it was
designed. It's all in Romans 12. In thanks for His mercy we offer our
bodies as living sacrifices - holy, pleasing and acceptable - that is
our spiritual act of worship.
So first, we have
to be willing to offer our Body - the vehicle, and all that it holds
- as a sacrifice. We need to be willing and we need to commit to hold
NOTHING back anything. That verse does NOT say we offer half of our
body as a living sacrifice – or even 90%. The whole thing needs
to go on the altar. ALL means ALL.
Before we can do
anything else, we need it to be a holy, pleasing and acceptable
sacrifice. And since our sinfulness screams against our holiness, and
our own nature confirms it, it's clear that only by the atoning Blood
of Jesus is there any chance that we can be a pleasing and acceptable
sacrifice. So before any tune-up is going to do any good, we need to
scrub the whole thing down with the Blood of Jesus. You have to have
acknowledged your needfulness for the Blood and asked Him to wash you
clean of every sin.
Said less
religiously, you have to tell Jesus you're sorry for all the bad
stuff you let in and you have to really mean it - and you have to
believe that His sacrifice on the cross was sufficient to wipe you
clean. This IS NOT an acknowledgement that Jesus existed or that He
was the Son of God - even the demons believe that. This is not a
statement you repeat after someone else so that you can join a
church. This is a full-on commitment to humble yourself before Him
and to give yourself over to Him so that He can be in charge from now
on. That you would like to bow down and let Him be who He is -
Master, King, Commander, Ruler, Lord - in your life from now on. Fear
of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Way too many churches are
making it way too easy - and the result is sick, powerless, shackled,
unwise people in the pews.
Ok, NOW you're an
acceptable sacrifice. So what's next? Get up on the altar and shut
up. You don't need to figure out your personal purpose. You don't
need 40 days to figure out what YOU can do for God. You're the
sacrifice! Get cleaned off, climb up on the altar and lay there
naked. By doing this, by really doing this, really laying there naked
– fully exposed and willing to accept anything that comes –
you are most definitely NOT conforming to the "world".
When He's good and
ready, He'll move on to the next step. Which is that He will take a
big sword and begin to hack chunks of your head off and put His head
on. It's painful at times and folks around you may not understand
what's happening during that strange in-between time while you're
trying to figure it all out and get the pieces of your head and His
head to get on the same frequency. But eventually, unless you panic
and jump off the altar, He will hack off all the bits that stand in
His way and then you'll have the mind of Christ. He will have
transformed you by the renewing of your mind. RE-newed, that is, back
the way it was supposed to be when it was new. Back the way He
designed it. Back in His image. Rebooted and set back to the defaults
the way it was before you mangled it up and the "world's"
viruses corrupted it. Read Matthew 18:1-4, Mark 10:15. He wants
faith like a child.
Then and ONLY then
will you know what is the pleasing, perfect will of God. And then you
can go do it. It's not just so you can bask in the knowledge of what
He wants, it's so you can OBEY. GO - reach, heal, save, deliver, free
the captives. Do the stuff that's on HIS heart - and now that your
mind is renewed and you know what is His will, it should be a lot
easier. You probably won't need a committee or demographic studies or
anything. If you didn't hold anything back, by this point, you're
probably hearing Him really well and you don't really need any Man
(or group of them) to tell you what God wants for you. And I can tell
you this, it's going to cost you everything. But you won't miss any
of it. Besides, none of it was yours anyway. But you better count the
cost, because this is a hard walk. Job, family, money, comforts,
control - all could be taken away or destroyed. If you pray to be
like Jesus and He answers it, you'll be hated and ridiculed by the
world. Guaranteed.
Sound like
something you want to try? If you're lukewarm, it might just be
better for you to stay where you are than to taste the goodness of
God and then turn your back on it. Persecution is going to come with
every step that gets you closer to walking in the fullness of
Christ. But if you don't care what it costs and you're still
willing, we can proceed.
Jesus affirmed
repeatedly that these two commandments are the greatest. That if you
understand and implement these, you have pretty well grasped the
Kingdom of God.
Here it is quoted
in three different Gospels: (Please go read them in context)
Mat 22:37-40
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the
first and great commandment. And the second [is] like unto it, Thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang
all the law and the prophets.
Mar 12:30-31
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all
thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this [is]
the first commandment. And the second [is] like, [namely] this, Thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment
greater than these.
Luke 10:27-28
And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all
thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. And he (Jesus) said unto him,
Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.
So, it boils down
to this - the most important commandment, the most central task
before us as individuals and as the Church, is to love God with every
component of our being - Mind, Soul and Heart and to do it with all
of our Strength. How are you doing with that? That's what we're going
to find out. If you haven't got that one down, the second commandment
- loving your neighbor as yourself - is going to be a pale imitation
of what it should be. You will love them to the degree you love God.
If you're clearly not loving your neighbor as you should, it's a
pretty good indication that you're not loving the Lord your God with
all your mind and soul and heart and strength. If you're loving your
neighbor with 10% of your strength, then you're probably loving God
with 10%. It's like a math equation, just plug in the percentage.
Submission to God
x quantityN = manifestation of Love for Neighbor x quantityN
If they will know
us by our love and we're not evidencing much love for each other
(especially inside the Church) and for those in need, then we must
not be very submitted to God. What other conclusion can you come
to? Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. I know it
stings a little, but try to embrace it. (Try Psalms 141:5-6)
Paul says this in
1 Thessalonians 5:23:
"And the
very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and [I pray God] your whole
spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ."
We are made of
these three. Body, Soul and Spirit. and they are to all be in
submission to Christ. All means ALL! Let's try one of those verses again:
Mar 12:30-31 And
thou shalt love the Lord thy God with ALL thy heart, and with ALL
thy soul, and with ALL thy mind, and with ALL thy strength: this [is]
the first commandment. And the second [is] like, [namely] this, Thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment
greater than these.
Before we go
any further, now would be a good time for the warning label.
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WARNING!
WARNING!
DANGER! DANGER!
Proceed at your
own caution!
We will NOT
be responsible for ANYTHING that happens from here forward.
You have been warned.
We want you to
be ABSOLUTELY clear that this is FOR SURE, NO DOUBT ABOUT IT
going to hurt A LOT.
You can drive
20 miles an hour and you probably won't get hurt too bad in an accident.
If you drive
200 miles an hour and you make a mistake, it's going to get really ugly.
This
IS NOT for sissies!
If you have ANY
desire in you to slow down, DO IT NOW!
DO NOT GO
THIS WAY!! DO NOT take our advice on this stuff!!
It will totally
transform your life and things you love will be ripped from you.
Nothing – NOTHING
– that you have will be your own any more.
So He can
rebuild you His way, God will IMMEDIATELY start yanking chunks out of
you. Probably stuff you really liked. The fire will get VERY hot!
If you even so
much as TRY to do this in your own power, you're gonna be toast!
ONLY Jesus
in you can get you through this.
Last
chance. Get out now!
ALL
the darkness WILL
come for you!
We've
seen it over and over. We ARE NOT kidding around!
If you miss a
step you could end up on crack or
beating your wife or
drinking like a fish or in jail. We've seen it happen to good,
Jesus-loving people who weren't all the way sold out. God will get
you through, but it will hurt even more if you bail out. You BETTER
mean it! We're serious.
We love you
very much. We want to see you refined and purified and REALLY
dangerous to the enemy, but we want you to be FULLY READY before you
pull into the Fast Lane! |
Still here?
Great! Now go back and reread the warning again.We're to work
out our salvation with fear and trembling. He's serious.
OK? Back
again? Good. Let's proceed.
So which part
of ALL don't you understand?!
Where do you think
you have an option to love Him "some"? Remember this
old song? Have you really looked at it? How many times have you sung
it and not really meant it? I know I did for years!
I Surrender All
- Judson W. Van DeVenter, 1896:
ALL to
Jesus, I surrender; ALL to Him I freely give; I will EVER
love and trust Him, In His presence DAILY live.
I surrender ALL,
I surrender ALL, ALL to Thee, my blessèd
Savior, I surrender ALL.
ALL to
Jesus I surrender; Humbly at His feet I bow, Worldly pleasures ALL
forsaken; Take me, Jesus, take me now.
I surrender ALL,
I surrender ALL, ALL to Thee, my blessèd
Savior, I surrender ALL.
ALL to
Jesus, I surrender; Make me, Savior, WHOLLY Thine; Let me feel
the Holy Spirit, Truly know that Thou art mine.
I surrender ALL,
I surrender ALL, ALL to Thee, my blessèd
Savior, I surrender ALL.
ALL to
Jesus, I surrender; Lord, I give myself to Thee; Fill me with Thy
love and power; Let Thy blessing fall on me.
I surrender ALL,
I surrender ALL, ALL to Thee, my blessèd
Savior, I surrender ALL.
ALL to
Jesus I surrender; NOW
I feel the sacred flame. O the joy of FULL
salvation! Glory, glory, to His Name!
I surrender ALL,
I surrender ALL, ALL to Thee, my blessèd
Savior, I surrender ALL.
A whole lot of us
have been singing that but really meaning, "I surrender
SOME." Or maybe, "I surrender more than that guy over
there." There are certainly lots of leaders in the churches that
aren't meaning it! Very few people really mean ALL. And yet
that is the specific and direct command of God and affirmed three
times by Jesus Himself as the most critical commandment of all. More
than any doctrinal statement or theological construct or
interpretation, we must do THAT. First and foremost in the Christian
walk MUST BE a love for God that holds back nothing. Anything less
means that you have missed the mark. Can there be any other
interpretation? Where does the Bible say, “Invite Jesus
into your heart and then do whatever you want.”? Where
does it say that you can give Him SOME and He won't mind. It
says that God is a jealous God (Ex. 25:5, Ex. 34:14, Deut. 4:24;
Deut. 5:9; Deut. 6:15; Josh. 24:19; Nahum 1:2; and elsewhere!).
In fact, it says the Holy Spirit in us envies intensely when we give
ourselves over to the world (James 4:4-5).
This is hard
stuff, and not what you may be used to hearing, but I don't see how
you can find any other interpretation. We're to work out our
salvation with fear and trembling. How much fear and trembling do you
have if you go down the aisle at youth camp in 8th grade and accept
Jesus into your heart and you're all done? The "Narrow Path"
has just GOT to be more narrow than that! In fact, I believe
the VAST majority of church goers are not going to heaven at all. I
believe we've been lied to for years about what it is that God really
expects of us. The New Testament would be VERY short indeed if the
path to heaven was as simple as, "Repeat this prayer after me
..." What's the point of all the rest of it if that's all
it takes?
If you're still
with me, the rest of this is going to be about helping you identify
ANY areas of Body, Soul or Spirit that may yet be unsubmitted to God
and doing whatever is necessary to bring them into full obedience
with Christ. Bite down on something, this might hurt a little.
The enemy is going
to try everything possible to keep you from walking this out. The
darkness DOES NOT want to lose a single inch of ground! So let's pray
this first:
Lord, don't let
the enemy keep me from this. Don't let the enemy distract me or
confuse me. Give me wisdom, Godly wisdom and as much of it as You
think I can handle. Speak to me clearly and I'll follow. Please bind
up anything in me or around me that would try to mess with me during
this time. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.
I like
pictures, so let's start with this:
This is a very
simple graphic, not at all meant to be thorough or all-inclusive. Let
the Holy Spirit show you all the areas in your life that need
addressing. I'm sure He wants to! For now, we're just going to hit a
few so you can see how this works. If you're not hearing very
well from God on what might be unsubmitted, just ask someone close to
you – I'm sure they'll tell you the parts that don't look like
Jesus. Spouses are good for that!
If we had lots of
people in the churches with the gift of discernment of spirits, you
could go to one of them and ask them what's messing with you and they
could just tell you and help get it off. If you know somebody like
that, by all means, get them in on this. But don't take ANYBODY'S
word for anything. Check everything with God. Even if you can't
normally hear God very well, I'm just SURE He wants to talk to you
about THIS stuff! So you should be expecting that, as it relates to
areas of your life that are unsubmitted, you're going to hear Him
really well.
I suspect He's
been waiting so long for you to ask Him what the problem is that as
soon as you ask you're going to get LOTS of feedback. It may not be
an audible thing, but somebody or some situation or a cloud or a
little kid or a song on the radio or SOMETHING is going to be used to
get through to you and show you the problem. Just EXPECT an answer
and listen for it.
Body
We are all jars of
clay, vessels to hold His glory, cups of one sort or another. We are
humble earthen vessels that are flawed and cracked in many ways and
yet He pours His glory into us. We become the temple of His Spirit
and He lives in us! Isn't that cool!!
Anyway, it's
important first to understand that the Word commands us repeatedly to
"be filled with the Spirit" and in the tense it uses it
means "to be being filled" - a constant in-filling, a
constant effort to keep our cups topped off. (The graphics here are
from the full article “Fill My Cup, Lord.”)
There are
basically these options:
-
You have NO Jesus
- You
have some Jesus and lots of Sin
- You
have more Jesus and a little Sin
- You're
all shook up by the World and can't figure out what's what
- You're
washed clean, but there's too much YOU
- Jesus
has killed off lots of YOU so He can increase in you
- You've
been a good steward, so He gave you a bigger cup and lots more Jesus.
And it's not a
one-time thing. He's our Daily Bread, so you can move from one to the
other fairly fluidly, even in the midst of one day. It's not a
one-time thing just cause you went down the aisle and got "filled
with the Spirit" one day. If you're not constantly STAYING FULL
then you're going to drain off - or get lukewarm and stale. Over and
over we're commanded to be full and to stay full – or to “be
being filled”.* And there's no point at which you
shouldn't be striving for a bigger cup. We need Him in increasing
measure every day to keep from being ineffective and unproductive (II
Peter 1:8). You get a bigger cup by pouring yourself out on
those in need, then getting refilled again.
* (Acts 2:4 And
they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with
other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. Ephesians 3:19 And
to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be
filled with all the fulness of God. Colossians 1:9 For this
cause we also, since the day we heard [it], do not cease to pray for
you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his
will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; Ephesians 5:8 And be
not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the
Spirit; Philippians 1:11 Being filled with the fruits of
righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise
of God.)
The Greek word
used repeatedly for “filled” is “pleroo”
(Strong's #4137). Here is Strong's definition of it:
1) to make full,
to fill up, i.e. to fill to the full
a) to cause to
abound, to furnish or supply liberally
1) I abound, I am
liberally supplied
2) to render full,
i.e. to complete
a) to fill to the
top: so that nothing shall be wanting to full measure, fill to the brim
b) to consummate:
a number
1) to make
complete in every particular, to render perfect
2) to carry
through to the end, to accomplish, carry out, (some undertaking)
c) to carry into
effect, bring to realisation, realise
1) of matters of
duty: to perform, execute
2) of sayings,
promises, prophecies, to bring to pass, ratify, accomplish
3) to fulfil, i.e.
to cause God's will (as made known in the law) to be obeyed as it
should be, and God's promises (given through the prophets) to receive fulfilment
(Thayer's Lexicon
also has a lot to say. Do a search for “filled” on
www.BlueLetterBible.com and see.)
The point is,
Jesus wants us FULL and He knows that only HE can do it. We're all
going to be full of SOMETHING. If our bodies are the temple of God
and He lives in us, do you really want Him sharing space with that
icky stuff? Shouldn't you be purified and cleansed of all
unrighteousness so that He can reign supreme? It says “the
prayers of a righteous man availeth much” - so I guess the
prayers of a kind-of righteous man availeth practically nothing. Why
is HE going to listen to YOU when you ask for something, when YOU
won't listen to HIM about getting the red stuff out (and the stinky
yellow stuff)? Proverbs 25:26 says: “Like a muddied spring or a
polluted well is a righteous man who gives way to the
wicked.” That sounds to me like a cup that should be
clean, but isn't.
Areas of direct
disobedience or unresolved pain result in a draining off of that with
which we are filled. Sometimes we have a really hard time keeping our
cup full because we have a big crack in our cup caused by an
unforgiveness or a bitterness or a fundamental character flaw, and so
we drain out almost as soon as we get filled. Sometimes we can't ever
get all the way full because of the goo we refuse to clean out that's
taking up too much space in our cup. Really entrenched red stuff
keeps us from being able to be filled to capacity. Sometimes there
are physical oppressions and sicknesses that have resulted from
spiritual problems. These, too, need addressing through the power of
Jesus. More on all that later.
So, as it relates
to the Body, let's start with this:
Is God telling you
to do something with FOOD other than what you are doing? If yes, why
won't you obey?
Is God telling you
to do something with DRINK other than what you are doing? If yes, why
won't you obey?
Is God telling you
to do something with WORK other than what you are doing? If yes, why
won't you obey?
Is God telling you
to do something with MONEY other than what you are doing? If yes, why
won't you obey?
Is God telling you
to do something with SEX other than what you are doing? If yes, why
won't you obey?
Is God telling you
to do something with TIME other than what you are doing? If yes, why
won't you obey?
Is God telling you
to do something with your TONGUE other than what you are doing? If
yes, why won't you obey?
Get the idea?
Odds are pretty good that if the Holy Spirit is convicting you of
something and you're not obeying, it's because you've given the enemy
room in your heart or because your own soulish nature just wants to
rebel. Either way, it's not really giving ALL and you need to do
something about it. Stop thinking that He's just going to overlook it
and cut you some slack. He REALLY doesn't like being in there with
that stuff and He's a really big God. More fear of the Lord would be
good. You might want to pray for that. Crying is good, too.
If the Holy Spirit
is NOT convicting you of any of that stuff, then either you are not
listening and you've got a giant pride problem blocking your hearing
OR the Holy Spirit has already beaten you into submission on all
those levels. I've met both kinds. Just in case, now would be a good
time to pray sincerely and ask the Lord to show you ANYTHING that
displeases Him or any area of rebellion as it relates to your Body.
Ok, OK!! You
caught me, so what do I do about it?
Well, the first
thing is to tell God you're really sorry. That would be good. He's
been waiting a long time to hear that. And if you've been saying it
before but then going back like a dog to his own vomit, then He's
probably not going to take your apology very seriously until you
start sticking by your commitments to Him.
If you've tried to
turn away from stuff and haven't been able to, it's probably because
you're doing too much of the fighting in your own power - because
you've tried to force obedience with the YOU in your cup. That just
puts more and more pressure on you and more and more guilt when you
fall. Jesus lives inside of you and HE is not addicted to cigarettes
or donuts or porn or work or anything. He has faced down every
failing of Man and beaten it. If you will get out of the way and let
HIM fight your battles, it will be much easier. Much. We'll cover
that more later since it applies to all three of these components.
You need to be
clear that SIN means missing the mark. Whether it's murder or
disbelief, it's sin and it keeps you from walking in the FULLNESS of
Christ. You will not reach your maximum potential in Him if you
remain unsubmitted in some areas – ANY areas. Jesus said, if you
LOVE Him, you will OBEY Him. If you're not obeying Him 100%, then you
must not love Him 100%. And 90% isn't going to cut it! He wants ALL
– and ALL means ALL.
Soul
Let's try this
same process again:
Is God telling you
to do something with ANGER other than what you are doing? If yes, why
won't you obey?
What about Guilt,
Lust, Control, Fear, Money, Pride, Jealousy, Lying, Disbelief,
Self-pity, Power, Bitterness, Unforgiveness, Gluttony, Idolatry,
Rebellion or others? Got any of those?
Simplified
substantially, the soul is the mind - our emotions, our mental state,
our rationalizations and reactions internally to the world around us.
It is what makes us distinctly us. This, too, needs to be brought
fully into submission with God.
In a sense, you
could see it like this:
The yellow stuff
is our soulish nature and it's not that much better than the red
stuff. In fact, the Blood of Jesus washes away all of our sins in an
instant when we ask for forgiveness, but if we don't fill the gap
with Jesus (and keep it full), the badness will just jump back into
the vacuum. It's our yellow stuff that invited all the red stuff! The
Blood of Jesus is sufficient to heal us, but it's not the same
process as with the red stuff. The Word says we're to crucify pieces
of us so that Christ in us can live. We're to carry our cross daily.
Well, that's about denying ourselves pleasures that might be red
stuff, but it's also about watching chunks of Self die so Christ can
increase and YOU can decrease. And I can tell you from LOTS of
experience with this - getting the red stuff out is A LOT easier than
getting all the yellow stuff out that displeases Him! One is
about behavior and the other is about our nature. Habits are far
easier to change than character. Beating the yellow stuff into
submission is the crucifying ourselves part.
No physical trial
you will ever go through - not climbing Mount Everest in winter, not
sawing your own arm off with a pocket knife, not doing a marathon on
your knees - will EVER be as hard as getting your tongue and your
mind beaten into submission. THAT is the great battle in our lives
and the difficulty is evidenced by how really rare it is to find
someone that has accomplished any substantial measure of success in
that! In fact, I'm convinced the only way to do it effectively
is to let Jesus do it. We can fake it for awhile in our own power,
but all we've done is supress it. Only Jesus can terminate it once
and for all.
In fact, it's not
possible to walk in holiness at all without the Holy Spirit doing it.
You can't use the yellow stuff to beat down the yellow stuff. That
just won't work. Jesus is our righteousness and He alone is worthy
and holy and capable of making us like Him. We can't get to be like
Jesus in our own power. We have to be clothed in Christ, we
have to run into Him who is our strong tower. We have to be dead so
that Christ in us can live. And not just a little dead either - ALL
of those component pieces have to die. Maybe this will help you
figure out which is which.
He doesn't want to
purge you of ALL the yellow stuff, that would eliminate you complete
and He kind of likes parts of you. Once I asked Him what parts of me
He wanted to keep and He said, “Basically everything from before
about six years old.” Just the faith like a child parts. That
thing in David that made him fearlessly go out to face Goliath
because he just KNEW His Dad was bigger and tougher than THAT guy's Dad!
There's a lot more
to be said, but you'll need to pray through this yourself and ask God
to show you very clearly all the areas in which you are partially or
completely unsubmitted. I know it's a prayer He wants you to pray, so
I KNOW He will answer it and show you stuff. Then it's up to you to
lay it down.
I find that this
kind of prayer helps a lot and gets nearly instant results - if you
have the guts to pray it:
(If you forgot, go
back and read the Warning first!)
Dear Lord, I'm
really sorry for all the sin that I should have never let in. I'm
sorry for all the old stuff that I've let take root and boss me
around. Please purge me of all unrighteousness right now through the
power of Your Blood. I stand in faith, knowing that Your Blood is
sufficient to cleanse me of all unrighteousness. Please show me ANY
area of my life that displeases You – anything that stands in
the way between us and keeps me from being able to walk in the
fulness of all that you have for me. Whatever it is, I don't care how
much I like it, I don't care how long it's been there, I don't care
how much it hurts, it's got to go RIGHT NOW in the Name of Jesus. So
Lord, rip it, tear it, burn it, shred it, crucify it – whatever
it takes. If I won't lay it down, rip it from my grasp. I don't care
how much it hurts, I trust You. Do whatever it takes, but do it RIGHT
NOW. I won't flinch and I won't try to hop out of Your refining fire
when it comes. Dial the heat up. I'm going to stand. Give me the
strength to stand. Please hold my hand. I'm going to really need You.
Thanks, Lord. You're the best Dad ever and I trust You. Please burn
it all off and don't stop no matter how much I whine. In the Name of Jesus,
Amen.
Hear me –
your growth in Christ is directly proportional to your willingness to
seek out and embrace His refining fire. When He is pounding on you
and life seems horrible, if you will go to Him and find out what He's
trying to teach you, embrace it, learn from it and thank Him for it -
then maybe you can move on. If you whine and complain and keep asking
Him to turn down the flames because it's too hot, it shows a lack of
trust that He knows what He's doing and it just slows down the whole
process. How long is it going to take to cook a turkey in an oven set
at 50 degrees? How long if it's set at 450? That's the difference
between Christians in China and India and those in America. We have
our ovens set at 50 degrees and they have their's on full blast.
Persecution dials up the heat really fast – and results in
explosive growth in Christ (and a sifting of those who mean it and
those who don't).
So don't be such a
sissy. Jump in the fire and learn to like it. Is He God or isn't He?
Will He protect you or won't He? Are His promises good or
aren't they? Buck up, ya big weenie. Go kill some yellow stuff.
Spirit
OK, so we got the
red stuff out (for today) and we begged Him to kill the yellow stuff.
So you probably have a void in the top of your cup now. What are you
going to do? If you leave it like that the enemy, who ranges to and
fro like a hungry lion, will try to jump in there right away and mess
with you again. You've got to get your cup full of Jesus and keep it
that way. And not just full to 100%, full to overflowing – up
and over, mounded up on top.
So do you know
how? Well, you can read your Bible. You can listen to worship music.
You can pray. You can just spend time at the feet of Jesus before the
throne of God. Whatever is the best way you have found to drink in
Jesus. But be careful that you're not DOING to get filled. That just
means that you're trying to get more blue stuff by engaging the
yellow stuff. That's a long uphill battle and can border on legalism.
What it ends up doing is inviting in the red stuff again in the form
of guilt, condemnation, self-righteousness, pride or some other nasty thing.
Maybe there's a
better way. What does the Word of God say about this?
John 7:38 says:
"He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his
innermost being will flow rivers of living water.' "
John 4:10 says: Jesus
answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who
it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked
of him, and he would have given thee living water.
Rev. 7:17 says: For
the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and
shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe
away all tears from their eyes.
Here's a couple of
Old Testament reference so you know God doesn't change:
Jeremiah 17:13: O
LORD, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed,
[and] they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because
they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters.
Jeremiah 2:13:
For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the
fountain of living waters, [and] hewed them out cisterns, broken
cisterns, that can hold no water.
In that last one
we see that they committed two evils, they didn't drink of the living
waters and they had containers with cracks in them. (A cistern is
just a really big cup.) In fact, they made their own cisterns to
store up water because they didn't trust in God's unending supply
from the fountain. And the result was they had neither – AND
they made God mad!
It sure seems to
me like those fountains of living water are the Holy Spirit. It says
Jesus is the “Fountain in the House of David” (Zech 13:1)
The Holy Spirit is that blue stuff that fills us and displaces all
the other stuff. It would be great if He would just shove everything
out of the way, but for some reason we're involved and we have to
participate in the process – or at least be willing and ask Him
to do it.
This being true (I
hope you agree), then we don't need to DO anything to fill our cup.
We just have to believe that Jesus wants our cup full, that He
promised that springs of living water would flow up from INSIDE of us
and then just turn on the tap. We just need to ask Him to fill
us in whatever way HE wants to fill us and teach us how to keep it
that way. Remember; trust the Lord your God with ALL your heart, lean
NOT on your OWN understanding, but in ALL your ways acknowledge HIM
and HE will direct your paths. (Prov. 3:5-6)
I think our job as
a church is to find those who are poor in spirit – those whose
cups are running low – and share with them. Pour ourselves out
into them so that they can be filled. Not with our yellow stuff! God
forbid! But from the abundance of the riches that have been given to
us that we would share – of or wealth, of our physical energy/strength/time
AND of the fountain of living water that is inside of us.
Haven't you ever
been around somebody that, just being in the same room with them or
getting a hug, made your spirit feel full? I bet they had a cup that
was overflowing – or they deliberately and selflessly poured
themselves out on you. They may not have known that's what they were
doing or been able to explain it that way, they just knew that they
had Joy and Peace and that you needed some, so they shared.
The Lord gave me a
vision once of how the church should operate and it looks a pyramid
of champagne glasses at a wedding where they pour in the top one and
as it overflows, the glass below gets filled and overflows and so it
continues all the way down. Those who have the biggest cup of Jesus
should be constantly pouring themselves out onto others and teaching
them how to keep it going.
Shouldn't church
be a filling station? How often do you go and leave feeling just as
empty as when you got there? Some churches are really great filling
stations and you can leave FULL of Jesus – but you can't make it
past Monday afternoon without running out again. That's because we
think we have to go to a building to get our cups full. The Word of
God doesn't say anything like that. The Word of God says rivers of
living water will flow up from INSIDE of US. We have an endless
supply! And WE are supposed to be the filling station for those that
don't know how to tap into it. It's not about the building or the
pastor or nice music that gets us in the mood – every Christian
has access to the river of God! Isn't that COOL!! So, stick a
straw in and suck! Better yet, just dive in.
Below we're going
to talk more about all the things you can be filled with, why you
need to help fill others and how to get full and make sure you stay
full. I know this may sound weird, but it's all in the Bible. No
question about it. We're supposed to perceive things in the spirit,
not with our natural mind. This is NOT the “real” world
– this is not our home. We are spiritual beings and we need to
get a lot more familiar with what's happening in the spirit. That's
where the war is and that's where our hope comes from.
I Corinthians 2:14
- But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of
God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them,
because they are spiritually discerned.
Romans 8:6 - For
to be carnally minded [is] death; but to be spiritually minded is
life and peace.
Communications
– Hotline to Headquarters
So, we got the red
stuff out, we're getting more yellow stuff out, we learned how to get
more blue stuff, now what? Well, now it's time to get your filters
unclogged so you can hear God really well and HE can direct ALL your
paths. This works better as a question and answer thing. Ready?
First, what
exactly are we talking about? Does God really speak to people today?
Yes. In a whole
bunch of ways from a gentle nudge, to instruction through the Word,
to using other people and circumstances to speak to you, to sending
dreams and visions (or angels) – and/or even conversing directly
with you.
You can hear
God and converse with Him?! You’re kidding, right?
Not kidding. You
can absolutely talk to God and He’ll talk back. There are
millions of people all over the world that rely on God for constant
daily instruction on all sorts of things. But, there’s a
difference between hearing God audibly (with your natural ears,
outside of your own head) and hearing the inner “still, small
voice”. It’s pretty rare for God to speak to people
audibly (like thunder), but there are plenty of folks out there that
say they’ve heard Him – and the evidence is that once they
did, it changed them forever! Many of the house churches in
China are under such persecution that they can’t set a regular
time for meeting or even tell each other when the meeting will be
– they all just pray independently and God Himself sets the time
and place and tells each to be there. I've experienced that kind of
coordination myself and hear Him speak to me all the time. This
is totally for real and the birthright of every believer!
Wait ... people
hear the God of the Universe tell them stuff? Like what tie to wear
and whether to turn left or right? What job to take? What to have for
dinner? Not just big stuff?
Sure. The Bible
says, “In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your
paths.” (Prov. 3:5-6) What do you think “ALL your ways”
means? And how is He going to direct you if you can’t hear Him?
But my pastor
said God doesn’t talk to people like that!
Hmmm. Well, God
used to talk to people all the time in the Bible. Wonder when He
stopped? Did He say He was going to stop? Isn’t He the same
yesterday, today and forever? If anything, once the Holy Spirit came
in Acts 2, there were LOTS more people talking to God directly!
Never mind the MILLIONS of people all over the world who you have to
conclude are thoroughly and certifiably nuts – including many of
the most effective leaders of the church. In order to sustain that
argument you have all kinds of logic problems.
Consider this;
IF God used
to talk to people but doesn’t now, THEN we must not need
to hear from Him anymore. Can that be? By all measures
we’re worse off than ever. If there is a war between Good and
Evil, we’re losing pretty badly right now and really desperately
need to be getting commands directly from Headquarters, not from
flawed man-made sources and tradition-soaked interpretations of Scripture!
IF there is
a battle between Good and Evil, THEN who would benefit most if
the people on the “Good” side were told they couldn’t
ACTUALLY talk to their Commander in Chief? Now, you know the Evil
side is absolutely clear to EVERYONE that if you try to talk to THEIR
leadership you WILL get an answer REAL fast! Even Christians are
afraid to mess with Ouija boards and call on the names of demons
because somewhere inside they believe something VERY real will show
up almost instantly. But at the same time, the forces of
darkness want us to buy that OUR God is mute! Doesn’t that sound
like something the snake would say in the Garden? Despite hundreds of
examples in the Bible that He is available and accessible all the
time, we have too often bought the lie that God is unwilling or
unable to actually talk to His children. It’s a lie from the pit
and we’ve bought into it for too long.
IF we
receive the Holy Spirit when we are saved, THEN 1/3 of the
Godhead is living INSIDE of us all the time! (I John 4:13-17) But He
doesn’t have anything to say?! He’s not interested in our
daily activities? God’s not big enough to know what we should
have for lunch? He knows the hairs on our head and monitors our every
coming and going, but has no opinion about it or desire to give us
advice? What kind of Father is that?! IF we’re dead and
it’s Christ in us that lives, THEN shouldn’t HE be
running the show? (Romans 7:4-6)
The most common
argument I hear is that when the Bible was done being written then
“that which was perfect has come and that which was in part was
done away” (I Corin. 13:10) so we don't need to talk to God
anymore. The argument is that I Corinthians 12 talks about tongues
and prophecy and then chapter 13 tells about the way it SHOULD be
when the perfect is come so you should do away with all that. But
they don't seem to notice that then chapter 14 starts with Paul
urging them to seek the gift of prophecy! Said another way, I
think “when that which is perfect is come” refers to Jesus
returning, NOT the Bible being completed.
IF the
Bible is what's being referred to there, THEN why hasn't
knowledge ceased? IF it's the “perfect” thing
mentioned there, THEN nothing could stand against it. IF
the Bible is perfect, THEN could somebody tell me which
version is flawless? And IF none of them are because we don't
have the original manuscripts anymore, THEN something DID
stand against it! IF the perfect is come, THEN why
do we have 37,000 denominations and we seem to be losing the battle
with the darkness? There are just big giant logic problems with that
argument – not to mention the personal experience of millions of
reasonable, Jesus-lovers all over the world.
But my pastor
says even HE doesn’t hear God conversationally like that!
Ok, well, you see,
Matthew 18:18 says that, “what you bind on earth will be bound
in heaven and what you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
It goes on to say that if two of you on earth agree about anything
you ask for, it will be done for you by the Father in heaven. (v.
19) So, could it be that we have whole groups of Christians
that have agreed that God doesn’t talk to people? And if they
were convinced of that, don’t those verses say that God will
honor it? So maybe the problem is that if you’re convinced God
WON’T talk to you that way, He probably won’t. And who
would you blame? The pastor? Probably not – in fairness, we
gotta lay it at the feet of the Snake and the generations of
tradition that have been built up to keep us from being truly “Spirit-led”.
There could also
be other problems that would keep a person from hearing God. One
possibility is that you’re on the wrong team - even if you think
you're not. You know it's possible to make up your own
"Jesus" and you'll get a response from that one about as
good as if you were praying to a stick of wood. Another is that
you have unrepented sin that stands between you and God – and
God has convicted you of it so many times that He's just given up
trying to talk to you about it.
Oh, and by the
way, you’re going to have to get over that thing about the
pastor being more “holy” than you. This is a one-on-one
relationship with Jesus you’re supposed to have. You can’t
do it by proxy through the guy that gets paid to hear God (especially
if he admits he’s NOT hearing God!). We are ALL the Church. We
are EACH temples that hold God’s Spirit. Any one of us that are
adopted sons of God have the ability to petition the Throne directly
and seek His face. God loves each – in fact, He’s
especially fond of those that come to Him with faith like little
children. Sometimes pastors have a hard time with that. (I don't
think there are “Faith like a Child” classes in seminary.)
This is just
crazy! How could this be true and I never knew it before?
Wouldn’t somebody have told me?
Well, I think you
underestimate the damage the enemy has done and how long he’s
been plotting this. The vast majority of the church in the West
doesn’t live the “normal” Christian life. That is,
Biblically speaking, we’re to be full of power and might,
we’re to be free of the bondage of sin, we’re to NOT
conform to the world, we’re to be dead to ourselves, we’re
to be ONE Body and loving and serving each other with all our heart.
That’s just a few. Can you see how far away from that we
actually are as a “church”? We’re not even CLOSE!
There MUST be something missing. Somebody left something out! It has
to be this – God Himself is supposed to be directing you and
you’re supposed to be listening and OBEYING. Now ... who
would benefit most from us leaving that little piece out? Yep, the
guy in the black hat.
Now, what do you
think a close encounter conversationally with the God of the Universe
might do to a person? Trust me, it would change everything. It would
show them the power of the relationship they have as adopted sons,
they would lose all fear, they would sacrifice anything to keep
hearing Him, they would obey and walk in HIS ways, they would know
(really KNOW) that God Himself lives IN them and they would want more
of Him, they would do the things on HIS heart – like feeding the
hungry, clothing the naked, saving the lost.They would be in awe of
His holiness and seek to please Him out of reverence and honor, not
out of legalism or church requirements.
So, IF this
is a war between Good and Evil, THEN wouldn’t our most
immediate and urgent need be to get people to where they can hear
clear, timely, reliable commands from Headquarters? If you have
a guy in Basic Training that refuses to listen to the Drill Sargeant
and does his own thing, wouldn’t you want to leave him at home?
He’s just going to get himself killed when the enemy starts
shooting and leadership says ‘DUCK!’ and he can’t or
won’t hear them! He’s no good to anybody. Maybe he could be
a supply clerk – but he really shouldn’t be on the front
lines. He should stay home and send his money to the folks on the
front lines that hear God really well and obey ALL the time, no
matter what the cost.
But we have the
Bible. God’s Word is what we are to use to direct our paths!
Ok, sure. Not got
anything bad to say about the Word! Everything God tells us to do
will line up with His own Word. But no matter how well you know the
Bible, it can’t accommodate for every possible situation and
what you should do. There’s lots of stuff not covered in there
– like which of these two jobs God wants me to take. And
there’s stuff in there that men have been arguing about for
centuries without ever getting agreement. Lots of wasted time trying
to figure out how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. (By the
way, which side benefits most when God’s people fight over
stupid stuff? You getting the hang of this yet?)
Think of it like
this. You’re in the Army and they give you a Manual. All kinds
of stuff is covered in there – what to wear, how to salute, how
the weapons work, how to survive in a battle, what to eat in the
forest, how the chain of command works, even what the enemy is like
and how to resist them – there’s even stuff in there about
what the enemy WILL DO one day, whether they like it or not! It’s
a REALLY good Manual – in fact, it’s inspired by God! It
covers an amazing array of stuff and could probably handle most any
situation. So would the Drill Sargeant ask you to read it, maybe even
memorize it – and then send you into battle with nothing BUT
that? Are you going to be able to know what to do when the
bullets start flying? What about group strategy and deployment of
forces and anticipating enemy movements? Is the Manual going to
accommodate for every possible scenario on a rapidly changing
battlefield? Are you sure you’re interpreting it right? Is there
time in the foxhole to be arguing with other soldiers that are
reading it differently? What if some idiot published like TWENTY
different translations and paraphrases of the Manual?! Then what?!
Are you REALLY sure you have the right version? Isn’t there a
chain of command? Isn’t there somebody in charge calling the
shots that’s supposed to tell you what to do next? Aren’t
you supposed to be listening and OBEYING? Want to go into
battle without the Manual? No. Want to rely on it alone when you have
other resources available? No. Want to take an order from somebody
that goes against the Manual? No. When the bullets start
flying, do you want to hear personally and directly from Headquarters
so that you can know that help is coming and know what to do? You betcha!
We need a radio to
headquarters that works really good, with no static on the line and
no enemy transmission sneaking in. If you insist that you don't
want to hear God, I still love you, but I'm not going to the front
lines with you.
I don’t
know. This is kind of scary. What if I hear wrong? What if it’s
the enemy messing with me? Maybe this is all in your mind.
Wow! That’s a
whole mess of stuff. Let’s try this one at a time.
Maybe it’s
all in your mind.
Well, it’s
not just me. There’s hundreds of millions like me that hear God.
In fact, most of the growth in the Church worldwide is because of
those people. The “mainline” denominations are shrinking.
It’s the Spirit-led revolutionaries that are exploding into new
territories and pushing back the darkness. The growth in this arm of
the Church went from about ZERO in 1900 to about 500 MILLION people
in 2000. God is pouring out His Spirit and people are listening.
Ok, let’s try
it from the opposite direction. It all sunk in for me one day when it
struck me that satan never creates anything – he just makes weak
copies of whatever God is doing. He’s a liar and a deceiver and
a fake. So ... while it may seem far-fetched, most folks (even
Christians) will admit that evil is a real force in the world and the
supernatural is real. (The Bible verifies repeatedly that witches and
mediums and sorcery are real, by the way ... and that you’re
headed for hell if mess with them. – Deut 18:10-12, Col. 5:20)
The enemy has psychics and mediums and astral-projection and Ouija
boards and demons and zombies and spells and curses.
So where’s
OUR stuff?! If this is a war, why does only one side get cool
weapons? Was my church leaving out important s | 
