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Where are the Martyrs?
What if Walmart
said, "Trust us, give us a percentage of your gross and we'll
spend it wisely. You'll get a good product. We promise." Would
you believe them? Don't you think there are market forces at work in
the church?
That is, if I were
the pastor of a church of 1,000 people and I preached six weeks in a
row about the dangers of riches and the judgement on the wealthy and
the need to pick up our cross daily and the complete inadequacy of a
magic prayer when you were eight if you've never since lived your
life with holiness - do you think I would still have 1,000 people at
the end of the six weeks? Do you think I would have a job?
See, WE'RE the
consumers! As long as we spend the money there will be someone
willing to tickle our ears.
No way, boys. Not
anymore. Not with MY money. We are seeing NEGATIVE population growth
in the church. We are NOT feeding the hungry, we are not caring for
the orphans, we are not reaching the lost. We're not even keeping up
with population growth. We are bringing in $250 BILLION a year and
spending 95% of it on comforts and programs for the "saved".
AND we're in debt up to our eyeballs!!
THIS IS NO KIND OF
WAY TO FIGHT A WAR!
So I say, accept
personal responsibility (as I have) for having fed this beast. If
your church is soft and fluffy - DON'T throw more money at it hoping
it will start saying hard things - the money is what made them want
to BE soft and fluffy! If your church is saying the hard things and
meeting needs and doing God's work the way God wants it done - then
give them ALL your money!
Where are the
martyrs?! Where are the people willing to do anything for the cause
of Christ?! We need them to get to work. Something big is coming.
God's given us the vision and laid out the plan. All the pieces are
coming together.
All the people in
the wilderness need to hook up, get fed some real meat and then we
need to send them BACK into the churches with big armloads of meat to
show love and feed the hungry. If we can get little tornados or
revival started and they get some critical mass, eventually people
are going to go up to the pastor and ask him to preach something hard
for a change - and THEN he will be unshackled and free to say what
he's aching to say, but been taught (by us) not to!
Don't leave the
churches. Stay and speak truth with love. But don't assume you're
going to get fed meat there, you might not. But stay because you love
them and just ask lots questions. Lean over to someone next to you in
the service and gently and very sweetly say something like:
We need covert,
special forces commandos to fulfill Romans 12 until we can get the
whole army ready to fight. That's the simple three step plan for
warfare on God's terms.
If in thanks for
His mercy, you're willing to offer your bodies as living sacrifices,
holy and pleasing to God - do THIS:
1. STOP
CONFORMING TO THE PATTERN OF THE WORLD!!!!
For Pete's sake!
We were never supposed to get comfy here! We were never supposed to
go into the land of milk and honey and leave God in the desert! (Ex.
33!) We're to be aliens in a strange land. We're to be fools for
Jesus. We're to be hated and despised! Whose idea could it have been
to have 33,000 denominations and feuding and fighting and waste and
fraud and hypocrisy and compromise and building consultants and
demographic experts??!!! Can you say, "Sataaaan?"
2. Be
transformed by the RENEWING of your minds.
Grow up into Him
who is the head. Get all the junk OUT and focus on JESUS!! Every man-made
thing is DROSS! IT WILL SURELY BURN OFF IN THE FIRE! The only pure,
clean truth is the WORD. Learn Jesus, do what Jesus wants, ignore
what Jesus would have ignored, love who Jesus loved. Stop reading the
1,000 man-made commentaries on the book of Hebrews and read HEBREWS
and beg the Spirit to show you what you need! Get as much Holy Spirit
in you as you can, as fast as you can. Pray for wisdom! That's at the
top of all the lists of gifts, seems to be the least likely to get
abused and what seems to be lacking most right now.
3. THEN you
will know what is the perfect will of God - AND THEN DO IT!
It's not
theoretical - it's ACTION. Find out what God wants and DO IT. I
GUARANTEE it will look different than what we've BEEN doing.
There's more, but
that's the big thing. You can ONLY find repentance and revival and
restoration by those three - in that order.
Then, once you're
hearing God really well, go back into the churches and heap burning
coals of conviction on their heads by feeding them the meat they are
dying for and the water they are thirsting for. Be Christ to them.
God is preparing MANY hearts. People I thought unredeemable are
asking questions again. The harvest is white.
Ask lots of
questions, show love, bring them to small groups inside or outside
the church where they can be challenged and grow. Don't expect
to feed people individually and disciple them in groups of a thousand.
That's what we're
hoping to see - a massive, self-replicating, mobile, cellular,
no-nonsense structure that can operate inside or outside the church
walls (and survive any persecution) to reinforce and restore and urge
others toward Christ.
Read Judges 6. God
calls Gideon to save Israel from the Midianites, but before he can go
do that, he has to take care of the idolatry in his own backyard!! So
he calls TEN friends together and they go in covertly at night (very
shrewd - frontal assault won't work) and switch Baal's altar to an
altar for God and then use the Asherah pole as the fuel for the
sacrifice to God. They use the assets of the idolatry as the fuel to
accomplish something for the Kingdom!! I love that part!
In the morning the
men are mad and want to kill Gideon, but his Dad talks them down. Now
... I think they gave up too easily if they really loved Baal.
They're trying to save face, but I suspect some of those Jews
thought, "You know, this is better anyway. We should have done
this a long time ago. Wish I'd have had the chutzpah to do that!"
Just a couple chapters later, they want Gideon to be ruler over
them! Give me 11 good people willing to die for Christ, hearing God's
will clearly, trained to show love, speaking only pure Truth, shrewd
as serpents, harmless as doves, and determined to make a difference -
and we'll bring revival from the inside out to ANY church on the
planet! (God willing.)
THEN Gideon can
blow the trumpet and mass 32,000 and go fight the larger enemies
rallied against God. And he needed all 32,000. The ones that went
home weren't chicken, they had responsibilities and families and
businesses and infrastructure that the tribe needed to maintain. God
knows that. He wasn't mad at them. But notice Judges 7:8. Gideon
sends 31,700 of them home, but they leave ALL their provisions!
That's the way God's economy should be working. The folks on the
front lines doing battle up close with the enemy need to have SO much
provision and supplies that they can meet any need - feed any that
are hungry, give to any that are thirsty.
Those 1% on the
front lines hearing God clearly are people that have proven they can
be trusted to use assets for the Kingdom - those willing to die for
Christ aren't going to buy a BENTLEY!! I'm sorry, they're just not.
I know folks
working with prostitutes and drug addicts and runaways and gangs -
and hardly anybody is supporting them. There is a giant underground
church of ex-skinheads and witches and satanists and gangbangers that
will not even TALK to a Christian in a cardigan or set foot in a
church for how toxic it is to them! They're pushing back the darkness
in the worst conditions and getting NO help at all. Do we not care
about the down and out? The unreached? Did Jesus?
Think of it this
way, if God let's you and your kids stay home in the suburbs and keep
your job and somebody else will go hold the heads of the junkies and
clean up the prostitutes and tell them about Jesus - what's it worth
to you?
Which do you think
results in more treasure in heaven?
New chandelier in
the sanctuary ----------- getting 14 year old girls off the streets
and into heaven?
Tithing because a
guy in a suit says you HAVE to ------------- Reaching those who have
NEVER ONCE in their lives heard the name of Jesus spoken in their presence?
Your new $3000 big
screen TV --------- Feeding 30 orphans in Ghana for TWO YEARS?
We're just weeks
away from this being a reality and having a strategy and plan that
can fit on ONE piece of paper and be duplicated anywhere by anyone
that's willing to do ANYTHING for Christ and push back the darkness.
I Corinthians
14:8 "Again, if the trumpet make an uncertain sound, who
will prepare for the battle?"
We've got nothing
BUT uncertain sounds -- if there are any at all! I've got no patience
anymore for anything that isn't 100% about Jesus. No more messing
around. This is WAR!
Where are the martyrs?!
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