The Ekklesian: Recent Episodes
Xavier LeMond
We live in a society where Believers have lost sight of who God is, when traditions and rituals have lost their significance, and religion has replaced intimate relationship with God.
As a result, the world reflects the deficiencies of our spiritual immaturity.
The Ekklesian is for those with a hunger to know who God really is. If you realize that occupying a seat in church doesn't make you righteous, or you're one of the too many who've been wounded or disenfranchised with church, then listen and discover what the Lord is doing differently, supernaturally, in the world today.
I haven’t mentioned it before here, but I’m a big fan of the independent television series “The Chosen.” Its portrayal of Christ and his followers is not just inspiring, but inspired. The creators, producers, and staff of this show have aligned themselves with the Spirit of Heaven to capture something that evades most Christian productions: an air of authenticity.
Many who sincerely seek to walk with the Lord and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, fall prey to the adversary's well-honed schemes of distraction by circumstance. Even as they perceive the direction and guidance of the Lord, challenges present themselves.
Instead of staying focused on God’s will and promises, they give their attention and efforts to the problems they are facing as seen from a natural perspective, allowing the circumstance to become greater than God in their own minds, forgetting the promise of Romans 8: 28 that “all things work together for good to them who love God and are called according to His purpose.”
The desire of the Lord they have previously been pursuing has become secondary and any perceived success hinges upon overcoming this or that challenge to their personal satisfaction.
God orchestrates even the worst of circumstances for our good. We do not have to, and are not called to, manage them ourselves. But we must keep our focus on the Lord at all times. To do otherwise is to put our trust in a house built on “shifting sand.” (Matthew 7:26)
Never give more attention to the factors and circumstances that constrain you than to the Lord Learn to live and put your faith in the spiritual, to abide and operate in Heavenly realms. It is the spiritual that affects the natural; the Heavenly that affects change in the physical on earth.
Fix your attention on the Lord and on Who He wants to be for you in the situations you are facing that He couldn’t be to you before. Every event is an opportunity to learn more about Him.
The bottom line is this: There is a real battle over what you will be led by. (Some would say who.) You must make a conscious choice. You cannot abide in the Spirit and walk in the flesh. The flesh opposes the spirit (Galatians 5: 16-18) and in my experience will try and sabotage the spirit at every opportunity. There is no middle ground. It is one or the other. You cannot serve 2 masters (Matthew 6: 24; Luke 16: 13).
The Holy Spirit molds you into the image of Christ. This transformation is a natural result of the work the Spirit of God is doing in your life as you cultivate a personal relationship with Him. In doing so, you don’t live, operate, or stand in your own strength, you stand in the glory and power of the Lord.
Keeping the law that you might be good enough to earn salvation was never an option. Several thousand years of recorded history with His people proved the point time and time again. The Israelites couldn’t do it back in the day and we can’t do it now.
Any attempt of men and institutions seeking to establish their own interpretations of what God wants from us is just as worthless. If the very law of God could never justify and only convict us of sin (See Romans 3:20), there is no representation of men that could ever hope to save someone either.
God knew this from before the beginning and that is why everything in the Old Covenant pointed to the Savior that He provided. Christ came and paid the price of redemption and restoration that no other human or created being could ever pay.
This is why it is foolishness to think that what God is primarily focused on are the things you do or do not do. Christ has already paid the price for sin. God’s not worried about your performance because when you accept Jesus and His death on your behalf, the “old man” becomes dead to sin. We aren’t called to do things to curry favor with God, we do them naturally because His existing favor is already at work in our lives and we are being transformed by the Holy Spirit. Which brings us to Paul’s questions for the churches of Galatia:
>>>> This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?… —Galatians 3:2 <<<<
This wrong-headed attitude of “being perfected by the flesh” has led to all kinds of problems in our lives, our churches, and in our culture. It frequently cloaks itself as the “moral superiority” smugness that many possess, but that is a deceit and a conceit that masks the lack an intimate relationship with God.
Never forget that your redemption, salvation and destiny lie in Jesus because of what He did, not because of what you did, do or do not do. It is a matter of faith, not of flesh.
Most of us know that the Fruit of the Spirit (found in Galatians chapter 5 - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control), these fruit are characteristics we aspire to achieve as followers of Christ. These are the things that are supposed to define us as Christians. But why do so many struggle to reflect these attributes and values consistently? Why is it that some Christians don’t seem to possess these character traits at all?
The answer is right there in the name. These character traits are not called “the fruit of the“flesh” or heart or mind. You cannot achieve and maintain the characteristics of Christ through your own decision, determination, and effort to do so. They come as a result of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us.
And there are a great number of so called Christians who have little to no desire to obey Christ, submit to the preeminence of the Holy Spirit, and embrace their God-given spiritual identities, preferring instead to retain control, or the illusion of control, by adopting man-made philosophies and ideologies that suit their interests and preferences. As Paul warned Timothy,
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. – 2 Timothy 4:3
So, the fact that there are people who claim one thing and act another way entirely doesn’t come as a surprise. Jesus was very clear that there would be imposters in the Body of Christ and how we would recognize them:
Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions. Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. – Matthew 7:20-21
But this isn’t about them, this is about you. I want you to know that it is the Spirit of God who transforms us, gives us the “mind of Christ,” through which we bear the Fruit of Spirit.
The power to change and be transformed into someone more Christ-like doesn't come as a result of your will, determination or internal strength. Jesus did not leave us a self-improvement, personal development, or behavioral modification program to become “better.” He sent the Holy Spirit to guide and walk us through a spiritual transformation process.
Spiritual growth occurs within as a result of the work of the Holy Spirit entwined with your spirit, that is, the spirit God placed within you, which means the renewing of your heart and mind can only be accomplished through direct relationship with God.
Many believers prefer to hold God at a distance. They really don’t want to get too close and they certainly don’t want intimacy with Him. They have little desire for a direct, personal relationship with the Almighty. They want to keep something between the Lord and themselves: denomination, church, doctrine, tradition, a pastor, bad habit, ANYTHING instead of a personal, one-on-one encounter with God.
I imagine some of these people are afraid of what a one-on-one relationship with God might mean for their lives or how it might affect their plans for themselves. Some actually prefer a God who is distant, rigid and puritanical; One who is too busy to be interested in the details of their personal life, or a God that has any genuine interest in them as an individual. It’s more comforting to think they can get “lost in the crowd.”
Many people are legalists. They typically prefer laws, rules and regulations over the grace of God which they don’t understand. Laws provide a means by which they can measure their appearance against others.
Besides, following rules doesn’t require getting to know God on a personal basis.
Even many who recognize that their salvation is based on grace and faith in Christ, frequently aren’t interested in drawing any closer to God than they think they have to. I can’t count the times I’ve heard, “Praise the Lord, I’m saved by the blood of Jesus! What more do I need?”
Saved, yes. But, as I’ve said before, salvation is not the finish line. It is the starting block.
To accurately reflect the image of Christ in your life, to achieve the fullness of your divine destiny in this world, to advance God’s will and His Kingdom, you need a great deal more. You need grace. You need transformation. You need the Holy Spirit.
Grace is very personal. It restores your divine familial relationship with God. By grace, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit inhabit your being. Under grace, there is no place to pretend you can hide. Everything comes down to you and God. God knows you intimately, and you know He knows you intimately.
Adopting an attitude or position that holds God at bay fails to recognize that salvation is the beginning of the journey with Him, not the finish line. This means moving beyond just settling for an association with a church or denomination and into actively, conscientiously, cultivating a direct, dynamic, intimate relationship with God.
What is it to worship “in the Spirit and in truth” as Jesus related in John 4:23-24? Even ardent believers struggle, stumble, and fail in their faith because they are trying to use their will, determination, and intellect not just to worship God, but to solve the challenges that life, and the enemy, throw at them.
You simply cannot approach your faith as though it were a matter of intellectual knowledge and application. Those have no power to transform you. Faith is not an issue of human logic, it’s a reality of divine trust. It is not believing what you see, it’s seeing what you believe. It is perceiving beyond what your senses tell you in the natural, to growing in spiritual maturity so that you might have discernment and wisdom about what a God who is Spirit is doing across Heavenly and Earthly realms.
John 16:13 tells us, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.”
Many don’t believe, or worse yet, fear this text because they don’t know how it’s possible. As a tool for maintaining control, religion has often led people to believe that being in error is itself sin and God punishes us for being wrong. This is a demonic fabrication that implies the Lord has little to no capacity for guiding His children directly into truth. Religious institutions often present themselves as the authority and the masses cling to dogma and tradition as though their lives depended on it, instead of embracing the active direction and guidance the Holy Spirit makes available to each of us:
If we fail to cultivate intimacy with God for ourselves, we will never understand that God’s ability to correct us and reveal His truth is greater than satan’s ability to deceive us. Without that deeper relationship with Him, we suffer for our lack of faith.
Faith the size of a mustard seed is a faith we muster up in our mind and soul. It is miniscule, but it is something the Lord works with to increase just as Jesus did with the loaves and the fishes. That increase is planted in your spiritual identity connecting and allowing a much greater faith that flows to you from the throne of Heaven.
It is through this Heavenly faith – found only in direct relationship with Him — that the transformative power of God’s presence, through the Holy Spirit, renews your heart and mind, to change and heal your inner-being.
Again, faith is not an issue of human logic, it’s a reality of divine trust. It is not about you, it’s about what God is doing in you as His child. Jesus told us in Matthew 11:25:
“I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.
We worship God who is Spirit in spirit and in truth through direct relationship. This is also how we fully receive His promises, are transformed, and extend the true love, mercy, and grace of Heaven to the world.
Many believers have enough faith to be saved, but not enough to live in the power that the Lord has provided for their lives because Christian religion has not taught people to cultivate divine intimacy, preferring to lead them into “learned dependence” and reliance on the institution. Yes, many churches are accomplished in teaching what the Bible says, but there is a universe of difference between information, knowledge, and wisdom, just as there is between knowing about God and knowing God intimately.
Some are going to be offended by what I’m about to say, but it’s important: I mean no disrespect to anyone, but church, as we have come to know it, is not the crux of the Christian experience.
One of the reasons Jesus came was to remove the obstacles and obstructions that stand in the way of you coming to know the Father and the love He has for you. Personally. The fullest extent of what God is doing in your life will always be empowered by the nature of the truly personal, direct relationship you have with Him.
You won’t love the Lord if you don’t know Him, if you haven’t or aren’t interacting with God yourself. It’s not about religion, it’s about relationship. It’s not about what you do, it’s about what Christ did for you. You do not transform yourself to please God and earn His favor by acting “good”, you are renewed and transformed by the Holy Spirit which allows the goodness of God to flow THROUGH you.
When religion is at the forefront instead of relationship, there’s a problem that is not fixed by merely attending church and adopting dogma. That mistake is as common now as it was in Jesus day:
>>>> Matthew 15: 8-9 — “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.” <<<<
It does little good to put Christian religion ahead of a personal relationship with Christ.
Let me be clear: I am not saying that you shouldn’t be in church. There are very good reasons to be part of an active, thriving, Spirit-led assembly including service to others, corporate worship, and accountability to one another. But it’s very important to understand that church as we know it, is a human institution and as such, it can be flawed, imperfect, divisive and wrong sometimes.
That’s why it is critical to let the Spirit of the Lord direct you to where you should be attending. And wherever that is, the primary purpose of coming together should be to help each other in cultivating intimacy with God. That is how you learn and grow or mature spiritually in the Lord.
Here is a question that has been asked for millennia: “If God is really there, if He is loving, sovereign, and omnipotent, then why are things such a mess?” The answer is simple: God’s plan has always been to work on Earth with and through His people, not independently of them.
The fact is, God placed the role and responsibility of stewarding this world on His children.
To quote John Wesley: “God does nothing on the earth save in answer to believing prayer.” That is, the Lord limits Himself in many ways to the actions, decisions, and requests of His appointed stewards.
As we are told in Psalms 115:16:
>>>> “The highest heavens belong to the LORD, but the earth he has given to mankind.” - Psalms 115:16 <<<<
God involves Himself in the affairs of our world through people. All of the Lord’s plans and purposes will ultimately be realized, but delays occur at times because He waits until He can find people through whom to work; people who will accept responsibility, pray, act, and intercede on behalf of others.
The most impactful revivals and moves of God the last 2000 years were ignited through the prayers and actions of the smallest band of individuals with hearts to “step into the gap.”
Unfortunately, ignorance, self-interest, and bad theology within Christendom has contributed to things “going off the rails.” While many men and religious organizations falsely projected authority to take the reins of managing people’s interaction with the Lord, they rarely taught believers how to take responsibility or step into their proper roles to manage and govern the earth.
When people don’t step up, waiting for the will of God to be fulfilled can take years, decades, even multiple generations. It may be a long time from our perspective, but the Almighty exists outside of time and these periods aren’t even the blink of an eye to Him. Still, there are temporal consequences when people fail to operate in the role that God ordained.
While many were saved from God’s wrath and destruction though Moses’ intercession, the generation of Israelites that came out of Egyptian slavery missed its destiny by failing to trust the Lord refusing to step into the land He promised them; God waited and fulfilled His plans through the next generation. Jesus said Jerusalem in His day missed its time of visitation (see Luke 19:44).
How many times did God save, bless, rescue or redeem His people because just one man or woman stepped into the role of intercession on behalf of others? Abraham, Joseph, Gideon, Deborah, Esther, just to name a few who come to mind.
Intercession for others is the theme of the Scripture time and again.
It is the very reason he has called His people to be a nation of priests. We aren’t merely to be priests acting on behalf of each other, we are priests called to intercede for people of the world who do not know Him yet.
Where would the world be today if even a minority of God’s people were actively interceding for it?
Change is coming, but not the way that many think. Stay tuned.
As believers, we know and put trust in the fact that Christ offered Himself as a sacrifice that we might be saved. But that is not all there is. There is more to the equation. Like children of any family (ours being a divine one), we are given responsibilities as we grow and mature spiritually. This isn’t for nothing, we each have a role to fulfill in the world:
But our High Priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then he sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand. There he waits until his enemies are humbled and made a footstool under his feet. For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy. — Hebrews 10:12-14
God the Father is on the throne. Jesus is on the throne at His right hand. So, “Who is He waiting on to humble his enemies and make them a footstool under His feet? Who is going to subdue them?”
From His place beside the Father, Jesus is waiting for His people — those who “are being made holy” — to partner with Him to put in place all that He came and died on the cross to achieve and restore. We are the Father’s hands and feet on the earth.
Christ is waiting on His people to take action and fulfill what we have been tasked to do.
The fact is, Heaven has granted every child of God power and authority (through the Holy Spirit) against Christ’s enemies. (Who, by the way, are not other people. Ephesians 6:12 is quite clear that our battles and struggles are not against “flesh and blood, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.” NLT)
But that’s a subject for another day.
The question is, “Are you willing to step into your role?” Christ restored to us the right and responsibility to claim and steward the Earth (Psalms 115:16), but like the Children of Israel facing the Promised Land, we are required to advance forward in faith and take our inheritance.
Are you willing to trust the Lord to “take” the land? Are you willing to be a conduit of Heaven’s resources and provisions to the world? The Ekklesia are rising and in the power and strength of Christ are going to successfully challenge evil in heavenly places and subdue mighty powers of this dark world.
"Will you be among them?
As chaotic, tumultuous, and anxiety-ridden as the world is right now, we are living at a time where seeds of divine revelation and restoration are starting to break through and bear fruit. In this time of great unhappiness and discontent all across the world, God is fulfilling promises of His Word that many have prayed and longed for.
But a great many believers are missing what the Lord is doing because the "new thing" he is again ushering in in this appointed time isn't coming through traditional, denominational channels or with institutional religious oversight. The Holy Spirit is directly teaching and guiding people in a way that is challenging everything we think we know and we've been taught about how God works.
Throughout human history, the Lord has progressively pushed generations () and individuals in those generations) into closer, deeper, more personal relationship with Him. In this season that we're in, God is raising up an ekklesia of today whom I refer to as the "Ekklesia Kuriakos" which in Greek literally means an "assembly of the called, who belong to the Lord." These are believers who are answering His call to come into direct relationship with Him and who have hearts and minds to be guided directly by the Holy Spirit.
While some would ask, "What's the difference between the Ekklesia and "the church" as we have come to know it, the Ekklesia of today are radically different from that, which most of us recognize as typical or religious Christians.
At its lackadaisical best, the Christian lifestyle in our society has largely been reduced to that of a "spectator sport" of people who "sit on the sidelines and watch the game."
And at its neurotic worse, it has become a social and political ideology of intolerance, of narrow mindedness, and bigotry against any who do not fit self-defined profile or wield its formalized banner.
These aren't the people I'm talking to here. I'm speaking to believers within Christendom who find themselves longing for greater significance and who would be instruments of Christ's influence to bless others and affect greater positive change in the world.
Christian religion has failed to teach its converts how God has graced each and every believer with divine power and authority. They don't know what it is to be led and empowered by the Holy Spirit. They're trying to affect change through their own efforts and through human means, instead of recognizing, aligning with ,and relying on that which the Lord provides to accomplish His purpose.
Nothing less produces lasting, impactful results. Frankly, this is why the world is in the condition that we find it. But in this appointed season, this "kairos" time, God is raising up a people who will change it; a people who are not content to leave things as they are; a people who recognize that the power Christ promised us isn't of us, but flows from the throne of Heaven through us.
The kingdom of God is advancing and will continue to. While there are those who do not have eyes to see what is occurring yet and believe that some things are simply impossible in our world, more and more are discovering firsthand each and every day that all things are indeed possible with God.
As a devout follower of Christ, it pains me to say that Christianity, as largely practiced in the Western world especially, that it has been reduced a little more than a "social construct," a weekly get together to feel good or even bad about ourselves. I believe that there are far too few Christians who have a genuine, longing to see more, be more, and do more in their spiritual walk with the Lord.
Christ's sacrifice the cross didn't just save us, it restored our relationship to God the Father, providing a path for our coming into divine kinship through Jesus Himself. (See Luke 10:22, John 8:19, and John 14:7.) This restoration is a way established in Heaven, not in rules and structures imagined or developed by men.
The fact is, religion is man's attempt to reach out to God and dictate the terms. Religion is a poor substitute for a divine relationship. And relationship is what God is really all about.
The Father didn't send His Son to establish religion. Christ died, not just to redeem us, but to restore the relationship that we were created to have with the Lord from the beginning.
And then He sent the Holy Spirit to teach and empower us in our adoption and in our transformation. Fortunately, religion's inadequacy is not God's failure. Although it is our responsibility as believers to answer the Lord's call and to enter into relationship with Him, the Lord is instituting change in what we think we know, about the way we go about this.
And this change is not coming through traditional, denominational, or religious channels for the most part. It's happening, in most cases, outside of the institutions that we have come to accept. By His own hand, and by virtue of relationship, the Lord is raising up a people to reveal His goodness, radiate His glory, and advance His Kingdom in our world:
Spirit-led individuals who have unassuming, earnest, conscientious hearts; believers whose integrity and whose purpose go far beyond sitting in a church pew each week.
People who are ordinary in our eyes are receiving, not just revelation, but also authority and grace directly imparted from God. It's amazing to see what the Lord is doing, but it's even more amazing to be a part of it.
There is far more to following Jesus, to the whole "God experience" than most of us have ever been taught by man. Getting saved - going to Heaven - that was never an end goal. It's not the finish line. It's not the reward for being good. Getting into Heaven isn't about balancing the scales of of what you've done, good and bad in order to get in.
Salvation is the "starting block" of your relationship with God. It's the place you begin. It's an outright gift. All you have to do is accept it, but once you do, then the real changes begin. Too much of what we know, or what we think we know, is completely backwards by true Kingdom reckoning.
What I share on this podcast ruffles feathers and makes a lot of people uncomfortable, if not downright angry. And I'm sorry if I offend some, but I know that a lot more people who hear these words are going to be freed, going to be unbound from oppression, and they're gonna experience the power of Heaven in their lives in ways that they may have never thought was possible before.
For too long, the church as an institution, has settled for a form of godliness, but denied the power of God. (See 2nd Timothy 3:5) And while the Lord, to our way of thinking how He does things, we feel that He might be delayed for a time, He will not be denied.
Our Father in Heaven is releasing revelation to otherwise ordinary people to see his purposes fulfilled in the world. God is pouring out His Spirit on people all over the earth today. And it's happening now with increasing regularity: sons and daughters are prophesying, young men are seeing visions. Old men are dreaming dreams. (Acts 2: 17 - 19)
The key to this are individuals who are moving beyond mere religion into intimate relationship with God. And my goal is to help you further develop and cultivate your personal relationship with Jesus and God the Father through the Holy Spirit.
That's what we were designed and created for.
Now, if what I say challenges, stretches, pushes you out of your comfort zone, then that's a good thing. I'm praying to bring you into greater resonance with His purpose so that you can live and operate daily in the strength and in the empowering grace of the Lord.
I'll refer to scriptures that I'm sure you're familiar with, but in contexts that you may not have heard in church or in Bible class. And I may surprise you with some language and some concepts you're probably not used to hearing in a "religious" environment. Still, what I share with you is biblical, it's laid out word by word, line by line, precept by divine precept.
Not that I expect you to take any of it at face value. As you watch or listen to "The Ekklesian," I urge you to take every word before the Lord. Ask the Holy Spirit, whether or not these things are applicable to your life. I only ask that if you're ready for a Spirit led life of significance and of purpose, and you want to experience the manifest power of God, that you prayerfully and thoughtfully consider these things.
The bottom line is "The Ekklesian" is for individuals with a hunger and a thirst for more of God; those who want to experience a greater reality from the Kingdom of Heaven in their lives. And they want to do it today.
If you know that in your heart, there must be more to life than what you're currently living, if you're longing for that deeper thing that God has for you, then know that Christ wants to bring you directly into relationship and release His glory upon you. And you can be utterly fulfilled in your life and you can positively affect the lives of others by bringing His promise and provision to them.
All you need to do now is answer His call. He'll do the rest. He started this work in you. He will see it through to completion. So come and discover how getting intimate with God will change your life.
I have to be honest. I've grown weary of people who have a negative relationship with Scripture. It leads to a negative attitude and an outlook regarding everything. And there are too many who are always looking at the faults in other people. They're sin-obsessed, constantly looking for evidence that God is not present, rather than looking for God's abiding presence within others, or declaring His promises over their lives... because God abides within them too, but sometimes that needs to be called out.
Grace, the empowering presence of grace, it helps us to understand how God's heart works and how to see how He sees. And that means whenever we come into contact with difficult people, we know and we recognize that we are a gift. We are a present to them to speak and declare God and His presence into their lives to be a blessing for them.
We are not here to guilt, to shame, to bully or somehow force people into Heaven or into the Kingdom. We're also not here to curse anyone. It amazes me that we don't seem to have learned anything from Christ response to the disciples in Luke 9, starting at verse 51. Look it up.
Grace empowers us to show and speak the love of God into people's lives and to declare His promises upon them. Out of the abundance of our hearts, our mouths speak into each other's lives. So, is what is coming out of your heart... grace? Is it love? If that's not what's coming out of your mouth, then what's in your heart?
I'm talking about what grace is and what it means for us and to us and consequently to the world around us. Grace is the very ground that we walk on. Grace is God for us and in us and who we are in Him. So, my prayer today for you is that as you watch this, the Holy Spirit begins to reveal the fullness of God's grace.
You know, throughout the Word are promises for all of the empty spaces of people's lives. And our job is to bring those promises to life by speaking to them and releasing God's love and releasing His promises into their hearts and into their lives and into their minds, that they might have an encounter with God that can turn those things into a reality for them.
We are here to express the love of Jesus. And Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life that sets people free. So, I pray today that each person watching this begin to have encounters with the Father based around the promises that He's given us, that we would know and would be able to show others through the Spirit of Revelation. And that we would partner with God to extend grace so that He can fill their empty hearts and restore what's missing in their lives. We want their lives to be filled Father, with Your fullness, Your grace and Your promises.
Just think, think about those things. And I pray that the grace of God extend in your life more that you begin to see it, because it's already there, but that you begin to see it so that you can extend it to others so that they can come to understand what God is really, really like. And the love that He really, really has.
Colossians 2:9 informs us that in Christ, all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form. And Ephesians 3:17-19 explains why it matters: "...So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith that you being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length, and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ, that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."
That fullness of God doesn't include sin and God's not sin conscious. Christ dealt with sin once and for all at Calvary. God is, if anything, is "growth" conscious. He sees our empty places and He wants us to grow and mature into what is missing in us, into His fullness.
We have failed to understand that everything that was against us, against Him, against Him in us; all those things again were nailed to the cross. All of the empty spaces in our lives, every place that we have tried to fill with something outside of Him, He's given us Himself. Every aspect of God is a promise to fill a space.
So our true relationship with God is about fullness. It's about anointing. It's about abundance. It's about grace... and receiving the promises that can transform us and consequently change the world.
Too many of us are caught in a religious trap and we need a fresh revelation of Jesus. People know too much about how church works and far too little about how God works.
We need an epiphany regarding how God thinks about us; about you, how He sees you, what He wants for you. And the good that He is planning for you. See Jeremiah 29:11.
There isn't any part of us that God doesn't love because He is Love.
And that's why He's given us His empowering presence, His Grace. He understands our flesh. He knows our struggle. He knows what we're going through. He knows everything about us and He's empowered us to be like Him. He doesn't just tell us, but He empowers us to be like Him.
And that's why when He looks at you,, He doesn't see anything wrong with you. Everything that was wrong about you, that was wrong about me, all those things were nailed to the cross with Jesus. And Christ didn't just die for you or for me, He died as you and as me.
So, the Lord isn't focused on what's wrong with us, His attention is on what's missing in us. And that's what He is out to provide and complete in us and why He speaks to us so much about fullness.
God knows you. He looks at you from a place of completion, not from where you started or from where you are now. I like to remind people that God invented time and He exists outside of time. He holds it in His hands. When He looks at you, He's always seen you across the span of time. And so He not only sees you where you are now, He sees you in the future. And that's where God fixes His gaze on you, just as He did with Gideon, who the angel addressed as a "mighty man" long before Gideon fit that description.
It's how He looked at Moses before, Abraham, or Joseph, or Ruth, or Mary Magdalene, or any of the disciples, and basically any and every child of God. He sees us full and completed.
So, here's what you need to understand in your heart: He loved you in the past. He loved you first, before you loved Him. He loves who you are now. He loves who you are becoming and He knows far better than you do the process of growth that takes you from where you are, to where you will be.
And the important thing is, is He has patience for it. He loves you through that process.
There are a lot of bad definitions of God's grace out there. I think a lot of people, confuse it with mercy. They think that God's grace or that grace is God's willingness to overlook their failures and their shortcomings and love them despite their sin.
But that's not grace. That's mercy if anything else. Another poor definition I've heard for grace is that it's unmarried or deserved favor. And frankly, that definition is even worse. John 1:14 tells us that Jesus came from the Father full of grace and truth. And Luke 2:52 tells us that He grew in favor with both God and man.
So grace for us, isn't something that's unmerited because it was given to Christ and because He abides in us, we're made worthy.
What's the point? If we look back at John chapter one, verse 16, it informs us that for, "From his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace." Now, this is part of our going from strength to strength in that is mentioned in Psalms 84.
Grace is more than favor or a blessing. It is a divine empowerment. It is, I believe, the empowering presence of God that abides within you, that power that transforms you, grace is what enables you to become the man or woman that God sees when He looks at you.
You see God's perception of you is through the lens of Jesus. It's not according to what you've done, or according to your behavior. Grace is something that each of us desperately needs and depends on. You need to not just acknowledge, but you need to embrace the grace of God because grace also empowers you to believe and experience Christ's fullness.
God knows you. He looks at you from a place of completion, not from where you started or from where you are now. I like to remind people that God invented time and He exists outside of time and He holds it in His hands. But when He looks at you, He's always seen you across the span of time. And so He not only sees you where you are now, He sees you in the future. And that's where God fixes His gaze on you, just as He did with Gideon, who the angel addressed as a "mighty man of God," long before Gideon fit that description.
It's how He looked at Moses before, Abraham, or Joseph, or Ruth, or Mary Magdalene, or any of the disciples, and basically any and every child of God. He sees us full and completed.
So, here's what you need to understand in your heart: He loved you in the past. He loved you first, before you loved Him. He loves who you are now. He loves who you are becoming and He knows far better than you do the process of growth that takes you from where you are, to where you will be.
And the important thing is, is He has patience for it. He loves you through that process. There isn't any part of us that God doesn't love because He is love.
Christ was, is, and always will be God's provision for reconciling mankind and restoring our divine relationship on His terms, not mans.
Throughout church history, many things that well meaning men (and some not so well meaning) have insisted are God's will and God's intent were never what the Lord had in mind.
And the result is many organized religions have largely tried to reduce pleasing God to a way of thinking or acting, even dressing; to a set of rules or traditions to be kept or followed in order to curry His favor or earn some sort of divine brownie points. And those things miss the mark completely.
If you've become disenchanted with the church experience, or worse been hurt or wounded in the environment, unfortunately, you're not alone. The church is frequently at war with the very people that it should be extending mercy, love, and grace towards. Too many of its converts are confused, conflicted and afraid, and they do not know that the power to live in fullness instead of fear, to manifest God's glory instead of wallowing in guilt, is found in intimate relationship with God.
The life of a true follower of Christ is not about religion at all. It's about relationship: personal intimacy with God. It's about surrendering to the Holy Spirit and allowing God's Spirit to renew your heart and mind. That is what transforms a person.
For most of us, the relationship we have with God has become convoluted and obscured by men and organizations that have intentionally, or otherwise, sought to displace the role of the Spirit of Truth in our lives.
Getting to know the Lord shouldn't be as byzantine as it has become for so many. To set things straight, you may need to consciously "decouple" from the flawed foundation that your faith currently rest upon and uncomplicate your thinking by allowing the Lord to establish and renew your heart and mind on the firm foundation your faith was meant to be built on.
And that foundation is a relationship.
The Holy Spirit is calling out and seeking after individuals who have a desire and want to make a commitment to come into true relationship with the God of Heaven and who want to be transformed by the Holy Spirit. Now, these individuals are receiving revelations that are radically shifting how they think, how they live and what they think, it means to be a follower of Christ.
God's criteria is different than most of us believe. Your personal relationship with Him is at the core of your very existence. And it's not a relationship based on emotion or intellect. Although these things are part of it, they are in the natural. As Jesus related to the Samaritan woman at the well, in John 4:24, "God is spirit and His worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth."
It's simply not enough to relate to God out of the natural, out of our humanity, out of our flesh. We cannot become or be with the Lord has destined us to be, through our own efforts, no matter how much we strive.
We are transformed through the Holy Spirit. As I said, previously, the status quo is being challenged by those with a heart to follow the direction and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And renewal is being birthed directly in us because we are seeking after something that only God can impart.
Have you sent something different, something new within yourself? Then tell Jesus today that you're ready to pursue intimacy with Him. Let Him know that you're thankful that He came so that you could get to know both Him and the Father as they truly are. Ask the Holy Spirit to transform you, to mold your heart and mind so that you can receive His love more fully and draw ever closer to Him.
And as you cultivate a direct, personal, deep relationship with God, there are going to be a lot of things that will be different than you might expect. But it's time to get used to something different.
A huge paradigm shift is taking place in “the Church.” Nothing less than a Holy Spirit-led reformation is underway and it is happening in the hearts and minds of untold thousands of the children of God whom He is calling out to directly.
Those who will answer are the salt and light of the Earth in our time. They are the catalysts through which many will be converted by their testimony through the Spirit and the blood of Jesus. This is occurring even now before many in positions of traditional church authority even realize what is going on.
What is happening is something as men have not known since Jesus and early ekklesia. It is a movement that is challenging what many church leaders and biblical scholars think about what God is doing in the world today.
The Word of the Lord – which endures forever – is again being fulfilled today as it was in Isaiah’s time:
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. – Isaiah 43:18-19
In the wilderness and wasteland that is our world today, the Lord is indeed making a way and making provision for those with a true heart to follow Him.
Revelation is coming directly from the Holy Spirit without regard to existing denominational systems or church dogma. God is speaking to people’s hearts directly, upsetting the apple cart of religious “practice as usual” with messages and encouragement that are entirely consistent with His character and His Word.
The status quo is being challenged by those with a heart to follow the direction of the Holy Spirit and renewal is being birthed directly in believers who are seeking after what only God can impart. In the midst of all the trouble and turmoil in the world today, unimaginable, inescapable, positive divine change is coming to the world. You see the “light” is exposing the darkness, but the result will not be what so many are expecting.
The Holy Spirit is critical to your life because the fullness of God is only revealed through the power of the Holy Spirit. You will not perceive spiritual truth with your natural eyes, hear spiritual truth with your ears or even speak it with your tongue. Only those in whom the Spirit abides can truly understand and accept Him.
“…God has revealed them to us through His Spirit… Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God... These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches… the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” - 1 Corinthians 2: 10-14
It is not with superior intellect or superlative theology that we discern the things of God. To merely human faculties, spiritual matters are seen as irrational and silly. To the world, the whole concept of God's love and redemption through His Son is a "stumbling block" that cannot be overcome. It is only through the Holy Spirit that God's mysteries are rightly revealed and perceived.
The Holy Spirit is critical to your life to teach, instruct, and guide you directly. This is a greater blessing than I can convey.
Invite the Holy Spirit to teach you the ways of the Lord just as David requested:
Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. – Psalms 25:4-5 (NIV)
This is a blessing that God still honors in our day and age. I know this from firsthand experience, but don’t take my word for it. You can put your trust in the fact that Christ promised that God would:
But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. - John 14:26 (NIV)
This was further elaborated on by the Apostle Paul in a letter to the church at Corinth:
The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. — 1 Corinthians 2:14
Only through the Holy Spirit are God’s Word and His truths revealed. The Lord’s divine vastness is not discerned by human understanding
So, this is really, really important. If you take only one thing from me ever, if there’s just one thing I ever say that you remember, let it be this: The Holy Spirit will always be your best instructor in the ways of the Lord in your life and how His Word applies to your life.
The Holy Spirit is critical to your life because
· it is the Holy Spirit entwined with your human spirit who testifies and confirms that you are God’s child (Romans 8:16);
· it is the Spirit who transforms your heart and mind bringing you into alignment with the Lord (2 Corinthians 3;18 );
· it is the indwelling Spirit which produces its fruit in you — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control — (Galatians 5:22). These traits flow from you and I as the result of the transformative power of the Spirit of God abiding in us
· it is the Spirit within you that will guide and direct you in every aspect of your life (Galatians 5:25, Romans 8:5-6).
The reason for being born again through the Holy Spirit so that you can come to know God the Father for yourself. It is the Holy Spirit working within you which transforms you into the very image of His Son.
Your religion, denomination, or theology won’t transform you. It is the Spirit of God that transforms you into the new man or new creation. The Holy Spirit enables and empowers you to bear the fruit of the spirit.
Do you want to have love, joy, and peace in your life? Do you want to be a patient, kind, and good person all the time? Do you want to exercise faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control towards others? It’s not about behavior modification, it’s spiritual transformation. Almost all of us can fake these things for a period of time, but if our hearts aren’t changed, it doesn’t matter to God.
Life is about cultivating a deep relationship with God on a spiritual level. And it is through this intimate, deeply personal, one-on-one, spiritual relationship that He speaks, guides and directs you.
“How many of God's blessings have you missed out on?”
Human nature is to believe something because we see it. In God's order however, in the Kingdom of Heaven, you will see when you believe. That makes no logical sense, but God is Spirit (John 4:24) and as Isaiah 55:8 reminds us, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.
As a child of God, you are abundantly blessed in a multitude of different areas. For instance, there is no reason for any child of God to live in fear, worry, or stress. The Lord has provided too much for you to live that way. Jesus promises that in Him we can be at rest and know peace in any situation. He said, “…In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” - John 16:33
Have you received the blessing of overcoming the world? Why not? I’m not saying that God will make all of your problems disappear and turn your life into the proverbial bed of roses. That's simply not true.
But He will open your eyes and heart and mind to His presence and the provision He makes available for you to overcome and rise above circumstance. He shoulders the weight of the burden so you don't have to carry it!
You can spend hours searching throughout the Bible for blessings the Lord has already has bestowed on you. How many of them are you missing?
God loves you. We’ve all heard those three words at so many times before that we likely take them for granted, although they are words that should never be uttered in mere repetition or without conviction. They are words that should never ring hollow.
God’s love is a concept beyond your ability to measure. Even if you have accepted the gift of salvation, sometimes it can be difficult to grasp the idea that you have a Heavenly Father truly loves you wholly, completely, and unconditionally.
God has little interest in being a casual acquaintance. He desires an intimate relationship with you and He has made incredible provision that you might have just that.
You matter more to God with a significance that you cannot begin to comprehend until you develop intimacy with Him. That’s why it's sad that so many Christians are struggling so much in their lives, overwhelmed by adverse circumstances and difficult issues.
The real problem is that they haven't learned to fully tap into the peace, promise, and provision of God because they haven't developed intimacy with Him
Don’t let that be you.
God's blessings and promises are abundant, but many won't accept or receive them – not because they aren't there – but because they can't see or perceive them. There are many things that only an intimate relationship with God can open your awareness to.
For many people, the strength of God in their personal lives is very small. While they have accepted Jesus, they are living lives in powerlessness and misery. They may have salvation, but they don't understand and aren’t realizing all the blessings that He has given to bring victory to their lives now.
They are only living up to a fraction of their spiritual and divine potential. They have enough faith to be saved, but little else. They have yielded to what God has done for them in the past, but they refuse to wield the power and promise that God has provided for them in the present.
Consequently, the problems they face are always bigger (in their eyes) than their God.
The problem stems from not knowing who God really is and who they are in Him. A true comprehension of God only comes through a personal relationship with Him, through the intimacy that He actually wants and designed you for.
The fact is, you were created to have intimacy with God, to develop and nurture a profoundly close, one-on-one relationship with Him through the Holy Spirit. The Spirit that Jesus sent to guide, direct, and teach you all things. It is the Spirit of God and intertwines with your spirit to testify that you are His child (Romans 8:16).
When you become “intimate” with God you will discover, by the very nature of the relationship, that it becomes impossible for you not to trust Him more and more. You begin to see Jesus in all things, know His voice, be fully embraced by His love and enveloped by grace so overflowing that you cannot help but extend it to all the world.
Your level of intimacy with God will determine the flow of Heaven's resources. The biggest challenges and problems you face diminish in size and impact compared to the might and significance of the Lord who abides with you. Your weaknesses showcase His strengths.
The bigger God is, the smaller your problems become.
As believers, especially in western society, we tend to act and operate out of a broken paradigm with regard to our faith and trust in Jesus Christ. We place our emphasis on what we know about God over getting to know God personally. We have substituted the warm, personal relationship He designed us for with cold-blooded religion.
Head knowledge may help us modify our outward behavior, but it has no ability to transform or mold us into the new man or new creation that we are in Christ. (2 Corinthians 5: 17). Only direct experience and encounter with God can transform and raise you up to the level He wants for you.
To be a new creation and abide in Christ, it is not enough to have knowledge of Him. It is to be in intimate relationship with Him. Only in direct relationship can you learn to trust Him completely.
As believers, we tend to think that our responsibility is to reform ourselves, but the old man is dead in Christ. The old that has passed away, is no more than a vestiges and echo of who you were. When you try and reform yourself, you are only animating a rotten corpse. You’re only turning yourself into a zombie.
Even as far back in time as Isaiah, he recognized that every righteous act we might do was nothing more filthy rags, bloody polluted menstruous cloths. There is nothing of the old worth saving or holding onto. That is why being in Christ is so important. In Him we are an entirely new creation, the old is gone. ( 2 Corinthians 5:17)
Don’t live as a zombie. Stop trying to reform your old self and let it die. Step into the new creation you are in Christ. And if you aren’t sure how, pray and ask the Lord to guide you directly. He will light your path, give you eyes to see, and be your strength.
If I want God's presence, I have to respond to Him. If I want stress and anxiety, I merely need to react to circumstance, and situations and people.
Response to the Lord, to the Holy Spirit, creates confidence and trust in Him. Reaction outside of Christ creates separation, doubt, and stress. He has taught me that I need to lean into the presence of God, rather than into situational circumstance.
What does that mean for the things I face and encounter everyday? Jesus is the “stance” in my circumstance. I know that it's impossible to be in a situation that God hasn't already planned for.
When you abide in Christ and are in alignment with the Holy Spirit, the Kingdom of Heaven becomes more powerful to you than the world around you. You learn to see every life situation from God's perspective. It’s a very peaceful place to be.
The fact is, Kingdom peace cannot be understood in human logic. You can’t work it out in your head or strive towards it, it can only be received. Peace is not the absence of adverse circumstances or conflict. It is the presence of Christ, the very Prince of Peace.
Peace is a relational practice not a situational outcome. It’s the state of being at divine rest and undisturbed. It is the lifestyle of being ever present with Jesus. He is our peace.
Ask to receive Christ’s peace today, then go and share it with someone else. The peace that Jesus gives is far more viral than you might ever imagine.
I believe it was Graham Cooke who said, “A Christian is someone who has been overwhelmed by the majesty of God’s affection, by His empowering presence, and by His total willingness to make you exceptional as a person. He is making you like Him.”
What God wants for you is about being, not doing. There is a vast difference between “working” to abide in God as opposed to “striving” to earn His favor.
We must first peacefully allow ourselves to be, for abiding in Him is about “being.” The “doing” comes after when your faith in God's power is in alignment with your trust in His nature. Only then is your “doing” not wasted or in vain. Otherwise, you're just wasting effort striving under your own power.
It’s a mistake, albeit a very common one, to try and earn what He gives us freely. I’ve said it before, “Salvation isn’t the finish line, it’s the starting block of your relationship with God.” Salvation is free, but your spiritual growth will cost you.
That growth requires breaking old habits and shedding false ideas that disconnect us from our awareness of God’s abiding presence. It’s far more important that we practice and discipline ourselves to stay focused on Him regardless of circumstances we face and observe in our lives.
This usually requires a change in our expectations of Him. Unfortunately, as inhabitants of this world, we have been trained to speculate and react to negative situations rather than respond to heaven’s positive possibilities.
According to Genesis 1:26, God's primary purpose is for us to be formed in His image. His ways are above our ways (Isaiah 55:9) which means our perceptions, mindsets, and emotions are being transformed so that we might speak and act as He would.
Jesus told us that He only did what the Father did (John 5:19), but that is something too few Christians seem to understand.
Our world is in crisis. Authoritarianism is on the rise. Democracy is in decline. Nature seems to be striking back with ferocity. People are reacting as one might expect. Old mindsets are being challenged. Long-held beliefs are being threatened. Frustration and anxiety are running rampant and we seem to be teetering on the edge of a world war.
Of course, it’s not the first time. But the Lord offers a place of perfect peace in the midst of this storm. Just not the one that most people think. As believers, we’re in a small boat with Jesus.
The problems of the world are revealing the possibilities of the Kingdom of Heaven. People are experiencing God in entirely new ways. For the child of God, every problem is an opportunity to either receive or release divine promise or provision. Every circumstance is a chance to encounter or interact with another aspect of God's true nature. It is an opportunity to practice the presence of God in our lives. It is a learning process of expectation and anticipation of His presence, His voice, His will, and the very fruit of the Spirit in our lives.
The question every believer should be asking God, especially in every circumstance of adversity they face is, “Lord, who do you want to be for me now that you couldn't be for me before or outside of this situation?”
What about you? Where is your focus? Are you reacting to what you see and hear in the world around you or are you responding to what the Holy Spirit is impressing on your heart?
The real issue and question for every believer is not, “Are you good enough to get into heaven?” It's, “Are you abiding in God and well-aligned with the Holy Spirit to bring Heaven down to Earth?”
Your life as a believer is not about waiting around for Jesus to come back and rescue you, it's about putting on the mantle of responsibility He tasked you with and stepping into the role God created you for.
It's not decrying the mess that is in the world right now, it's declaring what is not as though it is, in order to bring it into existence. It’s not blindly accepting those things you see and hear in the natural as inevitable and irrevocably pitted against God, but resonating with the Spirit of Truth to supernaturally affect your sphere of influence and lift up Christ that He might draw others to Himself.
It's not calling people out for their stuff, it's calling them up to accountability and the potential God empowers them with through His grace. It’s not arguing and fighting with or demonizing people you don’t agree with, it’s knowing that the battle you are fighting is not against flesh and blood at all.
It's not about running from the devil, it's about standing up and taking territory back from him because God has promised it to you, has promised to go before you, and has given you divine power and authority to be successful and more than a conqueror in the name of Jesus.
That is what being a follower of Christ is really about.
When you hold God at a distance, when you choose not to let Him into an area of you life, then you sever yourself from discovering and actualizing your true spiritual identity. While nothing can separate you from the love of God or His abiding presence. You can however be disconnected from your awareness of either.
A real relationship with God is a joyful, continuing, cumulative journey of discovery; not only of Him, but of yourself – who He created you to be. Every step with Him takes you further down a path where you not only get to know Him better, but yourself as well. Every experience you share increases divine intimacy, draws you closer, and contributes to your spiritual maturity.
As you mature, your spiritual identity becomes clearer, your faith stronger, your confidence in God more resolute. Heavenly perception, divine insight, and Kingdom clarity become second nature. The power and authority Christ endowed you with become supernatural extensions of He and the Father living in you.
No weapon formed against you will prosper (Isaiah 54:17) and the very gates of Hell will not prevail against you (Matthew 16:18) for you are one of the “Ekklesia Kuriakos” – the called who belong to the Lord.
In short, when you get to know who God is directly and experience Him firsthand, things change. Dramatically.
I was raised in a fundamental religion, a sin-conscious culture where teaching and training revolved around controlling one’s behavior. Freedom wasn’t prized in that setting. To many people, freedom was seen as independence from God, and perceived as an excuse or license to sin, leading to anarchy.
Rather than being discipled in the freedom that Jesus brought us, we were instructed to “behave” We were taught to focus on our “performance” and “adherence” so that God could “trust us” and we could walk with Him properly.
Many religions talk about salvation through grace, but they continue to believe that we continue in God’s good graces through our own efforts and striving “to be good.”
Yes, believers do good works and bear good fruit. But not of ourselves. We do these things because our hearts and minds have been transformed through the Holy Spirit and because Christ and the Father abide within us and we in them. Any real goodness or righteousness we exhibit flows from Heaven through Christ in us. See Isaiah 64:6.
The terms of our relationship with God are not now, and never were, set by man. If your interaction with Christ is primarily about doctrine and theology, that is, if the meaning of Christ in your life is defined more by rules than by a truly personal relationship with Him, then you are completely missing the point.
I know that Christianity is perceived as a religion and as it is practiced, it is. But religion is man's attempt to set the terms and conditions to reach out to God based on what men think. It is at best flawed. Usually, it’s worse than that because as human beings, we have a need to try and be in control of our environment.
This extends to how men have tried to deal with and “frame” God, imposing what they believe or interpreting what they think scriptures are supposed to mean. This is the mistake of the masses. Let me be clear: If you really want to know God and what He wants from you as a person, if you want to know how He sees you, you’re going to have to get into a direct, intimate relationship with Him for yourself.
Your relationship with God matters more than your denomination or your religion.
That said, Christ was, is, and always will be God's provision for reconciling all people – of every nation, type, and tribe, back to Himself. Christ is the way God restored His divine relationship with humanity… on His terms.
As a believer, your adverse circumstances are never the problem. The trials, tribulations, and pressures that weigh upon you aren’t the problem. But God wants you to be aware of His reality above all else.
If you are in Christ, then by definition, so are your circumstances. When you truly abide in Christ, you perceive beyond the chaos and you live in peace because He is peace and He lives in you.
Deep relationship with God changes your awareness and perception. When your primary focus is about your circumstances, then you relate to Him through circumstances. Your objective ends up being about how He's going to fix this or that, or rescue you. It becomes about what you perceive He can do for you, not who He is.
If someone were to always do that to you, at best, you’d call them a moocher or a leach...
As Believers, our (often) forgotten role is to present the needs of world before the Father in Heaven and lift up Christ the Son to people on Earth. Each of us is called to intercede for others, a theme of the Scripture time and again.
This is the very reason He has called His people to be a nation of priests (See 1 Peter 2:9). We aren’t a holy nation act on behalf of each other, we are called to intercede for the rest of the people of the world...
The Lord is calling out and gathering together His own people, those I call His “Ekklesia Kuriakos” which literally means “an assembly of the called who belong to the Lord.”
God is raising up, not institutes of religion, but assemblies of His Kingdom. Religion has preached the good news of salvation for generations, but it has largely overlooked the Gospel of His Kingdom that Jesus repeatedly referred to.
An “Ekklesia of today” with power, authority, and influence the likes of which have been paralleled for over 2,000 years is gathering steam, even as the world appears to be falling apart...
As followers of Christ, you and I are called to be conduits of Heaven’s provisions and blessings, and intercessors for people who do not yet know Him. Our commission is to live by the order of the Kingdom however – which is not to rule or subjugate, but to serve.
This is the reality of being the salt of the earth and light of the world (see Matthew 5), so that others will not just see, but will experience God’s manifest glory in and through us.
Your personal connection with God matters and He is not satisfied with a “long-distance” relationship. Unfortunately, too many believers have been misled and think their sins make them unworthy to come before God. That is an outright lie of the enemy perpetuated by those who seek to control the masses. Sin doesn’t disqualify you...
Are you struggling and failing to manifest the fruit of the Spirit — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control — are these things consistent in your life?
If not, chances are good that you’re striving under your own strength and not taking the time to cultivate a truly personal relationship with the Lord. It is through the Holy Spirit that you bear these characteristics; it is the Holy Spirit within you that needs to guide and direct you in every aspect of your life (Galatians 5:25, Romans 8:5-6).
True Christianity is not behavior modification. It’s not a self-improvement program...
God doesn’t do guilt. Religion does it very well, not God.
It’s a shame how many believers are walking through life wracked with guilt, worried about what God is thinking about them, condemning themselves for their failures and mistakes. But God’s wrath against sin was expended on the cross. The price for it was paid and Jesus brought a new covenant that freed believers from the penalty of sin for all time.
I was a popular Bible teacher, itinerant preacher, life coach and more, serving in any area I was asked. For years I shared all that the Lord was revealing to me… until I burned myself out completely.
I suffered from a potent strain of “Performance Anxiety” with God.
I thought my purpose was to teach those things I had come to understand in Scripture. But it was never about passing on knowledge. What is most important to God isn’t what you know or do. It is your personal relationship with Him that matters...
What do you believe is the fate of the world we live in? Is it irredeemable, headed for hell and destined to burn? Or do you think that behind all the distracting noise in the news and social media that God can and is moving to advance his Kingdom on the Earth?
I ask because what you believe determines how you act, react and respond to everything. And those actions determine whether you function as an agent of God or as a tool of the enemy.
I believe that in our day and age there are more women of faith than men succeeding in business as never before as they respond to the Lord’s call to business leadership. I see that God is pouring out His favor upon women. But no, it’s not just women. It’s from people from any walk who are attuned to and following the desire the Lord has placed in their hearts. When you have God’s favor upon you, gender, race, old hierarchies, glass ceilings and the like, don’t matter. I myself am living proof of it...
The Word of God cannot be fully comprehended or applied to your life without the guidance of the Spirit of God who inspired it. It is the Holy Spirit who reveals the depth of the scriptures and God’s Word. If you want to know the Truth and how it applies to your life specifically, you must allow the Spirit of Truth to direct and teach you. Personally.
When you decide to pursue intimacy with God, prepare yourself. It will not go unchallenged by the enemy. People and circumstances will try and change your mind. Your decision will be tested.
But don’t let that stop you...
The Lord has commissioned us to be faithful stewards over all of the earth… in partnership with Him. As believers, we are equipped and empowered to exercise Kingdom authority against the powers of darkness in our spheres of influence; believers who will lead in every aspect and sphere of society, including business. The advance of the Kingdom of Heaven was never primarily about the pulpit...
At its core, business is about taking less and making more or increasing worth by adding value. These are in fact, attributes of God. Not only does the Lord have a heart for business, the best business ideas and dreams actually come from the throne of Heaven. Abundance, the divine truth that more can come from less, is itself a heavenly concept.
It is in intimacy with God, through the power of the Holy Spirit that we are transformed. Your personal relationship with God is at the core of your very existence. It's not a relationship based on emotion or intellect.
When it comes to the Lord and the nature of His Kingdom, it's your personal relationship with Him that makes the difference because True knowledge, Divine knowledge, it comes from God.
Divine wisdom and understanding are born out of intimacy with Him. Unfortunately, in our churches, we've intellectualized things to the point that people are convinced that it's all about getting the doctrine right.
God gives wisdom to anyone who asks for it, and He's not judging you by how well you "figure out" His Word. What He wants is for you to learn to recognize, to listen to, to trust His voice, and follow His direction.
He will teach you and He will transform you. God isn't calling for people to be perfect or religious. He's calling for those who would follow Him to come into relationship.
Cultivating intimacy with God is not only possible, it's what He wants to have with you. Jesus came and died to restore the relationship that we were created to have with God and so that we could know our Heavenly Father.
Religion has led people to believe that being in error is itself sin and consequently, God punishes us for being wrong. This wrongly presumes that the Lord has no capacity for guiding His children into truth. The masses cling to doctrine and tradition as though their lives depended on it, instead of embracing the simplicity of being directed and guiding by the Holy Spirit, as Jesus clearly told us:
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. – John 16:13
God’s ability reveal His truth and to correct us is far greater than satan’s ability to deceive us. But that presumes we are in relationship with Him...
Christian churches, as so many have known and experienced them, are perceived as (and in truth have been) dispensers of condemnation, guilt and shame, rather than as extenders of the “incomparable riches of God’s grace,” mercy, and unconditional love. (See Ephesians 2:7) Too many have become something Christ never intended: hard-hearted, spiteful and “religious,” almost oblivious to the fact that they are walking the same path as the Pharisees of His day, and they have not heeded the warning of Matthew chapter 23.
“The Church” is dying in the wilderness. But God isn’t leaving things at that. He is raising up a new generation is replacing them to fulfill God's directive. The Spirit of the Lord is moving upon "ordinary" people and the effect is both significant and profound.
The more you cultivate your personal relationship with God, the more your spiritual identity is revealed and the more it alters your countenance to reflect Christ’s glory.
Living in the strength and power of God comes from knowing your true identity in Christ and shedding the false identities you’ve been given by others. This is another reason why intimacy with God is so important. It’s in direct relationship that you discover who you truly are to Him. Be aware however that this is something the enemy aggressively seeks to obscure, convince you you’re not worthy of, or deprive you of… by any means available.
You won’t trust God if you don’t really know Him. And you won’t know Him if you keep Him at a distance. Trust in the Lord is a direct result of being in close relationship with Him. Our God is a God of relationship.
If you aren’t cultivating intimacy with God – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, then all you have is religion. Unfortunately, religion has held God at a distance by emphasizing rules, doctrine, and dogma, over the intimacy of communing and worshiping the Lord “in spirit and in truth” as Jesus said we would.
The whole idea of “cleaning yourself up” for God, is completely backwards. The Father isn’t looking for you to perform for Him. What He desires is to restore the relationship you were created to have with Him so that He can renew you into what you were always intended to be.
Salvation is not the reward for what you do in this life. It is the start of a personal relationship with God, not the finish line.
Our redemption rests on what Christ did on our behalf, not on what we do for ourselves. Morality isn’t the means, it’s the side-effect of the righteousness God brings to our lives.
God wants to lift you up, reveal your true spiritual identity, and unleash power and divine authority into your life. How God sees you has nothing to do with how “good” you are when you come to Him, or what you may or may not have done before. Your “packaging” doesn’t matter. Remember, Jesus surrounded Himself with foul-mouthed fishermen, tax collectors, prostitutes and other unvalued people of society.
God doesn’t require perfection in you or even goodness. He accepts you where you are just as you are because through intimate relationship, He develops your heart and mind, molding your character to achieve righteousness. You don’t achieve goodness, godliness, or Christ-like traits of yourself, you become endowed with these things from and through Him.
The personal relationship God seeks to develop with you is under constant siege from a host of of spiritual enemies. Their influence is found in the form of the spirit of religion, faithless traditions, hollow precepts, falsehoods, and more.
Here’s a key problem with religion. Our responsibility as believers has never been to beat or coerce other people into the submission of what we believe to be truth - even IF we happen to be right about a given subject. As followers of Christ, our job is to lift up Jesus in everything that we do – and if we can’t do so in love and in grace, with patience and with mercy, then we aren’t exalting Him at all.
People aren’t attracted to Jesus because of religion, it’s about relationship. Your relationship with them; your relationship with Him. And when He is lifted up properly, others will come and see what intimacy with Him can truly be.
Religion is satisfied with behavioral modification, but the Lord is after Spirit transformation – which by the way, HE initiates and works within us.
There’s one verse that changed how I thought about my enemies. Given the “them against us mentality” that has become so pervasive in our country and in fact, seems to be intensifying all around the world, I think that everyone who follows Jesus needs to consider this verse thoughtfully and prayerfully:
For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places. – Ephesians 6:12
Too many Christians live and act as though Jesus is coming back on a rescue mission.
They’ve gotten it wrong.
Jesus accomplished our rescue on the cross. He redeemed and restored us 2000 years ago. The problem is, as believers and followers we have failed to step into the fulness of His promise to reclaim and advance God’s reign here on Earth.
When Christ returns, it won’t be to establish His Father’s Kingdom, it will be to finalize it.
By His own Hand, God is raising up an “Ekklesia of today.”
I call them the Ekklesia Kuriakos, which literally means “an assembly of the called who belong to the Lord.” They are the ambassadors of His Kingdom. And like Jesus’ disciples, these are not folks that most would naturally consider to be agents of Heaven. But neither the disciples of Jesus...
The Church, as an institution, has largely failed to properly complete the commission Jesus gave to his followers in Matthew 28 and Luke 24. While the church has affected the world in many positive ways, it has also failed to make a lasting, transformative impact and it’s track record for operating in the direct, unmistakable power of God is intermittent.
Worse yet, church, under the guise of organized religion has arguably succeeded in hurting, wounding, and killing at least as many as they have claimed to convert.
Do you consider yourself spiritual but not religious?
Do you love God but struggle with church?
I get you. You’re not alone. Church is simply not an affirming, positive or even spiritual experience for far too many people.
The fact of the matter is, the Church has been perceived as intolerant, negative, judgmental, condemning, and irrelevant for many, many generations. Which unfortunately, it largely has been. Ironic since Jesus is none of these things.
December 18th, 2021 would have been Josh's 36th birthday. Back in July, I shared that our son Josh had suffered a massive, unexpected brain hemorrhage that took his life. Today, I’m following up on Josh’s story and how it’s affected my wife and I.
God will never fit into any box humankind puts Him in. The very limitations of our humanity preclude understanding of the God who is infinite. That doesn’t mean that you can’t know the Lord, you absolutely can: deeply and intimately in ways that most believers never even bother to imagine.
Knowing God, knowing the Father, knowing Jesus Himself and knowing the Holy Spirit, is why Jesus came to Earth in the first place. But again, that knowing isn’t born out of our humanity, it’s born out of our spirituality. How do you shift your perspective from the natural to the spiritual?
God desires a righteous people, but it is not a righteousness that can ever be attained through self-effort, determination, or be forced. It is not an imposed moral standard. Despite what you may have been taught, the Lord’s focus is not on your behavior.
Righteousness that is rooted in behavior (what appears to be righteousness anyway), is not remotely the same thing as behavior rooted in righteousness. The righteousness the Lord seeks from His people can only be achieved in us by the Holy Spirit through the renewal and transformation of heart and mind. Real righteousness originates in Heaven and flows through us, it doesn’t come from us.
Are you trading in fake currency, thinking you are offering acceptable divine transactions to earn favor in the Kingdom of Heaven through what you do?
Are you one to be severely disappointed or have your faith shaken when circumstances turn against you or things don’t turn out as you expect? We’re supposed to be living in victory, right? Then is the Bible is in error about this? Or, is it possible that you’re harboring some false assumptions or incorrect expectations that are holding you back from living the victorious, purposeful life God intends for you?
Trouble comes in all shapes and sizes. Trouble is pliable, persistent and unrelenting. The matter how hard you try, you can't run or hide from it. Trouble always finds you, and when it does, it adjusts itself to suit you perfectly.
Trouble even eats away at faith of those who would consider themselves to be ardent followers of Christ, by occupying their attention so that they either forget or fail to recognize that God is always with them. But those who know Him also know that every situation is nothing more than an opportunity that God uses to reveal more of Himself...
Christ didn't come and die to establish a new religion. He came to restore your relationship with God, not pour concrete into a some theological construct. His purpose was to complete the adoption and bring you into his divine bloodline and He is calling you to enter into intimate, personal relationship with Him, a relationship enabled and empowered through the indwelling Holy Spirit, a relationship made possible because of what Jesus did FOR us. But unfortunately, too few of those who would follow Him are interested in what Jesus wants to do THROUGH us.
Church is to your Christian life something like what an advanced education is to your career. It can provide a lot of preparation, valuable information and help you develop your skills, but it doesn’t ensure your success. The real purpose of church is to help you cultivate a personal relationship with God. That’s what you need not just to survive, but to thrive in the real world.
You have a story. A story worth telling. Some Believers think they don’t because they are still a work in progress. But they do have one. Key to the story is the value that God placed on you even before you were born. It’s time you learned your story. To do that, you must discover and embrace your identity. To do that, there’s something you’ve absolutely, positively got to do…
Christian culture, as we have lived it, has for too long tried to fight in the flesh, battles that can only be won through the Holy Spirit. Because of this, divine power and authority has typically been in short supply and the manifestation of God's glory in our lives is virtually non-existent. The enemy has succeeded in rendering the children of the Lord largely ineffectual in greater society.
And he was able to do it because religion has replaced relationship in our lives. But a new thing is happening and God is calling you into it.
Many Christians aren’t standing where they think they are with Jesus. Here are 7 Levels of relationship that the Lord shared with me one day. It’s not that any of them are wrong, it’s that a lot of Christians have a tendency to rise to the level that is within their comfort zone. Then they stop pursuing God and plant themselves right there. Is that you? Which of these levels would Jesus say you are at?
A lot of Believers want God close in their lives... but not too close. Frankly, they want a safety valve, not a relationship. They’re satisfied with learning ABOUT God and are not too interested in getting to KNOW God personally.
The Lord is looking for His children to enter into intimate, personal relationship with Him. It’s what we were created for, it’s what He intended for us from the beginning. It’s what He desires. However, it seems that intimacy with God is not what most of us really want.
How do you feel about it?
Reference Texts: Isaiah 29:13, Exodus 20:19, John 1:16-17, John 14:16-17
A prayer for today: Dear Father, I declare your goodness and give thanks for all that Jesus provided to me, for restoring and reconciling me back into the relationship that you and I were intended to have. I thank you for not just abiding with me, but for living in me that we might be ever closer to one another. Help me to see this clearly. I thank you for this remarkable blessing and for the opportunities to bless others through it as well. Open my mind and heart and teach me what you would have me know. Direct and guide my life through the Holy Spirit, transform my heart and mind to be more like you.
Christ restored our dominion over the Earth at the cross. We have a God-given right to reclaim it, but like the Israel facing the Promised Land, we are required to take it by force.
“The Church” failed in that mission. It got sidetracked. The reason the world is in crisis, the reason there is death and disease, the reason men are at each other’s throats, is because the Children of God don't know their identity and have failed to step back into their proper role or exercise their God-given power and authority.
Now, the Lord is raising up an Ekklesia of today to take territory and subdue the enemy.
References:
Job 13:15
Ephesians 6:12
2 Chronicles 20:15
John 16:33
"Becoming A Second Mile Leader" - Jon Ashcraft https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Second-Mile-Leader-expectations/dp/1086242386/
How you view God depends directly on your personal relationship with Him (or lack thereof). The same goes for how you view the world at large, society in general, and people in specific, also depends on your personal relationship with Him because it’s the difference between seeing and assessing circumstances in the natural and discerning all things under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. God is a God of personal relationships and the advance of the Kingdom of Heaven is being made accordingly.
Many Christians mistakenly believe that their sins make them unworthy and prevents them from coming before the Heavenly Father. This lie has caused them to miss numerous blessings that He wants to release into their lives. Many prefer to think that God is either too busy to be interested in their day-to-day lives or that their sin precludes them from having a close relationship with God.
To its detriment, Christianity is frequently presented as — and presumed to be — the moral lifestyle choice that grants believers access to Heaven and eternal life. That is a devastatingly erroneous view. God who isn’t looking for you to perform for Him. What He desires is to restore the relationship you were created to have with Him.
We have it backwards. Salvation is not a reward for what you do or haven’t done. It is the starting block of your personal relationship with God, not the finish line.
In the midst of all the turmoil going on in the world, in our country, even in churches, there is a real and tangible move of God afoot. This move does not look like what the majority of people expect and it does not conform to conventional notions of how God is “supposed” to do things. Most importantly, it is not being championed through expected or entrenched religious channels. It is a movement that is challenging what many church leaders and biblical scholars think about what God is doing, but it is something that is entirely consistent with His character and His Word. Can you sense it?
In our churches, we’ve “intellectualized” things to the point that people are convinced that it’s all about getting the doctrine right. But God isn’t judging you by how well you “figure out” His Word. What He wants is for you to learn to recognize, listen to, trust His voice and follow His direction.
A deep understanding the Word of the Lord is not a matter of how much seminary education you have or Bible Studies you have taken. The fullness of God is not revealed through academic, casual, or “Spirit-less” observation. The Word, the mysteries, and the very nature of God are revealed through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Many have accepted Christ, but the strength of God in their personal lives is small. They have salvation, but don't understand the fullness of what He has done for them. They don't realize what He has given to bring victory to their lives now.
Too many Christians are sick and tired because they are living life in their own strength rather than in relationship with God. They know what their senses are telling them, but they are not experiencing divine reality. They are struggling outside of the favor and power of God and have no idea of their God-given identity, much less their purpose and mission
We each have a unique God given purpose and mission that has to with a whole lot more than going to church this week– but many are missing their divine destinies it because it doesn't look like what they think it's supposed to. Frankly, the way many of us think about our walk with the Lord is substantially incomplete, if not outright wrong.
Too many people do not understand the purpose of their faith. They believe that going to church and striving to be good should satisfy what the Lord wants from them. It’s not.