11 Points on Responding to Current Events

1.) Respond not react - The social media an internet age is cultivating a culture of reaction, instead of response. Reaction is just the first thing that comes out, whereas response is very carefully mediated and well-thought out. Responding allows for actual follow-through, whereas reacting generally changes with the wind and makes you unreliable and therefore difficult to trust or have authority in the eyes of those around you. It also generates the atmosphere of the emotions it was birthed in.

2.) Choose your battles - Not everything is worth your time and energy. You do not have to have an opinion about everything, and even if you do, you don't have to say it. Decide what will be helpful and go with that.

3.) Pick the most important things - In the last few weeks I have seen people walk away from God, talked to people who found someone who committed suicide, loved on people who just buried their father from coronavirus, and talked to people who are suffering from severe anxiety, isolation, and depression. When I see these things, I understand that compared to these, many other issues everyone is fighting over are trivial.

4.) Pour into other people and personal relationships. One of the problems is that many people do not have deep relationships and they are filling that need with social networks and are somewhat out of touch with what is really happening with real people-- and are even out of touch with their own selves. In isolation, we have to fight for relationships and not fill that need with social media. 

5.) Publicly emoting causes you to lose the authority of your voice. If you want to be heard and for your voice to count, don't publicly spew out everything that is going through your heart and mind. Create a group of safe people around you that you can share those things with, and with the Lord,  then when you come say something publicly, you will be heard. There is a saying, "A wise man once said nothing." It is true. That is why people listen to wise men when they speak. 

6.) If you are struggling with anxiety, depression, fear, panic -- get off media for a while. Detox from it. Then set limits on it. You will be amazed at the difference. As with detoxing from anything -- it takes a few days to "kick the habit." Give it 3 or more days and then you will start to notice a difference. I recommend everyone to take a regular detox from media. Put it in your schedule. 

7.) Right now, we all need to help each other care for our spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical health. No one has it easy right now. Real lives and hearts are at stake. In all of our efforts to be right, let's not forget to be kind.

8.) True justice starts at the Cross of Jesus Christ and will culminate when He returns as King. The first commandment must be in first place in our lives for the second commandment to happen. Anything else is idolatry. (Matt. 22:34-40)

9.) Your view of the state of the world at the return of Jesus will affect how you respond to current events. Get your Bible open and study it.

10.) Everything high will be brought low and only the Lord will be exalted. If it's not humility, then it's not safe.

11.) I've heard so many ask, "Where are the Prophets?" The real ones are mostly on their faces weeping,  because the message hasn't changed,  "If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven, and heal their land." (1 Chron. 7:13-14) And "Rend your hearts, not your garments." (Joel 2:12-14) That message won't change until we do it. And until we do it, nothing will change. 

Perfected Forever Those Being Sanctified

And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified… (Hebrews 10:11-14)

“He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified…” What an amazing statement. This is saying that not only did Jesus complete our salvation of justification (we are saved), but also at the Cross, He completed our salvation of sanctification (we are being saved). Sanctification is the process of being made holy.

Also, this statement is saying that although we are currently in the process of “being sanctified,” we actually are already sanctified through His blood and the work is already finished in the sight of heaven.

Why does there seem to be such a contradiction between what we see in our lives and what this verse says about our sanctification being made complete? Why am I a new creation, but still have to put to death daily the deeds of the flesh? (II Cor. 5:17, Rom. 8:12-14, I Cor. 15:31)

This is where transformation comes into play. When we first accept Jesus into our hearts (justification), our spirit is made alive to Christ and we begin to walk in the newness of life (Rom. 6:3-11). Our spirit is 100% holy and pure, but our body, mind, will & emotions still need to be transformed. As we look at God, we begin to be transformed into His image (II Cor. 3:18).

Romans 12:1-3 outlines this process of transformation. It says first, “present your bodies as a living sacrifice…” This is the way new believers typically begin. They stop drinking, smoking, & sleeping around. Those things have to do with the body. They are presenting their bodies as living sacrifices.

Then it says, “Do not be conformed to the world…” This has to do with coming out of alignment with the way the world leads, which is self-serving and coming into alignment with the leadership of the Cross, which is seeming foolishness to the world (I Cor. 1-2).

Next, we are to “be transformed by the renewing of our minds” which is bringing our mind out of the wisdom of the world into the wisdom of God. To do this, we must constantly be bringing our minds into alignment with Scripture and asking the Holy Spirit to lead our minds.

Then, the result is that we will be able to “test and approve what God’s will is”—this is how we bring our will into alignment with the Holy Spirit. Once the will is in alignment under the mind, which is under the Spirit, then the emotions will follow. Emotions are terrible leaders, but great followers. Also in the ideal scenario, the body is brought under subjection by the mind and the will which are being led by the Spirit.

Many of us think that this process of sanctification is impossible, and we want to give up. However, saying that we cannot have victory over sin is to deny the power of the cross in our lives. Jesus already “perfected forever those who are being sanctified…” This means that we must call forth that eternal reality in our daily lives and live as though we can taste it today. We must set that perfection before us and realize that the blood of Jesus was not only enough to save us from hell, but also enough to save us from living in sin. It is His blood that gives us the grace (ability, power) to walk in holiness.

Lifestyle of Evangelism: Contagious Joy of Knowing God

When Jesus walked on the earth, He never had to advertise Himself. He never had to spend much time recruiting. Even when He did recruit, He would walk up to someone and say, “Follow me,” and they would leave everything immediately and follow Him.

Jesus was contagious. Everyone he came into contact with was never the same afterward. They would either be on one side of the fence or the other. When He came into a place, lines were drawn, decisions were made, and miracles happened. He never had to promote Himself. His life and works promoted themselves.

Jesus was one of the most joyful people who ever walked the planet. His joy, life, and vigor were attractive. For those who were hungry, they were drawn to Him like moths to a flame. For those who were broken, they reached out to Him in desperation. Anyone who heard of Him had to ponder where He was from and whose power He moved in.

Jesus promised that after He left the earth, He would not leave His followers as orphans, but He would send the Helper, the Holy Spirit, who would teach them all things and bring to remembrance all the things that He taught.

Now, believers have Jesus living on the inside of them through the power of the Holy Spirit. He is the same joyful, vivacious, alive, vibrant Jesus who walked the planet, shook the atmosphere, and shifted lives of thousands. Jesus now lives inside His sons and daughters who are meant to be salt and light to the world.

Knowing Jesus cannot be a stagnant concept. We are either moving forward or we are moving backward. However, Jesus promised that we have no idea what God has in store for believers, but those things have been revealed by the Spirit (I Cor. 2:7-10).

There is an absolute joy and pleasure involved in knowing God. It is available for us at any time. Psalm 16 says that at His right hand are pleasures ever more, and Ephesians 2 says that we are seated with Him in heavenly places. The pleasures at the throne of God are available for believers to walk in now.

There is such a rampant case of depression across the entire globe—and it is as alive in the church as in the secular world. There are many reasons for this, but I would say the top two reasons are: lack of righteous lifestyle, and lack of experiencing God’s love (which is due to a need for inner healing).

Most believers are just as depressed as the world—and more than that, they are DEPRESSING. Why would the lost want to join something that seems just as depressing as what they already have?

However, we must learn how to experience God and have that overwhelming joy bubble out of us so that we can learn to rightly express who God is to a lost and dying world. We have that same joyful, vibrant Jesus living in us. When we walk around, people should come up to us and ask about Jesus. Our lives should actually be attractive to the lost. Jesus was so contagious and what He had was so alive that the fish jumped into the boat without Him even making an effort.

This is available for us as believers. We must realize the power of the Holy Spirit living inside of us, and that joy is available to heal our hearts—then to be released to everyone around us. Knowing God is contagious, and there is a joy that no one can take away from us when we live in His presence. Jesus is waiting to break out of the inside of us and impact the world around us.

Lord, awaken a hunger for your Church to live and move like You!

Fine Line of Evangelism: Love & Repentance

People ask me all the time what I think about evangelism. Should we tell people they are going to hell and to turn from their sins or should would just preach the Love of Christ? The truth is that people are asking the wrong question.

This question comes from a wrong view of God and a wrong view of repentance. Telling someone to turn from their sin IS the Love of God, and preaching the Love of Christ IS repentance. It is two sides of the same coin.

The problem is that we do not understand the reason for the commandments of God. We do not believe that He is good and what He tells us to do is for our own benefit. To tell someone to turn from their sin is one of the most loving things you could ever do for a person. We also have a wrong view of correction. Gentle, loving correction is actually a good thing and one of the best indications that we are loved by God (Heb. 12).

God gave us commandments to follow so that we could be in relationship with Him. He also gave provision for the times when we fail. Furthermore, He also gave us a way to walk out His commandments called the grace of God and fellowshipping with the Holy Spirit. He set up the entire plan that would make it impossible for us to fail if we do what He says.

When people ask this question, they must first have this basic understanding before going further. Next, they need to realize the question they really want answered is a pragmatic one—how do I present the Gospel? For this question, there are several responses.

Number one, we must have God’s heart for people in order to properly convey His Word in a way that will draw them to Him. Even if you give a difficult word of correction and turning to someone, if you have God’s heart for them and have truly experienced the need for forgiveness in your own life, then you can deliver the difficult word in a way that the person feels loved, edified, and empowered to draw close to Jesus.

Secondly, we must tell people to turn from their sin. This is an absolute necessity for preaching the Gospel. In our humanistic culture, people do not realize their need for a savior. They believe that man is inherently good and that they will get to heaven for doing good things. This is a lie from the pit of hell, and we cannot passively allow it to permeate our lives and surroundings.

However, we also must be careful in how we speak to people. I was stopped by a young man in the grocery store last night who found out I was in ministry and asked me what I thought about the haunted houses happening downtown this month. I said, “Well, I believe that the people attending are longing to be fascinated with something, and they are being fascinated with fear. I believe there are much better things to be fascinated with.”

My answer stunned him. He said that when he asks believers that question, he hears something about them all going to hell, and he does not understand what the problem is with people going to a haunted house. I told him that people have longings in their heart that can only be filled by God, but they try to fill them with everything else. I said that the longing must be filled with God first, then the rest of your life will line up; however, if you try to fix the lifestyle before the longing, it will never work.

The young man was astonished and by the end of the conversation, he was asking me how to join our bible school—and I do not even think he was saved yet.

If we remember how God rescued us and forgave us, we can come to people with humility and love that will turn their hearts to God regardless of the words we have. We can have all the correct doctrine and theology in the world, but if we do not have the lifestyle God desires, then our words will fall to the ground empty. We also must not water down the truth of the gospel, trying to be culturally relevant. If we have His heart for His people, we will be able to speak what they need to hear, and there will be power to back it up. We can tell people to turn from their sin and they will feel so loved that they will run to Jesus.

 

Implementing the Five-Fold Ministry: Essential Life of Prayer

Everyone has been looking at the right strategy for church growth and development for centuries, but God will not just hand us a formula. With everything He designed, He built-in a necessary place for communication with Him. Prayer is absolutely essential to every part of life. God wants to have relationship with His people.

We can look at church structure, study the Scriptures, and come to the conclusion of how everything is supposed to work, but it will fall flat without the essential life of prayer. Every aspect of God’s design for life is for the development of relationship with God. He will even allow friction and strife into a situation to cause His people to turn to Him in prayer. God will allow suffering and hardship so that His people turn to Him as the only hope.

God will give us wisdom in leadership when we pray. He will also give us wisdom in direction. I heard Reinhardt Bonnke speak one time about how he seeks direction from God. He said, “I go into my room and I push all my thoughts aside. I don’t ask God should I do this or should I do that…I lay it all aside. Then, God will speak to me something that I never would have thought of before. It is usually something so far-fetched that I think it is impossible, but when I step out in faith, it turns out to be way better than I could possibly imagine…”

God’s wisdom is so contrary to our human wisdom, but He will lead us when we are in constant communication with Him. Not only that, but He will also change circumstances and situations through our prayers.

For the five-fold ministry to be truly implemented in a body of believers, prayer is absolutely vital. When we pray, our hearts are conformed to God’s will and desires rather than our own. This is the only way for a group of people to function together as a body that loves each other better than themselves. Prayer will break down walls in our hearts and in relationships with each other.

There is so much strife and division in the church, causing the body to fight with each other. In the human body, a response of the body fighting against itself is called an “auto-immune disease.” Unfortunately, there are rampant cases of auto-immune diseases with the body of Christ. Unless people become filled with the love of Christ and learn to care for one another, there will never be enough unity of direction to properly restore the five-fold ministry and see the church walk in the fullness of its destiny in Christ.

However, Jesus has promised that His Bride will be made ready. She will be pure and spotless before His return. She will walk in her inheritance as the child of God and she will move in the fullness of His power. God will bring it to pass, and we must partner with His plans. Prayer on both an individual and corporate level will bring us into unity with His purposes for His Bride.

Implementing the Five-Fold Ministry: Essential Life of Worship

There are so many valuable things learned from spending years serving at a House of Prayer. Watching a body of believers pursuing the Lord together as much as they can has made a lasting impact on my life. There are many reasons for a spirit of unity in the House of Prayer, and one of these elements is the centrality of worship.

When we see God for who He is, there are two responses that come. One, we realize our own lack in comparison to Him. Two, we express His worth and value back to Him. As we look at Him, we fall in love with who He is and we begin to take on portions of His attributes.

God has already told us what He is like through His Word. However, when we sing those truths back to Him, they become a part of our very identity. Facts that we knew in our head, now become realities in our hearts.

Thankfulness is absolutely essential to a life of worship, and it is difficult to be depressed when you sing. Remembering the goodness of God and allowing your heart to express gratitude will break off any yoke of oppression.

When a corporate body joins in unity to worship the beauty of Jesus, it is nearly impossible for their hearts to not become knit to one another. Praise from the upright is beautiful, and when we sing and worship God together, we cannot help but fall in love with one another.

True worship is not just song lyrics and melody lines, but it is an outward expression of an inward reality of adoration for the One who is glorious beyond words. Singing from our hearts to the Lord changes the atmosphere around us and changes our identity within us.

Worship will unite a group of believers to lay aside their differences and whole-heartedly pursue the Lord together. People will begin to care more about the glory of the Lord and about loving their brothers more than their own agenda. It is in this type of context that the five-fold ministry can find expression.

Being in a place for five years where the worship to Jesus never stops, I have been transformed by constantly singing truths of who God is. Also, I have seen the transformation of lives and the drawing together of hearts of believers. When a body of believers worships Jesus together continually, they cannot help but love God and love each other. For the five-fold ministry to truly function in a body, these elements are absolutely essential.

Implementing the Five-Fold Ministry: Preferring One Another

“For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them…”
(Romans 12:3-6)

There is no way the five-fold ministry can function in a church body without the foundational principle of preferring one another.

All of the passages in Scripture concerning the gifts of the Spirit and the five-fold ministry are written in the context of the body functioning together as a whole and each person doing their part. It is absolutely essential for any kind of unity and mutual love to exist in a body.

The primary reason church leadership structure collapses is because of everyone seeking their own. People think more highly of themselves than they should for three primary reasons:

1.)    They have not seen God rightly or experienced His presence, so they do not realize how small and insignificant they are compared to Him.

2.)    They do not see other people the way God sees them, so they do not realize His overwhelming love and the remarkable value of that other person.

3.)    They do not see themselves rightly, and base their value on the works of the flesh rather than on the value that God has given them. This not only leads to pride, but also to insecurity and self-condemnation. This causes the drive to seek the praise of man.

This must be combatted in several ways: One, each person must seek to love God with their whole heart and seek His glory only. Secondly, they must seek to love each other as they love themselves. Also, they must be healed and able to receive the love of God so they can actually love God, love themselves, and love others.

It is necessary for every person in a body to have the humility to lift someone else above their own needs. Because of human nature, all of this talk of the five-fold ministry sounds good until you try to put it into practice. However, there are some practical ways that people can grow together in love and service as a body.

 

One of the most practical ways is to stir up prayer among a group of people. If people pray together, it becomes difficult to hold a grudge, because God will not answer prayers in the context of bitterness, and He will make each person so miserable until they repent. Also, when you pray for people you begin to love them the way that God loves them and can look past their faults and failures. There is a reason why Jesus told us to bless our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.

 

Another practical way to grow in preferring one another is to activate the gift of prophecy among believers. Prophecy is meant for edification, exhortation, and comfort. When you prophesy over someone, you feel God’s heart for them and learn to see them the way God sees them, rather than seeing them in the natural. God always calls forth the true identity of that person according to the spirit rather than how they are behaving in the flesh. If we begin to call people out according to the spirit instead of according to the flesh, then we will call them into the identity God has created for them, and they will become healed and secure in His love.

Satan’s main attacks against the body of Christ are division, isolation, and accusation. Prophecy is one of the best antidotes to thwart the enemies plans and bring love and unity among a group of believers. Both prayer and prophecy go hand-in-hand to change the heart and conform the mind to God’s purposes, so that we grow in preferring one another over ourselves.

Implementing the Five-Fold Ministry: Love & Service

As the Lord begins to stir a hunger in our hearts for the release of the five-fold ministry, we will begin asking the questions of how to practically apply this in our church and ministry contexts. As we learn to apply this practically, there are some foundational principles that are essential for this system to work.

The most essential element for the five-fold ministry to work is love. The second is the knowledge that the functional role is given for the sole purpose of serving the Bride.

There is a passage in Philippians that breaks my heart. Paul says in Philippians 2:19-22, “But I trust the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you shortly, that I also may be encouraged when I know your state. For I have no one like-minded, who will sincerely care for your state. For all seek their own, not the things which are of Christ Jesus. But you know his proven character, that as a son with his father he served with me in the gospel. Therefore, I hope to send him at once…”

It is remarkable to me that out of all the people serving with Paul, he had no one who was like-minded except Timothy. There was only one person he could send who cared more about the state of the church and the glory of Christ Jesus than his own success and well-being. This breaks my heart.

Even in the early church, there was so much disorder and confusion about the functioning of the body. Paul wrote numerous times to correct their conduct—and many times, the problem was the lack of mutual love and service (humility) toward each other.

In I Corinthians 12-15, Paul wrote the church and he spent a lot of time telling them how the gifts should function in the body and how one person should sit down and let the other speak. The list of the gifts of the Spirit and one of the five-fold ministry passages were actually given in the context of a rebuke to the church for not working together in love and preferring one another.

Right in the middle of this rebuke and instruction concerning the gifts, Paul places the famous chapter on love. He said even if you prophesied or gave all you had to the poor, if you were lacking in love, then you were nothing.

Even if we are all filling our positions and doing our jobs correctly, if we are lacking in love, then we are nothing. If we are following all the procedures and manuals to the utmost degree, but we are seeking our own, then we are nothing. Love does not seek its own.

God is looking for bondservants who will lay down their lives for His Bride. He is looking for team ministry in His body, where each person lays down their life to love and serve the other. Without this foundational principle, you could implement every system, program, and structure in the world, and it will not work.

So much of the damage done in the body of Christ by leadership structures has been because of the lack of humility, service, and love. This has caused the need for so much structure and systems being put in place, that may not have been necessary if people were actually caring for others more than themselves.

 

Even though we are working with real people in a real world, believers in the body of Christ no longer have to live according to the standards of the world. It is possible for us to do what Jesus told His disciples, “They will know you are my disciples because of your love for one another.” If each of us live as individuals who learn to love and obey God, then love and serve each other, we will become the growing body God desires for us to be.

 

Five-Fold Ministry: The Pastoral Role

In Ephesians 4, Paul begins by exhorting the body to walk worthy of the calling that God has over their lives by walking "with all lowliness & gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace..." He goes on in that chapter to speak of the five-fold ministry after stating that Christ first descended before He ascended, which is reminiscent of the humility in Philippians 2 and the seemingly foolish leadership of the Cross in I Corinthians 1-2.

Paul was teaching that those operating in the five-fold ministry must walk in love, meekness, & humility in order to prefer one another & keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

The pastoral role is one of the five-fold ministry callings. The role of the pastor is to make disciples of Christ and to oversee the overall wholeness and well-being of those who have been brought into the church through salvation. Typically, the evangelist will bring the lost souls into the church, and after salvation, the pastor looks after the overall well-being of the person.

This may involve teaching & some of the deacon-type ministry (diakonos, see Acts 6:1-5), which is serving and ministering to their needs—not only spiritually, but physically as well. It also includes counseling, inner-healing, and life instruction. Pastors help develop fellowship between believers and literally make disciples AND those who disciple.

Where a teacher would primarily teach biblical doctrine, a pastor would help apply the bible to practical life. It is important that any messenger help apply the message to practical life, but some are called to cast a vision, and others called to help apply the vision. Pastors help with the application process.

For example, if someone preaches and casts vision for a corporate fast, then the pastor would come and give practical ways to fast and would be involved in their people’s lives enough to know who has an eating disorder and really should not completely fast food altogether. Or if someone preaches on giving to the poor, the pastor would actually come and highlight a family to give to and make sure the needs of that family are met. Pastors are the ones who are at the hospital beds, performing the weddings, counseling, and meeting with people. This is why it is so important to have more than one person with a pastoral heart operating in the church, because there is so much to do. Also, it is important for the pastor to relinquish other responsibilities that are meant for the other five-fold ministry roles and focus on pastoring only.

The Lord has created a five-fold ministry to balance the needs of the people over several different leaders so that one person is not burned out or trying to fill a role that they are not fully gifted in. The problem is that with the current model of church in America, there is usually one person over the church who tries to fill all five roles in the five-fold ministry. As a result, many pastors are over-worked and burnt out. Also, the body is not complete and functioning as it should. The church was designed to be a body where each part is working together in submission to the Head, which is Christ. Not only should there be a five-fold ministry present in leadership, but also each member of the body should be activated in their giftings and contribute to the body as a whole. This takes humility and meekness between each person involved—especially those in leadership, for this goal to be accomplished.