The Good News

Some time ago, I was studying Paul’s writings to the church in Ephesus in the books of 1 and 2 Timothy.  As I read through the aging apostle’s writings I was struck with his fascination of what he called, “the blessed Gospel.”  Here was a man who had seen and done it all for Christ.  He had matured as much or more than any man had in Christ, and yet, here he was, absolutely fascinated with the power and beauty of the Gospel!  I was pierced by my own flippancy toward what is “the power of God to us who are being saved.”  I had viewed the Gospel as something for non-Christians to hear, and for new Christians to make their foundation, but beyond that we should mature into something greater.  I’d been a Christian for years.  Yet again, I was confronted with Paul and his childlike adoration of what Jesus had accomplished through His death, burial, and resurrection.  Was it possible that I had far undervalued the enormity of what it meant that God Himself had become a man— to die, and then be raised from the tomb after three days?  What incredible wonder is this that the Creator would enter His own Creation simply to let them kill Him— just so He could have them???

Over the course of the following months, I was struck, stunned, astounded, and driven to my knees in awe and gratitude over what Jesus Christ did for me, for us.  I had never known how complete His work truly was, and why He was able to utter, “It is finished,” until that period of time, and my life was revolutionized once again.  All it took was one moment with God, when He opened my eyes and I saw what He’d done, and everything became clear:  ”It is finished.”

In two and a half weeks, at FireUP be.loved 2011, Jesus will be the center, the essence, and the everything of this event.  The Good News will be proclaimed, and lives will be changed.  I hope yours is one.

 

Post-Hayward

It has taken me some time to sit down and try to capture my thoughts on what took place in Hayward.  I’ve talked to the Lord extensively about it, or more accurately He has talked to me about it, and I think I can finally get some things expressed.  It is somewhat long, but I encourage you to take the time to read it.  

This past week was like nothing I’ve ever experienced.  The team that we took was incredible.  We were faced with numerous difficulties, and yet, were not swayed from the mission God had set upon us.  From abnormal physical exhaustion to oppression, this team continued to honor one another and encourage each other throughout the entire week.  It was amazing to watch.

For the first two and a half days, we saw almost no manifest fruit in the Spirit.  God is always at work, and things are always happening, but it is exciting to see it manifest instantly.  Scott and Dan did an awesome job bringing the Word, and yet we were hitting a wall in the Spirit.  At one point we discussed the importance of making war in the Spirit throughout the week, but for the first time in ministry I had the acute awareness that people outside our group were interceding on our behalf.  I can’t explain how I knew, but we actually got to see the manifestation of God’s reality break in to the realm of earth.

The second to last night, after watching the power of God’s impact increase steadily for two and a half days, Ed and I shared something that God had confronted both of us on “forgetting to mention.”  

“Will you tell them Who I Am?”  I cannot tell you that either of us “felt anointed,” or anything of the sort.  I think we were both quite exhausted, and maybe a little disheartened.  But when Ed spoke of God as He was revealed in the Old Testament, and I introduced them to Jesus, His Son, I tell you the response at the end of the night was like something books are written about.  It was no warm-fuzzy message, it was about dying that one might know this Jesus.  But when we invited the young people to meet Jesus themselves, ALL BUT ONE YOUNG MAN RESPONDED IN REPENTANCE!!!

I have never seen anything so sovereign, and so glorious, as to see about forty young men and women come and stand before the Lord, waiting to have Him transform their souls.  After a period of heaviness in which we didn’t pray for anyone, the joy of the Lord began to break out upon these youth as they experienced the joy of their salvation. And as these who would not sing to the Lord, now danced before Him, the music was turned off, and at that moment, the skies tore open and a deluge like I have never been apart of poured forth from the Heavens, and the young people streamed out into it to receive their water baptism from their Father in Heaven.

But it did not end there, no, God would have disciples as well as children, and when the last day dawned, we lay forth a challenge to forsake all thoughts of pursuit other than Jesus.  And on the last night, as hungry and empty vessels came forth, God released a Baptism of His Spirit upon these young people, that as they prayed for one another, some fell prostrate before the Lord, and others received His joy.  But not one person in that camp left that week without encountering the power, the love, the mercy, and the goodness of God.  Not one left without being touched powerfully by His Spirit.  And by the last night, every young man and woman in that room had had their eternity changed forever.

Praise be to you Jesus.  Never in all my life have I seen such a wonderful move of Your Spirit.  Never have I felt so helpless, and so delighted as I watched you move in my weakness.  You are incredible, My God, and I love You.  Amen.

New Creation

In Christ Jesus we have been made into a new creation.  Who we were before Jesus, with all of our drunkenness, pain, shame, and sorrow is passed away.  Who we were is no more.  Now we are new, brand new.  But it doesn’t end there.

We begin an eternal bond with Jesus in which for the rest of our days we share life together.  We talk about each other to each other.  He is the one who created us anew, and so He is the only one who can tell us who and what He made us into.  And to live fully as His children, we must seek His mind about us to find what He thinks of us.  And as Bill Johnson says, “I can’t afford to have any thought in my mind about me that He doesn’t have in His.”

If we want to know who we have been created into we must listen to what He thinks about us.  It is all about Jesus, and what Jesus thinks about us is far more important than what we think about ourselves.  So we must seek to be rid of our own thoughts of ourselves, and to have them replaced with His thoughts of us.  To know what the new creation is truly like, we must ask the Creator to describe it to us.

It didn’t end at the cross!

The Spirit of God convicts the world of sin and righteousness and judgment.  And when the Spirit of God does so, and we find ourselves acutely aware of the depth of our sin, and the righteousness of God, and the just judgment of God, we wail in horror at the magnitude of our fallenness, and in light of it cry out for mercy, it is there in that place, when the Spirit of God brings life to us that we become new.

But we weren’t meant to spend the rest of our lives there in that place.  We weren’t meant to remain at the foot of the cross bemoaning our own evils and hoping for mercy.  As A.W. Tozer put it, “We may plead for mercy for a lifetime in unbelief, and at the end of our days be still no more than sadly hopeful that we shall somewhere, sometime, receive it.”  Sounds like a lot of American preaching that calls itself “cross-centered.”  Tozer continues, “This is to starve to death just outside the banquet hall into which we have been warmly invited.”  No faith, no forgiveness.  Tozer again continues, “Or we may, if we will, lay hold on the mercy of God by faith, enter the hall, and sit down with the bold and avid souls who will not allow diffidence and unbelief to keep them from the feast of fat things prepared for them.”  We were not intended to remain in failure, filth, and sin!  We were intended to boldly enter the Kingdom of Heaven by the mercy of God through faith, and to receive the bounty of life that He desires to bestow upon His children!

Yes, we must confess; yes, we must repent; and yes, we must die to our sin and self.  And Yes! we must arise with Christ Jesus in His glorious Resurrection.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me!  No longer are we sinners but saints!  What is exalted as “cross centered theology” is actually a small view on the fullness of Jesus centered theology and ALL that He accomplished!  Let us no longer limit the enormity of what Jesus did in His crucifixion, burial, and resurrection from the dead!  

Romans 6:4-5  We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.

Ephesians 2:19  So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints are fellow members of God’s household.