There I was in the hospital room, that icey Arkansas December 2000.  The night before Robin and I had our first child.  We didn’t let the doctors tell us if the baby was going to be a boy or a girl, but we already had the name picked out:  Israel Shava Jackson.

Dr. Timothy Bell allowed me to “catch” our first amazing child, so I exclaimed, “It’s a girl!” as a night filled with toil melted away into a mother’s “Oh, oh - I want to hold her.”  There had been a major ice storm the week before.  Thousands in our region were left without any utilities.  However, within just a couple of days of Israel’s birth, the roads had cleared up just enough for travel, and our electricity came back on for the previous nights laboring at home.  Within 48 hours of us returning home with her, another ice storm hit, taking out more trees, making more roads impassable, and hurtling many families back into “life in the stone ages”.

So, there I was, the next morning in the hospital room.  Robin was sleeping, and they had just brought Israel back into the room for her second allowed visit out of the nursery.  I can vividly remember sitting in that chair, in front of that window, holding my first invitation into the Father Heart of God - and I began to cry.  It was one of those times where the tears came before any thoughts, or any words - but the words followed shortly thereafter, and made the crying increase.

“No matter what you do - ever - I will always love you.”

I honestly do not know how I was even saved, or how I’d even pretended to be a youth minister or spiritual parent to anyone prior to that moment.  Yeah, I felt like I had the “Father Heart” revelation - and had even had some really neat encounters where the Lord had used some scenarios to give me a real glimpse into that part of His love for us.  But, wow - seriously, I can’t even describe the depth of love - the wellspring of true agape that was uncapped in that one moment.

“No matter what you do - even if you never return any of my affections… I will always love you.”

Father, Daddy, God - I ask you to pour out any measure of this revelation, of Your heart, to the readers of this post, right now, in the name of Your Son.  Because any measure of such a deep thing is enough to soften harden hearts.  Please, Abba, let them feel Your unconditional heart for them, Your favorite child, in this very moment.

“No matter what you do - even if you reject me… I will always love you.”

It didn’t take any time of reflection for this thing to hit me with all of its truly spiritual force and signifigance.  It was an immediate download from my Daddy - His love for me has remained constant.  Even when I ran from Him… Even when I delighted in insulting and tearing-down His children… Even when I ignored Him and sought after my own pleasure… Even when my Mom died, and I felt His love, but decided to try and find peace in other places instead of falling into His arms… He showed me His love and affections, and I rejected Him.

“I will always love you.”

I felt the reality of “what if this little girl grows up and despises me - and wants nothing to do with me? What if she really rejects me?”  Words cannot explain the level of pain I experienced in that moment.  And I knew that this was the same pain that the Father had felt for me for so many years, and although things had gotten better (and I can even translate this into current circumstances), the rejection that He still feels when I continue to choose so many meaningless things over just spending time with Him.

Today I heard someone say something along the lines of, “When you choose to watch TV, even though you felt the prompting to just stop and spend time with the Lord - here is your real condition:  You are saying that the pleasures of God are inferior to the pleasures of the world.”  That’s really what it comes down to.  Imagine how that pains His heart.

But, sorry - I really felt the need to type this post as a encouragement into an encounter with the Most High Daddy.  But, I’m not going to take that back… I want to exhort you (”encourage into action”) to use your imagination (remember, your imagination is one of the parts of your being that Jesus made sure to cover with His choice of words when He said, “The first and greatest commandment is this: to love the Lord Your God with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, and all of your strength.”  I encourage you to use your imagination, and place yourself into that hospital room…. holding a tiny, tiny newborn baby wearing those white and blue striped little caps that all newborns seem to receive… staring at it’s red blotchy skin and tiny little lips… trying to get it’s delicate little fingers to wrap around your pinky… and say to it,

“No matter what you do - ever - I will always love you.”

Now imagine yourself in the place of the baby, looking up at your Abba, Father, God - even if your eyes can only see a few feet, and the light is just too new and bright for you… listen…

Listen…

Don’t you hate it when the Lord tells you something, and you realize that He had already told you that same thing like 9 years ago, and you haven’t been living it out.

Last week the Lord spoke the phrase to me, “Radical Obedience.”

Right as He was saying it, I looked over and saw a man with an eye patch in the church service.  I felt compelled to pray for for him - but, dude, it’s during the service, he’s in the middle of prayer-central - surely he’s had people all up in his business over-and-over again.  Yep - lots of excuses, and no action.

The next day I’m in the prayer room.  There he is again. Did I pray for him this time? No.  ARRRRR! What is my deal? It’s like 1996 all over again - I’ve gotten past this before, and I’ve seen some crazy awesome things of the Lord as a result.  Matter of fact…

I guess it was probably in mid ‘98, I was asked to speak at a youth conference, right as the Lord was really working some crazy obedience stuff in me, and asking me to do some really (possibly) humiliating things.  The title of the message was “Radical Obedience”.  About a week later, I’m at a pizza place with some friends (Derek Graves, Zach Drinkwitz, and Corey Russell - I believe is who it was), and we’re eating our pizza, and the Lord draws my attention very heavily to a group of three professional-looking middle-aged women, and highlights one of them in particular.  Then He told me,

“She is considering adultery - tonight.  The guy has been advancing, and she’s not happy in her marriage, and she’s going to say ‘Yes’ to the guy at work today when she gets back… and I want you to tell her that I know, and that her marriage will turn around for the better.”

Oh, Lord - how in the world do you say something like that to someone?  I fully expected that I wouldn’t be able to follow through with it, and that if I did, I would get slapped - at least.  So, I told the guys at the table that the Lord was giving me “a word” for someone in the restaurant, but that it was a really hard one, and that I needed some divine boldness to do it.  They prayed for me, and before we were even done, the three ladies get up and start to leave.  The guys are still praying for me, and the ladies are paying… now they’re walking out… and I jump up and pursue them.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” I say as she’s just about to slide into the passenger seat of the car.

“Yes?” she said.

And I told her what the Lord told me to tell her, forcing myself to resist years of martial arts training, and preparing myself to just take the slaps and resist my instincts to throw some blocks.

She began to cry, subtly, controlled, professional-like, but she cried; she didn’t say a word as she got back into the car, and they drove off.  Who knows where that lady and her husband (yes, Lord) are at today, but the point of that story is, dude - if I could deliver that word, why can’t I handle the humiliation of being “Captain Obvious” and asking this guy if I can pray for his eye.

I just found out yesterday, when telling Robin about this, that she and Gideon (my almost 5-year-old) had noticed that same man at a service last week.  Gideon told Robin that he wanted to pray for the man to “get a new eye”.  They didn’t go up to the guy, but, they did stop what they were doing and prayed right then and there.  That’s more than I did.  When I didn’t have the full measure of boldness and faith to approach the guy, I didn’t even bother to pray from a distance.

I once heard a great line during a young adult bible study.  Matthew Putman was teaching, and he said, “Humility comes from humiliation.”  Why don’t we ever equate these two words; they’re obviously from the same root.

The Lord is looking for people who are willing to be humiliated; for people who will give Him a chance to be glorified.  Though we are weak, He is strong.  In our weakness, strength is perfected. We have to step out of the boat. We have to lay hands on the sick and see them recover.  The worst case scenario?  I must decrease so that Christ may increase.

I’ll try to put a crazy story up that is along these same lines, about a friend named Steve Evans, and what the Lord asked him to do in China.  But that’s all for now, except for this request.  Just like that day in the pizza place:

Please pray for me to have boldness, grace, and the manifest power of God.  I will be praying for this man, soon.

There is a deceptive teaching in the modern American church that has been derived, just like all of the recorded deceptions of the Father of Lies, from truth, but askewed and fashioned out of partialities.  Okay, there’s… ahem… a few of those - but tonight, I’m going to write about one that the Lord has been opening up to me in the last 24 hours.  It’s about the powerlessness of the American church, and their justification of it.

Scriptures clearly point to the fact that man is made righteous (enough for salvation) by faith, not by works or we would boast about it.  That is undeniably the heart of God - our righteousness is filthy rags, and it’s only by the blood of the Lamb that we are cleansed and made worthy of eternal life in the presence of the Lord.  Thank you, Lord!

It is also true that Jesus tells us to do certain things in private.  In Matthew 6, Jesus lists three things, specifically, that we should do in private:  charitable deeds, prayer, and fasting.  Tonight I’m going to talk about the charitable deeds one, although the other two just opened up a whole new can-of-worms for me.

Charitable deeds, in this context appear to be specifically things related to giving or meeting people’s physical needs.  For example, sounding a trumpet and having town cryers announce, “John Smith is giving away hundreds of dollars to the poor and needy today at First Religious Church - that’s right: John Smith of First Religious Church. Thanks be to God for blessing <JOHN SMITH> so that he could, in his humility and sacrifice, give as the Lord has commanded and bless the poor.”

It seems to me that these two concepts have been dangerously intermingled in church doctrine.  The result being the paradigm that we should not desire to work in signs and wonders or any spiritual giftings, nor do the ground work often required to be released by the Lord in these good works - i.e. fasting, prayer, diligent & disciplined study and meditation on the scriptures, etc.  We have been taught that “we cannot attain to move in anything spiritual or supernatural, because it is all only by the grace of God - and not because of anything we can do, have done, or will ever do”, and that even to desire to do so would be prideful.

I can understand why this doctrine came about… it was to protect people from disappointment.  Come on, I mean, if you are prophesying and being used by the Lord to perform miraculous healings, but Sister Edna isn’t, we can’t blame it on anything that Sister Edna is, or isn’t, doing - that may motivate her to spend the rest of her left eargerly desiring to prophesy, and wasting a lot of time fasting and prayer, only to live with the constant disappointment of not seeing God move.

I can understand why some denominations have created and adhere to “dispensations” of the gifts of the Spirit.  We can’t have people thinking that this stuff is for today, but not moving in any of them - that would somehow make them feel inferior to other believers.

My Family, we need to be motivated to waste our lives pursuing by any means necessary the working of the Holy Spirit on and through our lives.  We need to work, with fear and trembling, at obtaining the Fruit of the Spirit in our lives.  We need to eagerly desire, and not relent in asking the Father, who is better than any earthly father, for the gift(s) of the Holy Spirit.  We need to burn-up our pride, at every opportunity, to lay our hands on the sick, and to pray a prayer of faith for them to recover.

(Emphasis added to show “works” - and, wow, just do a search on www.blueletterbible.com for the phrase “seek him”.)

1 Peter 3
(10)For “He who would love life
And see good days,
Let him refrain his tongue from evil,
And his lips from speaking deceit.
(11) Let him turn away from evil and do good;
Let him seek peace and pursue it.
(12) For the eyes of the LORD are on the righteous,
And His ears are open to their prayers;
But the face of the LORD is against those who do evil.”

Hebrews 11
(6) But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

The Lord is waiting for us to ACT in our faith, and to pursue Him, and to test Him.  But, Aaron, Hebrews 11 is the “By faith” chapter, not the “By works” chapter…

(4) By faith Abel offered
(7) By faith Noah prepared an ark
(8-10) By faith Abraham obeyed (and) dwelt (and) waited
(17) By faith Abraham offered up Isaac.

I’m just going to stop there, but the list goes on.  It is a list of faith accompanied by works.  So, you say, “No, Aaron - you’re reading into that, and adding emphasis just to throw me.”

James 2
(21) Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar?
(22) Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect?
(23) And the scripture was fulfilled which says, Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. And he was called the friend of God.
(24) You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.
<and going back>
(17) …faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

And if the words of the brother of Jesus aren’t enough, Here’s Jesus:

Matthew 5
(16) Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

So, does Jesus turn around in the next chapter and contradict himself? He just told us to let people see our good works, but in chapter 6 He tells us to do our charitable deeds in private.

Healing someone who is sick -
Prophesying the Heart and Word of the Lord and building-up other believers -
Asking the customer service girl for forgiveness as you work out the Fruit of patience, peace, and self-control -
Stopping torrential rain with a single-sentence-prayer so that the emergency workers can help an accident victim -
Boldy reading the Scriptures in public -

These are good works, not charitable deeds, and, although men may try to ascribe some bit of glory to you, personally, I can assure you that the Father in heaven will get the bulk of it.  And, you know what, (just like an instructor said in class yesterday), if you have some pride issues still in you that need to be dealt with, the Lord will deal with them… but don’t try to wait until you feel like you’re all free of pride and any glory-seeking before you start contending for the power of God to work through you.  ‘Cause you know, as soon as you realize that you have managed to rid yourself of all pride, you’re back at the drawing board.

Paul commands believers to pursue and desire spiritual gifts and fruit.  He wasn’t writing the letter to other apostles - he was writing it to regular ole believers (1 Corinthians 1:2) - and He commanded them: 

1 Corinthians 14
(1) Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.
(29) Therefore, bretheren, desire earnestly to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak with tongues.

“Okay, Aaron, so we keep seeing, seek, search, pursue, desire, act… so, How do I do that? What do I do? Where’s a good starting point? Show me a scripture that gives an example of a way to pursue a greater level of spiritual authority and power.”

Matthew 17
(14) And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying,
(15) “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water.
(16) “So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him.”
(17) Then Jesus answered and said, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me.”
(18) And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour.
(19) Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?”
(20) So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.
(21) “However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”

Pray - talk WITH the Lord - praise Him, ask Him, listen to Him, ask Him, thank Him, praise Him some more, listen some more. (Prayer includes worship; worship is prayer set to music - right? It should be, anyway.)  Ask the Lord for the Holy Spirit; ask the Holy Spirit for gifts of faith, His fruit, His gifts, and the same power that raised Christ from the dead to manifest outwardly in your life.

Fast - tell your carnal body and mind that what you hunger for and desire is not anything natural, it’s supernatural - it’s the justice and kingdom of God come on the earth (Matthew 5:6).  We have to remove the roadblocks to the outflow of power through our carnal bodies.

And, remember, you are a co-heir with Christ - to whom all authority in heaven and on earth has been given.  You ask “in the name of Jesus”, you don’t have to ask Jesus to do it for you, and you’ll stand there and watch.  What? Yeah - YOU have the authority to ask God to perform His will on the earth, by His Holy Spirit, through you… so, what are you going to do first?

I am one of those guys that the Lord gave a revelation of how our emotions were created specifically for Him; by Him.  And, when someone blames someone else’s zeal for the Lord, or their expression of worship to Him on “emotional hype”, it has always bothered me. In Mark 12:20, when asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus told His listeners,

“love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.”

He was quoting from The Law, given to Moses by the Lord, as recorded in Deuteronomy 6:5:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”

Why did Jesus add to it?  Look close… “all your mind”.   That wasn’t in the Old Testament, so why did Jesus say it that way?  The answer lies in the words that were used.  Both passages say the exact same thing, and are worded in such way to make sure that the listener would know that “all your <insert word>” really meant “every single part of your <insert word>”.  Take a look…

Deuteronomy 6:5

• heart = 03824 = lebab = inner man, mind, will, heart, soul, understanding, inner part, midst
• soul = 05315 = nephesh = self, appetite, mind, desire, emotion, passion
• might = 03966 = ma’od = force in the highest degree

Mark 12:30

• heart = 2588 = kardia = the literal heart, also regarded as the “seat of all phyiscal and spiritual life”, will, desires, and affections
• soul = 5590 = psukha (or psyche) = breath (of life), vital source that animates us, the seat of feelings, desires, affections, and aversions, the part of us not “dissolved by death”
• mind = 1271 = dianoia = faculty of understanding, feeling, and desiring - understanding, thoughts, imagination
• strength = 2479 = ischys = ability, force, strength, might, power

The Lord really went out of His way in both the Old and New Testament to make sure that we understood what He desired from us - nay, what He expected (even commanded) of us.  Let me write it in such a way that expresses what the listeners of Jesus and Moses might have heard:

“You are to intimately desire the Lord Your God with the very core of your life, your will, and all of your loving affections. You are to strive to love Him with your eternal inner being, and your every breath.  You are to passionately pursue love for Him in your understanding, your thoughts, and your feelings.  And, with all of the physical strength and ability you possess, run to Him.”

The Almighty Father had His bridegroom Son in mind when He created His bride for Him.  He had HIMSELF in mind when He created each us.  In His jealousy, He desired us, and would ask for nothing less than for our every desire and affection to be lavished upon Him and His Son. 

So, you can call the next extravagant worshiper or empassioned preacher you see “too emotional”, “hyper-spiritual”, or even “flakey” if you would like - but I warn you: that would be like you slandering my beautiful bride, Robin, to my face - there would be consequences.  I wonder what the Lord’s consequences would be for You if you continued slandering His bride?

All of that being said, I found myself doing the same thing up here at IHOP.  A couple of times, an instructor has gotten up and said something similar to, “I really felt the presence of God ramp up in here.”  In each of those situations, something had happened that would easily pull on the heart strings of just about any human in the room.  So, my thought was, “hmm… it seems a little wrong to equate an obviously emotional experience with the presence of God.”  I mean, really, does that mean the song Butterfly Kisses (which does make me cry everytime I hear it, now that I have my own precious baby girl - sniff), or the majority of the movie Braveheart is anointed with the very presence of God just because it stirs us emotionally?

I’m about to shock you, and even myself… Yes.

Well, kind of.  It’s not that they particularly carry any sort of anointing, but the things that move us emotionally are the very things that move and stir the emotions of God.  We were created in His image.  Both of us, male and female.  How often in the Bible does it speak about having a “hard heart” - do you think it just meant “hard to the Lord”?  Can your heart be hardened to the Lord and still be soft in other areas? (Not to be confused with having a reprobate mind - and being calloused to the conviction of the Spirit.)  Why are so many green, earth, animal rights type people so hateful and mean to people who don’t agree with them?  Well, it’s probably the same reason many so-called Christians are the same way - they have shut themselves off from the emotional pursuit of God and to the tenderness and vulnerability that it requires.

Let’s just take those two poor examples I listed above as it relates to how in the world they could be equated with the emotions or presence of the Lord.

Butterfly Kisses
Wow! You want to talk about the “Father Heart of God”.  He is a loving, jealous Father who longs for us to call Him, “Abba, Papa, Daddy!”  He greatly desires our affections and our undivided attention.

Braveheart
He is the jealous, avenging Lover-Warrior, who gives His life, even unto torture and death, to avenge His bride, and so that the people who believe in Him can be free.

And it was like an instructor was sharing yesterday - the plot-lines of the Bible (which are all true and real) are the same plot-lines of almost every successful work of art and literature created by humans.  That’s because these are the things that move the ultimate creator, Yah.  It’s because they are reality, they are destined to really happen, and because He has given us His emotions, and written His convictions on our hearts.

• The girl is wrongly forced into the place of abject slavery, poverty, mire, and other abusive and obverse things.
• The girl has an encounter with the Hero/King, captures His heart, and is herself woo’d and enthralled in love by Him.
• The villian, being too cowardly and weak to face the Hero directly, emprisons the girl.
• The villian begins to brainwash the girl into thinking she isn’t good enough for the Hero, or sometimes even orchestrates scenarios to convince the girl that the Hero doesn’t love her, or is in love with another more gracious and beautiful.
• The Hero finally makes it to the girl, but is often times rejected by her, because of her own insecurities and the deceptions to which she has fallen prey.
• The Hero defeats the villian.
• The Hero steals the girl away, as she realizes that His heart really is for her, and they live happily ever after.

Just as the heavens declare the glory of God, and the skies show His handiwork, you can even find the heart and revelations of God in all creation - even (while practicing discernment and making it line up with scripture) in the creations of His creation - the works of man.

So, I encourage you to search hard after the Lord, and to pursue Him with all of your affections and desires - and when the villian comes, that eternal accuser, run to the King, our Hero, bow down, and kiss Him.

It’s not often (okay, ever) that I feel eager or excited about going-to and/or doing something - anything.

Well, I got asked this afternoon if I could go to the inner city of Kansas City and play djembe for a worship team that goes every Monday night and serves, worships, teaches, and just hangs with kids down there.  I’m excited.

It doesn’t even matter that I don’t know who the rest of the team is, and what songs they may be doing - my heart is still very much for youth, kids, young adults, and missions (foreign or domestic).

More later…

(The Next Day)

Okay, well, it wasn’t kids, it was for a congregation in the inner city that has committed themselves to the current 40-days-for-40-years fast, and is meeting twice a week for worship, intercession, and fellowship.  It was still a great time and the people were very warm and sincere.  Their prayers, specifically for the fatherless and for the poor and oppressed, were so powerful and genuine.  I’m sure it was not only moving to me, but to the heart of God.

Which reminds me… (read “All of Your Heart”)

I don’t know why (it’s probably because of too much other stuff swirling in my head), but sometimes when I hear the voice of the Lord it is crystal clear and undoubtable, and other times I have to wrestle with whether it’s me or Him.  I mean, seriously, why doesn’t He just drop audible voices or angelic visitations on us regularly if He really wants us to do His will?

I believe that Jesus Himself, through Himself - the written Word of God - has given us the answer to this very question.

“And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him,
    though He bears long with them?
“I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?”  - Luke 18:8

Jesus gave this teaching so

“…that men always ought to pray and not lose heart,”  - Luke 18:1

The Lord desires people who will press into Him.  Even though He may take a long time (”bears long with them”) to answer them clearly, when He does move it will be decisive and quick.  But, the real question is, will we keep praying and believing that He really will do what He said He would do (”will He really find faith on the earth”)?

“But, Aaron, you started off talking about ‘Hearing God’ and now you’re talking about ‘prayer and faith’.  Did you forget what you were typing, or do you just like taking verses out of context?”

To that, I ask you the question, “What is prayer?”

Even though we know better, most of us still think of prayer as “talking TO the Lord”, when in fact, it is “talking WITH the Lord”.  It’s the great dialogue that the Lord desired from the beginning of human history (and maybe even before that, in the heart of God).  We forget from where the power of effective prayer comes.

When we ask according to His will we get what we ask for.  Therefore, a prerequisite to asking is knowing that what we are about to ask is the will of God.  How then do we know the will of God?  It is one of the primary ministries of the Holy Spirit to take what is the Father’s and make it known to us, and to lead us into all truth.  And Jesus says that the difference between us and servants is that He tells us His business/His plans.

To be able to pray effectively, we have to be able to hear effectively.  And since we know that the job of the Holy Spirit is to reveal the will of the Father (i.e. tell us stuff), then we are left to do a lot of listening.

Although this is entirely too simplistic looking, here are the steps to hearing the Lord and seeing prayers answered:

• Be drawn by the Spirit of God into believing that “Jesus is Lord”, acknowledging that truth by faith and confessing it with your mouth.  At that time the Holy Spirit will indwell you and begin leading you through His counsel, conviction, and comfort.
• Ask the Lord to be clothed with power by the Holy Spirit, and He, being a good father, will give you the gift of the Holy Spirit to those who ask.
• Study the Bible - the Word of God, so that you can learn what the Lord has said and done in the past, and what He has said for the future, so that when you do hear Him speak, you’ll have the ultimate reference by which to judge and test the words you have heard to be sure that they line-up with what we KNOW is the words of the Lord.
• Offer yourself as a living sacrifice to God, stop being like the world, and let the Word and the Spirit renew your mind, so that you will be able to test and approve the will of God - His good, pleasing, and perfect will.  This is accomplished by the mercy of God and by His grace for fasting, prayer, and helping keep us from evil.  I believe part of the “living sacrifice” is being willing to be humiliated, too (see “Start doing!” below).
• Start listening.
• Practice discernment.  Use the Bible as completely authoritive to measure all words, and submit what you hear to those who are more mature in the Lord than you, so that in a multitude of counselors you can gain wisdom into whether your discernment is accurate or not.
• Start doing!  Do not be a hearer of the word only.  This doesn’t apply only to hearing a man teach scripture, this applies to stepping out of the boat, and having a faith accompanied by works, and giving the Lord opportunities to work miraculously in and through your life.  If your actions have lined up with scriptures, have been affirmed by mature believers, and you still don’t see anything happen, then either (a) the Lord is working humility in you, (b) the Lord is working patience in you and wants you to be persistent like the widow in Luke 18 and the neighbour in Luke 11, (c) it requires more fasting [Matthew 17], (d) there’s some variable we just aren’t aware of - and you can take it as (a), or (e) you missed it.  Big Deal!  If it lined up with the Word, just keep on keeping on.

With the exception of angelic visitations and audible voices, you’ll never know that you are hearing the voice of the Lord if you don’t start studying scriptures, practicing discernment, and seeing if the Lord will be faithful in what He’s telling you about.  So, go for it!

Note: I’m going to come back and edit this later with exact scripture references for every scripture I used later - my daughter is sitting here praying that the Lord will help me finish quickly so that she can go to the store with me before this evening’s service.  :)  I’ve got to partner with the Lord on this one so her faith will increase. 

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  - Jeremiah 29:11

“…we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.”  - I Corinthians 2:7

We have no doubt: The Lord has asked us to devote our lives to the Word, prayer, the Gospel, worship, and the local church.  We knew for certian that the Lord asked us to quit our secular employment and pursue a deeper revelation of who He is and how He longs to be involved in our lives and region by effectual fervent prayer - despite the reservations and counsel of a few friends and family who thought it was just plain crazy (and even wrong) to have went to school for 4 years just to quit your nice paying job when you have three small children and a beautiful bride to support.

Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men…

…we chose to follow the direction of the Lord, in conjunction with the counsel of many we knew to be spiritually discerning - and here we are, in all of our foolishness at the EXACT time the Lord has arranged for us, since even before time began.

Unless we hear an audible voice, we are moving back to Arkansas at the end of August and will begin devoting ourselves to prayer, worship, the public reading of scriptures (via prayer, worship, spoken word), and to equipping saints to do the same - and to live victorious lives that hunger for the knowledge of God.  We know that part of that will be establishing a facility to, uh, facilitate these things (make note of that).

I haven’t posted my “May Day” article, yet, because many of you heard our testimony directly (and it’s long), but, Robin and I knew that when we quit our jobs and started down this road, that we needed some time to get into unity, to get some very clear direction from the Lord, and to humble ourselves and seek more counsel and equipping by people who have been doing similar things with great fruit (as in results, not, well, fruit).  With all of our relationships at IHOP it seemed like the perfect choice - but I did have a lot of reservations.

Well, as you will see in the “May Day” article, the Lord drastically confirmed that we needed to go to IHOP for a summer internship in May.  Now, unknown to anyone (except internal leadership I’m sure) until just a few days ago, IHOP is opening a second prayer room a few miles from the current one.  The crazy part… our internship is going to staff it.  That’s right.  Apparently, from day one, we will be the intercessors and musicians.  We will be the sound techs.  We will be the ushers.

Wow - just think - after eight years of doing this 24/7, there has been a lot of lessons learned, and they’ve realized a lot of the things they could have done better - facility-wise, sound-wise, lighting-wise - all of those lovely logistical things that we now get the full benefit of seeing built, literally.  Imagine that - just in time to go back home and put all of this very practical and very spiritual wisdom into full use.

If we would have come in January… we wouldn’t have seen it.
If we would have come in August… we wouldn’t have done it.

The Lord plugged us in - called us out - at the EXACT time that He ordained.  Man.

I was chatting with one of the IHOP staff today about this and he said, “Man, I’m glad you guys listened, ’cause if you wouldn’t have walked down such a clearly paved way, there would have been a major price to pay.”  And, although the price we will (and our) paying is high, and a life devoted to something the world (and even many in the church) think is foolishness will be difficult, the cost of disobedience would have been much greater - even if that “cost” is just the reward we’ll miss in the end, when the Lord’s “wisdom is justified by all her children”.

Before Week One was even over (of this 3-month internship Robin and I are in), I was asked to lead a “set” in the Harp & Bowl model of intercessory prayer & worship - and it killed me.  For people just looking in (or hearing about) IHOP from the outside, it probably looks like a completely free, Spirit-manifesting, crazy-roller-coaster-ride of an experience, with all of these “super star” worshipers - well, all of those things are probably true, BUT, the amount of structure that everyone on the teams has to adhere to is extensive.  It governs every possible situation and expression.  Who can sing when, what they are suppose to sing (at the core), how long they can sing, how many times they can sing it, etc, etc.

When they first started teaching the model, it would be easy (very easy) to think that all of these rules and regulations are religious and controlling.  I heard the teachers say a phrase similar to this, many times this week, “If we just tried to flow with complete spontenaity all of the time, you could maybe go for a month, or six months, or a year at most - but the model actually promotes spontenaity, and allows us to sustain it for years, forever, while still being able to engage just about anyone who comes in to intercede with us, from just about any culture or background.”

Yeah, that sounded fine - but it still seemed pretty rigid.  Well, there I was on the platform, and the teacher had picked the songs, at the last minute he changed the key (so now what was written on my page wasn’t even what I could play), they were songs I was only passingly familiar with, and I’m trying to follow all of these rules about how everything fits into the structure - oh, with 7 other musicians I’d never played with before, who all weren’t matching up stylistically (or tempo-ly), and, wow, it felt like Exon-Valdiz, and I was the captain who was reponsible.

To top it all off: I had printed a couple of songs that I knew were well-known enough that I could bring them and people would know them, and that I knew so well that I could have focused on the model instead of my instrument… well, he didn’t ask if I had any music, and I didn’t offer. But, then, to rub it in, the next team that got up (we do 2 teams each session) did those EXACT songs, in the exact key and everything.

I love the Lord’s sense of humor, and His occassional, “nana nana boo boo”.

He wanted to kill me more, and although it hurts, I knew I wanted Him to, too.

“He must increase, but I must decrease.”
John 3:30

“Though He slay me, yet I will trust Him.”
Job 13:15

Then, afterwards, as I was praying and reflecting on it all, the Lord, in an instant, revealed the truth of what the teachers had been saying.  I’ve always known that when I show up to lead worship that if the Holy Spirit doesn’t show up manifestly that I have nothing to give the people gathered.  So, what then, do I just plan on showing up over-and-over for a growing number of believers, and risk having nothing to give them (and thus waste their time) because of something going on in my own life? Do I lead the entire worship team down a path to nowhere? No.

The wisdom in the Harp & Bowl model is that it is completely focused on the edification of the saints, through a consistent reliance on scripture, and if the Holy Spirit doesn’t manifest, there is a confidence that the Word of God was exalted, and Him/It alone - without ANY hype, ever.

I can dig that.