Ep 6:10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.

If this Ephesians scripture true, it references a power that we are supposed to be strong in. But what power does the world see in the church today? Why is there but little evident power in the church today?

In order to answer this question, we must first understand what and who this power is.

The power of the Christ, who also is the same power that is supposed to manifest in the church is he the Holy Spirit.

All power belongs to God and is given to us to use according to his desire and purpose. We can do nothing in our own power because right power is only his to give. The war we fight is spiritual and which then requires spiritual supernatural power to be successful in the fight. Therefore in order to succeed, we must appropriate the ability to do so. We must then understand that of our own we are unable. Of our own, we will lose the fight.

We own or possess no power. But we operate in God’s power as a willfully submitted conduit according to his will and timing. Therefore any release of power from the Father into us by the Holy Spirit occurs in those who are furthering his Kingdom purpose only when he chooses to anoint or endue us with power. The key then to right release of power within me is to know his will and be in submission to every authority that he has given me. The basis behind this authority and the essence of which this authority resides is love. Love is the very fullness of everything in the Kingdom. The revelation and manifestation of love then is the root of all power in heaven and on earth.

Holy Spirit

Rev 19:1b Salvation and glory and power belong to our God…

1Co 12:11 All these (supernatural gifts) are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.

The power of the Holy Spirit is the power that was clearly evident in the first church. He is the power of Pentecost, the power of the cross. In him is the power by which we are supposed to be able to:

Mt 10:7-8 As you go, preach this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.

When the Holy Spirit shows up in power, the Kingdom of heaven has come near. When the Holy Spirit shows up, the mind of Christ is made known. When the mind of Christ has been made known, the will of Father God has been revealed. They are each God and they are all as one. This is the ultimate demonstration of the authority of the Kingdom, that three parts of God can be one in unity and submission. The fullness of the Kingdom of God is dependant on this chain of authority between Father, Son and Spirit.

Interestingly though, because they each prefer each other, that authority is not vertical, it is lateral. Even more, one might see that this authority can be seen as vertical in the reverse! Since the Spirit does nothing but what the Son says, the Spirit has lowered himself below Christ in humility. Since the Son does nothing but what the Father says, so it is that he has lowered himself for the same purpose. In reality, there is no one of the three above the other. They are the perfect personification of love that prefers the other over themselves. The end result is a moving wheel of love that is not lopsided at any part. None of the three take a greater position than the other.

True love operates in this way. And so is it that true authority should. We prefer each other above self. Therefore true authority looks up to those we serve, unlike the world that condescends. The result is the power of perfect love. The result is a manifestation of the heart that releases anointing to do what no person can do of their own.

True power absolutely requires the power of perfect love.

So it is with us. When we are under this kind of authority, the Kingdom comes near, power is released, and love is made known. And again, love is the start and finish of it all.

I am convinced; this is the hour that Father God is renewing the mind of the church by the Holy Spirit. He is restoring us by instilling in leadership a consciousness of need for this power to be restored back into the church. He is causing church leadership to be curious, hungry and thirsty for deeper intimacy with the Lord. He is doing this because he wants his church to know of his love the way he meant for us to know him since the first church. This restoration of the revelation of the Father’s heart of love leads to a byproduct of power. In such a way, power is not the focus, Jesus becomes the focus. Why? In a word, love. He loves us. The power of love has the ultimate result of revealing this great love in revelation form.

Love leads to anointing and power. Power produces revelation knowledge. The revelation leads to love. So the fullness of love is manifested and revealed in power. Without the power, it must stand to reason then that there is a great measure of loving missing.

Talent or Anointing?

There is such an evident fear that manipulates the church away from these radical spiritual miraculous things.

However, perfect love casts out all fear.

I Jn 4:18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

All power is released by the Holy Spirit. But because the church is all but devoid of the Holy Spirit, there is little or no power in the church. In such a place, fear runs rampant.

In such places, what remains is only the best man can do by talent alone. There is little or no anointing to empower the call. Our love becomes the love of man, which is at best flawed.

Paul told the Roman Gentiles:

Ro 15:18-19 I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done— by the power of signs and miracles, through the power of the Spirit.

How could Paul have convinced anyone about anything spiritual without the power of the Holy Spirit to make him able? And we’re not talking about just the revealed word here; we are talking about signs and miracles!

Again Paul says:

1Co 1:17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

And Paul again says:

1Co 2:4-5 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.

The church is strongly exhorted in the following words:

1Co 4:20 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.

Why is Power Missing?

So why then is power all but missing from the church? One very important issue is a lack of faith that is based in fear. We tend to fear failure. We tend to fear what people think of us. We tend to fear that we are in error by moving into a former unknown thing. We fear change. We fear the devil. We fear the Lord even in unrighteous ways.

There is a great balance to fear. We are not to fear a thing in the world. But we are to fear the Lord. There is a point of balance between gripping fear and godly fear. We are not to have any gripping fear, but we are to be in fear of the Lord.

But perfect love casts out all fear. What fear? Gripping fear. Perfect love also makes way for the righteous fear of the Lord. For it is true that the basis for “the fear of the Lord” is not found in a cowering fear, but in an intimate love relationship that causes me to so love the Father and the Son that I fear him in love. So perfect love casts out all fear and sets me up in the fear of the Lord, which is love! Perfect love brings into balance the issue of fear in line with Kingdom truth.

Kingdom Balance

Perfect love manifests in the church a restoration of “balance” in all ministry works within the Body.

Now I understand that the term “balance” is a four-letter word to some spiritual leaders, but read carefully how I define Kingdom balance below before you shut down on this point?

Perfect love reveals Kingdom truth. Kingdom truth has nothing to do with the world and its physical laws. Therefore it has nothing to do with worldly reason. This revelation of Kingdom truth sheds light on God’s points of truth in whatever areas the Lord wills to show it. We come to a place of understanding any point of Kingdom truth and how radically different it is from the ways of the world. Therefore, the definition the Lord establishes for any point of truth is radically different from the world’s point of truth. The world calls it’s point of truth balance. The Lord calls his point of truth “truth”. The Lord’s truth is always different from the point of balance that the world has defined. So as the world defines a point of balance, that point rarely if ever is identical to God’s point of truth on the same issue.

In the world, balance is compromise. It is Yin and Yang. It is a half way between two extremes. It accepts the good with the bad. It is ungodly. But God’s balance is like a pinpointed lightning strike! It is always radical and Kingdom spiritual, and which can only be revealed, not concluded. Kingdom truth has no connection to worldly truths. In fact the worldly mind cannot comprehend Godly truth. The worldly mind is incapable of understanding Kingdom truth. It must first be yoked to the Spirit and dead to self before revelation can be made. Independence causes blindness to Kingdom truth. Dependence opens the door to Kingdom truth.

Why is this discussion so important? Because in order to be restored to the power moves of God in the church, we must first be revealed to how important it is for us to succeed by way of new and fresh revelation. We must be revealed to God’s point of truth regarding this power of which I speak. We must have a paradigm shift in the knowledge of God’s points of truth as they relate to the manifestation and purpose of the Holy Spirit in the church!

We must come to an understanding that this love is far more powerful that the world thinks or even can comprehend. We must come to the understanding that this love is the root of all deeper wisdom, knowledge and power; the very Kingdom of God manifesting in and upon us in the church and which is available for us here and now.

Faith

In the revelation of this great love, each person is revealed to his or her place. Manifested perfect love, as revealed into the church by the Holy Spirit reveals the fact that no one is disqualified to either give or receive out of the abundance of it. Therefore the one and two talent people in the church should not be held back, but encouraged to express their anointing as revealed by the Spirit in the church.

However the reality in today’s church is that perfect love is not yet fully manifested. And so we deal with the flesh in our members and in the church Body. The result is that we all struggle with measures of fear both in our lives and in the church.

As a child, there was a covering over me. I loved easily and without a fear of man. The days were endless and there was no anxiety. But as an adult, I came out from under my generational coverage and into a place of responsibility to accept Christ of my own volition. It became incumbent upon me to have faith in all things. The depths of my spiritual understanding became a matter of my own right choices. As well, the measure of my error manifested by my wrong choices.

I needed to find the Holy Spirit just as I needed to find Christ. As with my necessity for faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit required also my faith in him to reap from him. I came under the effects of my flesh and unbelief that we all deal with. I was faced with the choice to accept the supernatural or not.

John 14:16-17 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever– the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

As an adult, I not only needed Christ, I needed the Spirit both in me and with me for both salvation and effectiveness in the here and now. Jesus became my all in all. But the Spirit became my power and revelator for the here and now. As it was in the first church, so it is today. As if Jesus was standing before us in the flesh, he asks each of us today, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you first believed?”

Acts 19:1-6 While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” So Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?” “John’s baptism,” they replied. Paul said, “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” On hearing this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.

When they heard of the need for baptism into the Holy Spirit, they believed and then were baptized. Faith for the Spirit was born in them. Only after did they receive the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands.

Rom 10:17 Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.

So therefore, all thing overcoming and all things regarding my growth in the here and now require me to accept in faith, to receive and then to flow in the River of the Holy Spirit. He brings to me the manifestation of the Kingdom of God on earth.

John 16:13-15 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.

Without him, I am unable to move into spiritual maturity. Without him I am unable to overcome the flesh within me. Without him, I am unable to enter into a state of effectiveness in this world. Without him, I am left with the far inferior mind of man within me to decide what is right and true. Without him, I can never hit the benchmark of spiritual truth in any Kingdom understanding. Without him, I am like a dart thrower who has been blindfolded. Imagine the mess I make when I start to throw the darts towards what I think is the center point of truth!

Mercy and Grace

God is not asking for perfection in us regarding this way of independence. Even with the Holy Spirit, I cannot enter into perfection in these things while in this world. For still, while in this world, we will be dealing with troubles of every kind. As the word says, there is no one who has not sinned, no not one. And we have all fallen short of the glory of God. Praise God for the sacrifice Christ made for me! Oh how I need him daily!

The gap between perfection and our individual way of life is called “mercy.” The power of repentance and restoration for our imperfections that was born on the cross for us is called “grace.” And so as in Nahum Chapter 2, we the warriors of God stumble along the way. That is OK with God. He just wants us to get up, dust off and in repentance move on.

2 Cor 6:4 Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses…

Phil 4:13-14 I can do everything through him who gives me strength. Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles.

So as to fear, we will never be perfect in the overcoming of it. Yet in all things, I can do anything in Christ who strengthens me. We are perfectly loved and perfectly saved, and perfectly covered… in an imperfect body that is in an imperfect world. The result will be troubles. Though momentary and meaningless, we deal with them. How? By perfect love.

Included in this perfect love is mercy for mistakes and powerful grace to overcome.

Oh how great is the need to the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in all we do today! Now not only do we need the Spirit to manifest revelation knowledge of Christ, but also to overcome our momentary troubles to remain free and in joy!

When I surrender my all in faith to Jesus and in the Holy Spirit, these things are revealed to me. But the flesh curse I deal with that came to me from Adam, the knowledge of good and evil, that thing that works in my members and wars against me, constantly attempts to minister fear into my soul. It is by this that I fear in an ungodly way. But praise the Lord for the manifestation of the River of God! In the Spirit, I am constantly renewed day by day in my mind by the revelation of joy and love and the mind of Christ given me by the Holy Spirit.

2 Cor 4:16-18 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Fears have to flee in the River of God! Perfect love is manifested in his Presence! Perfect love casts out all fear.

In the River I am shifted and aligned. In the River I am healed and restored. In the River all things are made new. In the River I am given unto the power of perfect love upon me. In the River the Kingdom of God comes near me.

It’s like a wheel. I go round and round. I go into the Presence, then into the world. I get knocked around a bit by the world, certain ungodly things stick to me. Then I come in again, as an act of my will, back into His Presence. I get cleaned up, re-revealed to his love, and anointed anew. Then I go back into the world, back into the Presence, back into the world, then into his Presence and then back into the world once again. Round and round I go in the great circle of life as a man of God. I move from freedom to freedom, from love to love, from glory to glory, in the ever increasing revelation of Father God upon me and within me that sets me up to overcome and reap! Faith, hunger, love, power, then ability. Then it starts all over again. Surrounding all of this is love.

In the River of God comes the revelation of love. The revelation of love casts out all fear. In such a way of going, in all things I am able in Christ, who by the Holy Spirit just then made me able in all things. If I don’t go in again and again, I will miss the new release I need desperately.

So then all things of the Holy Spirit are first a revelation of love. Everything of the Kingdom manifests from this benchmark of revelation truth. This is why the greatest commandment is to love. If I am ever to understand anything of the economy of the Kingdom of God in this lifetime, it first requires a healthy revelation of perfect love. Now I know that contrary to the voice of the world that say either “you can’t” or “you can but in your own power”, I can! And that not of my own, but based upon a dependence upon the Holy Spirit of God, that River to which I must return again and again.

Faith without works is dead. Works without Kingdom power is meaningless. Kingdom power without love is unavailable. As such, we are called to do the work. But the road to supernatural Kingdom success can only be seen or known through one’s eyes of love.

Self Death (Dependence)

In speaking of the end times, the Lord warns us about residences of faith without power:

2Ti 3:5 …having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.

We are told of the Spirit by whom we have the following:

2Ti 1:7 For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.

Like the author of Philemon, I want to know Jesus and the power of his resurrection!

Phl 3:10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death…

I want to be so dead to self that Christ can be alive in me in power. Power then manifests from a place of submission. Submission manifests from a heart that is faithful and a mind yoked first under the authority of the Father and Son, second to the church and then to those in the world to whom the person serves. All these things require selflessness. They require that I be emptied of my will.

Kingdom revealed authority releases power (not authority as man defines it). The willingness to submit to authority is found in a heart of love and then obedience to Father God. The fullness of such submission is found in selflessness.

1Jn 2:1-5 My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him…

Perfect love is a supernatural supply of “life essence” from heaven. There is no natural perfect love. The only place perfect love is made, established and released from is in the Presence of the Lord. It comes to us from the Kingdom of God. This is quit possibly the very reason God asks us to pray this in the first sentence of the Lord’s Prayer. God takes measures of it from up there and gives it down here into the world through his church.

Ep 3:17b-18…And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ…

Love is revealed in the power of the Spirit.

Col 1:8 and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.

Paul is complimenting the love of the Colossians by stating that their excellence in love as having come “in the Spirit”.

Why did Paul say, “your love in the Spirit?” Why did he not simply commend them on their “love”? Why did he add the words “in the Spirit?” Could it be that the primary place to remain in right love is in the presence of the Spirit? Could it be that for love to be rightly expressed, the Spirit is the key? I am certain this is true.

Any form of “love” outside of the presence of the Holy Spirit can only be lacking at very best. In fact the world really does not know love outside the revelation of the Father’s heart for mankind. The farther away from godliness it goes, perversion sets in. In reality, any form of love that is not in perfect love is perverted to one extent or another.

Perversion is defined in Webster’s like this:

1a: to cause to turn aside or away from what is good or true or morally right : CORRUPT
b: to cause to turn aside or away from what is generally done or accepted : MISDIRECT
2a: to divert to a wrong end or purpose : MISUSE
b: to twist the meaning or sense of : MISINTERPRET

This is the very language of the enemy of God. It is the very purpose of the devil to take what is so important to the Father and to falsify it so as to disqualify it. We have an enemy that wants to cause us and the world to be lost in false truth. How does he do this? He works to cause the church to take what is so important to God and cause the church to believe that it is not important, even worse, not right.

If perfect love casts out all fear, then the enemy is going to do everything he can to cause perfect love to be misunderstood. If where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom, then the enemy of God will do whatever he can to put the fire of the Spirit out in the church to establish bondage.

It is for this reason that the revelation of perfect love is so come against in the world and in the minds of people. Perfect love releases the power of the Lord. The release of Kingdom love into the world brings the fullness of God’s Kingdom power into the world. The devil gets forcibly displaced when perfect love manifests into the world! Manifestations of evil is directly come against. The result is a step closer for the enemy towards the lake of eternal fire.

Kingdom wisdom starts with revelation love. By this wisdom the enemy will be defeated every time. Though we deal with troubles of every kind, in reality, the enemy is forced out of the way or backwards as we supernaturally reap a harvest for Jesus Christ!

As such, perfect love is our sacrifice for him!

Conclusion

The closer we move towards perfect love in these last days, the closer we come to literally touching the face and heart of the Father. In such a place, the power of the Kingdom begins to manifest on earth. This whole thing is all about intimacy! In such a place, no fear may reside!

This is what the Lord wants of us. This is the progression. Be thirsty and faithful that there is more. Seek the Presence, and wait for him to come. Become filled with his Spirit. In that place of wonderful joy, become revealed to the fact that he first loved you with an unfailing love. Be made known to what he thinks of you even in your flawed state. Be made known to the revelation of grace. Love him in return with the sacrifice of you flesh and soul. Die to self. Submit to the authority of the Father and then of the church. Then start it all over again by returning to the River again and again.

If it is true that “of the increase of the government (Kingdom) of God there is no end” (Isaiah 9:7), then enough is never enough! There will always be more to be had.

Certainly it can also be said that no man has seen all there is of God. If the greatest a person has ever attained is a grain of sand, then the greatness of God through us is like a beach full of sand, the grains of which cannot be counted.

Who then is any person to think that he or she has attained to the fullness of all knowledge? The point is that there will always be something to be revealed to. We will always need to go back into the River to gain the new thing, the next thing. This is so very important.

If it is true that the body requires regular hydration, then so it also is that the soul and the church Body requires regular spiritual hydration found only in the River of living water. Lest I go spiritually bone dry, I must come back to the River again and again to drink.

Wait for him by worshiping in love until the presence falls? Soak in him until he is thru? Don’t look at your watch as you seek the Father? Then move out in power, under the authority of the call and under the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Reap your harvest.

If perfect love casts out all fear, then no worldly thing can possibly stand against a Kingdom warrior such as this!

Ep 6:10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.

The power of perfect love…

“Why did you not believe?”

John 3:1-12 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
“How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!”
Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.
You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
“You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things?
I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?

Here was a man, this Nicodemus, who was trying to figure it out. He was thinking. He was seriously trying to grasp in his own thinking and in his own mind the answers to who Jesus was and how one can be saved.

Consider the difference between conclusion and revelation.

This Nicodemus was incapable of hearing as God defined hearing. Hearing and seeing the Kingdom of God is a supernatural ability. To see and understand the things of the Kingdom of God requires Kingdom knowledge. Kingdom knowledge comes only by way of Kingdom revelation.

Kingdom revelation comes only by the manifest Presence of the Holy Spirit who comes and brings such knowledge. Only those “born of the Spirit” can understand it. Only those who move in the manifest Presence can comprehend Kingdom stuff. This is why Jesus speaks of the Spirit before making this statement. Everyone born of the Spirit moves in the Spirit. They understand what Jesus meant when He spoke of the Spirit’s goings and comings.

The only way to gain spiritual Kingdom truth is to be revealed to it by the Holy Spirit. I cannot conclude Kingdom knowledge by my reason, I must be revealed to it.

John 16:13-15 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.

The definition of “all” is all! All Kingdom truth comes by way of revelation knowledge. We can’t figure it out. Therefore we must cease trying to figure God out in our own thinking and let the Revealer of mysteries bring us the truth that He wants us to understand.

If the Holy Spirit is the one who brings all truth, then there is no Heavenly Kingdom truth that is any truth at all that has not first been revealed.

One can read the Bible all day long and get nothing out of it. One can ask questions all day long, get good worldly answers, and never gain God’s key point of value. In such a case is what Jesus means when He says:

Mark 8:18a “Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear?”

Only by the Holy Spirit of God thru a humble heart will we gain spiritual truth expressed in spiritual terms!

Dan 2:26-29 The king asked Daniel (also called Belteshazzar), “Are you able to tell me what I saw in my dream and interpret it?” Daniel replied, “No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in days to come. Your dream and the visions that passed through your mind as you lay on your bed are these: “As you were lying there, O king, your mind turned to things to come, and the revealer of mysteries showed you what is going to happen.

The Kingdom of God is a mystery. Who can understand it by the mind of man alone? It’s up there and we’re down here. What is real up there is so vastly in excess and so greatly superior to what we know down here. But Christ died on the cross so that we would be given the Holy Spirit, the Councilor who would lead us into all truth.

We cannot understand by what we think. We understand by dependence. We can only understand by what we are revealed to by faith. Understanding does not bring faith. Faith brings understanding.

I can read the word of God all day long and still completely miss what God is trying to say to me. Even the devil knows the word of God. Rather, it is by a dependent faith that I can understand what the Lord wants me to know. It is by faith I can heal the sick, cast out demons and raise the dead. It is by faith that we can see thousands of souls saved in a day. It is by faith that we gain revelation of the Kingdom of God and then move in it.

It is by faith that we give God control of our meetings. It is by faith that we let Him lead without fear of the enemy or the flesh and without fear of loosing control. It is by faith that we fall to the floor in His Presence and receive. It is by faith that the joy of the Spirit is released in a place.

But now I hear the Lord saying it again and again, “Why do you not believe?” Today, He speaks this same question to church leadership. Is it not true that the church can only go as far as a leadership has faith?

Faith in works is a dead faith. Faith without works is a dead faith. Right faith in alignment with God’s radical ways and supernatural truths is the only way to reap a supernatural reward. These are the radical men and woman of God that are being forged in this hour. It is a leadership like this that will lead their people into Biblical exploits. Stories that will be told throughout the ages will come from people such as this!

How then will we answer the question that is even now being asked, “Do you believe?” Will we believe for the radical harvest? Will we believe for the sick made well, that demons will flee, and that dead people will come to life? Will we believe that we need the Presence to do these things? Or, will we continue in our own thinking and own dead religious meaningless ways? Will we interpret the sign of the time with our own independent thinking or by dependent revelation?

God says, “Will it be you alone, or us together? Do you believe?”

For many who are in Heaven and all who are in hell, the answer to this very question will most likely be answered as follows:

“I didn’t know. No one told me.”

God’s answer would most likely be, “No, you were told. You just did not have ears to hear.”

By faith, we have ears to hear. But like Nicodemus, those that try to figure it out in the mind, cannot hear. Understanding follows faith.

For those in hell, how tragic is this error. But for those in Heaven who did not have ears to hear beyond their salvation, how great is the loss as well! Yes, they had a faith that gained them a home with the Father. But they had no ears to hear the deeper things of God. They never graduated off the baby’s bottle. They did not understand that they could have reaped a great harvest! How great is the loss when God wanted them to go deep into the radical things of the Holy Spirit but they had no ears to hear!

Regarding the church, and this is the heart of what I am hoping to write:

Miracles are coming, healings are coming, and joy is coming. The dead will be raised, and for those who believe, they will see thousands of souls saved in a day and millions of souls in a month.

But what does that all look like? What does the Kingdom of God look like with our natural eyes? No one can see the Holy Spirit. No one can see a cancer or a demon come out of a person. No one can see the inner workings of the Spirit in a dead body that causes it to come back to life. All we see are a people drunk on the new wine of the Holy Spirit! HA!

How quick we are to criticize what we do not understand. But who can understand the Kingdom of God with natural eyes?

But when the Spirit falls, we will be confronted and tested with this question: “Do you believe this? Do you believe I am doing a radical work or do you just see the offensiveness of one who is drunk on the new wine of God?”

We have a fleshly brain in our natural body, given to us as a part of our soul. God gave it to us to be used for His purpose. We have been given a freedom to think as we see fit and choose as we see fit. Oh how critical are our choices in this life!

But God has asked us to yoke our minds to the mind of Christ. He has called us into a forever state of dependence upon his Holy Spirit. In this way, we connect our natural minds to the supernatural mind of Christ. It is only then that we can see supernatural things. It is a complete dependence. Independence is a deadly lifeless way!

Mark 8:22-25 They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?” He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.” Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.

There is such wisdom in this scripture! Jesus saw fit to open this man’s spiritual vision before healing him of natural blindness. How much more important is it for us to be revealed to supernatural Kingdom things rather than to base what we know upon what we see in the natural!

God has called us into a state of complete dependency. Independence is what got Lucifer kicked out of heaven. For the very root of independence is pride. There is no humility in independence.

Why then do we have to figure it out? If I have the answers, I have put God into the little tiny box of my religious mind. I have based my conclusions on earthly experiences of what I see, taste, touch, hear and smell… or in the vain imagination of what I might presume.

We are supposed to be supernatural beings. When we give our minds over to Christ, He starts to show us wonderful things supernaturally. We then gain supernatural experiences. We then have testimonies that we can speak before the spiritually hungry and thirsty. They receive it in the same way I got it… namely revelation knowledge by the Spirit.

We start to overcome the world so that Jesus can have the harvest, the reward for His sufferings! We start to see miracles, healings and radical understanding that so far exceed the smallness of what we think!

God is the revealer of all mysteries. So how then will we respond when the Father asks us, “Why did you not believe?”

Today, there stands before us an “eternal” choice. What stands before us is a harvest of one or a harvest of a thousand. What stands before us today is a hospital of dieing people or an empty hospital. What stands before us are spirits of death going around making a mockery of God, or these same demonic spirits fleeing from our cities in seven directions under the power of God’s Presence.

What stands before us today is despair or joy… division or peace… anger or love… fear or hope. We have a choice today to live in the poverty of the intellect of this world, or the riches of the knowledge of the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in Heaven.

Stands before us today is our choice. Will we believe in faith for these radical ways or question in doubt and judgment?

How great is the loss when we in the church silence the supernaturally radical for form of worldly order and fear based protectionism.

How great is the loss when our disbelief results in little Kingdom understanding and little earthly fruit. How great is the loss when our failure to listen and trust in the supernatural results in a tiny harvest.

How great is the loss when our failure as a church to hear the deep things of God means that many who might have been saved languish in hell as a result.

Consider the story of Lazarus.

When Jesus was crying at the tomb of Lazarus, I am convinced he was not crying for Lazarus. Jesus was about to restore Lazarus back to life. So for Jesus, there was no loss regarding this Lazarus whom He was about to restore. No, Jesus was crying for a different, far more serious reason. I believe Jesus was crying because this dead Lazarus was symbolic of the dead lifeless church all down through the ages.

John 11:38-40 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “Take away the stone,” he said. “But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.” Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”

Jesus restored Lazarus because many wanted him to be alive, not the least of whom was Jesus Himself. They grieved over their loss. But Jesus grieved over the far greater loss that He foreknew.

I believe that Jesus was crying for all the lost souls all through the years that could have been saved that were not because of generations of dead, Spiritless, lifeless, religious and ineffective church.

I wonder how many church leaders today are crying out right now that Jesus would come and restore their dead churches? How I hope for this brokenness of self so that Father can have the church he desires!

How recognizable is the smell of death to those who hunger for life!

This is a heavy word. But now is the time to die to everything we hold dear… to all that holds us back. Now is the time to wipe the slate clean and start afresh. It is never too late.

Now is the time to do away with the age old religious chains whose name is engraved on every link…. “OUR YESTERDAYS.” Now is the time to be made hungry again and thirsty again for the fresh waters of life that satisfy our thirst and then their thirst.

You know we must be filled first before others can be filled.

Now today the choice is ours. We have nothing to fear if the Holy Spirit is leading our meetings. Then we will know where to steer the church God has given us. Then we will be made known to where the attacks are coming from. Then we will gain the anointing power to be used of by God to do great exploits.

There will be thousands of arguments against letting go. The devil is fast at work against the Spirit filled church because he knows that these are God’s greatest weapons against him. Every good sounding argument will be leveled against the radical ways of the Spirit.

But just how big is the devil anyway against the power and fierce zeal of our God? If God is really in control of our meetings, by what power can the devil override God? (Likewise if we are in control of our meetings and God is not, what scenario is the devil more likely to be in control of… God’s meetings or ours?) If God created satan, then what of anything he might try to do should we fear? Perfect love casts out fear, and perfect love is supernatural. And if Perfect Love is manifesting in the room, what devil can stand in that place?

Now then, we all will be asked this question, “Will you believe?” Should we not reconcile ourselves to this now rather that in Heaven when it will be too late?

2 Cor 10:3-5 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

How then will we choose? Will it be in selfless dependent heartfelt faith or by the independent intellectual arguments of a worldly mind?

5/12/08

Hell has been shaken! This move of the Lord has so shaken the pits of hell that the enemies of God are in great fear and in a great rage.

Never before in my entire life have I felt this kind of urgency to pray and intercede. I have a simple word. Every ministry, every church, every family, every person that is moving in the Holy Spirit, now is the time to pray.

Now is the time to release the intercessors to do what they were made to do, namely to cry out under the unction and power of the Holy Spirit, to intercede and to prophesy.

There are attacks coming. The Cyclone of Myanmar and the earthquake today in China are two examples on the grand scale. But I see attempted attacks coming from all sides from a position of hiddenness. Now the Holy Spirit will shed light on this darkness if we will take the time to hear and then pray. We do not fear. We are not involved in man-made works. But we must pray, now.

In as much as we allow the enemy of God to traffic in darkness is how much we stand the chance of being blindsided by it.

All the spiritual bells and whistles are going off in my spirit. Now is the time to intercede!

Please send this out! I could care less about being heard! Send it out to whoever has ears to hear!

Be blessed,

Scott Morton

5/7/08

Well now I am totally wrecked once again! HA! It’s a good thing to be wrecked! It is so good this wonderful feeling of “nothingness”! I have once again come to the end of myself! HA!! I have once again come to the end of what I think, simply because what I have just experienced is outside my capacity to think! And I realize again that I cannot figure out or define what God does among those who believe for the radical. I am just wrecked! All I am left to say is, “Come Lord Jesus, come!”

As I write, it is Wednesday, May 7th, 2008. My wife, daughter and I have just returned from Lakeland, Florida and the Todd Bentley/Fresh Fire Revival. We spent four days on the road and the weekend in place just hungry for more of the Lord. We knew this Revival was a wonderful outpouring from the Lord. When we got there, we dove right in. The Spirit met us in power. We saw wonderful healings and radical miracles like body parts growing back, the dead being raised (2 by that date) and gold teeth being installed supernaturally. Even my dear mother-in-law was deeply touched by the Holy Spirit. She had gold dust manifest on her body as she was being prayed for. It was just awesome! We were rendered wasted on the ground time and time again in a state of drunkenness in the Holy Spirit. We met people from revivals all around the world.

We had divine appointments again and again on each of the three days we were there. We received and gave out as the Lord lead.

David Vaughn from Wales, England was with us. My old revivalist friend, Jim Samuelson from Fargo, North Dakota was with us. Many revivalists from around America and around the world were in attendance this last weekend. We were prophesied over by some of the most anointed prophets in the world. Every single word was a confirmation and an increase of former words we have received. The Spirit was moving so strongly in the place that we were on the floor as much as we were in our seats!

David Vaughn regularly tested my level of offendability in the flesh! Indeed David carries a mantle of the Welsh Revival upon him. As he laid hands on us, as did so many people in each meeting, we went deeper and deeper in the Holy Spirit and in the love of the Father. Jesus was magnified to great heights! Meanwhile we fell lower and lower of self under the weighty revelation that God is God and we are not.

Now the Spirit of the Lord has been moving in power around the world for many years. Since the end of World War II, there have been certain outpourings of the Holy Spirit that have been preparatory for these end times. Though there have been great revivals before then, there seems to have been a shift to end time purpose since the end of WW II. World War II was the war of the ages and which was a manifestation of the natural that came forth because of the great spiritual battle that was going on in the Heavenlies. Somehow I think that the enemy was being served notice back then that the end times were close at hand.

I have been in this outpouring of the Spirit since 1997. But this particular release of God’s Spirit in Lakeland has come with a purpose far greater than just a few Godly people getting healed, delivered and blasted in God’s manifesting love! No, we were getting set up to be sent out! This manifestation is the great outpouring that has been prophesied for years that would reap a great end time harvest.

A Vision

One night (The Saturday night meeting 5.3.08), I saw in the Spirit a great wave of waters. Like a great tidal wave cresting, it was just hovering just behind the stage. It went from the north horizon to the south horizon. I knew that it was about to just brake down over us. I was waiting for it to come, but it just stood there, many hundreds of feet high and but just a few miles away.

Then I saw in the Spirit three lightning bolts strike the center field of the baseball park. In a moment of holiness and weighty presence, I saw each lightning bolt strike the same exact spot on the ground. Each one came slowly and with a pause in time between bolts. BOOM… (everyone just froze in position in terror)…………… BOOM… (everyone was shocked that it came again)……………BOOM… (now everyone just fell to their faces under the weight of the knowledge that God had just come). Then I heard the Lord say, “Lightning might strike the ground twice in the same place. But, three times is impossible. THIS IS GOD!”

Now I knew that what was happening in Lakeland was the very hand of God doing his plan in his timing.

End vision.

Indeed we do not know the day or hour of Christ second coming, but we can and should know the season of it. Without a doubt, we are in the season of the end times.

Now it stands to reason that if by the power of the Holy Spirit a great harvest will be reaped, we must know that every accusation, effort, strategy, tactic and plan of satan will come against such outpourings to prevent them from coming to pass. For it is true that by the power of the cross we can see thousands of souls won in a day, so it is that this power is what the enemy of God would come against the most.

Now even at these Lakeland meetings, I saw people who were clearly offended at the manifestations of the Holy Spirit that were happening before their very eyes. I was shocked to see how most received, but some rejected what they were seeing as a work of man’s flesh. This greatly saddened me.

Lord! Let it never be said of me that I got in the way of God to stop others from pressing in to deep relationship and fullness with the Father!

Now this must be spoken of, and in a word of knowledge and prophetic sort of way!

A Prophetic Word

There will be people who will scoff and mock this outpouring. There are many who would say, “This is not of God.” Even now there are some who would say, “This is nothing special and unique.”

It will come more from the religious “church” than from the world. Though there will be persecution from the world, it is the Spiritless church that will mock this the greatest. It will come most from those who have something to loose. They will crusade against these moves with publications and accusations of impropriety and error. Do not be surprised. Do not respond to offenses with an offense.

If the Spirit filled church will love the spiritless church then many will be saved. In such a way, many dry places will be filled. But if the Spirit filled church responds in anger, the divide will become great.

God will forever be checking the condition of our hearts to see if we will become less so that God can be great among us. And so we who are going deep in the Lord must know and be willing to take the slap and respond in love. Do not be surprised by judgments, accusations and offenses taken up by those who call themselves people of God. We must remember, it is not the mind that makes us people of God, it is our hearts. By our hearts, we know what is true. So it is that by our hearts, do we respond.

Rom 12:17-21 Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. Therefore

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
If he is thirsty, give him a drink;
For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head.”

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Let no one steal your joy because they accuse you of error. Let no one pull you down because of condescending judgment. Be submitted to your church leadership who are themselves submitted to the Holy Spirit of God. But do not allow the spoken or written words of those who pass judgment against Revival hold you back from the radical stuff God is now calling you into.

End Word

Taking Ungodly Offense

In John 6, Jesus was speaking to the disciples regarding the eating of his flesh and drinking of his blood. They did not understand the teaching because they needed the revelation of what this radical teaching meant. When revelation is missing, the mind takes over. When the mind takes over, interpretation error is sure to follow.

John 6:60-64 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him.

Revelation does not require the mind, it requires the heart. God shoots right past the mind to check the condition of the heart. Then and only then does God bring revelation knowledge. The results are mental judgments against anything that one does not believe.

Where the spiritless church is concerned, these mental judgments arise from man’s interpretation of the literal “logos” written word.

Man has fallen into the trap of taking on the responsibilities of God to judge the church.

These are the people who are quick to quote:

1 Thess 5:21-22 Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.

They neglect the revelation of the scripture that precedes it:

1 Thess 5:19-22 Do not put out the Spirit’s fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything . Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.

Today’s church has so divorced itself of the manifestation of the supernatural that it rejects the restoration of, or any manifestation of the supernatural.

We should know that there is power in passing judgment. But that power only applies to the world. In the Kingdom of God, the only one with the power to pass judgment is God Almighty. Whatever judgments man might pass against the church is powerless against the church so long as the church remains in the Spirit of the Kingdom of God. Therefore, we must not make any judgment, lest we gain the punishment due the world. But we must love, allowing the Father to judge.

Woe be it to those who pass judgment against the real moves of God! Here are many scriptures that directly speak to this issue:

James 4:11-12 Do not speak evil of one another, brethren. He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge another?

Rom 14:10-13 But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you show contempt for your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written:

“As I live, says the LORD,
Every knee shall bow to Me,
And every tongue shall confess to God.”

So then each of us shall give account of himself to God. Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother’s way.

Oh my goodness, let it never be said of me that I have placed a stumbling block at the feet of those who are doing the radical stuff of God! And Father forgive me for ever speaking a word of presumptive judgment against anyone who has moved in the radical of the Lord!

A Warning

Those who are passing judgments against what is a real and true move of God must be warned. If the Spirit of the Lord manifests in power to bring healing, wonders and strange manifestations of drunkenness and seeming disorder to the people of God, who is it that one comes against if one passes judgments against such things? The answer is the Holy Spirit. The result of such a judgment is to accuse the Holy Spirit of bringing a false manifestation, or, to accuse that which actually is of the Holy Spirit as not being of the Holy Spirit. That is a form of blasphemy. One definition of blasphemy is this: “The act of insulting or showing contempt for God.” Merriam-Webster

People who publicly pass judgment against a true move of the Lord are showing a form of contempt. Contempt is defined as: “A willful disobedience to or open disrespect of a… judge.” Merriam-Webster

Jesus spoke a fearful and powerful word of warning in the following:

Matt 12:30-32 “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. And so I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

It might be argued that a person is acting in what he or she thinks is right, not knowing the truth. Thus in not knowing, they are not responsible for their own actions. But I say to you that people who persecute do so in the pride of the flesh. Those that persecute, in most cases, do so from a place of inner woundedness. They judge from a place of presumption. If they knew God, they would never do such a thing. If they knew God, they would know the truth. See John 16:1-4 below…

These are the people who warn us about the “strange teachings” talked about in Hebrew 13. But they do not include the context and revelation of the scripture that speaks only to false teachings of the full and basic Gospel of Christ.

Heb 13:7-10 Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by ceremonial foods, which are of no value to those who eat them. We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat.

If we are to imitate the faith of those who went before us, are we not to do what Jesus did? Are we not to be like the twelve Apostles? Are we not to manifest the same things that came to these Apostles at Pentecost? Are we not to heal the sick, cast out demons and raise the dead? Are we not supposed to be seeing 3000 souls save in a day, as was the product of Pentecost? I tell you this; I will imitate the faith of Todd Bentley way before I imitate the faith of the religious.

We must remember the words of Jesus Christ, as written in John 16. These will be the people we are warned about:

John 16:1-4 “All this I have told you so that you will not go astray. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you. I did not tell you this at first because I was with you.

That’s how far an offense will take a person. It starts with disbelief. It then manifests into a judgment. The judgment manifests into hatred. Hatred manifests into murder. This is how the Saints become martyred.

Of these things, the Body of Christ should have no part. We must know that the hatred leveled against us must be answered with love, lest we fall into the snare of the trap of strife and division. The devil is always in the business of tempting the Body of Christ to fall into this trap.

If I am nothing and He is everything, whenever an offense comes my way, it is not my offense. It’s not my offense to be offended about. It deflects off of me to the One who is everything. If God truly owns all of me, it is He that has the right to be offended, not me. True humility means that all I am is his. Therefore I have no right to carry an offense. It’s not my offense.

As such, when we commit an act of offense to someone of the Kingdom of God, in reality, we commit it against God. The Lord says that all the vengeance is his.

Todd Bentley and many other apostolic leaders who are moving in the radical of the Lord are stewards of the mysteries of God. It is of these people that God writes:

1 Cor 4:1-5 Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by a human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I know of nothing against myself, yet I am not justified by this; but He who judges me is the Lord. Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each one’s praise will come from God.

These men, women and yes children will be people who do not deny the power of Jesus Cross. It is the revelation and manifestation of this very power that the religious come against the most. But look at how God considers those who deny the power of Christ’s Cross:

2 Tim 3:1-5 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.

The denial of the power of the Cross is lumped in here with a large list of great sins! The scripture is clear… have nothing to do with them.

If we deny the power of the Cross, we deny the Chief Cornerstone of the Church. We deny Christ directly.

Isa 28:16-18 and 20-22 So this is what the Sovereign LORD says:

“See, I lay a stone in Zion,
a tested stone,
a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation;
the one who trusts will never be dismayed.
I will make justice the measuring line
and righteousness the plumb line;
hail will sweep away your refuge, the lie,
and water will overflow your hiding place.
Your covenant with death will be annulled;
your agreement with the grave will not stand…

…The LORD will rise up as he did at Mount Perazim,
he will rouse himself as in the Valley of Gibeon —
to do his work, his strange work,
and perform his task, his alien task.
Now stop your mocking,
or your chains will become heavier…

So now all that is left for us to do is to get wrecked and stay wrecked! In as much as we become less, God will show us great things and move us into great exploits. But as much as we operate in the flesh of our being, we will not see it. And the result will be the pride of our self-defined certainty. What manifests then is judgment. May we never fall into that trap.

1 Cor 3:18-23 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their own craftiness”; and again, “The LORD knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” Therefore let no one boast in men. For all things are yours: whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or things present or things to come — all are yours. And you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.

Zech 4:6 So he said to me, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit ,’ says the LORD Almighty.

This, therefore, is the strategy of the devil. He desires that we get tripped up by others accusations and enter into strife with them.

James 3:13-18 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

1 Cor 3:3 For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?

Have nothing to do with the Spiritless false accusations that are sure to come in the days ahead. Love those who bring them, but do not receive such strife. And above all, do not come into agreement with man made cranial arguments that cheapen the Cross that usually end with, “I don’t see that in my Bible.”

I know this is a lengthy word. But please take the time to read this. If you are limited in time, please go to the last paragraph for the current word.

We are on the edge of a long ago promised outpouring of the Spirit and I sense the Lord saying, “Here it comes… are you ready.”

It’s April 23rd, 2008. I am up in Anchorage, Alaska on business and again the Lord is giving me a word regarding Revival in America from this place. Today and for the last few days the weather has been clear but hazy. The news this morning said that the cause of this period of haze is a series of fires and dust clouds to our west in Russia and China. As the smoke of many fires are reaching Alaska and having a visible effect, so it is that the fires of Revival in America that are just about to happen are about to circle the globe and have an unmistakable effect. Before I speak what the Lord is setting in my heart we must revisit a word the Lord gave me years ago…

The following is an excerpt of a word I gave to a key national apostolic leader in February of 2002. Included in this word is a series of words I got from 1998 until 2002. I know this is lengthy (about 2 pages) but it all is very important to this word today. Here is that word cut and pasted below:

About two years prior to this last Presidential election (early 1998), in a prayer group meeting at Shady Grove Church in the DFW area, and in the presence of many witnesses, the Lord gave me a clear word. He said, “George W. Bush will be the next President of the United States. But you will need to pray for him unceasingly.” (This was about a year and a half prior to the date he announced that he would run.)

God said, that we needed to pray very hard about this until it would come to pass. Little did I know of the spiritual battles that were to come regarding his election! It would become obvious why God said to pray.

I took this to heart and prayed for him nearly every day during this period of time. But I remember asking the Lord, “Why George Bush? What, Lord, is so important about this man?” I knew that he was a man of God, but sensed that there was more to this man’s call than just that he was a man of faith… much more. I just didn’t get an answer until the summer prior to his election, over a year later.

Two prophetic visions happened that summer (2000) of great importance. I spoke these visions as often as I could to anyone that would hear.

1) An all time record drought hit the central part of America in the summer of 2000 just prior to the Presidential election. The Lord was speaking to us through that event though I sensed that few people heard what He was trying to say.

As an airline pilot, I use satellite images to know where bad weather is. When you “loop” these images together on a computer, you can see the motion of the clouds across the nation. The Lord showed me a vision in my sleep of what seemed to be a presentation of these satellite images looped together. It would replay again and again. Then I saw the hand of the Lord with His pointing finger pointed drawing a circle around this drought region of the United States. It market out the central middle States in a large oval circle. His hand went around and around, and He was saying, “Pray for the rain, pray for the rain, pray for the spiritual rain.” The area that was affected by this drought included mainly Texas, the north west corner of Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, the lower western half of Missouri, Kansas and then upward into the Dakota’s. This was the area that the Lord was circling in my vision. Though it seemed that the upper most segment went up into Canada.

I sensed the Lord saying that this is an important strategic area for revival to be nurtured and birthed. I believe this still stands today (2002).

2) Then a wonderful event happened in August of that election year. I was flying from Salt Lake City to Boise Idaho. It was a late evening flight, to arrive around 9 pm. I was a passenger. The Lord put a strong call on my heart to pray for George Bush. I interceded the entire flight. My head was in my hands almost all of the flight as I was praying.

In that time (late summer 2000), you might remember that there were many wild fires burning out of control in the northwest United States. That too was a prophetic vision in the Lord.

As we were descending into Boise, I took my head out of my hands and looked out my window into the pitch black into an incredible sight! There before my eyes was a forest fire only 10,000 or so feet below. It was magnificent! Flames were leaping hundreds of feet into the air. Thousands of acres of forest were on fire. As a pilot for 20 years, I had seen hundreds of fires from the air, but not that was so magnificent as this one.

Then the Lord spoke into my spirit as clearly as I had ever heard, and in so doing, He answered my long-term question, “Why George Bush”?

This is what He said, “This is why I want this godly man in the office of President. Because I am going to bring the fires of revival to this nation such as what has never been seen before. No work of man or the devil will be able to put this fire out!”

Now I knew, this would be a battle that must be won in intercession and by only a few.

The election debacle was over (beginning of 2001). But the Lord spoke to my heart the power and importance of intercession in the days ahead. He said, “See, the minority has voted this President into office. Likewise it will be the minority of the church Body that will be enough to stir Me into action. I will give you a new effectiveness in a new season”

My wife and I spent New Years Eve 2000/2001 in our home. We could easily notice that all the hype of the previous years millennial changeover was nonexistent this New Year. Somehow this New Years Eve seemed very subdued. It was true that 1999/2000 was a hyped change of the millennium. But that was a false change of seasons. The true change of millennium, the true change of season occurred 2000/2001, as it is true that this millennium actually began New Years Day 2001.

The Lord caused something very unique to happen that night for me. My wife and I decided to stay up and watch a pay per view movie off of our Satellite system. We had no control of the time the movie showed. We decided to see the movie “The Patriot”. It’s the first time I had seen it. But I noticed that this movie was scheduled to end 6 minutes after midnight. I told my wife that I had a good “time hack” on my watch, I would watch for midnight and inform her of midnight when it occurred.

Now as we were watching this movie, I was enthralled by it! The movie progressed from one patriot’s defeat to the next at the hand of the enemy British Red Coats. It was one step forward two steps back all through the movie, that is until the end. All through the movie I got the sense of how impossible it was going to be for these patriots to defeat the tyranny of the Red Coats. Then came the final battle between the key characters, Mel Gibson and the Red Coat leader. The battle scene was intense.

Meanwhile I was looking at my watch, only seconds to midnight. I informed my wife of the countdown. But then, just as Mel Gibson thrust the final victorious blow into the enemy in slow motion cinematography, my watch struck exact midnight! This was, to the second, the very turning point of this movie.

Now from this exact point in the movie, until the end six minutes later, the patriots were now victorious, the battle won, the Nation was now officially unshackled from evil, and they became a nation. There battles were won easily from that point forward.

As the movie closed, the Spirit was all over me! The Lord said, “I have released a new season of effectiveness into the intercessors of the church from this moment. I am turning up the heat. You will do much more with much less in much less time, and in power in the spiritual realms. The intercessors will be much more effective because the season has just changed.”

Then the Lord led me to scriptures. Among many I read that night, this was the most important. My bible just fell open to it when I first opened my bible!

Nahum 2:3-6 The shields of his soldiers are red; the warriors are clad in scarlet. The metal on the chariots flashes on the day they are made ready; the spears of pine are brandished. The chariots storm through the streets, rushing back and forth through the squares. They look like flaming torches; they dart about like lightning. He summons his picked troops, yet they stumble on their way. They dash to the city wall; the protective shield is put in place. The river gates are thrown open and the palace collapses.

The river gate is about to be thrown open! We are these soldiers clad in scarlet red! We are His picked troops! We are the ones that stumble along the way (which is the flesh and which is O.K.)! The palace represents the strongholds of the enemy during this season of revival! It is going to come down.

End word of 2002

So there it was in a long word given a key leader in February of 2002. Today, April 23, 2008. I remember that word and know full well that the Revival I heard about has yet to come to pass. Until now.

We have just a few months before this President must leave office. Is it not just like the Lord to wait the fullness of his timing to bring to pass what he has promised? Is it not like the Lord to cause us to wait until the last second to see a thing come to pass? Is it not like the Father to examine our hearts before he sees a thing through? Are we not tested in these times so that when the fires come we do not burn out?

Now I sense it as strong as ever. The Spirit of the Lord is hovering over America to bring this thing to pass just as he said it would back in the summer of 2000. Revival is coming to America, just as the Lord had said it would. Only it will not come in the way that we would expect. The Lord said to me that the doors that open this year are not where we expect them to be and not what we expect them to be. We must be fully dependant on the Holy Spirit to even understand what the Father is about to do.

Here it comes! We are only days away from the fullness of it. Either I heard in error or the Lord is about to complete what he has started.

There are fires that have already started. But these fires are small and which are “starter fires.” But the Lord is saying that there will burn from America many fires of Revival that will affect the whole world. The smoke of many fires will be very visible and very obvious. The unbelieving world will be confronted with a mighty Jesus as he walked this earth, in signs miracles and wonders. The unbelieving world will have a great opportunity to see real Christianity. They will be forced to make a choice. No work of the enemy will be able to put these fires out. Every provision to see this thing come to pass will happen supernaturally. We will go for want for nothing in these days of joy. Though unbelieving America will deal with measures of suffering economically, the church that is filled with the Holy Spirit will not. Everything needed to take these fires to the nations will be provided for supernaturally. There will be many very wealthy Spirit filled Christians in the short days ahead. Here we go! Are you ready?

Isa 55:1&6 “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost… Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near.

My dear mother and her husband live in a wonderful and remote area of America, a small town in Oregon named Medford. Though a rapidly growing city, Medford remains fairly remote in terms of visitation. It’s kind of like Vermont. It’s just hard to get there and not normally a place one would visit.

Every time I step off the airplane in Medford though, I feel such a blessing of God’s presence. I sense God’s supernatural blessing up and down the I-5 corridor of Oregon, even as far south as Redding, California, three hours to the south. I hope to retire in Medford some day.

My family and I do our best to visit mom and my stepfather at least once per year. During one visit in 2005, we decided to drive to the Pacific Coast of Oregon. From Medford, that drive is about two and a half hours.

It’s a magnificent drive! Winding curvy country roads that follow rapid mountain rivers, giving way to vistas of gorgeous small farms, rolling hills, horses, crops, vineyards and mountain scenes that will take your breath away. We turn and wind our way across the Oregon state boarder into the northwest corner of California where Highway 199 meets the coastal Highway 101.

Sometimes there is ocean fog as you approach the coast. Other times it’s cloudy and rainy. Rarely is it absolutely clear on the coast of Oregon and California. This day, the crisp clear and hot summer morning gave way to a twenty-five degree temperature drop and low-level fog.

Very soon the drive came to a California State Park named The Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. Just before the 199 meets the 101 is this unique state park that is filled with ancient redwood trees.

We planned to stop here for a few hours to visit these magnificent trees. As it was, we were right on the edge of heat and chill, between crystal clear sun and cold low-level fog. It was gorgeous. Just a few miles from the Pacific coastline, the contrast was very visible, very physical. This midday, there were few people there.

The park consisted of the Smith River, a winding mountain to ocean flow that emanates from the western California/Oregon hills. There is a lengthy walkway bridge spanning across this slow flowing segment of the river. And of coarse, the huge redwood trees on the south side of the river. I stood absolutely amazed at the sight.

From the north bank of the river looking towards the south bank of redwoods, I could see these trees climb hundreds of feet into the air. As I walked across the river’s bridge, looking down into the waters I saw millions of rocks clearly visible on the bottom. All were perfectly smooth and uniformly rounded, tumbled by years of flowing and sometimes furious motion. Here, in the slow flow of this river’s end, the rocks were resting motionless. These rocks were perfect and individually unique. Not one rock was the same that was moving with the flow of this river. I imagined myself as one of these rocks.

As I looked from my stand on the bridge at the middle of the Smith River, I looked up at these magnificent trees. These trees had been there for hundreds and some for thousands of years. I read on the park placard that there were some trees there and still alive for well over 2000 years. These trees had been drinking from the waters of this unchanging unshifting river for hundreds, even thousands of years! Some of these trees were there since before Christ’s work on the Cross.

That afternoon, my dear stepfather spoke to me a personal story, an event that happened to him one day at this very same park many years ago. I have his permission to share this with you. Dave is a great man of God and a dear beloved friend and father.

He said that many years ago as he stood within this very same grove of redwoods, suddenly he felt the unmistakable presence of the Lord come upon him. For but a short few minutes, he was overwhelmed with love. He had never felt this before. He says it was very intimate. He never again felt such a presence of joy in this same way. But it greatly impacted his life.

Having experienced the manifest presence of the Lord in my life, I know generally what he was feeling, though his experience was very personal and uniquely profound to him. I do not presume to know what he specifically personally felt. All I know is this, he was made known, by manifest revelation, to the Father heart of God for him that day. And he was changed for a lifetime in that experience. He knew that he knew, he was loved by God.

As I thought of his experience later, it is no wonder to me that this happened in this park.

It was time to leave this Holy place. Now I was standing on the north bank of the Smith River. I looked one last time at these magnificent trees before departing for the ocean. Then Lord spoke something deep into my heart. “There are some rivers that never change.”

As I though about that day in the weeks ahead, the Lord began to reveal many things to me about rivers.

The Unchanging River

In Oregon, as it is in much of the Pacific Northwest, geographically there are mountains and hills that press up against the Pacific Ocean. Historically and for thousands of years, these mountains would fill with winter snows and then empty through a series of rivers into the Pacific Ocean.

The Rogue River is the classic example. The Rogue runs through Medford and eventually winds it’s way to the Pacific. This river is mighty and which is where American athletes train in whitewater activities to prepare for the Olympics. It rushes through mountain valleys in paths that have not changed for thousands of years. It channels the flow of fresh winter melt waters to the sea.

The key point is, these rivers have not changed their coarse in thousands of years. Some rivers are unchanging. They never geographically shift position. They represent the River of God that does not change. They represent the very word of God which when spoken does not change and which cannot change.

Heb 6:17 Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath.

Heb 6:18 God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.

Nu 23:19 God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?

1Sa 15:29 He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a man, that he should change his mind.”

Mal 3:6 “I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.

Jas 1:17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

When the Lord speaks a thing, it cannot change lest the Lord be a liar. We who drink of these Rivers are shaped by these Rivers, we are nourished by them. They produce the substance of life by which everything of the Kingdom of God is formed. The Word. Jesus! Love!

It’s no wonder that my stepfather felt the presence of God in that very place of the redwoods! For the very word of God is the very dwelling place of God. The Father wills the word, Jesus speaks the word, and the Holy Spirit manifests the word. These words emanate from the throne room of the Kingdom of God. What a Holy place, that place of the unchanging River of God, where the spires have grown for thousands of years!

But the word only defines God. It establishes the principles of God. It establishes the laws of God. It tells of what is true and what is false. It speaks of who God is. It defines The Way. It makes a way. It is The Way.

However, the word alone is incomplete as to the whole of God’s plan. The word does not define what God is actually doing now. It defines who God is.

As I read the Bible, I find words that define who and what God is. I also find prophetic words that speak to the future of what God is doing and will do in the days ahead.

The River that never changes speaks to the unchanging nature of God, of who and what he is. But there is a River that is forever changing that prophetically speaks to what God is doing and will do in the days ahead.

The Ever-Changing River

My work has me flying over these United States almost daily. I see rivers from the air as I fly. One obvious river I see from the air is the Mississippi River. This river is unlike the Rogue River. From the air, one can clearly see, the Mississippi River is constantly changing, constantly moving and shifting geographic position. It winds and turns through soft and pliable lands that willingly give way! Though slowly and sometimes unnoticeable, this river always shifts. Those who live by this river understand what I am talking about!

When the river has made a change, and you can see this from the air very well, an area of swamp is left behind. This area where the river used to be has become a swamp of stagnant mostly lifeless waters. Though life is there, it is devoid of the fresh waters of the edge of the river. The waters edge has moved to a new place. The old place of where the river used to be is where you will find these stagnant waters.

This ever-changing River represents the manifesting presence of God that defines what God is doing right now and in the days to come. This is “The River of God.” This is the Holy Spirit. It winds and turns through lands, and is always shifting. One day the edge of the River is here, next it is there. Where this River changes to is the new thing of God. Where the River changes from is the old thing of God that is no more!

Where the River is today is what the Lord is doing today. Where the River used to be is what the Lord did yesterday. Where it will be tomorrow is what the Lord is doing tomorrow, and which is always a greater thing, an increasing thing!

Though God does not change when he verbalizes a thing, he is always increasing and doing a new thing that has never been done before. This is a critical understanding for us who are doing God’s business in this world!

The River that is ever changing is God moving from glory to glory. The people who move in these new things are moving from faith to faith!

Those who live on the edge of this ever-changing River are a people filled with the Holy Spirit constantly shifting from the old thing into the new. This River represents the increase of God’s government, the new thing, and change. It is the River that forms in the wasteland and which wells up in the desert. It is very supernatural.

Comparing Two Rivers

In the River that never changes I am like the rock tumbled and perfected in the word of God until I am formed into the likeness of Christ, God’s desire for my life. I go from rushing waters to sudden still waters. And the waters of this River are full of life-giving truth.

As the waters become still like the Smith River that morning, like the motionless rock in the unchanging River, I wait quietly and patiently for the next word that deepens my knowledge of Father God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

Under the weight of the knowledge of who my God is, I find myself hungry and thirsty for the knowledge of what God is doing. I want to be a part of it. I want to be on the edge of it. I want to be like the tree planted by the edge of the River drinking the fresh renewing waters of what God is doing now and tomorrow.

I have drunk deep of the waters of the River that never changes. Now I want to drink of the waters of the River that brings supernatural life to my members! When I drink of the waters of the ever-changing River, my tree is made able to produce fruit that brings healing to the nations.

We must be drinkers of both Rivers! The River that never changes speaks to my Salvation and my home in Heaven. But the River that always changes speaks to my life here on earth. These shifting waters make me able to do great exploits for my Father and my King in the here and now! You cannot have one without the other. Both are necessary to be effective in the fullest measure.

The waters of the unchanging River set my foundation. The waters of the ever-changing River set my feet in motion to reap a harvest.

Unchanging waters reveal and establish the base. Ever-changing waters reveal and then activate!

What we have experienced of God yesterday is never meant to be the basis for how we do things today. We build upon our yesterdays, we do not make our yesterdays our limit.

We cling to the unchanging word of God that defines him. Then we add to it the good of what God did yesterday as a basis to add upon for our tomorrows. We always seek the new thing of God in faith and with a willingness to be once again surprised with something that has never happened before. We couple our new experiences to the unchanging word and the inheritance of past revivals and build upon them. Only in this way will we succeed in the fullness of God’s call for his church.

There is a time to wait on the Lord in the unchanging River. But that is not to be mistaken for our call to forever be uprooting our tree and moving to the edge of where the ever-changing River has moved to. There is a vast and total difference between stagnant waters and still waters; one brings life, the other is lifeless.

I sense the clear direction of the Lord from time to time to uproot my tree and move from where the edge used to be to the new place of the new edge of this River. I know that if I stay where the banks used to be, I have lost the fresh waters of the new thing of God. I have become comfortable in the old thing. I have lost faith for the new thing.

But the shift of this River is subtle and which is discernable only over time and by the revelation of the Holy Spirit. It doesn’t look like it until you suddenly notice that the banks of the River have moved.

Isa 43:19 See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.

Isa 9:7 Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end.

How valuable is the knowledge of the Kingdom of God! By the Holy Spirit we are made known of the new things of God. The Holy Spirit is “the Helper who leads us into all truth.” The NIV Bible calls him the “Counselor” who leads us into all truth.

A Vision

One night, I had a vision. This is what I saw:

I saw a large grove of oak trees. They were all dieing. These trees were all standing in an area of swampy bog. They were drinking stagnant waters. The River had changed position but these trees did not perceive it. They stayed put. They would not move.

Now there were young trees and old trees. They were all dieing. The Lord told me, “These trees are drinking from the waters of their yesterdays.”

Next thing I knew, there was a man standing tall on the top of a hill. He was yelling. “The River is not there any more! The River has changed! It’s over here! Come over here so that you may live!”

Sadly only a few trees uprooted and moved. End vision.

I will not be like the oak tree that is dieing in the stagnant still swamp waters of where the ever-changing River used to be. Such a way is the basis for religious theological man made thinking. Whenever we define God by what he did yesterday we limit God to yesterdays ways. It causes us to disbelieve for the new thing. The results are religious shackles that limit our walk.

After contemplating this vision, the Lord brought to my mind this scripture:

Mark 8:22-25 They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?” He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.” Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.

Jesus knew that it was more important to first heal this man of spiritual blindness before healing him of his natural blindness. So, he was given this vision of walking trees. How great was this vision! Are we not like these trees that must uproot ourselves from time to time and move to the new place of the ever-changing River of God? Would that not look like people who are trees walking around?

We are all like trees who need the nourishment of these fresh waters to live. We need the fresh waters of the Holy Spirit to know and to do what the Father wants of us, within the context of what He is doing now and tomorrow. Therefore we must be living on the edge of this ever-changing River of God. This is an ongoing act we must make. We must uproot and move to the new place of the ever-changing River that we might drink the fresh new waters of revelation and supernatural power.

Ezek 47:1-12 The man brought me back to the entrance of the temple, and I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was coming down from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar. He then brought me out through the north gate and led me around the outside to the outer gate facing east, and the water was flowing from the south side. As the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits and then led me through water that was ankle-deep. He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through water that was knee-deep. He measured off another thousand and led me through water that was up to the waist. He measured off another thousand, but now it was a river that I could not cross, because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in– a river that no one could cross. He asked me, “Son of man, do you see this?” Then he led me back to the bank of the river. When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river. He said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, where it enters the Sea. When it empties into the Sea, the water there becomes fresh. Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live. Fishermen will stand along the shore; from En Gedi to En Eglaim there will be places for spreading nets. The fish will be of many kinds– like the fish of the Great Sea. But the swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they will be left for salt. Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.”

Unmistakably there is reference to both spiritual Rivers I speak of in this Ezekiel passage. We are the trees, the Body of Christ. We must be living on the edge of these fresh waters lest we die of thirst!

Matt 13:52 He said to them, “Therefore every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.”

Simply said, the old treasures are found in the River that never changes, and which are invaluable. The new treasures are found in the ever-changing River and which are also invaluable. We need both!

To drink of the ever-changing River requires a leap of faith. For it is true that whatever is new has never happened before. It requires revelation. It requires intimacy and humility. Brothers and sisters, we need both Rivers to succeed in our Kingdom call.

Lastly, consider these applicable scriptures:

Zech 9:10 I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the war-horses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.

Ps 72:8 He will rule from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.

(Notice that the word “River” is capitalized in the above two scriptures in the New King James and NIV versions…)

Gen 2:9-10 And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground– trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river watering the garden flowed from Eden…

Rev 22:1-2 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

Even in Heaven we will be living by the River of God! How important is the understanding of it for us today, here on earth! From the beginning of creation to the end of time and beyond, there will always be the River of God bringing life to wherever it flows.

Even in this life, a few days without water bring death. How much more then should we who are born of the Spirit be filled with the spiritual waters of God that bring life to places of death on this earth? All around the world, people who do not know the love of God are dying of thirst! Shouldn’t we be the ones who bring them the waters of life that change? Were we not commissioned from Jesus Christ before he returned to Heaven to do this very thing?

Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

May we all be heavy drinkers of the waters of life from both Rivers so that we might reap a great harvest, a reward to Jesus for his sufferings.

Rev 22:17 The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.

Heb 11:1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

Faith activates the Kingdom of God on earth. Faith activates miracles. They will not be seen or understood without it.

Acts 14:9-10 He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed and called out, “Stand up on your feet!” At that, the man jumped up and began to walk.

We know that faith is absolutely mandatory in order to believe in God. Because God has not manifest himself clearly in the ordinary world in an obvious way, if one believes in God, it must be from a position of faith. So faith is mandatory to believe in God. This is the first step that leads to any and all things of the Lord and His Kingdom. All things of the Kingdom of God start and finish through faith. Faith is the very doorway to all things God.

Faith is something one expresses, not thinks. Yes there is a conscious decision to first believe, but the fullness of faith is independent of what I have concluded. Because faith believes in what is unseen, conclusion can have no part in faith. Conclusion is based upon what I have figured out in the mind. The expression of faith comes first from the choice to have faith, and then by the gift of faith from the Holy Spirit. It is one part mental and ninety-nine parts supernatural.

Rom 12:3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.

Now wait a minute… Am I not the one who is supposed to well up faith in my soul? Yes, initially. You are required to first choose faith in any issue. Once God sees that faith, He comes to you and gives you the far greater gift of faith. You have to take the first step and choose faith. But your faith is tiny in comparison to the faith you will need to succeed in Kingdom issues in this world. God comes to those with faith as small as a mustard seed and gives them the gift of faith that moves the mountain. This small mustard seed is as big an amount of faith that we are humanly able to muster. But then comes the Holy Spirit who gives faith as a gift. Hence faith as small as a mustard seed can in fact move the mountain.

Matt 17:20 He replied, “Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

1 Cor 12:7-9 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit…

The above scripture denotes the progression of faith. I start with my “small as a mustard seed faith”, Jesus comes in the Spirit and gives me the 1 Corinthians 12 gift of faith that I could never have of my own. I then speak to the mountain in my faith and God moves the mountain by our supernaturally given faith.

I can testify to an event of instantaneous and radical increase of faith that I personally experienced.

In a weeklong conference with a group of Argentinean revival leaders back in 1997, the Holy Spirit came in such power as to see us all on the floor time and again in the Spirit. It was a dear experience in my memory. When we left, while in the car going home, I told my wife, “You know, I clearly feel a huge increase in faith!”  And this was clearly proven so. I left that conference with what felt like a ten fold increase in faith. I believed that I not only knew that I was able, but had a new found desired to go out and do Kingdom exploits on behalf of my Jesus. I knew that I now had something I never had before. And it was a gift I could never muster on my own. I can say, to this day, I have never been the same.

Faith starts with my choice. He then comes with volumes more when He sees my heart of basic faith. The result is the manifestation of God’s Kingdom on earth. Through my heart that was found by Him willing, I then was made able by Him to do what I previously could not do of my own accord.

I know this is a basic discussion regarding faith. But what I see the church failing in is the supernatural part of faith. It is the supernatural given faith that great exploits are made possible. By such a faith, healings happen, deliverance happens and thousands of souls can be won in a day. This is what seems to be missing in the vast majority of today’s church. We desperately need this greater mature level of supernatural faith if we are going to succeed as the church of Jesus Christ in the days to come!

In part, faith is designed to be a shield that protects us from falling into a worldly mindset. The stronger ones faith, the greater is the ability to operate with Kingdom ability in this world.

Faith is the essence required for God’s manifesting Presence. It is the key by which we operate in the power moves of God. Like anything of God, all things require faith first. If faith leads to salvation, then faith also leads to the Presence of the Holy Spirit and the miracles that ensue.

1 Pet 1:5 ..who through faith are shielded by God’s power…

It is a requirement therefore that we live by faith in order to gain power. If we are ever to succeed in our earthly Kingdom call, the fullness of supernatural faith is a must. This faith leads to a power that both protects and enables.

1Pet 1:6-7 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith-of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Our faith is tested by fire, by every kind of trial. These tests result in an ability to operate in such power as to be able to walk right down the valley of the shadow of death laughing and dancing in the face of every evil thing.

Faith results in salvation. It then results in revelation, intimacy, followed by power. All these things testify Christ to an unbelieving word. How can I ever reap a harvest if I am not performing Kingdom acts of supernatural power to an unbelieving world? From just speaking of Christ to raising the dead, all these things require faith to activate them.

The measure that we are made able to live a dual citizenship, with one foot one earth and the other foot in the Kingdom while on earth, is directly proportionate to ones level of faith.

A person with great faith is a deadly dangerous agent to contend with in the eyes of Satan. Faith results to a particular authority that when exercised in it’s fullest, will see the enemy flee in seven ways.

Jesus reveals himself by the Holy Spirit. We then, having not seen, must make a choice to believe and have faith. Everything of the Kingdom of God is revealed by faith. Without faith, I cannot not see the thing even if it stands right before me. Faith therefore is the very key to spiritual maturity. As it is in the world, so it is in Kingdom business that the highest callings and releases are given to “those who know.” Only there is no comparison of the wisdom of the world to the revealed wisdom of the Kingdom of God. Who would give an infant a task of leadership?

Heb 5:12-6:1 In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God…

Spiritual maturity is directly linked to faith. Any faith we gain as a gift from God is entirely dependant on the faith we first choose to have. God then chooses what measure of divine faith to give us as He chooses.

If where the Holy Spirit is there is freedom, then where there is faith there is freedom. This is because all things of the Holy Spirit require faith first. Faith therefore is prerequisite to freedom, as God defines freedom. Hence the lack of faith is a form of spiritual bondage.

Hindrances to faith are pride, fear, sin issues, and past wounds. Many people are unable to see or hear because of issues blocking their ability to do so. Faith therefore requires that we come to the end of ourselves. The result of this self-death is the choice to become dependant upon God in all things. Faith wells up from this revelation of and subsequent agreement with the concept of dependency. Independence results in spiritual death. Independence results in spiritual immaturity. Independence stiff-arms God in lieu of what I think or conclude. Independence blocks faith.

God accepts that people vary in faith. In a word, I call it “mercy.”

Faith is a product of grace. Grace is the power of God that manifests mercy. Mercy is the difference between perfection and our broken state. Since no man or woman is perfect, and because of the completed work of Jesus cross, there is mercy.

And so, where faith is concerned, people vary in faith levels. Though this is not perfectly desired, it is accepted by Father God because of the gift of mercy that was established through the completed work of the cross. The result is that we are each used according to our faith.

No man should be judged for lack of faith, just encouraged to go deeper through the word expressed and, by the Spirit, the word revealed.

Rom 10:17 Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.

And so all faith starts by hearing. May it be that we all have ears to hear so that we can enter into spiritual maturity and effectiveness in the reaping of this great End Time harvest of souls.

Here are some other relevant scriptures regarding faith:

Heb 12:2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith…

Faith starts with me, and is then perfected by Him.

Acts 15:9 He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.

Rom 1:17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

Rom 3:28 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.

Rom 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

So now these questions remain. What will you choose to have faith in? How deep do you want to go? What radical things do you want to do for the Kingdom that you know you cannot do on your own? What offering will you have to present to the Father when you go home? How big a reward do you want to give to Jesus for his sufferings?

It all starts and finishes by faith.

T. Scott Morton

Familiarity leads to a redundancy that breeds a reliance on performance. This in turn, leads to a prideful way of independent religious excellence. If the heart of religious lifelessness is “order”, it’s blood is “familiarity”.

Familiarity causes us to look backwards at what worked in the past to copy and then recreate it. This is a deadly way in regards to the Kingdom of God because the Kingdom is always advancing into the new thing. By it’s nature, every new thing of God is unfamiliar simply because we’ve never seen it before. Spiritual perception followed by our first choice to act upon it overcomes familiarity.

2 Cor 3:17-18  Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.  And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

Isa 43:18-19 “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 desert and streams in the wasteland.

A key strategy of the enemy of God is perverted familiarity. (I define perversion as an overall falsification of a particular truth.)

God placed in our soul a need for familiarity so that we would cling to the things that are true and important. Problem is that in our flesh, we experience ungodly things that we also tend to cling to. Herein lies the strategy of our enemy. It’s the ungodly stuff that wars against our soul and which draws us away from what is important in the Kingdom of God. A primary tool the devil uses to do that is familiarity. This is such an important strategy to the devil that he assigns demons specifically to deal in familiarity towards humanity.

Lev 19:31 ‘Give no regard to mediums and familiar spirits; do not seek after them, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God. (NKJ)

This reference to familiar spirits in the King James Bible references demonic spirits who are familiar with what is going on; in essence, “demons that know”. Is not familiarity, in its most simple form, a knowing?

My key point is that God is moving us from what we know into what we don’t know by faith. If we get stuck in what we know, we become unable to gain anything new or unknown.

For the Spirit filled Christian, familiarity is only valuable as it pertains to the principles of God that never change. In “being familiar” with them, I stay out of trouble. By this familiar knowledge, I know who my Father, my Savior and my beloved Holy Spirit are. But as to the “current events” of God, what God is doing now and tomorrow, familiarity tends to cause me to turn towards yesterday’s familiar experiences and reject the new things he is doing.

The new thing of God always flies in the face of familiarity. God does this for many reasons, not the least of which is this: In a word, trust. Or better said, faith.

He tests us. Will it be about us and what we know, or will it be about God and what he knows? So long as we remain here on earth, we must know, God will always put our faith and trust to the test. He does this by presenting us with the choice to accept or reject the unknown radical new thing of God. He brings new things in ways that offend our flesh.

What really is being offended is our sense of familiarity to what has been.

We must know this: Living on the cutting edge of God means that we will offend the “wise.” We will offend the norm. And so, we must be as devoid of self and our own offendability as possible so as to withstand the attacks that will most certainly come.

Truly the wise people of God are those filled with the Holy Spirit who understand the Kingdom need to be totally dependent. For the wisdom of the Kingdom of God is not concluded, it is given by way of revelation. All wisdom therefore is given not figured out. Independence blocks reception of knowledge from any source other than one’s own mind.

Those who move in the new thing of God thrive on the daily given manna of revelation knowledge. As it was in the desert, so it is with us. The manna that comes only lasts so long as to see the new thing come to pass. Then it goes bad. We become dependent for tomorrows manna tomorrow. When it comes tomorrow, we gain the new thing for tomorrow. God works in this way so that we will be forever dependant upon his means rather than our means, his thinking rather than our thinking.

Deut 8:3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.

Everything of the Kingdom of God is made known by the Holy Spirit, it cannot be concluded by the mind of man. So, the more we yoke our minds to the mind of Christ, the less effective the spirit of familiarity is against us. The more we listen and hear in times of intimacy and love with the Father, the more we know and move in the new thing of God.

As to the Kingdom of God, the renewing of the mind can only happen by revelation in the Holy Spirit. It cannot happen by anything we can do, either cranial or physical.

Whatever we are certain of in our minds, we defend to the hilt. And so the mind that is independent not only gets in the way of God, but over time becomes a wall to change.

True Godly wisdom and control in the church happens when people give up the reigns of control to Jesus in trust and in faith of the Holy Spirits manifesting Presence. The result is the manifestation of right order and right knowledge. We protect the church by hearing, not thinking (i.e. thinking is supposed to happen after the hearing!). We know what is out of line by revelation, not conclusion. We grow the church by a firm supporting Foundation (capitalization intended…), not by a filtering intellectual coverage. I see a picture of the church to come… it has no roof!

What we become familiar to in the world and in the flesh, we cling to. But were the Kingdom of God is concerned, what we experience is what we are supposed to cling to, only in so much as to prepare us for the next new thing. We are then supposed to build upon yesterday’s thing and grow. Familiarity kills inheritance! Paul understood this when he spoke the following words:

1 Cor 3:10-19 By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames. Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple. Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a “fool” so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight…

Paul was saying that all wisdom of any value comes from the foundation who is Christ by way of the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in and upon us. What I, or the world thinks is meaningless, unless it is born out of revelation knowledge. What I build on my foundation, I will be charged for. Will I build upon my foundation what I or the world thinks? Or will I build upon my foundation while under the yoke of the mind of Christ, of what the Father thinks? The only way for me to rightly build is by revelation lest what I build fail under the test.

Familiarity causes me to rely on me. It turns me inward rather than outward. It causes me to look backward rather than forward. It is a warped perverted way of thinking.

Familiarity is an easy and very comfortable way. But we are not to become comfortable in our faith. Earth is only a tiny portion of the whole of the Kingdom of God. What we live in here on earth is very limited indeed.

Faith is the very essence of growth. But, we grow into ever-increasing maturity by way of an ever-increasing faith.

Faith says that there is more than what I see. I then experience up to what my faith allows. As I think with limited faith, I am incapable of seeing or thinking greater than the level of faith I am in. Therefore, my faith level must always be willing to experience the radical new thing of God. Then, with each new experience, my faith moves up.

But then God comes with revival. Revival is chock full of things that we have never seen before. Among so many other things, revival is designed to increase our faith.

I have faith, and then I have experiences. But without faith, I am incapable of witnessing the experience even if it happens right before my eyes. Faith is the substance of spiritual vision.

Experiences increase my faith if I am willing to allow it. Experiences become my new word of testimony. I have received the new thing that is supposed to become the substance of the inheritance that I am to give to the next generation.

I have a new testimony. That testimony, spoken to those who yet see, builds new faith for those who have ears to hear. They then move up! The result is the ever-increasing Kingdom of God manifested on earth as it is in Heaven.

Ever-increasing! This is what the Christian life is all about. The comfort of familiarity is the bane of ever-increasing.

This Christian earthly life is a “forever becoming.” This means that we are not complete or “done” until we are home in Heaven with God. We are forever learning, seeking, and growing. In this earthly life we are always moving in the flow of God’s Presence for the purpose of the flow of God’s plan made manifest on earth. It is a fluid thing. If we stay in yesterday’s thing, we have gotten out of the River and onto the banks and have become motionless. Familiarity renders me spiritually motionless.

If I rely on what has become familiar to me, I signify to myself that “I have become.” I don’t need further growth because I am happy in what I have and know right now. It is a form of pride that says I need no more. Depending on familiar knowledge and familiar experience is a form of pride that shunts growth. It starts honestly but finishes pridefully.

Jack Hayford once said, “Nothing is more limiting than the self-imposed boundaries we clamp around our own lives when we require God to fit into our expectations.” 

In reality, familiarity is the material we build our boxes with.

Familiarity blinds me to anything that does not fit the mold of what I know or have experienced. Familiarity is based in fear of the unknown. But perfect love casts out fear. One can also say therefore that perfect love causes us to trust God for the new thing.

So, true growth is found in the ever-increasing nature of God. It is found off the map of what I know. I take what I know of God or have become familiar with of God and I apply it to the supernatural unknown of what God is doing or is about to do. In so doing I position myself on the very edge of God’s wonderful current plan. I trust him. I wait for him. And, when the new thing happens, however good or bad in this world, I rejoice and move into the new thing easily! I am not offended when the world comes down around me. The radical new thing does not offend me because I trust in faith that God is much bigger than my flesh or the devil.

Therefore, we must learn to overcome our need to steer towards what we know of in the world and move towards what we don’t know of the Kingdom of God.

Right order is both embracing the knowledge of the unchanging principles of God and seeking the radical new thing that God wants us to move into for the future.

Simply said, familiarity is deadly as to our spiritual growth and effectiveness in our call here on earth. And so we must identify the insidious presence of familiarity and cast it out, then trust in faith as God does mighty and wonderful acts in our day.

T. Scott Morton

I am not a conformist, nor will I ever be. I am a transformist.

Ro 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is-his good, pleasing and perfect will.

2Co 3:17-18 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

To be transformed is to live the supernatural lifestyle of being revealed to and then moving in the new thing of God daily.

To reject conformation is not rebellion unless it is a rejection of God’s likeminded leadership, either of the Spirit directly or of Spirit laidened church leadership.

The definition of like-mindedness is to be filled with the Spirit, to hear from the Spirit and then to move in the Spirit. That is the mind of Christ. It’s what Jesus died for to provide for the church. Everything else is of the mind of man, and which is of the flesh.

Phl 3:3 For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh…

Jn 6:63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.

Of what value is any argument that finds its basis in what man thinks? Every word from Jesus is spirit; therefore no word of man is spiritual until it comes forth from the Holy Spirit, the bringer of life.

How can any structure be in the center of God’s will that is not flowing vibrantly in the manifesting presence of the Holy Spirit, as did the first church? If the Spirit brings life, than what are we living in if the Spirit is not in residence?

It all comes down to right submission, not religious submission, right submission. It’s a selflessness from the top down that chooses to give the reins of control to the Spirit of God for understanding, power and growth here on earth.

When I am in right submission, I am essentially yoked to the mind of Christ. The only way for this to be so is to be directly connected to the Holy Spirit – and/or – under submission to a church leadership who themselves are directly connected to the Holy Spirit. Either way, the essential element is a complete dependence upon the continuously manifesting presence of the Holy Spirit. In such a way, I am not conforming, I am transforming. In such a way, I am dependant not independent. In such a way it is about Christ, not of any person.

Now I know that what I say next might sound a bit harsh. But these are radical times in the Kingdom of God. This is our time to shine! It’s now our time to bring forth a harvest for Jesus! But I sense the time is short. We no longer have time to wallow in corporate ineffectiveness. We need to be rightly positioned to be used of in the maximum. What I say regarding the church is not out of disrespect for God’s church today. Rather, just the oposite, I so hope for the church of God in these last days to be so filled with the Holy Spirit and moving in great power to do great and mighty things.

But we must be honest about the state of today’s church. When compared to the power and effectiveness of the first church of Acts, today’s church just does not measure up. When we consider that Jesus commanded us that we were to do even greater things than he did, and when we honestly measure how much of that statement holds true in today’s church, we can only conclude that something very greatly amiss in the vast majority of today’s church. It is with these thoughts in mind that I speak these following thoughts.

Regarding our church life, we have a responsibility to depart from places of spiritual dryness, unless the Lord leads one to stay in such a place to bring light. Even so, one should not stay long. The reality is that we are not waiting on God, he waits upon us. To go deep into his presence is as easy as can be and which can happen tomorrow, anywhere. It comes down to the choice of leadership to die to self and allow God to lead. With a hunger and thirst for more of God, he comes. When we wait, he comes.

So if one is burdened to stay in a dry place, one should not stay long. For a leadership need only to choose in an instant to change. But when dryness is the order of the day, rare is it that a place changes when people are unwilling to make the change to selflessness.

Religion does not die by a sweeping move of God, religion dies by choice. Every revival that ever was came by way of a leadership that was fed up with the ways of man. Desperation, spiritual hunger, coming to the end of self, these are the precursors of revival and right change. In fact all spiritual growth finds its beginning in these ways.

Willful dryness is religion and which is independent of God. In reality, all who will not allow God to lead their meetings are in rebellion. Those who flee such places, though being accused of rebellion themselves are themselves fleeing from a rebellious atmosphere.

We rightly conform to the laws of the land and which is scriptural. Such obedience gives glory to the Father. However, Kingdom speaking, church speaking, God clearly requires of us that we be in submission to authorities who are under submission to the Spirit of God.

In such Spirit filled places, testing and approving are not from the mind of man but the mind of Christ. In such places everyone has a release according to the Spirit’s release and timing. In such places, those with no talent are equal to those with large talent. In such places, people get trashed in the Holy Spirit! Trashed… everything of the flesh gets trashed.

Offenses are crushed, joy is released, the sick are healed, the oppressed are delivered and the dead are raised to life! And unity that no person can muster ensues.

One cannot be conformed in order to test and approve, one must be transformed by the renewing of the mind, then one can test and approve.

I’ll be the first to admit my fleshly state, my immaturities and my errors. I know full well of the need for correction and encouragement in my life. I know of my idols and of my pride. I know of my fears and selfishness. I know, I need mentors and fathers to minister to me such spiritual truths that I alone am unable to attain to. I need correction and rebuke, love and encouragement. I need the whole Body. I long for such leadership over my life. However, I have witnessed a clear and definable vast difference in my spiritual growth between Spirit filled places and non Spirit filled places.

Now this has been my honest observation between Spirit lead and non Spirit lead churches that I have been a part of, as it pertains to spiritual “coverage”. I know I expose myself to the critisism of woundedness in speaking these experiences. However, this is the testimony of what happened to me so that one might gain an understanding of the differences between Spirit filled and spiritless places. In changing away from the spiritless, I have been so greatly blessed and encouraged. Words can not describe the joy and liberty that we moved in to when we did. So take this as you will. Just know that my heart is not angry, but just wanting for those locked in spiritual dryness.

In my former experiences where the Spirit was kept in check, I was never corrected, never taught, never lead, I was only tolerated. No one sought me out to mentor me. I received no word of correction or rebuke. I was expected to remain seated until I had done my time, and then after such a time there came certain releases. However it was apparent that the only test was that of time and a consistency of service and of giving. There was no challenge and very little trust to release what God placed in my wife or I to release. Our children were left out almost entirely because of the clicky nature of the youth structures we witnessed. There was no real connection to the church and no real unity because there was very little Holy Spirit, even though they called themselves Spirit filled. It was all about the one man show. It was all about the most talented people.

But where the Spirit of the Lord was manifesting, when we dedicated ourselves to that place, almost immediately, the Spirit of the Lord began to deal with my heart and my mind. He used everyone to speak into my life. I was loved with a love that was almost nonexistent in former places; a love that was intense, true, of the heart and without any alterior motives. I witnessed no judgment, but found myself on God’s threshing floor time and time again. The Lord was breaking down my fears. He was doing business with my pride. He was crushing me with waves of mercy and love that I could physically feel. Because he was manifesting upon me, my “out of lines” and “out of balances” were snapping back in line with the Father’s heart. I saw the Father’s heart for me like never before.

I recognized that no longer was it about what I did in the church that gained acceptance for me, he accepted me as I was even in my faults. I sensed his release to me even in my imperfect state. Now I understood God’s testing and approving was nothing like mans testing and approving. God was releasing me while he was working on my heart! What a new way! What trust! What love!

Now I knew that I was righteous, not being made righteous. I knew I was a son, not a servant. The words of God over me took on a substance of proof that they were real. That is to say, it was not just words but the experience that followed the words. My faith, hope and love was increasing. It became liberating to just open up to him and to people to change me. It became a welcome thing, and which remains in my heart today. I know I am not perfect. But in my imperfection, I am lovingly corrected with substance and truth rather than for the ulterior motives of religion, or the fleshly fears of man.

In having made this change away from the religious church, we have come under significant persecution. Accusations have come our way, of not being under submission to authority. We have been accused of operating in a state of woundedness from former bad experiences, of making decisions out of the fleshliness of frustration, of leaving because of not being heard.  How false and sad were these accusations. However, the Father knows that my heart is indeed his to deal with. To this I have been absolutely true.

Those that seek the deeper waters of God’s presence must know there is a price to pay. It is exactly what Jesus meant when he said this:

Lk 12:51 Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division.

The division Jesus speaks of is between what is right and what is wrong, between what is flesh and Spirit, between the mind of man and the mind of Christ.

Such then is the difference between submission in the Spirit filled church as compared to places of dryness. The difference is a 180-degree opposite; manipulation verses love.

The dry church manipulates to favor the church purpose. The Spirit filled church hands all the reins into the hands of the Father. This church then grows out of Father’s hand of love which results in his purpose; his work, his word, his rebuke, his teaching, in his timing. This way requires a great revelation to understand it! Only those who submit to such places in faith gain such an understanding. Otherwise it would be accused of by outside observers as church anarchy with no leadership.

Bottom line is, far greater is the spiritual growth of a person in places of God’s continuously manifesting presence. Transformation happens in such places. Otherwise, conformity rules the day.

Religion is all about conformity, a submission to anything and everything at all cost. We become dependent only upon the high few who test and approve… This religious way is of the law and which denies God his right to control his church or to use “the least of these” to bring His message.

Everything about God is about the new thing, not the old thing.

To be transformed means to be changed out of something old into something new. It means to change from a lesser way into a greater way, an ever-increasing move.

To be conformed is to be changed out of some way into  “old tried and true ways”. It means to change from ways of disorder into ways of man defined order. It is always either a lateral change or decreasing or backward change. By it’s nature, it rejects the new thing of God for form of order or familiarity.

Conformation is man in control. Transformation is God in control.

I will submit and follow any church leader to the moon and back who lets the Holy Spirit control the meeting. Submission is right only when God is in control of the whole thing; only when God has hold of all the reins. Otherwise, it’s submission under the law and which stiff-arms Christ in lieu of mans ideals. It’s error and which results in religious bondage. People become crushed under the weight of the chains of mans limitations. The one tallent people are forced to go and bury thier tallent. Because, there is no place to release, no place to give or receive besides at one’s seat.

It is true that to whoever or whatever I submit, therein lies the limit of my spiritual growth. If I submit to sin, I become a slave to it. If I submit to the Spirit, I enter into the fullness the Spirit brings, namely liberty and joy, the very things Christ died to release! Whatever or whoever I submit to, and which is a principle of God, that is my limit.

Consider this…

Why drive an old worn out 20 year old car when we could be driving a brand new car?

Why settle for a tin shack when we could be living in a mansion?

Why would anyone sustain only on rice and water when God has invited us into his banqueting room full of food and new wine we have never partaken of?

Why put salve on our open wounds when God can heal them completely in an instant?

Why settle for one soul a week when we could have hundreds even thousands in a day?

Why is the church dead and full of strife when it could be alive and in great unity?

The answer is this… too much conformation and too little transformation; too much thinking and too little drinking. Too much of mans old ways and too little of Gods fresh increase. Too much mind and too little heart.

It comes down to this…. It’s time to die to self in as much as we are able to do. It’s time to give God all our reins. Then we can lead. Then we can reap. Then we can grow. Only in such a place is submission in right order. Only in such a place does submission lead to transformation.

T. Scott Morton

Ps 2:12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

Jesus took the cup of wrath for all my sins so that I don’t have to. He is my complete refuge from the wrath of God. Yes his refuge is complete, lest the Lord be a liar and Jesus having died in vane.

Though I err, if I am found in Christ, there is no wrath unless I am out of alignment with the truth of who he is and what he did on the cross, unless I choose to not believe what is true. When I err, I repent, and I am made safe. If I know Christ in the fullness of him, I am safe, even though the world might fall apart around me.

Now what are some effects of wrath? Of many evidences, here are a few: sickness, judgment, hatred, blindness to Kingdom truth and excessive persecution.

Wrath is born of the law. Wrath is the result of the law broken. Wrath is the righteous penalty for breaking the law for those living under the law. Wrath is the price for man living independent of God.

A price must be paid for every sin.

But, what about God’s heart of mercy? Mercy delays the consequence of sin; it does not eliminate the consequence of sin. Mercy simply defers the cost of sin to a later date. Or, mercy allows the price for our sin to be paid by another, namely Jesus Christ.

In the economy of God, mercy is the gift of time that allows me and leads me towards repentance! God waits in hopes that we would turn and repent. In so doing, I turn and place the cost of my sin upon the Cross. Repentance is my means to transfer my cost for my sin onto Jesus.

There is no sin that goes unpunished. Someone must pay the charge for it. That person is either upon myself, or through Father’s mercy, upon the person of Jesus Christ. I pay or Christ pays, it’s one or the other.

The cup of wrath is the very price Jesus paid on the day of the Cross for all of our sins for all time. He drank the cup of full power wrath. It is unimaginable the sorrow and separation that Jesus must have felt! This cup was far greater the pain of the Cross than the torture of it.

Praise God for what Christ did for me! He paid it all on the cross by drinking this cup of all wrath for all Christians for all time. I gain the benefit of that each time I repent.

Mt 26:38-39 Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

Jesus was not in fear of the cross. He was under the weight of the knowledge that he was about to take on the full price for all the sin of all the Saints for all time upon him. In light of all the wrath released in Old Testament times, how weighty must this knowledge have been of what was about to happen! The pain of the cross was but a tiny part of the greater pain Jesus would feel. The scourging, the whipping, the hatred, all momentary in comparison to this cup of wrath he was asked to take!

But Jesus’ drinking of this cup was complete, binding and for all time. This was the result:

Ro 8:1-3a Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death (wrath). For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.

There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus! What a magnificent gift. But that gift did not come without a great cost. Jesus paid the price in full. He did so by taking on the cross. He did so by drinking the cup of wrath.

However, for those who do not accept Jesus, they themselves must drink the cup of wrath on an individual level, the very same cup that Jesus took for the Saints. Ultimately, God’s cup of wrath is hell.

Jn 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.”  

This above scripture makes it unmistakably clear, God’s wrath remains only upon those who reject Jesus!

Therefore there is no wrath for those who are in Christ Jesus. This must be understood! There is no wrath for those who are in Christ Jesus! None!

Rev 14:9-10 A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb.

This cup of wrath is the very thing that Jesus was most disturbed about just prior to the Cross. Therefore it also represents the cup of ultimate sacrifice. It was an act of extreme sacrifice unto death. It was an act that God calls us all into. It is sacrifice that is a cup from which we all must drink.

However in that Jesus cup carried the penalties and price of sin, none of us need drink of it. Jesus took it all! Sacrifice unto death yes, but pay the price for sin… no! Jesus did that for us completely. Any lesser theology cheapens the Cross.

Here is a key point of this writing:

Sickness, being therefore an effect of wrath, being therefore a price for sin, is of the law. Therefore no one in Christ should suffer in sickness.

Psalms 38 proves this point. (This very chapter is a prophetic foretaste of what Christ cried out for in the garden in Mathew 26. “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.”)

Ps 38:1 O LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger

or discipline me in your wrath.

2 For your arrows have pierced me,

and your hand has come down upon me.

3 Because of your wrath there is no health in my body;

my bones have no soundness because of my sin.

4 My guilt has overwhelmed me

like a burden too heavy to bear.

5 My wounds fester and are loathsome

because of my sinful folly.

6 I am bowed down and brought very low;

all day long I go about mourning.

7 My back is filled with searing pain;

there is no health in my body.

8 I am feeble and utterly crushed;

I groan in anguish of heart.

9 All my longings lie open before you, O Lord;

my sighing is not hidden from you.

10 My heart pounds, my strength fails me;

even the light has gone from my eyes.

11 My friends and companions avoid me because of my wounds;

my neighbors stay far away.

12 Those who seek my life set their traps,

those who would harm me talk of my ruin;

all day long they plot deception.

13 I am like a deaf man, who cannot hear,

like a mute, who cannot open his mouth;

14 I have become like a man who does not hear,

whose mouth can offer no reply.

15 I wait for you, O LORD;

you will answer, O Lord my God.

16 For I said, “Do not let them gloat

or exalt themselves over me when my foot slips.”

17 For I am about to fall,

and my pain is ever with me.

18 I confess my iniquity;

I am troubled by my sin.

19 Many are those who are my vigorous enemies;

those who hate me without reason are numerous.

20 Those who repay my good with evil

slander me when I pursue what is good.

21 O LORD, do not forsake me;

be not far from me, O my God.

22 Come quickly to help me,

O Lord my Savior.

Sickness is the result of the law being broken. Sickness is one effect of wrath being poured out. Sickness is the right that the devil has to bring people to a stop. The right he has to bring it is by our sin or the sins of the fathers in previous generations.

Exod 20:3-6 “You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Many wonder how children get deathly sick in what seems to be good and godly families. Few people agree with the above scripture. How can God allow such a thing to happen to an innocent child? But the scripture is clear. God’s wrath visits to the third and fourth generation of those who live in sin.

What we do not believe we will not see, nor can we combat against it!

Indeed sometimes God allows sickness to a guiltless person to show his glory and power. But these events are rare and are clearly made known. People get healed that have this happen to them so that God’s glory is made known in the world! Job is a prime example. But Job happened before the Cross!

But how great is the gift of repentance!

2 Pet 3:9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

Isa 30:15a This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength…”

When we repent, we appropriate upon ourselves and our children the effects of the Cross. Jesus took the cup of wrath so we don’t have to.

Now here is a key point:

What we choose to believe of the Kingdom of God is what we see and gain in the Kingdom of God. What we choose not to believe we will not see, nor will we gain the benefit of it in the Kingdom of God. In the economy of the Kingdom, what we don’t believe we do not gain. If we do not believe that Jesus took all of our wrath, we reserve some of it for us on earth. If I do not believe that sickness is an effect of the fallen world, I expose myself to it. If I believe that a dieing child is the divine choice of a merciless God, I have no power to minister healing to that child! Then what I experience becomes my theology.  We reap what we sow.

What we do not believe that is actually true in the Kingdom of God, we will not see. Therefore, what we choose to disbelieve that is of the Kingdom of God is sin. That sin therefore results in an effect. The effect is wrath. Whatever sin I choose to live in eventually has a result, wrath.

It must also be said here that there is a great deal of mercy and patience in the Father’s heart. He knows who will turn and who will not turn towards him. We all deal with levels of unbelief. My main point for all who read this is to unlock your mind to the radical truths of the Kingdom of God and believe! In so doing we prevent volumes of trouble in this life. That trouble comes in the form of oppression.

Consider the story of Zechariah who was just given a phenomenal word that his aged wife Elizabeth would bear a child. He didn’t believe it:

Luke 1:19-20 The angel answered, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their proper time.”

God had mercy on Zechariah and his speech was restored. Though we don’t hear his words of repentance, clearly his heart was repentant. This is what happened:

Luke 1:63-64 He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone’s astonishment he wrote, “His name is John.” Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue was loosed, and he began to speak, praising God.

Notice that what Zechariah said that ended his punishment were words of agreement to the truth of what Gabriel brought to him. Zechariah came into agreement with the Kingdom truth that the angel brought him and to which he had first disagreed with.

When we come into agreement with what the Holy Spirit brings us today, we are then moving in what the Lord wants us to move into. To disagree with the word he brings is sin and error. The result is the inability to express what God has given us to do in this world.

Some falsely believe that God disciplines through sickness today. The main argument is that because we don’t see God healing today it must not be true for today. I know that this is false theology and the word makes this unmistakable. But to believe in such error denies what Jesus took on the Cross. He took all of the wrath for all time. Now there is no wrath for those who are in Christ Jesus. So we point those who are sick to the Cross. The result becomes healing power. Wrath falls off. The devil flees. Infirmity fails.

Sickness is nothing but the right of the devil to bring wrath to an unbelieving world. But the Cross and the power of the Cross is how we overcome sickness.

When we come into agreement with a lesser theology, such agreement becomes the right for the bringer of wrath to infiltrate. It is why there is so much sickness in the church. False theology, the law… Old Testament death!

Ro 4:14-15 For if those who live by law are heirs, faith has no value and the promise is worthless, because law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.

Therefore where the law was made powerless through the Cross, there can no longer be any wrath for those who believe Jesus! Praise the Lord God Almighty for his great favor and love! Praise Jesus for taking my cup of wrath for me!

Wrath is in the world and will be in the world for those who are not in Christ Jesus. For those who say they are but do not believe in the fullness of what he did, wrath is also in the world.

Jesus’ Cross resulted in power. We must believe in both what he did and the power that he made manifest, namely the Holy Spirit. No wrath can stand in the face of the Holy Spirit. If sickness is a heckling jackal of death, the Holy Spirit is the mighty wind that chases it away through Jesus, the Lion of life who made it happen. Both the wind (power) and the Lion (Cross) are required. If Jesus is the Word and the Spirit is the Power, then sickness must flee by the manifestation of both!

Matt 22:29 Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.

A key point in this writing is that truth is key to moving in the fullness of the Kingdom of God here on earth as it is in Heaven. Only in truth can we move in the fullness of our call on earth as Christians. Today the bringer of all truth is the Holy Spirit. How invaluable is the manifest Presence of the Holy Spirit in our churches!

John 16:13-14 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.

Ro 1:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness…

Could it be that wherever the Holy Spirit is not welcome, Kingdom truth is being suppressed? Is this not the warning that Jesus gave in Mathew 22:29?

“You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.

Is this not as warning for today’s church that claims to be in Jesus Christ?

And so I tell you the truth… wrath and all that comes with it, primarily sickness and early death, have no power over us who are in Christ Jesus.

Now therefore, God disciplines us in this world by the result of our own choices limited by our faith and by what we will not believe. We reap out of what we choose to sow. If we do not believe that Jesus took it all for us on the cross, we fall under the law and the penalties thereof. We open ourselves to sickness and extreme persecution. We reap what we sow!

If we live in the flesh, our consequences are in the flesh.

If we live in the law, our consequences are of the law.

If we live in grace, our consequences are miracles.

If we live in the Spirit, our consequences are the witness of the truth of the Kingdom of God manifesting on earth as it is in Heaven.

“Let it be unto Him according to His Faith.”

Matt 9:28-29 When he had gone indoors, the blind men came to him, and he asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” “Yes, Lord,” they replied. Then he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith will it be done to you”

We should know that faith has everything to do with how far the devil can go against us.

For those who live in the light and who express that light into this dieing world, persecution is guaranteed. For all of us who are operating in the Holy Spirit and who are reaping a harvest, we must know, our enemy seeks every means to come against us. But that persecution is nothing like what David experienced in Psalms 38! Jesus work is complete! That was not yet so for David.

David did not have the liberty of the cross! Therefore he came under righteous wrath.  He lived in a world that regularly felt that wrath. Had he been under the blood of Christ, he would have not had the experiences he did to the level he did, even though he might have been martyred!

Not that we have it any easier than David, it is just that the tools we have in our hands are vastly greater than his! He had love and that was enough. We have love and Love poured out! And that is vastly greater.

We are all guilty. We all deserve to drink this cup of God’s wrath, but Jesus did that on the cross completely! He took my cup for me and drank it so that I would not have to.

The Lord is not angry with us! He cannot be. All anger was fully and completely exhausted upon one man, namely Jesus at the cross. Jesus took it all. Now there is no anger for those who are in Christ Jesus. He is not angry with you even in your failings. He can’t be, it’s against his nature and his word that is his bond. He would be a liar.

This is how it was in David’s day:

Dt 9:19 I feared the anger and wrath of the LORD, for he was angry enough with you to destroy you. But again the LORD listened to me.

But this is how it is in our day, and since the Cross:

Rom 8:1-4 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

Scripture says that there is no judgment or condemnation until the last day.

John 12:46-48 I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness. “As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day.

So no one alive in the world is yet judged. This should be great news for all of us who desire to reap for Jesus a harvest of souls! It is not too late for anyone.

But there is no judgment ever for those who are in Christ Jesus. All our judgment was leveled on Jesus on the Cross as he drank the cup of wrath. To believe any less is to reduce what Jesus did on the Cross.

Job 19:29 you should fear the sword yourselves; for wrath will bring punishment by the sword, and then you will know that there is judgment.”

So wrath is a judgment. Hell is the final place of God’s wrath. There will be no Hell for those who are in Christ. But for those who deny him, the fires of hell become their cup of wrath for all time.

Dt 32:22 For a fire has been kindled by my wrath, one that burns to the realm of death below.

That’s Hell.

Two final points. First, it is our compassionate hearts that should be hungry for the harvest of souls, to lead them out of a righteous wrath into the light of love. When the wrath of God is poured out in the world we see it as an opportunity to gain the lost. We don’t fear it. It does not affect us. We don’t take it as an affront or an offense. We just know that the cup of wrath is the price that someone must pay! And so we lead people out of wrath they currently feel into the One who took it all.

Second, there is no sickness for the Body of Christ. They are in error who believes otherwise.

There is no record of Jesus ever being sick in the Bible. Just the opposite, the power of the Holy Spirit in Jesus manifested out from him for healing to all who had ears to hear. He was our very literal deliverance from the bondage of infirmities. He said we would do everything he did and even greater things would we do. The apostles later proved this truth by seeing whole cities healed in Jesus name. Even today, people like Benny Hinn, Cal Pierce in Spokane with the Healing Rooms Ministries, Heidi and Rolland Baker in Mozambique and Victor Hernandez in Mexico are seeing healings by the hundreds.

Either Jesus healing power is for all the Body, or, Jesus shows favoritism and discriminates. I know, the former is true!

Now there is no wrath, no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Because perfect love casts out fear, we have nothing to fear. Now then whatever pain we endure, it is our sacrifice of self so that Jesus might be known in the world. There is no wrath for those fully in Christ. And as the church moves more and more into this truth by choice and faith, we will see healing happen more and more in this world.

T. Scott Morton