Category: driving your roots deeper

If you feel overwhelmed…

We are designed to be the temple of the Holy Spirit. Our bodies are created for the presence of King Jesus. God is intent on living in His family, His bride, the church. His church is people. It is you and me.

Something begins to happen as a result of surrendering our lives to Jesus. He starts changing things… changing us. The living Holy Spirit is constantly renovating and upgrading us BECAUSE we are the temple of the living God. For His glory to fill this temple, we need to be made ready.

God is right now renovating the church in all nations, preparing us for a more profound and intense manifestation of the glory of King Jesus. The challenging times and the unprecedented upheavals around the world are happening because all things must come into alignment with God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

As we, His temple, surrender to him we will shine with His glory and increasingly find others drawn to us to find hope. Lately, I have been experiencing more renovations in my own life. God has been aligning the attitudes of my heart and calling me to higher levels in prayer. He needs to do that in me because of what He wants to do through me.

Maybe you have been wondering why life has been harder than usual lately. In the middle of amazing times with God, things seem to be more chaotic. I want to encourage you. If you have surrendered your life to King Jesus, you are in his care and He is with you… not just surrounding you but within you.

He is not working on you out of frustration, but out of a passionate desire to prepare you to shine even more with the fire of His presence. I know it is hard and maybe impossible to find the courage to go on when you are looking at your own strength. We HAVE TO focus on Christ in us in order to find grace in our time of need.

I pray that right now, the eyes of your heart will be opened and you will hear from the Spirit of God that you are not alone. All of the perceived challenges in front of you are only there to make you more amazing for the glory of Jesus. You are not alone and today is a day when we win in Christ.

Healing my Spiritual Vision in 2020

Every November I ask God to give me a word, a focus for the coming year. It stirred in me this morning that I would love for the Spirit of God to bring healing to the eyes of my heart in 2020. I know that seeing everything more clearly as he aligns my vision will call for greater courage and surrender.

Over the next week, I will be crafting my word from the Lord for my life as it relates to 2020. My tradition is to have it ready for my birthday on November 13. I then submit it to King Jesus and surrender it to him as I start on another trip around the sun.

Maybe you would like to ask the Lord about 2020? If you feel like it is a year for him to heal the eyes of your heart, your inner vision, you are welcome to join me in that focus.

As children of God in Christ, we are prophetic people. The Church is called to be a prophet to all nations. May we surrender our vision to King Jesus over and over again so that He will be happy in his Church and his heart will overflow with blessing!

Heaven’s expanse and limits

One of the keys to the unprecedented renewal movement of God on earth is surrender to the ruling presence of God. I have done a lot of wrestling with religious rules and standards over the past 50+ years… both breaking them and keeping them.

In great frustration, as an eighteen-year-old boy, I came to a crisis moment of surrender. I prayed a simple but gut-level honest prayer; “Lord Jesus, I don’t know if this pleases you or not, but you are stuck with me because I can’t live without you.” I didn’t realize it at the time but from that moment, the Holy Spirit was able to establish God’s authority in my inner world. My allegiance shifted from a set of earthly, religious rules to a living, moving “alignment” with God’s presence.

Do you trust God’s presence to govern and renew all things including your being and doing?

Following Jesus means allowing the living, dynamic presence of God to rule in your heart. It means that your whole being and doing is governed by the peace and message of Christ. You will be forever blessed by both the expanse and the limits of God’s judgments. (inspired by Colossians 3:15-16)

It’s still a narrow path

Today I was drawn into thoughts about moving forward in spite of challenges. I remembered that Jesus said something about the narrow path. One of the more difficult realities we face is that freedom is a narrow path. The most empowered people are wise enough not to demand their own way.

I decided to search “the narrow way”. I landed in Matthew 7:12-14. There, Jesus taught us about a narrow path and a small gate that only a few even find. THAT sounds hard. He explained that life involves choosing which path you will walk… same circumstances, same challenges, different paths.
What is the mindset of someone who is on the narrow path? Well, first of all, it is tough-minded. It is intentional and pre-meditated. According to Jesus, it is all about staying awake to the way you want to be treated and then giving others what you want for yourself. He said, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7:12)

My mind goes to another place where Jesus said that loving others as you love yourself and loving God with your whole being sums up the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 22:37-40) I am left with this; The life I am starving for is a narrow path, the narrow path is love, love is DOING to others what I would have them DO to me.

Or… I can shut my eyes, block my ears and take the broad path and be a trainwreck.

Considering my choices, once again I realize how grateful I am for the sound of the Spirit of God knocking on the door of my life, asking to come in and join me. Every day is about grit, grind, and grace. And because of all that Jesus has done, we have access to everything we need for the narrow path.

So, my friend, if the only option you see in front of you is either blind and deaf denial of reality or facing the narrow path, don’t buy the lie that you have uniquely broken your life, that everyone else is on the better path, or that there is no hope.

Instead, join those who have discovered deep friendship with the only One who can provide all that I need to make it all the way through… Jesus!


The Open Door

There is always a massive reserve of wisdom available to us with Jesus. More than ever before, I am aware that God has reconciled all things to himself in Christ. Reconciliation is a gigantic word.

The unseen things are eternal and what is seen is temporary. It has taken a lifetime to learn, but I am convinced that I wouldn’t last a day without the Spirit of Truth connecting me to life. Somehow, I understand that it’s okay and that He is not in a hurry for me to learn all the lessons.
It is time for us to engage life with a spiritual vision. There is an eternal dimension in every moment of this day. In the simplicity of our routines on earth, heaven is colliding with us. Jesus became the open door for God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. The jaw-dropping reality is that somehow He wants to prove it by showing up through you and me today in every ordinary thing we do.

So, maybe today I will more consistently let go of the anxiety connected with propping up my world in my own strength. This I know for sure… Jesus is the one who pulls it all together and He is our open door to more than we could ever imagine.

Miraculous, not Magical

I order to live a story surrendered to God’s appointment you need grit, grind, and grace every day. It is miraculous but it’s not magic. It requires living on earth tapped into the resources of heaven.

“But you, my delightfully loved friends, constantly and progressively build yourselves upon the foundation of your most holy faith by praying every moment in the Spirit. Fasten your hearts to the love of God and receive the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, who gives us eternal life. Keep being compassionate to those who still have doubts, and snatch others out of the fire to save them. Be merciful over and over to them, but always couple your mercy with the fear of God. Be extremely careful to keep yourselves free from the pollutions of the flesh.” (Jude 20-23 TPT)

In Christ, you are a blessing!

Prophetic Give and Take

I am gaining a much greater appreciation for our need to gain skill in the “give and take” of the prophetic in our relationships. I have focused most of my attention on learning how to hear from God and deliver prophetic words to others.

But, Jesus opened the way so that I can also receive powerful blessings through others as they deliver prophetic messages from God to me.

This two-way communication with other believers in Christ requires me to learn how to both receive from and give to others through the gift of prophecy.

Because of all that Jesus accomplished as our Saviour and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on all flesh (see Acts 2), we have the incredible blessing of relating prophetically. The same power of Christ that frees us to deliver a prophetic word also empowers us to receive a word responsibly from another believer.

I have a sense that the Church is going to greatly increase our ability to receive words from others with the Holy Spirit’s help. Powerful days lie ahead of us as we learn to lovingly judge the words others deliver to us in a healthy way.

The Lord Jesus is still building his church. The best is yet to come. Don’t squander the opportunities available to you to practice the prophetic in your relationships.

In Christ, you are a blessing!

Why do you exist? Write it down.

Have you taken the time to write your life mission statement? I am referring to a one or at the most two-sentence statement that answers the question, “Why do I exist?”. If not, please make it a priority to ask the Lord about it. In Christ, you have access to come before the throne of grace and ask for revelation on why you were created. God longs for you to see and know His design in you. As you ask him for help in knowing what you were created to do, listen and begin to write out what you hear. Let it unfold even as you write. Eventually, you will be able to get it into one or two sentences (preferably one sentence that is easy to repeat and share.)

Recently I was remembering my mission statement. I wrote it a few decades ago. Here it is… “I exist to help young people discover their God-designed life mission and give their whole lives in order to see it fulfilled”.

With some coaching, I began to envision what that would look like, praying for God’s help in order to get it done. It is amazing to me how that small beginning as marked my journey from then until today.

Writing down and pursuing my mission statement locked me into a partnership on earth as in heaven with the Holy Spirit. It broke up the ground in my life so that the prophetic could be planted and nurtured in me. I am eternally grateful for the grace released to my life story through that one important exercise.

Maybe it is your time to beginning asking the Father to show you your mission. If so, do yourself, all of us, and all of creation a favor and mark it down, covenant with the Lord over it, don’t change it, live into it, and we will all glory with you as God produces heaven’s fruit through you as a result.

In Christ, you are a blessing!

Playing dead… cowardice

Playing dead in life is cowardice. Staying awake in everything you do is brave. Those who are stuck in a lifestyle of playing dead have no idea about the difference between the two ways. Jesus became human to awaken us so that we never need to play dead again.

Drive your roots deep into the truth in Christ, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

In Christ, you are a blessing!

Live worthy of the Lord

I’ve been doing some intense personal work lately. Over the past few years, I have been introduced to the Enneagram. It has been a great discovery. I am a Type 9 with a Self-preservation instinct. Basically, an Adaptive Peacemaker whose instinct is survival, physical safety, material security, wellbeing, and comfort.

God knew what he was doing when he created me. He was intentional and I first existed in God’s mind before I was even conceived. (Psalm 139)
I’ve been working on paying attention to my feelings of anger, dissatisfaction, and frustration. My go-to behavior in life has been to numb out to those feelings as quickly as possible. But, with the Holy Spirit’s help, I am learning more about what I actually believe in my heart and allowing the word of Christ to reform me.

There is a calling in the Bible that has for a long time pursued me. It is to “…live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God…” (Colossians 1:10)
This morning I was pressing in on the challenge of stoking my desire to live a life worthy of Jesus’ name. The jarring and fearsome truth is that because I have entrusted my life by faith in him, the Spirit of God now lives in me as spiritual fire. I don’t actually provide the fire.

My job is to fan it into flame. So, for me, my daily work has to include going to the desire that dwells in me because of Jesus. Honestly, if I hadn’t started this habit a few decades ago, I would still be numb and asleep to the furnace room of God’s desire deep in me. I realize now more than ever my need to shoulder my responsibility to do whatever it takes to craft a life worthy of the Lord.

Don’t hear me wrong, it is totally in submission and profound partnership with Christ who lives in me. But, there is no other human that is going to do my personal work for me. You and I are here, alive in this era, to go today to our plot of land in our Father’s vineyard and work it on earth for the glory of heaven. And, it begins in our hearts.

God sees you as worth every effort because of the One in you.

In Christ, you are a blessing!