Freedom

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A recurring dream and 2 interpretations

Following God’s wake-up call (LINK) He often gave me dreams. Some were for teaching, others for personal direction. I never felt a leading to share any of them with the body of Christ at large though I did sometimes share with a small group of friends to assist with interpretation. It was in receiving the many interpretations that the Father began to teach me discernment of the Spirit from flesh. Sometimes an interpretation is what I call “formula prophetic”, e.g., a car is symbolic of ministry, a woman represents the church, etc. Often such interpretations left me with a reservation in my spirit. There were also times when the Spirit’s interpretation was a long time in coming that I was tempted to accept the formula view in spite of my reservations. “Perhaps my friends see something in me that I can not see in myself”, I reasoned. Thankfully, whenever I was tempted to surrender to the many formula interpretations God rose up to shout His view of the matter.

There are many examples of competing dream interpretations in the old testament; a consensus view and God’s message through a genuine seer. Joseph and Daniel come to mind. What follows is a recurring dream for which I had no interpretation for many years. It’s been a progressive dream where each time I had it there were more details to advance the story just a little bit more.

Recurring Dream

Lined up to race a single lap around an oval track, with many runners dressed in track attire, I was hopeful of finishing strong, perhaps even winning the race. The gun sounded and everyone leapt from the starting line as did I only to discover I was harnessed to a skid piled high with duffel bags. I had noticed the pile from the corner of my eye before the race started and simply assumed the duffel bags held the street clothes of all the other runners. Looking down at the harness, I saw that I was dressed in work clothes which isn’t surprising since I detest skimpy track suits.

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When prayers for healing seem to fail, part 2

In part 1, I marveled at the wisdom of God to set Spirit and flesh in opposition within us; whereby we yield our flesh life back to Him by surrendering to the cross to live instead the spirit life of His Son. And Jesus who in the garden of Gethsemane showed us the depth and breadth of surrender by yielding to the Father’s will for death by crucifixion, rather than assert His own will to be spared. So many promises of God in the Old Testament for personal health, long life, protection, prosperity – Jesus released them all back to the Father for the fulfillment of God’s will. Truly a promise made is a promise kept; the cross simply defers fulfillment to the next life.

So how is it some of us who in claiming to embrace the cross, fail to surrender our will where it pertains to receiving the promises of God in this life? Can we take time to consider the glaring contradiction of being crucified in the flesh while at the same time demanding God heal our flesh? Or insisting on our will over God’s will where healing is concerned? Surrendered hands that should be nailed to the cross instead grabbing at the hem of Christ or clenching fists to shake at God while demanding “you HAVE to heal me because YOUR word says so”. Whose will is on display in that scenario? Surrender means surrender including your will for the fulfillment of God’s promises in your flesh life. Oh, He may heal your flesh, of course, but it’s out of love for you when He does, not because He promised healing in this life, apart from healing your SPIRIT (Ezekiel 36:26-27).

In taking up my cross to follow Jesus like He asked, it’s been my experience that it’s the unfulfilled promises of God that are the nails in my hands and feet (metaphorically speaking). The simple recognition that while God promises to heal me, His word doesn’t say when. The problem comes when we demand His healing on our time table because with death approaching, we think we’re running out of time. But from God’s timeless viewpoint, our physical death is just the beginning of the fullness of life in the Spirit, whereby here in this life the Spirit may be better served if my infirmity remains. God has simplified my view of His word through the over-arching truth that rules over every other scripture – God owns everything including me (Ps 24:1) and His will prevails over mine (Luke 22:42). Thus this life is designed to provoke our unconditional surrender to Christ, where we, too, can say in the face of the cross “Father, not my will, but thine be done”.

Last autumn, my tinnitus turned 50; it’s an annoying condition that’s been squatting in my head ever since my band played for a basement party in cramped quarters. Standing for hours directly in front of a loud guitar amp was more than my young ears could handle without permanent damage. Where Paul prayed 3 times to remove his thorn in the flesh – I’ve prayed for healing from tinnitus since the day it started. Nothing. Oh I still ask once in awhile just to see if God has changed His mind but still, it’s “nope”. It took a while to see it but tinnitus has served a Godly purpose in my life wherein I’m mostly at peace with the condition. As a deep seated introvert, who loves to write after hours spent with the Spirit and the Word, rejoicing with the Lord whenever we unearth a treasure, the tinnitus is reason for me to go deep into the garden of His planting within me – as a place of peace and quiet from the constant squeal in my ears and the obnoxious noise of the world that triggers it. Quiet? I haven’t heard that since I was a teen, except when I’m tending my garden with Jesus, where I hardly notice the incessant noise beyond the walls.

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my Coming Out story

Have you ever heard a brother claim that God called them out of man’s institutional church to follow Jesus alone? If you’re like most believers, you probably thought they lost their mind or shipwrecked their faith. It’s not an unreasonable conclusion for someone who thinks Jesus Church and man’s institutional church are one in the same.

But what if they’re not?

Then I heard another voice from heaven say: “COME OUT of her (religious Babylon), My people, so that you will not share in her sins or contract any of her plagues.” (Rev. 18:4 BSB)

Wait a
minute …
that’s not
the Son …

Throughout the years I’ve asked many questions about things I noticed in man’s institutional church that left me disconcerted. I can’t recall any of them being answered to my satisfaction, rather I was encouraged to focus my attention on all the “good things” churches claim to do. It’s an experience not unlike The Truman Show, when after witnessing an on-set blunder, Truman obediently accepted the frantic explanation and remained trapped in a role he didn’t know he was playing while hemmed in by a cast of handlers and pretenders.

In the real world, how often did I pretend not to see on-set blunders in order to get along in a sick church with serious problems? Where being lumped was my reward for pointing them out? In Truman’s case, it wasn’t until he met the lover of his soul who dared crash the scene that He wanted to escape his prison to find her. As unwitting players in man’s institutional church theater, can we imagine that the Holy Spirit might crash the scene of our phony idyllic Christian production and upend everything we think we know?

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Questions that might get you lumped

When I noticed the pastor read just 10 verses of scripture before the sermon, I began to question whether us pew warmers were getting the whole story? So I counted up all the scriptures in the Bible, divided by 10 per week and 52 weeks per year and discovered it would take nearly 60 years to read the Bible at that rate. Clearly if I wanted to know what was in the Bible, I’d have to read it for myself. Focusing in on Proverbs, it would take 1 year and 9 months at the 10 verse per week rate; however if we took it one proverb at a time which seems logical since each one is sermon worthy, Proverbs would take 17 and 1/2 years! Similarly, instead of 5 months on Ecclesiastes, it would take 4 years and 3 months. So, if we’re honest about the 10 verse per week approach, most of us would die of old age before we finished the Bible at plodding sermon speed. We might be able to bring it in under 80 years if we droned through all the begats in a single Sunday. That sounds like a good mid-summer sermon when half the congregation is out on vacation.

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Being Thankful

The Lord is good. Always good. He’s blessed me in so many ways: a loving wife, a comfortable home, health, precious time with my elderly parents before He took them home. For a lifetime, God has listened to my prayers and continues to demonstrate His loving kindness towards me and all those I’ve lifted up over the years. And as often as I’ve accused Him of not acting fast enough on my prayers, He’s even been patient with my impatience.

Though I am cognizant of all these things, sometimes it’s the little things that remind me of just how wonderful God is; how closely He watches over and protects me.

Karen and I went shopping about an hour from where we live. We visited several home goods stores to find accessories to decorate our living room. A few days before, we jumped in the truck to go grocery shopping and found the battery was dead, so we took the car. As soon as we got home with the groceries, I put the battery charger on the truck and gave it a full charge. “Must’ve left the lights on” I reasoned and assumed everything would be OK.

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In memory of Betsy

When the Father directed my wife and I to Illinois the summer of 1999, we met 3 older women who were real spit-fires; they frequented half the churches in town where they were always praying for revival. They led Bible studies and prayer groups, and discipled new believers all in service to the Father.

They were intrigued by our introduction to the congregation, specifically a couple so crazy as to move 2400 miles cross country, sight unseen, at the Father’s direction. Since I wasn’t yet working, the old gals invited me to one of their weekly morning prayer meetings. Just 43 years old at the time, I wasn’t particularly inclined to hang out with women in their 70s, but the host said there would be carrot cake for dessert. So I went. We had a nice time getting to know each other, sharing our testimonies and praying as the Spirit led us. As lunchtime approached and I began gathering my things to leave, one of the ladies said they were going to the home of a young woman who was bed-ridden with cancer. In that instant, the Spirit gave me the brief vision of 4 men who removed a section of Peter’s roof and lowered a paralytic by the 4 corners of a bed sheet to the front of Jesus for healing. Looking once again at the 3 ladies, I blurted out “YOU NEED A FOURTH!” Inwardly, I groaned but it was too late, they’d heard me.

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Who Bakes Your Bread

Jesus calls each of us to fellowship with Him because He loves us. He wants to spend time with us and teach us His ways. Getting to know Jesus takes commitment and discipline on our part to spend time with Him daily. But how should we go about getting to know Him?

I once thought knowing Jesus was as simple as reading Christian literature. There is no shortage of Christian devotional and study guides, topical books, and even fiction for entertainment. As if that weren’t enough, there are countless blogs and web sites devoted to spreading the Gospel, and an abundance of subscription services to deliver daily prayers, scriptures, and devotionals directly to my desk top.

But is reading Christian literature and media the best way to get to know Him?

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School of the Holy Spirit

I’ve attended more than a dozen churches in my lifetime. Some of the ministers I met encouraged me to seek God for myself and obey Him without hesitation. Such were the men who led me to Jesus and who married me and my wife. Both remained genuine and loving brothers in Christ who would never come between me and the Lord, except perhaps to stop me from doing something that would harm my relationship with Him. The former was like a 2nd father to me during my teen years, the latter a sweet friend and counselor, who could always be found on Saturday evening standing in the pulpit delivering his Sunday sermon before God and an empty sanctuary. Sadly, some others questioned whether I could really hear God’s voice for myself and insisted I obey them instead. Through them God taught me to stand up for my freedom and to respond like Peter who said: “judge for yourself whether it is right to obey you, or God”.

Examining what it means to be a Free Son takes several forms: identifying ways in which we’re free, and the things that hold us back. Often that means coming to terms with falsehoods we’ve embraced and the people who taught and reinforced them. No one ever said rising from the dead was going to be easy (Luke 9:60, Ephesians 5:14). Imagine Lazarus, passing peacefully in his sleep, only to awaken days later on a cold slab in a dark tomb, tightly bound in linen cloth with 75 pounds of burial spices wrapped up with him (John 19:39-40). However did Lazarus manage to get to his feet and stagger out of the tomb? Likewise, when we awaken from our slumber, how do we come out from under the heavy burdens placed on our shoulders by false teachers and teachings (Matthew 23:4)?

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Exposing the Tithe Lie

The TITHE AUDIO SERIES tab at the top of the page is the most recent and complete treatment of the TITHE subject. Divided into 12 parts, it is intended for individual and group study. Included is the script in PDF format and a reading in MP3 format. – Jack

There are 7 articles in the original “Tithe” series, written between 2000-2002 and posted to my former web site Lord, You Are (dot) com, now defunct. This article consolidates the  7 articles in the order they were published. Exposing the falsehood of the modern tithe doctrine was one of the instruments God used to set me free from man’s dead Laodicean church system. As always, I pray the Lord will use them to set you free from false teaching and guilt-based giving.

To Tithe or not to Tithe: the $earch for Truth

Though I’ve always struggled with the tithe, I still shook my head in disgust when I heard about the preacher who’s congregation quietly left the church during the prayer following a long sermon on tithing. He said “Amen”, looked up and cried out “half my church is gone!” I laughed saying “they must have fled the conviction of the Holy Spirit”.

donottithe8What the Lord said took me completely by surprise: “They fled from error and guilt-based giving”. “What?!?” I’ve heard more sermons on the tithe than on any other topic except perhaps our need of Jesus for eternal life! After I picked up my jaw from the floor, the Lord prompted me to study tithing and giving.

Throughout the Bible study I prayed for His guidance and in the end I reached the inescapable conclusion that the “tithe” is to the modern church what the issue of “circumcision” was to the church in Paul’s time.

NOTE: Nothing in this article is intended as an excuse to stop giving as the Lord leads you to give.

The verse most often cited in support of the tithe is from the Old Testament, found in Malachi 3:8-10: Continue reading →