Health Care Bill Dead on Arrival

This morning’s Fox News headline made my week. “House Health Bill Has Nowhere to Go in Senate”.  Prayer and action, together, works!  Although the House passed the Health Care Bill last week, the Senate cannot produce enough support to get Obamacare pushed through.  Sen. Harry Reid has alluded to the fact that health care reform likely won’t be passed this year.  Kudos to the thousands who showed up on the Capitol steps last Thursday to speak up on this issue.  While the media won’t admit how powerful your individual voice is, the Senate will. 

Read the article for yourself and be encouraged.  Continue to speak out on this and the many other issues that will face our nation in the coming days.  We’ll settle for nothing less than Reformation!

Original Article: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/09/house-health-senate/

 

 

 

 

 

 

This morning’s Fox News Headline “

 

 

 

 

I’m Just Saying!

Ever notice how God can highjack your conversation and slip stuff into the atmosphere without your consent?  You can be talking gibberish with a friend, when all of a sudden… POOF! Something profound flies outta your flap!  In that magical moment, you and your friend realize that Holy Spirit is doing more of the talking than you realized.  I love those moments.  They are reminders that the infinite and living God lives in us.

What I’m growing to recognize more and more, is when the Holy Spirit highjacks my daily musings.  I’m finding that the ponderings of my heart are often the nudges of a loving Father, who simply desires to have a chat with me.  Now that I’m savvy to His beckon, I can sit down with Papa and converse over a cup of coffee, and discover what’s on His heart, anytime.  Oh, the joys of being His!

I really don’t think we realize just how much He’s influencing us.  Isaiah 55:8 says, “ For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith Jehovah.”  While this is absolutely true, the following verses explain just how God’s thoughts can invade our own. 

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.  For as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, and giveth seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” Isaiah 55:9-11.

This passage reveals that the thoughts of God, though they are higher than ours, rain down and water the earth (soil, or the hearts of men).  It pleases Him to send His words, His thoughts to us, so that they may prosper in us. 

Another witness on this can be found in Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.“  Father admittedly thinks toward us… directing His thoughts like heat-seeking missiles locked on the target of our hearts.  Let me kick this verse up a notch for my prophetic friends… BAM!  The word toward in this passage, according to the Hebrew lexicon, is the word nĕ’um.  It means: an utterance, declaration of a prophet or a revelation (of a prophet in ecstatic state).  Glory! An ecstatic state is merely the state of being fully possessed by the Holy Spirit. 

Say On, Lord.

You can increase the traffic of Father’s thoughts in your life.  You can clear the highway of your heart of unnecessary traffic that impedes His voice.  Traffic can be mental, physical and spiritual in nature.  Sickness, depression, anxiety, busy-ness, emotional wounds, among many other things can hinder His voice.  To the degree that we are whole or healed in these areas, is the degree to which we can accurately discern Him speaking.  

There’s no greater boost to your faith than realizing that God is speaking… always.  Bill Johnson says it like this, “ Faith comes by hearing, not by having heard, the Word of God.”

The Scales Will Fall

Acts 9 has been in my spirit for a couple of weeks.  This chapter is the account of the conversion of Saul the persecutor into Paul who would become an Apostle.  The phrase “and something like scales fell from his eyes” actually came up in my spirit during prayer one morning.  This led me to an unearthing of what really happened to Saul in Acts 9.

Saul, on the road to Damascus, was blinded by the intense brightness of the appearing of Jesus. I had always understood the blindness that ensued to be a “spiritual” infliction, since those who travelled along with Saul heard a voice but saw nothing.  God sent Ananias of Damascus to lay hands on Saul and restore his eyesight.  It is then that the scales fell from Saul’s eyes.  The Adam Clarke commentary describes those scales as a very literal effect of a supernatural encounter.  Here’s an excerpt:

This was real: he had been so dazzled with the brightness of the light that we may suppose the globe of the eye, and particularly the cornea, had suffered considerable injury. The structure of the cornea was doubtless much disturbed, and the whole of that humour would be rendered opaque, and incapable of permitting the rays of light to pass through the different humours to the retina, where all the images of things transmitted through the lenses, or humours, are distinctly painted. In the miraculous cure the membrane was restored to its primitive state, and the opaque matter separated from the cornea, in the form of thin laminae or scales. This being done, the light would have as free a passage as formerly, and the result would be distinct vision.

Clarke, Adam. “Commentary on Acts 9″. “The Adam Clarke Commentary”. <http://www.studylight.org/com/acc/view.cgi?book=ac&chapter=009>. 1832.  

Let it be said that supernatural encounters have a very real effect on us, spirit, soul and body.  The physical effects we sense when in the manifest presence of the Lord are not psychosomatic in nature.  We are spiritual beings with a physical body which helps us “sense” the world around us (both natural and supernatural).  I have a question for the skeptics among us.  Have you ever felt the presence of evil?  Did it send cold shivers down your spine? Have you ever felt the presence of love? Did it make you feel warm and safe? Of course! Then it is no stretch to believe that presence of our Heavenly Father can be sensed and felt as well.

What are the scales?

For days I’ve been asking Father, “What are the scales that are about to fall?” The fact that the body of Christ is suffering from spiritual blindness is no shocker. Our “prophetic voice” has been reduced to declaring that which has been and is now.  The nearsightedness of the church has caused us to lose sight of our future and our ability to forthtell.  Throughout biblical history, rebellious kings and governments had no use for the saints unless they needed a prophetic word for the future.  In the day of crisis the ruler would call for the prophet to declare the will of God for the future.  Beloved, the church has seemingly lost even this precious gift to spiritual blindness. 

The conversion account of Saul gives us understanding about the Church’s spiritual blindness.  Saul was a loyal Jew and servant of the God of the Old Covenant.  The Lord says to Ananias of Saul in Acts 9:15, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel.” Saul was already of Father’s house, a chosen instrument.  His conversion was a result of an encounter with the Christ of the New Covenant. 

Blinded by Jesus, full of grace and truth, Saul could no longer see to participate in the tyranny of the law.  After three days of fasting, praying and repenting, Ananias prayed and restored Saul’s vision and commissioned him to the Jews, Gentiles and Kings (all of whom belong to Father).

Friend, I believe the blindness the church has endured is due in part to our unwillingness to acknowledge and honor the other parts of the family of God.  There still exists preference, prejudice, and in places persecution toward other camps or brands of Christianity.  Our blindness is Father’s attempt to bring us to repentance for our gross sin.

Here’s a quick litmus test for spiritual blindness.

1. Do we consider our own church better than others?

2. Do we feel God is moving only in our spiritual stream? 

3. Have we purposefully distanced ourselves from (or snubbed) those who disagree with our theology?

4. Do we discount those who do not operate in the same spiritual gifts as we?

5. Have we caricatured others as “dry,” “dead,” “cold,” “flaky,” “fruity,” “radical,” “not my type,” etc…? 

If we have answered yes to any of these questions, we are blinded to the greatness of others… the beauty of the Body of Christ and the splendor of His manifold presence in the earth.  If we are still trying to set ourselves apart from the pack, or distinguish ourselves from the rest of God’s family, we have failed the test. 

True vision comes only when we know our place among the brethren.  I long for alignment in the body.  I cry for it.  The scales are a result of the divide between the church of grace and law, the church of the natural and the supernatural.  Let us repent and allow the hands of Ananias be laid on our eyes for the restoration of sight and the Apostolic commissioning.  The scales will fall.

A Smart Summary of the Health Care Debate

Exploring Your Mantle

A mantle, by biblical accounts, is an outer garment worn for warmth and protection.  The style of a mantle could be an indicator of the vocation or profession of the one wearing it.  Prophets and kings were known to wear mantles of fur skin, distinguishing them from common folk.  The animal skins spoke of a life of sacrifice and consecration to the Lord.  It said “authority,” not “luxury” as fur implies in our time.

The Hebrew word for mantle in 1 Kings19:19 is addereth, meaning prophet’s garment. We read in this account how Elijah invited Elisha to serve him by casting his own mantle over Elisha’s shoulders.  The message conveyed was, “Elisha, I have chosen you to be my successor.  Follow me.“  Elisha didn’t have to wonder, “What am I called to do?”  The mantle made his election abundantly clear. Because of the Elijah/Elisha account in particular, the mantle has come to be synonymous with one’s calling in the Kingdom and the authority that calling necessitates for operation.

Your mantle is ageless.

Spiritual mantles are transcendent in nature.  Your mantle existed before you were born, and will remain long after you’re gone if the Lord waits to return.  Just as King Solomon taught, “There is nothing new under the sun.”  Our gift clusters may cause the mantle to manifest differently in our lives than in our predecessors, but no mantle is individual.  Have you ever watched a gifted preacher who reminded you of someone else?  When I think of Dr. Rod Parsley, I envision a modern-day George Whitefield.  Anyone familiar with Kathryn Kuhlman can certainly see traces of her in Pastor Benny Hinn.  Undoubtedly, you have recognized similarities in anointings among ministers that you have been exposed to, especially among generational ministries.

Honor is the conduit for transcendency.

Mantles can skip a generation, and often do.  This phenomenon is attributed to a lack of honor among the generations.  If the older generation fails to invest in the younger, the mantle will find no place to land.  By teaching the younger generation our ideas, philosophies and scriptural perspectives, we are conditioning them to operate in our mantle.  Should we fail to transmit our “spirit,” the mantle will go dormant.  If the younger generation refuses to honor the elder, the mantle will pass on to one who is willing to wear it.  Often, it will lie in waiting for many years until another generation is willing to be what the mantle requires.

When a mantle re-emerges in a later generation, it won’t re-appear diminished.  For instance, we are seeing a resurgence of the healing anointing, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the days of John G. Lake, A.A. Allen or Oral Roberts.  The prophetic anointing that William Branham operated in decades ago, is now being distributed among willing carriers of the mantle.  Branham walked in an astounding demonstration of the word of knowledge and wisdom.  It is again being given to make known the thoughts and secrets of men’s hearts for the salvation of their souls. 

A vision came to me, one day, of a large mantle being divided into pieces and then distributed among many.  The Lord spoke to my spirit that this is what happens when there is no spiritual “son” or “daughter” willing to inherit.  I then saw many pieces coming together to form a patchwork coat of many colors that some had been given.  Through humility and submission to the anointings of former generations, some would be granted to walk in sampling of many great anointings, resulting in a ministry of grace and favor.  Lord, let it be granted not only to me, but all who read these words!

It’s time to explore your mantle.

Steve Thompson, one prophetic voice, has made a bold declaration that I feel is absolutely accurate.  “Our predecessor’s ceiling has become our floor.”  This is how it should operate as revelation unfolds in an accelerated pace in these last days.  In the growing light of our day, (Prov. 4:18) we can expect to ascertain depths of the anointing that were seemingly unknowable in years gone by.  The great cloud of witnesses are standing on the brim of heaven, watching and waiting to see what we will do with their mantles.  When they finally welcome us to the Victor’s Circle, they will be saying, ”I never knew that mantle was capable of so much!”  

Father, help us honor the generations that have gone before us by exhausting the potential they entrusted us with.  Forgive us for dishonoring the legacy of our spiritual lineage.  We submit humbly to the conditioning necessary to wear the dormant mantles of great men and women of yesteryear.  Lord, show us what our mantle is capable of producing. Take us to new heights of Kingdom demonstration in this age of acceleration and revelation, amen.