Do you ever wonder, what's my rooftop? Where is my place of influence? Think for a moment about where you are heard. Who is your audience? A pastor preaches to his congregation. A worship singer considers the stage her place of influence, proclaiming the gospel through song. A politician's cries for justice resound in the auditorium of Congress. but where do YOU make your voice heard? The mission of every believer is to proclaim the message of the Gospel. As we get to know Christ better and love Him more, we are naturally compelled to share the good news of His redeeming love for us. Never before have we had such a tremendous opportunity to fulfill the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) by reaching those in "all nations." The question is, how do you carry out your mission? Ultimately, our mission field is wherever we are at the moment. True, social media is an amazing, world-reaching platform we can use for the Kingdom. But words alone are not always convincing. When people see how we live our lives - how we put actions to our faith - they will take notice of what we say. Character is convicting. And character is best seen up close. As a pastor friend recently said, "Your daily life is the platform your faith is lived on."*
Whatever I tell you in the darkness,
say it in the light; and whatever you hear with your ears, preach on the rooftops. ~Matthew 10:27; Aramaic English Bible It's time to give the devil a one-two punch! You're familiar with the term, of course: a boxer throws a left-handed jab immediately followed by a right cross punch. The same technique is also used in fencing. It's a fast combination of two actions designed to give an athlete the upper hand. If you're a believer, you should be using a "one-two punch" strategy today. Here's why. Current events are unfolding at an alarming pace. The war on terror is expanding, reaching many nations. Most of us lack the political influence we might feel we need to effect change. In light of this, the enemy wants us to feel hopeless. He knows that powerlessness can lead to fear. Luke 21:26 confirms that in the end times, men's hearts will fail them "from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming in the earth." Preemptive Prayer & Compassionate Provision The Bible offers hope, though, in the form of a one-two punch. The first punch is prayer, and the second is provision. The Bible says that our prayers are powerful and effective (James 5:16). They work because we have been seated with Christ in heavenly places, where all things are subject to Him (Ephesians 1:20-22). As joint-heirs with Christ, we receive the blessing of being "above only and not beneath" (Deuteronomy 28:13). This means that as we pray, no matter how impotent we may be in the natural, we rise to become agents of transformation in the Spirit. We partner with Jesus in His ministry of intercession. By tapping into the unlimited reach and resources of the Holy Spirit, we now pray and effect change at every level of government, business, education, religion and any other man-made institution. Joseph as Prototype The eleventh son of Jacob is a prophetic prototype for us here. After being sold into slavery and betrayed several times, Joseph was transformed from reject to ruler. He left the dungeon of the enemy and was promoted to second-in-command of Pharaoh's kingdom (Genesis 37-50). Like Jesus, he used his prayers of faith to enter in to a place of provision. Having overcome his own adversity through prayer, he then helped others to overcome, through practical provisions for a worldwide famine. I believe we have a similar purpose. Rather than succumbing to fear, we can throw the first "punch" of prayer and follow it up with a second "punch" of provision for the disasters that do occur. Like the Proverbs 31 woman, we are wise to prepare our families in advance for whatever the "winter" season may bring, so that we are safe and can serve others in time of need. We can be "angels with skin on," ministering servants empowered by the voice of the Lord and serving humanity with practical assistance or spiritual gifts. No More Shadowboxing We are created to be strong spiritual athletes: to fight the good fight of the faith and to fear nothing. Paul says we are not called to be shadowboxers, Christians who throw ineffective punches at the air (See 1 Corinthians 9:26). Our faith is the antidote to fear, and our faith gives us a specific strategy for a Kingdom "win." What will you do with your spiritual authority in these dark days? c. Deborah Perkins, 2014 Want to know God better? Join us! Partners receive free, inspiring articles and ongoing prayer.Click here to subscribe. Your email stays private. Just for a moment, think of the smartest person you know. Who do you think is the wisest, the most inspiring, maybe the most revelatory person you've ever met? Do you have someone in mind? Good. Now hold on to that thought as you read today's story! My high-school-aged son came home with his new Honors Biology textbook this week. It is a monster of a book, several inches thick and so heavy that his teacher has the students keep one at home and one at school to avoid carrying them back and forth! It was on the table where I had my quiet time one morning, so I opened it up to take a look. Impressive, I thought. Just one sentence from the first chapter intrigued me, and here was a whole wealth of information about our biological makeup. A handy little diagram in another chapter explained the respiratory system in beautiful detail. I called my 8-year-old over to see it. "Look!" I said excitedly, "This is how you breathe!" I began teaching him about carbon and oxygen molecules and how they interact with our blood. Thinking I'd probably lost it, my unimpressed 8-year-old found something better to do. But as I sat there, amazed at the amount of information contained in just this one volume, the Holy Spirit interrupted me. "You are impressed with just one line of this book," He noticed. And rightfully so, I thought, since just one word from Your mouth has the power to change a life! "This," He reminded me, "is just a beginner's book in the entire field of Biology. There are volumes more to be learned." So true, I thought. Here was one book, in just one field, in a world containing many other fields - chemistry, language, history, sociology, computers - and on and on. The spiritual implications were staggering. I was suddenly awed by the vast quantity of information we know, and how little even the most degreed specialist knows in comparison to the whole. How immense is the sum of all knowledge! How amazing the God who created such wisdom, and how much more there is to know! The prophet Isaiah came to a similar conclusion thousands of years ago: "Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as His counselor has taught Him? With whom did He take counsel, and who instructed Him, and taught Him in the path of justice? Who taught Him knowledge, and showed Him the way of understanding?" Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket, and are counted as the small dust on the scales." "To whom then will you liken Me, or to whom shall I be equal," says the Holy One. Isaiah 40:13-15 & 25, NKJV In the midst of Isaiah's revelation, God questions Israel as to why they complain that their way is hidden from the Lord, and that He does not see or know what is going on in their lives. (See Isaiah 40:27). To question a God whose understanding "cannot be fathomed" is ridiculous, really, and yet we are all guilty of it at times! We listen with alarm to the doomsday prophecies of the week: Isis, Obamacare, global warming, and we wonder whether God knows. We would do better to meditate on the immeasurable magnitude of God! If we would do this, Isaiah notes, we would be invigorated and strengthened again (Isaiah 40:29-31). While God is not dispassionate about such things, (nor should we be), He is not worried about them (and again, neither should we be). Psalm 2 gives us His perspective on the nations: Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? The king of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His anointed, saying, "Let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us." He who sits in the heavens shall laugh, the Lord shall hold them in derision... the Lord has said to Me... Ask of Me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession." Psalm 2:1-4 & 7-8 Like my musings on the vast sum of academic knowledge, we need to see the bigger picture: the nations, God says, are our inheritance. Neither Isis nor Congress can defeat God in all His immensity! When we begin to take hold of the basic idea that the earth and everything in it belongs to the Lord, we will be less fearful of what the nations do and more impressed with what God can do through us. The wisest man's thoughts and a nation's best-laid plans are no match for an unfathomable God. As a pastor-friend of mine used to say, "It's not: 'God, look at my problem!' It's: 'Problem, look at my God!' " The next time the wisdom of the world renders you awestruck or fearful, remember this: to God, it is nothing but a drop in the bucket. c. Deborah Perkins, 2014 His Inscriptions is a ministry devoted to Knowing God and Hearing His Voice. Join us free - partners receive weekly inspiring articles & ongoing prayer. It's easy: Justclick here to subscribe. Thank you for reading!
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"What are you afraid of?" This was the question asked of approximately 150 women one weekend at an amazing women's ministry conference I attended in New England. What is keeping you confined within the current borders of your everyday life, that you fear you cannot overcome? Depression? Abuse? Unforgiveness? Finances? Your need for comfort and security? In Christ, there should be no fear of any kind that holds you back from fulfilling your destiny (1 John 4:18). The limits are off!
Occasionally our spiritual journey brings us to a place of strategic convergence: a place where the many strands of our intricately-woven lives seem to intersect and "sync" with what God is doing. God brought me to just such a place last weekend. I had the unusual opportunity to hear three different Christian leaders speak in a span of three days. And apart from the fun I had in taking a break from routine, I want to share some of the joy I had in discovering how beautifully these leaders' words "synced" with each other, and with me.
I attended two conferences along with a few of you connected to His Inscriptions. We listened to Chuck Pierce, Dutch Sheets, and Shawn Bolz, each respected leaders with different callings. The overarching themes were two-fold: remembering and releasing.
Chuck Pierce
Chuck Pierce is an apostolic leader who has heard God speak about remembering our covenant roots, both individually (our history is often a key to our victory) and as a nation (America was founded on Christian beliefs). To apply this principle spiritually, we need to return to Jesus, the Root of David (Revelation 22:16) and remember our first love (Revelation 2:4-5). We need to be in touch with where God's glory-cloud is moving next, and break out of our stagnancy. To quote him directly: "It is time to break out of our conventional ways of thinking. In a movement you have to MOVE! It's time to shift from last season's prototype" and "move with the glory" as Israel did.
How do we do that? Biblically, when the glory of God moved, the tribes of Judah, Zebulun, and Issachar moved first. (Note that the sons of Issachar were called "men who understood the times" in 1 Chronicles 12:32.) Judah was the tribe of worshipers, and Chuck noted that "the sound of worship in a place is connected to the move of God." His point? God wants to move us beyond our current borders. It is time not to pray that darkness be pushed back, but to MOVE it out with our worship. We need to walk through the open door, into the new things God has given us in this season. We do this with our sounds: our declarations and our worship.
Remembering the power of worship will help release us into the next season.
Dutch Sheets
Dutch Sheets spoke on the power of our testimony. In an inspiring encounter with a rabbi, Dutch learned that Hebraic thought about time is not linear but cyclical. In other words, we westerners tend to think of events as one-time occurrences, when in fact, God regularly does the same thing over and over again, but on a higher level. When God healed you, He released power for that healing. When you testify of the healing that happened yesterday, more power is released in the Spirit realm for healing to occur today, for you or for others. This is why we're supposed to be healed when we take communion: we take the elements in remembrance of Him, "proclaiming the Lord's death till He comes." (1 Corinthians 11:26).
When God "remembered" Hannah, she conceived. (1 Samuel 1:19-20). When David recounted killing the lion and the bear, he went on to kill Goliath. When we remind God of what He has done, He does it again.
Remembering and relating our testimony releases God's power again.
Shawn Bolz
There are three things hindering the move of God in the Northeast region, according to Shawn Bolz: a spirit of cynicism, an intellectual spirit, and a lack of love. It is time to give up the cynicism and speak a good report, like Joshua and Caleb did. It is time to abandon the idea of personal character or reputation as king, and allow the anointing of love to flow freely. It is time to use our prophetic gifts to disarm the intellectual spirit and reveal the love of God. Our character should be motivated by love, not mandated by ministries.
Bolz's challenge was for us to avoid using prophecy or discernment as a "diagnostic" for sin or as fuel for criticism. Our strategy, rather, should be to trust God to use someone's testimony and gifts even if they are not yet fully healed. This flies in the face of those who are building the church, not the people. How deeply can we love and empower others? Can we let go of our own need for self-protection and help others to go further than we have gone? Can we show others how to mature without paying the high price we have had to pay? The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of Prophecy. Our prophesying should be full of the love of Jesus, exemplified by a good confession, and confirmed by changed lives.
Remember that the ultimate goal of prophecy is to release the love of God.
Are you willing to worship God as He moves you beyond your current borders and limitations into a new realm of glory? Are you ready to return to your roots and allow Him to transform your history into a new and powerful testimony? Are you able to give up criticizing and intellectualizing, and reveal the love of God to the people around you as you go? These three leaders believe that above all else, it is what we are remembering and releasing that empowers us for the next move of God. What do you believe?
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c.Deborah Perkins, 2014. All references NKJV unless noted.
They say marriage must be a 50-50 proposition in order to work. You give 50%, and your spouse meets you in the middle, giving 50% as well. In this way, everything is fair: no one is overworked, nothing is overlooked, and disagreements are minimized. But what if your partner gives 100%? If everything is finished, nothing is overlooked, and all is forgiven – then what?
I’ve been thinking about marriage a lot these days. Because I’m in not just one, but two relationships. Before you get alarmed, let me explain! I am married to a wonderful man I met 17 years ago, the answer to my prayers and someone I’m glad I waited for. He gives at least 50% to our relationship every day, and usually much more. I’m also in love with an even more wonderful man – one who gives 100%, every day, all the time. His Name is Jesus. He is as much a husband to me as my earthly husband is: He provides, He loves, He listens, He helps – but He also saves. He saves me from myself and from the mistakes I make in my more “visible” marriage. He’s got the giving aspect of marriage pretty much nailed down (pardon the expression), and no one – not even my wonderful hubby – can top Him! So does this mean, as my hubby likes to tease, that I just “sit around and eat bonbons all day?” If a spouse gives 100%, is His partner absolved from all responsibility? Or has the bar been raised just a little higher? I believe that we as Christians genuinely love and appreciate Jesus and the 100% sacrifice He has made for us on the cross. I believe that we are absolved from the false responsibility of a religious “works mentality” that the enemy promotes: trying to earn the love of a Husband and Father who have already covered the tab for our mistakes – past or future. I also think that we must guard against the lukewarm apathy that enters our souls and robs us of the joy of actually knowing our heavenly husband. You see, in a marriage, it is the work that gets in the way of the relationship. It is the challenge of communication that hinders intimacy. It is the responsibilities we have that drain the life out of us so that we have nothing left to give to our partners. We are working so hard sometimes that we have no time left to listen, to love, to encourage. We’re simply too exhausted! And if time is not set aside just for our spouse, our love will grow cold. Here’s the good news: I believe that Jesus loves us so much that he takes ALL the “work” out of the marriage relationship. He takes all the fear out of not measuring up to our new Father. He finishes the work the enemy says is unfinished and clears His schedule for us. We are His top and only priority. He goes ahead of us to get a new house ready for us in heaven, and He is planning the wedding feast! Why does He do this? Does this mean we get to sit around and just enjoy our “engaged” status? Are we supposed to spend our time on earth “showing off our ring” – sharing about Jesus and making others jealous for Him? Or is there something more?
Marriage: It's 100-100.
I believe that He has given us 100% of His love because He expects 100% back. He chooses to marry us because He thinks we are the right ones. As our heavenly bridegroom, He lays everything on the line when He asks us to be His bride. Having counted the cost and accepted His proposal, our sole desire should be to cherish, honor, and know Him. Do our lives reflect a desire to listen to Him, to spend time with Him, to know Him? Or do we take Him for granted?
Once again, I am not advocating a “works-based” relationship. That is legalistic and unloving. I am simply more aware, today, of our sometimes-tendency to give Christ a meager, token 10% when He has given His all. I want to be the kind of bride who has loved and listened to her fiancé throughout the engagement and knows Him through and through when she gets to the altar. I want to be radiant with the knowledge of His love, someone of whom the world says, “can’t you just tell she’s in love? Who’s the lucky guy?!” I want to spend more time growing the relationship than planning the wedding. Relationships don’t grow much in the busyness of everyday life. Sure, we establish a functionality to things, maybe a good working rhythm so that we can accomplish things that promote heaven on earth. But real intimacy happens in the secret places of our hearts, where nothing is hidden, where motives are clearer and priorities more defined. The amazing thing about God is that we get to choose how we love Him. We can go as deeply as we want into our intimacy with Him. His love for us doesn’t change based on our level of commitment. But our lives are changed as we love Him more. Questions for meditation: When is the last time you closed the door to your secret place to be with your heavenly spouse? When is the last time you didn’t talk and just listened instead? What do you need to do to move your level of commitment closer to His 100%? Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.
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As believers who are growing and maturing in Christ, we will eventually reach the point where we feel a new love for the Jewish nation and for Israel. In studying the book of Romans, we will come to realize that it is God’s desire to call the Jewish nation, who initially rejected Christ, back to Him. We will begin to understand that it will be the Gentile church whom God uses in these last days to provoke Israel - through jealousy - to return to faith in God.
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The Lord once gave me a prophetic word through a very personal analogy. He showed me that when the church doesn’t allow Him to speak, we develop a profound spiritual hearing loss, similar to what I have dealt with in the natural for most of my life. Let me explain by sharing what it means not to hear, and then give you a vision for what it would be to hear Him more clearly.
When reading the Bible from an inspirational point of view, most of us don't put a lot of thought into how the Scriptures came into being. We know that there was a process of canonization by the church, of course, but what we often don't consider is that the Bible as we know it is really a collection of ancient letters gathered from many varied authors and sources. Knowing this does not change our faith in any way; in fact, the longer I have studied the various texts and manuscripts, the more appreciative I have become of the hand of God in preserving detailed accounts, or "inscriptions," of our faith. The location, preservation, and compilation of so many scrolls and manuscripts into one cohesive, inspired whole is miraculous in itself. As you listen to this YouTube video, think about the letters of Paul and the context in which he and others were communicating. It is fascinating! Grab a cup of coffee - the video runs about 25 minutes - and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! :-)
1. From the moment Jesus climbs into Peter’s fishing boat to his punishment and death at the end, we are reminded of the truth that Jesus was an ordinary man. Peter’s reactions to and dialogue with Jesus are exactly what I would have imagined them to be. (“Who the heck are you and why are you getting into my boat?!”) I expected a Hollywood-style glorification of the supernatural, mystical aspects of Christ, but the producers (Roma Downey and Mark Burnett) did just the opposite. There was nothing “spooky Christian” or “new age” about this Jesus. In fact, if you weren’t paying attention, you might miss the healing of the paralytic or the multiplication of loaves, because Jesus was NOT drawing attention to himself. He was simply loving people and meeting needs in a humane way, with supernatural results. Isn’t that what real Christianity looks like today? I have seen people healed and miracles happen, and they are rarely accompanied by great fanfare from heaven or earth-shattering effects. They are often quiet and unnoticed at first, without sensationalism. I appreciated this approach in the movie.
2. Son of God spent a great deal of time outlining the political and religious conflicts of the first century world. The grandeur of the temple at Jerusalem was evident; the contrast between the religious Sanhedrin and ordinary Jews, and the tension between Pilate and the temple priests was well described. Because of this, Christ’s claim that He would destroy the temple stood out for what it really was: a direct challenge by a “revolutionary” against what most believed to be sacred, God-ordained structures and practices. I understood more clearly the threat that the religious leaders would have felt and their subsequent frustration over what to do with a man they couldn’t legitimately kill under their own law. Jesus’ trial was also an eye-opener for a westerner who hadn’t quite envisioned what a small trial by religious leaders might look like: not a courtroom drama, but rather a “guilty” judgment unjustly rendered by a few jealous priests, with no defense.
3. The most powerful take-away for me, however, was near the end. In light of the “ordinariness” Jesus (Diogo Morgado) conveys throughout the story, I wondered how the disciples could go out later with such boldness to preach and even suffer martyrdom for Him. After all, even at the end they still were not clear about the kind of kingdom Christ represented, nor were some fully convinced of who He was. The resurrection, of course, clinched it for most, but the movie takes the time to show us that for at least two men, the resurrection was not enough to propel them into ministry.
Jesus returns to Thomas to show him the piercings in His hands, settling Thomas’ doubts once and for all. And He returns, as we know, to Peter, to restore and forgive him after Peter’s betrayals. As I watched these last two scenes, I was touched again by the simple love Christ showed to His friends in giving them all they needed to continue on. As for sensationalism, as the movie closed, the Holy Spirit surprised me by speaking quietly to me, right there in the dark theatre. “I will always give you what you need,” He said. “I will always give you what you need.” :-)
c. Deborah Perkins, 2014
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Author
A severe hearing loss from childhood caused Deborah Perkins to develop what she now calls her secret weapon: tuning in to God's voice. A Wellesley College graduate and an award-winning writer, Deborah is now a wife and mother of 3 boys. Deborah has devoted over 25 years to professional and lay Christian ministry in New England and beyond. Her passion is inspiring people to cultivate greater intimacy with God.
You can follow her on social media using the links above. To subscribe to her weekly blog (free) by email, click here.