The next section
of the message that God gave Pat promises some amazing blessings upon our
families, our nation, and even the world. The blessings include God
healing our broken marriages, our discovering His presence within our homes,
answered prayers over sickness and disease, children's rooms being places of
worship, fathers being esteemed, times of repentance and revival, a great
awakening across our land, and the enemies of God being inflicted with disease
and confusion. The message goes on to promise that God will strengthen
the borders of Israel and the United States, that one terrorist attack will
occur on our soil, but this will only lead to more revival, and ultimately the
hand of our social compass will swing so far back to truth that the universities
and colleges will actually start teaching truth and the hearts of those in
bondage to sexual immorality and homosexuality will be returned to God and
purity.
As I sat in church
and watched the reactions of the people as they heard Pat sharing this prophetic
vision I saw how excited people got. I have to admit, these are some
amazing blessings and when God brings them about it will stand witness to His
sovereign power, grace, and love of us. These truly are the answers to
our prayers. The challenge is, listening past the promises and hearing
what God is truly saying and what conditions He has said must be met before He
can fulfill what He has promised. In our bliss we tend to miss the most
important part of the message; what is God really saying and what does He want
from us?
The first step to
understanding these things is to listen to the message and discern what God’s
“shouts” are. Remember, the “shouts” are the negative physical
occurrences in our lives. As such, the answer comes when we look at
the opposite of the proposed blessings. In other words, God is shouting
to us through:
- Our broken marriages,
- Our inability to feel God’s presence and intimacy within our homes,
- The sickness, mental dysfunction, and disease that our prayers are not healing,
- The brokenness & bondage that is ruling the atmosphere in our children’s rooms,
- Fathers being mocked, ridiculed, and put down by society and within the home,
- A fear of man that is keeping our mouths locked shut and scared to stand up for what is right,
- Our societies love of sin and rejection of God’s holiness, righteousness, purity, and name,
- The transforming power of the full Gospel message is not reaching the ends of the world,
- The enemies of God are gaining power and terrorist attacks are increasing,
- Previous terrorist attacks upon our soil have only led to short term revival and then a return to typical cultural norms returning to a worse state than before the attacks,
- University and college campuses are perpetuating the lies of society and opposing God’s truth,
- Satan is taking more and more hostages as the homosexual and other perverse agendas gain greater and greater momentum.
Assuming we are
capable of hearing and seeing God’s hand in all of these things, let’s take a
look at what God told Pat must change and how these changes are connected to
the proposed blessings. First, God’s people need to break free of
our stagnant, comfortable, and lethargic approach to Him and His ways. I
believe that we have approached the Gospel as being about our salvation.
This has led us into a complacency that is totally contradictory to the Gospel
message. We were not chosen for salvation; we were chosen for a much
greater purpose. We have been chosen as His Bride. This understanding
should motivate us into opening up our hearts to a new kind of
relationship. A relationship based on His purposes for us instead of what
we believe is necessary to maintain a righteous enough standing to ensure our
“salvation".
From here, God’s
people need to come to a renewed sense of conviction where we have left God
locked outside. WOW….the locking of God outside is the product of our
misguided understanding of the covenant. When we truly embrace the
covenant as being about God and His purposes and start searching the scriptures
for what that really means this next step will fall right into place. God
will show us how we have allowed our flesh to choose the world over God. He
will show us where our homes are so filled with everything that is NOT Him,
that there is no room FOR Him.
As God shows us
these things we must kick Satan and his demonic influences out of our
homes. We must realize that we have been inviting them in as if they were
relatives who have fallen onto hard times. As God gives us the strength
to kick out what never belonged He will show us how to pray, He will join us in
prayer, and deliver us into deeper unity with Him. As we dedicate our
homes to God, reject Satan’s attacks through television, internet, gossip,
sports, movies, materialism, and everything else the Spirit brings into our
understanding God will restore the fathers to their rightful positions within
the home.
Men must step up
and become the spiritual leaders we have been called to be. When we start
leading our families away from the ways of this world by example instead of
attempting to impose what we are not willing to follow, our wives will stand up
and cheer. With this said, wives must stop judging their husbands on a
performance model. In embracing their husbands for their effort and
honest desire to make God the Lord of their lives they have earned the right to
be leaders of the home. None of us are perfect. If wives do not
embrace proper biblical order God cannot remove Satan’s influences from the
home. Women must respect their husband’s honest and sincere
efforts. This will fulfill the deep emotional needs of their husbands and
drive them deeper into the role for which they were created. This will lead our
families back into proper biblical order.
The men will need
to take this renewed sense of family, life, and purpose and let God lead them
into more frequent and deeper times of prayer. As men respond in this
area they will be flooded with greater revelation, greater understanding, and
greater wisdom. All of these things will be supported by a greater sense
of strength. This strength will lead them into being stronger men of God
where they will become more and more aware of Satan’s influences upon them,
their family, and their society. Men must respond to God’s voice as He
shows them the impurity in their homes, the unrighteousness in their hearts,
and the weaknesses in their souls. As men humble themselves in these
areas God will raise them above these things and give them an unparalleled
strength. He will use this strength to lead them into the world where their
voices will be heard and the people will respond.
From here all we
will need to do is return to the first step and repeat. This is the
process of growing in Christ and taking our role as His Bride seriously.
As we step into the role of being what we have been called to be the world will
take note, God will step in and use what they are seeing to deliver them into
deeper revelation, and an understanding of the truth. As those that are
opposed to us attempt to fight off this incredible move of God in the physical
they will open the door for our victory in the spirit. We will be given
the opportunity to respond properly when the time comes. An attack will
occur and we will be spiritually ready to handle it. As the world watches
to see how we respond they will see the true face of Christ as we have allowed
ourselves to become spiritually prepared. Our response in this critical
time will turn what Satan intended for evil into another triumph for God.
We must stand up
and realize that the “war” we are fighting is in the spirit and not of the
flesh. Our battle ground is not in word but in self-imposed discipline
followed by intercessory prayer. Self- imposed discipline must come first
as God simply cannot answer the prayers of the unrighteous. The spiritual
battle must begin with biblical order being restored within our families and
the church. As we fall into biblical order, God will break the chain of
universal disorder. This will be the catalyst that will bring
universities and colleges into teaching truth instead of lies, children will be
moved from disrespecting parents into respect of their parents, and sexual
immorality will be turned back to sexual purity.
Believe it or not
it really is this simple. The solution to all our prayers is really as
easy as these few steps. It begins with seeing the truth of the Gospel
message, allowing God to move us beyond our goal of salvation, and to deliver
us into a greater desire of what it is to be truly His. As we fight the
spiritual battle against sin, unholiness, unrighteousness, pride, and lust we
win a much harder battle.
In all reality,
what chance do we have at changing the moral direction of this country through
laws, political influence, or Supreme Court appointments? Can we really
change the gay rights agenda by teaching them away from it? Can we really
win a war against the radical Muslim agenda through sanctions, treaties, border
control, immigration reform, or any other means? Can we really win any of
these battles in the physical? Even if we could, how much energy would it
take? How much money? How much time? Wouldn’t it be so much
easier to just make Jesus Lord over our lives? Wouldn’t it be easier to
kick Satan out of our homes?
The truth is, we
want God to change the world without letting Him change us. The problem
is, it just doesn’t work that way. The greatest expression of love is to
make Jesus Christ Lord. Making Him Lord opens up our heart to be His
bride. As His bride, we embrace His ways and become a suitable mother to
our spiritual children. The love of a mother is the greatest love.
God describes this love as that of laying down our life for another.
Laying down a life by definition requires death. We must die so that they
can live. Making Jesus Lord requires that we die to the things of this
world and embrace the things of God. It really is that simple.
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I pray that God
delivers you into a perfect peace and that your effort in drawing closer to Him
is rewarded with a new sense of being, a new sense of purpose, and a new fire
for His ways. Amen.
RECAP
(continued from last week)
If
you have not been following this blog series, this is the sixth in a series
that addresses how God communicates with us and what it is that He is saying
through the dysfunction and pain that we see around us. The series
includes the following blogs:
- Is This Really How God Works? (Scriptural introduction)
- Some Kingdom Principles (Apologetic discussion)
- Time To Dig In (Pat Schatzline's message--God Shouts & first assessments)
- A Call To Leadership (How lay leaders will lead theologians into repentance)
- The Esther Decision (Understanding the critical nature of where we are in time)
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