How do we know what we are seeing is from God?

by Zach Mapes

This is not an uncommon question. With various nuances I don’t know of anyone that is trying to grow spiritually that hasn’t asked this at least once. It is a safe question to ask as well. On one hand we have to always ask this question to keep ourselves clean and safe. The first thing that we should ask ourselves is does what I am seeing, hearing, sensing, feeling, or receiving line up with the Bible. The first questions that we should ask the Bible is will God give me revelation if I ask for it?

This is answered in Luke 11:11-13 “If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?  If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” This tells us quite clearly that God our father does want to bless us and give us what we ask for. The next question that arises is “is it ok to practice the gift”?

In the Old Testament we see examples of schools for or of the prophets. This implies that they did train to be prophets. This also indicates that people called to prophesy should be trained and that it is not an instantaneous event from the moment of calling to the moment of full function in the gift.

But what about the rest of us? Those who aren’t certain that they have been called to be prophets, or those that deeply desire to function in the gift, do they have a place pursuing gifting? Is it safe? In 1 Corinthians 14:39 it says “Therefore, brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak with tongues.”

We can see that it is good to ask for revelation, we can to train in the gift ideally with others, and that we are supposed to want to grow in this area. While it is difficult to answer on a case by case point “is this God or is this me?” we can with relative certainty say that we are on the right path if we are seeking him in accordance with Biblical principles.

There is one danger here that is what I call the Infallibility Complex. This is where a person becomes so certain that they hear from God so clearly that everything they say is unchallengeable. The infallibility complex can only happen outside of real relationships. Because good friends simply won’t let you get away with it. They are the ones that know us and will keep us on the straight and narrow.

What steps can be taken to grow safely?

1. Pursue relationship first. We all experience God in our own way. Focus on growing in knowledge and understanding of how God relates to you.  Invest your time with him.
2. Talk to God, then listen and respond. He wants to bless us and he wants us to pursue relationship with him.
3. Never stop training. There is an element of humility that is needed to be able to say that you are always training. But, unless you know everything, keep training.
4. Remain in relationship with others. Know your community, but stay close to the handful of people in your life that keep you grounded.

The final thing to remember is that revelation is not our end goal, or the final destination. Revelation is a means of two way communication with God as Peter Lord writes in his bookHearing God revelation is the means that we shift prayer from a monologue shopping list for God, into personal, two way communications with God. Revelation is the listening half of prayer life. One of the things that I have learned with some certainty in my life is you can rarely get into trouble and difficulty from listening.

From Stir The Water Articles

How to Become a Friend of God

       by Patty Mapes Executive Director of Nexus Connection

The Bible sets the goal for us to be a friend of God. You may have heard people talk about what a great relationship they have with God. No longer being young I have learned to not just listen to what people say but to look for the evidence, to look for the fruit in their lives. Does the person speaking reflect who God is? Does the person have good friends? Have they had some of the same friends for years? What does this person know about being a friend of God, or anyone else?

You see, it has occurred to me that if we cannot be a friend to someone that we can see, touch, feel and hear audibly, we might not have the tools or capacity to have a friendship and deep communion with someone whom we cannot always see, touch, feel and hear audibly.

Would you agree that the same capacity for the attributes of friendship with each other, such as loyalty, honoring others, generosity, acting with accountability, and trustworthiness, are also required to become a friend of God? Would God have a friend who does not listen to what He says, is not loyal to Him, or not trustworthy? I think not. He will love us, He will care about us, but I don’t believe that He will call us His friends under those circumstances.

Imagine a line or continuum called Relationship. At one end of the line would be the beginning point we will call awareness (of another) and at the far end of that line would be intimacy. In between we move from awareness to acquaintance, to social friends, to advisors, to intimate friends.

Process of Relationship

Awareness  →  Acquaintance   →  Social  →   Advisor →  Intimate →

Levels of Relationship:

Awareness:        We know the person exists. They might be a celebrity, or a neighbor or someone who rides the same train as we do.

Acquaintance:   We are not only aware of this person but we have met them, know their name, and perhaps a little about them. They may work where we work, live in our neighborhood or have children at school with our children. They can also be people we met at church or at the grocery store. Some people we are aware of are also our acquaintances.

Social:                   This is the category of friends that we often think of first when asked about our friends. These are the people that we talk to regularly, go out with or have into our homes. They know more about us than our acquaintances and we may talk about some things that are important to us, or we may not. We care about these people and they care about us in varying degrees. Some of our acquaintances are also social friends.

Advisors:             Advisor is not a perfect word here, but I have used it for emphasis to describe a special subset of our social friends. Advisors are the people that we have some sense or level of accountability to. They are the truer friends than others; they will tell us the truth, even when it hurts or is unpopular. They stand for many of the things we stand for and believe in many of the things that we believe in. This doesn’t mean that we are identical, but we have a relationship based on things that we share a common and have a high value for. They love us and weep when we weep, and rejoice when we rejoice. Some of our social friends are also our advisors.

Intimate:             Intimate friends are the fewest of all of course. They know us deeply. They know things that are private and most personal and they are our most valuable friends (relationships). These are people who will sacrifice for us, and maybe even give their lives for us. Some of our advisors, are also intimate friends.

One characteristic of this process or levels of relationship that might jump out to you is that as we move to higher levels of friendship, the subset of friends that fall into the next category is smaller.

My friend gave a going away party for someone once, and they joked about inviting the person’s hundred “best friends”. Sadly, if you have one hundred “best friends” you may really have none, because your best friends are going to fall far to the right of center on this continuum. The honoree was long on acquaintances and, but lacked the understanding and the skills to cultivate deeper relationships. Our best friends are our intimate friends which should include( but not be limited to) our spouses.

Another important characteristic of these levels is that the attributes of friendship given above, increase as you move from left to right. You may have no trust for a person that you are simply aware of while they are waiting for the same train as you, but you will have a great deal of trust for your advisors, and more for your intimate friends.

One of the reasons that we need our natural friends is that healthy and enduring friendships nurture in us the very attributes that we need to be a friend of God.

John 15:10-15 says, If you keep my commands, you’ll remain intimately at home in my love. That’s what I’ve done–kept my Father’s commands and made myself at home in his love.

“I’ve told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature.

This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you.

This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends.

You are my friends when you do the things I command you.

I’m no longer calling you servants because servants don’t understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I’ve named you friends because I’ve let you in on everything I’ve heard from the Father. [i]

Implicit in this scripture is the message that trustworthiness, the capacity to receive correction, the ability to be loyal in the face of personal detriment, a willingness to listen, to give our time in privacy to another and to share our innermost thoughts and feelings, are part of walking with God and being His friend. Walking with God is walking in communion with Him, endeavoring to see what He sees, and respond in the way that He is telling us to respond.

If you are walking in an intimate relationship with God today, perhaps you might express your gratitude sometime to those friends and mates who have helped you cultivate that capacity in your own life.

If you are not walking in the depth of relationship with God today that you truly desire, then go after Him. While you are pursuing Him, perhaps it would be good to also practice on the friends you have around you?

---

[i] “Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright � 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.”

Anointing and Hearing God’s Voice

Anointing and Hearing God’s Voice
by Jim Driscoll

Why is it that God’s voice seems easier to hear on certain days than it does on other days?

One reason could be that relationship with God is cyclical in the sense that He will draw near, and He will draw away. There are days when He just draws away. Most of us go through seasons in which we hear from God a lot and other seasons of “divine silence,” in which it seems like He isn’t speaking. This doesn’t happen because of us — because we’re failing to do something important or because we’re doing something wrong; it is a natural fluctuation of intimacy and separation. Leviticus specifies a similar dynamic between husband and wife that is driven by biological cycle.

If we are having difficulty hearing God’s voice, it could also be an issue of peace. We have a much harder time communicating with God when we are stressed, dealing with fear or if He is speaking to us about topics that are hard for us to believe or accept.

However, if our days and emotions remain basically the same, and one day we’re hearing clearly and the next day we aren’t, it most likely has to do with anointing.

The level of anointing in a person’s life tends to oscillate from one day to the next, from one week to the next. The anointing is what helps our brains recognize that what we are hearing or seeing is important. It stimulates our spiritual senses and makes us want to pay attention to God. We feel His presence, and we get excited. In a way, the anointing provides incentive for listening and spending time with Him.

When the anointing is high and God speaks to us, we are much more likely to recognize, This is God! I need to listen to this. But when the anointing is low, we may not realize anything happened.

His whisper is easy to ignore, and it isn’t inherently going to demand our attention. God says many things in moments of low anointing to see if we’re going to notice Him even when our minds don’t immediately register that something important is happening. On days of low anointing, hearing from God takes more work. He may be saying the same number of things He said the day before, but we will often wonder if He is speaking at all because the whisper can be so hard to discern.

This is why it is good for us to desire to hear Him more than we desire to be anointed, more than we desire to see results and more than we desire to feel comfortable or like we know what we’re doing. If we pay attention to everything we think might be from Him, even if we are uncertain in the moment, it will be much harder for us to miss His voice, no matter our current level of anointing or how quietly He is speaking.

For additional articles by Jim Driscoll check out Stir the Water
Additionally, I'm happy to recommend Jim's new book "The Modern Seer"

Geographic Transitions

by John Paul Jackson
Streams Ministries International
July 11, 2001

One of life's greatest opportunities is the discovery and recognition of the place where God has created and destined you to live. Some refer to this place as discovering the "Land of Your Anointing." I call it the LAW OF GEOGRAPHIC ANOINTING. Although this law is not specifically mentioned in Scripture, it is mingled among the Bible stories of many godly men and women.

"He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the Earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being" Acts 17:26-28.

Geography matters to God. He made geography before He created mankind. Places are full of destiny. They are areas of divine habitation where God has and will commune with men and women. God not only created the place of your anointing, but He specifically designed you to have an influence upon people in that place! This place will spiritually shape your life.

Did you know that God has determined the specific moment in history in which He wants you to live? He has even determined the exact place, including the number on your house or apartment, in which you should live.

To Adam, it was the Garden of Eden. To Abraham and Moses, it was the Promised Land, which they knew not, but to which they journeyed toward. To Elijah, it was the wilderness and the Brook Cherith. To Esther, it was Shushan (Babylon). To Ruth, it was Bethlehem. To 120 disciples of Jesus, it was the Upper Room. Interestingly, nearly 500 people were told to go to the Upper Room, but only 120 went. As a reward of their obedience, they received the promised outpouring of the Holy Spirit that day (Acts 2:2-4).

As you step into the place God has sent you, it may feel overwhelming.  While God is never far away, it may feel as if He is on a distant planet. You may wonder why God brought you there, which will compel you to search for God in new ways. Unknowingly, your spiritual journey will lead you into new experiences and new opportunities. In the end, you will have reached a higher measure of anointing. Believe it or not, this is precisely what God had planned all along!

Geography determines whom you will meet, who you will influence, who you will marry, and where you will work. When you are positioned in the land of your anointing, you will be empowered to attain the highest level of faith, courage, and anointing. Why? You were designed by God to succeed in that specific environment.

Whenever God wants to transform an area, He will raise up people to accomplish the task. God will move them into a specific area so they will serve as light bearers in a region of darkness.

God is forever daring us to do the unexpected. In Him, there is no limit to what we can do. Taking the road not yet traveled can be invigorating when we view the risks simply as new opportunities to grow and mature in God.

As Israel migrated to the Promised Land, God strategically directed them along the way. Wherever they went, God prepared a nation to be conquered. If they were obedient, the outcome was glorious. God had promised them a land flowing with lavish fruit, a land where sickness and barrenness would cease, and a land of great increase both in stature and in number. As God's people ventured forward, the land responded to the presence of righteousness (Romans 8).

Geography controls the level of favor that God gives us. As we move into new arenas, God places favor in the hearts of others. Favor is essential to being given spiritual authority over an area. One day of favor is worth a thousand days of labor.

In the season of transition, our circle of influence changes. For many of us, it will increase. If it doesn't increase, we have usually failed to maintain the influence God had given us with others as we add new relationships to our former relationships. Or if we are running away from a painful situation, we burn bridges of relationships, stopping our influence from occurring in someone's life.

One mistake we can make is to RESIST geographic transitions. We may be tempted to believe God has situated us in our final place of anointing. However, God may have simply intended our current situation to groom us for greater opportunities that lay ahead.

When I look back over my lifetime, key aspects of my ministry were matured in three distinct locations: Dallas, Texas; Kansas City, Missouri; and Anaheim, California. Each geographic area offered me valuable lessons that helped to develop my present ministry. None of these cities were permanent places of residence. None were places where my greatest anointing would be seen. Instead, these places served as a training ground for future opportunities to extend the Kingdom of God.

Another mistake we can make is to run from a present battle. We mistakenly believe if we are facing a battle, we must have missed God's best. Or, that God has abandoned us. So we run to another location, church, or job to escape the pain of battle. However, every battle will prepare us for our future. If we do not engage in the present battle, we will not be strong enough to face future conflicts where Satan will seek to abort our anointing. Never make the mistake of running from a battle. Remember, we go from strength to strength until we appear before God in Zion (Psalm 84:7).

Over the years, I have discovered that God takes me to places that will help to shape my purposes and plans. Geographic locations actually help to determine what grows within us. Our difficulties will serve to strengthen us. God will allow the enemy to resist us, and thereby,
strengthen us for what is ahead. This strategy was precisely what God did with Israel:

God took them to a place He had prepared for them (Exodus 23:20).
God sent His angel to prepare the way and to fight on their behalf (Exodus 23:20).
God used the enemy to ultimately strengthen them (Exodus 23:29-30).

Remember, your ultimate success in God is always linked to a geographic place. God has destined, created, and groomed you to take the Light of Christ to a place or to a person living in a particular place.

Geographic transitions are part of the glorious process of extending God's Kingdom. As you move forward in God, He will position you so that you will accomplish your divine destiny and show forth the riches of His glory.

(C) 2001, John Paul Jackson and Streams Ministries International

For more information on John Paul or Streams please visit his website at StreamsMinistries.com

What Does It Mean to be a Seer?

by Jim Driscoll

Many Stir the Water users come to the site with a basic understanding of what it means to be a seer or how the seer gifting functions. However, we also get some users and visitors who aren't sure if they're seers and don't know how the gifting generally works.

In order to begin to understand the seer gifting, we need to start with the basics. A seer is any person who has the ability to receive sensory input from the spiritual realm. This can happen at any level; we don't have to have experiences like Ezekiel in order to be a seer. In fact, many people are seers and don't realize it, usually because of one or more of three reasons:

1. No one's ever told them. Maybe they could relate some odd things that have happened to them, but no one has ever told them that what they're experiencing may not be "just their imagination." A lot of seers would say they have active imaginations and that's all. They don't realize it's more than that. For example, they may see brief flashes of light or something move in their peripheral vision and assume it's just their eyes playing tricks on them, when they're actually seeing real flashes of light and real movement. They don't understand that these may be authentic.
2. Along similar lines, seers often don't realize that what they've been experiencing their entire lives is unique; they think everybody can do it. Or perhaps they suspect they are gifted in certain areas, but they don't realize that all the little things they keep dismissing are actually God trying to communicate with them and through them. For example, they may have always had detailed, extensive dreams; perhaps they've "known" things about people they just met or have been able to produce astounding works of art or make sound business decisions that have greatly impacted others. I'm just good at what I do, they may think. Or, Can't everybody do this?
3. Finally, some seers don't realize they're seers because as far back as they can remember, they seemingly have never done or experienced anything of a spiritual nature. Something shut the gifting down in them a long time ago, and at this point, they couldn't name even just one incident in which they knew God was talking to them. "He talks to other people," they say, "but He doesn't talk to me." Simply because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it can't or won't.

What Is Spiritual Sensory Input?

Here is what I mean by the term "sensory input." In the natural realm, we have our five senses that help us relate to the world and atmosphere around us. Through them we learn what things are, how they work, what's real, what something feels like, what it looks or tastes like, etc. These five senses allow us to experience what is going on around us, and without them, we wouldn't be able to function. These form our physical sensory perceptions.

What are spiritual sensory perceptions? The Bible says that this world is a type of the world to come (1 Corinthians 15:44; Colossians 2:16-17; Romans 5:14). If what surrounds us now is just a reflection of the real, then imagine what the real must be like! Our five senses, therefore, reflect a higher order - an order that is, by its very nature, better and stronger than what we know on Earth because it is the real order: the one that will continue to exist when this one has ended.

When we take the time to think this through, we will be amazed at the implications. If we have any senses on Earth, we also have them in the spiritual realm, because that realm is the foundation of this one. As spiritual beings (Galatians 6:1; 1 Peter 2:5), we should be able to see, taste, smell, touch, and hear what is going on in the spiritual realm around us just as we can in the natural realm. As seers, at times we may be able to smell what's in the spiritual air around us. We may be able to see it, touch it, even taste it. We can describe it to others. We can experience it just as we can experience the natural realm.

These are our spiritual sensory perceptions, and we pick up on them in different ways. Sometimes, this information will come to us physically. For example, we may feel cold or hot when the natural temperature hasn't shifted a degree. This is happening because we're picking up on the changes happening in the spiritual "temperature" around us. At other times, we will receive spiritual information through our spiritual senses, which often feels like "just our imagination" and hence the reason many people don't realize God is trying to communicate with them this way. Everyone has the capacity to experience the spiritual realm through the seer gifting, just as everyone has the capacity to hear God's voice.

When Stir the Water talks about the seer gifting, we mean picking up on spiritual sensory data, whether that be seeing, hearing, touching, tasting or smelling.

Why Is This Important?

So how does this affect us, and why is it important to study this gifting? The writer of Hebrews says that the mature in Christ train their senses to discern what is God and what isn't (Hebrews 5:14). You'll see this verse all over the Stir the Water site. As we practice and study our giftings, we mature in Him. We grow in our knowledge of Him and His ways.

Again, this world is not our home; our home is Heaven - the spiritual realm - which automatically insinuates it is more important, more real and concrete, than this one. Because that's true, wouldn't we want to study it? Wouldn't we want to know more about it and see if there was any way we could learn to walk in it and be affected by it now?

Hand in hand with this is another reason that is even more important. As we study and grow in this gifting, we will be amazed at who God is, how intimate He desires to be with us and how often He wants to communicate with us. We will fall in love. We will be changed forever.

That is a very good reason.

God is with us, and studying our giftings and training ourselves in them will increase our faith for greater things. It will help us see His presence more and more.

by Jim Driscoll 

Stir the Water

Breaking Free From the Spirit of Control

Breaking Free From the Spirit of Control

Wednesday, 11 November 2009 03:22 PM EST J. Lee GradyNewsletters - Fire In My Bones

Here are six ways to identify an unhealthy leadership style in a church or ministry.

My world was shaken 20 years ago this week. On Nov. 10, 1989, one day after German protesters tore down the Berlin Wall, a Christian ministry I had been a part of for 11 years also fell apart.

Maranatha Campus Ministries was a vibrant outreach to college campuses. It was founded in Kentucky during the Jesus movement by a passionate charismatic couple, Bob and Rose Weiner, who eventually started churches on more than 50 American universities. In its heyday in the Reagan era, students from Maranatha took the gospel around the world.

"Authoritarian leaders know how to control people through manipulation ... In such a church no one is allowed to ask questions."

But with all our good intentions and youthful zeal for evangelism, the ministry did not survive. We had a flawed, authoritarian leadership model, which was made worse by a lack of mature advisers. When Maranatha's young pastors grew up and realized the ministry had an unhealthy and oppressive structure, they voted to disband. The churches either went independent, merged with other groups or closed.

Meanwhile, the many young people who had been discipled in Maranatha had to deal with their own unique form of post-traumatic stress disorder. They woke up and realized that Maranatha had been influenced by the Shepherding Movement, which taught that all Christians should be submitted to personal shepherds who dispense advice and approve all decisions.

The Shepherding movement, which had broad influence in many charismatic churches, collapsed around the same time. Because I lived through that era, I am hypersensitive to the way a spirit of control works in a church. And I can assure you that controlling attitudes will destroy a ministry. Here are six obvious signs that a spirit of control is at work:

1. Little or no accountability. There is safety in the multitude of counselors (see Prov. 11:14). There is much less safety—perhaps even danger—when a leader does not bother to seek counsel from a diverse group of his peers, as well as from gray-haired men and women who have the wisdom that comes with age. If a pastor or church leader isn't open to correction, he is headed for a train wreck.

2. Spiritual elitism. If there is a spirit of control in a church, people are usually told that their group is superior. Supposedly they have special spiritual privileges from God, along with "exclusive" revelation. If people choose to leave, they are shunned or branded as renegades. Sometimes, in extreme cases, people are even cursed if they leave. (Last week when I was in Hungary I learned of a charismatic church that publicly curses people when they quit the congregation.) This cultic behavior inflicts unimaginable emotional suffering and also divides families.

3. An oppressive atmosphere. Authoritarian leaders know how to control people through manipulation. In some cases, this control may simply take the form of subtle suggestions and persuasion. In the most abusive situations, it may come in the form of threats, legalistic demands, unreasonable requirements or false doctrines. In some cases, especially in charismatic circles, it can come through misguided personal prophecies or mystical visions.

In such a church no one is allowed to ask questions. Spiritual heaviness lies like a thick cloud over the congregation, and few believers manifest genuine joy because they are overburdened by feelings of guilt and fear.

4. Angry domination. Tyrants are surprisingly similar. Because they want to control their surroundings, they often blow up when people do not conform to their demands. Yet the Apostle Paul taught that church leaders should not be "violent" or "quarrelsome" but "self-controlled" and "gentle" (see 1 Timothy 3:2-3). Later he instructed Timothy that the Lord's servant "must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone" (2 Timothy 2:24). You will always find lots of anger wherever there is a controlling spirit.

5. Individual guidance is discouraged. The Bible teaches that every Christian has direct access to God through one mediator, Jesus Christ. Every believer can hear God's voice personally and should expect to receive God's guidance.

In authoritarian church situations, however, members are not encouraged to seek God's guidance themselves. Rather, they are urged to conform to the preferences of the leader or the group. In some cases, leaders have actually taught their congregations to seek counsel and specific approval from a pastor before making major decisions. Thus church members develop an unhealthy dependence on a man in order to function spiritually, and their ability to trust God is diminished.

This kind of control is emotionally crippling. For many who submitted to the philosophy behind the Shepherding movement, it took years to recover from the loss of decision-making ability. They relinquished their wills and lost their identities because they viewed absolute obedience to their spiritual leaders as a Christian virtue.

6. Women viewed as inferior. Some churches today permit the ordination of women, even as senior pastors or bishops, while others maintain that Scripture does not permit women to hold these positions. Apart from these differences of opinion on biblical interpretation, it should be noted that authoritarian churches usually discourage women from pursuing anygenuine role in ministry. Women are viewed as useful only in their functions as wives and mothers, and they are not encouraged to step beyond these confines to pursue ministry opportunities.

Such a low view of women leads men to treat them as God-ordained sex objects or drones equipped to perform only menial tasks. Women who have leadership gifts are branded rebels or "Jezebels."

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, similar walls of communist control fell in rapid succession until the entire Soviet Union broke apart. Yet walls of spiritual bondage still exist today in so many parts of the church—and the ghosts of the Shepherding movement still haunt us. We are called to be emancipators, not enslavers. As we seek to build healthy churches, let's remember these words from Galatians 5:1: "It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery" (NASB).

J. Lee Grady is editor of Charisma. You can find him on Twitter at leegrady.

What Say You?

The Baby, The Whole Baby, Nothing But The Baby, So Help Us God.

by Ted Dekker

Some Thoughts to Chew On

Dear Underground. Would you like some meat to chew on? Some controversy that might help you think about who you really are? Then consider the following argument made for the sake of discussion, not conclusion. I want to know what you think. Read carefully, this is critical stuff. Then choose your response below – A, B, C, D or E.

Whatever you do, please don’t label me based on this exercise ☺

(And don’t worry, we will return to more simple fun very soon.)

SCOURGE OF THE EARTH or compassionate lovers of human kind? Depending on where you live and what your experience is, Christians may be identified as either one, and, much to the chagrin of those who use the label to describe themselves, legitimately so. It all boils down to what you mean by the label ‘Christian.’

Regardless of what we think any particular word should mean, it actually means what society interprets it to mean. Linguistics 101. Like the word gay. I’ve been quoted as saying that I could have once properly been branded the gay author because, although I have always been heterosexual, I once was… well, happy. Twenty years ago gay meant happy, so you could say I was gay. Today the term refers to sexual orientation. So although once I could have appropriately been called gay, I can no longer, not because I’ve changed, but because the understanding of the word in our society has changed and it no longer describes what I am.

Fine. The word is only a label and the meaning of labels change with time and culture.

So it might be with the word ‘Christian.’ For many years following the death of Christ, his followers did not use the term at all, and even then the term was coined by the world to, not the church, which at the time referred to their faith simply as the Way. As far as we know, the term Christian was inspired by heathens in Antioch and eventually stuck. The first twenty years of Christ’s followers, those closest to his life, never even heard the term.

But none of that really matters, it is, after all, only a label. The question is, what does that label mean today. And more importantly, does it describe your life?

Jesus summed up his message as follows: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. Armed with this simple mandate of love, millions of his followers have forsaken the relative safety and affluence of a comfortable life to extend love and hope to the downtrodden over the centuries. Much could be said to explain how and why Christianity has embodied compassion in a world torn by war, terror, and heartache. It’s all about love, my friend.

Unfortunately, in the eyes of many, the religion of Christianity is now far better known for much more and much less than love. Not all of the associations are bad, mind you, but they are a far cry from the message of love that ultimately cost Jesus his life. Ask any pedestrian and, depending on where they live, they will tell you who Christians are. What they tell you may not describe you at all.

Ask the question in the Middle East and you might be told that Christians are killers whose bombs have killed thousands of innocent bystanders in Iraq; murderers who have brutally killed thousands of Muslims in Lebanon. Christian militia entered the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut in September 1982 where they raped, pillaged and murdered with impunity for three days during what became known as the Shatila massacre. The first suicide bomber in Lebanon was a Christian, blowing up Muslims. The scourge of the Crusaders is still alive in the Middle East. This is what ‘Christian’ means to many in that part of the world. Does this describe you?

My father once visited a town in India where Hindus had killed many Christians over the previous months. He was surprised to learn that they were being killed for their association with the West, not Jesus. In that part of the world, Christian means ‘Western’ not follower of Christ.

“So then,” my father said, “if you are dying for a term that doesn’t describe you, are you not dying in vain? If Christian means western to them, not follower of Christ, then to call yourself Christian to them is deceitful, is it not? To the Romans, become Roman. Speak their language, don’t impose your language on them.”

If you ask a pedestrian in Seattle who Christians are, they will likely tell you that Christians are judgmental, insensitive, hypocrites who are out of touch with reality. Or worse, angry right-wing bigots willing to resort to hate speech and violence to protect their narrow way of life. That they are a political group committed to a particular platform, even willing to take up the sword or home-made bombs to defend that platform.

The last thing that will come to their mind is the concept of sacrificial love or Jesus who showed us that love. Just like the word ‘Gay’ the meaning of the word has changed, like it or not.

And it’s not just Lebanon or Seattle. According to a Barna Group poll, only 9% of those outside the church think Christians in America are nice, loving people. Whatever happened to ‘you shall know them by their love?’ Throughout most of the world Christianity is simply no longer associated with the core beliefs of sacrificial love that birthed our faith. It has become like a large vessel of dirty bathwater, full of nasty associations that fly in the face of Jesus’ teaching which centered on love and the cry that ‘we judge not lest we be judged.’ A Newsweek cover story cited the dramatic decline of Christianity in the United States. We live in a post Christian world, many would say. They might be right. And who’s to blame them? No one wants to swim around in dirty bathwater.

But wait a minute. There is more than dirty bathwater in this vessel. There is something precious and live-giving! And there is a rising generation of thinkers who are as eager to protect and cherish that life as they are to throw out the dirty bathwater.

Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, we say.

It’s interesting that Jesus’ first recorded miracle was turning dirty bathwater (in this case water used to wash dusty feet) into precious wine, a beautiful portrayal of purification. My generation wants that wine back and many are willing—check that, eager—to rid the vessel of the bathwater and replace it with that wine, that truth, that core message of love that Jesus gave his life for.

If Christian means judgmental or bigot to most or even many, then perhaps it is wrong for us to use a willingly use a deceptive label. Perhaps to them we are no longer ‘Christian’ in as much as I am no longer ‘Gay.’

I and my kind are neither bigots nor hate-mongers nor killers nor whatever else those in Seattle and Lebanon might think Christian means. Rather we are passionate believers in a person who came with a message of love, and his name was Jesus.

Question: Why are we so beholding to a manmade religious label even when that label now distorts the original meaning behind it? Crusader and Christian were once synonymous in many parts of the world. If you were transported back to that time, would you have proudly call yourself a Crusader, knowing what you know today?

Our identity is not stamped with any specific political party or ideology however good or bad they might be, but to the man who avoided being identified by any political ideology whenever possible and offered only the sage advice to give unto Cesar what is Cesar’s.
We are not defined by any specific social agenda, however necessary or good, but by the love that embraces the downcast in need of a helping hand.

We do not follow any moral creed invented by man however honorable, nor spit in the faces of those who struggle to put others before themselves however deserving, but we carry the burden of forgiveness and step aside so that he without sin may throw the first stone, if indeed such a man lives.

Our stories are not about pot-lucks and Sunday school playground squabbles, but about that monster called hate and his futile attempts to dash the hopes of the Great Lover.
Perhaps you could call us post-Christian Believers, defined solely by the man we follow, not the institution that bears his name.

We believe that our first calling is to love God with all of our hearts, and that our second calling is to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, and for us that is a difficult enough task to waste the rest of our lives on.

We are not partial Christians, not red-letter Christians, not a new kind of Christian, not non-Christian; we are far more and far less than Christian, children of an unfortunate but very real phenomenon that has dirtied our bathwater so now we want out, but out with the baby, please. The baby the whole baby, nothing but the baby, so help us God.

We are many, very many, millions of many. This is the way we roll and we are on the rise.

Tell me what you think. What best describes you:

A) The term ‘Christian’ as understood by much of the world no longer describes your faith. You want out of that dirty bath water with the baby, the whole baby, nothing but the baby. You do not or would not call yourself Christian unless speaking to a person who understands the term clearly to mean what you mean.

B) The term ‘Christian’ as understood by much of the world no longer describes your faith. But you would cling to that term because it means so much to you, and you would try to change the world’s understanding of what it means. Teach the Romans English, so to speak.

C) The term ‘Christian’ with all of it’s socio-political associations actually describes you pretty well, so you will not worry yourself with this issue.

D) The issues and arguments above ring a bell but they also make you very nervous and so you would distance yourself from them, afraid of what others in your circle might think. You will go with the flow and rest in that current.

E) You believe the term is sacred and that all those believers who did not call themselves Christians in the early church are probably in hell.

I personally am not fully decided. But I must hear from you. At any rate this exercise will make you think about who you are, really are, and that is invaluable.

Think carefully. Let you opinion be heard.

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8 Warning Sign of Toxic Faith

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8 Warning Signs of Toxic Faith

Tuesday, 28 July 2009 12:17 PM EDT J. Lee Grady Newsletters -Fire In My Bones

Legalistic religion is dangerous. Here's how you can detect and avoid the poison of a religious spirit.

After Elisha watched Elijah ascend into heaven, the prophet went to the city of Jericho and performed his first miracle. The men of that city faced an environmental crisis: Their water was toxic, most likely because of the sulphur and other chemicals that had rained down upon nearby Sodom and Gomorrah years earlier. This poison had made the land barren (see 2 Kings 2:19-22) and it was probably affecting people and animals as well as plant life.

So Elisha performed a bold, prophetic act. He threw salt in the water and proclaimed: "Thus says the Lord, ‘I have purified these waters; there shall not be from there death or unfruitfulness any longer'" (v. 21, NASB). His proclamation brought immediate cleansing.

" Jesus Himself referred to these toxins as 'the leaven of the Pharisees'” (Luke 12:1, NASB). He told us that the Pharisees’ brand of religion, which looked good on the outside, was deadly—and contagious."

This obscure story in the Old Testament offers us a picture of the gospel's power. The message of Jesus Christ heals us. The Holy Spirit brings life where death has reigned. He neutralizes the poisons that cause spiritual barrenness. He balances the pH level so that spiritual growth and vitality is possible.

All of us would like to enjoy a healthy spiritual life. But the sad truth is that many of us are barren because of hazardous additives. We have believed a different gospel—one laced with legalism, performance-based religion and salvation by works—when Christ alone is our only source of life.

Jesus Himself referred to these toxins as "the leaven of the Pharisees" (Luke 12:1, NASB). He told us that the Pharisees' brand of religion, which looked good on the outside, was deadly—and contagious.

Have you been infected? You can take your own pH test by examining these eight characteristics of a religious spirit.

1. A religious spirit views God as a cold, harsh, distant taskmaster rather than an approachable, loving Father. When we base our relationship with God on our ability to perform spiritual duties, we deny the power of grace. God does not love us because we pray, read our Bibles, attend church or witness, yet millions of Christians think God is mad if they don't perform these and other duties perfectly. As a result they struggle to find true intimacy with Jesus.

2. A religious spirit places emphasis on doing outward things to show others that God accepts him. We deceive ourselves into believing that we can win God's approval through a religious dress code, certain spiritual disciplines, particular music styles or even doctrinal positions.

3. A religious spirit develops traditions and formulas to accomplish spiritual goals. We trust in our liturgies, denominational policies or man-made programs to obtain results that only God alone can give.

4. A religious spirit becomes joyless, cynical and hypercritical. This can turn a home or a church completely sour. Then, whenever genuine joy and love are expressed, this becomes a threat to those who have lost the simplicity of true faith.

5. A religious spirit becomes prideful and isolated, thinking that his righteousness is special and that he cannot associate with other believers who have different standards. Churches that allow these attitudes become elitist and dangerously vulnerable to deception or cult-like practices.

6. A religious spirit develops a harsh, judgmental attitude toward sinners, yet those who ingest this poison typically struggle with sinful habits that they cannot admit to anyone else. Religious people rarely interact with nonbelievers because they don't want their own superior morals to be tainted by them.

7. A religious spirit rejects progressive revelation and refuses to embrace change. This is why many churches become irrelevant to society. They become so focused on what God did 50 years ago that they become stuck in a time warp and cannot move forward when the Holy Spirit begins to open new understanding. When religious groups refuse to shift with God's new directives, they become "old wineskins" and God must find more flexible vessels that are willing to implement change.

8. A religious spirit persecutes those who disagree with his self-righteous views and becomes angry whenever the message of grace threatens to undermine his religiosity. An angry religious person will use gossip and slander to assassinate other peoples' character and may even use violence to prove his point. Jesus, in fact, warned His disciples: "There will even come a time when anyone who kills you will think he's doing God a favor" (John 16:2, The Message).

If the poison of religion has contaminated your walk with God, ask Him to pour a fresh understanding of His grace into your barren spirit—and then expect His new life to flow through you.

J. Lee Grady is editor of Charisma. You can follow him on Twitter at leegrady.

Weighed and tested in 2009

Posted by: Jim Driscoll in General on July 21st, 2009

Several friends of mine recently told me about all the things that are going wrong in their lives right now.

In an effort to comfort them, I shared what I believe God has shown me about this season.

There is a testing going on right now, one that is affecting all of us. Everything is being weighed - our thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, spiritual inheritances, bloodline issues - to see where we are weak.

When God judges and weighs His people, it seems that He doesn’t go through our issues one at a time; He addresses all of them at once. It’s a process somewhat similar to judging an animal at a fair: Every part of that animal is assessed and reviewed for strengths and weaknesses, and any flaw in any area is poked and prodded and exposed.

While this is going on, we tend to be very aware of our faults. Our issues come up. Some of us may find ourselves struggling with finances and hereditary illnesses. We feel like we’re under spiritual attack. God is testing us — not to condemn us but to deal with our weaknesses.

Whenever He does this, He has a reason and a purpose, both of which are usually better and more significant than we realize. This is the year 2009. Nine is the number of judgment. It isn’t so much thepassing of judgment as it is the process of judgment, in which the weaknesses and limitations of every person are exposed. God judges us because He is preparing us for Himself. He’s getting ready to move and pour out and bless — and to bring judgment on those who aren’t responding.

What is the most important thing we can do during this time? We can embrace God’s testing. Instead of cowering or drawing back, we should lay everything out before Him and let Him touch, handle, heal, remove and rearrange as He sees fit. We want Him to take care of any holes or weak spots within us, so that when the fullness of judgment arrives, we will be overcome with blessing.

This is a really good thing that’s happening right now. It’s exciting and positive. The weights are heavy today because we’re going to be stronger tomorrow. When many of us hear about testing, we sigh and groan, “Oh, great.” But there is a very odd thing that happens when we’re in alignment with God and His will for our lives: We don’t want the judging process to end. We realize the benefit of it, and instead of trying to get through it, we learn to embrace it as an opportunity to study and adopt the ways of God.

Additional Articles by Jim Driscoll can be found on his "Stir the Water Blog"