I am sad - grieved by the fact that so many people throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to moves of God. I just wanna yell, “Break of your conservative shackles and drink! Drink His wine! Drink His tears! There's a unity that can only be found in the raw mess of a yearning, burning heart, and I for one am not gonna stand by and watch as others get swept up into His presence without me, no matter how loudly the religious demons are screaming…”(Sigh). I just want Him.
And all this emotion from one encounter with a bookstore. It's stirring in me. Won't stop. I must write it down.
I dropped off my book at a Christian bookstore the other week. I thought “Hungry” would be a helpful resource to add to their collection. Unfortunately, I found out yesterday that it wasn’t a “good fit,” for them. But what grieved me the most was the reasoning behind the rejection.
“Well, your book is really ministering to me personally,” the woman began, “but it’s just too…out there I guess spiritually. For instance you made reference to Benny Hinn’s book…he’s currently on our 'banned list'. Your book is more ‘name it, claim it,’ and we’re just more conservative.”
I kindly thanked her for her time and she blessed me as well and I got off the phone choking back tears. '
Name it, Claim it?' I thought.
I didn’t know I was ‘Name it, Claim it.’ I just love Jesus. I claim His truth. Why is that bad? My feelings of personal rejection quickly turned into sorrow for all the people who don’t get to be blessed not only my book, but also hundreds of other books. How does one determine what books your kids are gonna be exposed to?
Having lived trapped in religion without power - without encounter - for so long, I wept for all the people who will stay there because of fear – fear of what they cannot explain.
I would understand banning a book by someone who is in complete heresy – and maybe they believe Benny Hinn is – but I cannot help but wonder how many times truth is rejected, or termed demonic, simply because it doesn’t fit into ones framework of what truth is supposed to look like.
Jesus didn’t fit into the right framework. He didn’t come as the king the Jews expected, but as a crying, helpless little baby in all his mess. When Jesus was older and started doing miracles, the religious people said, "It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons." So Jesus called them and spoke to them in parables: "How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come” (Mark 3:22-26).
In my walk, I’ve been extremely blessed by radical people like Benny Hinn, Todd Bentley, Patricia King, Bill Johnson, Mike Bickel, Heidi Baker, etc…but these are the very people who are the most controversial.
O no, not Heidi Baker. She helps orphans in Africa. Dude. Have you ever seen the woman preach? She’s usually doing it from the floor, having gotten so “shnockered” in worship that she literally cannot stand, let alone speak. She looks like a blabbering fool! Haha!! “I claim to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified!! Hallelujah!”
“Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe” (1 Cor 1:20). Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 18:3). Entering the Kingdom of heaven is about living in His spiritual realm not only into eternity, but while here on earth. And when we do that, things start looking a little weird, and logic cannot grasp what we see. So, we dismiss it or try to find some logical explanation.
That blabbering fool on the floor can't possibly get any work done. Her laughing is really offending me right now. That is not how we should conduct ourselves in the 'House of God'.I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read the comment streams bellow one of Patricia King’s videos only to read comment after comment of people calling her a witch or demonic. It breaks my heart. Is she perfect? No. Is Todd Bentley perfect? No, the dude committed adultery (sadly), but I’m not dismissing all the miracles I witnessed first hand through him, all the encounters I’ve had with the Holy Spirit through a revelation he shared on a podcast. Praise God he’s repented and is receiving restoration. But man, if we treated David in the Bible the way that he’s been treated, we probably wouldn’t have the wonderful book of Psalms.
And I’ll be honest, I think a lot of leaders like him end up falling because they get so attacked by other Christians. There’s power in our words! The tongue has the power of life and death…anyway. I’ll stop there.
Is Benny Hinn perfect? No. Do I believe everything he does and says is right? Probably not. But that doesn’t mean he is of the devil. And that doesn't mean that I'm gonna disregard an amazing book that he wrote, "Good Morning Holy Spirit", about how as a young teenager he first encountered Jesus and learned how to fellowship with Holy Spirit alone in his room when his while his Jewish parents persecuted him. When you read a book like that - such humble, simple beginnings, just a kid learning to love on God for hours in His bedroom - Benny becomes just another one of God's beloved sons. He may me off on some of His teaching now (i personally don't follow him so I really wouldn't know the details), but He believes Jesus is the Son of God. There is good fruit coming out of his ministry. People are getting healed, saved, and delivered and the gospel of Jesus preached. Jesus said “You will know them by their fruit” (Matt 7:19) Now have people been hurt by Benny’s ministry? I’m sure they have. Has someone ever been hurt by me? Yes. I’m just saying, why ban something that is preaching the gospel and could bring life and healing to someone? I think we handicap ourselves when we restrict the flow of blood from different part of the Body.
In Mark 9 the disciples are distraught because they found some people doing miracles who were not “one of them”. Jesus kindly responds, “ "Do not stop him. No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us. I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward.”
In Philippians 1:15 Paul says, “It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. The latter do so in love…The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.”
He rejoices that Christ is being preached, even if the motives are wrong. God will judge the heart. Man, I wish we could be as accepting as Paul was. I think our Body would function a lot better.
And so – man I’ve bitten off way more than I can chew in this little post - I just…I know the power I’ve experienced. I know the encounters I’ve had with God are genuine and true. They’ve broken off my shackles and I find myself loving God and others so so much more than I ever could when I was sticking to my safe, neat, controlled Bible studies and rote worship songs. The stuff we learn about Jesus -about the Kingdom of Heaven - cannot make the jump from our heads to our hearts without encountering Him. And I know it makes Him sad that a majority of His Body tries to cut off other parts of His Body because it looks weird, or they don’t understand it. But Jesus said, “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give” (Matt 8:10).
Mark 16:17 says, “And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."
I don’t know about you but I never saw any of these signs accompanying me when I played safe Christianity, going to my bible studies and being nice to people and trying to stay away from the naughty temptations of alcohol, sex, and rock and roll. Nothing good ever came out of it. I was trapped managing my sin instead of overcoming it, bringing heaven to earth - living from a heavenly realm at the right hand of the Father.
I think people get scared and/or offended by what they cannot understand – people shaking on the ground under the power of the Spirit, getting “slain in the Spirit, speaking in tongues, seeing angels, people’s legs growing out through a healing prayer, cancerous tumors exploding off of people’s bodies, getting drunk in the Spirit (uncontrollable laughter), prophesy, words of knowledge, and I don’t even want to start with things like transportation and levitation. Some of you are offended right now. Don’t worry, my religious demons get their panties in a wad too sometimes. (Please don’t take me literally when I say
my religious demons. They’re not mine, but they might be assigned to me from time to time.) But this is the stuff that the Bible is full of! It’s not full of people sitting around in small groups doing Bible studies and writing down people’s prayer requests. And I know the power of pray and studying the Word…I’m just saying… Please hear my heart!
2 Timothy 3 says, “There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—
having a form of godliness but denying its power.”
It’s amazing that this last part is listed right up there with all the other obviously negative stuff.
I could list all kind of crazy encounters and things that happened in the Bible that seemed off, or weird. I mean, look at Ezekiel for goodness sake. He records an encounter he had in Ezekiel, “I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north—an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal, and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures. In appearance their form was that of a man, but each of them had four faces and four wings… and their wings touched one another. Each one went straight ahead; they did not turn as they moved.”
Say what?! Ezekiel, what the heck are you smoking?! You must be under some crazy demonic influence because God would never be that weird.
I’m just saying, I wish we as a Body would be more open to moves of God. Have moves of God in the past turned bad? Yes. There is usually some bad mixed in with the good, but that doesn’t mean we throw away the whole thing!
Jesus made a good parallel to this in one of his stories in Matthew 13:
"Jesus presented another parable to them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field.
"But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares (weeds) among the wheat, and went away.
"But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also.
"The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, 'Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?'
"And he said to them, 'An enemy has done this!' The slaves said to him, 'Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?'
"But he said, 'No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them.
'Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, "First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn."'"
What would our Bibles look like if we cut out all the psalms because David had an affair with Bathsheba. What if we threw him out?
I think God is much bigger than that.
We gotta learn to "eat the meat and spit out the bones" - to think for ourselves instead of keeping everything in safe black and white cages.
I guess I’m just baffled that a book that is “Really ministering” to someone would be held back from people simply because it’s a little “out there.” (And by the way, I got over my initial hurt at my book’s rejection and just blessed the pants off that woman and that bookstore in prayer – so take that divisive schemes of the enemy! Haha! Loving is so much better).
I think the main fear that people have with all this Holy Spirit stuff is that the Bible does warn about counterfeit miracles taking place in the last days. But, He’s not talking about people who follow Jesus, but those who deny Him. 2 Thessalonians 2:9 says, “The coming of the
lawless one will be
in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.”
And who is the “lawless one” Paul’s talking about? He is one who “will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thes 2:4).
So many people believe that people like Benny Hinn and Patricia King are the antichrist, but the antichrist is just that: anti-Christ. “Who is the liar? The one who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist – he denies the Father and the Son” (1 John 3:12).
Is there a need to draw near to Jesus so that we won’t be deceived? Absolutely! Bury yourself in the Secret Place with Him. But should we be running around calling people witches and dismissing moves of God just because they don’t fit into our neat religious frameworks? No!
The occult has taken far too much ground in the area of the supernatural. The things that they do are really just counterfeit for the things that Christians should be doing! The enemy is NOT a creator. He cannot create anything new. But he can take what God has designed His kids to operate in and twist it for his purposes.
(Deep breath). Ok. I think I need to stop because I could go on forever. And I hope you hear my heart. I know I’m not perfect. I know that I’m gonna keep growing in revelation and that I definitely don’t understand it all. But this is what I see (for now anyway). This is what made me weep yesterday. I long to see the sons of the Most High walking in the fullness of their identities as supernatural bringers of life! The day is coming. It’s gonna happen. He’s raising them up. There’s a generation that has been stirring that won’t stop at safe.
Here is a snippet of “The Vision” by Pete Greig. It portrays my longing nicely:
So this guy comes up to me and says:
“what’s the vision? What’s the big idea?”
I open my mouth and words come out like this:
The vision?
The vision is JESUS – obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.
The vision is an army of young people.
You see bones? I see an army.
And they are FREE from materialism.
They laugh at 9-5 little prisons.
They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday.
They wouldn’t even notice.
They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won.
They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations.
They need no passport.
…
Who can stop them?
Can hormones hold them back?
Can failure succeed?
Can fear scare them or death kill them?
And the generation prays
like a dying man
with groans beyond talking,
with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and
with great barrow loads of laughter!
Waiting. Watching: 24 – 7 – 365.
Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules. Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials. The advertisers cannot mould them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.
…
They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension.
Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.
And this vision will be.
It will come to pass;
it will come easily;
it will come soon.
How do I know?
Because this is the longing of creation itself,
the groaning of the Spirit,
the very dream of God.
My tomorrow is his today.
My distant hope is his 3D.
And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great ‘Amen!’ from countless angels, from hero’s of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.
Guaranteed.
This is the generation that is here and is still to come. The ones who are sick and tired of religious shackles, the ones who are willing to go after Him at all costs, no matter what it looks like. They are more concerned with loving on Jesus, honoring those who have gone before us and celebrating our differences rather than dividing over religious tags.
I wanna be one of them. O God, I don’t want to miss your wedding feast! Have mercy O Lord and help me keep my eyes on yours. You are so faithful Daddy. Thank you, thank you, thank you. For I was once lost, but now I am found. Was blind, but now I see.
