Dispelling the spirit of an Orphan heart

As I led the class on "Spiritual Warfare" we again began to see the importance of our identity in Christ. In Galatians 4:5-6 "so He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying 'Abba! Father!'" We here this and if we don't look very deeply we say what difference does this make in my life. My son is the best example I have of this Scripture for, we adopted him over 4 years ago from Kazakhstan. He was in an orphanage for the beginning of his life, we had been led to pray for two years before he joined our family. We overwhelmed with the idea of choosing a son, so we put this huge decision in the Lord's hands and followed His direction. I remember when we had hit delay after delay in attempting to adopt from Russia, then the Lord opened a door for us to adopt from Kazakhstan. On the day we said yes, we had a referral and I opened an email with a picture of my son. As I looked at the picture I was moved deep inside my heart that this was my son. Later the Lord showed me that Joshua, my son, was chosen and didn't perform to get a place in our family. A better description of the original language is to "set in place as a son", the Law was all about following the Law in a failed attempts to become righteous before God. Joshua was chosen by God as our son, just as I was chosen by the Holy Spirit to be one of the children of God. When Joshua first came home for the initial honeymoon period he acted more like an orphan thinking he needed to hit or scratch to get what he wanted. Joshua only liked food that was like what he was used to in the orphanage. Although the moment the plane landed in America Joshua became a citizen of the U.S., our legally adopted son, and an heir in our family it took him some time to adjust to being a full member of our family. Though there was a process of bonding on both sides, I knew deep down that he was my son. Most people struggle with having a clear sense of their identity and destiny. It is simply amazing love that God would choose to place us in His family, make us heirs, give us authority, and bring us into intimacy with Himself. So many of us have received deep wounds in our family, that family gives us a distorted picture and experience of what we believe God's family is like. So many are spiritual orphans choosing to go life on their own, rather than fully receive God's incredible invitation of family. This Father God is love and has a heart that burns to bring sons and daughters into His family. As I had an intense week because of the lead up to teaching "Spiritual Warfare" I found myself under intense emotional torment, not totally unfamiliar to me. Growing up very much with an Orphan heart, I have struggled to be embraced by the Father's incredible invitation. As a child I had experienced so much loneliness, fear, insecurity, worry, and anxiety because of living with an orphan heart. As I couldn't sleep the darkness seemed to overtake me and it was like the father of lies was whispering in my ear that I was on my own and I was not going to be okay. The fear seemed to increase to the point of a writhing fear of death, the orphan spirit strikes terror in another heart. I worked with a couple this week who the man struggled with an orphan heart because he never measure up as a servant, while his wife's orphan heart struggled with loneliness and being unloved. As a servant he was always trying to measure up then hoping for his inheritance (acceptance and love as a son), he was on the continual treadmill of performance. All of these schemes of the Enemy are pictures of who we are that keep us from enjoying being sons and daughters of God. Identity is everything because the life you live is based on who you are, either the construction of this self is a prison or sets you free to pursue the destiny set in your heart. As my wife read a book on Andre Agassi, she shared that Andre hated tennis but was driven by an unrelenting father to become the best tennis player in the world. Tennis became his whole life, yet the little boys heart just wanted the acceptance and love of being a son. He would even surround himself with older men looking for a father to give him what he never had. I believe that my father's suicide left me searching for a father and shattered my identity as a son. A mother is so important in a family to communicate unconditional love, tenderness, and nurture. But it is a father who God placed in the family to speak God's heart over the children and bless them with their identity. Adam was given authority to name the animals. In the Hebrew culture father's were the one who named the children and communicated a unique aspect of God's love and truth. Because the New Covenant is the Abrahamic Covenant fulfilled, it is by faith or belief and not performance (The Law). Believing the powerful lies that are based on our experience can send us hurling into an internal darkness and torment. These lies have there power in the fact that we have been given authority on earth, so what I choose to believe guides my life. The paraphrase version of a Proverb, as a man thinkth so he is. How we see ourselves is vital to our very existence and life. Stand against the orphan spirit, as a child of God your life depends on it.

A son of the Most High,
Bret

Nothing Seperates Us from the Love of God?

I love how definitive the Scripture is in making declarations of truth and freedom, Romans 8:38 and 39 declare that nothing separates us from the love of God in Christ. Why is this such a wonderfully powerful couple of verses that so many do no experience? As my Papa has been touching some deep places of loneliness and emptiness in my heart, I realize the pain often came from believing I was alone. These lies are deeply rooted in my experience as a little boy, where I often was alone and then even isolated inside a shell to protect myself from being hurt. My deeply held belief is does not override the truth of the Word but my heart cry is to experience the Life the Word writes about. So it is through deception that we can choose to believe we are separated from God and then experience this painful separation. Since we were born to be radically and deeply loved by God, any separation results in some form of death (like it did for Adam and Eve). Since we are now "in Christ" we will not be separated from God ever but each one of us are on a journey to have our experience line up with the Word. If there are places in your heart of loneliness or emptiness, these are an invitation to experience God's love on a deeper level. We are relational creatures by design, just as the God is relational (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). We often choose loneliness or isolation for fear of rejection, disappointment, or loss. Yet I do not see any rejection under the New Covenant, Jesus freely welcomed all who came to Him but not all came to Him. As I have learned more about the New Covenant I was amazed to find out much of the original language (Greek) is not individual but applies to believers corporately. This means our individualistic and self-sufficient culture is directly opposed to the environment God desires to be in the Body of Christ. I believe loneliness is epidemic in our culture because so many have bought into the original lie of Satan that we are to be gods running our own little world and not showing anyone our weaknesses. It is love that allows our weaknesses to be exposed and healed, not put on public display for attack. I pray that God would begin to renew our mind to Christ's love which is to be manifested in the Body of Christ. I see so many believers who desire this and are frustrated with the institutional church because they don't see Christ manifest but they don't know where else to go. I pray that God would birth in each of us a desire for His vision of the Body (see Ephesians 3:14-21) and that we would be part of the coming change rather than part of the division or tearing down of the church.

In His Grace,
Bret

Kingdom Timing

The world has a pace, a calendar, time schedules, and deadlines. Does the Kingdom of God operate on the same time frame as the world? The easy answer is no because we know that God's ways are not man's ways. As we are in the process of selling our house and moving to another house the Lord picks out, we are concerned about the timing. We are learning how to hear or sense His leading as we go through the process, instead of just looking at the situation and using our abilities to figure out what to do. This got me thinking about the reality of the Kingdom's timing, God is a God of order and He does have His timing. I remember reading a book that talked about the difference between chronos and kairos, first is where we get our word chronological. This is referring more to the linear time we are used to, i.e. calenders, clocks, deadlines, and schedules. But Heaven has it's own time frame, kairos time is the opportune time, the right time, or the decisive epoch waited for. In other words kairos time is when Heaven invades earth, the superior reality of Heaven changes the natural course of events. As I began this new year I took time to listen to the Lord for the year 2010, He spoke to my heart saying "I am changing your timing to be in step with Mine." I am not saying that we shouldn't follow daily schedules, keep a calendar, or ignore deadlines. I am simply saying that there is the higher reality of Kingdom timing. We as sons and daughters of God are not bound to this world's time frame, we are citizens of Heaven (Philippians 3:20) which means we have legal access to discerning Heaven's timing. In John 3:8 Jesus says, "The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit." Jesus is connecting something we are familiar with "the wind" and being able to see the evidence of the wind which is sound and the supernatural which is how born-again children of God are directed. So if we are truly being led by the Spirit of God, someone on the outside should not be able to easily predict based on the circumstances what choices we will make. We are guided by a relationship with Our Creator through the Holy Spirit not simply by our circumstances. What we are most attentive to and aware of is what we will end up serving. If we are aware of the season God has us in, we will be responsive to the move of His Spirit. A high priority in Heaven is relationships, you see Scripture continually elevate relationship with God and others above other things. The world is 180 degrees from the Kingdom, what is elevate is not relationship but personal gain, individual pleasures or lusts, and self-sufficiency. I want to hear/discern the rhythm of Heaven and begin to move with the moves of the Spirit, rather than being pushed and directed by the dictates of the world. I just had a client who was frustrated by where he is in life (still single, doesn't have kids, etc...), he was frustrated because all he was aware of was chronos and the passage of time. This client began to be aware that God's timing was different and that God had much more for him than he ever realized. I pray that we would cry out to our Abba to have His timing revealed and to be reoriented to the atmosphere of Heaven.

In His Grace,
Bret

Financial Freedom

Many people think of financial freedom as a high-paying job or position, being independently wealthy, getting a big inheritance, or winning the lotto. God defines prosperity a different way, having all you need to do all that God has called you to do (2 Corinthians 9:8). There are those teachers of the Word of God who preach prosperity but fail to talk about the purpose of prosperity, which is to extend God's covenant on the earth (Deuteronomy 8:18). In December of 2008 God began to speak to my heart through a teaching by John Sheasby called "The Grace of Giving" found under the Media tab at www.liberatedliving.com. This is a powerful word of grace that began to challenge much of my way of viewing money and how I lived. The Lord got a hold of me at the end of 2008, we were coming to the end of a year and our support was drying up. I was in tremendous fear about money and the future. I knew that living the way I had been living had led us to where we were financially. I began to see that the increase for seeing greater provision did not come from getting more support but through sowing seed (money, time, anointing, and gifts). I remember my first step was to ask God for seed, I was walking into the nature center at Rocky Mountain National Park and found a quarter. My wife laughed at me and said maybe you could have asked God for a bigger seed. With some embarrassment I later dropped the quarter into the offering plate at church. In a few weeks we got a check into our support account for $1,000. Now I will confess we also sowed a seed of $100 into a friends ministry. So either we saw a 4000 time return or 10 time return but either way you slice it that is multiplication. You could say this was just a coincidence but God took 4 other $100 seeds and multiplied them with a 10 fold increase. Now try to say that is coincidence. The even more exciting transformation is not the finances but my heart change. I now look forward to sowing seed and actually look for opportunities to be generous. On of the great blessings of the year was taking friends and family out to a Chinese dinner on Christmas Eve, I tell you that dinner was so wonderful as I got to enjoy blessing those dear people. Also as we came to the end of the year we had a deficit in our financial support (we raise support like missionaries) of approximately one month of salary. I was in and out of faith, fear, unbelief, striving, and ultimately back to faith. The Lord not only met our deficit but gave us nearly double what we needed to wipe out the deficit. Instead of starting off the year with a deficit we had more than enough. As I look over our finances I discovered that while our income had not gone up we had given a whopping 16%. At the end of this year we have been able to bless our family, extended family, friends, and those in need. I now have a greater understanding of who God is, He is generous by nature. The ultimate generosity was the gift of His Son which no one deserved or earned. I pray that this testimony not only encourages you but empowers you by His grace to step into supernatural increase in the area of giving and receiving. I forgot to mention that 2009 was a year of famine for most and most ministries had to downsize and cut their budgets. Since God did this for me, it means that He will do similar work in your life. Ask God today to give you seed to sow and begin to take your journey into His goodness and grace. I have already been excited about the seed God is bringing for us to sow in 2010, which I believe is going to be a year of incredible breakthrough. Won't you join us on this journey.

In His Grace,
Bret

Submit to God

I was recently wrestling with an issue that has plagued me for about 2 years. I have struggled to have peaceful sleep but instead had sleepless nights, anxious sleep, and fatigue. The Lord had revealed that I had used sleep as an escape in my childhood and then later in life. If there things in my life that were overwhelming or too much, it became easier to not think about them through avoidance during the day til I could sleep at night. This all backfired because Jeremiah 17:5-8 is clear there is a curse when we trust in ourselves to get our needs met. After God granted me repentance I believed the breakthrough I had prayed for was here. I have to admit I did have some shame about this issue, here I am a man of God and one who teaches others about His grace and rest. Oh well, the Lord doesn't seem to care about my image or comfort. I had prayed many times for Him to take the sleeplessness, tried over the counter meds, natural substitutes, and lots of frustration. Finally God broke through the darkness, the fatigue, and the frustration to speak to my heart telling me to "Submit to Him". I thought I had submitted but then the Lord began to show me that I had not fully submitted to Him in this sleeplessness. I had given mental ascent to the idea of God using this but I had fully recognized His sovereignty in this. I am not sure if this struggle was from the Enemy, allowed by the Lord, or was simply because of my lie-based beliefs. No matter what the source in order to know how to walk 1 Peter 5:6-10 tells us to humble ourselves under His mighty hand. A key here is that instead of fighting a circumstance that we believe is wrong, uncomfortable, not normal, or any other number of judgements I believe we need to submit to Him. Also in Hebrews 12:5-11 discusses the discipline of the Lord, which in grace circles can be something we don't like to talk about. Discipline is not a dirty word, discipline is the Lord instructing us, building us up, and getting out things that are not a manifestation of His Spirit within me. I understand that none of us like the method at the time but the verses do say that we like the benefit. It goes on to say that discipline "yields peaceful fruits of righteousness". Righteousness under the New Covenant is not perfect behavior to get the reward but right relationship through the finished work of Christ. An example was that in this struggle with sleeplessness I began to be frustrated with God because it was like God was not helping me. So my functional view of Him in this area of my life was far less than a loving Father. At times I felt alone in this struggle, rather than the reality of being in union with Christ. I am not talking about positional truth here, I know that I am "in Christ". I am talking about the experience of our union with Christ, faith in the truth of the Word leads us to experience the results of that faith. The problem is that most of us have a ton of truth that has not been revealed and experienced, therefore in those areas we live in frustration and struggle. God in His sovereignty will work through circumstances and people in our lives to bring these areas to the surface to free us from the lies we deeply believe. We often on the surface do not realize we believe lies about our own identity and about God. I realize if I believed all the truth of the New Covenant and my union with Christ, I would walk as Jesus did.
There are areas where I walk in union with Christ and by His Spirit, there other areas where lie-based fear and self-sufficiency keep from freedom. I pray that whatever you are going through you will submit to God, our Heavenly Father is kind and full of love.

In His Amazing Grace,
Bret

Some Things You Only Learn As a Child

As we draw close to the day of Christmas, we remember how God invaded humanity through a infant boy. Theologians use big words like "incarnation" but to reflect on God limiting Himself to a baby that poops, pees, has to be breast fed, and have his swaddling clothes changed is truly amazing. The Lord has drawn me to a revelation about receiving His Kingdom that goes contrary to our thinking. Our society elevates those who are learned, smart, intelligent, shrewd, and calculating but I don't find this same appreciation when it comes to God's Kingdom. Wisdom is definitely a theme in Scripture, especially in the Proverbs. Wisdom is different then knowledge, wisdom has it's source in the character of God. As I woke up one morning I was hit by disappointment (my wife didn't get a job we were expecting she would get), then I listened to a message talking about prayers and promises that you stopped praying, and then I felt deep inside there were other disappointments. As I went off to meet with a prayer partner, the Lord began to show me that I had a pattern of experiencing disappointment. As my prayer partner led me in prayer to go into the roots of the feelings of disappointment, I began to see a childhood pattern of feeling set up for disappointment. The Lord began to show me that I had closed my heart off and began to become cynical about trusting. Human beings will always disappoint us because we were born of the Spirit to trust a completely faithful God, yet we often inwardly measure God by the people who raised us. The Lord began to speak to me about trust, I was saddened to realize that because my child-like trust had been distorted through the Enemies lies that I had believed God would not come through. When you believe that God will not come through for you (we all have some unbelief), then the only alternative is to try to do things according to your own power (the flesh). As I looked at Matthew 18:1-5 the Lord began to speak to my heart that there revelations that could only be received by becoming as a child. There are a number of people who I see God working through mightily, I am amazed at their child-like faith. Some of these people even talk about being like a little boy with a Big Dad. I found that inside of me was this inner-cynic because I had been hurt and disappointed as a little boy. I am all for studying, understanding Scripture in context, and even understanding the meaning of words in their original language. In this though we can get lost in believing that it is our effort that unlocks the mysteries of omnipotent God but this God seems to want us to know with a heart of a child. Jesus gives the disciples a lesson when they are acting like selfish and competitive children (asking who will be the greatest in the Kingdom) by bringing a child before Him and telling them to become like this child. The word He uses is be converted which carries the meaning to change directions or your mind. Clearly Jesus perspective on the Kingdom was vastly different than the disciples, the disciples are thinking of a corporate structure of upward mobility. Jesus points them to a child and challenges them to take the downward journey of humility. A child is likely to trust easily, open their heart, and enjoy the journey of discovery. We as adults have learned how to protect ourselves from being so silly, innocent, and trusting. We access to vast amounts of information, research, and counsel before we make a decision. I am not suggesting any of these are bad, only that they may prevent us at times from receiving the revelation of who God is. This shows us why it is important for our child heart to be healed from the wounds that we received as we grew. We have a common tradition in the Body of Christ that the better you study the Scripture, the more you know, and the better you can articulate Scripture the more faith you must have. Jesus doesn't seem to elevate these people as what is desired in the Kingdom of God. If you have a seminary degree don't be offended but realize that being great in the Kingdom of God is not dependent on all you know. It is child-like trust and faith that is required to enter the Kingdom of heaven. My question is this the first-time we enter the Kingdom, meaning when we accept Christ as our Savior. Or maybe it means that if we want to experience the realm of the Kingdom of heaven, we must humble ourselves and be like a little child. Also a quality about children is they have amazing imaginations and love new discoveries. I love that kids have a sense of awe, my son has discovered that Corvettes and Mustangs (especially GT500s) are so exciting. When he sees a Corvette you would think he won the powerball by his excitement. So my prayer is that you would open your child-heart and let the Lord show you things in His Kingdom that are beyond your imagination.

In His Grace,
Bret

Christ as Our Reference Point

It is so amazing as we discover through the Holy Spirit's direction that we have been given a brand new life "in Christ". We all come to this discovery through desperation, failure, and a sense there must be more. It is another big step to have Christ be the reference point for how we look at all life, especially ourselves. Jesus says in John 8:32 "and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." Is Jesus really saying that when you get through all your wounds, your inadequacies, your places of lack, and your weaknesses then you will be free or are you free today. The Scripture clearly says that since Jesus said you have been set free by the truth then you are free. Why do we always make truth conditional? I believe in a world filled with ungrace, grace is light in the midst of darkness and totally different than how most people see things according to being "in Adam". It makes sense that the New Covenant approach is that we are free through the truth of the finished work of Christ and that Galatians 5:1 tells us to "It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery." So why can't I continually walk in the Spirit and in freedom. It is because I believe lies about who I am, these are not superficial thoughts but deeply rooted beliefs that are removed by an encounter with the spirit of truth. I was recently feeling stressed and I was having trouble identifying what was going on. I began to see that since I had experienced a lot of loneliness as a child, I was approaching the pressures of life from the perspective "I am all alone and I have to handle it". I felt stressed but wouldn't readily tell you this is what I was believing til I stopped to take time to be with the Lord. It is amazing to me how much time, energy, and life the Enemy sucks from us through our belief in lies. I find it so easy to slip back into myself and my perspective as a reference point (really an orphan heart). Instead of Scripture says in Colossians 3 to set your mind on things above, not on the things on the earth. I am so thankful that the Lord has set me free from only thinking about myself, my problems, my challenges, my tasks, etc... The old man is dead and now our reference point is the unconditional love, acceptance, and grace of our God. It definitely is a spiritual battle to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, allowing Him to be my lens for all of life.

In His Grace,
Bret