Recently one of my ex-professors posted a blog about a church worship leader who at some casual hangout event dropped the f-bomb.  If this wasn’t shocking enough, there was alcohol involved in the incident.  My ex-professor presented a tactful call for holiness, particularly in leadership.  Following the post were literally hundreds of comments calling for the worship leader to step down, or questioning his ability to do anything good or godly with such compromise in his life.

I restrained myself from commenting.  I knew I would not add to the conversation, positively or negatively.

I believe that the fundamental issue was not about behavior modification, or the use of culturally unacceptable words or actions that we associate as sin.

I think we have the whole equation wrong.

The traditional argument has worked like this.  God made man.  Man made himself God.  Man committed sin.  Sin leads to death.  Jesus lived without sin.  Jesus died in the place of sinful man.  Men and women that accepted this mental construct and surrendered their right to rule their life to a list of prescribed behaviors were no longer bound to pay for their sin.

The problem with this theory is that it is puts all the focus on power of sin as the negative force within the equation.  Humanity has spent centuries analyzing behavior to determine what meets a standard of being bad enough to be called sin.  Man also fundamentally defined holiness as the absence of sin.  Thus the pressure to understand what constitutes sin, and how to remove it from our life has been a prominent focus within Christianity.   Furthermore, in periods of great evil, hate, racism, greed, abuse, and murder have been masqueraded as acts of making the community more holy (by removing the source of sin from our midst).

If we journey back to Adam and Eve, it is clear that prior to the moment of consuming fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that humanity had the ability to choose to fundamentally obey or disobey God.   Choice to obey or disobey was not the product of sin.  Rather, we see that the motive in the garden was to “be like God”.  The immediate response to consuming the fruit was that Adam and Eve hid, used their skills to hide what they were ashamed of within themselves, and shifted blame when they were confronted by God later.

Guilt, deception, shame, and the use of the skills and materials from the world around them (clothing made of fig leaves in this case) replaced the security they had known by learning of the world and themselves under the shadow of the love of God.  Their sense of identity forever shifted from listening to God and the world He gave them, to listening to a fearful voice within themselves that spoke of shame, guilt, and the need to control and use the world to hide their insecurity.

I believe that this is sin.  Sin is the state of being that all men and women find themselves in where we are compelled by a voice inside that speaks of fear, guilt, inadequacy, and shame.  We reach out to the world around us, and like Adam and Eve, we make clothing out of wealth, food, possessions, friends, religious posturing, social attainment, and so much more.  Sin was the displacement of God from the defining role of our world and life, not the choice to disobey.

In the centuries since, we have become experts in classifying sin.  We are adept at comparing our normal behaviors and best intentions to the failures of others.  We freely grade others on a scale of our own creation, and assign shame liberally to elevate ourselves above our neighbors.  We freely greet sinners with more shame, and somehow believe this will lead the world to salvation.  We have claimed to run houses of healing, when secretly we carried the sick and wounded out to the shed and put them down for the sake of maintaining the perception of health in the community (or the sick learned to apply makeup and act like they weren’t sick for the sake of being a part of our spiritual community).

If we see sin as a state of being, then acts of sin are merely a reflection of where we have not yet silenced the internal voice of shame.  Redemption is then not primarily about controlling behavior, but is about restoring humanity’s broken sense of identity.

I also believe holiness is not then about the absence of sin.  Rather it is a characteristic unique to God and would be better defined as the fullness of all that is good.  Scripture instructs us to be holy as God is holy.  So either we are asked to chase some attainable goal for the sheer misery of being constantly reminded how sinful we are, or we are being invited to a place of a restored identity, a new state of being.  It is a whimsical kiss to invite us to find new hope and believe there is something more than the constant drone of judgment and shame.

So back to the story of the controversial worship leader:  I think you could debate that our treatment of language and alcohol is more cultural than biblical.  But that is not the argument I think that needs to be made.  I think the most tragic thing was not that young man’s actions but the wave of superiority and the dose of shame that hundreds lined up to add to the judgment of this man.  Not worthy.  Not worthy.  You have not right to worship, to lead, to hear the voice of God, to speak on behalf of God.  Not worthy.  You have not mastered your behaviors yet.  We still see your sin.  Not worthy.

I can only imagine the same shame and judgment rumbling in their own hearts and minds.  The greater tragedy is that many have become so deafened by the voice of spiritual judgment, that they associate it with the voice of God, and believe that in sharing it they are doing the work of God.

We all bear the stain.  We all carry the disease.  We all need to be restored, redeemed, and made holy.  We need the fullness of good, not the absence of bad.  We need love, not guilt disguised as love.  We need security, not shame-motivated self-discipline.  We need the kiss of hope, not the stain of judgment.

Yes, we need holiness.  Oh how we need holiness, but the fullness of good will never be ours by eliminating the bad (as we cannot brighten a room by sucking out the darkness).  We will be made holy as we see Him bit-by-bit and find ourselves surrendering to his voice of love more than our voice of shame.

Our response to sinful acts is just as much a sign of the sickness as the acts themselves.  None of it brings life, hope, or restoration.  We will judge as we have always judged if we are changed/motivated by our internal voice of shame.  We will love differently if we have been changed by His love.

Because we mis-diagnose the source of our calamity, we attempt to treat a shame-fueled behavior with shamed-fueled spiritual judgment and no one is redeemed, no love is fostered, the sting of the our self-judging voice continues to dominate and set the tone for how we see ourselves, our neighbors, and God.

Josh Burton works for his state government supporting the community development and neighborhood revitalization efforts of local nonprofits across his state. He carries a deep-seated belief in God’s capacity to lovingly restore and redeem. Visit his personal blog at: Sacred Salvage

This week join Steve Bremner and Peruvian worship leader Dennis Arrevelo, live–or, I should say, recorded in Peru.  They discuss praise and worship, intercession, warfare and interesting Old Testament symbolism related to ancient warfare strategy and tactics as it relates to worship.

Dennis has a very excellent revelation and teaching on the subject matter, so you won’t want to miss this discussion.

I apologize for the sound quality, as using/sharing a brand new podcasting mic coupled with sitting in a concrete room did not good make for good acoustics, but I think you’ll still enjoy!

This week’s intro: Frontline by Pillar.

Download this episode (right click and save)

If you’d like to subscribe to the Fire On Your Head Podcast, visit our directory in iTunes,  or visit FireOnYourHead.com for more subscription options.

“Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, And in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.” (Psalm 51:6 NASB)

“God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:24)

“…all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” (Hebrews 4:13)

Over the years I’ve found myself in awkward moments before the Lord when gathered in corporate worship.  I’m watching the projector screen and studying the words I’m singing.

And then I stop dead in my tracks.  Silent.  Hands down.

I’m struck by the fact that I’m singing words that say “I give my all, I adore only You, I give my life for You, You’re all I want”, etc., and I’m painfully aware that it’s just not true.  I’ve heard it said that “in church we don’t tell lies, we sing them.”  I then begin to wonder if I’m the only one who’s singing is inconsistent with his/her living.  I can’t be the only one, an anomaly, a hiccup.  I begin wondering if we are more caught up in our excellent musicianship than Jesus.  And also if it’s even possible to be caught up in Jesus as we ought to be or could be (or think we are) if our living is  average Christianish and our singing is uber prophetic.  And I’m not talking about people walking in gross immorality and then trying to fool God; I’m talking to those of us who really love Jesus, are born again and the Spirit of the living God has filled us with the evidence of everything except being authentic.  Dang…that hurt me to say because really, I’m telling on myself.

That’s right, this isn’t aimed at you, it’s aimed at me.  This is a confession of an inconsistent worshiper.  I sing 50 stories higher than the actuality of my life.   I’ve actually been in the basement for a while, not even remembering seeing the Sun.

So now, during corporate worship services, there’s some stuff I’m just not going to sing.  I’m not depressed, not beat up, just soberly realizing that there are some phrases I just can’t sing.  I’ve caught myself singing some of these previously mentioned phrases and find my mind being flooded with images of what I love.  It’s not so much the things themselves, though sometimes it’s that.  It’s the issue of time and just flat out not drawing near to God when I could be.  Consumed with “me time” I spend no “Thee time” and then I find myself empty and almost having no drive to pursue the Lord.  Fast food makes you feel not all that hungry for healthy food that actually gives you life and when you go to work out ofter slamming a burger from Wendy’s, your body will tell on you.  You’ll be exerting yourself on the bench and all of a sudden a picture of  that burger will come up (and possibly some of it in the esophagus)and kindly let you know that your daily diet is totally inconsistent with your attempt to build yourself up once a week in the gym and that you oughta quit trying to fool yourself, or as we used to say on the streets of the East Bay in California, “you ain’t gotta lie ta kick it”.  One fights against, and negates the other.

Don’t get too disturbed for me.  God has been at work as of late.  I’d like to give a shameless plug to Francis Chan’s book titled Crazy Love.  After the last article I wrote about him leaving Simi Valley, CA to live in some undisclosed spot in Asia, I thought about checking him out more.  I said as much to my wife and much to my pleasure, I found out Christmas morning that she had already bought me two books from him.  One subheading in chapter 7 of Crazy Love is called Help!  I don’t love you. In this section he said something that totally shook me that may sound very basic to you:

“The fact is, I need God to help me love God….[i]t is a remarkable cycle: Our prayers for more love result in love, which naturally causes us to pray more, which results in more love…” (pg. 104).

That got my attention because I have been in another kind of cycle: self will, my own strength, attempt at good, fail, depression, repeat.  It never worked.  I meant well, I want to please God and honor Him, avoid sin, be a witness, salt, light, etc.  How in the world did I forget the most basic elementary and foundational aspect of the faith?  I don’t know.  I just know that I did.  Just before this statement from Chan got to me, he actually had me in his grip already by previously saying,

“…the solution isn’t to try harder, fail, and then make bigger promises, only to fail again.  It does no good to muster up more love for God, to will yourself to love Him more.  When loving Him becomes an obligation, one of many things we have to do, we end up focusing even more on ourselves.” (pg. 103).

Yes, we focus on the constancy of failure and it daily being juxtaposed against what we know Scripture teaches about how we ought to live.  If all you have is a revelation of your sin, then that’s all you have.  Paul taught us in Romans 7 that the law only shows us sin but doesn’t save us and doesn’t help us obey the law that it shows us we’re breaking.  In another place it is referred to as weak and useless inasmuch as it’s not able to give power to live.  But a revelation of the love of God reveals the majesty of Christ, and sin and empowers one to shun the latter and run to the Former.  Merely seeing and focusing on your sin and just trying to do better is agonizing and depressing.  Sooooo…..I began praying for the love of God to fill me and change me.  I have to get out of this cycle, this complex.

It’s the Ephesian complex, i.e., “you left your first love”. Jesus complemented the Ephesian church for the very important work of sniffing out and rejecting false apostles and hating/not tolerating false doctrine.  They were like a Bull Mastiff/Blood Hound mix in the spirit realm.  They could smell you a mile away and then they’d handle business by removing you from your undeserved place in the church.  This was good.

But it took on a hollow ring.  Now they were truth hounds and truth war dogs simply for the sake of just being right.  Heck, it may still have been for Jesus…sorta.  But that first initial infilling of the love of God had long since vanished and was no longer the motivation.  It’s funny how sometimes we think that something is tainted by the addition of something; this church was tainted by the absence of something that used to be there.  And so it has been with me.  Tainted worship.  Please don’t get all 80′s on me…I know what song is in your head!

Jesus said that we must worship in spirit and in truth.  To worship “in spirit” does not mean we do it in some kind of spiritualistic fashion or mimic the latest trends from the most recent “Prophetic Worship Conference”.  It means that the totality and essence of our life and it’s overall characteristic is a worshipful life, a heart always at home in the Presence of God.  When we come to sing to Him it is an unbroken continuum of the daily life and pursuit of Jesus.  I am not, I say NOT, talking about sinless perfectionism.  I am saying that we can look into the face of God and with all good conscience say, “this day I sing to you out of my heart as I often do and I know it to not be a contradiction of what You Yourself know my life to be”.  Why?  Because I worship in spirit.  It is the summation of my soul.

Well, as brother Chan said, I need God to love God.  So I have been praying, “Help!  I don’t love You!!” through a veil of tears and sobs.  It’s so simple: “Jesus, you don’t have my affections, I don’t adore You, You aren’t my greatest desire.  I want to love You.  Open my heart to know Your love and give it back to You.“

I want the inner man, the inner temple and the Holy of Holies within me to be truly His and taken up with a love of God.  This is what provides a proper impetus to hate sin and heresy and thus deal with them, both in your personal life and then the church.  I want my lifestyle and heart disposition to be worshiping in its essence and then my outward worship will be, as Francis Schaefer used to say, “true truth”.  Perhaps reflecting on the fact that God sees the insides and that all is laid bare before Him will motivate us to continually seek God to fill us with His love so that our worship is always true, always a reflection of the essence of our lives.

How many lovers does your soul have?  God’s biggest competitor isn’t satan, it’s you.  We tend to love ourselves quite a bit.  Search this out within yourself and when you read those words on the projector screen ask yourself if you really should be singing them or beginning to pray for a real love from Heaven to catch you up with Him in the daily walk so that Sunday doesn’t turn into Christian karaoke.

Again, I wrote this to help get it off of me and because I know this just might help to get it off of some of you.  Sometimes when I hear a man or woman of God confess things like this, it pierces me and frees me.  Transparency in the Body is very powerful and I desire this grace for any reader of this article.  My prayer for you is “truth in the innermost being” and that you discover “worship in spirit and in truth”.  I also trust that you will perhaps pray for me from time to time as the Holy Spirit prompts.

The love of God flood your souls in the name of Jesus…

“Brothers, I call upon you because of the compassion of God to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy, pleasing to God as your reasonable/logical worship, and not model yourselves on this aeon [age], but be transformed by the renewal of mind, for the determining of what the will of God is- the good and pleasing and perfect.” -Rom. 12.1-2

The call to worship is far more thoroughgoing than our greatest claims of how radical and “on-fire” we are for the Lord. Worship, as expressed throughout the Biblical line of saints, is all-encompassing, touching our lives down to the marrow of our souls. We think ourselves radical because we fast for a day, or place a bold bumper sticker on our cars, or engage in a lively form of praise in a Christian gathering. But true worship leaves no room for religious boasting, for it leaves the soul awe-struck at the majesty of God, and it converts us from self-conscious spirituality to a God-conscious, God-suffused, God-focused mode of being.

The call to worship is so much more profound than surface-level expressions of radicalness. It is so requiring that it behooves us to move forward “because of the compassion of God,” for on any other grounds we would wilt and be blown away. At the same time, in light of His great mercies, the revelation strikes us that we are but dust, and that the One who is preeminently worthy of the highest adoration has redeemed us unto a life of obedience and communion with Him. This is most staggering, beyond comprehension, but the Christian life has everything to do with being swallowed up in that great reality until our very lives are offered up in a totality that God receives as worship.

It is remarkable to me, and quite unfortunate, that we have reduced the glory of worship into an industry for those who would have successful religious careers. I appreciate true psalmists, both ancient and modern, but worship needs to be restored as a God-centric and quintessential part of who the Church is, and not so much as something She performs in a given meeting. This was the cry of Paul’s heart to the churches in Rome, and it is the cry of God’s heart for us today.

Those who have presented their bodies to God as a sacrifice belong no longer to themselves but to God. The offerer no longer has the final say over his behavior. He or she is God’s property and must behave according to God’s dictates. But God does not want a dead human sacrifice but a living and lively one. He does not want something from us; he wants us.

Worship is where the creature recognizes that he or she is a creature and God is the Creator. It is an act of submission or ordering oneself under the Divine. It is also by implication a denial of one’s own divinity, a denial that one is lord of one’s own life. If one does what this verse says, then it follows that one has committed himself to obeying the commandments and exhortations that follow. But, more than this, Paul is suggesting that all of life should be doxological, an offering up to God, an act of worship.

(Paul’s Letter to the Romans: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary, Ben Witherington III; Eerdmans, 2004; pp. 284-285)

As I like to say, this touches everything, right down to the marrow of our souls. To offer our “bodies” is not some ascetic and ethereal concept, but a very down-to-earth and nitty gritty call. In light of the compassion of God, and by the renewing of our minds, we are blessed with the gift of discernment regarding the influences and ways of this present evil age. When at once we surrender our bodies and minds unto Him, we are enabled and empowered to live in Babylonian places, and amongst men of unclean lips, without conforming to their patterns at all.

Has our American Gospel brought us to this remarkably glorious place? Or are we conforming to this age?

It touches the way we handle our money (Are we greedy, irresponsible, or materialistic?), the way we treat strangers and familiar faces (Do we have humility and love towards all men?), the manner of our choices regarding food and entertainment (Are we gluttons, addicted to overeating, and given to compromised entertainment- or excessive ‘clean’ entertainment?), and the way we view life altogether (Have we got a God-centered and God-conscious life, or are we still trapped in a self-absorbed mode of being?).

Right down to the ‘marrow’ of our thoughts and affections, we need to be asked: Are we living a ‘doxological life?’ Are our minds being offered up as a worship unto Him? Are we presenting ourselves to the Lord, or are we circumventing the totality of worship and presenting a portion of our lives that we consider to be the Christianly segment? We cannot offer only a supposed Christian portion to Him, for “He does not want something from us; He wants us.”

Most encouraging to the saint is that God has graciously given His Son, to redeem and cleanse us, and to take us through the morass and mazes of this age, right into the clarity and soundness of “the will of God,” “the good and pleasing and perfect.”

No wonder Paul urged us in this manner. To be conformed to this world is to be ensnared and entrapped on every side. To be “transformed by the renewal of the mind” is to see the nature and character of God Himself, and that is most chiefly to be desired. Paul doesn’t give us an imperative that can only be met by spiritual superstars and famous reformers. He issues the call to every child of God, for a life of authentic worship is the inheritance of all the saints, and a “doxological life” is the delight and privilege of all who have been called by His name.

“Then He said to me, ‘Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope has perished. We are completely cut off.’
Therefore, prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God, ‘Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, My people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel.’
‘Then you will know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves, My people.’
‘I will put My Spirit within you and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken and done it,’ declares the Lord.” -Ez. 37.11-14

This well known visionary experience of Ezekiel gives us a glimpse into the kind of death that is necessary for resurrection life to ensue- namely, death in totality to everything that issues forth from the arrogance and presumption of man. Here we have a picture of “the whole house of Israel,” and they have been reduced to this self-description, “Our bones are dried up and our hope has perished. We are completely cut off.”

There are at least 5 common ways that scholars interpret this passage, and I haven’t the time to touch on them all here. I will say that I am convinced that the vision has a partial application to the Babylonian exile and return, and I am also convinced that the vision overall must pertain to a future death and resurrection that the people of Israel will pass through. That is to say, when the remnant of Israel, which represents the “whole house,” has come entirely to the end of her striving, realizes the dryness of the bones which she previously thought had contained life, and becomes aware that all political, religious, and humanistic hopes have perished, the light of the Gospel will break in so profoundly that they will be raised up, “an exceedingly great army.” (v. 10)

Hear this from OT scholar, Walther Zimmerli:

…. Ezek. 37:1-14 expresses the event of the restoration and the regathering of the politically defeated all-Israel.

Before the resurrection of the dry bones of Israel occurs in a way that shall never be reduced or reversed, she must come to the place where all of the crutches she has leaned on for want of the true knowledge of God have been removed from her forever.

Hear Zimmerli once more:

…. vv. 12 and 13 hit exactly what is meant, that God’s people should be wholly the people of God- that is the aim of this new gift of life. Where the return of God in a new freedom and in a new linking of what was previously separated becomes a reality, there God will have achieved His aim.

…. Only when, as a result of this event, the great awareness dawns and men no longer appear with their own achievements, no matter how magnificently righteous these might be, but when they realize that God reveals himself in the miracle of his free promise of life- only there does God’s action achieve its goal. There all ecclesiastical prerogatives collapse, and there remains only the praise given to the God who in the majestic freedom of his faithfulness (“for the sake of my holy name”), has revealed himself to his community.

(Ezekiel 2: Hermeneia- A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible, Walther Zimmerli; Fortress Press, Philadelphia: 1983, p. 264, 266 [emphasis mine])

As Zimmerli notes so wonderfully, when Israel comes to the end of herself, when she is “politically defeated” and when “all ecclesiastical prerogatives have collapsed, and there remains only the praise given to the God who in the majestic freedom of his faithfulness,” reveals “Himself to His community,” then will He have fulfilled His great work in history.

Turning to the Church now, the question needs to be raised, “To what degree have we allowed the Lord to bring us to a place of political defeat, and have our ecclesiastical prerogatives collapsed?”

Have we a hope in the government of men, or are we leaning on some kind of ministerial program? Have we clung to creature comforts and political opinions as our safeguard, or have we an utter abandonment to “God who in the majestic freedom of His faithfulness,” reveals Himself to us?

Are we chasing after the American dream? Have we got aspirations after ministry and recognition that are devoid of a jealousy for the glory of God?

Before we can move Israel to jealousy, and be an intercessory witness toward her, we ourselves have got to be wrenched loose from the same kinds of influences and paradigms that will require the reduction of Israel to a valley of dry bones in the last days. We need an apostolic faith, and if Ez. 37 represents anything, it represents the dynamic of God’s government, which is to say: resurrection life only issues forth from the death that truth requires. Ezekiel 37 describes Israel’s eschatological regrafting into the apostolic Gospel. It will be a glorious day.

But before then, the question remains, how deeply have we come into the necessary death ourselves? We need our ecclesiastical prerogatives to collapse, and to be totally caught up in praise of the One who has given Himself so lavishly for our deliverance. Let the hollow pursuits perish. Let our desire for recognition and prominence be shed from us forever. Let us be caught up in the primacy of worship and the glory of sonship. The Lamb of God is worthy, for He was slain, raised up, and He ascended to the right hand of the Father. He will return with passion in His heart and vengeance in His eyes, and I want to break free from all that hinders a full rejoicing in that great Day.

What about you?

We have heard it said that in the last days the good will be called bad and the bad will be called good. During creation, each day God saw everything that He had created was good. Satan wants to flip over everything upside down. He wants people to call good things “bad” and bad things “good.” Therefore, those without a relationship with God will in general or naturally, do the opposite of God.

“There is a way which seems right to a man but its end is the way of death.” “Every man’s way is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weights the hearts.” Proverbs 16:25; 21:2

Restoration and Rebellion

God is good. The ways of men-which are inspired by the rebellion of Satan- are evil. This is why we need a Savior.  Jesus undid that which Adam allowed to control the whole human race; the influence, control, and manipulation of Satan.

In God, who is good, there is always restoration. In Satan, who is bad, there is always rebellion. So, who says what is evil, bad and rebellious? God! Not man. Remember, each man will go his own way, thus dissolving any moral standards. With God, the plumb-line of truth is drawn. This is not to keep us from being free, but to liberate us from the desire to do as we please. This desire, when unmasked, is demonic inspiration. Living for God keeps us free from falling into the self-liberating traps of the enemy.

The Order of Creation

The enemy wants to flip the order of creation upside-down so it will worship him instead of God. We think we are free when we pursue self, but in reality we are obeying Satan. If we get out eyes off God and on ourselves we have been deceived. This is the reason why Peter was rebuked so harshly by Jesus. Jesus revealed that He must suffer and die, and then be raised up. This did not sit well with Peter so he actually rebuked Jesus for it. Peter took his eyes off Jesus and did what seemed right to him. What Peter did not realize is that he was actually being led by Satan.

“But He turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interest, but man’s.’ ” Matthew 16:23

Can you believe that Peter rebuked Jesus? How many times have we done the something for the sake of reasoning or “wisdom?”

In Romans 1 Paul mentions the order of creation. The creation is supposed to worship the Creator. The thing which will turn our hearts is creation looking at itself rather than God. This is the very thing Satan did when he fell.

“But you said in your heart ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God…’ “

“I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” Isaiah 14:13a: 14 (emphasis mine).

Now he is trying to reproduce this death in us. He is death and his aim is to reproduce death wherever he goes (Job 1:7). Just as Satan wants to reproduce himself in us; it is only because God was doing it first. Jesus did the opposite. He did not look at Himself, He looked at God (Phil 2:4-11). Jesus is life and He produces life wherever He goes. Death cannot stand in His presence. Now He is reproducing His life in us who believe.

The Reversal

The devil looked to himself instead of God. This is not the order of creation. In worship we are to look to the Highest One, the Father. The first fall is to look to ourselves, next we fall further by worshiping animals, and finally we even start to worship the things that crawl on the ground. This is out of order to say the least. When this happens a reversal takes place in our hearts, the good becomes bad, and the bad becomes good. We were looking up to God-the highest place: And now we are looking at bugs-the lowest place. This is unnatural, for we are created to be supernatural. This happens by seeking God and not our own ways.

“For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.” Romans 1:21-23

The gaze of men went from looking above themselves to looking at themselves, and then to birds, then animals, then reptiles (ironic that the devil is a serpent). The order is reversed. The fruit of this is chaos and death. It’s unnatural in every way.

Producing Good Fruit

“For there is no good tree which produces bad fruit, no, on the other hand, a bad tree which produces good fruit.” Luke 16:23

Bad trees cannot produce good fruit. There is no reproduction of creation, that which God created and called good (Genesis 1). This reproductive reversal causes men to have relations with other men, and women with other women. Nothing can be reproduced because the order of creation has been flipped in their hearts by believing the devil’s lie.

“Therefore God gave them over in the lust of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.”

“For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also men abandoned that natural function of women and burned in their desire for one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.” Romans 1:26-27

In creation there is natural reproduction. In Homeosexuality there is no reproduction, also it  does not produce good fruit. It is a result of looking to ourselves and not to God. It just doesn’t happen naturally, nor does it practically work. To be homosexual, man has to try and change in some way the natural flow and parts God created for us to enjoy sex and reproduce. This is like removing the ancient boundaries (Prov 22:28); altering the way of creation so man can fulfill his own pleasures (read all of Romans 1 for context).

Drawn to God

The book of Romans is about the obedience of the faith (verses 1:5; 16:26). There is a draw in every man’s heart to do good because we were created in the image of God, Who is good. The trick of the enemy is to try to draw that good from ourselves rather than drawing it from God. This results in an unfulfilled life because life comes from God. We did not create ourselves, so we must not look to ourselves by going our own ways, but we must look to God, our Creator.

God is not a puppet master. He came to cut the strings the enemy has placed in our lives that pull us this way and that. The enemy has tried to conceal this by reversing the idea of good and bad in our hearts. God is good and He has a good life for you. To know Him is so much better than anything we can accomplish in ourselves. He will use us to do things that are so awesome that we are not even able to imagine them. He loves us and longs to set us free, and that is what this message is all about.

Lord may this word slice through the enemy’s lines of lies that he has set in your children’s hearts. Take away from it me and add to it You, so they may know how much You love them. Amen.

There is an expression in worship that is seldom tapped into. This kind of expression causes a collision between heaven and earth. This is an expression of “deep crying unto deep.” This is the deepest part of man expressing his trueness to the deepest part of God. This is God expressing His deepest and truest part to man. This is Spirit to spirit, mind to mind, and heart to heart. Out of this true expression, true fellowship is born.

The truest forms of worship are derived in the deepest levels of intimacy. There is an expression that is born between a husband and wife that cannot be expressed in any other way. The more intimate the setting, the more we let our walls down and open up ourselves to generate the freedom to express the true inner feelings inside of ourselves. This is where true interaction takes place-when we let our guard completely down. Here, we allow God to peer down and see the deepest and most secluded chambers of our hearts. This is our secret place connecting with His, Spirit to spirit and Truth to truth. And from this place true expression is born. You are free to express who you really are and worship Him in Spirit and in truth. This is why the intimacy of a husband and wife is a revelation of Christ and the church (Eph 5:32).

This kind of expression was not available before Jesus poured out His blood to restore true relationship between God and man. The temple in Jerusalem had three areas: the outer courts, the holy place, and the holy of holies. Most of the people were on the outside, some were on the inside, and only one could enter the holy of holies, aka the secret place. Therefore it could be said that the temple had boundaries. God’s desire was for everyone to be able to enter in to His secret holy place, or to put it simply, to just be with Him. This is why when Jesus died, the veil to the secret place was torn. He let the inside out and the outside in. Thus we were granted access to the most intimate part of the Father’s heart where He can express who He is to us.

However, today we often still live like we are in the outer courts, on the outside looking in. The same barriers that were in the temple have formed in our hearts. Most people we know are in the outer courts. We have let a few people inside. And only a couple of close friends, we have let into our secret place and revealed our true self to them. The same goes with God. Most of the time our fellowship with Him is in the outer courts. Every so often we enter in the holy place, but rarely do we surrender our entire being completely to Him in a true expression of worship. The ones who worship Him on this level are the ones that the Father seeks.

John 4:7-24 (Read entire passage for context.)

Jesus went to the well, not to search for sin, but to ignite a worshiper. He came not to search for something on the surface, but for something deep down at the bottom of the well, true worship. The women was also searching for something, and she was filling this void of a relationship with God, with numerous relationships with men. This is the reason Jesus mentioned it, to unstop the well. Her deepest secrets now exposed (Not to condemn her, but to find the treasure beneath and set her free.), she would be able to truly worship.

John 4:23 But an hour is coming and now is when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.

This seeking was carried out in this very encounter. She understood that she was known fully. The deepest part of her was now out in the open. She was free to worship in Spirit and in truth. For this reason, she was able to go forth and proclaim…

John 4:29 Come see man who told me all the things that I have done…

She declared this because He touched her in the deepest part, not because her told her, her life story. The hidden area of her heart was laid bare.

1 Corinthians 13:12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known.

When we realize that we are known fully, we will let down our boundaries and the truth in our hearts will be expressed. Nothing will hold us back from expressing our all to God. The mystery of Christ and the church is a husband and wife. They are so intimate because they know each other fully. They can freely and openly express the deepest of who they are to each other. When we allow God into our deepest place it will create pure worship with a new freedom of expression.

Jesus gave His blood, the deepest part of Himself to tear the veil so we could worship Him from the deepest part of us. This why communion is so special, a celebration of the price that was paid so we could commune with God. This is why David danced like a madman with all his might, expressing all of himself before the presence of the Lord 2 Samuel 6:14. When we refuse to hold back, and press in from the outer courts to the holy of holies, then we will worship Him truth to truth-the truest part of us joining Him in truth, and Spirit to spirit 1 Corinthians 2:10-16.

Everyone is searching for something yet we are only complete and fulfilled in Him. We were created in His image and only when we, through a relationship with Jesus, are restored to His image, will our lives have meaning. Sin is a counterfeit fulfillment. It separates is from Him causing us to worship something different, polluting our secret place and changing us into that image.This is why sin is so bad, it is not about rules, it is about protecting our relationship with the One we were created for. Sin prevents us from doing what we were created to do, worship in Spirit and in truth. This is truth. Many people fail to realize that the very thing they are searching for is the very thing they are running from; a relationship of true expression between the Father and His children. When they see us expressing our love for Him it will touch that secret place in them with the thought of Him and ignite them as worshipers.

This is the first step for an true expression of who Jesus is to be in the earth. Once we understand and enter into this kind of true expression as individuals to God, then we will understand what it will take for us to be in true fellowship with one another in the body of Christ. The church should be a place where we are free to truly express ourselves to one another. May we go deeper into true expression of worship and true expression of fellowship…

Worship

For so long people have searched and scoured the earth for some form of satisfaction that will last. People have gone to incredible lengths to find satisfaction in their life. Risking life, family and health to see if they can find something that will fill that longing in their soul.

He Satisfies the longing Soul.  Psalm 107:9.

Some have turned to drugs, alcohol, pornography, friendships, marriage, success and all sorts of other things. Even trying religion. But many walk out of churches disgusted and disheartened that the people there are as hungry and searching out broken cisterns as anyone else.

He Satisfies the longing Soul.

I believe compellingly, rationally and fully that the answer to the above question is yes. But I want to examine some objections and hindrances that people have in coming to that conclusion

Where is God when I cry out to him?
Why are Christians so bored?
Why is pornography so rampant in the church if God really satisfied?
Wouldn’t Christians be willing to undergo any sacrifice, any length and depth of hardship because God was so deeply satisfying that nothing else would be a matter of consequence in their decision-making?

I would contend and fight for the conclusion that God does satisfy, truly and deeply. There is nothing else, no entertainment, no drug, or high that can even come close to the level of fulfillment and satisfaction that there is in God.

He Satisfies the longing Soul.

Then why is he so hard to find? Why do so few find him and experience that deeply satisfying relationship?

I know that in my journey of life for many years even after I had become a Christian knowing this fulfillment and deep peace was only a momentary and fleeting thing. Every once in awhile I might experience it, but for the most part I never came to that place. I struggled with acceptance, loneliness and lust throughout high school, as well sometimes feeling like God wasn’t even there. It probably hasn’t even been until this last year of my life that I really began to encounter God in ways that I never had before and it has made all the difference.

He satisfies the longing Soul.

I don’t need to make friends to fill my desire for acceptance, or do things well to gain the approval of those people that I respect. Or look at images to fulfill my desire for a relationship with a girl. I can finally say in honesty that He is enough. He is truly sufficient for every need. There are times when I don’t feel that way but I know it’s true. Even in our weakness and human frailty he is sufficient.

I find that the extent that a Christian worships and has experienced the presence of God is that extent to which a Christian is satisfied in God above all other earthly things.

He satisfies the longing soul.

The truth of the matter is we have tried again and again to quench our thirst from empty and broken cisterns.

for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
Jeremiah 2:13

I am longing again for that passionate fulfilled life, that place where he is the only one that I go to fulfill every need. Lord, please help me in my pursuit of you, for even in this I need you and I can’t do it without you.

“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.”
-Jesus