Experience the Impossible: Simple Ways to Unleash Heaven's Power on Earth (20 page)

God disciplines us so His blessings will not kill us.

I
t is probably hard for most of us to imagine, but God really wants to bless us more than we want to be blessed. Pleasure, joy, love and beauty are things He has made. They are all His idea. And the role that these things have in our lives cannot be overestimated. They epitomize His nature and His world brilliantly. Blessings from God are small tastes of heaven on earth.

In the Kingdom, blessings equal responsibilities. But not in a punishing way. Rather, a blessing from God increases our awareness of His nature, and increases our capacity to delight in Him.

What does it mean when He said to pray for His will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven? Does that mean certain things that exist here are not supposed to? I think so. And we have the authority and responsibility to get rid of them. Disease does not exist in heaven, and, therefore, should not exist here. So what happens if everyone I pray for who has cancer is healed? What will happen to me? Would that be considered a blessing? First of all, I would become a household name all over the world within about thirty days. Private jets would land at our local airport daily with people carrying large amounts of
money to try to persuade me to come and pray for their loved ones, who are too sick to travel.

Let’s say that I could not be bought, and no amount of money could deter me from what God has called me to do. I still have a problem: Whenever I do pray for someone, I have the realization that for every yes there are a thousand nos. The media would no doubt give me a season of grace, boasting in the wonderful things that were being done. But in a very short time, they would look for dirt in my life, going through my trash to find a bounced check or perhaps an angry letter from a parishioner, or maybe talking to people I went to high school with to stir things up. We have noted that controversy sells papers and TV time, and many in those industries will create it if they have to.

And then there is the other temptation, one that most people probably think they would not have a problem with—the temptation to think I am something special. After all, people all over the world want an audience with me because of my cancer-healing gift. The pressure of facing that option day after day is way too much for many to handle.

So, do you think it would be God’s will to give that kind of a gift to someone? I believe the answer is absolutely yes. Jesus did it. But were God to do that to me prematurely, the gift would crush me. In other words, the weightiness of such a responsibility would outweigh my ability to carry it faithfully for the glory of God. So the grace is available for us to do as Jesus did. And that would be the purpose for His discipline. With it, He makes sure my heart is refined enough to carry the weight of what I have asked for because blessings carry responsibilities. He disciplines us so we can survive His blessings.

Prayer

Dear heavenly Father, please help me to see Your kindness in all the times You discipline me by Your Word. I want to please You. And I
desire to grow into rock-solid stability that can carry weighty things. I want You to be exalted for the gifts and blessings You gift to me. Help me to succeed at this for Your glory.

Confession

God’s desire to bless me is greater than my desire to be blessed. Even in the times He corrects me, it is because of His passion to bless. So I position myself as a child of God who sincerely delights in my heavenly Father, that He might be glorified for all that He has done in me.

Flattery is the counterfeit of honor. It is ultimately self-serving as it cheapens the privilege of recognizing greatness in another.

G
iving honor to another person is one of the richest expressions of love we can give, both for the person and for God. If I see a beautiful building, I do not praise the building. I acknowledge its beauty, but credit the architect and builder. In the same way, giving honor is one of the ways we give glory to God. It is a great privilege for every believer to acknowledge the great work of God in other people. For it to be real, it cannot be dishonest, and it cannot be given hoping for something in return.

The apostle Paul teaches us that we are God’s
workmanship
(see Ephesians 2:10). That word is where our word
poem
comes from. Whenever we give honor to people, we are reading a poem, the masterpiece of God, that He is writing in that person’s life. It encourages them, it connects us to our assignment of being a strength to others and it brings glory to God. Honor is a beautiful thing.

Flattery, on the other hand, is dishonest in nature. It is careless and misleading, hoping for something in return. Sometimes those who want a culture of honor, but who do not have internal value for others, resort to this counterfeit in order to feel good about their lifestyles. It is empty and vain and does not accomplish what true honor can.

Honor requires a certain amount of discernment and prophetic gifting to be really effective. And by the way, both of those things are a part of the spiritual DNA of every believer. It is in us. And we are capable.

We are to give honor to people in several areas. First is for position and title. It is important for us to recognize that they have their positions because God raises up and casts down. It is foolish not to honor the one God honors. It is also true that sometimes the person’s character is not up to his or her position. If, for example, a police officer tries to pull me over for breaking a law, yet I happen to know that he drinks too much, I cannot use that as an excuse to ignore him. I must pull over out of honor for the badge. Honor goes to the person and the position.

We give honor because of accomplishments. Sometimes it is because people obey God in a wonderful way, or they operate in their gifting with excellence, or do something that they really struggled to do that we applaud them. It is a beautiful part of life. I believe that God delights in such moments, as He is the One who made such accomplishments possible. He is the Father who takes pleasure in all that His children are able to do.

I love the verse that says, “The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the L
ORD
” (Proverbs 21:31). This ties our efforts to the Lord’s accomplishments and lets us in on a secret—God is involved in our victories; therefore, at the end of the day, we give Him all the glory.

We have the privilege of recognizing what God is doing deep inside a person. This honor is given for
who
a person is. It is
his or her
being
. This is not seen through a casual glance. No, instead, this is something discerned only by those who are positioned to celebrate what God is doing.

One of the most important
poem readings
of my life came from a dear friend who talked with me about the things that he saw God forming in me,
embryonically
. He read the
poetry
in me that I could not read for myself. In other words, these things were alive, but were yet not evident through title or achievements. Because they were unseen, there was little temptation for me to go out and make this word happen. Instead, I chose to let faith and hope be the womb for this word given to me in love. Today I am living in what was described in that word given to me about thirty years ago.

Prayer

My Father and my God, I give You praise for all that You have done and are doing in me. Please increase my ability to see what You are doing in others so I can honor You by celebrating them. I want to read the masterpiece, the poetry You are writing in their lives so they will be encouraged and strengthened and You will be exalted for Your great work. I ask this for Your glory!

Confession

I will give honor to others sacrificially. I will do this because it is within my ability as a follower of Jesus Christ. It will not be for my benefit. It will be for the honor, strength and encouragement of others, and it will be for the glory of God.

Non-sacrificial people are of no consequence to the devil.

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esus became poor that we might become rich. He gave everything so that our way into eternal life would be covered and paid for. There is nothing we can do to earn love, favor or salvation from God. It is a gift given freely to each of us because of the merit of Jesus Christ, the sacrificial lamb. Salvation is imparted to us simply because we believe that Jesus met the Father’s demands due because of our sins.

No amount of sacrifice on my part, no effort to pay for my own sins, could ever qualify me as one capable of obtaining my own redemption from God. Only Jesus could pay such a price. Yet convenience and sacrifice cannot coexist. The
believing
believer is called to a higher level of life because we are favored.

“We love, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Receiving His love equips us to do the same as He did. He set the standard for what love looks like. Our response is this: As He did for us, we do in return. Just as He gave His all for us, so we give our all for Him. But this is not an effort to earn any measure of our salvation. I give all to Him because I have favor. How
could I respond any other way after receiving a gift I could never qualify for?

My heroes of the faith are many and are growing in number almost daily. There are several things about their lives that are unique to true world changers. Each of them is sacrificial, for instance, but none of them is impressed with his or her sacrifice. Paul taught us to present our bodies as living offerings. He then said this is our reasonable form of worship (see Romans 12:1). I find it interesting that in the Kingdom of God, the intellectual thing to do is to offer our bodies as an offering. Such a sacrifice is not to atone for sin; it is our offering because our sins are atoned for. It is the reasonable thing to do. The pressure to earn anything from God is about as far removed from the life of the believer as the east is from the west. It is a gift.

I often find people who think it is fine to live without sacrifice because of what Jesus accomplished for us. Their thought is that because Jesus did it, we have no need to. This is true, but only in part. I cannot earn forgiveness. But can I receive love and not love in return? Can I be favored of God and do nothing with that favor? The question we must ask is, What can I accomplish on His behalf now that I have permission to live as though I had never sinned?

What causes the powers of darkness to tremble the most is seeing a company of people who will pay any price, go to any lengths, to see God’s purposes established on the earth. The power of the enemy’s lies has no influence on those who no longer fear death. The fearless lifestyle of the sacrificial resets the standard of how this life can be lived for Jesus. It reestablishes some of the guidelines for life that somehow got lost in the modern era.

I am thankful that the heroes of the faith are rising again, with no thought for their own lives, living only for the purposes and glory of God. Years ago, I wrote this slogan to help me remember how to live life: “Fear no man, fear God only, and love not
your life unto death.” I think that approach rightly terrifies the powers of darkness because the people of God can actually live like the people of God, and transform the world for His glory.

Prayer

Dear heavenly Father, I look to You for help, as it would be easy for me to try to earn what was already purchased with the blood of Your Son, Jesus. Because of such a priceless gift, I am dissatisfied to live a life of mere convenience. I give myself to You today, and every following day, as a living sacrifice. My whole desire is for You to be glorified by what I can accomplish for Jesus in response to the price He paid. My God, be forever glorified!

Confession

It is my privilege to give everything for the glory of God. His sacrifice for me resets the standard of what love looks like. How can I not love Him in return? So I give myself as an offering, that He might be forever glorified!

If God is your servant, He will always disappoint you. If you are His servant, He will always surpass your greatest expectations.

I
have noticed in recent years that as the Church discovers her purpose in the earth, a segment of her population is highly driven to accomplish things to meet those expectations. Parts of their teaching and practice are doable and worth considering. But there is a breakdown. People who are driven, working hard to attain what they consider their rights in the Kingdom, usually end up with much disappointment or disillusionment. Either can be deadly.

I am so locked into memorizing and meditating on the promises of God that it can be said they have kept me sane and alive at times. Having hope is what wakes me up in the morning. But the moment I treat those promises as rights, I become a bit more demanding. My destiny is no longer a journey into the promises of God. Instead, it is taking possession of what is owed to me as a child of God. Strangely, even I as write this, I recognize their reasoning, because a child of God does have rights. And there
is a place for taking possession of what is promised. Perhaps it is the attitude of heart that disturbs me. You can tell people are more driven than directed any time things do not work as they thought, prayed or planned. Those who are driven start questioning what is wrong with the system. You are supposed to be able to do steps one through three and come up with the prescribed answer.

The Bible is not a math book or a chemistry book that allows you to follow a formula over and over again a thousand times and get the same result every time. If we were simply dealing with Kingdom principles, it would work that way. We are not. We are dealing with a relationship with the King, who is looking for certain traits and characteristics to be built into the makeup of His sons and daughters, who are being groomed to reign with Him. The relational component changes everything. Those driven by achievement goals, above relationship goals, will find themselves in a constant place of frustration. And if they are honest, they are frustrated with God. He is so disappointing when we want Him to work for us.

But when we are His servants, thankful for the chance to serve in His Kingdom, everything is different. Our outlooks are different. Every little blessing is a blessing indeed. Nothing is taken for granted. And not only that, we find this wonderful King actually taking us aside and telling us He considers us friends. Wow! An unimaginable outcome: the King of glory calling us His friends. Everything He does for us or through us is now a bonus. He never disappoints, as our expectations are to know Him more. And when things do not work as we prayed, planned for or expected, we draw near, knowing that being with Him is the only healing for such a wounded heart.

God responds to our cries. He serves us, as Jesus did with the towel over His arm to wash feet. But He remains the King of glory. When I grasp the privilege of serving in His courts, and now as a trusted friend, He never disappoints. No, He never disappoints.

Prayer

Dear Father and God, I love Your promises so much. They are my food. Hope springs up in my heart because of them. Please help me never to use them against You to get my way, but instead to use them for Your purposes to be accomplished in me. I pray these things that You might be glorified because of me as a friend of God.

Confession

I am a servant of the Most High God. And even though I am a child of God and friend of the King, I will forever serve Him in honor. I embrace the promises of God, not as personal rights, but as invitations to partnership, that His purposes might be accomplished in me. And this I do for the glory of God.