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Running.  Not fast.  Not slow.  Just running. 

I am running, and have been, for so very long.  I can’t even remember when I started.  Why am I running?  Because I am being chased. 

I don’t know who is chasing me.   I know that I cannot let them catch me.  I can’t see them when I glance back, but I can feel them.  Somehow I know they, or he, is close.  I pick up the pace, even though the pain is becoming unbearable. 

Breathing. Just catching enough of that life sustaining substance called oxygen, has become one of the most important things, in life.  I gasp, for that sweet, invisible element of life itself, with an urgency, that displays my struggle.  The effort to catch my breath almost, overwhelms the pain.  Almost.

The pain.  I try to work through the pain. The pain is in every part of my body.  Needles piercing my shins.  Fire settling into my thighs.  Intense pressure on my lower back.  Cramps in my sides.  Acid filling my lungs. 

Running.  Endlessly.  A glance over my shoulder again.  No sign of my pursuer but, I know he is closing in on me.  I can feel it.

The pain grows. Transforms.  Metamorphoses’ into a wholly different kind of pain, that is worse than before.  The needles, fire, and pressure, are still there, but seem distant. Still excruciating and intense.  But now there are new pains. 

The sweat has drenched my clothing and causes it to rub raw any part of me that is in contact.  And that, is all of me.

Running. How long must I keep this up?  As I said, I don’t even know how long I have been running.  Maybe all my life.  How long?  Had I really been running all my life?  Impossible, but, I cannot remember a time, when I was not running.  When did I start running?  I JUST WANT TO STOP!  Just let him catch me and see what will happen.  But I can’t.  I am scared. 

The pain again.  My shoes hitting the ground with a wet sloppy sounding plop.  This is probably from the sweat and the blood.  Yes, blood.  I have been running so long, that the blisters seem to form, fill and burst every second.  Or so it seems.  And the raw places, all over my body, are starting to bleed.  Looking back, I see a trail of blood, sweat and tears that my enemy cannot help but follow easily.

Tears?  They start flowing like a steady stream as if someone, has left a faucet on.  Mixing, with the sweat and blood.  Or, am I just, crying tears of, blood?

The sweating stops.  The tears form dry crusty trails on my face.  Nasal passages are dry, and on fire.  I need hydration.  But the blood still flows freely, from various parts of my body.  Who would have thought, that you could run yourself to death.  This is what I am doing.  Maybe, I will just stop. 

I stumble, and almost fall.  Barely catching myself in time.  Another glance back gives me the impression that he is almost on me.  Still can’t see him though.  The enemy.  Why is he chasing me? 

Running.  The pain.  A wave of terror engulfs me as I realize that, I have to stop.  Can’t go on.   Every inch of my body is screaming in pain.  Even the cells.  A human being is not made to be in perpetual motion.   

A truth suddenly occurs to me.  It is okay.  I do not have to fear anymore.  It is time to die.  Nothing in life is worth keeping on this way.  And the sting of death, cannot possibly, compare, to the pain I have endured.  Running.  From my invisible enemy.  Maybe all my life. 

I stop.  Ready to die. 

Then I am hit from behind, and tackled and taken to the ground.  Bowled over by the moon.  Or so it seems.

The power that is against me is, incomprehensible.  I struggle.  I cry out with a sound that I cannot imagine a man could make.  I only thought I had felt pain.  But this, is pain.  The running had caused excruciating pain but this is torturous, unendurable.  It feels like mountains are being slammed into me.  I scream, and wrestle, and scream.

All while I marvel at the realization that my enemy is, really, invisible. He seems to be absorbing me.  Becoming one with me.  Taking over my very being.  I am no more but, I am still here.  Please, just let me die, or kill me fast. 

Suddenly, I realize the pain, is subsiding.  I realize he is not, and has not caused me any pain.  He is, actually, removing it.  But, the removal is more intense than the original occurrence.  But the pain, is decreasing.  And in its place, another sensation.  One that I don’t know.  I have never felt this.  I do not know the name for it.  But it is, good. 

Then, in an instant, all of the pain is gone.  And the enemy?  Or is he?  The presence, seems to be separating from me.  I feel like me now.  But not me.  He is gone, but not totally.  He left some of himself, with me, and in me.  And I am not me.  I am new.  Different.  Alive.  For the first time in my life. 

I know all things.  I know nothing.  I have been reborn.  Or born again.  I am a new creation.  Sensations I could not name a few moments ago.  Could this be-peace.  And joy unspeakable. 

My enemy?  Chasing me all my life.  To harm me?  No. Only trying to give me a precious gift.  He was not my enemy.  I was his.  But for some strange, and incredible reason, He loves me.  And gives me the gift– of Himself.

Why?  Why did I run? 

Now I stand.  Alive for the first time in my life. 

Amazed.

Love you all

Tags: Audio, God, Grace, Hope, Love, Personal, Rebirth, Running, Salvation, Testimony

In my last post I mentioned some things I believe the enemy has corrupted or even brought about to use in our destruction.  I also intended to develop some practical ways to change our strategy and tactics that I believe would help us in this fight to the death.  Instead, I ended up with one of my longer articles that took me on a slightly different path. 

So this time I am going to try again to go where I intended to then.  I made the statement that our enemy slowly seduced us from the original attitudes that brought about the modern Pentecost.  He used some of the following tactics to do this. 

Acceptance by the rest of culture, entertainment, false manifestations and manipulations of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, pharisaical legalism, a false gospel of the pursuit of happiness and wealth, academics and the pursuit of knowledge, and finally a misperception of relevance.

I see these as the main areas of corruption but not necessarily all.  As I said then, I do not believe all of this is bad, just corrupted.  After all, our enemy is so good at taking the good and the true and twisting it into the bad and the false, in a way so subtle, so diabolical, that it is hard to recognize the evil. 

Let’s look a little closer. 

Acceptance.  We all want to be accepted.  We want to be asked to the party.  We want to be included in the program.  We love it when our ideas are implemented.  It is great when our words are the ones others seek to hear or read.  Most bloggers do look at their hit counters.  And this is okay.  But it does not usually fuel the drive that got us to that place of acceptance. 

At first it does keep us on our toes.  We must strive to stay on top.  But once we get accepted, we usually tend to find the comfortable.  We coast.  We lose the distinction of being the outsider with something to say.  With a new, relevant message.  This is what has happened to us.  We, as Pentecostal soldiers, who originally had a new weapon that scared the enemy and dealt him a lot of defeat, have been marginalized because we are now just one of the guys.  Playing that religious game.

Entertainment.  I hate the words, “I’m bored.”  My kids used to say this.  Often.  I also hear a lot of adults say it too.  I have thought about this more than most would believe and I don’t think I have ever said this about myself.  I don’t ever remember being bored.  Even when there was absolutely nothing to do outside myself, I still had the capacity to think and imagine.  And I say this as one who has spent a lot of time alone, as one who sought to spend that time alone.  Maybe I am just blessed that way. 

But the enemy has also cultivated the need for the individual to be constantly entertained.  Movies, TV, music, sports, internet.  Hunting, fishing, hobbies, games.  Parties, dates, meetings, reunions.  All of these things that take us over or outside ourselves have grown into giant entities of wasted time.  The days of personal introspection and Godly reflection are gone.  We must, instead spend massive amounts of time, energy, and money to feed the monster called Boredom.  I wonder if he is a principality or a power.

False manifestations and manipulations of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  I really don’t want to go here.  But I believe I must.  I love the Holy Spirit and the Pentecostal church.  I have experienced things that at one time I was the most vocally against.  The Holy Spirit is real and alive and active in all Christians that allow Him to be.  The gifts of the Spirit are real and powerful and for today.  And I won’t even bother to argue about them because I understand the hesitancy of those who don’t believe to accept this. 

I understand their hesitancy for two reasons.  The first and simplest is that it is impossible to convince anyone of my personal experiences.  But the second reason is the more insidious of the two.  I believe the enemy has convinced some to portray the gifts in a way that is extra biblical. Some of these gifts are esteemed so highly they misplace others, which are possibly more effective as weapons against the enemy.  Some gifts become so sought after that good people are willing to go to any length possible to be seen as having them. 

Paul said he wished all would speak in tongues but he would rather them prophecy. (1 Cor 14:5)  But he also let us know we all had various gifts and different roles in the body in order to be effective.  (1 Cor 12:7)  The enemy has convinced us that we need the most popular gifts so much that some of us are willing to deceive others and, I believe, even ourselves, in false displays of these gifts.  This is the very reason an unbeliever often has a lot of ammunition against us.  False tongues, prophecy, healing, resurrections and many other manifestations that don’t even have scriptural backup, do not bring glory to our Lord and King.  They do nothing really but fuel the flame of unbelief.

Pharisaical legalism.  This had its strongest force in an earlier day.  I was not a part of this body when a person would have the state of their sanctification judged by the length of their hair or skirt, the amount of jewelry they wore, or many other outward rules and regulations that had no effect on the cleansing of anyone’s heart.  But we have grown past this.  Our new motto is come as you are.  Wear shorts and a t-shirt and even come barefoot in some churches, that’s okay. 

But is legalism gone or has the enemy just given it a facelift.  A whole lot of churches that say come as you are really do not mean this.  They really mean wear what you want.  But our Lord would certainly not mean to allow them in with a sinful lifestyle.  So we should certainly expect them to change first.  Doesn’t our attitude sometimes reflect the need for sanctification before salvation?

 A false gospel of the pursuit of happiness and wealth.  I believe this to be one of the most dangerous of all the weapons the enemy has unleashed against us to date.  God wants us above all else to be happy and prosperous.  Not full of joy and taken care of.  That would not be enough.  God is my friend and my father and there is just no way He would want me to suffer.  The enemy has a large contingent of people in his employ spreading this nefarious lie.  I believe some of them are deceived but there are a lot that have to know who they are serving.

What happens to that person who buys into this and continues to suffer?  What happens when the wealth never comes?  Some turn from the faith.  Some hang on as bitter, weaponless soldiers, battered even more intensely.  Some even hang tough and it doesn’t affect their relationship with Christ, but their lost loved ones see the deceit and will never come to faith.  I believe we have lost a lot of battles to increase the Kingdom where this doctrine is concerned.

 Academics and the pursuit of knowledge.  It is amazing that this could be corrupted.  Shouldn’t knowledge and the pursuit of it lead to a better understanding of God?  Not if the enemy can get his hands, paws, claws on it.  There is an abundance of scripture declaring God’s pleasure at our pursuit of knowledge. (Pro 8:10, Pro 24:5, Ecc 7:12, Dan 2:21, Mal 2:7)  But there are also some warnings.  (Luk 11:52, 1 Cor 8:1, 1 Cor 13:2)  If knowledge is not shared, if it brings about pride, or if it is presented with no love, it becomes a deadly weapon to be exploited by the enemy. 

Some of our most intelligent, intellectual theologians have reached a place where they are no longer teachable.  And in their arrogance they do a lot of harm to the body of Christ thru division and debate.  They have become prideful and unloving in their exposition of truth.  The more some learn about God the less they look like Him. 

A misperception of relevance.  The church must be relevant in whatever culture it is in.  It simply must matter and should be able to impact any area, age or culture.  Paul said he would be all things to all men so that some might be saved.  (1 Cor 9:22)  But unlike Paul, who meant it as a servant, (1 Cor 9:19) we seem to go to the extremes. 

We take the idea of relevance and seemingly throw it away by saying we will not reach out, we will not bend, we will not mix, or; we go to the opposite extreme and throw away all the rules, all the truths, all the peculiarities of servant hood to Christ and bring the culture into the church.  We must live in the world without being part of the world.  The enemy has successfully made this very hard to understand or apply. 

I hope you can see what I am saying here.  This has become a long read and for that I am sorry.  I hope you can take it and learn something and once again I apologize for not getting to where I intended to get.  Hang with me, please.  I will get there.

Love you all

Tags: Academics, Acceptance, Culture, Ending, Enemy, Entertainment, False manifestations, Happiness, Holy Spirit, Knowledge, Manipulation, Pentecost, Spiritual Warfare, Strategy and Tactics, Wealth

Have you ever watched a movie about the revolutionary war?  Did you wonder why on earth the soldiers in those armies would just march right at each other, wide open, with no protection?  As if they were daring an enemy round to hit them. 

Look at a movie depicting warfare in a medieval setting and it is even crazier.  They just all dive in at each other, slashing and hacking away.  I wonder how they even know who they are killing. 

Somewhere along the line, as far as warfare tactics go, some smart soldier came up with the idea of cover.  Learn how to present as little a target as you can to the enemy.  That definitely seemed to make sense. 

Military institutions have underwent a lot of change since those first armies, with whatever they used for weapons, charged and started pummeling each other. The constant search for better equipment and weaponry is a never-ending necessity for those who engage in battle. If they intend to overcome their enemies, that is.  

When I joined the US Army in 1983, they were just finally wrapping up some of the equipment exchange programs they had initiated a few years prior to my enlistment.  Some of the new recruits were outfitted with the new battle dress uniforms, BDU’s, while others got a few articles in the old standard olive drab uniform.  For the first year of my enlistment I was issued the old “steel pot” helmet instead of the current Kevlar head protection.  The equipment is constantly being exchanged as the warfare strategy of the enemy changes. 

Weapons, tactics and strategy also constantly evolved while I was enlisted.  Mercifully I served my five years in peacetime.  But we still trained constantly.  Practicing and learning so we would be ready at all times.  A new weapon meant a lot of extra training.  Tactics and strategy was constantly revised and updated to counter any new threat.  The whole concept was known as combat readiness. 

Are we, the Church, combat ready?  I wonder.

We have been in a war against darkness of the most desperate kind, for the whole history of the Church, but not all seem to understand this.  I don’t think much of the Church even realizes they are at war.  This has to change.  We must do our duty to inform all of the body of the necessity of battle.  And even for those that are seasoned and battle hardened warriors, it looks to me like somewhere along the line, we failed to realize the enemy was changing his warfare strategy and we failed to see any need to update ours. 

We not only must teach all disciples the reality of spiritual warfare, but how to recognize the tactics of the enemy.  What is the goal of Satan?  Is it to rule in hell, so in essence, he can to take as many of us down as possible to rule over?  I don’t think so.  Satan as ruler of hell is a misconception.  He rules over this domain, because we gave him this rule. 

He is not dumb.  I believe he knows that he will suffer judgment and punishment.  Maybe he fights so hard to somehow try to change the inevitable outcome.  He has to know he cannot win.  But he can hurt God by making a whole lot of us follow his path to judgment. 

As far as tactics are concerned, do you think he is still employing the same methods he did one hundred years ago?  Or even fifty or ten.  I don’t.  I believe he adapts and adjusts every time we do. 

A little over one hundred years ago something happened that had been hidden for almost two millennium.  Some faithful followers of Christ realized something was missing.  They earnestly sought answers and were graciously answered.  The precious and powerful Holy Spirit of God came on the scene after being unwelcome for quite a while.  When He filled those early Pentecostals with a new power and a revived spirit, the Pentecostal movement was born.  And spiritual warfare was recognized once again as a reality. 

Through the gifts of the spirit, the enemy was pushed back and defeated in many areas and lives.  The movement has grown into the third largest group of confessing Christians.  And actually is believed by some to be the largest of those groups that actually try to live in a Christlike way.   

Those early Pentecostals were a force to be reckoned with because of their humility, their hunger, and their love. 

The enemy had to change tactics.  He had had many successes, mainly by manipulating the church into its concerns with the world, culture and government.  But these Pentecostals and their pursuit of holiness instead of the world set him back.  But he responded.  How?

He slowly seduced us.  Through acceptance by the rest of culture, though entertainment, through false manifestations and manipulations of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, through pharisaical legalism, through a false gospel of the pursuit of happiness and wealth, through academics and the pursuit of knowledge, and finally through a misperception of relevance.

We have become in many ways the very thing our founders wanted liberation from.  A worldly religious system.  And worldly religious systems do no harm to the enemy and sometimes even advance his campaign against our King. 

My church, the Alabaster Church of God, is in a revival at the moment.  My pastor, Robert Barnes, and the evangelist, John Ritcheson, seem to be putting forth a message from God that we must go beyond a simple personal refreshing.  Instead we must come back to our roots, which are humility, hunger and love.   

(2 Ch 7:14 ) If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

We must change our tactics and strategies from what they have become.  Instead of the elevation of self, and a pursuit of pleasure, and an attitude of hatred and judgment, we simply must humble ourselves before God, hunger for His presence and instruction, and turn back to the love for God and the love of all that He loves. 

The things that the enemy has used to divert us that I listed above are not all inherently bad or bad for us.  It is sometimes just the misuse or improper esteem we place on things and ideas and movements.  If we are to be effective in defeating the tactics of the enemy at the moment we simply must come back to the proper place in Christ that we should be. 

And if you know anything about current events, you know we must not tarry.

Combat readiness.  In my peacetime army training that simply meant sweat, lack of sleep, weariness and monotony even. 

In this real war between the forces of heaven and hell, it means life or death

Love you all

Tags: Combat, Combat Readiness, Death, Enemy, Heaven, Hell, King, Kingdom, Life, Spiritual Warfare, Strategy and Tactics, US Army, War

Jonathan Wallis was born on April 4 1975.  His father was a steelworker and his mother was a waitress.  He didn’t have much when he was a child because his parents split up early in his life.  But he was a good boy and when his mother had to work at two jobs he had a lot of time alone.  He loved to read and stayed out of serious trouble and after a rough start, did very well in school.  He put himself through college and graduated with two doctorates.  At the age of thirty one in 2006 he developed a laser treatment that removed tumors in the brain without invasive surgery.

Susie Johnston was also born in 1975.  Her parents were in college when she was born and the strain on their relationship was tremendous but, they worked through it and were able to raise Susie in a good, loving, giving environment.  She became a nurse and in 2003 moved to South America to open an orphanage and medical clinic.

Josh Burroughs was born in August 1975.  He was placed in a state home immediately because his mother was in a rehab program and didn’t want him.  He was moved around for a few years and was abused.  But the Burroughs, Bill and Gloria, adopted him at 10 years of age.  With a lot of love and affirmation they motivated him to also finish college and move into research.  Just this year he announced, along with his team, that they had developed a cure for AIDS.

By this time you might be saying to yourself, “Wait a minute.  I haven’t heard of any of this.”  And you would be right.  None of the above happened.  I made it all up.  I was just wondering, what might have been. 

These three fictitious people, born thirty three years ago, might have been real.  They might just be three of the over one million casualties of war that happened in the worst battleground that existed in 1975.  That battleground was the womb of a woman that was told it was her right to kill an innocent.  An unwanted and unplanned child could be slaughtered in the womb and discarded as trash by any woman for any reason.  What an age of compassion and enlightenment we live in. 

Legislation was passed as the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), and signed into law in 1970.  This established the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the Council on Environmental Quality

In 1972, the United Nations held the first Human Environment conference which led to the development of special government agencies like the UN Environment Program to help regulate and set environmental standards.  This was so we could make sure and protect this earth we live on. 

In 1973 came the Endangered Species Act.  Peter Singer was also working on his book, Animal Liberation, which was published in 1975.  His main thesis is that if women can have rights, then animals should too. 

Our enemy also won a major victory in 1973.  Around the same time so many came to the defense of the planet and the animals that live on it, a few men sold out to the enemy and overturned many state laws that had protected the innocent child. 

And look at how far we have come.  We have a multitude of laws protecting the environment and animals.  We have groups out to convince us of global warming and animal species extinction.  We can go to jail for inhumane treatment of an animal.  We can’t even, by law, put a dog out of its misery in old age but instead, must let a veterinarian do it, in case we cause it to inadvertently suffer.

Peter Singer has moved on to teaching that a child is not even a person until some elusive time when it obtains, “rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness.” These are required for a child to have the “essential characteristics of personhood.” 

So it’s okay that since 1973, because of some of our most prestigious judges being sold out to the enemy, we, as a nation, have slaughtered almost forty million innocent children in the name of selfishness. 

Imagine the potential that has been wasted.  Some of the earlier casualties of this warfare would be reaching the ages of maximum contribution to society.  God had a plan and a set of abilities and gifts for each one of them.

In the fiction I wrote at the beginning of this article, Jonathan was aborted because the parents didn’t really love each other and didn’t want a kid.  Susie was aborted because her parents found her to be inconvenient and an unfair burden to come from an evening of fun.   And no one was there for Josh’s mother to tell her that she could do something different.  The center she was in just wanted the child out of the way. 

There are many reasons that some think they should murder the innocent.  And I really hate that I sound so harsh.  And I do not judge or condemn anyone that has made this decision.  God loves you no matter what you might have done.  He can forgive you for whatever you might have done. 

I just wanted to point out one thing. 

Satan told Eve a lie.  She believed it and brought all of us into a war we didn’t ask for.  He is still lying.  He is telling some that murder is okay and he is telling some that it doesn’t matter if others do it as long as they don’t.  If anyone is okay with abortion, whether a woman having one, or a politician okay with it, or a person ignoring this by their vote, they are serving the enemy.

Anyone that could be a party to the dismemberment of an innocent, helpless child is deceived by the enemy of all of our souls.

Don’t buy into his lie?

I really love you all

Tags: Abortion, Church Issues, Enemy, Evil, Kingdom, Lie, Lies, Murder, Pain, Selfishness, Silence, Spiritual Warfare, Value, Worth