Kingdom Leadership and Maturity

Game Changers

January 22, 2016

David went against the grain. He was misunderstood. He was chosen by God when the desires of the people to be like everyone else had hit a peak. That was and continues as the trap. It is an identity thing, but it is more than the community’s identity with God. “Being like everyone else” masks and erodes God’s power among His people, emasculating the purity of its application. With Saul, Israel had the king they wanted, yet they and Saul remained blind to the heart of God. This was the community context, the spiritual climate and the uphill challenge faced by David on his path to becoming a game-changing champion of God.

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Anointing the Creative

December 26, 2015

Humility keeps the calibration between the natural and spiritual in precision-level balance. Job emerged from his experience in the fire humbled, but with a spiritual strength and confidence that brought a much greater impact from his gifts. God-conscious dependency is the faith that consistently reaches for God’s wisdom in the midst of adversity. Joseph and Daniel learned this humble dependency on God through adversity. For Moses and David, it was the same. Paul described the dynamic by stating that in his weakness that God would manifest. Keeping the process flowing involves constant calibration between the natural and the spiritual. That calibration takes practice and it takes time. Yet, it is how destinies are determined. It is how the authority of vibrant prayer lives is developed. In a world in which knowledge is leapfrogging, the status quo and using old models can stymie, divert and even destroy the process yielded by the creative anointing. God’s people have an edge. With God as Senior Partner, the one whose majesty we embrace, we can expect that He will continually reveal great and mighty things beyond our natural grasp, when our focus is Him and we are listening.

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Safe Places

November 13, 2015

The setting described in Jeremiah’s prophecy (Jeremiah 50:6) is God’s people in need of resting places is the setting reflected in many segments of the Body across the globe today and even more so in Israel. The setting among God’s people is replete with “zeal without knowledge” as described by Paul. Far too many are on very low batteries spiritually-speaking. Some are burned out due to lack of maintenance for the level of zeal with which they are operating. Some are burning out because they are running with twenty and thirty-year old operating instructions and they need a fresh word from on high for today’s times. Far too many are in a condition that is blind to the enemy’s schemes to distract and deceive. Distractions and deceptions breed discord, division and vulnerabilities in facing the realities. On the other hand, the maturity that fosters truth and His peace provides the firm ground for the pathway to provide the seasoned and empowered responses needed for the challenges and tribulations Jesus foretold for this hour.

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Spiritual Climate Change

July 5, 2015

Operational maturity within the household of faith is no longer an option. For far too long we’ve promulgated a mind-set of being a band of followers, ever-learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth. The great deception in this mode of thinking is that spiritual maturity is somehow tied to a higher level of doctrinal knowledge. That’s the “one ups-man” approach the Pharisees gave the people. It immobilized them. Jesus came to set the people free from that trap and mobilize them. True spiritual maturity is putting your faith in action, being doers of the word and not hearers only, who deceive themselves (James 1:22). Elijah risked it all to face overwhelming odds arrayed against him in order to confront evil and uphold God’s honor. All it takes is a righteous remnant with the faith and courage to risk everything. The wedding feast is fast approaching, which will distinguish those who will be the chosen from those called. The heroes of faith spoken of in the book of Hebrews were not seduced by their comforts or their quest to maintain their survival. They conformed to the truth spoken of by Jesus that the greatest love (John 15:13) is that evidenced by those willing to give up their lives for God’s honor and for those who would follow them. Some did just that. Some, in facing the crucible, walked into spectacular miracles.

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The Religious Spirit

April 28, 2015

Christian groups, from churches, to ministries, to marketplace organizations seeking to overcome the world, too often measure their success — and approach their goals as an issue driven by money. In the Kingdom, that is the cart before the horse. In reality it is a matter of stewardship. The loss of this focus leads to the influence of mammon, whereby the love or quest of money rules. Jesus said: “he who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much” (Luke 16:10). Good stewardship will prevail in its mastery over whatever resource is truly managed. However, when the religious spirit is compounded with the love or quest of money, then the gates are opened for disorder, division, critical distrust and an array of controlling, manipulating spirits. Given free reign it digresses into sorcery and the misuse of the anointing by what some refer to as Charismatic witchcraft.

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The Ancient Challenge

April 8, 2015

At the crux of this age-old drama have been game-changers, leaders with alliances both from within and outside the community of God’s people, whose righteous response to His standard would advance His purposes. This advance has been demonstrated with strategies impacting the infrastructures of culture, economies and power. Yet, the most important elements for historians: God and His chosen people Zion have largely been ignored in recording the story of man. Understanding the times and knowing what to do rest on a realistic grasp of the historic strategies employed by God and His chosen. Abraham established the community model for God’s people to live in self-sufficiency, as a people of God. Isaac gleaned the secret of God’s economy and supernaturally prospered through God, despite the impact of famine. Joseph demonstrated how stewardship that abides in God’s presence can influence the spiritual climate of a society and release God’s authority within its infrastructures, to overcome impending evil and to accomplish God’s purposes. Moses provided the framework for the Abrahamic model to inoculate itself from the subtle wickedness of the surrounding world and become a society of the righteous, living for God. David demonstrated the leadership response to God’s guidance needed to shape a society of diverse factions into a Kingdom of God’s people, that would prompt awe for God and His people from all those around them. Jesus raised the bar to the ancient challenge and opened the gates to the authority that governs cultures, economies and power. In so doing He set the Kingdom standard for applying righteous power in a corrupt world.

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The Unseen

June 8, 2014

The unseen also requires appropriate authority. By the time Joseph faced the baker and wine-taster when in prison, he possessed the know-how and authority that operated deeply in the hidden realm. Going into enemy territory, discerning and preempting the enemy’s intentions, and setting the stage for God’s counter-purposes sometimes call for obedience that only “sees” the next step. Yet, this dynamic is strategic to this hour, in preparing the way for those who follow. Prevailing in the unseen world means discerning, from God, the path to be taken from what is discerned. God always imparts strategy to those willing to pay the cost and prevail in this dimension of reality. Ps 34:7 states that: “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and delivers them.” God’s purpose is for the community of his people to be restored to operating in this dimension. This will be the result from what Jesus referred to as being a light to the world, a community set of a hill.

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God’s Blueprint

December 19, 2013

Mature leadership will be marked by those who see beyond the obvious; to identify and nurture the gift of those they’ve been called to work alongside. The measure of true Kingdom leadership is to discern God’s blueprint operating in those being led; and then to foster the alignment needed to bring that calling to the next level. It doesn’t happen overnight and even with the seasoned, it requires a continual reaching for the progressively higher standard.
“It is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives within me.” Gal 2:20

In Matthew 25:31 Jesus pointed to the time when the nations would be judged and He separates the sheep from the goats. “Nations” will be judged; by virtue of responding to God’s blueprint for them, as Egypt responded to Joseph’s guidance and God’s plan for them as a safe-haven through the time of famine. Then the King said, “Come you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you took me in.” Then He reveals what had been involved: reaching out with God’s blueprint.
“Inasmuch as you did this to the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.” Matt 25:40

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Pioneers, Peddlers and Tz’dakim

November 21, 2013

From the days of Noah, God’s people have been distinctive. As stewards of God’s intentions, they’ve restored God’s order from the way He established it at the beginning. They’ve pioneered; they’ve creatively built self-sustaining operations; and they’ve reestablished God’s standard for righteousness, which is an opportunity-enabling community dynamic. Serving in this unique, mixed role as pioneers, peddlers and tz’dakim (a righteous people), God’s people have again and again demonstrated a most exceptional societal standard of trust and leadership. Historically, the impact has far exceeded the best the world, or society without God, could offer. The result, despite overwhelming adversity, has been disproportionate contributors and achievers who have exhibited a brand of leadership pointed to by Jesus: leadership by serving.

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Joseph’s Apostolic Gifts

September 15, 2013

Within any move of God or spiritual organizational setting, God’s order is the framework through which the work is conducted. One of the amazing results of the impact from the societal standards outlined in the Jewish Torah is the influence these truths have had on civilizations over the centuries. It’s much more than just a better mousetrap. It is the collateral fruit of operating according to God’s order. A work will always be judged by the fruit of its standard. Without God’s order, efforts to accomplish God’s purposes will fall short or fall into results described by scripture, on one level, as the arm of the flesh. Compromise is a deceptively subtle foundation which in reality is the gateway into a seedbed from which Babylon or Chaldea (Jer 51:23); mammon or sorcery can take root. The apostolic mantle and its complementary gifts meld in such a way to uphold the standard of God’s order; provide the discernment and authority to recognize and bypass judgment; and to serve as a catalyst for prophetic influence and spiritual climate change. The life of Joseph exhibits a process. His was a disciplined life; a spiritual response to the status quo. The process was in Joseph’s role to progressively face the hurdles (such as the spiritual backlash of his righteous response to Potiphar’s wife) and change the spiritual climate of a pagan society. The reality of God was demonstrated by Joseph from the time he lost his freedom, serving as a slave. Joseph’s faithfulness, step by step, overcame the pagan culture and calmed the spiritual storm, and established the spiritual alignment needed for God’s short- and long-term purposes.

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