Rising Above the Clutter

by Morris Ruddick on October 19, 2016

RISING ABOVE THE CLUTTER

 

“I will send out the curse. It will enter the house of the thief and those who swear falsely in my Name, says the Lord.” Zech 5:4

As the importance of the prophetic reaches a peak, so has the clutter of pop-Christian culture and precepts of men. The response to the chaos unfolding across the earth in this day has become a dissonant clamor of confusion, misinterpretation of events and bias, not just from the media elite, but from those who presume, swearing falsely in God’s name. The time has come for God’s people to rise above the fray.

During the early 1980s, our pastor sought God diligently for sermon messages that were “hot off the wire.”

wrkshp0277His services were amazing. It was like being in two meetings at the same time. His messages carried a significance that gave a glimpse into understanding the times, while simultaneously ministering uniquely to our individual quest for next steps and more of God.  That is the way the anointing works. It is supernatural. It fills in the gaps of our understanding, but also is a catalyst for a whole lot more.

We have entered a time when the words given and the words received can be no less. Yet genuine words from on high are being littered with a plague of warmed-over, watered-down and polluted words. In short, we need to be rising above the clutter. Our spiritual guidance needs to be “hot off the wire.”

This plague of spiritual clutter comes at a time when it has never been more vital to understand the times in order to know what to do. To do so requires repentant, yet prepared hearts. The book of Zechariah calls for repentant hearts, for the preparation needed for a time of restoration. As noted in the opening scripture, it specifically addresses the cleanup God will sovereignly bring within the household of faith.

The Soberness of the Times
The words of Jesus in Matthew 24 give us a glimpse into the days we have entered. Nations are rising up against nations. Lawlessness and terrorism abound. It is a time of far too many swearing falsely in the Name of the Lord. Disillusionment from wrong priorities and hopelessness has triggered the love of many growing cold. Simultaneously, it is a time in which the gospel of the Kingdom will become a witness to the nations. Isaiah described this time in this way: “Darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples, but the Lord will arise over you and His glory will be seen upon you.”

God is recalibrating the equation that determines the direction of the world unfolding around us. The alignment to fulfill the promises God made long ago to Abraham and His descendents has begun. The restoration foreseen by Isaiah, Zechariah and Jesus is underway.

The assumptions of the past have changed. More of the same harder will fail.  With the stakes at a higher level, the standard also has been raised. The times demand more than a token pushback against being whiplashed by the world’s ways, perceptions and response to the change.

There is a divine calibration underway. To see it and act accordingly demands rising above the clutter of pop-Christian culture. The result will reset the priorities. That begins with a sober quest forMongCaiAudienceIMG_3801 words representing God’s true guidance and priorities for the Body for this hour.

Twenty years ago this month, our thirty year-old daughter Trisha was brutally murdered. In my grief in the time just following her funeral I cried out to the Lord to understand the spiritual parameters surrounding her death. A SIGN post resulted. The message in that post is one I consider the most spiritually insightful I have written for SIGN in the last twenty years. http://strategicintercession.org/2012/05/312/

The revelation it unveiled pointed to an incredibly subtle dynamic operating within the Body of believers. It is an age-old strategy employed by the evil one to harness the power of the anointing.

At the core of this strategy is the devil’s scheme to usurp and misdirect the power of the anointing by triggering loose, misguided tongues from the ranks of ministry leaders. It is a strategy to spiritually emasculate and immobilize and keep the Body so religiously and introspectively focused and divided that the world around us never gets to see the reality of God operating through a people.

Instead we have, among the elect, the worldly standard set by success, the approval of men, and a cultural filter through which our spiritual perceptions are derived. It is no wonder that the power for so many is so anemic. It is something we need to rise above.
“Your enemies roar in the midst of your meeting places. They have set up their banners.” Psalm 74:4

Too many have been seduced by a prevailing consensus drawn from circles of pop-Christian culture reflecting weak foundations. We are at a threshold in which we need something more, that only God can provide. We need ears to hear and eyes to see God’s wisdom for the hour which is hot off the wire, directly from His throne room.

Crossing the Fine Line
Jesus was continually pointing to the simple things that confound the wise. He held the religious and hypocritically ambitious accountable for their idle words as He empowered a simple band of followers willing to pay the cost to rise above the spiritual pollution. He noted that “He who speaks for himself seeks his own glory, but he who seeks the glory of Him who sent is true and no unrighteousness dwells in Him.” John 7:18

This is the dividing asunder. the fine line between soul and spirit. It is the threshold entered that makes the world take notice as a people of God, who in the book of Acts were described as the ones who were turning the world upside down.

This threshold marking the reality of God operating through a people involves crossing this fine line into the unseen, spiritual world. That means just not tapping the spiritual, but entering it. It carries a cost.

A Call to Action
There came a time in Jesus’ earthly ministry in which he began sending His followers out. He challenged them by saying “Why do you call me Lord and do not do what I say?” He pointed out that those who came to Him and heard His words and did not act on them were like the man who built a house without a foundation. When the flood came, the torrent demolished the house and left it ruined.

It is not enough to know the words of Jesus, the process of spiritual maturity in becoming His friends and His sons requires putting His truth into action. It means abiding in Him so that our guidance for action is in complete accord with His priorities and above the fray.

MARYPRAYFor almost twenty one years, the SIGN ministry has held up a standard for intercessors and for leaders in the Body who have a role in the move of God now manifesting within the marketplaces of the world. We have encouraged a balance between Spirit and truth and by the grace of God we have been a voice defining the calling of modern-day Josephs and Daniels.

We have programs we have administered in spiritually challenged environments around the world that mobilize entrepreneurs to be the head and not the tail as community builders and people of influence, people of action and change.

At the core of all we espouse is the time spent with Him. It is the time required to know Him, His truth and to align our pathways and actions with His. The Philips translation of Romans 12:2 warns us “Do not let the world squeeze you into its mold.”

Let me give you an example of this process, of putting His words into action. At the inception of the SIGN ministry in the mid-1990s I sought the Lord to understand and to pray for the agendas closest to His heart. The Lord clearly outlined for me, three primary areas of focus: 1) Israel and the Jewish people, 2) the persecuted church and 3) a coming move of God in the marketplace that would mobilize modern-day Josephs and Daniels. All of this was in the context of what I refer to as the Isaachar context: of understanding the times that we might know what to do.

Reaching for Truth Hot Off the Wire
What most challenged me was as I began seeking the Lord for His heart on these areas, the Lord gave me a very clear charge that I was not to be reading any books or listening to any teachings by others about these matters. My source of input for these writings for SIGN had a two-fold simplicity: my prayer-closet and the word of God. What the Lord required of me was a quest for a balanced rendering of Spirit and truth as the foundation for defining these issues that over the years many have considered to be “hot off the wire.”

That instruction guiding the input for my articles being limited to my prayer-closet and the Word of God lasted roughly four years, at which time the Lord gave me the additional guidance to compile a number of the articles on the marketplace and author my first marketplace book. This was the “Joseph-Daniel Calling.” The message of this book remains pertinent to this day. I have no doubt it is because of the process the Lord gave me for obtaining the revelation it contains.

Then, more than five years after the start of SIGN, after publishing “The Joseph-Daniel Calling” and of praying deeply into these three primary issues, the Lord told me it was time to put what I had been shown into action.

The result was the God’s economy entrepreneurial program that we administer around the world in spiritually and economically challenged environments. It is a program supported by (the currently) seven books I have authored and more recently videos and articles we have made available through our two web-sites.

Marking the Milestones
We now have reached another milestone. Since the early 1970s, when I had a life-changing encounter with the Lord, the Lord has spoken a series of milestone words to me that have shaped my calling and my destiny. I’ve highlighted those words and intend to make them the Preface for one of my future books. It is available on our SIGN web-site at: http://strategicintercession.org/2013/04/milestone-words/

In my task of understanding the times in order to know what to do, the guidance I am now hearing involves a transition from that of a teacher to that of an advisor. This represents another dimension of how the Lord will take an old season in one’s life and use it as the foundation for a new season. In my case, I could never have done it in the natural.

Higher Priorities Removes the Clutter
The process of alignment with God’s priorities will remove the clutter. It was the rut of the pride of life, the love of the world and misguided words from within leadership circles that had masked the steps leading to our daughter Trisha’s murder in 1996. Today there is a shout calling for the inordinate requirement to get out of the ruts and reach for those higher dimensions, the “something more,” that only God can provide.

Compounding this challenge to our spiritual perceptions is a world attempting to redefine reality. The darkness spoken of by Isaiah not only alludes to the creeping evil manifesting its ugly head, CanaanCapital1702bbut to the shroud that exacerbates the spiritual blindness by redefining history, Scripture and the perception of the legitimate foundations central to what lies ahead for the descendents of Abraham and of Israel and those who fear the Lord.

Far too many leaders are functionally trapped, operating in ruts. Ruts are paths made from days past that often are deep and don’t allow you to easily change course. The ruts are deepened by the approval of men and worldly goals of success.

To escape the ruts begins and is sustained by knowing Him, knowing Him interactively. To truly know Him we need to be hearing from Him. That means spending time with Him. That means regularly praying cleansing prayers like the one at mid-page on this link: http://strategicintercession.org/join-sign/

To escape the ruts will require meekness and humility. It is a meekness and humility willing to pay the cost to face the truth. It is the meekness and humility that recognizes that His strength is manifested in our weakness. It is the humility that resets priorities by paying the cost of facing the truth in order to be cleansed of the clutter of phoniness and foolhardiness derived from the approval of men and influence of the world’s standard.

Rising above the clutter of these factors will then become the foundation for releasing the true authority from on high required for the agendas that lie before us.

It is not a religious or a head thing. It is learning to walk more deeply with Him, to rise above the clutter and set our course by Him, as His ambassadors, and to take the actions needed to be demonstrators of His reality. We need to be cleansed at the highest levels from the clutter and the warmed-over religious confusion and be reaching for both the anointing and wisdom that is “hot off the wire.”

It is a time of restoration spoken of in the book of Hebrews that will be accompanied by the shouts of that great cloud of witnesses who have passed beyond the constraints of the realm of time. Before us is the path from which to rise above the fray. From the time before us, is the fine line of the narrow path of the Kingdom spoken of by Jesus.
“My people have been lost sheep. Their shepherds have led them astray causing them to roam over mountains. They wandered over mountains and hills and forgot their own resting place.” Jeremiah 50:6

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Morris Ruddick has been a forerunner and spokesman for the higher dimensions of business leadership since the mid-90s. As founder of Global Initiatives Foundation and designer of the God’s Economy Entrepreneurial Equippers Program, Mr. Ruddick imparts hope and equips economic community builders to be blessed to be a blessing where God’s light is dim in diverse regions around the globe.

He is author of “The Joseph-Daniel Calling;” “Gods Economy, Israel and the Nations;” “The Heart of a King;” “Something More;” “Righteous Power in a Corrupt World;” “Leadership by Anointing;” and “Mantle of Fire,” which address the mobilization of business and governmental leaders with destinies to impact their communities. They are available in print and e-versions from www.Amazon.com, www.apple.com/ibooks and www.BarnesandNoble.com.

Global Initiatives Foundation (www.strategic-initiatives.org) is a tax-exempt 501 (c) 3 non-profit whose efforts are enabled by the generosity of a remnant of faithful friends and contributors whose vision aligns with God’s heart to mobilize economic community builders imparting influence and the blessings of God. Checks on US banks should be made out to Global Initiatives and mailed to PO Box 370291, Denver CO 80237 or by credit card at http://strategicintercession.org/support/

Likewise, email us to schedule a seminar for your group’s gathering on the Joseph-Daniel Calling or on anointing the creative in business.

2016 Copyright Morris Ruddick — info@strategic-initiatives.org

Reproduction is prohibited unless permission is given by a SIGN advisor. Since early 1996, the Strategic Intercession Global Network (SIGN) has mobilized prophetic intercessors and leaders committed to targeting strategic-level issues impacting the Body on a global basis. For previous posts or more information on SIGN, check: http://www.strategicintercession.org

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