7even Churches and Me

We are currently in the middle of a seven-week series of messages from the book of Revelation titled 7even Churches and Me. Of all the series we have received over the course of this year, this stands at the top of the list as my favorite. It is causing all of us to reflect on the spirit of the people in a time long before now and review our own life in relationship to theirs. It is revealing to understand how similar we are even though so many centuries of time separate us.

As is always the case, I hope each of you are drawing from each sermon whatever is present in it that will grow you enabling you to become a mature son of Yahweh. Our future and every generation after us are depending on us to correct what needs to be corrected by changing now for God’s glory. The vision John saw and wrote about in Revelation is perpetual through every generation, which means it has no end. It is as relevant to you and me today as it was to him so long ago. This article reflects on the church of Ephesus.

The church of Ephesus in Revelation 2 is a picture of so many of us.

“‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear evil men but have tested those who call themselves apostles but are not and found them to be false; ³ I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. ⁴ But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” Revelation 2:2-4 English Standard Version

They loved the truth but lacked grace. He said to the Ephesians he loved how they embraced the truth, but he had one thing against them, they didn’t have grace. Yahweh wants all of us to come to the place where we not only love what he loves, but we also love like he loves. Truth without grace is as useless as grace without truth. There must be a balance between them, so there can be reconciliation in the one receiving them. Some of us find it easy to operate in excessive truth (hard to believe that is possible) and others find it easy to operate in excessive grace (a willingness to overlook truth). Whichever one you might be, taking an honest inventory of how you position yourself in life will allow you to endure yourself to the true reflection of Christ which possesses both truth and grace with equal measure.

Yahweh wants us to come to the place where we not only love WHAT he loves, but we also love LIKE he loves.

Above all else, knowing Yahweh is pleased about how we represent him should drive every decision we make­­ and how we live our lives. Press in so that your uncomfortable places in him become comfortable and your hidden places are revealed. Be open to his anointing and truth so that you can live with a grace that causes the truth to become life.

 

Stepping Up My Game

Football is around the corner. Teams are already practicing from youth football to the pros. They take this arriving season very seriously. So do the fans! What’s not to love about the game? We pick a team and we cheer for a victory. It is the nature of man.

The preparation that goes into a new season is considered down to the hour of the day and how much air in the helmets. These guys are in it to win it and a lack of preparation will not be the reason they fail. They study their enemy. Watch their film. Observe their opponents on field and off, and invest sums of money so large it makes most of us wonder where that would be better used. Rest is not an option. To the victor go the spoils and these guys understand that. Improvements are made in regard to the latest technological advancements and speeches are made that would make a six year old want to go to war! This is not a game. This is live or die.

Are we willing to do whatever it takes to advance Yahweh’s purpose and intentions for mankind and the earth?

While football teams and fans are doing all they can to step up their game, what are we doing as believers, as sons and daughters of almighty God, to step up ours? Do we take this journey seriously? Are we willing to do whatever it takes to advance Yahweh’s purpose and intentions for mankind and the earth? Do we really have any chance at winning the lost souls of our generation over to our loving and creative God? Yes, we do. We do because life in Christ is not a fairytale. It is real and it is life changing. It is observable and obvious. His love and his grace are evident in those who have received it.

Stepping up our game is not about praying louder or longer, or reading more scriptures, or witnessing to more people. It is about looking in the mirror and asking ourselves if we are the we we want to be? Are we the we Yahweh created us to be? Honest questions deserve honest answers, especially when it is only you or me in the mirror. We don’t ask these questions to incur self-condemnation. We ask to incur growth and position ourselves at a starting block from which we are able to launch ourselves into the race. Not with half-hearted intentions, but with devotion so deep and conviction so profound, the only option is finishing the race.

Are we the we Yahweh created us to be?

Now is the time to ask Holy Spirit to help us step up our game and prepare ourselves for what lies ahead. There is an enemy that wants to beat us down until we surrender, but surrender is only for those who refuse to listen to the voice that is always calling out and charging us to rise up. Holy Spirit is our coach and our teacher and our trainer. When we listen to him all the other sounds and voices fall dim in our ears. It’s time. It’s time today. Step up your game.

 

The Making of a Son

On June 19, 2018 a giant in the Kingdom of God transitioned into the place from where we all began—the heavenlies. F. Nolan Ball was born on November 14, 1929 and soon after would begin making his impact felt on all those around him. He excelled in whatever he did; the Air Force, banking, the Pentagon, sports, ministry, and in life and relationships, he set a standard for others to follow. He was and is a hero of the faith. He leaves behind in this realm countless lives that have been matured and impacted by his living.

Though many of you reading this have never met him, it is because of him that I am able to write this, and you are able to be a part of The Rock of Central Florida. F. Nolan Ball depended every day on the voice of Holy Spirit. When he received Jesus Christ in 1953 he never looked back. Since that day his every decision was focused on becoming a son in whom Yahweh would be well pleased. He once told me when I inquired of his “magnetic” personality that “he didn’t have a good personality, he had a good anointing.” That statement sums up his heart and life. He understood where the favor, excellence, and revelation came from and he never tried to minimize the power of Holy Spirit in his life. Praying in the spirit was more natural to him than speaking in English.

While I and we grieve in his passing, make no mistake, it is a glorious passing. We that knew him will forever be changed. He has been Yahweh’s instrument of Kingdom expression for over sixty years! Beside him during all those years has been his beautiful and devoted wife, Shirley Ball. She is in her own right a root and a fortress. We will continue to intercede for her and the immediate family as they begin the journey of carrying on in the natural and the spirit what F. Nolan Ball made to look so easy.

“His every decision was focused on becoming a son in whom Yahweh would be well pleased”

The making of a son doesn’t happen because a single decision is made to serve Christ. The making of son happens because decisions, every day, are made to serve Christ and the purpose of Yahweh. Sonship is a lifelong journey, a beginning but no end, leading to the reward of stepping into the other side of this dimension and with that transition into the full maturity of sonship. F. Nolan Ball was more than an Apostle. He in every way embodied the gifts we have come to understand as apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher and walked in whichever was required at any given time. It is more appropriate to recognize him as a father than to try to clothe him in a garment of limitation. So, when you think of F. Nolan Ball, consider what the Father thinks of him. F. Nolan Ball is a son in whom he is well pleased!

Little Man

I’m sitting in my office today with a three-year-old boy who is fully engaged in what I am doing although he doesn’t understand any of it. He is completely transfixed and intensely trying to grasp all that is happening before his eyes. To me, I am simply doing some writing. To him, I am changing his perception of reality. He is curious, full of wonder, and willing to learn anything I will take the time to teach him. I love hunger and I love curiosity, and both of these are very present in this little sample of a human being. He is sweet, he is innocent, and he is contagious! I want to be like him.

What can be learned from a simple moment as I’ve described above? Oh, so much! Consider the position the chief priests and scribes assumed when witnessing children celebrating Jesus Christ…

But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, 16 and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, “‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?

Matthew 21:15,16 ESV

These educated and religious leaders who were mocking and angry with the children could not comprehend how anyone would allow these children to display such animation towards this self-proclaimed Christ. What might have happened if those same chief priests and scribes had said instead “I want to be like them.”
Now consider you and me. When we witness the elation of a child or the passion of youth, is it offsetting to us or does it compel us to press in? Do we assume the position of the adult who understands “proper” behavior and manages our expressions or do we fully engage and expect the unexpected with anxiety and anticipation? Are we prepared to launch ourselves into the vision or are we standing safely on the sideline waiting to see if it is for real before making a decision? Is there a childlike innocence within us or are we consumed with controlled behavior that will never embarrass us? Consider this, for it might well cause the heart to finally accept what the mind has permitted, and this revelation may yet produce change that will lead to life.
A three-year-old boy! What can he possibly teach us? Maybe that the vision that lies before us is worth the excitement and the anticipation that is childlike. Perhaps we could learn that those things that seem so important that tend to distract us aren’t important at all. This little three-year-old boy did not concern himself with anything going on around him. He was engaged and transfixed so intensely and purposefully he was able to draw every ounce of possibility from that moment. I want to be like him. How about you?

Living Within Your Means

There is so much to be said about living within your means, and for the past several weeks I have been saying it. Hopefully, you have been at the very least, encouraged, and at the very best, changed. Learning to live within this paradigm will create new avenues of wealth and opportunity enabling you to become a jubilant sower rather than a fearful giver.

Why would anyone be a fearful giver? Well, when the field is not producing corn and hunger exists all around, from where will one gather to provide for those who are hungry? Especially in his own household. One is afraid to give when there is no wealth from which to give. For this reason, one must begin to reconcile those places in his life that inhibit Yahweh’s word from producing what he has promised – wealth. Wealth should never be something one seeks after simply to have more. While that is justifiable, seeking wealth because it is Yahweh’s will for you is part of your destiny. Scripture is clear about Yahweh’s intentions for those who trust in Him.

And you shall remember the Lord your God. For it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day. Deuteronomy 8:18 (NKJV)

A promise has been given to you and me of fruitfulness and abundance. This promise is for the purpose of having the ability to sow into fields that exist all around us wherever Holy Spirit directs. Yahweh is honored when we sow outside of ourselves. If there is no wealth in us, from where do we sow? Having enough corn to feed my family is not blessing, that is sustenance. It is not blessing until I have enough corn to feed my family and sow into another! This is the principle of “not harvesting to the edge of the field or gleaning from what falls from the basket” spoken of in Leviticus 23:22. Get this in your spirit – one is NOT living within their means when they can take care of themselves only; by Yahweh’s standard we are living within our means only when we have the ability to sow outside of ourselves!

Unfortunately, most people are not living within their means. Nevertheless, all can. You can. The first step is to repent for not doing so and then begin to reconcile those places in your life that keep you from being a jubilant sower that sows from the place of plenty. Then begin to govern your natural means until you start living within Yahweh’s means. Reconcile! Reconcile! Reconcile! First the natural, then the spiritual!

But it is not the spiritual first but the natural, and then the spiritual. I Corinthians 15:46 (ESV)

Live within your means until you can begin living within His means! This is our promise. This is what Yahweh gave us the power to accomplish. To get wealth. To maintain wealth. And from the place of wealth, sow to His glory!

It’s time to reconcile your accounts!

CRAZY CALM

Are we living in the most unpredictable, calamitous, and argumentative age in modern history? If we believe everything we see and hear, it certainly feels that way! People are fighting over skin color, body size, calorie counts, and many can’t even figure out whether or not they are male or female. People just can’t seem to decide who or what they are and why they are on this planet! It is CRAZY, CRAZY, CRAZY!

Fear not! There does exist an answer to all of this dysfunctional chaos that surrounds those of us who stand in the middle of sanity and hope. Indeed, we believe for more and we have faith that it will not always be this way. This crazy world we live in is most certainly changing and becoming more uncertain of itself every day. But those who hold in their heart the promise of a better day has within them the hope of its appearing. Come on promise! Where art thou? We are ready, ready, ready for your revealing!

Uh oh! That last statement sounds like the cry of someone who still hasn’t figured out who they are. The promise isn’t something or someone in the distance who will soon appear and change the condition of society. The promise is you. The promise is me. The promise is the work of Christ in us that compels us to BECOME more than all those things that reflect CRAZY until our presence introduces CALM into the CRAZY that is all around us! Ha! Revelation is at our doorstep. Embrace it. Receive it. Accept it. You are the promise that Yahweh filled with Christ to change the earth!

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13 NIV

We have an opportunity to be the CALM in the middle of the CRAZY. Let’s succeed in delivering the peace of the Kingdom into the chaos of the world. Let it be said of us that while the walls were falling down around us and the earth opened up we stood upon the shoulders of our God and were untouched by the sorcery of Satan’s schemes! We are CRAZY CALM and we own it.

“Super” Natural

A visit from family and friends is usually a welcome time that creates new memories, fills a day with laughter and allows us to reflect on times and seasons past and present. A visit from Holy Spirit causes us to see the impossible, expect the miraculous, and hunger for the abundance! Both visitations are important and serve a purpose. Each of them can be healing, nurturing, and enlightening. One of them is natural and one of them is “super” natural. The natural is predictable while the “super” natural is not. The natural can be controlled. The “super” natural cannot.

What makes Superman super is his ability to do what the “natural” man is incapable of. He is admired because of his “super” abilities and he is disdained because of his “super” abilities. Some love him because of it, others hate him because it is not them who is “super.” Regardless of how others feel, he has no choice but to be “super” because it is his nature. It is in his DNA. It is his lot. Even in his attempts to wear eyeglasses, drab suits, and maintain a pedestrian job, he cannot hide who he is. Something always happens that causes the real “super” man to emerge from the identity he attempts to hide behind. He is the product of something greater than the natural and what is greater, or super in him will always come out under the right circumstances. He can attempt to identify with the natural as much as he likes, but at the end of the day it is the “super” natural that defines him.

What about you and me? How are we defined? Are we attempting to control or subdue the true “super” natural part of our DNA? While living in the natural is easy and offers opportunity to reflect, learn, and grow within society, accepting the “super” natural within us is opportunity to change the earth! The natural man is determined to control his surroundings, limit opportunity for embarrassment, and avoid moments of weakness. The “super” natural man does not consider ego, pride, or any of the aforementioned concerns and does what he was created to do. Being “super” natural is more natural than natural. We were all “super” natural before we were natural!

Allowing Holy Spirit to visit us and expose our mind and spirit to the ways of the supernatural is an opportunity for us to see more clearly and discern more keenly where we are and what our purpose is. Only Holy Spirit can awaken the “super” natural in you and me. A visitation from the natural is nice, but a visitation from the Kingdom of our God and King is “super” natural! Jesus said in Mark 9:23 “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” May we all declare, “Holy Spirit awaken the ‘super’ natural that is within me to the glory of Yahweh – amen!”

The Age of Agelessness

It should be understood that we, The Rock, are not in any way suggesting that we have a preeminent understanding of becoming the “image of Yahweh” and neither do we have all the answers. Adjusting to the age of agelessness is a journey indeed. What do I mean? Well, when we consider the “adjustments” having been made so far, it is apparent the path requires exceptional faith. For instance, the abandonment of formal titles, our transition beyond a five-fold ministry government, the revelation of what tongues is and what it isn’t. These are just a few of the “adjustments” to date.

These “adjustments” that are happening among us can appear to be a slap in the face of what has been life to all of us for so long; however, this interpretation would be a gross misunderstanding of our intention and purpose. Becoming what we were created to be without settling for what we have been told we could be requires risk, changed mindsets, and lots of faith. We are not in any way abandoning our heritage or what brought all of us to this place. We are, however, building upon what we have learned and allowing the proceeding word to govern our latter years without being prisoner to the former.

Becoming is a verb. Action and movement are inherent. How can one BECOME anything if one is entrenched, or in a fixed, immovable position?  This BECOMING is exactly what I intend to press into, and I intend to do it with the people of The Rock and those who become a part of who we are. I am pressing into that place spoken of in Jeremiah 2:2 “when we (the church) went after Yahweh in the wilderness, in a land not sown.” Most of the modern church only lives in the metaphorical city, or the place where structure has existed for eons of time and would not consider running out into a place unknown or undeveloped before now. The age of agelessness removes the parameters defined by man and requires each one to know their God and press into a relationship with him. One that is not defined by what religion has created and approved, but that is defined by the walk in the wilderness with Yahweh, or remember their life with Yahweh before flesh was attached to their spirit. “Before you were in your [mother’s] womb, He knew you” Jeremiah 1: 5 and, moreover, you knew Him.

The age of agelessness is not a place or destination. It is a way of life and living! It is THE way for life and living! May we position ourselves to exercise great faith and embark on this journey with eyes wide open and a heart ready to move into places we have not considered before…but He has!

Many – A Word With Parts

Romans 12:5 – “So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.”

What is impossible for one is opportunity for many. The word many requires more than one active part. In fact, it is not many if only one is represented. Many is plural, while one is singular. We, the people of The Rock are not on a mission. That implies an eventual end and we will complete our task. No, instead, we are on assignment. One that has no beginning, nor does it have an end. It is an assignment that requires each of us to be faithful at being one, while joining our resources with the many. This is the big picture Paul speaks of in Romans 12:5.

Matthew 22:14 says, “Many are called, but few are chosen.” What a tragedy! What happens when people begin to understand the glory of being part of the many? This does not mean giving up individuality or sacrificing personal dreams. It means allowing individuality and dreams to be added to those one walks with, giving them strength, hope, and vision – empowering others to believe past the present. Many can do what one never could. Yahweh planned it that way! You and I were never meant to be able to do anything alone. It took Holy Spirit to give life to Adam, Adam to give life to Eve, and it still takes two to give life to another! The glory of many is always more beautiful and fulfilling than the disappointments of one. Few are chosen because they did not become part of the many. Instead, attempting to do all things alone, without the help of, or faith in, others.

So we, being many, should accept, no, embrace completely the assignment before us. Do not become singular in thought. Do not focus on self. Rather, see what Yahweh sees! See the glory of adding your individuality to the many. Add who you are to the many. See yourself as part of the many. Fully implant yourself in the vision and assignment before the house and become a testimony to the strength of many over the weakness of just one. Many is a word with parts. You and I are the parts that are accounted in the many. See you in the Living Room!

The Value of Vision

Seeing is more than observing what is in one’s line of sight. It is easy to define what the eye beholds when there is no interest in the deep things. Oh, but when one has a passion to look deeper into what lies before him, that is when mysteries are solved and hidden places are revealed. Vision is not simply seeing, vision is interpreting. If one only accepts what the eye beholds as the final word, then the journey might be without cause or purpose. However, when one has vision and interprets what the eye beholds, then the journey comes alive and draws him into a dimension of endless possibilities! Vision produces possibilities where simply seeing produces only a stagnant image.

 

The writer of Habakkuk 2:2 writes, “Then the LORD answered me and said, ‘Record the vision and inscribe it on tablets, that the one who reads it may run.’” Why run? Run to something, or run from something? Run in fear, or run with passion? The writer was actually recording Yahweh’s response to the disobedience of a son. Yahweh said “run!” Not because one simply reads what is written. That is so shallow. But run because the reader interprets what is written as life giving and full of power and he can’t help but run! The reader who looks deeper into what he sees and does not accept it at face value can access all that lies within what has been seen. He is empowered! Vision is more than seeing, it is imagining all the possibilities that lie within what one sees. That is the value of vision.