As each year is met with its special challenges, we must be prepared to navigate wisely and safely through it. Nothing is just circumstantial or by chance, but everything exists in a cause and effect relationship. Things might appear to be random, but there is an established order that must be maintained. Its origin is before the foundations of the world therefore we do not have to engage in guesswork and carelessly assemble what has been strategically designed. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. Each of us was made for this time and a place fully known by God. When we are out of place, nature cries out in rebellion to our forceful habits of trying to make something that is not meant to be. We often wonder why things are not working right and life does not make any sense. It could be the disorder of one’s life working against the order for which all things are subjected to and must be surrendered if its truest purpose is ever to be realized.
God orchestrates order out of chaos. He is the only One who can bring forth light out of darkness. He does not have to find the light but rather, He produces the light that dispels the darkness regardless how dark it may be. “God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all.” What if it was said to you that the only instrument of peace is Jesus Christ alone? In an environment of chaos, it would sound biased and extremely prejudiced against all other attempts to provide counsel and relief to our current crises. Yet there is no light without Him. A convergence of light and darkness will cast a gray shadow. The cloud of error has eclipsed the true Light thus contributing to the chaos and confusion of this generation. This is a generation of compromise. Compromise competes with the ageless truth requiring conformity to a more contemporary order that is sensible to this generation. There is no compromise sufficient enough for us to meet the deep and desperate needs of the soul. What price have we paid and are now paying for the allowances made for the vices of society that should be condemned? Only when we accept God’s choices will there be deliverance from influences that allure people further away from them. Either we believe that He is God or not. There is no safe middle ground. If He is God, then all things generate from Him and were made to glorify Him alone. If He is one among many other gods, then we are permitted to debate whether His way is the only way, and collaborate concerning the rightness or wrongness of His Word in light of other information made available to this present age.
We have prayerfully entitled this year “The Year of Divine Order” because God alone has established the order for government, family, religion, economics, education, world peace, and our personal lives. Every contending force is in opposition to His will and must be proven false and ineffective. Our objective this year is to provide historical evidence that manufactured kingdoms have ultimately fallen over time for no other reason than God stands alone in His sovereignty. When His Word is rightly divided, in essence, preached through those who are authorized by Him to speak on His behalf, the power of change is released enabling the hearers the privilege to conform to His will. Before one can receive His order, the disorder must be exposed and renounced through repentance. The Holy Spirit then does His work of constructing lives that can fulfill the purpose for which each was born. When God is pleased with our lives, we experience a dimension of peace that surpasses all understanding.
When a person or thing has been forgotten, or if the memory is reduced to a title, a symbol, or any fixture that is now void of life, there is the need for a fresh presentation in order for the truth to be known. Interpretations are often limited to perceptions that are usually influenced by personal desire. It would be much easier to have a Savior that fits perfectly into our thoughts of Him. He would then be non-threatening and pliable to whatever whim may come to mind. Then, when we grow weary of that perception, we can retire it and create another as we continue to change our minds about life and ourselves. Jesus Christ, however, is not that flexible. Malachi presents Him as unchanging and Revelations reflects His history, presence, and destiny as being the same. Since He is the same, why do many either embrace or reject a perception, but do not seek to know Him as He is? It is primarily because of the responsibility that accompanies the true knowledge of Him. What will we do if we were enabled to see Him as He is? Our agency as autonomous individuals would be compromised. There would be an authority would have determined what is right and wrong, what is good and what is evil. Society has primarily redirected their pursuits for a substitute rather than having to reckon with the One who presents Himself as the established truth.
His Word challenges our thinking and reaches deep into our souls. There is a part of every person that seeks to know more than what he currently knows. Yet it is pride that causes one to think that his pursuits can offer him complete satisfaction. He came to earth for us and we were made to acknowledge and glorify Him. Looking in any other direction merely hardens the heart against what the soul desperately craves. He abandons a life of temporal pleasures that merely anesthetizes the conscience so that things that were prohibited now become more sensible than the grace to participate in what He has granted freely. Jesus Christ is the greatest gift ever given to humanity, but He is not who we think He is. Our minds cannot reach those peaks of marvelous revelation that only His Spirit is able to manifest. When we strain to think of what He is like, we merely get a glimpse from a distance. He stands there welcoming us to approach Him, but not with the things we wish to keep. His will is to fill us with more than we are holding on to by giving us what we never had. Whether it is religiously maintained, it is a devotion and commitment, even if it is not the truest depiction. He comes to dispel all preconceived notions not by becoming a part of our lives but rather by becoming life to us.
Too many have built idols and worshiped without knowledge they were doing so. Little wonder that so much confusion remains all around us, especially among those who profess a faith. He is still here; the Christ of God who revealed Himself in history waits for the opportunity to reveal Himself to this generation. The challenge of the old misconceptions must take place if the original is to be made known. Wise men sought Him when He came as a child to the earth. Now that He has completed His task upon the earth, who will seek to know the resurrected Christ whose will is to dwell richly within the hearts of those who would make room for Him?
The heart and soul of the leader is of paramount importance. God’s requirement for any who will rightly lead is that they have the heart and passion to completely embrace the heavenly vision. It is initiated by God who arrests the heart of the one that He has chosen in order to impart spiritual gifts along with wisdom and knowledge to use each gift for His glory. The vision is not common and so easily conveyed that any person who choose the position as a career rather than being chosen would be able to master it. They would stumble over and misapply instructions that are spiritually discerned. It must be the perfect fit for the individual who has been specifically called to that assigned task. God chooses His leaders. They are not the products of man’s choices else they would be as King Saul who would take matters into his own hands rather than remain obedient to God. When people lacking spiritual discernment make choices, they usually choose the most impressive rather than the one with the greater degree of character. Appearances are shallow while character is deep. The veneer of appearance wears thin when temptations arise. The lustful leader will abandon his position as a watcher for the souls of others for immediate gratification of his own flesh.
When God does the choosing we can rest assured that He has full knowledge of the qualities He has imparted to leader. The devil may test him but he will resist the alluring tactics of Satan. His focus is on the end of a thing rather than just the process leading him there. Therefore he makes prophetic judgments. He is spiritual as result of experiencing warfare fought on many battlegrounds. It is the memory of surmounting victories that causes his faith to soar to new heights. It is the exercise of one’s spiritual senses that increases his ability to discern the difference between what is good and what is evil. He may look battle worn but every scar and bruise on his body and soul has a story attached to it. If we could just read his life we would find so many intriguing episodes leading him to becoming a faithful servant-leader. He has learned to trust and serve God well thus earning the right to be fully followed. In this age of distrust, people have a difficult time trusting their leaders. If it is the polished and well groomed leader that stands as a mannequin; the knight in shining armor insulated in the glass window you may have a picture rather than a preacher. But if he has the appearance of just returning from the battle, maybe even bleeding from the last scrimmage, that one is able to discern the strategies of the enemy. We do not learn spiritual warfare in an insulated environment void of any challenges. We learn how to strategically fight when we take the fight to the battlefield.
God asked His prophets, Zechariah and Jeremiah the same question, “What do you see?” He did not ask them “what do you feel”, or “what do you think?” Discerning leaders must see with God what He sees. Only then are they enabled to participate with God in what He is doing. When we see with Him then we are enabled to fight with Him. He shares with us the victory in the battles He has won. When we must fight, even in situations that appear to be overwhelming and defeat appears to be inevitable, faith rises higher than rising current against us. The enemy comes in like a flood, a tsunami threatening to overwhelm our banks. Then there arises before us a righteous standard judging the threat of evil and dismantling its attempts to overtake us. Discerning leaders will lead his troops into to battle. But he will also lead them through each battle to triumph.
Isaiah 40:3 “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord; Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
There is a clear voice of reason crying among many clouded voices that appeals to the conscience of this generation that rests its experience on feeling rather than thinking. And where there is though, is conscience a part of the process? The voice has become the minority that has been forced into obscure places. If truth has the power to remedy the ills of society and there is an important question, why must it be sequestered in the wilderness instead of placed in the public square? The voice of truth cries out, although muffled by the hustle and bustle of the crowd in its rush towards self-destruction. A cry may be a loud proclamation or a grievous lamentation. However, Wisdom proclaims her distressed message loudly because she has been forced into unoccupied places. The wilderness journey of truth has led her on a path where only those who seek after her may find her. She is not lost but rather rejected—exiled among the nomads who take the road less traveled and are ridiculed by the crowds of fools rushing in where angels dare to tread.
All voices sound alike to those who are hearing impaired. A foreign language is mere babble and gibberish to one who cannot interpret the strangeness of unfamiliar words. But when we speak the same language, senseless communication can spread through its mutual sharing. The world is on the process of becoming one language and one mind, similar to the days when the Tower of Babel was erected. It persists on television, radio, and other forms of media with a message that none can miss. The outsiders are those who disagree, reason on a different level, and can no longer assimilate with the rest of society. As a result, they exist on the fringes; banished to the wilderness to cry out among themselves.
Repetition has the power to wear down the resistance of the will. Brainwashing occurs when one seeks justification for a thing because he feels that if it is endorsed by many, it must be true. Our generation is being brainwashed without even knowing. This is not what the majority once believed, but it is what they have come to know. The shift occurred gradually and strategically, forming a mass mindset directly opposed to the Word of God. This is the “great delusion” and “spirit of error” prophesied in days past. Yet, in the isolated places away from public opinion, the voice of God calls, making an appeal to any who would listen with their hearts to what their ears may never hear. Deep within the soul is that place of dissatisfaction where nothing fits correctly.
When we come out into the wilderness to hear the Word of the Lord, we are changed. But not only are we changed, the wilderness becomes a place of provision for us. The Psalmist writes that “He turns a wilderness into pools of water, and dry land into watersprings” (Psalms 107:35), where we can be both nourished and refreshed. God does not always follow the way of convention. The desperate soul will not be satisfied with the crumbs of knowledge that may fall from the table as a result of science, technology, religion, or any other source. The desperate nature of the soul will be in pursuit of seeing and knowing the Lord, and it is the voice that cries in preparation for Him to make a highway in the wilderness on which the Lord Jesus Christ will blaze with His glory.
“The earth is violently broken, the earth is split open; the earth is shaken exceedingly.” Isaiah 24:17
The Earth is violently disturbed as the result of the egregious offenses measured against its Creator. God takes personal offense to the charges leveled against Him when His judgments are overturned by manmade decisions. Yes, we possess the ability to decide what we want for ourselves and arbitrarily arrive at what are seemingly practical conclusions. But the consequences far outweigh the temporary benefit derived by those who offend God. It begins with the kings of the earth, those chosen leaders that determine our future. Political decisions extend beyond the limits of mere politics, where the influence and power of a leader may sway popular opinion in a direction where vices appear to be virtues. This transformation first materializes under the category of toleration, moving from tolerance to a celebration of a new ideal. Ultimately, the celebration translates into some strange worship of an unknown deity that replaces the True and Living God. Should we be surprised when the Earth rebels in reaction to what takes place on its surface that defies its Creator?
Scripture supports the premise that just as the prophets and priests go, so follow the kings and princes. Compromise has stealthily crept in among those given the charge of bearing and maintaining the standard. If the world ever wonders what standard it ought to adapt, it should be able to look at the Church. Today, with the scandals surfacing among church leaders, the Lord is saying, that through these exposures, He will have a Church without spot, blemish, or wrinkle. He is making a contrast between what is and what ought to be within His sacred institutions. His purpose is to move what has become institutionalized into a Body where Christ is the Head. Only then will His Church be able to reflect the glory of Christ to the world.
His glory has been shrouded by the self-absorbed leaders that busy themselves in constructing their own names and reputations. The Tower of Babel must serve as the example of the celebrity(ism) that now pervades the people. God came down and confounded their abilities to communicate, where speaking with each other became a strange judgment of divine intervention. Since no one desired to talk to Him, eventually the people of Babel lost the ability to communicate with each other. The intelligent were reduced to barbarians, losing that which they became dependent on.
There will be casualties of war when men oppose God and defiantly oppose His standard. Many on the Earth will suffer as a result of the calamities brought about by our leaders as blind leaders lead the blind into ditches, pits, and perils beyond their imagination. However, only God can set the captive free and deliver the oppressed from their oppressors. Those who may have to sacrifice their lives for the sake of many would receive the greater gift from God. This chosen remnant would be blessed for not only counting their physical lives as nothing, but they would also await the resurrection while the ungodly perish. In these troubled times, we need the Resurrected Christ to arise among us in glory. Now more than ever, we need His truth to rise above the lies and half-truths proclaimed in our generation to set a new standard for those willing to submit to His authority.
“To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven” (Eccl 3:1) But have you considered the truth that there is a purpose within times and seasons? Every occurrence is purposeful and not accidental nor is it coincidental. The reason for the purpose of occurrences remains as the secret things of God. They are hidden in Jesus Christ and only those who are in pursuit of knowing Him will ever come to know the purpose for life and all that comprise of it. This may appear to be strange language to an individual who has never considered God as all knowing and all powerful. They are often too busy trying to discover the purpose for life in the things around them or the things that they are able to do. There remains a deep longing within the hearts of those who seek satisfaction through things and the pursuit of knowledge. They often will misinterpret the constant longing for more of the same until their pursuit and purpose becomes an endless circle. John on the Isle of Patmos received this revelation of Jesus Christ:
You are worthy, O Lord,
To receive glory and honor and power;
For You created all things,
And by Your will they exist and were created.” (Rev 4:11)
It took his being banished on to the isles of Patmos. It required the sacrifice of his freedom and the luxuries of life. It took the rejection of friends and family in order to bring him to a place of seeing Jesus as worthy to receive all honor and glory! Not only is He worthy to receive the honor and glory that is due His Name, but He is acknowledged as the Creator of all things. Not only is He the Creator of all things. They exist for a reason. All things exist by Your will and for Your glory! This is a highly significant truth that must be established within our hearts. All events lead to this conclusion. One may struggle with it, fight against it, or outright reject it; but the truth remains, none can ever come to know their purpose in life without the revelation that their purpose is hidden in Christ. Therefore, all things must be managed with the intent to glorify the Creator.
The earth rebels against misuse of resources. Hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, and all natural disasters have their origin in man’s rebellion against God. Sicknesses, diseases, and infirmities, pandemics, and epidemics, are the result of the same. It is not merely our personal struggle, but the climate or times and seasons are the result of decisions made on the part of people. The bible refers to Satan as being “the god of this age.” He rules over people in order for them to set trends and introduce waves of rebellion that defines our age. How can such things that are clearly condemned in the bible now be widely accepted even among many who say that they are Christians? It is because they slowly evolved into a mindset that contradicts God’s Word. Even though all will experience the effects of this present age, God will save those who understand that all thing exist and were created by and for God’s will. My prayer is for those who represent God’s standard to return to the authentic. Do not allow the demands of worldliness to force you into a compromise. Too much is at stake for this.