Wading through life

Lest a reader get the wrong idea and put words in my mouth, I want to preface this all with the fact that my heart is heavy from the pain and suffering the people of Haiti are going through. It is unimaginable. In writing this, I hope I don’t come across trite in any way. I was simply stirred by the Christian backlash against what I thought was a Godly perspective on the situation and I felt challenged in my spirit to not cower from fear of what people may think from me speaking my mind on the matter. May God’s peace that passes all understanding mark the people of Haiti as they walk this road of recovery.

700 miles east of Miami, hundreds of thousands of desperate human beings need our help, our support, our money and our love. And they don’t need… that.

Shepherd Smith, Fox News

Shepherd Smith’s somber reaction to Pat Robertson’s most recent media-stirring news commentary is receiving stellar reviews on YouTube. Five stars and hundreds of comments that can be summarized as “Well spoken, Shep.” Compare that to Robertson’s clips that have few stars and thousands of comments that can be summarized as “Go to hell, you sick, vile person” or “As a Christian, I’m repulsed by you. You don’t represent me.”

He is a top-trending topic on Twitter right now, which is how I found out about his supposed gaffe. When I first saw “Pat Robertson” among the Twitter elite, I thought “Oh no! What did you say now, Pat,” knowing his history of putting his foot in his mouth. Based upon people’s critique of Robertson on Twitter – believer and non-believer alike – you’d think he had cursed and slandered Haitian’s to eternal damnation and wrapped things up with a “Good riddance!” But that is not at all what he said. He said this:

And you know Christy, something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French—you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said “We will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French.” True story. And so the devil said “OK, it’s a deal.” And they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since, they’ve been cursed by one thing after the other; desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It’s cut down the middle. On one side is Haiti, on the other side is the Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. They need to have and we need to pray for a great turning to God. And out of this tragedy, I’m optimistic something good may come.

Shep, and thousands of others across the world, professing Christians included, apparently feel his words were a little harsh, that his perspective is off, that he’s the one who’s aligned with Satan if he would suggest that a poor, struggling nation and its people had-it-comin’ for aligning themselves with the devil.

Well, I’m here to say, like it or not, that I’m siding with Pat on this one.

Was Robertson being cold and shrewd with his statement? I don’t know, maybe. But I don’t really think so. He wrapped up his recounting of Haiti’s pact with the devil and the distressed state of the republic with the most truly compassionate statement a person can make: “We need to pray that they have a great turning to God.” Because that’s what will really make a difference in this situation.

Shephard Smith, along with the rest of the world and a majority of “Christians,” feel that all a country needs in a crisis like this is exactly what Smith said: help, support, money and love. But is that the case? What does the Bible say is good medicine for a national crisis?

“Now, therefore,” says the LORD,
“Turn to Me with all your heart,
With fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.”
So rend your heart, and not your garments;
Return to the LORD your God,
For He is gracious and merciful,
Slow to anger, and of great kindness;
And He relents from doing harm.
Who knows if He will turn and relent,
And leave a blessing behind Him—
A grain offering and a drink offering
For the LORD your God?
Blow the trumpet in Zion,
Consecrate a fast,
Call a sacred assembly;
Gather the people,
Sanctify the congregation,
Assemble the elders,
Gather the children and nursing babes;
Let the bridegroom go out from his chamber,
And the bride from her dressing room.

Joel 2:12-16

We see the same response from both Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 20) and Ezra (Ezra 8) in their crises, too: They directed their people to seek the Lord. He’s the answer; He always is. He has a solution; He always does. Help, support, money and love from your neighbors helps and it helps a lot. And Robertson’s ministry is in fact providing lots of these forms of assistance. CBN’s Web site says that they “have sent a shipment of millions of dollars worth of medications that is now in Haiti, and their disaster team leaders are expected to arrive tomorrow and begin operations to ease the suffering.”

But those efforts aren’t enough. They don’t come close to matching the supernatural intervention of the Most High. Tons of relief went to Haiti in 2008 when the hurricanes bashed it. But poverty and sickness still reigned there when humanitarian efforts waned. Because, as Roberston pointed out, Haiti’s problem is spiritual at its root. All human problems are. Humanitarian relief isn’t an improper solution, it’s simply inadequate. I did Katrina relief work in Mississippi and could see how good, but inadequate, all the relief efforts truly were. In moments of crisis, we need Jesus and we need Jesus bad. Heck, we always need Jesus bad. He’s the only one who can provide lasting change.

During situations like this, Christians often, and rightly so, quote Isaiah 58:7, where God prescribes how we are to care for the oppressed in times of need:

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
And that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out;
When you see the naked, that you cover him,
And not hide yourself from your own flesh?

But those same Christians often overlook or lack full understanding of Isaiah 58:6:

Is this not the fast that I have chosen:
To loose the bonds of wickedness,
To undo the heavy burdens,
To let the oppressed go free,
And that you break every yoke?

I think there’s a reason verse 6 precedes verse 7: God knows that without breaking the yoke of the spiritual oppression upon a people, sharing food, shelter and clothes with them will have no lasting effect. It will be a treatment of symptoms rather than a cure for the sickness.

True love and true compassion is to point out someone’s sickness because identifying the problem is the key to establishing the solution. If you had a friend who had a constant, day-in, day-out runny nose decade after decade, would you simply keep handing him or her Kleenex? Wouldn’t you, even at the risk of offense, offer to pray they be healed? Or at least suggest they see a doctor? If not, I question how much of a friend you are. And in this case, I feel Robertson was being that friend. Some might question the appropriateness of his timing, but he was helping Christians quickly pray insightful and directed prayers for Haiti.

Haiti’s “Pact With the Devil”

Before today, I knew nothing about the history of Haiti. And I still know very little. But in doing some research on the “pact with the devil” the enslaved made in order to get free, I was able to start understanding the gravity of the pact Robertson cited. A criticism of Robertson’s position provided this recounting of the ceremony:

In 1791 Boukman Dutty, a Vodou priest and one of the leaders of the first wave of slave uprisings in the North of Haiti, led a ceremony in the now-famous Bois-Caïman that launched the revolution and inspired slave revolutionaries to begin destroying plantations. The ceremony allegedly involved the sacrifice of a pig and use of pig blood and a sermon that invoked the good god of African religion to give the slaves liberty and condemned the evil [Christian] God of the white slave-owners.

The original source for that account provided even more information. To quote the research paper:

Thus we can see in the muddled origins of this myth, and in the language of the poem itself, how the Haitian revolution began under the sign of possession. The prayer begins by invoking a familiar god of creation… The last line launches the revolution by giving voice to this god… Finally, [that] god speaks through their hearts, possessing them and using their bodies as instruments of his wrath, speaking what amounts to a supernatural liberty. He has ordered the slaves to take revenge … and he will also control their actions as they destroy the slave economy that has so oppressed them…  This god will speak “liberty” by possessing the revolutionaries’ bodies. They will be free in as much as they offer themselves to his possessing presence.

This, my friends, is no trivial matter. It was indeed a pact with the devil, for by inviting and yielding to possession by any spirit other than Holy Spirit, the slaves were asking to be demon possessed and become the devil’s minions. They were aligning themselves with real, substantial powers: Satan and the kingdom of darkness. Satan’s mission is to steal, kill and destroy humans. Any deal made with him is in fact no deal at all, but simply a means by which he can carry out his mission among that group of people much easier. If this pact has never been renounced and repented of – by leaders of the country or by people on their behalf – then by all means this pact is still in effect and still wreaking havoc. The only hope is to have intercessors standing in the gap keeping the curse at bay until it is broken.

What I feel amplifies this pact’s ability to spawn such devastation is that it was foundational in the nation’s birth. Foundational principles matter a whole lot. Both blessings and curses are passed on from generation to generation. That’s how God set it up. So something being birthed out of a work of darkness is really troubling. Think of all the compounding interest the curse has piled up over the years. Surely righteous ones have emerged that the Lord has set free who’ve stopped the curse from passing through their blood line. But most people don’t understand the power both holy and unholy roots hold over nations, states, cities and families. So I can see how this pact could still be holding many innocent people’s lives under the devastating burden of the curse. It makes me sick. The devil is putrid and vile.

Massive Offense

There’s a lot more I could say and will say in the coming days, including a look at how people who don’t claim Jesus as Lord and Savior are cursed. But I want to wrap up with what stirred me to write this in the first place: How troubling it is to me that so many of those who say they love Jesus and say they love His word have taken such offense with what Pat Robertson said. Maybe they just watched the Shepherd Smith clip, which conveniently cut off the end of Robertson’s statement when he said “They need to have and we need to pray for a great turning to God. And out of this tragedy, I’m optimistic something good may come.” But I don’t think that explains the majority of reactions. I think it comes down to believers not fully knowing the Jesus they claim to love.

For if they understood that Jesus told a son to follow Him rather than bury his father, they’d know that Jesus was sometimes seemingly cold and harsh when pointing out what’s most important. If they understood that Jesus called Peter “Satan” when trying to look out for what he thought was Jesus’ best interest, they wouldn’t be all up-in-arms with Robertson pointing out that a group of people had made a pact with the devil. If they knew that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms, they’d understand that Robertson isn’t off his rocker in asserting that Haiti’s problem is spiritual manifesting in the natural. If they knew that Jesus was returning to the earth as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah to kill the kings of the earth as part of establishing his government, they wouldn’t have a distorted view of what a loving God will or will not do.

The book of Revelation explains in great detail the massive devastation upon planet earth that God is going to oversee in the last days. Some events are going to happen at the hands of the devil and his kingdom of darkness; others are going to be judgments sent from God himself. There is going to be horrific pain and anguish among the billions of people of the world. Most are going to take great offense at what is happening and say, “How could a loving God allow such things to happen?” And if you’re alive during those days, as a Christ-follower, you’re going to need a real revelation of Jesus Christ, lest you disown Him like most have Pat Robertson. And don’t think it’s beyond any of us, because Peter thought the very same thing and wound up denying Christ three times. Sadly, the stakes are going to be much higher in the last days; if you deny Christ then and take the mark, there’s no going back.

Discipleship Needed

Having a heart that won’t be offended by Jesus when the end draws nearer doesn’t just magically happen at His second-coming. If you’re offended by a sliver of truth now, your head’s going to pop off when real Truth comes. That’s what happened with the Pharisees and they ended up killing Jesus at his first coming. Believe me when I say a slew of “Christians” are going to be among the masses that align themselves with the Antichrist and plot to kill Him a second time.

The going doesn’t get easier for Christians as the return of Christ draws near; it gets more demanding. Thankfully, God is sending increasing amounts of grace to enable us to prosper in this increasingly caustic environment. Now is the time to start preparing your heart for what lies ahead by pushing into the scriptures, allowing them to pierce, cut and divide you and expose areas of wickedness that are still within your heart. There’s so much grace for it now! God is calling His church to prepare, prepare, prepare for the wedding! The bridegroom is coming and we need to be ready! Don’t be found with a dry lamp when Christ is about to return. Cultivate the oil of intimacy now, lest you be offended with Him later.

In Luke 7:23, Jesus says “Blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.” And he said this after telling of the very wonderful things He had done: “the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them.” How much more will Christians be prone to offense when the not-so-wonderful works of His hands start happening?

Trust me, I’m so, so, so still growing in my revelation of Jesus. I preached on it this summer. I’m in the same grace-built boat of preparation that you’re all in. I encourage you to keep riding with me even when the storms rage greater.

May both God’s and man’s mercy flow like a river through the devastated streets of Haiti and bring healing, restoration and revival to the land.

Jaeson Ma offers this interesting note concerning the name “Emma” and it’s current standing as the most popular name for female newborns. He says:

Two years ago I wrote a series of blog posts about baby “Emma.” The name comes from the Latin name “Emmanuela” which comes from “Emmanuel” or “God with us.” The Spirit of the Lord showed me this generation would have prophetic connection with this name. Mainly, that God’s presence, the revelation of God as Loving Father and Passionate Bridegroom, would be revealed to this chosen generation.

Curious what the most popular male name currently is? Jacob. It has been for the past 10 years. 

A verse containing the name “Jacob” has always caused me to pause with curiosity about its exact meaning. Psalm 24:3-6:

Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD?
Or who may stand in His holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol,
Nor sworn deceitfully.
He shall receive blessing from the LORD,
And righteousness from the God of his salvation.
This is Jacob, the generation of those who seek Him,
Who seek Your face.  Selah

I still don’t pretend to know exactly what David is getting at in this passage, but there’s a parallel he’s drawing between the patriarch Jacob (whose name means “Supplanter” and might be most famous for wrestling with God) and those who seek God’s face. Maybe its Jacob’s rawness and willingness to get dirty with the Lord that actually made him a great God-chaser.

Regardless, what the passage states is that those who seek God’s face in the spirit of Jacob are among those who “may ascend the hill of the LORD, stand in His holy place, have clean hands and pure hearts, and don’t practice idolatry.”

What’s exiting is the thought of bringing together the Emma and Jacob generations; we now have “God With Us” and “Those Who Seek Him”.

Our world desperately needs the Emma and Jacob generations to arise and take their rightful places. And these two generations desperately need our generation to take our rightful places as spiritual fathers and mothers, offering them a sky-scraping floor—our ceiling—as their starting point in pursuing God.

I didn’t watch today’s inauguration of President Obama, but I was praying for him and our nation during it. And I started going a direction I wasn’t expecting, so I thought I’d share my impression.

I felt God said: “Have faith in what I’m doing.” Okay. Well, that’s generic enough. Of course we should have faith in what God is doing. Though, it can be a little challenging to completely trust President Obama to make headway on things like abortion and the protection of the institution of marriage. But anyway, as I started praying some more, I found myself praying not so much that President Obama would walk out the tenants of the Lord, receive God’s wisdom, etc. I was praying that individual men and women across the country would rise up with new zeal and commitment to the purposes for which God created them. That we as individuals would occupy those personal “oval office” spheres of influence for which we were created to rule over and reign within. I feel like this new term is much more about the people of the United States of American than it is about the President of the United States of America.

During the campaigns, when things had clearly started shifting the direction of Obama, I remember thinking: I can see how God might want it to turn out this way (with Obama winning). Without going into whether it was God’s perfect will vs. God’s permissible will, or whether it wasn’t His will at all but is something He’ll leverage to bring about His will, I’ll share a bit of what I mean by “God might want it to turn out this way.”

In a lot of ways, if not most ways, the American church is asleep. Many individuals and local congregations are unaware of how dire the times truly are and are not accepting their God-mandated roles as agents of change and influence. (I include myself in this statement; I know I need to have my eyes opened up much more.) As much of a blessing it has been having a president in GW who stood for traditional family values and made progress in protecting the unborn, I feel like having a “Christian” president also gave many permission to become lax in their prayers for America, trusting that our Christian president would take care of protecting our values and ensuring the moral integrity of our country. I have no quantitative research, or even qualitative for that matter, to support this theory of mine. It’s just a sense I felt back when I was praying about the election.

All that being said, now that we are officially under the leadership of the candidate many Christians did not want to see take office, we no longer can continue in our slumber. It is time to wake up. Actually, it is way past wake-up time. We’re already late for workand we haven’t even showered yet. And that is why I said “God might want it to turn out this way” — because He’d rather see a prophetic, praying church of millions rise up and assume their identity in Christ rather than pinning their hopes on a single man or woman, even if he or she is the most powerful person on the planet.

Obviously, leadership is hugely important. I understand this and will be praying for President Obama and the rest of our leaders with huge respect for the weighty mantle of responsibility they have willfully pursued and accepted. But, individuals are hugely important as well. Probably more important, actually. The Power of One Christ-like Life, as Francis Frangipane refers to it, cannot be denied.

And so, in addition to prayers for President Obama, Vice President Biden, the cabinet and our elected officials, I’m going to be petitioning heaven to invade the hearts of men and women, adults and children, with a lovesickness for Jesus and a grace to rise up in new glory for such a time as this. Let us be the very change this country is looking for.

Even amidst perilous times, when things seems so uncertain, we can surely still be certain of much. Because all the promises of God are still “Yes” and “Amen” in Christ Jesus (2 Cor. 1:20). Maybe our economy has changed, but God and His Eternal Word have not.

In Luke 6:47-49, Jesus says:

Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like:  He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great.

Jesus is saying we have a choice to make: We can hear His words and apply them to our lives, ensuring that when floods arise we remain unshaken, or we can hear His words and ignore them and ensure that our ruin is great. There are many, many that have seen great ruin these past several months as the markets have plummeted, jobs have been slashed and credit has dried up. One German billionaire committed suicide because his business ran into severe trouble.

Were are flooded by the media with so many reasons to worry, fear and be anxious — all of which Jesus exhorts us not to do because they are anti-faith (and when we do what he tells us not to, it’s sin). To combat the negative influence, we must all the more so look to Him Who Defines Reality. We must gorge ourselves on The Word and His presence.

As a starting point, check out this good word from Dennis Cramer and stand upon these truths as we venture further into these shaky times:

The word of the Lord for 2009 is “STILL.” That’s all – just the word “STILL.” However, as you will read, it’s a very, very powerful word. It is a “now” word that will empower you throughout 2009 and beyond!

I personally guarantee each and every one of these “predictions” for 2009! I predict that:

1. The Bible will STILL be the eternal Word of God – forever settled in Heaven!
2. Prayer will STILL always work!
3. The Father will STILL be sitting confidently on His indomitable throne!
4. Jesus will STILL be the Way, the Truth, and the Life – the only means by which you may access the Father!
5. The Holy Spirit will STILL be our Comforter – comforting you from the inside, out!
6. The Church will STILL be “the pillar and ground of the truth” manifesting the wisdom of God!
7. Healing (for spirit, soul, and body) will STILL be in His wings!
8. The Gospel will STILL be the answer – whatever the question!
9. His grace will STILL be all-sufficient and our strength, whatever the task!
10. The gifts of the Spirit will STILL change lives – instantly, radically, and permanently!
11. You will STILL be God’s most prized possession – His cherished son or daughter!
12. Heaven will STILL be wonderful, hell will STILL be horrible!
13. “By faith” will STILL be the only way for you to live.
14. You will STILL be “more than a conqueror in Christ” – victory is imminent!
15. Sowing will STILL result in reaping! So keep sowing!
16. God will STILL “always cause you to triumph in Christ!”
17. The love of God will STILL be in your heart – and nothing can separate you from it!
18. “All things will STILL work together for your good” – as you do His will!
19. You will STILL “be the head and not the tail” – blessed when you go out, blessed when you come in!
20. The devil will still, still, STILL, be a big-time loser!

Just thought I’d do you all a favor and help expand your vocabulary. The word of the day, according to Addison Armstrong, director of market research for Tradition Energy in Stamford, Connecticut, is “contango.”

And this is what the brains behind its Wikipedia entry say it is: “A term used in the futures market to describe an upward sloping forward curve (as in the normal yield curve). Such a forward curve is said to be ‘in contango’ (or sometimes ‘contangoed’).” A market in contango encourages companies to increase stockpiles.

Apparently, oil futures were in contango today because price for January delivery was $33.17 a barrel while the price for February delivery was $42.36 a barrel. If you have room to store a bunch of excess oil, you could make easy money by buying for January delivery and then re-selling it later at the higher February price point. But I guess the problem is that, due to decreased consumption, people are running out of places to store the stuff.

All this is meaningless to you and me. So, I’ll leave you with the word for the opposite of contango, which is “backwardation,” and now I’ll stop.