“If only I could build an exit ramp. Something that would allow me to escape the rules and the never-ending expectations. Why doesn’t he realize that I’m just not cut out for this kind of life? That he and I would both be happier if I were on my own?”
Sound familiar? It should. Thoughts like that are repeated daily, as people try to define freedom in their own terms.
We all long for authentic freedom – the power to make choices yourself, and joyfully live with the consequences. The good news of our relationship with Christ is that He came to set captives free! Unfortunately, many believers fail to experience that freedom because they pursue a counterfeit form of it in one of two directions.
In one of the most often-repeated stories in the Bible, Jesus reveals God’s heart toward His children. It’s the story of a father with two sons – an older one who served faithfully for many years, and a younger son who longed to be “funky and free.” Each son pursued and believed in his passion. Neither understood the life of joy and abundance their father wanted to give them because each pursued passion in his own terms. One sought it through pleasure, the other through outward performance. To the younger son, freedom meant license to do what he pleased. To the older brother, freedom meant legalistic obedience to the rules.
At any given time, you, too, can be a Prodigal or a Pharisee. All it takes is a desire to find freedom apart from an intimate love relationship with God. [click to continue…]
This is about asking yourself a simple, but profound question about choices and consequences and serving. Choose well, you’ll live well. Choose poorly, and you will serve the consequences of those choices.
Moses understood that. Just before his death, he called an assembly of Israelis and reframed all the things that God had taught him. We call it, “Deuteronomy.” Here’s what Moses had to say as he was wrapping things up:
This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land (Deuteronomy 30:19-20, NIV).
There’s one example of the diagnostic question: Am I choosing life or death? It’s a powerful question about the path we are on. A friend of mine has started using this to frame his everyday decisions – what he eats, his business decisions, his family relationships.
April-something 2002. It was one of the most surreal, prophetic dreams I’ve ever had. I dreamed I was in prison. Not sure what the crime was; I just remember being in a cell there. The only thing remarkable about that was that instead of the typical concrete and steel, this cell had a nice waxed tile floor and bright lights.
For some reason, they let me out on a weekend pass, but eventually I had to go back. I remember dreading the return, and trying to avoid it. But I did wind up back in my tile‑floored cell. There in the cell, alone, my thoughts turned to Watchman Nee, the Chinese pastor/teacher who was imprisoned by the communist regime for his faith. All those years he spent in prison. How did he do it? How could he experience God’s presence there in the prison?
It was then I actually saw him. In my dream I saw Watchman Nee, prostrate on the floor of his prison cell. As I watched, he was transformed before my eyes into a puppy – a black Labrador Retriever puppy. Then he changed into a silver chalice. Taller, thinner. Rising up. From that he changed into a giraffe. He had risen above his prison cell and was feeding in the tops of the trees.
Four Images of Transformation
Just like that, the dream was over. I was left with four crystal-clear images – a prostrate man, a black lab puppy, a silver chalice, and a giraffe. A transformation from prison to freedom, though the outward circumstances never changed. A deliberately-staged process, flowing from the floor to the heavens. What did it mean? [click to continue…]
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; (Isaiah 61:1, ESV)
There’s something you should know, though I’m not very proud to say it.
I’m an ex-con.
Ex-convict? No.
Ex-condemned? You betcha.
Ex-consequences? Uh huh.
Ex-con man? ‘Fraid so.
I lived on the wrong side of a legal system for a long time, and wound up in prison. But don’t go looking for my name in some Federal or state criminal records. I haven’t messed with Texas that much. [click to continue…]
I don’t have to win.
I don’t have to lead.
I don’t have to debt.
I don’t have to worry.
I don’t have to be first. I don’t have to survive. I don’t have to give up.
I don’t have to overeat.
I don’t have to be right.
I don’t have to succeed.
I don’t have to be afraid.
I don’t have to get angry.
I don’t have to be served.
I don’t have to look good.
I don’t have to be noticed.
I don’t have to cradle pain.
I don’t have to have things.
I don’t have to be offended. [click to continue…]
This site is nearly a year old, and I have never written a post I am more serious or urgent about.
There are times when our spirits and/or minds are unusually drawn in certain directions. Ideas and concepts leap off the pages of the Bible. Words or names get planted in our consciousness and never seem to go away. These times, I believe, are no coincidence. They are times in which the Holy Spirit is bringing grounded biblical truth to bear on current experience.
Simply put, He’s speaking.
I don’t have experiences like this tremendously often, which makes the times I do have them all the more compelling. What I am about to share grew out of such a time.
As I mentioned earlier , I believe we are entering a season that for many people will be a season of restoration and change worldwide.
We are also living in tense, fearful days. I called a banker friend yesterday and asked him, in the words of an old Randy Stonehill song, if we should go back to trading seashells and just admit we’re broke. (He was encouraging. But then, he’s a banker.)
I also spoke about this Sunday (Listen Here) that these are days in which anything that can be shaken will be. God is shaking the wealth of the nations. People are afraid.
How do we stand strong when we’re living somewhere between the faith and the fear? How can we be in a place where we see the joy beyond what we endure? How can we allow the Holy Spirit to shake the barnacles off of us and prepare us for a “latter glory” that will come? How can we be lights in a world of confusion and darkness?
Sparing you the details of how I got there, there are seven things we must do, and do quickly: [click to continue…]
So how’d the reaping go yesterday? How many times did you find yourself “serving” or servicing a decision you had made days, weeks or months earlier? OR, how many times did you find yourself being served by the good consequences of a decision?
I just got an email about yet another family that has been ripped apart because of a series of addictive choices by a husband/father. That makes five I’ve dealt with the last couple of weeks. The hopeful news is, this man’s past does not dictate his future. But it certainly has determined his present.
Meanwhile, in “Finantasy Land,” you don’t hear much talk about financial freedom these days. Other than economic politics, about the only thing you hear is, “Hey, good news! They’re having a sale at the gas station. Unleaded is down to $3.56 a gallon!” But I digress….
Wouldn’t it be good to know that you could simply, decisively establish a course that will add value to your future, either here, there, or in the air? What if there was a way to cut through the clutter and confusion, the knee-jerk pleasure seeking and sidewalk philosophy, and find a True North – a pathway that actually leads to a future of freedom?
“If only I could build an exit ramp. Something that would allow me to escape the rules and the never-ending expectations. Why doesn’t he realize that I’m just not cut out for this kind of life? That he and I would both be happier if I were on my own?” 
April-something 2002. It was one of the most surreal, prophetic dreams I’ve ever had. I dreamed I was in prison. Not sure what the crime was; I just remember being in a cell there. The only thing remarkable about that was that instead of the typical concrete and steel, this cell had a nice waxed tile floor and bright lights. 
Dear Foggy Little Brain,
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
