CALLED TO DO THE IMPOSSIBLE

Then Moses said, "What if they will not believe me or listen to what I say? For they may say, 'The LORD has not appeared to you.'" The LORD said to him, "What is that in your hand?" And he said, "A staff." Then He said, "Throw it on the ground." So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it. But the LORD said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand and grasp it by its tail"--so he stretched out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand-- "that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you." The LORD furthermore said to him, "Now put your hand into your bosom." So he put his hand into his bosom, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous like snow. Then He said, "Put your hand into your bosom again." So he put his hand into his bosom again, and when he took it out of his bosom, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh. "If they will not believe you or heed the witness of the first sign, they may believe the witness of the last sign. "But if they will not believe even these two signs or heed what you say, then you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground; and the water which you take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground." Then Moses said to the LORD, "Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since You have spoken to Your servant; for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue." The LORD said to him, "Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes him mute or deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? "Now then go, and I, even I, will be with your mouth, and teach you what you are to say." But he said, "Please, Lord, now send the message by whomever You will." Then the anger of the LORD burned against Moses, and He said, "Is there not your brother Aaron the Levite? I know that he speaks fluently. And moreover, behold, he is coming out to meet you; when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. "You are to speak to him and put the words in his mouth; and I, even I, will be with your mouth and his mouth, and I will teach you what you are to do. "Moreover, he shall speak for you to the people; and he will be as a mouth for you and you will be as God to him. "You shall take in your hand this staff, with which you shall perform the signs."
(Exodus 4:1-17)


Moses had faith or grew in belief because He had an encounter with God that was life changing. Do we want to take the time for a life changing encounter with God or do we want to go out and make a difference in the world? Fulfilling our purpose and making a Godly impact in the world is a good thing. It just cannot be done in the flesh, by human genius or by sheer determination. We must “work while it is day” but often the work we are seeking to accomplish is our agenda and not the Lord’s. We are trying to perform the impossible with our skills and ability. We need God’s supernatural help or it is impossible for us to do what He is calling us to do.

Does this mean that we all should wait until something on the same scale as Moses takes place? No – we should wait until our call is matured into a commissioning or sending. Like Moses the world is full of people who feel a call in their heart and then they try to fulfill that calling. Like Moses this tends to result in our “killing people”. Moses felt the call to be a deliverer and deal with the injustice of his people. Yet Moses was not ready to do the impossible – but that day would come. Many passionate believers have been released into the public work of the ministry based on passion and not maturity, need and not inner conformity to Christ. The result is usually wounding and insecurity covered by the projections of “I am called by God”, “I am working hard, very hard” and “things would go better for me except for _______________”. Maturity is taking all the bad things on yourself and making life better for others. Moses became like this, like the Christ who was to come.

A prayer room can be a real blessing in your life as it provides a place to come and seek the Lord. Every believer should have a place of prayer so that they commune with God and in relationship pray.

A pitfall of the prayer room is when it becomes a hiding place and not a resting place. If people come to the prayer room to avoid obeying the Lord, then the very thing meant to be a blessing is a cure to them. This is not just a pitfall of the prayer room but of all the “places” we have in Christ. The worker who avoids prayer by work and the prayer who avoids work by prayer are both missing the will of God for their lives. In the same way the leader who uses the call of leadership to neglect humble service to others and the one who hides in acts of humble service to avoid the pressure and burden of leadership are again missing the will of God. All this is illustrated here in this passage about Moses.

Come to the place of prayer to enter into a relationship with God that compels you to live the life He has for you. Come to Christ Jesus to know and do His will. Come to be reassured, revived and renewed in your mind, heart and soul. Come to the Lord as you eat, walk, work and go through life’s daily grind.

So how often should a person enter the place of prayer? Do we receive from the Lord a onetime encounter and then use that single encounter as the source of our encouragement for the rest of our lives? Yes –and no!

We should do a much better job than we do or remembering all the words the Lord has spoken to us, both through His Scripture and through promptings. Most of us tend to need a new word from the Lord because the last word was not hidden in our heart. We tend to love the encouragement of a fresh word more than the obedience that word was to produce. It is a desire for a “new seed” to be planted rather than for the “old seed” to grow into maturity. But this desire is normal. Tending a garden is hard work with daily duties.

While we tend to make lists and have written goals and plans for things we seek to accomplish, turning your relationship with God into a list of “to do’s “ is not a good idea. While your mate may enjoy the diligence of your actions of love from a “to do” list, at some time they want a personal relationship more than a “this is what I do for you” list. God is the same way. Don’t try to replace a relationship with a plan. Instead let the plan keep flowing from the relationship.

The fruit of this relation to action living is ever increasing faith. Since without faith it is impossible to please God, having faith is a nice thing. You will increase your truth, believing, faith; as you live a life out of common union with God. You will see supernatural things happen in your life as a result of God intervention.

Just recently I planned a “wilderness retreat”. I felt this was in God’s heart to offer this event to people. At that time we had no money in any of our accounts. I wrote a 30 page manual and then rewrote it into a 43 page booklet. In other words I invested time into this time, yet I wondered how in the world where we going to pay for food, gas and camping. My mortgage was due and there was no money. If money came in should I take that for the event or provide for my family. I set the price for the event as low as possible so that people could freely come. Now I was dealing with the issue of even affording the printing of the booklet I labored to write. My wife criticized me for not increasing the price enough to cover some of the unseen cost. These cost were coming out of the family money, which was almost zero at the time. They she would feel compelled to help, give or go and cause an even greater demand for resources that were not there.

Now during this time prior to the event some situations arose that required common daily faith. We had about a quarter tank of gas in each vehicle. Then we found ourselves in a situation where people needed rides, helping others out required extra trips, running errands for the event and family needs seemed to expand. Even as we responded to these needs God sent someone to give us gas. Each day there was enough. Over and over again God gave us the very thing we needed for that day. It was never so much that we could bank it, but God was again showing us that He is faithful and that we could bank on Him.

Over and over again in planning for this time and during this time God prompted us to do something and when we did, things worked out. Promptings to buy extra food, bring a certain camping item, leave behind a normally essential item all fell into place for a blessing in the daily flow of life.

As we gave God kept giving to us. Money came in from friends. People who know us but have never sent us money gave us gifts, others who do support us did so again. It is a mini example of God confirming His will for our lives, not with a rod and leprosy, but with gas, food and fun (if you call the wilderness adventure fun).
And so here I am again, starting a new week. Just like you I desire that my life this week makes a difference. Last week and those Godly interventions are gone. They increased my faith so that I can trust and serve Him this week. I grew in walking by faith and thus in pleasing the Lord. Just like you, I take my situation, my life and connect it to the Father. We together cry out for His supply and direction so that our lives perfectly reflect His will. Let’s take all that the Lord has done for us, hold it in our hands and never doubt. Desiring to grow in wisdom and revelation, we grow in obedience and love. God has called us to live the impossible, so we might as well get on with it.

Bread of heaven

In this life daily bread plays a great role. At the temptation of Jesus, it was one thing that the Christ could do which would bring a great many followers to Him. These followers He could have; simply by feeding them what they need each day. Yet this very thing was a temptation to be defeated.

Come to me and I will give you life.

God gave gifts, just like He gave His son, to the people of the earth. What have we done with the making of bead of heaven? Have we equipped, encouraged and discipled the people into freedom? Have we become the Masters of this world by being the source of bread, the bread of heaven? Who among us is free to eat at the Lord ’s Table without the permission and approval of the ruling spirits?

Rejection, will all it’s fears and realities is the cost we must pay to set others free. Rejection of our teaching, our understanding, our revelation, and our gifts are but the first fruits of whole hearted devotion. Is this not the very way of the Great Master? Are we not called to be made in His image, to follow His example in all we do? Should we who are His fellow servants of the bread of heaven use what was freely given to us as a tool for self-rule and control?

The simple act of keeping people coming to us for bread is the manifestation of failing to defeat Satan in the wilderness. This we should have done long before entering the ministry. But if not then, why not now! We too must not think this temptation is only for leaders in high places. To all who serve the Lord, from the small group leader to the mega-church director, the testing comes. Yet the foundation for gathering together is now the bread of life. We motivate people to come based on our ability to teach them, feed them, shepherd them, oversee them. And what does their Master in heaven do?

What I have shared above is a rewording of what was written in the early 1800. I will be glad to share the resources with you. But you’re going to need to feed yourself!

Take your place or be given one

Deuteronomy 31:14 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Behold, the time for you to die is near; call Joshua, and present yourselves at the tent of meeting, that I may commission him." So Moses and Joshua went and presented themselves at the tent of meeting.

If you feel the Lord calling you to a job or place of service you might feel tempted to go and prepare yourself. That would be good. But what if you started down a part of seeking the way to “get ahead”? In almost every field you can find help with the process of getting ahead, but ahead of what?
What you usually want to get ahead of is others. I was told over and over again in training for ministry that “unless you’re the lead dog, the scene never changes”. This became to me a graphic image of how far we have diverted from being a “body” and how much ministry is not a race for the lead. But you can also go into a time of redneck contemplation and consider the truthfulness of this statement. Here are some thoughts to consider.
• Is there only someone ahead of me isn’t there someone beside me?
• Is life only a race, what about the scenery, the views of daily life?
• Even if you are the last dog, is life all pulling? What about all the other things we do beside work?
• Do people born in North Korea, India and other places spend their life trying to figure out how to get to America so things can be easier, less confining and with less social restraints?
• Why would we bring one man’s motto into the realm of God? Why not learn from God what life should be like?

In the above passage Joshua is like David, years later. They both were chosen and called before the time for them to take their place. The time or ceremony of setting in place can be called a commissioning. It was the Lord’s good please for them to “be the guy” while living under the guy there were going to replace. Joshua was about to become the leader of the nation of Israel. He was about to be given the Law to live out and the Promise Land to conquer. Generations would be effected by his life.

Do you want to do something great with your life? Do you want to be important, to make an impact? Do you feel like you are in computation with others? Do you feel like other people are the ones that can make or break your life? If you are living under and in the world system, then that is the way it is. But in the Kingdom of God, the rules are different. So different that the world cannot understand how the last dog in the pack, the one overlooked and despised, the one serving and helping all the others – is the lead dog.

Matthew 20:26-28
"It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you (lead dog) shall be your servant (involuntary helpers or all others), and whoever wishes to be first(the best) among you shall be your slave(involuntary servant); just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."

Let Us make man in Our image

Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." (27) God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Genesis 1:26-27

It was agreed in heaven that we would be created in the image and likeness of God. It was heavens plan that we would be a people of God, men and women of God. Yet living our lives on the earth with this identity is one of the hardest things we do. There is barely a moment when we are not being tried to leave behind our identity and be conformed to the identity of this world.

God is content within Himself. One way we live out our identity in God is this contentment too. It is enough to be like Him and all the things we do, all the striving to be something, is the influence of the world seeking to remake us into another image. Even the most devout believer is hourly tempted to add to their identity the ways of the world. If you are in business, you face the pressure to add to your calling the acceptance and ways of the world. You will be pressured to conform to what the world thinks a business person ought to be and to deny the simple devotion of first being a believer and having all things follow that. So too the Mom will not be left alone to be a loving Mother but pressured to live up to the worlds standard of mothering. She will be tempted to go beyond devotion to Christ and perform in such a way that the never satisfied world will be happy with her.

So what specifically may the world be seeking to remove us from? What is the spirit of this age and the rulers of this world seeking to break off of our lives? One thing is fellowship and communion with God. God said, “Let us”. In His nature God is communion and fellowship. Humanity was created like no other creature, with heightened capacity to have fellowship and communion. We not only gather in herds (cities and towns) but we build family units of love, protection, devotion, support and training.

The anti-Christ spirit wants you to build your life on the identity of being alone. It desires that you feel you must be independent, self- sufficient and thus, disconnected from the Creator. God on the other hand, desires that you and I live in the reality He made for us, the reality of unbroken fellowship. At any moment in time we have access to God. God is always with us. We are made to live our entire lives in fellowship, community and felt companionship. Even when God hides himself from us, it is for deeper and more intimate communion.

Have you ever been tempted to quit the faith because you did not feel like God is real, you wondered if He was there? Maybe you judged what God was doing by a lack of His felt presence. Somewhere deep within us we are aware of this reality of “if God is real we should feel Him, encounter Him”. This is one of the battle grounds. The whole fallen world is against you. The whole system of fallen humanity desires that you do not live in community with God.

To take a step toward fellowship with God turn away from the images of this world. Turn away from striving to earn or receive status and value from the people of this world. Embrace the realty of your createdness, the reality that you were made for fellowship with God. You can live each moment of your life in communion with Him. Even when you mind fails to recognize it, your spirit will abide in union. It is not good for you to be alone. The more you silence the voices of this world which seek to make you into their image, the more you will be able to hear His voice resounding in your life. It is not easy, but few eternal things are.

One thing and more.

If joy was easy it would be less joyful.
My best friend is unfriendly in his devotion to me.
Revelation is better held than observed
When you need to shout – whisper
Freedom results in a life of service to others while bondage has only self.


It seems like mankind keeps trying to make God into a very small image, one that is easy to grasp. This may come from our desire to move Him where we will and control Him. I believe the reality of God is that most of His beauty is hidden in extremes. It is like God takes two extremes and offers them to us as a snap shot of who He is. He does this, not like a coin having two sides, but as two very different things being the same thing. It is like the God of three who is one.
Could it be that God loves that? Does He love the busy worshipper, the simple proclaiming of profound truths, the humility of greatness and the devotion of the distracted lover? Man would tend to say, “let me be glorified by my achievement”, but God says, “enjoy living”. One is the pursuit of an idea so that we can arrive, the other is daily enjoying the gift of life we have been given. While we may think that the focused pursuit will have the best results, we miss that reality that we are made for relationships.

To practice the presence of the Lord is to surrender your focus, to a partnership with God. And then, since you are walking with God, others will be freely entering and exiting your daily life because he invited them in. So now the life of focus is filled with God invited distractions. Your ability to stay on trask and achieve is interrupted by divine desire to have your life full, but full of what? Living!
There are numerous Christians seeking to grow into maturity in Christ Jesus by cutting off the things of life so that they can focus on God and mature. This may be good for a season but it only leads to immaturity. We are called to be light in the dark. We need to be more humble and seek not to protect our self and our ideas as much as live out fully the life God has called us to, a life of living in the extremes with Him.

Over the past few years I have heard messages about the “one thing”. I have listed below some of the text from those messages. Please note that the “one thing” was different for each person. This is God’s way of extremism. He could have easily of given us an outline of devotion. But instead He gave us Himself in a relationship that is expressive, simple, complex …. We are called to know the unknowable. What could be more exciting than that? Oh, by the way. Some of us will have one “one thing” and others of us a few more.

(Psalms 27:4) One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD And to meditate in His temple.

(Ecclesiastes 7:18) It is good that you grasp one thing and also not let go of the other; for the one who fears God comes forth with both of them.

(Mark 10:21, Luke 18:22) Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, "One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me."

(Luke 10:42) but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her."

(Philippians 3:13) Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,

Loving God and Others

Relationships matter. God calls us to relationships with Him and one another. Yet we are daily tempted to live “on our own” and interact with others according to what we need or desire. This “me” focused pressure manifest in a person’s prayer life when they mainly pray to get answered prayers. Praying to get answers to prayers is not bad, it just isn’t as fulfilling as having a relationship with God that transcends personal needs. God is the source and center for all we need, but according to the teachings of Jesus, “Jesus is not all we need”. We need one another too.

So how do we relate in the prayer room? Even if we are not talking to one another or praying for each other, is there a building up of one another in relationships?
• Just as you go to a movie with friends and mostly do not interact with each other, so too being in the prayer room increases our relationships one to another. Doing it together matters. This is true in hunting, fishing, sporting events, movies and numerous activities we do together but do not focus on one another.
• If you are called to a life of prayer or just called to give an hour or two a week to intercession, having a place brings accountability and wars against isolation. Sure you can pray alone at home. But you can also be encouraged by others seeking the Lord. It’s like “birds of a feather flocking together”.
• We are physical beings and we are spiritual beings. Why our bodies may not be connecting in the prayer room, our spirits can be entering into fellowship and unity. It is a spirit of unity that we seek for our city and region, yet we can be distracted from seeing this spiritual endeavor as we look for physical manifestations. These two, the physical and spiritual, are not in competition but complementary.
• We are instructed to know people “not after the flesh”. In our world of seeing, we can be deceived that appearance is everything. Being with others in a mainly spiritual atmosphere helps us to know one another in an entirely different way.

Every family that has family devotions knows that while they seek God together, God can strengthen personal relationships. Even when the focus is not on the family, the family can be bound together in love and devotion for one another.

In my isolation
You did not touch me
Yet your presence
Healed by soul
Love unbounded
Reached out to me
Speaking brother
“You are not alone"

False teachers, prophets, apostles….false everything

In the wisdom of God, He allows both the wheat and the tares to grow together until it is time to bunch up the tares. These tares are not false teachers or prophets, they represent “false everything”. They represent all the stuff that is sown into God’s field so that the real is chocked out or at least diminished in growth. So you may be thinking in the natural and wonder, why doesn’t God believe in weeding His garden? God does gather the weeds, but only after they have served His purpose for His people.

Matthew 24:5
"For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will mislead many.

Just as we pray “in the name of Jesus”, people are going to come in that same spirit, “in the name of Jesus” and tell us that Jesus is the Christ. That is good, that is as it should be. Yet even some of these are going to mislead many. Are these false prophets, shepherds or teachers? Probable not.
In this passage in Matthew Jesus gets to false prophets in verse 11, but this section is a warning of all the stuff in life (what is to come) that can get us off track. Good people with bad direction, wars, international conflict, famine and earthquakes are all going to be stuff you need to go through and stay on course. God is giving us this “heads up” so we are in the know and not focused on this stuff, but Him.
A false prophet, teacher or Christian is not an immature one. A false is one who tries to take the place of the real. When someone who is not called to be a worship leader tries to be one, that would be a false worship leader. The same goes for pastor or teacher. When we go beyond the will of God for our lives, even if we think it is best for us (especially if we think it is best for us) we enter into a self-centered or man-pleasing motivation and choose ourselves over God. That can, for a time, be immaturity. But if we do not grow up we can mature into rebellious self living as we live our lives in the church. Do you know of any people who have loved God for decades and yet are still in bondage to themselves? Are they false Christians or broken Christians? God does know but we may not.
Presently in America I think we face the biggest challenge of being mislead through our longing for an easy life. We have strong desires to be a blessed people and our desire to be a blessing to others is fading. We are presently challenged to give according to our desires rather than the will of God. Sacrifice can mean, “Sharing the extra I have left over” and dedication can become “what I do after all my personal and family needs are met”.
God instructs us to discern according to fruit – not gifts. But we might be in some muddy waters if our vision of fruit is “man’s idea” and not God’s. (Isn’t there anything we can do on our own?) I encourage everyone to look carefully at and for the fruitfulness of others, just as soon as you get that thing out of your vision that is irritating you. When you can look on others with love and not fear or anger, you can see well.