Stop Blaming the Devil!

So many Christians focus their energy on fighting Satan when we should be humbling ourselves before God. Find out why the devil may not be your problem.

When was the last time you ran a reality check on your perceptions of God's Word? Too many believers embrace popular misunderstandings of what God has said rather than the truth. According to Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, understanding God's truth means your perceptions become aligned with God's reality of the thing being perceived. One area in which the perceptions of believers do not line up with the truth relates to our understanding of how we are to deal with the devil. Many Christians believe we should order Satan around with great fervor, frequency and volume.

Satan cooperates with this deception, conceding victories whenever necessary to perpetuate the lie that God's people need to battle him for everything God has promised them. This deception keeps earnest Christians too busy with Satan to focus on humbling and surrendering themselves to God.

But God is more concerned about the state of our souls than He is about the devil. He says in His Word, "'If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves [their souls], and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways [of their souls], then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their [souls'] sin and heal their land' " (2 Chr. 7:14, NKJV). The Hebrew word for wicked (ways), ra, includes characteristics of being disagreeable and having an unhappy disposition.

God is telling us that what will bring about the healing of the land is His people's turning away from wrong attitudes and self-centeredness. He does not say anything about warring with Satan to heal the land.

Daniel understood the need for humility and repentance. He prayed and confessed the corporate wrong agreement of God's people when they were in captivity in Babylon: "We have sinned and dealt perversely and done wickedly and have rebelled, turning aside from Your commandments and ordinances...We have not earnestly begged for forgiveness and entreated the favor of the Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and have understanding and become wise in Your truth" (Dan. 9:5,13, The Amplified Bible).

The Israelites had been and still were actively entering into wrong agreements about what God was saying to them through His prophets. These wrong agreements had created "legal" grounds for Satan to establish a territorial dominion over them, controlled by the demonic prince of Persia. Wrong agreement always gives right of access to Satan's workings.

Daniel knew that surrender and obedience were the solutions to the Israelites' bondage. When he sought right agreement with God through confessing the sins of his people and repenting, God swiftly sent the archangels Gabriel and Michael to take out the prince of Persia. Note that God did not say Daniel or the Israelites needed to fight Satan over their bondage.

Plans for Satan's Destruction

It is man's desires for power, status and riches that allow evil spirits to harass human souls. These same desires are cunningly promoted by Satan as requirements for "power-Christian" status.

But is "power Christianity"--constant warring with the enemy--God's plan for Satan's ultimate destruction? I don't think so.

In Ephesians 3:9-10 Paul gives us a clue to God's will for the body of Christ on earth: "To make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places" (NKJV, emphasis added). The terms "principalities and powers" here mean "demonic forces," as it does in Ephesians 6:12, "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places."

Considering 2 Chronicles 7:14 and Daniel 9:5,13 along with Ephesians 3:10, we see an interesting truth emerge. God's manifold wisdom (Eph. 3:10) will be made known through the church to principalities, powers and rulers of darkness when the body of Christ comes into alignment with 2 Chronicles 7:14, using Daniel 9:5-13 as a pattern for prayer.

And I believe God's manifold wisdom may be the exact opposite of the charismatic "power-Christianity" being modeled today. Regardless of how contemporary Christian songs portray him as a fool, Satan is quite aware that he will ultimately go down. However, he may not know how he will be brought down.

Perhaps he believes he will be known in eternal history as the only entity with whom God Himself ever had to personally war. But what if God's manifold wisdom is to use His own children, humble lambs with servant-like natures, as conduits of His power to take Satan down? Wouldn't that be the ultimate humiliation--to be defeated by sheeplike believers with no personal strength to match Satan's own destructive powers?

We'd be just God's kids counting on His promises that He would use us to fulfill His great purposes. If Christians could see their lives through the perspective of such a plan, it would help clarify what misunderstandings must be put away in order to be a part.

Surrender and Obey

When we are unaware that our Christian walks are not centered in God's truth, we will often make wrong choices to accommodate our souls' unhealed hurts, unmet needs, fears and doubts. All of us have made wrong choices, as Jonah did when he ran from God, and had to suffer the consequences. But today we're being taught to "rebuke" the consequences of those bad choices.

This is ridiculous. No human being could have rebuked or cast Jonah's whale-sized consequence from him! Yet after Jonah prayed and surrendered his own will, trusting in the mercy of God, God commanded the whale to vomit Jonah onto dry land (see Jon. 2:7-10). What a concept!

There is a catch, however. When God delivers you from a tough consequence He expects you to realize that He is delivering you to put you back on track with His will. Beware of casually walking away from a divine intervention in your circumstances to pursue your life in the manner that led you into the whale's belly in the first place! God has little patience for that.

Many struggling Christians are embracing the wrong idea that they can confess away the consequences of their self-willed choices. They are being taught to rebuke or command Satan's "hindrances" out of their paths, with little understanding that most of the hindrances have been self-created.

Brothers and sisters, you cannot command or rebuke consequences out of your way; you must surrender and obey your way through them. Obedience always brings grace to the one who seeks to avoid getting back into the same circumstances.

If you are stiff-necked and stubborn, God may lift His grace and let consequences ride over you like a herd of elephants. Try confessing, casting or commanding elephants out of your path!

Consequences from choosing to believe wrong teaching will almost always have industrial-strength Velcro all over them, sticking to everything we try to do. If we could just admit, "God, nothing I've tried works!" and ask Him, "Why do I keep doing this to myself, and how can I stop?"

I believe He would answer: "You have wrong ideas and are depending on wrong things. You cannot command your way out of a spiritual mess; you have to obey your way out of it! You're going to have to let your wrong understanding go, and trust Me to teach you the truth that will set you free."

Faith, Fear and Finances

Three areas in which we have embraced misunderstanding rather than the truth of what God has said are faith, fear and finances. Extreme teachings on these topics are setting up many Christians for delusion about the source of their troubles and causing them to doubt in God's faithfulness.

Faith is being taught as a force, a weapon to use against Satan and a means of "spiritual financing" for what the human soul wants. Charismatic teachers often say that faith is a tangible spiritual force with the ability to produce natural substance.

But Paul used the Greek word hypostasis ("substance") in Hebrews 11:1, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for," to mean "a steadfast mind having courage, resolve, confidence and trust in God's goodness" (Thayer's). Nothing in Hebrews 11:1 implies a tangible substance that can be produced by what a human mind conceives and desires.

New Testament Greek almost always defines "faith" as "having trust and confidence in the goodness, wisdom and power of God." God has a most excellent future for each one of us here on Earth--good works to do, good paths to walk in and good lives to live (see Eph. 2:10, The Amplified Bible). Stepping fully into this excellent future requires obedience and surrender to His will.

My best prayers seek the alignment of my will on Earth with His will in heaven. In the Lord's Prayer Jesus said, "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" (Matt. 6:10, NKJV). So, the best prayer I can pray is: "I bind my will to your will, God. Your will be done."

When I live in accordance with this prayer, I don't have to figure out how to save the world, my family, my bank account or my reputation--or how to save myself from the devil. I just need to obey what God has said. True faith is a place of rest and peace because it trusts an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God to take care of all of the details. He doesn't need my input to get them right.

Regardless of how much faith we have, disobedience to what God has said allows Satan to get involved in our lives. Let me give you an example. Ephesians 4:26 says we are not to let the sun go down on our anger. If we choose to ignore this command and retire with anger still festering in our hearts, we open the door to bitterness, resentment and other evil works.

And justifying our actions does not absolve us of wrongdoing. How often God must wonder, "What part of Ephesians 4:26 don't they get?" Rationalizing and justifying are the timber and bricks of the strongholds in our souls, and Ephesians 4:27 (The Amplified Bible) tells of their consequence: They give the devil a foothold in us. Satan uses such access to attack believers in spite of their authority, blood covering and righteousness in Christ.

Authority is always hindered, even rendered useless, by the presence of open doors that an enemy can access. Military leaders know their highest levels of authority are useless if they have open doors in their supply sources and communication lines. There isn't a smart enemy alive--including Satan--who won't use such doors to attack, slash and burn.

We have been told exactly what to do to see God heal our land, and we have not done it. We have become too power and authority conscious to humble ourselves as God instructed.

Fear is another subject of extreme teachings today. Many people have been taught that there is a demonic spirit of fear. This teaching is generally based on 2 Timothy 1:7, "God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (KJV).

The NIV translation is clearer, "God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline." Thayer's defines pneuma (spirit) as it is used here to mean "being filled with the same spirit as Christ, and by the bond of that spirit to be intimately united to Christ." In other words, regenerated human spirits are not timid, having no room for fear because they are filled with the Spirit of Christ.

Fear is a symptom of an unresolved issue in the soul that keeps churning out emotional confusion, doubt and lack of trust. As long as any such unresolved issue exists and is fiercely guarded by self-constructed strongholds, the enemy can apply pressure in circumstances that mimic those out of which the fear was birthed in the first place.

Fear is not an evil spirit; it is an emotional response to a lack of trust and confidence in the goodness of God. You cannot be delivered of a lack of trust or have stronghold-protected wrong thinking, damaged emotions and unresolved issues cast out of your soul.

And God won't dismantle your strongholds. That would be a violation of your soul's attempts to guard itself. You have to choose to tear them down (see 2 Cor. 10:3-5) and give God voluntary access to heal you.

Finances is another area of extreme teaching today. I have visited several charismatic ministry Web sites and come away concerned regarding advice about finances. One Web site encouraged financially strapped people to confess: "My debt is gone. I have no debt. My bills are paid!"

There is no scriptural basis for such a confession regarding unpaid bills. If God were to deliver some Christians from their debt without teaching them to have a paradigm shift in thinking about money, these Christians would get in debt again. If we do not learn why we are always living in lack, any reprieve from God will be only a stopgap. God could make millionaires out of all of us, but He wisely chooses not to--at least not until we bring our understanding of finances into alignment with His.

God has never said His kingdom work is dependent on human wealth. Rather, it is "dependent" on the condition of the hearts of those who want His will done, even if it requires that their entire financial wealth be surrendered to Him.

I believe that money in itself means very little to God, that He created it only to teach us about our own motives. God is concerned about what money means to the one who wants it. Money is not the answer to our deepest needs.

Praying Right Prayers

Consider the times God has seemed not to answer your prayers when you asked for what you consider to be good things. Why didn't He come through? God doesn't answer our finest prayers if what we've asked for: would enable us to stay rooted in wrong understanding would allow us to hold onto something we need to release would enable us to follow a path away from His will.

God does not always respond to prayers, even those initiated out of great need, when the human soul is seeking a wrong answer. He does always respond, however, to obedience and surrender in the soul of a believer who has humbled himself and turned from his own personal agendas and wicked ways.

I believe God has said, "If you want to get everything you pray for, pray right prayers." Right prayers issue forth from a heart that desires to see His truth manifested and His will being done--and makes itself available to help carry out His will.

God doesn't need Christians who will take on the devil. He needs Christians who will humble themselves and trust in Him. He can take care of the power stuff Himself!

---

Liberty Savard is an ordained minister, speaker and president of Liberty Savard Ministries, based in Sacramento, California. She is also the author of Shattering Your Strongholds, Breaking the Power and Producing the Promise (Bridge-Logos).

---

Original Page: http://www.charismamag.com/spirit/spiritual-warfare/52-stop-blaming-the-devil

What's More Important? Character or Anointing

A dear friend once asked me, "Leon, if you could choose just one, which would you take: character or anointing?" I asked him what he was getting at. He went on to share some examples of anointed people who lacked credibility because of their lack of character.

I told my friend that as believers we should not desire one over the other; anointing and character must exist together as two equal forces in our lives.

To be a Christian means to be like the Anointed One, and that means to be truly Spirit-filled. Ephesians 5:18 instructs us to be filled with the Spirit, for this is the way of true Christian living.

But being filled with the Spirit does not excuse us from the necessity of developing character traits that confirm the reality of Christ in us. To be filled with the Spirit requires us to be Christlike, meaning that our attitudes, motives, words and deeds must be pure.

If we do not conduct our lives in a way that corresponds to the description of the Spirit-filled life in the Bible, we are a contradiction. If we have character but no spiritual passion, we are merely good, moral citizens. And though a good, moral life is commendable, it is not enough.

A person of character, virtue and dignity must also be a God-possessed person overflowing with spiritual zeal; these two aspects go hand-in-hand and are absolutely inseparable. Barnabas exemplified this balanced kind of life: He was a man of character who was also zealous for God.

As a result, he won many people to Christ. The Bible tells us: "For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord" (Acts 11:24, NKJV).

True spirituality is not evidenced by our ability to quote from the Bible, pray eloquently, lay hands on the sick or cast out demons. Rather, it is evidenced by the way we treat one another.

As I left the sanctuary one night after a powerful revival meeting, I noticed a small group standing around one of the ushers. From their scowls and animated gestures, I gathered they were not engaged in passionate prayer.

When I began walking toward them to find out what was going on, I was told that a disgruntled couple was reprimanding the usher because he had asked their teenage daughters to stop talking while I had been preaching. In fact, I had seen him go over to the girls to quietly ask them to stop disrupting the meeting.

Just a short while earlier, these parents had been lost in worship, standing with uplifted hands and tightly shut, tear-filled eyes. The anointing and presence of God had filled the house, yet not five minutes later we had a boxing match in the making.

What happened? Where was the anointing?

The anointing does not remove personality, emotions or free will, nor does it guarantee that we will do or say the right thing in the right way. Remember Peter, who, moments after being commended for recognizing Jesus as the Christ, was rebuked for not being mindful of the things of God.

Jesus said to him: "'Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men'" (Matt. 16:23, NKJV). As powerful as it is, the anointing will not inexorably lead us to always do or say the right thing; neither will it replace the need for character.

D.L. Moody used to say that "character is what you are in the dark" when there is no one looking, no one listening. It is the thought, the desire, the intention that counts in the sight of God. We should not present a different personality in public than we do in private; there should be consistency between who we are and who we appear to be.

Character is the measure of our Christ-likeness.

There is no denying that we need more of the anointing in our lives, but we also need character. Some who desire a deep walk with God in the realms of the anointing will invest much time and effort in reading books. I believe they would do well to invest equal time in the development of their character.

As the many examples of gifted Christians around us make clear, being anointed does not guarantee maturity or character. We can have power without the traits listed above--but in the end this one-sidedness will lead to our demise.

On the other hand, it's important to remember that we all have growing up to do; none of us has arrived or is fully developed and conformed to the image of Jesus. We are Christians under construction--and making a mistake or acting immaturely in a particular instance does not mean we lack character.

We also have to keep in mind that character does not develop overnight but is a lifelong process of becoming more and more like Jesus. It is developed in the crucible of life, formed through trial and conflict and through Spirit-led introspection. As we honestly evaluate ourselves, recognizing our flaws and taking the necessary steps to overcome them, we are certain to more closely walk the talk.

---

Original Page: http://www.charismamag.com/spirit/spiritual-growth/5410-character-vs-anointing

Jentezen Franklin: Restore Your Passion for God

How a short season of self-denial will restore lasting passion for God in your life

One Sunday morning before our church service, I received a text from a passionate man of God who used to be our youth pastor at Free Chapel in Georgia. He had since relocated to Kentucky to pastor a church that was in rapid decline. He was texting to tell me what a huge difference fasting had made in his church's turnaround.

He and his wife had rebuilt and reinvented the identity of that struggling Kentucky congregation. They'd grown it in a few years from 600 people to 3,000, while also winning more than 4,000 to Christ. Fasting—a spiritual commitment he once tried to avoid—had changed both his life and thousands of others in his community.

In his text, he recounted how this happened:

"Ten years ago I walked into your office and said, 'Pastor, this fasting thing isn't for me.'

"You replied jokingly: 'You are on staff. You're fasting.'

"So, after some encouragement I joined the fast. Fourteen days later, I cracked—and destroyed a Whopper burger! I thought I was done. I confessed to you, and you said: 'You did your best. You made it 14 days; that's not bad.'

"I want you to know that this January marks my 10th annual fast, and it is our church's sixth annual 21-day fast."

Even though this young man's first fast was "forced," God raised him up and led him into deeper places of worship, brokenness and power through fasting. He and I still laugh about his Whopper mauling. And I still rejoice in how the fast God gave him the tools to sharpen his anointing and regain his passion for God. In short, it gave him back his spiritual edge.

How about you—have you lost your edge? Has your worship grown dull? Are people still coming to Christ because of you? On Sunday mornings are you like the dead in Christ, lifelessly taking your seat in the pew, waiting for "the grave" of a dry church service to "give you up" at noon?

If so, then you don't need me to tell you that you've lost your edge.

What you do need to hear, though, is this: It's time for you to declare a fast and pray—because God wants to supernaturally change you. His plan for you hasn't changed: He still wants to make you the son or daughter in Him you are meant to be.

God Restores the Edge

How does fasting help to accomplish this? I have been asked that question more times than I can remember. My answer is always the same: "Fasting and prayer bring you closer to God."

That brief answer is by no means simplistic. Because whenever you begin a spiritual fast, you are choosing to break away from your life routines to draw closer to God, and amazing things happen as a result.

I chose to develop a lifestyle of prayer and fasting more than 25 years ago, and nothing has been more powerful in my Christian life. I am convinced that fasting is a gateway through which God releases His supernatural power into our lives. The choice is ours, though. We can either open that gateway or ignore it and stay in our routines.

At Free Chapel church for the last 12 years our members have undertaken a 21-day fast each January. With every year I become more certain this annual fast to honor God is part of His design and calling.

I've witnessed profound miracles in this church and through this ministry—things that could not have come about from our own strength or effort. I was amazed to learn that nearly a million people visited our fasting website over a two-day period during our most recent annual fast.

So many people have lost the edge in their lives; they've lost their homes, their marriages, their commitment to the Lord. We stand in church and sing the songs and lift our hands, but there is no edge to our worship. There is no edge to the preaching. It all has become just dull routine and ritual.

Fasting can change all that. It's a short season of self-denial, but it releases long-term rewards.

Taking the time to fast is like taking the time to sharpen an ax before you cut down a tree. Ecclesiastes 10:10 says, "If the ax is dull, and one does not sharpen the edge, then he must use more strength." Sure, you can cut with a dull ax, powering along in your own strength until your energy runs out. But the writer of Ecclesiastes is saying, "There's a better way."

Dull "axes" is the problem for so many people and churches today. Fasting restores your sharp edge. God uses fasting to give you the power to do far more than you could possibly do in your own strength.

When a young man in 2 Kings 6 lost his edge (literally), God gave him the miracle he needed to get it back. He was part of the so-called Sons of the Prophet, followers eager to be mentored by Elisha. The group had outgrown their living quarters, so they headed to the banks of the Jordan River to cut trees and make beams for a new lodge.

As he worked, this young man didn't notice that with each swing against the tree the head on his ax was working loose. Suddenly the piece of iron slipped off the handle and flew into the muddy river. He stood on the bank, ax handle in hand, devastated and powerless to change what had just happened. He was eager to do something great for God, but now he couldn't even help chop wood.

He'd lost his edge—literally!

Maybe you know how that feels. You had an edge once. You sensed the Lord's anointing on your life. You were going for it. Your life was consecrated to God. You had a deep passion for spiritual things. Then something slipped, and you lost your edge. Now the enemy has convinced you that it's out of sight, out of reach, buried, stuck at the bottom where you can never get it back.

The young man did the only thing he knew to do. He cried out for help from Elisha. He knew God had used Elisha. The seasoned prophet made the water of Jericho drink­able again He made oil multiply in a widow's house. He raised a young boy from the dead. He even healed a man's leprosy. If anyone had the faith to see God do what seemed impossible, it was Elisha.

Second Kings 6:6-7 tells us what happened next:

"So the man of God said, 'Where did it fall?' And he showed him the place. So [Elisha] cut off a stick, and threw it in there; and he made the iron float. Therefore he said, 'Pick it up for yourself.' So he reached out his hand and took it."

Have you bought the lie that your anointing, your purpose, your dream, your family, your lost children all are gone forever? Are you facing dire circumstances; have you lost a job, a home, or even respect and hope? I want to encourage you right now, God still can make iron float. Like He did for the young prophet, He can return the edge you lost.

You Have a Part Too

Just like the young man had to reach out and take the iron from the water, there are a few steps you too will need to take to regain your edge. 

The first step is: Make up your mind that you are going to get your edge back. It's the starting point for fasting to regain your edge.

Think about the young prophet-in-training: There he stood at the edge of the Jordan, not prophesying for anyone, not speaking forth any great oracles of God to the nations; just a person who had been stopped cold. The word in his heart said he would be a prophet, but his world said he was a woodcutter without an ax. He easily could have tossed the handle aside and given up.

You may be in a season when your word doesn't match your world. Faith is trusting God no matter how impossible the odds are. Sometimes God allows the odds to be stacked against us so we can experience a miracle.

Let me remind you that as a born-again believer you serve the same God Elisha served! He is the God of the impossible. Now is the time to make up your mind that you will believe Him for what seems to you to be impossible and stop believing the lies of the enemy, who wants to see you defeated.

The second step is: Confess that you have lost your edge. The young man did not keep silent. He immediately sought help from God's prophet to regain what he lost.

You will not get anything accomplished by remaining in denial about your situation. Going through religious motions day after day is no way to live. It is not what God has called you to. 

If you have lost your passion, if you have lost your edge, be swift to confess it to someone who can pray with you and help you find your way back.

The third step is: Take action while the opportunity exists. Elisha did not grab the ax head and put it back on the handle. The young man had to do that for himself.

God will not do for you what you can do for yourself. You'd think that if the miracle could cause the piece of iron to float, it also could have reattached it to the handle! But God intends for you to do your part in regaining the edge. 

When you declare a fast and set aside time for prayer, you are reaching into the river and picking up the sharp edge that God has provided in order for you to be effective.

I challenge you to do your part. Declare a fast while you are reading this article. I'm in agreement that sharp ideas are going to come to you. Sharp relationships with new people are going to add significantly to your life. Cutting-edge creativity is going to flow your way as you begin to hunger and thirst for more.

Let the crisis drive you to your knees in a season of prayer and fasting. Go back to the place where the edge was lost. 

Where did you lose it? Was it due to life's batterings and disappointments suffered along the way? Was it through sin that you need to confess? Go back to that place and get it under the blood of Jesus. The altar is a place to get free from the thing that weighs you down and drowns out your fiery passion for God. The altar is a place to alter your direction and get back on the right track with God.

Holy Surprises Will Come

You'll find that when you fast and pray, the supernatural possibilities suddenly become much more natural! Holy surprises seem to come out of nowhere. God knows where the ax head fell off, and He will help you get your edge back!

One Thursday night, God illustrated vividly for me how He can do this.

I met my daughter Courteney for dinner, and she began to tell me about her friend Nate. He was not much of a churchgoer. He decided to come to Free Chapel for the first time on a Wednesday night when I preached a message titled "Jesus Passing By."

But he was so moved by the message that when he got home, he felt compelled to start reading his Bible again. It had been months since he had picked it up—six months to be exact.

He knew it had been that long because six months before coming to Free Chapel, he had been paid $2,000 for a job. He had stashed the cash somewhere safe, but had forgotten where he hid it. 

He searched for it for months, but finally concluded he'd left it on the seat of his car and it had fallen out. He assumed it was long gone.

That Wednesday night as he was stirred to dig into the Word of God, he was blown away to find the $2,000 tucked safely inside the pages of his Bible—right where he'd "lost" it six months before.

Seeking God will help you get back the things He gave you that you feel like are gone. Seasons of fasting and prayer make this happen. Cry out to God; fast and pray. Invite Him to begin demolition in your life. He's going to tear down who you used to be as He raises up who you are meant to be!

Remember, fasting is a gateway through which God releases His supernatural power into our lives, and we have the choice to either open that gateway or ignore it and stay in our routines. I challenge you: To whatever degree you can, make it part of your life.

---

Jentezen Franklin is the pastor of Free Chapel in Gainesville, Ga., and Orange County, Calif. He hosts a weekly TV program, Kingdom Connection, and is an author. His new book, The Fasting Edge (Charisma House), from which this article is adapted, released in November. His other books include Fasting and Believe That You Can (both Charisma House).

---

Original Page: http://www.charismamag.com/spirit/spiritual-growth/14743-fasting-to-regain-your-edge

How Do I Know When God Is Speaking?

You and I are living in a day when we need to be certain that God is directing our lives. We get His answers for the situations in our lives when the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, speaks into our spirits and transmits the "overcoming" victory of Jesus.

If you want to clearly hear the voice of the Lord, you must create an atmosphere for the Holy Spirit to talk to you. You must also develop your listening abilities so that you are able to distinguish among all the competing voices in the earth. This is essential for you to live a godly life—a life of victory.

God wants you to know His will. But for Him to reveal it to you, there has to be an open line of communication. Take these steps to make sure there's no interference:

1. Recognize the hindrances to hearing God's voice. To walk in the Spirit, you must focus on God and shut out distractions. Your emotions are one thing that can divert your attention and keep you from hearing the Holy Spirit.

You can't receive a "phone call" from Him if you're busy taking a "call" from your emotions. When fear, worry, anxiety or depression dominates your thinking, it blocks out the still, small voice of the Spirit.

Fear. One of the emotions that shouts the loudest is fear. Recognize that the voices that come to torment you do not come from the Father, who deeply loves and accepts you and is in control of your every circumstance (see 2 Tim. 1:7).

You can hang up on fear. The Word says you are to "[cast] all your care upon Him, for He cares for you" (1 Pet. 5:7, NKJV).

Selfish ambition. Maybe you're a doer, an overachiever. There is nothing wrong with desiring to succeed in life, but if that drive dominates your thoughts, you will not be able to hear clearly the voice of the Holy Spirit.

Pursuit of pleasure. Some people are consumed with the desire for material "things"—things they believe will bring them comfort and enjoyment. Others are so wrapped up in themselves or their families, they hardly give a thought to God. As a result, they are simply not attuned to the voice of the Holy Spirit.

Still others become professional "escape artists" who keep their minds occupied with entertainment—movies, books or television—in order to avoid their fears or problems.

In any case, the Holy Spirit will not shout to be heard above the din that fills your mind. To tune Him in, you will have to tune out the rubbish and clean out the clutter of your inmost thoughts. One of the best ways to do this is by taking time to encounter God through worship.

2. Become a worshiper. Worship increases your sensitivity to the voice of the Holy Spirit. It is a wonderful tool to help you focus your attention on God, rather than your problems and desires.

Worship is something you do, not something that happens to you. It is an act of your will, to magnify or enlarge your vision of God. When you worship, the things you face appear smaller, less important and less daunting in comparison to His greatness.

Two worshipers in the Bible are good examples for us. The first is Moses. In Exodus 15, after God parted the waters of the Red Sea and led the children of Israel to safety, Moses and Miriam led the Israelites as they praised and worshiped the Lord for their deliverance.

When they began to sing, dance and play their instruments in praise to God, the Holy Spirit prophesied through them about the victories God would give them as they took possession of the Promised Land.

The second is David. Perhaps, of all the people in the Old Testament, David understood, cherished and delighted in the Holy Spirit the most. After being caught in adultery and murder, David pleaded with God, "don't take your Holy Spirit from me" (see Ps. 51:11).

As a psalmist, David was a singer of praise and one who reveled in worshiping God. He did not want to lose his sweet communion with the Holy Spirit.

3. Perceive in your spirit. As you worship God, you will begin to develop spiritual perception. The more you worship and commune with Him, the greater depth your relationship will have; and the more familiar His voice will become.

You may not always hear Him with your ears, but you can perceive what He's saying as He whispers truth to your spirit (see 1 Cor. 2:9-10).

4. Pray in tongues. First Corinthians 14:2, 4 says, "For he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God. He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself" (NKJV). To "edify" means to "build up." It is another way to heighten your communication with the Holy Spirit.

Praying in tongues not only builds you up, it also strengthens, rebuilds and recharges your spirit so you can hear the Holy Spirit more clearly. He has all the answers you seek.

Nearly every successful thing I've ever done came to me as a revelation after praying in tongues. When you face a dilemma or a decision, don't reason in your heart; instead pray in the Spirit, and you will receive the answers you need.

Being able to hear the Spirit's voice isn't an option. It is essential to live as God wants us to live. He doesn't hide His will from His children. But doing God's will is dependent on our clearly hearing His voice and perceiving His direction.

God speaks constantly through His Word, through His creation and by His Spirit in our hearts. These voices never contradict one another.

The responsibility to have "ears to hear" what He says falls to you. Your job is to eliminate undesirable noise and tune in to the Holy Spirit by offering up worship to the Lord, developing your spiritual perception, and building up your human spirit by praying in tongues.

Saturate yourself in God's Word, and re-order your priorities. Make whatever lifestyle changes you need to make. Nothing in life is more important than hearing from God.

---

Marilyn Hickey is the founder and president of Marilyn Hickey Ministries. She has ministered to millions around the world through crusades, conferences, missions trips, the media and Ministry Training Schools.

---

Original Page: http://www.charismamag.com/spirit/spiritual-growth/5759-how-do-i-know-when-its-god-speaking

How to Hear From God Constantly

"I just can't hear God; I know He speaks to some people, but He just doesn't speak to me!"

If that's your situation, there are several possible reasons for it. First, to hear His voice and be sensitive to His promptings you need to have a relationship with the Lord, which means spending quality time with Him on a regular basis. It could be that you have neglected your fellowship with Him.

Second, you may be walking in doubt and unbelief. Jesus said plainly, "'My sheep hear My voice'" (John 10:27, NKJV). If you are a born-again child of God, you can hear God-and should expect to. Begin to confess and believe Scriptures such as this one about being led by the Lord.

Third, you may already hear from God but be unable to recognize His voice because you are listening for the wrong thing. Often people expect God to speak to them forcefully, but His leadings are usually very subtle. They rise up in your heart as holy suggestions. When you sense those "suggestions," you might even wonder, Was that me, Lord, or was that You?

That's because God doesn't normally inject thoughts directly into your mind from the outside. Instead, He enlightens your spirit, and your spirit translates the impression into a thought. So when you receive it, it sounds like you.

Holy Spirit impressions will hardly ever overwhelm you. Most often they come in the form of an inward witness, a quiet inner prompting or a knowing-you just suddenly know something you didn't know before.

Romans 8:16 gives us an example of how that inner witness works. There the apostle Paul says, "The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit, that we are children of God."

If I were to ask if you know you are one of God's children, no doubt you would answer with a quick, "Yes!" But what would you say if I asked how you know that? You might answer, "I just know!"

What you would actually be trying to convey is that the Holy Spirit within you bears witness, or gives assurance to your own spirit, and lets you know that you indeed belong to God.

The inward witness, or promptings of the Spirit, work much the same way in the other affairs of life. You might be going about your day just doing your normal activities and suddenly you'll think, I need to call Aunt Sally.

You may dismiss the thought at first because you're busy doing other things, but then it recurs. I need to call Aunt Sally, you'll think again.

Then you may notice that even though calling Aunt Sally wasn't on your agenda for today, it just seems like a good thing to do right now. So you pick up the phone and dial her number. Very likely, you will find out that Aunt Sally was in need, and your call came at just the right time.

If you learn to live each day listening to your heart for that inner witness, constantly expecting to be prompted by the Spirit of God, you'll find yourself doing things like that quite often. Sometimes you won't even realize you are hearing from heaven. You'll just think you had a good idea, but later you will see that you were responding to the Holy Spirit.

I know of one man, for example, who was working in San Francisco many years ago when they had a major earthquake there. He was sitting in his office just a few hours before the quake when suddenly he had the thought that he should leave work early so he could avoid the evening traffic that would be heavy because of the World Series ballgame being played nearby.

Though it appeared to be a purely natural thought at the time, it seemed good to him. In other words, his heart bore witness with it. So he left early to walk to his car and drive home. Just a few hours later, at the time he normally would have been driving home, the very freeway he would have been on collapsed in the earthquake.

Staying in vital communion with God can save your life-so expect to hear from heaven, and you will.

---

Original Page: http://www.charismamag.com/spirit/spiritual-growth/3247-hear-from-god-constantly

Four Fatal Flaws That Ruin Ministries

Our movement began unraveling a few years ago because of flawed leadership. We will not recover until we clean up our act.

I spend a lot of time investing in young leaders—and I constantly urge them to learn from the mistakes we made in the previous move of God. I appreciate the positive things the Holy Spirit did during the charismatic movement, but we made a mess because we didn't lead with integrity.

The apostle Paul gave us a crash course in leadership in his second letter to the Corinthians. While studying that epistle recently, I identified four of the biggest mistakes we made during the charismatic revival. I pray we've learned our lesson so we can avoid these flaws in the next season.

1. Charlatanism. We charismatics lost our credibility during the past 30 years because certain greedy preachers manipulated their audiences to pad their own pockets. Just as a little leaven spreads to the whole lump of dough, the charlatans ruined it for all of us.

The apostle Paul told the Corinthians, "For we are not like many, peddling the Word of God" (2 Cor. 2:17, NASB). The Greek word for peddling, kapeleuo, means "to make money by selling; to corrupt; to get gain by teaching divine truth." How many well-known charismatic preachers started out well but ended up as pitiful peddlers, begging for dollars to pay for luxury cars and mansions they felt they needed to prove their importance? (And now some of these guys have their own reality show, The Preachers of L.A., which airs in October and features Noel Jones and Clarence McClendon.)

2. Entitlement. Paul continually reminded the Corinthians that he was a servant: "For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus' sake" (2 Cor. 4:5). Servanthood is the most fundamental requirement for any leader. Yet in our movement, we celebrated the opposite attitude by allowing leaders with out-of-control egos to demand special treatment.

I know of one conference speaker who routinely sends a 23-page list of requirements to churches that want her to speak! In the past, some charismatic preachers have demanded shopping money (in addition to their honorariums) and luxury accommodations; others insist they can't travel without their "armor bearer"—basically a minion who carries a preacher's briefcase, handkerchief and water bottle to make him look important.

News flash! Paul did not have an armor bearer, and he would have rebuked any minister who insists on acting like a fat cat.

3. Arrogance. The apostle Paul modeled teamwork. When he went to Corinth, Thessalonica or Crete, it was not The Paul Show. He traveled with Luke, Silas, Timothy and many others. He told the Corinthians, "As for Titus, he is my partner and fellow worker among you" (2 Cor. 8:23)—and Paul exhorted the church to view Titus with the same respect they showed him.

Yet in our movement, we put men on pedestals and under spotlights. We created a culture of preacher worship. Leaders began using titles. Then came the limousines and private jets. Some high-profile speakers went so far as to promote the use of bodyguards. And I know of at least one preacher who demanded that a church fly special beef to his hotel so he could have the steak he required. Pride turns men of God into monsters.

4. Professionalism. Somebody got the bright idea a few years ago that churches should be managed like businesses. So pastors became CEOs, and ministry was put on an assembly line. Congregations became franchises competing with each other to see who could offer the coolest music, the hippest sermons and the best lobby coffee bar. But a funny thing happened on the way to the megachurch: We lost the relational touch.

I'm not against big churches, cool music or coffee bars. But my fear is that leaders today might assume they can buy success by copying the style of this month's most popular rock-star preacher. I don't care if you have strobe lights, fog machines, killer musicians and a home-run sermon every week. If people don't see true brokenness in the pulpit and experience real pastoral care, they will never grow into disciples. Shallow, professional leaders produce shallow Christianity.

Leaders must be real. Our ministry must flow out of passionate love for God and genuine love for people. The apostle Paul never wore a mask. He was touchable and affectionate. He never went through the motions. He was broken. He knew he was nothing apart from Jesus. He told the Corinthians, "Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me" (2 Cor. 12:9).

Paul told the Corinthians he was careful not to offend in any area "so that the ministry will not be discredited" (2 Cor. 6:3). I wish we had been that careful to guard what God gave us in the charismatic revival. Our flaws have grieved the Holy Spirit. Let's trade in charlatanism for financial integrity; entitlement for servanthood; the celebrity syndrome for teamwork; and professionalism for touchable authenticity. Let's become leaders who act like Jesus.

J. Lee Grady is the former editor of Charisma and the director of the Mordecai Project (themordecaiproject.org). You can follow him on Twitter at @leegrady. He is the author of The Holy Spirit Is Not for Sale and other books.

---

Original Page: http://www.charismamag.com/blogs/fire-in-my-bones/18703-four-fatal-flaws-that-ruin-ministries

Is Joseph Prince's Radical Grace Teaching Biblical?

Since there has been a wave of articles against "hypergrace" preaching and churches in the past year, I decided to read a key book authored by Joseph Prince, who is considered by many to be the main progenitor of this genre of teaching.

I read Prince's book Destined to Reign last week with the idea that I would find out for myself what he really teaches. Half of the Christians I know who read this book loved it, and the other half thought it was heresy, so I was quite interested in the content because I've never seen mature Christians who know the Word of God be so divided on any author since the beginning of the Word of Faith teachings by Hagin and Copeland in the 1970s and '80s. 

I must admit I started the book with a suspicious view because for the last 35 years, I have seen some of the catastrophic results of various types of "hypergrace" Christianity. To my surprise, I really enjoyed the book, and as a result I will make some adjustments in how I present the gospel. 

This is not to say there were not some theological issues I was concerned with. Prince makes the same mistake thousands before him have made: They come up with some kind of theological system they are comfortable with (he is a "once saved always saved" classical dispensationalist) and then deductively read every passage of Scripture with their biased lens, resulting in forcing the Scriptures to fit their interpretation. Many people make the mistake of wanting to fit God into a concise theological box, resulting in blanket statements that are not always easily proven or true. 

The greatest thing about Destined to Reign and Prince's theology is that it is Christ-exalting and Christ-centered. Prince's main passion is not grace but Jesus, which is the place the whole church needs to be but often is not. (Prince believes grace and the person of Christ are synonymous.)

In spite of its flaws, I will actually recommend the book to certain Christians suffering from a performance trap in which they try to earn God's favor and love by the things they do instead of through the merit of Christ's finished work. There is enough good stuff in the book for new believers and those struggling with guilt to get them on a good foundation—if it is coupled with other books and teachings to bring it balance. 

What is probably happening with Prince is what happens with many popular preachers who start trends. Other preachers read their stuff and take it to an extreme, teaching things the founder never intended. I do not get the impression Princebelieves in cheap grace or that a person who really understands Prince's heart and teaching will dive into sin—but there are certain places where it is easy for the theologically untrained to take his teaching too far and preach a cheap grace or hypergrace message. Prince makes it clear he hates sin and also preaches from the Old Testament to exalt Christ.

The following are some of my concerns with the book. (Since this is not an academic treatise, I am not citing the exact page numbers of Prince's statements—you just have to read the whole book.)

1. Prince Makes Blanket Statements and Tries to Fit All Scripture Within His System

For example, he says it is not necessary to confess our sins and that Paul's epistles never give an example of a believer confessing sin. He says this because he believes all of our sins, both past and future, have already been forgiven (something I agree with in principle) and that we should just be honest with God and speak to Him about our failures. ButPrince says this is not the same as confession of sin for forgiveness. I say this is a merely a cute play on words because speaking to God about our sins is going to lead to confession anyway. 

The challenge I have with this teaching is that in 1 John 1:9, John teaches us to confess our sins. Although Princeacknowledges that this passage refutes his teaching on radical grace, he tries to get around it by saying this passage was written to the gnostics in the church—something he states without citing any commentaries, sources or historical evidence. I counter that the context of 1 John shows that John was writing to believers. He calls them his "dear children" in 1 John 2:1 (NIV). Also, remember that originally the book had no chapters or verses; thus, the "children" in 1 John 2:1 are connected to the first chapter of the book. 

Although the apostle John was dealing with gnosticism in this epistle when he spoke about the humanity of Christ in 1 John 1:1 and 4:2-3 and the fact Jesus came in the flesh—a fact gnostics refute because they believe Jesus only came as a spirit because they believed the realm of the flesh was evil—the recipients of this letter were not gnostics but true believers who were being warned against gnosticism. 

Furthermore, if 1 John 1:9 was written to unbelievers, why would John tell them to confess their sins? Its impossible for an unbeliever to recount and confess all the sins they ever committed. When I came to Christ, I did not confess each and every individual sin of my past 19 years. I just surrendered my heart to Christ and asked Him to forgive me for being a sinner. When a person comes to Christ, they are not commanded to confess their sins but to receive Jesus as Lord (Rom. 10:9-10; Acts 16:31). Only a Christian can remember and confess individual sins as they are committed. 

Furthermore, James 5:16 also teaches believers to confess their sins. Lastly, Paul actually implies confession of sin in 2 Corinthians 7:9-11 when he encourages the Corinthian church to repent and have "godly sorrow."

2. Prince Bases His Theology Only on the Writings of Paul  

I find it interesting that Prince says he only preaches the gospel Paul preaches. Although I admire Paul, Prince has to be careful with statements like this because he can give the impression that the other writings of the New Testament are not inspired or even canonical. (Even the gnostics only cited Paul and disregarded the other epistles as well as the Old Testament.) 

Prince seems to quote the Gospels only occasionally, which gives me the impression he probably believes much of the teaching is not relevant to the church age because the Gospels were written before the Resurrection. This enables Prince(and typical hyperdispensationalists) to avoid dealing with the command for believers to take up their cross (Mark 8:34-36) and other such passages that demand high commitment. 

I believe any teacher who is called to preach like Paul the apostle must preach the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27), which means they need to include equally the Gospels and the epistles of John, Jude, Peter and James as well as the book of Hebrews and the Old Testament.

3. Prince Doesn't Clearly Define the Role of the Moral Law of God 

Prince teaches that the Old Testament Law is not necessary anymore for the church, and he makes a simple dichotomy between both covenants. He doesn't even make an allowance for the need for the moral law of God (the Ten Commandments), except to show us how sinful and lost we are. 

The challenge with this simplified view of the Old Testament is that Paul the apostle told us to know the Old Testament so we will not set our heart on evil things and sin as the Jewish nation did (1 Cor. 10:6). Thus, the moral law was still necessary to keep the church in line, according to Paul.

Prince says there is no room for preaching the law of God in the church and that God only blesses the message of grace. However, church history does not back this up. Charles Finney was perhaps the greatest evangelist in American history, and he would regularly preach the moral law of God to get people convicted and then use the gospel to get them saved and consecrated. He preached the law of God to both saint and sinner. You can also throw Jonathan Edwards into the mix as a powerful preacher who used the law of God in his messages. 

Prince would probably say these men preached a mixture of law and grace. However, the fruit of their ministries shows that their work and message was greatly blessed of God and had historic results. I personally teach regularly on the law of God in the church with great effect and fruit. Prince would probably say I preach a mixture of law and grace—but if I stand in the company of Finney and Edwards, who used the moral law as a standard to convict sin, I will take Prince's criticism with a smile!

I believe the moral law is still needed, or else there would be no conviction of sin and our standard of righteousness would collapse down to the ethos of the surrounding culture. Furthermore, the moral law was repeated in the New Testament, even by Paul in Ephesians 4-6, when he told the church not to steal, not to be angry, not to covet, not to commit sexual immorality, not to be idolaters and to honor their fathers and mothers. Furthermore, all the New Testament writers repeatedly used the Ten Commandments as the standard of holiness for the church because it reflects the nature and character of God.

Even when Jesus gave His followers a new commandment to love one another (John 13:34), He was still using love as a law to obligate the church to a standard of living—something Paul repeated in Romans 13:8-10.

Prince thus lumps the moral law (the Ten Commandments) with the ceremonial law of God and says both have been done away with and are not relevant to the church. What he fails to realize is every time the law is dealt with by Paul (in Galatians, Romans, Hebrews and Colossians), the context is always circumcision, animal sacrifices and the observance of the Sabbath and holy days. Hence, Paul is primarily referring to the ceremonial aspects of the law, not the Ten Commandments. 

Prince brings out the fact that Paul calls the Ten Commandments the "ministration of death" in 2 Corinthians 3:7 (KJV). However, I would counter that in spite of this, Paul and the other New Testament writers continually used the Ten Commandments as the standard of ethics for the church. The ministration of death has to do with the fact that without Christ, we are all guilty before God—a point we all agree with. Galatians 3:24 calls the law our schoolmaster that leads us to Christ; thus, it is a standard of holiness that brings conviction and leads us to depend on the grace of Christ to fulfill it. Romans 8:4 clearly teaches us the Holy Spirit empowers us to fulfill the righteous requirements of the law; thus, it's standards are still a requirement for functional holiness. Furthermore, the strength of sin is the law (1 Cor. 15:56). 

But the point of the New Testament is that Jesus gives us the power to live righteously through His Spirit. It is not just imputed righteousness from Christ with no obligation on our part. When we break the Ten Commandments, that is still a sin that we believers have to repent of and confess to the Lord for forgiveness. 

I do agree with Prince that we need to be Christ-focused and Christ-conscious to have victory over sin and that we can only have faith and grace to walk in victory through the imputation of Christ's righteousness—not our own merit. Where we depart ways is that I contend the Ten Commandments are still necessary as our standard for how Jesus wants us to live by His power and grace. The law doesn't save us. It reminds us of our sinfulness and, as a schoolmaster, leads us to depend on Christ alone. 

To summarize this point, I don't agree with Prince when he says we don't need the law to govern our behavior—we just need grace, he says—because, in my perspective, grace uses the standard of the moral law, as is repeated over and over in the New Testament.

4. Prince Believes in "Once Saved, Always Saved"

As a typical dispensationalist, Prince believes that once a person receives Jesus Christ as Savior, they can never lose their salvation. (Some know this as the doctrine of eternal security.) The challenge I have with this is that it fails to interpret individual passages honestly that disagree with this particular system. 

For example, Hebrews 6:1-8 and 10:24-29 clearly teach that people, after receiving the saving knowledge of Christ, can fall away and lose their salvation. Second Peter 2:20-22 and James 5:19-20 are as clear as tar on snow that a believer can fall away and once again be called a sinner who has to be restored. There are numerous other passages I can cite but will not because of the time. 

I am more comfortable with the Reformed understanding of salvation, which teaches people can experience the fruits of salvation while never being chosen from "the foundation of the world" (Eph. 1:4), in which case they will not remain in the body of Christ because they were never a part of it to begin with. (First John 2:19 seems to teach the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints.) This is the only position I have found sufficient to effectively deal with the conundrum of Scripture that seems to teach both eternal security and that a believer can fall away. I take the position of the apostle Peter: I may think I am saved, but I have to endeavor to make my calling and election sure (2 Pet. 1:10).

5. Prince Teaches That God Can't Get Angry With or Punish Christians 

Prince says God does not get angry with Christians. But what about the admonition in Ephesians 4 to not grieve the Holy Spirit? (In Ephesians 4:30, grieve means "to cause great sorrow and distress," which is akin to causing anger). Even stronger is Paul's warning in Ephesians 5:6 against living an immoral life that brings God's wrath on the disobedient. The clear context here, for those who are disobedient, is that this is written to the church of Ephesus; thus, God can have wrath toward Christians. 

What about the sin that leads to death referenced in 1 John 5:16? Whether this refers to physical or spiritual death has been debated for centuries; however, the main point is that a believer can commit a sin so severe it can result in death. (I believe it is referring to physical death, which correlates to 1 Corinthians 11:30 and 1 Corinthians 5:1-6, where Paul wanted to hand a man over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh because he slept with his father's wife.)

Finally, what does Prince do about Jesus' words to the seven churches in Asia Minor in Revelation 2-3? In these letters, Jesus not only punishes but also threatens to remove whole churches from their cities unless they repent (Rev. 2:5). In Revelation 2:16, Jesus tells the church of Pergamum to repent or else He will come and fight against some in their church. In Revelation 2:22-23, Jesus tells those who are under the influence of Jezebel that He will kill them unless they repent. Finally, Jesus tells the church of Laodicea that He is about to vomit them out of His mouth (Rev. 3:15-16), Strong words, indeed, that do not nicely fit into the theology of Joseph Prince.

6. Prince Says God Is Not Judging Any Nation Because of the Cross 

Prince teaches that God did not judge Sodom until Lot was removed, thus making a case that God will not judge any nation that has a presence of believers in it. What Prince fails to realize is that the Old Testament is replete with illustrations in which God judged the nations of Israel and Judah by disinheriting them even though there was a remnant left who believed. (See, for example, Isaiah 6:13.)

Furthermore, in Matthew 11:20-24, Jesus speaks about corporate judgment coming upon cities and towns because they rejected Him. Obviously it is difficult to subjectively prove post-biblically if God has judged nations and empires after the cross, since God often uses the militaries of other nations, natural disasters and their own foolishness to lay low people and nations. Furthermore, God judged the nation of the Jews and Jerusalem for rejecting Christ in A.D. 70, when the Roman armies sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Jewish temple, as Jesus predicted would happen within one generation (Matt. 24:34; Luke 21:20) even though this was almost 40 years after His resurrection. 

7. Prince Preaches an Individual Gospel That's Disconnected From the Cultural Commission of Genesis 1:28

Perhaps one of the biggest flaws in Prince's radical grace doctrine is that his dispensational belief doesn't allow him to connect the gospel to the cultural commission of Genesis 1:28. Believers who embrace the original cultural commission God gave humanity through Adam and Eve (and reconfirmed to Noah after the fall in Genesis 9:1-2) realize we need the moral and civic law to understand how to disciple a nation (Matt. 28:19). The Ten Commandments were not just individual commands for piety and holiness but were primarily given as a corporate structure to disciple the burgeoning nation of Israel (Ex. 20:1-2). First Timothy 1:8-11 alludes to the corporate reality of the law when it says the law wasn't given to righteous men but for the unrighteous. (There has been only one righteous man on the earth who didn't need the law to know how to be holy—Jesus!) The fact that Paul deals with slave-trading and kidnapping shows that he was also dealing with systemic sin and not just individual sin in this passage. 

In Summary

Although I think Prince's book has a lot of great insights and was worth the read, I am concerned many will take his writings to an extreme and that his radical grace perspective could lead people to just seek Jesus without obedience to simple and obvious things like being committed to a local church, tithing and walking in love. (Even though Prince pushes church attendance and giving, in principle his theology can make it easy to dismiss these practices.) Prince also seems to be against the spiritual discipline of fasting. Although I understand his point in this matter, I still believe fasting very important to practice, albeit not for salvation. Not connecting his teaching to the cultural commission in Genesis 1:28 also puts Princeon a faulty foundation and can lead a person to disconnect the gospel from the kingdom of God, thus leading to self-focus and narcissism. (The kingdom message connects redeemed individuals to their corporate responsibility to serve their communities.) 

In spite of all this, it may be a great book for some new believers—although I believe young children and new Christians need to be taught the Ten Commandments as a standard for ethics in the church and world—and especially for those who constantly walk around with guilt and condemnation. If radical grace is taught in the context of the message of the kingdom of God to give it balance, it can be a great teaching that lifts up Jesus and transforms individual lives who can transform nations.

 

Joseph Mattera is overseeing bishop of Resurrection Church, Christ Covenant Coalition, in Brooklyn, N.Y. You can read more on josephmattera.org or connect with him on Facebook or Twitter.

 

---

Original Page: http://bibleilliteracy.charismamag.com/spirit/church-ministry/18623-is-joseph-prince-s-radical-grace-teaching-biblical

God Hasn’t Forgotten How to Provide

If God owns it all, why do so many Christians find themselves lacking? Here's how to experience the miracle of supernatural abundance from your heavenly Father—and what that really means.

I like to share the story about two girls who met at a camp on the East Coast. A bratty, rich girl introduced herself to the other: "Hey, there. I come here every summer because my daddy owns part of this property. Do you see that speedboat on the lake? My daddy owns that boat. Do you see that mansion on the side of the mountain? My daddy stays there when he comes to visit me."

Looking upward, she then exclaimed, "Oh! Do you see that airplane? That's my daddy up there," and waved enthusiastically, as if the passengers could see her.

"So, who's your daddy?" she asked in a condescending tone.

The other preteen was a good Christian girl but wasn't wealthy. In fact, her mother had sold some of her personal jewelry to cover the camp's registration fees. Feeling embarrassed and insignificant, the girl looked down at the dirt by their cabin.

Then she smiled and lifted her dejected head. With a twinkle in her eyes she said, "Do you see that large lake that your daddy's boat is in? My Father created that lake. And you know that mountain your daddy's cabin is on? My Father owns that mountain. As a matter of fact, do you see that big, blue sky your daddy's plane is in? My Father owns that sky."

Check Your Perspective

After reading that kind of story, you might be thinking, "So if God owns it all, why am I lacking?" The quick answer is that you possibly have a wrong perspective.

Perspective is everything, as shown by a recent experience my husband, Tommy, and I had. On a dark county road we noticed a red, out-of-control pick-up truck approximately 300 feet in front of us. Weaving back and forth, the driver jerked the truck from left to right and then sashayed into a circular pattern. We immediately called 911 to alert the authorities, only to discover later that the driver worked for the Texas Department of Public Safety and was testing a new type of road base. From our limited perspective he was a drunken fool. In reality, this good man was working late at night to keep our roads safe.

Perhaps you have a wrong perspective of God, believing He wants you to barely get along. But God is not like an earthly father who would say to his son, "Now, son, you know that I am a millionaire, but I don't want you to become proud, so you can have only a dollar for lunch today." No, no—a thousand times no. He is a loving Father who would say something more like, "After football practice, let's go out for pizza; in fact, invite the whole team."

I challenge you to renew your mind and think bigger. Spend time in Isaiah, where it says, "Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket, and are counted as the small dust on the scales; look, He lifts up the isles as a very little thing" (40:15, NKJV).

One drop. Ponder that when your faucet drips tonight. Let one drop fall on a plate and stare at it. In God's mind that drop represents 196 nations on the earth. You can tap into the unlimited resources of heaven by meditating on His greatness.

Know the Father's Heart

It's normal for parents and grandparents to lavish genuine gifts on their children. My paternal grandfather rewarded each of his granddaughters with a dress when we broke our thumb-sucking habit. My two older sisters both selected a conservatively priced dress. Not me! I spied a cheerful polka-dotted dress with a full petticoat and a matching kelly-green coat. Yes, it was the most expensive dress in the department. But Granddaddy never flinched. As a 5-year-old, I wore his love proudly. While my sisters teased me, they could have done the same thing if they had wanted.

Let me be clear: I believe God wants believers to prosper us with as much as He can trust us with. God is a Father. The New Testament refers to Him as a Father no less than 245 times, including more than 100 times in the Gospel of John. The issue of a believer's prosperity is not his treasures but his pleasures. If you are ready to serve God wholeheartedly, whether abased or abounding, God can trust you and prosper you. Your Father loves you, but don't forget that you're on assignment.

Remember Your Source

So, let's talk about how to live in light of God's generosity and the truth of our need. My husband, Tommy, and I know all about this, as years ago we founded a youth camp, called Discovery Camp, that forced us to learn what we believe about faith and finances. 

Early in the process, we made a covenant with each other to obey God wholeheartedly, to never merchandise the anointing, and to never, never, never develop sticky fingers. To assure that we could put the ministry on solid financial footing, Tommy refused to receive a salary for the first five years. I believe much of the supernatural provision in our lives is a direct result of that covenant. As we strive to do God's bidding, He has been faithful to exceed our greatest expectations.

When we started, a retired accountant asked us how we planned to pay for everything, such as $6,000 in monthly land payments, food for thousands of campers and staff salaries. I remember thinking, "What a dumb question. Doesn't he know that God provides where He guides?"

To give you some quick background, for several years Tommy and I had led successful youth ministries, first separately and then as a couple. When we married, it represented the grand climax to our respective youth networks. Brimming with optimism as we set out on our camp venture, we mailed out newsletters to 2,000 friends and ministry contacts, inviting them to support us for $5 per month.

Initially I questioned Tommy: "Only $5? Why not suggest $10? Or $25?"

"No, Rachel," he responded. "Only $5. They are all members of a good church, and our objective is be a friend to the local church."

Reality struck us between the eyes a month later when only 42 people responded to our newsletter. It didn't take long to do the math—$5 times 42 people equaled $210. Suddenly that $6,000 land payment looked more like $60,000.

"What are we going to do?" I asked.

Grinning, he replied, "We're gonna get busy reaching kids for Jesus like He sent us here to do, because God is faithful."

I'm not sure how we made those first few payments, but we remained faithful and steady. I watched, amazed, as we were never late on our mortgage or other bills. Plus, Jesus wouldn't allow us to call anyone for financial assistance. He continually reminded us, "Men are not your source."

Dare to Be Debt Free

In January 1992, faith rose up in our hearts to pay off the mortgage on the camp property. Tommy led our staff in a strong confession of faith: "By Dec. 31, this ministry will be debt-free." We confessed this constantly, despite our bills dramatically increasing each month.

(By the way, miracles don't happen just because you repeat something over and over like a parrot. It's the Holy Spirit who deposits in your heart the faith to believe for something. He makes suggestions that you can accept or reject. If you choose to agree with God and mix your confession with faith, you'll receive the manifestation. I'm not referring to a selfish-oriented "blab it and grab it" claim but a genuine faith promise that advances the kingdom of God. When God is the initiator, He is inviting you to be a part of a miracle.)

Tommy felt financial burdens pressing on his shoulders that year. The cost of operating a 553-acre campus requiring ongoing maintenance of land and vehicles, staff housing, insurance and food costs seemed to regularly escalate. We rejoiced if the monthly electric bill stayed under $20,000, while Tommy said things like, "Lord, if You help me pay this camp off, I'll give away free camps to hurting kids." Keep in mind, no megachurch or rich men's committee underwrote us, just faithful pastors, partners and friends who obeyed His voice. We had numerous "$5 grandmas" who accepted the call to intercede. Great will be their reward in heaven.

You have to come to the place where you declare confidently, "Man is not my source, the mail is not my source and events are not my source. God is my source." We spent that entire year standing on His promise to be debt-free by the end of the year. On Dec. 24, I looked at the calendar and wondered why God seems to take such pleasure in last-minute miracles. Friends, don't let go of your promise in your 11th hour. God is faithful.

By Dec. 26, we miraculously had the funds in the bank. However, we still needed to complete some legal paperwork. Our confession remained strong because we knew that "He who promised is faithful" (Heb. 10:23). Sometimes if the door doesn't open, you have to kick it down. Such was the case for our debt-free miracle. Tommy drove 300 miles to collect the necessary paperwork and then drove another 200 miles to finalize everything. Although some banks weren't open because of the Christmas holidays and some doors slammed in our face, we never wavered in our confession of faith. On Dec. 29, with a check in hand for $139,604.35, we raced to the title company. Against all odds and to the glory of God, we paid off all 553 acres of the camp on the last business day of the year.

Keep Your Vows

In gratitude for God's goodness and remembering Tommy's vow, the next year we committed to give free camps to 2,000 underprivileged kids. We covered their registration and food and underwrote the $400 fee for a rental bus to bring them to camp. Some came from orphanages or lived on the streets with their homeless mothers. We saw no Scooby-Doo sleeping bags or designer jeans at those camps. One child's lunch plate shook as he marveled, "I've never seen so much food on one plate!"

More than 20 years later, we have remained true to our vow. More than 25,000 children from impoverished backgrounds have enjoyed free camps, and most of them have decided to follow Christ. So have many of their chaperones. It seems that giving camps to these poor children opened heaven's windows and released supernatural provisions. Solomon addressed this principle twice in Proverbs: "He who has pity on the poor lends to the Lord, and He will pay back what he has given" (19:17); and "He who gives to the poor will not lack" (28:27).

Make Room for the Supernatural

Tommy had just completed a sermon series titled "Seizing Your God-Given Opportunities" when a friend alerted us about a feed store in the process of being dismantled in Uvalde, Texas. Even at a super-low price, buying iron from the dismantled building sounded like a hassle, yet Tommy felt an inner witness to pursue it.

After the iron was delivered to the camp, we learned it was worth double the price we had paid for it. It was a case of supernatural provision! We used those funds to build classrooms for our Texas Bible Institute.

The same thing happened with our camp road, which started out as 1,800 feet of dirt base. In Texas we enjoy what the locals call "gully washers," which are relentless, torrential rainstorms. For nine years we lived regularly with mud, mud and more mud. Campers routinely tracked mud into the dorms and chapel. Our guests' vehicles frequently got mired in the muck. We used to joke that in heaven, our shoes wouldn't be muddy.

Though we stayed focused on our God-given mandate to serve local churches and reach young people for Christ, sometimes the mud tried our patience. Still, like Paul, we declared, "I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound" (Phil. 4:12).

Finally faith rose up in our hearts to spread an oil cap over the road. We sent out a letter to our precious pastors, partners and friends and issued a strong appeal in our monthly magazine.

We were surprised our partners didn't embrace this need immediately. But after many months of standing in faith, a man called for Tommy while he was ministering in Odessa, Texas, at one of our partner churches. The man told Tommy that while he was praying that morning, the Lord told him that he was to cover the expenses of a camp project we were working on. Since we didn't know this man personally, Tommy questioned him further.

"Praise the Lord, brother," Tommy said. "You must have experienced our muddy road firsthand."

"No, I haven't been there for years," the caller replied.

"Oh, I see. Well, you must have received our partner letter asking for help."

"No, Tommy, I was in prayer, and the Lord Jesus assigned me to cover the expenses of a camp project."

In one last attempt to figure it all out, Tommy said, "Perhaps you read about this need in our magazine?" (He wasn't a doubting Thomas, just curious.)

Somewhat aggravated, the man responded, "No, Tommy, I don't receive the magazine. I told you that I was in prayer this morning and the Lord told me to cover the expenses of a camp project. Now tell me what you need, and I'll put it in the mail."

Thank God Tommy had the sense to quit probing before the man got angry and changed his mind! Sometimes trying to figure out God's leading can mess up a miracle.

One week later, our financial secretary called Tommy and said, "Sir, I have good news. The funds have arrived!" Today campers, pastors, partners and friends drive through a handsome array of American flags and flowers as they enter our campus via a lovely, paid-for, one-and-a-half-mile-long paved road.

God has good people everywhere who are quick to obey the nudges of the Holy Spirit and help ministries like yours and ours. To this day, I don't know the name of that kind man, but his offering of $12,000 has blessed thousands of our guests. Thank God for an end to the mud!

Be Generous

Many people live from problem to problem and bill to bill, but you can climb out of that rut through generosity. Our debt to God is made payable to man.

We have some friends who set a personal goal to tithe 90 percent of their income to God's work and live on 10 percent. It took them 30 years, but they are now retired and are some of the happiest people on earth. Their stories of constant supernatural surplus are astounding. Why wouldn't God bless them? He knows their priority is to advance His kingdom.

Don't wait until you can afford to give to God's work. Start where you are. If you planned to give $50 to the work of God, give $53. I dare you to pray, "Lord, I'll give away any extra money that I earn, find or receive this week." 

Perhaps it will be a quarter under the couch or a product rebate you forgot about. Don't be surprised when it arrives, and promptly keep your vow.

How big is God? As big as you will allow Him to be. Prosperity with a purpose comes with a responsibility too. God blesses you so that you can become a blessing to your relatives, your church, your city and the world. To achieve this mindset, meditate on 3 John 2: "Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers." 

The secret to true prosperity lies in renewing your soul, which is your mind, will and emotions. We all have to deal with some "stinkin' thinkin'" by rejecting wrong thoughts about surplus, as if those who have an abundance must have done something wrong to get it. Though that may be true sometimes, it isn't always the case, particularly when God causes His children to prosper. The world certainly needs more people willing to radically give to Him.

Be encouraged today that although thousands of years have passed since Israel crossed the desert, God hasn't lost His recipe for manna. For 40 years the Israelites received miracle bread, miracle meat, miracle guidance and miracle protection, and then they received a miracle covenant that led them to a miracle land. That was in the Old Testament, recorded for our learning as an example of the goodness of God.

Believers in the New Testament have a better covenant established on better promises. This brings me to a logical conclusion: It's natural to expect the supernatural, and many of your miracle moments will include supernatural abundance.

---

Rachel Burchfield has served as president of Texas Bible Institute since 1991 and draws thousands of women to her National Women's Retreats. Together she and her husband, Tommy, founded Discovery Camp, introducing half a million campers to the love of Jesus Christ. Most recently, she is the author of Miracle Moments: Experience the Supernatural Power of the Holy Spirit Daily (Charisma).

---

Original Page: http://www.charismamag.com/spirit/supernatural/17712-god-hasn-t-forgotten-how-to-provide

Every Leader Needs a Challenger in Chief

We are drawn to those who echo what it is we already believe. We get a dopamine rush when we are presented with confirming data similar to what we get when we eat chocolate or fall in love. On Facebook we defriend those with different political views to our own. On Twitter we follow people just like us.

Yet a vast body of research now points to the import of contemplating diverse, dissenting views. Not just in terms of making us more rounded individuals but in terms of making us smarter decision-makers.

Dissent, it turns out, has a significant value.

When group members are actively encouraged to openly express divergent opinions they not only share more information, they consider it more systematically and in a more balanced and less biased way. When people engage with those with different opinions and views from their own they become much more capable of properly interrogating critical assumptions and identifying creative alternatives. Studies comparing the problem-solving abilities of groups in which dissenting views are voiced with groups in which they are not find that dissent tends to be a better precondition for reaching the right solution than consensus.

Yet how many leaders actively seek out and encourage views alien and at odds to their own?

All too few.

President Lyndon Johnson notoriously discouraged dissent, with many historians now believing that this played a significant role in the decision to escalate U.S. military operations in Vietnam. Excessive group-think is now recognized to have underpinned President Kennedy's disastrous authorization of a CIA-backed landing at Cuba's Bay of Pigs. Former employees of the now defunct Lehman Brothers have talked about how voicing dissent there was considered a career-breaker. Yale economics professor Robert Shiller explained that when it came to warning about the bubbles he believed were developing in the stock and housing markets just before the financial crisis he did so only "quietly" because: "Deviating too far from consensus leaves one feeling potentially ostracized from the group with the risk that one may be terminated."

Is this the feeling the "clubby" environment in your boardroom is inadvertently engendering? Or are you actively signaling that you want to hear views different and diverse and in opposition to your own? We need to have the confidence to allow our own ideas and positions to be challenged.

Eric Schmidt, the Executive Chairman of Google, has talked about how he actively seeks out in meetings people with a dissenting opinion. Abraham Lincoln's renowned "team of rivals" was comprised of people whose intellect he respected and were confident enough to take issue with him when they disagreed with his point of view. Stuart Roden, Co Fund Manager of Lansdowne Partners' flagship fund, one of the world's largest hedge funds, tells me he sees one of his primary roles as being the person who challenges his staff to consider how they could be wrong, and then assess how this might impact on their decision-making.

Who in your organization serves as your Challenger in Chief? Interrogating the choices you are considering making? Making you consider the uncontemplated, the unimaginable and that which contradicts or refutes your position?

And also challenging you?

For we are not the robotic emotionless decision-makers of economics text books, bound to make the rationally best choices. Instead we're prone to a whole host of thinking errors and traps.

Did you know that when we're given information that is better than we expected — i.e. that our chance of being targeted for burglary is actually only 10% when we thought it was 20% — we revise our beliefs accordingly. Whereas if it's worse — i.e. if we're told that rather than having a 10% chance of developing cancer, we actually have a 30% chance — we tend to ignore this new information?

Are you aware of the extent to which our emotions or moods can skew our choices? You may already know that stress leads to excessive tunnel vision, but did you know that studies of both judges and doctors reveal that when stressed they typically revert to their unconscious racial stereotyping biases? Or that if we go 24 hours without sleep or spend a week sleeping only four or five hours a night, our thinking is as compromised as if we were drunk? Whilst studies in which people are presented with financial choices reveal that people make worse decisions when their blood sugar has dipped, but also when they're feeling hot under the collar. Male students presented with a financial decision after having been shown either a "neutral" image such as a rock or a "hot" image of a lingerie clad Victoria's Secret model, made significantly poorer choices after having looked at the "hot" image.

And how about our propensity to become overly attached to the past?

You remember how huge Nokia was. From the 1990s onwards, Nokia dominated the mobile phone industry. At its peak the company had a market value of $303 billion and by 2007 around four in 10 handsets bought worldwide were made by Nokia.

But when Apple introduced its game changing iPhone in 2007, Nokia was caught sleeping on the job. Despite having themselves developed an iPhone-style device — complete with a colour touchscreen, maps, online shopping, the lot — some seven years earlier. They never released the product. Instead they decided better to stick with what they knew worked — good, solid, reliable mobile phones. As a former employee working in the development team at the time said of that decision, "Management did the usual. They killed it!" When the iPhone was introduced, Nokia engineers sneered at the Apple devices' inability to pass their "drop test" in which a phone was dropped onto concrete from a five-foot height.

Nokia management believed that their successful past would continue to provide a reliable guide to the future, but as we now know it didn't. In the six years since the iPhone was introduced Nokia lost about 90% of its market value. And when Microsoft bought Nokia's phone business this month, the fire sale price it paid for it, only half what Google paid for Motorola last year, firmly reflected just how far it had fallen.

Your Challenger in Chief needs to be alerting you to such thinking errors and foibles. And you need to be listening to him or her.

---

Original Page: http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/09/whos-your-challenger-in-chief/

Is Joseph Prince's Radical Grace Teaching Biblical?

Since there has been a wave of articles against "hypergrace" preaching and churches in the past year, I decided to read a key book authored by Joseph Prince, who is considered by many to be the main progenitor of this genre of teaching.

I read Prince's book Destined to Reign last week with the idea that I would find out for myself what he really teaches. Half of the Christians I know who read this book loved it, and the other half thought it was heresy, so I was quite interested in the content because I've never seen mature Christians who know the Word of God be so divided on any author since the beginning of the Word of Faith teachings by Hagin and Copeland in the 1970s and '80s. 

I must admit I started the book with a suspicious view because for the last 35 years, I have seen some of the catastrophic results of various types of "hypergrace" Christianity. To my surprise, I really enjoyed the book, and as a result I will make some adjustments in how I present the gospel. 

This is not to say there were not some theological issues I was concerned with. Prince makes the same mistake thousands before him have made: They come up with some kind of theological system they are comfortable with (he is a "once saved always saved" classical dispensationalist) and then deductively read every passage of Scripture with their biased lens, resulting in forcing the Scriptures to fit their interpretation. Many people make the mistake of wanting to fit God into a concise theological box, resulting in blanket statements that are not always easily proven or true. 

The greatest thing about Destined to Reign and Prince's theology is that it is Christ-exalting and Christ-centered. Prince's main passion is not grace but Jesus, which is the place the whole church needs to be but often is not. (Prince believes grace and the person of Christ are synonymous.)

In spite of its flaws, I will actually recommend the book to certain Christians suffering from a performance trap in which they try to earn God's favor and love by the things they do instead of through the merit of Christ's finished work. There is enough good stuff in the book for new believers and those struggling with guilt to get them on a good foundation—if it is coupled with other books and teachings to bring it balance. 

What is probably happening with Prince is what happens with many popular preachers who start trends. Other preachers read their stuff and take it to an extreme, teaching things the founder never intended. I do not get the impression Princebelieves in cheap grace or that a person who really understands Prince's heart and teaching will dive into sin—but there are certain places where it is easy for the theologically untrained to take his teaching too far and preach a cheap grace or hypergrace message. Prince makes it clear he hates sin and also preaches from the Old Testament to exalt Christ.

The following are some of my concerns with the book. (Since this is not an academic treatise, I am not citing the exact page numbers of Prince's statements—you just have to read the whole book.)

1. Prince Makes Blanket Statements and Tries to Fit All Scripture Within His System

For example, he says it is not necessary to confess our sins and that Paul's epistles never give an example of a believer confessing sin. He says this because he believes all of our sins, both past and future, have already been forgiven (something I agree with in principle) and that we should just be honest with God and speak to Him about our failures. ButPrince says this is not the same as confession of sin for forgiveness. I say this is a merely a cute play on words because speaking to God about our sins is going to lead to confession anyway. 

The challenge I have with this teaching is that in 1 John 1:9, John teaches us to confess our sins. Although Princeacknowledges that this passage refutes his teaching on radical grace, he tries to get around it by saying this passage was written to the gnostics in the church—something he states without citing any commentaries, sources or historical evidence. I counter that the context of 1 John shows that John was writing to believers. He calls them his "dear children" in 1 John 2:1 (NIV). Also, remember that originally the book had no chapters or verses; thus, the "children" in 1 John 2:1 are connected to the first chapter of the book. 

Although the apostle John was dealing with gnosticism in this epistle when he spoke about the humanity of Christ in 1 John 1:1 and 4:2-3 and the fact Jesus came in the flesh—a fact gnostics refute because they believe Jesus only came as a spirit because they believed the realm of the flesh was evil—the recipients of this letter were not gnostics but true believers who were being warned against gnosticism. 

Furthermore, if 1 John 1:9 was written to unbelievers, why would John tell them to confess their sins? Its impossible for an unbeliever to recount and confess all the sins they ever committed. When I came to Christ, I did not confess each and every individual sin of my past 19 years. I just surrendered my heart to Christ and asked Him to forgive me for being a sinner. When a person comes to Christ, they are not commanded to confess their sins but to receive Jesus as Lord (Rom. 10:9-10; Acts 16:31). Only a Christian can remember and confess individual sins as they are committed. 

Furthermore, James 5:16 also teaches believers to confess their sins. Lastly, Paul actually implies confession of sin in 2 Corinthians 7:9-11 when he encourages the Corinthian church to repent and have "godly sorrow."

2. Prince Bases His Theology Only on the Writings of Paul  

I find it interesting that Prince says he only preaches the gospel Paul preaches. Although I admire Paul, Prince has to be careful with statements like this because he can give the impression that the other writings of the New Testament are not inspired or even canonical. (Even the gnostics only cited Paul and disregarded the other epistles as well as the Old Testament.) 

Prince seems to quote the Gospels only occasionally, which gives me the impression he probably believes much of the teaching is not relevant to the church age because the Gospels were written before the Resurrection. This enables Prince(and typical hyperdispensationalists) to avoid dealing with the command for believers to take up their cross (Mark 8:34-36) and other such passages that demand high commitment. 

I believe any teacher who is called to preach like Paul the apostle must preach the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27), which means they need to include equally the Gospels and the epistles of John, Jude, Peter and James as well as the book of Hebrews and the Old Testament.

3. Prince Doesn't Clearly Define the Role of the Moral Law of God 

Prince teaches that the Old Testament Law is not necessary anymore for the church, and he makes a simple dichotomy between both covenants. He doesn't even make an allowance for the need for the moral law of God (the Ten Commandments), except to show us how sinful and lost we are. 

The challenge with this simplified view of the Old Testament is that Paul the apostle told us to know the Old Testament so we will not set our heart on evil things and sin as the Jewish nation did (1 Cor. 10:6). Thus, the moral law was still necessary to keep the church in line, according to Paul.

Prince says there is no room for preaching the law of God in the church and that God only blesses the message of grace. However, church history does not back this up. Charles Finney was perhaps the greatest evangelist in American history, and he would regularly preach the moral law of God to get people convicted and then use the gospel to get them saved and consecrated. He preached the law of God to both saint and sinner. You can also throw Jonathan Edwards into the mix as a powerful preacher who used the law of God in his messages. 

Prince would probably say these men preached a mixture of law and grace. However, the fruit of their ministries shows that their work and message was greatly blessed of God and had historic results. I personally teach regularly on the law of God in the church with great effect and fruit. Prince would probably say I preach a mixture of law and grace—but if I stand in the company of Finney and Edwards, who used the moral law as a standard to convict sin, I will take Prince's criticism with a smile!

I believe the moral law is still needed, or else there would be no conviction of sin and our standard of righteousness would collapse down to the ethos of the surrounding culture. Furthermore, the moral law was repeated in the New Testament, even by Paul in Ephesians 4-6, when he told the church not to steal, not to be angry, not to covet, not to commit sexual immorality, not to be idolaters and to honor their fathers and mothers. Furthermore, all the New Testament writers repeatedly used the Ten Commandments as the standard of holiness for the church because it reflects the nature and character of God.

Even when Jesus gave His followers a new commandment to love one another (John 13:34), He was still using love as a law to obligate the church to a standard of living—something Paul repeated in Romans 13:8-10.

Prince thus lumps the moral law (the Ten Commandments) with the ceremonial law of God and says both have been done away with and are not relevant to the church. What he fails to realize is every time the law is dealt with by Paul (in Galatians, Romans, Hebrews and Colossians), the context is always circumcision, animal sacrifices and the observance of the Sabbath and holy days. Hence, Paul is primarily referring to the ceremonial aspects of the law, not the Ten Commandments. 

Prince brings out the fact that Paul calls the Ten Commandments the "ministration of death" in 2 Corinthians 3:7 (KJV). However, I would counter that in spite of this, Paul and the other New Testament writers continually used the Ten Commandments as the standard of ethics for the church. The ministration of death has to do with the fact that without Christ, we are all guilty before God—a point we all agree with. Galatians 3:24 calls the law our schoolmaster that leads us to Christ; thus, it is a standard of holiness that brings conviction and leads us to depend on the grace of Christ to fulfill it. Romans 8:4 clearly teaches us the Holy Spirit empowers us to fulfill the righteous requirements of the law; thus, it's standards are still a requirement for functional holiness. Furthermore, the strength of sin is the law (1 Cor. 15:56). 

But the point of the New Testament is that Jesus gives us the power to live righteously through His Spirit. It is not just imputed righteousness from Christ with no obligation on our part. When we break the Ten Commandments, that is still a sin that we believers have to repent of and confess to the Lord for forgiveness. 

I do agree with Prince that we need to be Christ-focused and Christ-conscious to have victory over sin and that we can only have faith and grace to walk in victory through the imputation of Christ's righteousness—not our own merit. Where we depart ways is that I contend the Ten Commandments are still necessary as our standard for how Jesus wants us to live by His power and grace. The law doesn't save us. It reminds us of our sinfulness and, as a schoolmaster, leads us to depend on Christ alone. 

To summarize this point, I don't agree with Prince when he says we don't need the law to govern our behavior—we just need grace, he says—because, in my perspective, grace uses the standard of the moral law, as is repeated over and over in the New Testament.

4. Prince Believes in "Once Saved, Always Saved"

As a typical dispensationalist, Prince believes that once a person receives Jesus Christ as Savior, they can never lose their salvation. (Some know this as the doctrine of eternal security.) The challenge I have with this is that it fails to interpret individual passages honestly that disagree with this particular system. 

For example, Hebrews 6:1-8 and 10:24-29 clearly teach that people, after receiving the saving knowledge of Christ, can fall away and lose their salvation. Second Peter 2:20-22 and James 5:19-20 are as clear as tar on snow that a believer can fall away and once again be called a sinner who has to be restored. There are numerous other passages I can cite but will not because of the time. 

I am more comfortable with the Reformed understanding of salvation, which teaches people can experience the fruits of salvation while never being chosen from "the foundation of the world" (Eph. 1:4), in which case they will not remain in the body of Christ because they were never a part of it to begin with. (First John 2:19 seems to teach the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints.) This is the only position I have found sufficient to effectively deal with the conundrum of Scripture that seems to teach both eternal security and that a believer can fall away. I take the position of the apostle Peter: I may think I am saved, but I have to endeavor to make my calling and election sure (2 Pet. 1:10).

5. Prince Teaches That God Can't Get Angry With or Punish Christians 

Prince says God does not get angry with Christians. But what about the admonition in Ephesians 4 to not grieve the Holy Spirit? (In Ephesians 4:30, grieve means "to cause great sorrow and distress," which is akin to causing anger). Even stronger is Paul's warning in Ephesians 5:6 against living an immoral life that brings God's wrath on the disobedient. The clear context here, for those who are disobedient, is that this is written to the church of Ephesus; thus, God can have wrath toward Christians. 

What about the sin that leads to death referenced in 1 John 5:16? Whether this refers to physical or spiritual death has been debated for centuries; however, the main point is that a believer can commit a sin so severe it can result in death. (I believe it is referring to physical death, which correlates to 1 Corinthians 11:30 and 1 Corinthians 5:1-6, where Paul wanted to hand a man over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh because he slept with his father's wife.)

Finally, what does Prince do about Jesus' words to the seven churches in Asia Minor in Revelation 2-3? In these letters, Jesus not only punishes but also threatens to remove whole churches from their cities unless they repent (Rev. 2:5). In Revelation 2:16, Jesus tells the church of Pergamum to repent or else He will come and fight against some in their church. In Revelation 2:22-23, Jesus tells those who are under the influence of Jezebel that He will kill them unless they repent. Finally, Jesus tells the church of Laodicea that He is about to vomit them out of His mouth (Rev. 3:15-16), Strong words, indeed, that do not nicely fit into the theology of Joseph Prince.

6. Prince Says God Is Not Judging Any Nation Because of the Cross 

Prince teaches that God did not judge Sodom until Lot was removed, thus making a case that God will not judge any nation that has a presence of believers in it. What Prince fails to realize is that the Old Testament is replete with illustrations in which God judged the nations of Israel and Judah by disinheriting them even though there was a remnant left who believed. (See, for example, Isaiah 6:13.)

Furthermore, in Matthew 11:20-24, Jesus speaks about corporate judgment coming upon cities and towns because they rejected Him. Obviously it is difficult to subjectively prove post-biblically if God has judged nations and empires after the cross, since God often uses the militaries of other nations, natural disasters and their own foolishness to lay low people and nations. Furthermore, God judged the nation of the Jews and Jerusalem for rejecting Christ in A.D. 70, when the Roman armies sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Jewish temple, as Jesus predicted would happen within one generation (Matt. 24:34; Luke 21:20) even though this was almost 40 years after His resurrection. 

7. Prince Preaches an Individual Gospel That's Disconnected From the Cultural Commission of Genesis 1:28

Perhaps one of the biggest flaws in Prince's radical grace doctrine is that his dispensational belief doesn't allow him to connect the gospel to the cultural commission of Genesis 1:28. Believers who embrace the original cultural commission God gave humanity through Adam and Eve (and reconfirmed to Noah after the fall in Genesis 9:1-2) realize we need the moral and civic law to understand how to disciple a nation (Matt. 28:19). The Ten Commandments were not just individual commands for piety and holiness but were primarily given as a corporate structure to disciple the burgeoning nation of Israel (Ex. 20:1-2). First Timothy 1:8-11 alludes to the corporate reality of the law when it says the law wasn't given to righteous men but for the unrighteous. (There has been only one righteous man on the earth who didn't need the law to know how to be holy—Jesus!) The fact that Paul deals with slave-trading and kidnapping shows that he was also dealing with systemic sin and not just individual sin in this passage. 

In Summary

Although I think Prince's book has a lot of great insights and was worth the read, I am concerned many will take his writings to an extreme and that his radical grace perspective could lead people to just seek Jesus without obedience to simple and obvious things like being committed to a local church, tithing and walking in love. (Even though Prince pushes church attendance and giving, in principle his theology can make it easy to dismiss these practices.) Prince also seems to be against the spiritual discipline of fasting. Although I understand his point in this matter, I still believe fasting very important to practice, albeit not for salvation. Not connecting his teaching to the cultural commission in Genesis 1:28 also puts Princeon a faulty foundation and can lead a person to disconnect the gospel from the kingdom of God, thus leading to self-focus and narcissism. (The kingdom message connects redeemed individuals to their corporate responsibility to serve their communities.) 

In spite of all this, it may be a great book for some new believers—although I believe young children and new Christians need to be taught the Ten Commandments as a standard for ethics in the church and world—and especially for those who constantly walk around with guilt and condemnation. If radical grace is taught in the context of the message of the kingdom of God to give it balance, it can be a great teaching that lifts up Jesus and transforms individual lives who can transform nations.

Joseph Mattera is overseeing bishop of Resurrection Church, Christ Covenant Coalition, in Brooklyn, N.Y. You can read more on josephmattera.org or connect with him on Facebook or Twitter.

---

Original Page: http://www.charismamag.com/spirit/church-ministry/18623-is-joseph-prince-s-radical-grace-teaching-biblical