Published on March 30th, 2010 | Articles, eBooks

By Charles Hamilton

What makes Christianity so unique is that our leader Jesus came back from the dead. As Christians we recognize that Jesus’ resurrection confirms [declares once and for all] that He is the Lord.

The resurrection of Jesus was heaven’s powerful declaration that He is the Son of God. Jesus is the only one in history who is still alive, after having been raised from the dead (over two thousand years ago).

This miraculous event confirms Jesus to be the Son of God. There is absolutely no one from history [past], who has been raised from the dead and is still alive today, except the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus – Declared The Son Of God

Romans 1:3-4 – The New Testament in Modern English (J.B. Phillips)

The gospel is centered in God’s Son, a descendant of David by human genealogy and patently [deliberately] marked out as the Son of God by the power of that Spirit of holiness which raised him to life again from the dead. (Emphasis mine)

Sadly, Jesus himself foretold that there would be people in the world who would not believe, even though one came back from the dead.

Luke 16:31 – Amplified Bible

He said to him, If they do not hear and listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded and convinced and believe [even] if someone should rise from the dead.

Not everyone will believe the truth [good news] but if you are reading this article you have an opportunity to believe.

Why should you believe?

Because God has provided for himself witnesses of the resurrection of His Son throughout scripture.

Eye Witnesses of His Resurrection

I Corinthians 15:1-8 – The New Testament in Modern English (J.B. Phillips)

Now, my brothers, I want to speak about the Gospel which I have previously preached to you, which you accepted, in which you are at present standing, and by which, if you remain faithful to the message I gave you, your salvation is being worked out – unless, of course, your faith had no meaning behind it at all.

For I passed on to you Corinthians first of all the message I had myself received – that Christ died for our sins, as the scriptures said he would; that he was buried and rose again on the third day, again as the scriptures foretold.

He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve, and subsequently he was seen simultaneously by over five hundred Christians, of whom the majority are still alive, though some have since died.

He was then seen by James, then by all the messengers. And last of all, as if to one born abnormally late, he appeared to me!

Forever Settled In Heaven

In a court of law by the word of one or two witnesses a case is settled. Jesus was seen alive by over five hundred Christians after his resurrection. Therefore the matter should be forever settled in our minds as to the truth that Jesus was raised from the dead.

Since the resurrection is at the very heart of the gospel how can any Christian deny life after death?

I Corinthians 15:12-19 – The New Testament in Modern English (J.B. Phillips)

Now if the rising of Christ from the dead is the very heart of our message, how can some of you deny that there is any resurrection? For if there is no such thing as the resurrection of the dead, then Christ was never raised.

And if Christ was not raised then neither our preaching nor your faith has any meaning at all. Further it would mean that we are lying in our witness for God, for we have given our solemn testimony that he did raise up Christ – and that is utterly false if it should be true that the dead do not, in fact, rise again!

For if the dead do not rise neither did Christ rise, and if Christ did not rise your faith is futile and your sins have never been forgiven. Moreover those who have died believing in Christ are utterly dead and gone. Truly, if our hope in Christ were limited to this life only we should, of all mankind be the most to be pitied!

Christianity rests solely upon the truth of scripture that Christ did arise from the dead.

The last enemy of all to be destroyed is death itself.

I Corinthians 15:20-23 – The New Testament in Modern English (J.B. Phillips)

But the glorious fact is that Christ did rise from the dead: he has become the very first to rise of all who sleep the sleep of death.

As death entered the world through a man [Adam], so has rising from the dead come to us through a man [Jesus Christ]!

As members of a sinful race all men die; as members of the Christ of God all men shall be raised to life, each in his proper order, with Christ the very first and after him all who belong to him when he comes.

From Mortal to Immortality

The dead and the living will be fitted for immortality when Christ returns.

I Corinthians 15:51-54 – The New Testament in Modern English (J.B. Phillips)

Listen, and I will tell you a secret. We shall not all die, but suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, every one of us will be changed as the trumpet sounds! The trumpet will sound and the dead shall be raised beyond the reach of corruption, and we who are still alive shall suddenly be utterly changed.

For this perishable nature of ours must be wrapped in imperishability, these bodies which are mortal must be wrapped in immortality. So when the perishable is lost in the imperishable, the mortal lost in the immortal, this saying will come true: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’ ‘O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?’

The Resurrection has brought us victory over death and hell through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Its time for us to believe it and declare it to a sick and dying world.

Published on March 21st, 2010 | Articles, Guest Posts

This guest post comes to us from Paul Scanlon at Abundant Life Ministries.

Zero Gravity Thinking

By Paul Scanlon

Genesis 1:1 records that, ‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth’. He then went on to create people in his ‘image and likeness’, passing on to them something of his creative nature. How then is it, that the God of all creation has ended up with a church which is, by and large, non-creative? Sadly, much of the church today could actually be described as being anti-creative rather than creative; it is resolutely resistant to new ideas and change.

To remain relevant we must remain creative. Without creativity our churches will look, sound, feel and be the same ten years from now. And standing still in our twenty-first century world will show up much quicker than at any previous time in history. We live in a fast moving, technological world that makes anything which is not moving appear obsolete overnight.

Creativity Is Not A Gift

Creativity is not a gift just given to certain ‘arty’ types of people. Neither is it a personality type, a particular kind of event or a notable work of art. Creativity is our God given nature; the creator of the universe has downloaded himself into people. Creativity is within our special DNA code; we are all creative by divine nature. We may not all be expressing it, but we already have it. Often, the unsaved are far more expressive of their innate sense of creativity than the church. But when we were born again, our fallen nature was redeemed, and with it our creativity, which was restored back to usefulness for God.

The Church must hear this and accept her responsibility to build creative, innovative, relevant churches that connect with their communities. Innovation is vital to the success of our churches, businesses and ministries. New ideas are our future. Our problem, however, seems to be that the burden of what we know is so huge, it limits what we can imagine. Our greatest challenge isn’t what we don’t know, but what we do know, and that stifles our ability to receive new ideas. We form unhealthy emotional attachments to methods, customs, traditions and styles and see ourselves as custodians of these sacred things. We get confused between form and essence and go to war with each other over hymn books, pews, choir robes, the King James Version and the removal of the church organ. And just in case we in ‘newer’ churches are thanking God that this is not true of us, we also go to war over our newer equivalents of these things. When we confuse form with essence we fight for things God doesn’t even care about. Thousands of churches have split over disagreements about form while completely missing the essence of reaching lost people.

The Two Roadblocks To Innovation

Innovation is the application of a new idea that results in a valuable improvement. This definition protects us from people thinking that innovation is just lots of useless ideas. If it can’t be used to improve what we do, it’s not truly innovative.

There are two massive roadblocks to innovative thinking. They are so huge that most people, and even fewer churches, ever get past them. They are group-think and expert-think.

• Group-think is the power of what most people around us think. It’s the crowd or herd mentality. It was group-think that had Jesus figured as being either Elijah, an Old Testament prophet, or John the Baptist.

• Expert-think is what the experts around us think. It is group-think on steroids!

These two innovation killers pin us down under the huge weight of what’s already known, thereby disabling us from thinking beyond what everyone already knows but which is not working. Democratically run churches can be paralysed by the power of group-think, as can policy run businesses that have forgotten that they exist to serve people rather than their policies. Certain airlines come to mind, but I won’t go there!

Group-Think

Our group can be many things: our nationality, age group, home group, church denomination, interest group, economic group etc. The point is that the weight of evidence suggests that we are all hardwired to conform, fit in and be accepted by the group; to maintain the status quo. And even more so if our jobs, salaries, opportunities and friendships depend on us fitting in with the group. In these cases we are even more likely to keep quiet when progress demands that someone speaks up.

In the Star Trek movies they once encountered the nearest life-form to the church you could ever meet. They were called the Borg; a mindless, group-think, collective consciousness. There was no individuality, no personal identity and no independent thought; ‘all must assimilate to the Borg’ was their mantra. Again, certain airline staff come to mind here, but I must move on!

Following the collapse of the American company Enron in 2001, it was stated in the enquiry report that everyone became mindless conformists once inside the Enron boardroom. What’s really shocking about this is that Enron’s board consisted of highly successful business leaders, professors and former senior politicians. If people of that calibre could surrender to the power of clearly faulty group-think, we are all vulnerable. Group-think doesn’t just affect weak-minded, easily intimidated people. I think I’m a pretty strong-minded independent thinker, but group-think affected my life for years.

Expert-Think

Expert-think is seen in our overwhelming inclination to align ourselves with the boss or the expert or the best known way of doing things. It’s like group-think but on steroids, because experts don’t even need to be present to shut down new ideas. Someone we respect just quoting what the so-called experts say can immediately stifle creativity.

I’m not against expertise. I’d rather have an expert operating on me than a novice surgeon, and rather an expert lawyer than one fresh out of law school. The problem is that all experts approach life with certain fixed mindsets. The advantage of this is that they know how to react, almost without thinking, in complex situations. The disadvantage is that a fixed mindset is resistant to questioning, especially from non experts. I recently read a shocking statement that said the biggest killer currently in America is doctors. The point of the article being that doctors are experts and people don’t think to question either their diagnosis or the prescriptions they are given to take.

Zero Gravity Thinking

A zero gravity thinker is a person who has broken free from the weight and huge downward pull of group-think and expert-think. These innovative thinkers defy gravity by escaping from underneath the burden of what we already know. Zero gravity thinkers help us to reset the gravity levels in our team, church or business by helping us to attain a degree of weightlessness in our thinking. Whilst we welcome gravity in the physical world, we should not welcome it in our mental world. Gravity’s job is to keep everything and everyone down, but what if the idea you need is up?

‘Fix your mind on things above, not on earthly things’ exhorted the apostle Paul. Because God wants to do ‘immeasurably more’ than we can imagine. Isaiah tells us that ‘God’s thoughts are not our thoughts’ but far higher. But the more stuff we accumulate mentally, the bigger the weight of gravity anchoring it down.

The Emperor’s New Clothes

Do you remember the story of the Emperor’s new clothes? Everyone was told that only the most loyal subjects would be able to see the king’s new clothes. As the king paraded through the streets everyone shouted how fine and grand he looked, until he passed a small boy. This little boy shouted out what everyone knew but dare not say: ‘The king is in the all together; he’s naked!’ The story goes that the king fled indoors because he also knew the truth, but had allowed the two ‘expert’ tailors, who were really swindlers, to deceive him.

This story carries a powerful insight about the nature of zero gravity thinkers. They are people with some psychological distance and mental separation from what everyone else is too close to. The boy in the story was outside of the social pressure to appear loyal to the king. He didn’t care what others thought and wasn’t part of any group he didn’t want to upset.

It’s very difficult to keep mental distance from things that we do everyday and it becomes more difficult the longer we do them. When Jesus said to the crowds in his sermon on the mount, ‘You have heard it said… but I say to you’, he was resetting the gravity levels established generations ago on thinking about murder, adultery, divorce, keeping your word, treatment of your enemies, etc. Jesus spent most of his public life challenging old group-think and expert-think strongholds in order to make way for both his new wine and his new wineskin, the church.

The Jethro Factor

Jethro was Moses’ father-in-law and his visit to Moses, when camped at Sinai in the wilderness, is recorded in Exodus. We read, ‘The next day Moses took his seat to serve as judge for all the people and they stood around him from morning till evening. When his father-in-law Jethro saw all that Moses was doing for the people he said, “What is this you are doing for the people? Why do you alone sit as judge, while all these people stand around you from morning till evening?”’

Apparently no one had ever asked the great Moses why he did it that way? Moses’ answer was a classic expert-think answer when he basically said, ‘I’m Moses; this is what I do. When people don’t know God’s will or have a dispute they come to me and I give them the answer’. Jethro basically said, ‘That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, this is gonna kill you and the people!’ Then he proceeded to give Moses a zero gravity thinking solution to his problem. Jethro had psychological separation from Moses’ world. He wasn’t a Hebrew, he wasn’t a leader under Moses and best of all, he wasn’t staying. We desperately need people like this in our world, people who can look at what we do and see with ease how it could be done better or smarter. These zero gravity thinkers are the key to keeping our churches, businesses and ministries innovative and relevant.

I thank God for every Jethro who has visited my church and had the confidence and gravity-free perspective to ask me ‘why?’ about various things in our ministry. Sadly, many pastors are too threatened and insecure to welcome a Jethro and so, like Moses, continue to wear both themselves and the people out.

Do you want your church, business and ministry to still be useful to God ten years from now? If so, you must commit to growing a creative life, and to sustain a creative life you must become a zero gravity thinker.

Published on March 21st, 2010 | Articles, Guest Posts

This guest post comes to us from Paul Keith Davis at White Dove Ministries.

Redeeming the Time

By Paul Keith Davis

We are going to revisit 1977! That is what I prophesied on December 31, 2009 at a conference WhiteDove Ministries co-hosted with our friends, Steven and Stacy Shelley. Initially, my thoughts returned to key events in the life of Pastor Roland Buck beginning in 1977 with the many prophecies and teachings that followed his supernatural encounters. This is a subject I have spent much time contemplating and absorbing. The Lord has made it emphatically clear this was a true word from Him and essential for our generation. I have written about his ministry in Books of Destiny.

However, what transpired over the following weeks was quite surprising and yet encouraging as it relates to our place in divine destiny. Within days of uttering those words, I was profoundly reconnected with many friends from my college years; some of whom played a significant role in my life both personally and spiritually.

Suddenly, I recognized these friends were all prominent in my life in the year 1977. I even accidentally located an individual for whom I had considerable admiration who first introduced me to the Pentecostal Church. At that time my little exposure to church life stemmed from scarcely attending a very traditional Southern Baptist congregation. Needless to say I was shocked at what I experienced in the Pentecostal service that I attended with my friend. I had no grid for understanding what I witnessed, yet something was awakened in me that spoke directly to my personal destiny. I realized my last encounter with her was in 1977.

Even though it was refreshing to rediscover these former friends and learn the course they took in life, I was still not prepared for what transpired on January 24, 2010.

Revisiting A Turn In The Road

I was scheduled to speak that Sunday evening in a Church just south of London, England. As I normally do when ministering in the UK, I flew all night arriving in London around 7 AM. I was taken directly to my hotel with the hopes of catching a brief nap before preparing for the evening service.

However, no matter how much I tried I could not sleep and ended up praying for approximately three hours. Somewhere around noon I went into a revelatory experience that has changed my perspective on multiple levels and provided enormous encouragement.

When I prophesied on December 31st that we would “revisit” 1977 I had no idea I would literally be allowed to see prophetically a key event in my personal life that transpired in that pivotal year. In the experience I saw by spiritual vision a certain day in the fall of 1977 and a chance encounter with the person for whom I had great respect and affection who had been responsible for first introducing me to Pentecostal Christianity two years before.

I watched in the vision as I walked away from this chance meeting and resolved in my heart to pursue a certain course in life that led away from God’s ultimate design for my destiny. Because of insecurities and emotional scaring resulting from a difficult family situation through my childhood and adolescent years, I didn’t have the ability to work through challenging circumstances at the time to make the best decision. Eventually, this turn resulted in my rejecting the commission God offered at my graduation in 1979.

In the experience the Lord spoke to me and said, “This decision and turn in the course of your destiny was not of Me, but I saw it before you were formed in your mother’s womb and I made a provision for you in it.” What a profound expression of God’s sovereignty and love for His children.

I was about to make a turn in the road that would lead away from my personal destiny of having a voice into the Spirit-filled/prophetic community and instead pursue a business career and the determination to stay within the conservative evangelical movement. Even so, the Lord made a provision for my return to the place of prophetic fulfillment and fruitfulness, although this path proved to be much more difficult.

With those words I asked the Lord for a biblical confirmation. Instantly I was given Jonah. Although I have often read the Book of Jonah I have not spent much time dissecting its meaning, until now. After my experience on January 24th I have looked at Jonah with an entirely new perspective and with spiritual eyes that reflect the loving guidance of our Father and His jealousy for our personal destiny.

Jonah’s Provision

We all know the story! Jonah eluded his destiny and God’s desire for him to prophesy repentance to an evil and ruthless city that was notoriously antagonistic towards Israel. Jonah was reluctant to offer an opportunity for repentance and mercy to Israel’s enemy and ran from this personal calling. I realized, like myself, Jonah made a wrong turn in the road to his destiny.

Even so, that commission was woven into his spiritual DNA and ordained as a pivotal experience in his life. I am certain Jonah had no idea we would still be reading about his life these many centuries later and gleaning insight into God’s nature and character because of his journey.

The Bible tells us Jonah boarded a ship and fled to the west towards Tarshish when the place of his destiny was to the east in the city of Nineveh. Jonah abandoned his destiny by boat, but returned by fish. Through this revelatory experience, the Lord has profoundly changed my perspective concerning Jonah’s ordeal. I had always looked at Jonah’s “belly of the fish” adventure as God’s discipline. However, in my revelation I was shown it was the Lord’s PROVISION.

Without the specially prepared and appointed “fish” Jonah would have perished at sea and never accomplished his destiny. Although the encounter was difficult and frightening it was the vehicle by which the Lord returned His prophet to obedience and fruitfulness.

Prepared And Appointed

The Bible is emphatically clear, God prepared and appointed a “great fish” to swallow the prophet and “vomit” him out for a second chance at his destiny. (See Jonah 2:10) Like Jonah, many of us are being offered another opportunity to get it right and fulfill our purpose in life; there we will find true happiness and a sense of satisfaction that comes only from the Lord.

Because of God’s posture in eternity and His ability to see all of time in a single moment, He recognized before Jonah was fashioned in his mother’s womb, the prophet’s poor and rebellious decision. The Lord in His grace made a provision for Jonah. Long before Jonah rejected this commissioning the Lord had already prepared a great fish to partner with Jonah in his return. Before we got off course with God, He already orchestrated a return route for our ultimate benefit. Before Adam ever transgressed and needed a Redeemer, the Lamb of God was already slain before the foundation of the world. (See Revelations 13:8)

No matter what various scholars and theologians may argue, Jonah’s was a literal experience that had a literal fulfillment. The Lord Jesus highlighted Jonah’s testimony on two occasions as a sign of His three days and three nights in the bowels of the earth before His resurrection. If the Lord’s experience was literal, then so was Jonah’s.

Furthermore, scientists may argue that various species of seagoing creatures are not large enough to swallow a human being whole and allow them to survive three days and three nights. Nevertheless, a careful examination of the Scripture prominently affirms that the Lord “prepared” and “appointed” this great fish or sea monster for a specific purpose.

Not only did Jonah have a destiny but also the great fish that was designated and empowered to work with God to return His prophet to his purpose. Perhaps it was a one-of-a-kind species that God designed and engineered just for this encounter. In either event, the experience was literal and it was God’s supernatural provision to return a rebellious prophet to his God ordained calling.

Likewise, many of us have, either knowingly or accidentally, run from our mandate and calling in life. Even so, the Lord made a provision to return us to the place of our fruitfulness; He made that provision before time began. Perhaps we have looked at the experience as discipline, but in reality it is His provision. That was certainly the case in my experience.

Restoring The Lost Years

Clearly, the journey could have been quicker, easier and less costly, but in the final analysis the end result is the release into personal destiny. Jonah may have come out of his experience a little buffeted and smelly, but he also now had a testimony of God’s supernatural intervention that preceded his message, making it even more powerful than it would have been otherwise.

In my experience I realized that the hardships that I have experienced over a significant portion of my life were necessary to eventually return me to the place of my destiny and fruitfulness. Though I may have looked at it as the Lord’s discipline, it was in reality His provision.

More importantly, I have come to appreciate God’s enduring faithfulness to His Word and His promise to redeem the time. Joel 2: 25-26 declares:

So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the crawling locust, the consuming locust, and the chewing locust, my great army which I sent among you. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, who has dealt wondrously with you; and My people shall never be put to shame.

Presently, we are living in a time of prophetic destiny and divine fulfillment through the realization of God’s economy that makes up for lost years and redeems the time. The Apostle Paul put it this way in Ephesians 5:15-16:

See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

The Word of the Lord returned to Jonah a second time requesting the prophet to prophesy in Nineveh. This time the bruised and battered prophet had a different perspective and agreed to this appointment and proceeded to Nineveh. What was perceived to be a three-day job was accomplished in one. The Bible declares:

So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days’ walk. Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown. Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. –Jonah 3:3-5

This is an indication of God’s acceleration. What we perceive to be a lengthy and arduous commissioning can be accomplished very rapidly in God’s economy. He is able to redeem the time, or “buy back the kairos moments” and do in a short period of time what we forecast to take an extended period.

Another Chance To Get It Right

There are multiple applications that can be derived from the spiritual principles outlined in the Book of Jonah. However, I feel it is important to point out that I have come away from my experience feeling a renewed sense of urgency and hope for our own nation. Perhaps God will grant to America another opportunity for grace and repentance as He did Nineveh.

There may be many prophetic voices that are reluctant to prophesy grace and mercy to our nation as Jonah was to Nineveh. Clearly we are in deep trouble as a nation. Even so, I believe there is still a revival on our horizon that will liberate multitudes from the grasp of death and hell. Repeatedly the Lord has emphasized to me that He will finish better than He started; and the Bride’s greatest day is not behind her, but directly ahead. That is what I choose to believe.

Secondly, there is hope for many who are steeped in hopelessness. The Lord has made it profoundly clear that he is returning many of His children back to the place of their destiny and fruitfulness. Though we may return by “fish” and a little smelly like Jonah, in the final analysis we will emerge with a testimony of God’s goodness and the empowerment of His Spirit to redeem the time and accomplish in rapid fashion what we might perceive to be a long and arduous battle.

The one thing we cannot afford to do is to give up. After having done all we must stand and believe in God’s restorative nature and His redemptive ability.