Right Through You

Hey Everyone,

It’s amazing the things that can trigger a not so pleasant blast from the past. I saw a picture the other day of a smiling happy man and woman (not me this time) getting close to retirement (if they’re not there already) and enjoying themselves. That started an avalanche falling in my head.

I thought of the damage done to me in the past and how I will never be able to be where they are because of one of them. I thought of how my life was marred at the very beginning and how it seems as if there has been a systematic chain of events that has tired to get me out of the way for as long as I can remember.

I looked around at the wasteland that is my life (from one perspective) and I wanted to scream bloody murder but instead I found Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill cd and stuck it in the player in my car. As odd as it may seem, that cd helped me work through a lot of anger that stemmed from a lot of pain when it came out in ’95. Listening to it as I drove the other day helped me get there once again thanks to that picture triggering my pain. As I screamed my way down the interstate I was able to reconnect with the fury that helped me to work my way, by the grace of God, toward less brokenness.

I’ve come to understand that we DO need to be angry at the evil that surrounds us – angry enough at the fall to want to rip it apart and replace it with the kingdom of God. It’s time to stop being numb about what is going on in the world. It’s also time to stop trying to advance the kingdom of God with the things of the world. It’s time to stop trying to educate our children into the kingdom, or spending our way into the kingdom, or bombing our way into the kingdom, or manipulating people into the kingdom with well practiced sales pitches or hating our way into the kingdom; especially at funerals.

Those things are not the weapons of our warfare. Stupidity doesn’t keep us out of the kingdom of heaven, the anger of man doesn’t produce the righteousness of God or advance the kingdom: the lack of righteousness keeps us out of the kingdom of heaven, the lack of humbleness before our God keeps the kingdom from advancing. Sin cloaked in the name of God is never righteousness.
Our weapons are few but mighty and they are also rusted with neglect. I am finding myself reconditioning and sharpening the weapon of prayer these days. It is the most neglected yet most powerful tool in our arsenal against the enemy.

I am also beginning to understand that people are not my enemies. All the perpetrators in my life are nothing more than tools in the hands of the great assassin. The world is the battle ground for a spiritual war: A war that rages all around us. Kings and nations are nothing more than pawns on a board and yet God has chosen to win the spiritual battle with human beings. He has equipped us with the tools to win but for the most part we don’t know how to use them or at least we prefer not to.

While the past sometimes gangs up on me and tries to take me down to former depths of despair and hopelessness; thanks be to God that he has brought enough healing into my life that I am able to bounce back much quicker against the wiles of the devil. I feel the strength that flows through my Spirit like never before. I am no longer a child to be used as the enemy’s toy. I can see the tide turning all around me better than I ever have. Winter is giving way to spring and I am so thankful for that.

The war around us is quickly coming to a turning point, the enemy is about to take a hit like he hasn’t experienced in over a 100 years. I don’t know how I know that but I know it to be true. I feel it in my bones. I see it in my life. I see it in my life. The time is coming when the Bride of Christ is going wake from its self induced coma, put on the armor of God, learn to use the weapons at its disposal and in the words of Alanis Morissette say to the enemy of our God:

Hello Mr. Man. You didn’t think I’d come back. You didn’t think I’d show up with my army and this ammunition on my back…. I see right through you. I know right through you. I feel right through you. I walk right through you.

The victory is ours by the blood of the lamb and the power of the spirit and the grace of God our father. May we all find the thing we need to shake us out of our slumber, break us out of the bondage of lies and stir our hearts to the warfare which is our calling: to the VICTORY which is our calling.

I read a line from an EM Bounds book that said: It takes twenty years to make a sermon because it takes twenty years to make the man.

In my case it has taken 50 years and I am finally beginning to see that everything that tried to take me down along the way was needed to write the sermon that is me.

It may be time to let that sermon be heard.

Grace and Peace,
Brad