Mexico: part uno

Part Uno:

As we crossed over the border into Mexico stories of drug lords and images of U.S. citizens being kidnapped raced through my brain. I thought to myself, "I could be crossing right now into my death." I was then reminded of what the Lord told me over a year ago, that He was sending me to nations as an ambassador. Trusting that word, my faith was increased that I would not die on this trip, as I had many nations yet to visit.  

Going back a few weeks prior, I'm having a dream one night where I was the wolf boy in that Twilight movie New Moon. Now you should realize why I didn't start off with this statement. Its embarassing enough as a man at age 30 to admit that you've seen both movie installments of Twilight, but to admit that you dream about it gives plenty of ammo for people to poke fun. However, in my defense, my wife wanted to see the movies, and to be honest I was pleasantly entertained by the first one, so to go see the second movie wasn't that difficult for me. Anyway, enough said about that.

In my dream I was in a field and like in the movie I was this young man who was changing and could feel it deep within. It was night and as I looked out I noticed at the edge of the field these men standing there on the edge of the wilderness. They looked back at me and I knew these were the men in the movie that were werewolves and they looked at me as if to say, "its time for you to come out and learn who you are." I was hesitant though as fear gripped me. The thought of becoming what many consider a monster did not sit well with me. Not to mention the many dangers that are very present in the wild where wild things live. In my dream though I knew this moment may not present itself again, so with little hesitation I ran off into the wilderness with these wild men to become what was in my blood. 

I woke up from the dream and the Lord immediately began to write upon my heart. He said, "I have called you into the wild, and it is time for you to become what I have anointed  you to be. Do not be afraid, but come out from where you are into the wilderness, where I AM. " I laid there in bed trying to discern what I had just encountered. Its so strange sometimes the illustrations God uses to get our attention. While many believers have boycotted the movies, here I found God using it to speak to me in my sleep.  

The next day was I received a call from Grover Hope. Now, Grover Hope is a wild man if I've ever seen one. He lives in Cleveland, Tennessee and has a very strong Tennessee mountain drawl in regards to his accent. He's a man in his sixty's, but has more energy than most twenty-somethings. To many he is controversial, but to me he's been an inspiration of quick obedience to what the Lord is asking. In all my years I have yet to learn from people what I have learned from him. Sometimes I have to un-offend myself in order to hear clearly what he is saying. I say that because he has called me out on my tendency to choose sleep over seek and I am still learning how to rise early and seek the Father. He also just has a way of phrasing things that step out of the box of religious clamor, and yet he still holds to the idea that the King James Bible is the only one you can really get true understanding from. So I'm perfectly honest when I say that I believe the verdict is still out on that, however, my ears are open to any translation that speaks to me. 

I love this man of God though because he claims to be nothing more than a man in love with Jesus and spends endless hours in prayer and studying the Word of God to the point it makes you feel convicted for the 15 minutes you spent with the Lord that day so you could appease your religious duties and say you spent time with the Lord. We did, but did it change us? And did it reveal a new layer of our Father to us? These are the honest questions that present themselves to me when I hang out with Grover. It stretches me and pushes me. I have a love/hate relationship with these feelings, but in the end I grow in the Lord. At the same time this man is completely human and is one of the quirkiest fellows I believe I have ever met. I only hope that you have a chance to meet someone like him in your life. 

That day Grover called me on the phone and asked if I'd be willing to come with him to Mexico on an outreach trip. To which I asked, "well, depends, how long and when it is?" To which he responded, "next month and its three weeks." I have never been three weeks in a different country before and I only had a month to raise a substantial amount of money. Oh and did I mention that he wanted to drive down there?  I chose the safe response and said, "let me pray about it." 

Immediately as I hung up the phone the Lord raced through my mind the dream from the night before and whispered to my heart, "it doesn't get much wilder than this."  In a vision I saw us driving down and my friend Michael Anthony Roseman was with us. So I called him up. He and his wife were in Colorado at the time for a wedding. I told him about the trip and his response was something like, "hang on, let me ask my wife." I could hear them talking about it for a minute and when he picked the phone back up he said, "sure, Laura said it was okay, she think's it'll be good for me." I love that couple. 

That reminded me and I then called my wife to tell her about this wild trip. Without hesitation she said, "sure." That was all the confirmation I needed to hear to respond with, 'okay, this is it, it doesn't get much wilder than Grover Hope, Michael Anthony Roseman and myself in a van driving to Mexico, this is it! Let's go!"  So I called back Grover to tell him that we were in; we had no idea how we were going to afford to get there, but we were in. 

Soon after this conversation, Christmas occurred and my wife and I went to visit family in Florida. We had planned on being there about two weeks and during our stay it began to occur to me that we needed lots of funds to get down to Mexico for this three week expedition. However, I had a peace about that.  I knew that something this crazy had to be from the Lord so I also knew that He would provide the funding. 

When I came back home from Florida we had about 3 weeks to come up with what was then about $1500. Michael and I talked about it and agreed that $1500 was nothing for the God of the universe! However, we needed a God derived plan. Immediately as we prayed I got an idea for two things. One was Facebook. We would just post our need on Facebook. "You have not because you ask not." So we would just ask.  Second, Michael and myself are singers and songwriters, so we would host two concerts to raise the money. 

Then I received another call from Grover. Elaine Wilburn, the missionary who had invited us to come and had set up all the meetings for us, had been asked by the pastors in Mexico if we could bump our trip up by a week to come down earlier.  This would mean our trip would be extended to four weeks instead of three.  So a whole month in Mexico, meaning our expenses would go up and we have even less time to raise them. 

Okay, I was nervous. Did I mention that I stepped down from my salary position several months earlier, as I knew the Lord had asked me to, in order to step into full time ministry called Be the Reformation, (which is still in the start up phase). I heard one time that faith is stepping out on a limb and sawing away the tree. I had done that and now I was being asked to come up with money that I couldn't even really afford on a salary, not to mention on the little I was now making doing carpentry work on the side. This faith thing seemingly gets harder instead of easier sometimes. However, what I've discovered is that no amount of worry or anxiety will make anything happen, it actually hinders a work of faith, as faith must have absolute trust in order to be true faith. Best thing anyone every told me was from a friend named Frank Harvey, he said, "When God speaks to you, listen to it and let any man be a called a liar that would try to dispute it!" 

So with that in mind, we set out to raise money with only two weeks before our launch date. I placed a statement on facebook of our need and within a week checks started coming in left and right from close friends, to friends from over seven years ago, to people I hardly knew at all. Then we played a show at a local tavern and in the midst of playing our songs with the band, people came up and dropped money in our offering bucket to send us to the people of Mexico to preach the gospel and minister in song. When the wonderful whirlwind of the weekend had settled there was more than enough money to send us to Mexico and help out with some bills at home. God is good. 

To be continued...

Church of (insert your name here).

Obedience is always better than sacrifice!


I'm ever amazed at my generation. They won't tithe and then complain that the church is struggling! How can such a clear and easy concept be lost on people?


⁶ "I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. ⁷ Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you," says the LORD Almighty.
      "But you ask, 'How are we to return?'

⁸ "Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. 
      "But you ask, 'How do we rob you?' 
     
 "In tithes and offerings. ⁹ You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me. ¹⁰ Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. ¹¹ I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit," says the LORD Almighty. ¹² "Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land," says the LORD Almighty.


(matthew 22:20-22, mark 12:17)


Luke 20:22
Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" He saw through their duplicity and said to them, "Show me a denarius. Whose portrait and inscription are on it?" 
"Caesar's," they replied. 


 He said to them, "Then give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."


Tithing is a command, not a philosophy or theology. Its a command that says the least you can do is give 10% of your income to the place you are fed your bread. The crazy thing about it is God doesn't need your money, but if you will simply do this act of obedience, He is promising to bless you. So by robbing Him, you are ironically robbing yourself! 


Here's the problem, people think "Oh I get my bread from such and such online, but I socialize with my church!" You get your bread from whoever you submit to! Thats the problem. We want a reformation, but will not submit ourselves to the authority God places over us that will lead us into it. We want a buddy instead of a pastor and if we feel he's somehow overlooked us, we'll abandon him, despite the fact that they cover us and bear the brunt of our foolishness.  


I remember that one time I went up to my pastor in after service. I told him who I was, as if to expect that he would be impressed, and then waited for some glorious handshake and conversational response. Instead he barely made eye contact with me and looked at his watch and said, "Well, it's about time we all get out of here for lunch; see ya later."  


I could have been offended and then left for such "disrespect" of a shepherd to a sheep. I was there for him to say, "Come, follow me son and we'll win every nation in our generation." Instead, I was made humble and the Lord said, "You can leave offended or suck it up and sit under this apostle through obedience to receive an apostolic anointing." I chose the latter and the moral of the story is that I had to choose obedience.  


I could have labored and sacrificed in prayer for God to change his heart so that I would be elevated to some amazing postion or I could just sit and listen. To sit and listen, I actually learned. To tithe unto this apostle, laying our tithes and offerings at his feet brought a blessing for Jess and I. Tithing is for our blessing! Sitting and waiting under the people God puts over you is for your blessing! You want to be blessed, then start with obedience, not sacrifice!  


I was talking yesterday with a friend about our culture and society. We want a church that on the sign reads, "Church of (insert your name here)". People get offended if the music doesn't match their taste, the air temperature isn't what meets their comfort, sound is too loud or soft, music is too rock or country, and (my favorite) "the message is either too much of a shotgun message, rifle message, or its just too evangelistic." All shit! All shit! All shit! All shit!  


We've come to the storehouse of God to fling our feces on it's walls and write our names in it. Then we ask why the Holy Spirit doesn't move or healings don't take place. We have made everything about ourselves and are not willing to pay any price for change. We take pride in our amounts of prayer time and yet won't even obey something simple, like love your neighbor as yourself or bring your tithes to the storehouse and even test Him in our overflow of giving.


Sheep and goats. Sheep and goats. We are either going to be a sheep led or a goat that butts it's master! God I pray He shows us grace so that we might have the hearts and minds of sheep and not goats. What will it take for us as the people of God to repent and obey? How low does He have to bring us before we turn from our wickedness? If we aren't young, disobedient, and stupid we seem to be old, disobedient, and stupid. The young want change without sacrifice and obedience, and the old want comfort without sacrifice and obedience.  


The young are busy trying to throw out the old for the sake of change and the old are busy trying to cling to yesterday's manna even when God said, "Collect what you need for today and no more," so that they would always have fresh manna.


"Then the LORD said to Moses, 


'I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. 5 On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.'  


17 The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little. 18 And when they measured it by the omer, he who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little. Each one gathered as much as he needed. 19 Then Moses said to them, 'No one is to keep any of it until morning.'  


20 However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them." (from Exodus 16)  


We keep doing the same thing. Holding on to yesterday's manna (if we collect any at all). Those who store their manna instead of eating and digesting it are now full of maggots and have a spiritual stench that is off-putting to the Lord and any seeker. Its time to repent, church, for we are suppose to be the spotless bride of Christ, not the haggard old woman protecting dusty cathedrals!