Prophetic Horizons

“A Return to Awe and Amazement” by Garris Elkins

2012-01-27T11:53:00.000-08:00

Recently, in a timeof corporate prayer, I sensed the Holy Spirit ask me a question, “Am I awed byGod or impressed by man?" While this question was asked within the quietconfines of my heart, I knew it was for all who were present that day. A few minutes later I asked the question outloud for all to hear.

I think thequestion surfaced, in part, because for the last few years the second chapterof Acts has been unpacked for me in new ways. I am seeing things in the text that I had missed on many past readings.

What I began tonotice in Acts 2 was the repeated experience of people being amazed by God orawed by His presence. Whenever the Word repeats something I take specialnotice.

The entire city ofJerusalem was affected by the supernatural uproar caused on the Day ofPentecost. Acts 2:6 reads, “When theyheard the loud noise, everyone came running, and they were bewildered to heartheir own languages being spoken by the believers.”

Verse 7 goes on tosay about those who came running, “Theywere completely amazed.” This was not a partial amazement, but a total andcomplete amazement at what God was doing. Today, we might say, “They wereblown away!”

After declaring howawesome it was to hear the wonderful things God had done in their nativetongue, the text continues in verse 12, “Theystood there amazed and perplexed. ‘What can this mean?’, they asked each other.”They were stopped in their tracks by the experience – they just stood there –amazed.

Peter went on topreach his famous Day of Pentecost message. After the message these amazed listeners asked, “Brothers, what should we do?” Peter told them to repent of theirsins, turn to God and get baptized, and then they would receive the amazingSpirit of God. After Peter finished speaking, 3,000 amazed and awestruck peoplewere added to the Church.

This amazing workof God did not stop on the Day of Pentecost. God’s work birthed a community of faith who were ruined for anythingthat wasn’t amazing or awe inspiring. A normal and predictable Christianitywould not hold the attention of this group.

Later on in Acts 2the believers formed a community and devoted themselves to theapostles’ teaching, fellowship, common meals and prayer. Verse 43 says, “A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performedmany miraculous signs and wonders.” Pentecost was not a terminal event lockedin history. The events of Pentecost beganunfolding forward into the developing history of the Church and has gone onfor the last 2,000 years.

I used to think thesigns and wonders produced the awe within this first community of faith (vs.43),but the text says the miracles followed the awe that had come over them. Theawe of God first fell in their midst much like the Spirit fell just days beforeon the Day of Pentecost. Once the awearrived the miracles soon followed. This awe of God falls into our midstbecause if comes from Heaven, not from what we do on earth. Our works can beimpressive at best. God’s works areawe-inspiring and leaves people standing in amazement

In some ways Ithink our greatest need in the Church today is to have the awe of God fall uponus. It has been too easy to getimpressed with all the Church does with our latest leadership strategies, stagelighting, good music and all the other stuff of ministry. These elements arenot evil and might be needed in certain assignments, but at their best, theycan only impress.

Peter told thecrowd assembled on the Day of Pentecost that God had publicly endorsed theministry of Jesus by doing powerful miracles, wonders and signs throughHim. Today, God wants to endorse theministry of His Church in the same way.

I watched a NASCARdriver win a race and he held up an energy drink from one of the paying sponsorswho had endorsed him for the race. I amwondering if we might rediscover a sense of awe in the Church if we held upthings before the world that would endorse the supernatural ministry of Jesusin our midst. I think this would create the kind of awe and amazement that wouldhave our communities come running to see what was happening. That would betruly impressive.

"Spiritual Environmentalists" by Garris Elkins

2012-01-25T08:45:00.000-08:00

The word “environmentalist” can make you happy or angrydepending on how you view politics and culture. Actually, it is a very good word when used in conjunction with God andHis Kingdom. An environmentalist is concerned with the long-term health of theplace where they live. The same is true for a spiritual environmentalist withinthe Church.

Some have asked me how to create an environment where theSpirit of God is free to dwell among us. This question was not asked regardingthe personal possession of the Spirit that all believers enjoy. This questionrefers to that corporate experience with Jesus that takes places when twoor more gather in His Name, whether in a corporate church gathering or overcoffee at Starbucks.

In Matthew 18 Jesus said, “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there inthe midst of them.” This kindof revelation of God’s presence, when more than one person is present, is whatwe mean when we say, “the manifest presence of God.” We carry Him within eachof us all the time, but when we come together His presence is “manifest”between us in a different way– in the midst of us. Here is where the pollution can take place,between people, in the midst of our relationships. This “in the midst” place is where we aresupposed to go work as spiritual environmentalists to clean up the junk andsludge of our own brokenness that is not only polluting our lives, but thelives of others as well.

When I talk with leaders within the Church-at-large, I tellthem that they are responsible to create an environment where the Holy Spiritis free to make Jesus known. This environment becomes a reality when thepriority of the local church is not growth, miracles or even salvations. Are three of these are wonderful by-productsof a healthy environment and are very important, but they are not our firstpriority. Our first priority as a churchis to host the Presence. Anything thathinders this hosting of His presence will hinder the work that God wants to do inour midst.

This healthy environment becomes a reality when we personallychoose to pull the weeds of self and striving and give God back a garden oflife where He is free to walk and minister among us. This environment becomes areality when we follow the toxic streams of personal runoff to their source anddeal with our wrong heart attitudes that breed death, not life.

The Second Adam – Jesus – did not redeem us back to theevents and curses that immediately followed the sin of Eden. Our Second Adam redeemed us back to therealities of Eden, before the Fall, where He could walk with us unhinderedthrough a beautiful and unpolluted place. This is the ministry of a Spiritual Environmentalist.

"Be Careful With First Reads" by Garris Elkins

2012-01-19T08:24:00.000-08:00

Recently, I read a blog article written by a very respectedyoung leader. He is well read and welleducated. He does things withexcellence. He has become noticed forall of these attributes and rightfully so.

Because we are all in a hurry from time to time, I did aquick read on something he wrote. Imissed what he was saying and began to carry an offense based on my quick,narrow and judgmental read. I found myself wanting to correct him in a publicforum.

For an entire day I carried a burr in my saddle. I was thinking about how to correct thisyoung man. Maybe I would Tweet a reference to what he wrote or write something onFacebook. This went on all day untillater that evening when the Lord had me reread the article. I could hardly believe it – on the secondread I realized that I was terribly wrong and misinformed. This young authorwas saying something that was not only accurate, but much appreciated by me forit’s content. My hurried read was blind.I am so thankful I did not respond out of my blindness.

I came away from this embarrassing revelation learning a fewthings about myself. I also came away with some things we all need to bereminded of from time to time:

1. A first read is just that – a first read. Rarely do we ever capture a writer’s truecontent the first time around. We owe itto the author, and to the Church at large, to read things again to make sure weare actually correct in our observations. And even then, we should not forgetthat we only see things partially.

2. We all carryreactive baggage. This author wastouching on something dear to my heart. I was defensive about this truth and had anointed myself as itsprotector. Our reactive baggage is usually packed with items from our brokenhistory and unresolved personal issues. Reactive baggage cannot be trusted to speak the truth – it needs to belaundered.

3. Believe thebest. When we read what someone else haswritten we owe them the honor of believing the best about them and not makingsnap judgments. Our judgments put people in a place where we don’t have toengage them. This results inseparation. God is not happy withseparation because it breaks fellowship.

4. My responserevealed that God has more work to do inside my heart. We never arrive at aplace where we can’t be corrected. I had to tell the Lord how sorry I wasregarding my response and admit to Him that I needed His help.

5. Wait before youpounce. It only takes a little moreinvestment of time to do something right. A wrong response, and the resulting hurt, may never be retrievable ifyou let ill informed judgments lead the way in your response to what you do notunderstand.

6. Let the authorknow how much you enjoyed their article. You don’t have to dump all the facts about your personal struggle. A simple affirmation about the article doestwo things. First, if just feels good.And second, maybe God can open up a relational bridge with this person thatwould never have existed had you not walked through this correction of yourwrong attitude.

Years ago, Jerry Cook wrote a book titled, “A Few ThingsI’ve Learned Since I Knew It All.” Jerry was transparent about how life canteach you new things when you think you know it all. I don’t like the feeling that comes when Ithink I know it all and find out I didn’t know as much as I thought. A good “God-correction” is like taking aspiritual bath. You come out clean allover. It feels good.

"The Sound of Heaven" by Garris Elkins

2012-01-07T18:24:00.000-08:00

On the Dayof Pentecost God released the sound of heaven into the Upper Room to empowerthe Church to release the sound of heaven into the world.

Manysupernatural things took place on the Day of Pentecost, like a sudden sound comingto earth from heaven, a roaring wind that blew through the room, flames restingon each person and those present speaking in languages they had never learned.This is what took place at the birth of the Church. It was a very supernaturalexperience.

As we readthe account of that day, the real message of Pentecost can be obscured behindall the supernatural things that took place. In Acts 2:11 the people said,"And we all hear these people speaking in our own languages about thewonderful things of God has done." The sound of heaven, spoken through theChurch, was be heard as "the wonderful things God has done."

It seems tome the message of the Church today should still be this wonderful message ofthe great things God has done. These "wonderful things" is thesound of heaven. When the voice of heaven speaks through the Church ofthe wonderful things God has done, the culture's response will be the sametoday as it was on the Day of Pentecost.

The sound of heavenis a message filled with a wonder at the love of God. This sound ofheaven is our message to the world and this is truly the evidence that we areSpirit-filled believers.

“A ‘Bass-Ackwards' Approach to Ministry” by Garris Elkins

2011-12-22T07:42:00.000-08:00

As a young boy during the summer break from school my dad used to take me along to help out on his construction sites. Dad built houses and he also owned a house moving company. I was always working each summer.

Dad would assign a project to me and then go elsewhere on the job site. Upon his return there would be times dad would say, “Son, you got that one ‘bass-ackwards’.” That famous line meant I was doing something in the reverse order of how it should be done. He would show me my mistake and then share the remedy. He wouldn’t do the work, he simply showed me how to undo the “bass-ackwards” nature of my first attempt.

If dad were here today he would look at how some of us pastors do the ministry and he would say we are turned around. He would say to return to Ephesians and read chapter four again and recognize that our job is to “equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church…”

In fact, dad would go on to say that the growth of the Church is never the pastors responsibility. God grows things that really last. The people you have equipped and built up are the ones who will share their faith and help lead others into a living relationship with God. They will be the ones who invite people to a community of faith to experience spiritual growth and maturity.

I think dad’s view about the “bass-ackwardness” of a young boy’s construction jobs applies to church leadership today. Do your best to equip and build up God’s people. When we make this decision to reorder how we see the ministry, our levels of stress and performance will diminish greatly. The things of life and ministry will then naturally reposition themselves in a healthy God-order that won’t be so “bass-ackward.”

“The Desires and Dreams of the Heart” by Garris Elkins

2011-12-15T07:52:00.000-08:00

When God created us in His image He did not create us tolook like Him physically. The Genesis account was the creation of a peoplecrafted from the very nature and attributes of God. God’s “DNA pool” became oursource of life.

When the image of that original work of creation was deformedthrough sin, the Father sent His Son, Jesus, to birth again His nature andattributes in a people who would eventually become the Church.

God is fully sufficient in Himself. When God created humanity, He did not createus because He needed us - we were created because He desired us. Need is a lesser reality than desire becauseneed is defined from a perceived lack. Godcreated His children with no need or lack in mind. He created us from His sufficiency. His creation flowed from His perfect and puredesire.

For us to be truly human and to have a healthy relationshipwith God and others, we will have to walk in the higher virtue of humility. In this humility we acknowledge that oursufficiency can only be found in Jesus, the only One who is complete andself-sustaining. With this understandingour identity begins to take shape around the Person of Jesus Christ.

As a child of God, our greatest discovery will be our trueidentity in Jesus. We will always needthe companionship and friendship of Jesus who sticks closer than abrother. This relationship with Christis the only need of the Church. The Holy Spirit comes alongside thisrelationship and mentors us and brings us the love and comfort we sodesperately need. Having been madecomplete in Jesus, we begin to reflect God’s nature by having our needs met onlyin Him.

Jesus said in Matthew 6 to not worry about our everydayneeds like food, drink or clothing. Jesus said in verses 31-33,

31“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will wedrink? What will we wear?’ 32These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Fatheralready knows all your needs. 33Seek the Kingdom of God aboveall else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.”

When our focus ison meeting our needs, or the demand that others meet our needs, we will build avocabulary and a life of worry in response to our perceived lack. Jesus said that if we lived this way we wouldappear like unbelievers.

Belief cannot belimited to a set of doctrines and theologies about God. There is a deeper form of belief. This deeper understanding of belief willreveal what we understand or don’t understand about God’s love. Belief can betranslated to mean, “entrust”. When we believe in God we are entrustingourselves to Him.

What makes focusingon our needs so devastating is that it kills our potential to dream. If we continuallyworry about the provision of our basic needs, we will never move our focus beyondneed into the realm of dreaming with God about those things that seemimpossible in the natural. Dreams die when our lives are consumed with theworry that comes from trying to live only within our human potential, insteadof God’s supernatural provision.

When we were made one with God, through Jesus Christ, thevery desires of our heart had the potential to reflect the same desires thatreside in God’s heart. This is possible because the Holy Spirit – God – liveswithin us.

Psalm 37:4 says, “Take delight in the Lord, and he will giveyou your heart’s desires.”

Psalm 37:4 saysthat once our focus is on the Lord – delighting in Him – then our heart is in aplace to actually desire the same things God desires. We must “take” ourdelight and deposit it in God. If ourdelight is placed elsewhere, then our desires will be birthed from thelimitations of our own self-provision or from a kingdom that stands in directopposition to God. In the end, we willbegin to worry like an unbeliever because we have disconnected ourselves from aplace of trust.

Matthew wrote in 6:21, “Whereveryour treasure is, there the desiresof your heart will also be.”

Verse 21, speaks ofa heavenly storehouse that is not vulnerable to what is taking place on earth. Recessionsand Depressions cannot touch God’s goods. I used to think this only meant weare making deposits that will be withdrawn in eternity. In the last few years I have come to realize that when Jesus askedus to pray that His will be done “on earth as it is in heaven,” He was saying thatwhat is stored up in heaven will also begin to rain down upon us in this lifewhen we pray in faith. Heaven will come to earth.

This kind of prayerdraws upon the desires of God’s heart. The only things that will fall to earth fromheaven when we pray are the desires of God’s heart, because the only things residentin heaven are His desires. This is what a miracle is – a desire of God’s heartfalling from heaven to earth. When we delight in the Lord and His goodness, Godwill give us the desires of His heart.

Our goal is thateach of us would begin to hunger for the very desires within God’s heart. Thiskind of life is surrounded by a peace that is beyond our ability to fullycomprehend because it finds its delight and dreams in the heart of God.

"2012 - Carrying Promise into the New Year" by Garris Elkins

2011-11-28T10:42:00.000-08:00

Recently, in a public worship service the Lord revealed an image to me for the coming year. I saw the Church represented as a single person, walking forward and carrying a large bucket in each hand. As we, the Church, approached the line that marked the passing of 2011 and the entrance into 2012, the Lord spoke and said, “Pour out the contents of 2011 and refill your buckets with promise for the coming year.”

Turning the buckets upside down, we proceeded to pour out the contents of the passing year upon the ground. When empty, we began refilling the buckets with words of hope and promise for the coming season.

Then the Lord said, “These are the kind of promises that my servant Paul wrote about to the Church in Ephesus – these are promises beyond your ability to imagine. These are promises birthed from My imagination. My imagination for you has no boundary or restriction.”

We continued to walk forward with buckets now filled with promises for 2012 and beyond. The contents in our buckets started sloshing around and even spilling on the ground. We then crossed the line marking the entrance in to the New Year. As we walked into this new dimension of time, the Lord spoke again and said, “Now pour out these promises upon the soil of your family, your church and your city. I have planted supernatural seeds in the ground for this New Year that are not visible to natural sight. My seeds are thirsty for the water of My Word. 2012 will be a year of germination for things you thought were long dead. My seeds of promise are waiting and groaning for the word of faith you now carry. Pour out your buckets upon the New Year.”

As we began to pour out words of promise upon the bare ground, seeds not seen in the natural began to burst through the earth and reveal themselves. The water level in these buckets remained full even though the contents of the buckets were being poured out. It was like the feeding of the 5,000. A small child’s lunch became a feast through supernatural multiplication. The more the buckets were poured out the more they were refilled.

It is time to empty our buckets of fear and doubt from our past. What we carry without faith and hope are stagnant buckets that do not reflect God’s heart for us. New promises are being revealed. God is also asking many of us to review the promises He has made to us in past seasons. Some of these promises are so distant and buried in so much pain that they will be hard to retrieve or even reimagine. Go after these promises. Find them and fill your buckets with His words of hope once again. God will also begin to pour into your bucket those things of His heart, those Ephesians 3:20 promises, that are beyond your ability to ask or think. These promises, once watered, will sprout and fill your field with works beyond your imagination in the coming year.

2012 will be a year of supernatural surprise. You will say, “I don’t remember this promise. I don’t remember planting that crop.” God is about to show us the depth of His love in ways not yet realized in our imagination.

Today, empty your buckets of all fear, doubt and sorrow from past years. Don’t wait for New Year’s Eve to do this. Enter a time of worship today and allow the Spirit to speak through you and proclaim His Word and heart of promise into your bucket. Walk confidently into 2012 – pouring out your filled buckets into your field of promise.

"The Fire Department Came Tonight" by Garris Elkins

2011-11-21T02:58:00.000-08:00

I enjoy Thanksgiving. As a young man growing up in Campbell, California, Thanksgiving Day meant two things - the annual Thanksgiving Day football game between my high school, Campbell, and our rivals, Los Gatos High and our family Thanksgiving dinner. What made the game really enjoyable was the thought that after the game mom's great turkey dinner was waiting for us. Besides wonderful dinners with family, I also love the thankfulness people explore during this time of year. Thanksgiving is a great set-up for the Christmas season.

Thanksgiving Day is still four days off. It is Monday morning and my computer clock is reading 3:01 a.m. About 1:15 a.m. this morning I was awakened from a deep sleep by a strange and unusual noise in the house. The ex-cop in me went into action. I was up and on the search. When I opened the bathroom door in our bedroom, thick smoke billowed out. I hit the lights and saw smoke coming from our electric water heater. I yelled to Jan to call 911 and get the Fire Department rolling.

When the Fire Department arrived and made sure all was well, we found out that our old water heater had been leaking for some time and this leakage had caused a short in the electrical unit and started the fire. Evidence of the burn marks from this small fire traveled up the outer shell of our water heater. What is interesting is that earlier this week we had actually called our plumber to replace this very water heater because it was no longer putting out enough heat to take a really nice hot bath.

When the Fire Department made sure the fire would not re-ignite, they departed. Our bedroom still has that lingering electrical fire smell that will take a few days to leave. We are alive. There is no structural damage and the house is still here.

After the fire personnel left Jan and I stopped and thanked the Lord. We were glad - glad we were not away at work. Glad we were not on vacation when this happened. Glad for the small, isolated nature of the fire. Just plain glad.

Then our "gladness" became thankfulness. We were thankful to be alive and still have a home. This year our thanksgiving preceded our Thanksgiving Day festivities.

"The Badge of Honor" by Garris Elkins

2011-10-27T11:10:00.000-07:00

We’ve all had experiences that change us forever. A life-changing experience for me was spending almost ten years behind a badge as a police officer. For the last 30 years I have worked in various ministry roles, both here and abroad, and these years have been profound, but I have never forgotten the deep impact of those early years in my 20’s when I worked as a police officer.

I remember the day I raised my hand and was sworn in to uphold the laws of the State of California and to honor the badge that would be handed to me as soon as the ceremony was over. The badge of my department had a physical weight, but it also carried a heavier weight of honor and duty.

The moment my swearing in ceremony was over my perception of the world around me changed. I was now a police officer. This shift in perception changed how I looked at a crowd of people or a man standing on a street corner or whether a person’s hands were in their pockets or out – everything changed because surviving in police work required what is called, “Situational Awareness.” I was now aware of things I had not seen before because my safety, and the safety of the community I served, depended upon my ability to see life through the lens of a protector.

It took several years after leaving law enforcement before I could sit in a restaurant with my back to the front door. Each person who entered the restaurant would be assessed to determine his or her threat level. This is the nature of survival. Survival tactics were drilled into each new police officer. If you didn’t live in this awareness, your life and the lives of those around you could be in jeopardy.

I have been asked a question many times over the years since I left police work, “Isn’t the ministry a lot different than police work – how were you able to make the transition?” My response has sometimes produced confused expressions on people’s faces when I say, “No, it hasn’t been difficult - they are a lot alike.” They are similar because of shared issues like authority, power, service, protection, etc.

Police officers are like any other group of people in many ways, but vastly different in others. Soldiers in battle have a sense of camaraderie and brotherhood that is shared with police work. When your life depends on another person to do their job, you want to make sure you honor their life by doing your job to the best of your ability. I have told people the thing I miss seeing in the church world today is that unity that was expressed when, as police officers, we faced a life and death situation. When a cop or a soldier is fired upon, all the other cops or soldiers risk their lives to save their friend who is under attack. Disunity and a lack of honor in our church ranks can force us to retreat from the very conflict God has asked us to engage.

Honor for a believer means that we choose to look past the failures and insecurities of the people in our lives and choose to look at them as God sees them. As believers we share a dual-citizenship - both here on earth and in heaven. We are living here on earth, but we are also living in Christ at the right hand of our Heavenly Father. Honor invests in words and actions that express an understanding of the heavenly citizenship people have in Christ. Honor creates a people who will fight to not let another person settle for a lesser image of themselves than the one God has.

As my years in law enforcement went on, I found myself given the assignment of an FTO (Field Training Officer). I loved this job. As an FTO, I would be given an absolutely green rookie and asked to train them to become a fully functioning police officer that other cops could depend on.

My ability to train others was many times sourced in my own failures as a young cop. With each training subject I taught, the transfer of knowledge was released through open and honest conversations about my own failings. As a young rookie cop would look to me for direction, I wanted him to know that in order for him to become the officer his department and community expected, he would need to understand a functional definition of honor. Honor must move beyond theory to become action.

I tried to instill many things into the rookies under my care. The three issues that seemed to be at the top of my training list were Covering, Communication and Conditioning.

The Honor of Covering

During my first week of my own training as a rookie cop I felt completely lost. My FTO was my lifeline to reality and survival. I wasn’t sure what to do in each and every circumstance. One night during my first week of training, as we worked the late swing shift, we pulled into a closed gas station after hours and two guys took off running from behind the building. My FTO was out of the car in a flash and I just sat there. After a couple of minutes he came back.

As my FTO approached the car I could see he was upset. He sat back down in the driver’s seat next to his completely confused rookie and began speaking in a very loud and strong voice, behind a shaking index finger pointed right in the middle of my face. “You never sit in a patrol car when your partner bails out to chase a suspect. You never leave me uncovered again like that – you got it!” I did get it and for the rest of my police career I stuck like glue to anyone I worked with and demanded the same from my trainees.

Honor covers people. One of the most striking examples of this in the Word is found in Genesis 9 when Ham went in to his father’s tent and saw Noah drunk and passed out from drinking too much and then went outside and “uncovered” his father’s condition before his brothers. The brothers, instead of walking in to look at their father’s nakedness, walked into the tent backwards and covered their father’s moment of shame.

When we cover another believer we are not called to defend their words or actions – those words and actions are to be defended by the one who spoke them. We are called to stand before broken brothers and sisters in Christ in a posture of covering honor and give them the time they need to become whole once again. This kind of honor could mean that you and I may step into harm’s way and put our reputation at risk to cover someone’s brokenness. This honor of covering each other may even shift our circles of fellowship because a false honor requires an alignment with dishonor that a person of honor cannot agree with.

Police officers have a phrase about covering each other in dangerous situations where multiple threats surround them, they say, “I have your back.” Our “back” is that place where we are the most vulnerable and defenseless. One of most powerful experiences we can have in our journey through life is to have other believers move in and cover our backside in times of personal weakness.

The Honor of Communication

Right after I was trained, I was released to be a beat cop all on my own. I loved the freedom of this new assignment. I enjoyed getting ready for duty each day and stepping into my patrol car and going on the hunt.

There is a lot of information to remember as a beat cop. You have it drilled into you to know exactly where you are at any given moment in case something takes place that requires a response to a specific location. After awhile it becomes second nature, but in the beginning you can forget some things.

One day, as a newly minted cop, early in the shift I stopped a car for a traffic violation. As was procedure, we were trained to activate our outside speaker so that our radio dispatchers could relay vital information to us during the car stop.

On this particular day I forgot to re-activate the inside speaker when I returned to my patrol car and left the outside speaker on. I went about my duties oblivious to my mistake. It must have seemed strange to members of the community to have a police car driving through their neighborhood with the outside speaker blaring. I sounded more like an ice cream truck than a police car.

After about 30 minutes, I began to realize how quiet the radio traffic had become. The stillness was nice since I was still trying to get my head around this new position as a beat cop and the quiet allowed me some time to gather my thoughts. As I drove through the city, I turned in front of a building and heard the echo of the outside speaker bounce the voice of the radio dispatcher off the wall. Then I got sick to my stomach as I looked down at my radio console and saw my mistake and realized I had broken communication.

As the radio now came back to life inside my patrol car, I heard, in horror, the dispatcher coordinating a multi-agency police search for a lost patrol officer – me. Car stops are some of the most dangerous things a cop can do. When you can’t find an officer who was just out on a car stop a worst-case scenario is imagined. I heard concerned officers letting dispatch know that they had just finished searching their assigned grid and found no officer.

After a few moments of similar radio transmissions from baffled cops, I knew I had to fess up. I picked up the radio microphone and told the dispatcher what had happened. Every other cop for miles around, inside my department and outside in the other assisting agencies, heard me acknowledge my dumb rookie mistake. One after another, I heard officers let the dispatcher know they were going back to their regular duties. I was completely humiliated, but I learned something that day and it never happened again to me. To lose communication cuts us off from those we are connected with and will cause us to also lose the benefit of their support.

Honor means that you and I best serve our own lives, and the lives of others, by remaining open to hearing the voice of God. We can never allow ourselves to be put in a place where we switch off the voice of God – we owe it to each other, in honor, to stay in communication no matter what we think God is saying. Whenever we shut ourselves off from the voice of God we end up driving around uninformed and someone will have to leave his or her normal duties to come and search for us.

The Honor of Conditioning

I used to stay in top physical condition when I worked as a street cop because if I didn’t I might not return home alive at the end of my shift. Without on-going physical conditioning two things happen to a police officer – someone else has to do your job for you and you become a liability to those around you.

Many times I would see out-of-shape cops escalate a situation to a higher level simply because they were not able physically to handle what was happening to them. Instead of being able to take care of someone with their bare hands through simple grappling techniques, they would escalate the situation to a higher level than was inappropriate for the threat. Some of the strife in the Church today is because we are out of shape spiritually and escalate minor events into major ones.

The issue of conditioning was connected to my desire to honor my fellow officers. We had a gym and weight room in our department locker room. Many of us tried to stay in shape for reasons other than the obvious health benefits. I stayed in shape to honor the wives and kids of other cops who would have to visit a hospital or attend a funeral if I allowed myself to become a weak link in the survival chain.

We owe it to others in God’s Kingdom to stay in shape spiritually. If we start eating spiritual junk food and fail to live in the daily exercise of faith, we will become a liability because we are no longer doing what we should faithfully be doing as an act of honor and love. Some of this sounds harsh, but in the real world of failing marriages and ministries, we can’t afford to let our guard down and get sloppy and try to live without immediate acts of forgiveness, repentance and humility. Otherwise people will get injured, or worse, they can die spiritually.

The Kingdom of God is not a social event – it is a tactical operation. The strategy of God is already in place. God gave us the Great Commission as His strategy for transforming the kingdoms of this world. Strategies are executed through proper tactics. Each of us needs to seek God for how He wants us to tactically implement His Kingdom strategy in our particular setting. Our contribution to this deployment is to be a reliable and functioning member of the Body of Christ walking daily behind a badge of honor.

"The Challenge of Identity" by Garris Elkins

2011-10-08T12:55:00.000-07:00

When I lived in Berlin, Germany an appointment was arranged for me to meet an elderly man at a café in Potsdamer Platz. Potsdamer Platz is an iconic area in the city of Berlin that was devastated during World War II and was then occupied by Communist East Germany throughout the Cold War. Today, it has been rebuilt and is one of the most urbane and architecturally beautiful areas in the world.

The man I was to meet was unique. Prior to World War II he was a child growing up in the nation of Germany before the Nazism of Hitler had fully arrived. When Hitler took power he became one of the Hitler Youth that were the paramilitary corps of young boys and girls from which Hitler would source his Nazi war machine. When the war was over this man lived behind the Berlin Wall in East Berlin where he came under the strong hand of Communist rule in the gray and drab colors of godless Communism. As we sat at our café table he was now living in a free and democratic Germany in a wall-less Berlin. He had lived within four very different identities as a German citizen.

As the two of us sat there in Potsdamer Platz we sipped our espresso and exchanged small talk. A mutual friend who was one of the correspondence secretaries for the first President Bush arranged our meeting. After about an hour of conversation this dear man made a comment I will never forget. He said, “At this age I am not sure who I am. I began my life as a German. Then I became part of the Nazi Youth Movement. Then I was forced to become a Communist and now I live in a unified and democratic Germany. Who am I?”

In the years that have transpired since that meeting in Berlin, I have come to understand this man’s confusion over his identity. The reason I understand his confusion about identity is this - not a week goes by when I don’t struggle with mine. I also see others in this same struggle.

Each of us needs to possess an identity that will move with us through all the changes we experience in this life. That identity cannot come from this world – it must come from the greater and more stable reality of eternity. The identity of a follower of Christ is not gained by an education, professional accomplishments or by doing a lot of right things. This is what Peter wrote in I Peter 2:9 when he said, “You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people.” God had to make his people into what Peter wrote about. God chose our identity for us.

When Paul wrote his letter to the church in Ephesus he said that we are seated with Christ in heaven. This is not some future position, it is current and now. It is not something we gain by our own efforts. This position, and its resulting identity, is a gift from God to us the moment we came into relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

For a believer in Christ we are new creations of God. The “new” is so radical that the new person God created in Christ has never been seen before. Our identity appeared for the first time on earth the day we said “yes” to the offer of salvation in Christ.

We have been reborn as saints, no longer “sinners saved by grace.” This new identity is in us and before us, not behind us. God had to make us saints. We couldn’t do enough right things to gain this label. It is a gift of God’s grace. We are also realistic saints who have come to understand that we can still sin. But something has profoundly changed. Our default setting is no longer set on sin, but rather, upon a new identity in Christ that is free from sin. We take captive every thought that raises itself up in an attempt to rob us of who God has declared us to be.

Our new nature is far more powerful and transforming than the old one that still lies to us and tries to motivate us through shame. Our new identity is eternally secure and not diminished by whatever we go through on this side of heaven. That knowledge gives us the peace to endure the labels placed upon us by changing culture, politics or the personal failures that cross our paths in the journey of life.

Over the years I lost contact with the old German man I met in Berlin. I am guessing he has passed away. He provided me with a real desire to know who I am independent from the capricious circumstances of this life. Once we know who we are in Christ we can endure the upheaval and change that so often visits each life. We can also endure those foolish moments where we are tempted to believe the lie that says if we can just get it all right that God will love us more.

"The Grape Tree" by Garris Elkins

2011-10-01T10:36:00.000-07:00

At the end of our street is where the Grape Tree grows. The Grape Tree is an old oak that has been overtaken by a grape vine that produces wonderfully sweet grapes each year.

The little town where we live is one of those historic gold-mining towns that sprang up in the 1850’s and then died as the center of commerce and transportation shifted. The death of our little town is actually what preserved it so that today thousands of tourists can visit and experience a piece of history.

The grape vine that feeds the Grape Tree is old and massive. In fact, the trunk of the grape vine is as large as some of the trees in the forest. I met the out-of-town owner of this property once and asked him about the grape vine. He said the property used to be part of the original homestead. The grape vine was planted by those first settlers in the late 1800’s.

What is amazing to realize is that each year hundreds of pounds of grapes are suspended in the branches of the Grape Tree. People driving by rarely see the grapes, but they are there year-after-year. Those who walk close to this tree do a double take because grapes aren’t supposed to grow on trees.

I think the Grape Tree is a picture of how God wants to work in our lives. Our lives, like this tree, are simply supporting structures upon which God hangs the blessing of His fruitfulness. Grape Trees are like those people who realize they are called to bear the goodness of God for those who would pass by. Those of us who walk by this kind of life receive a blessing because we get to taste the goodness of God.

This morning as I finished my daily walk, I detoured to make sure I passed by the Grape Tree. I reached up and picked a cluster of sweet grapes and used them to refresh me on the last leg of my walk home. I think if the Grape Tree had emotions, it would feel good about what was happening in its branches. There are many other oak trees in this grove, but only one bears the grapes and that makes the Grape Tree very unique.

"Try It One More Time - Jesus Is Here" by Garris Elkins

2011-09-13T09:28:00.000-07:00

Recently, I was reflecting on Luke 5 where Jesus calls Simon to follow Him after he and his friends had fished all night and caught nothing. As I read the text I thought of all who are now struggling with the implications of the global financial downturn and its effect on so many. People are doing their best to make things work, but their nets are coming back empty.

In this text Jesus took Peter back out into the deep waters where he had failed to catch anything the previous night. What followed was a supernatural harvest that caused those watching to be both awestruck and amazed at what they were seeing. As I reflected on this event I heard the Lord say to me, “Tell them to try it again – I am in the boat.” I knew the Lord was asking me to encourage people who are living under the weight of financial despair without the hope of a new future.

As I prayed I was hit with a deep sense of despair – I was literally carrying the pain of others. I asked the Lord what this was all about. His love was letting me feel what was taking place in the lives of people so I could speak words of hope fueled by His compassion.

2,000 years ago a small group of fisherman, soon to become the first disciples of Jesus, were in a similar situation that some find themselves today. Simon and his friends had fished all night and caught nothing. What worked before was not working. These men were about to be called to follow Jesus into a new season of life, but first the Lord needed to reveal Himself and His abundance to them in the midst of their current lack so they could trust Him with their future.

1 “One day as Jesus was preaching on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, great crowds pressed in on him to listen to the word of God. 2 He noticed two empty boats at the water’s edge, for the fishermen had left them and were washing their nets. 3 Stepping into one of the boats, Jesus asked Simon, its owner, to push it out into the water. So he sat in the boat and taught the crowds from there.”

Simon and the other fishermen were doing what all fishermen do after fishing – they were cleaning and maintaining their nets. Just off in the distance were their empty boats. The empty nets and boats were silent testimonials that something wasn’t working. As they scrubbed and patched their nets they were reminded of the depressing possibility of continued failure when they entered the water once again that evening.

4 “When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Now go out where it is deeper, and let down your nets to catch some fish.”

Jesus was saying to Simon, “Simon, I want you to try one more time – this time I will be in the boat with you.” The invitation to Simon was to go out into the deeper water and try again. Up to this point it was just Jesus and Simon a few feet off the water’s edge providing a floating podium from which Jesus could address the crowd. There was no faith in this gesture. It was just Simon being kind to the rabbi.

When Jesus asked Simon to go farther out into the deeper water He was asking Simon to go back out to his place of failure and try again. When any of us fail the last place we want to return is the place of our failure. The fear of returning to places of failure is real and palpable. We don’t want to relive a divorce, a recession or the time a ministry came to an end. The world system says to avoid such places. God asks us to engage them one more time so He can heal us and move us forward into His preferred future for our lives.

The deeper water was important because in the natural realm this was where the fish were supposed to be. In the Spirit the deeper water is where the destiny of Simon was waiting. Jesus was asking Simon to trust Him as he led Simon back to a place that Simon felt was still empty of fish. Our destinies are never formed in places where we feel comfortable and in control. Destinies are formed in places where, unless God shows up, nothing will happen. This is the essence of a deep-water calling.

Can you imagine the conversations that were taking place on the shore? Simon’s fishing friends might have said something like, “Where is Simon going? We just came in from an entire night on the water; the best time to fish and we caught nothing. What is he thinking?” Whenever any of us follow Jesus back into those places of past failure the people on the shore of our lives may never fully understand what they are seeing.

Simon’s test of faith was not getting into the boat the first time with Jesus and sitting in the shallow water close to shore. That is like someone going to a church service – there is not a lot of faith involved in something that has no risk attached and where someone could easily attend without a response.

The test of Simon’s faith would be seen in two parts. First, he needed to respond to the Lord’s request for him to return to the deep water that had proved unproductive. Second, he had to actually go through and repeat the very act he had failed in just hours before - he needed to let down his nets in front of all the people. Faith is exercised in a specific place and requires a specific act. To be asked to take a step of faith will reveal where we have placed our trust and it will confront our greatest fears.

In the current financial situation some have decided to remain on shore in a maintenance mode and not re-engage their life and calling for fear that only lack awaits them. We can hunker down and freeze up in times like these, but God has miracles of provision waiting for His people if they will trust Him enough to go back out into the deep water with Him and let down their nets one more time.

Today, the Lord is always in our boats. He never leaves us or forsakes us. We never have to invite Him into our boat. He is always here with us. The text of Luke 5 took place before the Resurrection. Before the Resurrection Jesus approached people and interacted with them, but did not live within them. After the Resurrection God’s presence lives within His people and that interaction is at a deeper and more intimate level because of the Spirit’s abiding presence. Believing and understanding that God is always with us is a tremendous truth. A low-grade depression can set in as the servants of God look up and see only empty boats and an empty future and forget that God lives inside them.

5 “Master,” Simon replied, “we worked hard all last night and didn’t catch a thing. But if you say so, I’ll let the nets down again.” 6 And this time their nets were so full of fish they began to tear! 7 A shout for help brought their partners in the other boat, and soon both boats were filled with fish and on the verge of sinking.”

At some point the other fishermen got into another boat and began following Jesus and Simon out into the deeper water. Peter’s act of faith drew them away from the shore. This is the nature of faith – it draws others into its experience so they can see the mighty works of God.

The harvest of fish that Jesus directed Simon towards was a supernatural harvest. We only experience this kind of harvest if we are willing to deal with our fear of a repeated future failure and move past that fear and try once again because we realize Jesus is in our boat.

Every life can settle into a maintenance mode. Someone experiences the pain of divorce and vows to never risk love again. They remain alone on the shore of life and mend nets that will never again be cast towards love. Another fails in ministry and feels like damaged goods living on the perimeter of God’s Kingdom. They try to prove they are whole by living within the confines of shore life forgetting that the calling of God is never revoked if God has access to heal what caused the failure in the first place.

These maintained places are like the fishing nets the fishermen had to clean each day. These nets were only designed to contain a naturally measured harvest. Human nets will tear under the weight of supernatural expansion. These same valued nets – the life source of a fisherman – would soon be left on the seashore as they walked away with Jesus.

8 “When Simon Peter realized what had happened, he fell to his knees before Jesus and said, “Oh, Lord, please leave me—I’m too much of a sinner to be around you.” 9 For he was awestruck by the number of fish they had caught, as were the others with him. 10 His partners, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were also amazed. Jesus replied to Simon, “Don’t be afraid! From now on you’ll be fishing for people!” 11 And as soon as they landed, they left everything and followed Jesus.”

When God does something new, in love He will begin these new seasons by revealing to us those inhibiting places where our brokenness and fear have been allowed to rule our thoughts and actions. Some of this brokenness and fear is what we have used to make life work without faith. These things stand in the way of our seeing how much God loves us and how much He plans to do through our acts of obedience and trust.

Jesus wanted Simon to not be afraid of the unknown and the things he didn’t understand. He was asking Simon to press through his need to understand everything that was taking place and simply trust that He was with Simon. God’s greatest work takes place beyond our human reasoning and understanding. This is where the power of God’s presence is most clearly seen. Jesus was asking Simon to not be afraid. A new season and a new life-assignment were about to take place if Simon would trust the Lord.

Awestruck and amazed were two words used to describe the events that took place that day out on the deep water. People have used these same words for 2,000 years to describe life when Jesus shows up.

These men left their boats, their fishing nets and their known lifestyles to follow Jesus. It would no longer be about boats, open water and fishing nets filled by human measurement. These disciples could now leave the known for the unknown because they were being led by His presence into future places of supernatural harvest.

"Trials Becoming Trails" by Garris Elkins

2011-08-18T10:26:00.000-07:00

Recently, the Lord downloaded something into my heart – “If you move the letter “i” in the word “trial” it becomes the word “trail.”

Trials without the hope of their becoming trails can feel like desperate and discouraging seasons of life. Trials seem static if they are not leading us somewhere. Trails have with them the hope of a destination.

Above our home in Southern Oregon are a series of trails that compromise a trail system of about 14 miles in total. In this trail system are trails with various names like: Petard Ditch, Rich Gulch and Chinese Diggings. Each trail takes you somewhere that reflects the Gold Rush history of Southern Oregon. When I hike these trails each week I hike them knowing they will lead me somewhere.

Some trials in life are so life-altering that we can become lost in the pain of the trial and miss the greater work God wants to do in our lives. In the trials of my life there have been times when I missed this greater work of God because my focus was solely on getting myself out of the trial. I have come to realize that trials have within them a redefining work of God that can take place if we will move our focus off of self and onto God.

What changes a trial into a trail is where I position the letter “i” - the “i” meaning my focus on my self-interests. Whenever self-interests are primary, like getting out of a trial or wishing I wasn’t in such an experience, the experience will be seen only as a painful trial because my primary focus is on self and the pain.

When we properly position self-interests to come into line with God’s interests our trials can take on a radically different nature. The trials that seem hopeless become trails of expectancy. If you are in the midst of a trial, move the letter “i” and all the interests of self-protection that go with it and allow God to redefine your trial into a trail. It will make the hike a lot more enjoyable.

"Are you a Doctor?" by Garris Elkins

2011-08-08T14:40:00.000-07:00

Today, I helped my wife with something I really don't like to do - moving stuff. A friend donated a load of furniture for us to give away, so Jan and I planned to spend the morning unloading several shipping containers at a local storage facility. We are on vacation so I wasn’t all that excited to be doing anything that was not related to a real vacation.

In route to the storage facility, I stopped at the local supermarket to buy some beverages and snacks for the friends who would meet us to help unload the furniture. As the checkout line moved forward I finally stood in front of the checker.

Out of the blue the checker asked, "Are you a doctor?" I said, "No, but I work for the Great Physician." The "Great Physician" comment didn't register. The checker went on to tell me she had a terrible headache explaining her malady like she was my patient and I was her doctor. As other customers began to line up behind me I asked, "Have you ever thought of prayer.” The remark on prayer seemed to hang in the air and this dear woman was not sure what to do with it. Seeing her stalled look I simply said, "Be healed in Jesus' Name."

As she went on to finish my transaction, I asked, "How does your head feel now?" She stopped, paused and then looked me squarely in the eye and said, "Better!" Her face carried the look of subtle amazement. As she handed me the receipt I said, "It will get better today." She then asked me, “What’s your name?” After I told her my name I picked up my goods and left the store.

As I drove on to the storage facility, I realized that many times I can let an encounter like this one slide by because I am on my way to something like awaiting furniture or an important meeting. It is easy to let the clock of earth override the clock of heaven and miss what God is doing. This morning we were able to give furniture away to some wonderful people, but the thing I loved the most about this day was giving the love of Jesus away. That is my kind of vacation.

"Risking The Message" by Garris Elkins

2011-08-03T16:42:00.000-07:00

Today, I took my weekly prayer-hike in the mountains above our home. I love this scheduled appointment with the Lord. I come away refreshed and renewed each week.

As I finished my hike, I stopped at a hillside concert area called, "The Britt". The Britt is positioned on a sloping grass hillside that provides a music venue each summer for some of the best music acts on earth. The month of August is devoted to classical concerts. Each morning the orchestra practices in the refreshing morning air for the coming evening concert. It is a great place to cool down after a long hike. I stopped to listen to the music and sat under a tall pine tree.

As I sat there I heard the Lord say to me, "If your voice is not perceived as crying from a wilderness place you are probably not announcing the coming of the Lord." The reference to the ministry of John the Baptist was obvious to me, but there was more. As I meditated on what I thought the Lord said, I began to realize that when God is about to do a new thing He will give someone a word that may seem as strange and unusual as the words and ministry of John the Baptist.

New and unusual instructions from the Lord can be dismissed because they don't resemble the sound of what we are hearing because it is uncommon. Commonness can dull our hearing over time because we have a tendency to tune out all but the familiar.

We all want to appear normal and be part of the crowd, but that need must be parked if we are going to allow God to speak to us and through us the new things He wants to do. We spend a lot of time crafting our self-image and our presentation. This crafting can radically change what God initially said to us. The problem with some of this is that we are actually crafting our words to create a self-image - what we want others to see in us. Jerry Cook recently told a group of us that the problem with our self-image is that it is usually fake.

While we never want to be odd for odd sake, we do have a lot of Bible that says the saints of God simply told it like it was and let the words fall where they may.

Many times I try to figure out the varied perceptions people may have about me and the words I speak. God wants us to end that fear-based way of living and risk the platform of a wilderness where our words may cause an interruption in a slumbering culture.

Like John the Baptist, his message of repentance was shouted from the wilderness and historic records indicate that the entire population of Jerusalem, estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands, left the city in response to his voice and walked out into the wilderness to listen. When they got to the wilderness the messenger looked as strange as his message sounded, yet what happened was profoundly supernatural. Heaven opened up, a dove came down and the voice of God spoke. I will risk my image and my cultural status if these are the kind of results obedience brings when we speak as one in a wilderness.

“A Treasure of Foursquare History – The Romanian Azusa Street” by Garris Elkins

2011-07-11T10:44:00.000-07:00

Recently, Jan was rearranging our library. She found a book I thought I had sent to the Foursquare Church headquarters in Los Angeles 15 years ago to archive in the Foursquare Heritage library. But here it was, unsent after all these years, containing a wonderful and undiscovered story about how God’s Spirit moves no matter what cultural or language barriers stand in the way.

In the mid-90's Jan and I were based in Berlin, Germany working for the Foursquare Church as Regional Missionary Advisors to Eastern Europe. I was contacted by a church movement in Romania asking me to come and teach a group of church planters in the eastern part of the nation. After landing in Bucharest, I traveled by train several hours to the city of Constanta on the Black Sea coast and spent the next three days with the pastors. On my departure I was handed a book titled, "The Pentecostal Apostolic Church of God of Romania." The book recorded the history and development of the Romanian Pentecostal churches.

The leaders who gave me the book provided a back-story that revealed the beginning of a supernatural work of God in the nation of Romania. In the early 1920's a Romanian man had traveled to the United States and ended up living in Los Angeles and attending Angelus Temple where he saw Aimee Semple McPherson ministering divine healing. This man sent a letter back to his friends in Romania describing the miracles taking place in Los Angeles. He described in his letter how hands were laid upon the sick and they would be miraculously healed. This letter was read out loud in a small home church meeting in Paulis Village, Romania. The wife of the home group leader was in another room lying in bed, gravely ill. After reading the letter in the living room, the entire home group crowded into the bedroom where the sick woman lay dying and placed the letter on her chest. The group laid hands on her and prayed for her healing. The woman rose immediately from her sick bed, completely healed, and went into the kitchen to prepare the home group a meal. The news of this healing spread throughout the nation of Romania, not only birthing the Romanian Pentecostal churches, but it has been described as the "Romanian Azusa Street."

This history was not known to the Foursquare Church and was undiscovered until this book was passed on to me. It is amazing to see how God can reveal an unknown history to us of what He has done in the past to encourage our faith in the present.

"Settling For More" by Garris Elkins

2011-07-07T13:38:00.000-07:00

In 1999 my wife and I returned to the United States after almost four years of ministry in Europe. When we got off the airplane all of our earthly belongings consisted of the bags we had just cleared through Customs and a single chair and some extra boxes of books stored in my mother’s attic space in Montana. Now, 12 years later, we have a home, a couple of vehicles and we continue to experience God’s provision daily. I love my wife and she loves me. My two adult children are moving forward with God. We love our church family who encourage and inspire us. We continue to gain understanding of what it means to live in God’s favor. On top of all these blessings we live in one of the most beautiful small towns in America. I am a very blessed man.

Jan and I have always tried to hold all blessings with an open hand so that we would not miss those new and fresh encounters and directives of the Holy Spirit. It’s easy to settle into focusing on the blessings and become dull to His voice, especially if a new word from the Lord could upset our current place of blessing.

Recently, I read Hebrews 11. I have read this chapter hundreds of times. Today, something new jumped from the page into my heart.

“It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going. 9 And even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith—for he was like a foreigner, living in tents. And so did Isaac and Jacob, who inherited the same promise. 10 Abraham was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God.” Hebrews 11: 8-10

For years I have focused on the unique faith Abraham possessed that helped him leave a secure settlement and a known life to engage a new life without a known destination. “He went without knowing where he was going” are words so powerful they almost overshadow what comes in the next verse.

In verse 9 the writer of Hebrews says, “And even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith—for he was like a foreigner, living in tents.” When Abraham finally arrived in the land of promise, he never settled – he continued to live in tents like he was only passing through. The words of this verse came to me in a new way. Here is Abraham, our Father of Faith, being described as a man who finally made it to the land of promise, yet he continued to live like a foreigner in a tent. He was like one who realized he needed to remain mobile because something more was out ahead of him.

The Holy Spirit began to bring some fresh realities into focus as I read verse 9.

We live here on earth manifesting a kingdom that is not yet in its fullest expression. The kingdoms of this earth are becoming the Kingdom of our Lord. The operative word is “becoming.” The best this life has to offer, even the good things God brings our way, are only partial expressions of His will because this life is currently incomplete.

Like Abraham, what we are willing to leave behind, those things that are known and predictable, can become what actually defines how we will live in the future. Abraham took the results of his faith with him when he stepped forward towards the promise God had revealed to him under the night sky. When Abraham arrived in the land of promise he lived like a foreigner in a tent because he knew that no matter how good his life of promise would become, it was not yet the fullest expression of what God had planned – there was more and he needed to be ready to move towards the “more” when God spoke.

This life is only a temporary encampment – not a final destination. Abraham lived as a foreigner in a physical tent because God wanted him to remain mobile. We carry physical tents, bodies inhabited by the very presence God, that must remain open and available to His voice. Settlement is not a Kingdom mindset if in our settling we have become deaf to the voice of God. This shift in thinking will produce a new season of spiritual mobility, whether continuing to live in familiar surroundings or moving to another place.

Living faithfully today will create a foundation of faith for future generations to build upon tomorrow. Our faith lived out today is an investment in generations we will never see. Abraham knew nothing of Isaac and Jacob when he began his journey and when he lived in a tent as a foreigner in the land of promise. God saw Abraham’s future and invited him along a path of faith that many of us continue to walk upon thousands of years later.

As Abraham lived in a tent in the land of promise, he was defined as a foreigner because he was fixing his eyes on the fullness of a Kingdom yet to be seen. His gaze of faith was foreign to those around him. He was looking at something they could not see. If we choose to live a life of faith we will draw looks of suspicion from those around us who have chosen to settle and not see a new and emerging future. Settlers can end up protecting what they possess at the expense of future expansion. Foreigners living in tents, by the very nature of their existence, make the status quo nervous because what a settled life has to offer is no longer appealing to the tent dweller. “For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come.” Hebrews 13:14

I have had to ask myself lately where I have settled into a good and blessed life at the expense of hearing a new word for a new season. These new words can shake up our current reality. God is in the process of making significant adjustments in the encampment of His Church. God wants to free us up to be available for supernatural mobility. As we step out in faith and let go, God will be asking us to exchange hard structured lives of security for foldable tents of faith so that He can bring us into our promised destiny.

"Direction Change" by Garris Elkins

2011-06-16T10:53:00.000-07:00

On a recent trail hike I noticed a madrone tree branch above my head. I was so impressed by what I saw that I snapped a picture. The image of the twisted branch caught my attention because it had so obviously made a u-turn in its growth pattern. Like other tree branches, it started out growing up and outward as normal branches do in their life cycle, but at some point this branch was injured and began to grow in the opposite direction. As the branch healed, and eventually recovered from its wound, it resumed a normal growth pattern.

Like this madrone tree, we were originally created by God to grow up and outward - towards Him and His destiny for our lives. The sin and brokenness we encounter, by living in this world, can mess up a wonderful life-plan and cause the patterns of our lives to resemble something other than God's original intent. Wounds in life are only fatal if neglected.

I asked myself today, "Is there any place in my life that I am carrying an unresolved wound?" If so, I am not growing up and outward - that part of my life is actually dying and mutating downward into someone God never intended me to become. All wounds must be given to the Wound-Healer Himself through confession, repentance and trust. When we give these things to God we immediately change the direction of our lives and return to the healthy growth patterns God had in mind when he brought us into this world.

"Rest in the Reflection" by Garris Elkins

2011-06-06T07:23:00.000-07:00

"For all who have entered into God's rest, have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world. So let us do our best to enter that rest." Hebrews 4: 10-11

When the word "rest" is used in most Christian teaching we are told that we all need a day off or a new schedule to allow more down time. This is great for many reasons, but it is not what is being taught in Hebrews 4. This kind of rest is only found when we cease, in our own efforts, to do what only God can do.

If we could go into the interior of China today we would meet fellow believers who have no days off - they work seven days a week, they have no vacations and no savings account to pad a future hope of retirement. These same believers are living in the "rest" of God because their rest is in the Person of Jesus and His completed work, not a well-defined lifestyle with days off, vacations and retirement plans. Jesus is their Sabbath.

When God finished creating the world He did not rest on the 7th day because He was tired. He rested to reflect on the goodness of what He had just created.

At the end of God’s creative activity the Word tell us,

“Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that is was very good.” Genesis 1:31

God doesn't get tired. On the 7^th day He wasn’t modeling life plans or helpful Day-Timer scheduling techniques to prevent fatigue. He was saying that rest only comes by reflecting on the goodness of what God has done. The same is true for us. That elusive rest that many are searching for does not come by adopting a new schedule or lifestyle – it comes from reflecting on God’s goodness in all seasons of life.

This week don't worry so much about your schedule. Sure, make some changes where you can, but the real rest you are looking for comes when you stop throughout the day and reflect back on the goodness of God. When this kind of reflection becomes part of our lives we will begin to feel the peace and rest that comes when His goodness fills our thoughts.

"Redefining Thomas" by Garris Elkins

2011-05-08T14:10:00.000-07:00

Each life is like a photo album that contains snapshots of individual moments in time. No life is fully defined by a single image. We are made up of a composite of our experiences. One snapshot of time does not define our identity. Our identity is in a Person, not in a label created from a single experience.

We all have moments in our lives when, if you caught us in that moment and took a single picture, we would all appear faithless. God never intended our lives to be held hostage to a single moment of failure or unbelief. God invites us to peel off those labels of failure and brokenness that do not reflect His heart and begin, once again, to move forward towards our true destiny.

In the scripture Thomas is one of those people who was defined by a single moment in his life when he become universally known as “The Doubting Thomas.” The sad part of this label is that the Church continues to refer to Thomas as a doubter and not the man who interacted with Jesus eight days after His resurrection and trumped his initial unbelief with one of the greatest statements of faith in all of scripture.

John 20: 24-29 describes that interaction:

“One of the twelve disciples, Thomas (nicknamed the Twin),was not with the others when Jesus came. 25 They told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he replied, “I won’t believe it unless I see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in his side.” 26 Eight days later the disciples were together again, and this time Thomas was with them. The doors were locked; but suddenly, as before, Jesus was standing among them. “Peace be with you,” he said. 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and look at my hands. Put your hand into the wound in my side. Don’t be faithless any longer. Believe!” 28 “My Lord and my God!” Thomas exclaimed. 29 Then Jesus told him, “You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who believe without seeing me.”

When the disciples were first gathered in that locked room, and the Lord appeared to them on the evening of Resurrection Sunday, only ten of the twelve disciples were present. Judas had killed himself. We are not told why Thomas was not present. To these ten disciples Jesus showed His wounds. They did not need to touch the evidence because the evidence was standing before them.

The disciples who were present when Jesus appeared excitedly said to Thomas, “We have seen the Lord!” Thomas did not share their joy because he had missed the occasion of their joy. If I were Thomas I would have felt left out because I would have just missed the most significant event of my lifetime. I would have felt isolated from the joy the other disciples were experiencing. Their words, “We have seen the Lord!” would have produced a sorrow in my heart, like salt in a wound, since there would have been no expectation of ever seeing Jesus again.

Thomas did what many of us have done – he made a vow in his pain. “I won’t believe unless I see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in his side.” Thomas made a vow out of his pain that aligned him with faithlessness. Vows will reproduce themselves. Unless this vow was broken, Thomas would live within the faithless cycle the vow had set in motion. Words of faith would need to come from Thomas to supplant his faithless vow if he would ever transition from doubter to believer.

Jesus said to Thomas, “Don’t be faithless any longer.” What followed this command was a single word sentence with an exclamation mark – “Believe!” In the Greek language the word “believe” can be translated, “to entrust.” When Jesus commanded Thomas to believe, He was not asking Thomas to comprehend a full package of doctrine or somehow attain a complete understanding of the workings of God’s Kingdom. Jesus was asking Thomas to entrust himself to Him. Believing is entrusting ourselves to the Lord as a Person.

In the moment Thomas was commanded to believe something supernatural took place. Trust rose up in Thomas. As he saw the Lord standing before him without anger and condemnation, fully displaying the evidence of His resurrection, Thomas redefined his life with words that followed the revelation he was experiencing, “My Lord and my God!” The doubt Thomas was living under was now displaced by words of belief. The “Doubting Thomas” had now become the “Proclaiming Thomas.”

“My Lord and my God!” are powerful words. When Thomas declared that Jesus was Lord it meant he understood that someone was now leading his life who could be trusted. God would be faithful to move Thomas forward into the goodness He had planned. Thomas was professing belief in the trustworthy nature of the Leader-Lord.

The “God” part of what Thomas declared meant that Thomas was following someone who lives in absolute resurrection power. The declaration of Thomas was the acknowledgement that there would be resurrection power available to raise Thomas above the limiting restraints of whatever he encountered as Jesus led him forward in life.

The text in John continues in verses 30-31:

“The disciples saw Jesus do many other miraculous signs in addition to the ones recorded in this book. 31 But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in him you will have life by the power of his name.”

The evidence of Jesus’ life and miracles are given so that you and I would continue to believe. The continuance of belief infers that we can stop believing. In his pain, Thomas had discontinued his belief. Thomas declared that he would stop believing until his demands were met. Jesus doesn’t meet demands - He meets people.

As powerful as Thomas’ experience was that day, our belief on this side of Pentecost has a greater potential. Jesus said there was a blessing for those of us who would believe (entrust) in the future without seeing the object of our belief.

In Hebrews 11:1 we read, “Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.”

Like Thomas we can lose our ability to believe if we tie ourselves to demands and vows birthed in painful circumstances when life does not work out like we thought it would. We can miss the promised confidence and assurance of faith if we tie ourselves to the sorrow of feeling left out of from whatever God is doing.

When we come to realize that God is good, and has good thoughts and intentions for us in all circumstances, we can then step into that place where true transformation is possible. In the moment I choose to lay down my demands, judgments, and vows and declare, “My Lord and my God!”, something supernatural is released into my life.

Faith is an action word. We can think faith is an action word that only has implications on this side of eternity based on what we do for God in faith. Faith is much more - it activates something in Heaven. When faith is displayed in the earth it draws on Heaven to assure us that what we just believed for will actually happen.

In Hebrews 11:1 the verse says, “it (faith) gives us assurance about things we cannot see.” Faith gives us something. Every act of our faith contains the gift of assurance that is given when we exercise faith. These gifts of faith come to us carrying the residue of the environment of glory because they come from heaven. The day Jesus commanded Thomas to believe, this incoming faith-evidence produced in Thomas the words, “My Lord and my God!” The language of heaven was heard upon the earth and in a moment a man was redefined from doubter to proclaimer.

Today, the Church needs to rethink its image of Thomas. The man who was once a doubter should now be evaluated based on his final words and redefined as a proclaimer of faith. We need to do this because there are many of us, who like Thomas, need to be viewed as a life-album, not a single snapshot. We need to make this adjustment because Thomas is not viewed from Heaven’s perspective as a doubter. Thomas became the very voice of Heaven upon the earth when he made his declaration about Jesus.

God does not want us living in the results of faithless words that do not define His full intent for our lives. Jesus has plans to visit our lives with the evidence of His resurrection power and this visitation will change the way we speak and live.

Where are you living and speaking words of unbelief? Go to that faithless place and begin to believe for His appearing. Let your belief become words of faith declaring the goodness of God. In faith, begin to craft words that reflect God’s heart for you and your circumstance. God has already made up His mind about you and He has nothing but goodness in mind when He thinks of you.

This is a season of redefining. You and I are the ones responsible to speak the redefining words. God is ready to turn Doubters into Proclaimers and He will use the very words of our mouths to redefine our lives.

My book is now on Amazon Kindle

2011-04-23T17:42:00.000-07:00

For those of you who like to read on a reading device, today Amazon released "Prayers from the Throne of God" on Kindle. http://www.amazon.com/Prayers-Throne-God-ebook/dp/B004XRALUA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=books&qid=1303605282&sr=1-2

"Walking in Circles and Thanking Jesus" by Garris Elkins

2011-04-07T06:10:00.000-07:00

When I was a young pastor-in-training the church I was part of was Faith Center in Eugene, Oregon,. This wonderful church took a step of faith with me and let me try my hand at counseling people. I was so green and yet there I was - in a real office sitting across the table from people who were pouring out their hearts to me. I nodded like I understood what they were experiencing and then tried to offer some God-advice.

The office I used was one of those places where trainees like me were assigned at certain hours of the day. It was a bland office without a name tag on the door. One day I was sitting in a chair looking out the window waiting for my next appointment. The view from the office window allowed me to see a small outside patio area that was surrounded by hedges. You couldn't really see this small patio from any other angle. The patio was only accessible from the private office of the senior pastor of our church, Roy Hicks, Jr.

As I stared out from my window I noticed Roy step out of his office and walk onto the patio. For those of you who did not know Roy he was one of those rare leaders who carried an immense presence of authority. He was highly respected in our church movement and many others across the globe. Roy died in an airplane crash in 1994, at age 50, not far from where I am writing this article. Roy and I spent hundreds of hours together in the airplane he crashed. For a few years we flew back and forth across the United States and spent many hours talking. I learned a lot about God's Kingdom from our conversations during those flights.

As Roy walked onto the patio that day his face revealed that this was not a happy moment for him. Concern, and maybe a bit of anger, was painted across his face. And then something unique happened. Roy began to walk in circles. This was a small patio so the circles were rather small and pronounced. As Roy began to walk in these tight little circles I was able to hear what he was saying. He was repeating over and over again, "Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus." This went on for several minutes then he went back into his office. My life lesson was over.

As my years of leading in the Church continue to pass by, I have recalled, on numerous occasions, what Roy demonstrated to me that day. I learned that he carried whatever was troubling him out onto the patio and began to search for a thankful heart in the midst of a difficult moment. This life-lesson said to me, "When nothing makes sense start thanking Jesus because a thankful heart will become an understanding heart." I think the limiting real estate of that small patio was also part of another life-lesson - "Stay put and don't move on until your heart changes."

I have learned this kind of understanding doesn't mean we will understand why people do what they do to upset us in the first place. It simply means each hassle and problem of life is an opportunity to focus more deeply on the One Who loves us and that focus is our reason for thanksgiving.

If you see me walking in tight little circles today, and mumbling to myself, you will know what I'm up to.

Thanks, Roy.

"Sharpening the Thorns on Jesus' Crown" by Garris Elkins

2011-04-06T14:18:00.000-07:00

I have a friend who is a really good artist. Kevin has created sculptures that are so life-like that they capture not only the posture of a person, but their very essence. Yesterday, Kevin brought me something. I was in town so the gift was put in my office awaiting my return. The gift was a crown of thorns.

Easter is just a few weeks off so I am thinking about things like crosses, crowns of thorns and empty tombs. This gift was timely. Kevin had fashioned this life-size crown of thorns out of what looks like brass or copper and then antiqued it to make it look like it has been around for 2,000 years. It must weigh at least a pound. The points of the thorns that surround this woven, vine-like crown are really sharp. In fact, if you pick this crown up the wrong way you will get punctured.

Kevin emailed me today to let me know why he gave this crown to me as a gift. Something he wrote in his emailed touched me in a deep place. He wrote, "I cried while sharpening the thorns, in my own brokenness and the forgiveness I have for past expectations and failures." As I read Kevin's words I imagined the scene. Here is this expert artisan holding a crown he created, sharpening the pointed tips of the thorns and weeping. He was weeping because he was realizing the price Jesus paid for his forgiveness.

As I read Kevin's email I realized that my sin, and yours, sharpened the very crown of thorns Jesus wore during Easter week many years ago. In our striving to be hip and positive in the church today, I think we forget what really happened to Jesus. His scalp was punctured by thorns that really hurt. His hands and feet were punctured by nails that really hurt. His side was punctured by a spear that really hurt. His heart was punctured by our collective sin and that hurt most of all. I think that is what Kevin was crying about when he made the crown of thorns for me.

My book has arrived...

2011-03-31T22:17:00.000-07:00

"Prayers from the Throne of God" is now available at Amazon.com. Jack Hayford wrote a very gracious forward. I hope it is a blessing to you. http://www.amazon.com/Prayers-Throne-God-Garris-Elkins/dp/0615455778/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1301633268&sr=1-1

“The Jesus-Journey” by Garris Elkins

2011-03-26T15:47:00.000-07:00

Someone asked me if I preached, “Jesus crucified.” I answered, “Yes, I preach Him crucified, but I also preach Him as the resurrected Lord and the enthroned King.” The cross and the tomb are empty, but His throne is now occupied. Sometimes the Church can park at a single image of Jesus and miss the bigger picture.

Jesus is all three images. He is our sacrifice on the cross. He is our victorious Lord Who rose from the dead. He is our King seated in glory. He is not just one image, but all three. When we preach Him as crucified we must include His resurrection. When we preach Him as the resurrected One we must let people know that He now sits upon a throne because neither the cross nor the tomb could hold Him any longer. His complete victory had a God-ordained sequence.

We can limit the fuller image of Who Jesus is when we only deal with a single aspect of His victory. Each image has a message. The cross lets us know that things must die before life can come. The empty tomb tells us that He rose up from something and went somewhere. The occupied throne tells us that the work of the cross and the emptying of the tomb were critical parts of His journey to His current destination on His throne. From this enthroned place all the powers and authorities of this world that fight against life are now under His feet.

This complete, three-part image of Jesus is critical if the Church is to walk in victory upon the earth. The very outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost was possible because an enthroned Lord would send His Spirit back to a group of disciples who were left on earth staring at a bloody cross and an empty tomb.

Easter Sunday morning is coming soon. The angel told the women who gathered on that historic morning, as they stared at the empty tomb with puzzled faces, “He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead!” The angel was trying to point these disciples to a greater reality than the one they were seeing.

An empty cross leads to an empty tomb and that tomb leads to an occupied throne – that is the full Jesus-journey. On that throne sits the One Whom we will worship this Easter Sunday.

"Defining the Blessing" by Garris Elkins

2011-03-21T08:38:00.000-07:00

In the life of each believer there are times when it is obvious that the favor of God is resting upon our lives. In these times of visible favor we will see doors open and access granted that previously had not taken place. I am in one of those seasons. As I see God's visible favor upon my life I also recognize I have a problem - I haven't clearly defined the difference between the state of being blessed by God, simply because I am His and He is mine, and those by-products of His blessing that come because of my relationship with Him. Let me try to explain.

I have walked with God for many years. In these years I have seen God do some wonderful and remarkable things. These blessings have been sprinkled along my path and I have truly thanked God for each of them. In this time of my life, however, the sprinkles have become a flow of blessing. Blessings in my family, ministry, writing and an expanding favor in relationships, are all around me.

As believers, we live in the favor of God, all the time, because we are in Christ. The favor of God is Christ and we belong to Him. Because of that continual position of favor some wonderful things will begin to take place as a result of our relationship with God through Christ. These blessings that flow from our relationship with God are the by-products of God’s favor, they are not the favor itself. Maybe someone will write a book, or get asked to speak somewhere, or someone will sell a product to a company they never dreamed would take notice of them and what they were trying to market. These good things are not the favor itself, but the results of God’s favor.

However we define it, favor sets in motion events and passages that are not navigated in human strength and wisdom alone. The favor of God makes possible what is not possible in our natural abilities. Here is where the challenge comes.

It is too easy to not draw a line between living in the perpetual state of favor with God and those by-products that come because of that favor. The result of this blurred, and sometimes non-existent line, is that when “things” are not happening we can begin to think we no longer live in His favor. Or, when “things” are happening, we think they are actually the favor of God and not simply the by-product of His favor.

Unless we clearly define the difference between these two we can begin to link our identity to the by-products of God’s favor instead of finding our identity in Him, the source of our favor. This becomes a dangerous place for a believer because we can begin to try and make things happen to somehow validate the favor of God in our lives. In the end this fights against the grace of God and leads us into a distorted identity of human effort and self-promotion.

The beginning of victory in this area comes when we actually see that we have blurred the line between the Blessing and the blessing. Once we see this blurring, then through confession and repentance, we can realize once again that intimate union with God that is filled with His unchanging and secure favor. We will no longer need to live in the compromise that emerges when we think a blessing is the Blessing. Our identity is in the Blessing Himself, not in what flows out of that blessed union.

"Marriage Communion" by Garris Elkins

2011-03-15T06:24:00.001-07:00

For several months, Jan and I have been taking communion together each morning. Something very powerful, and yet subtle, is taking place. Like many couples, Jan and I have tried to find that place where we can come together spiritually each day. I think we have found that place in sharing communion together.

As we hold the bread and the cup we bless them both and invite His presence to come into our act of communion with Him. Jesus said to do the act of communion in remembrance of Him. We pray and thank God as we begin to remember Jesus at the start of the coming day. We remember Him as our healer and deliverer. We remember Him as the Lord Who loves our children. We remember Him as the Shepherd of the church we pastor. We remember Him over what is unknown. In the remembering a beautiful anticipation is released that He is walking with us and ahead of us into the coming day.

When we finish this sacred act together, I end our time by kissing Jan and telling her I love her. I am seeing communion as a act of loving connection, with God, and with my wife. The intimacy of communion is changing and deepening our love and our lives together. I think this is some of what Jesus had planned when He took the bread and the wine and blessed them. In the communion is the blessing.

"Moving Our Tent Pegs" by Garris Elkins

2011-03-08T11:33:00.000-08:00

Recently, the Lord spoke to my heart and said,

This is a time for expansion. I am about to move My people into a new experience with My presence. I need them to be mobile and ready to move with Me. The tent of My presence is expanding. Pull up the tent pegs that lie before you, but leave the tent pegs of your history intact. My expansion plan includes both your past and your future. Look ahead. Get ready. Expect movement. Expansion in all things is upon you.

When our family went camping during my childhood, I remember watching my father putting up our old Army-surplus tent at the family campsite. It was one of those World War II surplus canvas tents that smelled like oil when the hot July sun would beat down upon it for hours during the midday heat. We had lots of fun watching my dad, and listening to his comments about the tent, as he struggled to put it up. Our tent had wooden pegs that anchored us to the earth during our camping adventures. Our family tent was stationary and immovable once dad was finished with the assembly process.

We are in a time of Church history when God is asking us to pull up the tent pegs that are in front of us. These tent pegs of thinking keep us stationary and immovable. What is good for a camping tent is not good for a believer. God desires to extend the capacity of our thinking to reflect the expanding greatness of His heart. Pulling up our mental tent pegs keeps us mobile and moving forward into the destiny God has designed for each of us.

Our calling and God’s Kingdom are never stationary. As we pull up the tent pegs of a limited and stationary way of thinking, and walk into our unfolding future, we need to leave the tents pegs of our history intact. These tent pegs are the ones behind us. History is important because it tells us where we have camped previously. God does not lead us forward by living in our history – He uses our history to teach us how to live in our future. We learn from our history.

There are some things that can keep us immovable:

Immovable lives are camped in places of fear.

In the past some have experienced failure and now live in the fear of a future failure. This fear has them camped in an immovable place. They live weighted down by ungodly vows that declare they will never go that way again.

Often unconsciously, and on occasion noticeably, I have recognized part of my heart was camped in a place of fear. I was stuck in a memory of failure and the fear of repeating that failure. It is a gift of grace from Jesus to help us recognize this kind of blockage to mobility and expansion. Mobility comes when we are able to see what we have done and then renounce the vows we made in fear and allow God to move us forward.

Immovable lives are camped in the past.

Some of us are realizing that the productive methods we used in the past are no longer working today. What was once fresh revelation is no longer fresh because it does not draw on faith.

Sometimes, I have found myself immovable because I have camped in methods that worked well in the past. They were comfortable to me because they were familiar. Some of us have found ourselves relying on methods that worked in seasons past more than seeking something new from God that requires a new equipping for a new out-pouring. God is doing a new work that will require steps of faith into uncharted territory.

Immovable lives are camped in familiar places.

The immovability of sameness has come upon some of us. Where we were once were fresh and innovative some have succumbed to the familiar.

In the past, when I have not been movable and expanding, I found myself trying to fit in to the group at the expense of being a truly unique creation of God. This kind of immovability is a fear of appearing different and allowing the group to dictate our identity. We can miss out on the fresh and innovative expansion of God’s Kingdom if we live in the fear of being different. Our anointing for ministry is found in our uniqueness. Our differences reflect the creative heart of God and should be celebrated.

Unlike the tent my father used to put up each summer, that only stayed in one spot and remained the same size, the tent of God’s presence is always expanding forward upon the earth and is increasing in its capacity. God is inviting us to join Him in that forward expansion.

Leave the tent pegs of your history intact: they are important because they tell a story. Undo the tent pegs that are in front of you – this is where your future expansion will take place. Walk into a new way of thinking and living that comes from allowing God to expand you forward. There is something new God wants to do in each of us. What God is about to do exists in our future, ahead of us in that unexplored supernatural campground called the Kingdom of God.

"Publishing My First Book" by Garris Elkins

2011-02-24T18:48:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I sent a book manuscript to my editor - Anna Elkins, my daughter. Anna will do the final copy edit in preparation of publication. While it is easy to give a manuscript to your daughter (she loves her dad), the reality is that submitting something for a wider audience to read is a vulnerable thing. I am learning that if you are going to step out and say some things about anything spiritual, you had better be ready for people to say what they think about what you put down in print.

I never realized fully what it meant to write a book. There is the actual writing, the proof-reading, the multiple revisions, the publishing process, buying the ISBN and all the rest. To be honest, I am not interested in chopping down another tree to make the pulp required to create the substance of just another book. I am hoping someone, somewhere, will have their life adjusted by something I have written and that my writing will make a difference in their life because something of God's heart was revealed.

My book is about prayer - a subject that I still have so much to learn.

"Who Do You Say I Am?" by Garris Elkins

2011-01-29T05:39:00.000-08:00

We are at the beginning of an outpouring of God's presence that insightful voices are defining as the Third Great Awakening. This is an outpouring that will require us to be specific in our faith if we are to move in concert with the Holy Spirit. Heaven is waiting for the Church to profess our specific desire for Jesus' appearing in very clear and defined terms. Faith that is not specific has no testimony because it is a faith without risk.

When Jesus asked Peter the question, “But who do you say I am?”, Jesus was not asking Peter this question in the comfort of a living room or in the lobby of a church building. This question was asked in Caesarea Philippi, an area at the extreme northern end of Israel, almost at the border of Lebanon. Jesus had a reason to trek to this location to ask this profound question.

Caesarea Philippi had been a center of worship of false gods for thousands of years. The road leading to Caesarea Philippi was lined with shrines and idols of all the known false gods of the day. Roman, Greek and pagan gods stared at the disciples as Jesus led them into this region. In this area are the headwaters of the Jordan River. Mount Hermon rises nine thousand feet in the distance. Caesarea Philippi was a significant place.

In Caesarea Philippi there is a huge rock grotto that was dedicated to the worship of a false-god named Pan. Into the mouth of this grotto, Israelites sacrificed their children as they worshipped Baal. A huge rock wall rose above the opening of this cave-like natural space. Chiseled into this rock face were the nooks and openings where statues were placed representing every false god and political leader of that time. It was in this backdrop of religious and political powers that Jesus asked Peter, “But who do you say I am?”

Matthew 16: 13-17 reveals the conversation that took place that day between Jesus and Peter.

“When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” “Well,” they replied, “some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.” Then he asked them, “But who do you say I am? 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah,the Son of the living God.”17 Jesus replied, “You are blessed, Simon son of John, because my Father in heaven has revealed this to you. You did not learn this from any human being.”

With all the world powers and false gods looking down upon Peter from the rock wall above, Jesus asked Peter this question. Jesus was pressing Peter to define the image of Who He was to Peter in a very personal way.

Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” This was an accurate answer and one that still applies today, but this answer was also very specific as it related to Christ's ministry in that moment of history. Jesus was talking to a Jewish man and the word “Messiah” had a significant meaning to Peter and to the Jewish nation.

Years ago I remember a very popular Christian wall poster titled, “I AM”. This poster was multi-colored and contained some of the descriptive names of Jesus. These names appeared on the poster in descending order revealing Jesus as, “Prince of Peace, Mighty God, Wonderful Counselor, Holy One”, etc. The poster contained over 30 names for the Lord drawn from the scriptures. This poster is a collectors item today.

The name of Jesus is supernaturally powerful all by itself. When Peter was taken before the Council in Acts 4 to answer for the healing of the lame man at the Beautiful Gate he commented on this powerful name;

Do you want to know how he was healed? Let me clearly state to all of you and to all the people of Israel that he was healed by the powerful name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene.” Acts 4: 9-10. In Acts 4 Jesus was depicted as, Jesus the Healer. His acts define His name.

When Jesus took the disciples to the northern most region of Israel I wonder if they might have asked each other along the way, “Why are we walking all the way up here?” This hike took several days to complete over dusty and difficult terrain. This question required that its answer be given in the unique context of Caesarea Philippi. Peter was asked this question with all the systems of darkness surrounding him and looking down upon him. His answer would declare that no matter what he faced in the coming days as he returned to Jerusalem that nothing, even his personal failures, would have power over his life. Death itself would soon succumb to the name of Jesus – Jesus, The Death Overcomer.

God has recently taken many believers to the farthest regions of their faith. This trek has been long and challenging. This has been a time of testing and, in some cases, doubt and discouragement. Could it be that God has brought you to this place and positioned you in the midst of all the world has to offer, so you can make a declaration about Jesus?

God brings us to these unfamiliar places to ask us a similar question, “Who do you say that I am?” How we answer is critical. If answered correctly, our answer will have a God-purpose attached to it that we will carry us into the future with expectancy. Our answer can literally change our entire perspective on life.

Who do you need Jesus to be at this time in your life? Do you need Him as your physical healer, then define Him as Jesus, My Healer. Do you need Him to be your provider, then call Him Jesus, My Provider. If you need Him to restore a relationship then call Him, Jesus, My Restorer. Invite a well-defined Jesus into your circumstance and your circumstance will begin to yield to His presence.

Recently, my wife Jan had a lot of things on her plate. Her to-do list was larger than normal. As I was writing this article, Jan said to me, “I was feeling overwhelmed early this morning at all the little things I had to do. I did not want to begin anything and just felt too tired. I thought about what you had just spoken concerning the words of Jesus, 'Who do you say that I am?' In my heart I heard 'The bright, Morning Star' and 'The Faithful One.' I responded, 'Jesus, You are the bright, Morning Star and the Faithful One.' Immediately the heaviness lifted, the tiredness was gone.”

Our lives are waiting for our profession of a clearly-defined Jesus. Life can feel like the formless void on the day of Creation. On that day all the elements were waiting for the Word of the Lord to come and bring order and assemble each of them around what God had spoken.

Jesus told Peter that the revelation of Who He was did not come from human intellect or speculation. Jesus was defined for Peter by the Father, “You are blessed, Simon son of John, because my Father in heaven has revealed this to you. You did not learn this from any human being.” Peter heard this revelation from the Father and repeated it to Jesus in response to His question.

This kind of revelation is available to every Christ-follower because our Father has done everything in His power to insure that we hear His heart for our lives. The revelation of Jesus is waiting in heaven to be downloaded upon the earth and it is available for each of us in this unique time in human history. We will not receive this truth from the false gods and political agendas that surround us, rather, we will receive it from God, our Father. This revelation is ready to be released into our lives by the confession of our mouth. Our words, birthed from the very heart of God and empowered by His Spirit, will transform how we our see our future and how we respond to the present.

"Don't Be Caught Using 'That Word' in Public" by Garris Elkins

2011-01-22T15:27:00.000-08:00

I've noticed that some people get upset over certain words. I'm not talking about coarse vocabulary or cuss words, but words that trigger an emotional kind of anger. These words can be political, religious or cultural. Recently, a radio talk show host told people to leave churches where leaders were using the words, “Social Justice.” Jesus would have been in trouble in that kind of church.

This morning I was reading in Acts where the Apostle Paul had returned to the city of Jerusalem and went into the Temple. Some Jews from Asia were in Jerusalem and saw Paul in the Temple. They got upset and wanted to run him out of town. As a result of this incident the entire city was up in arms. Paul was dragged before the local authorities and questioned about his activities. Paul began to explain himself to his accusers. Everything was fine while Paul described how he helped in the prosecution and murder of Christians. In the text the following words were uttered by Paul and then the entire atmosphere of the city changed:

21 “But the Lord said to me, ‘Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles!’” 22 The crowd listened until Paul said that word. Then they all began to shout, “Away with such a fellow! He isn’t fit to live!” 23 They yelled, threw off their coats, and tossed handfuls of dust into the air.”

In verse 22 the phrase, “The crowd listened until Paul said that word”, jumped out at me. The word that started all the problems was the word, “Gentiles.” The Jews did not like Gentiles and for them to think the Gentiles would be included in the plan of God was unthinkable and anyone who thought Gentiles were loved by God should be run out of town. It seems a lot hasn't changed in 2,000 years.

We all have a “that word” in our vocabulary. These are the words that send us into religious orbit. When we hear “that word” we distance ourselves from the people who either use “that word” or hang around people associated with “that word.”

In Paul's day, some of the Jews weren't getting the message that God was out to save the world. He loved Jews and all the other races called Gentiles. When Paul used the word “Gentile” they lost it and said this would be their beachhead on truth. These Jews from Asia sat down on their theological haunches and refused to move beyond “that word.” In the meantime, God was expanding the Gospel into the Gentile world and these people were going miss it.

Our culture, and sometimes the Church, is filled with a “that word” mentality and this can cripple what God wants to do in His people. Here are some words that might fall under a “that word” definition; Democrat, Republican, Gay, Straight, Pentecostal, Evangelical, Reformed, Feminist, Southern, Left-Coast and anything else you could imagine.

One has to be careful that this “that word” issue doesn't do to us what it did to those Jews who freaked out over the word “Gentile.” Our point of resistance can become a barrier that keeps us from seeing that God is working in the very people you and I would distance ourselves from because they fall under a group heading defined by “that word.”

"The Open Heavens Above Us" by Garris Elkins

2011-01-21T06:50:00.000-08:00

In some circles of the Church-world people talk about open heavens. These open heavens are where God is visiting earth in a visible way and the things of heaven are falling in their midst, like healing, deliverance and supernatural encounters. I like to hear stories of heaven invading earth. Testimonies of God's supernatural work in our lives are powerful and release faith.

Lately, I have come to feel that we don't need to pray for the heavens to open up because, at the resurrection of Jesus 2,000 years ago, He literally pierced the heavens above us as He ascended. Those heavens are still open today. One reason why Jesus rose from the dead was to give us access to the heavenly realm.

If I believe the heavens are open over my life, I will step out in faith in response to that open heaven and actually pray for someone to be healed or for my neighbor down the street to know God. Where people believe God has made everything available for them now, those same people will take the risk of faith and begin praying bold prayers, because there is no ceiling of hindrance above them that needs to open.

If heaven is really open above the Church, and if we really believe this, then something will have changed in our thinking and we will no longer pray for something that has already been done. It's like praying for our daily needs - Jesus said to not pray for our daily needs. Our needs have already been met. Maybe a similar understanding applies to how we see the heavens over our heads. God wants us to see the heavens as open and to stop praying for what has already been done.

The heavens are truly open above us. God is looking for people to walk under those heavens in faith, downloading His healing word through the open access we have with eternity.

"Something is Missing in Missional" by Garris Elkins

2011-01-17T09:52:00.000-08:00

I recently posted the following on my Facebook wall:

"Missional" is a buzz word in church leadership circles. According to the Book of Acts, is it possible to be 'missional' without a visible demonstration of God's supernatural signs and wonders?”

I asked this rhetorical question with an answer in mind – No, it is not possible to be fully missional without the inclusion of signs, wonders and miracles in our definition.

Some people who read my Facebook posting understood the word “missional” and others were left scratching their heads. I don't blame them for scratching their heads. I still scratch mine from time to time. Church leadership likes new words that describe ancient functions of the Church. The word “missional” most likely migrated out of a seminary setting and has been a topic of discussion and refocus for the church in recent years. It is a good and needed conversation.

A missional definition can end up being rather large depending on where you come from to arrive at your definition. For me, I need something simple.

Missional contains, at its root definition, the word “mission.” This mission, to live out the message of the Kingdom of God upon the earth, is carried by the missionaries of the message - the followers of Christ. The Church is designed to live and function as the incarnated presence of Christ upon the earth. This is the Great Commission.

This kind of ministry is bi-lingual – it speaks the language of God's Kingdom in words that are hopefully understood by the hearers. Missional speech is not wrapped with religious language. Being missional is learning how to contextualize the message of Jesus Christ in a way that the people you want to reach can understand and interact.

Missional language becomes all things to all men. This language is intended to take place outside the walls of the institutional church where it has been held captive and made ineffective. Truly missional Christianity doesn't require people to peel back layers of religious-speak in order to get to the core message of biblical Christianity.

The following excerpts are not exhaustive, but provide elements of a missional definition from some notable teachers in this discussion.

Ed Stetzer said, “I think perhaps the common thread through all the variations “missional” would be the concern that churches have become inward focused and self-concerned and have given up the missionary nature of the Christian and the Church. “Mission” isn’t just a program or something some of us do, but something we are and something we’re all called to do as it reflects the characteristic mission of God.”

Alan Hirsch, another strong voice in this conversation, rightly relates that the Church is incarnational, rather than solely attractional. Attractional models build an event or program and invite the community to come – people are attracted to the Gospel by the event. Incarnational models, on the other hand, go out into the community and become God's ministry in flesh among the people.

Hirsch tells us that we do not have to come to some “sacred space” to see what the incarnated Gospel looks like. The Gospel can be seen at the local supermarket because a believer is standing in the check out line sharing the love of God with someone. Hirsch also teaches that the Church is messianic. Like Christ, we walk into the world without walls of separation. Christ walked right into culture and brought the love and power of God center stage.

Hirsch defines the function of the Church as apostolic, rather than hierarchal. In this apostolic community the ministry structures are not vertical – they are lateral across the board releasing the function of the five equipping gifts listed by Paul in his letter to the Ephesians.

I appreciate these men and what they bring to the table. Their study and passion makes me want more. There are many others saying the same thing with the same passion. In this missional conversation I have found places where I have been dulled into insensitivity to the world around me. I have been challenged as a believer by listening to others.

These are not new conversations. I have been leading in the Church for three decades. Missional conversations, with other descriptive labels attached, have surfaced throughout Church history. These needed conversations of our mission are simply rediscovered from time to time to keep us focused on the pure and undiluted essence of the Gospel.

During my growing up years I was part of Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist churches. I am now part of a church movement (Foursquare) that some would describe with words like, Pentecostal, Spirit-filled or Charismatic. In many ways these defining terms are themselves, outdated. The Kingdom is always expanding and with that expansion our definitions will need to expand. Denominations and ministry affiliations no longer fully define any of us.

My Pentecostal, Spirit-filled or Charismatic orientation is an element I bring to this discussion. All definitions contain elements from our various backgrounds that make up the whole of who we are as human beings.

I write today to those in the missional conversation to say we are missing a critical element in the definition. We are missing the supernatural works of God. If we are truly going to walk in the incarnational ministry of Christ upon the earth, we will need to express His life in its fullness to the world around us. Without the supernatural element demonstrated by Jesus in all four Gospels, that includes signs, wonders and miracles, our missional definition will become incomplete and not fully incarnated.

As we build a missional mindset, create a sense of community, touch those in need and reach out beyond the restrictive walls of our church buildings, we will come into contact with frontiers of darkness. Our ministry models are the vehicles that take us to people in need. Once we arrive at dark frontiers of human and cultural brokenness, these frontiers are only breached by a supernatural demonstration of God's power. Demons and disease don't give way because we have developed a kind and sensitive community in touch with our history. To continue our conversation about what is missional without an expanded definition that is drawn from the purity and fullness of what we read in the Gospels or the Book of Acts, we will be left ministering in a partial definition of what it means to be truly missional.

Missional is doing what Jesus did. He forgave. He restored. He cast out demons. He experienced supernatural encounters. He healed the sick. He fed the hungry. He confronted religious systems. He ate in people homes. He forgave people caught in sin and pointed them towards their destiny. This is what it means to be fully missional.

"Words That Gather Life" by Garris Elkins

2011-01-11T05:46:00.000-08:00

When a believer prays with the authority and power of Jesus Christ, our prayers have the ability to change the environment into which we are praying. Because we are God's children we carry a creative familial voice that can replicate the sound of our Father's voice.

On the day of Creation God spoke into the void, His voice was the assembly point for the elements to come and form the earth we walk upon. His Word gathers and gives form to what was previously formless.

For example, when we speak a prayer into the life of a child whose life is in disarray, our prayers provide an assembly point for God's Truth to begin to work against the embedded lies of hell. Many parents fail to recognize that none of their prayers for their children pass through the child. Our prayers take up residence in a child's life and begin to work in concert with the Holy Spirit.

Proverbs 18:21 says, “The tongue can bring death or life.” What we say or pray will gather the elements of a life or situation around it for either life or death. There are huge consequences to our words and prayers.

In one season of my life I was under tremendous pressure. This pressure was the kind that comes just before supernatural breakthrough. In these times our lives can feel extremely fragmented. Into this fragmentation God whispers truth that we have an opportunity to respond to.

In this particular time of testing I had began to speak words that contained no faith. I was speaking out of my pain and sorrow. I would have been embarrassed for anyone, other than my wife, to hear what I was saying. As this season went on I knew I needed to stand against the words that were coming out of my heart and finding expression through my mouth. I confessed my sin and my lack of faith then the Lord gave me a picture of what He was doing.

In this image I saw the Lord standing behind me. As I began to speak those lifeless words I saw Him swing a large shield around in front of me while He still stood behind me. The shield was placed between my mouth and my circumstance. The words coming out of my mouth struck the back of the Lord's shield and could not go any farther.

While looking at this image I realized what was taking place. The Lord, by an act of great mercy and grace, was shielding my life from the words of death I had spoken. I learned that day that the shield of the Lord has two functions. He was protecting me until I understood fully what I was doing and He was also protecting my future. I realized that God would not do this forever. He was giving me a chance to go to the root of my pain and put it to death through confession and repentance. I thanked Him for His patience with me and began immediately to filter my words to resemble God's heart, not my pain. My words had now become assembly points for the blessing of God instead of a self-created destiny of fear and death.

"Walking, Talking and Praying Temples" by Garris Elkins

2011-01-05T08:48:00.000-08:00

In Matthew 21: 13 Jesus said, "My Temple will be called a house of prayer." In this scripture Jesus is dealing with people who had turned the physical Temple into a merchandising center that cheated and demeaned people and misrepresented the heart of God. This upset Jesus so much that He knocked over tables and threw money around to clear the facility of the sin that was talking place.

Over the years I have heard pastors use this scripture to appeal to their people to increase the level of prayer in a church. I have done this. I have heard this text used to define the ministry of a church. Again, I have done the same. None of this is wrong, but I think we have missed a deeper point.

The physical Temple no longer exists as the center of God's activity. People used to come into the Temple to do the things God commanded. The Temple was a location people entered to interact with God. The residue of that thinking still exists within the Church. I love sacred space, but if Jesus were to step into our pulpits today He would correct something we have missed about real sacred space.

After Jesus rose for the dead, and the Spirit took up residence in a people now defined as "the Church", we became the temple of God upon the earth. Paul referred to this new temple when he wrote to the Church in Corinth, "Don't you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you?" I Corinthians 3:16

To answer Paul's question, I am not sure we fully understand this reality of being God's temple on earth. God is not impressed with the temples we build here on earth called "church buildings." What moves God are the human beings He created in His image that now walk upon the earth carrying His presence. We are the new temple structures. We are mobile houses of prayer, not the brick and mortar facilities that keeps up warm in the winter and cool in the summer heat and sit atop immovable foundations.

I believe in prayer inside church buildings. We do this in our church here in Medford, Oregon and I believe it is powerful, but there is something more. On this side of Pentecost, each of us is now that "house of prayer" Jesus talked about. We don't have to wait for the pastor to call us to pray under a roof. We are the walking, talking and praying temples of God upon the earth and sometimes all of God's temples come together in a building and we pray and that is something good and we call it a prayer meeting.

"Jump-Starting Life and Ministry" by Garris Elkins

2011-01-04T07:10:00.000-08:00

Several years ago I was in Indianapolis for a training event and had the pleasure of having lunch with Bob Logan. Bob is well-known in church circles for developing leadership training and church planting materials that are considered some of the best around.

During one of the lunch breaks I sat at a table with Bob and several others. As the lunch conversation continued I asked him a question. “Bob, what advice do you give to individuals or organizations who are in decline – how do you help them get moving once again?” I asked this question knowing that Bob is very gifted in evaluating the effectiveness of corporations and his advice is utilized with great confidence.

Bob's answer was interesting. He said, “The first thing I ask is this, 'What was your original vision.'” He went on to say that most leaders can recite their vision in great detail. Bob would then ask a set of questions to determine if the leaders were still functioning in their original vision. Within plateaued or declining corporations or ministries there was a common reality - each one had stopped doing the very thing that brought them life in the first place. They had ceased doing their original vision.

Bob then shared a deep nugget of truth with me, “Each time a leader rediscovered their original vision, and began to do it once again, in each case, without exception, they began to move forward and grow.”

When those words of wisdom were shared I sat there wonderfully stunned by what I just heard. The lunch conversation continued to move around the table, but I was still processing the words, “in each case, without exception”.

When God does an original work in our lives there is more going on than something new and refreshing. In these times foundations are being built and vision is being realized. The first workings of God in our lives and ministries is the fleshing out of a DNA structure that will carry us into the future of our calling.

My wife and I had a recent discussion about our 30 years of ministry. We realized that during the first few years the foundational truth of what we had been called to do was formed within us. Times of personal renewal and redirection that have taken place over the last 30 years have always centered around the rediscovery of that original DNA and reengaging it. At this point in our lives we are living out those basic truths in deeper and wider applications that many years of service can bring. Our vision for life and ministry may be deeper and wider now in its application, but it is all based on the original truth revealed to us in the early years of our calling.

What did God give you as a vision or direction when you first began whatever it is God asked you to do? Are you doing that now? If not, chances are some of your life has either plateaued or is in decline. You might be scrambling for a new word or some fresh concept to grasp. Maybe your answer for a jump-start to your life and ministry is already in your life and simply needs to be revisited, redefined and reengaged. Go back to the beginning and take a new look at an old word and then new life will begin to flow.

"2011 and the Concept of Time" by Garris Elkins

2010-12-31T07:49:00.000-08:00

This morning I was on my Twitter account and saw that some people on the other side of the globe had already begun to celebrate the New Year. Here on the West Coast of the United States we are still several hours away from 2011. Each New Year's Eve I make sure to be in bed early so I can walk the abandoned streets of my city in the quiet of New Year's morning . I am not a party animal.

As I thought of people half way around the globe already celebrating 2011, I realized the coming celebrations revolving around the earth take place depending on what time zone you live in. The New Year is happening in multiple locations in this migrating global celebration which makes me ask a question - "At what time, and on what day, would you celebrate the New Year in the depths of outer space?" Who sets the calendars and clocks out there?

Space, like all created things, is not eternal because God spoke the heavens into existence. Anything created by God in our dimension of time and space is not eternal. While we like to think that outer space is heaven it is not. Heaven is very different and represents a higher reality because it will remain forever.

As I think about what I am writing I find it somewhat amusing to imagine looking from space to earth as it spins and seeing people celebrate the New Year and yelling, "Happy New Year!", from multiple time zones. This amusement is magnified when I think of someone in the future being on a distant planet and sending Happy New Year greetings back to us from a time zone light years away - "Happy New Year from 2711!"

From an eternal reality we live in a New Day that began at the resurrection of Jesus Christ and is continually unfolding. We live in a day without a sunset. This New Day will never end and will continue to expand forever in the presence of God.

I enjoy the reality that God created a time and calendar structure for our lives. In the continuum of time, I have a birthday each year (January 1st) and each year I use the calendar to remember when Jan and I were married (August 25). For those of us bought with the blood of the Lamb Who was slain from the foundation of all that was and is to come, we are also clocking to the beat of a different timepiece that tells me each day, "This is the Day the Lord has made (the year of 2011 included) and I will rejoice and be glad in it."

I am happy for a new year and for the New Year celebration, but I'll be watching the ball drop in New York on tomorrow's news - I will be in bed.

Happy New Year!

"Response Time" by Garris Elkins

2010-12-28T07:40:00.000-08:00

If you know me you know that I was a cop prior to becoming a pastor. That part of my life was over 30 years ago. The police experience never really leaves you, it just gets toned down and will always remain in some form. My wife calls me a protector. I go into a certain mode in some situations where I sense danger is afoot. The average person would not even see the potential for danger. For a police officer the repeated exposure to danger, and the training on how to deal with it, changes how you process life.

In police circles there is a phrase - "Response Time." This is the time it takes a police officer to come to your assistance in an emergency. The national average for responding officers runs anywhere from 3 to 7 minutes depending on the location of the officer at the time of the emergency call and how much distance he or she must cover to get to you. A lot can happen to potential a victim in 3-7 minutes if a bad guy has broken into a home and wants to harm those inside. Until the police arrive we are "the police" and we are responsible to protect ourselves and those we love. Without releasing any unneeded sense of fear, this is the reality of life in a fallen world.

As I thought of this response time in a natural setting where bad guys, police and victims occasionally intersect with each other, I also thought of spiritual response times. What happens when you have a spiritual emergency? Who is the first person you call? Calling a pastor or your home group leader is great, but there is a response time before they can get to you or return your call. The devil can do a lot of damage while you wait for someone to arrive.

What if you and I first called the Lord in our times of spiritual emergency? He is always present and not distant - ever. It is good to eventually call the leaders and friends in your life, but calling on the Lord first is where your real safety comes from. Good friends and leaders, when they eventually arrive, will always direct you towards Him anyway. Wouldn't it be powerful if the next time you and I realized hell was trying to break into our lives that in our initial call to a friend to come and meet with us that we let them know while they were responding we were holding the intruder at gunpoint until they arrived?

Having a prepared heart in a fallen world is a heart that is at rest in the night because the One Who is your protector is always there and requires no time to respond in times of need. You call and He is there and this makes the bad guys think twice about messing with you and those you love.

"Hidden Streams Revealed" by Garris Elkins

2010-12-16T06:31:00.000-08:00

This morning I was hiking in the hills above my home like I do each week. I have hiked these trails for the past 8 years and come away from these times refreshed. Normally, I am a very observant person. Maybe this is because 30 years ago I was a police officer and you stayed alive as a cop by knowing what is taking place around you in your environment. This morning I realized that I was not seeing everything.

As I hiked across a familiar bridge I paused and looked out at a seasonal stream that flows this time of year when the rains come. 150 years ago this stream bed was filled with prospectors seeking their fortune in the Oregon Gold Rush.

I like the sound of moving water - it refreshes and restores me, so I paused longer than normal and just listened. As I looked out I saw another stream about 25 feet away. I took another look and realized that I had never seen this stream before. The flowing water had now made it visible. During the majority of the year this other stream is dry and hidden by brush. These two streams were now merging together 25 feet from me. How could I have not seen this one sometime in the last 8 years? The only reason I could come up with was that I wasn't present on that bridge when the rains came.

As I crossed the bridge and made my way up the trail, I paused to catch my breath and looked back down at the two converging streams and asked, "Lord, is there something in this you want me to see?"

The Lord began to download into my heart what 2011 will bring for some of us. Streams of His presence will be revealed that have been previously hidden from our sight. These streams were not seen because the flow of His presence had not yet been released into those areas. God is about to bring a flow of His presence that will make known new assignments and new direction. Where we would never expect to see God moving we will see Him at work before our eyes.

The prophet Isaiah wrote:

"Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert." Isaiah 35: 5-6

God is preparing many of us to flow along new stream-beds that will supernaturally appear in our personal deserts. These new courses have been hidden in the past. We have literally walked by them as we went about our daily lives. When the flow starts we will see His plans emerge and many will begin to move into their destiny in Christ along stream beds they have not seen before this moment. What will this mean?

The Hidden will be Revealed -

In those areas of your life and ministry that are habitual and predictable, and where you are expecting more of the same, God plans to reveal hidden stream beds that will be filled with His presence to take you to something new. Joy will return. Hope will be renewed.

The Flow of His Presence is about to Increase -

As the rains in the natural saturate the forests and produce the seasonal run-off that makes a dry stream bed rise, God is about to increase the flow of His presence and show you where to invest your life for this next season. Your greatest investment for a Kingdom return will be in the flow of what God is about to do.

God wants us to experience the refreshment and restoration that comes when we move in the power and pleasure of His River. Like Isaiah said, blind eyes will open, lame people will walk and mute tongues will shout for joy and the water of His presence will flow into your personal desert.

Random Verse

2010-11-25T08:07:00.000-08:00

REFLECTING LEAF 11-3-10

On a hike this morning

in the hills above Jacksonville

I saw a fallen leaf shaped like a bowl

filled with rainwater

becoming a reflecting mirror of my face

as I sought the face of God.

TOWARDS FOREVER 12-11-10

Like toy soldiers marching,

wound up but winding down, waiting

for the Hand to twist again,

to set in motion

this march towards forever.

WHITE TRACKS 11-23-10

Walking up an unmarked trail of snow

the first of the year

white, unprinted by foot, claw or hoof

circling around the mountain

in a loop

untouched, pure,

atop a canvas of frozen paint.

As I circumnavigate this path

I come back around to my first tracks

cutting the white on the trek up

and meeting myself in print form.

I stop and ask, “Am I a different man?” on this way back down,

than the one who walked this way up.

It is strange to meet your tracks once again,

footprints as reminders

of who one is, both up and down.

Snow is honest.

COMPREHENDER 11-24-10

Comprehension,

enemy of knowing.

Comprehending the God of all

a goal he never posed.

To be, to walk, to sense, to touch together

is the knowing.

These never designed for the comprehender

but for the lover.

Lying side by side

unspoken words

having no comprehension,

yet together.

"2011 - A Year of Revealed Change and Transition" by Garris Elkins

2010-11-16T12:32:00.000-08:00

2011 will be a year of change and transition within the Church. This change and transition has already taken place in the spiritual realm. In the coming year these changes will become visible within the Church in greater measure. I am seeing four areas of change and transition that will take place in the upcoming year.

A NEW ALIGNMENT WILL TAKE PLACE WITHIN THE EQUIPPING GIFTS

In the last several decades a broadened understanding has taken place regarding the ministry of the Apostle and Prophet. Movements have risen up around these two gifts. A critical linkage will develop in 2011 between Apostle and Prophet with the Evangelist for a three-cord, Spirit-empowered harvest of souls. The government of the harvest will be released. There will be a visible inclusiveness between these three gifts to prepare the Church for a supernatural harvest.

SUPERNATURAL BLESSING WILL APPEAR IN UNUSUAL PLACES

For 2011 many will make a great discovery - in midst of their failures God will show up to bless them in spite of these visible and obvious failures. There will be a revival of blessing in unlikely and unsuspecting places. A Prodigal blessing and feast is being planned and released for 2011.

When we stand in the middle of the debris fields of failure that many are experiencing, and when God comes unexpectedly with supernatural provision and blessing, that moment of mercy will produce a depth of humility, repentance and worship, that no successful faith-formula can ever provide.

Our songs of repentance amidst our failures, sung under the blessing of God, will release a deeper understanding of the mercy heart of God.

GOD WILL BREAK THE RULES OF RELIGIOUS PRODUCTIVITY

Recently, a counselor friend of mine spoke to a leader who was burned out. The counselor told the leader to stop studying, stop having daily devotions, stop making plans and simply learn to rest in God's presence. None of these things the leader was asked to stop doing were wrong. They are all part of a healthy believer's life. But in the case of this particular leader, things had gotten unhealthy. The spiritual disciplines of his life had become the places from which he had tried to draw Life. An orderly life had replaced Jesus as the giver of Life. My counselor friend wanted this leader to break the rules of religious productivity in order to come back to the simplicity of faith in Jesus.

God is breaking man-made rules of productivity that tell us doing more is holy. God desires that we lay down the deception of trying to prove our worth to God through religious duty. Productivity is the language of slaves. Inheritance is the language of God's children.

In 2011 God will ask his people to move into the deeper revelation of friendship that Jesus promised His disciples. In John 15 Jesus told these newly-defined friends that a master does not confide in slaves. Slaves are not receivers of revelation – only friends are. Slaves work from a list of duties provided by a slave master. Each day the predictable drudgery of the slave's list produces a defeated heart in the slave. God wants his friends to hear his voice. Some have mentally moved back into the slave quarters of the past and now God is calling them back into friendship and into the fresh daily revelation that comes from living in the dwelling place of his presence.

CHICAGOLAND WILL EXPERIENCE A BURN OF GOD'S PRESENCE.

In prayer I saw an image of a large magnifying glass being held over Chicago and the surrounding communities. As a focused beam of light passed through the magnifying lens and focused its beam on this region, I heard the words, “A burn is coming.”

The great Chicago fire of 1871 burned for three days destroying the city and killing hundreds. In 2011 the coming burn of God will revive the Chicago region and bring thousands to new life in Christ. Hands raised in worship during “normal” worship services will be set on fire. People will literally feel the heat of God's presence in their bodies. A prominent mega-church will experience a work of Pentecost that will challenge the understanding of some. The wise will wait to judge what is taking place. God will raise up an unlikely spokesman from among these burning ones to champion what God is doing.

"Stepping Into An Uncharted Future" by Garris Elkins

2010-11-14T07:39:00.000-08:00

Sociologists and cultural pollsters don't work with initial revelation - they study the history of past events. Those who leave a mark in this life walk into a developing history that is uncharted and undefined. Our heroes of faith are those who stepped into places where the rest of us feared to tread. They had no road signs of research to calm their fears along the unmapped path of faith.

Developing history does not always have a sociological model to work within. Those who leave a mark in our lives did not first poll for statistics to determine their next step. They simply stepped towards the Voice. I wonder what would happen today if you and I did not weigh the cost of the journey or draw from the opinions of others to determine our buy-in to God's agenda? Maybe the personal and cultural transformation we are praying for would actually take place in this God-pleasing environment of raw faith because we stepped towards something not yet seen.

"Reflecting Leaf" by Garris Elkins

2010-11-12T07:08:00.000-08:00

On a hike this morning

in the hills above Jacksonville

I saw a fallen leaf shaped like a bowl

filled with rainwater

becoming a reflecting mirror of my face

as I sought the face of God.

"Poised" by Garris Elkins

2010-11-11T08:55:00.000-08:00

Poised and suspended

now attached to what is known, familiar, doable.

A release is coming,

a falling

and a rising up to meet me,

of something new and undefined.

Needing, even wanting, to see the release,

trembling like a water droplet hanging on

clinging amidst the vibration of what is coming

the trembling before the drop

a shaking me free to fall.

Ready to exchange one form for another

that is why it is called a droplet

the drop had to let

the release come in faith and anticipation

of the dropping to become a splash

a change of structure

still wet.

"A Field of Debris" by Garris Elkins

2010-11-02T09:53:00.001-07:00

I am in middle of God's blessing. This is one of the most significant seasons of God's presence and provision in my life - the most I have experienced in the last 30 years. All of this is taking place in the middle of a financial and emotional recession in our nation. In contrast to the beauty of what God is doing I have found myself arriving in this time having thought and spoken some very faithless words. These words are like a debris field after a plane crash. Body parts and pieces of wreckage are littering the landscape of my thoughts. I regret them. I want them to go away. I have confessed and denounced them. I am raking up the debris of my unrighteous thoughts and words and putting them into the spiritual trash bags of repentance and sending them to the dump.

My reasons for speaking these kinds of faithless words in the first place are as foolish as anyones faulty reasoning. The faithless words and thoughts birthed in the pain and sorrow of my life were reaching up drawing down a dark lexicon from the shelf of my vocabulary and saying things to me and into my life. Human failure is the fertilizer that gives our belief in a lie the ability to grow.

The blessing confused me at first because the debris field of faithless words yelled back at me that nothing good could come amidst my doubts and fears. These faithless words began to tell me that I had set in motion an irretrievable set of negative outcomes. Doom was ahead. Give up and run! Maybe that is why God sometimes sends blessing amidst our failures - he knows some of us would not hang around if God did not show up.

This week, as I prayed with a group of fellow believers, the Lord spoke to me and said, "I will not be held captive by your failure to understand my love." When He said these words I realized what He was saying. "You failed in your words and thoughts, but that is not the end of the story. There is more and the "more" is always about increasing your understanding of Me as your Loving Father."

I began to realize in a deeper way that I was dealing with a loving Father who uses a different measure for love than I do. When I think it is all over, because I have failed in some formulated concept of His love using the broken math of my old nature, God shows up and reveals His heart to me. God formulates His response to us based on His unchanging nature and His perfect love. He does this in a loving partnership with us. The old nature can only see the faithless words producing a crop of death. This is the language of slaves. Since Jesus said we are no longer slaves, but now His friends, we are drawn into something very different. The old nature cannot see hope and mercy. The old nature sees only enslavement. Words spoken without love and faith do produce horrible things, but God has to be bigger than my dwarfed concept of Him and my slavish responses to the pains of life. He has to be bigger and kinder than my words.

God wants to show up in the middle of our failed attempts at this faith-life, in the middle of our self-created debris fields of personal failure, and bless us. The blessing of God, not the failure of people, is where the heart of God is revealed most powerfully. These are the places where we feel we deserve nothing but the ugly fruit of our words and deeds. God has a different and more wonderful plan.

The greater discovery in times of failure is not that we come to realize our brokenness. The greater discovery is that in midst of our human failure God shows up to bless us in spite of ourselves. When we stand in the middle of the debris field we created, and then the blessing comes, that moment of undeserved love produces a depth of humility and height of praise that no successful faith-formula can ever provide.

"Beginning and Ending" by Garris Elkins

2010-10-30T20:06:00.000-07:00

I would not venture to guess

where she ends

and I begin.

Of one flesh we have become

both losing ourselves and finding ourselves

in that oneness.

Still a mystery

how we cannot tell where each ends and each begins.

Of oneness we are.

"Fire and Rain" by Garris Elkins

2010-10-30T19:53:00.000-07:00

I've seen fire and I've seen rain

in the song and in this life.

Burning passions fired for Creator

a rain not quenching but flooding

a distant longing and its approaching rumble

has engulfed me

A burning man quenched.

"Life Bloom" by Garris Elkins

2010-10-30T13:03:00.001-07:00

We all like flowers bloom and unfold.

From bud to blossom, new to full,

from young to old.

The summit of a life cycle no one knows

the height, the apex of life's arc

from fullness to withered petal.

But life is,

from beginning to end,

from tender shoot to brittle leaf,

all part of the bloom.

"A Soul in Drought" by Garris Elkins

2010-10-19T09:04:00.001-07:00

To the despair in this dry place - listen

Listen to the approaching sound

of a rising tide of answered prayer

Mounting upon a wave of his presence

breaking down upon this soul in drought

upon the despair in this dry place.

"Confused and Confirmed" by Garris Elkins

2010-10-13T07:38:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday mornings I gather with other believers in the sanctuary at Living Waters Church to pray. Like we do each week, we put on some worship music and spend an hour together in God's presence. There is something powerful and spiritually fulfilling about being in prayer with other believers.

For the first half hour many of us walk around, some sit and others kneel in prayer as the Spirit leads. We pray with our mind and with our Spirit. During these times of weekly prayer things are taking place in the heavenly realm that we are not fully aware of. Systems of darkness that hold people captive are being dismantled. Families are being set free. Supernatural provision is called in. For the last half hour the music is turned down and we pray for circumstances God has brought to our attention and we pray for each other.

As a couple of the men were receiving prayer for specific needs in their lives the Lord prompted me to share a word. In essence the word was this:

"This is a time of both confusion and confirmation. Your mind is being renewed and your old way of thinking is now confused. What has worked is no longer working. God is doing a new thing in your life that He is renewing your mind to receive. New things are coming to you to confirm that this is God Who is at work in you."

God is not the author of confusion. When God is doing a new work in us His new work will challenge our old mindsets. He is not throwing the old away, He is simply taking us to a deeper place of revelation. Each new revelation builds upon the previous revelation. The Kingdom of God is ever-expanding. If we hold on to the old, at the expense of the new, we will miss the fresh work God is doing in our lives and upon the earth.

We get confused when our religious thinking and religious systems are no longer producing the life they once provided. Some people continue to hold on to the past out of fear because it is familiar and controllable. At this point we can either attempt to justify their continued existence or we can lift them up to God in exchange for something new.

The confusion we are experiencing will begin to leave when we make the exchange - the old for the new. In this process of letting go the confirmation that comes will turn our confusion into understanding.

“A Transferable Pentecost” by Garris Elkins

2010-10-03T13:39:00.000-07:00

Pentecost in its purest form is transferable across all models of ministry, Pentecostalism is not. Pentecost is what God did on the Day of Pentecost. Pentecostalism is a narrow human interpretation of the moving of God's Spirit. The “isms” of ministry have distanced many believers from the very things He wants to do in our midst.

A transferable model of Pentecost can work within any ministry without compromising the power and authority of the Holy Spirit or violating the unique assignment God has given a particular ministry.

In 1985 I was a burned-out young pastor. I wanted out of the ministry. We had gone to Montana several years earlier to plant a new church and we had begun to grow. We had a rented facility and a group of wonderful people, but I was tired and wanted out.

To augment our church income I worked as a pilot at a local airport. I thought I would return to Oregon, get a flying job, and become a faithful member of a local church. Jan and I made a trip to the Portland area where I was offered a job as a pilot flying for a local business.

We returned to Montana to share our decision with the church, pack up ,and leave. Then the words began to come. My brother said, “Garris, that doesn't sound like God.” A long-time ministry mentor quoted a Psalm that said, the servant watches the hand of the master and only moves when His hand moves. I was jumping the gun.

We settled back into the routine of ministry and decided to not leave. Several months went by and Jan and I traveled to Los Angeles to the International Convention of the Foursquare Church. It was my first time to Angelus Temple. It was like a spiritual Disneyland for me. I wept as I read the history of the Foursquare Church and saw the crutches displayed from the healing ministry of Aimee Semple McPherson.

I don't remember much from that convention. I do remember John Wimber who spoke in one of the evening sessions. John came out on the platform dressed in white pants and a Hawaiian shirt and said, “I am just a little fat man trying to get to heaven.” I immediately liked him.

John preached that night and uttered one sentence that will stay with me for the rest of my life. John simply said, “Go home and do what's in the Book.” John meant, “Go home and do what Jesus did.”

When we arrived back home to our church in Montana we did not change anything. We had the same worship team, the same service structure, and the same pastor – me. What changed was an expectancy I brought home that came from hearing Heaven speak to me. Miracles began to take place during worship. Serious diseases were healed. Backs were straightened. Marriages were restored. Forgiveness was granted. God simply walked into our church and began to tell His people that He loved them enough to touch their brokenness.

In some circles of the Church today, the ministry of the Holy Spirit is viewed like a free-spirited uncle who was invited to our last Thanksgiving Dinner and had too much to drink. We are not sure we want to invite him back next year so we plan around him.

On my Tweeter account, one person I follow is David Platt, a Southern Baptist pastor. David posted this chilling comment : “If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95% of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference.” I wonder how true this might have become for some of us. The Church, birthed in power on the Day of Pentecost, has not been called to be a Rotary or Lions Club, even though these wonderful secular groups do important work in our cities. These groups are not the Church. Much of what is taking place in some corners of the Church today, any service club could do without the Holy Spirit being present. Good works alone will not accomplish God's plan.

On the Day of Pentecost the entire Church was birthed. Those in attendance that day came to the Upper Room in Acts 2 indwelled by the Spirit. Previous to the Day of Pentecost, in John 20, Jesus had breathed the Spirit into His disciples. These disciples became the first born-again humans to walk upon the face of the earth. These “new creations,” who had the Spirit of God within them as they came to Pentecost, would now be clothed in power as the Spirit fell upon them, and they would take the Gospel to the far corners of the known world.

On the Day of Pentecost the church was given an empowered voice. That empowered voice would transmit the will of heaven upon the earth through the supernatural gifts of the Spirit, which included healing, prophecy, and miracles. This empowered voice of Pentecost would be the vehicle to carry the declarations of heaven into places of disease, suffering and bondage. This voice said, “Be healed,” “Rise up and walk,” or “Come out of him.” The Book of Acts is filled with the supernatural commands of the empowered voice. In fact, the overwhelming message of the voice of the Church throughout Acts was given in the form of commands, not prayers. In Acts they commanded more than they prayed.

The unique voice of each ministry on earth today was empowered on the Day of Pentecost 2,000 years ago. It will be a wise leader who discovers the sound of that voice and releases it into their unique ministry assignment.

Culture is not opened nor is the Kingdom expanded by our academics, our doctrine, our highly groomed communities of fellowship, outreach ministries, hip websites, great stage props and lighting. Culture is opened and the Kingdom is expanded because of a supernatural encounter with the Holy Spirit on the frontiers of darkness. As you study the Book of Acts, cultural frontiers were breached and the Kingdom expanded because the Church spoke with an empowered voice and the darkness stepped back.

Community outreach has become a buzz word today. Community outreach is a good thing. The Church is being awakened to this neglected aspect of ministry. As we pursue a fuller expression of our calling, we need to remember that our best attempts at community outreach will only be terminal events unless we are prepared and available for an encounter with the Holy Spirit against a dark spiritual frontier where hell is entrenched. Outreach is a wonderful work for the Church to engage in, but it is only intended to be a platform from which to release a supernatural encounter with the Living God.

How would you validate your ministry? What criteria would you use to make sure you did the same things Jesus did while He walked the earth?

Jesus sent a validation of His ministry back to John the Baptist who was in prison awaiting execution. The event is recorded in Matthew 11: 1-5

"When Jesus had finished giving these instructions to his twelve disciples, he went out to teach and preach in towns throughout the region. 2 John the Baptist, who was in prison, heard about all the things the Messiah was doing. So he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, 3 “Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?” 4 Jesus told them, “Go back to John and tell him what you have heard and seen―5 the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor. ” (NLT)

This is the same John who, on the day of Jesus' baptism, saw heaven open up and the dove descend upon Jesus. John heard God speak. John saw first-hand the supernatural events that occurred that day and yet he asks, “Are you the Messiah we've been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?”

John's question makes no sense. John saw it all. He should have been in a place to never doubt the Lord. But being in prison, whether locked up in a real steel- barred prison cell or a prison of the mind, can cause a person to lose their grip on reality. Jesus knew that in just a matter of days John's head would be removed from his body and served up on a tray as a macabre party favor. Jesus prepared a response to send back to John to tell him he had not wasted his life and he could now die in peace.

Jesus validated His ministry to John by saying, ““Go back to John and tell him what you have heard and seen―5 the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor.” Jesus did not say that He had been painting houses, picking up trash in the community, or running a soup kitchen. These are all wonderful things to do, but they don't fully validate what He has called His Pentecost-empowered Church to do. Of the six points of ministry validation Jesus sent to John, five were outwardly supernatural in nature. Jesus made these statements to John knowing that you and I would show up centuries later and may need to hear the same thing in order to keep our focus.

Peter said something similar in Acts 2:22, “People of Israel, listen! God publicly endorsed Jesus the Nazarene by doing powerful miracles, wonders and signs through him, as you well know.” Individual and cultural transformation requires a miraculous encounter with God and that takes place when the power of Pentecost is released through the empowered voice of the Church. If we are seeking a validation or endorsement it is important that we reflect the very nature of the ministry of Jesus Christ.

So, what is the take-away from all of this? The take-away is in three areas.

For the primary ministry leader – make room for Pentecost in your personal life

My ministry coach is Dave Jacobs. Dave's ministry touches pastors all across the United States. I am blessed to have Dave as part of our church. Dave kindly coaches my calling each month when he sticks a spiritual thermometer into my life to see my level of vocational health. Dave asks good questions.

During my times with Dave and my own interaction with God, I have realized how important it is to create margins in my life. These are margins outside of work, my daily devotional life, my sermon preparation and my family. In these margins I am alone with God without an agenda. My margin time is on Wednesday mornings when I leave my house and hike the trails in the hills above our home.

During my margin time with God I listen for the voice of heaven. I pray in my native tongue and in the tongue of the Spirit. The longer I spend in this margin time the more I understand how to discern God's voice. We learn to speak in the empowered voice of heaven by listening to the voice of heaven.

Once we hear the word of God for our specific issues, we then have something to say to our family, our leaders and the Church.

For your leadership team – discover the unique language of Pentecost God has assigned to your ministry

It is critical for our primary leadership teams to speak the same language. Language is culture. Make room for the Spirit to speak in your primary leadership gatherings.

My pastor, Roy Hicks, Jr., once told a group of us young-pastors-in-training to never have a meeting of our primary leadership team without making room for the Holy Spirit to speak. He also went on to tell us that a public meeting should be characterized by three things – Word, Worship and the Witness of the Spirit. Many of us have a Word-language and a Worship-language, but we need to develop a Witness-language if we are going to confront darkness and bring freedom to our communities.

In Acts 13 the entire Gentile missionary movement was birthed because these leaders were worshipping and listening together before the Lord. As a result, the Gospel moved out from Jerusalem and touched the world. No gathering, no matter how small, is ever insignificant if we hear the voice of God and act upon what He said to us.

For your public ministry teams -train them how to speak in the empowered voice

The public outreach of our churches that may include our weekly public church service, some form of community outreach ministry like painting houses in town, feeding the poor and all the rest of what we do to be out and among our community, are all gracious platforms from which the empowered voice can speak. It is critical to train these ministry teams how to do their practical ministry assignment with excellence. But this alone is not enough. These public ministries will carry us to the frontiers of darkness where we will have the opportunity to speak and command life into the darkness of imprisoned lives. These encounters are supernatural and require a supernatural ministry empowered by God's Spirit.

As you train people how to minister, include in the training how to minister with their unique and personal voice of Pentecost. Our daughter, Anna, is a gifted artist who conducts Prophetic Art workshops to help people learn to hear the voice of God. Anna instructs artists, from the stick-figure-only artists to the professional, on how to hear God's voice and then interpret that voice back into their medium of art. Anna was released into this ministry when a wise professor told her that when the Spirit moves in her life she creates art. Today, people stand before artwork inspired by the Spirit and receive emotional, physical and spiritual healing.

The moving of the Holy Spirit upon believers can appear monolithic if we require that Pentecost be expressed in any limited form. The Kingdom of God is expanding and in that expansion He is raising up new and unique ways for people to hear His voice. Teach your teams to release what will validate the ministry of Christ and endorse His presence in your community.

This kind of leadership takes courage. In the early years of the Foursquare Church, Aimee Semple McPherson took hits from some of the traditional Pentecostal churches on one side and the mainline churches on the other. One side thought she was too cold and the other side thought she was too hot. She remained true to what God had called her to do because early on she discovered the uniquely empowered voice of Pentecost that was assigned to her life. Later that voice initiated a great move of God and birthed the Foursquare Church. Aimee did not allow what she heard from heaven to be high-jacked or re-translated.

"Come Out Of The Clutter" by Garris Elkins

2010-09-23T06:31:00.000-07:00

A very strong and clear word came to me recently,

“During this season stay away from over-scripted, over-studied and over-choreographed personal lives and corporate church gatherings. God is up to something new and our planning can be the very clutter that dulls our ability to hear the voice of God.”

We are living in cluttered times that have produced distracted lives. Family activities and careers ask for their fair share of our day. Ministry commitments ask us for more of our time. The needs of others stand in line at the door of our lives and want to come in. Each of these demands are good by themselves, but together they can become overwhelming in their ability to fill every spare moment of our lives. At some point we must push life back and create a place to listen to what the Spirit would say.

John the Baptist stood in the wilderness and cried out for people to prepare for the coming of the Lord.

“Prepare the way for the Lord's coming! Clear the road for him!” Mark 1:3

All the people in Jerusalem, and all the people in the surrounding country-side, left their known civilization and walked out into the uncluttered wilderness in response to John's voice. A friend recently told me at that time there were over a million people in Jerusalem and the surrounding region. Imagine a group of people that large walking away from the city and out into the wilderness to hear about Jesus. They left the clutter of their everyday lives and walked out into the simplicity of the wilderness to hear the message of God.

Paul addressed cluttered lives when he wrote to the Church in Corinth,

“The time that remains is very short. So from now on, those with wives should not focus only on their marriage. Those who weep or who rejoice or who buy things should not be absorbed by their weeping or their joy or their possessions. Those who use the things of the world should not become attached to them. For this world as we know it will soon pass away. I want you to be free from the concerns of this life.” I Corinthians 7: 29-32

Later in verse 35 Paul wrote,

“I want you to do whatever will help you serve the Lord best, with as few distractions as possible.”

Paul was listing, among those things that can distract us, our relationships, our failures, our successes and our possessions. When all of the stuff of life begins to fill our lives we become absorbed into them and take on their shape – our image changes. Like wet clay we are crafted into an image of the distractions in our lives instead of being absorbed and molded into the image of Christ.

Profound and epic change is taking place upon the earth. Promises spoken by God are hanging above the Church seeking places to fall. God is looking for target audiences, not target audiences that come from opinion polls or logical conclusions, but target audiences that have prepared themselves for His coming. These target audiences are those personal lives and public ministries that have cleared away landing zones for heaven to touch down, much like an “LZ” (Landing Zone) that would be provided in a military operation for an incoming aircraft. Now is the time to push back the clutter and distractions of life that are occupying your time and space and draining away your energy. Heaven wants to land, but the clutter is in the way.

For the last year I have felt that much of what Heaven wants to do upon the earth is now hovering over the Church ready to fall into our midst. Words of promise spoken in the past are now in orbit over our lives waiting for God's signal to land. Heaven is prepared for this landing. God is asking His people to prepare for His coming by providing uncluttered landing zones where His Spirit can set down and do extraordinary things. Remove the clutter and distractions and welcome the coming of the Lord.

"The Spiritual Farm" by Garris Elkins

2010-08-17T09:40:00.000-07:00

For the last several weeks I have been going through a deep pressing of my soul. God is wanting to get to the foundation of who I am and that will always stir a life. Discovery is never a comfortable process. This morning I read the following verses from Mark, chapter 4:

3 “Listen! A farmer went out to plant some seed. 4 As he scattered it across his field, some of the seed fell on a footpath, and the birds came and ate it. 5 Other seed fell on shallow soil with underlying rock. The seed sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow. 6 But the plant soon wilted under the hot sun, and since it didn’t have deep roots, it died. 7 Other seed fell among thorns that grew up and choked out the tender plants so they produced no grain. 8 Still other seeds fell on fertile soil, and they sprouted, grew, and produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as had been planted!” 9 Then he said, “Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.”

I used to look at this text of scripture and try to pick out which soil I represented. My hope was that I would be the fertile soil. Then something happened today as I read this parable – I realized that I had all four soil types on my spiritual farm.

In the last 60 years I have accumulated a lot of spiritual acreage. Like a farmer in the natural realm, we work different parts of a large land holding based on the needs of each particular soil type. For those of you thinking I am copping out to having sin in my life, I am not. I love God, love my wife and don't want anyone to die because they crossed me. I repent daily and make heart adjustments. But maybe at age 60 I am finally realizing that I don't have it all together all the time and I need to understand what that means. This is the pressing that comes in times of intense spiritual formation.

As I look at my life I see places that used to be fertile ground where I have allowed other things access to and they have beaten a hard path across my once fertile field. I look at another section of my life where I have allowed myself to become shallow by seeking the dim and lesser things of this world. Nothing lasts long in that patch. The third parcel of my spiritual life is overgrown with thorns and I feel their choking influence as I become consumed with the “what ifs” of life. And finally, and thank God for this, there still remains patches of fertile soil from which I can compare all the others and demand that they yield to the fertility of His presence.

For the places I have allowed hardened footpaths to develop I need to limit access to who and what crosses my field. For the shallow places where I failed to go deeper, I need to allow God to take me into that ground and deal with any fear or shame that might arise on the way to freedom. For the thorn-infested places I need to pull these things up by their roots and not settle for a weed-whacker form of Christianity. And for those places of fertile soil I need to ask God how it became fertile in the first place and do more of that kind of work in all the other areas of my spiritual farm.

If you are like me, and going through a time of intense spiritual formation, God is wanting to do a work of fertility within you. To prepare the field of our lives for the supernatural seeds of His Kingdom, God needs to show us the condition of our soil and those images are not always pretty. From the parable of the sower we see that God is secure enough to throw some of His precious seed into the fields of my life that are not yet ready, and through the painful process of death and resurrection of that seed, He will create in us a heart that is fertile and inviting to His presence.