10,500 Global Prayer Connect

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I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.  And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. – Ephesians 1:18-23

Many may have heard of the adage that “attitude determines altitude”.  God’s call for us, as His Kingdom stewards, is to heaven’s altitude.  But reaching that requires a completely counterintuitive attitude.  That is, reaching heaven’s altitude requires an attitude that heads to the grave.

Ephesians 1 says that God has called us to operate in power that manifests heaven’s altitude.  That is the power of resurrecting the dead, the authority we have over death.  More often than not, God prepares us to experience and steward such power by taking us to the fish’s belly, through the path of the grave.  For us to be resurrected, we must first experience death.

When God puts us into the fish’s belly, He seeks from us an attitude transformation.  The fish is our opportunity to work through our heart’s fear and resentment – coming to terms with dying to ourselves in the confidence that we will be resurrected.  When we know that the power of resurrection awaits at the end, how will that shape our attitudes towards confronting scarcity, failure, injustice, broken promises, missed expectations, financial distress, betrayal, personal offenses, and attacks on our reputation?  God expects us, as He had with Jonah, to take to the grave those manifestations of fear and resentment.  Let us not fight against death by trying to mitigate our fears through control or to purge our resentments through revenge.  Let us confront our fears and resentments by walking them to the grave in the expectations of God’s resurrection power, in the assurance that death will shape us into vessels vested with greater capacity to contain His capacity.

As the world’s value system promotes the attitude of dominance and control to gain altitude in recognition and respect, God is raising up a generation of market place soldiers who can gain the altitude of heaven through the attitude of the grave.  Our most powerful testimonies will come from walking in the expectation of the resurrection and leveraging the power of death as a tool, as a means to Kingdom authority.

God expects us to experience resurrection power.  Let’s make ourselves available and walk to heaven through the grave!

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The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you brought my life up from the pit, O LORD my God. When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, LORD, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple.  Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.  But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you.  What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the LORD. – Jonah 2:5-9

Sensing that the Lord is taking us through a significant transition season, I have recently decided to scale back on the weekly message blog to quiet my spirit in seeking God’s heart.  Here are some “sceneries” of this journey that I would like to share with you.

God’s preparation of our hearts to steward influence and wealth is about change – reorienting what we think is reasonable and desirable and aligning to what God wants.  Because of people’s “stiffed-necked” nature, the change process that God takes us through can often seem painful, chaotic, and contradictory.

Recently, the Holy Spirit reminded me of Jonah’s case – truly the epitome of “extreme heart transformation”.  In an odd way, it brought me encouragement by the assurance that:  when God cares enough to get our attention and compliance, He will shake us out from our bounds of logic, justice, and sensibility.  He will take us to a place where we will not only clearly understand His heart, but will also be ready to change our hearts.

Being trapped in a fish’s stomach must be one of most horrid experiences – hanging somewhere between life and death, completely blind, swaying like a crazy roller coaster, staring at the face of a painful and slow death.  Is this how we perceive our situation today as we go through the “change process”?  God’s ways are always sensible.  But to perceive it requires a faith to see His heart’s greater picture and a willingness to step out from our bounds of logic, justice, and sensibility.  Only then will the beauty of God’s wisdom and mercy become visible.

The fish experience may be frightening.  But in reality, it is God’s salvation that saved Jonah from drowning.  It is God’s condition that opened Jonah’s eyes and compelled him to “make good his vow”.  It is God’s provision that transported Jonah to his intended destination, all expenses paid!

God’s way operated completely outside of Jonah’s logic and sensibility.  Can we relate to that?  How many of us are in a “fish” today – feeling blind, disoriented, out of control, while seeing our resources ebb away?  In many aspects of my Kingdom assignment, I can relate to that.  My encouragement to you, from one sojourner to another, is: everything will be and must be OK.  The “fish” is the way of God.  Just sit tight and wait for it to spit you out.  When that happens, you know that you have been elevated to a new level of Kingdom authority!

God bless – as we ride the “fish” together.