September 25, 2024
East Wind, wind of the Lord, God''s judgments, Red Sea parting

Praying for God’s judgments?

Many Christians and secularists alike tend to think of God’s judgments as undesirable or even cruel. Some suppose that judgment is synonymous with hail, lightening, earthquakes, and floods. The scriptural pattern of God’s judgments often involved His people being invaded by foreigners who did not share their customs, took over their resources, and oppressed them. We cannot ignore that Peter told the church that “Judgment begins with the household of faith” (1 Peter 4:17).
July 22, 2024

Praying for your nation without double-mindedness

"It is for the king to ensure justice, and the saint to ensure charity," said G. K. Chesterton famously. In other words, the role of the government is to uphold civil law. The role of the church is to administer Christ's benevolence. Over the last century, government has usurped the role of the church and offered handouts - not because it has any inherent godliness, but because it seeks power over the one receiving its "benefits." In the last couple decades, governments around the world have taken this to a new extreme, abdicating their role to uphold lawfulness altogether and offering the money of hard-working citizens to criminal vagrants. This is heavily due to the spirit of lawlessness at work through globalists in the United Nations and WEF and their corrupt influence over national and even local authorities. Even God-fearing Christians are greatly confused about their own role and the government's in this matter, and as a result, cannot think about this in a single-minded manner. Thus they cannot pray effectively.
July 15, 2024
God establishes nations and their boundaries

God establishes nations and their borders

Western nations are hardly the only ones under assault. “The UN has much power on the African continent because of pulling the purse strings. With shekels come shackles.” So stated Voddie Baucham, Dean of Theology at African University in Zambia, in an interview with Beckett Cook. “And so the UN is doing everything it can to leverage its influence on the African continent.”
July 9, 2024
pray for your nation, intercession for country

Have we neglected God’s heart of prayer for our homeland?

Why does Paul attach so much importance to praying for those holding positions of authority in the land? Should we really even bother with those corrupt kings, prime ministers, presidents, judges, magistrates, and legislators? The answer comes in the verse that follows. "This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:3-4, ESV).
June 26, 2024
cynicism, idealism and fatalism

Hell’s trifecta trap: Cynicism, Idealism, and Fatalism

Without fervent prayer, God's will is largely held back from what He purposes to do in the earth. As Chip Brogden stated, "“If God will do whatever He wishes, regardless of whether we pray or not, then we do not need to pray at all, and the Lord’s instructions on praying for the Kingdom and His will are superfluous. . .Apart from Him, we can do nothing. Apart from us, He will do nothing.”
April 6, 2024
Jesus disciples storm wind waves

Slammed by contrary winds

We all did what the Lord sent us out to do. We got on board the ship - our individual calling - because Jesus told us to.But here we are on the sea, and the storm is bigger than us. The wind is contrary - in opposition to us. And we're battered.And in the midst of the wind-lashing and skin-soaking tumult that threatens to sink us, a steady pelting of solemn rebukes issues forth from well-meaning fellow Christians for boarding the ship in the first place. There are other pursuits Christ sanctions. Why step into the vessel that draws the tempest of controversy?
March 28, 2024
praying in tongues, praying in the Spirit, Holy Spirit prayer, travail

How praying in the Spirit changed a tense situation

Please pray!" came the quick whisper through the phone. "Pray in the Spirit, would you? And I'll be praying here." A friend of mine is staff for a political representative. I was just wrapping up morning devotions with my children when she called to tell me that the meet-and-greet the rep was hosting had been overwhelmed by constituents from the opposing party, and that they'd come loaded for bear.
February 19, 2024
foundations destroyed, what shall righteous do

“If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

Few may argue the West's destructive course, but what does the final outworking of a disintegrated culture look like? Can even widespread revival pull a culture back from the precipice? As a Christian, I see the world simultaneously through two lenses. The one is observing the horrors of life in post-modern America, with its fearful velocity in recent years of lawlessness - infanticide, polygamy, pedophilia, trafficking, misogyny, suicide, crime, institutional corruption, and child mutilation; at the same time, I'm scrutinizing these trends against the backdrop of history, from ancient to present, and the fate of parallel civilizations. The other lens sees the influence of the praying church on history, from Peter's supernatural deliverance from Herod's imprisonment, all the way up to the fall of the Soviet Union and pivotal World War Two victories such as Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain. The latter lens keeps me from despair. The former begs the question, "At what cost will we see Divine Liberation?"
February 15, 2024
Industrial Revolution, prophecy, prophetic word

“Pull the plug”

Juxtaposed against today, Hawthorne's Celestial Railroad is a mirror held up to culture, and how much more might we see ourselves the pampered passengers rather than the scorned pilgrims - particularly in the face of the exponentially increasing power of technology and Artificial Intelligence to distract, dissuade, and dismember us from our Creator and that which is most important in life. There's a phrase in my spirit these last several months that I've been praying aloud to the Lord. "Pull the plug."
February 10, 2024

The frightening truth about failing to pray

"Inattention to prayer actually gives place to the devil to advance his cause and evil." -Todd Smith, Unless We Pray An incident happened a couple years ago of which I only grasped its implications this week. It was July 2021. I had gone to a Wednesday night prayer meeting. There were only a few of us gathered, although our pastor was often reminding us as a congregation not to fall into "vacation mode" and lose spiritual focus, just because it was summer.