|City on a Hill - Writings for Refuge

In my old Bible is a ton of handwriting. It is full of notes describing my fears, anxieties, praises, prophecies whispered to me, and the accounts of the risks of faith...stepping out on a faint impression...I have taken. All my little notes are dated. I started doing this sometime around the summer of 1998, when God miraculously saved our marriage. Shortly after that, God impressed upon me to quit my job and start my own environmental consulting company. We had three kids under the age of four at the time! Because I have the world's most amazing wife, I did it. That initiated the most exciting and scary part of my life up until that time. This morning, I opened up my old Bible, and remembered how many little dates and notes were chronicled in there. There are a ton of notes from 2002 through 2006... the height of my anxiety over money, as the business, one of my first big risks in listening to God, spit and sputtered. I recorded how, at God's clear direction, we put our old ho

Jesus has something on His mind. Right now, on His throne, He is eager to accomplish His desire, which is His Father's desire...that which God has called "very good" since the 6th day of creation, when mankind was with Him as a family on earth with the supernatural spiritual realm fully engaged with the physical realm: Genesis 1:31 Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day. The first two Chapters of the Bible describe the object of God's desire, to be in an equally yoked wholehearted loving relationship with mankind. The last two chapters of Revelation describe the restoration of what God called "very good": Revelation 21:2-5 Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they sha

I was driving back to my office down Centre Avenue from a site this morning, praying God would teach me about His throne, and praying that He would give me clean hands and a pure heart, and help me not “lift my soul” to anyone other than Him, so I could ascend His Holy Mountain (know more about where He dwells). As I was praying, I caught a glimpse of a whitetail buck. It caught my eye as it jolted away from the road, and I noticed it was already growing very large horns that were covered in thick velvet. It struck me that his horns were immature and already massive. He is going to be a big buck in the fall with a massive rack! As I was thinking about the buck, God spoke right into my heart. He told me the horns were the deer’s strength. His horns are soft and immature right now. The immaturity is a necessary starting place for his horns to grow. A deer’s horns only grow when they are soft. God told me there is a blessedness for me to recognize my immaturity and not pretend to be somet

Very soon, everyone who has accepted Jesus as their savior will stand before the judgment seat of Jesus. This is a privilege only for those in relationship...knowing and known by...Jesus: Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ The judgment seat of Christ is the "Bema seat." This was a well-known place in the ancient world. This was the seat the Olympic judge would have sat to give rewards to the competing athletes. The Bema seat of Jesus is different than the Great White Throne judgment , where unbelievers will receive judgment for what the guilt of their sins they carry into God's presence. The Bema seat will be a glorious

The Church, Jesus' Bride, has a glorious role in Jesus' plan to win the hearts of God's people, Israel. The end-time night and day worship movement promised to be raised up before Jesus returns is central to this role: Isaiah 62:6-7 I have set watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; They shall never hold their peace day or night. You who make mention of the Lord , do not keep silent, And give Him no rest till He establishes And till He makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth. Amos prophesied that the rebuilt tabernacle of David, that 24 hour night and day worshiping and praying expression of the Bride, will intercede for Israel as a primary focus...giving the Lord no rest until He makes Jerusalem a praise in the nations at the end of the events of Revelation: Amos 9:11-12 “On that day I will raise up The tabernacle of David, which has fallen down, And repair its damages; I will raise up its ruins, And rebuild it as in the days of old; That they may possess the remnant of Edom, A

If we could see our prayers the way God does, we would pray without ceasing I Thessalonians 5:16-17 Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, In the times when I minimize prayer, the problem is mostly that I don't fully grasp the dignity God has given to mankind. God has literally given dominion of the earth to mankind. That means it is the job of people to administer...appropriate...His power on earth. Genesis 1:28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Psalms 8:4-6 What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels, And You have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, Psalms 115:16 The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord ’

If we could see our prayers the way God does, we would pray without ceasing I Thessalonians 5:16-17 Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, In the times when I minimize prayer, the problem is mostly that I don't fully grasp the dignity God has given to mankind. God has literally given dominion of the earth to mankind. That means it is the job of people to administer...appropriate...His power on earth. Genesis 1:28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Psalms 8:4-6 What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels, And You have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, Psalms 115:16 The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord ’

Psalms 36:5-9 Your mercy, O Lord , is in the heavens; Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the great mountains; Your judgments are a great deep; O Lord , You preserve man and beast. How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Your wings. They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of Your house, And You give them drink from the river of Your pleasures. For with You is the fountain of life; In Your light we see light. This is the relationship God desires with mankind: to reveal His perfect righteousness, His precious lovingkindness, His faithfulness, His mercy, and then to receive in response our trust, our willingness to find the fullness in His house, and to drink from His river of true pleasure, and find satisfaction in life. This REALLY is what God made man for...to be satisfied fully in a relationship with a God who calls Himself a father. But God has chosen a relationship based in.

There is something more powerful than earthly power...it is confidence in agreement with God. You could call it faith...but faith is really choosing to be confident because I agree with God. Psalms 119:42-45 So shall I have an answer for him who reproaches me, For I trust in Your word. And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth, For I have hoped in Your ordinances. So shall I keep Your law continually, Forever and ever. And I will walk at liberty, For I seek Your precepts. Agreeing with God is truly more powerful than power, position, wealth, or popularity. The world does not readily see it, but it is plain throughout world history. Earthly power is fatally flawed. The saying "absolute power corrupts absolutely" is true. We see this openly displayed in every fallen empire from Greece to Rome, Great Britain...every evil dictator that promised the world a better social arrangement or a more just society...Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Castro...absolute concentrated earthly p

Malachi 4:5-6 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord . And he will turn The hearts of the fathers to the children, And the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.” This is one of the primary end-time promises of God: I am going to turn the attention of the adults back to the kids, and the kids to the adults, before Jesus returns. There is an end-time generation of kids who will be uniquely anointed to follow God, because adults have invested in them in a unique way...a way we haven't seen. Right now, parents will invest in their kids in many ways. Sports is probably the best example. Lots of families are driven by sports schedules...literally. I have nothing against sports...at all. We have done rocket football for several years. But modern-day kids sports are a life-alterer. It takes a serious commitment of time and resources to keep a kid involved in organized sports in

How long do I REALLY believe I will live? What I truly believe shows up in my choices. Any child might dream of being an astronaut, or a policeman, or a doctor. We celebrate those ideas when our kids are small, but when they start making decisions in that direction, we take them more seriously. When your kid voluntarily signs up for calculus, it is time to start paying attention! A parent becomes invested in a particular area of success when a child starts choosing to actually make a dream real. A dream is a something you hope for. Faith is a dream with actions put to it: Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. James 2:17-18 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. The Bible is crystal clear that people will live forever. Heaven is coming to earth. Many dream of heaven, but

Psalms 119:45 And I will walk at liberty, For I seek Your precepts. The life of David amazes me. The way He fought and loved, the mercy and justice he understood and embraced...even the mistakes He made and still quickly came back into God's presence with confidence. But what strikes me the most this morning are the private conversations he had with God. He had some amazing conversations with the Lord that he recorded. Some of them are awe-inspiring in their tenderness...but some are jaw-dropping in their harshness: Psalms 58:3-8 The wicked are estranged from the womb; They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies. Their poison is like the poison of a serpent; They are like the deaf cobra that stops its ear, Which will not heed the voice of charmers, Charming ever so skillfully. Break their teeth in their mouth, O God! Break out the fangs of the young lions, O Lord ! Let them flow away as waters which run continually; When he bends his bow, Let his arrows be as if cut in p

Daniel 9:24-27 “Seventy weeks are determined For your people and for your holy city, To finish the transgression, To make an end of sins, To make reconciliation for iniquity, To bring in everlasting righteousness, To seal up vision and prophecy, And to anoint the Most Holy. “Know therefore and understand, That from the going forth of the command To restore and build Jerusalem Until Messiah the Prince, There shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; The street shall be built again, and the wall, Even in troublesome times. “And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself; And the people of the prince who is to come Shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood, And till the end of the war desolations are determined. Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week; But in the middle of the week He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, Even until the

Right now...even this second, there are angels...seraphim...burning ones...declaring God's majesty, thanking Him, and praising Him around His throne. In the same room, people are responding to His brilliant glory. A swell of worship rises up as all of heaven agrees. God releases lightening and thunderous loving power, the room is overwhelmed, and the angels cover their eyes as they are overcome with joy....then, they steal another glance and it happens all over again! This is the most exciting place to be in all of creation: Revelation 4:8-11 The four living creatures, each having six wings, were full of eyes around and within. And they do not rest day or night, saying: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!” Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever, and cast their