|City on a Hill - Writings for Refuge

Impatience is not a fruit of God's presence. This is the challenge of contending for the kingdom to come: waiting for the real thing, but staying vibrant in the process of it coming. I hear the LORD saying some have tasted a little of the coming kingdom, and are so impatient for more they will find ways to make something less seem like the kingdom coming. This is great error, for the false kingdom will come by the will of man with lying signs and wonders: II Thessalonians 2:9-10 The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Many who name the name of Jesus will settle for eating cardboard because they are unwilling to wait for the meal to finish cooking. Impatience will lead many to fall away, though they gladly, yet shallowly, love the LORD: Matthew 13:20-21 But he who received the se...

David knew that it was God who had given him success. This led him to a place of humility, where he valued the power of God operating in his life more than the ability to manipulate his circumstances or take advantage of circumstances to gain the upper hand. The power of God to establish David was the "anointing" on him. Saul was anointed for the same task before David was, but did not value his anointing like David did. Saul tried to manipulate circumstances to His favor, despite what God was clearly doing in David's life. Saul didn't value David's anointing, because He really didn't value his own: I Samuel 24:2-6 Then Saul took three thousand chosen men from all Israel, and went to seek David and his men on the Rocks of the Wild Goats. So he came to the sheepfolds by the road, where there was a cave; and Saul went in to attend to his needs. ( David and his men were staying in the recesses of the cave.) Then the men of David said to him, “This is the day of w...

I hear the LORD saying that He is taking peace from the earth. You see it all around you: racially, sexually, politically, religiously...in marriage and families, cities, states, churches, countries....all the while, evil men with no loyalty to Jesus' ownership of the world keep promising MORE peace! The nations are "laboring in vain" for unity and peace if they try to bring those aspects of Jesus' government to earth outside of a consuming zeal for Jesus and His leadership...outside of a zeal for His house to be the government of the earth. No politician...anywhere on the planet that I have ever heard of...is campaigning on the platform of doing all he or she can to ready the earth for the return of its true political leader. Anything less than a "glory campaign" is "laboring in vain"....when will the church agree with the clear statement of her beloved? Habakkuk 2:12-14 “Woe to him who builds a town with bloodshed, Who establishes a city by iniqu...

It is really important to understand what you are witnessing in real-time. It is almost unbelievable to watch very intense end time prophecy unfold while so few see it. Few take the time to know Jesus' end time plans... And it is causing many to follow the world into literal rebellion. One of the main end time promises is that God would gather the armies of all nations to the middle east so that they could be judged: Joel 3:9-16 NKJV Proclaim this among the nations: “Prepare for war! Wake up the mighty men, Let all the men of war draw near, Let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords And your pruning hooks into spears; Let the weak say, ‘I am strong.’ ” Assemble and come, all you nations, And gather together all around. Cause Your mighty ones to go down there, O Lord . “Let the nations be wakened, and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; For there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations. Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, go down; For the winepress is...

Who are you? Do you know? Many times we think less of ourselves than Jesus sees in us. God fashioned our hearts. God knows more about what's inside of us than we could ourselves. God designed us to discover who we are in the light of who He designed us to be. God designed each of us for some "facet" of greatness. Together, we will form the family God wants. It isn't arrogant to want to be important or impactful... It is arrogant to pretend you don't care about being impactful, yet secretly want that, and then quietly try to manage your life into it apart from a growing conversation with God. Everyone was designed to want to be impactful...few will choose to let God lead them into it forever. To this day we still read about those who chose greatness, even thousands of years ago, in the way that pleases God. God sees beginning from end, so He knows what could be extracted from our hearts if we would just simply live in agreement with him, and His plan to satisfy our...

Staying steady in desire is what opens the door to the supernatural happening in our lives. Many come and go in the excitement of a moment...in the momentum and wake of those who have stayed steady in the mundane. ...but a few...a few lock their gaze and won't quit until they taste what touched their hearts with the initial zeal. They won't be denied. They have seen too much to turn back and not enough to be satisfied. These ones are in the glorious tension of hunger! These are the ones who will burn brighter and brighter as the world gets darker and darker. It is easy to shift back and forth with the crowds. It is faithful to press forward when the crowd is and when it isn't. I want a locked gaze, a burning heart, and a patient gate... the story has a conclusion and it's coming... the kingdom is coming from within the steady and faithful and will consume the world and all that is in it. The miraculous always happens suddenly...in the midst of the mundane: Acts 2:1-4 Wh...

It is easy to complicate the simple. Jesus' yoke is easy and his burden is light... always. If a decision feels too hard or too heavy, the trick is to get fully into Jesus' leadership. It feels and sounds nobel to take everyone's interests under your wings... to try and do the best thing for everyone involved. This is often a deception rooted in pride. Pride says "I can be like God to people." It is easy to think too much of your ability to protect people or save them and this emotion can make simple obedience seem complicated. Believing that your decisions need to account for all the variables negates the supernatural power of God to do impossible things in impossible situations. Taking responsibility for too much puts you in an unrighteous yoke and an unbearable burden. It is a satanic deception meant to crush you, offend you, and take you out of the race at the time the race is about to be won! This is the way out of the trap set by the fear of man: simply set ...

Faith transforms the dull physical world where much is impossible, and brings it into agreement with the supernatural realm of heaven, which is governed by the supernatural God who can literally do anything. God desires to draw all of creation into His supernatural experience, but He refuses to violate the desire of mankind in order to do this. So, He is orchestrating the death of our ability to live without Him in order that we might choose to live with Him forever. The world needs the supernatural qualities of life and power desperately...we need the supernatural qualities of life only available from a supernatural God. We need God to come home DESPERATELY, but it only works one way... there is only one thing that will transform the physical to the supernatural: faith expressed in words. Matthew 17:20 So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will...

Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it. Right now, the government is actively working to take away your privilege of leading your family in the ways of the Lord. This is a major sign of the end time tribulation beginning to unfold all around us. The end time 7-year tribulation has two distinct chapters. The first is tribulation, a 3.5-year period which prepares the church to lead the world through the great tribulation, the second 3.5 year tribulation. Peter said judgment starts with the church: I Peter 4:17 For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? Peter was simply reaffirming what Jesus described chronologically on the Mount of Olives privately with His friends. First Jesus told the disciples that believers, like them, would enter into tribulation: Matthew 24:8-13 All these are the beginning of sorrows. ...

Salvation is perfectly powerful to save you, but is an ongoing choice. Once you have come to Jesus for salvation, applied the infinitely valuable sacrifice of His perfectly unjust death to pay the price for the injustice of your living apart from obedience to the author of life, and submitted yourself to the leadership of Jesus, there is nothing that can break His grip on your life: John 10:27-30 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. I and My Father are one.” This statement Jesus made begins with His sheep CHOOSING to listen to Him and and then follow His words. Following Him is an "active" activity...step by step. It is true, that no one could ever overpower Jesus' ability to hold me... BUT... Jesus will never violate love. I c...

Jesus is going to get a pure and spotless Bride, which is a Body of people that will reflect the glory of the Head. A body that shines like Jesus, who is the head. The bridal paradigm of the end time church isn't about gender or romantic relationship, it is about legal position in a family. To choose Jesus is to choose to be part of God's royal family. Being married to Jesus means becoming true sons of the Father, and all that comes with that position of greatness: authority, wealth, influence, identity, eternal purpose. Men and women are both the bride of Jesus and the sons of God...it isn't about gender, it is about legal standing and position. Jesus is going to get a bride who feels the same way He does about life in God's family: Romans 8:29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. If you want to live close to where Jesus lives forever, then you want to learn to walk closer...