|City on a Hill - Writings for Refuge

Faith means God isn't interested in you seeing HOW he is going to save your world/situation/dream/promise. God wants those who are His to see Him.   He is the "how" of all of His promises. When God gives you a promise, learn to believe the promise, not the "how" you think God will use. Then you will be counted among the faithful, and protected from creating a false image of God. We see dimly. God sees clearly. He refuses to violate the boundary lines of or our heart. Your heart, or your mind, will, and emotions, is communicated with through your imagination. Ezekiel and Jeremiah are two great examples of how God practically communicates with man.  Ezekiel traveled all over the middle east in his imagination, or what is called "in the Spirit," communing with God. We read His words thousands of years later because the Spirit of God testifies that what Ezekiel SAW was from God. Same is true of Jeremiah, Isaiah, David, Daniel, etc. Jeremiah 1:9-12 NKJV — T...

Jesus' commands are invitations. You are not His unless you say "yes" to His invitations. You can do a bunch of things in His name, but if He isn't leading you, you simply aren't His. Most of what the Church spends it's time doing, according to Revelation 2 and 3, misses the mark of His leadership. Religion, formulas, and man-based movements will be rejected by Jesus. Only those submitted to the fullness of His leadership will be embraced by the Lord. Revelation 2:2-5 NKJV — “I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; “and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name’s sake and have not become weary. “Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove y...

I heard the Lord say, "many come from afar to the altar of God, even to the City of the Great King to take, and not to offer." He was talking to me about why we are here in Jerusalem, but also the Church in general. God is generous. He gives all we need already. Even to the hardened heart that says God doesn't exist, God provides breath and life and provision. God gives. When we come to the altar of God to take more, we don't recognize the violation of both love and authority. God is looking for relationship... To be mutually yoked... To mankind, He as Father and us a children. When we come to God, we should be asking God what He wants. What is it that God made us for? What unique thing can we bring to Him? Samantha and I have been in Jerusalem and Israel for about three weeks at this point. When we first came to Jerusalem in December of last year for a weeks long vacation, God spoke to me the first morning and said, "don't walk through this city looking for ...

No less than what God asks, no more than what God asks. This is part of the narrow road of the leadership of God. If you are saved at all, you were saved into the leadership of God. There is no path of salvation offered except the reconnection back into the vine of Jesus' leadership: John 15:1-8 NKJV — “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. “If you abide i...

Pushing Israel into Biblical end time realities is to push her into judgment. The church, in many ways, does not love, but rather uses, Israel. God is not impatient. He loves all that He has made. His desire is for witnesses, led by God, to be burning and shining lamps of how to be led by God. John the Baptist was carried by the Spirit of Elijah.  He didn't push Israel into anything.  He invited the willing into being led by God. Right now there is a big push within evangelical church circles to push Israel up the Temple Mount.  This will result in great harm. Red hieffers, sacrificed animals, contentious confrontational actions over the Temple Mount.... This is not the stuff of New Testament Christianity! Christians cannot support animal sacrifice AND worship the lamb slain! The way God leads Israel to himself is frankly none of the Church's responsibility. We are responsible to be witness of how God leads us. To play God to Israel is to be antichrist. No We have to be w...