|City on a Hill - Writings for Refuge

Ephesians 2:1-3 NKJV — And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. Your nature is one that invites wrath. So is mine. There is a way that seems right to you that leads to death. It isn't in some areas that this is true. It is all areas that haven't been intentionally submitted to God. The way God leads us is such that we come to the conclusion of our own weakness, not our own strength. If God is making you a better person, you still haven't really found Him. If God is re-birthing you... Leading you to kill the you He found and let Him make a new creation... Then you are learning to live and love in a differen...

The Tabernacle of David isn't like other prayer. It is musical and antiphonal. The reason that David organized his tent of praise this way was because that is the way the throne room in heaven is. David just wanted to be there, in heaven, as much as he could be with what God gave him. It was temporary... In a tent. Getting into antiphonal, prophetic, prayer to music will change you. It requires humility, patience, kindness, gentleness, self control. It increases a person's capacity for the Holy Spirit by highlighting their need for the Spirit just to stay in it with other zealous people. Nehemiah 12:24 NKJV — And the heads of the Levites were Hashabiah, Sherebiah, and Jeshua the son of Kadmiel, with their brothers across from them, to praise and give thanks, group alternating with group, according to the command of David the man of God. Those willing to humble themselves and search it out will find that David's Tabernacle is the entire point of the redemptive plan becaus...

Whatever you war against in the Spirit will manifest in the natural. If you war alongside, with, God, you will sacrificially love the people God is trying to save. You will spend your strength forgiving, blessing, believing, hoping, enduring. You won't war against flesh and blood, but against Satan and his scheme to get you out of love. Because Satan presents himself as an angel of light, and has been at this a long time, man is easily drawn into the wrong war. This is one of the main points of Ephesians. The humble take this seriously. If you war against God, you will protect and empower yourself and fight the people God is trying to save. You will unknowingly be drawn into fighting people thinking you are serving God. John 16:1-3 NKJV — “These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble. “They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. “And these things they will do to you be...

My thinking, emotions, and will don't need to be adjusted, they need to be crucified. The flesh is slippery in how it tries to stay it's execution. It wants to offer something less than itself in an attempt to live a little longer while still in the presence of the king. The less is always self effort. God will not resurrect what refuses to die. Matthew 15:15-20 NKJV — Then Peter answered and said to Him, “Explain this parable to us.” So Jesus said, “Are you also still without understanding? “Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? “But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. “These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.” The flesh wrongly believes it's good, it just needs to be "tweaked." This ...

Because the salvation process is betrothal, everything in the believer's life must increasingly become about the return of Jesus and the limited amount of time alloted to be ready. You don't know when He is coming and you don't know how much time you have to get ready. He is coming like a thief and He will only accept the ready. No groom wants to marry a bride who doesn't care enough about the wedding to get married. There is much to do. There is little time to do it. Jesus said, "I am coming soon" to everyone who reads His words. Revelation 22:12 NKJV — “And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work. There is an impatient disconnect in much of the church that says he is delaying. We put years on it where the Bible takes years off of it. Urgency is the message of the Gospel. Not an urgency that everyone else gets saved... An urgency that we get ready. The Gospel is more effectively witnessed to the w...

When confronted with truth, the flesh makes excuses for why it can't change. Your flesh can accept something is true and then excuse itself: Luke 14:16-24 Then He said to him, "A certain man gave a great supper and invited many, (17) and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, 'Come, for all things are now ready.' (18) But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, 'I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.' (19) And another said, 'I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.' (20) Still another said, 'I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.' (21) So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, 'Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and t...

Concern and caring are expressed in the flesh as anxiety, impatience, and controlling behavior. The flesh really only feels a couple of options: 1. care and do something about the object of concern. 2. Let the concern go and become indifferent to the outcome. These are both loveless. The flesh cannot love. The flesh wars against the Spirit, and the fruit of the Spirit is love. Care and concern not under the restraint of the Spirit result in "works of the flesh": Galatians 5:15-25 NKJV — But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another! I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sor...

Matthew 7:7-9 NKJV — “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. “For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. “Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? If this is true, and it is, then the beautiful and challenging reality is that you and I are living in our prayers we prayed before, right now. If I sow to the Spirit, I will reap from it. If I sow to the flesh, my own leadership is what I will get. You and I are living in the atmosphere we prayed for sometime before now. We are praying into our atmosphere sometime in the future. What do I want to live in? That is the real question before me. God calls embracing this "faith." Clearly, darkness is increasing. It's promised in the Bible and clear all around us. The default future you and I have without a life of increasing prayer (and increasingly corporate prayer, but th...

Faith, if it's faith in God, takes the weight of what we hope for off of our flesh and puts it on God. Real faith is confidence in God and not in us, our understanding, our methods, our resources, our knowledge, or our strength. Real faith works. It does the small and simple thing every day, knowing God will use that lumber of obedience and the nails of our patience to build something we couldn't. Real faith is interwoven with real patience. The only tool there is on the planet for wearing down mountains is flowy, flexible, water. Water rushing over rock seems meaningless in any one instant, but over time water literally washes away mountains. How much more faith that gives us patience for obedience today, knowing God takes seeds and makes them come alive and become trees. Hebrews 11:7 NLT — It was by faith that Noah built a large boat to save his family from the flood. He obeyed God, who warned him about things that had never happened before. By his faith Noah condemned the ...

The only thing that stands between me and the future God wants to give me is pride. Impatience is the soil pride grows out of. The fruit of pride is all of the lawlessness we see in the world. Pride invites me to control what only God should and to neglect what God has given me to care for. Humility puts me back into the truth to see what I bring to my relationship with God and what God brings. I can really only bring my "yes" and humble willingness to listen and obey. God brings all the wisdom, all the direction, all the love, all the increase, grace, blessing... All the success and all of the righteousness. I know I am in pride when I am concerned for the success of the endeavor God is orchestrating and myself appearing righteous. If I obey God I will be successful and He will be seen as righteous. It's guaranteed. Pride takes God's place and neglects its own, out of an impatient fear of failure. If God is orchestrating it, it will be successful. If I am orchestr...

Truly following Jesus is to follow Him to: 1. Where He is And by, 2. The same WAY He got there Jesus is in the throne room of heaven. He arrived there by being in the throne room of heaven while ministering that same government on the earth. Government is a WAY of authority. That is really all it is. Without your presence/participation, there is no government over you. Government is simply a distribution of authority over a "world" or realm. Usually, this means authority over geography, but there can be government over more ethereal realms that span geographic boundaries, like media, professional organizations, etc. Jesus lived in heaven while visiting the earth. His citizenship was there, not here. His direction came from there, not here. His life was hidden in the place that all of His character was formed from. Jesus acted differently than the world because His values were formed somewhere not here. John 18:36 NKJV — Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If...

Is my pursuit of Yeshua bearing fruit, or am I learning but not coming to the knowledge of the truth? 2 Timothy 3:5-9 NKJV — having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was. Learning can be a selfish pursuit, or it can be a door to dying to self. Learning will never resurrect anyone. Only dying to the flesh will. I don't want to delude myself thinking learning is submitting. I want to submit myself to the Lord and let Him lead me to more knowledge of truth. Truth is a man. To know Him is to grow in two-way prayer. Nothi...

Salvation is a process. Therefore, evangelism must reflect the process. People with a heart for truth trust what is true. Ephesians 1:11-15 NKJV — In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory. Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, Notice the "until" the redemption... The process of obtaining the inheritance of eternal life starts with the truth of our rebellion and is a process of peeling back the layers. That rebellion goes all the way to the core of wha...