|City on a Hill - Writings for Refuge

F alsely asserting peace, when God is judging and refining a people for their good hurts faith. Wrong expectations don't increase faith... They increase offense with God. God spoke through Jeremiah real vision that preceded real refining... 70 years of it, to be exact. Jeremiah 29:8-14 ESV — For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, declares the LORD. “For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. ...

The wisest thing a person could do right now is ask God what to expect next. Things are not about to calm down. That is a wrong expectation. What is happening is a massive transition in the government of creation. Jesus is coming. His coming was always promised to be with tribulation. John 16:19-22 NKJV — Now Jesus knew that they desired to ask Him, and He said to them, “Are you inquiring among yourselves about what I said, ‘A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me’? “Most assuredly, I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; and you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy. “A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. “Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will t...

God's authority is complete. Consider these two verses: “Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.” -1 John 4:4. “Behold, I give unto you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” - Luke 10:19 The implication of this truth should reach to my vision of what God is actually doing to rescue me from death. In the current circumstances, in the body of Jesus, I mostly hear teaching of a fear of man, the devil, and demons... With an asterisk on the fear of the Lord (and even the fear of the Lord being reduced to something other people that don't seem to know the Holy Spirit should somehow have!). If God is sovereign over all, then wasting any time pointing out any other being as problematic is a complete redirection. If God is sovereign, then truly the only thing that I have any say in that needs to be born again is ME. If I get the log out of my eye, then I can help others do the sa...

A church is barren and lifeless  where there is no Holy Spirit leadership,  although it may be extravagant and a huge production designed to engage the flesh. The lack of the Spirit's leadership = a lack of authority.  A lack of authority = a lack of power. You could attend every day of your life and nothing would actually change in your submission to God and enjoyment of His peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control. We are born again by grace/power, not information. If you are in a barren church, don't just leave!  Ask God what to do. He might have you there to bring life!  Walking in power is simply learning to walk in authority.  Walking in authority is simply seeing God and what He is doing and submitting to His will in faith. Any Spirit-filled believer can bring life to a body of believers if they make their lives about God and not themselves, or even others.  Mostly we go to church hoping things will be the way we like...

When I ignore heavenly authority I do so unto my own death.  This happens mostly on accident.  It is why Jesus warns over and over, "do not be deceived." The reason we resist heavenly authority is our own will and the earthly authority structures all around us.  Satan is the "king of this world." John 14:30-31 NLT — “I don’t have much more time to talk to you, because the ruler of this world approaches. He has no power over me, but I will do what the Father requires of me, so that the world will know that I love the Father. Come, let’s be going. Consider: Pontius Pilate was fully in His authority to execute Jesus.  He literally did nothing wrong and dutifully exercised his responsibility from Rome's perspective.  Same with the Pharisees.  They were within their authority and responsibility from Judaism's perspective. But they both violated HEAVENLY authority because they didn't understand it. John 18:33-40 NLT — Then Pilate went back into his headquarter...

God sows His kingdom into the earth by human agreement. He gave the earth to man: Psalm 115:15-16 NKJV — May you be blessed by the LORD, Who made heaven and earth. The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD’s; But the earth He has given to the children of men. The world I am experiencing around me is the way it is because of what I am praying... Not just saying... Listening, taking in, and repeating. The earth around me is mine to tend. How am I tending it today?  The results all around me tell me for sure. If I am letting the world choke out the kingdom... Or hard heartedly resisting the kingdom, though I am excited about it... Or just distracted and missing all the goodness that could be my testimony... It isn't that God isn't speaking, it's that I'm not doing anything helpful with what He is saying!  Am I living in the reality I actually want? We open our heart to receive the truth God sows. God makes the truth grow inside of us and we sow, more and more into the...

No one thinks they are fighting what God is doing, but all people do that naturally: Galatians 5:17 NKJV — 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. God’s kingdom is God's responsibility.  It's His idea. It requires HIS plans and power.  That makes man's job, if I want to agree with God and stop competing with Him to save the world, to die to the natural ways I would try to help God!    This is what “casting down crowns” at Jesus’ feet is about . Adam and Eve tried to "help" God with His plan to make them like Him over time, in their own impatience and delusional ideas that they could be God and be God's at the same time. We cannot. My natural ways of trying to get the world around me to see God, love God, experience God, and ultimately submit to God, are completely incompatible with my own submission to God!   To submit to God is t...

Truly trusting and yielding to God isn't passive. Waiting on God isn't inactive. Trust and faith are never defined by inaction... They are literally verbs.  "I'm trusting God." "I'm waiting on God." What defines faith and trust as being trusting in God and faithful to Him is obedience to what He says and fully embracing what He says He wants though it hasn't actually happened yet.  We have faith (confidence) in Him, and we hope for what He says He will do. No spiritual war is ever won doing nothing.  If I want victory, I have to fight. But, I'm naturally inclined to fight carnally and that is where I lose faith and trust in God. If I have faith in, and trust, God, then I fight spiritually.  Actively. Unceasingly.  I recognize the war I'm in and I resist, push back... War.  The war I wage in my Spirit is for my thinking!  My thinking determines my victory. Romans 8:5-10 NLT — Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful...

Biblical humility isn't found in placing myself in the right position before people.  Biblical humility is in relation to God Himself, who made all people.  If I find the right place before God, I will naturally find the right place before people.  The conflict that arises in living like this is fear that people won't know I'm humble, kind, and good.  People don't need to know I am anything.  God knows if I am abiding in Him or not.  Wanting others to know my good intentions is a telltale I'm competing with God, not humbling myself before Him. In God's kingdom, the greatest serve the most.  But, I need to see this from God's perspective: Mark 10:35-45 NKJV — Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Him, saying, “Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask.” And He said to them, “What do you want Me to do for you?” They said to Him, “Grant us that we may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on Your left, in Your glory.” But Jesus sa...

In the Bible, loyalty to God is defined as a willingness to let go of strength, opportunity, ability, and will BECAUSE of a trust in God. Jesus could have done anything, but He only did what the Father told Him to.  The fact that He didn't use all of His strength, ability, opportunity, and that He laid down His own will, was a demonstration of loyalty to God. Loyalty to God is also the door that God's strength enters my life.  It's not a choice for less, it's a choice for more.   It takes confidence in who God is, what the Bible calls faith, to be loyal to Him. *Politics/human power *Money *Identity *Perceived success *Lust *Fear ^These, and many more, called "worldliness" or "mammon" are off-ramps to true power. When the church divides herself between God and these she is lukewarm, AND disloyal. 1 John 2:15-17 NKJV — Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in ...

These are the days to lift my head and see what is really drawing near.  Hope is the currency of 2026. It will buy everything I truly need. Luke 21:28 NKJV — “Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.” Reacting to the events happening on the earth is to be led by my emotions and thoughts and not God.   If I allow my life to be led by reacting to what others are doing, I am truly lost. If I let the Holy Spirit inform me of what is happening BEFORE it happens, watch for it with Him, and then live into the thoughts, will, and emotions of God ABOUT what mankind is doing, I grow in oneness with God while He judges the world around me for it's lack of connection, or abiding in Him. Mark 13:33 NKJV — “Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is. God is giving the people of the earth over to their own desires.  All judgment is God simply letting man have his own way, and that way leads to mo...