It is up to us
I believe people are equally called to what is practical as they are to the spiritual. There is no and should be no separation.
Is “glory to glory” a joke? If not, what is it towards? Some arbitrary goal? No. It is toward the establishment of his will over the whole earth and universe just as it is in heaven.
Is the kingdom of heaven at hand? Yes! Therefore each further glory must look like something.
That something is His end goal. That something is the realization of, “It is finished.” That something is the establishment of His government, His Kingdom, on this earth by heart, mind, body, soul, and strength.
It is very real. It is very practical. And our names are woven within this story of double portions and Angel armies. Yet when we read the bible, we see the stories of old as heroic epics long past. They are the beginning credits compared to the momentous times we live in today. But in our love for Egypt, we hope for the comfort of knowing tomorrow, even if that tomorrow is the familiarity of bondage. In our longing for Egypt, we relegate true greatness to yesteryear, removing even the possibility that the onus is on us to be great.
Have you left Egypt?
Most likely not, and if you have, like the Israelites, you probably spend half your time wishing you were back.
We like to say… well, not me. I definitely live in the promised land. Really? Do you even know where the promise land is? Do you even know what it is? Is its majesty even truly your goal? Have you ever sacrificed for the Truth to dominate in all pillars of society in a way that has cost you significantly? If not, you are assuredly found comfortably in Egypt. If so, do you spend time questioning your resolve and longing for the comfort of conformity? Oh, don't worry, that will be disguised, like most denials of calling, as wisdom, etc. Even more sadly most hearts are yet attuned to the crashing conviction of a roosters third crow. And like the rich man's relative, even the manifestation of an angel will not in a moment lighten our willingly blinded hearts.
It is only in sanctification where a hopefully hastened 40 years of desert forms a new mindset named Conqueror! Heaven is moving with the spirit of Caleb!
Heaven is giving that spirit to the mighty who would say, “here I am, send me.” We must look upon the earth and its places of power and see a land ripe for a takeover of love and righteousness. As women is of man, so the Lion is of the lamb. They are two, yet one. And it is by the Lionhearted spirit of Caleb that we must genuinely see the land and genuinely give a good report, knowing 11 others will indeed be against us. Knowing 11 others will call us fools. Knowing 11 others will conspire and gossip. Knowing 11 others will use the old wineskin as evidence of their righteousness not understanding that the same evidence is what condemns them.
God is always doing one thing more than any & every other thing. For His infinite power is limited by the will of man. Heaven has a headline. And it is, Caleb. The Spirit of Caleb. He is calling us to see the world with the brave eyes of a conqueror. One of the most brave, holy and set apart declarations of the OT was Caleb delivering a good report for the overtaking of Canon. This was far more difficult than Moses convincing a bunch of slaves to be free. This is the moment Israel mentally came out of bondage and set themselves on the course of their destiny. It is analogous of the single largest shift we must all have from fearful irrelevant victimhood to unapologetic dominating conqueror. I could write a book on why use the word unapologetic, but I will refrain here.
There is a reason the angels sing Holy, Holy, Holy in the temple. Translation, Set Apart, Set Apart, Set Apart… or, Different, Different, Different. Each glory to glory is different and set apart from the last. And each of us has in our calling the mandate of heaven to be holy and reveal a yet unseen beautiful aspect of thee I AM to the world. Each new glory is so set apart it always, always offends a part of the old. And while a new glory does not abolish the old, but fulfills the old, in its fulfillment, the new glory reveals any golden calf constructed in our addiction to the old glories tradition.
Again, our times are no less historic and legendary than any biblical story, in fact, they are more historic and more legendary. Glory does not recede from glory. Glory builds from glory. Always expanding, always bringing more. One of the many harms of the canonization of the Bible is the unique lie that its pages have ended. For just as His story continues, so do the epic events regaled in the bible. And while the times of David stand tall and seem unapproachable, in reality, they are our strong foundation. When Jesus said greater things, greater things he meant. The epic stories of old have morphed into idols weighing down even the preponderance of our calling to be greater. Our Ebenezer’s have become a jail cell of our own making. The splendor of what was has become the adorned armor of Saul.
What was, was to build what is.
We must put what has passed in its proper place and turn our face to the sun(son).
I have often heard silly statements like, Jesus did not come to be a ruler or a general in a worldly way.. Yes! Of course! And that is because the whole point of his coming 2k years ago was to pave the way for you and I to go first. This simple but foundational misunderstanding by his beloved has delayed the true message of heaven so much longer than even the prince of Persia could have ever dreamed.
We confuse his second coming for a second first coming. This mindset is of the same passivity that took the apple from Eve. In our lack of heavenly identity, we want Him to do it for us.
HE AIN’T GONNA.
Not if another 200,000,000 people die this next 150 years from violence like they did the last 150 years. Not if that number doubles or goes up by magnitude. If it wasn’t up to us he wouldn’t watch the rape and selling of children, the torture of minorities or watch a fetus fight to get away from the knife of a doctor.
It’s up to us.
Where are we seated? In whose image are we created? Whose spirit resides within? What authority has been given? What limits have been placed?
A more important question is what deep desire do you suppress when you watch depictions of great men and women in movies, books etc? You want to be like them, like your father in heaven. You want to do something that matters. But the longer we trade the road less traveled for the road less difficult we further solidify the cry of every deathbed. I wish I risked more.
IT. IS. UP. TO. US.
It is up to us to usher in His kingdom. Let me rephrase that. OUR kingdom. No, I’ll raise you again. MY kingdom. (Let the offense flow through you.) It is up to us to hasten or delay the day. It is up to us to subdue the earth.
Royalty is ownership. Ownership in every way. We must leave behind the insecurities of the elder son. The Kingdom. It’s yours. It’s mine. Always has been. Your hesitancy to say, “My kingdom” is a good identity gap litmus test between what the Father has given you and what you are willing to accept.
The church is pathetically insignificant today because they have largely rejected our holy royal calling of ownership.
If you find wide swaths of society supporting you, you’re not a forerunner. Yes, we all must get along to get along and be all things to all people, but like all truth, the tension is to both be a lady in the streets and a freak in the sheets.
A forerunner is, by nature a lonely place. It’s not a school or a movement. For once the movement commences, the forerunner spirit is doing new things, hurting new feelings, and disrupting new traditions.
We all have a degree of forerunner calling. To bring something that will cost you and offend others. If you haven’t found it, it is worth the work to find out. It is treasure worth selling your field for. And a great place to start looking is where your deepest and specifically your most instinctual passions collide with fear. Good luck. For we are all called to go where no man or woman has gone before.
This important truth, that we are to go first, is the essence of the character of God. Our calling to go and do greater things is the very sinew and tissue of fatherhood. And if He is a good father, He leads us ever onward and ever higher. It is why He made creation in the first place. He has the power to do everything, anything, all things at any point. Yet, He doesn’t because it is up to us. It’s always been up to us. It was up to us when Abraham negotiated for Sodom and Ghamora. And if Abe would have continued his plea to one, I submit to you the city would have been spared. If it wasn’t for us to go first, Jesus would have built the church upon the father instead of a flawed dude named Peter. If it wasn’t up to us Jesus wouldn’t have had to come or die as a man. If it weren't up to us, He would not wait to come again and wipe every tear dry.
This calling to conquer, subdue the earth and establish His government isn’t ethereal, it’s real. And it’s realized only by the will of man. And it will only be really established when the church opens back up to pursue His daring ways and leave behind their simple ones.
To accept our calling for spiritual glory to glory while denying its mirrored physical calling to subdue the earth is to drink deep the sleepy cocktail that is the spirit of religion. It is to stay home when it is the season when kings go out to war. It is a sin of omission, it omits one of our first callings given in Genesis to subdue the earth. It ignores the end goal of heaven, and it is the groundwork of decay and the entrenching establishment of the lukewarm.
There is no anointing that does not include His final goal to wipe every tear dry and establish his just & loving government upon the earth.
Yet broadly the church sits like Saul on an un-anointed throne, and like Saul, we use David, the truly anointed, as a sideshow and distraction from the tormenting truth. The truth that we are weak and afraid to be great. We parade the Lord’s anointed like a bag of tricks to be brought out when we want to feel impactful or relevant. We are neither.
But we find ourselves like Saul, using David. We use the anointing as a salve for our pride to ease the pain of how we worship at high places of our own making and not within the presence of the train of his robe.
When the wildfire of His true anointing inevitably offends, we jealously cast it away with a spear, we go after its beauty with a vicious aggression that is of the spirit of Cain. And we write off this behavior with a pharisedic dexterity that shames heaven and emboldens hell. Furthermore, we explain away our actions nodding towards “sound wisdom and tradition.”
This abomination of truth is of the same spirit that laid palms down one day, only to soon call for crucifixion. This religious spirit loves the idea of something great but, in deepest offense, seeks to destroy it when its ways are not our ways. It is the spirit that uses the undeniable presence of God that causes every heart jump as a prop and gimmick to reuse the old wineskin.
And while our spirituality can hold the facade of purity it is equally as tainted as the practical application of glory to glory. Where in the practical measures of subduing the earth towards His government contains very obvious bumps and bruises that could not be more evident, our spiritual / belief shortcomings are harder to see. But until every tree withers by your word and all dead arise at your beckon we assuredly are missing the mark on the spiritual side in heart, mind, body, soul and strength. This reality does not and should not dissuade us from a higher spiritual pursuit. Equally, our lack of practical perfection should not cause us to disengage with the practical process of building towards eternity in not just government but every other pillar of society.
Currently, the left dominates each and every pillar of society. Lower education, colleges & universities, the medical community, the scientific community, the mainstream Media, social media, Hollywood, our governmental bureaucracy, sports & entertainment, global governmental establishments like the UN and EU and more. The left use each of these powerful pillars as tools of control and not freedom. If you isolate and investigate each of the aforementioned, you can see with the increased dominance of the left comes a correlating increased measure of control.
If God had a magic wand that could eradicate all suffering in one swoop, would He? Well, he does have that wand and the answer is of course, No. If the left had the power of God we all know they would wave that wand and remove that most ancient beauty, freedom. The freedom that allowed Lucifer to fall and Adam and Eve to sin. The freedom that causes angels to envy us. The freedom that gives birth to the very essence of life, to adventure with Him.
This establishment left uses the tactics of hell disguised as the strategy of heaven the same way Beelzebub hides himself as an angel of light. The way the elite left call abortion to the day of birth and even post-birth healthcare is analogous to no less than the entirety of their macro playbook. It is evil masquerading as goodness.
Unlike God the left wants to use power to mandate perfection. Inversely God uses power to empower individuals through relationships. As the devil tempted Jesus with what he was destined to have, a kingdom, so darkness tempts us with what we are supposed to have, every tear wiped dry.
The left’s way is the way of Hagar and not the way of Sarah. It is the way of the 11 others and not the way of Caleb. For some, it is even the way of John and not Peter. Further, their way seeks to do by powerful force what God has always done through relationship. Their way foolishly seeks to remove journey by implementing massive control. This has never worked and never will work. “Whom the Son set free is free indeed” and “ it is for the sake of freedom that we have been set free.”
Freedom is the answer. It is that simple. It is that simple. It is that simple. Not only is it the expressed purpose of Heaven but it is the only evidence-ridden earthly solution to practical problems. For not a single nation under high control has ever gone from rags to riches, thus providing more opportunity for its people. But increased freedom tells the story of South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and many more. And while it may be imperfect this is what happens when poverty and depression are given the gift of increased freedom.
Every church should passionately and enthusiastically support political movements that promote individual liberty. Anything short of this is a misunderstanding of the mechanics of heaven and a refusal to be where He is and do what He is doing.
It is also not a calling to build a religion around where we are today. We are where we are because of where we came from. And it is for us to also build, lead and grow to something better in the future.
Sadly, as the way things go, we will undoubtedly have to uproot and fight this now anointed movement as it will one day be the established tradition lacking fire. For the next next glory is ever proceeding.
But alas, the practical is supreme. It is where God exists. It is where we must take our next step from. Sadly and most assuredly, if David were a contemporary, his title by the church would not be Friend of God, but something that named him by sin. Yet this is not what God does, and it is not what we are to do. But we are widely still painfully offended by Peter and still want to build the church in the image of John.
What I am saying is we have the whole premise wrong. It is way past “we aren't on the same page”, I'm saying we need to put the book down and do something completely different. That Christians need to get out of Church the building and Church the tradition and practically work towards his end goal with great intentionality and holy purpose. The comparison is not horse & buggy to Tesla, it's the blindfolded coloring to building cities. We aren't even attempting to do the right thing.
We need to live by the spirit of Caleb. We need to conquer and take back every pillar of society towards righteousness. We need to make a new commitment to the heavenly liberation of all peoples of every nation through the empowerment of the individual.
No one else is coming to fix everything; He already came, He already did. Now, it's up to us.
Hold Tension, Be Vast.Remember, restoration alone brings victory.