There was a time when I counted things as gain. I measured my life by what I could hold, what I could build, what I could claim as mine. But I have seen something greater. Those things I once held so tightly, I now count as loss for Christ.
Not reluctantly. Not with hesitation. But with a burning passion that drives me forward. The fire is His, He lit it inside of me, but I have been called to fuel the fire. To diligently seek Him is fuel. To forgive is fuel. To love and to show mercy is fuel. All of these things, exercised, inflames the passionate fire of our heart.
Yes, I count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.
There is nothing that compares to knowing Him. Not knowing about Him but knowing Him. This is not head knowledge. This is not mere doctrine. This is an intimate knowing. A living union. A relationship that deepens as everything else falls away.
I suffer loss……. that I may gain Christ.
And what a gain that is.
To be found in Him not standing in my own righteousness, not clinging to anything I have produced but clothed in a righteousness that is not my own, given by God through faith in Christ.
I lose what is mine, and I receive what is His and there is no comparison.
There is nothing I could ever lose that could measure up to what I have gained. I have gained Christ. And in gaining Him, I have gained everything.
I suffer loss that I may know Him……
To know Him not from a distance, not as an observer but to walk with Him, to be known by Him, to live in Him. And in that knowing, there is life. Real life. Abundant life.
I suffer loss…… that I may know the power of His resurrection.
Because it is in the dying of my flesh that His life rises within me. The more I let go, the more He lives. The more I die, the more He is revealed. When I am weak then He is strong in me.
This is not some theory. This is life out of death. This is the light that God has commanded to shine forth from darkness. When I surrender, surrender to God and tge life He has called me to, then light and life bursts forth. It may be on a mountaintop, but its more likely to be in the depths of the valley.
I suffer loss……. that I may enter into the fellowship of His sufferings.
This is “the way,” He walked.
He left the glory of heaven. He took on the form of a servant. He walked this earth as a man of sorrows. He was rejected. He was despised. He suffered loss at every step not because He had to but because He chose to fulfill the will of the Father. This was our Lords ministry.
And this is our calling, to walk that same narrow way.
Not chasing comfort. Not seeking ease. But entering into that same fellowship that same life that same surrender.
Because it leads us back to God.
I suffer loss …….that I may be conformed to Him.
That His image would be formed in me. That my life would reflect His. That the old man would be crucified, and Christ would be seen.And in this, I learn something.
It no longer matters what state I am in.
We have been called to learn to be content. Its the burning force of Christ in our hearts that steadies the ship. Its His passion in us that is our anchor in the storm. This immovable foundation, the anchor of our soul
In Him I know how to be brought low. I know how to abound. I know what it is to be full, and I know what it is to be hungry. I know what it is to have, and I know what it is to lack.
And in Him, none of it moves me.
Because I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
This is what I have been given strength for not to avoid loss, but to endure it. Not to cling to life, but to lay it down.
To suffer loss until loss itself has no hold on me. Until whether I have or have not, whether I am full or empty, clothed or stripped bare it makes no difference.
Because when I have come into the place where Christ walked, then this is how I walk.
And in that place, that place of loss, thst place of suffering I have found great gain. Whether dancing on the tops of mountains or in the depths of the sea, the only thing that matters is that He is with me. This is why we are called to count it “pure joy,” when we face trials of many kinds. For in the midst of those trials He is never closer to us, and proximity to the Lord leads us in the path of holibess
And in finding Him in the midst of life, I have found everything.
“When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, ‘Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.’”
When Jesus had finished speaking, He said, “Launch out into the deep.”
But no vessel can move into the deep while it is still tied to the dock. The mooring lines must be cast off. The lines that hold it fast, the lines that keep it safe, the lines that bind it to what is known must be thrown.
And so it is with us. We hear the Word of God, clear, piercing, unmistakable, and yet we remain tethered, held by what is familiar, held by what feels secure, held by the shorelines of this world.
But the call of Christ is not to remain. It is to release, to cast off every line, to throw off every restraint, to abandon every false security and trust the voice that speaks, “Launch out into the deep.”
There is a moment when obedience demands movement, a moment when hearing is no longer enough. The lines must be thrown, and often caution itself must be thrown to the wind, and in this case the wind is the Holy Spirit, carrying us beyond what we can see and into what only He can accomplish.
And when they are thrown, there is no turning back. The shore begins to fade, the depths begin to open.
And there, in the deep, we meet the limits of ourselves. All our effort, all our striving, all our experience comes to nothing. “We have toiled all night and caught nothing.” This is the place where human strength fails.
But then comes the turning word, “Nevertheless.”
Nevertheless at Your word.
Nevertheless beyond my understanding.
Nevertheless against my experience.
Nevertheless in full surrender, I will obey.
And it is there, in that place of yielded obedience, after the lines are cast off, after the shore is left behind, after failure has stripped us bare, that the power of God is revealed.
The deep is not entered casually. It is entered by surrender, by casting off what holds us, by trusting what calls us, and by following Him beyond the safety of the shore into the depths where only His word can sustain us and only His power can fill the nets.
And so brothers and sisters, are you ready to cast off your lines? Are you ready to throw them to the wind, to cut the ties that bind you to this world?
For this is the call of the Lord. Not to drift, not to remain near the shore, but to launch out into the deep. You may not want the deep. That is your choice, we saints all face tgis choice. The shore is familiar, it is safe, it asks little. Maybe the four walls of your church is the line that tethers you?
Maybe it is some loyalty to something other than Jesus? Perhaps our ties to this world and the things it has to offer is the line that tethers, the cares of this world? Only you can know this. Search your heart.
But to those who hear something deeper, to those who feel the pull of His voice, its time to cut any remaining lines
Look carefully at what holds you, what tethers you, what restrains you, what keeps you bound to the docks of this world.
And then you must decide how you will cut them.
Because no man drifts into the deep, no vessel wanders there by accident. The lines must be cast off, the ties must be broken, the call must be obeyed.
And only then will you know what it is to truly launch out into the deep.
Our small house church is reading a book by George Watson entitled “Soul Food.” I highly recommend it. It is really about the battle against self, and taking up the cross. I actually wrote this a number of years ago, but the issues of the heart never really change.
2Co 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
It’s a terrible thing to be held captive by our own thoughts. How exhausting it can be when we allow them to consume and overwhelm us? Its the voice of self. Self always has a victim, typically itself, and a perpetrator. It lifts itself up, and tears others down while burning every bridge.
The thoughts of self begin to eat away at us. They rob us of sleep and leave us tired and weary and walking the floor at night. Self, our own self, is our deadliest enemy, and typically it morphs into self-righteousness. Look at me Lord, I am not as wicked as these others. They should be more like me. There is no justification in this.
I thank the Lord that He freed us and gave us the ability to take every thought into captivity and focus on Him. You can always tell when a saint is focused on the Lord, they elevate Jesus, they lift up, they do not tear down.
If a specific situation or trial has taken hold of your mind today, know that there is a way of escape. You are no longer slaves to the flesh, no longer slaves to your own thoughts. Our own thoughts and “imaginations,” elevate us and sit us on the throne of our own hearts.
If you have been set free by the Lord then you are free indeed. You now have the power to take those thoughts captive; they must bow to the Spirit of God in you. You will know this man because he is humbled in his own sight and his cry will be “be merciful to me.” The other man will loudly tell you what he has and is doing.
“Come to Me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke on you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest to your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.” (Matt. 11:28-30)
In 1 Corinthians 14:23, the wording really matters, and we need to read it exactly as it is written:
“Therefore if the whole church comes together in one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those who are uninformed or unbelievers, will they not say that you are out of your mind?”
The weight of this verse rests on two words, “if” and “whole.”
The word “if” comes from the Greek “ean.” It is a conditional word. It is not describing what normally happens. Paul is not saying when the church comes together. He is saying if a certain situation takes place. That is very important. He is presenting a scenario, not defining the regular pattern of church life.
Then he says, “the whole church.” That comes from the Greek “holē hē ekklēsia,” which means the entire assembly, the complete body, nothing missing.
That raises an obvious question. Why say “whole church” unless, for the most part, the whole church is not together?
This confirms what we already know from other scriptures, that the early church met in multiple house gatherings. They were not all meeting together all the time. So when Paul says “the whole church,” he is talking about something different from those normal, smaller gatherings.
So now read it again slowly.
“If the whole church comes together in one place…”
This is not a house meeting. This is the entire body, all those smaller gatherings, coming together as one in a single location.
And that explains what follows.
“…and there come in those who are uninformed or unbelievers…”
That only really makes sense in a setting that is accessible, visible, and large enough for others to enter and observe. This is not a closed, private setting. This is something that can be witnessed and would be open to the public.
And to strengthen this point even further, we know historically that the early believers met behind closed doors in homes. These gatherings were not openly accessible to the general public. Because of that, it gave rise to rumors and misunderstanding among outsiders.
There were accusations of things like cannibalism and the drinking of blood, clearly a distortion of the Lord’s Supper, but it shows how little was understood by those on the outside looking in.
So when Paul speaks about unbelievers and the uninformed coming in, he is describing a different kind of setting, one where access is possible, where what is happening can be seen and heard.
So what we are seeing here is very clear.
The early church met in houses, in smaller gatherings.But there were also occasions when the whole church came together in one place.
And when that happened, what took place in that gathering mattered, because it was being seen by those outside, the uninformed and the unbelieving.
And so this leads to an important conclusion.
The regular gatherings of the early church were not public in the way gatherings are today. They were not open meetings in the modern sense. They were primarily within homes, more contained, and not freely accessible to the general public.
Public visibility appears in this passage as something connected to a specific condition, when the whole church comes together.
So the argument from this passage is not just about order in a meeting. It also points to a pattern.
The normal life of the church was in smaller, more private gatherings. The larger, more public setting was the exception, not the rule.
And that raises a question for us now.
Have we reversed what was normal and what was occasional?
Because Paul’s words suggest that when the whole church comes together, something distinct is happening. And if that is the case, then not every gathering was meant to function in that same open, public way.
Knowing how the world ends fills the saint with deep, unshakable comfort. We are not utopian dreamers, endlessly disappointed by the condition of this fallen world. To live that way would reveal something far more serious, a practical atheism, as though we did not truly believe what the Word of God declares about the end of all things.
But we do believe.
And that belief produces something altogether different within us. Not dread. Not despair. But a profound and even holy fascination, as we watch the very Word of God unfold before our eyes. Every shaking, every upheaval, every turning of the age only confirms what He has already spoken.
And in it all, we know this, He is with us.
While the world is consumed with the temporary, the shifting, unstable state of things, we are captivated by something far greater. We are taken up with the eternal Kingdom of God, a Kingdom not merely coming, but already alive, already advancing, already unfolding within us.
And this causes us to walk in a peace that surpasses understanding, a peace that, when the world sees it, marvels at it. A witness of peace to a world in turmoil.
When Paul spoke of the “most eminent apostles,” he was not honoring them. He was exposing them. His words were edged with holy sarcasm. He was tearing down men who had exalted themselves, men who drew disciples after their own name, men who clothed pride in the language of Christ.
So ask yourself plainly:Who would Paul call “super apostles” today? (hyperlian apostolon) 2 Cor 11:5
Who, in our own time, has taken to themselves titles of authority, power, and spiritual supremacy? Who has stood before multitudes and presented themselves not merely as servants of Christ, but as the voice to be obeyed, the authority not to be questioned?
These are not outsiders. Not pagans. Not those who openly reject Christ.
These are men who speak His name. Men who preach in His name. Men who build vast followings under His banner.
And yet, like those in Corinth, they exalt themselves.
They boast in power. They boast in revelation. They boast in influence, in miracles, in numbers. They draw attention to themselves, and in doing so, they rob Jesus of His preeminence and take that preeminence for themselves. You will never hear them boasting of their infirmities. They wouldn’t do it and their audience dont want to hear that.
Paul would not be impressed.
For he said, “Though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh.” His weapons were not carnal. They were not built on personality, persuasion, or platform. They were mighty in God, for pulling down strongholds.
And what were those strongholds?
Arguments. Prideful reasonings. Every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.
These men, then and now, construct systems of thought and authority that rise up, not against religion in general, but against the true knowledge of Christ. They speak of Him, yet elevate themselves. His name is invoked only so their own name can be elevated.
This is why Paul says: “Bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.”
Not to a man. Not to a movement. Not to a personality.
To Christ.
These leaders exercise enormous influence. Hundreds of thousands, even millions, sit under them. Their words shape thinking, their authority directs lives.
But we are without excuse.
We have the Spirit of God. We have the Word of God.
And we are commanded to take every thought captive.
Every sermon. Every claim. Every display of power. Every declaration of authority.
All must be brought under Christ.
Paul refused to compete with these men on their terms. He would not boast in greatness.
Instead, he says, “I will boast in the things which concern my infirmities.”
Weakness. Suffering. Dependence on God.
That is the mark of a true servant.
So the question is not merely who these men are.
The question is this:
Will we recognize the difference?
Will we discern between those who exalt Christ, and those who exalt themselves in His name?
Raising the sails of affliction. The paradox of the genuine Christian life. Men and women who become entangled in the affairs of this world, who allow the headlines of the day or their present circumstances to draw their eyes away from the Lord, are those who lower their sails rather than power them when the winds of affliction begin to blow.
The storm is not the problem. The issue is where the eyes are fixed. When the eyes are fixed on the storm, fear rises. When fear rises, faith recedes. And when faith recedes, the sails come down. Look at the storm and you will sink. Look to Jesus and you will rise, carried by the wind above the waves. The same wind that terrifies one man will carry another. The difference is not the storm. It is the direction of the gaze and whether the sails are raised.
𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗗𝗢𝗟𝗗𝗥𝗨𝗠𝗦 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗦𝗢𝗨𝗟
Racing across the sea with the wind in your face, hurtling toward home, or finding yourself stalled and drifting in the spiritual doldrums of life. Brothers and sisters, the doldrums is a real place. It lies between five degrees north and five degrees south of the equator, shifting slightly throughout the year.
It stretches across the great oceans of the world, the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Indian. Sailors of old, when sails were king, dreaded being trapped there. It was a place of weak or absent wind, of oppressive heat and heavy air, of sudden and violent storms that rose without warning. To be caught there was to make no forward progress. Supplies would dwindle. Water would run dry. The danger was real, not to perish in a raging storm, but to languish in a place where you are stuck, where you cannot move forward, and where the unseen currents of this world begin to drag you backward, and you do not even notice.
𝗦𝗧𝗨𝗖𝗞 𝗕𝗘𝗧𝗪𝗘𝗘𝗡 𝗦𝗧𝗢𝗥𝗠 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗦𝗧𝗜𝗟𝗟𝗡𝗘𝗦𝗦
Brothers and sisters, do you find yourself caught in the headlines of today. Do the circumstances of your life dominate your horizon. Either way, whether overwhelmed by storm or suffocated by inertia, the result is the same. The soul begins to sink into the morass of this world. Progress slows. Vision fades. Growth stalls. A life once moving toward the Lord becomes weighed down by what is seen, rather than lifted by what is unseen.
𝗟𝗜𝗙𝗧 𝗬𝗢𝗨𝗥 𝗘𝗬𝗘𝗦
Lift your eyes. For it is in Him, and Him alone, that we live and move and have our being. He alone is the answer to the storm. He alone is the answer to being stuck. There is no circumstance, no headline, no moment that exists outside of His authority. When the eyes are lifted, the soul is steadied. When the gaze returns to Him, direction returns, strength returns, life returns. The alternative is that headlines or the circumstances which you find yourself in dominate your life. Rather than taking your thoughts captive you are taken captive by them.
𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗣𝗔𝗥𝗔𝗗𝗢𝗫 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗦𝗧𝗢𝗥𝗠
Here is the paradox. We are called to raise our sails in the very teeth of the storm. Not to fight it, not to resist it in our own strength, but to yield to the wind of the Spirit. The storm that appears to threaten destruction becomes the very means by which we are carried forward. What seems contrary becomes the pathway. What appears dangerous becomes the vehicle of progress.
𝗥𝗜𝗗𝗘 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗪𝗜𝗡𝗗
Fight the storm and you will perish. Ride upon it, carried by His power, and you will not only live, you will live abundantly. The winds of affliction, when met with faith, do not destroy. They drive us forward. They press us onward. They hasten our journey. And so with the wind in your face and your sails lifted high, you are not drifting, you are not stalled, you are not overcome. You are being carried, steadily and powerfully, ever closer toward home.
War is not an interruption of history but one of its permanent features. Scripture teaches that we live in a fallen world, and history confirms the testimony. Nations rise and nations fall. Borders shift. Peoples displace peoples. From the ancient empires of the East to the kingdoms of Europe, from Rome’s conquest of Britain to the Angles and Saxons, the Viking invasions, and the Norman conquest, the same pattern appears again and again. History is written in the language of struggle.
The American continent bears the same mark. The Cheyenne yielded the Black Hills to the Lakota through conflict, and the Lakota in turn lost that same territory to the expanding United States. This is not an exception but an illustration. War and power have always been instruments by which the political order of the world is formed. The world, as it exists, is not a garden but a wilderness, and it has been so since the fall of man.
Christians must begin here if they are to think clearly. This present order is not our home in any moral sense. We belong to another kingdom. Yet we are required to live in this one, and we are commanded to see it as it truly is. Sentimentality is no substitute for truth.
When tyrannies collapse and iron curtains fall, there is reason to rejoice for those who are freed from oppression. Such rejoicing does not sanctify the instruments by which that freedom comes, nor does it purify the motives of those who wield power. It simply acknowledges that relief has come to those who suffered under despotism. Imperfect instruments may still bring real deliverance.
Christians are called neither to blind nationalism nor to naïve idealism. The Scriptures command us to seek peace, yet they also acknowledge that rulers exist to restrain evil in a violent world. Power vacuums do not remain empty. If one nation withdraws, another will advance. The question is never whether power will shape the world, but whose power it will be.
Would the world be safer under the dominance of Russia? Or China? Or India? Or North Korea? Perhaps even Iran? Power will rule in this fallen world; the only question is which power, and to what end.
Many speak as though the exercise of power were itself the great evil, yet history teaches that the absence of ordered power often produces something darker still. Idealistic visions detached from reality offer little comfort to those who must live under tyranny. The world will not be governed by dreams but by forces strong enough to impose their will.
The Christian perspective is neither naïve nor despairing. Believers understand that they are in the world but not of it. They are called to see clearly and to judge soberly. Scripture does not promise that the present age will culminate in peace among nations. Rather, it teaches that the world will continue in conflict until the final kingdom of God is revealed.
Consider one final example. George S. Patton was by many accounts a flawed man can , proud, ambitious, and often harsh. Yet when his Third Army broke through German lines during the Battle of the Bulge and relieved the surrounded soldiers at Bastogne, the men who had endured the siege did not pause to examine his character or analyze his motives. They cared that relief had come. So it is in the affairs of nations. Men act from mixed motives , ambition, necessity, calculation, and sometimes principle.
The purposes behind intervention in places such as Iran may be complex and imperfect. Yet if the day comes when ordinary people find themselves delivered from the rule of harsh clerical tyranny, it is unlikely that they will trouble themselves greatly with the philosophical purity of those who brought about that change.
Christians therefore must learn to think with steady minds. This world will never be redeemed by political power, yet neither will it be preserved from evil by wishful thinking. We are called to live as strangers and pilgrims, seeing clearly the broken order around us while fixing our hope on a kingdom not made by human hands.
We stand in a time when the Lord’s description of the harvest is no longer theoretical, but increasingly observable, to the point that what once lay hidden within the field can now be discerned as the age moves toward its consummation.
The Lord did not frame the close of the age as a single moment, but as a harvest season, as He Himself declared when opening the parable of the field [Matthew 13:24].
A closing span in which what has long grown together can no longer conceal its nature, for the harvest, He said, is the end of the age [Matthew 13:39].
When the grain reaches fullness, weight comes upon the head of the true wheat. It bows, heavy with formed life, while the tare, light and fruitless, remains upright, exposed by its own barrenness.
This is why there must be a period of unveiling. The distinction, once hidden in the green blade, becomes undeniable in the ripened field, just as He taught that both must grow together until the harvest [Matthew 13:30].
What could not safely be touched in the early growth can now be handled without harm to the wheat, because maturity has made separation just, visible, and irreversible. So within the synteleia tou aiōnos (Matthew 13:39), the consummation of the age, there unfolds a measured work of exposure and removal.
It is not haste, but precision. Not impulse, but ripeness that governs the reaping. The tares are taken from among the wheat because their habitation was never separate, reflecting His own words that the enemy sowed them among the wheat while men slept [Matthew 13:25].
They shared the same soil, the same rain, the same sun, yet bore no grain. And when the reapers move, they do so in a window of divine timing, for He said the reapers are the angels sent forth at the close of the age [Matthew 13:39–41].
In that solemn interval, the uprightness of the tare becomes its own testimony, and the harvest, long foretold, proceeds without injury to the wheat, fulfilling His declaration that all things that offend would be gathered out of His kingdom [Matthew 13:41].
And in an actual field, as the season turns and the wind moves across the ripened grain, another distinction appears.
The wheat does not only bow from weight, it moves differently.
When the gusts come, the true wheat sways in unified rhythm, heavy heads yielding, bending without breaking, the whole field rolling like waves of gold.
But the tares, stiffer and lighter, resist the movement. They jut upward, visually discordant, unable to flow with the humbled harvest around them, a living contrast between fruitfulness and barrenness. Farmers have long known that near reaping time, the mixed field reveals itself not merely by fruit, but by motion, posture, and response to pressure.
And so too in the closing span of this age, when the winds of testing, exposure, and judgment begin to blow across the house of God, ministries once indistinguishable from the surrounding wheat find themselves revealed by how they stand, echoing the apostolic warning that judgment must begin at the house of God [1 Peter 4:17].
The recent unravelings surrounding International House of Prayer Kansas City and controversies touching streams connected to Bethel Church have, for many, felt like that late season wind moving across the field.
Not creating what was hidden, but revealing what maturity and pressure made visible. For the first labor of the harvest is not the gentle gathering of the wheat, but the careful and deliberate removal of the tares from among it.
Separation is the primary work. For they did not grow in distant fields, but intertwined in the same soil, their roots wrapped together beneath the surface, their blades indistinguishable in the early season. And so when the harvest begins, the more exacting task comes first, just as the Lord instructed, gather the tares first and bind them [Matthew 13:30].
The tares must be identified, drawn out, and gathered away with precision, lest the wheat be harmed in the process. It is a judicial work before it is a restorative one, a clearing of the field before the securing of the grain.
Only when that difficult labor has been sufficiently accomplished does the harvest of the wheat proceed with swiftness and clarity. For once the choking growth has been removed, the bowed heads stand unobstructed, ready for the reaper’s hand.
Then the work becomes one of gathering rather than separating, of bringing in rather than casting out, fulfilling His promise that the righteous would be gathered into His barn [Matthew 13:30].
The barn awaits what the field has produced, and the weight of the wheat, once hidden among the tares, is now brought safely home. The paradigm shift has taken place in the world.
Thus the parable and the apostolic warning converge, revealing that the exposure of the tares is not reserved for a distant day, but is taking place even now.
What was planted in secrecy is being uncovered in the present hour. The likeness that once concealed is breaking down, and the field itself is bearing witness to the difference.
For the harvest is advancing, the separation is underway, and the righteous stand on the threshold of that moment when they will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father [Matthew 13:43].
This is the primary role of God’s remnant here on earth, to be His witness. In every age His remnant have suffered. They were and are a living witness to the underlying truth that suffering is a major part of our walk with Christ. Scripture does not say if we pass through the waters, but when. The passage assumes the trial. It establishes it as certain.
Job, of course, stands as the perfect example of a mere man. It is no surprise that his account is widely regarded as the earliest book of the Bible, written before Genesis itself. God was laying down markers from the very beginning. He was clearly showing that there is no vital connection between worldly blessing and relationship to Him. Job’s friends, like most modern day Christians, and certainly almost all within Charismatic circles, trying to “live their best lives now” could not and would not understand this mystery.
Yet when Job shaved his head and tore his robe over the loss of everything, and then fell to his knees in worship and blessed the name of God, we are given the model. There it is unveiled in raw humanity and holy reverence.
Suffering, and our reaction to it, becomes the great separator. It separates the legitimate from the illegitimate. The many from the few. And it has been this way down through the ages, right up to and including this present day.
When the great tribulation comes, when trials grow fierce beyond anything previously known, God will already have trained a remnant over the many decades of their lives in the ways of suffering, enduring, and overcoming. They will not be novices in the furnace. They will have fought many battles long before the great battle arrives.
They will know the Scripture well from Revelation 13 where the great enemy of our souls wages war against the saints and, in human terms, prevails. And yet the question stands. How do we overcome when that time comes? The same way we overcome now.
By the Blood of the Lamb. By the word of our testimony. And by the fact that we do not cling to our lives on this earth, even unto death.
This power to wage war agsinst us, along with authority over all nations, is must be remembered has been “granted,” by God for a specific and limited time. It represents a divine allowance for testing, not an independent victory of the beast. As it was with Job. Its reach is measured. Its duration is bound. And even in its fiercest hour, it remains subject to the sovereign limits set by the throne of Heaven.
This is the one thing I do know. As long as He is with us, those of us who remain will pass through the waters and the fires. He knows us. He has redeemed us for this appointed time. He has called us by name. And He declares over us, You are Mine.
We fight not with carnal strength, but with proximity to Jesus. To bask in the glow of His presence is to walk in the beauty of holiness, to move in the overflow of His majesty and His glory. His grace will be sufficient, no matter how fierce the battle becomes.
I was saying to a brother only the other day, as long as I am granted breath enough to make a final speech to the baying crowd, to proclaim to them the glory of the God they have rejected, then I will be satisfied to say, let the blade fall.
And if not even that, then I shall declare that very same thing to the principalities and powers. For their blade does not end my story. It only propels me home.
There is a profound contrast in Scripture between Saul and David, and it is not merely the difference between two kings, but between two kinds of men, two kinds of callings, and two kinds of authority. Saul is chosen by men. He fits the visible criteria. He is tall, impressive, outwardly commanding. He looks like a king. Yet when the moment comes for him to step into what God has spoken, he is found hiding among the equipment. The one selected to lead is crouched among baggage.
He has already spoken of his small tribe, his insignificant family, and while those words sound humble, they reveal a man measuring himself by human categories and shrinking beneath the weight of them. His humility is not rooted in trust, but in fear. When pressure comes, he preserves himself.
David is altogether different.
David’s story does not begin on a battlefield or in a palace, but in obscurity. He is the youngest. He is forgotten by his own father when Samuel comes to anoint a king. Yet long before any man sees him, the eye of the Lord is already upon him.
Scripture reminds us that God knows His own before they ever draw breath, that He forms them and calls them while they are yet in the womb. David is such a man. The hand of God, the presence of God, and the purpose of God are upon him from the beginning.
This is no man hiding among the equipment. While Saul hides, David fights. While Saul shrinks from visibility, David embraces responsibility. Alone in the fields, with no audience and no reward, David lays his life on the line for the sheep.
When the lion comes, when the bear comes, David does not calculate his odds. He does not preserve himself. He runs toward danger, because something in him already understands what it means to be a shepherd. The sheep matter more than his own safety.
This is the true shepherd, contrasted with the king men choose.
Men look for height, strength, charisma, and persuasive speech. God looks for the heart. Men crown what impresses them outwardly. God entrusts authority to those who are faithful inwardly. Saul is anointed first, but David is formed first.
David’s courage does not begin after anointing, it precedes it. His confidence is not in himself, but in the Lord who has already delivered him before anyone was watching.
This distinction is not confined to ancient Israel. It is painfully relevant today.
In every generation, men continue to choose leaders who are tall, handsome, articulate, and compelling. They gather crowds, build platforms, and command loyalty. Yet many have never been touched or shaped by the Spirit of God in secret. They are appointed by men, affirmed by numbers, and sustained by applause.
When the crux of the matter comes, when the cost is high and the wolves are near, they preserve themselves. They protect the institution, the reputation, the platform, rather than laying down their lives for the sheep.
David stands as God’s rebuke to this pattern. God is not impressed by appearance. He is not moved by charisma. He does not entrust His flock to those who hide when the cost becomes personal. He looks for shepherds who have already proven, in hidden places, that they will bleed for what is His. He looks for hearts that run toward danger when others retreat, for men who fear God more than visibility, and obedience more than survival.
The tragedy of Saul is not that he was small. The glory of David is not that he was strong. The difference is this: Saul belonged to himself.David belonged to God.
I want to respond to some objections raised against my initial piece on Yancey, though in truth it was never really about Yancey at all. It was about grace, what it is, how Scripture defines it, and why it matters. If the Body of Christ is ever to walk in true holiness and righteousness, so that a dying world can genuinely contrast us with itself, then grace must be taught and held in its proper biblical place. We have not been called to soothe the conscience of the saint, nor to dull the edge of God’s holiness, but to bear faithful witness to a God who is righteous, holy, and not to be treated lightly.
Philip Yancey presents a grace-first theology in which God’s mercy precedes human response, repentance is real but functions relationally rather than judicially, and the fear of God is redefined primarily as reverence and relational grief rather than warning or dread.
In this framework, repentance restores fellowship but does not place salvation genuinely at risk, and passages that warn of falling away are treated pastorally rather than with the full weight that tge words carry.. Yet Scripture speaks of those who were “once enlightened,” who “shared in the Holy Spirit,” and still “fell away,” and of judgment that is described as “a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Jesus Himself warned that not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom, and that “the one who endures to the end will be saved.” The tension lies in whether these words are allowed to carry their full weight.
“Those once enlightened… who shared in the Holy Spirit… and then fell away.”
Hebrews and the warnings of Jesus present a gospel in which grace and holy fear coexist without contradiction.
Grace initiates salvation, yet believers are repeatedly urged to “hold fast,” to “take care lest there be an evil, unbelieving heart,” and to remember that “our God is a consuming fire.” This fear is not terror for the weak or the repentant, but sober awareness that holiness is real, covenant is serious, and perseverance matters. Scripture never pits love against Godly fear, but assumes they walk together in a proper union.
“Take care… lest there be an evil, unbelieving heart… for our God is a consuming fire.”
This tension is made unmistakable in the account of Ananias and Sapphira.
They were not outsiders but members of the church, and God judged deliberate hypocrisy in such a way that “great fear came upon the whole church.” The text offers no apology and no softening. The early believers learned, in a single moment, that the God who pours out grace also disciplines His people, and that His presence is not merely comforting but holy.
“Great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard these things.”
Throughout Scripture, promises are consistently attached to endurance and overcoming.
Life is promised to “the one who overcomes,” rest to those who “do not draw back,” and reigning with Christ to those who “remain faithful.” The other side of that promise is never hidden: hardening the heart, refusing to repent, or presuming upon grace carries consequence. These warnings are not written to frighten the faithful, but to awaken the complacent.
“To the one who overcomes… do not draw back… hold fast.”
This is why a softened, purely pastoral presentation of grace is ultimately dangerous. Grace was never meant to remove fear altogether, but to place it rightly. When grace is framed mainly to comfort, it risks producing peace without perseverance and assurance without obedience. There has always been a market for teachers who tell people what they want to hear, but Scripture was not written to soothe the unwatchful — it was written to form a people who endure, overcome, and remain faithful to the end.
“They will not endure sound teaching… turning aside to what they want to hear.”
Many years ago I was asked to write a piece for the ministry “Persecution Watch,” founded in part by my dear brother Blaine, now gone on into glory. I believe that every genuine saint will soon enough face bars and chains. This is to encourage the saints. Please share if you are led by the Spirit.
There is a holy pattern woven through every life the Lord redeems: our brokenness, or the lack of it, always reveals how much of our nature we have allowed Him to transform. Wherever the self remains unyielded, untouched, unbroken, pain gathers there like a storm waiting to burst forth. For the measure of our troubles is so often the measure of the self we have held on to. We hold onto much of the the old nature, and the pieces of our old self becomes the sharp edges that wound us. The keeping of self becomes the birthplace of our sorrow, and the refusal to be broken becomes the soil where so much of our pain takes root.
There is a mystery here, one the Spirit teaches slowly: wherever the self is protected, trouble multiplies. Wherever the flesh remains alive, unmortified, unchallenged, it rises with its old strength and lays claim to the inner life. And from that unyielded ground springs turmoil, not random, not surprising, but the predictable fruit of a nature not yet surrendered. Look closely at the landscape of any life, and you will see it: the unbroken places are the breeding ground of unrest and much pain.
But where the Spirit is welcomed, where the self bends low, where the inner man yields to the hand of God, there the breaking becomes a kindness. In the surrendered places, the Lord breathes His life. What once was hard ground cracks open beneath His touch, and from those very fractures new life emerges. For the Spirit does not revive what is meant to die; He resurrects only what has been laid down.
And so the breaking is not destruction, it is invitation. It is the mercy of God pulling us away from the life we keep trying to preserve. In every part of us surrendered, transformation takes root. And the soul learns, slowly and deeply, that what we lose in yielding becomes the very ground where His life begins to grow.
To breathe in the beauty of God’s creation, while walking with the Creator, is to inhale something of the rarified air of heaven. To listen to the quietness is to set our spirit at ease. Noise is the great distraction of this world, the noise of current events, the noise of the TV and the radio, the never-ending noise of the device in our hand, now intimately connected to our ears in a constant stream of stimulation. It dulls the soul and renders the spirit deaf to the still, small voice of the Master.
It is the great tragedy of our age. In such a place it becomes impossible to “seek ye first the Kingdom of God,” for the Kingdom of God is fundamentally still. Who, in our age, has ears to hear what the Spirit would whisper to our souls?
Tell me… can you hear the willows whisper on the wisp?
Can you hear the wings of the swallow as it sweeps through the soft-dying light of dusk?
Can you hear the river murmur as it winds its ancient path beneath the gathering dusk?
Can you hear the sigh of the pines as the evening wind passes through their crowns?
If you can hear these things, then perhaps you can hear the beating heart of God
and find His rhythm.
Many years ago, I walked with a very heavy burden of a particular situation, the constant noise of it filling every step. I did not even notice when the Lord was no longer in the midst of my thoughts, so completely had the season overtaken me. Then, breaking through that long silence of my spirit amidst the great noise of my flesh, came a still, small whisper: “I miss you.” Its simplicity undid me. Only then did I see how long the noise had carried me away. Through tears I answered, “I miss You too.” And in that sacred moment, after a season of distance, we were together again.
Then “He delivered Him to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus and led Him away. And He, bearing His cross, went out to a place called the Place of a Skull… where they crucified Him” (John 19:16–18). And as He hung between two criminals—with Jesus in the center—the crucified Lord spoke: “When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said…” (John 19:26–27).
The crucified man speaks.
This is not merely a historical moment—it is a spiritual revelation. When I say “the crucified man,” I am not referring only to men, but to all mankind—male and female. In Scripture, “man” refers to the old nature we inherited from Adam, the fleshly soul-life within us. This old man was judicially crucified with Christ at the moment of salvation. Yet crucifixion is not instant death. It is a lingering, agonizing process. The flesh is on the cross, but it still speaks.
The apostle Paul declared: “Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him…” (Romans 6:6). “Those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24). “I have been crucified with Christ…” (Galatians 2:20). “I die daily” (1 Corinthians 15:31).
All of these verses reveal a spiritual truth: our flesh has been crucified. Yet our experience testifies that it still cries out. It still resists death. It still seeks to exert control. This is why Jesus commands us to take up our cross daily. If the flesh were silent, there would be no need to deny it daily.
Many can “take up” the cross for a moment. They can lift it onto their shoulder in a burst of zeal. But to bear the cross—to carry it through deep valleys, across raging rivers, and up steep mountains—is another matter. To bear is to endure when every natural instinct cries out for relief. To bear is to persevere when the flesh screams, “Lay this burden down!” To bear is not to escape the cross, but to remain upon it until the flesh is silenced.
The day will come when we lay our burdens down—but that day is not today. It is not tomorrow. It is the day when we take our final breath, and like our Lord, we shall say, “It is finished” (John 19:30).
Consider the two thieves crucified beside Jesus. Both were nailed to their crosses. Both were dying. Both were suffering. Yet one railed against Christ, while the other surrendered and was saved. This is a prophetic picture for every believer: the crucified flesh still speaks, but only the surrendered soul will see Paradise.
The voice of the flesh cries, “Save yourself! Come down from the cross!” But the voice of the spirit says, “Not my will, but Yours be done.”
So I appeal to you, saints of the Living God: Surrender quickly. Obey immediately. Glorify Christ even in your pain. Do not give the flesh any place. Deny its arguments. Silence its cries. Let your spirit ascend with Christ, fixing your gaze on the glory that awaits you.
For what awaits is beyond imagination. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).
There is a day coming when you will be redeemed from this corruptible body, delivered from this sin-sick world, and welcomed into a heaven where there is no more striving, no more sorrow, no more temptation, and no more voice of the flesh. There, the crucifixion gives way to resurrection, and every tear is wiped away by the hand of God Himself.
Our cross is but for a moment—but the glory is forever.
“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5)
“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:4–5)
In nature, when water flows over sandstone, it slowly carves a channel. At first it is shallow, but as the water continues, the groove deepens, until it becomes a permanent path. When the rain returns, it always follows the same course.
The human mind works much the same way. When we experience pain in the body, for example an injury to the elbow, the signal travels from the point of pain along a neural pathway to the brain. The more often that signal fires, the more established that pathway becomes.
In the same way, when someone wounds us through word or deed, a kind of spiritual signal travels from the point of the injury to the soul. Over time, that pain forms an inner pathway, a reflex of hurt, fear, or anger that becomes easier to travel each time it is triggered.
And so, just as the sandstone is shaped by the flow of water, the soul becomes shaped by pain. It cuts deep grooves into the inner life, and our thoughts begin to flow along those old tracks without effort. We do not even choose it, it becomes instinct.
Yet there is a remarkable truth found even in the world of medicine.Surgeons sometimes use a method called mirroring, where a patient focuses their attention on the healthy limb instead of the injured one. The brain begins to believe that healing is occurring in the damaged area, and the pathways of pain are slowly rewritten.
In the same way, Jesus is our healthy limb. When we take our eyes off our wounds and fix them on Him, we begin to heal. As we behold Him, His forgiveness, His grace, His mercy, we begin to mirror Him. We start to think as He thinks, to love as He loves, and to forgive as He forgave.
And this healing does not simply restore us to our original condition. It lifts us higher, it transforms us. For we are not merely conquerors over pain and sin, we are, as Scripture says, “more than conquerors through Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:37)
Paul writes, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5) This is an invitation to transformation, to a spiritual rewiring of our inner life. The Holy Spirit begins to pour living water through us, and slowly, the current changes course.
Where fear once ruled, trust begins to flow. Where bitterness dug deep, forgiveness takes root. Where sorrow carved its mark, peace begins to move like a river.
Paul also says, “Bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5) Each time we catch a thought before it slides into the old groove, we redirect the flow toward Him. This is the renewal of the mind, the Spirit reshaping what pain once defined.
Each surrendered thought deepens a new channel of grace. Each moment of obedience erodes the old pathways of pain. Soon the soul begins to flow naturally toward Christ. The old grooves may still be visible, but they no longer control the current.
Ask yourself: What grooves in my mind were carved by pain or fear?
Do I still let my thoughts run down those channels?
Or am I letting the Spirit redirect the flow toward peace, mercy, and faith?
The final reproach of the saints, when truth itself is branded as hate.
From the earliest days of the church, the saints of God have endured the reproach of being called what they are not. To stand for truth has always been to invite slander, and to speak the Word of God faithfully has never been received without hostility. As Jesus Himself said, “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake” (Matthew 5:11). History testifies that the righteous have consistently been accused of hatred, malice, and cruelty when, in reality, they were bearing witness to the love and holiness of God.
In our present age, particularly since the cultural shifts of the early twenty-first century, a new distortion has arisen. It is no longer permissible in much of society to disagree with the prevailing moral fashions without being branded a hater. A deliberate conflation has been made between disagreement and hatred, as if to question the legitimacy of homosexual practice or transgender ideology were to harbor malice against those who embrace it. But disagreement is not hatred. To call sin what Scripture calls sin is not to despise the sinner, but to speak truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), the truth that alone can set men free (John 8:32).
This inversion of meaning is no accident. It is the inevitable fruit of a culture that prefers sentimentality over truth, appearance over substance, and human approval over divine authority. The saints of God must see it for what it is: an attempt by the spirit of the age to silence the proclamation of the gospel by weaponizing false accusation. For if every Christian who holds to biblical teaching is deemed a “hater,” then every genuine believer is, by that definition, worthy of scorn and—according to some—even worthy of destruction.
And make no mistake, saint: the false accusers of the brethren have almost always come from within the ranks of what calls itself Christendom. Nearly all the martyrs of the last two thousand years were condemned at the insistence of religious institutions, who sought to preserve their own influence and protect their own power. Secular authorities and atheists may join in, but the fiercest opposition is often religious. Those who speak the truth boldly are always a danger to the religious establishment, because they expose its corruption, its hypocrisy, and its lifeless form. And so the institutions respond either by silencing themselves in cowardice or by attacking the voices of truth with fury—denouncing, separating, and historically, even putting to death those who dared to stand in the light of God’s Word.
This is the way of religion versus relationship. It has always been so, and it will always be so until the end of the age. Jesus reserved His harshest words not for pagans or atheists, but for the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the scribes—the religious authorities of His day (Matthew 23). Though divided among themselves, Pharisees and Sadducees, Herodians and Zealots, even Rome itself, found common cause in their hatred of Christ. In an unholy alliance, they conspired to destroy Him because His very presence threatened every institution and every system of control. And kill Him they did.
That same religious spirit has not died. It has persisted through the centuries, raising its hand against prophets, apostles, reformers, and martyrs. And it remains strong today. As the end draws nearer, that spirit will only intensify, aligning with worldly powers to silence, discredit, and ultimately destroy those who walk in genuine relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. For “the time is coming when whoever kills you will think he offers God service” (John 16:2).
Therefore, the genuine saint must not shrink back. He or she must understand that as the darkness increases, so too will the accusations, the betrayals, and the persecutions. Yet none of this is strange, for our Lord told us beforehand: “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you” (John 15:18). The darkness hates the light and will always seek to extinguish it (John 3:19–20).
But take heart. The slanders of men are but passing shadows. The record of heaven is clear, and the Judge of all the earth will vindicate His people. To be falsely accused is grievous, yes, but it is also glorious—it means we are walking in the footsteps of prophets, apostles, martyrs, and of Christ Himself, who “was despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3).
So let the saints stand firm. Let them embrace the reproach of Christ as greater riches than the treasures of Egypt (Hebrews 11:26). For though the world brands them as haters, heaven knows them as beloved, faithful witnesses of the Light. And as the night grows darker, their testimony will shine all the more brightly until the Day dawns and the Morning Star arises in their hearts (2 Peter 1:19).
These words have unleashed a storm through the ages. In a single sentence, God named a tension that would reverberate through every generation, a battle not just of flesh and blood, but of wills, of hearts, of spirits.
The Hebrew word teshuqah can be taken two ways, and both carry weight. It may mean that the woman would still long for her husband, long for his presence, his love, his intimacy, even in a fallen world. She would ache for connection even while living under the pain of fractured relationship. Or, like the use of the word in Genesis 4:7 (“sin’s desire is for you, but you must rule over it”), it may mean that she would desire to control or master her husband. In other words, there would now be a struggle for authority, a contest of wills, her desire versus his rule. Either way, the result is the same: conflict.
“And he shall rule over you.” That one line has lit fires of rebellion in the hearts of countless women. Read it aloud to most woman and watch, there will be a bristling, a flash in the eyes, a quick retort: “Men have abused that. Men have ruled harshly. Men have crushed women underfoot.” And they are right, men have done that. I grew up in a home where it was lived out in the worst way, domination, violence, cruelty. And yet, none of that cancels what God said. God did not bless abuse, He named the consequence of sin. The harmony of Eden was broken. The man who was meant to lovingly lead now rules with a heavy hand. The woman who was meant to joyfully walk beside him now resists his authority.
Man shakes his fist at God, woman resists the man, and all of it flows from the same poisoned well: sin. The man says, “I will be captain of my own soul.” The woman says, “You will not rule over me.” Both are disobedience. Both are rebellion against God’s order.
And through it all, the serpent still hisses, “Did God really say?” “Surely God didn’t mean that.” “Surely He didn’t mean for a man to be the head of the home.” He whispers the same lies he whispered in the garden, “You will not surely die, you can rewrite God’s word, you can be your own authority.” And when a woman rejects biblical headship with fury, when the spirit of Jezebel rises up, it is not just personal, it is spiritual war. The enemy rages against the order God set in place.
Genesis 3:16 is not a suggestion. It is not cultural. It is the divine diagnosis of the human condition after the fall, and we must deal with it. Men must repent of harsh rule and love their wives as Christ loved the Church. Women must repent of rebellion and come under godly headship as unto the Lord. Both must bow to God’s Word.
The cross is where the curse is broken. The cross is where the war ends. But the first step is to acknowledge what God has said, even when our flesh bristles, and choose obedience.
A Call To The Remnant 