I haven’t mentioned it before here, but I’m a big fan of the independent television series “The Chosen.” Its portrayal of Christ and his followers is not just inspiring, but inspired. The creators, producers, and staff of this show have aligned themselves with the Spirit of Heaven to capture something that evades most Christian productions: an air of authenticity.

Many who sincerely seek to walk with the Lord and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, fall prey to the adversary's well-honed schemes of distraction by circumstance. Even as they perceive the direction and guidance of the Lord, challenges present themselves.

Instead of staying focused on God’s will and promises, they give their attention and efforts to the problems they are facing as seen from a natural perspective, allowing the circumstance to become greater than God in their own minds, forgetting the promise of Romans 8: 28 that “all things work together for good to them who love God and are called according to His purpose.”

The desire of the Lord they have previously been pursuing has become secondary and any perceived success hinges upon overcoming this or that challenge to their personal satisfaction.

God orchestrates even the worst of circumstances for our good. We do not have to, and are not called to, manage them ourselves. But we must keep our focus on the Lord at all times. To do otherwise is to put our trust in a house built on “shifting sand.” (Matthew 7:26)

Never give more attention to the factors and circumstances that constrain you than to the Lord Learn to live and put your faith in the spiritual, to abide and operate in Heavenly realms. It is the spiritual that affects the natural; the Heavenly that affects change in the physical on earth.

Fix your attention on the Lord and on Who He wants to be for you in the situations you are facing that He couldn’t be to you before. Every event is an opportunity to learn more about Him.

The bottom line is this: There is a real battle over what you will be led by. (Some would say who.) You must make a conscious choice. You cannot abide in the Spirit and walk in the flesh. The flesh opposes the spirit (Galatians 5: 16-18) and in my experience will try and sabotage the spirit at every opportunity. There is no middle ground. It is one or the other. You cannot serve 2 masters (Matthew 6: 24; Luke 16: 13).

The Holy Spirit molds you into the image of Christ. This transformation is a natural result of the work the Spirit of God is doing in your life as you cultivate a personal relationship with Him. In doing so, you don’t live, operate, or stand in your own strength, you stand in the glory and power of the Lord.

Keeping the law that you might be good enough to earn salvation was never an option. Several thousand years of recorded history with His people proved the point time and time again. The Israelites couldn’t do it back in the day and we can’t do it now.

Any attempt of men and institutions seeking to establish their own interpretations of what God wants from us is just as worthless. If the very law of God could never justify and only convict us of sin (See Romans 3:20), there is no representation of men that could ever hope to save someone either.

God knew this from before the beginning and that is why everything in the Old Covenant pointed to the Savior that He provided. Christ came and paid the price of redemption and restoration that no other human or created being could ever pay.

This is why it is foolishness to think that what God is primarily focused on are the things you do or do not do. Christ has already paid the price for sin. God’s not worried about your performance because when you accept Jesus and His death on your behalf, the “old man” becomes dead to sin. We aren’t called to do things to curry favor with God, we do them naturally because His existing favor is already at work in our lives and we are being transformed by the Holy Spirit. Which brings us to Paul’s questions for the churches of Galatia:

>>>> This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?… —Galatians 3:2 <<<<

This wrong-headed attitude of “being perfected by the flesh” has led to all kinds of problems in our lives, our churches, and in our culture. It frequently cloaks itself as the “moral superiority” smugness that many possess, but that is a deceit and a conceit that masks the lack an intimate relationship with God.

Never forget that your redemption, salvation and destiny lie in Jesus because of what He did, not because of what you did, do or do not do. It is a matter of faith, not of flesh.

Most of us know that the Fruit of the Spirit (found in Galatians chapter 5 - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control), these fruit are characteristics we aspire to achieve as followers of Christ. These are the things that are supposed to define us as Christians. But why do so many struggle to reflect these attributes and values consistently? Why is it that some Christians don’t seem to possess these character traits at all?

The answer is right there in the name. These character traits are not called “the fruit of the“flesh” or heart or mind. You cannot achieve and maintain the characteristics of Christ through your own decision, determination, and effort to do so. They come as a result of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us.

And there are a great number of so called Christians who have little to no desire to obey Christ, submit to the preeminence of the Holy Spirit, and embrace their God-given spiritual identities, preferring instead to retain control, or the illusion of control, by adopting man-made philosophies and ideologies that suit their interests and preferences. As Paul warned Timothy,

For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. – 2 Timothy 4:3

So, the fact that there are people who claim one thing and act another way entirely doesn’t come as a surprise. Jesus was very clear that there would be imposters in the Body of Christ and how we would recognize them:

Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions. Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. – Matthew 7:20-21

But this isn’t about them, this is about you. I want you to know that it is the Spirit of God who transforms us, gives us the “mind of Christ,” through which we bear the Fruit of Spirit.

The power to change and be transformed into someone more Christ-like doesn't come as a result of your will, determination or internal strength. Jesus did not leave us a self-improvement, personal development, or behavioral modification program to become “better.” He sent the Holy Spirit to guide and walk us through a spiritual transformation process.

Spiritual growth occurs within as a result of the work of the Holy Spirit entwined with your spirit, that is, the spirit God placed within you, which means the renewing of your heart and mind can only be accomplished through direct relationship with God.

Many believers prefer to hold God at a distance. They really don’t want to get too close and they certainly don’t want intimacy with Him. They have little desire for a direct, personal relationship with the Almighty. They want to keep something between the Lord and themselves: denomination, church, doctrine, tradition, a pastor, bad habit, ANYTHING instead of a personal, one-on-one encounter with God.

I imagine some of these people are afraid of what a one-on-one relationship with God might mean for their lives or how it might affect their plans for themselves. Some actually prefer a God who is distant, rigid and puritanical; One who is too busy to be interested in the details of their personal life, or a God that has any genuine interest in them as an individual. It’s more comforting to think they can get “lost in the crowd.”

Many people are legalists. They typically prefer laws, rules and regulations over the grace of God which they don’t understand. Laws provide a means by which they can measure their appearance against others.

Besides, following rules doesn’t require getting to know God on a personal basis.

Even many who recognize that their salvation is based on grace and faith in Christ, frequently aren’t interested in drawing any closer to God than they think they have to. I can’t count the times I’ve heard, “Praise the Lord, I’m saved by the blood of Jesus! What more do I need?”

Saved, yes. But, as I’ve said before, salvation is not the finish line. It is the starting block.

To accurately reflect the image of Christ in your life, to achieve the fullness of your divine destiny in this world, to advance God’s will and His Kingdom, you need a great deal more. You need grace. You need transformation. You need the Holy Spirit.

Grace is very personal. It restores your divine familial relationship with God. By grace, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit inhabit your being. Under grace, there is no place to pretend you can hide. Everything comes down to you and God. God knows you intimately, and you know He knows you intimately.

Adopting an attitude or position that holds God at bay fails to recognize that salvation is the beginning of the journey with Him, not the finish line. This means moving beyond just settling for an association with a church or denomination and into actively, conscientiously, cultivating a direct, dynamic, intimate relationship with God.

What is it to worship “in the Spirit and in truth” as Jesus related in John 4:23-24? Even ardent believers struggle, stumble, and fail in their faith because they are trying to use their will, determination, and intellect not just to worship God, but to solve the challenges that life, and the enemy, throw at them.

You simply cannot approach your faith as though it were a matter of intellectual knowledge and application. Those have no power to transform you. Faith is not an issue of human logic, it’s a reality of divine trust. It is not believing what you see, it’s seeing what you believe. It is perceiving beyond what your senses tell you in the natural, to growing in spiritual maturity so that you might have discernment and wisdom about what a God who is Spirit is doing across Heavenly and Earthly realms.

John 16:13 tells us, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.”

Many don’t believe, or worse yet, fear this text because they don’t know how it’s possible. As a tool for maintaining control, religion has often led people to believe that being in error is itself sin and God punishes us for being wrong. This is a demonic fabrication that implies the Lord has little to no capacity for guiding His children directly into truth. Religious institutions often present themselves as the authority and the masses cling to dogma and tradition as though their lives depended on it, instead of embracing the active direction and guidance the Holy Spirit makes available to each of us:

If we fail to cultivate intimacy with God for ourselves, we will never understand that God’s ability to correct us and reveal His truth is greater than satan’s ability to deceive us. Without that deeper relationship with Him, we suffer for our lack of faith.

Faith the size of a mustard seed is a faith we muster up in our mind and soul. It is miniscule, but it is something the Lord works with to increase just as Jesus did with the loaves and the fishes. That increase is planted in your spiritual identity connecting and allowing a much greater faith that flows to you from the throne of Heaven.

It is through this Heavenly faith – found only in direct relationship with Him — that the transformative power of God’s presence, through the Holy Spirit, renews your heart and mind, to change and heal your inner-being.

Again, faith is not an issue of human logic, it’s a reality of divine trust. It is not about you, it’s about what God is doing in you as His child. Jesus told us in Matthew 11:25:

“I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.

We worship God who is Spirit in spirit and in truth through direct relationship. This is also how we fully receive His promises, are transformed, and extend the true love, mercy, and grace of Heaven to the world.

Many believers have enough faith to be saved, but not enough to live in the power that the Lord has provided for their lives because Christian religion has not taught people to cultivate divine intimacy, preferring to lead them into “learned dependence” and reliance on the institution. Yes, many churches are accomplished in teaching what the Bible says, but there is a universe of difference between information, knowledge, and wisdom, just as there is between knowing about God and knowing God intimately.

Some are going to be offended by what I’m about to say, but it’s important: I mean no disrespect to anyone, but church, as we have come to know it, is not the crux of the Christian experience.

One of the reasons Jesus came was to remove the obstacles and obstructions that stand in the way of you coming to know the Father and the love He has for you. Personally. The fullest extent of what God is doing in your life will always be empowered by the nature of the truly personal, direct relationship you have with Him.

You won’t love the Lord if you don’t know Him, if you haven’t or aren’t interacting with God yourself. It’s not about religion, it’s about relationship. It’s not about what you do, it’s about what Christ did for you. You do not transform yourself to please God and earn His favor by acting “good”, you are renewed and transformed by the Holy Spirit which allows the goodness of God to flow THROUGH you.

When religion is at the forefront instead of relationship, there’s a problem that is not fixed by merely attending church and adopting dogma. That mistake is as common now as it was in Jesus day:

>>>> Matthew 15: 8-9 — “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.” <<<<

It does little good to put Christian religion ahead of a personal relationship with Christ.

Let me be clear: I am not saying that you shouldn’t be in church. There are very good reasons to be part of an active, thriving, Spirit-led assembly including service to others, corporate worship, and accountability to one another. But it’s very important to understand that church as we know it, is a human institution and as such, it can be flawed, imperfect, divisive and wrong sometimes.

That’s why it is critical to let the Spirit of the Lord direct you to where you should be attending. And wherever that is, the primary purpose of coming together should be to help each other in cultivating intimacy with God. That is how you learn and grow or mature spiritually in the Lord.

Here is a question that has been asked for millennia: “If God is really there, if He is loving, sovereign, and omnipotent, then why are things such a mess?” The answer is simple: God’s plan has always been to work on Earth with and through His people, not independently of them.

The fact is, God placed the role and responsibility of stewarding this world on His children.

To quote John Wesley: “God does nothing on the earth save in answer to believing prayer.” That is, the Lord limits Himself in many ways to the actions, decisions, and requests of His appointed stewards.

As we are told in Psalms 115:16:

>>>> “The highest heavens belong to the LORD, but the earth he has given to mankind.” - Psalms 115:16 <<<<

God involves Himself in the affairs of our world through people. All of the Lord’s plans and purposes will ultimately be realized, but delays occur at times because He waits until He can find people through whom to work; people who will accept responsibility, pray, act, and intercede on behalf of others.

The most impactful revivals and moves of God the last 2000 years were ignited through the prayers and actions of the smallest band of individuals with hearts to “step into the gap.”

Unfortunately, ignorance, self-interest, and bad theology within Christendom has contributed to things “going off the rails.” While many men and religious organizations falsely projected authority to take the reins of managing people’s interaction with the Lord, they rarely taught believers how to take responsibility or step into their proper roles to manage and govern the earth.

When people don’t step up, waiting for the will of God to be fulfilled can take years, decades, even multiple generations. It may be a long time from our perspective, but the Almighty exists outside of time and these periods aren’t even the blink of an eye to Him. Still, there are temporal consequences when people fail to operate in the role that God ordained.

While many were saved from God’s wrath and destruction though Moses’ intercession, the generation of Israelites that came out of Egyptian slavery missed its destiny by failing to trust the Lord refusing to step into the land He promised them; God waited and fulfilled His plans through the next generation. Jesus said Jerusalem in His day missed its time of visitation (see Luke 19:44).

How many times did God save, bless, rescue or redeem His people because just one man or woman stepped into the role of intercession on behalf of others? Abraham, Joseph, Gideon, Deborah, Esther, just to name a few who come to mind.

Intercession for others is the theme of the Scripture time and again.

It is the very reason he has called His people to be a nation of priests. We aren’t merely to be priests acting on behalf of each other, we are priests called to intercede for people of the world who do not know Him yet.

Where would the world be today if even a minority of God’s people were actively interceding for it?

Change is coming, but not the way that many think. Stay tuned.

As believers, we know and put trust in the fact that Christ offered Himself as a sacrifice that we might be saved. But that is not all there is. There is more to the equation. Like children of any family (ours being a divine one), we are given responsibilities as we grow and mature spiritually. This isn’t for nothing, we each have a role to fulfill in the world:

But our High Priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then he sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand. There he waits until his enemies are humbled and made a footstool under his feet. For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy. — Hebrews 10:12-14

God the Father is on the throne. Jesus is on the throne at His right hand. So, “Who is He waiting on to humble his enemies and make them a footstool under His feet? Who is going to subdue them?”

From His place beside the Father, Jesus is waiting for His people — those who “are being made holy” — to partner with Him to put in place all that He came and died on the cross to achieve and restore. We are the Father’s hands and feet on the earth.

Christ is waiting on His people to take action and fulfill what we have been tasked to do.

The fact is, Heaven has granted every child of God power and authority (through the Holy Spirit) against Christ’s enemies. (Who, by the way, are not other people. Ephesians 6:12 is quite clear that our battles and struggles are not against “flesh and blood, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.” NLT) 

But that’s a subject for another day.

The question is, “Are you willing to step into your role?” Christ restored to us the right and responsibility to claim and steward the Earth (Psalms 115:16), but like the Children of Israel facing the Promised Land, we are required to advance forward in faith and take our inheritance.

Are you willing to trust the Lord to “take” the land? Are you willing to be a conduit of Heaven’s resources and provisions to the world? The Ekklesia are rising and in the power and strength of Christ are going to successfully challenge evil in heavenly places and subdue mighty powers of this dark world. 

"Will you be among them?

As chaotic, tumultuous, and anxiety-ridden as the world is right now, we are living at a time where seeds of divine revelation and restoration are starting to break through and bear fruit. In this time of great unhappiness and discontent all across the world, God is fulfilling promises of His Word that many have prayed and longed for. 

But a great many believers are missing what the Lord is doing because the "new thing" he is again ushering in in this appointed time isn't coming through traditional, denominational channels or with institutional religious oversight. The Holy Spirit is directly teaching and guiding people in a way that is challenging everything we think we know and we've been taught about how God works.

Throughout human history, the Lord has progressively pushed generations () and individuals in those generations) into closer, deeper, more personal relationship with Him. In this season that we're in, God is raising up an ekklesia of today whom I refer to as the "Ekklesia Kuriakos" which in Greek literally means an "assembly of the called, who belong to the Lord." These are believers who are answering His call to come into direct relationship with Him and who have hearts and minds to be guided directly by the Holy Spirit.

While some would ask, "What's the difference between the Ekklesia and "the church" as we have come to know it, the Ekklesia of today are radically different from that, which most of us recognize as typical or religious Christians. 

At its lackadaisical best, the Christian lifestyle in our society has largely been reduced to that of a "spectator sport" of people who "sit on the sidelines and watch the game."

And at its neurotic worse, it has become a social and political ideology of intolerance, of narrow mindedness, and bigotry against any who do not fit self-defined profile or wield its formalized banner. 

These aren't the people I'm talking to here. I'm speaking to believers within Christendom who find themselves longing for greater significance and who would be instruments of Christ's influence to bless others and affect greater positive change in the world.

Christian religion has failed to teach its converts how God has graced each and every believer with divine power and authority. They don't know what it is to be led and empowered by the Holy Spirit. They're trying to affect change through their own efforts and through human means, instead of recognizing, aligning with ,and relying on that which the Lord provides to accomplish His purpose. 

Nothing less produces lasting, impactful results. Frankly, this is why the world is in the condition that we find it. But in this appointed season, this "kairos" time, God is raising up a people who will change it; a people who are not content to leave things as they are; a people who recognize that the power Christ promised us isn't of us, but flows from the throne of Heaven through us.

The kingdom of God is advancing and will continue to. While there are those who do not have eyes to see what is occurring yet and believe that some things are simply impossible in our world, more and more are discovering firsthand each and every day that all things are indeed possible with God.