WONDER

We often say that Christmas is filled with “WONDER.”  Usually what we are talking about is how little kids are reacting to the sights & the sounds of seeing big trees lit up or when they see a present with their name on it.  I suppose they have wonder about such things because they only get them or see them occasionally. 

But we know that the Reason for the season, the only One who can provide lasting wonder in our lives is Jesus Christ.  Everything else, the decorations, the gifts and such only delight us for a moment.

But what does “wonder” really mean?  It is being so impressed with something that you wonder how it could have happened.  How did they build the pyramids?  It’s a wonder!  How did man fly to the moon?  A wonder!  More importantly, why did God send His only Son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins??  That’s the greatest wonder of all!

But there are more wonders.  Wonders which are yet to come.  The Bible speaks often about Signs & Wonders being performed through believers by God and by the Holy Spirit.  Signs and wonders include miracles and supernatural deeds of all kinds.

And so I leave you with this.  If this is a season of wonder, shouldn’t it be our job to fill the lives of others with signs and wonders?  And not just by presenting those we care about with greetings and gifts, but by truly ministering to them to the point that they “wonder” how God could care about them so much as to touch them by sending you as His vessel to their life and situation for such a time as this!?

So go and prophesy, go and pray for people, go and speak the good news, go and make Christmas a miracle for somebody by walking in the power of God through the Holy Spirit!  Then it will truly be a Merry Christmas, filled with Joy and Wonder because of your faithfulness as an agent of wonder!

We don't need Leaders like "Napoleon"

I was in Melbourne, Australia a few months ago speaking for a Church camp and conducting some other Church ministry.  A friend of mine took me to a wonderful museum in which we visited an incredible exhibit about the life of Napoleon Bonaparte which featured many relics & paintings.

Since then, I have thought about his life, the glory & the tragedy of it, quite a bit.  Thinking about him has impacted me more than I ever could have imagined. 

Napoleon was a key person in the French Revolution which featured overthrowing the Absolute Monarchy, Marie Antoinette, the Bastille and more.  Many movies and the classic book "A Tale of Two Cities" feature this famous time in history.   

He helped to free the French people through his efforts as a young officer who acheived fame, only later to make himself not only Emperor of France but of much of the world.  He freed people only to put them under his own foot of control.  They got rid of a King and got an Emperor instead.  What's the difference??

This reminds me of many leaders in the world and especially in the Church today.  I often see the results of ministers and ministries who have loosened the ties of the enemy on the lives of people through the power of the Gospel only then to bring them into a new kind of bondage.  It is as if they were set free from the forces of darkness only to be be re-shackled under the influence of modern day Pharisees.

The problem is that people often will follow the most charismatic, the most dynamic visionaries and they can be blinded by it all.  No wonder Jesus said the Pharisees were like the blind leading the blind.  (Luke 6:39).  I have discovered that just because somebody can preach very well, that doesn't make them qualified to lead and it certainly doesn't mean they know how to raise up disciples, which is what it is really all about. 

If we are to follow a visionary, which we should, we must make certain that their vision is from God and for God and not from their own imagination of becoming someone great by using God.

And even more importantly, we need to make sure we don't become little Napoleon's in Christ's Church.

Once we have freed people from the enemy, we must be the vessels which connect these new branches to the Vine (Jesus) directly.  Not making branches connected to other branches.  We need to guide them from a position of not being in the way and not making them relient on us.  Not controlling or driving them.  Not owning them and not receiving glory but rather giving all glory to God by building the overall Kingdom of God rather than our own sub-kingdoms.

Galatians 5:1-3 (NIV)

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

² Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. ³ Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law."