The Bubble Mower

 Some time ago I was going through some old boxes and found an old photo of my son, Britain, when he was a little boy, pushing a plastic lawnmower that puffed out streams of bubbles with every step. It took me back to those days when I was a young dad, mowing the yard under the hot Texas sun, my little boy watching from the house, eyes wide with fascination. He wanted so badly to join me, to be part of the action.

So, one day, I went to Walmart and bought him a bubble mower. Every Saturday after that, we’d head out together—me with the gas powered mower, him trailing behind with his plastic toy mower, bubbles and grass clippings swirling together in the air. His mower didn’t cut a single blade of grass. It just made bubbles. But to him, we were working together.

When the lawn was even and we’d worked up a thirst, we’d head inside, sweaty and tired, and pour ourselves glasses of iced tea. We’d sit at the table, clinking our glasses together, grinning like we’d just conquered the world. “We mowed the lawn, didn’t we, buddy?” I’d say. He’d beam, nodding proudly. When his mom, Traci, came out, we’d brag about our work—how we got the edges just right, how the yard looked perfect. His smile would stretch ear to ear, and my heart would swell. There’s nothing like spending time with my son.

One day, as I looked at him, I felt the Lord speak to me, kind and clear. “You do realize that’s you and me, right?” This was a shot to the ego because we had been in the sweet spot of buying land, building a church, a watching it grow. I was getting all kinds of recognition from our denomination and was constants reminded that we were being watched with great delight. It felt good. We had new people coming and many were giving their lives to Jesus and encountering the Holy Spirit. Lives were being impacted, and we were effective. It felt really good. But pride is a sneaky monster, and God won’t leave that unconfronted. 

He said. “You’re out there, pushing your bubble mower, thinking you’re doing big things for My kingdom. And that’s okay—I love that you try, and I love being with you. But I’m the one doing this work. You’re just blowing bubbles, and I  am delighted to make you look like a genius.”

It hit me hard, but it was so gentle. God lets us sweat and strive, lets us feel the weight of the work, and then He celebrates us, saying, “Well done. We cut the grass, didn’t we?” And I smile, knowing I’m just pushing the bubble mower, but He makes it matter. He makes it beautiful. And in those moments, sitting with my son, drinking iced tea, and I see it: the joy isn’t in what we accomplish, but in doing it together—Him and me, me and my boy, all of us covered in bubbles, grass, sweat, and grace.

His incredible grace and the furious love of God is the foundation of your identity and the fuel for your life. First Corinthians 13 is not just a description of love but a revelation of who God is and who you are becoming. As you behold Him, you are transformed, reflecting His patience, kindness, and endurance. This transformation is not about self-discipline but about surrender, allowing Christ in you, the hope of glory, to take the lead (Colossians 1:27).

God’s love is transformative because it is unconditional. He does not love you based on your performance but because you are His. This love casts out fear (1 John 4:18), frees you from shame, and empowers you to live boldly. When you know you are loved, you can love others without reservation, becoming a vessel of God’s grace in a broken world.

As you embrace this love, you’ll find that it changes everything. It reshapes your perspective, heals your wounds, and empowers you to live out your identity. You are not defined by your past, your mistakes, or the lies you’ve believed. You are defined by the love of God, a love that never fails and always endures. It’s bigger, faster, stronger, and more powerful than every lie you or anyone has ever believed about you.

The Joy of Ruling and Reigning

Your assignment as a child of God is no less than that of Adam in the Garden: to rule and reign. Genesis 1:26 is clear—God gave humanity dominion over the earth, a mandate to steward creation with wisdom and love. This calling hasn’t changed. You and I are called to reign according to our identity and rule according to our authority. But let’s not make this too heavy, like some cosmic job description. The word "authority" might sound serious, even intimidating, but it’s not meant to drag you down. The very essence of God’s presence is marked by joy, and this calling to rule and reign in union with Christ is meant to be an adventure marked by joy and overflowing with grace.

The Bible declares, "In the presence of the Lord is fullness of joy" (Psalm 16:11). If you’re not experiencing the abundance of enjoying life, don’t worry. You’re just beginning to discover the depth of your identity and authority in union with Christ. Jesus came to give us abundant life (John 10:10), not a life of religious drudgery or endless striving. The Christian life is not about grimly checking boxes or proving your worth to God and the church—it’s about living in the freedom and delight of who God created you to be. If you find yourself bogged down by seriousness, religion, or legalism, it’s a red flag telling you that you’ve forgotten the joy that marks God’s presence.

This joy is deeper than happiness. It will sustain you in grief and suffering. It is not a fleeting emotion but a reflection of God’s nature. In the context of this joy, God, whose very essence is love, prophesied you into being. He thought of you in a happy mood, with a heart full of delight. The Psalmist writes, "How precious are your thoughts toward me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand" (Psalm 139:17-18). Every thought God has toward you is precious, filled with love and purpose. He spoke you into existence with His voice and breath, crafting you as a unique expression of His heart.

No other creation in the universe is made like humanity. While God spoke the stars and seas into being, He formed humanity with His hands, voice, and breath together. This is union with Christ, our creator and sustainer, from the very beginning. The Bible tells us, "Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature" (Genesis 2:7). Picture this intimate moment: God, the Creator of all things, kneels in the dust, shapes Adam with His hands, lifts him to His face, and breathes His Spirit—the very Word—into his lungs. The first breath humanity took was the Holy Spirit, the life-giving presence of God Himself.

This truth shatters the idea that the Holy Spirit’s presence was a new phenomenon in Acts 2. The Spirit has always been the means of our existence, the breath that animates us. Acts 2 was not the arrival of the Spirit but a fresh outpouring, an upgrade in our awareness of what we’ve always had access to. The Spirit has never left us, for "in Him all things hold together" (Colossians 1:17). You cannot lose the presence of God; you can only lose your awareness of it. On a cellular level, you are held together by the power of His Word, a constant reminder of your origin in Him.

The joy of ruling and reigning comes from this awareness. When you know that you are held together by the Word of God, that His Spirit is the source of your life, you can step into your calling with confidence. You are not alone in this assignment. The God who created you is with you, empowering you to reflect His image and exercise His authority. This is not a task to be endured but a privilege to be enjoyed, a partnership with the Creator who delights in you.

(From an upcoming book on New Covenant Identity by Bill Vanderbush)

It Is Finished: The Cosmic Victory of the Cross

Turn to John 19:30, where we find what I believe are the three most important words ever uttered in all of time and eternity: "It is finished". These words, spoken by Jesus Christ from the cross, carry a weight that surpasses even the profound declarations of God’s love or the creation of humanity in His image. Today, I invite you to gather around the Word of God as we unpack one of the most misunderstood, mind-blowing moments in human history.

Picture Jesus on that old rugged cross, bloodied and bruised, shouting a phrase that still echoes through the ages: "It is finished". Just three words, three syllables, yet they carry immense weight. On this Easter Sunday, many sermons will focus on Jesus completing His redemptive work, tying it up neatly. But what if there’s more? What if "It is finished" is an invitation to something bigger, wilder, than we’ve ever imagined?

Let’s dive into this story, a journey that will challenge assumptions and set your heart ablaze with the truth of what Jesus accomplished. This isn’t just about the forgiveness of sins—though that’s massive. This is about a cosmic victory over death itself, the fulfillment of ancient promises, and a demonstration of God’s fierce love that rewrote humanity’s story. 

Imagine this scene: the sky dark, the earth trembling, clouds rolling in. Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, cries out with His final breath, "It is finished". For many, this signals the completion of redemption, the payment for sins. While that’s part of the story, it’s not the whole picture. Jesus’ work was just beginning to unfold. It wasn’t until He carried His blood into the heavenly Holy of Holies and sat at the Father’s right hand, as declared in Hebrews 10:12, that the full scope of our redemption was sealed.

So, what was finished? Jesus was announcing the end of the old covenant system—the Mosaic law, the priesthood, and the sacrifices. Born of Abraham’s line, circumcised, and raised under the law (Galatians 4:4), Jesus didn’t just live under this system; He fulfilled it perfectly. (Matthew 5:17). On the cross, He declared the old covenant done, its demands satisfied, and He opened up a new and living way.

Let’s go back to Genesis 12:2-3, where God promised Abraham, "I will bless you, make you a great nation, and through you, all the families of the earth will be blessed". This was no casual agreement but a blood covenant, sealed with sacrifice. The Hebrew word for covenant means “to cut,” reflecting the gravity of these agreements. When Israel received the law at Sinai (Exodus 20), it became the rulebook for the covenant. Yet, no one could keep it perfectly. God, in His mercy, provided a priesthood and sacrifices to cover—not erase—sin, as Hebrews 10:4 explains, since the blood of bulls and goats was only a temporary fix like a bandaid to a massive problem.

Enter Jesus, the seed of Abraham (Galatians 3:16), who lived a sinless life, embodying the law’s perfection. He didn’t just patch up the old system; He fulfilled and set it aside (Hebrews 8:13). The law, priesthood, and sacrifices were shadows pointing to Christ (Colossians 2:17). When He declared "It is finished", He closed the old covenant and ushered in the new covenant—His blood sealing a bond between the Father and humanity, bringing us into a new reality.

This new covenant, the covenant of Christ, is more than substitution; its vicarious representation. Jesus took us with Him to the cross, dying not just for us but as us, burying our old sin nature, and rising as us in resurrection power. He didn’t come to tweak behavior or stamp a ticket to heaven. He came to fix the root problem: death, introduced in Genesis 2:17 when God warned Adam and Eve that eating the forbidden fruit would bring death.

Death, not just sin, is the real enemy. Hebrews 2:14-15 tells us Jesus partook of flesh and blood to "render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery". Sin’s wages are death (Romans 6:23), but Jesus destroyed death’s power. Before the cross, He was already forgiving sins, as seen in Mark 2:5, when He told the paralyzed man, Son, your sins are forgiven. The cross wasn’t just about sin; it was about shattering death’s grip.

The early church obsessed over the resurrection because it proved death’s defeat. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:17, "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless, and you are still in your sins". The empty tomb is the victory, validating our innocence and making us alive in Christ (Romans 6:4). We’re not just forgiven; we’re reconciled, innocent, whole, and delivered by trusting in the finished work of the cross, and as we realize that truth we find ourselves confessing He is Lord and believing God raised Jesus from the dead (Romans 10:9).

Western Christianity often focuses tightly on sin and the cross, but the Eastern church emphasizes the resurrection’s triumph over death. Both are true: the cross deals with guilt and shame; the resurrection gives life and crushes death. Jesus, the vicarious last Adam (2 Corinthians 5:21) took our sin, shame, sickness, and death, giving us His righteousness and life. His blood satisfied justice once and for all (Hebrews 9:12), and when He sat at the Father’s right hand (Hebrews 1:3), it was the ultimate mic drop—mission accomplished.

Even Caiaphas, the high priest, unknowingly prophesied this in John 11:47-52, declaring that one man’s death would save the nation and gather God’s children into one. When Israel’s leaders cried, "His blood be upon us", Jesus turned their curse into grace, His blood redeeming not just Israel but all humanity (Hebrews 9:15). His earthly ministry revealed the Father’s heart, His vicarious work on the cross sealed redemption (Hebrews 9:24), and now, as our high priest, He intercedes for us (Romans 8:34), empowering us for the greater works He said we would do.

Why believe this? Because of the disciples. Ordinary men, once cowering in fear, encountered the resurrected Christ and became unstoppable, each dying brutally for the truth. James was beheaded, Andrew crucified, Peter crucified upside down, Paul beheaded, and others tortured or killed—none recanted. Their unwavering faith, sealed by their deaths, is to me the greatest historical case for the resurrection. (See my old Easter blog "Why I Believe")

What does this mean for us? Freedom. Freedom from death’s fear, sin’s guilt, and the old covenant’s demands. "It is finished" declared the end of striving and the dawn of grace, life, and union with the Father. Jesus said in John 14:20, "I am in the Father, and you are in me, and I am in you". This Easter, lean into this truth: you’re not just forgiven—you’re innocent, alive in Christ, seated in heavenly places. Confess Jesus as Lord, believe in His resurrection, and step into a new reality where death is defeated, sin is forgiven, and the Father’s love is unstoppable.

Celebrate this holy week with joy. Dance in the freedom Jesus won. Tell the world and all your religious friends: "It is finished", and live like it’s true—because it is.

(Blog edited from the transcript of the Bill Vanderbush podcast titled: "It is Finished, Really!")

Sheep, Goats, Rich Men, and Beggars

Sheep, Goats, Rich Men, and Beggars

(The following is an edited condensed transcript of a teaching from Bill's online class called "The Table". To sign up to hear the expanded teaching as well as join us live every Monday night, go to billvanderbush.com.)

This study is all about engaging with the Word—both the letter and the Spirit. Both are a mystery, and both contain elements that are easily misunderstood apart from a renewed mind.

When I say “the Word,” I’m talking about Jesus, the living Word, and the Bible, the written Word. The Bible reveals Jesus; it doesn’t confine Him. If you view Scripture through the lens of law, Jesus remains concealed behind religious barriers. The Scriptures are one giant question, to which Jesus is ultimately the answer.

Consider the story of Jesus on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35). Two disciples, disheartened by Jesus’ death, walk with Him without recognizing Him. Their sorrow blinds them, even though the resurrected Son of God is with them for seven miles. Jesus reveals Himself through the law and the prophets—the Old Covenant Scriptures. Intrigued, they invite Him to dinner, and only when He breaks bread do they recognize Him. Then, He vanishes, knowing how to make an exit. This shows the nature of engaging with the Word: we often seek formulas or codes—who’s in, who’s out, how to get to heaven—when the reality is far more dynamic.

When Jesus rose and ascended, and the Holy Spirit fell in Acts 2, God became closer than the disciples ever imagined—not just near enough to touch, but dwelling within us. This changes our identity and relationship with God, our Father. Preaching the resurrection isn’t about a future event but a present reality. Circumstances often distract us from this power, pushing our hope to a future time with no present responsibility. I recall a lady in my childhood church saying, “The devil’s attacking me, but pray I’ll hold out till the end.” My dad called that an obituary, not a testimony. We live a testimony life, declaring what Jesus has done and the hope He gives daily. The written Word points to the living Word, and His Spirit within us resonates this truth. What an incredible life!

Yet, difficult Scriptures can make us question God’s goodness. We revert to His holiness, saying, “He’s holy, so He can do what He wants,” letting that shape our perspective. But Jesus reveals God’s true nature. He tells scary stories but lives a grace-filled life. For example, He said, “If you deny me before men, I will deny you before my Father” (Matthew 10:33)—an absolute statement. Yet, Peter, who denied Jesus three times (Luke 22:54-62), was restored by Jesus on a beach (John 21:15-19), with no condemnation. Jesus’ actions seem to overturn His own words, showing that God can extend grace beyond what we expect.

Grace is unearned and belongs to those who don’t deserve it. Jesus, the author of grace, demonstrates God’s character through it. On the cross, He took everyone dead in sin with Him (2 Corinthians 5:14; Ephesians 2:1-5), making us alive by His love. This grace isn’t for us to exploit but to recognize as the heart of God’s nature.

Chris Gore recently shared a story about someone asking if he was “just another grace preacher.” I thought, if only every Christian were a grace preacher, proclaiming God’s love meeting us at our worst, raising us to heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6). Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” Both grace and faith are gifts from God. We live in Christ, who is grace itself (1 Corinthians 1:30).

Now, let’s explore a challenging passage: the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25:31-46. It begins, “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all His angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats” (Matthew 25:31-32). The sheep, on His right, are told, “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34), because they fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and visited the sick and imprisoned. The goats, on His left, are told, “Depart from Me, accursed ones, into eternal fire, which has been prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41), for failing to do these acts.

Both groups are surprised, asking, “Lord, when did we see You?” (Matthew 25:37-39, 44). The sheep don’t know they’re sheep, and the goats don’t know they’re goats. This challenges the Western evangelical focus on knowing you’re saved. Early theologians like Clement of Alexandria (150–215) saw this as a call to Christ-like love, Origen (185–254) as a contrast between divine wisdom and earthly selfishness, and John Chrysostom (347–407) as a lesson in compassion. Augustine of Hippo (354–430) saw it as universal judgement and tied it to works distinguishing the saved, but earlier views saw the fire as purifying, not punitive.

The Greek word for “punishment” in Matthew 25:46, kolasis, means pruning or correction for improvement, not eternal torment. “Nations” (ethnos) refers to people groups divided by ethnicity or systems. Jesus isn’t condemning entire nations but systems rooted in selfishness, not love. Satan, the accuser (kategoros), thrives on categorization—dividing by race, gender, nationality, or social status. Jesus prayed for unity in John 17:21, reflecting the Trinity’s love, rooted in the last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45).

This parable dismantles division, urging us to love the least. In America, 43,000 denominations reflect our tendency to divide. King David’s census (2 Samuel 24) brought judgment for prideful division. God’s heart, seen in Psalm 23:5, is to prepare a table for enemies to discover they’re brothers. Jesus modeled this on the cross, loving those who cursed Him (Luke 23:34).

We seek love, but deeper, we seek to be love. This parable shows no selfish system will last; only love endures. Titus 2:11says, “The grace of God, bringing salvation, has appeared to all men,” teaching us to live righteously. Jesus’ command to “love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:34) excludes no one, even the proud, whom God opposes (James 4:6).

Early Christian art on tombs often depicted Jesus carrying both lambs and goats, symbolizing an incredible hope. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) further illustrates this. Jesus targets the Pharisees, “who were lovers of money” (Luke 16:14), to confront their pride. The story begins, “There was a rich man who habitually dressed in purple and fine linen, joyously living in splendor every day. A poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate, covered with sores and longing to be fed with crumbs which were falling from the rich man’s table. Besides, even the dogs were coming and licking his sores”(Luke 16:19-21). Both die: Lazarus is “carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom,” while the rich man, “in Hades, lifted up his eyes, being in torment” (Luke 16:22-23).

The rich man sees Lazarus with Abraham and begs, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus so he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame” (Luke 16:24). Abraham replies, “Child, remember that during your life you received good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things. Now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides, between you and us there is a great gulf fixed” (Luke 16:25-26). The rich man pleads for his brothers, but Abraham says, “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them” (Luke 16:29). The rich man insists, “No, Father Abraham, if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent,” but Abraham counters, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead” (Luke 16:30-31).

This parable isn’t a diatribe on the afterlife but a cultural jab at the Pharisees’ pride. Jesus uses Hades, a Greek mythological underworld, and Abraham’s bosom, a Jewish concept, to provoke. Jews didn’t believe in heaven or hell as modern Christians do; they revered Abraham as their savior figure. By placing a rich Jew in Hades for wealth alone and a poor, unclean man in Abraham’s bosom for poverty, Jesus flips their values. The rich man’s request for Lazarus to touch his tongue—despite Lazarus’ sores—would disgust the Pharisees, as would his depiction of Abraham as powerless and indifferent. Jesus crafts each detail to infuriate, exposing their reliance on heritage over God’s love.

The parable’s climax points to Jesus Himself: “They will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead” (Luke 16:31). This foreshadows His resurrection, which the Pharisees will reject. In John 11:47-52, their reaction proves this: “The chief priests and the Pharisees convened the council, saying, ‘What are we doing? This man is performing many signs’” (John 11:47). Caiaphas prophesies, “It is expedient for you that one man die for the people so that the whole nation will not perish” (John 11:50), unknowingly declaring Jesus’ purpose: “to gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad” (John 11:52).

This parable challenges ethnic and social divisions, showing that pride in status—whether wealth or heritage—blinds us to God’s grace. The rich man’s fate in Hades isn’t eternal but a mirror to reflect the Pharisees’ self-righteousness. Jesus, the cornerstone, becomes their stumbling block (1 Peter 2:6-8), dismantling their categorizations to reveal a God who loves beyond boundaries, calling us to do the same.

In John 11:47-52, Caiaphas unwittingly prophesies Jesus’ death for the nation and to gather all into one. Jesus breaks down divisions (Ephesians 2:14), making one new man (2 Corinthians 5:17). His blood revalues us, declaring, “You are mine.”

The Unanswered Prayer of God

Do you remember the time that God prayed? You can find it in John 17. The flesh-and-bone incarnation of God bent low one night to draw close to the very earth from which He had formed man in the dust. Surrounded by men made in His image and likeness, the Divine Son lifted His voice to the Father, reflecting the internal conversation first recorded in Genesis 1:26 when God said, “Let us make man in our image and likeness.”

Once again, an internal dialogue happens within the Godhead, but this time, we hear it in human language and words we can understand. What we hear is stunning because Jesus is praying not merely about us but for us. He expresses a desire, reflecting the hope and longing of a sovereign God who has unlimited power to accomplish His will. And yet, instead of forcing our will to align with His, He gives us indescrib- able freedom, delegating both authority and responsibility to us.

Now, imagine you have a child whose room looks like a third-world country after a tsunami. You tell your spouse, “It’s my greatest desire that Jeffrey cleans his room and stops throwing toys at his brother.” What if Jeffrey overhears this, blows it off, and ignores his dad? Two weeks later, the room is still a mess, and his brother is still ducking for cover.

If that scenario pulls your parental triggers, you may be shocked at the grace of our Father, who has waited two thousand years for us to care about His greatest expressed desire.

Try this question on for size.

Can you imagine God praying a prayer that He expected us to answer?

I realize that’s a lot of pressure, so let me ask you a different question. What is unity to you? I will return to these questions in a moment, but first, I invite you to think about some other words: Instantly! Suddenly! Acceleration! These and so many more adrenaline-inducing words flood commerce and marketing as companies and services strive to speed things up even more. A culture flooded with these trigger words has trained us to live with a certain level of expectation and entitlement —even when we pray. Instant answers are the hope behind every fervent prayer, and why not? If Amazon can deliver my package the same day I order it, why not expect the same measure of efficiency from heaven?

We find ourselves entitled to getting things when we want them and the way we want them. Let’s revisit this thought: Imagine waiting two thousand years for an answer to a prayer. Such has been the case for our Lord and Savior since the night He uttered the profound and mysterious words found in John chapter 17.

“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17:20-24, NASB)

In that prayer for every believer, Jesus appeals for our unity, defining it as a oneness that reflects the other-centered, self-giving love existing within the Godhead of the Father, Spirit, and Son. Yet two millennia later, the answer to this prayer has yet to materialize on a large scale or as a sustainable culture. Now, don’t give place to guilt and shame here, believing we’re just a bunch of rebellious losers. If we don’t under- stand what He was actually talking about, we’ll never see what Jesus expressed in prayer realized.

I believe we have a pretty major misunderstanding of what unity is. When I talk with people about what unity means to them, they almost always define it as agreement in some form. This definition of unity tends to lend itself to creating cultural gatherings that reflect a unifor- mity of style over substance.

Many Christians envision an idealistic, utopian, spiritual existence that looks something like a commune. One group may be bearded neo- hippies living in a retreat center in the woods, drinking craft coffee, swaying to jangly acoustic guitars in daily singalongs and Bible stud- ies. Others envision laser-lit mega gatherings, with stadiums full of thousands fixated on a single individual, leading them into a collective single-mindedness—until they’re all rocking in unison. Still others pine for anything that feels like church without it being “churchy.” Whatever that means.

But I don’t think any of these alone is what Jesus was praying for.

One day in prayer, I asked the Lord to help me understand unity. As I began journaling what I felt stirring, as a response from the Father’s heart, this is what I wrote: “While there is tremendous power in agree- ment, unity is not necessarily agreement. Unity is much deeper than agreement. If unity were merely agreement, then all of us would live our lives arguing others into our opinion as best as we could.” (And I think we can agree that happens often, especially online.)

The unity that Jesus prayed for is not Him cheering us on to create conflict and division, elevating the rightness of our opinions over the righteousness of His desire. This is what I believe is meant by unity and oneness from the perspective of Christ: Unity is when you find yourself willing to lay your life down in sacrificial compassion for people who don’t even agree with you.

One day, a lawyer came to Jesus and essentially asked, “What’s the best the Law can do?” Jesus responds with, “Love God and love others,” which has become a slogan for many evangelical churches. But, this man wasn’t asking what the highest revelation of Christian love was. He was simply asking for the greatest commandment in the Old Covenant Law.

In light of this, consider the new commandment that Jesus gave: “Love one another as I have loved you.” Under the Old Covenant, you love like you. Under the New Covenant, you love like Jesus. This is how we are empowered with supernatural compassion to love our enemies, bless those who curse us, and pray for those who despitefully use us. This revelation is also how we fulfill the divine call on each of our lives to live the ministry of reconciliation.

With that understanding of our mandate as children of God, we become a living invitation for people to witness the goodness and glory of God through the love we have for one another. As long as we define unity as agreement, we will continue to create an “us and them” culture, creating division and turning entitlement into a Christian virtue.

If you take a close look at the prayer of Jesus in John 17, you’ll discover that the focus of His prayer was on the disciples with him, as well as all those who would come to believe in Him through their word. There are currently an estimated 2 billion people on planet Earth who claim to believe in Jesus. And yet, within that collective mass of humanity, there are some divisions so deep and vitriolic that the venom and violence of our discourse have spilled into the public square of nearly every online forum, like a backed-up toilet. We’ve made a mess of our message, and nobody seems to care. As a people of grace, I believe we should care—because it matters to God. The Son of God has only one bride.

When we gather, we have the opportunity to put this unity on display, recognizing that there is more than one kind of unity. When we come together, we acknowledge that there are different styles and prefer- ences when it comes to preaching, music, seating arrangements, atmos- pheric elements, and more. Every opinion holds value on some level because it allows each unique identity to be expressed, weaving a tapestry of diversity into the beautiful and glorious body of Christ. Diversity is beautiful; division is not.

In our gatherings, we have the opportunity to exercise both individual and corporate liberty. In our individual liberty, we express ourselves as those who have an intimate relationship with God, reflecting a union as unique as the individual. During corporate gatherings, however, we should look for opportunities where leaders invite everyone to unite in expressions of worship or learning that demonstrate the other-centered, self-giving relationship of love between people.

There’s something remarkably powerful about these moments, and this is where agreement works into unity. Agreement doesn’t cause unity to manifest; it’s a byproduct of an already-existing unity grounded in pure love for God and one another. And this is how the world will know we are in Christ. With that confidence, we can say with our elder brother, Jesus, “If you’ve seen me/us, you’ve seen the Father.”

(You can find the rest of this book, including many chapters by many amazing authors, on Amazon.com. Search for the title, Free to Gather, compiled by Robin Smit.)

An Unbranded Revival

In Acts 11:26 there’s a significant moment here as an entire year of teaching and discipleship is condensed into a single verse, and yet it carries historical importance because this company of believers is branded as Christians at this point for the very first time. 

By this point in the story nearly 10 years has passed since the ascension of Jesus Christ. What baffles my mind as I consider this is how the early church was able to operate for more than a decade with thousands and thousands of followers without being branded. 

These days we don’t launch a church without a brand, a logo, a website, and a social media team. But the success of the early church transcended all human marketing strategies. 

Now I don’t believe there is anything inherently wrong with marketing as it proclaims the good news of the gospel and draws peoples attention away from the countless distractions around them. But I would like to point out to you That you don’t need to market an authentic move of the Holy Spirit. As long as there is an avenue for the testimonies of what God is doing to move from one person to another, the life and resurrection power of Jesus will flow. 

A Free and Fearless Temple

Can a Christian be cursed or have a demon? There is no biblical precedent where a believer in Jesus Christ can be cursed in any way. There isn’t a single example in the Scripture of anyone breaking a curse off of a believer. I know that may be hard to believe, and it may not be your own experience, but if we’re just looking at the Scriptures, this is what we’ve got. You may get angry at this and you may want to fight for your right to be cursed, but why?

Ready for this? There is not one example in the Bible of a demon called lust, or perversion, or immorality. However, in Galatians 5 what we normally attribute to demonic influence are called “works of the flesh”. The word for works is “Ergon” meaning anything accomplished by hand or mind. 

As a matter of fact, one of the few named ungodly “spirits” that is in the Bible is fear. 2 Timothy 1:7 “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind.” How does it get dealt with? 1 John 4:8 “Perfect love casts out fear.”

Every now and then someone once again brings up the possibility that a believer in Jesus can have a demon. So then we’ll have Christians wondering if they do, and that invites partnership with a spirit of fear, which isn’t from God. So the very teaching designed to educate the believer telling them that their bad behavior is the devil becomes the very doorway by which a fear gets a foothold in our life. Clever. 

But can a believer do evil things? Sure. God tells Cain in Genesis 4, “Sin is crouching at the door. It’s desire is for you but you must master it.” God doesn’t say that sin is in you. (And God doesn’t say that sin is in you because of what your parents did. So much for generational curses.) The door represents a barrier over which we have authority. What’s in your life? Whatever you open the door to. Jesus says in Revelation 3:20 “Behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and dine with him and he with me.” The reality is that we can have in our life whatever we open the door to, for better or worse.

In Col 3 we are told, “Put to death what is earthly in you.” Then he lists some works of the flesh. He doesn’t say these are all demons. He says these things are just earthly, so kill them off within you. How do we do that? Galatians 5:16 says, “Walk in the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” Union is the solution.

If we think that every tendency, temptation, desire, or habit is a demon, then we’ll be getting deliverance over and over and never learn to walk in freedom and the fruit of the Spirit, which includes self control. 

So what’s happening when a believer in Jesus is experiencing temptations and gives in? Is it the devil? Well that would be far more convenient to make demons the scapegoat for our issues. But I believe what we’re dealing with most is our “self” out of control, but there’s a solution for that. Paul addresses this in 1 Cor 6.

He first says in verse 12 that everything is lawful. In other words God’s not going to stop you. The new law is that you’re free (Romans 8). But just because we can do a thing doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. He says not everything is beneficial or profitable, and the next line says, “but I will not be mastered by anything.” Go back to what God said to Cain about sin. “It’s desire is for you but you must master it.” Who is the master here? There is an often ignored fruit of the Spirit called self control that we must give attention to. The Holy Spirit is given to us to teach us how to be free, how to walk in freedom, and how to manage our freedom without being mastered by anything that would bring us into bondage.

Paul goes on to talk about food, immorality, and even prostitution. He then poses a question in verse 19, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?” If someone has been fornicating with prostitutes, how could they still be a temple of the Holy Spirit? Paul doesn’t say because of what you did you’re no longer a temple. He’s asking have you forgotten who you are or do you just not know?

The fact that he poses this as a question tells us that these people who have fallen to the most serious cultural taboos either don’t know who they are or they have simply forgotten. They’re living contrary to their identity by either ignorance or careless neglect. Paul never says these believers have opened the door to demons and now need deliverance. We’ve just forgotten our true identity in Christ. Are demons real? Yes. Do we have to be afraid of them? No. We just don’t get to blame our ignorance or neglect on the devil. In both instances where Paul confronts the devil in a person, it was in someone who was not a believer. The Apostle Paul never implies that a believer can have a demon, even if they’re doing something seriously wrong. Once Paul tells the church in 1 Cor 5 to hand a wicked person over to satan for the destruction of the flesh that their spirit may be saved. (Let that rock your theological boat.) Later in 2 Corinthians Paul tells them to restore him, but mentions nothing about deliverance. There’s no indication that Paul blamed the behavior of the man on anyone other than the man himself. We have made self control a neglected fruit of the Spirit by blaming the devil every time we lose control. 

He finishes the chapter up by saying, “Glorify God in your body.” 

Here’s the way we parent, or exercise mastery over the self. Glorify God! The word for Glorify is “Doxazo”. It means to think, praise, extol, magnify, celebrate, honor, adorn with lustre and splendor, render excellent, make renowned, and to cause the dignity and worth of God to become manifest. When you see God as glorious, and then realize that you’re made in his image, what does that say about you? Christ in you, the hope of glory, becomes the pervasive identity that brings the deepest pleasure and satisfaction to your spirit, soul, and body that could ever be. 

Verse 17 is one of the most beautiful promises in the Bible. “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” (KJV) The word “joined” here is the word “Kollao” which means to glue, cement, or fasten together. Union changes everything. A revelation of union reveals your identity silencing the influence of darkness in your life.

So then as a result of this, Paul says in verse 18, “Flee immorality.” He doesn’t call it a spirit that needs to be cast out but an option that is to be avoided. The fruit of the spirit of self control empowers us to say yes to what is good and no to what is evil. Being a Christian is not a membership to a club. It’s being born and and adopted into a family by the will of God. (John 1:12-13) It’s a revelation of union with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, living, moving, and being with and within us to fill the earth with the knowledge of the Glory of the Lord. 

Make this your declaration. If I am all in Christ and Christ is all in me, then I have no need to fear for I am a temple of the Holy Spirit. Evil or darkness is not of me for the light of the world is all in all within me. I am one with God, in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and He did that. Thank you, Jesus.

(For more on the topic of Angels, Demons, and Spiritual Joyfare, go to billvanderbush.com and download the series on the resource page.)

Bill Vanderbush

The Blessing of Beneficial Consequences

The Blessing of Beneficial Consequences 

By Bill Vanderbush

Maturity happens when you come to care about knowing what the people who have gone before you know. Immaturity is revealed in a young traveler who despises the voice of an older traveler speaking to them revealing where they are, because it feels condescending. And pride won’t entertain condescension. But the perspective is flawed for the older traveler is not calling down but rather calling back. It is the heartbreaking cry from the voice of a traveler who cannot call back to their younger self, warning of the perils of limited foresight. They call out across the gap of generations. 

The generation gap is a chasm bridged by the wisdom of those farther along who care enough to call back while other old travelers, jaded or perhaps amused by the arrogance of the adventuring young traveler, delights to watch them learn by consequence the hard lessons they learned in their own formerly proud perspective. They have learned a valuable lesson. Never underestimate the educational value of consequences. 

But what gives pause to the amused elder is that realization that not all consequences are the same. Some consequences you don’t recover from. Some leave scars of regret so deep that decades later the pain hasn’t subsided as much as deepened into either fear or wisdom. Fear is that crippling brokenness that pulls the parking brake on living. And perhaps that’s what keeps the young traveler from heeding the call of those further along. As they look ahead they see the pause of progress and despise the fear that made them quit. Rather than fear, the challenge to the old traveler is to move in wisdom, but keep moving. 

Wisdom is the ability to spot regret in advance. It’s the ability to recognize that every choice has a consequence attached to it, and to choose the choices that carry the blessing of beneficial consequences. 

So then it’s the old traveler who is still traveling who has the ability to inspire the young traveler coming along. It is with this heart that we hear an old traveler named Paul state in 1 Corinthians 11:1, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” The wise old traveler recognizes that every old traveler is a young traveler to an even older traveler. We never stop being a student. The question we all must never stop asking is which old traveler are you going to follow? Paul evealed that the old traveler he was listening to was the one known as the Ancient of Days. He is a trustworthy guide for he is the Word made flesh who dwelt among us, who is aware of every step we’ve ever taken and who never leads us astray. 

Jesus is the traveling God who is not afraid of the journey. The journey that takes him from the creator’s expression of the invention of humanity, forming mankind in his image, to stepping into the image of mankind only to be rejected to death by that very humanity. From the place of mankind’s greatest expression of cancellation, he forgives, redeems, and reconciles us in a journey through death and back to life again into a glory that doesn’t separate us from Him, but grants us access to that same glory. The glory of himself. And that’s why Jesus Christ is the oldest traveler who is worth following into the endless adventure that is the glory of God.

Journey on. 

From Fatigue to Fascination

 From Fatigue to Fascination

As humanity we have become accustomed to fatigue. Even spiritually. Ministry fatigue defines the life of many people whether they lead a church, or just attend. Much of that has to do with a consistent pressure to always be doing productive things for God. If we as Christians are afraid of anything, it’s disappointing, missing, or squandering the favor of the Lord. That can certainly wear you out. If you live your life in fatigue long enough, you can find yourself in a spiritual desert. Fatigue happens when our perspective of life includes the word “complicated.” It’s when merely living becomes a labor and a chore. Engaging with people becomes work. Returning emails becomes work. Connecting with people becomes work. Ministry becomes work. Being a good spouse becomes work. Juggling friendships becomes work. Handling the pressures of parenting becomes work. And the holiday season just seems to compound it all. 

In life and ministry, we can start relying on our own gifting, skills, and abilities, rather than operating in the wisdom and the power of God. This is called replacing divine synergy with human strategy. Eventually, our lives become marked by complacency, distraction, and apathy. That’s the point where we find ourselves unable to manage the state of our emotions. Soon we start making decisions that lack wisdom. It’s the opposite of the prosperity of soul. Now for many years, I have said that we are suffering as the body of Christ (and humanity in general) with an identity crisis. Yet I believe it goes deeper than that. We are experiencing an intimacy crisis. A crisis of intimacy comes from extended periods of time of not beholding the Lord or living the reality of our union with him. When Jesus isn’t first in our focus we lose that childlike gift of wonder. 

So is intimacy with God that brings strength and rejuvenates our joy actually something that is accessible? Absolutely. When we experience the new birth of the saving grace of Jesus Christ, there is an inward witness of the Holy Spirit that reveals the power of God that makes all things new. We realize that the resurrection of Jesus Christ validated our innocence, severed us from the bondages of sin, eliminated the barriers of distance and separation, and reconciled us once and for all to the loving heart of the Father. When we become disconnected from intimacy with God, our very identity gets distorted. Now you may say that your life is relatively simple. I would ask you this question. Are you fascinated with Jesus? As far as I can tell, the more complicated life gets, the less fascinated we are with Jesus.  

Jesus said in Matthew 11:28-30, “Come unto Me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

The main thing I’d like you to notice about this Scripture is the that it’s all about Jesus and the priceless gift of His rest. He is our union. He is our peace. He is the one who heals the mind, the will, and the emotions. Christmas is such a beautiful time to shift our perspective from the distracted world around us to behold Jesus from the cradle, to the cross, to our hearts, and into eternity. This Christmas, our prayer for you is that fatigue is replaced with fascination. And that the fascination with Jesus would impart rest to your heart and soul. 

St John of the Cross (1542-1591) wrote the following poem for the advent season.

If you want, the Virgin will come walking down the road

pregnant with the holy, and say, “I need shelter for the night, please take me inside your heart, my time is so close.”

 

Then, under the roof of your soul, you will witness the sublime

intimacy, the divine, the Christ taking birth forever,

as she grasps your hand for help, for each of us

is the midwife of God, each of us.

Yet there, under the dome of your being does creation

come into existence eternally, through your womb, dear pilgrim–

the sacred womb in your soul,

as God grasps our arms for help; for each of us is

His beloved servant

never far.

Recovering What We've Lost

Recovering What We've Lost (Transcribed from the podcast)

Is it possible that we've been living far below what God intended for us for 2000 years? I've read quite a bit of the early church fathers in recent weeks and hearing some of the regular miracles that these guys walked in. Things that we would call miracles were normal lifestyle to these folks. Matter of fact, it was the lifestyle of Jesus that they emulated it. They weren't simply imitating Jesus.

They had stepped into something in the term terms of a new covenant, what we call the Christic covenant around here, the covenant of Christ. The awareness that our oneness with God had opened up let me just use the term realms. Realms of access, empower and authority that made the supernatural power of God the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead that now dwells in us physically. That same power was now made available to the early church. Read stories of people who raised the dead on a regular basis.

People who walked on water just simply because it was there. People who worked and read and just did life in the evenings, not by the glow of a candle or any light source other than themselves, by the glow of their own countenance would read and work into the night simply because the glory of the Lord shone upon them so deeply. We live in a wonderful modern age that is often vilified and cursed because of all of its complexity. But the reality is so many writings that were lost for centuries are coming to light and being digitized and made available to us from orthodox churches in the east, in Greece and Russia and other areas, monasteries and whatnot. That are able to actually give us insight into the first three and four centuries of Christian life as people stepped into an awareness of what it literally means to be united with God.

Not just simply have a relationship with Jesus, but recognize that that relational aspect of being invited into a family by adoption gives us rights and privileges as children of God. And who is left out of this equation? The cross was for everyone, for all time and eternity. For anyone who will just simply look to Jesus as the author and finisher of their faith, as the Savior of the world, the one who eradicates sin, who overcomes all of our infirmities, all of our weaknesses, single handedly saving us to the point where we put our trust in him completely. That it really is all about Jesus these days.

I love the fixation that people have on Jesus from a posture of recognizing that thank you Jesus for saving us so that someday we don't have to fear the shedding of this mortal life to step into the realm of the unseen in eternity. So that means that after we die there's a hope of heaven that's awaiting us. But you understand that what the gospel proclaimed was that the power of God was not just meant to save you from this physical age into a heavenly realm where there you would then meet up with Jesus when you die. It was more about the entirety of our life being entwined with God. We're like Enoch walking along with God one day just simply moves from one realm into another.

And as I read the writings of the early Church, the experiences that the first 300 years of Christians had impacting the world with the power of God. Not just the message of what Jesus did on the cross to save us from our sins, but the Gospel included what he saved us to. And that is to be sons and daughters with rights and privileges, walking in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit who now dwells within believers. It's amazing how those 1st 300 years of Christianity have somehow been lost to us. We don't know a whole lot about that period of time, but there's a lot of writing that gives us hints as to.

How the Holy Spirit in a time where there's so little distraction, no Netflix, no Facebook, no internet, no iPhones. What life can you build with God when all you have is Jesus, the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, the message of the Gospel? Don't get me wrong, I love the creativity and the storytelling and all the wonderful things that people create that give us the ability to step into another world. Hopefully it awakening your imagination to the possibility that there is more to this life than just to pay bills and die. More to this life than just the physical world that you see around you. More to this life than just the normal physical experience that people have. Think about 300 years, though. It doesn't seem like a long time when you think of it in the span of the last 2,000 years since the cross. But you know, the reality is our nation isn't even that old. When you think of all of the history wrapped up in this nation alone, the nation, the United States of America in less than 300 years, and think about how little we know of the Christians of the first three centuries.

I think it's important for us to go back and see, what did they have? I mean, did they accomplish anything in those first three centuries? Well, they actually did. Those Christians, in their day, made such an impact on the known world. And Constantin, the global leader at the time, essentially, came to Christ, came to faith in Jesus Christ. And isn't that what everybody wants today? They think this is going to be the salvation of society. If we can just get a world ruler who is a Christian, a world ruler who believes in Jesus. Well, that's happened before, and it didn't serve us well. I mean, granted, there was a lot of persecution that the first three centuries of Christians dealt with that Constante brought to an end. And thankfully, people could finally worship freely. So there were some amazing benefits. But what it produced was a society that legalized Christianity in force. Essentially, what we're dealing with is a world today that hopes we will go back to that, that forces people to become Christians, forces people in a sense where this country only tolerates Christianity. And by law, if you don't adhere to that, then you don't belong here.

I think lot of people think that that is utopia. That's the thing that we want. But the fact is that doesn't serve us well. God doesn't even restrict people to a place where you absolutely have to adhere to this in order to even have a heartbeat or a breath. He gives us freedom. He gives us liberty. And liberty and freedom are necessary for people to come to a revelation of a knowledge of God, who by his very nature is love because love can only be experienced in the context of choice. I think a lot of people are pressing toward a society where the choice to believe in anything other than Jesus completely taken away. And if you don't want to do that, then, well, you shouldn't even be. You shouldn't even exist. And you wonder, how in the world can things like the crusades even come about? Well, it's that mentality of forcing people to come to a belief in Christ. You're going to worship Jesus or else a concept. And that's not the way this thing works. Jesus Christ came to give himself freely to us, to reconcile us back to himself.

On the cross, there was something that happened that gave us access to something in God we don't fully, today, yet grasp. I want to just come back around one more time to just saying the first three centuries of Christians, they had something, they walked in something. There was a measure of anointing and grace that these people walked in that we still don't fully understand. Matter of fact, I would say that we've lost something and part of the loss of that was people came into Christ and in the fourth century, it was nominal Christianity that came about. In other words, Christians in name only. They have no interest in Jesus at all. But they became cultural Christians because that was the norm of the day. It was a forced norm upon people because the ruler of the world at the time said it had to be so. So multitudes of people said, Fine, I'll believe in Jesus. Just because I have to. I have no doubt that there were people that were introduced to a faith in Christ because of that pressing of that pressure upon them to do so. I have no doubt of that.

But it created all kinds of controversies and ideas and complicated the faith so much that we pushed aside the theophany of the appearance of God, the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives to start arguing about theology. It's why the Nicene Creed was even needed for us to somehow define that Jesus was very God of very God, that Jesus and the Father were one, that Jesus was not just one of us who became like God because he somehow lived a perfect, sinless life. No, that Jesus was the incarnation of God into human flesh. We had to argue about that in the Nicene Creed, in the Council of Nicaea, in the early 300s. We had to argue about this entire concept back and forth as leaders of the church. Why? Because in the short 25 or so years from the time that Christianity was forced upon people. Suddenly, there were all these ideas about how this thing works in formula as opposed to how God is known by presence, by simply following his presence. As in Mark 16, verse 20, speaks about how the disciples went all over the world preaching the gospel. 

How did they carry the same message? Because the word is synergized. The Holy Spirit synergized their message. God was literally pulling them together and knitting them together because they were decentralized from human leadership to the point where they were led by Christ himself, who was always meant to be the head of the church. Could it be that those first three centuries of Christians who didn't have a single leader or figurehead lording over them in a sense from a human capacity were so synergized in their message because they actually believed that Ephesians 4 had come to pass. The Apostles, Prophets, Pastors, and Teachers were there for the equipping of the Saints, for the ministry, for the working of the ministry, for the edifying, the building up of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith, to the stature that belongs to the fullness of Christ under the headship of Christ. Could it be that for perhaps more than two centuries, and to three centuries of Christians, lived in such a way that there was such a plugging in to the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives that they realized that the fivefold Ministry of Apostles, Prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers had run its course, had done its job, and that we reverted, in a sense, back to needing the human fivefold Ministry Church because we perhaps stepped back away from the maturity that we had begun to walk in, from the power that we had begun to walk.

How do we know that's the case? Because you read the stories of these early Christians and how they treated laws of nature like they were suggestions. How raising the dead was not an uncommon practice. How common is it today? In civilized countries, almost never hear about anything about this. Maybe second, thirdhand information, questionable sources at best. Listen, these guys, apparently in the early church, in their first 300 years of Christianity, these people walked in the miraculous in such a way that it was commonplace. Story is told of a desert father named Abba Sioses, who is leading a group of young people to a revelation of who Christ is in them, the hope of glory. In other words, the joyful expectation, the power of heaven manifesting upon your life and flowing through your life is supposed to be common. And so a widow comes to him and she's weeping and she says, I don't know what to do. My husband died, but he borrowed this money from a man. And this man is threatening to take me and my children into slavery because we can't pay back the money because we don't know where my husband hid the money that he borrowed.

Abba Sioses says, Take us to this man, the dead man, not the living man, the dead man. She takes him to where her husband is laying in death. And he cries out to God. And next thing he knows, says to the dead man, Where have you hidden the money? And the dead man responds and answers, comes back to life to reveal where the money has been hidden. And Habeas Ciose, he finally says, Now sleep until your resurrection. In other words, he raises him up, then puts him back down again. Why he didn't keep him alive? I have no idea. But the men that are with this guy, this desert father who walked in this power, the men who are with him fall down on the ground in absolute fear. They can't believe what they've just seen. And Abel, this is the point of the story. He looks and raises them up and he says, Stand to your feet. He says, This is not a great matter. The Lord has done this because of the widow and because of the orphan. In other words, all the power of God flows through love. And he says, Yet what God desires most is a soul that is pure.

In other words, he points all the way back to this idea that, listen, the biggest miracle of all is that you actually walk in the purity and the Grace that Jesus paid for on the cross. It's not raising the dead that's the great miracle. It's the fact that you and I live by the Grace of God. That's amazing. Stop and think about the idea of raising somebody from the dead and not exploiting it to write a book or build a Ministry, but purely because God loves and cares for people and wants their needs taken care of here in this Earth, but gives us power and authority to live and move and have our being in the Holy Spirit. Could it be that that early church, those early Christians transcended their need for the Apostles, Prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers because they had so plugged into the headship of Christ for those first three centuries. You can see writers putting out their things that they saw, they heard, they learned from the Lord. But the reality is we don't even know who was actually the point person, the human being that was leading during those times.

Who did the people look to? There was always desert fathers had disciples around them, but that was the deal. We were all supposed to be making disciples. You become a disciple of someone until you begin to realize the truth of the identity of who you are, then you turn and do the exact same thing. Every man was a minister. Every person was a pastor in a sense. Everyone was called to replicate the discipleship process that had happened in their own life. That's what keeps us from looking at the first three centuries of Christianity and saying, Oh, here's the Billy Graham of that day, or here's the person that everybody can point to in these decades and say they were leading the denomination. There was no denomination. There was only Christ. I just want to rip all of the complication division that we've just created today back down the simplicity of things. You say, why wouldn't we have advanced from that time? It's the same way that the old covenant was. You start with Ten Laws, you end with 613. And the complication creates concepts of God that caused us to crucify the Incarnate Son of God when He's standing before us.

Today, we have, I believe, done the exact same thing with the New Covenant that the Pharisees did with the Old Covenant. And we have complicated the theophany, the appearance of Christ with the theology, the rules of engagement, the terms of engagement. How do we even get to know it? Listen, let's come back to the scriptures again. It's almost like the Council of Nicaea was a necessary moment of clarification that was not necessary for the first three centuries of Christianity because people were so deeply connected to the heart of the Father because of the Holy Spirit. But when Christianity is forced, in a sense, upon a society, and people are forced to say yes to Jesus before they even have a knowledge of him or develop a love for him, then we live by theology. We live by dogma. And the reality is there was three parts to the process of bringing people to Christ. I think I've talked about this in past podcast, but remember this with me again. There was three parts of the first three centuries. Bringing people to Christ was a three part process, and it went like this. You bring people to a knowledge of God.

They know about God. And then the greater the knowledge of God, their heart would be stirred to fall in love with him. That's the idea. You know God first, then you love God. And the third step, final step, was when you have so soaked, pickled, marinated, saturated in the knowledge of God that it awakening a heart of love within you for the Lord, for Jesus, then you give yourself to Him. Lay your life down, surrender. Look at how the pattern has changed to today. See, today the first thing is give your life to him. Isn't that modern Christian fundamentalist evangelicalism? Cares if you know about him, give your life to him. It's not an issue of even knowing about him. Loving him is even an option now. You don't even have to love him. Just give your life to him. Because for whatever reason, we think giving your life to Jesus is the thing that saves you. You know why the knowledge of God and the stirring of the love for God in a person's heart was what they started with? Because they believed in what the cross had done to save us. They believed that the cross saved us.

It wasn't your prayer that saved you. It wasn't your giving your life to Jesus that saved you. It was Jesus himself that saved you. And he saved you on the cross, singlehandedly. Salvation had been paid for. And now you and I have access to this gift. And it wasn't giving our lives to Jesus. That was the starting point. It was knowing God. That was the starting point. And once you begin to know God, the intrig of knowing God drew you to an awareness of his presence to the point where the more you get to know him, you know what stirs in you? It's not fear. It was love. This is the deal. It wasn't fear. The more these people knew God, the more they loved God. That's why Abas e Oses and his disciples around him, he raises the guy from the dead. The disciples immediately react in fear because this is how we react to things we don't understand. They fall down on the ground in fear. And what does he do? He raises him up and he says, Look, no, God does his miracles, works by his supernatural power because of love, because he loves this widow and he loves this orphan.

And what God desires most is a soul that is sinless, a soul that's pure. In other words, the love of God compels us to change the way we think. The kindness of God leads us to repentance. This was the message of the early church, and that is you're saved by Jesus Christ alone because of the cross. You need to get to know this God who has saved you by his grace. When you know him and you get to know him in all of his glory, you're going to love him. And as you love him and give your life to him, you're going to begin to realize your union with him in this relationship of love creates a theosis where the power of Christ actually becomes alive within you, where you become, as I say so many times, the holy of Holies is wherever the Holy Spirit dwells and he dwells in you. That you're the carrier of the glory of God. So you're the arc of the new covenant of Christ. This is the life that these guys lived. How did we lose this? Where did we go where we threw this away? Now all we do is argue on Facebook about what God is like.

In 2 Corinthians 4, verse 18 says, We do not look at the things that are seen, but the things which are not not seen. For the things that are seen are temporal. The things that are not seen are eternal. In other words, what are we doing? We got to fixate our eyes on an unseen realm, the realm that transcends the limitations of this physical life. Otherwise, we'll find ourselves living far below what God has intended for us to live in. John 16, starting in verse 12, Jesus said, I have so many things that I want to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak on his own authority, but of whatever he hears, he will speak and he will tell you of things to come. And he will glorify me. For he will take of what is mine and declare it to you. This is Jesus talking about things that are about to happen to them in the future. He doesn't say this is for your descendants. He doesn't say that this is for many, many generations from now, or this is for the end times fanatics thousands of years into the future who are constantly going to be predicting the end of the world all over again.

No, this is what he says. He says you, I have so many things to say to you, but you can't bear them now. When he, the Spirit of truth has come, he will guide you into all truth. This was a quick process that was about to trigger a life style that these early Christians walked in that is your inheritance and my inheritance. Let me just read this to you again. This is Jesus talking, I have many things to say to you, but you can't bear them now. In other words, I have so many things I want to reveal to you, but this is not the time for you to be able to understand them. What was happening here? The cross hadn't happened yet. When the cross took place and Jesus resurrected from the dead in Acts 1, he took them through 40 days where he spoke to them about all things pertaining to the Kingdom of God. Whatever he revealed in that moment, in that time is available to you and I today. Why? Because the Holy Spirit has been given to us, which is why I don't think any of the New Testament writers feel the need to write about that 40 days because everything that he said was available to every person in their heart because of the Holy Spirit.

I think I'm talking about some of these things to you today right now. Here's what the Spirit does. The Holy Spirit that you have access to, that lives inside of you, Christian, says he will guide you into all truth. Not some truth, not partial truth, but all truth. To the point that you and I are surrendered to the guidance of the Holy Spirit is the degree to which we walk in the truth of what God has intended for us. Let me say that again. To the point to which you and I are willing to be surrendered to the guidance of the Holy Spirit is the degree to which we walk in the truth that God has appointed for us to walk in. The Holy Spirit here goes on in John 16, He will not speak in his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak. So what was the method by which Jesus did all the things he did in this Earth? He says, I only do what I see the Father do and I say what I hear the Father say. So he was living his life as a man surrendered to the same exact connection to the Father that you and I have.

And the Holy Spirit descended on Christ in the river. And Jordan, that was the moment where he, Okay, I'm going to model life for you, humanity. I'm going to model this is how it looks to let the Holy Spirit rest upon you. The very Spirit of God that connects you. It's that connecting point to the very heart of God. No distance and no separation. Now you and I live by the Spirit of God, live walking by the Spirit of God. Now think about that with me for just a moment. You and I have the exact same access to the Holy Spirit of God. To the Father by the Holy Spirit that Jesus did. So then we can live the exact same lifestyle that Jesus led, and the early Christians did it. See, fivefold Ministry is a gift to the Church, but it's a temporary placeholder for the purpose of bringing us into this place here where the Holy Spirit is so prevalent within us that he guides us into all truth. He speaks by the authority of God, and it says he glorifies Jesus. It says he will speak and tell you of things to come.

Not of like the end time stuff. Things to come means what are the decisions and the choice is I need to make in the days ahead? In other words, he's speaking personally for your own life, the things that you are to do in this life in the days ahead so that you don't blindly walk into the future without direction and without hope. He will glorify Jesus. He will take what belongs to Jesus and he will, he says, declare it to you. In other words, he will make clear to you the authority that you have because of who you are in Christ. Do you know who you are? Do you know the power you walk in?

It All Began In A Barn

It all began in a barn. 

And the Midwest is full of them. My Dad’s first job was in a barn. The revival that lit a fire of the Gospel for many through his ministry started in a barn. The birth of the Country Church in Ruthton, Minnesota through Pastor Rich DeReuyter happened in a barn. The first snow of Winter always seems to close the door on the previous season in more ways than one. This time, the close was dramatic. Along with my cousin, Frank, I preached the funeral for a very dear friend, Karen DeGroot, at the Country Church. 

The glow of the lights from the inside were welcoming under a sky where the gray clouds hung low over the harvested fields. The beautiful building was bursting at the seams on this wet and windy day in November and as Traci and I walked in the sanctuary we were greeted by people I hadn’t seen in more than 30 years. Frank, still on oxygen from visiting the edge of death in the hospital with Covid, preached like the roof was on fire. At one point I thought he might settle down and pace himself, but instead he reached back and turned up the oxygen full blast. That’s Frank. My childhood friends, Dave and Chad, who were at the first barn revival my Dad did in the early 80’s, were there. It was as if there was this leap from childhood to adulthood where the conversations that happened tied together the gaps of time into a complete picture as we simply heard the updates on where life has taken us. Isn’t it interesting how seasons have a way of taking you on an unpredictable journey that you couldn’t have planned on if you tried? But the thing about seasons is that they change. 

The reminder of the changing of the seasons began to take shape as we found the warmth of kind connections brought together once again by the passing of a friend. The biting cold of the prairie winds, famous for being so strong and consistent over buffalo ridge, met us at the graveside as the temperature fell below freezing. They’re a hearty bunch, Midwesterners. Like a herd of buffalo huddling in a blizzard, the crowd of black clad mourners stood in solidarity to celebrate a life well lived. For the young mother in the crowd holding her infant, the changing of the seasons was wonderful, even if she didn’t feel prepared to be a mother yet. For the DeGroot family shivering together on folding chairs under the tent that day, it was a moment painfully marked by the handoff of a life too soon. For many of us, seasons change way too quickly. As the service concluded and people made their way to their cars, the flurries began to swirl around in the air like excited children running out to recess. The passing of a life and the passing of the season, the last breath of day and the first dusting of Winter, it all speaks to the way that God has orchestrated this world where everything and everyone eventually engages in a forced handoff of sorts. The scorching heat of Summer gives way to Fall, as the leaves of Autumn which change from green to yellow to red seem to signal us in a universal understanding that even nature tells us when to slow down and prepare to let go. Yet what we let go of is never truly lost. It only gets picked up by the next generation and carried further into the unknown. 

At Christmas time, God reminds us that even He surrendered Himself to the processing of seasons. We enter this world and surrender to the direction of our parents. He entered the world surrendered to the direction of Joseph and Mary. We grow and are faced with decisions and choices and hopefully we learn to live in obedience to our Heavenly Father, even if it comes through suffering. Jesus grew and was faced with decisions and choices and Hebrews 5 literally says that Jesus learned obedience through suffering. We come to the end of our season on earth, often too soon, and as much of a struggle as it may be, we are forced to let go. 

Jesus faced this same conflict as he appealed to the Father to find another way to transition the season ahead as he was going to the cross. There was no alternative presented in that moment, and even the Son of God now had to experience letting go. Thankfully, his cross became our victory and now we celebrate his birth for the same reason. It’s an unreasonable reality that God would step into our stories and seasons and include us in his victory and resurrection. But he’s not afraid of the unreasonable and he is the Lord of reality. At this time of year, slow down and remember that this life is an exercise in letting go. Who have you encouraged? Who are you empowering? Who are you training and teaching as a disciple? Every one of us has been given the task to make disciples. At some point, every teacher must help every student to become a teacher themselves. 

Embracing the changing of the seasons helps us realize that we can’t take up space forever, no matter how much wealth or success we experience in this life. We are to live to give away whatever wisdom or influence we can to those who come behind us so they’re more equipped for what’s ahead than we ever were. This Christmas, take a moment around the table to recognize the people God has placed in your path of influence, and ask the Lord to guide you victorious through the seasons ahead. We are equipped to live victorious nomatter what season it is, and when life gets confusing and complicated, remember that it all began in a barn.

Bill Vanderbush

Masked, Canceled, and Woke (Transcribed from the podcast)

Does the grace of Jesus have anything to say about the hot button issues of the day? Absolutely it does. So today we’re going to take a fresh perspective on three big ones. 

Most of our complaining comes from the fact that we don’t know how powerful we really are. When we feel overpowered by outside forces, we feel helpless and hopeless and we complain about it. I think this is why Paul said in Phil 2:14 to do everything without grumbling or complaining. The deeper revelation is that everything we complain about we have probably contributed to in some way. For example. Have you been irritated or even infuriated about being mandated to wear a mask? I was. And I was complaining to the Lord and my friends about it, not quite in that order. I found other people far more cooperative in agreeing with my complaining that the Lord was. I was somewhat cut with conviction when I felt him say, “Bill, why are you so bothered by wearing a mask now? You’ve been wearing them for years.” I immediately saw flashing through my mind all of the doors of churches I’ve walked into in the past year with signs on them that read, “Must have mask to enter.” And I realized that in the spirit that sign has been hanging on most church doors for years. Think about it. You may have had the worst week of your life, or may have fought with your wife and kids on the way to church, but the minute you hit the church door and someone asks how you’re doing you say, “Blessed and highly favored.” If we preach vulnerable transparency but live a spiritually masked life, we can’t blame the world for not taking our message seriously. So we’ve made it easy to live masking our broken places. And I get it. We’re supposed to be examples of moral virtue, and in trying our best to present that image the maintenance of a spiritual facade has become an art form. I’ve served in enough church staff situations to be able to tell you that the unity or holiness you see from where the audience sits is not always the case behind the scenes. Now I’m not saying we need to flaunt our brokenness and air all our issues. But I AM saying that we need to develop trusted relationships where we can be vulnerable about our brokenness. Have a few close friends and fathers in the faith who you can be completely open with, and make one of them your spouse. James pointed us in the direction of wholeness when he said confess your faults one to another and pray for one another that ye may be healed. Don’t just find any “another” to confess to. Find another who will actually pray FOR you, not gossip ABOUT you. I think that’s probably why we have a hard time with unmasking in a culture of faith where righteousness by works is held as a virtue. This is why making a shift to a culture of righteousness by grace is so necessary. Grace purifies the motive for good works, because under grace you’re not working to get anything from God or prove anything to anyone. A life laid down to surrender to the voice and direction of the Lord is an act of Love when you already know that you’re accepted by grace. 

If you get transparent before the wrong people, prepare to be cancelled. And that leads me to another modern complaint. Cancel Culture. Have you heard this term? It refers to the current trend to scrutinize the past actions and words of every person to find any place where they behaved badly in word or deed, and then to declare them done, over, cancelled. Right behind my irritation with masks was this personal outrage over the fact that the secular culture, that had in past decades released a flood of soul sewage into our lives without apology, now presumed the right to morally judge the world. How dare they, I thought. They have no right to judge anyone. That’s what WE do… And then I realized, we invented cancel culture. Just like the masks, I found myself complaining about a culture of our own making. The church has been canceling people for years. We decide who is qualified for ministry and who isn’t based on a whole bunch of criteria that I now imagine that God probably doesn’t prioritize. I once thought that if you studied enough apologetics and gained enough knowledge where you could out argue any atheist or agnostic, that level of gained wisdom would keep you in a holy zone of monastic purity. --------- pretty much killed that theory. Maybe if you were a hip charismatic leader with a slamming wit and decent enough messages to blow up your brand into megastardom, that level of altitude before men would hold you fast to the pedestal you were on. ------- brought that notion crashing down. What if you were a seasoned prophet with signs and wonders in your bio, a fierce national loyalty, and a no compromise attitude toward the word of the Lord. Could that keep you from compromise? When Newsweek published the article about ---------, I knew that wasn’t the case either. So I realized that academic wisdom, magnetic charisma, and prophetic success can all come crashing down in a moment. The one thing these leaders need right now, that the world needs to see and hear from the church, is the Gospel of the grace of God. Unless we get this beautiful revelation of the grace of God that can restore the fallen, we will continue to present a facade that a fallen world can’t relate to, and we will never discover the mystery of the message of the Gospel that drew the fallen to Christ. As you’ve heard me say before, grace is not something we fall from. It’s someone we fall into. Most of our messes come from giving in to an anti-christ spirit. Here’s what I mean by that. If you look up the Greek for the word that’s translated as Antichrist, you’ll discover something remarkable. Anti, in this sense, doesn’t mean opposed to. It means “instead of.” Now this is very important because It’s common for us to assume that the antichrist spirit would be easy to spot by the violent or forceful opposition to anything related to Christ. But this isn’t the case. It simply means setting Christ aside to focus on something else. Christ can still be in your life but he’s no longer front and center. Money, fame, politics, and building our personal ministry brand can take center stage in our lives all too easily. Pretty soon, we find ourselves going to ridiculous lengths to make the Gospel more attractive to the world.

My wife, Traci, got up in a church right before Covid took over the news and gave a powerfully uncomfortable word. She’s kind of good at doing this. She said, “The bride of Christ is having her implants removed in this next year.” I began to sweat nervously wondering where in the world she and God were going with this. She continued by saying, “We have made ourselves sick by introducing artificial enhancements to the body to make her more attractive to the world.” Traci was never one for tickling ears. Lest we thought this was a product of her imagination, a prophetic friend of ours, Charlie Coker, got the same word on the same day a thousand miles away. Kind of like the time she told a church that they were spiritually constipated, but God was going to give them a release so things could freely flow once again. It would be messy but in the clean up they would learn to work as one. After this, every toilet in the church literally backed up and overflowed causing quite a mess as you might imagine, but as people worked together to clean up the mess, it certainly drove the point home. 

Christ won’t be relegated to second or third place in our lives. I’ve checked the Scriptures today and Matthew 6:33 still says, “Seek first the Kingdom of God…” It doesn’t seem to matter what’s going on in the nation, politics, the stock market, or the world. That verse never changes to seek second or seek third the Kingdom. We can’t seek the kingdom without the King. And Jesus Christ is king. So we never deviate from fixing our eyes on Christ, the author and finisher of our faith. Jesus is drawing the gaze of his bride back to the fire in his eyes.

A friend of mine who used to be a judge in central Texas heard of Traci’s word about the bride and offered this insight. She had once owned a wedding venue and had spent ten years dealing with brides and realized that so much of the western culture about brides doesn’t line up with the Bride Jesus is coming for. Christ isn’t coming back for a bridezilla. But our holiness and perfection are not a work of the flesh, or the quality of our masks, or the purging of our culture through cancellation. Our righteousness is ONLY based upon the blood of Jesus Christ. His was grace revealed in the resurrection when he didn’t drop the gavel on everyone who cheered his crucifixion. In the resurrection he has no words of vengeance or revenge. He simply tells the disciples in John 20:23 whoever’s sins you forgive they are forgiven. In Matthew 6 he takes unforgiveness off the table as an option. Cancel culture is not the Kingdom of God. What he is cancelling is all of the lies and labels we have believed about ourselves and others. He’s cancelling our sin based identities.

But somebody’s gotta be the judge right? And if we can judge, we can certainly cancel right?

As far as the Bible is concerned there are only two things we are to judge. We can judge prophecy and angels. But what about people?

Hebrews 12:23 calls Father God the judge of all. But…

Jesus, in John 5:22 says the Father judges no one, but has given all judgement to the Son. But…

Jesus says in John 8:15 I judge no man.

So the Father isn’t judging us, though he certainly could.

The son isn’t judging us, though he certainly could.

Then where does the judgement come from?

It comes from us. Jesus told us in Luke 6:37 not to judge because to the degree we judge another we will receive the same in return. The verse right after that, verse 38, is the one that always gets quoted for offerings in church. “Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return.” That verse has nothing to do with money, but rather with the giving of judgement. So why do we do it?

Jesus tell us in John 5:45 when he said I’m not accusing you, but you do have an accuser. He says the accuser is Moses, but it’s not Moses fault. They made Moses their accuser by taking his words and turning them into rules rather than letting those words lead them to Jesus. The Gospel isn’t the way to righteousness. The Gospel is the way to Jesus, and Jesus is the way to righteousness. We don’t get any grace apart from Christ alone. And we can’t freely give what we haven’t freely received. If you’ve worked to feel righteous, you’ll make other’s pay the same price. If you’ve come to realize that grace is a gift for those who need it, not a reward for those who deserve it, then you’ll give it away freely. What people freely give reveals what they freely have. The truth is that the reckless grace of Christ has been offered to us all, without exception. From the porn star to the preacher, from the holy to the hypocrite, the grace of Christ doesn’t discriminate. It’s been accepted by some, rejected by others, but offered to all. 

But even when it looks like an entire generation is rejecting Christ, don’t lose hope. I learned this the hard way in a recent conversation with a dear friend and incredible Bible teacher, Lynn Hiles. Sitting across a table where we were having dinner I said, “I feel like the next generation is dead to the things of God.” Lynn shared something with me that I’ll never forget and I believe is a timely word for us all. “Do you remember the story of the woman with the issue of blood who touched the hem of Jesus garment in a crowd and was healed?” I did. “Did you ever ask yourself where Jesus was going in that story?” I thought about it a minute, searching my memory for the right answer. “He was going to raise Jairus’ daughter from the dead.” “Right” said Lynn. “He would have been there sooner but he was delayed by the older generation because of an issue in their blood. She was bleeding where she was supposed to be birthing. And do you know how you’re ready to give birth again? You stop bleeding. Jesus heals her and deals with the demand of the moment, but then continues his journey. When he arrives at the house, everyone says she’s dead, but what does Jesus say? She’s not dead, but she’s just asleep. He has come to awaken her.” The crowd that has gathered to mourn the girl begins to mock the messiah. Jesus sends all of the mockers out of the room and then raises her from the dead. The first thing Jesus says to do is to give her something to eat. Revival must be accompanied by teaching, getting nourished buy the word of the Lord. What was she after that encounter with Jesus? Woke. Could it be that God has stirred the language of awakening within the hearts of the next generation and they’re searching for an authentic awakening encounter with God? I realized that perhaps the irritation with the woke language many are hearing comes from the painful realization that the authentic Gospel they’re searching for they’re not finding in us. The language of awakening reveals a heart prepared for change, for transformation, for revival. I believe God is preparing this next generation to receive the great awakening we have been praying for, because God does not stir within us a cry for revival that he does not intend to answer. 

You see, whether it’s masks, cancel culture, or the woke movement, these are all physical manifestations of a greater spiritual reality. We are reaping in the flesh what we have sown in the Spirit.

Today I want to pray that your eyes would be open to see how powerful you really are, and to realize that there is weight on your words, and to understand that God has equipped you with everything necessary to live this life as an overcomer walking in the light of his glory and grace.