Psalmes 89: 46“How long, O LORD? Will You hide Yourself forever?”
There are certain temperaments that see general communication as a waste of time. Many just hate to play what they see as the people game. On the other extreme is the person that is uncomfortable with quietness, though it can reveal a lot about a person. Just be quiet and let a person keep talking, and soon you will learn many things. This is why I believe that God is often quiet; He waits to see what comes out of my heart when He is quiet. His quietness will not create something in my heart, but it will reveal something. Often I see believers experiencing the quietness of God and beginning to complain, moving into unbelief, and almost immediately looking for another option. These things have always been within them, but quietness revealed them. Sometimes when the Lord is quiet it is good to be quiet yourself and see what comes out of Him. You will be amazed.

As you wait in faith, He will meet your need.

“Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own?” In Matthew 20 Jesus tells a story now known by one and all. A man hires workers at different hours of the day; some work a long day and others a short one. In the end, every man gets paid the same. However, those that worked from the beginning were expecting more than the late men got, and they were rebuked, for the Master was free to pay what he wanted, and what was it to them if he wanted to be generous? Every man, from the one that arrived early to the one that arrived late, got exactly what he needed! The Master was much fairer, compassionate, and generous than anyone imagined; he knew the need was the same for every man, so he met the need accordingly. Since the first men were in need of a job, wouldn’t they have worked for less than their need? Couldn’t the Master have squeezed them and given them less than was needed? I believe so. The Master was generous with his initial offering to the men who worked the longer day. All the men were looking for a job; some found it in the morning and some in the afternoon. Which would you rather be? I would want to be the one that found it in the morning and knew my need would be met. Think of the stomach turning that the men hired last had gone through wondering if the day would end and their need would go unmet. Think of their having to go home to hungry children. These men of the afternoon were rewarded because they had a greater faith. They’d had to learn to trust in God and lean on Him all morning, while the others worked in the fleshly confidence that they would feed their families through their own labors. God rewarded the faith of the men who worked only a few hours by meeting their need, also. The story centers around men who had to wait with faith in God. “Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.” As you wait in faith, He will meet your need.

He will never leave nor forsake me, and He understands everything about me.

Is. 59:2, But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God,
And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.

I hate the fact of separation. I invite in sin, so the glue (Jesus) that is holding me together begins to retreat from my mind, my will, and my emotions. I sense that I am losing something. I am out of sync. It is terrible. He doesn’t leave me but only retreats to give me what I thought I wanted: freedom from His will. The break between mind, will, and emotions and Him is really a state of neurosis. My life that is bound up in His attempted to break away. It is sickening, but it does work for Him, because eventually I can’t stand my will and cry out, “Thy will, not my will,” and invite the sin out. I invited it in; I can invite it out. Next He returns and I am complete once again. Well, all of that is of my own doing. Jesus has experienced the very same thing, but by our doing, not His own. The sins of the whole world were cast on Him to the degree that it drove His life out of Him. I am so happy that He has identified with me, that He knows this sick feeling that comes from separation, that He works and moves me back to Him, and that He always floods back through my whole being the moment I repent. He knows the joy of reconnecting with the Father, and He wants for me the same joy. He will never leave nor forsake me, and He understands everything about me. Though Jesus’ experience of being separated from God did not come by way of sin, it did come through the cross, and therefore He knows the feeling of separation. He has entered into our humanity completely.

Eph 6:12, For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

We attended a bullfight in Spain. I can’t say that it is an enjoyable experience, but it is an interesting one. Having grown up on and around a farm, the kill before butchering was never something that I looked forward to. Some would argue that the death of the bull in a bullfight is as humane as the death in a slaughterhouse. Well, amen, they both happen. After watching six bulls fight the matadors, my admiration for bulls has gone way up.

Religion is religion, and Jesus isn’t a religion, He is a relationship.

As a child, I was never allowed to even touch a bull. There was the temptation when feeding the cows and petting them to do the same to the bull. However, any advance toward the bull was met with a strong rebuke from my grandfather. He had hauled several and seen men gored; he never trusted any bull. The bulls in Spain enter the arena full of attitude, strength, and catlike quickness. They look for anything that is moving and immediately charge. The power is awe-inspiring to witness; they send every matador scrambling behind a thick wooden wall, and then they hammer the wall with their horns. I just had never witnessed that in a bull, nor had I seen that kind of endurance. It is impressive.

Because of the bull’s strength and superiority, the fight would take hours if the bull were not slowed down. Nothing about a bullfight is fair (the only way to make it less fair would be to remove one of the bull’s legs). Carrying a spear, a horseman rides in on a heavily padded and blindfolded horse. The bull will immediately head for the horse. The first bull we saw actually knocked the horse over and was able to gore it, even as the rider, falling down, drove the spear deep into the bull. Next, four matadors begin to wear the bull down by having the bull make a series of charges at the pink cape. When the bull is sufficiently tiring, another matador will come with two colorful skewers. He will let the bull charge him straight on and then jump, driving the skewers into the back of the bull and maneuvering sideways just in time to be missed by the horns. This is repeated three times. Still, the stamina of the bull at this point is awing. The matador, with his large, red cape, will now come out to work the bull until it finally has its strength bled out of it. With an air of satisfaction he draws a sword; the great beast bows its head, ready to charge one more time at the rag that has given it so much grief, and the matador drives the sword into the heart of the great beast. Some are better at this than others, but ideally, the bull’s demise is quick, and it drops, immediately dead. The whole exhibition takes around 15 minutes.
Personally, I think the matadors should wear little tight pants because they fight like girls.

OK, why all this talk of bullfights? I couldn’t help but think about our fight against the “rulers, powers, forces of darkness, and spiritual forces of wickedness.” In Christ, the battle is won. On the cross He did not say, “To be continued!” He said, “It is finished.” We in Christ, like the bull, have the superior strength. However, the bull makes one fatal mistake by thinking the cape, a simple piece of lifeless rag, is the enemy, the source of its pain! I kept thinking to myself, If only you would stop fighting the rag, stop looking down, look up at the head, and move eighteen inches to the right! The battle would be yours. Even to its dying breath, the bull was eyeing the rag as the matador drove the sword deep into his heart. A physically superior creature defeated because of a wrong focus. How often in our spiritual battles the enemy has our focus on something other than him; we never pay attention to his ugly head.

So many times I have talked to couples ready to divorce over absolutely nothing but a rag. However, the enemy keeps poking and making them think that the rag is what is hurting them. It isn’t the rag! It is the one behind the rag. Move eighteen inches to the right, go for the head, and you will see the truth of it. Many times, I will stop in the middle of a situation and just say, “The Lord rebuke you!” I know the issue isn’t the issue; there is someone behind the issue and I want to go for the head. The believer has the superior strength, but it will do no good if it is focused in the wrong place. So many just bow and let the enemy drive the sword deep into the heart. There will nearly always be the need for 20% improvement in any relationship (the rag). Why let the 20% steal the 80% joy? On any given day, you should immediately be able to say three things that are right about your situation and about your mate. Well, again, we need grace to go for the head.

The believers in Spain, as in Portugal, have to labor. Christians are not embraced; Catholicism, with its religious spirit, has driven the least little desire out of the people to look for something spiritual. Therefore, Jesus just isn’t easily considered. I can’t say the people are hardhearted; it is just that their definition of Jesus includes suffering, crawling, misery, bondage, lack of joy, confinement, and total deadness. With that definition, why look any further into the prospect? Our friends have worked here for 12 years, and the end result, in part, is this little meeting that we are going to have in the morning. They have invited their friends and coworkers. They have done everything to make it a beautiful experience for them.

We are to be in a small room in a new “meditation” lodge. We will have four hours of teaching and then a vegetarian meal. Nine people arrive. Two are unbelievers. I have been told by the Lord the direction to take in the teaching. I will spend the first three hours talking about how we live, how we feel, what we think, and the struggles of man. I will not mention Jesus until the end. After three hours, it was obvious that Jesus had, as He always does, the right people there. If He gets all the glory, then He must do all the work, and He does. As I talk about Jesus, everything must be redefined, for the words that we commonly use have one meaning to us but another to them. Nearly every term has a distorted religious meaning. I just stick to Jesus, His uniqueness, His love, His difference, His life, and all that He is. Then we talk about His being our life. Not praying, “Jesus, help me,” but praying, “Jesus, come and be my words, my life, my love, my joy, my everything.” I wasn’t saying anything that I have not said a hundred times before, and yet, when I looked up, there were only a few dry eyes. The one girl, an unbeliever, came immediately up to me, and crying said, “Something has awakened in me! I knew I needed something; I knew I was being called!” The fellow, who we were really surprised even came, was right into it.

As we shifted to dinner, the topic was Jesus. One brother, with a beautiful heart, has labored for years and only has a few couples around Spain that have come to Jesus. He was excited and said, “This approach of life, of getting in the person’s skin, of showing in that context the need for Jesus, will be received. We will pray about putting a conference together for the couples I know around Spain.” Well, amen, I am also tagging along, building on the work of others.

Next we move to the house. I wanted to show my friends how the approach worked individually. That was great fun. Then the two “former” unbelievers showed up with dinner. We talked about Jesus until nearly 1:00 a.m. As I was being driven home, my friend turned to me, “In twelve years, that is the most openness that I have ever experienced with a group of people. It is the deepest conversation that we have ever had.” It excited me, and yet it vexed me, for I could see how he and his wife had suffered here in loneliness, going it by themselves, how much they forfeited to be with these people and to labor in such a religious environment. Again, the ugliest religion in the world is Christianity. There is nothing that will kill the spirit of man like the Christian religion. Why? Every other religion is made to be a religion. Christianity is centered in a great God Who lives through us. Try to make it a religion of lists, and the standard will become so high that the people will be wiped out; they then will focus on some insignificant speck that they CAN accomplish, as though it were of ultimate importance, in order to avoid the fact of their failure to be “like” Jesus. It becomes so obvious that at some time and place during the history of the Catholic Church, it became expedient, to the carnal, to have a “Christian religion.” This religion would stir the pride of the masses and make them forget that they should not be fighting for the earthly kingdom of a man and actually forsaking Jesus. The whole thing tends to sicken us in light of the fact that Jesus is alive (mind you, we wouldn’t have that light without the revelation of the Spirit, and this will always soften our criticism).

I have a silent disgust for all things religious. I suppose that I shouldn’t, in fairness, contain it to the Catholics, but Jesus is not a religion. He never wrote anything, and His emphasis was that there was no obstacle between man and God. Religion is religion, and Jesus isn’t a religion, He is a relationship.

I Tim. 2:5, For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time.

Eccl. 3: 11-15”He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and to do good in one’s lifetime; moreover, that every man who eats and drinks sees good in all his labor—it is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will remain forever; there is nothing to add to it and there is nothing to take from it, for God has so worked that men should fear Him. That which is has been already, and that which will be has already been, for God seeks what has passed by.”
Loving fathers busy themselves making life easier for their sons than it was for them. I remember, as a child, wanting, in the worst way, a little motorscooter. As soon as my boys were big enough, I made sure that they got one. I have known more than one man who, not having a father himself, was driven to be the best father possible. Fathers delight in helping their sons and even sharing in the accomplishments of their sons. In short, fathers want their sons’ lives to be better than theirs. Could it be that God is also this way? Could it be that the life God has for me is actually better than His? It boils down to this: is it easier to be man than to be God? Look at the life of God. Man has never really paid for sin; it has been God that has been picking up the tab all along. His creation pays and He pays. The ultimate payment came when His only begotten Son died. God has taken all the responsibility to cause things to work together for good, to take what He has made and redeem it in every possible way. He is putting together a grand jigsaw puzzle. All the pressure is on Him. Would you really like to be God? Would you like one day to experience what it is like to be driven by pure love? Could you bear up under His sorrow? Would you have the wisdom to govern? I have concluded that my life, as a son, is much easier than my Father’s. I am just going to rest and enjoy all of His work. I think I will just enjoy my inheritance.

Back to our question of why God plays in the dust. The weakest creature is the one that needs the most support. The river can live without man, but man cannot live without the river. In fact, the whole earth can live without man, but man cannot live without the earth. Everything on the earth, in this sense, is greater than man. Man is made of dust, not dirt or soil that have nutrients in them; dust has nothing to offer. From the beginning God made everything to support the weakest and most precious thing to Him–man!

I used this example in Brazil at the end of a conference, followed by the question, “Who is the weakest person here?” I answered my own question, “The person who needed the most support to be here! Who is that person? Mike! I needed people to donate money to buy my plane ticket, others to organize, several interpreters, electricity, artists, editors, drivers, and more.”

It takes so much to support this little bit of dust that I am left with nothing to boast in, save Christ. I then asked the people to pray that night, not for the speaker who is dust, but for all those who support the dust. It was a great revelation for all of us.

“And behold, there arose a great storm in the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves; but He Himself was asleep.” Matt. 8:24

This night, I was thinking of two things. First, the story of the storm in Matthew 8. Jesus is asleep, the storm comes, the disciples are frightened, and they call on Him. Shouldn’t we always call on Him in a storm?

However, they call on Him and are rebuked. Why? Jesus had permitted the storm for their perfection. The process was interrupted by unbelief. Jesus stopped the storm, He did a miracle, and all that at their bidding. But it was not a positive. It is not a revelation of their greatness but their unbelief.

Instead of crying out for the storm to stop, they should have crawled next to Him and gone to sleep. They should have rested in the storm. The storm would not have touched them either way. The storm was not the issue; what the storm could perfect in them or expose in them was the issue.

It is interesting that in today’s Christianity calling on Jesus and forcing a miracle is proof of spirituality, but the opposite is true. You have a rebellious child. You are in a storm and you have a choice. Call on Jesus to stop it or lie down next to Him and rest. I know which one you will do!

The second thought was this. We have prayed to share in the power of the resurrection, the fellowship of His sufferings and to be like Him in His death. What is the fellowship of His sufferings? It is many things.

However, there is one thing that it must certainly be. If we are parents, we must have a child that refuses Him. That was His greatest suffering. All the created children of God, every one, to the last man, refused Him. We must share in it. We begin to see just how deeply He suffered. We begin to understand the gospel. We will share in all things, suffering, death, and the power. Suffering comes before the power. We don’t like what is happening, but we refuse to be taken out of it.

We must refuse to ask Him to quiet the storm before the storm has perfected us.

“but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die.” Gen. 2:17

Many are surprised when they fall; they were doing so well, they just didn’t see it coming. There was nothing evil in their lives. In accordance with deliverance teaching, everything evil had been “dealt” with in their lives. How did they fall? Instead of looking for the place of evil where evil began, they should go back and look at the place of good where evil began, where they decided that their flesh had improved so much that they didn’t think about abiding when they entered their house, went on vacation, arrived at work, or taught the Bible study.

What “good-looking” flesh had they been involved in? Was it living to people instead of loving them, people pleasing, manipulating, reworking the portfolio, counting the savings, or lusting for the latest from the material world? Were they agreeing to pacify others, while staying silent to avoid conflict? Did they avoid telling the truth? Again, once the gate to the corral is open, not only the black horse will leave. Anyone who begins to walk in the “good” deeds of the flesh will soon find himself in evil deeds. Each day resolve not to just turn away from evil, but to turn away from good, from what you can do in the natural, to avoid all strength, and turn to Jesus.

The bud is the prophecy
of the flower. The beginning
of the expression of Christ’s
life through small things is the
proof that you are connected to
the root.

If Jesus casts the demons out, they will have to return to Satan. They beg not to return. It would be better to be in pigs than return home. The exact opposite of the prodigal son. This confirms what I suspect of Satan. He regards all things with indifference, even his “companions.”

Statistically, a majority of children that abuse animals will grow up and abuse people. When Satan treats man as he does, how well do you think those in his own household fair. He has no glory and therefore extracts from those around him. All the evil that he has gotten men to do he does, again, even to those of his own house. He is a parasite that will suck what little is left in a dead thing. No wonder even a demon would beg not to be sent back. In a pig, over a cliff, is a better ending.

Isn’t it hard to believe that people actually want to follow Satan? It could only be pride. After all pride is what took Satan and his hoard out of heaven to begin with. Often I have had someone say something along this line to me, “I don’t fear hell, I will deal with it when I get there.” Well, amen, you don’t have to wait for hell to get a taste of it. Go outside, douse yourself with gasoline, set yourself on fire, and while you are burning, beat your head against a rock. That will give you a little picture of what it is like.