With Foreign Lips God Will Speak
Greetings in the Lord!
As usual I let too much time go by before sharing what the Lord is saying these days in general, and also what He is doing in my life. For starters, He had put on my heart that He was going to open some doors to speak about the book I've just put out, "Fire of the Orange Ball," and I've walked through those doors. Last week I was invited to speak on Islam to a grassroots political organization, "Act! for America." They have about 78,000 members nationwide, with about 1,500 members in this particular Denver chapter alone. Needless to say I was pretty excited.
You can be sure that there are many opinions on the subject of what to do about the growing Islamization in America, but the Lord put on my heart to really emphasize to that group the necessity to evaluate their own hearts first--was fear, hate or pride behind any of their motives for getting involved with that issue? If so, they would only be engaging in a rock throwing contest sooner or later with radical Islam, as it would be hate vs. hate. That was not the Lord's strategy. Instead, I felt led to talk to them about sharing faith and love: reaching out in love to the Muslim community to better understand the oppressiveness of their religion; engaging in loving dialogue that did not compromise truth, and focusing acts of love on the "silent majority" of Muslims that are not given to violence to woo them away from radical Islam. All of that means we would be living our faith. It is essential to begin to make healthy relationships so we can better discern and uncover where true radicals are propagating and recruiting within the Muslim community. Information is key and trust can only be attained through genuine loving outreach. It requires that we confront the doctrine of Islam with the truth found only in Jesus Christ and His Word...backed up by our faith in the one true God and with our holy living and love for others. Controversial? Yep. High calling? Yep. Commanded by Christ to all His disciples? Yep.
So, what was so unusual about this talk? Well, mainly that it was to a secular, political organization. Yeah, that's right--it's time to shed the PC mindset and allow for the discussion of faith in secular politics. And as you can imagine, the ones who struggled the most were those who claimed "no faith" or those who wanted to rely upon their own intellect for devising a plan of attack against Islam. "Love" made no sense to them. One guy said "Christians are pansies" and a woman asked me, "I'm an Agnostic--what am I supposed to do?" Instead of being intimidated by the wide spectrum of (and often heated) opinions, I relished the opportunity to model to them the love and conviction/truth I was advocating....and funny thing was, at the end of the night I know the Holy Spirit had the final word as many were visibly touched in their spirits and told me they "certainly were not expecting what I had to share" with them.
The "love" message is incredibly important! It, like wisdom, is a protection for our very lives. Believe me, as one who has been persecuted many times and in many places for my unwavering faith in Christ, I can say that love truly does conquer all. But alas, that is another story I'll save for a future blog.
The cool thing was that after that talk I was invited to be on the "Jon Caldera show," a radio news talk program popular in the Denver area. You can check it out at:
http://www.koaradio.com/cc-common/podcast/single_podcast.html?podcast=Caldera.xml
by clicking on the ipod listings December 3rd, 11 pm and December 4th, 12am. And yes, this again is a secular news talk radio program. The interview was a lot of fun and pretty candid; he didn't shy away from discussing faith so much, which was refreshing. I pray that the Lord will begin to open up other doors in secular media for His voice to be heard.
You know, when I had time to process these talks afterwards I found it interesting that both America and Europe is under siege by an extreme form of religious legalism. It reminded me of the prophetic word the Lord gave me nearly two years ago based on Isaiah 28:11-22, where the Lord became so angry with "Ephraim's" corruption, arrogance, and rebellion--they had refused to listen to God or obey His life-giving commands--the Lord finally said, "Very well then, with foreign lips and strange tongues God will speak to this people,...So then, the word of the Lord to them will become: Do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule; a little here, a little there--so that they will go and fall backward, be injured and snared and captured." (Isaiah 28:11-13).
Basically, the Lord was saying that religious legalism would come to ensnare and "injure" them because they refused to live by His Word and have freedom in Christ. We see this happening already in Europe as they scramble to pass superfluous laws, bucking against the legalistic aspect of Islam that they find intolerable, but it is only fuel for more fires of hatred coming from the Islamic community. Hate vs. hate--a rock throwing contest. The word for this group was to walk in love so they would not be swept away by this tidal wave of hate coming. Only a return to a true faith in God is the sure remedy to avoid being caught up in this wave of hate. Guard your hearts, blessed ones, and walk out His truth in love always.
~Be blessed and be a blessing.
As usual I let too much time go by before sharing what the Lord is saying these days in general, and also what He is doing in my life. For starters, He had put on my heart that He was going to open some doors to speak about the book I've just put out, "Fire of the Orange Ball," and I've walked through those doors. Last week I was invited to speak on Islam to a grassroots political organization, "Act! for America." They have about 78,000 members nationwide, with about 1,500 members in this particular Denver chapter alone. Needless to say I was pretty excited.
You can be sure that there are many opinions on the subject of what to do about the growing Islamization in America, but the Lord put on my heart to really emphasize to that group the necessity to evaluate their own hearts first--was fear, hate or pride behind any of their motives for getting involved with that issue? If so, they would only be engaging in a rock throwing contest sooner or later with radical Islam, as it would be hate vs. hate. That was not the Lord's strategy. Instead, I felt led to talk to them about sharing faith and love: reaching out in love to the Muslim community to better understand the oppressiveness of their religion; engaging in loving dialogue that did not compromise truth, and focusing acts of love on the "silent majority" of Muslims that are not given to violence to woo them away from radical Islam. All of that means we would be living our faith. It is essential to begin to make healthy relationships so we can better discern and uncover where true radicals are propagating and recruiting within the Muslim community. Information is key and trust can only be attained through genuine loving outreach. It requires that we confront the doctrine of Islam with the truth found only in Jesus Christ and His Word...backed up by our faith in the one true God and with our holy living and love for others. Controversial? Yep. High calling? Yep. Commanded by Christ to all His disciples? Yep.
So, what was so unusual about this talk? Well, mainly that it was to a secular, political organization. Yeah, that's right--it's time to shed the PC mindset and allow for the discussion of faith in secular politics. And as you can imagine, the ones who struggled the most were those who claimed "no faith" or those who wanted to rely upon their own intellect for devising a plan of attack against Islam. "Love" made no sense to them. One guy said "Christians are pansies" and a woman asked me, "I'm an Agnostic--what am I supposed to do?" Instead of being intimidated by the wide spectrum of (and often heated) opinions, I relished the opportunity to model to them the love and conviction/truth I was advocating....and funny thing was, at the end of the night I know the Holy Spirit had the final word as many were visibly touched in their spirits and told me they "certainly were not expecting what I had to share" with them.
The "love" message is incredibly important! It, like wisdom, is a protection for our very lives. Believe me, as one who has been persecuted many times and in many places for my unwavering faith in Christ, I can say that love truly does conquer all. But alas, that is another story I'll save for a future blog.
The cool thing was that after that talk I was invited to be on the "Jon Caldera show," a radio news talk program popular in the Denver area. You can check it out at:
http://www.koaradio.com/cc-common/podcast/single_podcast.html?podcast=Caldera.xml
by clicking on the ipod listings December 3rd, 11 pm and December 4th, 12am. And yes, this again is a secular news talk radio program. The interview was a lot of fun and pretty candid; he didn't shy away from discussing faith so much, which was refreshing. I pray that the Lord will begin to open up other doors in secular media for His voice to be heard.
You know, when I had time to process these talks afterwards I found it interesting that both America and Europe is under siege by an extreme form of religious legalism. It reminded me of the prophetic word the Lord gave me nearly two years ago based on Isaiah 28:11-22, where the Lord became so angry with "Ephraim's" corruption, arrogance, and rebellion--they had refused to listen to God or obey His life-giving commands--the Lord finally said, "Very well then, with foreign lips and strange tongues God will speak to this people,...So then, the word of the Lord to them will become: Do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule; a little here, a little there--so that they will go and fall backward, be injured and snared and captured." (Isaiah 28:11-13).
Basically, the Lord was saying that religious legalism would come to ensnare and "injure" them because they refused to live by His Word and have freedom in Christ. We see this happening already in Europe as they scramble to pass superfluous laws, bucking against the legalistic aspect of Islam that they find intolerable, but it is only fuel for more fires of hatred coming from the Islamic community. Hate vs. hate--a rock throwing contest. The word for this group was to walk in love so they would not be swept away by this tidal wave of hate coming. Only a return to a true faith in God is the sure remedy to avoid being caught up in this wave of hate. Guard your hearts, blessed ones, and walk out His truth in love always.
~Be blessed and be a blessing.
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