Author: Derek and Amy Chapman

linkings…

Just having returned from a true wedding in the Spirit up in the appalachian foothills, really reminded of the disparity between our soul links and links made by The Sprit. One of David’s areas of confession had to do with places he had put his soul solutions above those of the Spirit. We see this happening all over especially in the Church where we ask God to bless our ideas and programs. You know, when God truly is in control of all the links and relationships in your life you will see what part is actually the church and what part is formed from religious ideas.

Last night, i had a dream in which i was teaching about the difference between friendship formed by God and relationships we pick based on our own ideas of what we need. But this also happens between nations and ministries. We lunge out and try to make the links we see as being the right ones. So you see nations linked in odd alliances and people and ministries as well.

The trouble with this is it is not the way that God desires to reveal Himself. He did not ask the Jewish tribes not to link with other nations because the other clans were all inherently bad. He had a plan of how to reveal Himself. It is the same with friendships between people and nations.

God is always about revealing Himself. That is one of His Ways–He likes to reveal Himself, to be known. In order for Him to do so we must yield and be led into His LINKINGS.

word over europe

In europe, an awakening is being prepared for through the arts. His Presence is actually entering through the art itself, and often into spaces where there is little light. There are unconventional means released from the heavens which are bringing His Spirit and Power directly to bear on the arts, and His Candle is beginning to burn in the the art itself to prepare a space for Him to move.

Using art as a resting place, many galleries and cafes which have before moved in a spirit of darkness, will be cleansed by His Light. Art has the ability to be a container for spirit, and He is putting His Spirit on much art in Europe at a ground level.

Much of the european church is sleeping or not properly connected or networked with His Purposes, but the levites are going in first so to speak. The glory is preceeding the general Body. The way is being prepared–for His Truth and Lovingkindness always proceed His Judgement and Mercy. He is spreading the Truth and preparing for The Message which is about to be released over europe. Many silent nations will now speak. Poland is one.

The spirit of a nation is seen through its art, and the artistic palete of europe is about to be possessed by His Holy Spirit. Listen and See what He is doing. Already His Fragrance is being released.

Europe has become spiritually ³the dark continent², and just as He is sending prophets and men of His Authority into her from places once labeled ³dark² such as Africa, so He is preparing the ambiance of Europe for a movement. Part of this preparation is occuring through and in the arts. Many will see and not understand how Elijah comes beforehand!

This art will become prophetic forthtelling of what is to come, and bearing it within it through symbolic expression from His Holy Spirit. Watch the arts and see what God is seeing over europe!

racism

…going further with this tracing things into His Ways…this will keep us from entering racism. Racism’s ways keep us in fear of otherness, rather than seeing other as diverse expressions of God’s creativity. Racism has a fear of other mixed with pride, but if we will look at God, we see a creative diverse God who loves to express Himself in an ever expansive diadem of creative forms. When we distrust or hate another because of race, we are not seeing them as creations of God, and therefore as expressions of His Creativity. God is Diverse in His expression, this is one of His Ways. We must not hate arabs, africans, or anglos because of our race; nor must we hate our own nation. For each person, and group or ethnos is a creation of God. You see this blindness between the Jews and christians throughout history, and it is one of the largest racial blindnesses to be overcome. But we need to start by looking at God’s ways and let that lead us out of this racial blindness. God made both Jews and arabs, and they each reflect parts of Him, and they will work together in His Plan. We must come to see them as reflections of Him, and let His Spirit reveal to us that part of Him which each reflects. We cannot interpret the races with our natural eyes, but must trace them through Him and His eyes. One easy way to do this is to begin with who He is, then see people and nations as various reflections of different aspect of who God is. Taken together we will see a larger reflection of His Image, as we stop type casting the nations in our own stereotypes and meditate on each as a way of getting to know Him!

discerning ways

Check this out…

discernment includes knowing the difference between God¹s WAYS and the ways of the enemy. The faces or expression of the enemy¹s ways may vary, but its WAYS are the same. There are three basic ³schools² of the enemy¹s ways: witchcraft, religion, and racism.

You can learn to recognize the ways of each of these schools, and to differentiate them from God¹s ways. In our time, it is not enough to just not sin. True warfare is learning to not move in the ways of the enemy. The church has not discerned well, and often cannot differentiate between God¹s ways and the enemy¹s. As a result, the ways of witchcraft, religion and racism are often very present within them.

Witchcraft¹s main²way² is manipulation. When we are PULLED rather than led, we should come alert. God does not allure and pull, He guides and leads. Manipulation is everywhere in advertizing, media, and nearly everywhere. To recognize when you are being puilled or manipulated is basic to not moving in the spirit of witchcraft.

The main ³way² of religion is critical and judgmental. When we are finding fault in others, or being overly critical we can guess that her ways are nearby. She is a controlling spirit, and lodges in our own guilt, or places within where we are holding up a standard in our own power, and judging others by it. Religious spirit basically places religious practice in the place of the Holy Spirit, and judges others by our religious standard. You see this spirit manifesting through any spiritual system including christianity, when The Holy Spirit is not really in control. Religion is an afront to the cross.

Racism is basically fear of other coupled with pride that we are actually inherently better than others. It grows into hatred of other, and is exactly the opposite of God¹s heart for diversity of expression. This is the way of hatred of other.

David in Psalm 119, pours out His heart for the paths or ways of God. He seeks them, for he understood that it is not just about not sinning, it is about not moving in the ways of evil, or the paths of unrighteousness. We must learn to discern not just the faces of the enemy, but also his ways, so that we can choose to live in God¹s.

In our day, the ways of the enemy are being made manifest, and so are the ways of God. to know God¹s ways, we must seek to know HIM HIMSELF. This guards us from mere religion, and from the ways of these three schools of evil. Lord give us your Eyes to recognize when we are moving in Your enemies ways! In Jesus Name.

The ways of God are peacable, noble, love filled, sacrificial, and filled with His Character. Enter Jesus Life to know His Ways or paths! Contrast them with the ways of the enemy to keep a vigilant watch.

jessica is amazing and we

jessica is amazing and we are glad to know her! she’s steady in storms, and is just a deep and real listener, and she cares.

(just felt like saying that)

…the scribal percision of the

…the scribal percision of the bohemians, the nuances of the cateloguing of beauty of the french, the clever sorting of the english, the sturdy steady arm power of the Germans, the mystic continuum of the scots, the wild-eyed heart passion of the irish, the stoic standing of the polish..on and on..these nations, these ethnos, these reflections of God. how they will be reOrdered in His order, and hear their names spoken from The Father. a person is not thier sin. a nation is not its shadow. Jesus came that they might have Life. The specific life of that particular identity, and we are certain that He is able to finish that work which He started. today, we pray for the family of nations–here, from a nation made up of nations, we pray back into our sources, from Our Source!

seeing

..the church as a spiritual house, should be interpreting these recent horrific world events. We must enter the spirit and interpret events from the perspective of heaven. this requires spiritual sight, or not judging from our eyes. until we have this, we will not be able to properly judge the elections, the gay issue, the explosions in spain, or the most basic understanding of the middle east. we must seek to see it from His Eyes. we open our spiritual eyes and the our mouths to interpret the things around us from His Perspective. Impart this Sight to those who read this today Lord, help us to see our world from Your Eyes, and so to understand the events of our times…in Jesus Name

robbers in the house

Jesus said, Œmy house will be a house of prayer for all nations.¹ He said this after He sent the merchants flying out of the temple. ³But you have made it a den of robbers.² Jesus coming back into his body means coming again to be the dwelling presence of the temple. We don¹t remember what this felt like‹to have the presence of God permeate his own living quarters. But we are about to.

There was another time we didn¹t remember, when He returned into the rebuilt temple‹and we felt Him then, too. It had been so long since we had listened to His words, the reading of his very ways on paper caused us to weep. Once again the energy, beauty and purifying presence of the Lord had returned. Time and time again His presence would return and seem to disappear from us. We would forget how to call Him, we would live as if He was only a special occasion.

Then we came to us as a human being, if it could not get more pointed than that. Jesus said to us, ³Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days² (John 2:19). He will raise it again because he has raised it before. He has lost his dwelling places‹nations, tabernacles, physical temples, his own body, and now His church‹over and over. But He will not stop raising it again; He showed us how by resurrecting His human body.

We have made our body a home for robbers. Daily we let things steal from attention to Him. We let frustration with each other steal our devotion, we use Jesus to get what we want; we line the court passageways to our heart with anger, pessimism, fear, and rejection. How Jesus cleaned out the stone temple is how He is cleaning out the flesh temple. We, as His body, are His collective space for entering the earth. It is not through one of us, or any one group, but through the whole entire people of God that His presence will return and fill the temple and then the earth. Do we have any idea what this means? Of course we can¹t talk about it without getting mystical. The very presence of the Creator is returning to the earth through a people.

Just as in the time of Nehemiah and Ezra, we are becoming the sccond temple. We are promised that the glory of this temple will be greater than the first, and in our case that means the early church was an amazing sign‹but we are to be the full embodiment of that sign. We also have sometimes the faintest clue of what we are building it for. We haven¹t experienced the entire body gathered in one spirit to hear the words of the Lord, to hear His wind rushing in and filling us with His smoke and power and sense of wonder.

Like them we also will have to face insults along the way‹first plots to raise strife and contention among us as we build, then public humiliation. Hello, the enemy does not want His presence to fill the entire body of Christ in the same way that was promised to the prophets. But our Presence will allow these plots to come so that we can recognize them and know why we stand together. He will not allow the den of robbers to be the pervasive way of His temple so He will stir us up until all the tables are thrown out and all our gates are open for prayer, all day and night.

meditations on fruit

a meditation on fruit

³He shall be like a tree…that brings forth its FRUIT in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall PROSPER.² Ps1:3

When God is in charge of the whole planting, tending and harvesting process, the fruit is life giving and eternal. When we jump ahead and in our own way, try to get to the fruit, or rush the tending process, we bear mishapen fruit that will not last. The church has done this often.

There is an ordering principle in this, with a promise of durability and prosperity on earth. Wisdom knows when God is planting, and when he is pruning, and when he is harvesting the fruits. There is a season for each. To know where God is at in His Own fruit bearing processes in us and in those around us, is essential both to move in wisdom, and to get to know God as we help one another where each is at. There is a time to plant, a time to heal, a time to tend, a time to harvest. Knowing where we are in the growth process is basic to moving with God.

³being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus..² Phil1:11

To be filled with fruit is a seasonal completion. He is forming His Fruits in us–ie growing His own fruit within us. And we are told to become filled with these fruits. In many ways we are the fruit of jesus, but in another way, He is the fruit in us. There is a growth process implied in the metaphore of fruit–a process of planting, prunning or caring for, and then having ripe full fruit.

The are many spiritual laws around fruit–for example, ³He who tends a fig tree will eat of its fruit, prov. 27:18, which means if one joins jesus in his tending process, one will be allowed to eat of the fruit which is grown.

³the FRUIT of the righteous is a tree of Life..² Proverbs 11:30. For when people eat of this fruit they are tasting jesus who is the tree of life. So we become a tree of life for others.

ŒIsrael will blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit.² Isaiah 27:6

Jesus is cutting off branches in the church which bear no fruit. One branch being cut off is this tendency to work out of season with His Purposes.

The church has often been trying to harvest, when He is planting, or tending or prunning when He is only planting. This is basically pride, blindness and at worst, rebellion for it is saying that we know how to tend the world and ourselves rather than God. God grows fruit in a manner that when it is ripe it is also whole and others can eat it and be eating from the tree of Life, His Son. When we move out of his order, we are not only ineffective, but we actually rebell against His order, and therefore no longer reveal Him to the world.

If you look carefully at that first psalm, you enter the image of the growth process when completely controlled by God.

To meditate on God ways, and enter them extends us out into bringing forth fruit in its exact season. And when we allow God to do this, our leaves shall never wither!

Rick Joyner writes, ³There is a time to plant and a time to reap, but there will not be a reaping if we have missed the time to plant. The church has had a ³reaping mentality² which has caused it to overlook many of the planting seasons.² (pg29, the Harvest)

God wants us to be involved in His Harvesting process, but not only that part of the process. To bear eternal fruit, one must know the whole process of God¹s way of growing things into His Fulness. To know even and especially in our own lives if He is planting, tending, or harvesting is essential to be aligned with his Purposes in our lives. Then we can let Him grow his Son in us, and we will become trees of life for those around us. Fruit bearing is a process. If we are overly fruit focused, we miss His full revelation, and we grow premature fruit that does not bring life.

you know we think of

you know we think of networking as serving either our own needs, or that of the company or organization we work for which we may or may not believe is doing a good service….

the real reason we go meet different people is to complete God’s joy. For when we meet another person, we are allowing those parts of Him in us to touch those parts of Him in them. God likes fellowship with Himself!

i was thinking today of all the times i felt i had helped certain people to meet one another, or just got to meet some people who would will probably never meet one another, and i was thinking of how He then gets to touch and join and have that feeling of connection through me–a bit like synovial fluid in the physical body, which is the fluid between joints allowing bones to meet without grating–you know we meet one another and touch, only in part for us, most of it is to bring Him that joy…and that joy is our strength.