Culturally Innapropriate

Danny Silk is a relational specialist in the Body of Christ and His kingdom. He recently posted this on social media from his Book, Keep Your Love On, Page 22 – “Powerless people often blame the messes they make on other people.”

He goes on to post:

“Powerless people believe the reason their life, marriage, child, finances, job, or whatever is the way it is has nothing to do with their choices. Someone else — their parents, their spouse, their teachers, society — created the life they are living. They don’t have the power to create their own lives.

We do not have to live like this. You don’t have to be a victim of your life. As a powerful person, you don’t have to simply react to whatever is happening today. You can take responsibility for your decisions and the consequences of those decisions — even for your mistakes and failures. You can respond to today and create your tomorrow!”

This is the part of kingdom life so many never understand, or choose to never understand! “They” settle for just the supernatural aspects thinking they have the “culture.”

The power [ability to prophesy or heal the sick] they do possess leads them to believe they are okay when in fact the most important aspects of kingdom culture they are relationally bankrupt in [honor, trust, selfless love, etc].

This delusion reduces them to a performance based Christianity with no authentic relationships. A person who primarily relates to only those they minister to, is, in fact, powerless! These people always disconnect from healthy people and environments because they are not healthy or connected internally.

My wife Donna and I have seen this too many times and what we have realized is, for the most part, these powerless people serve because of what they need or want, not for what those they are supposed to be serving and serving with need or want. They are in practice lone rangers because they are very lonely people.

Their need to be needed leads them to only love those they perceive love them the way they want to be loved, or love what they can do for them. Many times these people do not have substantive connections with anyone anywhere.

These people need to be needed and when what they do is challenged they take this to mean they are not valued [loved, appreciated, accepted]. This is because they have no real value for who they are, just what they can do.

These people struggle with trust issues! They portray themselves as trusting God and themselves. Everyone else is suspect! The truth is they do not trust anyone, including God!

They will, in the face of overwhelming evidence and a multitude of witnesses, deny they have done what is being asserted. They are innocent, just ask them!

It is very sad but is rampant nonetheless!

Can you imagine the look on some “powerful” people’s faces when, after they say to Jesus, “Lord, Lord! Did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles,?” they hear Him say to them, “I never knew you; Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”

It is time for God’s kids to grow up!

Dr. Kevin M. Drury, DMin
Spiritual Revolutionary

Receive and steward God’s passion, power, presence, priority, process, promises, protection, provision, pruning, purging, purity and purpose!

Grace Works!

This is what we find in Genesis 6:8 KJV.

“But Noah found grace in the eyes of God!”

This is such an interesting statement. What makes it so interesting and profound is the context in which Noah found what he found when he finally looked into God’s eyes. Actually, Noah was able to see all the way into God’s heart when he looked into His eyes. God’s grace does not originate in the eyes of God but the heart of God.

The context is God was sorry that He had made mankind. The reason for God’s feeling the way He did was that His prized production became vile and violent.

“Then the Lord  saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” [Verse 5]

To understand the veracity of this scene you must understand that Noah was included in God’s description of the condition of mankind.

Grace Is

What caused Noah to look into God’s eyes when he and every other person were only interested in living their life so loosely?

I believe that we find the answer in verse 3. “But My Spirit will not strive with man forever.”

God, by His Spirit was striving with every man, but only Noah responded to God’s striving. The word striving has to do with contending with, working with, judging in the sense of acting as an umpire. An umpire oversees sports events letting the participants know what is safe and what is out, what is fair and what is foul. Striving also means to plead with and to vindicate.

What we discover in this verse is that God will, after every effort is exhausted, cease to work with man to get him to change the direction he is heading in that is contrary to God’s heart for him. Noah must have submitted to God’s dealings with him, and by submitting to God he discovered and accessed the part of God’s character [grace] that empowered him to live totally for God.

Noah’s name means rest. Noah finally stopped his striving against God and rested in the nature of God. When we find the rest of God we will discover the rest of God.

What was the evidence that Noah found grace in God’s eyes? He began working with God! Noah cooperated with God and as a result of his submitting to God, God was able to co-mission him in the primary mission to save mankind from themselves.

God’s grace enabled Noah to work for and with God, not against God! Somehow work has become a four letter word in some ‘grace’ circles. Well meaning people, I am sure, reduce grace to the ability to decide they don’t have to work, or to be productive. In other words, they have deduced that God is a-okay with their laziness and or sinfulness.

Noah [rest] worked! Noah [rest] performed a task! Noah [rest] performed his task to the standard God required of him! That is what grace does. It enables us to get God’s work done God’s way.

We must realize that work is not a part of the curse that resulted from Adam and Eve’s sin. Unproductive work is a result of the curse.

Work is a part of creation and God’s redemptive purposes for the earth!

In Genesis 3 we find two very interesting verses:

Verse 8 – “The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.”

Verse 15 – “Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.”

Verse 8 reveals that God gave man access to the Garden and verse 15 reveals that God gave man responsibility for the Garden. There are a lot of people who have been given access but refuse responsibility. If you will not be responsible for something then you cannot be given authority over something.

That’s something isn’t it?

Friends, grace works and grace works very hard. Grace is not lazy and those who accept God’s grace also work very hard. Otherwise, it is not God’s grace.

For HIS Glory!

Dr. Kevin M. Drury, DMin