The church is sick, Jesus told me. Sick not with a disease but with man’s ways.
He said the problem is that Man’s Ways do not produce God’s blessings. Not that we haven’t tried!
He even said the way most of us minister in church will NEVER produce his Kingdom. Ouch! NEVER!
These and other statements I heard him say are both startling at first, but upon reflection maybe also quite obvious. Why do we think we can outsmart God’s wisdom, improve on God’s Ways or build his Kingdom by acting in ways he said NOT to?
This book, a collection of conversations with Jesus, that I call the Foundations of the Kingdom, is what he said can cure the church now sick with man’s ways. It is his message to the Body, a mandate he called it, not just my collection of witty sayings.
The whole book is being put on line HERE but I’ll try to explain the scope of this suite of teachings here now.
A Journey of Unusual Dimensions
He told me through a respected prophet when I was about 20 that he would teach me different ideas, ideas that would all seem separate concepts, like building blocks, but one day he would tell me One Big Idea that would tie them all together into one Big Picture. The smaller ideas were conversations explaining visions about things like leadership (servanthood, not like being a secular boss), grace (power not forgiveness), hearing God speak during prayer (not just talking into the silent night), etc. These were all powerful revelations in themselves, but then the Big Idea came from a conversation I had with Jesus about the meaning of Isaiah 61. That changed my life. It changed how I understand Christianity, ministry, my purpose. That one conversation literally tied everything he had taught me over many years together into one Big Picture. It literally blew my mind.
This big picture is what I now call the Foundations of the Kingdom.
From Knowledge to Experience
My first version of this book was too long he said, and added, that if I would wait he would give me one final key to include. So I waited. I was panicked thinking it could take as long as 3 months. Taking 6 months was scaring me! A year went by and, oh no! So much trouble for me in Hong Kong, it was my training period to prepare me for missions work he said. Years slipped by and finally when he told me the last key it had been 10 years. A little over.
As I put the book on hold, my service to God had already been multifaceted, I would do anything he asked. He had invited me to serve him as a prophet. After an intense season of both training and service, he let me shift into what he called Equipping. Several of the ideas in Foundations were things I knew already conceptually but now began to walk out by experience. He also began to explain his vision for my service to him in the Philippines. It blew my mind again; it was 100 then 1,000 times bigger than anything I could or had ever asked him for to date or since. When he thinks, he thinks BIG!
So I spent the next several years in a kind of exile, first in Hong Kong, and then I moved to the Philippines to follow his plans. He asked me to ‘hang up’ being the prophet for a season and serve his people as a pastor, but what we call here being a missionary. Arriving here and eager to get started on his plans we only held three seminars training people to hear God’s voice before an earthquake struck, and then every neat plan I had about how his vision would unfold went totally haywire. God was now plainly talking about Revival. On a big scale. And he said we were here to lay the foundation … and it would make history. How did it all fit together?
Trying to find our bearings in the aftermath God had said the main principality over the Island was now gone, we had been delivered! But now, he said the witches were going to fight us. “Are you ready?” Does any answer I give matter? Ready or not, here they come!
Witches stir up hatred and evil in every direction. We began taking care of many children, our support and funding was cut, our friends betrayed us very severely, Christians attacked us, government agents attacked us, it was very severe. He sent us to find and help special cases of people who he wanted to use or rescue who were victims of rape, incest, or the pollution that comes from practicing witchcraft. Hard cases of people who do not want to change. But God had a plan.
Meanwhile God keep explaining his directions for us, giving me visions and details on architecture, interior design, business plans–HUGE business plans, the number and complexity of projects he asked us to do increased in spite of the hardships, maybe due to them? At one point he said all 30, well, now all 40 projects, or more … that I would do them ALL! … BUT SO WHAT!!!
So what?! One business alone earns US$5 million a month. Make a giant theme park? Build a new town? So what? Then he said, it’s the PEOPLE he wants … it’s the people he cares about. I feel like I’m still learning this!
Keeping Busy
Busy years ticked by, and we were immersed in child care, social work the government social workers wouldn’t touch, intercession, praying to fight witches, struggling for money for food and rent, more betrayals from friends, loved by the youth, disliked by many others … all the while design and planning work ongoing, making budgets and even learning marine biology, tourism planning and motorsports. This was full-on missionary work, prophecy, spiritual warfare, but also business planning, architectural design, book writing and when was God going to tell me the final key? We moved house 10 times in 7 years, usually being chased out by a landlord who had gone mad. Witches make everything go wrong. Finally, when we began to overcome the warfare, this was years not weeks or months, and he said “Do you want to know what the final key is? To love the unlovable.” I was too harried to let him explain.
But as it began to sink in I reflected on my past years serving the poor who no one cares about, no one will help, because no one sees any value in them. People who are not grateful for your help but will steal from you just as fast as say thank you! To Love the Unlovable is the final key to this message, this mandate. I think instead of listening to him speak and letting him tell me, he wanted to give me an object lesson–ten years of object lessons–and so learn the old fashioned way.
Had he told me this topic in Hong Kong, it would have meant one thing to me. After several years of fully-immersed missions work, and I don’t mean weekend trips from the city to the harsh beaches of Boarcay. Or selling some stocks to buy hamburgers for kids hanging out at the mall begging. We often had less food and money than the people we were send to help! You think poor people take your help graciously? No! We’ve been stolen from, lied to and slandered viciously by the very people we have been sent to help so many times I can’t count! After several years living like this it made a different kind of sense: Love the Unlovable. Of course we need to! What else would God do?
Gaining a New Perspective
So when God said it was now time to write the book, it was not with a lot of new information but certainly with a new understanding. Before, ten years ago, I was still a recovering attorney. I had been trained and served God as a prophet, which tends to sometimes also be a little surgical. I mean academic. at arm’s length. I mean prophets speak, and then often can usually just walk away. Not so a pastor in the inner city. Not so a missionary embedded in a foreign land.
What I mean to say is that my understanding of God’s conversations with me maybe tended towards the theoretical previously. Ask an unmarried 20 year old to give you marriage counseling, see what I mean? It’s probably right concepts, but without any understanding that comes from experience. Well, maybe I had that luxury before. What I now see is from a different perspective. The need for God’s Kingdom to come and save us from the mess we live in is just more real to me now than it was living in the big city. If we don’t get this right, if we don’t lay hold of the pearl of great price, people will die. You may think its OK, you have a great Resume or CV, you can just get a better job, tap into your savings, turn to your family or friends, but I live in a world where these are not viable options, and all we can rely on is God himself, God personally, God in reality. If you can’t find God in a mess, it’s still OK, you can use your credit card. You have insurance. The government will help! You can just quit and start over again in a new town, a new family, a new career. This is not my thinking, it’s not even always possible, and not the solution I have been searching for. So maybe God’s hardships to me were the blessings I needed to find his excellence? That’s probably true. And now I have found that Pearl, I have found his Ways, I can hear His voice, and I’ve spend years walking out the Great Commission, maybe now I can better explain what he told me saying the church is sick. Sick not with a disease but with man’s ways. … Man’s ways do not produce God’s blessings. … God knows we’ve tried! … And the way most of us minister in church will NEVER produce his Kingdom. Never.
Resurrection Power
So what I am sharing in this book has the power to reform the modern church. It has the potential to transform the church of man and release the Kingdom of God. After my last maybe 10 years in exile I see a different perspective, a different goal, a new vision. I can show this with you now. I think that’s something you would find valuable. Don’t you? He told me he gave me the key of understanding and without me they just won’t understand. He said he was sending me to help cure his sick church.
See, I am not content with ideas, trends, theories or a well-crafted sermon series. I want God’s Kingdom.
I am not satisfied with Sunday hour-long services, everyone dressed up, acting their best, singing famous songs, cheering for famous messages, and to leave with an empty feeling that the Holy Spirit never even showed up. Or worse, came but was made to leave! No, I want to see the Kingdom come. Come, and stay!
The Kingdom of God is however not a matter of fancy talk but of real power. The power in the Holy Spirit I mean.
The Kingdom of God, the Gospel, is meant to be the balm of ALL social ills. It can be, but man has stuffed it into a rigid form, kicked out the Holy Spirit, and prevented it from being able to expand across the Land to meet every need, as he intended. He showed me in a simple vision that the barrier which is holding the gospel back is about to be broken down and the gospel is going to be released.
He asked me one day to release Ezekiel 37, the vision of the dry bones. I did. Only much later I realized what it meant. It’s this message.
He asked me, Can you have a church service without the Holy Spirit? I couldn’t answer so he then explained, The Holy Spirit IS the service. The Holy Sprit IS the ministry. It’s about time you got to know him! It is HIS Kingdom, after all. It about time we used His Ways to spread it!
So these ten or so Keys, topics, explanations that came often from many hour-long sit-down conversations with Jesus can fix this quagmire we have found ourselves in. This message he said is a mandate, it’s not my collection of witty ideas. This message has the power to change your life, it will certainly change your way of thinking. The Kingdom of God is within you, it’s time you stopped letting man’s ideas cover it with a basket, it’s time you let it shine.
OK, enough talk. Let’s get to the meat.
The main book is on line HERE. It has as list of brief overviews as well as the Main Teachings, which will comprise the whole book once compiled.
There are a few Briefs here on this site as well if you want to review them first.
1. Foundations Key 1: Baptisms and Gospels
2. Foundations Key 2: Isaiah 61, The Model of Our New Life!