Category Archives: Extra Thoughts

Breaking All Confinement

The initial blast of the Spirit’s anointing power shatters the heavy yoke of Satan’s confinement—sickness, lack, oppression, bent-over vision—and lets you feel the weights fly off your shoulders. That relative freedom is real and glorious. But the hundredfold absolute freedom—the kind where every remaining strap snaps and you run unhindered into the full good dream God has written over your life—only comes when you get so fat on the daily, visible fulfillment of His promises that the old hindrances can’t hold you anymore. You are the righteousness of God in Christ. You are already seated with the enthroned King. Speak it, receive it, grow fat on it. Watch every scheme of the enemy shatter—then run like Elijah outpacing the horses.

Isaiah 10:27 is the classic line: the burden lifts from the shoulder, the yoke from the neck, and the yoke is destroyed because of the anointing—or, as the Hebrew also carries it, “the yoke will be broken because of fatness.” (LSB). The popular charismatic reading of the “anointing oil” as the Holy Spirit’s power is not wrong; it simply needs the rest of the picture.

So let’s talk about the anointing of the Holy Ghost. The Spirit comes in power to break bondages and give freedom. Jesus Himself launched His ministry by reading Isaiah 61 and declaring the Spirit of the Lord was upon Him to proclaim good news to the poor, freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, and to set the oppressed free (Luke 4:18-19). Acts 10:38 says God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and He went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil. That same Spirit is poured out on you. The baptism of power is not optional decoration. It is the explosive force that breaks yokes and bondages.

When that power hits, something breaks. It is unstoppable. A healing lands. A financial door flies open. A demonic oppression lifts. A relationship that felt dead suddenly has oxygen. Relative to the crushing weight you were under, it feels like total liberty. You start moving. You start breathing. You start smiling like a man who just had the wagon unhitched from his neck. That emotional and spiritual high from a miracle that just saved you is legitimate. Do not despise it. It feels good and it should. However, here’s the trap. Do not stop there and call it the finish line. The miracle is real and powerful, but it was the starting gun, not the trophy. The ox is free enough to walk, yet some straps and gear still cling. Thirtyfold. Sixtyfold. Not yet the hundredfold where the animal is so fat, so healthy, so bulked up with the very goodness of God that the remaining wood and leather simply explode off its neck and it is free to run.

Look at the woman Jesus healed in Luke 13. This story gives us a clean picture of what happens when the initial miracle hits—when the Spirit lands His first blow against the demonic oppression in your life. A common result of that first spiritual salvo is that your head is free to lift up and see a good future. In the story, the woman—bound by Satan for eighteen years, bent over—could only see her own feet. That is the posture of demonic confinement: eyes locked on the dirt, the symptoms, the lack, the failed reports, the small horizon. Stress, worry, and negative images rule your thoughts and vision. When Jesus called her free and laid hands on her, she straightened up by divine healing. Now she could finally lift her head. Suddenly the world opened. She could see distance. She could see possibility. That is what the initial anointing miracle does—it lifts the head. Now you can see the dream. You begin to visualize a good future. God wants to grant you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4). Not some truncated, “spiritualized only” version. The real desires. The ones that, when fulfilled, enlarge His kingdom by enlarging you. A mansion to spit in the face of the faithless, then a hundred houses for a hundred missionaries. Preaching with power that heals the sick on the spot. Family so whole the next generation inherits blessing instead of bondage. Old besetting sins loosen and fall off. A body so thoroughly healed that even the little things—bad eyesight, lingering fatigue, that one joint that always complained—are gone. Financial surplus that is not just debt-free but overflowing, so you can give and build your big dreams without the old god of lack whispering that you don’t have enough. And in your fatness, you realize you now have the strength to grab your family and friends and help them the way God helped you.

That full freedom is the fatness. You become fat with the promises of God already fulfilled in your experience. You are not waiting for some future day when you finally “arrive.” You are the promises of God. The gospel defines you that way. Jesus became sin so that you might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21). He became poor so that by His poverty you might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). By His stripes you were healed (Isaiah 53:5; 1 Peter 2:24). The blessing of Abraham—Spirit, miracles, fame, military victories, favor, increase—is already yours by faith (Galatians 3:13-14). These are not distant hopes. They are your present ontology because you are fused to the enthroned Christ. You are seated with Him in the heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6). Seated means the work is finished, so you sit—and you sit in a place of authority. Scripture does not say only Jesus was seated in the heavenly places; it says God made us sit there with Him. That’s right: you are already seated. Your work is already done, because He already did it, and the Father already transferred His righteousness, grace, and blessings to your account. They are yours. You are a royal priesthood in a seated place of authority—not later. Now. Sickness, lack, and demonic schemes are under His feet, therefore under yours. They are under the throne of Jesus, and because you are already seated with Him there, they are under your authority.

So how do you get fat? You stop speaking the evil report of observations and start speaking the promise. Daily. Relentlessly. You cultivate a mind of righteousness. Get rid of the old sin-consciousness that only makes you more sinful. You are the righteousness of God now, and your inner thoughts should be non-stop righteous consciousness. You look at the doctor’s chart and say, “By His stripes I was healed—therefore I am healed.” You look at the bank account and say, “Jesus became poor so I am rich—therefore supply is mine.” You look at the mountain of impossibility and speak to it the way a man speaks who already owns the title deed: “Be removed and cast into the sea” (Mark 11:23). Faith is not a feeling you wait for. Faith is mental assent to what God has already declared. When you consistently agree with God’s definition of you, your vision and the imaginations of your heart clarify into a big, bright future. The promises start landing in the open. Healing multiplies. Answers to prayer become more regular. Relationships heal. The surplus appears. Every little lingering strap that the enemy still hoped to use snaps under the sheer bulk of fulfilled goodness.

Picture it. The ox that once strained under the yoke now stands thick-necked and powerful, muscle packed on from the rich pasture of faith in God’s promise. The old wood and leather creak, then crack, then explode off in pieces. No more tug. No more residual weight. Nothing left clinging. That is the hundredfold. You run. You fulfill the desires of your heart. And in the running, His kingdom expands through every desire of your heart that materializes. Best deal in the universe: He gets the glory of a son who actually lives free, and you get the life of God granting the dreams of your heart. You get to live with God as your exceedingly great reward, the way He was with Abraham His friend.

Do not settle for the initial high and call it enough. That is limiting God. The Spirit’s power is not a one-time blast followed by a lifetime of managing leftover chains. That’s the lie the faithless will try to sell you. They are the voice of Satan, and they populate many churches and pews. The true fatness of God’s power and blessing is designed for the hundredfold. It is the power that keeps making you fat with every promise you dare to believe and speak. Storm the throne. Confess who you are. Command the mountain. Grow so fat with the goodness of God that every remaining piece of the old yoke explodes off your neck.

Head up. Eyes on the horizon. Growing fat with the promises. That is the hundredfold. That is breaking all confinement. Let nothing stand in your way—not Satan, not your family and not even the church. Break all confinement.

Throne Identity – Throne Application

Vincent Cheung put some clean, heavy rounds into the target with his essay on “Theology of the Throne.” In fact, eschatology runs on one present-tense fact: Jesus is seated. Not “will be someday when everything is neat and tidy.” Not “spiritually in some vague, non-threatening sense that lets you stay sick and powerless.” Seated. Right now. At the right hand of Power.

The cross was the doorway. The empty tomb was the victory parade. The throne is the address.

And if you’re still camping at the doorway like a spiritual tourist taking selfies with a finished beam, you’ve missed the entire reason there was a cross.

Hebrews Does Not Open with a Pity Party

Vincent exposed how Hebrews does not begin with sentimental cross-gazing. It opens with the Son who, after making purification for sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high (Hebrews 1:3). The writer does not warm up with “behold the wounds.” He starts with completion and authority. Then he keeps swinging the same hammer. Vincent then shows the application is about the throne.

It is true that Hebrews talks much about the Contracts and High Priest theology, but these rabbit holes that the preacher chase to help his slow-thinking audience can confuse people into thinking those are the main points. The main point of the Contract, as chapter 8 makes clear, is that only the enthroned Jesus makes it a present reality ruling reality. This is why the thesis statement of Hebrews (1:3) is not primarily about a high priest, but about an enthroned Jesus ruling in authority.

By chapter 4 we are not told to crawl back to Calvary for another guilt session so we can feel properly broken. We are commanded to come boldly to the “throne” of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16). The thesis is the enthroned high priest, not mainly about a high priest—though the high priest aspect gives us an important foundation. We are not told to go boldly to the high priest or to a cross, but to the throne of grace. Authority and power, not mere sympathy, grant your requests for help. The loving High Priest we draw near to is not hanging. He is seated.

Later the same book tells us to look to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despised the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:2). The author of your faith we are told to look to is specifically said to be on a throne and ruling with authority. Because Jesus is ruling, He has the power and authority to ensure your faith is grown and matured to perfection.

Hebrews is not mainly about the cross. It is a book about the throne and the authority of the enthroned King, who already made the new Contract active. We are told about the foundations that make the throne so approachable—such as a sympathetic high priest who finished our salvation once for all, with a the best of the best Contract. But the Hebrew point is about Jesus on the throne. Hebrews is pointing us to focus, not on the old tree, but on the place where the current Jesus lives. The One who perfects your faith is not the One still bleeding. He is the enthroned King who lives to intercede for you. You cannot run the race by staring at a finished beam like it’s still the main event. You run it by locking eyes with the One who already finished it and now rules from the throne of power and grace.

This is not mainly cross theology. This is throne theology. And once you see it, the applications detonate.

You Are Already Seated — Stop Acting Like You’re Not

Paul tells the Colossians they have already been raised with Christ. Therefore seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on things on the earth (Colossians 3:1-2). Why? Because that is already your location. Your identity. Your existence. You do not become seated later if you behave well enough. You are seated. So live like it. Think from the throne room, not from the dirt under your feet.

Ephesians doubles down with zero mercy for the timid. God raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:6). The same power that raised Christ from the dead and seated Him far above every rule and authority and power and dominion is now at work in us who believe (Ephesians 1:19-23). Everything is under His feet—and therefore under ours—because we are His body and His body is on the throne.

It is not merely that things are under your feet while you scramble around on earth trying to “get the victory.” Things are under your feet while you sit on the throne. Think about that for two seconds. All things are under your—that’s right, your—throne of authority. Paul says, past tense, you have been seated with Jesus. To sit is a symbol of completed work and authority. Jesus finished the work, which is why not only is Jesus seated, you are also resting and sitting. You are sitting with Jesus on a throne. This is why Peter says you are a “royal priesthood.” You are royal because you are seated with Jesus, who is seated on a throne. That is why you can heal the sick, cast out demons, and tell mountains to move. The authority is not a temporary loan that expires when you feel unworthy. It is the permanent position of a royal priesthood. You do not go in and out of it depending on your quiet time. You always have it. Since Jesus is always in His position of authority on His throne, you always have it. Do you see it now? If you refuse to use it, you are not being humble. You are being negligent and stupid.

The Only Witness Available to You Right Now

I cannot be an eyewitness of the cross. I have never seen it. I do not know where the empty tomb is. I cannot stand there and point for the camera. What I can be, right now, is a witness of the enthroned Jesus Christ, because I am already seated with Him. That is the only present-tense testimony available to us.

Look at Acts. Peter’s first sermon that launched the church age was not a long, tearful meditation on the nails. It was a declaration that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ—and that this same Jesus is currently exalted to the right hand of God, has received the promised Holy Spirit, and has poured out what you now see and hear (Acts 2:32-36). Tongues. Power. Prophecy. That is the enthroned Jesus flexing. The rest of the book is the church operating from that occupied throne.

When Stephen looked up, he did not see a cross or a tomb. He saw the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God (Acts 7:55-56). I am a witness of Jesus on Throne, by using my Throne authority, as I am seated with Jesus. That is the power that shook the world. The apostles were never the point. Stop and think about that for a moment. It was not about apostles or men. Making men the point is man-centeredness, and it always ends in celebrity culture and powerless religion. The point is the reigning Christ. The book of Acts is the Age of the enthroned Christ. Because He is on the throne, we are seated with Him and therefore carry authority. What you bind is bound. What you loose is loosed. You have the authority to cast out demons, heal the sick, and command reality because you are already on the throne with Him.

Permanent Authority, Not Mood-Based Permission

You are a royal priesthood. That is not a future promotion. That is present reality. You always have the authority. You do not need to “work yourself up into faith” or wait for a special anointing conference. The throne is already under you. Wiggle your butt—do you feel it? That is the throne beneath you. Wiggle your toes—that is the footstool of the throne, and it is beneath you. The Name of Jesus is already engraved on your tongue. The Spirit has already been poured out from that throne for power.

If you choose not to use it, that is on you. The power that took over the Roman world was not the power of gifted apostles. It was the power of ordinary believers who knew they were seated with the King and therefore acted like it. The book of Acts is not the age of the apostles. It is the age of the occupied throne.

Conquer Now or Don’t Expect a Throne Later

Revelation seals the logic with zero sentimentality. To the one who conquers, Jesus grants the right to sit with Him on His throne, just as He conquered and sat down with His Father on His throne (Revelation 3:21). Notice the condition. Not “to the one who was forgiven.” To the one who conquers. Why?

Let’s ask another question. How do you conquer? By knowing your present position in Christ, by binding and loosing, by healing the sick, by ruling in life now. That is the proof you actually believe you are forgiven and righteous. The people who still see themselves primarily as sinners never rule. They cannot. Sin-consciousness keeps them off the throne in their own minds. They keep dry-humping the empty cross while the King is throwing a victory party two rooms over. Yes, you heard that right. I’m not mocking the cross, I’m mocking your perverted, faithless behavior on the cross. It’s gross, and we can all see you doing it.

But the one who truly believes the blood has perfected him forever (Hebrews 10:14) sits down, opens his mouth, and exercises the authority that already belongs to him. That present conquering is the evidence of real faith. And the promise stands: those who live from the throne now will sit on thrones later.

How Kings Pray from the Throne

Here is the practical payoff. The book of Hebrews, which is about the throne of grace and the authority of the seated High Priest, gives us the application in chapters 4, 10, and 12: go to the throne. Chapter 4 says go boldly to the throne of grace to ask and to receive. That is not a suggestion for the extra-spiritual. That is the normal operating system for everyone who is already seated with Christ in the heavenly places.

So when you pray, how do you see yourself?

Paul says you need to see yourself in the heavenly places, already seated with Jesus—not just standing before Him as a nervous petitioner hoping the King notices you. You are already on the throne with Him. This is why Peter in Acts 3 can look at a crippled man and say, “What I have, I give. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” Peter was not flexing apostle status. He was operating from the same position every believer already has. Because Jesus is on a throne, Peter is on a throne. Because Jesus is on a throne, you are on a throne. From that position he could say, “What I have (authority from the throne), I give.” Jesus gave him—and all of us—His name to use. Get up and walk.

This is why you can decree. This is why you can bind and loose. You are already on a throne. Not “you are going to be if you pray hard enough.” You are. Therefore when you pray, you do not beg like a peasant at the palace gate. Does a king beg? Does Jesus sit there and say, “Oh please, will someone help Me out here?” No. He is on a throne. He is a King. And here is the big idea: you are on the throne with Him.

That is why you do not beg and hedge. That is why you say, “What I have, I give. Walk. Get out of my way, mountain. Leave, Satan.” You already have the authority. That is why you can pray with such confidence. That is why the word-of-faith people are right when they pray without hedging by decreeing. Kings do not negotiate with reality. Kings decree. Kings command.

This is why you can (and should) imagine yourself visually in the throne room of heaven—on a throne or standing next to it, the way Stephen saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God. From that place you open your mouth as a king and say:

“Jesus, as You are before me and the Father, I make this declaration. I am prosperous. I stand on behalf of my brother—he is healed in Jesus’ name. I decree blessing on him.”

And it will happen, because you are in authority. You can actually do that. And if you have faith for it, God will honor your words as the king that you already are.

Stop the Zombie Theology

This is why cross-centered theology is so destructive and, frankly, demonic. It is not humility. It is a sophisticated way to remain an atheist while still using Christian vocabulary. Jesus is not on the cross. You cannot have a living relationship with Someone who is not there. You can remember the cross. You should thank Him for it. The Lord’s Supper commands us to remember. But remembrance assumes you are not stuck there like a spiritual zombie still trying to get blood out of a finished sacrifice.

To camp at the foot of the cross is a dead man’s religion and a zombie theology. The King is alive. You cannot talk to a corpse. You cannot get power from a corpse. Jesus is on the throne, and the table is already spread in His presence. You do not crawl to the doorway forever while the King is calling you to sit down and reign.

The cross was finished. The tomb is empty. The throne is occupied.

And you are seated there with Him right now. Conquer now. Rule now.

That is the proof you know you are righteous. And the promise of heaven is waiting for those who live the conquering life.

A World of Its Own

Vincent Cheung’s essay “Contract” drops a few ideas that actually land with force instead of the usual theological cotton candy. One is calling the new covenant a Contract. Another is that it does not run case by case like some bureaucratic favor system. The third—and the one that keeps paying dividends—is that this Contract produces a world of its own. Not a nicer neighbourhood inside the old world. A different world. Sealed. Exclusive. Rules rewritten.

Some still try the classic humble-sounding routine: “I am the worst of sinners… and also the righteousness of God.” It plays beautifully to the gullible. It is the theological equivalent of a three-card monte where the dealer keeps both cards in play so nobody notices the game is already over. Pure unbelief in a piety costume. As a Christian I am never without God, never without ongoing fellowship, never outside the Contract, never outside my insider status, never without a re-created mind empowered by the Spirit. I am never not perfectly blameless and sinless. I am always the righteousness of God and, yes, awesome. I am never darkness. I am always the light in Christ. The dual-status routine is not humility. It is spiritual LARPing. You do not get to cosplay both beggar and king while the blood has already paid the tab and the throne is already under you.

Inside my Contract with God, He does not see or recognize any sin with me. He sees me as God’s righteousness. God is immutable; He does not do divine amnesia. Omniscience still knows the facts outside the relationship, but God and I are never outside the relationship. The blood locked the terms. 2 Corinthians 5:21 is not poetry for the sentimental. It is the Contract definition: He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Hebrews says one offering has perfected forever those who are being sanctified, and God remembers their sins no more. James says He gives without finding fault. That is not soft language. That is finished legal status. The Court has already ruled. The gavel is down. The dual identity people are still filing appeals that the Judge has already thrown out.

Because I do not go in and out of that insider-Contract status, I define myself only by the reality the Contract creates. The Contract produces a new world all its own. I never leave it. Even if God’s eternality could, in pure technical knowledge, glance at me before justification, I cannot live there. I am not timeless. I experience only linear time and present thoughts. The only way I can think of God and me together is in my present status where I have no sin. I have no ability to step outside the Contract without becoming delusional and irrational. The moment a so-called Christian says “I am a sinner,” he is already speaking as if the Contract no longer holds. That is impossible except by delusion. You can speak of past sin only in the past tense. Anything else pretends you can time-travel back into the old world or cancel the blood-bought status God Himself established. It is like showing up at the airport with two passports—one burned at the border, the other stamped with the King’s seal—and insisting the TSA agent honor both. The agent laughs. The system does not. One of those documents is already ash.

All my sins—past, present, and future—were already forgiven by Jesus. Even if I stumble today, it is already covered and God does not factor it into our present fellowship. This insider relationship is the only world I inhabit. It is the only status I know and acknowledge. It is God’s reality toward me, and it is the only reality I know or experience. The same exclusive world is the only place where Jesus ministers the healing, prosperity, and life His atonement already locked into the Contract. By His stripes I was healed. Though He was rich, yet for my sake He became poor so that by His poverty I might become rich. Inside this bubble those realities are not optional extras or spiritual upgrades you unlock after enough humility points. They are the definition of how God and I relate right now. The Contract does not create two overlapping realities. It creates one airtight world where Jesus only gives what the blood already purchased and Satan gets nothing—not a foothold, not a lease, not even a visitor’s pass.

Symptoms and shortages are trespassers with zero standing in this world. They are illegal aliens who somehow slipped through a crack of unbelief and are now waving fake documents, demanding rights they never possessed. The Contract does not negotiate with them. It does not offer temporary visas or “maybe this is God’s mysterious will” forms. It treats them as foreign invaders whose eviction notice was written in blood and already served. Command the healing. Decree the supply. Speak to the mountain the way a man speaks who already owns the land the mountain sits on and has the title deed in hand. The physics of the old world do not get a vote here. Harvest still comes in famine. Bodies still rise when the word of the Contract is spoken over them. Bank accounts still multiply when the poverty that was already carried by Jesus is treated as settled history rather than an open question. The airtight bubble does not leak.

I used to be a sinner. I am not anymore. I live exclusively inside the new world the blood created, where God looks at me and sees only His own righteousness, where power flows, where healing is normal, where mountains move when I speak. Define yourself the way the Contract defines you, or keep calling yourself a sinner and watch the power stay theoretical—like a king who insists on living in the pigsty next to the palace because it feels more “humble.” The palace is already yours. The pigsty is a self-inflicted cosplay. The choice is not complicated. Step fully into the only world that is actually yours. Stop the false humility that keeps one foot in the old world. You cannot be both the worst of sinners and the righteousness of God at the same time without tearing the Contract. The same exclusive logic that makes dual identity impossible also makes dual reality for the body and the bank account impossible. Either the blood worked or it did not. Either the world of its own is airtight or it is a leaky tent that lets the old weather in. It is airtight.

I stay inside. I define my body and my resources the same way I define my identity: exclusively by the insider status. This world of its own is the only one that is real for me. Live in it. Command from it. Receive from it. The King already wrote the terms, already paid the price, already sealed the deal, and already handed you the Staff of God. Stop crying out as if the power is still somewhere else, still waiting for a fresh download, still requiring another round of self-deprecation before it will activate. It is in your hand. Use it. The old world does not get to define you, your body, or your resources anymore. The Contract already did.

Bring Out the True You

Bring Out the True You

What would happen when God brings out the true you? Let me take a look; oh boy, does it look really good and awesome in here.

You ARE light.

Ephesians 5:8 does not stutter or soft-pedal the timeline. “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.” Past tense: darkness. Present tense: light. The verse is like a divine GPS that refuses to lie about your location and a permanent time-stamp upgrade that deleted the old files for good. That is why people are simply wrong—not merely off by a degree, but flat-out incorrect—when they keep confessing in the present, “I am a sinner… I am the worst of sinners.” According to the Word you are light right now. You were darkness once. The same clean break holds for sinner versus saint, darkness versus righteousness. You were once locked in the kingdom of Satan like a prisoner in a blacked-out dungeon. God has already conveyed you into the kingdom of the Son of His love, the doors behind you have slammed shut forever, and the transfer paperwork is already filed, stamped, and celebrated in heaven.

The faithless keep making this mistake because it keeps them sin-focused. Their consciousness stays glued to darkness, sin, and the enemy, no matter how many “God-centered” or “gospel-centered” banners they wave on the outside like cheap parade floats. It is like insisting on wearing the old muddy prison jumpsuit long after the King has already fitted you with royal robes and burned the jumpsuit, or playing the broken vinyl of guilt while the new album of righteousness is already streaming in high definition. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. Hebrews 10 exposes the old law’s real failure: it was a constant reminder that cultivated a consciousness of sin—an endless guilt commercial that never stopped running, a dripping faucet that kept the whole house awake all night. Day and night their thoughts, even the subconscious ones, circled how sinful they were like a broken record stuck on the worst track. That is what the law produced. In Christ the whole point is the opposite. You do not carry a consciousness of sin anymore—not even in the quiet corners of your mind. That old identity is past, gone, nailed to the cross and buried under three days of empty-tomb victory.

Now you deliberately cultivate a consciousness of how righteous you are, how full of light you are, how packed with God’s goodness, power, love, and every promise you are. Think of it as rewiring the mental hard drive so the Spirit’s truth becomes the default operating system, flipping the switch from a dusty basement of guilt to a sunlit throne room of favor. When that runs through your mind—even while you sleep, when the nighttime theater used to play the old horror flick—the Holy Spirit is right there saying yes like a proud coach on the sidelines. Because those thoughts line up with the Word, He engraves them deeper, renews your mind, and transforms you. You become what you think by the power of the Spirit.

Thinking “I am a sinner, I am darkness” is not spiritual humility. It is an open invitation, a foothold handed straight to the demonic realm—like leaving the back door unlocked, putting out a welcome mat, and hanging a neon “Demons Welcome” sign. The Bible warns us not to give the devil a place, and that is precisely what a sin-consciousness does. It lets the enemy reinforce the lie until your actions start matching the confession, turning you into an unwilling actor in a script he wrote. Let’s not be faithless. Stop starring in the endless rerun of your pre-cross horror flick. The credits have rolled. The lights are on. You are the light. Walk in the light. You are righteousness. You are full of goodness, full of God’s love, full of the promises of God. Saints, you are the righteousness of God now and forever—so quit the old movie and start living the bright sequel God already filmed.

Bringing out the TRUE YOU.

That bright sequel is exactly what it means to bring out the true you. The true you is not some hidden, struggling, half-saved version still waiting for a future upgrade. The true you is the light you already are. To bring out the true you is to bring out light, righteousness, the mind of Christ, goodness, and the material blessings that flow from the finished work of Jesus. Joel Osteen once said, “God’s not trying to take something from you; He’s trying to get something to you. He wants to bring out the true you. The true you is more blessed, more fulfilled, more successful, more peaceful than you can imagine.” I do not endorse everything Osteen teaches, and the phrasing may not be the most technical or precise way to state the doctrine. Yet the statement itself is perfectly fine. There is nothing truly wrong with it. In fact, saying the doctrine this way is good precisely because it exposes the faithless. They take issue with it the same way they take issue with any clear declaration that the finished atonement delivers present blessings. It is similar to the idea of moralizing. The Bible itself moralizes for the Christian, as Vincent Cheung points out in passages like James 5 and the prophets. The more technical term might be that Scripture teaches us to apply examples to ourselves, but “moralize” works just fine. The same is true here. It is fine to say that when God brings out the true you, He brings out righteousness and blessing.

The faithless push back hard against this. One of them, let’s call him Johnny Billy for convenience, objects that God’s sovereign will ultimately determines life or death, so “giving and taking away” can still mean God removes things you consider blessings that come through Christ’s work. He points to James 4, Peter, and Job, claiming it may not always be God’s will that we live tomorrow. This is obviously stupid. The same book of James says that if a doctor tells you that you have stage-five cancer and will die within days, the prayer of faith will raise the sick. James teaches that we can know what will happen tomorrow when faith is applied to the promises and finished work of Jesus. The same is true for the wisdom James mentions. Even death can be voided by faith. Hezekiah prayed and God gave him fifteen more years. Some passed death outright and went straight to heaven. Johnny Billy insists James is telling us we are still dependent on God’s sovereign will for these things, and that He can give or take them away. No. James says our wisdom for tomorrow and healing that escapes sickness or the death sickness would cause is dependent on our faith, not on some vague, unrevealed sovereign will that contradicts the promises.

As to the give-and-take language, God already did the giving and taking away in the finished atonement of Jesus. God took away our sins, sickness, curses, poverty, and lack and gave them to Jesus, who already suffered for them. And God has already given us righteousness, the blessing of Abraham, riches, healing, the position to use Jesus’ name and get whatever we want, and all spiritual blessings. God will not take away the righteousness He already gave through Jesus. God will not take away the healing He already gave by Jesus’ stripes. God will not take away the gospel of Abraham He already gave me through Jesus becoming my curse. Not only is God truth and logic, but He did these things and through the blood and death of Jesus made it a publicly revealed contract that He will do all the good things He accomplished through His Son to us. Thus it is impossible for God to take away my health when He is in a blood contract that says He will only give me the benefits of Jesus’ atonement, which is health and healing. The Bible tells us who makes us sick, and it is Satan. Sickness is the devil’s middle finger to the atonement of Jesus, and the faithless join in with Satan by flipping off the cross (Acts 10:38).

Johnny Billy also claims that many of the blessings that come with salvation in Christ are promised in the next life, not this one. A glorified body freed from sickness and death is paid for in the atonement, he says, but we are not promised that now and cannot claim a right to it now. This is the classic already-not-yet fallacy that Vincent Cheung has exposed. The Bible’s emphasis is what we have now, not later. The faithless emphasize the opposite. Jesus healing and healing and healing is to show what we have now, not later. Matthew 8:17 tying this into the atonement makes it doubly so. Johnny makes a category error with his term “glorified body.” It is correct that a glorified body will not experience sickness, but that has no logical or categorical relevance to being healed in this life. Since a glorified body cannot be healed—it is already perfect—healing can only categorically be applied to this life. Since healing is in the atonement (Isaiah 53:4-5, Matthew 8:17) and direct promises guarantee healing on the demand of faith (James 5:15), then our unglorified bodies now are promised health and healing on faith.

Johnny Billy notes that Osteen almost certainly means material gain, emotional happiness, and physical health. This is good. Why is that a problem when the atonement not only included forgiveness but Jesus taking my poverty to give me His wealth, and taking my sickness to give me healing? Why do the faithless like Christians to suffer so much? Because they are the ones helping them to suffer. They are the ones who persecute the ones teaching the gospel and then say the gospel causes persecution.

Beyond the negative critique is the point Osteen makes that is right on the money. We are the light now, not later. We are righteous now, not later. We are the mind of Christ now, not later. We are goodness now, not later. We are lovely now, not later. We have all spiritual blessings now, not later. Our inner man was created in the knowledge of Christ when God caused us to be born from above. We have an incorruptible seed in our inner man right now. Thus, to bring out my inner self is to bring out righteousness, goodness, the mind of Christ, an incorruptible inner man already made in the knowledge of Christ. This is me right now. If this is not you right now, you are not saved and are going to burn in hell forever.

The whole point of water baptism is to demonstrate in ritual that the old man is dead and gone. The sinner Oshea is past tense. The righteous Oshea is present tense. At the end of the day the only mind that matters is God’s mind. The only reason I needed to be saved from sins is because in the mind of God He held a record of sins I committed. It does not matter if I acknowledged this record in God’s mind or not. If God thinks it is true, then it is. But the knife cuts both ways. In God’s mind right now, present tense, He only sees a record of perfection and a God-level rightness on my list. God’s thoughts about me are the only thoughts about me that matter and are true. I am righteous because God thinks I am His righteousness. Faith is agreeing with God.

“God, I agree with You. You think I am God’s righteousness, and so I am. You are correct. You think I am light, goodness, and perfect. I agree with You. You are correct. Thank You for giving me Your one and only Son to save me and make this my new reality. You are so good and so loving to me. Thank You.”

In the passage where Paul says we have the mind of Christ, it says the Spirit is in us to show us all the freely given good things God has given us. The finished atonement of Christ is a total salvation for all of life, both spiritual and material. Thus, for God to bring out the true us would mean to bring out how righteous I truly am, as much as how healthy I am, and how rich I am in Christ. I have rivers of living water in me; thus, to bring out the true me would be to bring out rivers of living water out of me. I have the Spirit; thus, to bring out the true me is to bring out the Spirit of God who anoints us to heal the sick, resurrect the dead, and preach the gospel to the poor. To bring out the true me is to bring out the Spirit who alone knows God. I have the blessing of Abraham; I have God as my exceedingly great reward, which in context is mostly about material blessings. Thus, to bring out the true me is to bring out exceedingly great material blessings.

You are the light. The true you is light. Walk in it. Let the Spirit bring out rivers. Let the finished work produce the health, the wealth, the power, the righteousness that already belongs to you. Agree with God’s mind. The old files are deleted. The new operating system is running. Live as the children of light you already are.

Skepticism Just Ate Its Own Lunch

It is always dumb to disagree with the bible.

A rational, public starting point given by an omniscient God—who causes His elect to know it by His power—is the only coherent definition of a worldview axiom. There is no other way to define it without the Bible, which declares itself true and every rival false.

“Axioms are the product of not being omniscient, and being capable of assenting to propositions. Any first principle would lead to skepticism under such a standard.” – Johnny Billy

The reply looks tidy on the surface. He claims axioms are merely the product of finite, non-omniscient minds that can still assent to propositions. Under the demand that a starting point deliver knowledge, he concludes that any first principle collapses into skepticism. That is the claim. It is also the problem.

Start with the self-refutation, because it is immediate. If every first principle under that standard leads to skepticism, then the first principle underwriting his own sentence also leads to skepticism. The statement “any first principle leads to skepticism” is itself advanced as knowledge. By the rule he just announced, that statement has no ground left. It cancels itself. You cannot know that all knowledge foundations fail without already standing on a foundation that, according to you, fails. That is not a minor technicality. It is the claim eating its own lunch. Skepticism of this kind is impossible for the same reason the law of non-contradiction is non-negotiable: you cannot affirm knowledge while denying it. The biblical system treats the law of non-contradiction as part of the Logos Himself. Jesus appeals to it. Paul distinguishes grace as grace and law as law. A position that requires you to know what it says cannot be known is already finished.

Even if we set the self-refutation aside for a moment, the conclusion still does not follow from the premise. He moves from “the mind is finite and not omniscient” to “therefore any first principle collapses into skepticism.” That leap only works if the first principle is treated as a bare human product limited by the same finitude that produced it. The biblical first principle does not fit that description. It only logically follows if you assume empiricism.

On its own terms the starting point is not merely a set of propositions. It includes the full metaphysical package: an omniscient, omnipotent God who actively causes finite minds to know those propositions and to assent to them. The limitation of the human mind is real, in that it cannot hold a true beginningless infinite amount of propositions as God does. However, this is already accounted for inside the system. God supplies both the content (the Bible as the public starting point revealed by God) and the ability to grasp it with certainty. The bible is a subset of propositions from the Mind of God revealed to man as a public starting point. It is so substantial that it covers all life and godliness. It is so extensive and perfect it labels itself as interchangeable with God. It is a worldview.

So what about the finite human mind? The finite is not left to bootstrap its own knowledge. The infinite Source does the causing. Finitude is swallowed by the infinite power already articulated in the first principle itself. That is why the “not omniscient” premise does not force the skeptical conclusion. Human-originated axioms have no such resource. They remain products of limited minds trying to generate certainty from limited materials, and they collapse. The biblical first principle starts with the unlimited Mind and includes the claim that this Mind sovereignly causes knowledge in limited minds. Once that metaphysical claim is part of the axiom, the limitation of the receiver no longer functions as a barrier to certainty.

This is exactly the move Vincent Cheung called out years ago in “Blinded by Atheism.” A critic treated Scripture as a locked safe and occasionalism as the combination sealed inside it, then complained of a vicious circle. Cheung’s reply was simple and devastating: Where is God in the analogy? God is the defining factor in both the metaphysics and the epistemology. The Almighty tears the door open or simply imparts the knowledge. Once you quietly delete God from the picture, of course the system fails. The whole thing is about God. Cheung even grants the point without embarrassment: remove God and the apologetic collapses; with God it stands.

He is running the same pattern. He defines an axiom as the product of a non-omniscient mind, then treats the limitation of that finite mind as an inescapable barrier that sinks every first principle. But that framing evaluates the biblical starting point while God is already removed from the equation. On the system’s own terms the limitation of the finite mind is real, yet it is completely overcome and dominated by God’s limitless power to cause the mind to know and to assent. The first principle itself includes that claim. So the critique is testing a God-powered epistemology under the assumption that God is not there. Of course it looks broken once the central Agent is deleted. It would be like doing an internal critique of empiricism while completely ignoring sensation. You cannot internally critique empiricism without the definition of the senses. The same thing is happening here. Without God nothing in the apologetic works. With God everything does. That is not a hidden weakness. It makes Christian apologetics unstoppable.

There is still a deeper problem. His definition of what an axiom even is already contradicts the only standard that matters under the biblical system. Scripture is not human interpretation or a finite mind’s invention. It is given by God. The Christian public revelation is produced by omniscience and given to finite minds. God does not need an axiom for Himself. He creates and supplies one for us. The origin is the unlimited Mind; the recipients are the limited ones. So the axiom is not a product of non-omniscience. It is a product of omniscience designed to help those who are not omniscient.

Once the Bible is the sole public standard for knowledge, that is the only coherent way to define a real axiom: the infallible one the omniscient God gives. Anything that originates from finite minds instead of from that divine source is not a true axiom. It is an anti-axiom—a starting point that cannot deliver knowledge and therefore collapses. The production line is the other way around. The omniscient One is the source, not the customer who needs the product. That single reversal undercuts the premise that leads to his skeptical conclusion.

The Christian system is a system of propositions. God Himself is also a system of propositions—His infinite, eternal, and immutable. Ours is finite. God’s sovereignty is involved in knowledge absolutely and directly, as He is with everything else. With our finite minds and our system of propositions, He makes us know which propositions align with the Bible and are indeed true. The Bible says we can know, and the sovereignty of God ensures it. That is occasionalism. God does not leave finite minds to guess which propositions are true. He causes the knowledge and the assent. The limitation is real, but it is dominated by the One who is not limited.

This is also why the Christian apologetic is the Bible itself. Showing the self-refuting nature of opposing positions is a useful method, but the apologetic is the Word of God. That is why the definition of an axiom can only be intelligently defined as coming from an omniscient mind—because that is how the Bible defines it. Every other way is an anti-definition of axiom. It is the same pattern we see with the Trinity. The biblical definition of monotheism is the Trinity. Every other definition is an anti-monotheism. The Bible defines it one way, and that is the only intelligent, non-refuting definition. The same holds for “axiom.” On biblical terms an axiom is the infallible revelation produced by the omniscient God and given to finite minds. Anything else is not an axiom at all.

God’s sovereignty is not an afterthought added to shore up a weak epistemology. It is the center. The finite mind’s limits are real, but they are not decisive because the infinite God is the one who causes the knowledge, the assent, and the coherence of the proposition in our system of propositions. God’s power swallows up all human limitations. The system does not pretend to work without Him. It insists that only with the omniscient, omnipotent God who reveals and causes knowledge does any of it stand. Once that is left in place, the finite-mind limitation is only a problem if you leave the biblical worldview.

The claim that every first principle collapses, the inference from finitude to skepticism, the definition of axiom as a product of non-omniscience, and the quiet removal of God from the critique all fail for the same underlying reason. They evaluate a God-centered starting point under assumptions that have already deleted the God who makes the starting point possible. The biblical system does not apologize for that dependence. It announces it with triumph. Without Him there is no knowledge. With Him all limitations for the elect are lost under an sea of God’s endless power and ability. That is not a side point. It is the entire point.

God’s Timing Is Perfect And So Is Mine

People throw around “the Lord’s timing is perfect” like it’s a holy hall pass that excuses every delayed answer and every mountain still standing in the way. It sounds spiritual. It feels safe. And far too often it is just unbelief dressed up in religious language and sold as maturity.

If we are talking about God’s grand design—the unfolding of redemptive history, the Day of the Lord, and the fullness of time when the Messiah stepped into the world—then yes, God’s timing in that sense is perfect. You could not stand in Israel two hundred years early and demand the atonement on your personal schedule. That kind of timing belongs to God alone. But that is not a one-to-one match for your everyday life, and most of the time people are not talking about that when they reach for the phrase.

Most of the time “the Lord’s timing” gets slapped on healing, provision, personal dreams, relationships, breakthrough, and kingdom expansion. That is where it becomes a problem. The gospel is finished. The atonement is done. The promises are already yes and amen in Christ. For those desires the timing is far more often a matter of the maturity of your faith than some cosmic delay wrapped in perfect-sounding language.

Look at the Canaanite woman. Jesus gave her a theologically correct answer. It was not her time. The children’s bread belonged to the children of Abraham first. She was on the wrong side of the covenant in that moment of redemptive history. Perfect argument. She refused to accept the ordained circumstance that she was born at the wrong time on the wrong side of the table. By faith she made it her time and forced the covenant to apply to her. Jesus praised her great faith, and her daughter was healed that very hour. “Faith shut down every opposition—even a correct theological argument from Christ Himself—because faith in God is the first sound doctrine, the primal orthodoxy” (Quoted and paraphrased from Vincent Cheung. Faith Override). “Correct theology can never contradict faith, since faith comes first and always leaves room for itself. No covenant? No problem. Stuck in the wrong spot in redemptive history? Who cares? Faith reaches God directly.”

The centurion did the same thing. Jesus was already walking toward the house. The man upgraded the miracle on the spot: just say the word from here. Jesus marveled, and the servant was healed immediately. No patience required for the walk. Faith sped the whole thing up.

They found God’s timing not so perfect after all. They had their own timing, which they thought was perfect. After they gave God their faith, God made their timing the new perfect timing instead of insisting on His.

Martha stood at the tomb and gave the classic future-tense answer: “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus corrected her: “I am the resurrection and the life.” With faith present, because He is here, it is now. Lazarus walked out. For Jesus it is always a good time for a miracle. In His theology it is not a matter of time but a matter of faith.

Hezekiah got the word that he was going to die soon. He sought God in faith. God added fifteen years. The relative outcome changed because faith engaged the God who answers. Hezekiah did not like God’s perfect timing of his death and gave an argument of faith that God should adjust His perfect timing to Hezekiah’s perfect timing—and God was glad to give in.

There is a real distinction worth making. Normal Christian discipleship—healing the sick, casting out demons, prophesying, teaching, preaching—belongs to every believer by faith in the finished work. But sometimes the Spirit specifically calls you through prophecy and the laying on of hands to a particular ministry, the way Paul reminded Timothy. God called Paul to a specific type of ministry and Paul agreed to do it. In those cases there can be actual timing issues. God may already have specific times and places in mind, and specific people who need to be physically born and grow up fifteen more years before you can minister to them. That is different. There are special cases in life where timing is an obvious issue—such as if you plan on marrying someone ten years younger, for example.

For the everyday troubles of life, however, the category is not about God’s timing. It is about what you want, and most of the time that relates to the strength of your inner man and the maturity of your faith. Take Daniel. God answered the moment he prayed, yet demonic activity delayed the messenger. God’s timing was immediate. Satan caused the delay and tried to teach patience. Isaiah 54 says no weapon formed against you will prosper, and you will condemn every tongue that rises against you. It is not God, but Satan, wicked men, and the troubles of life that are the ones teaching you patience—so command them to stop. It is the mountain, not God, that is in the way. Jesus told you to speak to the mountain and tell it to get out of your path.

I once heard an example from Andrew Wommack—loosely paraphrased from memory—about a man who put his house up for sale by owner and prayed. Two years later nothing had moved, and he was making two house payments after already buying the next place. Then he learned more about faith, about already having it, and about taking authority in Christ. He began praising God that the house was sold. Two days later a buyer showed up with cash. That buyer had wanted the house from the first day the sign went up, but he first had to sell his own place. Suddenly someone bought his house two days earlier. It appears some bad actor, like the devil, was blocking him by blocking the person who wanted to buy his house. God answered his prayer the first day two years earlier, when a man wanted to buy it the day it went for sale and he prayed. The obstacles were real, yet the moment authority was taken and faith was exercised, every physical barrier moved. It was never God teaching patience. It was troubles and Satan teaching patience. They might teach you patience, but they do it to steal, kill, and destroy you.

A lot of the patience we experience is not God making us wait. It is the time it takes to renew a mind still clogged with bad doctrine and immaturity. It is growing out of spiritual infancy that hides behind “God is in control” fatalism into mature faith that knows God predestined answered prayer and that faith changes outcomes to your perfect timing. Your perfect timing is based on what you want. Yes, you heard that right. What you want is almost always the perfect timing—just like with the Canaanite woman. Jesus gave in and gave up on “God’s perfect timing” to make her timing the perfect time. Your lack of faith is what is teaching you patience, not God’s timing. Your immaturity is not the same thing as God’s timing. Do not confuse the two.

You are already seated at the Father’s table. The children’s bread of healing and blessing is already there. Faith reaches out and takes it. Unbelief sits staring at the plate and calls the delay “the Lord’s timing.”

Do not limit God. Do not limit yourself with wrong equivocations. With mature faith—relentless focus on Jesus the author and finisher, on your identity as the righteousness of God in Him, on the promises already accomplished—what used to be “later” becomes now. Build that faith. Renew the mind. Then watch how many “not yets” turn into “right nows.”

Faith first. Now available.

Power Without Flair Is Weird

Back in the day, my grandmother would crank Benny Hinn up so loud the living room shook like Pentecost all over again, while I sat there half-buried in thick Reformed books that tried to button faith and miracles up in a nice, safe theological straight-jacket. My roots in the baptism of the Spirit were too deep, and they refused to let go of the baptism of the Holy Ghost and the wild miracles that ride shotgun with Him. I’ve shaken off some of those faithless influences—which I now regret—but that deep hunger for real, tangible power never cooled one degree. It only got hotter, like fresh oil poured on a flame that refuses to die.

I remember watching those powerful moments back then and thinking Benny was pushing the theatrics way too far. Then lately I stumbled across those collage videos—dramatic clips chopped and diced with goofy sound effects, turning his anointed ministry into comedy sketches starring the Holy Ghost as the punchline. Man, my spirit grieved when the Spirit became the punchline just to mock Benny. When you openly mock someone who’s out there laboring to obey God’s direct command to preach the gospel and baptize people in the Holy Spirit, you’re stepping right up to blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.

Thank God Benny was doing exactly what the Lord told him—honoring the Holy Ghost by valuing that ministry and actually getting folks baptized in the Spirit and hungry for more of His power. Whether the presentation carried too much flair or not became totally irrelevant in my eyes. He was obedient, and raw obedience to the Spirit’s commission is what the Kingdom celebrates with shouts of joy.

Back then I thought it was too much. Not anymore.

And here’s the richer truth that’s been burning in me lately, straight from that word on being “You’re Fu@king Awesome”: when you wield the powers of the Holy Ghost, God shows off by showing off through you. Since God often shows off with flair, if we want to display Him properly, we need to do the same.

Picture Moses with the staff of God—the God of gods, the God of power, handed it over and declared, “You shall be as God to Pharaoh,” relatively speaking, from one human to another. Moses didn’t politely hand the staff over; he threw it down and watched it turn into a snake with full dramatic flair. And Moses cried out in longing, “I wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put His Spirit on them!” That wish exploded into reality the moment the baptism of the Holy Ghost arrived.

Now it’s you. You are Moses now with the staff. That really is you—wielding the power of the God of gods, standing as a god to the people around you through the very same Spirit.

Think about it like Zeus handing someone his lightning bolt and saying, “Go show off my power.” If that person just stood there calm, normal, zero flair, no thunderclap energy—just stoic professionalism—it would be out of step with the Greek god of power who likes to show off. But our God is the original, the God of gods who always moves with power and often with showmanship. Elisha didn’t whisper to the Jordan River; he slammed his cloak down like he meant it and the waters parted on command. That floating axe head, fire crashing from heaven, shadows healing people, and Pentecost with literal tongues of flame dancing on heads—none of that was stoic professionalism. The Bible is packed with these awesome, show-stopping moves because the God of power loves to display His power with flair through yielded vessels.

Think about Samson. God gave him a little bit of His power to judge Israel. But why kill a thousand men with a donkey jawbone, and not a two-handed claymore? The answer: pure edgy showmanship. As Samson so eloquently said—as if he was dropping a battle victory rap—he used the jawbone of an ass to pile their asses on top of each other in a giant ass heap. Och! It’s a modern day rated-R Hollywood movie. Samson did not say God made donkeys out of them, but that he made donkeys out of them.

But here’s the part many miss: Because Samson was using God’s power with that edgy flair, God made asses of the Philistines. That’s the point. God could have just swallowed them up in the earth in the middle of the night. God did this this way, because He likes to show off with His empowered saints, just as He likes to show off Himself as seen in the destruction of Egypt.

The heroes in your favorite movies and Hollywood blockbusters, the legends in the books you love—they stride in with power and show off just a little, striking that heroic pose, dropping the one-liner, making the moment epic. Where does that original script come from? It originates from the God of gods and His awesome saints showing off first. Showmanship married to real power was pioneered by God’s people yielding spiritual power. This is the prototype of which the heroes showing off in your favorite stories are merely the antitype. Spiritual heroes wielding authority with bold display are the original—the prototype, the original hero, the original showmanship.

If we can’t root for Elisha slapping the river with his cloak or Benny swinging that jacket with confidence, then we have no business cheering any movie hero either, because it all flows from God and His people first. Why did the prophet call down fire and bears on his enemies instead of a quiet heart attack in the night? Why did the disciples’ shadows have to heal people in such dramatic flair and not stoic professionalism in a quiet, respectable church service? Because the God of gods shows off! And so, if we are to correctly display God’s power, we need some flair when we do so—at least sometimes. He doesn’t hide His power; He displays it with splendor and awe. And because we are one body with Him in Christ, the God of power shows off through us—not only through raw miracles but through showmanship with the power.

To have showmanship without power would be a worse perversion of God if your goal is to display Him correctly. But to always have power without any flair, at least sometimes, would also be a perversion of God, because God likes to show off. This does not mean we willfully hunt for maximum ways to always show flair when we use the power of God—there are contexts where that would not be beneficial. In a teaching ministry, when you are teaching Jesus’ faith doctrine, you want the focus on hearing the word so faith can move mountains. Our point is simply this: showmanship with God’s power isn’t strange. Rather, if you never have any showmanship when wielding God’s power, that is the weird, strange, and out-of-place thing.

To have no showmanship while carrying this authority is out of step with the God of gods from the very beginning. Sure, we are to check if we are walking in love and/or if our motives are selfish. And yet, when you wield the power of the God of power, an awesome flair—at least sometimes—is the only right way to represent Him. Be like Moses and be a god to the people around you. Be awesome like Elisha and slap that cloak down like a war hammer, or like Benny and swing your jacket like a baseball bat, or like the disciples and just shadow-heal your neighbor. Do it all soaked in the power of the God of gods, and suddenly it’s not showmanship at all—it’s pure honor. It’s you being awesome, and this in return brings glory to the Awesome One, bringing Him the attention the world desperately needs to see.

Only someone like Paul, drenched in the same anointing, can step in and correct abuses the way he did with the selfish chaos in Corinth; when the faithless try, they end up blaspheming the Spirit. He didn’t mock from the bleachers; he corrected from inside the fire—with love, order, and demonstration—so the power could burn hotter, more frequently, and cleaner than ever.

Let’s get this right, family. Honor every vessel God uses to baptize in the Spirit. Get filled afresh yourself—pray in tongues till the inner man roars. Obey the commission without apology. Celebrate miracles with showmanship and bold displays. Be awesome and honor the God of gods by walking in His power unashamed, with a little flair that makes heaven smile and hell nervous.

Now is the time for a generation ready for greater works—with displays of heroic showmanship greater than we’ve ever seen.

You’re Fu@king Awesome

You are God’s workmanship. Think about this for two seconds: You are God’s inheritance. Ephesians chapter 1—Paul says God’s priceless inheritance is you. That’s right. You.

Picture a kid promised a $50 million masterpiece painting as their inheritance on their 20th birthday. That’s how God sees you. You are His masterpiece inheritance—not because of your sweat and merit, but because of His work and grace. But make no mistake: you are still an awesome masterpiece.

We are what we are by God’s workmanship, and so we never boast that we did the work. And yet we are still what we are, we are the righteousness of God, powerful, healed, and straight-up awesome.

The gospel is God giving to you, not you giving to God. You are a treasure, a beautiful inheritance God crafted for Himself, precisely to show off how awesome you are. And in showing you off, He shows off how awesome He is. God does the work and gives to you; you don’t give to God.

Here’s the kicker: the less blessed and awesome you are, the harder it is for God to boast about how awesome you are—and the less glory you bring Him.

That’s the whole point. You are His point. He’s showing you off.

He didn’t rescue you so you could turn around and start “chipping in” like some cosmic dualism tag-team. He did the planning. He did the saving. He did the redeeming. He did all the heavy lifting. Every bit of it. And He did it so the universe would look at you and see exactly how generous, how powerful, how glorious He really is—by showing off how amazing you are. You are not running the show. You are the beautiful exhibit. The finished masterpiece He hung in the gallery with the lights already blazing, showing every detail of your awesomeness.

When you camp out in hot-mess territory—sick in your body, tight in your finances, sinful addictions, anxious in your mind, barely holding it together—you’re not just having a rough season. You are actively fighting against the very reason He made you new. It’s like the Master Artist finishes the portrait, puts it under perfect light, and you keep throwing a tarp over it because you think looking defeated is somehow more spiritual.

Or worse—some folks let Satan stroll right up, hand him the spray can, and watch as he tags God’s masterpiece with the graffiti of sickness, poverty, and obscurity. Then they have the balls to call that vandalism “God’s will.” The faithless let the devil victimize them and then have the gall to call the resulting ugly mess God’s beautiful artwork. That mindset is worthless.

God prepared good works for you to walk in. He seated you in heavenly places on purpose. He did it so that in the coming ages—and right now—He could display the immeasurable riches of His grace through the kindness He lavished on you in Christ. That display isn’t optional. It’s why you exist as a new creation. Its how you glorify God.

The substitutionary atonement didn’t stop at sin and sanctification. Jesus became poor so you could be rich. He bore curses and wore a crown of thorns so you could walk in Abrahams’ extravagant blessing. He took the stripes so the healing was already yours. Every single part was God giving. Your only job? Agree with Him and thank Him.

When symptoms scream, old additions resurface, or your bank account whispers lack, that’s the flesh yanking your eyes back to the old-man “before” picture. Faith looks at the occupied throne and declares, “He already did it. It’s mine. I receive it now.” God doesn’t find fault with you when you ask big. He sees Christ’s perfect righteousness stamped across your account. So ask for the wisdom. Command your healing. Command your provision. Walk in God’s righteousness and His mighty power as your own—because it’s been given to you. Believe you have received it the moment you speak it, and reality will line up with the Word.

God wants to boast about you. He wants to show you off as glorious and precious—living proof that His gospel works, that His power is still running wild in the earth, that His love doesn’t do stingy. Do not rob Him of the brag by keeping the lights off and the sheet on. Don’t let the devil’s graffiti of sickness and defeat steal your glory and, in the process, steal God’s chance to brag about how awesome you are.

Receive the full package. Command the mountain of sickness and lack to move. Let the spotlight hit the masterpiece. Let the world see what happens when God gets to show off through one of His own.

This is the normal Christian life. It’s a life where you show off God by bragging about how He’s your Savior. It’s also the life where God shows you off and brags about how awesome you are. Therefore, be awesome in the power of Christ.

If you are born from above, then you are a new creation.

God thinks you are awesome. And if no one’s ever told you—I think you’re awesome too.

Jesus in the Boat Is Waiting on You

That viral little meme with the cute rowboat and the glowing words floating around social media? Adorable. Solid vibe. It nails the Luke 8:25 punchline: “Having Jesus in the boat means no storm can sink it.”

Cute. But let’s crank the volume and get biblical.

Even that meme doesn’t go far enough. Exodus 23:25 flat-out says God will “turn off” sickness for those who worship Him—like flipping a garden hose from full blast to zero. Click. Done. Isaiah 54:17 adds the mic drop: weapons will form, but they will not prosper, because you will condemn them.

Jesus didn’t pat the disciples on the head and whisper, “Hang in there, guys—Daddy’s in the boat, so just endure the waves.” Nah. He stood up, rebuked the wind and the raging sea, and everything went dead calm. Then He hit them with the lightning-bolt question that still slaps every faithless excuse in the face:

“Where is your faith?”

There are straight-up Old Testament examples of faith bossing the weather around (hello, Elijah). A faithless spirit might bark back and say, “But that was Elijah, and we are not him.” Yet the New Testament quotes this specific example to show it wasn’t a one-off story for us to merely admire. James’ logic, as Vincent Cheung has shown us, doesn’t call us to rise up and become like the great Elijah. Instead, James brings Elijah down to our level. Because Elijah was just like us, and we are just like Elijah, we can do the same—such as commanding the weather.

James picks the exact weather-commanding miracle and uses it to prove the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective—then immediately moralizes this to healing the sick. Scripture interpreting itself shows us that examples like Elijah commanding the weather are intended for all disciples to emulate.

So where does this leave us—and the disciples with Jesus in the boat? The big idea is that even without Jesus physically present, He would have been justified in calling out their unbelief amid a deadly storm, because it was something they could have commanded to be calm.

And yet, they were sitting right next to the living God in the flesh and still defaulted to fear and sensory panic.

 Think about that for two seconds.

We don’t even have to wake Him up anymore. He lives in us. We are seated with Him in the heavenly places right now, and the same Spirit that raised Him from the dead is empowering every single believer.

The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. James drops Elijah on us as the example, and the man was just like us. He prayed it would not rain for three and a half years, and it didn’t. He prayed again, and the sky poured. Weather obeyed a regular righteous guy who knew how to speak in faith. Thus, if you are a regular righteous person in Jesus Christ, you also have command over deadly storms and sick bodies.

James drops Elijah on us again: the man prayed it wouldn’t rain for three and a half years—it didn’t. He prayed again—the sky poured. Weather obeyed a regular righteous dude who knew how to speak in faith. Therefore, if you are a regular righteous person in Jesus Christ, you also have command over deadly storms and sick bodies.

Having Jesus does NOT mean your boat won’t face storms. It means with Jesus beside you (and inside you), you will rebuke the storm and it will obey.

Becoming a Christian gives immediate new creation benefits. One way to visualize this is by meditating on Colossians, where Paul says the Father has transferred us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of His love. At one point, you were truly inside the kingdom of darkness—demons, curses, and all. You lived there. Like a sick, abandoned beggar lying in a forgotten muddy alley. But God created you in Jesus and placed you in His kingdom. He relocated you.

Picture Solomon’s Jerusalem on steroids. Silver was so common they threw it in the streets like discarded McDonald’s wrappers. You already have a house in this kingdom. Even if your pathetic little brain can only picture yourself homeless on a golden bench, look closer: that “bench” is solid gold, your robe is fine linen, and silver coins are scattered everywhere like loose change. Just scoop some up, buy food, and start living like the royal priesthood citizen you already are.

The point is simple: you are God’s workmanship. The gospel is God giving to you, not you giving to God. You are a treasure and a beautiful inheritance God made for Himself, to show off how awesome you are. By showing off how awesome you are, He shows off how awesome He is. God works and gives to you; you don’t give to God. Thus, in your new creation, a lot of things are automatic in the sense that you are already in the kingdom of God. A muddy beggar in some alley in 1800s London is very different from a citizen of Solomon’s Jerusalem, where silver was commonplace.

But don’t turn that into lazy fatalism. Jesus’ faith doctrine is radical on purpose: “You will say to this mountain… and it will obey you.”

Faithless people today hears that and screams, “Disgusting!” “Jesus is in the boat—why doesn’t He just handle it and command the damn storm to stop?” “Let’s just wait and say ‘whatever God wills, and I will trust Him no matter what.’”

Jesus contradicts that nonsense every single time. In the boat the disciples are shaking Him like, “Do something!” But Jesus’ extreme faith command is always the same: You speak to the mountain. You speak to the sickness. You speak to the storm.

Jesus says the mountain will obey us. It is not because we have inherent power in and of ourselves, but because Jesus will be faithful to back up our commands with His power—so faithfully that the power will seem as inherent as ours. Like me using my hands to type out this essay. (Even then, God causes all things, so on the ultimate level I don’t have inherent power to move my fingers to type—but God is so consistent in using His power on the occasion of me thinking and my body moving that it feels like it’s my inherent power.)

Picture Jesus in the boat with His hand on your shoulder, grinning: “I want you to command this storm to shut up. I’ve got your back—watch Me make your words unstoppable.”

So why settle for “Just endure the storm with Jesus beside you”?

You are the righteousness of God in Christ. You carry His Name, His authority, His unstoppable power. The weather obeyed a regular guy like Elijah and it obeyed Jesus, but we are a new creation in Him now. How much more will they obey the new creation who is wide awake, filled with the Spirit, and commanded to walk exactly as He walked?

Stop focusing on how loud the wind is and start focusing on the Word that is louder. Speak to that sickness, that financial wave, that relational hurricane—speak to it. It has to obey because reality itself obeys the faith of a righteous person who refuses to limit God.

“Peace. Be still.”

Watch what happens when you believe what He already finished. The same Jesus who calmed the sea now lives in you and has handed you the mic.

Use it.

The calm is waiting on your word of faith—not God’s.

Do you finally understand why your life has been such a mess?

Time to fix it.

Speak.

The Elect In Christ: The Original Category

The elect in Christ are the original category. Not a later add-on, not a replacement plan, not replacement Plan B, or C after some historical hiccup with ethnic Israel and gentiles. They are logically first in God’s eternal decrees—the very point of the whole design. Everything else (creation, the fall, the covenants, even the special role of the Jews) exists to support that original category, never to replace it. Call this original category “the Church” if you want; it’s just shorthand for the body of those chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4). In the logical order of the Decrees, the Elect in Christ is prior to any category of Jews or Gentiles. Nothing can replace what God decreed first, because the decrees aren’t a timeline of reactions—they’re a single, purposeful, logical, teleological order with no contradictions.

Start with the Bible as the axiom, let Jesus as the Logos (pure, non-contradictory reason) govern every deduction, and refuse to smuggle in empiricism or historical consensus as the starting point. This is exactly where the supralapsarian order of the decrees shines. Vincent Cheung captures it sharply in his Systematic Theology: “The nature of purpose and design necessitates a supralapsarian scheme of the eternal decrees, in which the decree of election and reprobation appears before the decree for the fall of humanity, and in which the decree for the fall of humanity appears before the decree for the creation of humanity.” That’s not speculation; it’s deduction from the fact that God “works all things” after the counsel of His will (Eph 1:11). See Vincent’s own material for the supralapsarian order and my material on the subject for more details. The end—His glory in saving the elect and displaying wrath on the reprobate—comes first in logical priority. Then He decrees the means: the fall, so there will be sinners to redeem and judge; then creation to make those sinners actual. Cheung drives the point home: “God loved the chosen ones and decreed their salvation before he decreed that all men would become sinners.”

Picture this: God doesn’t scribble a timeline like some cosmic planner reacting to plot twists. No, He conceives the end goal first in pure, eternal purpose (what I call the top-down “purpose perspective”), then reverses it in history’s execution. Vincent Cheung nailed it perfectly in his 2010 essay: “Supralapsarianism is the biblical and rational order… the nature of purpose and design necessitates a supralapsarian scheme of the eternal decrees, in which the decree of election and reprobation appears before the decree for the fall of humanity, and in which the decree for the fall of humanity appears before the decree for the creation of humanity.” Boom—logic of ontology in action, folks. Infralapsarianism? That’s the bottom-up mistake that treats history as the blueprint and leaves God looking reactive. We don’t do half-measures here.

Let me flesh that out so you can see it with your own eyes. In the purpose perspective (first in God’s mind), the logical order runs:

(1) God decrees His own glory displayed publicly;

(2) The beloved Son, is chosen as the preeminent axis, the public glory of the Father, who subdues all things, who the elect in Christ (the body of Christ, the church) is chosen to be united and by this Christ becomes the dividing line for all humanity.

(3) unconditional election carves out vessels of mercy for infinite joy and vessels of wrath for justice (Rom 9:11–13);

(4) God decrees the historical place of nations, Jews and Gentiles, as precise details crafted to fulfill the gathering and display of the elect in Christ alongside the reprobates;

(5) the Fall imprisons humanity in sin as the perfect stage;

(6) creation launches the whole grand universe.

Flip it for historical execution and you watch the genius unfold. Everything—creation, Fall, covenants, ethnic Israel’s special role—exists to serve the original category. Vincent’s analogy still cracks me up: it’s like deciding “I’m going to the office” first, then working backward through car, clothes, and alarm clock. Purpose precedes means, always.

This isn’t dusty theology—it’s the razor-sharp sovereignty that makes your heart sing (or squirm, depending on how much creaturely autonomy you’re still clutching). It affirms God as the metaphysical Author of all things, even ordaining the Fall, nations, and peoples to showcase Christ’s supremacy and the elect in Christ exactly as Proverbs 16:4 and Romans 9:22–23 demand. No accidents, no Plan B. Just pure, glorious design. So next time you wrestle with evil or election, remember: the decrees aren’t a timeline—they’re the Architect’s blueprint, with the elect in Christ at the center and glory as the finish line. Let that rewire your worship.

Notice what this does to any talk of “replacement.” If the elect in Christ are logically prior to the fall, to Jews and Gentiles, then the Church isn’t a historical patch job that steps in when ethnic Israel stumbles. The Church is the original category. In my own material on election, I’ve stressed this over and over: election is individual, unconditional, and active. God didn’t look down the corridor of time and react to foreseen faith or national performance. He chose specific persons in Christ before any consideration of sin, ethnicity, or history. That’s why Paul can say in Ephesians 1 that we were chosen “in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless.” The logical order settles the debate: the fall exists for the sake of the elect, not the other way around. Infralapsarian schemes (which put the fall logically before election) create a mess—they make God’s love for the elect look like a reaction to their sinfulness, which violates the law of identity (grace is grace, not a fix for something prior). Supralapsarianism keeps it clean: God’s love for the elect is eternal and primary.

This is where the Jewish role fits without any need for replacement language. Romans 9 is crystal clear: “They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.” Historical specialness? Absolutely real and glorious. The oracles were entrusted to them first. But Paul immediately qualifies it with the law of non-contradiction: “Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel” (Rom 9:6). That historical privilege only functions fully when a Jew exercises faith in Jesus and steps into the original category—the elect in Christ. Cheung says it plainly in his Commentary on Ephesians: “God has chosen them for salvation, regenerated them, and made them into ‘Israel’ in Christ.” Gentiles don’t replace Jews, and the Jews didn’t replace the Elect Christ; both are grafted into the same original body. One new man. One decree. The kingdom taken from fruitless ethnic Israel (Matt 21:43) isn’t a replacement—it’s the natural outworking of the original category excluding those who refuse faith. Unbelieving Jews aren’t demoted from some superior status; they simply never joined the original Elect category that was always first.

So when people wave the “replacement theology” flag, they’ve usually started with history and worked backward by induction. That’s the wrong order. Deduce forward from the decrees: the elect in Christ are the unchanging original. The covenants, the law, the prophets—all of it supports that category by pointing to Christ and calling people into it. A believing Jew doesn’t lose specialness; he fulfills it by becoming part of the original. A believing Gentile doesn’t steal anything; he joins the same crew. No category gets swapped. The scaffolding of history is torn down only when the building (the Church, the elect in Christ) stands complete.

This is why I keep hammering election in my teaching and writing: it’s not a side doctrine for hobbyists. It’s the logical key that unlocks the whole redemptive storyline without contradiction and without violating the law of identity. The elect in Christ were never Plan B. They are the point. And once you see the decrees in supralapsarian order, every caricature about replacement dissolves. The Church isn’t the understudy who took the lead role—it is the lead role, decreed first for God’s glory. Everything else was always meant to serve it.

The elect in Christ remain the original category, forever. Nothing replaces what God purposed first as His original goal from eternity.