Category Archives: Extra Thoughts

Not All gods Are Under God?

Denying the Inference is Denying the Scripture.

I saw a post today calling Vincent Cheung and Gordon Clark “hyper” on God’s sovereignty, as if they had cleared the Reformed fence and run off with the livestock. The picture in that post was already more honest than the accusation. A. W. Pink barely fits inside the fence. He is scraping the rail. Jonathan Edwards is halfway in and halfway out, because occasionalism will not stay seated where the confession wants it. Then Clark, and particularly Vincent, are the ones said to have jumped. Jumped what? Jumped the fence of Reformed tradition and Reformed orthodoxy. That is the whole charge. The word “hyper” is doing the dishonest work. It is not hyper relative to Scripture. It is hyper relative to a confession, a century, a mood in the study. Scripture never got the memo that there was an upper bound short of “all.”

Here is the flip they will not make. They say Vincent jumped the fence of Reformed tradition. What they have done, by denying the inference, is jump and leave the fence of Scripture. You cannot deny the inference without denying the major premise the text affirms. Tradition is the pen they are defending. Scripture is the fence they left. We do not grade doctrine by how nervous Westminster got. We grade it by what the text says, and then we let the inference land where the text already put it.

Rhetoric is an add-on. It comes after the statement is clear. Most of the time you find people holding a handful of rhetoric with no clear statement underneath it. Strip the rhetoric and you are back in grammar school. Start with the category. All, some, or none. The Bible’s category is all.

Ephesians 1:11: God works all things according to the counsel of His will. Not some things, with a polite exemption for the awkward ones. All. Isaiah 45 does not clear its throat and say, “I form the light and then carefully distance myself from the darkness by means of a secondary cause and a mystery box.” It says, “I form light and I create darkness; I make peace and I create evil; I am Yahweh; I do all these things” (Isaiah 45:7). And He does not say it once, as a stray line. Isaiah 46 picks it up again: “I am God and there is none besides me, God and there is none like me, who from the beginning declares the end… My plan shall stand, and I will accomplish all my wishes,” and then He calls a bird of prey from the east and the man of His plan from a far country. “I have spoken; I will bring it to being. I have formed it; I will do it” (Isaiah 46:9–11). That is the motif. “None besides me” is not a slogan about monotheism in the abstract. In the context, it is His own definition of what it means that He is God. He created. He is now grasping and pushing the creation. He knows the future because there is no other real cause that can stop the plan. Control over humans, human choices, good, evil, and material things. To say there is no dualism in Christian ontology is only a philosophy way of saying the Scriptural line, “There is none besides me.”

It is not only the prophet and the king. Psalm 104 is not a throne-room vision. It is the night. “You make darkness, and it is night, when all the beasts of the forest creep about. The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God” (Psalm 104:20–21). The lion does not forage from a system God wound up and walked away from. He seeks his food from God. That is the cleanest line in the Book for the ordinary meal. The same hand that forms light and creates darkness puts the prey in the mouth of the predator.

The same is true in the realm of knowledge. God first put knowledge in the man, and He continues to put it there. It is not observation climbing up into a blank mind. Isaiah 28 walks through the farmer. He does not plow all day. He levels the surface. He scatters dill, sows cumin, puts wheat in rows, barley in its place, and emmer as the border. “He is rightly instructed; his God teaches him… For he is rightly instructed; his God teaches him. Dill is not threshed with a threshing sledge… This also comes from the LORD of hosts; he is wonderful in counsel and excellent in wisdom” (Isaiah 28:26–29). Practical knowledge, the kind a man uses with his hands, is God teaching him. Spiritual knowledge is the same causality with the lights turned up. “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). The god of this age blinds. God shines. The knowledge is put in. It is not scraped off the surface of things. And God withholds it the same way He gives it. “The wings of the ostrich wave proudly, but are they the pinions and plumage of love? … For God has made her forget wisdom and given her no share in understanding” (Job 39:13–17). The ostrich is not uninformed because she skipped class. God did not give her the share.

Whether it is invisible knowledge, or a random eagle that no man sees leaving the cliff, God says He does it. “Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars and spreads his wings toward the south? Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high? On the rock he dwells and makes his home, on the rocky crag and stronghold. From there he spies out the prey; his eyes behold it from far away” (Job 39:26–29). Not by your understanding. At His command. The text’s other picture is the bird of prey He calls, and the man of His plan He summons (Isaiah 46:11). Even rain is not a natural leak from a cloud that God then permits. Jeremiah asks the question and answers it. “Are there any among the idols of the nations who cause rain to pour? Or can the heavens give showers? Is it not you, O Yahweh our God? Therefore we hope in you, for you do all these things” (Jeremiah 14:22). The sky, the wind, the water, and the cloud are put on the same shelf as the wooden idol. They have no inherent power to cause the shower. Yahweh does all these things. And in all these things, the lion’s meal, the farmer’s rows, the light shone in the heart, the wisdom withheld from the ostrich, the eagle leaving a cliff no man is watching, there is none besides God.

Scripture shows Him directly and absolutely controlling, creating, and causing reality at every basic level. I say basic because there are potentially infinite aspects of reality, and the Bible would be infinitely long if it had to narrate every one. In light of who God is, it only has to show Him controlling the basic aspects to conclude that He controls all. Some verses simply say the all. “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). “He sustains all things by the word of His power” (Hebrews 1:3). That includes the inside of the thoughts, the subject and the predicate and the desire. “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will” (Proverbs 21:1). If He turns the height of man, He turns the rest. It includes the random act, the card and the dice. “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD” (Proverbs 16:33). It includes the destiny before the man is born. “Though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad… not because of works but because of him who calls” (Romans 9:11). Paul took a few verses from the Old Testament in Romans 3 and said, “all have sinned.” When God, at every basic part of spiritual and material reality, says “I control this,” and then says there is none besides Him who does it, the doctrine is that He controls all things. The clay does not get a vote, and the clay does not get to call the potter hyper for using both hands. Isaiah 45 already asked the question. “Does the clay say to the one who fashions it, ‘What are you making?’ and ‘Your work has no hands’?” (Isaiah 45:9). Romans 9 starts the lump neutral, before they had done good or evil, and the Potter makes one vessel for mercy and one for destruction. Paul’s opponent understood the position perfectly: who has resisted His will? Paul does not walk it back. He tells the object to stop answering back to the One who molded it.

So the category statement is this:

All things are things directly controlled by God.

Sin is a thing. Evil is a thing. Adam’s fall is a thing that happened. David’s census is a thing that happened. The lying spirit in Ahab’s prophets is a thing that happened, and the text does not say the LORD allowed it to wander in. It says the LORD put it there. Job’s friends comforted him for all the evil the LORD had brought on him, and that line is not one of the bad counselors. It is the narrator, under inspiration, closing the book. If all things are things God controls, then these things are things God controls. The “all” already contained them.

And the inference is not a commentary on the Bible. It is what the Bible asserts. A logical deduction adds no new information. It points at what the premise already swallowed. So the Bible asserts that Oshea sinned, through the major premise that all have sinned, and that assertion is just as binding as if the text said, “Oshea has sinned.” They are equally statements given by Scripture. One is not less Scripture than the other. Oshea’s sin is not less Scripture than “all have sinned,” because Oshea is already contained in the major premise. Same grammar, same authority, on the decree. “God caused this sin” is not less Scripture than “God works all things.” Denying the particular is denying the verse. You did not protect the text. You left it.

This is where the classic move shows its hand. They want the major premise. They will print “God is sovereign over all” on the wall. Then they see where the inference goes, and they suddenly discover a zone where logic is asked to clock out and sit in the hallway. If God controls all things, then God controls sin and evil. That is the definition of metaphysical authorship. They like the poster. They hate the homework. So they affirm the universal and deny the particular, and they call the man who refused to do that the one who jumped the fence. He did not. They did. They jumped the fence of Scripture the moment the particular was exempted.

Watch the same trick somewhere they cannot hide. Paul says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Category form: all humans are those who have sinned. Therefore Oshea has sinned, and that “therefore” is Scripture, not an optional garnish. Now suppose I keep the major premise, because it sounds orthodox, and then I announce that John Wesley never sinned, John Calvin never sinned, Billy Graham never sinned, Andrew Wommack never sinned. I have not protected the text. I have denied it. Denying the consequent denies the antecedent. A categorical syllogism and a propositional one are the same coin. Flip one face and the other face is gone. Paul already ran this play in 1 Corinthians 15. Deny the resurrection of the dead and you have already denied that Christ was raised. You do not get a participation trophy for affirming the opening line while strangling every particular that makes the opening line true.

If the inference can be denied, then the Bible can say God is God of gods and Lord of lords, and there can still be some gods He is not God over and some lords He is not Lord over. Deuteronomy 10, Psalm 136, 1 Timothy 6, and Revelation 17 all become posters on a wall. The moment you exempt one lord, “Lord of lords” was a hymn, not a doctrine. If the inference can be denied, then Jesus is the Savior of all who believe, and John Wesley is saved, Billy Graham is saved, Andrew Wommack is saved, and Jesus is not their Savior. You kept the slogan and fired the Person. If the inference can be denied, then all the saints will be with Christ, and Wesley is a saint, and Wesley is in hell. The marriage supper still has a place card with his name on it, and the place card is a lie. If the inference can be denied, then by His stripes you were healed, the “you” of Isaiah 53 and 1 Peter 2:24, and the stripes were not for Billy Graham, and the stripes were not for Andrew Wommack, and Matthew 8:17 carried sickness for a category that somehow does not contain the people in the category. If the inference can be denied, then the Ten Commandments address all human beings, the law speaks so that every mouth is stopped, and there is a province in Asia full of human beings the commandments never reached. If the inference can be denied, then there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, and Wesley is in Christ, and Wesley is condemned. If the inference can be denied, then whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, and Graham called, and Graham is not saved. On and on. There is no exit. Every universal in the Book dies the same death the moment one particular is handed a hall pass.

If inference is not always binding, then it is not always true that every human has sinned, and Wesley gets his exemption, and a village in Asia gets a vacation from the Ten Commandments, and the God of gods has a few lords He does not lord. If that is not allowed, then inference is always binding. You do not get to suspend it when the particular is sin and the universal is God’s control. The Bible uses this grammar on purpose. Jesus appeals to the law of non-contradiction. Grace is not law. Law is not grace. A thing is not its contradictory. If you say the inference does not always matter, you have already said the major premise does not always matter. You just said it with a hymnbook in your hand. If God is not the author of sin, then the laws of identity and contradiction are not always binding and so grace really is works, and works is also grace.

Some try to slip out by saying the major premise only needs a qualification. Nothing wrong with the premise, they say. It just needs clarity. An exception to the rule. Here is the problem. If you say all humans are those who have sinned, and then you say there is a group in East Africa who have never sinned, even though they are humans, you did not qualify the premise. You contradicted it. “All humans are those who have sinned” and “some humans have not sinned” cannot both be true of the same subject in the same respect. Calling the second sentence clarity, a qualification, or a nuance does not change the relation. It still denies what the first affirmed. It still violates identity and non-contradiction.

A real qualification changes the subject or the predicate before the universal is asserted. “All morally accountable humans have sinned” is a different claim from “all humans have sinned.” The class was narrowed first. By saying “All morally accountable humans have sinned,” one leaves room in the major premise for some humans who are not morally accountable, such as a particular village in Asia. With that being the case, it would not be a contradiction to say some humans are not accountable.

However, what the objector does is different. He affirms the universal, then adds a member of the same class that lacks the predicate. The same holds for sovereignty. “God is absolutely sovereign” and “all things are things controlled by God” already fix the predicate. Absolute means without remainder. All means every member of the class. To follow that with “some things are not controlled by God,” or “human choices fall outside His control,” or “evil is an exception,” is not to refine the claim. It is to assert that the same subject both has and lacks the same predicate. Partial control is a coherent idea. It is simply a different idea. It is the claim that God controls some things and not others. Anyone is free to defend that claim. What he is not free to do is defend it under the name of absolute sovereignty, as if the exception were a footnote rather than a replacement of the predicate. The word “absolute” does not survive the exception. Once the exception is admitted, the proposition on the table is no longer the one that was stated.

So here is the tell. If Reformed theology affirms that all things are things controlled by God, and then refuses the inference that sin and evil are included in the all, it never affirmed the major premise. It affirmed a slogan, and then left the fence of Scripture while accusing the consistent reader of leaving the fence of tradition. Pink is already on the rail. Edwards already has a foot out, because occasionalism is just the premise being allowed to mean what it says. Vincent did not jump Scripture. The bounds of Scripture are “all.” The man who stops the syllogism where the confession gets sweaty is the one who left.

And the panic underneath the denial is a category smash. “If God authors sin, then God is a sinner.” Sin is lawlessness, 1 John 3:4. Lawlessness is a man breaking a command addressed to man. No law was ever addressed to God. There is no authority over Him to hold Him to one. Accusing the Author of being the sinner is the same move as calling the novelist a lion because he wrote a lion, or calling God a river because He caused a river. God is not what He authors. God is not what He causes. If that sentence feels hard, it is because pantheism has been sitting in the chair where Scripture should be. How much slower is the color green than the number 7? That is the intellectual level of “God sinned by causing a man to sin.” Ex lex is already too small. The potential of a law over God does not exist. Holy, holy, holy is categorical separation, not a really impressive compliance record.

As Vincent Cheung as talk us, accountability does not rescue the denial either. Romans 9 is asked the question in plain speech. If God causes it, why does He still find fault? Paul’s answer is not freedom. The answer is the Potter. Responsibility assumes a sovereign over you, not a zone He is forbidden to touch. Pharaoh did not resist the causality. He was still judged. The elect do not resist the Spirit who sanctifies them. Same metaphysics, opposite vessel. Freedom was never the foundation. Authority was.

This is not a puzzle for the back of the book. If God causes all things, then He caused the fall, the census, the lying spirit, the hardening, the disaster, and the prosperity. If you will not say that, you do not believe Ephesians 1:11. You believe an edited version that keeps the religious reputation and hands the awkward verses to mystery. Mystery is what you say when you have already denied the premise and you need a religious word for the violation of identity and non-contradiction. You would not let a man do this to “all have sinned.” You would not let him say that “Oshea has sinned” is less Scripture than the verse that contains it. You would not let him do it to the stripes on Jesus’ back. You would not let him do it to the God of gods. Do not let him do it to the decree, or to God’s control of every aspect of reality.

Affirm the inference or stop claiming the premise. There is no third category. All, or you have already slipped into some, and some is dualism with a Reformed accent. The God of Scripture is not embarrassed by His own decrees. He forms the light and creates the darkness, and He does not ask the clay to proofread the work. Believe Him as He has spoken. Then take the pen He put in your hand, the promises already yes in Jesus, and command the mountain. The same sovereignty that authored the story is the sovereignty that backed the stripes, the resurrection, and the authority He gave you. So, open your mouth and command the mountain to get out of your way. Tell sickness to leave and be healed and happy.

You Feel The Power

You Feel The Power

I was in Luke today and I hit the woman with the flow of blood. Twelve years of that curse, no cure from the physicians, and she comes up behind Jesus in the press of the crowd and touches the fringe of His robe. The bleeding stops on contact. Jesus stops the whole parade and asks who touched Him. Peter, doing what Peter does when he is looking at what his eyes can verify, tells Him the obvious thing. Master, this whole crowd is pressed up against You. Everybody touched You. That is what a crowd is. Jesus does not take the correction. Someone deliberately touched Me, He says, because I felt power leave Me. The Greek is dunamis. The English is power. They are reporting the same event. He is not describing a word of knowledge that the Spirit slipped Him like a note under the door, although a word of knowledge was available to Him, since He was anointed by the Spirit the same way we are anointed by the Spirit after we receive what the Father promised. He said He cast out demons by the Spirit of God, and that this was the kingdom of God arriving on top of people. He operated as a man born under the law, empowered by the Spirit, standing in the same category we stand in. That is why the story is usable and not a stained-glass souvenir. The thing He bothers to say out loud is that He felt it. Power went out of Him, and He knew it by the feeling of it leaving.

Vincent Cheung calls this spiritual physics, and that is the right name. God, by His own sovereign design, created us in such a way that a Spirit-filled man can sometimes feel the power. Think of electricity. You can feel the energy. You can feel the charge. The spiritual side has that too. Both the woman and Jesus felt it on that street. She felt the surge when the curse broke off her body, like spiritual electricity finding a live wire, and He felt the spiritual power of the Spirit leave when her faith drew on what was already in Him. There is such a thing as spiritual force, and the Bible is not embarrassed to say the people involved felt it. For ministry this matters more than the faithless want it to. Feeling the power is normal. It is not proof you have slipped into emotionalism, and it is not proof you are ahead of the brother who felt nothing that morning. Jesus felt it. Luke keeps recording that Paul was filled with the Spirit in ways that were tangible, something moved and something felt, and then a judgment miracle came out of his mouth and a governor got saved. The warning, is that you do not decide whether power is with you by what you feel. Faith is the real issue, and it is only a mental assent and agreement with God. The anointing presence is a real mode of the Spirit, and we seek it on purpose, but if you only move when the goosebumps have already filed their paperwork, you have handed the devil a veto he was never issued. As odd as it sounds, if you rely on the feeling of spiritual power or God’s anointing presence to act, or to feel confident something happened or a prayer was answered, you are being unspiritual and limiting the Spirit of power. We eagerly seek it, but the foundation is faith. Think about this for two seconds. It is by faith you first received the baptism of the Spirit of power. It is by faith you are saved; it is by faith you command a mountain to move. When you use faith to receive the Spirit, you don’t wait on a feeling. If you do get a feeling of spiritual power, it is because you received the Spirit by faith first. You continue to grow in the operation of spiritual power by faith, not by something else. Faith is the foundational issue. Feelings of power are nice, and they can confirm that the circuit opened and connected for a moment. However, feeling does not authorize the mouth. The mouth was already authorized, because you are a royal priesthood in Christ. It is who you are. It is not something you merely do; this authority is you.

Last night a dream woke me. It was vivid, and it was not the kind of dream you shrug off before your eyes are open. A small bear was trying to come through the side door. In the dream I took the .22 I keep by the bed and I was shooting, trying to put it down. I thought that was the end of it. Then a giant bear came through the front door, and I was running for my mom’s bedroom, yelling for her to get the shotgun. I woke up after that. When a dream lands like that I do not pretend I have a perfect method for sorting a bad meal from a real warning. Sometimes it is something you ate. Sometimes it is more than that. I do not need a finished taxonomy before I am allowed to use the authority I already carry. Waiting until you are 100% sure is how your sword gets rusty from underuse.

On the drive home today, a good hour, I had worship on and I was praying in tongues. I was glad to be doing it. I was not running on emotion. I was tired from a long day at work. I was numb. I was not feeling the presence of God in any way I could point at and call a surge, which is the relevant part of the testimony, because of what happened the moment I decided to take authority. I decided, just in case it was more than a dream, to take authority over the thing I had seen. Isaiah 54 was already sitting there, the way it always is. If anyone attacks, it is not from Me; whoever attacks you shall fall because of you. Every weapon formed against you shall not succeed, and you shall declare guilty every tongue that rises against you for judgment. That is the inheritance. That is the legal right. Not God. You. The older rendering that has lived in my mouth says you will condemn, and the doctrine is the same either way. Jesus did not say God will speak to the mountain while you watch from the boat and call the silence humility. He said you will say to the mountain, be lifted up and thrown into the sea, and it will obey you. If you sit there waiting for God to condemn the weapon He already assigned to your mouth, and the weapon formed against you smacks you in the face, that is on you. He told you whose job it was.

So I opened my mouth. No bear. No jaws of a bear formed against me, against this house, against my mom. The moment the first words left, every hair on my body stood up. The whole car charged. I am talking about that skin-tight goosebump surge, except it was not a mood and it was not the worship track doing emotional work on a tired man. I felt power released, and I felt resistance on the other side of it, the way you feel a fence wire you did not know was hot the second your hand closes. I had been numb five seconds earlier. I kept the confession going. I condemned that situation in the name of Jesus Christ and said it will not succeed. Then I prayed in tongues some more, and I had the sense from the Spirit that what I had said was good and that I was not done. So I spoke again. Not only will the jaws not enter this house. They will not touch this house. They will not come near this house. I will see the defeat of my enemy from afar. The power came over me a second time, on me and around me, hair up again, resistance again, and I had to press through it. The .22 in the dream had been cute. The Name was the shotgun. After the second pass I felt a release, the particular kind where you know the words that needed to be said have been said, and then peace. I was still the same tired man in the same car driving home. The difference was that the weapon forming against me had been answered by a mouth that carried more power.

That is the usefulness of the feeling, once you have refused to make the feeling your priest. I was not sure the dream was spiritual. I was numb, not sensitive, not worked up, not “led” by an anointing presence of the Spirit. I only decided to act on faith, just in case, and open my mouth. Then the words left and the power reported in. Suddenly the question answered itself. There was something to it, and it was a good thing I did not wait to first see the jaws before I realized I needed to do something. Jesus felt the power leave because the woman had already touched with faith. Faith released the power. Spiritual physics does not ask your emotional permission. It waits on faith to be released. Spiritual power moved by faith, while the crowd was still arguing about who had done it.

Jesus told them to pray that their flight would not happen in winter or on a Sabbath. People hear that and turn it into a horror trailer, as if God were the weatherman of doom. He told them the hard thing so they could pray and have the hard thing altered. Information was ammunition. The same pattern sits on the spies. God named the fortified cities and the sons of Anak, and some of those names carry fear in them, and the faithless heard a scare. Joshua and Caleb heard a menu. When God warns you about something, it is not to make you afraid; it is to make the thing He warned you about afraid, as the inhabitants of Jericho were afraid of the Israelites. They are our bread. Their protection is gone. Do not fear them. God was not introducing Israel to a new species of anxiety. He was plating their food and handing them the sword. When you have no faith, a fortified city becomes a reason to die in the wilderness. When you have faith, the same report is lunch, and the spoils come home with you.

A dream like the one I had is the same kitchen. It is not there to scare you, and it is not there so you can clutch the pillow and call the clutching discernment. God is setting a plate down. Here is some food. Take the sword of the Spirit, condemn the weapon, kill the thing, and be blessed on the other side of it. You do not only divert the hidden danger. You overcome it, you watch the defeat from the porch, and you eat the spoils of the war, because a conquered enemy nourishes the man who refused to let it land. Numb is not an empty battery. Numb is a charged car sitting there with the radio on. Worship and tongues had the alternator spinning. The faith confession was the key. You do not wait to feel the engine before you turn it. The key is what makes the engine announce itself.

Open your mouth. The power is already designed to move when faith touches the promise, and sometimes, like it did for Jesus and like it did in that car, you will feel it leave and you will feel it land. Condemn the weapon. Take the bread.

Faith Is Not a Spell – Its Personal

Faith Is Not a Spell – Its Personal

Vincent Cheung said it without blushing: it is popular to teach that you must always hunt an exact verse for the exact thing you want, and then pronounce the prayer with laboratory precision, or else heaven shrugs. That is false. It contradicts both the teaching and the examples of Scripture. “It does not require a specific promise from God to receive what we ask, and there is no need to state our prayer with exact precision to receive what we desire. Prayer is not a magical incantation. God knows all things. Jesus said that God knows what you want before you pray.” (Reach for a Miracle, Vincent Cheung)

Read that again. Slowly. Then put down the wand.

Faith is not a spell. It is not an incantation you have to get syllable-perfect so the magic will fire. Faith is personal. Faith’s context does not float in a soup of unthinking laws that God set loose and then wandered off to watch. No. The context of faith is divine determinism. And for the saints, that determinism is not a cold machine. It is a direct, intimate, personal relationship with God. It is you agreeing with a living God who already knows what you meant, who already wrote you into a Contract in blood that He Himself made, and who already decided to treat you as a beloved son and not as a lab rat.

The Old Testament saints were not technicians

The heroes of faith pulled down suns, seas, bread, fire, and dead children with a shockingly small pile of paperwork. They did not have the completed canon sitting in a search bar, and they did not have AI to super-search the Bible for every footnote and loophole. They had God. They had His nature. They had the broad, blunt knowledge that He is good, that He helps, and that He is the kind of God who does wonders for people who look at Him. Cheung is right: what is always true about God cannot be contradicted by the particular situation you woke up in this morning. If God is willing to help, He is willing to help this. If God heals, He heals your sickness and pain today. You do not need a notarized footnote for every nerve ending. If God forgives, then He has forgiven your sin today.

Joshua told the sun to stand still. Elijah told fire to fall. The four lepers in 2 Kings 7 did not workshop a confession for three hours, aligning their words and actions into some liturgical NASA launch sequence. They said, “Why sit we here until we die?” and they stumbled toward the camp. God turned their footsteps into thunder. That is not a formula. That is a Person backing a person.

The Promise Is Vague On Purpose

Jesus did not tighten the screws in the New Testament. He loosened them even more. “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believing, you shall receive.” “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move,’ and it will move.” “Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” Those are large, general, almost scandalously vague promises given to children. They are vague because He loves us. They are vague because He wants to grant and fulfill your wants and dreams. They are vague so that your dreams fit inside them.

Think about that for a few seconds. Even as I write this I am filled with joy and physically restraining myself from detonating five more essays on this one point. What is the point of making the promise so broad and vague? So that whatever you dream up and want fits. That is the entire point. They cover the mountain, the fever, the empty jar, the demon, the paycheck, the thing you cannot even name yet without crying, and that huge dream for your life you are scared to ask because it seems too big and too wonderful. The whole design of a broad promise is to make sure all of it fits inside.

Unfortunately, when I hear most people talk about these statements, they spend their whole ministry trying to make them less broad and more specific. They shrink the application until it is so narrow it is practically unusable. They take a banquet table and turn it into a toothpick.

As Paul says, grace is grace, and works are works, and grace is not works. That is the law of identity. Categories stay categories. Same here. Broad, vague promises are not specific promises. They have different identities. To take Jesus’ broad statements and force them into a tiny, qualified box is a contradiction. Yes, it is correct that you cannot ask God to grant you sin. But that is so obvious the Bible barely bothers to mention it—and when it does, it says that asking God to sponsor your sin makes Him your enemy. You cannot in faith ask God to help you murder your neighbor. That limitation is pre-baked into the definition. You do not need to staple a ten-page disclaimer onto Jesus’ sentence.

Despite what sin promises, sin is a limitation, not an expansion. Satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy. That is limits on steroids. Jesus came to give life, and life abundantly. The blessing of Abraham is so broad about every sort of blessing, increase, health, wealth joy, and victory because it was meant to be broad enough to include anything you want.

The reason “not asking for sin” is a silent presupposition, not worth plastering all over Jesus’ broad statements, is basic. The statements are designed this way so that when the Bible and when Jesus make broad promises, you are not supposed to qualify them or restrict them. It is a pure positive. When Jesus says all, and everything, it means just that. Everything.

Why would God make such broad statements and promises? He did not make them for reprobates or outsiders. He made them for His beloved children. He made them broad so that whatever you dream up, you get it. That is the point. You are the point, because He likes you. You are His point. Because you are His child, your answered dreams are His point. Yes. You heard that right. God did not make the promise so broad so that He could answer all His own dreams and will. He made it broad to make room to answer yours.

Specific is good. Superstitious is stupid.

Now, before somebody accuses me of baptizing sloppiness: there is nothing wrong with being specific. Jesus said speak to the mountain. That is a command, not a suggestion from a timid life-coach. You can look at the stinging in your arm and say, “Stinging in my arm, I command you to leave in Jesus’ name.” That is maturity. That is a mind that has learned to aim. James says the prayer of faith will save the sick. Mark 11 says believe you “have” received what you say, and you “will” have it. Romans 10 says the word of faith is in your mouth. Abraham called himself the father of many nations before the baby existed. Faith speaks, and it often speaks specifically.

As Vincent reminds us, more revelation should work for us, not against us. If you have the whole Bible and less miracle than Abraham with a tent and a promise, the problem is not insufficient verses. The problem is that you turned the Bible into a spellbook and then blamed God when the Latin was off.

But you can also say, “Arm, be healed,” and God is not sitting in heaven with a red pen circling your grammar or your vagueness. He already knows. Matthew 6:8 is not a cute devotional fridge-magnet. It is metaphysics. God is intellectual. God is personal. Divine determinism is not a fog machine, that belongs to pantheism. It means the God who decreed the prayer also knows the prayer before the sound leaves your teeth. You do not have to incant the thing until the magic works. You agree with Him. He performs what He said. It is just that simple.

The technical and psychological obsession is not holiness. It is anxiety wearing a Greek lexicon. People get locked in their own heads, measuring the sentence, measuring the feeling, measuring whether they “hit it right this time,” and they stop looking at the Father who finds no fault with them when they ask. James 1:5 is still in the Book. He gives generously. He does not scold you for asking. He rejoices and gives. The moment you treat the wording like a lock combination, you have already moved from covenant friendship to witchcraft. You have made the power sit in the syllables instead of in the God who hears His children and gives them what they ask.

Sovereignty is not pantheism in a nice shirt

This is where the wheels come off for two different crowds at once.

The doctrine the Bible teaches about God’s sovereignty is not bare sovereignty. It is not the pantheist or deist sludge where God is the water and the fever and the mountain, so when you pray you are talking to anything or nothing at the same time. It is not the fatalist shrug that says, “God controls all things, therefore sit there and call your unbelief trust.” It is divine determinism—absolute, direct, personal. God causes all things. God knows what you will pray before you pray it. This same God made a blood Contract with His only Son and said, “I will always relate to you in these good and pleasant ways. I will always relate to you as a loving Father. I will always give you a, fish for a fish; and I will always give you a, miracle for a miracle. Always.”

H2O does not “naturally” behave like water. Water behaves like water because God faithfully keeps making it behave that way. Every drop. Every moment. Occasionalism is just the grown-up way of saying there is no causality hiding behind God’s back. There is no outside machinery and no outside natural law running the shop when He is not looking. Reality is His Lego set, except He made the pieces from scratch and He is still holding every stud in place by direct and absolute control. Science can trace the regularity because God is regular. The regularity is not a rival god, a stack of natural laws, or a polite dualism. It is His faithfulness wearing physics.

Spiritual things work the same way. There are no impersonal “spiritual laws” floating out there like gravity with a pulpit. The faith-teachers get this almost right and then trip on the last stair. Yes, the spiritual realm acts with a law-like stubbornness. Healing comes to faith. Mountains move when you speak. The prayer of a righteous man has huge effects. That is not because some force independent of God got switched on at the resurrection and now runs on autopilot if you smash the buttons correctly. It is because God is so perfectly faithful to do what He said that it feels like a law. He is consistent. He is covenant-bound. He swore by Himself. He cut a Contract in blood. He always relates to His elect in the good ways He promised—forgiveness, righteousness, healing, supply, authority—without fail. The “law” is just His character refusing to become a liar.

Forget that, and prayer turns into a spell. Remember it, and prayer turns into conversation with the only real Cause in the universe, who already likes you and has made broad promises so that He can grant your dreams. And by granting your dreams, God naturally expands His glory and His kingdom.

Two levels. Stop mixing the oil and the water.

God is the only real cause. On the ultimate level, He decrees everything. The Arminians are wrong. God does directly and absolutely predestine all things.

But the Bible does not talk to you in that register most of the time. It talks to you on the relative level—the Blood Contract friendship level—the level where Jesus looks at a bent-over daughter of Abraham and says Satan bound her, not the Father. The level where He says, “Your faith has healed you.” The level where Isaiah 54:15 can say, “They will surely gather against you, but not by Me,” while God remains the only real cause in metaphysics. Mixing those categories is not deep. It is a law-of-identity violation with a choir robe on. You do not drag ultimate causality into the promise of healing in order to give unbelief a respectable accent. That is how you wreck the car. Water and motor oil. Congratulations. You are stranded, and you called it orthodoxy.

The New Contract is not vague. Jesus took the taking upon Himself in substitution. The Father took from Him so He would only give to you. That is the whole point of the substitution. By His stripes you were healed. That is already done in God’s mind. Faith is not twisting God’s arm. Faith is agreeing with what God already thinks. “God, You are correct. I agree with You.” That is the whole engine. Not a chant. An agreement.

So speak. Broad or sharp. Just believe it.

You want to get more specific as you mature? Good. Command the sting. Name the mountain. Tell the lack to get out with specifics. Do it.

But remember: with this much raw power and broad promises, you only need one word and God makes it work. “Calm.” “Be still.” Jesus did not whisper a long incantation at storms. He spoke simply and directly. He did not hold a seminar on whether the wording was sufficiently nuanced. He spoke. The centurion understood sovereignty better than most theologians: “Just say the word.” He did not offer a long-winded, overly humble slogan of, “If it be Thy sovereign will, then maybe You can have mercy on this poor sinful outsider.” Jesus marveled at his simple and broad faith. That is the model.

You want to say it broad because you are tired and the pain is loud and you cannot remember the perfect verse? Also good. “Arm, be healed.” “Father, help.” “In Jesus’ name.” God already knows. He is not a vending machine that jams if you press B7 instead of B8. He is a Father who knows what you want before you pray, and He has already bound Himself by oath to treat you according to the finished gospel.

The Faithless will tell you to be careful. They always do. Caution is their spiritual gift, granted by Satan their high priest. They will warn you that general promises are dangerous and need to be heavily qualified so they are not abused, that specificity is safer, that sovereignty means you should add a coward’s appendix to every request. Ignore them. They have confused piety with unbelief and called the result balance.

Here is a secret the faithless kept from you. Practically speaking, you cannot abuse the broad promises and statements of God. They are broad to include all things on purpose. The only abuse is when you ask too small and too little. That is the real abuse. Asking too big for yourself is not the abuse. Asking too little is.

As Vincent says, “faith is the beginning of action.” Reach. Lay the hand. Open the mouth. The four lepers did not wait for a complete systematic theology of Syrian military acoustics. They moved. God turned the move into a miracle. When you reach, God reaches. That is the relationship. That is the Contract friendship. That is why it is not a spell.

You are not trying to get the universe to behave. You are talking to the God who is the reason the universe behaves. He knows. You know He knows. Ask. Even if it is vague. He will perform what you asked. That is all you need to know.

God laid everything on the table and said it is available to you. Ask for whatever you want, as much as you want. Be specific or be vague. Just ask and reach for your miracle. God will do His part.

 
 
 
 
 

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.