Category Archives: Extra Thoughts

Bring Out the True You

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

You ARE light.

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

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

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

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

Bringing out the TRUE YOU.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Skepticism Just Ate Its Own Lunch

It is always dumb to disagree with the bible.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

God’s Timing Is Perfect And So Is Mine

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Faith first. Now available.

Power Without Flair Is Weird

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You’re Fu@king Awesome

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jesus in the Boat Is Waiting on You

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

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

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

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

“Where is your faith?”

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

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

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

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

Think about that for two seconds.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Peace. Be still.”

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

Use it.

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

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

Time to fix it.

Speak.

The Elect In Christ: The Original Category

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

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

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

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

(1) God decrees His own glory displayed publicly;

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

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

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

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

(6) creation launches the whole grand universe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

God finds No Fault with You

Oshea Davis.

God finds no fault with you, and you need to do the same. Ask and Receive.

James 1:5 hits different when you really see what God is saying about how He relates to you right now. “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.”

Let’s get technical because this truth is too sharp to water down. The literal translation drives the consequence home: God “will not rebuke you” or “will not scold you” when you ask for wisdom. No “Not you again—you have too much sin to ask Me for stuff.” The Greek term (μὴ ὀνειδίζοντος) means He does not reproach, censure, or throw your failures back in your face. The NIV renders it that way for readability—“without finding fault”—but the logic is airtight and flows straight through. If God does not find fault with you when you come asking, then He has zero basis to rebuke or shame you for asking for wisdom, healing, or any other promise in the Good News. No lecture. No hesitation. No cosmic side-eye. This is not fluffy sentiment; it is the direct outcome of your justified standing.

This is exactly how God sees you in Christ. Jesus became sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). All your sins—past, present, and every future one—were nailed once and for all. Hebrews drives it home: one offering has perfected forever those being sanctified, and God says He will remember your sins no more. In God’s mind there are no negative checkmarks waiting to be erased.

When we repent of sins, we are not asking God to remove a negative mark that He sees in His mind against us. No, that is not repentance for Christians. In repentance we admit we sinned, but we are not asking God to forgive us by removing flaws He sees in His mind against us—because in God’s mind He only sees us as perfect. The atonement is an event that already happened and already been finalized. There is no adding to it later. It is now reported as good news. The atonement is how God chose to forgave us. If we are asking God remove sin from us, we would be asking God to re-crucify Jesus, because that is how God has decided to forgive. When we repent, we are agreeing with God that we are already perfect and righteous. In God’s mind there are only checkmarks of the very righteousness of God Himself stamped across your account—perfect, complete, unchanging. Faultless. Blameless. Accepted in the Beloved. In repentance we come to God and agree with Him that He is correct about us when He thinks we are perfect.

We say, “I was wrong when I sinned today. And I confess that to you. I also confess I am perfect, because you think I am perfect. You are correct God. I agree with you that you think I am blameless and you think I am God’s righteousness. Thank you Jesus for all You have done for me. You are correct about how righteous and awesome I am. Thank you.”

Repentance isn’t you grovelling like an outsider trying to earn your way back in. Nah. Repentance is you, as a son or daughter already seated in the Father’s house, agreeing with God that the blood already finished the job completely. You’re not asking Him to remove something He no longer sees. You’re simply lining your thinking up with the flawless reality He declared over you. The same for something like healing, prosperity, fame and blessings. You are not asking God to do something He hasn’t already done for you. You are agreeing with God they are already yours.

So when you come boldly to the throne for wisdom, God isn’t pulling out some fault ledger. He sees only Christ’s perfect righteousness on you. This is why the outcome is never some weak, watered-down “God will answer your prayer somehow.” The Bible doesn’t phrase it that way on purpose—people love to stick their unbelief exactly where it doesn’t belong. They twist it into the usual fleshly circus: “Well, God answers yes, maybe, no, or later when you learn your lesson.” But in His extreme faith doctrine Jesus says over and over: “Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” There is no way to water that down without contradicting Jesus. What you ask for is exactly what you get—period. No qualifiers. No loopholes.

James doubles down on the same faith doctrine in chapter five. Call the elders, pray the prayer of faith over the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. Same no-fault access. Same guaranteed result. Only unbelief can block what God has already promised and empowered. James starts off in chapter one saying God finds no fault with you, and so you get what you ask for. Then ends with chapter 5 saying, the prayer of a righteous man has huge effects.

Why would you ever doubt and waver? You’re not begging to become righteous—you already are in Jesus. In God’s mind the stripes Jesus took were for you, for your sickness, in your place, and the healing has already been given to you. The substitutionary atonement is finished. You’re not pleading for healing as if the stripe marks are not on Jesus’ back—you agree they already healed you. You’re not scraping for wisdom like some outsider hoping God might throw you a bone—you’re in the One who became wisdom from God for you. Fleshly thinking always drags your eyes back to symptoms, feelings, or yesterday’s failures, but that’s just unbelief trying to rewrite what the cross already sealed.

God’s sovereignty stands fully behind every single promise. He doesn’t tease His kids. Stop limiting the Holy One with half-hearted prayers that expect nothing or maybe. Ask Him today for the wisdom you need—bold, expectant, no wavering. Ask for healing over that body. Ask for every good thing the Good News promises. He gives generously because in Christ you are faultless in His sight. He will not rebuke you when you ask. He will praise you and give you what you ask. Believe it the moment you ask, thank Him like it’s already done, and watch reality line up with the word of faith. This is the normal Christian life.

The Kingdom is here. The Good News is better than you thought. The Good News is closer and more tangible than what the faithless tried to hide from you. Take what is yours.

God does not find fault with you. I don’t find fault with you. Ask and receive.

Sad Sob Story VS faith

When that Gentile woman came to Jesus with her demon-possessed daughter, she hit Him with the full sad-sob-story package. Heart-wrenching details. Desperate pleas. “Lord, help me!” She begged like her life depended on it. But it didn’t move Him. Not one inch.

I mean, wasn’t Jesus moved with compassion to heal the crowds and feed the multitudes?

Jesus didn’t heal her because the story was tragic enough. He didn’t heal her because she sounded sincere or because He felt extra compassionate that day. Some might say compassion alone always gets the job done. Not so. Unlike the Arminian fools who deny God’s sovereignty, remember this: God can move independently of us and our faith. The atonement of Jesus is one big story of God sovereignly working to show compassion to people who are unworthy and didn’t even ask for it. God can show compassion without anyone asking in faith—such as when Jesus healed the man at the pool. However, it’s a lottery-type situation. If you’re desperate to be helped or healed, merely waiting on God to sovereignly show compassion is like waiting on the lottery. That’s not the way.

God has always moved independently of us and always will—at the ultimate level. But in the relational context of His promises and commands, we must do what God commanded. He commanded faith.

Think hard about this: Jesus had plenty of compassion back in His hometown, yet unbelief locked the door and left people sick anyway. Despite His compassion, Jesus Christ walked away from His hometown with hurting people moaning in their beds and desperate hearts hoping for help.

Back to our story. What finally moved the King? The rarest thing on planet Earth: faith. Real faith. The kind that grabs God’s promises and refuses to let go. She didn’t whine with a sob story. No—she made an argument from faith, believing He was faithful to His Word. “Woman, great is your faith!” And her daughter was delivered.

Same scene, different woman: the one with the twelve-year issue of blood. The crowd was crushing in, everybody bumping and grabbing at Jesus like it was Black Friday at the miracle store. They were pressed up against Him, but He walked right through them until one touch stopped Him cold.

“Who touched Me?”

Power had gone out from Him. Not from a desperate sob story. It came from faith.

It wasn’t the sad sob story that made power flow out of Jesus. It wasn’t the sad sob story that made Jesus stop and ask who touched Him. It wasn’t the begging. It wasn’t even raw compassion. Faith is what made Jesus zero in with laser focus while millions clamored for attention. Faith is what pulled divine power out of Him like a magnet.

You can feel lost in a sea of a billion faces (and trust me, there are those with far worse sob stories than yours in the crowd). So why would Jesus focus on you? The answer: Faith. If you have faith, God will give you His undivided attention, His undivided help, and His undivided power to save, lift, and bless you. Faith is the answer.

This is the wake-up call we all need: God isn’t merely moved by your tear-jerker reel or how loud you can cry, “Please help!” He is moved by faith that takes Him at His Word. There’s a way to yell “Have mercy on me” that’s trying to make God feel sorry for you—or it can be a cry of faith, knowing God already feels for you, has already provided for you, and will certainly help you. And if you already know this, you’ll find yourself naturally saying, “Sickness, I command you to leave, in Jesus’ name!”

Stop rehearsing the sad story like it’s currency, because the real currency is faith. Believe the promise, speak to the mountain, and watch the King give you His undivided attention and miracle-working power.

You can do the same—right now. Faith is still the rarest, most powerful thing on Earth. Will you be one of the special few who use it? If there was a crowd of so-called Christians, could Jesus single you out, pointing to you and saying, “Now there’s a person with faith—I keep feeling power leave Me and flow into them”? If not, today is the day to correct yourself and finally become that person.

Jesus wondered if He would find faith on Earth when He returned. The context was not about faith for salvation but someone who kept praying in faith until they get what “they want.” Be one of those people Jesus is pleased to find when He comes—because you are a person who has faith. On that last day, look up, meet Jesus’ eyes, and say, “You questioned if You would find faith when You returned? Well, I’m still standing, Jesus! I have faith to move mountains, heal the sick, cast out demons, and faith to know that I am the righteousness of God because of You. At the very least, You found me.” Do you want to see Jesus with a sh@t eating grin of absolute joy, when He finds you? Then have faith.

Pseudo-Neutrality

The Objective Believer said: “Dr. Heiser saying the quiet part out loud: we all ‘cheat.’ We all bring our presuppositions and assumptions to the table. Do we like to admit it and talk about it? Not really. It tends to remove the gravity of whatever claims or accusations we’re making in the moment. We prefer the ‘God Stamp’ so we come across more authoritative. Here at The Objective Believer, however, we encourage people to lower the RPMs, the hysteria, take a deep breath—and let’s chat.”

Oh, how tidy that sounds. Half-right, I’ll grant you; every last human being does operate from first principles, but also that no amount of raw observation can ever bootstrap this into existence. Neutrality is a myth, plain as the nose on your face. No one reasons from a blank slate. But right there, at the very moment the admission is made, the whole thing collapses into the same tired autonomous nonsense that has shipwrecked every non-Christian system since the eggheads in Athens tried to pat Paul on the head in Acts 17. Admitting you have presuppositions does not magically create a polite stalemate or a coffee-shop standoff where we all “lower the RPMs” and chat as equals. It simply drags the battle to the only ground that ever mattered: the presuppositional level itself. The real question has never been whether we have presuppositions. The real question is which presupposition can sustain knowledge, logic, uniformity of nature, or even the bare intelligibility of the sentence “we all cheat.”

Jesus had something sharp to say about eye surgery and hypocrisy. He commands the hypocrite to first remove the plank out of his own eye. Notice the interesting presupposition baked right into the command: you can remove the wrong assumptions from your own eye and then have the ability to help others remove the speck from theirs. Of course Jesus is not saying just anyone can pull this off. He is saying that believers—those born of the Spirit—are able to do it. He does not command the hypocrite to become neutral or presupposition-free. He commands him to remove the plank first so that he “will see clearly” to take the speck out of his brother’s eye (Matthew 7:5). The plank is not “presuppositions” in general; it is hypocrisy, self-deception, and the leftover autonomous rebellion that still refuses to let Scripture be the sole axiom.

Therefore, since some Christians actually have enough respect for Jesus to obey Him, they have removed the wrong assumptions from their own eyes. That means there really are Christians who can read the Bible and read others without cheating by smuggling in alien presuppositions. To slap a blanket “we all cheat” across the board is to call Jesus a liar. The bible does not say we are all cheaters when we read the bible and do philosophy. It lumps the renewed believer in with the unregenerate who still suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18). It denies the power of regeneration. It denies the sufficiency of Scripture. Some Christians have obeyed. They have removed the plank. They do not cheat with wrong presuppositions. They see reality as the Bible shows it because they cannot do otherwise. That is not a flaw; that is victory.

The “we all cheat” slogan is exposed as the self-refuting nonsense it always was. As Vincent Cheung writes in “The Christian’s Self-Definition”:

“You may complain that it is impossible to approach anything, including the Christian faith, without bringing to it our own backgrounds and presuppositions. This is true. But if you are a Christian, then you are a new creation in Christ—you have a new background. And if you are a Christian, then the Bible commands you to renew your mind—get a new set of presuppositions. Reorient your thinking, and enthrone Christ in your mind as the reference point by which you define yourself and everything else. Then, you will find it impossible to approach anything apart from your Christian background and presuppositions. Only then can you be assured that you have a firm grasp on your identity as a Christian.”

Spot on, and it lands like a hammer. The Objective Believer’s own statement trips over its own feet the moment it opens its mouth. It declares that all claims lose their gravity once presuppositions are exposed. That is their hidden axiom of pseudo-neutrality dressed up in humble-brag clothing. And so the claim that “all claims lose their gravity once presuppositions are exposed” loses its own gravity toward all people; it has no logical relevance to anyone. The standard applied to itself means we should treat the O.B.’s statement as without any weight and worthless. And so I encourage to do just that. If it is true, then it is false at the same time. It denies the law of contradiction that Jesus Himself appeals to in Mark 12:35-37. Cute.

Because God puts substantial innate knowledge in all of us (Romans 2:15), and this knowledge only is by God and no one or nowhere else, then by logical necessity, there is no neutral presuppositions. There is only divine revelation.

Lower the RPMs? Take a deep breath and “let’s chat”? That is precisely the fatal maneuver of pseudo-neutrality. Paul did not sit down with the Athenians for a calm exchange of assumptions. He confronted their presuppositions of idolatry, declared their ignorance, and proclaimed the true God who commands all men everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30). No deep breathing exercises. No neutral ground. Just the blazing sword of divine revelation cutting through the fog and commanding men.

The moment you pretend neutrality is even possible, you have already smuggled in the very autonomous starting point you claim to expose. It is like a thief lecturing the bank manager on security while his pockets are still bulging with stolen cash. The Objective Believer wants us all to pretend we are starting from scratch so he can keep his own starting point hidden behind a smile and a latte. But Scripture will not play that game. Regeneration does not leave you with the same old toolkit of fallen assumptions; it gives you an entirely new mind (Romans 12:2). The old man is dead. The new man sees. That is not arrogance—it is obedience. And obedience always looks like cheating to the one still suppressing truth.

So yes—admit your presuppositions. Good start. Now test them against the only foundation that cannot be shaken. Watch how quickly they fold like a cheap lawn chair in a hurricane. The Bible stands because it is divine revelation from the God. Submit to Scripture or remain in absurdity. There is no third option. And if you still want to play the “we all cheat” card after that, at least have the honesty to admit you are calling Jesus a liar while pretending to be the most reasonable guy in the room. The plank is still there, so watch out or it might smack someone in the face. Or better yet, let the Spirit and the Word yank it out.