Some months back the Lord requested that I begin a blog for our webpage. I enjoy writing and He knows it. For fifteen years quite some time back, I wrote a monthly member Bulletin for the Better Business Bureau. I’ve written a bi-monthly column for The Miner’s News for over 30 years. However, it has been more difficult for me to get this one started for a couple reasons. First, I have had a boatload of topics come to my mind and it has been difficult to choose just one. Second, I am used to writing very frankly and to be honest, I believe that most—but not all—writers don’t do that when they have a diverse audience. They prefer being politically and/or spiritually “correct.” I have a fundamental belief that that “correctness” has been largely responsible for the slide into both collectivism and immorality that we have developed in both our nation and the church as a whole. I’m just not in that corner.
So…welcome to Ken’s Korner. I pray that these blogs will be anointed by the Holy Spirit and written in His heart and tone. I pray that they will cause my readers to be provoked and how ever often I do a new one (no idea yet), they will be touched, encouraged, changed, and grow closer into their identity with Him. My goal is to have Him write it and me plagiarizing Him! I have no idea how long they will be; it could be that this one will be the longest.
My wife Sylvia and I have travelled a fair amount, at times removed from home 2 of every 3 days some years. We have been to a limited number of countries–14 so far– but to many of them over and over again. Guess what we have found? People are people, the church is the church, and the same sins abound as do the same moves of the Holy Spirit among His own. We only have different flavors of skin tone, eye slants, wealth, cultural habits, styles, and religious background. We have learned to love them all. Missionaries and others serving God in these places are simply people who said “yes.”
Saying “yes”
So what, Ken? What does that reference about people have to say to me? I’m glad you asked. I’m doing my first pass on this blog while on my quarterly retreat with the Lord at our cabin. It’s twenty degrees below zero, Fahrenheit, at the moment while I sit by a lovely wood-burning fire with my hot coffee! Well, a few years back, while driving home from one of these retreats, the Lord interrupted my brainwaves and said, “My son, there is something I appreciate about you.” Boing…I almost drove off the road! I asked the God of the universe to hold on until I could find some paper and pen while driving! I wanted every word. He continued, “You said ‘yes.’” Oh…that was it. I understood. I started Freedom Encounters full-time at His request while I was both unemployed and had just run out of my severance pay as Executive Director of the Better Business Bureau in Boise, Idaho. I’d been searching for new employment that would be both very challenging and pay me more money, along with anything else He could append to that list. Sound familiar? So at this point He had shut the doors to six—yup, six—opportunities which all fulfilled my list! In fact, He shut them all down in two weeks (none of the potential employers shut the doors because they didn’t want me!). Yes, it turned out that God was in it—rather obvious, so His question to me after the last door closed was, “Son, will you go to work for Me?” What?? And take an 83% cut in pay? The only monetary option was unemployment and if anyone has been in that spot, you know it does not exactly pay big wages! So here I am stuck and God pops the big question and in spite of everything in the natural saying it was not an intelligent option, I said: “YES.”
So where’s the hidden message in this blog? Let’s continue my conversation with the King. He asked me, “Do you know the percentage of those who say yes after they KNOW I have asked them to?” “No, Lord, but I have a sneaking suspicion I’m about to find out.” “The number is in the single digits.” I almost crashed again! “Say what?” I was shocked; these are people who knew the Lord had asked them to go to work for Him. No guesswork involved. Out of the entire body of Christ in the world. Now I understood why He appreciated the fact that I said yes. He went on. “And I give most of the anointing of the 90% who say no to those who say yes…you’re welcome, My son.”
I was awestruck and considered all I’ve said yes to and the miracles I’ve witnessed. I understood and appreciated it much more after that conversation.
Why we say “no”
Well, has God asked you to say yes to your gifting and calling? Are you a part of the 90% who either said, “Not now” or, “No way, I don’t want the trouble it brings, as I’m happy and comfortable just where I am, thank you.”
Some say “Not now” due to kid’s soccer games and school plays and piano lessons, etc., a multitude of recreational opportunities, allowing Facebook, Twitter, cell phones, iPhones, iPads…well, simply “I” to crowd God out except for a few hours on Sunday. Their gifts and call often get crowded out their whole lives because “now” never comes. All of you know what the road to hell is paved with, right?
Believers, or at least those who think they are, who are comfortable and don’t want the trouble, I have one word for you: Devil. He and his men have one, well two, goals for all mankind. For unbelievers, it’s simple—populate hell as quickly as possible. But for believers, it is also simple —keep them from fulfilling the call of God on their lives and from developing their gifts, thereby preventing them from ushering in the kingdom of God upon prodigal earth.
Has he been successful? Duh.
I only have to look as far as our own ministry. Of all those who have attended a Deliverance Procedures Seminar these past decades, I believe about 5-10% picked up the ministry to help others gain their freedom. Their excuses fall into one of the two aforementioned phrases. No matter what, it is saying “No” to God. Not to us, but to Him. It is not about us, but Him. One of the churches we attend came up with a vision two years ago and I love it: make the invisible God visible visible. How can we do that by saying “No”? We can’t.
Revelation 12:11 makes it even more clear. That verse talks about how Satan is overcome. Verse 11A talks of the blood of the Lamb—that chapter closed at the cross and resurrection. The second half of the verse says, “and by the word of their testimony”–90% of all believers stop there and presume it is speaking about them. But it isn’t! That verse is finished by the following words that are usually ignored, “and they did not love their lives to the death.” That piece is what eliminated the 90% who said “No!” That includes the 90%+ we have taught at our seminars who never picked up the work of the ministry. And of the 5-10% who gave it a shot, at least half stopped totally or almost completely within a year.
Why? Did people stop needing freedom? Did the pushback from the “spiritually correct” cause them to fear man and to stop and say “No” to God and yes to the world, flesh, and yes, even the devil? Who won? Was it fear of not being good enough? Did they get sucked in to the thought it was up to them to set people free? Were they not able to trust the One and only One who is capable of doing it? Did they forget that it is HIS power, their faith, and not their techniques that accomplish the victory? Did the world’s call to marriage or soccer games or making money or more education or more technology, or, or, or…squeeze out their commitment to fulfilling their call? Do they really believe that someday they will answer that call? The odds are over 90% that they won’t. You may not have sat under a Freedom Encounters’ training seminar, but you no doubt have a call, gifts, and an opportunity to serve Him. Where do you fit in? Have you responded to the Holy Spirit’s wooing?
The call is sure, according to God’s Word. Sylvia and I pray that more will say “yes” and that the 3% who have said “yes” (I found out years later what the single digit really was), will grow so that the church will finally begin operating as the church with God’s over-arching love, power, and authority acting in the Holy Spirit’s “spiritual correctness.”
Together, let’s make the invisible God visible.