Blinded by the Light

The title of an old song.  Yet I see many in the Body of Christ who are being blinded by an angel of light.  What makes it more tragic is many of them are leaders, pastors, apostles, prophets, teachers.  Ministers allegedly of God but blinded by the angel of Light, SATAN.

2 Corinthians 11:13-15
These people are false apostles. They are deceitful workers who disguise themselves as apostles of Christ. But I am not surprised! Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no wonder that his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. In the end they will get the punishment their wicked deeds deserve.

It certainly is true that Jesus is the LIGHT of the WORLD.  He is so bright that in Revelation there is no need for the sun.  That when he appeared to John on Patmos He was Brilliant.  Bright.  Light.

Yet the word of God tells us that satan comes to people as light.  Sometimes light of revelation, sometimes as a cause, sometimes as "Truth", sometimes as deception that looks right.  I see many people trapped by his beauty.  YES Satan can appear beautiful.  He did appear desirable and beautiful to Eve.  No red suit, pitchfork and horns.  He comes as an angel of light and is beautiful to those who are easily deceived.  The idea that there is a cause that seems right when the deception is in the cause.. means deception isn't far away.  Once a person, even a very Godly person gives place to the Devil, downfall is not far behind.  First the flesh triumphs and then the fall begins.

This is the nature of blinding by light.  There is an LED flashlight being advertised that is designed to blind an offender.  That's how it happens.  People keep going for more light and they become blind.

"Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don't understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God."  2 Corinthians 4:4

When real light comes, the glorious light, they are unable to see.  I used to believe this applied only to unbelievers, but I have seen too much deception in the Church to think it otherwise. People who call themselves Christians, who jump and shout, even speak in tongues may consider themselves saved but are living as practical unbelievers.... BLINDED BY THE LIGHT.

It is as if they have reverted to the time of religion and gross darkness.
 

Jeremiah 5:21
'Now hear this, O foolish and senseless people, Who have eyes but do not see; Who have ears but do not hear.

Ezekiel 12:2
"Son of man, you live in the midst of the rebellious house, who have eyes to see but do not see, ears to hear but do not hear; for they are a rebellious house.

 Isaiah 6:8-10

 Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" Then I said, "Here am I. Send me!" He said, "Go, and tell this people: 'Keep on listening, but do not perceive; Keep on looking, but do not understand.' "Render the hearts of this people insensitive, Their ears dull, And their eyes dim, Otherwise they might see with their eyes, Hear with their ears, Understand with their hearts, And return and be healed."… 

Emerging into Clarity and Freedom

Jesus warning of the days to soon come makes this statement: 

False Messiahs will arise and Prophets of lies, and they will give great signs so as to deceive, if possible, even the elect.  
Matthew 24:24

Because we are warned we are cautious.  Because we are cautious we sometimes miss what God wants to do in our lives.  We trust the agents of deception more than we trust the Power of God to create a world better than the one you have been in.

Sometimes the promises of the enemy sound wonderful. Peace.  Safety.  Harmony.  Prosperity.  Equality.  Security.  Freedom.  

They all contain what we all long for but many times these promises come to us disguised as a promise and in reality are an ever-loving bag of snakes.

It's always been so.  Eve deceived by the devil was given such promises.. YOU SHALL BE ... 

Adam then sinned for lacking the will power to counter what Eve had done.  I have no evidence for this, pure speculation but I Adam had stood up to Eve and said NO.. maybe God could have allowed his covering to wash away her sin.. as the last Adam (Jesus) did for us.  

Right now we are in a season of Clarity.  A season of renewed hope.  A season of freedom once again.  I sense a major shift.  It causes many to become uncomfortable.  It causes some to fight against it.  It causes even some elect to miss what God is doing. 

I confess I missed God's word brought by others in the last year over this change.  I was not willing to have that much hope.  I have had to seek God for myself.  

There will be some hard days ahead as we come into the unexplored country we are entering.  There will be giants.  There will be walled cities. Sometimes we will see ourselves as Grasshoppers.  This much is clear.. we are crossing over into it.  Some may ask why.. 

I ask... why did it take us so long to come out of the wilderness.

RESET.. an Apostolic and Prophetic Moment

There have been time in my life where I encountered reset.  It was always at a point where I had come to the end, seemed like it couldn't go any farther.  Something needed to change. A reset.

Here are a few:

Getting saved was one.. but the real reset for me came when I received the Baptism of the Holy Ghost.  It was glorious.  A reset.

Our marriage went thru a Reset as well at that time.  We needed a new start.

Moving to Illinois from North Dakota was a reset.  Radical but strangely wonderful.

Another was when I came to a crossroads in my spiritual walk and encountered a new paradigm.  I discovered how BIG and how FREE life in God was and was supposed to be.  It was a reset. 

Living in Europe for a few years was a reset.  It gave me a new look at the world.

Going thru a very hard economic time was a major reset.  

Then there was a reset when I entered into the Prophetic Ministry.  I had no idea.  It was new but in a way frightening.  It was a reset.  I have never been the same since.

Getting back into business again was a reset.  It has been a great ride.

Having the things I believed about the end times and eschatology has been a reset I needed.  It has been like a weight of a thousand pounds off my shoulders.

Now we are in a new season of governmental reset.  A major reset.  One that feels as fresh and new as any.  

We at the same time have aligned ourselves with people of like precious faith.  A reset.

I don't fear change.  It's not always easy.  It's reset. But it's a reset that is essential.  Not all change is improvement, but it's certain there can be no improvement without change.. RESET

This is a season of Reset.  Even the Network I am part of is going thru a RESET. 

It's a new Day.  PRESS THAT BUTTON and RESET your LIFE

The Election.. when Flesh Trumped

I didn't post anything at all on the Prophet Gene blog for the last 9 days.  That was intentional. I had become so involved in the outcome of this historic election I didn't want to take the name of the Lord in Vain.  When I post something and proclaim it as "Thus Saith the Lord" I take it seriously.  So a fast from allowing myself the unearned luxury of speaking for God without actually speaking for God meant that I had to abstain.

I confess, I was pretty pessimistic. I thought I would wake up this morning and discover Hillary Clinton was President.  When at 6:30AM I turned on my radio by the bedside I was shocked.  I had gone to bed about 10PM.  I could take no more.  Trump was President.

So now what?  Integrity of the Prophetic means I must only say what God says.  Nothing more nor less.  Other prophets had words about this election.  I did not.

What I can say is the following:

There will be an initial euphoria then reality will set in.  There will be a letdown in a few weeks or months as people ask themselves "Did we do the right thing?"

The optimism will hold however.  There has been a belief by many that the government was against them.  Any potential to change things will be welcomed.

The divisions demonstrated the last few years will not change quickly but it will subside.  It will become a stubborn cadre of people who just can't bring themselves to be part of the solution.

The press in the USA is going to go thru some hard times.  Trust in them is at an all time low.  Unless change comes, they will become inert in our society.

Social media, blogs, tweets and whatever is next is replacing everything we used to think of as news.

The political system is about to undergo great upheaval.

There will be economic fallout from this.  Racial healing will be slow in this nation.

The revelation of people's dark hearts has been accelerating. This drove the election in part.  I heard the Lord say, not BLACK LIVES MATTER, but in reality, BLACK HEARTS MATTER.  This is an ungodly movement driven by a billionaire.  

It is critical that the divisions in this time not be retained.  The Kingdom of God is too important to allow this to keep us apart. 

Our trust is not in man or the arm of Flesh.. Our trust is in the Lord.

The Prophet Jeremiah Chapter 17 :

5This is what the Lord says:
“Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans, who rely on human strength and turn their hearts away from the Lord. 6They are like stunted shrubs in the desert, with no hope for the future. They will live in the barren wilderness,  in an uninhabited salty land.

The Giant reservoir of Blessing, Provision and Well Being is Stored up for US... but WE keep holding it back

On Sunday while hearing the Word of the Lord from Jordan Gash I got a visual of God's provision.

It was like lake Meade behind Hoover Dam.  Full of everything I might ever need.  Every good and perfect thing sent down from above in reserve for me.  Yet there was this huge dam set up in front of it.  A dam built block by block by ME, by YOU.  Holding back what God intended for me.  We try:

• You have done what you thought it would take to get at what is at the other side of the dam.  
• You take good care of your body, can't prosper without good health and that's all true.
• You keep your mind sharp, lots of education, you can't access the provision of God in ignorance.
• You attend church, dance, sing and shout because you have been told that praise releases the favor of God.  
• You hear good teaching and it sounds great but you are sometimes stony weedy hard ground and it doesn't take root.
• You read your Bible but it isn't alive the way it once was when you were first saved.
• You try as hard as you can not to SIN, not to be HUMAN.  You fail, but try again in defeat.
• There are many other things you DO to get your blessing.  It's a work orientation.  Never will work.

Except when truth be told, that's not the problem and you already knew that. There is something more.

There are only a few ingredients to the concrete blocks holding back the floodgates God wants to open for you.  We are the gatekeepers to those floodgates.  There is one thing you need to understand, God wants you to be saved, filled with His spirit, healed and whole and full of fire,  AND-

God WANTS you to be effective, to be excellent, To profit.  Isaiah 48:17 says
Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, "I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, Who leads you in the way you should go.

He wants you to be able to profit, to be effective, to excel.   He makes it clear from his word there are THREE main things that keep us from receiving our blessing, provision, inheritance.  They are waiting on the other side.  Let's not end up dying and going to heaven and seeing a huge lake of blessings that was pent up for us.  I don't want to be asking the Lord, what lake is that? and He says to me, "I could have given you all of that on earth, but you insisted on holding it all back."   I don't want to hear that and neither do you.  So what are those thing holding back the provision, prosperity and blessings of God.

These THREE are the MAIN BUILDING BLOCKS to that DAM holding back your blessings:

NUMBER ONE.  FEAR
Fear will stop any blessing of God as certain as a cork in a bottle stops what is contained from flowing out.  It means you can't nor won't operate in faith.  You will never step out because you doubt God and his word.  Every wind that comes along will cause you to change your mind or be blown about so you never make a decision.  Fear is s Spirit equally as influential to many as the Spirit of God.  Spirit (the word) is Pneuma.  That word also means wind.  And it means the winds of fear blow on every person.  It blew on Jesus in Gethsemane.  But he chose to believe God.  They blow on you.  You must choose what to believe.

God says to YOU: 
I have not given your the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and a sound mind.  2 Timothy 1:7

NUMBER TWO:.. SELFISHNESS (feeling sorry for yourself)
So many people are bound up in self pity, in self analysis, in feeling like everything is against you.  The world and the devil reinforces this.  He keeps telling you that you are a victim of circumstance and you deserve to feel sorry for yourself.  To be entitled to a break by others.  It's a lie of the devil that blinds you to the goodness of God in your life.  So you love on the wrong side of the dam holding back your blessings.  Look at what the Word of God says about this:  Philippians 2:21:They all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.

If you read what that really says, when you are all wrapped up in YOU and your self pity feeling sorry for yourself, you are not seeking after the interests of JESUS.  That's a major block to the Blessings of God.  He only can bless what is His will.  Your self pity is not on the list.

NUMBER THREE... FOCUS ON PAST HURTS, BAD THINGS AND ABUSES 
What makes this so insidious is that it is so easy.  Living in the past is comfort.  We know what happened and we can rehearse it again and again to justify ourselves. our failure, our actions.  Meanwhile we are distracted, sidelined, out of action.  Only one entity on the planet wants that to happen.. SATAN!!  He wants you to never forget past or imagined hurts. Hurts of your ancestors.  EVEN the Jews who saw thousands slaughtered ruthlessly came out of concentration camps and made a fruitful life with "never forget" as part of their understanding but not their excuse set.  It's when the past forms our victim-hood that the block of hold back goes in the dam.  Living in the past is fools paradise and stops God DEAD.

Forgetting is a gift of God, let's use it.



If we look at his word it becomes clear.  Philippians 3:12-15 AMP   12 Not that I have now attained [this ideal], or have already been made perfect, but I press on to lay hold of (grasp) and make my own, that for which Christ Jesus (the Messiah) has laid hold of me and made me His own. 13 I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own [yet]; but one thing I do [it is my one aspiration]: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward. 15 So let those [of us] who are spiritually mature and full-grown have this mind and hold these convictions; and if in any respect you have a different attitude of mind, God will make that clear to you also. 

This is not designed to make anyone feel guilty, but to help you identify those things in your life that are holding back the blessings of God.  He wants to, he really does, but YOU and I are the ones who build the huge dam that restrains him.

Let's tear down that wall, that dam and experience all God has for us on this side.

God describes a Retrobate Culture and it's Scary

Genesis 6:11-12 Amp
The earth was depraved and putrid in God’s sight, and the land was filled with violence (desecration, infringement, outrage, assault, and lust for power). And God looked upon the world and saw how degenerate, debased, and vicious it was, for all humanity had corrupted their way upon the earth and lost their true direction.

1 John 2:16 Amp
 All that is in the world—the lust of the flesh [craving for sensual gratification] and the lust of the eyes [greedy longings of the mind] and the pride of life [assurance in one’s own resources or in the stability of earthly things]—these do not come from the Father but are from the world [itself].

1 Peter 4:3-4 Amp
The time that is past already suffices for doing what the Gentiles like to do—living [as you have done] in shameless, insolent wantonness, in lustful desires, drunkenness, reveling, drinking bouts and abominable, lawless idolatries. They are astonished and think it very queer that you do not now run hand in hand with them in the same excesses of dissipation, and they abuse [you].

God does in fact speak against the drift of the world from justice and peace in HIM.  He is not about to reward those who justify themselves in these circumstances. 

You know what he did in Genesis in Noah's day.  He will not again flood the world, but he is aware.  You don't have to BEG for GOD to see all this mess.  He sees it.  He is well aware.  He also deals with it on an individual basis, on a cultural basis, on a national basis.  When a person or a people lose their way and become like this, what makes anyone think Father loves them so little that he would do NOTHING.  He disciplines in his love.  Sometimes that's a time out.  Sometimes it's the withholding of a blessing.  Just like an earthly father would do.  How much MORE... don't presume on the blessing of God and live like the three descriptions above.

Reflect on how this description fits the world we accept as normal and then wonder why the hand of God has been withheld in blessing and yet the devils hate you for not being just like them.

The Prophetic or Prayer Answers Can be Taking the Lord's Name in Vain

I believe that when we pray if we ask anything according His will, it will happen for us.  1 John 5:14

I believe that we are fed by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Sometimes that comes by way of a prophetic impulse. It must be real however.  It must not be ourselves thinking we have heard from God when in fact our flesh drowns out that still small voice.

You do not need to pray about IF it's OK for you to commit adultery with another woman.  It's not OK.  The Bible is clear on this.  So if you pray and get comfort to do the deed with her, you have taken the name of the Lord in vain.  I know couples in adulterous relationships who pray before having sex.. that is a sin against God. You don't need to pray about it.

Same with committing murder.  If you decide to pray about taking innocent blood, and decide to go ahead after prayer, you are taking the name of the Lord in vain.  He said no such thing.  He is the author of LIFE and murder is not life.

If you are looking for assurances to steal and you go to a prophet and he or she says it's OK to twist things a bit, you are being deceived.

I think it is great that people are being released in the Prophetic.  I think it's great that we have prayer meetings.  But when they become advocacy for all manner of distortion and deception there is no God in it and we are slaves once more to our flesh.

Sir Francis Bacon was supposed to have said, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing".  Many have talked about Knowledge causing people to be puffed up.  They point to 1 Corinthians 8:1.  Not an accurate use of the verse but there is a principle here.  Thinking you hear from God when you are not.. is actually deception disguised as the so called prophetic.

If you believe you have an ear to God's special download or some prophet can instruct you outside the revealed word of God, you are in danger of and more important liable to taking the name of the Lord in vain.

This brings me to what the Lord has been dealing with me about.  I have some very deep convictions regarding politics.  They are not Prophetic. They are reason, intellect, information, bias, consideration and discernment of information to come to a conclusion. Yet all of that must be filtered through the screen of the revealed word of God.  None of it can be contrary to what he already said and has written down. 

If I say I have prayed about who to vote for in the election and I tell you that God said for me to vote for this one or that, I am in danger of taking the name of the Lord in vain.

If I listen to various prophetic voices who proclaim it's God's will for this or that one to be elected, that person is in danger of using the voice of God for his or her ends and that is a dangerous place to be.

As a prophet and to my fellow prophets, be careful.  You can advocate.  You can declare.  You can share information. You can express your opinion.  But when you start invoking the name of God to influence others, you cross a line.  Same for those who say they prayed about who to support and they use that as an excuse to support someone that God never said anything about.

We have a brain.  We have a moral compass.  God gave us the Mind of Christ.  We have reason.  He provided a whole book full of plum lines for us to use to measure our decisions against.  Being influenced by popular culture, by peer pressure, by media, by anything and leave our God given reason out of it is simply ignorant.

I want to help you make a right decision. I know what I believe to be true. I know what that means to me.  If you can honestly make another decisions and hold that up against the mirror of the Word of God and do so without flinching, you are better than I am. 

I am convinced that in this election season many are being sifted.  Many are being exposed.  Many false prophets are being revealed.  Many so called spiritual leaders are about to be chastised. I don't want to be one of them.  I want a clear untarnished conscience.  Sin abounds and rationale for sin is like a flood.

I can understand the ungodly doing evil, that's who their father is.  I don't understand those who claim to know God committing sin knowingly and call it "Hearing from the Holy Spirit".  No my brother or sister, you heard from hell and the flesh. 

I have been critical of some public figures in the Body of Christ, particularly on the evangelical right claiming God has chosen this one or that.  Yes, He puts one up and another down but it happens by our choices.  The leaders we have in a nation are because of choices we make.  The judgment of God is sometimes revealed when he allows us to make stupid mistakes.  I fear we are there again.

So stop justifying ungodliness as you vote the fall by saying you prayed about it or you heard a prophet say this or that.  Use what God gave you, you don't need to pray about it or have a word.  If you want to pray, pray that the will of God be done.  Pray against powers and principalities.  Pray protection.  We are in dangerous times.