First of all, this blogging thing takes more time than I thought.  I intended to post more regularly, but life has gotten in the way.

As it is Passover week, as well as Feast of Leavened Bread week, I wanted to comment on the shootings this past Sunday at the Jewish Community Center and retirement home in Overland Park, Kansas.

It appears the shooter assumed that any one near these two places would only be Jewish.  Since the only people killed were gentile Christians, this reveals how gut level hateful this man, Frazier Glenn Cross/Miller was.  He had an apparent blind hate and revulsion toward anything or anyone Jewish.  Is there is a large Jewish population in Overland Park?  Absolutely.  It is one of the largest Jewish population centers outside of New York city in the United States.  I guess he thought it “convenient” to drive up from his home in southwest Missouri and just start shooting.  I’ve had friends ask if I thought he chose this week because of Passover, etc.  I think it’s hard to say.  If he didn’t know enough to know the Jewish Community Center is used by Jews and gentiles alike in the area, did he even know it was Passover week?  With a guy like this, hating Jewish people as he does, what difference would it make when he chose to go off?  Again, he didn’t even realize he wasn’t shooting Jewish people, he just assumed he was.  That is just clearly about hate, and nothing else.

I understand he was heard to say “Heil Hitler” while shooting.  While Hitler was clearly a hater of Jewish people, I think this points to a bigger, spiritual reality that inhabits all people who harbor anti-Semitism in their hearts.  In Matthew 23:39, Jesus said to the Jewish religious leaders “You will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord'”.  This is Jesus’ second quote in two chapters from Psalm 118, which is a messianic Psalm.  His question back in Mathew 21:42, “Have you never read in the Scriptures…” is clearly meant to point out, yet again, that He is the one spoken of by the text He quotes.

But the real point I want to make from this text is this – the devil knows that if there are no Jews left on the earth when Jesus comes back, there will be no Jewish leaders to say “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.”  If no one says this, Jesus is then a liar, and has no right to the throne in Jerusalem.  The devil’s plan for centuries has been to exterminate the Jewish people, all the way back to Herod killing those 2 years old and younger when he learned that Messiah had been born.  These are all just human agents doing the will of God’s eternal enemy.  So, a guy in Overland Park, Kansas yelling Heil Hitler while trying to kill Jewish people is just one more manifestation of Satan’s murderous heart, as he attempts to destroy those who will ultimately be part of destroying him.

That’s why I believe we as gentile believers need to deal with the veil of replacement theology over our hearts as quickly as possible.  This is not just an isolated, so called “white supremacist” issue, no more than it is a “political correctness” issue.  It is a long standing spiritual issue that will not end until Jesus returns and rules from Jerusalem.  It is an issue that has been propped up by and even justified by the teachings of replacement theology.  After all, Jesus’ quote in Matthew 21:42 is one of the texts used for centuries by “the church” to justify killing Jews.

As Christians we have a bible with two major parts, the Old and New Testament.  Some also call them the Old Covenant scriptures and the New Covenant Scriptures.  What does that mean?  What “Old Covenant”?  For that matter, what “New Covenant?  What’s a Covenant anyway?  Who talks like that nowadays?

If we start with Adam, there are three major covenants God makes with man to open human history.  The first was with Adam, when dominion over the earth was given to he and Eve.  The second was with Noah prior to the flood.  The third was with Abraham.  The one usually referred to as the “Old Covenant”, the next one, was made with Abraham’s descendants at Mount Sinai.  You know, the big one with all those laws and stuff.  The one with the “10 Commandments”.  The one that doesn’t apply anymore.  That’s the one that is usually contrasted with the “New Covenant”, as in ” we live under the New Covenant now”.  But here’s a question – If the one is “new” compared to the other one, which is “old”, who were these made with, and who do they apply to?

Obviously, we have to start with the “old” one first.  As was already stated, the “old” was made with Abraham’s descendants at Mount Sinai.  It was quite a deal, requiring the entire nation of Israel to hang out there for nearly a year.  That’s a LOT of covenant, eh?  Lot’s pf stuff on how to offer animal sacrifices, how to be a priest (for some of them), family relations, dealing with false prophets, rape, incest, you name it, it is there.  This was all given with the idea that God said He would be living among them, so holiness is important.  It was also significant because God made it clear Israel was called to be His people, His nation, one different than all other nations on earth.  Those now living in the land He was giving Israel to live in were most definitely not living like He laid out in this covenant, and after centuries of patience,  the time had come to expel them, and replace them with Israel.  There was only one catch – if Israel didn’t live like He had laid out in this covenant, they too would be cast out as a discipline for their failure.  Well, you know the story, it didn’t work out so well.  It wasn’t long before Israel started living like those nations around them, and, after centuries of patience (there’s that word again!), He sent them away from the land He had given them.  

However, just before He sent the southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin away, the prophet Jeremiah, among a few others, spoke of a new deal God would offer Israel, a “New” Covenant”.  In Jeremiah 31:31-37, He makes clear what He means by this offer – He is going to write the Law on their hearts and put it in their minds.  It will no longer be an issue of “external” lists of dos and don’ts, all will now be internal.  In other words, there will be an internal source of motivation and power to pursue living out the lifestyle laid out at Sinai. 

So here’s the point.  Both the “old” and “new” covenants were made with Israel.  Not Christians, not Western culture believers, Israel.  The Jewish people.  And get this – the point of the new was to do two fundamental things.  One was to get the issue of justification/atonement for sin resolved once and for all.  You know, get rid of the whole animal sacrifice thing.  The second was to give Israel a resource they lacked in their quest to live as God’s people.  We now know that as the indwelling Holy Spirit. 

Now if we are into replacement theology, either knowingly or unknowingly, we don’t get this.  We claim the benefits of the “new” covenant as though it were made with gentile Christians.  Problem is, gentile “Christians” didn’t exist when either covenant was made, so that doesn’t work so well.  How should we view ourselves then?

We should see that all believers in Jesus, the promised Jewish Messiah and King, are grafted in to the “Olive Tree of Israel” and therefore now part of the commonwealth of nations God has always intended Israel to be.  This gives us a much clearer sense of our identity as believers, as well as our relationship to and with Israel.  Getting that now rather than later helps us see current events with a clearer eye and greater understanding and discernment.  Times being what they are, that is a good thing.

Many people point to the book of Galatians as their proof text for saying we are no longer under Law, we are under grace.  I know until recently, this is what I thought too.  I felt this overpowering impression that Paul was saying forget the Law, it is over, we’re done with that.  It was really hard to look at this book objectively.  But I think I’m finally starting to get a better idea of what Paul was saying in this letter.

This is one of the first letters Paul wrote in his apostolic ministry.  He is addressing, for the first time, the issue of salvation under the New Covenant.  It is here, as a “young” apostle, he first tackles the clash of Sinai Covenant relations with God versus the New Covenant.  So, what brought this up, anyway?  And what is the “New Covenant” compared to the Sinai Covenant?   It helps to have some historical context.

It is generally accepted that, as the preaching of the gospel of the Kingdom of the Messiah Jesus starting going forth, there were existing religious leaders among the Jews who were uncomfortable with the seeming “casting aside” of the traditions and practices of Moses.  One of the things they were still pushing as necessary for salvation/being accepted in the community of Israel (which is how Gentile believers in Jesus were viewed) was circumcision.  There was actually a group, later referred to as “Judaizers”, who went to new communities where Paul had preached and told the group that they still had to obey all the “Law of Moses” and be circumcised to be acceptable to God.  It’s this group and their impact on the believing community at Galatia that Paul was addressing in his letter.

Knowing this, it starts to become clearer what Paul was getting at.  He vehemently argues for the clear understanding that salvation comes by faith, not by works of the Law.  He brilliantly points out that the real basis for God’s relationship with Israel and the Jewish people is Abraham’s statement of faith in Genesis 15:6.  Here Abraham believed what God told him about his descendants and all God promised to do for them and God “credited to him as righteousness”.  Paul goes so far as to compare those who trust in the New Covenant in Jesus to Isaac, a child of faith, versus those who believe they can justify themselves before God by obeying the Law to Ishmael, Abraham’s son born in the “natural way”.  What Paul is saying is clear – no human can ever justify themselves before God by “obeying the Law”.  No one born in the “natural way” will ever be able to do this.  But that is the crucial point – we can never be justified by the Law, but living under the New Covenant of faith in Jesus does not mean our conduct does not matter.  To mix up Paul’s meaning only empowers us to believe in cheap grace, that is the “grace” that says I’m saved, I’m good, and now I can live life as I choose with no worries.  I believe this is another way Replacement Theology has let us down and blinded us.  Paul was talking about justification, not sanctification, or that process of living out life seeking to walk more in the life Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Yes, Paul is clearly saying, we are justified by faith alone through Jesus’ atoning sacrifice on the cross.  He is not saying okay, go live life however you want, you’re good.   The rest of Paul’s writings make this abundantly clear.  Yet, with this veil over our eyes, we can miss this to our peril as believers.  And it all comes, I believe, from our lack of understanding of the Old Testament, and of grasping the reality of the Jewish culture in which all of the bible is written.   Again, Jesus was a Torah practicing Jewish man, as were his disciples and Paul.   Without realizing this, and understanding what this means, we are set adrift in the milieu of our culture, with no real foundation for understanding who we are as believers.  With the upheaval we are experiencing in Western culture now, this is even more important.

By the way, the biggest reason this crisis developed in Paul’s day was because believers in this Jesus, both Jew and Gentile, were considered part of Israel.  But hey, if the Gentile church has replaced Israel, why worry, right?

So, Gentile Christians are blind, eh?  I know that is a little intense, but, from my own journey and experience, I know it is true.  We have a veil over our eyes that allows us to see things a certain way.  In doing so, we nullify and even totally miss some very straightforward truth in the whole of the Bible.

One of the ways this plays out is our understanding of what we call “the Law”.  I see this expressed through people saying hey, I’m not under the Law anymore., I’m under grace.  What that really means is, I don’t need or even think the Old Testament is valid any more, so don’t try to make me feel bad with verses from there.  You see this in blog posts, christian articles, books, etc.  They all say the same thing, we aren’t under Law, we’re under grace. But if we look at this a little closer, we’ll find we are making a grave mistake, and it’s rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of what Law and grace are.  This mistake I believe comes from the misconceptions fostered by Replacement Theology.

In the Jewish bible, what we call the “Old Testament” is divided into three parts – the Law, the Prophets and the Writings.  The Law, or Torah, is the first five books of the bible, the Prophets are the prophets, (duh!) and the Writings are the Psalms, Proverbs and the history books, as well as Daniel.  Don’t ask me why Daniel isn’t in with the Prophets.

Let’s focus for a minute on the Torah.

Torah in Hebrew means “teachings”, and while there is certainly some history/story telling in there, the bulk is the record of God’s encounters with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the whole of the Israelite nation at Sinai.  By definition, this is of utmost importance, because this is the first occurrence in the bible of God laying out what life as His people should look like on the earth.  As I mentioned in my last post, I think these words should be given as much priority as Jesus’ words in the gospels.  That’s especially true since Jesus said Himself that He had not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it.  So, if He fulfilled it, and we are to live as He did in the earth, what does that mean?  Wouldn’t we need to have some sense of what He lived by?

The apostles were all Jewish and they all sought to live by the Torah.  Jesus did too.  The gospel of John uses the occasions of the yearly Jewish feasts to note when Jesus was in Jerusalem – meaning Jesus observed all the feasts.  So, the apostles and Jesus lived by the only scriptures they had, which included the Torah.  They knew they were the expression of God’s heart for His people as they lived and related to each other in the earth.  Yet, we ignore this and seek to live “by grace” – and mostly read and study the New Testament.  But how can we really know what those scriptures mean without an understanding of where they came from?  And they came from Jewish men, who used the only “bible” they had to base them on – the “Old Testament”, or The Law, the Prophets and the Writings.

This is where Replacement Theology has left us.  The church has replaced Israel in God’s heart and plans, so who cares what He said to Israel in the Old Testament.  Who cares if Jesus and the apostles were Jewish, right?  Wait a minute, they were what?!  How can they be Jewish, God has cursed and forgotten them, right?  This is awkward.  Exactly.

Maybe “living by grace” doesn’t mean being free from “the Law” after all.

Oooooo, sounds heavy, right?  As Jackie Gleason said in, “Smokey and the Bandit”, “That’s an attention getter!”

I have good friends who feel they are well versed in the Scriptures.  They have spent a good part of their lives reading, studying and seeking to understand what they mean and how to walk out life by them.  The sad thing is, they have a veil over their eyes that does not allow them to see the Word as it is.  What I mean is, they are blinded to what the authors of the New Testament in particular were saying as it related to the Old Testament.  If that sounds a little arrogant, bear with me.  Again, I have spent the vast majority of my Christian life in the same place.

With our Gentile Christian history of trying to wipe out the Jewish people, we have arrived at our current place in time with no sense of the flow of the Bible from Old to New.  With the removal of Israel from our thinking, and from God’s plan, there is no sense of the importance of the Old Testament Scriptures.  Yet without these, we have no basis for a “New” Testament.

One of the most basic examples of this is found in our “red letter” edition Bibles.  You know, the ones where the words of Jesus are printed in red ink so they will stand out and be noticed.  That’s fine, got no problem with that.  But, did you know that the vast majority of the words from Exodus 19 through Numbers 10 are also words directly spoken by God?  As such, why aren’t they printed in a different color, thereby pointing them out as direct words from God?  If Jesus’ words need this, why not these words from Him as well?  See the point?  It is a subtle way to say that all that is important is what Jesus said.  I understand, there was no such word or religious idea as “Christian” until He came along, right?  So, the really important points of the Bible more or less start with Him.  If the Old Testament is about Israel, and the New is about Israel’s replacement, “the church”, why do we need it anyway?  Okay, maybe that’s an overly simplistic statement, but my point is, that is the unconscious thought.  Therefore, the Old Testament is not only not read very much, but when we do, we have a veil over our eyes that severely limits what and how we see.

Going back to the “words of God in another color” idea, what if those words were in a different color?  Would we pay more attention to them?  We should.  Think about it – those chapters I mentioned cover the most radical corporate encounter for a group of people ever recorded.  God Himself (and if you believe Asher Intrater in his book “Who had Lunch with Abraham”, Jesus!) descended from Heaven, manifested Himself on Mount Sinai and talked with Moses, and at first, the whole nation!  And we don’t think these words are important?!!  These words express the heart of God in outlining the most wonderful, loving, fruitful ideas for a culture among humans on the earth.  But, for the most part, we ignore it. Why?  Because it’s about Israel, or worse, it’s “the Law”, and we don’t have to pay attention to “the Law”.  That is a true statement, if you are talking about how we are justified before God.  But, if we are talking about how He would have us live life here on earth, now, then we are in dire need of understanding “the Law”. 

Jesus said He did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it.  Now if He fulfilled it, and we are to think and live as He did, (I Corinthians 2:16), how can we say we no longer need to know or care about “the Law”?  Obviously if we are going to walk as He did, some understanding of the Old Testament is a must.  Let me give a a couple of pertinent examples. How do we know His heart about the issue of homosexuality if we don’t know the Old Testament?  How do we respond to someone who says that the Old Testament is no longer relevant if we don’t know why ourselves?  How about the crazy idea that the “God” of the Old Testament is different than the “God ” of the New Testament?  These are just two examples that show how blind we are, yea, how deceived we are about the whole of the Word of God.  

And for us Gentiles, it all starts with the blindness that comes from believing we have replaced Israel. 

While Constantine was no friend to Israel and the Jewish people, negative comments and out and out replacement statements were already coming forth as early 150 A.D.  Justin Martyr, an admittedly great defender of the faith, recorded some of the first clearly “replacement” ideas.  He wrote, “What was of old and had belonged to Israel, is now the property of Christians.  The Jewish Scriptures…..they are not yours, but ours.”

A Christian scholar named Origen, who lived from 185-254 A.D.  said this – “These calamities (primarily referring to the destruction of the Temple and being banished from the land in 135 A.D.) the Jews have suffered because they were the most wicked nation, which, although guilty of many other sins, yet has been punished so severely for none, as for those that were committed against Jesus.”   This is the beginning of blaming the Jews for Jesus’ death.

John Chrysostom (344-407 A.D.) said the following: “The Jews are the most worthless of all men….they are (faithless) murderers pf Christ.  They worship the devil; their religion is a sickness.  The Jews are odious….assassins of Christ………Christians may never cease vengeance, and the Jew must live in servitude forever.  God always hated Jews, and it is incumbent on all Christians to hate Jews.”

Wow, doesn’t that make for a nice Sunday morning sermon!  “God always hated the Jews and it is incumbent on all Christians to hate Jews”???  We’ve got big problems if that is true.  You can imagine the attitude of believers going forward who followed this “teaching”.  It brought centuries of rejection, abuse and mass killings.  There was the Spanish Inquisition, Russian pogroms and similar atrocities wherever communities of Jewish people gathered.

Even the Reformation, as espoused by Martin Luther, was shot through with rejection of and hatred for the Jewish people.  In the latter part of Luther’s life, he wrote a treatise called “The Jews and their Lies”, in which he listed things that he “advised” be done about them, including setting fire to their schools, synagogues, homes and businesses. He also recommended robbing them of all their gold, silver, money and any other treasure in their possession.  Hitler used this to great advantage in his day, declaring that he was “acting in accordance with the will of Almighty God” in murdering Jewish people.  As the church and state were by then pretty well linked together in Germany, many were more than willing to follow Hitler’s leading.  The greatest slaughter of Jews in history came from this time, known as the Holocaust.

For more information on the church’s history in relating to Israel and the Jews, I suggest reading Michael Brown’s book, “Our Hands are Stained with Blood”.  This gives much more detail, and explains explicitly why we are where we are with our attitudes.  Be warned, you will be shocked by what you read. I understand.  That was my reaction as well.  My first thought was, why doesn’t anyone teach on this and point out this terrible error? Then I realized, what seminary wants to recount the murderous history of “the church” to their pastoral ministry candidates?  It’s like the family that has an embarrassing member – it’s easier to keep them locked in the back room than have company meet them.

Now I’m sure none of you, like me, has ever consciously considered doing or saying any of these things.  But that is my point.  Without anyone overtly teaching us or training us in this, we simply have no opinion on Israel at best, and at worst, if prodded, we will say, almost without thinking, that the church is now Israel.  Again, I get it.  I did this myself for a long time.  Most of us fail to realize the significance of the fact that there is now an Israel on the map.  Paul said in Romans 11:25 that Israel has been “partially blinded”, and I believe we, “the church”  have been as well.  We are blinded as we read the Old Testament, when we do read it.  And that is the point.  I think most Western culture evangelicals pay little or no attention to the Old Testament Scriptures.  Why?  Because of that subtle, replacement idea in our heads.  That is “old”, we are “new”.  So, we mainly read the New Testament scriptures.  This leaves us without depth in the Word that we desperately need.

For example, do we realize that the the first 5 books of the Bible are the foundation for the rest of the OT and all of the New?  The first direct revelation from God to mankind is recorded here, including an unbelievable 12 month stay at Mount Sinai that covers the last 21 chapters of Exodus, all of Leviticus and the first 1o chapters of Numbers.  There are many references made by New Testament authors to these 5 books, yet most of us have no idea the significance.  Worse still, it leaves us with the belief that “The Law” is no longer of any relevance or consequence.  Before you go assuming I think we still have to follow The Law to be saved, hold on, that is not at all where I’m coming from.  The point is, we have no context for how to walk out life as New Covenant believers without it.  I say that what Jesus said in the gospels, and what Peter, Paul and John wrote in their letters are missing their true meaning without some sense of the roots from which they wrote.  But with “latent” Replacement Theology blinding us, we don’t know what we are missing.

In my next post, I will give some examples of what I mean by being blinded.

If you are like me, and are part of the “goyim” (nations, i.e. non Jewish peoples of the earth), there is a good chance your entire view of God, the church and Israel are infected with Replacement Theology.  So, what is that and how/when did it get started? 

Replacement Theology, teaches, in it’s simplest form, that believers in Jesus, the “church”, have now replaced Israel in God’s plans for mankind going forward.  This idea also goes by the name of “Supercessionism, (the church supercedes Israel) and Fulfillment Theology (The promises given to Israel now belong to the “church” and they are “fulfilled” in the church).  Jewish people have no part to play, and are no longer even cared for by God.  In fact, they are out and out rejected by God, even hated, some say.  This all actually has it’s roots as far back as the first century, when the Jews in Rome were compelled to leave by emperor Claudius. 

The church there, like most at this time, were led by believing Jewish people.  As we know from Acts 15, they were the ones tasked with figuring out how believing Gentiles were to be assimilated into the local gathering of believing Jews.  Did they have to become Jews to be considered “saved” or not?  Up to this point, gaining full acceptance into a Jewish synagogue required not only basic Torah instruction, but circumcision, which was an almost insurmountable hurdle culturally.  The Greek/Roman culture of this time practically worshiped the human body, going so far as to compete naked in their athletic events.  Obviously, marring the beauty of the human form with circumcision was out of the question.  It was such an issue, that even Jewish businessmen pursued a means of surgical “reversal” (a procedure called “epispasm”) so as to hide this “defect” from other businessmen encountered in public bathhouses, etc. 

In the Bible, those Gentiles who believed in the God of Israel, but couldn’t bring themselves to become full proselytes through being circumcised were called “God-fearing” Gentiles.  We see this term often in Acts.  Under the terms of the New Covenant in Jesus, this would no longer be a requirement to become a part of the community.  Yet, as the Jewish leaders rightly saw, there were still other issues for them as Jewish people to work through, in particular, dietary laws and certain other things that made fellowship with Gentiles “scary”.  Acts 15 records their deliberations and final decision.  Essentially, they paved the way for table fellowship with believing Gentiles, while also opening the door for them to be part of the synagogue community.  This was important, as now they could hear “Moses being taught” on a regular basis.

All this to say, now the door is open, and the “less than” status of Gentiles had been removed.  Couple this with the order of Claudius, and you have a recipe for Gentile pride to enter the picture.  Why? Because 5 years after they were ordered out of Rome, the Jews were invited back.  Imagine the crashing of gears between former Jewish leaders, who had probably discipled these now Gentile leaders in the synagogue, coming back in the community.  Their attitudes were displayed, and Paul wrote the letter to the Romans to respond to this crisis.  See particularly chapters 9-11 for Paul’s clear statements about whether or not God had turned his back on Israel.

Unfortunately, Paul’s words went mostly unheeded, and by 70 A.D., when the Romans destroyed the Temple, the idea that God had rejected Israel and was replacing them with a growing Gentile church began to take hold.  By the time Emperor Constantine came to power over 200 years later, a full scale rejection of anything Jewish in the “church” was on.  He contributed greatly to the idea of  Replacement Theology through his policies of “Christianizing” existing pagan holidays in his effort to “Christianize” the empire.  In doing so, the deal was sealed.  Roman civil governmental structure replaced Jewish/Biblical forms of believing community government.  All Jewish/Biblical holidays were deemed unacceptable and not to be practiced any longer.  Going forward, it only got worse.

In Part II, I will discuss the ensuing treatment of Jewish people by the church over the next few hundred years, and how it affects practically all of us today, particularly Western culture believers.   

Well, it’s been over 4 years since I last posted on this blog page.  Why?  Let’s just say you need something to blog about, and the desire to do it.  Over the last few years, one or the other has been lacking.  I realize I’ve been discovering much in the Bible, and through intercession, conversation and research about the way western culture Christianity has really left us with a rootless religion rather than a deep connection with God’s plan to redeem the earth and mankind.  I intend to share some of this journey in the hopes that some may be enlightened, edified, provoked, or at least irritated.  Given the fact I’m human, and you are too, some of the above shouldn’t be hard to accomplish.

While I’m sure I’ll end up commenting on other things, I believe the discovery of our connection with ethnic Israel, particularly “Messianic” Jews, will deepen our understanding of who we are as Gentile believers in Yeshua HaMashiak (That’s Jewish for Jesus Christ).  We’ll cover such fun topics as Replacement Theology, the history of the Church’s treatment of the Jewish people, the Jewish Calendar and the Feasts, along with some small Bible studies.  Obviously I’m interested in comments, refutations and other interactions.  Please feel free to comment as we go forward.  I’m looking forward to your help in communicating and refining what I feel God is showing me, as well as learning from you.

So, here’s an opening thought.  Have you realized that Jesus Christ was, and still is, a Jewish man?  If you say you are a “born again Christian”, then, through the promised Holy Spirit dwelling in you, HE now lives in you.  “He” is a Jewish Man.  “Discuss”.

So we have John Arnott, Bill Johnson and Mike Bickle here, ministering together, blessing each other and what God is doing in Kansas City right now.  At this morning’s meeting, there was a word spoken that, before the idea even came up to get Bill and John here, that God wanted to bring these three together.  Think about it – Arnott, the “wine man” from 1994, father heart of God, healing of believer’s heart’s through the revelation of His love, and the joy (wine) of the Spirit.  Then you’ve got Bill Johnson, the Holy Spirit healing guy.  Then of course Mike, the bridal paradigm/End Times guy.  All men of God, of highest intergrity, honorable, faithful servants.  And now God is saying “I want to bring these three streams in to one River – My River of Life”.  This from a prophetic lady on John Arnott’s team thata he says was one of the bigget reasons he changed his schedule around to be here now.  Wow.  So this is yet more of what we are seeing here, and what God is doing.  God’s ways are so much higher than ours!  If I said yesterday that this is going to another level, now I see it is way beyond that.

We’ve had the first meeting with Bill Johnson and John Arnott.  It would be very conservative to say the spirit here has gone to another level.  The place was packed, the energy was overwhelming and the Spirit of God is moving in an even mightier way here now.  I came in not long ago for the 6:00 AM set in the prayer room and there were young people everywhere praying for each other, lying on the floor, laughing and having the biggest time.  It’s getting to where it is pretty much non stop around here now, like no abatement in the outpouring on people’s hearts.  And that is the point – this thing is really deeply impacting hearts, setting people free to receive the love of their Father.  That is what it is all about.  One guy gave a testimony the other night about being constantly depressed.  He said, while laughing in the Spirit, “what about my depression God?”.  He said God told him, “laughter makes the heart merry”.  And the guy was free from his depression.  Yes, this is real and deep, and getting more so by the day.  Get on in here if you can.  Who knows where we will be by the time we get to One Thing.