WE NEVER SHUT UP

"Be silent before the sovereign Lord, for the day of the Lord is near."-(Zephaniah 1:7)

When my bride and I launched into full-time ministry, laying down our success, focus and accomplishments in the entertainment industry, we moved at the prompting of the Holy Spirit from New York City to Tulsa, Oklahoma. I believe that God gives us information on a "need to know" basis, and upon our arrival from our exodus out of Manhattan, I had not yet received my mission briefing for our occupation of the "buckle" of the Bible Belt. Although I personally had not yet heard from the Lord regarding the next steps, I did hear from many other humans. There were quite a few, trusted and loved, family and friends alike, who urged me that it was in God's plan for me to attend a well known Bible Training Institute. These beloved, wise and well-meaning souls all agreed on the same program, citing individually, that it is what they believed I had arrived in green country for.

In light of my infancy in the faith, the dichotomy of our geographical and cultural transplantation and my then, inability to separate good ideas from God-ideas, I agreed. I actually decided that it was God speaking through others into my life to reveal His plans. I believed this so strongly that I filed my application, met the initial criteria and was en route to the facility for my final entrance interview. As I drove to what I believed to be my destiny, I felt an nagging sense of uneasiness. Then, while making the final turn into the entry road of the school's campus, I AUDIBLY heard "Where are you going?" I answered with the name of the school. "I NEVER TOLD YOU TO GO THERE." the Lord replied in a voice that sounded with pure power and thunder in my Spirit. It stopped my heart. I was so utterly shaken that I literally came to a screeching halt and turned around. I went back home to my wife who was expecting me to return much later in the day. "What did you forget?" she asked. "I forgot to listen to God" I answered. I then shared my experience with her and found great support from her in the decision to wait upon the Lord. About a week later I began working as a personal assistant and jack-of-all trades for the man who would become one of my greatest mentors and my personal "Bible Training Academy", Bob Harrison. Over the next two years (and to this date) I have had incredible, irreplaceable, personal training from this great man of God. If I had listened to others' advice and followed through on what man said, I would most definitively have been out of step with the plan of God for my life.

"Where are you going?" is a question that lends validity to all of us at some point in our walk. I do not believe that God randomly chose for us to leave the noise and distraction of the "City that never sleeps" to enter the quiet peace of Tulsa. It was to get quiet before Him. We oftentimes put so much weight on what we want to do, or what others tell us to do, that we do not HEAR from the Lord. We talk about what we want, our desires, dreams and plans more than we listen. Most of us have been miseducated by Christian "inculturation" and we tell God what we want before listening to Him for direction. We create grand blueprints that suit our intellect and flesh and ask God to bless what we are doing, rather than do what HE wants us to do. With that much being said, we wonder why our plans fall apart, or why the Lord does not bless them, when in truth, he cannot bless that which He does not will. "Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain."-(Psalm 127:1) I do believe that God grants us the desires of our heart, but I know that we, in our fallible carnal forms miss the precursor for that promise. "Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart."-(Psalm 37:4) We must first seek HIM. Taking delight in Him means focusing on His ways, His paths and most importantly, His PLANS. When we are looking to God to see His face, we do not first seek His hands. When we look up to Him, He does not need to ask "Where are you going?". “Many are the plans of a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails.” -(Proverbs 19:21) To know His purpose, we must seek His face.

In Exodus, chapter 33, Moses asks God to show him His Glory. A mistake that I have made, many times in my life, is asking to see God's glory manifested in a situation before I knew His plans. We cannot expect Him to move through or reveal anything for us until we first seek His ways. Before Moses issues the tremendous request to see God's Glory, he first asks that God shows him HIS WAYS. Likewise, when teaching us about the material needs and desires of this life, Jesus the Messiah tells us "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."-(Matthew 6:33) We must seek the order and will of God and His Kingdom in all we do or desire, before He will bless or provide. No man can expect God to move on their behalf without they first seek His FACE. Anyone who thinks that they can have their way without seeking His authority is double-minded. "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways."-(James 1:8) His hands will not move for those who do not seek His face.

This brings us to a very important point; We first seek God's wisdom, then ask in faith without doubt for His blessing. He has given us free-will to operate and develop here on this Earth. But that does not mean to merely work out our own salvation by our own wisdom. The Word says in Philippians 2:12 to work out our own salvation with FEAR & TREMBLING. That fear is not the spirit of fear that comes from the wiles of the adversary, but the reverential fear and awe of the Lord God Almighty. We need to consult the manufacturer for the directions of the creation, then we can ask anything in faith. When we know the heart of the Father, we can ask anything in faith without doubt because we know that He is invested in it.

Hearing God for direction and looking to wise counsel for confirmation is the scriptural order of the Kingdom. When those beloved friends and family advised me regarding that school, it was well-intended, and perhaps wishful thinking that I would hear them as confirmation of God's direction. But with regard to hearing the will of the Father, how often do we talk AT God and not WITH Him? I believe that this is a valuable observation that we must all keep in check. When we pray, do we pray AT Him? Think about it. How many times have you or someone you know prayed a WALL of sound AT the Lord instead of communicating with Him? Communication means that we listen more than, or at least as much as we speak. A healthy conversation with another human being depends on a balance. Now that is just another mortal likened unto our own stature. How much more should we be silent before the Lord God, Creator of all existence? I know that it is in my personal nature to speak (sometimes incessantly) out of design, but being quiet lends the most effective results when genuinely seeking God's agenda for my life. "For our conversation is in heaven; from where also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ:"-(Philippians 3:20) Our conversation with Him demands our attentive ear. God does not speak over us, like people do in a Woody Allen movie. He is a gentleman. He waits for us to stop talking. "And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice."-(1 Kings 19:12)

In this tremulous and dangerous hour, as we approach the precipice of the end-times, we need God's genuine direction more than any other time in history. We need His divine plans to be revealed. We must be in the will of the Lord. If we truly desire to be in the will of the Lord and follow His direction, walking out His plans, we must listen for His voice. We must approach Him with open ears. "But the Lord is in His holy temple; let all be silent before Him."-(Habakkuk 2:20) I encourage you to implement this today. Seek the Lord with thanksgiving and praise, enter into His presence. Then ask Him to speak to you. Wait upon Him. And listen rather than talk. Pray TO the Lord of Creation, not AT Him and you will hear His voice, know His will and draw nearer to Him in your walk. We must be still and hear HIM.

The Role Of Your Lifetime...

On one of our more recent guest appearances on Trinity Broadcast Network's "Praise The Lord" here in the Northwest, we were blessed to be on with our dear friend and a tremendously anointed man of God, Reverend Emmanuel Ziga. We met him as we were ministering at one of our conference appearances with Pastor Benny Hinn, and soon after ministered for him alongside one of our spiritual fathers, Steve Brock. It was as if we had known one another always. I can reflect on about a dozen instances in my walk where the Lord had skillfully designed a divine appointment wherein I would be united with a cohort of destiny. With Emmanuel, Brother Steve, our Russian Brother Dmitry Shatrov and a precious handful of others, I had felt from the very introduction, of the same ilk. It was a reuniting rather than initial introduction. The flow of the Holy Spirit in our friendship is powerful, and so therein is the ministry that we share together; powerfully appointed. In this instance, the interview was spontaneous and charged with His presence. We spoke of God's GLORY, and how the body of Christ NEEDS to experience the wind of the spirit and the glory of God like never before.
Having experienced our original Easter Rock Musical- "The Kingdom" only weeks before, Emmanuel asked me to recount what it was like to "play Jesus". I could reply the only way I knew how: Humbling, life-changing, awe-inspiring and full of tremendous burden. I explained that in the spirit, I had experienced on a microscopic level of consciousness and understanding the amount of weight the Lord endured for you and I. I went on to tell him about what was perhaps the greatest revelation of the experience for me- that was that each of us, is inherently called to "play Jesus" everyday. We are to be Jesus in flesh, spirit and action, every moment of our lives. He agreed and the Holy Spirit then ministered greatly to the viewing audience as we discussed the rigors and importance of penetrating the entertainment industry for the sake of the gospel.

But as I reflected on the main theme of that interview, it overtook and overshadowed my every thought. WE ARE TO BE HIM. It should never be a foreign concept to be as the Lord Jesus, here and now. I recognize that we are mere mortals, simply man or woman and not Christ, but I identified prophetically during that taping, how we are given to the title "Christian" and that in the original Greek literally means "Little Christs". It can be argued that the truer meaning is "slaves of Christ", but the purveyors of that rendering of the definition are mostly agnostics, atheists or those with offenses toward the Way. I prescribe to the former. And as "little christs" we are to be multiplying representatives of Him, His glory and goodness. "Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God."-(2 Corithians 5:20) An "ambassador" is defined more specifically as a diplomatic official of the highest rank appointed and accredited as representative in residence by one government or sovereign to another, usually for a specific length of time. And so we are... "For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory."-(Romans 8:15-17)

I have been immensely blessed in my former career (and life) to have played countless roles. I have been a hundred different identities, some based on real people, others invented, fictitious creations. I have been cowards and carousers, villains and heroes, idiots and geniuses, madmen and maniacs, sinners and saints. I have swam the icy shores of the outsider and known the emptiness of the unloveable. I have been immersed in the heights of infatuation and felt the adoration of others, seeing the fullness of unconditional love. I walked the path of adventure and invention, tasted and seen and lived to tell about it. I was the author of the "Last Temptation of Christ", Nikos Kazantzakis, the height of anti-conformity- Huckleberry Finn and then of course, I have been the accuser of the brethren- Satan, himself... The list goes on and on... In each instance I learned something that God needed me to grasp and hold within out of preparation for the work of the ministry ahead. It is amazing to think that even then, before I was His, He knew how to work all things together for His glory. Each role was a building block in my understanding of the human condition. Every performance granting a different perspective, not only of the characters, but of myself, and my undeniable NEED for HIM.

During the run of Roger Miller's Musical "BIG RIVER" in which I portrayed Mark Twain's unruly, rebellious yet affable and forgivable character Huck Finn, I had one of the most intense and utterly memorable experiences of my life. In my off-time I had been studying Eastern Texts and Books of Religion. I was half-way through The Koran, having finished reading the Dhammapada, the Bhagavad Gita, and was inquiring of Allah, Buddha and the Pantheon of Hinduism for the identity of the supreme being. The character of Huck was one that I could whole-heartedly identify with at the time. He was somewhat lost in a world where he was constantly being told things like "be good" and "read your bible or you'll never get to heaven". He was repelled out of disgust by the boundaries and hypocrisy of religion, yet nevertheless unknowingly watered a desire for grace; Well, more correctly the desire for grace and playing "hookey". He had a heart of gold, though, that throughout the book proved that there was hope for him still. He wasn't quite sure how to communicate his goodness, when he tried he failed, when he tried to do "no good" he was hijacked by providence, and the Lord acted through his deeds without his knowlege nonetheless. I felt for him, and identified with him on a spiritual level. One of the songs I was privileged to sing was "Waiting For The Light" The lyrics testified "I have lived in the darkness for so long, I am waitin' for the light to shine..." I lived that song. I had been working long days in a compressed period of time (as is the case with many rehearsal periods) and had gone directly to my room out of exhaustion and laying down, was deep asleep before the second breath on the bed. It is important that I state that I had, at that point in my life, not yet met the woman of my dreams, and was deeply seeking a revelation of who God was. I promise to share my full testimony sometime in the future, but for now be reconciled that I did not, for many reasons, ever touch a bible or consider Christ, until after the following:
As I slept, I dreamt so vividly that to this day I can recall every second, it was as real as any waking moment. In truth, I believe that this moment was MORE REAL than my waking cognizance, it was beyond describable reality. I saw a desert surrounding me. I could identify each individual grain of sand, and even remember the scent of sandalwood in the warmth of the soothing winds. I looked heavenward and saw an ultra indigo-blue colored sky, without cloud or blemish, with the illumination of a bright and glowing sun, yet I could not, as I scanned the horizon and the breadth of the sky, find the sun. As I peered into the distance, I saw through the nearly invisible waves of heat, a figure approaching. I was not apprehensive. Instead, I felt a peace like never before in my life. As the body gained ground toward me, I began to see the shape of a man, cloaked in white linens from hood to drape of tunic to his sandals. The closer the man got, the more I began to consciously reel over his bearded likeness. He was the most incredible conglomeration of identifiable visions of the Lord Jesus Christ from within and without my knowlege of art, film and imagination that I had ever seen. I knew without asking anything- this WAS Jesus of Nazareth. This WAS Him. He was within arm's reach when gazing through me He offered me as He held out a wooden dipper-"Drink". I looked down into the cup and at once saw the whole of the cosmos stirring in the purest water I had ever seen. I remember thinking in that instance, that the water looked as though it was actually ALIVE. For whatever reason, conditioning, fear of the unknown or stark ignorance, I answered- "But, I'm not thirsty." He smiled at me and said "You will be." And with that I woke up suddenly. I was dumbstruck. I could not utter a word for several hours after, nor could I sleep for the remainder of the night. I have never been the same.

About a year and a half later, I met my love and, fast-fowarding into our relationship, having never disclosed that experience to anyone, shared it with her. Jeni fell silent. She then, after taking it all in, began to explain the meaning of "living water" and then showed me that without any prior knowlege of the scripture, the revelation I had was directly from God Himself. I had, as I believe, an exclusive, intense person to person with the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. Why? Because from that moment forward, in spite of my shortcomings and failures I knew that I had a higher calling. I foolishly did not act on it until years later, but I knew. Ultimately, in my spirit, I knew that the greatest role of my life, was to daily play the role of Jesus Christ. William Shakespeare is renowned for the statement from As You Like It-

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts"

It is absolutely true. No, it is not scriptural, but there is great wisdom there. We choose which of these parts we play. Some play many and avail no fruit whatsoever throughout their lives. Others play only one and lead meaningful, stable existences. But the truly advanced, the ones who have genuinely tasted and seen that the Lord is GOOD- They play the greatest role of all- They are Jesus, the Son of the Living God, embodied here in this contemporary time, healing, ministering, preaching the good news with the anointing of the Holy Spirit, empowering their roles to the glory of God until His triumphal return.

So, when you put your costume on today, rather than donning the attire that simply defines your likes, dislikes and predispositions of fashion and age, PUT ON CHRIST. Wear HIM. Be HIM for this lost and dying world. Play the part of Jesus to the unloveable miscreants and losers who have forgotten hope. Be Christ to the child without a father, the widow without husband, the sons and daughters without joy. I encourage you, rather than play an existential and ultimately meaningless lifetime out, make the decision to receive direction from the eternal and Magnificent Director, God Almighty. Play today with all of your heart- The Greatest Role... The Role of Your Lifetime- JESUS CHRIST.