Tag Archives: wisdom

Capturing God’s Heart – Understanding – Volume 45

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Two weeks ago I was meeting with a prayer client. She had been meeting with me for some sessions and was in the midst of facing some hard decisions. As we came before the Lord inquiring of His thoughts it occurred to her that her trouble was that she has been trying to understand every part of what she was facing.

The Lord revealed that the problem was that she wanted to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, how to go forward; she was looking for a surety within her own mind and understanding.

The Holy Spirit brought to her mind this verse:

“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:7 ESV

“And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:7 NASB 

“Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 4:6-7 NLT

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Poverty Strongholds #10 – The Demonic Factor

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Poverty Strongholds – Post Ten – The Demonic Factor

  1. Demons
  2. Poor Stewardship – link to past article
  3. Lack of Knowledge (common sense)
  4. Mind Sets (faulty thinking)
  5. Lack of Holiness
  6. Agreements with the Enemy
  7. Bad Theology
  8. Blaming & Excuses
  9. Refusing to be a Blessing
  10. Pain Upon Pain

I’ve introduced all the other strongholds, so today, let’s take a look at the 1st Poverty Stronghold – Demons

On our original pie chart and in our list of poverty strongholds we had demons as first on the list. This was because the thinking that led to this entire series began with a theology relayed to us of how demons were the entire problem for all poverty and for everything that goes wrong.

In a certain area in Uganda we were told that all of the pervasive problems of that region were due to this very large tree that had had a demon in it, and that when the tree was cut down and distributed throughout the entire area the demonic stronghold became established in the entire area. This was the understanding, the belief, the theology. This is what we were told was the entire problem.


demonic conversation extension 2

But of course, as a professional people developer and as a prayer minister, I know that if we give all blame (ie:credit) to the demonic we have just given fully 100% of our power away, we’ve become victims and have entered ourselves into apathy and despair. So I roughly jotted out my thinking about this issue with the result being this series of posts. Today, in this series, I finally come to address the demonic factor. Let’s talk about that.

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Poverty Strongholds Post #6 – Lack of Holiness

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Poverty Strongholds – Post Six – Lack of Holiness

  1. Demons
  2. Poor Stewardship – link to past article
  3. Lack of Knowledge (common sense)
  4. Mind Sets (faulty thinking)
  5. Lack of Holiness
  6. Agreements with the Enemy
  7. Bad Theology
  8. Blaming & Excuses
  9. Refusing to be a Blessing
  10. Pain Upon Pain

Let’s take a look at the next Poverty Stronghold – Lack of Holiness. By and large, within our christian communities, we do not seem to talk a lot about holiness and yet it is a critical piece of living within the Kingdom of God. It boils down to this: God is a holy God, and as He calls us He asks us to play the game (understand and know that the Kingdom is His and our participation requires we live by His rules) as he would have it played – this means that as God is holy we are called to be holy. Continue reading →

Poverty Strongholds #5 – Mind Sets (faulty thinking)

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Poverty Strongholds – Part Five – Mind Sets (faulty thinking)

  1. Demons
  2. Poor Stewardship – link to past article
  3. Lack of Knowledge (common sense)
  4. Mind Sets (faulty thinking)
  5. Lack of Holiness
  6. Agreements with the Enemy
  7. Bad Theology
  8. Blaming & Excuses
  9. Refusing to be a Blessing
  10. Pain Upon Pain

Today we look at Mind Sets, or faulty thinking and how the way we think may be keeping us locked into cycles of poverty.

On the Poverty Strongholds graphic I have faulty thinking noted as: 

  • layers of denial, optimistic without seeing reality
  • superstitious thinking and beliefs
  • rushing to conclusions (already addressed in Lack of Knowledge)
  • stuck on letter of the law without the spirit of the law
  • little innovation, stuck on how it’s always done
  • assuming bigger is better

In brief I will add some understanding to each one of these.

Layers of Denial: 

Layers of denial are habits of thought that keep us protected from bad news and from grief but also keep us from clarity and reasoning that can move us forward. Like the woman I mentioned in my first post under faulty thinking, she is protecting herself from the raw knowledge that she married a man that does not love her. He is refusing to care and commit to her, is using her for sex (unprotected sex even, as more children are added to compound her poverty), and meanwhile she continues in a habit of thought that continues to hold out hope.

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Poverty Strongholds #4 – Lack of Knowledge

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Poverty Strongholds – Part Four – Lack of Knowledge (common sense)

  1. Demons
  2. Poor Stewardship – link to past article
  3. Lack of Knowledge (common sense)
  4. Mind Sets (faulty thinking)
  5. Lack of Holiness
  6. Agreements with the Enemy
  7. Bad Theology
  8. Blaming & Excuses
  9. Refusing to be a Blessing
  10. Pain Upon Pain

Today we explore a lack of knowledge, where common sense is missing, and where as a result faith is over-applied.

When I was working in the professional development field one of my colleagues would always comment on how people are meaning-making machines. His observation was that something would happen and that people, by and large, would rush to ascribe meaning to it, to try and make sense of what happened.

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Poverty Strongholds Post #3 – Poor Stewardship

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Poverty Strongholds – Post #3 – Poor Stewardship

  1. Demons
  2. Poor Stewardship
  3. Lack of Knowledge (common sense)
  4. Mind Sets (faulty thinking)
  5. Lack of Holiness
  6. Agreements with the Enemy
  7. Bad Theology
  8. Blaming & Excuses
  9. Refusing to be a Blessing
  10. Pain Upon Pain

Walking through these poverty strongholds we will begin with our second stronghold, Poor Stewardship. I’ll write a post on each of these separately, for I am realizing the depth of the material to explore.

Let’s Begin: Poor Stewardship 

Poor Stewardship refers to the basic principle of being faithful with a little. From my own experience and observations this ‘faithful with a little’ is either a character strength or a character flaw. We either take care of the things entrusted to us or we do not.

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Hands Off!

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Every once in awhile I come across an indiscretion within the body of Christ. It is something that in some circles is considered normal but ultimately reveals itself to be the precursor to much bad fruit. It is this thing about permission and an assumed ownership of each other’s gifting and callings.

I remember many years ago sitting in a church service listening to a message regarding the verse, “To him who has been given much, much is required” and immediately through my mind ran a litany of all the things I had been given.

Now, the Lord had already been telling me for some years that one day I would be impacting many, many people around the world. I was slowly adjusting to this thought and preparing myself for this work of the Lord that was still off in some distant future.

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Leadership Lesson Three – Let Your Yes be Yes and Your No be No

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To become a trusted and respected leader we must be straight-up with others. This means that we don’t play games with our words, we don’t lie or cover over things, and we don’t manipulate to get what we want.

To deal dishonestly with people may seem a solution to some problems but it is short-term thinking. Dishonesty of our words and intentions will always come back in a bad way. We want to make decisions out of integrity with others and ourselves.

Integrity is a word we use to indicate the strength of something through and through. For instance, imagine a board, a piece of wood made from a tree. Imagine that you want to use this board to make a stage to stand on. Now, to stand on a stage the stage must be made from good boards.

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Leadership Lesson Two – Short Accounts

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As leaders it is important to maintain regular housekeeping of conversations and relationships.

Just as a house can be in disrepair if not attended to, so too can our relationships. Proverbs 10:9

A good habit is to keep short accounts at all times. This means that any conflict that has not been worked out, any conversations uncompleted, any bad feelings, any apologies that need to be made, any difficulties that need to be addressed, we deliberately attend to these. Ephesians 4:32

We do this first and foremost with our team. Then we do this with those we are serving. And finally to anyone on the fringes that have been drawing our attention. Philippians 2:3

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Spiritual Authority Course Progress Report

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023Good news at Capturing Courage – we have completed Workbook Four of our Walking in Spiritual Authority Course and are set to complete part two of the international version for our indigenous colleagues.

This will take a good month or more to complete so please keep us in your prayers as we embark on this next task.

So far the Capturing God’s Heart material is going out to over 4400 christian leaders, which is in turn being passed on to an estimated 150,000 people.

The Spiritual Authority course is currently in the hands of a dozen christian leaders as we test run the material. We simply commit this course to the glory of God and the equipping of his people.

“Get wisdom; get insight; do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her, and she will keep you; love her, and she will guard you.” Proverbs 4:5-6

To donate to the work of Capturing Courage CLICK HERE

Sally is My Friend…

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P1080807 compressed“Sally is my friend.

You wouldn’t believe how amazing Sally is.

Last week Sally was hilarious.

The week before that she was something else.

Have you met Sally?

You really should meet Sally!

Sally is wonderful.

Last year Sally did some amazing things.

Next week I’m having dinner at Sally’s house.

Wanna come?

Sally would love to meet you.

Sally’s house is so great. 

I’m sure you will like Sally’s house.

Oh wait, I’ve another story about Sally…

Then there is this one,

Oh and the day that Sally…

Did I mention that Sally is my friend?”

I don’t know about you, but I now have no interest in meeting Sally whatsoever. In fact, I just might want to run as far and as fast in the opposite direction as I can.

Imagine if this was the same conversation every time you met this person. Imagine…

And how many times do we as Christians act in this same manner about God. And have we really thought about the effects and the true impact on those in earshot.

Are we able to talk about our experiences, our emotions, our realities, our hurts and losses, pains and sadness, bringing God stories only into the mix as the grand intersection that he is.

Or are we turning people away and then basking in a false sense of persecution when they don’t want to hear it. We are the problem, but we label them the problem.

It’s not okay.

Retelling verses after verses as though we have no thought of our own, no way to express God’s goodness but through what we have memorized, is not okay.

The living active word is in the intersection where our messy beat-up lives meet the living God.

Out of this place comes testimony, not rhetoric.

Out of this place comes brokenness, not platitudes.

Out of this place comes an understanding and a grace that does not speak at others, ever.

Rather, we salt things graciously (too much salt and the food is ruined after all).

Don’t ruin the amazing works of our Lord and Savior by turning people away.

Pride of this sort won’t go over with the King of Kings.