Afterwards Build Your House

Posted on October 13, 2015 by Mark McMillion

In my early years as a Christian, someone shared a Bible verse that has always stuck with me. “Prepare your work without and make it fit for yourself in the field, and afterwards build your house.” (Proverbs 24:27) This isn’t really an admonition to farmers and ranchers. Maybe if I bring in another verse that’s perhaps more familiar to you, the idea will be clearer. Jesus said, from the Sermon on the Mount, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:33)

It’s easy to agree with this in principle but, for most of us, much more difficult to do. Because it goes against our human nature and it surely goes against “the course of this world” (Ephesians 2:2). Our unregenerate human nature says to seek first our own, whatever that may be. Food, clothes, money, reputation, everything. And every voice from “this present evil world” (Galatians 1:8) will chime in with harmony to this.

But God’s voice and His ways are contrary to this. Our self and our world says, “Hold on to what you’ve got. You deserve it; you’ve worked hard, now enjoy it.” But Jesus said, “Give and it shall be given unto, good measure, pressed down and shaken together shall men give to your bosom, for with the same measure that you give, it shall be given to you.” (Luke 6:38) And this admonition is all through the Bible, Old and New Testament.

For me, I’m thankful that the Christianity I originally was led to was a discipleship, Christian-service Christianity. I’d seen so much of the insipid once-a-week Christianity when I was growing up and it didn’t show anything to me of a true, powerful, righteous God. So for me Christianity and discipleship Christianity are not the same thing. Jesus said to them all, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it. But whosoever will lose his life for My sake, the same shall save it.” (Luke 9:23 &24) Needless to say, this is ludicrous to the average worldling and even a lot of Christians secretly cringe at statements like this from Jesus.

It’s like what I wrote about a few years ago in “The Multitude and the Disciples”, not so many people really wanted to follow Jesus up the mountain to hear the greatest sermon ever preached. “Seeing the multitude, He went up into a mountain. And when He was set, His disciples came unto Him.” (Matthew 5: 1 & 2) It doesn’t say the multitude came to Him on the mountain; it says the disciples did. And it’s still the same today.

And for the disciples of Jesus, these verses I’ve mentioned are first grade principles on which we base our lives. We don’t build our house first; we take care of the fields. In this case, they are His fields. Jesus told Peter three times, “Do you love me?” Peter said yes three times. Each time Jesus answered with “Feed my sheep.” (John 21:16 &17) He didn’t tell him to go back to the fishing business. He didn’t tell him to go back to Capernaum and take care of his physical family. He told him to feed His sheep. And in Peter’s case, he seemed to do that and continue to do that the rest of his life until he ultimately died a martyr’s death for Jesus.

So Peter did what Jesus told His disciples to do, he “sought first the kingdom of God”. And it cost him. Continually and a lot. Just like it has for other disciples of the Lord for the last two thousand years. But it’s those folks, those few who have carried the banners of the Lord and the love and truth of God to the ends of the earth, generation after generation up to our times. And there are still folks like that today; not just Christians, not just believers, but disciples and followers of the teachings of Christ.

I hate to say it and this might offend some. But going to church once a week to hear the sermon will not necessarily be what it takes to be a disciple of the kind the early Christians were. You may get a little spiritual feeding, they’ll pray and sing and you may find the warmth of the Lord there. But often it doesn’t go much further than that. In most churches, you won’t learn how to lead the unsaved to Christ. They figure that’s what the preacher is for. Just bring your friends to church and that’ll do it. So, sadly, many modern Christians are not equipped to really serve the Lord and to “bear much fruit” (John 15:8) which is one of the criteria of being a disciple, according to Jesus.

Hopefully some people are seeing this. They are seeing that their Christianity and religion has been pretty much “skimmed milk” and they are looking around to find the kind of discipleship they read about in the Bible.

As the darkness and foreboding of this world daily increases so rapidly, there’s no greater time when the light of the love of God is needed in each Christian to shine more brightly and vehemently than ever before. May God help each one of us to “prepare our work without and make it fit for ourselves in the field (the spiritual fields of sowing and reaping for Him) and afterwards build our houses”. God help us to seek first His kingdom now like never before. Let it not be said to our generation, as it was to God’s rebellious people of Jeremiah’s time, “The summer is past, the harvest is ended, and we are not saved.” (Jeremiah 8:20)

Days of Heaven

Posted on September 17, 2015 by Mark McMillion

I heard someone say one time, “I couldn’t tell you about it when I didn’t have the victory.” So I don’t totally have the victory about this right now but I’ll give it a shot at telling you.

It says in the Bible, “Now we know in part, but then shall we know as we are known.” (I Corinthians 13:12) And this is not only true of knowing the Lord that way in heaven to come. Up there we’re going to know each other that way too. And that will be a big part of heaven, a closeness there that we almost never have here with each other on earth.

But sometimes we do. Sometimes God allows and engineers situations so we’re led down a path where we are in the right place at the right time with someone with whom we experience a closeness, I’ll even use the word “intimacy”, if you understand that the way I mean, which is on a scale so advanced that it approaches that of heaven. That’s happened to me recently.

“Good for your Mark, I’m so happy for you!”

Umm, yeah; thanks. But this is like two things I’ve written about before, “Sweet Potatoes with Butter” and “Pinnacle Experiences.” In my case, the Lord has allowed me to have some time of communication with someone I’ve vaguely known at various times for years. I’ve always been struck by this person. They’ve always seemed so unusually angelic that it’s been difficult for me to be around them the few times that I have been.

What do you think of when you think of an angel? Beauty? Wisdom? Humility? You can trust them. They have a stability and a “health”, for the lack of a better term, that kind of leaves you in awe. What if you talked to that angel?

Some have had experiences with angels a few brief times in our lives. But real angels are not usually there for hours. They don’t talk to you for hours. They’re heavenly beings from that other realm who God allows to sometimes cross our path or even appear and speak to us.

But perhaps you’ve had some kind of experience with a human being who somehow has such grace, wisdom and beauty that it just doesn’t seem real. Sometimes you just almost stare at that person in awe at their beauty and words, their gentle soul and obvious grace.

As you and they talk, it’s almost like being pulled out of this world and into the realms of heaven. You don’t want to do anything wrong because it’s almost like a charmed time you are in. But a good time, given by God, where the essences of heaven pour into you and you’re lifted out of the humdrum dreariness that so often you are in, seemingly for so long.

This is the type of experience we think of that men and women have who get married. But maybe even married couples don’t always have this or they don’t have it any more. But it doesn’t have to be limited to that. And for Christians, it can be just something that God allows, like finding an oasis in a vast desert you’ve have traveled alone in for so long. The only way to describe it is heavenly. Somehow this person is almost like a window into heaven or at least God is using them this way.

It sounds great, no? This happened to me recently. But then… but then. We have to come down from our mountain. We enjoy those “sweet potatoes with butter” but then it’s over. You’ve been on a shining mountain, a true “Close Encounter“. But you have to come down.

I don’t know how it is for you. But for me, my life for a number of years has been one of single-minded purpose in daily laying down my life for Him and others. But that has almost always been in a type of loneliness I’ve grown used to and accepted as how it has to be and how things are in this world for me.

The wonderful thing is that we each have the Lord, at least the ones of us who know and believe in Him. “My presence shall go with you and I will give you rest”. (Exodus 33:14) We have the light of His Word in our hearts, which we have laid up there through faithfully memorizing and retaining it. We have the presence of His Holy Spirit. These are things that abide with us and help us to navigate and exist in what is frankly an often dark and lonely world, full of shadows and vanity.

Our daily contact with other human beings is so often shallow in the extreme compared to the deep and intimate contact we will have with each other in the hereafter. Our main need is His salvation and presence and we have that constantly and daily as we pray and lean on His Word. But daily heartfelt intimacy with other human beings can often be rather rare, even if you’re surrounded with people during you day.

So, like I said at the beginning of this, I’m not sure I can tell you about all this when I don’t have the victory. We who are saved have a victory. We have the Savoir who’s “delivered us from every evil work“. (II Timothy 4:18) But still for some, even of the saved, we live with a heaviness and a loneliness that’s seldom lifted expect for those rare times of “days of heaven”, in some cases with virtual angels who walk the earth, splendid creatures who exude a beauty and grace, love and humility, and a knowledge of how to live life that’s virtually breath-taking and blinding. But it shines brilliantly in our hearts and is a glimpse into the future and heaven to come.

Tomorrow I will be back to “normal”. I hope I can do what I wrote about recently. I hope I can bring the pinnacle experience I’ve had with me back to my normal day-to-day world and share it with others. But right now I’m a little afraid I’ll be remembering these days of heaven and, frankly, be missing them a lot. God told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” (II Corinthians 12:9) I’ll be holding onto his Word and to Him. But also I’ll really be looking forward even more than before to the true heaven to come and the intimacy and beauty there that I’ve experienced a touch of here.

The Stand

Posted on August 31, 2015 by Mark McMillion

Someone said one time, “If your will power doesn’t work, try your “won’t” power.” Ha! But there’s a lot of truth in that. The Bible talks about the stand of faith. An obscure verse that highlights this principle is Judges 7:21, “And they stood, every man in his place, round about the camp, and all the host ran and cried and fled.” In this case, the forces of God didn’t attack. They just took the stand of faith.

I’ve definitely had times in my life when I just couldn’t seem to take any forward steps. And sometimes this went on a long time. But even if “my gas pedal” just didn’t seem to work, I still had “my brakes”. And I kept my foot on the brakes. I wasn’t going to go back, even if it seemed impossible to go forward. I think this can happen a lot of times to a lot of us. The Bible says, “Having done all, to stand.” (Ephesians 6:13)

But sometimes the storms get so strong, we’re rendered so helpless that all we can do is just hang on. “When the enemy comes in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.” (Isaiah 59:19) And at times all we can do is to take the stand of faith. Our “will” power is seemingly matched by the onslaughts of the enemy or the storms of life. But we still have our “won’t” power.

“Resist the Devil and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7) “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.” (I John 4:4) His Spirit in us will cause us to do the humanly impossible. We can choose, no matter what.

That’s one of the things I came away with from the utterly horrific times I went through in the last months and year or so before I came to a knowledge of God. “There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man, but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it.” (I Corinthians 10:13) When I read that verse for the first time, I was just so very astounded. Because that was exactly what I had experienced, even without salvation earlier.

In my greatest, overwhelming inundations of fear, defeat and death, there was always some tiny sliver of light, some “way of escape”, no matter how faint. And through it all, I learned I had a soul. I learned the hard way. “The way of the transgressor is hard” (Proverbs 13:15) and I don’t know if it could have been any harder, if I was to survive it. But it was because of my sins and my lack of knowledge of the will and existence of God. He brought me through it but not without the smell of smoke. It took months and years of the cleansing of the Word of God to, in a sense, “rewire me” and to be “renewed in the spirit of my mind.” (Ephesians 4:23)

Back in those times, I had no idea really where “forward” was. But the forces of darkness and sin were so strong in my life that if I didn’t learn how to use my brakes, if I didn’t have forming in me the basics of recognizing evil and repentance of sin, then those things would have fully taken my life before I was 21. But I learned I could resist the enemy and the darkness. I learned I could choose and therefore I was responsible for my decisions. Often they were bad decisions but that’s how I learned, at length.

I didn’t have the power of God then because I wasn’t saved. “As many as received Him, to them He gave power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.” (John 1:12) That verse encapsulates my salvation experience. I received Him, Jesus. And He gave me the power I didn’t have to, not only resist the wrong, but to know what was right.

So don’t underestimate the stand of faith. Don’t underestimate your “won’t power”. Just make sure you are exercising it on the enemy and your sins; don’t use your “won’t power” against the Lord. “If you be willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land, but if you refuse and rebel… (things won’t go so well).” (Isaiah 1:19)

PS And when writing this, I got a little concerned. Because, as much as we all need to understand the stand of faith and how to apply our “brakes”, it’s perhaps equally or more important to know when to “step on the gas”. Faith in God is not just about standing and resisting the darkness; it’s perhaps even more about getting moving with, and for, God. More about that in the next post.

Partitions

Posted on August 22, 2015 by Mark McMillion

Sometimes just to have the vocabulary for a thing is a huge step forward. When I started working with computers years ago, I realized immediately that there was a vocabulary involved. And learning the basic vocabulary having to do with computers was pretty essential in learning to use them.

Somewhat similarly, when I was an atheist in university, I kept experiencing things that I had no way to describe and no vocabulary for. How can an atheist describe spiritual experiences? Maybe that’s one of the reasons why, when I finally came to believe in God and later in Jesus, that it all just flooded into me. Because I had already had things happening to me that I didn’t understand and couldn’t describe until I learned the vocabulary of the Bible that helped to understand those things.

If you’re secular, basically “your mind” is about as far as the vocabulary goes. Maybe it’s different now but back when I went to university, they sure never ever talked to me about my “soul”, or my “spirit” or my “heart”. Can you imagine going to a university that offered “Soul 101” as a course? Yet the Bible talks about those things all the time. And understanding what they are and what the differences are between them is a mighty step forward in understanding what are the essences of the beings we are. But university sure isn’t going to teach you that. Maybe you’ll hear some rock song about how your girlfriend “broke your heart”. But what is a heart? Is that all just metaphorical or some ancient wives’ tales?

For me, it was an incredible breakthrough to have the vocabulary of the Bible to describe my existence and experiences. Jesus spoke in one place of our “soul” and “heart” and “mind”. (Matthew 22:47). In another place He said, “that which is born of the flesh is flesh…” (John 3:6) On the cross, Jesus prayed, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.“ (Luke 23:46) And Paul, writing to the Ephesians, said that we should put off “the old man” and put on “the new man” (Ephesians 4:22-24). These are all ancient Biblical terms but they brought light and clarity to my soul that I was utterly lacking before.

So many people bemoan their present state. “Oh, I’m so tired!” “Oh, I’m so afraid!” But they don’t really know, evidently, God’s way of partitioning our beings. The Bible is full of expressions that use this viewpoint. “While our outward man perishes, our inward man is renewed day by day.” (II Corinthians 4:16) Jesus said, “It is the spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing.” The Bible says of the Word of God that it pierces, “even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit… and is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)

There is ageless wisdom and understanding in the Bible that bring us to depths of understanding that university degrees never reach. Wisdom, understanding, knowledge. The Bible can help us to both treasure these things and to know how to apply them practically and daily in our lives.

Recently “my flesh” has been pushed. I’m pushing myself to get off to the next stage of my life. If I didn’t know better, I could say, “Oh, I’m really tired!” “Oh, this is so hard!” But I know that’s just the reaction of “my flesh”, according to how the Bible describes it. Because, truly, my spirit is fine and I’m excited about what’s going on and up ahead.

Admittedly, it’s a little hard on my flesh right now. But if I didn’t know God’s Word and how these things are described in the Bible, then I wouldn’t recognize the partition between “me” and “my flesh”. I’m not my flesh. It’s not the main thing, it’s not the real me. It’s part of me and part of my existence. But I am a soul, I have a spirit and a heart and a mind. So even if I have to push my flesh right now, if I still take care of it and don’t exceed the guidelines of the Lord, then this is generally what the Lord said, to “take up your cross daily” (Luke 9:24) and follow Him.

I am benefiting so much at this time by being able to keep a Biblical view of things and what’s going on. I’m trying to go forward for Him. It involves some measure of personal and physical sacrifice and discomforted. But like Paul wrote, “I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us.” (Romans 8:18) When we can take to ourselves these simple, basic principles from God’s Word, the terminology He uses to describe us, His creations, then it just helps overall to understand who and what we are, how our spiritual insides are constructed and how things work, what are our components and how we are partitioned.

Close Encounters and Pinnacle Experiences

Posted on August 15, 2015 by Mark McMillion

Maybe you’ve heard the phrase, “pinnacle experiences”, those rare moments in life when you feel like you’re on some kind of spiritual mountain and see things that are almost eternal, truths you almost never realized before. For many people, this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience or perhaps a few times at most. You’re lifted above the mundane, the routine, the trivial, and you briefly glimpse eternal realities.

Perhaps not many in history more fully experienced that than Moses of the Old Testament. He literally was called up into a mountain to hear the very voice of God and to experience the very presence of God. We are told this went on for 40 days. Of course most of us have no way we can relate to that. But many of us have had “mountain peak” experiences, moments of clarity, purity, fullness of truth when we feel we see eternal things and understand things we almost never do.

And Moses was told, “See that you make all things according to how it was showed you on the mount” (Hebrews 8:5). And it’s still the same today. Those “mountain peaks” of truth the Lord lets us see glimpses of perhaps only a few times in our lives, those glimpses of how things can be, how things are in the hereafter through the Spirit of God, those are the ways of heaven that He wants us to emulate here on earth. I’ve had a few times like that and I’ve written about them in the category “Angels and Miracles“.

There’s an old movie that has become very famous, ‘”Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. One of the main characters, Richard Dreyfus, has a “close encounter” with a UFO which comes to hover over his truck as he drives around to fix power lines one night. His life is utterly changed. It’s like some kind of message or imprint has been made on his soul. He just keeps duplicating “what he saw on the mount”, what he experienced in those few moments with the UFO. He isn’t really the same person he was before, because of the mountain peak experience he had with the UFO.

This to me has always been a parallel of how it is and can be with our experience with God. Many of us have had a moment in the stillness, in the presence of the supernatural Spirit of God. It could have been a dream, it could have been in prayer, it could have been in reading His Word when the affairs of this life drop behind you, you are away from secular things and on the mount with God, even if for a moment.

And I believe that the same way God told Moses to do all things according as it was shown him on the mount, He says the same to us today. Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). Sometimes there are moments when we “see God”. It doesn’t happen all the time but it does happen. And if we hold on to that, if we retain and treasure in our hearts those moments with Him on the mount that He gives us, then we can bring that essence down from the mount, as Moses did.

It says that Moses’s face shown and glowed so much when he came down from Mount Sinai that he had to put a veil or covering over his face because he glowed with the light of God right then. That’s for us too. If we remember our paths to the mountains that He has taken us to, then we can “come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in the time of need”. (Hebrews 4:16)

Those mountain peaks don’t have to be once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Maybe they aren’t everyday things. But the influence, the change, the glory, the infusion of His mighty Love and Light can remain with us and we come back to this world as Moses did when he came down from the mount. We can “go about everywhere doing good” (Acts 10:38), as Jesus did. We can be “instruments of his peace”, that Saint Francis prayed he would be. We can bring that imprint of the mountain back to this dark, sad world and be the light He has called us to be.

“See that you do all things according to how it was shown you on the mountain” (Hebrews 8:5). May God help us to remember those mountain peaks of experience He gives us, to live in those moments, even if they’re now memories, and to let others see that heavenly realm in and through us. “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were ignorant and unlearned men, they marveled and they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus.” (Acts 4:13)

Long time therefore…

Posted on August 3, 2015 by Mark McMillion

It was late summer in dry, arid west Texas, just before I turned 22. I was standing on top of a hill, thinking about the last few months and the ones up ahead. It had turned out to be the best year of my life till then, the year I very nearly died in torment and went to hell. But instead I was miraculously saved by the undeserved mercy of God. That’s what I wrote about in “Lucifer and the White Moths“.

I’d been staying with some young people who had banded together to study God’s Word and prepare for a life of Christian service. But my time there had come to an end and I was soon to leave to go to California and begin a time of daily witnessing on the streets of Los Angeles.

I don’t remember exactly asking the Lord for a message right then, maybe I did. But something very simple came to me as I stood on that hill, a reference to a Bible verse I don’t remember reading before, Acts 14:3. I carried a small Bible with me so I looked it up. It said, “Long time therefore abode they speaking boldly in the Lord, which gave testimony to the Word of His grace, and granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands.” I took it as a message of encouragement from the Lord that He had a plan for me. And I was especially drawn to the words “long time therefore…” My feeling was that the Lord was telling me I would have a long time of Christian service ahead of me.

Thinking back to that time and how my life has gone from then to now, I can feel that the verse I got that day has already been fulfilled in my life, for which I am so thankful. If I quit right now, that “long time” has already been a reality of decades of endeavoring to abide in His grace in many lands, during storms and calms, during fruitful times and dry years, but always with the knowledge that “He that began a good work in me would continue to perform it.” (Philippians 1:6)

Back then, that method of the Lord speaking to me that way, by just giving me a reference which would unlock a passage in Scripture that was specifically for me, was not something that happened all the time. But from time to time it did happen. This is what I wrote about in “Direct Revelations” where I mentioned a couple of other times when the Lord gave me Bible references like that in answer to prayer.

It’s encouraging to look back and reminisce about these things, to see how the Lord has fulfilled His promise and Word to me as He does to all of us. But I do feel there’s a potential danger in it. Because it’s just so easy to decide that you’ve gone as far as you want to go.

“Quit while you are ahead” is not a phrase found in the Bible.

But in the world, this is a common theme and very easy to fall into. So looking back and reminiscing about your life, while understandable and very human, is for me at least something I don’t like to spend much time doing. Because it just might influence me to not keep going forward.

There’s that strange story in the Old Testament of the old prophet and the young prophet, one of the more “post graduate” lessons in the Bible. (see I Kings 13) God told the young prophet to go do something and then come right back to where he had been. And the young prophet obeyed, at least in some ways, and he even performed miracles. But then what happened? On the way home, he sat down under a tree. He didn’t keep obeying. He sat down. It’s all a really intriguing story; I’ll let you read the whole thing yourself. But the end of the matter was that the sitting under the tree, rather than finishing his task, ultimately led to the death of the young prophet.

So our best bet is to keep our eyes on the Lord and to keep obeying and living for Him, even if you think you’ve already had a pretty good life and it’s time to just sit down, kick back, relax and retire from His service that He’s called you to. I’m thankful for the life the Lord has given me; it’s such a blessing to look back and see all the ways He’s fulfilled His Word and allowed me to be a part of His work and plan. But it’s even more thrilling to look ahead to all that may still lie ahead, greater victories to be won and greater experiences to have with Him as He continues to set the captives free and break the chains that enslave so many around the world in these threatening times.

Turning Points

Posted on July 24, 2015 by Mark McMillion

I guess this is true for everyone. But I know it’s true for a person who’s endeavored to dedicate their life to the Lord. Sometimes you just can’t go on business as usual. You have to keep books with your soul and ask yourself, “Am I still doing what I know and believe is His highest and best?” Not what His best was last year, but is it still His best now?

God is a moving God, in a sense. He’s never static; He’s always going, moving and affecting change in every sphere of His creation. His Spirit is in the process of changing lives, changing hearts, changing situations. He’s never static, except for Himself. “I am the Lord, I change not.” (Malachi 3:6)

But, boy, He likes to get things moving and shake things up. One time God said to Moses, “Why are you crying to me? Command the armies of Israel that they go forward.” (Exodus 14:15) And He’s still saying that today, urging the forces of God to go forward in these times as well. Of course I’m not talking about physical armies of worldly nations. I’m talking about the called and faithful few who will follow the Lord and serve Him in these bedarkened times.

But you can’t go on last year’s battle plans. You can’t rest on your laurels or think you’ve arrived. Solomon said, “There’s no discharge in this war” (Ecclesiastes 8:8). Yes, it is a war we are in, not of carnal weapons and vain, worldly nationalism but for the eternal souls of men to be won to Him. Paul told Timonty that he should “war a good warfare” (I Timothy 1:18).

And when an army ceases to attack, it will be defeated. Because the enemy will launch a counterattack. Or even worse, and what more often happens to Christians, the army’s immobility and it lack of vision, faith and initiation will cause it to have a loss of faith in its own values, and to quit and give up without even loosing. In the cause of Christ, this is far more often the cause of defeat than the soldiers of the cross actually being defeated in battle. This is what I wrote about recently in “The Serpent and The Dragon.”

But sometimes we come to a turning point in our ministry. You can just feel it. It’s something that the people of God have experienced almost invariably throughout history. Just like the way God operated with Moses and God’s people in the wilderness, the cloud and pillar lifted from the camp of the saints and moved forward. God’s presence has moved again and it’s up to us as individuals to break camp and follow where He leads, if we still will.

Of course some don’t. They’ve gone as far as they want to go. They want to just stay where they’ve come to and settle down there, enjoy the fruits of their labors and just take it easy for a while. Or the opposition is too strong, the price to great and they “turn back in the day of battle.” (Psalm 78:9) It certainly seems to be a “reasonable” thing to do and who would blame you? “You deserve it”, like people say nowadays. But certainly the battle is not over; the war is not won.

Someone who has always been an inspiration me in the Bible was Caleb, the brother of Joshua. When it finally came time to conquer the land, Caleb by that time was fully 80 years old. It says of Caleb that he led his tribe and people up into the mountains and hills to take his part of the land God had told them to take back then. At 80 years of age, he led his people into battle.

I don’t know very many people who are 80. I’m not really close to that. So I figure I still have a ways to go for the Lord. I need to find out where He’s leading now and the road up ahead. For me, it’s looking like He’s leading me back to foreign lands, after being here in my home country for nearly 6 years. It would be so easy to just settle down here. I like where I am. I like the weather, I like the nature, it’s kind of nice here.

But for me, that just won’t work. I know I have a call of God in my life. I know that I would be miserable and out of God’s will, out of His protection, out of what my life has been about if I don’t keep following the Lord where He is leading me at this time.

For me, the question hasn’t been, “Why are you going?” It’s been, “Why should you stay?”

Every time I’ve put myself into His hands to follow where He leads, there’s been a blessing to it. Often there’s some sacrifice of some kind, often some uncertainty and sometimes even loneliness. But there have been tremendous blessings involved and I’ve been able to be a part of what the Lord is doing and to see His continual hand working in the lives of those who desire Him.

So I’m right at the cusp of some really major moves and changes. It’s challenging, daunting and almost foreboding in some ways. But like someone said one time, “Put your hand into the hand of God, and He shall be more to thee than a light, and better than a known way.”

The Serpent and the Dragon

Posted on July 10, 2015 by Mark McMillion

So many Christians nowadays are talking about the Dragon, violent physical attacks of the Devil. But it seems the Serpent, with his lies, fears and confusion, is the one who’s really doing the most for the Evil Kingdom.

The book of Nehemiah shows how that works, perhaps more than any other in the Bible. During the entire time of Nehemiah, the Enemy never actually attacked God’s people openly and physically. It was all in words: lies, fears, distractions, threats and whatever else it took to persuade them to stop the work God had called them to.

But, thankfully, Nehemiah saw through it all and recognized the hand of his spiritual enemy in those things. “I am doing a great work and cannot come down“, he told his enemies. (Nehemiah 6:3) He and the people of God back then remained persistent and focused in the calling they were given and didn’t get persuaded or scared into coming down from the wall of God’s will and calling.

However, so often in history this hasn’t happened. You can find so many people today who are terrified of some foreign attack on these shores; they are electrified with the vision that “Sheriah law” will be established in the United States. Admittedly, I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point there is some outside attack from Islamic extremists or even extreme American nationalist here, however big or small that might be.

But most of the time, the Devil doesn’t need to send the Dragon if the Serpent will do. And the Serpent seems often to be far more effective, so that the Dragon isn’t necessary.

If the Serpent can keep whispering in your ear his lies, his fears, his prejudices, lifting you up in pride, casting you down in hopelessness and fear, filling your mind with confusion and double-mindedness, then the victory is his. You may be a Christian. But you have become a completely defeated Christian, stopped in your tracks along the path of faith and rendered virtually worthless to the cause of Christ.

Of course he doesn’t only do this to Christians. The Deceiver is active across the land, propagating his bedarkened views which mostly are supposed to be “enlightened” and modern. Jesus said, “If the light that be in you be darkness, how great is that darkness.” (Matthew 6:23) That’s why the Devil is called “the prince of this world” (John 12:31). It even says that the Devil showed Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time” and then the Devil told Jesus “all this power I will give you, for it is mine.”(Luke 4:6) How often Christians forget this. They think they’re living in “a Christian nation”. It’s sad. But perhaps more are waking up a little as the darkness rapidly deepens.

“Mark, this sounds pretty hopeless. You’re really being Douglas Downer here.”

My experience is that sometimes you have to be shocked enough to see the spiritual reality around you. And while I see some progress here in American Christianity, I see a lot of people who are still focused on their fears of violent, outside attacks on the USA, the work of the Dragon. But all the while the effects of the Serpent on them and the rest of the country progressively weaken millions from within.

Most students of history have seen that the decline and fall of great empires mostly happens from within, not without. And the same can be said of great people or people who had great possibilities. “It was not an enemy that had done this. But it was you, my familiar friend. The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart. His words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords.” (Psalm 55:21)

So it is with the workings of the Serpent, “the father of lies” (John 8:44). What’s the solution? Pray sincerely and desperately. Baptize yourself with God’s Word. Obey God’s Word first and foremost. Paul said to “put on the whole armor of God” (Ephesians 6:11). But the only offensive weapon he listed was “the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God.” (Ephesians 6:17)

When Satan mightily came against Jesus in a prolonged temptation, Jesus didn’t quote Socrates, He didn’t pull out His pistol. He just quoted the Word of God to Satan. And after doing that a few times, “the devil departed from Him and angels came and ministered to Him.” (Matt. 4:11) Even Jesus Christ Himself knew the power of the written Word of God in battling and defeating the Devil.

How many know how to do that today? How many even know that the Serpent has beguiled them and rendered them useless and a reproach to Christ? ISIS didn’t do that. The government didn’t do that. Our foreign enemies didn’t do that. But millions of Christians struggle with the Serpent while they’re fixated on some distant Dragon. May God, and the dear Lord Jesus, have mercy on us all.

“God is not the author of confusion.”

Posted on June 23, 2015 by Mark McMillion

Umm, I’m a little bit mad. Truth is important to me, I believe there is truth. It’s not always clear and there can be subtleties and all that. But fundamentally some things are true and some are not. Jesus said, “Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice“. (John 18:37) He said that He was the truth.(John 14:6) He said the Holy Spirit is “the spirit of Truth”. (John 16:13) If you’re a Christian (or perhaps just a believer in the God of Abraham), then truth really should be important to you.

Emmanuel Church; Charleston, South Carolina

Here’s why this has come up for me. At the moment, one of the main things in the news is the murder of 9 African-Americans in a historic church in Charleston, South Carolina. But in the last few days, numerous web sites and articles are popping up to tell us “it ain’t necessarily so.” “Those murders didn’t happen at all. It was all staged by sinister forces. Actors were used!” This was also said in the same way at the time of the murder of the 20 children and 6 adults in Connecticut in 2012.

The Bible says, “God is not the author of confusion.” (I Corinthians 14:33)

One thing I believe about this: either those murders happened or they didn’t. If the main stream media is being used to deceive the multitudes and the hoax-callers are right, then I firmly believe that some grass roots reporter for a local newspaper or TV station could be able to sift out the evidence on this pretty easy.

Folks, truth is not that hard to find out. Nine people were killed a few days ago. You say that didn’t happen? Someone go interview the relatives. Go to the morgue. This truly isn’t rocket science. Will the caskets be open at the funerals? Come on!

It just gets my goat that someone is really telling us a whopper. And sadly very many Americans are likely to be affected by this. Very many now feel that the main stream media has zero credibility. They say they don’t believe anything they see on the main media outlets anymore. I’m certainly not unsympathetic to some of those views. So much is just tripe and hogwash, “brought to you by” unscrupulous mega-powerful folks with agendas that are not for the best of society.

But then, what are you going to do? Are you going to believe the plethora of websites that have sprung up offering you what they say as “really the truth”? And you think those sites are going to tell you the truth? They don’t have an agenda? My experience with many of those sites is that they’re actually usually worse than the main stream media that they’re supposed to be the alternative to.

Do you know how easy it is to set up a web site and then suddenly become some acclaimed pundit? All you need is Microsoft Word, maybe a little Photoshop experience, the basics of a WordPress web site and… presto! You are an international commentator! And if you’re sensational enough, you’re articles will go viral and you’ll really be making believers of people, no matter how loony and “out there” your ideas are.

May God truly help us all. The Bible says, “Be not carried about with every wind of doctrine.” (Ephesians 4:14) How very much so many people here are exactly in that condition. They don’t know what to believe. “There was a mass murder!” “No, there wasn’t! It was all staged!” “There is a crisis!” “No, there’s not! It’s just a fiction made up by the folks on the other side!” Like the Bible says of the days of old, “Truth is perished.” (Jeremiah 7:28)

It’s heart breaking. It’s infuriating. “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalms 11:3) But when we don’t even know what the truth is anymore, we don’t know who, if anyone, we can believe, then we are ripe for the picking of the Grim Reaper, in whatever fashion he may come.

Our local newspaper here has what they call a “truth-o-meter”. It seems to be something nationally syndicated and it investigates what’s being said by noted figures, usually politicians. The worst rating is “pants on fire”, just something that is utterly false, like the saying, “Liar, liar, pants on fire.” But then they do find some things to be true. Certainly we don’t have to be thrown into confusion by a question of whether or not this recent mass murder in South Carolina actually happened.

For me, I’ve come to find that just because the main stream media say something, I can’t just utterly discount that. And when some two-bit, fly-by-night website tells me some alarmist, extremist “news”, I certainly should take that with a huge grain of salt, if at all. I sure hope other people are doing the same. Actually a lot of times we should be calling a solid “BS” on some of these extremist sites that are just disseminating alarmist, often racist or some other hate-filled screed. May it not be said of us, as it was said of Israel of old, “My people love to have it so” (Jeremiah 5:31), when falsehood and deceit were loved and they ruled so rampantly that Israel back then was ultimately destroyed for her sins.

And just to be clear, I’m certainly not saying the main stream media is always right. At times some “voice in the wilderness” tells us the truth that others won’t. Like with Watergate, the Pentagon Papers or Edward Snowden. Or John the Baptist.

Demand truth. Resist confusion. Get to the bottom of the thing. Don’t be “carried about with every wind of doctrine” (Eph. 4:14) but “speak the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15) . Don’t let these false websites play to your prejudices, your fears and hatreds. When we lose our love for, and recognition of the truth, there really isn’t much left before our final surrender and defeat, as an individual or a nation.

“Truth be known”

Posted on April 18, 2015 by Mark McMillion

Most of you who read these posts are native English speakers. But I’m aware that there’s a minority who are not. Having lived for years in foreign countries, I’ve come to where I can speak a simplified English and can at times look into phrases that native English speakers take for granted. One example could be when we say, “Truth be known…” and then go on to reveal something that might not otherwise be said.

Truth be known. That’s really the way things should be, isn’t it? Truth should be known. But is it always? I may have written how that, in my youth, I really wasn’t looking for God since I’d concluded that there was no such thing. “God, Jesus, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny”, that’s what I always said, with a grin and gusto. “Little did I know.” There’s another good phrase but I’ll stick with “truth be known” for now. But although I wasn’t looking for God, I really was looking for the truth.

Truth has virtually always occupied a major significance on my “operating system”, if you know what I mean. But I’ve also come to realize, often by sad and dramatic experience, that truth is not that big a thing for some people.

King David said to God, “Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts…”. (Psalm 51:6) Or as Jesus said, “That on the good ground are they that in an honest and good heart, having heard the Word, keep it…”. (Luke 8:15)

Honesty. Truth. These are the attributes of the Godly, regardless of nation, culture or creed. We’re all tempted to lies and dishonesty; I certainly tried that for a while. But my conscience was screaming at me and struggling for supremacy in my soul.

Sadly and shockingly, I’ve met ones who’ve even seemed to come to the Lord and been taught by me who I found later were not really “dealing with a straight deck”, as they say in poker. They were not honest. And to my chagrin, some of these people played me for a fool and I didn’t catch on for a while.

Was I naive? Too trusting? Too unwilling to see what was going on? Probably so to some degree. But the people I’m thinking of are ones who evidently, I found later, had a history of that kind of behavior and were virtually compulsive liars. Pretty sad, no?

“So Mark, why didn’t you catch that sooner? Why didn’t you see right through them immediately, if you really have a link with the Lord?”

I wondered about that. Well, for one, I think the Lord may have even been pulling a fast one on the folks who thought they were pulling a fast one on me. All the while, “Christ was preached”. Like Paul said about some folks who were preaching the gospel but with contention and not sincerely, “nevertheless, Christ is preached.” (Philippians 1:18) In this case, these were people were coming as His sheep but they were not “without guile”. (John 1:47) But all the while I was sharing the Word of God with them and dealing with them honestly.

What do you do in situations like that? You could get mad at them for their dishonesty and evidently trying to trick you. You could get mad at yourself for being somewhat deceived and made a fool of. I’ve definitely felt that in some cases.

But it does help to have a deeper, higher view of it all. In the times this happened to me (it hasn’t been often), it’s been where I was honest and up front with these people, sharing my faith with them and in some situations trying to strengthen and establish in the faith some who were posing as Christians.

Were they Christians? Deep question. If you feel that folks have to be perfect in spirit to receive the Lord and become a Christian, you might say no. I do know that they all received a strong witness. They said they were Christians. I was sharing the Word with them, praying with them and in some situations having classes with them. It’s good to remember that obscure verse, “God’s Word does not return void. It accomplishes His purpose.” (Isiah 55:11)

Everyone will be accountable for the truth they’ve been shown and seen. It seems like some folks would almost rather hold on to their abilities (if we can call it that) to trick and deceive people. On the other hand, many who’ve dabbled in deep dishonesty and deception have thrown off that temptation when confronted with the pure truth and light of the love of God and His Word.

But for us who know Him, it’s good to remember that “Truth” is right up there with “Love”, when we’re talking about the things of God. Many of us know that “God is love.” (I John 4:8) But equally, Jesus said “I am … the truth..” (John 14:6) “Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” (John 18:37) We should extol, strive for and exalt truth in the same way and as much as we do love. Or so it seems to me.

Mark McMillion

Creeds and Deeds, Facts and Acts

Category Archives: Insights and personal views