Over the last 4 years I have been a part of the leadership team at NewSpring Church. It has been a great privilege to be a part of the work God is doing in His church here. It has also been a privilege to move into ministry and get a first hand look at the life of one called into such labor. I love it and pray that God will allow me to do what I do until the day I die.

My first visit to NewSpring was a result of hearing the pastor of the church I was attending say something derogatory about this “church in town”. Being one who was full of pride (I didn’t really know this at the time, but in hindsight I do now) based on knowing all about God and the bible, I felt it my duty to evaluate the place and then heap my own, well informed, condemnation on this “church in town”. I mean, it was my responsibility to protect God’s good name, so it was something I had to do.

Needless to say, that first visit didn’t leave me with chest stuck out and my nose in the air… God used that first visit to break my heart with His truth and instead I found my head in my hands and tears flowing from my eyes. That was the first time I had ever seen Perry Noble or heard him teach. I went into the church looking for any out of line syllable and was met with the force of Truth - the whole Truth - taught in a practical way.

Fast forward five years and here I sit not as one who has seen or heard Perry preach a couple of times but as one who literally lives life with the guy. He first became my pastor, then my friend, then the one who asked me leap into ministry full time and be a part of what God was doing at NewSpring.

Over the last few years I have seen Perry verbally attacked in just about every way imaginable. Today if his name or NewSpring’s appears in a blog post, newspaper article, tv news story, radio talk show or even a casual conversation… everyone has an opinion… some of them very negative… some even go beyond questioning the ministry and actually question the man… his motives and his methods… some even dig into his personal life… I have yet to see one of these negative comments come from someone who actually knows Perry.

I know him. I have been with Perry when things are great and when things are really bad. I have seen him preach in front of thousands and I have seen him lying on a gurney very close to death. I have helped him plan amazing church services and I have talked with him about a staff person who’s hurting. I have laughed with him over the silliest things and I have wept with him over the most important things. I have seen him battle demons and I have watched him hold his daughter like nothing else matters in the world. I have argued with him and I have held his hand in prayer. I have seen the inside of his bible (which is cluttered from so much time spent in it) and I have seen his heart broken over idle words said or printed that are lies about him. I have been with him as he patiently talks to people who approach him at the most inappropriate times and I have heard his vision and passion for people to know Jesus when it was just the two of us. I have watched him give away his time and resources to all sorts of people (including church planters) and I have felt his hurt when those same people take advantage of his kindness.

I could go on and on… but the bottom line is… I know him… do you?

There seem to be too many people who claim to know Jesus that want to spend most of their time in the seat of scoffers. And my primary concern for those who sit in the scoffers seat and cast hate toward this man I know… is that I’m afraid that they are just proving that they don’t know Him. Oh, just to be clear… I don’t mean that the scoffers don’t know Perry… I’m afraid they don’t know Jesus. My fear is that their hate toward a man they don’t know is just evidence that they don’t know a Man they can know.

I Corinthians 8:1-2
But while knowledge makes us feel important, it is love that strengthens the church. Anyone who claims to know all the answers doesn’t really know very much. But the person who loves God is the one whom God recognizes.

I John 2:9-11
Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.

So, I pray that the haters out there will remove their focus from the person they don’t know and probably never will and begin to focus on the One who they can know. Then we all can rejoice together and marvel at what God is doing in the lives of those who need Him.

I am a 40 year old man who met his wife when he was 15 and married her at 21. I have never really been single and would never claim to be an expert on the subject. However, that did not stop me from going on a rant about singles via twitter a few days ago. Perry actually copied and pasted the rant into a post on his blog, you can see them all here.

I have received many questions in regards to the phrase, “lead her away from the curse”. What does that mean? What curse? The following is an attempt to explain the wisdom that a friend shared with me:

Genesis 3:16
To the woman he said,
“I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;
with pain you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”

This whole verse is the curse. The specific part to which I’m referring is the second part, “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” Shouldn’t a woman desire her husband? On the surface that seems appropriate and good. The only problem with that is that God is calling it a curse. So, this desire is something different from a holy desire that a woman should have for her husband… instead, it’s a manipulative, controlling and insecure desire to possess a man and either make him her slave (to worship her) or her idol (for her to worship). So a guy who allows a relationship in which he is the primary desire of the woman has not “led her away from the curse”.

A guy will be naturally be drawn to the outworking of this curse… I mean any guy will love the “he will rule over you” part. But, the man’s responsibility in a relationship should be to point the woman to Jesus… not himself and if he isn’t careful he will place himself in the position in which only Jesus belongs. If that happens, then a woman will be drawn further into the ills of that curse and that plays right into the very thing that appeals to a man. He can get what he wants. Because a woman who wants to own a man and makes him her primary desire will fall under his rule and then do whatever it takes to keep him… potentially to the extreme of giving up her body.

To complicate matters (as if a curse from God isn’t enough) most guys battle low self esteem and high levels of insecurity. So a guy who isn’t conscientious about leading a lady away from the curse will easily start to seek power over her. What I have seen is that a man who flirts with any girl that catches his eye isn’t really seeking affection as much as he is seeking power. This is to combat what he lacks in his view of himself. Even a guy with good intentions will be drawn into the curse and actually start to enable it because the lure of power is strong. That is multiplied when that lure is on the lips of a girl who, because of the curse, will make him her ultimate desire.

Practically, for a guy this would mean he needs to measure every word and he needs to be bluntly honest all the time. He must expect that a lady is a victim of the curse and know he can make it worse… or better. A guy can be a stumbling block by simply being passive and allowing the lady to do what she will do naturally, place her desire for the man above her desire for Jesus. Even on a date, a man should be measuring his every word to make sure he’s not placing himself in Jesus’ place and thereby leading the lady toward the curse instead of away from it. Because, if he views himself as desirable to the lady he may not place forth the effort necessary to serve her and conversely, if he has too low of a view of himself, he will say and do things to sweep a girl off her feet. Either way he ends up leading them both further into the curse and misses out on an opportunity to actually get to know who she really is by focusing on her character.

There you have it… I hope this helps.

Intercede - to intervene between parties with a view to reconciling differences : mediate

Lee McDerment recently asked me a question that I had never been asked before. The question was phrased something like this, “what is your take is on intercession and how does that affect your prayer life?” What followed was a great discussion on the subject that challenged us both in how we pray for other people. Not just how often we pray for others but literally how we pray for them… the words we use and the action we may need to take as a result of our prayers.

Two verses come to mind in regards to intercession:

Romans 8:25-27
But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.

Hebrews 7:25
Therefore he (Jesus) is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.

Here we have examples set for us by the two most important people in our daily lives. Jesus and the Holy Spirit. One who we follow and the other is who equips us to do so. They intercede… all the time… and if we are being conformed into the image of God’s son then so should our prayer lives.

What can we glean from these verses? First, in some way intercession is about praying something for someone that they don’t even know that they themselves need to pray for. This verse tells us that even as we pray for ourselves that the Holy Spirit steps in and offers to God what he really knows we need. The second is that Jesus’ current existence in someway includes a continual interceding for me to complete the salvation process that started before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:3-8). He started the process by taking action. He left heaven to come to earth and do what he did to buy my salvation for me because I had no way to get it for myself. He was and still is an active participator in the very thing he is praying for me. WOW!

So, if I’m tracking in the right direction… my prayer life should consist of very regular prayer for other people that is focused on things they don’t know they need and I should ask God what role I need to play in making those prayers a reality in that persons life.

If this is true then the idea of asking God to “bless” someone and then just watching to see what happens in their life isn’t good enough. Its passive and weak prayer, which doesn’t seem to be the example set for me. If this is true and the example is that both the Holy Spirit and Jesus are in this state of prayer continuously then a journal full of self focused prayers may be a journal of pride instead of prayer. (I’m not saying that we don’t ever ask and beg God on our own behalf, but if we have a pattern of prayer where intercession is not present, I’m afraid we’re missing out on the real power of prayer and the blessing of “loving others before ourselves”.)

Romans 1:8-12
First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you— that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine.

Paul, too, seems to follow this idea of prayer. In this letter he is telling them that he is praying and he wants to get to them to “impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you”. There is something beyond just a prayer that Paul wants to offer these people. He wants to do something for them that they can’t do for themselves. He wants to get involved, literally, in God’s answer to their needs.

The challenge for me is to take a look at where I am in regards to following Jesus in my prayer life. I keep a daily prayer journal so I can look back and see where I am. In addition to praying I need to take action in the lives of others to participate - in whatever way God directs me - in seeing those prayers answered. For some reason I just believe that if I can take my focus off myself and place it upon others and then do something to participate in what God wants to do in their life then I’ll be more like Jesus. That is the example he set… and is still setting.

If I am on the right track in regards to this idea of intercession and I pursue it by putting others needs before my own, then wouldn’t I necessarily become more like Jesus? And if I become more like Jesus and I start praying for and participating in the answer to other peoples prayers, I believe that I’ll be growing closer to the heart of the Father and I bet I’ll start to see the changes or blessings or growth or provision in my own life happen… The ones I used to spend all my time praying for.