Shall I go on a more personal note whioe I have a momment?   Haven’t posted in a while, I’ve gone from zero to 100, and am working some 60+ hours a week (you know, making tents ;)).   Still writing when I have time, and have some pertinent content I’ve been working on, so stick around.

Generally I’ve come to use the site for teaching & sharing revelation.  That’s really not to distance myself fro content I produce, its just because I’m an intensive Jesus freak, and its the content I’m really interested in.  I grasp that I’m too intense for most – even gung-ho Christians.  I sold myself to Christ years ago, and some time even after that the Lord asked me if I would die for my brother.  “Of course Lord, you know I have committed myself unto death – I am willing to die at any moment, for anyone should it be required for even the salvation of one sinner.”  But the Lord’s question persisted.  The Spirit seemed to ask the question again, more intensively, more piercingly.  I suppose like Peter was asked three times by the Lord if he loved Him, each time Peter must have had to search deeper within himself and assess within him whether he really did.  For me this question came only twice, but I realized there was a serious weight to the question, and I searched my heart to find if I really was willing to die for my brother.

Thankfully I believe I was able to Truthfully answer the Lord in the affirmative (though as Peter had learned by the time of his questioning, as frail men, we know not what we really have strength to do – even in ourselves – until we are put to the test).

I did not question the Lord why He asked me straitly on this matter, I had grown used to renewing my commitment daily, and affirming my devotion to God.  I did know that the matter was serious, and important.  I saw a bloody death in my mind’s eye.

I prayed, and had a word for my brother, which I shared with him in a written note.  He seemed very affected, and seemed to contemplate it a good while.

Some two or three months later he shot himself.

Ironically, when I set out to write this is not where I intended to go, but here: (and it relates if you can bear with me through that sad tale)

Romans 12:6 – ‘Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of our faith;’

Here is something I’ve learned (& the Lord often has to teach me things more than once – how gracious in His patience toward us!) – our gifts in proportion to our faith.  Do you have a spiritual gift?  What is it?  (if not, then earnestly covet the best gifts, God has plenty for you, you are no second class citizen.)

God has made me prophesy things that are beyond my faith to bear.  The prophetic movement has grown in Pentecostal spheres of the church, and many enjoy the blessings of encouraging one another with it – in sharing words of knowledge, or ecstatic visions had in worship.  Bless God for every good thing.  But your gift is not a toy.

We live in a world that is real.  People die.  The devil plays for keeps, and he wojld have every righteous saint tormented beyond imagining for all of eternity if he could.  well… sorry for getting so heavy, guess its the prophetic thing again.

God has made me proohesy beyond what I have faith for.  I’m not talking about making stuff up, or being contrary, but seeing reality, and the will of God and finding that it looks completely different than my notions of it all.  Then finding out that the thing revealed is compketely contrary to the thinking of everyone you know as well.  Then learning what it actually means to be persecuted – you know, not just in the zealous, starry-eyed seminary graduate perspective – but really being rejected and ignored by those closest to your heart, and so lonely and wounded that the worst torment comes from yourself.

There’s a burden to it all.  A cross, and its real.  Like everything in the Gospel, its real.

But you know where most of that self-torment comes from?  From not letting your faith grow with your gift.  Stuff is real – you live in a real world, and God wants to stretch you, and build you.  He wants to make you more effective than you are now.  We need to cooperate, or we will destroy ourselves.

Having gifts differing… let us _______ (fill the blank) ACCORDING TO THE PROPORTION OF OUR FAITH.

Really, this verse means a whole lot, and lots more than the track I’m running with, but I’m sharing a revelation with you.  Our gifts are blessings when we have faith to use, and increase in them; if our FAITH is not growing proportianately with our gift, the even our own spiritual gifts will be too much for us, and tear us apart – yes, our wineskins will burst.

Is God stretching you in a gifting?  Do you think what He is doing in you is beyond you  and that you are too small for it?  Get faith for it!  God is not stretching you to destroy you, He is stretching you to build you, to complete you!

Get faith for whatever God is doing in your life – ESPECIALLY if its beyond you.