“That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, would give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know…” Ephesians 1:17-18

Seeing with the eyes of your understanding is like having night vision. You can see what cannot normally be seen and few there be that do see it. Night vision gives you a huge advantage when things are dark. For what it’s worth, I believe in many ways we are approaching the midnight hour. There is much darkness all around, but God has given you night vision. He has given you a second set of eyes to see into the spiritual realm. To help you see correctly, Paul prayed that God would give unto us the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ.

This morning I saw joy with the eyes of my understanding, the eyes of my imagination. I saw a future joy that is set before me for accomplishment that is still off in the future. And today, I began to pull that future joy into the present. Just like Isaiah told the barren woman to do. He said, “Sing, O barren, you that did not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, you that did not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, says the LORD.” He is telling the barren woman to rejoice. How much sense does that make?

Lots if you’re seeing with the eyes of your understanding, the eyes of your imagination, the eyes that see what can be, what should be, what in fact will be if you reach out in faith and pull the future into the present. The barren woman was told to rejoice as though she had more children than the married wife. Experience the thrill, the joy, the explosion of sheer happiness now as if it were manifest now. Start rejoicing in your deliverance now. Start rejoicing in your breakthrough now. Don’t put off the rejoicing unless you also would like to delay or slow down or put off the breakthrough.

When you begin to practice seeing with your night vision goggles, (the eyes of your understanding, the eyes of your imagination illuminated by His Spirit), it’s a whole new day. A whole nuther world! A whole new realm of possibilities. Your natural eyes which you depend so heavily on are extremely limited. Think about it! They can only see what is in proximity to your body. But the eyes of your understanding can see souls getting saved in China, nations being transformed in Central America, people groups coming to Christ by the thousands all over the world. All without leaving your living room.

Those eyes can see solutions to problems challenging you now. They can see provision where others only see lack. They can see open doors where others only see closed doors. They can see favor when others can only imagine rejection. Start using your spiritual eyes to see what God sees. Exercise the eyes of your understanding. Pray Ephesians 1:17-23 daily. I wish I could be with you all right now. I have so much to say and so little space to say it. Thank you for bearing with me as I struggle to put on paper what I see with my night vision. Blessings on you all.

“That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, would give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know…” Ephesians 1:17-18

The word “understanding” is the Greek word, “dianoia”. It is the same word translated as “mind” or “imagination” in other Scriptures. When Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind“, the Greek word used for “mind” was “dianoia”. Hebrews 8:10 says, “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts:” Again, this is “dianoia”, the emotionally oriented, right side of the brain that “sees”.

Then there is the logic oriented, left side of the brain that reasons and rationalizes, considers and reckons, hypothesizes and conjectures. Mary, the mother of Jesus responded that way when Gabriel appeared to her and told her, she (a virgin) would conceive a son who would be the Messiah. Luke 1:29 says “she was troubled at his saying, and considered in her mind what manner of greeting this should be.” The word used for “mind” here is “dialogizomai”. It’s where we get the word “logic” from.  What Gabriel told her troubled her logic. It went contrary to reasoning.

OK. Sorry for the Greek lesson as scant as it was. I want you to understand that God uses the eyes of your understanding, the eyes of your imagination to communicate spiritual “rhema” truth to you. The written word, the logos, is the basis of logic, but the living, fresh breathed word is the basis of revelation. We need both. The logos keeps us from error and the rhema reveals the fullness of the logos and puts it in the now.

The eyes of your understanding, when enlightened are like spiritual radar. They allow you to see what you otherwise would not. When I get up long before daybreak and seek the Lord, I cannot see much outside my window. I need light to see the trees, the birds, the lake across the street, etc. Well God has given you a second set of eyes that are just as capable of seeing as your physical eyes. Like your natural eyes, they need enlightenment to see correctly.

What is the source of that light? The spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus Christ! Wisdom is a Spirit. Revelation is a Spirit. They are manifestations of Christ that reveal who He is. When you know Him, you begin to discover what He has in store for you, what He has given you to bring it about and the power available to manifest or to bring into the present, what is still in the future. Friends, open your spiritual eyes, the eyes of your understanding, the eyes of your imagination that has been enlightened by the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

You say… How do I do that? Well, how do you imagine anything? When you imagine what it will be like in the rainforest for instance, you see things with the eyes of your understanding or the eyes of your imagination or the right side of your brain if you will, that you have never seen with your natural eyes. Spend enough time imagining that and you will draw that experience into the present. But that is for another blog. Ask God to give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ so you can see, so you can begin to imagine some of the things He has prepared for you to walk in. I should stop now. I love you guys!

“That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, would give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know…” Ephesians 1:17-18

Our alarm was set for 5:50 AM this morning so we would be sure to have sufficient time to seek His face. It has never been more important than now to cultivate a hearing ear and a seeing eye that we may know what the Spirit is saying in the hour in which we live. We are also preparing to spend three days in the rainforest beginning Friday with a very special group of leaders from among the readers of this email. We are going to see and experience the ways of God in nature so we can represent them well in business. (God’s ways are transcendent.)

As happens so frequently, we were awake long before the alarm and at 4:50 this morning I was off to fix a triple cappuccino for my wife and I. God had given us a bonus hour and I wanted to be fully awake, not missing anything. As I stood in front of our sliding glass doors looking out to the woods behind our home, I wondered why I was doing that. There was no star light. No moonlight. It was overcast. It was pitch black. I couldn’t see anything… with my natural eyes.

But God has given us all two sets of eyes. Yes, we have four eyes. We are well trained in seeing with our physical eyes but few of us recognize or even know that we have a second set of eyes. This is not a metaphor. It is a fact. Paul even prays, as should we, that the eyes of our understanding would be enlightened. What is he talking about? Is this some form of fiction?

Certainly not. What I saw in the Spirit this morning was more than my cup could hold. It was absolutely overflowing. In the coming days, I will do my best to pass on portions of it and pray that your eyes would be enlightened to see what I saw. For now I want you to understand one thing… “The eyes of your understanding” can well be translated, “the eyes of your imagination”. Close your eyes and see… See yourself walking in health. Use your second set of eyes to see what can be, what could be, what should be, what in fact is there for you, waiting in the wings for you to see and to summons to the present moment. I will expand on this tomorrow. Start seeing now.

My dear friends… We just received this unsolicited email from Wichita, KS. With the economic climate being what it is, I am taking the unprecedented step of giving up my commentary to share a very powerful and inspiring testimony. Take a minute now to read this carefully. It just might save the day for you! Here it is…

Good Morning Michael,

Tim here in Kansas! I thought I would share with you what I have been doing for the last 30+ days and how blessed I am to have done so!

I decided to carry with me everyday, “The Bible Incorporated” so that I could redeem 3 minutes here and 5 minutes there throughout the day with quick, concise Bible scripture thoughts. Early in January as I was reading chapter 9, “The Key of Strength”, I was so overcome by the joyful and comforting presence of God that I could hardly get myself pulled back together to get the rest of my sales appointments completed for the day. To think and to continually meditate on the fact that, “The Lord is my strength! Who/What is there to be afraid of?”

I am just as susceptible to the rampant fear of financial insecurity that is plaguing our country right now as anyone else. Even if I get myself into a right mind and right attitude, I still have to deal with my prospects and customers and their fears and their attitudes, (what a ministry that is becoming!) While I was giving thanks to the Lord for just this one chapter and what it meant to me to know HIM as my STRENGTH and my REDEEMER… the inspired, (I believe), thought came to me… Chapter 9 for 2009!!!

So, “Chapter 9, The Bible Incorporated” is the first thing I read every morning! It is the first declaration that I make in my daily prayer closet…” Lord, YOU are my STRENGTH! YOU are my SAVING STRENGTH! I seek you out this morning to be my SAVING STRENGTH! Make my way perfect with YOUR POWER and STRENGTH! I am going from STRENGTH to STRENGTH this year! I have no confidence in my flesh or the flesh of this world. I am of the circumcision that worships God in the Spirit! I am made perfect in weakness. YOUR grace is sufficient for me! I am strong and courageous! I fear not for YOU are with me! YOUR Rod and Staff lead me, guide me, and protect me! YOU will not forsake me! YOU will strengthen me! YOU will help me! Yes, YOU will uphold me with YOUR right hand! YOU increase me! My clean hands receive POWER to get wealth today to establish YOUR covenant forever!”

Man!!! You can’t help but have a good day when you start it like that!!! By the way, I set an all time production and margin record for my BANK in January! Yes, I said my employer is a BANK! While most other banks are truly suffering right now… My God is blessing me with RECORD sales and RECORD profit for my BANK! And February has started just as strong as January did! To GOD be all the GLORY!!!

“Chapter 9 in 2009″! Maybe the rest of your subscribers will be as blessed as I am by making this same commitment! I have already dog-eared my leather bound copy of “The Bible Incorporated, In Your Life, Job, and Business”. It’s over 10 years old now and I’ve read from nearly every week and now daily! Do you still have the leather bounds? Maybe you can make us all a deal? I’ll buy another one!

Note: Well friends, we don’t have them in leather any more, but I decided to make them available at a 30% discount even for individual copies. Up to 70% discount for case quantities. We definitely have a limited supply. First come, first serve. Click here to order.

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” (John 16:12)

I have been speaking lately about things God wants to show us: things about our lives, our future, our nation, and His kingdom as it touches every sphere. There is much He wants to share with us, but we do not have ears to hear. We cannot bear the weight of those words simply because we are not exercised in lifting them and wielding what He has already spoken to us.

Think of the things He has already spoken to you that you have not taken up and acted responsibly with. Consider what Jesus said in Mark 4:24-25 “Be careful what you are hearing. The measure of thought and study you give [to the truth you hear] will be the measure [of virtue and knowledge] that comes back to you–and more [besides] will be given to you who hear.  For to him who has will more be given; and from him who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away [by force].” (Amplified version)

When God speaks a truth to you whether it be from Scripture or just softly spoken to your heart, how much thought do you give it? How much do you study and meditate and roll over in your mind what He spoke? Do you really think you got the full import of His message to you in the time it took to hear it? Do you believe you fully understood the full implication of His wisdom in just a brief acknowledgement that He spoke something to you?

He speaks for a reason. Give careful consideration to what He says. Use your life as a laboratory to study what He said. How do you do that? By acting on what He said. It often requires faith, but it always requires obedience. And what is the fruit or reward? Virtue and more knowledge. But if you merely casually reference what the Lord is speaking to you or worse yet, ignore it, not only will you not get the virtue and knowledge He promises, but you will lose what you thought you knew.

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” (John 16:12)

Jesus tells His disciples they are not ready to bear many things He wants to tell them. His words have weight. They are heavy and they are not able to “carry” them. You cannot carry what you will not receive. So let’s take a look at Truth that you may not be receiving because until you accept and receive and begin to carry foundational Truth, how will you carry what is built upon it?

For example, when you sin, do you withdraw from God or run to Him? Most of us withdraw. We feel guilty and condemned and unworthy, blah, blah, blah. While we should not treat sin in a permissive way, neither should we be weighed down by it. When sin abounds, grace does much more abound. You will not exhaust the grace of God anymore than you will ever drain the ocean with a thimble. If you will not forgive yourself you are saying that your standards are some how higher than God’s. When you sin, repent and move on.

1 John 3:21 says that “if our heart condemns us not, then have we confidence toward God.” The opposite is also true that if our heart does condemn us, which happens so often when we fall short, then we lack confidence toward God. When we lack confidence toward God, we shy away. We avoid His presence just like Adam did in the garden. We might not be naked, but we feel naked. But God seeks us out. He clothes us with righteousness. He welcomes us into His presence.

The times we live in remind me of Habakkuk; as one reader pointed out on our blog, “justice is perverted.” Calamity stands at the door (Isn’t that what Barack Obama keeps telling us?) and God is saying to us what He said to Habakkuk… “Behold you among the nations, and regard, and wonder and be astonished: for I will work a work in your days, which you will not believe, though it be told you.” (Habakkuk 1:5) This is essentially what the Lord spoke to me some time ago when He asked me if I would believe Him if He told me what was coming.

We read in Habakkuk’s day, God was warning the wicked. He spoke specifically to those who increase what is not theirs. That is a reference to taking more and more of what does not belong to you. “Woe to him that loads himself up with promissory notes for usury.” Hmmm. Know of any institutions that have loaded themselves up with promissory notes for usury? Can you say sub-prime mortgage? Think it’s not usury? You don’t understand finance or God’s Word on the matter. So what does God say will happen?

“Will not your creditors rise up suddenly? Will they not awaken who oppress you? And you will become their booty.” This is actually happening on two levels. Personal home foreclosures are at an epic scale and about to increase dramatically. Secondly, now that we borrow money from China and they are becoming disenchanted with the strength of the almighty dollar, I wonder how they might extract leverage. But I digress.

The Lord has some mighty important things to say to this generation. Who will be like Habakkuk who said he would “stand upon his post of observation and station myself on the tower and watch to see what He will say within me…” I will stand on my post, but I beg you to stand on yours and watch and see what the Lord will say.

Important Note: You may have noticed some of our websites being down lately. It caught my attention too… (o-: We switched servers last week and things are not working right. For two days last week, none of our email got through and is lost for good, despite promises to the contrary.  If you wrote us and didn’t get a reply, that may be why. We are working through it all now and would appreciate your prayers on our behalf. Gratefully yours, Michael

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” (John 16:13-15)

How many things does God want to say to you, but you cannot bear them now? Think about that. About a year ago I was asking the Lord about things to come. I hear one stream in the body of Christ that are predicting great devastation upon America and/or other places in the world. On the other end of the spectrum, there is a chorus of voices proclaiming that things are just going to get better and better. Personal prosperity, peace and joy are ahead. In between those two are the majority of believers who don’t know what to think. Either scenario seems believable.

So I asked God about it. What He said caught me by surprise. He said, “Would you believe Me if I told you?” I know what the answer is supposed to be. So do you, but it revealed something about me I didn’t like and that was that I was not ready to bear, to carry, to receive the Truth. Believe me when I tell you that I sought Him diligently about this for some time. And the sense I got was that there was a door number three so to speak… an option I hadn’t considered. An option I knew next to nothing about. An option no doubt that I would find hard to believe, and therefore wouldn’t.

Instead of trying to figure out the answer, I am focusing on knowing the Father. The better I know Him, the easier it is to bear His words. There are things I could tell you in this email that you might easily misunderstand because you don’t know the place in me from where those words come. Knowing those private places in me allows you to understand not only the words I speak and the context, but more importantly the intents and motives of them. My wife is one who knows me this well. My words land with her in a way they land with no one else. She knows me like no one else.

So it is with God. When you know Him intimately well, there are things He can tell you that had He told you earlier in life, you could not bear them. Instead of trying to pry those words from His lips, simply pursue God. Know Him both in the fellowship of His suffering and in the heat of the battle. Know Him in the night season and in the dark season of your soul. As you do, you will find that He has many things He wanted to tell you all along but you could not bear, but now you can.

For the record I am beginning to see through door number three and yes, it is hard to believe my eyes. I would tell you but… well, we will just have to get to know each other better… (0-:   Actually I see as one who sees men as trees (Mark 8:24) which means I see enough to recognize moving objects but not enough to drive. More on this in the future.

Final Note: Last night I wrapped up part two of a teleseminar with our friends at Kingdom Business Journal. If you missed it, you can hear it by going here.