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THE INFRASTRUCTURE OF WINNING A WAR WITH WORDS
QUICKENED SIGN: Honoring ordinary people who
do extraordinary things.
QUICKENED MOVIE: Today we went to the movie,
Amazing Grace. I heard the Word of the Lord through
William Wilberforce’s
life. He felt called by God and didn’t know how to
resolve that and his desire for parliament. As it
worked out He served God in parliament. Near the
beginning of the movie I heard the Lord say "A war with
words" and then watched as William spent the passion of
his youth and health in unrelenting,
persevering conviction to
work on the mindsets of his peers through his
words. From one man against all, he finally turned
abolition of slavery to the popular vote and ended the
slave trade in Great Britain.
I felt a deep undercurrent of God's heartbeat in the
fact that He is using His servants to win a war with
Words. Instead of directly battling principalities and
demons, they are sent to destroy strongholds built
through mindsets. As for me, He is doing it all with
the whisp of a feather pen. Wayne once saw me on a
white horse and my weapon was a huge white feathered pen
that touched the ground and swept up over my shoulder.
(smile) Only God can do such a thing with a feather! I
have long believed that it is much easier to cast out
demons than to touch the mindsets of free willed men.
He once showed me a huge warehouse with a slot on the
top. It was like a piggy bank that I would be filling
with His Words. I scribed His first Word and dropped it
in the slot and then watched the tiny piece of paper
float down exactly like a feather, onto the floor of
this huge concrete box that was about 3 stories tall.
After that time, He gave me the analogy of “A penny for
your thoughts” and has spent me one penny at a time as I
deposit His Words into that giant bank. It was
interesting to me that at the end of the movie one of
the members of parliament stood to his feet to honor
William, who had spent so much to win the minds and
votes of those whose wealth depended upon the slave
trade. He said something to the fact that Napoleon was
a great man who won a great war, but when it was all
over he had the haunting memories of dead men. But
William, a common man won his war through peace and
returned home to sleep in peace. The Holy Spirit
immediately brought back the quickened poster I read
before I went into the movie: ”Honoring ordinary people
who do extraordinary things.” And thus, the power of
spending one Word at a time, daring to topple
strongholds while trusting God to empower mere pennies
and feathers.
2 Cor 10:3-6 NKJV
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war
according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare
are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down
strongholds , casting down arguments and every high
thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God,
bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience
of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience
when your obedience is fulfilled.
THE INVESTMENT OF AN INFRASTRUCTURE
I was touched by the fact that in the movie, William was
a student of John Newton who had been a slave trader and
then came to the Lord in repentance. John was the one
who wrote the song, Amazing Grace. It was John’s
influence that seeded and fueled William’s passion. As
I thought of the power of mentoring, to pour one’s life
into another, I saw the power of what it means to be a
bridge...the infrastructure that moves people to
commitment.
When Wayne and I were still young and I went back to
college to finish my degree, I did my thesis and
research on opening a store in a local mall. After all
the facts were gathered, we chose not to open a store in
the brand new mall that was being built at the time. We
realized that the first business of its kind is the one
who spends most of their money to change the mindsets of
the people, and actually build the infrastructure. If
they have a new product or new idea, they have to
convince the public of its benefit. After that business
has spent everything on its dream, it is actually the
second business that comes in with the identical product
that becomes the success. It reaps all the previous
advertising that went into convincing the public of its
need. This truth has been played out in many arenas of
life.
We saw this on a practical level where the mall contract
required the businesses to finish the inside of their
store. When you walked into the spaces for lease, they
were actually bare infrastructure without walls,
fixtures or anything. It was a minimum of a $25,000
before even starting that had to be freely left behind
for the next store in line. Back then, that was a lot
of money.
Today as I was thinking about the slave trader who
repented and told his story to young William, I saw him
as a parable of today’s bridge.... A generation that
takes the time to mentor and invest in our kids. There
is so much life spent in building an infrastructure, and
once built it is rarely seen or its details understood.
But what remains is the passion to move the harvest of
what was invested of time, energy and commitment to the
finish line. Our harvest and our inheritance IS our
children. And that is why God said that infrastructures
of those who planted in our lives could not become
perfect without us.
So the slave trader repented and told his story to one
who listened. And the one who listened took a torch and
changed nations.
Heb 11:40 AMP
Because God had us in mind and had something better
and greater in view for us, so that they [these heroes
and heroines of faith] should not come to perfection
apart from us [before we could join them].
QUICKENED AD: When we walked out of the movie
and down this same mall, we stopped at the food court to
get a bite to eat. My eye glanced at an advertisement:
“Purchasing millions with just pennies.” I looked away
and smiled, thinking of “one sent” (cent) and the simple
power of spending a penny, one Word at a time. Yes
there are many ways to win a war, but it is the God of
peace that crushes the enemy under foot. And He does so
with a war of Words.
Ps 33:6-9 NKJV
By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and
all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. He
gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap;
He lays up the deep in storehouses. Let all the
earth fear the LORD; Let all the inhabitants of the
world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke, and it was
done;
He commanded, and it stood fast.
Rev 12:10-11 m NKJV
Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, "Now
salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and
the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of
our brethren, who accused them before our God day and
night, has been cast down. And they overcame him by the
blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony ,
and they did not love their lives to the death.
Luke 21:14-16 NKJV
Therefore settle it in your hearts not to meditate
beforehand on what you will answer; for I will give you
a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not
be able to contradict or resist. |
