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In the beginning of January 2006, I received a mandate from the Lord to write what you are about to read in the following pages. Since the age of twenty two, I have been self employed in the Dallas/Ft. worth area. My business has allowed me to come in contact with thousands of people over the last two decades. During that time, I played in the Christian rock bands Thunderchild and Godfear. We played in clubs, on the streets, as well as in churches and just about anywhere we could. My ministry has always been called to the house (the church), with the aim of bridging the divide to the field, (the marketplace of life).

Not until the last few years did I realize that my calling was not as much ordained for a geographical location (an established church setting), as it was ordained to reach a people just like their spiritual father Abraham who was on the move in life, toward a promise from Father God, even though he didn’t fully realize what or where it was at the time. Thus, my voice is speaking to a people in transition.

Hebrews 11:8-10 declares, by faith, Abraham when he was called to go out into a place where he would receive for an inheritance, he obeyed; not knowing where it was he was going to. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. He looked for a city which had foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

Looking back on the past two decades, I’ve come to discern a continual mindset and symptom of shame that’s soaked into the Body of Christ. For the most part, I have sadly discovered that a far too large majority of believers don’t know who they are in Christ, nor understand what a powerful new creation they became at salvation. Many are in the church house, but an ever increasing number are staying at home, because when they went to the church house, they were wounded by religion and robbed of their individuality while burdens were laid upon their spiritual backs. Even so, deep down these folks really have a desire for the presence of God in their lives, but shame seems to always place them metaphorically a day late and a dollar short spiritually.

They’ve been robbed of the heartfelt confidence and assurance in believing; God’s promises are still available to their lives. Why? They’ve been told they’re backslidden just because they’re not a member of a local church that worships God the way others do. Despite affiliation, like Abraham, it is only by faith that our inheritance and destiny is obtained. For generations, believers have been heavily indoctrinated with the religion and traditions of man’s wisdom and ways. The Church, {the body of Christ}, has zeal, but not according to the knowledge of the Spirit of the Kingdom. Denominational walls encompass the spiritual lives of believers like the barbed wire and guards that circled the concentration camps of Treblinka or Auschwitz that persecuted and killed the Jews of WWII.

Obviously in America, bloodshed is not taking place in the streets between denominations with the physical violence and terror that Hitler exacted on the apple of God’s eye. I am not in any way trying to minimize or sensationalize the suffering of the Jews of that generation. In fact, I applaud their courage and dignity. They never forgot who they were or what their heritage was, even in the face of a murderous tyrant that sought to remove the memory of them from the Earth. In the natural realm, this was a horrible atrocity for them and the world to endure. But, in the spiritual realm, the same atrocity is being conducted just as violently, just as terribly, upon the souls of born again Christians all over the globe, leaving their inheritance unclaimed. We have a generation of people alive in the Earth that has no tangible reality of a risen Christ at work in their lives. They have no hands on working revelation or reality of His love, grace and righteousness flowing in their lives to empower them to walk in the son-ship they already possess on the inside.

Their asking, Is this all there is?

Is there nothing more to this life of being a Christian?

Where is God when I need Him?

Where is the power of God to live an overcoming life?

Why do they have these questions? The church’s leadership has predominately focused on behavior, the outer shell of flesh or (the dirt field) where God has placed the treasure of His spirit in. The focus of Christian living has been on the outside, the what to do of our faith rather than the who we are of our faith. Consequently, this superficial religion has created nothing more than spiritual taste testers who are influenced by flavor of the month clubs. Whatever is momentarily popular, whether it is a movement, revival or latest spiritual fad, gets more focused on rather than what is tried and true, the spiritually anchoring, power packed truth and righteousness of The Kingdom. My friend, that truth is discovered by focusing on the treasure inside our spirit. The church has been malnourished by eating doctrines of devils wrapped in the religious husks of conditional love theme messages and duty.

The people of God are destroyed for lack of knowledge and vision concerning the principles of The Kingdom and the truth concerning who they became as new creatures in Christ on the inside. If we do not allow the Holy Spirit to search our hearts and minds and allow Him to try our faith and foundation to see if it is built upon His firm foundation of righteousness, then we will languish in mediocrity and always look like the hypocrites the devil accuses us to be as long as we stay externally and temporally focused. We will agree and adopt the enemy’s vision of us because he will always remind us of who we are in the natural.

Because we won’t allow God to tear down in us our false foundations built upon the strength of our will and fleshly righteousness, the only thing we will be able to do, is console ourselves with those we identify with commonly, stroking each others self pity in our failures while perpetuating our destruction. This is the fellowship of religion. Temporarily, it numbs the pain of our pity and shame while loading burdens upon our backs as it deceives us. Consequently, it ultimately bruises and wounds the soul and spirit. It quenches whatever flame may be flickering because it’s a demonic spirit that seeks sameness. It does not seek to exalt the lowly and weak to empower prosperity above leadership.

It has the attitude of an Adolph Hitler that seeks to bring low an esteemed people in the sight of God while claiming to carry out His will. The heart of Jesus compassionately seeks to restore us to our inheritance in His Kingdom. He longs to open the eyes of our understanding and give us the keys to the Kingdom. He delights in truth and justice. He applauds our feeble walking in the direction of His voice, just as we applaud our babies who are learning their first steps. He never condemns our feeble walking!

He picks us up when we fall, kisses us when we hurt, laughs with joy when we succeed and rejoices in the pride of our accomplishments when we utilize His wisdom and power. After all, He has given Himself to us completely without any reservations. I pray this book ( THE BRUISED REED ) helps you walk in His direction as He calls to you. For those who are wounded and hurting, He really does care. He is in hot pursuit of you! It is your pain and mistaken perspective that’s preventing you from seeing the truth of it. For all of those in spiritual leadership within the organized church, I pray the mercy of God upon you if you are ignorantly wounding {the little lambs of His flock} through dead letter and religion. It would be better that you cease from speaking, in pontificating the wisdom of Job, that had heard of God with his ears, rather than ministering the life of a God that he (Job) finally realized with the seeing of his spiritual eyes. To continue in this bondage is to sow unto yourself corruption, to defile many and to continue to frustrate the grace of God to the body of Christ. To the hirelings, those who willfully continue to seek position and stature by setting themselves up as leaders for gain by speaking that which is inspired by their own hearts rather than by the Holy Spirit. Ezekiel 13: 22 is against you, if you will not repent.

Because with lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life: Therefore, ye shall see no more vanity, nor divine divinations: for I will deliver my people out of your hand: and ye shall know that I am the Lord.