The Greatest Show on Earth

Arise and Shine for the Glory of the Lord has risen among you!  Isaiah 60:1

It's been a while since I've written a blog and I am feeling the nudging of Holy Spirit to begin stirring up that gift inside.  I'm in a new season.  I'm in a fresh season.  The way I heard from Holy Spirit before is different.  I used to remember my dreams.  My sleep patterns have changed a bit and so when I wake up, it's to a dog licking my face abruptly out of my sleep.  I used to have time to ponder and reflect as I slowly woke up from that dream.  So it's not that I'm not dreaming, I'm not retaining memory of the dream.  As I asked the Lord about that, He said, "It's a different season.  It's fresh manna." 

So we have to constantly be receiving from the Lord in fresh ways, unfamiliar ways in each new season.  In this season, I get visions regularly or impressions or pictures.  Then, the Lord will add a deeper understanding of what I'm seeing it and why. 

Yesterday at intercessory prayer, I was tired.  I wasn't 'feeling' it.  I was there, but I wasn't on the same page as the other intercessors.  The majority was ready to war and dance and battle in the spirit for breakthrough.  I just wanted to soak in God's presence and take a nap and hope for a download from heaven.

Pastor Matt was drumming on the drums and others were praying and exposing things being revealed  by Holy Spirit.  I started seeing a three ring circus.

As everyone was decreeing and binding, I was seeing a vision of a Three-Ring Circus.  I asked the Lord, "What does this mean?"  I felt like He said that the church as it is now has become a Three Ringed Circus.  Why Three?  Father, Son, Holy Spirit.  The Ring Master is the one who controls what happens in the church.  He decides how much of Father goes in a ring.  How much, if any, of Holy Spirit can go into another ring.  How much of Jesus can go into another ring.  The church was never meant to become a show for spectators.  People pay to go to the circus.  For what?  Entertainment.  They get to see things they don't see everyday.  They enable the abuse and mistreatment of circus animals all for a laugh, ooo, aww or two. 

I boycotted circuses years ago.  So this vision had even more of a stigma attached to it for me.  Why? you ask?  I am from Hookstown, PA.  Anyone who knows of Hookstown, knows that yearly a huge fair is put on called the Hookstown Fair.  One year, they had a three ring circus at the fair.  I took my children.  I sat there and instead of looking through the eyes of entertainment.  God opened my eyes to see the heart of the animals.  I sat there and watched the elephant trainer make these huge wondrous animals do stupid tricks for people's entertainment.  It broke my heart.  I became completely undone when a huge elephant was very close to me.  As a mother of four small children, my guard was on high alert knowing that there had been a recent stampede in a circus involving the elephants...but I looked into the elephants eyes and I saw her/him crying.  There were literal tears around the elephants eyes.  I felt so sickened in my spirit...Like God, why?  Why? are people so cruel?  Why do we find pleasure in this amazing creature's imprisonment?  Even in reliving this experience, I find tears streaming down my cheeks. 

After that moment of realization that paying these clowns to mistreat elephants and endorse it by coming to circuses for my own entertainment, I boycotted circuses.  This vision about being at a three-ring circus would go against my core beliefs.  So here I am seeing this three ring circus in a vision.  I said, "What else Lord?"  He said His church was never meant to be a three ring circus.  We are made in image of Father, Son, Holy Spirit.  We are not to package it up and sell it.  The church has become something he never designed it to be.  It's chaotic.  It's a bigtime business of selling the ringmaster's puffed up pride.  It's controlled.  It's time allotted.  It's entertaining.  People usually leave church the same way they leave a three ring circus.  Unfulfilled, unchanged, and untouched by Father, Son, or Holy Spirit.  Is the way the church functioning right now working?  NO!  I see more transformation take place when I go out onto the streets to minister.  We are the church...Jesus is the chief cornerstone.  Jesus told Peter that he was the rock on which he would build his church. 

(Matthew 16:18 - "And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it."  The very next verse is what we were literally doing during intercession...We were binding and loosing.  ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be^[e] loosed in heaven.”

God has given the five-fold ministry to the church.  There should NEVER be a Ring Master containing which show or which part of the trinity to be displayed during the entertainment of church. That's not biblical.  In Ephesians 4, we read.   

 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. ² Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. ³ Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. ⁴ There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; ⁵ one Lord, one faith, one baptism; ⁶ one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4:1-6)

Notice how it's all ONE...ONE body...ONE Spirit...ONE Lord.  ONE Faith.  ONE Baptism.  ONE God and Father of all...it's not a circus.  There shouldn't be division and different shows going on...It shouldn't be a place of disorder and chaos.  We are to bear with one another in love.  We are to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the Bond of Peace.  When something is bonded to another thing...It's like superglue.  Try getting superglue off of your fingers...It's almost impossible.  We are to be superglued to peace.  Is this what most churches look like? 

 Let's look at what the root cause of why most churches are like three ring circuses.  When you have a ring master controlling the environment and displaying shows...the focus is off of their personal lives.  They don't have to be transparent and vulnerable.  They bring in the clowns and displace attention off of their own lives.  That gives permission to stay hidden in their own shame.  They can keep sinning and pull out the grace card and never be exposed because they are too busy entertaining the critics with clowns and chaos.  God wants transparency.  God wants vulnerability.  We are to confess our sins one to another.  So then in exchange, the ringmaster will put the attention on the abused and wounded.  That empowers them to feel elevated and above others.

We need to let go of our past.  How?  We need to be real.  We need to deal.  We need to confess, repent and receive the true forgiveness of Holy Spirit.  Holy Spirit will wash away our muck and junk.  The blood of Jesus redeems, restores, and cleanses us.  What does shame do to the church?

Let's talk about the abuse of the animals in the circus.  These animals are wild.  They are meant to live in freedom.  They were never meant to learn how to entertain in a circus.  They are wild and are to be free.  So let's look at us.  We are the same.  God created us to be wild and free.  Holy Spirit comes down and tongues of fire appear.  Demons flee, blind eyes open, deaf ears hear, mute speak, limp leap and salvations cause the angels in heaven to rejoice.  This is wild!  It's not chaotic.  It's freedom.  It's what the church is to look like.  Does it?  No!  Why?  ABUSE

"Abuse creates shame.  An abused child feels powerless.  Abuse may be physical, sexual, emotional, verbal, or even spiritual.  If the child seeks help and does not get it, they may decide that it is them who has done something wrong; I caused this, I did something to make this happen.  Shame will grow from this simple lie!" -Sarah McDowell.

Shame may be transmitted directly through words spoken.  Did you ever hear any of the following?  "Everything was fine until you came along!"  "You're no good!"  "You're just like your father!  You'll never amount to anything!"  "Can't you do anything right?"  "Don't you have any sense?"  "You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"  "Shame on You!"  "It's your fault."

This is chaotic.  This is confusion.  This is cursed word!  This is how shame comes and what happened in the garden when Adam and Eve ate of the tree of good and evil?  They became ashamed.  They hid from God.  See this three ring circus creates an environment where you can hide from God and never have to deal with your shame that was placed on you through blame and accusation. 

Let's read from Ephesians 4 again, picking up at verse 7.

⁷ But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. ⁸ This is why it says:

“When he ascended on high, he took many captives and gave gifts to his people.”

⁹ (What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? ¹⁰ He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.)

¹¹ So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, ¹² to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up ¹³ until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

¹⁴ Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. ¹⁵ Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. ¹⁶ From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

See, we were never meant to be a three ring circus.  We are to become the body of Christ.  ONE heart....ONE MIND....ONE Body!  ONE SPIRIT!  There should never be a ring master....

We were given the five fold gifts....1.  Apostles, 2.  Prophets, 3.  Evangelists, 4.  Pastors, 5. Teachers.

Why?  So the body of Christ may be built up...NOT TORN DOWN!

Father,
We repent of discord.  We repent for allowing your church to become a three ring circus.  We repent, Father, for coming to church to watch a show.  We repent for allowing one man or woman to be elevated to a place of idolatry over you.  We repent for making the church a money making business.  We repent for watching and being entertained as abused ones are not set free to be who you created them to be.  Father, forgive us.  We ask that you cover us with the blood of the lamb.  We ask Holy Spirit that you come in power and in might and refresh and revive the church.  Awaken your bride, O God.  Awaken your church.  Open our eyes to see.  Open our ears to hear.  Awaken our hearts, O God!  We thank you and praise you in Jesus name.

Ephesians 5:13-17