I have been sitting around for the past few months feeling sorry for myself. I just realized that today. Sundays are difficult days for me since my wife and I are isolated in our home without the ability to reconcile with our church. It’s a long story better told elsewhere. We get to enjoy wonderful worship music, of course, and right now Charity Gayle is our favorite.

But I found myself weeping again listening to her singing and I’m not the weepy type (not by a long shot). I had to explain to my wife that I was not crying because I was scared of dying but because I didn’t want to go empty-handed. It isn’t about salvation but about the gift of significance.

God gives us the gift of significance when he allows us to participate in his great redemptive rescue operation. Our testimony, our words, and our transformation are all necessary to show people that the gospel message is real and can change lives.

We all do it in different ways with our different spiritual and creational gifts. That is our life ministry after all. I do it through writing (and perhaps filmmaking in the future). But I have confessed that my writing is still stuck on my computer and my ministry doesn’t reach much beyond my immediate family.

I had hoped that there would be a good many people who would read my stories and be inspired to follow the Lord because of them. But for that to happen, it has to get out there and that is easier said than done. Sure, it isn’t hard to put it up on Kindle and try to sell a few books on Amazon or some other platform but that isn’t actually how it works. You have to build an audience otherwise your books will just fall to the bottom of the pile and never be seen or heard from again.

I started to build an audience a number of years ago and had 3500 people who were following my website and another 1500 on Facebook but I didn’t really know what to do with them and by the time I figured it out, they were stale and gone. I need to start again but it costs time and money. Neither of which I have.

That’s why I try to do some sort of tentmaking ministry that pays the bills and provides a bit extra for ministry. I’m not the only one struggling with that of course but in my case, I thought I would have more time. Now that I have been diagnosed with Stage 3 Colon Cancer, I have no idea what will happen or when. Makes it hard to plan much less execute any kind of strategy.

Together with the constant fatigue that I am feeling, I find myself sitting on the couch most days binge-watching reruns from NCIS and Star Trek: The Next Generation (actually now I’ve watched Deep Space Nine as well). It’s true that I am tired and mostly in a brain fog and it’s hard to concentrate but it is also true that I am not trying all that hard either.

I told my wife a little while ago about an idea for a post called In the Heat of Battle and she liked the name. For some reason I thought that it would be a great way to end this section on Spiritual Power. Not that I am feeling much spiritual power these days, you understand, but I still would like to finish the book at the very least.

I told her that when I was young and brash and I had decided to go into ministry instead of becoming a professor of Old Testament Theology (which was a real possibility), I told myself that I wanted to get my hands dirty and really be involved in true transformation and not just talk about it or teach it.

What I did not tell my wife until recently is that I used to pray that God would put me in the heat of the battle where the real work was being done, where it was dangerous, and I could really make a difference. A bit arrogant, don’t you think? I was not even a Pastor yet still full of unconfessed sin and carrying a lot of baggage from my teenage years and the death of my oldest sister who was like a mother to me. There was no discipleship in our seminary community. The church was supposed to take care of that but my church, at least, wasn’t up to it. No mentorship. No training in the way of the cross. Good theology. Weak discipleship.

Even today, I can only imagine what true spiritual battle for the souls of men and women must be like. Prison Fellowship, started by Charles Colson, had spiritual power and many were converted and changed their lives. Street work and gang work is dangerous and rewarding. I grew up on the story of Nicky Cruz in The Cross and the Switchblade and the ministry of Teen Challenge led by David Wilkerson. Nowadays I eat up the stories of the early days of the Brooklyn Tabernacle and the lives that were changed so dramatically. So when I talk about the heat of the battle, I really don’t have any idea of what I’m talking about in terms of actual ministry that changes lives.

At the same time, there is a truth in there somewhere that is applicable to all of us, and I would like to share it with you. The strange thing for me, as I look back on my life, is that God allowed me to make such a mess of it. There were a few bright moments but in terms of ministry it mostly just went downhill, and fast. I know it was my own fault but why did God allow it? Why allow me to keep digging a deeper and deeper hole for myself? Was my ego so big? Was my arrogance so strong? Perhaps.

As a student pastor, I was often invited to preach in different churches and one Sunday I replaced one of my friends from Seminary who was an interim preacher for the summer. I preached my sermon and afterward, I was surrounded by many people, including elders who wanted to talk to me, thank me for the sermon, and praise me a bit. I was used to it. But then they started saying negative things about my friend and I lost it. I cut into them and told them in no uncertain terms that character and pastoral ability were far more important than good preaching and that they had a gem in their hands in the form of my friend. Then I left.

The point is that I was generally considered a good preacher, but I knew I wasn’t a good pastor much less a loyal follower of Christ. I had my issues, but I lost myself in my studies and ignored the real spiritual mess I was in. Perhaps that is why God allowed me enough rope to hang myself. After all, it isn’t your ministry that saves you, even if it is blessed by God, but rather our relationship with Christ by which we receive his righteousness. That is what creates a personal walk with the Lord when we walk together the Way of the Cross. That is where the conversations matter. That is where the ministry is done. That is where transformation happens.

I just didn’t know that yet.

So, writing these last few posts on Confession, Repentance, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation has been a good reminder for me. On the one hand, I believe that this is where Spiritual Warfare is at its strongest when you are involved in the Ministry of Reconciliation. You might be working on the street or in a prison or in the local church. It may look different in each place, but I believe the local church is the hardest place and has the strongest battles. As Chuck Colson told a group of Christian Businessmen, they were further from the gospel than the prisoners that he works with every day because the prisoners already knew that they were sinners in need of redemption.

Some people say that the only hope for the world is the local church. That may be true but only if the local church is transformed into a fellowship of the cross. That is seldom true. This is why the greatest battle still lies ahead of us in the most innocent-seeming place on earth but which, in truth, is the most dangerous place on earth as well. To be a tare among wheat but think that you are wheat is a terrible delusion and one of the Devil’s greatest deceptions.

I have a confession to make. Yes, another one. I think I mentioned it already in an earlier post, but I want to highlight it here. I’m a lover, not a fighter. I don’t have a lot of emotional intelligence, much less strength. I often take the easy road rather than the road less traveled. I like my comfort food (which is why I am a diabetic) and I like my comfort activities (which is why I am a couch potato). You get the idea.

But the main thing is that I talk about Spiritual Power when I, myself, have so little of it if any at all. I can write but can I do? Yes, my life is a mess and I have people to reconcile with, and have no idea how to do it. I owe millions of dollars while I live below the poverty line in a third-world country. All excuses aside. I can talk about Spiritual Power but that’s about it.

But then it came to me.

What if all of this self-pity and laziness is part of the spiritual battle always raging around us? What if this is a trap I have fallen into set by the Devil to take advantage of my weaknesses? If I got to heaven and found out that that was the case, I would be angry, very angry with myself. To let myself be led around by the nose by the great deceiver.

After all, God gave me this gift of writing. And the material is good. I’m not trying to brag. The writing is mediocre, but the content is life itself. I know without a single doubt that the way of the cross is the key to anointing and effective ministry. I know without a single doubt that the stories I am writing would inspire people to follow God if they only could read them. I am always surprised, as I am right now, at what comes out when I start to write. My writing ministers to me when I am down or in doubt. It ministers to my wife and my brother and the few others who come into contact with it.

The problem is not the content, nor even my mediocre writing but rather my lack of faith. If God has given me some insights into truths that matter, they were meant to be shared with others. Period. It was meant for ministry and worship. It was meant to make a difference and be the gift of significance that he has granted me for this messed up life. I’m not sure that I would have been able to write the stories I have written if I didn’t make the mistakes that I have made. That’s the truth. Not an excuse.

And I have a secret weapon that I simply haven’t been using. I have confessed and written about some aspects of my repentance. I have shared the truth of forgiveness and reconciliation based on the cross. Now it’s time to live it. There is no point in being in the heat of battle, recording the ministry of reconciliation, and not sharing in the fight.

The Lord showed me the heat of battle which is the spiritual warfare around the Ministry of Reconciliation, and he has shown me that I am unprepared and unqualified to participate in it. All of that is true. Until you start using the secret weapon which is to pick up your cross daily and follow him. Confess that you are weak. Repent in faith by taking steps in the right direction. Forgive yourself in the name of Christ and because of his blood and treat yourself as you are in Christ. It is the only way to spiritual power and anointing and without that, your spiritual warfare is doomed from the start.

So, I will begin to fight. It won’t be perfect. Some days will be better than others. But the line is drawn in the sand right here and right now. However long I have, I will walk the way of the cross in the ministry of reconciliation starting with myself.

That means that I will pray for health and work for health. Comfort food be damned!

That means that I will pray for reconciliation and work for reconciliation. Bing watching TV series be damned!

Regret is far worse than rejection. But even regret melts in the face of faith in your life ministry so long as you are drawing breath.

That means that I will believe, in faith, that I have the favor of God in my ministry and worship of writing. I don’t know where that will lead or whether it will lead anywhere, but I believe that I have his favor when I am doing his will. And his will is that I write and publish and distribute and minister to people with the gifts that I have.

I may finally be in the heat of battle, but I will not just be an observer and stay out of it. I will get involved. Try harder. Fight longer. Believe more deeply for as long as I have, with whatever resources that I can muster, or he gives me. Jesus made it clear that knowing and doing are two very different things.

I may not have much to offer when I get there but I will not bury my gift in the dirt of self-pity, fatigue, or self-doubt. I may not be the servant with five talents or ten talents that duplicated their effort, but I will have the same attitude as them in terms of trying my best to take the gifts that God has given me and using them for his glory.

Just to be clear. The anointing and favor of God don’t just come at the end of the journey but start already at the beginning. The first steps of faith, the smallest seed, and the most feeble of efforts in the right direction are enough for His favor to fall and the anointing to begin. Just don’t avoid the hard work of actually talking to people and dealing with the reality of crucifying your ego and start healing relationships the best you can. That is what pleases God, and it is His joy in us that is our strength to keep moving forward.