When I was a teenager, I started reading conspiracy theories, it became a passion. I was spending much of my time on researching the next big thing, and as a Christian, I was convinced that I would be able to use my "revelations" to show people the deceptions of the world and thereby lead them to Christ. But then I realized, I was not effective for the Kingdom, I was not really doing what Yeshua did, even though I tried convincing myself and others otherwise. I was only effective in telling people about deceptions going around and the “truths” surrounding them. My treasure wasn't God and spreading the Gospel of His Kingdom. My treasure was in conspiracy theories and other knowledge. Where is your treasure?

When I met Christina, she couldn’t pronounce my surname. I was from another culture, another language, and my name was almost impossible for her American tongue to figure out at first. Should that have offended me? Of course not! Yet why do we think our perfect Father is offended when we struggle to say His name in the correct spelling or pronunciation? Many have gone as far as to say that if we pronounce His name wrong, He won't hear or answer our prayers. There are various pronunciations that have been adopted for His name, even our current pronunciations might be slightly off as scholars disagree all the time, but the name we do know we should honor, especially through our actions. The reality is, God is more merciful and understanding than any man could ever even be. He is more concerned with whether we represent His name well than whether we can pronounce and spell it perfectly well.

Marriage is hard. And sometimes it becomes really hard. But it shouldn't be a surprise, Satan is after marriages - for if the marriage fails, it takes a house down with it. Marriage is also hard because it involves two different individuals becoming one flesh. No matter the reason for the struggles of marriage, how we deal with them is something everyone who marries will need to face and it comes down to this: Will we "love like the world" only as long as the person loves us back (and in the same amount), or will we love like Jesus, even when the partner doesn't love us all the ways we desire? Christ has suffered all we could ever suffer (Hebrews 4:15). Even though He was never married in the flesh, God experienced the same pains when His Bride has sinned or fallen away even temporarily. Yet Christ overcame and loved us to the end. Will we love like He did, in a love that is sacrificial, merciful and kind? We need the kind of love that draws others to repentance as He did us. John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

In our western, capitalist mindsets, those in full-time ministry have adopted the world's ways of doing business to start charging for the gospel - making it inaccessible to those unable to pay. What has happened? Would Yeshua have put a paywall in front of His revelations, teachings, and deliverance? So why do we? Isn't it disturbing that we have fallen this far into what is now considered a "normal" way of doing ministry. Freely you have received, now freely give. God is calling ministers out to separate themselves from the world and be an example to the sheep, to actually trust in the Master who pays His laborers their wages. If we continue to trust in our devices and models of doing ministry instead of what our Messiah clearly laid out in scripture, our ministries will be robbed of blessings - and even worse, we will have to give an account on judgment day (the day teachers will be judged more strictly on).

Are you so zealous for God that you would be willing to lay everything down for the sake of His righteousness to prevail? When no says anything nor does anything about the evil, the evil prevails. Turning a blind eye is participation if you have the power to put an end to the evil around you. Evil prospers in the world due to believers too involved in the world to speak up, for various reasons: Either the evil profits them, or they are afraid of what might happen to them if they blew the whistle on evil. Ultimately, they lift their own life above seeing God's Kingdom come on Earth. This is why Jesus chased out the moneychangers from the temple with whips. This is why Jesus cursed the fig tree. This is why Phineas pierced a man and woman in idolatry with a spear. And all these were righteous acts, even though they may seem "radical" or strange. And this is why our Messiah (and later His disciples) gave their lives: To put an end to the evil, and to let His Kingdom come and prevail. Torah Portion: Pinchas | Phinehas / Phineas | פנחס

We don't always understand why we get sick, or why suffering comes across our paths. Just last weekend after a fruitful time at a conference with many healed, we came down with the flu. How do we explain praying for the sick, when we can't even "take ourselves down from the cross"? Yes, God could have stopped it all and taken Yeshua off the cross in the midst of it, but He didn't - for there was a purpose for His suffering. In fact, His suffering and ultimate death on the cross became the best thing that has ever happened to the world. What if when we walk as He did and remain in covenant with Him, our suffering yields the same fruit? What if our suffering, instead of it being without purpose, can bring glory to the Kingdom of God if we yield ourselves into His hands. He never said this walk would be easy, in fact, He said we would suffer the same things He did. Therefore we rejoice in our suffering and pray for it to change lives in the most mysterious ways only God can work. This is a story of how our seemingly "bad situation" at an airport last weekend got turned around to become life-changing events for people around us.

The hardest commandment ever given to man is a commandment given to men. In Ephesians 5, men are instructed to love their wives "as Christ loves the church". The disunity in marriages is a primary reason for the disparity and suffering in the world, and even in Christian fellowships. As men, we have often failed this commandment to love radically, and so we have failed to be a picture of the world of Christ and His Bride. This is the hardest commandment, and this is how to love as Yeshua loved.

We saw great miracles this past weekend at the Freedom Reigns - Men's Conference, and here is some of it. God is pouring His Spirit upon His people!

What is true faith? We may understand that our walk with Jesus means that we make changes in our lives to reflect the lifestyle He asked of us to have - to stop sinning. But does it stop there? Why so often do we disconnect the notion that faith is action from spiritual giftings? We say we believe God desires us to speak in tongues, yet never open our mouths to speak. We say we believe God desires us to pray for the sick, yet never lay our hands to pray. Do we truly believe? Because our actions will prove if we do. And if you feel like you don't have faith, be bold and step out! Your actions will build it.

Sometimes I wonder, don't we often get so caught up in the latest piece of "knowledge" that is floating around, or winning the next theological debate, that we miss the person on the street on the way to the next conference? While Jesus certainly knew scripture, and we must know scripture well - He applied scripture. The knowledge that goes unapplied leavens and puffs up, but Jesus calls up to be unleavened, thereby applying the knowledge He reveals to us. He didn't just give you the knowledge and intellect to have a Bible study with others who are just as smart as you, He gave it so you may set others free with it, especially the audience He was among most often - the poor, blind, and sick of this world.