It was another genuinely encouraging and profitable couple hours in the WORD with the brothers this morning.
There were so many powerful insights and discussions shared together, all launching from Romans 12. There is so much more to share and apply on all those topics from God’s WORD.
One thing, which sparked some specific discussion that has continued after the meeting, warrants some further attention. Here it is, noted below from one short message sent out after the meeting.
As always, our focus remains firmly on evangelism & discipleship with an eye at all times toward edification. Feel free to reply below and share further as you find it relates to mutual growth and edification.
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I just did an open ended search and found one of the very top results to be someone I came across a couple years ago. At that time I watched a number of videos of his and gained great respect for him. He in turn references a site many of you know I myself have referred to frequently. I have gained a great respect for and agree with exactly his assessment on that also. All around, I find this to be an extraordinary and sound assessment.
7 Mountains
https://youtu.be/RGPb6x3krUY
Wisdom in the WORD 
Reposting
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Some strong views already shared privately regarding this topic.
Here is a trustworthy saying which deserves full acceptance:
Evangelism & Discipleship
This remains the clear focus
For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 1 Corinthians 2:2
In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
2 Timothy 4:1-5
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Kingdom of Heaven to Earth?
This post about the 7-mountain mandate. This is a concept which has been recently revealed by God to the body of Christ and several members in the body have accepted the role of championing the message as a divine strategy and commission for the Church for all generations. I’d like to think of myself as one of those championers, as I’ve come the see the great value of it, as well as the potential it has to impact and change nations and culture if it is embraced by the body of Christ.
The Lord Jesus gave the command to his disciples to make disciples of nations (Matthew 28:18). This mandate still applies for us, his modern-day disciples, however, we may need to upgrade our thinking and approach to how we implement this command. This is where the 7-mountain strategy comes in. One proponent of the 7-mountain message, Lance Wallnau, often makes the distinction between making disciples of individuals and making disciples of nations. According to him, this requires making disciples of systems and not just individual people. These systems, as revealed to Bill Bright (CRU) and Loren Cunningham (YWAM), include 7 distinct areas of human culture and civilization. They are Religion; Family; Economy; Media; Arts & Entertainment; Government and Education. These are the primary cultural spheres of influence of every society on earth. Whoever influences or controls these spheres or mountains will basically have the opportunity and prerogative to disciple a nation’s culture in that area.
Nature abhors a vacuum; therefore, it is important that these places of discipleship of a nation’s systems and institutions be influenced and occupied by godly individuals or groups, or else this “open ground” will automatically be invaded by the hordes of darkness. To put it simply, we lose 100% of the games we fail to show up for, but if we don’t even know that the game is being played, then we lose by default. The devil would like nothing more than for the Church, as a whole, to continue to take the ostrich mentality, with its head in the sand, so to speak, oblivious of the war being waged in regard to the nations they live in and the institutions which comprise those nations. We must wake up to the reality of the war we are in as the body of Christ.
Just think about this fact, that the overwhelming majority of times the church has experienced difficulty or was persecuted on a major scale, it has been exclusively by a negatively influenced institution in one these mountains, the most obvious one being that of the mountain of government. Whether it was Rome executing early believers in the circus maximus, or King Henry and the Anglican church driving out the pilgrims from England, or currently the underground Chinese Church being oppressed by an atheistic communist regime, it’s been primarily the institution of government, wielded by a person or group of people unfriendly to the believers. If the leaders of any one of these mountains lack the influence of godly, Christian principles, it’s virtually inevitable that arena of society will go awry with the expression of their power. What’s more, any of the 7 mountains can be negatively used and influenced in this way. Conversely, think about George Washington, who was a devout man of faith, along with the other founding fathers of the United States, most of whom were professing Christians, who used their authority and power in the 18th century America to ensure the protection and free exercise of religious beliefs for Christians within this nation. The very same instrument of government was used for good and not evil in this instance concerning the Church.
What is a believer to do with this knowledge, you may ask? Well, in Matthew 13:33, the kingdom of Heaven is compared to yeast being placed into flour to be kneaded into dough. The yeast’s influence, once properly mixed in, inevitably influences the entire batch of dough. I believe that we, as God’s kingdom agents on earth, ought to be about the business of mixing ourselves into the dough of our nations culture and influencing it to “rise” from worldliness to godliness through our witness as well as by our intentionally exerted effort aimed at reforming the mountains of influence which shape our societies.
The world needs us to let our light shine in dark areas of culture; this can include the sharing of the gospel of salvation and getting people saved, which is imperative, however, the gospel of the kingdom includes more than the saving individual people, but also the “saving” entire institutions and nations (Matthew 25:33). Both Greek words for salvation used in the new testament, sozo and soteria, speak of rescuing someone or something from destruction. Our culture institutions most certainly need rescuing from destruction as we currently see many of them heading downhill quickly. If we allow our light shine in those aspects of society, I believe they can and will eventually be changed for the better. In doing so, I think we will be helping to fulfil the prayer that the Lord taught his disciples: Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
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I’m ready!
What is step 1?
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