God’s Secret Weapon

God’s Secret Weapon on assignment recently in Prague.

God gave me the title to this year’s book (God’s Secret Weapon–my ninth since starting ministry) before I knew what it referred to.  In May I went to Tallinn, Estonia, where I was asked to prophesy over a group of young people at a local church.  God highlighted one young woman and gave me a prophecy for her that went something like this:

God has chosen you to make you His Secret Weapon.  You are a Secret Weapon because the forces of the defeated enemy won’t believe that you could possibly be a threat to his kingdom.  Thus, you will fly under the radar of the defeated enemy’s forces, and they will never see you coming.

You will do real damage to the defeated enemy’s kingdom and set back his plans in many places.  Do not fear, though He leads you into some scary places.  God will be with you all the way, leading you, showing you where to go and teaching you how to pray.

A little over a week later, He showed me that the prophecy was for me, too.

In fact, God has a whole lot of Secret Weapons out there.  The only requirement for becoming a Secret Weapon (besides being born again) is obedience.  God will show you where to go, but it won’t always fit in neatly with your plans.  Obedience will often cost you something, too—usually both time and money.  But of course that will reveal how much you really love God.

We know we love God’s children if we love God and obey His commandments.  Loving God means keeping His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome, (1 John 5:2-3).

As I began editing this book I realized that I had been operating as God’s Secret Weapon long before I even knew that I was a Secret Weapon.  But then again, I was also doing a lot of my current ministry before I knew that it was ministry.  I guess the key there is not so much in the knowing as it is in simply doing what He’s calling you to do.  The knowing may come later or maybe not.  The whole point is being close enough to God to know what He’s telling you to do, and being obedient to do it no matter what the cost.

If you’re having trouble hearing from God, think back to the last clear instruction that He gave you.  If you didn’t do it, you need to do it as soon as possible.  If you can’t do it because of the passage of time, then confess and repent for not having done it.  Once you have made this thing right between you and God, you’ll begin to hear His instruction again.  The more you obey, the clearer His instructions will become.  Why?  Because obedience will bring you closer to God than anything else.

Another thing that obstructs us from hearing God is because we’re not spending time with Him.  If you’re too busy to pray, you need to understand a fundamental principal: the reality is that you’re too busy not to pray.  Jesus got up a long time before dawn to pray.  If Jesus needed to do that, we definitely need to.  Don’t give God one morning out of the week, sitting passively listening to a sermon, and think that you will hear from God.  Sometimes you will, but to hear from Him on a consistent basis, you’ve got to make Jesus the center of your day every day.  Here’s a way to measure how close you are to God: how much time do you spend in prayer each day versus how much time you spend watching television[1]?  How much time do you spend reading the Bible versus other reading materials[2]?

Here’s the amazing thing that I’ve seen in my own life: when you go all-out for God, He will go all-out for you.  And really, He’s already done so much for you by sending Jesus to die in your place[3].  But think about that: if I go all-out for God, I can only do so much.  I’m not rich or powerful or influential.  My strength and abilities are limited.  But even with my limited abilities, when I go all-out for God, He goes all-out for me—and His abilities are without limit.  God is able to put money in your pocket when you need it.  God is able to open a door where others are locked out.  God can reveal things that you simply could not know any other way.  God is your most powerful ally.  So why not join His army and become one of God’s Secret Weapons?  The adventure of a lifetime is waiting.  God is good!

[1] It doesn’t matter if it’s Christian programming or not.  Passive Christianity is only slightly less bad than watching secular television.

[2] Again, it doesn’t matter if they are Christian books or not.  Even the best Christian books are worthless in comparison to the living and powerful Word of God, sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, (Hebrews 4:12*).

* Unless otherwise noted, all scriptures are from the New Living Translation (NLT), said by John Bevere to be the most accurate English translation of the Holy Scriptures.

[3] If that fact alone doesn’t move you to gratitude, then you really need to get before God and find out why.  We don’t always feel what we ought to feel when we ought to feel them.  Feelings can lie.  But if you can spend time contemplating the cross and not feel anything, that’s a sign that something is wrong.