Dec 13, '07 3:07 AM

Solutions, Salutations, Greetings, Blessings, etc., etc., etc.!

In case you missed that, Hi!

Been another one of those weeks, folks!  Can't seem to catch up with myself.  Everything that can interrupt our activities has.  Yup.  Such is life -- these days, anyway.  Looks like it's going to continue throughout the holiday season, too.  Della and I expect to be in Canada during the last week of December and first week of January for a conference.

Coffee's on, folks!  Got some of that double-roasted French Roast blended with some Sumatran and dark roasted Columbian Supremo for today's brew.  Talk about a wonderful aroma!  Tastes better than it smells, too.  Better get some while the gettin' is good!

When we last left off in the story about our son, Chris, and his decision to move his family to Sunnyside so they could be a part of our church fellowship and family, I was telling you about his effort to buy a home.

This was a rather unique home, elegantly landscaped with gardens (yeah, plural!) and walkways, a pasture for horses (or cows, or whatever), fifty-odd fruit trees, a barn, chicken coop, beehive, pig stall -- and what all!  It was -- to say the least -- an unusual place with lots of potential room for Chris's family.  Chris visited the home only once in his short stay before returning to work in Alaska, but that one visit was enough.

As I also noted last week, there was another buyer in front of him who was better prepared financially to purchase this home on short notice.  The other buyer also had offered about $5,000 more than Chris was prepared to offer.  To make a long story short, we all prayed over the house and felt that this was indeed Chris's house.  Meanwhile, he returned to his job in Alaska.  Chris had put the financial wheels in motion to qualify for the purchase before he left, and began the process of getting together a substantial down payment.

Michael Sharpe (whom I mention from time to time in these Coffee Breaks) who was Chris's real estate agent and representative advised him that the sellers had decided to accept the first buyer's offer.  However, in a gesture of goodwill, they said they would put Chris in second place, and that if the first buyer backed out for some reason at the last moment, they would sell him the house for what he offered.

Something like 45 days elapsed.  Chris had suggested that we keep looking at other houses in case this one didn't materialize, but I assured him that the Lord had given me absolute confidence that this house was his, no matter what the circumstances seemed like. We did look at a couple other houses, by the way, but the price on both of them was more than $100,000 higher.

The first buyer was getting ready to close on the purchase, and suddenly at the last moment his employer told him that he could not buy a home in Sunnyside.  He was required to live on the orchards he managed, or he would lose his job.  Just like that, the home became available for Chris.

One more problem/obstacle surfaced.  Because of Chris's income to debt ratio (he was still making payments on their home in Alaska, and had five cars and trucks -- not counting some other responsibilities) and credit score, the mortgage companies wanted to sock him with 11.75% for an interest rate on the mortgage.  Despite a huge down payment on the house, it still left him with a $2200/month payment.

Add taxes and insurance to that, plus the $1300/month payment on his Alaska home, $435/month on his Excursion, and you have something on the order of $4500/month in basic payments BEFORE you get to food, utilities, gasoline and other basic living costs.  It takes no rocket science to figure out that you're staring at better than $6 grand every month -- if you are careful and conserve!

The natural instinct is to draw back in horror at the very thought.  And Chris just choked on it.  He called me from his remote work site in Alaska and said, "Dad, I just can't do this."

The circumstances notwithstanding, the Holy Spirit had generated a confidence in me that said, "All is well.  I've got this under control."  So I said to Chris, "Do you trust the Lord?  Do you trust His direction to you to move your family here?  Do you believe you've heard from God?"

He was quiet for a minute and then said, "Yes, I do."  I answered him and said, "Then sign the mortgage loan agreement papers and send them back to Ginny Lee in Seattle."  Ginny was the agent for the lender.

My counsel to Chris wasn't based on any emotional decision just because I thought he ought to move here from Alaska.  I knew -- without a shadow of doubt -- exactly what the Lord was saying.  I also knew how ridiculous the circumstances appeared, and how impossible this situation would be for Chris without God's provision on his behalf.  There was no obvious provision to meet this kind of obligation in sight.

This is when your faith has to do both the talking and the walking.  God's economy is based entirely in love-driven faith.  You have to KNOW that God loves you -- personally -- and that He will NEVER direct you to do or say anything that He won't stand behind as Father-God.

I was extremely blessed growing up as a child to have a father whose word was as good as gold.  He never made a promise he didn't keep. He never gave me, or my brother, any instruction to do something that he wouldn't back up if we failed in some way or found ourselves wavering.  It was a perfect picture of the Lord Jesus Christ.  It was a faith-picture.

You remember what the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 10:17?  "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."  Just a few verses earlier in the same chapter, he says, "But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved (the word in the original Greek text here is sozo, and it is an all-encompassing word which describes safety, salvation, deliverance, provision for every need, health, wholeness and long life).  For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto (sozo) salvation." 

Got the picture?  You can believe to your heart's content what God says about your health, your safety, your deliverance, or your provision for whatever need or situation, but unless you say so with your mouth -- and continue to say so -- you'll never see faith in action.  Faith demands speaking.  Without you opening your mouth to declare what God has said to you, the substance of what you believe will never manifest!

No sooner had Chris signed the papers -- and he did so in verbalized faith, believing -- AND SAYING -- that God would never give him instruction like this if He wasn't going to meet the need -- Ginny Lee went to her supervisor.  Ginny is a committed, believing Christian, by the way.  She just couldn't stand the thought of the high interest and cringed at the very thought of those escalating payments.  On top of the 11.75%, by the way (this was an adjustable rate mortgage - ARM), the interest rate was going to sky to 15.3% within two years.

Talk about ridiculous, utterly phantasmagorical stupidity!  No one in their right mind agrees to a mortgage with an interest rate of 15%.  It's insane!

Ginny's supervisor asked her if she had tried FHA.  Because of other prevailing circumstances, she had not.  His answer to her was, "Chris's large down payment (in excess of 20%) overrides all other circumstances and sets aside normal FHA rules.  He shouldn't have any trouble qualifying."

Ginny made one phone call and came up with a 7.5% interest rate.  It represented something like a drop of $400/month+ in the house payment.  She called Michael and me (I was acting as Chris's attorney-in-fact) to let us know of the stupendous development.  Michael was really pushing things through for Chris and making sure nothing was missed. The long and the short is that -- acting on Chris's behalf -- I signed the papers for his purchase on or about the 8th of August.

There is one detail (and I'm leaving out lots of really neat details) worth mentioning.  Turns out that the lender (or a loan officer for the lender) decided that the power of attorney that Chris had signed empowering me to represent him wasn't specific enough.  The closing date was something like five days away. Chris was working at the Red Dog Mine just north of the Arctic Circle. This is a very remote mining site.  Transportation to the site is by charter only, and there are only two flights in and out per week.

The lender wanted to send Chris a new set of power-of-attorney documents, have him sign them before a notary public, and then overnight them back so we could do the closing on schedule.  At this remote mining site, they don't normally have a notary public, and even if Chris could somehow take advantage of a Saturday charter flight to Kotzebue or Nome to find a notary, he still wouldn't be able to get a FedEx or UPS pickup of the document until Monday -- our scheduled closing day.

He called me again.  Monday was the lender's closing deadline.  If the closing didn't go through on that date, the loan would have to be reprocessed from scratch.  The sellers were in a predicament because they needed to close on that date in order to have the money to pay for their new home.

The Holy Spirit gave me an instant answer.  I said to Chris, "Have Ginny Lee email the new documents to you.  Print them off.  Get in touch with your site supervisor and see if any of the office employees on site, or at your local airfield are notaries."

The site supervisor was standing next to Chris when he called me, and when he heard the conversation he said to Chris, "We don't normally have a notary on site, but one of our employees who is a notary just happens to be here. She'll notarize your papers for you."

To top things off, one of Chris's co-workers was just getting off his six-week rotation and heading to San Francisco.  He told Chris he would carry the papers as far as Seattle and FedEx them to Sunnyside from SeaTac Airport on Sunday.  Just like that, everything worked! It worked like clockwork, too!  The papers arrived at the title company's office by 10:00 AM on Monday, and we closed the purchase on schedule.

Think God doesn't work out even the finest details for His people when they act according to His directions and in His will?  Better believe it!  With the Lord having worked miracles, Chris and family now have a 4200+ square-foot home in the country, just out of Sunnyside.

One more note to this before I move on.  The FHA just called Chris a few days ago and offered to refinance and lower his interest rate to 6.25%.  The refinance was approved last night.  That will cut another $160/month off his house payment.

Are you getting the picture?  Get your assignment, your place, your station, your place to fit in the body of Christ FIRST.  With that settled in your being, watch God begin to work out normally impossible details on your behalf. In fact, get ready for the adventure of a lifetime.

I said it before, and I'll say it again.  Kingdom Economics are designed to return us to that "need-less" place -- that place of authority and dominion, that place of every conceivable need supplied, the place that Jesus promised when He said, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."

Yup!  That's the essence of Kingdom Economics.  A life of abundance!

But this is a lifestyle that's going to cost you -- and, NO, I don't mean monetarily, and I don't mean in terms of pain and hardship.  At least not in the traditional sense, anyway.  What this lifestyle is going to cost you is giving up your thought processes, your reasoning, your analyses -- in other words, human logic.  You've got to realize that to live the life of abundance and peace that Jesus Christ has made available to every believer  requires a walk of faith.

Let's talk about this walk of faith for a minute.

We've already said that real faith (as opposed to "theoretical, religious or doctrinal faith") demands confession.  But real faith also demands that you have total confidence and trust in God's love for you.  Without that confidence and trust in the Lord, any faith is pure theory and lacking in substance.

Let me take you again to the epistle of Paul (we assume him to be the author) to the Hebrews where he writes, "Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him."  (Hebrews 10:38)

Get it?  Anyone who draws back, anyone who backs away from believing and trusting and having full confidence in God and in His Word will NOT see His pleasure.  In other words, God will withhold the very thing from you that you desire -- and that will disappoint Him greatly.

What was it that Jesus said?  "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Fathers good pleasure to give you the kingdom."  (Luke 12:32)  And it is, too!  There's nothing that the Lord desires more than to show us His delight and pleasure at our walk of faith and trust in Him, and our confidence in His love and His Word.

But if we draw back, if we do not have confidence and trust in Him, if we don't trust that His love for us wants to give us the world, if we don't believe that He in His love wants us healthy, wealthy and wise, we will cheat not only ourselves, but the Lord by depriving Him of the opportunity to demonstrate His good pleasure.

This may be the strangest lesson in economics you've ever had, but what I'm sharing with you is iron-clad in God's Word.

Let's go back to something Paul wrote in his second letter to the Ekklesia in Thessalonica: "Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power: That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ."  (II Thessalonians 1:11)

There it is again!  God counts and treats us as worthy when we believe Him, when we love Him, when we trust Him implicitly.  And when He counts us worthy, He absolutely, unconditionally fulfills His good pleasure in us.  What's more, He fulfills that good pleasure not just for our sake, but so that the name, the character, the personality, the makeup, the very essence of the Lord Jesus and His anointing are glorified in, with and through us.

You see, we are called to Him. We are a people -- a bride (to use the Biblical metaphor) -- designed and destined to show the world God's authority, His power, His grace, His love, His might -- His very onoma !

We are designed and destined to be Jesus' counterpart, His other self: a people whose life and lifestyle show something to the world that causes people to want what we have, want to be who we are and desire the love and grace we manifest.

I don't want to run long today, and this seems like a good stopping place.  Hopefully, I'll get to continue this before this week gets away from us.

In the Kingdom of God, what the world calls "miracles" are only the natural manifestation of God's power, His love and His grace working in and through His people.

The Blessing of the Lord be upon you.