Redemption From Pharaoh’s Extortion & Shame
We were involved in a Priests’ Storehouse intervention recently that revealed some sober realities. A panicked call came in that the city was turning a family’s power off in the middle of Canadian winter with snow piled up several feet outside their door for 2 months of non-payment. The POWER was literally within our hands. Would we withhold grace or would we freely extend our hand to those who had no power to help themselves? Grace is receiving a gift you don’t deserve. 5783 is both the year of dearth for the wicked AND Grace to endure bitter times with favour.
The power company was on the premises so I asked to speak directly to them on the phone to figure out what was what. It was a splash of ice cold water in the face that the city was shutting off power for the equivalent of half a month’s tithe! “That’s it??? You’re turning their power off for that small of a balance???”
Many within churchianity have been feeling so righteous as they faithfully bring their tithe to the church corporation and building that is making barely any impact, while their neighbours are being tossed out in the cold because the weight of their slave shackles are drowning them. Imagine a single congregation of 350 people extending the hand of God to 700 families (or more for large income tithers!) in a single city every single month. Our city of 80,000 has 100 listed non-profit corporate churches so imagine that figure suddenly jumping to 20,000 families per month. With an average family these days of only 2 kids per family, that’s the potential to impact the entire population every single month! I can GUARANTEE that will make more impact in a KINGDOM TAKEOVER than a month of church services warming a pew!
Psalm 144:7 ESV- Stretch forth Your hand from on high; Rescue me and deliver me out of great waters, Out of the hand of aliens
After receiving verbal consent for them to share financial details, I asked for the full balance of the debt owing and made arrangements to wipe it out entirely, implementing the Priests’ Storehouse to redeem our brethren from slavery to foreigners. The power employee’s shock was palpable. “Who ARE you???” No, we aren’t a help agency, although we DO love our neighbours like Jesus commanded us to and helped many during COVID get back up on their feet by tithing straight to source of the need. That man was mystified by an act of love he had never witnessed before in his job, releasing favour to us by keeping the power on while we worked out the payment logistics that afternoon. Light of even a single birthday candle will shine brightly in gross darkness!
Releasing honor to replace shame opened the door of transparency and creating a plan to freedom that would see an immediate cessation of $370/month in compounding late penalties, not even including compounding interest charges! Did you know that if you have debts to the city or utility companies, there can be monthly accruing interest charges between 15 – 24% annually AND monthly penalties on top of the interest charges? Debt brings a huge amount of shame but the very system of punishing someone for failure to walk by cutting off their feet, then their knees, and progressing upward with each slice while still demanding them to walk to the finish line is rather counter intuitive to impowering a city to thrive. Being buried alive faster than one can dig themselves out to the point of giving up in hopelessness results in the demise of a city’s glory – its occupants! Now imagine a city that manifested the blessings of Solomon’s day birthed through business – EVERY person owning their own house and garden!
Debt slavery collecting usury is the very essence of glorying in the control and domination of another at the personal benefit of self. It is witchcraft and narcissism at its core that will reap the many curses upon those who collect unholy usury (*interest/fees)!
Prov 14:34 KJV – “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.”
Ezekiel 18:12-13 KJV – 12 Hath oppressed the poor and needy, hath spoiled by violence, hath not restored the pledge, and hath lifted up his eyes to the idols, hath committed abomination, 13 Hath given forth upon USURY, and hath taken INCREASE: shall he then live? he shall not live: he hath done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon him.
That act of unconditional, undeserved love by paying the power bill gave me ACCESS. I was welcomed to pull back the covers of shame to replace them with honor, exposing the shackles and the resulting infected wounds that were causing spiritual and financial sepsis – shackles I had been given the KEYS of revelation to remove and minister healing to those wounds.
Luke 6:35 ESV – 35 “Love your enemies! Do good to them. LEND to them without expecting to be repaid. Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked.
Romans 12:20 KJV – Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.
Abba Father had already been downloading financial strategies to me in dreams and visions in the last season, one of them that was a perfect fit for this scenario and could be immediately implemented due to our small group’s obedience to initiate the beta run of the Honeypot last year. A strategy was implemented with tangible timelines that provided something for that family to sink their teeth of hope into. As it turned out, the walk-out required nothing more than what they were already doing, just shifted from a worldly master that forced perpetual bondage to a master in covenant that would release freedom in a mere 24 months, faster if they chose to pummel the debt above and beyond their current actions as they learn to receive the God-given power to create wealth. They weren’t freeloaders, but rather working 2 jobs trying to dig out of COVID-induced debt, just that someone else’s greed was metting out a flesh-ripping whipping beyond what could be survived. Micah 3 warns what will happen to those who pluck the flesh off the bones of those under their leadership! The reality check of the possibility of freedom in such a short period of time released such a beaming smile of joy and hope.
What Kind of Master are You?
A statement was made that caused me to have a double-take. “I am now your slave. I can’t thank you enough!” I did not consider myself to be a master but technically shifting from worldly debt to a biblical loan is still a form of being a master, just that the rules of God’s Covenantal playbook are quite different for His children.
Ephesians 6:9 KJV – And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him.
Colossians 3:22 KJV – Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God;
Colossians 4:1 KJV – Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven.
1 Timothy 6:1-2 KJV – Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort.
Establishing a Culture of Loyalty & Honor
Which kind of culture do we want to establish in our homes, cities, and nation in order to make it strong and impervious against outside enemy attack? Contrast the slaves of Pharaoh with the servant of Abraham who was trusted to find a wife for Isaac. Both groups were in servitude. Pharaoh used shame, fear and control to dominate his slaves with pain and torture. Abraham taught his family and his servants the commandments of God and His ways, resulting in a culture of honor and trust where the servant was EAGER to do the best job possible for such an important assignment, being led BY the Heavenly Father to the perfect bride for Isaac.
Were the Israelite slaves LOYAL to Pharaoh, or were they simply serving him out of desperation to live? What about King Saul who threatened his own people with the executioner Doeg? Contrast them with the rag tag crew that congregated at David’s cave, a bunch of men who had their manhood emasculated by debt, bitterness, and discontentment. They were transformed into mighty men who were willing to lay down their very lives just to get David, an outcast living in the caves who hadn’t yet possessed his prophetic promise of being made King of Israel, a coveted drink of water! He honored the sacrificial love and loyalty of his brave men so much that he poured out that precious water as a drink offering to the Most High God! He understood the principle of sowing and reaping, thereby ensuring that the men had possessed and sowed not just a cup of water to satiate David’s thirst but a sacrificial drink offering holy to the LORD!
The world demands lifelong slavery whereas the Bible commands that brethren be redeemed from foreign slavemasters. Biblical bondservants were to be released by their covenant masters upon the year of Jubilee (Lev 25), and in Deuteronomy 15 for those who borrowed a loan would be set free after 7 years WITH provision, regardless whether it was paid back or not within that allotted timeframe. God’s justice includes a legal clause to extend His hand of mercy through the creditors, much different than a threats of jail from the worldly system. He promises that He will repay the creditors who obey the Shemitah release laws even at a financial loss to themselves (Deut 15:7-10).
However, God’s justice doesn’t simply allow freeloaders to get off scott free. Those who do borrow but do not repay are deemed wicked (Ps 37:21) with all the incurring curses I’ve listed out in prior blogs, resulting in lazy freeloaders painfully reaping what they sow.
It’s Time To For A New Normal!
Our church culture has grown accustomed to debt slavery to unbelievers as “normal” as the curses of Deuteronomy 28 have overtaken the church who do not hear nor obey God’s commandment as a general rule of thumb in my generation. “EVERYONE” has a mortgage, a car loan, student loans. However, it’s TIME we considered our part to play in breaking people out of Jezebel’s concentration camps of debt slavery, by flipping the script to becoming a nation of LENDERS instead of borrowers.
With this shift, we must be very aware that God and the world are watching. Will we truly be ambassadors of His Kingdom, demonstrating a faithful representation of our King of Kings and LORD of Lords? Will we showcase His nature and character wherever we are sent to occupy that territory for His Kingdom? Will we allow greed and power go to our heads or will we truly demonstrate the principle that those who are greatest must be servant of all? Will we use others to elevate ourselves or like Jesus did, die to self so that others may live?
If our King of Kings is a Redeemer from the slavery of sin, are we manifesting His nature and character into the earth by also being Redeemer from slavery in our spheres? Are we forgiving people of their sins and judgments against us? Are we setting people free in the territories we are to rule and reign? Slavery can take many forms – of the slavery of sickness that is mastered by pharmacueticals & surgeons, financial debt mastered by banks & loan sharks, mental attacks from demonic bondage, land serfdom by landlords, national oppression to enemy armies both spiritual and physical.
The Redemption of Love
1 John 3:16-19 NLT – 16 We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister[f] in need but shows no compassion—how can God’s love be in that person? 18 Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. 19 Our actions will show that we belong to the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before God.
It is TIME to shine the redemption of love brightly into our spheres of influence. Not only does helping redeem our neighbours from debt show compassion, it also provides a tiny physical example of the immense grace God has shown to us by sending His precious son Jesus Christ to pay the penalty of OUR sin debts that we have no way of paying ourselves.
Debt redemptions in a society being crushed by enemy-inflicted debt is one TOOL to bring in the harvest. Yet, we must realize that merely throwing money at a problem is never a solution. We must bring the KINGDOM OF HEAVEN into the midst…a kingdom has a king, a territory, and laws.
Money was never the problem. The LOVE of money – greed, covetousness, envy, and jealousy – was one problem. The lack of knowledge & vision that lead to people perishing are another. We must not merely throw money at someone drowning in debt that just gives them more rope to hang themselves with. We must help them identify the hole in their purse and sew it shut. Give them KNOWLEDGE, WISDOM, AND UNDERSTANDING birthed out of the Fear of the LORD that breaks the bondage that partnering money with evil snared them with in the first place. Then you will have removed them from the nauseating not-so-merry go round of debt slavery to walk into liberty.
Relational Love at the Source
Love requires a 2-way relationship where BOTH are God-fearing honorable givers, not just an endless loop of givers feeding the takers. Relationships requires access, transparency, trust that develops through accountability & responsibility in order to achieve healthy intimacy that results in a person feeling truly nurtured.
The Priests Storehouses cannot be operating on a grand governmental top-down system where the money changers are 1000 steps away from the one in need. All you have to do is look at the disaster the welfare system has become. The Kingdom of Heaven cannot be relegated to cold emotionless policies, procedures, and programs. Rather, it is COMPASSION that unlocked the power to flow from Jesus into those He released healing to. It required RELATIONSHIP and HEART INVOLVEMENT.
Implement the Priests’ Storehouse where the people are in relationship with people. EVERYONE had a need, whether financial or social or employers needing employees, teachers needing students eager to learn, students needing supplies to make that learning efficient. Free, emotionless handouts make people feel like worthless OBJECTS instead of precious creations in the image of God. Shift that into a relationship where every joint supplies value to another.
Imagine with me a Priests Storehouse implemented within a company setting. It is sowed into by the employers AND employees, to be used by the people within that company. When their needs are met and debts eliminated, now they start stretching out their hand to minister to those closest to them in relationship. Imagine the productivity that would increase when the workers are no longer distracted by whether the power will still be on when they arrive home or if there’s enough food to put into their children’s bellies for supper! What kind of creativity will be unlocked from a sound mind that is no longer robbed by fear-induced insomnia or tormenting financial arguments between spouses? Costly mistakes and injuries will drop. Creative strategies will be conceived & implemented to improve productivity & income potential. Loyalty will reduce employee turnover and expensive retraining. There is accountability and expectation to adhere to the Kingdom standards to enjoy the blessings of eating at this business family’s table. Those who wish to have the table manners of a dog will be shown the door to freely grace a dog’s dish elsewhere. Developing and maintaining a culture of the fear of the LORD & humility will lead to honor, life, and riches within that company’s sphere of influence. (Prov 22:4)
It’s time for the Body of Christ to introduce the world to Christ the Redeemer in us, the hope of glory, regardless what sphere we have been planted in!
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