There Are Times When We Must Declare War
I enrolled at Fuller Theological Seminary in the fall of 1982 and graduated with a Masters in Theology in 1991. I was invited to be on the executive committee of the 1985 Billy Graham Southern California Crusade in 1983. The committee met often, I served as arrangements chairman, 580,000 attended, 37,000 made decisions for Christ, and I was asked to give my testimony one evening during the crusade. Those were exciting days.
In 1986 I sold my interest in the consulting firm I had started 22 years earlier, and joined the pastoral staff of Church on the Way. I was in charge of the radio television ministry, and made some significant business decisions that brought Jack Hayford to national Christian radio prominence. A year or so later my wife and I had the chance to move to Hawaii, and we did so.
We have been on the pastoral staff of New Hope Christian Fellowship since it started in the mid 90’s in Honolulu. New Hope and its satellites at 30,000 is the largest church in Hawaii. It is the largest or second largest church in Foursquare. Hawaii’s mega churches and its regular sized churches include 150,000 people, nearly ten percent of our population.
The Angelus Temple, Church of the Four Square Gospel, built by Aimee Semple McPherson and dedicated January 1, 1923. The temple is opposite Echo Park, near downtown Los Angeles, California.
Image: 2005 photograph / Wikimedia Commons.
I serve on the church council, teach on the Holy Spirit at our Foursquare Bible College, minister to the tutus (those in our congregations over 75 years old), teach a men’s group, write for the Faith pages of both our statewide daily newspapers, minister healing and deliverance at New Hope’s monthly healing meeting. I also have been active as a contributing editor for The Pneuma Review.
I was appointed a charter member of Foursquare’s national church office investment committee in 1999, and I still serve on that committee today. I managed the restoration of Angelus Temple, Foursquare’s first and still its official home church in 2001 and 2002.
Now having experienced all that, you might expect me to often fast for long periods at regular intervals. My life changed so remarkably, and God took me places that I never imagined I would go after I declared war and fasted in 1982. Yet I did not fast like I did in 1982, and writing this article made me think about that. I realized that an Isaiah 58 fast was to overcome the devil, but it was not intended to manipulate or force God into action that was not part of his plans. If fasting could force God’s hand, then I would have power over God, and I do not want that. So beyond trying to begin each year with a ten day fast, my days of fasting warfare were seemingly behind me. I had been a spiritual soldier for a short season and now had become a civilian again, until …
Category: Living the Faith, Winter 2010
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