One of the things I enjoy watching are the “real-life” programs that feature families living off the grid in Alaska. I love watching the families survive and thrive against the elements. They rely on their God-given gifts to build homesteads, fish, and hunt for food, grow crops and raise sled dogs to live in a climate that is anything but livable in Alaska. All this without having a “Lowes” or “Home Depot” nearby to buy tools and supplies for their needs. They are a certain “type” of people that enjoy living that way compared to 90% of the population that would prefer to live with the conveniences of the lower 48th. My grandfather was cut off the same cloth. He was a builder and owner of a lumber mill before it caught fire and burnt to the ground during the 1930’s. He would build a tool to use rather than buy one. He built 100’s of homes by “stick” which is totally different than today. He could cut things to fit perfectly without ever using a measuring tape. I would love to sit in his woodshop as a child and just watch him work. I can still smell the aroma of wood shavings. He didn’t but a boat, he made one just following the innate gifts that God had given him. If you ever get the chance to be around such and individual, enjoy it.
In our western culture, we don’t need God. In fact, we have removed God from all influence. America has gone in the opposite direction. Any reference to God or Jesus has become offensive to those who would turn America into an atheistic, godless state.
Even as Christians, we don’t really need God; we don’t really live a life of faith. We don’t need the Holy Spirit in church. We don’t want Him to mess up our programs and agenda. The only time we need Holy Spirit is when all our methods and agendas fail. Then we turn to Him to fix our “messes”, or we blame Him to have caused our mess. Jesus was counter to the religious culture of His day. He so messed with the religious system of His day; they crucified Him for it. He didn’t live by the religious dogma, He only did what He saw His Father doing (John 5:19).
I believe God is calling a remnant of people who will be willing “to live off the grid” so to speak. Those who will be willing to live by faith and not necessarily by sight. Those who are so led by Holy Spirit that they use their God given innate authority to unlock the chains that have bound this culture in darkness for decades, perhaps centuries and allow the glory of the Kingdom of God to shine.
This involves living a life of faith and action as Holy Spirit leads. One theme that is consistent in both the Old and New Testaments is that the just will live by faith…
Habakkuk 2:4 (ESV)
“Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.
And Hebrews 10:38 (ESV).
“but my righteous one shall live by faith,and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.”
Faith is not nothing, faith is a substance. Faith is will and word of God. Hebrews 11:1 (KJV)
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
The Greek word for “substance” is the word “hupostasis” which literally means to “stand under, to hold up”. Other meanings are an underlying), (a) confidence, assurance, (b) a giving substance (or reality) to, or a guaranteeing, (c) substance, reality.
It is Gods guarantee of his word. It’s what Jesus meant when He said in Matthew4:4
“But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
God’s word has substance. The angel told Mary literally, “every word from God has the power within itself to fulfill that which it was sent forth to do!” (Luke 1:37). It’s what the prophet Isaiah was meaning when he penned Isaiah 55:10-11 (ESV)
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
All God’s word needs is a place to land, to be planted and grow into maturity. A people who will be willing to say goodbye to the grid of the flesh and live by the grid of Holy Spirit. This is not an option; this is essential for God to move in our generation. God’s ways are not our ways and are often embracing that which is not normal to see Him. Abraham followed and obeyed the word of Gods calling and left which was natural to Him to follow a promise God has made. Enoch embraced the spiritual as opposed to the natural and did not taste death because God took him. Both those men left the grid of the natural to embrace what wasn’t. Are you willing? I am!!
“teach me Lord what it is to live by faith and fully embrace what the Apostle Paul prayed over the church of Ephesus in Ephesians 1:16-20 (ESV)
“That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places,”