See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant.

Em Jeremiah 1:10

confession.

As I got up this morning, I started thinking about how proud I am of my students. It was a hard year for them and their parents because I am harsh and I am hard, and they were so sensitive—babies to the Nth degree in many cases. I don’t teach reading and math the way y’all think about teaching things. I tear up systems of thought and replace them with growth mindsets and build up confidence. You can’t keep a confident person from learning and growing. That’s my “secret” as a teacher. I teach kids how to fish rather than feed them. And that teaching HURTS for someone who has been coddled through school. Learning to walk in authority is HARD, harder even for those who are used to be carried everywhere for everything. But they have risen to the occasion in ways that have even surprised me! I know they gone make it next year, even with this foolishness that’s happening.

Kingdom.

The Lord showed me that in my growth in Christ, The Lord often gives me words that nobody wants to hear because they are edification and not exhortation. I am a builder. I was appointed to carry the word of God which uproots and tears down, destroys and overthrows, then builds and plants. This means that my words are HARD to digest at first because they are neither warm nor fuzzy. They don’t make you feel good at all.

I don’t do milk, I do meat.

I go straight for the baby food and onto solids. My students (be they 6th graders or bible study) have rotted teeth and sour bellies from drinking milk too long, still babies in Christ. Grown men and women of God who will tell you they been saved since they was little, walk around still rooted in offense and fear and flesh because nobody ever took the time to lovingly root them out so that they could be confident in the Lord. I see it all around me now, folks mired in FEAR (not Godly wisdom and prudence), tossed by every news report and conference call.

Love isn’t always making a body “feel good” about themselves til the next trial comes. Love brings with it correction. Until your mindset is corrected and your soul healed, you will never grow into the unstoppable, unshakable transformative power of knowing that with God ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE and in Christ, you can DO ALL THINGS. You will SAY it, but you won’t ever SEE it in your life.

edification.

Kingdom is about Godfidence. Confidence and trust that what you see and hear is from the Lord, that the Lord our God is not a man who would lie to you—He will always bring His word to bear, and that if you make a mistake? Well, we have an advocate who is CONSTANTLY pleading our case. His blood speaks for us, the Altar above every altar.

Godfidence comes from tearing down strongholds, uprooting old mindsets, destroying limiting traditions, pulling down the altars of idolatry, then planting Jesus in the people and the people in Jesus so that Christ will build His church and “THY KINGDOM COME, THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN.” And you, my guy, are the earth in which His will must be performed.

All else is wasted time.

So. If you find yourself still wallowing in baby Saint juice, it’s time to chew on the word a little bit—gnaw on it like a baby’s first chicken wing. Get in there and wallow in it. It may taste a little bitter at first (the flesh preferred the sugary sugarcoated gospel and not the BREAD of HEAVEN, honey). I promise you though, the MORE you eat it, the better it gets until you wake up one day and declare: GOD IS, and therefore I AM in Christ.