This Side Of The Cross

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Author Profile

Kris Vallotton

Kris VallottonKris Vallotton is the founder and overseer of the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry in Redding, California. He is the Senior Associate Leader at Bethel Church, and has been a part of Bill Johnson's apostolic team for over 26 years. Kris is an internationally recognized prophetic voice, and he and his wife Kathy have trained, developed, and pastored prophetic teams and supernatural schools all over the world.

He is a notable speaker with a vision and passion to equip an "Elijah Generation" for the end-times harvest. He has authored numerous books including the best-selling Supernatural Ways of Royalty, as well as Developing a Supernatural Lifestyle, Basic Training for the Prophetic Ministry, and Purity. 

Website: KVMinistries.com | Resources | Video | Books | Article Archive here

History Makers - Kris Vallotton

Every so often in the course of history there are individuals born who defy common reason and statistical explanation. These are the great ones, who break the tether of their generation’s expectations and rise to the high call that seems to echo from somewhere beyond the grave.

The prophets of old peered into the future and spoke of these violent ones who would force their way into the Kingdom, take hold of Heaven and pull it down to earth. These reigning saints refuse to have their exploits be a mere reflection of the past, but instead break the gravitational barriers of naysayers and doubters, and journey far beyond the boundaries of reason into places where no one has ever gone before. Ultimately they capture the prize of the upward call of God that lies in Christ Jesus. These are God’s history makers, the Lord’s chosen people, His mighty men, His holy nation.

Many of us can feel the vacuum of this vortex drawing our hearts into this divine destiny. We find our inner man longing, stirring, and burning for the great adventure. Live or die, we must press through the walls of mediocrity and find the Promised Land of our souls. We live with a passion to be numbered among those who have gained fame in the halls of Heaven and are feared among the prison guards of hell. If we are going to walk as God’s ruling royalty, we have to:

- Pray unceasingly

- Give sacrificially

- Dream unreasonably

- Serve wholeheartedly

- Love unashamedly

- Walk innocently

- Believe undoubtingly

- Live powerfully

These are the qualities of the Bride of Christ in all of her glory. She is called to be the most creative force on the face of the earth. Therefore, we must not allow ourselves to become known for our boxes, that is, famous for what we don’t do because of our “righteous”constrictions. Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Benjamin Franklin had certain moral values that restrained their behavior, but they were famous for what they did, not for what they didn’t do! It would be tragic if the most creative people on the face of the earth allowed themselves to be reduced to rent-a-cops guarding a box (The Ark of the Covenant) that God vacated 2,000 years ago.

The truth is that if we don’t take our rightful place in the earth, we will relegate sinners, void of the mind of Christ, barred from the wisdom of the ages, and wandering in utter darkness, to being the most brilliant minds of our time! If the brightest light in this world belonged to those locked in darkness, how great would the darkness be in our world? Something is fundamentally wrong with this picture, but this is our brain on religion. Religion is like kryptonite to Superman. Religion can conform the most righteous, reigning saints into mindless zombies, puppets repeating someone else’s convictions they don’t even understand themselves.
Attack Of The Clones

I am convinced that religion is the father of genetic cloning. Religion invented cloning long before the world ever thought of it. Religion has a way of sucking the most powerful people on the planet into a spiritual look-a-like contest, calling it discipleship. True discipleship is meant to empower people to be transformed into the image of their Creator, but religion redefines the terms, conforming people into replicas of their leaders. Religion takes God’s mighty men and makes them artifacts in a museum.

Religious people, like the Pharisees of old, have the hardest time reaching out to folks who think “outside of the box” and don’t behave inside their hopeless shackles. Part of the struggle comes from what they have done to the Savior of the world. They have sterilized the gospel. Jesus took water and turned it to wine, but 2,000 years later, today’s Pharisees have diluted it to grape juice. Religion has reduced the supernatural power of God to a history lesson about serving the dead body of a helpless Christ who, still nailed to the Cross, is incapable of rocking their sacred boat. They emphasize the drowning of baptism, arguing over how people should get wet and what should be said over them during their dipping. Religious people have lost touch with the fact that the bold print of baptism is not on the descent but on the ascension. The death of Christ paid for our sins, but it was His resurrection that gave life to our mortal bodies. Religion embraces death sadistically and moves the risen Christ out of the garden and back to the tomb. Religious people pray things like “God, kill me,” not realizing that even the One who came to give His life as a ransom for us all prayed, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup (of death) from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42). Jesus did not want to die; He wanted to do His Father’s will. If religion had its way, it would rewrite Mary’s proclamation to read, “He is in the tomb just where we laid Him!” We have lost sight of the fact that the Cross was for the old man not the new man, and that the true Christian life is not about dying for Christ, but living in the life He purchased for us to establish His Kingdom on earth! The Church must shake off the shackles of religion and embrace our supernatural destiny.

Our Commission

The world is crying out in distress, and we must not miss this kairos moment, the opportunity of the ages. In the late sixties, the Beatles took America by storm. In a few short years, four boys from Liverpool altered the course of our nation’s history. Soon after, the world was swept into the wake of their anointing—all while they were singing “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” But it wasn’t long before the Fab Four started to experience a crisis in their own souls. They began to cry out in desperation, singing,

Help, I need somebody
Help, not just anybody
Help, you know I need someone, help

When I was younger, so much younger than today,
I never needed anybody’s help in any way.
But now those days are gone, I’m not so self-assured
Now I find I’ve changed my mind and opened up the doors

Help me if you can, I’m feeling down
And I do appreciate you being ‘round
Help me get my feet back on the ground.
Won’t you please, please help me
Help me, help me, ooh.

But their cry for help fell on deaf ears in the sanctuary of hope, and soon they were calling Hare Krishna their “sweet lord.” The Church can’t afford to fall asleep in the harvest today as we have done so many times in the past. We are not supposed to reflect our culture; we are commissioned to transform it.

We are called to disciple all the nations of the world. Discipling nations means submerging them in God—not religion—and “teaching them all I commanded you” (Matthew 28:20). Teaching nations how to think is the transformational catalyst to changing cultures. But as long as Christians aren’t valued in society, they will have no influence in the world. (You only have as much influence in people’s lives as they have value for you. Anytime you try to have more influence than someone has value for you, you will manipulate them.) It is imperative that we become kings who understand the ways royal people influence authority. Otherwise, we will reduce ourselves to social begging, hoping that the BIG, powerful people feel compassion for us and help our cause. This poisonous poverty mindset reduces the Christian message to a cry for help instead of a call for leadership. We don’t need nations to change for our sake. We have a living, abiding, unshakable Kingdom that dwells within us and prospers under all circumstances. We need the nations to change for the sake of those still lost in darkness. They need the culture around them to create a safe environment for them until they get the Kingdom within them.

This cultural begging has relegated the Kingdom of God to a subculture. God never intended Christianity to be a subculture. Subcultures are those cultures that are subservient to a more powerful culture. The world’s commentary on the first century Church reflects the true influence we are meant to have in society. They proclaimed, “These who have turned the world upside down have come here too” (Acts 17:6 NKJV). We are called to turn the world around and set it back on its feet again. We are to be counter-culture until the mindset of the nations begins to take on the attitude of the Kingdom. Christians are not subservient to the world because God has assigned us the highest level of authority that exists on this planet. When Christians lose their desire and courage to confront the evils of our day honorably, we begin to be influenced by the lying principalities that are also commissioned to disciple the nations, but with an antichrist agenda. These demonic forces work to dethrone the Prince of Peace, who is the rightful prince of the principles that make societies prosper, and instead enthrone the prince of darkness. Consequently, the enabling principles of a culture become demonically inspired instead of Kingdom in-Spirited. This dark prince works to establish evil thinking that leads to destructive behaviors. But when Jesus rules, He enables the principles of the King to transform the culture through the mind of Christ. In other words, people in a nation governed by the Kingdom begin to think like God!

However, it is important that we learn how to carry His power and authority. If we believers become combative instead of honorably confronting, we will reduce our influence to the small pond of the church and render ourselves powerless in the ocean of humanity. We are to carry God’s authority into the lives of people and nations through invitation, not through intrusion or invasion. Although we are called to be combative to the powers of darkness, we are to be honorably confronting to people, demonstrating the benefits and rewards of a superior Kingdom.

Mercy Triumphs Over Judgment - Kris Vallotton

Devilish Deceptions

It’s been said that God does nothing in the affairs of men except they pray.  Prayer is the catalyst for worldwide transformation.  Prayer incites the angels, restrains darkness, and releases nations into their destiny.  Prayer is the key to revival, building bridges between what should be and what will be.

The devil also knows the power of prayer and he understands that he can’t stop us from praying.  But he is the master of deception and he tries to convince us that his destructive schemes are “acts of God” so Believers will not release the arsenal of Heaven against him!  Unfortunately, satan has been more successful at deceiving the saints recently than he has for decades.  One of the ways he has shrewdly crept into our society is by convincing the Church that it is our responsibility to release the wrath of God against sinners.  This authorizes the dethroned prince of darkness to kill, steal and destroy while we stand aside applauding the demise of these ravaged people. To make matters worse, this evil prince frames the Lord of Redemption for his crimes, poisoning the people of His passion, which causes many of them to reject His wedding invitation. Meanwhile, those who have been empowered to police this property lack discernment and assist these angels of light in their killing spree.

The Reemerging Of The Doomsday Prophets

In the last decade the “Doomsday” prophets seemed to have come out of hibernation. In 1997, my own parents moved out of the San Francisco Bay Area to avoid the wrath of a great earthquake prophesied to strike southern California. This quake was going to destroy Hollywood for its immoral pollution of the media and San Francisco for its homosexual perversion. The word also predicted that northern California would become “ocean front property.” 

My mom and dad relocated from the Bay Area to Lake Tahoe near Nevada, hoping to find a prophetic “no-fly” zone.  Just about the time my folks got settled, several prophets began to prophesy about an upcoming international famine. This became known around the world as the “Y2K bug.” This bug was going to judge us for making our intellect a god.  It was the perfect “God Scheme.”  The whole plan was to be hidden by our foolish confidence in man’s brilliance. It seemed that the Lord had blinded every computer nerd in the world, keeping them from discovering too soon that we would all be starving over the lack of a digit.  What a way to go! There would be rioting in the streets; people would be fighting off the temptation to cannibalize their neighbors and children!  Businesses and governments would crumble next.  Some even predicted this would start the “Mother of all Wars.”  People streamed in mass to buy generators and guns to protect their food in the “Name of the Lord.” Needless to say, these preparations proved to be pointless, and my parents are still driving for hours to reach the ocean.

September 11, 2001 will forever be branded in the minds of Americans as a monument to murder.   America woke up to the sounds of people screaming, many of them on fire as they exited the black smoke of a man-made hell. Explosions could be heard in the background as buildings crumbled and thousands were trapped in would-be tombs.  Weeping and wailing were heard for miles as people wandered aimlessly through the streets looking for their loved ones. Many jumped to their death from these flaming infernos. Deep sadness and fear blanketed the whole earth as the news spread.  Everywhere, people were crying out for mercy for those who were still counted among the missing.  People were glued to their TV sets, praying, hoping and believing that life would emerge from the rubble.

Although the “Prophets of Doom” had not prophesied this disaster, declarations of darkness began to emerge from what was supposed to be the “House of Hope.” Before we could ask ourselves why such a mindless act of horror would be perpetrated on the lives of the many innocent who died that day, numerous Prophets began to proclaim that this terrorist attack was God’s judgment for the sins of our nation.  Their thesis was that God was angry over the abortion, homosexual, and pornography issues, so he decided to kill a bunch of people to make His point. Can you imagine the grief that beset those who had lost loved ones and were now being confronted by an angry God who wanted to kill more people?  This attitude reminds me of something Jesus said, "In the last days the love of many will grow cold" (Matthew 24:12.) 

Slow Learners

It seems that many of God’s Prophets are slow learners as a whole new wave of prophetic judgments are being released over San Francisco, Northern California and Hollywood again. These judgments are predicated on a huge misunderstanding of New Testament prophetic ministry in the Church today. The Church needs to realize that the crucifixion of Jesus fulfilled the Law and the Prophets!  We need to stop doing for the devil what he can’t do for himself!

Let’s take a look at the goal of New Testament ministry and means of achieving it according to the Apostle Paul. He wrote:

"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Corinthians 5:17-21.)

Two things come to light in these passages: number one, New Testament ministry is the “ministry of reconciliation”. And number two, the way God reconciles people to Himself is by “not counting their trespasses against them!” In the Old Testament the primary role of the Prophet was to decree judgments for national transgressions because sin required judgment under the Law. But in the New Testament, the crucifixion of Christ paid the price that judgment required, thereby fulfilling justice and ultimately releasing mercy to millions of sinners who didn’t deserve it (people like you and me, for instance).

A Violent Act Of Grace

It never seems to dawn on some Believers that we didn’t get into the Kingdom through our works but through His (Christ’s).  Sinners who discipline themselves into good behavior are still sinners who are in need of a savior.  No one can behave their way into Heaven!  Trying to get into Heaven through disciplined behavior is called self-righteousness and it is ugly to God!

Jesus said, “The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John; since that time the gospel of the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it (Luke 16:16). The Law said, “You can’t come into the Kingdom because you haven’t kept all the rules!”  The Prophets continued the same theme, proclaiming judgments on the world for their (our) wickedness. But then, suddenly, something amazing happened; unrighteous people began turning the Cross of Christ into a battering ram and through a violet act of grace they forced their way into the Kingdom!

Shaking Out The Salt

Jesus told us, “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again?  It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men (Matthew 5:13). In Jesus’ day, they didn’t have refrigerators to store their food.  Salt was the primary means by which they preserved their meat and poultry.  Through this analogy, the Lord is teaching us that the Church is the element in society that preserves the culture from the wrath of God and the destruction of evil forces.  A great example of this is Joseph, who released a corporate blessing through his righteous life.  His presence in Egypt caused the Israelites and the Egyptians to be spared from a worldwide famine.

Jesus also said that when salt becomes tasteless, it is not good for anything except to be walked on by men.  In other words, the people of that day would taste the salt and if it was no longer salty, they knew that it would not keep their food from spoiling. It’s important to remember that Jesus is not really talking about preserving meat, but describing the Body of Christ.  So what does it mean to become tasteless?  It implies that we have stopped preserving the world. You can tell when the Church has become tasteless because we begin to prophesy against the people we are supposed to be preserving.

Re-Presenting Christ

Not only is the Church preservation (salt), but we are also revelation (light).  In the book of Matthew Jesus said, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14.)  What does it mean to be light, and what is it that we are illuminating? We are shedding light on the nature of God; how He thinks and acts in the affairs of men.  We are the revelation of the Father and His love letter to the world.  We re-present Christ to the lost. The world looks to us to understand world events through the eyes of God.  When we misrepresent our Heavenly Father, the world gets a warped perspective of God.

James and John are a good example of how many misrepresent God.  The “Sons of Thunder” wanted to call fire down to consume a city, but Jesus said to them, “You don’t know what spirit you are of" (Luke 9:54-55.)  It is interesting to me that this was this same John who wrote to the Beloved and exhorted us, “Not to believe every spirit, but to test the spirits to see if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (I John 4:1.)  I imagine that he received the revelation that even Jesus’ own apostles could be influenced by hell through his own experience of listening to the wrong spirit.

Notice how his exhortation continues in the same chapter: “Beloved, let us love one another . . . There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love” (John 4:18.)  These verses were written in the context of testing the spirits.  In other words, we test the spirits by examining them in light of the virtues of love.  When we read love’s virtues that are spelled out in the letter to the Corinthians, and understand that fear has no place in love, we find ourselves wondering what spirit is encouraging these judgment prophecies.  The greatest tragedy is that the revelation the world receives from these voices causes them to believe that our Father is an angry God who is looking for an opportunity to punish people.

The apostle John laid his head on the chest of Christ and was transformed from an angry, “son of thunder” into John the beloved. It is time for the prophets of God to lay their head on the Masters chest and hear the heart beat of Heaven again.

Jesus said, “If the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness” (Matthew 6:23)!  If we are the light of the world and we are speaking against the people who are already lost in night, how great is the darkness!  In the same way, when we represent God as someone who wants to destroy America because forty millions babies have been aborted in our country, we perpetuate the very problem that we are trying to cure.  People are killing their babies because they don’t know or understand the love of the Father.  Does it make sense that we tell people that God is so angry that we are killing our young that He is going to teach us a lesson by killing a bunch more people?  Is our Father so single-dimensional in His being that He only has one response to anything man does wrong?

Can you imagine the negative impact it would have on your daughter if she came to you to tell you that she had an abortion, and in response you flipped out and tried to kill her?  If you reacted out of rage, I would suggest that your lack of love is a large part of her decision to have the abortion in the first place.

When we reveal God to the world, it is essential that we communicate light, life and love.  Love doesn’t punish or create fear.  I personally don’t believe that God is mad at sinners.  I do think that He is grieved over the world’s destructive behavior. But grief and anger are not the same thing.

Love Requires Free Choice

Every time we see the heartless acts of destruction that deeply wound the heart of God, we must remember the depths of God’s desire to share love. The nature of love is that it requires us to be able to choose.  If God took away our choice, people could only behave in the way that God programmed them to.  Wars would cease, hunger would end, and poverty would only be an ancient memory.  But the desperate cry of the human heart that beats with passion for a loving relationship with the most beautiful Being in the entire universe would be gone too.

Day after day, a loving Creator looks down on a broken planet longing for the day when the object of His affection will walk hand in hand with Him into indescribable beauty in the halls of eternity. In the meantime, the destruction continues, not because God is angry with man, but rather because men choose to kill, steal and destroy.  This is the fruit of those who have chosen the wrong lover (Satan).

Meanwhile, a hateful enemy is stalking a wounded and desperate people. He is seeking to paralyze us with fear, demoralize us with his arrogant boasts of destructive predictions, and harden us with hopelessness. Yet still, the future belongs to those who pray.  Prayer is the bridge between what should be and what will be. The diligent prayer of a righteous people will ultimately determine the destiny of our children.  Therefore, it is our responsibility to leave to those yet to be born a world in revival as their inheritance. Hanging in the balance of eternity is the ultimate climax of our Creator – the kingdoms of this world becoming the Kingdom of our God.

Living With Something To Die For - Kris Vallotton

More than three thousand young men and woman have died, and many more Americans have been wounded, in the war in Iraq. It is sad to hear of the scores of young lives that are being taken every day. But the truth is that everybody is going to die someday. The question that we should ask ourselves is not will we die, but whether or not we will really live. When we leave this world, will our life actually have counted for something? The real tragedy is not that so many are dying to protect our freedom, but that millions are living without any purpose. So many people have lost sight of what we are fighting for.

In some ways violence is a way of life on this planet. Jesus said that “violent men take the Kingdom by force.” It is evident that we as Christians live in a world that is full of violence, both in the seen and unseen world. It is important for us to understand that our battles are to be the manifestation of His victory. When Jesus died on the cross He won the ultimate triumph. We no longer fight for victory, but we fight from victory. Winning is assured when we enter the battle. The ultimate challenge, therefore, lies not so much in the battle itself, but in getting the people of God to go to war. When the Royal Army refuses to fight and instead runs away from the lines of combat, they are often shot in the back where they remain armorless (notice that the armor of God list in the book of Ephesians has no protection for your back). We are ill equipped for retreat.

One of the challenges in getting Christians to engage in war is in the questionable rewards of sacrifice that victory requires. History helps connect us to the virtues that are worth dying for. These virtues that stand behind the veil of time are our inheritances. They are often clothed with words like “Honor,” “Freedom” “Valor,” “Loyalty,” and “Respect.” Our founding fathers counted these invisible attributes like countries to protect and qualities to pass down to their children. These noble men fought, not so much to protect land, but to perpetuate the principles of the Kingdom.

When we don’t honor the historic exploits of our forefathers, we begin to falter in the absences of true foundations. This leads us to valuing the pursuit of pleasure as some euphoric goal of life. The result of this is that wars are lost before the enemy is ever encountered, because pleasure is seldom found on the battlefield (in other words, war doesn’t tend to be fun).

The Apostle Paul said, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, and we are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is complete.” (2 Corinthians 10:3-6) Notice that the fortresses that are to be destroyed are in the invisible world. They are listed as speculations, lofty things, and thoughts. The real war lies in the unseen world. If we don’t have “eyes to see” what is really happening in the spirit realm, we reduce warfare to fighting over parcels of dirt or ways of governing people.

Honoring the past makes us cognizant of the ancient boundaries and borders that have been entrusted to us to protect. It is through honor that we capture the vision of our founding fathers and understand how important it is to pass it on. The weight of this responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of this generation to boldly protect the invisible borders of our property by pushing back the powers of darkness through divine strategic warfare. History will record whether or not God’s people rose up in this dispensation to perpetuate the royal attributes of our Holy King, or if we digressed into the cesspool of moral corruption. If we fail, those who record our history will also be caught in the debt of its despair. But if we succeed and rise above the mire of the complacency of our peers, we could very possibly leave a legacy that perpetuates into eternity.

We cannot afford to fail! We must dress ourselves in vigilance and run to the borders of the virtues which have been handed down to us to protect. With so much at stake, we must win these most epic battles.

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