Today’s world seems to thrive on controversy. Flack, feuds and fighting have made their way into the church world as well. Charismatics and evangelicals can claim no immunity, with disruptive disputes over such issues as speaking in tongues and other more controversial manifestations of the Spirit. Are they real? Are they biblical? Should we practice them?

Dr. Paul King says he has the key to the type of discernment we need to resolve this type of conflict and others: looking first at our own hearts. “Is this something that’s coming from ourselves, or is it really coming from God?” he ask Dr. Steve Greene and listeners on a recent episode of the Greenelines podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network. King, a former pastor and longtime professor at Oral Roberts University, has a new book on this topic, Is It of God?? (Bridge-Logos).

“And along with that, it’s important that we not make this as though we have a hotline to heaven—’It’s just me and God, ‘I got this from God,'” King says. Connecting with the body of Christ and the Word of God offers another key to spiritual discernment.

It’s only in the community as we also received discernment from one another,” he says. “And we check it out with someone else: ‘I got this revelation; I got this insight. Does this sound like the Word of God?'”

“I like to say that there is more that is genuinely of God than most non-charismatics are willing to acknowledge,” he says. “And there is more that is not genuinely of God than most charismatics are willing to acknowledge. So it’s finding the balance in between, and it’s having an open mind toward the Spirit.

“The Scripture tells us to be a Berean, to examine the Scriptures closely,” he adds. “And that doesn’t mean to have a closed mind. But it means to be examining closely with an open mind, letting the Holy Spirit guide us. And so there are two ditches we can go off into, and one is to be ‘charismaniacs’ and going too crazy with charismatic things. And the other ditch is to be ‘charis-phobics,’ and to be afraid.

“If we are afraid of the charismatic, then that fear comes from the devil himself; God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind,” King says.

For much more from Dr. Paul King on discernment in the things of the Spirit as well as in other areas of life, listen to the entire episode of Greenelines at this link, and check out his book, Is It of God?, wherever fine books are sold. Subscribe to the Greenelines podcast on your favorite podcast platform for more inspiring stories like this one. {eoa}

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Homeostasis: a big word some of us remember from elementary school—and some of us don’t.

It refers to a state of balance. As bestselling Christian author and former science teacher Neill G. Russell tells Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of the Greenelines podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network, homeostasis also represents our key to fulfilling the divine destiny God has for each one of us.

“Let’s go back in time, when you would wake up in the morning, and you would eat your breakfast, go outside and play go to school, you would come home, you’d have all kinds of energy,” Russell says. “And then at the end of the day, it’s time to go to sleep. That is balanced; we lived a long time in balance.”

Russell adds that as we age, we get out of balance. “God created everybody’s body—including all the animals and plants out there—to be in balance,” he says. The problems we have with our health often come because we we get out of balance, he explains, but “no one’s teaching us that.”

Russell set out to change that with his new booklet, Health by Numbers. His collaborators for the project include experts in the fields of exercise, nutrition and detoxification to yield a booklet that, he says, “Shows you how to maintain homeostasis: No doctors, no pills, no medical bills.”

But Russell’s experience with Health by Numbers goes beyond his professional interest. He lost his first wife to cancer, and he has encountered numerous health problems of his own, including an aggressive prostate cancer in 2014. He faced it as any good scientist would: with research.

“I experimented on this body,” he says. “I did the research because this is what I do. I’m a researcher; I search for God’s truth.”

Russell, who turns 69 in October, says he has more energy right now than in many years. At the beginning of his health and research journey, all his health numbers (cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure and more) were “off the charts,” he says. “That’s why it’s called Health by Numbers. …. Right now my blood pressure is normal; my triglycerides are 65. My triglycerides are 65. Every factor that I had in 2014 because I was dying is back to normal.”

Russell adds that the teaching in Health by Numbers is also the cure for fear of COVID. “If you do what’s in the book, you will not have to worry about COVID … we have an immune system in our body that God put there. And it’s job is to kill anything that shouldn’t be there. It’s when you have secondary problems—which I had, which a lot of people have today—that you have to worry about COVID This book will eliminate that.”

For much more from Neil Russell on how you can achieve balance in your health and life—and even remove the fear of COVID—listen to the entire episode of the Greenelines podcast at this link. Subscribe to Greenelines on your favorite podcast platform, and find Health by Numbers at this link. {eoa}

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The prophetic community has received a great deal of criticism in the past year—from both inside and outside the church. Dr. Joseph Mattera says although some of that is unwarranted, he also believes the church has a responsibility to monitor the prophetic.

“With the prophetic as anything else, it’s so powerful it could either be a great blessing or a curse,” he tells Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of the Greenelines podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network. “And if you went to the Indianapolis 500 race, you would not want to sit close to the cars that are going up to 120 miles an hour unless there were sufficient guardrails. And that’s what we need with the prophetic.”

Earlier this year, Mattera and Dr. Michael Brown put together a Prophetic Standards Statement, available at propheticstandards.com, which has now been signed by almost 900 faith leaders, including denominational leaders, theologians, pastors, prophets, apostles and others. Mattera describes the statement as “basically protocols—guidelines and guardrails so the prophetic community can flourish, so the gift of prophecy can flourish. It by no means tries to quench the Spirit.”

Although the statement did not specifically address politics, Mattera says he does so in his new book, The Purpose, Power and Process of Prophetic Ministry. “The prophets didn’t have 20/20 vision, of course, in the year 2020,” he says. “So there are several reasons; I don’t claim to be the expert on all of them. But one is, the Bible says, ‘We prophesy in part; we know in part,’ meaning, ‘We prophesied according to what we know, or our paradigm’—and some of it might have been motivated more by the political as their desires for a certain person to be president, and other emotions could override and make them think God was speaking.

“It could also be groupthink,” Mattera says. “They hear one prominent prophet say it, then they copy it.”

For much more from Joseph Mattera about balance in the prophetic realm as well as his new book, listen to the entire episode of Greenelines at this link, and subscribe to the Greenelines podcast on your favorite podcast platform for more inspiring stories like this one. Find Mattera’s new book wherever fine books are sold, and click here to purchase his popular favorite, The Jesus Principles, at a 50% discount. {eoa}

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“God, if you’re for real, I want You, but I don’t know how to find You. I don’t know how to do this.”

Those words in a prison cell—and the encounter with God that resulted—changed Sonny Lara’s life and brought him the fiery passion for Christ he has today. He and his wife, Linda, share the story with Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of the Greenelines podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network.

“When you go into prison, you make a choice: Either you serve God, or you serve the devil,” Sonny says. “Just like the Bible says, you can only serve one master. I was tired of living that life.”

That’s when he surrendered to God—and God showed up, right there in his prison cell.

“I heard him say, ‘I visited the woman at the well, but I visit you at the cell,” Sonny says.

His salvation didn’t make his life in prison easy, though. “People think you hide behind [your faith],” he says. “But I was so done with my life, I didn’t care. I said, ‘God, you’re either God, or I’m a dead man. …. It was weird, the Holy Spirit, right away when they started trying [to intimidate me] led me to Proverbs 16:7. … It says, ‘Those who reverence God, I’ll make your enemies at peace with you.'”

God also did the miraculous in Linda’s life while her husband was in prison and brought the two into a vibrant ministry, working with the blessing of the city of San Jose to bring teens out of gangs and into new life in Christ. To learn more, listen to the entire episode of Greenelines here. Subscribe to the Greenelines podcast on your favorite podcast platform for more inspiring stories like this one, and be sure to check out the Laras’ own podcast, Miracle Madness, also on the Charisma Podcast Network. {eoa}

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“I’m absolutely convinced my mother had eyes in the back of her head.” Raise your hand if you affirm this statement.

“All of our brothers and my sister, I think we all agreed that she never missed a thing,” says Dr. Steve Greene of his own mother on a recent episode of the Greenelines podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network, where he makes a spiritual connection for this almost universal mom-trait. “She could be in a Walmart shopping aisle and know that somebody had their hands in the cookie jar.

“I never really understood how she knew what she knew,” he continues. “But I felt like she had that ability to discern, and to know what was going on in her kitchen, for that matter. In her house, in our backyard, wherever we went. Mom could see us with eyes in the back of her head. She didn’t have to ask us any questions; she knew before we told her.”

Greene adds that his wife exhibited this same characteristic when she became a mother and woke up five or 10 minutes before the baby cried. “She had a sense of knowing that one of her children was in trouble, one of her children needed something,” he says.

In a similar way, Greene says, “We can’t hide anything from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit reveals all that which is trying to be hidden. The more we try to hide a thing, the more it’s revealed.”

Leaders can learn from this, Greene says, by allowing the Holy Spirit to teach them. “Leaders need a sense of discernment to be able to know what they need to know about a decision that needs to be made.”

For more tips on Spirit-led discernment for leaders, listen to the entire episode of Greenelines at this link and be sure to subscribe to Greenelines on your favorite podcast platform for more Spirit-based wisdom. {eoa}

A trained bald eagle, flying inside the chapel of a Christian college as part of its faith and freedom celebration. Sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it? And it was—until things didn’t go according to plan.

“I saw it fly, and I saw it fall,” says Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of the Greenelines podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network. The eagle had been trained to fly to its trainer, who was holding a mouse. But in the large crowd, the eagle got excited, and a new assistant trainer released it early, he explains. The eagle flew straight toward him, the other faculty and administration, all seated in the chapel balcony.

“Just as he got to us, he banked and turned toward the east,” Greene says. “Now he’s flying at the very top of the chapel at a fairly high rate of speed. And apparently the eagle spotted a nice tree to go light upon. As he saw this branch, he continued to pick up speed. And unfortunately, just before he got to the branch, he got to the window in the chapel. … The eagle hit himself right up against the window and fell to the floor.”

Despite the immediate cries and concern of the watching college students, this story—despite the eagle’s fall and probable concussion—has at least two happy endings. The eagle lived, and Greene saw an important leadership lesson played out. To hear the rest of the story along with this key leadership lesson, listen to the entire episode of Greenelines here, and be sure to subscribe to Greenelines on your favorite podcast platform for more inspiring stories like this one. {eoa}

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As we have just passed America’s birthday celebration, the nation’s cake reveals a number of candles snuffed out. Churches in America—as well as the Christian faith—are on the decline. A recent Washington Post article says for the first time in history, less than half of Americans now identify as church members. Leadership expert John Maxwell attributes this to a leadership crisis based on two shocking differences he sees between corporate leaders and pastors.

“Every time a church goes out, if you think of America like a big birthday cake … every time a little candle goes out, America just gets slightly dimmer, and I think we’re seeing that,” author, pastor and leadership coach Chris Sonksen tells Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of the Greenelines podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network.

“If you look from 1950 to now, 2021, so 71 years, you’ll see just a continual decrease in those who claim faith,” Sonksen says. “And you’ll see a decrease in Christian churches and a rise in other faiths. … If you just follow the last 70 years, you’re 19 years away from Christianity being much further behind in the religious category.”

Sonksen met with Maxwell to discuss this decline, knowing Maxwell’s oft-quoted maxim, “Everything rises and falls on leadership.”

When Sonksen asked about the difference between corporate president leaders and Christian pastors and leaders, Maxwell’s answer revealed the leadership crisis, he says, noting that Maxwell “didn’t even blink” before responding.

“The corporate leaders are much hungrier to learn than the Christian pastors and leaders,” Maxwell told him.

Not only that, but the corporate leaders act out that hunger. They “Want to develop, and they’ll do anything they can to make that happen,” Maxwell said. He added, “I find it very sad that when I worked with the president of a wireless company, he’s much more passionate about selling cell phones” than the pastors he works with are passionate about their churches or gospel-focused ministry.

To hear more from Chris Sonksen about why churches are declining and what we can do about it, listen to the entire episode of Greenelines at this link, and subscribe to Greenelines on your favorite podcast platform for more inspiring stories like this one. Find Sonksen’s latest book, When Your Church Feels Stuck, wherever fine books are sold. {eoa}

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If you study Bible prophecy at all, you also study the Middle East. In the last several years, as events unfold including the moving of the U.S. and three other country’s embassies to Jerusalem, continuing conflict over the Gaza strip and the escalation of terrorist attacks from Hamas, more people are wondering: Are we in the last days?

End-times expert Michael Snyder says that may well be the case. “We’ve been anticipating that kind of large-scale conflict in the Middle East,” he tells Dr. Steve Greene on a popular episode of Greenelines on the Charisma Podcast network. “Many of us believe the Bible speaks of certain things in the last days. And so a lot of people have been watching for this. But what most people don’t realize is that the fighting is actually already going on.”

In this 2019 podcast, Snyder speaks of the airstrikes or drone strikes Israel conducted in Syria, Gaza, Lebanon and Iraq, designed to prevent attacks against Israel. But today’s conflicts are escalating as well, with recent news of Israel’s rocket war with Hamas along the Gaza border and recent U.S. attacks on Iran-backed militia facilities in Iraq and Syria.

“Iran and all their allies are absolutely obsessed with wiping Israel off the off the face of the map; they talk about it all the time,” Snyder says. And when full-blown war erupts, that’s going to be their goal, to utterly destroy Israel. And so we’re talking about something that’s very, very serious.”

Are we in the last days? How much has the conflict escalated since this interview first took place? To hear more on this and other concerning trends, to the entire episode of Greenelines here, and be sure to subscribe to the Greenelines podcast on your favorite podcast platform for more thought- and prayer-provoking stories like this one. {eoa}

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Ministry assistant. Worship leader. Television ad executive. Business consultant. College professor. Chief operating officer for a restaurant chain. Pastor. Ad agency owner. Dean of the Oral Roberts University School of Business. Kingdom leader Dr. Steve Greene, executive vice president of media and markets for Charisma Media, has had all these jobs and more.

On a recent episode of the Greenelines podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network, Dr. Mark Rutland turns the tables on Greene and interviews him for his own podcast, The Leader’s Notebook. In their wide-ranging discussion, Greene shares the common ingredient—and the Holy Spirit’s “secret sauce”—that has brought him success.

“In all of these jobs, I was where the Lord wanted me,” Greene says. “What I remember about the whole experience is everything led to something else. As I sit her today, every single stop I made along the way contributed to ‘such a time as this.’ It all added up to having the experiences that were going to be needed for what God had planned for me for the future.”

Greene says after spending time ministering to entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe, Africa, he came back convinced he needed to leave business and get back into church ministry, with plans to return to what he called “my Africa.”

The day after he returned, he got a call from a man who needed serious help with his restaurant business.

“I am your Africa,” the man said. “You can’t leave me. I need you to help me with the store, help me to get profitable. My home is on the line here.”

By God’s grace, Greene says, he helped the man bring his business back to life. But he also learned a key lesson: The Lord will send His people to the place that matches their calling. “He sends a worship leader to a church that needs a worship leader. He sent me into a food chain that needed someone who could fix their problems,” Greene says.

To hear more of Dr. Steve Greene’s wisdom on leadership, including an additional key of the kingdom that he says makes it all work, listen to the entire episode of Greenelines at this link, and be sure to subscribe to Greenelines on your favorite podcast platform for more inspiring stories like this one. You’ll also want to check out Rutland’s The Leader’s Notebook podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network. {eoa}

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“If you’re going to be a successful leader, you have to hear from God.”

That advice comes from Dr. Charles Green, longtime pastor of Word of Faith Temple in New Orleans, Louisiana, and mentor to many, including Dr. Steve Greene. As a young pastor, the Lord called Green and his new bride, Barbara, to Port Arthur, Texas, Green says on a popular episode of the Greenelines podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network. God spoke to him on their very first night in the new city.

“He told me two things to do,” Green says. “The first one was to start having services every night until further notice. So the following Saturday, I put a 1/3-page ad in the paper … I didn’t realize what had happened, but that began to be the talk of the town. And the first thing you know, we left the place of obscurity. …. The second thing that God spoke to me to do was to start a radio broadcast.”

Right away, Green contracted with the strongest station in the city and began a radio broadcast every Sunday night.

After only two shows had aired, he received a call one Monday morning: “Are you Charles Green? … the one who preaches on the radio?”

“I started laughing,” Green says. “I said, ‘I’ve only had two programs.’

“Well, my wife has heard both of them, and she likes the way you do it,” the caller told him. “But my wife is an invalid. And she can’t come to church. She can’t even stand up.”

The man asked him, “Would you come to our home and pray for her?”

About an hour later, Green and his wife were at the couple’s home. As they entered, they learned that the man, J.P. Logan, was the city mayor. They sat and talked with Logan and his wife, and then Green said, “Well, Mr. Logan, we’re going to agree together in prayer” and spoke with him about what that meant.

As he prayed, “There was no lightning from heaven … And I just thought, Well, I guess I prayed an average prayer,” Green says. He and Barbara both felt disappointed when they didn’t hear any more from the Logans all week.

But that Sunday morning, Green says, he taught a Sunday school class and then went into the sanctuary. “I was just getting ready to say, ‘Let’s stand for prayer’ when the back door opened, and the mayor and his two children and his invalid wife walked in the door. And she was on spike heels, walking down the aisle of my church. Well, what I didn’t know, because I’d only been in town for a month, was that everybody knew this woman was just an invalid.”

For more about how God used this miracle to fill every seat in Green’s church in less than three months, listen to the entire episode of Greenelines here. Be sure to subscribe to Greenelines on your favorite podcast platform for more inspiring stories like this one. {eoa}

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