REST, RECOVERY, AND PREPARING FOR HARVEST
“There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest…”— Hebrews 4:9-11
Dear Partners and Friends,
In his “decades prophecy,” prophet Bob Jones proclaimed that the decade of the 2020's would be a time when we would learn to “rest in God." Learning to
rest in God
is the best way for us to prepare for the challenges and great harvest our nation is about to face because it means we set aside our own striving to let Him work in and through our lives. As believers, we don’t advance through our own righteousness, our own toil, or our own effort. Rather, we advance by remembering everything God does through us is a free work of grace, purchased by the power of the cross, and released as we learn to yield to His Spirit’s moving. The reason that Paul tells us to “make every effort to enter that rest” is because the enemy wants to hinder our rest.
As you may know, the last year has been a difficult time in my life, my marriage, and my ministry. Some of this difficulty was my own fault—as I publicly acknowledged in August of 2019 when I admitted to inappropriate texting with other adults. I do not take this sin lightly, but I also believe that the power of Christ’s blood was sufficient to restore me along with intense individual counseling and committed relationships with a coalition of advisers. The problem is that, in addition to the actual sins I had committed and repented of earlier, many false allegations were made against me too. Rather than following the Matthew 18 model of private confrontation, this slander was blasted out on social media, with no regard for the many casualties in the Body of Christ.
The campaign of accusations ended with the Dr. Michael Brown’s Tribunal Report, but the problem is that the Tribunal’s report never distinguished between what was real and what was false—and gave no accountability to those who recklessly accused me for many months. Some of these incidents went back as far as 2013, the Lakeland scandal, and even as early as 2004. As a result, this process has deeply wounded Jessa and I, especially since I was not caught in a current trespass. Our deepest wounds are not a result of the sins I’ve already repented of, but are from the vicious attacks from ministries who refused to follow Biblical standards for confrontation and justice.
Over the years, I have learned that the two most basic tools for deliverance are
repentance and
forgiveness. W
e also believe that
healing and accountability
are important parts of this process
.
So in addition to repenting of my own sin, I have also chosen to
forgive
those who attacked me with false allegations. We are saddened that very few ministry and church leaders have reached out to Jessa and I to offer help or healing in this difficult time. I am also shocked at the message the church communicates which is love, healing, and restoration while only a handful have reached out to Jessa and I. I want to emphatically state the following: the Tribunal Process under Michael Brown was not and is not a “healing and restoration process”. I am addressing this, because this is something that has been asserted by some leaders and it is simply not true.
After Revival Harvest America in Los Angeles in August 2019, Rick Joyner suggested that I make a public confession about past inappropriate behavior. After many weeks, we have followed up with a statement and a video update which allowed me to take the opportunity to once again take ownership for any and all my failures. Following weeks of prayer and counseling, we decided to step back from public ministry to focus on our family and build our new market place business called ‘Magnificent Man Company’. These last 6 months, we have focused on prayer and continued counseling because we have seen the need for our own personal rest and recovery. However, even though this has been a long journey already, we want to continue to focus on our recovery. We are determined to get the healing, rest, and recovery we need through the Biblical strategies of repentance, forgiveness, and
resting in God.
In order to really rest in the Lord, we are trimming away the aspects of the ministry model that have created additional stress and are simplifying our lives.
We need to take some time to heal, rest, and recover while not hurrying the process. For that to be possible we are asking our friends, family, and partners to consider sowing into this much-needed time of rest and recovery. We hope that all of our partners and friends can clearly see why we need this season of rest and recovery, in order to ensure the brighter future that awaits on the other side of it.
If you would like to receive a tax receipt for your donation,
please click here
. Make sure to designate your gift as “Todd and Jessa’s rest and recovery” so we know that your seed was intentional. We are deeply grateful for your continued prayers and support during this time.
In Jesus' Love
Todd Bentley
