Until I Get There

I have been a pastor for so many years that I am now seen as a spiritual father.  This is a high calling and one that I hope to carry with honor the rest of my days.  As a spiritual father, I want to make sure my sons and daughters finish well so that some day they will also have the honor of being called a spiritual father or mother.

When Paul wrote his two letters to Timothy he was writing to a young leader who was struggling.  From the content of Paul’s letters it was evident that Timothy needed to stir up the gifts previously planted in his life.  Timothy may have been trying to do ministry out of his own strength – something we all have done from time to time.  Paul gave Timothy a simple instruction found in I Timothy 4:13, “Until I get there, focus on reading the Scriptures to the church, encouraging the believers, and teaching them.” This was Paul’s prescription on how to hang on until his spiritual father could arrive and help him sort things out.

If you are leading a ministry, whether a church, a small group, your family or a large denomination, this prescription would also apply to you, especially in those times when you are tired from trying to do ministry in your own strength or under the burden of other peoples expectations.  Call for you spiritual father or mother to come and spend time with you.  Until they arrive chose to get simple once again.  Stir up the gifts that were placed in you in the beginning and when you gather those under your care, read the word, encourage people and teach them the way of faith.  This is the kind of simple life God loves to visit with a fresh outpouring of power.

A Call To Declaration Prayer

Today, I was reading through several news sources.  As I was reading, I saw an image emerge and rise off the screen of my computer and develop before me.  It was an unsettling image. I saw soldiers with blue helmets walking the streets of cities in the United States.  Immediately, I knew these were United Nations peacekeeping forces.  I have no idea how something like this could happen, but with the image, I sensed a call to prayer for our nation.

A significant shift has taken place in the spiritual realm.  We have been deposited into a new and unexplored place in our history.  There is a new mandate for prayer being released.  This is a mandate calling for prayers of declaration.  These are the heaven to earth kind of prayers that we speak from our position in Christ at the right hand of the Father.

In this moment of our history your declarations made in prayer will become an intervention into the affairs of nations and governments.  This is a time to declare new futures and new realities. 

The Lord Said, "Run!"

This morning, as I lay in bed in the darkness, my first conscious thought was an image. I knew what I was beginning to see was important and needed to be remembered in detail.  I waited and let the image fully develop before I rose in order to write down what I was seeing.

As the image formed in my mind, I heard the Lord instruct the people within the image. He said, “Run!” At His command, I saw people begin to run in many different directions.  This wasn’t an image of panic.  These people were responding to a very distinct and individualized instruction in an attempt to get to a location that was specific for them.

In the image, I saw numbers painted on the floor representing various years.  The people were running to these positions.  Each year had a special meaning.  I knew these years represented abandoned assignments.  I saw the years 1968, 2003, 1996, 2008, 1973, 2013 and 1987.  There were many other years painted on the floor, but I could not see them all. I finally got out of bed and  went into the living room where I sat down at my computer and tried to recapture what I saw. 

As I wrote down my thoughts, the Lord began to speak about what the image represented.  He said, “These painted numbers represent the years when significant assignments were given to My people. Through the circumstance of success and failure some had moved away from their calling. What I am about to do will require these called ones to return to My original assignment for their lives. Once they step upon these abandoned assignments it will be like they never missed it the first time I spoke the promise.  When their feet step upon the year of their assignment, I will fill them with the original promise and anointing I had destined.  I have things I am about to do in the earth and I need My people standing fully in the gifts and calling I have assigned for them.”

This One Seed

You are holding one small seed of faith in your hand. Before you an immense and unplanted field of opportunity exists. Your seed looks insignificant compared to the size of the field. God is about to change your understanding of potential.

God is asking you to walk out into this barren place and plant your seed. The moment you plant the seed an explosion of green will take place. Life will begin to emanate outward from that original planting like the ignition point of an atomic bomb. This explosion of new life will move out beyond your current level of faith into the new place God is leading you. This new territory will become your possession. 

You have no idea of the power and potential of the seed you hold in your hand. Your barren place will become a field of endless green productivity because this one seed planted in faith will set in motion a process of supernatural multiplication.

Consuming The Fear Of A Nation

John the Baptist ate locust as part of his diet.  His food choice was not unusual in the Middle East.  Something else was in play beyond his diet. A locust was a sign of devouring devastation.  When John ate locusts it was a profound metaphor of his prophetic ministry and message. He was eating the fear of a nation.

We are in a time in history when our words, spoken with the prophetic intent of hope, will devour the fears that surround the cultures of the earth and hold them in bondage. In a time when many rightly call for national repentance our message must be wrapped in hope, not fear.

John invited people to repent not as an isolated act of righteousness, but as an invitation to experience the coming Kingdom of God. John message was, “Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.” The nearness of the coming Kingdom of God was his message.  Today, it will be the prophetic words of hope spoken by the Church that will consume the fear of the nations and anything else that stands in the way of the full manifestation of God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven.

Making Peace

There is a reason Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers” instead of blessed are the peacekeepers.  Peacekeeping involves managing a compromise created between two opposing forces in order to manage their unresolved conflict.  The issues that create a lack of peace are never dealt with through peace keeping.

Peacemaking is different because making peace, by its very nature, is a spiritually violent act.  This was the nature of the cross of Jesus.  It was a violent act that made peace between God and people. When we come to make peace those elements in control of the status quo of a kept peace will confront your presence as they did with Jesus when He walked the streets of Jerusalem. When you try to set free those held captive by the terms of a false peace things can turn violent.

When Samuel Colt created his iconic Colt 45 revolver in 1872 it was named the Peacemaker.  Historians call it “The gun that won the West.” Colt’s naming of his revolver was prophetic because it would be worn on the hip of marshals and sheriffs who walked the violent dirt streets in the boomtowns of the American West. These lawmen would sometimes be forced to pull their Peacemaker and engage the thugs who held these small towns captive to their version of “peace” – a version of peace that only existed as long as you agreed to their terms.

In life we can try to keep the peace at the expense of making peace.  Like two unruly children who only get along when a parent steps between them and keeps them apart, we try to do the same thing in a business, a church or community.  Peacekeeping temporarily salves the wounds of division, but never really discovers its root cause. Peacemakers push deeper into the core issues that cause our division in the first place, arrest the root lie that holds us captive and then walks that lie out into the light of truth where the possibility of real peace exists. This is what happens when peacemakers come to town.

Reconnected Relationships

Have you noticed how some people simply drop off the radar of your life?  After a season of being connected you became disconnected due to the busyness of life and circumstances and you simply lost track of each other.

God is about to reconnect you with some of the people you have forgotten.  You did not forget them because you are uncaring.  You simply forgot because life got busy, you both moved on and other faces filled the vacancy created by their absence.

When these people are reconnected to your life there will be a Spirit-led reason for this reconnection. You are a different person now. In the intervening years God has done something new in your life. God is reconnecting you because what you now carry will have a God-designed, spiritual impact on the other person.  When you knew each other before you did not have this to offer, but now you do.  As you reconnect listen for the voice of the Spirit.  God will lead you into conversations that will uncover the destiny of your rediscovered friend and those conversations will also help you move forward in your own destiny.