Losing My Religion

The prophecy of Amos is unique in that he stands out from all the other prophets because he himself is not identified as a prophet nor was he the son of a prophet.  He is just a shepherd of Tekoa in the southern kingdom of Judah.  Amos 7:14,15  He wasn’t recognized as a prophet, didn’t come out of a school of prophets.  He didn’t have the credentials, but he had the heart and the devotion that God gave him along with a vision in verse 2.  He becomes a prophet to Israel in 760 BC for about 10 years and overlaps with Hosea towards the end of his message.  Israel would fall to Assyria in 722 BC

An Overview of the book of Amos

THE TRUNK   Amos 1,2, Obadiah

The relentness prediction that judgment is going to fall on the nations.

Prepare to meet your God, the day of the Lord is not only for other nations, it is for you.

·         All the nations answer to God especially the chosen ones!

He has a message that is very broad in that he never speaks on behalf of the ‘God of Israel’.  He had a much wider application in that the LORD roars from Zion and thunders from Jerusalem, but the shockwaves go out to Damascus, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab, Judah and Israel.  There is no gap between what is being said to the neighbouring nations and to the ‘chosen people’. 

We see the patience of God in each nation in the phrase. ‘for 3 sins even for 4’and at the same time He shows no double standard for the people of Judah and Israel.  Each one awaits the same judgment because of their total disregard for God.

Now for Edom, we move to the shortest book of the OT prophets and find an expanded treatment on the nation of Edom in Obadiah. (Read Obadiah 3:3)Edom historically goes back to Esau, the brother of Jacob and they are judged harshly for not coming to Israel’s aid and in fact for taking advantage of Judah  when she fell in 586 BC after being invaded by the armies of Babylon.  In fact they thought they were completely secure in their own rock like fortress only to see their own demise as well.

Five visions of Judgment  Amos 7:9-10

1.        Swarms of locusts  that would devour the crops.   Amos intervenes in prayer. 7:1-3

2.       A Fire that would dry up the waters and destroy the land.  Amos prays, begs…God relents 7:4-6

3.       A Plumb Line – a device used to keep a wall straight and Israel’s walls were going to crumble.  Their ways were completely crooked.  The high places will be destroyed, the sancturaries 7:7-9

The response is not favourable 7:10

Don't think it strange that sometimes your own testimony falls on deaf ears. The justification for speaking the Word of God is not the certainty of converts but the certainty of God's call.

John Piper

4.       A Basket of Summer Fruit – The people were once beautiful but now they are rotten and ripe for punishment.   8:11-13

5.       An Altar of Judgment – a place where punishment would be executed. 9:1-10

THE ROOTS of the Tree  Amos 3,4

·         The Reason for Israel’s Impending Judgement

 Amos 3:2 The Reason For Judgment – Israel was a chosen nation, to represent the relationship that God can have with his people and they looked just like every other nation.  They were sinful, selfish, focused on self-gratification at the expense of all those around them.

Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets.  God is always speaking.  He is calling us to listen in 3:7

·         Israel’s Blatant Sins – they had completely forsaken God

Amos 4:4  Israel’s blatant sin – Sarcastically Amos tells the people of Israel to come to Bethel.  Bethel  meaning house of God) It was here that the northern kingdom chose as their place of worship.  Gilgal was the first campground in the Promised Land where  Joshua had renewed the covenant with God (Joshua 4:19) and the place where they celebrated Passover and anointed Saul as king.

There was everything going on in these places but true worship of God.  It was here that they worshipped their idols that King Jeroboam had placed there.

In  4:6-11, God sent 5 warnings aimed at winning the heart of the children of Israel, but they fell on deaf ears and the people remained oblivious.

The BRANCHES of the Tree  Amos 5,6

A WAKE UP Call To Repentance

 5:4,5   Amos is telling them don’t do all the external  elements of religion, none of that matters if your heart is far from me.

When I travelled to Israel 2 years ago, I walked the Via Dolorosa and into the church where the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is located.  It was there that I watched many people from different parts of the world gather to pour oil on the floor and once again wipe it furiously, but it just struck me as an external act of worship, more superstitious than a true seeking of the Lord.

5:11 You trample the poor – injustice.  There is this calloused attitude towards the poor and then they wish for the day of the Lord to come and to judge other nations oblivious to their very own.

But you have no idea what you are wishing for.  The day will not bring light and prosperity, but darkness and disaster.  5:18NLT

In 5:21-27  God tells them  I hate, I despise your religious feasts – the mere appearance of religion makes God sick

Lose your religion!

They live with an addiction to Luxury in 6:1,4-6.  Complacency has completely set in.  They lounge in luxury and are unaffected by the message.  There is a false sense of security

And yet in spite of this focus on judgement and the consequences of their sin, God continues to display His faithfulness through his prophet

UPROOTED and REPLANTED   9:11-15

·         There is a coming restoration. A remnant would return to the Lord following their exile and the goal of discipline is always restoration.

The TAKEAWAY

We lose our religion when we hunger and thirst to hear and obey the voice of the Lord

Idols in your life cannot simply be removed.  They must be uprooted and replanted  by a living encounter with God.  There is repentance but there is a greater joy, a greater level of satisfaction when we listen and obey His voice.

 Amos 8:11,12  speaks of a famine in the land, not a physical one, but a spiritual famine of hearing the voice of the Lord.

The word for hearing in this passage is SHAMA in the Hebrew which goes beyond a mere hearing of actual words to an understanding and obedience.

Faith comes by hearing the message and the message is heard through the words of Christ.  Romans 10:17

John 10:14, 15  I am the good shepherd, I know my sheep and my sheep know me – just as the Father knows me and I know the Father – and I lay down my life for the sheep…v16b they too will listen to my voice and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.

Do we have idols that we chase after?

Tim Keller wrote in Counterfeit Gods, ‘ The true god of your hear is what your thoughts effortlessly go to when there is nothing else demanding your attention.  What do you enjoy daydreaming about.  What occupies your mind when you have nothing else to think about.

Another way to discern your heart’s true love is to look at how you spend your money.  Matthew 6:21  Your money flows most effortlessly to your heart’s greatest love.

If God and his grace is the thing in the world you love most, you will give your money away to ministry, charity, and the poor in astonishing amounts. 2 Corinthians 8:7-9.  Most of us, however, tend to overspend on clothing, or on our children, or on status symbols such as homes and cars.  Our patterns of spending reveal our idols. 

What happens when you pray and work for something and you don’t get it?

One more test.  Look at your most uncontrollable emotion.  Is there something you must have at all costs?

David had an uncontrollable emotion as he displayed in Psalm 132:4   

I will allow no sleep to my eyes, no slumber to my eyelids, till I find a place for the LORD, a dwelling for the Mighty One of Jacob.

So, my question is, ‘How has God got your attention lately?’

This week was a very interesting one for me. 

I had plans…but God had other plans.  Sharon and Brynley were off to a scrapbooking tradeshow, Rylan and Addi were at camp and Jordan and I were at home.  He would also be leaving during the week to be with friends in Milton.    I had plans to train hard for my next triathlon, get in a few games of hockey maybe, I have even had plans to paint Rylan`s room and it all fell apart Monday night when I hyperextended my knee after  cross training between biking and running.

It slowed me right down to the place where God had my full attention.  There was nothing left to do except lie down, elevate my knee, ice it and God spoke and I listened.  One evening as I was looking for a book to read and drops a picture of me and my father and usually one that I look fondly on, but that afternoon it brought me to my knees.

One area that God needed to speak to me on was on running ahead of Him, running ahead with my own sense of being driven and the importance of learning to wait on Him, hold His hand and follow His leading.

The fact is that just like the nations that Amos spoke to, everyone answers to God. 

We all must give an account to God for the way that we live, the decisions we make or lack thereof.

At this time in the life of Israel no one could really see the crash that was coming.  Everyone was optimistic, life was good, business was booming so Amos was like a wet blanket at a great party.  All their self-sufficiency had led them into a false sense of security.

It is very easy for us to coast in a place where there is little or no perceived need so don’t let your spiritual life slide into neutral.  Fight that tendency!

Don’t ignore those who are truly in need.  Be people of mercy.  We need to respond.

With the world scrambling to rescue 12 million people on the brink of starvation in the Horn of Africa, UN emergency official said the fact that children are dying of hunger is "immoral" in Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Somali, Djibouti,

Without access to south Somalia, we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg — those refugees arriving in Kenya and Ethiopia," Amaral said. "There are many more — we estimate 3.7 million — that need emergency assistance," she added.

The al-Qaida-inspired Shebab group has banned humanitarian aid agencies like the World Food Program from working in the region, although FAO has been able to operate several small programs to help farmers through local partners.

Going through the motions is no substitute for real faith

Amos’ challenge was to bring a message to people who were quite comfortable with where their lives were at. 

Are you comfortable with your spiritual life?  May God give us a holy discontent for the status quo!

What is your counterfeit God?  Can you identify it?  What does default look like for you?

By God`s grace, allow Him to uproot it and replace it with His joy, His peace, His presence.

His sheep follow him because they know his voice.  John  10:4

And they are like TREES in Psalm 1:2,3  and that looks nothing like religion.

Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers. 

But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night. 

He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers. 

The Redemptive Gift of Mercy

Lamentations 3:22,23   It is because of His mercies that are new every morning that we are not consumed.

What is the opposite of mercy?  It is judgment and with the absence of mercy in the house of God we become guilty of what Jay Vernon McGee, a famous preacher and writer stated, ‘the only exercise some Christians get is jumping to conclusions and running down others.

The Good Samaritan is the clearest example of mercy in action.

Mercy gets involved in the lives of others no matter what the cost.

The gift of mercy has an ACTIVIST instinct

This person sees all of Christ following as an activity of service.  Their key word is involved.  They love to take action with God and commune with Him about what is so needed in our world.  They have great compassion for the disadvantaged and poor.  They are angry about oppression and have a sense of urgency to introduce Christ to others.  They are committed to changing His world and love to connect with other activists, to plan, to think globally.  Prayer for this person is a tool or weapon to advance the kingdom of God.  The worst insult they could hear is ‘you are lazy or a hypocrite’.  They feel best when they are engaged and really don’t like to take time off.  The warning for this person is that they rarely relax and can experience burnout.  

1 John 3:16-20

The Design of A Person With The Gift of Mercy

When I think of those who exemplify mercy at Grace, I think of Bobby Clark.   I had a chance to visit Bobby in his Auto Body Shop and there as I sat, he was the one praying for me.   As people came in with car related needs, God gave Bobby a window into their soul.  I also think of Dr. Anne Marie.  It is  the restlessness of her soul is to erase the injustice that the aids epidemic has robbed life from the ‘beautiful people of Lesotho’  The dream now is to for Grace to lead the way so that other churches may catch the vision of partnering with churches in Lesotho to minister to the widows, the children, to enable them to see both a physical and spiritual harvest!

Do you have a real heart for people?

Do you feel tenderness toward others?

Do you have a desire to see people love one another to a greater degree?

If so, you probably have the gift of mercy.  The apostle John certainly exemplified this gift in his writings as we will see and in being chosen to look after Mary, the mother of Jesus.

A person with the gift of mercy will naturally empathize with those who are hurting and they don’t look to fix the problem but are ready to be there with the wounded, to listen to the painful stories and not be shocked.  They are ready to pray, to love and are not there to judge.

They are willing to move into the places where things can’t simply just be fixed and they know that healing often comes for them and for those that they minister to when they immerse themselves in that broken place.

This temperament had tremendous capacity to show love, always looking for the good in other people.  They are attracted to people who are hurting or in distress.  They take care with words and actions to avoid hurting others. 

Few enemies

Those with the gift of mercy rarely have enemies. It is easy for them to get along with anybody in any context. They have many people that admire and respect them for all that they do.

Safe

They are a very safe person for those who are wounded. People can come to them, share their hurts, pain, and woundedness, and know intuitively the mercy is a safe place, even if they are almost a stranger.

One of the diagnostic questions you can ask when looking for a mercy is, “Do people come up to you frequently and bare their entire soul without being asked?”

Sensing

They have the ability to take the initiative. In a room full of strangers they can sense who the wounded people are no matter how good the plastic smile on their face is. They can see right through it. They just know who is feeling rejected.

Transparent

Typically, a mercy has a huge number of acquaintances, many people they enjoy and who enjoy them, but there is just one or two that are close intimate friends. And they share everything about themselves with that friend. There is no holds barred, complete transparency.

Craves intimacy

The intimacy the mercy craves transcends soul contact to physical contact. More than any other gift, they are designed by God to want and need touch. John at the last supper is an example. It is important to understand this for young men.

Sensitive to the Spirit

When a mercy hears from God, they frequently will have difficulty explaining the why. The gift of mercy is designed by God to know His heart and to operate on a very subjective, intuitive basis.

Hates confrontation

Along those lines, the mercy hates to confront someone else. It is the hardest thing for them to tell someone they are wrong. Their DNA is to keep people from hurting, to protect people from pain. When they have to confront, it is very difficult. It usually takes them an hour of beating around the bush. This can be a major downfall for mercy and so they can be indecisive.

Pre-disposition to worship

The most important characteristic on the surface for the mercy is the pre-disposition to worship. He loves to worship and enters in easier than the other gifts when he is mature.

Philemon 1:8-12

The Ministry of Mercy

The gift of mercy calls us to sanctify time, to not race with our schedules.

The gift of mercy’s calling is to sanctify time in his own life and in the lives of others. It was the first thing that God sanctified and He did it with blessing.

When the unclean woman touched the tassel on Jesus’ prayer shawl, she was healed. When He touched lepers, they were healed. This is the most holy level in which the mercy walks.

God has called the mercy to walk in that arena of most holy. The blessing that the mercy imparts is not the blessing of affirming design and releasing it, or of having authority to impart authority. It is the blessing to be able to sanctify the environment where they go.

The reason mercy can do it so easily is that God has designed for him to come into His presence to absorb the holiness of God to increase the mercy’s authority. God calls the mercy to cross over that threshold and experience intimacy with God. Therefore, there can be a release of the holiness of God in his spirit.

And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.  2 Corinthians 3:18

This is not a “doing” verse but a “being” verse.

The gift of mercy knows that the Father  heals the woundedness.

We are in a Kairos time…different from ‘chronos’ time.  Kairos reflects the fact that there is a sensitivity to timing of a season when God opens a door of opportunity for us to minister.

We are in a kairos time where God is bringing His fathering to heal everyone, especially the mercies. It is time for the mercy to know who the Father is, and who they are in the Father. And for the mercies then to be able to walk in their full identity, to walk in the fullness of this gift in the church,  to bring the manifest presence of God forth in a holiness that will sanctify others, and to release the holiness of God into the camp in a most holy way.       Arthur Burke

1 John 4:7-11

The Character of the Merciful

We will have confidence on the day of judgment  v17

Why? The mercy of God’s love through His Son, the atoning sacrifice for our sins.  We will be able to love others when we experience this mercy in its fullest understanding.

That is why we must go to the place of spiritual intimacy, to know how profound, how deep is the love of God for me.

The Takeaway

The gift of mercy displays compassion in the face of judgement.

When others simply pass judgment, mercy responds with kindness and faithfulness.

Hebrews 4:15,16  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

The Redemptive Gift of Leadership

A  person with the spiritual gift of leadership is one who can implement a vision and is also a person who loves being under a great deal of pressure.  In fact they thrive on pressure and indeed crave it!  They also like to have people around them who also feel the pressure as well.

The gift of leadership really works well in a short term situation.

Biblical examples of the gift of leadership include Nehemiah who displayed strong abilities in bring the children of Israel together in 52 days to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and we are going to come back to look at his life in greater detail.

In Solomon we see a sad story.  Here was a man who built everything – commerce, mastered the art of making money, construction, mastered the sciences, but then wasted his life in sensuality.  What was God’s call on his life?  He only asked the question once that we can find.  He asked for wisdom, but never sought God after that.  The continual challenge of a leader is to constantly seek to honor God because they can often revert back to their natural senses and abilities.

Joseph had great knowledge and wisdom to direct affairs in Egypt through the time of feast and famine.

Those with leadership gifting have the ability to push people beyond where they normally thought they could go, however they can abuse the time and resources of others.

A leader is usually not too focused on details.  They are the type of people who don’t blame others and they will own the problems.  They are great at using imperfect people in a way to not let their woundedness or brokenness keep them on the sidelines.

A little background on Nehemiah

In 538BC, the Persians conquered Babylon. Cyrus, the Persian Emperor, issued an edict which permitted 50,000 Jews to return to Judah under the leadership of Zerubbabel, and a Jewish state was established under the Persian government (recorded in the book of Ezra). The prophets Zechariah and Haggai motivated the people to rebuild the temple in 516BC. In 458BC, Ezra, a great spiritual leader, led 2,000 more Jews back to Jerusalem, but the walls were still in ruins.

The design of a leader

Nehemiah 1,2

1.       A holy discontent for the status quo.

Nehemiah was a leader who not only built the walls of the children of God physically, he also did it spiritually.  In fact it happened spiritually first as we see here in chapter 1.

We see weeping, mourning, fasting and a powerful prayer presented to us.

Nehemiah 1:5-11

2.       Leads by example – He includes himself in the prayer

3.     Knows how to share the vision

His vision started in his own heart and quietly he shared his vision with a few good men…ok, it was a few men.  He shared what God laid on his heart and after bringing them on board they shared a joint vision and began to rebuild.  The leader looks and searches for people with a heart of loyalty.  He looks for loyalty first before competence.

The ministry of a leader

1.       They lead with conviction, strength in the face of attacks  Nehemiah 2:19,20

2.       They build their leadership from within.   Nehemiah 3 can be seen just as a catalogue of all the people who were involved  and we can skim right through or we can realize the intentionality of a great leader to recognize his team.  The way Nehemiah worked with the people is a good example. He took the time to learn their names; he learned their strengths, weaknesses and interests. He assigned the work so they would be challenged and successful. Without this kind of leadership there is discontent and a lack of interest, purpose and unity.

The leader’s battlefield

1.       The leader must maintain stability in the face of opposition and stay the course.

Nehemiah 4:6-15

Too often we can get impatient with the seeming lack of results and not realize how important it is to build up one another spiritually.

God wanted Jerusalem to be a strong city, one that could defend itself against the enemy. Similarly, God wants us to be strong Christians, having strong spiritual walls. We need to inspect our lives to see where our walls are broken down as individuals, as families, and in our churches. What needs repairing?  To station a person on the lowest parts of the wall, the exposed places in many ways is what we are called to do in our families, in our church to stand in the gap, to pray, to see the needs and address it.

The leader’s character

1.        A strong leader sees the project to completion.  He doesn’t abandon ship so to speak.

Nehemiah 6:15,16 – We see the completion of the wall, but more importantly their God-sized confidence and the loss of self-confidence of those who sought to destroy them.

2.        A strong leader knows how important it is to celebrate the victory that God gives.

Nehemiah 8:9-12

The Feast of Tabernacles was an event to remind the people of God of the time when the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years and as they read the Scriptures for the first time in a long time, conviction fell over all of them.  Yet in the midst of all this, Nehemiah insists that they rejoice in the strength of the Lord.

3.       A strong leader calls the people to repentance.   Nehemiah 9

4.       A strong leader doesn’t let conflict or sin go underground.

Nehemiah 13:25 – After all that took place and the supernatural work of God among the children of Israel, they started worshipping and running after not only the women of other nations, but their gods to their own destruction.  Nehemiah had a way of getting people’s attention….he pulled out their hair among other things!  He just couldn’t imagine them falling again into the same traps that led them into the mess of exile in the first place.

Finally I want to reflect on Jesus, our Ultimate Leader

Jesus’ last words on the cross – It Is Finished

There are two applications to the phrase “it is finished.”

Freedom from Sin

First, the penalty for sin is finished. Jesus paid the incredible price for every sin of all time. He was our One who stood in the gap, stood in the exposed place of our sin and shame and redeemed us to become the children of God!

Doing the best thing

There is a second application. Jesus finished the work of which He was called. He got the main thing done. Realize Jesus could have done a lot of good things. He could have spent 70 years healing the sick. He said no to the good things to do the best things.  In Mark 1, people came from miles for ministry. Jesus had got up early and went out to pray. The disciples finally found Him saying the people are waiting and He said, I am moving on down the road.

Because He knew His job was leadership development and that He had three years to prepare 11 world changers, He walked away from the crowds. Certainly, some were were angry, having walked all night to get healed and He was gone.

Jesus knew His temple needed to be built up and He was the Cornerstone and we are living stones being built into that temple, not built by human hands, but by the life giving presence of Jesus through the power of His Holy Spirit.

The Takeaway

When a leader learns to partner with God the results of their work will be so disproportionate to their resources.  

The question for the leader is not whether he is productive, but whether he is doing what he has been called to do.

The Redemptive Gifts of Prophecy and Serving

So, why are we taking all this time to unpack the redemptive gifts?  It is because I firmly believe that if you want to live strategically, you will see the highest level of transformation in that area when you lean heavily into your area of gifting.

We all have learned skills and areas that we have just become better at because we have done them over and over again.

If you know what your gift is, you are going to grow much faster than if you don’t.  It truly allows you to really live in that ‘sweet spot’ God has created you for.

Here is what one person has said in relation to a better understanding of their gifting

For me, when I walk in my gift, my spirit is at peace. This was hard lesson to learn since I used to value striving & personal effort. Now I am becoming more comfortable with walking in peace and valuing being just me. I still have personal effort, but now it is focused on finding ways to be excellent in who I am and expressing it in what I do well.

Prophecy is an impression that God may have something to say specifically to specific people at a specific time. It can be a word for an individual. It can be a word to a group of people, for a church, maybe even for a whole country. But it’s a word from God that’s for the here and now.   Adrian Warnock

1.      The design of a prophet.

     

      Let’s look at prophets in action in Acts 13:1-3

They work alongside other giftings.  In this passage, we see prophets and teachers working hand in hand in the commissioning of Paul and Barnabus.

Antioch is a very diverse city where the Christian message has just arrived.  People across all racial and ethnic lines were coming to faith in Jesus. We have Saul, a Jew, Barnabus, from Cyprus, Simeon from northern Africa, Lucius from Cyrene, which is most likely today modern Libya and Manaen who was straight out of Roman royalty, living with the family of Herod.  Under no other circumstances would you find these men together, but because of Jesus and the unity that He brings across unthinkable lines that would normally divide.

These five leaders get together and determine that two of these guys need to stop what they are presently doing and be sent out on a new kingdom assignment.

·         The prophet is designed to bring confirmation.

A prophet really can confirm what we sense God is already speaking into our lives.  It may come with a sense of making a judgment call, but remember they not only knows what’s right and wrong but it is  just their default.  They are the ones who go through the grocery store and evaluate whether the groceries are in the right place, whether the person at the checkout is doing a good job. There is this compulsion to pass judgment on anything and everything, and hopefully a more mature prophet keeps his mouth shut most of the time but through his mind he is saying “right, wrong, not good, should be better, change this.” The sense of evaluation is always there.

·         Prophets bring vision to the table.

If you were to break the giftings of the church into three groups: visionaries, implementers and maintainers, the prophet would be your visionary. There have a clear preferred future where they believe God is leading.

The prophet tends to be fiercely competitive.

The prophet also demonstrates full disclosure.

When he is selling a used car, unless he is really carnal, it is impossible for him to cover up the defects. He rather discloses them, telling every little defect, doing all he can to un-sell the car after it is sold because of that compulsion for honesty and integrity.  The prophet is very, very hard on himself.

·         Prophets call the church to their very purpose.

A good redemptive gift of prophet is someone who can build, not just one who can criticize. Any carnal, immature prophet can run around and say “this is broken, and that’s wrong, and this you shouldn’t do” and so on. That is very damaging to the church and very low level.  A good prophet is somebody who can embrace the problem and sense a calling to where we need to go.

You usually find the prophet working on the two extremes. They are drawn to minister to the leadership and those who are broken that want to be restored. There is a passion and desire to bring the principles to apply, to restore, to rebuild, to release the people of God into the fullness of their gifting.

It is the prophet who can look at that broken individual, look at that individual who no longer has hope, no longer has dignity, and to see in him the fingerprints of Almighty God. He can see the call of God on his life and speak life and restoration into him.

The prophet often is called out to walk deeply and profoundly in the area of personal disciplines.

I don’t think there is any higher example of this in scripture than the prophet Ezekiel. He was a prophet in exile. He was ministering in Babylon, having been carried there from Israel in captivity. He was ministering to one of the worst congregations around.

The Israelites were in absolute denial. Denial is something else that drives the prophet nuts. They were saying “this is not God’s judgment; we don’t deserve God’s judgment. We will be back in our land shortly; this is just a blip on the screen.” Day after day Ezekiel got in front of those obstinate people saying, “It is God’s judgment, and it will last, and Jerusalem will be destroyed and you are in denial.” They said, “no we’re not,” and he said “yes you are.”

Not only was he in captivity and had a wretched audience, there was also apparently poverty and hardship in his ministry. God had him lie on one side for 300 days, then lay on the other side. All of these symbolic things he had to act out—eat food that was cooked over a polluted fire. Many things he lived out in his own flesh, his own pain. Then, finally, God came to him and said, “you only have one thing that is really important to you and that’s your wife, you love her dearly, she’s the apple of your eye, she’s going to die tomorrow and you’re not going to miss a beat. You’re going to preach your morning sermon and your evening sermon and you’re not going to mourn or be part of her funeral.” As prices go, that’s an awfully high price. He paid it.

There are times, seasons in the prophet’s life when God is silent and it is not because of their sin, it’s because of God’s plan for their life, trying to develop a deeper, richer root system.

The Word of the Prophet

The manifest gift of moving in the prophetic is not just limited to one who has the design of prophet.  A teacher, a servant and an encourager can give a prophetic word, but it will come more strongly to the person who has been designed by God in this way.  As Romans 12:6 tells us that if you are marinating in the gifting, then use it in proportion to your faith.

Bill Hybels in his recent book, ‘The Power of A Whisper’ talks about filters  that we need to exercise for knowing when it is truly God that is speaking to you through your own impressions or from another person of faith.

1.      Is the prompting truly from God? 

Is it consistent with His character?

 Is it aligned with His attributes?

2.      Is it Scriptural?  He will never contradict His written revelation

3.      Is it wise? 

Wisdom will often tell us to not make decisions in haste and lose the way. Proverbs 19:2

4.     Is in tune with your own character?

5.       What  do the people you most trust think about it?

The benefits of prophecy!

1 Corinthians 14:1-3

We are called to eagerly desire this gift and there are two purposes given here:

·         To encourage – to come alongside, here is that word, ‘paraklete’ coming out again, to comfort, appeal, to earnestly request or entreat someone, to offer assistance.

·         To strengthen – the word of the prophet as seen here in the NT is designed to give hope, give life and yes while correction is understood here, it is a good course correction.  It doesn’t bring with it condemnation.

The prophetic understanding can come as a word of knowledge, a word of wisdom, a verse specific to a situation.  It can even come in the form of a dream or a vision as we see in Scripture.  It is truly given from the Holy Spirit and it is not 'forthtelling' in a predictive sort of manner.  It can certainly come in the form of warning but in many ways its design is to bring hope and a real sense of God's leading in another person's life.

   Again, it doesn't go against the written revelation of God and it should ultimately bring glory to God not to the person.  It should not be confusing, it should bring freedom and minister to our inner being.

Adrian Warnock  shares on the prophetic by making these very clear points:

·         Prophecy is not infallible – we know in part, we prophecy in part.  1 Corinthians 13

·         Prophecy is not equivalent to Scripture – take for example Jonah – his prophecy never came to pass.  Philip’s daughters prophesied in Acts 21 and yet their prophecies are not recorded for us.

·         Prophecy is not authoritative – Also, in Acts 21, there was a group of believers led by the Spirit who told Paul not to go Jerusalem.  Yet Paul weighs what they say and determines that he wasn’t locked in by it and no, it wasn’t go to define his life.

Dangers to avoid on the whole area of prophecy...Adrian Warnock defines them this way -

Hatch prophecies – God is going to give you a baby

Match prophecies – God told me you are the one for me

Dispatch prophecies – ones that deal with life and death situations, terminal illness etc…

1 Thessalonians 5:19-21

I would encourage you, if you do have a prophetic word for someone, have a witness present to confirm or correct what is being said, and to relieve any pressure that the person might feel. It’s very wise to say things like, “Well, I need you to weight this.” “Please check this with your pastor.” “Does this make any sense to you?” Sometimes people deliver a prophetic word and they say, “Does that make any sense?”  "Does this resonate with what God is working on in your life?'

Prophet’s Battlefield

The greatest battle for the prophet is not to forgive others; it is to forgive himself when he has sinned deeply. There is a tendency for the prophet to drive himself, for the prophet to flog himself and make everyone around him miserable as well, as the prophet is trying in some way to “pay back” the Lord for the harm he has caused the kingdom of God.

At Grace, if you have a prophetic word to share for the whole church, the kernel of that word needs to be shared with one of our pastors.  As pastors, we have been given the authority as shepherds in this place to feed the flock, protect the flock and are called to bring discernment. 

We are called to test the spirits ( 1 John 4:1)

John Piper shares on prophecy in terms of its edification.

Why is it that a gift that is Spirit-prompted and Spirit-sustained and rooted in an infallible revelation (the Bible) is nevertheless fallible, mixed with imperfection, and only has secondary, derivative authority? The answer is this: A teacher’s perception of biblical truth is fallible; his analysis of biblical truth is fallible; his explanation of biblical truth is fallible. There is no guarantee that the link between an infallible Bible and the church will be an infallible link. The gift of teaching does not guarantee infallible teaching. And yet, even though the gift of teaching is fallible and even though it lacks intrinsic, divine authority, we know it is of immense value to the church. We are all edified and built up by gifted teachers. God is in it. He does use it. It is a spiritual gift.

Now compare this to the gift of prophecy. It is prompted by the Spirit and sustained by the Spirit and based on a revelation from God. God reveals something to the mind of the prophet (in some way beyond ordinary sense perception), and since God never makes a mistake, we know that his revelation is true. It has no error in it. But the gift of prophecy does not guarantee the infallible transmission of that revelation. The prophet may perceive the revelation imperfectly, he may understand it imperfectly, and he may deliver it imperfectly. That’s why Paul says we see in a mirror dimly (1 Corinthians 13:12). The gift of prophecy results in fallible prophecy just like the gift of teaching results in fallible teaching. So I would ask, “If teaching can be good for the edification of the church, could not prophecy be good for edifying as well, just as Paul says it is (1 Corinthians 14:3, 12, 26)—even though both of them are fallible, mixed with human imperfection, and in need of testing?

The New Testament prophecy is greater in the sense that it is built upon the New Testament foundation, a living, breathing relationship with God through the blood of His Son, Jesus, and the INDWELLING power of the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit of God can also lead us to a real sense of confirmation in our lives of what has been shared with us.

Eileen Fisher in ‘Embracing The Prophetic’ speaks in very strong terms of the discernment that is needed for those who have this gifting.  God may give you a word for someone but it is only meant for you to pray about it and then other times it is meant to be shared.

 http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/when-will-prophecy-cease

  - John Piper teaching on the validity of prophecy for today.

I have also been blessed by A.W. Tozer and his thoughts on why the prophetic is needed in our churches.

http://endtimespropheticwords.wordpress.com/2008/04/03/the-gift-of-prophetic-insight-by-aw-tozer/

The Design of the Servant

It doesn’t come with a great deal of honour in a culture like our’s, but in the eyes of God, the gift of servant is an incredibly significant one.

Servants in Scripture

Stephen was one of the seven servants chosen to serve the church in Acts 6 .  In Acts 9, we see another servant, Ananias, was chosen by God in a vision to minister to Saul in Damascus.

More than meeting the physical needs—the food, the comfort—the deeper desire of the servant is to provide cleansing and allowing the person’s life to operate the way God designed. So when we call on the name of Jehovah-Rapha, the Lord who heals, it is in the context of obedience, in the context of being able to avoid something that is about to happen. This ties into call to  obedience, which seems to come easier to the servant than anyone else.

If faith is the exercise for the prophet, obedience is the calling for the servant.  He is the one to quickly identify and meets needs.

Servants have few, if any, enemies and part of it is their willingness and desire to extend honor to others. In fact, they go so far as to make excuses for others. The nature of a servant is to come through for those that they are serving when they fall short.  So, the thought behind making excuses is that they want the person that they are serving to be seen in the best possible light.    The thought behind this comes from the teaching in 1 Peter 4:8-10 where the gifting of serving comes with a loving attitude that overlooks a person’s faults.

8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.9 Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10 Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. 11

 A fierce anger

Servants can have fierce anger that only manifests once in a great while and almost invariable it is a loyalty issue. They’re not angry because someone has done something to them, they’re angry because someone has done something to one of their friends, most especially a family member. The loyalty to family is huge.

Tend to save stuff

Servants tend to save stuff, but not in a particularly organized manner. They don’t always find what they’ve saved, but they like to save.

A strong work ethic

The servant works very hard. Their downfall is that unless they understand how to help, how to serve, they become enablers. In many Christian organizations you have leadership that is immature or carnal or unskilled administratively and they tend to find servants and, under the guise of calling for loyalty and good character, they expect the servant to continually clean up their messes. A wise servant learns how to empower, not enable.

Purity of motives

There is a purity of motive that is un-touched by any other gift. They are straight forward, they are honest, and they can be trusted. That is why so many leaders end up with a servant around them. There is an integrity, a simplicity, an honesty and a truthfulness about the servant.

The Ministry of the Servant

God gives servants authority.

1. To care for, minister to, and pray for leaders. They are drawn to leaders. They don’t want to be leaders but they desire to be next to the leader to do the things that will release the leader into his own full capabilities. The prayers of the servant for a leader seem to carry more weight than anybody else’s prayers.

2.  Restore family.

They have a passion and an authority in prayer to bring an entire family to a place of restoration. It seems that God places more servants in dysfunctional families than in healthy families. They, out of all the gifts, have the anointing and tenacity to be able to bring restoration to the family.

3.  A tenacity to reach those that are difficult to reach.  Acts 9  Ananias

4. To minister to the broken

Time and time again God positions servants to believe in someone no one else believes in. A servant can come alongside someone who is a dangerous, wounded, hurting person and to experience rejection and rebuff time and time again from them for years at a time, and yet finally have breakthrough. A servant can penetrate, be there in that window of opportunity, to be able to speak the truth that liberates and cleanses in that person’s life.

God knew Ananias would simply obey and that he would have the grace to love the one most difficult to love.  So He sent him to Saul, who no one else would go to, in order to minister the liberating, cleansing truth to him.

Servant’s Battlefield

The battle for the servant is the feeling of going unnoticed.  So many servants have bought into a victim mentality because people have put that on them. And so for the servant to be able to shake off victimization, to shake off the opinions of other people, to shake off the perception that they are supposed to be used is hard work!  They need to root themselves in the realization that God sees them and He will honour them.

The Takeaway

To the degree that the servant and prophet can hear this word and step up to their God given identity, to see themselves as God sees them, transcend the indignity of the cross and walk in authority based on the word of God, to that degree they are life givers on an immense scale, they will experience that incredible fulfillment.

Talk about status, it was Jesus who emptied Himself and took upon Himself the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-even death on a cross.  Philippians 2:7-9

IN the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by His Son.  Jesus is our great prophet who still speaks today.

 

Listen for His voice.  Hebrews 1

John 10:16  They too will listen to my voice!  Listen to Jesus’ voice calling you today!  He is the good Shepherd who laid down His life for His sheep.

My thanks to Arthur Birk for many of the insights gained here.