appear-
“smoke appeared on the horizon”
synonyms: become visible, come into view, come into sight, materialize, take shape;
“The Lord appeared again” (1 Samuel 3:21), never try to live your life on a once given word, and then try to establish your life, once given vision. If what you see has been birthed in the courtrooms of heaven and has been spoken forth by the voice of God you will find God affirming it, and surely adding more detail to it, God will reveal his word from different angles and speak to you about it again and again. You are to be sustained by fresh encounters, fresh revelation, affirming, affirming, affirming whenever it is needed. Consider how many times God came face-to-face with Abraham’s life to talk to him about his seed and the promise. Clearly this man of faith needed an encouragement of affirmation, affirmation, affirmation of what he has heard and seen.
The word that came to Abraham was that the seed of Abraham would be a blessing to all the families of the Earth, through his seed the earth would be blessed. Why again, the Father had told him once. God knows that in the advance, the progress, the process of living, this adventure of life with God will have seasons of pressure that require the ‘ again I say to you’. Abraham had to see that God was as much involved in Sarah’s inability to conceive, through their long years as well as when the cry of the 1st child happened. What Abraham had heard needed to be stated again and again. You do not need a new vision, but we certainly need to a word again frequently. I need a burning fire on the inside. If I who have been commissioned, entrusted with or been given a direction, a word to carry I do need the Lord to appear again. This is how the prophets of old in the face of a declining moral condition kept the flame of their prophetic conviction alive, by the continuous revelation of the Father.
Lord help us to receive your ministries and enable their hearing, if the word of God had not some to prophets such as Samuel personally Samuel would not of have had a word for Israel. Far too frequently we are trying to sustain people by preaching, don’t get me wrong preaching to inspire and impart is part of life for us. Like it or not there is a difference between a prophet prophesying Gods word into a situation and a person preaching the word to a congregation, these are two very different things.
Let me give you a picture, have you ever driven down a clear road and coming to overtake a car, you put your foot on the pedal but there is nothing there, no power, nor force that pushes you back on the seat. It is so different overtaking when there is great power in the pedal, as you press down you are surged for the kick down and away you go. Every revelation from God does that to you, you have been challenged, you felt held back and then you see it, you hear it again and…… you’re away one of God’s surges.
When the prophetic word comes it gives you what you need, both power and wisdom to continue.
The prophetic is about securing and advancing God’s purpose in creation, it establishes the house, abode, the dwelling place of God this is the prophetic heart. God will always establish a word, a goal then press on to add to what has been gained. Prophets are so convinced of the word they carry, the efficacy of the word, the creativity of the word, the power of the breath of God in the word, the circumstances around them are not their lead, they often prophesy in contradiction to what is seen around.
We are living in an incredible moment with the Gospel progressing in the realms of the spirit at every hand, with demonstration and manifestation, you could say the wave of experiential Christianity has come alongside revealing truth, we have revivals reported from all around the world, great gatherings of people groups in China, South America, Africa, India its exciting.
Here is our challenge, with all that God is doing we can get so quickly frustrated and disappointed, I am quite challenged and often unimpressed with the caliber of Christianity inside our very communities inside the very communities that are experiencing this blessing. We could say that the disappointment is that with such a blowing of the wind of God, with the Spirit moving so strongly yet this has not been met with the corresponding depth of response from us. The longing is that with hearts being changed we all become ready kindling for the fire of the Word.
Will we discover that our cooperation with the Spirit is of the depth of the same givenness God is to us, our experience of the power of God is balanced by our perception, our knowledge of the Will of God, that we who are to disciple the nations, we preach, teach, pray and are faithful to this end
“eyes of the peoples’ understanding the open that they may know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance of God in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power to us all believe”.Ephesians 1:18.
Paul said my work is that he would “…proclaim him, admonishing everyman, teaching everyman, with oral wisdom, that we may present everyman complete in Christ…” Colossians 1:28. Catch the passionate heart of this apostle offloading his prophetic mantle “…for this purpose I also Labour, striving according to his power that mightily works within me, for I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf, but their hearts maybe encouraged having been knit together in love and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is Christ himself…” Colossians 2:2.
Here is the goal for every teacher or budding preacher, not to have the most creative and colourful delivery, but all that we do, is to result “in actual knowledge of God’s mystery, that is Christ”.
If we do not sustain a prophetic passion we will end up with the Gospel of trivia, Christianity that splashes around in the trivial. Little and troubled leaders occupied with the busyness of barrenness, we will become occupied with peripheral activities, becoming students and ultimately controlled by statistics, bottoms on seats and budget lines rather a people with the knowledge of God mystery.
I have a passion, I have a cry to see an effective dynamic testimony of the life of Christ in every major city, town and Street and house-to-house, then let our cry be to see apostles and prophets with passion would only build to Gods purpose. Become those who are sons of the prophets, of the covenant and be aflame!
“…Lord appear again…” refresh your word, your will and purpose to the nations.
Face2Face - Gareth Duffty Blog 