The Need of Sent Laborers
March 31, 2010
The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into His fields. – Matthew 9:37b-38 (NLT)
No one would deny the great need for laborers for the gospel in this hour. Not only is there the great need among the nations of the, but previously evangelized cultures in the western world are growing more and more ignorant of the gospel and more and more in need of a gospel witness.
The need for the gospel to go forth with power is clear and the need is as great as it has ever been in history. There are more men lost and in bondage on the earth now than ever before in human history. God is laying this burden on the hearts of believers all over the earth, but it is imperative that we do not merely respond to the call but that we return to the apostolic method of missions whether we have in view missions to the lost in our neighborhood or to an unreached people group.
What are we to do when are hearts are burdened by the great need of the gospel to go forth in power? Though our first impulse is to zealously enter into activity, Jesus summarizes the apostolic missionary method in Matthew 9:38. Before we undertake any activity, if we are truly burdened for the overripe harvest fields, we are to enter the place of intercession asking God to send out laborers into the fields and I fear that our familiarity with the language of the Scripture has masked just how radical Jesus’ instructions are.
Human Zeal
Most of us, burdened with the great need of the gospel to go forth, immediately devise ways of motivating others to the call. We find new and innovative ways to call people to the great need of the sharing the gospel. We use charts and graphs to clearly indicate the great need. We devise powerful sermons that move the human heart to respond. We create training programs to equip individuals to evangelize. We teach new and innovative methods to communicate the gospel. In other words, once we get even a hint of the burden of God’s heart for the gospel we set ourselves immediately to activity and completely bypass Jesus’ instructions on how to respond to an overly ripe harvest.
We fall prey to this error for many reasons, but one reason this course of action is so deceptive is because the activities we have already listed are all necessary to the cause of world evangelism. Individuals must be called to share the gospel. They must be trained and equipped. Believers must understand how critical the hour we are living in is. It is not that what we are doing is wrong, the issue is that, in the rush to activity; we are setting the cart before the horse. Matthew 9:38 exposes our error in clearly declaring that laboring for an apostolic sending of men from heaven is the horse that must pull the cart of missions.
Saints, we have had a lot of gospel activity but the reality is what we have had little fruit. A lot of sweat, tears, blood, effort, and money have been expended and yet we have not seen the kind of results that the apostles saw. While there are many reasons for our lack of fruit, Matthew 9:38 identifies one of the critical errors.
The Apostolic Pattern
Saints, if we desire to again see apostolic missionaries of the same kind as the early apostles were, we must return to the apostolic method of missions and the apostolic method is to first pray to the Lord of the harvest to send laborers. The most well known apostolic missionary, Paul, was sent out of a community in Antioch that was obedient to the apostolic pattern. In Acts 13:2, the saints were in the place of prayer and the Spirit expressly sent Paul and Barnabas forth to the gentiles and so began the career of one of the greatest apostolic missionaries of all time.
Part of the secret of Paul’s success was that he did not just go to the gentiles with a burden and under the compulsion of human emotion, but he was sent by the Spirit. After all, that is exactly what is means to be apostolic. Apostolic simple means a “sent one.” In fact, it is a clear indicator of our lack of understanding of what it means to be apostolic that we constantly attempt to define what is apostolic according to role and function. We define an apostle by what he does, but an apostle is defined by who his is. To be apostolic is to be sent and only the Holy Spirit can effect a sending. When we begin defining what is apostolic by the activities that accompany it rather than by the God initiated sending that is the basis of all that is apostolic, we have already lost the essential elements of what it means to be apostolic.
The Holy Spirit is the Grand Architect
We must understand that man is not the grand architect, nor even the executor, of the plan of world evangelism, but rather that the Holy Spirit is the architect of the cause of Jesus on the earth. In the book of Acts we clearly see the Holy Spirit actively directing the work of the church. While we would acknowledge the work of the Holy Spirit, we are much more prone to use the “wisdom” of 2,000 years of history to prop up human effort while we give the Holy Spirit lip service and then ask Him to provide the miraculous power when we need a “sign” or a “wonder” to back up our gospel claims.
And is it not part of our fundamental problem that our gospel campaigns our often our campaigns and not His? Saints, the Holy Spirit has not changed His role. He is still God. He is still the grand architect of the church as He is the one that makes known to us the mind of Jesus and tells us what is on His heart. Is it not the height of arrogance that we build so much of our gospel activity on human wisdom and human zeal and then ask the Holy Spirit to sprinkle a few miracles on it as though He is simply power for our programs?
We ignore the Holy Spirit as a person and as the all-wise God and instead use Him for power and then we stand amazed that so little power is on the gospel. Frustrated, we read the accounts of the apostles and become disillusioned that there is not power on the gospel, but when we have not followed the apostolic pattern, we should not wonder that the Holy Spirit does not gives His full endorsement to our activities.
We must again give the Holy Spirit His place as the grand master architect of missions and as the possessor of the mind of God if we expect His power to accompany our proclamation. It is true that He always uses men and that is precisely where the confusion comes in. He uses men and then we come to believe that something is intrinsic in man and so we seek to duplicate the pattern we see played out in a man rather than go back to the place of the sending of the Holy Spirit that is what made the man unique in the first place.
Apostolic Sending
The issue of missions then is putting the Holy Spirit back in His place through the application of Matthew 9:38 and one of His primary roles, as the initiator of gospel activity, is to send men and women. As already noted, this is foundational to the understanding of what is apostolic because contained within the very definition of apostolic is the understanding that one who is apostolic is one who is sent.
It is true that the community of saints must send and individual, but that sending must be a secondary sending. When a community sends an individual whether it is to pastor a local church, or to go labor across the earth that sending must be an affirmation and acknowledgement of a sending that has already taken place, because before one can be properly sent by men they must have been marked as a sent one by the Holy Spirit.
Saints, one sent men can do more to turn the world upside down then a thousand believers sent by human effort and motivated by human zeal. The great need of the earth right now is not laborers, it is sent laborers and there is a tremendous difference. There is a reason that Isaiah 6, Jeremiah 1, and Acts 9 are such pivotal passages and the reason is that they mark the sending of a man from heaven. Men that are sent from heaven change history. Men that are sent from man merely increase activity. God, in His kindness, may give some measure of blessing to man’s efforts, but He will not give an apostolic outcome where the apostolic pattern is not followed.
If the great need then is sent men is there any way we can increase the number of heaven sent laborers in our generation? Matthew 9:38 holds the promise for us. Are you burdened for the gospel? Do you feel the Lord’s heart both for your own nation and for the nations of the earth? If so, then the first thing is not to preach your burden or call others to missions, although that may very well come, the first thing to do is drop to your knees and ask the Lord of the Harvest to send men.
If you truly understand the great need of the harvest and the vast need for laborers you will understand the gross inadequacy of human effort and be pressed into the place of intercession crying out that God would send men knowing that a sending from heaven is the only solution to the great need of the earth in our hour.
Contending for Sent Laborers
The place of prayer is the place where the great missions enterprise is lost or won, for it is only in that place that we can secure the favor of heaven to send men for white harvest fields demand sent men, not merely laborers sent of energy, zeal, and humanistic motivations. Jesus’ instructions to His disciples were radical. They were ready for His call to lay down their lives and labor in the harvest fields, but I suspect they were surprised to hear Jesus’ admonition to rather pray that God might send men. As a measure of how significant Jesus’ words were, Acts 6 reveals that the apostles learned this lesson well as they gave themselves to prayer and the Word that sent ones might go forth and they shook the powers in their generation because their labor in prayer secured sent ones.
How different Jesus’ value system is from ours! We rush to activity, and the fact that we rush so quickly to activity betrays the fact that we have so little confidence in prayer and the reason we have little confidence in prayer is that we have little confidence in God Himself. We are more confident in our ability to labor than we are in God’s ability to send, though it is the heaven sent ones that are truly apostolic and that change history.
Does laboring on our knees preclude laboring in works? Certainly not. We must put our hands to the tasks in front of us in obedience to Jesus. He certainly calls us to labor, but He calls us first and foremost to the labor of prayer. He calls us first to gaze upward and cry out for sent ones to again walk among us and advance the gospel with power as the apostles of old did. We will labor until our bodies are exhausted and spent, but we must labor as sent ones from heaven, and it is the place of prayer that will secure this sending. Jesus’ command does not give us the luxury of praying and then refusing to go when sent.
The Holy Spirit has not changed. He is still jealous for Jesus’ glory. He is still the grand architect of the gospel enterprise. He waits only for a company of people who will resist human initiative and lay hold of Him in prayer beseeching Him to send men of His own initiative into the harvest. He will send men if we stand before Him and ask for apostolic witnesses. He will anoint the gospel with power when it goes forth according to the apostolic pattern.
Praying the Book of Revelation
September 19, 2009
It has been very encouraging to my heart to see more and more people studying the book of Revelation studying it to find the revelation of Jesus (Revelation 1:1) and to prepare their hearts to both boldly declare the gospel and endure persecution. Because of this, I plan to share some ideas on how to study the book of Revelation in a very practical way in a future post. The book is full of very practical information with regard to what the Lord ultimately sees as important in our lives and in preparing our hearts for coming storms and for the coming storm.
As a mentioned recently in praying the Bible, taking specific promises and warnings from a passage of Scripture and praying them can help us to really root the Scripture in our hearts. It also helps us to develop a more clear picture of exactly what the Lord is saying to us in a passage. At the bottom of this post is a link you can use to download a document on praying the book of Revelation. For those that are frightened of the book of Revelation, take a few minutes and read it. You will be amazed at how practical this is. I am finding a lot of material in the book for prayer.
The book of Revelation is filled with a lot of sobering material for devotional prayer. There are very specific admonitions that will keep us from disaster in the faith and there are very specific exhortations concerning weighty rewards that are available. I fear what it might cost our hearts to neglect the critical issues that Jesus addresses in this book.
What Other Nation has a God so Near?
September 8, 2009
“For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the LORD our God is to us, whenever we call upon him? – Deuteronomy 4:7 (ESV)
This phrase “a god so near” should cause us all to fall down in worship before the God who would utter such a great phrase. The word itself has the literal meaning of “near kinsman.” Truly do we grasp that God describes Himself, in relation to those who follow His statutes, as a “near kinsman?” How can we fail to encounter the God that draws near? How faithless must we be that we are content with the concept of an absent God rather than gazing upward, crying out to Him out of a heart in pain that He might remove everything in our hearts that obstructs the experience of God as a near kinsman? How much more, at this time, is God a near kinsman than when Moses penned these words?
At that time God was in close proximity to the people but it was a nearness that also created distance and separation due to the requirement of God’s holiness and the condition of the people. Truly God was near, but the people were terrified of that nearness as it caused death and separation. Truly His nearness was a fascination to Moses, Joshua, and other but a terror to the nation at large. Sadly, this condition has not changed and today there is still a minority few who find God’s declaration of His nearness as an invitation to the pursuit of the gloriously terrifying God, while most of the people demonstrate the coldness of their hearts by being content with a distant God, even having the audacity to accuse God of causing the issue.
The children of Israel struggled with this nearness and In Deuteronomy 18:17 God declares that the people are correct in their expression of the need for a human intermediary, or intercessor, to properly relate to God. God affirms their need and promises a prophet who will arise as that mediator. The people then expected another man like Moses, but God had a shocking move in store. His desire for nearness to His people was so great and so strong that He Himself had chosen to become that mediator.
He would become the One that at the same time was God among the people and also the mediator preparing and introducing people to the uncreated God. He did not just send us another Moses, He Himself became a better Moses. We should be bursting with amazement and joy at the mystery of the incarnation. If we just had an accurate perspective, we would realize how truly radical it is that the transcendent God put on human flesh and how unfathomably near He now is.
Have we allowed the incarnation to show us how deeply God’s heart yearns for nearness to His people? Jesus is God’s plainly spoken declaration of His desire for nearness. First, He declared that He was God among us. It was a thought that was blasphemy to the Jewish mind, so rightfully lofty was their concept of the divine, and yet Jesus was clear that He was God actually living among us, speaking face to face with us.
Not content with this, Jesus then poured out God’s Spirit on us that we might have the living God indwelling us. How radical was that? God had become one of us but He was not content with interacting with us only externally as that limited His nearness to us to those who could come into close physical proximity. In God’s heart a nearness limited to physical proximity was unacceptable and therefore He poured out His Spirit into our very hearts. Who among us has considered this fully?
How can God even place Himself in fallen man? How is it that your frame and mine can actually carry the living God? God has come to dwell inside, not just in one man, but in every redeemed man (Note that we still must maintain the proper division between Jesus’ divinity and our non-divinity). Saints, if we could only perceive the majesty and mystery of this thing! I fear our language and our doctrinal statements have numbed our hearts to the glorious reality of the indwelling God and the implications to our experience of Him.
Our pursuit of “power by the Spirit” has obscured the very real indwelling of God which has power as its side effect and the revelation of God to the human heart as its primary effect. He desires to be our near kinsman, and too often we are taking that gift and trying to manipulate it for a more powerful ministry or to solve the problem of our boredom with Christianity.
Finally, as though all this nearness was not enough, God closes out Scripture with the very clear promise in Revelation 21 and 22 that when Jesus takes the throne in Jerusalem, leading the earth in the millennial reign, His express purpose will be to prepare us for face to face interaction with the Father. He will draw us near to the One whom the Israelites in the desert found unbearable. Can we not see how intense God’s pursuit of being a near kinsman to us has been? God agreed in the desert with the people that His nearness was unbearable, so He gave us Himself as an intermediary and having become the ultimate near kinsman, He continues to pursue nearness with us until He gets the nearness that He Himself desires.
Can we not see that history is the very story of a God doing all that He might be near to us? How can we be content with a distant concept of God when God has so invested Himself in us? Is the radical passion in God’s heart for nearness, illustrated by His ongoing pursuit of nearness with us, not brilliantly clear, or are our hearts too blind to see? If it is not clear to us, we must ask, “Why is my heart so blind to God’s desire?” If God’s desire for nearness is clear to our hearts and yet we are content with distance, we must ask, “Why am I so dull in heart that I am content to remain apart from the glorious God?”
Saints, God wants a people that are near and He will get that people. The question for you and me is whether or not we will be part of that company. God has done all that He can. He has clearly demonstrated and declared His intentions to us, and yet we remain distant. To address the question of “why do we remain distant?” is to put our heart on full display. It is to uncover the hidden things and expose what is truly there, seeing just why it is that we avoid God.
We place the blame on the God who is distant, but He, with eyes of fire, looks directly into our hearts melting all our excuses exposing our lack of desire for His nearness. It is one of the greatest tragedies that we as believers in the 21st century consider God aloof and distant. We must allow the Spirit to expose and search our hearts that it may be clear to us just why we have settled for the distant God when the story of history clearly shows God’s increasingly radical steps to draw near to us. Why then do we do not believe that He is near to us? Perhaps there are many reasons, but there are two that stand out clearly.
For one, we do not have ears to hear the invitation. Jesus often cried out to them that have “ears to hear.” There are two common reasons that we do not have ears. For one there are few trumpets declaring to God’s people that they must ascend the hill. Sadly, often instead ministers protect their ministry by unconsciously promoting a model where they ascend rather than the people. This breaks God’s heart and yet it is a pattern that we continue to follow even though we’ve broken the tyranny of Roman theology and all nod our heads in assent to the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Those who love God deepest and are given a place to minister must, like Moses, call the people to the mountain of nearness with God, not be content to be an intermediary.
God Himself alone is the intermediary now. For a minister to place himself in that place is a dangerous place and, even when accidental, is in active opposition to God’s desire for His people. This does not invalidate ministerial gifts, but rather sets the standard for them. Valid ministerial gifts do not serve as an intermediary between God and the people but rather function as a friend of the bridegroom (John 3:29), exhorting and leading the people to face to face communion with the living God with no intermediary other than the man Jesus. For those that minister, there is safety in ministering as though you were trying to work yourself out of a job, freely giving all you have to those under your ministry and actively calling and empowering them to the place where you are in God.
The second issue with regard to “ears to hear” is that our ears are so dull and continually filled with other voices and amusements that we do not have ears to hear the voice of God inviting us up the hill. We spend precious little time meditating on the Word of God and hearing the Spirit breathe on it until we know the heart of God for us. We turn our imagination lesser things, becoming satisfied by cheap, empty thrills rather than allowing our ears and appetites to change until only a word from God will satisfy the longings of our hearts. We must cut off lesser voices that we might hear the voice of reality from the throne beckoning us to come near.
The second primary obstacle with God’s nearness is that we do not ascend the hill due to the issue of cost. Like the Israelites of old, we are afraid of what it will cost us to draw near to the place where the fire burns and the voice speaks. We are content to remain with dark, dull hearts because it might be costly to draw near to God. Deep within we know that what we are is painfully short of what we are made for, but like a madman we continue to resist the radical change necessary that our hearts may be fully alive. Can we imagine what an affront this is to God? He has provided the intercessor that was necessary, freely places the fire of the mountain in us by the Spirit, and concludes Scripture with the promise of face to face interaction, yet we remain unresponsive.
Our God promises to be near to our call. His promises it not be be near our whim, but our call. Our call contains within it a cry and desire for Him that offers up all of our being. It holds nothing back but invites the fire of God to purge everything in our heart that we might be near Him. It is this sort of cry that brings His nearness. A lesser cry will not suffice. It is the lack of a cry of this kind that causes us to remain distant from the One who is ever near.
We must call out and cry to Him with a longing heart. We must cry, with the Spirit and the bride (Revelation 22:17) that He come, no matter what the cost to us or, ultimately, the cost to the planet in the day of the Lord. When He comes the mountain quakes and our heart is filled with fear, but if we have a proper cry in our heart none of this matters so long as He comes. A valid cry is one that says, “even if I die, I must have Him near. Let Him come near and my being be burnt up, let every other thing I love be shattered, but just let Him come because I cannot remain living so long as He is distant.”
He has left us with a promise to respond to a cry and with no obstacle to drawing near, but our response, typically not in words but in lifestyle, is to remain distant in our own hearts while blaming God for how distant He is. The demands of nearness have caused us, like the children of Israel, to stand back content to ask others to go to God for us. Again, have we really comprehended what a rejection of God this is?
He has called us near and provided the one and only intercessor and still we continue to look to others to ascend the hill for us. He has paid an awful price to enable us to ascend the hill and yet we spurn His invitation content to fill our lives with much lesser pleasures. This is heresy in a day and age when all men have been given access to the living God. Whatever the cost may be to live in the manifest nearness of God, it is truly far less than the cost of living a dull life in bondage to lesser things.
Saints, have we considered how deeply this must hurt His heart? Our God is near. Let anyone who doubts that fact be silenced. It is us who are distant. Let us set our hearts to pay the cost and draw near to the heart of the living One. Let us be those that fill His heart with joy. Man’s consistent rejection of the God that is in pursuit has already caused our God more pain than a human frame can comprehend. Our God has promised to be near when we call. Seeing as our God cannot lie, the issue must remain in our lack of calling rather than in His lack of nearness
As a final note, there are those desperately longing for God who are enduring seasons of wilderness. For those dry and lonely and yet longing for God with every fiber of your being, willing to obey any call for Him to be near, do not feel condemned, but rather encouraged that the God who holds your days in His hand longs for nearness greater than you do and is, in truth, much nearer than you perceive Him to be. Remain steady. He is near. Your perception of His nearness will change if you remain faithful.
Praying the Bible
August 28, 2009
Praying the Scripture is something that I believe is often overlooked, but has incredible value. Recently I’ve been making an intentional effort to pray the Scripture and it has really moved my heart. Just to clarify what I mean by praying the Scriptures, I am not talking about what I call “pray reading.” Pray reading is where, as you read, you turn phrases and verses into prayer and basically dialog with the Lord over the Scripture. This is much slower than just reading the passage, but also helps bring real life into the passage and helps apply it deeper to your heart. This method of devotional reading is very valuable but it not what I am talking about here. If you’re not familiar with this, just leave a comment or send me an email and I can point you to some resources.
What I mean by “Praying the Scriptures” is extracting key phrases, promises of rewards, commands, warnings, and blessings from a book of the Bible or a passage of Scripture and creating a prayer list from these verses. For example, the book of Revelation uses the phrase “ears to hear” at least seven times. From that you could create the following point on a prayer list: “God give me ears to hear. Let me hear what you are saying, both to my heart, and my generation.” Under that prayer you write out the seven verses, reading those verses as you are praying so that your heart is filled with the combination of your own personal heart cry and God’s language describing the need of the human heart.
What this does is help really drive the Scripture into your heart. It does not replace reading and studying entire passages because that is very valuable, but by taking specific action points from the Scripture and specifically praying those we take God’s direction, or His law, and plant it deep in our heart all the while using the Biblical language that God gave us. It is an incredible way to go deeper in the Word and to plant in our hearts what God says really matters. By following the study of a passage with the repeated praying of the passage’s action points over time it helps us to set our hearts to obey the Scriptures in an intentional way rather than just hoping to remember what the Scripture says.
Using this method you will also start seeing patterns in a passage of Scripture. Often God hits the same topic more than once. How often something is repeated in the Scripture is very valuable because it underscores the importance of the directive to our hearts. The sad truth is that we quickly forget much of what we read, but when we intentionally pray the action points that the Scripture gives us, we begin retaining specific things that God directed us to do, to seek for, or to avoid.
The goal is to use this type of prayer as a pattern of heart engagement with the Word and obedience to the Word that we might be found obedient and mature on that great day. Without using techniques like this, there are many promises, and warnings, in the Scriptures that will never stay in our heart.
As far as methodology goes, praying this way does not have to be a rigid type of liturgy. As you develop prayer lists from various passage or books, keep a written record of them and periodically review them in your personal prayer time. God may highlight one particular thing in your prayer list one day and, if He does, just focus on that one thing. The goal is not to follow a certain liturgy or get every prayer point covered that one day, but that over time the Scripture goes deep in our hearts and, in doing so, increases our fellowship and communion with the One who is Holy and to whom we will give account.
In future days, I’ll post some examples of prayer lists I have developed from passages of Scripture. I would love to hear comments or see lists that others have developed.
Demystifying Prayer
August 4, 2009
We were recently discussing some of the ways prayer is misused and it immediately came to me that perhaps some of our error in praying is that we have so mystified it that we really do not have a solid paradigm for exactly what we are doing when we pray. Because our governmental model of the universe is not sound and because we do not see intercession as a primarily governmental occupation, our prayer suffers and is subject to all sorts of frustrations and excesses. We may use a lot of volume and many repetitions (Matthew 6:7) and even consistently “bind satan” and yet our prayers seem to have little effect.
My argument here will be that the lack of a governmental model of prayer is at the root of many of our issues in prayer. Now, while this is entitled “Demystifying Prayer,” I will acknowledge up front that prayer is inherently mystical in the sense that fallen man is communing with the Divine which is a relationship that is beyond human capacity. The issue though is that we have added a mystical layer on top of prayer that makes it frustrating and unfruitful. If we remove the unnecessary mysticism we will find that we begin to pray in a much more Scriptural and far less frustrating manner. Understanding the governmental model behind prayer helps to clear our hearts so that we see prayer less as an ethereal thing and more as something substantial and real.
Rather than seek to examine all the possible errors of our methods of prayer as if we are the proper authority on prayer, let us simply examine the proper paradigm of prayer. When we pray out of the proper paradigm, we will naturally adjust the way we pray.
We obviously do not have the space to examine Luke 18, but let us suffice it to say that Luke 18 presents the model for intercession. We can get a basic grasp of how we are to prayer from Luke 18:1-8. If you’re not familiar with the passage, take a moment now and read it. We learn the following from Luke 18:
- There is injustice, sin, and evil on the earth. It is caused by the adversary working through fallen humans and the systems of this age.
- We are affected by it in a substantial way. In fact, it is the oppression from evil that we experience and observe that becomes the groundwork for our intercession.
- The proper response then to the predicament we find ourselves in is to go to the judge who alone can rescue us and beseech him until He answers.
- The judge may appear silent, but each request is moving him. He will act. In fact, Jesus asks the leading question of whether He will find men interceding with a confidence that God will act. Even if He withholds His action until the Day of the Lord, we are still to have faith that He will act.
If we properly understand the governmental paradigm of Luke 18, it will clear the fog that surrounds intercession and lead us to more effective praying. The problem is that we have so thoroughly adopted Greek dualism that we see God as completely dwelling in another realm and do not see Him in His governmental position over our realm. Some see our job in prayer as trying to get Him to cross the boundary of His realm into our reality and do something. Others see our job in intercession to be attacking opposing spirit beings so that God can do what He desires in our realm. The reality is that intercession can be long, painful, and deep but our model for it does not need to be confusing, nor overly mystical.
In short, to intercede is simply to approach the throne of grace to find help in our time of need. When we pray we are approaching a King. This King is enthroned above all other kings. He presently, at this time, has full authority and dominion over all of creation. When we perceive the need for wrongs to be made right, we simply stand before the King, as did Queen Ester, and beseech Him to act on our behalf and break in.
We must see that prayer is primarily a governmental function. The secret to prayer is not figuring out which spirit is the problem or which language will finally move His heart, but to realize that when you step into the place of prayer the Scriptures tell us that you are standing before a very real God on a very real throne that hears the cries of His people (Exodus 2:23). We do not fully consider the idea of God as a real and present King reigning over the earth, but this is the Biblical paradigm. Just consider some of the most significant theophanies in the Scriptures and you will repeatedly see the revelation of a King upon a throne and the recipient of the vision being undone at the present ruling majesty of the living God over both the recipient of the revelation and the entire earth.
Just the recognition that you are approaching the King of the universe in a governmental capacity should dramatically alter your perspective of prayer. You are beseeching this great King, asking Him to move on your behalf. We are subject to His rule and yet He invites us as men to take on His heart and beseech Him for the very things He desires to do. This is a stunning partnership that few of us really take the time to comprehend, and this partnership takes place in a governmental paradigm where we beseech the King to act.
Beyond the issue of partnership, is the core, fundamental motivation behind intercession and that is the issue of evil. Most of our intercession at this time arises primarily from the problem of evil. The problem is that, absent the proper governmental paradigm, we lose our way and can end up trying to attack evil in our prayers rather than following the Luke 18 model of simply going to the King and asking Him for justice. To better illustrate this, if you were in a kingdom and there was a usurper propagating evil what would you do? Would you go to the usurper and ask him to stop, or would you go to the king, the one who has full power and authority, and ask him to drive the usurper out of the kingdom?
The obvious answer is that we would enter the king’s courts and appeal to the king. Is this not exactly what the Scriptures exhort us to do? What then should be our primary approach to evil and spiritual warfare? Should it be to incessantly bind the devil, which the Scriptures clearly say is bound at Jesus’ coming and not until then, or should it be to appeal to the King to break out in power and stop the infusion of darkness?
Now, as we ask the King to break in, we recognize from Luke 18 that we are also in a place where we are awaiting the ultimate justice of the Day of the Lord. This keeps our hearts in faith with regard to the issue of delay. The question is not whether or not the King will act on our behalf, but rather it is a matter of when. Remember that in the book of Revelation, it is bowls of the saints prayers that sure as the fuel for God’s judgment as He breaks in on the earth. All the intercession throughout the ages that has been delayed, is finally answered in that great day. On that day full justice comes and the usurper is totally destroyed.
Intercession then, seen in its complete context, is to stand before the creator and to ask Him to break in now and demonstrate a preview of the goodness, kindness, and liberation that is coming in His ultimate act of justice on the Day of the Lord. When we ask Him to execute justice, heal, deliver, or liberate men we are asking Him to demonstrate who He is now as a prophetic picture of what He will ultimately do on a global level in the present.
How much would it alter your prayer life if you began to see your intercession as literally standing before the Judge of the universe beseeching Him to break in a rule on a particular issue? What if, rather than searching for more powerful language or new techniques, you merely closed your eyes and saw yourself before the throne of Hebrew 4:16? How would that alter the entire way you approach prayer and the language you use? What if you began to understand that when God delays His justice that He is also filling a bowl in heaven with the cry for justice and that bowl is going to overflow one day when the world is immersed in the justice and judgment of God? Your “unanswered” prayers are not unanswered, but rather assembled by the King into a great bowl of prayers that He is going to answer in His time and in response to His saint’s continued cries.
What if that King not only tolerated your petitions as the king did with Esther, but what if the King had actually invited you to come and beseech Him in your time of need? In our case we are welcomed by the Sovereign of the universe to approach Him and make known our needs, or our injustices.
Read Revelation 4 and consider the throne room of the King of the Universe, the “One upon the throne.” Then, take the thing you need to intercede before the Lord as though you were a subject being welcomed by the King to petition Him for the thing that you need Him to act on. You will find that addressing God in the proper governmental context is far more satisfying than trying to find better language, stir up more volume, or attempting to randomly bind spiritual enemies. Approach and address Him as a just and willing King. You just may see your prayer time transformed.
The Prophet’s Cosmic View
November 19, 2008
Bryan Purtle wrote an excellent article on the Prophet’s Cosmic view. We desperately need this kind of understanding so that we might have a more complete picture of the prophet and what God desires. Take a few minutes and read it. It’s worth the time to let God speak to your heart on a issue that is vital in our day and time. We desperately need to recover and demonstrate this reality.
http://pilgrimagetozion.wordpress.com/2008/11/11/the-prophets-cosmic-view/
The End of the Bull
September 30, 2008
In a prayer meeting recently, a parable came to me. Let me be clear that this is not a prophecy, but merely a parable. Recently, I was considering the golden calf that Israelites worshiped in the desert. This calf provides a picture that could be very significant to us in our day. To best understand what follows, before you proceed you must read Exodus 32.
To begin with, let’s make a few observations about the worship of the calf. First note that Moses was in the place of prayer and fasting upon the hill in the wilderness when the itching for the calf began. Note also that Moses was receiving the Law, or the requirements of God when the people became restless and demanded an idol. Note also that this calf was setup by the priesthood. A foreign priesthood did not come in, but rather it was Aaron who led the construction of this calf when the mood of the people called for a false god. Note that once Aaron setup the calf, he did not lead the people away to another god, but rather declared the calf to be the god that lead them out of Egypt. In other words, he did not replace God, he merely redefined Him. Note also that worship to the calf included many of Israel’s religious practices such as burnt offerings and peace offerings, but that the worship focused on sensual pleasures and frivolity. Let’s take a look here because I believe these events form a parallel and a parable for what is taking place in the nation at this moment. Continue Reading The End of the Bull »
Are you Jealous?
September 5, 2008
I have been deeply moved the last few days over the issue of Jealousy for the Lord and for His name. Are we truly jealous for the name “Jesus” and the demonstration that are attributed to His name? As the world continues to use that precious name as nothing more than an expletive and ministers use it for their own purposes, I wonder if we are truly jealous for His name or if we have slowly become desensitized to it all. Recently I have watched some videos of various ministers and ministries that have simply made my heart sick. The antics on stage, if not blasphemy, were probably as close as you can get and yet the crowd loved it. In all of this I wondered, where are those that are jealous for the Lord and for His name? As I noticed the crowd laughing and taking it all in, I wondered where are those jealous for the bride? I mean this is Jesus’ wife we are talking about and these men are making a spectacle of the Lord before His own bride and she is drinking it all in. In a dream I had recently there was both a deep anger and a deep weeping over things.
Something within is burning and asking the deep question, are we not jealous for Him? I understand there are differences in ministry styles, personalities, and giftings and we have to give grace to different members of the body, but I was observing things that were clearly demeaning to the Lord and His people and they were being opening attributed to the Lord and His Spirit. They were allowing the Lord, His name, and His Spirit to be demeaned and mocked by men claiming to be ministers. Where are those who will stand and separate the holy from the profance? Where is the holy jealousy that caused Jesus to overturn money tables?
As I considered this issue of jealousy, I began considering what a pure and holy jealousy really is. After all, many are “jealous for the Lord,” but what they often mean is that they are jealous for their ministries, or their own perception of how things should be. Often “jealousy for the Lord” is really the desire to criticise and tear down those you do not agree with. Seeing then as jealousy for the Lord is an urgent need in our time and, at the same time, there is much jealousy that is not truly jealousy for the Lord, how are we to discern the difference? Continue Reading Are you Jealous? »
Two Excellent Articles
August 12, 2008
I have a few things I need to post that I have not gotten down yet. In the meantime, I wanted to pass along two excellent articles. These are from “The Burn 24-7″ which is a prayer and worship ministry that is also focused on missions. I had the chance to hear their founder when I was at the last Luke 18 Project Leadership summit and was very impressed.
The first article is on Urgency and Legacy, two things that are sadly lacking among us.
http://theburn247.com/blog/2008/06/13/urgency-and-legacy/
The second article highlights the fact that we tend to focus on ministries and techniques, while the whole end of it all must be God Himself.
http://theburn247.com/blog/2008/06/13/he-wants-this-more-than-we-do/
Sent
November 21, 2007
But how are people to call upon Him Whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of Whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? And how can men [be expected to] preach unless they are sent? – Romans 10:14-15b AMP
I was recently reading a section in Apostolic Foundations when the verses above simply jumped off the page. I believe the key to the whole passage is found in the last sentence that begins verse 15. The critical word here is sent. Now, this sort of passage is most typically used to support missions and other administration issues that revolve around the practical issues of sending men to preach the gospel. I certainly have no problem with this as there are financial and logistic tasks involved in the sending of men to preach the gospel, but I do not believe this is the heart of what God is trying to convey here.
The issue of sending and of being sent is critical if we are to recover the life that pulsated through the New Testament church. The word sent that is used here in verse 15 is the word “apostello” and it is from this word that we get the word apostle or “sent one.” If we are going to recover the reality and power of the first century church, we have to recover an accurate understanding of the word apostello and just what it means for men to be sent to preach the gospel. We desperately need to understand just who is doing the sending and how men are to be sent. To recover the reality and power of these words we need look no farther than the church at Antioch. Continue Reading Sent »
The Underground Church in America
November 4, 2007
An underground church is forming in America. It is not forming around the issue of physical persecution but rather around the issue of devotion to Jesus. It is a group of believers who are asking the question, “Is Jesus really worth everything?” If He is, it means that He must affect every area of our lives. Over on in earnest expectation, I caught the preview of this video that chronicles this movement in America. This underground church cannot be defined by any one ministry or under any one label, but this looks to be a great film chronicle of at least part of the movement.
More info on the video can be found at www.underthethreshold.com.