Out With The Old

The Lord spoke to me a couple years back now about seven blind spots in the body of Christ. I have dealt repeatedly with two of them on this blog, finances and health respectively. Today I want to branch into another of these blind spots as we finish out 2014 and that being the difference between the modern local church and the collective Kingdom of God and why it is so critical that we begin to get our collective minds around these powerful scriptural principles.

Being in my mid 40s and being raised in church and around churches of all stripes for all of those decades, I've seen my fair share of stuff come down the pike. 

I remember being 7 or 8 years old and our old denominational church scheduling revival meetings. Even then the question I never understood was if we were asking God to revive us, didn't that mean we were dead or close to it?

As those years escaped into my twenties, my question became "If we are praying for a spontaneous move of God, why are we scheduling it with an end time to each of the meetings?" If we meet for revival from 7pm to 9pm, how is that not telling God to be done by 9:00pm and if we are indeed honestly saying that to God, are we really after revival?  I mean, is it only welcome if it comes on our time table?  I thought the whole point was for God to change US and interrupt or even resurrect our dead lives by REVIVING us. For a lot of years those questions and many like them remained unanswered until I began to search the bible for myself.

The written Word of God provided some much needed clarity including showing forth a clear difference in the government of God's Kingdom that exists anywhere God is allowed to manifest... and the government outlined for the gathering of local believers when they would gather in each other's homes in the Lord's name. The local gatherings seemed obvious, they had changed a bit over the centuries and we had adopted buildings and many silly, religious habits and even some completely unbiblical practices, but the pattern outlined in scripture for the local meetings was still one thing... and the pattern of God's Government for His Kingdom stood out as something completely different.   This difference between what we now know as the modern church and the Heavenly Kingdom of God being two very different things is a very big blind spot for many believers and as I mentioned up top here, one of seven critical blind spots in the body at large in the earth today.

My next statement here will be heresy to some of you but for others it will be divine confirmation. Here it is...

I have watched the Holy Spirit strategically bring together groupings of people at various churches dozens of times over the years to set up a sovereign, city wide, all encompassing manifesting of The Kingdom of God here in Central, Ohio  Each and every time with no exceptions, it never gets to bleed out into the community because the leader, pastor, elder, apostle, whomever is in charge of the given church where it all starts in has this blind spot in place and thus mistakenly believes these Kingdom of God based people are really ineffective until/unless they all submit to their personal vision.  In short, it all needs to come thru their church, their way, at their personal level of revelation, with them being the ultimate judge of it all exclusively or it's not really a move of God.  

I need to interject here a note about prophets and prophetic leaning people. Prophets treasure God's presence over everything else. Period. There is no debate, there is no give, it is how they are wired out of the womb by God so they can fulfill the nature of their calling in the earth.  Prophets understand (at least the mature ones) the difference in the modern church and the bigger picture of the collective church under the umbrella of The Kingdom of God.  

If you have a true prophet in your church and you try to force them into a doctrinal mold that puts a rule or an opinion (even a rule you feel is firmly rooted in scripture) over and above God's presence, the prophet will be very conflicted and if immature, will cause quite a stir and potentially split your church.  More mature prophets in this position will simply leave. If you are a leader and God begins to bring prophets to your church, you need to tread very carefully because I assure you, God is up to something much bigger than growing just your one little church.

A gathering of prophetic people that just spontaneously happens is God's way of signaling He is ready to hit a given place with a tidal wave of outpouring. If you try and reduce these prophetic people to simply regular attendees and force them into your new member's classes, you will do what most everyone before you has done, you will miss the bigger picture and sadly, the promised move of God that was on the table.

Jezebel literally means one who refuses to be joined unto. Many modern churches refuse to be joined to God's bigger picture of The Kingdom of God and as a result, you will see moral and relational devastation in the lives of their membership.  Prophets will of course suggest a turn toward the Kingdom of God but leaders who are blind to the Kingdom principles I am sharing here will often accuse the prophets of being the rebellious ones and go so far as to make them the scape goats, in rare cases even making up stories about them to engage in damage control for the very disobedience they themselves were guilty of.  Sadly, this is something I have witnessed first hand.

Just as it's exciting to see prophets start t gather, when prophets begin to leave, especially if they leave in mass, it's likely time to pack your own bags as the cloud by day has moved on and whomever is leading the flock there has missed that memo.

Now, many folks have built big churches, even mega churches on this concept of their church being "God's favorite" or their church being "the real" church in a given area. They may not ever use those words, but that's really behind the heart motive.  True and mature Apostles hate this sort of pride and will usually address it head on as the need arises. As a side, be mindful of Apostles who build upon just their personal vision. The foundation of the church is always Apostles AND Prophets.  Usually on the local front this means an Apostle will get a starting vision to build a new work but that vision will be incomplete and will require local Prophets called to serve in that region to come and bring completion to the vision.  

Sadly, this joining of the Apostolic and locally assigned prophetic is so incredibly rare it's almost not worthy of mention. It takes mature Apostles and Prophets fueled by humility to serve others first.. which again is ultra rare.. but this is what a true, city wide, sweeping move of God is going to look like.. and it's not just for Central Ohio. It's what it will look like all over the nation if we are to see a true nationwide outpouring of God's Spirit on our land once again.

Sure we can have patriotism, nationalism and even pockets of unity among the people , all of which are nice to be sure... but these are not revival and that promised revival is what God has His mind on as we journey into 2015. 


More soon...


Mark

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