Today’s Prophets

When most people think of a prophet, they think of men like Jeremiah, Isaiah or Daniel.  Men who made predictions about the future, and their predictions became true.  I think we can all agree that these men were prophets of God, but are all prophets like this?

Many old testament prophets are never named in scriptures.  1 Samuel 19:20  says: “And Saul sent messengers to take David: and when they saw the company of the prophets prophesying, and Samuel standing as appointed over them, the Spirit of God was upon the messengers of Saul, and they also prophesied.”

Notice there is a company of prophets.  Samuel was not the only prophet in his time.  There were many prophets.  Prophets are simply people who hear from God and tell the people what God is saying.  They hear from God about what to do, when to do it, who should be going where and any other thing which God wants shared with His people.  It is not necessarily predictions about the future, although that can happen.  It is not necessarily words for just Christians, but possibly for non-believers as well.

I believe that God speaks to us all, but most of the time we are not listening.  If someone hears from God, and speaks what God has said, does that make them a prophet?  There is a difference between prophesying and being in the office of a prophet.

My wife once had to remove a broken gooseneck pipe under the kitchen sink and install a new one.  She did some plumbing that day.  Did that make her a plumber?  No.  The same is true for a prophet.  He does not just prophecy what God gives him, prophecy is the ministry which God has called him to.  The key is God, not the man.  The man is nothing special.  He is simply a frail, imperfect human who God calls to listen carefully to God and tell others what he hears.

In today’s world, we need these men and women to help encourage and direct us as to what God's heart is for us.  Where should we be looking to start a ministry or church?  Who should we be talking to about the love of Jesus?  Where should we be giving our money? There are countless questions out there in the world which we need God’s wisdom for.

Warning about prophets.  Do not listen to a prophet and go with what they say without other witnesses as to the truth of what they say.

1.  The prophet must be promoting the Lord God, Jesus.
2. The prophecy must always align with scripture and never counter any Biblical revelations from God.
3. Do other known and respected prophets agree? 1 Corinthians 14:32 “And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.”

Prophets are for today.  We need to hear from God to guide us in our everyday lives.  God cares about every detail of your life and wants to help you down the path of His plan for you.  God gave us prophets to help guide us.  Lets listen to them.

Blogs on other ministries:
Apostles
Evangelist
Pastor
Teachers

This post is based upon the book "Viral Jesus" by Ross Rohde 

Photo Credit: The Voice by Fr. Stephen, MSC

Are Apostles for Today?

Did the office of apostle end with the twelve disciples of Jesus?  Is Ephesians 4:11 (which mentions the ministry of apostle) for today? What is an apostle?

Merriam-Webster defines apostle as “one sent on a mission”  It comes from the Greek word, apostolos. The Latin words relate to the idea of being sent, missio and mittere, are where we get the words mission and missionary.

A good example is found in Matthew 10:1-5 “¹And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.
²Now the names of the twelve apostles are these; The first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother;
³Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the publican; James the son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus;
⁴Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.
⁵These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not:

Notice that in verse 1 Jesus calls his “twelve disciples” to him, but in verse 2, after they have been given their mission, they are “the twelve apostles”

Another example is Acts 13 1-3 “¹Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.
²As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.
³And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.”


In this passage, Saul (Paul) and Barnabas are sent out on Paul’s first missionary journey.  They are not chosen for this work by the Christians but by The Holy Spirit.  They become apostles, chosen by God, to go out and start churches in other lands.

Does God call people today to go out and begin churches?  Does God give gifts to believers to not just spread the Good News of Jesus Christ, but to help found groups of believers in a community where together they can learn and grow?  Of course He does.

These modern-day  apostles could be going to foreign lands as missionaries helping to translate the Bible into other languages and helping to establish churches in the jungles of Vanuatu.  They could be people called by God to create a new church here in our own country.  No matter where God calls an apostle to go, an apostle knows the necessary strategies for planting churches.

Note: The picture is of a missionary family who are taking the Gospel of Jesus Christ to jungle tribes in Vanuatu.  They will be living with former cannibals, learning their language, translating the Bible into their language, preaching the gospel and establishing a church.  To read more about them click “HERE.”   

To read about other Five Fold Ministires:

Prophet
Evangelist
Pastor
Teachers

This post is based upon the book "Viral Jesus" by Ross Rohde 

Photo Credit: Richards’ Family by Houghton Richards

Are the Five Fold Ministries of Ephesians 4:11 for Us Today?

Ephesians 4:11 “And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;”

Can this verse really be for us today?  Aren’t apostles and prophets gone now that we have God’s word The Bible?  Not only is this verse for us today, it is essential for us today if we want Christianity to flourish and spread. It is also crucial for times of persecution of the Church.  I believe we will see a time when the Church, even here in the United States, will be persecuted even unto death.  When this happens, the Church will go underground and the ministries of Ephesians 4:11 will need to be manifested or Christianity will die out.

If I am right about the persecution of the Church, it means Christians will gather together in small groups at homes, and not in the large services we have now.  Small groups where everyone needs to serve Christ using the gifts which Christ has bestowed upon them.

If I am wrong, then we still need every Christian to use their God given gifts in order to expand Christianity to the world and help younger Christians to grow.  No matter what the future holds, we need to see growth in the church and Ephesians 4:11 is a key to that growth.

We will take a look at each of the five ministries mentioned in the text and see how they are vital for today.  Too often we have a conception of what each of these offices entails, but are our views truly Biblical?
Apostle
Prophet
Evangelist
Pastor

Teachers

This post is based upon the book "Viral Jesus" by Ross Rohde

Photo Credit: Bible Study Pictures 001 by SamH one

Bobble-Heads in Church

Imagine your church as a car and every person is a part of that car.  The pastor is the steering wheel, the elders are the tires,  and everyone who has a part in your Sunday morning service is a different integral part.  Jesus is steering your Sunday morning service down a beautiful road, and the people are blessed tremendously.  That is the way it should be, but only if you are part of the assembled car.

In most church services, there are people who warm a pew and go through the motions, but they are not really integrated into the true purpose and life of the service.  They sing the songs, but they are not truly worshiping.  They listen to the sermon, but their minds are on the football game. They are more like superfluous appendages that are stuck on the body with of no beneficial use.  They are the bobble-head dogs in the back window of the car.

When people start to attend a church, it can be easy for them to be lost in the crowd.  If they don’t actively seek out places in the church where they can serve, they will not make many friends or become a productive part of the church.  House churches don’t have this problem as much since they are small enough that you are not lost in a crowd.  Yet, even in small-group setting, people can be ignored and their talents not utilized.

In these last days, we cannot  afford to let people slip through our fingers like this.  God has given talents and gifts to each Christian, which they must be trained in and utilized for the advancement of the Gospel.  God never created people to be standing around watching the world go by.  He created them to move the world.

If you are not actively involved with your church and using your spiritual gifts, then you are not assembling together with other Christians.  You are simply taking a ride.  If someone you know is this way, then you need to exhort them to use their gifts for Christ in His Church.

The times ahead will be rough, and we must prepare ourselves and those around us.  Assembled together the body of Christ will not only survive but thrive in His power.

Hebrews 10:25 “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”

Photo Credit: DSC00977 by freya.gefn

Why is God Worthy of My Love?

Have you ever thought about what makes God so great? I have heard people praying and recognizing so many wonderful and powerful things about God.  Their prayers talk about how powerful God is.  He is the King of the Universe, all-powerful and mighty.  By simply speaking He is able to create all things.  Nothing can exist without Him.

He is also all knowing, even to the point of knowing how many hairs there are on our heads.  He is omnipresent so that we cannot  hide from Him and there is nothing we can do which He would not know about.  There is nothing new to Him.  All our greatest technology is simplistic to Him.  Our greatest minds are as preschoolers compared to His most elementary thoughts.

He owns everything.  Forget about the richest men in the world.  God owns the universe and could make many more universes if He wanted to.  He rules from a city where the foundations are of precious gems, and the streets are of gold.  He has servants whose only desire is to serve Him and they wait patiently around His throne just to hear what His next words are.

He lives outside of time.  He was before time began, and He will be after time ends.  There is nothing which has ever happened where He was not there and had an intricate knowledge of.  He is more wonderful, awesome and powerful then we can even imagine.

All I have said above is true, but I don’t care about all that.  It is not meaningless but it is not what is truly important about God.  You can take all that away and God would still be more wonderful than anything or anyone living.

What makes God worthy of my love?  It is not because of all I have written here.  Those things are simply abilities and states of His status.  The real reason to love God is found in 1 John 4:19 “We love him, because he first loved us.”

God loves you so much that He actually gave up all the wonderful and powerful things I mentioned the first part of this post.  Jesus gave up all of Heaven’s riches and glory to be born in a barn and live in a primitive world full of sin, sorrow and death.  He had no power of his own except what The Father sent through Him.  Jesus loved us so much that he gave up everything, including his earthly life so that we can know God and live eternally with Him.

Forget about power and riches.  I want to know Jesus and be with him because of his heart’s love for me.  How can I deny such love?  Even if Heaven and eternal life were not promised to me, I would still have to love Him.

 

Photo Credit: Black Holes Go 'Mano a Mano by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center

Real Love is Painful

My daughter is a trainer in an African Country for the Peace Corp.  She had a new group of volunteers and during part of the training she sent them out to live for a few weeks in homes of some of the native population.  After two weeks one man told her he couldn’t go back to the family he had been living with but would have to go home.  It was so hard for him to say good-bye to them that staying longer would make it even harder.  To stay for two years with a family would be impossible for him to say good-bye.  He loved the people so much that the pain of leaving them was too much for him.  He had to go back to USA or the pain would be too much for him.

In hospitals, some parents never go see their terminally ill children because it is to painful for them.  The child will live out the last days of their lives alone in the hospital because the parents love their children too much to watch them die.

Both  cases are not examples of love but of selfishness.  The person is not looking at the needs of someone else but at themselves.  They are unwilling to bear any pain for the sake of another person’s needs.  Love is not avoidance of pain and receiving warm fuzzy feelings instead.  Love means to be willing to sacrifice and bear pain for someone you love.

I Corinthians 13:7 “(love) bears all things, …”

To love, whether it is God or another person, means to sacrifice and do things which might be painful.  It means giving up your right to be comfortable.  It means not doing what you desire but what God or someone else's desires.

I have two nieces who are going into the jungles of Vanuatu to live with people who were a short time ago cannibals.  One niece is married with three children.  There is a good chance of disease or accidents happening that could endanger their lives.  They will live in a primitive village with few modern conveniences.  This is an uncomfortable way of living where you can experience even the pain of the loss of a loved one.  Why would they do this?  Because they love the people, and they love Jesus enough to bear anything so that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is made known to these people.

I John 3:18 “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.”

Photo Credit: Jesus by My American Odyssey

True leadership in a Christian Service.

Everyone walks into the church sanctuary with a feeling of expectation.  The room is no different than it has been every week before this, but as people enter they seem to sense that this day is special.  They speak quietly, if at all, when taking their seats.  Around the sanctuary most people are praying or reading their Bibles.  This is a Holy Place.

The hour comes to start the service.  The room is full of praying people.  Minutes pass but no one stands to lead in a song or even an opening prayer.  Everyone waits patiently. 

Finally 15 minutes into the service, Jesus steps up to the pulpit.  All eyes go to him as he raises his hands in welcome.  His smile seems to light the room and lift the hearts of everyone.  He speaks in a soft loving voice that fills the room.

“Katie, would you share what the Lord has placed on your heart.”

A young girl nervously stands and walks to the front.  Lifting her eyes from her hands grasped tightly together in front of her, she looks out over the crowd of people.  A tear slowly flows down her cheek as she smiles.  “I love Jesus with all my heart.”

Those few words seemed to ignite something in the hearts of everyone.  The Holy Spirit moves in people hearts in a powerful way that none there had ever experienced before.

Does this story sound possible?  Has any Christian gathering you attended ever been like this? Why is it we don’t see services like this?  Whether you are in a house church or a mega church, this scenario can be a reality.  The key is found in who is leading.  Is the clock leading what and when worship is done?  Is the Pastor leading or some other church leader?  Is your church bulletin the Bible of what takes place in a service?

The only leader in any gathering should be Jesus.  If he does not lead when you think he should, then wait for him.  Don’t feel uncomfortable with silence.  We should be uncomfortable with words and songs that are just filling the silence.  Jesus must lead or we will sound like a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

“I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope. My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.” Psalm 130: 5-6