In Ephesians 4:11–13, we read of the ministries Christ gave to the Church: … He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ. The Lord gave all these ministries in order that there could be blessings for maturity and for perfection in the people of the Lord.
In Revelation 7:9–17, we read, After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes (notice that: “clothed in white robes”), and palm branches were in their hands; and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures; and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God saying, “Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen.” And one of the elders answered, saying to me, “These who are clothed in the white robes, who are they, and from where have they come?” And I said to him, “My Lord, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones who came out of great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason, they are before the throne of God; and they serve Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne shall spread His tabernacle over them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun beat down on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb in the center of the throne shall be their shepherd, and shall guide them to springs of the water of life; and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.
As I was in prayer, it became very real to me that this passage shows us something; it’s like a new way of prophesying.
“Who were these people?” was the question. “These who are clothed in white robes, a great multitude, almost beyond number, who are they, and from where did they come?” You may understand this or not, but you could be them. You say, “I’m not in that vision of perfection.” I know, but you could be among those. Where do these people come from? Out of great tribulation, out of great struggle, out of great effort—the same place where you are. It is so easy to read the Scriptures and fail to see that these people are human beings just like all of you.
“But,” you protest, “what about this perfection, and glory that is worked in them?”
This is where the new way of prophesy comes in. The passage in Ephesians tells about the ministries that God gave to bring people up to maturity, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. The passage in the book of Revelation describes the ones who really make it, the ones whose hearts are really set upon God.
It is like a new way of prophesying that is revealed in these passages. God, through the apostle, the prophet, the evangelist, the pastor and the teacher, is saying to you, “Come, tell me what you want to be. What do you want me to think of you? What is in your heart to be and to become? How can I help you to fulfill it?” I feel in my heart such a dedication to this. Show me what you want to be, because I want to help you to be that. I won’t look at you according to what you have been, according to limitations, failures, and problems. I will seek God carefully on this; these things will not be in my thinking about you if God will help me. I’ll think of only one thing: call it fantastic fantasy, or a faith fantasy.
Open your heart and say, “What is this calling that drives me, that motivates me? What am I going to become? Of this great host, who are these people? Where did they come from?” I suppose they came from a situation like yours. They are just like you.
“How did they make it?”
I don’t know, but one thing that will help you is the ministry of some prophet or man of God who will look at you and say, “I believe what you believe about yourself.” Has God revealed something to you about what you are and what you are to be? If He has, tell me and I will help you to believe for it. Tell me what you really want. This is not like the magic fairy with a wand, saying, “I’ll give you three wishes.” Not just one wish, or two, or three, but God gives you one continuous wish. You can wish it day and night, and He will bring it to pass. Tell me what it is you want. Tell the Lord, “God, this is what I want to be.” Do you really want to be that? Do you really strive in your heart to become that? It can be yours. Someone is going to be in that group in Revelation 7.
“Well,” you say, “I’m all bogged down in problems.”
I know, who isn’t?
“I have some things to work out.”
I do too, but some people will have to make up that group. Do you want to be one of them? Do you want to aspire to go through the processes of change, of growth, until you come to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ? Do you want that? I am looking at you all the time. I am looking for the miracle. I am looking for the beauty that is in you or is about to be in you, something that is about to happen to you. Usually it is something in the process.
Come on, show me, tell me: what do you want to be? Enter into this. Call it a fantasy if you want to, but it’s a fantastic way of proclaiming: “This is what I want to be.” Throw away the disillusionment that says you cannot change. We have more people change so much in one month that it goes far beyond the aspirations of psychiatry. It is taking place. It is happening all the time. Come on, jump into it and be a part of it. If you want to change, you can. Do you really want to change? What do you want to be? What do you want me to think about you? Come up and say, “I want to be a prophet.” Tell me what you want to be, and I think God will help me to help you be it.
Where is reality found? The real things that God is bringing forth are not found among people who are wishing and hoping with a desperation in their spirits; they come to people who believe. I believe that I am what God says I am. I believe I can do what He says He enables me to do. I cannot impose upon God my limitations; therefore I cannot accept limitations on myself. If God enables me, I believe that. I cannot accept limitations on myself without imposing them on God, saying, “I’m sorry, Father, but I’m not able to do this, and therefore I have to reject that You will do it.” It seems rather foolish to limit God, with your limitations, and if you choose not to limit God, you have to reject your own limitations. Remember what the Apostle Paul said, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).
It is almost unbelievable what you can be and become, but you find yourself stymied, don’t you? You have been conditioned so well by the pattern of things in your life that you find yourself saying, “It’s not going to change. I’m not going to be any different than I was.” Elijah went out and sat under a juniper tree and requested for himself that he might die.
“What’s the matter, old prophet?”
“Well, I could deal with all the prophets of Baal, but what am I going to do about Jezebel? She threatened my life and I took off.”
He went a day’s journey, sat under a juniper tree and said, “Lord, let me die.” You should never make that kind of prayer when you are in a corner. Prayers should never be the whines of unbelief or the squeals of a pig caught in a fence. All you are doing in that is venting upon God your unbelief and the desperation born of a lack of faith. This is not a good way to pray; “O God, let me die.” Poor Elijah never was answered. Chalk that down as number one of the unanswered prayers. Perhaps God translated him just to teach him the kind of prayers he shouldn’t be making!
“What do you want to be, Elijah?”
“I don’t want to be anything; I want to die!”
Maybe you have never been in that position. Maybe you have never been in the place where life was such a burden that all the things you wanted to be and to do suddenly were nothing. But the Lord says He came to bring beauty for ashes and the oil of joy for the spirit of heaviness (Isaiah 61:3). It is not easy to maintain your visions and your dreams. I wish I could tell you what it is like to have a vision or a dream and to hold on to it faithfully, but I haven’t always done that. Sometimes I have to look for some special glue to glue back together my broken dreams and visions. They look pretty good now, almost as good as they did when they first came, and the Lord keeps smiling upon them. Who among us has not stumbled and drawn back? Who has not had problems along this line? You have them in all areas of your life. You have them in your pursuits, in your relationships with each other, in your family, in your home, and in your marriage.
God, help us; give us more faith and a good glue pot. Put our dreams back together again when we crack them up, when they break.
Has God spoken a word to your heart? Has He given you something to live for and strive for? Do you want to really walk with God? That is good. Now define it. Tell me what you want to be. Go to your pastor and tell him how to think about you. Are you a defeated soul, or do you aspire, “No, I’m victorious! I’m one of those changing ones in the church. I listen to what the word of the Lord brings to me and I have my problems and struggles, but this is the way I want you to think about me: I’m one of those sons of God coming to glory. I have a new faith, I have a new vision, and I have one continuous wish like an unceasing prayer, “I want the will of God; I want to be found in that will; I want to do it.” I believe there is a mystical path I can walk in, the path for which I came into the world. It is the reason for my existence and it gives meaning to it.”
This is like a new way of prophesying. I have experienced many times these fantastic faith fantasies. Through the years I have had many of them. The strange thing about them is that most of them have come to pass. There are a few more of them I want to see come to pass, a few more things I believe can happen. I start by saying, “Lord, give me faith to believe that I am what You say I am.”
When the angel came to Gideon in the cave, in the secret place, he said to him, “Hail, thou mighty man of valor!” Gideon looked around, thinking, “I didn’t know there was anyone else around here.”
“No, it’s you, Gideon.”
“I’m the least in my family, my family is the least in the tribe, and our tribe is not much. Me a mighty man of valor? Hmm, not me. I’m threshing the grain here so the Midianites won’t get it. I don’t want trouble with anyone.”
“Gideon, you will deliver Israel from the Midianites.”
“How do I know all of this is going to take place? I need some confirmation about this. Now, I have this fleece; I’ll put it out and we’ll see what happens. Lord, if you mean that about me, tomorrow morning let the ground be dry and the fleece wet.” And it was.
“Well, someone could have walked by carrying a bucket of water and spilled it on the fleece. How do I know that was the Lord? Lord, one more time. Tomorrow, let the ground be soaking wet and the fleece dry. That’ll be the day.” It happened.
Gideon had to face it. He had to say, “Yes, Lord, no matter what I seem to be, no matter what low opinion I have had of myself, no matter what low opinion others have had of me, I have to visualize in this fantastic faith fantasy what You can make me, and how You look upon me. This is what I want to be.” When he accepted that, he became one of the great miracle men of the Scriptures.
Tell me, what shall I think of you? Have you stopped thinking great things about yourself? Have you stopped accepting the fantastic thing God could do in your life and through you? Will you stop calling it faith when you have a mere hope of something way on beyond? That is like the fundamentalists who say, “I believe the Bible. I believe in this dispensation of grace, and somewhere—in that great Kingdom that is coming—we can believe for this and this and this.”
What about these miracles and signs and wonders?
“Well, they will be in that great Kingdom that is coming.”
What about now?
“Well, no. Right now, miracles are past. We had a lot of them in the Scriptures, but we don’t have them anymore.”
I’m sorry, but I’m going to believe that God can give me one, and the first miracle I’m going to believe in is the miracle of what He is making me. I accept what He can be to me and what I can be to Him.