God does not need to be quoted; He needs a person who will be His mouthpiece, to be an oracle of God.
People still feel that they can work for Jesus. God does not need anyone to work for Him. This has been a problem down through the years. Instead of going out and working for Jesus, we need to be transformed through the renewing of our mind.
We need a mindset of Christ in us; we let Jesus work through us. This requires an awareness of the living Word in our spirit. The Living Word and Christ are synonymous. The living word is conceived in our spirit, it is the seed of God, his DNA in our spirit, which causes our spirit to be one with him.
There is a flow of the word that flows out of our spirit, which is anointed. It is God speaking. And when God speaks, he imparts himself when he speaks, and if our spirit is open to him, if we keep hearing the word, it we deposit a measure of God’s Spirit in us.
If we go out and work for Jesus, we will be speaking words that are not anointed, we will be speaking from ourselves which will not produce fruit, it will have the opposite effect, and not draw people to God, but push them away.
We submit ourselves to the Lord, waiting on him, and he will give us the words to speak and they will be anointed.
CO-LABORERS
The New Testament does not use the phrase, “We are workers for the Lord.” It says, for we are co-laborers together with God. I Corinthians 3:9.
A divine Word and energy (miracle working power) flowed through those early believers. They did not go all over the world telling people what God had said. They were not concerned about quoting God; they were concerned about opening their mouths so that God could speak through them and reach the hearts of men.
The book of Acts clearly shows that the actual speaking of the Word of the Lord was the most common ministry of the New Testament. There is a great deal of difference between traditional preaching and the anointed utterance that contains the Word of the Lord and brings it forth.
The early Church would have been fearful of the wisdom of men that is found in today’s preaching. Paul said, “I was with you in much weakness and trembling. My message was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom” (he was not interested in being an eloquent preacher), “but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith would not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (I Corinthians 2:3–5).
The Greek word “in” (en) means remaining in rest. The Greek word “Demonstration” (apodeixis) means manifestation. It is the manifestation of the Presence of God. The Greek word “power” (dynamis) means miracle working power.
God spoke through the early church in such a way, that they brought heaven to earth. Faith came to those who heard them through the manifestation of the presence of God in the heating’s, casting out of devils, and miracles that resulted when God spoke through them.
Those early believers had a fear of standing up in a service and merely speaking. They wanted to speak under an anointing that would bring forth a Word from God to the people.
PROPHETIC COMMUNITY
If the early Church (cloud of witnesses) came to check out a present-day New Testament worship service, they might say, “We like the prophecies and the preaching, but there are still too many things creeping in that are the wisdom of men.”
The early Church was a prophetic community, and they spoke with a great anointing. The word Christ means “the anointed one,” and the word Christian means “the anointed ones.” They were called Christians because of the great anointing that was upon them—the same anointing that was upon Jesus Christ (Acts 11:26).
1 Peter 4:10 As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
We want to minister to others as the body of Christ in the earth, we want to be his hands, mouth and feet-being Led by His Spirit. Not helping people from a human level but healing the sick, casting out devils, the working of miracles and ministering by an anointing from the Lord. We want to help them in God.
1 Peter 4:11 If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Let a man speak forth what God has to say—the Word of God. This was the standard way of ministering in New Testament times. The church went out and upset the existing world, and in many ways, it was a far more orderly world than ours. Roman law ruled like a rod of iron over the people.
The apostles went forth to speak God’s Word. You may want to go and preach too, but first, you must become a vessel of honor, thoroughly prepared to speak God’s Word in its power and authority.
The true Church is going to be characterized by the constantly increasing level of anointing upon the prophetic flow, the preaching flow, the flow of prophetic worship and every endeavor that comes forth as a result of the leading of the Spirit.
THE CHURCH OF THESSALONICA
How did the church in Thessalonica come forth?
Acts 17: Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. 2 Then Paul, as his custom was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3 explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ.” 4 And some of them were persuaded; and a great multitude of the devout Greeks, and not a few of the leading women, joined Paul and Silas.
5 But the Jews who were not persuaded, becoming envious, took some of the evil men from the marketplace, and gathering a mob, set all the city in an uproar and attacked the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. 6 But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers of the city, crying out, “These who have turned the world upside down have come here too. 7 Jason has harbored them, and these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king—Jesus.” 8 And they troubled the crowd and the rulers of the city when they heard these things. 9 So when they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.
10 Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. 11 These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.
The church of Thessalonica came forth after three Sabbaths of ministry by the apostle Paul. How could a church be built after only a few weeks of ministry?
That church was built the same way that a church should be built today—by speaking the Word of the Lord.
Whenever people go to a church for any other reason than to hear the Word of the Lord, they go with the wrong motivation, and that church could be building a kingdom for themselves. They may be projecting forth the wrong attraction.
Rapid growth takes place in a person who hears a Word from the Lord with an open heart. He turns from darkness as the Word creates something within him. He does not change by making good resolutions, but he is transformed by the Word that God speaks to his heart.
A remnant of believers today is speaking the living Word of God. They will become increasingly effective as they believe that the true Church must bring forth the living Word from God in this generation.
They will not be justified in just building churches. Restored New Testament churches must come forth that will bless multitudes of people with God’s Word.
A remnant of believer’s hunger after the Living Word of God that is coming forth today. They want to hear what the Lord has to say. The leaders of those churches will have no qualifications as theologians or trained ministers; they will not have gone to bible schools; the only qualification is that they are able to hear the voice of God and then speak the Word of the Lord that is on fire in their hearts. This happened in the early Church.
THE APOSTLES WERE DEVOTED TO SPEAKING THE WORD OF THE LORD
The sixth chapter of Acts describes the solving of a problem that arose over the feeding of the widows. The twelve said, Verse 4. “But we will devote ourselves to prayer, and to “the ministry of the word.”
The Greek word for ministry is “diakonía” and it means service. In other words, they were going to serve the Word of God.
In verse 2 they said, “It is not appropriate for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables.” The root of the Greek word serve is deacon.
The people were told to choose seven men to take care of serving the widows so that the apostles could give themselves continually to prayer and serving the Word of the Lord.
The deacons would be the waiters to serve the widows their food, and the apostles would serve the Word of God. They were distributing the food properly, and it worked quite well for a while. But then what happened?
Stephen did more than serve food; he began to serve the Word of God too, and he was stoned for it (Acts 6, 7).
The eighth chapter tells that Philip, one of the other deacons, went to Samaria and won the entire city to the Lord. He, too, was doing much more than serving meals.
These were dynamic deacons who were speaking the Word of the Lord. They were God’s mouthpiece in that generation. Acts 6:7 And the word of God kept on spreading; and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly. You can see this theme continues throughout the book of Acts.
Acts 19:20 So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed. This does not mean that they were writing a bigger and better Bible; it means that more and more human editions of it (living epistles) were going out; more and more people were speaking the Word of the Lord.
People were born by a Word from God, and they went forth with a Word from God. What is the process of being born by a Word from the Lord? Paul wrote, so faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. Romans 10:17.
How are people converted? Do you have to talk them into it, preach to them and convince them that they should walk with God?
You will get further if you just speak the Word of the Lord. People will be born into a walk with God because they hear a Word from God. Because that Word from God does a wonderful work in their hearts, soon they are ready to open up and listen to everything that God is restoring to believers today. Faith is created when God speaks a Word.
What happens then? Hebrews 13:7 Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the outcome of their way of life, imitate their faith. When you remember these people who spoke the Word of God to you, what does that make you? II Corinthians 3:3 3 clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.
As a believer, you are a new edition, a new Bible that God is writing. The new edition that is coming forth is being written by apostles, prophets, pastors and teachers. They are holding the pen, but God is doing the writing. By the Spirit of the living God, the Word is being written on the tablets of people’s hearts; and wherever they go, they are epistles of Christ—a living Word in what they are and in everything they do and say (II Corinthians 3:2).
A Word from God is coming forth to the world. His people are the expression of God in the earth, the Body of Christ—His hands, His feet, His mouth. It is fitting that they should speak the Word of the Lord.
LET THE WORD DWELL RICHLY IN YOU
The Word of Christ was so rich in those early Christians that everything they did, everything they spoke, and all that they sang came forth out of the anointing on the Word that was in their hearts.
Colossians 3:16 Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you; with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to the Lord.
The living Word that is coming forth today must be received as God’s Word. You will not grow until you accept it. None of those who speak it claim to be infallible, but do not be quick to exalt your opinion against the Word of God that comes through them.
Just listen to or read the Word which is written, and God will bear witness to your heart. Start receiving it as God’s Word. Then meditate on that Word. That is the way to eat this living food.
Then whatever becomes a living part of you through an encounter or experience from God, that is what you should speak. When someone speaks about what they have experienced in their own life, they are not giving you merely a theory.
Never try to say something that is not a true and living part of you. First you absorb the Word of the Lord. Next you assimilate the Word. Finally, you proclaim the Word that has become a living part of you.
This is no time to be bound with feelings of inadequacy and failure. What you do not know you can learn. Just follow on to know the Lord with all of your heart.
Let the Christ come forth in you. There should be no room for discouragement, for this is the time God is with His people. The time of His presence. Have faith in this truth.
In the early Church, the disciples went everywhere and let God happen through them to people. Those disciples were ordinary people, just like you in which God conveyed Himself to people.
That is happening again today. Let God speak through you. Prophesy and let God thunder through you. Let Him erupt through you. Let God feel and speak through you. You do not have to be anything special in yourself, but when you have a Word from God, be excited about it and let Him move through you. Let Him love through you and bring healing through you. Be His mouthpiece an oracle of God.
THE LORD WILL CREATE THROUGH HIS WORDS THAT YOU SPEAK!