BEING SENT
Jeremiah: 1: 4 Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 5 Before I formed (squeezing into shape) thee in the womb I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. 6 Then said I, Oh! (indicating pain) Lord GOD! Behold, I cannot speak for I am a child. 7 But the LORD said unto me, say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.
This is a dialogue between Jeremiah and the Lord, it is two people talking, one from a place of majesty that’s seeing everything and knowing everything and the other voice from a place of fear, inadequacy, and inferiority.
I cannot do this because of who I am now. The lord is not concerned about who we are not in our current situation. He speaks forth our destiny. All things are possible if you believe.
When the lord speaks, he imparts himself in the words he speaks, the force of the Spirit enters us. All things are possible, receive my faith and believe!
Everything is possible because it doesn’t actually depend on us, when his Spirit comes upon us we are turned into another person, it’s called the gift of faith.
We enter a partnership with the Lord. It is his Spirit moving in us. So, we can relax, it is the government of the seat of rest. When we realize that he takes responsibility for our life, when we have put it in his hands then we can relax.
It is God who watches over his word to perform it. He knows the beginning from the end and he will make sure that we become who we are suppose to be, and to go where just where he wants us to go.
We just need to understand how he works, we need to understand his ways, and then we will perform miracles just like Moses did.
As we begin to see in the Spirit, the lord will map out the journey, the adventure we are on.
In a walk with God every word we receive is a step. We are stepping into more of God and his outworking in our life. We are on a journey into the heart of the father, where his desires become ours, where his love takes over our lives.
We are going to map out this journey. Every word we receive from the Lord is a step and we build from one level to the next level.
Your existence in God’s heart precedes your conception so let that sink into your heart. Your life has already been mapped out for you; it is called destiny.
Your existence in God’s heart precedes your conception. Before I squeezed your spirit into your mother’s womb, I knew you. I put you into Christ, and I called you into sonship, to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.
I knew who you were going to be, I knew who I wanted you to be. I knew the purpose that I wanted you to achieve, and I declared it over you, and you agreed with it.
I knew you in every possible way. I knew you in the fullest sense. I know you better than you know yourself, because I know your true self, I know your real self, I know the self that I’m making you into. I know the real you that maybe some of you are still trying to discover.
REDEMPTION AND DEVELOPMENT
Your existence in God’s heart precedes your conception. Your identity is not based on your natural parents, but who you came from. The Lord says I knew you, your purpose, your destiny precedes your birth. Isn’t that amazing, that before some doctor hung you out by your ankles and slapped you on the rear end, God knew you, he knew the very purpose that he created you for and that purpose is the reason you were created.
All the issues and circumstances between understanding that identity and fully realizing its destiny, have this accelerated dynamic purpose attached to them.
We are behind the times, of our own spiritual development. We should be further on than we are right now.
But there is one person in the universe who can redeem time, who can speed up your development, who can get you back on track no matter how much time you have wasted or feel you have wasted.
He can redeem time right now and that’s astonishing. So, none of us need to be worried about it. It is not how you start the race but how you finish that counts. All we got to do is just take off our slippers and put some running shoes.
We got some ground to make up and the purpose that God has for us is designed to open up a pathway to your identity, you’re calling, and your destiny.
Your identity must be in alignment and agreement first of all as a little child of God. When we do anything new in God, we always start out as a little child, and our heavenly Father is so excited that we are taking our first steps, soon we will be running.
We need to have a simple relationship with God in our devotional life. We always start out by coming to God like a much-loved child.
The Lord will reduce everything down to some glorious simplicity so you can step into it. But we never just stay there.
Here is the thing, you always have at least two relationships with God one is a much-loved child and the other is a fully mature male or female son and were always somewhere between those two ideologies.
By one sacrifice Jesus has forever perfect those who are being sanctified- Hebrews 10:14
In between the two there is a great amount of grace and goodness and laughter in it because no matter where you are on that spectrum you can connect with the goodness of God. We are in Christ learning how to be Christlike. We are learning that the bottom line is we are who God says we are. You are not who you say you are unless you agree with him. So, if he’s calling you to be a prophet and you’re saying but I’m just a youth someone’s got a disconnect and I guarantee you it’s not YHVH. Someone has a disconnect, so agree with God and be at peace.
DISCOVERY
So, your calling, whatever it is, has a provision attached to it. You’re calling doesn’t really relate to a ministry it relates to a lifestyle that allows you permission to do certain things in certain areas that God has called you to. A ministry is faith working by love. Once we come into a walk with God, we automatically have a ministry.
We are all in full-time ministry, so let’s just get that one out of the way. Whatever you are called to do, whether it’s a professional job, or a laborer. Whether it is in sports, whether it’s the political world or business world or entertainment world, whatever it is, wherever it is, there is a lifestyle in the Spirit that has been set aside for you and there are gifts and anointing’s that God wants to bestow upon you, so you can do the best job possible in partnership with Jesus.
Your destiny is how you partner with God in walking out that anointing on your life. It’s knowing and walking the pathway that he and you are on together.
It’s knowing how you can use everything around you and make it work for you. Nothing will be impossible for you because nothing is impossible for him. So when you come into that place of alignment what you’re doing is you’re lining up with the nature of God.
Because all theology begins and ends in the nature of God. All theology tells you this is what God is like. Any theology that is not rooted in the nature of God is not worth two cents, it is not worth anything.
Because the big question in the world today is what is God really, really, really like? What is God really like? You can know him, you can talk to him, you can hear his voice, but what is he like? What does he do? How does he think? How does he see you? How does he talk to you, what is he like?
All theology is rooted in the presence of God and were all on this journey into the very heart of God’s nature. So we are all discovering and as you discover more about God you discover more about yourself because you are in him.
We need to be set free from any kind of legalism, any kind of performance Christianity. This whole idea that I’ve got to do this, and I’ve got to do that, to be accepted by God, just alienates us from him in our minds.
We need to be free enough to respond to whatever God wants to do in our life. We didn’t just wake up one morning and think it’s a really nice sunny day I think I’ll get saved today, it never occurred to you. God sent some weird person into your life and now you are one.
God took the initiative, he came, he invaded your space with the gospel, and you caught a glimpse of something. God is the original space invader. The fascinating thing to me is we got saved on a fragment of the truth. God didn’t shove the Bible in our face and say now read that and I will talk to you.
We got saved on a fragment of the truth. Maybe even half of John 3:16. Just a fragment of the truth and we saw something, a light came on and we opened up our heart to Him and responded to the initiative that God was taking.
He initiated it and you responded. All of life in the Spirit is like that. You don’t ever make the first move on God, you let him make the first move on you every single day. As we get older in the Lord, He will give us the initiative, to take the initiative. We draw near to him, and he draws near to us. We abide in him, as he abides in us.
It is not your job to try and reach him, it is just your job to be available. Make yourself available. It is not your job to have a devotional time. It is your job just to enjoy knowing that God’s going to show up.
God is pursuing you. I’m fascinated with all the conversations I’ve had with people who say I’m really pursuing the presence of God. What? Is he running away from you. I am really seeking the lord. What? is he lost?
God is pursuing us. He came and he looked for us. He went looking for Adam. God came in the cool of the day because he knew where they would be. I’m not pursuing the presence of God I am being captivated by the presence of God.
A MIND FILLED WITH GOD
Don’t pursue God because he is not running away. He is right here; he is right here and yet we go looking for his presence.
I’m looking for the presence of God in a different way, I just want to know which part of the room he is standing in. But I have an expectation that he is in my space somewhere. So, I am looking for where he is sitting.
It is like when you are meeting a friend at noon in a restaurant and you’re five minutes late, you open the door and what do you do, you look to see where your friend is sitting, and then you see him, he is sitting in the far right corner. Seeking the Lord is like that. He’s here, so you just look in the Spirit and you can see him, you can sense he is on your left or right. He always hides in plain sight. Have you noticed that about him, he doesn’t make it difficult, he says I am over here.
In the Old Testament they had to seek the Lord because they were in a visitation relationship with him. But in the New Testament were in a habitation relationship with God so he is always nearby.
When the Bible says that all the old things are passed away and everything has become new, one of the things that become new in the New Covenant is how we seek the Lord.
The question is how you seek the Lord when he never leaves you and is always there. How do you seek the Lord when he never leaves you? You seek him with a sense of expectation! I know you are here, I do not have to feel your presence, I just know that you’re not a liar and you said that you are here, so that is good enough for me.
I know you’re here, so I want to connect with you. What we are doing is we are learning how to connect with the Lord as simply as possible. because when you’re on the battlefield you must do things by instinct.
The hardest part of a Marine’s training is people shouting at him all the time, up close and personal. Having to do what he was told instantly, as soon as possible. The first few weeks you can get so angry you want to kill the drill sergeant. But when you go off to war you realize why they shouted at you because on a battlefield you can’t hear anything and you have to do things by instinct.
God doesn’t shout at us but he whispers to teach us how to hear his still small voice. God doesn’t shout at us he whispers. He doesn’t speak to your head; he speaks to your heart because that is where he lives.
The word of the Lord rises from your spirit into your conscious mind. Because God lives inside of us, there is always two of us.
GOD SPEAKS TO YOUR FUTURE
God didn’t write a book and then lose his voice, no matter what some people may say. God wrote a book and he is talking to you about it because he wants you to know the author.
The written word was preceded by the spoken word so the written word is not everything it’s part of everything yet but even the Bible began as a prophecy. God spoke to Moses and said write this down. The Bible began as a prophecy, it was a spoken word and then it became a written word. So you can’t now have the written word and then outlaw the spoken word, that doesn’t make sense, that’s not the kingdom. That is legalism, it is not kingdom.
Abrahams had a few visitations from the Lord and on this occasion, he was visited by the Lord and two Angels. The Lord spoke to him before about having a son and Sarah was Barron and both were getting older and older, so the clock is not ticking it’s almost dead. This is like the fifth time that God has visited him and they are chatting away having a great time and eating together and then Abraham’s notices that they are starting to walk away so Abraham’s walking them off the land and here is the thing about the Lord you have to stay until the end, because usually that’s when stuff happens to you. You must stay until the final minute because usually that is when the Lord moves.
When we begin walking with the Lord everything happens at the last minute. So, you got to stick with it when you’re in a time of visitation, pay as much attention to the last period of it as you do to the initial appearance of the Lord. Sometimes when the lord shows up we are too much in awe to pay attention to every single thing that’s happening and you can miss it.
Genesis 18: 16 Then the men rose from there and looked toward Sodom, and Abraham went with them to send them on the way. 17 And the Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing, 18 since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 19 For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him.”
The most powerful single word in that passage, the word that everything hinges on, the word since. shall I hide from Abraham what I’m about to do since he will surely become?
So, in other words, I need to say these things to Abraham because of who he is going to become. The Lord knows about Abraham’s childlessness and that he has been praying and concerned about having an heir. So, God sees the big picture. Abraham can’t even see the small thing. Shall I declare to Abraham what I’m about to do because he’s going to become.
That is how God speaks to you in the present, because he already knows your future. This is the important thing here, God doesn’t speak to you in the present because of what is happening in the present, he speaks to you in the present because of your future that he sees.
So even if you’re screwing things up right now, he doesn’t speak into your present as your present. He speaks into your present because of the future, because of what he sees about you. He talks to you today because he knows the end from the beginning and he’s going to bring you that outcome into your present.
I will talk to you because of who you are going to be, I will talk to you because of how I see you. I will talk to you because of all the things that are on the horizon that you’re going to be doing. I will talk to you because I see you bigger than you are right now. Shall I hide really means I’m going I choose to include Abraham in this conversation because I need him to see this because really the issue in his life right now is not about one child it’s about him growing to be big enough to be the father of nations. I will open up to Abraham and I will accelerate the partnership that I have with him in this relationship.
All prophecy starts acceleration. all prophecy starts the process, and the process is a series of steps that take us from where we are right now to where God wants us to be. even if the prophecy may not be fulfilled for 10 years, but we are not waiting around we start partnering with it as soon as it spoken as soon as it spoken like the next day that you start riding that word out. you start thinking about it because the real question you got to ask is what kind of person do I need to become to see that word fulfilled?
Don’t try and fulfill the prophecy yourself but you need to fulfill the conditions upon which it can be realized in your life. Those conditions are all about your character, they’re all about your identity, they’re about you getting the mentality that you need to walk in the fulfillment of it.
MAJESTY MINDSETS
So if God calls Caleb a warrior and currently Caleb is a wimp something has to change in Caleb .if he’s called as a warrior and is not really good at fighting he might want to go to judo class or something he has to think what kind of person do I need to become to be a warrior. but I need to stop being afraid and get some courage. I need to get a majesty mindset. I need to see that God is bigger than everything else. Caleb grows up and he’s the one that says to the whole of Israel yeah, I saw a giant, this is going to be so great, he has a majesty mindset and he said God is with us they will be our prey. What’s happened? He’s grown up until this majestic mindset has changed his old mindset.
all prophecy begins an acceleration that represents an upgrade in our relationship God.
God begins a dialogue which obviously initiates heaven concerning Abraham’s destiny. I will include Abraham in what I am doing next, for this reason, I know he’s going to become the father of many nations and so I need to connect within now because it’s time to take him to a new level. I am saying all these things because Abrahams in a desperate state right now. Abraham thinks is just about him, all I want is just one child, but the Lord wants to give him millions. this is fascinating to me that most prophecy seems to come into a life when we don’t know what to expect, we don’t know where we are, we don’t know who we are and someone speaks this word into our life and we stand there thinking, I don’t know how that is going to happen.
I just want to make more than minimum wage and your talking about being an entrepreneur. God loves us so much he gives us a big picture.
A poverty mindset is not about economics, it’s about living with meager possibilities.
Jesus as intercessor stands in the gap between our present identity and our future destiny.
He is praying that you will partner with the Holy Spirit because he is the spirit of disclosure, he will take what is what is mine and will disclose it to you and he will show you what is to come. So, our relationship with the Lord is always prophetic. Whether you believe in prophecy or not is irrelevant. Jesus is praying right now into the gap between Who You Think You Are right now and who God knows you are in the future. and he’s praying into that gap because something in the present needs to rise, and that’s your understanding of who you are and your participation in that process of change. Now you are standing before the Lord and starting to ask questions, so what does that look like, what does that sound like. how do I stand in that. how do I put that on. How do I wear it. How do I accept that identity? what’s going to change in my life?
God speaks to us prophetically about our future and then he relates to us in the present through our destiny.
so, when God calls you a warrior, he talks to you as a warrior. From that point on he will not talk to you in any other way. If he is declared that you are a warrior and currently you are a wimp he will not talk to you as a wimp, he will not look at you as a wimp, he will not think of you as a wimp, he will talk to you as a warrior from that point on with your destiny in mind. because he’s bringing those two things close together as fast as possible and there is often a disconnect because he lives in the kingdom and we had been in the world with the world’s way of thinking.
Everything in the world is incremental, you know you start off working in the mailroom and then 35 years later you’re in the boardroom. Everything is incremental, is all about you getting a promotion you doing this and you doing that. But in the kingdom, God gives you everything now and then teaches you how to use it. You may not walk in it all at once, but the provision is available, it has been put in your account.