We need to restructure the pastoral ministry in our churches, and it should become more prophetic not just be about counseling about past things. It should not just be about techniques and how to help to support people but actually pastoral ministry should be about saying to people you know what, you’re not really that person anymore so I don’t want to counsel someone who’s dead that would be like visiting the cemetery and walking up to a head stone reading it and then having a conversation on how everything is working out for you.
We are counseling people in terms of their identity in Christ, in terms of their destiny, who they are becoming. Sometimes the best thing we can do with people is just to sever the connection from their history and for them to begin to walk into their destiny. Confession is you saying the same thing as God which means what? It means you must make a fresh identity statement about yourself. I am no longer this, this is who I am becoming, this is who I am now. And your friendships stand in the gap between who you are now and who you are becoming, just to make sure you complete the journey. I am what God says I am, I have what God says I have, I can do what God says I can do, you must be very clear about your confession. God is devoted to changing the way that we think. So, if all your thinking has brought you to a place you don’t like, have another thought. What are you doing stuck with that one just get a better one. If you’re thinking like an idiot when you could think like a genius what are you doing thinking like an idiot, have a better thought, that is what repentance is. That thought is not really you, let’s help you to have a better one, what would a better thought look like? I don’t know, well that’s why you have to think, so let’s have a thinking session about what a better thought about yourself could be, now have you got any prophetic words? Well, I have a couple, okay could get them out because there will be clues in there. Has God giving you any Scriptures? Yes, I have a half a dozen, will get them out because there will be clues in there about who you are, who you are becoming, what God is saying yes to. Listen, if God is saying yes to something in your life don’t you want to say yes to it too. And if you say yes to it, you can start thinking differently about yourself. This is how God sees you; confession is I see the same thing.
And your friends are a part of your confession because you know they’re going to remind you; this is what you said, this is your identity statement. You may need to make one or redo your identity statement saying this is who I am. All your friends need a copy of it because we need to be intentional in our friendship. So, we are reminding each other all the time in the nicest possible way and don’t forget this is who you are. Seems to me right now you’re not thinking in line with your confession, seems to me right now your identity statement is slipping, this is who you are. This is church. We call each other up to something. We pull each other into something, we remind each other no, this is who you are. Did you forget that. Did a piece of your brain fallout. Why were you worried? We must be clear about our confession. God is devoted to changing the way you think about yourself. There is little lasting change without a renewed mind. What we are learning is how to live a lifestyle where we cultivate his affection for us. And we do it for one another. I remind my friends all the time who they are, how God feels about them, why they’re going to be successful. I will text message-there are three reasons why you’re going to be successful today, ABC. Your friends text back thank you. And then you catch up with them in a couple of days on the phone or something they say man, I was on a slide and didn’t even know it. That just brought me up short and made me think hang on, I’m not acting in line with my identity.
Confession is an agreement that dissolves all other perspectives. all other mindsets, all habits and behaviors. Confession is that powerful. What are you confessing about yourself? No blame no shame, we are not doing that but beloved some of us need to think again in line with what God has said over us. Because when he said it, it wasn’t just because he had five minutes free time. Everything God does is absolutely intentional. When he inserts a word into your life, he opens up another floor in your mansion, another level for you to walk in. A whole new space opens up for you to grow into and inhabit and become. How many rooms have you got in your mansion right now that you are not even living in. You are still living like it’s just a studio apartment when you got three floors in the house right now and the rest of it is not even furnished. God opens up space when he tells you something about yourself. He immediately opens up the space to become that. Then he allocates you the resources, the furniture with which you actually make that space your own habitation. Confession sets us free from entanglements, it sets us free from history and any current obstacles. Your confession gives you power over stuff. It allows you to step into a new place of God’s intention. So, confession gives you focus and agreement. When God gives you a word, he’s intending to set you free from the perspective that you have to release you into a perspective that he has. An agreement comes with that word. So, here is your mission should you decide to accept it. You need to look at your prophecies. You need to look at those scriptures that God has laid on your heart. You need to look at the dreams and the visions that have been given to you. You need to examine those because they are proclaiming your identity and your destiny, and you look at all the descriptive words in there. And you isolate all those descriptive words, why? Because they are all describing you, now sometimes many of us when you get a prophetic word, it’s got no relation to who you are or where you are right now. Why should it? If it was just about the way you are right now it will be a pastoral word, this is a prophetic word, it’s about God showing you the part of you that is not yet started to form. And what he is saying to you, this is who you can become next, and please can we go there quickly because I’m already rotating your Angels because they are all bored with your whining. And all the people I’ve appointed to look after you, they are all trying to commit suicide right now because they are bored and they are fed up with the same conversations they don’t want to be pastoring you until Jesus comes back.