To engage the Pathway of Responsibility we need to learn how to access beyond the veil and take our positions as lords, kings and sons on our thrones in the heavenly realms. When we are seated in the heavenly realms we can establish kingdom government. Then as a gateway of heaven the kingdom fills and expands our boundaries on earth.
Isa 42:9 “Behold, the former things have come to pass, now I declare new things; Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you.” We must be aware when the former or old things have come to the end of their usefulness to accept and embrace the new things.
God is revealing new things in our day, but we often try to cling on to what is old, comfortable and familiar like the children of Israel did in the wilderness. Old forms of church wineskin, church government, ministry, prayer, evangelism, doctrine, theology are being challenged by new fresh revelation of truth.
How much of what we believe is because we have always believed it based on what someone else has taught or from a religious construct, doctrine or theology? How much is from culture and society? How much is actually from direct personal and experiential revelation from God Himself?
A new level of experiential relationship with God. A new level of communication with God. A new ability to hear and see what God reveals. New theology understanding about God Himself. New foundational understandings. New mind-sets from the mind of Christ . New doctrinal understandings from truth.
The Joshua Generation are forerunners of the new which is characterized by establishing things first beyond the veil. The Joshua generation is also the Enoch generation walking with God in the heavenly realms. The Joshua generation is also the Daniel generation that walks in new revelation. The Joshua generation is also the Joseph generation that prepares storehouses.
Joseph came out of the prison of obscurity to administrate a nation. Joseph set up storehouses for the harvest and he had the whole world come to Him including his brothers who rejected him.
We are called to establish embassies of heaven which are storehouses on the earth .We have to reach people with the good news about God.
God is doing something new. Are we going to be like the Moses or Joshua generation? What lessons can we learn? What principles can we discover that will enable us to receive our new inheritance?
Like Moses did, many are still trying to do things using old methodologies. The Idol of pastoral ministry, we pay the pastor to hear God for us. This is a return to the old covenant mediatorial system. We are now all responsible in the new ways that are being revealed. Moses is an example of using old things and getting identity, value, worth and security from them. Moses exchanged old for new and then kept the old when God introduced something new again. Are we living using the old or the new? Are we getting a daily mandates from God so we only do what see Him doing?
Ex 17:5 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pass before the people and take with you some of the elders of Israel; and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it that the people may drink.” And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.
Num 20:8 “Take the rod; and you and your brother Aaron assemble the congregation and speak to the rock before their eyes, that it may yield its water. Num 20:11 Then Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation drank.
The comfortable and familiar things of the old must be left behind when God brings us into a new day. We will need to let go of those ways old familiar ways if we are to receive our inheritance. Those old ways will no longer be effective in the new order from God’s perspective. We must be careful that we are not tethered to the past so that old ways become idols that we are not prepared to let go of- our pet theologies or methodologies. Ministry methods, prayer methodologies, intercession methodologies, spiritual warfare methodologies, evangelism methodologies, worship methodologies. What are your pet methods and sacred cows that you might struggle to let go of?
Num 21:9 And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived. The brazen serpent brought healing.
2 Kings 18:4 He also broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the sons of Israel burned incense to it.
God told Moses to do something specific but generations later people were still looking to the methodology to produce results and they worshipped it. The plague on the church is using formulas that worked originally. So many books about the next thing that offer short cuts to success.
Moses’ staff was the symbol of his identity as a shepherd. Moses’ staff represented his natural abilities by hook or by crook. Moses’ staff represented his financial welfare, his job, wellbeing, future. He laid down his natural staff and picked up the supernatural rod of God. Moses’ new rod was now giving him identity and authority as a miracle worker. We can use our positions and authority to give us our identity. We must let go of all these things and get our identity from what God says. Are we willing to embrace the fires of heaven to purify and remove the old?
Just like the Moses generation, fear rises when faced with something new. Fear came from a lack of identity, slavery mentality and resulted in them listening to a bad report. They saw themselves as grasshoppers instead of giant killers. We can choose to be like those who turned down God’s invitation and died in the wilderness or those who inherited.
2 Cor 5:20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. Eph 6:20. I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming the kingdom I may speak boldly.
How are we to be ambassadors? What are the old ways and what are the news ways of reaching people? Are we still looking for the structures and methods that copy what others have done? Are we looking to the past, at others or at what God mandates now?
Books written about the newest thing, the next evangelistic fad. Many are looking to past revivals and awakenings for the answers in another Azusa Street, Welsh revival etc. We need only to do what we see the Father doing so we need a heavenly strategy for everything we do to reach people as with everything else.
Evangelism (the E word) – The spreading of the Christian gospel by public preaching or personal witness. Zealous advocacy or support of a particular cause. Seeker friendly evangelism. Power evangelism, Servant evangelism etc. etc.
It’s taking advantage of and creating opportunities to share what you know personally about God with others. It is being proactive and prepared to be witnesses of our testimony of God. When the E word is mentioned, people get mental pictures of putting up a tent, going door to door, waving a Bible on a street corner etc.
Some of these methods were valid ways to reach people in the past and may still be if done in faith when mandated by God. At the heart of evangelism is the idea of building relationships between people and God. We need to be in an intimate relationship with God and feel His heart for people.
We need to introduce people to the real God not what religion has portrayed Him to be like. We need to demonstrate what a real relationship with God is like and be an ambassador of that relationship. We need to help people meet God personally and experientially. Any way is ok as long as it is a mandate given by God and it is established in heaven first. New versus old is not so much about the methods but where those methods are mandated and authorized. I believe that many of those old methods have become manmade constructs that God is going to redefine. The purpose of evangelism is that people would engage in a personal intimate relationship with God and discover and receive their identity and destiny from that relationship. We don’t want to use methods that don’t introduce people to the real God. We don’t want to use techniques that function in fear because God is love
To escape hell is not good reason to engage God. I don’t believe this method of fear based evangelism is God’s heart and it totally misrepresents who God is. Why would I want a relationship with a God that wants to punish me eternally in the fires of hell? He doesn’t, hell is a religious construct designed in the middle ages to control people through fear.
Rom 2:4 Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?
2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.
1 Tim 2:3 This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, 4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave Himself as a ransom for all .
We must introduce people to the real God and the real Jesus not the constructs of religion.
1 Peter 3:18 For Christ also died for sins once for all,
Phil 2:10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
We need to be open to fresh revelation about the foundational truths we believe, in light of the ability we now have to have direct personal and experiential revelation from God. Where does our understanding of the foundations of our faith come from? God or man?
Heb 6:1 Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.
Salvation is an event where we encounter God personally and enter into an experiential relationship with Him. Salvation is also a process where knowing God by experience heals, restores and delivers us from our past and releases us into our new identity and destiny.
We need new ways to share the good news, using the 4 spirituals laws or just praying a prayer won’t cut it anymore. We need to have encounters to enable people to engage God for salvation. Coming to the father as a prodigal. Opening up a door into your life. Drinking living water etc.
We have a mandate to equip the mentors of harvest. We have a mandate to be a storehouse for the harvest. We have a heavenly mandate and blueprint to be that place of exchange. Where people exchange their old life for a new life in Christ.
Exchange is the name God has revealed to us for the 7 disembarkation stations. Ekklesia area is in the centre and key for all the other stations. We are all individually responsible to reach people and make disciples.
Everything Jesus did on earth was as an ambassador of heaven. New values and ideals – culture. Golden rule. Releasing Forgiveness. Not judging motives. Going the extra mile . Love personified to bring good news.
We are commissioned to influence others, making known the kingdom through our kingship; therefore we must expect the salvation of those around us. If we are light then that light radiates Jesus and His love and people will be drawn to it. People will experience love by the frequency of love that we carry. We are the message, the good news.
Living water flowing through us will bring salvation to those who drink it. Heaven will manifest itself through us, the kingdom will be at hand around us just like it was with Jesus. We need a flow through us so our gateways need to be cleansed and open. We are the channel for living water from heaven.
Ezek 47:9 It will come about that every living creature which swarms in every place where the river goes, will live. And there will be very many fish, for these waters go there and the others become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes. 10 And it will come about that fishermen will stand beside it; … there will be a place for the spreading of nets. Their fish will be according to their kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea, very many.
The first love we experience is released through the gateways of our spirit, soul and body. Expanding our spirit to overshadow our 7 mountains spheres to bring life to them. Supernatural witnesses of the love of God as His love flows into what we overshadow.
Those who encounter God are then discipled and equipped to go out into their spheres and do the same, hence expanding the influence of the kingdom through us. We will manifest the kingdom around us and it will be demonstrated as being at hand just like with Jesus.
John 14:10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. 12 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.
Matt 10:1 Jesus summoned His twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. The kingdom was at hand in demonstrations of heavenly power to destroy the works of the enemy.
Matt 10:7 And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give. If we have not received freely we have nothing to give. It all flows from our relationship with God.