Foreword
This book has been evolving in my heart for some time now, waiting for the “now” time, the “kairos” moment in God, to publish. The original teaching manual has been taught over many years in many places including Australia, South Africa, England, France and Canada, allowing many to discover their particular spiritual gifting, and begin to use it for the glory
of God. I have now re-written and added largely to the original.
Every gift carries its own treasure and its own responsibility. My passion is to enable people everywhere to find the treasure within, the Pearl of Great Price - Jesus. There are two rails in my calling as a prophet-teacher and I take this responsibility very seriously. I take great joy in equipping people who are interested in the areas of the prophetic by teaching prophetic schools. I also have a desire to see the church healed, restored, alert and fully immersed in life. My other rail is in teaching restoration healing schools and training others in this important area.
It is vital that we demonstrate Jesus in all His amazing aspects in the best possible way, particularly in prophetic ministry. Revelation 19:10 says, “...the substance of the truth revealed by Jesus is the spirit of all prophecy.” We need to portray Him in truth.
Finally, prophets and prophetic ministry are entering a time of greater integrity and credibility in the church, particularlyin the areas of ethics and protocol. I pray that this book will answer some questions and bless you beyond your wildest dreams.
Definition: Prophet
“Prophet, pro’fit n. a spokesman of deity; one who proclaims a divine message: an inspired teacher, preacher or poet; the spokesman of a group, movement or doctrine; a minister of the second order of the Catholic Apostolic church; a foreteller, whether claiming to be inspired or not……” (Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary)
Chapter 1
Are we Nearly there, Dad?
So the million dollar question we are all asking ourselves is, “Where are we now?”
I believe that the next level, the next place, we find ourselves in, is bringing us out of all we have relied on - to throw us totally on God. Jesus says in Matthew 16:18 “I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” The church is now being built through the men and women who are rising up in the calling that God is releasing. The church has always been built by faithful men and women of God who knew what they were called to do and did it. Jesus gives us many keys to the Kingdom but the house is His to build.
God is sharpening the sword, the cutting edge of His Word, cutting through religious trivia, status symbols and the way we have always done things. His laser light is exposing the one place where Satan has access - what we hide in the dark.
He is exposing the extent to which we are enslaved to the wisdom of the age and the spirit of the age. We are in a time where “judgement begins in the house of God” (1 Peter 4:17), and it can look like chaos for a while before order comes.
Have you ever been present at the birth of a baby in the delivery room? It’s chaotic, loud and messy. All of it is necessary for what is new in God to be birthed, nurtured and matured.
In Proverbs 24:3,4 we learn that knowledge fills the house but wisdom builds it. Knowledge is something we acquire but wisdom can come from the mind of God as a gift. We need to pray for the wisdom and revelation of the knowledge of God.
If the pastor, evangelist, or teacher anointing was going to bring the church into maturity it would have done so by now, but it has not. It will take the apostle/prophet dynamic, now being released into the body of Christ globally, to do this in spite of many impediments. This next equipping will bring many challenges and many opportunities to be offended. The arm of the church has been withered to a degree but is now reaching out with the new life of the prophetic/apostolic injected in to its blood stream.
The Wife of God is not De-facto (or Common Law)
The Father heart of God is one of total 100% commitment. He is not like us, thank God. In fact, thank God for God. He never has a bad day or a bad minute and He is always the same - fabulously full and overflowing with benevolent love. He is our Father, and we are all His favourites.
He is radical and outside the box we have tried to put Him in for a sense of our own safety and control. Respectability and conformity are not fruits of the Holy Spirit and can often tend to wrap us up in religious 'hoo-ha'. Respect and dignity offered through love are another thing entirely. The old ways of “doing church”, that now seem boring and predictable are dying a slow death in wilderness camps everywhere.
There are thousands of un-churched Christians out there with better things to do on a Sunday than look at the back of someone’s head and believe that they are having intimate fellowship just because someone says to greet someone you don’t know. I am coming to believe that the type of “fellowship” that the Lord has in mind for us is based on intimate sharing, mutual transparency and a deeper level of friendship than we have dared imagine. It's about facing our fears of rejection and allowing religious facades to drop off.
The Lord of glory says: “Welcome to the show!” God is showing His hand and laying down His cards for all to see. He is showing us off to the world, as a demonstration of love. He is showing His hands and His feet - in fact His body, in ways we never dreamed possible. He is being seen and heard in a different way with a different sound. He is appearing in places and in people that may have once offended our sensibilities - all outside the church walls, no less! This is the shape of things to come now emerging. We’ve never been this way before, thankfully. There is no particular blueprint or map for it, just trust and the peace that comes from knowing that this is the Holy Spirit, which lets “the peace of Christ rule in our hearts” (Colossians 3:15). The Amplified version says “let the peace of God... act as an umpire.” I won’t blow the whistle on that.
The church is the bride He has chosen for His Son Jesus and she is now being prepared for that wedding by many attendants and bridesmaids. This means all of the five-fold ministers who equip and prepare and are in another paradigm - consultant ministries to the body.
Sometimes the church can have a de-facto heart. In a de-facto relationship neither partner wants to commit by covenant or promise. The back door remains open, or at least ajar, and in particular the “wife” does not want to give up her name to take on another’s, to lose her identity. In a post-modern society this is all par for the course and often denotes lack of trust from earlier wounding. Understandably.
If Jesus had a real wife she would not be selfish unkind or inhospitable. Jesus does not dismember Himself. She would not have an adulterous heart either. God already divorced His wife for that once (Jeremiah 3:8). God longs for us as His bride, His church with a passion, and wants us to love Him and Him alone with an undivided heart.
How did we get to be here?
For the first five-hundred years the church flourished and moved in great anointing, great authority and excellent structure.
The Jerusalem Church:
The very first church was birthed on the day of Pentecost, as the disciples and others were gathered together in one place. Suddenly there came a sound from heaven. This sound was like that of “a violent tempest blast” (Acts 2:2). Tongues of fire appeared on them and they began to “speak in other tongues, with clear and loud expression.” About three-thousand people received Christ on that day. This birthed the first church. It was messy, loud, and powerful with a raw sound of reality.
This church came under great persecution from the day that Stephen was stoned to death, with Paul (called Saul, before his conversion) commending and consenting to his death. The Jerusalem church was then scattered and inadvertently became a “sending” church through the scattering of the believers. This church was never able to break free of Judaism due to the number of Jews who attended.
