First Love

Prophets are called to inspire people, to awaken them to listen and look for God. Sometimes, the church has to be provoked away from its programs, ministries, and routine life, and its attention turned to what God is doing now. These distractions are usually completely understandable--but it is inexcusable to resist the provocation of the Holy Spirit. When He offers us the opportunity to gaze upon the person of Christ, we need to leap at the opportunity. Our highest ministry priority is to adore God, and minister to Him.

This is the same challenge which God laid out before the church of Ephesus in Revelation 2:2-5-
I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false; and you have perseverance and have endured for My name's sake, and have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place-unless you repent.

Ephesus had to be provoked to return to its first love. They needed to be inspired by a word of prophecy because they had lost an essential piece of who they were. They had lost the capacity to really enter into worship, to see God as their first love. From there, it's just a short fall into religiosity. The tragedy for many churches is that we lose sight of our first love very easily. A new program, a new vision, a new trend: suddenly we're swept away. We get into ministry and social action and just keep working and working and working. In that moment, God delivers a word of exhortation: "Return to Me, your first love."

We have to keep returning to our first love. Our doing, busyness, and ministry are legitimate-until they become our primary focus. The Greatest Commandment-"You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind"-is more important than the Great Commission.

Prophets call Christians to put the Greatest Commandment first. Out of that flows the Second Commandment and the Great Commission call to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

The prophetic has to inspire. We may see things that aren't right, but we have to ask God what He wants to speak into those situations. What does the Lord want to accomplish? How do we get over the hurdles separating us from that goal? What does He want to emphasize? How do we speak to this hindrance so we can make sense out of it? How will we respond to Him?

We are not called to put something into people-we are called to bring something out. We ought to focus on what God is already doing and lay claim to it prophetically. "This is what God is doing in you," we prophesy, "this is who you are in the Spirit. This is you, as Christ sees you." When we call on the life of the spirit within, we inspire it to come into bloom. We create an environment, a greenhouse, where God can release things on His terms. It is an explosion of fresh faith and purpose.