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.

Transition

Transition is an adventure. But it is an adventure into the unknown with all the attendant risks that the uncharted can formulate around us. Change provokes our hearts because it challenges the status quo. It makes us feel uneasy and vulnerable because it takes us into territory where we have never been before. We are happy to talk about Abraham going out without knowing where he was going, simply trusting God to get him there (Heb 11:8). However, when it is our turn to make the journey of faith, it is a different matter. God has his own road maps for times such as these. The old ones are useless to us, and the new ones are filled out as we go!Every change involves a letting go of one thing to reach out for what is next. It is death by installments - the slow death of our mind-sets, our attitudes, perceptions, and paradigms with apparently nothing to take its place. That is, we only see the replacement concept as we journey. We don't just see it, though; we experience it. Sometimes our experience is first, and we go through something that we understand only in retrospect. It si important therefore, if we are to journey with the Lord into new lands, that we build in time to reflect and review where we are and where we have come from. Our road map to faith must be kept up to date and relevant for anyone else coming after us.Pioneers draw the maps; they seldom enjoy them! Every days' journey into the new is accompanied by a slow and, at times, painful letting go of the old. There is a death process to be worked through in transition. Future fruit comes from the present death (John 12:24).The Holy Spirit will, if we allow Him, teach us how to be present to the moment with God. there is a God-consciousness that is so compelling that we need never worry again. There is a peace so profound that it is unshakable. There is a rest in God so potent that the enemy fears it! (Rest is a weapon against evil.)In order to be alive to God in this way, we must surrentder to Him and to everything He brings. He allows in His wisdom what He could easily prevent by His power. The dying daily that is Paul's description involves a death-to-self process. Change is the pivotal point of that process. If you enjoy God's life, you cannot fear change. Where He is present, resistance has died. Death, the understanding of change, liberates us to experience the adventure of new things. We welcome the risk because His life fizzes in our bloodstream. He sparkles with new gifts, new realms, fresh annointing, and different challenges to faith and love......The inevitablity of change is made enjoyable by His presence. As we submit to each process, our appreciation of the journey grows and our faith increases. Change comes from within. Everything that God does in us comes from the inside to the outside. That is why our inward development is more important than the outward circumstances. If we give the Lord Jesus the ground he requires on the inside of our life, then each present set of external challenges shall diminish, if not disappear...........