February 19, 2020
SAVE THE DATE! May 7, 8 – House Church Roundtable Weekend in Nashville KY! We’ve reserved the beautiful Oasis Retreat Center in Franklin KY for another weekend of edification for HC leaders and those interested. All you have to do is get yourself to Nashville and we will take care of your needs from there! So, registration is free, but you must register, as availability is limited. Write to RM at admin@lightbearers-ministries.com for more details!
JOY, REVELATION AND PROSPERITY
I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Phil 4:12 NKJV
Charles H. Spurgeon socked me in the jaw one morning. I was reading the daily devotional from the great 19th century man of God about this verse and he said, “Most believers know how to be abased, but they don’t know how to abound.” BAM! I said, “Ouch! Did anyone get the number of the truck that just hit me?” if you haven’t heard my Spurgeon story, ask me the next time you see me, or ask Paul N., we lived it together. Spurgeon nailed it!
In Your presence is fullness of joy; Ps 16:11 NKJV
We want to consider the fruit of joy and the revelation gift of word of knowledge, and how they relate to prosperity. WOK is spiritual knowledge about the physical realm like discerning of spirits is spiritual knowledge about the spiritual realm. Joy is a fruit of the Spirit, an inner exuberance untouched by circumstances that bubbles up from the inner man within the exuberant one. Joy marks and accompanies the presence of God. Prosperity is a good journey marked by increased blessing and, in many cases, increasing wealth.
A dear one wrote me while I was writing this to ask me to teach about tithes and offerings. Let me just say really quickly that don’t bother to pray for prosperity if you are cheating the Lord in tithes and offerings. In Lightbearers we tithe of all that comes in. My wife and I have been tithers for forty years and, I assure you, God has been faithful!
But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” Matt 13:23 NKJV
Wealth is a relative term. We each have different capacities, many times related to our callings, that lead to different results, not ‘better’ comparatively but different. If you’re a thirty-fold guy operating at 100% of your ability you may be more faithful than a hundredfold guy operating at 30% of his ability, both producing comparable results. If you are faithful and diligent you rise up to the level of your capability. The challenge for each of us is to test ourselves to see what is our 100%. Self-sacrifice, becoming a living sacrifice freely given, is the passion of great men and women…
JOY – THE ANTIDOTE TO JEALOUSY
“CONSIDER YOUR WAYS SAYS THE LORD!” The old prophet – we lovingly called him ‘Pastor Sparky’ – got up from his pew and declared the word of the Lord in the middle of the service. Instantly I was on my face in the aisle considering my miserable ways. “You have three strongholds – pride, jealousy and prejudice!” the Spirit said. I understood the first two, and I’ll talk about them in a minute, but I didn’t understand the third.
I grew up in Oakland CA in the 1960’s and 70’s. I had black friends, Asian, Hispanic and white, and all we cared about was, can you play ball? I never gave a thought to skin color. But I went to a Bible college that essentially taught me replacement theology, that the Church had replaced Israel in prophecy, and that these guys in Israel today were not the true sons of Abraham. I had religious prejudice. So, I had to repent! God used Derek Prince’s teachings to really straighten me out as well!
Now about the other two – the Spirit helped me kill two birds with one stone when I learned to rejoice in the successes of others. Truly rejoicing in someone else’s blessing crushes pride and jealousy! Understand this reality…rejoicing in others success positions you for your own success, because real success is not about how smart you are, how wise or cunning you are, or how much you acquire but about God’s will, His favor and blessing.
(Last night I listened to a tribute to Rush Limbaugh, a great conservative radio broadcaster, a born again one, in which it was said of him that he rejoiced in the success of others. Great testimony! Imagine that someone would say that while I’m writing an article about the same thing. Also, it should be noted that Rush’s net worth went from zero to over $500 million in his lifetime.)
The thing about strongholds, even once you overcome them, is that you must always be careful of your own natural tendency to fall into them again. The habit of rejoicing in the success of others, regardless of feelings or circumstances, helps crush strongholds and position you for your own success. Your friend succeeded…can I hear a joy filled ‘Bless God forever!’?
REVELATION – THE KEY TO PROSPERITY
And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. Gen 2:25 NKJV
Revelation is such a key reality for your prosperity. Consider this…God knows everything about EVERYTHING. If you are in business, He knows how to sell your product or service. He knows who will most bless you as a marriage partner. He knows where your lost car keys are, where your cell phone is, and what your children are doing right now. He is wildly creative – just consider nature, have you ever seen a praying mantis? – enabling you to create, invent or develop technologies never before seen. He is not limited by time or space, wealth or the lack thereof, or any material consideration. He desires to be intimately involved in every aspect of your life. A life consecrated to the Lord is a life that is naked and without shame, with nothing to hide. Making Him your full partner in every decision is the wisest thing you will ever do!
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Phil 4:13 NKJV
When you know how to be abased and you know how to abound, then you are ‘ready for anything and equal to anything through Christ who infuses inner strength into you’ as one translation I read puts it. Perhaps the most precious ability in your life is the ability to hear the voice of God in any circumstance. My sheep hear My voice, Jesus said, in any environment.
Now listen, dear one. With any skill in life, you must continually train to maintain and enhance that skill. I continually train to hear the voice of the Lord, and to understand the subtilities of the gifts of the Spirit. I learned something three weeks ago that I may be free to teach about in six months, but it is a gamechanger. But I wouldn’t have learned that if I wasn’t pursuing it… do you see it?
When we teach people to receive revelation, one of the practical exercises we do is to teach and practice how to minister healing by revelation. My friend Dale really expanded this and taught it back in the 90’s. The Holy Spirit was teaching a lot of different people the same thing back then. Our friends in Redding took these same principles and applied them to street evangelism. You can take them and apply them in business, in education, in any area of life.
The exercise is to take a very thorough and practical approach to ministering healing, by asking the Lord a number of questions and ministering in light of the answers you get. We have seen astonishing results, right up to raising the dead, in light of these principles.
Every person has a spirit, called the spirit of man, a soul and a body, so we are going to ask the Lord about the condition of all three, starting with the spirit of man. The great question about the spirit of man is this – are they born again, or not? If they are not, they can still receive healing, and even have faith for healing. But if they aren’t then at some point before you are done you will want to address that need. Next comes the soul. What could be wrong with the soul? A broken heart maybe? Ask the Lord about their soul, and address what He shows you. In the soul you will find a lot of hurts, demons, painful memories, etc. all of which need to be dealt with to bring the most healing possible to the dear one in that situation.
I hope you realize this takes time. Jesus died for that person; people are worth your time. I don’t have a lot of respect for preachers who line up the sick people only to pray an ineffective, ‘ten second’ prayer over them. I call this ‘hungry preacher syndrome,’ a great reason why people don’t come back.
Finally, you get to the body. We teach our people to divide the body up into three sections in their minds eye – head to shoulders, shoulders to hips, hips to toes. Go section by section, and ask God what is wrong in each section, and what He wants to heal, and minister with a command, accordingly. You are going to get revelation, and you are going to see people respond. Lives are going to be changed. This is really fun, too!
Apply this principle of asking the Lord questions and quietly waiting for answers to everything you do, and do it daily. Take authority and command the things that He shows you to come to pass. Do it for your business, your finances, your ministry assignment, children, family…everything! You will start to live in victory after victory. And the world will see – because people watch you all the time, if only to have something to gossip about – the glory of the living Christ. That’s joy, revelation and prosperity!
Love you!
Remember dear one, we must be about our Father’s business…