Dear Ones,

You just received a LIVING WATERS article in French written by our dear sister Helene Dang of Paris. It was awesome! We are endeavoring to launch a French based version of our articles so that we can minister directly to our francophone friends around the world. So, you may see a few more as we harvest the ‘opens’ to develop a French list. Please forward the French articles to all of your French speaking friends and encourage them to subscribe.

Love to all! KRP

UNDERSTANDING YOUR CALL – THE FULLNESS OF TIME

When the Day of Pentecost had fully come…Acts 2:1 NKJV

Please let me take a few minutes to talk to you about God’s call upon your life. There may be some things I can share with you about it that will help you with any concerns. Some of you know I was called to the international ministry of teaching especially in Africa through a vision I had during my graduation from Bible college, which was in 1978. I had the good sense at the time, a quality not always abundant in my life, to not try to fulfill it on my own. I say now that if I had gone to Africa in 1978, they would have buried me in Africa in 1978, because I would have done something stupid to get myself killed.

I finally went to Africa in the fall of 1995, seventeen years later, with my wife RM which started our ministry to the continent of light. This happened after God had sovereignly brought Mrs. Maina from Nairobi, the city in my vision, and had healed her in a class I taught in Los Angeles. Mrs. Maina was truly the right person at the right time to launch our ministry. She was an administrator in the largest Christian university in east Africa, and she invited me to come and teach for two weeks. A hundred or more bishops, ministers and students showed up, and God showed up with miracles and healings, and our ministry to Africa was born.

The point I want to make is that I didn’t try to fulfill my vision, my calling, but it was fulfilled in the fullness of time as RM and I walked faithfully. What I tried to do was live for God faithfully and fervently, and walk through doors as they opened. I don’t think you can fulfill the true call of God your life – the Lord has to bring it pass in His time – but I believe you can abort it. Paul speaks of being disqualified from the calling and its rewards (1 Corinthians 9:27). The highest calling embodies the highest ideals, of holiness, of love, of wisdom and of kindness, whether you are a grass-mower or an apostle. Calling is not so much about what you do as it is about who you are. Pursue that, and all these dreams and visions will fall into place at the right time and place!

…just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love… Eph 1:4-5 NKJV

The day of Pentecost had fully come! This Pentecost, which I believe was the birth of the Church had been in the process of coming from before the foundation of the world. I heard a song recently that said that the Lord took ‘a lot of time and care in preparing for me, in making me,’ which is the understatement of the year. God prepared for you, as He prepared for me, to be His son or daughter from before time began. Pentecost was the fullness of the time, the fullness (Grk. PLEROMA) of the preparation. This analogy will help you understand. A baby’s birth is the PLEROMA time, the fullness of the pregnancy. God’s vision of His family had been pregnant from before the foundations of the world!

Between 1971, when I got filled and ’95 – those years were for me the preparation period. I was married, ordained, started in ministry, ran a business and two of my children were born, all in preparation for what would begin then. There is a price to be paid for every vision. The snowpack that provides the water in the heat of summer is preceded by the storms and cold of winter. The storms in your preparation have a purpose!

Now, here is what I want to get to. I was inspired in this verse recently by one of the great friends in my life, Frank Michael Tweheyo. The Lord surrounds me with people who are better than me, all great friends, and Michael and his beautiful wife Phobice are right there!

But when the fullness (Grk.PLEROMA) of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption (Grk.HUIOTHESIA, placing of a son, sonship) as sons.

The first promise of the Messiah Redeemer goes all the way back to Genesis three – the ‘seed of the woman’ (by the way, when Genesis fifteen talks of Abraham’s seed, it’s not referring to the multitudes of Israel but to the Christ – which is a teaching for another day). But Heaven was pregnant with the birth of the Son from before time began. No wonder the angels praised and sang!

Something to consider – the Lord needs you and I to fulfill His purposes. The Lord says in Isaiah six, ‘Who can I send, and who will go for Us?’ Isaiah responds, ‘Here am I, send me!’ Mary had to respond affirmatively to the Angel’s invitation to be the mother of the Christ, and the storms in her pregnancy almost cost her life. Someone once said that you don’t know what you are ready to live for until you know what you are ready to die for. Isaiah, and Mary, were ready to die for the call of God if need be. Mary had to be willing to pay the price to fulfill the call of God. Are you willing for your call?

Let me say too that your calling can grow and modify as you faithfully and fervently carry out what He gives you. Every businessman knows that the reward for work that is well done is more work. I just past passed my forty ninth anniversary of when I spoke in tongues, and I am in the TERUWAH, the jubilee year, the year of the shout of war and rejoicing, of my ministry. Our calling has gone beyond just Africa, and beyond just teaching on the gifts, although they remain a central focus.

Through the miracle of the new birth we are born as sons and daughters, making up God’s POIEMA (Ephesians 2:10), His masterpiece as the Church. Each of us has a preparation time before that spiritual birth as well which, when we let the Lord redeem our past, He shapes into a unique sanctified place to enable us to fulfill our calling. ALL things, can and should, work together for our good!

And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. Gal 4:4-7 NKJV

So many times when I pray in tongues I will quite without premeditation speak that word ABBA. Why? Because the Father is my ABBA. He is your ABBA as well. He is your covering, your provider, your rest when you are in His bosom. He anticipates and supplies your every need which is why when teaching about revelation I teach to seek the answer that is close at hand. The answer is very near because ABBA has provided for it. Do you see it?

Even though YESHUA was born in September of Three BC, I rejoice that we still take a day each year in December to honor His birth. As we rejoice over His birth, lets praise ABBA for all that He did in the PLEROMA of time to bring us to salvation making us His sons and daughters, His POIEMA. As you consider your life, let me encourage you to rejoice in all that ABBA did as He prepared to bring you to the new birth, and to your calling. Praise YESHUA who did it and does it, praise ABBA for all He prepared and fulfilled, and praise the RUACH CHODESH who carried, and carries, it all out. Love you…Merry Christmas!

Remember dear ones, we must be about our Father’s business…