Contrary to prevailing winds which tend to blow through the church, it will not be the good-intentioned programs featuring skilled leadership which truly establish and increase the Church Jesus came to build (Mt.16:18). Instead, what is required is the authentic grace of Christ's commissioned Apostles and their ministries. It is the fathering DNA of God in Christ that is released to the Apostle, both in reproduction and maturing nurture.
When this dimension of the Lord's nature and power flow through those apostolically commissioned, the obedience which comes from faith@ results (Ro.1:5). Faith that is, in God's Voice. The significance of that faith and resulting is tri-fold:
- Christ's purpose is revealed to the Apostle
- It is proved within them
- Established by them (Mk.3:13-15; Acts 1:4-8).
The Enemy Comes to Prevent or Subvert God's Voice
In the same way Satan tempted Jesus to compromise the Father=s strategy for redeeming man, the enemy forever creates endless distractions of seemingly every kind to those called and sent as Apostles. These are made to those who are strong, as well as those who are weak.
Snares set to trap those weak in personal character seem fairly obvious. Those ill-prepared for an apostolic calling will easily fall into them: pride, greed, immorality, being a law unto self, dictatorial, etc. But it is not enough to prayerfully guard against, they must first and foremost be healed in heart, delivered in spirit and mind, and repented of in action. This is why those called to be Apostles must learn to allow God to mature and prepare them. If not, whatever is lacking becomes an open gate for the enemy to come in and affect every movement of the church. By infecting the leader, and encoding their spirit with Spirit-quenching, rejecting tendencies which prevent God=s Voice from being received and rightly revered among the people, all is nullified from the outset.
Snares set to trap those more seasoned as individuals and leaders are subtle, yet still aimed at personal weaknesses. These insufficiencies are just less obviously noticeable to the Apostle and others. False responsibility and presumption are two of the larger obstacles more experienced ministry leaders face today. There is something about authority which breeds autonomy, even that which becomes independent of God. Meaning that pursuits, plans and projects which take the church into achievement and accomplishment at the expense of obedience and overcoming adversity often appear to be the way of reaching the next level or becoming more fruitful.
But when these quests are made apart from the leadership of the Spirit, what would have been done by faith is only attainable through works. Works which have no basis in God's revelation, therefore, are without His energizing grace. As a result, they actually prevent God's Voice from leading the people until either discerned they have missed it. But when this error is not discovered, a precedent is set which takes them decision by decision into a where God was” status, or even the Ichabod of past historic denominations.
Even if tendencies to work for God instead of walk with Him remain well hidden (as most strongholds attempt to), they will wreck havoc through producing fruit in the daily leadership of ministry which is neither blatant nor obvious to either self or others. The evidences of these strongholds manifest as continual preferences to strive and strain instead of yearn and yield, doing things for the Lord instead of seeking what is from the Lord and walk with Him. To be continually driven to intentional, calculated, religious works which are motivated by the desire for results, but are not God's will (Eph.4:14).
Such ambition-driven goals breed activities which include shortcuts, rationalizations, expediencies, cultural relevancies, falsely-balanced applications of truth, common sense objections to clear Biblical revelation, and strategically constructed defenses against disagreement of every possible sort (Eph.4:14). Without true character transformation, all these will be placed in an Apostle's path in order to short circuit the authentic connection with God's Voice in the Spirit.
Attacks from the Enemy
If the flesh is not sufficiently crucified, the enemy need do nothing but observe the inner conflict as it surfaces and remains visible (2Cor.10:5). Hell need not attack if we defeat ourselves by being of a heart which lacks purity or is double minded (Ja.4:1-3; 1:5-8). But if the flesh is crucified with Christ, the enemy works from the outside to affect and weaken the inner man to create compromise (Gal.2:20). While battles of the flesh are real, often very personal, and take place mostly in secret, these dilemmas are truly attacks from the enemy. Family, friends, those closest in ministry- whoever is not submitted in that moment- will be used to suggest ways other than what God's Voice would reveal, or has already disclosed (Mt.16:22-23). Many times the pleas will be rooted in not waiting, that action must be taken immediately.
Such attacks are inevitably experienced by those being sent and set by Jesus Christ (Ro.10:15; 1Cor.12:28; Jn.16:33). The purpose is to foil the Apostle's personal relationship with God in order to sabotage the ministry, undermining faith in what God has either revealed, spoken or will direct for establishing after His Voice has released true faith for action.
Struggling against these temptations because of immaturity, lack of personal transformation and under-preparedness is one issue, and it is serious enough. But if these shortcuts, rationalizations, expediencies, cultural relevancies, religiously-balanced applications of truth, common sense objections, and apologies to minimize peer pressures are deliberately sought out by those of apostolic call and mission, they not only intentional resist but directly oppose divine direction. As such, these not only guarantee that whatever is accomplished will be temporary and only possible through the sweat of the brow, they also encode that facet of ministry with the enemy's presence and ongoing access to the Apostle and the ministry is established (2Cor.11:1-4).
We are conditioned by our society to believe in the necessity of hard work. Responsibility is first learned in our homes as a child, then in school among others, later on the job in order to enable sustain self and enable our employer to prosper, and then with mates in order to fulfill our part of the marriage partnership. Everything around us confirms to us that the strongest survive, the early bird gets the worm, that time must become our friend or it will become our enemy, and that God gave us the grass, but he expects us to mow it. In other words, we know the expression "God helps those who help themselves" is not true, but: our first inclination is almost always to live as though it is. This alone is enough to give the enemy an inroad to induce us to develop false understandings of grace, resulting in impure strategy. As it is carried out, it fills our hearts, consumes our time, and takes all our energies. As a result, the revelation of God's Voice is not able to be received, because it is not able to be perceived, looking at what we are doing and experiencing instead of allowing God to reveal what He is doing and releasing grace for.
We also live in an increasingly complicated world. Technology has provided tremendous opportunity, but instead it often ensnarls us in its vast complexity. As a result, we tend to see our challenge as one of embracing the continuous task of relearning, of on-going education, of attending continual seminars, conferences, etc. all in the hopes of getting and staying a few gigabytes ahead of our RAM (so to speak). As we adopt this lifestyle, we develop an affinity for reveling in technical explanations, descriptions which then often attach themselves to our efforts to describe God's will and the church's role in seeing it established.
For example, a symptom of this could be concluding that sins from several hundred years ago were the cause of a recent natural disaster in an area. It may be just as likely that the disobedience of today's church in that region caused the light to go out and the salt to have lost its saltiness and be good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men@ (Mt.5:13). After all, judgment from God now first and foremost falls on us (1Pe.4:17).
Said another way, identificational repentance for a centuries old mistreatment of a race, culture or ethnicity may seem to be the key to breaking a curse in order to unlock aspects of the harvest. Although there may be some truth in that, if such a repentance strategy has been truly received from the Lord, it will not be the result of having been motivated by the hopes of evangelistic increase. Instead, it will result from truly sensing that something is amiss, then having it revealed to us, producing a Godly sorrow for the way others have been sinned against. In that way repentance is authentic, not means to an end which stems from the need to achieve or accomplish.
Let's allow God's Voice to reveal and prompt us to faith for action, not our own ambition, knowledge, or wisdom.
Bill Click
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