Who will lead the church into revival?

As we are praying and surrendering ourselves to God, putting aside our own desires in favour of God’s plans, I feel that God is revealing his plan for revival.  It really important to continue praying into this and confessing our sins and those of our nation, leaders and forefathers.  We also need to prepare practically for the harvest.  God is equipping his church to minister to each other and many whose faith is passive will be empowered to meet the needs of many who are new to the faith.

1 Kings 20:13 And look, a prophet came to King Ahab of Israel saying, “The Lord says, ‘Have you seen all this great multitude?  Look, I will deliver it into your hand today and you will know that I am the Lord.’”  ¹⁴And Ahab said, “By whom?”, and he said, “The Lord says, ‘Even by the young men of the princes of the provinces.’” Then he said, “Who shall direct the battle?” And he answered, “You.”

Who will lead us into revival?
The teachers of the five-fold ministries.
Who will lead them?
The Apostles.

I must confess, as I’ve been learning about the five-fold ministries and trying to make sense of how this applies to our current context, I have glorified the apostles and the prophets and considered the pastors and teachers with contempt.  This is so wrong.  It’s so easy to get caught up in the new (unfamiliar), and to ignore what seems more mundane.  The truth is that we all have an important part to play and are mutually dependent.

Ephesians 4:11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;  ¹²For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ:  ¹³Until we all come into unity of the faith, and the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:  ¹⁴That we are no longer children, tossed back and forth, and carried along with every idea of human invention, in which they lie in wait to deceive;  ¹⁵But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, that is, Christ.

The five-fold ministries are often compared to a hand

• The teacher specializes in conveying the truth of God for the church to understand.
• The pastor specializes in the general well-being of the members of the church and oversees governance of the local church bodies.
• The evangelist specializes in reaching out to the unsaved.
• The prophet specializes in bringing revelations from God.
• The apostle generalizes in all four of these aspects – just as the thumb can touch each of the fingers.

Each of these are roles that people play in a church.  When the Holy Spirit empowers people into these roles, they combine to build up the church.  Satan hates this and strives to distract them from connecting with the Holy Spirit and each other.

Our generation has endured a famine of the truth of God’s word.  We have focused our preaching on warm-fuzzies and practical living instead of the full gospel of a life empowered to avoid sin, and to bring the supernatural goodness of God to the people around us.  We have neglected to defend the authority of God’s word and allowed our society to believe the evolution myth.  In more recent times, ministries like Creation.com, Answers in Genesis and Ravi Zacharias have equipped us with teaching to defend the authority of scripture.  We have also been blessed with various apostles and prophets who have visited local churches and supernatural movements such as Bethel Church, and five-fold teachers such as Collette Toach.

I see also that God has blessed our local churches with a great bunch of guys and women who are mature in the faith and keen to teach.  Some of these have some weird theories that they’re keen on, but with a little coaching, they are God’s perfect gift to us to nurture the many new believers he is bringing us.  We must invest in these people a supernatural empowerment and teach them to die to their own intentions and submit to God’s plan.

When the teachers are empowered in the supernatural, they will be positioned to teach future ministers to move in the supernatural, which is vital to their ministries.

I praise God that he is bringing revival to his church.  For now, we need to get down on our knees and submit to him and teach others to do likewise.

Revelation 12:11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.   And they did not love their lives as to avoid death.

Shalom

– Brent