The capacity you create in your personal life is the amount of room you create for God to move. The mandate of the Church is based on the post-resurrection methodology of unveiling Christ as revealed in Luke 24, which records Christ’s discussion with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.
He did three things:
- He opened their hearts by opening the Scriptures.
The Scriptures are our primary reference. We will allow the Scriptures to lead Jesus out unto us – from the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms. The Scriptures will speak in this school. Train yourself to shift to the next level of engagement with the Word. Do not succumb to fatigue or sleep. - He opened their eyes – by breaking the bread.
Break the grace in the Word, through those who will bring the Word. This will demand for you to personally engage with the Word at a deeper level. Be conscious of how grace is ‘broken’. First catch it in your spirit – let your mind catch up later if it has to. There will also be the ‘appearing of Christ’ – be ‘raptured’ up into revelations of Christ. - He opened their minds – by piecing various segments of the Scriptures.
Jesus brought fragments of truth and pieced it together so that they can see the whole truth. Recall the imagery of the dry bones becoming a po-werful army. These bones are not the skeletons of a human body but are the foundations of pieces of truth scattered in the valley of God. They are scattered all over. The body is dismembered.
Various streams of truth are coming together to form the basis of “the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us”. Only then can we wage effective war as the army of God. This school will be an affirmation of truth previously in (take out) given in piecemeal, but is now coming together as a whole unit. God builds precept upon precept and line upon line. Now things are coming together.
God is erecting Himself in us – we must be so full of the Word that there is nothing left in us.
SERVANTHOOD
God builds on ‘principle’. We judge everything on ‘principle’. The biblical concept of servant- hood is the vehicle through which God’s purposes are affected. Servant hood is the most important hermeneutical tool, and is also vital to fully appreciate who we are.
As we process servanthood, we must not understand it humanistically. Do not view it domestically or in terms of slavery in history. Servant hood is part of who God is. If you are a partaker of His divine nature – then this aspect of Christ has got (can be taken out) to be formed in each one of us. In Christ, the godhead dwells.
We are all sons of God. We are at liberty. Therefore servanthood is not about slavery in a negative way within the context of restriction. We are all set free from ‘slavery’, yet we choose to become slaves of Christ. We pierce our ear – indicating that we are enslaved to our Master and the voice of our Master – we will only hear the Word of our Master and do His bidding.
All sacraments communicate grace, e.g. husband and wife in marriage communicate grace for God’s purposes. The Table of the Lord communicates great grace. But there is another sacrament – the washing of each other’s feet – not physically but symbolically. If you want to be the greatest, learn to be the servant of all. To go up in the kingdom, you must choose to become nothing.
Every citizen of the Kingdom should be a servant. Sonship is key today. Sons perpetuate the will of the father. If you are going to be a true son of the king, the fundamental principle of servanthood needs to be installed. Read all the parables again – they emphasize servanthood. God will one day say to those who were faithful, “Well done my good and faithful SERVANT (not son)”. Learn to labour in the dust. Deaconship (diakonos) is key to effective apostolic function.
Whatever ministry we do is not unto man but unto the Lord. The ultimate objective of servanthood is to provide a ‘body’ (“A body thou hast prepared for me”: Heb 10:5b). Will you be that body? Will you be that womb for God to establish His purpose on the earth?
Mary called herself a ‘maid-servant’ in bearing the Christ child. God never created any of us to be famous.
We were not created to be glorious, but rather to reflect the glory of God. We were not called to own anything – we were called to manage or steward things on HIS behalf. Barnabas taught us, to enter the apostolic season you have to dispossess yourself of the things you are possessed by. We will manage large volumes of money, not in our church bank accounts, but our people/sons who will know how to steward it and place it at apostles’ feet. We learn how to possess all things but not to be possessed by them.
The administration of the kingdom is diverse and complex and it demands that service be rendered on many levels of functionality. We are not equal when it comes to function, yet at whatever level we operate, we are all servants. Servanthood demands voluntary work. Surrender your time solely to your Master.
Some Words relative to ‘SERVANT / SLAVE’:
Slave (Doulos) = one who functions in a permanent position of subjection to another. He is consumed by the will of his master. Conveyed is the idea of serving or subjugation to another. The commands or demands of the other are more important than your own desires. He is totally dependent on his master.
He works without expectation of pay. He chooses not to freely possess, but to steward everything on behalf of his master.
If you choose to become a ‘doulos’ to Christ, then the only view you should have of life, is a view that is focused on Christ – nothing you own is really yours.
Like Elijah, you may think you are the only one, yet there are 700 others like you. God never called your ‘ministry’ or ‘church’ per se – he called YOU to bear the burden of His call. Keep your gaze on Christ. Those who will steward billions will have to prove servanthood first. A true offering in the sight of God is a take out to be a reflection of the offering. Slavery is coming to a place of total dispossession. Do not crawl in the dust and eat dust. Slavery is the state of ‘handing over’. Become nothing so that he can become all in all. Deaconship involves ‘labouring in the dust’.
Minister = leitougeo = a minister performing priestly functions – in a specialized function.
Servant = huperetes = subordinate servant = who waits for the commands of his superior (the second man); part of a team rowing the boat but you are under command.
Jesus was consumed with the will of His father. My frustration presently is with those that sat under my instructions but have not changed – they think this message is romanticism. They are still selfish, argumentative, and divisive.
God is calling forth Gideon’s 300 to selflessly fulfil the will of God. Jesus said “My food is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish it”.
We do not see this kind of passion in people anymore. (By Pastor Christo Nel)