Moving Through Change Without Bitterness

 The other day I was spending time with the prophet Ezekiel. He was a priest who had been exiled from Jerusalem during the first deportation of Judah. The great siege and destruction of Jerusalem was yet to come. Ezekiel was now without purpose and a job, confused with everyone else in exile. But Yahweh needed prophets for his people in Babylon and he had set Ezekiel aside for this purpose.

We always focus on the great vision of Ezekiel and for good reason. Each prophet brought a different revelation of Yahweh and putting them together gives us a fuller understanding of Yahweh. But this is not a path Ezekiel would have chosen for himself.

People today chase after the office of the prophet because it is different from the Old Testament Prophet. Prophets today are part of the five-fold, the trainers in the Body of Christ. Back in the day before the Holy Spirit was given to all believers, the prophet was the voice of Yahweh, bringing his word and will for that day. This did not give the prophet favour with the leadership or the people because the prophet often had a word of correction to bring, and no one likes correction.

Ezekiel would have known Jeremiah or known of him, so he knew of the bad things that were done to this dear prophet in Jerusalem. And Ezekiel also knew that this was the norm for the prophets of Yahweh. When chosen, that person lost his old life and comfort and now stepped into the privilege of intimacy with Yahweh and a very punishing life of service. So it should not surprise us that after receiving his anointing and commission, when the wind picked him up to carry him to the deportees, we read this:

“Then the wind picked me up and took me away. With the Lord’s power pressing down against me I went away, bitter and deeply angry, and I came to the exiles who lived beside the Chebar River at Tel-abib. I stayed there among them for seven desolate days.”  Ezekiel 3:14-15

So the result of this vision and encounter, of the call and commission : “I went away, bitter and deeply angry.” Ezekiel knew what this was going to look like. Remember, he wasn’t asked if he was willing, he was simply told to go. Too often we put all the emphasis on the benefits of our relationship and so we are unprepared for the cost. There is always a cost.

Several times in my life the Lord called me to something that caused my world to shift. I knew I would have to say good-bye to what I knew and what I was comfortable with, to step into the obedience of Father’s purpose for me. There was great cost. But there was also great benefit, and the benefit far outweighed the cost. But there was a cost.

I could compare it to having a baby. There is great cost to the mom. Her life will never be the same again. There will never be another moment in her life when she won’t be a mom. There is pain in the birth. There is pain in the difficult nights, giving up plans for a sick child, and the tons of work involved in raising a child. But the benefits of having that little person pouring out their love into your life far outweighs any cost.

If we forget his benefits we run the risk of having bitterness and deep anger filling our hearts and clouding our perspective. Change is never easy. Many of us struggle with change. But change is also filled with exciting possibilities. The thing that is important to anchor yourself to is the truth that our Father never changes. Even in the chaos of the change that he is bringing about he is our anchor. We must remind ourselves of his benefits. We need to review our many testimonies of his goodness. We must declare our trust in the darkness. We must hold on to him because he is the only one who makes sense of life and provides the strength we need.

We are given the honest reactions of prophets, psalmist, servants and kings so that we can see that these are normal reactions to unusual times. But we are also given the example of how they confessed these things to the Lord and then confessed their trust in him. This is given so we know that this is how we get through life-shifting changes without bitterness and deep anger taking route.

Called To Serve part 4

This is the final part of this subject as far as this little exercise is concerned but I hope it is not the end of you seeking greater revelation on this subject. What we are exploring is how we can avoid in the Church a similar leadership melt down that Israel experienced. It helps us to realize that everything in the Kingdom is volunteer. I am not forced to submit myself to the Spirit, I volunteer to do so. It is for my best interest but it is still a decision I get to make. This is applied to everything : it is my choice to accept or reject Father’s free gift of salvation ; I volunteer to walk in obedience ; I volunteer to worship ; I volunteer to serve ; I volunteer to love. It’s always a choice even if I am compelled by love.

To go forward we need to understand, accept and apply that all instruction that has been written in the past is for our benefit today:

“Whatever was written in the past was written for our instruction so that we could have hope through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures.” Romans 15:4

Trust me, the leadership we are considering comes at such a high cost that it is impossible without the hope that comes through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures. This model is uniquely a kingdom model that is impossible to duplicate without Jesus because without him we can do nothing.

“May the God of endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude toward each other, similar to Christ Jesus’ attitude. That way you can glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ together with one voice.” 15:5-6

Because that is the end goal, relationships that are matured into unity where we glorify our Father with one voice. This must be the foundational understanding of any form of leadership within the Body of Christ. It is from this perspective, that we renew daily, that we decide to remain focused on our King and his purpose for us:

“So welcome each other, in the same way that Christ also welcomed you, for God’s glory.” 15:7

Going on 40 years of following Jesus I have yet to see him reject me due to my imperfections, mistakes, blunders, sins. He keeps covering them, keeps lifting me up, keeps perfecting me in my imperfection. So how can I as a leader in the Body do anything other than serve the weak from my position of power. My life is spent for the purpose of seeing them mature in Jesus. I must be like and do like Jesus:

“I’m saying that Christ became a servant of those who are circumcised for the sake of God’s truth, in order to confirm the promises given to the ancestors, and so that the Gentiles could glorify God for his mercy.” 15:8-9

The servant-leaders in the Body can only avoid the collapse of Israel’s government by refusing to focus on themselves, understand Kingdom leadership and daily renew their submission to the King and their service to the Body. No other form of leadership will benefit the individuals of the Body and no other form of leadership will be rewarded. 

Called To Serve part 3

 I hope you have taken the time to read through part one and part two in order that you may get the most out of part three. We understand that Yahweh had set up a government of checks and balances in Israel which included the High Priest, High Judge, the Prophet and the king. But these offices had failed to retain the understanding that their purpose was the people. Their purpose was to serve the people to maintain a kingdom that was focused on Yahweh and each other. Instead, they put that focus on themselves and everything Yahweh had put in place for a prosperous society could not function due to the improper focus. Now let’s turn the page to where we are today, after the cross.

Jesus came with multiple purposes including the revealing of the depth of Father’s heart. Jesus taught and demonstrated what relationship looks like in the Kingdom, including the servant-leaders, and then he left to send us the Spirit to empower us to live it. In our present age we have the Body of Christ, which we are all part of and the only head is Jesus. He has given us trainers, the five-fold (apostles, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher), to train us in the works that will unite us and grow us into the maturity of Jesus. In this structure we are all part of the royal priesthood, each of us a leader in a broken world. Our focus is on those who Father loves, the lost of this world, not to lord it over them but to serve them so they would be open to Jesus.

The structure of the Body can be scary for those who are looking for a pyramid structure with a boss dictating to everyone else. Instead it is an inverted pyramid. Paul refers to the apostles as being the ones who take the most abuse as they lay it all on the line for the purpose of serving the Body. Paul gives us a wonderful picture of the Body in 1 Corinthians 12 and too often that’s as far as we go. But Paul said that there is a way that allows all the diversity to be united together, functioning together for the same purpose. He follows this with the wonder 1 Corinthians 13. You should pause and refresh yourself on these two chapters.

What Paul is giving us is the manner in which we prevent the failure we see in the government of Israel. The whole Bible is about relationship and Father wants us to understand what right relationship looks like with him and with each other. Understanding this, let’s consider Romans 15. 

Verse one should stop us right in our tracks when we are considering the relationship between the mature and the beginners in the Body:

“We who are powerful need to be patient with the weakness of those who don’t have power, and not please ourselves.”

This works for relationships in the Body but also with those who have yet to come to Jesus. We can have a terrible attitude toward those who are still controlled by their sins, new believers and pre-believers. We make a mistake when we try to control their sin instead of demonstrating Father’s love, patience and kindness. We are not responsible for conviction, that is the Spirit’s job. We have enough on our hands to stay within our anointing, demonstrating the power of Father’s love to heal and forgive.

When we see this as our primary purpose, to demonstrate Father’s love, they will soon recognize Jesus’ love demonstrated on the cross and love will compel them to forsake sin in the same way it compels us to serve as servants. There is no fast track. Everything takes time to learn and respond to. We love and we make sure we are prepared to give the reason for our hope, to new believers and pre-believers. We are all learning. There will always be those more mature and less mature than us. So we serve with humility. Consider :

“Each of us should please our neighbours for their good in order to build them up. Christ didn’t please himself, but, as it is written, The insults of those who insulted you fell on me.” (Romans 15:2-3)

That’s a pretty powerful picture, absorbing what is intended to destroy your neighbour. How do we do that? The enemy is out to destroy your neighbour but instead we cover those moments by grace. Sounds poetic but when you have been raised in an environment of calling out every sin, every offense, every mistake, it can be hard to shift gears into proper kingdom leadership.

I am going to give you some time to seek Father’s heart on this. If you have questions, take them to him and wait on the answers. I pray that he will show you his heart on the matter. We will come back to finish this off with part 4.

Called To Serve part 2

 I am not going to re-cap part 1. It is available to you to look over quickly. We are going to jump right into this by me asking you to put this aside until you read Jeremiah 23. Don’t pretend you read it. It’s going to take you three minutes and you will get much more out of this by laying the foundation of Scripture.

Okay, I am going to assume you have read it, and I hope you did. It’s pretty heavy in the category of correction. The government that Yahweh had set up for Israel had completely bottomed out and to understand this we need to lean heavily on the first part. Remember what Jesus said about leadership in the Kingdom: not to rule but to serve.

In this chapter, the shepherds that are being referred to are all those who have any role in the four offices of government including those who assisted these offices. These are the officials, the assistants, the clerks who are all in place to help the four offices serve the people so that the people can succeed in life. Remember, the goal is a right relationship with Yahweh and each other because this is the foundation to success in Yahweh. It is from right relationship that all the blessings of Yahweh flow. Now of these officials Yahweh states:

“You are the ones who have scattered my flock and driven them away. You haven’t attended to their needs, so I will take revenge on you for the terrible things you have done to them, declares the LORD.”

He says that he will replace them with shepherds who will fulfill their duties:

“I will place over them shepherds who care for them. Then they will no longer be afraid or dread harm, nor will any be missing, declares the LORD.”

Look how important those leaders are to the welfare of the people : no fear, no dread, no harm, and no one missing. The LORD is placing the current poor condition of the people squarely on the shepherds.

The king has been another failure in this government. The solution is simple : replace him with a righteous king. “The LORD Is Our Righteousness” cannot describe any human representative. No human could be considered righteous outside of Yahweh making it so. It had to be Jesus. Simple enough.

It is the prophet that was the greatest disappointment because the prophet was the most intimate part of the government. The prophet had to have an intimate relationship with Yahweh in order to hear him and repeat the message. He was often in the secret place, having set aside his life to live as Yahweh’s voice to the nations. It was dangerous, difficult and required a complete surrender of will and thought.

“Because the country teems

with adulterers,

because of them,

yes, because their might is not right

and their way is evil,

the land dries up,

and the grazing areas in the wilderness wither.”

The shepherds’ neglect impacted the people but the prophet’s corruption impacted the people and the land. There was no voice of correction. No one was calling the officials to repentance. No one was delivering the truth needed. They were all about sunny days and sunny ways. They spoke from their own desires and not from the intimate position of the prophet. In this mess we hear Yahweh state something very important:

“Let the prophet who has a dream declare it, but let the one who has my word proclaim it faithfully.”

We are a prophetic people and Father communicates with us prophetically. But the measuring rod for this is the word of God. The Spirit will never speak to us outside of this foundation. He will give us revelation but that is simply a deepening of our understanding of what has already been given to us in the word. He will help us understand Kingdom systems but they are all found in the word. Every prophetic word is only viable if it is measured by the word of God. This is for our safety.

Everything Jesus taught us can be found in scriptures except that he brought us to Father’s heart with it. He took the word and he brought us to the place where it was intended to live, in great richness, power and intimacy. He showed us the true depth of relationship, “love your neighbour as you love yourself” went to the deeper place of “love your enemy”.

However, the focus here is on leadership in the Kingdom. In part 3 we are going to consider how this service to others is supposed to look on this side of the cross so that failure of shepherds can be avoided.

Called To Serve part 1

 Leadership is considered a key matter in the Church today. We have hundreds of conferences, online classes and hundreds of books published every year focusing on this subject. It is for this reason that we must insist that leadership in the Church remain biblically based. I am in no way qualified to teach on leadership but I have recently received some revelation for myself that I would like to share with you. We will start in the Hebrew texts and move into the Christian texts.

I enjoy every part of the Bible and appreciate each writer for their distinct purpose and revelation. Some of these writers I feel more partial to than others. Jeremiah is one of these writers. Born in the royal line of David, he comes across as an everyday man, called out from a regular life, into the role of prophet during a very troubling time. The Lord told him that he knew him before he was born and had set him aside at that time to be his prophet.

Let’s remind ourselves of the government that the Lord had set up in Israel. People can be mistaken in thinking that the government is the king and his officials. That is only one part of the government. No, what the Lord had set up can be compared to the government of the United States, with its three parts balancing each other and acting as accountability partners so no one person could become too powerful.

In Israel there was the High Priest who had lots of responsibilities but the big one was maintaining the law and sacrifices, everything that had been set down on paper from Yahweh through Moses. He gave oversight to the priesthood and the Levitical workers.

There was also the High Judge who normally came from the priesthood. We can see that there were periods of Israel’s history when the king would take on this office but it was supposed to be a separate person who would act as the high court, especially in doctrinal matters. He was responsible for oversight of the entire judicial system and was responsible for applying Yahweh’s justice, which was often about responsibility in relationship.

There was also the prophet or prophets. These were a unique group of people who enjoyed a relationship with Yahweh like no other. The High Priest was required to enter into the presence of Yahweh once a year but the prophet experienced him many times over. Prophets were set aside according to Yahweh’s will and came from every walk of life, regardless of position, rank or condition. But once called, everything from the past was canceled and complete obedience was required. These people, male and female, were called upon to do weird and dangerous things. Many were killed. But the prophet was Yahweh’s voice today, for this current situation, giving direction or bringing correction.

The king was the last position to be put in place. He represented Yahweh in terms of power. This power was for protection and provision. It was his responsibility to maintain an army to protect the borders. He was responsible for trade so that God’s people would be equipped to be prosperous. He had his own specific set of rules to prevent him from becoming too powerful and overpowering the other positions of government.

All of these people, including their officials and staff who assisted them were there for the purpose of the people, to build them up, to see them succeed in life. They were not there for their own agenda, to become wealthy off the people, to stack the deck in their favour. They were servants to the people, representing different aspects of Yahweh in their lives. It was a beautiful system, until it wasn’t.

David’s time was probably the best period to look at if you want to see this system at work. David protected the function of the other positions. There was justice in the land because the High Judge was permitted to carry out his role. The sacrifices were maintained and there was constant worship going up because the High Priest carried out his responsibilities. The majority of the land was experiencing peace as the king drove back their enemies and demonstrated the power of Yahweh to protect his own. And when the king thought he could do whatever he wanted, the prophet showed up to tell David that what he did was seen and to bring correction. 

In order for this system to work everything had to be focused on Yahweh. The benefit of the Law needed to be understood. The importance of each position for the prosperity and success of the nation, the people, needed to be held on to. It was not a successful nation when the rich became richer and the poor became poorer. Everyone needed to function within a fear of the Lord, out of utter respect for the instruction and a desire to be faithful to the Lord and his people. But not every king was like David and the system would fail.

In part two we are going to consider Yahweh’s heart when his servant’s failed to serve his people.