May 3, 2007

• HELP – Hope – Expectancy – Love – Praying by Pastor Don

  While this title was not all Pastor Don taught on, it is a wonderful acronym. And this Bible study truly will be a HELP to you. I have never attended a Bible study that I didn’t get something from, because Pastor Don is an incredible teacher, but some Bible studies stand out from the other excellent ones, and this one is stellar.

  Pastor Don pointed out that there is power in our attitudes, There is power in hope, power in expectancy, power in love and power in prayer. We need to keep believing, in faith.

  As the song goes, “You have to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative…”

  When prophesies are spoken over us, or situations come that seem to fulfill prophesies spoken over us we need to discern. We need to be a FRUIT TESTER, FRUIT INSPECTOR, AND FRUIT OBSERVER. We need to be patient, for the fulfillment of some things in our lives take time.

  Pastor Don then went on to talk about the Prophetic gifts.

  He reminded us of his last Bible study on this, that there were different offices in the Church, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor, Teacher and Apostles. Just because a person gives a prophesy once does not mean that they are a prophet, or if they teach one time that they have the teaching anointing. God can use a yielded person in one of the offices as there is a need.

  There is an error in the church today regarding preaching. People have taken the action of preaching and turned it into an office, but it is not one of the offices listed in the Bible. Many people get puffed up when they preach, but preaching is an ACTION, not an office.

  In reality everyone is a preacher, but in the church we often give a preacher accolades. In reality, preaching is a form of prophesy – FORTHTELLING, Telling the Word of God.

  So often in churches today there is preaching, but no manifestation of the Power of God. So people are rewarding preachers for what is in effect an empty act. Preaching is empty until someone gets a hold of the teaching and changes. Pastor Don said that growing up in the church he heard a lot of exciting, vehement preaching, but the people would listen, go home, and by the following week come back unchanged by the preaching – doing the same things they did before the sermon. When people remain unchanged by preaching, the preaching is an empty act.

  Prophesy is for exhortation or comfort. Pastor Don pointed out that many of us have been in churches a long time and have not changed. We have come and found emotional release, sang a few songs, heard an exciting sermon, and then walked out unchanged. Without the manifest power of God we will not see results.

  Preaching is not an effective way to change people. Teaching, getting people involved in the learning process will produce change. If a person listens to the teaching, learns and makes changes then there will be a change in their life.

  People come to church with a desire to experience God, to receive a touch from God. When the gifts of God are out of proportion and out of position no one gets changed. Pastor Don told us that he puts pressure (Heather’s note, loving pressure) on us to do better, to change, to believe God for something to happen.

  When Jesus heard Peter try to talk him out of going to the cross, Jesus did not coddle Peter, saying, “That’s nice….” He said to Peter, “Get thee behind me satan.” He made Peter see that Peter was speaking out of order.

  There is great pressure in the church today to keep people attending. If pastors are only preachers, there is something missing in the church. The pastors can sweat, speak loud, get excited, but it does not always produce anything of substance.

  NO OFFICE IN THE BODY OF CHRIST SHOULD STAND ALONE as if somehow it is sufficient.

  We need all the spiritual gifts functioning in the Body of Christ. Pastors that preach sometimes think they are doing a good job, but if they really examine their congregation they will see that no one is getting better.

  The Prophetic can touch another function in the five-fold ministry. A prophet can loose the ability to loose, to lift up and get people to another level. The prophetic can also foretell the future, challenging a person to change. It is like throwing out the gauntlet and the challenge needs to be taken up.

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  Pastor Don said that if we get what he is teaching next, we will never be the same. Trust me in this, Pastor Don is accurate in this statement! So I know as you read this you will be blessed.

  When a prophetic word goes out it is spoken and we need to ask ourselves a few questions.

  1. DO WE HEAR IT?
  Romans 10:17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. When a prophet comes to tell you what, “Thus says the LORD…” what is happening or will happen you have choices. You either can HEAR it or you can MISS it. We can become so desensitized to the Spirit or so bound to the emotions that, because of the nature of the delivery, we don’t hear it. Remember the person delivering the prophesy does not have to be a prophet or someone in a high office, it can be a child, a neighbor, a scene from nature, a boss, a person you do not consider spiritually advanced, a stranger on the street, your spouse, a thought that we can’t get out of our minds. But we have to stop and listen. To stop and hear it. We need to receive (hear) the prophetic word. Sometimes we can look in the wrong places for the prophetic word, expecting it from a certain place, and God has already provided it in a way that we did not expect.

  If we ask God, we have to have the faith to believe that, “my answer is coming.” When we pray, we have to believe that God has heard our prayer. God may not always pay attention to our whining – He will listen the first time, then He expects us to believe something and do it. We need to put our faith into, “I am going to receive from God.” But we also have to recognize that the Spirit of God is not obligated to obey us. We get upset, stamp our feet and complain when God does not answer our prayer NOW in the way we thought He should answer it. But God will answer in the time and place that He chooses. Whether we listen or not at the time God chooses to answer is our responsibility, not His.

  Just like when our kids exhibit a demanding attitude and we do not respond instantly to their demands, the more attitude we show toward God, the longer it may take to receive our answer.

  We need FAITH TO BELIEVE THAT THE ANSWER IS COMING, no matter what it looks like in our circumstances. If the situation is life and death and we miss God’s answer, He may give it to us several times so that it increases our chance of receiving the answer. If it is a fleshly desire, God may give the answer only once.

  We can talk ourselves out of our blessing. We can have a thought in our mind that is from God and then debate if it is from God or not from God. Would God really want to do that for ME?, etc. At times the thoughts are not from God. One way to tell is that if a thought agrees with the worst of our personality, negate it for it is not of God.

  All promises of God are yes and amen. Anything contrary to God’s promises is a lie. Don’t supply a “No” even if God has not answered in a while, expect that the answer is on the way. (Heather’s note, in Daniel 10:12 the glorious man tells Daniel who hadn’t heard an answer for his prayer for three weeks, “…Do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day you set your heart to understand, and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard; and I have come because of your words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days; and behold Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone there with the kings of Persia.” Pastor Don taught on this once and pointed out that if Daniel had prayed a few days and given up the glorious man (angel) would not have come. We have to have faith that the answer will come, and the answer was sent FROM THE FIRST DAY, but there can be things we are not aware of that delay the answer).

  Sometimes God has us in a holding pattern, and the answer is, “not yet”. But our answer will happen in the time and season that is the best time for it to happen.

  If things don’t happen as you plan it, hold on. If warfare is raging around you, hold on. The Prophet is God’s answer to your need in that situation. Don’t shoot the messenger. Sometimes the messenger will give an answer you were not wanting. Sometimes we expect Fed Ex and UPS shows up with the answer. The joy of the Lord is to see you get what you need when you need it.

  God also wants to do things His way in His timing. Sometimes we pray a certain way and get an answer. Then we keep trying to approach God in the exact same way and method to get an answer when the next situation comes up. God does not want us to make an idol of the method. He wants us to trust in Him.

  Pastor Don said, LISTEN TO EVERYTHING, CAST OUT A BIG NET TO GET A BIG FISH, NOT ONE HOOK AND ONE LINE.

  When we have people anointed of God, we have to know that it is the anointing of God on their life that will interrupt our lives at times. We don’t need a formal setting to receive a word from God. God can use his anointed one to speak a word into our lives through a brief encounter or a casual conversation. It does not have to be a big formal affair to hear the Word of God. The anointed one does not have to stand and wave his hands and bellow out, “The LORD SAID, The power of the Lord is upon me and you need to HEAR THE WORD of the Lord.” A quiet word said in season can be a prophetic word from God.

  When the Word comes and you have your antenna up and hear a word that is around you, you need to

  2. TEST THE WORD. Can I believe for that? Can I receive it? You can believe for something but not be ready to receive it. You can believe for prosperity and not open up a bank account to receive it.

  Pastor Don talked about a tent revival in a small town that had a drought. The revivalist prayed and stated that God was going to send rain. The next night he came to preach and looked around and noticed that, except for a little girl, no one brought umbrellas. They were not ready to receive the rain.

  FAITH IS AN ACTION OF BELIEVING what you RECEIVE and MAKING PROVISION for it. We need to be ready to believe it, ready to receive it. No matter who is speaking the prophetic word or the form that the word comes, we have to ask ourselves, Can I believe it? and Am I ready to receive it?

  When we receive a prophetic word our natural response is to be afraid. Can I handle the answer? Am I ready? We can let doubt creep in through our fear. But FAITH IS THE ENEMY OF DOUBT. Faith does not mean that we are doing everything perfectly. But what we need to do is to work against doubt and unbelief. Unless you aggressively attack fear it can cause doubts to arise.

  Doubt comes from the emotional realm. Fear is an emotion. An intellectual person will deny that fear is an emotion and come up with terms that deny that what they are feeling is fear, but really it is the emotion fear that is casting doubt.

  When we have fear, we start speaking doubt and unbelief. We need another emotion to fight the emotion of fear. Pastor Don said that if we are in a bull ring with a charging bull, we do not pull out Emily Dickenson or an intellectual writing on peace and calm and read it to the bull. We have to fight the bull.

  If we have fear we can raise the emotion of hope, or joy, to fight it. If there is anger, we can have repentance, forgiveness. We have to determine to stay happy even when our circumstances seem to negate happiness. Against hope, fear cannot stand.

  One person mentioned that one way she can tell that it is the Lord speaking is that the enemy comes to try and steal away the blessing. Pastor Don pointed out that sometimes that is a good way of determining it is a Word of God, sometimes not. Then he said:

  SOMETIMES YOUR OPPOSITION CONFIRMS YOUR POSITION.

  Faith is not an emotion, but faith can affect our emotions. People can sometimes mistake faith as feeling good about something. But faith is not a feeling it is in the heart, it is the place where you know that you know that you know.

  The electricity of the spiritual realm is faith. Faith says “I know” not I am waiting and hoping. When there is true faith, what one has faith for always happens, even if it is the wrong thing the person had faith for. Someone mentioned, be careful what you ask for, you may get it.

  3. WE HAVE TO LEARN TO DO WHAT MARY DID.

  Luke 2:48-50 So when they saw Him, they were amazed; and His mother said to Him, “Son, why have You done this to us? Look, Your father and I have sought You anxiously. And He said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” But they did not understand the statement which He spoke to them.

  Jesus was speaking the fulfillment of the prophesy, about His ministry and calling. Sometimes when the prophetic word comes we do not understand it.

  Luke 2:51 Then He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them, but His mother kept all these things in her heart.

  She did not put it in the realm of her thought life, she stored it in her heart. She stored the prophesies of the angel, Simeon, Elizabeth, the wise men, the shepherds. She stored all the prophetic words spoken

  When Jesus said that he had to be about His Father’s business, He was not talking about carpentry. She held the prophesies in a deep place until the time of its fulfillment.

  When you hear a prophetic word, GRAB AHOLD OF IT, even if there is no application for it at that time, it may be a Word out of season, or a Word spoken in error. Sometimes prophetic people feel that they have to always speak a prophetic word.

  Someone asked if a prophetic word is spoken over another can you apply it to yourself? Pastor Don said that if our heart seizes the word and receives it, God can bring forth that prophetic word in our lives.

  Remember, God will never leave you or forsake you, Sometimes a person receives a blessing from God, walks out of the room and talks themselves out of the blessing saying, “I ain’t blessed.” The room might have been filled with angels ready to pour out the blessing on the person and they just spoke their blessing away.

  We need to put our faith into action and God will come through.

  When a prophetic word is spoken, STORE IT SOMEWHERE, write it down, memorize it, get a recording of it. Keep speaking the prophetic word over yourself. Apply faith to the prophetic word. Agree with the Word.

  You might be very poor but have a prophetic word of prosperity spoken over you, that all your needs will be met. You may not see it in your circumstances, but believe for it in your heart, have faith and God will come through.

  So often healing or a word goes into a person and becomes dormant. The anointing is still there, but the people around the person have talked the person into unbelief and the anointing cannot manifest. That does not mean that it isn’t there, it just is not manifesting. Once the person starts speaking words of belief, and claiming what the healing or word has said, then the dormant anointing will manifest and the person will see a change in their situation.

  When we get faith inside and hear a prophetic word we can either kill it or feed it. The prophetic word is spoken and it can lie dormant and at the right time the person can come into agreement with it and the anointing will manifest.  We need to not go by what we see and we need to watch what our mouth says.

  Then Pastor Don read us a passage that illustrated what he taught above, it is long so I am going to give you the address so that you can read it on your own. Look for times when the blessing was believed and when the blessing was rejected. 2 Kings 7

  One word of doubt is 2 Kings 7:2 …Look, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, could this thing be?…

  Hope this blesses you! It sure makes me want to make sure that I watch my words and my thoughts, that I hold in faith and believe God.

  Have a blessed day,
  Heather

  • 7:41 pm
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