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    in the 21st Century

Loving God, Equipping People, Mentoring Leaders, Reaching Nations

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Answer Questions – Ask Questions

May 12, 2021/in Apostle's Perspective, Changes in the Kingdom, Culture Today, Just a Thought, prophetic insights, Purpose in Life, Resources for Leaders, Technology Today, The Apostolic Church, The Dangerous Church /by ralph

Too often as the church we are answering questions instead of asking questions. Worse than that – we are answering questions no one is asking. We are that far out of touch with the society in which we live and work. And the church has fewer answers than it realizes, or it would demonstrate more impact. But I get ahead of myself.

The book of Acts is the story of Jesus working powerfully through frail and broken humanity to aggressively expand His Church. But Acts wasn’t written to show us how to do church. It was written to show us how to advance the Church in an unreached world. Talk about reaching the unreached! Nobody has had the challenge that the early church did. As the world’s first Christians, they were the only Christian in the world. All the vast unconverted pagan empires lay before that small pack of Jewish men and women that Jesus commissioned. If anybody should be counted experts at reaching the unreached, it was they. Because to them, everybody they came into contact with was unreached. 

But they took Acts 1:8 (see note) seriously, and lived that verse out to fulfillment. If we want to witness Kingdom expansion like the apostles did, it’s not enough to know what they did. We need to do what they did. Two thousand years later, we flatter ourselves over and above our first-century counterparts, imagining we have the advantage of superior knowledge. But knowledge does not get people saved. Nor does it expand the Kingdom. We know a lot about a lot of things and we certainly know how to make profound statements about current issues. However, now is not the time in Church history to wax lyrical. Ours is a day for living out, not sounding smart. Besides, the Church has fewer answers than it realizes, or it would demonstrate more impact than it has. We should be asking the right questions instead of providing wrong answers to questions no one is actually asking. 

As a rabbi, Jesus’s method of teaching involved asking searching questions. In the gospels, Jesus asks 307 questions but only answered two. Why? Because Jesus knew that when we start asking questions, we begin to experience breakthroughs and gain deeper insight into our situation. 

During the day of the Judges (Old Testament), bandits and enemies had the Israelites’ backs to the ropes, beating their self-dependency out of them. There are eerie parallels between the days when “everyone did what was right in their own eyes” (Judges 21:25) and our gimmicks, antics, and over-confidence today. Gideon may have been a coward, hiding in the bottom of a winepress against the onslaught of what was befalling his culture, but he turned the tide when he started asking the right questions.

“If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us?” (Judges 6:13).

“Where are all His wonders that our ancestors told us about?” (Judges 6:13)

I have a sneaking suspicion God’s been waiting quite a while for us to ask the right questions. But the important questions don’t sell books or make the writer or preacher popular. The right questions are seldom popular. Asking them often guarantees that you won’t be asked back to speak again. I don’t have the corner market on the right questions, but some of them might sound like:

      • Why does the Church seem to be losing when we’re on the winning team?
      • Why does the average Christian seem bored when Jesus is suppose to provide life more abundant?
      • Why do most of the stories we hear about God working powerfully, like He did in Acts, tend to come from those working in unreached areas of the world?
      • Has the dynamic faith we read about in Acts been tamed into an impotent ghost of its former self?
      • Have we replaced the power of the Holy Spirit with automation, processes, systems, money, and crowds?
      • Why have we stripped outreach of risk and faith, and opted for security instead of dependence upon God?
      • What’s the way back to becoming the dynamic force that Jesus unleashed on the world two thousand years ago? 
      • Does the Church even know it has lost its way, or is it like the Laodiceans, blind, poor, and wretched without realizing it? (Revelation 3:14-22)

So, I think it is time to ask questions and not continue to answer questions no one is even asking. Just a thought. 

Note: Acts 1:8 reads, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

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First and Second Coming of Jesus

April 28, 2021/in Apostle's Perspective, Around the Globe, Bible Insights for Today, Personal Reflections, prophetic insights, The Apostolic Church, The Bible /by ralph

It is an historical fact that Jesus came and was born in Bethlehem, grew up in Galilee, ministered in Israel, died on a Roman cross, and rose again from the dead, ascended into heaven, and sent the Holy Spirit to be with us.

It is a prophetic fact that He will be coming again.

However, His second coming will look drastically different from His first…

      • The first time Jesus came to earth, He came as a baby. When He comes back, He will come as a full-grown king.
      • The first time Jesus came to earth, He came lying in a manger. When He comes back, He will come riding a white horse
      • The first time Jesus came to earth, He came in weakness and meekness. When He comes back, He will come in power and glory.
      • The first time Jesus came to earth, He came to pay for the sins of the world. When He comes back, He will do away with all sin.
      • The first time Jesus came to earth, He came as a suffering servant. When He comes back, He will come as a conquering master.
      • The first time Jesus came to earth, He came as a sacrificial lamb. When He comes back, He will come as a roaring lion.
      • The first time Jesus came to earth, He suffered momentarily on the cross. When He comes back, He will make sure that Satan will suffer for all eternity in hell.
      • The first time Jesus came to earth, very few people in a town called Bethlehem knew about it. When He comes back, everyone on earth will know who He is.
      • The first time Jesus came to earth, only a few wise men bowed down before Him. When He comes back, every knee will bow down before Him.

There will be a few similarities:

      • The first time Jesus came to earth, He came because He loves you. When He comes back, He will come because He loves you.
      • The first time Jesus came to earth, He came because He remembered you. When He comes back, He will come because He remembers you.

Yes, contrary to popular belief, Someone has come and is coming again. He cares. His Name is Jesus.

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The Knowledge of Jesus

January 28, 2020/in Apostle's Perspective, prophetic insights /by support

Last time we were chatting about “the spirit of wisdom and revelation” (Ephesians 1:17). And, we saw the necessity for releasing revelation in our lives as believers and disciples of Jesus. Let’s continue with the verses we are looking at.

Ephesians 1:16-18a “I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened …” (ESV)

The Passion Translation: “… my heart is always full and overflowing with thanks to God for you as I constantly remember you in my prayers. I pray that the Father of glory, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, would impart to you the riches of the Spirit of wisdom and the Spirit of revelation to know him through your deepening intimacy with him.

I pray that the light of God will illuminate the eyes of your imagination …”

The key to receiving revelation is found in coming to know Jesus better and deeper every day. The spirit of wisdom and revelation is released in direct relationship to our level and depth of intimacy with God the Father and Jesus His Son. When we are born again God, our loving heavenly Father, gives us a gift. This gift is deposited in our born again spirit. Romans 6:23b states, “… the gift of God is eternal life.” This is not ‘to live forever’ because all human life ever conceived lives forever. The gift called ‘eternal life’ is defined for us in John 17:3 … “This is eternal life, that you may know God the Father and Jesus Christ whom He sent…” The word ‘know’ means “intimacy with.” We have the supernatural ability to ‘intimately know’ God the Father and Jesus, our Lord and Saviour.

The more we come to know Him the more godly wisdom we will have. Not worldly wisdom but godly wisdom (James 1:5). The more wisdom our hearts hold the more revelation we will receive. So, our focus in the coming months must be to know Jesus better. The real Jesus. The radical revolutionary that we see in the pages of the four gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The same radicalness that transfers over to the apostles and the early believers when they were born again and baptized in the Holy Spirit. Their story starts in the book of Acts and continues through all the letters addressed and written to the church fellowships in various cities and towns as the gospel was preached and the Kingdom spread pushing back the darkness.

Get to know Jesus. Look at how He lived. What did He value? What did He say and how did He say it? How did He treat people? Who were His friends? How did He disciple and mentor His followers and disciples? What was His relationship with non-believers like? His attitude? His prayer life? His heart for the people? These and many other questions can be answered as we read the four accounts of His life and ministry. But, as we read we need to read slowly and let the words and actions of Jesus sink deep into our hearts. We need to dwell on what we see and discover. We need to apply the truths we are observing about His life to our own lives … so we can become more and more like Him as the Scriptures state so clearly.

There is much that can be said in this regard …

John 15 – He is the Vine and we are the branches

John 14 – You will do what I do 

Acts 17 – “In Him we live and move and have our being”

But, like Paul the apostle we should pray a second prayer…

Philippians 3:10 “that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death…” (ESV)

The Passion Translation: “And I continually long to know the wonders of Jesus more fully and to experience the overflowing power of his resurrection working in me. I will be one with him in his sufferings and I will be one with him in his death.”

Let’s view 2020 as a gift from the Lord to come to know Him intimately; deeper and better than ever before.

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