Hello everyone!
The Sunday message series, “An Open Heaven” has come to a conclusion – five messages more than what I imagined last August. I am sensing that quite clearly. My prayer has been that this series will have helped you to step out with a hunger for the things of God in our day. As a boy I would read the scriptures and imagine myself standing with the great heroes of the faith in their day. In my imagination I would stand with Elisha on Mount Carmel as fire came down on that altar, or I’d imagine I was one of Gideon’s magnificent 300. I would imagine myself keeping guard on Jerusalem’s broken walls with Nehemiah … I would dream of being one of the 72 sent out by Jesus to do the work of the kingdom amongst the villages.
I walked with Joshua into Jericho, in my imagination … and I would watch time and again in my mind’s eye, as David slew Goliath that day on the battlefield between Israel and Philistia. I would sit with Ezekiel on the banks of the Kebar River and try to see and understand what he saw, and I would imagine the scene when Joseph was reunited with his brothers after all that time. I tried to see in my mind’s eye the opening of the new temple and the glory of the Lord’s presence in which no one could stand. I loved the scriptures that painted a picture for me of my Father God who was powerful, patient and holy … and who would choose very (apparently) ordinary people through whom to do mighty things for His name. I hungered to be in those ancient scenes and see, and hear, and feel and know the experiences of my God doing such awesome things.
I still dream and imagine like that … I’m still hungry for it …
I dreamed of so much and imagined so much as a boy reading the scriptures, that I recently realised that my journey through those ancient stories – all of which are true! – had embedded in me a deep hunger to serve the Lord and see His kingdom come. That’s all I ever wanted to do. I wanted to serve Him and see Him do the same great things I had read about. I remember a particular occasion when that hunger intensified in me. It was a Tuesday morning in winter, when I was unwell and unable to go to school. I was 13 years old. The rain was belting down on the tin roof of my semi-detached bungalow-type room between the house and the garage. The thunder was deafening and the rain increased in intensity. I was snuggled in my bed reading my bible and I came to the place in Hebrews where it is written …
Hebrews 13:8 (NIV) “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
My eyes were suddenly glued to that one line … I clearly remember an urgent quickening in my spirit … and I remember asking the Lord about it. As I prayed I receive the most wonderful insight. In that moment God showed me (just a kid), in that verse, how everything Jesus ever did was repeatable – excepting the work of the cross and resurrection – everything else was repeatable.
Everything!
None of it was a once only thing … and suddenly so many other scripture passages made sense to me. It was like a light turned on my mind, and they became very, very real. Scriptures like …
Mark 16:15-18 (NIV) 15 Jesus said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”
And this …
Matthew 28:16-20 (NIV) 16 “Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
It was just a single day later that I came across these words of Jesus in John’s Gospel.
John 14:12-14 (NIV) 12 “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”
The hunger to see the things that Jesus did and be part of it all happening again got a hold of me. I wanted to do what He had been doing! I am pretty sure that wintery week I spent ill was the time when God called me into ministry – it’s the clearest moment of call I can pinpoint. Looking back, that was the week when I knew a hunger to serve him and to do the things Jesus did, and even greater things, became my passionate pursuit. There developed in me a holy dissatisfaction when my church could not agree with me …
There was something new for me that week, in my spirit, that I did not have before. I had imagined and dreamed about being part of what God was doing in the ancient scriptures way back then … so many awesome things happened back in those days. But the eyes of my spirit fell upon Hebrews 13:8 that Tuesday morning … and I became hungry to see Jesus repeating those kinds of marvellous things … in our day, through me, and my church.
FINAL WORD
Us believers, regardless of how much faith we have, still tend to set limits on God despite what we agree to in His Word – what we see, and read there. We agree with Hebrews 13:8, but tend to not really understand the implications. Jesus never set limits – He certainly didn’t mention any, did He? No! Just the opposite. He said things like: “Whatever you ask for in my Name…”, “All things are possible”, “Ask whatever you want”. Whatever you want! Because HE is the same yesterday, today and forever – He hasn’t stopped His ministry, and it now includes us (Matt. 28 and Mark 16) – the church!
From a young age, I have been thinking, and wondering what’s possible in our day? It disturbs me that Jesus said these kinds of things, but the actualisation of the results of these pronouncements are all too rare in our lives. Are these kinds of things still possible today?
That day when the apostle Peter started preaching the Gospel in Cornelius the centurion’s house in Acts 10, he started by saying, “I have learned that God is no respecter of persons” that God does not show favouritism. He will use anyone, or reveal himself to anyone whose heart is right with him, not just pastors or elders or special people – there is no spiritual elite with God. He is no respecter of persons, and Peter, himself, had only just learned that the day before in a vision on a rooftop in the port city of Joppa where God showed him this truth.
Here’s the thing: these two statements – both of which are true – God doesn’t show favouritism, and He is the same yesterday, today and forever; they give us legal access to everything God has ever done before. Everything! Think about that. He will do the same for you as he did for Moses.
In our day!
I heard someone say once (I just cannot remember who it was) that if sweet did not exist you couldn’t hunger for it. You can’t hunger for what doesn’t exist. If sweet did not exist, you can’t hunger for it. For believers spiritual hunger for what exists in God always precedes prophetic causation. Spiritual hunger opens the way for prophetic words that bring a shift, or that open a door, or that brings a new season, or even brings revival. It is not prayer alone, or longer prayer meetings for weeks on end that brings prophetic shifts, or that triggers off prophetic creativity, or prophetic causation. No! Prayer is the vehicle by which we communicate with God, fellowship with God, and by which we express our spiritual hunger until the prophetic thing is released to us … or the prophetic shift occurs, or something starts to be drawn from a future day into the present day out of the eternal sovereign plan of God.
Friends, I don’t know about you, but I cannot live properly, or with any spiritual integrity as a Christian man, knowing that these awesome things in scripture are possible and repeatable in our day - and then not pursue them for the kingdom cause and the glory of God. I have never been able to live like that … I have to know, and so I pursue them.
Because there is a great hunger in my heart that just won’t go away … and I don’t want it to!
You are wonderfully, tenderly loved …
Ps Milton