by Chris Welch on Sunday, 03 October 2010 at 17:34 Facebook
So you're in a theme park . Your eight and ten year old looked up at the rollercoaster in terror, especially as their friends had told them that somewhere in the middle of the ride the Egyptian boat turns round suddenly and drops backwards down a gulley into a splashpool.
Eventually with firm encouragement you all go together on the ride.Because you are older and bulkier, the twists and turns are felt more violently and you're not sure you want that experience again, but as you leave the exit doors, your kids bounce up and down and shriek those dreaded words ......
DAD, CAN WE GO AGAIN?
My point is this. Is there a point in our third level life where we become sufficiently numb to the actual intercessory process, that literally all we can think about is "the hope that is set before us", the fruit from the last "ride of destruction" and what can we do next to detonate a bit of Satan's lying kingdom off the face of the Earth's surface.
James seemed to get here. "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance." It also produces fruit. New birth.Life out of death. New churches.
Facebook readers and God's church in general seem to be divided on this passage:
Acts 21:10After we had been there a number of days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. 11Coming over to us, he took Paul's belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, "The Holy Spirit says, 'In this way the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles.' "
12When we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. 13Then Paul answered, "Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus." 14When he would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said, "The Lord's will be done."
15After this, we got ready and went up to Jerusalem.
Those that "have a thing about " Paul , probably because they are encouraged to think this way by modern secular teaching, call him arrogant at this point. Those that have any inkling about how 3rd level living works just roll around the floor laughing.
Those that build their tabernacles around the charismatic experience and particularly prophetic gifts are horrified by Paul's unsubmissive behaviour. He clearly needs to send for Rick Joyner's or John Paul Jackson's Prophetic DVD series.
I love that phrase "Why are you weeping and breaking my heart?"
Can I open up my present position to everyone? I am part of and serve a very good church in Havant. There is tremendous flow in the meetings. The participation level is among the highest I have seen anywhere in 38 years. This morning was no exception as people gathered round the senior leaders Peter and Mariette Stott. After 28 years (the C of E is just 7) they are taking a sabbatical. Not because they think "enough is enough. Blow this for a lark!" But because God has specifically revealed they should. Simultaneous with this God has indicated that the revival they have been seeking for 50 years is poised to occur, gathering forces just off most of the South Coast of England.
But here am I watching this flow...but with the same sort of detachment that Paul experienced above. I'm not denying the flow. I'm not saying it isn't of God. I'm not even denying that there will be revival. I'm not even denying that there's so much more 2nd level anointing to be had...gifts of healing....abilities to pray for other believers....pastoral understandings......
But I feel worried. Why? I suppose in the same way that Moses felt when God said "You shall go up to the land , but I will not come with you." Moses said "What d'you mean you won't come with us? You've got to come with us. I'm not going anywhere unless You go with us."
For 50 years we've prayed for revival in the UK. The last one was 1949 or something in the Hebrides, followed by thousands upon thousands converted in one way or another through Billy Graham. God might just answer our cry for revival.
But it might not be at a level that God is currently moving. In other words it could be another rehash of a first or 2nd level revival, but God's Now Presence, and His Now revelation of Him living in us as us....without the Genesis 3 separation...might not even be a feature.
So again we produce a generation of half-baked Christians, who haven't a clue of what God has done within them, and so spend another 50 years meandering around wondering what on earth this Spirit Life is all about, until the birth of another future revival.
Paul didn't deny that a prophet had spoken. He didn't deny "the flow of emotion" among those gathered...
he just said STOP! (sound of record needle scratching in a groove followed by silence)
"I am ready not only to be bound but also to die at Jerusalem..."
In other words...forget the 2ndlevel crap(I count all things as dung remember)....it's the 3rd level now. It's the father stage where we lay down our lives for others in order that we see real supernatural and swift growth in the Earth. Kindly shutup please while we pack up our bags!
Acts 14:19-21 had already described this incident:
But some Jews arrived there from Antioch and Iconium; and having persuaded the people and won them over, they stoned Paul and [[a]afterward] dragged him out of the town, thinking that he was dead.
20But the disciples formed a circle about him, and he got up and went back into the town; and on the morrow he went on with Barnabas to Derbe.
21When they had preached the good news (Gospel) to that town and made disciples of many of the people, they went back to Lystra and Iconium and Antioch,
So you've got the disciples knowing the power of gathering round people in circles. Witches do this too. But in the Holy Spirit it is like creating a glory forcefield around someone in the Name of Jesus. So Paul gets up, ready to testify in the quiet of someone's household meeting about how he had been raised up. Not a bit of it. He went back into THE SAME TOWN ready for his next missionary trip to Derbe.
So here we have one particular man getting to grips with the 3rd level and how it works. As we glean from the letters and Acts there is pacing. There are periods in jail. Periods of glory where you go around commanding the shots. Like the two occasions Paul produced his trump card according to the flesh. "I am Roman, so what right have you to judge me?" he even demanded that the leaders who had imprisoned him, escort him out with apologies." Ofcourse if you are still stuck in 2ndlevel religiosity you mistake this for flesh life. But then you've been playing religious games so long you wouldn't know about the other side of the Cross, when you get your life back, and you bounce back, twice as much "there" as you were before, much to everyone's consternation. http://080808onnowto.blogspot.com/2008/11/wahoo-zowie-i-get-myself-back.html
3rd level Kingdom of darkness sabotage operations aren't like the 2nd level sit down and plan it all out evangelistic campaigns.
For a start we know very little about the Father's larger operation. He keeps doing new off the wall things. About the time everyone has caught up He's long moved off doing something else entirely. When Jesus said to his disciples I nolonger call you servants but friends,He was inviting them in to share His own walk. But His own walk was limited. Right now Jesus is in His "4th level", He has graduated with honours from His earth walk to a position of glorified man (the first of many brethren) who is seated at the right hand of God the Father, running the whole show from there. His earthly walk was limited in the sense that he had to continually be open to what His Father was doing next and flow with it. This is our "3rdlevel" mature walk now....seeing what Jesus is doing and flowing with it. We are not just servants, we have been called into Union. His life has become our life. We are wombs for His next operations.
2ndlevel intercessory activity means nights of prayer rattling off in tongues at some Holy Spirit inspired target.
3rdlevel activity is when the Enemy comes for you, and anything you do causes ructions.
We have an example in Acts 16:16-19 16 It happened that as we were going to (AK)the place of prayer, a slave-girl having (AL)a spirit of divination met us, who was bringing her masters much profit by fortune-telling.
17Following after Paul and us, she kept crying out, saying, "These men are bond-servants of (AM)the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation."
18She continued doing this for many days. But Paul was greatly annoyed, and turned and said to the spirit, "I command you (AN)in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her!" And it came out at that very moment.
19But when her masters saw that their hope of (AO)profit was gone, they seized (AP)Paul and Silas and (AQ)dragged them into the market place before the authorities.
In different cycles and forms right through Acts, and gleaned from the letters, we see Paul learning the pacing and cycles of " deaths and resurrections" in order to bring forth life in others. There is the gift of utterance. There are the manifested gifts of the Spirit.There are the kickbacks. there are even the times of just "running for it and getting the heck out of there". There is the preaching into the religious settings and there is the preaching opportunities set up by God as a result of extraordinary events...or there are the Christ inspired opportunities created through Paul himself : for example thinking up the ruse of the "Unknown god" in Athens.
I want to finish this post by repeating what I have recently written about the gift of utterance. In my last blog post I make reference to 3rd level ministry/father stage ministry role of sharing Christ with those in the "young men" stage of development. This is typified by the shewbread around the fellowship table in the Holy Place. When we are young in the Spirit we shoot our mouth off. We rattle off scriptures. We mix worldly wisdom with godly wisdom. We share natural light with supernatural revelation.Our time is our own . We preach whether God is in it or not. Watchman Nee covers this in detail in the book of his notes : "The Release of the Spirit"
Psalm 42 speaks of "Deep calls unto deep". That which is Spirit, reproduces. Human waffle does very little.
Jesus said to His brothers in John 7, "Your time is always with you."
Jesus didn't move according to human timing and expectations....but often times He was bang on time for a prophetic Feast fulfilment.
In the first and second level Christian environments it's easy. You draw up a plan of sermon subjects and get different people to deliver them. In the 3rd level Christ is speaking by a gift of utterance precisely the Kingdom Word that addresses the particular spirit of darkness that is currently manifesting. It is much more like the pattern of Genesis 1 where God the Father and the Son speak into a situation of total chaos and darkness Light itself. This is the pattern of 3rd level preaching. It is on a completely different suoernatural level from anything our minds could come up with of themselves. This is truly why the Word says we have the mind of Christ. Bryan Coatney's poem describing this captures it superbly in One Million Thoughts.
http://080808onnowto.blogspot.com/2010/09/poetry-break-coatneyvelveteen.html
As soon as we engage with the kind of life decision that is described in Romans 12 :1-2, we become that "rollercoaster ride" that is the very womb of the Kingdom itself. What God is raising up however is a generation, a network of such Kingdom operators to co-work all over the Earth. We know what was accomplished by anointed single men, (fire-starters,ignition burners) in times past, we can only imagine what happens when teams of such 3rd levellers begin moving together. See the Ship Propulsion Unit vision here: http://080808onnowto.blogspot.com/2009/03/comparing-how-ships-are-powered-with.html
No comments:
Post a Comment