We all can identify and relate with leaders and others who carry the same passion and discontentment as we do. We are immersed in the same culture, which should be a kingdom culture when relating to each other and in covenant with those leaders. I believe that when a person finds his or her spiritual company, whether it’s in business, education, entertainment, government, the medical field, arts, or any other system, the person will connect with those who share the same field and craft.
Just like in the natural, a person is born into and shares his or her last name with family members for the purpose of identification. As it is in the natural, so it is in the Spirit. When a person is regenerated by the Spirit, they come into the kingdom. I believe locally there are leaders, ministries, churches, networks, and businesses in the marketplace and fellowships where people can be a part of and identify with the family that they have been baptized into. It’s a culture that is represented, and if a church is earmarked with miracles, the prophetic, deliverance, healing, or wealth, then all that is a part of that specific culture. That family will have all things in common, because they all share in the revelation, breaking of bread, imparta-tions, training, teaching, etc.
IMMERSED IN REVELATION KNOWLEDGE AND TRUTH
The Bible tells us of a time when Paul was meeting some people that needed to be brought into the present truth of the baptism of the Spirit. They were stuck in John’s baptism. The people needed to come into something relevant and current to be effective in advancing the message of the kingdom in the first century. Paul the apostle, who was called to the Gentile world, had a responsibility to bring people into the new and baptize them in Christ’s baptism of the Spirit and not John’s baptism by water unto repentance.
Whenever we receive new revelation by the Spirit of God, we must be immersed into that truth and revelation so that it will shape our belief system, therefore allowing us to be consistent with what God is doing and saying. In other words, we should be immersed in the prophecies that we receive from the Lord, which cause to come into being that which the Lord said would happen. Being baptized into the family indicates that we are held accountable; are connected, relational, team players; and are submitted to one another in love.
We need kingdom ministry that will raise up, train, identify, and deploy Holy Spirit-filled, mature leaders into the world. I never had to go tell the pastor of a local church who I was or what I was called to do because I just did it. At the age of seven years old I was already prophesying and seeing things in the Spirit, having encounters with angels, and learning the voice of the Lord. I just could not identify or put a title to what I was already functioning in. It was the gift of God working on the inside of me. The gift was growing as I was growing. There was no one in my family that had these types of keen giftings and abilities. In addition, there was no one in my life that could train or mentor me in that call. I had to learn everything by the Holy Spirit in prayer, reading of the Word, fasting, and by faith as a child.
All of the prophetic encounters that my brother and I had were very rare and unique. We could not tell anyone about it, but only each other. We learned a tremendous amount and used to minister to each other in the prophetic in the days of our youth. My brother and I would prophesy and share words of warnings, wisdom, knowledge, and encouragement with strangers and anyone we came in contact with.
People would ask us how we knew the things that we knew about them. This was something that we were born with, and we learned later through many prophetic words by prophets that we were called to the prophetic ministry. This was a gift and grace given to us by the Lord. Others took notice of it very quickly because we seemed strange, particular, special, weird, and even crazy. The world labeled and named us strange, but our God called us His servant prophets.
A PERSON’S GIFT WILL BECOME A GREAT HOST FOR THEM
We must understand that our gifts make room for us, and it will bring us in the presence of those with great influence (Prov. 18:16). It does not matter if people do not receive who you were born to be in the earth or if they do not believe in present-day prophets and apostles. The point that I am trying to make is that your gift creates rooms of opportunity for those who do believe and receive you. Know that in God’s timing you will be established in your calling. Having a license or ordination paper still does not validate that someone has been called or is ready for full-time ministry. Even those who are called to ministry and have been ordained are not automatically validated or guaranteed that they will be successful and bear much fruit of that calling.
So again, there is nothing wrong with cross-pollinating with others of like heart, mind, calling, and vision, but to pursue them solely for the purposes of a religious organization making you something that you have not been born to be is what I call “identity default” and “identity crisis.”
Consequently, when men try to look for man to make them something, not allowing God to make them who He has preordained, then that person is walking in an identity crisis. That person is a man-pleaser and seeker, not a God-pleaser and seeker. Usually one’s calling, potential, and destiny can be confirmed and affirmed by seasoned leadership, but ultimately Jesus is the true Commissioner of His ambassadors.
The most dissatisfying indictment is to see people that are desiring and coveting something that God has not called them to be and searching out religious organizations to ordain them. There is a spirit of pride, idolatry, and perversion in operation when a person covets other people’s gifts, callings, and natural possessions. We must understand that those being something that they have not been born, wired, and engineered by God to be may bring the judgment of God upon themselves.
BE ON GUARD AND PROTECT YOUR GIFT
The Gospel of Luke describes Jesus’ warning to guard one’s heart against covetousness when it says, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses” (Luke 12:15, NKJV). Jesus also describes the sins that defile a person as sins coming from untamed desires in the heart. The Book of James portrays covetous desire residing in the heart as being the internal source of temptation and sin. James the apostle goes on to describe how covetous desire leads to fighting and that lack of material possessions is caused by not asking God for them and by asking with wrong motives. He said, in essence, “You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.”
It is imperative not to covet anything that God has not given you or ordained you to be. Usually those who do covet lack true identity in God and are operating in a spirit of self-deception. When a person does not really know what they have been born to be, it causes them to deny their God-given right to function properly in their call. It’s like a man who was born a male and one day takes it upon himself to alter his physical appearance through major surgery to become a female. This is truly an act of perversion, rebellion, confusion, pride, and double-mindedness. The Bible says that we are fearfully and wonderfully created. God does not make any mistakes. When He created you He said that you were very good. You have God’s approval to be all that you desire you to be. You must know that there will never be another you born in the earth again. This statement is profound; when you were born, you were born an original, and when you die, you do not die being someone else or a copy. While you are still alive, maximize your full godly potential and be all that you were born to be. Do not allow others to make you compare yourself to others, because then you become what they say you are and not what God created you to be.
God is very much involved in every person’s life from the very beginning, even at the beginning of conception. You are the spiritual offspring of the Lord, and He loves His children from the beginning of birth and from the time you were birthed out of the womb of your mother. Children are very special to God since they are a gift of God (Ps. 127:3). Because God is very much involved in every person’s life from the beginning, this makes everyone special from the beginning.
CREATED FROM THE MIND OF GOD
Let
’s consider the Scripture below on the subject of being “born” and “created,” which is very important to understand biblically and from a godly perspective. The passage of Scripture from which the title of this book is taken is Psalm 139. We are God’s creation, as we read in the Psalms: “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb” (Ps. 139:13, KJV). God made you for His divine purpose. He formed—“created”—what the text refers to as “inward parts.” In Hebrew it means literally “kidneys.”71
You may think that I am talking about what we usually think of as our own kidneys today, but rather it is our mind. This would be more in accordance with Jewish patterns of thought at the time David wrote this psalm. (See also Revelation 2:23.)
Psalm 7:9 (KJV) says, “Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end; but established the just; for their righteous God trieth the hearts and reins.” In this passage of Scripture David was revealing that God tests one’s heart and knows the inner man or mind. I am reminded of when God told Samuel the prophet that He doesn’t see as man sees, because men see the outward appearance but God sees the heart of men (1 Sam. 17:7).
Understanding this will hopefully cause us to be responsible as good stewards. We will not use the body that God has given us in ways that would morally pollute it (1 Cor. 6:19). God wove you like a tapestry or like clay on the potter’s wheel; each of us is a multi-complex creature (Exod. 26:36). All of our parts work together harmoniously; each part has a different function to accomplish and depends on the other parts (1 Cor. 12:14–18). God works with the skill that confounds man.
When God formed that initial human pair, He skillfully added mechanisms that would operate on the basis of natural law so that they would be able to re-create themselves. The Psalmist correctly identifies God as the Master Worker and Planner, who is the source of our origin and DNA.
GOD’S CREATIVE MASTERPIECE
God does not create a mistake and trash. He makes wonderful, creative works. God can turn all for good, for His glory, to make us more like His dear Son, Jesus. God spoke to Jeremiah through this observation when He told him to go and watch the potter at work in Jeremiah 18:1–5.
This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then the word of the LORD came to me. He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel.
We must ask, Are we listening to God through our day and hearing Him as He speaks to us through the ordinary? God was trying to get Jeremiah to understand that He was the Potter and that Jeremiah’s destiny, call, life and journey was in His hands, thereby showing him His creative nature. So, that being said, even if a person does not know what they have been born and created to do, that does not mean it’s the end of the world or that they missed their calling. Just know that God is working things out on your behalf and will prepare you in due season for the work. A person does not need to covet another when he or she is secure in that which God has called them to do in their generation.
Remember that prophetic identity is traced back to your birth and even before you were born. Looking for affirmation from men can cause one to compromise or forfeit their own assignment. I have come into contact with people who had actually prayed to the Lord to make them something without asking the Lord what He has called them to be. Ministry idolatry, seeking to be something that you were not born to be by the Lord, is a sin. Ephesians and Colossians describe the sin of covetousness as a kind of idolatry and then also list this as sin, along with sexual immorality and impurity, which give rise to the wrath of God. I must say that if a person does not walk in and fulfill what God has originally ordained for their lives, they may walk under the judgment hand of the Lord.
70 Eckhardt, Dictionary of the Apostolic, second edition, 94–95.
71 Blue Letter Bible, s.v. “kilyah,” www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H3629 (accessed June 4, 2013). See also the King James Study Bible (previously published as The Liberty Annotated Study Bible and as The Annotated Study Bible, King James Version; Copyright © 1988 Liberty University.) Reference to word “kidneys” is found in the center-column index references and notes, copyright © 1988 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. on page 863 of referencing Scripture of Psalm 7:9 KJV. In center-column reference to another meaning to the word “reins” means inner man or minds, Lit, “kidneys” in Hebrew thought.
Chapter Sixteen
JESUS BORN TO FULFILL PROPHECIES
So they said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet: ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, Are not the least among the rulers of Judah; For out of you shall come a Ruler Who will shepherd My people Israel.’”
—MATTHEW 2:5–6, NKJV
WE CAN SEE that there were prophecies spoken before Jesus was ever conceived from His mother’s womb. Herod and all of Jerusalem were troubled by just the announcement of His coming. Jesus was equipped and created to be King of not only the Jews but the King of all that believe on His name and receive Him into their lives.
Jesus did not have to have an earthly ordination through or anything physical to signify that he was born a King like earthly kings because His kingdom was not of this world. Jesus was born a King, and that spoke of His identity. When the Magi came with gifts, they came with gifts that they would give a king. They were not concerned about if He had a throne, kingdom, or people, but the sign in the heavens declared the prophetic fulfillment that a king had arrived. Jesus did not have to make an announcement like most religious people do that they are a prophet, apostle, or this and that; but instead He came meek and low-spirited. The Bible says, “Unto us a child is born, unto a son is given, and the government will be on His shoulders” (Isa. 9:6). This prophecy speaks of the coming King, ruler, and governor of God’s people.
Jesus was birthed out of prophecy. The religious system and culture of His time were intimidated by Him because He not only demonstrated in word but also deed. Just the word that a governor and ruler would be born of the Jews shook the whole religious and civil system. During the first two years of Jesus’ life, there were mass murders of young children under the age of two because Herod was angry that another king would emerge.
Just imagine the reaction of Satan and demons when they heard prophetically about your birthing. You must realize that when you and I were born, not only were you born a child of the Most High, but also we were given dominion (godly authority to rule in the earth). A believer must understand their true identity in God and know that when they were regenerated and baptized into the kingdom by the Spirit of God they became a king-priest.
Like Jesus, when you were born again in the spirit, all of hell was shaken. As a King Jesus exercised godly authority in the realm that He was given authority over. Jesus, being King, had to know His prophetic destiny and the will of His Father while growing up in life. He was not a novice in the things of God. Jesus fulfilled every prophecy spoken of Him.
Jesus, as King, knew how to conduct Himself as ambassador sent from the Father to redeem humanity back to the Father. Jesus came from His kingdom, which is an eternal, spiritual kingdom and not earthly. When we were born again, we were born into the kingdom. We have been translated or transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light (Col. 1:13). We have been born to rule. The kingdom is our inheritance. It is the Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom. It’s not an earthly, carnal, worldly kingdom but spiritual. Jesus knew how to operate in the kingdom, and a majority of His messages concerned the gospel of the kingdom.
YOU WERE NOT AN ACCIDENT BUT BORN ON PURPOSE
The kingdom of God is within us. Jesus’ birthing was not an accident, nor is your
birthing an accident. You have been sent to the earth to fulfill something unprecedented for the Lord in your time and generation. Jesus was sent to the earth also to destroy the works of darkness, sin, hell, death, and the grave. That sounds like a king to me, one who came to conqueror sin and place all things under His feet. Jesus fulfilled every prophetic word to the letter. The Bible says that every jot and tittle of that word would be fulfilled.
Jesus was the Promise of the Father. He was sent, and so are you. God had called you by name, and you were born to live so that in death others may live through you. You were born to leave your mark in society. You were born to change and shake the world. You were born to fulfill every prophetic promise of the Lord. Jesus is our perfect example.
My heart breaks when I hear people wanting to commit suicide. I know life has its circumstances and issues. Life can be hard at times. One may feel like it’s the end of the world and wonder, What’s the purpose for living? My answer to that question is that you are the purpose for living. Someone needs you to live. Just your very existence speaks volumes.
You were born to make a difference in your world. God said that you are the light of the world and the salt of the earth. That statement is very profound, because God is saying that the earth and the world need you and that your influence changes it. Jesus was not just born King, but He was God with us. Jesus’ very own name, like Jeremiah, was prophetic. His name means “Savior”! He was the Savior of the world. His name is Christ, meaning “the Anointed One.” Jesus was anointed of the Father and sent to redeem mankind back to right relationship with the Father. Even the religious leaders of Jesus’ time were looking for a king and did not recognize that God was among them.
REJECTION BRINGS PROMOTION
Jesus, like many of us, has experienced being rejected and not received. Jesus was also the Stone that the builder rejected, but He became the chief Cornerstone. We must understand in our walk with the Lord that everyone is not going to celebrate, believe, or receive you. I believe prophetically that we need to experience some degree of rejection, because it causes us to look to the Lord. Rejection, I believe, causes a person to overcome being men-pleasers and a compromiser and causes confidence in their election of the Lord. Jesus was rejected by His very own people, and He didn’t take His own life; therefore you have much to live for.
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