Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Help Wanted
Only a few months after officially taking the helms of this blog, I have a confession: I stink. Royally. And to make matters worse, I have a serious case of blog envy.
The main problem, as I see it, is time. I just don't have enough of it. (I know, I know ... it's a universal complaint—deal with it, right?) Behind the scenes of Ministry Today, there's a ton of changes going on. I love changes. In fact, I'm always excited by new things. But I've also been through enough changes to know that they always usher in a season of sacrifice. In my case, that season has involved a significant increase in workload, which has invariably cut into how much blogging I can do. In between the deadlines, meetings, planning, writing, editing ...
At this point, 75 percent of you reading this just cranked up the ol' violin theme music. Either that or you're about to click to another Web site, some other blogger who can handle the stress without whining to his or her readers. BUT WAIT!!!
Here's the deal: I'm honestly dying to know how you bloggers do this. Because the truth is, we're all busy. We all have too much on our plates, say yes to too many people and, in the name of being ministry leaders, take on too many burdens both in the workplace and outside of it (as if those lines are ever clear). So what am I missing?
Every day I get to work and, in my 30 minutes or so that I allot each morning to research, run down my list of "can't miss" ministry blogs. Right now that includes guys like Mark Batterson, Perry Noble, Tim Stevens, Tony Morgan ... the list seems never-ending of leaders who somehow have this blogging thing down pat. And I'll say it again: I'm sinfully jealous! I'm sure each lives a life as hectic, if not far more hectic, than mine. Many of these guys are senior pastors and company CEOs, for crying out loud! And yet each seems to squeeze enough time to share a thought or two each day—and, most of the time, a valuable thought at that! (Otherwise I wouldn't keep coming back to their blogs, now would I?)
So how do you do it? What's the secret to successful blogging? How do you find time to regularly post something meaningful and worthwhile (yet concise) without it significantly eating into God time, family time, personal time, the occasional R&R time, etc.?
YOUR TURN: See previous paragraph. And I'm dead serious: I need advice! :)
The main problem, as I see it, is time. I just don't have enough of it. (I know, I know ... it's a universal complaint—deal with it, right?) Behind the scenes of Ministry Today, there's a ton of changes going on. I love changes. In fact, I'm always excited by new things. But I've also been through enough changes to know that they always usher in a season of sacrifice. In my case, that season has involved a significant increase in workload, which has invariably cut into how much blogging I can do. In between the deadlines, meetings, planning, writing, editing ...
At this point, 75 percent of you reading this just cranked up the ol' violin theme music. Either that or you're about to click to another Web site, some other blogger who can handle the stress without whining to his or her readers. BUT WAIT!!!
Here's the deal: I'm honestly dying to know how you bloggers do this. Because the truth is, we're all busy. We all have too much on our plates, say yes to too many people and, in the name of being ministry leaders, take on too many burdens both in the workplace and outside of it (as if those lines are ever clear). So what am I missing?
Every day I get to work and, in my 30 minutes or so that I allot each morning to research, run down my list of "can't miss" ministry blogs. Right now that includes guys like Mark Batterson, Perry Noble, Tim Stevens, Tony Morgan ... the list seems never-ending of leaders who somehow have this blogging thing down pat. And I'll say it again: I'm sinfully jealous! I'm sure each lives a life as hectic, if not far more hectic, than mine. Many of these guys are senior pastors and company CEOs, for crying out loud! And yet each seems to squeeze enough time to share a thought or two each day—and, most of the time, a valuable thought at that! (Otherwise I wouldn't keep coming back to their blogs, now would I?)
So how do you do it? What's the secret to successful blogging? How do you find time to regularly post something meaningful and worthwhile (yet concise) without it significantly eating into God time, family time, personal time, the occasional R&R time, etc.?
YOUR TURN: See previous paragraph. And I'm dead serious: I need advice! :)
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Greetings!
I just started blogging 5 wks ago. As I did my household chorse this afternoon (I am a SAHM = stay at home mom - you will see that a lot in blogosphere) so these are unending. But,I was taking to the Lord, what the purpose was, basically refining the original purpose of my blogging activity. I asked Him, what are You preparing me for? I am open to it, just show me. & Look - you need help! Such as I have I will give to you! 2 things to make you much more efficient -
1) Subscribe to blogline or feedblitz, something like that so that you are emailed when they update - automatically.
2) in the evening when you are watching TV or whenever you have time to put pen and paper together - scratch out your daily topic, (granted you might not do one every day - but try to keep up with this - or you lose readers) anyway - then when you can get to the PC you can just type it up or even better if you have the kind of asst that you can trust to massage it to say it in YOUR words, then it can be promptly posted that a.m.
Continuously pray that God will draw His people to your Blog, pray that His Words will come out through you...be very purposeful in the theme, flavor, message that He has put in your heart for this Blog to be. You can't be all things to all people. He has a distinct message to speak through you at your blog, know it and stick to it!
Get your wife to take on this prayer covering as well... Consider that you are going to occupy in His Name on the net, be very cognizant of this.
You will have success that is the God kind of success, not about numbers, but, about destiny!
God bless!
Maria
I just started blogging 5 wks ago. As I did my household chorse this afternoon (I am a SAHM = stay at home mom - you will see that a lot in blogosphere) so these are unending. But,I was taking to the Lord, what the purpose was, basically refining the original purpose of my blogging activity. I asked Him, what are You preparing me for? I am open to it, just show me. & Look - you need help! Such as I have I will give to you! 2 things to make you much more efficient -
1) Subscribe to blogline or feedblitz, something like that so that you are emailed when they update - automatically.
2) in the evening when you are watching TV or whenever you have time to put pen and paper together - scratch out your daily topic, (granted you might not do one every day - but try to keep up with this - or you lose readers) anyway - then when you can get to the PC you can just type it up or even better if you have the kind of asst that you can trust to massage it to say it in YOUR words, then it can be promptly posted that a.m.
Continuously pray that God will draw His people to your Blog, pray that His Words will come out through you...be very purposeful in the theme, flavor, message that He has put in your heart for this Blog to be. You can't be all things to all people. He has a distinct message to speak through you at your blog, know it and stick to it!
Get your wife to take on this prayer covering as well... Consider that you are going to occupy in His Name on the net, be very cognizant of this.
You will have success that is the God kind of success, not about numbers, but, about destiny!
God bless!
Maria
Hello my long lost friend- you keep eluding me! It doesn't help that I don't answer your emails either.
I don't blog- so I can't give a lot of advice... but you know those thoughts that go through your head just before you go to bed? jot them down- the main points, and then write about that in the AM----- funny coming from me- the queen of the stay up late and write...... and freetofly had some great ideas- and i will help with the prayer cover my friend...
always........
I don't blog- so I can't give a lot of advice... but you know those thoughts that go through your head just before you go to bed? jot them down- the main points, and then write about that in the AM----- funny coming from me- the queen of the stay up late and write...... and freetofly had some great ideas- and i will help with the prayer cover my friend...
always........
# posted by 
: 9:06 PM
: 9:06 PM
HOUSE OF CARDS
Luke 6:47-49 Whosoever comes to me, and hears my sayings, and does them, I will show you to whom he is like: 48He is like a man which built an house, and dug deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock. 49But he that hears, and does not, is like a man that without a foundation built a house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great.
Matthew 16:17-19 And Yahshua answered and said unto him, blessed are you, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood has not revealed it unto you, but my Father, which is in heaven. 18And I say also unto you, that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19And I will give unto you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
As I was watching the biography of the life and ministry of Evangelist Billy Graham on television, I became deeply aware of how important it is to finish right. I am convinced that when Evangelist Billy Graham goes on to his reward that the outstanding way in which he lived his life and the way he finished will speak more to the world than the few mistakes in judgment he made along the way. At the end of his biography, he said, that he did not want men to say good things about him, or to hail him as some great minister when he was gone. He said that all he wanted was to hear Yahshua say, “well done you good and faithful servant, enter in to joy that I have prepared for you”.
With that statement, I heard his heart and I saw how important it is to have a testimony of a well-lived life and a strong finish.
As you read this article, I can only hope that you will hear my heart and know that my purpose for writing it is to touch all of us in a way that will help us steer back on course. I want to challenge all of us to use what life we have remaining to the praise of His glory.
It is time for all of us to accept responsibility for who we have become, or not. It is no longer an individual or singular responsibility. Your individual contribution does not carry the value and importance of your corporate worth. For some of us, we can only hope to redeem the time that we have remaining and live as circumspectly as possible.
It is with some sorrow of heart and great humility that I present this article to you. I am appealing to the corporate man. I am not trying to sight any one problem or experience. If I wrote all day, I would fail to scratch the surface concerning the personal tragedies that I have seen, heard about and experienced over the last few years.
No one person or ministry is responsible for the derelict condition of the majority of the body of Messiah. We are all responsible for failing Yahweh and one another in one way or the other. If you are unwilling to look at the pitiful emaciated condition of the body of Messiah with me and if you feel that this message in no way applies to you, then please stop reading it and do not share it with anyone else. My prayer for you is that you will realize before it is too late how isolated and alienated you have become from the rest of us. I am not talking about any one isolated case. If I were, I would tell you how that of all men I am most blessed. I have laid hold of my destiny and I am more fulfilled today than I have ever been. The local house that I oversee is one of the finest groups of people that a man could have the privilege of serving.
No, instead, I am talking about how pitiful and weak the overall body of Messiah has become. We have lost our way and the world knows it. We have all but lost our ability to affect change or influence the world in which we live. We have become the butt end of comedic jokes and the laughing stock of prime-time television sitcoms. We are powerless to change ourselves or anyone else. The world that we live in does not see anything that really interests them. In a time that we should be teachers we have need of someone to teach us again the principles of truth that we have forsaken.
As I travel out beyond the local house that I oversee, I am absolutely appalled at the reality of defeat in the body of Messiah today. Sin, sickness, disease, poverty, failure, iniquity, perversion, divorce and moral failure, have run rough shod over everything that we represent to the world and have wreaked havoc throughout the body of Messiah in proportions that exceed the scriptural accounts that we have been given to help us avoid such pitfalls. All of this corruption has in one way or another touched or infected all of our lives in ways that we have yet to understand.
We have all forsaken our habitations and left our post unmanned and unguarded, at some point, for this horrific condition to exist in the body of Messiah at this level. You might not be personally experiencing the devastating effects of the mystery of iniquity that already works in your own personal life; but you are still a part of a body of believers that has been infiltrated, raped, ravaged and killed by the enemy.
It is time for those who are called to equip the body of Messiah for the works of service to rise up, take their place in the ranks and shut up and march. What I mean by that statement is, either give yourself to Yahweh and to the work, or simply find something else to do for a living. It is time for Yahweh’s leaders to lead from a position of righteousness and truth. It is time for truehearted men of integrity to emerge on the scene with a passion for liberating truth in their hearts and the power of purpose in their lives. It is time for all of us to take a closer look at how far we have strayed and fallen away from the word of life and return with ferocity to the place of right relationship with Yahweh. We must do it now, if we are going to do it.
If we refuse to hear and obey His word, turn our hearts and change in the ways that He is requiring us to change, I fear that in the end we will be numbered among those who represent just another generation of dead men that have passed from this life without making any significant difference in the earth.
The apostolic decree of the hour is “change is eminent”. We are without excuse. Yahweh once winked at ignorance; but now He is calling all men everywhere to repentance. It is time for the fivefold ministry to show the house to the house in the way we love Yahweh and in the way we love and receive one another. It is time for a true functioning fivefold ministry to arise in resurrection power with the message of life in their mouth. We need to stop talking about working together and simply do it. We have placed far too much importance on our own individual contributions in the earth and with that have many times refused to receive the other ministry gifts that are in place to help equip the body of Messiah.
Apostles and Prophets are the world’s worst about working together and, most of the time it is because they see and approach things from a different vantage point. It is easier for all of us to just do what we do without having to be irritated by one another.
We would rather remain in the safe haven of our own camps, with our own kind than to chance being intimidated, irritated, or challenged by each other’s significant differences in the body of Messiah. I have, personally, been in the presence of men that I love and respect, to hear them berate and take cheap shots at one another because of the differences that exists between apostles and prophets and the way they see and approach things.
My problem with present day apostolic order, as it is currently established, is that it is self-serving and destructive. For the most part those who call themselves apostles and prophets are still trying to exact honor, referral and respect from men and women in the body of Messiah without accepting the responsibility of ongoing relationship. They expect you to support the work that they are doing extra-locally, without the expression of genuine care and concern for your life. And in many cases they do not have the time or ability to properly watch for your soul anyway.
It is time for the body of Messiah to rise up in strength against false apostolic and prophetic ministry and refuse to be railroaded by self-serving, honor seeking, ambitious men and women who call themselves apostles and prophets, but are not. Who have the audacity to think that they can rule in a person’s life from a position of absentee fathering, an occasional telephone call, a cassette tape, or paid visitation rights. It sickens me to think that we have just changed hats and titles without consideration for what is at stake and without anything real or living coming out of the relationships we have established. It is time for the body of Messiah to search out the true fathers who will nurture, train, develop and raise them up to serve in the body of Messiah, and rule in the earth. With this in mind, let us return in our hearts and ways to the time tested methods of fatherhood that we know will produce leaders and winners in the next generation.
I challenge those of you who believe that you are a spiritual father to someone, to really begin to lay your life down and impart your heart to only those for whom you have a genuine love and concern. Give your heart and life to the men and women that Yahweh has birthed in your heart. You will only have love and grace for the men and women that you have received into your heart. If you don’t know where you are going, what makes you think you can help us get to where we are going? If Yahweh has shown you the way, show us.
If Yahweh has shown you what and who we are becoming, then help us with the hand of an understanding father, to arrive at our destiny safely and in one piece. Don’t call a man son, who is not truly joined at the heart by the Spirit to you. It will only lead to your frustration and his destruction. Make room for people in your life at different levels of relationship. You are not everyone’s father. The scripture teaches us that, “We have not many fathers”. It should remind us that we shouldn’t have many sons. We should not attempt to father anyone for whom we have no real love and quality time. It also asks the question, are all apostles? Are all prophets? Etc. The proper answer is no.
I challenge those of you who are not serving the body of Yahshua as an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor or teacher to begin to pray and listen to Holy Spirit concerning your need for a true spiritual father in your life. It is your responsibility to ask, seek and knock on the doors of men’s hearts until you find the one who will accept the challenge and who has the love and grace evidently working in his life to represent the Father’s heart to you. It will radically change your life forever and with that in mind will secure your future in the kingdom, as well as the ongoing work of the ministry. If you should find a true spiritual father, pursue him, walk with him, listen to him, and be with him and commune with him. Lastly, honor him and the relationship with the firstfruits of you increase. Your firstfruit is a Holy thing. It belongs to Yahweh. It is the highest expression of a covenant relationship. The blessing of the Father flows through the one with whom you are joined. Be sure that you bless the one who represents the head, because in doing so you secure your place in the earth. The blessing of the father is passed down to the sons. Be a true son. Receive your inheritance from the one who is a true father.
Yahshua said, “Upon this Rock I will build My house and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it”. With the enemy’s destruction so evident in our midst, we must ask ourselves, if this is the house that Yahshua is building? Are we really building our lives on the solid rock foundation of the revelation of Yahshua? Or is there yet more to be learned and more to impart?
Are we destined to live our lives out, die at a relatively young age, and pass on unnoticed by the generation that will come after us? All of these questions and more demand an answer.
The answer that I hear is, this is not the house that Yahshua is building and the house that we are building is probably not being built on the revelation of Yahshua the Messiah. Instead it is a house of cards that we are building.
If you remove one card out of the middle, it will fall to the ground and the world will forget overnight what it looked like. We must return to a biblical foundation. We must hear and obey the voice of Holy Spirit. We must be willing to change.
All of these things are prerequisites for the coming move of Yahweh. Without every one of these truths in its proper place, Yahweh will move through our worlds and we will only recognize that He has been there after He passes us by. Many of the “apostolic and prophetic works” of this day and hour have tried to build their houses exclusively on revelatory knowledge, disregarding and even discarding the eternal importance of the principle truths of the Holy Scriptures. Yahweh has recently turned my heart in a few areas. I am so thankful that He was able to get my attention before it was too late. I am a changed man today, because I was able to hear His voice again and make a few adjustments to my course. Now, I believe that I will finish the race with dignity and honor. I so want to glorify Yahweh with a life well lived. I too want to hear Him say, “Well done you good and faithful son enter into the joy that I have prepared for you in this life and in the life to come” Who is building your house? Who are you building on? Is your house a house of cards? Or is it a flood proof, hurricane proof house made of inflammable building material. Yahshua is the Rock. He is the foundation. He is the master builder. Let us all turn to Him with our whole hearts and see the spiritual super structure that He is building finished.
(Written by Blake Higginbotham in 2001 and republished because we are now in the middle of the greatest reform that the world has ever seen.)
The question that I still have four years later is, will we listen or will we continue to say is there another? :)
Luke 6:47-49 Whosoever comes to me, and hears my sayings, and does them, I will show you to whom he is like: 48He is like a man which built an house, and dug deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock. 49But he that hears, and does not, is like a man that without a foundation built a house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great.
Matthew 16:17-19 And Yahshua answered and said unto him, blessed are you, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood has not revealed it unto you, but my Father, which is in heaven. 18And I say also unto you, that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19And I will give unto you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
As I was watching the biography of the life and ministry of Evangelist Billy Graham on television, I became deeply aware of how important it is to finish right. I am convinced that when Evangelist Billy Graham goes on to his reward that the outstanding way in which he lived his life and the way he finished will speak more to the world than the few mistakes in judgment he made along the way. At the end of his biography, he said, that he did not want men to say good things about him, or to hail him as some great minister when he was gone. He said that all he wanted was to hear Yahshua say, “well done you good and faithful servant, enter in to joy that I have prepared for you”.
With that statement, I heard his heart and I saw how important it is to have a testimony of a well-lived life and a strong finish.
As you read this article, I can only hope that you will hear my heart and know that my purpose for writing it is to touch all of us in a way that will help us steer back on course. I want to challenge all of us to use what life we have remaining to the praise of His glory.
It is time for all of us to accept responsibility for who we have become, or not. It is no longer an individual or singular responsibility. Your individual contribution does not carry the value and importance of your corporate worth. For some of us, we can only hope to redeem the time that we have remaining and live as circumspectly as possible.
It is with some sorrow of heart and great humility that I present this article to you. I am appealing to the corporate man. I am not trying to sight any one problem or experience. If I wrote all day, I would fail to scratch the surface concerning the personal tragedies that I have seen, heard about and experienced over the last few years.
No one person or ministry is responsible for the derelict condition of the majority of the body of Messiah. We are all responsible for failing Yahweh and one another in one way or the other. If you are unwilling to look at the pitiful emaciated condition of the body of Messiah with me and if you feel that this message in no way applies to you, then please stop reading it and do not share it with anyone else. My prayer for you is that you will realize before it is too late how isolated and alienated you have become from the rest of us. I am not talking about any one isolated case. If I were, I would tell you how that of all men I am most blessed. I have laid hold of my destiny and I am more fulfilled today than I have ever been. The local house that I oversee is one of the finest groups of people that a man could have the privilege of serving.
No, instead, I am talking about how pitiful and weak the overall body of Messiah has become. We have lost our way and the world knows it. We have all but lost our ability to affect change or influence the world in which we live. We have become the butt end of comedic jokes and the laughing stock of prime-time television sitcoms. We are powerless to change ourselves or anyone else. The world that we live in does not see anything that really interests them. In a time that we should be teachers we have need of someone to teach us again the principles of truth that we have forsaken.
As I travel out beyond the local house that I oversee, I am absolutely appalled at the reality of defeat in the body of Messiah today. Sin, sickness, disease, poverty, failure, iniquity, perversion, divorce and moral failure, have run rough shod over everything that we represent to the world and have wreaked havoc throughout the body of Messiah in proportions that exceed the scriptural accounts that we have been given to help us avoid such pitfalls. All of this corruption has in one way or another touched or infected all of our lives in ways that we have yet to understand.
We have all forsaken our habitations and left our post unmanned and unguarded, at some point, for this horrific condition to exist in the body of Messiah at this level. You might not be personally experiencing the devastating effects of the mystery of iniquity that already works in your own personal life; but you are still a part of a body of believers that has been infiltrated, raped, ravaged and killed by the enemy.
It is time for those who are called to equip the body of Messiah for the works of service to rise up, take their place in the ranks and shut up and march. What I mean by that statement is, either give yourself to Yahweh and to the work, or simply find something else to do for a living. It is time for Yahweh’s leaders to lead from a position of righteousness and truth. It is time for truehearted men of integrity to emerge on the scene with a passion for liberating truth in their hearts and the power of purpose in their lives. It is time for all of us to take a closer look at how far we have strayed and fallen away from the word of life and return with ferocity to the place of right relationship with Yahweh. We must do it now, if we are going to do it.
If we refuse to hear and obey His word, turn our hearts and change in the ways that He is requiring us to change, I fear that in the end we will be numbered among those who represent just another generation of dead men that have passed from this life without making any significant difference in the earth.
The apostolic decree of the hour is “change is eminent”. We are without excuse. Yahweh once winked at ignorance; but now He is calling all men everywhere to repentance. It is time for the fivefold ministry to show the house to the house in the way we love Yahweh and in the way we love and receive one another. It is time for a true functioning fivefold ministry to arise in resurrection power with the message of life in their mouth. We need to stop talking about working together and simply do it. We have placed far too much importance on our own individual contributions in the earth and with that have many times refused to receive the other ministry gifts that are in place to help equip the body of Messiah.
Apostles and Prophets are the world’s worst about working together and, most of the time it is because they see and approach things from a different vantage point. It is easier for all of us to just do what we do without having to be irritated by one another.
We would rather remain in the safe haven of our own camps, with our own kind than to chance being intimidated, irritated, or challenged by each other’s significant differences in the body of Messiah. I have, personally, been in the presence of men that I love and respect, to hear them berate and take cheap shots at one another because of the differences that exists between apostles and prophets and the way they see and approach things.
My problem with present day apostolic order, as it is currently established, is that it is self-serving and destructive. For the most part those who call themselves apostles and prophets are still trying to exact honor, referral and respect from men and women in the body of Messiah without accepting the responsibility of ongoing relationship. They expect you to support the work that they are doing extra-locally, without the expression of genuine care and concern for your life. And in many cases they do not have the time or ability to properly watch for your soul anyway.
It is time for the body of Messiah to rise up in strength against false apostolic and prophetic ministry and refuse to be railroaded by self-serving, honor seeking, ambitious men and women who call themselves apostles and prophets, but are not. Who have the audacity to think that they can rule in a person’s life from a position of absentee fathering, an occasional telephone call, a cassette tape, or paid visitation rights. It sickens me to think that we have just changed hats and titles without consideration for what is at stake and without anything real or living coming out of the relationships we have established. It is time for the body of Messiah to search out the true fathers who will nurture, train, develop and raise them up to serve in the body of Messiah, and rule in the earth. With this in mind, let us return in our hearts and ways to the time tested methods of fatherhood that we know will produce leaders and winners in the next generation.
I challenge those of you who believe that you are a spiritual father to someone, to really begin to lay your life down and impart your heart to only those for whom you have a genuine love and concern. Give your heart and life to the men and women that Yahweh has birthed in your heart. You will only have love and grace for the men and women that you have received into your heart. If you don’t know where you are going, what makes you think you can help us get to where we are going? If Yahweh has shown you the way, show us.
If Yahweh has shown you what and who we are becoming, then help us with the hand of an understanding father, to arrive at our destiny safely and in one piece. Don’t call a man son, who is not truly joined at the heart by the Spirit to you. It will only lead to your frustration and his destruction. Make room for people in your life at different levels of relationship. You are not everyone’s father. The scripture teaches us that, “We have not many fathers”. It should remind us that we shouldn’t have many sons. We should not attempt to father anyone for whom we have no real love and quality time. It also asks the question, are all apostles? Are all prophets? Etc. The proper answer is no.
I challenge those of you who are not serving the body of Yahshua as an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor or teacher to begin to pray and listen to Holy Spirit concerning your need for a true spiritual father in your life. It is your responsibility to ask, seek and knock on the doors of men’s hearts until you find the one who will accept the challenge and who has the love and grace evidently working in his life to represent the Father’s heart to you. It will radically change your life forever and with that in mind will secure your future in the kingdom, as well as the ongoing work of the ministry. If you should find a true spiritual father, pursue him, walk with him, listen to him, and be with him and commune with him. Lastly, honor him and the relationship with the firstfruits of you increase. Your firstfruit is a Holy thing. It belongs to Yahweh. It is the highest expression of a covenant relationship. The blessing of the Father flows through the one with whom you are joined. Be sure that you bless the one who represents the head, because in doing so you secure your place in the earth. The blessing of the father is passed down to the sons. Be a true son. Receive your inheritance from the one who is a true father.
Yahshua said, “Upon this Rock I will build My house and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it”. With the enemy’s destruction so evident in our midst, we must ask ourselves, if this is the house that Yahshua is building? Are we really building our lives on the solid rock foundation of the revelation of Yahshua? Or is there yet more to be learned and more to impart?
Are we destined to live our lives out, die at a relatively young age, and pass on unnoticed by the generation that will come after us? All of these questions and more demand an answer.
The answer that I hear is, this is not the house that Yahshua is building and the house that we are building is probably not being built on the revelation of Yahshua the Messiah. Instead it is a house of cards that we are building.
If you remove one card out of the middle, it will fall to the ground and the world will forget overnight what it looked like. We must return to a biblical foundation. We must hear and obey the voice of Holy Spirit. We must be willing to change.
All of these things are prerequisites for the coming move of Yahweh. Without every one of these truths in its proper place, Yahweh will move through our worlds and we will only recognize that He has been there after He passes us by. Many of the “apostolic and prophetic works” of this day and hour have tried to build their houses exclusively on revelatory knowledge, disregarding and even discarding the eternal importance of the principle truths of the Holy Scriptures. Yahweh has recently turned my heart in a few areas. I am so thankful that He was able to get my attention before it was too late. I am a changed man today, because I was able to hear His voice again and make a few adjustments to my course. Now, I believe that I will finish the race with dignity and honor. I so want to glorify Yahweh with a life well lived. I too want to hear Him say, “Well done you good and faithful son enter into the joy that I have prepared for you in this life and in the life to come” Who is building your house? Who are you building on? Is your house a house of cards? Or is it a flood proof, hurricane proof house made of inflammable building material. Yahshua is the Rock. He is the foundation. He is the master builder. Let us all turn to Him with our whole hearts and see the spiritual super structure that He is building finished.
(Written by Blake Higginbotham in 2001 and republished because we are now in the middle of the greatest reform that the world has ever seen.)
The question that I still have four years later is, will we listen or will we continue to say is there another? :)
To would encourage you to get an account with Technorati and track all your blogs that way. For instance, here's the one page I turn to to see all the latest blogs I follow. Might make things easier.
If you check out my blog, it obviously is only updated about once a month. I too need to get off the Write Something Long and Important track, and just write something regularly.
all the best,
-joshMshep
If you check out my blog, it obviously is only updated about once a month. I too need to get off the Write Something Long and Important track, and just write something regularly.
all the best,
-joshMshep
Marcus,
You are doing a tremendous job! Just blog when you can...just some short thoughts; and leave the great thinking articles to Mark Batterson!
He does make me want to go back to school!
:)
You are doing a tremendous job! Just blog when you can...just some short thoughts; and leave the great thinking articles to Mark Batterson!
He does make me want to go back to school!
:)
1. Use an RSS reader. I use Google reader.
2. Stay focused. Find a niche and stick to it. If you write about to much your blog will seem incoherent and you will never feel like you have adequately covered anything.
3. Don't follow your stats. It will only drive you crazy. Do quality writing frequently and readers will follow.
4. Realize 30 minutes a day will not produce a quality, professional blog. Imagine having a newspaper byline that you spent a half hour a day on.
5. Have fun!
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2. Stay focused. Find a niche and stick to it. If you write about to much your blog will seem incoherent and you will never feel like you have adequately covered anything.
3. Don't follow your stats. It will only drive you crazy. Do quality writing frequently and readers will follow.
4. Realize 30 minutes a day will not produce a quality, professional blog. Imagine having a newspaper byline that you spent a half hour a day on.
5. Have fun!
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