How to Get God’s People into the Right Place

You know, I am amazed at the Lord’s fight to secure His church and to fulfill His word. Curiously, very few ministers I talk to today realize that beyond our earthly ministries the Lord has an entire kingdom to run. He listens to prayers every day and searches the world to find humans, ideally genuine Christians; that He can rely on to be His answer to those prayers. His obstacle stems from far too much mysticism and magic that has upstaged His pristine mysteries and His Spirit’s potent manifestations. Many Christians cannot tell the difference between the two. Add to this the ongoing ministry rival turf wars snarling up His plans and agenda, it is a wonder the Lord gets anything He envisioned done on earth in any generation. But miraculously, He does. This talk is meant to be what I hope is an eye opener. Paul asked God to open His people’s eyes of understanding back then; I think today that prayer is as fresh as ever.. If the Lord is going to launch His new move before what is coming down on the planet and the church hits, His people’s eyes truly must be opened and their understanding enlightened, beginning with the fact that Christianity was not made for the Christian but for its God. That is a debate I am sure I will not avoid in the future, but it is true nonetheless.

So what are we talking about here? We are talking about God’s people getting in their right places so they can get out of His way. We are talking about the new move the Lord wants despite His people’s persistent revival of the old. We are talking about apostles first learning who and what they are and taking their place to lead it all. For these things to happen God needs the right people in the right place, with the right attitude for the right reasons. And, the time is now. I would love to talk with some of you apostles and prophets about this in-depth because I believe we are poised to see this thing take off. Perhaps, God will arrange a way for us to do that in the very near future

So Here is What It Takes
To launch what He plans and forestall what is coming, God needs those who know and care about what He is doing in His kingdom and church in the eras to come, who are not so obsessed with what He has done that they forestall what He needs to do. Interestingly, many people think they have made this transition already, but most are self-deceived because they do not know what it looks like outside of their own views. They are at a loss on how it translates into action. God on the other hand, has many weighty things pressing down on Him in His effort to save His church and maintain its freedoms in a rapidly darkening world. He has millions of souls begging Him to intervene in world affairs every day. Agonized believers plead with Him who are bearing the brunt of the darkness’ campaign to rid the world of Jesus Christ and His church. What many modern Christians do not understand is that God has to answer their prayers with people, ideally with the people that populate His kingdom of light and oversee His church in the world. That would include you and me. But, if we fail to get in place, the Lord is forced to let those cries ringing in His ears daily go unheeded and the suffering that initiated them to continue. Where God is concerned, more than our ministries are at stake. His word is on the line. He is as obliged to those who have wrestled long and hard with the darkness as He is to His promises made to an indolent church that is blind too to see His big picture. All of these are why He has determined to shift His body from the old to the new.

However, a new move requires more than agreement, it requires an overhaul. Its requirements have more to do with God’s resources and provisions, called in theological parlance His economies and dispensations, than with the masses. When the Lord ends a movement, He withdraws, as human institutions do, His forces and resources. The spiritual beings assigned to it are called home or reassigned and the provisions and powers they brought with them taken from the agents and representatives of the old and given to the new. Here is what happened with David and Saul. When Saul’s day was over, everything the Most High had released to his monarchy shifted to David’s in heaven and on earth. David’s Psalms clearly show that he understood this. The entirety of the nation’s substance, wealth and yes problems and issues, were all transferred to David upon his replacing Saul. The same is true with Moses whose material and spiritual supplies likewise shifted to Joshua as seen by the angel (captain of the Lord’s hosts) that appeared to him in Joshua chapter 5. All of this is to say that more that observation, recognition, or agreement go into being ready to move on with God. Using the wilderness settlements of ancient Israel in scripture as a model; today’s new moves must follow suit. There must be a significant dismantling of the old that brought us to this place. What was good should be taken with us and resettled with either new materials or structures. Or, it should be shifted to a new spiritual as well as natural location in heaven and on earth. Naturally, the old guard cannot shift the Lord’s kingdom to the new, however discomfiting this reality may be. Those that cannot make the move must be replaced with new voices, faces, passions, and zeal.  New anointing, appointments, and institutions mark a new era in God. The old guard typically has neither reason nor incentive to disrupt their comfortable success to comply with what He needs. A new guard in contrast starts out with God’s heart and less external influences to threaten His impending change. They are more unencumbered than the old who may have many fidelity and financial strongholds to contend with that can prevent them from transitioning without great cost and loss. These are why He must raise up new people to ignite His new moves: only a few are bold enough to sever the ties with the old that bind them to it.

In the case of the move to apostleship from evangelicalism and charismata, the demands are no less stringent. New move change agents are going to have to make up their minds to surrender all and take up fully the new. They are going to have to uproot and preempt much of what they relied on to in the past. New move change agents will have to depose everything that bars their entry into the new, beginning with their own hearts. They are going to have to be willing to bid a fond but necessary farewell to old familiarities, sentiments, and covenants. This is hard and when explored in the light of family, friends, opportunities, and advantages, it can be intimidating and overwhelming. That is why so many people are tempted let the Lord just pass on by them as He did when He in the gospels called other apostles to join His campaign on earth.

Truly in these last days His words in response to their reactions to Him ring true, “Many are called, but few are chosen.” Let us keep this in mind as we explore the heart and agenda of God during this very pivotal time in kingdom history. Millions of souls today will soon be faced with a once in a lifetime date with destiny, I pray we all choose wisely and do not renege on our word once we learn the true cost of what we chose to let go to follow Him.

God bless you,

Dr. Paula Price

Apostolic Prophets

An apostolic prophet is one whose makeup, experience, and exposure to the kingdom (more than the ecclesial) side of ministry and its governmental matters above all else capacitates them to work side by side with apostles of like spheres of calling. This type of prophetic service arrangement would be recognized biblically as the Paul and Silas team where Paul the apostle chose and traveled with Silas, a prophet. Such a team is unique in that the role of the prophet in this capacity is to undergird the apostle, explain and exemplify the work of apostleship and the apostle’s message, and to link prophecies and prophetic wisdom and insight to the apostle’s commission and dispensation. Often this type of assignment for a prophet can be a stepping stone to the apostle’s office or the bishopric.

A biblical example of this possibility is found in the ministry of John the Baptist whose disciples, Peter, James, John, Andrew, and a few others, were inducted by Jesus in His apostleship and renamed apostles for this purpose.  Likewise these men’s service to John the Baptist, the prophet, qualified them to be used by the Messiah as His apostolic cabinet. Proportionately speaking, very few prophets are suited to this type of ministry because the delicate balance it takes to assure each minister’s duties, responsibilities and authority remain intact and useful to the other is great. Respectful mutuality is the heartbeat of this relationship; without it the pairing of the two mantles is fruitless.

Apostolic Prophets are typically advanced prophets who served the Lord well in itinerant ministry and as institutional or organizational prophets. Such prophets are well learnt, well traveled, and veterans in their ministry spheres. Novice prophets would not do well as apostolic companions unless they are enlisted for preparatory training and apprenticeship in conjunction with the accompaniment. Otherwise the weight of the apostle’s mantle and the meticulousness of its outlook and expectations will overwhelm and often dishearten the developing prophet. Apostles, for these reasons, should take great care when selecting and engaging a prophetic companion. Stringent screening, testing and orientation should precede all such decisions. Furthermore it would be wise for the apostle to assign a specified probationary period to prophets who are chosen to accompany them at first that includes advanced skills building, practice simulations, and regular periodic reviews. These should all be documented. Additional parameters should be well defined and perhaps involve concrete guidelines to regulate the arrangement. Moreover, the prophet’s duties should be specified and tracked so that there is no confusion over what is to be discharged in the position.

A suitable probationary period could be at least three years with the understanding that an additional two years may be assigned should the experience be unsatisfactory and yet promising at the same time. After this amount of time, the potential success or failure of the union is a matter of record and both parties should accept that they are not a good fit for each other. With this, careful consideration must be given to the prophet’s personal and domestic life before the offer is made to engage the minister as an apostolic companion. Prophets who are married with families should be closely evaluated to determine the entire household’s ability to withstand the companionship. Not all marriages are built to withstand a public ministry or to sustain absentee spouses. Apostles should find this out early before seriously contemplating using a particular prophet in this capacity. Disgruntled spouses and resentful children can prove very destructive to both ministers’ ministries if such situations cannot be worked through and resolved in advance. Therefore, the training and orientation of the entire family should be included in the readiness program, with counseling and evaluation of the spouse given priority before the prophet is assured the position.

Finally, mentorship, the prophet should understand, lies at the very heart of apostolic-prophetic companionship. As such, the accompanying prophet should expect to be wholly accountable to the apostle he or she serves. In this regard, the prophet should remain open to the inherent ongoing developmental and instructional nature of the union, as well as the enjoyment of its public appearances. Prophets who have met all the above criteria for a minimum of five consecutive years are good candidates for apostolic companionship.

Wouldn’t You Like to Know About Prophetic Companies? Part One

From time to time, I am impressed of the Lord to write to you about one of the two ministries that He is focusing much of His attention on right now. That, in this case, would be the apostle and the prophet. This two-part article concentrates on the prophet. In particular, it addresses the Lord’s impending restructure of prophetic ministry. Here I focus on the one organizational structure that scripture alludes to God’s model for organized prophetics; it is that of the Prophetic Company. Because of the importance of prophets gathering today, the time proven strength in numbers principle that secures any institution must come into play. That has to happen if the prophets’ struggle for acceptance and respectability is to begin and hold. In the first of this two-part discussion, I talk about the single hindrance to prophetic unity that must be removed if this work is to succeed in the present era. It is the routine typically perceived as boring that most people would give their souls to avoid.

For decades, I have been asked all sorts of questions on the prophetic. As many of you know, I devoted the main of my ministry years researching and answering these questions and publishing them in various texts. Over the years, the Lord has been reinstituting this office and settling it as a permanent fixture in His New Creation church. As He has done so, He has released increasingly profound revelation about the office and how it should function in the modern church, and its societies. These will continue to surface until the Lord finally gets the institution He is going after; which is a prophetic institution not consumed with rivaling Satan’s, but one that resurrects the mantles and ministries of the successful Bible prophets. Such an institution takes work, requires order and structure, and can only flourish in an atmosphere of uniformity. Uniformity rests on routine.

In a direct contradiction to the popular gift driven charismata we have all grown up on that implies the spectacular is the norm for the Almighty, in truth God is the opposite. He once told me, as that He is in the routine. He wanted me to know that without the routine the spectacular could never be. As I pressed Him to explain what He meant by what He said, He reminded me that the sun, moon, stars, seasons and times are all products of routine. Humans may vary their daily behaviors from time to time, but even they eventually settle into some sort of routine. Routines rely on several things, such as standards, uniformity, consistency, habitual practices and regularity. Without these, what stabilizes life, everything that prospers it, empowers and enriches it never has time to happen. For instance, harvests take time. Crops grow in their appointed seasons. We rely on night and day to plan our activities, to sleep and awake. Regular hours help our companies run productively and permit us to earn the wages that sustain our lives. Everything about us subsists on routines. Schools, government, businesses and even recreation and vacations all hold to routine schedules and seasons. You depend on your favorite establishment to open on time, but to close when it says it will, too. If it closes early when you counted on it to be open until a certain time, you are frustrated when you find it closed. Very disastrous things happen when life and society break their word and vary their routines. Routines tell us what to respect, how to plan and what to do to succeed. They make things predictable and whether we like to admit it or not, predictability makes us feel safe and confident. They let us know how to live life on purpose.

No matter how unencumbered a person may be with the duties and responsibilities of life or how disengaged he or she is from the world’s mundanity, everyone in some way or another falls into routine patterns of living. Routines are rooted in customs, they are how standards and norms are born, and they become the rule of thumb. Laws impose routines because they aid continuity and inspire the standards that give us the consistency we need to build trust. Routines characterize things that have been around a long time and they let us know who is taking care of us in this life. Qualities like credibility, perpetuity, and reliability all depend on routines; it is how they all get their start. We all take a wait and see attitude with newcomers and new things, demanding them to prove themselves to win our trust. The proof we look for comes from observing their consistency, stability, and responsibility. It is what we use to confirm these. Routine is what has been lacking in the prophetic.

People today are still wondering about its future. Will it survive, thrive, become safe and established, or will it finally fizzle out and if it does, what will cause its fizzle? The answer in a word is routine. Some synonyms for it include normal, habitual, efficient and professional. Additionally, things like schedules, customs, habits and practices, and regularity join them as the results of routine. All of these are words used by organizations to gain people’s trust and assure their successful continuance. They are how organizations earn and attract a following. By the way, organization is another lacking feature of today’s prophetic, and routines enable that as well. Both grow out of consistency. Consistency adds the dimensions of constancy, stability, and steadiness to routines’ uniformity and regularity. Put all of these together and you get the point.

Until the prophetic uniforms itself, it will remain fractured, unsteady, and suspect to those it hopes to serve. Distrust will be its ruin because it fails to surrender to the single mandate imposed on all creation, establishment of a regular routine. How can it avoid this fate? By uniting, and not just its mantles, ministries and exploits. Every member and leader called to this service must unite in thought, practice, habit, and criteria. While uniting for single or periodic events is a start, these are not what will standardize the institution enough to make it trustworthy or enduring. That is tantamount to networking and networking is only a baby step in the right direction. However, what the prophetic needs to thrive calls for fusing teachings, doctrine, motives and pursuits. With these, isolating the common mentality and consciousness typical of prophetic ministers is equally important.

All of these essential elements of prophetic service are the “leave behinds” that will secure it when this generation is gone. That is why I am writing you this article on the Prophetic Company. It is one organization that will see to the prophetic’s unity, uniformity, routine and regularity. Through it, the systems, methods, and premises that characterize the prophetic are born and executed. Quality, effectiveness, efficiency, efficacy and excellence are all impossible without organization, which in turn is impossible without unity, and it impossible without uniformity. Together, these all encourage and rely on the standards, criteria, and the host of other values that safeguard and elevate an organization. Every one of them is born out of a simple thing called routine. It is how long standing institutions got their start, and if we are going to preserve the prophetic, we must surrender to them to protect it. It is the responsibility of every prophetic minister to preserve this vital ministry of the Lord, and those to be served by it as well. The first step is isolating what is common—routine—about it instead of chasing its spectacularities. That is its miracles, wonders, sensationalism, melodramas and theatrics. These should all be replaced with a sobriety that should spark its eventual unification. It is essential to the standards that bring it honor and esteem. As you think on what I have said here, take some time to review the meanings of the word routine below and apply them to what you think would stabilize the prophetic.

1.       A routine is a course of normative, standardized actions or procedures that are regularly followed.

2.       A routine is a discipline that focuses on the methods used to create order.

3.       A routine is a prescribed, detailed course of action to be practiced habitually.

4.       A routine is a set of customary and often mechanically performed procedures.

5.       A routine is a customary procedure to be performed with regularity.

6.       A routine is a series or order producing tasks, chores, or duties that are commonplace to specified endeavors.

7.       A routine is a typical, everyday activity that either is proceeded by or adheres to the standard principles of routine.

8.       A routine is that which is habitual, ordinary, and typical. It is the regular, unvarying, habitual, or rote.

9.       A routine is a prescribed, detailed course of action observed as a standard procedure to be practiced in accord with established procedures or a particular rule of order.

Think about the above statements and envision how they would be helpful to settling the prophetic and organizing it to achieve credibility. Share some of your thoughts with your learners, friends, colleagues or mentees. Let me know how it turns out. I would love to hear your feedback.

God Bless!

Church Prophet Lifestyle and Posture in the Church

Prayer, separation from the world, and devotion to God are the phase-one acts of prophetic preparation.  After these, a rigid adherence to the Spirit and Word of God alone ensures church prophets consistently deliver the pure words of the Lord to those in their care. Neglecting such requisites and fraternizing constantly with the household are the greatest dangers to prophets’ accuracy.  Here is why.

Excessive mingling with those they serve can cause prophets’ devotion to their charge to overrule the will of the Lord in certain situations.  Hearing too often their problems, needs, and plights first hand can so arouse prophets’ compassion or opinions that they can confirm what the Lord may not have ordained.  The incident of King David’s desire to build a house for God in the book of 2 Samuel 7:1-29 makes this point.

As you can read from the account, the prophet Nathan’s constant interactions with David caused him to give David a word from the sphere of the obvious.  He prophesied the obviously predictable when asked by David if he thought God would be pleased if the king built Him a house in which to dwell.  Nathan told David to go on and build God a house, because his experience with the king had shown him how pleased Jehovah was with king David.  In the prophet’s mind, God’s good pleasure was so abundantly evident in the king’s life that He could not possibly deny David the honor of building Him a temple.  After the prophet gave God’s consent to the king, he was later sent to reverse his word following a vision he received that night.  It is a good thing the prophet Nathan was not too proud to reverse his word with the king and give the real word of the Lord on the matter.  Many prophets today would not do so for fear of professional embarrassment or being labeled false prophets.

This excerpt was taken from The Prophet’s Handbook by Paula A. Price, Ph.D. Get yours today!

God Moves through People…Period

From Genesis to Revelation the pattern is set, God moves through people.  New moves likewise begin with new people.  The course is set and those chosen to ignite what the Lord will do are waiting in the wings.  The old guard, angelic and human, are wrapping up.  In the heavens, the shift is complete since it has been moving on God’s calendar since time began, because heaven is earth’s timepiece.

From the dawn of time, God seeks out and inducts individuals first in His divine service.  Abraham was called to build Israel even though his father Terah caused the family to leave Babylon. God chose Jacob although Isaac his father favored his brother Esau.  God singled out Joseph, Saul, David, Josiah, and numerous others despite the earthly popularity of their siblings and neighbors. Single individuals experienced dramatic encounters with the Lord exemplify how the Lord does His new things.  In the absence of suitable people, single angels are named or referred to as the ones in charge of God’s move.  As we get to the church, Peter is named specifically by Jesus to found the church even though He had twelve other choices.  The apostle John is reserved for the Apocalypse, His last canonic revelation to earth. The Lord wrote His epistles to His body are written through single individuals delegated to record and distribute His communications to the world.

With all this said, what God will do next will follow this pattern.  He will move by His Spirit but His Spirit will tap a human being that He has been using in a particular manner for some time—the people that He groomed in a particular area that He relied on to prepare for this very time in His historical dealings with mankind.  These that have been receiving the wisdom, mechanics, and techniques of the things He wants to do for decades.  However, these people have a tough road ahead since prophecies and doctrine is set against them in the minds of a church that has been convinced God will no longer use people but will come to earth Himself and handle His next work—a consoling thought that is utterly in practical.  That was Israel’s problem with David when Saul’s era had ended.

God will move the way He always has because He has formed people to enable Him to do so.  Although many of Saul’s day knew that God had anointed David king, their resentment with Saul caused them to waver and some to resist David’s rise.  Yet, there were those who knew God for themselves that treated David, even in his trial period, as if he would one day be king of Israel.  Some even proffered favors from him as advance protection for their future and that of their families.  Rahab the harlot did the same thing when she protected Joshua’s spies in Jericho.

Saul’s son Jonathan, Abiathar the priest, Abigail, Nabal’s wife and others knew that David wore the anointing of God’s next king. Those that knew Israel’s God understood that Saul’s rage and insanity actually signified his demise.  The worse he behaved the more they knew hi time had come to leave the throne.  Abner, Saul’s chief commander knew all along that David was Saul’s successor and when Saul’s son Ishbosheth offended him after he had done all he could to keep the kingdom in Saul’s family, knew immediately that it was time for David to receive the kingdom. The same is true with Solomon.

Although Adonijah under Joab, one of David’s defectors, bad advice, prepared his own coronation to unseat David and seize Israel’s throne, those who stayed close to the king knew he was not the one.  Acting on the window of opportunity the Lord created they inspired David to install Solomon immediately from the palace. Adonijah, when he heard the news was humiliated and those with him panicked and immediately abandoned the usurper.  They left disturbed feeling they were deceived; and ashamed because they had not recognized that it was Solomon and not Adonijah that King David had chosen to replace him on Israel’s throne.

David’s faithful people hung on to his prophecy during his wilderness and cave experiences.  For years, they watched his life and his handling of his trials and tribulations.  They observed how he remained faithful to his God and how he took care of those entrusted to him.  He restored their faith in Israel’s God and so energized their trust in him that they looked forward to the day that he would become their king.  Each one of these people viewed David with God’ eye and enlarged his original prophecy upon encountering Israel’s promised new king because he exhibited in contrast to Saul, traits of God’s leadership over His people.  One thing they were not looking for is a move without a mover, a war without a captain, and a kingdom shift without a king.

A headless body or shepherdless flock disturbs true sheep that instinctively know and crave the Savior’s divine order.  Random spiritual outbreaks with no purpose, forethought (or afterthought) or direction unsettles them.  Somehow, they know the other shoe will fall and they will most likely be the victims of its thud.