When they Reject the Word of the Lord!

At some point the Lord begins speaking to us concerning our local church. For many this is the point at which they come unstuck! The word is delivered - and rejected.

This article originated as a letter to someone who had given his pastor a Word and the Pastor had rejected it - I have taken out the names, but chosen to leave in the personal references; my prayer is that it will help others who are hearing God and want to know what to do about it.

Giving the Word of God to Leaders in the Church

When we are challenged in the church we need to try to look at the situation from the point of view of the "other side" - it helps us to respond correctly rather than react to perceived offence

1. Prophecy will test the relationship between the one who gives it and the one who receives it Any prophetic word given within a church context is spoken into a relationship . No one can assess the state of a relationship at a distance, so the person who gives the word probably needs to be constantly assessing and building their relationships in the church. If a church rejects a word from a member the rejection says more about the state of the relationship than it does about the veracity of the word.

In other words - the relationship you build with people will often pre-determine whether or not they will accept the word of the Lord through you. Remember that other people's understanding of prophecy is likely to be rudimentary, and probably non-experiential. They may well need you to interpret the prophecy - and if they don't have relationship with you they will be reluctant to ask.

I don't like what people like Graham Cooke and Tony Morton are saying about relationship being the foundation of ministry. But whether I like it is not the point - is it the truth? I believe it is. Our relationships are precious in the eyes of the Lord - contend for them, don't ditch them.

2. The release of prophecy is subject to the will of God concerning timing and phrasing We can be absolutely correct in the heart of a word and still release it at the wrong time or in a form that the receiver can not accept. I know at least one Prophet who was put out of ministry - not because the word was WRONG but because the delivery broke the rules.

No matter how we phrase a word it can be misheard! And our timing can be wrong - perhaps we should have sat on it for a bit; perhaps we should have prayed into it - when we do that a situation may well arise into which we can speak the word and it will be received (reluctantly perhaps)

Some time ago I had a vision for our local church. I was taken through a series of rooms in which I saw certain types of evil and sin being performed in the centre of the church. In each room I saw the faces of those performing the evil. I felt physically sick at the end of it. Being very young in these things I shared it with the Pastor - but since one of the people involved in the evil was a prominent leader I chose to withhold the names of all of the people involved in the sin. He rejected the word . Since then every single one of those people has since been revealed as being involved in what I described at the time.

BUT - if I had known then what I know now I would not have told him what I had seen at all. I would have gathered a team of intercessors, shared it with them in confidence, and prayed into it until the stuff was revealed and could be dealt with. So what if no one knows what I saw? The EFFECT of the word more important than the status of the one who delivers it.

One morning in church the Lord opened my eyes and showed me what a man in the congregation was doing in private. In the natural I did not want to believe what I had seen . I shared it with my prayer partner - she didn't believe it either, but agreed to pray it through. Within three weeks his wife "discovered" what had been going on for years. God took a hand, and reconciliation has apparently been achieved. Prayer was enough.

What I am saying you already know - not every word is for sharing. The purpose of the word is to accomplish that for which it was sent. One of the distinguishing features of mature prophetic ministry is this - knowing what to do with a word, and when to do it.

3. The perceptions about the one who brings the word inevitably have a bearing on the attitude to the word. Prophetic people resent this - but it is the truth. We are told to judge people by their fruits - and the church takes that very seriously. They are excellent fruit inspectors - and in their eyes those that cant produce what they are looking for don't have to be listened to.

Now - we have to look at the vessel. Are you a prophet in their eyes? You may have prophetic anointing - you could (in God's processes) become absolutely anything - but do they see you as being there now? If not there are very distinct limits to what they will accept from you - and you need to observe those limits carefully.

Churches have criteria for prophets - and they are very high! They look for stunning revelations that have come to pass and really changed the course of events; they expect signs, wonders, miracles or healings that endorse our spiritual authority. They might inspect track record in another church if you are a visitor. And if we do not have any of this there may be wealth or influence that they dare not offend. It doesn't matter how often we say that the criteria are not correct (and in the last case not even godly!) - those are the things they are looking for. Many people say to me "there is no way I am ever going to live up to those criteria!" Don't be too sure! God has a way of unmistakably endorsing those he has chosen.

Because this is so we all (all the time) need to build relationship and credibility that will be the foundation for the acceptance of the word of the Lord from us. That takes time. It takes risk. It costs. It takes effort. Many prophetic people are so caught up with introspection that they don't take time to do this - and as a result their word is most unlikely to be accepted in their local church. If it is not accepted there it is highly unlikely that it will be accepted anywhere for long.

An international prophet had spoken in a local church three years running. The first two years he spoke to them about the course that God had called them to and they pursued it - the Lord blessed them. Perhaps because of the blessing the Pastor started clearly revealing a heart which wanted to control everything himself. In the third year the same prophet spoke some correction. The pastor had a fit, and refused to invite him again. A month after the prophet left the newspapers got hold of a financial scandal in that church, someone released minutes of elders meetings to them at which the Pastor revealed his control thing clearly! The prophet was vindicated without a doubt. But even he took the time to build the relationship before he spoke correction.

Don't see the rejection of a word you have given as a gulf to be crossed. It is not that. It is relationships to be built. Jeremiah had relationship with five kings of Judah. They hated him; but they knew his word was the truth. It took him time to build to that point! Jesus had relationship with 12 disciples; it took him time to build that, but they followed him and endorsed his ministry with the people because - having built that relationship - they knew he was for real. If the disciples had walked out because Jesus was not living what he preached then miracles or no miracles the credibility of his teaching would have been gone, his word would not have been worth a handful of desert sand.

4. Humility is the only way to go You are going to say "I HAVE humbled myself!" - and for anyone in any depth of prophetic ministry, that's true! But there is no end to the AREAs of humility that God will speak to us about - he is going to strip every area of our pride before he is finished so that his glory will be seen. Don't hang on to "rights" - if we do God will bless us with another trip around Mt Horeb. It's hot, sticky and very dry in the desert - dump the rights and look miserable before him - if there is one thing he cant take it's kids who are humble and obedient but unhappy (Judges 10!) - he will do something for them every time.

5. Steering Clear of the "Three C's"
Condemnation
Control
Criticism These have to stay out of our prophecy. If someone (and particularly someone in authority in the church) hears criticism it doesn't matter that you didn't intend to be critical - he will react to what he hears! When it happens we need to try to talk it through with the person. But if the underlying motive was not pure - if there really was some condemnation, criticism or control in that prophecy - then we can be sure that we will be cornered by the Spirit of God when we try to talk it out.

We need to root out the three c's ruthlessly in our words, in our thought life, in our actions. Don't give them a place. Don't pray them, don't think them, don't speak them. Then they wont get into the prophecy. People say "Hey, you are asking me to throw away my reason! I cant go uncritically through life with blinkers on!" In the natural - that's right. But I want to be consumed by the way God sees things - and that means sacrificing some of my natural rights. It's a choice I make. It demands that I be humbled (present continuous tense) and live without many of my "natural" rights. We can resign from this place anytime. We stay in this place by choice.

6. Did I get it right?

When a word has been rejected it hurts. Our first question is "did I get it right?" We are inclined to become defensive - "I KNOW I got it right!" and tell everyone around how we have been wronged. Is there are way to KNOW if we got it right?

I am going to duck the question in a sense and say this - even if we hear right (and I think that most of the time we do hear right) we can still destroy the effect of the word by wrong delivery - wrong wording or wrong timing. If we do that then the word does not have the effect for which it was intended. If it doesn't have God's intended effect then it is not the word of the Lord. So - a word is only CORRECT when all three come together.

What am I saying? That I can hear right - and still get it wrong. That I can hear right and have the timing right - but if I speak it from my soul or flesh I still don't get it right in the end.

How near to God to prophets have to walk? Right in the FIRE of his presence. If you see singed eyebrows and smell fire - that's quite normal for prophets.

Am I proposing anything? Yes - two things.

I. Build relationships in your local church - with leaders and non-leaders, at the very least with the local Pastor responsible for you in your church

II. Gather a group of intercessors and begin to build relationship with them. So that a word can be prayed through in confidence if necessary. (WARNING: Intercessors have to learn the meaning of "in confidence" [sigh])

In all frankness, if my mentor (which I didn't have) had said all this to me four years ago I would probably have gone off in a huff - so I wont be at all surprised if some who read this article feel that way. But I will be disappointed. Because until prophetic people are in committed relationships within their churches, until we admit that we do make mistakes and need to learn from them, until we confess that we are not perfect and don't walk as close to the Master as we should - until then we are not going to see the power of prophetic ministry released in the local church.

Blessings

Alison

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Moderator: Alison Papenfus, AfProphecy@icon.co.za
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