Prophetic Words and Teaching

For the last month I have been deeply concerned for a couple's marriage. For the last several weeks I poured into the wife the need to go deep in her prayer closet, to develop a life of prayer that would sustain and keep her. I spoke of the need for her to be the priest of her family at this point in time until her husband came to a place of taking his rightful position, that if she would step into a place of contending and fighting for her marriage and home that God would move His hand.

Last night I wept and wept for people's lives, for their souls, for our (as leadership) failure in teaching and leading people into God's presence, for our failure in contending for their souls, for our failure to become broken vessels that cared more for the lives of those we ministered to than our own lives. I wept and cried and pleaded with God until almost 3am. Wasn't really sure why, but ....

The call came at 5am, "Please come - I think my husband is dead." We went to her house, and yes - he was dead, passed in his sleep. I checked for vital signs, felt the temperature of the body. He was dead, his life ended, his window of opportunity gone. Whatever he had accomplished was finished, there was nothing further he could do. It was over! I took care of the details - calling 911, working with the coroner, helping to carry the body out of the house - all the finishing things one does when someone dies.

That image of his body, though, would not leave my mind - I kept seeing it laying there in the bed, the finality of it, no going back to repent and do anything further. That soul's calling and task was ended. Nothing further could be done for that person. Finished! This has been disturbing me.

But, let's look a little deeper. What if we as leaders would have fought for this person's life while he was yet alive, for him to know God deeper, to teach this person how to pray and go deeper with God? What if we would have mentored him and taught him how to develop a deeper walk with God, how to choose God over things of this world? People tell me, "Now Darrel, everyone has choices and decisions to make. You can't take too much of this on yourself. You're out of balance."

I don't agree.

My Bible says we are to be God's hand extended to a lost and dying world, we are to mentor and teach people how to come into and live in God's presence. We are to be examples in leading people on their walk. My Bible says we are to lay our lives on the line, to contend with God for the souls of people around us; for example, Moses when he contended with God, that his life might be blotted out of the Lamb's book of Life that his people might live; John Knox when he cried before God, "Give me Scotland or I die!"; John Welch when he spent 7-8 hours a day contending with God that he might be able to minister to the people God had given him.

Where do we live at? Are we willing to forsake all that those we minister to might come deeper into knowing Jesus? Where are we? Where is our heart? Will we let this message penetrate our hearts and convict us, or will we jump back and rebuke this word and become offended at someone pricking our hearts?

1. We can yield to God and allow Him to change and mold us into His chosen vessel and we can stop at some point in that journey when it gets too hard for us. We can make it into His permissive will, but just in where we only experience His good permissive will, where we refuse to be broken to be all He wants us to be.

2. We can make it into God's permissive will, but not all the way to His perfect will - that place where we have gone further, but have not allowed Him to fully break us.

3. We can allow Him to fully change us, where we come into His perfect will, where He can trust and entrust us to die to whatever stands between us and Him, to be whatever is necessary to reach and feed His lambs!

This friend of mine who just died never reached his full potential, he never moved into the complete will of God. We failed him. We failed to mentor and teach him how to walk deeper with God. We failed to contend and fight for him in prayer until God moved His hand and took him deeper.

You see, we have an obligation and responsibility as men and women of God. We have a mandate from God to give our lives for those around us. We have a mandate from God to fight with Him for those around us, that they may reach their full potential, that what we know and have experienced may be given to those around us to take them deeper in their quest for God. Go back and look at Ezekiel 22:30! God has called us to build up the wall and stand in the gap and fight with Him so He will not have to pour His wrath out on the land. I find it amazing how much responsibility God has given us for the lives and walks of those around us. But to do what He has called us to do requires that we become men and women of prayer, that we turn our attention to the task at hand and stop taking the "easy" road out.

The body has been taken away now, but it is still before my eyes. I am still heavily affected by what God was showing me. I don't know how to fulfill and become what God is asking me to become. I don't know how to die. God does, though! Let us choose to allow God to fully mold us into men and women that He can trust and use. Let us choose to allow Him to break our hearts open, to teach us how to reach people and change their walks. Let us choose to be all God wants us to be. Let us become men and women who learn to contend with God until His will comes to pass in those around us.

Let us choose wisely!