Welcome to Impact University.
As we continue to advance the kingdom of God, I want to share part 2 of having balance in the Prophetic ministry. Today I’m going to be focusing on the role of the Apostle.
“And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, and those with gifts of healing, helping, administration, and various tongues.”
1 Cor. 14:28
Remember my point from yesterday, we can read in the New Testament, apostles and prophets ministered together. I believe that every apostle needs to be prophetic. I believe that every prophet needs to be apostolic.
There are some similarities in the two.
However, Apostles, by nature, are builders, they’re gatherers, they can build great groups, great denominations. There is a strong governmental anointing.
An Apostle is one sent on a mission. One that carries the authority of the mission. Jesus appointed the original Apostles in New Testament and sent out to preach the gospel.
When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles…”
Luke 6:13
Then after feeding the multitudes in Mark 6:30 the Apostles gathered to share of all the great things they had seen.
The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught.”
Mark 6:30
It’s powerful to see how the Lord multiplied, then as the testimonies came back, multiplied again. That is a major role of the Apostle.
However, one of the dangers with Apostles, is they can sometimes become too rigid and too governmental in their call and not move into new things once they establish something. They lack spontaneity, the settle and stop being fresh and so on. There’s a danger, because of the strengths they have. These strengths can also become weaknesses.
I’ve seen apostles raise up great churches and great movements, but they lose their momentum and they lose the freshness of God, because they don’t allow prophets to minister within the organization.
Any time an organization loses the prophet, it loses the voice of God, the vision of God, the spontaneity of God and the freshness of God. It’s very important for apostles and apostolic leaders, even though they can build great churches, be strong leaders, very strong in doctrine, very strong in order, not to silence or not to shut out the prophetic, but to cultivate it. Because when you lose the prophetic, you lose the glory. You tend to lose the spontaneity, the freshness and the newness.
Apostles need to understand that they’re not Superman.
They can’t do everything alone. They need the Prophets!
Apostles need the prophets so they don’t become doctrinal, rigid, everything is order, there’s nothing new, nothing fresh and you can just literally allow the Spirit of God to leave.
This is also the reason why often God raises up an apostolic prophetic team to pastor a church or community. Sometimes the one is an apostle, the other is a prophet because they tend to balance each other. I’ve seen women that are more apostolic than their husbands. The husband can be prophetic or the husband can be apostolic and the wife can be prophetic like an Aquila, Priscilla team. They tend to balance each other, because they both have a unique perspective and a unique anointing.
Apostles need to let the prophet and prophetic ministry grow, flourish and become strong.
Sometimes, when an apostle dies, the whole organization dies with them and the next generation is not able to carry that momentum because they don’t understand the importance of not only replacing the apostle with fresh apostles, but also having a prophetic voice.
If we’re going to really develop in the prophetic, we can’t just prophecy good things and nice things and great things. We need seers that can see into the future. I believe this is going to purify the prophetic and really bring us to another level of pressing in and hearing God. It could be a lack of fasting, a lack of praying, a lack of seeking God for greater insight and wisdom concerning the future. I believe a lot of prophets did not press into the future. They sometimes get stuck in dealing with things of the past, or dealing with things of the present, but they need to press into the realm of the future.
It really force us to move into a higher level of the prophetic. We cannot be satisfied with just giving a word here and giving a word there and prophesying something here and prophesy in a service. We have to step into a higher realm of the prophetic and really see into the future and really prepare the church for what is to come. If we don’t do that, we get hit by these unexpected things and people are thrown off, because they never have really seen the full release of the prophetic voice. So I think it’s going to be a challenge to us who are in the prophetic, that we can’t be satisfied moving on the same level we’ve been moving in the past.
We’ve got to press into another level of dreams and visions and being seers and really press in to the level, because we should see things. The Spirit of God will show us things to come. So I believe it’s a challenge. I believe that prophets need to humble themselves and repent and really seek God more, concerning things that are coming, and really prepare the church for things of this nature. So I really look at it as a challenge to the prophetic.
The Apostles can help to guide and lead in strategy for the future.
In their unique function, the Apostle will expand the work of the kingdom of God.
Remember:
APOSTLES AND PROPHETS–
- The apostolic anointing helps bring order and government to the prophetic anointing.
- The prophetic anointing helps bring spontaneity and helps bring new things to the apostolic anointing.
- Every apostolic leader needs prophetic teams and prophetic people and prophets in their ministry.
- Every prophet or group of prophets need to be connected to an apostolic leader.
Any time you separate them, or if they don’t operate together, they’re both lacking something.
- Apostles need prophets in their life to keep them moving in new things and stirring in new things, so they won’t become rigid and overbearing.
- Prophets need apostles in their life to bring some order and government, so they won’t become flaky and spooky.
These two ministries do work together and we need them working together.
When Apostles and Prophets work together:
- We balance each other.
- We minister to each other.
- We encourage each other.
- We stir each other.
- We build together.
- We minister together.
It is a powerful combination.
Remember, when those two gifts are operating, you’ll see many miracles and breakthroughs in churches and in the lives of believers.
Join Impact On Demand.
