Word For Today July 24, 2021 "BUT I AM STILL HERE! THE TRUE MINISTRY OF GOD
Beloved,
How easy it is to miss our true destiny of why we were created. Why were we made? Why did God make Adam and Eve? Why did God say, "it is not good for man to be alone?"
Adam never knew he was alone until God had him start naming all the animals and seeing that there was a male and female. Who knows how long it took Adam to realize that he was alone.
He had no counterpart. He had no one to complete him, love him, cherish him or of his kind, yet he didn't know it until God showed him.
Have you ever wondered why God made Adam first? Then after He saw it was not good for Adam to be alone, he didn't make Eve as he made Adam.
No, this time something was going to be different. He was going to make Adam sleep and then reach in and take something of Adam, something of himself, and then wrap flesh around it and breathe into her as he did into Adam.
Adam was made from dust, but Eve was made from what dust was formed into, Adam.
I always pondered these things in my heart. It bothered me why the Lord allowed Adam to realize he was alone and there was no one like him.
In one of my most difficult trying seasons of my life when the ministry we had built was at the high point, God brought a prophet that said a word to me that forever changed my life.
He said, Pastor Henry, no longer are you going to build an Ishmael but you are going to build a work after your own kind like Isaac. He then prophesied a devastating word to me that was going to wreck everything we had built in His name.
Within 6 months we lost over 140 people in our 200 member church. We had to give up our building, meet in my garage, we lost our Christian school, the worship team, evangelistic team and as the prophet said, even my elders would leave.
He told me that the day would come I would be in my office weeping before the Lord saying, "Lord they are all gone." Who wants to hear a prophetic word like that. But it was God.
God was about to wreck my life and understanding of what I thought ministry was, my calling, my placement in ministry, my function in ministry. All of it was going to be ripped out in about 9 months when my last elders and dearest friends left.
I said, "No not you, you can't leave, we have been together so long." I thought they would leave with grace. I said, “Why are you leaving?'' They said cold heartedly, “Well everyone left, there must be something wrong with you." and walked out.
I never was so devastated in my life. Why would God allow such a pruning of all that we had built. We did everything the way we were taught in school and my ministers who trained me.
Now it was all gone. The prophet said to me one other important thing when he said they all would leave and I would be weeping in my office.
Beloved, the day came. The Prophet said, for when they all leave, then God will come and he will lay the foundation in this church and it will be of His kind.
What would God do? How could we ever recover from such a devastating blow. Everything was gone, we even lost our home and car because the income went to nothing so quickly.
I was broken, crushed, everything I thought ministry was, that which so many men and women are fighting over, fighting each other like in a war to build bigger and bigger ministries that do more and more was nothing. I was empty and undone.
As the prophet said, "I cried and cried and said, "Lord, they are all gone, they are all gone, why have you forsaken me (paraphrasing here) I said, "Lord they are all gone."
But in that moment I heard the Lord's audible voice speak to me in that room, "BUT HENRY, I AM STILL HERE."
Most people will not hear what I just wrote by the spirit of God because their eyes are on the work, without understanding why we were made.
God did not make Adam and Eve to be his workers like an Employer and employee. God made Adam and Eve for his own pleasure and for companionship and to be his own ones.
God could of made us robots and make us love Him. He could force us to love Him. But he did what I call the greatest act of love ever.
When he made us he knew he would breathe his very life in us and when he did we would have a free will to choose to love him or not.
There was a risk that the very creation (us) that he made for himself to be with him could reject his love and not desire to be with him of their own free will. That risk is still here from the day Adam was made until now.
It is not good for man to be alone. I mentioned how Eve was made. God made her from man himself for a reason most people don't understand.
Eve was made from Adam. He called her Eve because she was bone from his bone and flesh from his flesh. What does that mean?
It means the very essence and root cause of Eve's existence comes from Adam's existence. She could not be a living being without her coming from the inside of Adam.
I pray the real and deep hidden meaning of this post touches the hearts God is having me write to at 3 am in the morning. Eve existed because she came from Adam.
Why? Because God has declared that a man shall leave his mother and father and cleave to his wife, and two shall become one flesh. This is the mystery of Christ and the church.
I would have to write a book with what God is pouring out this morning. This is the mystery of Christ and the church, that the two become one.
Adam and Eve could never be one unless she was made in the same way as Adam. It is only because the woman was made from the man can they be united as one.
It is the life breath and creation of what Adam is that made Eve. Because she was made from him, she could complete him because she was part of him.
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was made flesh and He dwelled among us. "John 1: 14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only Begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth.”
It is not good for man to be alone. What is the real ministry of God? I understand the great commission. I understand why Jesus had to become flesh and live the perfect life as our 2nd Adam to save us. But why?
When there are no more people to be saved, healed, delivered, and when the ministry work that we know today will cease to be needed any more, what will we have? What will we be? Whom will we see and whom will we know?
John 17:3 And this is life eternal: that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.
Beloved, what is the real ministry work of God? Is it the work of the great commission or does God use the great commission as our calling to do the true ministry work of conforming us into his image and likeness, full grown sons of God?
When God told me, " no longer would I produce an Ishmael but I would produce an Issacs after my own kind. The Lord had to come to me as he did Abraham.
He told Abraham to cast out the bond woman and her son, for never shall the son of a bond woman inherit the promises of God. I can't even think of the pain Abraham suffered having to put away from him Haggar and Ishmael, for it was Sarah's idea for him to sleep with her in the first place.
Yet, She had to be put away. The Lord called what I was building Ishmael. Ishmael was what I thought real ministry work was.
On that floor weeping and alone. I said to the Lord, I will never trust another Christian as long as I live. I never was so devastated in my life. But in an audible voice the "Lord said, "I am still here." I lost it.
I lost everything and everyone that mattered, Our church ended up to my family and two sisters in the Lord meeting in our home. But in that day, God said, "He would lay the foundation of this church."
Beloved do you know what that foundation was, "GOD’S VOICE SPEAKING TO ME, BUT I AM STILL HERE."
FROM THAT DAY FORWARD I KNEW THAT THE REAL MINISTRY OF THE LORD WAS NOT GOING TO BE WHAT I DID AS WHAT WE WOULD CALL MINISTRY WORK WAS.
I KNEW THE REAL MINISTRY WORK WAS GOING TO BE CHRIST IN ME THE HOPE OF GLORY. I KNEW THAT WHAT GOD WAS BUILDING WAS ME. I WAS TO BE THE WORK OF HIS MINISTRY OF KNOWING HIM, SEEING HIM, AND BECOMING WHAT I WAS MADE FOR... TO BE HIS.. AND HIS ALONE..
EVERYTHING THAT GOD HAD PLANNED FOR MY LIFE TO DO WOULD COME BY HIM BUILDING ME A LIVING STONE INTO HIS SPIRITUAL HOUSE.
A few weeks later the Lord said to me, "HENRY WHAT I AM MAKING YOU IS MORE VALUABLE TO ME THAN ANYTHING YOU WILL EVER DO FOR ME."
OVER THE LAST 30 YEARS OR MORE, GOD UPROOTED THAT ISHMAEL HEART OF BUILDING A MINISTRY OR WORK FOR GOD AND CHANGED ME TO BECOME A MINISTRY WORK OF GOD.
People say, "you have a powerful calling and ministry." I say, "no brother, I don't. I don't have a ministry because if I did, I could pick it up and put it down whenever I wanted."
What I hope you see is that I have become a ministry work of the Lord Jesus Christ and all that you see happening is not me, but him working in me. He is the potter and I am just the clay.
Beloved, i have no desire to work for God. I have no desire to build anything for God, to become something for God. I am not looking to hear much done my good and faithful servant, but "well done." Much is quantity, well is quality.
I realized the true ministry work of Jesus is for the totality of my being becoming like the crystal sea of glass that only reflects his glory. I must decrease and he must increase.
I used to have grandiose visions of taking our cities for God, until the Lord said to me, "Henry it is easy for me to take a city, but much more difficult to take a man's heart.
To take a city I just have to send down some fire and brimstone, but a man's heart they have to give freely to me to work my life in and out of them.
Jesus said, dwell in Me and I will dwell in you. Live in me and I will live in you. He said every branch that is not connected to the vine dries up and withers and is thrown into the fire, but every branch that abides in him bears much fruit and fruit that remains. He said, "apart from me you can do nothing."
On the floor of my office, these words became flesh in me. From that day when He said, “I am still here.” I understood why it was not good for man to be alone.
I understood we were made for the Lord's pleasure, to fill him and satisfy his heart like no other creation he made. It is not good for God to be alone, that is why he made us. He made us for himself. He even took out of himself and breathed into us the breath of life and we became a living soul.
As much as the Gospel is to save our souls and keep us from hell, there is so much more to our salvation than not going to hell. The more is for the Lord to restore back to where we were in relationship with him before Adam and Eve fell.
The more is to be like Enoch who lived 365 years and walked in continuous fellowship with the Lord, that the Lord just took him up directly into heaven without dying because he found what he was looking for in Enoch.
Enoch's life was a mere mention in the bible but is why we were made and our true ministry work of being His, living with Him, satisfying his heart with our love and obedience.
Out of that pure holy love and obedience as a bride with her bridegroom he shares his desires and now we are ready for the realm of ministry of love with him and from him to preach the gospel of the Kingdom and his coming reign as King of Kings.
My life is not consumed in working for him, trying to build something for him. My life is consumed in being with him, in him and his pure holy love filling me and out of that oneness we receive the Father's heart and directions to do the work of ministering to His people in his name.
When we can understand the beauty of our creation and why God made us, and we can understand the beauty of our marriage to the Lord and Marriage supper of the Lamb, we see our true identity and ministry work..
TO BE HIS AND HIS ALONE! OUR FIRST LOVE AND OUR FIRST WORK AND ALL THAT WE ARE GOING TO DO WITH HIM WILL FLOW OUT OF THAT ABIDING FELLOWSHIP OF LOVE IN HIM AND HIM IN US.
As wonderful as other Apostles and Prophets are getting revelation about the Kingdom of God coming upon the earth and building with him or for him in some cases, none of those things can satisfy my heart.
Only He can do that. Only being in love with him completes me and prepares me to be one with him. In that oneness of pure holy love we are prepared and positioned to work with him in his end time purposes on the earth.
There is much hidden manna in this post if you will take the time to slowly meditate on the truths of God and the ways of the Lord set before you.
I have never at 3 am in the morning written such a word like this. I know this is for some specific people who have been crying out to the Lord about what God is doing in their life.
It is to help them see they are not off, they are not crazy and they are not what other Christians say they are as well. They are actually on the ancient pathways or the highway of holiness of the Lord where we stop doing ministry and we become one that reflects his glory.
That ministry work of God has begun The third day work of Jesus on the earth is happening right now as he changes us from water to wine.
THE LORD HAD TO RIP OUT THE FOUNDATION OF WHAT I WAS THOUGHT MINISTRY WAS TO SEE THAT THE TRUE MINISTRY WAS WHAT GOD WAS MAKING ME.
THE WORK OF SPREADING THE GOSPEL TO ALL MANKIND IS THE TOOL THAT GOD USES TO BUILD THE TRUE MINISTRY OF THE LIVING STONES BECOMING A SPIRITUAL HOUSE IN WHICH EVERY PERSON ON THE PLANET IS INVITED TO BECOME PART OF.
Beloved, Donna got a word for someone a month ago and the Lord said to tell him, Slow down cowboy, what's the rush."
This morning God is looking for those who hear the hidden manna in this post, those who now see it will sell their life as they know it to be to give to God to buy the field with the pearl of great price in it.
HENRY, I AM STILL HERE.. IS THE REVELATION OF JESUS WHO SAID, "IT IS NOT GOOD FOR MAN TO BE ALONE" AND I AM NOT ALONE OR I AM NEVER ALONE FOR THOU ARE WITH ME.
May God bless all those who read this post and may the holy spirit soften our hearts, open our eyes and cause our deaf ears to hear the trumpet blast of the Lord. COME ALL THINGS ARE NOW READY.
BLESSINGS AND MUCH LOVE.