But what about desiring spiritual gifts, especially that we prophesy? Isn’t that what Paul wrote to the Corinthians? Indeed, it is, but there is a marked difference between desiring and demanding something. I may desire something I am unwilling to pay the asking price for, or I may desire something incompatible with having a mortgage, a family, and a puppy to look after. Although I may desire these things for one reason or another, they will always remain out of reach.
Just because I desire to be on a permanent vacation watching
palm trees and sunsets, feeling sand squish between my toes until I look like a
raisin, it doesn’t mean I’m going to get it.
There’s an entire generation of name it and claim it
adherents who fail to understand the difference between desiring and demanding
something. In their insistence that they can demand of God whatever it is their
greedy little hearts can conceive of, they only serve to expose themselves for
the superficial souls that they are.
Sure, Jesus prayed that not His will but the Father’s will be
done when faced with the prospect of the cross, insisting that if it were
possible, He would prefer this cup to pass from Him, but that’s just because He
hadn’t unlocked the secrets of manifesting and positive thinking. If He’d been
privy to the secrets of naming and claiming anything and everything, He just
might have found a way to bypass the cross altogether.
Even though the widow asked for justice against her
adversary, it was still within the judge’s purview to deny her request. In
fact, he denied her petition repeatedly until she finally wore him down. The
Word says we should desire spiritual gifts, and so we should. It says nothing
about demanding what gifts we desire, in what measure, at what time, and even
for what purpose they should be used.
If you desire spiritual gifts and make your desire known to
God, be sure that you’ve counted the cost and are willing to pay the price.
Yes, there is a price. Yes, there is a cost, and it’s no less than everything.
Only in our modern era can we conclude that the life of a
prophet is a glamorous one. Even the notion of a prophet in its fullest
definition is a misnomer, because where once there were prophets, we now have
the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which are distributed among the children of God
for the edification of the church body. I know, hearing some men tell the tale,
it’s for their personal enrichment more than anything, but it’s not, it never
was, and it never will be.
Perhaps it’s our ignorance of Scripture, or our short
attention spans, but anyone claiming to be a prophet nowadays in the fullest
sense of the word must not only receive words from the Lord that are accurate
and come to pass, but perform miracles, raise the dead, call fire down from
heaven, stop the sun in its zenith, stand fearlessly in the midst of a den of
lions, and the list goes on.
The clowns parading on stages today, claiming to be prophets
while waving walking sticks at a camera, aren’t. There’s no debating this;
there’s no agreeing to disagree. There’s no room for allowing that, as long as
they identify as prophets, they must be, and must therefore be shown the
respect and deference the office demands, just as there’s no room to allow for
Bob becoming Betty, reproductive organs fully intact, simply because he decides
to identify as Betty. Sorry, not sorry, but no matter how much one believes it,
a man cannot give birth to a baby, just as a man who has never heard the voice
of God cannot claim to be His mouthpiece.
Men who were never sent go every day. Men who never hear the
voice of God insist they are speaking on His behalf. And usually you can tell
the fool, the jester, or the charlatan from the real by how much they elevate
themselves, make themselves seem indispensable, and insist that before you
stands a prophet of the Lord who must be appropriately compensated for the
grueling task of staring off into the distance contemplatively. That’s as
matter-of-factly as I can put it before my blood starts to rise and I go on a
stream of consciousness rant for the ages.
Unless God looked back and decided that His prophets were
getting the short end of the stick with being hated, hunted, beaten, thrown in
prison, maligned, defamed, and dismissed as madmen, and decided to offer a
better benefits package for the new generation with chauffeured limos,
penthouse suites, and adoring fans, by the very fact that those claiming to be
prophets are pandering to the flesh insisting that their word rather than the
Word is the new standard, they reveal themselves for who they are, predators
and wolves who see the household of faith as a free ride to easy street.
If you have no fear of God, it’s an easy con to pull off.
Roll your eyes to the back of your head, shake your head from side to side,
wave your arms like you’re trying to shoo away a fly, say a bunch of flattering
things preceded by “Thus says the Lord”, perhaps sprinkle in a bit of King
James English here or there to add a bit of spice, insist that they’ll be
blessed coming and going even though they are living in open rebellion, and at
some point remind them that they must be generous to the servant through whom
God Himself is speaking. Voila! Newly minted prophets left and right, each
having to outdo each other in the fanciful tales that they tell because it’s a
competitive field, don’t you know, and although there’s a sucker born every
minute, there’s only so many suckers to go around.
We’ve gotten as far as sitting on God’s lap and braiding His
beard. I’m waiting for the next leg up, wherein one of them will claim they
were allowed to take the great white throne of judgment for a spin, and
wouldn’t you know it, God concluded they’d be better at the job than He was.
You think I jest. Give it enough time, and it’s an inevitability.
All this while the contemporary church is floundering, whipping itself up into a lather while lip-syncing Hillsong just to say they felt something. But of repentance, holiness, righteousness unto the Lord, not a bleep or a bleat, not a groan or a whisper. March on, mighty warriors dressed for battle, march on!
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
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