LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
God's Ways and the Challenges of the End Time
(2)
"He declared His ways to Moses, and His works to the children of Israel" (Psalm 103:7).
We are in the days of the culmination of God's purpose in this age of grace. Just as Daniel understood from the Scriptures that the time for the fulfillment of the captivity had come, and through prayer he opened the doors for the restoration of Jerusalem, God calls us today to enter into a deep collective prayer for the restoration of his house. It was through prayer that God raised up teachers of the Word, prophets, and leaders with gifts of government for the full restoration of his house. In this end time, he desires to reveal his secrets to us so that we may also be his collaborators in this stage of his great work.
Let us recognize the urgent need to turn to God and his ways. We need to recognize, in reality, God's call for these days and the importance of collective prayer as an answer to that call. Prophetic revelation through the ministers of the Word will generate pressure to lead us as a church to corporate prayer, for, through that level of prayer, the darkness will be dispelled and the heavens opened for the mighty end-time revival.
Let us recognize that our lack of individual and collective prayer for the fulfillment of God's end-time plan represents our spiritual blindness. Our greatest problem is not our lack of time to pray, but our independence from God. The greatest failure of a ministry is not its apostasy or its downfall per se, but to be successful as a generator of religious activities and entertainments that lead to satisfaction without the glory of God; and it is precisely that which constitutes the glory of Babylon.
Today, our challenge is to enrich ourselves with the Word, like Daniel, to know the ways of the Lord regarding the responsibility of the church in this end time. Thus, there will be intimacy with Him, which will transform us into intercessors who will open the way for God to build the glorious church that will attract the coming of Christ (Eph. 5:25-27). God has spoken and advanced through those who offer Him the way. However, since the church is the vehicle of God's operation on earth, the sign that its ministers are responding to His call will be seen when the saints, in general, enter into the way of collective responsibility to hear God, know His ways, and cooperate with Him, through intercession.
God does not count only on the individual man. If the individual spirituality of weighty workers does not generate the collective spirituality of the saints, it means that the goal of God in relation to the ministry is being lost (Eph. 4:11-12). Seminaries generate preachers of sermons, but the school of the Spirit generates workers who edify the Body of Christ. Individual spirituality and the ministry of the Word are not an end in themselves; on the contrary, their function is to edify the church as a prophetic generation that hears the voice of God, sees his ways and brings the kingdom of God to the earth.
Just as the heavens moved when Daniel prayed according to God's promises, the Holy Spirit is charged to operate in us and through us when we intercede in response to and in harmony with His prophetic word. Let us hear His collective call and hasten His coming (2 Peter 3:12). O God! Help us to know your ways and enable us to collaborate in your work of restoration in this end time.