Week 18, 2011
Rick Joyner

 

      We must be trustworthy to be trusted with important revelation or assignments from God. One reason why so many are not trusted with more is they do not pursue the wisdom and maturity of how to handle the revelation. We are emissaries of the King of kings when we are carrying messages from Him, and His word must be handled with the utmost care and dignity. 


     If we are called to deliver His messages by speaking, we should work on how to improve our speaking. This certainly behooves the messages of the King. If we are called to deliver His messages by writing, we should work on our writing skills so that His message can be delivered with the utmost grace.

     One of the primary ways many disqualify themselves from being trusted with important revelation is their tendency to use revelation to verify their importance and ministry rather than to point to the King and only want to verify Him. The Lord said this in John 7:18: 


“He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who is seeking the glory of the One who sent Him, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.” 

     The word that is translated “glory” in this verse could have been translated “recognition.” Let’s read it that way.

“He who speaks from himself seeks his own recognition, but He who is seeking the recognition of the One who sent Him, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.”

     Self-seeking and self-promotion are two of the worst enemies of true ministry. This does not mean that we must wait until we are totally free of all selfish motives before the Lord can use us or none of us would probably ever get used. However, we need to wage war against self-promotion as the deadly enemy that it is. We have a very good incentive for doing this, as the Lord stated in Luke 14:11: 

“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” 

      Note that the Lord did not say “some.” We can be sure that if we exalt ourselves, it will result in God having to humble us. God does exalt men, and it is a religious spirit that tries to make us think that He doesn’t, which is in conflict with the clear testimony of Scripture. However, He is the One who must do this. All exalting in His kingdom will be done by Him, and it is done for promoting His purposes, not to reward us. To the mature in Christ, being lifted up is not a reward but a burden. If this does not make sense to us, it is because we do not yet understand His authority. 

      Likewise, throughout the Scriptures we have exhortations to “humble yourselves,” which means this is what we are supposed to do. If we want to do God’s job of exalting, He will do our job of humbling, and He can do either one much better than we can. 

      If we really understand the grace of God, which is more valuable than any earthly treasure or position, then we would have a vision and focus on trying to do all that we could to humble ourselves because the Scriptures say repeatedly that He gives His grace to the humble. This is especially important for prophetic people to grasp because if you are used in a great way, people will be prone to want to exalt you, and you will be tempted to start thinking of yourself more highly than you should, which will always lead to a fall. Pride caused the first fall of Lucifer, and it is found at the root of virtually every fall since. To further inculcate this, we have I Corinthians 1:26-30:


For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; 
 
but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, 
 
and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He might nullify the things that are, 
 
so that no man may boast before God. 

     As shocking as it may be to some, God did not call us because we are smart or able. In fact, the opposite is probably true. The weak will lean on Him for His strength. Those who may not be so intellectually-gifted will lean on Him for His wisdom. It is a wonderful thing to be used by God, and it does edify us, and should. However, there is a difference between being edified and being puffed up. We all have much more to be humble about than to be proud of. Let us continually remind ourselves of Romans 5:1-2:


Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
 
through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand….

     We stand on grace, and we will fall quickly if we lose it.