Prophetically the season that we are in is that we are standing at the threshold of the greatest harvest ever known to man and also the greatest battle.  These are the days of the harvest.  These are the days of Elijah.  The fields are white and ready for harvest.  Malachi chapter 3 and 4 clearly speak of the season we are in.  The moments that the messenger is sent with purifying fire to purge away that which is not of the spirit so that the gold and the silver will remain in our lives.  Each of us is at a different place spiritually in our journey.  Sometimes we have a difficult time identifying the destiny call that is on our lives.  The great apostolic prayer of Paul in Ephesians 1:17-18 That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, that we know the hope of our calling.  We need to realize that the Lord wants us to be spiritually successful and naturally successful not one or the other.  He wants to prosper us as our souls should prosper.  As the Word says What good would it be to gain the whole world and lose your soul.  All the natural personal financial success without the adjoining spiritual success leaves man empty.

Success is not the destination, but rather the journey.  We need to clearly know where we are going but I also need to know where we are at and rightly identify who we are in Christ and where we are in this journey.  I believe that there are 5 steps or passages to our spiritual destiny and many different phases even within those passages. In this two-part series, I will be sharing what these 5 steps are and how they function.

  • DISCIPLESHIP
  • MENTORING
  • ACHIEVEMENT
  • LEADERSHIP
  • LEGACY

DISCIPLESHIP

These are two different roles and functions altogether.  As I am sure you are aware, in the natural we are a fatherless generation, a parentless generation, and as it is in the natural so it is in the Spirit.  For the most part in the church, there is a lack of real discipleship.  It has become the lost art of discipleship.  Many of us were birthed into the kingdom in some evangelistic way, but no one ever really discipled us and the great commission is not to make converts but to make disciples.  Discipleship is a form of shepherding.

Shepherding

Discipleship is pastoral in nature.  Setting the foundations of the relationship in place in an individual’s life.  Placement in relationship in the body.  Personal to home, church/family, and career and time of laying a foundation for a successful Christian life/counseling – visitation – relationship.

It is getting a foundational understanding of the Word, the Cross, the Blood, the armor of God, and how to apply the Word of God to my life so that I can live a successful Christian experience.  The victorious life.  Many people want to become a leader, but in the kingdom, before you can become a leader you have to be a good disciple.  Some people come to me looking to be mentored as leaders, but they are not yet good disciples.  We have to first be a disciple before we can be a leader.  So then I send them back to the pastor, to their shepherd, to get that sure foundation that they can build their spiritual future on.

Malachi 4:6  He shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

Psalm 34:8  O taste and see that the Lord is good.  I have tasted and found that the Lord is good.  I do testify that the Lord is good.  Join me to taste him.

Proverbs 1-9 are Solomon’s advice written to his son Rehoboam.

2 Chronicles 10:1  And Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had gone to Shechem to make him king.

Counsel and wisdom

Proverbs 4:7   Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom and in all your getting, get understanding

1 Corinthians 3:18-19    “Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their own craftiness.”

2 Chronicles 10:6-7  “Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who stood before his father Solomon while he still lived, saying, “How do you advise me to answer these people?” And they spoke to him, saying, “If you are kind to these people, and please them, and speak good words to them, they will be your servants forever”

Counsel with Older Men

2 Chronicles 10:8-10  “But he rejected the advice which the elders had given him, and consulted the young men who had grown up with him, who stood before him. And he said to them, “What advice do you give? How should we answer these people who have spoken to me, saying, ‘Lighten the yoke which your father put on us?’ ” Then the young men who had grown up with him spoke to him, saying, “Thus you should speak to the people who have spoken to you, saying, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you make it lighter on us’—thus you shall say to them: ‘My little finger shall be thicker than my father’s waist!'”   He took counsel with younger men.

Godly not Ungodly Counsel

Psalm 1:1-3 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful, But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper.

MENTORING

Is that stage in our spiritual growth and development where we are already walking as good disciples with the Lord and we are ready to progress to a place where we are equipped and empowered. A place of honing our gifts, talents, and abilities, to prepare us for a work of service unto the Lord. It is that area of our life where we are now truly the chosen, we have made a choice to begin to extend and advance the Kingdom of God by the work of service in our lives. Mentoring can be done by a pastor but normally needs to be done by someone in leadership who is like a coach, a life coach, a leader already. You can only teach me what you know. You can only take me where you have been, but in the end, we all bear fruit after like kind. When God sent me to Calvary Pentecostal to sit under the ministry of Ruth Heflin it wasn’t to prepare me to live a successful Christian life but rather to prepare me for a work of service unto the Lord to understand my prophetic gift, my missionary call to the nations. What does the life of an itinerant minister look like? In all likelihood, I would not have been able to learn practically from someone who had Never experienced it or had a working knowledge of it, how to impart that and cultivate that in my life.

Mentoring is like coaching the individual in the gift – calling – career – life – wealth – destiny.

According to Mr. Webster and his dictionary, a coach is:

  1. One who instructs in the fundamentals
  2. Directs team strategy
  3. TutorS. Primes with facts
  4. Trains for the Race

That’s right trains for the race. A coach trains you and I to run the race.

Isaiah 30:20-21 And though the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, Yet your teachers will not be moved into a corner anymore, but your eyes shall see your teachers. Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” Whenever you turn to the right hand or whenever you turn to the left.

Not to the right or the left, but the voice behind you. Experiences of self or others God puts in my life can help me look at the voice of experience.

Moses/Joshua – Elijah/Elisha – Jesus and His disciples (Luke 9 & 10)

Winston Churchill said “The further back you look, the further ahead you can see.”