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Overview

The purpose of the just concluded Theology from Below (TFB) session is to emphasis the doing of the message. Doing the message will doubtless produce an experience. Experience inspires the stories. Stories have power to transform both the teller and the hearers.

Life is a story. People do not have stories today because they are not obeying. If you don’t have a story, it is due to lack of experience, and if you don’t have experiences, its due to negligence in doing the word. The Bible calls it “handling the word of God deceitfully” (2 Corinthians 4:1-2). You manifest something by making it visible. The Gospel message is written with the intention that it would be obeyed.

KCP Vulnerable part / Our Achilles Heel

Our weak point is evident in 2 Timothy 3:1-7 – But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy…..always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. (NKJV)

James 1:22 advised us to be doers of the word and not hearers only. If you hear an instruction, opportunities will come for you to prove it. The only language that the world understands is “seeing something that is better than theirs.”

The message of the kingdom still uses words (1 Corinthians 2:1-5), but there is a “However” clause as seen in 1 Corinthians 2:6-7. The Gospel is simple not ambiguous, but it is a mystery that needs unveiling.

Last Session’s Focus — The Opposition to the Temple

While the enemy’s strategy in Ezra’s day was to paint God’s people as a pack of rebels, the strategy today is to paint the church as an irrelevant group of people that should not be taken seriously. We no longer allow the Word / Bible infiltrate everything we do. Whenever you put things out of biblical context, it becomes evil.

There is an on going campaign geared towards discrediting God’s reputation today just as it was in Ezra’s time. Temple Managers now destroy what they have been called to build. There is a widespread “deceitful handling” of the word of God today.

The work of the temple ceased (for sixteen years) like it has in our day. The temple work ceased on the wings of adulterated word. The only power that can reactivate the work is the Prophetic Word of God. A new sound, shape, form, structure and mind is critically needed now. The critical need is not just speaking lips but SPEAKING LIVES. For the kingdom of God is not in word but in power (1 Corinthians 4:20, NKJV)

The gospel of power needs to be rediscovered. We need to build capacity, mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally and ethically. We need the power of Prophetic Imagination. That God given wisdom to critique a defensive status quo and envision a new reality by life quality. Its not going to be individual based, but through a processed community.

Conclusion and prayer

What type of standard have you set for your life? There must be a new sound. Make up your mind to have a value in your life. Announce a new day by the standard of your life and the qualities of values you have set. The primary reason for you being saved is that you become a vessel that God can work in and through so that He might find you a worthy medium to affect the earth. God wants Speaking Lives.

Lord, tune our hearts, cause us to share in your heart beat. Empty us of all the junk that we have been filled with. Illuminate our hearts, open our eyes to see where the real issues are, and help us to embrace a new challenge. Amen.

Overview

When building the Temple, the first thing to do is to set the Base. Setting the base will definitely attract opposition, but God will always equip us to overcome such opposition.

1 Corinthians 10:13 — No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. NKJV

The altar properly set on its base is the key to power. If we are not seeing the power of God, it therefore means that we are no longer committed. Once the Altar Principle is factored back into our lives, the forgotten pathway would be opened. The church is yet to experience opposition from the enemy. God is sensitizing us to build an altar. What we currently see is a call to set our hearts right. We can’t effectively conquer kingdoms of the world until our own kingdom is conquered by God. Our kingdom must go for His kingdom to come. The altar is a call to set our hearts right. Our call is to build (become) temples.

The Opposition to the Temple

After the foundation of the Temple was laid, there was celebrations but this feeling was short-lived. Obedience, and right hearts attracts persecution. The enemy can’t do anything about our personal decision to consecrate our lives to God but the trouble starts when we want to express the consecrated lives to affect things in our environment — The Temple. In Ezra 4:1-3, there was stiff opposition to the building of the temple. This tells us that for any one chosen to be God’s medium, there is always an appointed adversary but the chosen always wins. There is a shift from the old strategy of intense persecution of painful torture to the new one of collaboration. The enemy no longer fights the church, he is partnering with it.

Critical Reminder: The days of Apostasy will not be by general abandonment of church but that people will settle for a mediocre version of the faith. The enemy won’t stop the temple being built but he will attack our quest by working with us. His intention is to cause the medium to mess up the message.

Danger of Subversion

1. The ultimate intention is the complete devastation of the church through critical identification with worldly culture.
2. To bring the church to a point where God Himself will be left with no choice but to judge it.
3. To subvert the transcendence of God.

The adversaries quest can be seen in the phrase in Ezra 4:2 “Let us build with you, for we seek your God as you do;” Also in 2 Kings 17:37-33, we see a mixture of the Jews with Assyrians which led to a mixture of true and false religion. Today, the Church is full because we allow a large dose of compromise – Serving God and other things. The challenge of today’s church is to rid herself of mixture as against the Old Testament Prophets whose primary assignment was to rid the land of false prophets and prophecies. We must therefore, be wary of false prophets and prophecies. Zerubbabel’s response in Ezra 4:3 should be our pattern “You may do nothing with us to build a house for our God; but we alone will build to the Lord God of Israel.” We Alone – not with imposters, bystanders and the second guessers. If we want to be mediums, the world will rise against us but we will surely overcome.

Next Week: Open Hostility

Contemplations and Prayers

What will be your contribution to building the temple? Temples are built by hearts. That heart must be influenced and overwhelmed by God.

Lord, we submit to your Lordship and Grace. Let your desires be our desires. Let us be salt in this world of impurity. Help us to be joints that supply, to fulfill our parts. Amen.

PREAMBLE:
Discovering our life’s blueprint (what is written about us in the scrolls) is the key to a life of self realisation, self actualisation and accomplishment of our divine mandate.
Prophetically speaking, the sorry state of the dilapidated temple in exile is a reflection of the status of the present day global church.

Reflecting on the book of Ezra’s series from the Watchmen perspective:

DANIEL a typology of the 21st century saint.
“In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the lineage of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans— in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. Daniel 9:1-3.

Daniel activated the exit of God’s chosen people from exile by embarking on certain spiritual activities – Intercessory Prayers and Fasting.
Like Daniel and the sons of Issachar, grace and mercy is repositioning this present generation of believers to function with an accurate understanding of the times and season, and how the church ought to respond to divine stimuli.
Since every revelation ought to produce in us a holy spirit-inspired response, the church should be presently preoccupied with – studying patterns and seeking the face of the Lord in prayers.

THE PROCLAMATION:
The present heavenly broadcast – THE EXILE IS OVER; is supposed to impregnate us with divine pathos and set our hearts in a travailing mode like Daniel. Dan.9:1-3, 2 Pet. 3:10-13.

Such intercessory prayers could activate proclamations from the most unusual places. Ezra1:1.

RESPONDING TO THE PROCLAMATION:
The portrait of a man impregnated with the divine pathos.

Neh.1:1-4, 2:1-3 (NKJV)
“The words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah. It came to pass in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan the citadel, that Hanani one of my brethren came with men from Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who had survived the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, “The survivors who are left from the captivity in the province are there in great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burned with fire.” So it was, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned for many days; I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven.
And it came to pass in the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, that I took the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had never been sad in his presence before. Therefore the king said to me, “Why is your face sad, since you are not sick? This is nothing but sorrow of heart.” So I became dreadfully afraid, and said to the king, “May the king live forever! Why should my face not be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers’ tombs, lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire?”

CONCLUSION:
For men and women whose heart pulsate after God and his prophetic mandate, acute sensitivity to Gods disposition and desires for the present day church is critical to our kingdom relevance and significance.

REFLECTIVE PRAYERS:
Lord open the eyes of our hearts to see, understand and come to full realization of your present desire and expectation for the 21st century church