- AN APOSTOLIC TEACHING -

"For I think that God hath set forth us as the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men. 

We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in  Christ; we are weak, but you are strong;  you are honorable, but we are despised......being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it:  Being defamed, we entreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the off scouring of all things unto this day.  I write not these things to shame you, but as my be loved sons I warn you.  For though you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have you not many fathers. "  - 1 Cor. 4: 9-15

Here the Apostle Paul is not talking about apostolic government, but about his apostolic experience.  I first taught this passage of scripture in 1996 in a message I, tongue in cheek entitled, "So you want to be an Apostle"?

I remember thinking at that time that I understood what I was talking about, but looking back, I really had no clue of the depths that this word could go in one's life even though  I spent some time analyzing each phrase:

Apostles are last..... appointed to death.... made a spectacle..... fools.... weak.... despised.... reviled.... persecuted.... defamed.... accounted as the filth and offscouring, etc.  

It was a good teaching and God has used it to help others who were receiving a call to apostolic ministry. Yet, it's only now that I am beginning to see the bigger picture, how God deals with a man to release an impartation to others through his life.  You see, impartation takes place not just when a sermon is delivered, but when there has been a certain crushing, a wounding, even a death.

Have you ever seen someone graft a limb into an already living tree?  First  you have to cut down into the tree with a very sharp knife at just the right place.  Then you pull open that wound in the side of the cambium of the tree.  Only then can you take that fresh, small and willing branch and put it inside of that wounded place in the original tree. Then you must carefully shut the limb inside the splice and wrap a cloth around both the limb and branch, tightly binding them together.  In a day or two, that cloth will be completely soaked and need to be changed like a bandage on a sore.  You see, the tree is weeping because it has been wounded..... but unless it weeps, there will not be enough sap to support the life of the new little branch.

God wants to build a place within us for the next generation to fulfill their destiny.... so a cut must be made.  Our lives should be given to preparing the next generation so that what we have initiated in our times will proceed into the future.  By doing so, we will guarantee that the next generation will be greater dimensionally than we are.  Those who truly bear the heart of the Father are chosen to give up their lives for the destiny of the sons.

Folks, we all desire to see the church growing and thriving and our lives to be full and rich with the blessings of God, but often we fail to count the cost of true spiritual impartation.  We forget that for Adam to have a wife, he must first be wounded and something taken from him before he has an Eve.  We fail to remember that for Christ to have a church, He must first be wounded, with blood and water pouring from his side into a thirsty ground, and His life laid down in death, before He will ever have a bride.  We need to understand that for impartation to occur, something has to be wounded for something else to be grafted in.  There must be travail before birth, loss before gain, and death before resurrection.

Listen friend, God will cut through the bark of our soul.  He will saw a gash through the weathered timber of self protection that we cover ourselves with.  He will pierce through all our facades of self-righteousness into the tender, weeping part of us.  There is a place in all our lives where impartation can happen.  It's where our heart seeps that God will carve a gorge through our lives to bring us pain, but He knows that it is only through the broken-open places in our being that He can instill His power and plant His purpose in us.

If we are willing to say good-bye to everything we have worked for and everyone we have ever loved, and wait upon divine visitation in the black night of unknown possibilities; if we are willing to be crippled by the Great Healer and forever wounded by the touch of His nail scarred hand; If we are willing to never be normal again, embracing all that God has, then perhaps we are willing to pay the cost of spiritual impartation.

Then, in our wounding, God will create a sensitivity....like the war wound of an old man who can tell the coming rain by the pain he feels.  Then the fruitful bough of that new thing can be planted deep within our lives.  If we are willing to be wounded and unwilling to let go of divine visitation, then, impartation will be released.  The nature of the church is not to simply live for itself, but to bring life to those who have never lived.  Yet many times we have not been channels through which the Spirit of God may flow, but vessels catching and gathering up all the blessing we can.  Although we have this treasure in earthen vessels, a pitcher is not just for gathering, but for pouring.  It is a wonderful thing to hold and contain truth - but it is not a progressive thing.  It leaves nothing for spiritual posterity.

The gospel was intended to create out of us a self-sacrificing, self-denying, self-giving Church.  The church was meant to be part of His life and also a part of His death.  Christians are to be a believing, dying people crucified with Christ nevertheless living!    Our light afflictions and momentary crushings provide the impartation for a generation not yet born.  Death may be working in us but to give life to another.

Those who know great victories without brokenness develop a triumphal spirit and become intolerable to live with.  Therefore, today's apostles and apostolic people must be crushed first, so that the manifestations of power will be mingled with the perfume of humility, compassion, and desperate dependence.  The process will be painful, but the crucible will produce something glorious: Servant leaders with the authority to raise up a generation that pursues it's spiritual inheritance with violence.  And that will be worth the high cost of impartation.