Apostolic Vision | Sonlight Devotional

Posts Tagged ‘Apostolic Vision’

The Apostle

Posted in Doctrine of God, tagged Apostle, Apostolic Vision, Divine Order, Tabernacle of Moses on December 31, 2021| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Psalm 42:7

There is one rod in the center of the Tabernacle of Moses, which goes straight through from the first board to the last. This rod represents the APOSTLE. It is 30 Cubits long, which is the number of the matured son. The work of the apostle is therefore like that of a mainspring. It is vital to the construction. It is CENTRAL, and lays down the line for all the other ministries to follow. The true apostle brings the people of God together, and cannot be LOCAL in his operation, but must encompass the whole tabernacle. Once the boards are in their place, they not only feel the power of the apostle’s message, but such a message binds them into the Body of Christ. WOOD never touches WOOD. GOLD touches GOLD.

“Deep calleth unto deep,” Psalms 42:7 says.

Every God-ordained group, or church, must have an apostolic vision. “Without a vision the people perish.” The people of God cannot grow in Him without a vision of what they are, where they are going, and where they are.

The true message of God will bring the people into DIVINE ORDER. There is disorder everywhere, but it is the business of the true apostles to bring order by the power of the message of God in them. This power is now being asserted by the APOSTLES OF THE END TIME, and every false thing is being swept out of the way. That which many call accidents are incidents which God is using to clear his field, and to make way for his true messengers. Someone getting upset and leaving a group or a body might well be a blessing to that group or body. If they were of us, then they would not have left us.

(Excerpt from The Pattern, pg. 72)

Thought for today: The true message of God will bring the people into DIVINE ORDER.

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A Need to See the Ministry Functioning

Posted in Body of Christ, tagged Apostolic Ministry, Apostolic Vision, Body of Christ, Ministry of God on November 12, 2021| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: John 17:18-23

The problem that we have among ourselves in the church is that we need to see the ministry functioning. Each person should be asking God, “What can I do?” One time a brother was telling us what his father used to say, “Well, sweep the floor.” You are asking, “God, what is my purpose?” “God, what am I supposed to be doing?” “What part of the Body am I?” He sent you out there to sweep the floor, and all of a sudden while you are sweeping the floor, you find yourself. You clean up refrigerators, and then you find yourself.

God is now bringing the Body together as one. He said that you would be one, even as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost are one (John 17:21). Do you know why? Because there is one Spirit, and there is no division. Do you know what the apostolic business is? All it is is somebody who hears from God and gives it to you. So the apostolic vision is being sent out to the brethren, and the prophetic Word comes forth. The evangelist begins to do his thing. Some people believe that if you are an evangelist, you must go out and get revelations from God. Any evangelist that is getting a revelation from God is not an evangelist. He is an apostle. In other words, the revelation of the Spirit of the Word comes from God through the apostolic ministry to the brethren. Then you take it and begin to function under the apostolic ministry as parts of this ministry!

The next thing, the prophet gets a Word; he comes out with it, and the Word is to quicken you, to strengthen you, to help you to follow the apostolic Word. If there is another word coming forth, it is not God. God says, “Know them that labor among you” (I Thessalonians 5:12).

When I give out the Word, some of the brethren say, “Brother duCille wants everybody to follow him.” It couldn’t be further from the truth. God told me to have nothing to do with the bride. “Keep away from the bride,” He said. “Don’t bring forth any of your thoughts or things in the bride.” That was my instruction. I hope I am accomplishing it. I try my best. So, I don’t want anybody to follow me. What I am afraid of is that you are not following what God is telling me, and that’s the problem. Because, when God calls a person and gives him a direct Word, it is not something that he made up. I didn’t go to Bible school to learn it. I just listen to God and He carries me through the waters, through the fire. I gave up my accounting profession, because I couldn’t even think like an accountant any more. I had to give it up. I gave up everything that I knew and I began to concentrate on the Word of God. What you have is a ministry, a function that I have nothing to do with. I listen and I speak to you. I don’t write down what I have to say. What I am trying to say is that you have a privilege that not many people have, to hear from someone who has a fresh flow from God. Now, if it is not God, you must tell me. The fruit of what I am saying must come forth in you or else it is a waste of time.

So the point is that God appoints men and women with good faculties, who can listen and say, “Wait, this didn’t feel right!” “This did not sound right!” When you say that, it is a blessing to me. When anybody comes to me and says, “What you preached tonight didn’t sound right!” it is a blessing to me. The blessing is that I don’t know anything for myself. If you say something, I go back to God and say, “Did You tell me this, or did this come out of my mind?” If ever I find that it came out of my mind, I will be the first one to correct it. The reason is that I must bring forth Christ in His people. I cannot fail God. I cannot say things that are in my own mind. I cannot behave as I would love to sometimes. But God wants the Word to come straight to you and so that is what I must do.

(Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, December 2006, pg. 9)

Thought for today: The revelation of the Spirit of the Word comes from God through the apostolic ministry to the brethren. Then you take it and begin to function under the apostolic ministry as parts of this ministry!

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No More Slackness in the Church

Posted in Christian Walk, tagged Apostolic Ministry, Apostolic Vision, Boards of the Tabernacle, God's Service on November 5, 2021| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Romans 12:6-8

Let us look at God’s ministry today. We hear about the apostolic ministry. We are talking about the thumb ministry as the thumb is the apostolic ministry. Now, the church must have an apostolic ministry or else it is a church without direction. God drew another picture for us. He drew a picture of the boards of the tabernacle. The boards in the tabernacle are kept in a straight line by one bar that runs from one end to another, and all are in complete order because the Spirit of God is in the board. Why did I say that? The bar there is not just wood, it is covered with gold. Don’t you see? The bar is covered with gold, and it is the gold that makes it straight or else that bar would bow. The bar is 30 cubits long (a cubit is about a foot and a half). The temple cubit would be a foot and a half and a span. So we are talking about one long bar that is 45 feet long, plus 45 spans (each span is about four inches). A span is the width of your hand. We are not sure if it was the temple cubit or the natural cubit. Of course, the temple cubit was supposed to be bigger by a handbreadth than the natural cubit. So, the natural cubit would be what we would call about 18 inches, but the temple cubit would be like 22 inches. So, think of a bar that stretches approximately 60 feet long. It would bow without being covered with gold. But it had gold on the outside, and that bar kept the whole tabernacle standing straight. Let me tell you, brethren, do you know how thick the boards were? They were over six inches. You can imagine a board 1.5 cubits wide, ten cubits high [15 feet tall], and 6 inches thick with gold all around it. Can you imagine how heavy that must have been? That is some weight! It was standing on mortise and tenon. So the two legs went down, like man’s legs, into the sockets, and that is what kept it standing. Therefore, from side to side it would be firm, but from the front to back, the boards would have the ability to sway forward and backward. The only thing that held it from going forward or backward was the apostolic bar, the middle bar covered with gold running from one end to the other.

So you can see what has happened to the church. The church lost its apostolic vision when it began to reject the apostles of God and accepted other apostles. That is why we are in the condition that we are in, because some of the ministry that is in the church is not ordained of God. Now, behind that apostolic bar, the Lord said that there are helps and governments (I Corinthians 12:28). It is very important that some of you are helps and governments in the church. You are not ordained to preach, except to preach with your life.

One day the Lord told Mavis that the women should preach with their works. “When they behold your chaste behavior” (I Peter 3:2). It brings correction to people when they can look at you and see how you live your life. But there is a service that each of you must do and you must either come in to God’s service now or be left out.

God had a time when He would allow a certain amount of slackness to be in the church. But at this time, God is saying, “NO MORE SLACKNESS, MY PEOPLE MUST BE ONE!” The only way the people can be one is to be under the ministry. Do you hear me? Not minister, but ministry. The ministry that God has put in you, you had better look after it. He says, “Wait upon your ministry” (Romans 12:7). If God endows you with a voice, sing! If God endows you with wisdom, use it for God. Do you understand? The ministry is a spiritual endowment that God puts upon the church. Every time two or three of them gather together, God gives them their portion. That ministry is supposed to stand and minister life to the world, not just to the church, but to the world. That is why God said if you don’t behave at home, you can’t come into the church and prophesy. If you talk and you use your mouth as a weapon out there on the job site or anywhere you are, don’t bother to try to come to church and speak the Word of the Lord. It will be contaminated. It will be mixed. God wants you to wait upon your ministry. Somebody says, “Well, what is my ministry?” That is your business! Go ask God. Go ask God. What do you do best? Jesus said to Matthew and Mark, “Come! Be a scribe unto the Kingdom of God.” That means to say that the Kingdom of God needs scribes. The Kingdom of God needs people who can write, who will be able to take the Word and put it in places, and divide it up where people can be fed all over the world. The Kingdom message needs to go forth. Hallelujah!

(Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, December 2006, pg. 5-6)

Thought for today: There is a service that each of us must do and we must either come in to God’s service now or be left out.

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The Ability to Perceive

Posted in Christian Walk, tagged Apostolic Vision, Church without Spot, Darkness and Light, Five-Fold Ministry, God's Right Hand on November 3, 2021| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Psalm 98:1

I believe that we will have a church where the apostolic vision will be clear and plain and straight, where the prophets will prophecy, where the evangelists will evangelize, where the shepherds will shepherd, where the teachers will teach, and they will all say the same thing. Hallelujah. This is what God says He is going to have before Jesus comes. He is not saying that He is going to have it when Jesus comes. He is going to have it before His appearance. Let me put it that way, because “Jesus comes” can mean more than one thing. Before the “appearing,” or “parousia” (G3952) of Jesus Christ, He will have a church without spot, without blemish, without wrinkle, or any such thing (Ephesians 5:27). Hallelujah.

The LORD began to speak to me about a certain situation. I saw my right hand, and I know that God has a right hand and a left hand. The right hand always depicts the Spirit, and the left hand always depicts the natural. It is easy for me to pick my Bible up with my right hand, but if I am going to pick the podium up, I need two hands. He began to show me a peculiar thing, and I saw all of you brethren participating. Can everybody hold on to your thumb for me? Take your left hand and hold your right thumb. Now feel how awkward it is to try to lift up anything, to do anything without your thumb. Now hold the other finger that represents the prophet (index finger), and see what happens? It is not as bad when you hold that finger, but it is awfully awkward. Now hold the evangelist (middle finger). Then hold the other fingers. It seems to me that ALL of them are essential, and God would not have a church without them. But the one finger that is there, maybe it functions halfway but it is painful and it is hard to lift. You still can work it, but you have pain when you work it. Some arthritis or something is in the finger and it doesn’t work very well. Nevertheless, unless it is a chronic situation, nobody would know.

Let us turn to Psalm 110:1, “The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” Psalm 98:1, “O sing unto the LORD a new song; for he hath done marvellous things: his right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory.” “His right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory.” Sometimes we repeat scriptures and we never think very much about them. What is God’s right hand anyhow? We also need to consider that if God has a right hand, then He has a left hand. He said, “Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” So we see then that God’s right hand is a Spirit hand. The peculiar thing is that God wants the left hand to be in with the right hand to bring forth the victory. David went forth into battle, and it was he that went in to slaughter the enemy, but when he came out, he said that it was His right hand that had gotten them the victory.

God wants to be in us. A revelation came to me some months ago. God was walking in the garden every evening with Adam, and somehow or the other, God had an intention. He had an intention. He longed not only to walk in the garden, but also to walk in the garden that was inside of Adam. God wanted to be in Adam. Now, Adam was walking with God in the evening. Did it ever occur to you that none of us know how long that happened? We do not know how long it happened. All we know is that there was a relationship between God and man wherein was all the perspicacity, the perceptiveness of man, the ability to perceive, to know, to understand, to see, and to be fully conscious of both spiritual and natural. THAT ability was in Adam, for we understand from medical science that the portion of the brain that is used is quite small compared to the total mass. It was not so in the beginning. Adam lost about 75% of his brain when he fell. There is a part of us that isn’t used at all – the ability to perceive.

One time I was in a meeting and I saw people moving up and down in the congregation. Some of them started getting mad when some of the others were surrendering themselves to God, and they walked out. God said, “If you will resist the devil, he will flee from you” (James 4:7). The Word of God says that one day, when the Sons of God gathered together, Satan came also (Job 1:6, 2:1). Did you ever understand that the Bible used the word also? “…the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.”

When we gather together, there are things in us that do not please God. There are spirits in us; there are movements in us that are not of God. When you begin to praise God, these things begin to leave! Do you know why? Because darkness cannot stand when light comes in, and the moment that you open up yourself to God, light begins to flood into you and everything that is not of God begins to leave. Sometimes their movement motivates your feet to carry them out of the light. Sometimes they will leave on their own and wait outside the door for you. When you get outside, then you get back your idiosyncrasies, your bad ways. God is saying to us that something is happening to us at this time, in this age, to this people, and He wants a people to be awake and alive!

(Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, December 2006, pg. 3-4)

Thought for today: Darkness cannot stand when light comes in. The moment you open up yourself to God, light begins to flood into you and everything that is not of God begins to leave.

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