C h a p t e r1 5

The Best Is Yet to Come

God is raising up exceptional
spiritual fathers and mothers

A

man of God once said, "To do anything less than what you were
created to do will bore you.” Many are bored in the body of
Christ because they are not fulfilling what God created them to become: spiritual parents! Spiritual fathers and mothers rarely get bored. They, instead, have a sense of fulfillment and dignity.

Ibrahim, a journalist from Nairobi, Kenya, knew his people were not living up to their potential. Having a keen interest in spiritual fathering and the cell church concept, he sought for a working model and asked to observe me as I served our new church that was built on the principles of spiritual fathering and small group ministry.

At that time, our church had been birthed as a cell church a few years earlier with three new cells. But we had our setbacks.Instead of multiplying, one cell died. We desperately pleaded for God's help as we reminded our people, "You are ministers, and God desires to use you!” Eventually, faith rose in their hearts, and the Lord used them. People were saved. New believers came to the cells. New leaders were trained. At last--multiplication.

Two cells became four. Four became eight. Eight became sixteen, and sixteen became thirty-two. The church grew rapidly. As pastor, I spent most of my time meeting with cell leaders and discussing the needs and potential in individual cell members. Each leader and I regularly prayed simple faith-filled prayers for each believer in each cell. These believers were cared for as parents care for their children.

Ibrahim sat watching and listening. Then my African brother opened his heart. Weeping, he unburdened, "Western evangelists come to my nation and hold massive crusades. The TV cameras are rolling. When the evangelist asks my brothers to raise their hands to receive Christ, many respond. The next week, another evangelist comes to town, and many of those same brothers come to the crusade and raise their hands again. My people need a sense of dignity, where every individual believer understands he is important to God and to His purposes. Will you come and help us? We need a new model of church life.”

Today, Ibrahim has a vision to train leaders to start cells and new churches throughout Africa. He and his wife, Diane, opened their home for cell ministry. Neighbors and friends received the Lord, and many found a spiritual family. Cells were birthed in neighboring areas of the city, multiplying throughout Kenya and into Uganda.

In 1999, I was in Kenya for their ten-year anniversary of church planting. In their first five years, they grew from one church to two. Then in another five years, they mushroomed to more than 30 churches. God used them as spiritual parents to model a new kind of church life. God's people in these nations have received a new sense of dignity!

Look for a restoration of the fathers

Remember the words of the prophet Malachi: "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers...” (Malachi 4:5-6). Spiritual fathering is a key to breathing fresh life and vitality into the church.

A few years ago, I was asked to share the vision of the New Testament church in Auckland, New Zealand. There, I met Robert. He listened intently as I spoke about Jesus spending most of His time with the twelve disciples--His spiritual sons. I discussed God's call on every saint to be a minister as stated in Ephesians 4:11-12. I also looked at Acts 2 reflecting the New Testament model of the church as well as speaking on effective small group ministry and spiritual families in today's church.

After thirty minutes, Robert spoke, filled with emotion. "When I was 13 years old, the Lord called me to be a minister. For more than 20 years, I tried to find doors that would open for me to fulfill this call. As I understood it, the only way to be a minister was to be ordained after completing years of theological training. Sometime back, I led a man to the Lord. I discipled him and watched him grow. It was so fulfilling. I realize tonight, I no longer need to try to be a minister, I am one!” A heavy load dropped from Robert's back. The truth had set him free. Robert realized he could fulfill the Lord's call to minister by discipling a new believer. He had become a spiritual father.

John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church, believed that one out of every five persons was a potential leader. Through his exhortation, the Wesleyan movement spread throughout the nations. God's people worked out their calling as ministers and opened their homes for class meetings, similar to cell groups. Each person had a sense of fulfillment and dignity.

The harvest is upon us! Shirley Hampton, who serves in pastoral leadership of Bethel Church of Lititz in Pennsylvania, is a woman of God who uses her prophetic gifting to encourage the church. She fervently believes that "spiritual fathering and mothering will catapult the church into the harvest. God is preparing this support system--spiritual parents with the heart of our heavenly Father--that will birth, nurture, protect, equip and release those coming in.”She says, "Church, get ready for changing messy diapers and middle-of-the-night feedings! But, oh the joy that comes as we see those spiritual babes becoming an expression of the Bride who brings our heavenly Bridegroom great pleasure!”

May every saint capture the revelation of the call to minister!Spiritual parents and children together will serve and encourage each other toward maturity. Participating in spiritual parenting is an opportunity to get over boredom and regain a sense of dignity!

Are you a brother or a father?

Ron Myer, a faithful friend and colleague, who has served with me in leadership for more than seventeen years, believes there is a big difference between being a father and being an older brother--especially the kind of brother exemplified in the prodigal son story:

In many cases, a brother will inspire you, but a father will direct you. A brother may wound you, but a father will heal you. A brother often sees you for who you are, a father sees your potential. A brother has a tendency to judge you, while a father will lovingly correct you. A brother may condemn you for wasting your inheritance on riotous living, but a father will love you, woo you back home, and restore you.

Aren't you glad the prodigal son ran into his father before his older brother? Had he run into his older brother first, the outcome of the story could have ended much differently.

Here is the good news! The Lord is taking older brothers in our generation and raising them up to become spiritual fathers.

The benefits of obedience

It is not always easy to be a spiritual father. It requires sacrifice, and especially another item in short supply--time.Nevertheless, when we look to the larger purposes God has for our lives, we will see many benefits of our obedience.

Jesus understood that His disciples left their families to follow Him. He reminded them of the benefits of their obedience in Mark 10:29-30: "Assuredly, I say to you, there is not one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel's, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time--houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions--and in the age to come, eternal life.”

The person who gives up their comfort zone will gain spiritual children! Jesus assured His disciples they would produce spiritual children, giving them a spiritual heritage to pass on to their spiritual children. This was their reward.

God wants to raise up exceptional spiritual fathers and mothers in our midst, but it requires obedience and sacrifice on our part.Numbers 26:63-65 tells us that out of the thousands of the first generation of Israelites in the wilderness, only Joshua and Caleb were left of that generation to enter the Promised Land because they were the only ones who were obedient and followed the Lord wholeheartedly. Why didn't the rest of their generation make it to the Promised Land? Because they believed a bad report. When the spies came back to Moses and showed them the fruit of the Promised Land, they gave a discouraging report of the giants in the land. They did not believe they could conquer them.

Don't believe a bad report. The enemy will try to get you to believe his lies, "How could I ever be a spiritual parent? I am too busy; I'm not spiritual enough; I made too many mistakes.” But the truth is that God has called you. There is a spiritual fathering anointing He will give you to accomplish it. He is releasing this anointing in the church today. It is available to you. We serve a supernatural God who can go way beyond what we can do in the natural.

Sharpen your anointing

In II Kings, 6:1-7 a young man lost his ax head in the waters while cutting down a tree beside a river. Most likely, he walked out into the murky water and searched in vain for the ax head. Finally, knowing he could not accomplish his job without the ax, the young man went to Elisha--the one person he thought could help him in his dilemma.

There may come a time when you feel you have lost the edge of the anointing in your life and are not able to accomplish your job without it. Down in the bottom of the murky river somewhere is your anointing for God's work, but it is lost to you. This is when a spiritual father can help. A perceiving father is a retriever of lost ax heads, lost vision and lost anointing. He will help you find the place where you lost your ax head but it is still your responsibility to pick it up. Ask the Lord to lead you to spiritual parents who are intent on undergirding the next generation of leaders. At the same time, purpose in your heart to become a spiritual parent yourself to the next generation in your life.

God loves to use weak people who only find their strength in Him. You may never feel entirely ready to be a spiritual parent--you just need to be willing.

A new generation of leaders

The Lord is committed to His church. He has promised to return for a church (a bride) that is without spot or wrinkle (Ephesians 5:27). On the day I was married, I looked for my bride at the back of the auditorium, ready to walk the aisle to become my new wife. If she had slipped in the mud a few minutes before her entry, what do you think my reaction would have been? To reject her? Certainly not! I would have done whatever it took to clean her up to prepare her for the wedding!

Our Lord is preparing a bride for Himself. This bride has been soiled and badly wrinkled during the past 2,000 years. But He is committed to cleaning her up to present her to Himself as a glorious church, perfect in every way!

In the last days, the Lord is going to bestow large measures of His Spirit on His people--male and female, young and old:

"And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams. And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; and they shall prophesy” (Acts 2:17-18).

The Lord is committed to raising up a whole new generation of spiritual parents among us. I meet this new breed of leaders week after week as I travel and speak throughout the world. They aremarked by humility and servanthood.

They embrace and honor their spiritual parents who believe in them and coach them. They have no desire to build their own empires. These new leaders see their gifts and anointings as just one of many critical pieces of input needed as they find the mind of Christ together. They honor and lift up other ministries, churches, leaders and believers in their regions. They are secure in their identity and in the Lord's call on their lives as they bless those around them.

Imagine with me for a moment the church in your community in the coming days as she returns to the biblical truth of spiritual parenting. As spiritual parents, our expectation is that the next generation will have a much greater mantle than we have. And not only that, but as the churches in our communities recognize there is no competition in the kingdom of God, but only completion, we will both individually and corporately fulfill the call of God on our lives.

Every gift the Lord has given to us will be properly put to use for the glory of God. And new believers will be birthed into the family of God and nurtured into spiritual parenthood day after day. True family will be restored to the body of Christ.

"Go, find a son”

I like the way Mark Hanby describes a spiritual father:

A spiritual father is someone whose life and ministry raised you up from the mire of immaturity into proper growth and order. A spiritual father is the one whose words pierced beyond the veneer of a blessing into the very heart and marrow of your existence, causing a massive realignment to your spirit. A spiritual father is not necessarily the one who birthed you into the kingdom. Instead, he is the one who rescues you from the doorstop of your abandonment and receives you into his house, gives you a name, and makes you his son.1

God wants to give us a legacy of spiritual sons and daughters but we must connect with them. We must find them and make them our children.

Elijah, the prophet, was discouraged and depressed in I Kings 19. He had just experienced the "high” of the miracle on Mount Carmel, but fled into the desert when he was threatened by the evil Queen Jezebel. There, under a juniper tree, he complained to God of his ill fortune. He was tired, weary, and felt as if he was the only godly man left in the land.

What solution does God give him? "Go, find a son.” God believed in Elijah even when he was in the midst of deep depression. Like the good Father He is, God refused to allow Elijah's spiritual legacy to die so easily. Instead, the Lord encouraged him to train a son (Elisha--verse 19) to be his successor. Elijah obeyed, placed his coat on Elisha, and anointed him as his assistant. Once again, he had purpose and direction. His anointing would be multiplied greatly through a son.

As Elijah fathered this spiritual son, one day Elisha asked Elijah for a double portion of the spirit that was on him. I find it interesting that when the Lord took Elijah away to be with Him in the whirlwind, Elisha cried out, "My father, my father,” not "My prophet, my prophet” (II Kings 2:12). Elijah had truly become a father to this young prophet.

Elisha experienced a double portion of the Lord's Spirit after being fathered by Elijah. Likewise, we should expect our spiritual children to progress far ahead of us spiritually. True spiritual fathers and mothers live with the expectation that their spiritual sons and daughters will go much further in God than they have ever gone.

Someday, you and I will stand before the Living God. When I stand before the Lord, I do not want to stand there by myself. Let's stand there with a multitude of our spiritual children, grandchildren, and their future descendants! Like Elijah, it's time for you to find a son or daughter! The best is yet to come!

Notes

1 Dr. Mark Hanby, You Have Not Many Fathers, (Shippensburg, Pennsylvania: Destiny Image Publishers, Inc., 1996), p. 94.

Last modified: Thursday, August 9, 2018, 1:05 PM