What do you do when the fulfilment comes and it is not what you expected? There is a back side to the forerunner calling and we need to talk about it. God is fulfilling promises right now in our community, and it is important to understand a core piece of God’s fulfillment. Most people miss the day of their visitation and the day of the fulfillment because they are expecting one thing and God does another. God fulfills the word and the promise but it does not look like what we expected. And when this happens people either get disappointed or offended. In 2008 God moved me abruptly from Akron, Ohio to Boston, Massachusetts. Actually he moved me to a small village in New Hampshire, and told me he needed me in Boston. And I was in shock. I knew a few people, but I didn’t have any connections and no direction. In Ohio I was running a house a prayer, so I decided to find a house of prayer. I borrowed Lyn’s car, and drove into Boston. In 2008 you couldn’t just look on your phone and have it give you directions. You had to look on a map and find your way. Once upon a time I had a laminated Boston street map, and I carried with me everywhere I went. And if you needed to find an address in Cambridge, you had a problem, because the street names were the same for different streets. And so I found myself on the wrong side of the river, in a strange city. Lost. I finally did find the house of prayer, and when I did, I heard the people’s prayers. “O God, send people to Boston. We need more trained leaders to help with the house of prayer!” After the meeting was over, I walked up to the leader, and introduced myself. I said, “God just moved me here from where I was leading a house of prayer. I think I one of the people you were praying for.” And the leader looked at me and said, “No thanks, you’re not what we are looking for.” God tests the forerunner call by how we respond to way to its fulfillment. Often it is not going to look like what we expected. And when the thing comes you might miss it. We see this all the time with prophetic words, people miss the fulfilment because they are looking for their interpretation of the word not the word. People miss the fulfilment because they are looking for their interpretation of the word, not the word. John the Baptist was born to be set aside. He was the last of the old grid, the Old Covenant prophet. He himself said, there is one coming after me who is greater, and He must increase and I must decrease. We all say things that sound so spiritual. The reality is very different. It hurts. And John begins to see that his ministry is decreasing, and the ministry of Jesus is increasing. John is the first prophet is four hundred years. That is a big deal. And he is not ending well. His life and ministry are diminishing. And then he gets put in prison. And John sends some of his disciples to Jesus and asks if he is the Messiah. Jesus is not the Messiah anyone was expecting. There were a lot beliefs about what this person would be. He would be the military king. He would be a prophet priest. And even that the Messiah might be three people a prophet a priest and a king. And like all prophetic revelation, when it gets fulfilled you look back and you say “Oh wow, it all fits. This is what God was talking about.” Today we know that the Bible told us about a baby in Bethlehem and that he would die on the cross and rise again. To the people on the other side, even John, the picture was not as clear. He knew the story of Mary meeting Elizabeth. His mother told him that he leaped in Elizabeth’s womb at the sound of Mary’s voice. Jesus was his cousin. They have known each other all their lives. And they also knew that they were different. And now John the forerunner asks a question. Are you the Messiah or should we keep looking? And Jesus gives us an answer that is consistent with everything else he has said: Go back and tell John everything you have seen and heard. The blind see the lame walk, the deaf hear, lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised to life, and the good news is preached to the poor. God never holds you to a standard higher than the one he set for himself. Jesus tells us to judge a tree by the fruit. And Jesus doesn’t say to John “Yes, John, I am the Messiah.” No. Jesus says, John here is the fruit. You be the judge. Jesus never takes away the demand of faith. John has to make a choice. John has to decide. Jesus is not going to make a decision for him. When God calls you to step out in faith, It’s not always as clear as walking on the water and you stop sinking. Sometimes God will give you a direction and you have to choose to trust the direction and have faith. Jesus doesn’t give John comfort in prison. He says look at my fruit. Look at what is happening. You have to trust the God you know and believe that I am the Messiah. And then Jesus makes a key statement. Blessed are the ones who are not offended by me. Often God will use offense to test and sort us. One of the key indicators of a new move of God is it’s offensiveness to the ones who were leaders of the last move of God. God uses offense to sift us. This is why Paul says in I Corinthians 13 that Love is not easily offended. Religion and religious people tend to quickly be offended. And there are alot of people in the church who are quick to judge. This happened in the Toronto Blessing revival that happened thirty years ago. People were quick to judge and say this is not God. John Wimber one of the shining lights of the charismatic and third wave movements and founder of the Vineyard churches condemned the Toronto Airport Vineyard and kicked them out. I saw a lot of it first hand. When people from Toronto showed up in London, the Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey said something telling. “Only time will tell if this is the Holy Spirit. It would be wise not to condemn this like the Church of England condemned the Methodists. If this is a move of God, then it will bear fruit. If it is not, it will disappear.” He was right, and because of that, the Alpha Course became a global phenomenon, leading countless people to Christ. One day I was walking down the street and talking with God, and the Lord asked me a question. Always pay attention when the Lord asks a question. “Do you know why I made all of those people laugh at Toronto?” I didn’t know. “Because I wanted to offend people.” Hmm. God uses offense as a precision tool to prune his body. Then the Lord said something even more interesting. “I am about to really offend people. I am restoring Mary and the Sacraments to my church.” Hmm. Aslan is not a tame lion. You have not got God figured out. And if you do have God figured out, then you do not have God. You have a god. An idol. And sometimes the fulfillment and the answer are really not what we were expecting. Father Al used to say that God heals everyone but not everyone is cured. So often we pray that God will take the struggle or the problem away. We are praying for a relief from the pain and the suffering. And it just doesn’t go away. Paul talked about his thorn in the flesh. And all we know is that God didn’t take it away. And then we get this little promise. God’s strength is made perfect in my weakness. God’s answer to your prayer might be grace and power flowing through you even though the problem is not getting fixed. Jesus only has weak and broken people to choose from and he is teaching us total dependence on him. And when God starts working through weak broken people it really offends the people who have it all together with the right credentials and who did all the right stuff to get to the right place. God doesn’t do that. He lifts up the lowly and sets them with the princes of his people. Last Tuesday I had twelve unplanned hours in New York City. I got the time on my bus ticket wrong. Sometimes you just have to ask the Lord what do you want me to do? There is a great little coffee shop in the Village, and I had spent the whole morning there. The Lord said to go back. And when I did the manager struck up a conversation with me. She was one of the leaders of a house of prayer on the West Side of Manhattan. “God is moving people to New York right now. You need to come to the house of prayer and be part of it.” Whenever God does something there is poetry in it. Keep your heart open. Don’t judge and limit the word by how you think the word is going to be fulfilled. You won’t miss the day of your visitation.
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