TODAY’S PROPHETIC NUMBER – 4/13/2023
Ephesians 4:13 – till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;
To bring the body of Christ to the unity and true knowledge of God, the fullness of the Lord God must be expressed in the five-fold ministries He appointed. Most can agree on the need for evangelist, pastors, teachers, while keeping the office of apostles and prophets in the “just-a-little-too-weird” category. Don’t dismiss the ones that make you uncomfortable. Are you willing to let God touch your life in crazy-kind-of-way?
Declaration: I will say “yes” to the fullness of Christ. I will seek my place in the five-fold ministry today.
THE WITNESS OF WOMEN
The first preachers of the Lord Jesus Christ were women. While you may not see the significance of this in our 21st century western world, let me tell you this: nobody else in the ancient Middle East would have done this but Jesus. He breaks all the rules and I love that about him.
In those days and in many cultures, women were considered property. They were literally owned by their husbands or fathers. They could be sold into slavery and that’s one of the things we still deal with today in that part of the world, especially with Arab cultures and now Muslims.
While it wasn’t exactly like that in the Jewish culture, women in the day of Jesus had no standing in society. They were considered so lowly, they were not educated. Because they were not educated, they were not considered capable of studying God’s word or worthy of testifying in a court of law.
Now, if I was robbed in those days and the only witness to back up my story on who did this to me was a woman, I would be toast. That’s how little men thought of women in that time and place.
Not Jesus. No, sir! Jesus broke all the rules. One of the first rules he broke when he and his followers started preaching, teaching and healing was to go through Samaria. I’m sure the disciples were horrified as Samaritans were half Jews. Jews wanted nothing to do with Samaritans.
But Jesus made a beeline to Samaria for one reason: to meet a broken, misfit of a woman and ask her for a drink of water. A conversation, forbidden by gender, social and religious rules of the day, begins:
The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.” – John 4:19-20
She looks at Jesus, the Messiah, and says, “Where is God? I want to know where God is so I can worship him.” He was right there in front of her and he made her the first missionary as she spread his fame all over that region—to Gentiles!
Who found the empty tomb? Who ran through the streets to spread the message that Jesus was alive? Women. Women were the first witnesses in a day when they could not testify in a court of law. And here comes Jesus, and he’s like, “I’m here to abolish the law so listen to my witnesses and they are women. They love me and they are trustworthy.”
The rules go right out the window when Jesus shows up because the scriptures are not God. They tell of God and testify to Jesus, but they are not Him. Jesus is perfect theology. He demonstrated the Father and brought the Holy Spirit to live in our hearts and quicken our spirits. You and I can testify to that!
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