Teaching

This brief teaching compliments the teaching released on June 22 through our webcast THE ULTIMATE REFORMER. Listen to the teaching here.

1) Heavenly patterns

Most people don't get the teaching on reformation because they are so caught up in the natural, carnal aspects of life. However, if Jesus expected people in his day to tune in to what the Spirit was saying, it's not too much for us to do the same today.

People had much harder life back then and yet the Lord Jesus taught about Heaven. This present reformation is about us going to the mountain and getting the patterns of God ourselves. God called Moses to the mountain (Heb. 8:5) and showed him patterns relevant for his day. God didn't ask Moses to replicate what Abraham had already accomplished.

Likewise, we are not looking back at the historic Reformation of the Middle Ages, we're looking up to Jesus, the Head and the patterns he has for us today.

There is unhealthy dependency in the church on ministry gifts. It's one thing to know how to honor and receive from ministry gifts, it's another thing to become dependent on God's ministers.

Reformation is about removing dependency on man and man's systems and going back to the headship of Christ.

Christ has patterns for each and everyone. For all the talk about "purpose" driven this and that, the Church is still full of people who wander aimlessly in this world and don't now what their place is.

Each believer must learn how to take advantage of the greatest benefit of Jesus' death on the cross - the ability to go into the presence of God, to go up to the mountain of his presence and receive the patterns God has for each person.

No apostle, prophet or any other ministry gift can manufacture this for you. Prophetic words can't substitute for what only God can do. Books can't do it. Money can't do it.

We must go for the heavenly patterns God has for our individual lives, churches, cities, nations, families, companies, etc.

We also need to seek God for the big picture. The big picture is Matthew 25:31-46 God is into shifting nations from being goat nations to becoming sheep nations. This will happen beginning with each person becoming a sheep, then building communities, then cities, then nations. The culture must be leavened with the leaven of the Kingdom to be able to shift a nation.

What are the heavenly patterns God has for you, for your territory? What is God's bigger picture for your community?

2) Not your great-great-great grandmother's reformation

With all due respect for the Reformation of the Middle Ages, this present reformation is not about replicating the past. There are nations where the word reformation doesn't mean much at all.

What God wants to do today is not replicate the past, whether it's the Reformation of the Middle Ages or any other move of God.

Jesus is the Reformer we all need, every nation needs. As long as Christ is alive, there will be reformation. He is the Chief Apostle and Architect of God's Reformation process. See Heb. 3:1

3) It's a process, not an event

Reformation is a process not an event. Most people today want a quick event to fix everything. They don't want to know the God of process.

It's a mistake for the Church to bill revival events like the meetings that are going on in Lakeland right now as the "next big thing". I haven't seen anything yet in these meetings that will add to the reformation purpose of God. It's great to have miracle services but it's a mistake to bet this next move of God on miracles.

Miracles are very much conditional. No major reformation ever depended on miracles. The reformation purpose of God deals with the foundations of the heart, the foundations of the Church and the foundations of society.

God's reformation agenda is much bigger than the media driven culture of the church.

EXAMPLE: Most reports confirm that in Brazil right now, almost 40% of all people are born-again. There has been an incredible move of God in Brazil now in the last 15-20 years. Yet no one knows about it, because the Brazilians are not so good in "marketing" what's happening there and "selling" their success story to the world.

The Western Christian world is very much EVENT driven. Due to cheap travel, celebrity obsession and instant-everything kind of a culture, we need EVENTS to keep the people excited. We overexpose events like the one in Lakeland and millions begin to think this is the next big thing.

However, reformation is a process. The supernatural is not necessarily spectacular. The sooner we learn this lesson, the better.
George P. Bakalov