Our beloved fellow Last Days Disciples, this new series of articles is titled “Marching Orders for the Stephen Generation” and its purpose is to enhance our understanding of what we Last Days Disciples can expect in the coming days… and what our Father has already provided for us in the midst of everything and anything we may face. This series will strengthen and solidify the firm foundation of Truth that Holy Spirit has been imparting to our FMM family and will increase our resolve to fulfill the exhortation we find in Ephesians 6:10-18 (TLV):
“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you are able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the worldly forces of this darkness, and against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist when the times are evil, and after you have done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm then! Buckle the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. Strap up your feet in readiness with the Good News of shalom. Above all, take up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Pray in the Ruach on every occasion, with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, keep alert with perseverance and supplication for all the kedoshim.”
We begin with the Original Marching Orders to bring into focus the enhancements found in the Marching Orders for the Stephen Generation. And the reason for that ‘upgrade’ given to us by the Ruach HaKodesh is because we live in uncharted territory… generations before us never faced the kind of things we do. They could not have conceived civilizations slowly self- destructing after decades of demonically inspired lies and deception. Those who lived during the days of great revivals and outpourings of the Spirit would never have imagined how those fires could have died down to smoldering embers.
So knowing how much the written and Living Word has revealed about the Last Days, I exhort you to take seriously the level of equipping this series offers as we work together to advance the Kingdom of our God and prepare for the coming of His beloved Son.
Love, Mum Nancy
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The Original
Marching Orders
(First received in 1988)
1. Take My people further in their understanding of what it is to be a temple of My Presence.
2. Teach them to think along with Me, in all things.
3. Teach them to listen to Me at all times, even as they are thinking!
4. Develop a great tenderness and sensitivity for My Presence within them. Teach them to worship Me in the depths of their spirits and innermost minds, in all things.
5. Teach them to understand clearly and thoroughly, what it means to be faithful to seek, in all things, My viewpoint and the purpose of My Kingdom, Kingship and Righteousness. If they do that, I, for My part, will add all other things for them.
6. Take them further in their understanding of the depths of the Covenant relationship they have with Me. Teach them what their part is to be.
7. Teach them how to respond to Me in even the tiniest matters.
8. I AM with them in all things and in all ways. I want them to be with Me in the same manner!
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Marching Orders for
The Stephen Generation
(Updated adaptation made in 2021)
1. Take My people further in their understanding of what it is to be a temple of My Presence… So they’ll have the faith they need to remain connected to Me when I lead them through “The Valley of the Shadow of Death.”
2. Teach them to think along with Me, in all things… So that they can be led by the Holy Spirit at all times, even amid desperate emergencies.
3. Teach them to listen to Me at all times, even as they are thinking… So that I can guide them safely through opposition and persecution.
4. Develop a great tenderness and sensitivity for My Presence within them. Teach them to worship Me in the depths of their spirits and innermost minds, in all things… So that when I return, I won’t have to say to them, “I never knew you!”
5. Teach them to understand clearly and thoroughly what it means to be faithful to seek, in all things, My viewpoint and the purpose of My Kingdom, Kingship and Righteousness. If they do that, I, for My part, will add all other things for them… For I AM the Blessing Father gave to them from the very beginning… and because the Serpent never stops trying to destroy God’s beloved humans… they must cling to Me as they resist demonic attacks in the final days.
6. Take them further in their understanding of the depths of the Covenant relationship they have with Me. Teach them what their part is to be… So that I can continually impart My Covenant blessings and protection to them. Teach them to abide beneath the shadow of My wings even as thousands perish all around them.
7. Teach them to respond to Me in even the tiniest matters… So that they can remain connected to Me regardless of what is going on around them.
8. I am with them in all things and in all ways. I want them to be with Me in the same manner… So I can continue to be everything they need, no matter how desperate the world situations become all around them.
The Lord gave me the original ‘Marching Orders’ in the summer of 1988. Soon afterward, He started sending the downloads for what would eventually develop into the material that the Ultimate Journey Ministry shares so successfully today with those who participate in that ministry’s support group disciple training.
But after the Lord gave me the new assignment of cooperating with Him in giving birth to this current Follow Me Ministry, the Marching Orders are just as pertinent and necessary as ever. Only now we’ve updated them to reflect the atmosphere and urgency in which the Last Days disciples of today will be required to operate.
I call these Last Days Special Forces Disciples: ‘The Stephen Generation’, because they will finish constructing the ‘Highway in the Wilderness’ that will prepare the way for the Return of our risen Messiah. (See Isa. 40). And they will do it amid some extremely difficult and often dangerous circumstances… regardless of the cost to them. So they’ll have to do their work while resisting and opposing the forces of Darkness when the age-old war between Good and Evil reaches the zenith level of its intensity.
And since they’ll have to learn to persevere in their service to the Lord in dire and apparently impossible situations, they will be very aware of the fact that only the actual Presence of the risen Lord will be able to see them through. They will have to know what the disciple Stephen (in chapters 6 and 7 of the book of Acts) knew, and do what he did when it was his time to render his unforgettable service.
The Stephen Generation will have to be prepared and equipped to maintain the supernatural martyrs’ mindset focus that the valiant, unstoppable, disciple Stephen maintained and displayed, during his final moments on Earth. Nothing could deter or stop him or the other martyrs! They follow the totally focused example of our Lord! And authentic Last Days disciples will have to do the same. So the training true disciples receive is of vital importance. And that training is what these meditations are meant to help us unpack, explore, absorb, digest, and… embody… as we go through our ‘boot camp’ preparatory stages.
Dad John
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Meditation #14
What Is It Like To Be One With God?
“The one who has the bride is the bridegroom, but the best man rejoices when he stands and hears the bridegroom’s voice. So now my joy is complete! HE MUST INCREASE WHILE I MUST DECREASE!”
“The One who comes from above is above all. The one who is from the earth is of the earth, and of the earth he speaks. The One who comes from Heaven is above all!” (John 3:29-31 TLV, Emphasis added)
“Amen, amen I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces much fruit. He who loves his (temporary Self-) life will lose it, and the one who hates (forsakes) his life in this world will keep it forever. If any man serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I AM, there also will My servant be. If anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.” (John 12:24-26 TLV, Emphasis added)
God is not ranked above us simply because He arbitrarily decided to allot to Himself the highest place! He’s above us because He created us out of nothingness and serves as our one and only Source for absolutely everything that will ever pertain to us! If He should decide to stop maintaining us in existence, we would instantly blink off and disappear into oblivion! That’s why He is God… and we, and everything else He creates… are not! For this inescapable reason, He is ALL in all things, to us!
Remember: we humans were originally designed and created to be God’s image and likeness. We were never meant to be radically independent originator-agents in our own right. That is an absurd, totally unreal concept! Our Creator is the only Uncreated, Independent and Sovereign Lord of all. And no creature can share in His unique traits. This is why we must depend on God for absolutely everything… every breath, heartbeat, brainwave, faculty, gifting and activity originates in Him and come to us from Him. His Living Creative Word is our Vine. The Word supplies us with all that we are and have and do. And we, by nature and essence, are always His totally dependent branches. So for us, the critical issue will always be whether or not we choose to remain united to, and dependent upon, the Sustainer of our existence, so that we can bear His Fruit… or not!
“I declare to you today that you will certainly perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and take possession of it. I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you today, that I have placed before you, Life and Death, the Blessing and the Curse.
“So choose Life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding close to Him; for this is your Life and the length of your days, so that you may live in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.” (Deuteronomy 30:18-20 TLV, Emphasis added)
For us, the essence of Sin is when we fall into the insane mindset and notion that we have the ability and right to operate as radically independent, autonomous agents, living lives of our own, as we see fit. And even when we do labor under that delusion, the truth is that God must still continue to supply us and maintain our dying bodies in existence! He continues to supply for our lifetime, all that we are and all that we will ever be able to have and do in this world. His hope is that by giving us more time, we will finally see the Light and repent of our rebellion and doubt, and return to Him once again so that He can make everything about us right once more, before we enter changeless Eternity.
He keeps rebellious, unbelieving people going, even while they insist that He doesn’t exist and insist on having nothing to do with Him! But if He should stop sustaining us, regardless of whether we’re sane or not, we would immediately blink off and disappear! So there’s no real sane way for us to operate, other than to admit the Truth and acknowledge, honor, and thank God for being our very Life, and the sole Source of our provision, maintenance, protection and ongoing wellbeing!
So when John the Immerser proclaimed, “He must increase while I must decrease,” He was stating the obvious: ‘My delusional sense of Self-life must die and disappear, so that my Creator and Sustainer may be what only He can be to me, do what only He can do for me, without any delusional rebellious competitive arrogance from me getting in His way! God is my only Life and Shepherd! If it were not for Him, I would not even exist!’
“Abide in Me, and I will abide in you. The branch cannot itself produce fruit, unless it abides on the vine. Likewise, you cannot produce fruit unless you abide in Me.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for APART FROM ME YOU CAN DO NOTHING!
“If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away like a branch and is dried up. Such branches are picked up and thrown into the fire and burned.” (John 15:4-6 TLV, Emphasis added)
Beloved, that Self-life, of which demons and humans become so enamored, is pure fantasy! It does not really exist! It is total delusion! The concept of a creature being radically independent is totally absurd! So when the Lord says: “If anyone wants to follow after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it,” He’s not requiring us to kill something in ourselves that actually exists! He’s challenging us to wake up, snap out of our delusion, and cut away its tentacles so that we can break free to return to the realm of sanity and Truth, which is – total dependence upon Him!
We must die to giving into the absurd notion of Self-life, which is actually, living death! We must be free to live in God’s actual Reality, and receive from His Life, from which He continually supplies us with absolutely everything! It is in this sense that we are to understand the statement of our Lord from chapter 15 of John’s Gospel as given above.
So we now have the right to join our Lord in the Glory of His Resurrection. And our relationship with God is similar to human physical marriage in the sense that a bride and her family marry into and become one with the groom and his family. And the groom becomes one flesh with his wife and is thereafter responsible for providing for her care and protection and nurturing, as well as that of all of the children and the household they will bring into being together.
Thereafter, whatever belongs to the Groom, belongs to the Bride. His status and position become hers. They are no longer considered to be separate, single individuals. They are one, for as long as they both shall live, and only death will be able to separate them. But of course when we’re bonded in a Blood Covenant with God, our union with each other will be Eternal for He is Eternal Life itself… and now He also becomes our Life! Moreover, He will also endow us with new bodies that will be eternally whole and perfect! So our bond with Him is Eternal!
And just as it is incumbent on husbands and wives to love and care for each other, and work together as one integrated unit in the running of their household and activities and interests, so does our union with God require us to share the mind, will, affections, and aspirations of our Divine Spouse. We are to be one with Him in every way, since in truth, He actually is everything to us! It is only right that we receive the Love He desires to shower upon us, and acknowledge it and thank Him for it, and return that Love to Him, and to all of His Kingdom, in a grateful, pure, loving response. And, beloved, this is the Wisdom that the Holy Spirit imparted to Stephen, and to the countless numbers of other faithful disciples and martyrs that shared that awesome Resurrection Messiah-Life, with him.
Once we believe and accept and ingest this Wisdom, it will become part of us. Then we’ll be able to understand the emotional depths and profound meaning contained in texts like the one I’ll cite for you next. It is a statement made by the Living Word of God made flesh. It is with Him, that each of us is to become as one. His Father sent His Word to us to be our Husband. In other words, we are to allow God’s Word to pierce, penetrate, and impregnate our innermost being, with the Seed of His Fruit-producing Life. And like earthly wives that bear the children of their husbands, so are we called upon to bear the Fruit of the Seed with which the Word of God is sent to fill our circumcised hearts. So here is the statement:
“Watch out for false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruit. Grapes aren’t gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles, are they? Even so, every good tree produces good fruit, but the rotten tree produces bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a rotten tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will recognize them by their fruit.” (Matthew 7:15-20 TLV, Emphasis added)
The Scriptures tell us repeatedly that God expects the lives of His Word’s disciples to bear tremendous amounts of His Fruit. That sounds very nice. But what exactly does it mean? What is that Fruit and what does it look like when it appears? The nature of the life produces automatic fruit. So if the Word’s Life is in us, it produces appropriate fruit. If that Life is not in us, then what is in us will instead produce alien, condemned results.
So it is my firm belief that this is where the significance and importance of our FMM Marching Orders come into the picture. The life of Stephen, as revealed in the book of Acts, is a great example of someone whose life was bearing tremendous amounts of His Master’s supernatural Fruit. In other words, His risen indwelling Lord was always blatantly and obviously present and revealing Himself in and through His beloved disciple Stephen. Wherever Stephen went, and whatever he did, served to reveal and manifest the Reality and Presence of His resurrected Lord. He truly was Yeshua’s image and likeness and a living member of His earthly Body!
What’s Been Planted Into Us Is Exactly What Comes Out
So when that vicious mob attacked him, nothing that they said, or did, or threatened was able to get Stephen to doubt, or cower, or cave in under the pressure they were doing their utmost to exert upon him. The spiritual Reality of GOD WITHIN STEPHEN… that Stephen had previously invested in heavily and deposited incessantly into his own soul and brain… is what enabled him to withstand and overcome THE DEMONIC ATTACK that was trying to get to him through his body. But what Stephen had put into himself on the inside, blew away whatever happened to be trying to get to him from the outside… proving the Truth and Reality of the Covenant Bond that enables repentant Man to actually become one with the Living God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob!
As soon as we become one with God, we also become one with all the other humans who have also become one with Him! So through this Divine Marriage Union God is able to create His Beloved Son’s New Covenant earthly Body… which is God’s Covenant Family! The Body is the promised Fruit that will eventually result in the Redemption and Restoration of all the rest of His Creation!
Are you now beginning to catch a glimpse of the awesome destiny God has reserved for us? He put Himself in a position where He will only apply the marvelous Fruit of His Word’s Perfect Finished Work of Redemption on Earth by and through His disciples! And so everything that will be necessary for this amazing work to happen will have to be put in place, and maintained in good operating condition, by and through His disciples. We are to serve God as the Royal Priesthood that continually serves in the Presence of Almighty God. When all of that is in effect and in its proper position, then ‘The Great Commission’ that God has entrusted to His disciples will be fulfilled. God and Man are intended to live, operate and act in tandem… together… as one integrated Working Unit! It is because of this that the Lord, just before ascending back into Heaven, made this awesome promise to His disciples:
“AND REMEMBER! I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS, EVEN TO THE END OF THE AGE!” (Matthew 28:20b TLV, Emphasis added)
So, Beloved, consider this: God has sworn to be with us, even to the end of the age! But what about us? ARE WE AS DETERMINED TO ABIDE AND INTERACT WITH HIM TO THE END OF THE AGE, AS HE IS DETERMINED TO BE WITH US?
Look at the world around us! What does our ‘pop culture’ have to say about all of this? What is being taught in our universities and middle and elementary schools? Are we not being taught to see life through the lenses of Self-centered radically independent Humanism? And isn’t this true even in most ‘religious’ circles? And do not most of us disciples naturally tend to see, think, and act accordingly? But that is a totally God-less way of thinking, acting and reacting! In fact, it is grossly sub-human! And that’s why we need the repetition that following our Marching Orders provides.
We were never intended by God to live and to operate apart from Him! We are to be His image and likeness! So when we labor under the assumption that God is so distant from us that He abides in outer space while we live here on Earth, we’re actually following a paradigm for insanity! It is a blueprint for a world that has no substance or connection with actual Reality. It is, in fact, a mutated monstrosity! God always intended for us to live and think and act as one with His Living Word! And so by reuniting us with Him, God joins us to Himself, in His Perfect, Eternal Sabbath Rest (See Genesis 2:1-3; Hebrews 4:1-7). And this is the way we can contain, enjoy, and display the Fruits of His Word’s Perfect Finished Works of Creation, Redemption, and Restoration from within our yielded flesh.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Messiah. He chose us in the Messiah before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before Him in love. He predestined us for ADOPTION AS SONS through Messiah Yeshua, in keeping with the good pleasure of His will—to the glorious praise of His grace, with which He favored us through the One He loves!
“In Him we have redemption through His blood—the removal of trespasses—in keeping with the richness of His grace that He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight, He made known to us the mystery of His will, in keeping with His good pleasure that He planned in Messiah. The plan of the Fullness of Times is to bring all things together in the Messiah—both things in Heaven and things on Earth, ALL IN HIM! In Him we also were chosen, predestined according to His plan. He keeps working out all things according to the purpose of His will—so that we, who were first to put our hope in Messiah, might be (living testimonies) for His glorious praise!” (Ephesians 1:3-12 TLV, Amplification and emphasis added)
The Living Word of God became flesh and was sent to Earth to launch and fulfill the Full Restoration of Creation and restore everything to the original Perfect Blueprint Specifications that the Father had envisioned and planned to have throughout all of Eternity! The Fulfillment of this was the mission Messiah Yeshua was sent to accomplish. And that was why He was sent to be The Way, by which everything was to be made right! This is why He made full Atonement for all of our Sin. He delivered all of Creation from the contamination and corruption of the Death that was caused by Sin. And even as our bodies still inhabit this world, His Life is to be applied to us by the Holy Spirit who, in the fullness of time, God plans to pour out upon all of mankind. This is why Yeshua said:
“I came to pour out (Holy Spirit) Fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already ablaze! But I have an immersion (into Death) to endure, and how distressed I am until it is finished!” (Luke 12:49-50 TLV, Amplification and emphasis added)
“‘And it shall be in the last days,’ says God, ‘that I will pour out My Ruach (Spirit) on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even on My slaves, male and female, I will pour out My Ruach in those days, and they shall prophesy. And I will give wonders in the sky above and signs on the earth beneath—blood, and fire, and smoky vapor. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the great and glorious Day of Adonai comes. And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of Adonai shall be saved.” (Acts 2:17-21 TLV, Emphasis added)
So when the New Covenant Era began, and the apostles began to pass along to the other disciples the Wisdom and Fruit that their bitter and rigorous ‘boot camp training experience had produced in them, Stephen and the others were taught and trained to abide with the indwelling Presence of God by those experienced, totally prepared Jewish apostles. They poured their hard-won New Covenant wisdom into the other disciples, so that the Word of God made flesh could become present on Earth again, and be revealed, proclaimed and exalted far and wide, to Jew and Gentile alike throughout the future. And in this way, He shall be restored to His rightful place as Supreme Authority and Lord over all of His Creation.
Disciple Training Is Passed On Generation To Generation
So now it’s time for our generations of disciples to learn the secret that the first century disciples learned. Our part of the commission to disciple the nations will be even more imposing and dangerous and fraught with difficulties than what Stephen’s first century disciple generation had to face! This is because the closer we get to the end, the more terrified and frenzied the demonic powers of Darkness will become. Since the first moment of Creation, the Father of Lies has been scheming and doing everything possible to derail and destroy the awesome handiwork of God. But now… nothing he has tried to this day has worked! And now… the time he has left is about to come to an end!
So Satan, and all of our other demonic enemies, will have no reason to hold anything back in their efforts to stop the final generations of disciples dead in their tracks! The desperation they will feel as they see their time running out will drive them to use every resource, trick, trap, snare, and weapon they have at their disposal. They’ll throw everything they have at us to try to trap, cripple, divert, and repel our Invasion and destroy as many of us as they possibly can. They simply can’t afford to allow us to ‘finish the job’ and reap the fullness of God’s Last Days Harvest of souls.
But If the Lord and His disciples prevail and succeed, God’s Plan will be perfectly fulfilled… Jews and Gentiles will actually come together to become one new Man in Messiah and interact with each other in true Blood Covenant union and love! And then each of the two groups will receive the Fullness of the promises that God made to each one of them… as soon as they both allow the Spirit of God to transform them into ONE BODY UNDER THEIR MESSIAH’S HEADSHIP!
And the powers of Darkness know that as soon as that happens ‘their goose will be cooked!’ For them, it will be ‘Game Over!’ They will be forever silenced, devastated, and forced to endure their eternal punishment. That is why they frenziedly keep using every weapon they have, to do whatever they can to cause us to falter, cave in, fail and give up.
So we who are chosen to serve as the Lord’s Last Days disciples will have to bear and endure and overcome the full discharge of the fire power our enemies will be firing at us from all directions. And this is why we MUST be better equipped, supplied, armed, and reinforced spiritually, mentally, and emotionally, much more than any other generation of disciples has ever had to be!
The time for all-out, no holds barred war is at hand, dear ones. And we will have to be at our best… equipped and primed to the maximum extent… so that all of our Spirit-empowered actions, reactions, interactions, moves and campaigns can hit the enemy’s core… dead center… with maximum overwhelming Fire Power and eternal effect! And this is why I value our Marching Orders so much. They are a very effective means of understanding and entering into the level of discipleship that God has revealed will be needed in His written Word. And I pray that we will make good use of them in the days to come.
Disciples Are Not Like The Crowds
In the following text, the Lord had in mind the difference between disciples like Stephen, and those crowds of Israelites that were familiar with the written Word of God. They would occasionally become curious and flock around and surrounded Yeshua. But all most of them were interested in, was to get something for themselves, out of Him:
“When Yeshua was alone, those around Him with the Twelve started asking Him about the parables. And He told them, “To you has been given the Secret of the Kingdom of God. But for those who are outside, everything is in parables, so that ‘Seeing, they may see and not perceive, and hearing, they may hear and not understand, so they may not turn back and be forgiven.’”
“He said to them, “Don’t you grasp this parable? Then how will you understand all the parables? The sower sows (ME,) THE (LIVING) WORD! These are the ones beside the road where the Word is sown. Whenever they hear, satan comes quickly and takes away (distracts them from) the Word that has been sown in them.
“These are the ones sown on rocky ground. When they hear the Word, immediately they receive it with joy. And they have no root in themselves but last only a short while. When trouble or persecution comes because of the Word, immediately they (begin to doubt and distance themselves from Him and thus they) fall away.
“And others are the ones sown among the thorns. They have heard the Word; but the worries of the world, the seduction of wealth, and the desires for other things enter in and (fill them with idolatrous ideas which) choke the Word, and it becomes unfruitful.
“And those are the ones sown on the good soil. They hear the (Living) Word and accept it and (become one with Him… and from within them the Word is able to) produce fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold!” (Mark 4:10-20 TLV, Amplification and emphasis added)
Beloved friends… we know that the ‘Sower’ who imparts God’s Living Word to us is God’s own Holy Spirit! His assignment is to sow and ‘garden’ the Reality of the risen Lord within our innermost being, to full Maturity. But He can only do it if we give Him our wholehearted permission, submission, and cooperation. Our job is this: once Holy Spirit deposits that precious Seed into us, our job is to take that Seed and continue to keep on sowing more and more of the same into ourselves, CONTINUALLY! We read it, hear it, repeat it, ponder it, discuss it, thank God for it, and keep doing that over and over and over again! This is how transformation comes about… by the steady, habitual renewing of the mind.
Stephen obviously knew this. It was clear that he had learned to embrace and welcome the Spirit of God and what He imparts to disciples concerning their risen Lord. Stephen learned to submit to and cooperate with Him at all times and in all things with every thought, imagination, judgement and reaction. So with such fertile and well-prepared soil, it was possible for God’s Living Word to produce enormous amounts of His unique irreplaceable Fruit from within such utterly faithful disciples.
That’s why Stephen was so solid and unmoving and Joy-filled! And the awesome fruitful results literally appeared in amazing amounts throughout the wake he left behind. We can see the Fruit-producing Life of Yeshua, his risen Lord, literally emanating out of Stephen. So he must have taken great pains to make God’s Holy Spirit and Living Word utterly welcome. He must have totally submitted to God’s Absolute Authority and made His Lord’s indwelling Presence the very core of His earthly existence! And, thanks to Stephen’s faithful service to His risen Lord, we can see what God’s Word was finally able to accomplish even in the heart of Stephen’s archenemy, Saul of Tarsus… and far beyond. And that level of supernatural Fire Power is exactly what our Marching Orders are geared to help to develop in us as well.
“After saying above, “Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sin offerings You did not desire, nor did You delight in them” (those which are offered according to Torah), then He said, “Behold, I come to do Your will.” He takes away the first to establish the second. By His will we have been made holy through the offering of the body of Messiah Yeshua once for all.” (Hebrews 10:8-10 TLV, Emphasis added)
Additional Articles in this series (available at www.follow-me-ministries.org website)
- Marching Orders for the Stephen Generation Introduction
- Marching Orders for the Stephen Generation The Invincible Light – Meditation #1
- Marching Orders for the Stephen Generation Stephen’s Awesome Secret – Meditation #2
- Marching Orders for the Stephen Generation Do You See What God Sees? – Meditation #3
- Marching Orders for the Stephen Generation The God Bringers – Meditation #4
- Marching Orders for the Stephen Generation The Disciples’ Secret – Meditation #5
- Marching Orders for the Stephen Generation God’s Secret Has Saved The World #6
- Marching Orders for the Stephen Generation This War Was Won From The Beginning #7
- Marching Orders for the Stephen Generation The Weak Foolish Things of This World #8
- Marching Orders for the Stephen Generation God’s Blood Covenant Ways #9
- Marching Orders for the Stephen Generation Power From On High #10
- Marching Orders for the Stephen Generation Blood Brothers Forever #11
- Marching Orders for the Stephen Generation A Temple Made of Living Stones – Meditation #12
- Marching Orders for the Stephen Generation How Do Circumcised Hearts Love – Meditation #13