The 2020 pandemic brought the problem into sharp focus: church buildings all around the world locked and abandoned by government decree. Some had still not reopened a year after they closed, and some will possibly never reopen.
How could a movement that began with widespread healings, signs and wonders and powerful teaching be seen as powerless and irrelevant within communities and nations? Not only powerless, but lacking a credible voice or reputation. Surely there must be things we are not doing correctly?
As I read the Gospels I see an animated Jesus bringing truth and hope to life in what He called "the kingdom of God" on Earth. He showed that this ministry was not unique to Him, but could be replicated in others, first, the twelve disciples, and then seventy other disciples. They did ministry like Jesus and saw the same results. Actually, according to Jesus in Luke 10:18, as the 70 went out in pairs they produced even more spectacular results.
As Son of God, Jesus did what no other human could do - He gave His own life, His own blood, His born-of-God heritage and connection as the perfect, spotless and sin-free offering needed to atone for all of us. That was unique.
As Son of Man, Jesus did what He claimed
any of His followers could also do...
As Son of Man, however, what He did (and that is everything else apart from His work on the cross), was not unique. He claimed that any of His followers could do what He did - see John 14:12 - and those early disciples proved His point. (See Luke 9 and 10.)
But by Acts 5 the rot had already taken root - this movement had gone from being a flat, egalitarian one under Jesus to a hierarchical one led by the original disciples. If "great signs and wonders were done at the hands of the apostles," (verse 12) what happened to the seventy? And why did "None of the rest dared join them?" (Verse 13).
If Jesus commanded His disciples (and us, too?) to actually make disciples in Matthew 28 (He didn't ever give a command or an example to "win souls"), what evidence is there in the New Testament that anyone actually did this? What evidence is there that anyone even today is doing this? After all, didn't Jesus define a disciple as someone who "when he is fully trained, will be like his Master?" (Luke 6:40.)
That's not a hierarchy with its levels of performance and authority, but a flat system where anyone and everyone is able to perform at the same level as Jesus did.
Can you see what could happen if we,
the church, actually put into practice
what Jesus said, and what
Paul wrote about in Ephesians 4?
Paul says that every believer has been given a ministry gift or two, (or more, even), and that our job is to raise up all of these people to do the work of the ministry. (Ephesians 4:11-12.)
I can see what could happen, and God has commissioned me to bring these and other truths to your attention.
Read on to get inspired by Holy Spirit in how to do it yourself, and also read true, life-changing stories of God interacting with people when they choose or are taught to do ministry in the simple way that Jesus did it.
Raised as a Lutheran in country New South Wales (Australia) the author spent a third of his early life avoiding church until, at the age of 28, he discovered that God really was interested in a personal relationship with people like him, was also interested in people's day-to-day activities and still worked signs and wonders and miracles.
Having just quit ten years in electronics, sales and management he moved from Sydney back to the country and immersed himself in the Word, making up for lost time in personal study and at a not-too-far-away pentecostal/charismatic Bible College.
Within a few months he discovered that he had been called as a prophet to the nations and a prophet to his people but, without realising (probably due to his youth and inexperience) that you don't refuse a call from God, he declined both, but willingly accepted a third call to teach. He spent the next 16 years in Lutheran and Uniting churches in southern NSW as a part-time lay preacher and also taught children and adults in formal, church and public school settings, all while running his own, successful businesses. He subsequently moved with his family from attending denominational churches to one more in the Hillsong mode.
Some years later, on his first overseas mission trip (accompanying a pastor) in 2009, as they flew into Myanmar he heard, "I have called you as a prophet to the nations. You will stand before kings and princes and governors, and declare My name in all the Earth." This time he agreed and tried to follow through, but nothing happened.
Three years later, after 8 days of church-wide prayer and fasting he heard it again, and three years later he was invited to minister in Kenya, East Africa. In the meantime he had also discovered that when God calls you, you also get equipped with certain tools to minister effectively to people, such as healing and deliverance, and authority to speak things into being or command other things to stop.
Between 2015 and 2023 he made 21 trips to East Africa, ministering on the streets and in several dozen conferences in churches in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi and Malawi. He looks forward to doing this and more for many more years.
When not working you might find him riding around Arizona or across the US on two or three-wheel motorcycles, accompanying his wife. On Sundays he enjoys inspirational teaching and lively and engaging worship in a largish, non-denominational church that enjoys outreach and working with a multitude of other churches in the area.
Prophecy as a calling is more about showing God's heart and bringing back long-forgotten or long-discarded truths, as much as it is about revealing God in new or fresh ways to Their people, and to the world at large.
(There is also a place for the modern prophetic movement which sees things about certain people and reveals God's specific plans to them, but that is perhaps meant more for one-on-one situations rather than mass meetings. In other words, those with that gift should be following Ephesians 4 and teaching the body to move in that same, prophetic way. This comment is not meant to be a judgment against anyone, but to define and guide people to use their gifting appropriately.)
I did not ask to be called as a prophet of any sort. As I read Jeremiah 1 and Ezekiel 3 after I "came back to the Lord" I knew God was speaking to me, but I didn't want to do it. That caused a lot of problems for me over the years, but it took decades before I saw the connection between my failure, this big mistake, and some of the "bad" things that subsequently happened.
I spent hours every day studying the Scriptures and doing "research." I had studied German and Latin at high school for 6 and 4 years respectively and loved them, along with English. Then the chaplain invited a group of us to learn Biblical Greek after school, in the hope that some of us might want to be pastors. That was not my intention, although I had no idea what career I would pursue, but I loved the study of this equally different and complex language.
I'm far from an expert but it was gratifying to be able to point out to a couple with Watchtower connections who used to visit us that the different forms of the word "Christ" in Greek, such as christos, christon and christou were there to show which part of speech the word was in a particular sentence. He thought it meant that there were many "christs," which fitted in with their denomination's rejection of Jesus as THE Christ, the Messiah, the one sent to set the people free, who was also the biological Son of God the Father. You will see that I am not afraid to introduce original words into teaching where it is useful to expand on the more limited meanings and nuances available in most Scripture translations.
The teachings presented on this site are mostly quite different to what many people believe or understand about God and the people They created: us. I am not here to start another church or denomination, but to help reveal more of the truth about the Godhead, what They do and have done, and what They have provided for us to do.
At 28, when I started this "search" at God's direction, I had forgotten most of what I had learnt in Sunday School and a church-run high school. In many ways I started with a clean slate, and God then provided remarkable opportunities to give me specialised training in important areas. I was told to "eat this scroll" just as Ezekiel had been told, and so I did. The one thing that I asked repeatedly was that I not be allowed to form wrong ideas or teach anything that would draw people away from the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Please look past the titles, the summaries, the introductions and maybe even the style. Please look at the presentation of the content, the bread of life, the meat of the word. Please read the scriptures and ask Holy Spirit to lead you into all truth. Please bear in mind that that is not easy for Holy Spirit to do when we think we already have "all truth" within us.
If you find a mistake or think that I am right, or wrong, if you can spare the time, please honour me with an email or chat with me on Facebook Messenger.
Thank you
Trevor Graetz
Glendale, Arizona. USA
JOB and the Connection Between Mistakes We Make and the Bad Things That Happen to Us
This was my first expose, my first reveal some decades ago. Because I had just read all of the preceding Old Testament books word for word, as soon as I got to Job 1:5 I could see four critical mistakes Job had made contrary to the laws of sacrifice.
Or maybe it was Holy Spirit showing me that, no matter what the narrator said in Job 1:1, Job was far from perfect, and continued to act and speak in an imperfect manner. This gave the enemy power over him, but always under God's oversight.
A few months ago I was given the analogy that Job, the book, was like a field of potatoes: the green, leafy plants are rich and lush to look at from a distance, but the green, leafy mass is totally useless to us humans. Instead, the potato plant has to be dug up and turned over for us to get to the useful vegetable itself.
And that's what we have to do with Job.
The (Delayed) Return of Jesus, The Mystery of the Ages, and Ministry Like Jesus (Three Part Series)
Even as a pre-teen child with little to no "real" knowledge of Scripture I was sure that Jesus was not going to be returning soon as some people would occasionally declare. How could I have "known" that without input from Holy Spirit? Now I realise that God was already planting some prophetic insight into me.
The first part in the series shows how the half hour silence in Heaven in Revelation 8 represents a delay on Earth because a particular Mystery of God has not been put into effect by the Church, but that this function or outworking must take place and be put into effect by us before the seventh angel can blow his trumpet.
Part 2 explains what this Mystery is and, even though it was revealed and set in motion at Jesus' Ascension, it's a task set for the church at large and for every individual ministry, which has never been taken up. What's more, the same task was given in a generalised form to Israel at the inauguration of their New Covenant at Sinai, in Exodus 19, but they didn't take it up, either. Come on, Church, we can do it!
Part 3 explains how to put a major part of this Mystery and its implementaion into practice. Ministry Like Jesus teaches how Jesus did things and told us to do things, and shows a very simple but effective way for anyone to bring dramatic healings and deliverance to other Christians and even non-believers. Coupled with the simple (not simplistic), everyday explanations for some overly-obfuscated or obscured teachings, this makes an easy path for ordinary people to learn to do the work of the ministry as Jesus taught, and as the Father always intended.
More to come...
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