I don’t know about you but I would never consider myself a prophet. To be honest, just the thought of it scares me a bit. I mean a prophet, really. Aren’t those the guys that went around telling everyone they were about to die? You know calling down fire from heaven. Then you get in to all the end times stuff. Definitely not me.
So really what is a prophet anyway? I pulled this from Easton’s Bible Dictionary “The “prophet” proclaimed the message given to him, as the “seer” beheld the vision of God. (See Num. 12:6, 8.) Thus a prophet was a spokesman for God; he spake in God’s name and by his authority (Ex. 7:1).” Unger’s Bible Dictionary says it this way “One who is divinely inspired to communicate God’s will to His people and to disclose the future to them.” Let’s grab a few key points from these. A prophet is to proclaim the message. To communicate God’s will to the people. This is starting to sound more like what we’re all supposed to be doing. Don’t send me nasty letters, I know there are no more prophets but there are certainly parts of this job description that we should be stepping up to.
Whether you are single, married, or married with kids; we are all supposed to be proclaiming God’s word to people. Maybe not the same way Isaiah and Daniel did but we should be “proclaiming”.
One of the saddest trends that I’ve seen in my life is men leaving the church. Most churches have a larger population of women than men. Because of this women are doing most of the teaching. Here I go again sounding like a male chauvinist. Please hear me out. Women are great teachers and they seem to relate better with kids, but what if more of us taught Sunday school classes or Jr Church? Do our kids see any men in biblical teaching roles besides the Pastor? We need to be showing kids that it is manly to be in church and to be interested in the things of God. How about our kids at home? Who do they ask the spiritual questions of? When my wife and I got married I used to get so mad at her because when she had a biblical question she would call her dad, she would never ask me. Well I just got so indigent because I had read 1 Cor 14:35 and it says that a woman is suppose to be silent in church and ask her husband at home. She didn’t ask me because I didn’t know the answer and I was too lazy to find it. Men we need to take 2 Tim 2:15 to heart! We need to STUDY to show ourselves APPROVED by God to ACCURATLY handle the BIBLE. Study does not mean just read. It means read to learn. If you don’t know what the passage means keep digging until you do. There are so many great study bibles out there and free resources online. Even tonight I’ve been using the free online version of Logos, www.biblia.com. Listen to good Pastors on the radio or podcasts. There are great website too. We don’t have an excuse. It is our responsibility to be handling the spiritual teachings in our households. Even if you’re not married you still can be teaching.
Okay ready for the other job of a prophet? We need to call people to repentance. Sometimes it may be a brother who has chosen the root of sin, or maybe one of our kids, or here is the tough one our wives. Remember this power that we hold as men is to be handled with love and with the attitude to bring the offender back to God, not to beat them over the head and be self-righteous. Remember Jonah? He ran from this assignment. I think we do too. As for me I would never confront someone on sin because I knew how evil my heart was. The whole splinter vs. beam thing would always make be stay quiet. Instead of getting my heart right so I could properly engage someone. When we ignore sin and let it keep dragging them down we are sinning. The loving thing to do is to confront them in love, after we’ve examined ourselves, in order to restore them. Just picture American Idol contestants that can’t sing. They never had anyone love them enough to tell them, instead that were afraid to hurt their feeling and then they end up a laughing stock on national tv. Remember, remember, remember, this must be done humbly with the attitude of love not self-righteousness.
Believe guys I’m not beating up on you, I’m not there yet either. Most of these devotionals are aimed straight at me.
So, do you study or read the Bible? Can you proclaim God’s truth? Are you ready to take on the role of prophet for your family and friends?
Man Up Men! Live Christlike!
Walter
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