You may be in ministry for many years, but authentic revival will test you and weigh your commitment and relationship with God!

The same rings true for all believers.

It is an all out commitment to the cross. A complete laying down of self and all self ambition. It will put a puncture in your inflated ego and pop your popularity bubble.

It will call you out to consecrate yourself to God and begin to live for that which is of eternal value and really matters.

Your preaching will take on a new dimension and intensity, for you will no longer be found to preach to be applauded, you will become a “voice of one crying” out from the heart of the Father, giving expression to His Living Words of Life, baptized in Fire!

Revival brings us to a cross, in yielding to bear it, we are perfumed with the Aroma of His Life.

Minister as though the lives of others depend upon it.

Be fully authentic to your call. Face persecution with perseverance, not holding anything against your accusers, except the Love of God, and praying for the eyes of their heart to be opened.

If you are seeking to be validated by the very men and women to whom you have been sent to minister, you have not been authorized from Above!

If you seek applause from people, you are probably not called to rescue them!

Preach so as to preach people out of hell, be faithful in doing so – when necessary, even at the expense of your own popularity, fame, name and acclaim.

“…these men oppose the truth — men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone,” 2 Timothy 3:8-9.

Faced with false apostles and men seeking to use the Gospel as a means of “satisfying their own belly”, I can only imagine how Paul must have been resisted in preaching holiness, separation from worldliness, discipline and discipleship, the daily dying to and crucifying of the flesh and living a life of being totally yielded to the Father’s heart in being led of the Spirit.

Not a popular Gospel in Paul’s time, least of a popular Gospel today – yet the only Gospel of Truth, Righteousness and salvation, and any other is “Anathema” (“accursed”).

“But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed,” Galatians 1:8-9).

 

~ Johann van der Hoven

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Johann van der Hoven is in South Africa. He has been serving the Lord in ministry since 1991 and has hosted numerous apostolic revival meetings in South Africa and in South America. He also currently pioneers a organic church planting movement across South Africa. For more information about him and his ministry visit www.sonsofsovereignty.com or Revival.

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