“PEOPLE OF DESTINY” by Roger Roth Sr.
“Arise and let us go up to Zion!” ~JR. 31:6.
Great and awesome are God’s people of destiny! Mighty and powerful is our influence! Glorious and magnificent is His grace and love in us! Transformative and revolutionary is His grace and love through us! We have an opportunity to walk out the Vision God entrusted to our generation!
The Lord has delivered us from the forces of opposition; Ps 34:19. In so doing He has showed His power and His desire for our good. Though loss normal to life, of one form or another has occurred, yet not one weapon formed against us has taken root. We are called! We are destined! We are people of destiny!
The Lord whom we have sought has returned to His temple! Mal 3:1. He has visited us, awakened us to His love, awakened us to each other, awakened us to His will, awakened us to the times and awakened us to the glory of His return!
This awakening has and is challenging us to see the world, His purpose and our role in His present will, with a new perspective. Fading are the thoughts that most of the world is destined to destruction and eternal punishment. Religious concepts of hell, heaven, salvation, and many other things are passing away.
Our goal is no longer to see how many people we can get to say, “I accept Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior.” Rather we seek connection to those who are awakened so that we may with one accord, reach into the world and shake the atmosphere with a new song of redemption ministering to all sent into our path—that God loves them! God is for them! And God is their answer!
We do not delude ourselves that there is no opposition to this occurring, but we have growing confidence that we are ushering in a new age. The generations that follow will no longer just maintain but conquer. We will not just try to live lives worthy of His salvation but will be the spiritual foundations, girders, and roadbed of the superstructure of a mighty bridge connecting people with their purpose!
We are that bridge that allows the transition from one age to another. A bridge from the vanishing age of wilderness into an age of promise, restoration, and dominion. The Kingdom Age where Righteousness (right thinking producing right action), Peace (all things in harmony with the Creator), and Joy (the response to a continual atmosphere of love), transform all creation into the habitation of our mighty God!
Others have God-given marching orders that may differ somewhat from ours, but we have been given this promise, this opportunity, and this responsibility. It is no small matter or insignificant calling to be and to become a bridge connecting the ends of the ages. Like our spiritual brethren two thousand years ago, we have inherited this position that, we are the people “on whom the ends of the ages have come; I Cor. 10:11.
We know little about John the Baptist’s pre-ministry life. 30+ years of preparation for a 6-month ministry. How did John step into his prophesied ministry? His dad, Zachariah prophesied that John “would be one who would come crying in the wilderness to make the paths of the Lord straight.” Is 40:3.
What made him believe what was spoke was true? No one knows much about us or what God is doing with us either. Some may question your vision. What makes you think God called you to a particular Vision? Nothing matters about what others think about us once we are convinced. God brings the confirmation to us to strengthen our confidence in which we are called.
Did the scripture one day witness that to John? Did his father, Zechariah, have a premonition? Did an angel visit him? Perhaps events of his day convinced him that this prophecy was to be fulfilled by him. Whatever the process, he needed to see and to believe that he was that one or it could not occur through him.
Like John, we have to not just contemplate the possibility of our calling but also to be convinced and confirmed that God spoke this over our life; that the Vision is our directive to fulfill in the earth. John grew up in a religious system at the end of an age. He did not condemn that system but rather provided reformation and restoration to those under that system.
How do you think that happened? John is the son of a Priest. His role from birth would be that he would become a priest in his father’s stead. He was raised in all the traditions. He performed all its ordinances, kept all its rituals, and feasts. His father and mother encouraged him in his birthright as a priest. Yet between his birth and his arrival at the Jordan river to baptize, something happened that significantly altered his life.
We probably cannot fully appreciate what this life altering change cost John. He had a secure position and a comfortable position. It was a respected position and one, no doubt, that would make his family and friends proud. Yet something caused him to hear a different voice, to choose a different direction. Since his father and mother were elderly at his birth, they very well may have died by the time he began his variant ministry.
John had a fuller knowledge of the written word. He became awakened to something higher. He witnessed how the scripture was understood and ministered—and the result it had on God’s people was not in line with the nature or the purpose of the God John knew in Spirit. Over time, one event built upon another, one revelation or heavenly encounter built upon another, until John realized, that the present system in Israel was not God, not what He taught in His word, and is not what he was experiencing.
Little by little he was awakened until he saw who he was and what he was to do. He knew his identity. We must be convinced of our identity. His cousin, Jesus, knew who John was, and John knew who Jesus was. Perhaps they had discussions over the years, looking at and gaining understanding to the scriptures. John knew who Jesus was, “Behold the Lamb of God!” Jesus knew who John was, “if you can accept it, he himself is Elijah.”
John’s awakening caused him to change his prescribed path. When John left his formal training as priest is not known, but that he left to chart a new course is certain. He is found in a wilderness. God always prepares His people, (Israel, Paul, John, David, Jesus, etc.) in a wilderness, so it should not be strange to us that our preparation has likewise been in a wilderness.
People who come through a wilderness experience are usually not understood by those who have not experienced a similar journey. John in the wilderness was being prepared to assume his ordained position—just as we have been prepared to assume our ordained position. Many did not understand John, and some did not continue with him. John’s concern was not for what they or any of his detractors thought but rather that he might complete the Vision given him.
While counterfeits and usurpers were reigning in the priesthood at Jerusalem, John is the true and legitimate High Priest, called by God and not by men. In the transition of the ages, someone will have to anoint the rightful prophet, priest, and King. Religion could not do this; it could not understand nor was it in position. John, however, was because he knew who he was, and he knew who Jesus was.
Jesus comes to John to be baptized. Every priest upon beginning ministry must be washed. (LV 9-11) John said he needed to be baptized by Jesus. He recognized that Jesus was ushering in a new priesthood, a Melchizedek Priesthood. The old priesthood was fading away, but the new was coming, and John said, “I should be baptized by you.”
Jesus said, “Allow it to be so to fulfill all righteousness.” Jesus fulfilled all things. At His baptism, the priesthood was transferred from the old Aaronic priesthood to the eternal Melchizedek priesthood. John the Baptist, being a transition figure, prepared the way. Likewise, we are preparing the way for God’s people to walk in their purpose of bringing forth the new age, the Kingdom.
John died a somewhat strange death. A worldly king, yielding to lust, has John’s head cut off. This is a pattern and instruction for us. We must have our head cut off—not literally but spiritually, the carnal head of self needs to be cut off so that truth and love may reign through us.
We must look on all people through the eyes of Jesus. That does not mean we accept evil or the evil actions of others, but that we are able to see and to speak to the Jesus in each person.
Do not overcome evil with evil but overcome evil with good. Where sin abounds, we need to let grace more abound. We are to become healers and not judges. We look on the lost, as brothers and sisters and not as problems. We see ourselves as righteous Kings and Priests and not as instruments of condemnation.
We have a ministry of restoration. A ministry to return the wayward to the path of the righteous. A ministry to awaken to righteousness, that nothing that remains within us desires to sin. A ministry to prepare the paths of future generations so they can walk into the fulness of the coming age.
We are seeing this clearer and clearer. “But the path of the just is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day.” (PR 4:18) We are shining brighter and brighter. We are people of destiny. Great and awesome is our God, wonderous and mighty is His name!
Roger Roth Sr. is a ministry son of Dr. Mark Hanby. Together with his wife Karen, they are the set ministry of a local church in Northeastern Wisconsin, and oversee the Bloodline Network Newsletter. They consider it an honor to work with Dr. Hanby for many years, helping to oversee the ministry of Papa Mark’s extended family—”The Father’s Heart.”
Any questions or comments please contact them at rogerandkaren@live.com
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