By Lars Widerberg
And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of Heaven.
Rev 21:2
A man of God, the prophet stands as a mouthpiece of the Lord among men because he has been brought by the Lord to a point of seeing. A man of God, the prophet is what he is based on a heavenly purpose and on Heavens acting in his life to bring him to a place of seeing.
A prophet is what he is because the Lord has allowed him to become a seer, called him to seeing and made him able to look into Heaven. The prophet is what and where he is because he has found the ultimate grace to see God and to have been apprehended by the Father.
A seer of the heavenly category is a man who has come out from a confrontation with Heaven, still alive but for ever changed. A seer of this kind has been brought before God to be taken in by and to be given over to a seeing as God sees, abandoning himself to the things of Heaven and to come out from such an encounter as a man made alive, made to live, live what he has been apprehended for. This kind of man is set aside to live what he has seen. He speaks by what he is rather than by the words he is able to engage, and his words are weak representations of the life he is sent to bring to men as he returns from his seeing. But his words holds prophetic substance, a driving force which confronts like he himself has been confronted during his seeing.
The prophet has been made alive to the realities beyond. The seeing of the things beyond is the sole raison d’être of the prophetic man. Prophetic work deepens and intensifies, the prophetic burden becomes the more intense as the heavenly realm and the things beyond are lost to the main lot of men in the haze of contemporary pursuits and enterprises.
The seer has eyed the true city, true city life, and its service. John saw the city, he had been apprehended by its inherent relevance. In it he had found life, abundant life gathered up in service pleasing to the Lord expressed in a kind of worship which held no vain self-interest. He had seen life, abundant living detailed in extravagant service in truth before men marked by willingness to sacrifice.
An abundant life does not show itself in abundant dreaming, but in sacrificial, priestly living among real and tangible objects and to actual and practical purposes.
The seer looses his true seeing at the point where he looses his focus: “As in Heaven, so on earth”. The prophetic realm is to be defined as the realm of relevant and true seeing.
The passion of a prophet springs forth from a seeing of the things beyond.
The passion of a prophet springs forth from a seeing mastered by Heaven.
The passion of a prophet springs forth from a seeing which brings heavenly confrontation.
The passion of a prophet springs forth from a seeing of a service suitable to God and men.
The passion of a prophet springs forth from a seeing which demands radical adherence.
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1 comment:
An excellent insight into the prophetic man. We sometimes think of the prophetic man as merely one who can foretell the future or reveal hidden things in individual lives and loose sight of the prophetic man who has had an encounter with things that are eternal and does not merely deliver an eternal message but is the very message that results from that encounter.
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