Category: Scribal Ministry Development

 

Copyright 2013 Theresa Harvard Johnson

Sometimes I know you desire to stand from the rooftops and give your testimony concerning how our Father placed this love for scribal ministry on the inside of you. Instead of standing quietly in the shadows, you want to expose the obstacles that have come your way to defer you faith by saying, “You can’t do this. This world doesn’t need another play, book, poem or song. After all; you’re just not that special.” I know you want to share with the world how you overcame them.

For a long time, I was my own obstacle – my greatest opponent and sabotaging agent. Then, when I finally thought I’d overcome that place the obstacles of discouragement intensified, seeking to fortify the lies rolling around in my head. I wrote about this in my book, The Scribal Anointing: Scribes Instructed in the Kingdom of Heaven, but Father is pressing me to share it again.

Copyright 2013 Theresa Harvard Johnson

INTRODUCTION

Over the past couple of years, I’ve experienced a strong Holy Spirit led transformation in my heart. I’ve learned to walk in a level of forgiveness and love for others that quite honestly I never thought possible. I’ve learned to recognize the dust-shaking-moments that used to cause me such frustration and with Holy Spirit’s discernment; I even learned to put the enemy under my feet quickly and seek God alone for the healing of my soul.

I’ve grown to understand the importance of godly boundaries and the fall-out from boundary breaking.  I didn’t know until this last season in my life, that I could look at those I once regarded as enemies to my soul; and experience nothing but true forgiveness, love and compassion toward them. Have I arrived completely in this area? Absolutely not. But I can tell you this, I am nowhere near where I used to be; I am at peace with where I am, and I am excited about what God is doing in my heart right now.

I am walking the intricate paths of not only receiving Father’s apostolic grace, but learning to extend it. I want to share a part of my journey with you.

Copyright 2013 Theresa Harvard Johnson

(This post is written specifically for seasoned leaders who have been seeking the Lord for strategies to keep order within the ministries entrusted to them. So as you read it, do so within the context of what has been entrusted to you personally, not from the perspective of the body as a whole — even though some elements relate to this. This series is intended to identify and expose a subtle attack that the enemy is using in this hour to bring division and distort authority in the midst of core leadership groups. At its conclusion, we will also look at how to guard what Father has entrusted to us. Christ maintained the proper relationship with his disciples – with each one of them, outside of the son of perdition, knowing their relational boundaries and navigating humbly within them. It is with this respect and honor that I share what the Lord has been teaching me personally in this area. I pray that it blesses your soul.)

The Foundation: Defining Respect

The atmosphere in which we practice our faith has been so watered down in these last days that very few people understand what it means to respect leadership, respect mantles or even to respect one another. We can see this clearly in homes where children tend to run the household; and parents break and bend at their child’s every beck and call. You can see the struggle in trying to figure out who is the parent and who is the child.

 

In the atmosphere of the congregation you can see it in fathering, mothering, shepherding and mentoring relationships. People come to be taught but are unwilling to bend into the mantle of a student.

 

Father has been ministering to me deeply about how the adversary is pouring the cup of division among the people of God. In this hour, there is an intrinsic, diabolical attack on Godly relationships – especially those centered around the “making disciples process” and the non-bondage centered mentoring, fathering and mothering relationships in the Spirit (Matthew 28:18-20; 1 Corinthians 4:15).

Copyright 2010 Theresa Harvard Johnson

1 Sa-mu-el 17:34-40

34 David answered Sha’ul (SAUL), “Your servant used to guard his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear would come and grab a lamb from the flock, 35 I would go after it, hit it, and snatch the lamb from its mouth; and if it turned on me, I would catch it by the jaw, smack it and kill it. 36 Your servant has defeated both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised P’lishti will be like one of them, because he has challenged the armies of the living God.”

In my walk with the Lord, I have sown a great deal of faithfulness in my service to His people. I boast in the Lord in this, not in myself. I’ve walked with some mighty and anointed vessels. Whomever I sat under as a student, I gave them the very best I had to give — and did so without reserve, and often to a fault… unquestioned loyalty. Father said to me a few years ago that “because you have sown this kind of faithfulness in the Kingdom, I will return faithfulness to you as you follow hard after me.” All I can think of as I share this is the passage of scripture that says, “A man reaps what He sows.”

Copyright 2012 Theresa Harvard Johnson

In Voices of Christ, we use the scriptural term “prophetic scribe” to describe who we are as literary ministers in the midst of our faith. The reason behind this is basic. The term prophetic, as used here, simply means: The ability of a believer to hear and interpret what the Lord places in their heart.

The understanding of the word “scribe” in the culture of the Kingdom describes a function within the congregation of the Lord that encompasses a wide range of gifting — not just the call to write. Whereas the term writer simply denotes someone who writes (a singular function). You can differentiate the type of writer, but it doesn’t change the fact that a writer IS a writer.