The Ananias & Sapphira situation (Acts 5:1-11), makes you shake your head and say, “What!!?” Our problem lies in the fact that we think of death as final and absolute. Ecclesiastes 7:17 says, “Do not be overly wicked, nor be foolish: Why should you die before your time?” People can die prematurely. This is what happened to Ananias & Sapphira. I don’t think they were unbelievers who went to hell. I think they were believers and went to heaven. They were bringing the financial proceeds of their land sale to the apostles, something that many believers were doing with the launch of the New Testament church, including Barnabas (Acts 4:34-37). Peter did not bring any curse down upon them. He simply discerned from the Holy Spirit that Ananias had lied about the amount that the land sold for, giving the impression they were giving it all to the Lord. In so doing, he lied to the Holy Spirit. Ananias responded to Peter’s “word of knowledge” and dropped dead … maybe from a heart attack. Now Peter knows from the word of knowledge and Ananias’ response, that Ananias lied about the land sale. When his wife, Sapphira, arrives, he questions her to see if she was in on the deception. She was. He now pronounces the same fate on Sapphira as her husband had received. Again, I don’t believe this couple were unbelievers and therefore came under God’s judgment. They were operating as believers. Ananias died in response to Peter’s Word of Knowledge, and Sapphire died because of Peter’s pronouncement. They died prematurely. I believe we’ll see them in heaven one day. So, it wasn’t God’s judgment; it may have been His discipline. The results were: “So great fear came upon all the church and upon all who heard these things” (Acts 5:11). Even the unbelievers now had a reverence for God and His people: “Yet none of the rest dared join them, but the people esteemed them [the believers] highly.” (Acts 5:13).

ANSWER: Your best weapon of choice is prayer, specifically spiritual warfare prayer. The Bible says that just like the veil was over Moses’ face, it is over the hearts and minds of the Jewish people so that they do not receive Christ, as their Messiah. ¹⁴ But their minds were blinded. To this day, the same veil remains uplifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. ¹⁵ But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart (2 Corinthians 3:14–15). You are dealing with demonic interference when sharing the Gospel with those who have already dismissed Jesus as the Messiah. Paul goes on to say: ³ But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, ⁴ whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them (2 Corinthians 4:3–4). So, when praying for Jewish people, bind the demonic presence in their lives whose assignment is to keep them blinded to the truth of the Gospel. And pray for the truth of the Gospel to penetrate them. The reason that Jewish people are not coming to Jesus in large numbers is that we are still in the Age of the Gentiles. By-and-large, when the Jewish nation rejected Jesus, the Gospel was taken to the Gentiles. In Romans 11, Paul talks about the wild olive branches (the Gentiles) now being grafted into the natural roots (the Jews). While this period of time is happening, the Jewish people are blinded to the Gospel. But the day will come when the Age of the Gentiles is complete, and the natural branches (the Jews) will be grafted back in. Then all those in Christ will be the true Israel of God, Jews and Gentiles alike. ²⁵ For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. ²⁶ And so all of Israel will be saved … (Romans 11:25–26a). I am not discouraging you from witnessing to your Jewish friends. They can be saved. The Bible says they are “blinded in part.” Jesus’ ministry was exclusive to the Jewish nation (Matthew 10:5-6, 15:24), however, there were a few Gentiles who received Him during that time. For practical ways of ministering to Jewish people, let me connect you privately to a good friend of mine who is a Jewish Christian. Many Blessings!

ANSWER: And now to answer your second question. 😊 The office and calling as an apostle is very interesting. It is different from the other four callings of the prophet, evangelist, shepherd, and teacher, in that an apostle comes out of one of these other four-fold callings. By that, I mean, a rank-and-file believer doesn’t suddenly become an apostle. First, they function in the office as one of the four and, at some point in time, God will call them into the office of an apostle. So, when they begin to function as an apostle, they will be either an apostolic-prophet, apostolic-evangelist, apostolic shepherd, or apostolic-teacher. Another way of saying it would be prophet-apostle, teacher-apostle, and so on. The apostle Paul was a teacher before he was called as an apostle. He is listed among the prophets and teachers in the Antioch church. Now in the church that was at Antioch there were certain prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul (Acts 13:1). It was when Paul and Barnabas were commissioned on their first missionary journey that they were both referred to as apostles (Acts 14:14). As I mentioned in the first response, the gifts of the Holy Spirit are different from the five-fold ministry callings that are given as gifts from the Lord to the church. Someone in the five-fold ministry calling could use any of the spiritual gifts. Apostles will use varying spiritual gifts based on which of the other four-fold ministries they have come from. Many blessings as you seek God’s place to serve in the body of Christ!

ANSWER: Great questions, Alijah. Because of their depth, let me answer the first question here and then I’ll do another post for the second question. The short answer to the first question is: No, not necessarily. Here’s the long answer. 😊 The spiritual gifts are different from the five-fold ministry callings. I Corinthians 12:4-6 says, “There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all.” From this we learn that the Trinity is involved in the distribution of the gifts, ministry callings, and assignments in the body of Christ. 1. The Holy Spirit is responsible for distributing spiritual gifts, 2. The Lord Jesus Christ is responsible for the ministry callings, and 3. The Heavenly Father is responsible for assignments of those gifts and ministries. The spiritual gifts which are given by the Holy Spirit are listed in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10, 28-30, and in Romans 12:6-8. They consist of the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, faith, gifts of healings, working of miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, different kinds of tongues, the interpretation of tongues, helps (serving), administrations, teaching, exhorting, financial giving, leading, and mercy. I don’t believe these lists of spiritual gifts are exhaustive. I believe that Paul was simply identifying different expressions in the body of Christ. His main point was, “Use the grace that has been given to you to serve and build up others in the body.” Nor do I believe we need to categorize the gifts into vocational gifts, motivational gifts, manifestation gifts, etc., that theologians like to group the gifts into. Paul didn’t need to do that. The spiritual ministries that are given by the Lord are found in Ephesians 4:11, namely, the apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, and teacher. We often refer to these as the five-fold ministries. These are “gifts” and callings given to lead and equip the body of Christ. In referring to the five-fold ministries, Paul says that Christ gave “gifts of men” (Ephesians 4:8). The Greek word for gifts used here means “presents.” Christ gave presents to the church in the form of men and women in the five-fold ministry. This is a different Greek word that is used when referring to spiritual gifts found in 1 Corinthians 12:4. That word is charisma which means “spiritual grace gifts.” So, the spiritual gift of teaching given by the Holy Spirit is different than the spiritual ministry-calling of the Teacher, given by the Lord. Similarly, the spiritual gift of prophecy given by the Holy Spirit is different from the ministry-calling of the Prophet, given by the Lord. Obviously, the Teacher needs the gift of teaching, and the Prophet needs the gift of prophecy. But you can have the gift of teaching or the gift of prophecy and not yet be called by the Lord into the office of a Teacher or a Prophet in the body of Christ. Paul introduced himself as, “Paul, an apostle (not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead)” (Galatians 1:1), and “Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God …” (1 Corinthians 1:1). Paul was functioning in spiritual gifts before God called him to be an Apostle.

Have you ever walked through a season that you didn’t see coming, didn’t understand, or weren’t prepared for? Did it shake your faith, did it cause you to stumble, or did it make you fall on your face before God? Did the Holy Spirit seem silent, did you feel like you were fighting battles alone, and were you challenged to believe God without feeling anything? I’ve been there! I have walked with the Lord for 49 years and like any relationship there have been extreme times of joy and great revelation as well as pits of despair and trial. I’ve experienced starry-eyed love with Jesus, visions and dreams into the heavenly realm, being courted by the Holy Spirit, and free flowing conversations with God. I’ve also experienced seasons of great challenges like sickness close to death, children who break your heart, financial challenges, Judas betrayals, physical moves across the world and the more mundane ups and downs of life. But never had I experienced such a level of satanic assault against my life as I did in 2019 and it lasted for several years. I was not prepared for it at all! All I can tell you is that it started with this prayer, “Lord would you make me rock solid in my identity?” Almost immediately after praying that heartfelt prayer, I began to have assaults on everything associated with my identity! I began seeing in the realm of darkness, I could see demons and how they were working on people, I could see their strategies, and I could sense their evil presence. And right after that we received the news that one of our precious children had swallowed the deception of demons and turned to walk in darkness. It was heart shattering. But the journey didn’t end there. It was just the beginning. Was this journey God’s design or Satan's? YES. Did God lead me into this wilderness experience or did the devil? “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Matthew 4:1). One force had a plan to take me down while the other had a plan to transform my whole life! Throughout this season God has been unveiling spiritual insights to me and understanding I could not have come to know any other way. This wilderness season is designed to make you wander around looking for living water, to seek shelter from the hot sun, and to cause you to yearn for a map that will lead you out. The Word of God, both the living word Jesus, and the written word, the Bible, becomes the map that you treasure with every fiber of your being! You may feel all alone but you never are for truly the Lord says, “I will never [under any circumstances] desert you [nor give you up nor leave you without support, nor will I in any degree leave you helpless], nor will I forsake or let you down or relax My hold on you [assuredly not]! ( Hebrews 13:5 - AMP).

In my previous blog, I mentioned the one thing I knew I had to hold on to was my roadmap out of the wilderness, my Bible. While the battle was raging in my mind and heart, the world was changing and what I had seen in those demonic dreams was actually happening before my eyes. COVID became a household word in January of 2020. Masks were worn, families were torn apart, voices were silenced, we were shut down, shut in, many churches closed and some pastors were arrested for not closing. Isolation, manipulation, intimidation, and condemnation became the world we lived in. Families and friends were hateful to one another over whether you should or shouldn’t take the COVID shots and there was great division in our nation. The demonic had been unleashed in other ways as well. Perversion was openly promoted in our media, schools were inundated with pornography being shoved onto our children. The promotion of Satanism and witchcraft were portrayed in movies, in the music industry, and media like never before. The rights of parents were being suppressed, sex-trafficking was increased with the USA's new open border policies, voices of righteousness or voices that opposed the current government began to get imprisoned. FBI agents broke into people’s homes that were standing for anti-abortion, or the right to bear arms, and so on, and brutally handcuffed them in front of their own children. Through the midst of all of this, I was laying on the floor before God saying, “Lord this just isn’t right! I hate this world we are living in! I want it to be like it was again when I was a child. I want it to be righteous, protective, loving for children, God honoring in our homes and schools. I want families restored, and homes rebuilt to be as you designed. I want people’s identities to be in you and you alone, and I want our nation to be “One nation under God” again! The Lord spoke back to me and said, “What you long for is heaven and you shall have it one day, but not now.” I quoted a scripture to my husband as we were talking and I said “but we’ve been delivered from the kingdom of darkness.” To which he corrected me, “Babe, that’s not what the Bible says. It says we’ve been delivered from the POWER of darkness.” (Colossians 1:13) Awe! A lightbulb moment! The realm of darkness isn’t going away because Satan’s kingdom is on earth, BUT we, God’s children, have been delivered from its power and it has no control over us! So, I had to adjust my mindset and understand we have been left here, in the midst of the rule of darkness, to be His shining lights, to speak His Kingdom rule and reign on the earth, and to be His ambassadors for our true Kingdom ~ the Kingdom of the Son of His love! We have been born for such a time as this. Now my cry to God was different, “How Father, do I walk in this world full of darkness as a light? How do I not get my feet dirty walking in a cesspool of demonic aggression? How do I battle these mental onslaughts that are coming against my mind? How do I steady my identity in nothing but you alone? How do I keep my life firm on the Solid Rock of Jesus?” There is only one way to live this kind of victorious life ~ Holy Spirit! 

When you get into a place of wilderness warfare, you learn over time that you will never win by trying to reason it out, speak against it in your own words and strength, nor can you overcome it by trying to overcome it. I can assure you that doing those things is just going to create strongholds in your mind that the enemy will build, and we’ll talk more about that later. God is using the opposition to change your image from just being a child of God to being a warrior enforcing the Lord’s victory! I remember being in a time of prayer and I envisioned myself kneeling at the Lord’s feet and I said, “Lord I am yours and I kneel at your feet in worship of You.” To which He replied, “Daughter, I don’t want you kneeling at My feet, I want you to rise up and stand by My side and learn to rule and reign with Me!” This was spoken during the heat of battle in the wilderness. Then I had a clear vision of me standing beside Jesus, with my hand in His, with warrior gear on, confident and in complete control with His conquering power! I went from feeling helpless at His feet to standing beside Him in His majesty and rulership of all. I understood at that moment that life down here is my boot-camp-training for ruling in eternity. Be prepared for this onslaught during the wilderness; The realm of darkness will attack your understanding of God. The demonic realm will say things like, “God is withholding good things from you.” (Exactly what he said to Eve in the garden). “God doesn’t really love you, He’s not who He says He is, His character and nature isn’t what you think. He’s not listening; He’s sitting on His hands doing nothing for you.” All lies of course, and they will be hitting your emotions at the same time they plant these thoughts. (The demonic realm on assignment will be speaking to you. It’s likely not Satan himself, as he’s busy working in the White House and with other national leaders around the world. He is not omnipresent - he cannot be in more than one place at one time, like God can.) The realm of darkness will attack the Word of God . There is a huge demonic assault against the Bible! Lies like, “It doesn’t apply to us today, it’s just a history book, it’s not alive and powerful, you don’t need it because you’ve got Jesus the living Word,” and on and on it goes. Ask yourself a question, “If the Bible isn’t the inspired inerrant word of God given to us by the Holy Spirit as He moved upon men to write, then why is there so much assault against it?” Exactly! It’s one of your main keys to victory! Without it, you have no roadmap to get out of the wilderness. And, my friend, many people have died in the wilderness because they put down their map and believed the lies. The realm of darkness will attack your identity . Things will pop into your head like, “Are you really saved? You’re so weak and powerless, surely you aren’t full of the Holy Spirit. And the biggie ~ look at your past, how can God work through you? ” And the onslaught can be very vicious. It was for me! But then let’s go back to my original prayer, “Lord, make me rock solid in my identity.” At that time, I thought I was pretty stable in it and just needed a bit more! But my loving Father, heard me, knew I meant it, and He also saw the cracks in my identity foundation and what was head knowledge and what places were settled as truth in my being. For the word of God is living and active and full of power [making it operative, energizing, and effective]. It is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating as far as the division of the soul and spirit [the completeness of a person], and of both joints and marrow [the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and judging the very thoughts and intentions of the heart (Hebrews 4:12, AMP).

ANSWER: Yes, Paul did leave Trophimus sick in Miletus. What does that prove? Paul couldn’t heal everyone. But Jesus couldn’t heal everyone either. Even though healing is provided in the atonement, not everyone is going to get healed. It’s not a defect in the atonement, nor is it an issue of God’s will, it’s an issue of faith. That’s the answer Jesus gave to the disciples when they asked him why they didn’t see the epileptic boy healed. The disciples obviously believed that they ought to, and should have been able to, heal him. They tried, but never concluded (as we wrongly do) that it wasn’t God’s will to heal him. Jesus told them squarely it was their faith issue. Jesus said NO HEALING will be impossible for you if you have the faith for it. 19 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” 20 So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you (Matthew 17:19–20). But Jesus could not heal everyone in His hometown of Nazareth either, not because of His faith, not because of God’s will, but because of their faith issues. 5 Now He could do no mighty work there [Nazareth], except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. 6 And He marveled because of their unbelief (Mark 6:5–6). When someone is not healed when we pray for them, there is an issue. It’s not a God issue. That’s a done deal. It’s a faith issue and a lot of believers don’t want to come to grips with issues of their faith, or someone else’s faith. So, it’s easier to put the blame on God and make judgments about His will to heal. When Jesus could not heal in Nazareth, He did not conclude it wasn’t His Father’s will to heal them. When Jesus gave healing authority to His disciples, they didn’t come back and question Jesus’ will to heal, when they were unsuccessful. They asked Jesus, “Why could WE not heal?” Jesus gave us the ability, authority, and anointing to heal (Matt. 10:8). So, when we don’t see healing, why do we question God’s will? We should be questioning our faith in the ability, authority, and anointing that we have been given. So, it should not shock us when we read of an occasion when Paul was not able to heal. We don’t know the situation with Trophimus. And we don’t know how long after Paul prayed for him that he recovered. All we know is that Paul did not wait around for his recovery.

ANSWER : Ellen, you’re supposed to feel inadequate because your sufficiency is in Christ. If you felt adequate for the assignment that the Lord has given you, then the chances for the vision’s failure are very high! Your trust and confidence must be in God alone, who called you, and the Holy Spirit’s enabling within you, to make it happen. You’re in good company. The apostle Paul wrote, 4 And we have such trust through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, … (2 Corinthians 3:4–6). Paul’s trust in Christ was based upon the knowledge of his insufficiency in himself to think that any of his vision and calling was coming from him. His sufficiency was in God who called him and enabled him. So, don’t look to yourself. That’s where you’re going wrong. Relax in Him. The success of the vision is His responsibility. Your responsibility is to listen and be obedient. On a personal level, you need to maintain your own success and internal prosperity, independent of the vision and assignment that God has given you. The secret for this is contained in God’s instructions to Joshua, This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success (Joshua 1:8). Three things that God says guarantee personal success and prosperity: Release God’s Word from your mouth into your situations Mediates on God’s Word day and night Obey what God tells you to do. This will give you the courage to hold onto God’s vision and leave the details to Him. The vision will be fulfilled but it may look very different at the end than what it looked like at the beginning. Those who were with you at the beginning, may not be with you at the end. But you will be successful, and you will have completed God’s assignment for you. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go (Joshua 1:9).