PROPHETIC WORDS

ENTERING THE AGE OF POWER-FILLED LOVE

by Lyn Packer

This prophetic word was given at the NZ Council of Prophets meeting in Christchurch, February 2021.

We are exiting the age where the church has for centuries been defined by dogmatism and the need to be right and having been seen to be right – where religious judgement, control, and conformity were too often the norm – and we are being called to enter an age where we live from love – where we are being called afresh to become living manifestations of love to the peoples of the earth, as Jesus was.

We are exiting an age where it has been all about power, largely devoid of love, and we are entering an age of power-filled love. This age in the church will give birth to people so filled with love that it upsets and resets whole cultures. It is love that is counter-cultural, revolutionary, and power-filled. This love will not be weak, insipid, and powerless. It destroys the works of darkness that seek to violate and destroy people’s lives.  It is the same love that moved Jesus with compassion and saw the power of God flow and miracles take place.

God is bringing His church to maturity – a place where the gifts of the Spirit and character are fully formed and mature.

The Lord is reminding us that the Kingdom Christ came to establish in the earth is one where mercy triumphs over judgement, lovingkindness and justice reign, and grace and forgiveness is extended to all. It was not, and is not, a Kingdom based on military might and mindsets, or on law and governing bodies. While Scripture uses the metaphor of the church as an army, it is not an army as we know it in the natural. The army of God is countercultural – it is an army of laid-down lovers of mankind, whose weapons are love, hope, faith, miracles, kindness, forgiveness, etc, – in other words, the fruits of the Spirit being manifested through the gifts of the Spirit.  

The Old Testament told us about the Kingdom that Christ would establish – one founded on love.  “Then a government of unfailing love will be established, with a faithful king… passionate for justice and swift to do what is right.” (Isa 16:5 Passion Translation.)

The New Testament goes on to say…

“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers…Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”  (I John 3:16,18.)

Jesus Himself said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:3.)

 “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one. I in them and you in me - so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me… I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.” (John 17:22,23,26.)

Love being formed in each of us is the birthing chamber for the future of the world.

We have exited the age where we thought the institution of the church was to be the fulfilment of God’s dream for the earth, and entered the age where we will come to the realisation that people who live as Christ did, as the expression of divine love in the earth, is what will bring and establish change.

This transition in eras is one that calls for us to lay down our dogmatism, our pride, our egos, our separatism, our desire for recognition, and the desire to be seen as having significant ministries, and step up into the true expression of who we are in Christ – those who are called to love and serve with love. This is true for all of us, but especially true for leaders in the church.

Servant-leaders are arising

It’s an age of servant-leadership where the main focus of church leaders – apostles, prophets, teachers, evangelists, and pastors – will be “How do we equip the saints to live as Christ lived, and in doing so, equip them for their work of ministry? How do we teach them to live from love – to show love well, to speak in love, to live as those who love their neighbours as themselves?”

Eph 4:11-16 tells us that this is the main focus of the apostles, prophets, teachers, pastors and evangelists – to equip the saints, build up the body, and to bring them to maturity, so the body is built up in love, and that the world may know we are Christ’s disciples by the love we show.  

These saints, the sons and daughters of God, will then be able to bring change and reformation to the societies we live in – a change and reformation that is based on loving people, believing the best of them, and for them, and helping them become their best (not just telling them how bad they are).

To do this we must remind ourselves individually and collectively that in Christ we live under a new and different covenant than the Israelites of the Old Testament did. We are New Covenant people who have been made new creations in Christ. We have been given a completely new upgraded way of operating, through our renewed spirit, that is working within us to bring mind-set transformation that causes lifestyle transformation.

We are being called by God to a renewed understanding of the Kingdom Christ set up, to understand the covenant we live under, and to live from that. God is setting us free from the toxic mixture of the Old Covenant, ancient Greek philosophies and beliefs which invaded the  church over the centuries, and from the controlling powers that caused the church to be one that sought to dominate by fear, rather than love, for so many centuries. 

We are being called back to being living expressions of 1 Corinthians 13 .

 “If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

As this happens we can expect to see families, cities, regions and nations transformed.

BIO