October 4, 2004
(ML #3506‚ GN 1095)
FD/MM/FM August 2004
ML #3343:44-49, GN 937
44. (Question:) The Charter says we should vote on many things, and the majority rules on many decisions. Where does prophecy fit in? If we're voting, why hear from the Lord? Or if we're hearing from the Lord‚ why vote?
45. (Jesus speaking: ) The Charter was put in place before you were exercised in hearing from Me. Now that you're learning to hear more from Me about everything, you must learn how to use prophecy in conjunction with the Charter. Each individual situation will be different, but I will give you some general guidelines.
46. When a matter comes up that must be decided, it's wise to bring it to Me. The Home should agree together on the questions to ask Me and should appoint people to come before Me, or else should come before Me as a body. The answers that I give can then be shared, and many times you'll find that I place before you further pros and cons, and leave the final decision with you. It's rare that I tell you that you must definitely do a certain thing. I often like to work with you when making decisions. For example, when asking Me if you should organize a special outing for the Home, when you come to Me and ask Me if you should go, as you relate the pros and cons and ask Me your questions‚ I will answer. However, often through My voice of prophecy I will leave the final responsibility to choose up to you. In this way, I am not dictating what you should do‚ but working hand in hand in helping you to make your decisions. I usually point in the direction that I know would be best for you to go, but many times there is a sacrifice involved, or a commitment that you must make, or there are other options which I also give you.
47. That's where you must vote to seal your decision as a Home, to make sure that all are in agreement, or at least that you have the agreement of the majority of the Home. If someone doesn't agree, they're free to bring the matter up again for further prayer and a revote, but in the meantime all Home members must abide by the decision of the majority of voting members.
48. It's wise to hear from Me when deciding on matters. However, it is still necessary to vote. I am flexible and offer you different methods in how you might conduct your voting. In some cases, you should come to Me first, before a whole lot of discussion, to hear My counsel on the subject. The answers I give should be made available to all those involved in the decision, then all must vote, to signify the commitment‚ the decision that has been made.
49. At other times, you may want to gather your voting members, present the options and take a simple nonbinding vote, in order to see how people are leaning. Then you can bring the outcome of this noncommittal vote to Me and ask for My final confirmation. I will either give you to the go-ahead or present you with another option or further details as to why you should consider another course of action, other than what you arrived at in your nonbinding vote. After hearing from Me in prophecy‚ the counsel received should be shared with the voting members of your Home and an official vote should then be taken. (End of message from Jesus.)
ML #3387:188-191, 196-197, 200, GN 983
188. (Jesus:) Prophecy will be greatly needed and should be used to the greatest extent possible in board meetings. Every meeting, and in fact every new topic‚ should be opened with not only a prayer, but with a moment to hear from Me. It doesn't need to be long or involved‚ and those receiving the messages shouldn't feel limited to receiving only encouragement or generalities. Often I will be happy to come through with a key tip or reminder, something essential to keep in mind during your discussions.
189. Besides praying and hearing from Me at the start of each topic‚ each conclusion should also be confirmed by Me. This doesn't need to always be done in your united meetings, as that may cause people to feel too pressured. But those who are taking notes or who are responsible to carry through on conclusions should always assume that each conclusion is not a final conclusion until it has been brought before Me for My confirmation. These confirmations should then be shared with those involved in the deliberations and decisions on that matter, whether on your board or those on the upper board.
190. If I am not brought into your counsel—and not just brought in as a rubber stamp but given the chance to express My views—then your counsel will not stand. While I have given each of you wisdom, gifts‚ understanding and insight, I have made it so that these are not enough without My living voice of prophecy present among you. Where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst of you; yet you cannot fully benefit from the power I bring unless you call upon it, and unless you allow Me to speak.
191. Without that confirmation and assurance that I am with you, and that your decisions are My decisions, there will be more room for discontentment, disagreement, disunity, and discouragement; there will not be strong enough solidarity of purpose and oneness of heart and mind. Therefore, even if you were to make good decisions, without seeking My voice of confirmation and leading in prophecy, there will be problems—whether missed details or hurt feelings—that will slow down the progress of My work.
*?
196. (Jesus:) One danger of implementing the board vision is that because a number of counselors will be added to each pillar, some people will automatically assume that the focus is more on the counseling and the talk than on hearing from Me. People may tend to lose the vision of asking Me everything, and feel that discussing, hashing things out‚ and leaning to the wisdom of man is the way to go, the most effective way, and even the whole reason why the boards are being put into place, because people are needed—input, talk‚ discussion, and so on. It is true that people are needed, and input, talking, discussion, and counsel are vital—but not above hearing from Me.
197. With wise plans I make My war, and My war for the Family's survival and future growth is two-pronged. One prong is the new weapon of hearing from Me in prophecy and bathing every move in prayer; the other prong is to gather My children who have knowledge and resources on a subject, and have them brainstorm and put their heads together to make plans and design projects and have them become a reality. But I must still be the inspiration behind it all. Without Me and My leading, the other will not work.
200. I will bless the boards that hear from Me, who include Me, who let Me have the last word. Of course, there will be discussion and voting, but there must also be My confirmation. My stamp of approval must be given. There must be a seeking of Me or I will have your plans come to naught. Each individual board will be given this responsibility, and the success of their board—the spiritual and practical success—will rest upon their obedience to comply with My request that I be intimately involved in every way.
ML #3408:3,4,7; Part 4, ML #3409:11-14; Part 6, ML #3411:22–42
3. (Peter: ) Sooner than you can imagine, you are going to be sitting with other people, and you are going to be the national board of such-and-such an area on such-and-such a pillar, and the question is, what are you doing there? What are you supposed to do?
4. Well, the first thing you should do is pray, of course. Really pray and ask the Lord to help you‚ and hear from Him‚ and He'll show you what you're supposed to do in that meeting.
7. You will be sitting with other people who are like-minded and with similar experiences. If you'll pray together‚ discuss together, and really seek the Lord and hear from the Lord about the problems and needs of your pillar within your area, the Lord will speak to you and show you what to do and what ideas might be helpful for the Homes.
*
11. At the end of the day‚ after you have discussed things, you're going to vote on whether to do this or not. But before you actually put your decision into action, some members of your board need to pray and hear from the Lord to get a confirmation. That's not to say that's the only time you should pray and hear from the Lord during your meetings. You should have prayer and hear from the Lord at the beginning of a meeting as well, to see if the Lord has any words of encouragement or direction or guidance for you to start with.
12. At the summit, we have a lot more people than are going to be on your board, but sometimes there's quite a difference of opinion, and we'll ask a few people to just stop and go hear from the Lord about it and we'll discuss it further later. Often the prophecies really clarify the issue and help us to get a unanimous or close to unanimous decision.
13. It's very important to hear from the Lord. If you're not praying and you're not hearing from the Lord in your board meetings or about your decisions, then you're probably not going to be making really good decisions. You should pray without ceasing. You should pray in the meetings. At the minimum, every decision has to be prayed about, and somebody needs to hear from the Lord about it, or a few people, so that you can really have faith that that's what the Lord was leading you to do.
14. From time to time you will probably get prophecies that seem conflicting. Well, when that happens, then you're going to have to talk about it as a board and you're going to have to go back and pray and ask the Lord further about it, and ask Him to explain the conflict‚ etc.
*
22. The Lord has thankfully given us prophecy, and the use of prophecy, the gift of prophecy, and the ability and even the command to ask Him everything, to really get the Lord involved in our lives‚ in our decisions, to teamwork with the Lord in all that we do—both personally and in our ministry and our job and our shepherding.
23. The gift of prophecy has made a difference in the Family, and it's caused the Family to grow spiritually. It's given people a deeper connection with the Lord that wasn't as good before. It has increased people's faith. It has helped in shepherding, it's helped in people making their own decisions, and it's resulted in people making much better decisions than they used to. I would say in the Family, as a whole, and in our leadership and all the rest, it has made for better decisions overall, because everybody's connected. Everybody's hearing from the Lord and following the Lord to the best of their ability, and it's had a wonderful effect.
26. So we can't abandon prophecy when we start getting in board meetings and start voting and making decisions. Because if we do that, if we just discuss, talk, pray an introductory prayer, "Lord help us with these decisions," and you talk it all out and then you vote and then you do it, then what you're doing is just using man's wisdom and not the Lord's wisdom. And we don't want to do that. Your decisions are going to have an effect on your area, whether national or regional or international. I know, and we know, that you want your decisions to be good ones. Well, they won't be good ones if you're not including the Lord in the teamworking. It's very important.
27. On the other hand, the Lord really does want to do it in teamwork. He's not going to come at the beginning of the meeting and say, "Here are the five decisions that you should make—boom, boom, boom!" And then you're going to go home. It's not going to work that way. He wants the discussion. He wants the different points of view. In actuality, what you're doing in your discussions and in bringing up different points is developing and defining the questions that you're going to bring to the Lord.
28. When we have our council meetings, we'll pray, we'll talk‚ and we'll say, "What should we do?" and "Here's the problem." We'll all put out our opinions and different points of view and all, and we'll generally come to some consensus. Sometimes we can't, and then we'll say, "Well‚ let's go ask the Lord that question." Or as questions come up in our discussion we'll write them down and say, "We need to pray and ask the Lord about that," so we can bring that information back to the table for further discussion and final decision and prayer. It's all part of the teamwork. The Lord isn't going to just drop it down on one person who is going to have all the answers.
29. Okay, so how does this work practically? Let's look at it. Here I am, I'm a board member, a board meeting's coming up in a week, and I've been thinking and praying about different items and things that I think should be on the agenda, things I think we should discuss. Or I have what I think is a really good idea, that if we did this, if we had these kinds of meetings and we invited the moms and we could teach them this, it would really help in this way. Okay, that's good. It's good to have those ideas. It's good to write them down, to think about them‚ and to put them on the agenda.
30. But before you send them in, you should really pray and seek the Lord and ask the Lord‚ "Well‚ Lord‚ I have an idea, and I believe it's an inspiration from You. Could You speak to me about it? Are there any points that You think I should put on it? Or that I am too exuberant about? Is it really Your will that I should put this point in there?" And the Lord will speak to you about your point. And if you have the idea, He probably gave it to you in the first place, and He will expound on it. He'll probably tell you, "Yes, it's good," and He might give you some points that should be included in the agenda and give you some ideas about it.
31. Okay, so you send your agenda point in. You've prayed about your agenda points and you've sent them in, okay? However, when the time comes that that point is brought out in the meeting and the chairman says, "So-and-so had this agenda point. We've all agreed to talk about it, so let's talk about it," well‚ you shouldn't say‚ "I'll be first! Listen, I want to tell you what the Lord said. The Lord said we should do this. We should have a meeting and it should be on this day and we should invite these people. And this is what we should do; that's what the Lord said." Everybody else is just going to go silent. They're not going to say, "I don't agree with the Lord." You know?
32. The fact is, the Lord may have shown you some of these things, and that's good, but realistically, sometimes the Lord shows you things so that you will bring the agenda point to the table and then people will discuss it, and then He will take you to the next step, and the next step, and the next step. In other words, chances are He's not going to pour out all of the wisdom and all of the answers to one person, and they're going to come and deliver it and everybody is just going to say, "Oh, yes, that's perfect. No changes need to be made." Maybe He just wants you to get the point out there so it can be discussed.
33. It could very well be that everything is going to go just the way He pointed out in the initial prophecies, or those points are all going to be adopted. But chances are they'll be modified or there will be other points as well, etc. Or maybe it'll be completely changed and then you're going to think, "Well, gosh, the Lord told me this in prophecy." Well‚ the Lord is working with us all in teamwork. He's bringing up things. He may give it to you perfectly great and it'll pass just the way it is; on the other hand, maybe He just wanted to get it out there so that it could be discussed and changed. But in the end, the final decision will be what the Lord wants it to be. So if it doesn't go just exactly the way you got it when you prayed ahead of time, don't have a cow about it. Just realize that you're working in teamwork with the Lord and others.
34. But what you really don't want to do is to go in there and say, "Well, this is what the Lord said. It's the Word of God! I got it in prophecy, so this is what we should do." If you want to talk about intimidating others, that's a great way to intimidate people, okay? You have to be wise. If you have prayed about it and the thing comes up in the meeting and you're going to talk about it‚ you can share the points that the Lord brought up, but you can do it in your own words. That way people aren't saying, "Well, I can't really go against this because it's a prophecy." You have to be careful about that, because, again, the Lord wants that free flow.
35. So prophecy should not be used to prove your point. It's not there to beat people over the head to get them to do what you want them to do, or even what you feel the Lord has shown you they should do, because the Lord will also speak to them. Remember, we all have that connection. And as you discuss it, the spirit will move and people will bring up points and you will probably come, at the end of the day, to a pretty good consensus. And then you can make a decision.
36. As I said earlier, as you're going along, as you're discussing, things will come up that need to be prayed about. You'll be talking about some problems and points will come up and you won't quite know at the end, "Should we do that or shouldn't we do that? Is that right or is that not right?" During the course of your meeting—maybe not right then when you're sitting there, but if your meeting is going over a day or two, afterwards you can have prayer and bring those questions to the Lord, and then bring them all back to the table.
39. So take the time to hear from the Lord. Take the time to get the Lord's input on these things. You're teamworking with the Lord and with the spirit world. And that's really how you're going to come up with the best decisions and the best programs or the best initiatives‚ whatever it is that you're working on.
40. Okay, now once all that's been done, you've heard everybody out, everybody's made a decision, you come to the time to vote, you vote, the decision is made—then you need to have a prayer of confirmation. Not necessarily right then, but before everybody goes away, you all need to get together and divide up the decisions amongst you and have prayer and ask the Lord if it's really what He wants. Okay? And you should have more than one person do that. In other words, if there's a major decision, at least two people should pray and ask the Lord about it to get a double confirmation that this is really the Lord's solution.
41. If you've done your work within the meeting pretty well, if you've been open, if you've been praying‚ chances are the Lord will say that it's the right decision. But there will probably be times when He'll say‚ "Well‚ no, it isn't." Maybe two people get confirmations that this really isn't the best, or it's not complete, or maybe there are other factors you haven't considered, or maybe, "Well, this isn't the way I want it to go." Then you really need to get back down to business and pray further, get more from the Lord about what's off. Why isn't it right? You need to re-discuss that and re-pray about it and try to find what the Lord really wants, so that you're not making decisions that are just based on your own wisdom. Okay?
42. There are also going to be times when you go for confirmation or you're trying to get some answers to some questions that have come up within your discussions, and you'll get conflicting prophecies. One person gets, "Yes‚ it is," and another person gets‚ "No, it isn't." When that happens, then it's important that you all get back together, that you pray further and have other people bring the questions back to the Lord: "Why is this one saying yes and this one saying no?" We've found that when that happens, usually the Lord has a very good explanation. He explains, "It's because of X, Y, Z," or something's missing and it could be blended together. In any case, He has an answer, and you have to go back to Him.
Copyright © 2004 by The Family International
End of File