The Vision by Rick Joyner
Rediscovering the Foundation
EP 60
Rather feebly, I replied, "I know that what you are saying is true, but are you sure this is the most important message you could give to us for the last battle?"
"I am sure!" the Apostle Paul replied with utter conviction. "I so appreciate the grace of the Lord to use my letters as He has, but I am concerned with the way many of you are using them improperly. They are the truth of the Holy Spirit and they are Scripture. The Lord did give me great stones to set into the structure of His eternal church, but they are not foundation stones. The foundation stones were laid by Jesus alone.
My life and ministry are not the example of what you are
called to be; Jesus alone is that.
"If what I have written is used as a foundation, it will not be able to hold the weight of that which needs to be built upon it. What I have written must be built upon the only Foundation that can withstand what you are about to endure; it must not be used as the foundation. You must see my teachings through the Lord's teachings, not try to understand Him from my perspective. His words are the foundation. I have only built upon them by elaborating on His words. The greatest wisdom and the most powerful truths are His words, not mine.
"It is important for you to know that I did not walk in aIl that was available to me. There is much more available for every believer to walk in than I did. All true believers have the Holy Spirit in them. The power of the One who created all things lives within them. The least of the saints has the power to move mountains, to stop armies, or to raise the dead.
"If you are to accomplish all that you are called to do in your day, my ministry must not be viewed as the ultimate but merely as a starting place. Your goal must not be to be like me, but to be like the Lord. You can be like Him and do everything that He did, and even more, because He saved His best wine for last."
I reminded myself that only truth could be spoken here. I knew that Paul was right concerning the wrong use of his teachings as a foundation, rather than building upon the foundation of the Gospels. But it was still hard for me to accept that Paul had fallen short of his calling.
I looked at Paul's throne and the glory of his being. It was much more than I ever dreamed the greatest saints in heaven would have. He was every bit as forthright and resolute as I had expected him to be. It struck me how obvious it was that he still carried his great concern for all of the churches. I had idolized him, and that was a transgression he was trying to set me free from. Even so, he was much greater than the Paul I had idolized. Knowing what I was thinking, he put both hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eyes even more resolutely.
"I am your brother. I love you, as everyone here does.
But you must understand that our course is now finished.
We can neither add to nor take away from what we planted on the earth, but you can. We are not your hope. You are now our hope. Even in this conversation I can only confirm what I have already written, but you still have much writing to do. Worship only God, and grow up in all things into Him.
Never make any man your goal, but only Him.
"Many will soon walk the earth who will do much greater works than we did. The first shall be last, and the last, first. We do not mind this. It is the joy of our hearts because we are one with you. The Lord used my generation to lay and begin building upon the foundation, and we will always have the honor of participating in that. But every floor built upon the foundation should go higher. We will not be the building we are supposed to be you go higher."