From the desk of Steve Shultz:
If we could only CLONE both Bonnie and Mahesh Chavda so more people could hear them in person! What a gift they are to the Body of Christ!
They bring both wit and wisdom to those they minister to. And they bring a set of childlike hearts along with the maturity that only comes from years and years of devoted service. They are fun. And yet they are "full of it" and by "it" I mean THE WISDOM OF GOD.
They are ever learning more of the Kingdom themselves, while also growing the Body up in those things they are learning of the King and HIS KINGDOM. What gifts they are and what gifts they bring to the Church - the People of the Kingdom.
Speaking of gifts, some of these products by Bonnie or Mahesh Chavda, would make great gifts for others as we approach the Christmas and Jewish Holidays!
Blessings,
Steve Shultz
Mahesh and Bonnie Chavda:
"Keep Your Heart: Our Battle for the Next Generation - Part 2"
(Continued from Part 1, Keep Your Heart: Our Battle for the Next Generation)
We Are Now the Players on the Stage of World History
The summer blockbuster Iron Man presents powerful images of the essential nature of the heart as the power source of a man's life and destiny.
In the story, Tony Stark inherits a world-dominating empire. Born with supra normal intelligence, the young man appears to have the world by the tail, until a turn of events leaves him with a mortal wound and a captive of evil tyrants.
We are living in the last act of God's overarching narrative of redemption. In the first few scenes of Act 2 (the fall of the human race) we realize we all must get a new heart or we will die. With that new heart we need an invincible power source to renew and transform us. Through rebirth by faith in Christ we receive exactly that. His unstoppable Spirit provides a special kind of armor in our defense against evil as we battle to transform the darkness around us.
In God's wisdom, the Church of Jesus Christ is His last Act. We are His "super-family" - a unique spiritual creation. We are unique because we have been born again. We are unique because we have been washed in the Blood of Christ. We are unique because we have the word of God. We are unique because we have received the Holy Spirit.
This spiritual creation is realized in persons who form an eternal community through which God is bringing His story to a happily-ever-after conclusion. The Champion will appear at a moment already set but yet to be unveiled. Until then, we have been created in His image and, by His Spirit, are now the players on the stage of world history.
Behavior Follows Heart Attitude
We must "act in the appropriate manner for this moment in the story; this will be in direct continuity with the previous acts (we are not free to jump suddenly to another narrative, a different play altogether)...We must be ferociously loyal to what has gone before and cheerfully open to what must come next" (N.T. Wright, The Last Word, pg. 123). We are not defined by humanistic secular thinking or the wisdom of this present darkness.
In the original story of Iron Man, the boy is born with super human intelligence. But the baby also has a congenital condition which requires the boy's father to create a suit of body armor for him that will provide protection from exposure and pain. After the death of his parents, young Tony Stark, the inheritor of a fortune, goes awry. Enter the story turned summer movie.
Imperious, sarcastic and arrogant, a graduate of MIT at 15, the young man creates and owns the world's most sophisticated weapons systems. It seems he has the world by the tail. Stark's wake-up call comes as, during a business deal, his entourage is attacked by evil forces and Stark suffers a deadly wound to his heart. To make matters worse, he is abducted by the enemy. The sudden realization that he is not in control of his own life or circumstances brings Stark to the end of himself...and the beginning of Iron Man, a new creation.
Vision & Virtue
Behavior follows heart attitude. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. Out of the heart come the issues of life and death. The goal of Godly leadership is to bring the next generation up in the nurture of the Lord. The goal is not to gain control or to create robots or a society of good manners. The goal is salvation and sanctification. The goal is a new breed with a different heart that recognizes God in truth, loves Him without reserve, will follow Him regardless of the cost to self and that will become parents and leaders of a next Godly generation.
The most casual observer will agree that we live in a day of spiritual darkness and famine. At the same moment, we needn't look far to see the Church of Jesus Christ in revival around the world. There is always an element of John the Baptist in revival when it comes. This is the spirit of Elijah. It carries a side of the heart of the Father that cleans house and restores the family to its original genetic identity.
The dread champions God is raising up by His Spirit will be men and women, old and young, who are the bond slaves of the King. They will be children who catch the vision God holds for a generation. They will add personal virtue, the cost of crucifying self, with all its agendas and indulgences, to the Father's vision.
These Are the Days of Elijah!
Malachi is center stage reminding us from whence we come. The words of our revival songs are more than simple lyrics, they ring with true meaning. These are days of Elijah! Like Elijah, John the Baptist wore the same garments as the old prophet. The hair shirt symbolizes the message: repent, turn again.
"He shall be an instrument in God's hand, turning many to righteousness, to the Lord their God, and so making ready a people prepared for him.'' Luke 1:16-17
The word "turn" means repentance. Backsliders awaken and remember from whence they have come, even from generations past. This return indicates coming back to the point previously departed from. The result is restoration of communion with God as His blessed family. The turning of souls to God and their duty is the best preparation of them for the great and dreadful day of the Lord. It is promised concerning John:
"He shall give a turn to things, shall make a bold stand against the strong torrent of sin and impiety which he found in full force among the children of his people, and beating down all before it. This is called his coming to restore all things (Matthew 17:11), to set them to rights, that they may again go in the right channel.
"He shall preach a doctrine that shall reach men's hearts, have an influence upon them, and work a change in them. God's word, in his mouth, shall be quick and powerful, and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart - many had their consciences awakened by his ministry who yet were not thoroughly wrought upon, such a spirit and power was there in it.
"'He shall turn the hearts of the fathers with the children, and of the children with the fathers' as some read it, to God and to their duty. He shall call upon young and old to repent, and shall not labor in vain, for many of the fathers that are going off, and many of the children that are growing up, shall be wrought upon by his ministry.
"Thus he shall be an instrument to revive and confirm love and unity among relations, and shall bring them closer and bind them faster to each other, by bringing and binding them all to their God. He shall prepare the way for that kingdom of Heaven which will make all its faithful subjects of one heart and one soul (Acts 4:32), which will be a kingdom of love, and will slay all enmities." (Henry, Matthew: Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible : Complete and Unabridged in One Volume. Peabody : Hendrickson, 1996, c1991, S. Mal. 4:4.)
The Father's Heart
"Return to Me and I will return to you," says the Lord." The prophet's ministry was not a kumbayah circle around the campfire. "And he will turn the hearts of the patrio to the children, and the hearts of the children to their patrio."
There is a before and an after to the heart of this message. Before is a remembrance that God cut His covenant with an agreement to keep His law as the foundation of the society, that His people might be a peculiar nation among all the nations of the earth. After the promise, God clearly states that a failure to step into the grace provided will reinstate the post fall judgment.
When Adam's charge to tend and guard the Garden of God was violated, good and evil were received together as meat as though both were acceptable to support life. A curse entered creation. The heart of man was fatally wounded. But God has created a power source which gives our wounded heart a new life. Adam failed in his commission to be the father of man's family, acting as God's regent. So God found abraham, Abraham, "father of a multitude," one who would command his sons after him and so after God.
The word ab is father or forefather and bêt ab, "father's house," is rendered "family." Our word for father is the ancient primitive noun apparently derived from such baby sounds as abab and "Papa." The Assyrian root, abû, which means "decide," suggests that the father is the "decider." It designates primarily "begetter" or originator.
As Eve said, "I have gotten a man from the Lord," the Begetter of Life. The Greek, pater, "father," indicates generator or male ancestor, either the nearest ancestor or both parents as the founder of a race or tribe, progenitor of a people, the authors of a family or society of persons animated by the same spirit.
"A father is one who has infused his own spirit into others, who actuates and governs their minds; one who stands in a father's place and looks after another in a paternal way. It is a title of honor, of elders, seniors advanced in age; teachers, as those to whom pupils trace back the knowledge and training they have received. It was used to designate the members of the Sanhedrin, whose prerogative it was by virtue of the wisdom and experience in which they excelled, to take charge of the interests of others." (Strong, James: The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible : Showing Every Word of the Test of the Common English Version of the Canonical Books, and Every Occurrence of Each Word in Regular Order. electronic ed. Ontario : Woodside Bible Fellowship., 1996, S. G3962.)
"God is called the Father of the stars, the heavenly luminaries, because He is their creator, upholder and ruler. He is Father of all rational and intelligent beings, whether angels or men, because He is their creator, preserver, guardian and protector. He is Father of spiritual beings and of all men and of Christians in particular as those who through Christ have been exalted to a specially close and intimate relationship with Him, and who no longer dread Him as a stern judge of sinners, but revere Him as their reconciled and loving Father. He is the Father of Jesus Christ, as one whom God has united to Himself in the closest bond of love and intimacy, made acquainted with His purposes, appointed to explain and carry out among men the plan of salvation, and made to share also in His own divine nature." (Ibid.)
We who have received Christ have received the Father. As we have His Spirit we also receive His heart, and with it deliverance from the world and the curse through the very body and Blood of Christ. We discern between the holy and the unholy. We rejoice in our new identity. This is not worldly wisdom. These dread champions are unwavering in moral righteousness, holding to a system of values as ancient as the Ancient of Days Himself; values that supersede the contemporary mores of cultural fads popularizing societal trends in the world.
There will be a mutual leaning upon one another; elder generations shall lean upon the faithful young for their zeal, talent, fresh insight and support. Likewise the young shall lean upon their elders for their foundation, experiential wisdom, tested knowledge of God and His ways.
The Mark of God is a Transgenerational Work, a New Breed Seen in the Earth
"Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 'Honor your father and mother,' which is the first commandment with promise: 'that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.' And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord." Ephesians 6:1-4
This generation will find grace to walk in the victory of the Spirit, joyfully facing opposition coming from kingdoms of this world. Without vision people cast off restraint. But add the empowering action flowing from pure virtue and you have the raw resource of an invincible army. Yet, without a value system that is impervious to the wiles of the world, your army is at risk.
Together, old and young supporting one another in vision, drawing strength of true virtue and holding to values ordained by Heaven, victory is at hand. Out of the heart flow the issues of life!
These are days of revival Malachi prophesied. We are in a battle for the next generation. The mark of God is a transgenerational work, a new breed seen in the midst of the earth. These are a people who fear the Lord and call upon Him in truth; a people who walk in inner light and manifest Spirit wisdom and power when chaos and confusion abound. A people formed and trained in the nurture and admonition of God.
As the people who walk not after the flesh but according to the Spirit, we are commissioned to create that generation. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light (see Romans 13:12).
"And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having His Father's name written in their foreheads." Revelation 14:1
Mahesh and Bonnie Chavda
Mahesh Chavda Ministries
Email: info@maheshchavda.com
About Mahesh and Bonnie Chavda: Drs. Mahesh and Bonnie Chavda have served together in full-time ministry for over thirty years, reaching the nations with the Gospel accompanied by signs and wonders. Hundreds of thousands have come to salvation and thousands have received healing from critical diseases like AIDS and cancer through their ministry. Many of these miracles have been medically documented, including healings of Stage IV cancer, the lame, deaf and blind as well as the resurrection from the dead of a six-year-old boy. Through The Watch television program produced by Mahesh Chavda Ministries, Mahesh and Bonnie reach a potential audience of a billion households every week with the saving message of Jesus and are equipping Believers to walk in the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit.
In addition, Mahesh and Bonnie have produced many useful tools for Believers including their books, Only Love Can Make a Miracle, The Hidden Power of Prayer and Fasting, Storm Warrior and The Hidden Power of a Woman. Together, the Chavdas pastor All Nations Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Atlanta, Georgia. They also spearhead a global prayer movement, The Watch of the Lord™, where they have been leading their congregation in weekly corporate prayer for more than a decade.
