Brave Pioneers

The Church is called to build and extend Christ’s Kingdom. We are called to be pioneers. We are meant to be forerunners. We need to be risk-takers. Without the apostolic and prophetic gifts in operation, we don’t often even know how to be brave. If we are not brave risk-takers, we will miss opportunities. If you are going to be a forerunner, pioneer, or pathfinder, you will not always be successful. Somebody has to get on horseback and ride across unknown territory, or wade across two feet of snow. Someone has volunteer to represent the wagon train around the campfire and navigate their way through an undiscovered pass to figure out the best way through the mountain. Sometimes they may have to go down 2 or 3 of those to know which way is not the right way. In fact, they are the ones who say, “Don’t go that way or you may die. Or, that’s a dead end.” 

If you are going to be a visionary and apostolic and prophetic in your thinking, you have to be willing to make mistakes. You have to be willing to hit dead ends. You would rather do that than just sit and build a little settlement, because that’s not your nature. Some of us are not satisfied unless we are seeing the dead raised and seeing the multitudes saved. We’re not okay to settle and compete with others in the city where nothing is really happening and everything is going to hell in a handbasket. 

I get the fact that you have to have some balance. Wisdom has to be applied. There needs to be a holy tension happening where life is springing forth. Jesus would put an apostolic Kingdom vision to take back planet earth on hold for an afternoon while He ministered to one woman at a well. He did this because He is not just the King of Kings, He is also the great Shepherd. He is perfect in His balance. If we will pay attention, He will bring the diversification of giftings together in a region where the leaders all think differently from one another, and that’s His design! Then, we can together build an army healthy enough to impact the world. As we understand this, we can have a greater harmony of purpose, extending and revealing the fullness of who He is. 

Some of the places we are taking the Gospel to are dying because of crime, poverty, and disease. Some of us will be called to go into these places and care about more than just the souls of the people there. We are going to need apostolic and prophetic vision to provide answers to the problems and demonic plans of destruction that are in those areas. If we compete with each other, we’ll never get there. If we feed and house them only, we won’t get there. We need societal transformation strategies birthed in the heart of God to be brought in there. Only the brave pioneers can lead us into battles like that.

“And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.” (Matthew 4:23; ESV)

Give Him 15 minutes in prayer:

• If there is anything in you to be a pioneer in any arena of influence, proclaim that before the King of Kings now.
• Pray for the timid ones to become brave! Every Believer will be needed; every gift. All hands on deck!
• Intercede into this season of chaos. Intercede for miraculous answers that are God-breathed and practical, new and exactly what is needed.
• Pray for the connection of different giftings across cities and regions, so that their divine tension can cause holy disruptions and great societal transformations.

A prayer you can pray:

God, I want to be a pioneer! I want to be one who finds new ways forward in the area you have gifted me in. [Talk to the Lord specifically about that. It could be music, or art, or government, or teaching, finance, or medicine, even manufacturing, or mechanics. It could be media or social services, food services, writing, or real estate. How about retail, personal care, engineering, or ministry? It could be anything.] Lord, I especially pray for the timid, the fearful, and the insecure. The devil has beat some people down so hard they don’t even know who they are. But, You do, and You need and want them in this end time gifted army You are putting together to reach our communities. 

Our society is in an uproar. It seems like all the enemies of the cross are coming out in force. Clearly there is a battle for souls raging, but there is also a battle for society. We have hope in the very change You have made in our lives, Jesus! You can cause us to find each other, and use our gifts to effect heaven’s strategies in our communities and our nation. We can do this by Your grace. We want to save the lost, but not send them back into the same destructive environments they have come out of. We need downloads from heaven to know how to shift and change our toughest areas and problems. You have those plans. You put Your gifts in us. It is time! Make us bold, brave, vocal, and unified and establish Your Kingdom everywhere we are in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Today’s decree:

God is raising up armies of brave pioneers who will work together and pull heaven’s strategies into the hardest challenges our cities face.