From the desk of Steve Shultz:
As a 55-year-old adult, I was raised in a generation where the children were taught about Jesus in their own little rooms, which was good, but after that it was often said that they were to "be seen and not heard." Yet now we understand that children "must be about My Father's business." David Walters has always specialized in ministry to the children and helping them lay their "sticky fingers" (he often says) on people and watch them get healed.
More and more, children are being caught up to the Lord and coming back and having revelation for the adults (and of course vice versa). Children seem to often KNOW THINGS from the Lord that we need to hear. Our mindsets must change to realize that we have revelation for our children and they have revelation for us as well.
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David Walters:
The Spirit of Revelation ? For Adults and Kids, Too
Revelation is progressive, so if you have been a Christian of many years and still believe exactly as you did when you were first converted, then perhaps you haven't understood what revelation is.
I was saved in 1959 over fifty years ago, and although I still believe in many of the same basics as I did when I first heard the Gospel preached, I see many aspects of Christianity, the Church and the Scriptures differently from how I was first taught.
To have the attitude, "I was saved in a (i.e.) Baptist, Evangelical, Calvinist, or Charismatic church and I believe whatever they teach without question, and when I die I will go to Baptist, Evangelical, Calvinist, or Charismatic heaven," ? this will not work today for most hungry Christians. The Lord doesn't reveal all His knowledge and wisdom to any one person or group. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear," said Jesus (Mark 4:9).
If you are dissatisfied with your Christian experience, then you probably have the spirit of revelation coming upon you. If you are saying, "This can't be all there is, there must be more for me and for my children," then the spirit of revelation is activating in you.
Paul said to the Believers in Ephesus, "[I] do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power'' (Ephesians 1:16-19).
The Christian life is a wonderful, powerful, ongoing experience, but the traditional religious life tends to be boring, monotonous, demanding and restricting. Many Christians don't know what their glorious inheritance is that Paul was writing about. In fact, many don't even realize that there is an inheritance for them that they can experience now and not only when they get to Heaven. For God is the God of now. Now is the day of salvation, which includes provision for the whole person in this life and the life to come.
He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things??Romans 8:32
The greater includes the lesser. If we as Believers are expected to trust God with our eternal destiny, then we must also be able to trust Him to provide for all of our temporal needs.
The Holy Spirit is Always More Exciting than Fun and Games, Even for Kids!
In the days that we are living in, there is so much going on in the world and many choices offered, both legitimate and suspect (especially for our children), that mere religion or Christian education cannot sustain them or compete with the offers of the world. Our kids are being inundated with fun, fun and more fun. Video games, movies, music, pop and rock stars, teenage idols, and competitive sports and games. If they have been put into a government-run school, then they are in danger of being brainwashed by secular teachers and abused by worldly kids.
This is not to say that fun is forbidden; I've enjoyed writing some funny fantasy books for children. I also have written some great illustrated Bible Study books for kids. Proverbs tells us that there is a time for everything under the sun. I often tell children when they come to church there is a time to play and a time to pray; it's not all playtime, so we must have a better alternative to offer them. How about an encounter with the reality of God through the power of the Holy Spirit?
Some years ago, I was doing a large children's camp with a church in Denver, when two young girls who were born deaf and dumb were healed in the meeting after the kids had prayed for them. When the children returned from the mountain camp on the Saturday afternoon, they were met by their parents in the church parking lot. The parents asked the children if they enjoyed the tomahawk throwing, the swimming and the ball games. The kids replied, "That was OK, but the meetings were awesome. Kids were getting healed, including two deaf and dumb girls, and God was moving and using us. Please, we want to come to the main church meeting tomorrow morning, because our speaker, David Walters, is preaching." The Holy Spirit is always more exciting than fun and games.
Traditional Sunday morning church-going must change. No more will it be a predictable, canned program. Hungry Believers want something more than a good program. When Jesus was approached by Nicodemus, He not only told Nicodemus that he must be born again, but He also went on to say that, "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8).
If we are born-again, Spirit-filled Christians, then we are to be as free and as unpredictable as the wind, and when we gather together corporately, our meetings will also be like the wind. How about a fresh wind blowing through your church on a Sunday morning, where anything can happen and anyone can be used, because the Holy Spirit is in control?
Are Your Children Moving in the Anointing? Do They Know that They Can?
A large part of our ministry has been bringing children into all that God has for them. But for that to really work we have to include the parents, teachers, youth pastors and children's workers. The vision or revelation must be imparted to everyone, including the senior pastors. Jesus ministered to the children, not with games and fun things, but with His love and power, and saw their potential and calling (see Matthew 11:25, 18:3-4, 19:14-15). When it says that Jesus laid hands on them, that doesn't mean that He gave them a little blessing because they were cute; it wasn't a pat on the head. He anointed them and ministered to them. When it says He suffered the children to come to Him, it doesn't mean suffer in the sense of putting up with something, but in the Greek it says, "Allow and do not prevent."
Churches can have a great revelation of prosperity, but the children in the same church can be poor in anointed revelatory teaching, which makes them poor spiritually, because they have no real relationship with God, and know little about the anointing and the riches in Christ we are all meant to experience.
The youngest worshipper recorded in the Bible was John the Baptist, who worshipped God in his mother's womb. Also, he was filled with the Spirit before he was born. Does your church know or teach that? Are your children moving in the anointing, prophesying and praying for the sick, and being used powerfully in the Kingdom? Do the kids in your church know that they can?
We have seen everyone, including the small children, have amazing experiences with God. What a wonderful sight to see kids and adults lost in the presence of the Lord for many hours. Weeping, shaking, laughing, taken up into Heaven, seeing angels, some stuck and unable to move, some even have been unable to speak at all for hours.
We have had so many testimonies over the years from children, now grown, that their lives were changed and who are now bringing up their own children to experience the same. Children are entitled to their own personal Pentecost. Once this happens, children and youth begin to move in evangelism, healing, the prophetic and all the gifts of the Spirit. So many miracles have happened when we have encouraged the children to pray; not just amongst themselves, but also to adults.
Many deaf ears and blind eyes have been opened. Many people suffering in pain and disease have been healed through children laying their hands on them and commanding them to be healed in the name of Jesus. In our churches, why can't some of our children be part of the ministry team, the worship team, and the intercessors? Are they not qualified? Their qualification does not depend necessarily upon their age, but their intimacy with the Father and their love for Jesus. If God can use the children that we consider to be the least qualified, then there is hope for all of us. So often the average Christian has sat back and left the entire ministry to the "professionals" or the preacher on the platform.
Let's not be average anymore, but enter in by faith to all that God has for us. Remember, God has a destiny for all of us, including our children and grandchildren. When they experience being born again, they are not endowed with a junior or baby version of the Holy Spirit. They can be filled with the Holy Spirit and anointed as much as anyone else.
Children Can Prophesy
A while ago, the Lord told my wife, Kathie, to pray for the sick. However, she forgot because she goes after the religious spirits. God spoke to her again, but again she didn't do it, because she exposes the religious spirits. Then when we were eating out at a Bonefish restaurant a few weeks ago, my little six-year-old granddaughter, Inisfree, jumped up on the chair and pointed at Kathie, "Nana, God said pray for the sick." Then she sat down and continued her dinner.
When we were helping a church in Florida, we picked the children up (about six of them) after the Wednesday night service, and they all began to prophesy one by one. They prophesied that the church had prayed for the Holy Spirit to come, but when He came, the people didn't really want Him. Another child prophesied that the pastor would leave his wife, and another said the pastor would leave in two weeks. Another said the church would close (about a 300-person church), and the last one said, "In two weeks." Then they asked if they could go play on the tree swing.
Why does God tell such things to children? Well for a start, they don't make the judgments we as adults make and, quite honestly, they aren't interested enough to think about it much. So, they speak the words the Holy Spirit gives them and then usually forget about it. Incidentally, everything they prophesied came to pass within two weeks.
Well, obviously, I could go on and on with amazing stories of the wonderful things that God had done and is still doing today. Pray for me as I go and minister to some hungry churches in Kansas; Oklahoma; and Denver, Colorado, during the next few weeks.
Be blessed,
David Walters
Good News Ministries
Email: davidmwalters@mindspring.com
