While researching yesterday’s article, I came across this larger article by Dr. Don Lynch and felt it worthy of its own presentation here. You are encouraged to read this at source, where it appeared under the title Generations (click to read and then look around the rest of his blog.)
To understand what God understands, we need to think like God. We don’t need to think everything God thinks – impossible! – but we need to think what God thinks. So, God reveals His thoughts to us, then He speaks to us in the same context of Divine thinking. The word used to speak of “generations is ancient and about as basic as Hebrew can get.
To understand the ancient meaning, we begin with the pictorial expressions of the letters. The first letter is a tent door. The second represents movement, in or out or back and forth. The third represents the head of a man or man himself. The combination means “the movement of man.”
The generations remain open. Purpose passes from one generation to the next. Both recompense and restoration arrive through the generations because a generation has the movement of man in it.
“After that generation died, another generation arrived who did not know the LORD or have memories of the mighty things He had done for Israel.” [Judges 2:10]
When a generation has little or no awareness of what God has done in a culture, a generation must arise to reintroduce that generation to the mighty works of God. We are that generation!
“And with many other words did He testify and exhort , saying , ‘Save yourselves from this untoward generation.’” [Acts 2:40]
The term for “untoward” here is skolios upon which we base the medical term scoliosis, a curvature of the spine. The base word is leg but the meaning is dried out like a dead tree limb, lacking life, unconnected to the tree. Hence, the basic idea is “separated from the root supply system of the tree.” The “untoward generation” cannot be the source of God’s purpose anymore, so we separate from them and expect to be a remnant who resets that purpose of God in our generation.
Jesus reset the kingdom of David. The disciples understood that He was resetting kingdom but they misunderstood the blueprint. They ask, “Will You restore the kingdom now to Israel?” That Israel didn’t have the kingdom was pretty much a given – and Jesus had received kingdom from His Father, giving kingdom to them. So, they went in search of answers He didn’t give them.
Beware of this tendency to expect or demand answers God isn’t giving you while pondering answers God has already revealed. Consider that you conclusion that you need more information before you proceed is simply disobedience you’ve relabeled “wisdom,” fear you’ve relabeled “caution,” and pride you’ve relabeled “excellence.” You just need to do it!
When a remnant generation begins a reset, they can only function by revelation because what remains of testimony has been lost to history and exaggeration. The previous moves of God didn’t mature, else a reset wouldn’t be needed! So, the reset remnant must depend upon revelation completely. Completely. Did I mention that the remnant generation must be prophetically mature? To mature the move of God we must mature prophetically.
Right now, a move of God is maturing in Brazil. Will this generation mature prophetically in order to mature the move of God, or will this generation tend toward institutionalizing that move of God in ways that short-circuit its fullness? To lead prophetically is to know the “what-God-wants” for your culture, prepare the Lord a people ready to respond in the new season, and to join the generations by the spirit and power of Elijah by turning the hearts of fathers and children toward one another. The “turning of the hearts” prepares for a “generation to generation” fullness so there can be a “generation to generation” fulfillment.
“David served God’s purpose in his own generation, then he died and was buried with his ancestors. He experienced death’s decay,” [Common English Version, Acts 13:36]
David was a reset leader, a true pioneer. Without any history or framework of experience, he introduced a kingdom that Jesus made eternal. Each step he took required him to do something for which there was no precedent in his life. He prepared to face a giant by facing bear and lion. He prepared to wield a sword by becoming expert with a sling. He moved from shepherd to warrior to general to ruler to kingship so he could move Israel into kingdom. God put something into history through David that generations delivered to Jesus. Jesus delivers that kingdom through generations to us. Here we are, right now, in kingdom.
Beware of thinking that visiting a place where a move of God began will set you up to reintroduce this move of God. That move of God is over. You can learn from it – best practices and worst atrocities – what to do and what not to do, but that move of God is over.
What you are looking for is the inheritance of that move of God. Consider how a move of God moves through the generations, not how a move of God looked, sounded, smelled, manifested, or matured in another generation.
Consider that pioneers arrive at places that are bleak, empty, covered with the dust settled upon them by centuries of neglect. No one sees what the pioneer sees in those places or people. The pioneer appears “off his rocker” to invest time, passion, money, and heart in a wilderness, but the pioneer knows something about what’s coming next that others do not. The pioneer, in his generation, inspires as a dynamic of leadership. He inspires people by prophetic revelation: “here’s what’s coming next and we need to prepare for it.”
Generations depend upon maturing God’s purposes in their season, to move people and cultures toward God’s purpose as a means of fulfilling both personal and corporate destinies.
Moves of God get sidetracked into denominations, doctrines, and darkness when they are hijacked by human imagination rather than continuing to mature the prophetic revelations that birthed them.
Christianity 201 
Leave a comment