Many people are curious as to how Samuel’s Mantle came about: They want to know why we would risk building a prophetic training school in the Fraser Valley; why put all of our time and effort into training people in how to hear God speak? The simple answer is, “God said to.” However there is a bit more to it than that for, as it often is with God, He first brings us to the place we need to be – to be able to hear what he wants to say.
Preparation
After finishing my last assignment planting a youth/young adult church it became very clear to me that people could get to know a lot about God very easily, even experience God’s presence in meetings, but that was not the same as knowing God personally. People needed to be able to talk intimately to the Father and for that they needed to hear his voice and learn all the many ways God speaks by: hearing, sensing/feeling, pictures, thoughts, his voice, dreams, journaling, visions, his word, etc… As I have worked with countless people over the years, it has become painfully obvious that religion flourishes in those who have no intimate contact with God. Why? Because all they are left with are rules to follow with the result being that they hope that their decisions are pleasing to a God they cannot contact. I have watched so many people lurch around with questions in their hearts, “What am I supposed to do in: life, this situation, with my relationship, etc?” People are perplexed by such questions but even more perplexed that it appears God cannot answer.
A belief in a distant God who does not speak is even more traumatic for the broken and wounded people in our society that long for love and ‘fellowship with Christ’ (1 Cor 1:9) but don’t know how to connect with God in an intimate way. For these people falling back on rules is not enough – if intimacy with God is unavailable then affairs, alcohol, or drugs become an emotional substitute
Fortunately for us, God has an answer to this longing to be heard and communicate with him. His answer is personally filling us with himself:
17 “‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
We are not alone, God is with us! And with this infilling of the Spirit of God comes a language, a language God speaks very fluently: prophecy, dream, and vision.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. 18 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.
But what is prophecy? And why would God pour out prophecy on all his people as a sign of Jesus’ resurrection? Because prophecy is God speaking and us sharing it:
But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an uninformed person comes in, he is convinced by all, he is convicted by all. And thus F45 the secrets of his heart are revealed; and so, falling down on his face, he will worship God and report that God is truly among you.
1 Corinthians 14:24-25
The Apostle Paul clearly states that people are convinced God is with us by our ability to hear him and confidently share what we hear. And according to the above passage this gift of hearing God, a.k.a. prophecy, is for all –all can hear God, all can prophecy and thus people believe God is with us!
The church spends millions of dollars training Pastors, Teachers, and Evangelists but little on the one gift given to all believers that brings intimate communication with God – prophecy, the ability to hear God speak and give it away. I believe God is crying out for his people to hear him. It is to answer that cry from the heart of God that Samuel’s Mantle was born.
Murray Dueck
Founder of Samuel’s Mantle