Prophetic Teaching (Part Two): What's Missing From the Church - Humility and the Reverent Ways of David

In the first part of this teaching series, I shared a LOT that the Holy Spirit had taught me regarding surrender and what it means to be a servant or slave to God with Him as our Master or Lord.

But, one thing that’s really important to know when it comes to submission and surrender to the Lord is that it won’t happen easily.

And the reason why the Lord wants you to know this ahead of time is so 1) you won’t be surprised and 2) you will know how to get to the state of surrender and submission. Because it can be a little tricky to “get there.”

Recently, the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said the Church needs to “learn the reverent ways of David.” David is someone He’s been speaking to me about for awhile, but it’s become so clear lately how this all ties together with what is happening right now and how the Church needs to “shift” moving forward.

If you follow the prophetic at all, you may have heard people talking about how the “house of Saul” is being replaced by “the house of David” in these final days. And if you don’t know what that means, I will use an awesome breakdown the Holy Spirit gave me to illustrate it.

Saul and David were both anointed. They both had a word from the Lord spoken over them. God declared great things for both of their futures. But, their lives turned out to be very different. So, what was the difference?

Their heart.

Saul’s Heart

When Saul received a word from the Lord about him doing certain things in his life, he tried in his own efforts to make them happen. In fact, he was constantly being disobedient and going against the word of the Lord.

In 1 Samuel 13:5-14, Samuel had instructed Saul (by the word of the Lord) to wait seven days for him to arrive, when they would present an offering to the Lord together. But Saul, seeing that the people were getting scared and anxious, waited until it had just turned the seventh day, didn’t see Samuel there yet and took it upon himself to do the offerings anyway.

As soon as he had finished presenting the offering, Samuel arrived (vs. 10). Samuel, of course, asks him what he’s done and declares that because he didn’t keep the commandments of the Lord (follow His directions), his kingdom would not continue.

But, he still didn’t learn his lesson. Because just a few chapters later, in 1 Samuel 15:1-31, we find Saul yet again disobeying and rebelling against the Lord. Samuel gives Saul an instruction from the Lord to go and attack the Amalekites and destroy everything they have. But, when Saul attacks them, he keeps the king of the Amalekites alive, as well as all the best sheep, cattle and lambs and doesn’t follow the Lord’s instructions.

And to make matters worse, when Samuel confronts him about it, he says, “But I did carry out the Lord’s instructions!” And continues to insist that he did do what the Lord asked, even though he clearly had not. He explains away his disobedience by saying they only kept the best animals alive so they could sacrifice them to God. But, Samuel responds by bluntly reminding Saul how God values obedience over sacrifice. In fact, he compares rebellion to divination and stubbornness or arrogance to idolatry.

Although he does end up finally confessing his sin in this situation, he didn’t have a permanent heart change. For the rest of his life, he continued to rebel and act out in jealous, anger and arrogance. Which is why God raises up David to take his place.

David’s Heart

David, on the other hand, has a completely different reaction to God proclaiming a word over his life. Instead of receiving a word and then going out and trying to make it come to pass like Saul did, David hears the word of the Lord about his life and humbly submits to it.

In fact, if we look at his response to God in the Bible (2 Sam 7:18-24), we can see a clear pattern for how we can respond to God in the same manner:

David was humble. (“Who am I, Lord?” and “This decree is for a mere human!”)
David recognized God’s sovereignty and goodness. (“This was a small thing in Your sight” and “For Your word’s sake, and according to Your own heart, You have done all these great things,”
David praised God. (“You are great, O Lord God. For there is none like You, nor is there any God besides You.”)
David agreed with what God had said about him. (“Establish it and do as You have said.”)
David gave all the glory to God. (“Let Your name be magnified”)
David believed what God had said about/to him. (“Your servant has found it in his heart to pray this prayer to You.”)
David was grateful and expectant. (“Your words are true, and You have promised this goodness to Your servant” and “with Your blessing let the house of Your servant be blessed forever.”)

These are the “reverent ways of David” that the Holy Spirit was referring to. This is an example of how God wants us to respond to His promises for our lives and how we will respond once we are truly submitted and surrendered to Him. Because then, we will be moving by His Spirit and not by our flesh.

It is our flesh (our “self”) that makes us want to make God’s promises come to pass in our lives in our strength. It’s what Saul continued to stay in his whole life and what Abraham was doing when he tried to make God’s promise for a son come to pass by sleeping with his wife’s servant.

Like Galatians 4:22-31 says, Abrahams’ two sons represent two different covenants with God. Ishmael (who was born of the maidservant) represents the old covenant of the law that was received by Moses on Mt. Sinai and is the result of a human attempt to bring about the fulfillment of God’s promise (vs. 23). While Isaac (who was born of Abraham’s wife, Sarah) represents the heavenly Jerusalem, children of the promise and God’s own fulfillment of His promise.

And David understood this concept. He recognized his position and God’s position.

Like I shared in the first part of this teaching, David (like all of our favorite Bible “characters”) recognized and submitted to the fact that God/Jesus is their Lord and Master and they, the servant. They understood the dynamic of that relationship, as well as the need to have the faith of a child.

They didn’t walk it out perfectly. David had an affair, got another woman pregnant and had her husband killed. Yet, the Lord still blessed him immensely and accomplished many thigs through him. But, it was never about his works or his ability to get it “right.” It was simply about God’s goodness, His faithfulness and His sovereignty. And David’s humble heart to believe Him and agree.

House of Saul vs. House of David

So, the “house” or “kingdom” of Saul refers to those churches, ministries, leaders, etc. who are not in total submission to the Lord. The ones who basically are “talking the talk,” but not “walking the walk.”

The house of Saul is self-focused, works-based, man-inspired teaching that is not anointed by God (despite how it may appear in the natural). It sounds appealing to the flesh, but is actually wrapped in religion and is not the true Gospel of Christ. This is the lukewarm, watered-down Church that Jesus speaks about in the letter to the Laodicean Church in Revelation 3.

It is what the mainstream American Church at large has looked like for a long time, but God is changing things. He is bringing down the house of Saul and raising up the house of David.

The house of David, on the other hand, are those churches and ministries that are truly surrendered to the Lord and led by His Holy Spirit. They genuinely want nothing more than to serve the Lord (like David) and will let Him be in control. They are also the houses/groups/people who are not afraid to speak the true Gospel, as opposed to the watered-down, crowd-friendly version.

They are surrendered, so they teach surrender.

And even though some of these houses of David have been infiltrated by spirits of religion and deception up until now, these are the ones that will see it and recognize it, repent of it and change their course. And move forward with God into the “new” thing (which is actually just the “old” way… letting HIM be in charge!).

While the houses of Saul will remain in stubbornness, rebellion and hard-heartedness and will come under the judgment of God accordingly. (It’s why He lovingly gives SO many warnings ahead of time!)

Humility

So now, back to how to get to surrender.

Like we talked about in part one of this teaching, one of the major “pieces” missing from the majority of the Church right now is surrender. Not just as a concept that we talk or sing about, but something that we live out fully in our lives.

And it’s so important for us all in the Body of Christ to understand what true surrender is, not only because that’s where the freedom and protection lie, but also because that is how the Holy Spirit’s power can flow through us.

But, like I mentioned at the beginning of this post, it’s not easy to get “to” surrender. Because your flesh will fight you on it every step of the way. But, the way to combat that… the way to “tame” your flesh, is by being consistently and completely humble.

By recognizing that your flesh is in direct conflict with the Spirit of God inside of you (Galatians 5:17) and that you need to submit and surrender your “self” to Jesus in order to live the life you desire to live - in accordance with His Spirit. It requires recognizing that on your own, you can’t do it. That without Him, you will fail.

And for many people, that’s a difficult pill to swallow. Because they like to think they’re the ones being “righteous.” That they are willing themselves to be patient, gentle, kind, faithful, trusting, etc. When in actuality, it’s the Holy Spirit living inside of them that’s doing it. After all, they are fruits of the Spirit.

Like I mentioned in part one, Jesus already knows this, but we are the ones that need to recognize it. It’s why He let Peter be “sifted” by the enemy, so he could see that he was weaker in his resolve than he thought. And like I shared about my own journey, how He had to show me it was Him that was making me persevere and carry on, not me in my own strength.

He has to let us get to the point where we recognize our own weakness so we can be set free. Because He never intended for us to have to do it out of our own strength. He wants to empower us through His Spirit. But again, we have to let Him.

He is the Good Shepherd. And He knows we are like sheep - who will mess up, get ourselves lost, hurt or end up in trouble. He’s okay with that! Because that’s been the design from the start. But, we have to come out of our false delusions about ourselves and be willing to lay down our pride.

The spirit of pride is our biggest enemy when it comes to surrender. Because it works in conjunction with the spirit of offense, the Jezebel spirit, the religious spirit, the critical spirit and the spirit of self-righteousness. It is constantly wanting to “puff you up” inside and make you feel like it is all about you. Even when it comes to your relationship with the Lord.

So, needless to say, the idea of total surrender… where you give up all control and allow the Lord to be in complete control of your life… makes the spirit of pride flare up with a vengeance. Not only does it make you not want to surrender, but it will also make you feel personally attacked or offended when the Holy Spirit tries to convict you and correct you about something He wants to change.

But, this is why it is SO important for each and every believer to have a humble stance when it comes to their own relationship with the Lord. Because they have to know and really believe that God is FOR them. So they can then know that when He does bring something to their attention that needs changing, it isn’t anything to get upset or even ashamed about. He’s just helping you because He wants to see you free and not bound by anything!

We are the ones that need to remember that we are sheep! And be grateful that we have a loving and relentless Shepherd that wants to take care of us!

Reverence and Meekness

David was not only humble and obedient, but also reverent and meek.

Reverence means to “regard or treat with deep respect.” And meekness means “strength under control” (that definition is straight from the Holy Spirit!).

David wasn’t afraid of God in a religious way. He knew the Lord loved him and considered Him a friend. But, he also had a total awareness of how big God is and how small he was. He knew the Lord was powerful, majestic, sovereign and almighty. He knew that required respect and he was happy to give it to Him.

But again, the beautiful thing about that is that his reverence allowed him to trust God. The reason he was able to walk so boldly up to Goliath was because of the confidence he had… in God! He knew and believed (I cannot ever stress the word “belief” enough) that not only was God capable of taking out this “giant,” but that He would.

David had a deep respect for God, which allowed him to be bold for Him. The way I see it in my mind is little David standing in front of Goliath with the massive shadow of God towering over him. David may have looked small to Goliath. But, Goliath looked miniscule to God.

David knew God was good. He knew He was faithful (from the relationship he had already built with Him, where he had seen Him come through in the past). And he knew He was able.

The other thing that David’s respect for the Lord allowed him to do was to be meek.

Meekness isn’t just something you can conjure up inside of yourself by trying really hard. It is a fruit of the Spirit, so it has to come from the Holy Spirit.

In the Bible, we see David sparing the life of Saul not once, but twice, even though Saul had been chasing him down and trying to kill him. On two different occasions, he had the perfect opportunity to take Saul out. And most men (acting in their flesh), probably would have! After all, he had been acting crazy!

But, David had such a respect and fear of the Lord that he didn’t want to go against Him and he knew he would be doing just that by taking things into his own hands. He recognized that Saul was the Lord’s anointed one, so to go against him would be to go against the Lord.

“And he said to his men, “The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my master, the Lord’s anointed, to stretch out my hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the Lord.” So David restrained his servants with these words, and did not allow them to rise against Saul.” -1 Sam. 24:6-7

This is an example of strength under control. David could have easily taken Saul out. He had the opportunity, the motive and the resources. But, he kept his strength under control and acted in obedience to God instead.

And the same is true for us in our daily walk with Him.

Jesus was gentle, kind and patient. But, He wasn’t a pansy either. He was nobody’s doormat. He had strength and power beyond our wildest dreams. But, He walked with meekness and kept His strength under control.

He didn’t go around using it to get what He wanted or trying to force it upon people. He walked in total submission to the Father, which kept the human/flesh part of Him in check.

When we are in our flesh, we will want to do what feels good to our flesh. We want revenge and vengeance and we want to feed our anger, frustration and feelings of injustice.

But, just like David chose not to act on his fleshy feelings (even though he had every reason to feel like he “could”), we can (and should) do the same thing. And again, the only way we can do that is to surrender and let Jesus work through us. Because then, He can develop meekness in us by the power of His Spirit.

Obedience

The other “way of David” the Holy Spirit is bringing back to His Church is obedience.

Which, just like everything else, is all tied to… you guessed it… surrender.

Obedience tends to get a bad rap just because people hate the sound of the word. By our very (fleshy) nature, we want to rebel. Don’t believe me? Try to tell a one-year old not to do something and see if they don’t immediately try to do exactly the opposite of what you just said.

We don’t like to be told what to do and we don’t like to feel like we’re not in control. So, we rebel or at best, drag our feet in delayed or half-hearted obedience.

But, when we learn to look at obedience as a gift from God, we can start to experience it differently. David was obedient to God because he trusted Him. He knew God’s heart and believed He was for him and wanted the best for him.

So, when He commanded him to do something, David obeyed not only out of reverence for the Lord, but also trust. This is the “secret sauce” that has allowed me to do some things in my own life that have appeared absolutely “crazy” to other people.

But, if you really do know God and trust Him and understand the completeness of His love for you, than you can do some “crazy” things for Him because you know He is good. And even if some of it doesn’t make sense to you, you rest in the mindset of “He must know something I don’t know!"

It’s a level of trust that comes from having a relationship with the Lord (not religion). So then, just like David did when he reflected back on how God had saved him from the lion and the bear before Goliath, you can look back on how faithful the Lord has been in the past and trust that He will be again in the future.

Very simply, David’s relationship with the Lord was an innocent one. Like that of a child. When God spoke, he believed Him. When He told him to do something, he did it. When He said something would happen, he believed it would. When God told him not to do something, he didn’t.

He consulted with God. He asked Him questions. He thanked Him. He worshiped Him. He fellowshipped with Him. And he loved Him.

Because again, he believed God was for him. He believed He knew best. He believed He was in control of all things and he trusted that.

And the same is true for us.

The Lord wants us to return to that innocence. To return to the faith of a child.

“and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” -Matthew 18:3

He wants to have the original relationship you were designed to have with Him. One of complete dependence, trust, freedom and rest.

And the “way” to get there is through surrender, submission and humility.

You don’t have to work to get there. You have to let go to get there.

Ask Him to help you. Ask Him to help you receive the freedom and the rest that comes from truly abiding in Christ. Ask Him to help you let Him (yes, let Him) do a deep work in you. He will do the heavy lifting. It’s by the power of HIS Spirit in you, not by your own might or power.

He is ready and willing.

Are you?

P.S. In the third (and last) part of this prophetic teaching series, we will talk about the true understanding of God’s grace (another thing the majority of the Church is missing right now!). As well as one of the biggest obstructions to receiving it - the religious spirit. So, make sure you keep your eyes out for it and don’t miss it! 💜