Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Blessing Prayer for Teacher

I bless your God-given need to validate truth.  It is central to who you are.  You serve the body of Christ when you look at things from a number of different angles to validate truth.  This is one of the best ways to identify the teacher gift (Luke 1:1-4).  Luke, with his teacher gift, wrote more details on history of the early church than any other New Testament author.

You have a hunger for understanding that causes you to ask many questions.  I bless you to celebrate the power and presence of God, seeing his fingerprints and rejoicing over what he is doing.  I bless you to incarnate the person and character of Jesus, not just document him.  Resist the temptation to verify truth with your natural wisdom and rely on your knowledge, intellect, or education.  I bless you to cultivate relationship with Jesus and see him in the Word, and to know him, not just know about him (John 5:39-40; Jeremiah 9:23)

I honor you for your commitment to go to the Word of God first.  The best reflection of God’s truth is incarnated in your life, not in discussions or arguments of words or ideas.  I bless you to take care of your own spirit, so that you can speak into the emptiness of others and share truth relevantly and persuasively.

I bless your gift that causes you to be careful and precise in sharing details, like Luke.  Luke3:1 is a snapshot of the detailed and historically accurate mindset of a teacher.  I bless you to move in the strength of your gift and to mine the goldmine of our gift.

You prefer the old, established, and validated because the tried-and-true is more credible to you.  You make others stop and consider things biblically.  You are not easily swayed from the truth, an anchor against every wind of doctrine.  We need you anchor to the Word to not spin off after every religious fad.  We need you to systematically organize and present truth, yet make going forward in God the point of reference for all choices, not defending what was.  I bless you with a new word in your vocabulary…yet.  We’ve never done it that way…yet.
Some teachers look for more credentials or more degrees to attest to their competence.  This is man’s validation and legitimizing.  Identity is the issue.  When that is settled in Christ, you understand who you are, and you know your purpose.  Then you can step up into leadership without further validation from man.  I bless you with hearing and knowing who you are and what our Father designed you to do.
You process and make decisions slowly.  In your search for truth, find the true wisdom of trusting God when you can’t figure things out.  One of your strengths is that you do not reject new ideas outright, but you do not go forward as quickly as visionaries think you ought to.  Repeatedly Scripture says of Mary, “She pondered all these things in her heart.”  Give your spirit the space, the time, and the solitude it needs.
I bless the way God designed you.  God made you the way you are, and he likes you the way you are.  God did not make a mistake when he designed you.  You listen, observe, gather all the evidence, process everything, and summarize it in your mind.  Then you give one or two sentences that summarizes and clarifies the whole picture.  God made you to slow down impulsive people who jump to conclusions too quickly.  The synergy of the prophet, teacher and mercy can be huge when you work together bringing your strengths to bear.  Prophet presents truth and brings to conviction, teacher is ready to point the way back to reconciliation, and mercy brings healing and cleansing into alignment.



I bless you as God challenges your faith, when you want to know the outcome before beginning.  You may not be willing to begin a process until you can see the end.  God gives the next step, and he expects you to obey that before he reveals what comes next.  I bless you to not let fear immobilize you and keep you from obeying God.

You are deeply committed to leadership.  Samuel’s loyalty to Saul exemplifies this.  God removed Saul and his family line from his position as king because of his iniquity, yet Samuel grieved for him.  Likewise Luke was loyal to Paul to the end when Demos, Crescens, Titus, and others went off in different directions.  I bless your deep loyalty to leaders.

You tend to have a wonderful sense of humor and can defuse a volatile discussion with a quick, charming one-liner.  You are a safe person emotionally, and wounded people feel comfortable being around you.  You can listen to brokenness and sin without a critical attitude.  You will not reject a person in sin and will lay out a path of obedience for him and let him choose.  You are great at holding the standard of righteousness and making the way of reconciliation after there has been a violation of standard.  Isaiah modeled this in Isaiah 1:1-15.  This is classic teacher.  I bless your priestly strength and calling of presenting people to God and representing God to people with blessing.

Intimacy and prayer can be a battleground for you. Pursue intimacy with God at the very highest level.  Don’t settle for knowledge and miss intimacy with God in in-depth personal interaction with him.  You have the duality of validating truth and experiencing intimate relationship with him.  Live in intimacy and worship by feeding both your spirit and your mind.  Cultivate listening to both the Word and the Spirit speaking to you and encouraging you, the best of both worlds-spirit and truth.

I bless you, teacher, to reveal Jesus as he is.  I bless you to come forth with righteousness, refreshment, refuge, redemption, restoration, reconciliation, and resurrection.  This is your time to show the world the Lord Jesus Christ who reveals the Father, to have that kind of intimate personal relationship.

Responsibility is the key issue for the teacher.  You tend to be unwilling to impose responsibility on others and have difficulty compelling others to do what is right.  You do not like to take the initiative to confront that which is wrong.  You wait for the sinner to become convicted and come for help.  This is a strength, and it can be a weakness if you are too tolerant of sin, too patient with people who are doing wrong.  It is appropriate to give people time to repent.

We thank God for your gift.  There is a time for showing kindness, but there is a time for confronting.  When God says “Enough!,” I bless you with the sensitivity to his voice.  I bless you to be filled with wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, fear of the Lord, and wise God-centered confrontation when necessary in the right time.

I bless you in areas where you excel in responsibility, and I bless you to not to compartmentalize responsibility.  I bless your responsibility and stewardship across the board which the Father has entrusted to you, particularly at home.  I bless you to develop the discipline necessary to support your giftedness.
I bless you to be a son, not a slave.  I bless your sons to be taught of the Lord, and great will be their peace.  I bless you to fulfill your gifting in your generation so that life and healing are released for succeeding generations.  I bless your generational nurturing of your sons and daughters-physical and spiritual-in the training and reverence of the Lord, so that generational blessings will pursue subsequent generations.
I bless this time of your birthright with all the timeliness of Ecclesiastes 3:1-11.  I ask God to give you significant authority in the blessing of Daniel, where you have the information that you need in a timely manner for strategic options, as you are committed to using the truth to set people free.  Prepare the way of the Lord in righteous alignment with his purposes and his time.  I bless you with great anticipation, great joy, great peace, great hope and great fulfillment in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

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