3 Mandates + Potential Pitfalls of a Watchman
When I say watchmen, I’m referring to sons and daughters of God who lend their ears, eyes and hearts to discern what God is doing and partner with Him in prayer, word and action to confront the schemes of the enemy and release heavenly solutions that shift atmospheres, situations and ultimately history. If you have a heart to be used by God through prayer and in the world around you, that’s you. (Read this for more on being an “everyday” watchman.)
It’s really important for us to realize that our call as watchmen flows from the inside out, from our heart to our hands to the land. This is how kingdom authority works.
“Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flows the springs of life.” Proverbs 4:23
potential pitfall #1: Accusation
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down, the one who accuses them before our God day and night. 11 And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even [a]when faced with death.
Revelation 12:10-11
It’s the enemy who accuses. Our mandate is reconciliation.
For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.
Colossians 1:19-20
Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their wrongdoings against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
2 Corinthians 5:18-19
potential pitfalL #2: Speculation
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, and we are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is complete.
2 Corinthians 10:3-6
Partnering with thoughts that are not alignment with God’s word and heart will hinder us from walking in kingdom authority. Kingdom authority flows from the inside out. We are called to embrace continual transformation by renewing our minds.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
Romans 12:1-2
potential pitfall #3: Discouragement
Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it. ”But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.” And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”
Numbers 13:30-33
We’re called to obedience and faithfulness. We trust God with the rest.
Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in the same way.
John 5:19
“Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He will do it.” Psalm 37:3-5
God is refining watchman in action because we’re being set up to partner with God in a mass mobilization of watchmen such as the world has never seen.
The wisest, most strategic thing we can do is say, “Lord, start with me.”
Let’s check our alignment and then rise up and shift history.
“Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.”
Ephesians 3:20-21