HE BIRTH-PANGS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT D1S1 | September 10, 2026 | The Watchman Prophetic Conference

TWPC D1S1 | September 10, 2026 | THE BIRTH-PANGS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT PRIESTS You have not been called merely to attend church, adopt Christian language, receive a ministry title, or wait for heaven. You have been invited into the Kingdom of God, and that Kingdom must become a present reality within you. When you pray, “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done,” you are not simply asking God to change the world around you; you are yielding yourself as the territory in which His will must first be established. God desires to make you His habitation. Your life, therefore, must become a place where the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit can dwell, govern and express themselves without resistance. This means that Christianity cannot remain an outward religion. You must allow the life of God to penetrate every part of you. New birth is the beginning, not the completion, of this journey. When you are born again, your spirit is made alive to God, but your mind, emotions, desires, will, imagination, appetites and patterns of thought still require transformation. Your soul must progressively come under the government of Christ. The life you received in your spirit must spread into the rest of your being until the way you think, feel, desire, respond and choose increasingly resembles Christ. You must therefore become like a little child before God. Childlikeness does not mean immaturity or ignorance; it describes a heart that is humble, receptive, teachable, trusting and quick to forgive. You must remain capable of receiving from others. God has deliberately refused to deposit everything He wants His Church to know in one person. He gives one part to one member and another part to someone else so that His body must remain dependent upon fellowship. You need what another believer carries, and another believer may need what God has placed in you. Pride prevents this exchange. Humility makes it possible. Do not build your identity around being above others. Spiritual leadership does not make you a superior class of Christian. If you lead others, come close enough to them to serve, teach, correct, model and impart the life of Christ. Your calling is not to gather people around your personality or make them permanently dependent upon you. You are meant to prepare people for God. Raise people who can follow the Lamb wherever He leads, even when He leads them beyond your own sphere of influence. True ministry does not possess people; it prepares them for Christ. This requires you to recover the seriousness of priesthood. Priesthood is not merely another title for ministry. A priest must be trained. A priest must learn the ways of the One he serves. You cannot administer spiritual realities simply because you are enthusiastic, gifted or educated. God must train your senses, correct your motives, discipline your appetites and teach you how to live before Him. The purpose of that training is not to make you impressive; it is to make you suitable for His habitation and useful in His purpose. You are also part of a covenant family. God is not merely a distant deity whom you occasionally approach for assistance; He has brought you into relationship with Himself as Father. Through Christ you have received His life and have become part of His household. This means your Christianity is not primarily a transaction designed to prevent you from going to hell. You have been brought into a family, made an heir and called to share in the inheritance of Christ. The greatest blessing God could give you is not money, property, influence or earthly success. He has given you Himself. Because He has given you Himself, you must learn to value what heaven values. Do not measure your life by houses, cars, crowds, applause, church size or public recognition. These things cannot define spiritual success. A person may possess visible abundance and still be inwardly poor, blind or empty. Ask instead whether Christ is increasing in you. Ask whether your soul is becoming more yielded. Ask whether you are becoming easier for the Holy Spirit to lead. Ask whether your life is becoming a genuine expression of God. Recover also the family life of the Church. The Church should not be a competitive marketplace where believers climb over one another in pursuit of influence. It should be a community marked by love, sacrifice, care, humility and shared life. When one member suffers, others should draw near. When someone is weak, others should strengthen them rather than exploit them. When someone carries grace, others should receive it without jealousy. The Kingdom grows where brethren genuinely love one another. The call is ultimately to become a people through whom God's will can be done on earth as it is in heaven—a holy habitation, a prepared priesthood, an awakened Bride and a family in whom the life, character, authority and glory of Christ can be seen.