I don't care for the NOLR or the NAR.
Years ago, after understanding that the church needed all of the 5-fold ministry functioning today, I spent 8 years of looking for someone with an apostolic grace. I found one. In my youth I required evidence.
1. I was not interested in those who primarily promoted themselves as an apostle. There were many of those kinds.
2. I was not interested in congregations that promoted their group as "apostolic". A true apostle would not divide the body of Christ by congregations or giftings. The scriptures only permit a distinction by location.
3. I was not interested in those who sold their "revelations from God" for profit. A true apostle knows that what he receives from God is freely given and thus should be freely given to others.
4. His ministry should be accompanied by power. And the record of said power should be known by many.
5. He should be humble and have suffered much.
6. He should be approachable and he should be willing to be examined by anyone.
So, an acquaintance connected me with such a man. After some correspondence he connected me with two others. I invited those two to our house (they had to fly to where we lived). They came bearing gifts and they asked nothing in return for their time with us. One laid hands on my wife and confirmed the prophetic gift in her. She began to prophesy three days later. He also laid his hand on my side and prayed for healing (he did not know that I had had pain in that side for 18 months) he also spoke that "I would not die young" which was a fear of mine after my grandmother passed away from cancer. There was no way he could have known that. My side began to itch shortly after and was healed completely.
I arranged to meet the man who sent them. He offered to pay for our plane tickets. He put my wife and I up in his house. I asked him questions for days. My wife was the most aggressive in her questions. He answered every one of them and took time to be thorough. He even spoke into my wife's life freeing her from a mindset that she struggled with. There was no way he could have known details about us unless the Lord revealed them to him. If we went to a restaurant he paid. His wife was a lovely woman, too. They gave us all of their time.
Today, we (my wife and I) have walked closely with that man for many years, now. Early on, when we were learning to be godly spouses, we called him often. He would help us see the Lord in our circumstance and the direction He was leading us: often simply confirming what we already saw. Through our relationship to him we've grown in confidence in the Lord and in His provision. He, our spiritual father, shows us the Father in Heaven. Our house is a place of peace and good order that displays the characteristics of the Loving Father.
God is building His house but it's not getting done with three points and a poem on Sundays. It's getting done within relationships between fathers and sons in the Lord: like Paul with Timothy or Paul with Titus, like Jesus with the 11; like John with his children in the Lord and Peter with his children in the Lord. This is the pattern to which we are all reconciled in Christ: God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. God the Father is bringing us back to the original standard He intended for man: that we should walk as sons of God.
Be Blessed
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