The Understanding Of Apostolic Alignment

Message at Glory of Zion's Head of the Year Conference, 5770 by Dr. Robert Heidler
 
We live in an exciting time! God is preparing to pour out the greatest move of the Spirit of all time. It is the second reformation, and in preparation, God is restoring the Church to His original plan! God is re-forming His church to become a new wineskin!
 
The sad truth is, for many, church today doesn’t seem to “work.” We have pastors who work long, hard hours. We have saints that love the Lord. But we don’t see the kind of results they saw in the New Testament. The lost are not being reached. Nations are not being changed.
Why is it that “church” today doesn’t work the way it did in the New Testament? The answer, I believe, is that we haven’t followed the directions!
 
1 Corinthians 12:28 establishes an order for the church. "God has appointed FIRST apostles, SECOND prophets, THIRD teachers, THEN come miracles, healing, helps, etc."
 
God says, for the church to function as He intended, you start with the APOSTLE. The apostle has the anointing to make “church” work! For church to operate the way God intended, you must be correctly related to, or “aligned with,” an apostle! When you align with an apostle, apostolic anointing flows into everything you do!
 
An apostle is like a faucet! God’s anointing for church flows through the apostle! No matter how hard you try, or how good your methods, if your cup is not under the faucet, church will not work!
 
But if you align yourself with a true apostle, apostolic anointing begins to flow! The LIFE of God fills His church! The key to a church that functions in New Testament power is apostolic ALIGNMENT!
 
The Beginning Process of an Apostolic Alignment with the People of Israel
 
=>When God brought Israel out of Egypt, they were a rabble- a "mixed multitude".
Israel was freed from Egypt, but they weren't ready to move forward as God's people in unity to accomplish His purposes.
 
They couldn't even feed themselves much less gather harvest. So, instead of taking them directly to the Promised Land, God took them down to Mount Sinai and spent a year teaching them His principles and establishing His boundaries.
During that time He aligned their camp, physically. Then He aligned them correctly with His leadership, His timing, and His glory.
 
God spent a year saying, "People, I have a great harvest for you. I have a great promise that I want to bring into reality in your experience, but I cannot do that until you get aligned."
And these sentences is God also saying to His church today. He is saying, "This kind of alignment is necessary because there is power in alignment."
 
The Power of a Magnet related to the Right Apostolic Alignment
 
The importance of a proper alignment becomes clear when we look to the example of a magnet.
A good illustration for a proper alignment is, if you look to the end-result if you take an iron bar, just a cold piece of inert metal, and a magnet.
The magnet can be the same size and weight as the iron bar and can even be made out of the same material. Chemically, they're identical, but the magnet has a power that the iron bar lacks.
 
The difference between these two iron pieces (note: the magnet and the iron bar) is that the molecules in the iron bar are not aligned. They're all in there and have their own magnetic fields, but they're all just doing their own thing and going their own way. The result is that there is no power!
 
But the amazing thing is that the iron bar can become a powerful magnet if you place the iron bar in a very strong magnetic field for a season, the molecules will align with that magnetic field. When they come into alignment, they gain the power of alignment; and suddenly, you have another magnet!
 
In a similar way took God His people down to Sinai and put them in that strong, magnetic field of His glory for a year, to get them into alignment. He aligned them physically by putting the Tabernacle in the center and then positioning the tribes around the perimeter.
 
On the East, He placed the tribes Judah, Issachar, Zebulon. On the South, He placed Ruben, Simeon, Gad. With the tabernacle the Levites took off. On the West, He placed Ephraim, Manasseh and Benjamin. On the North, He placed Dan, Asser and Naphtali.
Each one of the tribes were specifically positioned to a special wind by the Lord, so that His power could move effectively.
 
First of all, the tribes were in alignment with each other.
God knew all the tribes were different, and each tribe had its own call and destiny. Each one had its own gifts and abilities.
 
For example, Judah understood warfare and worship (see Genesis 49:8-12; Judges 1:1-2).
Issachar understood how to discern the times and seasons (see 1 Chronicles 12:33).
Zebulon understood to have success in the business world (see Genesis 49:13; Deuteronomy 33:18-19).
God took the tribes and aligned them with each other in a way that all of them could prosper.
 
In 1 Corinthians 12 we can read that God aligned His body on earth, which directs to His plan, that He has a calling for every saint in His body to align him with the right tribe, so that he has success and can prosper like a flower.
 
Not only were the tribes aligned with each other, but they were all aligned with the Ark. They each had to learn how to relate to the glory of God. When every tribe was aligned, a place was created for the glory of God to come down and dwell in their midst.<= (note: This revelation is based on a teaching by Dr. Robert Heidler of Glory of Zion International Ministries, which he wrote in the book "A Time To Advance" on the pages 173-175).
 
What is Meant by Alignment?
 
To align with an apostle means you get in a committed relationship with that apostle. It’s not a hierarchy where the apostle is a dictator who orders you around. But it is a committed relationship. It’s a covenant relationship.
The assignment of the apostle is similar to the railing on a roof terrace, which is there to protect a person from a dangerous situation.
 
As usually the railing of a roof extends on a building, so should be established by a higher spiritual authority over the current spiritual maturity of the believer a spiritual structure of protection, so that in case of sudden difficulties or challenges sufficient safety / security is granted (see Deuteronomy 22:8)
 
Deuteronomy 22:8:
8 When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof so that you may not bring the guilt of bloodshed on your house if someone falls from the roof.
 
Your apostle is one you go to for counsel. He’s the one you trust for direction. You commit yourself to your apostle like David’s mighty men committed to David.
 
David’s Mighty Men Give us a Good Picture of Alignment
 
When David was in the wilderness, many came to join themselves to him. That’s alignment!
Some of those who came to David had probably been aligned with Samuel. But the season of the Judges had ended!
Some had been aligned with Saul. But Saul disqualified himself through unbelief and disobedience. Saul’s time had passed!
Some of those who came had never been aligned with anyone. But they looked at David and caught his vision. They saw the anointing of God on him and said,
 
This is the man God is calling me to align with! I want to be part of what he is doing!”
 
They came to David for many reasons! Some of them were people who were passionately in love with God. They looked at David and saw his heart for God and said, “He’s the kind of man I want to follow!”
Some came with great needs. I Samuel 22:1-2 tells us.:
 
"Everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented gathered to him; and he became captain over them.”
 
What a wonderful group that was! But they were in such great distress they had nothing to lose! They needed to be connected with somebody, and they caught David’s vision and committed themselves to it.
Others who came to align with David were people with great skill. I Chronicles 12:1-2.8 says,
 
Now these are the ones who came to David men trained for war, who could handle shield and spear, and whose faces were like the faces of lions, and they were as swift as the gazelles on the mountains.”
 
These were highly skilled individuals who wanted lives to count! They wanted to find a worthwhile place to invest their lives, and they saw that Saul’s reign was a dead-end. So they aligned themselves with David.
 
So there were many people coming to David, with many levels of ability and many motivations. But as they all aligned with David, David’s anointing flowed into them! The anointing that was in David when he killed Goliath and defeated tens of thousands of the Philistines flowed into all of them! And they became his mighty men of valor!
 
Together they took Jerusalem and brought in the ark. Then the presence of God came down into David’s tabernacle and they experienced God’s glory in the land!
 
That’s the Power of Alignment!
 
Alignment is a basic biblical principle. We see it all through the Scriptures. The mighty men aligned with David. Joshua aligned with Moses. Elisha aligned with Elijah. The disciples aligned with Jesus. Timothy aligned with Paul. Biblically, you don’t get anywhere without aligning with somebody!
 
When you align with someone, it means you commit yourself to them, you submit yourself, you link yourself to them, you learn from them and make yourself accountable to them.
 
The Result is, their Anointing Flows into You!
 
There are many places you can align. There are many apostolic networks and ministries around the world. Most of them are very good. Each will have a unique God-given focus. Each will have a different vision. Only God can show you which one He wants you to align with. But you need to be aligned somewhere!
 
The Two Types of Apostolic Alignment
 
There exist two types of apostolic alignment in the Body of Christ, in which a distinction has to be made between the territorial alignment and the functional alignment.
 
The territorial alignment is the spiritual covering, where the believer is spiritually at home.
It is the place where the saints are given the opportunity to use their gifts if they are trained in it and know how they function.
 
Jesus trained his disciples to the right point of their spiritual maturity, which does not mean that he controlled them in a wrong way. His goal was to bring them into their full apostolic dimension to establish the Kingdom on earth and to be servants of the great works of God.
 
The second spiritual covering is the functional alignment/ coalition. It is the connection that gives the Saint the opportunity to function or to act with apostolic - prophetic strategy in the respective field of responsibility in the Kingdom of God.
 
The purpose of the functional alignment begins at the point where the territorial alignment has come to its borders of competence or where the concerned Saint feels no spiritual "satisfaction" in his heart, to be confident and secure in moving with Jesus Christ into his promised field.
 
The Apostle Paul for example was functioning to some communities of believers in a functional alignment because he could not see them all at any time in person, face to face, even if he longed.
 
Despite this fact, the named communities were under his apostolic guidance (see 1 Corinthians 5:3-4; Colossians 2:1.5; 1 Thessalonians 2:17; 1 Thessalonians 3:6.10).
 
The Alternative to Alignment
 
The alternative to alignment is scattering! A few months ago, a woman from another country emailed me with a long list of questions. She had been going from church to church, and from conference to conference, receiving ministry from many different people. As a result, she was in complete confusion!
 
She said, “This person says this, but that person says that. I don’t know what’s true!” She was confused on so many different issues, it would have taken hours to try to answer all her questions. So instead of trying to answer all of her questions, I tried to get to the heart of her problem.
I told her, “Your problem is, you are trying to process too many sources of information, and it’s put you in confusion.”
 
You see, that woman was receiving from many sources, but really aligned with no one! The result was that she was not getting anywhere!
Someone recently told me about a minister on TV that had called the entire Church to fast for 21 days. They asked me if I was going to fast. When you hear something like that, you better know who you are aligned with! There is ALWAYS somebody somewhere calling the church to fast! If you fast every time somebody calls a fast you will never eat!
 
You See, You Must be Aligned SOMEWHERE!
 
There are many streams in the river of God. There are many different ministries. Each has a different God-given emphasis! Each has their own call. It’s good to receive from many! But you need to know who God has aligned you with, or you will end up with confusion. I know who I’m aligned with, and it’s one of the greatest blessings in my life.
 
God is forming His new wineskin. As the church aligns apostolically, the five-fold ministry begins to operate, the saints are equipped to minister, and God’s new wineskin forms!
 
And when the new wineskin forms, God WILL pour His new wine!
 
by Dr. Robert Heidler