One of the most compelling authors on the life of a prophet and on authentic Christian living is Art Katz.  He went to be with the Lord a few years back, but his teachings are still alive on his website.  http://artkatzministries.org/

His book Reality: The Hope of Glory is the most stirring book on life in the Spirit I have ever read.  It cuts through rhetoric and religiosity with precision and heat.  There is no Christian book I can compare it to (except his other great book Apostolic Foundations).  Here is an interesting quote from his book that had me thinking.

“For me to live is Christ” Phil 1:21.  For me to speak is Christ.  For me to carry on a conversation is Christ.  I was once a very engaging personality.  An hour with Art Katz over a cup of coffee would be filled with bright and witty conversation on almost any topic.  Now Katz is lousy company; I am gray, lifeless, inert, except that He is my life.  If there is any graciousness in me, it is His graciousness.  If there is any real wisdom, it is His wisdom.  When it pleases Him not to be engaging, speaking bright things, then neither am I:  “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.  When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. (Col. 3:3,4)  We have no glory independent of His glory.  He is my life.

The theme of this quote is similar to the theme of Watchman Nee’s book, Release of the Spirit, which is this:  that God wants the soulish part of a man, his personality, his wit, his sense of humor to become increasingly broken and dead so that Christ by the Holy Spirit might use that man.  That a man’s soul would become a tool of the Spirit instead of the soul hindering the work of the Spirit in that man.

Of course there is a danger in this way of thinking in that a man might come to a place where he even hates or despises the gifts of God in himself and would think that dull and lifeless living was virtuous in some way.  I don’t believe that Nee or Katz intend this outcome nor is this God’s desire.

However, I have seen in God’s dealings with me that this part of me is dying that wants to “be liked” or to impress upon others my intelligence, my personality, even my wit.  I see that God still uses these parts of me at particular times in particular ways for His glory.  Yet increasingly, it is according to Christ in me that I live and move and have my being and less according to my own fleshly compulsions.

The outcome of this in day to day relationships and conversations is remarkable and very humbling.  In the company where in the flesh I most desire to be lively and filled with external manifestations of the Spirit to prove in some way my spiritual “greatness”, the Spirit compels me to silence and even a certain degree of deadness.  Its hard to tell why except that it seems God is dealing with my fleshly need to be somebody and to “show” how spiritually lively and wise I am.  Also, there is the element in which God will not be mocked.  The whole ‘no pearls before swine” principle.  God reserves the best things for the hungry and desperate and saves the deep things of the Spirit for where they can be received.

Its in the ordinary moments, where I am not desiring to be puffed up or “show off” my spiritual prowess that I find God moving through me in remarkable ways.  Sometimes in the most ordinary moments of life or ministry in which I am simply obeying God to be there and to say what He wants me to say, I listen as words of life pour out of my mouth, shocked internally that I hear my voice speaking and observing in wonder as streams of living water flow out.  Christ is doing His work through me, a dead man.  The dying (which is difficult, have no doubt) is now serving its purpose in that every trial, every rejection, every humiliation, every lifeless moment of waiting becomes beautifully exchanged for seeing His power and life manifest in me.

1 Cor 4:20  “For the kingdom of God is not in word but in power.”