Are You Part Of
The Joshua Generation?

Impartation happens because God speaks to someone else and tells them to impart to you. If you are in a mentor type of relationship, He may command the mentor to formally release you into your ministry or destiny. But God also wants to meet you personally. He wants to speak your to you, personally and directly. At some point He will commission you and release you to operate in your destiny.

The Point Of Release

The purpose of impartation is to equip you for a specific task that God has for you. There are many different ways that God may prepare you and impart into you.

You might be like David, where God works behind the scenes in your day- to-day life. He may use incidents in your life to train and equip you for what He wants you to do. Then He sends along someone you don't have a personal relationship with to anoint you or to impart to you. Then after the impartation, you may find it is back to obscurity for more training and equipping before you step into the full measure of your destiny.

If that is the way God is preparing you, He will from time to time cause you to be at a service when there is an impartation ministry time. Someone with a strong anointing will give an altar call for impartation, and you will respond to it. That person will lay hands on you and impart some spiritual gift into your life. God may use many different people to impart into you this way, and you probably won't have a personal relationship with them. That type of impartation is powerful, but it is not usually a full equipping for what God wants to do in your life. Many times God will also work in other ways to help you grow and develop and mature before He releases you to enter into the fullness of your destiny in serving Him. Therefore, you must be very careful not to jump ahead of God's timing just because some anointed guest minister lays hands on you at service and prays for impartation.

Another way to receive impartation is by doing volunteer work for a ministry that carries a specific gifting or anointing. As a volunteer, you "comes along side" of those who are already doing something similar to what He has called you to do. You probably don't have very much direct contact with the person who carries the anointing, but you hang around the organization and see how they approach things. There is a type of impartation that comes via this long term relationship, even though it is not a close personal mentoring type of relationship. You catch a piece of their anointing by hanging around them and helping them. In that case, you faithfully serve the ministry until God tells you that it is time to move on to the next step in your own personal ministry.

Let me give you an example of that. Benny Hinn used to travel with Kathryn Kulhman and sang in her choir. I don't believe they had a formal mentoring relationship, but Benny Hinn was in many of her services where the anointing was operating. Over a period of time, some of that strong healing anointing rubbed off on him. I suspect God did other things in his life to develop him for ministry. But a big piece of his initial impartation for healing came from when he used to hang around Kathryn Kulhman's meetings and sing in her choir.

There is also the type of impartation that comes from a formal mentoring and discipling relationship. (We discussed that in lessons 4 and 5.) Most of the time, the mentee serves or assists the mentor in some aspect of their ministry. But, unlike the volunteer, there is regular interaction and training between mentor and mentee. A lot of impartation comes out of this mentoring relationship, just by watching and learning. However, there also comes a time when God will command the mentor to do a formal impartation, where the mentor lays hands on the mentee and impart into them and release them into ministry. After that, the mentee is either given an important leadership position in the mentor's ministry, or s/he goes and starts his/her own ministry. We see this in Scripture. Elijah mentored Elisha for a long time and during that time, Elisha acted as Elijah's servant. When Elijah's time was up, Elisha replaced Elijah in the ministry. Elisha received his mantle and a stronger dose of anointing than Elijah had moved in.

No matter which way God does it, if you have a heart after Him, God will train and equip you and cause you to mature in Him. And He will also release some measure of supernatural gifting and anointing into your life to make it possible to do whatever kingdom task He has given to you.

There comes a time when God says, "OK, the preparation is over. It is time to start doing what I have trained and equipped you to do." He releases you into the fullness of your destiny in His perfect timing. That is when you move out of the place of receiving and being trained. You enter into the place of doing with the Father what He is doing.

Remember that all of that preparation and impartation you received was not just for your own benefit. It was not to make you look good or to make you feel good. It was released into your life so you can accomplish the purpose that God created you for. At some point you have to start doing what God destined you to do.

That point came in Joshua's life when God called Moses to take one last hike up the mountain to meet with God and be gathered to his fathers. Suddenly Moses was not there to lead the people any more and the responsibility fell fully on Joshua's shoulders.

Personal Commission From God

When Moses actively mentored Joshua, Moses heard from God for Joshua. Then Moses told Joshua what God had said. One day God told Moses to commission Joshua as his replacement and to impart into him. Notice that God did not talk directly to Joshua about this -- Moses was the leader and God spoke to Moses. But one day Moses walked up the mountain of the Lord for the last time, because God wanted to take him to Heaven. Moses died and Joshua never saw him again. That meant Moses was no longer available to speak into Joshua's life. Joshua was on his own and suddenly he had to hear directly from God.

As soon as Moses was out of the picture, God began to talk directly to Joshua. He started this process by giving Joshua a direct encounter with Him, recorded in Joshua 1:2-9.

2"Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them--the children of Israel. 3Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses. 4From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the River Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your territory. 5No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life; as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you.

6Be strong and of good courage, for to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. 7Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. 8This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. 9Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go."

The Bible does not tell us precisely how God spoke to Joshua. We don't know if He appeared to him in the pillar of cloud at the Tabernacle of Meeting, or if He took Joshua into Heaven in an open vision, or if He sent an angel to deliver this message. Or perhaps God used that still small voice that He likes to use to speak directly and personally to us. But God did speak directly to Joshua in a manner where Joshua knew he had heard from God.

God's message to Joshua was a personal commission. It contained certain elements that seem to happen a lot in personal commissions. Let's look at a few of them:

1. A personal/direct commissioning from God. Moses had appointed Joshua as his successor. But God also spoke directly to Joshua to personally commission him (verse 2).

   God does that in each of our lives as well. At some point we will have a commissioning type of encounter with God. It might be a commissioning vision like Ezekiel had in Ezekiel chapters 1 and 2. Or it may be where God speaks directly into your spirit with a clarity and certainty where you know that you have heard from God. Or it may come in a dream. Or it may be a commissioning prophetic word released to us by an established prophet, accompanied by a strong inner witness of the Holy Spirit. God has a variety of ways that He can choose from to commission us.

   But after He trains and equips and imparts, and when He is ready to set us in place, then He will personally commission each of us.

2. A specific definition of the destiny God has called you to. Joshua was given very specific parameters of his job assignment in verse 4. He was to lead the children of Israel to take their promised land, and God defined the geographical constraints of where that promised land was. Joshua understood precisely what God wanted him to do and what geographic area he was to operate in.

   God will do the same thing with each of us. He will give us a clear definition of what He has called us to do. We need to understand what is within the scope of His calling for us, and what is outside of it. It is too easy to get off track in our ministry if we don't understand precisely what God expects of us, and what He does not expect of us. There will always be those "helpful" people who will make ministry suggestions that can steer you off-course and away from your calling and specific assignment. If we don't have an idea of what the course is, we will have no idea of when we are starting to move off-course. So God likes to give us a clear definition of what He has called us to do.

3. Personal encouragement and direction. Joshua received this in verses 6 to 9; an assuredness that he would inherit the land as he remained faithful to obey God's commandments. Jeremiah received it in Jeremiah 1:4-7, where God told him that he was born to be a prophet and that he should not worry about his youth, because God would put His words in Jeremiah's mouth.

   God will usually say something specific and encouraging to each of us, and that will give us something to hang on to when the going gets tough. He has a way of speaking directly into our spirits to strengthen us. He knows how we are made (because He made us) and what areas we are likely to be weak or insecure in. He finds a way to strengthen and encourage us in those areas. He doesn't just put us to work for Him like a master tasks a slave. He also cares about our personal well-being and growth, and desires to encourage us like a father encourages his child.

We talked about how God will at some point commission us and release us to operate in our destiny and calling. In addition to that, God also begins to build the ministry around us, or to thrust us into our destiny. We will talk more about that in our next lesson.