Commissioned By Jesus: Recapturing the Heart of the Early Church

By Paul Metcalf

Have you ever asked yourself the question "What made the church in the book of Acts so powerful?" Perhaps you have asked yourself the question "Why does the modern church looked profoundly different than the church recorded in the book of Acts?" In Commissioned by Jesus, Recapturing the Heart of the Early Church, we will carefully examine how the early church devoted themselves to what Jesus taught during His earthly ministry.In this book, you will gain an understanding of the importance of thinking with an apostolic mindset; the importance of prayer; the need for signs, wonders, and miracles; the role of joy in the life of a believer; being faithful to follow Jesus until death; and so much more.Are you ready to be commissioned by Jesus and see the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685179113

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Commissioned By Jesus

Recapturing the Heart of the Early Church

Paul Metcalf

ISBN 978-1-68517-910-6 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68517-911-3 (digital)

Copyright © 2022 by Paul Metcalf

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright©1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Endorsements

Acknowledgements

Thinking with an Apostolic Mindset

Devoted to Prayer

The Power of Impartation

Filled with the Spirit

Forerunners to the Preceding Move of God

Marked by Joy

The Witness of Signs, Wonders, and Miracles

Living in Community

Faithful until Death

Notes

About the Author

Endorsements

What Leaders are saying about this book

I love how Paul has captured the essential elements in God's design for the church with simplicity and wisdom. As the Ecclesia had shifted into a new era, we need to understand how each of these keys from the apostles mandate to Investing in the generations to come complete the picture of God's intention for His bride. I So appreciate the clarity Paul brings to us. I have known Paul for several years and His passion to release present truth with biblical knowledge is real! Well done Paul!

Ruth Mangiacapre

Impact Ministries of the Triad

High Point, North Carolina

www.impactministrytriad.com

Paul has taken time to uncover truths concerning the apostle and the apostolic movement that have been overlooked by so many in the body of Christ. His insight into the Lord's Prayer is a breath of fresh air and an exciting way to partner with the Lord in bringing heaven into the earth. I highly recommend this book to all those that are in five-fold ministry, and to anyone that has a desire to take their relationship with God to the next level! You will not be disappointed with this inspired insight from one of the most sincere men that I've had the privilege to know and call my friend.

John Purcell

Senior Leader, Hanceville Ablaze Revival Center

Hanceville, Alabama

www.hancevilleablaze.com

Paul Metcalf has written an inspirational and valuable word for the church of today. His ability to see the importance of equipping the Body of Christ is evident in each chapter. Commissioned by Jesus, is a clarion call to come back to the original purpose of unity. One of the things that we (RJM) always says is, Kingdom is Family. Family is very special to us, and Paul captures the worth of being a family of God, in His Kingdom. This book is a great blessing and key for the Church of today!

Ryan Johnson

Ryan Johnson Ministries

Sevierville, Tennessee

www.ryanjohnson.us

Malachi declared, For I am the Lord, I do not change (Malachi 3:6). Since time began, God has had a divine plan for humanity that functioned through the human will. It is humanity's responsibility to relate to God in the manner prescribed in scripture. This book is a tool to equip you in connecting to God in the way He requires of you. It is an honor to recommend this book to you and the man who authored it, my friend and prophet Paul Metcalf. We live in a season of a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit and great reformation in the body of Christ. Living as God originally intended is the master key to be God's architect in what He is doing on the earth.

Abner Suarez

International Author and Speaker

For Such A Time As This, Inc.

Dunn, North Carolina

www.abnersuarez.com

Acknowledgements

A special thank you to Ashton Purcell. I asked Ashton to read over the manuscript and as she read she asked many different questions about what I had written. Her questions caused me to see what I had written in a profoundly new way enabling me to go into greater detail and therefore write with greater clarity and focus. Without a doubt this book would not be what it is without your insight. For that, I am forever grateful!!!

To everyone who gave financially to this project. Thank you for allowing me to share my heart with you and believing in me and what I had written. Without you love and support this project would simply still be a document on my computer. Your giving to this will without a doubt made an impact on others as they read this book.

Thank you Abner Suarez and Paul Jenkins for allowing me to share with you specific sections of what I had written and asking questions, making sure what I wrote was biblically sound. As you shared your thoughts with me, more insight came and brought greater clarity into these particular questions we discussed. Thank you both for helping to shape my life into what it is becoming. I truly desire that in all I do, God is glorified!!!

Thinking with an Apostolic Mindset

The Spirit is testifying that a new day is dawning. The stage of the world is being set for a fullness of a harvest and a genuine apostolic reformation in a new way.

—Mark Chironna

Change is inevitable. How you choose to respond to that change plays a great deal in either being locked in an old way of thinking or stepping into something that has the ability to set you free in a way you never dreamed possible. Change came looking for me on a hot summer night in August as a twenty-year-old man. This night the Holy Spirit encountered me in such a powerful way, a way in which in my Baptist upbringing, I had never seen before. My understanding of church was simple: attend Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. The only time we stood in worship was when we sang the song Amazing Grace, which was page 57 in the red-back hymnal. The message was always the same: you need to be born again. We never learned about intimacy with God, living as a son or our identity in Christ. For all practical purposes, we were an Independent Fundamental Baptist Church. King James was the only Bible read from as all others were from the devil. Spiritual gifts were not for today, especially that tongue-talking stuff. We were told not to buy products from Proctor and Gamble as their products carried what looked like the mark of the beast. As I moved into my teenage years, I would attend Wednesday night with my friend Jason at his church, which was a church of God. In all honesty, the only reason I went with him was there was a contest between the youth groups in the church and the winning group got an all-expense-paid trip to Six Flags over Georgia. I mean, come on, who doesn't love a good roller coaster. However, as I attended his church, I started to see things and hear things I had never heard before. The first time I heard someone speak in tongues absolutely freaked me out. There was this old woman who reminded me so much of the woman on the cartoon Looney Tunes who took care of Tweety Bird. She was sitting in the front row and couldn't have been taller than four feet, and like most older Pentecostal women, she was wearing a bun. She stood up, threw those arms up, and let out a sound that I had never heard—tongues! I almost made a side door where there wasn't one. However, as I continued to attend, I would also see people stand in worship, lifting their hands, and some would have tears streaming down their faces. I would hear about being filled with the Holy Spirit and see people come up to receive prayer for healing in their bodies, and sometimes they fell down. I thought at times, Why did the pastor push them down? Little did I realize God was using those times in that little church to bring me into a place I had never been before.

Here I was a good Baptist, drunk under the influence of Holy Spirit, and man, did I love it. I didn't realize it, but the last nine months had brought me to this place. I was radically saved in my bedroom in January of that year and started to desire the things of God as never before. I was baptized that summer in July, and as I would read my Bible, the scriptures came alive to me. It was as though the words were leaping off the page, and I knew the Lord was calling me to preach. So our college group heads up to the lake for a weekend getaway, and for some reason I find myself spending very little time in the lake. Instead, I am up in this boathouse in a loft, and I am devouring the scriptures. It was so amazing as I read through the Epistles to come across verses I had heard quoted and to then read for myself. So as we are about to end our session on Saturday night, the college pastor, Donnie, asked if anyone wanted prayer. I was the only one to raise my hand. We go back to the boathouse, and one of the counselors started to pray with me, and that is when I got hit by the power of Holy Spirit. The expression of joy I felt that night was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. Little did I realize the profound change that would occur in my life because of this encounter.

Because of my Baptist upbringing, my understanding of terms such as apostolic or prophetic had very little existence in my vocabulary. The prophetic had more to do with end-time prophecy and the rise of the antichrist. As for my understanding of apostles, there were no more as they had all died gruesome deaths, and since the canon of scripture was closed, there was no need for this gift any longer. However, as I started to dive deep into the scriptures after my initial encounter with Holy Spirit, I came across verses that contradicted what I had been taught concerning apostles and prophets and their function in the church for today. Thus, one of the many moments of change that I was about to walk through. Thankfully for me, that transition to embrace these things was very easy. There were two main reason as to why this was easy for me. The first one was due to the fact that while the pastor of the church I grew up in said these things aren't for today, he actually never gave scripture to prove his position. As a matter of fact, if he ever would have tried to make an argument, he most likely would have used what is known as circular