Spiritual Slavery to Spiritual Sonship (21 page)

Finally, things balanced out. The other staff member fueling dissension was exposed. I received some restoration of recognition and authority, and then I felt released to leave. I went to Pastor Miles and said, “You know, I’m getting so caught up in
prayer ministry to leaders and pastors that I really feel like this is what I’m to do with my life.”

He said, “I agree; that’s where your anointing lies, and that is what you need to do. I’ll bless you and send you out. I’ll give you three months’ pay to get the ministry off the ground, and I’ll even take up an offering for you.” Despite my orphan heart, he did everything he could to bless me. Pastor Miles is known to be a man of impeccable character who is generous and full of grace. He has never had a moral or ethical compromise in his life or ministry.

So we started Shiloh Place Ministries in January 1991 and lived in poverty for the next seven years. We had a particular anointing for prayer counseling ministry, so I went into churches and conducted prayer counseling seminars. Pastor Miles was now Bishop Miles, and overseer of a growing ministers’ fellowship—Evangel Fellowship International (EFI), of which I was a part. Twice a year I attended the pastors’ meeting with Bishop Miles, but in all those times we were together he never promoted my ministry as he did others. He never invited me to speak at one of their conferences.

I was sitting there with too few meeting engagements, too little money, barely able to feed my family, and inside I was seething because he was promoting others and not me. My orphan thinking went something like this:
I’ve got more integrity than they do. I’ve not had a moral failure like some have. And besides, I’m the guy who’s been helping many of these folks’ marriages!
I was on my own mission and was mad because I felt nobody was underneath pushing me up.

I had an effective ministry. God had used my wife and me to help save many marriages, but Bishop Miles wouldn’t promote me. All he had to do was bring me up on that platform one time in front of the ministers’ fellowship and say, “Jack Frost has an
incredible ministry; you need to get him in your church,” and financial prosperity would have come to us practically overnight. But he never did it. He did it with those, who in my eyes, had less integrity than me, but he wouldn’t do it with me. No sonship, no inheritance! No sonship, no influence!

In my weakest hour, when orphan thinking threatened to sink my boat, God’s love found me. In November 1995, I received a deep personal revelation of Father’s love that transformed my life as much as when I received Christ. Trisha said, “Jack was transformed more in 45 minutes in Father’s embrace than he was the previous 15 years combined as a Christian.” (Read about this in my first book,
Experiencing Father’s Embrace.)
The anointing on my life and ministry increased greatly. Yet, I still had never talked over the issues with Pastor Miles regarding the time I was on staff with him.

I had let seven years pass with no closure—seven years of the enemy having a key to my front door. Then in October 1997, I went to a church pastored by a friend of mine named Roger to conduct an Experiencing Father’s Embrace Encounter. Roger was one of the ruling elders and closest friends of Pastor Miles and had been a mentor to me since the mid-1980s. After driving me and my team to the motel and dropping the others off to go inside, Roger asked me to stay behind. When we were alone in the car, he said to me, “Jack, do you realize that EFI elders and Pastor Miles do not have faith and trust in your ministry?”

I had suspected it for a long time but never had any facts, just an undercurrent of feeling. I went through the roof in anger and frustration at the situation of sometimes being unable to buy clothes for the kids or keep enough food on the table when all the time it was within the power of others to promote me and bless me.

And all this time I was so sure it was their fault when in reality it was mine. I had brought it all on myself. Remember Hebrews 13:17:
“Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch
over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you”
(NAS). Could Bishop Miles look at me with joy, or did he look at me with grief? Because my orphan heart hindered me from being open, honest, and real, he could look at me only with grief, which was unprofitable for me. As Romans 13:2 warns, I had brought condemnation upon myself—a self-imposed curse that became an open door for the enemy to traffic through.

But sitting in the car with Roger that day, I just couldn’t see that I was at fault. Instead, I wanted to justify, blame-shift, and make myself look innocent. Roger said, “They feel like you just relate to EFI and the pastors for what they can do for you. You have never yet sought to be honest with Pastor Miles and resolve your issues with him from when you were on staff.”

I went home after those meetings angry and called my friend and brother, Pastor Phillip. I asked him, “Phillip, are you aware that your dad and the elders of EFI do not have trust in my ministry?”

“Yes, I am, Jack.”

“You and I are in covenant together. Why haven’t you told me before?”

“Because I didn’t think you were mature enough to handle it, and your angry attitude is revealing that you apparently are not.”

I was so mad I was ready to leave the ministry—again. I was ready to leave the ministers’ fellowship. I was ready to walk away from relationships I’d had for years and go back to deep-sea fishing. “Gales and 20-foot seas are easier to deal with than people!”

I honestly could not see what I had been doing wrong. So, I did what I had learned to do in times of crisis—I went into solitude for
several days to pray and fast. About the fourth day, I felt the Holy Spirit prompt me to write down every way that I had valued people and the church for what they could do for me. I wrote down the emotions and attitudes that I had struggled with for ten years. One thing about fasting—three or four days into it and you’ll find out what you’re full of! I saw it. And it was one of the ugliest things I have ever seen! I had typed nine, single-spaced pages of self-centered, self-consuming, and self-referential behavior. I realized that my relationships were built upon what others could do for me and that I had been subject to my own mission all these years. I defiled the church and EFI because I was not there to get underneath and push up Bishop Mile’s vision, only my own.

When you pray two hours a day, read ten chapters of the Bible a day, fast 50-60 days a year, go into regular five-day solitude retreats alone with God; when you’ve never gone back to pornography, when you’ve never had an integrity failure, when you’re doing all the right things and people still don’t trust or promote you, then obviously it must be their fault, because look how righteous you are. It sickened me to see all the pride and self-righteousness and self-justification that filled my heart. I was the chief of all spiritual orphans.

When I finally saw the ugliness of my orphan heart, I immediately went to my mentor and said, “Phillip, please forgive me; I see now what you’re saying.” Then I called Roger, explained my revelation, and asked, “What do I need to do?” I realized that it was not enough just to forgive and to be forgiven; I needed to go to those I had misrepresented God’s love to and make restitution.

I was terrified at the thought of approaching Bishop Miles because my orphan heart was intimidated by authority. I had such
a fear of man. It was pure orphan thinking. So, because Roger lived nearby, I asked him to go with me. He said, “I’ll meet you there and walk with you through this.”

I had sent a copy of my nine-page confession to Bishop Miles in advance so he could read it before we met. As we sat down at lunch together, we chatted, and he was as friendly as could be. That helped set me more at ease. I said to Bishop Miles, “You received the letter that I sent you?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Did you read it?”

“Every word.”

“Bishop Miles,” I said, “I want to ask you to forgive me for all these years that I valued you for what you could do for me.” I also confessed to him that I had put a demand on our relationship—I wanted him to be my source of affirmation and promotion, and not God. It resulted in me operating in control and manipulation, trying to get my unhealed need met. Furthermore, I confessed the defilement I had brought into his church and all the people I drew to myself who had gotten underneath me instead of deflecting praise to him.

He said, “Jack, I forgave you back in 1989. I tried to talk to you about it, but every time I tried, you insisted everything was fine. I lost trust in you because you weren’t honest with me.”

And we wonder why promotion doesn’t seem to come our way in the workplace or in our church. Promotion is often delayed for orphans; or it is illegitimately taken at a high price to our relationships, character, and integrity. Orphans feel the need to fight and wrangle for everything they want. That’s probably one reason why there is so much strife and division in our churches. Spiritual orphans are competing with each other for position, any morsel of affirmation, or the praise of man.

We wonder why much of the church is powerless in our nations and our cities, and why many flock to other religions or cults. Could it be because of so many orphan hearts that misrepresent Father’s love to their families and to the world?

Bishop Miles forgave me, blessed me, and sent me on my way with these words, “Jack, you have really matured. I do not know many men who would have humbled themselves the way you have. I am proud of you, and I believe in you. God is about to do something great through your life!”

God told me in 1980 that I would take healing and restoration to the nations of the earth. Later, Bill Hamon and five or six other prophets confirmed it prophetically. For 17 years, I had slaved to make that word come to pass, but it never did. I worked, I labored, I did everything to build the ministry, and yet few people in authority would get behind me. Few would promote me, even though I helped thousands of people. I struggled, had no money, and little backing. It was not until I confessed and renounced my orphan heart, made restitution to the authorities I had defied and defiled, and embraced the spirit of sonship that the prophecy began to be fulfilled. No sonship, no influence. No sonship, no inheritance.

There may be a need for you to go to pastoral or other authority and make restitution to them for being an orphan toward them instead of a son. Don’t do it because I did it; do it because the Holy Spirit convicts you to do so. Take a few minutes to sit quietly and ask God to show you any persons in authority who you may need to go to and make things right. It may be a past or present boss, pastor, or teacher. Write their names down. Then read the “Ministry of Restitution” in Appendix B at the end of this book. It will explain how to begin to move toward bringing closure in your relationships. As you do, you will also progress in your journey from slavery to sonship.

J
ack’s Bank was the name that a few fishermen gave to one of the hottest grouper fishing spots ever found off the Outer Banks of North Carolina. They named it that, because every time I hit this super secret spot, I was heading to the bank when I got home. In the winter of 1982, I caught 75,000 pounds of snowy grouper on hook-and-line on one shipwreck in a two-month period. It was over $80,000 in fish sales, and my captain’s pay alone after all expenses, was over $25,000. Not bad for two months of the most adventurous fishing I have ever known.

It was January 1982, and I had received Christ as my Savior only two years earlier. I felt that God was speaking to me to leave my life as a commercial fishing captain and go to Bible school in order to lay a foundation for giving the rest of my life to taking a message of healing and restoration to the nations. I was very insecure with that idea because my whole identity had been wrapped up in being Top Hook, one of the best snapper and grouper fishermen on the southeast coast. Bible school and ministry had too many intimidating uncertainties. So I bargained with God, “If in the next few months, You pay off all my debts and provide the money my wife and I need for us both to attend two years of Bible
school, I will receive that as confirmation that I need to step out of my comfort zone and into faith.” I was willing, but I thought I found a way out of leaving the sea and obeying God.

The very next commercial fishing trip following that deal, I found myself 28 miles off Ocracoke, North Carolina, fishing for red snapper in 240 feet of water on the continental shelf. We fished all night and boated about a thousand pounds, and then headed east to the 100 fathom curve (600 feet deep) to fish for deep-water snowy grouper during the day hours. As we motored to the east, I put the boat on auto-pilot while my two crewmen were sleeping in their bunks. It should have been only a one-hour run, but I fell asleep at the wheel and went several miles farther east than where I had been before. When I awoke and looked at my fish-finding scope, I saw the largest school of grouper that I had ever seen sitting on top of a wreck in 840 feet of water.

As we anchored on this previously undiscovered and uncharted wreck, we caught 9,000 pounds of snowy grouper within the next 30 hours. Every fish weighed between 50 and 60 pounds. It took a day to return to the dock and another day to unload and sell those fish. We turned the boat around and went right back and caught another 9,000 pounds in less than another 30 hours. I made $7,400 captain’s share in just six days.

It was my inheritance. I was willing (though skeptical) to give up everything that had made me secure in life—my identity at sea—and be obedient to the word that I felt God had given me to leave the sea and follow Him. I was so thankful that God had set me free from drug and porn addiction that I just wanted to be subject to God’s mission in life and not my own. But it would take supernatural intervention financially to build my faith to leave my mistress, the sea.