“He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me. He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward….” (Matthew 10:40-41)
When you address your Pastor, whose name is “Tim,” for example, as “Pastor Tim,” the pastoral anointing on his life gets to work for you, simply because you recognize that anointing and address him as such. When he lays hands on you, it won’t be “Tim” doing so; it’ll be a touch from God that changes your life, bringing about tremendous blessings for you.
If a congregation, for instance, calls their pastor by his first name and relates with him without any consciousness of his pastoral anointing, God’s Word that he brings to them won’t benefit them because there’s difference between “Brother Tim” and “Pastor Tim.” Notice again what Jesus said in Matthew 10:41 NIV, “Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward.”
What is a prophet’s reward? When a prophet speaks words of blessing into your life, the reward is that those words come to pass, and you’re blessed as a result. If a man of God says to you, “God bless you,” you’re blessed indeed! However, this doesn’t happen just because he’s a man of God. It happens because you received him as a man of God.
In Mark 6, the Bible shows that when Jesus went to His hometown of Nazareth, He wasn’t well received. What was the consequence? His blessing didn’t rest with them. The Bible says He couldn’t do any mighty work amongst them, not because His power failed, but because they didn’t receive Him as a prophet. They disdained Him, saying, “Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us…” (Mark 6:3).
Don’t be that way! Believe and receive the Word from the one whom God has appointed over you. 2 Chronicles 20:20 says, “…Believe in the LORD your God, and you shall be established; believe his prophets, and you shall prosper.”
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