Sending Out the Starters
Rhema USA Graduates 39th Class
On Friday, May 17, Rhema Bible Training College USA graduated its newest class, nicknamed "The Starters." This special group of 356 bold men and women didn't wait for graduation day to begin sharing the love and power of God with this generation. They immediately took what they learned in the classroom into malls, airports, bus stations, and grocery stores. And we've received testimony after testimony of people's lives being changed.
One woman was healed of stage four breast cancer after one of these students laid hands on her at a makeup counter. Another student got an 80-year-old man filled with the Holy Spirit after this man overheard him talking to a friend in a restaurant bathroom!
On graduation night, Dr. David Beebe, traveling minister and 1977 Rhema Bible Training College graduate, encouraged these amazing graduates to continue pouring themselves out for God.
In comparison to eternity, whatever time we spend on this planet is like a vapor. We might as well give it all to God. That's part of being a vessel unto honor. Second Timothy 2:21 says, "He shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work."
As I was studying this portion of Scripture one day, three things dropped into my spirit, and I'd like to share them with you.
1. A vessel unto honor is first of all washed. No matter what kind of vessel you have—it could be a cup, a bottle, or something larger—before you're ever going to use it, you're going to wash it out.
That's what happened when we were born again. First Corinthians 6:11 says, "but ye are WASHED, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." John 15:3 says, "Ye are CLEAN through the word which I have spoken unto you." We find the same thought in Ephesians 5:26: "That he might sanctify and cleanse it [the church] with the WASHING of water by the word." A vessel unto honor is a clean vessel.
2. Secondly, the contents put in a vessel indicate the value and trust a person has in it. I'm not going to take a very expensive perfume and put it in a cracked vessel. I'm not going to put my trust in it.
In First Corinthians 6:19 Paul says, "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you?" After we are saved, we have the great opportunity to be filled with—baptized in—the Holy Spirit. God must have some trust in us as vessels, because the Holy Spirit on the inside is very valuable. What He's put inside us makes us a gift to the world.
3. Lastly, a vessel, no matter what it's filled with, doesn't really fulfill its purpose in life until its contents are poured out.
Likewise, our true purpose as ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and as Christians, is to pour out what has been put into us by God. That's being a vessel unto honor. We'll never find our true purpose in life until we begin to pour out somewhere.
You're not here at Rhema by accident. Before Kenneth E. Hagin ever drew his first breath, his purpose was to help usher in that last great move of the Spirit before Jesus returns. I once asked him, "Well, if that was the purpose of God on your life, and there's been a special anointing on your life, then what about any student who was ever led to come to RBTC? If they maintain the same purpose on their life that you have on yours, wouldn't they have the same anointing?"
He said, "The same anointing."
You may have never been in a ministry position yet, but you've got the same purpose we do here—to help usher in that last great move of the Spirit before Jesus returns. And there will be an anointing on your life!
Be a vessel unto honor. Stay clean, stay filled with the Holy Ghost, and keep that purpose fresh! Go and be a part of something God is doing and pour out your gifts all around the world!
As the new graduates prepared to march out of the auditorium at the end of the evening,
Kenneth W. Hagin left them with these words ringing in their hearts: "I charge you to be true to the things you've been taught and have learned. Go forth. Do what God has called you
to do!"
DID YOU KNOW?
In addition to receiving a traditional diploma, RBTC graduates receive a red runner's relay baton. The inscription on each baton reads, "I commit today to carry the baton of revival to this generation. I will carry the banner of faith and God's power to a lost and dying world. This is my time to do all God has called me to do."