Month: October 2022

When the Holy Spirit interrupts whatever you are doing, lean into it, for it is a well of revelation, a drink of water, a truth that sets you free. I was sitting at my desk this morning, journaling about my prayer time with Psalm 139 and the Holy Spirit showed me a convergence of the poetic and the prophetic. As I wrote these words down, the presence of God wafted into the room and rested on me. Tears began to flow down my face, because His presence was and still is so close in this moment. I leaned into these two words, the poetic and the prophetic and as I did this is what I heard.

The prophetic has had a cauphony or harsh sound to it in the past, but the Lord is giving the poetic euphony or pleasant sound to the prophetic. A new sound is arising in the earth, prophetic poetry will lead the way. It will involve imagery, story and beauty and it will elicit a response in people. The Holy Spirit went on to share with me that we have leaned heavily on the didactic in the church. We love to teach concepts, ideas and principles, but in this new day we are moving from the didactic to the poetic.

In Isaiah 60-62 we hear the prophet speaking poetically about instead of’s. In Isaiah 60 it says in stead of bronze, gold; instead of wood, iron; the Isaiah 60 instead of’s are related to precious metals. In Isaiah 61 the instead of’s are instead of shame, honor; instead of humiliation, joy; these instead of’s are internal not external. Then in Isaiah 62 its says this, “Go through, go through the gates, Clear the way for the people; Build up, build up the highway, Remove the stones, lift up a standard over the peoples. Behold, the LORD has proclaimed to the end of the earth, Say to the daughter of Zion, “Lo, your salvation comes; Behold His reward is with Him, and His recompense before Him.”

This new day is going from rigid to fluid; from ugly to beautiful; from shame to honor; from poverty to prosperity; from death to life; from darkness to light; from insecurity to confidence; from dread to dancing. The convergence of the poetic and the prophetic is going to bring a freedom to us we did not know was accessible to us. It is a new day!

Ready or not here it is. We have entered into a new era, a new world, a new system of operation of the likes none of us have ever known. Some people have entered in sooner than others and some still have yet to enter in. But just like the cars of a train, we are all connected one to another and this train of God is pulling us all into this new era one car at a time. This reality is not negotiable, it was by God’s design and has been set in God’s time, which is right now. More and more people are saying we are living in days that can only be compared to the days of Jesus on earth. Amir Tsarfati, a Messianic Jew said, “I thank God for the privilege of living in the greatest generation since the time of Jesus Christ.” Whether you recognize it or not, our days will be talked about for generations to come.

With so much change happening at such a rapid pace, we will not be able to keep up with all of it. Amir said this, “The coming weeks and months are bringing with them a massive storm. A storm of the likes most of us have never seen.” It will be a flood of information we did not know. All seven mountains of society will see a crumbling due to the exposure of corruption that has taken place. This will include the church. But as we know from Jeremiah 1, and the destruction of the temple in AD 70, the uproot, tear down, destroy is for building and planting, which is what Isaiah 60 declares as the rebuilding. The reason the Lord has added to the church in the past decade apostles and prophets is because they are the builder anointings and when the old system falls, the new will need to be built. God knows exactly what He is doing, I call it a controlled implosion.

There is one caveat, because not everyone will know how to interpret what is happening, this is obvious even now, but we are not in charge of anyone but ourselves, so we need to hear Proverbs 18:2 “A fool does not delight in understanding, But only in revealing his own mind.” It is going to be easy to share your own mind on many things, but the Lord is wanting us to be wise and seek to understand what is going on, not assume we know. My friends, everything is changing, we know very little, so should seek to understand a lot. Listen, learn, watch, and live in awe and wonder, for God is doing something in our day of the likes none of us understand, at least not yet.

Hebrew year 5783, the decade of the mouth, the year of the camel. How do we know, 80 is the Hebrew letter pey, which is the symbol of a mouth, 3 is the Hebrew letter gimel, which is the symbol of the camel. The Hebrew language is letters, numbers and symbols. The Hebrew calendar is the calendar Israel follows and is important for us to watch, for it yields clues to what God is saying in this hour.

I have told you this is the year the Camels Are Coming, but what I didn’t understand until this morning is the word gamal or gemul is another spelling of gemil which is the word for camel. Many spellings same word, but what I learned this morning while praying Psalm 136 is the word for recompense is gamal or gemul which is camel. So 5783 is the year the Camels Are Coming and they are bringing recompense.

We are not coming out of Egypt, we are coming out of Babylon, knowing the correct biblical narrative is important, because it helps us with understanding what we are seeing in the news. The camels are coming and they are loaded with recompense for damages incurred, injuries suffered, and they are bringing rewards and benefits. Right now God is plundering His enemies, dealing with them fully and is gathering the spoils of the wicked to transfer them to the righteous. The enemy has swallowed up treasures that are not his and this includes people who belong to God.

Psalm 136 clarified it for me when it says, “O daughter of Babylon, you devastated one, How blessed will be the one who repays you With the recompense with which you have repaid us.” The enemy has treated us unjustly while we were in Babylon and God is repaying him for what he did to us. We have a Father in heaven who is truly for us and is not against us. His kindness toward us is about to bring us to our knees for the camels are coming back with plunder and people who belonged to God!

I was in a meeting yesterday morning in preperation for an event I am speaking at on Friday. During this meeting I saw in the spirit a jar of honey being tipped over. As I looked at it, I asked the Lord, what does this mean? The Lord began to show me that He is tipping the jar of honey and is pouring it out on the earth. This is not a new concept for me, because a couple of months ago while praying in church before service, the Lord said to me, “I Am raising up houses of honey!” I wrote a blog about this when I heard it and received great response.

For at least two or more years women have been told they have a Deborah anointing. Deborah who is spoken about in the book of Judges, was a mother in Israel and a judge. Deborah’s name means bee, which is another honey connection. There is even a book written called The Deborah Anointing, so that name is familiar with women in the body of Christ. But when we think of an anointing, we tend to think oil not honey, so when I saw this huge honey jar being tipped over and the Lord said, “I Am anointing the earth with honey”, I paused yet again and leaned into the Lord to understand what He is saying and doing.

While I was seeking the Lord about this honey anointing, He said to me, “Today is the 16th, read Proverbs 16.” I used to read a Proverb a day so this language from God was familiar to me. I open my Bible and start reading Proverbs 16 and here is what it says, “The wise in heart will be called understanding, And sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness. Understanding is a fountain of life to one who has it, But the discipline of fools is folly. The heart of the wise instructs his mouth And adds persuasiveness to his lips. Pleasant words are a honeycomb, Sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.” God is pouring out a honey anointing on the earth because it will increase our persuasiveness and bring healing to the bones and souls of those who hear it.

We know James 5 says, anoint with oil for healing, but now we know Proverbs 16 says, honey is healing as well and I see a fresh anointing of honey being poured out on the earth and it will be sweet to the taste, healing to the soul and bones, and persuasive to those who hear the words coming from the lips of those who have been anointed with honey.

One glance at the news and you will hear the words oil pipelines and nuclear war. North Korea is in the news, Russia is in the news, Ukraine is in the news, Iran is in the news, Saudi Arabia is in the news, Israel is in the news, China is in the news, and of course the United States is in the news. I just saw a headline that France has over 2500 gas stations without gas and 2000 with only partial fuel. You can look at the news and think the enemy is winning, but then when you open your Bible you read where Jesus said, ““I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven.” (Luke 10:17-20) Now you have a choice to make, are you going to be intimidated by the works of the enemy around the world, or are you going to be enamored by the Lord of Heaven and Earth? One will create in you fear and anxiety, the other will create in you love and gratitude. The choice is yours.

We should not be ignorant of happenings around the world. We live in the world. Decisions that world leaders make affect us in many ways, they inconvenience us greatly, and they even trouble us for we have no control over any of it. Then we hear the words of Jesus in John 16:33 “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” Yet again we have a choice to make, are we going to sit at home and watch our favorite news network all night long, just so our knowledge of something makes us feel “in the know” or are we going to head out and enjoy our friends and family, knowing we have prayed for the peace of Jerusalem and the world? I know for me, I pray for Putin, Kim Jung Un, Biden, Xi Ping, the Crown Prince, and any other world leaders name I hear. But I also realize, the Bible says, “The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He wishes.” (Proverbs 21:1). Shalom my friends, God knows how to shift the hearts of world leaders, both wicked and righteous ones. Have a great weekend.

When Jesus breathed His last breath on earth as a man, the Bible says the veil of the temple tore in two from top to bottom, which opened the way to the Most Holy Place (Matthew 27:50-51). Then in Revelation 11:19 it says, “Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and within his temple was seen the ark of his covenant. And there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake and a severe hailstorm.” Hebrews 10:19-22 adds, “Since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith.” We have biblical precedence that tells us from three different authors, Matthew, John and most likely Paul, that we have access to the Most Holy Place in the temple of God.

He tore the veil of His flesh, so we could have access to the Most Holy Place, the ark of the covenant, the presence of God, the glory of God. Because this is truth that cannot be altered, what hinders this power, glory and access? It’s available, it’s accessible, but it is not always evident, why?

The veil is not in a physical building it is in the hearts of people. We have not torn the veil of our heart so the glory, power and presence of God cannot come out of us.

Fear keeps the veil up; unbelief keeps the veil up; sin keeps the veil up; hurt keeps the veil up; we walk into church with our veils up and therefore, we do not experience God in the way we could corporately. God is not sitting in a building waiting for us to come, He is dwelling in a people waiting for them to tear the veil. If we individually and then corporately could tear the veil, we would find the presence of God is easily accessible in the place we gather. The place hosts the people who have torn the veil and the presence of God comes out of us and others “feel” it and they begin to tear their veil. The more people who tear the veil in their own heart the more of God’s presence we will sense in the room for we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We are long overdue to live without a veil.

Yesterday was a great day of shaking off residue of past seasons for me. It is amazing to me how as we go through life we pick up “nettles” (that was the word the Holy Spirit spoke to me) and those “nettles” attach themselves to us. We may not longer be in that season, that situation or that location, but the “nettles” hang on to us. I looked up what a nettle is, for it is not a word I use. Nettles = having toothed leaves; stinging hairs that cause irritation; to arouse to sharp or transitory annoyance or anger. Nettles, various shapes and sizes, stuck to you and you don’t always know its there until something irritates you. We should not be ashamed that we picked up “nettles”, but we do need to let the Holy Spirit and others remove them from us.

That was yesterday, now this morning, the Lord is very near and I can see a root He is digging up inside of me. It is a glass root, I can see Him, I let Him see me, but this root was creating a glass barrier between us and I wanted it removed. With tears running down my face, I allow the Master Surgeon to remove the root of pain, for every root affects our fruit. I don’t want any roots that will alter the fruit He wants me to produce. Once the root is removed, I open my Bible to Isaiah 55 which is where I left off in my reading yesterday and here come the word “nettles” again. The Holy Spirit is a Master Teacher, He leads us into all truth, all the time.

Here is what Isaiah 55 says, “So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire,

And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. For you will go out with joy And be led forth with peace; The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you, And all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Instead of the thorn bush the cypress will come up, And instead of the nettle the myrtle will come up, And it will be a memorial to the LORD, For an everlasting sign which will not be cut off.” We have entered the instead of season! What we have experienced up until now has been hard, but we are entering an instead of season. We know what “nettles” feel like, but we are about to know what the myrtle looks like. We are in a new season, says the Lord, who does not lie!

A phrase that has been baked into Christian culture is “God is Good!” We sing it, we speak it, we declare it. We attribute it to blessings we received, prayers we have had answered, growth or opportunities we have been given. We attribute “God is good” to our idea of good. This is a correct application of this statement, but there is more to this statement than just us having a feel good experiences. God is good, comes from blessings yes, but it also comes from justice. The justice of God is good and the Hebrews knew that when God defeated His enemies, when God released justice, it was a reason for them to declare God is good!

We struggle, as New Testament believers with the idea that justice is good, the enemy being defeated is good, because we have been taught to “love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us” not to ask the Lord to destroy our enemies, burn our enemies, remove our enemies. We have been taught that is not “good”. Jesus shed His blood as the greatest act of justice the earth had ever witnessed. Jesus took the wrath of God upon Himself when He agreed to drink the cup of wrath while in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus defeated sin, hell and the grave in one weekend on earth. Yes, yes, yes, but the seeds of the enemy are still on earth, that is why evil is still running rampant on the globe in the hearts of people who do atrocities we don’t even understand.

God is good! We are witnessing the goodness of God in the land of the living in ways we would not call good. Nahum 1 says, “The LORD is good, A stronghold in the day of trouble, And He knows those who take refuge in Him. But with an overflowing flood He will make a complete end of its site, And will pursue His enemies into darkness. Whatever you devise against the LORD, He will make a complete end of it. Distress will not rise up twice.” God is making a complete end of some things, it looks like smoke rising, missles flying, volcanos erupting, the earth shaking, but God is good. For He sees things we cannot see, He knows things we cannot know, and we need to be careful not to call evil what God calls good. The Lord is good and His goodness is about to be revealed in ways we never recognized as good.

The spirit realm is not methodical, it is mystical. Embracing mystery is the beauty of walking with the Holy Spirit by faith. You can’t always figure it out; it doesn’t always make sense; it doesn’t always add up; and it rarely follows our understanding of time. No wonder living in a science driven western culture, methodology rails against walking by faith. Science and math want everything to make sense. We want concretes, we don’t want fluid blue prints. We want to know who, what, why, where and when. The spirit realm is nothing like that, no wonder we struggle to walk by faith and follow Jesus. No wonder we do our own thing and then expect God to put His stamp of approval on it. Walking by faith is walking counter culture to everything around us. It’s not easy, but it is doable and it is enjoyable.

The 12 men Jesus invited to come follow Him were working as fishermen, tax collectors, treasurers, rabbi’s in a religious system. What they knew was their job, but while working that job, they were longing for something more. When that something more invited them to come follow Him, they left everything and followed Him. This is not logical, this is mystical. It is a mystery as to how did they support their family; where were they going; what were they doing; who were they following? Those answers were not answered in the invitation, they were discovered in the journey. Faith is a journey into the unknown. Jesus said, when I return will I find faith on earth?

To walk by faith, no matter what vocation you are called into, you must be willing to embrace mystery or you will fall into complacency. Faith is submitting to the heart of Jesus Christ and trusting His leadership in your life. Following Jesus can be a mystery much of the time, but if you know the heart of the one you are following, you will never change your mind about Him, no matter what mystery He leads you into. His leadership may not be methodical, it is usually mystical, but it is always powerful and reliable!

Praying Psalm 129 this morning wielded a double edged sword of victory from the Lord for us. Hebrews 4:12 says the word of God is living and active sharper than any double edged sword. The word is our weapon in spiritual warfare. Paul says in Ephesians 6:12-18 take the sword of the spirit which is the word of God. The word is a sword that destroys the lies of the enemy and impregnates the believer with truth that builds confidence and defeats the enemy.

Psalm 129 yielded two truths this morning that we need to hear. One is found in verse 2 “Many times they have persecuted me from my youth up; Yet they have not prevailed against me.” The truth is the enemy has been persecuting us for years. Those atmospheric attacks on your mind; those lies he has told you about other people; those thoughts of hopelessness that nothing is going to change; all persecutions against us, but the Bible says the enemy may persecute but he does not prevail. Jesus said it this way in John 16:33, in this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world. My friends persecution is temporary, God has and will continue to prevail.

The second truth we need to hear today is found in Psalm 129:4 “The LORD is righteous; He has cut in two the cords of the wicked.” The Lord has cut the cords of the demonic communication; the cords of the networks of destruction; the cords of injustice; the cords of wicked laws and rulings. The Lord has cut the cords of the wicked in two. They are no longer united in their operations, they can no longer function the way they used to. The Lord has cut the cords of the wicked in two.

When I was done praying this Psalm and received these two powerful truths, the Lord said, now take communion and when I did He told me to recognize these two truths in the bread and the wine. Jesus was pierced, persecuted but the enemy did not prevail, this is the bread. Jesus shed His blood and this cut the cords of the enemy of our sin, iniquity and transgression which led to death, this is the wine. Two truths, that we can stand on, for Jesus won the victory and it still applies today!