Month: January 2023

I went to a Presbyterian Church last night to listen to a Pastor speak on Church and Culture. I pulled into a field to park, thinking are these cars for the townhomes or the church? I walked through a packed parking lot, into a little country church and it was wall to wall people. I took a seat right inside the back door as there was nowhere else to sit. As I sat there and listened to this man speak, I was thrilled the whole time. His intellectual understanding of culture not just today but historically, tied with his biblical understanding made for a refreshing time of learning of the likes I have not had in years. His words were filled with fire, passion, life and theological depth. His delivery was at a pace that demanded a biblical worldview to grasp all the truth he was espousing. It was exhilarating for me on many levels.

When I left I was thinking about how the Charismatic church needs the denominational churches, and how the denominational churches need the charismatic churches. Not because of worship style, but because each brings something to the table we need for wholeness as believers. Charismatic preaching can be very life coachy and lack depth, while Denominational preaching can be dry and lack the fire of God. Oh if the two would merge it would set this nation on fire again. Depth of truth with fire is what the circuit riders brought and many of them were Methodist ministers. Many of the revivals we love like Cane Ridge and Azusa Street were Denominational preachers that God set on fire.

Psalm 19:7 says, “The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul;” The word of God is an architectural structure in our soul that creates the infrastructure we need to be inside strong. When we do not have the word of God inside of us, we are weak, like a beautiful house of cards but lacking structural soundness. Just like developers who throw up houses fast, if we don’t have the word of God inside of us, we lack the craftsmanship that is needed to build a high quality life. I pray the word of God becomes desirable again to us as the Church, for without the word we are a house of cards.

Are you one who was born, conceived not by choice? Meaning, you were not planned? I was. My parents were young, they were dating and they were in a moment of passion not for the sake of having a child, but for other reasons. Have you ever thought about how many times you acted in a way that could create a child, but you didn’t and you are thankful for it, for you were not ready? And for those who did get pregnant in an unplanned way, can I share something the Lord has taught me about this? Did you know God chooses us to be born, not our mom, not our dad? It was God’s will for you to be born. John says it this way, “As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” You were born because of the will of God!

I spent a lot of years feeling like I was not wanted because I was not planned, I was created out of passion. But when the Lord showed me, many people have moments of passion but they do not produce a child, I realized, I was born because it was God’s will not man’s. Talk about liberating. When you know God created you, because He wanted you, it is a game changer. My parents love me, provided for me, protected me, all the stuff, but God was the one who chose me to be born, it was His will that I was born and the same is true of you. It is God’s will that you were born, no matter what man was thinking or wanting at the time. God wanted you born, so you were born.

I tell you this, because John goes on to say, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” We have talked a lot about grace, but grace cannot be separated from truth in order for it to truly be grace. The truth is offensive to people when it is not spoken with grace, but grace is powerless to people when it is not coupled with truth. Only the truth can set us free and freedom is what we need, what we want, but to receive truth, it is going to have to come with grace and when it does freedom is going to ring out in a way that gathers people together again. Grace and truth are the tracks the glory train of God is running on, I can hear the whistle blowing even now.

There are “rest stops” in the word of God and if we are willing to pullover and “rest” for a minute in those locations they will yield a harvest of righteousness of the likes that words can’t explain. Today, I was praying Psalm 17 and the very last verse was a “rest stop” today and I wanted to share it with you. Park your heart for just a minute, stretch your spiritual legs, and get out of the “car” and smell the fresh air as the Lord is giving us a “rest stop” in His word this morning.

Psalm 17:15 says, “As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness;

I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness.”

Many of us have spoken about the Great Awakening that is happening worldwide, but today, the Lord stopped on this verse and said, “Read it again.” AS FOR ME, I WILL SEE YOUR FACE IN RIGHTEOUSNESS; I SHALL BE SATISFIED WHEN I AWAKE IN YOUR LIKENESS. As we are awakened, we are satisfied, because we are waking up to the truth that we have been created in the image of God.

Knowledge and awakening are not synonymous. We can have knowledge of something and not be awakened to it. It can be truth, we can have heard it, quote it, know it, and not be awakened to it. Awakening is the aha moment, the revelation, the illumination of something we know. We know so much more than we are awakened to. Which is why there is still an ache; a desire; a sense of incompleteness. We need to have what we know be awakened inside of us, so we embody what we know.

Song of Songs 2:10-15 “Arise, my dearest. Hurry, my darling. I have come as you have asked to draw you to My heart and lead you out. For now is the time My beautiful one. The season has changed, the bondage of your barren winter has ended, and the season of hiding is over and gone. Can you discern the new day of destiny breaking forth around you? the early signs of My purpose and plans bursting forth. The budding vines of new life are now blooming everywhere. The fragrance of their flowers whisper, there is change in the air.”

Puzzle pieces come through people and when you have ears to hear the Lord will put the puzzle pieces people speak together to create a picture He wants us to see. This is why the body of Christ needs every member, for we each carry something that makes the picture visible and accessible. Aaron Kolb had the puzzle piece Isaiah 35 this morning that he showed me in a picture he presented to me and as I looked at it this chapter Isaiah 35 caught my attention. Listen to these verses from Isaiah 35…

“Say to those who are fearful-hearted,
“Be strong, do not fear!
Behold, your God will come with vengeance,
With the recompense of God;
He will come and save you.”
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.
Then the lame shall leap like a deer,
And the tongue of the dumb sing.
For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness,
And streams in the desert.
The parched ground shall become a pool,
And the thirsty land springs of water;
In the habitation of jackals, where each lay,
There shall be grass with reeds and rushes.
A highway shall be there, and a road,
And it shall be called the Highway of Holiness.”

As I was reading this I remembered a word my dear friend Autumn Hope Darden spoke early last year as the Lord said to her, “Recompense!” Isaiah 35 says, Behold your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. Recompense in the Hebrew means reward, benefit, to treat well, to ripen, deal bountifully, repay, ripe almonds. Immediately to ripen and ripe almonds caught my attention because that is a nod to Jeremiah 1:11-12 which says, “Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying, Jeremiah, what do you see? And I said, I see a branch of an almond tree. Then the LORD said to me, You have seen well, for I am ready to perform My word.” When God does what He said He is going to do that is repcompense. Romans 2:4 says, “Do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?” This too is recompense.

Here is what I sense the Lord saying to us, God is releasing recompense and when He does it will be a reward, benefit, Him treating us well, for two reasons, one His kindness leads us to repentance and two because He is watching over His word to perform it. This recompense will result in blind eyes seeing, deaf ears hearing, lame leaping, tongues singing, water bursting, streams flowing, pools filling, springs erupting and a highway of holiness being seen in the nations. God’s recompense results in His kindness leading us to repentance. He is not going to whack us, He is about to kiss us with His kindness and it is going to catch so many people off guard because they are bracing for a whacking, they are not prepared for a kissing.

Did you know we are called to be supernaturally natural so we can be naturally supernatural? Being supernatural in our thinking, working, seeing, talking is not supposed to be now and then but who we are. Signs, wonders and miracles are not supposed to surprise us when they happen, we are to be surprised when they don’t happen. Now this supernaturally natural life does not mean we get instant results on anything we say or pray, but it does mean we are spirit beings, who are called to live a supernatural lifestyle.

When we live supernaturally natural we have a distinct demarcation between us and those who only live naturally. Paul told the Corinthians, “These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Cor. 2:13-14) This demarcation is heard in what we say. Our words reveal if we are living naturally or supernaturally.

The invitation from the Lord is to live a supernatural life so we are supernaturally natural. It will not make us weird, but it will make us powerful. When we live by faith and not by sight, when we understand the supernatural, we do not fear what we see and hear in the natural. It does not mean we do not notice it, but we do not live under the fear of what is speaking. We rise above the natural ways of thinking to access the mind of Christ about all these “natural” issues we see around us. My friends, you are called to live supernaturally natural so you are naturally supernatural. Don’t settle for a lesser reality, stand up it will change your viewpoint.

Songs give us words to declare, so the powers of the air are reminded they are not in control. I hear this song in the spirit, I am not sure who needs it sung over them, but it’s time for the enemy to Tremble because Jesus, our warrior King, is waging war against our enemies in heavenly realms in ways we don’t always see. The manifestations of victory are happening everyday, some are personal others are corporate and still others are national and still others are global. Darkness is trembling, fear is being silenced, confidence is rising in God’s people and sleepers are waking. The darkness is running, the light is fast approaching, God is moving for a new day is here.

Can you see it? Can you hear it? Can you feel it? We are not where we once were and we are still not quite sure where we are going, but it is happening. We can sense the day breaking, the prison doors shaking, the creation making a sound for all to hear. It’s like the sound of Paul and Silas singing at midnight when all the prison doors flew open. There is a Luke 4:18 happening world wide, captives are being set free; the broken hearted are being healed; the blind are seeing; and the good news is being preached; because it is the acceptable year of the Lord. Oh my friends, this is not flattery, this is Biblical reality.

Isaiah 43:18-19 says, “Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” There is a road, there is a river for the people of God to travel on. This is why the darkness is trembling, why your fears are being silenced, it feels foreign to you, but it is better to step into the foreign than to shrink back into the familiar. Can you hear the voice behind you saying, this is the way walk in it? (Isaiah 30:21) Me too, come on let’s go, through the wardrobe into a whole new world prepared for us on earth as it is in heaven.

The reality of two governments on earth, one national and one spiritual has opened my eyes to see things I could not see. When the national government on earth is calling for a great awakening it is for the people of the nation to realize how they have been taken advantage of by their leaders or a system of control that has oppressed them. When people wake up to this reality they cast off the evil regime that has been over them. We see it in Brazil, we see it Iran, we see in various nations around the world. This is a national great awakening and aligns with what Psalm 13:3-4 says, “Consider and hear me, O LORD my God; Enlighten my eyes, Lest I sleep the sleep of death; Lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed against him”; Lest those who trouble me rejoice when I am moved.”

The national awakening is taking place, people are “waking up” to truths that were once hidden from them and when they wake up they are passionate about taking back their country. We need national awakenings, but this is not the final awakening we need, this is the national awakening we need. For if we sleep the sleep of death, the enemy is rejoicing over us and thinking he has prevailed over us as a nation. But God is awakening people nationally to truth that is setting nations free. We need this awakening, but we can’t stop at the national awakening, for there is another awakening we need as well.

Paul prays for the church in Ephesus and says, “I pray, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.” (Ephesians 1:17-21).

We need a spiritual awakening as well, it is not enough to wake up nationally, we must wake up spiritually so we can know hope, glory and power that is in Christ. The spiritual great awakening is happening simultaneously with the national great awakening, that is why this is such a powerful move of God. It has started, but has not crested yet, but when it does, the whole world is going to be awakened both nationally and spiritually. Once awake the choice will be ours to stay awake or go back to the sleep of death. I see the majority of people staying awake and those who do will help build the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven, for once you are awake to the hope, glory and power of God, to the revelation of Jesus Christ, you don’t want to go back to sleep, for you see the harvest in front of you and you want to work! It’s a two fold great wakening, national and spiritual. Thank you Lord!!!

In prayer this morning the Lord started speaking to me about eager anticipation versus patient expectation. He made a clear distinction between the two and I found it very insightful and wanted to share it with you for the days that are upon us are exciting days, but they are days that demand our restraint.

Eager anticipation senses the atmosphere and then eagerly tries to build something ahead of God’s timing. When the atmosphere is charged with the presence of God, the fulfillment of the promises of God and the sense of a major move of God, the Lord said, eager anticipation which is rooted in fear of missing out; wanting to be the first; and ultimately anxiety; drives us to build ahead of God’s timing.

I can tell you from experience, I had many false starts in this journey the Lord has had me on. I would sense changes happening in the atmosphere, I would see others succeeding in God activity, I would hear sermons that say don’t just sit there do something, but the Lord was restraining me and I would get so frustrated, but it was because I was operating from eager anticipation not patient expectation.

Patient expectation waits in the wind for the timing of God to begin. It is learning restraint, despite feeling the pull of external circumstances. It is facing the fear of missing out head on and reminding yourself, God has a place for you in His plan for this move of God. Patient expectation is operating in wisdom; being confident in hope; having patience in the process; and is rooted in faith/trust in God.

The winds of change are blowing, the voice of God is speaking, the people of God are changing, so the desire to build ahead of God is like spending money before the first check comes. The Lord told me the manifestations of what’s coming are the final touches of the preperation phase that precedes the presentation of what God has planned. Exercise restraint we are on the cusp of something huge!

When you have waited for an answer from God for any extended period of time, when that answer finally manifests, there is a confidence that comes and cannot be denied. It is not self-confidence, it is answered prayer confidence. It is faith. Faith is confidence that God does what He says He will do; that God answers prayer; that God does miracles. The enemy can taunt, trouble, tempt and talk, but when God answers the cry of your heart, when God reveals truth that sets you free, when God does what only God can do, confidence comes in way that establishes faith not just in the answer received, but in the reality that anything is possible.

Last week I woke up to the words, HOST RIGHTEOUSNESS. I have been sitting one these two words for a week now, not sure what is meant, but then this morning when I was praying Psalm 11, the Lord reminded me of the word He spoke to me, HOST RIGHTEOUSNESS. This morning, the Lord showed me that what He was saying, was one of His names, LORD of Hosts. Psalm 11 says, the LORD is righteous, so to HOST RIGHTEOUSNESS was a name He was speaking to me, He is the LORD of Hosts.

Searching out this name of God, I learned the first time God is called LORD of Hosts by a person is in 1 Samuel 1 in the story of Hannah, who was barren. Out of her grief, she called on God and used His name LORD of Hosts. That alone is powerful, but what spoke to me was how when God answered her prayer for a child, her confidence went to another level. It was like she went from grief to confidence and I believe that is where we are going. The body of Christ has been grief stricken by many things, but we are about to see answered to prayer and our confidence in God is about to shoot through the roof.

I wanted to end with what Hannah said at the end of her song, that she sang from a place of confidence. 2 Samuel 2:10 “The adversaries of the LORD shall be broken in pieces; From heaven He will thunder against them. The LORD will judge the ends of the earth. He will give strength to His king, And exalt the horn of His anointed.” She went from grieving about being barren to being confident that God was about to deal with the enemies in her nation. My friends, the days of grieving have ended, God has answered our prayers and now people are declaring confidently that God is about to deal with the enemies in our nation. And we are going to HOST RIGHTEOUSNESS as a nation. This is what confidence sounds like.

Multiple prophets have said 2023 is the year of Psalm 23. I enjoy listening to the prophets, but I also like sleuthing out what God is saying about what the prophets are saying. Therefore, I have been looking at Psalm 23 today and what I learned from the Holy Spirit is that Psalm 23 is a psalm that moves us. Now if you don’t want to be moved this year, Psalm 23 will be a hard Psalm to embrace as the word of the Lord for the year. Since the prophets are saying 2023 is the year of Psalm 23, I wonder if God is announcing a move the church, the body of Christ is about to make. Here is what I saw in Psalm 23.

The first order of business for a Psalm 23 year is a surrendering of your will to lead your own life. Right there we are going to lose a lot of people. But listen to what Psalm 23 says, “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake.” It is very clear from go who is in charge in Psalm 23 and it is not me. The LORD is the one who leads, not me, not us, no matter our title. If 2023 is a Psalm 23 year, we need to see if we can pass the LORD is our leader test. And He is not leading us for our name’s sake, He is leading us for His name’s sake, so 2023 is going to be a year not about me, but about the LORD.

Secondly we see where He is leading us as the body of Christ, right into the valley and we are to not be afraid of any evil we see or hear about in the valley. Here is what we will find in the valley this year…1) The rod of God; 2) The staff of God; 3) The table of God; 4) The oil of God. These are the valley tools God will use to lead us through the valley this year. Watch for these to manifest in a major way this year.

Finally, we are being told where we are being led to and what will be following us. “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the LORD Forever.” The Lord who is our Shepherd is taking charge this year of His body and leading us into a valley and then goodness and mercy are going to follow us right into the House of the LORD, where we will dwell forever. We are being led into the House of God to dwell there. The House of God is the presence of God, the power of God, the people of God. It is a place of corporate worship, governmental rule of nations and demonstration of the kingdom. What a year this is going to be as the body of Christ submits to being led by the LORD this year.