Month: October 2023

On Saturday night a woman of God who is mature, sophisticated and regal, yet humble, gentle and compassionate, preached at the conference I was speaking at. This woman had the whole room in stunned silence as she spoke about watchmen as people who must have eyes that can see. The way this Bishop unpacked the truth of what a watchman is, was truly stunning. Not a word in the room was spoken but hers. She prayed we would have eyes to see what the enemy is doing and what God is doing and to report what we see, for our accurate reporting is a matter of life and death for those who are not watchmen, but rather are gatekeepers.

With this word fresh in my spirit, I am in the airport in Houston on Sunday, getting ready to fly home to Nashville, and I am sitting at a table, watching the Houston Texans football game. My carryon is right next to me. I stand up to go plug my phone in just steps away and while on the phone with someone, I am staring at my spot I just left at the table. Tucked away between an ATM and a garbage can, charging my phone, talking to a friend, watching my bag. An airport worker, is cleaning the tables and he is slowly cleaning the table I was sitting at. His eyes are shifting to and fro, literally, and I see him looking at my bag. He looks left and right, and I am watching him the whole time. I see what he wants to do, so I speak up and say, hey, that is my bag, don’t even think about it. I looked right at him and with authority in my voice I made it clear I see you. He quickly turns and walks away.

Watchmen, we must have eyes that can see clearly what is happening around us, personally and corporately, in family and city, nationally and internationally. Our eyes must have every speck out of them so we can see without issue. Our sight will save lives, protect property and ward off enemies. As the Bishop said on Saturday night, watchmen must have eyes that can see, so she prayed and I pray Ephesians 1, may the eyes of your hearts be enlightened to see God and every enemy seeking to steal, kill or destroy. Watchmen arise!

Church it’s way past time that we go beyond. Beyond is a location that most people do not go, not because it does not sound good, not because it is not enticing, but because they prefer where they are to where they want to go. To get to beyond, we have to pay a price, we have to lay down our lives, we have to die to ourselves and most people love themselves so much, they are not willing, nor do they desire to lay down themselves to go into the beyond. We say we want to go beyond, but our actions show we don’t want to go beyond and the fruit of not going beyond is everywhere.

Colossians 3:14 says, “Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.” Beyond all these things, what things, the things Paul spoke about in the preceding verses. “Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other.” We may ask what is beyond these things? Paul says love is beyond all these things. We think compassion is love, kindness is love, humility is love, gentleness is love, patience is love, forgiving is love, but Paul says here in Colossians and in 1 Corinthians 13, the greatest of these, the beyond of these is love.

If love is beyond all these things we would consider as love, then Paul is saying something we can’t hear, but he wants to tell us. Jesus told us in John 15 what love is, “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you.” If we are going to go beyond we have to lay down who we are, where we come from, what we want, which way we want to go in order to know biblical love. Isn’t this what Jesus did? And are we not called to imitate Him? The invitation is to go beyond, but to do that we must learn what it means to love God and love others. This Paul says will bring us into unity. Love is going to unify the church. It’s way past time to go beyond!

Vacancies are being filled right now. People have either retired, been recalled, gone on to glory or have been removed, and there are seats open right now that God is filling with people He has been watching going through training for years. God is filling the vacancies, this is not something you can apply for, this will not be found on Linked In, you will not see a sign in the window that says, Now Hiring. A group of people, more than we probably know, were invited into a training over 10 years ago and they said yes, not knowing what they were saying yes to, other than the voice of God. They have been in a training school of the spirit for various positions on the earth. They didn’t do it to be placed, they did it out of delight for the One who called them.

Now over 10 years later, the time has come, the vacancies are there and God is placing people into positions of His choosing. He knows who was in the training, He knows them better than they even know themselves, He knows what He put in them, He knows what He taught them and He knows what He has been preparing them for. He alone is positioning them, He alone is promoting them in this hour and in this day.

I was on an airplane to Houston, TX yesterday morning and while sitting in my seat on the tarmac, ready to push off, suddenly, the flight attendant shifted the routine and said, we have a special announcement. A man gets on the microphone and says, I am on this flight because I give upgrades and right now, we are calling your pilot Larry out of the cockpit for he is being upgraded. He has done 15 years of pilot training and right now he is being upgraded to Captain for Southwest Airlines. They stood him in front of us all, took off his old stripes on his pilots shirt and put captains bars on his shoulders. They put a crown on his head as a sign of the upgrade and declared to us all the newest captain of SWA, Captain Larry. We all clapped and cheered. Then they invited us to write him a note of congratulations as they handed out napkins for us to write on. I have never in all my years of flying been a part of something like this.

The Lord spoke so clearly to me, this was a prophetic picture, that God is upgrading those who have been in a long season of training and placing on their shoulders a new position. Welcome to the upgrade, it is all part of the new day. Say it with me today…UPGRADE!

Words are so powerful. Moses said, life and death are in the power of the tongue. When we speak death over other people it literally puts venom in the atmosphere and it poisons us in a way that goes deep into our souls. When we speak truth to ourselves and over others we are literally putting hope into their innermost being. I got a message last night from someone who reads my blog on Facebook and she saw a typo in one of my posts and pointed it out to me. I was so thankful she saw what I couldn’t see or didn’t see. I responded to her and said thank you so much. She wrote back and said I am so glad you were not offended by my comments. Offended by the truth, really? Truth sets me free it does not offend me.

Truth and criticism or judgement are not the same. I am realizing judgmental people are not loving people, they are critical people. People that speak truth, do it to build the person up, because they see or hear something we cannot see or hear and they want us to be great so they speak the truth to us about us. There is a line in the movie “A Few Good Men” where Tom Cruise and a military general are in a courtroom, and it is said, “You can’t handle the truth.” It is said with authority, passion and literally stuns the courtroom. I know we all think we can handle the truth, but it is just not true. The truth is most people are not secure enough in who God says they are to handle the truth. Truth is not crititical it is to build you up, make you great, seal a crack in you.

Knowing who we are in Christ is what makes us able to handle the truth, speak the truth and be set free by the truth. Truth is not to tear you down, that is a critical spirit, a judgemental spirit and we are more used to that than truth, so we shy away from having someone tell us the truth. People don’t tell us the truth because they know we will resist them. Friends, if we are going to be a biblical bride we need to realize until we love truth, we will not see Jesus come again, because He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. He is truth and we are to love truth, so we can be a perfect match for Him.

When I was camping on an island a few weeks ago, I woke up one morning hearing the words, “O Zerubbabel, not by power, not by might, but by my spirit!” I knew this was Zechariah 4:6, so I filed the thought away but was not sure what it pertained to, so did not say anything about it to anyone. Now this morning, I am reading Ezekiel and the Holy Spirit reminds me of this word He spoke to me on that camping trip and the Lord adds to it the word, “Beware”.

Beware is a cautionary word, and I heard the word “Beware” in the spirit, like “Be Aware”. Be aware, the Lord said of not doing things by power or by might, but only by my spirit. I listened as the Holy Spirit spoke, “Beware of saying things I am not saying, for too many words are bringing too much confusion. Beware of Ishmael, do not create something out of impatience. Beware, be aware.” I sat in silence as these words penetrated my inmost being.

I do not write to be heard, I write what I hear. This morning I was not hearing anything, so I was not writing anything, then when the Holy Spirit spoke “Beware, Be Aware” I knew instantly this is what He was saying to us today. My friends, we need to not do things in our own might, our own power, but we must do things by the Spirit of God. This means we must resist the cultural push to make something happen, to produce something, to get something out there so people don’t forget us. Christian culture is pushing people to create Ishmael’s in their own strength, by their own power.

God is not in a hurry, He actually will pause speaking to see if we will wait for Him or jump ahead and just talk for the sake of talking. We must be confident that when God has something to say He will say it, we don’t need to make something happen. We are invited to hear the words, “O Zerubbabel, not by power, not by might, but by My spirit says the Lord!”

Revival is for those who were once alive and are now dead. To revive means to bring back to life again. I can understand getting saved, coming alive in your spirit, then struggling to stay alive because the enemy is relentless in his reminding us of who we used to be before we gave our life to Jesus. What I don’t understand is people who have been in revivals, who have been revived and are now wanting another revival. This is perplexing to me, not because I didn’t love what God did in revival, but with all of us who experienced the power of God in Brownsville with Steve Hill and John Kilpatrick; or the Toronto Blessing with John and Carol Arnold; or the Smithton Outpouring with Steve and Kathy Gray; or Bethel with Bill Johnson and Kris Vallaton; or, or, or, or; are you still alive?

Do you realize how many moves of God we have had in our generation and yet we are seeing our kids stoop to a level of degeneration of the likes we did not see in our generation? Do you remember how it felt to be revived, but not realize, it was an external experience that kept you alive not an internal desire to remain revived? We are more like Israel than we realize. They would cry out for God to deliver them from their enemies, not realizing their enemies were brought on by their own idolatry, which they kept going back to despite being delivered over and over and over again.

Psalm 145 says, “Great is the LORD, and highly to be praised, And His greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise Your works to another, And shall declare Your mighty acts.” Revival is to be a generational experience, where what God did for me I share with my son, my daughter, so they remain with God, they don’t run to idols. Our kids are a product of our choices, our attitudes, our lifestyles. We have been revived, now we want another revival, but if we don’t want to remain alive, if we don’t want to stay in love, if we don’t want to change something, another revival is not the answer. What we need is a heart transplant, for we have hearts of stone and we need the Lord to give us a heart of flesh. We need massive repentance, not another revival. Then our kids will know what real revival looks like when we repent and remain alive and on fire for the savior of our lives.

When God makes a promise, He will keep that promise. When God says something, He will do what He said. Numbers 23:19 needs to be etched on our hearts so no matter what comes against us, no matter what screams God won’t do it, you heard wrong, look at all that is happening to you, how can you believe what God said, we must remember, “God is not a man that He should lie!!!!!!” Or if you need a New Testament word, “Jesus said, I am the truth!!!!!!!” Truth is not something Jesus does, Truth is who Jesus is. He cannot lie, not that He won’t, He can’t so everything He says, the Holy Spirit says, the Father says, it is going to come to pass. Our God does not talk to hear His own voice, He talks so we know what He is going to do. You can take that check to bank and cash it all day long, His account is never overdrawn.

Look at this, I am reading Ruth 1 this morning and it says, “Now it came about in the days when the judges governed, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the land of Moab with his wife and his two sons. The name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife, Naomi; and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem in Judah.” This is not the most exciting verse you will read today, but it is packed with prophetic promises I never saw before and when you see them you will shout as I am shouting that God is a promise keeper!!!

Governed by judges and in a famine, not exactly pleasant circumstances. It was so rough where they were they had to flee to another country called Moab. But here is what the Lord showed me, this family of 4 lived in Bethlehem, this is the bloodline of Jesus right here living in the city Jesus would be born in hundreds of years later. Boaz was Elimelech’s family member and Boaz is in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1. Governed by judges, in a famine, but living in the very city, being of the very bloodline of the Messiah of the world. Circumstances don’t move God, for He knows when He makes a promise it will come to pass no matter what it looks like right now.

Friends, this is huge, they lived in the very city Jesus was born in. I am stupified by the our God and how His faithfulness is so clear, how He reveals over and over again to us that we can trust Him. If He said something to you, you will see it come to pass. Our God is not a man that He should lie, rather He is a promise keeper so we can rejoice!

When we want to enjoy the pleasures of sin, yet reap the rewards of righteousness…

When we want to walk in the dark and then wonder why we stumble…

When we want to celebrate holidays that promote fear, death and the demonic, then wonder why we don’t feel the presence of God in worship…

When we want to sit on the fence, thinking we are enjoying the best of both worlds, but are honestly enjoying neither…

When we ask God for help and then when He sends it we reject it for it will mean cutting off something or someone we have come to love…

Saul’s army was all talk and no action, but one man, David, a man after God’s own heart, called out to an uncircumcised Philistine and questioned who he thought he was to defy the armies of the living God. David said to Goliath, off with your head, you will become our bread.

“David spoke to the men who were standing by him, saying, “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should taunt the armies of the living God?” (1 Samuel 17:26)

I see a city rising up with the heart of David, who will see the army that is God’s despite being all talk and no action. This city will arise and confront the taunting giant in our nation. This city will arise with a humility and authority that will release a sound that will take the giant in our land down. This city will be called the city of David, a city after God’s own heart, for this city knew the true state of God’s army, so went to the front of the battle line and declared to the giant, “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should taunt the armies of the living God?” Off with your head, you will become out bread! I see the giants falling and the passive army activating.

Wars, battles, arguments, the enemy leaves a footprint of sorrow, hurt, pain everywhere he goes. But Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil and that is exactly what He did on the cross. He made a public spectacle of the enemy and if Satan knew what crucifying Jesus would do, the Bible says, he would have never crucified the King of Glory. This means the devil knows what was paid for on the cross, what was accomplished in the words “It is Finished”, but we don’t. The enemy wants to keep us unaware of all that Jesus did on the cross so all we do is claim we are forgiven, but the enemy knows better than us, it is much more than forgiveness we received by His death, burial and resurrection.

Psalm 142 says, “Bring my soul out of prison, So that I may give thanks to Your name; The righteous will surround me, For You will deal bountifully with me.” The cross opened the prison doors of sin, and brought us out so we can restore the honor of God in the earth by giving thanks to the Lord. But it also took us from confinement and brought us into bounty. Oh yes, we have been given access to abundance, but the enemy wants us to believe we were made for forgiveness not prosperity. Jesus became poor so we could become rich. The cross paid the debt, every debt, so we could be free from the slavery of financial poverty.

The Bible says, by His stripes we are healed. The enemy says, God doesn’t heal today, but the cross says, Jesus dealt with the spirit of infirmity on the cross. The “It is finished” applies to sickness, disease and infirmity of every kind, nothing was left out, it was all nailed to the cross. The enemy wants you to think you are cursed, but the Bible says, we are blessed and highly favored. I don’t know who needs to hear this today, but Psalma 103 says we are to forget not all His benefits. The cross awarded us so much more than we are accessing, but today, we are opening up the storehouse of God for there are more rooms to access, more glory to apprehend and more power to experience. He died to forgive you, yes, but He died for so much more than that.

Chuck Pierce at the Head of the Year Conference in September said, “Pay attention to the signs on your path, this year.” I listen to so many messages, meet with so many people, hear so many things, but this phrase has stuck to my spirit like a message from the Lord for this year. I am paying close attention everywhere to the “signs” on my path. Now not everything is a sign on our path, but there are things that happen, things we see, things we hear, that if we lean into them we can tell if they are a sign we are to pay attention to, or just something we walk right past.

In the game Mario Brothers, Mario would run in this place that had coins to grab, obstacles to overcome, turtles to hurdle and what looked like chimneys that you stand on, but if you pushed down, while standing on the chimney, you could find an underground world of an abundance of coins to capture. Many of us see signs on our path, but we don’t lean into them, we don’t push down on them a little bit to see if there is something there that is not visible at first glance, the first brush with it. Lean in my friends, there are treasures hidden in places most don’t see because they don’t lean in.

This morning I was praying Psalm 141 and it says, “Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth; Keep watch over the door of my lips.” The Lord spoke to me and said “In this year 5784, the year of the door, remember your lips are a door. It is the year of the open door, so open your lips and speak, sing, shout, declare what I say. This is not a year to be silent, but to speak!” That was a new way to hear that verse, I told the Lord. Door of our lips was a sign He wanted me to lean into and I am glad I did.

Friends, in this year of the open door, we need to open our lips and let our voice of righteousness be heard; let the sound of salvation come out of our mouth; let the prevailing roar be released from us; this is not a time to be silent, but to open the door of our lips and let the voice of God inside of us be heard all around us. Open wide the door of your lips, it is the year of the open door, 5784! And lean in to the signs on your path.