A brief word of warning as the year draws to an end and great things are about to begin. God has spoken powerful promises to so many in the body of Christ, hope is rising again, joy is being restored, anticipation is arising and the tide is turning. We are stepping into possibly the best days of our lives individually, as a family, as a community, as a nation and as the nations. The air is ripe with anticipation and it is not the Christmas Spirit, it is the Holy Spirit releasing good news in so many ways. I, like so many of you, are so ready for the last era, season, epoch, decade to come to a close and the new to commence.

Just like in giving birth, the excitement that this nine months of carrying this baby to term gives way to a final push, a final stage of contractions, a final stage or rushing to hospital, a final stage or tests, epidurals, c-section preparations or natural birth breathing, the final stage must happen before the sound of birth is heard. This is where we are. In this final stage, many circumstances are going to surround us, scream for our attention and try to get us to make bad decisions, say stupid things and they are coming to squeeze us so we don’t exit the old and enter the new well.

We must not deviate from the word of the Lord in this hour. It is the final hour before a glorious day, but we must remain faithful to the word of the Lord in order to end the last season well and enter the new season well. In 1 Samuel 13, circumstances got the best of King Saul and it cost him greatly, “Samuel said, “What have you done?” And Saul said, “When I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines had mustered at Michmash, I said, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the favor of the LORD.’ So I forced myself, and offered the burnt offering.” And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the LORD your God, with which he commanded you.”

The opportunity through surrounding circumstances may come over the the next month to get us to act foolishly, but this is a preemptive warning this may come and when it does, hang on with both hands to the word of the Lord no matter what the circumstances scream at you. Don’t let go, push my friends, press, endure, we are about to be birthed into the new and we are going to see and be all God has promised, but we must make it through this final push. Don’t deviate from what God has spoke to you in the secret now, for the circumstances are going to scream, the word of God is late, do it your way, but the Lord of heaven and earth is still whispering I Am Yahweh! I do not lie, wait just one more minute. Everything is about to change.