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Many of us have clothes, shoes, hats, handbags, briefcases, scarfs, ties in our closets that we have bought or been given but have yet to wear. We even have the tags still on some garments that we have never worn. Closets are a prophetic picture and God is speaking to us this morning about our closets. The Lord spoke to me and said, “When I declare it, you are to wear it!” (Job 22:28 “You will also decree a thing, and it will be established for you; And light will shine on your ways.”)

How many of us have declarations hanging in our closets that God has spoken about us personally, to us corporately or even to our nation and the world, but we have yet to wear them? The declaration of God is for us to wear. If He declares you are forgiven, you need to wear, with confidence, His forgiveness. If the Lord has declared you are healed, you need to wear your healing. If has declared you alive, you need to live. Whatever He declares you and I are called to wear.

The Lord is calling us into our closets to look around at all He has declared over us but we have yet to wear. The days of I am not worthy, I can’t, I don’t deserve it are over. If God declared it you are called to wear it. But not just wear it, wear it with confidence, wear it with style, wear it well because He made it just for you.

Church it is time to cast off our old garments and put on the garments He’s decreed over us. For if He declared it we are called to wear it! Get ready, I am stepping out in some new shoes you have not seen me wear before, but I am going to walk around with confidence, because God declared it and I am going to wear it.

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I was a youth pastor for many years and even though I am not the first to speak on this tragedy, I do want to share some thoughts about the Travis Scott Concert in Houston, that killed 8 people. If you have not read about this event and what happened, I encouraged you to do so, it will be very eye opening.

After reading articles and having a friend send me other people’s comments on the Scott concert situation, what the Lord highlighted to me is “No one wants to die!” It was so clear in the articles I read that even thought these people went to a demonic concert, and it was demonic literally, in their inner most being when faced with death or the thought that they could die, they all said, “I do not want to die.” Here is one snippet from a New York Post article on the situation, “They got stuck under piles of bodies among the 50,000 concertgoers — eight of whom died in the melee. At that moment, my mind went into full survival mode. All I could hear was people screaming and crying for help, Schmidt told CNN. I lost all hope and thought I was going to die right there because I could not get my legs out. I fought for my life. Another said, I was beginning to go into shock, although I was trying to keep my composure and not panic. It was terrifying. I felt like it was a nightmare, she said. I looked around and just saw people stare and others continuing to enjoy themselves as if these people meant nothing.” No one wants to die, it is build inside of us that we were made for life and not death.

Seeing so clearly that people do not want to die, even though they go to events that are clearly promoting death, what is the call of church, of us as believers? We, the carriers of life are called to tell them about Jesus Christ who is called the Way, the Truth and the Life. They may say they don’t want to hear, but I promise you, for I was one of them when I was an unbeliever attending similar style events, that no one wants to die, but they just don’t know how to live. This is where the church comes in, we are called to be people who teach and show people how to live. We must speak life, manifest life, and proclaim life in every way. No one wants to die and there can be no trace of death in us, for people want to live and we have access to the Living Word of God, in written and spirit form. Friends, we must manifest life, no more compromise, no more I don’t have time, no longer can we partner with death any longer, we must reflect the One in us who is LIFE! This generation does not want to die, so we must show them how to live!

Everyone has been given (figuratively speaking) a plot of land. The number of acres is not the issue here, but the truth that you have been given land is important to understand. What you sow on your land is what you will reap from your land. If you sow wickedness on your land or allow others to sow wickedness into your land this is what you will reap. The Bible is clear in its call that we are to sow righteousness on our land and into the lands of others. The sowing of righteousness on your land is of the utmost importance because it yields such a great crop.

Solomon said it this way in Proverbs 11:18 “He who sows righteousness gets a true reward.” Then the prophet Hosea said it this way in 10:12 “Sow with a view to righteousness, Reap in accordance with kindness; Break up your fallow ground, For it is time to seek the LORD Until He comes to rain righteousness on you.” Finally, James said, “the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace” (3:18). From the Old Testament to the New Testament the same theme is spoken, a call to sow righteousness in our fields, on our lands.

I pray that you will be a good gardner of the land the Lord has given you. The size of the land is not as important as the stewardship of it. Sow for yourselves righteousness, for in doing so you will reap the fruit of unfailing love. I pray that you will have eyes to see your land clearly and know what to uproot and what to seed into other peoples lives from the abundance of righteousness God has blessed you with on your land. I bless your land my friend with the rain of God to produce righteousness.

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I was just given a very unusual but relevant vision from the Lord. I saw the lukewarm church, which has bowed down to culture and called it Christianity, in the belly of the whale just like Jonah was. Then all of the sudden, the whale the church was in was vomited out and landed on dry ground. I then heard the Lord say, “I am recommissioning them and this time they will obey what I say and go where I send them.” The vision was clear and the voice was identifiable.

The Lord is aware of the state of the church worldwide, we have been in the belly of the whale, but we are about to be launched onto dry ground, given a fresh commissioning and then sent out to preach the gospel of the kingdom. What was once lukewarm and useless to God and man is about to preach and whole cities are going to fall down in repentance before the Lord of heaven and earth. This is going to happen quickly!

Revelation 3:15-16 “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.”

Jonah 2:9-3:3 “I will sacrifice to You With the voice of thanksgiving. That which I have vowed I will pay. Salvation is from the LORD. Then the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land. Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you. So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days’ walk.”

Two voices crying out, both inviting you to come in here. One is the voice of wisdom, the other is the voice of folly. Just as there were two trees in the garden (Genesis 1); there are always choices. Jesus said, you cannot serve God and mammon, you have to choose whom you are going to serve. Moses said, choose this day whom you are going to serve. The choice is yours, but the options are always there. Proverbs 9 describes two voices both offering the same invitation, but one is wisdom and the other is folly. The choice of the voice is critical, for one leads to life the other to death. Here is the call of the two voices in Proverbs 9 “Calling to those who pass by, Who are making their paths straight: Whoever is naive, let him turn in here, And to him who lacks understanding she says…” Two voices, saying the same thing to those who are making their paths straight. How do you know what voice to follow, both are inviting you to come in, the answer is found in the invitation of the voices.

The voice of wisdom invites you to “Come, eat of my food And drink of the wine I have mixed. Forsake your folly and live, And proceed in the way of understanding.” (Proverbs 9:5-6) While the voice of folly’s invitation says, “Stolen water is sweet; And bread eaten in secret is pleasant.” (Proverbs 9:17). One voice is an invitation to maturity, the other voice is an invitation to pleasure. One voice will grow you up, the other voice will say what you want to hear. Both voices are crying out today, both voices want you to pick them. The choice of the voice is yours. We will know what voice you follow by the fruit of your life. The voice of wisdom will produce maturity, understanding and life, while the voice of folly will keep you naive, lacking understanding and will tell you all your pleasures are good for you, knowing they lead you to death. The choice of the voice is yours, but the fruit of your choice will be obvious and may already be. The good news is, you can always make a new choice, for wisdom never stops calling out, but neither does folly. Choose wisely, your life depends on it.

A couple weeks ago I was reading Proverbs 25:23 “The north wind brings forth rain…” as I read it the Lord said release the glory from the North. I did a little searching for North in scripture and I found Job 37:22 “Out of the north comes golden splendor; Around God is awesome majesty.” The Lord said agin, “release the glory from the North.”Then I was on prayer mountain with a couple friends and the Lord said, Red River Meeting House is directly North. I knew that is where I was to go and release the glory.

On Saturday, my friend Sharon and I drove up to Red River Meeting House and we released the glory from the North. It was a powerful experience as the Lord had us put and arrow in the ground where the original meeting house sat before it burned down in 1856. The unique thing we noticed is that there was a tree that grew up over a gravestone and the Lord said “death is on the surface but there is life underneath. Push the arrow down deep sonlife can spring up.” We pushed the arrow in and I heard the song Shekinah Glory by Cory Asbury rise in my spirit so I began to sing…Here we are, standing in Your presence Here we are, standing in Your presence Shekinah glory come down, Shekinah glory come down Release the fullness of Your Spirit
Shekinah glory come, Shekinah glory come!

We were sent to release the glory from the North and that is what we did. Prophetic adventures are so much fun and I am honored to be sent on these assignments by God for the sake of His people.

When the Lord is consistently, day after day, saying the same thing, through various voices, and then confirms it in the word, it is hard to deny what is being said. You that know me, know that I am not one that tries to find a scripture to match what I think, but rather what I think is because of what scripture says. Well, for over two weeks now, but intensely and consistently this week, the Lord has been speaking the same message to me, and as I was reading Romans 9 this morning, it summarized it so well. Here is what I am hearing, which I believes confirms what so many other voices are saying.

Romans 9:28 “For the Lord will execute His word on the earth, thoroughly and quickly.” Paul is quoting Isaiah 10:22-23 “A destruction is determined, overflowing with righteousness. For a complete destruction, one that is decreed, the Lord GOD of hosts will execute in the midst of the whole land.”

When the Lord keeps saying the same thing over and over again, in rapid succession and then puts an exclamation point on in with Romans 9:23 saying it will be thorough and quick, my friends this day of the sharp sword of the Lord cutting off our invisible enemies is rapidly approaching. Many have known for years, decades, this day was coming, but it is upon us now. It could happen any day now, type of now. This is not a reason to fear, as Lana Vawser said today, it is Psalm 46 time, now!

Psalm 46:1-3 says, “God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change And though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea; Though its waters roar and foam, Though the mountains quake at its swelling pride.” God is releasing righteousness and it is shaking all the wickedness, put on your robe of righteousness and watch for the glory of God is about to descend on the lands of earth in a significant way. We are living in historic times of which the world has not seen in a long time. Selah!

Romans 8:31 says, “If God is for us, who is against us?” The immediate answer is a resounding no one, but the reality answer is, there are people, spirits, systems working against us. So, in all truth, we cannot say, no one. Therefore, we have to go a little deeper into the question. “If God is for us, who is against us?” Since God is for us, no one has the power to come against us, unless we allow it.

What I have learned over the years is there will always be powers, people, principalities, that are against me, against us, but the Lord said, He is for us, so who has the audacity to come against us? Well, the enemy is a tresspasser, so he is against us, but James tells us “Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” The Lord has decreed He is for us, so no one can be against us, but James says, if the enemy comes against you, here is what you do. One submit yourself to God. Many people when they get attacked rise up to fight and God says, humble yourself before Me. Submit yourself to Me, I, the Lord will fight for you, will show you what to do. Two, resist the devil. Don’t receive the enemies words, reports, ideas, thoughts, plans, resist him. We must learn the power of resisting, rather than always just receiving as though we are powerless.

If God is for us, who is against us? No one can be against us if we submit ourselves to God when someone comes against us and we resist the devil, not receive him and his words. My friends, these tools need to be in your arsenal for victory is yours in Jesus, but you must submit and resist to see tha victory.

The body of Christ is a combination of instruments. Many have spoken on the new sound we are going to hear in this new era, coming out of this new wineskin. No one has been able to put their finger on what it is going to sound like, but the Lord just said to me it is going to sound like righteousness. Righteousness has a sound, wickedness has a sound and mixture has a sound. They are three completely different sounds.

I remember growing up in the 80’s and we had mix tapes, it was a compilation of various songs we recorded off the radio and would listen to in our car’s cassette player. One song would be rock and roll, the next could be jazz, then we would have a cool country song we like and of course there was some R & B in there as well. This MIX tape, did not have one sound, because it was a mixture of sounds and songs. I also had albums of certain bands I used to like which was predominantly heavy metal or rock and roll. The album had the same sound because all the songs were of one band and it was usually dark music. But when I got saved, in 1989, we had a burn bucket and all my posters, albums and T-shirt’s were thrown in there, for I was a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17) and those old sounds of mixture and sin I no longer wanted to be heard in my ears or coming out of my mouth.

Righteousness has a sound, it is the sound of authority, the sound of victory, the sound of generosity, the sound of joy, it is the sound of purity and it sounds different than anything else I used to hear. Paul said in Romans 6:13 “Do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.” The new sound we are about to hear is an old sound, it is the sound of righteousness that will come out of the instruments called the body of Christ. We are familiar with the sound of mixture, so we may think we know this sound of righteousness, but the longer it plays, the more obvious it will be that the sound of mixture lacks the power to change a life, provoke obedience and instill accountability that the sound of righteousness carries. Can you hear it? It is the sound of righteousness calling you out of darkness and mixture into pure, unadulterated light!

Humanism is a system of thought that focuses on humans and their values, capacities, and worth (MW Dictionary). Humanism is the prevailing system in our culture currently. This system of thought has created a subtle deception that has crept into the sermons we hear in church and has altered our perception of biblical truth. Correcting this error in your own heart is imperative, for there is about to be a seismic cultural shift back to biblical christianity, and a move away from humanistic christianity.

What does humanistic christianity look like? In its simplist terms, we have prioritized people over God. The needs of people take precedence over the truth as spoken in the Word of God. We live with a concern of offending someone, therefore, we cannot speak the truth to them in love. Humanism has elevated ove for humans above love for God. Love for God is obedience to the Word of God even when it may not be pleasant for a human to hear (John 15).

Prophecy has fallen prey to humanism and moved away from being biblical, henceforth, why the “prophetic words” spoken do not carry power. Only biblical prophecy, which is speaking what God is saying, carries power to transform a life. Humanistic prophecy will tell you what you want to hear, in order to not offend you. This is about to change and has already begun to change. Biblical prophets, are arising speaking what God is saying, not fearing how it will offend the hearer, for they know God only says things that will be good for the hearer (Romans 8:28), if they can hear what God is saying and they are willing to obey.

What we as believers need to repent of is placing a higher value on people’s feelings, people’s affirmation, and people in general over God. God alone is to be our highest priority, even when culture is driving us toward humanism. It is subtle, most don’t even realize they have placed a higher value on people than they do God, but it is seen in our acceptance of lifestyles that are clearly contrary to scripture; in our inability to speak truth to people; and our unwillingness to obey God if it costs us someone important to us.

My friends we need to repent for the bible says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39). We must get the order right, for currently we are out of order.