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There is a reality that we do not like therefore we do not obey. It is not a reality that is discussed, for it is not a happy reality, but it is a reality. It is called restraint. Restraint is a biblical principle. If you want to be a powerful kingdom asset on earth, you must understand restraint.

This morning, the Lord and I were discussing how the prophetic words over our lives are not given so we can fulfill them in our own strength with marketing, ministry or even church planting. Too many people have self-fulfilling prophecies, which is why they do not have authority, even though they may have a ministry or a property.

Prophetic words restrain us if we are willing to stay in the prophetic words we are given. I have been restrained from many things I wanted to do, because of prophetic words over my life. Being restrained by the prophetic words God has given us is hard, but those words come to test what is in our heart. Psalm 105:19 says, “Until the time when his word came to pass, the word of the Lord tried him (Joseph).”

The ache is real, the wait has felt long, but the truth is, we are being restrained by the prophetic words over us for a powerful move of God that is upon us. If you have been restrained and have submitted to the restraint of the prophecies over you, thank you for letting me know I am not alone. He has been worth the wait.

Without notice I experienced something I had never experienced before yesterday. I was sitting in my living room and I heard “thuds” hitting the roof of the house. I looked out the window and what looked like huge snow balls were falling from the sky. I grabbed my son and dog and we went out onto the porch, only to find it is hail and it was coming down hard and fast.

The neighbors were rushing in the rain and hail to cover their car with blankets, so we did the same for my son’s truck windshield. The strength with which the hail was falling and size of the hail was significant. We picked up some pieces out of the grass and I put them in the freezer, to remember the event.

I had never been in a hail storm before, so I was fascinated with childlike wonder at this event happening right in front of me. I knew the scriptures spoke of a storehouse for hail, but this morning as I looked it up, I was amazed at what it says, “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, which I have reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war?” (Job 38:22-23)

We were protecting our windshield and God was fighting a battle in our city. What war, what battle was raging in our city, while I was standing in awe of our God? I do not know, but what I do know is that the hail brought joy to me and my family. My son, once the hail stopped but rain continued, kicked off his shoes, ran into the yard and started doing gymnastics moves. He had his hands raised and his head back as the rain fell on his face.

When God is your Father, when you know His character, His nature, you do not see anything that happens as His anger, but as His love, His pleasure and His power. We rejoiced in a hail storm yesterday, and when I learned what hail is for, it just gave me more reason to lift my hands and praise the God who fights battles in my city and wins wars I do not know are even being waged. It was another day I will never forget.

I learned something new this morning in my prayer time with Psalm 110, “God honors us in order to humble our enemies.” I never knew this or even thought about this like this before. Here is what the Lord showed me.

Our enemies are not flesh and blood, according to Paul’s statements in Ephesians 6, but our enemies are powers, rulers, principalities. That means our enemies are invisible, but they manifest through flesh and blood. This takes great discernment to separate the invisible from the visible, so we can see who the real enemy is.

Psalm 110:1 says, “The LORD said to my Lord, Sit in the place of honor at my right hand until I humble your enemies.” When God honors us it humbles our enemies, because honor reveals to the enemy that we are not who they said we are. (I am shouting right there). God’s honoring of us tells the enemy I have known who they were all along.

Remember Proverbs 15:13 says, humility comes before honor, so what honor says is they have humbled themselves before Me, says the Lord, and your lies about them are no longer valid. This is why honor humbles our enemies. When God honors us, we sit in the honor He gives us and this humbles our enemies.

We are accustomed to street fighting, striving, screaming, and struggling to prove we are not who the enemy says we are and God says, I am going to honor you and this is going to humble the enemies around you. For honor is going to tell the enemy they are not who you think they are.

Psalm 110:2 says, “You will rule over your enemies.” As we sit in the honor God gives us, He humbles our enemies and then we are able to rule over them. Our enemies are the lies spoken about us that try to rule over and tell us who we are not, but honor sits us down and tells us who we are and then our enemies are humbled because we no longer believe they lies they are speaking to us.

God is going to honor you and it is to humble the enemies that are surrounding you and are in you. Get ready to sit in honor and watch your enemies be humbled right before you.

In worship yesterday at our church, Hope UC Nashville, with Dustin Smith leading worship, the Lord took me into an encounter that will mark me for life. I was put in a tube, like that of a tube at a bank drive thru, and I was shot up into the heavenly realms. Once in that dimension, I saw what looked like beams of light shooting back and forth. In my mind, I thought the kingdom of God is like a freight train, but I was quickly corrected in my thinking as I heard, “The kingdom of God is a force that is unstoppable!”

The words reverberated inside of me in such a way I knew it was marking me. As I watched this force of light moving in this heavenly dimension, I stuck out my hands and the light went through my hands. I left my hands up as the light went through me, around me, in me and all I know is that the power of this force of light was undeniable.

The lyrics we were singing while I was having this vision, encounter, experience was “Sing hallelujah, the Lion of Judah has overcome…” The words matched the experience and I realized the force of light, love, hope, joy, peace, righteousness and presence God has available to us. In that moment, I knew there was nothing on earth that can stop the force called the kingdom of God.

Matthew 11:12 (NLT) says, “From the time John the Baptist began preaching until now, the Kingdom of Heaven has been forcefully advancing, and violent people are attacking it.”

The kingdom of God is resisted by the religious, the political and spiritual forces, but God has put the kingdom of God inside of us in the Holy Spirit. As we partner with God, the force I experienced in this vision is available to us on earth. It will be resisted, but it is unstoppable and when you see it, experience it, your faith, like mine, will never be the same again. It is not longer words, but an experience I can’t deny when I say, “Nothing is impossible with God.” He is is force that is unstoppable!

Living in an urban city, a developed country, a technology culture, it is hard to understand the parables of Jesus for most of them are agricultural in nature. I love how Jesus spoke to the audience in front of Him, so they could understand what He was saying. If we don’t understand agriculture life, we do not understand parables about sheep, wheat, weeds, soil, seed, or other parables Jesus shared with these themes. Thank God for technology, there is nothing we cannot learn about without a little studying.

We have been taught that revival, salvation of souls, are indicators we are living in harvest season. We hear of college campuses having moves of God; baptisms happening; more services being added; or even tent meetings with signs that say revival and we call it harvest season. Which it could be an indicator.

However, Jesus says the harvest is also identifiable when you see seperation taking place. We don’t like the idea of people being separated into two categories, but Jesus was not afraid saying it. He separated sheep and goats, wheat and tares, and even weeds and wheat. Seperation is a sign of harvest season and I believe we are in harvest time right now.

Matthew 13:27-30 says, “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”’

Seeds are hidden until they manifest above ground. Once they manifest we can identify whether they are wheat or weed seeds. Both have been growing together all around us and in us. But it is harvest time, for the manifestation of these is here and the seperation is upon us. God is bundling and sending through the fire for refinement those who have been tending the weeds called the flesh and He is gathering those who have been tending the wheat called the spirit.

Both flesh people who operate in the natural and spirit people who walk by faith have been growing side by side, but a seperation is upon us. We see it in the news when we hear of people stepping down from major positions; we see it in our neighborhoods as people are hearing revelation knowledge in homes. The manifestation of seperation is the identification that we are in a harvest season. Gathering one and refining of another is happening right now, the seperation is because it is harvest time.

As a self-proclaimed “gold digger”, I have always looked for the “gold” in other people. While anyone can see their dirt, call out their flaws or devalue who they are, the Lord has taught me how to see the gold in them. For decades I have been digging for gold in other people. I have never been concerned about the dirt in their life, for once I see the gold, the dirt is just covering up the treasure of gold in them.

Now this morning, the Holy Spirit speaks to me and says, “It’s time to drill for oil!” I pondered this phrase all morning long and realized, I am not familiar with the process as it pertains to drilling for oil. After some research I learned there are two kinds of oil wells, dry wells and oil wells. This is why oil drilling is such a high risk, high reward reality. It can cost a lot of time and money only to find out the drilling for oil yielded no return on investment.

However, the Lord is saying a change is happening, the days of digging for gold are not over, but we are adding drilling for oil. Oil is trapped in rock, so not only does it take discernment to know what rock is trapping oil, but it also takes the ability to penetrate the rock so the oil can be released.

As I learned all this through study this morning, the Holy Spirit reminded me of Matthew 16:18 which says, “Upon this rock, I will build my church.” And how Jesus changed Simon’s name to Cephas, which means rock. This means when Jesus met Simon, he knew there was oil in him, so he called him a rock, but Jesus knew He was going to drill for oil in Peter and that Peter would produce multitudes of barrels of oil. Peter was not a dry well, he was a deep well of oil.

Now oil is the anointing and God has been and is drilling for oil in our lives, but it is locked up in the hard places in our lives we refuse to let Him penetrate. Get ready friends, not only is God having us dig for gold in people, but He is now adding we must drill for oil. We must have oil come out of the body of Christ, for the anointing (oil) breaks the yoke.

Placing a premium value on independence has done as much, if not more harm than good. Independence is actually a sign of distrust, immaturity and pride. Why do I say this? Because when we live with a high value on individuality, we actually miss the opportunity to come into the kingdom of God on earth.

The kingdom of God is a dependent culture of honor. We are to enter like little children. Children are called dependents. We are invited to come into a kingdom that has a King and others who are children. Children is not childish, it is childlike. Our independence has hindered our ability to enter into the kingdom.

Another challenge we face is we do not value legacy. We expect our kids to chart their own course, pave their own way, create their own path. It sounds so fun, but it is the hardest thing to do and it actually does not allow us to advance, because we always have to learn it on our own.

When we surrender our independence, lean on others, trust the Lord and His people, we will enter the kingdom, embrace legacy and three generations will walk together to advance the kingdom. The older generation has wisdom we need, the younger generation has energy we need, the middle generation gets to glean from both and together all three advance the kingdom.

Psalm 105 says it this way, “He has remembered His covenant forever,
The word which He commanded to a thousand generations, The covenant which He made with Abraham, And His oath to Isaac. Then He confirmed it to Jacob for a statute, To Israel as an everlasting covenant, Saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan As the portion of your inheritance.”

There are no self-made people in the kingdom of God. It is a culture of dependence and honor. To enter you must lay down your culture of independence, for in the kingdom we are dependent on our King (Jesus) and each other.

Did you know that how you see something determines what you believe about what it is you are seeing? More often than not we see something and do not think much about what we see, because we are so familiar with what we see, so we assume what we think about what we see is correct.

One of our challenges is we do not challenge our own thinking, therefore we remain in a state of stagnation because we live without dated information. Have you ever asked yourself when is the last time I did an update on the way I think? We update our phones, our computers, our televisions, but the greatest technology we have is our thoughts, yet many of us never update the way we think.

God has released some incredible updates for the way we think, but we must hit the install now button in our heart, so He can download some new ways of thinking inside of us. This will also remove some bugs that have hindered our operating system. He is Ancient Intelligence and He knows everything, His updates are always upgrades for our benefit, if we will take the time to receive them and let Him restart our systems.

Here is the upgrade I received today from Proverbs 14:11 “The house of the wicked will be destroyed, But the tent of the upright will flourish.” A house sounds more stable than a tent and yet it is not about the structure it is about who is dwelling inside of it. No matter how stable, strong and settled wickedness looks, it is going to be destroyed. The Lord said, “Don’t let the structure make you think one is stronger than the other.”

My upgrade is I would rather be with the righteous in a tent and flourishing than be with the wicked in a house that looks stable but is being destroyed. We cannot be moved by what we see, but rather we need to be upgraded in the way we think. Say it with me…”UPGRADE MY SYSTEM!”

Proximity is about power and responsibility. When we are gifted with proximity to people, it is not something to be treated lightly. Proximity is not given freely, it is given over time. It takes time spent to gain proximity in someone’s life. There is an investment made; sacrifices are given; trust is built; before proximity is granted.

Proximity is power, not because we are associated with their name, their resources or their influence, it is power because we have been given the privilege of being brought near to them. With this power of proximity comes great responsibility. We are responsible to care for their heart, protect their secrets and treasure the trust they gave us.

Many people desire proximity, but not everyone is willing to pay the price to have it; most are not willing to invest the time and energy to obtain it. Most people want the benefits they see that come from proximity, but they are not willing to make the investment to obtain it. This goes for people and God.

Deuteronomy 10:8 says, “At that time the LORD set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the LORD to stand before the LORD to minister to him and to bless in his name, to this day.” God chose one tribe out of twelve to have proximity to His presence, but it came with the three distinct responsibilities.

1. To stand before the Lord (intercede)
2. To minister to Him (worship)
3. To bless in His name (speak over others blessings)

Every tribe had a different role to play in the nation. The tribe of Levi was given proximity to the ark of the covenant, the presence of God and it came with great responsibility. Many people want access to God’s presence (proximity) but they don’t want the responsibility of interceding for others; ministering to God in worship; and blessing people in His name.

God is generous, loving, patient, kind, gracious, powerful, strong and nothing is impossible with Him, so when you have proximity to Him there is responsibility expected from Him. We must be like Him if we want proximity to Him, for we represent HIm. Proximity is available to all who are willing to die to themselves in order to represent Him. He is always wanting us to come closer in proximity to Him.

What feels like walking in the dark is not evil darkness it is the darkness called the unknown. Interpreting correctly the darkness we are walking through is important. If you are living in sin, yes it is evil darkness, but if you are following the Lord and it is dark, that is the unknown, not evil.

In prayer this morning the Lord and I were discussing this and when He showed me the darkness is the unknown not evil, He started speaking to me about the Abrahamic Anointing that is on people right now who are walking in the dark, but it is not evil, it is unknown.

Hebrews 11:8-10 says, “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.”

The Abraham Anointing is what is on the those who are obeying God, but still feel like they are not clear, can’t see where they are going, and don’t understand what they have done wrong. You know who you are. But the Lord would say to us today, it is not evil, it is not delay, it is not denial, it is unknown, because of the Abraham Anointing on us.

The call to those who have the Abraham Anointing is to obey God and keep pressing on to the city that has foundations whose designer and builder is God. The city is not something man built, that is why it is unknown, they can’t look back to find it, they must keep their faces forward and their feet following the Lord in obedience. The Abraham Anointing is on a company of people on earth right now and they must not settle, they must keep moving, for the city is a bride and she belongs to Christ and this is what God is building.