Ready to Hear Something New

On my return home from a long hike in the mountains, I passed the plastic newspaper box in the attached image. I was drawn to the box, realizing the Lord was getting my attention for a reason.

A couple of old newspapers were stacked inside along with pine needles, pinecones, and a leaf or two. It was obvious no one had picked up their newspapers for a long time. While standing in front of the old newspapers, the Lord began to speak. 

For those who look at the Church from the outside, we can resemble the old newspapers in the box. We can get comfortable and settle into a previous revelation and forget that with God, a life of faith is new every morning. God is always releasing a new sound that carries the potential to change hardened hearts and shift the trajectory of culture. But first, we must be willing to clear out our prophetic inbox and make it ready for a fresh expression of the Good News.

In the coming days, expect to hear something new from the Lord. These words will carry the power to shift the environment of a family, a business, and culture. Just like it was for young Samuel hearing the voice of the Lord for the first time, this sound of revelation will be, quite possibly, unusual and even strange to our ears.  

Something new and news-worthy is about to be delivered to our spiritual address. In preparation for that delivery, the Lord wants to reach into the box of our lives and remove whatever we are allowing to remain that is old and out of date. If we give Him permission to remove the old in preparation for the new, we will hear things that will dramatically change our lives and the lives of those who hear the sound of our voice.

Something Has Been Birthed

This morning, Jan said to me, “Something has been birthed.” Around our house, that means the Spirit brought something into our realm that was not present before the birthing process took place.  This process has been very uncomfortable on many levels. Just like it is in the natural, a delivery is intense and fatiguing. At the height of the pain, it can also be disorienting. 

What you have been feeling for months was not the norm of your life pre-pregnancy. You have questioned yourself at times, wondering if something was wrong with you and how you have been feeling. While a pregnant mother can't forget that she is carrying a child in her womb, many of us can forget we are carrying a promise. We forget that a delivery requires a season of gestation and development. We may not have a physical belly bump, morning sickness, or crazy food cravings. However, we can manifest similar issues spiritually and assign our confused feelings to other areas of our life, especially if we have forgotten we are pregnant and carrying a developing promise. 

 

This reminds me of a movie I saw a long time ago. The title slips my mind. In the movie, a young woman was in a war zone nine months pregnant. In the heat of battle, with bombs going off and bullets flying everywhere, she had to stop and give birth to her child in the rubble of the conflict. Her context reminds me of what is taking place in our culture at this moment in our history. 

We all want the birthing of our promise to happen in a clean, calm, and secure environment, but that is not how things happen when conflict surrounds our lives. The promise God has destined for birthing in your life at this time may be delivered in the heat of battle, not in a place of peace and security. This is not a time to worry. Focus on the birthing. God was faithful to keep the promise alive and growing in your life even when you forgot it was there, and He will be faithful to see it through to its final delivery. Trust Him. He has been making these kinds of deliveries since Eden. 

God Will Help Us Succeed

We are in a time like that of Nehemiah, a man called by God to rebuild the broken walls of Jerusalem. Behind the scenes and without the permission of potential dissenters, Nehemiah rallied allies and began the project as doubting eyes looked on. 

When his plan was finally discovered,  Nehemiah explained why he was taking on the project and why it would be successful.

 

“Then I told them about how the gracious hand of God had been on me, and about my conversation with the king. They replied at once, 'Yes, let’s rebuild the wall!' So, they began the good work” (2:18). 

 

Like those who initially thought reconstructing the walls was an impossible task, it only took a single word of hope to turn the tide. All creative work begins with an expression of hope.

 

To the natural eye, our culture may appear headed for disaster and social collapse. Still, for those with ears to hear the word of the Lord and vision to see God’s plan for restoration, this is a season of tremendous opportunity.

 

Reformers and restorers do not work from consensus. They work from revelation. Put aside the doubt and fear that has been deposited in your heart and mind and open your thinking to the possibilities of Heaven's environment being expressed on Earth. 

Against impossible odds, Nehemiah carried with him a victorious word of hope. He spoke that word to the listening crowd, “The God of heaven will help us succeed” (2:20). That is our hope as we venture into our culture to rebuild the broken walls of our nation and the broken walls of human hearts. God will help us succeed.

 

A Prophetic Reality Check

“Don’t say such things,” the people respond. “Don’t prophesy like that. Such disasters will never come our way!” (Micah 2:6).

Some believe prophecy in the New Covenant should only be words that strengthen, encourage, and comfort. While that is true for some prophecy, it is not true for all prophecy. Love warns us and will challenge those things that weaken, discourage, and disquiet our souls. A prophetic word can also reveal the consequence of our sin if left unchallenged. 

 

We need to be careful we don’t craft prophetic messages in the image of our worst fears or false interpretations of reality. We need a daily infusion of discernment to help us wade through the sea of prophetic insight coming our way. 

 

Prophetic words travel from the heart of God and pass through the personalities of those who attempt to share those words. We need to make sure we have allowed the Lord to mature our discernment to such a degree that we can pick through the personalities and presentations involved to discover what the Lord is saying.  

We are living in a difficult and dangerous time in history. Be careful what message you choose to follow. All words have destinations for those who follow their content. Not all those destinations are where God wants to lead His people.

The Sound of Your Voice

We will miss what God wants to say and do through us in this season if we interpret the lockdown and social isolation as an inactive time. This is one of the most spiritually active times I have experienced in the last 40 years. 

God is resetting the priorities of His people. He is helping silent and fearful saints shake off the fear of what other people think. They will reclaim their voice. Some will actually discover a voice they never knew they possessed. Those who are able to understand rightly interpret the purpose of this resetting and reclaiming will be positioned by the Lord to speak to individuals and audiences not thought possible before the resetting and reclaiming took place.

Just as I finished writing this word, the Lord spoke something I believe is all of us. "I will use your voice to awaken slumbering and silent saints. When the sound of your empowered voice is heard, the fog of deception and resulting silence will clear away from the minds of those with ears to hear My voice.  I will reposition your message within My body to be used according to My will. Reset and reclaim what I have given to you." 

Polls, Opinion and the Word of the Lord

Polls and opinions do not reliably reveal the future. It is a prophetic voice, empowered and informed by the Spirit that brings the most trusted revelation of what is to come. Resist the urge to follow polls and opinions. The unreliability of those sources has been proven time and time again that it is God, not our ability to evaluate the future, who will have the last word.

The New Sons and Daughters of Issachar

The Lord doesn’t want to define us by the obedience of a past generation. He is calling men and women in our day who will be just as honored in history as “…the sons of Issachar, men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do” (I Chronicles 12:32). What made the sons of Issachar so unique was not just their accurate understanding of the times. They also had insight for what Israel should do in response to a prophetic word from God. A prophetic calling is not only the ability to see and understand what is taking place. It is also the ability to offer the next steps required to lead people into the will of God. 

A Stream of Distractions

A moment of distraction has been created by a virus and social issues, both of which are important to address, but they are not on the front line of a developing global confrontation. Where our eyes are focused will determine our place in the coming conflict.

At this critical moment in history, God is looking for people who are like the warriors in Gideon’s army who were about to engage the Midianites in battle. God winnowed down 22,000 warriors to only 300 by using a simple test. He told Gideon to watch how his troops drank water as the conflict was developing. The Lord instructed Gideon to select only those warriors who did not submerge their faces in the stream to drink but cupped the water in their hands and brought it to their faces while watching for enemy movement. As it was for the army of Gideon, so it is for us. This is a time to keep our eyes on Heaven, not bury our understanding in a stream of distractions no matter how painful they seem. 

This morning, I wrote to several pastors in Portland, Oregon, a city under assault by dark forces. I shared with the pastors that God is about to release a heavenly invasion in their city that will overcome the works of darkness. The Church carries the destiny of cities, not elected officials or the pawns being used to institute unrighteous agendas.

God will always have the last word and the last, game-changing move no matter how hopeless a situation might appear. Any thinking that does not include that understanding is flawed. Do not allow your thirst for an outcome, no matter how convinced you are that you have the right perspective, to submerge your spiritual discernment in a stream of distractions. Those distractions will keep you from seeing the greater battle about to be waged. 

Stay vigilant and spiritually aware at this hour, even when your thirst for results seems overwhelming. In the coming months, we will see world powers begin to flex their threatening muscles leading some to believe a global confrontation is imminent. While that may take place, what God has planned will dwarf the most fearful predictions, even when truth seems outnumbered. 

Words in Time

Be careful about releasing a word before its time and declaring, “Thus saith the Lord.” The word may indeed carry Heaven’s authority, but only if it is released in the timing of the Spirit. What we speak in God's name must be shared without the impulsiveness of undisciplined emotions and frustration. 

When Dreams, Visions and Prophetic Words Miss the Mark

Many believers are concerned about what is transpiring on earth. Some of that concern can blind us to a greater reality. A fear-based concern will paralyze our faith because it is absent of hope.  Fear can cause us to believe and take stock in diversions.  To remain spiritually healthy, we must receive our insight and marching orders from the throne of God, not from a lesser dimension of revelation.

Paul addressed different levels of what he called “heavens.” We live on earth in the first heaven, where spiritual warfare is waged on the battlefield of human minds. The throne of God is established in the third heaven in a secure position of ultimate authority, forever unchangeable. It is in the second heaven between heaven and earth where spiritual battles are fought between light and dark, demons and angels, and where the prayers of the saints have a tremendous effect in determining the outcomes of earthly spiritual battles.

Kingdom vision and prayer assignments are created and released from the third heaven. From that secure place, we can pray with confidence and live in peace when life seems spiraling out of control. When visions, dreams and prophetic words are sourced only from the battle being waged in the second heaven, we will live in fear and limit our response to only what is seen in that realm. We can even get what appears to be a word of knowledge from the limitations of a second heaven revelation and actually miss the greater truth because what we have chosen to believe is not sourced in hope. God’s revelation, and even His warnings, always contain hope.

Jesus is enthroned in a place of ultimate authority at the right hand of the Father. As believers, we are seated there with Christ. This realization does not produce a fearful response to a world in decay and disorder, nor does it produce theologies or an understanding of the culmination of time that is wrapped in the dark cloth of disaster and despair. The sound and content of our voice will reveal which heaven we have chosen as our source of inspiration.

No One Is Exempt

The prophet Joel spoke of the culmination of time and quoted the Lord, who said, “I will pour out my Spirit upon all people.” The “all people” wording leaves no one out. It will affect believers, non-believers, and those in between. It was an all-inclusive statement. 

This outpouring is not limited to a church gathering, a stadium event, or a conference venue. It casts a much wider net and will impact each sphere of culture and every human relationship. Nothing in all creation is exempt from an outpouring of God's Spirit.

Perhaps what we see playing out on our video screens is a reaction to an outpouring of the Spirit. When the Spirit moves upon humanity, we will respond from the condition of our hearts. And when the Spirit moves, people can respond by depicting acts of mercy or violence, truth or deception, tenderness, or brutality. Each action can be a response to the Spirit based on what is taking place in our hearts. According to Joel, the men and women who respond rightly to the Spirit will prophesy, dream, and see visions of something better.

In these challenging times, do not be surprised by what you see. The Spirit is moving powerfully upon the face of the earth. Not all responses will be righteous until hearts are changed. You can tell those who have rightly responded to the Spirit’s moving. They will be prophesying, dreaming, and seeing the way forward with hope and an assurance that what God promised He will be faithful to accomplish, even when it seems like life is spiraling out of control.

When Prayer Finds Its Mark

In every spiritual conflict, there will be a single prayer that will be used by God to bring down the plans of hell. While many will be praying, one prayer from among the many will work its way through all the dark defenses and strike a fatal blow.

The death of Ahab, husband of Jezebel, reveals this principle. Ahab was a wicked king of Israel, and his death had been recently prophesied. Ahab disguised himself when going into battle in hopes of blending in with the other troops and not be a recognizable target. He had another man wear his royal robes into battle as a diversion. 

In the heat of battle, “An Aramean soldier, however, randomly shot an arrow at the Israelite troops and hit the king of Israel between the joints of his armor” (I Kings 22:34). The arrow was shot at the mass of enemy troops, but it found an intended target, a disguised target.

As we pray against dark agendas and evil strategies, we may not know how to pray with specificity. God understands that we don’t always have a clear understanding of what is taking place. He simply asks us to pray. We think our generic prayers are less significant than specific prayers. God is the one who directs our prayers, specific or not. He will be faithful to guide the flight of our prayers and help them find their intended mark. 

When that single Aramean soldier fired his arrow into the troops amassed before him, he was not aiming between the joints of Ahab’s armor. He was firing into a battle unaware of Ahab's presence. God guided the flight of the Aramean's arrow to find its distinct target just as He is guiding each prayer we fire today into our spiritual battles. 

Make This Day Count

In this time of forced isolation from the familiar, I have felt a bit of malaise. Each day, Jan and I choose to refocus and reset our hearts on the purposes of God. This morning over breakfast Jan remarked, “We want to make this day count.” 

Those who choose to listen for a fresh word from the Lord and prepare for its implementation will emerge from this time of isolation, ready to hit the ground running in the Spirit. Acceleration has been planned by God that will be attached to each of these personal words.  This is not an acceleration that will be empowered by our natural human desire to get out of our homes and return to familiar places. It will be a new move of God that will have an assignment to reform and transform all our relationships. This not acceleration to return to what was but an invitation to move into something not previously imagined.

The end of this virus will resemble a spiritual starting gate where trained and prepared racehorses are jumping at the bit to run once the starting gate is flung open. Their focus is solely on the anticipated sound of the starter signal, not the noise coming from the nervous and excited bleachers. 

God has assigned each of us a race lane for this move of His Spirit. Get in your lane with the word the Lord has given to you. Stay there and listen. The bleachers of the culture are noisy and agitated and will increase in volume in the coming days. If you focus on that distraction and join in with its fear-based chorus,  you will miss the sound of the start. Make this day count. Quiet your soul and listen for the sounds of God's Spirit. Your future is about to be announced.

Prophesying Hope to the Seed

“Israel will remain a stump, like a tree that is cut down, but the stump will be a holy seed that will grow again.”

—Isaiah 6:13b

When I was a boy, I watched my father trim the mulberry trees that lined our driveway. When these trees were in full bloom, they provided a wonderful place of shade during the hot summer days. The first time my father trimmed these trees, I thought he had killed them. He literally cut them back to a stump and a few branches. But each year the trees grew back healthier and larger than before because within the DNA of the tree was a life and a structure that no amount of trimming could destroy. Life is like the mulberry trees of my youth; there are times when we get so trimmed, we wonder if we will ever grow back, and then life happens again.

Once, when I read this verse from Isaiah 6, the words seemed to hang in the air. The Lord spoke to me, saying:

I am raising up a host of prophets who will prophesy hope to the seed that remains in the stump. I never leave a stump without a seed. This seed contains the DNA of My life. It is activated and brought to life by hope. Raise your voice and speak hope to the seed that remains. The seed is waiting for the sound of hope. Do not focus on the stump. The stump only carries the seed. This present devastation is temporary. Words of hope are anchored in eternity. Rise up and stand before the stump just as My servant Noah did when I asked him to build the Ark. You will look foolish to those who only see the stump, but I will grow the seed and the tree will stand again. Prophesy to My seed.

(excerpt from Prayers from the Throne of God)

God is at Work in the Midnight Hours

At least twice last night, something usual took place. It was unusual because I was not aware it was happening. Jan said she awoke two times to hear me prophesying over various people while I was asleep. She did not recall all the content, but they were personal words to individuals. At one time, I was prophesying that the hand of God would sweep away the opposing forces that were hindering a person’s life.

Each night I kneel at my bedside and ask the Lord to speak to me and give me dreams in the night. I did not consider this would mean I would be releasing prophetic words. Jan did not recognize the names of those receiving these words. I believe these prophetic words were a work of God’s Spirit that does not require we know the recipient. I was speaking from the depths of the Spirit, not from natural wisdom or known relationships. It was much like prayer in the Spirit, where God will use us to pray for things our natural mind had not entertained.

At this moment in history, we need the manifestation of a supernatural God who steps over the solutions offered by the limitations of human intellect to bring freedom where freedom was thought impossible. God is releasing prophetic hope at unusual times and by unexpected means. Many of us were not aware this was taking place. I am so glad Jan shared with me what is going on in the midnight hours.  Tonight, I will go to sleep with a new level of expectation and faith in the goodness of God.

Discovering the Substance Behind Prophetic Predictions

Maybe it’s because I have been doing this for a long time, but I’m no longer impressed with stand-alone prophetic predictions no matter who gives them. What catches my attention is the heart and purpose of God behind the prophecy. If we are not careful, we can miss the deeper reason why a predictive revelation was given in the first place. 

The next time you hear someone make a prediction, ask the Lord to show you why He let you know something before it happens. That "why" is the most essential element in a prophetic word. A predictive prophetic word is simply a spiritual butler who opens the door of revelation and invites us inside the mansion of God’s heart. The Lord's reasoning behind a prophetic word, not the initial announcement itself, is where the real substance of a prophetic word is discovered.

The Checkmate of God

This morning in prayer, I saw an image of the Lord seated at a chessboard. The chess pieces were ornate and represented the nations of the earth. I looked to see who His opponent was and realized he was so insignificant in comparison to God that I could not even see his head above the tabletop. It appeared as if no one was seated across from the Lord. The enemy’s lack of significance did not allow him to play the game with any hope of final victory.  Each move he made could not stand up against the wisdom and power of God’s strategy. Patiently and peacefully, the Lord continued to move each chess piece around the chessboard, according to a plan none of us can fully understand or comprehend the complexity of its design.

This life and the affairs of humanity are being orchestrated by the hand of God, not by evil. None of what we see taking place on the world stage is without a righteous and merciful outcome. When things make no sense or people issue warnings that the sky is falling, wait in expectation for the next move of God. His hand is always making a strategic play at just the right time that will checkmate the most elaborate plan of hell.

Creating a Healthy Prophetic Environment

A prophetic ministry requires two elements if it is to remain healthy and endure over time. It requires revelation and an environment. Some good people put out word after word without considering the environment where a prophecy has the best chance to live and thrive and express the character of God's Kingdom. If you are beginning your prophetic journey or you have been doing it for a long time, make sure that you nurture the environment where your words take root as much as you desire to speak the word of the Lord.  Future generations will thank God for both the content of your words and the healthy environment you left behind.  

Prophecy, Critics, and Comfort Zones

A prophecy was delivered by the late Bob Jones, noting that when the Kansas City Chiefs win the Super Bowl, it will mark the beginning of a revival. For some, prophetic words spark a negative knee-jerk response. No matter how accurate a prophet might be, there will always be those who are determined to find something they do not like about either the prophet or the message they deliver.  

The world and, unfortunately, some in the Church have adopted a spirit a denial choosing as their first response to discredit a prophet or prophetic word that does not align with their narrow interpretation of life. Don’t be one of those people. These nit-picking responses are disguised under a false label called “discernment” or a dismissive wait-and-see attitude that is a form religion-speak used to reject anything outside the critic’s narrow interpretation of spiritual reality. 

The Bereans noted in Acts 17 are frequently cited by these critics as their motivation for rejection. In their defense, they quote, “They (Bereans) searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth.” These critics fail to mention the first part of that same verse that says, “And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul’s message.” 

An open mind and the wise use of Scripture is a healthy combination if we are at least willing to listen to the message bearer before rejecting what they speak. The Bereans "listened eagerly," and so should we.

What I Do and Why

There are times, especially when we are new to the things of the Spirit, that we try to find “our gift.” At those early stages, there is nothing wrong with that pursuit. A problem can emerge later on when we become overly focused and enamored with our particular gift at the expense of more important issues.

A few years ago, I had a conversation with the Lord, asking why He had me work for so many years in a pastoral role when that was not my primary spiritual gift. The pastoral gift has never been revealed as my primary assignment in any gift assessment test. Prophet has always come out on top of all the tests I have taken. The gift of pastor belongs to Jan. She is the best pastor I know. We make a great team. 

The day I had that conversation with the Lord He said, “I had you spend all those years in pastoral ministry, even though it was not your primary gift, so you would know how to create a healthy environment for the prophetic movement.” At the time, those words sounded presumptive to me, and they might sound that way to you as well as you read these words. Such are the ways of God.

I write every day. It is a personal discipline and has become the resource pool for several books and a few thousand blog articles. Not everything I write is prophetic like a predictive word. Most of what I write are I Corinthian 14 kinds of words to strengthen people with encouragement and comfort. Some of the Old Testament prophets we quote with regularity only spoke a predictive word or two over their lifetime. We were never designed or assigned to be a predictive prophetic dispensing machine. Waking up to the need to produce a predictive word each day is a fast lane to compromise and a loss of credibility. 

Our spiritual gifts are like seeds we plant in hopes of a fruitful harvest. If the environment where a seed is planted is not healthy the seed will not live long enough to create a generational harvest. I have come to realize the environment in which a gift is delivered is as important as the gift itself. They work together.  In the end, this is called balance.