Month: March 2020

THE BIG RESET!

 

GOOD NEWS! God has checkmated the enemy’s move in the present coronavirus crisis. The enemy’s plan was to release calamity on the earth, but God strategically incorporated this virus in His plan to bring forth transformation in the world!  The people of God have been in prayer, intercession and expectation for a big move of God for years, and God has now answered with the BIG RESET—the precursor to a great awakening and a great in-gathering of souls into the Kingdom of God. The world was going off the rails, on a trajectory toward destruction, running to and fro as the bible predicted in the book of Daniel. The emotional temperature in the world was at an ugly boiling point as the gods of this world gained in sphere and power. But God! God is using what the enemy planned for evil as a GLOBAL RESET.

In the present Global shutdown, bars have closed, sports has shut down, Disney world, recreation and entertainment has shut down; as a result, families are at home talking and eating together; people are quiet, the world is quiet, children are home safe, attitudes are changing, people are having compassion on others, we are coming together in a unity of heart and mind and people are praying and looking to God for answers. We are lovingly caught in the captivity of the Lord and the enemy is losing big time!!  During a recent time of Intercession, I saw a massive lion pacing restlessly with anticipation; the scripture that came to mind was Isaiah 42:13-17:

“The LORD will march out like a champion, like a warrior he will stir up his zeal; with a shout he will raise the battle cry and will triumph over his enemies. “For a long time I have kept silent, I have been quiet and held myself back. But now, like a woman in childbirth, I cry out, I gasp and pant…I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.”

I believe it is important that we take full advantage of this time God has given us to examine our lives, get rid of the non-essentials and recognize what is important.  In rest we will hear more clearly from God the strategies He wants to implement and the intercessory initiatives that will give birth to them. This is time to draw close to God and fine-tune our spiritual senses.

The entire chapter of Hebrew 12 is well worth studying at this time; in it God tells us not to take it lightly when we are disciplined by Him or grow weary under it—He disciplines those He loves as any loving father would. In verses 26-29, God warned us that He would shake everything that could be shaken; but we must take note His reasoning—it is for the removal of things that can be shaken, in order that the things that cannot be shaken might remain; that we may offer to Him acceptable worship with reverence and awe—He is a Consuming Fire and He will consume the sin out of our lives and ultimately out of the world!

God will be releasing prayer strategies to His people to bring us through this time—the term prayer strategy is simply the direction of how often to meet, in what manner we are to meet, who we are to meet with and the logistics of that, the theme of intercession, the way you we are to pray, whether in tongues or with revelation or both. This may be accompanied by symbolic action He may ask you to do; this may seem like something silly to you but when done in obedience carries great power. He may give specific songs to worship to, some with banners or in dance and it may be accompanied by a time of fasting or not.

The Lord has given us a strategy to have three prayer thrusts once a month until May (See related word). Considering what is happening in the world at first I didn’t think this was enough. As I am now forced to be at home, there is a quietness and a stillness in the atmosphere, and I believe that is by God’s design. God has been highlighting to me a principle in the strategy given to Joshua for Jericho. They had to march around the city in silence for seven days. On the seventh day they marched seven times then blew the trumpets. It seemed like a crazy thing to do, but they did it in obedience, power was released, and the walls fell! The part He is highlighting to me was the silence—they had to march in silence.

God is saying that as we wait before Him in quietness and in stillness, we are building up spiritual dunamis energy—an internal combustion that will explode and empower His move to BREAK OUT AND LAUNCH! I checked what internal combustion meant and found that: Internal-combustion engines are the most widely used power-generating devices currently in existence. It works by raising the temperature of a gas which then increases the pressure that makes it expand and blow. As we are still before the LORD, corporately waiting on the Him during this time, in fasting and in prayer, we are building up a corporate internal combustion in the Body of Christ that will break us out into the greatest move of God of all time. There were a few words that I wrote last year in which God said to tell them, “Ready or not here I come!”  I believe that time has come!

Understanding Spiritual Warfare

During these times it is important to know how to pray. Its time to fight God’s way! There can be much misconception when it comes to spiritual realities. Greater knowledge and understanding of spiritual warfare are important features of the Christian walk that I believe God is saying is presently needed. My last article touched on the aspect of it that relates to heart issues, as all victory is founded on the principle in Jesus’ words, the prince of this world comes but he has nothing in Me! The enemy could find no place of agreement in Christ, and the same must be for us. The Lord has continued to put an urgency in my heart to write on this subject to equip His people for the times.

The Bible speaks much about this warfare and is our source for all understanding of the subject.  The scriptures refer to the Lord as The Lord of hosts two hundred and thirty-five times! The word hosts mean armies—He is the Lord of armies, both in Heaven and on earth. We were enlisted in the army of God when we got saved, and have a fierce enemy, whether we understood that or not.

“For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places. Therefore, put on every piece of God’s armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after the battle you will still be standing firm.” Ephesians 6:13 

At the core of spiritual warfare is understanding our identity as a son or daughter of God and standing in it. There are those who are called to lifestyle of prayer and have been given a strong gift in intercession, however all God’s people are called to prayer and live within this spiritual dynamic. Everyone is a part of the war weather they participate or not. Because we live in this atmosphere of warfare, to have a grasp of this subject is to everyone’s advantage.

Contrary to what some may think, spiritual warfare has some very basic Christian principles I would like to highlight. First, we begin by noting that the Bible is founded on the spiritual dynamic that God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit (Jn. 4:24). Angels are spiritual beings that serve God. Satan is a created spiritual being—an archangel that fell and is now the archenemy of God, and all humanity. Demons are spiritual beings that serve the devil and do his bidding, they hate humanity and their job description is to steal, kill and destroy every good thing God intends for His people and the world. The evidence of their activity can be seen in every sphere of society and they are especially targeting the children. It is therefore very important for every family to have a prayer strategy and teach the children to how to pray. Children should be secured in the truth of Jesus, and His great love and power toward them!

Do Demons have Power?

Every spiritual and physical entity is created and subject to the full sovereignty of God.  These created beings have power for two reasons: the first is that as God ordained judgment on all rebellion and disobedience from the very beginning, and demons have legal right to function in this environment of sin (Deut. 28). However, God has given humanity the right to choose their own course, “…I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose life…” (Deut. 30:19)

The second reason they appear to have power is that within the born again dynamic, though our spirits are fully regenerated, the Holy Spirit, takes the land of our souls through the process of sanctification and cleansing in order to remove all worldly mind-sets, demonic strongholds, effects of past trauma and ungodly beliefs.  Even as Christ has purchased the whole person with His blood, and owns us fully, we may not have given Him all our allegiance. He has given all of Himself, but He does not necessarily receive all of us! God also uses the process of sanctification or heart cleansing to train and build our spiritual muscles of faith in the understanding of His great power over all things, and as a consequence, our great authority in Him as sons of God (Col. 2:9-11).  During this process we learn to fight, we overcome the enemy of our souls and are healed—all oppression is driven from the land of our souls as we are continually filled by the Holy Spirit in greater and greater measure, as He occupies more of  us. Israel’s journey to the Promised land through the wilderness gives us a picture of this process—there they were built up in faith and learned to fight!They entered the Promised land as warriors with the Shout of a King amongst them!

What does Spiritual Warfare Entail?

Spiritual warfare is very different than warfare in the natural. Firstly, as Ephesians 6 stated our fight is with spiritual forces and not with people, and the weapons we fight with are not of this world—they are far more powerful!

“For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete.” 2 Corinthians 10:3-6

The battleground ultimately is for the mind of man—for who we will serve and give our allegiance to.  When our obedience is complete and the Lordship of Christ is firmly established in our lives, we have great authority to demolish the enemy’s plans and schemes in our personal lives. And having overcome with our personal issues we can stand in a posture of obedience, in strength, in a corporate setting, to fight for our communities, cities and our nations. The principles for corporate warfare are the same for our personal lives so let’s look at the practicalities.

Practicalities of Corporate Warfare.

Effective warfare is not a matter of semantics or the tonality of our voice—whether we are loud or soft spoken, as we are all unique in our gift. It is not about how great we can pray, but rather about functioning, not in the flesh, but under the anointing of a humble, surrendered heart. I was once in a prayer meeting sitting beside a very soft spoken lady who was praying very quietly, as she prayed God showed me a picture of her in the spirit—it was as if she had a megaphone blasting out her prayer into the spiritual realm…the point being, no one is disqualified.  There are certain key features or spiritual weapons God has given us in our warfare to overcome the kingdom of darkness, that when applied in the dynamic God intended, will always take down the enemy, these are:

Union: The word declares that where we have union, the commanded blessing of God is then released (Ps.133). The word command is tsavah and means to send with a charge, give a command, set in order or send with a messenger. This makes it clear that unity is vital to effective warfare. There is a mystery in the principle of union and agreement that when in place, works to produce an explosion of dunamis supernatural power, having the potential to produce God-sized possibilities.   The shortest and most memorable word God has given me came to me in capital letters, He said: AGREE WITH ME!  When we agree with Him corporately, we are in union with each other and with Him—this dynamic produces dunamis power. The corporate sound that is released in this setting is a breaker sound that demolishes strongholds.

Faith: The word of God declares that faith is the victory that overcomes the world, that our fight is the fight of faith; that we have access by faith, we are strengthened by faith, the promise comes by faith. We are admonished to build up our faith as we are protected and shielded by faith. Ephesians 4:13 tells us that we are all growing up until we attain to unity in the faith. Unity of the faith is a unity of mind that is a oneness in conviction and belief in the Lordship, majesty, power, and fullness of authority of the Godhead. That kind of faith will overcome every obstacle and mountain in our path and will transform our world.

Peace: The peace of God that is His shalom is a powerful principle that drives out all fear, anxiety and distress.  It is a peace that surpasses all understanding. The Hebrew word shalom has so much more weight than simply the absence of strife; it means to be safe, healthy and prospering in life, it is from a root word that means to be safe in body, mind and estate, to be complete!  Peace is who Christ is! He is the Prince of Peace and darkness cannot dwell in the presence of His peace. We can all be filled and exuding this supernatural peace that dispels fear and is a key to effective intercession.

Compassion: The compassion and love of Christ is an important attribute that we are to each carry. Wherever Jesus is moved with compassion in Scripture we see a miracle take place. Compassion is the heart of God and the basis for miracles. Judgment can also be the compassion of God, as the word says that when the world is judged it learns righteousness (Is. 26:9). It is God moving to save us from ourselves.  However as with all the attributes of God there is the counterfeit—counterfeit grace, love and compassion, and the attempt made to sanctify sin and bless what God has cursed and is not blessing.

Speaking in Tongues: God has given us the powerful weapon of speaking in unknown tongues—prayer that is motivated and empowered by the holy Spirit. Praying in tongues personally and corporately is powerful as it releases revelation and spiritual insight into situations, and can produce signs and wonders, and is in itself a sign and a wonder! In spiritual warfare we are posturing ourselves before God and looking to Him for insight, revelation, keys to win the battle and direction in our intercession.   In spiritual warfare everyone contributes to the corporate spiritual dynamic. The synergy created becomes a force that is unstoppable.

The Word of God: Lastly, and most important is the Word of God. The Word of God has supernatural power and always accomplishes what God has purposed.  God created with the Word and it continues to have creative power when spoken by the Spirit through us. Hebrews 4:12 says that it is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. When unleashed by the Holy Spirit, it has the potential to demolish strongholds in the path of God’s will.

I was once in a prayer meeting for Israel and at the start of the meeting God gave me a word, however, it did not seem to fit what was being prayed, so I  held it and waited. At the right moment the Holy Spirit said “Now,” and I released it. When I spoke the word it seemed to be launched like a missile, and I knew by revelation, that the word had left the prayer room, crossed the ocean, and landed in Israel—somewhere in Israel freedom came that day! That is spiritual warfare!

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The Countdown Has Begun!

 

I recently wrote a word titled, Three…Two…One…Lift Off, a word the Lord gave me regarding a rocket about to be launched.  After the word was first published in February, I heard the Lord say, “The countdown has begun!”   When He said that, my thoughts immediately went to the month of May, and was reminded that in the early months of 2019, the Lord had highlighted May 2020 as a significant month to mark—and that there were three months to May.

The Lord then gave me a strategy to hold a night of intercession once a month for the next three months taking us into May.  I believe it is now time to get focused, intentional and forceful in our intercession to get this rocket off the ground as we wait on the Lord for direction and for revelation.

This will be a decade of warfare and great battles for the harvest and for the Lord’s purposes to be fulfilled. We are presently caught in the waves of birth pangs that will deliver a monumental move of God!  This is definitely the time of Isaiah 60 where both the Glory of God and the darkness will be increasing with intensity. The Lord is calling forth the intercessors to mobilize and pray through the push of these birth pangs.

Many prominent leaders are now saying that the Church needs to wake up and be prepared for the fight, and this is absolutely true! These times are calling for people of God to be secure in their identity, know their God given authority and know how to pray and fight within the safe boundaries set by the Lord. However, as important as this is, it is also important to recognize that entering into spiritual warfare with unhealed heart issues and outside of biblical boundaries prescribed in the Bible, is dangerous.

In the late nineteen nineties there was much intercession and warfare taking place in the church, however, much was done with an immaturity and lack of understanding of spiritual warfare. At that time John Paul Jackson released a book called Needless Casualties of War; with the publishing of this book, it seemed that intercession throughout the church got shut down for a season. I believe this book was sent by God at that time, as there was so much retaliation harming His intercessors. It is time for the Body of Christ to now rise as the army God has been training it to be, to fight in the many battles ahead. However, this must now be with the maturity and the wisdom we have gained—we will otherwise have another season of needless casualties of war.

In light of this, having led on the frontlines of intercession during those years, who became one of those casualties, I feel led to share some of what I learned. At the time, I was leading intercession with many skilled amazing prayer warriors and were seeing tremendous breakthroughs. Because of this, the enemy was continually trying to take us down…and he did eventually succeed. He succeeded because sin was in the camp. There was much pride and unhealed hearts in all of us; so needless to say, we suffered much retaliation. The enemy looks for your weak spot and will hit you in any area he can—finances, health issues, your property, relationships and marriages, and he works to continually bring division. If we are easily offended and have unhealed heart issues, he can quickly work to infiltrate the team to destroy it.

During that time God gave me a vision of a great looming Tower and the sound of a marching army in the distance… heading my way. As I heard the sound, I looked up at the tower, it was covered with windows and doors and they were all open. As the sound got louder, each one began to slam shut! The Lord then started to teach me about the gates and doors in our lives that were giving access to the enemy, and the strategies to close them in preparation for the coming battle with this army.

As the Lord released revelation and understanding, I shared them with the intercessors. These teachings eventually became the basis for my book The Plumb line. The Lord also released me in the area of deliverance, and I worked with each intercessor and took them through a time of prayer counseling and deliverance. I saw many get delivered of tormenting spirits and enter great freedom!

The Lord then gave me detailed and specific prayer strategies in response to certain spirits that were oppressing and hindering the church. The first one was Jezebel; the first part of the strategy was to study and understand the character and ways of this spirit and repent for any places in which we identified with it. We spent many meetings prayerfully humbling ourselves in preparation.

The Lord then gave me a plan to ensure that there was prayer covering for everyone on the intercessory team. Each person was assigned to cover two other people in prayer and were themselves being covered by two people. We then had a series of meetings to worship and intercede as the Lord led us. Our meetings were always very exciting as He was always there in our midst leading us to victory! After this campaign of prayer ended, there was an immediate release that resulted in the reconciliation of the church with an important family that had left the church through an ugly split.

Our next assignment was Leviathan, the king of pride. God had me wait for about three weeks to get His strategy for this spirit.  During the waiting time, we did the same as we did with Jezebel. We studied the character of this spirit and the way it functioned. We then repented for the ways that we identified with it.  The Lord warned us from Job 41:8 not to try to try to come against this spirit, as it says, “If you lay a hand on it, you will remember the struggle and never do it again!”

God then released the strategy, which was to have a series of Friday night watches where we would humble ourselves and pray through the night in worship, repentance and in seeking His face. These prayer meetings were extremely powerful! Unfortunately, in the last meeting I made a mistake. I perceived a dark mocking spirit on a throne and in the passion of the moment, came against it. The retaliation against me was fierce, as there was much pride in my heart; I crashed and almost had a nervous breakdown. You cannot fight pride with pride! And it is foolish to step unto the frontlines with outstanding sin in your heart!

Still, we learned a lot during those years about spiritual warfare and the importance of having a heart of humility, submission and accountability to leadership and to others. We all need regular spiritual check-ups on our heart issues, and if you believe that you are perfectly fine, and have no heart issues, then it is be possible there may be some deception, as that can be an attitude of pride.

I believe that all we have been through was boot camp training for this important hour, and am always reminded that we serve a God that has the power to fully heal and restore us, and put us back on the front lines, as He His word says that all things work together for good for those who love Him.

During those years, I came to realize how very ill prepared the Church was in regard to the warfare from the enemy of our souls. I wrote the book The Plumb Line as heart preparation to stand on the frontlines of the battle in the present hour. There are fierce battles on the horizon, where we are being called to serve the living God as an army, and as a generation that knows their God and does great exploits in His name. However, God wants us to be safe!

God has spent years refining and preparing us for this hour, that we would become a fierce army, a wise army, a strong army and a humble army—as it is only the humble and the meek that can stand against the forces of darkness.

There are two extremely important features of warfare that must be in place before we go into any spiritual battles; the first is living a life of obedience to God’s Word and having a heart of repentance when we falter. The second is the principle of unity—we must stand together corporately, in union of heart and mind in order to withstand the forces of darkness—a divided army will fall. It is important now to lay down our differences and offenses, and unite together for the sake of the Kingdom and for the sake of the world. The Word of God admonishes us to embrace the Cross and unite as one man in order to stand in victory.

We have entered a year where the very ground is shaking beneath our feet, where there is chaos in the world, anger, hatred, earthquakes, plagues, locusts, famine and pestilence— it is time to put on our armor and fight—not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual hosts of wickedness. 

God is launching a Campaign and will now be releasing prayer strategies to His army of intercessors in all nations. Our job according to Ephesians 3:10 is to declare and represent the manifold wisdom of God to principalities and powers. That wisdom is a sacrificial wisdom that does not seek its own but is a wisdom that is willing to lay down its life for others, as Jesus did! That is the wisdom of God! The Cross is the wisdom of God! It is not about how great and powerful we are; it is about how great and powerful He is! When we are centered in the will of God, embracing His Cross, our warfare will always be victorious!

God Bless you and Keep you and make His face to shine upon you and give you peace always!