by Glenice Mills
There are many prophetic words ‘out there’ at this time, the beginning of a new year. There has been a theme – it is a year of breakthrough.
It is good to know the seasons and times we live in, however there are a few things I think we in the body of Christ need to consider.
We are all excited about the ‘New Year’, but we need to look at the motive behind what this means.
The Lord knows the seasons and times and if this is so, does He think ‘Oh good it is the New Year, 2014?’ or does He look at time from the big picture of His plans and purposes for us on earth right now?
What makes December 31st different from January 1st?
In God’s scheme of things the days, times and seasons are in His hands.
Perhaps the New Year is more about us wanting things to change, rather than the Lord suddenly, as a result of a night of revelry and prayerful demands deciding He will do a new thing?
Perhaps this is very prideful of us and a bit presumptuous to think that we can tell God what we think He needs to do because it is a New Year? In fact if we are not careful we can cross over to divination – ‘calling up what we want rather than seeking the Lord about what He is wanting’.
We as the body of Christ need to examine our motives for wanting what we want just because it is a New Year. It is a day in a calendar and in fact has nothing to do with God’s seasons and times. Yes we can perhaps claim it as a defining day, a new day of a new year according to a Gregorian calendar. But how much ‘power’ and ‘influence’ should this bring on our lives. Perhaps we need to see things with God’s eyes?
There has been a consensus among the body of Christ that everybody had a difficult ‘last year’. I prefer to call it a time rather than a year of testing and trials. It we think about it, the difficulties didn’t start ‘magically’ on the 1st January 2013. Many were going through difficulties earlier than January 2013, and some may not have experienced difficulties until later in the year. Does that make 2013 a difficult year? Wouldn’t it be better to say we have had a difficult season or time?
Let’s not forget a year is about our time frame rather than God’s time frame. He sees in seasons and times. In fact we need to know the Prophetic time we live in rather than our time. We are to know the seasons and times we live in, and this is where the prophet can and must speak about them. However I wonder if it is incorrect for a prophet to say in the 2014 time frame this will happen or will not happen?
We must be careful we don’t make blanket statements and say all are in this season. Ecclesiastes says there is a season and a time for every purpose so what is one person/ministry/nation’s season may not be what is happening to another. We can have a sense of what God is doing in His church but we dare not make a statement for all when in fact it might be for most. That puts shame and guilt on those who may not be experiencing what is happening to others.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born, And a time to die;
A time to plant, And a time to pluck what is planted;
A time to kill, And a time to heal;
A time to break down, And a time to build up;
A time to weep, And a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, And a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, And a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to gain, And a time to lose;
A time to keep, And a time to throw away;
A time to tear, And a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, And a time to speak;
A time to love, And a time to hate;
A time of war, And a time of peace.
How many Christians are making new year’s resolutions believing that if they are faithful to consistently diet, exercise or what ever resolution they make, that God will endorse it?
Again who says that making a new year’s resolution is right in God. We all know our areas of weakness and what areas the Lord wants us to change. Therefore wouldn’t it be more accurate to pray, and to ask for the Lord’s help to overcome?
I wonder if ‘New Year’s Resolutions’ are actually right in God? I don’t think so.
We have to be careful that we don’t succumb to the world’s ways and come in agreement with them. It is very subtle.
So what is the Lord saying to us at this time?
Yes most Christians have been through difficulties in recent times. Many have spoken of 2013 being a year of great trials.
This is because we in the body of Christ have been going through a great transition time. There has been a contracting, a stretching and a time of deep forging that has produced great pain.
Transition is also a time of labour when a woman gives birth. This is the time of full dilation of the cervix and a change of action to push to bring to birth. We have in fact been in a season of birth pangs. There is always great discomfort, and a wanting to give up and go back to how it was before.
That has been the test for many. It has in fact been a season of opportunities – opportunity to push through, opportunity to give up, opportunity to sabotage what has been put in place by God, opportunity to run away from God and many other opportunities to walk in obedience or to choose to compromise and walk in disobedience.
We know we are in a season of the apostle and prophet. What we forget is their role is to equip the saints. If we are to adequately equip, then we must be trained. All training involves pain at some level.
God is concerned about our character – our integrity, our love of Truth and choosing to walk in obedience to what He requires of us.
The Lord is looking for a remnant – one’s who will stand for righteousness and truth no matter the cost.
For many it has been a time of war, but the next season is a time of peace.
When the Israelites were obedient there was peace on all sides. So it will be for those who have passed tests in recent difficult times.
They have warred for themselves, for others and for their nations and there is a reaping of rewards for their obedience.
We are coming into a time of victory. For there to be victory there had to have been a war. When war ends there is celebration. There is a new freedom and liberty. The constraints have been lifted. There are new beginnings.
However there is a condition to this word – time of victory. Victory will come to those who have been obedient to yield to the dealings of God in this past season, with a willingness to give up those areas the Lord wants us to let go of.
That is why it has been so difficult. A line has been drawn – those who have fully yielded to the Lord, and those who have chosen to walk their own path.
Rewards are coming to the faithful – not that they have asked or expected rewards but the Lord has seen. Expect the unexpected in this next season. Don’t hold onto old ways of doing things for He is doing a new thing. Many words have gone out about the ‘new thing’ however we have often had wrong expectations because the motive has been about self-promotion. The new thing will be obvious to those who have eyes to see.
Know that He is God!!!
Nothing, that is NO THING that has been built by the hands of man will stand in coming times. That which has been built on the rock – Jesus Christ – will stand.
By their fruit you will know them.
Watch and see what the Lord will do in coming times. Be ready for an exciting journey – one that will bring joy to the hearts of those who are battle weary and weary in well doing. This is your season to shine!!!
Tuesday, 14 January 2014
Thursday, 9 January 2014
The True Living Water
by Tony Clark
I love that God revealed from the beginning to the end in the Bible. A time line of earth’s history. God cares about His people, He wants them to know Him. Closeness and intimacy has always been His greatest desire! Men in their fallen, fearful, arrogant, proud and rebellious state, resist God and turn to their own way for fulfilment and getting their needs met, but they don’t realise only the PURE LIVING WATER can satisfy the soul.
God is not out to condemn you, take away what you care about, or put restricting laws or burdens on you. You are already bound! You are already restricted!
Being BIRTHED into His kingdom by the true revelation of His love for you, and being made TRULY ALIVE by His power causes men to see for the first time, just like Neo in the Matrix.
Do you want to live in a dream world, a world that just keeps you distracted and deceived enough to make you think this is LIFE? When you are AWOKEN by a very real God, who brought everything into existence, including your life, the scales fall off your eyes and you don’t just begin to see things differently - that’s just a by-product. You ARE different. NEW. Clean. The difference is so extreme that it is likened to being dead and then made ALIVE. And when you are alive to God, which means you are consciously aware of His presence and person, at a genuinely interactive level, you will/can never be the same.
God loves you. He is not angry or vengeful toward you, he sent His Son (God born in human flesh) to die for you??? Does that sound like ILL WILL? God knows that you are lost without Him. You were made to be together. Don’t listen to false religions that will tell you that you can get to/ become God some other way!
Jesus Christ is the DOOR - no one comes to the Father except by Him. He died for your sin - you fall WAY short of the holiness and majesty of God, and sin every day by going your own way in the face of Truth.
If a man repents of his own wicked ways, and humbles himself and recognises that Jesus who KNEW NO SIN died for you so that you could be saved and brought back into relationship with God, by trusting in His sacrifice to pay for your sin - not relying on your OWN self righteousness which is unable to meet the required standard - you will be encountered by God. I did, 17 years ago. I was addicted, broken, hurting, self conscious, lost and afraid, but God saved me by a revelation of His love for me. My eyes were made OPEN, and I was filled with newness. I was made alive to God. And all these years later I must say, I have dug, and I have sought after this God that revealed Himself to me, and I have found TREASURE like I never thought possible. I could write 50 books about what has happened in my life due to meeting my Maker. I have found what I was looking for. And every well of promised nourishment that the world has to offer, is but an illusion, so fresh to the taste just like the real thing when you first find it - because you are THIRSTY! But as you continue to drink this water that promised so much, it dries up and no longer quenches your thirst. JESUS CHRIST is the only TRUE LIVING WATER. He said, in His own words “the water I give, when you drink it, YOU WILL NEVER THIRST AGAIN.” We need water to survive. That’s why the bible days Jesus didn’t come into the world to condemn the world, but to save it. And that “For God SO LOVED the world that He sent His only begotten Son, that WHOEVER believes on Him, will not PERISH but have EVERLASTING LIFE.” (the result of living water). God says you are perishing. You try your hardest to survive in the false waters that are only a trick to keep you from the true, and the end is death, because just like in the desert, without water you die. This is the context that God declares you are perishing. But Jesus came with the true living water, so that “you may not perish, but in drinking, and continuing to drink of His true water (His words) you WILL NOT PERISH but have ETERNAL LIFE.” It’s a promise. God CANNOT lie. Bless you.
I love that God revealed from the beginning to the end in the Bible. A time line of earth’s history. God cares about His people, He wants them to know Him. Closeness and intimacy has always been His greatest desire! Men in their fallen, fearful, arrogant, proud and rebellious state, resist God and turn to their own way for fulfilment and getting their needs met, but they don’t realise only the PURE LIVING WATER can satisfy the soul.God is not out to condemn you, take away what you care about, or put restricting laws or burdens on you. You are already bound! You are already restricted!
Being BIRTHED into His kingdom by the true revelation of His love for you, and being made TRULY ALIVE by His power causes men to see for the first time, just like Neo in the Matrix.
Do you want to live in a dream world, a world that just keeps you distracted and deceived enough to make you think this is LIFE? When you are AWOKEN by a very real God, who brought everything into existence, including your life, the scales fall off your eyes and you don’t just begin to see things differently - that’s just a by-product. You ARE different. NEW. Clean. The difference is so extreme that it is likened to being dead and then made ALIVE. And when you are alive to God, which means you are consciously aware of His presence and person, at a genuinely interactive level, you will/can never be the same.
God loves you. He is not angry or vengeful toward you, he sent His Son (God born in human flesh) to die for you??? Does that sound like ILL WILL? God knows that you are lost without Him. You were made to be together. Don’t listen to false religions that will tell you that you can get to/ become God some other way!
Jesus Christ is the DOOR - no one comes to the Father except by Him. He died for your sin - you fall WAY short of the holiness and majesty of God, and sin every day by going your own way in the face of Truth.
If a man repents of his own wicked ways, and humbles himself and recognises that Jesus who KNEW NO SIN died for you so that you could be saved and brought back into relationship with God, by trusting in His sacrifice to pay for your sin - not relying on your OWN self righteousness which is unable to meet the required standard - you will be encountered by God. I did, 17 years ago. I was addicted, broken, hurting, self conscious, lost and afraid, but God saved me by a revelation of His love for me. My eyes were made OPEN, and I was filled with newness. I was made alive to God. And all these years later I must say, I have dug, and I have sought after this God that revealed Himself to me, and I have found TREASURE like I never thought possible. I could write 50 books about what has happened in my life due to meeting my Maker. I have found what I was looking for. And every well of promised nourishment that the world has to offer, is but an illusion, so fresh to the taste just like the real thing when you first find it - because you are THIRSTY! But as you continue to drink this water that promised so much, it dries up and no longer quenches your thirst. JESUS CHRIST is the only TRUE LIVING WATER. He said, in His own words “the water I give, when you drink it, YOU WILL NEVER THIRST AGAIN.” We need water to survive. That’s why the bible days Jesus didn’t come into the world to condemn the world, but to save it. And that “For God SO LOVED the world that He sent His only begotten Son, that WHOEVER believes on Him, will not PERISH but have EVERLASTING LIFE.” (the result of living water). God says you are perishing. You try your hardest to survive in the false waters that are only a trick to keep you from the true, and the end is death, because just like in the desert, without water you die. This is the context that God declares you are perishing. But Jesus came with the true living water, so that “you may not perish, but in drinking, and continuing to drink of His true water (His words) you WILL NOT PERISH but have ETERNAL LIFE.” It’s a promise. God CANNOT lie. Bless you.
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