The Wall

Coming into the new year of 2015 the Holy Spirit began to speak to me about what The Father desired and purposes to do in His church. He was actually showing me a picture and saying just simple words in my spirit. He showed me a picture of a wall and began to speak the word, "shield".  There wasn't much more in terms of explanation, just simple images and simple words that were do be embedded into my place of prayer and obedience. 

In saying that, I want to insert that I believe that what the Holy Spirit will speak to His people in different ways for their specific assignments to see the fulfillment of His purposes on the earth.  It's important for each of us to hear what the Holy Spirit is saying to the church in the hour that we live in so that we may obey.  It's not enough for us to have a minister, a pastor, or especially the culture give us a declarative word about the new year and us not know for ourselves what's in the heart of the Father. Not that those words aren't accurate, but there may be a word that He desires to give YOU that is necessary to understand the bigger picture around you.

Now back to the picture of the Wall and the word Shield that He was downloading into my spirit.  

I am a passionate believer that we need to see revival in our churches and in our nation.  But I don't want to add my amen to the idea that revival is a set of extended services or scheduled events on a calendar.  I want my amen to be added to the truth of needing to REPAIR and RESTORE the altars in the American church.  It's much more that having services or doing the works of righteousness.  It's living within the newness of life and with the burning heart of consecration unto the Lord.  I believe we are stepping into an age of revival that the world hasn't seen, but I also believe that the believer and the church has to prepare for the revival that is at hand.  

When we speak of Walls in biblical terms, many of you as I did, will go immediately to the text of Nehemiah in your thinking. The Lord began to speak to me that this year He desires His places of authentic worship to be launching pads for national awakening (as it was in the days of Nehemiah).  I believe its a call to live our lives from the most intimate place with the Lord to the most public squares for display.  To do away with a "Sunday Morning" mentality of morality, to a blazing heart of fire that couldn't be put out no matter the circumstances.  It's a heart of David being developed in the secret place that qualified him to trust the Lord in the public battle victory over Goliath.  We as believers are and will always be called to live from our intimacy and not for intimacy with the Lord. Our position of effectiveness isn't to earn righteousness, but to live from the place of righteousness. 

Nehemiah had it in his heart to rebuild the walls around Jerusalem, which was God's holy city.  It is the place that He chose for His presence to dwell.  There had to be one with the desire to see the place of worship restored and defended.  

"Remember, I pray, the word that You commanded Your servant Moses, saying, If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations; but if you return to Me, and keep My commandments and do them, though some of you were cast out to the farthest part of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there, and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling for My name". - Nehemiah 1:8-9

I believe that is STILL the desire of The Father, to see His people fully restored to the place of worship and revival for a nation. 

We are seeing a generation rise up with a true desire for truth and justice.First it is critical to restore the places of worship and see that they are places of prayer. Prayer is much more than an ask and receive format.  It is much more than our duty, it must become our desire. Prayer is a place long before it's an action. Finding the place of prayer will open up a realm of authority just like Jesus sending the disciples into the land. It's the same place where the 120 received power when the Holy Spirit came upon them. Prayer is communion with the Father, it's always attached to obedience and it's evidence is fruit.

"And He said to them, It is written, "My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves."  Then the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them."  Matthew 21:13-14

If the Holy Spirit is speaking like this to you, then the Holy Spirit is positioning you for a season of hiding IN HIM that will release a revival to a nation that doesn't know how to expect. Nehemiah had it in His heart to rebuild the place of worship.  Because of His heart, the people gathered the heart to work (Nehemiah 4:6).  

The result of building the place of true worship is that a nation was restored, but each persons home found their purpose.  The people were set according to their families, with swords and spears, and their bows (Nehemiah 4:13).  

Today, the place of prayer will position people for a national revival that turns the heart of the wicked to the only one who could make them righteous. His name is Jesus! 

Hear the heart of the Father calling you to rebuild the place of worship in your home and at your church. Social reform isn't possible until you have heard the call to personal reform.  But when your heart has heard the call of the Father, then you will be willing to use the shield of faith and dwell behind the wall of His presence. Then as a people we will see the fruit of revival in America.  A day of turning to Jesus is coming and it's here.  People of God, it's time to find the place of prayer and rebuild the place of worship! People are coming to Jesus! Get ready!

Awakening and Revival is here!

HEAR and OBEY

The day that we live in has created a church culture that has depended more upon the programs of the community instead of the communion with the Father.  The church has leaned on the plows of those who have preceded us in the places of prayer.  As a church culture we have allowed our place of prayer to be lined with the padding of convince. We have moved far away from any form of consistent, continual and fervent prayer that can and will shift the current culture. 

2 Timothy 3 tells us there is a time where people will have a "form of godliness, denying the power there of."  

This verse is about the choices of one generation and the harvest being reaped in the next.  When there is a form it means there is a format, a structure or a framework that can be built from.  But if we only have a form without filling, then you don't have whats truly available to you.  There is a power available to you that can and will shift your entire paradigm of living.  The true measure of what you have, isn't what you represent in public, but it's what you are willing to become in secret.  Most people are concerned with what people think about them instead of the the intimate relationship with the Father in the secret place. 

I believe the mandate of the hour is true Awakening and Revival. 

There is a need for people to have such a deeply personal encounter with God that there is no denying the change that's taken place in our lives.  Many churches and people boast the title, "pentecostal" or "charismatic", but the truth is that the Holy Spirit comes like a surge of power that changes the very condition of the believer.  So in other words, if nothing changes, it's not pentecost.  As a church culture we have to make the secret place a priority and have our ear so bent toward the voice of The Father that it's unavoidable to walk in the fulness of that relationship. 

I believe the picture is hidden in 1 Samuel, where Samuel was being called by the Lord to become the man to do all that was in the heart of God. Scripture says that Eli, who was a priest, responsible for the house of the Lord, began to fade from the urgency of tending to the flame on the altar.  His responsibility was to care for the place of worship, protect it's integrity and make a place for God to be glorified.  But when your worship, becomes your duty, it's easy to begin to fade in the arena of passion.  It's reflected in his sons. 1 Samuel 2:12 says, "now the sons of Eli were corrupt; they did not know the Lord." This shows us that mere association doesn't give you relationship.  The choice to consecrate yourself unto the Lord isn't based upon your church affiliation or the title on your door.  Consecration is a deeply intimate desire to be wholly surrendered to the heart of the Father.  His will, His wants, His desires.  Consecration will cause you to walk in power that is completely without reservation and hindrance.  

1 Samuel 3 is what I believe the mandate of revival is all about.  The text says that Samuel who was a young boy dedicated to God by his mother Hannah, continually ministered before the Lord.  Regardless of what others were doing, Samuel had a mandate on his life that was far beyond the grip of compromise.  His mother's prayer life ensured that.  She made the dedication long before his birth that if God would grant her a child, she would offer him back to the Lord! Now that's radical consecration. 

v 1. "In those days the word of the Lord was rare and that there was no widespread revelation."  I would insert here that we have to be so enamored and consumed by God's word so that we may have a deeper and more complete picture of His will.  It's impossible for us to know the will of God if we don't know the Word of God.  

The urgency of the hour is for THIS generation to be so consumed with the presence of God that there is a release of heaven that shakes and shifts the cultural climate that we are in.  We need for some Samuels to rise up in the house of God.  Who have no desire but to HEAR and OBEY the voice of The Father.  The passage in 1 Samuel 3 says, that just as the lamp on the altar began to go out, that the Lord called Samuel.  

I believe that RIGHT NOW God is calling to those who would have an ear to hear!  I believe He is calling YOU where ever you are, to hear His voice and have the courage to OBEY whatever He is calling you to do!  The season that we are stepping into will demand that radical obedience be the norm as much as faithful stewardship is our constant. Samuel was faithful and he was radical! A result of him being faithful is his ministry to the Lord was his willingness to hear and do what was in the heart of God.  

Samuel has one of the greatest credits attached to his life which is;  That not one word of Samuel's ever fell to the ground"

It's time that we as a people got back to the place of consecration!  A place of faithful stewardship and radical obedience.  Now is the time for people to discard what doesn't glorify God and cling to what is whispered from His heart.  Our place of power isn't in the programs we create or the communities we build.  Our place of power is in our surrender and urgency from the place of prayer!  Prayer that releases a desire for obedience.  Shockwaves of signs, wonders and miracles.  This should be the norm for the believer.  Like Samuel, this should be what follows us.  May it be said that this generation of Samuels had the courage to HEAR the call of the Lord and OBEY with a radical submission!  

AWAKENING AND REVIVAL IS RIDING ON THOSE WILLING TO HEAR AND OBEY!