The Prophetic Initiative: What Wants
To Emerge
In every
generation the hand of the Lord moves on some to move the heart of nations.
They have a desire to be a redemptive influence in large sectors of the
culture.
They carry
an intense passion for His glory, and have been moving His heart in the secret
place long before their public appearing. They have learned how to feed on
“honey from the rock”. The meat is to do the will of the One Who authorizes and
sends them.
They have
embraced their season of isolation, humbling, and hiding, as a gift from the
hand of the Father of Lights, the Giver of every good and perfect gift, in whom
there is no shadow of turning. They trust the process God is bringing them
through in preparation for their life’s work. They feel the weightiness of the
hand of the Lord on their lives, the chabad, the weighty thing, His
glory!
They cannot
shake the growing conviction in their spirit that they have been called to the
“work”, the Great Work! While there was only a remnant that returned from
Babylon with Nehemiah, Nehemiah knew he was doing a great work. When his
enemies wanted him to come down off the wall and meet them on their turf and in
their territory on the plains of Ono, he said “OH NO”…actually he said, “I am
doing a great work and I cannot come down off the wall.”
They feel a
profound sense of inadequacy for the task that lies before them. The work seems
overwhelming. Yet there is within them such a compelling sense of purpose, and
the powerful pull of the future, that they know in their spirit that destiny
stands in need of them!
Their
dreams are far from small. They see the fields white unto harvest. They see
multitudes in the valley of decision. Their hearts burn within them. Their eyes
are indeed have been opened and the invisible world is more real to them than
the one in front of their eyes. Once they have seen the light, the cannot
un-see it!
They long
to release the power and the presence of God in the demonstration of the Holy
Spirit, with signs and wonders following. They make no apologies for the supernatural
dimensions of the Kingdom. They make no apologies for the moving of God’s
Spirit. They are Presence-Driven in everything they think, say, do, and feel.
Anything less, as far as they are concerned, dishonors the Christ Who paid the
price for His Spirit to be poured out on all flesh.
They humbly
embrace the conviction that greatness awaits them. They aren’t looking for the
accolades of the world. They aren’t driven by selfish ambition or greed. They
value compassion, grace, mercy, authenticity, integrity, honor, and valor. Like
Joseph, commissioned to seek out the welfare of their brothers, they are right
now wandering in a field as Joseph was, intercepted by a messenger who has
asked, “What are you looking for?” And even as Joseph answered, their answer
is, “I am looking for my brothers.”
What these
individuals are looking for are a few seasoned warriors who have already been
on the path that they are now on, and who bear the scars of many battles with
the powers of darkness. They are looking for those who wear their wounds from
war with honor and dignity. They are looking for those voices that can speak to
their destiny and impart greater confidence and assurance with affirmation to
their own spirits that indeed they are on a foreordained pathway. They are also
looking for those who are hearing the same things from the Spirit about what
wants to emerge and come together with them and function as a single-collective
intelligence that brings the future into the now by faith.
They have
known a dimension of the baptism of fire that has made them disillusioned with
the status quo. They are looking for an expression of genuine apostolic and
prophetic authority and power without fads and trends to manipulate the masses.
They want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. They want the
Spirit, the fullness of the Spirit, and nothing but the Spirit. They have grown
weary of that which is inauthentic, as well as that which is immersed in the
traditions of man rather than the traditions of God.
If what you
have just read speaks to something at your core, if it speaks to something that
you have actually uttered in prayer to God, if it speaks to something you have
longed to hear, then these words have served my purpose objective.
For a
number of years, I have kept a distance from re-immersing myself in the
popularity of prophetic training schools. In fact in the early 1980’s, I was
one of the voices in my generation that sparked a flame on a national level for
the need for apostolic and prophetic mentoring. We did a number of very
successful prophetic training seminars when there were only a handful of voices
doing them on a national scale.
The Spirit
of the Lord instructed me clearly to pull back and lay down my desire to be
involved. I obeyed, not fully knowing and understanding the reason. Over the
years, I applaud some of the great servants of Christ that have poured their
lives into mentoring others in the prophetic. However, I have also seen the
excesses, the extremes, the things that are nothing more than hype and
sensationalism that have produced anything but the kind of fruit that remains
that the Father is longing for.
In the past
few years, I have personally been through a time of deep processing, and
intense warfare and testing. My faith has been tried in about every area of my
life. I found myself in a very challenging and difficult place. I knew enough
about the dealings of God to know I had to embrace the prolonged season of
warfare and transition in faith. What I went through made no sense to me at
all.
As I began
to come out of that three and a half year period God began to stir up fresh
passion within me. He summoned me to summon others who are part of an emerging
company of men and women who have a clear sense of what wants to emerge in this
season. They hunger for the genuine, authentic move of God with the
accompanying power that Christ promises. They are prepared to experience the
new wine, and be a part of the new wineskin that can contain the potency and
power of that new wine.
They have
watched as ministries have crashed and burned. They have watched as many
leaders have succumbed to the pressures and temptations of the powers of
darkness and have found themselves painfully caught in what has been a
diabolical spider’s web designed to render them powerless and ineffective. They
have seen through the façade of ministry as entertainment, and want a return to
ministry as a demonstration of the Spirit and power.
The truth
is that genuine, authentic, apostolic and prophetic ministry brings reproach as
it is without the help of the inauthentic adulteration of the Word of God that
often parades as what God is doing. Paul clearly lays out that the apostles and
prophets are foundational to the building of the called out company and the
increase of the government of God. He also says that they are considered “least
of all”.
Apostolic
and prophetic ministry isn’t about being at the top of the pyramid, having
arrived at a place of success. Genuine apostolic and prophetic ministry is
about being on the bottom and pushing the saints up to the top. It isn’t about
polishing their own ministries; it is about polishing the saints. In fact,
authentic leadership is servant leadership. It isn’t about leaders who serve;
it is about servants who lead.
Yet it is
in this hour a step beyond servant leadership. It is about moving into a realm
of transformational leadership that knows what wants to emerge and brings
people together to operate together as a single intelligence, operating “as
one”.
It is about bringing the future
that wants to emerge into manifestation and existence by co-creating it with
each other under the direction of the Holy Spirit. The principle that was
established at the beginning of Creation is still essential today: “It is not
good for man to be alone.” There are joints and connective tissues that cause
the bones in the body to move in a coordinated and unified fashion. In Ezekiel
37, the bones came together after Ezekiel prophesied to the wind, and they came
together “bone to its bone”.
In
Ezekiel’s day there was a radical disconnect of the people of God in Babylon.
They felt and behaved as if their hope had perished, EVEN THOUGH, Jeremiah
spoke to them prophetically about a “future and a hope”. The dry bones scorched
by the intense heat of the sun were crying out to God that they were “cut off
from their parts”. Their sense of connectedness to each other and to a great
eternal purpose needed to be restored. That required a prophet who knew what
wanted to emerge. Ezekiel had to evaluate what he says in the valley of the dry
bones and come to the realization that something wanted to emerge. By the
Spirit he began to realize what wanted to emerge, and yet it didn’t just
“happen” because he knew it needed and wanted to happen. It required that
Ezekiel prophesy to the WIND, to the BREATH, to the SPIRIT.
It takes
courage to prophesy to the Holy Spirit and command the Spirit to begin to move.
However, when the Spirit has already disclosed what wants to emerge, the
commanding of the Spirit by someone in the earthly arena is essential. God will
not bring it to pass without the cooperation and the invocation of those
anointed with the power to decree, the power to declare, the power to create
worlds with their words.
All of us
have seen abuses in the move of God. All of us have seen the excesses. All of
us have seen those things that have brought added unnecessary reproach to what
God is doing.
All of us
know that there is no redemptive value in some of the imbalanced things that
have been released to the unsuspecting and to the unstable and unprincipled who
want to run with what they believe is revelation.
Those who have no accountability either to
those who can speak into their lives, or even to the Spirit Himself and the
Word, often bring disgrace and unholy reproach on the move of God, so that
observers judge it all as foolishness.
When the
gifts of the Spirit are misrepresented, abused or used for personal gain and
personal advantage, it sets the move of God back whether we like it or not. It
causes the untaught to run wild after that which is unhealthy not realizing
they are being led astray. It does very little for the reputation of the people
of God in the midst of our multiplying enemies in the secular culture.
Yet, there
is a desperate need to explore the dimensions of the genuine supernatural.
There are essential dynamics regarding direct experience with the invisible
world, with God, with the angelic, and with the demonic that bring a level of
stability, authority, and power to God’s people when they are understood, valued,
and embraced.
We are
living in an hour when we need a compelling, hope-filled vision of the future.
Either the future is as bright as the promises of God or it is not. Either God
is going to have a prevailing company that brings to bear the authority of the
Finished Work and the Kingdom of Heaven in every sphere of society, or the move
of God will be stunted and thwarted because of our lack of cooperation with
Heaven.
There is a
need for a company of faith-filled, passionate, men and women who truly believe
they have been brought to the Kingdom for such a time as this. There is a need
for that company to lift their voices in the assurance that their words can
shift atmospheres and change environments. They have to have a firm conviction
that their words can create worlds for others to live in that transcend the limitations
of the secular culture, and bring a dimension of healing, empowerment, and
transformation.
A company
needs to rise in this hour that holds a deep conviction that it is no longer
sufficient to simply respond to forces at work in the culture and do our best
to adapt. Either we have the capacity to shape the future (and Paul clearly
says that the future belongs to us in 1 Corinthians 3:21-23), or the best we
can do is keep reacting to the forces at work in the culture. Isn’t it still
true that the One who lives within us is greater than the one who is in the
cosmos (the present arranged order)?
While the
natural eye has not seen, the natural ear has not heard, and the natural heart
has not known, all that God has prepared for those who love Him, God indeed HAS
REVEALED IT TO US BY HIS SPIRIT!
There is
within us the TRUE SOURCE of our capacity to influence and shape the future!
The Spirit knows what wants to emerge, yet He cannot accomplish His intended
ends without our cooperation. That requires that we access from a deep place
what it is He is seeking to reveal to us that wants to emerge, and then reveal
to us the strategies to bring those things to pass.
There is a
company of prepared Josephs, Daniels, Esthers, and the like who have been
brought to the Kingdom for such a time as this. They refuse to believe that
hell is going to win, and that the antichrist is going to prevail. They have a
deep conviction that God has something greater in store for them and for the
nations. They have a deep conviction that we need to offer the followers of
Christ more than an “any minute Jesus is coming back” message. They have a
conviction that they are to occupy until He comes. They have no desire to
passively allow things to happen. They want to actively participate in what
wants to emerge. They passionately are crying out for “as in heaven, so on
earth”.
I am not
ashamed of the Gospel I have been called to preach. I am not ashamed of the
Holy Spirit or His manifold gifts and expressions. I deeply cherish and value
what the Blood of Christ has purchased for the elect. We cannot hope to win the
world without the demonstration of the Spirit and power.
I am persuaded that the future belongs to a generation that has been through
the processes of God and is ready to come out of hiding and shift atmospheres
and change environments in every sphere of the culture and society.
For that
reason I am going to “throw my mantle” on some select individuals in the coming
days in order to obey the Lord and be part of a generation of leadership that
recognizes, affirms, and evokes the new and emerging leadership to come to the
forefront in the courage and power of the Spirit to lift their voices like a
trumpet.
On March 22nd
and March 23rd I am hosting an event for those who resonate with all
that I have just said, and deeply feel that God has apportioned them a place in
leadership in the Kingdom in the coming days.
If you are
desirous of perfecting the gifts and calling of God in your life, and if you
are desirous of awakening the level of prophetic promise that God has called
you to, I invite you to join me at this historic event. If you long to tap into
genuine capacities within you, and clear strategies that lead to connecting at
a deep level with the indwelling Spirit of God, you will want to set aside time
for this event.
I am not
looking for thousands to show up; in fact this is not a gathering for the
multitudes. This is a call that is being sent out to those who feel a
connection to what I have shared, and who believe that the mantle I am throwing
out by faith is hitting their shoulders as a company of Elisha’s who are being
groomed in the hidden places to become all God has intended them to be.
If this
indeed strikes a cord in your heart, join me in Orlando on March 22nd
and 23rd, and join me for a powerfully moving time of immersion in
the Presence of God. We will explore apostolic and prophetic dimensions in the
Word of God and key in on strategic principles that unlock apostolic principles
of growth and development as well as prophetic imagination, prophetic intuition,
and prophetic declaration.
It will be
a time to deal with the intricacies of direct revelation and direct experience,
as opposed to information and head knowledge, which accomplishes nothing at all
as it relates to the Kingdom.
It this
speaks to your hunger, I want to assure you that a table will be spread that
will offer you a banquet in and by the Spirit that will bring a level of
transformational equipping into your personal life.
Whether you
are called to the meeting place or the market place, 21st century
leadership isn’t going to be about titles or positions, it is going to be and
is about the power to shape, influence, and co-create the future. It is about
knowing at a deep level, beyond the realm of book knowledge and head knowledge,
and knowing by the Spirit, what wants to emerge in the earth, in your life, and
in the lives of those you touch. It is about cooperating with what wants to
emerge and like a midwife, be involved in the birthing process of a fresh
movement of God in the earth in accord with the Great Commission.
Your
investment of $150 will be seen to be quite minimal in light of the wealth of
spiritual insight and impartation that will come in the atmosphere you will be
a part of. Register now, and join me on March 22nd and 23rd
for two powerful days and nights of immersion in the realm of Real Presence, in
the realm of the Unseen Real! If you cannot make it to Orlando and still want
to be a part, I will permit you to participate by the worldwide web with a
special password, under one condition. You have to send me a letter and in
detail let me know the reason you believe you need to be in on the conversation
and impartation even though you cannot be physically present. It will be your
responsibility to convince me that even though you cannot attend physically,
you clearly are intended to be connected to what will be taking place and to
what God has asked me to do. If that connection isn’t there, I cannot with a
clear conscience support your desire to participate because it isn’t about
getting more information. It is about an impartation that comes because of a
sense of connection and relationship.