Tag: identity

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The Shaking’s Just Begun

As silly as this might sound, God gave me a prophetic word through watching a movie recently. I didn’t have any massive revelation while watching the movie, but Friday/Saturday night at about 1 AM, I felt God whispering to me about things to come. This is a word intended for the church primarily. Please understand that this word is not about doom and gloom, but about the revelation of true identity. This revelation will be a massive wake-up call for some and a spring of joy for others.

I really don’t like to mention specific dates or timeframes when I share a prophetic word, but I strongly believe that this specific word has a maturation date. I feel like God told me “six months.” I interpret this to mean there is a growing period of six months before this word starts to unfold. That puts us in May 2018. I don’t really know though since all I heard was “six months.” As you read this, ask the Holy Spirit to bear witness in your spirit about these things and ask Him this: “Teach me to number my days so that I may apply my heart unto wisdom.”

Cliffnotes version:

  • The Church is not a building, but a body, a called-out assembly
  • Anything that the “church” has done in the past apart from God’s strength will be consumed by fire
  • Believers are finally waking up to their identity as the Church
  • Leaders are continuing to transition
  • We are going to witness a manifestation of fierce love against the tide of anger and revenge
  • Deep generational reconciliation is about to take place
  • Jacob will not steal his brother’s blessing
  • The two sons of the Good Father (the prodigal son and the one who stayed home) will be reconciled as co-heirs
  • The seers will be united
  • The prophetic gift will be supercharged

The Church Is Not a Building

The Church is not a building, but a body, a called-out assembly of people. Unfortunately, many people are still caught up in the programs and traditions of man. Everything about the church as an institution that has been done in human strength apart from God and then swept under the rug to avoid confrontation is about to come back from the place it’s been suppressed, and it will utterly decimate the facade erected by those who have gone before. The skeletons in the basement are about to be uncovered. Anything rotten in the institutional church’s foundation is about to be revealed, and there will be no recourse but to hand it over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.

Many believers will raise the alarm that the church is under attack… and they will be correct in their assessment, but not necessarily correct in identifying the enemy. What they may not realize, is that the devil is only a pawn in God’s tactical plan. The institutional church, by its lust for power and human achievement, will have given a foothold to the devil and invited him in. The lust for power, control, and reputation is what has really been attacking the church. The destruction coming is not out of wrath or anger, but a deep desire for what’s real and eternal. It is to burn away the wood/hay/stubble so that the gold/silver/precious stones may remain. You may think you know what “shaking” looks like now, but the real shaking has barely begun. Everything that can be shaken will be.

The purpose of all of this is so that the ekklesia would wake up to their reality that the Church is not a building or a program, but a people who carry the Name, the Presence, and Power.

More Leaders Transition

Leaders of the older generation that have held the keys of power and authority will transition out of their role in the spotlight before the destroyer comes. This could look like physical death or merely handing the torch on to new rising leaders.

Those in the church who have fulfilled a comforting and nurturing role will be the first to pass the baton. I heard God saying that the comforters of the older generation will be the first to transition because they are about to manifest their legacy. They are about to give themselves as living sacrifices, moved by fierce love, against the onslaught of anger and the spirit of revenge at work in the world today. This will set the stage for what’s next.

The remaining Christian leaders who have been traditionally looked to for strength and direction will be bound by grief at the quarrels and fighting they see in the church but they will transition in peace as they begin to see reconciliation happen with those who are taking their place.

Heavy Dose of Identity

Forerunners of all kinds are about to step into a deeper place of understanding about who they are. These are people who may already be walking in a measure of their identity… but there is more, much much more. Church leaders who GOD has called to inherit leadership in this season (regardless of their age) are about to WAKE UP.

More than just leaders, anyone who has been tangled up in bitterness and hopelessness in the church is about to drink straight, undiluted identity. They will discover they are not merely strong—they are valiant and unashamed—and they will rise to answer the renewed call of destiny over their lives.

Jacob Will Not Steal His Brother’s Blessing

I feel that God has told me that there has been fighting between the generations, mixed with deception and trickery. Like the two sons of Issac, there has been an attempt of one son to steal the blessing from the other. However, that is where the similarities end. I feel like God is saying that as our true Father, His eyes are not dim and His first blessing is not His only blessing. Instead, He has endeavored to bless all of His children. Anyone in the rising generation who has been oppressed or labeled “deceivers” and “outsiders” will soon realize that they are not of the household of Jacob (a deceiver), but they are grafted-in sons of the King of Kings and also heirs in the LIFE to come.

The current and rising generations in the church today are like the two sons in the parable of the Good Father. One son was a prodigal and wasted his inheritance while the other son maintained his service in his Father’s household. When the Father received back His prodigal son with joy and feasting, the other son harbored bitterness and contempt. The heirs who have served God faithfully are about to be reconciled with the heirs who have been far from their Father.

The Seers Will Be United

Jesus said that if your eye is single, your whole body will be full of light. In the same way, the seers and prophetic voices in the Church that function like eyes to the Body will be united in heart, mind, and purpose during this time bringing the light of revelation to the whole Church. Their gifting is unique in that it is timeless. There won’t be as much of a transition among the leaders here because their gift is to shelter the body during trouble and lead them through the times of testing. Their many insights will have a compounding effect leading to a multi-dimensional view of God’s activity in the world.

In addition to this, the seer gift is about to take on a new dimension of not only sharing what God reveals but also of an unprecedented and NEW role to bring opposite perspectives into HARMONY. We are about to see the prophetic gift SUPERCHARGED in a way that will enable seers and prophets to impart God’s point of view in such tangible ways that others will experience God’s point of view from a first-person perspective. No longer will the prophetic be merely about describing how God sees things, but it will be about imparting the experience of how God sees things such that you won’t be able to go back to how you used to see them. Your old paradigms will be incomprehensible and unable to be recalled because the MIND OF CHRIST will overshadow and overcome the flesh.

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Vision

The world of the imagination is a black canvas for prayer to paint upon.

Today I want to share with you my vision. Often I blog about life lessons and realizations that fascinate me. Earlier today, however, I was listening to a sermon by Kris Valloton on dreaming. It hit me so deeply. So many of my worries in life have been related to my future, and so many times I have side-stepped the real issue by telling myself that I needed to stop worrying and start trusting God. This is true, to an extent. For me, the issue ran deeper. My concern for the future was not a command to stop worrying, but an invitation to start dreaming.

So many of the accomplishments and so much of the work I’ve taken on has been in pursuit of the mysterious “will of God” and entailed me listening to His voice to hear how He would direct me next. Because He is faithful, He has done just that. The sad part is that He’s been waiting for me to do so much more than just listen. He’s been waiting for me to dream and dialogue with Him about who I am and what I’d like to see happen in the world. I’ve given Him the blank canvas of my imagination and told Him, “Make something!” but that’s not His role. He’s already made me perfect in Christ, now He wants me to go manifest that perfection in my own unique way. His work is done—now it’s my turn.

With all that said, I present my vision based on the criteria that Kris suggested in his sermon.

Who: I am a man of prayer, a seeker of righteousness, and a musician.

Why: I aim to show the world that the prayer of a righteous man is effective and able to connect to the heart of mankind.

What: I desire to write prayers in song, teaching people how to pray effectively and genuinely.

How: In the short term, by finishing the songs for my first EP and releasing them on iTunes. In the long term, by becoming a dedicated song-writer and prayer warrior.

When: I want to get the EP released by the end of summer!

I have needed a vision for a long time, I have wandered aimlessly through a metaphorical desert since I was a child, and only now am I waking up to realize that what I do can and does hold power because I have Christ living in me. I have tried to craft vision statements many times before and they’ve all been left incomplete and unclear. For some reason, talking it through with God this time, I have come up with SOMETHING! I wasn’t disconnected from God in my previous attempts, which leads me to believe that there may yet have been a Divine purpose in my wandering (I’m still reflecting on that), but for now I know this: God is the potter, but in order to shape us, He needs something to work with. Vision is the emulsifier of identity—it makes who we are stick together in a unified manner and keeps us on a course. I have now found a small piece of that, and I’m going to run with it for now and keep asking for more.

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Something Different

It all began with a fortune, you know, from a fortune cookie:

My fortune at dinner that night.

These things are usually meant to be pretty generic, but it’s always amusing (and sometimes I think God-ordained) when they line up with actual events about to happen in your life. In this case, I knew that what I had planned for my weekend was going to be different than normal. What was it you ask? This:

Yay for the arts!

I accompanied a poem reading on violin for an art expo at a local church. There were singers, dancers, musicians, and fine artists of all sorts—and completely free. It was worth the time, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. 🙂
That’s all I really have to say about that… but not quite. I don’t really have much to say about performing, but I do have something to say about the experience.

I observed many things about myself through this event—mainly, that I need “alone.” I’ve been around people and their “noise” almost constantly since last school year began and I started realizing through this event that I had forgotten who I was. Aloneness gives me a chance to talk to myself and remember lessons I’ve learned and places I’ve been. If I don’t spend time with myself, I forget who I am. My identity doesn’t readily flow out of me, I have to be intentional about being me. This is a hard thing. It takes me a while to get past the initial depression of loneliness, but once I do, I find myself coming alive like never before and enjoying the company of others more fully. Perhaps this is just one of the many intricacies of being an introvert. Whatever it is, it certainly is something different, and I can’t wait to explore it more.

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Adoration

Lately, I have felt God pressing on my heart to stop asking Him for stuff. It all falls in line with my last two posts actually. I’ve been feeling challenged to pray only in thankfulness and adoration of Who God is and of His qualities as revealed in Scripture and my daily life. For the course of this next school year, when I go to pray, I will only thank God for Who He is and proclaim His character over my circumstances. At the very least, this will take my eyes off of my circumstances and put them back on the One Who ordains them and presides over them. Blessed be the Name of the LORD.

God is love. (1 John 4:8)

God is holy. (Leviticus 11:44; 1 Peter 1:16)

God is spirit. (John 4:24)

God is a consuming fire. (Deuteronomy 4:24; Hebrews 12:29)

Here I begin; LORD, here am I.

Hineni: "Here am I Lord" by Sandi Padilla. Used with permission.

Visit Sandi Padilla’s Facebook page to learn more about her painting.

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Ransacked

I’ve been hearing a lot of messages lately about God’s love. God’s love. God’s affection. As one speaker put it, the word love is used so much that it fails to impact us the way it should when used in regard to the way God feels about us. God is affectionate toward us. Affectionate. Yet even this word seems dead to me, or I to it. Should that move me to cry to God for a heart that can respond to Him? In some small way, it does. Maybe if I start asking, that desire will grow.

I want, as Mike Bickle said in a message at IHOP, a heart that is fascinated by God. The most important thing in life has got to be the knowledge of God. The knowledge of God is the experience of Him in all of the ways that He expresses His identity. He is Jehovah-Rapha, Jehovah-Nissi, Jehovah-Jireh, Adonai, Elohim, El-Shaddai, El-Elyon. He is Healer, Provider, Father, Redeemer, Lover, Friend, and King. He is wonderful, majestic, awesome, active, compassionate, holy, and beautiful. I want the knowledge of this God and knowledge to the full.

Right now, I am learning to experience God as “the God who is for me.” Somehow in all my time walking with God, I have failed to truly consider Him as “for me,” but somehow saw Him as “indifferent to me.” But the Bible says that God is for us, and very passionately so! As Ben Woodward says in a prayer from His Proclamation and Confession workbook, “But today I stare into the truth of Your word and declare that You loved me with such a great love that You ransacked heaven on my behalf and sent Your Son to save me!” (Proclamation and Confession workbook, page 55) I am aware that there is great power in this truth, but my heart can’t seem to connect with it. But I want to. I have no choice but to keep pressing in and proclaiming the truth until God releases to me the understanding of it. Father, reveal to me the knowledge of God!

The knowledge of God begins here.
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Life-Cycles and Repetition

This morning, I woke up with questions on my mind. Let me explain some history: the space of time between this post and the last has been considerable. Here is what you need to know. Sometimes in life, people will hurt us and circumstances will crush us. It’s a very general statement, I know, but it’s a start. Since the start of this semester at college for me, I have had people enter my life who have reminded me of past hurts: friends who say that they enjoy your company but then don’t spend time with you. It seems contradictory to me. It makes me wonder what kind of baggage they must be dealing with. But I digress, throughout life, I believe you will always encounter people who lift you up as well as people who bring you down. You will always encounter situations that energize you and circumstances that drain the life-blood out of you. Which leads me to the question: why?

Why do we go through these situations? Are there lessons to be learned? Am I supposed to grow through my circumstances? None of these questions are explicitly invalid; however, it might be simpler than I thought at first. Circumstances will cause us to grow and lessons can be gleaned from our interactions with people, but maybe it is mainly our job to endure. Endurance is an interesting character trait. It can provide ground for bitterness to take root, or it can become a bed of rich spices and much joy.

I believe that one of the most significant reasons that we continually face certain types of hard circumstances and difficult people is simply to remember where we have been. Maybe the point of pain is to remember. Maybe the point of remembrance is to hold on to my identity. Maybe, just maybe, the goal is to endure, and the fruit of endurance depends on the seeds I sow as I persevere. Maybe whether I produce bitterness or joy depends on the thoughts I entertain while I am in the midst of enduring. The Bible says, “Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. He who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.” (Ps. 126:5-6)

Maybe, as I continually go through my different life-cycles, I will learn to grow closer to Jesus. Maybe, as I walk closer with Jesus, I will begin to see His power work through me to redeem my circumstances and plant seeds of faithfulness in the people who hurt me. Maybe, just maybe, it all starts with enduring.