The chariots and Horsemen of Israel!

My attention today was drawn to the fact that a whole lot of Kingdom-minded believers are being pummeled by many challenges and problems.

A lot of us are facing formidable challenges. Many of us are facing a conspiracy of thousands of little issues that, taken together, threaten to be overwhelming. Some among us are facing victory that is so different than we expected, that is more complicated than we were expecting that it works as a weapon against our peace, breaking our focus. Some of us are feeling overwhelmed, but when we’re asked, we have a hard time identifying what is overwhelming us.

And as I saw that, I realized that it was on purpose: this is for a purpose. This is strategic. There is purpose for this. It’s not Father’s purpose, but the conspiracy of distractions is the enemy working overtime to distract us.

Father brought my attention to Second Kings:

2 Kings chapter 2:

“When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me, what can I do for you before I am taken from you?”

“Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit,” Elisha replied.

“You have asked a difficult thing,” Elijah said, “yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours—otherwise, it will not.”

As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind.  Elisha saw this and cried out, “My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!” And Elisha saw him no more. Then he took hold of his garment and tore it in two.

Elisha then picked up Elijah’s cloak that had fallen from him and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan.  He took the cloak that had fallen from Elijah and struck the water with it. “Where now is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” he asked. When he struck the water, it divided to the right and to the left, and he crossed over.”

  

As I saw this, I heard Father say, “I’m watching to see if you can be distracted, or if you’ll keep your eyes on the prize in the midst of all of the distractions.” We can’t be overcomers without overcoming, and Father really wants us to learn to overcome.

If we can be distracted, even by amazing things like “a chariot of fire and horses of fire,” then we aren’t ready for the double portion anointing. We will still have the testimony of having seen, possibly even ridden in a chariot of fire, and that’s not nothing! But we’ll miss the bigger prize that comes from keeping our focus where it ought to be.

Some of us have not even recognized, not remembered our heart crying out, “Let me inherit a double portion!” and some of us may never have gotten to the point of using words. But that cry really is in your heart.

May I say this to you: Father heard that cry, and it made his heart skip a beat to hear it! This is HIS heart’s desire, children that want more of him, more of his anointing, more of his ways! So it is with giddy joy that He is permitting the distractions: we really have asked a difficult thing, a thing that is only given to overcomers, and so he is giving us opportunity to overcome.

All that is hard to see, but the other part is more hidden. Father stands back and watches, biting his lip, to see if we’ll maintain our focus, to see if we’ll look past the distractions and the discouragements and see the thing he’s doing. But all the while, his other hand is reaching around behind us, touching us, pointing, drawing our attention, even occasionally grabbing our head and pointing it where we need to be looking. He’s doing everything in his formidable power to keep our attention where it needs to be in order that he can have the joy of giving us the double, the triple portion, beyond everything that our heroes and forerunners have had.

He really wants to have a bride that is not completely distracted by the trials, by the conspiracy of distractions, by the complications and nattering voices. He will have a bride that will overcome, and he wants you.

He’s conspiring, conspiring in favor of the cry of your heart.

The Vision of the Wooden Spoon

The vision began with a quiet stream, in a quiet, green meadow; it reminded me of Narnia for some reason: that peaceful. The stream was wider than one could jump across, and deeper than you’d want to wade across, and its flow was smooth and fairly fast. All in all, it was a very peaceful environment. The birds were singing.

Then a giant hand appeared in the sky, holding a giant wooden spoon, the kind of spoon that people use in the kitchen to mix cookie dough. The spoon dipped into the stream and stirred.

For a while, nothing much happened, except the stream became more turbulent from the spoon’s motion. After a minute or two, the stream darkened, and soon I could see things in the muddy stream: old tires, boots, cans, bottles, sticks and stones, jars, bags of rubbish. The hand with the spoon withdrew into the heavens.

I was kind of appalled. This had been a peaceful stream, in a beautiful meadow, and now it was full of trash and garbage and muck and mess. Well, actually, the peaceful stream had always had the trash and muck and garbage and muck and mess, but it had been lying hidden in the mud on the bottom of the stream. Now the stuff was out in the open.

The vision continued, and the stream kept flowing, and then I saw it: the garbage was flowing downstream with the flow of stream. Some of what had been stirred up came to the top of the stream, and was carried far downstream, out of the picture. Other things, heavier things, were carried a little ways downstream but they settled back to the bottom of the stream. Soon the stream was clear and peaceful again, but I knew that old tires, discarded shoes, bottles and cans were still there, lying on the bottom of the stream.

The hand with the spoon appeared again, and stirred the water again, and again the stream darkened with mud, again tires, discarded shoes, bottles, cans, and other detritus were stirred up, and again they floated various distances downstream.

The cycle was repeated several times, until eventually, the stirring from the almighty spoon did not bring up muck and garbage.

The stream returned to peace, but it flowed smoother, faster, than it had before, and I realized that it flowed cleaner than it had before. The garbage on the stream bed had settled under so much mud that the stream flowed smoothly over it, but still the garbage had polluted the stream.

Now the stream was actually clean.

I believe that this is what Father is doing in some of our lives. He’s stirring things up in our lives, and it’s uncomfortable. It’s easy to be appalled or offended at what he’s doing, because he’s good at what he does. Things are being stirred up, memories, habits, relationships that have been in our lives are being stirred up from the dark depths of our lives, and brought into the light.

And the reality is that much of what he’s stirring up is garbage: shame, embarrassment, memories of foolishness, of sin, histories of unwise choices, character weaknesses. It’s easy to resent these coming to the surface after how many years of being hidden in history.

But he’s bringing them up in order to wash them away, in order to remedy the issues. Trust him. Have hope, rest in the confident assurance that he does know what he’s doing, and that he’s working for good in you, for the purity that we really have wanted. He’s answering our prayers.

We can trust the spoon. More specifically, we can trust the hand wielding the spoon.

Homosexuals And the Move of God

There’s been a lot of talk about an increase in the movement of God on the earth, and how this is the beginning of a new “wave” of God’s interaction with this planet.

Recently, someone asked me a good question: “Where do gay people fit in the next wave? I heard one prophet say they will be a part of it, and they won’t necessarily be delivered, but that they too can walk with Jesus and be filled with the Spirit. Will the next wave deliver them, empower them wherever they are at, help them live single, or something else?”

I’ve heard testimonies of Spirit-filled homosexual churches. I’ve heard prophets and evangelists testifying that they’ve been among churches that come from the homosexual movement: not “ex gays ministering to homosexuals,” not “former homosexuals,” but “churches made up of people in the homosexual community.”

The testimonies, from reliable sources, are of churches, filled with the Spirit of God, among the homosexual community. (The testimonies, like the churches themselves, are not in the public eye because of all of the wrath they have received from the religious community.)

I’m committed to learning from others’ testimonies (http://j.mp/WUa9gS), so I will not reject these testimonies. In point of fact, they are fulfillment of prophetic words from myself and others, and fulfillment of God’s promise that he would call people to himself from the ends of the earth.  

So where do homosexual churches fit into this next move of God? For right now, I’ll employ a new phrase that I’ve only just learned: “I don’t know.” (Whew. It feels good to say that.)

I’ve spoken out publicly about two characteristics that I (believe I) know about the coming wave:

1) It’s going to be so different than what we’ve experienced before and what we expect, that it will be hard for most of us to recognize.

2) It’s going to be so big that it’s kind of overwhelming.

When you combine those two, it makes for a real mess: outspoken church leaders who are overwhelmed by things they don’t understand or recognize. That ought to be interesting. Perhaps MacArthur’s “Strange Fire” conference was a representation of that?

But there’s a third thing that (I believe) I’ve seen: this wave, this move of God, being so big, and being so different, will carry with it things that we’ve always considered heresy, wrong, unclean. (Tsunamis are very seldom sparkly clean.)

This is where I put the reports of God moving freely among gay churches: I know (I’ve seen it in visions) God is going to breathe life into the homosexual community, and I hear reliable reports that he has begun to do this already. But wait! Shouldn’t they repent? Yeah, but I didn’t repent of all of my sin until I understood it was sin, and some of that was decades after I was saved and filled with the Spirit. And I guarantee you that their repentance is not my responsibility!

This is also where I put the (equally credible) reports of the New Age movement coming to Christ. I know God is going to breathe life into the New Age community, and I hear reliable reports that this, too, has begun to already. But wait! Shouldn’t they repent? Yeah, but see above.

So yes, the grace of God convicts God’s children of sin, and leads them to cleansing and repentance! Yes! Yes! But He clearly does that in his own time, not in mine.

So how will homosexuals and New Agers fit into the next move of God? I don’t know. I expect that they’ll be involved, but let’s see what God does, shall we? And let’s welcome those He brings into his house!