The Lordship of Jesus Christ

O Adonai, if I have found favor in Your eyes,” he said, “then let the Lord (Adonai, the Angel of Covenant, the Messiah) go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, forgive our wickedness and our sin, and take us as your inheritance. – Exodus 34:9

According to the commission given to Moses, supernatural signs have a “voice.” (Exodus 4:8 KJV) There is a message that accompanies the signs. The message is one of restoration of God’s covenant people to a place of spiritual prominence and submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

In every age, God’s spiritual voice that is validated by signs and wonders always calls that generation back to the Lordship of Christ. This was especially true during the “Voice of Healing” revival of the 50’s, as numerous ministers admonished the church to relinquish their personal agendas and programs to embrace intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit.

Moses had a face-to-face friendship with the Lord. That exchange facilitated the apprehension of His desire for complete leadership of God’s covenant people. When we in this generation discover that place of friendship, we will also understand more fully how the spirit of anti-christ has infiltrated the church with a counterfeit anointing that usurps the Spirit’s leadership.

The book of Revelation calls it the “spirit of the Nicolaitans” that ventures to overshadow God’s aspiration to release total liberty in the church and mobilize His people into a priesthood of believers. That trend will change as we become more discerning of His presence and walk more intimately with Him.

We create spiritual disorder when we insist upon our own plans and agendas and fail to embrace His. Grace is being offered to relinquish that mind-set along with the wonderful opportunity to participate with the Lord in His plans. This union is where true spiritual fruitfulness will be generated.

The generation that exited Egypt under Moses’ leadership missed their door of opportunity and wandered 38 years as a result! In many ways, that could accurately depict the generation that participated in the Voice of Healing revival of the 40’s and 50’s. Nevertheless, change is upon us. We believe a seven year transition or overlap season is now coming to an end that has taken us from the leadership identified according to Moses into the leadership of Joshua.

Joshua— The Overcoming Anointing

The 120 years of spiritual activity from 1885-2005 functioned in the order of Moses. Clearly, Moses was one of the greatest men of God who ever lived. His intimate friendship with the Lord set a standard we aspire to today. Even so, the totality of his original mandate was not fully achieved in his lifetime.

Moses brought the people out of Egypt under God’s mighty hand of power through miracles, signs and wonders; but, that generation did not cross over into their destiny because of their “stiff-necked” condition. According to Deuteronomy 29:4, they did not possess the revelatory anointing essential to co-operate with God.

Their eyes and ears were not opened and their hearts were not devoted to the revelation of Heaven’s plan. As a result, they were disqualified and a season of discipline ensued.

Nevertheless, the next generation emerged with spiritual hunger and desperation that captured Heaven’s attention and positioned them for their inheritance. That is the same model we have followed over the last century.

Naturally, that is not to point a condemning finger at the saints of the prior generation. Clearly, there was a remnant of very godly people who recognized their day of visitation and openly embraced it. Even so, a prudent analysis of history reveals that the corporate church as a whole did not embrace the open door opportunities set before them to cross spiritual Jordan.

According to John G. Lake’s analysis in 1925, “the people were more captured by the phenomena of God than the Person.” That mistake was made during the early 20th century and repeated in the ’50s. For the 21st century generation to cross over in a Joshua anointing, it will likewise require God’s great-grace for walking intimately with Him, along with a thorough understanding of the lessons learned from past achievements and failures. Hebrews 13:7-8 declares,

Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

This biblical admonition requires that we remember and be constantly mindful of those who have gone before us. Furthermore, we are to consider well and observe accurately the end of their lives. This examination positions us to imitate their faith. In so doing, the Lord will do through us what he did through them by mighty expressions of His power and authority, because He is the same yesterday, today and forever.

The Lord promised Joshua that He would walk with him as He did with Moses. Our assurance is the same. As the Lord accompanied the mighty champions of the last century, so also will He be with us. Even so, what we do may appear totally different. Joshua’s accomplishments were distinctly different from those of Moses.

It was to point the people to their inheritance and initiate desire and tenacity to press in to Him for the grace to become the overcomers who retrieve from the dominion of the adversary the “land of promise” that rightfully belongs to God’s people and the lordship of Jesus.

Appropriating Our Spiritual Currency

With a fresh word from the Lord there is an equally important need for increase in our measure of discernment. History has proven that each major juncture in God’s time-line is met with a deluge of voices. However, the Lord promised that His sheep will know His voice. He said,

When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers — John 10:4-5

The Lord comes with miracles, signs and wonders to validate a message that is firmly rooted and grounded in the written word. God’s people are often captivated by the signs and wonders but only a remnant captures the message. This trend must be reversed in this hour. The early Church model prayed that the Lord would,

grant that Your bond-servants may speak Your word with all confidence, while You extend Your hand to heal, and signs and wonders take place through the name of Your holy servant Jesus — Acts 4:29-30

Truth is the seal of God. The Spirit of Truth will guide us into all truth and thereby eliminate all forms of deliberate falsehood and hypocrisy and that message will be confirmed with Heaven’s affirmation of the miraculous.

The Holy Spirit worked with the early disciples with sign and wonders to confirm the message of God’s Kingdom. To us a measure of grace is being allotted to quicken our spirits for receptivity to that message. A supernatural hunger is provoking us to move beyond cold formal religiosity to pursue relationship with Him. To even possess this desire is God’s gift.

Recently in a revelatory experience the Lord told me to tell His people to “carefully appropriate their spiritual currency.” To each is given a measure of faith. We must exercise keen discernment to determine where we appropriate that faith and invest our time, energy and spiritual currency into this new day. There are many prophetic voices out there and we must discover the ones that have the life of God.

Free From the Laodicean Spirit

The Laodicean Church Age is one identified in the Scripture as “lukewarm” Christianity with the “People’s rule” that creates apathy and lethargy. It is fundamentally essential for the spirit of stupor to be extracted for us to begin to see with spirit eyes. The Apostle Paul said:

Even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God
— 2 Corinthians 4:3-4

Our adversary has worked diligently to release the “spirit of stupor” over the western church. This diabolical scenario blinds our eyes and shields our ears to spiritual truth. It shields us from the glory of Christ that depicts the perfect image of God and promotes a sense of satisfaction to simply live in a justified state without being incited to greater depths in Him.

A “great light” will be offered to those who have formally known darkness and gloom. Much like the promise given to the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, the people who walk in darkness will see a brilliant light and He will make the end of the age a glorious season. (See Isaiah 9:1-2)

Our directive is to create an atmosphere for people to personally encounter the Lord and also address issues of the soul that have kept us from divine destiny. The Lord is expressing His desire to release a revelatory realm that allows people to obtain a vision of destiny and the “hope of our calling” that dispels hopelessness and gloom. Paul said,

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words — 1 Corinthians 2:12-13

Personal rendezvous’ with the Lord delivers us from gloom and stupor by allowing hope to permeate our hearts with visions of destiny and the importance of this generation. We then endeavor to lay aside every encumbrance and entanglement that has hindered us in the past and motivate us to move on to God’s high calling.

Greater Grace for Destiny

The religious spirit is so closely akin to the Holy Spirit, the Lord announced, it would deceive the very elect IF POSSIBLE. That is a sobering warning granted to us in Matthew 24. Nevertheless, there is an unseen force compelling many believers out of complacency or rigid religious formality…it is divine destiny. Something has been imparted into the spiritual DNA of this generation that rejects the “lukewarm” Laodicean spirit that has so subtlety deceived many.

It is God’s grace that allows spiritual awakening to recognize the distinction between these two spirits. The religious spirit introduces into the Church the spirit of the world nullifying the Grace of God. The views of Truth necessary to purify the church are not such as the world gives, but are such as are communicated by God’s Spirit.

The counterfeit spirit will attempt to lead the Church away from the reality of God expressed in the Book of Acts. During the later years of his life, John G. Lake received a powerful angelic visitation. In this encounter the angel opened the scriptures to the Book of Acts saying, “This is Pentecost as God gave it through the heart of Jesus. Strive for this…contend for this…teach the people to pray for this. For this, and this alone will meet the necessity of the human heart and this alone will have power to overcome the forces of darkness.”

As the angel departed he admonished Lake insisting, “Pray, pray, pray…Teach the people to pray. Prayer and prayer alone, much prayer, persistent prayer is the door of entrance to the heart of God.”

Believers who pursue the Lord with honest and sincere hearts will begin to recognize the spirit of religion more definitively as the counterfeit of the true anointing that should rightfully be embraced by the Lord’s people. Many of the counterfeit spirits operating in the church will become increasingly less effective and revealed as a thief. A clear line of delineation is going to be drawn in these days. It will become much more discernable who truly serves God and who does not. This will begin the days prophesied by Malachi when he said,

Then those who feared the LORD spoke to one another, and the LORD gave attention and heard it and a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the LORD and who esteem His name. They will be Mine,” says the LORD of hosts, “on the day that I prepare My own possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him. So you will again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him — Malachi 3:16-18

Truth from the book of Acts will be utilized to lay the axe to the root of the religious tree so the emerging, anointed tree of Life can become more clearly visible.

In the Spirit on the Lord’s Day

Our directive is to create an atmosphere for people to encounter the Lord experientially. For some time now I have been preaching from Revelation 1 and highlighting John’s Patmos vision. John was arguably the most intimate and familiar person on the planet with the Lord Jesus. John walked with the Lord for 3 1/2 years; witnessed the miracles, signs and wonders; witnessed the crucifixion/resurrection; became one with God in the upper room with the 120 and served the Lord six decades as an apostle of that generation. Even all of that did not prepare John for what he saw in his Patmos Island vision. Clearly, his heart was expanded and his capacity for God increased after seeing the Lord as Supreme Judge and Overcoming King. No doubt John’s life was not the same after his time on Patmos.

The Lord is expressing His desire to release a revelatory realm that allows people to experientially encounter Him and obtain a vision of destiny and the “hope of our calling” that dispels hopelessness and enlarges our heart and increases our capacity for God. The Holy Spirit spoke through Isaiah saying,

Encourage the exhausted, and strengthen the feeble. Say to those with anxious heart, “Take courage, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance; the recompense of God will come, but He will save you. Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will shout for joy. For waters will break forth in the wilderness and streams in the Arabah.

The scorched land will become a pool and the thirsty ground springs of water; in the haunt of jackals, its resting place, grass becomes reeds and rushes. A highway will be there, a roadway, and it will be called the Highway of Holiness. The unclean will not travel on it, but it will be for him who walks that way, and fools will not wander on it — Isaiah 36:3-8

Jacob had such an experience in Genesis 28 and it impacted the remainder of his life. The Heavens opened and he was told of his destiny and that of his descendants. He discovered the Lord’s presence and Heaven’s host assigned to co-labor with man. Eventually, his nature was changed and he entered the destiny revealed in this experience.

Every leader we are in relationship with recognizes this great need in the western church. Our written and spoken messages are built around this reality. Even so, as we have traveled the nation, we discovered an epidemic of hopelessness in the western church that the Lord intends to reverse. Spiritual vision from the revelatory realm of Heaven provides hope derived by a revelation of our calling and destiny; hope dispels hopelessness. That is the promise of Ephesians 1:17-18.

It is not difficult to discern our present condition. Nevertheless, I personally desire to be a loyal servant like the ones who ventured into the land of promise and returned with a faithful report in the days of Moses. Yes, there are giants in the land, but God is able to empower us to overcome. This impartation will strengthen our feeble knees and encourage our downcast hearts.

Life to Dry Bones

The prophet Ezekiel was taken to a valley of dry bones. He was not instructed to condemn them, but to prophesy life to them. He said,

I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they came to life and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army. Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold, they say, “Our bones are dried up and our hope has perished. We are completely cut off.’ “Therefore prophesy and say to them, “Thus says the Lord GOD, “Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, My people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel.

That is our hope and expectation. We desire to breathe life into dry bones and begin to see them take shape and form a troop of those who overcome.

Though the western church may look like a valley of dry bones, I believe the Lord sees her prophetically as an exceedingly great army. We are convinced our nation and the western church has an incredible destiny yet to be fulfilled. When people are given a glimpse of their individual role in that destiny, it transforms them and sets them on the course to repentance and the impartation of the Christ-like nature.

They see the cause of God and are forever changed and have the joy of their salvation restored. We are seeing that happen now. Strongholds of hopelessness, despair, depression and other oppressive mind-sets will be overcome when God’s “Zoe” life is breathed into this army.

To see the revelation of His glory and power, we must be partakers of His nature and convey the attributes that capture His attention. Perhaps no man is history experienced this more than Moses. There were portions of Moses’ nature that pleased God and qualified him for his destiny.

Even so, the apostle Paul challenges New Testament believers to press in to God and experience all that Moses did and more. Moses knew the Lord face-to-face and friend-to-friend under a covenant sealed with the blood of bulls and goats. How much more should we in the covenant sealed with the very blood of Jesus Christ.
(2 Corinthians 3:7-8)

The Example of Moses

As the leader of Israel, Moses, described in Scripture as the meekest man in the land, stood on the brink of inheriting long awaited promises. Nevertheless, to his credit, he was not satisfied to simply experience God’s promises, he also longed for God’s presence. This clearly implies the unwise ability to walk in our prophetic promises without the Lord’s presence.

Furthermore Moses’ heart was not satisfied with the Lord’s promise and presence; he also desired to see His glory. These should also be our expectations and longings.

As the Lord passed before Moses in His goodness, He declared,

the Lord! the Lord! A God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in
loving-kindness and truth, keeping mercy and loving-kindness for thousands,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but Who will by no means clear the
guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s
children, to the third and fourth generation — Exodus 34:6-7 (Amplified)

It is the very nature of God to be filled with kindness and truth. These virtues will position us to experience the beams of Heavenly light that proceeds from His hands to display great exploits to His glory.