When the challenges of daily life press in, it can be difficult to hold on to truth and hope. Trusting God for His provision sometimes becomes challenging and downright tough. Right now we all are touched by high food prices and skyrocketing gas prices. When we read the news, we continue to see opportunities to allow our trust to wain, and if we’re not careful, hopelessness washes over us. When despair tries to crush us, that’s when we must tell ourselves the truth: God’s Word is true; He is faithful; He’s a good Father, He never fails.
We must also possess and maintain vision for what we know is God’s desire for us and for America. Sometimes we have to re-evaluate our hearts, where we spend our time and money, and make sure we are still focused.
Proverbs 29:18 (NKJV) says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” The Amplified Translation says, “Where there is no vision [no redemptive revelation of God], the people perish.”
We must receive and maintain God-birthed vision now - vision that will motivate us to faith and action. Vision is a life-changer, a rearranger. Its hunger can be insatiable, a motivating force creating energy and energizing creativity.
Vision moves us from mere mental assent to physical action. It separates the doer from the hearer only, the disciple from the convert, and excellence from mediocrity. It is also what separates a reaped harvest from a ripe harvest (see Matthew 9:37).
People change careers due to Holy Spirit-generated vision. Some have walked away from ease and comfort, others earthly fame as this awesome force of heaven moved into their lives. It can mess things up, alter lifestyles, rock the boat. Visionaries rarely go with the flow - they create it.
I remember hearing Wayne Myers, a well-known missionary to Mexico, speak in the first missions conference I ever attended. I was single at the time and still living at home, 22 or 23 years old. The first night the host church ended up with about a third of my bank account for their missions program. The second night they got another third. You guessed it: The last night I gave the rest. If there had been a fourth night, I’d have been walking home - I’d have sown my car!
There was no manipulation: Wayne didn’t coerce me to give them money. No one pressured me. What happened? Some of the all-consuming, all-encompassing vision he has for reaching the world with the gospel was imparted to me - the impossible-to-explain, you-just-have-to-experience-it, Holy Ghost osmosis which sometimes happens. I’ve given to missions ever since.
I remember when I received vision to minister to those devastated by pain and suffering. It was 1976, February 10, to be exact. The country was Guatemala, the village was San Pedro, the setting was a food line. I was a server, dishing soup to hungry women and children who had lost everything the previous week in an earthquake that killed 30,000 people and left a million homeless. I vividly recall dishing soup into cans, bottles, jars (whole or broken), and whatever else people could find to hold a little soup. I also remember looking at the last lady in line - a mother holding her 2 or 3-year-old child, who likely hadn’t eaten in days, and telling her there was “no mas” (no more).
Things got all messed up in my life at that moment! I could no longer look the other way and pretend not to see the needs of suffering humanity. I had looked into hungry eyes…hopeless eyes…haunting eyes. Plans were changed, spending habits altered, and priorities rearranged. Vision had come to me. Things have never been quite the same since.
Oh, for spiritual eyes NOW to see the potential harvest! For ears to hear the word of the Lord. For insights to understand the times! God is speaking a clear word to those who are listening.
Can you feel the breeze of Pentecost picking up? No, it’s not yet the rushing, mighty wind, but the breeze is beginning to blow. I feel it when I pray, worship, and commune with Father. I feel it as I traverse this country trumpeting a wake-up call.
From Ezekiel 37: 1-10 (Amplified Bible):
“The hand of the Lord was upon me, and He brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones.
And He caused me to pass round about among them, and behold, there were very many [human bones] in the open valley or plain, and behold, they were very dry.
And He said to me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, You know!
Again He said to me, Prophesy to these bones and say to them, O you dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.
Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath and spirit to enter you, and you shall live;
And I will lay sinews upon you and bring up flesh upon you and cover you with skin, and I will put breath and spirit in you, and you [dry bones] shall live; and you shall know, understand, and realize that I am the Lord [the Sovereign Ruler, Who calls forth loyalty and obedient service].
So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a [thundering] noise and behold, a shaking and trembling and a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone.
And I looked and behold, there were sinews upon [the bones] and flesh came upon them and skin covered them over, but there was no breath or spirit in them.
Then said He to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath and spirit, son of man, and say to the breath and spirit, Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath and spirit, and breathe upon these slain that they may live.’
So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath and spirit came into [the bones], and they lived and stood up upon their feet, an exceedingly great host.”
I hear the Father asking, “Can America’s dry bones live?” He wants to awaken faith in us. If we will hear and obey, the God of the wind will be unleashed.
I, as Elijah did, hear the “sound of abundance of rain” (I Kings 18:41, KJV). The sound isn’t yet thunder - don’t expect it to be that loud. It is a gentle rumbling in the distance. But it is ominous. It is the voice of the Lord.
If we can only hear that sound - just as Elijah did - the strongholds of Baal will be overthrown! Woe to the Ahabs and Jezebels of our day! Our God is about to answer by fire (cleansing). And just as Israel did, the people will say, “The Lord, He is God” (revelation and repentance), and the rains will come - the rains of revival.
Pray with me:
Bring vision to Your people, Father. Finish Your cleansing work and let the fire fall. Then release Your wind. Breathe on us again…intensely! May we in America turn to You with all our hearts.
Let the rains come. We're dry and thirsty. Let the river of life flow with great force to all the earth. Bring a mighty flood! In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.
Our decree:
We decree that America’s bones shall live again and we shall be saved!
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1 comment:
Amen!
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