To Everything A Season
The Lord gave me the following Scripture for the nation and the Year of 2009 in the early part of November 2008:
“A time to get and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to cast away.” —Ecclesiastes 3:6
I have never really received annual instructions like these, but I am basically homebound by the Lord, or to put it in Scripturese, I am detained by the Lord to be near my family and local church. I have done some travel and local meetings, but the only word I can describe as to what I feel in my spirit is...
PROFOUND.
There is a deep sense of expectation of both good and evil, of foreboding and of peace. I know that God is re-insulating my spiritual nervous system for...
RESILIENCE.
On New Years Day 1994, the moment the New Year had come in, the Lord spoke to me that he wanted me to become like steel-reinforced concrete to stand in a storm for hysterical people whose idols had been removed from them and the carpet had been pulled out from under them. I believe we will have relative peace through 2010, but the strain on our currency through printing money to meet demand added to the burden of Judgment and international events will cause our system to unravel by 2012. There is about to be temporary reprieve and the euphoria of “rebuilding”. Don’t get caught up in the parade, but get out of debt and be will to allow the Lord to change you, to show you what to get, what to lose, what to keep, and what to throw away. Personally, I know God is hemming me in and visiting me so that I will...
STAND.
Not just for myself, but others as well. I am finding Divine appointments and people to minister to everywhere I turn, even in mundane things. I find that every person, Christian and non-Christian, is aware we are living in the end-times and times of...
CHANGE.
During this time of being hemmed in by the Lord, I have the distinct impression the Holy Spirit, like a Sergeant of Arms is calling the Lord’s troops to present arms for inspection, upgrading, and cleaning. I don’t know that I have ever been more aware of how precious and short time really is. Simultaneously I am battling almost a paralysis and numbness which seeks to blanket the moment—I am hearing from so many the same thing. The certainty we are entering into battle none of us in America has ever heretofore seen or felt is...
REALITY.
All that I am hearing from the Lord is too seek Him, draw near, don’t live in fear, but fear God and live, depart from procrastination, do what is in my heart to do, and prepare for the...
GLORY OF GOD.
Just recently in a personal moment of fear, I looked up the Hebrew meaning of the OT name, “Abimelech”. I was so comforted by the knowledge that “the Father is the Lord”. Do not forget in the face of whatever trying circumstances you are facing, to everything there is a season, a definite period of time with...
A BEGINNING AND AN END.
Do not despair or give up seeing the Goodness of God in the land of the living. Don’t believe the lie you have to die and go to Heaven to see better days. Jesus said there would be days like this. Above all, don’t join the throng of delusional Christians who are changing their believe system to adapt to the spirit of anti-Christ pervading our culture, but renew your mind in, soak in, call to remembrance, and stand in...
THE WORD OF GOD.
Everything else will pass away anyway. Your house probably won’t be standing 100 years from now. The car you are driving will be recycled. The relatives you have then won’t know you—you will, at best, be a photograph in someone’s album. What you do in this life to serve and love Jesus will, however, stand forever. Thank God, that because of the Blood of Jesus, both we and our obedience to Him will...
LIVE FOREVER.
Whatever God is telling you to do in your life, do it and do it quickly and excellently. Our laws will soon change, and many who serve the Lord will find themselves under the baleful eye of a system that is increasingly hostile to ministry. Take communion regularly, for I believe it is more significant in this season for a New Testament Believer to receive the Lord’s Table, that when our fathers the Jews received the first Passover in Egypt. We are about to experience a purposeful emergence, change, Divine strategic relocations—we are in an eternal...
SEASON OF PASSAGE.
Do not defer your faith to try to recreate a time of Divine tolerance when we were allowed to embrace an American Jesus, the idolatry of the god of our culture, and not the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Head of the Church and Lord of all Creation. We are facing the reality of the God Who never changes and a culture and nation with a hook in her jaw being led out with every other nation to the...
DAY OF THE LORD.
I pray for you and yours for this to be a safe passage, for God to provide miraculously for you, to protect you marvelously, and that the love of the Truth will never depart from you or your loved ones in this day of Apostasy. Ezra and the elders of Israel were returning from captivity in Babylon to rebuild Jerusalem. They refused the protection of the king of Babylon, but trusted in Almighty God, “Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God to seek from Him a straight and right way for us, our little ones, and all our possessions. For I was ashamed to request of the king a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemy along the way, because we had told the king, ‘The Hand of our God is upon all them for good who seek Him, but His Power and His Wrath are against all those who forsake Him.’ So we fasted and besought our God for this, and He heard our entreaty.” —Ezra 8: 21-23
Beloved, it is time for the rubber to hit the road. I has become so plain to me that most Christians are not looking to Jesus but searching for Moses. We are looking for a flesh and blood deliver and king, but not trusting in the King of Kings. That’s why so many of us have gotten whipped out with preachers—we expected them to deliver us; we put saddles on them and tried to make them take us where only God can. Then we cursed them when they could not take us there. We do the same with political leaders. I have watched Christians implore God for political deliverance for the last 30 years. My observation is that I can always tell when politicians are lying: when their mouth is moving. American Christians are like women so desperate for a man, even when they know better, all they want is to hear what they want to hear. We cry out for our leaders to tell us what we want to hear, love them when they say it the way we want to hear it, and hate them when they disagree. We are more interested in emotional sound-bites than truth—that goes for most folks expectations for preachers as well. Even the unbeliever knows something big this way comes. Read Psalms 37 in the Amplified Bible if you have a copy. We must feast on the Lord and...
HIS FAITHFULNESS.
Above all, strive to be led by the Holy Spirit. He is our Comforter, our Guide, our Teacher, our Helper, our Convictor—most importantly, He is God. He has been given the Power and Authority to force us into the mold of Jesus Christ, to hedge us into His Image, to carry us through His Sufferings. There is something we seem to have forgotten about being led by and filled with the Holy Spirit. “The wind blows (breathes) where it wills and though you hear its sound, yet you neither know where it comes from nor where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." —John 3:8
Mind you, I am not talking about being church hoppers or unstable, but these are transient times in which life as we know it is coming to an end. I am convinced so many of us have been at peace with a system that hates God. We have been like Lot prospering in the gates of Sodom. We have wanted the Holy Spirit to bless us in our endeavors, but have forgotten He came to change us. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Our position with God is that He never changes and that everyone and everything else around Him does. What if the purpose of God means a radical change in our lives? What if I am nestled down in place of soul or position that no longer suits the purposes of God? Where has compromise, or presumption, or rebellion, or stubbornness tainted my obedience, and that which the Lord used to wink at, He is now coming for what is His? The Holy Spirit is not just breathing on us, children of God. This is a Last Days call of the four winds of change—this is a command for the saints to come to attention, for our...
ADAPTATION.
This is a day for Holy Spirit damage control, for each of us to allow Him to clean up whatever messes exist around or in us, by our own doing or the intermeddling of others. This is a day for us to come out of the confusion caused by having our minds set on the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life. This is the time for us to renew our search for tenderness towards our First Love, to reaffirm our commitment to Him as the Pearl of Great Price, and to surrender ourselves. This is the time we must declare our...
AVAILABILITY.
Yield to the Lord in this hour, friends. Be instant in season and out. Study to show yourselves approved. Don’t faint in the day of adversity. Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His Might. We are drinking a cup we have never drunk and receiving a baptism we have never known. This is a most unwanted...
VISITATION.
IN THE PRESENCE OF OUR ENEMIES.
Vaughn Clark
Philippians 3: 10-15
PRAISE GOD FOR A MOST CHALLENGING AND PROVOKING WORD. I BELIEVE TOO THIS IS A DEFINING TIME FOR GOD'S PEOPLE.
O, THAT WE MIGHT HEED THE CALL AND SURRENDER ALL TO HIM FIND HIM AS WE HAVE NEVER FOUND HIM AND LIVE AS WE HAVE NEVER LIVED.
THANK YOU FOR PROCLAIMING THIS WORD.
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Yet Once Again
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Note: In First Testament speak:
Pharaoh = the most powerful heads of States
Egypt = the strongest and most wealthy Nations
The Mighty God of Israel = Creator God, the only God of all people
(Isaiah, chapter 30, verses 7 - 13 are the text of reference for this devotional, presented in modestly poetic form.)
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YET ONCE AGAIN, HERE IS GOD’S PLAN
Rebellious children hear the Lord,
“You take counsel, but not in My Word.”
You find for yourself a ‘protector,’
one that is not Me,
advancing your own plans
and as though I do not exist,
you don’t inquire of Me.
You think that you will find your strength by the strength
of Pharaoh’s name
and all the while, you place your trust
in Egypt’s glorious fame.
So hear, rebellious children,
what the Lord has to say,
it is the strength of Pharaoh
that will be your shame,
and in placing your trust
in Egypt’s fame, Confusion to you it will bring!
When they come to your aid and see how
weak you are, they will retreat and in doing that,
will thereby leave you to defeat.
Their strength against you is to sit still!
Conversely, I the Lord, will never turn away,
but you did not seek advice from Me, rather
this is what you say: “Prophets of God, do not see,
tell us smooth things, prophesy to us deceitfully!”
“Get out of our way with all your ‘God Talk, ‘
we have decided how we shall walk.”
“Therefore,” says the God of all,
“your sin shall swell as the waves, a high and heavy wall,
and without prior notice, upon you it will fall.”
So hear this people everywhere,
in this unsafe and unsure hour,
let us not bend
to the weight of fear and of despair,
rather let us call upon the Lord,
The Mighty One of Israel,
the only One with POWER!
This is God’s Plan,
that He might rescue every man,
but He requires to be invited
into the conversations
of individual’s and of nations.
RAMONA COOK 09\10\09
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