Revival in the Land

Over the years, I have noticed that people tend to receive prophetic words, but then put them on the shelves of their lives, not knowing what to do with them. This is not God’s intention for His messages. He means for us to understand and grab hold of them in faith. Prophetic words are not meant to be hidden or confusing; they are meant to plant seeds in our lives that bring forth a harvest as we carefully water them with prayer and tend them with keen action.  We must take prophetic words, test them against Scripture, and then meditate upon them, being ready to implement them into our lives when the proper season arrives. We must refresh ourselves by personal remembrance of these words so that they build in intensity within our hearts and minds, lest we let them fall stagnant by the wayside. Simply said, if we do not use them, we will lose them.

I also believe it is important that we hear and re-hear prophetic words because they spark the faith needed to make a course correction in our lives as we see the pieces of the puzzle coming together. Prophetic words are visions for the future, strategies to be implemented, or prayer points on which to intercede until they come to fruition on earth. We are to judge according to Scripture and, having proved them accurate, to obey.We consistently receive the prophetic word that we are entering into a season of fresh Holy Spirit fire. When my church participated in forty days of prayer and worship (which extended another eighty days!), this word came up nightly. People all over our state began to ask for fresh fire of the Holy Spirit to spread across the country. Because the Holy Spirit has restated and reemphasized this, we recognize it is His desire for the body of Christ, for those who will choose to obey Him. He wants to breathe fresh anointing on this remnant—not just to be a blessing to those within the four walls of the church, but also to empower believers to be Kingdom ambassadors on the earth. Believers should be so saturated with the Holy Spirit that wherever they go, those they come in contact with are touched by the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit.

I am reminded of a vision I saw of two submarines—one was a very old submarine, such as we would have seen in the first half of the twentieth century. That old submarine was submerging under the water and I heard the Holy Spirit say, “That is the Charismatic movement. It is now submerging into the culture it once ruled.” I then saw another submarine coming up out of the water, one of our new nuclear Triton submarines. It was just breaking the surface when I heard the Holy Spirit say, “That is His remnant, New Testament church. It will now emerge from the culture to rule and reign.” Now, for that to happen, the church must be endued with power from on high, filled and refilled with the Holy Spirit. There must be a fresh fire and a fresh wind bringing forth a fresh anointing for us to live under. The anointing of the old season is not going to carry us forward to permeate and saturate a culture with God’s life-changing love and power. To rule and reign in life through Christ as Romans 5:17 says, the church must emerge from the culture with something more real, more powerful, and more enticing to those who are lost. The time for this is not in the future. It is not around the corner. The time for this is right now.I am reminded of a trip I took to Jacksonville, Florida, to minister at a church there. I was about a half hour late to the service when my flight landed and I finally arrived. Worship leader Rick Pino and his band were leading the congregation in praise as I walked in. It was evident from the moment I entered that high places were being reached and God’s supernatural activity was stirring there. As I walked from the back to the front of the auditorium, I began to see flashes of light going back and forth across the congregation. I stopped in my tracks because, as I have taught, that refers to angelic activity. Angels were moving all around the auditorium, ministering to God’s people. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came with His heavenly Hosts, who appeared as flames of fire and settled upon each person present in the Upper Room. Under the direction of the Holy Spirit in that Upper Room, the Hosts were ministering and delivering fresh, consecrating fire. I saw these flashes, these ministering angelic spirits, mere hours after I had been in Ohio declaring that the fresh fire of God was coming and sharing my prophetic vision about the submarines. I remember pausing in the aisle before I went forward, saying, “God, this is so big. Help me not to miss this. God, I don’t want to be on the bench; I want to be a player. I want to be in the game. I don’t want to sit this out.”

Friends, the season of the Third Great Awakening has now begun. God is giving many prophetic words about this, paired with confirming signs that cannot be ignored or denied. We must prepare ourselves individually and corporately to receive the Holy Spirit’s presence and power. We must dedicate our earthen vessels to be afresh and anew— not living our lives as we always have. We cannot make God’s priorities another line on our to-do lists. Don’t sit this out! Instead, we should realize that God’s activity is reality and our lives should ebb and flow in the river of His Holy Spirit. We must prepare our regions, bathing them in prayer. We cannot continue to treat those in our neighborhoods, our cities, our metropolitan areas, our states, and so forth, as if they are out of reach. With love, grace, forgiveness, and open arms, we should accept them as people created and loved by God Himself. As we do this, we make the cause of Christ truly known. We extend His Kingdom by being His hands and feet on the earth. We must prepare an Upper Room over our lives, our families, our cities, our states, and our countries to call down God’s glory. When we get in touch with what God is doing, He leads us to move in timing only He could have planned.