Speaking the Word

The last few weeks it has been heavy in my spirit that we as the body of Christ are in times of change, transition, difficulty, shift, transfer, redirection and pressing. This is timely and this was always coming. Last fall the Lord told me that the things we had been asking for for the last year were indeed coming but not when some had expected. We’ve been asking for breakthrough, for some sort of stride that would give us peace and joy. We were asking for the oil of the Lord to ease the friction we had been experiencing trying to do the work of the Spirit in a natural and fallen world and we weren’t experiencing it. God said to me last fall that there was going to be a pruning. As we were entering the season of natures pruning it was an amazing word to be able to look also into the world around me and see that all things must go through a season of “fall” and “pruning”. During that time things that were once contributing parts of the whole will do one of two things- give up and fall by the way side or hold on and become part of a new and life yielding thing.

I have to tell you, brothers and sisters, that we are in the time of this season where we are experiencing the final push. Please, do not be those who gave up during the final push. This is the time to press in and to pick up the sword that is the Word of God and fight like we’ve never fought. As giving birth cannot be stopped once the baby is coming- the new life is coming and will not be stopped and we Christians have come into a final push in the spirit that is instinctual. This time does not require that we study strategy and that we plan and worry and lose our cool. In fact, we have entered the time where our spirits know what to do; it is instinctual. We must speak the Word of God over our lives. We must tell the things that would choose to come against us and seek to destroy the new life that we are coming into who we are and who we serve. Here’s a little list to jump start you in your fight. We are almost there. It is almost time to experience the tangible, touchable new life which we’ve been fostering in the belly of our spirit. God’s promises will be revealed.

I will be poured out

This morning I started my prayer time with adrenaline in the spirit. As soon as I gave the Lord my full attention I was overwhelmed to start praying in the spirit and He immediately took me into intercession for this time of the Kingdom that we are currently walking into in the physical world though it has been in preparation in the spirit realm for some time now.

We have been experiencing physical exhaustion in our bodies as a result of the emotional, physical, spiritual, mental, financial, and relational difficulties that we’ve all been facing. As the time approaches when we will receive breakthrough and what has felt to me like a ‘leveling up’ the exhaustion only increases. I’ve always enjoyed running as a hobby and what I can most closely relate this supernatural climate to in the natural is this: when running any distance which requires that we push ourselves beyond our normal natural limits, we experience a partial exhaustion before we hit our ‘cruise’ or ‘stride’– which is the pace at which you can most likely continue and finish your race. Brothers and sisters, I feel very strongly that we are hitting our spiritual exhaustion limits before we realize that this is not the end of our race or a race but rather the beginning of the ‘stride’.

For some of us this may mean a change in our circumstances: physical, spiritual, mental, financial, or relational– this is the point in the race where, if you’ve been crowded, you will attempt to set yourself apart in some way. The good news is that this is the point in the spirit where the Holy Spirit is going to ‘uncrowd’ you and set you apart for your specific purpose in the Kingdom for this time. For some this new positioning will be a new surrounding in one or a few of the above listed areas but it will not be a jarring experience; rather it will be a relieving experience. Some things will fall into place where they’ve been causing friction in our lives and other things we will need to finally release to our Father to do with as He pleases because they are no longer our burdens to bare.

In the middle of 2009 the Lord gave me a vision of His people at the starting line of a great marathon. He said there were people there who had been training for years and some who had only been training a matter of weeks. A marathon, brothers and sisters, is grueling no matter how long you’ve been training but almost unimaginable if you haven’t at least been training for several months so immediately my attention and heart went to those who had only been training for a few weeks. They looked nervous and some of them terrified. Others who knew their abilities and who had worked hard for this moment were focused and fixed on the prize. They were stretching and shaking our their muscles and ready; they looked experienced- though their experiences were spiritual and not natural that made them ready. As the shot was about to be fired the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said that it was His intention that all should finish this particular race and that it was the responsibility of those who were trained and focused (by the grace of God) to see to it that none were left on the track. This race was not the race as spoken of in the book of Hebrews– this was a race for this season in the body.

If any of us are trained and focused and ready to run this race and call it finished– we are not to allow that readiness to promote us forward to the goal line alone. This readiness is by grace, because we are strong enough to aid those who are not. We are to help one another. We are to carry and connect and encourage and strengthen and feed and clothe and share and joy with and love each other. Brothers and sisters, we have to be sure that God’s priorities are our priorities in every area of our lives that we desire to see His hand on! Do we desire His hand on our business? -Whose business are we able to help? Do we desire to see His hand in our marriages? -Whose relationship are we able to help?  2Tim4.6 says, “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering…” what do we have that we are being called to pour out? What are we able to give? To sow into the Kingdom of God? This is how we are called to run and serve and finish the race that is this current spiritual season. This is how we pour out what God has done in our past so that we are empty and ready to receive our future/God’s future for us. God will not fill us with the new while we are still full of the old.

Do not be surprised by what the Lord empties out of you in this season- remember it will be a release and not a disturbing experience. We must know and therefore expect His love for us as the foundation of everything that comes our way and be able to move forward in the comfort and freedom of that.

The Lord has had me praying the Lord’s prayer since the beginning of this year and today over and over again in my spirit one phrase is growing: “Your will be done, Your will be done, Your will be done”. I encourage you to pray also the Lord’s prayer today- Lord we relentlessly trust You, ruthlessly hold on to You, desperately long for You, cannot move without You. Rend the heavens Lord and return to us and until then give us strength and love and provision to do all that You’ve called us to. We will not miss the mark no matter the cost.

~blessings~

…cate

…we’re not gonna miss it

My heart was bubbling over today as I sat down on my couch with a cup of hot tea with milk to spend time with my Lord. As soon as I sat down He took me through several readings, one being the story of Jonah. Just to give some context, yesterday was a very disappointing if not entirely discouraging day– after I was done working it took me three hours and some ibuprofen to recover.  So I went to bed last night ready to wake up this morning and force myself to get pumped today– no so. God took me through readings about how He is always beside me regardless of circumstance and not just with me, for me, working for/with me. I know that’s something that isn’t rare to hear in a Christian life but the way God led me to think about it was. It is not hard for me to get concerned about missing the perfect will of God– things get difficult and I wonder, “Lord, did I miss you somewhere?”.  But this season in the Kingdom of God is different. The true followers of God are about to ‘level up’ and we are marked, now, by the difficulties that we are experiencing. It’s the breaking open of the seed before the growth breaks through the earth into the sunshine. So– I could go on all day but I wont. My point is this, there are a people who cannot escape the will of God. We are the Jonah’s; and what makes us such is not our response to God because we are not running from the Lord but rather running towards it. It is God’s response to us. He is relentlessly pursuing us. I woke up yesterday morning, before my hard day, with the Lord whispering in my ear, “I will not loose my hold on you” and was in tears; His presence and whisper was so tender yet so strong. Lets not be concerned about missing it friends, brothers and sisters. The Lord after us; His plans and purposes will be accomplished. Be encouraged… we’re not gonna miss it.

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Sabbath by Eugene Peterson

Lately the Lord has been speaking to me a lot about how we modern Christians take the Sabbath. It’s been so heavy in my spirit the last several weeks that I had to post about it. If we are truly living the first commandment out then we are already placing God first, though I am sure that many of us are not there and/or fail often. Coupled with that is the scripture that tells us to remember the Sabbath and keep it Holy. In my quiet time God has been showing me what this means to His heart at this time. God is looking for more time to spend with us. More time to reveal His will and direct our steps in that. More time to revel in the beauty of His children, His creation, His bride. Wont we accommodate Him? Wont we sacrifice, if you can call it that, this one day a week so be quiet? To silence the world around us, media, phones, tv’s, movies, friends, family? Those things that we consider urgent and emergency? How could anything take us away from the beauty and rest in His presence as we go deeper and more silent to seek His face? Just a few things to ponder, silently, perhaps this next Sabbath. Love you all and hope this blesses you as much as it did me The next writing is from Eugene Peterson.

Sabbath is the time set aside to do nothing so that we can receive everything, to set aside our anxious attempts to make ourselves useful, to set aside our tense restlessness, to set aside our media-saturated boredom. Sabbath is the time to receive silence and let it deepen into gratitude, to receive quiet into which forgotten faces and voices unobtrusively make themselves present, to receive the days of the just completed week and absorb the wonder and miracle still reverberating from each one, to receive our Lord’s amazing grace.

Sabbath is one of the great gifts that God has given us. Every day of creation is “good” – good for receiving all that God has created, good for participating in the work of God, good for working in God’s garden, good for naming and caring for what God has given, good for being a “helpmate” with and for another. But Sabbath is distinguished from the first six days of each week by being holy, a day set aside to be present to God, to assimilate and celebrate all the gifts of creation and salvation.

Tags: Eugene Peterson, Sabbath

Lately!

Lately I have been working on getting a fellow minister’s website up! I promise to get working on my own a little more soon. I have a guy working on the coding right now which I am super excited about! Should turn out beautiful And a wonderful wonderful man named John is working on the banners that will be rotating on the homepage when it launches so I will keep you up to date! These days I’m way better at tweeting and staying in touch via facebook so add me if you want! We’re super excited– praying for the upcoming ministry trips in Wisconsin and Illinois with Europe following and then Israel. Later in the year may include some time in Mexico. God is opening so many doors to those who are set apart and consecreated: pouring out their lives to make Him known. We have no agenda besides knowing His voice and following His heart. In that there are truly no limitations.
New music will also be coming out soon! So far I am just working through the demos and arrangements but I’m not ashamed so I’ll be posting those soon and hopefully it’s a great blessing in your quiet and worship time with the Lord.

I pray you feel His presence more richly than ever before and that you are enlivened by the beauty of His word and the fragrance of who He is as you worship and seek Him. We are promised that as we seek Him we will find Him. As we knock the door will be opened. Just the fact that you are on this site, reading this, I am praying for you. That the doors be opened, that you seek and you find, that you be encouraged more than you could ever even think to ask, that you are provided for far and above mere ‘need’ at every turn of your life and that you be able to steward this blink that we’ve been given just as our Father intended.

Love you guys