A mystery is something hidden. God strategically hides things, keeps them hidden, and reveals them just as strategically as He hid them, in His time.
As the head of the year arrives September 30, we can expect the revealing of things God has hidden. He has preserved and reserved inheritance for this time, anticipating a faithful generation would be prepared to fulfill preserved purposes. They are like a river running underground that surfaces again, purified by being forced through solid rock.
I have felt this for several months, and is my practice, I have received and heard many confirming voices. I heard among them Brian Simmons speaking prophetically of this time, “I have much more for you than you know of. You know some of the promises of inheritance but there are big ones I’ve kept hidden that I’m going to reveal soon.”
I heard Dutch Sheets sharing about “a new era” breaking open October 1. I also heard Brasilian prophetic voices speaking into my own life about this season opening September 30 at Rosh Hashanah 2011.
I make myself accountable for revelation received by listening to other proven and credible voices, to fit what I hear about season changes into a greater voice of prophetic revelation. This gives me (and all of us) boldness to respond, to do something radical when we receive radical revelation.
After this months-long experience, I say, “Nothing will be the same…”
Response is Key
Prophetic people accurately anticipate what’s coming next and are prepared to respond when the ‘anticipated’ arrives. In other words, they begin to experience the new season before it arrives and alter their lives to what is coming next before what is coming next gets here. In this way, prophetic people are not playing catch up.
Prophetically prepared people ‘hit their stride’ at the moment of transition, not after the shock has worn off! Prophetic people feed action into the moment, expand the moment into momentum, the momentum produces a movement. Without prophetically-prepared people, the moment of shift shocks people and they experience a season of catching up. Without prophetic preparation, momentum is lost. We remain personally impacted but live without the power to influence and impact our generation and culture with what God released in the shift.
I have also measured prophetic words, mine and others, about “hard times a’comin” and find them to be accurate, but I cannot agree with the response many are making to the difficult times. We are in for rough days and are facing strong opposition. But I cannot reconcile myself to the response that says “get a bag of beans and find a cave” when we are entering a season of historic harvest and wealth transfer.
I have been anticipating this shift for a decade and doing what I can to prepare the Lord a people who can respond to the shift. Our response should be: “I can’t worship the same. I can’t intercede the same. I can’t give the same. I can’t preach the same. I can’t live the same.”
So, I feel a holy frustration with any other response! It seems inappropriate to the revelation! It has a look of spiritual anemia about it, a slumber and snore of satisfaction and comfort that runs cross grain to the disposition of God at this time.
God is serious. God is in a hurry.
Breaking Open What’s Preserved and Reserved
God has preserved and reserved some precious things for this season that must now be broken open and poured out. We cannot keep these things in reserve. The proper response is “all-out, wholehearted, radical, all-or-nothing!” Like the woman who anointed Jesus with precious anointment, breaking open the preservation container of alabaster, we must not hesitate!
It was Judas who questioned the appropriateness of the anointing, criticizing the woman but subtly revealing his deeper dishonor for Jesus. This Judas spirit is being exposed within the ecclesia right now. The Judas spirit can no longer ‘go along to get along’ in this season of shift because ultimate purpose and strategy reveal heart motivations. What Ananias and Sapphira “got away with” for decades will require somebody to carry them out in this season.
When God reveals things He has hidden, the pressure of that revelation reveals what’s hidden in the hearts of His people.
Jesus made it clear that what the woman did was appropriate. She emptied her alabaster box, the contents of which cost a year’s wages. Exposing her hair to be certain none of the precious was wasted – another seeming inappropriate response – she was motivated by the passion of Christ.
I find myself wanting to explode when Americans respond to God in the same ‘learned behaviors’ of another season. Even after we get the revelation of what He is doing in next season, it is very difficult for us to respond to God’s passion!
Hidden Inheritance
I have been pressing myself and those assigned to my leadership for more than a decade. I have been raising the bar of “radical” for a decade in an attempt to prepare the Lord a people ready to respond in this season. It has been costly. I was amazed with good people who don’t have what it takes to get ready, the spiritual quitters whose hearts are like Lot’s wife when it comes time for radical shift.
Spiritual fathers must prepare inheritors before the inheritors receive their inheritances so they don’t waste inheritance. People unprepared for what’s coming next will miss the opportunity to turn the moment into momentum, to create a movement.
I have demanded radical response because the modern American church does not know how to properly respond. We tend to feel entitled, as if to say, “Of course God is blessing us. We’re Americans.” While this is true – God isn’t finished with America – we seem oblivious to the fact that the role of the American church has changed, and God has been originating things in other cultures.
America is playing catch up, failing to proper respond to what God has originated in other nations because we haven’t been prepare to properly respond to radical shifts. God continues to woe us back to radical response but we have lost the word “sacrifice” from our spiritual vocabulary and demand to be blessed because of our previous position within the kingdom.
God has, indeed, hidden inheritances for this time that would have been wasted by the previous generation’s status quo. We have a highly developed leadership spirit that resembles the regime of King Saul. We must learn to respond to the spiritual leadership of David’s if we are to be ready to respond to the revelation of hidden things that is upon us now.
I am glad God doesn’t measure us by numbers! The numbers of people engaged in preparation have dwindled, and the response of many who are engaged looks like weariness. I am concerned that when ‘what is coming’ is here, we will be playing catch up at a deeper level than we are now unless we are able to “lift up hands hanging down and confirm feeble knees.”
I’m glad I don’t have to choose between the prodigal and the elder brother, is what I saying. Neither is what God is after! The story should tell us that both sons were ill-prepared for inheritance!
The hidden is about to be revealed. God has preserved His purposes. A major reset is here, a kingdom reset.
I declare it again, “This changes everything. Nothing will ever be the same again!”
So, stop following leaders who refuse to change. Stop living the lifestyle of the previous season. And, start responding by “what is coming next,” not by “what is.”
