Word for Brasil Entering the New Year
Any strategy for Brasil must be international in its level of spiritual authority and power if it is to properly represent God in Brasil and represent God to other nations.
God tested Israel with no water once again. Numbers 20: “The whole company arrived at the Wilderness of Zin…and there was not water for them to drink there.” And, “these were the Waters of Meribah.” Here Moses was to speak to the Rock that he had struck 39 years before at the Waters of Meribah.”
1 To test this Brasilian generation, God is going to take you back to places with which the fathers will be familiar because they have already been there with their fathers.
A generation is all the people alive at any given moment. God views the fathers and children as part of one generation; He turns hearts of fathers and children toward one another within a generation. God never views generations by age brackets of “young” and “old.”
You will face the same attitude in this generation as you did with the previous moment with the fathers were children, and this generation will have its opportunity to prepare to take the land instead of wandering around awaiting an obedient one.
God is expecting a different outcome with respect to the test of the heart in this generation because He has sent the spirit and power of Elijah into Brasil to turn the hearts of fathers and children toward one another in preparation for this test. That is, He has prepared Himself a prophetic people who accurately anticipate what is coming next and are ready to respond to Him in this new season.
Although it is the same test, it is a different generation, and God is going to do things differently this time.
This will test both fathers and children. God tested Moses and Aaron as much as He tested the ones who were born during the 39 years of wandering that preceded this test. The children didn’t remember Exodus 17’s test of Meribah, and they were not tested there.
“They moved in stages from the Wilderness of Zin, and there was no water to drink there.” [Exodus 17 compare with Numbers 20]]
This is about a generation prepared to represent Heaven. Moses and Aaron didn’t represent God properly in this test and the generations were not properly aligned for the taking of the land. Joshua ever finished the task of taking the land, and the enemies remained a torment to Israel and test of God’s holiness thereafter.
The test is about making God holy, but the sights and sounds of this familiar place will be different this time. Do not rehearse the past as a means of understanding the future; interpret the past as a means of preparing for a different outcome in a new generation. Do now what was not done then.
2 You will begin to hear and learn to speak with a new voice as a new sound is released, for what previously required a demonstration of power will begin with a demonstration of authority.
That is, the rod of Moses was not the rod of Moses; it was the rod of God. The rod was a demonstration of power that would accompany Moses when he spoke for God, to represent God with authority and demonstrate God’s power to validate his voice.
Moses led with power, using the rod of God to demonstrate God’s power, because they wouldn’t listen to his voice at first. Once, the people started listening to Moses’ voice, the rod of God for Israel was a demonstration of a different sort than it was for Egypt who continued to refuse to listen.
The rod comes first when there’s rebellion; the voice comes first when there’s submission.
God tells Moses to speak to the Rock that has followed them for 39 years, not strike it because the hearts of this generation are prepared to submit more than the hearts of the fathers who died in the wilderness wandering.
In each case, the Rock was present but withheld water until it was released through authority or power. In this season, God has stored water at Meribah that was never available to the previous generation, and the Rock functioned differently because it was wandering with them in the wilderness.
Unfinished prophetic purpose is stored up, not lost. God reserves and preserves purpose for a faithful generation. How powerful would it have been for Moses to carry the rod into the Promised Land!
3 How to properly represent God as kingdom leaders is the main point of this test.
Brasil is a fathering nation. The kingdom fathers must father Brasil properly if the nation is to respond properly to its international assignment as a fathering nation.
God tells Moses he cannot lead the people into Canaan because Moses did not properly represent Him to the people in this last test at Meribah. Moses carries the wounds, disappointments, and pains of 39 years of wandering with him to this moment. He takes their complaint personally, misreads the test, and fails to properly represent God. The generations are not joined but divided. The hearts of fathers and children are not turned so the generations are not joined.
God will start all over again with Joshua in the new land, but the reality is that Israel is limited in authority and power by this generational dysfunction.
In this way, God is not properly represented and Joshua’s leadership is successful at the level of this dysfunction. When the Captain of the Lord’s Army meets Joshua, He says, “I am not for either you or your enemies. I represent Jehovah.” Could we not read this to say that Joshua’s ability to represent God is limited in his generation while Moses was God’s voice and hand?
Every generation can simply repeat the same tests of the previous ones in Brasil, or a generation of fathers who properly represent the Father can pass this test and bring another level of kingdom authority and power into Brasil and release it through Brasil.
Brasil will release to all the nations whatever is in Brasil, but God is testing the fathers with the children at Meribah to see how they will represent Him. This will measure how well they will represent Him to the nations.
4 The previous generation was about accumulating a people brought out of Egypt, redeemed from the claim of Pharaoh, but this generation is about producing a kingdom of leaders.
The test of Meribah reveals the disconnect between generations, and the people will be tested in the land in a very different way. This lesson is critically important for Brasil and its kingdom leaders. This season will have its tests, but the tests of this season will be different than the previous season.
The fathers still have this opportunity to properly represent the Father as fathers in the kingdom so that a nation of fathers can be prepared to father nations.
Move from the accumulation of believers into the establishing of kingdom by joining the generations. In this way the limitation (curse) will be totally removed off the land!
5 You will face times when the water that is present in the Rock is withheld as God tests fathers and children.
Each generation – the people alive at any given time – face a test, and the test about that generation being prepared to enter the fullness of the promises, take the land, possess the land, and represent God to all nations from that place of fullness.
Beware the tendency to repeat previous errors because you fail to recognize them for what they are given the new sights and sounds of this generation. Pride remains pride even when it has new sights and sounds. Betrayal remains betrayal even with it has new technologies and appearances available to communicate the kiss. In turn, humility remains humility even when it wears different clothes and hairstyles. The servant heart remains the servant heart even when it washes with tap water in plastic bowls.
Brasil has spiritual and natural resources stored in place for a faithful generation. The test comes when that which is available is withheld for a moment of testing to allow the condition of the heart to surface and speak. The reaction to the dryness reveals the true motivations of the heart. Brasil must judge by the heart, not by appearances.
Leaders must be tested for their heart motives, not their ability to produce sights and sounds that please the people. God’s measurements of success require a maturing of the apostolic and prophetic discernment.
6 You represent the future more than the past, bringing a fuller meaning of the past into the present.
God told Moses to go get the rod of God that was laid up before the Lord – the past – but to carry it to the Rock and speak to the Rock – the future form of authority accompanied by power rather than power accompanied by authority – in this way, Moses would have brought fuller meaning to the past by representing the future to his generation in the present.
The deeper meaning of the past prepares God’s people for the future when it is properly represented in the present. The rod of God remained with the people for the entire 39 years previous to this moment, but the meaning of the rod of God was to be interpreted in this present instance in a way that would clarify its use in the future.
Brasil’s kingdom fathers must not insist upon doing everything the same way with the same use of previously demonstrated power. If they do, you will be stuck with the same level of authority!
In fact, the emphasis upon signs, wonders, and miracles must fit into a maturing of Brasil’s leaders. If the fathers mature, they can interpret the meaning of the past, the meaning of the miracle, in a way that matures the children even more quickly than they matured.
Beware the idea that just because it took 40 years for one generation’s failure to be finished it will take 40 years for this generation’s leaders to mature.
Joining the generations is always about the future. It changes the present conditions in dramatic ways so that the power seen in the past can function with greater maturity in the next season.
7 You must respond to Meribah and Massah in your generation differently, with more maturity, so God will be holy in your generation.
The fathers must mature if the lessons learned at such a high price in previous generations are to benefit this generation and its pursuit of the future. God has prepared this generation in Brasil to speak with authority and demonstrate with power, but the fathers must mature in their representation of God so that the children experience you making God holy in their eyes.
Moses responded improperly to the people’s complaint – an understandable complaint for children who had experienced nothing but rivers from the Rock for 39 years – Moses took it personally that they were complaining. Moses stopped representing God and started representing himself.
At this point, God was not contending with Israel. He was testing them. The full test would include Moses’ leadership in this moment, and that test would include the children seeing Moses function in a new way. Moses would speak to the Rock instead of striking it with the rod of God.
Moses contends with the people when God isn’t contending with the people; Moses misrepresents God in this moment, and the people do not see the new way of functioning, the new maturity of the fathers.
God is dealing with Moses’ fatal flaw. The issue with Moses has always been that he doesn’t want to speak for God. At the highest test of Moses’ maturity, God insists that Moses face this deepest issue. Speak to the Rock, Moses.
Rehearse in your mind how the rod of Moses became the rod of God. Was it not when Moses said, “What if they won’t listen to me when I speak?” that God said, “What is in your hand?”
Brasil’s fathers should expect to face the deepest tests of personal submission to God’s ultimate strategies, to hear God return them to the beginnings of the past in order to reset those beginning in the present as a mature foundation for the future. This is a critical test!
8 God will require you to trust Him more than ever by doing what you’ve never done before, were afraid or reluctant to do in the past: speak to what you previously struck.
If you find that doing what you previously did isn’t working, perhaps you should stop and seek God for the Divine strategy of this moment. God is going to dry up the river that comes from the Rock temporarily to reset strategy. The water is still there and will flow again, but the leaders and people will be more mature in the process.Trust more. Expect more. Sure, the Rock will produce the river if you strike it, but that means you aren’t listening to the strategy that will represent God in the present season. Moses hit the Rock twice, I supposed because it didn’t produce a river the first time.
If your concern is about the people’s faith in your leadership, you haven’t matured the children as you should have, and you haven’t grown up enough yourself to be ready for this season.
Psalm 106:23 speaks of Moses at an earlier time when the people were immature: “Moses, His chosen one, stepped between the Lord and the people.” This was a moment of God’s anger when the Lord asked Moses to step aside so He could destroy them all. Moses faced God’s anger.
Psalm 106:33 tells a different story about anger. Not God’s, but Moses’: “They made Moses angry, and he spoke foolishly.”
Moses was supposed to speak to the Rock. Instead, he spoke to the people. What he said didn’t represent God. God wasn’t angry this time. Moses was.
Brasil’s fathers must deal with frustration from a new level of matured faith. The disappointments of the past cannot become the definer of their hearts toward God’s people.
If you don’t mature, you will hold the rod of God’s power and speak your own words to the people seeking to create the impression that you can say whatever you wish and use God’s power to reinforce your own message.
The point of a national strategy with international scope is that God is putting power and authority into Brasil so they can speak for God, not for themselves.
For the generation that will take the land: The God who brings Israel out with a rod of power brings Israel in with a voice of hope.
God wants a Brasilian voice to be heard in the nations, and He has a Message for Brasil to speak. Fathers who carry the rod of God’s power will speak it, but these fathers must have God’s heart if they are to properly represent Him in this generation.
9 While you are walking ahead into promise, you are returning to the place of previous testing, a place where you must respond with what is coming next, the future, not what is past, because this is a generation of mature leaders.
A great shift has come to the prayer movement and warfare movement. A great shift has come to the prophetic movement. A great shift has come for the apostolic movement. A great shift has come for the Brasilian Ecclesia.
When the people are immature, they don’t need a discussion but a demonstration. They will follow because of the power more than the voice. Brasil must come into maturity so that the rod of God will demonstrate the authority of the Message God is speaking into the nation so He send Brasilians to speak it to the nations.
It is a different tone of voice for prayer, warfare, prophecy, and blueprint leaders when the generations are joined by maturity of fathers and children.
10 Today, Brasil is close to striking the Rock to which God wants them to speak, and the shifts God has brought must bring a sudden shift in the people’s response: something radical should be happening in every expression of the kingdom of God in Brasil in 2014.
God walked with Moses for 40 years of Moses hesitating to speak. That was God’s original design and definition of function for Moses’ leadership, and Moses has been negotiating with God about it for decades. Now, at the time of maturity, God demands that Moses get it right, grow up, and fully obey.
God is saying, “Moses, I’ve been telling you to speak for Me. That’s how I want you to represent Me. When you do that, you make Me holy in the people. If you wish to go on representing Me, you need to fully obey Me and speak to the Rock.”
Brasilian leaders will face this test of full obedience. Some will be faced with the point of the last disobedience, instances of almost fully obedient, and points of rebellion in which they have continued to negotiate with God for long periods of time. God will demand full surrender and submission. God will ask for the Isaac He promised and gave to fathers of nations.
Having come this far, God wishes Brasil to enter the season of fulfilled promise fully prepared to take the land and possess the land as a basis upon which Brasil can represent God in the nations as a fathering nation.
