For a number of years God has been speaking prophetically (that means through people with a God given prophetic gift) about a coming time of revival and outpouring of the Holy Spirit. There have been gathering signs and indications of that happening, and in the last year and a half the prophetic words have increased in number and intensity. Then what happens? Wham! Covid19, and in the response to that, the world it seems is shut down.
I heard this quote this week: “The devils’ strong suit is sitting in the back row of the church. His last card is to expose himself. Right now he is fully exposed. It’s not his best card, it’s his last card”.
Be encouraged. And there is more…..
Isaiah 43 seems to be coming up a lot in the last 3 years or so, particularly verse 19:
“See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland” (NIV)
I think this is such an important verse for the times we are in. God is absolutely doing a new thing. He has been busy speaking to the Church for several years about what He plans to do, and about how He needs the Church to change in order to be able to do the job he has for us.
Whilst God did not send the virus, He is quite willing to take advantage of the current situation to get our attention, speak to us and get us to change where we need to. He is absolutely doing a new thing, and He is absolutely committed to finishing what He has started. The challenge for institutional churches is to be flexible enough to not persist with the desire to do things the way they have always done them. The picture I have is of a builder with drawings for the construction of a house that he has been commissioned to build for a client. He learns that the client has changed and they have different needs. Is he simply going to get out the drawings and make a few changes (the easy thing to do), or is he going to be bold enough to tear up the drawings and create something new that will perfectly match the new clients requirements, going in a different (new) direction altogether?
The question for every believer at this point in God’s unfolding story is are we prepared to change direction to go the way He wants to take us. Are we willing to do that even if we are the only ones? This is a question of trust, and this is where the second part of the verse comes in. I am making a way in what at the moment looks like wilderness, I am creating streams where it looks like dry ground at the moment. Are we going to sit and wait until the desert is blooming, fertile and cosy before we move in and settle, or are we going to move now and trust God to go ahead?
Do you want to be a pioneer and have the adventure of a lifetime with God, or simply plod through life? I know what I’m after….
Church is out there 