A Prophetic Word
“The Lord is doing a new thing. He is calling and drawing a people together. He is wanting a people who are holy and who are wholly devoted and surrendered to Him. He calls us to listen and not to block His moving and presence in our lives. He is drawing us together and equipping us so that we can stand and live in the fear of the Lord and not in the fear of man. The Lord is saying, ‘Remember that you are the Bride, and the Bridegroom is coming.’”
On Pentecost Sunday 2022, the Lord spoke this word of prophecy in our prayer group. It was a word given in a moment pregnant with the presence of the Holy Spirit. St. Paul exhorts God’s people, “Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good” (I Thess 5:20). I encourage you, therefore, to read with prayerful discernment.
Whether you are among those Christians who believe that Christ’s Second Coming is imminent or not, I believe we can all agree that we have reached the end of an era and have begun a new era, not only within the Church but in the whole world. We are now turning a corner and leaving behind what we might term “cushy Christianity.” The days of comfortable Christian living, receiving very little opposition from the world, have disappeared. In their place the Church is being confronted by an increasingly hostile-to-Christianity world. Christians vary in their responses. Some leave Christianity altogether, unwilling to count the cost or drawn by the lures of the world. Others try to conform their Christian faith to the ungodly demands of the world, not realizing, or perhaps not wanting to realize, that these two are incompatible. Some, however, choose to go further in their faith in Christ, led by the Holy Spirit, to glorious heights and depths previously untapped.
In the prophetic word God gave us last Pentecost, He calls us, almost pleads with us, to be a part of those Christians who choose to go higher and deeper by pursuing God with all their hearts, leaving behind any vestige of superficial Christianity. He promises to birth this eternal transformation in us if we will let Him. Jeremiah 29:13-14 says, “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.” God yearns for a people who will return to Him and be one with Him. He Himself will create this people. The choice to join in or not is ours.