The Holy Spirit is speaking loudly and clearly these days through many voices from many different directions, summoning God’s people to pay attention to His agenda at this time in history. We have heard His voice clearly in our own personal times in prayer as well as through the urgings of prophetic declarations from many sources, literally around the world.
His agenda? He desires to be present among His people in manifest power and authority, beyond what we’ve seen or heard about. There is a yearning in the heart of God to fully be Who He is among His people, fully released to bring His own kingdom of righteousness, peace and joy through the Holy Spirit.
One of the main ways He is capturing – even forcing our attention is by the presence among us of people who desperately need an encounter of the healing and restoring power of God. Because we have seen His hand at work in other times and in other places, we can no longer look past those in our own midst who, without an intervention of God’s healing and delivering power, face a future filled with pain, sorrow, and even death.
In those situations we are forced to admit that our current experience of God’s presence is lacking something. We need and want more, and so we make up our minds to sing a little louder, pray with more intensity, and contend with more seriousness for His manifest presence to come. It’s not sufficient to merely know the lyrics of a song like “When You Walk Into The Room, Everything Changes”. We need the lyrics of that song to become our norm, the reality of God’s Kingdom being manifest on earth as it is in Heaven.
Recently, in an early morning prayer meeting at SOZO Church in Belfair, Washington, I sensed the Holy Spirit say something to me that shifted my perspective on the matter of contending with God for His move among us. I sensed Him say that my emphasis had been on “CONTENDING with God”, as though He is an adversary that needs to be won over, and that I needed to shift that to “contending WITH God” as my Father and friend, partnering with Him in His desire. I sensed Him say to me that there were some realities He needed from me in order for Him to be present like He desires to be present, and I felt the weight of Heaven pressing down to earth, God’s yearning to be with His people in an unhindered way.
Isaiah 66:1 quotes the LORD saying, “Heaven is My throne, and earth is my footstool. What is the house that you will build for Me, and what is the place of My rest?” I believe that what is meant there is God asking, “Where is the place where My will can be carried out without resistance?” The reality He needs from me is to be in full agreement with HIS desire to come in power, with nothing in me that would stand in His way or resist the movements of His Spirit.
How about where you are? Is God contending with you so that you will contend WITH Him, that His will might be fully accomplished where you are? May it be so! Amen.
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