Please Note: I received this word from the Lord, Sunday am, April 29th, 2007 and thought that it was time to post it here.
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I realize that this is rather intense and most assuredly and briefly to the point. I really believe that this is simply reflective of the urgency and immediacy of the hour, moment and reality of the times in which we are living. Please do not simply shrug this off because it isn’t what you want to hear or to presumptuously dismiss this as too over the top. If we are only willing to listen to the positive, encouraging and wonderful words of the Lord Jesus Christ, what then does this genuinely say of us. At the very least there is the need for each one of us to search our hearts, lives and souls, in and before the Lord Jesus Christ, in spirit and in truth.
Here is what I received as I was in prayer and a vision of gathering storms clouds overhead unfolded before me:
” A storm is gathering over this nation-Now! A storm of consequence against us as a nation and against us as the professing church of this nation. We have lost our saltiness. We have lost our glory and we must seek the face of the Lord God Almighty in true repentance, for all of our self-centeredness as the people of God.
The tide has turned against us as the church within this nation. Our light is dimming and our glory is truly lifting. We need to humble ourselves before the Lord God Almighty with repentant hearts, placing the Lord Jesus Christ back upon the throne of our lives, marriages, and churches, in total, from this day onward.”
The Lord some time ago revealed to me that as we see the downward spiral of our nation that we as a Church within this nation had to realize that this was a reflection in part of our own ineffectiveness to truly be His salt and light within this nation. We had failed to be His banner of truth and life as we have sought to build our own ministries and security and self promotion. We have failed to be and become the Church as a force, a force of the Holy Kingdom of God within and throughout this nation of ours. We have failed to faithfully cover our nation and its leaders in prayer, in supplication, in petition and in faithful and effective spiritual warfare, protecting our spiritual borders. We have, as the Church of this nation, and as we have accused our own government of doing, left our borders open to the enemy for oh so very long.
We have fought each other and have failed to stand against the tide of the true enemy of the Body of Christ. We have failed to live the life of Holiness, righteousness and truth. We have grown soft, lazy, lethargic, complacent and self-centered as the Church of this nation. We focused inward toward self and not upward and outward in the advancement of the Kingdom of God. We have simply transferred growth instead of genuinely growing in spirit and truth. We have become irrelevant in the eyes of a vast number of this nation, far too many, and we have no one to blame but ourselves and the selfish pursuit of our own selfish indulgences and or judgmental attacks upon one another thus failing to rightly discern the signs of the times in which we have been living.
Our only Hope is in the Lord Jesus Christ. That He would have mercy upon us, in spite of our selfishness and arrogance, redeeming the time and forgiving us of our sins. We can only reclaim our rightful place as the salt and light of this nation, in the Lord Jesus Christ, through our earnestly repenting in and before the Lord Jesus Christ, in spirit and in truth. If we do not, we will not be saved from this downward spiral as a nation nor of the eminent reality of the gathering storm clouds over head, now! Lord hear our prayers and have mercy upon us, your people, and forgive us all of our sins and self-centeredness, as your Church within this nation!
Jeremiah 8:20 (ESV) “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.”
Nehemiah 1:5-11 (ESV) And I said, “O LORD God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 6 let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father’s house have sinned. 7 We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses. 8 Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples, 9 but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your dispersed be under the farthest skies, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell there.’ 10 They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. 11 O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.”
Daniel 9:3-10 (ESV) Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. 4 I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 5 we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. 6 We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. 7 To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you. 8 To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you.9 To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him10 and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by walking in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets.
May we genuinely humble ourselves before the Lord our God, in prayer, with genuine heart searching transparency and authentic repentance. Lord Jesus, have mercy on your people! All of us!
Thank You Pastor – hits home at Ground Zero.