We have been keeping our hearts and ears open to get a macro, comprehensive sense of what the Lord has been saying to the Body this season, and so I would like to begin this issue with a word that means either I’ve had too much Christmas chocolate, or I tuned into the Lord in a bit of a festive mood.You decide:

“Rest. Yes, I am calling you to rest, My dear children. Rest in me. For what do I want from you more than your heart, your love, your loyalty; your sacrifice is to love me and rest in my care for you. I do not want your laboring heart, but your love-sick, devoted heart. Do you want to do something extraordinary for me? Then all I say is to TAKE ME AT MY WORD.

I am well able to be ALL and do ALL for you, if you would be so bold as to give Me the chance to take credit in your life for your care and nurturing. Why do you take the credit for all you do for yourselves in place of My favor coming upon you? What’s the worst that could happen to you who are placed firmly in the palm of My hand? I hold you, hide you, care for you more than you will ever know for sure. Sure I do, you can surely count on me to be your sure help in distress. Who told you otherwise? Come on, do you not know the voice of your enemy condemning you to take desperate measures in your own defense? Come on! Give me a break, man! What? You don’t like it when I talk to you in your own lingo? Am I only the God of the Deep Heavens? Am I not also the God of the ghetto streets, the alleys and brick walkways? The houses of the darkened earth? Come on, let’s get you with the program, man. Learn my ways and you’ll be amazed. I’ll prolong your days and you’ll be amazed. Go on! I dare you. Take me at my word and let’s see some REAL fireworks!”

This makes me ask exactly how close God really is to us? Has he bridged the Great Divide between Man and God, but stayed seated in the clouds far above the earth? Or does He love us with an eternal love but keep a cordial, respectful distance at arm’s length? Or is He right inside our very hearts, in our worlds, in our thoughts, in our deeds? He even speaks our slang, believe it or not. He’s already closer than we’ve ever believed, and I think He’s going to now show himself “Emmanuel” in ways we haven’t dared to consider.

So what I am understanding is that this is going to be the Year of the Lord’s Favor. I say this for several reasons. First, because our good friend and the leader of our home group, Adrian Bell, was traveling into Central, Hong Kong by ferry on Sunday morning a week or so ago, and heard the Lord say, “This is the Year of My Favor.”

Then another friend in our church, Cynthia Tse, had this word:

“I will restore to you the years the locusts have stolen. You will reap a harvest so great that you would not believe your eyes. This is the Year of My Favor. Receive My good gifts to you; do not refuse My love. Receive it, be blessed, multiply. Do not be surprised at what I am going to do but be prepared for My lavish gifts — the showers of blessing upon you. I have heard you cry and seen your heart and I will reward you accordingly. Wait for my message and receive it. Wait for my message and receive it. Wait for my message and receive it. Don’t be like Gomer but receive My love. Receive it and be changed by My power.

“Beauty unveiled, gaze upon My beauty and stay in My presence. I will never leave you. Be transformed, be renewed. Incorruptible heart … I have given you an incorruptible new heart.”

Also, our pastors have felt confirmation that indeed 2008 will be the Year of the Lord’s Favor and have begun a teaching series based on Isaiah 61, a model of Christ’s Ministry — the effect of being in His Kingdom. We wrote briefly on this topic in the article, “The Gospel According to St. Isaiah,” in our July 2007 issue.

And we’re now reading so many words from prophetic voices across the world coming in this first week of January with these exact same phrases: 2008 is the Year of My Favor, A New Beginning, Don’t be weary in well doing,”

I think the Lord’s Favor will be all we want it to be, but it may be more as well. It may just be the year ‘our work won’t work,’ as man’s ways break down and we transition into being empty vessels that HE works through.

His ways are higher than ours. What I mean to say is we don’t always recognize God’s blessings when they come, and we may even try to avoid them. So let’s just trust in God for His Favor no matter what package it comes in, no matter what it initially may look like.

Prepare by Resting

We ought to keep in mind that we can only enter God’s rest by Faith. Hebrews 3:18 - 4:2, “And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief.

Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it. For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard.” (NAS)

Specifically this season we are hearing the Lord tell the Body that it is a time to prepare to receive what is about to be presented to us, and to do so mainly by being in His rest. This obviously needs to be understood within the Process of Preparation that He has been bringing His Body through thus far — a process that is not yet over. These trials have purified and matured us, but have also undoubtedly confused and hurt many of us as well, as we have been learning (sometimes forced) to let go of the past to make capacity for the future, and as we have learned (again, sometimes uncomfortably) to crucify the flesh and so to find holiness and contentment in Him Alone.

So we now prepare to receive what the furnaces of trial have positioned us to receive by Resting, letting go of the past, tying up loose ends. He will soon open Doors for us that will lead us into greater spiritual authority, a higher level in the spirit / Spirit, and will cause us to walk in our destinies in a greater measure. We REST and HE restores our souls from past woundedness and weariness, and we walk through the Door into our Destinies.

A Great Falling Away

And these trials have truly been a blessing … but an uncomfortable one. Yes, many in the Body refuse to see God in this shaking, but it is nevertheless true. He has been the one purposing and orchestrating the shaking. But if we don’t trust Him in the process we instead blame the enemy and refuse to submit to the process. The danger such as these face in resisting God’s purification process is to be unable to receive the reward of holiness that many are now positioned and conditioned to receive. The Kingdom is surely advancing and it will continue to do so with or without the stubborn and rebellious becoming a part of it — preferably with them, if they would simply change their ways and submit to the Lord and His process, but many will refuse and this time will likely emerge as a watershed, dividing sheep from goat. What is about to come will be a wild ride for sure! And we’ll start seeing a greater distinction between the submitted and the stubborn. For the submitted, the worst is over. For the stubborn … well, in His mercy He may just turn up the heat.

He explained it to me this way, saying with a tremendously tender love, “This is the great falling away as I prune those I love so they can become even more fruitful. I love my church. I have a heart of compassion — perfect love casts out fear and I have a perfect love for my fallen, wasted church. I will redeem — ashes to beauty…”

When He referred to His church as ‘wasted’ He meant that as in a ‘wasteland,’ and when He said this, He spoke more tenderly than I have ever experienced Him speak. He is pruning those He loves! I understand that this word “prune” can also be translated as “clean,” which is why the verse in John 15:1-3 reads, “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.…” (NAS)

This great ‘falling away,’ ‘apostasy’ or ‘rebellion’ is spoken about in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, which along with the revealing of the anti-Christ, are preconditions of the Lord’s coming. It is going to be a hard time in the natural for sure, but if we learn to abide in Him and persevere until the end we’ll be saved even if it is ‘as through fire.’

So what encouragement can we give each other to keep pressing in? It was the “oil of joy” poured out on Jesus that gave him the strength to endure his crucifixion. Hebrews 12:2 says we will endure by, “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

When we get a grip on God’s “Vision of Peace” for us, it will give us a Hope and be a source of Joy that will give us the strength we need to endure.

The hope of glory on the other side of these trials keeps many pressing in and hanging on, but there are still going to be those who are not mindful of God’s promises and they may falter. DON’T FALTER. Don’t give up. DON'T QUIT. And help strengthen those who are weak. It may be a hard time, but we can learn to walk in His Strength, live in His Joy, and work in His Rest. Reaching the end of ourselves is not all bad. Walking through the valley of the shadow of death drives us into His secret place, His Kingdom, His Heart.

Another word we want to reference is from Glenn Jackson’s Ministry Letter Issue 25, December 2007. In fact, the first section of this issue, “Strongholds of Unworthiness,” is a superb overview of much of the process that we are in: its stakes and dynamics. We STRONGLY suggest downloading and reading it from http://jtlmin.com/2007/0725.htm.

But also in this issue was this extremely timely word on birthing:

Mini-Vision Of A Baby In The Birth Canal

Shelly Mathis, Kremmling, Colorado.

http://ft111.com

“While waiting on the Lord, I had a quick mini-vision of a baby in the birth canal. I immediately identified with the baby, for I feel like I do not understand what is going on — why my familiar surroundings have turned me up-side down. I am in the dark; I can’t see what lies ahead. I am being squeezed with intense pressure that keeps pushing me, but I have no idea where. ‘Lord,’ I cry out, ‘this isn’t what I thought the “rest” would feel like! This is LABOR!’