("The Unveiling" Series 3, Post 8)
4-2-23
At church on Palm Sunday, God said:
Oh, what a day. Oh, what a day. Rejoice for the day of the Lord approaches. I am coming. I am coming soon. Even the forces of evil know this, which is why they have been roaring so loudly. Oh, what a day, a great day that is before you, My people. Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord. Blessed. Blessed. Blessed. Behold He stands ready, eager to return for oh how He longs for His wedding day. Rejoice. Rehearse. Reflect. Be ready. Be prepared. Rise up My people. Rise up and shine. This is your time, your season, not to wait ONLY, but to wait in expectation while you GET TO WORK. Get to work My people. There is so much work to do. Consider this your wakeup call for action, not waiting alone. Work while you wait. Sit at My feet. Be filled with My Spirit then let Me fill your mouth with testimony. Experience Me and then make Me known. THIS is the work I am calling you to do. It is time for Revelation 12:11. My Son rode in on a donkey once and by His blood overcame death and Satan. Before He rides in again on His victory horse, He will defeat Satan and his foes again by the Word of your collective testimonies for He will be the WORD of your testimony. He IS the Word. When you experience Christ and then make these experiences known, you defeat the enemy for you become the Word made flesh. It is Christ living in you and working through you.
Get to work My Bride. Get to work. Don’t leave all the planning to Me. As My Bride, I have commissioned you for a time such as this to plan, prepare, and testify. Testify. Testify. Testify. Speak out. Cry out. Make Me known. Bring Me alive again to a new generation that needs your collective testimony more than ever. You have the power to bring Me to life. Tell the world that I live by testifying to My hand within your life. If you don’t have stories then seek My face, for oh how I long to reveal your story to you, to walk and talk with you so closely that the stories arise from every day of your life. I have not left Myself without testimony and I created you to testify, so if you have nothing to say, to cry out with, then turn back to Me. Sit at My feet and get to know Me, your first love, again. I long to speak with you. I long to conquer your fears, your worries, your strife, and I will. I promise. Return to Me My Bride. Return to Me because we have work to do. We have much planning and preparation. Don’t be afraid of this season. Instead, be empowered. Be excited. It’s go time. Hosanna. Hosanna. Blessed is He who IS coming in the Name of the Lord. He forever reigns. Amen and amen.
After worship a man stood up to give a prophetic word to the congregation. Over and over again he said that God wanted to say to us that “Life didn’t end at the cross, it began.”
After this man was done speaking, God continued. He said:
Experience Me! Experience Me! I am Life. Live My people. Arise and live. Wake up. Your season of slumber is over. Wake up! I command you to wake up. Wake up oh sleeper! Your time is now, not someday, now. Now. Now. Now. If you don’t arise, no one will for this is My plan, My design, for Christ to defeat Satan once again through you My people, by being the WORD of your collective testimony. Arise testimony. Arise. Arise. Arise. Arise and shine My Stars. Your time is now. Your season has come. I need you. I need you. I NEED YOU. You are co-heirs, Co-laborers by design. Therefore, get to work My Bride, My co-heirs. This side of eternity, of the cross, belongs to you. Let My glory therefore flow freely through you. Let My Son flow freely through you. As My vessels arise. Arise and shine. Arise and shine. Arise and shine.
The first bullet point that my pastor made after this truly summed all of this up for me, for it was “God’s Sovereignty and Our Stewardship.” He talked about God’s part and our part which is exactly what God was just referring to. So many Christians, myself included at times, stop at the cross. We have reached salvation and now it is time to wait for Christ to return. Oh, how contrary this view is to the Word of God. In fact, it is quite the opposite.
After Jesus was actually finished with His work on the cross, and on earth, having overcome the enemy by His blood (Revelation 12:11a), He then commissioned His disciples, saying “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:7-8). This very portion of Scripture, Jesus’ words, reflect that prophetic word that was given by that man during our church service, that “Life didn’t end at the cross, it began.”
Our work, our testimony, truly doesn’t end at the cross, for I can attest to how a testimony is meant to be more than a conversion story. Don’t get me wrong, conversion stories are important and there are many amazing ones out there. But what God has been speaking to me about for over a decade now is how it shouldn’t stop there. He wants people to hear the rest of the story, your story. God saved your life, brought you to salvation, now what? What has He done for you lately? Today?
With Jesus gone, the real work of the disciples then began, and the Book of Acts is filled with new testimony, their testimony, their experience of Christ through the Holy Spirit. They were acting out being co-heirs, co-laborers with Christ, being Revelation 12:11b. It was their time, their season. And like my pastor is always saying, we are now Acts 29. It is now our time, our season to follow in their footsteps. We are the continuation of Acts. Therefore, our testimony and the way that God wants to use it is still going. We are simply between the books of Jude and Revelation. Our co-mission isn’t over. Our call to also be co-heirs and co-laborers is still going strong. It is time, like God said, to wake up to this reality, to get to work.
Ephesians 1:11 says, “In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will."
There it is. God’s sovereignty and our stewardship.
Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
There it is. God’s sovereignty and our stewardship.
I spent a long season of my life, right out of college, proclaiming that I didn’t have a testimony. On the mission field, feeling inadequate because of this, I often talked about how I was simply raised in a Christian home and just always seemed to know the Lord. I thought my story was rather boring and almost felt like I had to apologize for it. That is until God opened my eyes to what a testimony really is, that a conversion story is just the starting off point, not the ending. That a testimony also doesn’t end at the cross but begins. I did have a story! I just didn’t know it yet, for then one day came that surprising moment when God called me to write a book made up of my testimony. Me, the one who didn’t think she had one. I obeyed and went on to write not a few, but thousands upon thousands of pages of testimony, for I began to experience God as I went along. He created a living journal through me. It was the Word living inside of me that I was experiencing more and more.
God longs to reveal your living story to you as well. Know that I didn’t start out with thousands of pages. I started with page one. I didn’t start out with supernatural, amazing stories, I started with the little day to day things. Don’t take these little things for granted for they will add up to the big things when you begin to see God’s hand in it all. In fact, I had such a week this past week. I spent a lot of time lifting that eternal “to-do” list that I have had to the Lord, that list that proves we are human and have to do human things. But after sitting with Him and making sure I put Him first, like clockwork I finally got everything on that list done and I know in my heart that it was the Lord helping me. He cares about all things. And there isn’t anything He will not do for us or help us through if we would simply return to Him and put Him first.
He had a story for me, and He has a story for you. He has experiences waiting for you. He longs for you to experience Him so that you can then make these experiences known. Experiencing Him is love in and of itself, for God uses this built-up testimony as a reservoir of faith that we can look back on and tap into when things get tough in our lives. But God then also takes this a step further, and will use our collective testimonies, our massive reservoir of faith, to defeat Satan himself once and for all. It is Revelation 12:11 time. We are Revelation 12:11. Shine Stars. Shine. Wake up and shine the light of Jesus Christ for the world to see. For like God said, “It’s go time.”
*If you want help in finding your story or keeping a spiritual journal, there are resources on my website to help you get started. You can also message me for additional support!
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