("The Unveiling" Series 3, Post 11)
4-24-23
We are all on our way through this life
In church, God spoke. He said:
Life. Life. Life. I have come that you may have life, life in My Spirit. But, but My people it is a choice. Though endowed with My Spirit He remains dormant unless invited to participate in your life. Be baptized with My Spirit. Invite Him to action. Let Him move within you in a mighty way. He is ready, eager, and desiring to fill your life with My mighty presence and great purpose. Take Him for granted NO LONGER My people. Instead, let My glory in Him flow freely through you. Then arise. Arise and shine - only possible by My mighty Spirit. Oh, what a gift, a precious gift SO untapped by My people. Most of you have only begun to experience My Spirit, what He is capable of and therefore very few have experienced Me in My fullness. I have so much more to offer you My people but you must tap in, tap into this well of life - life in My Spirit. The choice is yours. Great testimonies will only arise once My people learn to experience Me fully through My Holy Spirit. I promise to pour out My Spirit on all who surrender to My will, to My purposes and plan. Equip yourselves. There is no greater way. No amount of food, money, or any resources known to man will equip you for what is to come like My Spirit - the only true resource you will ever need. Therefore, tap into Him like never before. Don’t wait. Get to know Him now while He may be found. My Spirit is much more than a mark, a seal of salvation. He is life, power, purpose, comfort, vision, leadership, your all in all for your time such as this. Breathe Him in. Get to know Him again or for the first time. He is My very presence therefore do not take Him for granted any longer.
I want to also share something God then said to me, for this truth applies to us all:
Susan, the same goes for you. Tap into My Spirit. No matter how you feel, He is there. No matter what you see or DON’T see, He is there. There is not a single prayer or longing I haven’t heard or will respond to. I WILL respond to them all. I promise. . . You have life therefore live it. Live Me. Experience Me and then make Me known. This is life. This is Christ. This is value and this is purpose AND this is what you do. Therefore, rejoice and tap back in. Recall your testimony, how much I have shown up in your life - ABUNDANTLY and I have no intention of stopping so hope arise. Arise. Arise. Arise. Hope is here Susan. It is in Me. I AM HOPE, LIFE, LOVE, PURPOSE, VICTORY, YOUR ALL-IN-ALL. Breathe Me in therefore anew. . .
We had a guest speaker in church and the first thing he did was point out what season we are within, that we are between the cross, having just celebrated Christ’s resurrection, and Pentecost, the giving of the Holy Spirit. Then once again pointing out that God’s next appointed time is Pentecost, he then quoted John 10:10 saying, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
After that, although I heard from many people that he gave a good sermon, God had other plans for me for while he spoke, God ended up writing a message through me. I filled my journal with pages that kept coming to my mind based on a portion of one single verse that he started his sermon with. He started by reading Matthew 28: 5-15. Referring to verse 9, he then said “While the women were on their way,” and I heard very little after that for that phrase began to repeat over and over in my head – “While they were on there way.” What were they on their way to do? They were on their way to testify, having just been told by the angels at the tomb to do so. They had been told to go quickly and tell Jesus’ disciples that He had risen (verse 7).
What happens next? While they were on there way, Jesus greets them and tells them to go and do the exact same thing, to tell the disciples that they have seen Him. So, angels tell the women to go and testify and Jesus tells them to go and testify. All of the inhabitants of Heaven make sure that these women go and testify. Can there really be an argument against the importance of testifying? I don’t think so.
But then comes verse 11. And starting with verse 11 it says, “As the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and told the leading priests what had happened. A meeting with the elders was called, and they decided to give the soldiers a large bribe. They told the soldiers, ‘You must say, ‘Jesus’ disciples came during the night while we were sleeping, and they stole his body.’ If the governor hears about it, we’ll stand up for you so you won’t get in trouble.’ So the guards accepted the bribe and said what they were told to say. Their story spread widely among the Jews, and they still tell it today.”
While the women were on their way to testify, having been told to by all the inhabitants of Heaven, soldiers were also on their way. What God then brought strongly to my mind was that we have two paths here, two roads. There are truly only two paths to life, two roads, two choices of purpose no matter what you do in life. You can either testify to Jesus or not. We were created to testify, to live lives that testify to Jesus in everything we do, even if what you feel you do is the lowest of the low. For back then, there was no lower testimony than that of a woman. A woman’s testimony was considered inadmissible in the court of law. It was not allowed or considered to have worth. Yet, these were the chosen and the ones who chose the correct road. For, as we can see within these verses, it was the women versus the men, the soldiers and the high religious leaders. But which did God’s will? Which shared true, life-giving testimony? The women. The men, in this story, ended up spreading a lie that is still told today (verse 15). What God then pointed out to me is what came next in the story within Matthew 28. It was verses 16-20, the Great Commission.
You don’t have to be a pastor, preacher, or high up in the church in order to testify. In fact, God has a reputation of purposely picking the meek, lowly, uneducated within the Bible. Even as it says of the 12 disciples that Jesus chose, they were ordinary, uneducated men (Acts 4:13). What was said about them is that they had been with Jesus. They had experienced Jesus and of course went on to testify to these experiences. This was God’s will for their life, this was Jesus’ commission over them.
So, it doesn’t matter whether you have a high-paying career, went to college, are extremely learned in the Bible, or went to a Bible college or seminary. For, you, yes you, were created to testify. All were created to testify, to choose the correct path that leads to the great co-mission.
God pointed out a verse to me a few weeks ago, on Resurrection Sunday. As Jesus stood before Pilate, He proclaimed His true purpose out loud in John 18:37. God then gave this word:
Resurrected. Be resurrected within your mind, your thoughts. Raise your negative thoughts from the dead, from death to life for I AM in EVERYTHING and I AM Life. I am your life, therefore arise My people. Arise and shine. Embrace this new day and season upon you. Embrace Me, My Son, My Spirit and truly come alive for the first time. Let My glory flow freely through you. Let My Spirit flow freely through you. It’s time. Your time is now. I wish to use you My people like never before but I need you fully alive, truly resurrected. No more half-lives. No more sleeping. Wake up oh sleeper for your Savior needs you to rise and shine and testify. Christ explained His true purpose in John 18:37 to Pilot, saying “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” Your purpose is therefore the same. Testify. Testify. Testify. As His testimony, His resurrection defeated death and Satan once, through you and your testimony HE WILL do it again. Revelation 12:11 My people. We are there. We have reached this season which is why I need you alive, awake, shining, testifying to your Risen Savior. Arise. Arise. Arise. Arise and shine My people, My Stars. We have work to do. We have souls to save and redeem. Too many people remain dead in their sin. Let’s get to work My Bride. Our wedding day is at hand and we want the table FULL. FULL. FULL. FULL. Amen and amen.
As you know, I am constantly wanting to do things differently, thinking ministry should look different, or more structured, but as God said to me, I am doing what He called me to do. I am testifying by any means possible, experiencing Him and then through the power of His Spirit making these experiences known, testifying, even as a stay-at-home mom. I used to even refer to myself once as a “garage sale missionary,” stories that you can find within my second book. I went through a season where God called me to have one garage sale after another as a way to share my testimony and give out what I had already written. For someone having been on the mission field overseas, as you can imagine, this was not how I wanted to continue my mission work. But I gave into it anyway and God ended up orchestrating some amazing stories through these garage sales, even bringing me angels. It is all a matter of perspective, God’s perspective. I remember around that same time reading a devotional that talked about a vacuum salesman and how he used his job as a means to testify. Whether you have garage sales, a vacuum salesman, a retail worker, a burger flipper, a doctor, or a lawyer, it doesn’t matter. When we stand before the Lord it won’t matter whether the opportunities to testify came through a high-paying job, or even a pulpit or in a stadium with large crowds, what will matter is if we testified, if we seized every opportunity to live out our true purpose and calling, our co-mission.
The Holy Spirit is what qualifies us and it is time that we acknowledge that He is more than just a seal of salvation but also the very power of God through us to live with the same calling that Christ had, to testify to the Father. Once we realize this, what a mighty commission will sweep across this earth. We need to stop leaving the greatest battle/harvest in history to the “religious leaders” to those in “authority” for we all have been given authority, we all have been made a royal priesthood. We all have been commissioned by Jesus and as Jesus has been saying through me a lot lately, that as His Bride, it is time that we “get to work.”
The title of the sermon was “Living IN the Resurrection.” This began at the cross, was commissioned by Christ, and was empowered when the Holy Spirit came. It is good to rejoice in the resurrection and in our salvation but we were never meant to stop there and then simply wait for Christ to return, for if that were the case why would God have even needed to send the Holy Spirit? If all we were meant to do is accept Christ and then coast until Christ’s return, there wouldn’t be any need for Pentecost, for Christ’s promise of His Spirit. But, Christ did promise the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit did come. He came because it is our time, our season to shine, no matter what we do in life. Therefore, how will you use your time? How will you get to work?
I want to encourage you to go and read/watch “The Word Made Flesh: New Life within a New Spring.” Within this message God addresses the fact that through Christ working in us, we are now the hands and feet and voice of Jesus for a time such as this. We are now the Word made flesh for a reason. It is our time to testify. Our season is now.
Let’s stop defining our purpose on earth by our job, career, or education level. Not one of Jesus disciples went on to define themselves this way. Their only credentials were that they had been with Jesus, that they had experienced Him and now lived, existed, to testify about it. Even the Apostle Paul, who had great credentials, only recounted them to say that he counts them all as loss compared to knowing and experiencing Jesus (Philippians 3:5-8).
I’m not a stay-at-home mom that testifies. I am a testifier that currently stays at home. It is all a matter of perspective. In today’s world, with social media, no one has an excuse. Being a missionary, especially since the pandemic, no longer means someone that travels overseas. We all can reach the world through the free means God has given us, not to mention His desire that we bloom where we are planted. I didn’t want to make videos or use social media, but it wasn’t up to me. It was a means that God laid before me and called me too. I do hope to get to go overseas again someday but until then, I have to stop thinking that that is the only way to have true fulfillment, true purpose, or a true ministry. It is all a matter of perspective and I truly believe that we all need a paradigm shift in our thinking.
My congregation was invited to communion Sunday through John 17:20 which says, “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message.” Jesus prayed for us who would believe through the disciple’s message, their testimony, the testimony of these uneducated, ordinary men. And I don’t know about you, but I’m so glad they recounted, recorded, and wrote down their testimonies, their experiences of Jesus. Aren’t you? For, their stories, their experiences of Christ became the very Word of God. God has always, ALWAYS, wanted to work through His people, to shine through our testimonies. So, let’s get to work on our true purpose and fill those pages that still exist between Jude and Revelation. Our time is now. Let’s stop claiming our true purpose as our job or career and start naming ourselves through the purpose that God gives us as children of God, as co-heirs, co-laborers, and commissioned by Christ. We are meant to be filled with His Holy Spirit and we are meant to testify the Lord Jesus Christ in everything we do. Join me.
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