In a well-known prophecy given by Bob Jones, the Lord revealed that our next President would be “a burning bush from Texas.” (The first prophecy that Bob had about George W. Bush becoming the next president was first distributed by Bob Jones and Keith Davis in July of 1999). After the election, I asked Bob if he had any further insight on what the “burning bush” part of this prophecy meant. He said that when the Lord manifested Himself through the burning bush it was to call His chosen leader who was to set His people free. Bob also stated that during the Bush administration the Lord was going to be commissioning the leadership that He has called to free His people from their bondage.
The Lord often speaks through political leaders, even those who do not know Him or who may even be opposed to Him (John 11:51; II Chronicles 35:22). If the word of the Lord is spoken through our President in a great way, we can expect it to have an effect on the nation. As we read in Isaiah 55:10-11:
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth, and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater;
So shall My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.”
When the Lord sends forth His word, it will accomplish His purpose. It is therefore imperative that we know His purpose, and that we align ourselves with it. When seeking the Lord about this, He showed me three primary areas in which He is now giving extraordinary grace and leadership to set His people free. These areas are:
1) Freedom from sin
2) Freedom from fear
3) Freedom from debt
Sin leads to every form of bondage, and every form of bondage is rooted in sin. There are many people who have been striving to get free of fear and/or debt. However, because they have not confronted basic areas of sin in their lives, they are fighting a losing battle until the stronghold of sin is broken. Grace is coming to set us free from besetting sins—we truly can be free from sin. This is not to imply that we will not occasionally have a slip, but we can be free so that sin no longer controls us. We must have a vision of freedom from sin—the power over sin was given to us at the cross. There is special grace coming for our deliverance.
Because “perfect love casts out fear” (I John 4:18), the more we come to know the perfect love of God, the more we are freed from our fears. Since sin does separate us from God, it is hard to know His perfect love if there are continuous sins in our lives.
Debt is also rooted in sin. It usually has roots in lust (for things), and irresponsibility—such as the failure to tithe or be liberal in our giving. There are other areas of financial disobedience that can release “the devourer” into our lives. Because the love of money can be the root of all evil, it is important for us to learn how to handle money properly. There is grace coming for all of God’s people to get free from the stronghold of debt. One of the primary ways that God’s grace is coming to us is through “preachers of righteousness,” who are now being commissioned to go and set the Lord’s people free. Many of them, like Moses, have been on the back side of the desert for many years, faithfully tending their little flocks. A dramatic change is coming to their lives, and to the entire church.
Beholding His Glory
Like Moses, those who are being called will tend to think that they are inadequate for the task, and they are! No one is ever adequate for what God calls them to do. We will, therefore, always be dependent on His Holy Spirit to accomplish our commissions. Moses did not need a big organization and huge staff, he only needed the “staff” that was already in his hand to be empowered by God.
Those being called should beware of thinking that they need any more than what they already have in their hand to accomplish their purpose. How much glory would the Lord have received if Moses had returned to set Israel free with a great army behind him? How much glory would the Lord have received if Jesus had fed the five thousand from a truckload of food that He had with Him? If we want to see the greater glory, we need to be willing to go with little and let God show what He can do with it.
This is a major lesson that the Lord is seeking to teach His people, so that we can survive and even prosper in the coming times. He is going to be steering our faith away from all of the props and supports that we think ministry must have, and back to the ability of His Holy Spirit. In the beginning His Spirit moved upon chaos and brought forth this beautiful creation. He can move upon the greatest chaos in our lives and do the same. It does not matter if we receive a little paycheck or a big one, what matters is that God is moving in our lives. Having a little paycheck provides an even greater opportunity to see His glory and grow in faith. One of His great lessons is not getting more, but seeing what He has already given us be multiplied.
It is the Lord’s will for every single one of His people to be financially independent. This has little to do with how much money we have, but in how much faith we have. To be financially independent is to always make decisions based simply on the Lord’s will—never on how much we have.
Power with Character
The ultimate purpose of the Lord for every believer is for His glory and power to be revealed through our lives. He wants to show who He is through us. He is the Almighty, and we cannot really reveal Him as He is unless His power is manifested in our lives. However, His power is only meant to highlight the glory of His nature. He wants us to be like Him, and have His nature, which is to manifest the fruit of the Spirit. Therefore one of the most important scriptures for the coming times is Psalm 100:4:
Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him; bless His name.
The way of escape from most of our unwanted circumstances is to begin thanking God for them. We enter His gates with thanksgiving, but we go even deeper into His very courts when thanksgiving is turned into genuine praise. There is a fresh wave of worship that is going to come upon us that will overflow into every aspect of our daily lives.
Very soon, many are going to enter into a grace of worshiping the Lord continually. This does not mean that they will sing to Him every waking minute, but they will do everything as unto the Lord. When they wash dishes, they will be doing it as unto Him. When they go to work, regardless of what their jobs are, they will do them with thanksgiving in their hearts as unto Him. This will arise as praise to the Lord, setting Christians apart in a remarkable way, and causing them to prosper.
Complaining is what caused the first generation of Israelites to leave Egypt and perish in the wilderness without receiving what they had been promised. Becoming a thankful people is the greatest open door to the presence of the Lord and to His provision. Thankfulness is faith, and therefore releases faith. Faith will move God to help us. Complaining is sin because it is unbelief, and it will never release the provision of God into our lives. Turning complaining into thanksgiving will more radically change lives than nearly any other single factor.
When Christians stop complaining about their churches and start thanking the Lord for them, they will be astonished at how radically those churches will change. When we start thanking the Lord for our public officials and government, we will be astonished at how they will begin to change. When Christians stop complaining about their jobs, mates, and circumstances, they will be astonished at how fast these can change.
Those who repent of the sin that they have been practicing, and turn their complaining into thanksgiving, will feel that they have been born again, again. If the stock market goes down and our big account turns into a little one, rejoice and thank the Lord. We will then see Him stretch the little one far more than we could have ever stretched the big one.
This is not to imply that we should be irresponsible and not manage our resources well. However, the foundation of the best management we can have on this earth is seeing the Lord in all that we do, trusting in His goodness and good intentions for us, and thanking Him for it. We must start trusting His goodness and His power more than we trust anything else. Every situation and every trial in our lives are intended to draw us closer to Him, build our faith in Him, and therefore enable Him to trust us with more of His power. Do not waste your trials. Thank the Lord for every one of them and you will see them begin more and more quickly to turn into great victories. God is good. He is always good and if we will trust Him, everything in our lives will turn out good.
But thanks be to God, who always leads us in His triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place (II Corinthians 2:14).
That is His will for you. It does not matter how much sin you have become entangled in, how much fear now grips your life, or how much debt you are in—He has come to set you free.
