As we covered last week, to know the time of our visitation is crucial and to miss it brings judgment. The Lord called the people who could not discern the signs of the times “hypocrites.” To not be devoted to understanding the times and what God is doing in them, reveals that we don't care much for these most crucial issues and that our heart is not really devoted to His purposes.
Even though to miss the time of our visitation brings certain judgment, judgment does not necessarily mean condemnation. There are different types of judgment in Scripture, ranging from destruction to discipline. The worst judgment of all is to be ignored by God, which reveals we are either not His or that He has turned us over to a wayward heart. He disciplines those He loves. The scariest thing of all should be when He no longer is disciplining us. For this reason, as the Book of Proverbs repeats often, the wise love discipline and fools hate it.
The kind and level of judgment seems to be directly related to the level of anointing, power, and presence of the Lord that we are visited by and reject. Scripture and history reveal that the level of judgment received for missing a visitation of God is related to the level of visitation that we reject. To not bother to go out to see a prophet or even an apostle is not the same as not bothering to go out to see the Son of God.
We should not want to miss anything that God is doing, on any level. More than the fear of missing something God is doing, we should be devoted to being a part of what He is doing in our times, having the greatest excitement at the possibility of being a part of a move of God. Even though we gave our lives to the Lord and committed to doing His will, esteeming to be a part of what He is doing as mandatory, our motivation should not be that we have to do this but that we get to. There is no greater honor and nothing will ever be as satisfying as being a part of what God is doing. So, to discern what He is doing should be a basic devotion of our lives.
Warriors run to the sound of battle not away from it. Christians should likewise run to a move of God. This should be our nature, not just an obligation. If we are truly growing in the love of God, our number one priority as human beings should be to do His will, and we should love what He is doing that much.
How is the Lord visiting us now? He is coming the way that He came the first time-healing the sick, casting out devils, and delivering those who are oppressed of the devil. We are in the initial stages of a release of the power of God like has not been witnessed in over half a century, and which may not have been seen since Jesus walked the earth as a man.
There are doors that stand open in heaven as we read in Revelation 4:1. A door is open right now for Christians to begin walking in healing gifts and to perform miracles in the name of the Lord. For those who already walk in these gifts and ministries, the door is open for them to go to higher levels of authority in them.
One reason why the Lord is pouring out His Spirit in this way now is that we are going to have to know Jesus as our Healer for us to just make it through some of the things that will soon be coming upon the earth. Even with the great advances in modern medicine, we are now facing diseases that are beyond human remedy. If we will respond to the Lord and begin to walk in what He has called us to walk in, this death and disease, which are works of the devil, can be turned into a great harvest.
If you study revivals and great moves of God that touch the whole world, as the present healing revival is beginning to do, you will start to see a pattern of them coming just before the worst worldwide tragedies such as wars or plagues. It seems that if the revivals or moves of God were not cut short, then these great tragedies could have been avoided.
I have spent many years studying both what enabled revivals to ignite and what stopped them. One common denominator with the way they all began is that they were all unique. They each began in different ways and under different conditions. However, they each ended in basically the same way. Because there is no easy formula for understanding how revivals and moves of God begin, it compels us even more to simply follow the King. Obviously, a move of God must be God moving, so our primary goal should always be to get close to Him and stay close to Him.
Because the Lord is the Creator and obviously loves to be creative, He does seem to move in a unique way and with unique people. Unlike this, the devil has used the same strategies over and over. Maybe one reason why the devil does this is because they keep working! Next week we will go a little deeper into how the schemes of the enemy have stopped revivals and moves of God, as well as how we can very easily recognize and resist him. We will also look at how this relates to what is happening presently, with the goal of seeing a move of God in our times that does not stop moving.
