The world is being brought to the “Valley of Decision” where all will have to choose between the light and darkness, good and evil, truth and lies. We are in the times that will separate the wheat from the chaff, and the nations as sheep or goats.
It is not just the U.S. that is headed for civil war. All of the social fault lines in civilization are having tremors, and we can expect increasing divisions with these social earthquakes. At the same time the greatest unity will be coming to God’s true followers. The most glorious event on earth that is now happening is the bride of Christ beginning to make herself ready for Him. This is why we are promised that the glory of the latter house will be greater than the former.
As we move deeper into these times the consequences of our decisions, or failure to make them, will be increasing as well. Your decision to follow The Lord with all of your heart, and take your stand for righteousness and against wickedness, could turn the tide of battle for the soul of your city or country. All who live in these times will ultimately be either a hero or a villain. Very soon no one will be able to sit on the sidelines.
The decisions we make today could determine whether we are strong enough to make the right ones later. As we approach the end of this age the importance of every decision and every action will be magnified. This means that what will bear good fruit will bear more, and what will bear bad fruit will also bear more.
All of the above was how I opened the last Word for the Week of 2019 and the first for 2020. I started this year with it again because it is as timely now as it was then. 2020 became one of the most challenging, strange, but glorious years of our lifetime, and in some ways, perhaps for all time. The lessons we learned from it will help us to navigate 2021 and beyond. We will start by examining the three most important lessons of 2020.
- We must do more than seek The Lord for guidance—we must know Him as our Guide. There can be a big difference between following directions and following The Lord. We must seek The Lord, not just answers to our problems.
- Government is not God, and science is not infallible, but we have been given a kingdom that cannot be shaken. To build on that kingdom we must seek it first, not second behind the temporary things of this life, and even our civil government is temporal. The King and His kingdom must be first in our heart and our devotion above all else.
- Knowing the Scriptures and even prophecy accurately is not the same as knowing The Lord, obeying Him, and abiding in Him. Being devoted to knowing the Scriptures and sound doctrine is important, but eternal life is knowing The Lord, not just facts about Him.
2020 was especially designed to help us get to know The Lord. For decades a prophetic friend, Bob Jones, told us that 2020 would begin the decade of “entering God’s rest.” When I sought a word for 2020 I was given Psalm 23:2, “He makes me to lie down…” Covid-19 was used to do that for practically the whole world. What the enemy meant for evil turned into good for those who serve The Lord. We were forced to stop our normal routines and rest, causing many to find God again as the first love of their life.
Many used this time well, getting their priorities right and getting closer to The Lord. The spiritual life of virtually every Christian I knew went up. It was perhaps the strangest revival in history. When there could be no large gatherings, we got closer to The Lord, our families, and in the small cell groups we could gather with.
Because man was created at the end of the sixth day, his first day was God’s seventh day of creation, the day He rested. So, from the very beginning of man’s life, for him to enter into fellowship with God, he had to enter into His rest. The rest of The Lord is found by trusting Him. Adam must not have done this very well or he would not have doubted Him so quickly when tempted.
We, too, must do this well—trust Him—to make it through the coming times without falling. The positive to this is that the growing trust of those who keep the pursuit of God and His kingdom first in their life will result in greater glory and the demonstration of His kingdom as the authority over every other power on earth.
In the Book of Hebrews, entering God’s rest is equated with entering the Promised Land (read chapters 3 and 4). We will look back on 2020 as the year we began to enter our Promised Land. It may have been the most challenging year yet in the temporal things, but it was a year for positioning us on our Jordan River and to prepare us to cross over.
We may not have liked it, but it has been God’s grace to prune things out of our life that were not bearing any eternal or lasting fruit. For those who have embraced it and rested in their trust in The Lord, the true and lasting fruit will soon be yours.
Special note: Last year I used the WFTW platform to share the Heritage Briefs I have been writing. This year I will return to writing more of a prophetic word for the time in the WFTW, but will continue releasing Heritage Briefs once a month and also share them with you as a bonus. This is done because to honor our fathers and mothers is the only commandment with a promise, that it will go well with us, and we will have longevity, and these are two blessings that we desperately need at this time.
© 2021 by Rick Joyner. All rights reserved.
