As I have heard of the multiple episodes of panic and “Chinese whispers” that have broken out amongst the family of God regarding prophecies and assumptions over the last few years, I have been praying about what to publish that can make some sense for those of us not walking in any real depth of relationship with Jesus and with our Father. Our Father’s answers to me have been more about the complex nature of the human heart, and what He is faced with as He reminds us again and again that our only place of safety in this world is to make sure He is no 1 priority in our lives.
That sounds achievable until we reflect on the values we put on all of the things and parts that make up the stuff of life. Then we realise that actually we put more weight on many things and comforts than we do on obeying His voice, and living according to His ways of the Spiritual Kingdom that rules over the physical. Our gracious Father has been spending long periods of time individually asking permission to transform each of us from the inside out. We have been too comfortable and established in many ways to believe that it is Him talking to us, but the last years discomforts and tragedies have pressured many of us to humble ourselves and “bend the knee” toward Him until we became comfortable again and then carried on behaving deep inside like we can get by without Him being a part of everything in our daily walk. This is called “hard heartedness” in scripture.
Every now and then, our caring Father warns us about impending disaster. There are two ways to hear these warnings a) as judgement that we can do nothing about, and b) as a warning that we need to go to prayer about, realising that the outcome doesn’t have to be according to the warning. This is the case amongst us at this time, especially as we see disaster after disaster impacting this nation.
On the lake of Galilee, Jesus calmed a mighty storm that seasoned fishermen knew was to be feared. We have seen multiple storms in the earth to deal with here. Our men of science tell us that the Canterbury plains are riddled with earthquake faults and this nation is set for some more events to come. We have weather disasters coming regularly, are we taking notice? Can we His Family stop panicking for long enough to take some notice of what our Father might be telling us to do about this? I would like to suggest that we have had a plague of earthquakes amongst us and other regular events that should be claiming our attention, so what are we going to do about it? Can I suggest that we look again at the well known verses of 2 Chronicles 7:13, 14 and re-realise that we have a course of action that begins with firmly establishing Jesus lordship as no 1 priority in our lives, and pursue Him and His ways established in our lives, for this land to be healed.
2Ch 7:13 If I shut up the heavens, and there is no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send a plague among My people;
2Ch 7:14 if My people, who are called by My name, shall humble themselves and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from Heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
You may say to me that these verses are old testament and don’t apply to us. The fact is, that the heart of God for us does not change, and as we see His heart to save us reflected in these verses in the bible, so we should relate to Him now. He wants to hear, He wants to forgive and He wants to heal so please can we give Him a reason to.
What is our Father’s love like? It is stunning and invigorating to realise His response to every effort on our part to draw closer to Him. To realise again that He would love us and hold us close just the same if we did nothing more for Him. He only asks us to do something when we ask Him what we can do for Him. And there's the problem cos we get all religious about that, forgetting that we don't HAVE to do anything. He wants willing sons and daughters who love to hang out with Him and enjoy Him doing stuff with us and through us and around us. He knows that sooner or later we get bored with doing nothing so all He has to do is wait with a smile while we get around to asking to see Him do stuff with us. Then He gives us something to do that NEEDS Him or it doesn't work. I love this... It all brings us back to Him always all the time. He is the greatest relationship provoker I know!