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Entering into 2013


At the beginning of each New Year I try to set aside time to pray and listen for prophetic direction for the coming year.  The Bible teaches that we should seek after and value prophetic direction.  In Jeremiah 33:3 the Scriptures declare, “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” 
The Amplified Version reads, “Call to Me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things, fenced in and hidden, which you do not know (do not distinguish and recognize, have knowledge of and understand).”
            As we pray and wait in the presence of the Lord He gives revelation about things we are experiencing and about the future.  The Prophet Amos penned these words in Amos 3:7, “Surely the Lord God does nothing, unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets.”
We must be careful to remember that prophetic ministry is for our comfort, exhortation, and encouragement.  We learn in 1 Corinthians 14:3, “But he who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men.” 
In 1 Corinthians 13:9 the Apostle Paul tells us that prophetic ministry never reveals the whole picture, but only a part.  The Scripture reads, “For we know in part and we prophesy in part.”
The Lord uses prophetic ministry to give us a glimpse into the future.  It is incomplete by itself.  John, the beloved disciple, and the longest living Apostle instructed us in his first epistle to the New Testament Church that we must test the spirits.  1 John 4:1 teaches, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”
The Apostle Paul gave the Thessalonians the following instructions concerning prophetic ministry:  1 Thessalonians 5:20-21 – “Do not despise prophetic utterances. 21 But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good.” (NASB)
The Pauline letters give the following instructions concerning prophetic ministry:
·      We are to value prophecy,
·      We are to judge and test the words,
·      We are to try the spirits and motivation behind the words that are spoken. 
In 1 Timothy 1:18 Paul gives these instructions to a young pastor, “This charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according to the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may wage the good warfare.”
What do we do with the prophetic promises that God gives to us?  According to the Apostle Paul we are to pray them back to the Father and use them to engage in warfare with the enemy. Prophecy is for our encouragement and I believe it is permission for us to pursue God in prayer.
     Over the last couple of weeks the Lord has spoken the following four things concerning this coming year: I want to share the following four things and submit them to you for prayer.  Please examine these things and join with me in praying for greater insight.

1.     A Year of Transition - Several weeks ago during a time of worship the Lord spoke very clearly that this would be a year of transition. 
Transition involves change.  It is not change for the sake of change, but it is moving forward in the will of God.  It is moving from one place to another place.  Dr. Chuck Pierce says, in his book “Possessing Your Inheritance, ”Transition is crossing over to a new place or passing from one condition to another.”
Transition is passing through a narrow place.  God is going to move us into position to fulfill our destiny.  He is transitioning from one level of anointing to a greater anointing. It is time for us to cross over.  It is time to move out of the wilderness and into our promised possession.
2.    A Year of Trouble - The second thing that the Lord dealt with about this coming year is that it will be a “Year of Trouble.” What do I mean by trouble? I believe that we are going to enter into a time of shaking like the world has never known. What is it?  It is the front winds of a storm that is coming.
We are living in the last days, even the last of the last days. The world we live in is very dangerous.  The Middle East will continue to experience upheaval and instability.  Israel will live with a greater threat from Iran, the government that emerges in Syria, and the current Muslim Brotherhood that has come to power in Egypt.
Our nation is divided culturally and politically.  We have normalized perversion and embraced sin and wickedness.
There will be continued trouble in the economy.  It will continue to be very fragile. I believe that we are going to come under greater correction and judgment because of our sin.  Hebrews 12:27-28 – “Now this, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain.  28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.
3.    A Year of Tremendous Opportunity
This will be a year of tremendous opportunity for the Body of Christ. God is moving by His Spirit. We are in the beginning of a mighty outpouring of His Spirit. What does the Scriptures reveal about the last days?  We are in a time of trouble, confusion and upheaval.  But in this midst of this season of shaking and distress in the nations we are going to see a mighty move of God’s Spirit.
Listen to these words in Acts 2:17 – “‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh;
Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams.
18 And on My menservants and on My maidservants
I will pour out My Spirit in those days; And they shall prophesy.”
Isaiah 54:1-3 – ““Sing, O barren, You who have not borne! Break forth into singing, and cry aloud, You who have not labored with child! For more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married woman,” says the Lord.
2 “Enlarge the place of your tent, and let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings; Do not spare; lengthen your cords,
and strengthen your stakes. 3 For you shall expand to the right and to the left, and your descendants will inherit the nations,
And make the desolate cities inhabited.”
4.  A Year of Transformation
A key word for this year is “Transformation.” The word transformation simply means “change.”  Romans 12:2 – “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
2 Corinthians 3:8 – “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

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