“Cry aloud, do not hold back! Raise your voice like a trumpet. Declare to My people their transgression and to the house of Jacob their sins.’ (Isaiah 58:1)
God instructed His servant Moses how to lead His people out of the House of Bondage into the place of their destiny. This is the ‘pey’ decade of the ‘mouth’. God loves His people and He is speaking forth, how to escape from the chains of religious drudgery. A mindset of spiritual captivity, lost in a repetitive cycle of performance and rituals. This behavioural norm comes easy to people because we are social beings. We look to others to model behaviour and construe meaning to our lives. Of course I include myself here. Generational passing of norms, tried and tested ways of working, organisational expectations and models enshrined in religious entities. They have worked for centuries but in a progressive age of Herculean shifts, perhaps the contemporary church has lost its mooring. It has become unfit for its spiritual purpose. The spiritual realm has moved into rapture ready gears. When the need arises for change it brings discontentment, instability, chaos, unwillingness and resistance on the part of some to move forward.
When the time came for Israel to vacate Egypt, it brought plagues, destruction and death. The spirit of Pharaoh does not like change. Of course God hardened his heart to get the glory, but Pharaoh’s heart was already amenable to being used by the evil spirit behind his behaviour. The chaos in the nations today of plague, death, lawlessness, economic woes, leadership challenges and civil unrest are all indication of a demonic agenda at work to prevent a momentous ‘out of Egypt’ exodus as many will come to salvation in this end season. The current church set up has not been reserved by God for the reception of this harvest of souls. God has something else in mind. He will not be bound by man’s constraints. He has removed Himself from many houses of bondage but the people continue to operate in the residue of God’s glory. ‘The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority. My people love it so, but what will you do in the end?’ (Jeremiah 5:31)
The fading ‘afterglow’ will not do. Israel was given fresh manna everyday and warned not to store up manna for the next day. Left overs was not what God wanted for His people. We need the fresh ‘ruach’ winds to winnow the trash and stubble. To separate the chaff from the tares as judgement begins in the House of God. It is time to leave Egypt by way of the wilderness. The end time flock MUST be led by God because we have NOT pass this way before. We MUST totally depend upon the leading of the SPIRIT. It will make us very uncomfortable, unsure at times but it WILL cause us to remain at the feet of JESUS our Shepherd. As it is now, we are too reliant on the organisation and others, comfortable in the way we have known it to be. Many, ‘resting on their laurels’ are not even aware that God is doing a new thing around the confusion and inertia. He is raising up a new generation of worshippers outside of the city walls. Those who understand the times as the sons of Issachar will shift effortlessly into where God is leading. I announce that I just want to be where God resides, even if I am isolated and doubted. Really, I am not about convincing any one. I just have to keep going. “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland” (Isaiah 43:19)
Gwendolyn Smith : #NEWPENTECOST