Preparing for the Coming Decade (Part 3)

The River Church — Mon, 03 May 2010 13:21:58 +0000

– by Steve Driessen

In the last two posts, we talked about 2010 being the Year of the Wind of the Spirit, short-term windows of opportunity that God’s people will have available to them, and God’s desire to break the oppression of bad debt off of us. But there are difficulties ahead as well – difficulties we can triumph over, if we stay attuned to what the Lord is speaking.

A Time of Testing Coming

We are entering into a time of testing. He’s testing us as individuals, as local church bodies, and as the people of God. Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were tested and proven to be of greater quality than the others around them (Daniel 1:11-16).

Testing has a way of doing that. Gold is purified by fire. The testing you are going through is not designed to destroy you, but to bring forth the better in you, the strength that’s within you. There are hidden strengths within each of us, and the only way those will come out is through times of testing.

God allowed Daniel and his three friends to be tested in Babylon so that at the end of their testing, the favor of God was evident upon them. That favor then positioned them to have influence in the Babylonian nation.

People are always looking for those who have endured through times of testing and have come to the top. If you can rise above and come successfully through whatever your testing involves, others will recognize it. They will know that they can trust you. The world is looking for people of strength and character. Without integrity, what you have doesn’t amount to much. You can have great amounts of money or great abilities, but if you lack integrity, you will be remembered as a failure.

So, God wants us to rise to the top. He is not trying to destroy us; He’s trying to build our character and to bring us to a place of being able to handle more responsibility, more kingdom anointing, and more authority. To get there we must continue to put God first, continue to be faithful, and continue to stand in the time of testing. Ephesians 6:13 tells us, “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” It’s not easy to stand. But God will give us the strength to do it.

A Season of Conflict

The world is entering a season of great conflict, and every one of us will be affected by it. There will be political, economic, and cultural upheaval. God is preparing a people right now who will be able to stand the test in the time of conflict.

People will be looking for answers. When the terrorist attack on 9-11 happened, the Church was not prepared. We were as shocked as everyone else. That was all part of the cycle of fear we went through in the last decade. But we are coming out of that into the cycle of faith.

When all hell breaks out, God wants us to be a people who are still secure in Him. We may not like what is happening around us, but God isn’t saying we have to like it; He’s just saying we have to go through it and be victorious on the other side of it. And He doesn’t want us to go through it complaining and murmuring like the Israelites did in Moses’ time.

The coming judgment and testing will be like unto the times of Nehemiah. God gave Nehemiah a mandate to go and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, and it seemed as if everybody was against him. But he knew he had a mandate, so he took a group of people with him, he surveyed the situation, and he accomplished what he set out to do.

We need to think more as a community, rather than simply as individuals. We must think more about caring for each other within the local body of believers, but this must extend out into the rest of the community as well. God put us within our particular cities and neighborhoods so that we can bring forth His plans and purposes there. We must become community-minded. Some of us should be specifically involved in the government of our communities, to help them by bringing forth righteous government. We need God’s people in positions where they can make righteous decisions in order to bless our communities.

I believe God wants His people to be more mobile and global in their thinking and in their prayer life.

If we get these concepts down this year, it will position us for the next ten years. This is very important. In a vision, I saw the Lord saying these things, but not everyone embraced what He was saying. As the years went by, there was a group of people who understood and who moved with the Lord. They continued to go forward in the things which God had prepared for them, but there was another group of people who did not. It reminded me of the story of the ten virgins in Matthew 25 – half were ready for the Bridegroom and half were not. They all had equal opportunity, but not everyone was prepared. Not everyone had done what needed to be done to be ready to go with the Bridegroom when He came. Five of them had not accumulated the extra oil (oil represents anointing and the Holy Spirit) that would be needed.

Even heeding this message will be part of the process of accumulating the extra oil, the extra anointing, that you will need for the time ahead, so that you won’t find yourself down the road saying, “Oh! I’ve run out of oil – because I didn’t think He was coming anyway.”

When the wait has already been long, we tend to start thinking it’s not going to happen after all, so why bother. I am not speaking, in this case, of Christ’s Second Coming. I am applying it to His purposes being fulfilled on the earth in preparation for His Second Coming. He is not coming back for a beat-up, bruised Bride. He’s coming back for a Bride “without spot or wrinkle” – a victorious Bride (Ephesians 5:27). We’ve got a ways to go and a little bit of ground to cover yet before that happens.

So the Lord is speaking: this year align yourself properly. Align yourself with the purposes of God. Let the Lord prepare you for the times of great difficulty yet to come. But God is not going to destroy you in those circumstances; He’s going to cause you to rise above it. But you’ve got to be able to hear what the Spirit of the Lord is speaking to you. Your oil vessels must be full, as it was with the five wise virgins. None of us wants to end up like the five foolish virgins. You don’t want to one day realize your oil is running out and have to ask yourself, “Why did I just go about my business as usual and not pay any heed to what was being said?” You must be ready.

God wants you to be free, unencumbered by whatever would hinder you from stepping into your opportunity. That may be fear. The fear of failure in your mind will hold you back from stepping into your window of opportunity. In fact, fear of failure will make it difficult for you to even recognize that opportunity.

It’s time to prepare. Listen carefully when the Lord speaks to you, and do what He says. Align yourself properly – both with the purposes of God and with the people He would have you connected with. And step forward into His plans with faith, knowing that you will be tested, but if you stand your ground through the testing, you will come forth as the purest of gold.

Preparing for the Coming Decade (Part 1)

Preparing for the Coming Decade (Part 2)

Decade of Evangelism

The River Church — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 13:57:59 +0000

The River Ministries

Following is a prophetic word released by Pastor Joan Driessen of The River Ministries on December 27, 2009. It is a word for the decade beginning with 2010:

You are about to enter into a new decade of evangelism. Fear will no longer hold the Church captive. In this last decade you saw hardly any evangelism and hardly any harvest, although you have planted seed. It was fear that held you back. But My amazing love is about to be poured out upon every man and woman who dares to believe for the spirit of evangelism to fall upon them. For it is love that will compel you to speak to the unspeakable. It is love that will compel you to love those who do not love in return. It is My amazing love that will be the vehicle to go to even the remotest parts of this nation — to pick up those who are in the gutter, to pick up those who have no hope, to embrace them, and to say, “Jesus loves you, and so do I.” For you must see the lost the way I see the lost. Your heart must be broken for every person in this nation, and every nation of the world.

But for those who are willing to be broken for the lost, I say unto you that an anointing from above will fall upon you — an anointing for evangelism like this nation has never seen before. It is an anointing that will cause men and women who are seeking (even though they don’t know what they are seeking) to come to you.

And evangelism will be easy, because it is compelled and driven by My love. You will see the most unlikely people come to Me and become radically saved and transformed. You will see the hardest of the hard come to Me. You will see it, if you dare to believe and allow Me to break your heart for those who don’t know Me.

times of transition

the blue ladder — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 08:40:56 +0000

An excellent article by Wade Taylor- a hidden, faithful friend of God. We are in transition between

positioning for 2010-- a message to hear

the blue ladder — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 03:30:32 +0000

Spiritual Preparation & Positioning for 2010 ONE MORE MEETING–PAUL KEITH DAVIS SUNDAY MORN

if you're not watching this-- you should be!

the blue ladder — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 04:06:34 +0000

ONE MORE NIGHT & SUNDAY MORNING! SATURDAY NIGHT, 6 PM EST SUNDAY MORNING, 11 AM EST

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Preparing for the Coming Decade (Part 3)

Decade of Evangelism

times of transition

positioning for 2010-- a message to hear

if you're not watching this-- you should be!