This morning as I was opening my journaling notes, I accidentally opened May 2017 and was shocked as what I saw there. It started the same as May 2020.
May 2020
May and June are a kind of transition from the first part of my life into the rest of my life.
It is a completely new season. Things will be different and oh so much better for me. I have entered into the last and best phase of my life.
Actually, the whole world and especially the Church has entered a whole new era, a season of taking back the world from the hands of darkness and bringing forth the kingdom of God. It is the time all creation has been waiting for.
May 2017
It is time for change. A season of new things has begun, both personally and in the entire church.
These are new days, and God NEEDS to do new things to reach the world. The Lord wants to do things that eye hasn’t seen neither has ear heard, things that have not yet entered into the heart of man, the bottomless and profound things of God, divine counsels and hidden things beyond man’s scrutiny. But many in His church are hindering Him, holding back by holding onto old ways, clinging to old wineskins, thinking God of course will continue to do things as in the past.
I have to move on even if it means letting go of more of what I have been taught in order to be able to see and know and understand what is before me. It has to be like a total rebuild, going down to the studs to remove things I have learned and accepted that are not really Bible but things that were built as wineskins to hold the previous moves of God – but at the same time keep the truth and reality and foundations that are unchangeable truths of God.
The Lord will open my eyes to see these things. I’ll probably be shocked at the things still in my belief systems that are not in the Bible, that I just accepted and swallowed along with the truth. But it is time to go on, and I am willing.
There are many things I am made to do that have been outside of my previous belief system, things that have never even come into my thoughts, things that eye has not seen and ear has not heard He has prepared for those who love Him.
Philippians 3:13 – I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own [yet]; but one thing I do [it is my one aspiration]: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.
One thing: forgetting what lies beyond and straining forward to what lies ahead.
To embrace new things I have to change direction. I have to look away from the past things, change directions and look in the new direction. I also need forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead.
Fight the good fight, lay hold of what you were made for. There is a strain and a pressing and a fight to leave the old things take hold of what is before me.
Isaiah 42:9-10 – Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them. Sing to the Lord a new song, and His praise from the end of the earth!
Isaiah 43:18-19 – Do not [earnestly] remember the former things; neither consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs forth; do you not perceive and know it and will you not give heed to it?
It is hard to move on to new things. It is easier to fall into old ruts and patterns. This is the time for new wineskins. The new wine the Lord is longing to poor into us and through us cannot be contained in the old wineskins, the old ways. We can’t get where we need to go or do what we need to do to complete our work on earth in the old ways.
Isaiah 48:6-7 – You have heard [these things foretold], now you see this fulfillment. And will you not bear witness to it? I show you specified new things from this time forth, even hidden things [kept in reserve] which you have not known. They are created now [called into being by the prophetic word], and not long ago; and before today you have never heard of them, lest you should say, Behold, I knew them!
He will show me new things from this time forth, even hidden things kept in reserve for these days, things that we have not yet known.
February 2017
I am on a new adventure with God. I don’t know where I am going; I only know where I can’t stay.
A new direction and way requires a new song. He pulled me out of the pit I kept falling into and put me on a new path and will establish my steps in this new way.
What I have to do is to forget what lies behind and press forward to what is before me. New things He has begun to declare. He will show me more and more new things, even hidden things which I have not yet known.
His knowledge and understanding is limitless, and He is willing to share it with us, and He will share it with me. There are many things that before today I have never heard of that will begin to unfold more and more and more as I am willing to leave the old things and walk into the new.
For I resolve to know nothing and to be conscious of nothing except Jesus, to set my mind and keep it set on what is above not on the things that are on the earth, no more cluttered with natural things.
I continue to increase in the wisdom of God once hidden but now revealed by God for our glory There are some levels of glory we have not yet entered that need a deeper knowledge of God and spiritual things and natural things to enter into. These are some of the things that He is now revealing to those who are willing hear.
Things that eye and not seen and ear has not heard and things not yet entered into the heart of man, things that God has prepared for us that we don’t yet know – new things – He now unveils and reveals them to us by and through His Spirit, even the profound and bottomless things of God, divine counsels and things hidden and beyond man’s scrutiny.
I have received the Spirit of God that I might realize and comprehend and appreciate the gifts of favor and blessing so freely and lavishly bestowed upon us by God.
As I walk on in this new path as it unfolds (The entrance and unfolding of your words give light; their unfolding gives understanding – discernment and comprehension to the simple.), I will leave tradition and the previous ways of the church further and further behind until they have no impact upon me anymore.
2020 – At the time I wrote in 2017, I had no clue that the Lord would have to stop the world to change our direction, but that is what He has done. We are coming out of this time into a whole new world. If we try to fit back into “the way things were” we will miss the rest of our lives.
This Morning’s Study
This is even more interesting because of a message by Lana Vawser I was listening to this morning, a message from Accelerate 2-3-20. Below are some of my notes.
It’s not the end of a season but it’s the end of an era.
Season – Some things cross over, things are similar, a time characterized by a particular circumstance or feature, a period of the year characterized by or associated with a particular activity or phenomenon.
Era – Things are completely different. A fixed point in time from which a series of years is reckoned, a stage in development (as of a person or thing), a large division of geologic time usually shorter than an eon.
Isaiah 43:18-19 – Do not [earnestly] remember the former things; neither consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs forth; do you not perceive and know it and will you not give heed to it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
This will be an era of the unexpected. God is going to move so unexpectedly and in a completely new way.
God is going to completely reform the church.
It requires people who say “God give me eyes to see and ears to see to be able to go with Him.”
It will seem that everything that has happened previously in your life has been to prepare you for this moment.
The Lord says, “Ready or not, here I come…”
Pray that the Lord makes you ready for what He is about to do.
In Conclusion
New days are here. Powerful days. Days that we have been waiting for and praying for all of our lives. Days that we have been prepared for.
Don’t be distracted by the disruption and contradiction that always accompanies new moves of God. And don’t be one of those who rejects the new things God is doing because they are not like the old things. – even if they seem to contradict what you have previously been taught.
This has ALWAYS happened in EVERY more of God!
Listen on the inside, and follow your Lord into the beginning of the best days the Church has ever experienced!