Timing and Alignment
Shaloha Everyone
How was hurricane Iselle? Julio? How was Sunday service? Worship? The Word? How was that fire tunnel? It was sizzling!!! The whole spiritual atmosphere was crackling this past week, especially over Volcano National Park! Cheehoo! God was forging something very special through the hurricanes, service, and Pastor Dean’s, birthday fire tunnel. We got basted, baked, broiled, barbecued, blasted, blown away, and blessed by the fire of God. I know many were touched and transformed.
I personally experienced the ‘uncle anointing’ and finally couldn’t handle God’s unbearable goodness! I yelled uncle after only three minutes of prayer from Pastor Kerry, Pastor Michelle, Pastor Jan, a few of the team, and I believe a bunch of angels! I personally believe this past fire tunnel impacted my life more than all the others. This is just my opinion. I may share more about this later, but I wanted to set the foundation of this article with some other background information first.
We live in a very special time, a time when God is aligning everything according to His will and ways. His sovereign hand is working His will in and through our lives. The old and the new are coming together as one! It’s a beautiful dance to behold. The fullness of the Gentiles are coming in and all of Israel will be saved (Romans 11:25-26). Do you feel it? You’ve been raised up for such a time as this!
Yesterday, August 11, according to the Jewish calendar, was the 15th of Av. The Israelites look upon this historical day as the day when people stopped dying in the wilderness. For forty years, the unbelieving Jews died in the wastelands of the Middle Eastern deserts because they disobeyed God and brought back a fearful report. They doubted Yahweh’s goodness. God then blocked their entrance into the promise land for four decades. Only Caleb and Joshua believed and received their inheritance.
God willed that none of the disbelieving generation would enter; thus, for forty years the Lord waited for all of them to die off. Yesterday marked the historical day when the Lord reversed the forty year curse – no more dying in the wilderness! God raised up an entirely new generation, a believing one, a people aligned to his will, an army tempered by flame, devoted to God (Iselle).
The 15th of Av or August 11th also marked the beginning of a special season for people to take extended time to study and meditate on the Torah. Why did God use this as the start date? Based on the information at hand, it was a period when the days were longer and thus gave more time for the study of Scripture, even to the wee hours of the night (I wonder if they had coffee at that time? Starbucks? Ha!). The Jews looked upon evening as the time for serious contemplation on the Bible.
On August 11th, yesterday, the 15th of Av, it signified the raising up of a brand new people who loved studying the Bible. Does this sound vaguely familiar?
Do you remember what we proclaimed this past week? We proclaimed that the curse has been reversed over our lives (Friday night). We did it three times! No more dying in the wilderness. Life!!!! We even blessed and broke something in the spiritual realm at the national and state level by blessing our president and governor.
We fasted during the Fast of Tammuz (7/15), a fast which focused on the reversal of curses over Israel. We ended our fast on 7/17 which divinely coincided with Genesis 8:4, “In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat.” What does Ararat mean? Reverse the curse!!!!!
This gets even more interesting. The staff and board pitched in and got Dean a signet ring from Tiffanys for his birthday. This type of ring is rare for this day and age. Not only is it rare for this present time in history, it was also the last one of its kind at the Tiffany stores on Oahu.
In ancient times, kings used it to seal important documents or to inaugurate a new law or edict. It was a symbol of power. It reversed curses! Esther 8:8 states, “Now you write to the Jews as you see fit, in the king’s name, and seal it with the king’s signet ring; for a decree which is written in the name of the king and sealed with the king’s signet ring may not be revoked.”
With this seal, Mordecai used the king’s signet to thwart Haman’s curse and bring about a great deliverance for the Jewish people. They were now able to defend themselves. The king’s authority on the signet reversed Haman’s curse. The Feast of Purim commemorates this day!
Dean and other apostles (David Demian, Eddie Ma…) have become signet rings in the hand of the Lord to reverse curses, especially for the nations, especially for Israel! “On that day,’ declares the Lord of hosts, ‘I will take you, Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, My servant,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you,’ declares the Lord of hosts” (Haggai 2:23).
Dd and Michelle, who spear headed the buying of the gift, had no intention of buying a signet ring; let alone buying something for Dean from a foo foo place like Tiffanys. God told them to do this and the rest of the team agreed. The deeper meanings unfolded later. God works this way. We obey first and maybe understand later. I say maybe because God doesn’t reveal the why a lot of the times. Even now I personally think we are only scratching the surface of understanding.
Couple this with our recent emphasis on going deeper in the Word and you start moving into chicken skin territory when you now compare it with the Jewish calendar and how God led the Israelites into the promise land and into His Word. He is doing the same with us. Yes, he is doing the same with us. He is raising up Iselles, people devoted to God. Hallelujah!
The fire tunnel, Dean’s 55th birthday gift to us, was like God sealing us with his signet ring into a new season, a new land, the promised land. The Lord has birthed us through the cleansing fire of our own wilderness experiences, the wind and water of spiritual hurricanes (it’s interesting that we experienced one this past week), and capped it off with a fire tunnel, ’55’, or ‘grace grace’ on the capstone of the spiritual building of our lives (Zech 4:7, Eph 2:21-22). God then took the ‘grace grace‘ thing to another dimension when we received more blessing later that evening. We won’t go into that because it would take another article to explain what happened. Just know that Sunday was epic! I’m still in a daze.
August 11th or the 15th of Av inaugurated a whole new season of life and depth in His Word for the Jewish people. He did and is doing the same with us! He has reversed and is reversing the curse! He is causing us to go deep into His Word and Spirit! God is raising up an entirely new generation, a believing one, a people aligned to his will, an army tempered by flame, devoted to God at Unified… . Blessed be His awesome and mighty name! Grace! Grace!
“For you will go out with joy
And be led forth with peace;
The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you,
And all the trees of the field will clap their hands.
“Instead of the thorn bush the cypress will come up,
And instead of the nettle the myrtle will come up,
And it will be a memorial to the Lord,
For an everlasting sign which will not be cut off.”
Isaiah 55:12-13
Pastor John
Synchronization
Synchronization
Websters defines synchronize in this way: to represent or arrange events to indicate coincidence or coexistence, to happen at the same time. As I sat listening at our Friday night leadership meeting to Pastor Rod, Pastor Dean, and observing what was happening in the body, I realized God was causing everything to come into His synchronization, into His timing, into coexistence with His being and His ways.
The land, The Spirit, and the season we live in are all intersecting at this time and making clear what we need to do as a body of believers. The land exudes servanthood. The Spirit and the season cry out mercy. We are called to do the same.
Ephesians 1:9-10 states, “He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which he purposed in Him. with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things in the earth. In Him.”
This verse makes clear God’s intent: to sum up all things in Him. You could say He is synchronizing the things in heaven and the things on earth in Him as the days draw near to His second coming. He is causing us to synchronize with our heaven driven mercy church call and Spirit rich servant land destiny. Heaven and earth coming together as one. We coming together as one. The Mercy Church and Servant land singing with one voice.
Pastor Dean spoke on Matthew 13:24-30, “Jesus presented another parable to them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away. But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares? And he said to them, ‘an enemy has done this! The slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers,. “First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.”
He made an intriguing observation that only servants could see the wheat and the tares, the true believers and false, the humble and proud. Servants can see because their humility allows them the grace to see the things of God. 1 Peter 5:5-6 states, “….God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” He gives grace to the humble. The servants saw the water being turned into wine, the coming home of the prodigal son, and stood ready when the Master came home.
They bought the eye salve to see the things of God through their humility (Rev 3:14-22). God is also calling us to walk as humble servants so that we can see. We are also called to buy eye salve in this season. The proud stay blind and deceived as Kris Valloton shared in his short video clip.
Pastor Dean also mentioned that the wheat in its maturity bend because of the weight of its kernels. The tares stand erect because they don’t carry the same seasoning, weight, and maturation. They, the wheat, also bend with the wind. The tares resisted the flow of the wind.
The servant will walk in humility bending to the will of God and His Spirit, but the proud will stand out like a sore thumb in the maturation season when all things are revealed. The sad thing is that they will be oblivious to their arrogance. They will think they are wheat. The servant will be the only one who can see. They have kept their heart pure. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God (Matthew 5:8).
Pastor Rod talked about connection and one of the characteristics of a connector is a person who takes responsibility and not blames others for their shortcomings. Simply put, a servant takes the initiative to call and get together with others, they take responsibility to connect, they take responsibility to grow, they take responsibility to learn. In the old season we waited for the church to set up an event in order for us to connect. It’s not the same in the Mercy Season. We are called to take the initiative.
Heaven and earth challenge us to flow with their synchronization into the glorious flow of responsibility and maturity. We are called to bend with God and not blame with the Devil.
Pastor Dean talked about the North Vietnamese army and their ability to see the right time to strike the Americans and their southern brothers. They chose the right season of the Lunar New Year when people had their guard down and were partying. It’s interesting that Vietnam is a servant redemptive nation. Servants see. They saw. They won a glorious victory during the TET offensive.
They also waited out the Americans and eventually wore out our proud nation by their patience. General Giap, the top commander of the North Vietnamese Army, stated that they would eventually win because they could outlast the Americans. The might and technology of our prophet redemptive nation could not stand up to the patience and fortitude of the servant redemptive Vietnamese. You could say that blessed are the gentle or humble, for they shall inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5). They eventually inherited their land.
Servants know how to wait and walk in patience. The proud are impatient and act impulsively. They react. They get angry. They jump to conclusions. They blame. They lose. The servant inherits. Remember: God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.
God is calling us to walk in the same way. He is calling us to walk as servants. He wants us to walk in humility, true discernment, patience, unselfishness, maturity, responsibility, and to serve with a good and right heart.
We connect with our mercy redemptive church DNA by choosing to walk intimately with God and with one another; to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourself. The Mercy Season calls us to intimacy. Ultimately, the Mercy Season is a summons to go deeper on the two great commandments. It’s simple and profound.
In summary, the exhortation to servanthood and true intimacy with God and one another synchronizes with the spiritual DNA of our land and our call as a church. On a grander scale it synchronizes with the inevitable flow of Jesus bringing all things in heaven and on earth together as one.
God is exposing hearts right now (Rev 3:18). He is causing all to come into alignment with His Spirit, His will, His purposes. Anything out of alignment will be corrected by Him. It is and it will be revealed.
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him, and will dine with him, and he with me.” Rev 3:20
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