I believe that this is the first time I have offered to you who read our blogs, a word from God.  Today I feel constrained to do so because it was a very strong word from the Lord and the understanding of this word will impact all of our lives for years to come.

From yesterday afternoon to this morning I felt a heavenly tug on my heart from the Lord…. seeking my attention.  I wrestled a little in prayer with Him, I also sought Him by worshiping in song, and I took a couple of walks to get the sense of His Mind...

This morning I started to get a greater sense of His Mind.  As I prayed I heard this very unique word, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."  (Jn.2:19) As I continued to seek Him I sensed that our struggles with the enemy are about to end.

This word focused my mind on the suffering of our Lord Jesus.  Our Lord endured the cross despising its shame by taking upon his sacred body an incredible beating at the hands of mortal men.  The worst of our kind, beat Him over and over again to the point of death.

 
From those fateful hours in Gethsemane that stretched His perfect heart into intense and grievous agony while He drank the entire cup of God’s wrath, to the house of Caiaphas where He received so much harsh and unrighteous treatment by the Jewish Sanhedrin, to the cruel lashings meted out by the Romans, to the brutality of carrying His own cross to the place of the Skull, and then the final act of brutality; the nailing of his limp and butchered body to a cross of olive wood.

Let none of us ever forget to make our constant meditation the sufferings of Our Lord; by these sacred wounds He has earned the right to order the affairs of His Bride and prepare Her for His glorious return! 

When Jesus uttered, "It is finished" and these heart wrenching words, "Father, into Your Hands I commit my spirit," our precious Savior provided for us the perfect sacrifice to save those of us who yield to the reality of our undeniable offenses of His perfect justice and laws.  

So when the Lord released those words to me this morning I felt the impact of the "destroy" part of His words, but then He reminded me the words He uttered last, "and I will raise it up (restore) in 3 days"  I focused on the truth of His power to raise and resurrect us from the worst of our difficult predicaments by His amazing love and grace!  

Then the Lord allowed me to simply rest in the realities of His resurrection power. 

Any of you wondering right now about the extent of His Mercy to your miserable situation, I must tell you this, no matter how grave your sins have been, no matter how many times you have fallen into Satan's snares, the Lord’s sacrifice was accepted by the Father and ratified by His Powerful Resurrection if you simply fly to Him right now and trust Him for salvation!

I received more words that have reference to all of us in the body of Christ!  Like me, many of you who are serving the Lord with all the strength you can muster; you have doubted the Lord’s care over you; you might even be one of those who are wondering to yourself, “does God really see me?  Does He care about me?  I can’t believe He has let me fall so far?  

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2007 and 2008 have been some of the toughest years of our lives.  At times I have been so baffled at what we have been called to endure.  Our hardships don’t seem to make any sense; I have repeatedly told the Lord that I have yielded myself and my precious family to Christ and His kingdom more then at any other time in my life!  But these last 2 years have seemed to be the toughest… I have been asking over and over, what Lord, are you doing with me?

Why is this way so hard?   I have had friends come and tell me, “look Jonathan you just need to trust the Lord, you are an overcomer.”  “you just need to live in your identity as a son of God!”  All these words have been comforting to a degree, but at times they anger me!  I know what God did in my life several years ago, I know He has called me and separated me to do something for Him.  I know I am a chosen vessel that He is preparing for His work.  I believe with all my heart that no one else is called to do what He has called me to do!

Even though I know I am called and chosen to work for Him I still wonder, "God are you there?"  Everytime I ask and cry out He comes and assures me that Yes!  Yes!  Yes!  “I am with you!”  

But He whispers words of confirmation to me quietly in my heart, or the Spirit of God directs me to a passage in the scriptures that reminds me that I am in the fire of His refining!  Make no mistake if you are a chosen vessel to do a work for Him in His kingdom, then you are going to be refined!  This is not a thing we can avoid or accomplish ourselves; it is His decision to separate you and me to do a new thing in your life.

Of course many of our old friends and a family are clueless to what are going through; but the struggle continues and His Love still holds true.  If people think we are delusional it really doesn't matter, does it?  They are just spectators; they are not in the fire!  They are like Christian in the allegory, “Pilgrims Progress by John Bunyan” where Christian is overwhelmed with sadness about the future of the city he lives in, the city of Destruction.
  
Christian’s family and friends tried time and time again to persuade Christian to chill out and hang loose; they urged him not to leave the city of Destruction.  

These false friends encourage Christian to continue to party with them, they want him to numb his conscience with more fun and leisure; they tell him to drink more of the empty promises of this world in hopes that his brokenness and conviction would eventually fade away.  But Christian kept on walking to the glory of the Celestial City of God!

Friends we are living in the earth of destruction!  The Lord is coming for a bride that is without spot or wrinkle.  He is coming for a people who are looking for Him and His Return!  We are a self absorbed people, so worried about our visions and dreams, so tied up in our success and prosperity.  

The Lord is about to show all of us very soon the value of our dreams compared to His Plans!  If you and I do not embrace Jesus now as though we are holding onto a life preserver as we tread water in the seas of a turbulent and stormy life… we will not be able to survive the hurricane of His judgment.  This storm will rock you like a hurricane.

Furthermore, we will miss His words and the guidance of His Spirit as we navigate in a world on fire.  Don't take what I am saying lightly.  We the people of God are building arks to survive in the flood of His Wrath, pay attention believing friends; this is no joke or the surmising of a fool, this is the will of the Father, he desires that you and I be prepared for this difficult but very exciting time!

Get your houses in order; put everything out of your life that is not important!  Get close to Jesus and He will comfort you like nothing else in this world!....
This word is to the body of Christ, all the cells that make up His Body.  Are we healthy cells in His Body or are we cancer cells?  God knows, you can't fool Him, he sees with eyes of fire right down to the most microscopic level.  No games or pretense please, that is fool's gold, know that God sees you in places you can't see yourself.  

If you are a faithful saint today, just keep holding onto the promises of our Covenant keeping God.  I encourage those of you who are holding tightly, you are about to get your resurrection papers!  God is going to raise you up at such a time as this to do battle against the antichrist system that is already working in the sons of disobedience.  

You are called to be his warriors today!  You will hear His voice, you are more then a conqueror in His Name!  Just keep seeking and believing and you will be more then conquerors.  

Rom 8:32-39....
He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?  Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? [It is] God that justifies.  Who [is] he who condemns? [It is] Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? [Shall] tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  As it is written: "For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter."  Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.....

What the Lord is doing right now will manifest shortly.  Hold on tight!  The hour is late, the bridegroom is coming to separate the wheat from the chaff.  This is not the rapture... this fire will prepare us for His Return!

For many of you this is simply a confirmation of what the Lord has already been saying to you.  Well we have this assurance that He who began and good work in you will be faithful to complete that work until the Day of Jesus Christ (Phil 1:6)

Stay strong in Him,

Jonathan