The Cross, Inheritance, Kairos Moment & 2011

My day on Sunday March 20 started out dry, dead to the flesh, crucified, and lifeless except for my love for and looking towards our Father and our incredible Redeemer, Jesus Christ. It was the kind of day where I wondered if Noah ever felt like that, building the ark and not hearing a reassuring word from God that he was indeed doing the right thing, doubting whether he really heard from God many months ago. Sometimes God won’t give you further reassurance and revelation because He is testing your ability to hear and discern and, thus, your faith. And He is allowing your flesh to die further on the Cross.

Feeling my flesh dead and dry yesterday morning, that afternoon I spoke with a prophetic friend, Ignacio, and we shared about various spiritual matters. He has blogged about how the Lord cares most about your unity with Him. He may – and will – take you through very difficult circumstances to draw you closer. We were talking about the prophetic ministry and that God cares more about the prophetic process and glorifying Jesus Christ and His kingdom than he does your bank account. He shared with me a book he had read that you can download for free: “Prophetic Ministry” by T. Austin-Sparks:
http://www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/prophetic_ministry.html

I could feel my spirit coming alive in anticipation of reading it. I realize I needed to be extra crucified and dry earlier in the day to soak up all the fresh waters of real Christianity in this book.

This short book explains not only the prophetic ministry but that of a Christian seeking to be used by the Lord. It comforted me immensely because I don’t find prophesying enjoyable, it is almost always the opposite, a great labor and crucifying of myself in the process. You also need to remain in faith and intercessory prayer over the word and not become double-minded. Then there will be other prophets and even Christian friends who disagree completely. And you have the emotionally uncomfortable tightrope of straddling the future (which holds the promise) and the present (where nothing seems to be happening or even the opposite is happening). The human soul is very awkward with harmonizing discord between the future and the present and would like things to be easy and simple. At least my soul would like things that way. But the kingdom of God isn’t that way. As Joyce Meyer says, “Christianity is not for wimps. It’s 24 x 7 work.”

Here are some excerpts to give you a taste that this is not a feel-good, pop Christianity book. It is for those willing have much more of themselves pruned away so there will be much more of the Lord present:

“The prophet must bring it home by his own experience. God is working the thing right in. He works it in in deep and terrible ways in the life of His servant to produce ministry…. God has been doing it through years in strange, deep, terrible ways in some lives, standing at nothing, touching everything; and the vessel, thus wrought upon, is the message. People do not come to hear what you have to teach. They have come to see what you are, to see that thing which has been wrought by God. What a price the prophetic instrument has to pay!”

“Well, what is a prophet? what is the prophetic function? It is this. God takes hold of a vessel… and He takes that vessel through a deep history, breaking and undoing, disillusioning, revolutionising the whole mentality, so that things which were held fiercely, assertively, are no longer so held. There is developed a wonderful pliableness, adjustableness, teachableness. Everything that was merely objective as to the work of God, as to Divine truth, as to orthodoxy or fundamentalism, all that was held so strongly, in an objective, legalistic way, as to what is right and wrong in methods – it is all dealt with, all broken. There is a new conception entirely, a new outlook upon things; no longer a formal system, something outside you which you take up, but something wrought in an inward way in the vessel. It is what the vessel is that is its ministry.”

“We cannot have the knowledge of the Lord – the most important thing in the mind of God for us – except on the ground of the continuous application of the Cross, and that will go right on to the end. Do not imagine that there will come a day when you have done with the Cross, when the principle of the Cross will no longer be necessary and when you have graduated from the school where the Cross is the instrument of the Lord. Such a day never will be! More and more you will come to recognise the necessity for that Cross. If you are going on into greater fullness of knowledge – I mean spiritual knowledge of the Lord – and therefore greater fullness of usefulness to Him, you must take it as settled that that principle of the Cross is going to be applied more and more deeply as you go on…. You must be prepared to let the Cross be so applied to your life that you are broken and emptied and fairly ground to powder – so that you are brought to the place where, if the Lord does not do something, you are finished. If you are prepared for that way, you will get to know the Lord.”

It is why I hope you indulge and might even find comfort in my trials and tests sometimes. I’m a real estate broker so my income can be very sporadic. At the time of this writing I have 1.5 months of cash in the bank, that is it. Then I will have no choice but to default on my mortgage. But in 2004 and 2005 I was a top broker across a couple counties. What happened? The Lord is Almighty, not I, and He (I believe) refuses to allow me to trust in myself and my intellect and my talents. So He brings me to the end of my rope where I risk losing something that is dear to me, my home. But, that is not the end of His-story, history. A month ago Christian clients “out of the blue” called me and wanted to buy a small home as an investment. The commission I will receive in a month is tiny by California standards, but it will give me 2 more months of cash in the bank. Then, a couple weeks later and also “out of the blue”, the office of a top producing agent in the Midwest called me and referred a client. I’m working hard on that home getting it spruced up for market. Likely in June I will have another 3 months of cash to live off of. So I would have run out of money in May but I will have a small commission in April. And I would have run out of money again in July but I have another commission likely in June. Coincidence? There is no way. I write freely and lightly about all this but please know that fierce worry and questioning if I had grave un-confessed sin has rocked my heart at times. The Lord’s sanctifying purpose in my life was to allow me to come to the end of my financial rope and trust only in Him, Jehovah Jireh, the Provider. This is one of the lighter examples of what has gone on in my life the past year. There have been even deeper challenges.

The most spiritually mature Christians I know have passed through the valley of death more than once and weathered tremendous afflictions. That is why I love what T. Austin-Sparks writes, “There is no safe place, apart from the constant application of the principle of the Cross. Safety absolutely demands it. Nothing is safe in our hands. The more the Lord blesses, the more peril there is. The greatest peril comes when the Lord begins to use us…. What is so necessary for us is an increasing measure of the preciousness of the Lord to our own hearts; that, whether we are able to do anything or not, He should still remain very precious to us. That is what He wants.”

I hope you gain Kingdom insight and comfort from the book as I did.

I was about to post the above yesterday but I felt it was incomplete and I didn’t know why. Today on March 21 a prophetic friend recommended I Google “Bob Jones Prophecy for 2011” and she wrote, “I pray God will lead you to the right one.” I’ve tweeted and blogged elsewhere I very rarely read or listen to other prophets because I hear the Lord much more clearly when I do not. Well, today I listened to “The Coming Year Word 2011” from Bob Jones.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGmuh1WbErE&feature=related

It is an unusual coincidence, and comforting to me, that the themes in Bob Jones’ message for 2011 are similar to what I have blogged. I blogged in January 2011 that 2011 is a year for restoring that which has been promised but delayed:
http://propheticinvestor.blogspot.com/2011/01/2011-=i-will-restore.html
In July 2010 I also blogged about Inheritance and a kairos moment shifting our atmosphere and life circumstances if we will fully cooperate:
http://propheticinvestor.blogspot.com/2010/07/inheritance_07.html
http://propheticinvestor.blogspot.com/2010/07/prophecy-to-others-about-kairos-moments.html

I believe the financial squeeze I am experiencing now is similar to Elijah being fed by ravens. Then the brook dried up. No more water or food was at that place so he had to move on. But later he came into agreement with the Lord’s will at that time and prayed for an abundance of rain, signifying spiritual might and material refreshment. The time was right, it was a kairos moment (1 Kings 18). A vision of Elijah being feds by ravens has occurred over and over with me the past several months. I have a profound understanding that this affliction – always meant for our growth and even, possibly, as a message to others – is transient, temporary. I will repeat below what He said on July 16, 2010 because I believe it is for such a time as this. It is important He says, “When your bread is used up I will multiply. You will have to let go.” When your bread is used up, when you are at the end of your rope, will the kairos moment occur. We will have to cooperate, to obey, “You will have to let go. You will have to leave something, an old way, ways that no longer work, dead ways.” I am there at the end of my rope and I praise Him and have joy and expectancy.

May we all apprehend the gifts He has in store through us and for us as His Kingdom advances and expands. May we be the spiritual tsunami the world needs, and I don’t use those words lightly because my heart truly aches with compassion for Japan. May the earth quake and the sons and daughters of God be manifest in a greater outpouring of compassion and love and selfless service. May we be all He has called us to be, without wavering or doubt or complaining or selfishness. I have been far from perfect, but I have repented of the sins He has shown me. His Cross has brought to light where I needed to repent and put off the old ways. I see His salvation in the distance. I taste the distant spring rains of His victory and His power which approach. And I will ever praise the Lord even when I hurt and hold tight to His preciousness. When we so cleave to Him and allow His cross to crucify that which is not of Him, He can do great things. I wish this fervently for all of us.

With love,

Sierra

http://propheticinvestor.blogspot.com/2010/07/prophecy-to-others-about-kairos-moments.html

“You are in the midst of a massive kairos moment.”

“Tell your friends, child, tell your dear dear brothers and sisters I am not shaking, although it may appear that way, I am shifting. I have to make more room for Me, more room for my gifts, more room for my abundance. Will you rest? Will you rest from your labors?

“I know you are tired of dry fields. I know you are tired of fields that barely supply your year’s bread. I am the Bread of Life. When your bread is used up I will multiply. You will have to let go. You will have to leave something, an old way, ways that no longer work, dead ways. You know what may have been a stream is now dried up, dried up with no enthusiasm. This is your kairos moment. As the winds swirl, so I’m shifting your atmosphere.

“Come! Take the time to explore. Because when you leave one land you will enter another. You can’t see the other fully but it is a very very good land where you will find peace and rest from your enemies. All of you have kairos moments! All of you! I love you! Feel My winds blow on you! I envelop you like the winds from the corners of the earth, all of you! Come! Let the two of us, Me and you, enjoy your kairos moment together. Do not hesitate. This is more real than what you have now which is fleeting. Dare! Dare! Dare to explore and find your good report and a land overflowing with peace and rest. I LOVE YOU.”

“Do not think these are the words of a soul because they seem too loving and good. Allow Me to speak to you like a Father, like a Daddy. Come. Let us explore. You will enjoy this!”

Update as of March 22, 2011: I feel I need to say again that I, as a practice, almost never read or listen to other prophets and their prophecies. Time to time I listen to Kim Clement because his perception of a God who redeems and does wondrous things is very similar to my perspective of God. If you see the words the Lord gave me about a California earthquake on March 12, 2011 as well as my comments on earthquakes in general, you will see that my faith sharply differs from that of many well-known prophets (Kim excepted). I must admit I have researched what other well-known prophets are saying about a California earthquake because I'm curious and live here. There appears to be a schism in the prophetic now, conflicting words and positions supposedly in the name of Christ. I don't know if this has gone on for a long time in the prophetic arena, as I simply researched the subject of a big California earthquake. Please feel free to read the March 12 prophecy. It was given to me while driving near the San Andreas fault and before I knew there were so many prophecies out there that are in stark disagreement. I can only stand on the words the Lord gave me and I don't just believe, I'm convinced they are His words. Love, Sierra
http://propheticinvestor.blogspot.com/2011/03/japan-earthquake-and-california.html

Update as of March 24, 2011: I wrote above, from T Austin-Sparks, “The prophet must bring it home by his own experience. God is working the thing right in. He works it in in deep and terrible ways in the life of His servant to produce ministry…. God has been doing it through years in strange, deep, terrible ways in some lives, standing at nothing, touching everything; and the vessel, thus wrought upon, is the message. People do not come to hear what you have to teach. They have come to see what you are, to see that thing which has been wrought by God. What a price the prophetic instrument has to pay!” I very much related to these statements. Then I commented, “I believe the financial squeeze I am experiencing now is similar to Elijah being fed by ravens. Then the brook dried up. No more water or food was at that place so he had to move on. But later he came into agreement with the Lord’s will at that time and prayed for an abundance of rain, signifying spiritual might and material refreshment. The time was right, it was a kairos moment (1 Kings 18). A vision of Elijah being feds by ravens has occurred over and over with me the past several months. I have a profound understanding that this affliction – always meant for our growth and even, possibly, as a message to others – is transient, temporary. I will repeat below what He said on July 16, 2010 because I believe it is for such a time as this. It is important He says, “When your bread is used up I will multiply. You will have to let go.” When your bread is used up, when you are at the end of your rope, will the kairos moment occur. We will have to cooperate, to obey, “You will have to let go. You will have to leave something, an old way, ways that no longer work, dead ways.” I am there at the end of my rope and I praise Him and have joy and expectancy.”

Well, I personally believe the Lord has not wasted a day in moving me along in this Elijah-like prophetic journey. Please know I am not qualified to even step into one of Elijah’s sandals. But that does not mean He cannot or will not give us similar experiences to those who have preceded us and forged forward in faith. Yesterday I opened a package I had ordered online, what was to be two 500-ml (1/2 liter) bottles of extra virgin olive oil. But instead, to my surprise, were two boxes the shape of boxed wine. I didn’t understand and checked the label, 3 liters each! I though, oh no, I ordered the wrong oil and this will be a small fortune. So I went to my computer and checked my electronic order and yes, I had only ordered two 500-ml (1/2 liter) bottles. Instead I received 6 times the amount of oil ordered! When driving I was speaking with a prophetic girlfriend and then the significance of what happened hit me. I repeated, “Oh my! Oh my! Oh my!” over a dozen times. After the brook dried up due to the drought, Elijah went to Zarephath where there was a widow the Lord wanted Elijah to meet. The widow provided because the Lord gave a supernatural abundance of flour and oil, “For thus says the Lord God of Israel: 'The bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry, until the day the Lord sends rain on the earth.' " 1 Kings 17:14 (NKJV) I certainly have oil to last quite a while, until the day the Lord sends rain on the earth. I believe this is a sign that the days of being fed by ravens are over. Now there is a jar of oil that will not run dry. But one day there will be even more abundance, there will be an abundance of rain. And on that day we will see “"a [storm] cloud, as small as a man's hand, rising out of the sea!" 1 Kings 18:44 (NKJV) All in the Lord’s perfect timing.