Thy Kingdom
Come: A National Call to Consecration
July 23 to September 13, 2007
In June I had the privilege of worshiping and
waiting on the Lord with hundreds of leaders from
Vancouver to
Halifax
in a series of regional gatherings. As we shared
together, it was clear that this last year (specifically
the Jewish year that began in September 2006) has
been a hard one for many in the body of Christ.
There has been a variety of attacks by the enemy:
spiritual dullness, discouragement, hope deferred,
physical sickness as well as confusion, offense and
accusation to destroy relationships (the unity of
the body). Yet through it all God has given an
assurance that He has allowed these things to happen
to test and purify our hearts as a preparation for a
major shift that is coming. While we don’t know
fully what the shift will look like, the heart of it
is that the church we know today is about to be
transformed into a church that manifests the kingdom
of heaven, the way Jesus spoke about. This is what
many of us have been longing and praying and
fighting to see. And we all agreed that the time
has come for to hope and to dream again.
Throughout this year the Lord has been using the
story of Joshua and children of
Israel
crossing the river
Jordan
as a picture of where we are in the
church
of Canada
right now. The tests we have been facing are like
the circumcision at Gilgal (Joshua 5) only instead
of a physical circumcision, God is circumcising our
hearts (Romans 2:29).
He is removing old patterns of religious thinking
and systems of beliefs that aren’t founded on His
word so that we can be prepared to receive new
revelations about the Kingdom. And He is “rolling
away the reproach of
Egypt”, the shame
that has come with the failures, hurts, wounds and
disappointments of living in a church without the
full manifestation of the true power of the Kingdom.
God’s heart in this is to renew in us faith, a faith
that will allow us to rise up to enter into the
Promised Land and possess all of our inheritance.
I know for myself that after the intensity of this
year, there is a great temptation to go into 'holiday
mode' with my family, especially over the summer
months. But since returning from the gatherings at
the end of June, the Lord has been really impressing
on me that the remaining months of the Jewish year
are very significant (Rosh Hashanah is September
13). I got in contact with other leaders across the
nation, and as we counseled together we came to an
agreement that the Lord is calling the
church of Canada
to a special kind of consecration over these next
months.
A Season of Alignment
This year has been a year of alignment. We feel the
call to consecrate ourselves at this time is a
simple one: we choose to position ourselves
wholeheartedly before the Lord and ask Him to do
whatever it takes to bring everything in our lives
- as individuals, families, churches, cities,
provinces and as a nation – into alignment with the
principles of the Kingdom He is seeking to establish
on earth. We believe that our obedience to this
call will open a window of grace over our lives for
divine encounters with the Lord through which He
will:
1) complete the process of the circumcision of our
hearts by cutting away old structures and mindsets
of the past season/wineskin so that we would be
prepared to receive the new things the Lord has in
store for the coming season.
2) roll away the reproach/shame of
Egypt
and heal us. After the circumcision, the Israelites
had a period of healing before they were ready to
take the Promised Land. This is a window of grace
for healing and freedom from the wounds, hurts and
disappointments of the past. God wants to quiet us
with His love by revealing more of Himself to us,
the Truth breaking the lies of the enemy that are
keeping us trapped in persistent cycles of bondage/death
in our lives.
3) give us a new impartation of faith and revelation
of His strategy/blueprint for the coming shift. God
wants to release fresh revelation (for e.g. through
dreams and visions and supernatural encounters) of
His counsels and purposes for this nation in the
coming season and how He intends to establish His
kingdom in the church
of Canada in
the pattern of the kingdom in heaven. We believe
God wants to give us the full assurance of faith
that the strongholds in our lives, churches, cities
and nation are falling down and we are about to see
a manifestation of God’s hand in our nation in a way
we have never seen before.
The 9th of Av – A New Decree
For the last few weeks the Lord has been speaking to
me that the 9th of Av (which occurs this
year on July 23) is a significant date in this
season. While I knew the 9th of Av was the day the
temple was destroyed both times in Jewish history, I
was amazed to find out that according to the Jewish
tradition
"On the ninth of Av it was decreed that our fathers
should not enter the [Promised] Land (Mishnah
Ta'anit 4:6).
With all the Lord is saying to us now about this
being the time to enter the Promised Land we felt to
begin the consecration on the 9th of Av (beginning
at sunset July 23) and continue until Rosh Hashanah
(ending at sunset September 13). We sense that the
Lord is giving us (as a representation of the church
of Canada) an opportunity through our choice to
answer the call to consecration to make a corporate
prophetic decree that the season of not entering is
over and now is the time for us, by faith, to
possess all the inheritance the Lord has for our
lives and nation.
A Kingdom Pattern
We feel that even the way we approach this
consecration is to be different as God seeks to
teach us about the kingdom. For example, as we
prayed about whether there was to be a fast called
during this time, the Lord directed our attention to
Matthew 15:10-11:
Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen and
understand. What goes into a man's mouth does not
make him 'unclean,' but what comes out of his mouth,
that is what makes him 'unclean’.”
From this we felt the Lord was encouraging us that
instead of focusing on just fasting food, He wants
us to focus on fasting every thought, word, action
or attitude that is not in alignment with the
Kingdom. That doesn’t mean that He might not call
us individually or as groups to times of fasting
during this call. The most important thing is that
each of us remains sensitive to hear the Lord and
obey Him in each step He leads us to follow during
this time.
Let us remember that the Kingdom is not about
something we do, it’s about who we are. It’s about
blurring the lines between the sacred and the
secular -
not separating who we are at church or in prayer
times from who we are at home or in our office or
when we’re out with our friends.
The Kingdom is about living in a constant communion
with the Lord throughout our daily lives and in
fellowship with one another as much as possible.
For example when we think of gathering to seek the
Lord most of us think of attending a prayer
meeting. But wouldn’t it be amazing if we saw every
opportunity when we gather with our friends as a
chance to share our hearts about what the Lord is
saying or doing in our lives? And then as the Lord
leads us, maybe we would pray or worship or just
speak words of God’s heart and love to one another.
Jesus said where two or three of us gather in His
name, there He is with us. As we allow the Lord to
invade the ordinary moments of our lives with His
presence, I believe we will begin to experience the
Kingdom in a whole new dimension.
Staying Connected
During the consecration call we will send out daily
emails for all those who would like to receive them
(they will also be posted on our website) so we can
walk together in what the Lord is speaking to us.
If you would like to receive these emails, please go
to the Watchmen website (www.watchmen.orgg)
to sign up or click on this
link to be taken there now. We also would love
to hear from you what the Lord is showing you –
visions, dreams, revelations, scriptures – so that
together we can see the picture emerge of what God
is speaking to the church
of Canada
for the next season. You can send an email with any
of these to
kingdom@watchmen.org or fill out the ‘sharing
what you're hearing’ form on our website.
Singleness of Heart
Thank you for your heart to sacrificially walk in
obedience to the Lord in this consecration season.
May the Lord use this time to supernaturally knit
our hearts together as one body as we position
ourselves together before Him. And may the promise
of Jeremiah be ours for the
church
of Canada:
They will be my people, and I will be their God. I
will give them singleness of heart and action, so
that they will always fear me for their own good and
the good of their children after them. I will make
an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop
doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear
me, so that they will never turn away from me. I
will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly
plant them in this land with all my heart and soul.
Jeremiah 32:38-41
