Every time the saints of God gather together in this end time, it becomes more and more important that we move further into what God wants. We must not dillydally around and merely have another meeting, but we must touch God and reach in for ourselves and each other with all of our heart.
The Lord is requiring both an intensity and a purity in our worship and in the way we serve Him. We are on the threshold of a whole ingathering of people into the Kingdom. In order to accomplish this, the Lord must first raise up a pure priesthood. When God cleanses and purifies His saints, it is a deep work. No leaven is allowed to remain under the surface, but everything is brought out so that the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ can deal with it and remit it. That purity will thrust us toward the day of power that is to come.
God purifies us by removing a lot of the old religious ruts and by loosing us from the deadly lukewarmness of Laodicea. A Christian caught in the religious spirit of this age may think that he is an on-fire revivalist without realizing that he is actually dead in his heart. Lukewarmness is very deceptive and much more subtle than one realizes. It is deadly! The Laodicean church does not know that they are “wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked” (Revelation 3:17). Laodicea is steeped in religious deception, and when you are in it, you cannot realize what is happening. Therefore, God has had to shake us up with the jubilee music, the violent intercession, and the prophetic proclamations. All of this has been necessary so that we would be exploded out of the cannon of Laodicea.
After you are loosed from the bondage of old ideas and the form of religion, you become intense in everything you do. Once you are released from lukewarmness, you realize that you have not loved enough, you have not believed enough, you have not worshiped God enough. Whatever you have done before has been only a portion of what the Lord really wanted. Deuteronomy 6:5 commands, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” Reach in to love Him with everything within you. Everything! This will lead to the highest level of worship that has ever existed in any age, including even the early Church age. In this transition period into the Kingdom, a deep, deep worship will come forth. People will learn to truly worship God.
We must recognize the danger of having a church pattern without having God’s presence. It is very easy for churches and denominations to get into ruts. At one time they may have been filled with the power of God, but now they have only a form and a ritual. The same thing could happen with the intense intercession that God is bringing to the end-time remnant. It could be very intense and violent and yet never even touch God! We dare not allow any form to come, even a divinely restored pattern, regardless of how scriptural it is, unless we are always contending for His presence to be manifested right in the midst of it. Whatever we can do in the way of creating a form of service, any other church can do better. Our emphasis is not on statistics and the number of converts. It is useless to proselyte only to convert people to a somewhat higher degree of the lukewarmness of Laodicea. Instead, let us believe to see the presence of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ in every service. The Parousia, the presence of the Lord, will bring people in. We do not want anyone to get religion; we want them to meet the Lord! To the extent that we are dedicated to this purpose, to that extent it will happen.
For this reason, the deeper worship must come. When you worship, continue until the breakthrough comes, until His glory comes and fills the house of the Lord. Then new people will not stumble over the intensity with which we intercede, the strange ways we worship, or the unusual songs we sing—songs that we write ourselves. Why don’t we sing the grand old hymns of the church? The day may come when we will sing them, as well as some of the old Gregorian chants and psalms, and with a greater meaning than they have ever had before. Like wise scribes, we will bring out of the treasure things both new and old, for of such will be the Kingdom (Matthew 13:52).
Very realistically, we must face the fact that the day of vision has come, and we thank the Lord for it. However, we must realize too that the best has not yet come. The fullness that God wants us to have is not yet here. God’s end-time move in the earth today will find new answers for new things. But above everything else, we will come to the true meaning of the Word of God—not merely in theory, but in the way of reality to our heart. We are going to come into His presence. We look forward to the time when He comes and fills His temple. Malachi 3:1 says that the Lord will come suddenly to His temple. For that reason, He has been refining the sons of Levi. He wants that pure priesthood to come forth which will offer up a pure offering of worship as in the days of old. It must come! Let us enter into a dedication to pursue after the presence of the Lord.
There is always a danger involved with success, because success tests you so much. Success is more to be feared than are the testings of the Lord. Under His testings, you more readily lean completely on the Lord; but when you are successful and everything is going well, there is not that intense pursuing after the Lord’s leading. I yearn for the day when we will serve God even more intensely when He is blessing us than when He is chastising us. Let it not be said of God’s people, “You do not serve the Lord unless He smites you. When He smites you, you repent. When He beats you down and makes you pray for every necessity to be met, then you serve Him and love Him, you worship Him and you are broken in spirit.” Do we have to sin and have God beat us down to the ground before we have a broken spirit? No! Rather, let us determine that with every blessing, we will be on our faces before the Lord even more; we will seek His face more! Everything that He gives we will take, not as an end in itself, but rather as a beginning of something He wants to bring forth. Let us repent of any negligence on our part to see the fullness and the glory of the Lord revealed in the earth again.
When God is blessing us and everything is going well, we tend to forget the lesser days of the past. At Passover, the bitter herbs were brought out and the children probably fussed about eating them. What was the significance of those bitter herbs? God did not want the Israelites to forget the days past. So it is with each of us. As we enter into the land to possess it, let us always remember how the Lord delivered us. We are to keep alive that relationship with Him and let it grow, even though the prosperous days come.
The success of any Kingdom business and of the various projects that God sets before us will depend upon our continually seeking His face with a humility in our hearts. The principal purpose of every successful venture is only to bring glory to the Lord. We will break through with an anointing upon us to succeed, but everything that He gives us we will place back in His hands. We will not count it as our own, but we will glorify God that we are channels to bring the fullness of the Lord and the blessing of the Lord to His people.
Many Kingdom businesses are on the verge of unbelievable prosperity. In an amazing way God will start giving wisdom and revelation to the prophets of God, showing them the specific steps that should be taken. Projects that have been unproductive because they were battled viciously by satanic powers will be resumed and successfully completed.
We must reach the place where we are not humble merely because God beats us down, but we are humble and we seek His face because we are dedicated to be humble. It is our choice to be humble! It is our choice to be a people who seek His face. Do not wait for the Lord to put you in a corner before you humble yourself before Him. Instead, determine to wage war against the arrogance of the old Adamic nature. Declare war against the feeling that you are self-sufficient and do not need to wholly trust the Lord in every circumstance. The apostle Paul said that he knew how to be abased and how to abound, how to have nothing and yet how to have everything. He had learned, in whatever state he was, therein to be content. That contentment was not a passive “I-don’t-care” attitude, for Paul said, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:11–13). Paul was saying, in effect, “I can manifest Christ, I can manifest His presence, whether I am in the valley or on the mountain top, whether I have a little or a lot.” Why was that? He had predetermined his humility before God. He had predetermined his dedication. It was not a question with him.
We must have that predetermination also. Before us are difficult days in the earth, but there will also be days in which God blesses the saints—not for them to lay up riches for themselves, but to be a source of supply, a channel of blessing and an instrument of the grace of God to come forth in the earth. He will make of them a Joseph ministry to provide for the people of the world. It may look like an impossibility right now; nevertheless, we must be dedicated to do it. Our very dedication to this goal will bring the presence of Christ into the earth. The presence of Christ, the Parousia, will probably not happen sovereignly. Because of the Body ministry, Christ is coming to be glorified in His saints and to be admired in all them that believe (II Thessalonians 1:10). Therefore, they must be the first ones who pull His presence into their being. There will be no manifestation of His presence until they take the initiative. God has given us an initiative to reach the world. Because we have this hope within us, we purify ourselves (I John 3:3).
This is the time for all of us to draw together as one. It is the time to empty out any leaven or any indifference in your spirit. If there are traces of Laodicea in you, get them out now and enter in with all intensity to focus on the worship and the breakthrough. The release can happen anytime. When each believer is focused and believing, a church can be totally and completely changed. Enter into it. It is not necessary for someone to say something that will trigger the change in you. You will change when you enter in with an intensity in your own heart to reach God, to bring the Lord into His house. It should not make any difference who preaches to you or even if no one preaches to you. All that is needed is for a Word from God to stir your heart and for you to bring the Lord into the church service.
We are beginning to enter into this visitation of God in the earth. It is happening because many brothers have the burden to grasp hold of a Word and draw everyone into walking in it. Because of the Laodicean indifference in the past, we needed many sermons to do the work that one could have done. Many church services have only given people a little lift, when those meetings could have revolutionized a whole town or state and set it on fire for the Lord; they could have ultimately changed a nation.
Too often one comes to church to be encouraged and pulled out of indifference, rather than coming with a determination to get hold of God. We have yet to see what will happen when God’s people come together in one accord with fervor, intensely believing, ready to intercede, to worship, to love one another, to wholeheartedly do whatever God wants done, having everything within them set to do the will of the Lord. This being a day of participation, reluctant people will not be brought in to take part. Like a great organ with every note ready to bring out the full, strong chord that can shake down the temple, so it is with the Body of Christ. Each one stands in readiness to speak the Word of the Lord, to enter into the Spirit, to rejoice together in the things of God.
The day of intensity which will bring in the presence of the Lord has truly come. More and more God’s end-time remnant is becoming a contradiction to the lukewarmness of this age. The church that will please the Lord the most is the church that will be zealous and repent. None of the other seven churches were given this command. Only the Laodicean church was told, Be zealous therefore, and repent. Revelation 3:19b. Even repentance is impossible for a lukewarm spirit. The zeal of the Lord must come upon it. Then in zeal, he repents of that lukewarmness, and tells God, “I am not going to be half-hearted anymore. I repent of it. I refuse it. I am going to move in until I am really the worshiper that You are looking for.”
The choosing of God over your life, as well as the commission He gives, is more important than you know. Still, in the choosing of God and in His commissioning, there is often a failure to realize that He also gives you the initiative to fulfill it. An apostolic ministry may prophesy over you and commission you with a true apostolic Word, confirmed by the brethren, which you have received in your heart. However, if you are critical and have a wrong spirit, you will miss the Word completely and never see it come to pass. The commissioning and the choosing of God has given you the initiative of faith. You have the privilege of being zealous and repenting. You have the privilege of being wholehearted toward the Lord. You have the privilege! The initiative is yours! You can enter in with all your heart. It will not happen sovereignly.
Directives and personal prophecy are very effective, as long as they are not stuck away in a drawer somewhere and forgotten. The things that God has for you to walk in are not going to happen unless you make them happen. God has opened the door, but you must walk through it. He is bringing the day of the Parousia, but it will not happen for you unless you determine to make it happen. You are the one who will enter into His presence. You are the one who will bring His presence into the church services. You are the one! The initiative for this is yours.
Even fellowship and unity and oneness in our relationships cannot exist without an effort on our part to see it happen. It is set before us by divine revelation, divine commission, and divine provision, and then we must walk into it and work at it. Hebrews 2:3a says, How shall we escape, if we neglect so great a salvation? That warning was not spoken to sinners, for the verse continues by telling us that it was spoken through the Lord and confirmed by signs and wonders. We will not escape if we neglect. We will not get by with a “business-as-usual” attitude. It is not enough merely to have church services to keep a few people in the boat. We must reach for that deeper quality of worship. We must reach for that higher spiritual level.
Hebrews 11 tells of those who walked with God, who received a Word from the Lord, and then set about to walk in it. It is said of some that “by faith they received promises” (verse 33). They probably told God, “You have not said anything yet about this promise, but I want You to give it to me.” They had such a surprisingly great faith that they obtained promises which did not yet exist. Then they proceeded to walk in them and to possess them. Let us at least have enough of the initiative of faith to see the fulfillment of the promises that God has already given.