I suppose like so many I have always silently cried for the manifestation of God today. Even though I have had numerous personal encounters with God, my heart yearns for an expression of God in my lifetime that I can without hesitation and unmistakably declare: a sovereign manifestation in a generation.
We have all heard of the great things God has done in the past. In the revivals of yesteryear like the Great Awakening of the 1700’s & 1800’s to the post modern era of the 20th century with the likes of the Welsh revivals to the Jesus Movement of the 1970’s and how can anyone not list the Azusa Street revival of 1906?! But there’s one underlying thorn in all of it. This is all in the past. Where is it now?
Yes we do see sporadic outbursts of glorious manifestations of God. But these are few between and geographically localised for the most part. What I am looking for and what I’m looking forward to (actually it’s more like what I have seen) is a move of God that is unmistakably sovereign and imparted and not a movement of man that is manufactured and exported!
A Move starts with a Visit… to Inspect
What we need to define, or perhaps redefine, is what we mean by ‘move of God ‘ as a contemporary expression. Is ‘a move’ a series of manifestations? Or is it a single encounter? Or a visitation perhaps?
Revelation is the precursor to a paradigm shift!
My personal understanding might differ to the theological view but then I’ve never allowed a conventional interpretation, or opinion for that matter, to prioritise itself over revelation – even though I submit all rhema to the scrutiny of the logos. Just because we can’t understand something from within the paradigm we’ve constructed doesn’t mean the revelation we are trying to scrutinise is wrong. It could simply indicate that we need shift the paradigm!
41 Now as He [Jesus] drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, 42 saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43 For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, 44 and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”
Luke 19:41-44 (NKJV) emphasis added
visitation
g1984. ἐπισκοπή episkopē; inspection
inspection
noun
examination, scrutiny, look-over, probe, test, observation, investigation, assessment, appraisal, review, evaluation
And right here is where we miss it!
We are all too often crying out for a visitation of God but we fail to realise and recognise that what we are really asking for is the inspection to determine our status for habitation!
God intended to bless and bring revival to the Holy City and the nation of Israel (spiritual shadow) but the action of the people brought destruction upon themselves! They were not ready for inspection because they had no perception of the time that they were in! And the time that they were encountering was a strategical epochal (kairos) moment of God’s gracious overseeing aegis and offer of intervention.
There was great fanfare and excitement and celebration (v38-v38), but ultimately they were found wanting! Is it not interesting that the very next thing Jesus did was clean house?
45 Then He went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold
in it, [i.e. merchandised and prostituted the sacred anointing of the Spirit of God]
Luke 19:45 (NKJV)
Visitation is not the goal my friends. That is short sighted to the point of spiritual blindness! While exciting and intoxicating, it is brief and sporadic. No! Habitation is the desire! But there can be no habitation until God’s inspection. Why do you think David cried out, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:” ?
What is a “Shift of God” in Prophetic Terms
One of the biggest challenges I face as a prophet is to reconcile that I am consistently declaring that God is “about to do something ” or proclaiming that there is an imminent spiritual activity that’s about to break out – only to see small manifestation of what I had seen or heard on a grand scale! The disparity in reconciling this is the challenge I mentioned.
When I speak about a move of God in a generation, I am prophetically declaring or prophesying the intention of God to manifest His Presence in such a mighty way that power is a supernatural by-product of this tangible, unmistakable, authentic visitation of Glory.
God sends us visitations of Glory and while we believe it is meant for our titillation it is actually a time of testing and inspection of our ability to steward the Presence of the Almighty God on the Earth in a way we cannot even yet begin to comprehend.
Is a Move the Same as Revival?
For me, a move of God is always about the Presence of God in a generation. It is not us that is “moving” but God moving amongst us. Just as in the Garden of Eden – the unaccountable impulse of God moved through the garden. When God moves amongst His people, their paradigms shift and Revival is the result!
When God moves, we are Shifted in our thinking, in our ways, in our very nature. Revival follows. So a move of God is ultimately about God wanting to create a Shift or transformation within us. But God begins the “move” with visitations of Glory.
Many today are chasing after encounters which are apparently defined as “signs & wonders!” If not encounters, then some goose-bump moments of something perceived as the power of God. But let me disabuse you of this notion of encounters. You can have all the encounters you want – it doesn’t mean you will change your heart. Nor does it mean you will be closer to God for having them.
Intimacy and relationship with God is not built on encounters. Encounters are the result of intimacy!
We don’t have to go to far to understand this! Just look at the Hebrew nation in Exo 32. They had seen all the power of God they could desire in liberating them from the oppression of Egypt. They had witnessed the delivering power of God at the Red Sea. Then God brings them to a place where His very Presence sets the mountain on fire and they encounter God, and what do they do? Run away in terror.
Power flows from Presence! Not the other way around.
So they’ve had all these great encounters, but we learn later that while Moses was called up into God’s Presence – the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play! Encounters are thrilling and we should all desire to have them, but knowing God and running hard after Him is the principle thing! Which helps me then focus my understanding of what a ‘move of God’ is.
A move of God is a lingering visitation of God in a generation or at a specific time or season of life or the history of the church, in whatever manifested manner He chooses, that cannot be imitated, manufactured or faked because it is sovereign in origin and cannot be refuted because of the resultant changes in the lives of people experiencing it. This is the Shift of God.
What I’m telling you is that something is coming! I’m almost reluctant to define it! It’s been brewing for sometime as the Spirit has been brooding and hovering over the church of Jesus! And now a specific time, an appointed moment, has come up on the calendar of God and we are about to become partakers of the very move of God we have cried out for!
What I do know with certainty is that what’s coming is all about one thing: PRESENCE. Without God’s Presence nothing is going happen! Do you know why? Its because you cannot fake that! You cannot manufacture that! Some will try. Some will try and duplicate and import. Some will attempt to even fabricate, but it will be so easy to identify. It will be easy because it will lack the power of God. Don’t confuse emotional ‘goosebumps and tingles’ with power from the Glory of His Presence! Don’t get caught out by catchy phrases and hype motivation that commonly masquerades as revelation either!
What Does A Move of God Look Like?
I believe that anything we call “a move of God” has to exhibit the following:
- Unadulterated preaching of the Gospel
- Mass salvations and re-dedications
- Much prayer without being persuaded to pray
- Worship gatherings without any other agenda
- A sense of the Awe of God
- Sign and wonders. Healings and miracles (yes they are different)
- Generous hearts to freely give to others and the work of God
- It is Inter-denominational, multi-ethnic, cross-generational and non-localised
- It Extends beyond the boundaries of the church and impacts beyond a church demographic
- Grace without restrictions but truth without compromise abounds
However you cut it Jesus becomes the focus! The centre and the epicentre of it all!
As a prophet I look for just three things when someone asks me for my thoughts on the “genuiness” of something.
a. Has it elevated, exulted and glorified God?
b. Has it raised the level of spiritual hunger and spiritual awareness of the people?
c. Has it prompted a deep response & catalysed a lasting change in the hearts of people?
Why am I writing about a Shift of God?
It’s because I have heard God declare that we shall see the manifest Glory of God in our generation! Not in small outbreaks. Not in isolated instances. But we shall be witnesses to an authentic move of the Spirit of God that cannot be manufactured or imitated!!!
God is about to visit with mankind! As with all things that God is “about to do”, He reveals them to His servant the prophets so that we might ready the hearts of a generation to be prepared for the promise of God – lest we miss it!!!
And this is where all of it get’s really interesting! Even though a move of God has to be sovereign in order for us to even consider classifying it as such, there are numerous instances in scripture that man in his ignorance and arrogance has missed God countless times. The biggest miss of all was the Messiah – Jesus Christ. So let’s not miss what God is about to do in our generation. Let’s get ready!
We Cannot Fake It. But We Dare Not Miss It!
When people are really eager for something to happen, sometimes they can run ahead of God and try to make something happen. Look at the story of Abraham & Hagar taking matters into their own hands trying to “help God out” and then producing an imitation of the promise in Ishmael. (Genesis 16)
We cant fake a move of God! Neither can we create a shift by our own plans and initiatives. We can only prepare for it. And we prepare for it by learning to recognise it! Or at least the signs of it so that we do not miss it!
The Angel Cried Out
We are on the cusp, on the brink of something truly Divine! Things we’ve cried out for! We’ve prayed so much for it, that we’ve actually forgotten what we started praying for. But the Scripture admonishes us that we are to wait for the vision to come to pass even though it tarries – because there is an appointed time for it. This is that time!
It was Sunday, June 17th 2018. I was lying on my bed my body racked in pain from something. Some alien intrusion. Some kind of counter attack because I had just attacked and exposed the spirit of deception in a previous teaching. But in the midst of all of it I felt the presence of an angel nearby and I heard the words: “Episkope! Episkope! The Kingdom of Heaven is with Men”
I began to understand from that moment that God is about to begin a season of visitations (plural). But hear me, VISITATION ALWAYS PRECEDES HABITATION! It is not the goal itself.
God wants to visit with you. God wants to visit your home! Your church. Your country. Your LIFE! This is the season that God begins to visit and inspect so that He may inhabit. We must not miss it for not perceiving it. It is going to be a glorious season. And it’s here. Get ready for a massive Shift.
