The prophetic 'new era' sounds exciting, but it costs everything.
The prophetic Word of the Lord, over the last decade, has been, 'I am taking you out of the old into the new. I am shaping you into a new wineskin for the new wine that I'm about to pour out. I am decreeing a new era over My people and the nations... not a season, but an era. I am taking My church into a new reformation that will bring transformation to the nations. I am uprooting the old and establishing the new.'
The Sound of the New
These are just some of the words that we've heard. Initially, it is very exciting. Who doesn't like the sound of the 'new'? It means that we are being unshackled from the old, and are facing new promises and hope for a better tomorrow. Little do we know or consider the cost that is required to inherit the new.
The Cost of Inheriting the New
It costs us everything. The Lord can only take us into the new when the old has been dealt with completely. He has taken us into a blazing furnace through circumstances that have pushed us into the place of desperation for Him. Where He, and only He, can save us. In this place of intensifying heat and pressure, He has been the surgeon, removing the shrapnel from our past that has been buried deep within the flesh of our souls.
The Wounds We Mistook for Ourselves
These wounded areas have become so much a part of who we are that we didn't realise they altered our identities, responses, viewpoints, and choices. It caused us to live in a realm of the superficial where we have had to keep things together and stable, lest we get triggered, unsettled, and out of control. The superficial is a place of pretence, where we create the ideal world for us to cope in, without the knowledge or understanding that it is a created and controlled world.
His Inheritance, the Apple of His Eye
God has a destiny for the nations. He has a destiny for the church. They are intertwined with Him, as they are His inheritance, the apple of His eye. How can He accomplish His purpose for both if they are broken, limping, and independent of Him?
He has to heal them. This comes through severe shaking to awaken them from their slumber. Then, in the face of truth, He starts to deliver them from past bondages, wounds, and deception. This starts with the church, and then the nations.
Until Nothing More Can Be Shaken
The church has been in a very intense shaking season, where the arm of the Lord would not relent until everything that needs to be shaken is shaken. His heart is to promote us out of the old into the new, but He can only do that once we have come to the place where nothing more can be shaken. Where the job is done, and the old has been severed from us completely and wholly.
Made New from the Ashes
Where we sit in dust and ashes, with our old lives dead, never to live again. This is the moment that all things are made new and God resurrects us to a new life with a new identity and purpose, linked to His original design, not our old patterns, experiences, and wounds. Where He is the author and finisher, the One we lean on, trust in, and rely on with all our hearts.
It is not surprising that the Lord uses the withholding and drying up of finance to get our attention. He has dealt so with Israel, and He is still dealing so with us today. May we allow Him to complete the work that He has started so that we can become the new wineskin for His new wine.
Rebuilding His Kingdom Systems
We, the church, will help the nations navigate through the global shaking that is coming. It is a shaking that will uproot the old systems with all their evil agendas, making way for us to rebuild His new Kingdom systems upon the earth.
"You have been shaken, but now you will be established."
Turning the Corner into the New
You have been shaken, but now you will be established. The journey you have been on has been long. However, you have left the old and are turning the corner into the new that the Lord has prepared for you. Now is the time to rest in the Lord, wait on Him, and keep going forward as you enter the new street of your new era.
Here the sun is shining, the blossoms are plentiful and fragrant. This is the place of promise and fulfilment, the place of inheritance and establishment. Dream again, for in this street you will live to see your dreams come to fruition. You will live to see your legacy passed on to the next generation.