When trouble enters your life it is an opportunity to seek the Lord. We should prepare our hearts to seek the Lord when there is no trouble but if times of trouble come (and they will) we must gather together and seek the Lord with fasting and prayer. During these times we must refrain from action until the Lord releases a prophetic word for us to stand upon in faith. This is a much neglected step in our fasting and prayer, for we regularly look to the Scripture to obtain a word based upon similar situations, but we neglect that the Lord is alive and speaking today into our individual, corporate and governmental issues. We have no right to judge the righteousness of our own hearts to be able to ascertain what the Lord is doing. Who can know the mind of the Lord instinctively? No one, He must reveal it by His Spirit. To act otherwise is to prophesy out of our own imagination or to act presumptuously. Tarry until.
Now when the word of the Lord is truly revealed concerning a situation we then no longer need to pray but move into praise and then strict obedience. This is a great time of testing because outcomes may take more time then our hearts can bear, and troubles may not be abated but endured. We can only endure these times of testing when we have a current word to stand upon in faith otherwise we are on shaky ground that would require returning to the Lord. What I am saying is that if we have no word from the Lord we have no ground to stand on. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of the Lord.
This time of waiting is the time of counting it all joy!! Until the outcome of a situation is revealed we must refrain from leaving the fasting and prayer stage. We are so deaf to the voice of the Lord that this process is almost unbearable causing us to listen to any voice that proclaims something favorable. We don’t test the word nor do we continue to stand on it in faith but we just cease from seeking the Lord and go about business as usual claiming the Lord has spoken. When the outcome does not pan out we are so hard hearted that we cannot seem to see or even care about our error. No wonder our lives never enter into the deliverance stage and even better the plundering stage when we abound in joy and abundance.
We are in trouble. So much sin and disobedience is in the land that we probably will not be able to avert judgment (See how God deals with the shedding of innocent blood 2 Kings 23:26). Yet God is still calling us to truly seek Him. This is no easy task and not for the fainthearted. This is not time to cling to your religious systems and traditions, honestly what have those things done for us? Right now I am listening to a prophetic worship set that is speaking that we are entering the time of singing, but what is the word of the Lord concerning our deliverance? We cannot pass by issues that are not dealt with; we cannot skip ahead to results without entering into the work of repentance and prayer and fasting. We need to do something differently! It doesn’t matter how “cool” or “prophetic” your ministry is, what matters is faith in God and love. It is high time we come together and wait for the release of a real prophetic word.
