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EVALUATE
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One of my favorite verses is: The rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land (Song of Songs 2:11-12). This is read when the land of Israel is experiencing the warmth and beauty of springtime. We are right in the middle of the season of the New Beginning. Six months has elapsed from Yom Kippur when we began the year 5768, and now there is approximately six months before the next Yom Kippur. This suggests that the new, along with redemptive freedom is celebrated at Passover. Therefore, this is the perfect time for self-reflection. I usually do not tell people to be introspective, but this is the perfect time to do a Spring-Cleaning of your emotions and mind.
This is the perfect MIDDLE of the season. Do not let the winds and storms of your circumstances keep you from coming up to and moving through the gate the Lord has prepared for you. Mark 5 is a great chapter to read. Further below is an article from a dear friend that presents the proper way to evaluate where you are while still moving forward.
As we were worshipping recently, my daughter, Rebekah, had a revelation of how the Lord was protecting her, while yet in her mother's womb, from being destroyed. You can hear that full testimony on www.GOZRadio.net. A testimony creates the spirit of prophecy! When she was sharing this, the Lord said the following:
I am going back to reshow, reveal, and recreate portions in your history. I want you to know that I was there in your midst. You are allowing little things to keep you from seeing the magnanimous power that I am displaying around you and what I am doing to reorder your life into the future. Even during those severe trials that you have gone through and the losses that you have encountered, I have been right there all along protecting you from a greater and harder experience. There are times when I have protected you so I could propel you forward at My perfect time. There are times when I've allowed you to be touched by adversity to grow you, so that others can be touched and grow from your testimony. Allow Me to form the testimony in you that I am attempting to form at this time. See Me in your midst. Ask Me to reveal Myself and I can go back to when you were in the womb, being knit together, and show you My protective hand and the purpose of My heart. I can show you the enemy's divisive strategies against you so that you can overcome him fully in the next season and gain the spoils that he has hoarded that belong to you.
Rebekah then prophesied: You have a hidden testimony that I am revealing to you in this season. It is the hidden testimony. Violet Dickson then came forward and sang the following:
No eye has seen, nor ear has
heard
All that I have purposed for you.
No eye has seen, nor ear has heard
All that I have purposed and destined and planned for you.
Is there anything impossible for Me?
Is My eye too dim that it cannot see?
Is My arm too short that it cannot save?
Is there anything impossible for Me?
So rise up...Go a little higher...Don't back down
I'm not through with you
So rise up...Go a little higher...
For there's nothing, absolutely nothing, that I won't do!
LeAnn Squier then began to sing a new song, On and On. This is where most of us are in our journey! You can get that new song on the MP3 Store listed under The New Song Breaks The Old Cycle . This is the month of Judah. Let your praises rise!
As I said, earlier, this is the time for self evaluation! A good friend of mine from Houston, Texas sent the following letter to me this week. Here is a perfect example of A Proper Self Evaluation at the Middle of this SEASON! by Penny Jackson.
I have found myself wondering during this very interesting season of our lives. We keep hearing change and it's clear that change is happening; I can just feel it in the atmosphere, in the undercurrents of life, within my own soul. And yet in some areas it is so life as usual that it's hard to deal with the dichotomy of it.
It's so perfect for the arrival of the new to correlate with spring, not just for the obvious connections between new growth and life in the natural world but also because of the similarity of this feeling I have to spring fever the same restlessness, the same yearning for something but what?
And truthfully, I am not always as spiritually on fire during this time as I wish I could be. I feel that I will scream if I have to go through one more routine day, waiting for things to change. On the one hand I hear that heaven is touching earth and that angels are ministering with us on earth; on the other hand I am sitting in five o'clock traffic surrounded by honking cars with impatient drivers and not an angel in sight or at least that I am able to see...yet. And so I feel frustration stirring within me.
I can't even determine the origin of the resultant discontent I feel too often. Is it my flesh because the intensity of things is cramping the lifestyle I have lived for years? Cutting into my time as well it should, but still, is that what's bothering me? I know that is part of it. I'm not proud of that, but I know that's the truth. And parts of me are still kicking and screaming over it not like they used to be, but I'm not 100% yet.
Is it the Spirit causing this discontent, leading me to a higher place by causing me to lose interest in those things that have held me earth-bound? While that may be the ultimate result, at this point there is just the boredom finding that things which used to satisfy don't anymore, but what is to replace them isn't quite there; it's surely hovering but just isn't quite in place now.
Of course spiritual warfare has a role in my struggles, I am sure. We are said by many to be in the age of the Laodicean church mentioned in Revelations 3. They were the ones guilty of lukewarmness and about to be spewed out of the Lord's mouth for being neither hot nor cold. Their reward for overcoming? The right to sit with Jesus on His throne. How awesome would that be?
But the Lord showed me something the other day that you probably had already figured out. There was for them (and is for us) a powerful assignment sent from the pit of hell to draw us toward lukewarmness. Passivity has a major role in this. And because we are rich and have need of nothing in a society where anything we want is at our fingertips, in season or out, and the gods of entertainment and information lull us into a stupor through devices that get bigger and better all the time, we easily settle into numbing ourselves when life gets challenging; it's just so easy to fall into, and all of hell is hoping we will.
I dreamed the other night that I was with a friend at some meeting at which there was writing on an overhead projector screen; the words were at an angle and I found that I couldn't read them. My friend was able to read them perfectly well as she stood next to me and kept saying, Can't you read that?!? as if there was clearly something wrong with me. And I couldn't. And I found I couldn't hear well either, something I wrestle with in the natural anyway. I haven't put it all together yet, but the Laodiceans were offered eye salve so they could see and told that He knocks, and if anyone hears His voice and opens the door, He will come in and eat with him. So clearly seeing and hearing are important, and in my dream I was deficient in both. Again, I'm not quite sure what it was saying, but it made me quite uncomfortable.
I don't doubt that amazing things are ahead of us. I don't. My spirit knows it. I even think that nature knows it, just a feeling I have this spring. There's just an excitement.
This reminds me of an image that the Lord gave me several weeks ago. I was saying to the Lord that I wanted to taste and see that He is good. I just felt myself drawn to this verse. He showed me that it was like two trapezes swinging toward one another. I was on one trapeze, my old life, holding on to the familiar, but in order to taste and see that the Lord is good, I would have to let go of the old trapeze completely and grab hold of the other one. I couldn't experience what I wanted until I had let go completely of the first trapeze. There was no holding one while I reached to the other. In fact, there would be a time in there where I was in mid-air, not holding on to the anything. I think it's where we are now in this transition to the new. We have to let go of the old, yet we are not quite seeing the new trapeze yet. We don't doubt that it's coming and that it will be wonderful, but right now we are in mid-air...just waiting, and it's uncomfortable and it's frustrating at times. But with a leap of faith we will grab the new as it comes, with our hands planted firmly as we soar into the heavenlies with our God.
We so appreciate you and wanted to encourage you today to keep going On and On. You are halfway there. Don't stop now! Evaluate and move again!
Blessings,
Chuck D. Pierce
Let Judah Go First! Get the Sound that will Propel You Forward Today!
Our MP3 Store can provide you downloads of our latest music and teaching in a matter of minutes; any where, any time! One of the most exciting sections of this store is The New Song Breaks the Old Cycle. These are prophetic songs that we can quickly make available to you without the delay of making CDs and postal mailing them to you.
On Sunday, LeAnn Squier birthed the prophetic song On and On. You can now download this incredible release that will spur you to press beyond your halfway point and into the promises the Lord has for you. This MP3 single also includes prophetic exhortation from Keith Pierce and a short interview by John Dickson where he asks LeAnn to share how this prophetic song came forth.
Two other songs that can help break you out of old cycles are A Heart with Momentum and Push to New Heights. A Heart with Momentum was birthed at Starting the Year Off Right by LeAnn Squier, Falma Rufus and Chuck Pierce. Push to New Heights is a collaborative release from Chuck Pierce, LeAnn Squier, Michelle Hadley, Thom Rana, Isaac Pierce, and Justin Rana. Both of these songs will stir your faith and lift you into a new dimension of expectation.
Another single available on our MP3 store is You Cover Me by Aaron Smith. This is a wonderful song to represent the cry to be covered properly in this season. ($1.29)
A CD with You Cover Me and three other songs by Aaron Smith is also available at our webstore. This CD contains an awesome sound, especially if you have a younger generation worshipper in the house. ($7)
LeAnn Squier also has a 2-track CD with the songs Run to You and Wide. Not only will these songs bring you into the presence of the Lord, but they can also help your heart to sing again. Run to You was the winner of the 2007 GMA Praise and Worship National Songwriting Competition. ($6)
Don't forget our other full-length CDs from Glory of Zion International!
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Contending
for a New Beginning Go
Up Again
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Music by Two Other Artists...
So
Much Beauty, So Little Time by Ray Hughes & Selah Ministries
This CD features Ray Hughes playing intimate
songs of worship on solo acoustic guitar. If you
have been to hear Ray speak and worship recently, you have experienced the
incredible way the Holy Spirit is moving through the simple and pure release
of an obedient heart answering the Father's call to worship Him! ($15)
Freedom's
Fire (The River 6) by Robert Stearns and Eagles Wings Ministries
If you are looking for extremely intense prophetic worship, this CD is for
you! Joining Robert Stearns in many spontaneous compositions are Jason Upton,
JoAnn McFatter and Julie Meyer. Prepare to experience the fire of God in
a new way! ($14)
OR get BOTH CDs for $20 by calling (888)
965-1099 or (940) 382-7231.
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These and many other resources can be ordered by going to www.gloryofzion.org or by calling (888) 965-1099 or (940) 382-7231. Specials valid through April 30, 2008.