The Church Is Strong But Can’t Get Out of Bed
The reality of a word from the Lord came to my wife in a dream just a few nights ago. Contained within this dream is a vital word for the body of Christ in this hour—both corrective and encouraging that will bring hope to many.
In the dream, my wife was in bed and couldn’t get out. The same condition was true for the pastors and church we were ministering for, who also couldn’t get out of bed. My wife noted that she and these pastors possessed overwhelming strength and only needed to get up.
A large segment of the charismatic/Pentecostal Church is slumbering right now—under-utilized, under-achieving in the Spirit, not living up to its potential, power and effectiveness. But there’s a new birthing coming, not according to the old order or planting, but now there is a new God-birthing that will flow from the inward parts of the belly (man’s spirit).
In the dream my wife was pregnant and the doctors wanted to perform a C-section and cut her open, but someone said she did not have to give birth the old way as before. Instead she could give birth the God way from the inward parts of the belly, signifying in the Spirit. At that moment beginning from her navel there was an expansion of her belly that blossomed out.
Interpretation: We have super strength in the Spirit but have to only wake up and get up.
Second Part of Dream
The dream then moved to a church service where I was preaching. A group of people sitting in the back of the building were not engaged in what was being preached, but instead were thinking and talking about the outing in a park that had been planned afterwards. They wanted to play, have social time and were given to entertainment. Their minds were not on the Lord and what He was saying and doing in the service.
This speaks of the general condition of many in the Church in this hour. The minds of people are swirling with activity like tuning into different channels every 2 seconds looking for another thrill. It’s the nature of the carnal mind which leads to death, while the spiritual mind leads to life and peace (Rom. 8:6).
This is the reason Paul wrote:
“Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light” (Eph. 5:14).
This verse was written to believers. Apparently as indicated by the verses before (1-13) these believers were walking in immorality, covetousness, idolatry and such, and Paul was admonishing them not to walk in darkness and in spiritual deadness but in the light. Later on he tells them to “be filled with the Spirit” (vv. 18-19) and to “be strong in the Lord” (Eph. 6:10).
It’s Time to Wake Up and Get Out of Bed
It is time to get out of bed and engage in the Lord’s work and agenda. This engaging begins with our communion with God by living a life of praise and thanksgiving, and singing/speaking Spirit-Inspired songs from the heart. The infilling we receive will affect the heart and our lives, and will lead to healthy marriages (Eph. 5:22-33), healthy parent-child relationships (Eph. 6:1-4), and healthy employer-employee relationships (Eph. 6:5-9). We’ve underestimated the impact of a Spirit-filled life according to Ephesians 5:18-19.
I’m a revivalist by calling but the revival my heart is longing to see is not one that can be captured on social media—but rather one that is lived out in the daily lives of believers, symbolized by a consecration to the will of God resulting in a life of prayer, fasting, giving and in godly relationships, marriages and families. There is a divine dissatisfaction working in the hearts of God’s true people in this day that are no longer content with the performance and production of professional and sensational ministry, often led by self-appointed prophets screaming to be heard and bombarding us with yet another headline of a carnally motivated and fleshly embellished prophecy. Social media oozes with such and it actually entertains people and feeds their emotions with yet another ear-tickling yak-and-quack. This has created a vacuum in the hearts of genuine believers for authentic Christianity. This has escalated and is leading us into a current move among the body of Christ for relationship-based Christianity, love, discipleship and the caring one for another.
What good is it to shout, holler, clap, dance and hear another sermon on Sunday morning if our daily lives, relationships, marriages and children are a mess? What good does it do to participate in Christian conferences and events and listen to the latest greatest teaching or revelation or prophecy if we don’t possess a daily life of communion with God in both Word and Spirit? How will our lives count for eternity if we don’t have God’s plan for what we are doing?
Let’s stop fooling ourselves. Let’s wake up and get out of bed and put on the strength of the Lord and start living according to the potential and effectiveness that we possess inwardly in Christ.
