Dear friends, 

What a beautiful way to begin our week here at WFJM. Sunday, we launched our Canadian Corporate Prayer Call. It was such a privilege to be a part of that first call and what a blessing it was to hear the intercessors pray over each prayer point and truly embrace the call to stand in the gap for Canada! Several of our Joel’s Army leadership joined in support of the Canadian leadership and we stepped away truly blessed. 

Within minutes of closing out the Canadian call, we entered into our USA Corporate Prayer Call wherein Nita joined us and shared the critical message that Lord had given her about Israel and our economy. She led us in prayer over these issues and the Lord moved among us! She will join us again this week to speak prophetically and then lead us in a time of intercession. I encourage you to make every attempt to participate in these prayer times for it is through prayer that we will see the mercy of God fall upon our land. 

Monday I received a letter wherein I learned that our Joel’s Army intercessors are taking the tools they’ve learned through their participation in Joel’s Army and applying them to their region. It’s so exciting to know that the intercessors are developing and maturing in this hour. We are at such a critical time in history and we must continue to press in, to seek His face, and submit to His will and His ways that we might remain under the covering of the Lord God Almighty in times of trouble. Now is the time to prepare ourselves my friends. Prayer, time in the Word and obedience to our Lord are key elements of our walk and if we are to stand strong when the pressures come, they must be a solid part of our lives today. Hearing that our fellow intercessors are taking this to heart, brings such joy to my heart! 

I encourage you to press in to God, just like Nita said on our Sunday call, we must prepare ourselves. If we do this now, we will be able run and not grow weary in the days ahead. 

Following is the next installment of “Glory in the Press”. I pray it will help you prepare for the days ahead. 

Blessings & love,

We want to put God in a box, and He has to fit in it. It does not matter whether it is Baptist, Southern Baptist, Charismatic, Pentecostal, or Word of Faith—we love to box Him in because that is what fits our comfort zone. But, my dear friend, you cannot box in what is coming so you might as well expand your anticipations and your expectations. It is going to look different than you think.

God is so creative. Just look at the animal kingdom. I love animals. I love cats and dogs. Look at all the different types of cats, and their beautiful bodies full of cat fur. Some of them are so extraordinarily beautiful, but of course, that is all in the eye of the beholder, right? I like long haired cats myself. Everyone in the world thinks cats have to look a certain way. They have to have a tail, and they have to have fur. Some have a more slenderized look while others have fullness of hair, but we think cats have to look a certain way. However, the Lord says, “Well, I don't think so.” So He makes a Manx cat that has a short, stubby tail. My granddaughter Tiffany had one. When he walked the rump of the cat is up from the rest of the body to accommodate the lack of tail. As soon as we feel like it has to be one way, God says, “No, I don't think so. I think I would like to try this.” Then for instance He goes to the audacity of making a hairless cat.

As soon as we feel like God has to fit in our box, He begins to create and design things that are quite different than what we think it could be. I think one of the reasons He does that is to get the Church out of that mentality. He can make anything any way He wants to do it. He can do it any way He wants to do it. Some ministers flow one way in the gifts of healing; I do it another way. People have told me, “No. I don't like to do it that way.” And they do not get healed. God works through me one way, and He works through another person another way. The Church needs to learn to love every way that God works because what is coming is so outrageous; if we do not let Him expand us, we will refuse it. We will not move or flow in it, and we will lose what God wants to do for us. With Him, you really cannot say at any time that it has to be a certain way.

I know of a good Baptist pastor who did not believe in the speaking in other tongues. He designed a sermon to preach against tongues in the Sunday service. When he got up in the pulpit to give this message, he suddenly lost his voice, and he could not preach at all. He was at a loss for what to do. He became frustrated and confused, and he started praying inwardly. He felt a little embarrassed, but mostly he felt out of control because he was not going to be able to give his wonderful message on how tongues are not for today to his Church.

Ten or fifteen minutes later, the Lord finally spoke to him. He said, “If I release your tongue, can I have My way in this service?” The pastor answered, “Yes, Lord. Just give me a voice.” He opened his mouth, and all that came out was tongues. He was a good Baptist pastor in a good Baptist Church, and all he could do was preach in tongues. He was astounded. He stopped and tried it again. Tongues. He stopped and tried it again. Tongues. Now he was getting red in the face. He said in his heart, “Alright, Lord. You've made Your point. Obviously tongues are for today. Will You please let me preach in English?” The Lord said, “No. I want to baptize people in the Holy Spirit.” We have to take Him out of the box and let Him have His way. We have to let Him do it His way.

While He does this work of travail in the Church, He will simultaneously do a different work of travail against Pharaoh, who dominates the world. He is going to unleash His wonders. The Church loves to think about judgment coming on the earth as long it does not touch the Church, but what has to happen has to be something that no man can control. It has to be majestic, powerful, pointed, and focused. It has to break down strongholds in the earth. He does not just send a storm for the sake of sending a storm; He wants to make a statement. He wants to break the worship of idols in the earth. But He has to have some people who are willing to listen to Him and who are willing to flow with Him differently than they thought they could, they should, or He would. They have to come to a place of letting God explode their mind in the supernatural. More than that, they have to come to a place where they hunger, thirst, and pant after the living God.

While He is shaking the things of the earth, He wants to shake you until He has shaken out of you all the doubt, unbelief, fear, and all the stuff that we put ourselves through. He also wants to expand us. If we took a trip to heaven and saw the majesty, nobility, and beauty of His holiness that is everywhere in heaven, then we would begin to have our inner man transformed in its expectations. If we could hear the sound of music that flows through everything in heaven because it is the sound of light, our heart would be enlarged to embrace His expectations. It is one thing to embrace our expectations of Him expanding us. However, it is a tremendous amount of growth when our expectations grow so large as to finally mesh into His expectations. That is a lot of faith.

One of the things He wants to show the world in this Manifested Sons of God season is what the beauty of holiness looks like when a man is clothed with manifested, glorious holiness. He wants to show the world what the glory of His holiness looks like when it is emanating from a man, woman, or child who is completely owned by Him.

One time, an angel came to me to take me some place to talk to me about a certain issue. We flew through the air, and he carried me like Superman carried Lois Lane. The entire time, as we flew, he changed appearances. One minute, the angel looked like a common man off the street. The next minute, he looked so glorious that it was hard to look at him. His body enlarged and grew longer. He looked like a muscle man, clothed in glory. Then he went back to the almost human look, and then again, he changed to his glorious appearance.

I asked him, “Angel, why are you changing and shifting like this while we are en route?”

He said, “Just a minute,” and he started praying to ask the Father if he could tell me. He did not do anything without prayer. Apparently, the Father gave him permission to tell me. He said, “There is one glory on this earth, and there is another heavenly glory.” Paul wrote about it in 1 Corinthians 15. There is a glory that is seen on the earth, but when you are translated or transformed, there is a much higher glory. It is as much higher as the heavens are from the earth. I saw it happen right before my eyes. When the glory of God was upon the angel, he was a different being. He was so magnificently beautiful that he was breathtaking. When that was not the case, he looked like a human being.

What is the purpose of this? This same transformation is going to occur in certain members of the Church who have paid the price to be transfigured. They will bear the heavenly glory while on this earth. But you have to be willing to die. You have to let Him shake everything that can be shaken, everything that displeases Him, and everything that looks too much like you and not enough like Him. If you are temperamental, jealous, or if you have anger problems, that has to be shaken out. If you have a spirit that is critical of other people, that has to be shaken out. If you have a habit of telling things that are not quite the truth, and when you get caught, you try to make the other person feel bad instead of just humbling yourself and saying, “I'm sorry,” then that dishonesty has to be shaken out of you. Whatever looks too much like you and not enough like Him has to go. 

To be continued next week!