[Opening Prayer]

Father, as we study Your Word today I ask that You open the depths of Your Word to us. Lord, reveal to each of us the nuggets contained therein to help carry us through the difficulties and the refining process we are in. Open Your Word to us Lord bringing forth Your revelation into our hearts and minds that we might think on, dwell on, and chew on it for a while pulling the nutrients we so desperately need to prepare us for the days ahead. Help us to commit to this day in and day out because it will give us the strength, the instruction, the support—all that we need—we can learn in Your Word.

Thank You, Lord, in Your precious and holy name, Amen.

[End]

At the end of last year, the Lord told me “2018 would be the year of refining” and out of this refining process would come forth a “New Breed of Believers”. As I so often do when the Lord speaks to me, I began processing what He said to me. I’d mull it over throughout the day, praying into it, chew on it a bit and wait for Him to elaborate. The Lord brings forth a lot of revelation on prophetic words through the Bible, so went to His Word to try to understand what the Refining means for us, what it means for the Church today, what it means for the intercessors.

This is a ministry dedicated to raising up intercessors—Joel’s Army Prayer Shields that will penetrate through the earth’s surface. Through the earth’s surface and all the way down into the tectonic plates to bring forth stability into the nations. This is not a promise limited to the United States, but every nation that the prayer shields are in. That is the responsibility, the job, and the call of the intercessor—to bring stability into the earth.

In 2017, the Lord told us “To Know No bounds” and He sought to teach us how to remove the boundaries that we have placed on God: boundaries that we placed on our relationship with God, the level of intimacy that we can enter into with Him, the level of dominion that we can take in a nation, the authority we can walk in when we submit to Him—we even learned the to remove the boundaries when praying over the elements. The Lord sought to teach us the power and the authority that He created us to walk in on the earth today.

Why was that His word for 2017? Because He is trying to grow us up, so that we might enter into the fullness of what He has created us to be. He loves us. He loves us deeply, intimately in fact. He understands how we tick, He understands how we think, why we respond this way or that way…everything about us He understands in a way we cannot even imagine—He knows us better than we know ourselves and He knows what it takes to get us where He wants us in the days ahead.

He also knows exactly how much pressure we can take before we will break. He knows exactly what we are capable of. He knows that if He can refine us, purify us, bring us to a place in our lives in a personal way where He can refine us, we can enter into the fullness of what He has called us to do.

There is a new breed of believers coming and unless we allow God to do His work in us, laying ourselves on the altar, allowing our lives to be a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to Him, we will not be among that new breed of believers. It’s what we’ve been searching for, but it is a tremendously high calling that He’s preparing us for in this season. The Lord knows when we are willing to set aside the things that interfere with our walk with Him and press in. He already sees the heart of man, the whole heart. So, the greater our willingness to remain transparent with Him, the freer we become to set down those things that would inhibit us from entering into the deeper things of God.

This has been something so heavy on my heart, I think about it every day, as I go to sleep, when I wake up, my heart cries out: How do we prepare for this Lord? How do we prepare for a new breed of believers? How do we position ourselves into a place where we can be among them?

See, the new breed of believers will walk in a place that most people do not, a place that most people will not, and a place that most people cannot—for whatever reason. We are moving into a time where ‘the reasons’ will not matter, it’s either yes or no. Those who say “yes”, will be the leadership in the end time army. The Church is going to go through a deep refining, I say it again, the Church is going to go through a deep refining, and if the Church is going to go through a deep refining, what kind of refining do you think the intercessors who are called to pray for that Church are going to go through?

It is not a punishment, it is not condemnation, it is a gift. It is a gift, to have the Holy Spirit go through and assess you, removing the things that are in our lives standing in the way of intimacy with God. This is a very serious issue, and yes, this is a very heavy topic, I know that but, this is the weight God’s placed upon my heart right now.

I love you, each and every one of you. I love you so deeply. I lift you up every day. I carry you with me. I consider you in all that I do, because I know that God has brought us together, He has knit our hearts together. I know that the call that we have been brought into, we will fulfill together. I know that is His desire and I want to see each of us make it there and as we have been studying the Book of Romans, I pray: Lord, it was You Who compelled us to study this Book, it was You longing to prepare us for this hour, so that we would know and understand what our part, what our responsibility is, in this season, so that You could refine us and prepare us for what is to come.

To be continued…

Blessings & love,

Ricci Johnson-Wilson