By Ricci Wilson
The Lord is redefining the Church, my friends, and understanding the core of who we are and Who we represent is key to this process. Do we walk worthy of the Gospel? Are we distinctive from those around us? Does our life exude the Gospel message? These are some of the challenges made in this timely teaching on 1 Thessalonians.
Let’s pray: Father God, as we prepare to study Your Word, I pray that You will open up Your scriptures to us and bring forth Your message. Remove the distractions around us, Lord God, and quiet them and bring forth your message; bring forth Your heart, bring forth Your Word. Come, Holy Spirit and be our Teacher. Ignite within our spirits a hunger and a thirst for Your Word like never before. Impart Your revelation of these scriptures deep into our hearts, oh Lord. I thank You for your presence, your strength and the power of your Word dwelling in our midst today. I am so thankful for Your Word and for the truth in Your Word. I thank You that Your Word is our anchor and our shield. I thank You that Your Word is a weapon of warfare. I thank You that Your Word is our strength, that Your Word is our comfort, that Your Word brings forth salvation and it brings forth deliverance. I thank You that Your Word brings us into intimacy with You. I thank You that Your Word refines us, it defines us and it prepares us for the days ahead. I thank You for Your Word. In Your name, Amen.
We are focusing on 1 Thessalonians, Chapter 2 so we can really take the time to dig into the message that Paul is giving us. You know, this is the first letter that he wrote and as we read it, we can really see the beginnings of Paul. He had been in ministry for many years, yet this is the first letter we have of his in the Scriptures, and I believe the Lord has had us come to 1st Thessalonians because He is redefining the Church in this hour and He wants to lay down fresh groundwork for the Body of Christ today. This is something that He placed on my heart very heavily for today. We have talked about preparing for persecution, preparing for the Harvest, and the importance of what God is doing in our lives this year.
Last year, God told me that 2018 would be The Year of Refining, and oh my goodness, how true that has been! I think all of us have gone through some deep, deep refining and I’m confident that this has probably been one of the more difficult years in a long time and in all aspects, what the Lord has used this season for—the pressing He has done in our lives—is birthing things much deeper than we can imagine at this juncture. I consider our staff and know the individual struggles that they all have been through this year. I reflect on at those who are not with us right now because of their struggle and they are spending this time resting in Him, rejuvenating and repairing. I think about our Joel’s Army people, those that are now in the Great Cloud of Witnesses, and those who are standing in the gap with us for this Nation, those who are standing in the gap for their families, those standing in the gap for righteousness, and we know the battles that they faced have been enormous. Even some who were very late in their years faced more struggles in 2018 than they ever faced in their lives. Some people have even stated that every year of struggle in their pasts, combined, still do not add up to the struggle of 2018.
Why does God allow the fire? Because He needs to shed the world off of us. There are things that He wants to shed from our lives that are unhealthy for us, dangerous to our soul, especially those things that interfere with or inhibit His Spirit. Then, there are those things that interfere with the spread of the Gospel by effecting the purity of the Gospel message. What things? They are little bits and pieces of us, pieces the enemy can grab ahold of—the parts of us that anchor us to the world instead of Christ. The Refining of 2018 (and even 2019) has been a season wherein the Lord is clearing the path. Now it’s time to lay down a new and strengthened foundation in Him.
In July of 2018, the Lord told me that the earth was groaning, waiting for the manifestation of the Sons of God. We already know this fact, we have known it for a while, but the Lord began to show me the foreboding darkness of this earth and the depth of impact that the Sons of God are going to bring forth in the earth. It will be a light that will draw men to Him in ways that they would not otherwise be drawn. We see the darkness in the youth today, attending school in colleges wherein 99% of the professors are extreme, progressive liberals, which means that there are no more than 1% of the professors teaching in the universities today that are conservative. Progressive, liberal, socialist, pro-choice professors are educating our youth.
As parents, we actually get excited that we made it through the first 18 years and now our child is finally, successfully off to college and yet, the minute the kids enter into those campuses, the enemy comes in and he begins to steal their very impressionable minds for his kingdom. Darkness looms on those campuses. This is why training up our children in the way of the Lord is so incredibly crucial because that is what will come back to them—that training, forewarning and preparing. That is what will anchor them in Him and help them through the enemy’s assaults on them. In the workforce, especially over the last few years, it’s insane how dark the forces are that swirl around us. You can get in trouble today for not using a person’s “preferred pronoun.” Bringing your Bible to work can bring the weight of the entire Human Resource Department upon your head if someone feels “oppressed or judged” by its presence. Darkness looms my friends, but God is preparing the Sons of God to come forth!
We know that God will use the foolish to confound the wise. He will speak to the hearts and minds of men in ways that will catch them off guard. God knows how to speak to each individual, because He knows each individual. He knows how to address the hurts. He knows how to get through the barriers that they have set around them and He knows how to penetrate even the barriers that the enemy has set around them, in order to reach their hearts with the Gospel.
To be continued next week…
Blessings and Love,
Ricci Wilson
