Leaving 2003 prepared for 2004
Mary Ann Adams
This has been a year of calling out for hearing and seeing, yet the Lord speaks another truth... now the Lord says FOLLOW.
This has been a year of dying. Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. John 12:24. Many earnest Christians and ministers have been calling out to the Lord this year to hear and to see. What has befallen them has been deep transition with trials. The hearing and seeing and the presence of the Lord has gone to a new level of intimacy, yet trials have kept them in a mode of doubt, not understanding the promotion that they have received from the Lord.
The spirit of religion, ever accusing says that they have failed, that God has forgotten them, even that God Himself has moved on, but the Lord, in His Spirit of truth and HIS REALITY sees and waits for His Bride to come to the revelation of her proper position in Him. The seed has died, and now gone outside of itself for it's fruit. The transition is one from depending on even spiritual gifts, passion, yearnings for the Lord, to being so stretched by circumstances and concern even for the things of God that He has allowed things to get so out of control, so as to bring us to the place of having no more emotional energy to maintain our little seed like abode in Him and we've had to die.
No true believer seeking to make a difference for Jesus in the world can escape this. Even prayer, personal time with Him, and ministry is not allowing for the soul seed to remain alive, yes, this year has been one of the vie a del a rosa... the way of the cross, the way of suffering.
Now things are different. Now God is working on behalf of the anointing in you (His Kingdom) in an unprecedented way and changing people and things that you never thought would change. People of influence in the community have more affection for you then even before. Unbelievers who you once thought would never share their heart with you now openly speak. Something has changed. Your authority has grown. You did nothing. Your effectiveness is extraordinary... you did nothing... except obey with surrendered availability, saying, "Oh God, use this piece of clay.", and now He has done it. And you bear much fruit, and the fruit remains. You have favor in "important" places, important places to Jesus, you have betrayal and misunderstanding coming from places that were once important to you. No one can take away the favor from those places that God has given it, and no one can straighten out the places of betrayal and misunderstanding where God has allowed it. The seed dies, it bears MUCH fruit. What was once loved is lost, as your hands have released those things, life has entered and filled your hands.
He who loved his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. John 12:25
For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak. I know that His commandment is eternal life; therefore the things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me. John 12:49 & 50
Now you are speaking life eternal, the things you are speaking have eternal life in them, they are a word spoken that echoes through time, not returning to the Father void, because they were birthed from Him, and you in obedience have spoken them. You asked the Father to speak as Jesus spoke, rather than even the way of His eloquent servants. You asked that the Lord Himself would be manifest Himself through you to a lost and dying world, and He is. The spirit of religion speaks through some people saying you've lost it, you're going down, at times you've thought the only one listening to you was Jesus, and He was, and He listened to you and fulfilled all your prayers on behalf of others, but not your own personal requests, especially your requests for ministry... Yet, He's been fulfilling your requests all along, but not in an earthly manner, but in the manner of heaven. You, the seed, have gone into the earth and died.
Now this next year, 2004 will be a life that FOLLOWS. "If anyone serves Me, he must FOLLOW Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him." John 12: 26
We want to have heavenly experiences, we want to see, hear, the things of heaven, He is calling us to be where He is, we will have to follow Him. Follow is an action, it's not sitting, unmoved, it's an action. The word through the spirit realm is MOVE, you must move on, you must be moving to follow. Leave the past behind, do not look upon your dying season with grief, look forward to your season of bearing fruit with joy. We shall move onto John 12: 28, "Father, glorify Your name." Then a voice came out of heaven: "I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again." It is time for the Father to be glorified. The seed that has died, shall glorify the Father.
Now as for the promotion received in the Spirit, that has not yet been perceived. Weapons have been placed into our hands for the prospering of the Kingdom of God that we do not understand. This coming year, and the few years to come, the Body of Christ will enter into a season of learning what is in your hand, and how to use it. This will not be the mainstream of the Body of Christ, but a chosen group of regional warriors will begin to receive divine wisdom on what is in their hand, how to use it, without being a foolish, or ignorant warrior. This in turn, will begin a divine flow and impartation to the church for those who are willing to be a soldier in His army. Part of the dying has been exactly for this, any unclean thing or relationship that has not been for the prospering of the Kingdom, has been taken, no matter how dear to us personally.
"For the Lord gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.
He stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
He is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
Guarding the paths of justice,
And He preserves the way of His godly ones.
Then you will discern righteousness and justice
and equity and every good course.
For wisdom will enter your heart
and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul'
discretion will guard you,
understanding will watch over you,
to deliver you from the way of evil,
from the man who speak perverse things;
Proverbs 2:6-12
Jesus said in John 12: 35, he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes. Therefore, if we are not in darkness, we should know where we are going. In John 12:26, He said... "If anyone serves Me, he must FOLLOW Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor Him."
While you have the Light, believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light. John 12:36a Let us move on to become sons of Light. Let us follow Jesus, so as to be where He is, to serve Him, that the Father would honor us for His own glorification as we live our lives as a seed that has died to bear much fruit for His Kingdom, speaking His commandment, that is eternal life for all those who hear, and are in our sphere of influence.
My reason for writing this is in obedience to His command. One day, as I sat down to my computer, I looked upon the keyboard and saw it breathing. The Lord spoke to me and said there is life in the keyboard as I write as He commands. Today, this is what He commanded me to write. It would be easy for me to not write, it would be easy for me to come up with all kinds of reasons to not do it, there are others more qualified, many words out there etc., but I must be a doer of the word, not merely a hearer... we must obey as we are commanded, not allowing the neutrality of compromise to stop us from doing what we hear commanded.
In all this now that I have shared, throughout the trials and testings of this year, one of the divine procedures that God has done in the heart is to prove the cross. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; Ephesians 2:8. All the trials, misunderstandings, betrayals, accusations, failings, sin, seasons of repentance that you have experienced this year have been for the divine purpose to bring you through the process of the cross. To understand the cross, and receive the resurrection power of the cross for your life specifically. Many have prayed, "Oh may I function in the resurrection power of the cross.", not realizing we must go through a type and shadow, prophetic drama of the cross in our lives to attain this. The dying of the seed must come in order to bear much fruit. The dying to the fact that there is nothing in you that can bring about anything of heaven, except that He does it through you. That is part of the realization of grace, the revelation of grace, the receiving of forgiveness. It's one thing to ask forgiveness, it's quite another thing to receive it from the Lord.
I received part of this revelation when in West Africa. We were there for 26 days, I lost 16 pounds as I most lovingly and happily ministered, but under physical illness and weakness. As I prayed for the healing of multitudes of children with much of the same thing that I was suffering (60 - 80 percent of the children are ill at any given time), I felt their fevers leave from under my hand. How could I, a person who was sick, pray for the sick and see them healed? Ha, ha... this must have nothing to do with me! but His divine grace, a gift. Ah, thank You Lord, You Gracious and Wondrous God, who chooses the weak, the foolish, the base things of this world... that none who come to You to be used of You could be deemed unqualified, when we come empty to be filled by You.
Mary Ann Adams