The prophets of ancient Israel saw visions of a future time when the desolated Promised Land would once again bloom, when the scattered Jewish people would return home, and when vineyards would again be planted on the mountains of Israel. These miracles are coming to pass in our lifetime and are the backdrop to the award-winning documentary film, I Am Israel. 

Since it’s premiere, I Am Israel has aired worldwide as a television special, screened in over 7,000 congregations, and was specially invited to the Knesset in Jerusalem for a historic screening in the Israeli Parliament. I Am Israel takes viewers on a soaring journey through the Land of the Bible and introduces them to Jewish men and women whose very lives are a testament to the promises of God. 

David Kiern, the film’s director, said the film was made so that Christians around the world can experience the miracle of what God is doing in Israel and through the Jewish people. “Something prophetic and extraordinary is happening right now in the Christian world,” said Kiern. “Millions of believers are developing a deep love in their hearts for the Jewish people and dreaming of making their own journey to the Land of the Bible. We made I Am Israel so that believers can be inspired by the power of God, and so they can share the miracle with their friends!”

I Am Israel is narrated by acclaimed actor, John Rhys-Davies, best known for his roles as Gimli in Lord of the Rings and Salah in the Indiana Jones movies. The film is full of stunning aerial shots of Israel, giving viewers the chance to fly above the Land they read about in their Bibles.

To begin your epic journey through the Land of the Bible, visit  

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My new book God, Trump and the 2020 Election releases in mid-January. My feature earlier in this issue gave an overview of what is at stake for Christians in this election. As we enter a new year and a new political season, the body of Christ must focus on prayer as never before.

The Bible says to pray for those in authority so we may live quiet and peaceful lives in all godliness (1 Tim. 2:2). Elsewhere it says that “if My people … will … pray … and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Chr. 7:14). It’s hard to document and measure spiritual things, but millions of people have been praying in groups large and small, believing for a shift in the very serious situation in America.

One “prayer warrior” named Mary Colbert started the daily “National Prayer Call” in 2016, making her one of the earliest voices urging believers to pray for President Donald Trump. The movement she started has not diminished since Trump’s election. (Mary is a good friend of mine and the wife of Dr. Don Colbert, one of our most successful authors. You can find out more about the prayer calls at .)

Recently Mary had a powerful insight, as I explain in my book, about what it means for believers to “turn from their wicked ways,” as 2 Chronicles 7:14 states, so God would “hear from heaven and … heal their land.” The answer comes during the parable of the talents, in which three servants are given talents. Two servants invest their talents and are called “good and faithful.” But the third servant, fearing he’d get in trouble if he lost what he’d been given, does nothing. The master calls him “wicked” (Matt. 25:14-30). Mary believes that Christians who “do nothing” because they fear being ridiculed as politically incorrect are “wicked” and must repent.

“The Scripture says, ‘You wicked, lazy servant’ [Matt. 25:26, NIV], so literally in God’s eyes, the wicked and lazy are synonymous,” Mary observes.

As it is often said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

I believe Mary’s focus on the 2020 election is important, including her new strategy to pray for the Democratic Party—a party many white evangelicals have given up on, as is evident by 81% of them voting for Donald Trump in 2016.

One day in prayer, Mary says she felt the Lord tell her that He set up a two-party system—Democrat and Republican—for a balance of power. The reason, she believes, is that if one party had absolute power, it would be absolutely corrupt. And while God favors neither party, one has drifted from godly principles and gone so far as to even take mention of God out of its platform.

Yet there are righteous Democrats such as Fernando Cabrera, a non-denominational pastor from the Bronx who has been on the New York City Council for 10 years and is running in the Democratic primary against Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, an avowed socialist. In November, I interviewed him for my podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network. This year I’ve had a total of more than 2 million listeners, and that episode was among the most popular.

In 2019, Mary began to pray for righteous people in the Democratic Party who will stand for biblical values. Impossible? It may seem that way, considering the way my book documents how the Democratic Party has almost gone off the rails. But Mary believes God wants believers to pray for the Democratic Party.

The Bible says, “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:26, MEV). So we can pray, but we must work and vote too. God’s people are called to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves” (Matt. 10:16). We must be like the gentle Jesus even as we fight battles for the soul of our nation.

So I encourage you to get registered to vote if you haven’t already and to encourage others to do the same. Get involved in your local community and help turn the tide. I believe there is still hope for the future. But we must act now. None of this matters if you don’t vote.

Other generations rose up to meet the challenge. The question is, will we? We cannot assume that others will do it. The point of my book is that Trump can’t win without our help. Each of us must do our part. God demands no less.

Stephen Strang is founder of Charisma. He believes God, Trump and the 2020 Election (Charisma House), available wherever Christian books are sold, is his most important book. Listen to his new podcast by the same name on the Charisma Podcast Network.

CHARISMA is the only magazine dedicated to reporting on what the Holy Spirit is doing in the lives of believers around the world. If you are thirsty for more of God’s presence and His Holy Spirit, subscribe to CHARISMA and join a family of believers that choose to live life in the Spirit. CLICK HERE for a special offer.

While there has never been a perfect time since mankind sinned way back in the Garden of Eden, it seems things are getting worse—almost as if our cultural decline is happening at warp speed now. It’s manifesting itself on a global scale, but also through the cultural divide we see so plainly in our own nation.

It’s as if secularism is the new religion of our nation, hindering the church and its mission at every turn. Yet as Michael S. Horton, theology professor at Westminster Seminary, says: “Secularization … is not just something that happens to the church; it is something that happens in the church.”

I agree—and I’m not the only one.

In his weekly “American Renewal Project” newsletter, conservative activist David Lane recently wrote, “‘Western culture that at first drifted and is now rushing headlong into apostasy from the triune God is a direct result of the vacuum created as American Christendom relinquished the town square. The disengagement from the culture by Christians left a void in America that is now being filled by everything anti-Christ.”

I’ve been sounding this alarm for years on Charisma‘s various platforms including my own “Strang Report” newsletter and podcast. And it’s the reason I wrote a new book called God, Trump and the 2020 Election. The book is as much about God, His purposes and what is happening in America as it is about politics. That’s because of what is at stake for Christians if this controversial president is not reelected 10 months from now. As I’ve written before, conservatives and especially Christians will lose an advocate for the freedoms and principles we value.

“Decisions have consequences,” Lane says. “The gathering storm engendered by Baby Boomers and passed on to the Millennial and Gen Z generations to sort out will come down hard on the weak-kneed and lily-livered. What Christian minister and cultural theologian P. Andrew Sandlin styled ‘Sunday-go-to-meetin’ Christianity’ has been the prevailing attitude over the last century. Making no demands on the culture, this attitude exposed ‘the entire West to the risk of a grave cultural and political crisis, and perhaps to a collapse of civilization.’ … The last two generations of Americans handed down this attitude to their children and their children’s children.”

Lane predicts that a battle over freedom of conscience is coming, and it will be “with the secular and media luminaries who dominate the spiritual, intellectual, educational, economic and vocational cultural mountains of influence in America. ‘Big Business’ has become allied with the secular left, turning into active combatants attempting to put the final nail in the coffin of America’s once biblically based culture. Public education already did so about 50 years ago, bringing America’s schooling down to the lowest common denominator.”

Over the last century, secularized intellectuals have succeeded in replacing Western civilization’s immutable measure for judging society—the Bible—with laws based increasingly on sentiments and preferences. As a result, America now finds itself in a quandary that is much more significant than whether Donald Trump will win in 2020. Assuming Trump gets reelected, as I argue he will, his term ends in 2025. Then what? Where is God in all of this?

I posed this question to David Barton, and he flipped it around: “When you look at where we are now, my question is not ‘Where is God,’ but it’s ‘Where are His people?'” Barton believes the answer is not too good.

He has worked closely with researcher George Barna, who has conducted numerous polls on Christian values and beliefs. They polled a sampling of the 384,000 churches and senior pastors in America, and learned 70% of churches and senior pastors say they do not agree with the Bible in its most basic and orthodox teachings. Even so, that means 30% are what Barna and Barton call “theologically conservative churches.” Those pastors were asked, “Do you think the Bible applies to all issues of life?” The survey then specifically asked them about 14 areas, including immigration, education, unborn life, traditional marriage and national economics.

An overwhelming majority (between 91 and 97%, depending on which one of the 14 issues) agreed that the Bible did address these issues. However, most of them also admitted that they did not address those topics from the pulpit because they considered them “political issues.”

“But wait a minute,” Barton said rhetorically. “You just said the Bible teaches those issues and then you say, ‘No, if it’s in the news, that makes it political, and we won’t talk about it.’ So only a small fraction of pastors are addressing issues in the culture that the Bible also addresses.”

It’s as if the secularists have persuaded Christians that moral values in the Bible such as life or marriage are no longer the purview of the church once they become “political.” But as Barton wisely notes: “That’s not God’s problem. That’s our problem.”

But it’s only part of the problem these statistics show. Only 14% of Christians read the Bible on a daily basis, and only 10% of American adults have a biblical worldview. Even among Christians who say they are born again, only 31% have a biblical worldview, and only 4% of Millennials have a biblical worldview. This means we’re a nation that doesn’t think biblically and doesn’t even know what the Bible teaches.

“I talk to Christian university presidents, and they say that the kids coming out of youth group to their schools—even from Christian schools—don’t know the difference between Jonah and Moses,” Barton told me. “They don’t even know the basic Bible stories. A good friend of mine was talking with a Christian young man, and the names Adam and Eve came up. The young man had no idea who they were—he’d never heard of them.”

Several years ago, Barton and Barna coauthored a book called U-Turn, which noted there are more than 70 different moral behaviors in which the authors could not find any statistical difference between Christians and non-Christians.

As a lifelong Pentecostal, I’ve seen the secularized liberal drift of the church, even in circles once deemed to be biblically conservative. It starts with a lifestyle that is basically no different from the secular world. Then it progresses to liberal theology where they don’t believe the Word of God anymore or even vote on important issues, such as whether same-sex marriage should be legal.

Historically, Pentecostals have been different. The holiness background of most major Pentecostal denominations called for very strict guidelines of personal behavior (and dress) and belief. There was a lot of focus on church attendance every time the doors were open. Even though many modern-day Pentecostal churches shy away from these views, which are now often considered “legalistic,” as a journalist who has covered this segment of the church for years, I haven’t seen Pentecostals experience the same sort of liberal drift theologically. Perhaps we have that holiness background to thank for the fact that there have never been resolutions in the annual meetings of any mainline Pentecostal denominations over liberalizing the rules on same-sex marriage or abortion.

But another form of compromise, liberalism and just plain apathy affects the Pentecostals—and it may be the worst of them all. Few Pentecostal or charismatic pastors actually preach against sin, even if they don’t change their theology to embrace it. They just leave it alone and focus on other things such as church growth, evangelizing or discipling new converts, or even missions giving. They like to preach on faith—and there’s nothing wrong with that—but many of the sermons just make you feel good when you go home. Having a great church service where you feel the power of God is important, but today’s services rarely mobilize the members to change culture or turn out the vote in crucial elections.

In one area, Pentecostals are ahead of most other Protestant groups because their churches are more integrated. In fact, the Assemblies of God has grown in membership for the past 17 years, mainly because of the growth of Hispanic and African American members. Latinos both in South America and in the U.S. seem to embrace the passion and excitement of the Pentecostal experience.

If you know your history, you know Pentecostalism grew out of the Azusa Street Revival, which was led by a black preacher named William Seymour, the son of former slaves. At its start, Pentecostalism was more integrated than other forms of Protestant Christianity, and racial diversity is still common in Pentecostal churches today. Pentecostal forms of worship where people shout, lift their hands and praise God exuberantly came from the black church experience, not from the formalism of the denominations the European immigrants brought with them.

Many “white” charismatic churches in America have a sizable percentage of black members who feel comfortable with the exuberant worship experience. But drill down, and you will find the same dichotomy within these integrated congregations as in the wider culture. The white congregants tend to be Republican, and the black members tend to be Democrat.

Why is this? In my book, I devote an entire chapter called “Black Americans, Democrats and Trump” to exploring why African Americans in this country vote Democratic in huge numbers. Suffice it to say, for the past half-century, Democrats have supported a few key policies important to black Americans. These include civil rights, prison reform and governmental aid for poor communities. As a result, I’ve been told by black Christian leaders that the black community overlooks the “faults” of Democrats, including many liberal policies. In fact, studies have shown that while black Christians align with white conservative Christians on most moral issues, they still vote Democrat by huge percentages.

On the Republican side, the GOP supports—or at least gives lip service to—some policies important to white conservative Christians, like abortion and same-sex marriage. So white Christians likewise vote Republican and overlook the things they disagree with, such as the way Republicans say one thing at election time and govern another way, supporting big business at the expense of the little guy and dragging the U.S. into meaningless wars.

Pentecostals who used to pray for the power of the Holy Spirit and emphasized speaking in tongues often relegate that to services later in the week or small groups or classes. And though Pentecostalism came out of the holiness movement of a century and a half ago, and was known for its holiness “do’s and don’ts” when I was growing up, rarely will you hear a sermon on holiness these days.

Barton also grew up Pentecostal and bemoans the modern church’s emphasis on conversions rather than discipleship.

“Right now, it’s all about converts and getting people to say the sinner’s prayer,” Barton told me. “Well, I can have a parakeet recite the sinner’s prayer. That doesn’t mean the parakeet is a Christian. We’ve moved away from discipleship, and as a result, we no longer see people thinking or behaving the right way. We’re not disciplining them. The real question is, how are they living? What’s their behavior? Are they producing fruit worthy of repentance? There is a big emphasis on converts rather than disciples, and the irony is that, for 2,000 years, we have let the ‘professionals’ do the work of ministry.”

A few months ago, I made this point in my “Perspective” column in Charisma by quoting Barton.

“We’ve got missionaries, evangelists and pastors, and they do the work of the ministry—but the Bible says they are to teach the ordinary saints to do the work of the ministry,” he said. “So if every Christian made it their objective to bring one person to Christ this year and then disciple them to think biblically, at the end of this year, twice as much of the world—64%—would be Christian. And if we did that again the next year, we would have the entire world Christian in only two years—if every Christian just discipled one other person.”

Discipleship means teaching and modeling how to live a life set apart from the secular, godless culture. That set-apart life is what we used to call “holiness.” “Be holy, for I am holy,” the Bible says in 1 Peter 1:16b. But I’ve observed, and Barton agrees, that few are teaching holiness anymore.

“We’re not finding people confronting wrong behavior, saying this is morally right or morally wrong,” Barton says. “Few pastors are doing this. And not only are we not hitting the holiness aspect, but we largely don’t have the fear of God anymore. There is no sense of having to account to God for our behavior, our beliefs, our thoughts—all the things the Bible teaches. So we have now become a user-friendly kind of a church. We don’t want you feeling bad about things—we don’t want you to radically change your life.

“Look at John 6 where Jesus was offending the crowds. Many left Him. His disciples said to Him, ‘This is a hard teaching; who can bear it?’ He looked at them and asked, ‘Are you guys leaving me too?’ They answered, ‘No, we’ll stay with you. You’ve got the bread of life.’ But man, this is really hard stuff! No American church I know of today is being accused of teaching hard stuff and driving people away, with true disciples remaining in the church to be taught more.”

I agree. And this is part of the problem we face. As the culture declines and becomes more hostile to Christians and biblical principles, it boils down to a failure of the church that there’s no teaching on holiness that would change people’s lives and then motivate them to go out and change the culture.

The contemporary, self-effacing church culture hidden behind the walls of the meeting place is not up to Christianity’s standards. A different type of church will be required for America to be born again. Budgets, buildings and bodies in seats can’t be the theological focal point if America is to survive. Christians operating in the public square must be empowered by wisdom from above.

Barton said, “Get involved where you live—with your family, business, schools and local government—and let’s look at how Christ applies to all of these areas. That’s where I think the church is really failing.”

It’s like David Lane wrote once: “Jesus paid not only the price for our souls and eternal salvation, but to redeem everything that was lost: people, business, education and government. And there is nothing the devil can do to reverse it. That is, if believers will but engage.”

Getting the church to be the church is necessary if we are to turn the tide in the culture. In this election year, I believe that means getting involved politically, and I make an impassioned plea to Christians to understand what’s at stake if Trump loses. Not only will the other side roll back many of the positive changes he made—rolling back regulations, appointing the right judges to the bench, supporting Israel and standing for religious freedom—but we may see laws hostile to Christians implemented.

My book makes the case for why Trump, controversial as he may be, must be reelected, but also why he might lose if evangelicals and other conservatives are complacent and stay home on election day, or if we let the other side get away with election fraud and they steal the election. I also make the case for what the Bible says about how to treat the immigrant and what it says about borders.

But more importantly, an entire section is about the “spiritual dimension” of this election. I describe some of the prophecies about the direction of our nation and how God has raised up Donald Trump. And I devote an entire chapter to “Donald Trump and Spiritual Warfare.” We must remember this isn’t just politics as usual because, as the Bible says, we “wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers” (Eph. 6:12a, KJV). This is something the secular press doesn’t cover because they don’t understand or agree with it. Even many Christians don’t understand this dimension. Yet we believe we have spiritual power against these spiritual forces.

The book ends with a call to prayer and action. We must pray as never before with many of the ministries that are calling for intercessory prayer. But we must also remember to get out and vote and encourage everyone in our spheres of interest to vote.

That’s what I’m doing, using every means at my disposal—not only writing this article and the book it’s based on, but doing podcasts, newsletters and media appearances too. This is my third book about the president, and I believe it’s the most important. I hope you will read it—not so I can sell another book, but to open your eyes to the issues and to enlist you in the battle for our nation. The time has come to get involved, to pray, to vote—and to get others to do the same.

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE: If you liked this story, you can read more about the 2020 election at .

Stephen Strang is founding editor of Charisma. Listen to his podcast The Strang Report on the Charisma Podcast Network. This article was drawn from his new book, God, Trump and the 2020 Election, releasing Jan. 14, 2020. Find it at online booksellers and everywhere Christian books are sold.

CHARISMA is the only magazine dedicated to reporting on what the Holy Spirit is doing in the lives of believers around the world. If you are thirsty for more of God’s presence and His Holy Spirit, subscribe to CHARISMA and join a family of believers who choose to live life in the Spirit. CLICK HERE for a special offer.

Love and power, like oil and water, do not mix.

The well-known sociologist Willard Waller discovered that there seems to be an inverse relationship between love and power. He noted that in interpersonal relationships, as love increases, power decreases, and as power increases, love decreases. As he studied the matter, Waller coined the term “principle of least interest” to describe a surprising phenomenon: Power lies in the hands of the person who cares the least about the relationship.

This is evident when a couple whose marriage is disintegrating receives counseling. The counselor can immediately tell which one loves the least; it is the one sitting in the power seat and making demands. The one who truly loves has let go of power and is willing to make any sacrifice to save the marriage.

Love and power, it seems, cannot coexist, at least in this world.

That is why when the time came for God to demonstrate His love for humanity, He set aside His power. Paul speaks of this in Philippians 2:6-7 (NLT), where he describes how Christ emptied Himself of the power He had known with the Father and became as a powerless slave. He wrote, “Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges. He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being.”

This is why the Messiah, who had come to reveal God’s love, was born in a stable, and His first bed was a feeding trough for animals. This explains why the Christ was born not into a wealthy aristocratic family, but into a poor family who offered up two doves and a pigeon in the temple, an alternative offering allowed by Scripture for families who could not afford a lamb (Lev. 12:8; Luke 2:22-24).

This explains why He grew up in Nazareth, an insignificant and despised village, well away from the power centers of Jerusalem and Rome. It also explains why He showed no interest in Herod’s throne, Pilate’s authority or the position of high priest. Jesus had come to demonstrate God’s love, and He could not show love while at the same time seeking power.

It should come as no surprise then that Jesus directed His disciples away from visions of power to thoughts of service. For example, when James and John requested the two power seats in His kingdom, Jesus rebuked them for their preoccupation with power (see Matt. 20:20-28, Mark 10:35-41). Power coerces and controls outward behavior. Love woos and influences and changes hearts.

But make no mistake, this is not a namby-pamby kind of love. It is not for the weak and selfish. This love requires great strength and resilience. This is love that desires the best for the other person and is willing to sacrifice its own self-interests to see it happen. The ultimate example of this love, known in the Greek New Testament as agape, is found in Jesus Christ.

Love Over Power

Consider this example. A father became distressed over the rebellion of his young son, whom he had disciplined again and again. One day, as he was about to apply another punishment, he was overcome with grief for his son and suddenly fell at the boy’s feet, weeping profusely. The son was stunned and stood speechless, but from that moment, he was changed. A simple display of love can be more effective than many displays of power and strength.

In the Old Testament, God demonstrated His power. He thundered from Sinai, parted seas, destroyed armies and even stopped the sun and moon in their paths. His people, however, continued to be a rebellious people, for they had not yet seen His love.

This is what Christmas and the cross are all about: God setting aside His power and showing humanity the depth of His love. Jesus called on His disciples to walk in this same agape love.

In John 13:34-35 (MEV), Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you; that you love (agape) one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love one for another.”

For the first 200 years of its existence, the church demonstrated the love of Christ and had great success spreading its influence throughout the earth. The church conquered the mighty Roman Empire without raising an army or lifting a sword.

Constantine, however, thought He knew better than Christ, and He began merging the church with power. The church began using the power of the state to advance its cause, and love took flight. Terrible atrocities were committed in the name of Christ as the medieval church gained power but lost influence.

The Reformation was a move away from power and back to the gospel of Christ. Nonetheless, many in the church today are still seeking “power.” They are closer to Constantine than to Christ in this regard.

At Christmas, we celebrate God setting aside His power and coming to earth and demonstrating His love for humanity. This love would reach its apex at the cross, for nothing epitomized weakness like a crucified individual hanging on a Roman cross.

This is the challenge Christmas brings to the church. Are we following the example of Christ in letting go of power? Are we walking in pure love? Or are we, like Constantine, seeking to merge power with love?

In Philippians 2:5-8, Paul clearly states what our attitude and approach should be. He wrote, “Let this mind be in you all, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. But He emptied Himself, taking upon Himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in the form of a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.”

Justice Will Come

Love makes us vulnerable, and we are sometimes tempted not to walk in love because people will take advantage of us. We must remember at such times that justice is an essential component of love. God is a God of justice, and no one is going to get away with anything.

Therefore, when He comes again, His power will be on full display. This time He comes not as a baby in a manger, but as the mighty sovereign Lord of the universe. For those who have rejected His love, it will not be nice. John saw a day when people would cry out to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb” (Rev. 6:16b).

Paul wrote to the believers in Thessalonica, who were going through terrible persecutions, and exhorted them, “See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone. But always seek to do good to one another and to all” (1 Thess. 5:15).

However, he wrote to those same Thessalonian believers: “And to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. They shall be punished with eternal destruction, isolated from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power” (2 Thess. 1:7-9).

This Christmas, remember that we do not need to chase power, for we serve an all-powerful God. Instead, show love to one another, receive His love today and in so doing, avoid the wrath that is coming.

READ MORE: For more stories about the Christmas season, check out .

Dr. Eddie L. Hyatt is an author, revivalist and Bible teacher with a passion for authentic spiritual awakening in America and throughout the world. This article was derived from two of his books, Pursuing Power and Christmas Is for Real, available at .

CHARISMA is the only magazine dedicated to reporting on what the Holy Spirit is doing in the lives of believers around the world. If you are thirsty for more of God’s presence and His Holy Spirit, subscribe to CHARISMA and join a family of believers who choose to live life in the Spirit.

There are moments when time shifts and you gain momentum for your future. In fact, we are in one such kingdom moment now. We have not just entered a new year, decade or season, but a new era in the kingdom of God.

In Isaiah 32:1 (TPT), the Word of God says,”Look—a new era begins! A king will reign in righteousness, and his princes according to justice!” An era is a fixed point in time from which a series of years is reckoned. An era can also bea memorable or important date or event in the history of a thing, person or nation. An era is a system of chronological notation computed from a given date as a basis. An era is a period identified by some prominent figure or characteristic feature or stage in development.

We are now entering a new kingdom Hebrew, this era is known as “Pey,” which means “voice” or “mouth.” As God’s ambassadors, our voices must be heard this decade. We will decree a thing, and it will happen!

An Era of Power

“Where there is no vision, the people perish”—in Proverbs 29:18a, this word actually means that without boundaries or prophetic utterance, a people go backward. We are moving from a church era to a kingdom era. In this divine shift, the Lord is transforming our mindset so we move outwardly from what has been built in one season into a new movement for the next season. This will be a new building season, but first we must unlock God’s kingdom plan and align heaven and earth.

When the Lord revealed His Messiahship to His disciples in Matthew 16, He gave Peter a prophetic word that would transcend the ages. In Matthew 16:18-19 (my paraphrase), He prophesied, “I will build My church; the gates of hell will not overpower it, and you will have an authority to unlock the kingdom and forbid and permit what goes on in earth.”

We must remember that this prophecy to Peter had yet to be fully revealed in reality. The church was still a mystery. Therefore, when the day of Pentecost came and 3,000 were converted, Peter must have thought, How will we build for the future? How will the Lord, who has ascended, accomplish this through us?

The disciples did not have a full concept of the meaning of “the church.” The only concept they had of spiritual gathering was from the synagogue. The word the Lord was using here was ekklesia, which was a Roman concept of ambassadors going in to transform a region to make it look like Rome.

Everything seemed new to the disciples. Just a few weeks prior, they had a revelation of the Lord being Messiah. Now they had to see how to gather and build for the future out of a new paradigm. Eventually they would have to leave Jerusalem to do this, and build in Antioch a prototype of what the Lord was prophesying. The writer of Hebrews gave us much revelation of how what the Spirit of God was doing in that day could not be done in Jerusalem.

This began a whole new era. Now the Spirit of God would help His leadership establish something that would be indestructible. There would be unsurpassed power in the ekklesia to overcome the enemy of mankind, Satan. And before this was built, there had to be an unlocking of God’s kingdom power within the triumphant people that would walk into the future.

We must remember it took approximately 70 years to establish the first church era. In every era, we unlock a kingdom plan so we can build the prototype for the ekklesia for the future. This new era propels us into a season of unlocking so we can build in the days ahead.

A Season of War

There is a new move of God in His people this hour! They are like a river of glory fire, like liquid gold flowing throughout lands. They resemble fiery lava moving from state to state, province to province and nation to nation throughout the earth. These glory warriors will destroy the works of the enemy in days ahead.

Over the next several years, we will mature into a people who do exploits and are ready to go to war against any darkness attempting to bring destruction to our Lord’s kingdom plan. These triumphant people are the ones who know how to triumph. To triumph is to obtain victory, or a state of being victorious in conquest. Triumph carries a distinct emotion for God’s children; in triumph, one expresses joy or exultation because he or she has prospered, succeeded and flourished. To “triumph” means “to celebrate and rejoice with victory and jubilation.” Triumph indicates that an advantage has been gained over the enemy. Triumph also conveys that success has been granted through a supernatural grace being released.

God has a people who must keep moving. Movement is linked with life! If we stop moving, we stagnate or routinize. If there is one thing that I have seen happen from season to season, it is that the church stagnates. This can be because we fall into apathy. However, most times we stagnate because we enjoy getting comfortable in one season and resist change. We must be a people who are willing to war for our future.

After all, we are living in conflicting and conflicted times. Many times, the shifts we make are not our willful choices but result from the wars of the season. We would have loved to see something go one way, but atmospheric shifts, conflicts of opinions, conflicts of philosophies and conflicts of emotions caused things to go a different direction.

James said we war because we have cravings and desires in us that cannot be satisfied (see James 4:1-3). Many times, these desires hold us in wilderness places. We are meant to cross over into prosperity, but we choose to have our way in a situation instead of submitting to the will of God. We are in a great warfare over a threefold cord controlled by Satan’s kingdom, consisting of poverty, infirmity and religion.

War is the grace to fight. When the Lord calls us to war, He gives us the grace to triumph. God never calls His children to do anything without the grace necessary to fulfill His purpose. Therefore, in the midst of war, there is grace. We are called to protect our vineyard. My greatest concern for the church today is this: Will a new generation rise up and war for all the promises that have been redeemed or paid for by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ?

Christians must learn why it’s imperative that we fight and overturn the plans of the enemy. Learning to war comes easier to some than to others. To those who grew up in relative peace and comfort, it may come hardest of all. Why war? Why is war necessary? Why can’t people live in harmony? These are the questions we ask our parents when we are first exposed to conflict through the media. We ask the questions of our history teachers when we are learning the events that brought us to the present. Most importantly, we ask God, “If you are a loving God, why do war and destruction occur?”

The short answer is that there are two kingdoms in conflict.

Satan’s demonic angels roam the earth trying to keep his kingdom in place. We are in God’s army of warriors. The Lord has already defeated Satan and all his dominions, powers and principalities. However, we are called to enforce that defeat. If we do not heed His call, the enemy will step in and rule in our stead. We are called to possess, secure and protect our inheritance. We must remember that the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.

As the Holy Spirit moves us toward becoming more Christlike, the methodology of an old season will not propel us into the future. We need something new and fresh. We need a new glory. This is one of the wiles of the enemy—to hold us captive in the last manifestation of God. Therefore, we live in the past rather than move into the best that is ahead for our lives. This is how religious spirits operate.

The Lord taught His disciples to pray using a model prayer, which we know as the Lord’s Prayer. We have access to Father’s throne room, but we must access the revelation for us to triumph and establish that in the earth realm. The government of heaven must enter our atmosphere, align with the government of God in the earth and liberate the armies of God and the land!

A Time to Plow

Speaking of government, we are approaching a new election year in the United States. One of the words for “visitation” is linked with how you cast a vote. How we vote is how we get visited as a nation in our future.

Dutch Sheets and I are presently on a 22-region journey through the United States. For the last four years, the triumphant remnant has made incredible headway. Our goal is to awaken the seeds of revival that have been sown throughout America and cause this incredible triumphant remnant to keep advancing.

We don’t want to lose any momentum of righteous change that has influenced our nation over these last several years. I see the enemy throwing a dark horse into this next season. We must stay focused as watchman intercessors.

Amos 9:13 says, “‘Behold, the days are coming,’ says the Lord, ‘When the plowman shall overtake the one who is reaping, and the treader of grapes the one who is sowing the seed; the mountains will drip sweet wine, and all the hills will flow with it.'”

This is a word for today. Prophetic seeds that have been sown and declared in your region should be plowed up! The Lord has put us into a plowing season. The prophetic seeds that didn’t come up in one season should be declared alive and receive a new breath of His Spirit. I see teams of plowmen being connected together. Many of us have received revelation but tried to plow alone. However, if we connect and plow together, the harvest of God in a region will be gathered. This is a key time for alignment.

And as the apostolic church matures and advances the kingdom of God in the earth, apostolic/prophetic rule will be established in territories. Here are six key points we must understand as we move forward in this new era:

Know your field and sphere. Faith works in place and time. In 2 Corinthians 10, Paul talks about fields, or spheres. We each have key fields and spheres that we can war and triumph within.

Mobilize the armies. Know who is warring with you for the King’s rule.

Strategically know your redemptive “thin places.” When Rose Sambrook from Northern Ireland came to speak at one of our gatherings, she shared how in Ireland they talk about “thin places.” These are the places where the Spirit of God has come, and heaven and earth have become very close. These places have key altars that need to be refired for today. We must know where these altars are in our field or spheres. If there are no thin places in our sphere, we must find where the Lord wants to come and create a thin place, or portal, between heaven and earth.

Define the high places. Within our spheres and field, we also have high places. These are places where the enemy has erected his rule. These are the places contending for our worship. These high places erected by the enemy are the result of the worship war going on in each territory of the earth. Worship occurs around the one whose throne has been established. We are created to worship; therefore, if we pay homage to the enemy, he will control the atmosphere. The entire territory then falls under the darkness of his presence, and demonic hosts redirect those in that territory away from God’s plan of fullness, peace, joy and abundance.

Sanctify the land. When we commit iniquitous sins and defilement of the land occurs, we must sanctify the land. The land mourns until we have reconciled it back to God, the one who made it. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof” (Ps. 24:1, KJV).

Establish new glory altars. Throughout the Word of God, new altars had to be built. How do we do this? We must find the places where religion and government have met and made wrong choices, and bind the strongman (Matt. 12). We must overthrow the defilement of the last altar (2 Chr. 34:4, John 2:14, Rev. 2:13). We must contend for His name to be established and the identity of that name at the gates (Deut. 28:10). We must let worship ascend and watch His glory come down (John 4, Acts 4-11). We must welcome a new move of His Spirit (Acts-Ephesians). For more information about how to do that, I suggest you read the new book Robert Heidler and I have just completed, A Triumphant Kingdom.

Ultimately, we know God’s goal for us is the harvest. We see this all the way through the Bible. God wants our barns to be filled with plenty and our vats to overflow. He wants us to experience the fullness of His promised blessings. That’s what “harvest” means. Harvest is what we’ve been working and praying for, and the promise that we have been pressing forward to attain.

The time does come when we will receive the harvest. Harvest is not “pie in the sky by and by,” but the reality of the promise coming into our experience. God not only wants us to harvest in the natural realm, but also to see a harvest of righteousness. He wants us to experience a harvest of souls. Psalm 1 tells us God wants us to be like a flourishing tree that brings forth its fruit in its season. Ecclesiastes 3 tells us there is a time and a season for everything. There is a time to plant seeds, and there is also a time to reap the harvest.

The Bible is written around harvest cycles. The Lord wants His people to develop and maintain a harvest mentality. He wants us to walk in a mindset of increase and reaping. This is an era when we must decree that what we have sown will come forth and multiply.

Call back the bread that you have cast upon the waters. The seeds that have fallen into the earth are ready to break forth into an abundant crop. Plow up your fallow ground. Unlock what has never manifested in your past. Let your sorrows turn to joy. Gain new strength. And rise up and enter this era with a mind to triumph.

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Chuck D. Pierce is president of Glory of Zion International Ministries.

CHARISMA is the only magazine dedicated to reporting on what the Holy Spirit is doing in the lives of believers around the world. If you are thirsty for more of God’s presence and His Holy Spirit, subscribe to CHARISMA and join a family of believers who choose to live life in the Spirit.

The cause of many of life’s failures is that we, as human beings, lack exceeding gratitude for our Creator. Because we take His divine gift of life for granted, we live in discontent and misery, complaining about what we don’t have and failing to express genuine appreciation for what we do have.

I am convinced that by simply stopping to appreciate the world around us, our perspective of life can be transformed. This new perspective will reveal the Creator’s redemptive plan and fill our hearts with exceeding gratitude for our Creator-Redeemer. This divine relationship will transform us into joyful, ennobled, Christian steward-servants.

Our capacity for knowledge, without which we cannot appreciate life or the giver of life, must be understood as a special gift from our Creator. His grace bestowed upon mankind gives us the intelligence to pursue knowledge. Each individual must choose the source of knowledge to rely on for meaning in life. Your choice of worldview, philosophy, religion or lack of religion will ultimately determine your level of appreciation for life as well as your destiny.

Appreciation means to grasp the worth and value of something or someone; to esteem and properly revere them. God is Creator of the laws of nature; therefore, all of nature reveals God to us. Appreciation for the Creator’s intelligent design deepens as we gain knowledge of the unfathomable generosity of our Creator-God.

If you want to live a joy-filled life, you will need to develop a profound appreciation for your Creator, who designed you before time began. As you develop an attitude of exceeding gratitude for God and His awesome gift of life, you will learn to live in satisfying, intimate relationship with Him.

Understanding Appreciation

Creation reveals to us the nature of our Creator. As we behold the Creator’s infinite hand in our universe, we begin to understand that He is outside of time or any other finite, limiting force.

Yet I have noticed that even people of faith—born-again believers in Christ who love their Creator-Redeemer—often lack appreciation for His creation. They fail to comprehend the wondrous beauty all around them and often abuse the gift of physical health the Creator has given them.

At the same time, I have observed unbelievers who have not surrendered to Christ as their Savior, who nevertheless enjoy a deep appreciation for the wonders of creation. Their scientific knowledge of the mysterious workings of life and the beauty of the laws of physics, for example, give them a wondrous perspective of life that evokes deep appreciation for the gift of life. It often sets them on a journey, as it did me, to surrender to the love of their Creator.

When these two realities—appreciation for creation and surrender to the Creator—unite in a person’s heart, there is an explosion of hope, love, joy, purpose and destiny. Only believers who learn to appreciate their Creator can truly enjoy the eternal benefits of the abundant life Jesus promised (John 10:10).

That deep appreciation in a believer’s heart evokes adoration and worship of God. And this divine relationship in turn manifests the power of God’s anointing in a life of worship, fulfilling our eternal destiny. It is this anointed life, restored to relationship with the Creator-Redeemer, that brings the deepest satisfaction to the human heart. We never tire of reflecting on the wisdom of John Piper’s maxim: “God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in Him.”

To be grateful means being appreciative of the benefits we have received. But to fully appreciate anything in life, we must acquire an increased awareness of its worth and a heightened perception of its significance. Appreciation involves placing such high value on something that it evokes our deep admiration. To truly appreciate the gift of life, we must learn to appreciate the giver of life.

Lack of appreciation will inevitably cause us to take all of life for granted—not only ours, but also the precious lives of those around us. I believe this sin of omission is one of the greatest failures of mankind. When we truly appreciate our Creator, we will not take for granted the awesome gift of life He has given to us.

For me, the personal discoveries of the gift of life as seen through the microscope caused an explosion of appreciation within my heart and mind for the Creator. Out of sheer gratitude for the unimaginable complexities of every cell, which form more than 200 different kinds of tissues in our body, my heart reached out to thank the one who made it all possible. In my humble acknowledgment of a Creator, I desired to know Him. And as I sought to know Him, I discovered Him—not only as my Creator, but as my Redeemer as well.

Radical Gratitude

The apostle Paul confirmed the impact that expressing gratitude has on our lives in Philippians 4:4-7: “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice! … Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with gratitude, make your requests known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will protect your hearts and your minds through Christ Jesus.”

A personal relationship with God counteracts the destructive power of anxiety from our lives. Paul had his share of troubles, yet he declared confidently: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? … No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Rom. 8:35, 37).

Often our lack of appreciation can be heard in our whining complaints: “If only I had this” or “If only I could do that.” These and similar statements reveal our selfish nature that lacks appreciation for God’s divine gift of life to us. Instead of expressing gratitude daily for what we have, we focus on what we do not have. As a result, we are blinded to all of life’s good things we could be enjoying.

There are internal obstacles to seeing the beauty of life clearly. Our degree of spiritual sight hinges on the honesty and sincerity with which we appreciate our Lord. Many people do not appreciate the Lord and His gifts because they are content with the attractions of superficial observations and desires, and they are selfish and proud. The following question may be the beginning of a new vision of life: How can we remain indifferent to the marvelous design of our bodies and the Creator’s eternal plans written within them?

Of course, in acknowledging that we owe our lives to the Creator of life, we are expressing dependence on another, which is uncomfortable to our independent minds. However, if we admit the fact that we did not create ourselves, it follows that we cannot know the purpose for which we exist without consulting with the Creator. If we choose to go blindly through life without acknowledging our dependence on our Maker, we are doomed to live in the misery of ingratitude.

Recognizing the Creator

Do you rush madly through the day, the month, the seasons of the year, scarcely noticing anything? Gratitude is the proper response to a God who has so abundantly blessed us with the multitudinous facets of nature. Our Creator not only made life possible, but intended it to be enjoyable as well.

If you have not expressed appreciation for the creation of God that is all around you, why not start today? Ask the Holy Spirit to open your eyes to its wonders, its beauties and the refreshing relaxation it holds for you. Begin to focus your senses on the natural phenomena you encounter every day. Touch the bark of a tree or the petals of a delicate flower and allow yourself to marvel in the feeling. When you eat fresh fruit or vegetables, imagine them growing in their natural habitat, and be thankful. Behold the stars and planets in the night sky, and be thankful you have the ability to do so.

In Romans 1:20-21, Paul explains that it is possible to know God’s eternal power and His person by acknowledging the wonder of the creation around us and being thankful to Him for it. According to Scripture, the human spirit can grasp the invisible attributes of God through the visible creation He has made.

Of course, we can and must get to know God more perfectly through relationship with His Son, Jesus Christ, who came to the earth to become our Savior. Yet we dare not ignore the wonderful opportunity He has given us to revel in the genius of the Creator—the maker of heaven and earth. {eoa}

James P. Gills, M.D., is an author and the founder and director of St. Luke’s Cataract and Laser Institute in Tarpon Springs, Florida.

CHARISMA is the only magazine dedicated to reporting on what the Holy Spirit is doing in the lives of believers around the world. If you are thirsty for more of God’s presence and His Holy Spirit, subscribe to CHARISMA and join a family of believers who choose to live life in the Spirit.

Have you ever found yourself reading a Scripture you know or have heard many times in church, but on that particular day, its meaning becomes brand-new to you? We should always be looking for and expecting new revelation when we come to read and study God’s Word. When this happens to me, I am inclined to go deeper into God’s Word to see what else He wants to show me concerning the word or idea.

This article started as a prophetic word. During a Tuesday night service at the church I pastor, Crusaders Church in Chicago, I prophesied about moving into a good land. After delivering that word, I began to do a word study in the Scriptures regarding “the land”—the land of Canaan, the promised land, inheriting the land and the good land.

The good land is a picture of kingdom living—living in the glory realm and in the promises of God. The good land is God’s country. It is a place where goodness, abundance, prosperity, excellence, refreshing, beauty, nourishment, blessing, satisfaction, plenty and glory are ways of life. It is the land of the finest, best and choicest of meat and grain. It is a place where we are nourished, shielded and safe. We receive abundant harvests, and all our works are fruitful in the good land. It is a place where becoming fat and large is a spiritual picture of prosperity, wealth and the anointing. I have a passion to see people live in prosperity, abundance, peace, joy and victory in the land God has promised us in Christ.

The good land is also a picture of the promised land to which God was leading the Israelites upon their exodus from Egypt. He was leading them to the physical place called Canaan. God Himself brought them into a good land, a land of milk and honey (Exod. 3:8; Num. 14:8; Deut. 31:20; Ezek. 20:15), as He promised their forefather Abraham (Gen. 12:7).

Today, God’s people enter the good land through Jesus Christ, as we have now by faith become the spiritual seed of Abraham (Rom. 11:11-31). The good land is no longer a physical place but a spiritual representation of what was purchased for us by the finished work of Jesus at the cross. It is a metaphor for our spiritual inheritance in Christ and the blessings we have as a result. So now because of Christ, the saints of God dwell in this land and possess it by faith.

Our Inheritance

“Earth” in the Bible’s original Greek language is ge, which literally means “land.” That’s a big distinction, because when you hear or read the word earth, you may think of the entire planet. But when you think of land, the concept of the physical area adjusts to mean only a portion of the planet. Of course, when God sent the Israelites in to possess the land, they were not going in to possess the entire planet. They were possessing the land of Canaan. God gave them parameters (Num. 34:1-12).

When Jesus said in Matthew 5:5 that the meek will inherit the earth, He had certain spiritual boundary lines in mind. Though the verse is commonly quoted, there is a lot more to it than meets the eye. Jesus did not mean the entire physical planet but a special spiritual land set aside for those who love Him, which they inherit as they come into fellowship with Him.

Several Scriptures talk about the good land. Psalm 25:13 says, “His soul shall dwell at ease; and his seed shall inherit the earth [the land].” In Psalm 37, the phrase “inherit the earth” (or land) is mentioned five times (v. 9, 11, 22, 29, 34).

But the book of Psalms was written almost 1,000 years after Joshua led the people of Israel into Canaan, yet still we find several references in Psalm 37 to inheriting the land. Why is the Word of God still talking about possessing the earth?

First, I believe that all the promises of God are fulfilled in Christ. Christ is the fulfillment of all the Old Covenant promises and all the Old Covenant types and symbols. As part of the Old Covenant, God told the Israelites, “I am going to bring you into a good land. This is going to be your inheritance. This will be your possession” (see Deut. 5:31, 6:1, 26:1). But the inheritance of the physical land was something that was temporary, earthly, physical and natural. It was a type of something greater, which we find in Christ.

Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles, the priesthood, the sacrifices—all these things were types and shadows of a greater reality in which the fulfillment is Christ. So when Scripture says, “The meek shall inherit the earth,” it is an Old Covenant picture of what we inherit in Christ. The land is Christ; Christ is the promised land. Christ is our inheritance. So blessings, prosperity, peace, shalom, favor, land flowing with milk and honey—all these are types and symbols of what it means to live in Christ and to walk and live in the Spirit.

So many people today, especially Christians, are focused on the physical piece of land housing Israel, the Gaza Strip and Palestine, as if that is to be the focus of the kingdom. They miss the fact that the land God sent Israel into—and please catch this because you must understand types, shadows and figures in order to rightly divide the Word of God—is a natural representation of something much greater in the Spirit. Though they were sent into this physical land, we must understand that God has something much bigger in mind than just a physical piece of land. The kingdom of heaven is much bigger than that.

Receiving this broadened perspective can be a problem for some Christians whose eyes are so locked on the natural and the physical that they miss the spiritual reality of what we possess in Christ.

What we possess in Christ is a fulfillment of the picture and shadow of what the people of Israel possessed by going into a physical land. Literally, Christ is the good land. Living in the Spirit is the good land, and that is the land given to us.

Allow me to lead you through an example of how a type and shadow may be read in the Old Testament and then seen in the New Testament as fulfilled.

Deuteronomy 8:7 says, “For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs that flow out of valleys and hills.”

What does water represent in the Bible? It represents the Spirit of God. Jesus said in John 7:38b (KJV), referring to the believer, “Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” And in John 4, He said, “The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (v. 14).

The good land is a picture of living a Spirit-filled life: worship, prophecy, words of knowledge and wisdom, discernment, tongues, interpretation, miracles. That’s what we have in Christ. Life should never be boring when you have the Spirit of God flowing consistently. Your life should be full of water, full of fountains, full of depth and full of the river of God (Ps. 46:4). The water of the Spirit of God should always be flowing in your life; if you are not experiencing that, you are not living in the good land. And if you allow it, the enemy will rob you of what it means to live in the good land, to live in the blessings of the Spirit of God.

As you study all the things the people of Israel inherited, realize these are types and shadows of what you have in Christ. When Christ says, “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth” (Matt. 5:5), He is not referring to something physical. He is referring to something much greater than the physical. He is referring to living in salvation, redemption, abundance, glory and shalom. This is the good land.

Blessed Are the Meek

If you are wondering who “the meek” are in Matthew 5:5, let me uncover the mystery: you are the meek. The good land is part of your inheritance in Christ. You are blessed and an heir to the land. It is yours in Christ!

My paraphrase of Isaiah 1:19 says, “The meek are humble, teachable, and able to be corrected by God. They are willing and obedient; therefore, they eat the good of the land.”

When you read the phrase “blessed are the meek,” know that it is all about Jesus and our restoration through salvation to His image and likeness. Jesus is a picture of the meek. In Matthew 11:29, He said He was meek and lowly in heart. He has inherited the earth in the sense that He possesses the entire world.

Psalm 2:8 (MEV) tells of the promise of the Father to the Son, who becomes the King: “Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession.”

Christ’s dominion is over the entire earth. Jesus is the embodiment of meekness, and when we enter into Christ, we take on all that He is; therefore, we take on His meekness. His meekness becomes part of our lives. We cannot be meek apart from Christ.

All the promises that are revealed to us through Scripture and by the Spirit of God are found and fulfilled in Christ. So blessed are the meek—blessed are those who are in Christ, the meek one—for they shall inherit the earth, or possess the land.

Appropriated by Faith

Being in Christ is more than being saved. It’s more than going to heaven. It’s more than just being justified. But many believers have not allowed themselves to live in the good land because of tradition, religion, fear, doubt and other people’s interference. They never use their faith to appropriate the land.

When Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” (Matt. 16:15b), we are witness to Peter’s revelation of who Jesus is: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (v. 16b). My desire is that people get a revelation of Christ and thereby get a revelation of the good land.

The enemy will work overtime on your mind and emotions to keep you in an exhausted and frustrated state so that you will believe the good land is for super saints and not for you. This is a lie. Like many people with potential, there may be times when you feel stuck outside of your promises because you have unconsciously partnered with the lies of hell. This is one of Satan’s strategies to get you to believe his lies, to make vows and partner with him, and to empower demon spirits to wreak havoc in your life.

You may hear words such as, “Things will never work out for you.” You begin to agree with the deception and speak it over yourself: “Things will never work out for me.” This is the work of the enemy, and as he influences what you speak, his demons will honor your word. They understand the realm of covenant and keep you on the outskirts of the good land by sowing lies into your heart and mind. You must rise up, break those lies, renew your mind and begin to prophesy the blessings of the good land. The good land is not just for others; it is for you!

Believe what God is saying to you in this hour. I believe that by faith you can inherit the promises, rest, joy, peace, favor, glory and all the great things that belong to us as a result of inheriting the land. The land does belong to you as a child of God. It is a spiritual inheritance. It is a spiritual land that belongs to you. And you can have it by faith if you understand what the land is, what it represents and how we possess it in Christ.

I believe God wants you to live in the good land to enjoy His blessings and promises that are in Christ. The more revelation and understanding you receive, the more you confess this and believe and walk in this. Whatever your current situation is, faith will turn your whole life around. Faith will cause you to move out of a place of poverty, stress and fear, and into a place of abundance, victory and favor.

Begin to confess this and believe it, appropriating it by faith. Rise up. Come out of bondage. Come out of the wilderness. Come out of that dry place. Get into the good land and dwell there all the days of your life. {eoa}

John Eckhardt is overseer of Crusaders Ministries. He is an author and speaker who has ministered in more than 80 nations.

CHARISMA is the only magazine dedicated to reporting on what the Holy Spirit is doing in the lives of believers around the world. If you are thirsty for more of God’s presence and His Holy Spirit, subscribe to CHARISMA and join a family of believers who choose to live life in the Spirit.

With everything going on in our country, Spirit-filled believers must view things through the lens of faith. And who better to help us learn that than evangelist Kenneth Copeland? Throughout the years, Copeland has been well-known for his powerful teachings on faith.

I was honored to have Copeland on my “Strang Report” podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network to shed some light on what’s truly going on in our country from a spiritual perspective.

Copeland said we must remember that “this country belongs to Jesus and was formed by people who loved Him with the very purpose of worshipping Him and worshipping our heavenly Father.”

Our nation is on the brink of forgetting this vital truth, he says. God has His hand on the United States for a reason. Copeland calls our nation the “cradle of the gospel,” and because of that, Satan is doing everything he can to destroy it.

“I believe with all my heart that this nation is being reborn,” Copeland says. “All this trouble, this hatred and stuff going on—these are just symptoms. What else would you expect out of the devil?”

But rebirth is not an easy experience. As our country is being reborn, we are experiencing birth pangs in the form of unrest, division and animosity against biblical values.

Another analogy Copeland uses for the state our nation is in is war. God is in charge, and we will win the war—we can stand firm on that promise. But Christians who take that promise as an excuse to sit idly by and watch the culture wars unfold are not walking in obedience to their faith.

“Even though we know we win the war, we have to fight to fight,” he says. “Faith is never just sitting down. Faith without corresponding action is dead. … If there’s a good fight of faith, that means there are enemies to faith. Now, we don’t look at people. We look at the spirit realm. We wrestle not with flesh and blood but with principalities and powers and rulers of the darkness of this world and the wicked spirits in the heavens.”

Therefore, Copeland says, we must pray and intercede. We must cry out to God on behalf of our leaders, especially Donald Trump and Mike Pence.

I interviewed Copeland for my new book God, Trump and the 2020 Election, which releases in January. He recalls praying for Trump a month after he announced he was running for president. He was among the group of pastors who gathered to pray over Trump.

Copeland placed his hand on Trump’s back and, without realizing how prophetic that moment was, he began praying for God to fill the future president with wisdom. How could he have known just how crucial that prayer would actually be?

Copeland was also among those who attended a state dinner at the White House. He told me during a prior podcast interview that the event was like a “really anointed church service.”

But Christians can’t expect our prayers to make much of a difference if we refuse to vote. In fact, Christians who don’t vote should just stay silent the next four years, Copeland says. “Pray. Put your money where your mouth is. Support the candidates. Get on the telephone and get people registered to vote.

“Start something in your church where you get people ready. Everybody in your church ought to be registered to vote—every one of them. Pastors, do something about it! Get over this business of not being able to talk politics in church. Thank God that because of Donald Trump, you can get up there and say whatever you want to!

“If you don’t vote, you automatically voted against the will of God. You have to think about that. That ballot is your seed. Even if you vote for the wrong [person], if you believe you’re following God, then that ballot is your seed, and you did it before Him—whichever side you voted for.”

If Christians take this approach, Copeland believes God will move in the hearts of His people across the U.S. to vote in ways we haven’t seen before.

Don’t stop with just voting yourself. Make sure others vote. Share biblical voting advice on your social media pages. Talk about political issues from a biblical perspective wherever you go. Be a good representation of Jesus and how He would approach politics in our day.

Stephen Strang is founder of Charisma and author of the new book, Trump and the 2020 Election, from which this column was excerpted. The book will be released Jan. 14, 2020, but you can order it now on .

CHARISMA is the only magazine dedicated to reporting on what the Holy Spirit is doing in the lives of believers around the world. If you are thirsty for more of God’s presence and His Holy Spirit, subscribe to CHARISMA and join a family of believers that choose to live life in the Spirit. CLICK HERE for a special offer.

If you’re Pentecostal or charismatic, you are probably familiar with the phrase “spiritual warfare.” It’s a phrase we use to describe the unseen battle between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness. Everything we do has an effect on this spiritual battle, and spiritual forces have an effect on us as well. At times when we are under spiritual attack, we can feel an increased intensity or struggle to accomplish what we feel God has called us to do.

I have found that the topic of spiritual warfare is so relevant to our culture and the upcoming election that I included a chapter about it in my latest book, God, Trump and the 2020 Election, from which this article is adapted. I wrote that book to help explain what is happening spiritually in our nation. Many Christians see the current division in our country as a sign of spiritual warfare. There are spiritual beings assigned to oversee various realms and territories. This explains why charismatics and even many evangelical Christians see what is going on in our country and in Trump’s presidency as a spiritual battle. Even some mainline Protestants who usually avoid acknowledging such things as demonic spirits admit that the vitriol has gotten so extreme in America that maybe there is spiritual warfare behind it.

In biblical terms, Christians are told they “wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers … against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12, KJV). It’s like in Frank Peretti’s novel This Present Darkness, which allowed the reader to see the unseen evil forces influencing the fictional characters in the book.

I like the way Daniel Kolenda, international missionary and successor to world-renowned evangelist Reinhard Bonnke as president and CEO of Christ for All Nations, explains where we got the phrase “spiritual warfare.” He wrote in his book Slaying Dragons: “Like many useful terms, the phrase ‘spiritual warfare’ does not appear in Scripture as such. The wording is instead rooted in the use of scriptural military analogies to describe the manner in which Christ followers are to prepare for and repel evil.” He then refers to Paul’s instruction to put on spiritual armor in Ephesians 6 as probably the most famous example of this type of military word picture. He says this illustrates to Christians that we are to treat the battle between good and evil as a matter of life and death.

I’m not a theologian. I’m a Christian journalist. And this is not a treatise on the supernatural. But as a Christian who is aware of this unseen world and someone who believes we have authority over these powers through the name and blood of Jesus, I could not write a book about all that is at stake for our country without shedding light on the very real struggle in the spiritual realm. It’s critical to look with spiritual eyes at America and our unlikely president, who stands strong for what I believe is right while experiencing unparalleled attacks that often defy reason.

In fact, to me, the vengeance with which some people hate Trump can only be understood if seen in spiritual terms. Of course there are many examples of unspeakable evil that at least make sense when seen in spiritual terms. Recognizing spiritual forces makes it easier to understand the actions of a Hitler or why there has been genocide in places like Rwanda.

You can understand these horrible things better when you realize that both God and Satan operate in the earth through people. Kolenda explains it this way:

“We glorify God most when we fulfill the purpose for which He made us. That is why He has constrained Himself in such a way that He will not act in the earth without us. … Likewise, Satan cannot work without us. Everything evil that happens in this world comes through evil people. Everything godly that happens in this world comes through godly people. This is why Satan tempts people to sin. He has no real power in this world except what we, the gatekeepers, give to him.”

So if we can accept that there is a devil and he influences humans to do his bidding, then we can conclude that people are subject to these spiritual authorities, even if they don’t understand what they are doing or why.

Other books about Trump’s presidency or our country’s current affairs will likely explain everything in political or cultural terms. I believe, however, that the only way to truly discern what’s happening in our nation is through spiritual eyes. This is not a war between left and right or between Democrats and Republicans or even between President Trump and his political opponents. It’s spiritual warfare.

Stephen Strang is founder of Charisma and author of the new book, Trump and the 2020 Election, from which this column was excerpted. The book will be released Jan. 14, 2020, but you can order it now on .

After 12 months of intense planning and years of prayer, the time had finally come. Thousands of people lined the streets as we made our way to Jinnah Park next to Mazar-e-Quaid, the national mausoleum and final resting place of Quaid-e-Azam (“Great Leader”) Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. No Christian organization had ever received permission to utilize those grounds before.

I was very aware that less than two years before that day, 32 suicide bombers had stopped one of my healing meetings when they had taken an oath to blow up the stadium and kill me in the process. When we drove onto the grounds, the security team formed a human chain to keep the people back.

As I took the stairs up to the platform, I saw the dignitaries already seated on rows of white leather couches. Politicians, police chiefs and religious leaders of various faiths were present and welcomed, but the main spectacle was the mass of people in front of the stage. You couldn’t really see all the people because there were so many. It almost defied belief, feeling at times like a dream. It seemed unreal.

My friend, Pastor Anwar Fazal, turned to me and said, “Now we have a million people!”

I was almost overcome by the impact of that multitude. I had been believing for an event attended by a million people for many years, having prayed for that crazy number when I started traveling overseas for my first healing meetings!

You see, that night in Pakistan with over 1 million people didn’t happen overnight. I started my ministry several decades before that with small, in-home Bible studies. The support from those who attended the Bible studies ended up funding my radio and TV programs. Over many years, those ministries grew, and I eventually started holding international healing meetings.

It is a blessing when God allows you to see the results of your hard work and sacrifice, and to reap from fields you have wept over and sown into for years. I thought I was stretching my faith when we held meetings in a Muslim country where we saw 400,000 people attend. However, when I started working with Pastor Anwar Fazal, it changed everything for me regarding my ministry in Pakistan.

Those 1 million precious people were the guests of honor, sitting cross-legged upon a dusty carpet in Pakistan, all personally invited by the Holy Spirit. They sat and listened to me tell of the miracles of Jesus and how the biggest miracle is inviting Him into their hearts. Signs and wonders followed the message as I prayed for those who were sick and afflicted. Testimonies were numerous and remarkable. Hundreds of thousands of people gave their hearts to Jesus that day, and multitudes of people were healed.

You see, with God, it’s not over until you win. God wants you to have a life of victory, and you don’t have to settle for less than God’s best in your life. So how do you have a life of victory?

First, you must fully surrender and say yes to God. One of the biggest reasons we don’t say yes to God is because of fear or discouragement. However, you must fully surrender to Him (Josh. 1:9).

Second, you must pray as if your life depends on it, because it does. When you pray, it gets your heart set on things above, so if you want to be supernatural you must pray (Col. 3:1).

Third, you must have vision. Provision follows vision. If there is vision, there is always provision. We must stand in faith, walk in the vision and take God at His Word (Hab. 2:3).

Fourth, you must speak the Word to change your circumstances. Don’t speak about your circumstances; speak to your circumstances. Find the promise of God and speak the promise rather than the problem (2 Cor. 4:13).

Finally, you must embrace the process. God works through process, and you must trust God and be willing to walk through the process (John 14:1).

It can take a long time for faith goals to manifest, but if you hold fast to your confession, you will see results. Remember, “He who promised is faithful” (Heb. 10:23b). My prayer is that reading this article has inspired, encouraged and convinced you that with God, it’s not over until you win! {eoa}

Marilyn Hickey is the founder and president of Marilyn Hickey Ministries. Her television program, “Today With Marilyn and Sarah,” airs internationally to more than 2 billion homes.

CHARISMA is the only magazine dedicated to reporting on what the Holy Spirit is doing in the lives of believers around the world. If you are thirsty for more of God’s presence and His Holy Spirit, subscribe to CHARISMA and join a family of believers who choose to live life in the Spirit.