Many are asking what this year will bring and what the result of the 12 months of 2016 will be. I want to seek to communicate some things God is revealing to me and how they will mesh together this year.
The first word I am hearing out of His heart and Spirit is “surrender.” This will prove to be a Mount of Olives year. Jesus in His humanity asked His Father to let His cup pass from Him, only to surrender by stating, “Not My will, but Your will be done.” The Lord spoke to me, “Those who surrender to My will are going to reap where they have not sown this year.” Surrendering is not just a decision but a process.
The second word I have heard is “to sharpen our focus.” I have determined that, this year, I will be as “intensely intentional” as I can possibly manage. I am not just sharpening my focus to do things right, but intentionally sharpening my focus to do “right things.” The airways are so full of sounds, and the sounds are distracting, to say the least. It is time we clear our slate and press in to recognize His voice.
The Scriptures state in John 10 that His sheep know His voice and the voice of a stranger they will not follow. It is not about not hearing the other sounds that fill the airways; it is about allowing the authority of His sound alone to have any influence. All authority is influence, but not all influence is authority. When a sniper prepares to make a key long-distance shot, he must make sure he focuses and re-focuses on the target to the point that the distraction will have no influence.
The third word I hear is “harvest.” The harvest that is at hand will be unprecedented in nature. In the words of Phil Collins, “I can feel it in the air tonight, oh Lord, and I’ve been waiting for this moment for all my life, oh Lord. Can you feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord.”
Yes, the prodigals are feeling it, the pre-believers are feeling it, the saints are feeling it, and yes, our enemies are feeling it. This will prove to be an authentic harvest, producing disciples and not just converts.
Now I want to address a word that God has been building in me for over a year now. This word is a word of caution and direction to the church and the leaders in our nation. A word that I pray can be heard by leaders far and wide and those with greater influence and those with significant but smaller sphere of influence.
This final word I have heard is, “Will you continue to pursue your Rachel as your desire or will you focus on the Leah of your life and produce a legacy of inheritance?” Joel 3:14 says, “Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of the decision.”
God began to speak to me about His church in our nation:
“Would you, My chosen, continue in your performance and preferences or will you surrender to a stance of submission to obedience? Would you seek to impress the Ancient of Days in how well you look, how well you perform and how well you speak or would you discern your heart and see that what is done is to impress those you desire to lead? Would you seek to make your worship so that it is the center of your focus rather than My Presence and manifested presence?
“I desire your obedience of as a result of your love of Me. I have set before you a time to make wise decisions based on My will and a way that is not convenient. Would you seek to allow your preference to guide you or will you yield and allow My conviction to speak deeply and bring your heart to a place of surrendered passion? For only in your surrender to your passion to commune with Me will you find the unforced rhythms of My grace. I, the Lord, have this year set before you a decision.
“Will you choose Rachel—she who is beautiful, fancy and dignified—as the desire of your heart? Will you allow her beauty, the convenience of her attention and her dignified ways to influence your preference? I would desire that you shift in your attention and choose Leah—she who is plain, simple, undignified and uncomely, even dimmed eyed. For Leah, the ministry I have set before you, is surely not that which is attractive or convenient. For Leah will not attract the masses and give a look of success, but it will be the significance of your choice of Leah that can shift this nation from seven hard years of increased warfare and produce “deliverers” for this nation.
“It can be that even as from Jacob and Leah came forth a descendant, Moses, My deliverer, so it can be again. I desire to birth deliverers who can bring awakening that will establish reformation. It can be, says the Lord, as you choose Leah, out of obedience, over Rachel, no longer seeking to excel in the performance of how you look, but bringing forth an obedience that will produce fruit that will remain. From your obedience, I will birth a line of successors as strong as Moses and David. So choose to do My will and do not allow your desire to override My will.”
After hearing this word and spending time searching it out, my observations have brought me to understand we are at a great tipping point:
1. Leah was firstborn, and the firstborn is always significant to God.
2. Leah was prolific, more than three times as fruitful as Rachel.
3. Leah’s womb produced another womb—Dinah.
4. Leah’s womb produced deliverers: from Levi, Moses; from Judah, David; and, yes, even from David’s linage, Jesus.
Rachel’s possible reason for experiencing a closed womb could be for clinging to the gods of her father. She hid them away while running from Laban. Rachel died bringing forth Benjamin, Jacob’s last child. Jacob was buried beside Leah, not Rachel (Gen. 49:29-33).
I ask us all to search our hearts and answer these following questions as we apply Matt. 6:6 (Message) “Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense His grace.”
- Will we turn from that which impresses and engage the grace which produces?
- Will we turn from the relocation of sheep from one holding pen to another?
- Will we allow God back into our worship with simplicity?
- Will we allow the Holy Spirit to be Lord once again, bringing God’s liberty to our services?
- Will we turn from the fear of biblical practices and moving of the Spirit of the living God offending possible attendees we can fence in and call ours?
- Will we turn from needing the mass in attendance to finance our man-designed programs?
- Will we realize that the Ephesians 4:11 gifts given to the church are coaches and the church is operating in a “penalty phase” because the coaches are on the field? Will we realize that it is time to properly position ourselves by empowering the saints to move forward and do the works of God?
- Will we remove the Rachel of ministry and no longer trust it as eye candy that draws attention to us and our ministry? Will we allow the focus once again to be righteously upon the Creator of all, the Author and Finisher of our faith, the Father who loved us so much that He gave His Son that we might become family and fulfill our destiny by allowing Christ’s purpose to be fulfilled through our surrendered and focused life?
I pray this word pierces hearts to the point that services are called off and ministries are suspended until a fresh word from heaven penetrates hearts and causes not only a shift but also a tipping point in our nation.
Apostle Clay Nash has become a powerful prophetic voice declaring the kingdom of heaven in people’s everyday lives. As an apostle, he has founded and led numerous assemblies of believers as well as a network of relational covenants with ministers throughout the world. Clay serves on the team of Network Ekklesia International along with Dutch Sheets and Ken Malone as well as Global Spheres with Chuck Pierce and C. Peter Wagner.
