August
25, 2016
Ezekiel:
A while ago, I heard so clearly, "Look on, you Scoffers and be
amazed! I'm doing a new thing!"
You
know, here a lot of us are getting past middle age, getting into what
are supposed to be our "golden years", our senior years,
whatever. Forget it! That's nonsense, man. I'd see people older than
me, just full of fire and I just couldn't understand it, you know?
"Boy, this is it - I've seen it all, done it all. Gonna coast on
out!"
Clare:
Well, but then the golden years thing is...the last wine that was
served was better than the first!
Ezekiel:
I can guarantee, I have NO idea what's gonna happen. This is day one!
Clare:
This is an army, you know, out there that we're talking to, the
Heartdwellers. This is an army of people who are in love with the
Lord. And some of them have given up, because they're...like you
said, they're just tired of suffering, they're tired of pain, or
they've been talked down by the devil telling them, "You're too
old, this will never work." And that's why I freely tell people,
"Hey, I'm 70 years old and I'm having the best time of my life!
Finally!" I wasted many years. If He can get this body going.
And He keeps renewing my body.
Ezekiel:
She's amazing!
Clare:
Things'll come after me, body problems will happen - and the Lord
will turn around and just kick them right out again.
So,
you ended up writing a song, right? A pretty melody came up.
Ezekiel:
The 10th hour. There's a melody, this beautiful something on a steel
string guitar with harmonics...just stuff that a really GOOD, maybe a
trained, classical musician would do. It's just coming out of my,
every fiber in me.
Clare:
And your fingers weren't even...
Ezekiel:
Calloused.
Clare:
Calloused over.
Ezekiel:
I've got... I've had calloused fingers for, oh I can't - as many
years as I'm alive almost, on the tips of my fingers. (now) I have
BABY skin here. You're talking about steel string, tight steel string
guitar. No pain! I played that thing like...lol!
Clare:
I was amazed! Really - 'cause you told me that you'd been playing and
I thought, 'With those fingers?'
Ezekiel:
I mean, it just...
Clare:
He turns everything to good.
Ezekiel:
Just what He said - He took back everything the devil stole and He
multiplied it. This is day 1, you know. The adventure continues. I
have no idea what's going to come up and out. One of the fruits in my
life, right now, I can see is I'm not in a hurry to "get it
done, get it quick, badoom!" I used to tell Clare, "My head
burns when I sing, I don't know why. It feels..."
Clare:
And I told him, you're pushing. And all you need to do is let the
sound come out.
Ezekiel:
Yeah...
Clare:
It's a whole different way of...
Ezekiel:
Yeah. And so I'm sitting there going, Wow! I've been here for 12
hours and I'm just now got the first track of the kind of chords and
flowing, you know. Whatever was on the guitar there. It was like,
that was good enough. There was such a peace, the Lord was so soft.
Man, I got...I can't tell you how good it is to see Him smile and
laugh tonight! He had tears in His eyes of laughter and rejoicing. I
had begun to feel like I was almost His enemy! I knew, I could FEEL
that there was a distance, there was a gap - there was...something
was getting further away.
And you know what He told me? He said, "I've wanted to talk to you as much as you've wanted to hear from Me. There's so many things I wanted to tell you and show you, but you just weren't ready. I had to open you up and clean you out to the bottom of the bottom of the shell of the bare minimum." I saw a tree cut down, just like in the Scriptures, to the trunk. And then a shoot coming up, a fresh shoot.
And I remember at one point, this was hours ago, I'm saying once again, "Lord, can You make my head bigger...this is a LOT to keep up with!" 'Cause He seemed almost more talkative than what I'm used to. And when I asked Him that, He kinda put His hands together in front of Him, He kinda stepped back...it's like "It's okay. It's all right... I can't do it!" lol!! And He takes two steps forward and He's right back, just right there with me, ya know. He's like..."I'm over flowing like YOU are! I have LONGED for this moment. I've WAITED for this moment! I HAD to do this. I had to allow that kind of what seemed to be harsh - love. Tough love."
Clare:
Searing conviction.
Ezekiel: Oh...I'm telling you. "I had to. I had to be sure there was not a speck or particle of you there anymore. So I could pour Myself back into you." And I can't tell you, it's been like a rocket ride ever since. I don't know how many hours I've slept today - not a lot! Yeah, it's my first thought, too, mhmm. I can hear some of you guys: "Yep. He's on a manic high, you watch. Two or three days later, and he's gonna crash..." And I started to hear, I thought,
'Man, my wife is going think he's really, you know. He's loopin'. He's gonna crash.' And I didn't even let the thought, something in me rose up and caught that thought before it ever formed fully, and said, "NO. No way. I am NOT going to lose this. I'm NOT giving it up." And I've been praying and asking the Lord, you know. We DO need to ask. "Lord, please. Give me Your faith. Your strength. Your everything." And I tell Him all the time, "You're GOD. You can do anything!"
And
He has. Because of His goodness, His love, His grace and YOUR
prayers, your fastings. Your offering of your joys and sorrows,
happiness, suffering. Everything you guys have poured in a BIG
family. And you've all put your heart and soul into Him, and into
each other - into us and this wonderful thing He's doing all over the
world with the Body.
Clare:
Amen!
So,
I think what we've had, really, is a breakthrough from self-pity and
laziness. "So it hurts? So keep going. So it's hard - keep
going. So you're tired? Keep going." It's like, you'll get to
rest and you'll get to recover, and God will fill you, refill you as
you pour yourself out for Him. The thing is, you just don't yield to
the enemy. 'Cause the enemy wants to stop you.
And
that's the issue here. That's exactly what's going on. Through our
OWN fault, we back off sometimes. We get lazy, we get tired. We give
in to self-pity and whatever. And that opens the door for the enemy.
And when I say it opens a door for the enemy, what I'm talking about
is - in Christian ministry, you have enemies. You have Satanists and
other people who deliberately attack a ministry and cause sickness or
division or strife. Of course, if you're walking in perfect virtue
they can't do that - but who among us is walking in perfect virtue
100% of the time??
So,
what happens? So, the door gets opened and the Lord allows that curse
to land. He permits it. And it's measured, because they can't do any
more harm to us than what He allows, because He's still in control.
And when that happens, we begin to wake up and we say, "Wait a
minute. Why is this happening to me? What's gone wrong here? What's
going on?"
Sometimes it's an offering, a Simon's Cross. And other times it's a correction from God. And we knew this was a correction, 'cause we kept getting God's Correction in Bible Promises. We just weren't sure what it was for. And what the enemy was trying to get to was a base-line attitude of "This is just too hard, I'm giving up! I'm just not going to do it." And yet, we want to do it.
We want to do everything the Lord wants us to do, but we have our flesh to contend with. When we give in to our flesh and we back off, then the Lord comes in and says, "I know this soul. I know this soul really does want to do this. So I'm going to help them get control of themselves, and wake up to the possibilities." And that's when He comes in and...you know... I can't tell you how many illnesses the Lord has cured me of because He wants me to keep going in ministry. I mean - Ezekiel could have been dead, and He would have raised him from the dead, because He needs him to complete this ministry.
So,
ultimately, the Lord is in control. And I think what the Lord was so
overjoyed about, and that He was so happy about in the spirit - to
just see Him dancing for joy, as the Scriptures say - the Lord dances
over us with shouts of joy. And His joy was that Ezekiel had
confronted something in him that was preventing him from having the
fullness that he needed in ministry. Now he's taken it on, he's
confronted it and he wants to move forward.
And
me, too. I confront my laziness as well.
We don't have much time. I know you've all heard that so many times, you're sick of it. But the point is, we want to make the time count. When the Lord comes, we want to hear Him say, "Well done, My good and faithful servant. Enter into your Master's joy!" And this will happen when we respond to His correction and then we trust Him in faith to cure us, or to heal us of whatever it was that came against us. He takes EVERYTHING. Everything evil, wicked and hard that the enemy throws at us, He takes it and He turns it around to something good and beautiful. It's just wonderful!
Just
as He permitted the Lord's physical body to be killed, just so He
could raise it up again. And keep on going...
So,
there's no way that you can lose if you obey Him. No matter what you
have to go through, there's no way that the Kingdom of God is going
to suffer, because the Lord will turn it around to good. As one of
the church Father's said, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed
of the church." And there's always that resurrection power that
follows on the heels of suffering.
SO,
THE LORD BLESS YOU ALL, DEAR HEARTDWELLERS. AND LOOK FORWARD TO WHAT
THE LORD HAS FOR YOU, FOR AT LEAST THE NEXT THREE YEARS. HE'S GONNA
BREAK OUT WITH SOME WONDERFUL MINISTRIES. WHATEVER CONDITION YOU'RE
IN RIGHT NOW, I WANT YOU TO HAVE A LOT OF HOPE, BECAUSE THERE'S SO
MUCH THAT HE WANTS TO DO WITH THOSE VESSELS THAT... LET'S JUST SAY,
YOU'RE ON YOUR DEATH BED. AND YOU STILL WANT TO SERVE HIM. WELL, HE
CAN TURN THAT AROUND, TOO. IF YOU TOTALLY PUT YOUR TRUST IN HIM, HE
CAN TURN IT RIGHT AROUND AND GET YOU BACK UP ON YOUR FEET AGAIN,
SERVING HIM.
SO
DON'T GIVE UP! REFUSE TO GIVE UP! CONTINUE TO BELIEVE AND CONFESS THE
SCRIPTURES. AND PRAY IN THE SPIRIT AND HAVE OTHER PEOPLE PRAY IN THE
SPIRIT OVER YOU. JUST WATCH AND SEE WHAT THAT FAITH WILL DO.
You've
got to purpose in your heart, you're NOT going to lay down and give
up. You're not going to do it - it's not an option! You're got to
purpose that in your heart and get to that rock bottom place where
you're just convicted that there's no way you're going to give up!
And somehow the Lord will give you the strength to get up and keep
walking.
Ezekiel:
I told Clare I had no idea. I would say that over and over again
yesterday. I had no idea what people were really going through like
this.
Clare:
Yeah, we have a lot of people that are going through different kinds
of suffering, but still. It's a kind of crushing defeat that makes
you want to give up.
Ezekiel:
But there's something about powder. Being broken down into powder. I
used to mess with powder, where you've got a pot and it's got a loose
lip, or it's weird. And you break it down. And if it's dried, you
have to crush it, and powder it and re-hydrate it and make it again.
So, the Scriptures say, "Jesus learned obedience through the
suffering He endured." There's something about the crucible of
humiliation, and as the Scriptures say: "The crucible of
suffering." - that is so amazing on the other side.
Clare:
All the glory to the Lord.
Ezekiel/Clare:
Amen.
Source:
heartdwellers
