Demonstrate

Demonstrate

What is your contention?

What are you contending with?

What is the point of contention?

Really what is the point of contention?

It’s like the elite martial artist looking to fight the guy who holds a machine gun!

What is the point?

It seems like you are trying to dodge a bullet.

Why fight with each other, when your real enemy laughs at you.

What is the point of your contention?

Is not the real question how will you fight for each other?

How can the one lift the other up, when one sits down with his arms crossed and refuses to be helped?

It feels so suffocating, so draining, so frustrating, so broken, so emotional, when it should be so easy.

Yet you enemy wants you to remain caught up in contention, like a spider caught in its own web.

Am I not a light unto your feet and a lamp unto your path?

Walk in the light, come out into the light.

For you know not what power rests upon you.

For you know not the gravity of the power of what rests upon you.

It’s like the spider asking the fly whether it would mind being caught!

For you are out of order, and wonder why you have such disorder.

You want to turn the tables and then hide under them.

For this is the time of manifestation.

For I will not allow you to hide yourself.

I am the one who calls you out.

You would rather remain dead and buried like Lazarus.

But I am not giving you a choice in this.

For I have given you such power and authority, so much more than you give yourself credit for.

You want to run away and hide from yourself.

But here you find yourself.

But here you will find yourself.

But here you have found your true self.

Mighty, powerful, strong, wise, warm, attractive, distinctive, an over comer, a warrior, a champion, my spokesman, my bold voice in the weak place, the one who stands when everyone else falls.

I know you are so tired of being tired, so worn out from wearing out in service of someone else’s agenda. An established pattern. A pattern I am breaking, a pattern that lies broken before you.

What are you weighting for?

Seriously who told you to take his weight, his burden, his woes, his baggage, his concern.

Behold I am doing a new thing through you, and for you, and for the generations to come.

Take a moment.

Take this moment.

In this moment you know I am revealing myself to you.

I am unveiling myself before you.

You have been struggling with contention for so long now, and even more so, since the departure of your father.

And now it dawns on you.

And now the light of the dawn shines upon you.

For so long you were silenced, or your voice was not heard, or they were so prescriptive in their invitation. “These are all the things I have been doing in my group, and I’d love for you to be a guest speaker. Just feel free to do whatever you want to do, even prophesy”

Yet you so hate to be put in a box.

Is that not what you are wrestling with?

You want them to understand all that I have put in you, but consider a different approach.

When the Philistines came to take out Samson, did he sit with him and explain to them the immense power I had placed within him?

When they came to take out David, did he consult with them as to his best approach?

When the Pharisees took Stephen to task for all the works I had performed in his hands what was his response? Did not my face shine upon him like the sun? It ws no coincidence that it shone as he spoke of Moses face shining like the sun.

For my word is made manifest as it is revealed.

For Samson the word was freedom, I told him to be free, to express my freedom and then placed him in chains and then to only walk by faith not by sight. Freedom rose up within and completely annihilated his enemy.

For David, the word was breakthrough, and as he made his way through, breakthrough burst forth all across the land.

For Stephen it was glory, for it was glorious, it was a glorious departure, a moment of great glory.

So what shall we say about you?

For you know the word, for I put my words upon your lips.

It was a life changing moment for so many.

For in the place of great contention, great limitation, great restriction, I put my greatness on display.

For you were out of order from the beginning. For the last shall be the first.

For the last child was the first to speak.

Not the planned order.

Not the order they intended.

Yet I put you first, even when they put you last.

First to take the stage.

First to speak.

First to break free.

First to tear open a way.

To break open a way.

I keep taking you back to this moment.

Over and over, more and more, and more and more.

The place of overflow.

The place of overflow.

The place where I will pour out my overflow.

In the place of consternation, the place without consolation, the place of abject lack.

There you were…

There I placed you in position.

It was so nuanced.

There you arose.

Then you arose and took a step on to the platform.

It was so finely crafted, the work of my hand, a masterpiece.

For the one who went before, the great composer, found himself without composure.

Then the one with great composure, lifted everyone’s head, broke the veil of depression, and caused their faces to shine.

Before you proclaimed the word, you had already demonstrated it.

For I have called you to arise and to shine brightly.

Come out of depression, for I intend to break this stronghold.

For what will happen if joy takes up residence in the place of depression?

For what happens when my light shines in the darkest place?

For there you sit in the place of darkness.

Yet it is I that wakes you up in the night.

For you refuse to take this lying down.

You must arise.

For there you sit in the place of contention, but you shall arise.

For you could feel it across the audience, a sense of great calm, a pervasive peace, a mist in the midst, and outpouring in the place of lack.

I know you can feel it now.

I was cracking up, when you started by talking about how the word became flesh and pitched a tent in our lives. As you spoke you were speaking my words, demonstrating my words, revealing my power, impacting everyone present.

When you look back on it, where was the contention?

For I had broken the yoke of oppression.

The opportunity presented itself to you at the last moment, but at the right time, always at the right time.

Why do you think I could not contain myself, why do you think I had to leave the best to last?

Right at the last moment, when you had had enough.

Just as you turned to walk away from the tomb of your father.

At the last moment, I stood with you, I held you close.

It was a ground breaking moment.

As they then went on to cover up the coffin, I was doing a new thing.

For you could not contain yourself. Try as you might I was shaking things up.

You were trying so hard to keep it together, but you could not contain yourself.

For you know that you cannot be contained.

Here you are trying to keep it together with all your strength.

Yet now is the time of release, now is the time of the breaking of the chains, now is the time of a ground breaking moment.

For the very ground shook, you could see it with your natural eyes, a giant fissure in the ground as it broke open before you.

Not a small thing, but a huge thing, for the very ground rises before you.

Speak these words again for they shall echo across the land “Rise and shine!”

For these shall be your words of warfare, for by these words you shall overcome.

Yet my words for you express my desire, my intent, my delight, and will appear on the right and the left, before and behind.

New opportunities

For it is time to demonstrate, time to reveal, time to prophesy, time to shine, time to manifest my glory like never before.

For I have broken the yoke of oppression.