When will Joel’s Army emerge? Part II

Last week, we discussed how God is waiting on us to step into our true identity as sons and daughters, manifesting the fullness of the Kingdom that already dwells within us. As we begin to believe who we really are, the outworking of our God-nature will spill over into our natural lives with explosive supernatural experience. The timing of the release of Joel’s Army is simply hinging on you and I realizing and appropriating the fact that we are not dry bones, but a mighty army already.

We must no longer identify ourselves with the natural circumstances or even the temporary struggles we face in this world. We are first and foremost citizens of Heaven, and that is where we should spend most of our time. Your spirit man is already seated with Christ in Heavenly places (Eph. 2:6). And that realm is a greater reality than the shadowy natural world around you. You are a spiritual being clothed temporarily with a natural body.

Your spirit is melded together with Jehovah Rapha the Healer. There is no separation between you and Christ. It is only logical that the hem of your garment should heal the sick. If the ark of the presence sat on Obed-Edom’s land and caused his house and crops and land to prosper, how much more should your marketplace, home and surroundings prosper, since you are now a carrier of that same presence?

Owning our identity

We are on the earth, even while we are in Heaven. We dwell simultaneously in two realms. In the meantime, we are bringing our soul into the submission and maturity of who we already are in the spirit. The only reason we have not seen the full outworking of our supernatural arsenal, is because we are still in this process of aligning our soul with Heaven. The Christian life is much less complicated than we make it. It is simply a matter of realization.

What I am saying is that as long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. He is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father (Gal. 4:1-2).

When is the appointed time for the Father to release the fullness of the inheritance to the children? You already have it. You own the whole estate. So when is the set time for you to step into it? As soon as you are ready. He is waiting on you. This is not a timing element, but a maturity issue. And maturity is defined by our level of holy hunger and unconditional openness to the Lord. And these things increase by “tasting and seeing.” Again – it is by realizing His goodness that is already lavished upon us. We love Him more by recognizing that He first loved us.

We are sons and heirs. We are not slaves. The Lord is shaking off the orphan spirit and making us bold to approach the throne of grace. An army cannot be focused on its insecurities and failures. Nor can we focus on the distance to our destiny. Our destiny is today. The Lord is releasing an understanding of our beauty, holiness and positional authority. He has placed His beauty, His holiness and His authority on us. We just need to believe who we already are! We must continue to hammer this point, as it is critical to the emergence of Joel’s Army.

For one, understand that you are completely perfect in Him. If that is how He sees you, then it is a greater reality than what you have believed about yourself. Song of Solomon 4:7 says, “All beautiful you are, my darling; there is no flaw in you.” You carry such an intensity about you, because of His blood, that the Lord Himself says, “Turn your eyes from me; they overwhelm me!” (Song 6:5).

You are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus (2 Cor. 5:21). You are absolutely perfect forever! (Heb. 10:14). You have been made holy (Heb. 10:10).

But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation (Col. 1:22).

Many are so fearful and shame-ridden that they shrink from this kind of talk. In their false humility, they refuse to stand on what the Word of God says about themselves. Many who are contending for healing, prophecy, signs, wonders and miraculous powers will excuse their lack of fruit by simply saying, “I’m not there yet.” But the truth is, you’ve been there all along. The fullness of the Godhead already dwells in you. Every gift is already inside of you.

And you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority (Col. 2:10).

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ (Eph. 1:3).

We even have the mind of Christ! (1 Cor. 2:16). That means access to everything He knows – access to the full range of the thought-work of God. Nothing is impossible for us.

Joel’s Army will emerge when we encounter a deep recognition of this true identity, becoming who we already are. This means believing the word, and allowing our soul to come into alignment with who we already are in the spirit man. We are a heavenly class of God-like beings, made in His image. Even the angels are in wonder at us. In the sanctification process, we must not get hung up on the defects of our soul. We must tap into the greater reality of the spirit realm, where our spirit man is already completely perfected in union with Him. Identification with the spirit brings the soul into alignment. The Christian mystics often refer to this as our True Self. That inner man who is absolutely complete in Christ.

No one has ever tapped into everything salvation purchased for them. Some think it is impossible. But there should be no strife involved in owning what you already own! Your acquittal is based not on your deeds, but on a free gift. Not based on what we do – based on what He did. Already yours. Take it, live in it, drink it, feast in it. We don’t do anything to achieve it, we only believe it. It will not take years of prayer and fasting, nor any other amount of spiritual discipline. It takes faith and desire. And these too are free gifts.

Stop identifying with your infirmities and shortcomings. Those belong to the false self. Simon the Leper was healed 2,000 years ago, but still today, we refer to him as “Simon the Leper.” Talk about owning your disease! It became his name and trademark for the ages. We own weakness, fear, pride, ambition, religion and all manner of spiritual roadblocks. But Jesus doesn’t see any of that stuff when He looks at you. You must begin to see yourself through His lenses. He does not see your dry bones. He sees a great and vast army.

To get a glimpse of who we are in the spirit should build us up, not puff us up. The True Self is complete in beauty, because it is His beauty placed upon us. We must not trust in our own beauty, as if it is somehow separate from Him. Apart from Him, I am nothing.

We want holy confidence without pride or self-sufficiency. False humility denies your true identity. True humility recognizes the source of your strength and purity. To acknowledge your True Self is not to be self-focused. The True Self is always locked in a gaze toward the Savior. Let my gaze be upon Him.

When I am fixated on Him, I will become like Him. This is like a simple, mathematical formula. Gaze at Jesus, and you will become like Him.

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is (1 John 3:2).

To look at Him is to become captivated and possessed by Him. When our eyes are full of His light, our entire being becomes light. We are not Bride focused, but Bridegroom focused. More important than the emergence of Joel’s Army is the coming of the Lord Himself. And when will He come? Perhaps, again, He is waiting on us.

There must be an Elijah generation that will usher in and prepare the way for His second coming. A company of people who operate in a forerunner spirit. This army must see Him coming ahead of time in order to manifest an accurate depiction of who He is in the meantime. We need our spiritual eyes open to gaze on Him now, so that the church can be a clear manifestation of who He really is here on the earth.

Who Are You Waiting For?

Let’s get up close and personal for a minute. It is easy to criticize the corporate church for her apathy and lack of power, but revival begins with me. The church may indeed be in a state of dryness. But all it takes is one fire starter to ignite the dry fields.

Psalm 103 begins with the psalmist just calling his own soul into submission. It ends with him calling the angels, the heavenly hosts and all of God’s dominion into alignment with Heaven. God can use one submitted soul to shake the nations.

Do you have to wait for the rest of the army to be rallied, before you take up arms? This is perhaps one of the largest misperceptions regarding Joel’s Army. We wait for someone else to break through, to set the marching rhythm – wait for someone else to set the precedent and call the Lord’s battalions into alignment.

But here’s the kicker: you are already enlisted. The moment you gave your life to the Lord, you received your draft orders. The real question is this: do you want to be a grunt or a general? The Lord is looking for leaders. A leader is someone who takes initiative and doesn’t look for the approval and confirmation of others. Leaders are not afraid of criticism. Nor are they swayed by the praise and vain glory of men. The spirit of a pioneer steps into uncharted territory and plows the way for others to advance.

Joel’s Army is already on the rise. And you can ascend its ranks just by allowing the Lord of Hosts to wear you like a suit and move with the flow of His river that already resides fully inside of you.

When will Joel’s Army emerge? Part I

How long have we heard the prophecies about the Lord amassing a mighty army of wonderworkers, seers and revivalists – a supernatural generation that will prepare the way for His second coming? This is not a new concept. From the onset of the present-day prophetic movement, the emergence of this company of forerunners has been a hot topic. Prophetic voices such as Bob Jones, Paul Cain, Rick Joyner, Mike Bickle, Jack Deere and countless others have heralded the advancement of an end-time generation that would demonstrate signs and wonders like never before in history.

In this series of teachings, we want to look briefly at the Lord’s timetable for the emergence of this army. The modern-day resurgence of this prophetic understanding can be traced back to the Voice of Healing revival in the 1940s and ‘50s. Men like Jack Coe and William Branham saw an entire church rising up to operate in healing, prophecy and the fullness of the gifts and outworkings of the Holy Spirit. They trumpeted the coming prophetic army spoken of by Joel:

Like dawn spreading across the mountains a large and mighty army comes, such as never was of old nor ever will be in ages to come. Before them a fire devours, behind them a flame blazes (Joel 2:2-3).

The Lord thunders at the head of His army; His forces are beyond number, and mighty are those who obey His command (Joel 2:11).

Apostolic faith movements in the latter 19th century foresaw the church coming into the fullness of manifest power. At the dawn of the Pentecostal revival a century ago, Charles Parham said:

At Christ’s second coming the church will be found with the same power that the apostles and the early church possessed. The power of Pentecost is manifest in us. The Christian religion must be demonstrated. The world wants to be shown. Then let God’s power be manifest through us.

In another prophecy, found among the writings of late healing evangelist Charles Price in 1916, and perhaps dating back to 1679, we see a foreshadow of this end-time army:

. . . the most prophetical generation, will the Most High raise up who shall deliver His elect by the force of spiritual arms; for which there must be raised certain head powers to bear the first office, who are to be persons in favor with God, whose dread and fear shall fall on all nations, visible and invisible, because of the mighty acting power of the Holy Spirit which shall rest upon them; for Christ shall appear in some chosen vessels to bring into the Promised Land. Thus Moses and Joshua may be considered types of some upon whom the same spirit will fall, yet in greater proportion! Whereby they shall make way for the ransomed of the Lord to return to Mt. Zion.

There has always been a remnant in the church who have, by faith, foreseen the coming end-time apostolic age. Why? Because it is truth. This is not imaginary. Peter himself saw it on the day of Pentecost, tracing the very words back to Joel, who tells us that the Lord will one day pour out His Spirit on all people (Joel 2:28-29).

What will this generation look like?

This will truly be a company of people who blow the boxes of “church as usual” to smithereens. As Aaron Evans recently said, “God is going to take the book of Exodus and the book of Acts and He’s going to supersize them.” Much can be said about this army of God, and much more will be written, as we have already seen first fruits of its ranks

For our purposes here, I will only highlight a few points about the characteristics of this army. In my book, The New Mystics, we discuss this coming generation in more detail, offering historical precedent for the level of power they will display.

The bottom line is that this company of people will be more intimate with the Lord and display more of his manifest power than any other generation. Miracles like have never before been seen will become commonplace. Healing will become so readily available for the church that just to walk through the doors of an assembly, one will be instantly healed.

As persecution increases, including persecution in the West, some will literally become invincible to it. They will possess the spirit of might like Samson or David’s Mighty Men. These will be similar to many of the “would-be” martyrs throughout church history – some of their bodies were incombustible to flames, survived boiling oil, or continued to live for a time, even after they were beheaded!

Many will understand their authority even over the natural elements of this earth. They will stop tidal waves, speak to objects and command them to move – someone will even literally speak to a mountain, and it will throw itself into the sea.

This is not just a generation that will operate in a gift of healing or a prophetic utterance. They will demonstrate bizarre miracles. There will be mass dead raisings, translations, levitation and other things. This may sound far fetched, but all of this stuff has already happened in the lifetime of Jesus and the apostles. And John 14:12 tells us that greater things than these we shall do, because Jesus went to the Father. The very same Spirit that raised Christ Jesus from the dead is living in us, so how much more shall we operate in His power? In fact, all of these things have already happened in the church age. But we will see a culmination of miracles in this end-time bridal paradigm that has no Biblical precedent, other than the fact that scriptures tell us all things are possible for them that believe.

This will be the generation of the Sons of Golden Oil – the two lampstands and the two olive trees in Zech. 4 and Rev. 11. They constantly flow with the oil of the anointing, the lampstand representing their continual walk in the fullness of the sevenfold spirit of God. They will be typified by the mantle of Moses and Elijah, the two saints whom Jesus met on the Mount of Transfiguration in Luke 9, when he shone the brilliance of His manifest glory. Moses and Elijah represent the Spirit and the Word, and this is a generation who will walk in the Spirit and the Word full throttle, enabling them to ascend heights like none of their predecessors before them.

God is Waiting on Us

It is imperative that we eliminate a few misconceptions about the timing and emergence of this great supernatural army. For far too long, we have labeled it a “coming” generation – future tense – and for the sake of expediency I often say the same. But this apostolic bride is only “coming” inasmuch as we ourselves are willing to sit around in our grave clothes or hide in the baggage like Saul, afraid to step into our authority as sons of the King.

Most of us are content to sit and twiddle our thumbs, anticipating the release of some divine dispensation – a worldwide lightning bolt that will somehow transition us into the latter days and the start of this generation. But Jesus has already given us everything we need to access His unlimited anointing. Is it possible that He is waiting on us?

I recently had a dream in which the Lord Himself leaned over to me and asked, “When will this generation come?” I was not asking Him; He was asking me. We are not waiting on God to supernaturally bring this revival generation to pass. God is waiting on you and I to become who we already are. To manifest the fullness of the Godhead that already dwells within us.

Romans 8:19 tells us that all of creation also waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed – to manifest who they already are. Nature itself, the very elements of the earth, are longing to be brought into their divine alignment, even as God set Adam over earth as a shadow of Christ over creation. The authority of the Kingdom of Heaven longs to be released on earth, and the earth is crying out for Heaven. Could it be that the lynchpin – the critical link in the chain – is you and I? Is it possible that the only missing piece of the puzzle is for you and I to believe who we already are? Or moreover, to believe who He is within us?

Revival is Now

I am fully convinced that revival is right now for whoever wants it. We can have as much of God as we want. We can operate in any level of holiness, hunger, humility or power that we want. Heaven is fully open and at our disposal. Every veil is torn that separates us from God, and all enmity between us and the Father has been removed through the shed blood of Christ.

There are no excuses for us to be sleeping during harvest time. Proverbs 10:5 says, “He who gathers crops in summer is a wise son, but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son.” There are no excuses for us not to be operating beyond our natural capabilities. No excuses for us not to operate in the supernatural. Lack of faith is not an excuse, for we can always ask for more faith. Apathy and lack of desire is not an excuse, for we can always ask the Father to rekindle the flame of divine intimacy.

It is awakening time. Time for action. To say we are waiting on God for revival is essentially our pitiful way of blaming Him for the iniquity in our communities and the unregenerate hearts in our own spheres of influence. He has put you and I in the midst of these times and places to be salt and light. If salt loses its saltiness, it is worthless. Many are not seeing revival around them, because there is no personal revival within. Every day should be revival time for you and I. He expects us to extend our own staff of delegated authority. Like Moses, God wants us to stop whining for Him to do something, and instead stretch forth our own rod of power to split the Red Seas before us.

God has equipped us with all the tools we need to make revival happen. In fact, He has given us His very Spirit!

Do you not say, “Four months more and then the harvest?” I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest (John 4:35).

Now is the time. Joel’s Army will emerge with or without us. Our own individual role in this movement will be determined by us, because many are called. The question we have been asking, “How much longer?” is really insufficient, unless we are asking it of ourselves. This is our chance to run with gospel of the Kingdom like no one before us. Let us make the most of our days here and become earth shakers.