Dear People Who Keep Company With God,
There are moments that are unique and special. In the New Testament the Greek word used for those moments is kairos. It means a moment of indeterminate time in which something special happens. It is the appointed time in the purpose of God, the time when God acts (Mark 1.15). Although these moments arrive suddenly God will already have been at work preparing and making us ready for His special time.
In the summer of 2004 while vacationing the Lord revealed to me from John 3:3 that He was going to teach me to see His kingdom. Within one hour I received a phone call from a friend inviting me to go with him to Bob Jones’ home the following week. For over seven years now God has blessed me with the privilege of being mentored by Bob Jones in the realm of dreams, visions and revelations of the Lord (2 Cor. 12 1). This would prove to be invaluable in navigating the spiritual landscape that would be opened to us.
In fall of the same year on a camping trip something wonderful happened. I had read Floyd McClung’s book, The Father Heart of God a couple of years earlier and had been pursuing a deeper revelation and relationship with God as my Father. In the mountains of North Carolina the breakthrough came and I went home a different man. It was the beginning of a major transformation in my life and is a fountainhead of what God has done with us.
The next 18 months was such a healing and restorative time. I had some of the most amazing experiences and spiritual encounters, but the thing that was so perplexing was that I was unable to bring our church into this, but that would soon change.
In the fall of 2006 the kairos moment came; the Holy Spirit in the form of the Ezekiel 47 River manifested in our church. From the beginning I knew God had sent the River to accelerate us into His greater purposes and it happened both individually and corporately.The testimonies and fruit from that one moment will only be fully known when we get to heaven.
This was not a new manifestation of God. He has done this in many places and in greater measures, however He released the River Himself to us. It was not a man of God from a far off revival who came and imparted it to us. God in His sovereignty released His River into our church. That is important.
It has not always been easy or fun. We were sorrow stricken right in the midst of God’s blessing. Yet I would not want to imagine how much worse it could have been if we had not been accelerated by God’s River.
The Holy Spirit River is here to stay. Sure it is not like it was back in 2006, but it is not suppose to be. In the natural rivers are flowing and constantly changing and I have never seen a river in the natural that you do not have to step down to get into. I believe all God has ever required is for us to humble ourselves, receive what He was doing and steward it. And five years down the road that is what He is still asking of us.
I look back at how God has clearly worked because it gives a glimpse for what is ahead. Those times are like the markers that Israel set up to remind them of God’s work in their lives and nation (Josh. 4:6-7). In Experiencing God Henry Blackaby says that God works in our lives in line with what He has already done in the past. And Mark Twain said, “History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”
God’s dream for our church is more of the glory of God in the face of Christ (2 Cor. 4:6). Anything else is going backwards. Our path will shine brighter and brighter the further we go (Prov. 4:18). God is preparing us right now for that next karios moment.
Many Blessings, BW