I have been constantly seeking of the Lord for direction to stay on course with His great plan for this season. Recently He spoke to me: "I will not leave you without instructions." I was impressed to go to Joshua and the Lord began to show me that 2007 was the year for many in the Kingdom of God to cross over to a promised place in Him of living fully alive in the Holy Spirit. I spoke some of it in our ministry only later to find the Lord is speaking it to many others as well. I believe each one receives it a little different so I will share what the Lord has given to me.

First of all the picture given us in Joshua of God's people crossing over the river Jordan to the promised land foreshadows where God is with the church right now. Jesus Christ is our Joshua, our commander in chief, our Lord of Hosts and He is calling us to a Holy Place in Him, where we must take our shoes off to stand there. According to Hebrew custom that is to relinquish all our own self-rights to everything. We must follow His voice, the instructions of the Spirit without question, or doubt, or hesitation as they did even though it had never been done this way before. Every thing was going to change. The manna raining down from heaven would cease. They would not be fed in quite the same manner. Now they would eat the fruit of the land. There would be great reform that would take a battle but would end in great rest and peace.

The church has been in the wilderness living far below the victorious life of richness in the Holy Spirit. We have been continuing our traditions while living in Babylon held captive by the idolatrous system of materialism, humanism and immorality. God wants to set His church free to live much higher in holiness, righteousness, mercy and justice. God is ready to complete His latter house of greater glory out of those who have surrendered to becoming living stones He can smooth, shape and cement together in love with other stones. God is creating a house made without hands that will come forth to do great works on the earth not by might or power, but by the Spirit of the Lord. This Promised Land is a life lived in rest as we live and move and have our very being in Christ. It is a life of victory over the soul led life. It is learning to live only on fresh bread from heaven and drink new wine from the Spirit. It is partaking of the rich milk and honey that comes from a Holy Spirit led life. God is saying to the church today that it is time to cross over the waters of Jordan. It is a baptism of death to the soulish realm, as you leave the place of living for God out of the power of your mind, your own will, and your sensual emotions. It is crossing over to the empowerment of a fresh new life in the spirit fully surrendered to the power and love of God by the Holy Spirit.

God is grieved today as He looks at the rejection of the Holy Spirit today. He is the last person of the Godhead to come to earth for the redemption of mankind. We as a people quickly turn to follow social comforts in religious circles, we follow soul ties, and we easily turn to eloquence, entertaining or a safe gospel environment. We have a form of godliness but continue to deny our greatest need, the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives and the love He pours into our heart for the Lord Jesus. We resist Him, we grieve Him, we quench Him, and we do not welcome His transforming power in our lives and think nothing of it. In our fear of not being respectable, acceptable, proper and religiously correct we have become dry, complacent, indifferent and think we have need of nothing. Religious man-made traditions and counterfeit substitutions of the move of God are killing us. God help us!

Crossing over was a process of a total of 10 days for the children of Israel. It was a testing period for them. The number 10 means a testing time. During this time of testing they would find the strength and courage needed as they focused in absolute faith on the commands of the Lord, with their mouth and mind, mediating day and night in it. On the third day the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant stepped into the river Jordan and God showed up with a mighty miracle to part the waters all the way back to the city of Adam. The third day is significant and speaks of God revealing Himself on earth with resurrection and miraculous power. It was harvest time as it is now in the spiritual realm and the Jordan was out of its banks which spoke of a great risk to step in and cross over. Today we see the waters of judgment rising in the earth. You might say it is out of its banks. But we follow His instructions at all cost. To live by faith is always a risk, but God always shows up to do the miraculous when He sees faith. We must pass the test of faith. The waters parting clear back to Adam was significant as it points to our inborn fallen nature. The Lord says when we step in to cross over he will part the water of all our past sins, wounds, and bad experiences clear back to our beginning so nothing will hinder us from a total victory. Wow! Jesus Christ the last Adam, the Lord from heaven, made it all possible. It took them seven days to cross over. The Lord says it is 2007 the year for His people to cross over to this land of rest. The number seven symbolizes rest as God rested on the 7th day and his work was complete. God longs to see His people come into the fullness of the Holy Spirit where they will find rest and their inheritance. This inheritance is the work that will complete the destiny of your life and it will flow into the next generation.

God gave instructions that the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant were to go ahead of the rest and step in first. The Ark of the Covenant was the glory of God; the very presence of God with them. They had never been this way before. They were used to following the cloud by day and the fire by night. They were to follow 2000 cubits behind it as to see where to go. It was a new way, a new anointing; they had not seen it done this way before. The manifested presence of God among us is to be carried and followed with carefulness, reverence, and full surrender as we cross over in this baptism on dry ground to the other side.

God's instructions were to proceed for victory with the armed men at the front, then the priests blowing the trumpets and carrying the Ark of the Covenant and behind were the rear-guard. The process of possessing had an order to follow. As we go forward the battle ready intercessors must be in the front winning the battle in the heavenlies first. Then the prophets must blow the trumpets in Zion. This is the voice of God, which decrees and sets in motion the will of God. Next the glory of God must be living in the midst of us and free to move within the midst of us, and then the rear-guard must be in place keeping the back protected from the roar of the enemy. With this in place, all the people can now move forward to possess their inheritance. Each on of us is promised a Kingdom destiny in this time on the earth but it is only found in this place of utter dependence on Holy Spirit living.

They crossed over and set up stones of memorial for what God had done for them. The memorials are for training the next generation. The greatness of God and His works must always be passed on to the next generation by the memorials of testimony so they can go upward to even higher ground with God.

The next instructions were to camp at Gilgal, which was a place of deep consecration and circumcision of the soul. They celebrated the Passover here as well. They returned here to camp many times in the process of possessing the land. We must camp often at the place of deep calling unto deep with God, where He reveals what needs cut away out of us and then we commune with Him in a fresh new way, partaking of all He did for us in his body and all He bought for us with His blood. We move from this place refreshed, reformed, and ready to conquer new territory for the Kingdom of God.

To be continued…

Scriptures for further study:
Joshua 1-5
I Peter 2:4-5
Daniel 2:44
Romans 2:28-29
Joel 2:1
I Peter 1: 7
Hebrews 10:38
Romans 12:1-3

These words penned by the Holy Spirit in Paul grip my heart: "That I may lay hold of that for which Jesus Christ laid hold of me." Oh Father God, make the reality of the heart and power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ alive in us, body, soul, and spirit. Paul writes with such passion "I count all things loss for the excellency of knowing Christ Jesus." Paul's heart cries from his pen to be found in Christ, "that I might know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead." He says, "Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected: but I press on that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me."

Paul possessed the enduring love for the Lord Jesus through his submission to the Holy Spirit dwelling within him. This love would take him through all the trials and tribulations he would face as he proclaimed the gospel wherever God sent him. The Apostle Paul endured to the end that he might be counted worthy of becoming a son of the resurrection. He laid hold of the fellowship of sufferings and the power of the resurrection to receive the prize of the high call in Christ Jesus. He will know the final redemption, to be manifested as a son of God, changed into immortality with a new glorious body fit for the new heaven and earth.

Humanly we know "eros" love, the sensual kind of love, and we know the "phileo" love that enjoys being with the people who like what you like and do what you do. While these are a part of our human nature and can be healthy under God's boundaries they have been perverted and polluted. Religion is built on man's soulish ambitions, which tends to produce only a phileo type love where there is one mold and into it all must fit. The world thrives on the "anything goes sensuality," an eros kind of love. Because these same seducing spirits are at work in the church today, it is getting more difficult to tell the difference between the church world and the secular world.

Western church we live in Laodecia (Revelation 3). We are challenged not to be rocked to sleep in comfort and become indifferent and apathetic to the eternal perspective of life. The real experience of the power of the resurrection in our lives is the heart of the gospel, but it is in danger of becoming just a theory, a concept, a tradition, new clothes, or an Easter egg hunt. We live in a lukewarm religious society, which is in desperate need of an awakening to the real enduring love of God that will know Him in the fellowship of His sufferings and the power of His resurrection. It is the agape love that will endure whatever it takes to possess the power of the gospel of the Kingdom of God in Christ Jesus.

The heart of the resurrection is the cross of Christ. The cross stands in the very center of time and eternity for all creation. Without the cross there would have been no resurrection for any of us and no redemption for our cursed world. The Christ of the cross was God's great love for the world. While we were still rebellious sinners, God watched His only begotten Son suffer beyond any man and die in the place of all mankind, paying our complete sin debt, providing our healing, and releasing us from death and hell. There would be no resurrection without the love that drove Jesus Christ all the way to the cross to endure the suffering unto death. There would be no hope of immortality, of everlasting life. He could have called 10,000 angels to his aid at any time, but He did not. It was the agape love of God in Christ that endured to the end for you and me. That same love is available to us through the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead, the HOLY SPIRIT. We have a cross to take up as well, but we also can live and move and have our very being in the power of His resurrection. Wow! What a great salvation! We must not neglect it.

Listen and really hear this; it was that same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead that was with him enabling him to endure the cross. That Spirit is the Holy Spirit that pours the agape love of God into us. It is that Spirit that dwells in you and with you if you know Christ as savior and Lord. If you go after the things of the spirit and not the things of your fallen nature then the Law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus will draw you into His love and lead you victorious through life no matter what it holds for you. The sons of God are those that are led by the spirit of God. That same Spirit will pour this incredible enduring love of God into your heart for whatever you face in life. Out of love for Jesus and others you will lay hold of that resurrection power for which Jesus laid hold of you. In every hardship, trial, distress or weakness you will know faith and patience to inherit all things the Father has to give you now and in eternity. And if that same spirit dwells mightily in you it will flow from you into this world for others.

Look at the early church that knew this love within them. They endured much for Jesus and it produced the resurrection power of God in them and through them. They turned the world upside down with the Gospel. Think how Paul surely experienced and knew this power of love as he was stoned at Lydia, knowing the sentence of death in his body, yet as the disciples prayed he arose and went back to the same city that stoned him to preach the gospel. What about Philip after he preached the gospel to the Ethiopian on the road, baptizing him and was suddenly caught away being translated 25 miles away? Do you think Stephen knew this enduring love as he was martyred for declaring how he saw the Lord and heaven open before him? Then there is John the beloved who, as history tells it, was boiled in oil, was made blind by poking out his eyes, and thrown on a rocky desolate island to die. His enduring love produced the power of the resurrection as he still saw the unveiling of the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. John wrote it down as the book of Revelation. He was then released from the Island to die a natural death of old age.

The resurrection power has been given to form the sons of God on the earth, the kings of the earth and the priests of the earth. Believers, we are kings and priests in training. The whole creation waits and groans to see the manifestation of the sons of God. All creation waits anxiously for us to come into the fullness of who we really are in Christ. We as believers have been given the dominion of the earth. It was lost in the fall of Adam and Eve, but gloriously redeemed back to us in Christ Jesus. Do we know who we are and what we are to be doing on this earth? Do we experience the authority we have been given? Do we know that the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead is in us and with us every day as our divine companion? He is with us to make us the Kings and priests of the earth; the sons of God who are led by the Spirit of God. We have been so completely saved by His death, so oh how much more are we given by His resurrected life now and eternally. Selah!

See many Scriptures references below. If you are really hungry then search this out. Find Him in the word. He is there.

If you would like to hear this message in more detail, you can access the audio version of this message by clicking on this link: http://www.trumpetsofzion.org/node/105 .

References

Romans 5:10 – For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

Romans 8:32 – He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

Revelation 1:5-6 – And from Jesus Christ the faithful and trustworthy Witness, the Firstborn of the dead [first to be brought back to life] and the Prince (Ruler) of the kings of the earth. To Him Who ever loves us and has once [for all] loosed and freed us from our sins by His own blood, And formed us into a kingdom (a royal race), priests to His God and Father–to Him be the glory and the power and the majesty and the dominion throughout the ages and forever and ever. Amen (so be it).

Revelation: 5:10 – You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth." See also I Peter 2:4-5

Galatians 3:26-28 – You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth."

Galatians 4:4-7 – But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father." So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.

See Also

John 11:25-26
Philippians 3: 7-11
I Thessalonians 4:14-18
I Corinthians 15: 17-19; 15: 42-58
Hebrew 2: 1-11
Luke 20:27-40
Romans 4:20-25; 5:1-5; Chapter 8
Galatians 2:20
Acts 7:54-59; 14:19-22; 8:26-40

As I write, I pray that HOPE will be renewed in your mind and heart today as you read a now word from the Lord for many of us in the body of Christ.

What has God spoke to you? What has God promised you? What has He promised you in His word? What has He promised you personally through confirmed prophetic words or through your own personal time with Him?

If He never speaks a personal word to your inner man, He has spoken enough through His Holy Scriptures to give you an abundant life throughout eternity. My question is this: "Are we really grasping within our being that God means to fulfill every word He has spoken?"

God is a God of hope. God is hope. Where God is there is always hope because of His unconditional everlasting love for us. His love hopes all things, bears all things, believes all things and endures all things. His love never fails. Hope knows with God all things are possible. What is impossible with man is possible with God. Hope knows that nothing is too hard for the Lord. Hope knows God always makes a way where there is no way. Hope knows that even in the deepest darkest pits of life His everlasting arms are underneath to sustain and lift. Hope knows that nothing can ever separate us from His great love. Hope knows He loves us just because we exist. Hope knows God makes all things beautiful in His time and can resurrect anything that has died and bring back anything that has been lost. Hope knows that even in our greatest failures He can turn them around for good and cause us to triumph in them. Our hope, all our expectations are in the Lord alone.

Father God wants us to know deep in our spirit that He called us into His beloved Son with great HOPE and expectancy of what we would become in Him. God invests in us and puts His hope in us. He is longsuffering, patient and full of mercy as all things in our lives work together for our good conforming us into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. He eagerly anticipates our becoming a testimony on the earth of His love, His forgiveness, His mercy and His power. God hopes in us that the character developing within us will produce a fragrance of life on the earth that is the fragrance of His Son. He looks at us, counting on us to become the salt and light of this world in Christ Jesus, the embodiment of His justice.

God spoke to the patriarch Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation. His descendants were to come from him and Sarah his barren wife that would number as the stars of heaven. From that time until the time of the birth of the promised child was 25 years and both Sarah and Abraham were in the natural too old to have children. (See Romans 4)

BUT, as Abraham did, if you do not doubt and can only believe and keep believing that God is well able to perform what he has spoken; if you can hope and keep hoping even when in the natural it is impossible then you will see your promise fulfilled. You will see it, experience it, enjoy it, and watch it become all it was intended to be.

Abraham just believed and obeyed God and it was accounted unto him for righteousness, yet he never knew the advantage of the better covenant we have in Christ, as the Sprit of God can now live in full measure with us and within us writing His will on our hearts

Hope within will cause us to persevere through to the end. Scripture teaches us that we are saved in this hope of God's final redemption to return all creation to His divine intentions in the beginning. We persevere in hope knowing we will see the day of our final redemption when our bodies will be changed into the glorious likeness of our Lord becoming as He is. Hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope in what God says even if we do not see it, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance. (Romans 8: 18-27) So hope believes in what you cannot see but you plan on it, prepare for it and can almost feel it in your bones. This hope is drawing us to persevere into the eternal purposes of God now in this life.

"Therefore we do not lose heart, even though our outward man is perishing; yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light afflictions, which is but for a moment m is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things, which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things, which are seen, are temporary, but the things, which are not seen, are eternal." – 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Hope causes us to live in purity. We know the word says, "Now are we the sons of God and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone that has this HOPE in Him purifies himself just as He is pure. "(I John 3:1-3) So because that word is absolute I just keep pressing forward every day in that hope, becoming pure in Him knowing that one day I will see Him and then finally be just like Him. That hope draws His purity to me.

Hope will anchor your life into His presence. It is the anchor that secures our soul into a safe place where the Lord dwells. Hope will anchor our minds, our emotions, and our will into the presence of the Lord through all the storms life may bring to us. Because God swore by His word and His name that His promises to us were absolute and immutable, we find consolation or HOPE in all life's situations that He will do exactly what He says He will do. Through this hope we anchor our lives steadfast in His presence behind the veil where there is total peace, mercy and power. That hope draws His presence to me. Take time to read it in Hebrews 6.

Hope is the womb of our faith. We will receive nothing from the Lord without faith, for the just shall live by faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (See Hebrews 11:1) It is the hope we have for what we cannot see that seeds faith, nourishes it, and grows it in our hearts so faith can be birthed from us. Faith causes actions, substance, reality, and finally evidence.  It is the hope that works like a catalyst to convert our faith into substance and evidence, turning the realities of our lives into the truth that God has spoken to us. Hope will draw like a magnet pulling all that lines up with His word and His will for us into our desperate realities. That Hope will draw God's goodness to you.

Your heart speaks, so if there is hope in your heart it will produce faith and if faith can live long enough in your heart to get out of your mouth in effectual prayer and powerful decree it will bring about great and mighty promises. Your heart must create a witness; it must agree with God's will, it must line up with principals and truth from His word. Your heart must speak hope first or you will never develop the faith to speak and act, overcoming the oppositions to the supernatural power of God. So in the likeness of God, we in Christ can call those things that are not as though they are. What is in your heart must come forth in your words and works with creative power to see "His kingdom come on earth in your world as it is in heaven."

If we have lost hope or if we obey God with no expectation of what he will do then lets repent. Let's move hope into all our life situations. So in our spiritual activities like worship, prayer, teachings, witnessing to others, or just living life, let's expect, anticipate and hope for all God says he will do. Whatever you do in obedience to God, do it with an expectancy of what you want to see Him do. Express it to Him. Expect what you know He wills or has shown you to happen. Expect Him to do it no matter what thoughts you have or the feelings you have. Submit to God and resist all fear and failure. It does not matter if you are always understood or accepted when it comes to moving in God. Resist the negative thought and feelings. You may do it afraid, but do it in hope. Just obey God and let all your expectations be in God. God will respond to your expectations and will draw His favor and power to you and into your sphere of activity.

Hope on when nothing is going right, Hope when all you see is the dark, Hope when time is running out, Hope when hope requires the impossible, hope when you cannot feel, cannot see, and cannot tell which way to go. Hope when you feel afraid to speak, hope when you are afraid to be misunderstood, afraid to be rejected or persecuted for doing what God tells you to do. If we can stand in Hope on every word God has spoken or speaks now, it will anchors our lives into His will and secures our abode in His presence. His word is all that will last. This hope will create the faith to move the mountains in our hearts and our mouths and in all the issues of life. If Christ be in us, then so is hope, for Christ in us is our hope of glory. If we don't live out our lives drawing from the well of hope within us we will fall into apathy, indifference, and become nonchalant about our purpose and calling in the Lord. So friends, as for myself, I want to think big, and be a can-doer who hopes for the greatest, I believe it will draw God to me.