The latter rain is falling! A new era is beginning! This is not just a new day or even a new season, we have crossed over into a new era!
Can you feel the rain beginning to fall? Can you see the cloud building? And as the clouds gather, can you hear in your spirit the sound of the abundance of rain coming upon the land?
Peace in a World in Turmoil
While in prayer I felt this rain falling on me. It was so gentle that I unexpectedly began to weep as a new peace filled my heart and I began to sing to the Lord the song: 'Jesus, Lover of my Soul'. And at the words 'History itself belongs to you' I broke down in floods of tears – not of regret or pain but of relief and release.
It was 'joy unspeakable and full of glory!'
In this turbulent pivotal time in history where everything is changing – God is the Alpha and the Omega who loves us and holds history in His hands! And He says to the nations: 'Be still and know that I Am God!'
His Peace is Stronger!
God's peace is stronger than any war, than any terror, than any pandemic or world-wide crisis. It is stronger than the power of hate! It is stronger than the anarchy that hell is unleashing on the earth. God is going to surprise us by overwhelming us with supernatural peace that passes understanding!
The rain that is beginning to fall now is a gentle rain of healing and renewal. As we drink in His peace; we will be the peace makers, who wage war with the weapon of peace – carrying it onto the front lines of the battle for the souls of men.
We need God to heal us! To heal the nations! And He will come like the rain and heal our land as we cry out to Him! 'Heal our nation! Pour out your Spirit on our land!'
Hosea 6:1-3:
'Come, and let us return to the Lord; For He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up. After two days He will revive us; On the third day He will raise us up, That we may live in His sight. Let us know, Let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord. His going forth is established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain, like the latter and former rain to the earth.'
God is visiting us in a new way. There is a gentle rain of healing, washing away hurts, guilt, regret and painful memories. There will be great restoration. There will now finally be the fulfilment of long-deferred hope! I see many that have stood for decades on only a promise and have never seen it fulfilled – now, at long last, it will be! Those who, like Abraham: 'against hope, in hope believed' are about to be rewarded! You will see what you have longed for! You will see the goodness of God in the land of the living!
For those who have embraced the spirit of repentance and humility, a spirit of refreshing is promised:
'Repent. That times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord'.(Acts 3:19)
In this new era, those who have prepared the ground of their hearts and have sown in tears will be ready to receive the rain and reap in joy!
And those who have faithfully pilgrimaged through the valley of tears shall see it become a place of springs! (Psalm 84:6) This is a kairos time, a set time of hope fulfilled! A time when God will give 'beauty for ashes'.
The Holy Spirit is falling like a beautiful fresh spring rain upon the Church, washing our wounds, cleansing and purifying, restoring and reviving!
The word 'revival' means to bring back to life what was dead and what was lost. It means awakening the dead. In Ezekiel 37 – the valley was full of dead men's bones- representing all the hopes of Israel dead. But as the prophet spoke and commanded the dry bones to live and commanded the breath of God to come into them again – they came back to life and stood up as a mighty army!
Hope is going to be revived! There will no longer be piles of dead, unfulfilled hopes lying in dry valleys! Now you will 'taste and see that the Lord is good!' (Psalm 34:8)
In this is a new era of hope fulfilled, great healing is happening in the hearts of God's people where hope has been robbed and the enemy tried to stop you running in all God has for you. Not only will God now fulfil hope but he will add recompense! He will bring increase to you! Where the enemy has stolen from you the Lord will demand that He pays back seven fold! You will forget the past and not remember it any more! You will know that your best days are ahead! You will go from surviving to thriving!
The Latter rain is falling and this rain will bring the harvest to fruition. What will follow this rain of the Spirit? A great world-wide harvest of souls! This is God's purpose for sending the rain!
Joel 2: 23-24:
'Be glad then, you children of Zion, And rejoice in the Lord your God; For He has given you the former rain faithfully, and He will cause the rain to come down for you—the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month. The threshing floors shall be full of wheat, and the vats shall overflow with new wine and oil.'
In this New Era God will bring a Great Reformation to the Church!
This is an Esther 4:14 moment: '….you have come to the Kingdom for such a time as this'.
As you align yourself for this kairos moment, this set time of divine purpose, you will take your place in your identity and destiny like never before! It will seem like everything before was leading up to this moment! You will see the power of God manifested in and through your life in unprecedented ways!
God is about to reintroduce the Church to His power!
There's a shout from heaven saying: 'Ready or not, here I come!'
So ask the Lord: 'Whatever it takes, make me ready! I don't want to miss a thing!'
This will be an unprecedented move of God because where we're going we've never been before! What we're about to see we've never seen anything like it before!
Isaiah 43:18-19:
'Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.'
God is about to do a new thing! It's brand new! It's not how we've seen Him move before! It's not going to look like yesterday's move! For many of us it will be totally out of our comfort zone and will require stepping out of the boat. We will find ourselves in situations where we need to pray for people in a way we've never dared before – these will be divine set ups for us to do what we've never done before. We will step up into new giftings and ministries that we never dreamed possible. We will go where we've never been and see what we've never seen! It will be ALL NEW!
You will experience unprecedented acceleration! My attention was drawn to the story of Elijah in 2 Kings where he prays for rain and the cloud the size of a man's hand appears; if you go to the end of that story when the rain came you see how Elijah then outran the chariots! After the rain came, a supernatural acceleration came upon him to outrun the enemy and overtake the things that stood against the word of God!
That same supernatural empowerment of the Spirit of God is coming upon you in this new era to outrun the things that have tried to hold you back! To run into places you never thought you would run, to go further and faster and do things with the Lord that you never thought you would do!
And you will be carried by the power of God into your destiny and caught up in a slipstream of His grace and anointing like you've never felt before! It's time to quicken pace, but it's only by His grace! Jesus is the author and the finisher of our faith and he will empower us to finish our race!
So it's time to cut loose and say to whatever held you back: 'Loose me and let me go!'
Hebrews 12:1-2:
...'let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith'
What, for you, might be the 'former thing' the thing of the 'old' holding you back from stepping out of the boat? Ask the Holy Spirit to pinpoint it:
Psalm 139: 23-24:
'Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.'
What is it that could cause you to miss it? The thing that could cause this move of the Spirit to pass you by? A sin, a habit, a mindset, unforgiveness, hopelessness, guilt, shame, unbelief, the words of your mouth?
Let the heart-searcher move deep within your heart, because that is where revival starts! In the heart!
It starts from the deep place – because this won't be a shallow move of God! This won't be an ankle-deep move! Like the river that Ezekiel saw: this will be a mighty living river of revival that is deep and wide, teeming with an abundance of fish: sweeping masses of souls into the kingdom!
The Inside-Out Revival; the Upside-Down Kingdom
As I was in prayer for this revival, I felt the Lord saying: 'People weeping in my presence will be the first sign of revival. This revival will be from the inside-out!'
And he went on to say: 'For you have not yet fully understood the workings of my grace. When you do the tears will flow. I will turn much of what you thought you knew upside down and My grace will abound over my people'.
This will be an Era of Greater Glory and Greater Grace!
We walk in this world to be a light shining in darkness declaring, 'The Glory of the Latter House will be Greater than the Former!' In going from one era into the next, God always uses the backdrop of darkness before a great light appears.
For those with ears to hear, there's a voice from heaven declaring: "Welcome to the Era of Glory and Grace! Welcome to the Era of Favour that those who have sowed in tears will reap with joy! Welcome to the beginning of the Great Harvest!"
Great grace will be upon us all in this time, as it was upon the first Church in the Book of Acts. There will be a revelation of the true grace of God. True grace is supernatural empowerment. Grace is God pushing through our human failings, overcoming all our weaknesses, that we can stand up and fight as his victorious Bride!
Like Peter was, you will be lifted from guilt and condemnation, from shame and limitation and empowered and emboldened like never before! God is going to show His great goodness, His amazing grace in all its fullness. It will be poured out on us in abundance!
As they experience this, many will say: 'I thought I understood your grace but I hardly did until now! Your grace has lifted me and I am going to run and not grow weary! I am going to run this race with supernatural speed! I am going to cross the finish line victorious! I'm not limping home! I'm a glorious overcomer by the grace of God! I am raised up to be seated with Christ in heavenly places!'
By grace every day we will mount up higher and higher like eagles into new realms of the Spirit! We will rise from one level of glory to another! This move of God is unstoppable! We've crossed over into a new era! The old things can stay behind! We're going forward! God is doing a new thing!