Some
of the prophetic words being released for this year predict a year of
unprecedented harvest and a great awakening. Since September 2008 we have been
praying and working for intercessory mindset change. So from the perspective of
a transformed mindset, a kingdom
of God worldview, what do
prophetic statements like these mean? It’s vital that we get this right and it
may be that the redemptive purpose of the traces of the old mindset in which
some of these are framed is to challenge us to recalibrate them for the age of
the kingdom of God. We have been operating from the
prophetic perspective that three generations of revival have culminated in
Jesus asking for his ecclesia back in order to reposition them for his kingdom in
this world. So harvest and awakening can no longer simply mean growing numbers
of people joining local churches and networks or multitudes saved out of this
world into some future heaven. Given that the structures and priorities of many
of these are part of the empire that is coming down and that the heavenly
transformation of this world is God’s
purpose, either of these outcomes would be a bit of a disaster! Heaven begins
here and now and manifests in answer to the prayer of Jesus that his will be done
on earth. The fulness of the kingdom of God or heaven is when his will is
established everywhere forever in the new heaven and the new earth. When we die
we are with the Lord in the place of waiting for this coming fulness. But its
manifestation is the resurrection of this world! It is a new heaven and a new
earth here.
So
this being the case, what might an unprecedented harvest and a great awakening
look like? The intention of this month’s Daywatch guidelines is to give a
couple of leads in answer to this question and then attempt a corporate
exercise in divine imagining. By all means reflect on the following points, but
then let the imagining begin, which it of course already has for many people.
Then please let’s share what we see a great awakening of the work of the kingdom of God
and an unprecedented harvest in terms of this world and the resurrection of Europe and its family of nations looking like. What will
be the implications for the rest of the planet? Please use this blog
or email admin@passion.org.uk
and we will post your contributions unless you tell us otherwise. Some of the
recent posts and discussions on my own blog at http: www.rogerhaydonmitchell.wordpress.commay also suggest a direction for our
re-imaginings
Leads
for prayer and reflection:
1. A Great Awakening
Jim Wallis’ book The Great Awakening: Seven Ways to Change
the World emphasises awakening as the emergence of real actions for and
embodiments of justice for the poor. A great awakening is therefore a
theopolitical awakening! But this does not mean we forget the Holy Spirit
character of the kingdom
of God which is after all
“Justice, joy and peace in the Holy Spirit.” However it must mean that the
manifest presence of Jesus is marked by justice and social change and certainly
not just by meetings for worship and spiritual experiences without it. As Amos
underlines
"I can't stand your
religious meetings. I'm fed up with
your conferences and conventions. I want nothing to do with your religion
projects, your pretentious slogans and goals. I'm
sick of your fund-raising schemes, your public relations and image making. I've had all I can take of your noisy ego-music. When
was the last time you sang to me? Do you know what I want? I want justice --
oceans of it. I want fairness -- rivers of it. That's
what I want. That's all I
want.”(Amos 5:21-24 The Message Bible)
2.
An Unprecedented Harvest.
Jesus’ parable of the
harvest [Lk 20:9-18; Mtt 21:33-44] clearly links harvest with the coming down
of empire in the prophetic context of Daniel 2:32,45 as it culminates with the
statement “But
Jesus looked at them and said, "What then is this that is written: 'The stone which the builders rejected, this became
the chief cornerstone? Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to
pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust."
In
this way harvest can be seen as the days of the coming down of empire and the
manifestation of the kingdom
of God. But what will it
look like? Once again this confirms the call for prophetic reimagination, not
based on past mindsets and their default to empire or Christendom and its
associated past ways of understanding the ecclesia and the gospel. But harvest in
terms of the kingdom
of God. This is vital for
it is this harvest that Jesus proclaimed the fields white for! It is the
manifestation of this that we must pray, prophesy and above all live out in the
power of the Spirit.
This
is our challenge for this first month this decade of 2010
