(GODS Love) Field of Dreams The importance of visualizing the promises of God, and how to bring true prophetic dreams and prophecies out of the heavenly realm and into our lives. SEEING THE PROMISES OF GOD The promises of God need to be seen! God knew how to help Abraham see exactly what was in store for him. He took Abraham aside, telling him to lift up his eyes and behold the land that would be his inheritance. Later, He told Abraham to look toward the heavens and to try and count the stars; his descendants would be just as innumerable (Gen. 13:15 & 15:5). It was like God was saying, Abraham, the real secret to birthing your dream is that you must see it. I want you to see it; I want you to dream it. We are a visual generation today. We have dreams and desires, but if we cant see and dream them, if we cant act them out in our heart and in our spirit first, they will never become a reality. God knew that Abraham must see the promises, visualize and get them into his spirit, so that he could actually embrace them. God also encouraged Abraham by speaking to him in a vision: After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram (Abraham) in a vision, saying, Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward. (Gen. 15:1) Thats how seers see -- in a vision. Listen, guys! God is pointing us toward our destiny and vision, our mandate. When we receive a true prophetic word, we must put that word in the incubator and start dreaming. Now I want to discuss a biblical account of an unusual situation in the life of the patriarch, Jacob. God wanted Jacob to break away from the control of his uncle Laban, not only with his family and servants, but also with great wealth (livestock). So, God gave Jacob divine revelation on how to acquire a large number of livestock. Heres what happened: Jacob struck a deal with Laban concerning his flocks; he told Laban that he would only take streaked, speckled, and spotted livestock with him when he departed. Now, this appeared to be a great deal for Laban because Jacob was only going to pasture unspeckled livestock! So how was he going to take streaked, speckled, and spotted livestock with him? Before we go on with the story, lets familiarize ourselves with these passages: Now Jacob took for himself rods of green poplar and of the almond and chestnut trees, peeled white strips in them, and exposed the white which was in the rods. And the rods which he had peeled, he set before the flocks in the gutters, in the watering troughs where the flocks came to drink, so that they should conceive when they came to drink. So the flocks conceived before the rods, and the flocks brought forth streaked, speckled, and spotted. (Gen. 30:37-39) The divine revelation from God was a mystery concerning the livestock conceiving and birthing according to what they saw rather than the normal way, which was according to genetics. So, Jacob went to work setting up various rods/branches in front of the unspeckled flocks. When they came down to the watering troughs to drink, they saw the rods/branches. Through their eye gate something supernatural happened so that when they conceived they brought forth streaked, speckled, and spotted! Jacob left a rich man! I believe God wants us to understand that what we see or gaze upon can impregnate us with the object of our vision. It can change our identity, or the essence of who we are. In addition, Gods faithfulness to both Abraham and Jacob, His love and support to them, allowed them to receive powerful revelation that steered their destiny. FROM HEAVEN TO EARTH We need to have a vision from God so that we can walk in our destiny and identity. Where there is no vision, the people perish (Prov. 29:18). When we dont have a vision or dream, we become lazy and complacent. There is something about dreaming, guys! The moment I could dream that 5,000 came to a crusade, I had 5,000 in my meetings in Africa. The moment I could dream 10,000 -- I had 10,000; or 20,000 -- I had 20,000. Why? According to my faith it was done (Matt. 9:29). When the promise of God was birthed inside of me first, it became a reality. I didnt get the breakthrough until I could really believe in my spirit. God wants to break off caps or limits. Then, as our vision and dream comes up higher, we will see it, and then conceive and give birth according to what we see. Its a powerful place in the spirit. Also, there is an amazing principle in the book of Hebrews. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, its the evidence of things not seen (Heb. 11:1). Now I want you to understand this. Before the foundations of the world were made, God formed you (Ps. 139:16). Ephesians 1 talks about predestination. So, there is nothing right now that doesnt already exist in the eternal purpose of God. It just doesnt exist in the natural arena at this moment. The apostle Paul spoke about Abrahams faith in God: ...in the presence of Him whom he believed -- God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did (Rom. 4:17). Paul explains that God gives life to the dead and calls forth those things that be not as though they were. There are things that have always been in the eternal purpose of God...its just that theyre not in our natural realm yet. But the promise and dreams of God have always been in the Fathers heart before the foundation of the world. Everything we need in the natural, to do what God has called us to do, is available in the invisible realm. It exists in the eternal realm called the invisible. BELIEVE THE VISION We have to learn how to see the promise of God in the invisible by the eye of faith, embrace it in the invisible, and bring it to the earth. And so I want to discuss how to bring the unseen promises of God into the earth, into our lives. Everything that I have in our ministry right now has come by this principle. I want to share with you, how to build with the mysteries of God, or how to build, dreaming with God. Lets take a look at Abraham again: By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. (Heb. 11:8-10,13) By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. (How many of you are looking for an inheritance, a fulfillment of a prophetic word, a prophetic dream?) He went out not knowing where he was going and by faith he dwelt in the land of promise. Abraham was waiting for the city which has foundations whose builder and maker is God. God is the builder; He builds the heavenly prophetic promise, our inheritance that exists already in heaven. The heavenly prophetic promises can be taken out of heaven and brought into the earth when we take these four steps: 1. The saints of old believed God: These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth (Heb. 11:13). The promises that they saw in the spirit, in the invisible realm, they were assured of them, meaning that they believed God would do what He said He would do. 2. They embraced the promises (Heb. 11:13). They confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. 3. Moses focused on the reward. Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he (Moses) looked to the reward (Heb. 11:26). Which means to look away from everything else in order to look intently on one object. 4. Moses saw through the eyes of faith. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible (Heb. 11:27). Through the eyes of faith Moses saw Jesus in the invisible realm. We need to embrace the visions, confess and declare them, in order for them to come into being. Ive done this in my own life. I saw in the spirit much potential, and in the invisible realm I was permitted to see what I am doing in ministry today. I believed the vision -- step one. EMBRACE THE VISION However, the day I saw and believed the vision, I wondered how I was ever going to fulfill what I saw. I worked in a saw mill stacking lumber on the green chain! Id never been to a Bible school. I had only been saved four years. My background included years of drug addiction, time in prison, growing up on welfare, no job or income, no natural skills or career, and no hope. But I saw afar off in the spirit and I embraced the vision; thats step two. I had a desire and I continued to hold the dream before me (for 6 years), dreaming about what I do today. I focused on the vision, acting it out in my heart on my bed at 4 a.m., which is step three and four. Then, on the morning of Mothers Day 1998, Jesus visited me for four hours and He spoke to me saying, Todd, what you have been dreaming for 6 years is now about to come forth because you have been calling forth those things that be not. Its not that they are not; they have always existed in heaven, but you have been calling them forth into the natural, as if they were in existence. (Thats an important principle.) He continued, Tonight I will speak to a woman during a Mothers Day conference (1998) and I will tell her to publicly call you out and lay hands on you, and you are going to go into ministry. But here is what the Lord said to me: The ministry I have for you wont come to pass if you dont build the mystery in the spirit and bring it out of heaven to the earth. I was in shock! I saw the vision with eyes of faith, but just how was I going to tell my family and my pastor that Jesus was visiting me, let alone all the things that I was going to do? And again, God reminded me that nothing would come to pass unless I learned how to bring the promises out of heaven into the earth realm. He showed me how to build by faith, the importance of praying in tongues, declaring what I see, and embracing what I see afar off. I learned that when we speak in tongues, the Holy Spirit is speaking through our spirit to God, secrets that have been divinely revealed. All we have to do is pray that we would interpret the mysteries and the secret revelations that we are speaking. So I began to pray in tongues each time for about four hours and I would feel myself touching the foundations of Fresh Fire Ministries in the spirit. What Fresh Fire is today, I actually touched six years ago in the heavens! I touched the foundation in which the builder and maker is God. CALL IT FORTH, AS THOUGH IT WERE! I could feel my destiny coming out of heaven! I saw it far off and, embraced my destiny and then confessed it. But I could feel demonic resistance. I spoke back to the Devil exactly what God spoke to me and I told him to get out of the way because I received a true word from God. I rebuked and bound every devil that was going to oppose Gods purposes from coming to pass in my life. I was pulling in my destiny and I was building my destiny in the spirit by praying in tongues. I could feel myself birthing something. Then my mind started getting more understanding. I began to pray and call forth my future partners and necessary finances for the ministry. But then I would start thinking that what I was doing was ridiculous. I wasnt even in ministry! But the Lord began to settle me down by saying, If you dont pray for this, you arent going to build the infrastructure! And so I continued, and began calling forth my staff, saying, I call them forth, and I ask you God, to anoint my staff. I pray that they would come and work with me when they hear from you, Lord. I prayed about future invitations to speak and about things that have yet to come to pass in the area of television and media. I saw these things afar off, embraced and confessed and birthed them through, in the spirit realm. God wants us to learn to dream with him and how to see by faith into the invisible, even things that are afar off because we need to call forth those things that be not as though they were. As I said earlier, theyve already existed in heaven -- its that they dont exist in this realm yet. SEE YOURSELF DOING THE STUFF! We need to actually see ourselves doing what God has called us to do even when it seems incredible. A true life story, that illustrates an almost unthinkable set of circumstances, is found in the lives of Abraham and Isaac. Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham, and said to him, Abraham! And he said, Here I am. Then He said, Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you. (Gen. 22:1,2) Talk about being tested! Abraham received the promise of God -- that he would have many descendents -- and yet God was asking him to sacrifice his only son, who, in the natural, was the one to fulfill the promise. Abraham was like any other father. We have him so spiritual and supernatural, we think that the moment God said, Take now your son, your only son Isaac... that he was like, Yep, right up the mountain, Im gonna kill him!! Dont you think he was like us, trying to discern whether this was God, or himself, or the Devil speaking to him? You better believe that all night long, when he was walking up that mountain, he was thinking of all the scenarios in his head of how God was going to get him out of this dilemma. Heres Abraham...God told him to take his only son, which represents the fulfillment of every prophetic dream, and bring him up onto the mountain. He was supposed to take a knife and plunge it into his sons chest. You know what I believe? Somewhere on the way up to the mountain, Abraham considered God as the One who gives life to the dead and calls forth those things that be not as though they were (Romans 4:17). I believe that Abraham actually visualized and dreamed ahead of time, what was going to happen. He saw himself going all the way up the mountain, strapping his son onto the altar, taking out the knife, killing Isaac, blood squirting everywhere, and then God resurrecting him from the dead. I think somewhere in the spirit, walking up the mountain, that he came to that place where he thought that even if he went through with it, God would just give life to the dead. Then he got up there and went and acted it out in the natural. He tied down his son, got out the knife and, just before he was to kill his son, God said, STOP! The ram was in the bush; the Lord provided the sacrifice. It was like God was saying, Abraham, you passed the test! When you offered your only son, you did it in your heart first. When you did it in your heart, you did it in the natural. Listen, guys! Some of us are not doing what God has called us to do because of our mind-sets. For instance, God could be prophesying and offering us different promises and in the natural we are thinking, I could never see myself doing that. You see, youre not dreaming with the prophetic. Youre not dreaming with the potential. When God speaks to you, Hes not asking you to believe that you can, Hes trying to change your identity, so that you will. So when He gives you a prophetic word, it becomes potential. It becomes a desire that He plants in you, that now you are supposed to dream and start acting out in your mind. You can act out true prophetic words safely in your mind. Billy Graham would preach to the grass. Rodney Howard Brown would line up some dolls, lay hands on them and see them fall down. Heres what you dont know about me. I used to preach every sermon to the mirror so I could see what I looked like and how I sounded when I preached. Then I would time myself to make sure I could do it in ten minutes, or 30 minutes, or 40 minutes. I used to write out all my sermons. Now I wasnt yet in front of crowds of people, but I was going beyond dreaming with God on my bed, preparing myself by acting upon the promises of God in front of my mirror. I received a prophetic word, and instead of saying, impossible, and letting my past determine my future, I dreamed a new dream based on what God had said. You know what happened? After a while I got to the place where I didnt want to dream it anymore and I didnt want to stand in front of a mirror, I wanted the dream to be a reality. You get to a place, guys, where you get tired of dreaming and you just want to do it. As you dream, God will see you through to the fulfillment! You will do the stuff!
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 04:20:14 +0000
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