Who will ascend the mountain of the Lord?

This is the word the Lord has laid on my heart and the insights He’s been sharing concerning this new season we’ve stepped into. A Psalms 24 year. A year of refining and sifting. An invitation to go deeper. Take it to the Lord to discern the spirit, and to see if it applies to you for such a time as this.

Something is coming. It’s looming in the air.

Don’t get anxious or caught up in the chaos of it.
Don’t fuss or strive, sit in the quiet and wait it out.
Many will have opinions and give false insights
They’ll claim I revealed or instructed but I did not send them.
Don’t get caught up in the debate or exchange of opinions
Let them wrestle and let them make claims.
When the wave dies down, I’ll raise up my prophets who’ll speak in wisdom and truth, heavenly words drenched in my anointing, that will come like soothing balm to heal the wounds from the chaos.

The lies will be rampant
The deceit will spread like wildfire.
The leaven of influence will be a significant driver.
Stay in the obscurity.

A mad, senseless and reckless people will emerge.
Desensitized, overwhelmed and carnal. Thirsty for destruction and war.

It’s all an elaborate distraction.
A scare tactic.
An illusion aimed to instill fear and chaos.
Stay away from the windows and guard the gates (ear gate and eye gate)
Abide in me and keep your gaze fixed on me.
Don’t engage. It may look like fear, cowardice and weakness. Some might even claim you’ve given up or grown lukewarm.
Let it be.
Tend to your garden (vineyard) until I say speak.
Feast on the word. Be strengthened and renewed in me.
I’ve told you how to prepare (store up on non-perishables and grow your gardens)
Settle debts and anything owed.

Abba

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Something is coming

An increase in madness
One of the things I believe the Lord is saying of 2024 is that we will witness a measure of madness.

Madness:

• extremely foolish behaviour.
• a state of wild or chaotic activity.
• extreme anger, excitement, or foolishness

I believe in this season we will see at multiple levels, a rise in foolish, chaotic, wild behaviour. We will see this in business, politics and government, and even to some extent in the church. Deuteronomy 28 is a comprehensive list of the outcomes of both obedience and disobedience. The Lord highlighted Deuteronomy 28:28 as the fruit of idolatry and rampant disobedience that we will see in this season.

The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of mind, and you shall grope at noonday, as the blind grope in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways.

Deuteronomy 28:28-29

We’ve already started to see the rumblings of madness. Churches and pulpits have become common as opposed to spaces set apart and sites of Holy encounter with the God of creation. We’ve lost our reverence and we’ve forgotten the Holiness of God. We act common and let the idols of comfort, fame, power, security, control, money, beauty and worldly wisdom rule our hearts and drive our decisions. We live for the acknowledgement of man and let the fear of man lead us to questionable decisions. We start and engage in senseless wars and have lost sight of the cost of a human life – a life that Jesus died to save. The madness has already begun but will become more pronounced.

I also sense the emergence of something between the end of Q1 and Q2 (April to June). I don’t know what it is or what it will look like but I believe something significant will happen in the world. Nevertheless, I believe the Lord is calling us to guard our hearts and not let what we see in the world get on the inside of us. He promises peace and protection for his righteous remnant. What we see unfolding is a weak albeit elaborate distraction from the enemy to attempt to steal our focus, our joy and our peace. Guard your heart, keep your eyes on Jesus and accept the invite to go deeper with Him.

A pending famine

In 2022 the Lord gave me a word to store up canned foods specifically. I must admit, I have been slow to respond to this instruction. I’m a lot of things but certainly not a “doomsday prepper” and I questioned if I heard correctly and if it really was the Lord. At the beginning of this year He reminded me of how He’d instructed me to do this and I have not yet. So now, I walk away from the need to understand or even the fear of being wrong or looking foolish. Do with this what you feel led to.

With this word, the Lord led me to the passage in Genesis 41: 48-54

…and he gathered up all the food of these seven years, which occurred in the land of Egypt, and put the food in the cities. He put in every city the food from the fields around it. And Joseph stored up grain in great abundance, like the sand of the sea, until he ceased to measure it, for it could not be measured. Before the year of famine came, two sons were born to Joseph. Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera priest of On, bore them to him. Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh. “For,” he said, “God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father’s house.” The name of the second he called Ephraim, “For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.” The seven years of plenty that occurred in the land of Egypt came to an end, and the seven years of famine began to come, as Joseph had said. There was famine in all lands, but in all the land of Egypt there was bread.

Genesis 41: 48-54

I sense in this next season the Lord is bringing healing and even a “forgetting” of the hurt, pain, disappointment and wounds of seasons past. I also sense that the Lord is blessing his righteous remnant amid the madness that will be seen. I don’t have clarity on the timing of this famine but I believe the Lord is calling his people to settle their debts and affairs and to store up and get into position as the Holy Spirit leads. It is important that this is not from a place of fear but rather in faith and in obedient response to the instruction of the Lord in this season.

Close the windows and guard the doors and gates

I sense the Lord is calling us into deeper intimacy with him. For many seasons past, the revelations, insight and voice of God heard through others has been the foundation of relationship with God for many believers. In this season, the Lord is calling us to sit at his feet, to seek him, to make room for his presence, to devour the scriptures and to return to a first love as we make him the utmost delight of our hearts. He does not want our busyness, nor our fantastic ideas “to make his name great”. He wants us. Our hearts, our time, our affection. In this call to holiness and deeper communion, it no longer suffices for him to be our main thing – He wants to be our one thing.

As such, I believe the Lord is calling many off of social media platforms and away from the spiritual scavenger hunting we’ve grown accustomed to. There will be a rise in false prophets, partial truth, heresy and many signs and wonders. Now more than ever before, there will be a need to recognize his voice and heart, to discern his presence and his will. We cannot rely on trusted voices from seasons past as many will be exposed. Moreover, God in this season wants to speak and share his heart intimately with us. May we not stand at a distance like the children of Israel at Mount Sinai in Exodus 20:19-23. May we draw closer and allow his eyes of fire to set us ablaze and purify our hearts.

Matthew 6:22 instructs us “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light”. Similarly, Matthew 5:28-29 instructs to remove our eye if it seeks to corrupt us. In this season, the call to “close the window and guard the doors and gates” is a call to allow God to inform what it is we consume and allow to feed, instruct, guide and entertain us. The call to holiness is a call to deeper surrender. May we be willing to delete social media accounts and limit even the Christian content we consume as the Lord wills, trusting that He is good, and He knows what’s best for us. May we surrender, may we seek him like never before and may we guard our eye and ear gates.

Guard your heart and do not be afraid

The Lord has repeatedly introduced himself as names of warfare. He is Jehovah Sabboath – The Lord of Hosts. The Lord of heavens armies. He fights on our behalf and has prepared provision, peace and declared a season of abundance for His righteous remnant. This is amidst the madness we are set to witness. Psalm 23:5 informs us that He prepares a table in the presence of our enemies. We will see the Lord prepare a table of abundant provision, peace, strategy and wisdom amidst chaos. This is not just for us but as evidence of His glory, His might and His banner of us as victory. So as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will not be afraid. His rod and staff lead, guide and comfort us (Psalm 23:4 ). To receive all that God avails as protection and blessing in this season we must abide. We must pursue him and gaze upon his glory. We must go deeper. We must come up higher. We must see with eyes of heaven, seeing beyond what we can understand with our human eyes. He invites us to be bold and courageous.

fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Isaiah 41:10

Guard the declarations of your mouth and the meditations of your heart. Do not come into agreement with disappointment, hopelessness or defeat. God has gone before us. He prepares the way. We will require a deeper faith, a deeper revelation of who He is and his faithful, covenant keeping nature and we will need to choose to be the light of the world in an otherwise dark and senseless time. We will need to fix our eyes on things above as instructed by Colossians 3:2.

And when you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be alarmed. This must take place, but the end is not yet.

Mark 13:7 ESV

A call to Holiness, repentance and deeper intimacy

I sense the Lord asserting His standard for the bride He is returning for. A holy, pure and unblemished bride. Uncompromised and free of that which seeks to defile her. A recurring clarion call to pursue him like never before and to leave the idols and sin that kills us.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Hebrews 12:1-2

Lay aside every weight – every encumbrance that gives the enemy legal right to come against us. Close every open door. Throw away and burn everything that is not of God. With open hands, allow him to search us and reveal all that serves as weight in this race we are called to run. Everything should be on the table – nothing off-limits. Allow Him to circumcise our hearts and His refiners fire to burn everything not of Him. Resurrender every word, relationship, assignment and possession. And let him have His way. He is Lord.

On accursed things – In Joshua 7 we see the Israelites losing in the battle against Ai due to the possession of accursed things that violate the instruction of the Lord in Joshua 6, and only once these items are identified does the Lord give them victory. Allow the Lord to reveal the spiritual nature of things. Lean not on your own understanding deeming things “too spiritual”. Allow him to open your eyes.

A quick testimony: I recently had a powerful and unexpected experience with a friend. While praying for the Lord to reveal any and all that exists within our lives that was an accursed thing, he revealed a hair oil in my cupboard, from a popular commercial brand. It turns out she had the same oil. After receiving instruction from the Lord to throw it out, that night and from that point, we’ve both experienced marked clarity in visions and dreams that previously felt blocked or somehow limited. Praise God for clarity and who would have thought hair oil found in many South African stores would affect spiritual clarity. So again I say, let God lead, and don’t anything for granted.

The call to intimacy is an invitation to behold his beauty, to sit at his feet and encounter our Great God. It is also an invitation for Him to deepen our revelation of sonship and to live and move first from the office of son and daughter. For him to expose and break off the spirit of rejection, abandonment and orphanhood. An invitation to remember who He is so that we might understand who we are and step into the authority made available to us.

I believe the blessing, protection and provision is set aside for those with clean hands and a pure heart. Clean and pure, not as we determine, but as God does. He is sifting, purging and refining. May we not be found wanting. May we let his fire purify our hearts, our desires, our intentions or words. May we be made holy as He is holy. May we destroy the idols and altars that we’ve erected and bowed down to, denouncing them and stepping under the Lordship of Jesus once more.

The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof,
the world and those who dwell therein,
for he has founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the rivers.

Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD?
And who shall stand in his holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who does not lift up his soul to what is false
and does not swear deceitfully.
He will receive blessing from the LORD
and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
Such is the generation of those who seek him,
who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Selah

Lift up your heads, O gates!
And be lifted up, O ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
Who is this King of glory?
The LORD, strong and mighty,
the LORD, mighty in battle!

Lift up your heads, O gates!
And lift them up, O ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
Who is this King of glory?
The LORD of hosts,
he is the King of glory! Selah

Psalm 24 ESV

We will inherit the wealth of the wicked

I sense in this season that the New Thing is here. And may we perceive it. I believe the Lord is calling us to take possession of the territory He is giving to us across spheres in society. I believe we will see a need for and as such a rise in Kingdom people taking up seats in places of influence and authority for His Great name. I believe for many this will be a season of relocation and repositioning in preparation for this great inheritance. Some will receive instruction to get your affairs in order to receive that which He is making available. I sense this, especially with regards to business and entrepreneurial ventures, property and employment. However, I believe this is also true of the call to marriage for many. I sense that there will be a great exposure of the spirit behind many people, brands and organizations. As such many will seek Kingdom leaders, entrepreneurs and brands to replace the old, and this will be the moment the Lord calls his people to these places of influence as Kingdom representatives. Once more in abiding and sitting at his feet, we will receive the clarity, instruction, strategy and timing of this. I sense much of the outworking of this will indeed confound the wise with simple things. So again, lean not on your own understanding. This is a new thing and as the Lord said to Joshua and the children of Israel, “You have not been this way before”. Seek him for greater clarity and the specifics of this as it relates to you so you will be found ready and positioned.

May we honour the invitation

The Lord laid the parable of the marriage feast on my heart for this season found in Matthew 22:1-14. The king sent out an invitation, what an honour. An invitation to a wedding feast. But many rejected the invitation choosing instead to go about their business. I believe much of what the Lord is availing in 2024 is an invitation. An invitation to intimacy and deepened revelation. An invitation to holiness and sonship. An invitation to holiness and to participate in the plentiful harvest of abundance in this season. May we not be so distracted by the things that comfort the flesh and dull us from sensing and responding to the presence of God. May we not be so busy doing for God that we neglect to be with him and deepen our walk with him. May we not be so blinded by what we see that we fail to perceive who it is that is calling us and the beauty of what He is calling us to.

Behold he is doing a new thing. May we perceive it.