Love not your life unto death.
And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
There are some people that your hindrance is you love your life too much, even though it may not be the life you desire to have, you want something different. You want what God is talking about, you want to move with God, you want to transition with God. In order to follow God into the good, you got to be able to follow God where He goes and where He leads.
There are some people who've gotten comfortable. When you love your life, you're holding on to your life. What happens is that, there are people who won't say what God needs them to say. Why? Because they got something to lose. In order to follow God, you can't have nothing to lose.
But there are some people who've got a name that they don't want to lose. Even they got nothing at all, they don't want to look crazy following God. In a sense, it's like saying, "Lord, I love my life too much. I love people's opinion of me too much. I love what people are going to think about me even though I'm asking you to bring me out of this, to bless me, to promote me." The Lord says, "The problem is, I can't do none of those things because you love your life too much." That's why certain people won't say what they need to say, or touching the topics important in the church, because they love their life too much.
The Lord is swapping some people out. While the enemy is busy causing and wreaking the havoc, the Lord is also busy exposing people, but at the same time, the Lord is swapping some people out.
The Lord have been preparing you to get yourself together because in the movement of God, you always got to be sensitive to how God moves.
There are people being swapped out and they don't even know it. They don't even have time to fight you on the position that God has given you because they're too busy distracted. That's part of the judgment that God has placed on them, is their distraction with other things. The fact that they're so distracted, they don't even see the Lord putting you in place. Just like Saul, he was so distracted with all his folly, he didn't even know that another one had already begun to take his place.
When the Lord is preparing the church for the next iteration of believers, now it's time. As the time change so do we. We don't change to accommodate the times, we are transformed, we are moving to another level to reign in the times. As the enemy adjusts, the Lord adjusts us. So when there's new warfare, there's new spiritual dynamics, then what you can expect is new spiritual dynamics birthed in the church, to combat so that we are never outnumbered or overtaken by the sudden surge of demonic oppression, it must be met by the rise in power of the Body of Jesus Christ. So the Lord will start amplifying boldness in places, and you're like, I'm hearing things, revelation, insight, hearing the fire of God move in a way that I haven't heard a move before. Because it goes against what was necessary then, because the warfare was different. Look at how this year has forced the devil to come out of hiding. How many of you can remember a year like this in recent memory? Where the enemy is not subtle, for those who are spirit-led and spirit-filled. The carnal man or the natural man or unbeliever, they see just a bunch of situations and circumstances, but to the men, women, children of God, you can see the devil come out of hiding, and you can see him. But also this reveals not so much about him, but you can see what God is doing as well, there's a new boldness arising in the church, there is a new anointing, a new power that is arising from the remnant, from the children of God; a new power to combat, to see, because if there was nobody able to see, then many people will be led astray, and even though there's those who see and say, some people won't even listen. But sometimes, it's very necessary, even if they don't listen that but there always must be a witness that the word was declared. Jesus said, "If I had not done these works, then you would have been covered. Or if I had not spoken."
Love not your life unto death. There are some people who won't go to say what God puts on their heart to say, because they're wondering how people are going to respond to them, wondering how people are going to feel about them. And when you allow that to be a controlling factor over your life, what's happening is you are loving your life, or you are not loving your life unto death and that becomes a hindrance unto, it becomes an impasse unto you. Likewise for those who've been wanting God to do something for you, to bless you, but you have been unwilling to take that leap of faith, because you were so focused and concerned about failure, you were so focused and worried about not succeeding, you were so focused and worried about how you are gonna look in the open spaces of faith, you were not loving your life unto death and because you weren't willing to lay down your life, you weren't able to find the life that Christ has prepared for you.
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Let not yourself get in the way. Cross: sacrifices - some people won't like you, some people will persecute you etc.
The life that you've been looking for, is on the other side of your obedience. It's on the other side of you not loving your life unto death. It's on the other side of you not worrying about looking crazy to people, not worrying about their opinion, it's on the other side of being vulnerable. It's the willingness to go where Christ says go, say what Christ says say. The promise is- the life that you laid down, you're actually going to find the life in Me - abundant life - love, peace, joy.
There are times of suffering, but just as Peter said that we will have trials and testings but when it is over- there's more to the life of Christ than just suffering. But some people get into suffering and never find their way out because the suffering becomes a doctrine, that they no longer have the sight to hope and believe themselves out of it, through the Word, and as a result, they don't see goodness in God. Even Jesus' suffering came to an end. Even Jesus arose from the grave. To suffer with Christ is not supposed to be a perpetual situation, it's times. But in those times, we also see the goodness of God, the love of God, the grace of God, the promotion of God. In those times we also see the variations that make up the completeness. It makes up a complete picture of life in Christ. Even the systems of God tells us that, that sometimes the night season comes, and it's darkest before the dawn, but the Bible also says that joy comes early in the morning so it tells us that there are times of darkness, dark season of trials, testings. But it was never designed to be dark always, we need times for the light to shine.
What's in your heart is eventually going to manifest. It will overtake your life. Plant the Word of God in your heart.
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