An Exhortation by Stephen Pullen 8/21

I was listening to Francis Chan, Mike Bickle, & Eric Metaxis. Eric is the author of a Dietrich Bonhoeffer biography that has sold over a million copies. About 6 different leaders all met at IHOP this week, with a meeting created by the plan of the Lord. In hearing them talk, I could sense that many streams of the Church are coming together. Charismatic and non-Charismatic included, for in the end, what should direct our thought, prayers and motivation is to love the Lord Jesus, exalt His name and serve Him and one another in the Body of Christ. As the different streams in the Body of Christ come together, there will be an outpouring of the Spirit in the Unity in the Body of Christ.

The Lord said that so much of the streams of the living water from the Holy Spirit are behind dams that have been built by the Christian community of churches. The dams have inhibited the times of refreshing of the Holy Spirit and His outpouring of life. The Church has created the dams, due to arrogance, religious spirits, pride and the belief that they are defenders of the Church. Division has been created amongst churches that call on the name of the Lord Jesus. The Church is the focus of the…

“Lord Jesus’s plan of the mystery hidden for the ages in God, who created all things so that through the Church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known and revealed to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This is according to the eternal purpose the Father realized in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Ephesians 3:7-11.

The streams of living water have been released here and there through the past several hundred years with the Great Awakening, Azusa Street and the charismatic movement. Unity did not prevail and our own pride and religious superiority created more dams of the release of the Holy Spirit with our new found understandings from the Lord and we effected the release of the Lord’s Spirit.

As always, the Lord is raising up a body of Christ after his own heart and design. When the Lord cancelled our record of debt and forgave us all of our trespasses, he nailed it to the cross and disarmed rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by His death, burial and resurrection and so triumphed over them. We are to humble ourselves before him for even the principalities of the air and Satan himself did not anticipate that the Lord would die and shed his blood and offer forgiveness to all. They did not anticipate that the Lord himself would take the keys of death back from Satan’s hand and love his creation by his death to forgive them. This is how the Lord Jesus triumphed over the enemy and disarmed him forever. (Colossians 2:12-15)

As the Church reveals the manifold wisdom of the Father, with the body of Christ being the true living habitat of the Father and the Lord Jesus, to all principalities and dominions and rulers and authorities, the Enemy will be triumphed over and put to shame through the body of Christ, as it rises and is revealed as the true revelation of the Father’s purpose. God’s love is so revealed in his death that it even took the enemy by surprise and now the Father is bringing forth the body of Christ who fully love him to fulfill his full purpose. We will be understanding that love, for the ages to come.

The Lord is calling the body of Christ to humble themselves before him. He is about to do a work that will be a wonder in the eyes of the world. He will reveal the body of Christ, not through the ministry and anointing of a single group or man that has been raised up but through the whole body of Christ, with the Captain of Hosts fully in charge, with order and power being released.