I believe this is that day. We are certainly in a day of transitioning. A moving from that which was good but now is becoming old to that which is new. Many times it is hard to see what the Lord is doing because of ‘success’ or ‘blessings’.

The Lord is calling us on to the new anointing – a new thing. Many prophets & God seeking Christians are saying similar things. This ministry along with many others, is prophetically voicing where the Lord would have His Church. It is future looking, toward what He wants.

While some see it being critical of the church it is in reality a holy dissatisfaction with where we are at & a heralding of where we are headed – like it or not God is up to something. It is said that the prophets disturb the comfortable – thank God, because we can’t stay the way we are and expect different results.

The past should be a springboard, not a hammock.

I first saw an example of the old anointing compared to the new when a very well known teacher / preacher was ministering at a conference. He was sharing about how the Holy Spirit had ‘hit’ his church & completely transformed it. He began to minister under that ‘new’ anointing. Then all of a sudden – it was like a huge switch was turned off – he began to teach – but there was something different – it lost something. It was still the word of God but something had changed in the delivery of it. I questioned the Lord & He said “he (the preacher) moved back into the old anointing”. The next night a similar thing happened, he started off – it was awesome what he was saying & what the Holy Spirit was doing, then – the switch – back to the old. Many of us have done similar. The problem is God is not wanting us to go back to the old but pursue the new.

God said to Samuel – depart from this old anointing 1 Sam 16:1

Depart from this old anointing that I have rejected. Find the new anointing which was David.

Samuel had no understanding of the journey he was going to take or what he was looking for. But he was being directed by God.

What is the new thing God is doing?

We are in a time where God is about to restore His manifest presence back to the Church.

This creates a problem. We see an example of this problem where David went to bring the Ark of His Presence back to Jerusalem. 1 Chron 13

The first attempt failed dismally. Why? It was out of divine order. 1 Chron. 15:13
They put the Ark on an ox cart.

The presence of God is never to rest on anything that is man made. It is always to rest on the shoulders of His priests. When we model our procedures on the systems of this world we set ourselves up for the loss of life if we touch the presence of God. Vs9

David went back to the ‘instruction manual’ & he found in scripture that you don’t put the Ark on an ox cart – and what the procedure was to carry the Ark, according to the word of the Lord. 1 Chron 15 (in fact God gave very detailed instructions on how He wanted it done in Exo 25)

The second attempt succeeded because it was done following the Lord’s procedure.

I believe the Lord is saying – be careful how you handle my presence.

Some say well we are not in the Old Testament any longer we don’t have to do all that stuff. The Old Testament has not been done away with – the principles are still the same. Jesus fulfilled the old He didn’t get rid of it.

Today we desperately need the manifest presence of God in our lives & Churches – but there is a procedure, a protocol in how to get the Presence back. I am convinced we have to do it His way in this, otherwise life will be lost. Read again the accounts of the book of Acts regarding the manifest presence of God impacting whole regions – we will see that again in western churches.

We cannot bring the presence of God in through the means of Man. The things we have concocted to build our churches, even the mindsets we have adopted need to be changed. A very simple example - one prominent elderly minister said to another “we are in a time where our services should go for an hour & that’s it”. Simple statement that says a lot about where the church is really at - but the other minister said “if that is true how come that the fastest growing bunch of believers are growing so fast where services last hours & hours & the presence of God shows up”. The answer is obvious. (could it be that the reason we are seeing the need to shorten our services is because people are bored - yes they are entertained but their spirits are bored because there is no Presence. I have been in meetings where the presence of God is manifest & people just sit - they dont want to go home - they want more of God - they want to linger longer in His Presence)

The fasted growing group of Christians in the world is in the southern hemisphere not including Australia & New Zealand. This is the Pentecostal Apostolic movement. They believe in tongues, miracles, signs & wonders. It is the fastest growing movement in the world. There are 500 million more of them than Muslims in the entire world. They are growing at a rate of 14.9%. The top 100 largest churches in the world are Full on Pentecostal (not just in name only)

to be continued