It is amazing to me how I felt pressed to write this on my computer on September 10, 2001. I hadn't written in my book about "God's Call for This Generation" for weeks (as some of you know I have been writing it for a while now), since I had been hampered with hearing God's hearts for the book because I felt I should "wait" to start drafting a good introduction to the content I had already written. That night I felt a leading from the Holy Spirit unlike anything else, a leading that God wanted me to write something signifigant for our generation, for htis book, and for you. I made the concious decision not to post it on the King's Tavern that night because I felt that this message should be one not dependent on who the actual author is. I do not take credit for it. In fact, it has been two days now after doors have been closed (my computer crashing, my office sending me home as it is in a federal building, my home internet access being deleted as our ISP was bought out a day before, and so many other obstacles.) You are reading this because God has saw fit to open the doors for you to read it.
After an intense time of personal praise and worship that evening, I found myself typing away into the night. Unlike anything else I have ever experienced, I felt that this was something signifigant in my life to write, and here as I share it with you I realize now that there is a purpose why it was written at 10:30pm, Monday September 10, 2001 - and why you are reading it now:
Where are we headed as a generation? The same as our fathers and mothers footsteps? The way of society? Where are we going? Wait.
The Lord is mighty in battle, strong over the enemy, and soon the leader of our army will Appear in His Comming. It is not a matter of if we are ready or not. It is a matter if we have truly dedicated our lives to Him. Individually we need a Savior and individually we need to make Him Lord. But together, as a generation, as a people, we have been called to be tested as the generation after Joshuas was tested - except I dont believe we are called to fail. This generations glory can go to another, but we are that generation which God has ordained for this moment in time and history. We are alive because God choose at this time that we come about, that we live now, and not a hundred or even fifty years ago, or in the future. We are born for such a time as this.
What can God do to change our hearts? We wander aimlessly after our fathers, who gave up the world for the sake of the world - they entrenched themselves in solid humanism, which was defined by their parents. We are a generation are called to rebel against the established order by following another: The order of Jesus Christ in our lives and living through us.
Matthew 28:19 As youre going, make disciples of all nations, baptising them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
The mandate is clear: as we live our lives at Gods direction, our lives become a part of our witness to those around us, the nations we live in, and we bring to them a knowledge of who Jesus Christ is: our God, our Father, our Lord. We should worship Him with our lives. Our very lives. It means giving up our ambitions for something even greater. It means sacrificing our dreams in taking up another. It means giving up something which we can give up! We live at a time in history where the options and freedoms are so plentiful that we have a new definition for it: information overload. The internet is just one of many ways our horizons in the global community have been enlarged, but many refusing to go where its bad, and many staying only where it is good. What we have is a generation of people looking to define their existence by the choices their parents could not make. We have to recognize this an an opportunity from God to seek and serve Him, to truly give our lives to what He has offered us: the choice to preach the gospel to every nation on earth, to see multitudes come to know Christ, and to see and hear of miracles in what many would call then the Last Days.
As someone young, I see that our identity is no more our age than a fingernail identifies your body. We understand that a body has many other parts, and that those parts function together as a whole. The Apostle Paul said it, and wrote about this idea, this Holy Spirit-given concept: that we are a people of God called out to be seperated for His purposes and glory. Our identity should be in Him and found only in Him. We are of His family. If you have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of your life, you have made it into the famiy: a family God desires all people to come be a part of; a close famiy with Christ at its head: our Lord and Savior; and our relationship with God, who is our Father, and desires to be our Abba.
There is much to learn and much to do. What this generation needs are leaders to rise up to the call God has placed in their hearts. These leaders are those who have had dreams of their own, potential for success in others areas, for personal gain and benefit, and for helping the world become a better place - but these people God is calling out of their directional pursuit. He is laying a foundation and core of His love and relationship so that they begin to question their destiny, that they begin to see a bigger and better pictures of life. God removes these people, from friends, with famiy, with mentors, with leaders, with pursuits of God on their own - but soon God is rising them up for the challenge of their lifetimes: to be the men and women of God that He has raised up, nameless and not self-seeking, but humble, and hubled by their experiences now, as they have grown up in this world. God is nurting these people to lead a generation that will go before it: a people choosen before the dawn of time, a congregation of the living who serve the Most High daily - forever. He is calling us, you and me, and our generation, to change the future for what it already has been foretold about so long ago: the end of the Ages, and the beginning of the New and Final Age - the Everlasting Age of God with Man forever. Satan knows this and tries to raise up counterfeits, and lies, and deceptions which tear away at the Truth of God, bliding the people of this world in the lost hope of ever finding the Truth.
We are called to lift the veil, and to confront the enemy, our spiritual enemy, at every corner of our lives, and together with people, but with God finally win the victory of Him that has been assured since the day of Adams fall, and completed the day Christ died on the cross.
We are at the end of human history as we have known it from the perspective of the Fall. Things are going to get tough, governments wont like us, and our closest and deepest friends will reject us. But we are called to carry on in love, and to pray for our enemies. Are we ready for this? I believe so, for no other generation has had such an open worldview in its growth and makeup - a view its parents could not understand, and are just now grasping. We are a generation of world changers. We are a generation called of God to fulfill our destiny, we are called the children of God.
What are we to do? The Holy Spirit knows. Right now, all across the world, the Spirit of God is moving in such many different ways, but He is targeting us - the younger part of this generation of world-seekers , and is turning our attention away from the world, and back onto Him. He is calling us to purity, to forgiveness, to love, to eternal life. He is calling us towards Him. Will we respond? I believe that is our destiny. Let us enter into the promised land without looking back. Lets truly be the Joshua generation. Lets rise up to the call - the call of the generations, the call of Christians everywhere: the News, the good oh so very good news. There is only one thing that truly sets people free: our love for them, and Gods love through us.
After an intense time of personal praise and worship that evening, I found myself typing away into the night. Unlike anything else I have ever experienced, I felt that this was something signifigant in my life to write, and here as I share it with you I realize now that there is a purpose why it was written at 10:30pm, Monday September 10, 2001 - and why you are reading it now:
Where are we headed as a generation? The same as our fathers and mothers footsteps? The way of society? Where are we going? Wait.
The Lord is mighty in battle, strong over the enemy, and soon the leader of our army will Appear in His Comming. It is not a matter of if we are ready or not. It is a matter if we have truly dedicated our lives to Him. Individually we need a Savior and individually we need to make Him Lord. But together, as a generation, as a people, we have been called to be tested as the generation after Joshuas was tested - except I dont believe we are called to fail. This generations glory can go to another, but we are that generation which God has ordained for this moment in time and history. We are alive because God choose at this time that we come about, that we live now, and not a hundred or even fifty years ago, or in the future. We are born for such a time as this.
What can God do to change our hearts? We wander aimlessly after our fathers, who gave up the world for the sake of the world - they entrenched themselves in solid humanism, which was defined by their parents. We are a generation are called to rebel against the established order by following another: The order of Jesus Christ in our lives and living through us.
Matthew 28:19 As youre going, make disciples of all nations, baptising them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
The mandate is clear: as we live our lives at Gods direction, our lives become a part of our witness to those around us, the nations we live in, and we bring to them a knowledge of who Jesus Christ is: our God, our Father, our Lord. We should worship Him with our lives. Our very lives. It means giving up our ambitions for something even greater. It means sacrificing our dreams in taking up another. It means giving up something which we can give up! We live at a time in history where the options and freedoms are so plentiful that we have a new definition for it: information overload. The internet is just one of many ways our horizons in the global community have been enlarged, but many refusing to go where its bad, and many staying only where it is good. What we have is a generation of people looking to define their existence by the choices their parents could not make. We have to recognize this an an opportunity from God to seek and serve Him, to truly give our lives to what He has offered us: the choice to preach the gospel to every nation on earth, to see multitudes come to know Christ, and to see and hear of miracles in what many would call then the Last Days.
As someone young, I see that our identity is no more our age than a fingernail identifies your body. We understand that a body has many other parts, and that those parts function together as a whole. The Apostle Paul said it, and wrote about this idea, this Holy Spirit-given concept: that we are a people of God called out to be seperated for His purposes and glory. Our identity should be in Him and found only in Him. We are of His family. If you have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of your life, you have made it into the famiy: a family God desires all people to come be a part of; a close famiy with Christ at its head: our Lord and Savior; and our relationship with God, who is our Father, and desires to be our Abba.
There is much to learn and much to do. What this generation needs are leaders to rise up to the call God has placed in their hearts. These leaders are those who have had dreams of their own, potential for success in others areas, for personal gain and benefit, and for helping the world become a better place - but these people God is calling out of their directional pursuit. He is laying a foundation and core of His love and relationship so that they begin to question their destiny, that they begin to see a bigger and better pictures of life. God removes these people, from friends, with famiy, with mentors, with leaders, with pursuits of God on their own - but soon God is rising them up for the challenge of their lifetimes: to be the men and women of God that He has raised up, nameless and not self-seeking, but humble, and hubled by their experiences now, as they have grown up in this world. God is nurting these people to lead a generation that will go before it: a people choosen before the dawn of time, a congregation of the living who serve the Most High daily - forever. He is calling us, you and me, and our generation, to change the future for what it already has been foretold about so long ago: the end of the Ages, and the beginning of the New and Final Age - the Everlasting Age of God with Man forever. Satan knows this and tries to raise up counterfeits, and lies, and deceptions which tear away at the Truth of God, bliding the people of this world in the lost hope of ever finding the Truth.
We are called to lift the veil, and to confront the enemy, our spiritual enemy, at every corner of our lives, and together with people, but with God finally win the victory of Him that has been assured since the day of Adams fall, and completed the day Christ died on the cross.
We are at the end of human history as we have known it from the perspective of the Fall. Things are going to get tough, governments wont like us, and our closest and deepest friends will reject us. But we are called to carry on in love, and to pray for our enemies. Are we ready for this? I believe so, for no other generation has had such an open worldview in its growth and makeup - a view its parents could not understand, and are just now grasping. We are a generation of world changers. We are a generation called of God to fulfill our destiny, we are called the children of God.
What are we to do? The Holy Spirit knows. Right now, all across the world, the Spirit of God is moving in such many different ways, but He is targeting us - the younger part of this generation of world-seekers , and is turning our attention away from the world, and back onto Him. He is calling us to purity, to forgiveness, to love, to eternal life. He is calling us towards Him. Will we respond? I believe that is our destiny. Let us enter into the promised land without looking back. Lets truly be the Joshua generation. Lets rise up to the call - the call of the generations, the call of Christians everywhere: the News, the good oh so very good news. There is only one thing that truly sets people free: our love for them, and Gods love through us.
