IT’S TIME TO WAKE UP!

If you are a believer in Christ, this post is meant to be like those annoying alarms that you can not sleep through because the noise is so piercing to the soul. If you are on the fence about what you believe, I would hope that this might stir something deep inside you, to draw you closer to the one who gave His life so you could have yours, our Lord Jesus Christ. I believe we are living in a time like no other. Now, I know there has always been talk of Jesus’s imminent return, although the bible says we will not know what hour or day that will be, even Jesus does not know when His day will come! But He told us the signs to look for so that we would know that it would be soon. If we pay attention to all that is happening around the world, we will notice a sequence of events that are laying the foundations of the great deception that is to come from the adversary. Maybe I will do a post on what I am learning in terms of bible prophecy in the future, but for now I want to wake the body up!

It is so easy to get distracted by life, work, school, family, all the things that can be all consuming. We get so distracted that it can often draw us away from our time with God, then before we know it, He is no longer top of the list of priorities. It happens to us all, during our walk with Him. At points we can be so on fire for God, and other times the flame is barely a flicker. The world is set up to distract us from God, its one of many tactics from the enemy. He sets it up in such a way that we spend less and less time in our bibles, less time seeking Him out. At the beginning of 2023 I decided to go on a social media fast. It started off as something I would do for the month of January, the intention behind it was to cut something off that took time away from spending it with God. I wanted to start my year off being intentional with my time with the Lord, and I noticed I was getting distracted by social media. It was such a bad habit of mine to just mindlessly pick up my phone and start scrolling aimlessly! Before you knew it, what started of as a 5 min scroll on Instagram or Facebook soon turned into an hour! This was happening more frequently then I would like to admit. In my busyness, I would always feel like I never had a lot of time that was free. So because of that, I started to make excuses as to why one week I hadn’t picked up my bible. Meanwhile I was spending at least two hours a day taking in mind numbing content on social media, clearly I wasn’t that busy! When I took stock of my time management, I quickly became convicted about it. God deserved so much more than what I was giving, so I removed my apps off my phone so they were not easily accessible. Not only did I cut out social media, I also cut out what I was watching, I really felt Spirit led to do that. I decided to only consume sermons, bible teaching, Christian content and read more books that edified the Spirit. That’s when something shifted.

I can’t explain it, but it’s like a fog cleared from my vision, all of a sudden I could see! My mood was different, I just felt different! It’s like all the things I was consuming was acting like a blocker to my Spirit, that is really the best way I can describe it. After the first week into this new set up, God started to communicate with me. It was all happening so fast, I almost didn’t believe what I was experiencing. I started to dream more frequently. My dreams were strange, because a lot of them made no sense to me. I had literally stopped watching worldly things and I was having dreams that almost felt like I was seeing in the Spirit. I am lucky to be blessed with one of my church leaders who is gifted, and understands dreams and seeing in the Spirit and what things can mean, so I had guidance to know what was fruit and what could be thrown away. God has given me a dream before, so it wasn’t a complete new experience, but what was new was the frequency of what I was experiencing. I almost felt like God had been trying to communicate with me this whole time and now, finally, I was able to receive! What really sealed my faith in what was happening was when God gave me my first dream about somebody I didn’t know! Let me explain…

One night after work, I had made myself comfortable, earphones in, ready to zone out as I made my way home on the train. Normally, I don’t make it a habit to talk to strangers, especially men I don’t know late at night, but almost as soon as I sat down, a guy approached me making polite conversation. For some reason, I felt led to talk to him as he wasn’t rude or disrespectful. As we got into conversation, I quickly mentioned my faith, which led us into deeper conversation, where he shared his experience with the church and his beliefs in Jesus, but lack of relationship. What was out of character for me, was the fact that I remember feeling like I wanted to give him my number, so when he asked for it to continue the conversation we were having, I happily obliged. A couple of days after meeting him, I had a dream. We hadn’t been able to talk again since that train journey, so I was surprised that I was dreaming about someone I had only met once. This dream was so strange, I knew it was about him, even though I couldn’t say I saw his face in my dream. I won’t go into detail about what exactly I dreamt as it feels like I would be sharing someone else’s personal business, but God showed me his life, and showed me his character, but ultimately He had a message for him, which was really a call for him to follow God. When I shared my dream with him, he instantly knew it was from God, as I had told him things I couldn’t have known! If I had any doubt that God was communicating with me through my dreams, it left with such a quickness.

As my fast continued, so did my dreams. As I was spending more time in the Word, I was getting a deeper understanding of things I was barely grasping. I started to become more sensitive in the Spirit, which was very new. I have discovered a new gifting, which I suppose was always there, of spiritual discernment. I have had dark experiences too, when I had been obedient in an assignment that the Lord had put on my heart (that’s another post for another day!) The enemy had let me know that he wasn’t happy about it, but I had no fear because of Jesus! Greater is He in me, than he who is in the world! Amen!

God communicates with us in so many ways, so far I have been receiving Him in my dreams. What is still so amazing to me, is all this happened almost instantly when I stopped letting worldly things consume me. I am nobody special, I say this to say that God will use YOU if you make yourself available to be used! In the Old Testament, God used dreams and visions to give messages to his people, whether it was a warning, or wisdom. And now we are in an age where His children are dreaming more frequently. ACTS 2:17 “IN THE LAST DAYS , GOD SAYS, I WILL POUR OUT MY SPIRIT UPON ALL PEOPLE, YOUR SONS AND DAUGHTERS WILL PROPHESY. YOUR YOUNG MEN WILL SEE VISIONS, AND YOUR OLD MEN WILL DREAM DREAMS.” Paul was preaching to the crowd on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out on all the believers. He was giving prophecy of things to come. God has given me two messages for the body of Christ, and I intend to share them on this blog! These are messages He shared through dreams. Todays post is really to focus on pressing into God, He wants to communicate with all of us right now, but we are Spiritually asleep, it’s time to WAKE UP!!!

Pay attention to what you watch, pay attention to what you listen to. These things can really block us from receiving from God. I used to be so flippant about stuff like that, thinking of people who cut secular things out of their life as extremists. Although I do believe there are some people that do fall into that category, but then there are others on the opposite end of that spectrum who do not exercise any caution at all! Where is the healthy balance? I think the Holy Spirit will convict us of things as we grow with God, for myself I have definitely been convicted of a lot of things I was consuming since starting this fast. I am reminded of this verse from PHILIPPIANS 4:8 “FINALLY, BROTHERS AND SISTERS, WHATEVER IS TRUE, WHATEVER IS NOBLE, WHATEVER IS RIGHT, WHATEVER IS PURE, WHATEVER IS LOVELY, WHATEVER IS ADMIRABLE- IF ANYTHING IS EXCELLENT OR PRAISEWORTHY- THINK ABOUT SUCH THINGS.” I can honestly say not everything I consumed was inline with this verse, because a lot of the worldly things are the opposite of that, so it’s not a surprise to me that it could have such an adverse effect to our Spirit and how we connect with God when we take certain things in. I need to do a better job at guarding my gates.

I feel like I received a wake up call, to pay attention to what is going on, to keep my eyes focused on things from above. What first started as a fast, has now become a way of life going forward. I am not saying I don’t watch anything secular, but it is definitely at a minimum, and Jesus is back where He should be, a priority! I am sure as I grow, the Holy Spirit will convict me to not consume anything that is worldly, and I will welcome it when the time comes. I had shared my revelation with a close friend from overseas, a sister in Christ, and she was encouraged to do the same. She too has been experiencing things in the spirit, hearing from God in different ways, it’s actually amazing! God wants to talk to His children. He wants to impart wisdom, and I believe He wants to warn us of things, to prepare us for what’s to come. It’s time for us to wake up and pay attention! Do not let the enemy make you forget what is important, what is really going on, what is at stake! Its time to seek God while we can still find Him, it’s time to start knocking on His door! Remember ask and you shall receive! I hope this encourages you to dig a little deeper, all you need to do is just make a conscious effort to put something aside, and put Him first, and watch Him do the rest!

MATTHEW 6:33 “SEEK THE KINGDOM OF GOD ABOVE ALL ELSE, AND LIVE RIGHTEOUSLY, AND HE WILL GIVE YOU EVERYTHING YOU NEED.”