Joel 2:28,29
"And afterward,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
Your old men will dream dreams;
Your young men will see visions.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days”.
Joel the prophet spoke these words about the last days…. The days that many Christians believe we are living out RIGHT NOW, a day when the people of God who have declared their allegiance to the Lord and aligned themselves with Him in spirit and in truth will stand out as the chosen of the Lord…
I had always looked at these verses in the spiritual sense with the thought that the words referred solely to spiritual signs and wonders, but the Lord also caused me to see another dimension that I hope will bless and energize you to pursue LIFE like never before… It has oft been preached in the church that the wealth of the gentiles is laid up for the righteous and many of us are sadly and I dare say in futility hoping that these riches will ‘drop’ in our laps as long as we believe. This is however not borne out by scripture… I believe that the verses above may give a blueprint as to how this wealth transfer will occur, always remembering that this transfer is for the building of God’s (not man’s) kingdom, here on earth and anyone who is not ‘Kingdom’ oriented should not have any hope in partaking of this outpouring.
Let us examine some of the key words above and then look at the verses again in this light:
1. Spirit:
• The vital principle or animating force within living beings
• Incorporeal consciousness
• The Holy Spirit
• The part of a human associated with the mind, will, and feelings
• The essential nature of a person or group
• A person as characterized by a stated quality
• An inclination or tendency of a specified kind
• A causative, activating, or essential principle
• Strong loyalty or dedication
• The predominant mood of an occasion or a period
• The actual though unstated sense or significance of something
• To impart courage, animation, or determination to; inspirit
2. Prophesy:
• To reveal by divine inspiration
• To predict with certainty as if by divine inspiration
• To foretell - To tell of or indicate beforehand; predict
• To prefigure; foreshow
• To reveal the will or message of God
• To predict the future as if by divine inspiration
3. Dreams:
• A series of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations occurring involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep
• Wild fancy or hope
• A condition or achievement that is longed for; an aspiration: a dream of ownership
• Idea that is exceptionally gratifying, excellent, or beautiful
• To have a deep aspiration
• To regard something as feasible or practical
• To conceive of; imagine.
4.Visions:
• The faculty of inner sight
• Something that is or has been seen
• Unusual competence in discernment or perception
• Intelligent foresight: a leader of vision.
• The manner in which one sees or conceives of something as yet unseen
• A mental image produced by the imagination
• The mystical experience of seeing as if with the eyes, the supernatural or a supernatural being
• To see in or as if in a vision; envision
So these verses could actually read thus…
"And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit: The Holy Spirit - The vital principle or animating force within living beings on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy: predict the future with certainty as if by divine inspiration, prefigure; foreshow events to come.
Your old men will dream dreams: Have a series of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations occurring involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep, ideas that are exceptionally gratifying, excellent, or beautiful.
Your young men will see visions: Have the faculty of inner sight, unusual competence in discernment or perception, have mental images produced by the imagination to see or conceive something great”.
So in essence what I believe the Lord is saying is that not only will we see an outpouring of His spirit in the spiritual arena but also in the creative, financial, entrepreneurial, sociological, environmental, technological etc.. you name it arenas that will result in a catapulting of God’s people to unprecedented and lofty successes almost overnight…. (Joseph started his day as a prisoner and ended it in the palace as second-in-command only to Pharaoh with God-given dreams/revelations as his springboard to greatness) Not by power nor by might but by His Spirit, and only for the building of His great and mighty army and to bless His people – The spiritual Commonwealth of Israel amongst whom we are named…. We see this phenomenon at work in the lives of Jacob, Daniel, Hezekiah to name a few… who by reason of divinely imparted dreams, knowledge, insight, wisdom and entrepreneurial skills had meteoric rises to the top of governmental, financial and national responsibility and success in their times – THIS IS POSSIBLE IN OUR DISPENSATION ALSO…. Let us not limit ourselves… let’s dream big and let us allow God to inspire us to greatness and to fulfilling our God-given destinies
So now that we’ve stated the goal, in the weeks to come I’ll be trusting God to help me share what he has taught me about the ‘how’ of this process, but remember begin to ‘dream’ big and ask God by His Spirit to help you ‘see’, and also begin to declare boldly that which he has placed in your heart because we are of the stock of Him who declares those things which be not as though they were and THEY ARE…
FEAR NOT…DREAM BIG, SEE DEEP, DECLARE BOLDLY AND IT SHALL BE SO…..
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