Twice recently I’ve heard the Holy Spirit say, “It’s time that My children are reacquainted with Me.”
The definition of reacquaint: to give someone renewed knowledge and experience of someone.
There are many who believe in God, without really knowing Him. There is a vast difference between the two.
Last year I was reading Matthew 8, the story where the disciples of Jesus were terrified in the boat during a storm. As I thought about it, I asked the Lord why so many people who profess to follow Him are still just as afraid today as the disciples were back then. He spoke a clear answer:
“They don’t know Me as Holy, so they don’t expect Me to bring judgement.
They don’t know Me as Good, so they don’t expect Me to do miracles.
They sing about Me but they don’t believe the words they sing.
They don’t know Me as Healer, so they don’t expect to be healed.
They don’t know Me as Protector, so they don’t expect protection.
They don’t know Me as Provider, so they expect to live in lack, as orphans.
They don’t know My voice, so they listen to all the other voices over Mine.
They don’t know Me as Peace, so they exist in a state of anxiety and stress.
They don’t know Me as Love, so they hide in shame and self-condemnation.
They have no real faith, so they are constantly in fear.“
It’s a sad indictment. Many would firmly say they believe in Him but their lives demonstrate very little belief. Instead they grasp for artificial comfort, agree with fear and settle for death. He continually offers freedom and healing, while many look to human voices instead His, (From pastors, doctors, the news, the internet, psychologists…) preferring to listen to the chatter of the mob.
The same body of Christ that for years confidently proclaimed “Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders” has now been found imprisoned in a coffin of distrust. How sad, because of unbelief, to subsist in a small cage of spiritual deadness when Jesus gave everything for us to have abundant life.
The Lord will soon show Himself in startling ways to reacquaint us with who He really is. The jolt of what is coming is meant to force an inward choice — to believe Him or not. See, lasting growth and change in relationship with God happens only by the internal force of a person’s will making a choice to be transformed by the renewing of the mind.
Some of this has already started as many have turned toward God in renewed relationship during the quarantine time…. while simultaneously others have turned away from Him. Jesus wants His people to really know Him, not the inaccurate version of Him that’s been built in minds over time – a version formed by complacency and lack of expectation of His Word.
The Lord will continue confronting these mindsets through difficult circumstances as well as shocking joyous astonishment. He will make Himself known in ways we haven’t seen before. This wake-up call from God is for the purpose of moving His church and our nation into repentance, not unlike the many such times recorded in the Old Testament.
We were always meant to walk by faith and not by sight. Those who will fare the best in the coming months and years are the ones who have learned the discipline of trusting God regardless of what happens around them, because the management of their lives and emotional state is not based on what they see with physical eyes, it is based instead on who they know God is.
See, trust in God is only built when trust is needed. When life is predictable, faith is regarded as unnecessary. Conversely, the uncomfortable chaotic circumstances in life cause decisions to be born inside us, as to where our faith will be focused. Without the confrontation of lack of trust and/or an inability to control our situations, we might not ever arrive at the moment of decision. If desperation is the vehicle it takes to drive some to faith, then it is actually far better that challenging circumstances occur. It’s an act of God’s great mercy to disrupt passivity and indecision. Choice seldom occurs without disruption, whether the disturbance is good or bad in nature.
The coming choices are significant. They are for trust over fear, hope over hopelessness, good over evil, life over death. Everyone will need to choose because righteousness AND evil will continue to rise at the same time.
Jesus wants His people to be focused so completely on His words, His thoughts, and His voice that zero decisions are made based on any other criteria. To Jesus, visible conditions were changeable and shiftable by enforcing the will of His Father – weather patterns obeyed Him, disease processes healed, all oppression from the enemy nullified, huge quantities of food regenerated, and even physical death reversed.
Nothing was hopeless or without a solution. Everyone left Jesus healed, changed, fed, and restored. He did this by the power of the Holy Spirit, the SAME power that lives in us.
The coming upheaval will force the choice toward what He has always wanted, and what we ALL want deep inside: to live in the place where our trust in God truly doesn’t have borders, a place of total stress-free belief in Him to protect us, provide for us, keep His promises towards us, assist us, vindicate us, lead us, heal us and equip us.
God is completely faithful and always good. It isn’t hard to offer our lives to a God who is everything He says He is. It’s just hard to surrender and relinquish control when we aren’t convinced. That deficiency of faith is our choice to correct.
If the church responds to Him in course-correcting repentance and with renewed focus, there is great hope. World revival is coming.
It’s time to be REACQUAINTED with Jesus!
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