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“THIS WEEK, YOU ARE GETTING YOUR FIRE BACK!”
This week, you are getting your fire back!
Your dreams are coming back.
Your clarity is coming back.
Your ferocity is coming back.
This week, you are coming out of the valley and out of the battlefield, and I believe God is beginning to restore what has been robbed and stolen from you.
I was reminded of David at Ziklag in 1 Samuel 30 where He and his men returned to find their families taken and everything they owned stolen.
They were so devastated that the men spoke of stoning David. But David strengthened himself in the Lord, and when he inquired of God, the Lord told him to pursue, overtake, and recover all.
I believe the Lord is saying that after this long season of battle, He is bringing His people into a season of recovery. He is awakening you again. He is breaking you out of places of captivity you didn't even realize you were in, and areas of containment that have kept you living smaller than what He has called you to.
GOD IS CALLING YOU UP HIGHER!
As I prayed, I kept seeing three passages converging: Ezekiel 37, 1 Kings 19:18, and Joel 2.
In Ezekiel 37, the Lord took the prophet into a valley filled with dry bones. It was the picture of a people who had lost hope, an army that had been defeated. But God told Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones, and as he spoke, they came together. Then, the breath of God entered them, and they stood as an exceedingly great army.
This is what I believe God is doing in His Church right now… He is breathing over those who have been battle-weary, disillusioned, and spiritually decommissioned. The winds of heaven are blowing over people who thought they were finished. He is turning an army that has lived in defeat back into the warriors and war horses they were created to be.
I then heard 1 Kings 19:18, where God told Elijah that He had reserved 7,000 in Israel who had not bowed to Baal. There was a faithful remnant Elijah couldn't see. I believe there are people who have been hidden, waiting, and being prepared, and the Lord is calling them forward in this hour.
Then came Joel 2, with its picture of an advancing army. I believe the Lord is readying His people again, not to live intimidated by the darkness, but to rise in the authority He has given them.
But there is something we have to shake off first…
We have to shake off the dust of the last season, the disappointment, the fear, and the exhaustion of constantly looking at what the enemy is doing. We cannot secure victory by remaining tethered to fear. We have to lift our eyes back to Jesus and become more aware of heaven's activity than the world's activity.
WHO YOU SEE DETERMINES HOW YOU SEE, AND HOW YOU SEE DETERMINES HOW YOU PRAY AND PROPHESY.
I believe this is a Romans 8 moment, where God is unveiling His sons and daughters. What has looked like chaos, pressure, and devastation is also becoming the place where a people of His presence are being brought forth. The Lord is not raising up a fearful Church. He is awakening a people who will carry His heart and reveal His glory.
On Saturday night, I had a dream I haven't been able to shake.
In the dream, I was down at Newport Beach with Christy and our girls. We were riding in a trolley with other Christians, and suddenly the waters began rising. They came higher and higher, moving into places they weren't meant to reach. Yet the people around us seemed completely unfazed. They didn't recognize what was happening.
I knew we had to get out of the trolley. As we stepped out, I understood that the trolley represented the current wineskin of much of the Church, continuing along a familiar route while failing to recognize what was shifting around it.
I heard the Lord speak to me in the dream: “Nate, the waters are rising. Do you see it?”
I answered, “Yes, Lord, I can see it.”
Then He said, “Nate, the waters are rising, BUT DOES THE CHURCH SEE IT?”
And the dream ended.
When I woke up, I realized I could have interpreted the dream as a warning of doom and destruction. Rising water could easily make us think about catastrophe, darkness, and fear. But instead, what I felt was VICTORY. I began to see that the Lord was drawing my attention to something many of us have missed…
IT IS THE GLORY OF GOD THAT IS RISING!
Isaiah 60:1–2 speaks of darkness covering the earth and deep darkness covering the people, but it also commands us to arise and shine because the glory of the Lord has risen upon us.
Church, I believe we have been looking at this backward. We see darkness increasing, and we act as though God must now respond to what the enemy is doing.
But I hear the Lord saying, “I AM NOT ON THE BACK FOOT OF THE ENEMY. THE ENEMY IS ON THE BACK FOOT OF ME!”
God is not scrambling to answer darkness. I believe darkness is reacting to the glory of God being revealed in the earth. The enemy is intimidated by what God is doing, and intimidated by the glory resting upon the lives of His people. So he works to drag our attention back to fear, foreboding, and constant reports of calamity.
Many believers have become more aware of the activity of the enemy than the activity of the Father. We have been endlessly consuming the darkness until it has shaped the way we think, pray, and prophesy. We have been fighting battles in our minds, in our own strength, and from a place of exhaustion.
But the Lord is calling us to look again. I keep coming back to Ezekiel 47, where the water flowing from the temple became deeper and deeper until it was a river no one could cross on foot. Wherever that river went, life came.
The waters were rising, and the river was bringing LIFE.
I believe a fresh move of His Spirit is rising in the earth right now. God is awakening His people, pouring out fresh revelation, and calling the Church beyond the old patterns and familiar structures it has relied upon. But if we only look through the window of the old wineskin, we may miss what He is doing right in front of us.
I heard the Lord saying to His people, “YOU HAVE BEEN LIVING IN THE WRONG PLACE, AND I AM BRINGING YOU UP HIGHER!”
Ephesians 1:20-23 says that Christ was raised from the dead and seated at the Father's right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, power, might, and dominion. Then, Ephesians 2:6 tells us that God raised us up together and seated us together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
This is where the Church must learn to stand again – not underneath the darkness, but secure in the finished work and victory of Jesus. There is a difference between discerning the enemy's activity and becoming so consumed by it that we lose sight of Christ. When we keep staring at the battlefield, we forget where we are seated.
I believe the Lord is calling us out of that exhausting place of constantly reacting to every attack.
“COME UP HIGHER. PRAY FROM THE HEIGHTS. PROPHESY FROM THE HEIGHTS. SEE WHAT I AM DOING!”
I was reminded of Elisha's servant in 2 Kings 6. He saw the enemy army surrounding them and was terrified, but Elisha saw something greater…
“And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see” (2 Kings 6:17).
And when the servant's eyes were opened, he saw the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire.
The heavenly army had been there all along. His circumstances hadn't suddenly changed; his vision had.
That is my cry for the Church right now: LORD, OPEN OUR EYES! Open our eyes to Your glory, Your purposes, Your army, and Your plans. Break the fog of fear. Break the foreboding that has kept us looking down. Bring us back into the revelation of who we are in Christ.
THIS WEEK, IT SHIFTS IN JESUS NAME
I believe this is a week where many will begin stepping out of battle-weariness and back into clarity. Things that have felt hidden will begin to become clear. Dreams will come alive again. Fresh revelation and new-wine blueprints will begin to flow where there has been little direction or hope.
For some of you, this has been a long season of pain, disappointment, and spiritual exhaustion. You have been so busy fighting that you have forgotten what it feels like to dream with God. But I hear Him calling you back into His presence, back into His goodness, and back into your real assignment.
Like Joshua and Caleb, we need to linger with the Lord until His perspective becomes ours. They saw the same giants everyone else saw, but they understood that the promise of God was greater than the obstacle in front of them. We are not called merely to survive this hour. We are called to advance the Kingdom and occupy until He comes.
I hear the Lord saying, “I AM FLIPPING THE SCRIPT. I AM RESTORING YOUR VISION. I AM AWAKENING MY ARMY. I AM PUTTING COURAGE BACK INTO MY PEOPLE.”
The waters are rising. The glory of God is rising. And the Lord is asking us to lift our eyes from the darkness and recognize what heaven is doing.
WILL YOU KEEP STARING AT THE BATTLE, OR WILL YOU COME UP HIGHER AND SEE?
Father, in the mighty name of Jesus, I pray for every person who has been living under fear, foreboding, torment, and battle-weariness. Break the heaviness. Break the fog. Break every yoke that has kept Your people contained and distracted from who You have called them to be.
Restore their fire, their dreams, their clarity, and their ferocity. Breathe upon the dry bones again. Wake the sleeping warriors. Call the remnant forward. Open the eyes of Your Church, just as You opened the eyes of Elisha's servant.
We repent for allowing the enemy's narrative to become louder than Your voice. Realign our hearts with the victory of the cross and the authority we have in Christ. Give us fresh vision for what You are building, and the courage to step into it.
THE WATERS ARE RISING. LORD, OPEN OUR EYES TO SEE IT, in Jesus’ mighty name. Amen!