People Get Ready, Jesus IS Coming
God has been bugging me for weeks to start a blog called “People Get Ready” to put down revelations He’s giving me, to challenge “common beliefs” (as in “does the belief line up with God’s word?” and other writing as He puts in on my heart.
So I’m feeling irritated this morning over clients who aren’t paying me on time and I grab my Bible, determined to shake off the annoyance. I open to Isaiah 62:10-11 and immediately knew that what I needed to be doing was obeying God and doing the blog He’s told me to do!
Here’s what He gave me: “Go through, go through the gates! Prepare the way for the people; Build up, build up the highway! Take out the stones, lift up a banner for the peoples! Indeed the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the world: “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Surely your salvation is coming; Behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him’” And they shall call them The Holy People, the Redeemed of the Lord.” Isaiah 62:10-11 (NKJV)
To me, it made perfect sense and I ran to my computer saying, “Okay, okay, I’ll start the blog!” You see, God’s been telling me for years to be a “watchman on the wall” and the purpose of People Get Ready is to “prepare the way” and proclaim that we are running out of time…Christ’s return draws near and Christians need to get serious about their calling and the work God has for them. It may sound scary or harsh, when I put it like that but the visions and words God has been giving me are powerful and serious.
And it’s not just me…Christian friends I have from all over the US are getting the same word and sense of urgency. Prophetic teachers on TV that I haven’t watched much in awhile are saying the same thing. But for me, it’s what God is saying.
I’ve been having visions again (and a lot more than the occasional ones I’ve gotten here and there over the years); God has been giving me words of knowledge and prophecy (again, not the norm for me over the last several years.) But the biggest thing He’s done has really blown me away. He gave me a date that “something bad would happen.”
I figured I was probably imagining things because of the news about potential terrorist attacks. The Lord had never given me a date before about anything and I was getting either September 27th OR 29th (which didn’t seem like God to me!) In hindsight, I know I was being warned.
Because of the recent news stories about foiled terrorists plots in the US (and some from the New York plot that are still unknown/missing) I thought that IF it was God and IF something happened, it might be something horrible like an attack on US soil. I had a sense of unease and sadness.
On Sunday, September 27th, my pastor made a public thanks proclamation about the fact that we didn’t get hit, that thousands of people didn’t die. I clapped along with everyone else but that sense of sadness and unease stayed with me.
That night, I attend a prayer meeting of a client, her first in the Houston area. I wanted to support her but I also wanted to see a movement of God! My son and I almost got into a bad car wreck on the way there. Only in hindsight did I realize the significance of the date.
On the 29th, I’m at my computer working and I look at the calendar and see September 30th. (Because I’m self-employed, I don’t always keep track of dates.) I think to myself, “Well, it’s the 30th and both the 27th and the 29th passed without a terrorist attack…yep, it was my imagination!” I feel relief.
Then awhile later, I turn on my office t.v. to the news and hear about an 8.0 earthquake off the coast of American Samoa. I hear that a tsunami is heading for Hawaii and New Zealand and then I see the date on the t.v….September 29th. I had gotten the dates wrong.
The emotions that overwhelmed me are hard to describe. Mostly, it was a terrible sadness and that sadness was because I KNOW that millions of people haven’t accepted Jesus and are going to suffer immensely in the coming tribulations. Awe and fear because I immediately knew that God IS talking to me and that He’s serious…we are running out of time. A sense of urgency to DO what God is telling me to do. But mostly sadness.
How many people do I know that don’t want to hear about Jesus? How do I reach them? How do I fulfill the plans God has for me? There are times I despair.
What about you? What is God telling you? How many people do you know who have rejected your previous attempts to share the gospel? Where do we find the nerve to try again? WILL we try harder if we know we’re running out of time?
I wonder. But I can’t just wait because I KNOW in my spirit…people, we need to get ready.
Crystal Lewis sings People Get Ready at the Harvest Crusade 2006
