“Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities.” (Isaiah 54:2-3)

I have come to the place in my life where I am constantly testing this word.  I am constantly stretching my physical and spiritual boundaries and God is continually spreading me right and left.

When I returned to Christ 8 years ago, the Lord said to me through His word that the blessings of Abraham were mine in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:13-14) and I believed Him.  I learned that the work of Christ destroys the curse in our lives so that the blessings of God in Deuteronomy 28 can flow into them.

When this revelation first came to me I had no job, I had no house, I was living with strangers, I was still addicted to cigarettes and alcohol.  But in my heart I knew by Holy Spirit in me the truth of this scripture.  I could see in my spirit the journey ahead was filled with multiplied blessings.  Everything I needed and desired were mine in Christ if I only heeded His voice.

Ever since I first received this word I have been accessing it and have indeed enlarged the place of my tents.  The Lord has restored to me the blessing of marriage, children, houses, jobs, wealth, ministry, and church.  He has blessed me with everything that I put my hand at to do.

I have been fruitful because my God makes me fruitful.  Even in seasons of drought I am looking for a harvest.  When the rest of the world is anxious about tough times I get excited because I know that the blessing is not limited in my life by the world’s economic situation or drought conditions.  The Lord is my provider during good times and during bad, and he is always generous.

This grace for blessing is not something that I earned but something that was my inheritance in Christ Jesus.

Last week I found myself wanting to get anxious about my finances.  I had invested in a number of ministry engagements resulting in a significant outlay of finances.  In the midst of it I started to laugh.  Holy Spirit said to me “If God is challenging you to put out that much money at one time, then the harvest must truly be plentiful.”

I sowed in laughter and I am reaping in laughter just one week later.  A lot of the money I sowed last week has already returned to me through sources I didn’t expect.  I was also asked to speak at four different churches since then.  In the natural this is crazy, but I am a spiritual man.

I didn’t stop sowing either.  Before any of the money came in and before the engagements to speak came, I had already invited two other speakers to come and told them I would pay their way.

You see, I am enlarging the place of my tents.  I believe the word of God and know that it is true.  I know it because I have tested it.  In the testing I have never been put to shame.  I have always been rewarded.

God wants to do the same thing in your life.  Will you believe Him for greater things today and trust His word despite what your circumstances say?  I can assure you He will be faithful to His word.

Spiritual Warfare in the face of the enemy is one of the most powerful tools that you and I have in the face of oppression, anxiety and fear.  When we learn to worship despite our circumstances, God is able to bring about a great deliverance.

I can hear you now. You are saying: “But you don’t understand what I am going through.  The depression, the anxiety and fear that I am dealing with is so great that I am not able to praise Him.”  Well that may seem to be true but in Christ there is an answer.

I found this nugget in Isaiah 57:19 recently.  It says: “God will create the fruit of the lips.”

You say you are barren, then, bless God, He is able to make all grace abound to you. So just ask him to create the praise of your lips.

Just ask Holy Spirit to manifest in your heart in such a way that praise bubbles up like a stream from within you so that you glorify and praise God in your spirit even while your mind is in turmoil.

There are many times that my mind is preoccupied with a matter and heaviness tries to grip me. In these moments it would be easy to give into the heaviness.  But I have discovered that in these moments there is often a song in my heart planted by Holy Spirit.

Even this morning as my mind wandered from one thought to the next. I was aware of a song deep down in my heart.  One phrase kept playing like a recording over and over inside of me.  The words essentially forming a prayer stating, “Father, open the heavens, send your fire and send your rain.”

As I thought about it I realized that my spirit has been praying this way for at least two days without ceasing.  Every time I come in tune with my spirit that song is still playing.  I am feeling a warmth in my spirit even now as I describe this to you.

This is the work of Holy Spirit. Ezekiel 36:26-27 says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”

It is the work of Holy Spirit in me that helps me to praise God.  It is not something that the old man with his disposition toward sin can easily do.  But when all things are made new the song of praise is on my lips because the Holy Spirit created it.  I am trying to say that even praising Him is a work of Grace.

So just thank the Lord today and ask him to “Create the fruit of your lips.”  Ask Him to fill your spirit in such a way that praise and worship fall off of you as easily as apples from a tree in the late summer.

“Sing, barren woman, you who never bore a child;
burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor;
because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband,” says the Lord. (Isaiah 54:1)

As I read this verse this morning a new thought came into my mind. It was about the place of praise and worship in intercession.

This scripture seems to be saying that when you are barren spiritually, then burst out in praise or song and watch the multiplication that will take place.

Indeed praising and worshiping God in the face of oppression and obstacles has a way of birthing something new in the spirit.

I remember in the early days of revival at Kinburn there was an oppression that would come over the atmosphere of worship.  It was difficult to sing and praise the Lord.

Many times as you worshiped there would come an accusatory spirit that would place the blame of lack of worship upon other people in the congregation.  Some of the leaders would even stop the worship and rebuke the people for not worshiping.  There was often a spirit of hate and anger that would manifest during these times, which only led to more barrenness.

In this barren and desolate place I have to admit there were times that it was so hard to worship the Lord.  I began to cry out to God and ask him what to do.

Two of us went for prayer during one service when the spirit was particularly oppressive and we both heard “worship in the face of the enemy.”

Further revelation has come to me during the years since I first heard this statement.  If you remember in the Old Testament it says, “Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the Lord and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying: “Give thanks to the Lord, for his love endures forever (2 Chronicles 20:21).”

I want you to think about this picture for a moment.  Here are the armies arrayed against each other and Israel is sending a choir into the face of the enemy singing about how God’s love endures forever.  It is such a picture of lack of concern of what the enemy is doing.  They are just worshiping the Lord despite the obvious peril in front of them.

The next thing you know ^“as they began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who were invading Judah, and they were defeated (vs. 22).”

At Kinburn when we learned to worship in the face of the enemy, the atmosphere would shift and God’s presence would flood.  The spirit of hate was overcome by a spirit of joy, peace and love; by the very presence of God.

We learned that through praise we were helping to establish an atmosphere for the very presence of God to come and defeat the enemy in many lives.  We learned to worship until the atmosphere in the room was free from oppression and until the Holy Spirit came. Then as we prayed many healings and deliverances would take place.

In the same way you can shift the atmosphere and the enemy can be defeated in many places including in your homes, schools, jobs or wherever you may find yourself.

Praising in the face of the enemy is one of the most powerful spiritual warfare tools you can use on the road to fulfilling your destiny.

Have you experienced victory through worship in the face of the enemy? Please share your stories with the rest of your DWOD family.

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance? Who can fathom the Spirit of the Lord, or instruct the Lord as his counselor? Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him, and who taught him the right way? Who was it that taught him knowledge, or showed him the path of understanding? (Isaiah 40:12-14)

We must continuously remind ourselves of whom God is, or better yet, cry out to Him and ask Him to show us who He is.

I am always aware that my understanding of God is a sketch at best.  As soon as I imagine Him I have already limited Him.  As soon as I speak about Him my ignorance of Him is known.

To say that He is love is to assume too much because your understanding of love is based on your own experience of it, and none of us has ever learned to love the way that God loves and therefore we are always learning His love more and more.  And that is the nature of our journey into God.  We are constantly learning and re-learning Him through the things that he says of Himself.

This Scripture in Isaiah reminds us of how big God is and how great is His mind.

No one can truly understand the magnitude of God’s thoughts, or all the calculations that rage inside of His mind, the many multiples that He considers each nanosecond.

Just think of the trillions upon trillions of considerations that go into our galaxy alone over the course of a mere second. Now multiply it by the 500 billion plus galaxies in the known universe.  My God, how great you are…

It is enough to be known by God.  It is enough that He knows our name.  The revelation that He gives of Himself through nature, through the word and through dreams and visions is precious.  We can understand Him in part because He reveals Himself to us.

One of the greatest prayers is what Paul prayed in Ephesians 1:15-17: “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better.”

And this is how we come to the knowledge of Him.  We humble ourselves before Him in prayer and ask Him to reveal Himself to us.  And each glimpse of God that I receive adds to my understanding of Him and yet I know that I will spend the rest of eternity in the pursuit of even greater understandings of Him.

There is no end to this journey of understanding.  God is infinite and I am finite.  I am thankful for His protection and His love.  I am thankful that He protects me from His great power as I snuggle up closer and closer to Him learning more and more.

I pray that today you also will always be engaged in this great pursuit of God and that revelation of His nature and love for you will fill all your senses.  May God bless you more and more as you pursue Him more and more.

A voice says, “Cry out.” And I said, “What shall I cry?”

“All people are like grass, and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.

The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them.

Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall,

but the word of our God endures forever.” (Isaiah 40:6-8)

I love this passage of Scripture in how it shows the relationship between the preacher’s message and prayer.  The best prayer a preacher can pray is: “My God, I have a fire in my heart, but what will you have me preach? Show me, Lord!”

I remember in the early days of my salvation I rented a room to preach the gospel in downtown Ottawa.  A lot of people showed up.  Around 70 people fitted into a room that could hold 60.  It was awesome.  There was such energy in the room.

I preached for over an hour.  I preached every revelation that the Lord had given me up until that moment.  At the end of my sermon the people were asking me to continue preaching, but I was preached out.  I didn’t know what else to share.

I began to realize my need for knowledge in that moment.  Here I was, a preacher with very little to say.  I needed to spend time with God and ask Him what I should say.

Isaiah heard a voice!  He heard a burden in his heart.  “CRY OUT,” the voice said.  Isaiah replied “What shall I cry?”

That is humility.  The preacher who thinks he knows what to preach hasn’t really spent time in prayer.  There is hardly a time that I get up to preach that I have not spent many hours in prayer asking God what it is I should say.

I never assume.  Why?  Because I know what it is like to preach on deaf ears.  I know what it is like to preach without anointing.  This is when I preach from human knowledge and understanding.  I can do this, but I would rather be in the spirit.

Paul said: “for the gospel we brought did not come to you in words only, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit, and with deep conviction…” (1 Thessalonians 1:5).

When a preacher preaches this way he will call fire from heaven.  There is a demand that the preacher places on heaven when he will not speak unless God has spoken to him.  When he preaches from the heart of God, then he will release heaven on earth and signs and wonders will follow–a demonstration of the Holy Spirit.

Of course, what I have shared from the perspective of preaching applies equally to you, no matter what your calling may be. When you approach God in humility as Isaiah does in this passage or as David does in I Samuel 5:17-25 (reiterated in the second half of the DWOD for Jan. 02, 2013), you will be amazed at what He gives you in return!

For the preacher, it is the message that leads to conviction in the hearts of the listeners.

For the parent, it is the exact words to say to your children.

For the businessperson, it is the right strategy for the project at hand.

For the person who is not sure what to do, it is divine wisdom.

For you facing ……………… right now, it is …………………..

You too will discover that what He gives is exactly what you need.

“A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.

And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together.

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” (Isaiah 40:3-5)

When I first came back to the Lord I did not feel worthy to preach the gospel, but the desire birthed within me as God spoke deeply to my spirit.

I remember that in the early days I would have many visions and dreams of myself preaching the gospel to great crowds.  I remember standing on the balcony of a farm house in winter as I preached to the open fields.  There was a not a soul to be seen for miles around, but in my spirit I could see row upon row of people present listening to the words that God put in my breath.

In fact, every time I preach I see thousands and thousands of souls. Even when the rooms are only partially filled, I see this way.  I always preach like I am preaching to the masses, and indeed as a result I have preached to tens of thousands of people worldwide.

You have to see it before you live it.  You have to believe it and it does come to pass.  I am constantly seeing the harvest, the next soul, the next salvation.

I cry out to God to show me ways to reach the masses.  I don’t care if there are ten thousand preachers preaching the same gospel I intend to preach.  I don’t care if people cannot accept the package that I am.  I preach because I am called and the fire burns in my heart.  I preach because God told me to.

If you have been called to preach it is pretty hard to run from it.  Just ask Jonah how hard it is to run away from a call.  Just as you tuck yourself down in the dark galley to sleep, believing in your heart that God has forgotten you, the ship begins to toss and turn.  Before you know it you are in the seas clinging to life and calling out to God for the honor and the privilege to preach if only He will spare you.

Oh my Lord, this call you cannot escape.  Jeremiah cried out: “Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary from holding it back, and I could not.” (Jeremiah 20:9)

And that is the way it is.  You think you lack boldness. Then Holy Spirit comes and anoints you. Now you are in the middle of a prophetic word over the nations that many would like to stone you for speaking, but you can’t stop speaking it because the word burned in your heart.

Oh, there have been many times after I have preached with boldness, when the anointing has lifted and I am lying on my bed trying to sleep, terror overcomes me as I think about the words I spoke.  It was way too bold for me.  My flesh suffers in these moments as torrents of fear overcome me.  I say “I won’t preach that way again,” but before you know it I am doing the same thing again but this time I am bolder than the time before.

It is my prayer that you too will declare the word of the Lord with the boldness that comes from the Holy Spirit.

A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.
And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together.
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” (Isaiah 40:3-5)

It wasn’t long after I came back to Christ that I realized that the call that had been on my life as a young man was still there.  He had called me when I was 16 years old to minister the gospel of Jesus Christ and he had assured me – when I came back to him – that this call was still there.

In fact the reason that I came back to the Lord 8 years ago instead of 10 years ago is because of the realization of this call.  I didn’t really understand what he wanted me to do.

I was afraid I would go into poverty because of the call; a common misconception of many in the church in those days.  The call often was associated with poverty.

This has not been my experience.  God has blessed me with a prosperous life and I have my heart’s desire in every way.

My life became the message that brought hope for many lives.  I began to realize that many Christian families had prodigals like me that they were praying for to come back into the Kingdom.  Many mothers were crying out for their sons and daughters.

I represented a hope to them that these sons and daughters bound by drugs, addictions and suicide could indeed come back into the Kingdom and flourish as men and women of God.

I love the declaration that Joshua made over himself and his family in Joshua 24:15.  He said, “But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” 

I don’t fear the salvation of my children and trust me, some of them have gotten themselves into some interesting things.  I don’t fear because I know the power of God to salvation.  He saved me out of the miry pit and he will save my children.

I believe this with all my heart.  I do not care what comes out of their mouth or lips because I know that one day they will be preaching the gospel just like me.  I know it in my heart and have the assurances of God to that end.

Indeed it is my belief that if you are reading this now it is because of this hope of God that he will level every mountain in your family and raise up every valley.  There is no curse that has come upon you or your kin that he cannot remove.  As you “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understand, in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your path straight.” (Proverbs 3:5-6)

Perhaps you need prayer for a family member today.  If so, please feel free to ask us for prayer.  I know that God will touch your loved one.  I have seen him do it many times.

There is hope in Christ for you and for your loved ones.  The chains that shackle them will be loosed and they will be set free.

“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.  Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.”  (Isaiah 40:1-2)

This time of year has special meaning to me.  It was 8 years ago now that I came back into the sheepfold.  I was 32 years old and I felt so lost.  My first marriage had fallen apart and I was at the end of my own way.  When God breathed his spirit into my flesh that day it gave me hope that my life was now on a good path.

Isaiah 40:1-2 truly came to mean something in my life 8 years ago.  When I repented of my sin and Christ came into my heart I understood that my path was now secure.  This came to me by way of revelation.  As I read the Bible the Lord began to assure me that my way was secure in him.  I had nothing but God and yet I was completely satisfied.

I remember having a vision in the early days of my salvation.  In it I saw myself aboard a lonely train.  It was sort of like the trains that the Nazi Germans used to herd the Jews onto for their journey toward the death camps.

I remember seeing myself aboard one of these trains, but I was being set free.  The death journey had come to an end and I was being released into freedom.  I remember seeing my family in this dream that I had not seen in a long, long time.  We were reunited and it was sweet.

Before Christ we were all headed to the death camps.  Our sins committed us to this course.  Only in Jesus are we set free.  He delivers us from evil and our steps become new.  No longer are we bound to death because of our sins but we are set free to live a life of freedom.  All the blessings that come from a life of righteousness become ours; by no strength of our own but by the blessed grace of our God.  We are renewed and daily we are comforted by our God.  Before Christ I had no hope, but in Christ my hope is renewed daily.

My prayer for you today is that you will rise into a new hope for your life and that you will be comforted by Holy Spirit as you commit your way to Christ more fully.  And as you do I pray for the blessings of the Lord to overlap you on your journey in him.

Please take a minute to watch this video.

What I am sensing in the spirit for the New Year is an alignment to destiny.  Many people are being aligned for the harvest.  God will speak deeply into peoples’ hearts and give them strategies to deploy to bring souls into the Kingdom.  Some of these new strategies will result in hundreds of people being gleaned quickly into the Kingdom of God.

Leaders will begin to pop up that were never seen before.  These will be God’s instruments that he is uses to gather in the grapes for harvest.

Some ministers will fall to the wayside in the coming season.  They have not been listening to God’s voice.  There will be some that will leave the work of Christ to take occupations in industry or community because the salaries will be very tempting, but in these people’s place there will rise leaders who do not care about financial gain.  They will see a great harvest of souls in their communities and it will spread from place to place.

Suffering will be seen on a greater scale in many places.  Intercessors will begin to cry out for souls on other continents.  Tears will fall to the ground as a watering for harvest. India in particular will begin to experience some trauma that will result in a new sound going out in the spirit for harvest.

I see ministers coming together in a new way.  Leaders will join forces across philosophical divides and they will love each other and be joined together for the new thing that God is about to do.  Seasoned leaders will rise up and take the hands of junior leaders and propel them to greater heights.  They will not be threatened by each other but will do this because the Lord called them to do it.  They will see a double harvest as a result.

Prayer will become a greater priority for many.  People will begin to meet in places of work or in public to pray for the needs of their families and friends.  This will just naturally happen as an outcrop of fellowship with one another.  As a result salvations will occur in many of these unexpected places.

I am also sensing that the supernatural will grow stronger in the next season for those who will preach the gospel with boldness.  The Lord will impart a greater portion of his spirit to accomplish the task.  These ministers will preach with fire in their hands and feet.  They will travel to many places releasing the word in season and signs and wonders will follow.  Greater Signs will occur in this coming year that we have seen before.

Pastor Darren

For many Christmas is the time of year to focus for a moment on Christ as the baby in the manger.  It is a time that we hear Christmas music in public spaces and there is a feeling of goodwill in the air.

As I’d mentioned in an earlier post, it was 8 years ago on Dec. 19 that I walked into a little country church and watched the Christmas Story as it was performed by a cast of volunteer actors.  There was no professionalism about what they did.  There were cracks in their voices and the costumes lacked any lustre, but the message sank deep into my heart because the Holy Spirit was present.  That day I gave my heart to Christ.

Into this dark world came the Son of God to make us sons of God.  He came to set us free.  He came born in a manger, the lowliest place imaginable.  It didn’t matter to God where he was born.  Our greatest palaces pale in comparison to the heavenly abode that Christ left to come into this world.

The truth is he could have been born in the White House, or the palace of an emperor and these still would have paled in comparison to heaven.  He chose to be born in what we considered to be humble circumstances, not what he considered to be humble.

And that is the way God works. He will move on this earth in ways that will confound the wise and if we do not align ourselves to the sound of his voice we will miss the moving of his presence by his grace.

This Christmas season I pray that some of you will align yourselves to God again.  I pray that God will open your eyes not to just see him on one day per year, but that you would begin to see him every day of the year.

When you give your heart to Christ and you are grafted into the Vine, the blessing of Christmas comes alive in your heart all year long.  The gifts that God gives do not just come one morning of the year, but they are new every morning.

But it is only when you align yourself to him that this blessing comes into your heart.  The grace of God pulls us into the deep recesses of the spirit.  This is the place of the spirit where you become lost in glory never to return to darkness.  The gate to that place is the little baby Jesus born in Bethlehem to humble parents.

It might confound your mind but this is truth and the acceptance of this truth will allow the reign of the Kingdom of Christ to begin in your heart.  He is the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.  And of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end.

I pray that you will begin to experience that today as I did 8 years ago.

Merry Christmas, everybody!