A number of years ago God gave me a vision that has stuck in my spirit and from time to time He brings it into clearer focus. I shared that vision in a piece entitled Stuck At The Cross. Take a few minutes and read that vision to set the stage for what follows(Click Here). The vision was all about our burdens and how so many believers find themselves stuck at the cross, unable or unwilling to move on. It was a sad state of affairs when He gave me the vision and it is even sadder today. However, last week God revealed more of the vision through the words of a most familiar worship song; Hear Us From Heaven.
It was through the words of this song that the Lord once again impressed upon me the urgency of the call He is making to His bride. A call to which, for many reasons, a great number of believers are failing to respond. They are singing the words but they are missing the deeper meaning, the profound call, the cry of His heart.
Lord, here our cry
Come heal our land
Breathe life into these dry and thirsty souls
Lord, hear our prayer
Forgive our sin
And as we call on Your name
Would You make this a place
For Your glory to dwell
The cry is there but it comes from hearts that are overcome and overwhelmed with the cares and things of this world; souls that are truly dry and thirsty. This is the same cry that is coming from an unbelieving world looking for anyone who will listen: Hear us, heal our land… make things better… make things the way they used to be. How sad that often the cries of many believers are just like the ones rising from those with unsaved hearts. They are the cries of desperation, and desperate hearts are ones that have lost hope. They are reckless and dangerous because of their fear. They often make hasty decisions in an attempt to make the fear go away. At the heart of the issue is the fact that they have lost hope and have become frantic in their search for answers.
Why?
The answer lies in the fact that the bride of Christ is herself weighed down with many of the same burdens. That ought not to be but the Lord gave me two very good reasons that it is in fact the case.
Open the blind eyes
Unlock the deaf ears
While the bride calls out for healing for herself and the unsaved she ignores the importance of what she is crying for. The important question is why is she blind and deaf and what is the result?
Come to Your people
As we draw near
Hear us from heaven
Touch our generation
We are your people
Crying out in desperation
Desperate people are not often really seeking the correct answer, they are seeking any answer that will remove the danger they are facing or the pressure they are feeling. They are willing to go to extreme measures to find an answer and are often foolhardy in the actions they take. She asks God to “come” and to “hear” her cry, but why in so many cases has He not responded?
He doesn’t answer because she is burdened with the things of this world. She is blinded by the material answers of the world and is unable or unwilling to see. She is deaf to the voice of God because of the chaos and noise of the world around her that she lets in. She is hard of hearing or turns a deaf ear because she “refuses” to hear; it may not be what she wants to hear. She refuses to hear His knock at her door because to truly hear Him is to respond Him and to respond to Him is to obey Him. But she continues to lie in her bed… searching in desperation.
Lord hear our song
Your children worship
As we sing out Your praise
Would you make this a place for Your glory to dwell
She goes through the motions but fails to understand why God doesn’t make America a place for His glory to dwell. And the reason is right there in her bedchamber. She — the bride of Christ — is the answer that she is cries out for. But she has become so burdened by the world, its system and the resulting chaos that she has become blind and deaf to the answer she holds. If she wants God to hear her from heaven then she needs to cast her burdens at the cross and move onward and upward. Sin and the flesh have to be crucified at the cross. God will not honor anything done in the flesh, no matter how good she thinks it may be. It’s all wood hay and stubble to be burned up at the judgment seat… better that she should burn up the deeds of the flesh here and now before she gets there.
The Lord has already given His bride the answer she is desperately searching for. It is the answer that America needs but is unaware of. It is a message that the bride needs to deliver but she cannot do that if she continues to cower in her bedchamber and lift up empty pleas that rise no further than the ceiling. And the reason is that she fails to recognize two very important elements that are the cause of her blindness and deafness.
When she came to the cross and left her body of sin in exchange for His righteousness she also left her old nature; her flesh. Both were crucified, dead and buried with Jesus. Neither has any impact on her as they are both dead. But if she doesn’t understand that then she will continually wage a war with both. Her flesh died on the cross and no longer has rule over her life… unless she continues to give it life. This is a major struggle for many who consider themselves the bride of Christ and unless they truly understand that the flesh is dead and that their new life is in their spirit they will continue to wage that war. And to do so is to fail to be about her calling as His bride.
Hear our cry, heal our land, breathe life into these dry and thirsty souls, hear our prayer…
Those words are critical today if America is to have any hope of survival. God has the answer and He has been crying it out for centuries but it has to be delivered by the bride of Christ and she can’t do that if she is blind and deaf to the message. The answer that the bride carries in her heart is the gospel but she needs to hear His knock at her door and respond. And that is a big “IF” — an “IF” of monumental consequences.
2 Chron 7:14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
Yes, God has the answer for America but He is not going to deliver it. That is the job of His people, the bride of Christ. But first she must:
· Humble herself
· Pray
· Seek His face
· Turn from her wicked ways
It all has to begin with the bride — it all begins in the house of the Lord — it all begins in her bedchamber. The bride must come away from the world and be separate. She must be the first to fall on her knees and repent, leave the world of the flesh, draw deeper into His presence and follow the leading of His Spirit. That is where the answer she seeks resides, the answer America desperately needs. But it is only when she is free to deliver that message that America will see and hear it. It is only then that…
God will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and will heal their land.
Then and only then does America have a chance of becoming what she cries out for…
A place for your glory to dwell
Time draws short and for the bride and the moment of response is fleeting. She must reckon her flesh dead along with her sin and allow the Holy Spirit to draw her into a deeper relationship with her bridegroom; into a relationship where her soul will be dominated by her spirit and not her flesh. In the words of Watchman Nee:
Many have confused “apprehending” with “believing.” To apprehend is just to understand in the mind that this doctrine is reasonable and believable. To believe, in the biblical sense, is to be united. To believe that the Lord Jesus died for us is to unite ourselves in the death of the Lord Jesus.
As His bride are you “united” with Him or do you just “apprehend?” May the Lord open our blind eyes and our deaf ears so we can see His face and hear His voice. And that can only happen at His feet where the secret to a true relationship can be found. Only then and there will He… Hear us from heaven.