From the desk of Steve Shultz:
This word by Paul Keith Davis is filled with so much insight that just reading it makes me want to press in and go higher. Paul Keith shares some great keys to help prepare and position us to come up higher and receive. God does have so much more revelation to pour out to His Church, giving us vast wisdom and understanding concerning His Kingdom.
I was moved by the story of Smith Wigglesworth and what contributed to his success in the Kingdom: a broken and contrite heart was the secret to Wigglesworth's success with God. Scripture tells us that a broken and contrite heart He will not despise (see Psalm 51:17). Many in the Body have been through such brokenness, but take heart—God can use it in a mighty way as He did with Smith Wigglesworth.
This word is too good to keep to yourself...feel free to forward on to your friends and family. I hope it gets you activated and excited for what He has just for you.
Paul Keith Davis:
A Key to Breakthrough in 2010: A Broken and Contrite Heart
Unquestionably, we are entering times of heightened spiritual activity and confrontation. We believe 2010 will be a year considerably different from the past, with measures of breakthrough experienced by the remnant who qualify: those having positioned themselves before God with humility, contrition and who tremble at His Word.
This truth was recently re-emphasized to me while conducting meetings in New Zealand. While there I was reminded of a story recorded in the life of the notable healing evangelist Smith Wigglesworth. It involved a key secret in his walk with God and the release of divine power through this great champion.
In 1922 Wigglesworth journeyed to New Zealand for a series of healing campaigns. At the time, he was unknown to New Zealand's leadership, but with great confidence various pastors rented the Wellington Town Hall to host the meetings. To everyone's delight, the Lord was wonderfully present in power, bringing healing and salvation to scores. The services were so successful that additional meetings were arranged and each was filled to capacity with God healing the most difficult cases of sickness and disease.
At the conclusion of the campaign one of the host pastors, while walking along the seashore with Wigglesworth, asked what his secret was to walking in demonstrations of God's power. Wigglesworth responded, "I am sorry you asked me that question, but I will answer it. I am a brokenhearted man. My wife who meant everything to me, died 11 years ago. After the funeral I went back and lay on her grave. I wanted to die there. But God spoke to me and told me to rise up and come away. I told Him if He would give me a double portion of the Spirit—my wife's and my own—I would go and preach the Gospel. God was gracious to me and answered my request. But I sail the high seas alone. I am a lonely man, and many a time all I can do is to weep and weep."
A broken and contrite heart was the secret to Wigglesworth's success with God. It is written in Psalm 51:17, "the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise."
As the two men continued walking along New Zealand's seashore, Wigglesworth emphasized what he carried in God was not to be envied, but instead he envied what the last generation will see. Wigglesworth explained that he had experienced three open visions with the Lord. Two of them were already fulfilled at the time of these meetings in 1922. However, he expressed the third would take place after his death. Wigglesworth explained, "Oh it was amazing! Amazing! I cannot tell God's secrets, but you will remember what I say—this revival we have had is nothing to what God is yet going to do."
The pastor to whom these comments were made recorded that he clearly understood Wigglesworth's comments were directed towards the spiritual outpouring within the generation preceding the Lord's return. He said, "It was quite evident that the evangelist had a special vision granted to him of the coming outpouring of the Spirit in an unprecedented effusion in the days just before our Lord comes to snatch away the Church."
Taking it to Another Level
Clearly, Wigglesworth was given a glimpse of God's plan for this present hour. It is also recorded that while in South Africa in 1936, Wigglesworth accurately prophesied what has now become known as the Charismatic renewal. He along with many other prior champions was allowed to prophetically observe and forecast what we as a generation can enjoy in God. Even so, the same qualifications are necessary for us that existed with Wigglesworth and the others.
It is incredibly sad that Wigglesworth lost his precious wife Polly. Nevertheless, it produced something in him that God was able to use to change a generation. Although we may not go through the precise loss that Wigglesworth experienced, our ultimate goal is to present ourselves before God in humility and genuine brokenness of heart because of our condition and the present need for godly character. Such a heart God will not despise and will powerfully anoint with demonstrations of His Spirit.
Following the meetings in New Zealand I felt a profound challenge being placed upon my life and that of God's leadership to take our consecration and devotion to a higher level. He deserves greater than we have been able to present thus far. Clearly there are many who have sacrificed notably throughout the Church to see His Kingdom revealed. Even so, for the most part—on the corporate level, we must aspire to something more.
Our Need for True Leadership
There is a present need for clarity and honorable leadership to emerge with a credible prophetic voice to provide direction and divine wisdom. With an increasing emphasis on the emergence of God's divine government there is an equal demand for Biblical understanding of God's promises for the end-of-the-age generation. There are clear spiritual endowments being imparted to those groomed and prepared for governmental responsibility. Never before has there been greater need for the spirits of wisdom and revelation promised in Ephesians 1:17-19 saying:
That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.
Like Daniel and his three friends in Babylonian captivity, we desperately need the impartation of heavenly wisdom and knowledge as well as intelligence in all manner of writing and literature. We desperately need insight and interpretation of our dreams and visions (Daniel 1:17).
It is my perspective that all true spiritual leadership is birthed out of friendship with the Lord. He once told His disciples that He no longer considered them servants, but friends. From that place of intimacy, God's mysteries, secrets and strategies are imparted that convey the Father's thoughts and aspirations for this generation. Therefore, our foremost pursuit should not necessarily be a spiritual office, but friendship with Jesus. Who we are and what we are called to be will become clearly recognized as we delegate Kingdom authority and walk with God like Enoch.
Supernatural Endowments
I have often studied and written on the life of Daniel; a man highly esteemed and greatly beloved in Heaven. The Lord told me years ago that Daniel was a prototype of the generation he foresaw. In many ways, Daniel and his three friends provide a prophetic picture of the manner by which the Lord will equip His people for special end-of-the-age assignments. The Babylonian captivity of natural Israel provides a forecast of our present condition and the Lord's promise for deliverance.
Daniel 1:17 describes Heaven's special empowerment imparted to these loyal young men. God gave them:
Knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom, and Daniel had understanding in all (kinds of) visions and dreams.
The Lord gave them by inspiration, revelatory knowledge and intelligence in various matters of writing and literature. The Lord quickened in them special skills to apprehend and articulate spiritual understanding and Heavenly wisdom. Daniel was notably gifted with supernatural perception into all manner of visions and dreams.
There was a specific impartation from God that empowered them to excel in the apprehension of wisdom and governmental scholarship. The Lord bestowed by spiritual transference the blessing of unique knowledge and exceptional capacity in literature and all manner of written work.
This pattern will also be followed in this day when the Lord discovers devoted hearts of obedience and loyalty. There are vast storehouses of revelatory insight and supernatural knowledge involving Scripture, creation, science, the arts and many other subjects that will be entrusted to saints who follow the model established by Daniel and his three friends.
A Prophetic Standard
These four young men provide a prophetic standard for the spiritually strong who know their God and carry out great exploits. They will intimately know God and engage the revelatory realm of Heaven. In them will be an excellent spirit granting acute perception and understanding to interpret dreams and visions, clarify revelatory experiences and solve difficult and enigmatic problems. They will be people who apprehend insight from the throne room and respond to the invitation to "come up here" to be shown things to take place in the future.
A few years ago during a prophetic experience, the Lord specifically stated to me that Daniel 1:17 was spiritually linked to Ephesians 1:17. These are parallel passages stating the same promises from different time frames. One is from the Old Covenant outlining God's dealings during difficult times but also pointing to a future day of supernatural intervention into the lives of mankind. The other is expressed in the New Covenant recording for all generations the heritage of the saints.
Despite our perceived personal limitations, the Lord is a quickening Spirit. He has promised to give life to our mortal bodies with His Spirit and grant to us the spirit of revelation that will access mysteries, secrets and revelatory knowledge as our legacy in Him.
Tokens of the Past
Many who attended Maria Woodworth-Etter's meetings at the turn of the 20th century would be caught up in the Spirit to experience visions and revelations of the Lord. These accounts are well documented and verified. Some would be commissioned in their encounter as missionaries to foreign lands and emerge from their visionary revelation capable of fluently speaking the language of the nation to which they were called.
It is the Father's good pleasure to reveal to us the Kingdom and perform awesome deeds that only He can achieve. It was a small thing for Him to rejuvenate the bodies of Abraham and Sarah and quicken them with strengthening virtue. Even after Sarah's death and well over one-hundred years of age, Abraham continued in the strength imparted to him by his encounter with El Shaddai and bore many more sons through Keturah.
Likewise, the Lord is more than able to equip us to access the unfathomable treasures hidden in Him that require supernatural gifts like those entrusted to the apostle Paul. As the Bible also clearly promises, the Holy Spirit knows what is hidden in darkness and reveals the deep and secret things. Light dwells with Him bringing illumination to that which has been set apart and reserved for the generation of destiny (Daniel 2:22).
Even now there are individuals engaging the revelatory realm of Heaven receiving downloads of insight into physics, light, sound and spiritual colors. The visitation of the apostle John to the throne room was both visual and audible. His experience disclosed awesome sights, sounds and vibrant colors surrounding the Lord's seat of dominion and victory. The more understanding we have of that realm the greater our ability to cooperate with Heaven in the demonstration of the Kingdom dominion on the earth.
Mysteries and Secrets of God
In like fashion, the Lord is releasing by the spirit of revelation, keys of understanding and interpretation into Kingdom mysteries and secrets reserved for the Last Days. Passages that have been present all along but with limited understanding will become illuminated and saturated with Spirit and Life. There is now being released from Heaven a spiritual endowment that will provide divine wisdom and revelatory insight. The prophecies of Isaiah point to this saying:
You have heard (these things foretold), now you see this fulfillment. And will you not bear witness to it? I show you specified new things from this time forth, even hidden things (kept in reserve) which you have not known.
They are created now (called into being by the prophetic word), and not long ago; and before today you have never heard of them, lest you should say, Behold, I knew them!—Isaiah 48:6-7 AMP
During the days of the early Apostolic Church, unprecedented events were taking place. The disciples were compelled to examine the prophetic writings of the prophets to provide a Scriptural basis for their experiences. No one could have anticipated the prophetic fulfillment that transpired on the Day of Pentecost. The Scriptures pointing to Pentecost were present all along but now the experience itself unlocked revelatory insight into the mysteries of the Kingdom that were imparted during the early Church.
There are notable thoughts and plans resident in God's heart that have been sealed and held in reserve until the appointed time. That day has now arrived and the Lord is releasing spiritual impartations that will be dynamic in their applications. The Scriptural truths and Kingdom mysteries that are imminently before us will have as much impact today as Martin Luther's ninety-five theses nailed to the Church door in Wittenberg, Germany, did in the early 16th century.
Paul Keith and Wanda Davis
WhiteDove Ministries
Email: inquiries@whitedoveministries.org
