Anita Alexander: "Keys to Transitioning Into Fulfillment"

From the desk of Steve Shultz:

How many of you have been longing for the NEW and for the fulfillment of His plans to come into your life? Anita Alexander of Australia writes an excellent word and teaching to prepare for us for the new thing coming from the Lord as she shares:

The Lord is taking us higher and into new places. Those new places are places of birthing, are places of reaping and are places of fulfillment. But the "way" He is leading us is the new and the way He performs His Word usually is not on our "grid, plan, format or way" of how we envisioned it would look like.

Did you get that? It's coming in ways we most likely didn't expect! Read this word and gain some great keys as God transitions us into His fulfillment! (To Subscribe to the Elijah List subscribe here.)

Behold I Am Doing a New Thing!

"Do not earnestly remember the former things; neither consider the things of old. Behold I am doing a new thing! Now it springs forth; do you not perceive and know it and will you not give heed to it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." (Isaiah 43:18-19)

"New" in Hebrew means fresh, new thing. Lexicon explains it further to say "fresh of this year". Fresh for this year speaks of this season. It's the new flow for this season – what we are in now.

The Lord is taking us higher and into new places. Those new places are places of birthing, are places of reaping and are places of fulfillment. But the "way" He is leading us is the new and the way He performs His Word usually is not on our "grid, plan, format or way" of how we envisioned it would look like.

The mistake we can make is try to move forward with old methods and ways of doing things. The Word says in Luke 5:36, "No one puts a patch from a new garment on an old garment; if he does, he will both tear the new one, and the patch from the new one will not match the old garment."

The new and the old don't "match". The new is ruined if we try and mix the old. We can't expect this new season to look like the old. Because it won't. You can't just decide to do something new because you are frustrated with the old. You need the UNCTION of God on you to bring Heaven. You need a NEW INSTRUCTION with NEW UNCTION like Joshua when they took Jericho.

Transition

The transition can be awkward. There's tension between where you are leaving and where you are going. Like in Joshua 3 when the children of Israel were crossing the Jordan from the wilderness into the Promised Land. Joshua said to the Israelites to let the ark of the covenant carried by the priests "GO BEFORE" and let there be a space between it and the people, so that you may know the way, because you have not been this way before.

Transitioning into the new can be stretching, because we have never been there before. We have no grid for it. And what we tend to do is create a map and a plan. There is no map and plan for the new. You have to flow and be led by the Spirit.

Mature sons are led by the Spirit. But religion requires a format and a set plan of rituals. Those set formats and rituals are normally conditioned to please the mind of man to avoid offense. The ways of the Spirit will offend the mind of carnal reasoning.

The mind of the Spirit will challenge the ways and formats of man, because they put limits and conditions on God. God will not be put in a box. Carnal reasoning limits Him to "HOW" He needs to do what He has promised. It must fit within our certain guidelines.

Hope in the "What" Not in the "How"

We tend to put conditions on God in "how" He is to fulfill that which He has said. A new thing is when God does something we might not expect. We need to be ready to flow with whatever the Holy Spirit is doing. We can't expect this new season to look like the old – because it's not. That is where a lot of us go wrong. We have it all figured out, and we have all of our conditions on the "how" He is going to do what He said He is going to do.

We mustn't put our HOPE (expectation) in the "way" the Lord desires to fulfill His Word, but rather put our HOPE (expectation) in the very Word itself. We know His word doesn't return void and it has the power within itself to fulfill itself.

Hope = Expectation. We get disappointed when our expectations of when, where and how God is going to fulfill what He has said doesn't happen. But we aren't to hope in the "how" we are to hope in the "what". WE are to HOPE IN FAITH.

"For Abraham human reason for hope being gone, hoped in faith he should become the father of many nations as he had been promised." (Romans 4:18)

Hope is a key ingredient to the operation of faith. We aren't truly in faith when we still have "our plan" and our little agenda going on which can lead to us missing it when it does show up. When we have exhausted all our little schemes and preconceived ideas of "how" God is going to fulfill what God has promised, we only have one option and that is to "hope" in faith. Hope in what God has said "what" He will do.

Every option of fulfillment in the natural was exhausted for Abraham. There was no natural, possible way He could be the father of many nations. But He put His expectation alone in "what" God had promised him not the "how". The "how" part is His business, we just need to know the "what". We are not to hope in evidence, because that's not hope.

True Faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not yet seen and discerned with the natural senses (Hebrews 11:1). That's why in order to have hope we must have faith. Faith gives us information and instruction, promises and vision – where there is no vision the people perish (Proverbs 29:18).

Where there is no prophetic insight – Rhema faith – people lose self-control and cast off restraint! In other words: you give up, you grow weary in well-doing and you disqualify yourself to reap at your appointed time! Depression can be a result of no hope. But when we place our hope in our faith, even if it looks impossible, we can have a joy in our heart no matter what is going on around us. We have to actively engage in faith. We have to actively engage in trust, and hope.

Don't give up! Hope in what God has said. Not HOW God will do it. God's ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8). How God does stuff is His business and believe me it will look different than how you're trying to make it. When we have our little fingerprints on stuff, we limit it immediately and try and fit God into our little box.

I've had many prophecies fulfilled that look completely different to how I thought they would look when I first conceived the word of the Lord. Some have even offended my natural mind which caused me to wrestle for many months before I even yielded to the promise and received that which God wanted to give me. I definitely have heard myself say on many occasions, "But Lord can't we do this another way?"

When Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane He not only yielded to the Lord's will but He also yielded to the way. There is just as much death in yielding to His way as there is in yielding to His will. We all want the end result of the promise, but sometimes don't enjoy the way.

When Jesus was in the garden before His crucifixion He was dying to the way. He desired the will of the Lord. The will of the Lord is the end result. He desired the Father's redemption of mankind and for the enemy to finally be defeated and put in His place once and for all. But on that night, for a moment, He asked the Father: "Cannot this cup pass by me?" (Matthew 26:39.) He was saying, "Father can we not do this another way?" Then He surrendered and said, "Not My will but Yours be done." (Matthew 26:39.) He was saying, "Not My way but Your way in order to fulfill Your will."

Will You Not Recognize it?

The key is to have eyes to see. To "recognize" the new thing when it manifests. Or the new leading of the Lord, the new way He is taking you, one that may never have entered your mind (Isaiah 43:19). The KJV says, "Will you not know it?"

Hebrew: Know – To ascertain by seeing, to discern, to be aware, understand.

We need to "see" to "recognize" new things that are budding forth and flow with that. What are some examples of the new ways that God is moving in this hour? What are the new things springing forth – budding forth?

• We are seeing an emergence of women to the forefront.

• We are seeing the Lord using children more and more.

• The Lord releasing His Word through picture and sound – creative arts, movies and music.

• Our intercession has changed. The way we are doing intercession is shifting. We can't stay where we were, we must move forward.

We can't be afraid of the new. We must embrace it. Those that desire to hold on to control, will resist what God is doing. Those that desire to be seen will resist what God is doing, because there will be a call to lay it down. The book of Proverbs says: before honor comes humility (Proverbs 18:12). (Photo via Pixabay)

Sarah almost mocked the Lord when she heard the word of the angel that came to Abraham in Genesis 18. She couldn't perceive or recognize that God's Word had actually never changed – just the way He was going to fulfill it didn't match her carnal reasoning. In fact, maybe she may have been embarrassed of being pregnant that late in life.

I'm guessing it was a new thing for a woman of that age to first of all conceive and then bear to full term and have the strength to give birth. I'm guessing that never before had she or anyone else for that matter seen such a thing. But just because you have never seen it before doesn't mean it is not from God.

Maybe some people are like Sarah, they might be embarrassed for the way God wants to move in their lives. When Jesus in John 11 asked Martha to move the grave stone away from Lazarus' tomb, she hesitated because he had been deceased four days and the smell would have been "offensive". Sometimes, when God wants to move on our behalf and show up in power it can be offensive to the carnal mind.

Maybe Martha might have thought a better "way" of raising Lazarus from the dead was to do so before the stone was rolled away? Sometimes we can be apprehensive about the Holy Spirit having complete control because it takes us out of our comfort zone. Us humans always care about "how it looks". Will we be judged, will people think we are weird and different and crazy? Sometimes we can be fearful of the Holy Spirit moving because it might not look corporate or professional enough, polished and fashionable enough.

John the Baptist didn't fit the professional/corporate brief, nor did He come to entertain the masses. But rather He was a threshing instrument of the Lord preparing the way, making every crooked place straight, and every rough place smooth, leveling every valley and bringing every mountain low.

What we can think is rough, God calls smooth and what we think is smooth, God calls rough. Sometimes what we think is straight, God calls crooked and sometimes what we think is crooked, God calls straight. His ways and thoughts are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8).

Blessed Are the Pure in Heart

We need to be open to how God wants to fulfill that which He has promised, and be spiritually discerning enough to recognize it when it comes.

Matthew 5:8 says, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

Pure: Greek – clean, clear, pure, innocent.

See: Greek – to appear, to show oneself, appear.

Purity is when your heart is free from agenda, and then you will discern what is God and what isn't. You will see harvests being reaped in places you have never dreamed. You will see opportunities for the Kingdom where you have never yet pondered. When we put all our agendas aside and yield to authenticity, the sky is the limit for what God can do in our lives.

The Lord anoints authenticity. He anoints who you are and what it is you have to invest here on this earth. It takes courage to be authentic, resist being a copy-cat expression, and determine to release and put your fingerprint on this earth. For God has put an expression that is unique in you, and that only you have. Unclog the flow by letting Him lead you in new fresh ways and take you higher into partnering with Him on this earth. (To Subscribe to the Elijah List subscribe here.)

Blessings,

Anita Alexander
Revival Flame Ministries
Email: anita@revival-flame.org
Website: www.revival-flame.org

Anita Alexander is a prophetic revivalist who has a heart for revival, healing and transformation. Motivated by an intense love for the Body of Christ, Anita's passion and compassion is to see the Church forsake religion and tradition, awaken to the Father's love and arise and walk in the overcoming identity as sons and daughters of the Kingdom.

Anita and her husband Dr. Sasha Alexander travel nationally and internationally ministering in revival fire that brings resurrection life, healing and awakening to the Body of Christ. Together their passion is to impart, raise up and release a generation of sons and daughters who manifest the glorious victory of the finished work of the Cross and demonstrate their true overcoming identity. They are co-founders and senior ministers of Revival Flame Ministries, Golden City Church, and University of the Spirit Ministry Training School and reside in Gold Coast, Australia.

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