In September 2019, God gave us three words for 2020 — New Beginning, New Normal, Divine Upgrade.
New Beginning
The Lord was “flipping the page” of human history and moving the world into a new chapter of His storyline. While His storyline has not changed, He is doing a new thing that is totally unprecedented in our time in this decade and beyond.
This decade is a new phase of more intense preparation that requires perseverance in the midst of increasing intensities. This decade also begins a new move of His Spirit that will result in the beginnings of Gideon’s army, the End-Time wholehearted army of God, arising among the young generation.
Because we have entered into this new chapter, we need to let go of our past successes, failures, and old ways of looking at and doing things (Isa. 43:18). We need to cast off every weight that ensnares us (Heb. 12:1) so that we can step into the New Beginning with Him.
New Normal
Through Covid-19, God was ushering the world into a New Normal in both the positive and negative. (Even the secular world and media began to use the phrase “New Normal” in the midst of the pandemic.)
The New Normal in the negative consists of greater challenges, fiercer storms, increasing darkness, unprecedented pressures, and uncertainty. The Lord highlighted that we are no longer living in a “peace-time framework” but have transited into the new normal of a “war-time framework”.
However, He is also bringing about a New Normal in the positive for the people of God. He is bringing restoration and revival to the Church so that what is normal in the Book of Acts will be the New Normal for us! His shaking, shifting and sifting is for the birthing forth of a New Normal in the Church.
Indeed, the Lord is changing the understanding and expression of Christianity in one generation. He is bringing His Church into a new wineskin. No longer will we be centred primarily around Sunday services, programmes, a building, or the senior pastor, but we will be centred around Jesus, grounded in His Word, and led by the Holy Spirit.
He is calling us to no longer live life business as usual. He is calling us to step out of institutionalising “Church” and into the New Normal of being the Spirit-led Body of Christ.
Divine Upgrade
Last but not least, the Lord promises to bring forth a divine upgrade to His Church in power, authority, and things of the Spirit. Covid-19 exposed our lack of prophetic insight and supernatural power; however, God will not leave us there.
He is upgrading us to move in greater signs, wonders and supernatural works, with greater authority and power at the place of prayer, and in greater understanding and reality of the spirit realm. We will arise to become the Ekklesia (Matt. 16:18) against which the gates of Hades shall not prevail.
Living in the New Normal and positioning ourselves for this Divine Upgrade will be crucial moving forward. We will face many situations where there will no longer be any viable human solution.
The only answer will be to hear from the Lord at the place of prayer and to partner with Him as He leads, guides and directs us. We need to be so sensitive to the Lord and so sharp in our spirit that we can hear the Spirit’s voice with clarity. We need to possess authority and power that empowers us to wage spiritual warfare.
Through the three words for 2021, the Lord was directing His people to embrace His End-Time Storyline and narrative, to engage our hearts with Him in the preparation process, so that we can enter into His New Normal and the promises for our generation.
Embrace
God spoke that His people had to wholeheartedly embrace His storyline and make it our very own. This requires us to reject any other storyline, including the various narratives that are fed to us by the secular world, to “jump into” His story, and be about our Father’s business.
This means we also have to fully embrace God’s promises and destiny for this generation and not pursue our own dreams or agendas. If we embrace the reality that many young people alive today will see the return of Jesus, our focus and pursuits will consequently change.
Engage
The Lord called us to engage His heart in two specific aspects. Firstly, He desires us to fully engage His heart in intimacy. He is not looking for hired servants who serve out of requirement or a sense of duty but for Friends of the Bridegroom who care deeply about Him and His purposes.
Secondly, He is calling us to engage our hearts with Him in the preparation process in this decade of Preparation for the Times. This is crucial if we are to grow strength to stand in the coming storms and be His light in the coming darkness.
Without our hearts connected and in engagement with God, we will not be able to fully enter into His promises.
Enter into
In retrospect, the Covid-19 Pandemic and the Ukraine war with their sequelae and ramifications were divine disruptions from the Lord directing the Body of Christ into divine preparation, so that we can enter into His promises.
We are now in God’s Sovereign Appointed Time where we will see the actualisation of His promises for the End-Time generation. It will be so foolish of us if we are in the kairos hour of God, yet totally miss out on what the Lord is doing because we did not respond! As we engage the Lord, we can have confidence that He will give us the grace to enter into the promises and shift into the divine upgrade that He has prepared for us.
Take Heed to Respond
The Lord also revealed to us that there are things which can hinder us from entering into His fullness – an unresponsive or hardened heart (Heb. 3:7-8), unbelief (Heb. 3:12), passivity (Heb. 4:11) and fear. We need to take heed and deal with our hearts diligently, so that we may be counted worthy to enter into the fullness of all that He has for us! We certainly do not want to be like the generation of Israelites who did not enter into the promised land because of where their hearts were at!
Indeed, as we look back at the prophetic words that the Lord has given us over the past 13 years, we are truly thankful and amazed!
The precision of God’s words and His profound prophetic leadership leave us with no shadow of a doubt that He is in this with us!
He is the One on the throne who is orchestrating the events and engineering the shifts and transitions. He is inviting us to be part of His move by first leading us into a season of preparation.
Having seen His prophetic leadership over us, we can have great confidence that the Lord Himself will continue to lead us through the coming challenging decades. He will work deeply in our lives and transform us to become the very kind of people who carry His glory and His light, even as we align with Him and entrust ourselves into His faithful hand of leadership!
If the Lord has stirred your heart with these words from 2020 and 2021, you can listen to our Word of the Lord 2020 and Word of the Lord 2021 teachings.
Preparation for the Times (Intro)
Online Equipping | New Launch*
In light of God’s word that the 2020s is a decade of Preparation for the Times, we have put together an online equipping course for those who desire to respond and begin their journey of making themselves ready for the New Era ahead.
This course is free of charge as we desire to equip as many people in the Body of Christ as possible.
We pray that Holy Spirit will lead, guide and strengthen you as you respond to Him!