2020: A Year of Great Freedom
First of all, HAPPY NEW YEAR! On behalf of my wife, Isabella, and the entire RIPMinistries team, we pray you have an amazing 2020. Today is the first Monday of this year/decade. As you open your heart to a new season, may the Holy Spirit reveal to you the new things God has for you in this new decade!
The theme I will be teaching on for the year is FREEDOM! I believe the Father wants us to experience GREAT FREEDOM in this season. To that end, I will share with you what the Father shares with me concerning it. This is going to be a great series of teachings and I trust you will be blessed. As you embrace and process message after message, may you discover what God has already planned for you for 2020, and may God’s best be manifested in your life and in the lives of your loved ones.
My prayer for you is what Paul prayed in Col 1:9-11. Pray this prayer and receive it:
“That God will make you completely sure of what he wants by giving you all the wisdom and spiritual understanding you need; that this will help you live in a way that brings honor to the Lord and pleases him in every way; that your life will produce good works of every kind and that you will grow in your knowledge of God; that God will strengthen you with his own great power so that you will be patient and not give up when troubles come.”
We will study 2 Corinthians, Colossians, Romans and many other key passages in the Bible about God’s unearned grace. For this morning, for the first message of the year, I will simply share a few things the Lord has been speaking to me about.
So what does this mean for you today? A few things.
1. Understanding God’s timing is paramount.
While God’s plans and purposes for us are fixed and established, we live our lives out, in pursuit of our purpose, in a series of times and seasons, levels and stages. What we consider to be the right thing, at the wrong time, can actually become the wrong thing. This is why spiritual discernment (where God’s timing is concerned), is critical to walking with God. We must learn to pursue the right things at the right times, not falling behind God’s timing, and never getting out ahead of God either. In this season you will hear people talk about “spiritual clarity” or what some are calling “2020 vision”. Whatever the phrase, the point is that this is a season where we need to spend time with the Holy Spirit. As we do, we will hear and see with a level of heightened spiritual clarity. This clarity will help us align our faith with God’s grace. As a result, we will be FREE to live as the men/women we are called to be.
2. This is a season where we must make time to spend time with God in order to receive the clarity He wants us to live with.
a) It’s time for us to draw closer to God. The more time we spend in the presence of God the more freedom we will experience. There is FREEDOM in His Presence!
b) The Holy Spirit brings light (or revelation). This divine light brings divine FREEDOM!
c) The more time we spend with God, the more we will shift from trying to make things happen on our own or even trying to receive things from God, to recognizing/acknowledging what God has already done.
d) The key to living by faith is receiving revelation concerning God’s finished work. Faith is not about you trying to get God to do. It is about discerning what He has already done and aligning your life and actions with that.
3. God’s book for your life was written before you were born.
The Bible says, “You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.” (Psalm 139:16).
The Bible says, “We can make our plans, but the LORD determines our steps.” (Proverbs 16:9).
a) What many of us do is come up with a plan and then ask God to anoint it or bless it. Instead of getting the plan from God. If we get the plan from God we don’t need to ask Him to ANOINT it. It’s already ANOINTED. It’s already BLESSED!
b) Divine success is not about more TRYING. It is actually about more DYING. When you discover who it is God birthed you to be, you must be willing to DIE to the person you became on your own, without God.
c) God’s book for your life was written before you were born. Therefore, success, for you, is not about what you can MAKE happen. It is actually about discovering what God already made happen for you!
4. You can be all God has called you to be when you fully open your heart to His grace.
In this season of GREAT FREEDOM, you are FREE to be ALL God birthed you to be.
— Not because you are so good. But because God is.
— Not because of your performance. But because of God’s grace.
— Not because you did anything to earn it. But because God planned it and as it relates to the things He wants to do in your life in this season: THE WAIT IS OVER! THE TIME IS NOW!
As you listen to the Holy Spirit and you do what He leads you to do, you will experience FREEDOM like never before! You will be free to walk in your divine assignment without any apologies for living as the man/woman God has called you to be.
5. A.W. Tozer said, “How completely satisfying it is to turn from our limitations to a God who has none.” Dead men don’t have any limits, because they are dead. When you are dead to self and alive to Christ, flowing in the Holy Spirit, and allowing God to live/move/flow through you, there is nothing you can’t do. Because at that point God is the one who is giving you the words and performing the work, and there is nothing God can’t do! In 2020, it is time for us to allow God to live IN us, WITH us, and THROUGH us, FREELY! This is how we will experience true FREEDOM!
Declaration of Faith:
Father, I enter into this new season with my heart attuned to Your Spirit. I don’t want anything other than what You want for me. My desire is only for Your desires to be manifested in my life. My life is made simple now. I am dead to self and alive to You. I will say whatever You tell me to say, I will go wherever You lead me to go, and I will do whatever You tell me to do when I get there. I pray continually. I am led by Your Spirit in all things. My life is All About You! As you live in me, with me, and through me, I get to experience FREEDOM like never before! I declare this by faith. In Jesus’ name. Amen!
This is Today’s Word. Apply it and prosper!
