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Nate Johnston

LETTER 9 - GETHSEMANE

Nate Johnston

LETTER 9 - GETHSEMANE

LETTER 9 - GETHSEMANE

LETTER 9 - GETHSEMANE 


Dear pioneers, this is the letter that started it all. 


Gethsemane… I’ve thought about that painful night Jesus endured before the cross more times than I can count throughout my own life.


Not that I would ever want to compare or take away what Jesus went through but maybe more so because I see the heart of Jesus in that story in a deeper more real way than the rest of the gospels. 


I loved growing up reading about Jesus healing the sick and casting off demons but in Gethsemane, he was the one in deep pain knowing what he was about to endure. 


“Take the cup from me!” 


I think I have said the same thing to God many nights over as I walked through my own dark nights of the soul. 


Dark Nights Where it feels like you are stuck in the pain and anguish of midnight and morning just never seems to come.


 I’ve been in seasons of turmoil and isolation with no one to call to help, all the while looking around and seeing other believers seemingly skipping blissfully through life. 


I’ve felt like a leper, not a king. Defeated, not the head. Ever felt like that? 


Ok, we just got real. 


After years of that, It’s hard to break through the lies and see a life beyond the pain of midnight and a thriving life beyond the swirl of the storm. 


But why I am writing this? Because I need to address the elephant in the room the church doesn’t address and possibly also the gators lurking in your basement. 


MY PIONEERS HAVE BEEN IN PAIN


Last year I laid down our 13-year promise and journey of having visas in the US down at the feet of Jesus and let him have them, I felt like I was laying down a child at his feet. It sounds silly to say, but the grief felt that deep. 


I balled like a baby for an hour as years of painful heart sickness were also poured at his feet until somewhere at that moment it turned into powerful worship and my heart was freed from the trauma of unanswered prayer and I fully released it to Him. 


I gave him my scars and wounds I didn’t even know were attached. I laid them all to rest. 


I’m writing this to you because the Lord said to me “My pioneers have been in pain!” 


Is that you? Do you feel like you have been living the pioneer life and masking the pain? 


Do you walk into Christian environments and when asked how you are doing you just do the “I’m doing great thanks, praise God!” as you sit in your seat struggling to connect because you have 50 arrows in your back, thorns in your side, and gashes in your feet? 


Hmmm, see this is uncomfortable yet true. 


SHIPWRECKED, SHELL-SHOCKED & STUCK 


Over the years I have received many many emails from pioneers who have faithfully pioneered only to face their GETHSEMANE and been shipwrecked never to sail again. 


Every single email has broken me to read because I know that scene all too well. 


“We did what God asked and he abandoned us” 


“I left everything behind and sold everything for Jesus and it amounted to nothing” 


This has been the fate of many pioneers who have been through Gethsemane and never made it through to the other side of the battle. 


One of the bloodiest battles of the last 100 years was the battle of Somme France between 1916-1918 where the British fought the Germans in a very horrific battle for both sides. 


A young nurse who attended the wounds of survivors from the trenches revealed their haunting memories of the struggle to fight and stay alive at the front in WW1. 


Almost every account detailed the long days in the heat and cold, confined and almost sentenced to the hell of war's misery as they daily lost lives and witnessed the bloodbath that the trenches were known for. 


The casualties of this war were far from over even after the surrender as most of the survivors suffered such traumatic mental issues from what they witnessed and the term “shell-shocked” was invented when treating them. 


These men who endured such stressful and traumatic experiences daily for two years were never the same again and in essence, still fighting in the war long after the last shot was fired. 


I wanted to give this illustration today because just like these men in WW1 many of us go through the wars of life, down in the trenches surrounded by the mess, and even long after the battle is done we carry the trauma and pain of it everywhere we go, affecting every future experience, relationship, and dream. 


But we can’t keep living like this and we can’t let our darkest seasons keep defining us or lying to us about our future. 


Yes, there is a future beyond Gethsemane. 


PIONEERING THROUGH PAIN 


There is no other way around it. Pioneering will take you to depths of pain and anguish you never thought possible. 


It’s far from the romanticized adventure painted by the lukewarm church. It’s far from the 5-star jungle cruise advertised from the pulpit of recruitment pastors looking for their next religious hirelings. 


Pioneering will take you past the laughter and ice cream of the gospel and lead you to the garden of Gethsemane where you will feel crushed beyond crushed and your very soul broken in tiny fragments. 


I’m not making a very good case so far for those wanting to be pioneers for Jesus or are already in the middle of it, but I have to be honest. 


I have to share the real account of this lifestyle if I have any chance of helping anyone make it to the other side. And yes. There is another side which I will share at the end of this letter. 


Even as I write this right now I am on a long-haul flight with my family, on a journey we didn’t get the choice to make in a sense. In fact, one we didn’t want to have to if I’m being honest. 


In the last 3 years, I feel like I have experienced Gethsemane over and over til I felt like I too was crying tears of blood. 


I know what it’s like to be alone in the dark saying “If it’s your will, take this cup from me!” but then finding you have no other option except to keep walking. I know what it’s like to call your brothers to surround you and cover you in prayer during your dark night of the soul but opening your eyes to see them sleeping. 


Gethsemane is pure pain and I can’t dance around it or make it into a Hollywood musical. 


WE HAVEN’T COUNTED THE CROSS 


I don’t think this generation has counted the cost. We have reduced the Christian life down to a highlight reel of victories and “on stage” moments without being real about the in-between. 


We have led them out of the gate ready to take the world but not equipped for the process and preparation that feels like the death and burial of your appetites, desires, agenda, and personal will. 


Gethsemane strips you of it all leaving you naked and bare before the Lord. 


So let me ask you again, have you been there? 


THE ONLY WAY TO RELEASE THE FRAGRANT OIL 


Pioneering can have some mountain-top moments. It can feel like a garden of intimacy and adventure in so many ways and seasons, but there is another garden and this garden is Gethsemane. 


The garden where Jesus first bled for us. The garden where His spirit was pressed and crushed in agony as He prepared to go to the cross. 


The name Gethsemane means oil press. It was from that oil press that His broken spirit was poured out for you and I. 


Our lives surrendered to this call in many ways can feel like walking through an oil press. 


Pioneering can feel like that sometimes - it’s this tension between what you see with your eyes and what you know to be true or ahead of you. 


It’s the pressing of faith and the assurance that what you are clearing the road for is something significant and monumental. 


And it’s this kind of faith that releases oil... when we choose to trust him in the middle of the crushing. 


But there has to be a prize or a goal. Without that, what are we pioneering for? 


Jesus had a goal. He knew what he was in that garden for. Do you? Or have you forgotten? 


“fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer, and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” - Hebrews 12:2 


But what we often forget in Gethsemane is that our darkest most pressing crushing moments aren’t wasted, but they are actually produced by costly and fragrant oil that becomes three things:

 ⁃ Oil of worship and sacrifice that ministers to Jesus. 

⁃ Oil of anointing that equips you for your pioneering mandate. Without it, you won’t have authority or unction without that office. 

⁃ Oil of burning that sets you on fire for Jesus and refines your character. 


Over the years I have dreaded the refinery season and the crushing seasons but I have found that I can always trace my life’s greatest breakthroughs and acceleration back to the garden of pressing. 


Yes, there is no shortcut. If you want to last the distance as a pioneer, you can go around Gethsemane. You need to go through it. 


BUT DO WE EVER BREAK THROUGH? 


There’s an old Bill Gaither song that sings:


 “Hold on my child joy comes in the morning Weeping only lasts for the night Hold on my child Joy comes in the morning The darkest hour means dawn is just in sight” 


As I write the end of this letter, It’s now 9 months after my plane ride encounter where this book was birthed and wrote the middle section of this letter about pioneering through pain. 


This was the first letter God gave me because I can feel his father's heart towards the pioneers saying “I know you have been stuck in the middle part of your journey, but there is light at the end of the tunnel!” 


You see we will never have to endure the cross like Jesus did, but we will have moments where everything looks upside down and like we have hit rock bottom.. but it’s not the end of the story. 


We pass through Gethsemane, get what we need for the road ahead, and KEEP GOING! 


So yes, pioneers there is an “other side”


I was put on the spot when asked this question on Daystar in May. Joni asked me “So is there another side? Do we ever see a breakthrough?” 


Suddenly my mind started racing like I was flicking through the pages of my book. The Dark Chapters and the Victories. I saw a repetitive thing, dark jungles and unknown terrain, dry deserts, deep waters then finally and suddenly - breakthrough. 


“Yes, there is always a breakthrough,” I said. 


“If you keep walking, you will always see breakthrough” 


You see, Gethsemane is just a front, a facade, a stage set for something God has set up, and that’s a land called PROMISE. 


Behind every dark night is an upgrade. But to see it you need to hold on. 


Our timelines are all different but it’s a guarantee. It’s who He is. And He doesn’t lead us where he can’t back up what he promised.


Is this still triggering your heart? Is this touching the Hope deferred still lingering in there? 


Is it reaching down into your soul and purging out the hidden lies? Stop reading for a moment and let Him minister to you. 


He is a good father and he is not leading you on. You may have seen you're fair share of dark night seasons but Gethsemane is just the shopfront for the wide open spaces and territory he has been speaking to you about for years. 


As I was asked that question, I was instantly taken back to when I wrote this middle section of the letter where my heart was in absolute pain thinking of whether I was leading my family to ruin or to victory. At the time I wasn’t sure. 


But only a week later, the facade of Gethsemane left the screen and God began revealing what that season was for. 


I have spent months upon months in tears as I have seen what looked like my greatest season of death turn into a season of promise and life more abundantly. 


But more than that, I’ve seen his heart for his pioneers shining through. And I think that’s the real reason he had me write this book. 


For you, the pioneers of his heart who are always leading others into their breakthrough and the church into her next days but rarely get your own arms held up. 


This is for you. This is me holding up your arms. 


Now look to Jesus and don’t lose your gaze. It will be worth it soon my friends. Let’s keep going together.

sow a seed

RELATED prophetic WORDS:

RELATED prophetic WORDS:

By Nate Johnston February 21, 2025
Last night I had an intercessory dream where I began to say "Lord, bring them out. Bring them out of the wilderness! Lord, bring them out. Bring them out of the wilderness! God, bring out the wild ones who have been in hiding. Bring out those who have been in death, those who feel like it's all over for them. Those who have been counted out, those who have been assassinated, those who have been robbed, plundered, and destroyed. God, bring out those who feel like they are being decommissioned. Bring out those who feel unclean. Bring out those who feel cast out and rejected from the church. Bring out those who have been silenced, muzzled, and voiceless, God, and anoint them! Put hot coals on their tongues!" Suddenly, the scripture Luke 4:14 came before me - “He came out of the wilderness in the power of the Spirit." And I knew in my spirit that this intercession was for the changing of the guard, for those who feel disqualified and broken because of what they’ve walked through, for those who feel like they’ve lost their anointing and strength, like Samson after his hair was cut. Then I continued to pray: "God, bring them out. Bring out the Nazarites! Bring out the new watchmen on the walls for the nations. Bring out the prophets and the intercessors, the apostles, the evangelists, those who have been in hiding, bring them out!" And I felt the Lord say that it was time for these hidden ones to come out of their season of wilderness warfare and torment, and they were going to come out with a fresh, hot coal on their tongues, to speak a fresh word of the Lord into this current moment in time. Suddenly, the dream shifted, and I began to hear the intercession of the saints. I could hear the tongues - a mighty roar rising from a generation that had been silenced and quenched for so long. I began to feel the birth pangs of the nations coming to a finality - a tipping point. This intercession felt like the midwife prayers of an impending birth of the nations in the earth. It was a prayer over the church, calling her to become the pure, spotless bride she was meant to be. I could feel the intercession of agreement with long forgotten words spoken over nations, cities, and regions, for revival, for reformation, for Jesus to be revealed in the earth. Then I began to cry out: "Lord, come! Lord Jesus, come!" Then suddenly, the prayers of the saints rose up in unity, crying out together: "Yes, Lord Jesus! Come, Lord Jesus, come!" I believe i had this dream because God is raising up a battlecry from the John the baptist, wilderness voices that are coming out of hiding to take thier post as the watchman of the hour and the fresh sound in the earth declaring “Prepare ye the ay of the Lord! So to the wilderness voices, maybe you’re feeling this. Maybe you've been through a season of robbery and wilderness - a season where it feels like you've been removed from your calling. But this is the season where God is bringing you back! He is placing a hot coal on your tongue! So if that is you today, I want to speak and prophesy over you: The hot coals are coming. You're about to feel a fresh unction. You're about to feel a fresh flow. And out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water in Jesus’ mighty name!
By Nate Johnston February 21, 2025
While the nations are in the pangs of birth right now, upheaval, chaos, and major transition, so is the church and so are you... True revival requires messy. It’s the oxen in the stable that disrupts man’s tidy plans that exclude the move of the Spirit, and shatters the veils of culture’s desensitization. And you are there right now. In the messiest of messy seasons, not because you failed but because you ASKED FOR IT. You cried out for breakthrough. You cried out for restoration. You cried out for the more of the Lord. Messy personal revival upsets the rhythms of your life that are no longer moving you forward but instead are keeping you stuck. Messy revival breaks ties and contracts and bondages you have been under that have been putting a ceiling over you and quenching your fire. Messy revival exposes the snakes in the grass and the places of robbery that have been depleting you and shifting your focus. Messy revival moves you out of limiting environments and causes you to long for wide open fields again. Messy revival brings a discontent for any sliver of complacency and religion you have tolerated. Messy revival brings death to everything in your life that is an obstruction to the “greater” God is wanting to pour out. Messy revival confronts and administers healing balm to places to deep seated trauma and pain keeping you in “medication” mode and staying in your sick bed. Messy revival redirects, corrects your steps, recalibrates, and sets your feet on the right path. Messy revival opens your eyes to where you have even in survival mode and going through the motions. Because messy revival comes primarily to set you on fire so you BURN again after years of warfare and walking through endless battlefields. And messy revival is here because God knows who you really are and what you are called to step into in this new season. It re-mantles you, leads you to surrender old manna and burn the old plow, renews your youth like the eagles, and restores the joy of your salvation. Do you feel it?
By Nate Johnston February 21, 2025
Last night I had an intercessory dream where I began to say "Lord, bring them out. Bring them out of the wilderness! Lord, bring them out. Bring them out of the wilderness! God, bring out the wild ones who have been in hiding. Bring out those who have been in death, those who feel like it's all over for them. Those who have been counted out, those who have been assassinated, those who have been robbed, plundered, and destroyed. God, bring out those who feel like they are being decommissioned. Bring out those who feel unclean. Bring out those who feel cast out and rejected from the church. Bring out those who have been silenced, muzzled, and voiceless, God, and anoint them! Put hot coals on their tongues!" Suddenly, the scripture Luke 4:14 came before me - “He came out of the wilderness in the power of the Spirit." And I knew in my spirit that this intercession was for the changing of the guard, for those who feel disqualified and broken because of what they’ve walked through, for those who feel like they’ve lost their anointing and strength, like Samson after his hair was cut. Then I continued to pray: "God, bring them out. Bring out the Nazarites! Bring out the new watchmen on the walls for the nations. Bring out the prophets and the intercessors, the apostles, the evangelists, those who have been in hiding, bring them out!" And I felt the Lord say that it was time for these hidden ones to come out of their season of wilderness warfare and torment, and they were going to come out with a fresh, hot coal on their tongues, to speak a fresh word of the Lord into this current moment in time. Suddenly, the dream shifted, and I began to hear the intercession of the saints. I could hear the tongues - a mighty roar rising from a generation that had been silenced and quenched for so long. I began to feel the birth pangs of the nations coming to a finality - a tipping point. This intercession felt like the midwife prayers of an impending birth of the nations in the earth. It was a prayer over the church, calling her to become the pure, spotless bride she was meant to be. I could feel the intercession of agreement with long forgotten words spoken over nations, cities, and regions, for revival, for reformation, for Jesus to be revealed in the earth. Then I began to cry out: "Lord, come! Lord Jesus, come!" Then suddenly, the prayers of the saints rose up in unity, crying out together: "Yes, Lord Jesus! Come, Lord Jesus, come!" I believe i had this dream because God is raising up a battlecry from the John the baptist, wilderness voices that are coming out of hiding to take thier post as the watchman of the hour and the fresh sound in the earth declaring “Prepare ye the ay of the Lord! So to the wilderness voices, maybe you’re feeling this. Maybe you've been through a season of robbery and wilderness - a season where it feels like you've been removed from your calling. But this is the season where God is bringing you back! He is placing a hot coal on your tongue! So if that is you today, I want to speak and prophesy over you: The hot coals are coming. You're about to feel a fresh unction. You're about to feel a fresh flow. And out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water in Jesus’ mighty name!
By Nate Johnston February 21, 2025
While the nations are in the pangs of birth right now, upheaval, chaos, and major transition, so is the church and so are you... True revival requires messy. It’s the oxen in the stable that disrupts man’s tidy plans that exclude the move of the Spirit, and shatters the veils of culture’s desensitization. And you are there right now. In the messiest of messy seasons, not because you failed but because you ASKED FOR IT. You cried out for breakthrough. You cried out for restoration. You cried out for the more of the Lord. Messy personal revival upsets the rhythms of your life that are no longer moving you forward but instead are keeping you stuck. Messy revival breaks ties and contracts and bondages you have been under that have been putting a ceiling over you and quenching your fire. Messy revival exposes the snakes in the grass and the places of robbery that have been depleting you and shifting your focus. Messy revival moves you out of limiting environments and causes you to long for wide open fields again. Messy revival brings a discontent for any sliver of complacency and religion you have tolerated. Messy revival brings death to everything in your life that is an obstruction to the “greater” God is wanting to pour out. Messy revival confronts and administers healing balm to places to deep seated trauma and pain keeping you in “medication” mode and staying in your sick bed. Messy revival redirects, corrects your steps, recalibrates, and sets your feet on the right path. Messy revival opens your eyes to where you have even in survival mode and going through the motions. Because messy revival comes primarily to set you on fire so you BURN again after years of warfare and walking through endless battlefields. And messy revival is here because God knows who you really are and what you are called to step into in this new season. It re-mantles you, leads you to surrender old manna and burn the old plow, renews your youth like the eagles, and restores the joy of your salvation. Do you feel it?
By Nate Johnston February 20, 2025
I woke up with John 11:11 on my heart this morning; “After he had said this, he went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.” I’m highly aware that God is awakening many right now that have been through the intensity of years of hard battle. It can break you. Dismantle your faith. Crush your courage and distinguish your fight and fire for the Lord over time. It can even feel like it’s de-commissioned you. But right now in a short period of time the Holy Spirit is dealing with the past seasons STUFF.. I wrote this, this morning; God sees your process and he isn’t rushing you right now. You have walked through alot and seen alot. Your heart has been through 20 years in 4 years so give yourself space to let Him revive you and reinvent you. Give Him room to clean out the hope deferred and cobwebs of the past seasons. Right now it’s all coming to the surface and He is tenderly scooping it out and breathing life back into your lungs. Soon you’ll wake up no longer feeling heaviness, anxiety, and deep unshakeable weariness, but it will feel like a valve was just flipped on the inside of you and out of your belly rivers will flow again. You’ll feel the pain and hardship of this past season and the toll it took on you mentally, emotionally, physically, and even spiritually begin to lift as God OVERHAULS you in a short period of time. It’s an Ezekiel 37 - army of dry bones moment and it’s necessary so you don’t stay in your sick bed but are revived back to full health. Is this what is going on in you? There are great days ahead for you.. lean in and let the finished work complete the job. Can we pray for you this week? This is what He is doing; “who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s” Psalms 103:5 Lord I pray that you would renew their youth like the eagles! Restore the joy of their salvation! Bring that back into full health and joy in Jesus name! 
By Nate Johnston February 18, 2025
This week's prophetic insight speaks to the current clash of kingdoms between those warring for legacy and the Jezebel spirit trying to hold onto its ground in a time of exposure and eviction on all levels. It’s a word of hope for those who have been on the journey with the Lord to break into a greater level of authority and victory over the enemy's schemes in this time we are living in. So let me start here: I believe this is a season in which the Lord is calling us into a higher place of spiritual intelligence and to take back the reins on the earth. They have been in the wrong hands. I believe this is a season when the Lord is giving back His power to the Church, but right now, God is dealing with the house of Ahab. The house of Ahab has robbed the Church of power and authority, which is why we have seen a recession of signs and wonders. The Church has been run by Ahab, but God is removing Ahab, and the drought will break over our lands. We will enter a season of glory once again. In an atmosphere of glory, power will return to the church. Signs, wonders, and miracles will be restored because, in an Ahab system, there is a brass-ed heaven. In this season, we have seen this brass covering over the Church, a ceiling caused by what we have allowed to rule there. But God is now dealing with the house of Ahab, and as He does, the Church will enter a realm of supernatural clarity and flow we haven’t seen in years. But how does this happen? FOR THE BLOODLINE BREAKERS There are people God has been raising up - His bloodline breakers. A generation - young to old whom God has called to break generational curses in their own lives, marriages, and families in a culture of acceptable Jezebel-ic influence and narcissistic dominance. But the purpose of God calling you, your family, and your marriage into this isn't just for your sake. While God is certainly working in your life, the most integral part of your divine calling is LEGACY. How do we establish legacy? We establish a legacy by breaking the dysfunctions and toxic patterns of the past that have seeped into our family lines, shaping the way we think, act, and engage with life. These dysfunctions are inherited not only from biological parents but also from spiritual influences. God has been working in your life, but there is a far greater reason: He is doing this for the church. God knew you could not break a corporate bloodline unless you first broke a personal one. You could not be a Jehu for a generation unless you were first a Jehu for your family. Does this make sense? Right now, I believe God is bringing decades of battling the Jezebel and Ahab spirits to a head. Many of you have been fighting this war in your personal lives, which is manifesting in various circumstances. Some of these may make you feel you have lost as if you've been through a warzone and have come out worse for wear. But let me assure you, it all will be worth it. This year, you will begin to notice that the battles you once fought are losing their steam. Why? Because whether you see it or not, you have stepped into your role as a Jehu for your family. Your strength has increased, and your spiritual muscles have grown. The Word of God says in Leviticus 21:15, "So that he does not corrupt his bloodline among his people, for I am Yahweh who sets him apart." You have been set apart for this! Do you see it? Well done for battling all these years because it’s now coming to a head! Well done for being a Jehu for your family. You are now stepping into a season where you will witness the fruit of what God has done through your life, not only personally but in a corporate context. Did you know that the word of the Lord came to Jehu to annihilate Ahab and his sons? (2 Kings 10) We are witnessing this unfold. It wasn’t just about Jezebel; it was about dismantling an entire system. Jezebel created a subtle but powerful force, not only through her daughter Athaliah but also through an Ahab army, a mindset that would permeate the culture of the Church and dominate the world stage. In 1 Kings 21, Jezebel killed Naboth to get his vineyard for Ahab. When I think of the vineyard, I think of revival, the Jesus People Movement, and the place Lonnie Frisbee called a refuge. But Naboth’s name means "prophecies and words." Jezebel knew that if she could steal the prophetic voice of the Church, she could take the vineyard, and we would have to lean on man’s ways. That is where Ahab stepped in—a palatable form or derivative of Jezebel that would infiltrate the Church and establish idols of compromise and error. This is what the Church has seen for so long. That's why you've been on a take-back mission in your own life: to restore your bloodline from Jezebel and Ahab so you can be ready to be a Jehu, slaying the Ahab spirit and regaining the prophetic voice in your life and the Church. I’m saying this because right now, look at the battle in your family and the Church. It’s a battle for the future of our families and the future of the Church. Breaking out of the dysfunctions of Ahab’s system and beginning the vineyard again. By the way, this doesn't mean coming against people. It's coming against a spirit that has permeated culture. And that's been your take-back mission, to restore your bloodline and also to step into a place of being a Jehu that will restore the Bloodline of the Church. I want to be bold and say you're about to step into your shoes as a Jehu for your generation. You have pioneered well, and you have walked the hard road of not tolerating Jezebel. You are taking back your voice in the places it's been muzzled. This is why you have been on a mission to restore your bloodline from Jezebel and Ahab. First, to reclaim the prophetic voice in your own life, and then, to be a Jehu to restore the prophetic voice in the Church. LEAVING THE ESCAPE ROOM Now, let me speak to you about inheritance for a moment. Many of us have inherited the fruit of Ahab in our families and churches. It's permeated culture, and we've inherited its fruit. Yet we have been given the task of stepping out of that culture, stepping out of that mindset, and beginning to replace the fruit, replacing the root systems in every area of our lives that we've become used to. It's even been normalized in the Church. But let me say this very clearly: The Lord is bringing us out of our imprisonment. God is giving us the true inheritance that we are meant to have received through the finished work of the cross of Jesus Christ. Just a few days ago, the Lord spoke to me while I was driving, “It’s time to leave the escape room.” There is a very popular activity that people do called an Escape Room. They are locked in this room and must look for clues and keys to help them ‘escape’ before an allotted period of time. What was God saying? He wanted to paint the picture to me that our generation, young and old, have been on a quest to find the keys to break this demonic culture that has been killing our families and society. For us to unlock the prison doors once and for all! We've been pioneers of this revolution to break the bloodlines of what's been acceptable and normal in the nations and our families and bring it back to a biblical standard in our churches. God gave me this phrase because we have been in an escape room. We've been in this place that has felt contained, this place that's felt like a war room, a battleground. It's like we've been in this place where we've been contending for so long because we know there HAS TO BE MORE than what we have seen or been handed! It’s where people have said, “I’m tired of seeing suicide and addiction rob my family! I’m tired of seeing divorce! I’m over seeing moral failures and perversion!” So we're looking for keys, we're looking for clues. We're looking for those things to break out of that place. And in our nations, we see abortion-to-birth laws passed and gender confusion, to name a few. All these different things that are constantly going against God's plan and design. And there's a generation who were born right now to say, “God, that is not your plan or design for my nation or my city. Give me the key. Give me the key!” And I want to prophesy to you that we are in a season that the Lord is giving us the keys to break out of that escape room for our families and for this generation!
 We are in a period of time where God has given the keys to the house of David back to the Church. That is why God had to shift the Ahab culture that has been permeating every facet of our lives. It's so that David can get back the keys. And when David takes back the keys, the door of that escape room swings wide open. And we are no longer receiving the inheritance of that confinement and imprisonment. We're no longer receiving the inheritance of an Ahab culture but rather the inheritance of the Davidic line and the finished work of the cross of Christ. So let me say this again: you are coming out of that place; you are coming out of the escape room right now. Do you see it in all the things God's been doing in your life? He has been confronting all areas of bondage in your life. He's been pulling, prodding, and shaking things upside down because he wants to set you free in you r finances and your health. We have to leave the escape room of man's methods where we are constantly trying to do things to break ourselves out of what God can only break us out of and what the blood of Jesus could only break us out of. And right now, the Blood is speaking a better word over us. We are in a revolution of the blood of Jesus where it's breaking that which has felt unbreakable and where you've said, “God, you could never heal that person of that Jezebel spirit. You could never set them free of that addiction.” But in this season, because of your contending and your prayer, God is breaking them free, setting you free, and setting your nation free right now. Can you see it on a global scale right now, too? Where there is shaking, things are coming to the surface; things are being resolved and exposed on high levels because God is shaking the earth upside down. The glory is revealing that which needs to be broken out and exposed, and the light of God is shining; it’s shining into those places because God is bringing the gold to the surface. In this hour, the glory of God is being revealed to us and through us. LANDING PADS & OPEN DOORS So, in this season where the Lord is leading and summoning the Church out of dysfunction and out of those escape rooms, he's revealing greater revelation on what we have been battling for so long. What we're going to see in the days ahead is essentially a lot of spiritual assignments unmasked. And what this is going to look like in many ways is even doctrine and areas of beliefs that we've had that have sadly, for many, been foundational and cornerstone beliefs that we, as Christians, have believed; certain things that we've accepted and ingested. We're going to see many of these things unmasked as counterfeits and demonic assignments. The smoke and mirrors battle of our age has been demonic assignments trying to lead us to false virtues, false fathering, false comforts, false accountability, false covering, all those things that look like the right and authentic thing, but they're just counterfeits. They fall short. They're plastic. And so, we're about to see the revealing of these spirits for what they truly are, and in that, the Lord will then bring the Church up to a higher place of understanding who they are and their authority. That can only come by experiencing the genuine and authentic thing. So, as these spirits are unmasked, it will help us understand, and we'll have a greater awareness of the spiritual realm, the mechanics of the spiritual realm, and an understanding of what we are dealing with. We can't keep going into a church, sitting in the pews, and having a cushy Christian experience when there's a dying world out there. And you can't keep being robbed in your marriage, your finances, and your health on a weekly basis, paying your tithes, and going home to brokenness and chaos. No, those days are coming to an end. But the area that I want to highlight to you in this unmasking is what the Lord's been speaking to me as: landing pads and open doors. He's highlighting to us through all this shaking, where we ourselves have actually been landing pads to the enemy's plans, keeping us in further bondage personally and corporately. In 1 John 14:30, Jesus said this powerful scripture: “I don’t have much more time to talk to you because the ruler of this world approaches. He has no power over me.” Some other versions say, “he has nothing in common with me.” You see, when there's nothing inside you that resembles or looks like the enemy, he has no power over you. That means you are no longer a landing pad for the enemy. And so, the Lord said to me last week, “Nate, I am removing the landing pads in your life from the enemy!” What I'm seeing is that we're coming out of an era of battling that Jezebel spirit and the Ahab spirit, but in that, God is actually revealing the landing pads and open doors in our lives, enabling them access. I'm talking personally about where we have things in common with that spirit, where we have things that actually cause us to be landing pads for those things. We are coming to a place of complete victory over those spirits. But in order for that to happen, God had to expose the commonality in us with those spirits and reveal the other faces of how this has manifested in culture in the Church and the world around us. For instance, to make this practical right now, we are seeing two faces of Jezebel. For so long, we've said, Jezebel wants to silence you. Jezebel wants to muzzle you. Jezebel wants to intimidate you. Jezebel wants you to be in fear for your life because we look at the passage of scripture about Elijah running into the cave. But did you know there's another face to Jezebel? That there's also the side of Jezebel that wants to lure you into speaking out of turn? Into being a bitter, angry, venom-spitting voice? It’s where Jezebel puts on a different face and, instead of muzzling voices, seeks to raise up voices with the wrong spirit. It’s sneaky because it looks like God’s heart... from a certain angle. It’s cunning because it plays on the pain and experiences of the hurting Church. But it doesn’t carry His heart. That is why Elijah had to go into the cave and be refreshed in his awareness of the voice of God and the mantle that he carried; otherwise, his pain and his fear would've sent him out of that place and deviated from his calling. Does this make sense? God, right now, is dealing with the landing pads and the triggers and the open doors we've had in our lives. He's destroying the commonality that we've had so we can step out of pioneering and contending for breakthroughs and legacy and finally taste it! So even right now, give the Lord any areas in your life, the landing pads and the places of commonality that you've had with the enemy, forgive those you need to forgive, and give God the pain and the wounds of the past. And lastly, let me say this. THANK YOU for walking this narrow road. It’s not been easy, and it’s been costly when so many are choosing to walk in the dysfunctions they  inherited and have leveled oj, choosing not to fight to break free. But you have stood and contended, like Hannah who was barren...you stood. Like Ruth, you stood. Like Jacob, you have wrestled with the promise even when it looked bleak or as if it had failed. But now, you will see the fruit of this long battle and lead others into the same legacy.
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