Your Kingdom Come

This morning in prayer God showed me a series of pictures, and as I prayed into each part it was like a changing vision, a scene unfolding before me.
I was asking Him to show me HIS vision for Church. As a church leader, I’m very aware that as most leaders agree, this last season has been about the removal of the old wine-skin – but there still seems to be a temptation to figure out how to construct the new one, and I haven’t had a peace about that approach but didn’t know what else to do. So I asked God about it, and saw the following…

The picture started with a scene in a wide open valley with fertile plains and a wide, sparkling river running through the centre. There was a large tribe or nation (too large to count) dwelling there – I first took them to be the ancient Israelites but it became clear it was God’s entire Kingdom: His family of faith, including both Jews and Gentiles, all inter-connected and relating as one, feeding off the goodness of the land.

As I looked at the vision, I saw the family-nation start to divide into smaller groups who gathered around the smaller streams that were flowing out of the river, and they built dams across the streams which separated them from the main river and turned them into individual pools. Then they built walls around these pools and established independent cities there, closed off from their wider family, with barren wilderness areas in between them.
And I felt God say that it was our human obsession with labelling and containing that led to the division and separate denominations that were never His intention – that there is no division in His true Kingdom.

Then I saw a tsunami-wave appear from one end of the valley that swept through the land, shaking the land and washing away all the artificial, human constructs (dams and dividing walls). Those who clung to the man-made were washed away, but those who let the wave do its cleansing work were left standing as part of God’s one true family.
I believe this wave was seen at least in part in what God has been doing through 2020, allowing Covid, lock-down etc to remove our foolish divisions. I personally think we are still in that wave, or its aftershocks, still feeling disorientated without structure, and calling out to God for help. Yes, we still have local congregations who we identify with, and I do think those still have an important place (although God is changing our idea of what that is). But people have also been using the internet for a sense of connection – even the word internet thrills me, with its echoes of what God has been saying about making us an inter-connected net for fishing His coming miracle catch – and that has a place too. It’s a season to allow relationships to grow free from constraint, and restoring God’s Kingdom family.

After the tsunami subsided, I saw another wave, but not the same as the first mighty cleansing wave of water – this one was like a huge wave of light, or glory: an outpouring of God’s Spirit that filled the land and focused God’s family back onto Him, no longer on their obsolete dividing walls. This wave came in answer to the united prayers of the people for help.
And I believe He was showing me that the season of building organisations is at an end. There is no more need for artificial construct and definition that separates His one true family. There will always be a place on this earth for teaching and exhortation on God’s Kingdom: His Word; His Spirit; His truth. But as people come back to the most important commandments of loving Him wholeheartedly and loving each other in the power and life of the Holy Spirit, the memory of the dividing lines of how we do so is going to blur and fade into obsolescence as His glory is revealed through His united family.
I do believe there will be a place for delegated leadership, and for defining sound doctrine, but it’s not necessarily what we think and not what we were used to. It’s not about building man-made structures with limitations, but family relationships with endless potential.

As I looked on the wave of light I asked God if this was referring to His Kingdom in Heaven, as it seemed so perfect and glorious, and not at all in line with the trouble of the end-times as seen in His Word and the world around us. Immediately it was like the ‘camera’ of my vision panned out, and I could see that surrounding the valley on every side was great darkness, where I could hear ‘wailing and gnashing of teeth’ (Matt 8:12)
I do believe that God is coming to restore His Kingdom – that as we surrender to His cleansing wave washing away our man-made structures and releasing His streams in the desert-places, His glory will also be poured out, bringing us back to one true Family. He is restoring His one true Kingdom where all are taught of the Spirit, all are in communion with Him and each other as He intended – and where the contrast between God’s Kingdom on earth and those outside in the world will be so great as to be unignorable. And we will be released to co-labour with Him in saving the lost, before it is too late.

As the pictures ended, God led me to Psalm 46:4-6
“There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
The holy dwelling places of the Most High.
God is in the midst of her [His city], she will not be moved;
God will help her when the morning dawns.
The nations made an uproar, the kingdoms tottered and were moved;
He raised His voice, the earth melted” (AMP)

Lord, may we be those who do not cling to what is man-made in this season, but cling only to You. May we surrender to Your cleansing work so that we are positioned ready for Your outpouring of glory – and may we persist in united prayer until it comes. May we recognise that we are one family in You – belonging to one Kingdom, whose King is beautiful in majesty and mighty in power. And may we never seek again to pollute Your Kingdom with our futile human constructs, but live only by the words from Matthew 6:10 – “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven“