As I have mentioned before in the Vision of the Harvest that I was given twenty-five years ago, I saw two waves of revival coming upon the earth. The first was the greatest move of God in history for gathering people to the Lord. That wave of revival began just a couple of years after I received this vision. More people came to Christ during that move than had come to Him before in all of history. I was also shown a period of relative spiritual quiet before an even bigger wave of the Holy Spirit swept across the earth.

      I want to continue on the theme of attaining the “sons of Issachar” anointing just a bit more. The next thing said about Issachar in Genesis 49:15 was that when he saw a resting place, and how desirable it was, he chose instead to bow his shoulder to bear burdens and become a slave. The shoulder speaks of authority (the government rests on His shoulders). This is a calling to use our authority to be slaves instead of using it to get other people to serve us.

Our verse for this week is Ephesians 5:33, “Nevertheless let each individual among you also love his own wife even as himself; and let the wife see to it that she respect her husband.”

The greatest sign of the return of the Lord is recorded in Matthew 24:14, “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all the nations, and then the end shall come.”An acceleration of transformation is now going on in the church in order to prepare the way for this gospel to be preached and this prophecy fulfilled. The greatest force for truth is now being assembled for this purpose.

As we continue our study of Ephesians and the revelation of our full purpose in Christ, we will patiently, verse by verse, examine the depth of the revelation found in this letter.

Ephesians 1:1

The strongest Christian life will have a deep understanding of the Scriptures, with a devotion to go deeper, as well as knowing the voice of the Lord, with a devotion to know Him better. This is our resolve for this year in our study. If we accomplish these two things, it will be a very successful year.

We have been addressing the power of unity and how the church must come into this unity to accomplish her purpose in these times. This year we are going to see great bridges of trust and fellowship being built between many churches, denominations, and individual Christians who have been greatly divided before. This will release unprecedented power.

The first principle in bearing fruit that remains, or building that which will remain, is in the Scripture we quoted last week from Ecclesiastes 3:14, “...everything God does will remain forever....” The Lord Jesus elaborated on this in John 15:1-5:
 

Many Christians have the simplistic understanding that the next life will be a matter of the reward of heaven and eternal bliss for those who accepted the Lord and a corresponding eternal punishment for those who did not. There is far more to the plan of God than that. Basic to understanding the coming kingdom, we must understand that the Lord will restore mankind and the earth to its original purpose, the paradise that it was intended to be. We also need to understand the process of restoration through which this will be accomplished.