Rev. 1:9 I, John, both your brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was on the island that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. 10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet, 11 saying, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last," and, "What you see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia:"

 

The story behind the book of Revelation stands as the backdrop to today’s First Love Ministry update. Revelation was inspired under pressure. John was in prison on account of his faith in the Lord. He had been there a long time. The situation was mentally taxing and emotionally draining (not to mention physically depriving) in the extreme for him. He was being squeezed, as Paul would say, “out of measure.”

But amid this situation He suddenly hears the Voice of the Lord and receives a revelation of Christ as never before. He is also given to write in a way he never has before and is told to send out what he writes to those under similar pressure. Note how, under pressure, John is oblivious to any rank he has as an apostle or stature as a father of faith. He simply calls himself “brother” and “companion” to those he is writing. Times of extreme pressure have a way of leveling us all out, bringing us to remember our simple common root in the Lord by new birth—maturity and rank not withstanding.

I have identified with John (“to a measure”) this way many times before. I have found my greatest revelations in the Lord to have been birthed out of extreme pressure in places of extreme confinement. How true this has been of so many saints through the church age. Whether the confinement has been attached to a literal prison like John’s, or otherwise to a place of deep internal mental / emotional confinement due to physical, social or economic pressures, the experience has been the same.   

 

A “Circle” Under Pressure

Today I am writing you from such a place. And I am specifically writing to those in a similar place who can use some encouragement through the prophetic pictures and illustrations I am given to understand. Today, many of you on this Circle are under extreme pressure.

Testing of faith comes in many contexts. For most I am presently aware of, it is a severe economic pressure—though for many it is either a life threatening physical tribulation or a deep relational tribulation (such as unequally yoked spouses, which I know to be the case with many on this Circle, especially wives.)

In one case, we have a brother pastor in Kenya—sent to jail this week for 2 years due to a ministry auto accident wherein he crashed a rented vehicle for which he can not pay the repairs. (The vehicle blew a tire and rolled 5 times, yet the Lord spared the lives of all 4 ministers aboard.) And of course, there are always those under testing solely for their testimony in Christ. This is the case for the companions of Pastor Prakash of our Circle in India. It is also the case for many of you here in the West who are simply cut off from mainstream fellowship on account of your prophetic witness (which is why you’re likely on this Circle in the first place).

Within this Circle of readers is a smaller circle of those under imminent threat of home foreclosure and/or bankruptcy. I privately call this the “Foreclosure Circle.” I specially identify with and target this circle for intercession because I share with them in a similar situation. And so today, the thrust of the thoughts I want to share are for those of you especially under “economic tribulation.” As a fellow servant under extreme economic confinement due to our own obedience to the Lord, I offer the following inspirational pictures given me this week from Him…

 

Colliding with Your Destiny

A few weeks ago, I was in prayer on the phone with one of our friends in the Midwest. As he prayed for our personal situation, a prophetic phrase came out in which he prayed that we would “collide with our destiny.” The thought of “collision” stuck with me. It certainly seems like we are headed for a serious collision all right. That collision appears to be one of circumstances that portend economic doom and ruin.

For many of us, it is like the form of a canoe adrift on a quiet pond—without oars or means of steering—slowly but inexorably headed for what on the other end is a huge waterfall into a rocky gorge below—still invisible from our place on the pond. We’ve been adrift on this pond a long time, maybe months or years. We haven’t seen the falls. But we know they are there, and we are close enough now to hear their roar, and the roar is now deafening.

As the idea of collision stayed with me the last few days, the Lord then surfaced to mind another revelation. This time it was of near collision—specifically auto collision. He reminded me of the numerous times we have travelled by auto great distances. On various of these trips, we have been in “near miss” situations. (If you’ve driven at length at all, you know what I am talking about.)

Several times we have driven into traffic situations of great danger and mayhem in which we just barely missed hitting or being hit by another vehicle. We’ve been nearly side-swiped by careless vehicles entering into our lane from an onramp or another lane—or by some hot rod speedster trying to cut in on us from the slow lane. Last fall we near missed a wreck due to a huge logging truck swerving into our lane to avoid road debris in his lane and then nearly flipping his truck in front of us when he over-compensated to get back into his lane!

The Lord brought to mind how many times this has happened to us, but that because of the speed with which it all happens and is over (a few seconds) and because of our poise and focus in the Spirit on the highways, we pass through these situations as a momentary jolt, saying nothing more than, “Wow, did you see that?”—and then passing on our way as if nothing happened. These situations, as serious as they are, happen so fast and our purpose to reach our destination is so forefront in mind that we don’t have time to notice these near misses beyond the moment. We just continue on in the Lord as we have been driving, none the worse off for the near miss.

 

Frame By Frame

Here is what the Lord showed me next. He said,

“The economic collision course you are on now is no different. You are headed for a near miss. The only difference is that while from where I Am, your situation is over in a flash, from where you are, the scene has to be lived out one frame at a time.”

If you or I were to take a video of any of the momentary near traffic misses we live through, but before we had lived through it, we had to first instead watch the video one frame at a time, not knowing how we would get out of the collision, it could be a rather nerve wracking experience. But here is the encouragement of the Lord, and this is what He would have me to “write unto you.”

The lengthy testing situation we are passing through is already over as far as He is concerned, it is happening only in an “eternal flash,” and as far as He is concerned, there is no interruption in our ability to reach the purposed destiny He has already sown into our hearts. The only collision there is to be is collision with our destiny.

 

Perfecting the Video Book of Life

Yes, it is hard to have to live out near miss life situations on a frame by frame basis. The only reason this must be is for our perfecting. If a videographer had to make repairs to a video he had taken, he would have to do it on a frame by frame basis.

And that is the way we have to be perfected, we whose lives have already been “video-ed” into the Lamb’s eternal Book of Life. That is the cause for all the numerous exhortations to patience in tribulation throughout scripture.

But know that the video at normal “eternal speed” shows nothing more than a near miss, with no delay otherwise in our obtaining the fulfillment of our vision in Christ. Really, there is no hindrance. There is no delay. There is no detour.

These seemingly long painful waiting situations indicate no delay whatsoever in our reaching our destiny. We’re not going over the cliffs. We’re not going to crash, however close it appears we are to crashing and going over. Just train your poise now in Him as you would through any quick near miss situation.

That is the word of the Lord for many of you today.

We’ll all be fine.

 

Chris Anderson
New Meadow Neck, Rhode Island

First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.org

09/09

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