After reading ‘Mayday!’ Veronika West brought on 27 April I was prompted to republish the  post below onto Telegram for new subscribers as a lead-in to posting Veronika’s later. In the evening I was astonished, therefore, to learn that the Promised Land is the new theme for Sunday services at CTTF!

At the global zoom meeting of 12th January on Catch The Fire’s Hub, wherein several leaders brought prophetic words for consideration, Farnborough church’s senior leader and co-leader of CTF’s Global Prophetic Priority Revd Christopher Bird gave this word, which he’s kindly allowed me to publish:

• I had a vision some months ago, in which two tectonic plates shifted, bringing about a chasm, a split in the earth, which was going to separate those willing to move forward in the “new thing” and those wanting to go back to how things used to be.

• As I have sought to listen to Jesus, I was reminded strongly of this vision, and I felt it was added to… now, on the one side (those willing to step into the new) was lush scenery and abundant provision. The other side it was rather desolate…

• I felt God spoke to me about Gad, Rueben, and the half tribe of Manasseh (Numbers 32) who chose not to settle in the Promised Land, because the land where they were in was good in their sight – they chose the comfort of what they knew and saw, rather than having faith for the unseen but promised extravagant provision of God.

• Don’t settle East of the Jordan when you were destined for the Promised Land.

• Understand this… in the wilderness, the children of Israel became used to the  presence (pillar fire / cloud); they became used to provision (manna / quail / water from rock). The supernatural was normal. There was enough. But there wasn’t fullness. There wasn’t abundance. They didn’t possess the land.

• The principles of the wilderness were supposed to be carried into the new future: the principles of heart healing; identity; fiery presence; and intimacy with God were meant to be permanently defining characteristics of the children of God. [Emphasis RB]

• In addition, I felt the Lord highlighted Rev 3:14-22 – the letter to Laodicea – there is a Laodicean warning… you think you are rich, but you are not…

• So… it’s a warning, and an invitation that I sense I am hearing… phenomenal blessing is coming, but those who fail to carry the principles of heart healing; identity; fiery presence; and intimacy with God; or those who think they have already got it sussed, are in danger of missing it…

• I heard the words “For the King and the Kingdom” – the release of resources will be to those who will use it for the King and the Kingdom.

Blessings, Christopher J Bird

RB Footnote:

I was especially interested upon hearing this word’s opening lines because that vision reminded me of a picture I had a few months ago during one of CTFF zoom sessions, I think. It also reiterates what a few others have brought from the Lord. 

I ‘saw’ a flat landscape view of an immense field of ripe cereal stretching to all horizons. The crop, however, wasn’t identically golden all over – to the left it was bright golden but to the right a duller brown-yellow AND right down the middle was the HUGE slightly bent right hand, thumb uppermost, of the Lord separating them.

Immediately, I recalled the Matthew 13:24 parable of the wheat and tares and realised the relevance: BUT in this vision the plants were NOT intermingled as in the parable, for they’d been separated to make it easier for the crops to be reaped separately.

Moreover, The Lord’s hand was very firmly fixed in place – entrenched even! – thereby making a distinct, deep channel dividing the cereal from the weeds.

It was in checking that parable in 2008-09, because of the difference of opinion between two leaders of international ministries over its application to another’s dubious acts, that I heard upon opening my Bible “This is ALL about to be fulfilled”.  In recent years  a number of prophets have referred to and emphasised that parable.

ALSO, it  so happened’ that same week this month that Neil Mackereth heard similarly from the Lord, as recounted in his Time To Decide For or Against God’s Great Divide.