As news began to spread regarding the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision to legalize homosexual marriage in America this past week, my heart was filled with an unusual mixture of hope and crisis as I got on my knees before the Lord.
I immediately began to seek the Father regarding His perspective on the ruling and I believe He said to me, "In the natural, the Supreme Court justices have just legalized homosexual marriage in America, but little do they know that they also just authorized an awakening of the Spirit in My bride. For know that now is the time to turn inward, it is a time of repentance and fasting for My people.
Has their laziness and blindness on the issue of sexual immorality in their midst not given the homosexual agenda its true power? America has now legalized homosexual immorality because the American church legalized heterosexual immorality first."
I immediately received a powerful vision of intercessors gathering from all over America in response to the ruling. They gathered and began to pray, but what they were interceding about was very displeasing to the Father. I listened very carefully to the cries and prayers of the intercessors in the vision and this is what they were crying out: "Father, we repent for the sins of America! Father, we ask that you would turn the hearts of homosexuals back to you. Father, bring justice to these people!"
As I listened in to these continual prayers, the Father said to me, "Do you know what's wrong with these prayers Jeremiah? They are all focused on the call for America to repent when I have called My bride to repent! You must tell the intercessors to shift their focus from America to My bride. Their self-righteous hearts and blindness to their own sin is a stench in my nostrils. The issues coming forth in the United States is not an American problem, it's an American Church problem."
America is in a crisis, but the American church is in a greater crisis. We are and will continue to reap what we have sown and that is seeds of silence and tolerance on the key issues of our day that have come before the Father as sin.
As Abraham Kuyper once said, "When principles that run against your deepest convictions begin to win the day, then battle is your calling, and peace has become sin; you must, at the price of dearest peace, lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy, with all the fire of your faith."
I believe that God the Father is releasing burning and shining lamps in America to sound the alarm and wake up the bride of Christ from her slumber (see John 5:35). He is bringing forth a worthy bride in the earth right now who will make herself ready by voluntarily choosing to love His Son Jesus.
I want to encourage intercessors and leaders across America to take the plank out of our own eyes before we begin judging homosexuals and the lifestyle that they have chosen (see Matthew 7:5). While I do believe that these individuals are choosing to blatantly sin and will be judged by God Himself for their behavior (see Romans 14:12), we have an obligation as believers in Jesus Christ to look within our own lives and in our own spiritual communities and ask the Spirit of truth to search us inwardly before we begin calling others to accountability (see Psalm 51:6).
My hope today is in Jesus Christ and in His desire to call His bride to the place of repentance and fasting in this hour. There is no other hope for the American church. We must remember that the heart of a religious Pharisee continues to cry out, "Thank God I'm not like them" (see Luke 18:11). May we repent to the Father for our failure as the bride of Christ to preach holiness and purity to those that call themselves believers in Jesus and for our self-righteous attitudes toward those who are in need of His grace and mercy.
I fully recognize the crisis that is here and will only increase in the days ahead if we as the bride of Christ do not turn to the Lord Jesus and repent of our sins. Let us choose wisely which path we walk. Shall we put our hope in Him and the invitation to look inward in this hour and examine our own hearts as the bride or shall we welcome continual crisis by becoming more consumed with the American problem than the American church problem?
Remember, reformation never comes to a society before it first comes to the church!
Jeremiah Johnson planted Heart of the Father Ministry in Lakeland, Florida and is on the Eldership Team. A gifted teacher, book author, and prophetic minister, Jeremiah travels extensively throughout the United States and abroad as a conference and guest speaker. Jeremiah and his wife, Morgan, reside in Florida with their two children: Bella Grace and Israel David. Check out Jeremiah's new book release, I See A New Prophetic Generation and visit him online at Behold the Man Ministries or connect with him on Facebook."
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