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The rise of the saints, part 3

Our Declaration of Identity, which identified ourselves as the New Creation Man, was done on November 21, 2010. This date was also the start of what I call the new Prophetic Year, which always starts soon after the feast of Tabernacles. Each new Prophetic Year starts with two cleansing cycles of 76 days each, because 76 is the biblical number for cleansing.

In this case, the first cleansing cycle ended 76 days later on February 6, 2011. On that day I awoke with the revelation of John 17, “Glorify Thy Son.” The Lord said to form this into a prayer. It is about the glorification of the New Creation Man, which is the many-membered Body of Christ that is connected to the Head.

This seemed a bit radical to me, because I never want to overstep my boundaries. However, as I pondered it and prayed further about it, I came to see that the “Son” in you and me is part of the New Creation Man and is essentially “one flesh” with Jesus Christ, the Head. It is for this reason that we have been given the full authority of the Birthright. The reason He can entrust Christ-in-us with such authority is because it is NOT the old Adamic man that we were born with.

In other words, the old Adam is not to be glorified, but is rather sentenced to die. It is the New Man that is to be glorified with Christ, even as Jesus prayed in John 17:22,

²² The glory which Thou hast given Me I have given to them; that they may be one, just as We are one.”

When Jesus prayed this in John 17, He was soon to fulfill the purpose of His first coming. His first mission on earth was a work of death and resurrection, because He had been born of the tribe of Judah, the “lion’s whelp” who “couches” (kara, “to bow down, crouch”) and “lies down as a lion, and as a lion, who dares rouse him up?” (Genesis 49:9).

The Lion Bows

Judah was thus pictured prophetically as a lion who was to die and be raised from the dead. The lion of Judah had to bow down in order for his brethren to bow before him. The previous verse in Genesis 49:8 says,

⁸ Judah, your brothers shall praise you… your father’s sons shall bow down to you.

Judah’s name means “praise.” He would indeed receive praise, and his brothers were to bow before him—but to qualify for such praise and authority, he himself had to bow as well. Jesus came as the Lion of the tribe of Judah (Revelation 5:5) and fulfilled the calling of Judah. It was His glory to bow His head in death, and in doing so, He qualified as a great Lion before whom His brothers would bow.

Paul explains this in Philippians 2:5-11,

⁵ Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, ⁶ who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷ but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. ⁸ Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. ⁹ For this reason also, God highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, ¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹ and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

In other words, Jesus was “highly exalted” because He had been humble and willing to bow His own head in His death on the cross. The authority of the Son depended upon His willingness to serve others, even to the point of death. Divine authority is based on love, not power. Divine love is willing to die for others, Paul says in Romans 5:8, whereas the world’s leaders ask others to die for them.

The salvation of mankind is by grace alone through faith, but one must qualify for authority in the Kingdom of God. It is given to those who know the love of God and who, like Christ, are willing to die for those that they are to rule. The world’s leaders seek to be served. Divine authority is given so that the rulers can better serve those that they rule (Luke 22:25, 26).

This is the foundation of Jacob’s prophecy to Judah in Genesis 49:8-10, and it is demonstrated fully when Jesus went to the cross. Jesus saw His crucifixion as a time when He would be glorified. He was willing to eat the Passover’s “bitter herbs” (Exodus 12:8), which speaks of His betrayal at the hands of Judas, who was Jesus’ “friend” (Matthew 26:49, 50). Enemies may kill you, but only a friend can betray you.

Likewise, “the saints of the Most High” are required to be crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20) in order to be raised in the likeness of His resurrection. The glory of Christ’s second work comes only by identifying with Christ’s first work on the cross.

The Prayer

In essence, we are to pray that the Christ in us would be glorified, even as Jesus was glorified by His death, resurrection, and ascension to the Throne. In Jesus’ day, the “Son” was a single individual. Now it is an entire Body of Sons unified as one complete Son. So on the following day, February 7, 2011, I was led to post the following prayer, not realizing that God had wakened Mike Winchell earlier that morning (3:56 a.m.) to tell him, “We have a very important thing to do to ‘Call to Order and Attention.”

The “very important thing to do” was thus confirmed in posting this prayer:

Prayer of the New Creation Man

“Father, the hour has come; glorify Thy Son, that the Son may glorify Thee. As You gave Christ authority, so that He could impart the revelation of the Father to all men, so also give the same authority to the New Creation Man, the body of Sons.

“We have glorified You on the earth and have accomplished the preparation work that You gave us to do. Now, glorify us together with our Head, Jesus Christ.

“We confess that we are not of the world, even as You were not of the world. Sanctify us in the Truth of Thy Word. As you sent Christ into the world, send us also into the world. Manifest Your presence in us, that the world may believe that You have sent us. Unify the New Creation Man as one body to do the will of the Head, that the world may behold Your glory and love in us.”

The revelation of this glory, as I said, came precisely 76 days after our Declaration of Identity. That Declaration established our identity as the New Creation Man so that these could pray the prayer of Jesus Himself in John 17. This was not a prayer to receive glory apart from being crucified with Christ. It was an expression of our willingness to put the old man to death so that we might rise as a New Creation and become a new creature.

The Call to Glory

As I said, each Prophetic Year begins with two cleansing cycles of 76 days each. The first cycle was from November 21, 2010 to February 6, 2011. The second was from February 6 to April 22, culminating on Good Friday, which was also the first day of our Passover conference in Manassas, Virginia.

On that first day, Martha Barley led us in a group prayer in which we prayed Isaiah 61:1-3,

¹ The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to prisoners; ² to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, ³ … that He may be glorified.

Jesus quoted this in the synagogue of Nazareth (Luke 4:17-19) near the beginning of His public ministry. It prophesied of His calling—and ours as well, if we are of His body. This prayer was the climax of the two 76-day cleansing cycles from beginning to end:

November 21, 2010: Declaration of Identity

February 6, 2011: Prayer of the New Creation Man

April 22, 2011: The Calling of the Sons of God

The cleansing cycles of each new Prophetic Year set the tone for the entire year, culminating at the feast of Tabernacles. Our Tabernacles conference in 2011 was held at the Millennium Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri on October 7-9. I will have more to say about this later.

Quail and Manna Conference in San Francisco

Meanwhile, we were led to hold a Holy Spirit conference in San Francisco on the weekend of March 11-13, 2011. This was six weeks before the Manassas conference where Isaiah 61:1-3 was read as a prophetic prayer.

The most memorable event that took place on March 11, 2011 was the earthquake off the coast of Japan, which caused a great tsunami that brought much destruction to Japan. The tsunami also crossed the ocean and hit San Francisco at 8:16 a.m., shortly before our conference was to begin.

What was accomplished at this conference will be shown next time.