A Word over the New Year

WALK BY FAITH, NOT BY SIGHT…

2018 has been a really crazy year for me. I put out my second album, Paths, produced Melody of Love for my boy, Drew VanDyke, traveled the north east coast with Revival Nation, took way too many credits for the fall semester of my senior year, dealt with the pain of ending a pretty serious relationship, made new friends, lost some old ones… and through it all I feel like God has been chiseling away, refining me into something totally new. I’ve learned a lot about perseverance. God has shown me the value of the secret place, and how dependent I am upon Him for absolutely everything in life. I feel like He’s taken me so much deeper, and given me a fresh perspective of what it really means to call him Father. Intimacy with God is so precious, and it comes by asking for it. If you don’t have, ask and you will receive, He’s so faithful.

2018 was a year of refinement for a lot of us. God is stirring the hearts of the western church. We’ve been asleep for a long time, unaware of our identity in Christ and how that could affect daily life. God is good, and there was always a remnant around, but large portions of the body turned to the “comfort” of religion, rather than stepping into the unknown with God, the place where faith lives. But now, in this hour, the Father is reawakening the hearts of His people, releasing a deep yearning within their spirits to know Him deeply. We’re no longer satisfied with the mundane repetitions of religion that bear no fruit. We long to know God, and for Him to know us.

But knowing God requires a certain level of purity. Psalms 24:3-4 says, “Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted his soul up to an idol, nor sworn deceitfully.” To come into the place of intimacy that the Father desires requires a purification process. 2018 was a year of purification and refinement. God has been preparing His church to come before Him in a deeper way than we have previously been able to. For some of you, this process is ongoing. Remember that the key word here is “process.” Don’t feel like you’re lagging behind. God knows exactly how to refine you, and His timing is perfect. If your heart is in a place of total surrender to the Lord, you are exactly where He wants you to be. And if it isn’t quite there yet, ask Him to put it there. What God requires of you, He also empowers you to be able to do. He never asks you to do anything that is too hard for you, because He is your strength, and nothing is too hard for HIM. I have learned that walking with God is impossible in my own strength. But my strength is in the One who will never leave or forsake me, and with Him, all things are possible.

Anyway, throughout this refinement process, God strengthens and promotes you. James 1:2-4 says, “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” Romans 5:1-4 says, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we also have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance, and perseverance, character, and character, hope.” As God prunes you, you come into a place where you can bear fruit. This is where I feel I am currently, and where many others of you have come into, after emerging from a year where the Father taught you how to diligently seek Him.

Because of this, we can’t go into 2019 the same way we went into 2018. We’ve been given new weapons for the new level we’ve reached. We learned how to be faithful with what we had in 2018, and God has rewarded us with more. We received many prophetic words in 2018. God whispered many promises to us in our secret places, some of them so mind-blowing that we haven’t dared to share them. And I feel the word of the Lord over us for 2019 is for us to begin to walk in these things. We are to treat His promises as the sound truths that they are, and walk into them with boldness and authority, even though we haven’t seen them yet.

I’m not gonna lie. This can be hard to do. The bigger the promise, the more we feel like we need to see it start to manifest before we can actually believe it and cling to it. Sometimes we’re afraid of disappointment, or of looking stupid or insane because we’re certain about something that (from the outside looking in) we have no business being certain about. But the Father says that we are not the powerless beings we assume we are in these situations. It is our faith that causes these things to manifest. It is because we decide to step off of the cliff into the unknown that we sprout wings and fly. Without the decision to step off of the cliff, there is no manifestation of flying. Without Peter’s decision to step out of the boat at Jesus’ beckoning, he would never have walked on water. And Peter never got a sign of assurance that he wouldn’t sink, besides the call of Jesus.

The words God has spoken over you in 2018 are Jesus’ call to you to step off of the boat. The Father has imparted a boldness over us to not need anymore than that call. 2019 is the year of walking by faith. Nothing will stop us. It’s time to rise up as children of the Most High, and just start trying things. The burden to back up God’s word isn’t on you, it’s on Him. He’s waiting for a people who are willing to step out and start giving voice and action to their faith so that His power can be released. That can be you. And if not you, who else? If we don’t go, who will?

This is going to be an amazing year. Love you all!

- Kaleb