MY AWESOME, ASTOUNDING AND AMAZING PROPHETIC WORD FOR 2016!

Ha! Made ya look!

I don't have an awesome, astounding, amazing prophetic word for the New Year!

I don't even have a clever rhyming phrase for it, like: "Things are going to be keen in 2016!"

And I really don't feel compelled to try to find a prophetic "word" for the New Year, either (not that there's anything wrong with that)...

I've always embraced Paul's instruction to the church at Thessalonica to "Despise not prophesyings", so I certainly don't despise or even trivialize prophetic utterances. Great things have come into my life through prophecy over the years, and I personally still believe that every prophetic word that has ever been spoken over me will still somehow be fulfilled within my lifetime, even if the manifestations of them don't look like I originally thought that they would look.

But I am in a very different place at this point in my life and ministry,  and I have come to the realization that every word that comes out of my mouth in every moment of every day is a prophecy over my own future, and that every day, for me, is the first day of the year, because I totally live my life in the now! I don't need to ask the questions, "What is God saying to the church?", or "What's the Word for 2016?", because God is speaking within me on a continuum, and the spiritual realm, where 'kairos' time is the reality, isn't divided up into 'chronos' increments like days or weeks or years. 

I am always in the presence of God, and His spirit and His word are ever-present within my consciousness, so that God is always speaking to me/in me in the now...

I grew up with the tradition of "praying in the New Year", beginning at "Watchnight Service", and sometimes going for the whole first week, or even the first month of the New Year with intense intercession for the upcoming 12 months. For all the years that I was either an Associate Pastor or a Senior Pastor, I always began every year that way, usually accompanied with some kind of fast (most usually a "Daniel Fast', which is basically just going vegetarian). And I have no regrets for observing any of that, and will not disrespect any of my past efforts by making light of them, but again, I'm just in a very different place now.

My own spirit is the candle of the Lord, and my good thoughts and good works are the prayers that I pray with every breath I take, and with everything I do.  I communicate with God/Source/Spirit without ceasing, but if I want something or need something, I just speak it and attract it to myself to manifest it into my life. And I basically have everything that I need or want, so there's no big demand for making any petitions. I love my life, and don't really have anything that I want to change about it. I'm not speaking for anyone else, or criticizing anyone else for starting the year the way that they see fit, I'm just talking about my own life.

I am blessed to have lived to see another New Year,  and I am glad to be alive. But I grew up with extreme Apocalyptic consciousness, always living on the dispensational edge, always fearing the coming of the "Thief in the Night",  and always being quite sure that I was going to miss His dreaded "Rapture". I know what it's like to live in the assumption that every New Year that we usher in will probably be our last.

For me the Rapture was an event that was never "the hope that purifies"...on the contrary,  in my view it was always the threat that oppressed.  But I was always afraid of saying that out loud, having been reminded regularly throughout my childhood that He was only coming back for those "who loved His appearing".  Bottom line,  I was always totally good with Jesus,  just not His supposed desire to end everything as we know it, and I always loved the earth in the here and now, and wanted to live out the fulness of my days with my feet planted firmly upon it.

Now I realize that there was nothing wrong with me in feeling that.

Now I understand that "His appearing" is something that happens to different people at different times in their own experience and journey...it's when the Daystar arises in their hearts! That's why Jesus said that "no one knows the day or the hour", because it's a different day or hour for every individual (thank you for that, Jackie J.!)

But to be theologically inclusive, for the entirety of my ministry I have said these words to my audiences: "I believe in a pre-tribulation Rapture of the church...if that doesn't happen, I believe in a mid-tribulation Rapture of the church...if that doesn't happen, I believe in a post-tribulation Rapture of the church...if that doesn't happen, I believe that Jesus will return to the earth in bodily form...if that doesn't happen, I believe that there will be a cosmic and universal paradigm shift of all the peoples of the earth, in which "every eye will see Him", and we will all finally realize that WE are the Second Coming of Christ, and that it is a realization, not an event!"

And I can't live in any fear about the end of the world any more. I passed my personal quota of the fear of that many years ago, when Bible prophecy preachers that I believed in absolutely swore that the communists were taking over America in the 70's, and then Jesus would come back. And then all through the 80's I lived with the constant fear of nuclear war, and the Comet Kohoutek that was supposed to end everything in 1981, and a Rapture that was (for real this time) supposed to occur in 1988. Then the big scare of 2000 and Y2K and anthrax and West Nile Virus and Weapons of Mass Destruction and SARS and Bird Flu and E. Coli and bad vaccines and a bad economy and Swine Flu and the Mayans prediction that it was all going to end in December of 2012, and North Korea and Ebola and ISIS, and everything else that people have said was going to bring about the end of the world since the beginning of this Millennium, and before.

I don't believe that it's the end of the world, but even if it is, all the more reason that I want to make every single day count in this New Year.

I'll be honest with you, for me, the beginning of spring every year actually feels more like a new beginning than January 1 does. But I'll be celebrating at midnight on New Year's Eve, just like I do every year, and I'll be expecting good things in the New Year,  just like I do every day.

I'm not looking for a "breakthrough", so I don't need anyone to prophecy one over me.

I'm not looking for the "next level", because that progression, for me, is happening naturally, with or without prophecy.

So I have no word to give for 2016, other than this:

Enjoy your life. Live in the now. Love God. Love yourself. Love Others. Be happy. Make every day count.

That's it.

Profound, isn't it?

No disrespect to those of you who will be watching and waiting for The Word of the Lord for the New Year in the next few hours...namaste to you...seriously...

I've just been there and done that, and I don't need it any more...

"The Word is near me, even in my mouth and in my heart..."

It's true for me. It's true for you.

Will 2016 be good?

It will be for me. I hope it will be for you, too, but you're the one who will determine that for your own life.

Love and peace to all...

Happy New Year!