2016 – The Year of the Open Scroll By Mike McClung

This coming year promises to be one of the most chaotic, yet exciting years for the body of Messiah since Pentecost. It will be a year of restoration – the beginning of our seeing restored what has been lost, stolen, destroyed by the enemy, and willingly laid down in sacrifice unto the Lord.

The scripture that the Lord gave me for 2016 is Revelation 1:18 (NKJV): I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death. The following are bullets of what I believe the Lord has spoken to me of what we’ll see and experience as a beginning of this kingdom restoration movement:

• A year of resurrection, restoration and transformation. Plans, purposes, promises, visions, etc, that have seemingly “died” will have the breath of the Spirit come upon them this year. While the world grows darker, His resurrection power will begin to release glory in and through those who have remained faithful to Him through intense times of testing, persecution, loss and endurance. Just like Isaac who sowed in a time of famine and reaped 100-fold (Gen. 26), there will be a corresponding reaping to those who have continued to do likewise. Many prophets and pundits are calling for worsening times in our country and the world, and this will continue to happen as we cannot pray away what the Lord says He will allow to happen in scripture. However, the enemy has continued to try to push things out of time, because the body of Christ is woefully unprepared to stand in the day of battle (Ezek. 13:5). The Lord is putting His hand sovereignly into the affairs of this earth and putting a stop to the actions of the Luciferian elite and their control. In an extraordinary display of His mercy and patience, He will even give these evil-consumed puppet-masters one more opportunity to repent, as He did King Manasseh. They will have one more opportunity to “kiss the Son” (Psalm 2) before He executes greater judgment on them.

The "Times of Refreshing" Are Here... By Mike McClung

Acts 3:19-21: "Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.

I have been trumpeting, teaching and proclaiming this passage of scripture for the last five years. The Spirit has been calling to a remnant within the organized church system to awaken, repent and come out of the existing structures in order to be prepared to enter this end-time season where the world will see the manifest glory of God established in the true temple of God - the body of Messiah, the Lord would see His bride made ready for Himself, fully mature and one with Him, and the Son would have the final harvest of the world promised Him by the Father in Psalm 2. Everything the prophets prophesied in scripture, and every true, Spirit-born prophetic word and promise must be fulfilled...and the time is NOW!

The Generation of Jacob By Mike McClung

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 up his soul to an idol, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive blessing from the LORD, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is Jacob, the generation of those who seek Him, who seek Your face. Selah (Psalm 24:3-6).

The Lord is a God of generations.  The Lord looks on us individually, loving, providing and using us - weak and broken human beings - to accomplish His will, but He also sees us interconnected with all of the generations of past ages.  When confronting error in the Saducees’ resurrection theology, He said, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Matt. 22:32).  In giving this answer, the Lord also verifies that the Father thinks and sees generationally.

Hedged In By Mike McClung

Hosea 2:6-7; 14-16: Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, and wall her in, so that she cannot find her paths. She will chase her lovers, but not overtake them; yes, she will seek them, but not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, for then it was better for me than now.’ Therefore, behold, I will allure her, will bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfort to her. I will give her her vineyards from there, and the Valley of Achor as a door of hope; she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, as in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt.” And it shall be, in that day,” says the LORD, That you will call Me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer call Me ‘My Master’….

We have entered a new season of restoration (Acts 3:19-21) in which the full purpose of God in restoring His fullness and glory in the earth will come to fruition.

Several years ago, the Lord gave me the scriptures, Joshua 3:1-6 and Joshua 5:1-12, as templates of the activities of the Holy Spirit that will lead the body of Messiah up to a “crossing over” into a final season of restoration. This will ultimately culminate in the bodily return of the Lord Jesus to earth. For the last twenty years, we have been in the process of becoming “Presence-focused”, with intimacy, worship and intercession taking central place in the body of Christ. As with Joshua and the nation of Israel (see Joshua 3:3), this focused pursuit of His Presence (the Ark) is what will lead us through the “Jordan” – a death to self – in order to enter into His fullness in this last season. Part of the process of preparing for this new season and entering this inheritance will entail a “circumcision” of flesh in the lives of a generation that has been brought up in a religious wilderness for the past 50 years (see Joshua 5:1-6). The Lord’s sharpened flint “knife” is coming!

2012: Revive, Repair, Rebuild and Flourish

At the beginning of each year, I take time to seek the Lord for direction and a scripture that will describe and launch us into the next year and season. I began seeking the Lord in October around Yom Kippur about the new season that He is unfolding before the body of Christ. The scripture that He gave me as a strategic and intercessory template is Ezra 9:8-9.

Ezra 9:8-9: And now for a little while grace has been shown from the LORD our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a peg in His holy place, that our God may enlighten our eyes and give us a measure of revival in our bondage. For we were slaves. Yet our God did not forsake us in our bondage; but He extended mercy to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to revive us, to repair the house of our God, to rebuild its ruins, and to give us a wall in Judah and Jerusalem.

First Steps in the New Season of Restoration - By Mike McClung

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire comes, it is a tree of life. (Proverbs 13:12)

For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. (2 Cor. 10:4-6)

One recent morning I awoke with this thought: To fully enter this new season of restoration, all illusion must be relinquished. You cannot have any disillusion in your life any longer. We have truly moved into a new season (some are calling a new “era”) which the scripture describes as the “season of the restoration of all things” (Acts 3:21). Moving into and occupying a new season, just like moving into a new place, are two different things. We must not just enter the season, but we must “occupy.” We cannot occupy this new place (new wineskin) with old patterns over which the flesh, the world or the enemy had dominion. These places must first be surrendered and then demolished. Then full recovery and restoration can be released and these new seasons in the Lord can be fully entered and occupied.