Dear Partners and Friends,

What was the last thing the Lord asked you to do? This is a significant question that must be revisited often. It keeps you focused and allows you to adjust your compass as you go. It is an important question as you exercise your faithfulness by recalling and revisiting the last thing God asked you to do. What a tremendous mechanism for homing in and maintaining your faithfulness—recalling the last thing God asked you to do.  

Most men will proclaim each his own goodness, but who can find a faithful man? 

—Proverbs 20:6 NKJV 

Many a man proclaims his own loyalty, but who can find a trustworthy man?

—Proverbs 20:6 NASB77

There is a power that carries massive results, and it is the power of faithfulness. Faithfulness is the necessary foundation to accomplish what God tells you to do. The Spirit speaks to me from time to time with clear instructions for a coming season or directions, and for the current time, I am walking in. However, these instructions do not come often—they come after accomplishing the last thing God asked me to do. Our journey has been this way since the beginning and continues this pattern today. One very clear thing the Spirit spoke to me was that supernatural beckoning to “Come up Higher!” That is exactly what I heard directly from the Voice of the Spirit. 

Recently, a prophet contacted me. He began sharing the word of the Lord with me and said, “The Lord says to you, Joseph, ‘Come up higher!’” This is a scripture from Revelation 4, where the Voice of God says, “Come up here!”

 After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.”

—Revelation 4:1 NIV

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Demystifying the Prophetic – Now Available!

Never before has culture had a greater need for clear, prophetic insight, while never before has so much prophetic error and controversy swirled around us to discredit legitimate prophetic voices. Now, more than ever, true biblical prophecy must take its place at the forefront.

Joseph Z—an international prophetic voice—began encountering the voice of God from a young age through visions and dreams. With wisdom, accuracy, biblical balance, and experience, Joseph offers powerful keys to help you unlock the revelation, interpretation, and application of prophecy.

In Demystifying the Prophetic, Joseph Z will teach you how to:

• Identify real and false prophets
• Activate a clear-minded prophetic lifestyle
• Master your gifts and experiences
• Interpret trances, dreams, entities, déjà vu, and strange phenomena
• Recognize four types of prophets operating in the Church, government, and marketplace
• Discern the signs of the times

Mature prophecy in its pure operation stands unrivaled in power and accuracy against all counterfeit voices. The Church and the world desperately need and deserve this better class of prophetic experience. Jesus desires to work through you and equip you to prophetically navigate these last days!

When I heard come up here, come up higher, it was a calling to rise as a watchman—looking forward to seeing those things that are to come. God desires to share secrets with those He can trust. Doing so is a wonderful responsibility and requires discipline and commitment to obey what He asks. Additionally, knowing the Voice of God is a wonderful privilege, as He will share things with those who will fellowship with Him. 

Surely the Lord GOD does nothing, unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets.

—Amos 3:7

Amos 3:7 is an often misquoted scripture. Often, it is said that the Lord does nothing unless He first reveals it to His prophets, leaving the hearer to assume that God will do nothing on earth without first telling exactly what He will do to a few prophets somewhere on the planet. Although this is not incorrect, it is undoubtedly incomplete. 

Notice it doesn’t say that God will reveal what He is doing. Rather, it states that God reveals “His secret” to His servants, the prophets. What does that mean? It means God speaks to His prophets through types, shadows, signs, and revelatory moments to be interpreted by those He is speaking to. It is the responsibility of watchmen to interpret what is being said by the Spirit about current things. Again, this falls in line with the sons of Issachar anointing. 

Of the sons of Issachar who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do, their chiefs were two hundred; and all their brethren were at their command.

—1 Chronicles 12:32

Interestingly, there is a very real scenario that Jesus Himself laid out: Every believer should be able to recognize the signs of the times, at least to the level of predicting the weather! 

And in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times.

—Matthew 16:3 

A believer, or anyone who can discern the face of the sky by looking at it and can tell what the weather appears to be doing in the immediate future but cannot discern the signs of the times, Jesus calls hypocrites! Wow! Hypocrites! Jesus would never be upset about something unless there was a predicated understanding by which we should know. 

In this case, I’m reminded of a similar issue where Jesus was hungry and went to the fig tree in season; when He came to that tree, it was barren. There was no fruit on it at all. Jesus then stated, may no one ever eat from you again. This story of the fig tree teaches us a profound lesson about understanding our designed purpose and the consequences of not fulfilling it. The fig tree was perverted or was out of bounds with why it was created! 

This is similar to the parable of the talents when the master came to see what His servants did with His investment. Those who were faithful were rewarded, and those who did not meet the master’s expectations had even what they had taken from them. Going back to the signs of the sky and the times, Jesus has an expectation from the book of Romans. 

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. 

—Romans 1:20

God made creation as a window to His invisible attributes, which are clearly seen. Anyone who can look at creation, the sky, and every magnificent thing created and cannot perceive God’s attributes is a hypocrite. Those who only look at the natural through their five senses are carnal and completely disregard God. 

A global hardening of hearts and a massive desire for the Spirit of God have been growing in today’s world. With all the signs of the times and many attempting to deny that God has a plan for them, what are we to do to engage this generation, both from a spiritual vantage point and from a natural positional setting, meaning to be situated and producing where God needs you? How do we find ourselves at the right place and time in our generation, with discernment and faith actions? The answer goes back to the beginning of this letter—complete or continue the last thing God told you to do. 

You might consider altering course when things are changing around you and due to the circumstances of change. It is crucial in such moments to remember the last thing God told you to do and simply continue. Continue until God directs you to do something else. That is how winning is done! 

Stay the course, be strong and very courageous, and don’t fall to despair, depression, or anything in your thought life that exalts itself above God. Instead, rise again in faith and full assurance that He who began a good work in you is faithful to complete it— and He will. 

We have intense days of fire coming to this earth, but you were born for this time, and you will yet experience the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living (Psalm 27). 

I just wanted to encourage you with a word from my heart to keep going, come up higher, and don’t let off the high call you received from Him! 

For Jesus, 

Joseph Z