Dear Partners and Friends

Hold Your Ground and Prepare to Advance! 

Hold your ground. There is a reward around the corner being prepared for you. Amid turbulence and in the middle of a full-out assault of darkness against our land, we must remember to continue until we arrive at the destination God has for us. The remarkable thing about divine destination is that it is not how far away or how much time God says it will take. Some might find it shocking to discover that it has much more to do with how developed your faith is and the ability you have cultivated to receive! 

Consider the children of Israel sojourning through the wilderness for those 40 years. Due to a variety of reasons, their actions boasted a consistent inability to receive the promised land. Their destination remained out of their grasp, and among the leading issues of many was grumbling and complaining or activities such as fashioning a golden calf. Amazingly, if the children of Israel were to have been in a position to believe, they would have likely taken a much more direct route. Some scholars say it would have taken as little as 11 days to complete the journey! That is a large difference when compared to 40 years!

Newsletter continues below…

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!

What lesson can be learned from this? One lesson for certain would be to find out what God requires and get yourself in a position to receive it.  When seeking the destiny you are being led toward, you must apply your faith and shorten the gap between promise and receiving. A surefire way to miss an expedient work of God is to grumble and complain as the Israelites did. Their cultivated unbelief cost them dearly because God has this thing about being believed! He does… and anyone who will simply believe Him at His Word and marshal everything in their life around a lifestyle that seeks to honor God’s Word at every point will find themselves shortening the waiting and wandering gap. 

Now that we have crossed the threshold of a new year let us do exactly that—shorten the gap.

Here is why: God wants you to win even more than you do. Yes, that is true! God gets zero glory out of your failures and missing the mark. He loves you and doesn’t condemn you when you do. Remember, He is looking for fruit that will manifest from your life and that will remain. We know this because He sent Jesus for you. Talk about the ultimate investment. 

When considering that God has a destination for you, not only this year but in life, you need to shake yourself and realize it is crucial to focus on what Jesus has made accessible to you. When Jesus poured out His blood for you and all humanity, it was a covenant He made for anyone who would receive Him, believe in His Name, and make Him their Lord. Going Red is a saying we often declare in our ministry because it represents that very thing! Jesus’ blood is why we say it and what His blood means to us. His blood paid for everything Scripture says we can walk in. All of it! This is why I like to take scriptures and pray them over where I am headed. Why? Every one of us is called to hold our ground and take more territory, and Jesus’ blood has given us a legal right to proclaim the promises of God until they appear in the natural. 

When believing for our destination, this is one of the scriptures I stand on. 

Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.

—Exodus 23:20 (NKJV)

 Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep and guard you on the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared.

—Exodus 23:20 (AMPC)

Notice the Angel of the Lord’s assignment. In Exodus 23:20, the Angel is sent before you to keep you in the way, protecting what you have as you journey to the next destination. The amplified version adds insight by saying, “…keep and guard you on the way…” Keeping your ground or maintaining what you have attained is vital when progressing into more territory. Not only does the Angel of the Lord keep you and maintain what you have obtained while you journey, but this Angel is assigned to bring you to the place “I” God has prepared for you. 

Heather and I have often prayed this scripture over our lives and mission, that we would maintain what God has allowed us to obtain and that His angel would lead us to the place He has prepared for us. I recognize this is for the children of Israel in the Old Testament, preparing to journey until they receive the promised land. 

Something that we must never forget and take to heart whenever reading and claiming scriptural promises is that the Old Testament was written for us! I like to point that out because it gives you authority when you understand what the Word of God promises us about any scripture. Allow me to share some scriptures that make this truth valid. 

Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

—1 Corinthians 10:11 

For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.

—Romans 15:4 

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, ¹⁷ that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

  —2 Timothy 3:16-17  

that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

—Hebrews 6:12

After looking at these scriptures, we are empowered to walk in the fullness of what God has provided by holding up the promises in the Old and New Testaments. What an amazing ability God has provided for us. Not only can we learn from the Old and New Testaments, but we can also apply what they contain as legal promises when we pray. 

Why must we develop this way and believe God for what He has for us in the coming seasons? It is all a part of what Jesus commanded His Church to do. He taught us through the parable of the ten servants to occupy until He returns.

And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, occupy till I come.

—Luke 19:13 

When it comes to occupying or occupation, it describes taking up the space you are meant to be in and filling it with divine purpose. “Occupy” means to do what you are called to do as part of the Church while in the world. This applies to every person, certainly not occupational ministers, but to each believer following God’s call on their life, reading their Bible, and growing in the Spirit. This identifies the unification of every joint supplying what it intends to do in the body of Christ. Occupational activity in the body of Christ means being occupied with or employed in any business, doing business or trade, or performing similar productive activities. I like to say it this way: part of the ideology behind the phrase “occupy” means that we are to make plans, get educated, and be a part of society. We are not to live the life of a monk in a monastery. Rather, we are to rise as the body of Christ and impact the world around us. 

—Albert Barnes Luke 19:13 on occupying

Occupy till I come —The word “occupy” here means not merely to “possess,” as it often does in our language, but to “improve,” to employ “in business,” for the purpose of increasing it or of making “profit” on it. The direction was to use this money so as to gain “more” against his return. So, Jesus commands his disciples to “improve” their talents; to make the most of them; to increase their capability of doing good, and to do it “until” he comes to call us hence, by death, to meet him. See 1Co 12:7; Eph 4:7.

—Bakers New Testament Luke 19:13 

With that “pound” each of these servants must do business. That is the point of the parable. Those who have heard the gospel must proclaim it! They must conduct themselves in such a manner that through their word and example sinners are brought to the Lord, believers are strengthened in the faith, they themselves grow in every Christian virtue, and every sphere (social, economic, political, educational, etc.) is brought under the influence of the gospel, all this to the glory of God.

—IVP Bible background commentary on Luke 19:13 

Luk 19:13. Each slave was given a mina, the equivalent of about one hundred days’ wages, which they would probably entrust to the moneychangers. Because of exorbitant interest rates in the Greco-Roman world and because only a few people had significant capital, those doing business could quickly multiply their investments.

A prophetic word I have carried for a long time, more than a year or two, is that there is coming an anointing to reclaim what belongs to you or your legacy. This will involve ownership, among many different things. Ownership of things your family had a purpose to possess generations before you were born. This may include property, but regardless of the what, where, or how, it is the “why” of an issue. The why is that God purposes certain things in certain people, and if they go unfinished in that person’s lifetime, there are those who, generations down the line, will pick up the mantle or purpose of the original intent. The why of a matter. 

The Lens of Religion

Religion is a lens through which we view Scripture and the Gospel. Religion is the lens through which we view God, Jesus, and our relationship with others. Gospel is a position of gratefulness and receiving what Jesus paid for. Most of what we hear today that is referred to as the gospel is not. It is a mixed religion—a form of godliness denying the power of it. To reach our divine destination by closing the gap of timing and occupy when we arrive, we must seek out a revelation of Jesus again. 

Jesus is the entirety of the tale. He is the complete access to the Father. John 14:6, Jesus said, “No man comes to the Father but through Me…” That includes salvation and everything that accompanies salvation God has made available to us. 

Religion says, “You must do more and try more.” It is a doing and trying belief system. But Jesus says, “Done, now trust.” In that trust, we are called to seek the Lord through His Word and prayer. This is where discovery and a greater revelation of Jesus magnify, and from this place, you will not only know what you have available but build the faith to attain it! 

Let’s roar into this year with all our hearts! 

For Jesus,

Joseph Z