Two years ago the Lord led our household to pray through the books of Jeremiah and Lamentations – twice. And then three times. It took us over 250 days to pray through 171 chapters.

The abiding theme of that season (which is all the more intensely upon us in the fall of 2023) was/is HUMILITY • CONTRITION • REPENTANCE • FEAR of the LORD.

Beloved. This is the hour of judgment and the threshing floor of the Lord. If we didn’t hear and respond to the trumpet of the Lord in 2020, He’s making sure we hear it today. There isn’t another route to being prepared for the Day of His return. The Isaiah 40 road leads us through His threshing floor. This is the meaning of the prophets’ cry: “All flesh is grass.” (Isaiah 40:6-8)

“The voice said, “Cry out!” And he said, “What shall I cry?” “All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, because the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever.” (Isaiah 40:6-8)

The threshing floor is where we discover that “humility, contrition, repentance, and the fear of the Lord” is more than a theme we post on a banner at our six-hour prayer rally. They are the Lord’s dynamic wisdom for how to carry our lives through the (Matthew 3:12) fire of the moments before Y’shua’s arrival.

“His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” (Matthew 3:12)

Over the last 3 years I’ve said it hundreds of times – if we’re not in a New Covenant small group, fellowship, house church or mission that is bringing, training and encouraging each other onto the threshing floor of the Lord our hearts will not survive/endure the refining fire that’s on the earth right now.

If you hear yourself saying: “This sounds too intense, and too radical…” let me tell you from (a lot of) experience – the voice of our flesh always looks for a way around the threshing floor.

Truth-be-told, our flesh often knows more than our theological head, or sentimental heart will acknowledge: the threshing floor of the Lord is a place where people die. EVERY part of our lives goes through the winnowing process – and we don’t come out the way we went in. The flesh “senses” this reality like a dog knows when he’s being taken to a bath.

My advice? Try dragging your flesh into the Lord’s mill as you sing the hymn by Katharina​​​​​​ Von Schlegel: “Be still, my soul, the Lord is on thy side; bear patiently, the cross of grief or pain…”

I honestly tremble that THIS is the Word/prayer that we prayed 2 years ago today. On October 29th, we prayed through Jeremiah chapter 13… The Lord had me transpose it, contextualize it, and pray it as though Daniel was pray/reading it…

Friends. The threshing floor was never meant to be a corrective for a flash-point of moral crisis. The threshing floor is a prophetic and integral part of where the Spirit ALWAYS intended for the American, end-time “prayer movement” to operate…

Jeremiah 13:
8 Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
9 “Thus says the Lord: ‘In this manner I will ruin the pride of (My people)
10 who refuse to hear My words, who follow the dictates of their hearts…
11 …I have caused (this people) to become My people, for renown, for praise, and for glory; but they would not hear.”
12 Therefore you shall speak to them this word:
13 ‘Thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, I will fill all the inhabitants of this land… the priests, the prophets, and all the inhabitants with drunkenness!
14 And I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together,” says the Lord. “I will not pity nor spare nor have mercy, but will destroy them.”
15 Hear and give ear: do not be proud, for the Lord has spoken.
16 Give glory to the Lord your God before He causes darkness, and before your feet stumble on the dark mountains, and while you are looking for light, He turns it into the shadow of death and makes it dense darkness.
17 But if you will not hear it, My soul will weep in secret for your pride; My eyes will weep bitterly and run down with tears, because the Lord’s flock has been taken captive.
18 Say to the (leaders), “Humble yourselves; sit down, for your rule shall collapse, the crown of your glory.
19 The (people) shall be wholly carried away captive.
20 …Where is the flock that was given to you, your beautiful sheep?”
21 What will you say when He punishes you? For you have taught them to be chieftains, to be head over you.
22 “And if you say in your heart, ‘why have these things come upon me?’ For the greatness of your iniquity…
24 I will scatter them like stubble that passes away by the wind of the wilderness.
25 This is your lot, the portion of your measures from Me,” says the Lord, “Because you have forgotten Me and trusted in falsehood.
26 Therefore I will uncover you that your shame may appear.
27 I have seen your adulteries. Woe to you! Will you still not be made clean?”

____________________
JSB • October 29, 2023

NOTE: Right now, the Lord is lovingly, but firmly, holding our part of the prayer-movement over the open fire of His holiness. He’s “testing” the hearts of millions of His sons and daughters:
“How in the world are you going to stand in vibrant righteousness with Jacob through the intense “trouble” that’s boiling in the world, if you can’t even stand with each other in your own broken crisis of leadership?”