So often we speak negative words about the future.  This is an encouraging and hopeful word from Gary Elkins.  Let's begin to "set a watch about our mouths" to declare what God says and what He has done.  Of course, we must be reading the Word to know what God says, so it is a "win, win" situation.  We learn more about Him and then have more to testify of His goodness and greatness!

Garris Elkins:

Declare Your Testimony Into Your Approaching Future

    I was recently tucked away in a lodge outside of Bend, Oregon, on a writing retreat. For three days I was assembling and editing my personal God-experiences and testimonies, an exercise I have been encouraged by the Lord to do over the last two years.

     For three days I have been reading again the personal words, testimonies, and stories of God's interaction with me over my lifetime. Revisiting these words and their accompanying testimonies has overwhelmed me with the faithfulness and presence of God.

     One morning on this writing retreat, the Lord awakened me before sunrise to sit and pray in front of the fireplace. As the flames danced before me in the early morning darkness, the Lord began to speak. "Have My people assemble their testimonies about Me and begin to declare them into their approaching future."

     As I heard this instruction from the Lord, I immediately saw an image. It was an image of an advancing army of Believers. The weapons they carried were not rifles or spears. They carriedtestimony. As they advanced declaring their individual testimonies, the enemy strongholds embedded in their future were being destroyed by the power of their words.

     I saw these followers of Jesus holding simple sheets of paper before their faces, reading the words of their testimonies as they walked forward. The words went out with such force that they struck the waiting armies of darkness like powerful exploding rockets. I saw entire encampments of demonic forces explode and come apart from the impact of these words of testimony.

      The release of the miraculous power that was now present was the same power that created the testimony in the first place. It was now being released again with the same force into the future. The anointing that empowered the original testimonies was now fully present in these future battles.

       In this vision, I was reminded that as we speak words of testimony into our approaching future, words that define and proclaim God's faithfulness in our past, the weapons formed against us that wait in our future will be destroyed. Lies attached to a foreboding image of our future will lose their ability to prosper.

      Like Joshua and the people of Israel, everything God had promised came to pass. God had promised that Israel would have victory and rest, possessing and dwelling in a land of promise.

      Joshua 21:45 says, "Not a word failed of any good thing which the Lord had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass."This confidence in God to fulfill what He promised was repeated by Joshua at the end of his life in his farewell address. Joshua repeated these same words, declaring his personal testimony and reminding the people, "...not one thing has failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spoke concerning you. All have come to pass for you; not one word of them has failed"(Joshua 23:14).

      We can rise up in the same confidence Joshua possessed and declare our testimony. Today, assemble the words of God's faithfulness from your past and begin to speak them into your future. We were not given these testimonies to remember them only as documents of history. These words have been given to us as supernatural weapons to send out into our approaching future.

      As the power of our testimony is released, we will arrive on future battlefields and find the enemy lying in ruins upon our arrival. These will be places of victory where the only weapon discharged will have been words of faith spoken in a personal testimony of God's faithfulness.

Garris Elkins, Senior Leader
Living Waters Church - Medford, Oregon
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