I will die to my flesh to wage war in the heavenlies; I will see the fulfilment of my prophetic destiny.  

I woke up this morning with this phrase in my heart as I battled my flesh to arise and seek the face of God.

There are seasons when serving God simply gets harder. We don’t always feel like it. We don’t always want to pray, we don’t always want to enter in, we aren’t always eager to hear what He has to say. In these moments it is integral to speak the Word of God over ourselves, to speak His truth over us. So, when you don’t feel like dying to your flesh remind yourself of the following:

#1 Dying to your flesh empowers and equips you to tap into your prophetic destiny.

It is often in the seasons of intense dying to self, whether it’s fasting, enduring persecution, or serving in a barren land (Habakkuk, Jonah, Jeremiah, and Jesus are all classic examples), that we can be most tempted to quit on our faith journey. We say to ourselves, “it isn’t really worth it. Enduring to the end isn’t really worth it…” I want to encourage you that to see the fulfillment of the prophetic destiny upon your life, you must die to self.

 The only way to get out of it, it to endure through it.

It is literally the only option. If you quit early, you will delay the promises of God. In His grace, He will allow you to take the test again. However, the sooner you pass the test, the better it is for you and those God has called you to serve. You also make the job of every angel assigned to you a lot easier! Every time you receive a revelation, a dream, a prophetic insight into your destiny or into what God is doing on the earth, realities shifted in the spiritual realm for you to receive that revelation.

Don’t forsake the power of the voice of God; do not take His voice for granted. Dying to your flesh empowers you to hear the voice of God concerning your prophetic destiny: He will give you insight as to how to fulfill it.

In our online course, “How to Hear God’s Voice for your Business”, we go into depth about the power of dying to self, specifically through the discipline of fasting and prayer. For those who have received words about being called into the marketplace, it is easy to meditate on the resurrection power that is going to work through you and your business, without taking time to truly count the cost of what it means for God to use you so radically in the earth. I encourage you to read my blog post, “What is True Success? A Kingdom Perspective.” The truth is, the higher the mantle, the greater the call to suffering (Matthew 20:20-28).

 Thus, dying to your flesh empowers and equips you to tap into your prophetic destiny because it is here that Christ in you is able to come alive like never before. It’s not about earning His promises, it’s about aligning your heart with His so you can hear Him more clearly concerning your assignment. It prepares you for the weight of the mantle. Thus, dying to self is truly a privilege and a grace from our Heavenly Father in Heaven.

#2 Dying to your flesh is an opportunity to learn how to share in Christ’s sufferings

Whatever you may be going through that is causing death in your life, whether it’s toxic relationships or worldly dreams that God has made clear He is no longer going to fulfill, this is a beautiful opportunity to learn how to suffer. Why do we desire to learn how to suffer? Must we truly learn suffering considering all on this earth, both believer and unbeliever, must endure suffering? To answer these questions in short:

We suffer because we are a part of His body. As believers, we learn what it means to be a part of His body through the suffering we endure for His name’s sake (Matthew 5:10-12).

The world grieves the loss of temporal things; we grieve the reality that we are not yet home. Heaven is our home. Our citizenship is in Heaven. We long for the return of our Savior. He promised He was going to come back. We are waiting for Him to come back. This life is one of momentary affliction that cannot compare to the eternal weight of glory that is to come (2 Corinthians 4:17).

 Do we believe this?

 We are the body of Christ. We share in His suffering because it is how we share in His glory (Romans 8:17). Not only are we called to suffer but we must learn to suffer the way He suffered.

Jesus is the truth, the way, and the life (John 14:1-6). We must learn to believe in Him, follow His ways, and live the life He lived. This is the only way to eternal life: obedience to His commands.

Jesus did not obey His Father with a complaining spirit, but rather He delighted in His weakness that Christ’s power may rest on Him. Jesus never doubted His Father’s ability to perform His word. Everything the Father spoke concerning His ministry on earth and the promise of eternal life, He believed. He always prayed from a position of humility and faith. That though he felt forsaken, though he cried out for another way in His own weakness, He never lost faith. It was His faith that produced perseverance. Don’t forget the words of the Apostle James,

“… because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance” (James 1:3).

We either believe this or we don’t.

#3 Your suffering matures and prepares you for Christ’s return.

Listen to the words of the Apostle Paul, concerning our call to maturity,

“As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received… So, Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:1,11-13).

So often we put pressure on the pastor or the prophet to be perfectly mature, as an excuse for our own immaturity.

Because we have a prophet, we can get a word from, a pastor that will always coddle us, we use this as an excuse not to grow up in the Lord, to exercise our authority, and use our gifts for the expansion of the Kingdom.

When was the last time you led someone to salvation? When was the last time you encouraged someone in the Lord? Whatever your gift is, whether it’s in the body or to reach the unsaved, use your gift to mature his body.

 God desires a mature bride!

Ben Atkinson, the founder of Holy Clubs, had this powerful dream years ago where the Lord highlighted to Him that the American church had left their race of holiness.

Hebrews 12:1-2 says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

The word says, “AND LET US RUN”! Why aren’t we running, church? Why have we grown sluggish?

“We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand” (Hebrews 5:11).

My encouragement is simply this:

“For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised” (Hebrews 10:36 ESV).

 God’s Will is that we would mature. He desires, and He designed His family so that, we would all mature as His body and His bride. God is coming back! Jesus is coming back for a mature bride.

Are you suffering? Then I say, CONTINUE TO ENDURE! For your sufferings are simply maturing you for His return.

Don’t be like Jonah and run from the call of God, embrace it. Wrestle down your prejudice, wrestle down your fear, wrestle down your doubts because there is glory on the other side of it.

The truth is this: We do not own our own lives. When we sing, “you are the air I breathe”. It is because He owns the very air that we are breathing. The fact that we are alive is His grace. So in your pride, do not run from your suffering for it is the grace of God that desires to give you the strength to endure.

The only way out of it is through it.

Jesus, while He bled on that Cross, suffered excruciating pain for you and for me. How was He able to do it? He had joy set before Him. He knew that His death and resurrection meant that we would be grafted into the family, that we would become sons and daughters of the Eternal God.

Therefore, STAY AWAKE, my brothers and my sisters, continue in the race. For until He returns, our work is not yet finished yet. What is the work that God has entrusted to us? “Jesus answered, ‘The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent’” (John 6:29).

“Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.

Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. “Who then is the faithful and wise servant,whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions” (Matthew 24:42-47).