“Go, eat and drink, for there is the sound of a heavy rain.” 1 Kings 18:41
Have you been hard-pressed on all sides during what seems like a never-ending season of drought? Perhaps you’ve been weathering a desert storm that seems it will never let up. Have you been wondering when you’ll see the winds of change? I believe the Lord wants to bring a Word of encouragement to you (His beloved) as He prepares you for His downpour of blessings.
God wants you to see more of His Son. When you see Jesus, you see the Father; His heart, His nature, His grace…His love for you. At the beginning of this year (2018), just after the Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl, I wrote an article about having Eagle Vision; an enlightening of your heart, flooded with the revelation of the Person Jesus and what He did for you in His death, burial and resurrection.
Well, this unveiling of the Lover of your Soul has everything to do with how you receive from God. When the Word is opened-up to you and you see the scriptures all point to Jesus from beginning to end, you position yourself to possess the inheritance paid for you at the cross.
When the prophet Elijah told the wicked King Ahab to get up and celebrate because rain was on the way, it had been three years since a drop of moisture was in the land. The people of Israel at the time had been in a severe drought per Elijah’s declaration because they and the king’s wicked prophets had been worshipping the pagan god known as Baal.
Just before Elijah heard the sound of heavy rain, he and the King’s people had just finished a “face-off,” if you will, on the top of Mount Carmel. Elijah challenged Ahab and his prophets to meet him there at the top to reveal who the One True God is. He told them to bring their sacrificial bull and build an altar while Elijah did the same.
Ahab and his prophets would then call on their “god” while Elijah would call on the Lord God. And the one who answered by fire would be the One True God. Of course, the fire of the Lord fell on Elijah’s sacrifice and burned it all up. And the people who were there fell on their faces and proclaimed, “The Lord – He is God!” Now what’s key in this story, is seeing Jesus.
There are many revelations that can be shared about the details of Elijah’s altar, the timing and the place. But what’s most important here is seeing that the sacrificial animal on the altar is a picture of Jesus on the cross; taking your sins and mine, your judgment and mine, your shame, guilt, curses, sicknesses and mine!
Get this though, under the old covenant, the entire sacrifice was consumed. But Jesus, our new covenant, remained after taking it all for us at Calvary. And not only that, He reversed the curse from the fall in the garden and is now and forever our representative of favor at the Father’s right hand (where we are seated in Him)!
Now, before Elijah declared to the king an abundance of rain was on its way, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Remember there had been a drought for three years. Yet at Elijah’s word, and because the people had just turned to the Lord after seeing His display of power, it was coming.
This is what your Abba, your Daddy God, is declaring to you now…that because of His Son’s perfect sacrifice, His finished work, there is an ever-flowing abundance of grace pouring out for you, His child.
Soon after Elijah prophesied the downpour, he got in worship position and told his servant to go and look toward the sea. At first, he saw nothing. But Elijah told him to go back and keep expecting. On the seventh look (7 in Bible numerology speaks of completion, perfection, Jesus’ finished work), the servant saw a cloud the size of a man’s hand (1 Kings 18:44).
If you read my last blog on Jesus as the right hand of God, you’ll see the connection. The servant saw a picture of Jesus as the Victorious One and the manifested blessing! In other words, the more you see who Jesus is and what He’s done for you, the more your heart will be open to expect all He has for you.
The more you understand God is not behind your tragedies and troubles but rather in the midst of them with you, working unspeakable good on your behalf, the more you will see Him as good and trust Him for His best that’s always on its way!
Elijah’s servant saw a cloud the size of a man’s hand, but Elijah saw a torrential downpour. And as Elijah spoke (again) telling his servant to go tell Ahab to hitch up his chariot before the rain overtakes him, the sky grew black with clouds and wind. And then a heavy rain.
So, I say to you, don’t just look at your pain, your suffering, your current hardships. But see Jesus’ never-ending love for you. See His kindness towards you. See your Father’s heart to help you, bless you, comfort you and transform you in every situation and season.
See your healing break forth, see your marriage and relationships restored, see your children’s bright future. See beauty arising from the ashes of your heartbreak. And all because His Son paid for it. Speak it. “Amen” it. Then get ready…get ready to be supernaturally showered. You have it. It’s coming…I hear the sound.
Resting In His Love,
Annalee Reyes
“May grace (God’s favor) and peace (which is perfect well-being, all necessary good, all spiritual prosperity, and freedom from fears and agitating passions and moral conflicts) be multiplied to you in [the full, personal, precise, and correct] knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.”
2 Peter 1:2 AMPC