The Cloud is Moving, a Word to the Bride, March 2011

Friends,
For some time now I have been discerning a new stirring or shifting in the spiritual atmosphere that I believe has signficant importance to the Bride of Christ. I believe others are discerning this new season also. Seeking understanding of this from the Lord over recent weeks I have been deeply impressed by the Spirit that the 'Cloud is moving' and that the Lord wants His Bride to know this, focus on Him and move out with Him. This movement I am sensing is not a movement into more and more work for Him. No, that is not what He is wanting at all for the Bride. It is rather a movement in and with Him simply because she must be with Him, only doing what He is doing in the moment He is doing it. In short, she should no longer be able to bear to be in any other place at any given moment, except right where her Lord is.

When the children of Israel first came out of Egypt they were a multitude of families and clans formed loosely into tribes. Not far into their wilderness journey, God gave direction for how they were to organise themselves into a single functioning nation to be identified as Israel. When Israel camped, each individual and each tribe knew exactly where they were to be. Viewed from above, the formation of Israel when camping looked like the shape of a Cross with the Tabernacle in the centre. When Israel moved out and marched together, again each individual, each tribe, knew their place and their function for the journey (Numbers 1-4; 10:13-28). Israel would keep camp as long as the Cloud of God's Presence remained in the one place. This may have been days, weeks or longer. When the Cloud moved, they moved.

"Whether it was two days, a month, or a year that the cloud remained above the tabernacle, the children of Israel would remain encamped and not journey, but when it was taken up, they would journey. At the command of the Lord they remained encamped, and at the command of the Lord they journeyed; they kept the charge of the Lord, at the command of the Lord by the hand of Moses." (Numbers 9:22-23)

Their lives, whether they stayed still or moved on, were entirely governed by what the Cloud did. The priests watched continually for any movement of the Cloud and would quickly sound the trumpets when Israel was to break camp and follow the Cloud (Numbers 10:2). We can try to imagine what that was like, especially when the Cloud had not moved for some time. Families who had settled into daily routines would wake suddenly one morning to the sound of the trumpets signifying Israel was to move on. Mothers gathering up babies and little ones amidst cooking utensils and bedding, men and boys hurriedly loading donkeys and gathering herds so that no-one and nothing would be left behind, Levites disassembling the Tabernacle and it furnishings ready for the journey ahead (Numbers 1:51). All normal activity became secondary to the one thought paramount in every mind: "Don't lose sight of the Cloud. It's moving!"

In similar fashion, the Bride of Christ currently finds herself entering a new season. There is a trumpet call, there is a stirring in the camp. This great Bridal company has been called out of the world and the world's systems. Corporately she carries the sign of the Cross signifying she has followed her Bridegroom even there and has not shrunk back from the crucifying of the flesh. The forerunners among her are sensing a shift in the wind and are alerting the great company that something's up, but some among this company have become comfortable and fat through the days of camping. They have lowered their eyes to temporal earthly things and are rapidly losing sight of the heavenly claim on their lives. Those who do not live each moment ready for the Bridegroom's call risk falling behind, which is a dangerous place to be. As Israel journeyed her enemies would often attack from behind, picking off the weak, the vulnerable and the slow trailing at the rear of the great Israelite nation. Israel's greatest enemy, Amalek, was especially good at this tactic (Deu. 25:17-19).

It is God who has authority over times and seasons (Dan 2:21, Acts 1:7). Seasons do not arrange themselves conveniently around our timetables. Things do not change when we feel we are ready for them to change. They change when God is ready for them to change. I do not personally know how prepared or how willing individuals in the Lord's Bridal company are for the change in season now upon us. It is not my responsibility to know such things. It is, however, my responsibility to be one who sounds the trumpet that rouses the Bride.

I feel it necessary to emphasise once again this is not a call to new or greater works (though these will flow freely of themselves for those who hear). It is a call to a new level of intimacy and oneness with the Bridegroom, one in which the Bride will function as His agent on the earth at a level she has not previously known.

With those thoughts in mind the following Word from the Lord to His Bride is submitted to you.

Cheryl McGrath
Great South Land Ministries,
www.greatsouthland.org

WORD TO THE BRIDE: The Cloud is Moving

Cheryl McGrath
www.greatsouthland.org
March, 2011

I speak to those of you who have learned to wait on Me. I speak to those who have learned what it is to be still before Me and to those who have learned to yield and lean on Me. Many are the days when you have longed to move, but My Spirit has bid you wait. You have been learning of Me. I have had you secluded in a quiet place. I have taken you aside unto Myself until the world had no attraction to you, and until the flesh had lost its power over you. And it seemed to you at times that you died a thousand deaths in that place in the wilderness. Many did not stay for they could not endure the hardships and the loneliness or even the anonymity. But for those who allowed me to lead them into the cold hard places of the wilderness the reward of My ever increasing Presence was sufficient. How many times have I wiped away painful tears from your eyes and turned them to tears of joy as we communed together in the loneliest of places, you and I? I am your reward, and you, beloved, are Mine.

Lift your eyes now, beloved. See, the Cloud is moving at last. That which you have yearned for, cried out to Me for, scanned the horizon for, it comes to you now. There is a place in Me where you really do live and move and have your being. There is a place in Me where My thoughts become your actions. There is a place in Me that is both life and movement together. I have been longing to show you this place. You have been longing to see it and hear it, though you knew not what it was you were looking for. Here is the place we now discover together. You didn't realise it but I have been leading you here all along.

This, beloved, is the place that I knew in My Father. It is the place of oneness of spirit where you do what you see Me doing, not because you see or you hear, but because you move with Me as I move. It will be like a dance together. I will be your partner but I will also be your music, your song. You have learned to follow Me and you have learned to lean on Me. Now shall you be brought from the wilderness, leaning on Me, yes, but dancing to the song I sing over you. Sometimes My song will move you to war with Me, sometimes My song will move you to weep with Me, but always, always, we will move as one in this new place of My Spirit where I will now take you.

Arise now, beloved, I am calling you up from the wilderness. Many days and nights you have waited, watching and praying for the least movement. You have known what it is to live beneath both the Cloud and the Fire. If you lift your eyes you will see the Cloud that was once still is now moving. Do you know now that I am both the Fire and the Cloud? If you love Me you will move with Me. I call you now to movement, I call you to journey on with Me. The movement I call you to is not the dead works and striving of the carnal religion you have left behind. The movement is Me. See, I am moving forward and I desire you to be with Me. Will you leave behind you all that has made you comfortable and at ease? Yes, even in the wilderness the flesh knows how to make itself exceedingly comfortable. Will you forsake all again and move with the Cloud?

Come beloved, I have changed the season for you. I have decreed a new day for you. I am ready to take you to a place you have not yet known. I am the Cloud that covers you, I am the Cloud that surrounds and consumes you. Move with Me.

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