The Fiery Tests of Preparation to Bring Forth Radical Kingdom Exploits
We are entering the days of great kingdom exploits. God is commissioning many to take dominion! Justice is about to be released on the earth, but God will only release great kingdom exploits through those He can trust.
To be trusted with God’s heart—to carry and birth the things He deeply values—will first require tests of preparation. God will not pour out His glory upon the works of the flesh or even upon the good ideas of man. To carry and birth the things of God, they must be born of the Spirit. They must be carried by purified vessels prepared through the testing of great fires.
Just as some physical seeds can only germinate when exposed to great fire, so, too, some seeds in our lives can only germinate when exposed to great fire. Make no mistake, salvation is free, but the anointing will cost you. When we ask for the fire of God to come upon our lives, we don’t get to choose what burns. Jesus is worthy of it all!
The Fiery Tests of Preparation
We can learn a great deal from viewing the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus, through a prophetic lens. The great privilege, honor, and blessing to birth the redemption of the entire world marked her life. Yet she was not exempt from the great testing this required of her.
Though the fiery tests listed below are not all-encompassing, I pray that they help bring clarity and equip you to embrace the purifying fires of preparation to be a vessel fit to serve the King.
1. The Fiery Test of a Radical Call
Anyone can live a life of simple devotion, but embracing a radical call from the Lord will require embracing a radical surrender and radical faith that sees from the lens of Heaven, persevering against every hindrance.
God is looking for radical lovers who will relinquish their plans, dreams, and even their reputations to embrace the way of the cross that leads to a wild and holy supernatural life, releasing the glory of God on earth. The passionate devotion of these radical lovers is not based on fruitless, religious striving but is rooted in the vibrant and passionate devotion of a lovesick bride who is just as jealous for her Bridegroom as He is for her.
Receiving a radical call from the Lord will require:
radical consecration
radical devotion
radical obedience
radical surrender
radical faith
radical testing
God is looking for those willing to embrace the fires of testing, fully yielding their hearts like Mary, who cried out, “Be it unto me, Lord!”
God is looking for those who are willing to:
embrace His baptism of love and holy fire
fully devote their lives to His purposes
go wherever He leads, no matter what it looks like
Kingdom Key: Don’t be surprised by the fires of great testing that come to be trusted to carry the heart of God! The cost of a radical call is high. Still, the privilege of being trusted with radical encounters, resulting in the conception of radical seeds and bringing forth radical kingdom exploits, is priceless beyond measure.
2. The Fiery Test of War
When the kingdom of God advances, the kingdom of darkness will also try to advance. Just as Jesus was to be born—the ultimate form of the kingdom birthed on earth—Herod, the ruler of Israel, sent orders to kill every male child under the age of two. A frail, helpless seed of a baby didn’t threaten the kingdom of darkness. No, all of hell was threatened by what the seed would become—the salvation of the entire world and the government of God established in the earth.
Just as the devil warred to kill Jesus, the promise of God, while still in seed form, he wars against believers in the same way today. He wars to kill the seed of the kingdom within the saints before the kingdom purposes they carry can grow to maturity, fully manifest in the earth. Make no mistake, there is a war in the heavens, and the battle is still raging, but King Jesus has already won.
God is looking for those who are willing to:
radically war to protect the seed of promise
enforce the victory of the cross on the earth
“Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war,
and my fingers for battle” (Psalm 144:1 ESV).
Kingdom Key: When God plants the seed of great vision within you, don’t be surprised if all hell comes to destroy you and the seed you are carrying. Don’t despise the war as the fires of war and adversity are maturing you.
3. The Fiery Test of Isolation
A stigma is often attached to carrying the things of God. Who would have believed that Mary—a young virgin girl around thirteen—could be overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, conceiving the son of God? Can you imagine trying to explain that to others, especially in light of the cultural norms of the day?
Just as with Mary, the seed of the Lord within you can be controversial. It can elicit an isolating stigma of unbelief from others. Some may doubt the seed in you is from God, especially if it was conceived in unconventional ways. You may lose friends and family. You may even lose your reputation or have your character questioned.
It can be lonely when others don’t understand what God has planted within you. You may feel frustrated explaining what you can’t fully see or understand yourself. But this fiery test of isolation is necessary to burn away every trace of pride, the fear of man, or seeking validation from anyone other than God.
God is looking for those who are willing to:
walk alone to carry the purposes of God
be misunderstood
believe His promises even when others doubt
steward His promises even in times of hiddenness
trust God even when they don’t understand
not be offended when others don’t understand
not give in to the fear of man or seek outside validation
A radical call often requires a radical path and radical faith, but divine assistance and God’s provision will also be released to you. Just as God sent an angel to Joseph, the realm of Heaven will be opened over you to assist you.
Kingdom Key: Don’t be surprised if you have to walk alone to protect the seed inside you. This protects the baby, hidden in the womb until fully formed and strong enough to survive outside the womb. You may even lose your reputation, but there is no greater reward than losing your reputation to receive the Lord’s.
4. The Fiery Test of Waiting
The time of waiting is the time of preparation. The one who enters the fiery wilderness of waiting is different from the one who comes out. Waiting is necessary! To give birth prematurely would result in the baby's death and could even jeopardize the mother's life.
It’s important to guard your vision and allow patience to perfect its work in you during the wilderness of waiting. Just as the waiting time is necessary for a mother’s body to stretch and accommodate the growing baby, our hearts, minds, and spirits must also stretch to accommodate a healthy and growing baby. The waiting, the stretching, and the preparation time can seem to drag on as the baby within us grows. Patience with the timing of the Lord and waiting can feel challenging as we become more cumbersome and uncomfortable. The greater the discomfort, the closer you are to birthing your promises. God is not keeping things from you—He is keeping things for you.
“And let patience have its perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing” (James 1:4). NKJV
God is looking for those who are willing to:
wait upon Him
allow patience to perfect its work
allow themselves to be stretched in the waiting
lean into the uncomfortable stretching
hold fast and do not give up or abort their promise in the wilderness
Kingdom Key: Don’t be surprised if you are tempted to lose your vision or become apathetic, bored, or even fearful of the expanding cost of bringing forth the purposes of God. The greater the discomfort, the closer you are to birthing the manifestation of God’s promises. Trust God—it’s worth the wait.
5. The Fiery Test of Rejection
After what may have felt like endless waiting, the first labor contractions can initially be exciting. Something is finally happening! Finally, there is a shift. The initial excitement, however, can soon give way to great fatigue and sometimes even fear of the unknown as labor progresses. The grace of carrying the promise can often lift as the pain of labor sets in. The more intense the pain is, the closer you are to your promise!
“And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7, NLT emphasis added).
It can be disheartening to finally arrive at the point of delivery, only not to have a safe place to give birth. Not everyone is going to welcome you or make room for you. Not everyone will recognize what you are carrying and birthing. Sometimes, your rejection is your greatest protection. God will prepare and lead you to the right place to give birth, but it often looks nothing like you may have imagined. While we need to count the cost of our yes and may even want to question the place God brings us to birth, is there any other option than to trust Him?
The promise amid contradiction creates spiritual discomfort! Don’t abort the discomfort. Don’t abort the birth process because it’s not what you expected. Lean into the pain. Trust the place where God leads you.
God is looking for those who are willing to:
lay down their pride
lay down their understanding
persevere even when they are rejected
trust the place God leads you to birth
trust His direction and path
Kingdom Key: Don’t be surprised if there is no room at the inn or if you experience rejection and can’t birth the seed of God in your hometown. What seems like rejection can be your greatest protection. Trust God to lead you to your place of birth.
6. The Fiery Test of Fortitude
When your baby is finally birthed, it is so joyous, but that’s when the real work sets in to nurture, care for, and raise your baby. In addition to times of great joy, you will experience great exhaustion when stewarding your promise.
This is a lifelong journey. Will you remain faithful when the initial excitement wears off? Will you stay faithful when challenges come? Will you steward the promises of God well? Kingdom family and friends can be invaluable to help hold you up when you feel you can’t stand on your own anymore. A radical promise often requires radical tenacity—do not give up.
God is looking for those who are willing to:
remain faithful after the initial excitement wears off
stay faithful when life gets hard
steward their promise well
embrace a radical tenacity and fortitude
Kingdom Key: Don’t be surprised if your promise is more work than you bargained for. Being faithful for the long haul qualifies you to reap the blessings and rewards of stewarding your promise well.
7. The Fiery Test of Offense
When Mary was pregnant with Jesus, she probably imagined the promise God gave her would look much different than how it seemed to turn out. She probably believed Jesus would conquer Rome and maybe even vindicate her in the eyes of others who may have scorned her for claiming to carry and birth the Son of God.
After spending years of her life tending and caring for the promise God gave her, she had to watch her promise die a horrible and humiliating death. As Mary watched Jesus die on the cross, her heart must have broken and died too. All her hopes and dreams, how she thought life would be, were dying right before her eyes, and she was powerless to stop it. I imagine Mary had to wrestle with deep anger and offense with God. She must have cried, “But God! It shouldn’t be this way!”
God is looking for those who are willing to:
relinquish their plans
give up the right to tell God how it should be
remain unoffended by the path God allows our lives to take
embrace suffering, humiliation, and shame for the sake of the cross
Kingdom Key: Don’t be surprised if God’s plans look nothing like what you thought they would. They could come in a package that we could choose to despise. God will offend our minds to reveal our hearts. Will we live a radically surrendered life to the Lord and give up the right to be offended by God’s ways?
8. The Fiery Test of Death
Fire-activated seeds are seeds that can only germinate when exposed to great fire! These seeds can lie dormant for years, and only when set ablaze by intense fire does the hard coating on these seeds crack open, allowing them to bloom. Just as these seeds need fire to bloom, so must our lives be submitted to the fire of God as He burns away the hard seed coating of identity that our promise could be wrapped in.
Mary had to fully surrender her plan for Jesus’s life in exchange for trusting God and His plans and purposes. She had to surrender Him even to death. Just as Mary watched her promise die, so too, any shred of identity that she may have drawn from being the mother of Jesus had to die too.
Our identity that was wrapped up in our promise will die. This death has to happen to empty ourselves of any worldly identity or status our promise may bring and, instead, exchange those things at the fiery altar of death for resurrection power to fill us with our identity only in the Lord.
Are you willing to let your promise die? Are you willing to give up everything to receive a divine exchange? Resurrection life can only spring forth when we first experience death. Death always precedes resurrection power. Will we allow the fire of testing to burn away every last shred of flesh? There is a cost to the anointing.
God is looking for those who are willing to:
stand in radical faith and believe His promises even when the fires of life seem to have killed their promise
fully relinquish their identity in what they produce rather than in who God says they are
allow the fire of God to burn away every last shred of flesh
let their promise die for resurrection life to come forth
Kingdom Key: Don’t be surprised if great fire consumes you and your promise doesn’t look like what you thought it would. Only by living a life of radical obedience—even unto the fires of death—can great resurrection, life, and power come forth.
The Purpose of Testing
When you possess something of great value, you would not entrust that to just anyone. You would ensure the person is trustworthy, has character, and will care for it properly. If that is the case for us as humans, how much more would that be the case for a holy God?
God doesn’t test us to punish us. God doesn’t delight in our suffering. God tests us to ensure we are worthy of stewarding His promises—which are His heart—well.
We cannot bring forth the purposes of God until we have submitted to the fiery tests of preparation that result in our brokenness, dependency, and radical obedience to God. We must submit to the fiery tests of purification so that we are purified and emptied vessels fit to be filled by the King.
God is looking for those who are willing to:
give their hearts completely to Him
surrender their own will and desires for His
steward His purposes well
trust God and not lean on their understanding
faithfully carry and steward His purposes on the earth
Kingdom Key: Make no mistake, being trusted to carry out great kingdom exploits will cost you, but the promises are so much bigger than we can imagine. A radical call will require a radical path and faith but will result in radical vision, blessings, and fruit. This call will produce radical kingdom exploits that release God’s plans and purposes on earth.
It’s Time to Birth Radical Kingdom Exploits
God is looking for a passionately devoted, lovesick bride who is just as jealous for her Bridegroom as He is for her. He is asking, “Who will birth my purposes on the earth? Will you allow me to overshadow you? Will you open the womb of your spirit to receive the seed that I want to birth through you? Will you submit to the fiery tests of preparation to carry out my purposes?”
It’s time for the bride to arise in God’s glory and power. It’s time to partner with Heaven, commission angels, and be God’s solution in the earth.
Will you:
Cultivate the atmosphere of Heaven in your heart and home?
Allow God to radically encounter you?
Open your spiritual womb to the Lord and allow Him to overshadow you?
Embrace the fiery tests of purifying preparation to be found trustworthy to carry the heart of God and birth His purposes—no matter the cost.
Even now, the atmosphere of Heaven is opening over many of you reading. Holy Spirit is hovering over you. God is stirring your passion for Him. Angels are ready and waiting on your yes. Answer the call today. While the cost is great, the reward is so much greater.
