“You will arise and have mercy on Zion;
For the time to favor her,
Yes, the set time, has come.
For Your servants take pleasure in her stones,
And show favor to her dust” (Ps 102 vs 13-14)

It’s been a global phenomenon of lockdown that we are finding ways of actually being closer to each other than we were before. Zoom and other digital meetings proliferate. People outside the church tune into our Sunday services. Joschi joins us for School of Prophesy from Germany, and we meet weekly instead of monthly. I’ve just come from a family Zoom get-together in which one of our nephews face-timed his mum and dad (in Scotland) from Canada, and my sister-in-law put her phone up to the computer camera so we were all connecting with him- from Scotland, Sussex, Hertfordshire and Stafford. Nationwide, international, double digital. We are all Christians. Each of us in the Church of Christ is a “living stone,” so the verse from Psalm 102 – “Your servants take pleasure in her stones” has never been truer.

When I was preparing for this SOP I felt this verse jumped out of my Bible reading and was yet another nudge from the Lord that He wants us to be prepared for a new outpouring. How do we do that? “Whatever He says to you, do it,” is the much-quoted instruction from the Lord’s mother at the Wedding in Cana of Galilee. Jesus will often operate supernaturally within the context of the ordinary normal, which He will then turn upside down. But in order to do “whatever,” and so see the Kingdom come, we cannot be attached to the expectations of the world or the desires of the flesh. “But you can’t use THOSE stone pots – they are for purification!” “Oh, but yes I can…!” Whatever He says to you, do it, however counter-intuitive it may seem. If we do, and only if we do, we will see His favour poured out, like the wine at the wedding.

Finally, when this “best wine” is poured out, what are the waterpots it will come from? That would be you and me. We need to make sure we stay full, filled with His Holy Spirit, because we don’t know when He is going to come and turn on the tap. When the wine flows the wedding guests will enjoy the favour of God, and the world will want to come to the party. Are we ready? Because the set time has come.