40 +

Many of the prophetic voices of today are speaking of a great move of
God among our youth. Paul and I are in a church with an abundance of
such young adults and have seen first hand the fervent, fiery zeal
they possess. We know that this is not an isolated situation and that
the youth have no problem moving from one house to another and sharing
their love for God. Their enthusiasm is contagious and it won't take
much for it to erupt into full scale revival. We are looking forward
to the day God unleashes these warrior saints.

Meanwhile, I am hearing the 40 plus year olds saying, "what about us?
Have we missed it?" Many of us have gone through years of
preparation never seeming to come into the ministry God has called us
to. Have we been too hard of hearing? Have we taken too long? Is
God tired of dealing with us?

Brothers and Sisters be encouraged. God is looking at your heart, not
your birthday cake. This morning as I was running on my rebounder,
the Holy Spirit said that we have to make a choice. We are that
Joshua generation chosen to help the younger ones take the land but
whether we participate or stand on the sidelines is our choice. If we
will be like Joshua and spend time in God's presence, He will give us
the anointing to be a father or mother to this generation. Many of
them haven't had natural parents and they need us but it must be a
relationship born of the Spirit.

We need each other. Our destinies are locked up together. But we
need to draw near to the throne of God and let Him redefine our
ministry. In many cases, it won't look like what we thought it would
be and it won't look like those who trained us to walk in the Spirit.

From what I can see in the Word, Joshua spent 40 years doing basically
three things. He ministered to Moses. When it was necessary, he went
to battle and he spent time in God's presence. I don't see any
reference that when Moses appointed those who would be over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens that Joshua was one of them. He had a long season of preparation. When the day of release came and he was called to lead the nation into the Promise Land, his ministry didn't look like that of Moses. You don't read about him going off into the
mountains for 40 days at a time. Nevertheless, he heard the Word of
the Lord and acted on it which released that generation into battle
for their inheritance.

Bob Jones recently said this:

To Those Over 50 Years of Age

"One of the things I've been challenging all of us over 50 years
old--Raise your hand. You're the Joshua generation! And most of you
have got your eyes on retirement and dying. Instead of retiring--be
rehiring, and beginning to show the next generation how to not make
the mistakes you made. You've got--knowledge, plus experience, equals wisdom. The experience that you've got is pain and failure. You've got enough of that, to where the next generation and the youth are going to come without numbers--they're going to come. But if there's not some wise mothers and fathers behind them, it'll take them as long as it took you to overcome.

But with some wise fathers and mothers over 50, they can show the way
across Jordan. They can get behind them, advise them, oversee them,
finance them--just don't get in front of them. But with that, they'll
go on. So the closer you come to the Lord, the longer you live. So if
you're 85, get a vision of 115, or 120. For the closer you get, the
longer you're going to live."

Get excited. As long as you do not give up, those years of
preparation are not wasted. Press into God and let Him bring forth
what has taken years to mature. You know you have come to the Kingdom for such a time as this!

Your Sister,
Glenna Andree