On Monday night I had the privilege of watching on TV a young Canadian pair of figure skaters rise to the level of gold medalists. A 13-year journey for them came to a climax in Pacific Coliseum.  Scott Moir wrapped Tessa Virtue in his arms and said two simple words: “Thank you.” Together they had done what no other had done in Canadian history.

In case you were in a cave somewhere or maybe in your prayer closet let me give you a quick idea what made their skating dance so unique.            .

1.   They are the youngest couple to every win gold at this event.

2.  They are the first to break the stranglehold the Europeans had on this event for decades.

3.  They are the first Canadians since Jamie Salé and David Pelletier shared the pairs title eight years ago in Salt Lake City to win a gold medal at this event.             

As I watched their beaming faces and the joy of the crowd that surrounded them, I felt deep in my Spirit I was watching something so spiritually real – that I knew the Lord was speaking to my heart.

I believe He was saying to me I want you and I to dance together. To enter into a deep relationship of such honesty and purity that we are able flow together as one. The heart of God is for our spirits to flow with His spirit and merge into a deep abiding journey together.

We enter the kingdom of God through His Spirit and through the working of a daily process of living before Him a life of intimacy. But it does not stop when you find your calling or when you get married or reach some personal place of victory. The heart of God the Father, for those who choose to dance with His Spirit, is that they listen to different music.

To dance with the Lord, you must focus your soul on Him and Him alone. When the music of life begins and all eyes are on you, there is a great tendency for all of us to forget our partner and get caught up with everyone else and all the things happening around us. But if we are going to be successful in our dance with Him then everything in life must be shut out so as to give ourselves to this dance.

The Holy Spirit is your lead partner. He can be trusted when you feel out of control and your life seems to be going nowhere. Be encouraged of this one thing: He knows the whole arena of your life, every step you must take, every movement of this earth you live on. There must be a deep trust of your partner’s wisdom and strength in order for you and I to let Him lead you to a glorious life of victory.

With Him at your side nothing is impossible. Like David said in Psalm 18:29 For by You I can run against a troop, By my God I can leap over a wall.         

 With Him at your side, you can break strongholds over your family and your finances.

With Him at your side, you can minster to the wounded, share the kingdom of God’s message. With Him at your side, you can run and not go weary, overcome temptation, resist wickedness in high places and win the race for your life.

 I say to some you, it’s about time you change your dance partner. If you constantly feel defeated, tired and run down, always struggling to live victoriously, maybe God is saying to you that you’re walking with the wrong spirit.

Rise up in faith and ask the Lord of the dance to help you win the dance of your life.

 The LORD is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me? The LORD is for me among those who help me; Therefore I shall see my desire on those who hate me. It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes. (Psalms 118:6-9 )

 Apostle Anthony Nelson

But I am so thankful that God gives a Word for where you are going in order for you and I to be able to overcome everything that is speaking to you right now. If you are not sure just look back at the words of healing that God spoke to you, words of provision, words of courage and strength.

The Bible is full of God’s promises for our lives in every area. His Word is not dead and its for right now. He knew you and I would face these days of fear and apostasy and by His loving-kindness and grace, He has watched over His words so that you and I can have it today as a strong defence against fear and unbelief.

It’s so easy for us to listen to the radio and the television reports and believe they know the end of the story. When God’s book tells you and I what God’s view is on our world. It is so easy to just allow our hearts to harden to the Word and don’t read and mediate on His promises to us.

It’s so easy to let our senses rule our decisions that we compromise what God’s Word says for practical daily living when we know that God said the just shall live by faith and He that draws back the Lord will have no delight in. Everything in this world shouts to you to conform, follow the crowd, use wisdom and so on.

It is so easy to close our eyes to others needs, not pay our tithes, stop coming to church and just cruise in life. After all, God understands and He is love and it will all work out in the end. Does that sound like something you have said recently when you just chose to do nothing?

It’s so easy to complain inwardly instead of praising God for His daily blessings. It’s so easy to allow others to affect what we know God has given us the grace to do and let them take on our burden for far too long. It’s so easy to justify my choice and say God knows my heart while we condemn our brother’s actions without discerning their hearts.

It is so easy for us to justify our lives by acts of kindness believing that somehow God is pleased when our hearts do not beat like His. We are not touched with the things that move our Father’s heart. I don’t know about you…

BUT I AM TIRED OF THE EASY WAY.

It’s time someone pushed their heads out of the foxes hole and move by faith into the path of the enemy and  turn him back at the gates. God never promised you an easy path nor comfort on this planet. But He did promise you an inheritance that can’t be devalued or stolen.

I have been meditating on Joshua chapter 1, and God gave Joshua and incredible blueprint for success. I love it and that is going to be my personal theme all this year:

1.  Be strong in the Lord

2. Take courage from the Spirit of God

3. Obey the Word of God all your life.

4.  Stay focused on what has been given to you by those who came before.

5. Speak the Word day and night.

6. Meditate on it and you will prosper.

These are my personal words for the rest of my life. I hope you hear the Lord talking to you. Like Joshua, if you are going to win the battle for your life it is not going to be easy. So if you want easy, turn back right now. But if you want to live in the power of God and become the head not the tail, above not beneath, lend but never borrow, then follow God’s Word for you.

May you continue to do what’s not necessarily easy, but right.

- Apostle Anthony Nelson

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit (Rom. 8:1)

It was reported last week that a 66-year-old man was attacked and mauled by his own “pet” tiger. This wild beast, weighing over 600 lbs, was living in an enclosure on the gentleman’s property. The tiger had been living there as a pet with other large wild cats for several years and on Sunday morning when the gentleman came to feed him his regular meal, the cat decide to change his menu and went after his owner instead.

I don’t know about you but as I think about this, I find myself asking why he would risk his life every day with these beasts, knowing their desire for flesh and how unpredictable these huge animals can be even at the best of times. Why is it that he scorned human contact and would rather spend his days with large wild cats that eventually were the catalyst for his demise.

The Apostle Paul in Philippians understood the danger of living with wild beasts that live on instinct and feeling. He reminded the believer in Philippians 3:2 to be watchful for dogs which was another term for false Jewish teachers – men who would demand the believer to come under the Mosaic law in order to be saved.

These men and women were devoted to their laws and would stop at nothing to bring what they believed on the people. They were legalistic and full of knowledge. They put their flesh under great stress in order to look good and acceptable on the outside.

Paul knew these kind of people because he was once one of them. He knew what it felt like and how quickly we could get so caught up in our own flesh and allow ourselves to act and behave in ways which is so against everything that we have been taught.

Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? (Romans 7:1)

The truth is friends that we all have a wild beast that we have locked up in our lives that we feed with our fleshly desires, but attempt to keep locked away. We know he is dangerous, but we still allow him to survive. We feed him with acts of kindness, good deeds and loving confessions. But it does not work.

The only way you are able to overcome this beast is allow the Spirit of the Lord to enter your heart and He alone can release you from every spirit of resentment , anger and bitterness. For what you feed will grow stronger in your life and what you don’t feed will eventually die.

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God (1 Corinthians 2:12)

In the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ I say with all my heart and soul to you today that you don’t have to live with any wild spirit. We don’t have to put up with any spirit of anger, depression, despair or despondency. We are the people of God and He has come to set the captives free and to loose those who have been in bondage all their life.

My Prayer for You … Father, I pray today for my brothers and sister who are reading this letter. That  they will reach out by faith and take hold of Your promises to their lives today. I pray that whatever has been their prison last year will become their cradle, that every wild beast that has troubled their soul will be declared dead to them and never again become a source of pain. According to your Word set them FREE in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Apostle Anthony Nelson

Praise God! The holidays are over and the presents, if you had any, are unwrapped. Friends and family have left your building and you are getting back to your routine. If you are like me, last year I had some experiences that were unexpected and not pleasant. But God saw me through them and His grace is sufficient for us as we stand on the borders of an incredible year in God.

Now that the new year has begun I would like to share with you a word for this year that the Lord has been percolating in my spirit for the last six or so weeks. It’s a word that’s easy to say, but very difficult to walk out. Most of us know that God has a plan for us and we desire it to come to pass. We believe in His power and grace but the reality is if we do not walk out this truth, then 2010 will end and find us no way near God’s plan for our lives.

This biblical principle is emphasized strongly in the life of Moses and Joshua. It speaks of the courage and strength in God to release so that we can receive. In the Book of Joshua chapter one, God sets the back drop for Joshua’s future…

¹ After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, it came to pass that the LORD spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, saying: ² “Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them—the children of Israel. ³ Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses. ⁴ From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the River Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your territory. (Joshua 1:1-4)

In these verses of Scripture, we see Joshua the servant of Moses, being given by Jehovah his future job and the boundaries of his authority. He has spent 40 years serving the greatest law giver, pastor, prophet, deliverer and servant of Jehovah that Israel has every had. He had lived in the shadow of God’s great man most of his adult life and now his mentor was gone.

God had pronounced Moses dead and told Joshua to release himself from Moses and move forward for God had not only given him an assignment, but was telling him who he would be assigned to and geographical boundary.

I know most of us can read these words and say, ‘Well God spoke and therefore everything was clear.’ But if we are honest with ourselves we will admit that giving up a good thing in our lives is much harder than walking away from an abusive situation. The enemy of your future is not the present, but the past that you have grown to know and accept.

To let go of your Moses, you must truly have courage in God to know that every Moses…

 1. Can become your emotional crutch if you take your eyes off God.

2. Can weaken your faith in God’s grace for you.

We must learn that not everyone you start this year with, will be with you at the end of the year.

Joshua had to learn a lesson that we all must learn at one time or another. That lesson is that our future success in God will be determined by our capacity to let go of the past and trust God for the future. God cannot die but people and places and experiences must give way to a fresh flow of God’s grace and love towards us as we look forward to what God has for us in this new year.

I know most of you have had a year that you can only say by His grace and strength we overcame.  Some may say I can’t go any further, I am totally unable to do any more, say another prayer, read another scripture or even just praise His name. You have come to the place where people you loved have died in your life  and you are wondering how am I going to make it without him or her.

 I believe God wants me to say to you that your Moses is dead and no amount of restitution is going to bring him back. God is removing the crutches from our lives and causing us to look to Him this year more than we have had to before. We are going to fast more than we have ever done, trust His power and grace more than we have ever done.

It’s time to let go of the pain in 2009. Behold the land is open to you. God has a people in 2010 that will respond to your life. He wants to bring out of your life signs and wonders, so that He may be glorified.

My prayer for you is ……that the Glory will spring up in you a new well of hope and power in 2010 that is fresh and ever flowing as you move as Joshua did into your destiny by His power and grace in Jesus’ Name. AMEN.

 ²⁷ The eternal God is your refuge, And underneath are the everlasting arms; He will thrust out the enemy from before you, And will say, ‘Destroy!’  ²⁸ Then Israel shall dwell in safety,  the fountain of Jacob alone, in a land of grain and new wine; His heavens shall also drop dew. ²⁹ Happy are you, O Israel!  Who is like you, a people saved by the LORD,  the shield of your help
And the sword of your majesty!  Your enemies shall submit to you,  And you shall tread down their high places.”  (Deuteronomy 33:27-29)

Apostle Anthony Nelson

I hear the Father saying I’m looking for worshippers and there’s an end-time people that are My sons and daughters that are going to manifest My glory on the planet and not be identified with anything, but My Spirit.  I hear the Father saying I’m shaking off your past and giving you a fresh perspective. I hear the Father saying I’m opening your eyes and giving you a new perspective of the earth and your generation. I hear the Father saying that the old things have been passed away and those of you who were in sleep God’s awakening you to a new reality.

I hear God saying that I’m breaking that spirit of comatose-ness that you are so caught up in this world that God says I’m going to wake you up. I’m going to shake you, My son. I’m going to awaken you to My earth and My kingdom.

I hear the Father saying there’s no mixed identity in you. God says your fathers have been falling away. I’m giving you a new spirit. I hear the Father saying that you’re not the same person. No more mixed identity in this room. – Apostle Anthony Nelson