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Day 1: The River:
Welcome to the Kingdom Pioneers Plan! I’m Kingdom Pioneers author Rhea Falig, and I pray that over the next 7 days, you will be equipped, encouraged and inspired to live out your life as a sold-out pioneer in God’s kingdom. True pioneering will cost you everything. Including things the westernized church sometimes holds in high esteem. Things like reputation and image.

On day one, we’re talking about the river of God!

Do you ever get caught up in striving and comparison? Social media has been a tool that has both escalated the problem (because of our own poor boundaries) and helped take the message of Jesus farther than we could ever imagine. It’s not the tool's fault the house falls apart. It’s the builder who used it wrong. Scripture is clear:

“Unless the Lord builds a house, the work of the builders is wasted.” Psalms 127:1 (NLT)

We will always be pulled in the direction of our gaze and often times God wants to pioneer something new through our lives but our eyes and ears are glued to what everyone around us is building, doing, and saying and that becomes a very faulty measuring stick of success. Living for the approval of man makes obedience impossible. Especially when He’s calling you to a new way. In the words of Jesus:

“Yet you say, ‘The old ways are better,’ and you refuse to even taste the new wine that I bring.” Luke 5:39 (TPT)

We’re far too content with old wine. Some of you reading this have made an occupation out of riding old waves instead of catching new ones. Comfort and consumerism have made us sleepy and satisfied. It’s time to turn off all the chatter shouting “follow this recipe” when Jesus simply said “follow me.” Every other voice has to bow to His. “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me…” John 10:27 (ESV)

Staying in this river protects your heart from the lullaby being sung over the church to keep her asleep in an hour she desperately needs to watch and wait! It keeps you on the narrow way when culture is infiltrating the church like never before. There is joy in the river that can’t be manufactured. In a world of uncertainty we have a steady river of peace and joy in our bellies. His yoke is easy here, and His burden is light. Striving and comparison drown under the waves of His unfathomable love and mercy.

We can copy a formula for so long we forsake our own unique purposes, personalities, gifts, and creative expressions. And the world isn’t better off for it. All inspiration ultimately comes from the Holy Spirit and Scripture. Recycled oil from man is never a pleasant experience. It’s maggoty manna. We need FRESH oil and LIVING water.

God only made one you, and you uniquely reflect Him. This is how we push back the gates of hell. This is how we bring His kingdom to earth. This is how rivers of revival roll into our homes and flood the streets of our cities. He can raise up someone else to take over your assignment but nobody else can fill the shoes of being YOU.

Your voice matters, that’s why there’s been such a war against it. The oil of your intimacy with Jesus matters. One drop can do more than years of networking and ladder climbing. But at the end of the day, His voice always matters more.

This is an invitation for the Ecclesia to step back into kingdom alignment. To trade our church mindsets for kingdom ones. To deal with our mixture and the things we’ve built to prop our egos up against and attract crowds that have possibly stopped attracting heaven. To address the amount of time we spend working on our brand instead of having our hearts branded by His Presence.

Our value has grown far too attached to systems built by man that, one day, will turn to dust. One day, many will lay down the systems they built as an offering to the Lord. They’ll say, “Look what we did in Your name. Look what we built for your glory.” And He’ll respond, “Depart from Me, I never knew you.” Because it was never about the systems; it was always about staying in Him and Him staying in us.

It’s especially an invitation to purify our motives. To be power washed by the blood and set free from the places where we’ve gotten our identities entangled in a web of striving for approval instead of rooted in deep wells of Father God's acceptance. To be effective and fruitful ministers of Christ we have to get honest about our true condition– we’ve made church about us, when it was always about Him.

God will take your ministry to have your heart. Without hesitation. It doesn’t matter how gifted, anointed, or influential you are. He will pull you out of assignments and put you into a furnace to purify your motives. He will MAKE you lie down when you exclude rest from your rhythms or when you think it depends on you more than His Spirit.

He will not compete with the idols we make of our ministries. He will hand us over to them and let them turn to ash in our hands. He will pull apart everything we build in His name that was really a monument to our own significance. And He will do it over and over again if He has to because He loves YOU more than what you produce for Him.

We have a powerful river living inside of us. It’s moving heavy stone, shifting bedrock, carving through rock, and shaping the path laid before us. If we feel dry, it’s not because the Living Water has run out. It’s because the additives have blocked the flow of the river. All the things we add to make the outside of the cup look clean have to go. All the things we add and take away to make people more comfortable with Jesus in our church services must go. This riverbed isn’t meant to dry up. It’s meant to flow until He comes.

As Kingdom pioneers, it’s not about adding more but removing excess and returning to what heaven values. We are leading people to the river of God’s love. To wild, untamable rivers of joy. Joy is a person named Jesus. Joy is our weapon. It’s our strength. This river isn’t boring and stoic and somber. Weeping lasts for the night, but JOY comes in the morning. We take ourselves way too seriously sometimes and forget that we’re connected to a river of gladness.

“All you thirsty ones, come to me! Come to me and drink! Believe in me so that rivers of living water will burst out from within you, flowing from your innermost being, just like the Scripture says!” John 7:37-38 (TPT)

How have you traded the flowing river of God for flow charts and formulas? Jesus plus additives is mixture. This is your invitation to stay in the river so the river stays in you. This river will not make you popular because it will expose the dryness of others. Personal revival is more than hype. It starts with repentance, returning to the fear of the Lord, removing the consumer driven ministry mindsets and remembering that Jesus really is the one thing that’s needed.