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Day 2: The Oil Lamp:
Jesus is restoring apostolic houses in this hour and shifting and shaking things back to kingdom alignment. It’s only painful if you resist the flow of the river. He is equipping the equippers, training us to move people from the bottle to meat, calling us to store oil, removing the additives, and purifying and preparing the bride for a wedding.

All the warfare we’ve experienced will one day yield and forever be silenced to the sound of “I do.” Our Bridegroom King is coming. He’s gone to prepare a wedding feast and a place for the bride, but rest assured. He will come and He will not delay.

Jesus is beautiful. He brings EVERYTHING back to love. Remember when all the work we did for the Kingdom actually flowed from that pure place of love? All other ambitions melt away in the presence of first love. They cannot remain in a heart yielded to loving and being loved by Jesus. Love for God. Love for people. All the overflow of simply being beloved.

There is an unmoving fountain of peace and joy filling a radiant bride. He is the source, where the river starts and ends and starts again. A river that never dries up. A love that never forsakes. He has no flaws. He is irresistible. When He is our obsession, what else matters? What is more true than the voice of our Bridegroom? What is more beautiful than every word He speaks: “For your Maker is your Husband–the Lord of hosts is His name—and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; the God of the whole earth He is called” Isaiah 54:5 (ESV).

It’s time to store up oil, so we won’t be caught unaware like the bridesmaids in Jesus’s parable (see Matthew 25:1-13).

Every day, we are storing something. Every day, we are worshiping something. If it’s not Him, something else will quickly come in to sit on the throne that was made for Him alone because, by design, we are worshipers. God doesn’t need our worship because He’s insecure. We need to worship Him because we are lost the minute we stop.

The enemy may not have access to your inheritance, but he will always go after your attention. He doesn’t want your lamp full of oil. He wants it dry. He wants your eyes focused on lesser lovers and consumed with offense, so he places endless distractions in front of you like little foxes set loose in the vineyard of your soul. What has your gaze? What has your worship?

The only difference between the wise and foolish virgins in the parable above was the oil of the Spirit. Those dripping and those dry. They all had a lamp, but they didn’t all have the oil. They all fell asleep but they didn’t all have oil.

In Matthew 25:6 there was another remnant that didn’t fall asleep. They were the ones awake to shout, “Look, the bridegroom is coming! Come out and meet him!” There is a remnant of kingdom pioneers awake, full of oil and commissioned in this hour to say, “WAKE UP SLEEPING BRIDE, THE BRIDEGROOM IS COMING.” They are watching and waiting. Will you be a part of that awakening or asleep as the wedding approaches?

Or will you be like the brides who asked to borrow the oil?

We can’t buy or borrow the oil in someone else’s container. Simon the Sorcerer tried to use money to buy the anointing in Acts 8:19: “Let me have this power too.” Sometimes, we want someone else’s oil without also experiencing the crushing that pressed it out of them. Oil has two main ingredients: crushing and intimacy. The two things we avoid the most. Peter’s response reflects God’s heart when we want gifts without intimacy:

“May your money be destroyed with you for thinking God’s gift can be bought! You can have no part in this, for your heart is not right with God. Repent of your wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive your evil thoughts, for I can see that you are full of bitter jealousy and are held captive by sin.” Acts 8:20-23 (NLT)

The oil is not safe with anyone who is not also willing to be a consecrated container. Only praying for the anointing to look impressive and important is the same sin Peter rebuked in Simon. The only difference is that Simon’s spirit is not only tolerated in our churches but also celebrated as a virtue called vision. Heaven just calls it selfish ambition.

Consumers don’t understand storing oil and bridal intimacy. They want the reward without paying the cost. Regardless of models or methods, we should stop creating atmospheres with the goal of attracting people and build what attracts heaven because it’s always been God who draws people to the Son anyway. What worked two thousand years ago still works.

You can have all the right structures and systems in place and NO oil. You can have a perfect form to hold the oil but no oil. Charisma and no oil. You can do powerful things in the name of Jesus and have no oil. You can give millions to missions and have no oil. You can have gifts that minister to the masses and no oil. You can live a blameless life without compromise and have a dried-up oil lamp:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” —Matthew 7:21-23 (NIV)

It’s terrifying how easy it is to build things for Him, without Him.

And whether you’re prepared or not, He is coming, and the door is closing behind Him, and if your oil runs dry, He will say He never knew you. If Jesus had urgency about it two thousand years ago how much closer are we now to seeing Him rip open the eastern sky and come back for what belongs to Him?

There is a great sifting happening in the church between the ready and the unready. The sleeping and the awake. They were all brides, but they weren’t all ready. They fell asleep to what mattered most.

There’s a line being drawn in the sand right now. God’s not drawing the line; our daily choices are! What we choose to look at is. What we choose to build and store is. There is a fence called lukewarm that makes God want to spit us out of His mouth. It’s time to pick a kingdom because He is shaking everything that can be shaken until we do.

Our daily choices expose what we worship. It’s prostitution to be a bride with two lovers. We can’t continue to store oil and hold onto our agendas. When you know the door to your own wedding is about to open, you live differently. We need to bring it down to the very foundation, back to the very basics.

This ends in a wedding. I can’t think of many things sadder than a bride locked out of her own wedding. What will you choose? What are you worshiping? What are you storing? Will you pour your oil even if it’s mocked and misunderstood? Will you watch and wait?