2021 Year of Breakthrough & Life!

Are you Ready?

By Debora Galloway

Jan 17, 2021

2021 is year of breakthrough and life!  Get ready to spring forward! God is coming in this season to break down the walls that have held us captive or held us back. He wants to take us forward into the next step of our God given destiny. 

I had a vision that each one of us was seated inside a circular wall that completely surrounded us on every side and kept us captive in one place. I saw God approach and completely break down those walls removing the barriers that kept us from standing up and moving forward. Many people continued to stay seated in the same place as if the walls were still there, when actually they were completely free to move forward! But they didn’t!  

My sense about this vision was that many of us have become too comfortable with walls and barriers have prevented us from moving forward because of long delays and other issues.  We have lost our focus, our passion or maybe even our hope regarding God given dreams and destinies. We have become so familiar with these walls that many of us won’t SEE or even notice when breakthrough happens, but will continue to be complacent in captivity, maybe with a victim mindset. 

God wants us to awaken!  He wants us to watch and see that He is breaking down our walls and extending His hand to follow Him into His plan. We need to regain our strength, our faith, and sharpen our focus on Him in order to see clearly what God is doing and have the faith to get up and run forward with Him. 

God is ready to perform His word toward you! The moment of breakthrough is at hand!  Are you ready?  

God is asking us to prepare for the future, so when our moment of breakthrough happens, we are ready to move with Him immediately.  He brought to my mind the Parable of The 10 Virgins in Matthew 25. All 10 of them had lamps burning waiting for the bridegroom.  Five of them did not anticipate how long they would have to wait. They did not bring extra oil reserves to keep their lamps burning for a long time.  When the bridegroom was delayed and showed up later than expected, those five were out scrambling at last minute trying to get more oil and they missed their moment of visitation and the door was shut.  What a travesty!  These were not people who were off doing their own thing. They were keeping company with the faithful and wise.  They also had lamps burning, waiting for the bridegroom, likely with as much anticipation and excitement as the others.  However, one thing separated them from the five wise virgins.. they were not prepared. 

If you desire to move forward, now is the time to make sure you are prepared. The 5 foolish versions missed their moment of visitation specifically due to their lack of extra oil reserves that would have keep their lamps burning for a longer time period. Which means after an unexpected delay their lamps probably started going out and they likely were having trouble seeing clearly. Likewise, there are things that we need to prepare to make sure we see clearly, and don’t miss our hour of visitation and breakthrough. The Lord has been highlighting to me two areas that are essential for us being able to see clearly in this season and move forward with God into His plan, and not our own: 

Repentance & Humility. We must be looking through the eyes of repentance and humility, submitting all our plans, opinions, and everything in our lives to the Lordship of Jesus Christ with complete obedience, seeking Him with all our heart. If we have any little piece of our heart still desiring our own way, it’s possible we will see and pursue the wrong thing.  It’s also possible to see God’s way and other options at the same time, and become confused which way to go, because we are too focused on our own desires.  This leads to delay, frustration, possibly producing an Ishmael, or God forbid… like the 5 foolish virgins…closed doors. God wants us to lay down our lives in complete surrender and follow his guidance into His plan.   Repentance, dying to our flesh and setting aside our own will, plans, and timetable brings grace and an increased ability to hear and see more clearly what God is saying and doing. This process helps remove our fleshly filters that can be in place due to sin, compromise, disobedience or selfish ambition that can block or confuse our understanding of God’s will.  Our own filters can be so subtle and yet really get us off in the wrong direction. It’s like the rudder on a boat.  It can be just slightly off and you can end up in a completely different direction than Jesus is going.  Ask the Lord to show you how you need to repent! This is not just for new believers,  nor only for people with obvious sin in their lives.  This is for every one of us!  This should be part of our lifestyle as Christians, searching our hearts and asking God to show us if there is any wicked way in us. (Psalm 139:23-24) Spend time with God repenting. Be humble and submissive to God. We want to truly see Him, become one with Him, and let Him take us where He is going. 

Boldness & Fearlessness. We need a new level of boldness and fearlessness to have courage to move out from behind those limiting walls to following Jesus where He wants to take us in this season and into the future. Studying up on the apostles and early New Testament church should give us some good direction on speaking God’s word and living a life of boldness. Also, we have to become completely convinced of God’s love and goodness toward us regardless of what difficult things we are experiencing. (I John 4:18 The one who fears is not perfected in love) In one way or another, God is inviting each one of us to partner with Him in occupying our land for Jesus Christ. Jesus said in John 16:33, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”  This means there will be battles. We can’t let our own insecurities and weaknesses, other people, spiritual warfare or unexpected world events (Covid 19, division in government, etc.) stop us from moving forward in boldness and fearlessness.  If we are truly following Jesus and not the dictates of own hearts (including fear) , we will reap His promises and rewards, which is first and foremost relational intimacy with Him and then the invitation to follow Him where HE is going.  The only fear we should have in our lives, is the Fear of the Lord. Be bold and fearless.. get up and follow Christ wherever He is leading you. Make certain you are seeing clearly and then move forward!

I could continue this list of other points here, but I believe the Lord is saying that EVERYTHING will flow from these two areas. We must line up our hearts and minds with God’s will removing anything that is hindering our ability to see and hear correctly what He is doing, so we can be ready to move forward with Him in the hour of His breakthrough and visitation. If we truly invite and embrace God’s process of repentance into our lives and allow Him to transform us into humble and submissive sons and daughters of God, we will not miss His breakthrough. If we allow Him to transform us into a bold and fearless people who are willing to abandon our own opinions, plans and fears in order to move forward into what He wants to take us into, then we will accelerate quickly into His plans.

God is ready to perform His Word.  The hour of breakthrough is at hand!  Are you ready? 

Jeremiah 1:11-12 says, “The Word of the Lord came to me saying, ‘Jeremiah, what do you see?’ And I said, ‘I see a branch of an almond tree.’ Then the Lord said to me, ‘You have seen well, for I am ready to perform My word.’ “

My Bible says the word “ready”, in this scripture, from the original language it was written in means: Watching, waking, hastening, anticipating, to be sleepless, vigilant, alert, on the lookout, to care for watchfully. The Almond is considered the “waker” in Hebrew thought because it, of all trees, blossoms early watching diligently for the opportunity to bloom. 

Being on alert and sometimes sleepless for long periods of time can be exhausting! Even the apostles had a hard time staying awake at the most crucial hour, when Jesus prayed fervently in the garden, his disciples were asleep!  Jesus appropriately rebuked them and admonished them to watch and pray. We must pray for strength, determination and focus, so we can be alert, and see correctly in this crucial time. A visiting African Pastor said a couple years ago, that if we want the church to thrive we need to get into a place of separation, desperation and intercession.  Lord have mercy! Drive us to our knees and take us to that place. 

The choice is ours.  We can be early bloomers like the 5 wise virgins and catch God’s major breakthrough in this season that will catapult us quicker into God’s plans than we dared to dream, or we can find ourselves in more delay, confusion or going the wrong direction if we are not willing to humble ourselves and ask God, show me what I need to repent from?  Where are YOU taking me? Let’s awaken, watch & see what Jesus is doing and follow Him into our next assignments. 

God is ready to perform His word.  The hour of breakthrough is at hand.  Are you ready?