'I Am Resetting Your Clock of Celebration' PLUS 'Thailand: A Prototype Nation!'

by Chuck Pierce

The opposite of confidence and worth is self-pity. Self-pity occurs when we feel we are warranted to receive but get passed by. This can occur in our natural or spiritual life. Self-pity helps define our moment or, may I say, cause us to miss our moment. We feel we are deserving or entitled to a blessing, and we lose faith when we see a blessing slip past our life.

One of the best examples of self-pity is the crippled man at the Pool of Bethesda (see John 5). Jesus knew his full condition and then, through Peter, asked the man if he wished to be healed. The man began to explain why he had not and could not be healed. Jesus seemed to quit listening to his self-pity and healed him anyway.

We can easily lose sight of God's promises when we are in difficult situations. This is often how we get off-target in seeing God fulfill our prophetic destiny. Even though the Body of Christ goes through great times of testing, we are not to grow fearful and be discouraged. The enemy takes advantage during our testing periods by using a strategy to discourage us. Discouragement breeds hope deferred, which makes the heart sick. When we have a measure of hopelessness within us, we lose our expectation of God.

"Future" and "expectation" are synonymous. Our future is linked with an expectation of God moving. This is a time for the Church to have its expectation level renewed and raised to another level. Isaiah 59 and 60 are wonderful prayer guides for us to follow to see this happen in our lives. Hope must transcend and move into faith. Faith produces overcoming. Overcoming leads to a demonstration of God's power and a manifestation of His promises.

The Cycle of Self-Pity

Prophecy unlocks our future. But once we get wounded or experience loss, we can lose sight of our future. The biggest demonic force that we have to contend with is self-pity. Self-pity draws attention to our loss and keeps us from seeing God's glory manifested in our life. Instead of our loss directing us to God's continued perfect plan for our life, our self rises up and causes us to say, "Pity me for what I have lost." Any time we experience loss, trauma, wounding or injustice, we can either choose to live with a belief system that God can heal and forgive or we can allow our mind-set to form rejection, self-defense and self-pity.

During times of loss and wounding, we have a tendency to accuse God for the trauma that we are experiencing. The power of this accusation leads to a type of fatherlessness. Instead of experiencing the spirit of adoption, we feel abandoned and lost. From our self-defense, we actually form a rebellion to authority. We also become unteachable. We have a mind-set that says, "No one understands me or what I am going through."

We also begin to think that there is no solution to our problem. We wake up thinking, "There is no way out." We fall into apathy because we have no hope of healing or restoration. Since we know that we should be living a godly life, religious mechanisms become a solace to us. We may even gain a martyr complex and say, "O woe is me. This is my cross to bear. Look how heavy is my cross." This type of thinking causes us to not fight when we need to fight. Instead of fighting and advancing, we become a slave to comfort and the status quo. We forget that we are called to fellowship with Christ's sufferings-a type of fellowship that leads to His resurrection power manifesting in us.

Losing sight of the love of God causes us to turn to self. God's love forces us to deal with these thoughts born of our self-pity. I have experienced enough freedom in my own life to know when I am not free. Faith works by love. Once we experience God's liberty and love, we will be able to resist that call from self to be pitied and be able to overthrow hope deferred.

Self-Pity Demands Entitlement!

Self-pity demands entitlement! When self is in control, we demand our way and our right to secure something! The opposite of embracing your portion is feeling you are entitled to a portion that you are not to have. Entitle means "to super scribe or prefix as a title. Hence, as titles are evidences of claim or property, entitle is to give a claim to, or to give a right to demand or receive." So many families and ministries have been split because of this demon that aligns with our carnal nature. Entitlement works with self-pity and demands, "That should be mine." Sometimes, the "that" that you are demanding, should be yours but not at the cost of you falling into fleshly ways of entitlement and like Eve, "eat of the forbidden fruit" out of time.

We have a very good friend who lives in Houston. She is one of the most gifted individuals I know. She is one who strives to press through to understand herself. Not only does she wish to know who she is, but she also wants to know why God made her and why she has problems with Him when He is seemingly quiet. Understanding why she reacts the way she does and how God reacts to her are all quests of her life. She wrote me the following when she was seeking to understand why she felt entitled:

    Recently I have found myself throwing the phrase "a sense of entitlement" around quite a bit-not about myself, of course, but about others. I have been concerned about those who are dealing with that issue, and so, of course, the Lord showed me how I, too, have that in my life. (Will I never learn?) I have become interested in it, though, as I see it rearing its ugly head in my life. As a friend of mine and I were discussing the ongoing irritation of eating problems and how to handle them, he said, "It has to do with a sense of entitlement." BINGO! I knew the minute he said it that he was onto something. Yesterday was bill-paying day, and again I wondered why managing money was so difficult for me. BAM! It hit me again: entitlement. I think I am entitled. I think I have known that in the dim recesses of my mind, but I have never looked it straight in the face. What am I entitled to? A payback.

    How demonic is that! A payback? I am a child of the living God, the Bride of Christ, a child of the covenant, a friend of God. And I'm entitled to a payback? Well, of course I'm not. In fact, I should live such a life of gratitude that I say "Thank YOU" at every turn of a corner. And there are so many things that are no longer an option in this life with Christ, things we used to enjoy but no longer feel comfortable doing. Rather than covet those old things and old habits, we turn to an activity that really isn't "wrong"-like eating. We feel entitled to do that because we can't do these other things anymore. And so we engage until we reach a point and realize that we have overindulged and crossed a line.

    Live by grace and not by law! Love does not demand its own way! Freely He gave so freely give!

Mine! Mine! Mine! The Root of our Problems in Society!

Recently, our granddaughter, Chloe, spent a week with us. We watched only two things all week: Cars and Finding Nemo. I loved them both, even the twelfth time over.

In Finding Nemo, because of his disobedience and his dad's fear and trauma from the past, Nemo finds himself in a dangerous mess. He now ends up out of the sea in an aquarium in a dentist's office in Sydney, Australia. His dad and a friend pursue finding him. They do unite and attempt to make their journey back to their dwelling place. However, there are seagulls all along the way-and seagulls love fish! In the movie, every time the entire flock of seagulls sees a potential morsel, or dinner, or lunch, or breakfast, they shout..."Mine, mine, mine!" and contend for the prize.

In a carnal, material world, we are much the same. We compete for the prize instead of pressing for the prize! We contend and war with each other because we think we are entitled to have what we want. Penny Jackson shared the following with me about "Entitlement."

    My situation with spending money is much the same. There is nothing inherently wrong with spending money until I cross a line and find myself in a bind. Yet at the time I am shopping, I feel completely justified in getting what I want because I sure didn't get the things I felt I should have-life things. And so it becomes important for me to look at the matter and locate the deception in it; it's a "mind-set" that smacks of the pit of Hell.

    So what gives someone a sense of entitlement? In the United States we are born with a sense of entitlement anyway, I think, which may be the open door to this thing. We have certain expectations because of where we live and how life should be for us who live here (or so we have been led to believe). And somewhere along the line I think we have gotten the idea that we are entitled to a loving husband or wife, obedient children, and a lovely home in a tree-shaded neighborhood.

    I don't know. Maybe it's a holdover from old black-and-white TV shows. Think Father Knows Best or Leave It to Beaver. I grew up watching The Waltons, and when my parents weren't Olivia and John Walton, I was disappointed. Weren't parents supposed to be that way? Yet, how could anyone live up to such a romantic, unrealistic pattern for parenthood?

    So now I sit here years later with age fifty in my rearview mirror, no husband in sight, and no children at all (obedient or otherwise). My parents weren't the Waltons, I don't have access to unlimited funds (although ours is the wealthiest country in the world), and something deep within me works behind the scenes to convince me that I ought to be able to do whatever I want to since I didn't get those things that were owed me. I can eat what I want if I want to because I didn't have the blissful childhood I wanted. I can spend money irresponsibly because I don't have a husband or kids and was supposed to have had those things, and so I deserve whatever I want that is within my power to get. Somebody owes me! It's crazy, really, but it's down there. And hand-in-hand with it is unreality. The world isn't perfect, even in the United States. You are probably saying, "Duh. How could anybody really think that?" But dig down deep. See if on some level there isn't something in you that thinks it should be and that you should have had a certain kind of life-not because of anything you have done, but just because of your existence on the planet.

    We are created to live a life of praise, and yet this sense of entitlement, besides causing us to live in a mind-set of expectation rather than expectancy (two vastly different things), leads to the very antithesis of gratitude-malcontentment and ingratitude. It causes a childish cry within us that says, "How come they got that and I didn't? It's not fair!"

    The apostle Paul said that he had learned to be content in whatsoever situation, whether abased or abounding (Philippians 4:12). And we are to give thanks in all things. I think as Christians we really do want to do that and try to do that. But I also think the Lord in His infinite mercy is allowing us (or me, at least) to get down to a lie that makes it hard to feel really grateful sometimes, even with our best intentions. And I think He is letting us see the cause of a restlessness and discontent that drives us at times for reasons we don't understand.

    If we don't look at entitlement squarely in the face and identify it, we can't deal with it. Until we can fall out of agreement with entitlement and unreality and know that there is a plan for us that supersedes that one we felt we "deserved" or that life owed us, we will view our circumstances through a distorted filter, at least on some level. But as we look at this honestly as the lie that it is, I think we will find such a joy and gratitude rising up within us spontaneously that our lives will never be the same because-you know what?-we serve a good God, and He wants to give us the desires of our hearts. He came to give us life, and life more abundantly-more than we can hope for or even imagine.

You know, there was another definition for entitle in my dictionary: "to qualify; to give a claim by the possession of suitable qualifications." Through the Blood of Jesus and our acceptance of Him as our personal Lord and Savior, we are qualified and can lay claim to the wonderful promises He has given us, and these promises are "Yes and amen." To that we are entitled. Praise God!

I Am Resetting Your Clock of Celebration!

Wednesday's Getting Over the Hump and Taking Your Hill service was wonderful. During worship, Anne Tate came up and began to prophesy, "I know your comings and goings. Because I know the time when you are to come and the time when you're to go, I have released things into the enemy that will cause you to be able to hear him and know where he is. With the shift of Passover I caused the crocodile, Leviathan, to swallow a clock, and it will cause you to look into the place where he is hiding. You will know where he is approaching and it will cause you to look again so that he is exposed in what he is doing."

Then I heard the Spirit of God say, "The enemy will not be able to hide from you in these days ahead, for I am creating a movement in his hiding place. You will know when he is moving. You will know how to be waiting on the enemy. No longer can the enemy hide in a hole, for I will show you and give you vision of My glory down deep in the earth. Because of My glory, you will see in the earth, and you will see every movement of the enemy."

Diana Lookabaugh continued, "Don't you hide. Don't you hide for you are My lights in the earth. I have a light in you and don't put it under a bushel. Don't you hide. Overcome the evil and the lies with the truth."

"You Will Understand the Enemy's Clock"

Then Carol Boren shared a dream where she was going to a deep place. As she descended, a rat jumped up and startled her. In her dream she said, "I'm going to be ready the next time." She kept walking and when the next rat jumped up, she was ready and began to chase it. She had something like a spatula in her hand and was smacking it, but not killing it. The Lord directed her to turn it sideways, and when she did, she was able to slice off its head. She knew the Lord was saying that we have the necessary weapons to overcome and defeat the enemy, but we need to look and see how we are using those weapons.

Through our meeting, I heard the Lord saying, "You will understand the enemy's clock, and you won't have to fear the ambush in this season ahead. Let your light shine. Your light will dispel darkness. This isn't a season of putting your light under the bush. It is a season of you going. It is a season of you coming. The enemy will try to convince you of things. Go and defeat his thought processes. Go and come back with the report that defeats him. Don't listen to the voice that is creating fear within you, but go, and I will give you the report that will overcome him.

"Because I'm moving and you're moving with Me, the enemy is attempting to stop you from moving forward. I will meet you on your way. I will meet you in the way that I'm telling you to go. Even some of those who have gone with you in the past are now speaking words that would try to keep you from moving into your future. So you keep going and I will give you the report. I will give you the authorization. I will give you the seal to get you through and past the enemy's voice.

"The enemy is trying to make you think you are too lame to run the race and finish the course and finish certain projects you are assigned to. Or he is trying to convince you by a voice not to keep going. Do not listen! Do not listen! Instead, position yourself for confrontation. You are fearful that the enemy is going to ambush you. No! Today I am resetting clocks so the fear of the enemy's ambush will not occur."

Raymond Banks then shared a vision of how we were a train on a track, moving forward. We were approaching a mountain with a narrow tunnel to pass through it. Some were putting their feet outside the train to slow it down, saying, "I'm afraid of the dark. I don't know what I'm going into." Yet the Lord was saying, "Pick up your feet and get into the car, for I will take you through and into the new. I will take you into the light and into that which I have called you for this season. Actually, I am going to switch your train since too many of you want the train to stay flowing in a certain time frame in the daytime. Instead, I am putting you on a night train of rest. I am going to carry you to places in the night much further than you could get to in the day."

In the Body of Christ, many have struggled to know how to walk in the times and the seasons of God. However, as we begin to release our nighttimes to Him in this season and learn to walk in the Spirit with the Lord, He will begin to reorder how we move. We will have great effectiveness. We won't have to concentrate on the enemy, but we will know when the enemy has come to threaten us and will be able to cut him off.

A Dream: Walking into Celebration

I also shared a recent dream that I had where we were preparing for a huge gathering. This feast was going to be held in an incredible facility that was beyond a mountain. To get there, we would have to traverse the mountain. When I got packed and ready to go to the facility we were going to celebrate in, a messenger came to me and said, "Are you aware that there are so many rodents in that facility that the disease they carry could infiltrate the whole celebration?" I remember thinking that I was packed, ready to go and ready to celebrate, and yet a messenger was now saying there were rats everywhere. Immediately, the Spirit of God spoke to me in this dream and said, "Go ahead!"

I began to journey and people with me would stop along the way at other facilities, and not continue to the facility where the feast was to be held. The journey was rugged and the way was very narrow in places. Some kept going, but before long it was only me and my dog, Maggie, continuing to go forth to celebrate. (If you read One Thing by Pam and me, we have a chapter on Maggie and how she represents the spirit of adoption.)

We made it to the facility and the facility was absolutely incredible. It was beautiful and had this incredible koi pond with fountains. Maggie stopped and said, "I must go deep to look into the water to see if the enemy is there." She dove down into the water surrounding the facility and came back up and said one word, "Proceed." She said the same word that God had said to me earlier. We went into the facility. It was lavish, and filled with gold. The minute we went in, everything in the facility began to celebrate because we were there.

When I woke up, my first thought was, "Where were the rats?" Contrary to the messenger's, report, they were not there. I heard the Lord saying, "The journey has been difficult. Many voices have tried to stop you from proceeding. The reward for you in this next season is great. Proceed into celebration. You need to celebrate the victory now over the things that you are praying about and that you are concerned about. Celebrate the victory now, and when you get into that place where you see what you have been praying for, the victory will manifest before you!

"You are shifting now into a place of celebration. From your celebrating, many will come into salvation. Many will be born, for the word is getting out that there are places of celebration in the earth. Proceed now and do not fear. For you will dance and sing and celebrate, and that which you are waiting and watching to be saved will be saved.

"Today there is celebration in My people. I am resetting your clock of celebration. Proceed forth. Do not allow the enemy's voice to create a fear that says, 'You will not sing and dance in your new place.' Proceed forth for today your timing is being set. The celebration and salvation you have been looking for will now come. Those who know My adoption and who embrace My inheritance will celebrate in the glory."

Thailand: A Prototype Nation!

Thailand is a prototype of a nation changing. As you may recall, I was in Bangkok for one night in August 2008. The prophetic anointing was very strong and I gave the following word:

"You will be known as the Nation of Fire! Look up, for I AM setting a FIRE between the powers and principalities that have ruled this nation and My people that are now coming alive in this nation. Now I will shift the government of this land in a new way. I will loose the FIRE to purge that which is not ruling the way that I long for My rule to occur."

I then saw six different heads. Leviathan is synonymous with government. I believe this was a Leviathan structure that was controlling Thailand. When the seventh head raises up correctly I believe the power of this structure will break. I heard the Lord say, "I AM raising a new head and it will display My Head of Fire. I will cover My people now. They will come alive and from this night forward, I will surround this nation with the Fire of God!"

The day after our meeting in 2008, demonstrations began in the streets of Bangkok. They were related to the government of the nation! I am looking forward to returning to Bangkok in October for a national gathering. Please pray for the team there presently and the foundation they are laying for the future of that people and nation.

Here is a report from our team ministering in Thailand:

God is moving in Thailand! It seems that every year when we come into Thailand, the Lord has a prophetic sign and word for us. Last year we had to stop as the King's motorcade passed in front of us and the Lord said, "The King is coming." Last Tuesday as we were leaving the airport, a pastor in Thailand pointed out that the new Sky Train has just been completed to the airport. It just opened on Monday. He said, "The sky train is open now." That sounded like a good word for this year: The "Sky Train" over Thailand is open!

Chuck D. Pierce

Glory of Zion International Ministries

Email: chuckp@glory-of-zion.org