Restore us LORD from our captivity like rivers in the southern desert (Negev). Psalm 126:4.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
I want to talk about making the desert bloom. There is a certain time of the year in Israel when the rain pours and the southern desert, the Negev, the Judean wilderness, and the dry riverbeds become running with torrents of water and the desert blooms! This spectacular transformation occurs every year during Israel’s winter and early spring, stretching from October to April. Within minutes, I turn bone-dry wadis (desert riverbeds) like Nahal Tzin or Wadi Qilt turn into raging, torrential rivers with powerful waterfalls. Soon after vast fields of bright red anemone flowers bloom and then moving further into February, March, and April, the central Negev dunes and the areas surrounding the Dead Sea explode with greenery and diverse wildflowers and people are hiking through green, aromatic desert landscapes covered in vegetation where there was nothing but dry desert sand.
You may be in a desert, an arid place– a time of famine– a time of lack. What do you do? By faith, like Elijah kneeling down on Mt. Carmel, you get ready for the RIVERS to flow into your heart and out to a thirsty world. Keep standing on My Word, but more than standing, it is time to enforce it in your life.
From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force. Matthew 11:12
When you have My Word, if you are serious enough about getting free from the captivity and the dryness of a barren fruitless place, you will enforce it and make the rivers flow!
Think about deserts, arid places and lands experiencing famines. What do they lack that makes them that way? Water. Rain. Rivers. Wells. To change them into gardens you need to water them. And you need to draw water from the springs, the wells, of Salvation. Living water.
For the LORD God is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation (Yeshuah). Therefore you will joyously draw water from the springs of salvation (Yeshuah). Isaiah 12:2-3.
So if you have come into a dry place in your life, you need get serious about transforming it into a garden place. How do you do that? Renew your mind in My Word and get busy watering it with My Word and being filled with the Holy Spirit, then you will not only be watered, but you will water others, for rivers of living water will pour out from your innermost being.
Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. John 37-39.
That is not passive. That is active!
If you but knew My gift, you would ask for it and My Son will pour into you living water that will become a spring, a well, within you leaping up to eternal life and you will never thirst again.
And My Son washes the church, His Body, with the water of My Word. Ephesians 5:26
For just as the rain and the snow come down from the heavens and do not return there till they have watered the earth, making it fertile and fruitful, so shall My Word be. Isaiah 55:10-11. If you receive that Word from My mouth and return it to Me by speaking it and doing it, that is, activating it on earth, then it shall not return to Me void but shall achieve the purpose for which I sent it. Which is always the Blessing that makes your life fruitful. That was the first Word that went out of My mouth to you when I created you. The first Word the man heard was I blessed him to be fruitful, to increase, and to replenish and rule the earth. Genesis 1:28. And I did the same with Noah, Genesis 9:1, and Abraham, Genesis 12:1-3, and then the whole Israelite nation, Deuteronomy 28:1-14, and now you, everyone in Jesus has the Blessing of Abraham on him. Galatians 3:13-14. My Word brings showers of blessings. Ezekiel 34:26.
Get serious and open wide your mouth to speak My Word boldly.
“Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” Acts 4:29-30.
Your miracle begins with My Word. For faith comes by hearing, and hearing My anointed Word. And when you believe in your heart, then you speak with your mouth and that Word will not return to Me void. I watch over My Word to perform it.
But it has to begin with My Word. There is no Blessing apart from My Word. You can do nothing without Me but with Me you can do all things.
So look to see what My Word says about changing desert places to gardens.
My prophet Isaiah had My Word on this. Isaiah 51:1-8. Israel was in a dry place. They had left My Word and were not hearing it or obeying it. They ended up in lack and attack.
Isaiah wrote to look back to Abraham and Sarah. Isaiah 51:2. What do you know about Abraham? His faith was credited to him as righteousness. He is your father in the faith. He walked by faith. He believed My Word, he was fully persuaded that what I said I would also perform, and as a result he had a son even when it was impossible by worldly standards. He watered his world with My Word and everything bloomed.
I told him I would bless him and all his descendants if he would obey My Word. This is the Blessing of Abraham. And, let Me repeat in case you missed this, if you are in Christ, you are a descendant of Abraham, and My Son has redeemed you from the curse of the Law and you have inherited the Blessing of Abraham and the Promise of the Spirit. And how do you inherit this? By faith. Galatians 3:13-14.
And the Blessing of Abraham is the same blessing I gave to man when I made him-– a blessing to be fruitful, to increase and to replenish the earth. A desert, an arid land, needs replenishing and I have put the blessing on you to do that. So do not be intimidated by drought (a time of trial and lack), water the land with My Word and release My power by your Words and actions to make the desert bloom and your seed return a harvest of one hundred fold.
Remember how this worked in Isaac’s life? Abraham’s son had inherited the Blessing and when a famine hit the land, I told him not to go down to Egypt but to stay and plant where he was. He planted seed in a dry, famine land and reaped a hundred-fold that same year! I gave him underground wells to water it that no one else could find.
And what is your underground well that following My Word will give you? It is My Holy Spirit, the life giving water that will well up inside of you and never run dry. John 4:10; John 7:37-39.
Rooted and grounded in Christ, My Word made flesh, you are like a tree planted near a stream of living water whose roots are embedded in the stream. Drought never affects such a tree. It blooms in the time of famine.
Arid wastes are haunts of demons and places where fools live. The fool says in his heart there is no God. My Word finds no place in such a one. He is unfruitful, like a dry, parched desert land.
But love makes things grow and bloom. And I so loved the world that I gave you My only Son. I am the God who sows seed. Hosea 2:22. And on the seemingly dry stump of Jesse a branch blossomed. Jesus. And Jesus makes you grow and bloom. And the last thing He did before He ascended into Heaven was He blessed you. Luke 24:51. And the first thing He did when He returned to Me was pour out the Holy Spirit on you. Acts 2:33.
So the first thing you must do when you find yourself in what seems to be a desert time in your life, in a famine land, is water it with My Word. Boldly stand up and declare the solution. If it is healing that will bring you out of the desert, refuse to speak or believe anything but My Words on healing. If it is finances you need, seek My Word on prosperity and blessing, and speak and do what it tells you. And speak to those waste places and tell them to produce in the Name of Jesus and you will begin to see things change. Plant the seed of My Word and water it with more Word. Reject thoughts of fear, failure, death and defeat and cut them down, flood them out, with My Word. Faith is the spirit of victory and it will not accept anything less than My promise. And it is your faith in My Word that will overcome the world. It can make a desert burst into bloom and become like the Garden of Eden.
Let us finish the passage from Isaiah I was discussing earlier, the one where I told you to look back to Abraham, your father in the faith for instruction to make your life change. But then My Word there goes on to say that when I called Abraham, he was only one man, but I blessed him and made him many. My Word made the barren womb of Sarah become fruitful and fertile. I will surely do the same and comfort you, his descendants, as I promised, and when you walk and speak in faith as he did, I will make your deserts like Eden, your wastelands like My garden. How? When you serve Me with joy and gladness, with thanksgiving and the sound of singing. Isaiah 51:3. And My Word will fill you with joy. I have told you all these things that My joy may be in you and your joy may be full. John 15:11.
And singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs will fill you with My Holy Spirit until you overflow and pour My glory out as the waters cover the sea over all the earth.
So take your dominion authority over the desert places in your life and water them with My Word. You will find them blooming in less time than you think. Like the man who planted seed in his field and went on with his life while it sprouted and grew, and he knew not how, but then when the time came he gathered the harvest.
Plant the seed of My Word, water it each day, continue allowing it to grow, and though you know not how it will do it, no matter how impossible it looks, it will bloom and one day you will find it has grown into a wonderful harvest of blessing. Mark 4:26-29. Put My Word to work and it will work for you. Faith is putting My Word to work in your life by speaking it and living it. Refuse anything less.
Sow your seed in the morning and do not be idle in the evening, for you do not know whether morning or evening sowing will succeed, or whether both of them alike will be good. Ecclesiastes 11:6.
In the beginning when I blessed you to be fruitful the way I did it was I gave you seed. Selah.
And don’t forget to sing My Word, it will give you a quick start. The Holy Spirit in you will give life to your mortal bodies. I give you to drink of the abundance of My house, the river of delights, for in Me is the fountain of life and in My light you see light. Psalm 36:
I love you. Be strong and courageous, sing and rejoice, as you speak My Word as prophecy over your life. The rivers will flow into your life and you will see all the seed you have sowed spouting up to a beautiful harvest of SHALOM and your desert will become as the Garden of Eden.
The LORD will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins; he will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the LORD. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing. Isaiah 51:3.
He turned the desert into pools of water and the parched ground into flowing springs. Psalm 107:35.
The Spirit is poured on us from on high, and the desert becomes a fertile field, and the fertile field seems like a forest. Isaiah 32:15.
I will make them and the places around My hill a blessing. And I will cause showers to come down in their season; they will be showers of blessing. Ezekiel 34:26.