Part 3 of 'The Bride is Being Expanded' — written by Gideon Loots

A note from Charmaine: Unto Fullness Resource is not only the name of our ministry—it's also the name of Gideon's new blog, launching soon at untofullness.com with Part 2 of this article.

The blog will work through twelve foundational biblical themes—a blueprint for growing in Christ and living for His kingdom. Articles like this one will fall under Watchful Preparation, one of those twelve themes. If you'd like a sense of the vision and the blueprint behind it all, I'd encourage you to visit the site now, before Part 2 releases.

A note on this post: it turned out significantly longer than we expected, so we've broken it into two parts. Only in Part 2 will Gideon share the revelation that brought healing to our son's heart—as mentioned in my previous post—a revelation we believe will bring healing to many of your hearts too. When it's ready, we'll share an excerpt here with a link to the full post at untofullness.com—that's the moment to head over and subscribe.

Are You Confident About Your Calling?

Some of you are being discouraged by demonic forces to give up on your calling and on God's promises—like Sarah was. Some of you are being motivated by those same forces to take up, or continue in, a false calling—like Hagar was. How do you know which one you are in this hour?

The Holy Spirit is hovering over the body of Christ in this season, prompting each of us to listen to His conviction and to test ourselves—as Paul urges in 2 Corinthians 13:5. This is not a season to guess. It's a season to examine, so we can each know for certain where we stand. Passing the test will help us resist the enemy's attacks. Failing it—or failing parts of it, since each of us will have different areas to examine—will show us exactly where we need to make adjustments.

The Father is calling the body of Christ into the place of dignity. But what that looks like is different depending on where you find yourself.

If you are one of those being prepared for greater things—by being taken through deeply undignifying situations in this world, so that you will step into heavenly dignity—then I want to encourage you.

Lift your head. Embrace an attitude that humbly says: "I have dignity before God, I matter to Him—not because of what I have, not because of how others treat me, and not because of how well my life is working out right now—but because I am on mission for the King of kings. He knows me, and He cares about me."

When you truly know this, it doesn't matter what He allows you to go through, or what others think of you. He knows. He cares. And He will get you through.

But if you have made mistakes—if you were not diligently on guard and allowed yourself to be misled, or if you have simply made careless choices—then this post is also for you.

Some of you have embraced callings that were not truly yours. Perhaps it was to feel special, or approved by God or man. Perhaps it came from comparing yourself to others, from feeling less valuable than those around you, from a need to feel significant, from a desire to prove a point, or from a longing to be seen and acknowledged. These are callings born out of soulish desire rather than the Spirit of God.

If this is you, I want to urge you to honestly ask yourself: Is this really what I am called to do? Do I carry the specific grace of God for this specific task? Am I the right person? And for some, the question goes even deeper: Is this even a legitimate calling? Has God called anyone to carry this particular burden?

God is calling you to let go of false dignity—which is, in reality, pride—and to let Him restore you to true dignity. To find your identity and security in Christ alone, who values you more than you can ever imagine.

This is the hour in which God is restoring His Church and preparing her for what is coming next.

The Valley of Achor as a Door of Hope

As Charmaine and I were recently praying in tongues, I knew that the time had come to write this post, as promised in her previous post, and that the Father had more He wanted to reveal.

During that time of prayer, I sensed a revelatory energy rise up out of my spirit, enlightening the eyes of my understanding in an instant. What flooded my mind was a revelation of what the Valley of Achor means in this season—something the Lord had been bringing to our attention for several years, but which we had not yet fully grasped.

In Hosea 2, God speaks of how He will discipline Israel for their idolatry, and how He will then draw her back to the land He has promised her. In verse 15, He says that He will give her "the Valley of Achor as a door of hope." To understand what this means, we need to go back to where this valley got its name.

The Sin of Achan

When Israel defeated Jericho, the Lord instructed them to set the city and everything in it apart to Him (Joshua 6:17-19; 7). All the gold, silver, bronze and iron were to be set apart for the Lord's treasury, and everything defiled—the people and their possessions—was to be devoted to destruction.

If any Israelite took for himself what had been set apart to the Lord, that person would bring trouble on all of Israel. The defilement they brought into the camp through disobedience would cause the entire camp to be devoted to destruction.

Achan disobeyed this command. His sin caused Israel's defeat at Ai. The defilement he brought into the camp had placed them under the very sentence of destruction they were meant to carry out. God then instructed the people to separate Achan from their midst and deal with him, so that his sin would be addressed and God's favour would return.

The valley where this happened was named the Valley of Achor—which means the valley of trouble—because it was the place where God brought trouble on the one who had brought trouble on Israel.

In Hosea's day, Israel's trouble was caused by idolatry. What God was saying is that He would give them the Valley of Achor—the place where the cause of their trouble is dealt with—as a door of hope back into their calling and His promises.

What God revealed to me is that in our day, in this specific season in the body of Christ, our trouble is being caused by identity wounds and identity attacks. Those with wounded identities are being used by the enemy to cause trouble for, and even to attack, those who are contending for their true callings.

In the New Covenant, through the blood of Jesus, these brothers and sisters have every opportunity to repent, to separate themselves from the trouble they have caused, and to be restored.

But if they will not—after loving correction has been attempted—God expects us, according to Matthew 18:15–17 and 1 Corinthians 5:11–13, to separate from them.

A word of caution: this does not apply to unbelievers the Lord calls us to reach, nor to every minor disagreement or mistake among believers. This applies specifically to serious and persistent deception that someone refuses to repent of, and that causes ongoing trouble to yourself and others in the body of Christ.

God Only Sows Pure Seed

Why was Israel unable to make progress in taking hold of God's promises while Achan was in their midst? And why does God give the Valley of Achor as a door of hope into those promises?

We find the answer in Hosea 2:23, after God deals with the cause of their trouble: "Then I will sow her for Myself in the earth…"

God desires to spread and multiply His people across the earth until they become a great multitude which no one can number, of all nations, tribes, peoples and tongues (Rev 7:9). But before He does that, He will first purify His people, to ensure that what is multiplied is pure.

The refinement we are going through now, is so that what we impart into others in the next season, will be pure seed. If you choose heavenly dignity in this hour, you will sow that same dignity into others in the hour that is coming.

Discerning the Spirit of Achan

There is a profound difference between being severely tested in order to be taught heavenly dignity, and being troubled—and causing trouble for others—because you have embraced a false calling.

If you are being tested and the suffering you are experiencing is the Lord's preparation—then hold on. The Valley of Achor is not your end. It is your doorway.

If you have embraced a false calling that is causing trouble for those around you—repent. And if you are walking closely with someone who persistently refuses to repent from a false calling, then, for the sake of what God wants to do, separate from them.

God cannot allow corrupted seed to spread. If there is corruption among you, He will not advance you. The spirit of Achan must be dealt with first.

Here is how to tell the difference. Achan coveted two things: the precious things dedicated to the Lord, and a Babylonian garment devoted to destruction.

The gold, silver, bronze and iron set apart for the Lord could only be stewarded by the consecrated priests. In the New Covenant, we are all priests—but this symbolism still speaks to us uniquely.

In biblical typology, gold symbolises faith. Silver, the redemption of Christ's blood. Bronze, God's judgement on sin and His refining through suffering. Iron, spiritual warfare and the labour of preparing the ground.

The precious things, like gold, given to each of us as priests represent the specific measure of faith, gift and calling God has given us individually (Rom 12:3). Your priesthood isn't total—it operates only in the specific gifts God has given you. Outside those gifts, you're an ordinary citizen of the Kingdom, not a priest. Meaning you can only steward the measure you were given, not the measure of others.

The spirit of Achan desires the glorious things of a calling without having been purified and prepared through suffering and warfare for that calling, which is precisely what bronze and iron represent. Notice what Achan did not take: he took no bronze and no iron. He wanted the gold and the silver—the glory and the redemption story—without the preparation those other metals represent.

The spirit of Achan will copy another person's story and attempt to function in their calling, without having had to endure what they endured in order to be prepared for it. This is important for both sides of this conversation:

If you are being prepared—the bronze and iron in your story are not punishment. They are consecration. They are what qualifies you for what is coming.

If you have been trying to function in someone else's calling—ask yourself honestly: have you walked the road that prepared them for it? If not, what you are carrying is taken gold without the bronze to prove that it belongs to you.

But do not be deceived by the appearance of progress either. Not everything that moves forward is being advanced by God. Ask yourself: who feels safe around me? If it is those who are themselves deceived or causing trouble, and they are not being confronted and called toward transformation, that is worth introspection.

The Babylonian Garment — Coming Under a Spirit of Confusion

Along with the precious things, Achan took a Babylonian garment. Babylon means confusion. When you try to function in someone else's calling, or a completely false calling, a false identity and a cloak of confusion inevitably come with it.

This is what the Babylonian garment represents: the false mantle a person puts on when they cannot REST in who they are IN CHRIST. When insecurity drives them to reach for the apparent security and recognition of someone else's calling, or even to take up a burden God never assigned to anyone.

In that place, you put on the Babylonian garment—and with it comes confusion, and eventually strong delusion, because you no longer love the truth (2 Thes 2:10–11): the truth of who you are in Christ, the truth of what He made you, the truth that Romans 12:3 speaks of when it says, "Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought to."

In Zechariah 13, it is prophesied that a fountain of cleansing will open up and false prophets will realise that they have operated in a false identity.

“But he will say, ‘I am no prophet, I am a farmer; for a man taught me to keep cattle from my youth.’ And one will say to him, ‘What are these wounds between your arms?’ Then he will answer, ‘Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.’”

Zechariah 13:5-6

My prayer is that those who are deceived will come to accept their true identity and that they will realise that they were wounded by the loving correction of friends, not by being stabbed in the back by an enemy. As Proverbs 27:6 also affirm: “Faithful are the wounds of a friend, But the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.”

God is calling the body of Christ—both those being prepared and those who have wandered—into a place of true dignity.

Not the dignity of title or calling or recognition, but the cloak of dignity He places on those who have come to rest, humbly and securely, in what He made them to be.

Ishmael is Birthed Quickly; Isaac Takes Time

One of the most practical ways to discern whether something is truly from the Lord—or whether it is the spirit of Achan reaching for what does not belong to it—is this: How quickly did it come?

If you or someone you journey with received "a fresh revelation" or "a confirming sign" recently and immediately began moving to make it happen, be careful. It is either a genuine calling being pushed prematurely in the flesh, a misunderstanding of your role in someone else's calling, or a false calling altogether. The spirit of Achan can even produce false signs to validate what it is pursuing.

God's Spirit takes time:

• Abraham and Sarah waited 25 years for Isaac.

• Joseph waited 13 years in slavery and prison before his dream became reality.

• Moses spent 40 years as a shepherd in the wilderness before leading Israel out of Egypt.

• David waited approximately 15 years from his anointing before he was crowned king.

• Paul spent roughly 14 years in preparation before his first apostolic mission.

If you are in a long season of waiting and preparation, I want to say to you clearly: do not give up. This is not abandonment. This is consecration.

And if you have reached for something prematurely—if you recognise Achan's garment on your own shoulders—it is not too late. Lay it down. There is a door of hope waiting for you on the other side of that valley.

Don't Give Up

Even if you have made mistakes, all is not lost. God is able to work all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Rom 8:28). Whether you are learning from your own mistakes, or whether you are learning endurance through suffering, God already knew what would happen—and He has already worked it into His plan.

Lift your head. Step up into heavenly dignity. And don't give up.

In Part 2 we will look at how to identify and heal from identity wounds, how to embrace your identity in Christ, and how to overcome identity attacks.