Hear The Word Of The Lord

This past Wednesday, the Holy Spirit prompted me to look at a certain passion fruit plant that I'd been waiting to fruit since 2020. I understood the frustration Jesus had when He walked up to the fig tree expecting it to have fruit but only found leaves (Matthew 21:17-19)

I was minding my own business and felt the urge to look up in the plant's direction. It was looking scraggly and strange, but as I began to look closely, I realized it was the making of a passion fruit.

This photo is proof that a whole bunch of delicious tropical passions had started forming.

(side note: isn't God not a genius artist? Just look at that passion flower:))

As I began to thank the Lord for this miracle, the Holy Spirit started to remind me of what exactly had led to this moment.

It had been raining every single day in November 2023, which has been uncharacteristic over the recent past.   I went into our garden and I declared fruitfulness over all our crops according to the decree of the Lord in Deuteronomy 28:4- that the fruit of our ground is blessed.

1.5 months later, the passion plants had started fruiting. After 3 years of being barren. Not only that, I went to another parcel of land to discover that a banana tree that had been ‘dead’ for over 5 years had not only sprung back to life but it had also propagated 2 little baby banana plants.

There was no doubt in my mind that this was a result of the Word of the Lord.

The Holy Spirit then began to connect the dots for me from Ezekiel 37; a familiar passage of Scripture on The Valley of Dry Bones.

He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry (Ezekiel 37:2 NIV)

The truth is, that just like my barren passion plant, many of us have situations that appear dry or very dry on the floor of the valley. The dry bones represent those things that have been dead for a long time, with no strength, no life and no essence. The valley is descriptively the low place.

He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.” (Ez 37:3)

The lesson for me here was that in our humanity, as we look at situations and people- to our eyes, they are dead and gone. But through Ezekiel's response, it was very encouraging to me that ultimately, the Lord knows what we do not know.

Then He said to me, “Prophesy to these bones (Ezekiel 37:4a NIV)

The instruction of the Lord to Ezekiel was to prophesy to the bones.

The definition of 'prophesy' is to prophesy under influence of divine spirit- to speak (or sing) by inspiration or in prediction. It also means to make declaration of events to come; to utter predictions.

The word 'speak' means to declare, command, promise; while the Word of the Lord represents a saying, utterance or word.

The Lord asked Ezekiel to open his mouth and speak the utterance of the Lord. In this case;

and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! (Ezekiel 37:4b NIV)

The fact that the bones had to 'hear' the word of the Lord means that Ezekiel had to use his voice. Some definitions of the word 'hear' as per the Strongs Concordance include to listen to, to obey, give heed, consent, agree and yield to.

The dry bones had to obey, give heed and yield to the Word of the Lord and there was an effect:

So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army (Ezekiel 37:7 NIV)

In my case, when I declared The Blessing of fruitfulness over our plants, they had to obey and yield to the Word of the Lord. The result is that I can now look forward to a delicious harvest of passion fruits.

Creation MUST respond to the Word of its Creator.

Be encouraged, that as we declare the Word of the Lord in our declarations, there must and will be a response.

Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’ (Ezekiel 37:14 NIV)

I declare over each and every one of us participating in the 2023 Let There Be Challenge that we shall know that it is indeed the Lord who has spoken, because He will do it.

The dry bones will hear you declare the Word of the Lord over themand come back to life, in Jesus' Name.