Yesterday I shared how the Lord is anointing a generation of shepherds with a rod of authority, and how that word became personal for me in 2007, when a single encounter in Ann Arbor sent me home to Flint with a mandate I never asked for: build an altar of worship and prayer at the south gate of our city and release the Voice of the LORD over that geography, as Moses stretched the rod of God over the valley below. I carried that commission faithfully for fifteen years until the Lord asked me to build another altar of complete surrender and sacrifice, as He had after my first twelve years of urban outreach. I found myself standing at that threshold, as Abraham once stood on the mountain with Isaac.
Today, I want to share what the Lord showed me in that test of transition necessary for the next level in the Kingdom. The ultimate test of transition happens at the altar. Abraham found himself caught between his past promise and his future purpose. True obedience requires complete surrender at the threshold of change. We cannot step into the next level of Kingdom authority until we prove that nothing takes precedence over the Voice of God.
Genesis 22:1–2 Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham… “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering…”
THE RAM IN THE THICKET
During a 40-day season of seeking the LORD about the future of our covenant community, Gateway Hope Center, the Lord had me meditating deeply on and preaching from Genesis 22. During that time of meditation, the LORD spoke a statement to me that sealed the deal.
He said, “Abraham would never have seen the ram caught in the thicket if he had not obeyed My voice, built an altar, and put his son Isaac on the altar.”
Many of my people want to see the ram in the thicket (Jehovah Jireh) without laying their Isaac on the altar. For those who might not understand what the Lord is saying, I’ve been holding a promise about the ram’s horn that is blown on the Day of Atonement after 49 years to announce the Jubilee. The Jubilee was a biblical principle from Father God’s heart: to cancel all debts and restore literal lands, the divine inheritance of God’s covenant people. The LORD did not want His witness nation Israel to operate like all the other nations of the earth; He called them to be Holy, to be like Him.
After Joshua led Israel to conquer the seven Canaanite nations, God systematically divided the Promised Land among the twelve tribes. Every family, clan, and bloodline received a specific, God-given portion of land. This inheritance was not merely real estate; it was a permanent physical marker of their covenant security, identity, and future provision within the Kingdom.
Despite this divine inheritance, family members’ sin, poor stewardship, and economic hardship created a severe vulnerability: debt. In the ancient world, if an individual could not repay what they owed, they were forced into servitude to their creditor. Without intervention, entire bloodlines would easily fall into generational, perpetual slavery, completely stripping families of the land and freedom God had originally given them.
Israel was explicitly forbidden from operating like the other nations around them. God designed Israel to be a light to the world, a distinct witness nation representing the Father’s heart. Their laws were intended to break cycles of systemic oppression, ensuring that no temporary economic failure could permanently erase a family’s eternal covenant inheritance.
The Jubilee Decree
This is where the Kingdom principle of Jubilee comes in. Father God instituted debt cancellation and land restoration: Jubilee. Every 7 years, debts were to be canceled; this was called a shemitah. Every 7 shemitahs (49 years), debts were to be canceled, and land title deeds were to be fully restored. Father God did not want one family or one bloodline to lose their God-given inheritance and land. The Lord has me writing a book, partially released in these devotions, called The Jubilee Generation, the generation of the restoration of all things.
Leviticus 25:8–10 And you shall count seven sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years; and the time of the seven sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years. Then you shall sound the trumpet of the Jubilee on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty (deror) throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee (yovel) for you; and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family.
What Yovel and Deror Mean
The Hebrew word for Jubilee is YOVEL, which literally means RAM’S HORN. Many think Jubilee means liberty, but that is the Hebrew word DEROR, which means “free-flowing oil, literally myrrh.” The YOVEL, the ram’s horn, was to be blown throughout the land to announce the Jubilee Decree!
The Distinction of Maturity: The Ram vs. the Lamb
In modern Christian culture, we often see Jesus only through the lens of a gentle, vulnerable lamb. However, biblical accuracy requires a deeper understanding: a ram is a mature male sheep, fully grown and strong. While Jesus went to the cross as the submissive Lamb of God, He also stood there as the mature, strong Ram, the fully capable substitute who bore the weight of the sacrifice to achieve absolute victory.
Caught in the Thicket of Thorns
The prophetic imagery of Genesis 22 finds perfect fulfillment at the Cross. Just as the ram was caught by its horns in the brush, Jesus, the mature Ram, was caught in the thicket of the crown of thorns. The thorns, a biblical symbol of the curse on the ground and human fallenness, ensnared Him. He willingly allowed Himself to be bound by the very curse of our rebellion so He could become our substitute on the altar of transition.
The Sound of the Finished Debt
When Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “It is finished,” He was not expressing exhaustion; He was making a legal declaration that humanity’s debt was paid in full. This shout was the spiritual sounding of the Yovel (Jubilee) ram’s horn. In ancient Israel, the blast of the Shofar announced the arrival of the Jubilee year, the sudden, supernatural cancellation of all monetary debts and the immediate liberation of slaves.
The Supernatural Restoration of Inheritance
The sound of Christ’s victory on the cross triggers an immediate Kingdom reset for every believer. In Christ, the Jubilee decree releases a sound that cancels all generational debts and restores your divine inheritance. Every piece of spiritual “land,” your purpose, your peace, your bloodline freedom, and the places of destiny that human systems or failures stole from you, is legally returned to its rightful owner.
THE RAM HAD TO DIE AND YIELD TO THE HAND OF THE ONE WHO BLOWS
The Lord needs a people (HIS BODY) to come into union with Him, becoming the ram’s horn of Jubilee. Remember, a ram had to die to release the sound of Jubilee. Jesus was the ram who died and yielded to the Father’s hand, thereby releasing the sound of Jubilee. Death always precedes the sound of the resurrection.
Jesus didn’t do it all for us to live an easy, comfortable life. He showed us the pathway of sonship: take up our cross and follow Him toward mature sonship, the place of Jubilee, true victory, and restoration. That road of sonship always runs through a test, the same test that stood before Abraham on that mountain with Isaac.
THE TEST
Sometimes, at threshold moments in our lives, God will test us. Scripture says God tested Abraham. You can’t go to the next level in the kingdom without passing a test. My test was not easy. Build an altar, place Gateway Hope Center on top of it, and I will not say stop, stop. There will be a sacrifice.
NOTHING OLD SURVIVES INTO THE NEW
Why would the Lord do that? Sometimes we want to carry the old season into the new. We want to call something a new move of God when it’s just repackaged. We’re in such a climactic moment of redemptive history. There will be no old in the new, but what you surrendered to the Lord in sacrifice, including some of the very foundational things, can be grafted into the new season. It has to be gold-refined or tested in the fire.
This is right where we’re at. The Lord is calling the people into the greatest transition in human history, and it comes with a test. It’s a test that stands before you. Don’t let human religious sentiment keep you from making the necessary sacrifice to transition into the next stage of God’s redemptive glory.
THE COMMISSION OF THE LORD BELONGS TO EVERY BELIEVER
Genesis 1:28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
The LORD’s original intent for mankind is dominion, divine authority, and the exercise of divine government. That commission is the very reason you breathe and walk on the earth. Every believer is called to stretch the rod of authority, the rod of His Word, over the geographical region where they live. Authority is rooted in the Word of God, which is both authoritative and authentic. The LORD desires that we be authentically who He made us to be: sons of dominion, sons of His Kingdom Come, sons of His will being done, and sons manifesting heaven on earth.
But the LORD’s own word has sustained me: “If you have just one word in your mouth from My Mouth, the Host of Heaven will move in accordance with My Voice.” That is the commission, not mine alone; it is the commission of every believer called to stretch the rod of His Word over the geography they inhabit.
In an army, everyone needs to know their place and their assignment to achieve overall victory. If the armies are competing against each other for notoriety, wanting to be in the spotlight as the one who actually got the word and brought the victory, the army will be defeated.
Do you know your position and assignment in the Lord’s army? What has the Lord called you to do? Where has He called you to stand? What has been your assignment, and what is it in the days ahead? You and everyone reading this need to process those questions deeply with the Lord.
The season is changing quickly. The climax of the war over the Father’s glorious inheritance is swiftly at hand. Many of God’s people are seeking a revival that will never come because the wineskin they want to pour the wine into isn’t suited to what He’s pouring out. I will talk about that later during these 90 days.