It is crazy that it has taken me a few weeks to get to the point in my heart where I could sit down and write about what happened last month during our Convocation in Milwaukee, WI, but it has. The few days of gathering that we had were tremendous. The presence of God among us was overwhelming, inviting, life-changing. There was a real and deep sense of the severity of the gatherings, meaning that we were very aware and sober to the feeling that it was a pivotal couple of days.

After the way that we have seen situations in our nation unfold over the weeks since gathering last month, that feeling that we all had could not have been any truer—those were very pivotal days of gathering, for sure. Days of transformation and preparation. Days of alignment and assignment. Days of beholding and burdening.

We are witnessing an hour in our generation that is unprecedented. Not just because of the variety of ways that challenge and crisis has seemed to hit the world. It would be much easier to understand if the world was spiraling out of control alone, but it is not alone. There is something that is happening in the Church right now that we must pay attention to. There is an unraveling and a revealing that is taking place right before our very eyes. The Church is pressing through a period of exposure and enhancement. We mustn’t miss this moment, for I tremble at the thought of the consequences of not having discernment in these days and what that may produce as our experience in the days to come.

In the world, there is a global pandemic, economic crisis, racial tensions, political hostility, governmental corruption, agendas from people groups and movements, narratives being created and wielded in order to inflict unique amounts of suffering on specific categories of peoples, uncertainties, misunderstandings, conspiracy theories, and more. And as if that wasn’t enough, we then have an absurd amount of people who find their joy in life by arguing, criticizing, and assassinating people on the internet. Social media has seemed to bring the circus that is alive in the world right to the palm of our hand, or our desktop. These are difficult days already, but then the social element, and how that has made everyone feel as if they are closely knit to each of these elements unfolding around us throughout our nation and the world has made for a very special year thus far, to say the least. 2020 will go down as the year that was five years long.

Attempting to navigate these days has been a challenge. However, a challenge that we as the people of God should be up for. We have not been left alone (John 16:7). We have been filled beautifully and powerfully with God’s Spirit that now resides on the inside of our lives as God is conforming our lives to the image of His Son (Romans 5:5, 8:29). We have been given access to God’s mind by the power of His Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:16). Our trust is not in our own wisdom (Proverbs 3:5).

Our lives are planted in the middle of the chaos. We are in the world, but not to be of it (John 17:16). As we find ourselves among the mess that is ensuing all around us, we are to be a city on a hill and a beacon of light and hope (Matthew 5:14). We must remember that we are supposed to be the salt of the earth, but not salt that loses is saltiness (Matthew 5:13).

I believe that our days of gathering last month were incredibly influential to the times that we find ourselves in. These are days where we must know how to access God’s presence and voice for ourselves. These are not days where you can simply relegate the responsibility of knowing God and cultivating a real, deep, and intimate relationship with Him to someone else. There is a real accountability that is being awakened in the hearts of people in this hour to dig deep wells with the Lord, and it is necessary.

The “main thing,” if I could say it that way, that I feel came out of our Convocation last month as we look at all that was said and done over the course of those days, was this—Will you give your life to live in covenant love and loyalty to King Jesus? This was the “theme” that, again, looking back, is easily seen and heard as what was the resounding clarion call over those days. And it could not be more fitting. This is actually the desperation of our day, this hour of history.

The reason that it is so desperately needed is because there are a million other things that people are loyal to in this moment of history. Political parties. Skin colors. Races/ethnicities. Nationalism. Denominations. Societal classes. Income brackets. Ideologies. Agendas. Movements. Figures/People.

At the end of the day, this is what will matter most—did you live in covenant loyalty to King Jesus? Did you lay your life down in order to honor Him in loving obedience? Was your life conformed to the image of God’s Son, or did you look more like what you chose to champion in the earth?

There are some things that we may think matter, but I promise you there are some things that REALLY matter. In the end, the only things that will matter are those things that mattered to God. When we face the judgement seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10), there will only be one Man that will have the power to say to us, “Well done…”

We really need discernment in these days if we are going to be successful in living in covenant loyalty to King Jesus. There is way too much nonsense happening in order to capture our attention and sweep our hearts away in the tidal wave of its deception. The pull of the world in these days is strong, but the love of Jesus has always been and will always be stronger.

The Lord marked the hearts of many that gathered with us in a way that was life-altering. Life-altering, in that, it destroyed the strength of their will that, at times, can put up a good wrestling match with the will of the Lord. The fight for control was confronted, and Jesus won in the hearts of many.

I feel there is much more to say, and I will do that, but it had to start here—Covenant love and loyalty to King Jesus.

He desires a people in the earth in these days that will give Him everything and live-in covenant love and loyalty to Him and Him alone. He is worthy of this people. He laid His life down in order to secure and possess this people. He longs to be with this people. And, He will one day return for this people.

We ARE the people of His desire. May we be aware of that, sobered by that, and live faithfully as that in the earth in these days.