The Kingdom Advancing

HIS KINGDOM IS ADVANCING!

August 28, 2018 - Pastor Sheliah

Dateline ➖July 1, 1993 ➖my husband and I moved to Branson, Missouri, with great dreams and a vision to have a Sunday morning worship gathering in one of the Branson theaters. Yes! Twenty-five-years-ago we packed up and in faith pursued our “heart’s desire.”

There was no visible means of support, no theater to meet in at that point, no official backing from any denomination, and not even the promise of a place to live!

We didn’t know much about the Kingdom – simply believing as so many Christians do that we would “go there” one day. However, we were “experienced” pastors (23-years then) – who had been building “churches,” paying off “debts” and “expanding OUR KINGDOM!”

But – Praise God! We have experienced a “paradigm shift” in our lives and ministry in the past 25-years. We thought we had a “good idea” but it was definitely a “God Idea” that changed our lives forever! As Dr. Clarice Fluitt says, “God will let you believe whatever you need to believe to get you where you are going.”

God gave us the most incredible opportunity for the next 10-years as Jim and Ann Stafford opened the doors of the Jim Stafford Theater to us every week for Sunday Praise Gathering – an outreach to the world! But His Idea was so much greater than ours! (Ephesians.3:20).

Yes! – We saw literally thousands (over 8000 recorded) of salvations in those years from many states and nations!

Yes! – We saw many signs, wonders and miracles in hundreds of lives! Healings, like a woman who was blind and in a wheelchair get up and walk with her vision restored! Another was a man with a steel rod in his back for 17-years, jumping up and bending over – the steel dissolved! Cancers gone! Multiple Sclerosis gone! Parkinson’s disease healed! All of this pushed us out of the “box” that we had been in for almost 30-years by then!

Yes! – God has sent awesome men and women of from the nations who ministered to and with us: giving life and hope; prophetically declaring great outpouring in our nation and this region!

Yes! – I was ordained and many others commissioned and ordained for the Gospel ministry and we began to send teams into the nations. But the biggest shift has been the realignment from “church-building” to “Kingdom-building”.

We no longer are about building a big “church” but our hearts are “Kingdom-minded”! Our purpose is to build His Kingdom and preach the GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM to the whole world! (Matthew.24:14) It wasn’t a conscious effort on our part – it was what God did in us! It’s no longer about pleasing “men” or a “denomination” – but pleasing God!

So when we look around and all the “thousands” are gone – even the hundreds have dwindled down to a special few – we are not discouraged! The Kingdom of God is Advancing! The Kingdom of God is Increasing!

And we are part of the “Increasing Kingdom”! We could “go back” and play all the right games and set up all the right programs and push all the right buttons – or we can ADVANCE! We can MOVE FORWARD!

Now as I travel the World – connecting with people of the Kingdom – what do I see? I see more clearly than ever… “The kingdom of the world has become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever.” (Revelation.11:15)

“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.” (Matt.24:14) It is time that we – the people of His kingdom – take the world for the Kingdom of God!

Could we be more outrageous? Remember – the Body of Christ is the Center of the World – “He is in charge of it all, has the final word on everything… and at the center of all this, Christ rules!” (Ephesians.1:23). ~ Shelia Hart Artt

#WeAintSeenNothingYet #TheBestIsYetToCome

#TheKingdomIsAdvancing #OutrageousGrace #GloryBarnBranson