Possessing Your Inheritance: Take Hold of God's Destiny for Your Life
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Chuck D. Pierce
Chuck D. Pierce, a bestselling author known for his accurate prophetic gifting, is president of Glory of Zion International Ministries and Kingdom Harvest Alliance. Learn more at GloryOfZion.org.
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Possessing Your Inheritance - Chuck D. Pierce
future.
INTRODUCTION
Now Is the Time to Possess the Portion You Have Been Given!
Since the first edition of Possessing Your Inheritance was published, much has happened in my life and in the lives of my family and the families that are associated with me. Much has happened in the ministries I have been involved with, and within this nation and all the nations of the earth.
Change is all around us.
I believe that it is time for the Body of Christ to evaluate every resource available and think in a different way.
Our mindset must change as the times around us change. The adult brain encodes knowledge and skills, joys and regrets and plans for the future. The brain makes us aware of ourselves by producing thoughts linked with our heart’s desires and our belief system. The brain reflects our emotions by producing thoughts that will cause self-preservation after we have been hurt. The brain is constantly changing the landscape of how we see the world. Our mental landscape now is very different than it was 10 years ago. The brain is constantly updating itself. We would be wise to follow its lead and adapt a more analytical and creative approach to how we live in this world.
Everything seems to be changing … but GOD! He changes not! God never changes. He is stable and creative in all things. In the midst of constant change, we have an unchanging God that we can see and know … and we can see ourselves and the world around us through His perspective!
Because all has changed around us since the first edition of this book, we are now updating Possessing Your Inheritance to introduce the contents to another generation and group of passionate Kingdom Seekers who wish to occupy and be wise stewards of all that God has for us.
God intends for us to live peacefully. His goal is for us to cultivate and multiply in the place He assigns us. He means for us to be efficient in what we do, maximizing time and space. His ultimate goal for us is to live in harmony with Him and with those who enter our lives and spheres of influence.
This book is about activating and restoring the Righteous Branch in your family tree. Another way to say this is, God has a plan to enter your bloodline and unlock all the promises and destinies that He ordained from the beginning of time for you.
It is about overcoming loss and entering into restoration. It is about understanding sin and yielding to the Holy Spirit to allow an untwisting of iniquitous patterns that have confused your path. It is about spiritual discipline that defines your gift and gives you power to face off
the enemy who would stand against you on your path of life. It is about securing your inheritance and passing the legacy of God in you to your children and your children’s children. It is about overcoming failure and trials and developing a testimony. Ultimately, it is also about hope, which allows faith to arise in you so that you are confident over your future!
New Lands, New Nations, New Wars!
When I was 18 years old, the Spirit of God called me to serve Him on the mission field. I was at a Baptist State Union Convention. I heard Him distinctly say, You are called for the healing of the nations.
That was almost 40 years ago. I can honestly say that at that moment, I did not understand the call I heard, but through the years I have pursued it because I knew that God had defined a portion of my inheritance for me.
Did you know that you have a portion specifically allotted to you from God? The word inheritance
means my portion.
We all have a portion from God. We have all been given a space, a territory or arena in which we have been granted authority. How we steward that space is key to our success in the spirit realm. In fact, the climate of our domain reflects our relationship with the Lord. Therefore, our chief desire should be for the presence of our holy God to occupy our inheritance.
In Deuteronomy 1:8 and 8:1, we read:
See, I have set the land before you; go in and possess the land which the LORD swore to your fathers—to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—to give to them and their descendants after them…. Every commandment which I command you today you must be careful to observe, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land of which the LORD swore to your fathers.
In warring against the enemies of this age, we must learn how to occupy and possess. When we occupy something, we take possession of it—we keep it in our possession. In Luke 21:19, we are called to possess our souls. When we possess the portion that God has for each of us, we become whole—we are fulfilled and full of peace. This is what we are actually warring to accomplish! We must be a people who settle for nothing less than the abundance the Lord has for us.
But there always seems to be another war in the portion we have been given! With every call of God comes a door that opens to a new land with new wars. Just when you think you are on your way to enjoying peace and being settled, God initiates the next call from heaven into your life.
I faithfully pray for nations. There is constant turmoil escalating in the world as nation rises against nation. Will the nation that rages the loudest rule the longest? When a nation rises to battle another nation for dominion, one would wonder why we bother praying for the nations at all if it seems they will always rage and wage war with each other. Why shouldn’t we develop a que sera, sera attitude and enjoy life as much as possible with the thought of one day entering our heavenly home that Jesus went away to prepare for us (see John 14:1-3)? After all, what will be, will be; so why are we even concerned about the ever-present conflicts surrounding us?
Psalm 2:1-2,8,12 states the reason for our concern:
Why do the nations assemble with commotion [uproar and confusion of voices], and why do the people imagine (meditate upon and devise) an empty scheme? The kings of the earth take their places; the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and His Anointed One (the Messiah, the Christ)…. Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations as Your inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth as Your possession…. Kiss the Son [pay homage to Him in purity], lest He be angry and you perish in the way, for soon shall His wrath be kindled. O blessed (happy, fortunate, and to be envied) are all those who seek refuge and put their trust in Him! (AMP).
God has an inheritance! I know that as I pursue my call of praying for the nations, I am co-laboring with God to accomplish His inheritance.
Which Is Most Important: The Nations, Children or You?
Are nations more important than individuals? The Lord says in Isaiah 40:15 that the nations are as a drop in a bucket
to Him. You are a nation. You are a peculiar people.
I remember when God was changing my call in the early 1980s to work in other nations. His first calls to me were of China and then the former Soviet Bloc countries. At the same time as God was calling me to the nations, my wife, Pam, knew that she was to begin her real career of extending our inheritance to another generation—by having babies! Since then, the Lord has sent me to many nations, and I think my call was and is much less stressful than Pam’s! We have six children. Since the first edition of this book, Pam and I have celebrated the marriages of four of our six children … and the births of seven grandbabies.
Becky Sytsema, who co-authored the first edition with me, and her husband, Jack, have had four children; one child is in heaven, one has severe autism, one has slight autism and one seems to be normal
in the world’s eyes. However, I have watched Becky and Jack become a woman and man of faith through their inheritance trials.
I have found that with each extension of ourselves into another season, and in that extension an impartation of faith from one generation to another, there always seem to be challenges. With the birth of each of our children, Pam received each child as a new faith expression.
What I found were new realms of anxiety inside me when each cycle of each child’s life seemed to be filled with faith challenges. Yet my children have brought out the best in me after I uncovered other layers of myself and unbelief that needed sanctification.
Now that our kids are having their own kids, I continue to change with each new grandchild; but most importantly, we all receive valuable faith lessons that have matured us. That’s another facet of this book: it will help you understand how the generational iniquities—the curses that adhere to us and rob us of God’s blessings—work from one generation to another.
Our children now range in age from 17 to 40. Our grandkids range in age from the gestation stage to 17. Since the time when we raised our first four children, moral and social values in the world have changed drastically. How our last two children process their world is totally different from the way our first four processed theirs. The world’s pressures and peer influence is much stronger today. In order for our grandchildren to receive the inheritance of the Lord that was developed in my grandmother, in our mothers and in us, they too will have to develop faith. They must learn to develop thought processes that are built upon an absolute system of truth that includes God’s law found in His Word and embrace the grace that God’s Son came to offer the world. Without this structural safety, they will find themselves severely stressed by the complexity of the world.
But we are not left to develop faith on our own. God has instructions for the preservation of His people. First, we must guard the inheritance He has already given us.
Protect Your Vineyard!
I awakened one morning and heard deep within my spirit these words: Protect your vineyard! There is a new call to watch the vineyard you have been given. Protect your vineyard from the many enemies that would rob you from seeing His blessing occur during this hour in your life!
These words reinforced that I have a portion or garden
that the Lord has assigned to me, and I knew that I was to protect that garden. I then heard the Lord say, Possess your inheritance!
There are many enemies that could enter a vineyard to destroy the produce. There are moochers, robbers and intruders who steal, kill and destroy. There are little foxes that eat the budding fruit and crush the vine! Different kinds of seed that is sown can confuse a field’s produce. Our apathy and procrastination can create decay and waste. And don’t forget Jezebel and Ahab! Even political structures can rob you of your inheritance in this hour. There is a Kingdom becoming stronger within the people of God. We are gaining new strength for our journey ahead and ways to secure what we have been given.
Do not allow the enemy to cause you to lose focus on your inheritance. Your inheritance is your portion; it is your vineyard! The enemy is contending with you and me over how the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof
(Ps. 24:1, KJV).
A Season of War!
Every time we enter into a new season of history, the Lord releases new authority, commissions new leadership, causes people to desire a new level of His holiness, communicates new strategies for victory and transfers the power to gain wealth so that His kingdom purposes can be established. Just as the Lord waited 470 years before His people were ready to enter in
and fulfill the promise He made to Abraham, I believe He is waiting for us today.
Many times the shifts we make are not our willful choices but result from the wars of the season; we would have loved to see something go one way, but atmospheric conflicts, conflicts of opinions, conflicts of philosophies and conflicts of emotions caused them to go a different direction. James said that we war because we have cravings and desires in us that cannot be satisfied. Many times these desires hold us in wilderness places. We were meant to cross over into prosperity, but instead we choose to have our way in a situation instead of submitting to the will of God.
James 4:1-3 says:
What leads to strife (discord and feuds) and how do conflicts (quarrels and fightings) originate among you? Do they not arise from your sensual desires that are ever warring in your bodily members? You are jealous and covet [what others have] and your desires go unfulfilled; [so] you become murderers. [To hate is to murder as far as your hearts are concerned.] You burn with envy and anger and are not able to obtain [the gratification, the contentment, and the happiness that you seek], so you fight and war. You do not have, because you do not ask. [Or] you do ask [God for them] and yet fail to receive, because you ask with wrong purpose and evil, selfish motives. Your intention is [when you get what you desire] to spend it in sensual pleasures (AMP).
War Is a Conflict Rooted in Self-Desire!
Our desires are important. However, they can be dangerous. If they are not submitted to the Spirit of God, an evil spirit will influence us to move out of time and attempt to possess something that God has not given us or has not given us yet. Desire is a function of emotion; emotion is linked with feeling. Conflicts in our emotions can create war in us and in the earth around us. This conflict can be individual, territorial, national or international.
The major war is not nation against nation, but covenant against covenant. Will God’s covenant be the ruling force in your heart, or your city, region, state or nation? There will always be wars and rumors of wars. How we perceive the warfare around us and walk in war are key as we move from season to season.
During the last several years, we have seen great changes in the rule of the world and in governmental and economic structures. What happened on September 11, 2001, caused the world to enter a great time of realignment and awakening. I am referring to the terrorist attacks that occurred in this nation when the World Trade Center towers fell as terrorists used our national air industry against the structures representing business, power and finance in the United States. As a result, airports changed. Security systems changed. An economic structure changed. Nations went to war. But the world became more aware of the rising conflict of covenants in the earth.
Timing in War!
Since this book was first written, I have written several other books. Most of those books are about how to war for your inheritance. I want to encourage you to read Restoring Your Shield of Faith, Prayers That Outwit the Enemy, The Worship Warrior and Protecting Your Home from Spiritual Darkness—all of which can help you understand the realities of spiritual life and warfare. God’s army has different rules that we must play by. We must understand time, timing (seasons) and God-given missions that lead to living triumphantly according to God’s purposes.
I have also written a couple books that can help you understand revelation. When God Speaks gives you an understanding of how the voice of God operates in your life. God’s Now Time for Your Life helps you understand how to war with prophetic revelation. Each year, I attempt to seek the Lord to gain revelation to help us better perceive what the voice of God would love to speak to His people. We are His voice in the earth, in every generation, and we must remain His voice crying in the wilderness. Our decrees open the way for the Lord to come into our season. Once we decree a thing, we then watch to see God’s will manifested.
How We Become Strong and Possess Our Inheritance
Revelation is necessary for us to possess our inheritance. Revelation builds! Revelation overcomes the gates of hell! Revelation gives us the keys to the Kingdom. Because I could foresee the war season ahead before the manifestation of war actually came into the earth, I wrote The Future War of the Church in 2000, to help God’s people get prepared with the mindset of the season. That book has chapters relating to how to prepare for war, foundations for future victory, the Third Day Church arising, dethroning thrones of iniquity, the transference of wealth, how to defeat lawlessness and bring God’s order in the earth realm, the modern-day ites,
and women arising.
When I wrote Future War of the Church, I received much flack against what it was saying. The book was released in May 2001, a few months before the World Trade Center tragedy. Then September 11, 2001, happened! The premise of the book was that at the end of seven years, the Lord would form a new wineskin for His triumphant saints. This seven-year season is very real to most of us now and actually is historic in a sense. We are now pressing into the next season. The new wineskin of the Church should now be formed to express victory in the next season. My book God’s Unfolding Battle Plan is the companion book to Future War of the Church and will help you understand the war ahead! Without prophetic revelation, we perish. Through revelation, what could not be seen can be seen.
So how do we now possess our inheritance?
Through Patience
We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised
(Heb. 6:12, NIV). As with any inheritance, there is a right time to possess it. If we try to possess an inheritance that has been promised to us in a family situation before the right time, we stand the risk of becoming disinherited. God has given us promises for our future and for our children, but if we do not wait on His timing, we could lose the fruit of those promises. Hebrews 10:36 states it this way: You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised
(NIV).
Through Generosity in Giving
Giving is a real key in my own life. I believe that giving is the very heart of God. Giving is linked with worship, and we must recognize that the Son of Righteousness really can’t arise within you if you’re not giving God His portion. Therefore, we cannot come into our inheritance if we are not willing to honor God with the first part. Remember, the Lord says in His Word that the first 10 percent belongs to Him. We cannot come into our portion until we give at least that much back to Him. It is a part of our covenant with Him. Then He allows us to be a steward with the other 90 percent. What we do with that other 90 percent does affect how we see our portion multiplied.
With a Heart and Mind for Increase
Just as in the parable of the talents (see Matt. 25:14-30), we see that judgment came on the servant who merely buried his portion without trying to multiply it. We are called to multiply what God has given us. There is no way we can do that without giving. It’s the law of reaping and sowing. We cannot reap (or multiply) that which we are not willing to sow (or give). We often, however, operate in a fear of lack, and/or a poverty mentality. It is easy to forget that everything we have God created and gave to us. We must overcome our fear of lack that may be keeping us from giving and allow God to lead us into freedom in this whole issue.
Our minds must think INCREASE. One of the most important mindsets to have is a biblical understanding of increase. When we look at increase in the Word of God, we see that it is linked with government. Isaiah 9:7 reads, Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end.
Increase is also a harvest principle. Increase rises through faith and follows effort and deeds linked with faith. Increase comes through connecting with one another. There is a need for us to link together and gain strength in multiple and corporate measure as opposed to independence. Increase is also a reward for obedience. There is joy in obedience, and joy causes our strength to increase. And from strength we are capable of building God’s strategic plan for the future.
Through Perseverance
Keep turning until you have turned into the new path ahead. Do not let the enemy wear you down. Daniel 7:22,26-27 says:
Until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High [God], and the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom…. But the judgment shall be set [by the court of the Most High], and they shall take away his dominion to consume it [gradually] and to destroy it [suddenly] in the end. And the kingdom and the dominion and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heavens shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High; His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all the dominions shall serve and obey Him (AMP).
Do not grow weary! There comes a moment in time when we overcome in our crisis. There comes a time when we recognize the enemy’s plan and his tactics and outwit him. There comes a time when we break through, and the power of the enemy’s control breaks. This was the case with Daniel. He brought heaven into the earth realm through intercession and gained revelation for generations to come. You and I can also triumph in the midst of change!
Through Focus and Alertness
The mind must stay alert! Without our minds being stayed on the Lord, we have only a slight chance, if any, for peace in our lives. Isaiah 26:3 says the Lord will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are stayed on Him. Can peace be a simple experience for us? In these days, we must remember that the enemy will try to wear down our minds. Look at what Daniel says in Daniel 7:21,25:
As I looked, this horn made war with the saints and prevailed over them…. And he shall speak words against the Most High [God] and shall wear out the saints of the Most High and think to change the time [of sacred feasts and holy days] and the law; and the saints shall be given into his hand for a time, two times, and half a time [three and one-half years] (AMP).
Do not let the enemy wear you down. The mind, heart, emotions and wellbeing of the soul are intricately connected. Usually, the enemy’s goal in persecution is not to see us burned at the stake. To persecute actually means to wear down the mind and remove the strength. This