Winter, it would seem, has come early to my city. As I left work yesterday morning, I did what all my co-workers did and started my car while waiting on the next shift to come in. As I got under way, a warning light popped up on my instrument panel. The warning read as follows:
CRITICAL SYSTEM WARNING
CAMERA OBSCURED
As I drove along, I attributed this warning to the frost that remained on my car as I sped down the highway. I even mused over the fact that for many years, we have been driving just fine without all of the bells and whistles modern cars add as safety features. But then… as is usually the case, the Holy Spirit began to speak. Being captive as I was hurtling down I-95 at 76 mph, I perked my ears up. I gave attention once again to the message that was still displayed on my dash. This was a warning that needs to be preached in real time today. The Holy Spirit is sounding an alarm to the Church. There is something that is obscuring the vision of God’s people. We need to give attention to it. In the natural, it was the frost from a cold December morning. But in the Spirit, what is obsuring the church’s vision? One or more of our spiritual camera’s are frosted over. On our cars, these camera systems warn us when we are too close to another car, or that we cannot cross into the next lane safely. We are warned in scripture that without vision, the people perish. We generally use that term in reference to setting goals, but it has a deeper conotation, also. We see Jesus Himself, healing a very loud Bartimaeus, who wanted to receive his sight. But what is it that clouds our spiritual cameras today? Can it be that the warning from God is that we are too cold and frosted over as His Bride? Can it be that He is warning us that we need to turn on and up the defroster of the Holy Spirit on our souls and on what we call doing church? Remember also, the warning of Jesus in Matt. 24:12 about the love of many waxing cold. In the prophetic realm, cars represent ministries. We must be careful in the work that we do that we aren’t veering blindly into something or someplace that we do not belong or that will wreak havoc in someone’s life because of our carelessness, personal ambitions or failure to heed the warnings of the Holy Spirit. In scripture, Paul writes of accounts where he and his minstry teams wanted to go into particular areas, “but the Spirit suffered them not (Acts 16:7).
The Holy Spirit is sounding a critical system warning today. Are you paying attention?