This is not so much a blog but a word from the Lord that I received on 11/3/2011 during an intercessor’s meeting and the analysis of that word after I had time to read the passage in Genesis 21:1-12. I believe it is a Rhema word for the Body of Christ at this time. Please take time to allow God to give you revelation into this word and how it applies to your spiritual life.

It is time for Ishmael to be cast out of the camp. Ishmael was Abraham’s attempt in the flesh to obtain the promise of God. The time has come to stop attempting to obtain the promises of God and our inheritance by the works of the flesh. They may look good, sound good and seem like the right things to do but they are man’s plans and ideas to get God to bless what we are doing and to obtain the promises.

Below is my analysis of the word, I had not read this story in quite some time and had to go back and read it again to allow the Lord to show me the things he wanted me to see.

There were two heirs in the camp, one produced by the will of the flesh and the other by the will of God. Sarah saw Ishmael mocking on the day that Isaac was being celebrated and she said to Abraham, “Cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, namely with Isaac.” Abraham was very displeased with this but God told him to listen to his wife. I believe it is time, collectively and individually, that we begin to identify those things that are Ishmaels in our camp and to put them out, no matter how difficult that is to us. There cannot be competing heirs in the Kingdom of God! Only that which has been produced by the Spirit will inherit the things of the Kingdom.

We all have Ishmaels in our lives because we have all attempted things in the flesh that should have waited on the Spirit. Again, they may look and sound very noble and receive praise from men but they are, in fact, our own endeavors and not something initiated by the Spirit. God is calling us in these days to shed our human understanding of how things work and to participate in what His Holy Spirit is doing at this time. And not only that but to cast out the things which our flesh has produced.

This is a very preliminary and condensed version of what I think God is saying here.

Blessings,
Jeff