Sharon and I have a strong sense about what 2010 will bring. Every year has its own challenges and opportunities and we are very excited to share with you what is stirring in our hearts concerning this upcoming year. Life in general has become cluttered and complicated. Essential things often are pushed to the sidelines while secondary and peripheral stuff swell into the center of our time and focus. We believe that every Believer that wants to recognize, embrace and utilize every divine opportunity that presents itself this year, will have to return to the basics of life.

The word “basics” according to the dictionary means: elementary / fundamental / central / main / vital / the ABC’s. You see the basics are those simple essentials in life that guide you on the road to success and fulfillment; the vital things the Lord has given us in His word to live our lives by. Do not allow your focus to be captured by secondary or superfluous things. Stop wasting your time on some additional stuff while neglecting the vital foundations from which things like your character and integrity grow.

Why will this be important in 2010?

There are a variety reasons we want to list but first let’s look at a potion of scripture you probably are familiar with: Rev.2:1-7: “To the angel (messenger) of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of Him who holds the seven stars in His right hand. Who goes about among the seven lampstands; I know your industry and activities, laborious toil and trouble, and your patient endurance, and how you cannot tolerate wicked men and have tested and critically appraised those who call themselves apostles and yet are not, and have found them to be imposters and liars. I know you are enduring patiently and are bearing up for My name’s sake, and you have not fainted or become exhausted or grown weary. But I have this one charge to make against you: that you have left and abandoned the love that you had at first; you have deserted Me your first love.”

In this letter to the Church in Ephesus we find a people described by the Lord as industrious and active and hard working. They are a patient people and have taken a stand against wickedness. They have established themselves as insightful people, not gullible or susceptible to the indoctrinations of imposters and liars. They did not follow someone blindly just because of charisma or charm. They tested and appraised the character and virtue of those in leadership. Even when facing spiritual opposition they held on to their faith and did not faint nor grew weary. An impressive resume indeed. God said that He was pleased with the things they were doing well. Then the Lord said that He had one thing against them: They have abandoned their first love. That initial commitment and fervor that propelled their faith in God. The Lord said: “You have deserted Me, your first love.” A personal God was replaced by impersonal principles. Relationship was replaced by religiosity. Love gave way to legalistic laws. Look at the circles below; what do you see in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2?

The circular line on the left provides the form of the object (fig. 1), but do you realize that the line only represents the outline of the circle? The volume of the circle in fig. 2 is so much more than just the outline of fig 1. The church in Ephesus filled the center of their lives with what should only be on the outline as an accent. They pushed the main, essentials to the edges and put their focus where it should not be. Don’t you think we are doing very similar things today? We worry about temporal stuff while paying little or no attention to eternal issues on a daily basis. Jesus said: “Do not worry about tomorrow, what you will eat and what you will wear.” (Matt 6). He continues in verse 33 with a very strong admonition: “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.” 

Now did you know that 2010 provides you with the perfect opportunity to get back to the basics of faith, doctrine, family, fellowship and your first love?

The meaning of the number 10:

The Bible is filled with the number 10. We have the 10 Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17), the 10 plagues of Egypt, (From Exodus 7 onwards), there are 10 clauses in the Lord’s prayer (Matthew 6:5). We are to give a tithe of our income to the Lord which is a tenth or 10% of our income. (Mal. 3) Even in eschatology – the study of the end times we find the number 10 pop up in relation to the Antichrist’s 10 kingdoms as specified in Daniel 2 and 7. The 10 toes of clay and iron on the statue in the dream of the king, and the 10 horns described on the 4^th beast of Daniel’s vision.

The number 10 speaks of the completeness of order, nothing lacking and nothing left over. It speaks of a completed cycle; the perfection of divine order; of unity and oneness. We have 10 fingers and 10 toes. Isn’t this just fantastic! Now are we saying that just because there is a number 10 in the year we are entering into that all these revelations are relevant? No. What we are encouraging you to do is to recognize that the Lord will present you with tremendous opportunities to fulfill His plan and purpose for your life, even in this New Year. He wants to complete a cycle in an area of your life where you’ll see satisfaction and not want. You will have the opportunity to activate your faith to believe that you’ll see no lack; for the Lord to establish His divine order in your life and to give you unity, harmony and oneness with Him on a whole new level. Can you imagine what will happen if your faith actually activates the power of God in your life this year? You’ll see the miraculous moments you have been believing for!

But that is not all! When you look at the Hebrew alphabet you’ll see that the tenth letter is the “yod.” It is the smallest of all the Hebrew letters and looks like a comma. We read in the book of Matthew that every “jod or tittle” from the word of God will come to pass. It is almost like God saying that when it comes to the word of God that we are to dot the I’s and cross the T’s. Interestingly enough the yod literally means a hand or arm or an open hand. We just love this! The numerical value of the yod is 10 and its meaning is an extended or open hand. If we look at the year 2010 we see a double yod (10 + 10) followed by another yod. Don’t you think God’s theme for the New Year is right in front of us, every time we write the date? Here is what we sense in our spirits: 2010 will mark tremendous moments where you will have the opportunity to take God’s extended, open hand so He can pull you into all that heaven has for you. His hand is extended to you, the question is will you respond in kind and extend your hand or yod to Him? Do not miss this! The Bible says that “the ear of the Lord is not deaf that He will not hear and His hand is not shortened that He will not save.” (Isaiah 59:1) Incidentally although the “yod” is the smallest Hebrew letter it is also the first letter in the name of God! (Both Yahweh and Yeshua (Jesus)) What’s more the Roman symbol for the number 10 is X. Listen, X marks the spot! Do not let this year slip by you! Do not be oblivious to God’s intentions and His plans for your life. His 10, His X marks the spot of destiny in your life. Let Him accomplish through you what He had in mind at the beginning. We also want to encourage Generation X’ers. (born between 1961 and 1981). Make this the year of breakthrough in your lives. So many of the Baby-boomers are retiring, making way for the Gen X’ers to blossom under the sun of destiny.   

Along with tremendous opportunities to receive amazing blessings from the open hands of God, and while He works through His Spirit to bring you to a place of no lack in perfecting His cycles and establishing His order in you we also believe this year will be marked with another very important and potent feature: extraordinary giving. As Believers we will be presented with amazing opportunities to release blessings into the lives of many people. Our giving will impact many lives and present the love of Christ on a whole new level, even to those who have never experienced it before. Just tonight, as we were eating in our favorite Chinese Bistro a young Asian boy of around 2 years old caught our eyes. When he saw us, he befriended us with such warmth it embarrassed his mother. He could not keep his eyes off of us and as we left we presented him with Sharon’s new children’s book; The Adventures of Seek and Save, Lost in the dark. His excited acceptance of our gift will remain with us for a long time and we pray that he will also welcome Jesus into his young heart in similar fashion. Did you know that our giving is also tied to the number 10? We read in Mal. 3:10: “Bring all the tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and prove Me now by it, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour you out a  blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” The word tithe literally is one tenth of your income. We are sure that most of you listening to this CD already tithe and some of you in such generous fashion that you are already well above the 10% mark. God will bless your giving and we believe this year will see a marvelous expansion of the Kingdom of God as a result of your obedience in this aspect of your lives. To those who are new to this generosity principle and are only now stepping out into the realm of tithing we pray that the Lord will activate your faith and stir your heart in His own marvelous way. Go be an encouragement and blessing to someone today!   

In closing we want to encourage you with words from the lips of Reinhard Bonnke. He said that sometimes people feel like a zero in life. But Jesus is the One and only! When Jesus is number One in your life the One is in front of the zero and now together you are 10! Without Jesus you will never really experience the completion of divine cycles in your life. You’ll always have a sense of want and dissatisfaction. You heart will continue to search for the only One that can give real value to the zero.

We pray the 2010 will be a year filled with zeros united with the One and only Savior! May we see a stampede to the Throne of grace as Believers rush to return to their First Love.