CITY ON A HILL

This week I heard YHWY say, “This is not punishment but ready-ship”. If you are wondering, ready-ship means we are being prepared in the place we have been planted according to The Father’s plan.  

Most of us have been taught to survive earth in order to get to heaven but that’s a truncated gospel and the staggering truth is found in Revelation 5:10: you aren't just heading to a future reign. You have been created for a present one. And this is where we discover that trials, troubles, and temptations are completely normal. Not only are they normal, they are part of God’s pruning process to make us more like Yashua. The question for today is will you step into the place where The Father has planted you to rule?

This truth may offend the restless heart because it is easier to believe that you are on your way to somewhere significant than to accept that the significance is already under your feet. 

He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. Psalm 1:3 

You are positioned at the threshold of what God has already shown you. The ground under your feet right now is not accidental. The people in your home, the work before you, the relationships waiting for your attention; these are not random circumstances that just happened to land you here. No, they are the ground that Heaven has assigned to your keeping, but knowing that in your head will not change anything. 

My own personal story highlights how our mind’s pendulum can swing between denial and diffusion. It’s our responsibility to claim and rule over the city [territory] we are given.

You are the light of the world. A city located on a hill can’t be hidden.” (Matthew 5:14)

The enemy is not afraid or worried if you never take responsibility of what your are given. The enemy only disrupts us when we move through the threshold and begin to do what we were made to do in the place we’ve been planted. Wherever you are standing right now is holy ground—even if it feels like the back of a desert.

God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”  Exodus 3:5

If we are honest, we can see God is paying attention to your life just like He’s been paying attention to mine, and just like He was paying attention to Moses. Fifteen years ago, God placed me in an abrupt desert experience, sequestered away from the corporate world because He loves me and wants me to bear fruit for His glory.  Instead of coworkers and break rooms, and a home to live in. He gave me a coffee business with teenage employees and a small town full of relational customers and a 5th wheel to live in to aid in my 3 year sanctification process.  

And that brings us back to the question that frames this post: What has God given you to rule over today?

In this place of ruling —-you have a decision to make. 

Will you look to the great “I AM” and say “Here I am”?  Or will you continue to refuse the responsibility you have been given?

Pause a moment and listen. . . What do you hear? 

Write it down. 

And if you are like me, it may take several hours or even days of note taking & scripture reading before The Lord comes through with His rushing water of revelation that can only be describe as His oil of intimacy.

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Matthew 7:7-8

If you have never felt His warm sensation being poured over you—keep pursuing Him. As you do, He will keep you on fire for Him and holy grounded. 

His intimacy, will sometimes be a physically touch you feel of His presence. It’s marvelous. Other times, He may send what feels like electricity flowing through your body, Holy Spirit goose bumps along your arms or neck, heat, tingling or other symptoms. I call this His glory. 

Be encouraged and look for the signs, don’t be too busy and miss His witnessing that will keep you on the right track. And other times, He may cause you to have the pain someone else is having so that you may know what and how to pray for them. That is our way of reasoning, but it is not the Lord's thought at all. The Lord is trying to get us out of our soul-filled life where we live at the mercy of all our feelings, thoughts and reasonings and into the realm where, in spirit, we are steadfast and fixed,  "Their heart was not steadfast with Him" (Psa. 78:37).

To be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inward man (Eph. 3:16) is the answer to it all.

“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. Instead, they set it on a lampstand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”  Matthew 5:14-16: 

If we are consistent with our upright conduct, we will find we spark curiosity and dialogue that serve as a catalyst for others to seek & explore the truth of the gospel. A “city on a hill” is not defined by prestige or man-made grandeur, but by the undeniable light of God’s presence shining through His people who have been summoned by GOD to be seen in the world to offer spiritual clarity that will call others toward divine redemption. 

Living out this identity involves consistent faith, active compassion, moral integrity, and a readiness to share hope. Ultimately, such a public witness brings glory to Our Creator and points onlookers to the salvation found only in Christ Jesus. They walk through cities, nations, and systems, and everything not built on light begins to shake. They are not revolutionaries, they are restorers. Their presence is prophecy.

So the question before you is not, 'Do I have a city?' 

The question is, 'What have I done with the city I already have?' 

The answer for most of us is not a scandalous failure but a quiet retreat  —to locate your crown that we set down, a talent buried, a garden abandoned while we waited for something easier, something louder, something more clearly approved by the people around us. 

I've walked with the Lord long enough to make mistakes, long enough to get back up, and long enough to learn the difference between religious activity and the real presence of God. Out of my journey, my blog Fruits of His Vine was born, and with it comes a daily prophetic practice that has become the backbone of my life: hearing and sharing what the Father is saying is being the light upon the hill for others. I can’t take credit, all credit goes to the Father who I am truly grateful!

But one last time, Our King's Question still stands, and it will not let you go: What has God given you to rule over today? 

1. The first step in answering it is to see the abdication honestly. 
2. The next step is to turn around and walk back to the garden you left and pick up your crown! This reframing is essential because you have probably imagined that your real throne is somewhere else—perhaps in a future ministry role, a better job, a more fruitful season. The enemy loves that kind of thinking. It keeps you looking past the ground under your feet, and while you look elsewhere, the garden you were assigned is left untended and unprotected.
3. Lastly is a daily prophetic discipline of listening that becomes the backbone of your life. Day after day, press in to hear the heart of the Father for His people, and then write it down and find a way to share it.

I'm not asking you to picture a throne room but start by looking out your front door, into your neighborhood, into your workplace where God placed you. Not as a punishment and not as a waiting room until something better comes along but with purpose. 

This new mindset will reshaped your understanding of what it means to be planted by God. Because the Father doesn't just speak into vague spiritual atmospheres. He speaks into soil. He speaks into places where He has planted you in your daily life with intention. Father, we are listening… speak to us through dreams, and vision so we are your light upon the hill.