I have never been a fan of the Book of Revelation — you know, the one in the Bible — I’ve never been a fan of it.  I’ve always found it confusing, violent, frightening, and depressing.  I mean it’s full of plagues, and death, and pain, and beasts, and dragons, and it all just sounded like a big nightmare to me.  I did not like reading the Book of Revelation.  And it bothered me that I had these feelings about God’s Holy Word, but not enough for me to really engage in it.  So every time I came to the book of Revelation, I would simply rush through it, merely reading the words off the page so that I could mark off that section in my bible reading plan.

However, I recently started tuning into ihop.org and listening to a lot of their teachings.  It was after the OneThing Conference 2010 in Kansas City (that we were not able to attend) when I decided to make use of their online resources.  I listened to several messages that gave out advice to forerunners in particular (those who go before, or step out first in the works of the Holy Spirit), and it being confirmed in me that I am a forerunner, I thought I would take their advice.  So I began listening to Mike Bickle’s series The Seven Commitments of a Forerunner…reading through the Book of Revelation once a week was a part of the sacred charge that he gave.

So I’ve been reading Revelation every week for about a month now, and while it’s led to an increased prayer life (the normal reaction to reading the Word), I’ve not gotten further insight than what I’ve always had, and that just simply won’t suffice, not anymore.  I can feel the importance and urgency to understand what God is saying to His church about the greatest of Times.  So I keep reading and praying that God will give me a spirit of wisdom and revelation, that the eyes of my understanding will be enlightened, that I may know the hope of His calling and the riches of His glorious inheritance.    

Thankfully, I have found that Mike Bickle has a teaching series on the Book of Revelation, and it has been most helpful.  I am sharing the link to the page where you can find all the sessions’ mp3s, videos, notes, and even transcripts.

http://mikebickle.org/resources/series/the-book-of-revelation