Indeed, I sat in the presence of God waiting to hear from Him for the new year 2023. It wasn’t a one-time thing but many times during the last quarter of 2022 with a very vital urge to know what God has for His people for the year. I am sure people who wait on the Lord for specifics, will be able to relate to me on how it feels like, until we really start hearing something concrete. It was the same thing for me too. 

I was in the Spirit and started sensing the Lord reminding me of Jericho wall breaking down, prison doors opening up, restoration of walk to the crippled and many battles of David that he didn’t even fight but ascertained with victory. This helped me draw in my mind, a deliberate picture of God making the impossible, possible. 

Still, I was very unclear about the ‘specificity’, and was wondering how I should exhort His church with the WORD for the YEAR 2023. Later, one day in the due course of time, as I was churning the thoughts God put in my heart, The Holy Spirit drew my attention to 2 Samuel 5:20. The words in that scripture at that time got so amplified in my spirit like, “ “The LORD did it!” David exclaimed. “He burst through my enemies like a raging flood!” “, and that’s it, I felt such confidence boosting up within me. This indeed created a vivid portrait in my heart and mind, like fine-focusing a camera lens to progress from a blurry image to the sharpest it can get. And then I was able to connect what the Lord was trying to tell me about what He is going to do with His church in 2023, putting those unrelated incidents in the Bible as aforementioned. I got to freeze on this one term, BREAKTHROUGH. 

Everything that’s mentioned above is a breakthrough, I realized. The best part is, it’s not even about the breakthrough but about the LORD WHO BREAKS THROUGH. This was a reassurance to many things that the Lord was speaking to us as Anchorage, throughout the course of the last year. 

Therefore, we declared this year 2023 to be the YEAR OF BAAL PERAZIM - YEAR OF THE LORD WHO BURSTS THROUGH FOR US. 

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Rev. John Samuel