Ignite Your Faith: The Call to be a Torchbearer for God

Sept. 29, 2025 - Sharing a word God gave me today, calling His sons and daughters to shine brightly for him in the darkness.

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Transcript

Speaker 00: 0:11

Hello, hello. Welcome to the Dona Watson Show. I'm your host, Dona Watson. Hello, everybody. This is going to be a little bit different word for you today from what I normally bring. I'm out here on my front porch. We're just going to have a family chat. And I wanted to come, I've been quiet for the last few weeks because I've been in prayer. I've been in meditation as to where the Lord is taking us as his church and as a nation. And we've had some pretty momentous things that have happened here the last few weeks, not the least of which was Charlie Kirk's murder. And I've been in, like I said, I've been praying for direction because I felt there was a shift. I felt that the Lord had a different direction for us to go. And I don't talk about this very much, but when I was in fourth grade, the Lord gave me a vision. I was home sick. My dad and my sister had gone to Wednesday night church, and my mom stayed home with me. And the Lord called me to prayer, which was a little unusual, but I felt his call even as a young nine-year-old. And I knelt down by my bed to pray. And as I was praying, the Lord gave me a vision, and I won't share all of it with you, just the part that pertains to what I want to tell you today, because the Lord brought it back to me today and directed me that it's time to share this part. Because this part of the vision, I'm 62 years old, and God has never revealed the full meaning of this part of the vision until today. And it directly correlates to what I want to share with you. I was reading in my one-year Bible devotional this morning, and part of the scripture the Lord highlighted for me today was out of Isaiah chapter 60, verse 1 through 3. And I've read these verses so many times, but they came alive in a different way today. Let me read them for you. It says, "Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord shines over you. For look, darkness will cover the earth, and total darkness the peoples. But the Lord will shine over you, nations will come to your light, and kings to your shining brightness." I want to stop for just a moment and pray over this word and pray over you. Dear Lord, we come before you now in praise and thanksgiving for your graciousness to us and for your love for us. And I ask, Lord, that you would prepare the hearts, Lord, to hear what you have to say. And I ask right now that your warriors would block anything that would come from the enemy, from anyone listening to me now or in the replay, that the enemy's designs would be blocked from this word going forth. I pray that you would open people's hearts to hear what you have for them to hear today. In your precious name, Jesus. I cover this in the blood of Jesus right now, in the name of Jesus. Amen. Okay, so the Spirit highlighted this verse today. And just to show you how God works. When I sat down to record this video, my neighbor's dogs started barking. And I prayed and I prayed the blood of Jesus, and I said, When it's time for me to record this video, these dogs will be quiet in Jesus' name. And when I pushed play, the dogs quit barking. Praise the name of the Lord. So, Isaiah 60, verse 1 through 3. The Spirit highlighted this verse for me today. And as it did, it reminded me of the vision that I had in fourth grade. And the part that I will share with you is that there was this beautiful shining city, like the New Jerusalem, and I saw it descending from heaven, coming down to earth. And at that time, my nine-year-old mind interpreted that as the New Jerusalem coming to earth. But today, God said, "There is another meaning to this vision that I gave you." And I believe that this reflects what we are going through as his church right now in our present day in the year 2025. The scripture says, "For look, darkness will cover the earth and total darkness the peoples, but the Lord will shine over you." In this day, spiritual darkness has definitely covered so many people. But God has brought radiant light and joy to his children, especially the last couple of weeks. If you've been watching like I have, you've seen the fires of revival start to sweep across the United States of America, and the world, for that matter of fact. I believe that this is a period of time when God is separating the light from the darkness. And in my vision, this shining city came down to the earth, and there were people inside the city going about their business with joy and with purpose, living God-given lives according to what God had planned for them. But there were also people outside of the city. Everything outside of the city was dark, dark as night. Stumbling with no purpose, just walking, stumbling, doing nothing. And they were sad and miserable, and their clothes were in rags, in tatters. And in my vision, some of the people came out of the darkness through the gates of the city. The gates of the city were guarded by God's angels. They had these magnificent spears, they were huge angels. And when some people came in from the darkness as they passed through those city gates, they were transformed. Still makes me want to cry. To see the joy on their faces as they came out of hopeless darkness into the glorious light, and they became citizens of heaven. And just as much joy as that brings, it breaks my heart that there were others who came through those city gates and they were not transformed. Their clothes didn't change. Their skin was gray. It was like a black pebble on a white beach. They didn't change. And they didn't have new life, they didn't have joy. And the angels immediately escorted those people back out of the city forcibly. Grabbed them by the arms and took them back out and put them back in the darkness. And that's because these people refused to abandon their rags. They refused to take on the ways of God and to live according to the ways of God. And this is the part of the vision that I never completely understood until now. What the Lord was telling me today is that this part of that vision was something yet to come and is a reflection of where we are as the church today. That this is not necessarily the physical New Jerusalem, but this is our spiritual, spiritual world right now. In my vision, we were not making forays into the darkness either. We were living in the light. Almost like an angel. But the hearts of some of those outside of the city, those in the darkness, couldn't help but notice the light and be curious. They were looking for a better life, and they came through the gates of the city out of curiosity. Meanwhile, the others were so lost in their darkness that they ignored the light. They had no desire to change. And that felt really important to me. As the Lord said, "Lives will not be changed because of human effort." There's nothing that I can do that is going to change somebody's life. It's the Holy Spirit that changes hearts. Right now I'm talking to the remnant, I'm talking to God's children. Those who have already decided to follow Christ. You see, I see that my job, our job, is to live fully in the light, to walk in God's ways, and to go where he directs us to do, to do the jobs that we've been given. And we are safe. His warriors are there, guarding his people day and night, looking after us. God is keeping us safe as we're going about his business. So I was just reading my one-year Bible, and I felt nudged to circle back and sit with this scripture. And this is the word that God gave me when I did. And then I continued my reading, and I picked up where we left off yesterday at Philippians 1.27, and I went, wow, this directly correlates to what we just read. Philippians 1.27 says, "Just one thing: As citizens of heaven, live your life worthy of the gospel of Christ." And this is just continuing the theme that God had me on this morning. And I felt like I have to share this today. It has to be out today, Monday, September 29th, 2025. We need to live well as citizens of the shining city of heaven, as God's sons and daughters. And throughout Philippians, Paul continues to teach us how to live as God's sons and daughters. Starting in verse five, he says we need to adopt the same attitude as the one that Jesus Christ had. He was all God, but he emptied himself. And he humbled himself by becoming obedient, even to the point of death. I challenge all of God's sons and daughters to be willing to come to the point where we empty ourselves even to the point of death. Because death has no sting for us. It just means we get to go be with Christ. Paul goes on to say in Philippians 2.12 that we need to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. I challenge you also to not be judgmental of your brothers and sisters. That's the Holy Spirit's work. Let God tell them what they need to do. It's not up to us to decide who's a Christian and who's not. I know that's a hard word. And we need to be careful who we follow. I'm not saying that. The Spirit bears witness, you know, when someone connects with you as a son or daughter of God. But we need to take care and not be judgmental. We are not the judge. God Almighty is the judge. Our job is to love. All lives are precious. It doesn't matter who they are or where they come from. We are to love them. Verses 14 through 17 says, "Do everything without grumbling and arguing, so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God who are faultless in a crooked and perverted generation, among whom you shine like stars in the world by holding firm to the word of life." This shining continues to be presented to me again and again. When we live according to God's ways, we are to have compassion and we are to value life. We see that reflected in Psalm 72: 12 to 14. God said that he would put a sense of justice in the heart of righteous kings. That he would show them his ways of justice, and that's to rescue the poor, the afflicted, and helpless, to save the poor from oppression and violence. Those are God's ways. And then my devotions ended with this really sobering instruction from Proverbs that I had never remembered reading before. I've read the Bible my entire life. And this just jumped off the pages at me today. Proverbs 24: 11 to 12. It says, "Rescue those being taken off to death, and save those stumbling toward slaughter. If you say, 'But we didn't know about this,' won't he who weighs hearts consider it? Won't he who protects your life know? Won't he repay a person according to his work?" Wow, guys, everyone that's walking around in the dark outside the shining walls that guard heaven's citizens, they're stumbling around in the dark. And that's the way it was in my vision. Those in the dark were stumbling around, they had no clear sense of purpose, unlike the shining citizens of heaven, who each had a job and a purpose and were going about their business. Last Friday I wrote down a scripture that I thought I would share with you today. Little did I know that God wanted to expand that scripture with everything that I've already said. But God. God has used this period of time that we are in and the tragedy of Charlie Kirk's murder to awaken so many of his sleeping children and to bring so many out of darkness. And Paul penned these instructions to the Ephesians that are so critical for us to remember today. Ephesians 5, starting in verse 8, reads, "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light, for the fruit of the light consists of all goodness, righteousness, and truth, testing what is pleasing to the Lord. Don't participate in the fruitless works of darkness, but instead expose them, for it is shameful even to mention what is done by them in secret. Everything exposed by the light is made visible, for what makes everything visible is light. Therefore it is said: Get up, sleeper, and rise up from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." Now that we're awake, it's critical to not be lulled back to sleep by the distractions of the enemy. That's what he wants to do. Expect that to come. If you've recently had a heart change, expect some pushback from the enemy. He's gonna want you to go back to sleep. He's gonna want you to go back to the ways of Babylon. The comfort, the hedonism. Don't let your new holy fire in your heart die. Fan it into flame, like Paul told Timothy. Be a fire brand, be a torch bearer. God is calling us to be ministers of his holy fire and to let our lives shine with his glory. If you're listening to this today, you've gotten this far, and you have no idea what I'm talking about, or maybe you do, maybe you've walked away from God, maybe your heart's been cold, and God's tugging on your heart. You feel something inside your chest, inside your mind, saying, you know, this resonates with me. Um, there's gotta be more. I encourage you. That's the Holy Spirit. That's the Holy Spirit pulling you to give your heart to him. And if that's you, I challenge you to pray, to invite the Lord into your heart, to ask him, to show you how to follow his ways so that you can be one of his citizens. The Bible says that if you confess with your heart that he is Lord, that Jesus Christ is Lord, and that he will save you, you will be saved. That's all, guys. That's all it is. You gotta decide to follow God. Listen to his spirit, listen to that tugging, that tugging that you feel right now. If you ignore it, it will go away. But if you listen to it, it can continue. That's the Lord guiding us and showing us how to step forward and walk in his ways. And this is the first step to come to him. And if you prayed today and you've invited the Lord into your heart, find a good Bible-believing church that can support you. That's all I have for you today, guys. I pray that this message goes deep and that you take it to heart. Fan into flame the Holy Spirit fire. Jesus is King. This has been the Dona Watson Show. For more information on my books and other projects, visit my website at Dona Watson.com or my substack at substack.Dona Watson.com. God bless you.