I have mentioned my Friday night discipleship group. I started it because I wanted to pour into the lives of a few young men. I get a little less than 40 now.
Here is kind of a cool picture in the middle of the altar ministry last Friday.
I have told this story lots of times but have never set it to paper.
When I got saved, I really got saved. I was in my late 20s and had live a pretty wicked life. I had gotten out of the military a few years earlier and was in college. I went into a Charismatic church, got set free from the devil, and never looked back.
Within a year I was part of a rogue deliverance/healing ministry and saw all kinds of signs and wonders. We prayed for people all over the place and saw miracles in pizza places, hospitals, living rooms, and anywhere else you find people. I distinctly remember casting the devil out of a homeless man in the doorway to Winn Dixie before buying Swiss Cake Rolls to break a fast. (Oh the college years)
Within two years of getting free I was part of church plant team sent to south Florida. I was beginning to move in the prophetic in general and had a pretty keen word of knowledge. The church I helped plant was not a very healthy one but I was young in the Lord and I did not know any better. There was lots of judgment. I thought that was part of leadership. Maybe the leaders need to know the struggles of the people but this was something else. The church leadership I was a part of would gossip about people. If anyone left the church, all their dirty secrets would be laundered in an effort to discredit them and their criticism of the church.
Because of my critical spirit, almost all the prophetic words I got were filled with judgment. I spoke lots of words about repentance, sin issues, pride and rebellion.
As time went on our church became friendly with a man who lived in town who had spoken at Toronto. My pastor went there and got really blown away. Though he was not completely sold on what was going on, he knew God was in it somehow.
Several months later, Jeremy & Connie Sinnott, who were worship leaders at Toronto, were coming to a church in South Florida for what was billed as a worship conference. The congregation was odd to me but the presence of God was there and so I worshiped. On the second day of the conference, Jeremy and Connie were praying for some people so I was waiting for Jeremy (because I was a man and only men could minister to me). Eventually someone said to me that I should have Connie pray for me because she has a real anointing.
I went to her and she ministered to me what I now know to be the Father€™s love. She spoke some words, laid hands on my chest, and I literally began to feel hot liquid flow into my heart. I could only cry. When she was done I could not even talk. I told someone that it felt like my heart was being circumcised. Strange indeed.
After that weekend a work of grace began to develop in my life. The hard prophesies began to be softened and I began to flow in a compassion I had never experienced before. When someone came to me for counsel, no longer was my first impression to find a reason to blame them for their problems. Before, no matter what you were going through I could always find a way to make it your fault. That was not the initial response after that.
So this love of God began to swell my heart but I had this problem. I had this word of knowledge that I seemingly could not control. I could look at people and see the sin in their lives. I only had to listen to someone for a minute before I could clearly see all their moral transgressions. This made it almost impossible to have meaningful relationships. All I could see was people€™s sins. They would tell me they were fine but I knew better and I wanted to rebuke people so badly.
I now had this issue. I knew the love of God but I was getting all this dirt on people and I was in the leadership of a church that was constantly bringing accusation against everybody. There was no issue that could not be solved with a rebuke.
As an example. When my son was born he had a slight problem keeping down food that caused him to be hospitalized. It turned out to be minor but they had a hard time diagnosing it and he was quite ill. In the midst of this hard time I went to my pastor and told him that I was having a hard time and that I was being tempted with lust. While my son was dieing in the hospital he said to me,
“You know that this sin is the reason your son is in the hospital right?”
Blech! I have to spit that out every now and then. I cannot believe I thought that was godly counsel. (If that man is reading this please repent. If you go to his church, RUN!)
So I had this revelation of the love of God in conflict with what I was receiving and how I saw Him ministered. In the midst of this conflict, I took a pilgrimage to Toronto.
At first, I was really disappointed. The services were quite tame. The ushers did not let people remain in the isles during the preaching and most extravagant behavior was stopped. This was not the kennel I was told it would be.
There were lots of great sessions with great speakers but as I look back God did two things. The first was I got a revelation that I am exactly how God created me to be (this is a major post in itself so I won€™t go into it). The second was almost as impactful as my time with the Sinnots.
In the middle of one session John Sanford said, €œJust because you have access to the spirit realm does not mean you can go snooping around in everybody€™s life. If they have not asked for your ministry, stay out of their business.€ This is not a direct quote but pretty close. John then talked about how you can read people by staring at them long enough and how people today call that prophesy but it is not. It is soulish and does not glorify God. His wife Paula talked about walking into a room and picking up the burdens of every person in the room and that she had to learn to not allow that to happen. She had to reject that natural reaction.
This was revelation to me! Just as the ministry of the Sinnots revolutionized my relationship with God, this one little teaching revolutionized my ministry. After that time, when I would start getting accusations against a person I would have to tell myself that I am not going there.
God began to use me in genuine prophetic revelation. That is revelation minus the anger. Since the church could not bring accusation against me regarding my personality they began to tell me that I did not have a prophetic gift and that I was an evangelist so I should only bring prophetic words to the lost. And it just got goofier from there. Eventually the God I knew conflicted with the church I was attending and it was time to go (can you say deliverance?).
In the past few years I have had people tell me that I am one of the nicest people that they know. And I have people call me saying that I always have a word of encouragement. This is a miracle! I was genuinely changed by a few encounters. Now I have read books by lots of the people in this movement and have listened to lots of teaching series and watched lots of conferences online but these two moments were landmarks in my walk.
So when I hear people say that Toronto was a counterfeit move or that it was really the devil I quietly pray that the Lord forgives them. It really is a frightful thing to call the Holy Ghost a demon. Not an area that I would tread.
Were there things in Toronto that were off? Aren€™t there in your church? Aren€™t there in your ministry? Could you testify that every single person that has ever heard your teaching will respond in a biblically sound manor will produce good fruit? If your church sees a couple hundred people a year how many of them are fruitcakes that you could not help or would not be helped? Imagine if that number was a half million that came through. Give a little grace.
In the end, I know that God was in that place. They have since ended the nightly meetings and the crowds have disbanded but there are congregations all over the world that were birthed in a move of the Father’s love the same way I was.
update: this post was in response to a post by Michael at Charismatica.
This post is one part testimony, two part prayer request.
I have done lots of posts about a Tuesday night outreach I have been leading. last week a lady from my church wanted to come and see what was happening. She later confessed to me that t one point she was actually scared for her safety. I shouted Halleuijah! That means we are attracting exactly the crowd we feel called to reach. The young urban knuckle heads.
Last week we had almost 40 people in a living room and man did it get hot! I was there worshiping when the Holy Ghost said, “Why don’t you take off your shirt?” Mind you, I had on a t-shirt underneath, but I was thinking, “I am about to preach.” Thankfully it was a new shirt because I preached the Gospel that night in a wife beater to a group of young men who find that suitable attire.
Among the (many) people flopping around on the floor was a Mormon girl who missed her flight back to Arizona because of a traffic jam on the way to the airport. One guy who got saved was the roommate of a crack dealer that has been coming (we believe that this dealer is the gateway to nothing short of a revival so please pray for his deliverance and salvation).
This Saturday we are going to have a big blowout with performances and almost a real service. We are expecting over 100 to show up. Here are the flyers: (click them for a larger view)
click for larger view
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Would you please pray for the lost to be saved? We have gone into every hood we can find inviting people. We really need the grace of God in this thing and are hoping for a real move of God. This is not going to be some Billy Graham crusade. We are praying for the supernatural to manifest. We want miracles, signs and wonders. This generation has heard the Gospel but has never experienced the full Gospel. It is my goal to make that an unavoidable fact.
Can I be honest? I don’t really buy into the prophetic significance of dates. I just don’t. I don’t see it in scripture and when I look back at history, I don’t see it either.
Surely everyone who reads this blog knows about The Call in Nashville. It was staged on the 7th along with about a billion weddings. I actually did a wedding that morning. I was almost hoarse from camp and was tired beyond words but a brother has to pay bills.
I was trying to watch it on God.tv but the stream failed.
This morning I wanted to see if there was any news about it and all I could find was news about the Live Earth concert.
Does anyone find it a little coincidental that both a stadium event trumpeting the “Live Earth” was staged on the same day as a prophetic intercession stadium event?
I have taken a cadre of young revivalists to try and infect youth groups from all over Florida. While I am gone I have asked some of my friends to post for me. Here is the bio of today’s blogger:
Dr. Michael G. Davis: MGD, as he can be found throughout blogsville, of Charismatica runs ANSWERS FOR THE FAITH Internet Ministries. Michael received his Doctor of Ministry from Claremont School of Theology. I have never personally met people before who were willing to out run their D.Min in chasing Jesus in this realm. His writings are both well exegeted and passionate.
€œAs Iron Sharpens Iron, So one man sharpens another.€ -Prov. 27:17
One year and four months ago I launched my first blog and tentatively posted my first article. At the time I had all sorts of grandiose plans to do a €˜great€™ teaching ministry on the internet. At least that was the vision that I believed that God was instilling in me at the time and maybe still is to a lesser degree.
Soon I was visiting in the blogosphere and paying homage at the feet of Adrian Warnock, JollyBlogger, Challies Dot Com, Evangelical Outpost, Mark D. Roberts, and Albert Mohler; with a Hugh Hewitt, a Mark Steyn, and a James Lileks or two thrown in for insane variety.
The €˜Godbloggers€™ at the time were in the midst of a continuing discussion about Spiritual gifts. The battle lines were drawn between the Reform Charismatics and the Reform Cessationists with a few Pentecostals and what I call €˜Functional Cessationists€™ (those who grant the possibility of Spiritual gifts while they seldom if ever experience them) thrown in as observers and referees. I thought I was through with theological minutiae when I passed my €˜quals€™ and graduated from seminary. This was definitely not what I had in mind when I started.
One day while searching on Adrian€™s blog I came across a link to PneumaBlogs. I went down the list on that page checking out a few. Then I came to a blog with an interesting name: €œA Mighty Rushing Wind€ -Carl Thomas. I Clicked on the link and was totally jealous when I saw that the domain name was Revivalblog.com, seeing that revival is a Spirit driven passion of mine. After that, I became a regular visitor to Carl€™s blog.
I remember reading an article by Carl: €œWhat I Learned in My Year of Blogging€œ. That article changed it all for me and the Holy Spirit used it to give me a new direction. Up to that point, Answers For The Faith was my main blog and it was by-in-large a teaching and an apologetic site. Charismatica was just a site where I stored a bunch of revival and prophetic ministry links that I wanted to keep track of. Once and a while I would post something Charismatic or Pentecostal that did not fit well on my other blog.
I really had no vision for the Charismatica site except the Lord had given me that name and domain in church one day. After reading Carl€™s article, the ideas started flowing in a sovereign way. This would be a blog where I would share my own personal struggles, testimonies, and prophetic insights. Where I would write about my God-given passion for a major World harvest and revival.
A couple of weeks later, after I put up a contact link, I received an email from Carl asking me if I knew that it was impossible to make a comment on my blog. He helped me to change the settings and left the first official comment on one of my posts. It was the beginning of a friendship. He has no idea how thankful I was. My wife had been asking me every night for three months if anyone had left a comment yet. Finally, I could say yes and there was celebration in the Davis household.
That was over a year ago, though it seems like yesterday. Since then I have had a lot of different guests and a number of regulars commenting on my blogs and I am better for it. Also, I comment regularly here and on several other blogs. A whole community seems to revolve around this site and I am honored and blessed to be part of it.
I started out thinking that I was going to do some kind of teaching ministry on the internet and have found myself on the receiving end more times than not. I find myself in the midst of a whole lot of folks with similar interests. All seeking greater intimacy with God. All looking for a sovereign move of the Spirit in their lives and in their churches. All hoping for God to grace our land with revival once more.
All of you have built me up and have increased my faith and my hope exponentially. It is a case of €˜Iron sharpening iron.€™ Every time Carl brings us testimonies about the Holy Spirit blasting his youth group, it is iron sharpening iron. Every time you visit Revival Journal and read about David Copeland€™s latest ministry trip, it is iron sharpening iron. Take a few moments and visit SLW and gain the heart of a pastor, it is iron sharpening iron.
Read the latest on Chet€™s blog and gain a heart for missions and discipleship, it is iron sharpening iron. Stop by and visit Mark H and Made To Prauise Him, it is iron sharpening iron. Go visit Rich and read his latest and then browse the Pneumablog articles, I have always found something to be thankful for, it is iron sharpening iron.
Then there is the fiery pastor/street preacher JC Smith, his passion wakes me up and keeps me moving on, it is iron sharpening iron in a big way. There are many others and lest you think it is just a €˜man€™ thing, Sista Cala will drop by and occasionally leave an encouraging word, it is also iron sharpening iron.
I can€™t tell you how much my life has been enriched and blessed by all of you. May God continue to richly bless you all and continue to bless me through you, and hopefully you through me also.
Michael G. Davis
I have taken a cadre of young revivalists to try and infect youth groups from all over Florida. While I am gone I have asked some of my friends to post for me. Here is the bio of today’s blogger:
Pastor Mark Hadfield: Mark of Made to Praise Him is Senior Pastor of Inverness Community Church. Mark is leading a church into the glory realm. His writings are challenging and enlightening. I enjoy watching as his church finds its footing in the supernatural. Beyond this Mark has been a friend in time of need.
and how my heart aches and longs, with weeping, for these to be commonplace.It was extraordinary because God said two things to be me very clearly which broke my heart, and He said similar things to others in the team.
The first thing He said is “now, you take the land”.
Let’s rewind a little in order to understand that.
We’ve been blessed with this amazing sense of God’s presence on the streets ever since we started Healing On The Streets. Every Saturday morning we go to the busiest part of the city centre, set-up some simple PA, raise a 5 metre banner with the word “Healing” on it, and place 6 chairs for people to take if they’d like prayer. Then we all kneel in the busy street and pray, before inviting people to come for healing. The sense of His presence has been just astonishing. There have been times that some of us have been unable to stand under the weight of His glory and we’ve stayed down a little longer than intended. Then people come for healing - and they’re healed, either immediately or over a few weeks, but they’re healed, not merely comforted.
But this morning was different.
I g
uess it started last night. (Or maybe it started last week?)
A group of us went into town to pray and worship and we sensed an unusual spiritual oppression. We realised that it was outside of our immediate vicinity. I likened it to sitting in a bubble. We were in the glory, but not far beyond us it was oppressive. We walked around praying. We sat and worshipped. We sensed the bubble expanding and then we sensed a breakthrough.
Then this morning, in addition to the usual ministry, some new things happened. We had a teenage girl who was pregnant come along, wanting us to bless her unborn baby. I’m blown away that a girl that age doesn’t just want her baby on her own, but also wants the best for her baby. She’s precious and I hope we’ll see her again. We had a Muslim woman come for prayer, wanting her family to know God. Amazing! Finally, we had a really wholesome conversation with a kind-of-new-ager whose into reiki and has been preaching syncretism at us ever since we started. This morning he opened up a little. He’s actually very spiritually aware but still looking for a tangible connection with something higher. He talked about visiting our churches.
The “bubble” really had expanded!
God really impressed upon me that we need to keep stretching, pushing, expanding, taking new ground. He gives us an encouraging start and then asks us to build upon it. Isn’t that the heart of a good dad? To get you started, but then give you the experience of taking it further. Does God really need us to do His work for Him, or does He really love us enough to invest into us for our own joy and fulfilment?
Consider the parable of the talents, or the instruction through the prophet Isaiah to enlarge the place of your tents, and to sing for joy who are barren. He gives us the start (a talent, a tent, a promise). He gives us the equipping for the job (the supernatural anointing of the Spirit and His Son’s authority). He shows us what’s possible. He holds our hand. He says to us “you’re my children, you have the best possible start, now go and make something of it”.
I think there’s something squif with our view of God’s sovereignty if we just sit around waiting for blessing to fall out of the sky. There’s also something squif with our view of the Father heart of God if we expect to be jolted out of our comfort zones with an impossible and painful challenge, instead of taken by the hand, given a head start, and then encouraged to develop.
Come on church! How about it? What gentle prod has He given you and what are you going to do with it?
And the second thing God said?
I was standing in the middle of the street during a slack period when the chairs were empty, looking at the scene of people rushing by to do their shopping, and I heard the voice of the Father say very clearly “can’t you hear me calling to them, my orphaned children?”. I cried. I walked over to the PA, turned off the music, picked up a guitar and started singing “Come Through To Me” by Godfrey Birtill. And people came and sat in the seats and received healing.
He trusts us, He trusts me, He trusts you, with what’s dear to His heart. That’s staggering. So how does He feel if we shrug it off instead of doing something about it?
Come through to me €¦ naked heart €¦
Come deeper €¦ I know where you are.
Come through the storm €¦
Let it be still €¦ Come nearer €¦
Leap into my arms.
So let go, let faith rise.
Have no fear, you will fly.
So let go, let faith rise.
Have no fear, you will fly.
Come through to me €¦ broken one €¦
Come higher €¦ My daughter, my son.
My family €¦ I’m gathering €¦
Come closer €¦ I’ll make you as one.
This may be my one and only video blog thingy. It is about an open vision that I received.
Please remember that my comment policy is still in effect which basically says that I will not argue with people in my comment section. If you think I am totally wacked out, then remove me from your blogroll and move on.
All others, watch and be blessed!
In line with my decision to blog about all things mundane Acts 19:11, I had a fun time at The Mission, the outreach we are doing on Tuesday nights.
I worte in earlier posts about some young men that got right and are now doing some spirit filled hip hop. Well I am leading their home group as a missions base. Each week they try to get as many friends from their former life to come to a group we hold on their back porch.
The group starts at 10 p.m. and I leave around midnight. In those two hours anything can happen.
Last night we had over 20 folks there with about four who had never steped into a church in their lives. I preached on sanctification through the power of the Holy Ghost. Some real Keswick type doctrine (I am pentecostal you know). Then I had ministry time. This is when it gets fun.
Last week I cast the vision for the group. At the end, I said that everyone who was there was going to receive power to reach their lost friends and a burden for the lost. I told them that I was not going to have an altar call. The fact that they were there meant that they were in. If they did not want God to use them to reach the lost for His glory then they would have to leave. One girl did. I saw her through the sliding glass door a little later crying. Appearantly she was trying to get out of the house but she couldn’t. The Holy Ghost would not let her.
She said, "I kept saying, ‘I gotta get out of here. I gotta get out of here’ but I couldn’t." She showed up back on the porch weeping. She recommitted her life to Jesus, received deliverance and the Baptism in the Holy Ghost. Needless to say, she showed up back this week.
This week all the lost confessed their need for salvation and many were touched. To make a long story short, I left at midnight. I wanted to leave before the police shoed up. There were a half dozen young men rolling around on patio laughing and yelling under the power of the Holy Ghost. We could not get then to quiet down. The mother of the young men came out to try to get them quiet. Her nine year old son followed. We prayed for him and he hit the ground praying in tongues for the first time.
As Bill Johnson would say :Good stuff.
The Holy Ghost saved my sons life yesterday. When I write that, I don’t think I am exagerating.
About two weeks ago I decided that I did not want my son to wear those little flotation things on his arms in the pool any more. I began to get irritated just looking at them. My son protested vigorously. His mother was on his side. He complained and complained but I had made my decision. He is six and it is time to swim.
That same day there were a couple other little kids in the pool who could swim. One of them showed my son a swimming stroke and my son began to stick his head under water, flail around, and pop back up. To go from terrified to get in the pool without the water wings to sticking the head under water and flailing was great progress.
Since then, I have taken him to bigger and bigger steps. Yesterday, after church, we went swimming in the pool and he swam from one side of the pool to the other in the deep end. Of the four times we did it in the afternoon, he only needed rescued once (the second time). I was incredibly proud.
Last night we went to a birthday party for a friend of mine. Half way through the party, someone told me that my son was wet. When I got to him I found out he was reaching for a ball and fell in the pool. He swam back to the side and got out. Two weeks earlier, he would have drowned. You read all the time about kids drowning at parties and I always wonder how that could happen. My son could have been the next on that list.
So today I recognize that the Spirit of God knew that my son was going to fall in the pool last night. Why didn’t He keep my son from falling in? I do not know. But I recognize that it was His prompting that brought my irritation with the water wings.
I sat on the couch this morning and replayed the events of last night with my son. I said that if he had not learned to swim that he might have been in heaven this morning instead of with me. He could not fully appreciate that but my wife and I sure can. I love my son so much I don’t know what I would do without him. All I can say is “Thank you Lord!”
It is so easy to not trust that God is working on your behalf. But you can trust the leading of the Spirit of God.
I was in a church service recently and the person at the pulpit relayed a “prophesy” he had heard. There was a local boy who had gone into anaphylactic shock after eating chicken nuggets the day before. The manufacturer had since recalled the nugget because it contained gluten, which this child was allergic to. The boy had oxygen deprivation for a while and had some brain damage. A minister went to visit the boy and opened his bible and landed on a healing verse int he psalms. He felt this was a sign and declared boldly that God would raise the boy. Praise God.
The prophesy was declared from the pulpit the next morning by another minister. God was credited as having said that the boy would live and that it would be a testimony. By the end of that service the boy was dead.
Dan Edean recently wrote a post in his blog (the name of which I cannot spell) about bad christian advise. In talking to my wife about it, we found a common theme. The majority of bad counsel we have received was less bad advise and more correctly presumptuous expectations.
Let me explain.
When I got married we immediately had kids. Our finances were not in order, I had a pretty bad job and my wife made more than me. Our brand of church pretty much required that the wife stay home and take care of the kids. We were told not to worry because God would double my income in response to our faith. I am still waiting for that to happen seven years later.
I was strongly advised to get the first job could after graduation college and that God would raise me up. So, with my military experience, IT background, corporate communications degree under my belt and past leadership roles listed on my resume, I got my first post-college job washing cars. For disclosure sake, I did move up to a sales manager role in that company but quit because the job was awful and compromising.
Could God have doubled my income? Of course! Could he have raised me up to lead that company and turn its ethics around? Of course! But He never told me He would do that. I presumed He would on the advise of others. That is not faith.
The valuable thing that I learned through lots of bad advise is this, faith is not the absence of logic. It is, perhaps, the presence of an assurance in the face of logic. Aside from that assurance you only have presumption. And presumption don€™t pay the bills!
Hebrews 11:1 Listen11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
That evidence is what was once called assurance and it is missing in too much of what the church is doing today.
Surely that minister at the side of that child’s bed wanted to believe that God would raise that boy. But guess what, God never said He would. If He did, then the boy would not have been buried yesterday.
We do the church harm when we cannot discern faith from presumption. This is the reason many mock the pentecostal movement. Real faith is sometimes saying, “I don’t know.”
