Is there another way of getting a word about headaches other than to get a headache?
This is getting a little old.
I wrote a while back about some young men that got right and are now doing some godly music.
Well, like I said, they have started a little meeting at their house on Tuesday nights in the garage. I am going to preach at it this week. These guys are on fire so I am excited.
They normally get about 15 but they are expecting 25 or so this week.
Anyway. They put out their version of a worship track. If you are into R&B you might like this.
I really try to be nice to visitors. I try to think what it must have taken for one of my youth to get one of their secular school friends to come to church with them in the middle of the week. I went through elementary, high school, a stint and a half in the military, and half of college a heathen so I don’t know first hand what it takes for a ninth grader to witness in school but I remember what the peer pressure felt like so I really admire the work the kids are doing in bringing their friends.
We ran some numbers and in the last year we have gone from getting anywhere from 60 - 80 kids on Wednesday nights to averaging 125 now. We have baptized 26 so far this year alone. This leads to the point of this post.
Have you ever ministered to someone and at the end still could not tell if anything was accomplished? I trust that God is faithful to complete the work he began but sometimes I want a little evidence of the work of God.
We have all lead someone in a prayer of salvation and at the end were still not convinced that the person was saved. That’s right! I said it. And let me go one step further. I have seen to many outreaches that came back with a stack of decision cards but not a single convert.
I was in a church that had a month long city crusade that claimed something like 4,000 “decisions for Christ.” Not a single person got baptized from that crusade. What does that tell us? Nothing really. But if 3,000 people got joined to the church and got baptized in the next six weeks, we would call that revival.
So back to the visitors.
One of the young girls that I am discipling brought a girl last night. This girl has a Aimee Semple McPherson call on her life and is on fire for God. Now like I said, life is hard enough for these kids so I try not to freak out the kids that they bring. But sometimes the Holy Ghost is not as concerned about people freaking out.
Right in the middle of worship I got this burning buzzing prophet thing that came over me and I knew it was for this girl. I asked her if she ever felt the presence of God (if you have never asked this question, just take the bewildered look as a no). I promised her that by the end of worship that she would.
During the last song I went and laid hands on her head and the Glory of God began to be poured out on her. Almost instantly she began sobbing. To make a long story short I told here she was a hellbound sinner in need of a Savior. She received Him and tried to describe to me the deliverance and salvation she had just experienced to no avail.
After service she answered the altar call (which was just a formality at this point) along with another visitor girl. At the altar last night was that forceful fall in the spirit anointing. It looked like people were getting “struck” by the Holy ghost instead of a gentle breeze. You know what I am talking about.
I get to visitor girl #1. Now this is the first time she has ever been to church. She endured a hundred kids singing to God while some guy was casting the devil out of her. She heard a message on the attack of the enemy, now she is standing in front of a stage and kids are falling all around her. I don’t know that I would not have left. I prayed fer her. She went down. She stayed down.
Now I get to visitor girl #2. This is also the first time she ever went to church but the girl who brought her is not exactly a red hot ember. I get up to them and immediately the both of them begin bawling uncontrollably. It was really something.
I lead visitor #2 in the sinners prayer and began to pray for her and it was like heaven was opened above her. She did that falling thing where people try to reach out to grab something to keep them from falling but they are already halfway down. (That one always gives me a chuckle. Its like they are looking for the guardrail or something.)
To keep another long story short, while #2 was on the ground twitching I had to cast the devil out of her friend. After which I asked her, “How do you feel now?” to which she said, “REALLY REALLY GOOD!” (I call it sweet deliverance)
After a while her friend got up a little dazed. I told her that now she needs power to live for God. And here is the point of this whole post.
Immediately she got baptized in the Holy Ghost and began to pray in tongues. No doubt what happened to that girl that night. One more added to the Kingdom.
I preached this past Wednesday and the anointing was so think people started wailing half way through the service. I have no idea why that happens. I just know that it does.
I had an altar call and had the young people from my discipleship class work the altar with me. For some of them it was the first time they ever saw someone they were praying for get touched with physical manifestations. Nothing tickles me more than this.
Anyway . . . I was working the altar when I came upon a girl I knew had been coming but had not really gotten to know yet. We have lots of people form different cultures come to our meetings and apparently modesty has different meanings for different people. So I came to this (over)developed yet under dressed girl.
I laid my hands on her head and then noticed a cell phone wedged in between pieces of flesh in a manner that men (and most women) would not be able to accomplish.
There are many places in the Bible that talk about how God challenges the prideful.
Up until this point, I thought that I had seen everything. I have even gotten used to seeing people kneeling at the altar with g-strings sticking up out of their pants. I have seen preachers with their cellphone still on their belt while bringing the message (must have been a really important call they were waiting for). I have seen leather-pantsed worship leaders (I spent worship face down on the floor). I was even in a service where a man was sitting on the steps of the altar “prophesying” while cuddling the woman he was living with (sans marriage). But up until Wednesday I had never seen overexposed cleavage used as an electronic devise holster.
Just thought you might want to know that I have been humbled.
Bear with me on this one . . .
Back in May I had a meeting with some youth. The Holy Ghost fell in the room and one of the youth I have been chasing after got impacted. I blogged about it in the post “God Loves the Youth.” Here is an excerpt,
There was a kid that I had been harassing to come to my group because I felt God was drawing him but he was avoiding me. Finally he could not avoid it and came. When the Holy Ghost descended he began to bawl. He wound up on the ground coughing up devils and got off the floor praying in tongues and running around the room. He said that when I told everyone to repent of their sins he saw a black cloud in the room and that as I began to pray it escaped through the cracks in the doors and windows. Wish that happened to me at 13!
So this kid had some stuff to walk out. He was the youngest of three brothers. He was very concerned how he was going to live after this. He was supposed to be at a part the next day that was going to have drugs. His other brothers were the leaders of a gang.
They had an affinity for two girls in our church so they would come high to the youth service from time to time. They were trouble makers and over 18 but for some reason we let them hang around.
This young man became faithful to my small group and I began to disciple him. At the end of every meeting he would conclude with a prayer request for the salvation of his brothers. Six months earlier I prophesied over his oldest brother right in the middle of a service that God said, “Peek-a-boo! I see you! You are running from me but the earth is round.” (He later told me that he was so mad at me that he wanted to have me jumped)
Two months after the boy got saved I preached the most anointed evangelistic message I ever preached. The whole rotten crew was there. Conviction began to stir in their hearts. The next week they went to youth camp and got saved. But they had a problem. The older brothers were two thirds of a rap group that were about to be signed but they did not want to do hard core rap any longer. They turned down the offers and went back to the lab.
In the meantime the oldest brother replaced the youngest in mentorship. I really began to pour into him and he started to bring people to my meetings. Three weeks ago I thought it was just going to be he and I in my meeting so I put together a lesson plan on deliverance ministry. By the end of worship there were eight kids that came. Half of which were away from God.
The Glory of God fell in that room and every kid that was away from God got saved and baptized in the Holy Ghost. This has happened to almost the entire crew they used to hang with. They are on fire! The oldest one said to me,
I want to preach. But when I preach, I don’t just want to preach with words.
I said, Amen! And I am sure he will.
Anyway, there is lots more to the story but I will end there. They just gave me a copy of some of the songs they have made since getting right with God. Listen and enjoy.
Here is the second part of my series titled Distractions from the Gospel. Find part one here.
Read the following list and try to guess what they have in common: Closed cannon, Cessationism, Transubstantiation, Third Wave theology, Asceticism, Dispensationalism, Sabbatarianism.
The common thread? People who are consumed with the lost spend almost no time contemplating them. I teach my students that the Gospel is the birth, the life, the death, the resurrection and the second coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
A complete and full understanding on substitutionary atonement is not going to save anyone. A position piece on the requirements for eldership will not gain anyone entrance to heaven. Even a proper stance on homosexuality will not help you with the second birth.
As false teachings crept into the body of believers, some falsely believed that more proper teaching would rid the problem. As more leaders chased after proper teaching, the hairs that were being split got finer and finer. Thanks to the blogsphere it is now possible to witness doctrinal debates over the context of a single Greek word in one of Paul’s pastoral writings (as if that matters).
There is no theology based on a single Greek word that is of any significance. And even if there was, it still would not get anyone saved.
Salvation is the work of the Holy Spirit in convicting the lost of their need for Jesus. Sometimes He convicts their conscience of their sin. Sometimes He offers the hurting a greater hope. sometimes He meets a physical need with healing. Whatever the gateway, He brings the reality of Jesus to the heart by the spirit.
I laid hands on a 13 year old boy this past Friday night. He was a good kid and a regular church attendee. He is part of a discipleship class that was doing Bible study and leadership training. During worship I felt lead to pray for him. While we were standing there I asked him what was happening. In an ongoing play by play he told me of an increasing bright light that he saw. Out of the light stretched a set of hands. Eventually Jesus came out of the light and called the boy to Him. As this boy began to feel the embrace of his Savior he wept openly. As the vision unfolded the boy was shown the lost all over the globe getting saved. The boy knew this was his call. You can’t get that at of a lexicon.
You cannot teach someone into an encounter with Jesus. It requires faith. Which is precisely the element that is not needed to promote your doctrinal position.
I preached this last week on impartation. It is a subject that is addressed far to infrequently. Hebrews 6:2 and 2 Timothy 1:6 were my main Scriptures.
But I mainly told the story of Lonnie Frisbee. This guy got wacked by the Holy Ghost. After being radically saved, he got hooked up with Chuck Smith, who at the time had a nice church called Calvary Chapel and was curious about the hippie movement. Lonnie Frisbee came in and set the world on fire. Today the map of Calvary Chapel locations looks like this: 
Lonnie’s idea of church was a little too New Testament and not quite Greek enough for Calvary so he got the heave hoe. He wound up with John Wimber near the beginning of the Vineyard movement and now there are 800 of those.
Time went on and about 20 years later John Arnott’s Vineyard church began to have an outpouring when Randy Clark, another Vineyard pastor from St. Louis ministered. A few years after that 
a missionary couple from Mozambique visited. God turned their world upside down and since that day their ministry has planted 8,000+ churches in southeastern Africa.
Lonnie Frisbee was booted from Calvary. The Arnotts were given the left foot of fellowship by the Vineyard. The Bakers were unsupported from TSC.
See a pattern? If you really want revival you must decide in your heart that you want to be as popular as Jesus in Jerusalem, or Paul in Ephesus. If that is too abstract, become as popular as these folks.
I may have linked to this article before. Since I was so shortsighted to take down my search function I can’t find out.
Anyway, a recent exchange with Michael at Charismatica led me back to this article by Loren Sanford. If you function in the prophetic, are in prophetic circles, feel called to the prophetic, or just want to see more order in the prophetic, this is a must-read.
We need to move from mere sanctified psychic reading into the genuine spirit of prophecy which, according to Jeremiah 1, tears down and builds up, uproots and plants. It is the word of God to accomplish His purposes.
No wonder he is not a big conference circuit speaker.
In a voluminous 233-page, 11-country study on Pentecostals, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life confirmed the global reach of what they call “renewalist Christianity,” ranging from nine percent of the population in Chile to 33 percent in Kenya. However, one of the most surprising conclusions of the study–and one that bears some serious interpretation–is the claim that, in “six of the 10 countries surveyed, at least four-in-ten Pentecostals say they never speak or pray in tongues.“
I can’t tell you how worked up this gets me. I see men walking around the church like they lead John the Baptist to Jesus yet have never once prophesied the Word of the Lord, never once saw a man healed, never once acted in faith and manifested a miracle.
I wish it wasn’t so easy to be called Pentecostal. What if the Apostles and Prophets had to come to your congregation and test your meetings against the Word of God before you could use the label? What if they judged your sermons against the sermons in Acts before you could be called a Pentecostal preacher? My God there would be men crying out for the presence on Saturday nights and sinners crying out for salvation Sunday morning!
Pentecostal preacher, no matter how successful your church growth strategy, no matter how well financed your building campaign, no matter how well respected you are at the city minister’s breakfast, you will not be fulfilled without the manifest presence of God in your meetings. You have been called and set apart to pray down revival. Tongues is a stubling block but so is the cross. Preach the whole Gospel.
Let God be true and every man a liar!
This is not going to be a theological post. I am not going to debate anyone. If you disagree, that’s fine. Move on.
I have received an array of correspondence from people who happen to stumble upon this blog who come to say the same thing,
I want to see the power of God in my ministry.
I have good news for you, God wants the same. But where do you start? The truth is, there are two ways to catch a log on fire.
So the easiest way to see the gifts in operation in your life is to get around people who have Holy Ghost activity in their lives. Pray with them, minister with them, study the Word with them. There is a giga-church in my area that is lead by a man who is a strong Bible teacher and evangelist. Guess what every leader in the church is? This is a spiritual law. Trust me, it works.
If there is nobody in your circle of influence that functions in these areas I have great news! You are the beginning of a revival! Here is what you do. Get two or three people who are as hungry as you and you begin an ongoing prayer meeting. When I was hungry for the gifts, this is what I did. I had a couple people and I would say, “We are going to pray until something happens!” And we did.
Sometimes someone would get a vision, or someone would get a song they would sing or someone would get a verse from the Bible that was for us but we would pray until something happened. You should do the same. Whether you are called to take care of the little ones, teach the Word, or heal the sick, you will do it better with the power of the Holy Spirit working through your ministry.
There is no excuse for a powerless Christian.
