Didn’t our hearts burn within us?
Ok, its not really the revival podcast. It is the podcast from my ministry The Mission. But at the end of the service last night we had a tongue and an interpretation. I am posting this for those who have never heard that happen before.
Warning, you have to listen to a testimony, an exhortation, my message, and ministry time before it comes. It is near the end.
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1. 1 Corinthians 12:28. “And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, varieties of tongues.” God has appointed, ordained, commanded, tongues to be exercised in the church, with or without denominational approval. There is no such thing as an “apostolic-Church” and a “post-apostolic-Church”. Jesus established one Church for all time. Period!
2. Mark 16:17. “And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues.” In this passage, tongues is wholly a matter of one’s relationship with Christ through personal believing; the gift has nothing to do with the death of Apostles or canonizing of Scripture. Observe that in this case, believing is the same requirement as given to the Philippian jailor, Acts 16:31, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.” And Romans 10:9, “If you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart.” In each case, belief is the foundation of relationship with God. It is dangerous to predicate such relationships upon historical events or chronological dates.
Continue reading ‘Is Tongues Biblical?’
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You may not agree with everything in the video but I think it is a really good beginning of discussion of Pentecostalism in the Black community and how it relates to voting patterns.
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This will either bless and challenge you, or totally puzzle you.
I had a Friday night class that centered on ministering in the power of the Holy Ghost. About 30 people came. Most between 15 and 20 years old. Some older, some younger. One night I heard the Lord tell me to have an altar call. He said that if anyone wanted a spiritual gift to come to the altar and He will give it to them. That was a new one for me. I was obedient and told the people just as I had heard it. To my amazement only one person responded.
This was a 15 year old girl who said she wanted the gift of deliverance. I told her there was no such gift but that you would need the gift of discerning of spirits for that ministry so I will pray for that. I laid hands on her and called it forth. Down she went. She got up about a half hour later and told of a complete open heavens encounter that she had. She saw angels waring with demons in a complete battle. It was long and detailed. I talked to her about never taking part in the battle and not getting involved in the warfare. The angels were there for a reason.
Over the next couple months she got all kinds of stuff. She would get visions and see things in my meetings all the time and I came to really treasure the gift. Recently I sensed a shift in the gifting in purpose and strength. I had been discipling her in this gift but Jesus has decided to take over the discipleship process. I asked her to give account of what has happened recently. I mildly edited it to conceal her details.
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It was June 17, 2007 and I was at Carl’s Friday night class at church, the last one I would attend since I was going on a mission trip to Omitted. We worshipped God, Pastor Pedro was a guest preacher, and then he asked us to come up to the front (I don’t remember for what). When I went up there, it was something different. Carl prayed for me and he didn’t say anything but “open heavens”. Then the fire of God fell on me and God, almost immediately, told me that my visions were going to be so clear from now on. Since that day, they’ve been picture clear.
A week from that day, I went on a mission trip to Omitted. Half way into the trip, while the team was in prayer and worship, God did something like I had never experienced. The song playing at the time was singing “I want to stand at your feet, drink from the cup in your hand, lay against you and breath, feel your heart beat”. That underlined part really sunk into my spirit. I asked God, “God, I want to feel your heart beat.” As soon as I said that God responded saying “I will give you more than that.” In an instant, I had a vision that I was in God’s heart. It was so real that I could tangibly feel God’s love around me. In God’s heart, I had my own room. In the room were pictures of my life hanging on the walls. The only picture that I saw was the Eiffel tower. As the vision ended, I could still feel God’s love around me and I couldn’t help but smile from ear to ear.
The next encounter was on a Wednesday night, my first Wednesday back from Omitted. At the end of the service, I went up to worship. Sometime while I was up there, I saw angels pick me up and we started soaring through this “icy tunnel”. The reason I call it this is that it was a tunnel made completely of blue ice. We soared through there straight for about 2-3 minutes and then I was back where I was in the service, worshipping. I was so shook by where I had just been that I had no words except “God, You are so amazing!” A few minutes after that, Carl came over to me and started declaring open visions over me. Immediately, I was back in that same icy tunnel. I was enjoying it so much but I was still wondering where I was going. After soaring for about a minute, the tunnel dropped me of into the throne room of God! God’s glory in the throne room was so heavy that I fell at His feet, in the throne room and at the altar, to worship Him. I stayed down there for a while after I came back into the meeting and was by consumed by the glory of God. I just started singing “Let it rain!” over and over again until I saw that rain was falling down from heaven onto the people at the altar. This rain was the Holy Spirit coming and falling on the people there with all of His glory, fire, and power.
The next Wednesday was even more spectacular. We had a worship night that day. I knelt down at the altar to worship Jesus. Then, Carl came over with a word for me from God. God told him that I have the “Bride of Christ” anointing. He said that I have this intimacy with Christ that I’m actually able to go into His wedding chamber. He told me that I’m supposed to show others this intimacy so that they can have it, too.
God made this more clear through the following experiences.
It was towards the end of a Friday night class at Carl’s house. The glory of God started falling on me and I felt a burning fire running through my whole body, especially my head. I felt angels pressing me into the ground. All of a sudden, I was in the throne room. Jesus was on the throne while myself and others were sitting around Him. Everyone was dressed in royal gowns and jewels. I asked God, “Why are we all dressed like royalty?” He answered, “Because you are all my princes and princesses.” After He said that, I noticed that we weren’t conversing in English, but in tongues. Although I didn’t understand what we were saying, my spirit seemed to and so did the people around me. The only tongues that I recognized were Carl’s, who seemed to be talking with us. God revealed to me that that is how they speak in heaven.
After a little while of being back in the natural, I laid back down again in the same spot that I was in when I went to the throne room. God took me someplace but this time it was different. Jesus and I were in a courtyard dressed as if we were from the middle ages. I was sitting on one of the benches in the middle of the courtyard (The benches, though not connected, formed a circle) and He was holding my hand sitting in front of me. We were speaking in tongues to each other but this time I got the main point of what we were saying. We were speaking terms of endearment and telling each other how much we love one another. It was very intimate and something special between me and God. Ever since that day, I’ve gone back into that place that is only for God and I when ever I worship or pray to Him.
One day, as my mom and I were driving home, my mom started yelling at me. Every word that she spoke broke my heart a little more. As tears poured down my face, I lifted my head to see a sticker on a car that said, “Relax, God’s in control.” That little sticker slightly lifted my spirit. When we got home, I ran to my room and knelt down. I started to cry again and prayed to God asking Him to take everything. I then went to our courtyard and, instead of me sitting on the bench, Jesus was and I laid my head on His lap and He poured His love on me. He was dressed in a white gown that seemed to be silk but it was softer. The white of His gown was a white that I have never seen before and it seemed to glow along with the rest of Jesus.
One or two Wednesdays after this, I was worshipping. I was telling God that I just wanted to be with Him. Right after I said that, I went back into that courtyard. When I looked at His face, I was somewhat mesmerized by His beauty. I can’t even describe to you His features because they are so distinct like no other man. His eyes shined with love. He didn’t even need to say anything yet I still knew that His love for me was immense. After, the band told us to go back to our seats, I was still dazzled by God’s radiance.
At the end of the service, after Carl preached, Carl said for the intercessors to start praying, God gave me a vision. I saw Jesus walk over and sit on the edge of the stage, facing the audience. He started to cry. I said, “God, why are You crying? I don’t like when You cry.” He said, “They can’t here me, their ears are closed to my voice.” He yelled at the youth to hear Him but they didn’t. I started to pray and ask God to open their ears to His voice. As I prayed, people’s ears started to open and they could hear Jesus’ cry to them. Jesus stopped crying and started smiling, as did I. People went up to answer the altar call.
A few minutes later, I went up to worship behind them. As I looked at a cluster of people at the altar, God started speaking to me. He told me that they didn’t know how to drink from Him so they went to find things in the world to drink from because they were thirsty. God then showed me a pool of water in an oasis. He told me again that this was His water and that people needed to drink from His water but didn’t know how. They needed to be taught how to drink from God’s Spirit and someone had to teach them. This whole time that God was speaking this to me, I was burning and, basically, being overwhelmed with the Holy Spirit. He is so amazing!
As I sat in a chair that I had been placed in by Carl while the above paragraph happened, I went back to the courtyard. There, God told me that everyone has there own place with Him, like our courtyard, which not even angels can enter. This place is intimacy with God. Everyone’s place is different. He also said that others can experience what I have experienced and to take others with me the next time He takes me to heaven. Through these encounters, I was further understanding the Bridal anointing.
The next time I went to Carl’s Friday night class, I was worshipping. Carl saw an angel pouring oil over my head. Then He saw an angel walk across the room and place something purple in my hands. Then my hands physically started to lean down and before I knew it I was on the floor. I could feel an angel breathing on me and speaking to my spirit. Even though I didn’t know what it was saying, I knew my spirit did. God said to listen to the angels because they are here to help me. Then I saw the angel put a goblet made of gold in my right hand. I asked God what I was supposed to do with it and He said pour it over people.
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It goes on but you get the idea. Exciting times!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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By now most people know that Church Growth Today put out its list of the 100 fastest growing churches in the U.S.
They list 11 independent Charismatic Churches and 5 Assemblies of God churches among the 100. I thought it would neat to put together an interactive map showing where all the Spirit-Filled churches are. So off I went to the websites of the churches listed
The only problem was that I could not tell the Baptists churches from the Pentecostal ones. There was a time when Pentecostals were persecuted for their faith but that is no longer the case. Is it because we no longer glory in the second blessing?
Do we just have a different way of doing church or is there something inherently different about being Baptised in the Holy Ghost? I don’t bash people over the head with doctrinal differences but when people from other streams of Christianity ask me counsel about following God or overcoming sin or engaging in the Great Commission my first advise is almost always,
Did I not get the memo that we have to trick people into coming to our services?
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Adrian posted this on his blog and I am quoting it in it’s entirety.
More importantly, if tongues were never intended biblically to be a prayer language and all the gifts were meant to stop, then I have a number of questions for my cessationist friends about what the Bible says about them:
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God has been doing a work in me lately and I guess it is time to start to announce it. Steve Sjogren touches on the subject and comes to the conclusion that some people need to stop going to church. No he does not favor home church, he says they should stay away from Church all together.
Growing Edge Buzz: Some people shouldn’t go to church, pt. 1: Crabby is not a fruit of the Spirit: “After following Jesus for over 30 years now, I have come to the conclusion that there are some people who do great damage to the cause of Christ because they continue to come to church week after week. I have no idea what they are hearing in their various churches, but their behavior, based on what is on display in the restaurants they frequent immediately after their church experience, is exactly the opposite of the attitude of Jesus as described in the Gospels.
The Church has become so academic and doctrine centered that we have made the real test, the fruit of the Spirit, a sort of secondary factor in our Christianity. As I posted yesterday, there is a move among some of us to test what we have been preaching and what we look for as confirmations of a move of the Spirit.
I am Pentecostal. I believe in all the manifestations in the Bible (1 Cor 12:7-10) and many others that are not. Yet I am beginning to long for what the original Pentecostals were searching for when they received the baptism, holiness (1 Peter 1:16). They sought to be sanctified. Today that is preached as a sort of byproduct, not a goal.
If we receive the baptism in the Holy Ghost, pray in tongues, declare visions, see the sick healed, yet do not see a work of the Spirit in our own live as manifested in holiness have we really been baptized in the Holy Spirit (Acts 3:19-20)? Or has He just come upon us to do His will (Isaiah 61:1-3)?
God has really been challenging my doctrine and I have avoided writing about it because I am not quite prepared to defend it but God is stirring up a word in me and I cannot deny it. I have spent years praying for greater anointing, deeper visions, a more clear calling, deeper intimacy and I have received all of that. Yet at the same time I have avoided latent sin in my life and fear has kept me from descending into the basement of my soul and dealing with some long held fears. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a mistress and I am not laying in bed for days with depression but sin is sin none the less.
If the Spirit of God is sent to convict the world of righteousness sin and judgement than I do not know how one can claom to be full of the spirit and still live in sin. I am convinced that I am not going to find out! I have been on my face seeking His righteousness and He has been faithful.
In the last several months I have been unable to do things that would not have bothered me before. To that I give God the glory. But I still have to recconcile what I preach with what God is showing me. He is still desiring a Holy people (1 Thess 5:23).
hattip the merge
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I have been a bit behind on sharing what God has been doing so I will have to hit the highlights.
I lead a youth small group now. I have the feeling that I will be moving out of youth ministry soon and I sense a great urging to impart some things before I leave. So I started my little group.
The first meeting I had four kids in the middle school ages. One kid got saved and the other three got baptized in the Holy Ghost that first meeting.
This past Friday, I had to lead the Friday night youth service so I brought my group to be my ministry assistants. There is nothing greater than ministering to people who do not doubt the power of God. They don’t have to have faith, I will bring that, but they can’t be filled with doubt. Doubt is a real ministry inhibiter. When you preach to a group of doubters you have to plow for so long it almost isn’t any fun.
At the beginning of the meeting I told the group that I don’t do normal church. I got saved in college after serving in the military and I only know how to be on fire for God or on fire for the world. There is no in between. If I am at church I expect to see the manifest presence. Otherwise I might as well be watching television. I told the youth that I was going to preach and at the end we were going to pray. At that point the Glory of God would descend in the room and people would be changed.
So preached and preached and preached till I felt like there was some sort of breakthrough. Then I asked the Holy Spirit to come, and come He did!
Continue reading ‘God Loves the Youth’
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