The Key to Consistency

I remember the first time I ever prayed for someone with a serious condition, and actually expected anything to happen:

I was 18 years old and I had just finished reading John Wimber's book Power Healing. For weeks afterwards I sensed God speaking to me, telling me to go pray for a fellow college student who had gone blind due to diabetes. Of course I resisted! In my mind, it was far too risky to walk up to a blind person and ask him if I could pray for him to receive his sight right there. What if it didn't work and I looked like a complete idiot?

But the Holy Spirit kept pulling on my heart, teling me He was in this thing. Sometimes, I would work up the guts to do it for a brief moment. I would walk up to the man with great confidence, only to turn away at the last second (I figured since he was blind he would never know I was there!)

Then one day, it occurred to me: I either believe this stuff or I don't. It was time to either go big or go home. After a meeting one morning, I found the student and told him that I sensed I was supposed to pray for him. As I invited the Holy Spirit's Presence, he was thrown back in his seat, power surged through him, and heat began to radiate out from behind his eyes. My first thought was: "It really works!"

We continued to pray, and the man began seeing shades of light as God touched him. The healing had begun progressively, and I was immediately ruined for anything less than the message and ministry of Jesus. After what happened that day, I could never go back!

Since that time, I've seen hundreds of tremendous demonstrations of power, and I've seen long stretches of time where we've prayed and absolutely nothing has happened. In fact, sometimes people get worse or even die.

How do we keep our expectation strong in those times when God doesn't seem to be breaking through?

I think the key is to remember that this is the mission Jesus has given us. He's told us to announce the Kingdom, to heal the sick, to drive out demons and do all the things that He does. This is His initiative. Our call is to simply obey Him and take the risk to step out when we sense Him speaking to us.

Let's just do this for the next 100 years or so, and you will see far too much to ever turn back. Keep following with everything you've got!

The Kingdom Announcement

Over the course of the past 7 weeks, I've been teaching a VBI course on the Kingdom of God at the Halifax Vineyard. We have a number of students working on a Diploma in Kingdom Theology through VBI, and this class is one of the required credits.

During last night's class, we explored our call to announce the presence of the Kingdom of God, and out of that announcement, to do the ministry of the Kingdom.

As we were nearing the end of the lecture, there was a tangible sense of angels moving around the room. I had everyone stand up, and then I simply invited this Kingdom that we've been studying to come in a tangible way "on earth like it is in heaven."

The Spirit of God began touching people powerfully through prophetic words and healings. Power surged through different ones as God encountered them. One of our students was standing by herself near her desk with her hands open, when she was hit by such power that she fell backwards to the concrete floor and hit with tremendous impact! She was totally unharmed, and as she lay there the Spirit of God empowered her dramatically.

Other students were released from hindrances and experienced the Presence of the Holy Spirit with weeping, supernatural joy, and powerful shaking.

A woman with an injured tailbone was healed, as the Spirit of God swept across the room. This was a great theology class!

When we expect God's kingdom to come, pray for the kingdom to break in, and announce its presence through the Holy Spirit, so often we see these wonderful demonstrations of God's mercy toward us.

Let's keep doing this everywhere we go!

Some New Stories

I spent most of the day on Saturday with a group of people @ the Halifax Vineyard doing some talks on what it means to be filled with Holy Spirit. It was part of the Alpha Holy Spirit Weekend, and I had such a great time!

The premise was simple: Jesus wants to empower all of us by His Spirit so that we begin to do the things that he does. After the teaching time, we invited the Holy Spirit to come and some incredible things took place:

-The weight of God's presence rested on one woman so powerfully she was unable to move at all. As she stood there she experienced the love of Jesus washing over her. For months prior to this encounter she had suffered from a chronic infection, but as people surrounded her and prayed, she felt the power of God surge through her body and the pain and infection left immediately.

-Another young woman who just gave her life to Jesus, was filled with the power of God and energized with the tremendous joy that only comes from His Presence. She had no pre-conceived notions about how you're supposed to react when God comes close to you; she simply experienced the Holy Spirit touching her, and was absolutely revolutionized by His power.

-Prophetic words of encouragement started flowing and God spoke into their lives in ways that resonated powerfully.

Then last night we did a youth gathering for the high school and junior high group. I talked a little on hearing God's voice and developing a relationship with the Holy Spirit, then we modeled the ministry by giving prophetic words. The Spirit of God broke into the room and kids were empowered! They began prophesying to one another, and got words of knowledge for the sick.

A girl was there who has not really engaged a lot with the God stuff in the past. She responded to a word of knowledge from a junior high kid named Zack, and as we prayed for her, the power of God came on her. Her injured ankle was immediately healed and it was so much fun watching her wondering where her pain went! She moved her ankle around, got a confused look on her face and said, "It was just hurting when I walked up here- now it's better!" I got to share with her about the mercy of Jesus and she was profoudly impacted.

Kids were still getting words and praying for each other as their parents arrived to pick them up, and it hit me that this mandate to equip the whole church in every generation is one of the greatest things we could ever join up with! Just do it everywhere you go, and before long you'll be ruined for anything else!

A Day at the Office

So this move to the Atlantic Coast of Canada has been filled with God stories. From the very beginning (you can read about it in my first post An Unusual Journey) God has been obviously present in every detail.

About 3 weeks ago I was hired as a Human Resources Advisor for a large organization in Halifax. The way doors opened up around this can only be explained by His favor on the whole process. Education wise-I didn't have the professional HR designation they were looking for, and I had no formal experience in human resources. And yet somehow, out of 200 quality applicants, they chose to hire a Vineyard pastor who followed the voice of God from Kansas City to Halifax as their HR representative!

Of course the job offer came at the last possible minute; just as all our savings were about to disappear. That seems to be the way it works when we step out in faith. It was one more divine event to add to the ongoing story of God's activity around this move.

Well, all day yesterday and today, I was networking at a healthcare conference at the Delta Hotel in Halifax (pictured above). As I was talking to one of the professionals from the Red Cross, she began asking me about my background and the story of how we got here. I told her all the God stories: the ways He called us here, the perfect timing for everything, the favor we've experienced in the Halifax Vineyard, etc. (It turns out, she's been to the Halifax Vineyard's cafe and ice cream shop, and really "likes the vibe" around there).

As I told her story after story of God's leading and faithfulness, you could see her heart engaging with what His Spirit was doing. When she commented on how risky this dramatic move was, I shared with her that we only get one shot in this life to trust God for anything. Isn't it worth going for?

She was so excited, and walked away with a sense of something bigger than ourselves going on. I walked away with a sense of how important it is to our world that we tell our stories of God at work. Let's tell our stories everywhere we go, to everyone we meet, and watch what happens as a result.

Kingdom Ministry With Kids

I just finished teaching at the Halifax Vineyard youth group. Tonight we told stories from Mark chapter 1 about Jesus' announcement that the Kingdom of God has come near to us. It's not simply a comforting biblical thought, or a concept to talk about in church gatherings, it's a powerful reality of God being actively at work among us.

So after looking at the stories of Jesus announcing and demonstrating the powerful rule of God, we put the words into action:

The Spirit of God gave words of knowledge for a swollen throat, and 2 teenage girls responded. The power of God came on both of them, and their pain instantly disappeared. A whole bunch of kids expressed their desire to follow Jesus whole-heartedly, and give everything they've got to this kingdom thing. We prayed empowering prayers over them, giving them prophetic words of encouragement, and asking God's Spirit to fill them with His love.

As i looked around the room and saw all these young people laying their hands on their friends and inviting the Holy Spirit, I realized that this is a huge part of what making disciples is all about.

I love this stuff! I absolutely love it! I can't think of any other way I'd want to spend the rest of my life, than to share the message and ministry of Jesus with a group of kids that are hungry for something real.

A Life of Apprenticeship

This is the beach at Malagash camp where we held our regional youth retreat for the Atlantic Vineyard Churches this past weekend.
On Saturday night I talked about the reality that living as apprentices of Jesus means not only obeying his words, but also doing his works.
Our premise is simply that because of Jesus' arrival, the kingdom of God (God's power to rule) has come close to us in this world. As a result of that nearness of God's Spirit, there are tangible signs of His rule among us: sick people get well, demonic chokeholds are broken, nature submits to God's authority, dead people get up and walk around again, and mercy is extended to the needy. All throughout the Gospels, these things happen everywhere that Jesus goes.

It becomes really clear in the life of Jesus, that his intention has always been to pass this message and ministry of the kingdom on to those of us who follow him. So we see commissioning texts like Matthew 10, Luke 9, Luke 10, John 20, Matthew 28.

Well on Saturday night, we called a group of teenagers from Atlantic Canada to give their whole lives to this thing; a life of walking with Jesus, obeying his words and doing his works. The Spirit of God came with intense empowering, breaking chains of depression and negative self-images. Then the kids began to pray for their friends. Here's a few of the things that happened:

-A girl was there who had suffered with a chronic knee condition that caused her intense pain. As a group came around and prayed for her, she felt tremendous energy surging through her legs and the bones and tissue inside her knees began shifting. She was overwhelmed by the mercy of Jesus, all the pain left, and when she woke up in the morning (normally the worst time for pain) she was completely pain free.

-Some kids prayed for a boy named Chris who had sprained his ankle. As they prayed, they felt the ankle physically shifting and he was immediately well.

- God gave a word of knowledge for scoliosis of the spine. A 17 year old girl responded and as as we prayed, her spine straightened and her pain immediately left. I followed up with her later, and she remained completely pain free.

-Kids were delivered from fear and nightmares, they began getting words from God, and worship broke out in a huge way- no one wanted to stop singing to Jesus! It was a wonderful way to celebrate God's presence among us!

See, if all this is real, and we have the invitation to live in the presence of God's Spirit and to give away His life to the people around us , why would we want to do anything less with our lives?

Kingdom Stories

One of my favorite stories in the New Testament is in Luke chapter 5 where Jesus is in someone's living room teaching, and the Spirit of God breaks through to touch people. Luke 5:17 describes it like this:

"One day he was in the house teaching, and the power of the Lord was present to heal the sick."

Moments like this happen regularly throughout the ministry of Jesus. He walks into an environment, looks for what the Spirit of God is doing there, and simply joins up with that.
Luke 6 tells the story of Jesus standing outside and the power of God coming around him so strongly that people pushed through the crowds just to touch him. The results were phenomenal: people with all sorts of chronic conditions, illnesses and demonic obstacles in their lives were being healed by the manifest presence of the Spirit of God on Jesus' life. These are some demonstrations (or signs) of the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God into our world.

Well, our commission is the same as Jesus' commission: to announce the kingdom's presence and to do the ministry of the kingdom (make disciples, heal the sick, drive out demons, take authority over nature, care for the needy, show love and mercy, raise the dead, and all the other wonderful stuff of the New Testament). Now, I think if we're going to have any success at all in this mission we've been given, we'd do well to learn from Jesus and become sensitive to those times when the Spirit of God becomes present in a manifest way for a specific purpose (ie: healing the sick).

We've seen God move like this several times over the last couple of weeks:

-Daniel, the friend I wrote about in my last post who came to the equipping class at the Halifax Vineyard, just sent me a message yesterday saying that his doctor ran additional tests, and it's medically verified that he has been healed of diabetes. After more than 5 years with the disease, it is completely gone and his body is operating normally!

-Daniel and Evelyn's friend who had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer also found out she was pregnant. Doctors had little hope for her or the baby's future. But as a group of us came around and prayed for her and the baby, the power of God came on her. The prognosis has now changed for her and the baby. She's feeling great, and the baby is perfectly healthy and able to be born safely.

-I taught at a youth gathering last night where we told stories about Jesus' ministry today, and then invited the presence of God's Spirit.
The students got words of knowledge for physical conditions, they prayed for their friends' sicknesses and saw God show up.
Demonic oppression was broken: as one kid fell on the floor and was writhing in pain we spoke to the opposing force with the authority Jesus gives us, and it left immediately.
Other students were empowered tremendously by the Spirit of God, shaking as His power surged through them, filling them with His Presence.

God is actively at work all around us. We have been given the ministry of Jesus! Let's begin to look for those moments where the Spirit of God becomes manifestly present to demonstrate his rule to every group of people on earth.