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?
