Wow, so much has happened since I last wrote. Within 48 hours I witnessed God open over a dozen people's ears, increase the vision of a person who is almost completely blind, dissolve three tumors near a woman's collarbone, heal a man's leg that had kept him from being able to work, and other miracles of healing. Aside from being amazed by God's love in healing all of these people, not to mention the hundreds of others that I didn't personally witness, is that most of the healings took place not when someone approached me for prayer, but rather when God spoke to me about what He was doing.
The invitation is there. God is calling the plays out methodically just hoping that someone is listening to what He is saying. God is looking for people who are leaning into Him to hear what He is saying and act upon it. I used to tell people that God never speaks to me. However, what I didn't realize is that if I had been really hungry to hear God, I should have waited on Him until I heard Him speak. Two and a half years ago I went on a my first mission trip to South Africa. I went into the trip praying that I would see miracles while I was there. However, I was dissappointed to return home without seeing anyone healed. Unfortunately I didn't realize for over a year that I didn't pray for anyone to be healed while I was there.
Now I understand what God is doing and what He saying at least some of the time. I have asked God to show me what He is doing so that I would only do what I see Him doing. Jesus only did what He saw the Father doing. That is what words of knowledge are. Similarly, by leaning into God we can often get a grasp for what He is doing in this current season. For us in Redding, He is giving us authority over deafness. It is amazing. I had never seen anyone healed of deafness eight months ago, and nobody healed of it in the U.S. until July, but since then I have seen over 50 people have their hearing restored. Around 40 of those have been just in the past two months. Those aren't people that were in the same room as me, those are people that I have prayed for personally. The Kingdom of Heaven is here!
I feel like God is taking us on a bullet train. Right now it is leaving the station and is picking up speed, however, it is still there and if people will drop their luggage and run after it, they will make it on the train. This train is rapid acceleration. God is going to take us to our next destination so much more quickly than we reason is possible. However, this is what happens when the Kingdom is upon you. God is calling us to draw near to Him so that He can reveal His secrets to us. We don't hear because we don't listen. We don't see miracles because we don't pray.
The Kingdom of Heaven is now. God is pouring out His Spirit on all flesh, at least on those who want it. However, in order to want something you must know that it is available. My personal conviction in this season is to drop everything and run after God. That doesn't mean that I don't go to work or do my homework for school. I even got my oil changed in my car about two weeks ago. However, it does mean that I am looking closely at the activities I engage in to determine how committed I am to them. The Kingdom is here and it is accelerating at a rapid pace, I don't want to miss it because I am holding onto nonessential things.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Praying from an Open Heaven
In recent weeks I have felt a significant shift while praying from the standpoint that I have authority from heaven to declare things into existence. Not that asking for things doesn't work, because it has, but when I declare things I find that my faith for them is significantly higher than if I was just asking for them. I have asked God for 100% breakthrough over deafness and I have received a measure of that, however my faith increases when I declare that deafness isn't allowed anywhere near me.
Tonight was the first night of Bethel Church's annual Open Heavens conference. As many of you may know, southern California has been ablaze with several wild fires that are fueled by very gusty winds. At the conference tonight we began to pray around 8:30 that the winds would cease and the fires would be put out. We did as Jesus did, we commanded the winds to stop and the fires to disappear. After arriving home I checked the news and saw a great headline that read, "Signs of Hope: Winds ease in California's fire zone." The article was updated about 10 minutes before 9:00. We have authority to command the winds to stop and they will obey us!
Along with me declaring that deafness is not allowed in Redding, I have been asking God to bring me people with hearing loss. Tonight at the conference I was praying for a man with cancer when God showed me that he had a hearing problem. We prayed very briefly and I asked him how it was. His response was, "It's louder. It's almost too loud." Then I asked him about a problem with the heel and he said that he shattered both of his heels in an accident 18 years ago. I quickly commanded the pain to leave and had him test it out. The pain in his left foot was completely gone, just like that.
In both of these cases I already knew that it was God's will to heal, because He wouldn't show me that the man had hearing loss or a problem with his heels if He didn't want to heal him. So rather than asking God to do what He has already said He wants to do, I simply executed the play that God called. God gave me the orders and I gave the deafness and the pain the order to leave. We live under an open heaven all the time and as long as we live under authority, God gives us His authority to command things into being. Those are the prayers that stop the winds!
Tonight was the first night of Bethel Church's annual Open Heavens conference. As many of you may know, southern California has been ablaze with several wild fires that are fueled by very gusty winds. At the conference tonight we began to pray around 8:30 that the winds would cease and the fires would be put out. We did as Jesus did, we commanded the winds to stop and the fires to disappear. After arriving home I checked the news and saw a great headline that read, "Signs of Hope: Winds ease in California's fire zone." The article was updated about 10 minutes before 9:00. We have authority to command the winds to stop and they will obey us!
Along with me declaring that deafness is not allowed in Redding, I have been asking God to bring me people with hearing loss. Tonight at the conference I was praying for a man with cancer when God showed me that he had a hearing problem. We prayed very briefly and I asked him how it was. His response was, "It's louder. It's almost too loud." Then I asked him about a problem with the heel and he said that he shattered both of his heels in an accident 18 years ago. I quickly commanded the pain to leave and had him test it out. The pain in his left foot was completely gone, just like that.
In both of these cases I already knew that it was God's will to heal, because He wouldn't show me that the man had hearing loss or a problem with his heels if He didn't want to heal him. So rather than asking God to do what He has already said He wants to do, I simply executed the play that God called. God gave me the orders and I gave the deafness and the pain the order to leave. We live under an open heaven all the time and as long as we live under authority, God gives us His authority to command things into being. Those are the prayers that stop the winds!
Sunday, October 21, 2007
A new kind of jet lag
Now just about a week after returning from a 19 day trip to England I have spent several days being wide awake at 4:30 am and extremely tired from about noon until 5 pm. However by Friday I was doing well, sleeping in until 7 and getting to bed at a normal time. Then out of the blue, last night I was so tired that I went to bed at 7:30. Other than waking up at 2 am, I slept until nearly 6 this morning, ready to take on my first Sunday at Bethel in over a month.
Coming back from England I was excited to see what God had in store for the next month and a half before I would go on my next ministry trip. Over the summer I had a very busy month of travel in July and then only went on one trip in August. However, I saw more healings in August than I had in perhaps the rest of my life up to that point. Amazing things happened as I prayed for people in the healing rooms, at church, and out in the community. So my anticipation for this time frame is sky high as I am expecting amazing things from God.
One thing that I have seen a ton of breakthrough in over this past season of trravel is deafness. Since going on a Firestorm to Michigan the couple days before school started September 11, through the end of the England trip, I have prayed for 20 people whose hearing has been restored. Before the England trip I set a goal of seeing one person healed of deafness every day. I didn't get it, just 10 instead of 19. So naturally, when I got back, I wanted it to keep increasing. It took less than 48 hours to see the first person healed. I walked into a group of young people before youth group when God gave me the word of knowledge. I asked them who had a problem with the left ear and they each said no, until one spoke up saying that he has hearing loss in that ear.
Then Friday night at church God gave me a word as I sat in the front row that He wanted to heal someone of deafness. I was praying for a man with heart failure and could tell that his hearing wasn't great. I shifted to put one hand on his back and when he started to walk away I told him that I wasn't done yet. I prayed more and this time he could feel the fire of God. I asked if he had problems with his hearing and he told me that he did, but he left his hearing aids at home that night. So I prayed and his ears opened up. Praise God!
Fast forward to this morning. Pastor Bill was amazing. Make sure to download the podcast. While others were praying for a fresh and continual baptism of fire for intimacy with the Lord, I was ready to leave, to come home and pray on my own. I was going to look for people with hearing aids on my way out because God gave me a word for it as Bill preached. As I got up I saw a woman with a walker, but when I turned towards the door, I slowly turned back and walked over to her. I talked with her and prayed for her as she had suffered a stroke. I felt fire go into her as I prayed but she felt nothing. We talked some more and then I said goodbye. As I did, Pastor Bill asked people who needed healing to raise their hands and as I walked to leave, a young boy raised his hand. I asked him what he needed prayer for and he said his ears. He has hearing loss and pounding in his ears from an infection. Actually, I should say, he HAD hearing loss and pounding in his ears because Jesus healed him!
The thing that gets me is that I would have totally missed him, but because I have been crying out to God to give me more compassion for others I went over and prayed for that woman who had a stroke and listened to her talk for a while. It was just long enough to get me to be the first person to see the boy as he raised his hand. Had I not talked to the lady, I would have already been driving home. I am contending for a deafness free city and it is off to a good start. I am so thankful that the fruit of people being healed of deafness in England is hanging over and getting people healed in Redding too. That is one kind of jet lag that I will look forward to the rest of my life - the increased fruit that comes after returning home from ministering.
Coming back from England I was excited to see what God had in store for the next month and a half before I would go on my next ministry trip. Over the summer I had a very busy month of travel in July and then only went on one trip in August. However, I saw more healings in August than I had in perhaps the rest of my life up to that point. Amazing things happened as I prayed for people in the healing rooms, at church, and out in the community. So my anticipation for this time frame is sky high as I am expecting amazing things from God.
One thing that I have seen a ton of breakthrough in over this past season of trravel is deafness. Since going on a Firestorm to Michigan the couple days before school started September 11, through the end of the England trip, I have prayed for 20 people whose hearing has been restored. Before the England trip I set a goal of seeing one person healed of deafness every day. I didn't get it, just 10 instead of 19. So naturally, when I got back, I wanted it to keep increasing. It took less than 48 hours to see the first person healed. I walked into a group of young people before youth group when God gave me the word of knowledge. I asked them who had a problem with the left ear and they each said no, until one spoke up saying that he has hearing loss in that ear.
Then Friday night at church God gave me a word as I sat in the front row that He wanted to heal someone of deafness. I was praying for a man with heart failure and could tell that his hearing wasn't great. I shifted to put one hand on his back and when he started to walk away I told him that I wasn't done yet. I prayed more and this time he could feel the fire of God. I asked if he had problems with his hearing and he told me that he did, but he left his hearing aids at home that night. So I prayed and his ears opened up. Praise God!
Fast forward to this morning. Pastor Bill was amazing. Make sure to download the podcast. While others were praying for a fresh and continual baptism of fire for intimacy with the Lord, I was ready to leave, to come home and pray on my own. I was going to look for people with hearing aids on my way out because God gave me a word for it as Bill preached. As I got up I saw a woman with a walker, but when I turned towards the door, I slowly turned back and walked over to her. I talked with her and prayed for her as she had suffered a stroke. I felt fire go into her as I prayed but she felt nothing. We talked some more and then I said goodbye. As I did, Pastor Bill asked people who needed healing to raise their hands and as I walked to leave, a young boy raised his hand. I asked him what he needed prayer for and he said his ears. He has hearing loss and pounding in his ears from an infection. Actually, I should say, he HAD hearing loss and pounding in his ears because Jesus healed him!
The thing that gets me is that I would have totally missed him, but because I have been crying out to God to give me more compassion for others I went over and prayed for that woman who had a stroke and listened to her talk for a while. It was just long enough to get me to be the first person to see the boy as he raised his hand. Had I not talked to the lady, I would have already been driving home. I am contending for a deafness free city and it is off to a good start. I am so thankful that the fruit of people being healed of deafness in England is hanging over and getting people healed in Redding too. That is one kind of jet lag that I will look forward to the rest of my life - the increased fruit that comes after returning home from ministering.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Some things never get old
Well, I just got back from The Well, which was in the nearby town of Leamington, which was well worth the drive from Rugby. The meeting was in a massive cathedral and people came from all over to attend.
Banning lost his voice before he even began to preach. He was leading us in prayer for England and as soon as he started to talk after it, his voice was completely gone. I could barely hear him with the microphone, so he handed the mic off to me to take over - or just to share some of the healings that broke out when Chris Gore and myself went to Canada the weekend before I came to England.
After we shared testimonies Banning came up and just called out a couple words of knowledge and we scattered around the cathedral to pray for the 25 or so folks who stood. I prayed for a woman in the back who had a problem with her knee in which it clicked and was weak. She tested it out and no longer had any problems.
So then I began to slowly walk up and down the aisle a few times to see if God would show me anything. I picked up a few things and then went down the outside to be more out of the way. God gave me words of knowledge about healing a heart condition, problem with the brain, and then I moved more towards the front and stood next to a pillar. I felt a pretty strong word for the left ear, but rather than asking the crowd over Banning speaking, I just waited. Well, within 30 seconds a teenage boy came over to me and asked me to pray for his hearing. It turns out it was his left ear and so I explained what had just happened.
Now keep in mind that Banning is preaching at this point, but this kid just gets up out of his chair and asks me to pray for him! Nothing happened the first time I prayed. The second time he noticed a slight increase, and then after praying a third time he said that his bad ear was now better than his good year. Banning saw what was going on and so the kid and I got to share how God had just opened up his ear after he got up to ask me to pray just after God had given me a word of knowledge for the left ear. God is so good!
Just a few minutes after he sat down another man got out of his seat and asked for prayer. Poor Banning. First he loses his voice, then people are leaving their seats to receive prayer while he preaches! This man was the boy's father who had memory loss. Obviously it is hard to test how good your memory is right on the spot, but he felt the fire of God as I prayed.
Then a few minutes after that man sat down, another man came over to me for prayer. This man said that the people around him told him to come over and have me lay hands on him because he has an irregular heartbeat that comes every 2 weeks or so. This man also felt the fire of God as I prayed. Three words of knowledge and three men that came to me to receive their healing for the very things that God was doing. God is so good!
By this point Banning's voice was starting to sound much better. The more people I prayed for the better he got! He wrapped things up and we were told that we only had about 15 minutes to pray for the sick. He wanted us to be able to give words of knowledge so we squeezed that in really quick between myself, Chad, and Wes, and then we immediately started praying for them as soon as we gave our words.
The first guy I prayed for didn't get healed of deafness- yet. Argh. I wanted 100% tonight. The next lady did however. The ringing in her ears went and she regained the balance that she had been lacking for a while. Her friend was so happy that she came back over to me later on just to boast at the work God had done!
Next, a man that I had prayed for on Sunday that wasn't sure if he was healed came back to get the whole thing. He left with it!
Then came another man with a "shopping list" of things he needed healed. First I started by praying for his ear. His response to me asking if anything was different was, "I hear you much louder!" Then I prayed for a cyst on his throat. When I asked him to test it out he said that if I had told him that I couldn't see it anymore that he would believe me because he couldn't feel it anymore! Finally I prayed for his hand. It didn't hold out for long. I felt like it was done and all the joint pain left. Praise God!
Finally I prayed for a woman who had pain in her mouth. Most of it left but then I felt like she had pressure in her ears. She says that she was very congested and had sinus pressure. When I prayed for that her sinuses cleared up but then she got a sharp pain in the side of her head. I commanded that spirit to leave and it didn't want to at first. I kindly stepped on its head and took authority over it in Jesus name. All the pain left and the woman was shocked at how free she suddenly felt. Praise God!!!
What a great night! It was a breath of fresh air for me as this is one of my favorite things to do, possibly my favorite thing to do - heal the sick. Not that doing skits, or sketches, for kids is a bad thing, but healing the sick just doesn't get old to me. We did the same skit over and over in schools this week before today when we finally got to do the other skits. However, we still repeated one of them four times. In order to keep it fun we added some improvisation to them but even then it still gets kind of old. However, with the last man that I prayed for tonight, the fourth person who was healed of hearing problems, I was more excited when he was getting healed then I was with the others. There is just something that never gets old about seeing deaf ears open and people being set free. Seeing what the Father is doing and then doing it is so much fun! Hopefully there will be much more of this to come in the coming week!
Banning lost his voice before he even began to preach. He was leading us in prayer for England and as soon as he started to talk after it, his voice was completely gone. I could barely hear him with the microphone, so he handed the mic off to me to take over - or just to share some of the healings that broke out when Chris Gore and myself went to Canada the weekend before I came to England.
After we shared testimonies Banning came up and just called out a couple words of knowledge and we scattered around the cathedral to pray for the 25 or so folks who stood. I prayed for a woman in the back who had a problem with her knee in which it clicked and was weak. She tested it out and no longer had any problems.
So then I began to slowly walk up and down the aisle a few times to see if God would show me anything. I picked up a few things and then went down the outside to be more out of the way. God gave me words of knowledge about healing a heart condition, problem with the brain, and then I moved more towards the front and stood next to a pillar. I felt a pretty strong word for the left ear, but rather than asking the crowd over Banning speaking, I just waited. Well, within 30 seconds a teenage boy came over to me and asked me to pray for his hearing. It turns out it was his left ear and so I explained what had just happened.
Now keep in mind that Banning is preaching at this point, but this kid just gets up out of his chair and asks me to pray for him! Nothing happened the first time I prayed. The second time he noticed a slight increase, and then after praying a third time he said that his bad ear was now better than his good year. Banning saw what was going on and so the kid and I got to share how God had just opened up his ear after he got up to ask me to pray just after God had given me a word of knowledge for the left ear. God is so good!
Just a few minutes after he sat down another man got out of his seat and asked for prayer. Poor Banning. First he loses his voice, then people are leaving their seats to receive prayer while he preaches! This man was the boy's father who had memory loss. Obviously it is hard to test how good your memory is right on the spot, but he felt the fire of God as I prayed.
Then a few minutes after that man sat down, another man came over to me for prayer. This man said that the people around him told him to come over and have me lay hands on him because he has an irregular heartbeat that comes every 2 weeks or so. This man also felt the fire of God as I prayed. Three words of knowledge and three men that came to me to receive their healing for the very things that God was doing. God is so good!
By this point Banning's voice was starting to sound much better. The more people I prayed for the better he got! He wrapped things up and we were told that we only had about 15 minutes to pray for the sick. He wanted us to be able to give words of knowledge so we squeezed that in really quick between myself, Chad, and Wes, and then we immediately started praying for them as soon as we gave our words.
The first guy I prayed for didn't get healed of deafness- yet. Argh. I wanted 100% tonight. The next lady did however. The ringing in her ears went and she regained the balance that she had been lacking for a while. Her friend was so happy that she came back over to me later on just to boast at the work God had done!
Next, a man that I had prayed for on Sunday that wasn't sure if he was healed came back to get the whole thing. He left with it!
Then came another man with a "shopping list" of things he needed healed. First I started by praying for his ear. His response to me asking if anything was different was, "I hear you much louder!" Then I prayed for a cyst on his throat. When I asked him to test it out he said that if I had told him that I couldn't see it anymore that he would believe me because he couldn't feel it anymore! Finally I prayed for his hand. It didn't hold out for long. I felt like it was done and all the joint pain left. Praise God!
Finally I prayed for a woman who had pain in her mouth. Most of it left but then I felt like she had pressure in her ears. She says that she was very congested and had sinus pressure. When I prayed for that her sinuses cleared up but then she got a sharp pain in the side of her head. I commanded that spirit to leave and it didn't want to at first. I kindly stepped on its head and took authority over it in Jesus name. All the pain left and the woman was shocked at how free she suddenly felt. Praise God!!!
What a great night! It was a breath of fresh air for me as this is one of my favorite things to do, possibly my favorite thing to do - heal the sick. Not that doing skits, or sketches, for kids is a bad thing, but healing the sick just doesn't get old to me. We did the same skit over and over in schools this week before today when we finally got to do the other skits. However, we still repeated one of them four times. In order to keep it fun we added some improvisation to them but even then it still gets kind of old. However, with the last man that I prayed for tonight, the fourth person who was healed of hearing problems, I was more excited when he was getting healed then I was with the others. There is just something that never gets old about seeing deaf ears open and people being set free. Seeing what the Father is doing and then doing it is so much fun! Hopefully there will be much more of this to come in the coming week!
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