India Post #5 - Power

We serve a powerful God and He makes His ways known throughout His creation. Praise the Lord.

I find that I’m in a place of seeing God’s power and being satisfied and at the same time wanting more. The last few days of ministry have gone well and I truly do see Him working. He moves in supernatural ways and His desire is for us. His desire is to bless us by giving us more of Him, our only true need.

Prophecy is such a powerful tool that He has given us and something that is becoming a bigger and bigger work in my ministry. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 14: 1; 3 “Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy… He who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men.” I’ve seen the power of this many times before and the ministry recently has given more examples that exactly fulfill this scripture. I know for all my non-charismatic brothers and sisters this may seem a little out there, but I testify to you that it is powerful and this scripture backs me up. The prophecy given does not carry the weight of scripture and like prayer, disciplines and everything else in the Christian walk, it is something that we can practice. A person that loves the Lord and desires to do His will in encouraging others will say something that is truly of the Lord, at the same time it is possible to slip slightly and say something that isn’t exactly what God would say. That doesn’t make the believer a false prophet. A false prophet seeks to devour, deceive and destroy. He stands against the Lord and uses counterfeit, even demonic, power to persuade people away from the true God. Whereas, the believer prophesying will allow the Holy Spirit to confirm the words within the heart and mind of the person that is receiving the word. As Ryan put it they can “chew up the meat and spit out the bone.”

I talked about the time that we had with the youth in a recent rundown and I could see the Holy Spirit really hitting people with the words that were delivered. My favorite thing is how in group prophetic ministry, the words and pictures people get will confirm one another as they are delivered. There was a guy that we were ministering to in the youth and Ryan was speaking and the Lord gave me a word that He was going to set apart this guy as a father, in the anointing of Abraham. I was anxiously waiting for Ryan to finish up speaking so I could jump in with my word and before he finished, he told the guy “I also see the Lord using you to be a father.” I exclaimed out loud and everyone looked at me, “dude, you stole my word.” It was funny and I was able to elaborate on what the Lord was speaking to me and impart the father’s mantle to him. It was sweet when we finished and asked if the people were encouraged and everyone raised their hands, even those that we weren’t able to get to. It was the first time they had had this kind of ministry and you could tell it had a good impact that exhorted and edified them. Funny side note… Sometimes in ministry overseas the English of the people doesn’t click all the way. Lauren was asking the youth pastor Oujay afterwards what they thought about it. She asked “Did they think it was good?” “Yes.” “Did they think it was weird?” “Yes.” So either the good thing weirded them out a little or Oujay doesn’t know the English word “weird.” At any rate, it was one of those days when I’m finished, I can just say “Lord, I delight to be used by you.” Its quite humbling and so joyous.

We were able to do the same prophetic ministry to some Bible college students yesterday. Only six of us were able to go with others ailing from sickness. Because of our small group and the fact that there was only ten of them, we were able to prophesy over each person. Each person has a different way of communicating with the Lord to deliver the words. Receiving pictures with or without interpretation is one, receiving a word, a scripture or a combination of these often happen. At the Bible college, I was able to share a word with almost each student and the Lord was giving me people from the Bible and words to go with that person. There was an Aaron, a Joshua, a Barnabas, a Mary and so forth. It is such a cool feeling when you get the word and just start speaking it. I don’t think too much, rather I feel the Holy Spirit take over. I want to live my life in such a possession by the Holy Spirit and I love those moments when I know He’s using me.

As I shared in the last rundown, I was taking the opportunity to preach at the second church we were ministering at on Sunday. When I’m going to preach, I seek the Lord so that I can prepare prophetically. Yes, that’s right, you can prepare prophetically. I find it a fallacy to think that prophetic is always linked to spontaneous. It can be either. Anyways, the Lord gave me the word “harvest.” I then prepared a sermon preaching out of John 4 and Luke 10. It wasn’t to only be a message of encouragement, but also a prophetic declaration that the Lord was ready to do something in the harvest of souls in Darjeeling. I compiled my notes and was prepared by Saturday to deliver the message. Well, I woke up at 2:30 AM with terrible stomach pains again. Something is getting to me here physically. I felt weak and was up and down between the toilet with it coming out of both ends. This continued until everyone else got up. When Ryan got up at 7:30, I told him I didn’t know if I’d be able to go preach. He told me that he would tell the others to be prepared in case there needed to be a change of plans. After so much had come out, I still was kneeling in pain on the floor in my room. How could I really be able to go in a hour and a half, when I spent the last five hours in pain? I committed it to the Lord and told Him that if He wanted me to go then, He’d have to hurry up and heal me or tell me that I was supposed to stay home and pray. After a little time went by, I started to get ready. I didn’t know if I was going or not, but didn’t want to not be ready if God allowed me to go. I can’t think of a time when God got my body so healed in such a short amount of time. I know it was only a stomach bug, but by the time that we were to leave, I was slightly weak, but totally okay to go and I didn’t have any more problems for the day. The weakness was actually good and allowed Christ to be stronger in me. The time with the church was great and I loved sharing the word with them. God is good.

In preaching and prophesying I see God moving. I also see with eyes of faith that God is moving through my prayers and tongues. As Paul writes this is a lesser gift than prophecy but still exhorts the believers in Corinth with “For he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God, for no one understands him; however, in the spirit he speaks mysteries… I wish you all spoke with tongues” (1 Corinthians 14:2; 5). This is a powerful weapon in one’s prayer life. I’m not going to get into the baptism of the Spirit and all that, but I testify to you that the faithful prayer in tongues moves things in the spirit realm. This morning, I’m at home as the rest of the team is out and about visiting a boarding school in Darjeeling. I had some stomach issues (again) this morning and I didn’t fight trying to get out and minister when the Lord was giving me an opportunity to do three needed things in house: rest, intercede and testify through writing. I was able to sleep and then got up and ate a little. Then, right before I started writing this, I spent time in prayer and intercession. For all the time that we’ve spent ministering here, praying over people and ministering, my prayer time in the quiet place has been shortened. So I was able to get to my knees and pray in English and in tongues. I don’t want to just preach or just prophesy, I want to seal those things up by committing them to the Lord in prayer. Everywhere we go, the pastors and people are asking us to pray for them and their congregations. I say yes and I want to be faithful to do just that. God moves through our prayers. We must realize this. It is powerful and spending quality time in prayer is imperative for the Christian walk and the Christian impact on the nations. My sermon talked about sowing and reaping in the harvest. Especially while I’m here, I want to throw some seed myself and I do that on my knees.

I see God moving here. I want more though. I’ve been reading through Acts as I’ve been here and I see some parallels between my ministry and that of Paul, Peter and the rest. But I see God doing bigger things through them. I don’t want to pretend I’m on the level of the church fathers, but I also don’t want to sell myself short of anything the Holy Spirit desires to do. There is still so much in my life that God is going to do. I don’t have enough boldness, I don’t heal people. I want to focus on God’s love for people, but I know that that manifests in more powerful ways than I’m currently experiencing. I thank God that this trip isn’t over yet, because I realize that there is still more that I need to get out of it. We could all use more of His Spirit, more of His love and more of His power. 

The Lord is the most high and one true God. His fame is shown in all His creation and the works of His hand are majestic. He is worthy of our lives to be surrendered into His powerful and loving will. His desire is for us and His desire is for His love and power to be shown in our lives, for this we give praise.

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The Rundown: Well, I shared a lot about what we’ve done over the last few days above so not too much for the rundown. This morning, when I wasn’t feeling so good, we got up at 3:45 AM (I was already up… thank you stomach) and drove forty minutes to Tiger’s Hill which is a place where you can see a majestic sunrise and be among the first people to see the sunrise for the day in the whole world. Unfortunately though, it was way too foggy and then it started raining, so we didn’t see anything. Bummer. Last night we had a great time talking with Sulai and hearing some of his testimony. I’m going to miss him more than any of the other people here. He’s been a great host and we all love him and his personality so much. Other than, you can pray for our health. My stomach is acting up today, but its not as bad as it was the previous two times. Vicky was sick and throwing up, Katie got glued to the can for a day and a half, Rylee had this rash on her cheeks and Lauren had a killer headache yesterday. Please keep this in your prayers. It seems as soon as we’re better, someone else gets sick. We are leaving tomorrow morning to go to the other country. I don’t know if I’ll have internet access at all. I’ll keep writing, but may just upload them in bulk after we leave the country. We have one week left. Please be praying for us. Please be praying for TOA as well. I miss the kids and know that there is still so much “missionary” work ahead of me there as my schedule is changed around upon my return. Blessings!