Himalayas Post #1 - Intentional

Written on September 2nd, 2010

We’ve safely arrived in the second country after spending about 14 hours driving here. The trip was exhaustingly long, but I was able to get a little sleep, listen to music, and finish a book then start a book. Nonetheless, by the time we rolled up to our hotel at 7:45 PM, we were ready for the day to be over. We walked into the lobby and were all taken back by how incredibly nice the hotel looked. We were all the more blown away when we got to our rooms. The girls had a laugh as I was the first to my room and was exclaiming out loud at how “legit” this place was and it was truly “off the chain” as I said. This place has free wireless internet, each room has a big Hi-Def TV, all the nice amenities that you would expect with furniture and the like. The tissue box is wrapped up like a Christmas gift for crying out loud. I can’t remember the last time I was in a nice hotel. After waking up at 3:30 in the morning and traveling all day, I was ready for a shower.

I was in the shower that had perfect temperature and water pressure and I was washing my hair with actual shampoo and conditioner for the first time in a week and a half and just enjoying the moment. I decided to release a worship song over the room and began singing. As I was in the shower I felt the Holy Spirit saying “don’t forget why you’re here.” The following thought that came to my mind was “I should sleep on the ground tonight.” I realized that the accommodations were not going to help, but rather detract, from my intercession. It was a quick thought in my mind when I first walked into the room that this could serve as a nice vacation from my work at TOA. “I’m a missionary in Africa, I can do it up here. I’ve earned it.” Such thoughts must go by the wayside when wanting to serve the Lord. Entitlement has been something that has strangled so much Christ-like life out of the American church. This life is so beautiful; the walk, the death, the resurrection, the ascension. We can follow Christ in all these things, but we get the life mixed up when we equate blessing with worldly prosperity. We must realize that the Lord’s ways are not that of the world’s, so true joy comes not from monetary affluence or comfort but rather from loving and obeying Jesus. There is nothing wrong with a comfortable bed, I in fact own one back in Moshi. But rather, if my highest calling is to love God and Jesus says the way you love Him is to obey Him (John 14:23) I must relinquish anything that would distract me from doing just that. So I gave up a comfortable bed so that I can focus on obeying Him in praying and interceding on behalf of this nation.

Sounds strange right? Have you read the actions of people in the Bible and realized the Bible heroes are indeed full of weirdos? I know that this is something I’ve mentioned before, but its worth mentioning again. Not merely as a defense of my seemingly useless action in sleeping on the floor, but rather so that we all remember that God does things that look quite strange to the natural eye. That’s why we aren’t to focus on the things that are seen, but rather those that are unseen (1 Corinthians 4:18).

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.”

India Post #3 - Honor

Written on August 24th, 2010

The last two days of ministry have been wonderful. The Lord has done so much and we see His hand on us and His presence going with us. We have been able to meet some amazing people, heroes of the faith that may never get their story told beyond what you read in this blog. Nonetheless, the Lord knows their name and is well pleased with them.

Yesterday, I had the distinct honor to minister with my team to local pastors and church leaders throughout the region. The pastors would come through one by one or two by two and would go through essentially four stations of ministry. First they would have communion administered by Pastor Claude. Then they would enter the main room and have their feet washed. Following that would be a time of laying on of hands and soaking in impartation. The final spot was for the delivery of prophetic words and Bible verses. It was a wonderful time and the presence of the Holy Spirit was thick.

I will talk about this time and the burden that I felt for the people at a different time, but I want to tell you about Pastor Claude and the honor I had to minister to him. He is an incredible man. There is a circuit of village churches throughout the area and it has been through him that over 100 churches have been planted. Over 100! That’s incredible. In a land where so much darkness has been allowed by the futility of the people’s minds, the true Heavenly reign is advancing and the Lord has given an apostolic anointing to this man to be used in incredible ways.

India Post #2 - Faith

Written on August 22nd, 2010

I’m learning to walk by faith in new ways. Two big things have happened in the last month and if it weren’t for the graciousness of Rita and Lydia to trust that I am following the Lord, I undoubtedly would look like a loose cannon within Hidden With Christ. No TOA missionary has ever left for two weeks to go on another missions trip and certainly no one else has gotten engaged to a short term missionary in a matter of weeks. While, all this is going on around me, I find myself forced to walk in it by faith that this is what God is doing and I do indeed see His hand on these things.

We met Sunday night as a team for worship, prayer and impartation. A means to build each other up for the task at hand. We would begin our formal ministry the next day through a morning prayer walk followed by prayer and prophetic ministry to local pastors and their wives. As we prayed, it came to Ryan that we are to pray for our eyes to be able to see those things that go on in the spiritual realm. It was already on my heart as well and my Bible was open to share on 2 Corinthians 4:18 which I shared in my post a few days ago. We need the eyes to be able to see into that spiritual realm and engage that which is eternal. It takes faith to do so.

Remember my previous post? What was that all about? I think about what I saw in the spiritual realm where I was fixing my eyes and I saw what the people in the plane were enslaved to. It took faith for me to believe that and to pray into that. It took faith for me to post about what I saw. Undoubtedly anyone could have read that post and figure I’ve gone off the deep end. Biblically, to be able to receive words of knowledge or words of prophecy are totally normal. And yet we often find ourselves too timid to embrace those gifts which the Holy Spirit gives to advance the Kingdom of Heaven. It is a false humility and a limitation on the vastness of God to say that prophecy couldn’t come from our lips and that a word of knowledge couldn’t come to our minds. We are so afraid of what others might think that we resort to not engaging those supernatural things that take a higher faith, thus settling for a more domicile version of the Gospel and relationship with Christ.

Intercession

The Lord has been teaching me a lot lately about intercession. This has largely come through the reading of a book simply titled Intercession. I’m a pretty regular reader, but this book has taken me embarrassingly long, mostly due to the fact that I’ve actually had a bit of a social life over the last couple months. Imagine that. No worries though, my social summer climaxed at getting engaged on Sunday and with Melissa taking off on Tuesday, I’m officially a loner again and that will only increase after I get back from India and most of the other missionaries go on furlough. Yay! I have time to read again…

Anyways, intercession. To be honest, I’ve gone a lot of my Christian life without that word even in my vocabulary. When I first heard of it, I figured it was synonymous with prayer or at best really intense prayer. This book has opened my eyes in so many ways and yet I realize I’m only at the start of this journey. Intercession is so much more than just prayer I’ve been finding. Prayer is a big part of it, but it also has to do with fasting, waiting on the Lord, praying in tongues, seeing with spiritual eyes, hearing from the Lord with specificity, and taking up a position for those whom you intercede on behalf of.

I feel as though I’m about to go through a spiritual baptism of intercession. I know that word baptism brings about different thoughts for people. There is a physical baptism that all believers should go through as an outward sign of the inward reality. There is also the baptism of the Spirit, yay controversy! Don’t worry I’m not going down that path, or at least not exactly. I believe that as we walk in the Spirit of God and in step with sanctification, we get new levels and more outpourings of the Spirit. The way that He does this is much like the physical baptism that we all go through. I am anticipating a spiritual baptism of intercession on new levels very soon.