JOEL 2 GENERATION

As I am reading a biography about the greatest healing evangelist of the healing revival of the 1950’s, I am challenged to reject two popular positions that Christians hold today. The first, and by far the most common, is for us to think that the days of the Bible were unique and special and that we aren’t to expect the things we read about to happen today in our daily lives and ministries. The second position, which is common in some Charismatic circles is that we will see the Bible days revisited one day (at some point in the future) and even that the miracles in the Book of Acts will be exceeded before Christ returns. Both of these positions effectively leave us either romanticizing about the past, or dreaming about the future all the while leaving us expecting very little today. Then I read about the move of God in the 1940’s and 50’s. The miracles and their frequency was on the same level as what we read in the Gospels and Acts in many meetings. There were meetings i...

Last night we were at a meeting where the Lord showed up. The next morning, the sore throat I've been fighting all week was all but gone. I know it's not a resurrection from the dead, but we must remember to "acknowledge Him in all our ways." I'm grateful for what the Lord did for me, but I'm also grateful for what He did through me. About a month ago, we went to a meeting with some fellow believers from the sub-continent. At this meeting, I was able to pray for a girl whom the Lord had highlighted for prayer a few days prior. Among other things, she had a painful bone spur on the back of her right hand. I laid hands on it and prayed for the Lord to remove it. Nothing happened. . .then. At this meeting last night, she comes up to me and shows me her hand and there was no bone spur and no pain. You just never know when the healing comes; we have to be faithful to pray for it. After the meeting, we headed out to the streets. In a little restaurant, we r...

Back in 1946 an Angel visited a young Kentuckian and gave him one of the most remarkable calls to the ministry that I've ever heard of - every bit as remarkable as Ezekiel's or Isaiah's. Because the man's life ended poorly, many will discount the true calling on his life and the remarkable gifting that this man possessed. I was somewhat familiar with the story of him being visited by an Angel (it is often recounted in charismatic circles). What struck me however was one of the last things the Angel told the man - he said to tell people that "their thoughts are LOUDER than their words in heaven". Immediately conviction struck me. Hopefully we are learning to control our tongues - we don't say outwardly the things we think and feel. I am often convicted of the things that my wife and I discuss when we are talking to each other about other people. But 'my thoughts'? May we ponder this - our thoughts are louder than our words when it comes to he...