JOEL 2 GENERATION

as I was walking back to our hotel, I noticed a couple of muslim men walking towards me (from Pakistan), and one of them had a wrist brace on.  I stopped them and asked what happened.  I asked him if he would like to see the pain disappear.  He was intrigued by the question.  At first I said I would lightly put my hand on his wrist and ask God to heal him.  He was hesitant thinking I might somehow grab it and hurt it.  So I backtracked a bit and told him that he could put his own hand on his wrist and I wouldn't touch him.  (Don't know what I was thinking - I normally don't ask to put my hand on someone in public anymore).  He did, I prayed a quick prayer breaking off the shock and trauma from the injury and releasing God's Kingdom in Jesus' Name. The moment of truth came.  I asked him to check it out.  He started to move his fingers.  He looks at his friend saying nothing (always a good thing).  Next he takes off the wrist ...

while walking through an area of restaurants in Dubai, while we passed a table with 2 Emirati muslim women, I got a word of knowledge for a neck problem on the left side.  I told my wife about it and she approached the woman as I walked on. when I do this I am always thrilled when Desert Princess gets "delayed".  if my wife rejoins me quickly, that usually means nothing happens (the word is wrong, they aren't interested, ect.).  sure enough she is delayed and doesn't rejoin us for about 5 minutes. the woman had the condition and was again most surprised that God would "reveal" something so specific.  she was healed after Desert Princess prayed but kept asking "How did your husband know?" In that brief interaction, my wife was able to share with these muslim women about the Kingdom and the power that Jesus has given His followers to know things and to heal the sick in His Name. They didn't ask for my wife's number so she just left it...

my wife and I have been working with a group of teenagers at Church for a couple of months.  much of what we have emphasized has been fundamental stuff - Lordship, Love and the Kingdom of God.  we've been teaching them what the Kingdom looks like - when there are sick, it looks like healing.  when there are the demonized, it looks like them getting set free.  it looks like God speaking prophetically.  it looks like those who are rejected, being loved. we've done some praying for the sick and also we've shared a number of testimonies throughout the weeks of people being healed.  today was a golden opportunity to "swing the bat" as one of our youth limped in and could barely walk.  a bad collision in his basketball game had left his knee swollen, painful and unable to be bent. one of the youth join me and we began to pray.  after the first prayer, he said it felt "cold" (not the thing that happens when people are laying hands on you in a warm r...

this morning I'm thinking of how GLORIOUS it is that God has made our assignment so incredibly simple.  the Jews had counted up 613 commandments from the OT.  How absolutely confusing!  (of course, Paul tells us later what the purpose of all those laws was, "tutors to lead us to Christ").  Jesus comes along and boils 613 down to 2 - nice Kingdom math!  "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength AND Love your neighbor as yourself".  Paul thinks about it and decides some years later - "still too complicated"!  He boils it down to 1 single commandment in Galatians 5 - LOVE OTHERS.  That's it.  Just go and LOVE and as we love others with the Love of God, we are in fact LOVING GOD with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.  I used to hate math, but I love this Kingdom math.  1 simple equation - Go and Love and in doing that we are fulfilling EVERYTHING God requires.

this is definitely a theme of this blog, but there is no doubt that "unbelief" is my biggest, single problem as I seek to live this Kingdom life of the miraculous. even as many of us will wage war on other things in our lives in this season, be that war on consumerism as Christmas approaches, or the war on our waistlines and fitness levels as we are confronted with our massive amounts of our favorite foods along with weather that makes us prefer our couches, let us recommit ourselves to warring against our unbelief - our unbelief that circumstances won't change, that sicknesses aren't going to be overcome or even that our unbelieving family members will ever open their eyes to see the truth of who Jesus really is. this is the season TO BELIEVE - to dare to think that God will invade our lives and relationships even as He invaded the Palestinian countryside so long ago.

a few months ago my wife led a hindu woman to the Lord.  over the past few weeks her husband has attended several "Encounter God" meetings.  The first one he was more of an "observer", but in the last two meetings God has met him in remarkable ways.  this past week he was taken into a visionary experience where he saw Jesus.  He knew after it that he has a "choice" to make.  The other option in the dream was a demonic presence.  He is now actively seeking.  We are watching in amazement as God does things that we have personally never encountered (i.e. the quality/type of visions).   I feel so "cheated" that I had no idea that God would pour out His Spirit on unbelievers in such remarkable (and truly Biblical!) ways.  Seeing them come to faith is so much easier when God Himself is pointing them to Himself and confirming the Word they are hearing.

while out with my son, I walked by a muslim man and got a strong word of knowledge for the left elbow.  it was one of those words that was unmistakable!  I walked 10 feet past the man and stopped telling my son to hold on a minute. i approached the man who was clearly a fundamentalist muslim (long beard, short mustache, bruised forehead).  i asked him if he had a problem with his left elbow which he did.  I proceeded to tell him that God showed us he had this condition and wanted to heal him.  I held his elbow and prayed a quick prayer for healing in Jesus' Name and the release of God's Kingdom. he began to test it out and it was pain-free.  he seemed a bit taken back and wanted to get my phone number.  I haven't heard back yet, but I am sure I'll hear from Muhammad soon.

Isaac of Ninevah and I were visiting a muslim couple the other night.  the man had been touched by the Lord last year on the streets when we prayed for him and he stayed in touch.  as soon as his wife entered the room, a word of knowledge came for a problem in her left foot.  she had broken it and it hadn't been properly treated.  we prayed and all the pain left.  she checked it thoroughly. Isaac started to prophesy over the couple and saw some significant things - broken relationships with family and WHEN they occurred (accurate).  another relative's NAME and that she was depressed (accurate). all in all we were able to share so much of God's heart - when He is healing and revealing, the sharing part is sooooooooo easy! another appointment will soon be set up for our wives to go and minister more deeply to this woman. the Kingdom is coming!

this past weekend we had a series of renewal meetings with a team from N. America - during the 6 meetings we saw many people healed (young and old), we had many who had powerful encounters with God and even saw a number set free from demonic bondage. I love it when we can't even count/remember all the people who were touched/healed - so many were being used (our large ministry team and others) to released the Kingdom. unbelievers were also present and saw God's power and glory for the first time.  

a group of us were having dinner.  I asked one of our servers how his health was, if he had any pain.  he said his shoulder had been injured and wasn't right.  I didn't lay hands on him; I didn't touch him at all.  I had him lay his hand on his shoulder and then quickly released the Kingdom in Jesus' Name.  he started to test it out and said it felt better.  as we were leaving, I went to find him and he testified that it was fine - no more pain. moral of this story - ASK people how their health is and then PRAY for them.  something will happen.

it doesn't happen very often, but over the past 10 years the Lord has given me the names of 6-8 people.  He then had a significant word or healing for the person involved. last night while we were waiting on the Lord some prophetic words for a youth meeting, God highlighted a young lady and began to give me some things for her.  after some time as I asked the Lord for more information, the name "Diana" came to me.  I dismissed it because early in the evening a group of us had been ministering to a woman named Diana in another nation over Skype - so I didn't think it meant anything for her. to my surprise when I sat down next to her and asked her her name, she said, "Diana".  I explained to her that the Lord had given me her name and began to give her a prophetic word.  she began to cry.  probably not because of the word, but because the Lord had called her out by name.  It is an amazing thing when He does that. More Lord!

on our recent trip to Sri Lanka, we saw a number of miraculous healings and had some opportunities (or at least my wife did) to deliver some from demonic bondage. I don't remember to be honest all the people we prayed for because in the course of about 4 days we prayed for probably 50 different people from Buddhist, Christian and even Muslim backgrounds.  Mostly Buddhists though. I just wanted to highlight a few of the healings we saw. I approached a man in a cast and prayed for him one afternoon and all the pain left.  a bit of the pain returned (stiffness too) and he called me the following day to meet again.  we prayed again and all the pain in hand and wrist (which were broken) left again.  he was quite taken back.  a Buddhist man and his wife. another man had pain in his side and leg - we prayed and he could walk normally again without pain. while on a trip to the south, I prayed for a young Buddhist man whose arms had been affected by an acciden...

the message of death to self has been central to historic Christianity.  all Christian traditions have emphasized this teaching.  Jesus dropped the first bomb on self, "If anyone would come after me, he must DENY HIMSELF, pick up his cross daily and follow me" (Luke 9:23) and later "I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2:20) being perhaps the most concise verse expressing this teaching by the Apostle Paul. I think that for the most part this teaching has fallen on hard times - being neglected, seldom taught and only rarely modeled. our culture promotes self at every level - and much of the Church is following the culture.  let's face it a strong emphasis on laying down our lives, denying ourselves, forgetting about our own "rights" and getting our focus off of our all important "feelings" isn't going to fill seats in the churches.  "self" is catered to all over the ...

after leaving the donut shop we walked past a couple of Muslim guys and a Filipino woman and overheard them say to her, "you need to take medication for your back".  we stopped and inquired.  Isaac of Ninevah prayed for her - both her back and her stomach were hurting.  God began to touch her - we prayed again for her and then Isaac gave her his wife's number to follow up.  I don't know if she was completely healed because she needed to check it out over a period of day. then while praying for her, I got a word of knowledge for one of the Arab muslim guys' left shoulder.  he was from Lebanon.  he let me pray for him.  it wasn't hurting at the time, but only when he worked out.  he said he would test it out later that day.  I told him it wouldn't be a problem anymore because what "God reveals, God heals". finally we followed a Sudanese muslim guy into a shop as I thought I had a word of knowledge for a problem in his bicep.  he di...

yesterday Isaac of Ninevah and I decided to head out and see what the Holy Spirit would do.  We probably were out about an hour just wandering in and out of different shops.  while in a donut shop, I got a word about a left hand/wrist issue.  neither of the employees working there had that problem and thought it strange I was asking.  when leaving, a Gulf Arab muslim man walks in with a wrist brace on his left wrist!  I returned to the counter and while he was ordering asked the woman if she remembered what I had just asked her about smiling and pointed to the new customer's wrist.  I asked him about the wrist and explained that God had shown us that somebody had a problem with their wrist.  He let me pray for him and took off the brace to test it out.  I don't know how much improvement he got but at the end he said, "In our culture when somebody has blessed us we honor them by kissing them" and proceeded to kiss me on the forehead.  I gave ...

after spending time talking with a Coptic friend about some of the things God has been doing amongst muslims in and through his Church, Isaac of Ninevah and I were heading back to the car.  we'd had a great time "talking" about what God was doing, but we hadn't been "doing" anything.  As I walked past a group of Filipinos who had just gotten off of work, I "tuned in" and asked the Lord to highlight something He wanted to do.  A word of knowledge came for a back problem in a the center, upper back.  I stopped and turn to the group of 5 or 6 and asked who had this problem.  The man in the middle replies, "I do, are you a pastor"?  At least Filipinos recognize the Kingdom's presence!  I sat down next to him, we prayed quickly and he was healed.  He was a believer and we were all encouraged. Interestingly, before this yet again we heard about a muslim friend of this Coptic man coming to faith after Jesus visited him.  There was a proce...

Watch out John Piper, Mark Driscoll and your Reformed friends, your “thorn in the flesh” just got a whole lot sharper! Roger Olson has done it again! After reading Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities , I didn’t think his work could get any better, but then Olson releases Against Calvinism.   After the first book, I was convinced that Roger Olson was in fact a Godsend to a Protestant Evangelical world that is crawling with militant Calvinists who have convinced others that doctrines like "grace" and "sovereignty" and even the term Evangelical itself somehow belong to them.  This first-rate theologian took aim at such notions showing that historic Arminianism is equally as grace-focused and God-centered as Calvinism. Whereas Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities exposes how completely dishonest Calvinist writers have been in characterizing Arminianism, which amounts to bearing false witness and requires their repentance, Against Calvinism truly seems to s...

my wife, Desert Princess, met again with a former Hindu woman who came to Christ after being healed.  the types of encounters this woman is having are on par with anything you've read in the Scriptures or heard about. just yesterday morning while in our living room, during a time of prayer and waiting on the Lord she went into a vision/trance? (sometimes we just don't know) and was taken to heaven.  she went on to describe things that she has never read about before like the "sea of glass" mentioned in Revelation.  The first time we saw this was several years ago with a Moroccan Muslim man who would go into these types of visionary experiences and then I'd open up a Bible passage and he'd say, "yes, that exactly what I saw". this woman also has had multiple visitations by either Jesus Himself or an angel (she wasn't sure) before she came to Christ.  she only realized this when she in frustration asked the Lord why He hadn't come to her e...

listened to an interesting podcast this morning entitled "The Christian Humanist" which was three guys talking about the phenomena of the neo-calvinist and the emergent church movements in North America. I don't personally "have a dog in this fight" although I have many friends who would be fit into one of these two camps (some even unknowingly), although I am probably more critical of the neo-calvinists because they hold a vision of God that was not only NOT shared by pre-Augustine Christianity, but was actually held by the Gnostics!  I have never met a Reformed person who is familiar enough with pre-Nicene Christianity to realize how ridiculous some of their claims to upholding "historic, Biblical" Christianity! as for the emergents, these guys were able to articulate some of my concerns/observations in ways that were helpful.  Forever asking questions, and discussing possible answers, but never seemingly able to come up with any definitive answ...

last night I had a dream in which the Lord clearly was encouraging me to be more explicit in my invitations to people I meet to surrender their lives to the Lord AT THAT TIME.  I guess He will be bringing people to me who are more prepared and ready to make that commitment.  I'm excited to see what this week will bring.  I also guess that since it is the "old men [who] will dream dreams" (Joel 2/Acts 2) that I am getting to be more in that category now than in "young men will see visions" one. we have been seeing that as soon as people are ready to be free from the demonic forces that are tormenting them (and believe me, many are being tormented even in the West regardless of the whether the Christians who are ministering to them believe that is the case!) they are ready to invite the Lord to come into and take control of their lives. it is a new day - I really believe the Lord's dream to me last night was a reminder to cast the net and bring it in at t...

could God's Word be CLEARER and yet God's people in general be more UNCLEAR than the commission to heal the sick as Christians (meaning "Little Christs/Anointed Ones). Jesus sends the UNNAMED 70 in Luke chapter 10 with the commission to bring the Kingdom: Where? in WHATEVER city you enter. To do what?  To heal THE SICK who are there.  How many of the sick?  THE SICK.  In what cities, WHATEVER cities.  And what if the people don't have faith?  Jesus didn't mention that as being a barrier - so nor should we.  Our faith/expectation might be a barrier, but we aren't ever to put that on the people we are praying for. Is this being preached/emphasized in your Church?  Is this the way your pastor is admonishing you to live every day. I'm not trying to be negative - it's not entirely his/her fault.  He didn't go to a Church that taught or expected that Jesus meant what He said on this occasion for us today.  It hasn't been his pe...

yesterday we did some "spilling" here in the Middle East.  prayed for an African muslim man who had tooth pain.  He said all the pain left and wanted to get together with us again.  in the evening, I got a word of knowledge walking by an optician shop.  I walk in and there is a Filipino optometrist, an Iranian shi'ite woman and an Egyptian (presumably muslim) working there.  I ask who had the pain in the wrist and hand.  It was the Iranian woman.  So my ministry team became the Catholic Filipino woman.  She took the wrist of the woman, and I prayed for healing in Arabic.  She starts feeling tingling in the wrist.  By the time we were done (we prayed twice), she said she was healed.  I told her my wife was an exorcist and healing that if she needed any further ministry, she could contact her.  then the Egyptian guy asks to talk to me privately.  We step outside and he ends up being a Coptic Orthodox Christian.  He ask...

starting this morning at Church where the Lord highlighted a number of things prophetically and then we got to pray for people who responded to the words.  while leaving Church, the Lord gives me a word of knowledge (right shoulder) for a man walking in front of me.  when I asked him about it, he said his wife had encouraged him to go for prayer during the service, but he declined.  God got him on the way out - and his shoulder was healed! tonight's meeting in my home got even better.  the Lord healed several different conditions (a right ankle, a right knee), and spoke prophetically to all the first time visitors.  their testimonies were quite similar - basically they said, "everything that was prophesied was accurate" and also that the very things that they were thinking about or that was on their hearts was revealed. the accuracy of some of the words could only have been the Lord - while looking at a person, the Lord highlighted several times a condition...

an Indian woman from a high caste Hindu background came to Christ last spring after we prayed for her to be healed. immediately she began to have "encounters" - dreams, visions, OPEN visions, audible voice, etc. we'll it hasn't stopped and this past Friday there was a new one. she hasn't been to our "Encountering God" meetings that we hold on Fridays but this last week her husband agreed and she was all set to come. the enemy countered and her husband went to sleep at 4:30pm and couldn't be woken up. like a spirit of slumber came on him. she was so discouraged and went into her bedroom to read the Scriptures and pray. she was taken into a vision and was somehow "at our meeting". I was totally dumbfounded as my wife and I listened to her describe our meeting exactly! she knew where people were sitting, she was confused when she saw certain people laughing. Actually the laughter broke out in a strong way this past week and she doubt...

Jesus sends out the "nameless and faceless" Seventy in Luke 10 and there is just so much relevant "glory" on this passage for us to consider today and to live by.  As I've argued in other places, the excuse that some theologians and Bible commentators have given that the commandments given to the Apostles don't apply to ordinary believers (then or today) has been handled by Luke in this passage. I don't want to be too critical, but the reality is that Matthew 28 actually destroys the "those commandments were only for the Apostles" argument because Jesus Himself commands the 12 Apostles to teach others (which includes us today) to obey ALL of what he commanded them!  Not SOME of what He commanded, but ALL - which would include chapter 10:8 - "heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons and raise the dead". However, the Luke 10 passage comes in as a strong counter-punch.  Surely the Holy Spirit anticipated that believers in ...

as a group of us scattered all over the world during the summer and are regathering back into the Middle East, I am beginning to hear stories/testimonies that are blowing my mind.  it seems that this outrageous Kingdom just can't be contained. stories out of London where God's glory would manifest with gold on people through one of our Lebanese sisters EVERY TIME she prayed for someone.  I often don't understand why God does what He does and the gold dust phenomenon often seems to offend Christians (who seem to have God all figured out/what He will do and will not do) but if the Lord sovereignly chooses to cover people supernaturally in gold dust when a believer prays for people in Jesus' Name is free to do so as far as I am concerned.  if this offends someone you know, ask if you can pray for them and see what the Father will do!! stories out of South Africa were equally as remarkable - healings, people coming back to Christ repenting as they listened to the testi...

last night Desert Princess and I were out to dinner and as has become our habit she asked our server if she had pain in her arm (she had gotten a word of knowledge).  sure enough there was an arm issue and my wife asked if she could ask Jesus to heal her.  she agreed.  what happened next was yet again OUT OF CONTROL.  just a quick prayer and this Indian woman declares "I go to see Jesus now!".  she had some kind of powerful encounter right then and there.  the language barrier was an issue but clearly this woman couldn't put into words what the Lord had just done for her. Desert Princess encouraged her to go to Church. I just trust this short testimony will help you realize that you are "armed and dangerous" and can offer and release the Kingdom of God wherever you are!

sometimes we need to be reminded of some simple truths.  One of those truths is that "cancer" is not (has never been nor ever will be) a part of God's Kingdom.  It is NEVER His "plan".  He isn't "allowing it" for some purpose. cancer is a demonic destroyer - and Jesus came to confront it, to heal it and to one day totally destroy it.  it tortures people whom God loves and creates fear in the hearts of God's people. Perfect Love (another great Name for God) CASTS out fear! may Christ's Church rise up in its Kingdom authority to see this despicable plague confronted and healed. Jesus NEVER faced a cancer patient He couldn't and didn't heal.  May we BE LIKE HIM.

how long could someone have walked around with Jesus and NOT seen a miracle? a day? less? more? I guess in times/seasons when He would commune alone with the Father away from people the healings wouldn't be happening. the question today is: how long can someone hang around US (YOU and ME) and not see a miracle? tragically, many if not most Christians don't really seem to expect that we can look like and live like Jesus today. we might say we "believe" we are supposed to, but in reality, what does our life look like? are signs and wonders FOLLOWING us as the Scripture declares should ("those who believe"). maybe we don't REALLY believe the Book we consider to be the inerrant Word of God. I know that I struggle daily to really believe what I say I believe, what Christians say they believe. The EVIDENCE of real belief are the miracles characterizing our lives. As one man asked us this summer, "Is the evidence of faith speaking to the mount...

a group of about 15 of us decided to just love people in Jesus' Name for about 2 hours yesterday afternoon. I had some teenagers who had "never seen" God use them to perform a miracle - that all changed! we saw a girl's sprained ankle healed, a lower back healed, a woman's foot healed a several other healings. Many others got prayer for other needs. Jesus' Name was lifted up as everything was done in His precious Name! The coolest thing for me was to hear one of the junior high girls who said she wanted to see "one miracle" that she was involved in. Guess what? she saw 4 of them!

yesterday we saw a number of physical healings - a head, a couple of backs, vertigo/balance, legs and arms that weren't the same length come into Kingdom alignment and some other things too. We had so much fun that about 15 of the youth decided to join me for a "power spilling" afternoon at the mall. youth hungry to see God move miraculously. what happened is for the next post.

at the end of our evening, we were walking by some more shops and one really caught the attention of one of our group. she felt led to really pray for this rather "dark" shop with lots of occult stuff inside (it was closed). she sensed some demonic presence. as we prayed for the shop, we asked God to release His light into the darkness. as we closed, our friend discerned that an angel had come. why do I share this? wait till you hear what happens next. we turn the corner and there are two women and man loading up a car. I got a word of knowledge for a right wrist condition. I approached them and asked and one of the woman had the problem. i asked if her friend could put her hand on her as I prayed, but she wouldn't let anybody touch her! she was adamant. I asked if she would lay hands on herself - she agreed. we prayed and something began to happen in her wrist. then she left with her husband but the other woman remained. who was this woman? she was the...

at night we headed out again to see what the Lord would do as we reached out with His Kingdom. we went to an arcade to drop our kids off before we launched out thinking we we going to visit some bars to pray for people. while at the arcade the Lord gives me a word for a young woman who happens to have been in the youth group my friends had led. it was for a problem in the head and I felt that there was dizziness involved. she had this problem and actually a number of other health issues that we got to pray for. It was just a powerful divine appointment to minister Christ to this young woman and reconnect her with our friends. a few of us then headed out and as we approached a bar, I got a word of knowledge for a problem in the lower right arm (below the elbow). there was a man and woman standing outside the bar and I approached them and asked. the man actually had the condition. he asked me "are you a healer?". I told him I was. He then say asked, "and you s...

in the second leg of our outreach, we decided to go to a marina where there was wake boarding - why not mix miracle and fun sports activities?? as we were signing our kids up, I asked if anybody had an pain and that we would "take it away for free". The man who signed us up had back pain. He let me pray for him in Jesus' Name and after praying two times his pain was gone! another guy working there also had back pain and let me pray for him too - he too was healed! my friend was also able to really share Christ with a third guy who worked there and explained what we were doing as we prayed for the sick and saw Jesus heal them.

yesterday we headed up to join some of our friends to "spill" up in a mountain city. we headed out in two groups to simply love the people we would meet and see what God would do. as we started out I was drawn into a tattoo shop (light just loves to shine into darkness!). I started talking with the owner(?) about Celtic crosses and told him how Egyptian Christians would often tattoo the cross on their children's wrists so that the muslims couldn't take their children and claim their were theirs! I thought I got of knowledge (for neck/shoulder) for the man but he took a phone call and I couldn't ask him. I asked another guy who was actually a former employee of our friends who were with us and he didn't have a neck problem but did have a back of the knee problem. I told him I was a pastor and we talked a little about the Kingdom and I said, "watch this". I asked him to put his own hand on the back of his knee and prayed a quick prayer in Je...

last night I was horrified to discover that a friend of mine had shown this blog to some of her Christian friends and they dismissed it and were very critical of what we are writing because somehow they thought I wasn't talking enough about Jesus!!! Now, first of all I want to publicly be as clear as I can be - none of the miracles that we have seen and documented here have happened EXCEPT by Jesus, through Jesus and for Jesus. I pray ALWAYS in the Name of Jesus. I talk with those who are healed about Jesus. I clearly identify myself as a Follower of Jesus Christ. Secondly, I will be more clear in all future blog posts as to what I have mentioned verbally to the people we minister to about Jesus. Sometimes I throw up a quick testimony and give a "summary" of what happened. I guess I "assumed" that the people reading would know that I have clearly pointed to Jesus EACH AND EVERY TIME we release the Kingdom of God. It is true that I am content often t...

I gave a wrong word of knowledge to our waiter last night in the restaurant (I asked about his foot). I then "broadened" it a bit and asked if he had any pain in his body (Rev. 21:4 says there is "no pain" in God's Kingdom - so we are to establish "pain-free zones" in people's bodies!). He had a tooth that was killing him. He said it especially hurt when he ate/drank cold things. So I had him put his hand on his mouth where the pain was. We quickly released the Kingdom and commanded the pain to leave. Then we gave him a task - to go eat/drink something cold and come back to tell us what happened. After about 10 minutes, he comes back looking really puzzled (which we knew was GOOD). I asked what happened. He said he drank something cold and there wasn't a problem, but he didn't believe it could be possible so he had to then go and eat something cold to really test it out. No more pain! He was seriously touched - it was awesome t...

I heard a group of Iranians speaking Persian and introduced myself as "a healer". I asked if anybody needed healing. 2 of the women did so I ran to get my wife - she came and prayed for them. One of them felt about 50% better. Then the oldest man, named "Mahdi", asked for me to "do healing" on his neck and back. I started with his lower back. I prayed in Arabic (which he understood) - his back was healed after praying once. Then I prayed for his neck - it was healed immediately. He walked away thanking me in his broken English. I love Iranian muslims - they have to be the most open muslims we've ever encountered.

so I pull up to check out a waterfall (in Big Sur) and there's a group in their 20's and one guy is holding is arm. i asked him what happened and he said he'd just fallen on the trail - like a sprained wrist. I ask him to let me see it, grabbed his wrist and prayed a quick prayer (didn't tell him what I was going to do). After releasing the Kingdom, I ask him to check it out. He starts by saying "it feels better" and as he checks it out more, "it's a LOT better". I asked if there was any more pain and he tells me "no".

so I'm ordering a case for my new computer, and I ask the customer service rep if she had carpal tunnel. she did in the right wrist - and there's pain.. I released heaven's power over the phone and she's COMPLETELY HEALED declaring over and over, "that's so cool"!!!

i walked into a shop this morning and saw the manager in a cast. I asked her what happened and she told me that she had broken a toe. She said that it was hurting. I shared the testimony of the woman whose knee was healed the day before. She let me pray and the Lord completely took away all the pain! she was shocked. she got up and started walking around - NO PAIN!!! Gotta love healing the sick!

this has been a difficult season in the sense of not being able to keep track and record all the miracles of healing that the Lord is doing. we are honestly forgetting what has happened! good problem though. this past week we had the privilege of hanging with some of the leading power evangelists in the nation in Colorado. it was CRAZY! we saw so many healings that we lost count. some of the miracles we saw included legs growing out (up to 1 inch), backs & necks & knees & an elbow healed. I was arthritis pain and stiffness leave. God touched a woman's TMJ, prophetic words came in clearly (including another name!). I'm just summarizing here. However, what struck me the most was just the LOVE - miracles flowing out of love. The entire message of the conference was just die to yourself and let love manifest to everyone around you - in this way miracles happen, but they flow from the place that God intends for them to flow from - LOVE.

this morning while working out on a stairs, a mother and her teenage daughter show up and the daughter is wearing a knee brace. I knew that I wanted to ask them to pray for her healing and as I was asking the Lord to set that up, I get a word of knowledge of exactly where the injury is, and in what knee it was (I had noticed the brace but didn't remember which leg it was on). When I asked the Lord for even more detail I felt it was the "meniscus" that was actually damaged. sure enough it was the knee and the place/condition that the Lord had revealed. I asked if the mother would put her hand on the knee while I prayed. I spent less than a minute releasing the Kingdom - after prayer, I asked what she was feeling. She said it "feels like liquid is moving around inside". I then took the big risk and asked if she'd be willing to remove the brace (something she'd been relying on / having "faith" in) and test it out going up the stairs. She ag...

we've been seeing God move in a number of different places. in a recent outreach, we saw the Lord touch a number of people - including 5 miracles that included healings. God revealed things - including the name of a person. several conditions were revealed by word of knowledge as well. in a house meeting this past week, the Lord revealed many different conditions by word of knowledge and we saw most of those things healed that the Lord had revealed. For one woman, the Lord not only revealed and then healed her shoulder problem, but also gave us her birth name in another language. one woman had chronic pain in her foot that we saw healed after the Lord revealed a root that was hindering the miracle. It was a powerful night where others also received new gifts of the Holy Spirit by impartation (Rom. 1:11). a couple of nights later we had a miracle and healing service with probably 75 people - it was powerful to see all the things the Lord healed - jaws, backs, eyes and we even...

in a healing service, it seemed that God was all about touching knees. I had called out a word of knowledge and one guy testified to being healed during my message. then we prayed for a young girl who had been injured snowboarding. The Lord healed her knees almost instantly. she was amazed. we then prayed for another woman who had knee problems and she was healed. it was powerful what the Lord was doing. we did go after some other knee conditions that we didn't seem to get much breakthrough. I'm not sure why. we had so much faith after seeing 3 sets of knees completely and dramatically healed. that night the Lord continued to heal many different conditions - back pain, shoulder pain, stomach pain and other conditions. It was encouraging how the Lord would so faithfully reveal a person's pain/condition without us asking. they would walk up and then we we would wait on the Lord and he would reveal by word of knowledge what they needed. I LOVE IT wh...

tonight was another night to see God's Kingdom break into our midst in miraculous ways. as Isaac of Ninevah and I are ministering together with the Dallas Maverick, we saw saw God speaking prophetically, healing the sick and releasing tangible encounters of the Father's love into the lives of men and women. I have no idea how many were healed, but the Lord revealed many conditions by word of knowledge and proceeded to do what only He can do. an update with more details will be forthcoming when I can compare notes with the others.

on a recent trip a group of us went on a "treasure hunt". we gathered some "prophetic clues" and launched out to see what God would do. one of our first clues was for a man with a shaved-head and tatoos. we had nothing else. we immediately came upon a man with a shaved head but could see no tatoos. we approached him and told him why we had approached him. immediately he lifts his arms to reveal two arms full of tatoos on the inside. we asked if he needed prayer for anything. he wanted to be free of his addiction to chewing tobacco. we prayed for that and moved on. next we approached a young guy who was sitting alone and showed him our "treasure map" (the clues). he found one that said injured right shoulder and upper arm. he was discouraged because it wasn't the left shoulder and upper arm. he had injured himself and was in pretty bad pain (we could see the bruise) we told him that we'd pray anyway. we prayed once and m...

i think most of us are so "used to" the Biblical accounts of angels visiting people that we really have no idea how radical it was for some category of glowing, angelic being to appear to people bringing a message from heaven. no wonder they seem to always say, "Do NOT be afraid"! Let's face it, we would ALL be afraid. I say that knowing that many people in Charismatic circles these days talk about "visiting heaven" like they went to rent a movie. If Paul couldn't talk about his experience of visiting the 3rd Heaven FOR YEARS, then I would question many of the so-called experiences that people "claim" to be having. I know that people might be having prophetic experiences but let's do ourselves a favor in the direction of restoring credibility and stop cheapening the currency. The bottom line is that in the Scriptures when people visited heaven or heaven visited them (i.e. an angel) it changed EVERYTHING. I met a man last night ...

just when we thought a day couldn't get any better, we joined a group of others for our weekly encounter God meeting. after seeing God heal so many people at the healing service (we tried to "add up" the miracles and counted like 30 people healed), we were expectant that our time of seeking God would be something special. there were also some visitors with us that night. many began to have experience the Lord in powerful ways. prophetic words were coming for people, including the visitors that were especially impacted by the words the Lord gave. one of the people in attendance who recently gave her life to the Lord out of Islam, had a very special encounter with the Lord. she was totally overwhelmed with God's love and His peace. this is exactly what former muslims need - not words and concepts, but ENCOUNTERS with God's love.

this past weekend we saw the Lord move in miraculous ways. first of all a team of us were invited to minister in a healing service. there were a number of different nationalities present and the Lord began reveal different conditions, even for specific people. first the Lord highlighted one of the Africans in the worship band and gave a word of knowledge for the back of the head and neck. she had that problem. she was healed. there were a number of other words that the Lord gave us - right shoulder, right wrist, left calf and stomach pain in the lower left abdomen. Each of these conditions were healed. one man had a chronic condition for 20 years that the Lord healed after he responded to a word of knowledge. Also, people came forward for others conditions that were unrelated and many of them were healed as well. by the end of the meeting, many were touched as God took pain out of people's bodies. probably the most encouraging thing was that it was a "team effort...

this past week we saw more healings than I've seen in a while. it began with a "treasure hunt" where I took out a young couple and we got to see God touch a number of different nationalities - Iranians, Arabs, Filipinos, Indians and I'm sure I'm forgetting a couple of others. it was just so good to be "out" doing what we were created for. we saw a number of accurate words of knowledge for people who then let us pray for their conditions. one Indian man was healed on the spot and told his Iranian co-worker that all the pain had left his foot. a Gulf Arab muslim woman was surprised when the Lord revealed her shoulder pain - she also let us pray for her. a couple of filipino women were healed in a small restaurant. it was just a great night living life the way Kingdom people live. loving people with God's power in manifestation.

In February, while in a coffee shop, I casually delivered what felt like a rather “average” word of knowledge and prophetic encouragement to a Filipina employee. She reacted with wonder and happiness, as many people do. In early May I returned to the coffee shop, and the employee told me she'd kept wondering when I would come back! We sat down and talked for a while, and she completely unburdened her heart on a number of topics, saying I was the only person she could talk to about this. (A pretty shocking statement, seeing as this was now the second time she'd ever seen me!) Since we'd met the firsttime, she'd started reading a friend's Bible (for the first time inher life). I prayed for her mother, encouraged her in the faith (sharing basic truths about Jesus and the kingdom), and promised to bring her a Bible. Since then, she has been zealously reading her new Bible, gotten connected to the church, and encountered God in significant ways--dreams, visions, physical...

in a service on Friday, we got a very specific word of knowledge for the particular part of the back. 2 women came back in response to the word. both were healed. in fact, the first one who was healed joined us in praying for the second one.

What follows is a response I had sent to a Christian friend who has friends and family members facing cancer and thinking through the issue of God's will and cancer. Response: the questions you raise about cancer and God's will are of course very relevant. for years I would have somehow believed/thought that things like cancer (or any other horrible thing) were somehow "allowed" by God in some mysterious way as part of His sovereignty. I know "allowed" is a loaded term, but I know that when Evangelicals use that term, it is stronger than it's absolute, philosophical meaning. Of course by definition everything that happens must somehow be "allowed" by God because He created everything including the free wills that both humans and angels possess. Most of my thinking as an Evangelical would have put the term "allowed" in almost a Job-ian sense. Satan checked with God, God said "O.K." and Job gets afflicted. God a...

a very sad situation involving some very close friends led me to the following message. i feel like the admonition to be alert and sober-minded is more critical in this hour than ever before. may the Lord use it in your life and the lives of those you share it with. http://joel2generation.podomatic.com/entry/2011-04-27T07_17_16-07_00

on a recent trip to the United Arab Emirates we saw a number of people healed as we visited different malls and restaurants. in one California Pizza Kitchen, I got to pray for a number of different employees and 3 people were healed. in another restaurant, DJ got a word of knowledge for an employee, and I prayed for the woman's arm and shoulder. She was completely healed and was so happy that she wouldn't stop hugging me. There were a few other opportunities that the Lord opened up for us in the 5 days we were there. Some of the others we ministered to had major encounters with the Lord. He is so good! the week culminated in a Church service where we saw God heal many people of a wide range of conditions. many were called out by word of knowledge - arms/shoulders, knees, backs, and other things too. Some were chronic long term conditions. It was amazing to see God move in peoples' lives so powerfully.

There are a couple of common "Eschatologies" (doctrine of the End Times) that most Christians are familiar with - one is known as "Futurism" (which would include Mike Bickle and IHOP, Calvary Chapel and the Left Behind Series) and another is called "Preterism" (which is being advocated now by Bethel Church in Redding, R.C. Sproul and C. Peter Wagner as well as many "Amillenialist" scholars). Futurism argues that the majority of the prophecies in Scripture will be fulfilled in the "future" (i.e. Daniel, Matthew 24 and Revelation). Preterism argues that most (if not all) of those same prophecies were fulfilled in the "past". A third position is called "Historicism" which may not be so well known. This position views those same prophecies as being fulfilled "throughout Christian history". Since this 3rd position (which was the dominate Protestant one at one point), is not well known, I have included before ...