JOEL 2 GENERATION

just yesterday I was reminded of a penetrating passage that for years I was sure didn't apply to me/us.  It is the one in John 10:37 "If I do not do the  works   of   My   Father , do not believe Me" (NKJV) Can you imagine if we really believed this verse?  and that it just might apply to us?   How crazy huh?  let's just walk through your next evangelistic encounter with a skeptic.  They start to throw at you objections - hypocrisy amongst Christians, evil in the world, arguments from science, etc.  Then you just say, "Stop!  I don't want to discuss these issues.  I am on assignment and the Kingdom of God is within me, in fact the very Spirit of God dwells inside of me.  So, I don't want you to believe anything I would tell you about Jesus and His Gospel unless I first do the same miracles that Jesus did" First of all, I think this approach would actually save many of us a lot of headaches.  Nobody likes deba...

strange title I know.  a group of us were meditating on Romans 6 and Paul tells us there that we are dead to sin (v. 2) and that we died "with Christ" (v. 6).  I think that many of the problems that I have relate directly to me not living out of the reality of what Paul is teaching.  If I am dead to sin and alive to God, manifesting the life of Christ, then most of the struggles simply evaporate.  Simple.  If only I BELIEVED it more often!

the number of people I have had the chance to pray for in the past few days has been far more than I normally do.  in addition to the people God is touching out on the streets, we also had a church meeting and the Lord brought healing to several people there. this has just been so encouraging.  a summary of some I haven't blogged about: - man's elbow healed who walked in shop - eye problem healed - woman's shoulder healed - joint problem in man's finger healed - back pain healed in each of these cases, the people heard many stories of God's Kingdom and many things about Christ and His Kingdom.  the powerful thing is that as we have been speaking about the Gospel, the Lord is confirming His Word by healing the sick and people's pain.

I prayed 2 or 3 times for this muslim man's arm and saw nothing happen.  then I got one of the Christian women who works in the shop we were in to come and help me.  the put her hand on his arm and I joined her in prayer.  then all the pain left the muslim's arm.  this muslim man witnessed a number of healing miracles and also heard many things about the Gospel.

while ministering to a number of people in a shop, I looked over at one of the employees and felt the Lord wanted to minister to her.  then I got a word of knowledge for a stomach condition.  she was shocked as she had one.  we prayed.  she would only know if she was healed after she ate some hot, spicy food.  I told her to test it out.  the next day (this morning) I was back in the shop and she testified that she had tested it out and she was pain-free!  I was then able to minister further to her encouraging her to get connected with a group of like-minded believers in her Church.  

I had gotten a word of knowledge for a left knee problem.  nobody had one but then a man walks in the shop.  he has the problem.  I said to him, "I'll bet you've heard about a lot of healing miracles, but you've never seen one, right?"  He agreed.  we prayed and a knee problem he'd had for 40 years was healed.  I was then able to encourage him in his Christian faith.  His "theoretical faith" became real.

Today was interesting.  I had my plans and the Lord seemed to have other plans altogether.  I found myself in a Lebanese hospital visiting with friends and the Holy Spirit began to give words of knowledge and prophetic words for the staff.  I got words about neck problems and two were healed.  I had another about a headache and the woman let me pray for a headache that she suffered from every morning.  While praying for her, she began to feel the Lord's presence in her arm (I had her put her hand on her head).  She turned and began to tell the rest of the staff what was going on.  I got to prophesy over another woman.  Questions were asked about healing and I told them also that we cast out demons.  Several of them were muslims and they had many questions.  One of the muslim women I prayed for told my friend after we left that "he is a really good man".  I'm just glad she got to experience that God is good - not something muslims o...