I am really excited! The IHOP community has been stirred with taking care orphans. Many in our community are taking the leap into adoption. Some friends of ours, Marcus and Rachel Meier are adopting 2 children from Ethopia. They already have 4 children of their own, ages 1-5. We went to a fund raising party held in their honor on Sunday.
They began this process with no money to pay for an adoption. They began by just saying yes to the Lord and agree with what He is doing. God provided all the initial expenses and the money for the home study. Next week was to be their first installment to the adoption agency of $10k. The total cost is estimated to be between $25k and $30k. They had zero dollars. They were hoping to get the necessary $10k for the first installment. They received $23k. The Lord is so amazing! It is not like this community has a bunch of extra cash laying around. Most people around here raise support, and live simple missionary lifestyles.
This has really built our faith. We always know that God will provide all of our needs, but it is awesome to see firsthand when He actually does it. We are going to be adopting at some point in the near future. It is encouraging to see that God will provide our expenses when the time comes as well!
Here is a little self examination I had with myself the other day in the prayer room:
True joy is to abide in Jesus’ love.
How do we abide in His love? We keep His commands.
What are His commands? That we love one another.
How can we say that we keep His commands when we do not love one another?
Lord, help me love as You love.
A little prayer room meditation for ya! Jesus is described as the Faithful Witness. The implications of this statement are massive. The things that He proclaims and testifies of are accurate 100% of the time. He does not exaggerate or embellish. He does not lie. He IS truth.
Have I ever mentioned that I love Him? He is sooooooooooo fascinating!
If I were a youth pastor (this next comment will probably expose why the Lord has not entrusted me with that ministry! ha,ha) I would tell my young parishioners this. If they are not going to give the Lord their whole heart and be loyal to Him, in all that they do, then they may as well go out and do drugs and have sex. The reasoning behind this statement is as follows. Half hearted allegiance will allow the spirit of the age to sweep them away, and they will go to hell anyway.
If we preach to them a powerless God, who just wants to bless them and make life easier, then when things go wrong they will be offended and fall away. We must have fresh encounters with God. Not just empty slogans. Jesus is not our home boy. God is not our co-pilot. He is the Uncreated One. He has Genesis 1 on His resume’.
Let’s teach our teens to actually connect with the Lord, to hear His voice, and operate in the super natural. Perhaps we could fast from lock-ins, and pizza parties for a season, and actually get anointed. Let’s encounter the Living Resurrected Christ, and perhaps people would not be bored with the Church.
Blessings!
Here is a little self esteem/self help advice from Doc Zack. This is a sure fire cure for emotional issues from the blues to deep depression.
Get in touch with your inner depravity. Understand how wicked you truly are. Human nature is deprived in so many ways! We are corrupt and rotten to the core. Think about it. Do we really want what is best for others, or do we rejoice when someone else fails. Do we give freely of ourselves, or are we always trying to look out for number one? We need to understand that we are sinners. We love sin. We almost always prefer darkness. Admit it!
With this in mind, how can we go to God with any expectation of Him blessing us? Not only do we do that, but we go to Him demanding that He perform for us. When it does not work out the way we want it too, we get offended at the Lord.
Here is the secret prayer to answering all of your problems. Dare I say it… Your Best Life Now! Or 1 Step to a Better You. “Lord, You owe me nothing, and I deserve hell, You owe me nothing, but You have given me mercy”
We are so corrupt, but Jesus came to take that sin nature and restore fellowship with the Godhead. He is pictured it Revelation 4, seated on a Throne, surrounded by an emerald rainbow. The rainbow symbolizes mercy. He is surrounded by mercy. He delights in showing mercy! He made a way to approach Him, and to have access to everything He is. Not only that, but we get to live forever with Him and experience fellowship with the Uncreated God! Unbelievable!
After arriving at our host home on Thursday night, I was praying and felt the Lord said that there was an open heaven over Peoria and more specifically over Trinity Mennonite. I felt like He said that He would bless this church in spite of us. He is so jealous for His Bride in this city, that He would meet our weakness with His strength. The Bible says be it unto you according to your faith. The faith level at this church was off the charts. I have never witnessed such hunger and expectation. These people were hungry for the things of God.
We started the prayer room at 10am. Typically there are not enough people to pray on the microphone on a ministry trip, but our team stepped up each time. Our prophecy and healing rooms began at 1pm. Our team did amazing. There was a lot of apprehension with all of my colleagues. Most had not served in either of these ministries. I told them that they are the IHOP prophecy teams and the IHOP healing teams, and they stepped to the plate. I explained how the rooms operated, and how to get the words on tape. I told them to be bold and trust in the anointing and the Holy Spirit that abides in them. They were so bold and they hit the ground running. As I said before, the words were so accurate, that they were scary. Praise the Lord!
That night I preached about the theology of prophecy, and imparted the gift to anyone who would come forward. Nearly the whole church responded. It was amazing! I was able to play bass on Brantley’s worship team. That boy is amazing! He will be in the Global Prayer Room very soon. Watch for him on the webcast. At midnight dancing erupted in the church. It was such a time of joy. We were just basking in the presence of the Lord. I jumped off the stage and joined the dancing. We ended up semi-square dancing! We were doe-cee-doeing (I am not a hillbilly, though I am from Wichita, so I hoped I spelled that right!) The whole place was rocking!
The past few weeks have been such a whirlwind! Let me give you a recap of what our life has looked like. I have been finishing a class about the Book of Acts, and Holli was auditing a Systematic Theology class. Travis Brazie and I planned the whole ministry trip to Trinity Mennonite Church in Peoria. I am helping with the planning of our Wichita trip as well. Most importantly I have had to come up with 3 messages to preach! Holli is writing one message to share in Wichita. Maycee has dance twice a week to practice for her upcoming performance, The Firstborn Among the Dead. And oh yea, Holli is 7 months pregnant!
We have become just like a typical American family….BUSY!!!
Here are a few updates about our trip. I will try to update in increments, because SO much happened. This was by far the best ministry experience I have ever had. (could it be because I planned it?…..probably! I am my biggest fan! HA, HA, HA)
I must say that I had the most amazing team. I think that the atmosphere here at IHOP breeds humility. Everyone was so willing to serve, no matter what was asked of them. We had a group of what ended up being 45 students. The final number was not set until the final week before the trip. We had people dropping out all throughout the planning process. We only had 9 people who had been here at IHOP for more than one year. They were the only ones with any ministry experience. Everyone else had been in their first year at IHOP. About 10 or so had just completed their first semester at IHOPU. We were a very inexperienced team. That did not matter one bit! The Lord showed up in an incredible way!
I will give you a couple of highlights and fill in the amazing details in subsequent posts. We had one person get saved who was planning on killing themselves that night. Seriously! Praise God for His mercy! We must have had 100 healings. No joke. Travis said that out of everyone that was prayed for, only 2 did not get healed! The spirit of prophecy was released amongst the local people and they have started to move in the prophetic.
Pastor Mike (pastor of Trinity) said that their was no fallout from the trip. He said that usually there are some hurt feelings about what went on, but this time everyone was blessed. He said that some of his parishioners came up to him and said that some of the prophetic words were so accurate that it scared them!
God is so good! Please pray that the Holy Spirit visits Wichita in the same way this weekend!
Last night Mick and Maycee were awakened by thunder. They came in and slept with us at about 4am. Maycee was not wanting to go back to bed. She would “stretch” and could not get comfortable. I was getting quite irritated. Holli woke up at 5am to get ready to go to work in the healing rooms at 6. She decided to take Maycee. The leaders of Holli’s team have asked her to bring Maycee.
Maycee was able to pray with her momma. She participated in the whole IHOP healing model. They were able to pray for 3 people including a quadriplegic. I am sooooo proud of my baby girl. What a gift the Lord has given us. Maycee rocks.
Sometimes things just happen that makes me appreciate the fact that the Lord has sovereignly placed me in the house of prayer for such a time as this. Last night we had a meeting for all of the students going on the ministry trip to Peoria and Council Bluffs. A girl had a headache. I felt that the Lord would heal her as a token of the power that He will release on this trip. We prayed for her for about 15 seconds and the headache left. Praise God. I felt somewhat convicted that I do not pray with such faith every time I approach His throne of grace.
This morning in the healing room we had 2 men come thru. The second guy had a multitude of ailments. The spirit of prophecy fell in the room and we ministered to him for about half an hour. I believe that he was baptized with the Holy Spirit. I was struck by the fact that so many of God’s people are bound up by the devil with no power to walk the walk they desire. I know this is not a new ground breaking revelation, but it is just more real this morning. The Lord was really highlighting the verse in 1 John 1:9 the Lord is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Be quick to repent from sin. Keep our account with GOd up to date. Truly make an attempt to turn from sin. If we do this He will cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Do not take His grace lightly, but run with the grace He is pouring out in this hour.
The Lord is inviting us all to a new level. He wants to deliver us from the spirit of the age. I encourage you to get into the Word on a daily basis. Step out and share your faith. Pray for a sick colleague. Step out, and God will meet your faith. If you don’t get out of the boat, nothing will happen.
Wow, what a trip! Here is a quick update on how our trip went. Saturday night’s partner dinner went great. Everyone that attended was able to go through the prophecy rooms. The team ministered from 5:30 until midnight straight thru the night. The people were blown away by the humility and the accuracy of the prophetic words going forth. Our pastor’s wife Cathy was healed of some back pain that she had been experiencing.
I was able to share at both services. I think that the second one was better than the first one. I always feel a little shaky when I first get started. I need to get warmed up. That weekend I felt that God was going to heal some people’s backs. I did not know that Cathy’s back was healed the night before. We prayed for people with back injuries in the first service and one guy said that he was healed!
We sat up healing and prophecy rooms in the morning at church from 8am until 10:30 am. About 20-30 people came through the rooms. Right after the first service Holli and I went downstairs to start another room so that we could minister to all the people. Right when the worship team started, we finished the last person.
I asked for testimonies from what had happened the night before and that morning. One lady said that after we quit praying for her; she still felt a presence touching her. She had been suffering for weeks with various ailments; but the Lord healed her right there on the spot.
When I got up to preach I felt the Lord challenge me. I felt that He said according to your faith, that is how I am going to move today. So The first words out of my mouth were “I am going to lay the theological foundation for prophecy, but the Kingdom of God comes not in word only, but in power!” So I asked everyone with back trouble to stand up. About 10 people stood up. The church gathered around them, and about 5 people got healed right then and there. At the end of the service I had our team prophesy over the youth leaders, so as to give a demonstration of how prophecy works. It was amazing! After the service our team spent another hour and a half ministering to individuals. The line seemed endless.
I am not sure if we picked up any partners. We haven’s gotten any response cards yet. If you have one send it in! I am so thankful to God that this is my job! What a way to live!