Into the glorious unknown...: January 2010

Where to even start? The Lord is so good, so beautiful, so sweet, so rich, so...words fail me. Deep are the places of the Lord, sovereign are His ways, Holy is His presence. Who are we that we get to commune with the God of the Universe? Who are we that we should share in His son's inheritance. Grace. Mercy. Only by these are we even fit to be in relationship with the Creator, who is the uncreated one. Do you know that it actually says in Revelation that in the end, "God will dwell with man, and he will live them. They will be His people and God himself will be with them and be their God." And what about the mystery the incredible experience of having the Holy Spirit who is God dwelling within us right now? Whoaaaa!! Glory Lord! That very fact blows me away, and yet it took me 25 years to take the time to ponder this fact and have it really sink in. God. Is. Inside. Me. And yet as a people we fail to commit like a wayward wife who says yes to the commitment of a marriage and in her heart has no intention to be faithful and have one husband. The marriage is only a guarantee that someone will be there in the end, and the promise that he will forgive and take her back over and over again. PEOPLE THIS IS HOW WE TREAT GOD! WAKE UP! COMMIT NOW WITH CONVICTION!

Recapture the romance of The Lover of our souls. Love him, pour your heart into him, bathe Him in your perfume of worship, cover Him with the kisses of your affection. Don't hold back waiting for another, there is none other. He's the one you've been looking for, waiting for, longing after. He is the satisfier. Give him all of you. Love Him with Reckless abandon. All he asks is that you love Him.

Revel now in the inheritance that could be yours:

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you. The riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.

- Ephesians 1:17-21 -

Are you ready? The wedding day is fast approaching. Are you prepared? Does your heart flutter, jump, and leap with excitement at the anticipation of the day your bridegroom returns? Oh dear beloved bride, why do give your love away to lovers who do nothing but scar, stain and tatter you? Look into the eyes of your Lover. Look! Do they not consume you with passion? He desires you. He is desperate for your love. He delights in you even in your weakness. He is jealous for you. He will not share you with another. You have stolen His heart. Let him steal your heart. Let him make you lovesick for Him. Let Him make you pure. Let Him clothe you in righteousness. Let Him marry you.

Can you hear it? The wedding processional has started. Make yourself ready, for He is coming, your bridegroom, your lover. Eagerly await His return, with mourning, and weeping until he returns. Cry out in desire for Him. This I promise you; no one else will satisfy, so stop chasing after other lovers and chase after Him.

The Spirit and the Bride say come!

Revelation 22:17

This is a shaking of the nations and the after shock of this will resound throughout the world and we will go forth like cracks in the pavement to shake the nations to tear down strongholds and to tear down strongholds and to pour out the light of Jesus. He will pour His anointing like warm oil onto His sons and daughters and they will find favor with the leaders of the nations through the bloodshed of those gone before them. He will robe them in garments of splendor magnificently encrusted with precious jewels and they will be a great multitude joining in one loud glorious voice and it will reverberate through the hills and they will be His high priests who have all authority and power of Jesus and they will tear down and build up. They will be lifted up before the nations and the nations in their blindness will tear them down. But they will shine like the dawn because death has lost its sting and cannot keep them down. They will be placed on footstools before the throne of the most high God and they will be before Him praising and worshiping joining with the angels bringing Him glory doing what they were created to do in the purest form. There will be a celebration because the bridegroom has come to claim his bride, and there will be laughing and dancing and feasting on the glorious riches of the Lord and drinking His mysteries, and there will be a whirlwind honeymoon that will last all eternity.

Amen.

I'll briefly tell you how I came to the Onething conference in Kansas City: It was God, because he is extravagantly good to His children. I have been blessed with a yearning for the Lord and a holy discontent with my faith and depth of my relationship with God. This fall I realized that while I was walking in my spiritual giftings here and there it wasn't a consistent outpouring that I desired. I wanted to have the life of power that I was promised and exhorted to live in the Bible. I took a deeper look at that starting this summer but really began to live it out this fall. I was frustrated because while I felt this hunger that consumed me I still had not experienced the radical outpouring of the Spirit that I was reading in the Bible. I learned and continue to learn that patience is something valued greatly by the Lord so I waited and I continue to wait on the Lord for extreme outpouring in whatever way He decides. I will say here that I have also learned that however small He seems to move, value it because He is moving. When I came home from Mexico I heard about the awakening that was happening at IHOP and I desired to go to where God was moving in powerful ways and soak in that, and as I was sharing this I was told about the Onething conference and it got me thinking, but I didn't think it would work out. A few weeks later this same person told me that she and her husband were going to go and invited me along, this stirred something inside me and I began to pray. I prayed for a week and a half and during that time God put so many things into place that I couldn't deny that he was leading me to this conference. So on Monday the 28th I left MN to go to Kansas City for the week.

To really share everything that happened this past week would take a book, so I will share just a little and if you want to know more let me know I would love to share with you. Wow, well if you don't know a little less than 2 months ago IHOP-KC had an outpouring of the Spirit and He manifested in many ways from healings to people drunk on the Spirit to people being delivered from bondage. The Holy Spirit has stayed and manifested himself in these and many other ways since then, so this years Onething conference was quite eventful to say the least. The healings, drunkenness on the Spirit, and deliverance and other manifestations spilled out onto all of us that were at the conference. I don't think there was anybody that wasn't touched by the Holy Spirit. He was like a rushing river, if you stepped in you were swept away and it was amazing. Seriously, you want to get swept away. Ask the Lord to sweep you away today, I promise you won't regret it.

The conference consisted of 3 sessions a day which pretty much took up the entire day, from 9am to about 12am. I'm not sure what the final count on participation was, but I know it could be up to 20,000 people. At the same time that Onething was happening Urbana about 3 hours away from us was going on at the same time and they also had about 20,000 young men and women on fire for God and ready to finish the task set before us to quicken the coming of our bridegroom Jesus Christ. You know what that is my friends? The beginning of revival in America, pray for it. Earnestly seek it.

Prayer. Worship. Ministry. Three very important pieces of the puzzle are the things I took away from this conference (among other things). Without these three things the task will go unfinished and we will fall deeper into complacency. Please, please, please don't horde your salvation but do these three things: PRAY for people, Jesus to come back, revelation to understand the deeper things of God, your country, your countries leaders, etc., WORSHIP your Lord and Savior, and go out and do ministry. MINISTER to the poor, the widow, weak, the sick, the lost, the orphan, etc. in the name of Jesus and through His power.

Stand Firm. God demands Holiness, Righteousness, and Purity from us and we cannot do this by compromising His truths. Don't back down because its unpopular, don't give in because you feel uncomfortable, don't sugar coat because its politically incorrect. Don't. Speak truth, speak light, but do all these things through a spirit of love. Yes, you can bring a hard truth to someone in love, it can be done. We must do it through love, because God says the greatest command is LOVE. If you don't have love for people, spend time with the Lord and He will give it to you because he loves people more than anything in this universe.

I could go on, but at the risk of losing your attention I will end it there tonight. Again I would love to tell you more about the conference, but you can check out some great resources by Mike Bickle (founder of IHOP) yourself if you are curious what IHOP is all about here:

God bless you and keep you, may he cause his face to shine upon you, so that His ways may be known on earth, His salvation among all nations.