Sunday, February 27, 2005

Born again through the power of God!

Saturday Night Report
February 26th, 2005

Slow night at the Oracle. All the bands that are playing tonight are Christians, meaning they bring Christian fans. Few, if any of the kids are coming over to the spiritual readings tables. Normally, kids make a beeline, come over, sit down and the Lord uncorks heaven. They get prophesied to, understand that Jesus knows everything about them and give their lives to Jesus. Normally five to ten kids get born again each show. But not this time. Almost everyone is born again and religious, which is infuriating. We are not here to have youth group for believers!

Trying not to be discouraged, we relax, get drunk in the Spirit and try to enjoy the night. Now, instead of them coming to us, we have to search out God encounters. We ended up finding a couple. Jordan goes out in the parking lot, takes his guitar and starts playing, this draws a couple people to him and they hang out for awhile. Making the most of the opportunity, Jordan opens up on the kid watching him and gives him some dead on prophetic words. The kid is rocked and now knows that Jesus is real.

On the balcony outside the church, I find a young man and his girlfriend talking to our crew. They are obviously pagans, talking about some of the more perverse things they have seen. Sounds like a great opportunity to me! I’m provoked. He’s wowing our teenagers with unspeakable perversion, they just sit there, dumbfounded, knowing it’s wrong, yet unable to pull themselves away. Bryan Nicholson and I decide to show them something of eternity, since he has the boldness to speak of perversion.

We walk up to him and say, “He, God is showing me some things for you, do you want to hear them?” This totally messes with them, to have God inject Himself into a conversation that was in the gutter, just seconds ago. They are curious enough to let us say what we need to say, so we start talking. We start by telling him, “First of all, you have to change the way you think (repent). You are seeing things from a temporal point of view but you are missing eternity. The Kingdom of God is right in front of you and you don’t even recognize it” (the Kingdom of Heaven is near). This leaves them dazed and confused, a perfect time to start prophesying.

The Lord shows us several simple things for the girlfriend. She’s totally into this stuff, but her boyfriend is a joker and keeps derailing the moment. The Lord shows Bryan a few choice things for the guy and starts to work on him. He’s fighting tooth and nail to stay in control and keep his cool, but it’s obvious to everyone that he’s losing. By this time, we have a crowd that has gathered. They lean in to hear what these crazy Jesus people are saying. A buzz starts that maybe were psychic? No, not psychic, just telling you what Jesus says about you (the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy).

Right in the middle of prophesying over the boyfriend, I feel a pang of disappointment in my heart. The Lord is showing me what the girlfriend is feeling. I interrupt what’s going on with boy friend to look over at girlfriend and say “If you leave here tonight without having a profound spiritual encounter, you will be horribly disappointed, won’t you?” She nods in the affirmative. I tell her, “Well that would just be wrong. Come here and we will pray for you”. I just know that the Holy Spirit will touch her dramatically. She comes over; I grab her hands and start to pray. I instruct her to just close her eyes and receive. Now, several of our kids are with me, we’re all praying now that Holy Spirit will blast her. I start asking for the power of God to witness to the Gospel. At that moment, I feel something like a lightning bolt run down my arm. She jumps back and says, “Whoa!” She got hit with the power of God! A lightning bolt from heaven ran through me and hit her! She is going, “What was that?!” I tell her that it’s the power of God and ask if she wants more. She’s like, “Oh yeah”. We start to pray for her again and I ask for the fire of God to touch her whole body. She starts to tremble, obviously getting touched by the Holy Ghost.

I ask her what she’s feeling. She says that she was cold all over (it was a bit chilly outside) but when we started to pray for fire, it felt like she was standing in front of a fire and her whole body started to get real warm. All of her defenses are down. She has had a spiritual encounter with the invisible realm of the Kingdom of God (I Corinthians 4:20) and she wants more. We tell her that to have more; she must give her life to Jesus and choose Him. She heartily agrees to give her life to Jesus. She knows that He has something to offer, more than just stories in a book. So we lead her right them and there to Jesus. She surrenders her life to Him and calls Him Lord!

Born again through the power of God!

Instant healing leads to salvation...

Saturday Morning Report
February 26th, 2005

A small group of believers met together to worship Jesus before heading out and preaching the Gospel to the poor. We had our sites set on going to downtown Atlanta, outside of Grady Hospital. There would be many poor, homeless and sick people, all needing a touch from Jesus, so we soaked in the river of God with abandon.

We arrived downtown, full of excitement at what the Lord would do. For the next 2 hours, we just hung around outside Grady Hospital, looking for an opportunity for Jesus to do what He does best! And you know what? He did! The first person we met was a homeless guy. He was hungry for Jesus and responded readily to the Gospel.

A few minutes later, we see a young man walking towards us with a noticeable limp. We walked up to him and asked him what was wrong with his leg. “Man, I sprained my ankle!” he said. We asked him if it hurts and he said, “What do you think?” We asked him if he wanted it to be well and he just said, “It’ll get better”. “Yeah, in a couple weeks maybe, but do you want it healed NOW?” we asked. “Awww man, do you really believe in that !@#$?” he asked. “We sure do. We just saw Jesus heal a guy with a busted up ankle two weeks ago and he can do the same for you” we told him. “Can we pray for you?” we said. “Sure, go ahead” was his hesitant reply.

We started out by telling him, “Listen, first of all, you have to change the way you think (repent). You see, you think that if your ankle gets sprained, then you will have to wait a couple weeks until it’s better. But if God has His way, you will have no pain right now! The rule and reign of God is right here and you don’t even recognize it (the Kingdom of God is at hand), it’s right here in front of you.”

Now we had his attention. We asked him which ankle was hurt. It was his left ankle. Without reaching down, I extended my foot and touched his. We prayed a simple prayer, commanding all pain and inflammation to leave and commanding the fire and anointing of God to come into His foot. After a minute, we told him to check it. He just stood there looking at us. We told him again to check it. “I know it’s better” he said. “Well, show us” we told him. He started to walk… without any limp at all! He took a few steps, pain free. He turned around, looked at us with the most classic surprised look you can imagine, eyes as big as baseballs, mouth held wide open while he repeated over and over, “What the !@#$? did you do to my foot?” “Nothing, Jesus did it!” we assured him. But he would not be consoled. He was absolutely flabbergasted that his ankle was healed.

A couple of our guys walked over to him and talked with him preaching the gospel and telling him that Jesus is King. He was convinced; the power of God did its job. In just a couple minutes of talking, he gave his life to Jesus and got powerfully touched by the Holy Ghost. Before the afternoon was over, four people had met the Lord and a dozen more had been touched by God. Go Jesus!

Sunday, February 20, 2005

“I’ve got two great pieces of news for you”.

Saturday Night Report
February 19th, 2005

“I’ve got two great pieces of news for you”.

Those were the words that greeted us as we went out to win as many lost kids as possible to Jesus last Saturday night on Barrett Parkway. What we would be told in the next couple minutes would thrill us and chill us, but first, some background.

About a month and a half before, we went out on a Friday Night to preach the Gospel to these kids hanging out in the parking lot of a giant sporting goods store in Kennesaw, Georgia. We found a big group of country guys, all decked out in camouflage and driving big four wheel drive trucks. With all boldness, a small group of us walked right into the center of them, found the biggest guy out there and said to him, “The Kingdom of God is on the earth and Jesus is King”. As expected, the whole group started to mock and cuss us out to which we replied, “Got any sick folk here? We’ll prove it”.

The big old boy was named Eric and he began to tell us about a heart condition he had. He had severe heart disease that had clogged one of his main arteries and he also had dangerously high cholesterol. He was going in for tests in a couple weeks to decide on treatment for his condition. We asked him if we could pray for him and he agreed. We simply laid hands on him and said, “In Jesus’ name, be healed”. We them told him that when the doctors check it, they would find nothing wrong with him. A couple other guys in the group told of their minor ailments and we prayed with them. We also prophesied over several of them. The words were accurate, so we had their attention.

As if a light bulb went on, Eric told us, “If this stuff is for real, then you need to go pray for my friend at the hospital”. We assured him that we were for real and Jesus does heal today. He then told us about their buddy up at the hospital, a star basketball player for their high school. They said that he was dying of leukemia, that he had been in the hospital for several months and that everyone in the high school was pulling for him. He told us that their high school had raised $160,000 to help the family pay for his doctor bills. The whole school was invested in this guy’s situation. Seeing an opportunity for Jesus to do His thing, we asked where he was and what his name was. They gave us all the necessary information and we promised to go pray for him.

The following week, a couple of us from the church went down to see this guy in the Intensive Care Unit. When we got there, we were shocked at what we saw; a 17 year old kid, hooked up to more machines than you could imagine. He was drugged up, in a lot of pain and was hardly aware. We spoke to a nurse and they told us that it was near the end for him. We let the nurse leave, leaned over his bed and got his attention. “Son, look at me!” Through the pain and drugs we locked eyes and I said, “Jesus Christ heals you”. His eyes got real big and he seemed to be staring at something over my right shoulder. His heart rate and breathing started sounding all sorts of alarms and we started to pray. Simple stuff, “In Jesus Name, be healed!” After a few minutes, we left his bedside, believing that the God who invades the impossible would have His way.

For the next couple weeks, several teams from the church went to pray for this young man. Several people in the church were fasting; believing that this young man’s healing would bring about an awesome testimony of God’s power to the entire high school. All in all, we prayed, fasted and believed that God would work.

Now, back to the parking lot…

We went out on a Saturday night after hearing that there were more people out on Saturdays than Fridays. Upon arriving, the first person we saw was Eric. We walked right up to him and a group of guys he was with.

“I’ve got two great pieces of news for you”, Eric said. “Let’s hear them”, we fired back. “First of all, I went to the doctor, they did my blood work and checked my heart. There is no blockage in my arteries and my blood work is perfectly normal! There is nothing wrong with my heart!” We jumped, we screamed and we shouted! Thank you Jesus for showing yourself to these guys! “But that’s not the best news!” Eric said. “Well, what is it?” we replied. A huge smile crept across Eric’s face, “Remember that boy you went to pray for at the hospital? He is completely cancer free!”

We were dumbfounded. Shocked at the power and mercy of God. This young man, left to die in a hospital bed as cancer ravaged his body, was healed by the blood of Jesus! “They announced it over the school PA system, they told everyone!” Eric told us. “We told a bunch of people about you guys going down there to pray for him, but they didn’t believe anything would happen. One girl told us, I’ll believe it when I see it. She and I were in the same room when the announcement came over the PA. She looked right at me and her mouth fell open!”

Now, the entire school has witnessed the power and mercy of God. We will cash in on it. Many will give their lives to Jesus.

Stay tuned.

Saturday, February 05, 2005

Words of knowledge open the door to salvation...

Friday Night Report
February 4th, 2005

We took a team out for a youth outreach Friday Night. Before going out, we soaked in the presence of God for an hour. After marinating, we all loaded up in Tommy and Valerie’s 15 passenger van. There were twelve of us… I like that number.

When we arrived at the parking lot behind Bahama Breeze, there weren’t that many people there. We talked to a few folks that we know and nothing much was happening, so we decided to chill out and hang at a light pole. The crowds were now gathering. As we sat there, we gently asked the Holy Spirit to show us where the action was tonight. My vision was drawn to an uncouth group of girls. I simply felt that the Holy Spirit would have something for them. We walked over near them and on the way, I heard the Holy Spirit say, “One of them has been having a recurring dream that is disturbing them”. As we walked over to the group, we were met with stares and scowls, we were obviously intruding. But hey, who really cares what they think?

We walked over to them and addressed the group by saying, “who over here has been having a recurring dream that is disturbing you?” Well, that just ticked them off, one guy started blowing cigar smoke in my face, another guy started cussing us out behind our backs and then these three girls sitting on a car started mocking us, asking where we got a stupid question like that. I held my ground and repeated the statement, “No, I’m serious, who over here has been having a recurring dream that is disturbing you?” One girl looked at us real weird and said, “Well, I do, but I think it’s just because I get drunk and high”. I told her that the recurring dream was a message from the Lord, He could only speak to her when she was sleeping because she didn’t listen to Him when she was awake. This got her attention. She was afraid to share the dream for fear of being mocked by her friends. We spoke to her and a couple of her friends for a few more minutes, talking to them about the power of God, etc.

Someone else in our group got a word of knowledge that one of the three girls we were talking to had been sexually molested. At first, they all denied it, but after a few minutes, the same girl with the recurring dreams admitted to having been sexually molested as a young girl. She was flabbergasted as to why we would ask such a thing of her. It was obvious that the combination of these two words of knowledge was having an effect. We told her that Jesus was there to heal her of her wounds and hurts and she just looked at us saying, “I get the feeling when I pray to God that He’s much more concerned about others people who are much better than me, I mean, why would He listen to me of all people?” We explained to her that Jesus loves her so much that He would personally answer her prayers by sending us to her! We were the answer to her prayers! She prayed to God that He would help her and He sent us!

The Lord gave us one more Word of Knowledge about her being tormented 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. We could see that the enemy would simply not leave her alone. She started crying now asking “Why me?”. We told her that the enemy was attacking her because he hates her. The enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy, but Jesus came so that she might be free! We gave her the good news that she would not have to suffer torment constantly, if she gave her life to Jesus, Jesus would take away the torment and pain and rescue her.

After a few more minutes of preaching to the Gospel to her, she was ready to get born again. We led here to the Lord right on the spot. She prayed and asked Jesus to save her life and take her body. She confessed Jesus as Lord right on the spot. We immediately prayed deliverance for her and got rid of all that torment. As we were praying for her, she was sitting on top of a car. She really felt the power of God and nearly slid off the car as we prayed. We ended up speaking to two of her other friends, one of them was already born again but we prayed for her to be set free of a qualifying spirit and the other was a Satanist.

Several other things happened out there. All in all, two people got born again and a mess of people had an encounter with God.

Go Jesus!