For by thee I have run through a troop; and by my God have I leaped over a wall. Psalm 18:29 Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Luke 11:9-10 BREAKOUT: The ability to go over walls of opposition into realms of the supernatural. -Dale Gentry PLACING A DEMAND ON THE ANOINTING-It means pressing forward despite obstacles to get to a place where the anointing is and expecting it to fall on you. -John Eckhardt We can have as much of God as we want to. Sometimes I relate this with the illustration of a bucket being filled with God's presence and we can pull on a rope and get as much as we want. Often we are guilty of just getting a little and saying, "that is enough." Yet, we can have as much of God as we want. This is why I am constantly placing a demand on God's presence. Everywhere I go, I want to see him m
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KID'S CLUB TODAY Today our lesson was about "anger not producing anything good." We spoke about the Molukse people who came to Holland around 60 years ago and suffered much injustice at the hands of the Dutch. However, some Indonesian young people reacted in anger and committed some acts of violence. One of them was Tom Polnaya (link is in dutch). This man as a teenager took part in taking a school over and holding hundreds of kids and schoolteachers hostage in 1977. Since then he has apologized for his actions and is totally against his actions that he took part in then. We used his story of an example how "two wrongs don't make a right" and that acting our of uncontrolled anger always creates victims. Whether that be others or even the person self. In the middle of the kid's club, one child raised his hand and said he saw a shooting yesterday where a man was shot and killed. Half of the kids were witnesses to that. I feel suddenly that I am in New Yor
MINISTRY AT THE HAGUE (DEN HAAG)& MORE Last sunday I felt (as always) very much at home at Ronald v/d Molen's church. ( www.huizenvanlicht.nl ) He had asked me to preach on one of the miracles from John 5 where a paralyzed man is healed by Jesus. I started off my preaching by asking if anyone had pain in their left ankle. Sure enough there was a woman who the previous day could not walk because of the pain there. She normally does not attends Ronald's church, but was there sunday. Sure enough, after praying for her, all pain was gone. What a great gift from God to that woman. Also, last week doing grocery shopping at Albert Hein I ran into a mother of one of the kids's who comes to our kid's club. She told me that she had back pain. I prayed for here then and there and all pain left. It was great getting to watch here carry her groceries without any pain. God is good. :-)
We believe that God wants us to make His love tangible everywhere we go. That does not mean just in Holland, but everywhere. We discovered that this summer as we travelled all throughout Oklahoma. God’s presence is not limited to a church building on Sunday, but we carry his presence everywhere that we go. Where God is present then people’s lives are changed as he speaks to them and heals their hearts, minds, and bodies. Here are some accounts of different things we have experienced in the last months. A woman we met at a restaurant that we prayed for was healed instantly of arthritis. God touches her and her daughter who attend a church which says God does not heal today. A woman at the grocery store has no more pain in her back after we pray for her. She carries her grocery bag without anymore pain. While chatting on Facebook, Matt asks a friend if he has pain in his right foot. He does, and after praying, God takes away all pain from his foot. A worker at Subway shares his life sto
BACK IN THE NETHERLANDS It is four thiry am and I have been WIDE AWAKE for the last few hours. I still can not get over all the stuff that happened in my last week in the US. On thursday I got to speak at the student body at southwestern christian university . There I preached on Luke 10 and when I got to verse 9, "Heal the sick and proclaim that the kingdom of God is here," around a dozen students came forward for healing. All of them said that there pain was gone immediately except for one guy. I had some friends with me and we stayed an extra hour after chapel just praying for healing and ministering to students. On tuesday through thursday in Madill, we had an incredible "School of Prophets". There we also saw a bunch of healings, prophesied, but more importantly so many people at that church now prophesy themselves. This climaxed saturday in a full day of prayer and fasting where the presence of God showed up in a mighty way. The sunday services just continued
LAST WEEK IN THE USA This week is going to be intense. Tuesday through thursday I will be leading a School of Prophets in Madill, OK. This is where we teach on hearing God's voice and help people to learn how to move in the gifts of the spirit, especially with prophecy (1 Cor. 14:1). Thursday morning they are having a missions chapel at Southwestern Christian University where I get to be the guest speaker. Then on Saturday, again in Madill, we are going to have a day (10 am-5pm) of prayer and fasting. That is going to be an awesome day of seeking God's presence, power, and voice for our lives, families, churches, and cities. Sunday I get to speak in a church in Broken Arrow, a hispanic church in Purcell, OK, and one in OKC. Then monday I get to climb onto a plane and come home to my sweet wife and children. Only 8 more nights of sleeping and I will be home to Amsterdam....but there are just a few things to do in between then and now...:-)
Ministry at Evangelistic Temple Yesterday I had the honor and priviledge at preaching 2 services in English and one in spanish at the church I grew up in in Tulsa. All three services had healings take place. After the second service a woman came up to me and thanked me for praying for her healing but most importantly thanked me because she said her daughter's trust in God was restored. In the spanish service there were a whole lot of healings from back, knees, arms, etc. Nearly everyone we prayed for in the spanish service was healed. I shared from Acts 16 and Matthew 10 about being a missionary (apostolic) church. When I got to Luke 11:9 which says, "Heal the sick and tell them, 'The Kingdom of God has come unto you.,'" I started praying for the sick and they started getting healed. What I also really enjoy is not just that this is my home church, but that I have a team of 1st year students from ORU who are traveling with me and they are praying for the sick and
SPEAKING PROPHETICALLY Although the word prophecy conjures up a weird man with a big stick that is foretelling the future, the new testament picture of prophecy is very different. Essentially it is hearing God's voice and then sharing what you feel God is saying to someone else. 1 Cor. 14:1 says that we should desire spiritual gift ESPECIALLY that we should prophesy. This year I have by faith started speaking out what I felt God saying to people: prophesying. Some awesome things have happened. Yesterday for example, in Wewoka, OK, the entire football team was present at a church service. Without knowing it, I picked out the quarterback and told him that God had called him to lead and that others look to him for leadership. The Bible clearly says that prophecy should always be for people's edification, exhortation and comfort. Obviously a prophetic word should never contradict scripture...if it does then it is not from God. At every meeting, I share words that I feel God is giv
HEALINGS, HEALINGS, AND MORE HEALINGS. Last week, I started giving words of knowlegde for healing for people. The first time I did it was on a television program. That night, I preached in a church in Blanchard where someone's back and something else was healed. (I'm forgetting already). Then saturday I started the day by giving a word of knowledge to someone on facebook and his right foot was healed after I called him and prayed for him. That night in Ponca City, God healed a woman's wrist and leg. Sunday morning in Ada, Ok was AWESOME!! A couple people with back problems were healed. When I said that someone with a injured right ankle/foot would be healed...a woman stood up and said that it was impossible for here to be healed because she had a metal rod and pins in her ankle. All pain left after we prayed for her. A woman with carpal tunnel syndrome was healed. I prayed for a man with head aches for healings...and then later that night there were more healings at Oil Cen
The Value of Hearing from God A dermatologist friend of mine, Steven A. Smith , here in Tulsa shared a story with me about how hearing God has changed his life and business. Many years ago, in prayer, his wife heard the two words "Bromide and Nickel". To make a long story short, these were the elements he used to develop a new medicine for psoriasis and acne. Now, Loma Lux is sold in pharmacies all over the world as a teatment for psoriasis. http://www.lomalux.com/dermatologist-steven-a-smith-loma-lux-story Amos Landers was layed off a long time ago from his job. He asked God what to do and he heard "Wash Windows." He now has a business which washes many of the large high rises in Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Stillwater, etc. You can see a video where he tells about it at http://www.landerswc.com/ This man is my friend and a great blessing to my life here in Oklahoma. Then there is George Washington Carver . This man revolutionized the agricultural world through his scien
This week we had a fantastic week! Wednesday we had 50+ kids and mothers (We have been growing each week and the room is already too small where we are sitting). Someone had given us a large amount of marshmellows. Therefore we were going to give them out to the kids and play some games where the kids were going to eat marshmellows. Problem was, muslim kids are not allowed to eat marshmellows (gelatin may have pieces of lard). Only one girl was not muslim, so we could not have the boys play against the girls because of it. I love living in Amsterdam West where we have such a diversity of cultures present. Our lesson wednesday was about Justice. We told the story of Jews being discriminated in WWII (Anne Frank Story and Corrie ten Boom) and then we told of the discrimination of South Africa's Apartheid and the USA's Jim Crowe's laws. Nelson Mandela and Rosa Parks were stories we shared about people who stood for justice with non-violence. As we concluded, we challenged the k
Neil Cole's book Organic Church years ago majorly influenced the way that I do ministry. Joseph Myers book Organic Community gives some more helpful how to's behind the entire concept of being organic and "creating a place where people naturally connect." Here are some of his ideas: 1) "Move from a master plan to an organic order." Not everything has to be planned and detailed ahead of time. There is an order which already exists even among what may seem like chaos. Our job is then to discover it and work with it. 2) Patterns: "There is no one way or pattern that leads to success in ministry. there are different models that work in different circumstances. 3) Measurement- Numbers don't tell full story, stories help to make a better picture of what is taking place. 4) Resources are in the harvest 5) Enjoy the process of building community. These are just a few of a bunch of other's idea I plucked from Myers'book.
The Fulton Street Revival: A Revival Birthed Out of A Prayer Meeting (Click on title to read full article on this prayer meeting. IFulton Street revival that lasted from 1857-1859. In those 3 years every single church in New York City grew by over 50%, 1/3 of Ireland (100,000/300,000) came to Christ, and more than a a half million people came to Christ in the US during those 3 years. Tim Keller in a sermon regarding this revival speaks about the one element that is found in every single revival/awakening in the OT, NT, and throughout Church History. He describes that as "Kingdom Centered Prayer" or "Frontline Prayer." It is Corporate, Intensive, Prevailing (doesn't stop), Kingdom centered prayer. Three elements he describes are 1) Request for the grace to confess and repent from sins. (This triggers more of God's presence and it is repentence born out of the joy and assurance of God's Love. 2) Compassion and zeal for flourishing of the church. That mech
Karen’s Story “Ever since I met you guys, my life has changed so much. Six months ago, I was full of doubt and did not know what I believed about God or if I would ever go to a church again. Now I find myself talking to God all day long and thoroughly enjoy being inspired every week when we get together.” Karen had grown up going to church, but around seven years ago quit. She stopped going because the view she received of God was not one of love. Her upbringing was very legalistic and she felt looked down upon if she did not believe like everyone else around her. People who did not belong to there group or were from different religions were seen as enemies, particularly Muslims. Karen was very confused about God, the church, and her own self-worth. Disappointed, she stopped going to church full of doubt and insecurity not wanting to have anything to do with the kind of religious and unloving God presented to her. Karen first came in contact with a member of our church at an Iftar me
Apostolic/Prophetic Day of Prayer and Fasting "You are to be a strategic, informed intercessors who know the nations...from this time forth, according to the word of the Lord, you are to be a people who go to and from in the earth with nations in your heart...you are a doorway to the nations." (Prophetic word posted on www.iphc.org about 5 years ago). A friend of mine who is a church planter in The Hague, Holland told me a story once about a team of intercessors who came and visited him many years ago. This team went to six different locations of his city and started praying over those places. As they prayed for each one of those locations, they started praying things regarding the history of each location that they had no way of knowing. My friend, Ronald van de Molen, had studied those areas and knew what they were stating was true. He was amazed at the preciseness of what they prayed, yet what seemed to amaze him even more was that a couple years later, in each one of t
31 Years Ago Today> Today is my birthday, and every year when I am home I get to hear the dramatic story of my birth retold by my mother. I was born in Chile, South America. The doctors had said I was dying and need to be pulled out immediately. The only hospital in the city that had an incubator was the military hospital. Therefore, they snuck my mom through the back door of the hospital. Once in, the doctor gave my mother anesthesia so she wouldn't feel the cuts. Unfortunately, they gave her too much. After pulling me out of my mother's womb, my mother stopped breathing. They got her breathing again, but instead of watching her, they left her in the hall way all alone. My mother is a nurse and knew that it was very likely that she would stop breathing again. The only nurse who came by told her that her baby boy was going to die. As she lay there, all she could do was begin to pray Psalm 23 where it says, "Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I
A Simple Way to Study the Bible". " (from Halter and Smay, The Tangible Kingdom: Creating Incarnational Kingdom. Jossey Bassey; San Francisco, 2008", pg. 167. Stretch out your right hand as far as you can. Next measure the distance between your thumb and pinky. Read that much scripture only. Preferably a contained story or idea. Like the second chapter of James, or a parable or a psalm like chapter 23. After you read the scripture, ask these five questions and let people answer as they feel led: 1) What did you like about what we just read? 2) What didn't you like? 3) Was there anything you did not understand? 4) What did you learn about God? 5) Regardless of where your faith is at now, if you wer to apply what we learned about God to something in your life this week, what would that look like? Preaching or doing a complicated Bible Study can be really hard for people to do themselves. However, if people simply read the bible and then discuss the passage using questi