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Now we're in church

via beenup2.com

Love it! This was taken in a church parking lot. Now that is faith!

Throw Away the Glasses: Womens Eyes Healed during our Church Service

Ralph and Sara (the woman who was healed) have recently moved to the area to attend CSSM, our Supernatural School of Ministry. During our morning service she recieved healing to her eyes. What is interesting is that it happened at the end of the service during corporate prayer. No one officially laid hands on her.  I love it when God shows up and gives gifts to people just because he loves us. He is always good!

Here is Sara's Testimony:

"Recently, I have been experiencing a progressive degeneration of my vision, in particular, when reading and driving a car. During Sunday’s service, on 10/18/2009, there was call for corporate prayer. During the prayer, I felt a burning/hot sensation come upon my eyes as if a hot compress was placed upon them. This sensation lasted approximately for

30 minutes. After the service, when my husband and I started to drive back home I first noticed that my eyes were sensitive to light. Then to my surprise, not only I was able to clearly read fine print, but also I notice a significant improvement in my overall vision. Now I am able to read and drive a car without the use of my glasses.

First and foremost, I would like to thank and praise our Lord Jesus for this healing. I would like to encourage others to faithfully bring your prayers to Him and He will answer them"

Supernatural Lifestyle

Sean Smith was with us Sunday. He preached out of Acts 19 with a focus on a supernatural lifestyle.

The most favorite topic in my life.

Sean preached that we need to be roused to the moment (be ready to be used by God), recognize the movement (of the Holy Spirit) and release the manifestation (what the Holy Spirit wants to do at any given moment).

We need to be ready to move out with what the Holy Spirit is saying. We cannot walk in the Spirit if we don’t talk to the Spirit. Change in a city occurs when the Holy Spirit is moving through us. Interaction with the Holy Spirit will lead to transactions and transactions will lead to transformation. We cannot suffer from interaction deprivation (with God). We need to connect more with the Holy Spirit and be confident in what He is saying and then move out in power.

We need to do five things:

1. Cultivate God’s presence in our lives

2. Incubate God’s faith in the heart that moves to action

3. Fellowship with those who will stir us up in God.

4. Be motivated by love.

5. Learn to follow the finger of God.

I was reminded and stirred again to have a deepening fellowship with the Holy Spirit in my own life. I was encouraged to believe that there is a growing company of people who want to see the raw power of God released in the Bay Area. I think the greatest gap in the world is between knowing and doing. Somehow we need to see greater levels of activation!

I pray that this week we all move out in greater measure. To be confident in the voice of God and step out in faith. This will be my goal. How about you?

What are some things that keep us from stepping out for God more often?

The Prophetic: Road-signs toward destiny

1 Corinthians 14:3 "But everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort."

My 16 year old son, Jordan, has been up in Redding CA involved in the School of Worship. This is his last week there. He will be graduating on Friday.

I made the weekend trip by taking him from Fremont up to Redding on Sunday. It is always a cool thing because we get to be together for about three and a half hours. Of course that time depends on how fast we are going and if we make a Fentons ice cream stop (which we did)!

Along the way, he was sharing with me a dream he recently had and how he felt that it was pointed toward his future. He also shared that over the past year he has been given prophetic words from others.

As he shared these prophetic words with me, the content of these words had one thing in common. The words given to him revealed that Jordan will have an amazing anointing but with each person, in each word given, they told him that they were not allowed to share with him what they saw regarding this anointing or what they saw him doing in the future. Isn’t that crazy.

Here is a sixteen year old trying to specifically determine his future, then having people recieve a picture of what it might be, but then feeling like they cannot share it with him. We both laughed and said, “what the heck”.

I shared with him a couple things regarding the prophetic that I felt were important reminders for him on his journey.

The prophetic can be road signs. As we were traveling to Redding, I pointed out the road signs that pointed us toward our destination. These signs gave us confirmation that we are on the right freeway heading the right direction. Words given to us are released to confirm the road we are traveling towards our destiny in God.

The prophetic challenges us to go deeper. The prophetic is like someone telling us where gold is located. If we really want the gold we have to go digging (or panning). God gives us enough to create in us a deeper desire to go deeper in Him in order to gain the treasure of revelation. I encouraged him to pursue the God of his destiny and he will truly discover both.

Rest and enjoy the journey - The one thing I did not want him to do is to be anxious. I reminded him from my own life that words take time to mature. I have realized that I have to have the character and skill set to carry out the word. If God gives me the blessings of the word without first training me to carry it, it would be unloving. I encouraged Jordan to rest and enjoy the journey. God is growing him to carry out His word.

Jordan has a bright future. As a dad, I am so pleased that he is desiring for God’s will to be revealed. That he is hungry to know his calling. And that he is eager to step into it. What more can a dad ask for!

Healings Breakout in Disneyland

You have to read this. You can find more at on Bethel Churches testimony page. Or you can download a PDF here on my site

I went down to see my best friend, Jason Tax, in Los Angeles, just to visit for a week and hang out—and who knows what adventure the Holy Spirit might lead us into. Jay and I love to do street evangelism together. On the way down, I saw a Disneyland sign, and I remembered the times of lying on my bed dreaming with the Holy Spirit of revival inside the theme park. I thought, “Wow that would be cool if that ever happened for real.”

I had the privilege of speaking at my friend’s church on Wednesday night, and after the service, a lady asked me if I wanted a free ticket to Disneyland the following day. Yippie, Jesus. I thought, Wow! Those tickets are $94!

Jason Tax, Hanna Ford and I went to Disneyland to have a great day in the sun with the Son—and God set us up through one key miracle of a young man’s shoulder that was in a sling. We approached him and asked if we could pray for healing. Jesus instantly completely healed his shoulder and he removed his sing and began to test it out. He started crying from God’s goodness, and he told us how he could not raise it at all because of a fresh torn rotator cuff injury. He then started raising his arm over his head and moving it as freely as the other one. His friends explained how he is the star football player at their school and he would have had to take the entire year off from football after his scheduled surgery, so we explained the gospel of Jesus Christ and the miracles to the group of eight or so, and they all got saved and filled with the Holy Spirit, and two of them got healed—one of scoliosis. The other had Jesus grow out his leg as his friends all looked on.

They all started freaking out, and the heavenly momentum hit and it erupted into an all-out Holy Spirit healing miracle service in the Disneyland food court for four and a half hours as groups of young people got their friends and brought them back to us for healing. They would come to us and say, “Can you heal this?” as they would point to a lump on their knee or a bad ankle. We would answer something like, “We can not heal anything but Jesus can heal everything and that same Jesus is in you now, so everyone put your hand on this person and say, ‘Be healed in Jesus’ name! Now test it out.’” Really, that’s how we prayed: “Be healed! Now test it out.” Almost every healing was instant as the looks of shock appeared on the faces, then praise and cheers to Jesus would erupt from the crowd of youth!

Flat feet were healed as arches formed in front of everyone to witness. One girl was so scared as her friends dragged her up to us. She was almost crying from fear. We told her, “Hon, you have nothing to be afraid of. This is Jesus and He loves you very much.” She had extreme scoliosis and a dislocated thumb that was in a hand brace. She was still very much afraid so we told her, “We won’t even need to touch you because the glory is here. Just remove your brace and move your thumb around.” She did and her thumb was instantly healed. We asked her to touch her toes and then check her back out. She did and her friends lifted up the back of her shirt to check out her spine. They all screamed because it was now perfectly straight. Jesus! We asked her if she knew Jesus, and she said no. We told her it was Jesus who just healed her and asked her if she would like to know that Jesus? She said yes, so she got saved and then we explained to her about being filled with the Holy Spirit and she said she wanted Him, too! So we asked her to put her hands out in front of her and say, “Holy Spirit, come and fill me up. I give my life to you.” She started shaking under the power of God. God is soooo good!

We witnessed bone knots dissolve from knees, asthma healed, crooked knees straightened out, and eyes healed. Some protruding ribs were pulled back into the chest. Even gold dust showed up on many and three youths experienced supernatural weight loss as their once tight pants got looser and looser. Screams erupted as one man grew an inch taller while everyone looked on.

A super cool thing was how each kid got saved and then we prayed for them to be filled with the Holy Spirit and almost every kid felt a strong manifestation of the Holy Spirit like electricity, heat, tingling all over their bodies or a heavy, weighty presence.

They would then ask us questions like, “Can you make the sadness I feel leave the inside of me?” All their friends would say, “I feel that way, too,” so we started praying in large groups, commanding depression to leave them and joy to come. Kids were crying, laughing, yelling “Jesus,” saying things like, “I can’t believe this! This is way better than any ride here!” Those kids were getting set free. We prayed for healing for the first few kids only. Then we taught the youth that the same Spirit dwells in each of them, and then we watched Jesus heal through their hands! We witnessed around 120-140 healings, most of them instant and about 100 or so decisions for Christ, of which 50 or so were first-time decisions, asking Jesus to forgive them of their sins. Yea, Jesus! One young man came up to me and said, “I never knew that Jesus died for me,” and he yelled at the top of his lungs: “Jesus!”

Power Encounters

On Easter Sunday, April 12 of this year, Carla and her daughter Kristin were physically healed in our church service. Carla had been inactive because of severe back pain. Her daughter Kristin (in her early 20’s) was also facing a painful injury. Below is there own short testimony told by Carla: "I have been flat on my back for the better part of the past month, and God miraculously healed me in church today! Pastor Greg asked if anyone was in pain and I stood up. People came and laid hands on me and the pain left! I was able to dance and twist freely, and I came home and did all kinds of things that I have not been able to do for a month. God is amazing and He is moving powerfully in our church!" "Remember that tendon thing you called out? It was her (her daughter, Kristin). It's been giving her fits when she runs Cross Country and Track...very painful and it restricted her movement too. So we laid hands on this tendon in her right thigh as you prayed about that....We felt the tendon twitching...and the pain left! And she can run miles and miles with no pain and no restriction of movement! It's so awesome! God ROCKS!" Here is an email that I sent to Carla yesterday: “A quick question. How's the healing doing for you and Kristin from Easter. You guys still free? I want to post your testimonies on the journal part of my blog to encourage people. I plan on doing this Wednesday” Here is her response to the email: “We are both still perfectly healed! Praise God!” Luke 9:2 and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick Healing the sick is not an option for the believer. It should be as natural as sharing our faith. Healing confirms the authenticity of the Kingdom message. Allow these testimonies to stir you to receive healing and to release it. It’s yours to own and yours to give away!

Doing the Resurrection

We had a great Easter Service this past weekend. As I was preparing for the meetings the thought kept running through my mind, “don’t preach the resurrection, do the resurrection”. Now that was a weird thought, how do you do the resurrection? Hmm, wouldn’t it be great to actually go after what the resurrection provided. That thought got me fired up.  What if I went after applying Christ’s resurrection power in the meeting instead of talking about it? What if I witnessed people getting healed and delivered as well as forgiven in the meeting, then spend time teaching about it. So I decided to step out and see what happens. The good news is that people were healed and the supernatural was released. Backs healed, problems from injuries healed, freedom from physical pain as well as fresh commitments to Christ. Now that is an Easter service! What if there were a growing number of people bringing in the sick, the handicapped, the blind, the deaf on our Easter services then witnessing the power of God completely heal them. Way to fun! Doing the resurrection should be a growing daily reality for us all. You are the church, so be the church and apply what Jesus paid for. People are waiting.