A Message from Your Angels

This past September (22-24, 2016) I helped a friend, Dr. Aaron Winter of Hearts of Fire International host the Encounter God conference in Portland, Oregon. The conference was pretty awesome, and many people received a touch from God in a variety of ways. I saw a friend there who I hadn’t seen for a few years, and we talked about angels for a little while. I shared with her some revelation a friend had shared with me a while back that really spoke to me–that angels are drawn to our worship, but it’s partly because they get healed in the glory. Angels love the presence of God, and when they are here on earth they are relatively bound to the same experience of God that we have–which means when we don’t engage God’s glory, they don’t get to either. When we worship, soak, and pray, and engage God’s presence and glory, however, they are able to heal and get empowered to battle and carry out God’s will in the earth.

As I shared with this here, I began to spontaneously cry. I could sense the emotions of the angels around me as I spoke, and I heard in my spirit some of them saying “Share this. Share this message. Tell this story on our behalf–the people need to know.” I didn’t get the feeling that conference was the appropriate forum for that particular message, but I knew in my spirit I needed to write this article, because it is a message from the angels–my angels, your angels.

I once heard someone share a prophetic word during a service (not at this conference) that they sensed angels flying in from miles around to be there and to participate in the glory that was present.

God wants you to empower your angels because YOU are the gate of heaven to earth. You are the convergence point of the glory, and your ministering spirits are connected to the glory that you bring into your life. It is a nice idea to think that angels are constantly connected with God’s glory when they are around us, but in the same way that we can actively experience God’s presence at some times and not at others, angels have the same experience. While they are far more familiar with His glory than we are, they still require spiritual rejuvenation as they carry out assignments on the earth, and we are the solution to that problem.

Angels aren’t just mindless slaves that God sends out to do His bidding. They are created beings who have knowledge, reason, and will. They have no sin and are fully obedient to God, but they have different personalities, appearances, strengths, and weaknesses. When they are attacked by demons, they get hurt and they feel pain. This isn’t just some imaginary happening–angels deal daily with the demonic forces set against our lives, and while they may not be plagued by demons when in God’s presence in heaven, the same cannot be said of their time spent here.

Please keep in mind that your angels are sent to partner with you–they need your help. If you feel open to it, choose to take a few minutes, or longer if necessary, to connect with some of your angels–your guardian angel at the very least. Ask him or her what they find most difficult about watching over you, and how you can help them do their job better. I think you will be surprised at what you discover, and if you heed their advice, you may find things going just a little more smoothly in your life in the coming days.

A Vision of an Enemy Attack

Eleven years ago I took a trip with my campus ministry to shadow another group at Arizona State University. While I learned a little more about campus ministry while there, one of the things I most clearly remember wasn’t anything about the campus–it was a vision of an enemy attack. On the plane ride there I got to imagining things about the ministry housing we were provided–mostly that a bunch of demons converged on the place. At first I followed along with my imagination, then realized that I wasn’t just imagining the enemy doing something bad–I was being shown a vision of demonic plans. I shared this vision with my roommate, who was also a close friend. Both my roommate and I were regular intercessors for the church so we prayed against the enemy attack in-flight.

The trip was minimally informative, but I recall that one night, four or five days in, I woke up in the middle of the night. This time my vision was of a demon sliding its way into my room. I began to address it in prayer when I began to perceive that this was happening all over the house–my vision had come true and the house was being infiltrated. I walked quietly through the house praying over everyone both in tongues and in English, and still nervous, I attempted to wake a pastor to let him know. Unable to rouse him, I woke my roommate instead. He is very prophetic and became aware of the problem as or before I even told him. We spent some time in prayer over the ministry and everyone there, then went back to sleep.

All was not well on that trip and my roommate and I were on the receiving end of some unpleasant rebukes from a pastor, but what I remember to this day was the difference in response from the pastor and my roommate. My roommate woke up and supported me in prayer when I brought a concern to him. The pastor found out about our prayer session later and informed me that he would have been extremely angry if I had successfully woken him up.

Around this time the church was also going through a period of growth and the Board of Elders were in discussion about buying a new property and constructing a larger church building with gym facilities for outreach. The entire group of intercessors were against it–God had shown each of us separately that the new building was a bad idea. Although we brought this to the pastor’s attention, he had set his mind and ignored the multiple prophetic warnings. The only thing left to do was take it to prayer.

The end result was that they built the building, and ten years later the building is still there, but the church I isn’t. Well, the organization with the same name is there, but half the board and the majority of the pastoral staff left. While one could say that this is normal change, it’s not that everyone moved away from town. Many of them still live there–they just aren’t part of the church or campus ministry any longer.

As I was reminded of these events, it struck me how pivotal not just intercession is, but guided intercession. God is in the business of giving us visions, dreams, and words of direction to know how to pray and how to act in our lives. Whether about a demonic attack or church building project, or for something far more mundane and seemingly unspiritual, God has things He wants to share with you. No part of life is more or less spiritual than another, and God wants to intimately connect with you about life events–ALL life events. He wants to reveal areas of weakness and plans the enemy has to tear you down, but also God’s plans to build you up, encourage you, and set you on a straight path.

While I have enjoyed periods where I was able to spend hours on end in prayer, my life does not support that approach at this time. Nevertheless, God still communicates things He wants me to know and how I can pray His will on earth as it is in heaven. I am not some super-special person that God speaks to differently than everyone else. God has new things to show you, pitfalls to help you avoid, and advice to make your day more enjoyable. I encourage you to take a few minutes today and ask the Lord for wisdom and direction–for your family, your job, and your church, whether traditional or organic. Spend a few more minutes praying over the wisdom God has given you and make your life today just a little bit more like heaven on earth.

Blessings to you.

A New Season is Upon You

Ten years ago this month, the Lord sent me to a ministry school at a large charismatic church a few hours from where I lived. During the five months I spent there (of what was supposed to be 2-year school) I ended up meeting a woman there who is now my wife. At the Lord’s leading, I got married and resigned from the school–and we were both promptly kicked out of the church. For those who don’t know me well, it was a very difficult season in my life, having been newly married in what was a completely God-ordained surprise, and having my family and almost all of my friends turn on me at the same time. During that period my wife and I were also badly attacked spiritually by a local coven, and the ripple effects of that continued for years afterward.

Fast forward to last weekend, I was helping a friend out with a conference in the Portland area (we moved to Portland about 8 years ago). Jeff Jansen and Gary Oates were the speakers, and it was a really awesome time. The Friday night session, Jeff was speaking about us entering into a new cycle of time in the region and nation, and how the Lord is stirring things up to release the Kingdom in miracles, healing, and revival on an entirely new level yet again. The Holy Spirit was moving on me the entire time–I was crying on and off, occasionally sobbing, throughout the entire message and during the ministry time afterwards.

At first I didn’t know why I was crying, although I could tell it was God at work, and then the Lord began to speak to me about renewing my destiny. You see, ten years back I was passionate about miracles, signs, and wonders and seeing the Kingdom released in demonstrations of the Spirit’s power. Those who know me will probably read this and wonder how that is different from right now, but trust me, it was. It’s not that I am less passionate now, but I believe in that season there was a window of time the Lord had opened for me, and because of the situation surrounding my marriage, that opportunity was unknowingly lost.

From my perspective, I used to worship almost every night, spend usually one to two hours soaking in God’s presence every day, and regularly fast and pray over myself to increase in things of the spirit. I used to spend six hours every weekend interceding for friends, family, the nation, my local church, and God’s plan for my life. On the one hand, it could be said that I did a lot of “religious” activities, but for me at that juncture, it was how I was pursuing the things of God. And truth be told, I still value those things even if I haven’t been doing them much in the years since. The Lord even suggested to me that when I wake up at strange hours of the night due to my work schedule, and can’t fall back asleep, that I should spend some time soaking with Him and enjoying His presence–as a way to fit that into my current life schedule.

After the Lord shared this revelation with me, Jeff prophesied a brief word over me, speaking about touching the nations with miracles, signs, and wonders, and releasing God’s power into the world. He spoke about teaching schools to help others learn to do this as well–something that my wife and I have been discussing recently. My body was trembling as I stood there, and I could feel this electric power of Holy Spirit course through my legs and arms–a familiar feeling, but one I had not experienced for a while. Even the atmosphere of the meeting was electric–and reminded me of how meetings used to be, back before my wife and I got the “big E” of excommunication. In all honesty, I don’t think I have felt that level of glory in the ten years since, until the other night.

I am excited for the days ahead. I am not entirely sure what God did that night, but I can tell some inner healing took place in areas I didn’t know needed it. I feel that my spiritual vigor has been renewed in a hard-to-describe sort of way, and I am more excited now than I was before about seeing God’s heart of love change the nations of this world. God told me that I have entered a new season in my life, and I believe it!

The story doesn’t end there–you see, I am beyond blessed that God touched me, but I still have things I am contending for and I know many others who are in a similar position. God spoke to me during the Saturday morning session and said that someone there had been asking God for a prophetic word the entire conference–and hadn’t gotten it yet. He shared the flowing with me, which I shared with the group. Multiple people came up to me afterwards and told me that they were “that person.” I believe it will speak to you as well:

“I am proud of you. You have stood the test of time and I am releasing you into a new level of my presence. Because you have been faithful with the little, so I will give you the increase in the coming days.”

I believe that a new season is coming upon many, and so I declare prophetically over you that YOU TOO are entering a new season of glory and grace. You are entering a new time of refreshing and renewal, and God is empowering you to touch nations and peoples of this earth. God is releasing angels to some of you with new assignments–some of them are carrying the breakthrough you have been contending over in prayer for years. There is at least one person who is in litigation over a property dispute, and you will find that in the next few weeks that the problems seem to dissolve in front of you. Where the judge was previously unfavorable, that is going to change. Where lawyers and businesses were closed to you, favor is replacing it. God is releasing a refreshing to many of you, and your ability to see in the spirit is going to increase considerably in the coming days. Some of you have struggled to hear God’s voice, and that is going to clear up shortly. And while all is not always daisies and roses, God is a good God and will always see you through the hard times, because He will never leave or forsake you, no matter how it feels. Be blessed, and may a new level of renewal spark positive change in your life.

Healing With The Seer Gift

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I do a moderate amount of prayer for physical healing, mostly for family, friends, and coworkers. Over the years I have learned the ways that tend to work for me, and while occasionally I pick up a trick or two, I’ve pretty much got my method down. I have come to realize that I do it a bit differently than most people seem to, and that’s healing with the seer gift.

I’m not big on titles, so I don’t really consider myself a “seer”, but by rights I suppose I could. When I work to heal others, I usually see energies in their body in my mind’s eye and get an idea of what needs to be fixed, where demons are and what they are doing, and what I need to do to heal the person. Yes, it is always prayer in Jesus’ name, but the seer gift gives me visions of the problems and shows me how I can partner with God to get the job done.

As I said before, I often see energies–swirls of black, gold, blue, red, and green are the most common. To me, each color denotes a type of problem. Black is death and bad-ness while red is more inflamed or irritated. Gold is God’s glory, blue is healing energy, and green is life-energy. Yes, technically they are all aspects of the same things but the seer gift is how God shows me what He is doing in the client’s body.

It doesn’t stop there. I will see demons residing in organs and tissues, as well as other objects–swords, knives, arrows, and all other weaponry, vices, armor, clamps, pins, screws, and other metallic-looking items that really have no place on the body. I have seen gobs of pus and goo that need to be removed, ropes, chains, and other long, string-like items that I have to pull out of the person, and more. It’s not just as simple as imagining them gone, because I can imagine them gone all day long and they stay there. I have to actually remove them. Sometimes this is a physical pantomiming, other times I do it in the spirit, watching myself remove the objects with my mind’s eye. It varies from time to time how I work, but the method is the same–look with an expectation to see something, see it, and address what I see by either opposing and removing it, or helping it correct a problem.

I have more recently been reminded that things go much more easily when I get angels involved to help me, so I have started doing that. If I pay attention I can see angels sending glory-light into the person as well–it’s usually gold-colored. There is a lot of trial and error involved, and sometimes I simply don’t know either what to do, or I do know what to do and don’t know how long it will take to fix it. I am often fighting in the spirit against objects that appear to have sentience and resist being removed. I sometimes will have to do things in segments because I simply can’t do it all at once. Healing with the seer gift isn’t hard, but it’s not often taught.

To hear more about this idea, listen to a short healing interview with Daniel Thomas on the Heal the Sick Podcast by Dominion Fire where he discusses this same concept–and with similar experiences to my own. If you have had these types of experiences, share your thoughts and comments below! If you want to learn more about this, let me know that as well–it will help me to gauge interest for future books, webinars, and teaching material. Blessings!

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Jesus in the Clouds

When I was a boy and would ride in the car, I would sometimes stare at the clouds in the sky at watch Jesus following us, watching over me. I used to not think much about it, and while I always enjoyed seeing Him on the clouds, I didn’t really connect it with the fact that He was actually there in the clouds. What I mean is that I think part of me recognized I was imagining it, but another part of me still enjoyed seeing him there.

*As a side note, while I am in no way saying this was the “2nd Coming,” I find it quite apropos that I saw Jesus in the clouds (see Mark 13:26, Revelation 1:7)

Likewise, when I was young I also used to see vampires outside the windows of our house–even up on the second and third stories, and especially at night. I always thought I was imagining them, even though I never watched vampire-related shows or movies–even while I was in high school! I never gave it much thought, although I was always creeped out when it would happen.

It took me until I was 22 before I discovered that when I saw Jesus and the vampires, they were both actually there. You see, growing up in the Episcopal church I didn’t know that I was having visions because I didn’t know that’s what visions were–and the Bible always made them sound so much more spooky, like there should be this “mystical feeling” associated with them. I suppose most fantasy books didn’t help because they always suggested the same thing–that supernatural experiences would be accompanied with some sort of significant fanfare. The truth is that’s simply not how it is.

Most visions and prophetic experiences are so mundane that they can go unnoticed if one is not paying attention, or does not realize what is happening. Little did I know, but the imagination is the backdrop God uses to give us visions, and if you don’t know that it will see to you (and others) like you have an overactive imagination. When I discovered that I was having visions of Jesus, I was in a church-based ministry school in Pennsylvania. One of the other students and I were talking about some of our life experiences and she began to talk about how she would always imagine Jesus flying in the clouds overhead. I was like “Me too!” We both discovered at that time we had been seeing Him for real, and were encouraged. Another time I was talking to the accountant on staff and I was telling her about the vampires I used to imagine–when I suddenly realized and said aloud, “Oh my god, they were real!”

It’s a bit of a shocker when you realized that imaginary creatures you used to see as a teen were actually REALLY there outside your window–and in some ways it makes it all the creepier. What were they doing there? What did they do that I don’t know about? The Lord was very kind to me because He used that revelation to help me go through some pretty intense inner healing and deliverance a few weeks later relating to that very subject, but to this day when I think about them it still creeps me out, so I suppose I have a little room yet to go. Not to mention that now I am better at seeing in the spirit than I used to, it can get pretty ugly when looking outside at night, so I often keep the curtains to our bedroom closed when we sleep.

The one major lesson I learned from this is that “real” and “reality” are sometimes a bit more unclear than we think. Visions are real–the experiences we have within them are reality. They aren’t made up or fabricated by our minds, but are the same as if we physically experienced them–and truth be told, our subconscious mind treats both the same way! If you have difficulty with the idea that visions are real, or aren’t sure if what you think you see is your mind making it up, I will be honest in saying that it is unlikely you are making them up. To this day I still see fairies, vampires, animals, angels, gnomes, elves, and all other manner of strange things in the spirit, and most people would think that I am making it up–unless they understand how visions work. And if you see that sort of stuff too, even as a Christian, you aren’t alone. I have spent a lot of time honing my ability to see in the spirit, and I have learned to tell when I am making something up versus when I am having a vision.

If you want to learn more about spiritual sight, I encourage you to find a friend who can perceive in the spirit along with you, and practice what you see. Get a copy of Praying Medic’s book Seeing in the Spirit Made Simple or Michael Van Vlymen’s book How to See in the Spirit. Blake Healy has a book The Veil that is particularly good and is really encouraging. Gary Oates’ book Open My Eyes, Lord has practical, down-to-earth advice on seeing angels and engaging the spiritual realms. And who knows? Maybe one of these days you will write your own to help people like you and me who didn’t know what they didn’t know, so they too will know that they see. Be blessed.

Windows of Time

We have a small izu persimmon tree outside the front of our house. We transplanted it a few years back and only this year did it start producing a significant amount of fruit. I am not very clear on what one actually does with a persimmon, but i do know that this year the branches were absolutely laden with fruit. I kept telling myself I needed to pick some of the fruit because the branches were getting heavier and heavier. Eventually one of the branches broke off from the weight of the fruit, and we ended up losing a lot of the fruit that was there.

I was walking up our driveway a few weeks ago and glanced at the injured tree that is noticeably missing a limb. I couldn’t help but think that there was a prophetic message about that tree. I pondered it for a bit but didn’t come up with anything. The next day my wife and I were talking about her unemployment benefits running out, and how if we had acted sooner we could have had an extension that we now missed out on. I had a flash of inspiration and realized the message of the persimmon tree: windows of time.

There is a time and a season for most everything in life, and some seasons have much greater importance than others. If we actively engage those seasons we can get the most out of whatever that season holds for us, whereas we can also be inactive and let the blessings slip by. The persimmon tree operates in seasons, and there is a window of time where the fruit is ripe and ready to pick. If you procrastinate, as I did, the fruit is lost, and in this case the procrastination actually caused damage to the tree and may impact its productivity next year, as less branches equals less space to grow fruit. Likewise, since we didn’t engage the season of unemployment benefits properly, the season ended sooner than it could have.

I realized that the message of the persimmon tree wasn’t just applying to unemployment, as we would have had no time to implement it and the message was too little too late. Thus, I surmised it was about other things–things yet to come, as well as things in the lives of others. In meditating on this message, I believe this is a now-word that God wants all of us to hear and take heed.

There are windows of time that God opens in each of our lives–kairos moments where the favor is present, the doors are wide open, and even if it requires some effort we must make every effort to step through the doors. Only then will we obtain the blessings on the other side. Failure to do so will not only result in loss, but possibly will cause further loss as the ripple effects of our choices spread out. If we don’t engage those opportunities when they arise, we will invariably pass into a new season where we are no longer able to engage those blessings. In John 9:4 Jesus said it like this: “As long as it is day, I must do the works of Him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.”

In my personal life, I can see multiple areas where this applies: school, writing, house maintenance, friendships, and work. On a national level I believe the United States has times and seasons where we have opportunity for blessing, and if we don’t pray the nation through those doors we will reap the results of our national failures.

Now is the time to acknowledge windows of time. Now is the time to engage the opportunities laid out before us. We must go forward through the open doors, put the work in, the time in, the effort in, and do whatever we need to do, because there is coming a time where we will no longer be able to work, and when that time comes, the results will speak for themselves. Let us be a people who receive blessings as a return for timely labor.

Entering the Kingdom Age

There is a massive shift taking place in the Body of Christ–a transition from the Church Age into the Kingdom Age. Believers are leaving churches in droves in search of the deeper life they instinctively know is available. Holy Spirit is drawing the people out of the church as it has, in many ways, become the new Egypt. Yes, there are many honorable, God-loving and God-fearing men and women who still serve and engage in the “normal” way that church has been done in the past, and this is in no way meant to condemn these people or say that what they are doing is wrong–God will lead each of us individually. However, it must be seen that there is a reason people are fleeing Egypt to head toward a new Promised Land.

While some may find this comparison to be a bit drastic, I don’t feel it is that way at all. Those who leave are often kicked out or were treated so poorly inside the church that it is clear they were not valued, much as the Hebrew slaves in Egypt. Some who leave are in search of something deeper, but many are just in search of something different, something more authentic that isn’t about building a newer, bigger, better pyramid for the current Pharaoh and being used to leverage a larger empire for the church leadership. As they leave they head toward a Promised Land that, like the Hebrews, they have never seen before and are taking it on faith that on the other side of the wilderness up ahead is a better life.

Truthfully, for those who have left the church it is at first very much like a wilderness, often drifting about searching for springs of living water to navigate through the otherwise spiritually dry desert. Some, however, discover quite quickly that at any time they can call forth water from the rocks and find that without all of the external trappings of religion that they are able to drink even more deeply from that fountain of Living Water that is Jesus. Where before there was a list of rules to measure up to, now there is freedom to follow the cloud by day and the pillar by night wherever it may take them.

Even as I am typing this, there is a fire alarm that just went off in the hospital building I am in. This is a prophetic picture that Rome is burning–the church is sick and in need of a doctor, the Great Physician, the only one who can breathe life into a dying system. And it is possible that God is standing silently by waiting for it to breathe its last so he can resurrect the Remnant from its ashes, raising them up to look like His bride, without spot or blemish.

There is a clarion call going out into the earth in these days, a call to wake up. A call to freedom. A call to being. A call to authenticity, and relationship, and oneness. Jesus is determined to have his bride, and He will wrest them from the hands of any who stand in his way, even if that be leaders in the churches. Gone are the days of the top-down leadership where everyone else sits and blindly follows in pews like sheep. Instead, as Jeremiah prophesied in Jeremiah 31:34a, there is coming a day, and even now we are stepping into the firstfruits of it, where “no longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know Me from the least of them to the greatest,’ declares the Lord.” Regardless of whether you are in the “corporate church” or the body of Christ who has left the four walls, there is a shift and we must refocus to step fully into the Kingdom Age, which has already begun. Let’s go!

Liberated Living

Many years ago, shortly before we got married, my wife turned me onto Liberated Living, the ministry of John and Beverly Sheasby, a precious couple who teach and minister the love of Jesus, but largely focus on helping people grow in an understanding and experience of God’s grace and love toward us, and our identity as sons and daughters of God. They have a vast number of very helpful teachings on their website, many of which I have listened to over the years, and most of which are completely free!

Check out their website, and feel free donate if you feel blessed by their ministry, but most of all, download the teachings and watch your growth reach a new level! Be blessed everyone!

http://liberatedliving.com/downloads/

The End of Revival

I have been in the Charismatic Church arena for over a decade, and while that isn’t a long time for some, it’s a third of my life. In that time I have connected with a vast proportion of current “revival” culture, which is, in my opinion, a highly involved process of begging God to do what He has already done–to come to earth and pour out His Spirit upon us. At this time, we have entire church groups who fast and pray regularly, even daily, in a flagellant posture attempting to wrangle a few extra drops of heaven out of God’s grasp. Don’t get me wrong–I believe in fasting and how it changes our own internal state. I can literally feel a change in the energy in my body when I fast, but that changes me, not God.

I have spent a considerable amount of my own time praying for revival as well–literally crying over the state of our nation and this world, and the hopeless condition that we are in if God doesn’t send His Spirit down yet again to bring revival. As I have grown in all things spiritual and become more accustomed to the Charismatic Way of doing things, I have discovered that we Charismatics are especially good at praying in such a way as to ramp up our emotions into a passionate frenzy. We use music to bring everyone else with it, then we grab a microphone and begin screaming super-spiritual catch-phrases into it and eventually we are so worked up that tears are literally streaming down our face as we beg God to do things that, I assure you, He has not only planned to do already, but is far more interested in doing than we are. So why all the fuss?

I’m not trying to just poke fun at people here, but I have been in gatherings where this is exactly what we did. In one of these meetings when the girl was screaming into the microphone, we were in a room with a drop ceiling and everyone was not more than ten feet from her. In other words, she could have talked and prayed at a normal volume or even just spoke a little louder and all of us would have heard her just fine. When I say it was painful, I don’t mean just from an emotional perspective, I mean that it was really uncomfortable on my ears. If you can’t get more anointing, go for volume I guess.

The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwells within me. I AM revival wherever I go because I carry within me the One Who Revives. I have within me the faith of God who makes all things new. I have the power to heal sickness, to cast out demons, to create solutions in every problem. Every word I speak produces life or death depending on what I choose to speak. I am a powerful person because God has made me that way–we ALL are! We don’t really need “another revival” — Revival is over. It is time for a Mystic Awakening.

The Christian mystics were people who fell so deeply in love with God that they become consumed by Him. There is something about facing your gaze toward Him that is overwhelming. As we turn our affection toward God, He turns his affection toward us and pours out new measures of his love. Current worship-culture is, in my opinion, far less attractive to God than unbridled private affection, not because worship culture is bad, but because when we gaze into His face in our hearts there are no other distractions. We can’t be carried along in an act of reverence by other people and nice-sounding instruments in spite of a lack of personal engagement, so when our eyes are affixed on how altogether lovely he is, our whole heart is involved. Again, corporate worship is a good thing, God loves it, and angels flock to corporate worship in droves for healing, refreshing, and warfare against the enemy, but it’s not the same as sitting alone with the King.

One thing the mystics are known for is ridiculous miracles–resurrections, translocation, bilocation, and multiplying food are just the beginning strokes. One monk would occasionally make himself invisible or extremely tiny so that other monks couldn’t find him and interrupt his times of devotion with God. Padre Pio was seen by enemy fighters during the War floating high in the air over his town and planes were literally unable to drop bombs–the bombs would not release from the hangars no matter how many times they tried. There is a story of one mystic who was asking his superior what he should do next as he had done everything else his superior had instructed. “Why not be transformed completely to fire?” he said as he began to glow.

If we want to see Heaven come to earth, we need to spend more time in Heaven and bring it back with us. Those who are the MOST heavenly minded will be of utmost earthly good, as those who are so completely taken by God’s affection cannot do anything but let that life overflow into the earth sphere around them. Revival has become a catch-phrase that leads to more meetings and conferences with speakers, products, and mass marketing to other believers whether it carries the essence of Heaven or not. A Mystical Awakening is simply letting our hearts and our whole bodies be consumed by God’s goodness and letting the ecstasy of His affection transform us into living flames of His glory to revolutionize this world. Revival is at an end–let the Mystics arise!

Renewing Our Dreams

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Something about turning the corner from 2014 to 2015 has caused a noticeable shift in my life and in the lives of many of my friends. It seems like moving to a new calendar year has signified the start of a new period of spiritual and life acceleration. While at times an overused term in regards to spiritual matters, “acceleration” is really the only word I can think of to describe what is happening, but it’s more like “extreme acceleration,” moving faster than the already-fast pace we were moving at before.

In my own life I have observed that the time between when God tells me He is going to do something and the fulfillment of that promise has dropped down to about a two-week period of time, whereas before it seemed that these promises would often take a year or more to start to come to pass. In my blog post titled “A Single Stone” I detailed how only a few weeks after God told me gems would begin to appear again in our house that one showed up on my granddaughter’s bed. Last month God told me he was going to open up speaking engagements for me, and in the last four weeks I have spoken at a Senate Committee Hearing and was invited to speak at a rally on the Capitol steps to fight an unjust bill that was attempting to pass through the Oregon Senate (the bill failed).

I have had a desire to preach and speak to large groups to release the Kingdom for years, and I have had a few opportunities, but for the most part nothing much has happened, and I was not willing to start to generate my own events simply to feed my ego. This year, however, God has opened this realm back up to me, and has been sharing with me the things He is planning to do in and through me, fulfilling goals and dreams I have had for years. In speaking with friends, I have observed that God is actively accelerating ALL of our lives, and is pouring out His strength to cause our dreams to come to pass.

Many of you have had dreams you held onto for years, but when problems have come up or life circumstances have gotten in the way you have given up on those dreams, forgetting that God factored in your life when He created your destiny. What is going on in your life right now is no secret to God–He is resurrecting dream that have died and is giving new ones. God is also handing out new ideas and also wisdom on how to carry those ideas out.

We are in a period of time where dreaming is possibly one of the wisest things you can do. When you have no dreams and aspirations, life becomes much more dull and boring, and it becomes a daily drudgery. Joy goes out the window when there is nothing to look forward to in life, and each new day holds the necessary tasks for survival, but you are not thriving by any means. God intends to change that.

This year is a year for transformation. This is a year to dream. God is accelerating His hand at work in our lives in this earth, and doors of opportunity are opening that have been closed before. Now is the time to revisit old ideas that were good ideas but just didn’t work out at the time. Dream up your wildest, biggest dreams that you don’t think will ever come to pass, and ask God to show you how to move them forward. Take risks and step out into new and uncomfortable places in the directions you want to go, and you will see the hand of God work on your behalf this year.

We are positioned in this season for such exponential growth and increase in our lives as we seek the Lord and what He is doing in our lives right now. This is a period where God is preparing the Josephs for the seven-year famine that is ahead, and where those who follow the leading of the spirit and put their hand to the plow will reap great rewards. Take some time right now to listen to the Lord. What is God revealing to you?

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