Worship, Energy, and the Home Field Advantage

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I was buying groceries at the store yesterday when I saw someone wearing a Raiders shirt, and that instantly got me thinking about how tons of people gather readily and happily in stadiums to cheer for their favorite sports teams on a level that almost trumps religious piety. I then began to ponder what the influence of that radical devotion is on a nonphysical level, and further considered what effect playing on the home field might have in that regard. So, today we are going to look at worship, energy, and the home field advantage.

“Worship” means to give worth to something, but tends to mean to give adoration or reverence toward a deity. However, what actually happens when someone worships someone or something? I’ll tell you: they give them energy. This concept of energy may be super vague to some, but all living beings possess a certain amount of energy or power, even animals, as blood contains power. Spirit beings also possess power even without blood—it’s simply how things work. We constantly receive a flow of power from God that we use on a daily basis (see Acts 17:28). In every interaction we have in life, we give and receive that power. When we feel energized around people, it is usually because we are on the receiving end, bolstered by their energy, whereas when we feel drained by others they are usually taking more of our energy than we are receiving.

When we engage in worship, we take that energy and send it back to God, which lets Him do whatever with it that He chooses. Albeit from an unexpected source, this article, part 2 of a 3-part series, gives what I find to be a revealing explanation of how we send our energy to Jesus when we worship Him. I should clarify that this experience is written by witches who visited a Charismatic church (who I neither know nor condone/support), so their perspective on what is happening and why is not the most accurate. For example, the “aggressive” feelings the one witch felt that was trying to “reverse the triple soul alignment” cultivation probably was God trying to realign her to Him, not actually harm her as she perceived. However, I find they do make some very interesting and highly useful observations, especially related to the part about us giving ourselves and our energy freely to Jesus (which they unsurprisingly don’t understand).

At any rate, what these women accurately identified was that when we worship God, we are sending the energy and power He has entrusted to us back to Him to transform the world as He pleases, which they didn’t understand. Nevertheless, this same dynamic happens in any worship environment—when we give adoration or reverence to someone or something, we send them a portion of our energy. Knowing this, I formulated a hypothesis about sports teams, fans cheering them on, and what is known as the “home field advantage.” What I suspect happens is that when fans get together at a sports game, they form what is essentially a corporate worship setting. With two teams, it is essentially two sets of worshippers worshipping gods who are fighting one another for supremacy, and the team who has more worship-power being fed to them is going to perform better, and ultimately win. Mind you, this could also potentially include those who are watching the game remotely as well, but those who are present presumably will have the most direct influence on the game via their collective energy. In fact, this same dynamic occurs at concerts and other places where people gather in large groups to focus their energy, emotions, and attention in one unified direction.

Another interesting component about this collective, corporate worship, also observed by the witch at Bethel in the above article, is something that happens in any similar group setting. Regardless of the situation when surrounded by people with such a pervasive corporate energy, you can find yourself getting pulled into it. It’s almost like you are standing on dry ground and all of a sudden a flash flood forms around you, and suddenly you are in the middle of a river that is trying to carry you away in its flow. It is certainly possible to resist that flow, but it takes a combination of awareness of what is going on and the ability to mount a resistance. One of the reasons I often avoid movie theaters is that I find the pervasive flow of energy is very difficult to deal with. I find watching sports uninteresting, so it is harder for me to get sucked in and the flow of energy doesn’t bother me half as much as a movie I actually want to see and enjoy but not get energetically sucked into. This principle is also behind the “mob mentality” phenomenon, where people can literally lose themselves in their emotions and make really bad choices as a group as a result. So, to close out this article, I’m going to share with you how to keep from getting pulled in when you don’t want to.

It mostly involves making a conscious choice in one’s heart to detach emotionally from the situation. A river of energy works to pull you in by first inciting your emotions, and as your emotions get engaged, you unconsciously start feeding your energy into that river as well. Thus, begin by withdrawing your emotions. Once you do that, you will want to protect yourself from the river and keep it away from you, otherwise you will have to keep fighting the emotional pull toward it. I usually do this by envisioning (also known as imagining or visualizing) a barrier of golden glory light around me, but you could also accomplish the same by picturing God as a pillar of rock underneath you that lifts you up out the energetic river, or any other visualization method that you find helps. The key to visualization is that it helps you to engage your faith and direct your own energy (which in reality is faith energy, among other things) to accomplish the desired effect. Once you do that, the sucking feeling should diminish considerably if not cease bothering you entirely. If it doesn’t stop, you may want to consider either changing your location, or if that is not possible, to ask God to send angels to assist you. Someone who is less visual than me might prefer to pray instead of visualizing, but the end result is the same. Simply pray that the corporate energy has no power over you, is unable to touch you, and it loses all ability to try to exert its influence upon you. If the desired results are not reached, continue to pray until it becomes effective.

I hope this helps shed a little light on some of the spiritual interchange that happens around us, especially in corporate gatherings, as well as equips you to deal with it when it occurs in unwanted fashion. And if nothing else, I have given you a little glimpse into the spiritual world as I encounter it! Blessings!

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Sowing And Reaping To Raise The Dead

A few months ago I spoke at a church in Maryland about faith, spiritual laws, and miracles, and one of the examples I gave about the law of sowing and reaping was related to raising the dead. If anyone could have heard my thoughts as I was speaking, they might have laughed. I was explaining to the congregation (along with it being interpreted into French sentence-by-sentence) how I am passionate about the abundant life of Jesus Christ, as well as His power and subsequent command to us to raise the dead. I explained how on infrequent occasion will pick up fresh roadkill to “practice” praying for the dead to be raised, and as I was sharing this, I realized that I probably sounded very silly and maybe should have picked a better, more acceptable illustration to explain the law of sowing and reaping. As I thought about it later, however, I decided that while another illustration might make the idea more readily accepted by others, the truth is that the only reason I pray for roadkill is to become more proficient at raising the dead.

Some of you readers might also find this somewhat strange, but let’s be honest, I only do it because it works.

But wait Michael, you haven’t raised the dead yet, so how can you say it works?

Simple: The Bible says it quite clearly, and it is a spiritual principle that is actively and visibly functioning in all creation, so it is impossible to deny its success. Galatians 6:7-9 says:

“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

This passage is possibly the most clear of all the passages on sowing and reaping in scripture, as it quite succinctly explains how it functions. From this, we can see three keys to the law:

1. It makes a mockery of God to think we can sow and not reap, as it is a spiritual law inherent in creation.
2. Our sowing and reaping will bring either death or life
3. If we do not give up, we will reap a harvest sooner or later

This past week or so has been a bit emotionally trying for me, as I have spent some of my time praying to raise a 27-week gestation premature baby from the dead. I never quite realized how traumatic that could be. Don’t get me wrong. I get upset and have to fight internally to keep myself out of a place of grief any time I pray to raise the dead, but this one was different somehow. I think part of it was that I could see how much pain and suffering this death was causing the family, and I recognized that this precious little baby had a long future ahead of her that was just stolen. All in all, the situation was rough but we continue to pray and believe for this life to be returned to this small child.

In this process though, I really had to look inside and ask myself “Why do I do this?” I mean, think about it. As one of the Portland Leads for the Dead Raising Teams, I get contacted occasionally to pray to raise the dead for total strangers. Why do I willingly subject myself to adding other people’s emotional pain onto my own when I don’t have to? I spent some time this past week thinking about this, and what I settled on is basically how I began this blog post:

I am passionate about the abundant life of Jesus Christ.

In fact, I am so passionate about it that at times I go out of my way to enact spiritual principles such as the law of sowing and reaping found in scripture to accelerate the process by which I apprehend living out of that reality—one where I don’t just give lip service to believing that Jesus raises the dead today, but where it actually happens when I pray for them. Some people may find this strange, but the truth is that when things go south, everyone wishes they knew someone who operated in miracles. I personally don’t believe we as Christians have the luxury to hope we know someone else who can get the job done. We owe it to ourselves and those around us to walk in the miraculous at a level such that if someone dies (or any other problem rears its ugly head), that when we show up, so does Jesus and His abundant life to reverse the situation.

I never want to have another encounter with a mother where I hold her lifeless child and fail to release the life of Christ in the situation. I won’t shrink back, mind you, but I never want to have to share in that kind of pain again unless it is just long enough to wipe it away by the resurrection power of Jesus. Sowing and reaping is, I think, one of the most basic but also most overlooked keys God has given us to walk in everything He has commanded us to do.

I talk about this more in my book Faith To Raise The Dead, along with many other subjects including faith, authority, God’s will to raise the dead, and a host of other practical things that come up in this process. The book covers common questions related to raising the dead, as well as give a glimpse of where God wants to move us as the Body of Christ in this area. If you have ever had thoughts about this subject and haven’t quite known how to proceed, I encourage you to get this book, dig into all of the scriptural teaching found within, and see where God decides to take you.

If you want to get more involved in stepping out in faith to raise the dead consider doing any or all of the following six steps:

1. Sign up for our Raise the Dead Initiative mailing list here to receive updates and connect further.

2. Get some books. I have written two books on the subject: Practical Keys to Raise the Dead and Faith to Raise the Dead. Practical Keys is a series of excerpts from Faith To Raise The Dead, all of which give practical advice for when you are actively praying to raise someone at that time. Faith To Raise The Dead goes more into theology, but has a chapter devoted to resurrection testimonies, an appendix in the back of faith-building scriptures to help you pray for the deceased to return to life, and I answer a lot of common and even difficult questions surrounding the subject.

Tyler Johnson, founder of the Dead Raising Team has written multiple books on the subject as well: How to Raise the Dead and The Dead Are Raised. Be sure to check out Father Hebert’s encouraging book Saints Who Raised The Dead for pages upon pages of uplifting testimonies about saints in history who have raised the dead in Jesus’ name.

3. Join the Raise the Dead Initiative on Facebook. The Raise the Dead Initiative is a group I started to help the Body of Christ grow in this area, and I will eventually develop an RDI teaching curriculum to train believers to pray for and raise the dead. You may also be interested in The Dead Raising Team (DRT) and Dead Raising Campaign Facebook groups.

4. Look at how you can host or attend a School of Resurrection in your area. Contact Tyler Johnson via his website at http://www.oneglance.org/ to arrange the event. Tyler is an awesome man of God and good friend who regularly teaches Schools of Resurrection to help transform our understanding on the subject of resurrection life. He has Dead Raising Teams around the world who are ready to mobilize in their area to release the abundant life of Jesus Christ. You can also head over to Gumroad to buy and download a complete Resurrection School Audio Series.

5. Watch/listen to David Hogan’s YouTube Series on the subject of Raising the Dead: Session 1 — Session 2 — Session 3 — Session 4

6. Pray for and actively engage opportunities to raise the dead in your area by reaching out to friends when you hear that someone has passed away.

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Testing Your Healing

I greatly value divine healing. Jesus died to heal every single sickness, disease, pain, infirmity, and problem in our bodies, so it is important that we can live and experience that work He already purchased for us 2000 years ago. There are a variety of hindrances that can slow down the process of receiving divine healing, and ways we can work with them to accelerate our healing, which I discuss in a blog series titled Divine Healing That Works, which I eventually plan to turn into a book. Nevertheless, I believe it is important to not only know how to pray for healing, but how see results in the moment, and you can do this by testing your healing.

I should clarify before going further that healing in scripture, or at least in the New Testament, tends to refer to a gradual process of ongoing healing. Because of this, some people refer to instantaneous healings as miracles, but in either case it involves the body getting fixed, so is related to the subject of healing. In reality, most healing is gradual, but gradual may simply be over the span of five minutes, not five weeks or five years. As a result, testing our healing can be a vital part of the process of actually receiving the healing.

Many years ago I was a member of a Charismatic Church in State College, Pennsylvania, and one Sunday I came up to the front of the sanctuary for an altar call for healing, as I wore glasses and wanted my eyes healed. A good friend prayed for me multiple times, and he had me look at the clock at the back of the room to test it out. The first number of times there was no change, but as we continued to pray, persisting in prayer, my eyes began to gradually get better. While they didn’t get completely healed that day, they did continue to improve for a period of time, to the point that legally I don’t need glasses to drive anymore, when I did prior.

A key part of that healing process, however, was testing out the healing. After all, if you are expecting something to be fixed, how do you actually know it is fixed if you don’t try it out? Certainly in the case of obvious issues like a visible injury testing wouldn’t be required, but most healing cannot be identified simply by appearance, which is where testing comes in. Part of why this helps so much in apprehending divine healing is that testing it out actually engages faith. Until an injury is tested, it is essentially a theoretical healing, that much like the conundrum of Schroedinger’s cat, may or may not exist. Once you test it out, you can identify clearly whether you are or are not healed, and quite often people find they are indeed healed upon challenging the injury.

Testing accomplishes a few different things, actually. First, it helps diagnose the situation. Is the injury getting better, worse, or the same? If worse, then it’s probably a demon and I need to cast it out. If better, then God is healing them at that moment and I need to continue to pray and partner to complete the healing. If nothing changes, then we need to pray to make it change.

Second, as mentioned before, testing the issue releases faith. Multiple places in the New Testament we observe that it was when someone responded to the prayer of faith that their maladies were healed. When we test it out, we are responding in faith, and the faith manifests the healing.

Third, testing the injury distracts the person receiving prayer. This may sound strange, but it is incredibly helpful. When someone is very focused on their problem, especially if it causes them pain, it is hard to get them to stop paying attention to their pain long enough to actually let it be healed and no longer painful. When I distract them, that is oftentimes the moment when the healing manifests, and testing the injury is a fantastic way to get their focus off their pain. It sounds strange to say that testing an injury takes their mind off of it, but it’s more that it shifts what they are focusing on. Before challenging it, they are paying attention to the problem, whereas when testing it, they are now mentally looking for a solution. While it will still surprise (and often shock) people when they discover they are in fact healed, the moment of testing makes them shift their thinking. Sometimes, such as with a headache, I will have the person rate their pain from 0-10, I’ll pray, then have them turn their head side to side, and then I will ask them to rate their pain again. The turning-the-head part honestly is just to distract them long enough for the healing to manifest, and it gives them an action to do in the meantime. There is nothing special about turning your head side to side to get rid of a headache. I just do it to make them shift their thinking, and when they re-evaluate, oftentimes it is either partway or entirely better.

Testing your healing sounds silly to the natural mind, but it incorporates practical, biblically sound spiritual principles that can be used time and time again to help encourage divine healing to manifest. If you have difficulty getting results when praying for the sick, or if you want to take your healing ministry to the next level and aren’t already doing this, get people to test their healing where possible, and I honestly expect you will find that a larger percentage of people will walk away healed by the power and blood of Jesus Christ.

The Kingdom Within—The Reality Of The Inner Dimension

In my growing experience doing inner healing, I have come to understand that Inside each of us is a dimensional space of some kind. In this space, we actually have far more activity than we might imagine. For those who have Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), this is where the various personalities exist when they are not the presenting part that is using the body at that moment. This is also the realm where demons inhabit if they are inside someone. It might be known as an “Inner World” or “Inner Dimension”, but it has a variety of names. I personally refer to it as one’s “System” simply because that is what my friends call it, but any of those three names are equally relevant, as might many more.

Luke 17:21 references this inner realm, saying, “nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.” Consider what that might mean. The Bible says that we each have the Kingdom of God inside of us. That passage doesn’t say that Jesus lives in us (although He does for those who are saved), but that within us is an entire realm of the Kingdom of God. Let that sink in. We know the Kingdom of God isn’t a tangible location on the earth. I can’t buy a plane ticket and fly there for the weekend, but we know it still exists, so its location must be other-dimensional. Some argue that it is a dimension that overlays ours, others think it is in outer space somewhere. I think it is probably both and more, but it is clearly also a dimension within each one of us.

This has some interesting implications. As I mentioned above, this inner System is where demons go when they are inside someone. Luke 11:24-26 says, “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it swept and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.” Also echoed in Matthew 12:43-45, this passage contains some interesting secrets. While I will not delve into the Greek here, there are some interesting details having to do with translation—ultimately the passages should say that the house is swept, ornate, and empty (read this article if interested in the Greek)

When we cast demons out of a person, if all we do is cast it out and do nothing to influence how the demon was able to get inside the system to begin with, then the demon will simply return later, find that the system it left earlier was cleaned up a bit and made nice and pretty for it, and it will bring roommates with it. When I cast out a demon, I first find out how it got access to begin with, and we remove the point(s) of access, often through prayers of renunciation. After making the demon leave, I pray for Holy Spirit to fill up every place the demon vacated. In doing so, it stops being swept clean and empty, but rather the door locked to the demon, swept clean, and filled with God’s glory.

This inner dimension can fit a lot of stuff because it isn’t relegated to the size of our bodies. Angels can be in there, demons can reside there, and Jesus can be enthroned in that dimension as well. This inner dimension is where strongholds are located. The Bible speaks in 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 about them, saying “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” At first glance it appears that Paul is talking about demolishing arguments other people are making, but if you read the sentences more closely, it actually seems Paul is talking about the inner world. We cannot take other people’s thoughts captive; only our own, so Paul is clearly talking about our own inner soul here, at least to some extent. Thus, if we understand that strongholds are some kind of castle or fortress, it makes far more sense that we can have strongholds inside us when we realize they exist inside the System. When we use the power of God to demolish those strongholds, we are waging war internally against the demonic, taking over Kingdom ground within us.

One observation about the Inner System is that we can create anything there that we want, literally by saying it. Job 22:28 says, “You will also declare a thing, and it will be established for you; so light will shine on your ways.” We create things with our words, and the workings of the System is a very good indicator of this. For example, I was recently working with one of my granddaughters, and this particular part was upset because she felt God doesn’t answer her prayers. I had this part ask God why her prayers aren’t answered, and from what she relayed to me, one of the reasons had to do with a lack of faith. She wasn’t sure what to make of that, so I began to explain what the Bible says about faith being a tangible force and energy, and then said “There is faith right in front of you. Look at it and tell me what you see.” This part, who is looking in front of her while inside the system says “Oh, I see this glass vial with blue liquid and it has a cork in it.” My declaration that faith was in front of her caused this spiritual item, a small glass bottle to appear inside her System. We must remember that God spoke and in speaking created myriads of realms, and we are made in His image. When I am doing inner healing with someone and speak something in faith, I release it into their inner system, and they can verify that it is there. This happens consistently, not just with that vial of faith (which, by the way, I had that fragment drink and she informed me it tasted like strawberries, cherries, and chocolate. What fun!).

When we decree a thing into the System, we establish it in the inner dimension. Because I know this when I start working with someone I make sure to add a few things that will help them. I decree a spring of the water of life appears in their system, that continually flows and turns into a river that runs throughout the entire system. I decree the Tree of Life is planted inside the System as well, and oftentimes parts who like gardening will grow them in their garden, which is again located inside this inner world. I have a friend who had one fragment who likes to garden, and this part began to weave small rafts of willow leaves and sends plant starts down the river into other areas of the System that we haven’t been able to access yet. The third thing I usually do is I decree a Healing Center into existence, and if the person doesn’t have any fragments or alters who are good at doing inner healing work (such as with my grandchildren) I staff the Healing Center with angels. By decreeing it, God assigns angels and they get sent into the System to staff the Center. All of these things have long-term positive benefits and ensure that healing is taking place inside even if we aren’t doing inner healing prayer at that time. And all of it occurs simply by declaration! No wonder the power of life and death is in the tongue!

I began pursuing inner healing and deliverance around fifteen years ago, in my early twenties, and working with the System is the fastest, easiest, and most effective manner of ministering inner healing I have ever seen. The reality of the Inner World is important to understand, and it helps provide a practical backdrop to understand where demons reside in a person before they are cast out and how multiple personalities can function. In general it helps us understand how we can work with the functions of the multidimensional reality we live in to help bring the healing power of Jesus Christ to the individual.

The Value Of Knowing Your Role

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Once, years ago, I was part of a church that had a plan to build a sports center as a method of evangelistic outreach to the community. Given the nature of that particular community, the plan itself was very fitting and relevant. The pastor was highly evangelistic and had a lot of relationships with well-known sports-people in the community, so the vision, platform and expertise were certainly present. The church began to really push a funding drive for the building, and I, as part of the intercessor team, began to pray.

What happened was that almost everyone on this particular intercessor team received the same revelation one night: Not Now!

I certainly wouldn’t label myself as a prophet, then or now, and back then I was an immature and growing prophetic voice. Nevertheless, one of the leaders of the intercessor team who I would say was in the God-given position of prophet to that church (although never formally recognized as such, she very obviously functioned as such), received the same word, as did other members of the team.

We took it to prayer, asking the Lord for wisdom and guidance on the matter, and how to proceed. We discussed it among ourselves, and then designated the prophet among us (again, she had the platform of a prophet but the church didn’t designate it by title) to tell the Pastor what the Lord has shown all of us.

Unfortunately, the words were poorly received, the building plans were put in motion, and the sports complex was built at that time. What was the fruit of this? Within two to four years the church underwent some major upheaval. A lot of people left during that process, including the prophet, who had been a pillar of the church for some time.

While I don’t know all the details, I believe the main issue was one of timing. The word the Lord has given me was specifically two words: “Not Now.” It wasn’t “Don’t Build This Sports Complex.” It simply said the timing wasn’t right. The fruit of that endeavor was clearly displayed when a few years after, the church began to have major financial problems during this upheaval. While I cannot say what would have happened for certain, I do believe that God was going to do some shifting of things, including shifting of personnel, prior to the complex being built. Somewhere in this process, one of the leaders was actually found to have a somewhat problematic hidden sexual sin that he had kept from everyone, and as best as anyone knows, he hadn’t sought help for either.

I believe the reason the Lord specified the timing issue was because He wanted to save a lot of stress and prevent a lot of problems. However, because the pastor didn’t heed the prophetic words of the prophet, things proceeded forward as they did.

I believe that God has ordained an administrative order within the Body of Christ. The Fivefold ministry, spoken of in Ephesians 4, outlines five offices which Jesus has given to the church to help the entire Body of Christ grow into full maturity: the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher. Each one serves their own purpose, and when they all work together well, a given church will likely prosper in every way. The corollary of this is that when they don’t work together well, or if their roles are not clearly understood, then situations such as the one above occur.

More recently, I was invited to speak for three days at a church. As I prayed about what message and ministry I was supposed to release, I felt conflicted as I was unclear exactly where I fit at this time in the Body. While I have been clear that at this time I am operating in the grace or office of the teacher, I have a burning passion for things which could also be assigned to the realm of the apostle or prophet, and I have also received a number of prophetic words that point to either of those callings as well. Thus, I was conflicted.

I consulted a prophet friend of mine who gave me very wise and incredibly helpful advice. He basically said “Plan to operate fully in the grace you are walking in right now. If God wants to shift you to another office at a future time, He can do that, but y I are clear that at this time you are walking in the grace of a teacher, so operate from that place. If you teach to the fullest of your ability, then they will receive the deposit the Lord wants them to receive from you.”

His advice was not only very sound, but it quieted the confusion in my heart, so I followed his recommendations, and the results were fantastic. By the end of the trip God had confirmed multiple times the content of the messages, had given we wisdom in advance through a dream on how it needed to be focused and delivered, and even the feedback I received from the church was that the teaching was going to help take them into a new place—a direction they have felt called toward to begin with.

It is a difficult pill to swallow for some that not everyone is a fivefold minister. But the truth is not everyone needs to be, and in reality many people don’t want to be! The goal of the fivefold is to equip everyone else for works of service. Thus, if everyone was a fivefold minister, there would be no one left to do works of service!

Paul admonished the Church to desire the greater gifts, so there is nothing wrong with pressing forward into things in the spirit, but we need to understand as the Body of Christ where and how we are supposed to operate. If I were to have gone to that church as an apostle, or prophet, given that at this time I am neither, they would not have received what God designed for them, and my ministry that weekend would likely have totally flopped. However, because I remained within my designated office at this time, God was able to move and do more than I could ask or think. Likewise, if the pastor of my church many years ago had recognized the prophet God has placed to function in our midst, I believe that church would be in a different place today. Regardless of where one fits in the Body of Christ, we each need to learn our current role, recognizing fully that God could change it in the future to something else. If we know what God is doing with us right now, then instead of constantly waiting for some future moment where we expect to be something else, we can operate to our fullest potential in the moment.

Where is God is fitting you in the Body right now. What is your role (or roles)? If you don’t already know, take some time over this week to reflect on this subject. I encourage the reader to ask the Lord to clarify this to you. Is God transitioning you into something new? Is He confirming something you have felt but never really put your finger on? Or do you know your role and are already fulfilling it? Whatever the answer, as you understand what the Lord is doing with you at this time, the entire Body of Christ will benefit, as you meet the needs that you and you alone are best equipped by God to meet.

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The Power of Renunciation

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The past few months have kept me pretty busy, but one of the things the Lord has been highlighting to me is what I refer to as transformation ministry—what most people call inner healing and deliverance. I have been doing a good bit of work of late both with myself and family members in this area, and am seeing the fruit at work. It is incredibly empowering, as it reveals to me more and more about the level of power and authority we have been given in Christ Jesus. One of the things I have made frequent use of during this process is the power of renunciation.

According to Dictionary.com, the word renounce means to give up or put aside voluntarily, often by formal declaration, or to disown. Any time we renounce something during a prayer session, we are making a clear statement about what is part of us and our lives, and what we have no involvement with. There is something about renunciation that creates a dividing line separating us from what the enemy wants to do in our lives. As we disavow things of darkness, whether overt or covert, it breaks the access the enemy has on our lives. 2 Corinthians 6:14-17 puts it this way:

“Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said:

“I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
Therefore, “Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.”

This means it is no longer a “we”, but an ‘I” and “them”. As we renounce things, and our involvement with them, we are literally making ourselves holy and set apart unto God in that area of our lives. As we do this, even as the above verses suggest, it makes room for God to enter that part of our lives in a new way.

In a previous blog article, I discussed The Mechanism of A Vow, which touches on similar subjects, but renouncing things works based on spiritual rules. The things we choose to engage create openness for spiritual entities to engage us in return—what I call the Law of Focus, seen clearly in James 4:8a, “Come near to God and he will come near to you.” When we renounce things, we give it anti-focus, pushing it away from us in the spirit.

Almost anything can be renounced, and it is a fairly helpful and commonly used tool in my inner healing and deliverance toolkit. Some examples include: negative emotions, erroneous beliefs, books, activities, movies, video games, organizations, vows, and more. Certainly not every book, movie, video game, or organization is bad, but some of them are. Sometimes, it’s not even that the thing itself is bad, but how we have internalized it due to our belief system is unhealthy. A good analogy of what this does is that these things can open doors in the spirit, and the enemy wants to use them to bring darkness into our lives. When we renounce them we close those doors and remove the enemy’s access to those areas of our lives.

Practically speaking, let’s say that someone has been playing and enjoying a video game that the Lord has been showing you is unhealthy. Don’t misunderstand–I’m not saying all video games are bad. I have written a book called The Gamer’s Guide to the Kingdom of God specifically using MMORPG games as a backdrop for understanding how the supernatural realms of God function. I’m not anti-video-game. However, not all video games are wholesome either. If the Lord is showing you that it is time to put that game down due to its spiritual influence, you might pray the following prayer or similar:

“In the name of Jesus I renounce [name the video game] and all of my involvement in it. I apply the blood of Jesus to that area of my mind and soul, and ask that you wash it clean with the water of Life. In its place, I ask for you to fill me with the Holy Spirit.”

This is a super simple prayer that can be used for many different things. It is one example, but renunciation prayer needs to cover three imperative parts in a specific order:

1. Breaking agreement with the old (ie. renouncing)
2. Removing the negative
3. Replacing it with positive

As we progress on our individual inner healing journeys, I highly encourage everyone to not just memorize specific prayers, but to understand the principles behind them, such as those shared here. The above prayer is simple and can be used and remastered for most situations, but when we understand the three parts of a renunciation prayer, even if we forget my example prayer, we can simply make up our own on the spot. Regardless of whether we use a script or devise our own wording, the underlying principles are very effective. Renunciation is powerful, and is a simple way to wreak havoc on the enemy’s involvement in our lives, setting us free to enjoy all that God has for us.

Stewarding The Prophetic Gift

Years ago, when I was first introduced to the Charismatic Renewal and the prophetic as a whole, I lived in State College, Pennsylvania. I don’t recall when or where, but I met a woman who was highly prophetic, and gave her a ride to our church a few times. She was very friendly and outgoing, and told me about all these very specific prophecies over her life. It all sounded very exciting, and there was definitely supernatural activity surrounding her life, but I would be surprised if many of them came to pass, and for one reason: She wasn’t very good at stewarding the prophetic gift.

Prophecies as a whole are usually conditional. Most of the time they are an invitation to encounter and engage God in various areas of our lives. I have heard it say that if someone receives a prophetic word from different people more than three times it is a “done deal” and is guaranteed to happen, but I can’t say for sure whether that is true or not. Nevertheless, most prophecies are meant to help draw us into God’s plans for our lives, not encourage us to sit on our laurels and wait for God to dump the prophesied future upon us. And this is where this woman went wrong—she didn’t do the things she needed to do to walk them out.

Let me give you an example: she once had a dream where angels were lined up in a row holding number cards, much like the judges in the Olympics hold to score events. She understood in the dream that this series of numbers were lottery numbers. So what did she do? She called me and left a voice message that said “I had this dream two nights ago and didn’t buy a ticket yesterday, and those were the lottery numbers. Pray and release the angels to do it again today!”

Umm, no. You had the dream two nights ago and watched as those exact numbers become the actual lottery numbers yesterday night, and instead of recognizing that you didn’t follow through on God’s instructions, you are just hoping to have someone else agree with you in prayer and have those exact same numbers come up again tonight. Sure, God is able to do it, but it isn’t going to happen. That’s what we call a window of opportunity, and even though I was fairly young in the prophetic, even I could tell that she had missed it. I confess I was also disappointed she hadn’t called me a day sooner, because I would most definitely have bought a ticket. . .

She isn’t the only one I have ever heard having something similar happen. When I was a kid, my parents had some friends who had a similar encounter, and I still remember this story over 25 years later. The Lord spoke to one of them and gave them a lottery number to play. They didn’t buy a ticket, and unsurprisingly, they didn’t win. Their takeaway? You can’t win the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket. Simple, right? While I am not specifically advocating for or against the lottery, if the Lord gives you an instruction, especially if it isn’t going to hurt anyone, then just do it! In both of these cases, the risk of buying a single ticket is so minimal that even if you heard wrong and failed, you aren’t out more than the price of a cup of specialty coffee. Furthermore, what if you took that small risk and did hear correctly? Consider the potential future impact that would have had on not only your life, but the lives of those around you.

If we are interested in stewarding the prophetic gift, we have to step out and take risks now and again. If we want to see God move, then we have to walk out the things He has told us and put action to our beliefs. When I talk about “doing things to walk it out”, some people say “Jesus did it all, so we just need to rest in the victory.” Yes, the Bible does talk about entering into God’s rest, but that doesn’t mean we sit around all the time and do literally nothing. Jesus, of all people, knew how to rest in the Father, but the Bible tells us that He went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed of the devil (Acts 10:38). Sure, we need to live in God’s rest, but if God gives us specific instructions, it would be prudent to do what we see our Heavenly Father doing (John 5:19).

I have heard people tell me these amazing prophetic words they have received that speak of them having huge businesses or big ministries far larger than most around today. And when I ask them what they are doing to walk it out, they give me a funny look. “I’m just waiting on the Lord.”

That’s not how this usually works.

In all honesty, God is probably waiting on you. Yes, there are times where God will give someone specific instructions about remaining in rest or some such thing, but I think that is often more about a heart posture as we walk things out than it is about doing literally nothing. I can’t tell you the number of meaningful words I have received from high-profile people, because it seems to happen to me a lot, but I don’t just sit there and wait for them to come to pass. I look at how I can walk them out practically.

Just this past week my wife and I were called out in a service with a very detailed and specific word of knowledge. With that came a very detailed and specific prophetic word that covered a series of things, one of them being that God had a bigger house for us. Not a new house, although it would be new to us, but specifically a bigger house. This prophet didn’t know that my wife and I have been working on getting our house ready to sell and are looking to buy a bigger house. We had some things that held us up, and more recently have just held off on listing the property. After we received this prophecy, we contacted our realtor and signed paperwork the next day to put it on the market. That’s what’s known as “responding in faith.”

At some point it doesn’t matter what it is that God says. If we want to steward the prophetic gift, or any prophetic word we receive as a whole, it will require obedience, and that obedience usually requires some sort of action. Unlike how the woman in the first story seemed to think, when God gives us instructions there are often timetables associated with them. At times we don’t know the timetable, but with something like her dream, it was pretty clear, and she failed to do one simple thing which would have had massive ripple effects in her life. We already felt the Lord leading us to get a new property, but had stalled out. When we received instructions from God, the only thing left to do was act on them.

If you have received prophetic words that still have not come to pass, I encourage you to spend some time talking to God about them. What are some practical steps you can take to walk them out? How can you partner with God to move them forward? Stewarding the prophetic gift isn’t, in my opinion, just about how to prophesy over others, but also how to walk out the words we have received. After all, if we are faithful with little, the Bible does say that we will receive more (Matthew 25:23, Luke 16:10).

A Sinister Undercurrent In Disney

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I have never been to Disneyland or Disney World, and as amusement parks, they are probably very fun. Some of the shows on the Disney Channel are far more wholesome than most adult shows. And most kids enjoy at least some of the Disney Empire of movies. Nevertheless, I have recently become aware of a nefarious and even occult undercurrent with the company. Yes, I’m talking about the Magic Kingdom, Mickey Mouse, the Disney Princesses, and all of the rest of it, and more specifically in their movies. It is very hard to pinpoint, but there is some type of occult and/or satanic influence behind Disney. I’m not saying that everyone who works for Disney is evil, nor that the Board are satanists, and it is admittedly difficult to pinpoint the exact nature of the problem. However, it has become apparent to me the past few weeks through a series of synchronous encounters the Lord brought across my path that there is indeed a sinister undercurrent in Disney.

In my own inner healing journey, I have shared a good bit on blog posts about working with fragments and alters. I can’t explain everything here, but you can read a series of blogs on inner healing here that should catch you up a bit. I haven’t shared many details of my own inner healing sessions, but I discovered recently that the word Disney itself was a significant trigger to my inner system. In the process of unraveling the trigger, we located a part named Lacy Susan who kept talking about Maleficent, the witch from Sleeping Beauty. This part was very scared and kept saying “She cast a spell on me.” That is strange enough in and of itself, but it made me start wondering. Was there some member of the Disney crew who, in production, added some spell to the movie? I don’t know, but my one granddaughter is terrified beyond reason of Maleficent, and I will have to do some inner healing with her on the subject fairly soon.

The very next day, a friend, who is also a survivor of Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) and who knew nothing about my inner healing encounter, messaged me about a dream she had that was filled with Disney references. Not only was this dream filled with Disney characters and references, the entire dream was actually someone trying in real life to access and regain control over one of the parts in her system. In talking with this friend more, she has identified this same sinister undercurrent in Disney and its involvement in her ritual abuse. As part of her own inner healing journey she avoids all things Disney, and wisely so.

The day after that, my wife and I were talking with a friend and mentioned our growing suspicion about spiritual problems with Disney. She informed us that as a kid she really liked The Little Mermaid, but that ever since, even in adulthood, she is somewhat plagued by the songs from that movie, as they randomly pop into her mind throughout the week . . . almost every week. I led her in a short prayer of renunciation and she could feel something shifting inside her as she prayed.

I pondered all of this, as anytime a subject like this keeps coming up in a short period of time, it’s something God wants me to take note up. I thought some more, and realized that in the movie Cinderella, the fairy godmother teaches the listener a set of spell words—an incantation. Wanting to test my theory, I prayed to renounce the words she said in the song: “Salagadoola mechicka boola bibbidi-bobbidi-boo”. I immediately felt something shift inside me in the spirit. I had a family member (who is of similar age and watched the same movie as a kid) test this for me as well. I called up a super-prophetic part of hers, had this part pray the same prayer of renunciation, then asked her to tell me what happened inside her system. She told me she also could see something lifting off of her in the spirit.

The difficulty with some prophetic revelation is that it’s not always clear. For example, I don’t know if it is specifically the movies, something about the movie characters, or something else about Disney entirely. I’m not sure if the characters are putting spells on people, if the issue is subliminal messaging (there are a bunch of subliminal images and hidden auditory soundtrack in older Disney movies), or some combination thereof. It could be that there is something spiritual tied to the movies which is why the issue is so vague. At some point in time, even if I don’t have all the answers, I’m simply not going to do Disney anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not exactly fawning all over the company to begin with, but if their products are that much of a spiritual problem, I am more than happy to do without. And realistically, I encourage you to do the same.

While yes, it does open the door to some pretty frustrating questions such as “If Disney is bad, what is okay for the kids?”. Honestly, I really don’t know anymore. I’ve heard stories from reputable sources about Cabbage Patch Kids causing serious demonization of children, as well as Pokemon being based on actual demons and their attacks based on how demons actually influence on people. The truth is that it easy to create spiritual problems and/or add demonic undertones in entertainment, especially children’s entertainment, and the reality is that there is an express goal by certain parties to do exactly that. In the same way that SRA is far more widespread than anyone realizes, occult influence in Western Culture is also far more pervasive than many realize. Frustrating? Sure. Nevertheless, it seems prudent to me to walk wisely and limit areas in my life (and my family’s lives) that give easy access to the enemy.

Have you noticed anything similar about Disney or other entertainment, whether for kids, adults, or the whole family? What has God been showing you about the subject?

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The Two Basic Steps to Understanding Our Dreams

Dreams are one of those things that “everybody” has. Now, some of you reading this might say “I don’t dream”. Scientifically speaking, everyone enters REM sleep and dreams, but many people don’t remember their dreams. Regardless of whether one remembers or not, God speaks to all of us in our dreams. They are usually about us and our lives, and can be warnings, instruction, informative or revelatory, reflection, and more, and not all dreams come from God. Certain medications can influence our dreams, as can demonic powers and the prayers of other people, whether blessings curses. Some people dream in color, while others dream in black and white. Many times people have short dreams while others have long and detailed dreams with multiple parts or acts to them. While types of dreams clearly vary, what we are going to look at today is the two basic steps to understanding our dreams.

Dreams accomplish many different things, as shared above, but a key comes out of Job 33:15-18. It says:

“For God does speak—now one way, now another—though no one perceives it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on people as they slumber in their beds, he may speak in their ears and terrify them with warnings, to turn them from wrongdoing and keep them from pride, to preserve them from the pit, their lives from perishing by the sword.”

While the verse focuses on warnings, the key I want to focus on is that God speaks to us in dreams to guide us. If we understand that God communicates with us regularly when we are asleep, we can glean Heaven’s wisdom for our lives here and now even when we aren’t spending time in prayer and listening to the Lord for instruction. For example, I recently had a dream where a friend was telling me about a project he was working on. In real life he isn’t currently, to the best of my knowledge, actually working on the aspect of this project we discussed in my dream, but it touches on some things he is already doing, and this dream seems to provide him with insight on a direction God wants to take the project in the future. While most dreams are about the dreamer, this dream was about him, not me, (evident by the content of the conversation) and provided divine guidance for the future.

Dreams offer prophetic guidance for us in our daily lives, but we can’t take advantage of that guidance if we don’t do two things: write them down and interpret them. The reason we have to write them down is that for whatever reason, dreams can be easy to forget. Sometimes I will wake up in the morning with a dream that was so vivid I am convinced I will remember it later. . . only to forget the entire dream. The worst part is that I know that if I had written the dream down then (or recorded myself speaking the details), I would have it, but because I waited, it is lost. I had this happen last week. I had two dreams, and both of them seemed significant to me. I was sure that I would remember them, so didn’t write them down. I promptly forgot the one, and then because I’m so awesome, I even waited a week to write down the second dream, losing a number of details on that one as well.

I’ll be honest, it’s actually quite difficult to interpret dreams I have completely forgotten, so my best advice is to make sure to record your dreams in some way very soon after you wake up. Some people use their phone to record, some people keep a journal right at their bedside. I usually use the notepad function on my phone to write down the date and a summary and any relevant notes about the dream and flesh out the details later. It works fairly well for me. Then, I eventually put them all into a single Word document by date. If I ever want to look up keywords, I can just use the find function and search for any keywords from as far back as the journal goes.

Interpreting dreams is the second step to getting useful information from them. What is so difficult is that they are frequently hard to interpret. My dreams are often long and detailed, and while individual items in a dream usually hold meaning, it is possible to get what a friend calls “analysis paralysis”, where I get tied up in the details such that it becomes hard to see the bigger picture. I usually have to write down the dream, then write down a much shorter summary of the dream, cutting out as many minor details as possible. Once I get a general overview of the dream, I can often figure out what it is about. Once I understand the overall subject of the dream, then I can flesh out the details once more. This doesn’t always work for me, but it is one of the two things I do to interpret my dreams. The other thing I do is ask Holy Spirit.

The Bible says in Ephesians 2 that He is the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation. Isaiah 11 says He is the Spirit of Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, and Knowledge. The Holy Spirit knows everything we need to help interpret our dreams, so asking Him for help is a good idea. Sometimes He will give me one or two piece of the puzzle that helps me put things together and figure it out. On rare occasion, He will explain the whole dream to me. Other times I don’t really get any understanding at all, so if I don’t feel that those dreams are poignant or significant, I just don’t worry about it. On occasion, I will ask a friend for help, as sometimes it is easier to interpret other people’s dreams than our own, but I try to keep that to a minimum as we all have dreams and it’s not someone else’s job to interpret mine.

Dreams as a whole are rarely as clear and obvious as the one I had about my friend and his project. They usually have a lot of imagery and symbolism that clouds our understanding, so we have to bust out our best codebreaker abilities and figure it out. Sometimes God will use a play on words to show us something. Once I dreamed about raising the dead on a train. In praying about the meaning, the Holy Spirit showed me that the train represented training—providing a vehicle to learn something. That might not have been apparent at first, but that one hint from Holy Spirit put the whole dream into perspective, and that was all it took for me to work out the rest of the details. In fact, a few months later I had some follow-up dreams to this one that provided further guidance on how to go about that training process.

In the end, learning to interpret dreams can be very helpful, and it is a good way to get revelation from God on an ongoing basis. Some people take a dream interpretation class or training of some kind, and this can be helpful. Well-done Christian dream interpretation training will help provide an overall framework for learning to interpret dreams, but even those classes have limits. Dream interpretation books, in my mind, are the same. They can possibly provide a little help if you are stuck on a particular dream symbol, but you usually need to understand more of the dream before a symbol dictionary can help. In the end, nothing is a substitute for one-on-one communication with Holy Spirit. When we talk to God about our dreams, He will help us.

If you don’t think you dream and want to start remembering them, already dream and want to dream more and remember them better, or dream and remember but want to get better about interpreting them, then pray the following prayer and then start putting your faith into action. Record your dreams and practice praying over them and interpreting them. As you are faithful with what you are given, God will give you more!

Let’s pray.

Heavenly Father, I ask that you would speak to me during my sleep. I ask that you would increase my dreams and help me remember them. I ask that you would give me wisdom like you did Solomon, and understanding like you did Daniel. I ask this all in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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Interpreting Prophetic Revelation: Oven Encounters

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Since discovering that prophets and the prophetic are alive and well today, and that God still speaks clearly to his people through dreams, visions, the small inner voice, and more, I have had two separate encounters with ovens that highlight the importance of not just receive revelation, but rightly interpreting it.

Years ago, I was a volunteer assistant for our church’s campus ministry at Penn State. During our annual student retreat, I went to the campground half a day early to set a few things up and spend a number of hours in prayer prior to the weekend. Sometime during the time of prayer I put a music CD on and spent time soaking in the presence of the Lord. During this time, I had the strangest experience—my right hand twitched in a very peculiar fashion as if I was turning a knob or dial on something, and simultaneously I had a vision of an oven dial. Not sure what it meant, I assumed I was to pray for God to “turn up the heat” in the spirit.

That evening, when it was time for dinner, we discovered the oven was broken and was taking forever to heat up. Thus, it took hours longer than expected to cook the frozen lasagna planned for the meal. Had I turned the oven on when I received the vision and the hand movement, it would have sufficiently preheated to avoid the problem. Instead of rightly discerning the prophetic encounter, I took revelation that was sent by God to solve a practical problem and misinterpreted it as guidance on how to pray for the event.

More recently I had a second encounter with an oven, written about in more depth on my blog post titled When God Didn’t Tell Me About The Fire. In this instance, God didn’t tell me a single thing about the problem with the oven-fire that was starting, but instead spoke in that still, small voice about being a good steward and returning a staff badge to our ministry storage area. As a result of obedience, I smelled a fire in its early stages and was able to put it out before it burned a church down.

This is an example of following the clear directions God gave me and as a result of being led and guided by Him, being in the right place and time to avert a potentially serious problem. This time it wasn’t particularly hard to discern the revelation itself, but the instructions that came by divine revelation were designed to put me in the right place at the right time for an entirely different issue than that which was revealed.

In the first oven encounter, I misunderstood and misinterpreted what God was doing and missed out on blessing an entire group of people with a timely dinner and low-stress meal preparation. In the second oven encounter, because I rightly discerned not just the initial word, but followed through on where it led me, I was able to fulfill everything God had planned when he first gave the revelation.

Prophecy and the realm of spiritual revelation as a whole is more than just receiving revelation. We need to receive it, interpret it correctly, as I failed to do the first time, and then choose the appropriate action. Moses and Jonah are perfect examples of hearing and interpreting a revelation correctly, but choosing the wrong action. Moses was told to speak to a rock but struck it out of his own personal anger, which demonstrated to the people of Israel that God was angry with them when He wasn’t. Jonah was sent by God to preach to Nineveh so they would repent for their evil ways, but instead, out of his own hatred he went around announcing their imminent destruction. God still managed to work things out in both cases, but His heart was not displayed properly in either case.

The fact is that we all will make mistakes as we learn to hear God, receive revelation, and practice spiritual gifts. We are all going to miss it from time to time, and that is okay—its part of the growth process. Nevertheless, we must understand that receiving revelation is just the beginning, and that we have a responsibility to properly steward every stage of the process, whether revelation, interpretation, or action.