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Pleasure In Miracles

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Recently the Lord has been challenging me and my beliefs about what He will and won’t do, and more specifically what He will and won’t do for me personally.  I watched a video this past week about some friends of mine who have been receiving bread supernaturally from heaven, and who have sealed bottles of water turn into wine.  This has been going on for a few years now, but while I enjoyed the video itself, I found myself getting hungry for my own encounters like this experience.  Recognizing that God has done some amazing this both for and with them, I would like to have that happen too.

 

For those who are familiar with my writing, this may sound odd, as I have seen gemstones, feathers, and gold dust appear on numerous occasions.  I have written two books on the subjects, Gemstones From Heaven and Feathers From Heaven, and am working on the sequel, Oil From Heaven, which should be completed later this year.  Nevertheless, I have a hunger that is only growing in me to see the miraculous more and more.  In spite of what I have experienced, I have much more that I have yet to experience.  Furthermore, many of those things I have encountered have been temporary in some way.  For example, the last time I recall having a gemstone appear was probably a year or so ago.  While some might be saying “I’d be content with just one”, I’ll be honest, once it happens once you hunger for it again and again because it is just that spectacular.

 

Well, as I began praying about this, the Lord challenged me, saying “Your problem is that you don’t really believe I want to do it for you.”  Whoa.  That’s rough.

 

But it’s true.

 

In spite of the miracles I have seen to date, I have trouble believing it will happen again.  It’s not that I think God doesn’t want to do them for someone—its that I have trouble believing God wants to do them for me.  Why is that?  What singles me out as someone so special that God doesn’t want to perform the same works He performs for others for me too?  After all, the Bible says that God doesn’t show favoritism (Romans 2:11).  If He does something for on person, He will gladly do it for another.  So where is my problem then?

 

Clearly, deep down, I believe a lie about God’s nature, His love for me, and the good things He has for me.  So how do I change my thinking (ie. repent) and begin to believe what He actually wants to do?  I find that looking at the Scriptures is a good way to begin that process.  What do they actually say?

 

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32).

 

“He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all–how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).

 

The Bible says that it is God’s pleasure to give us the Kingdom.  Are miracles part of the Kingdom?  Certainly!  If so, then God takes pleasure in miracles and delights in giving them to us.  Are miracles “things”?  Certainly!  If so, then the Bible says that God will graciously give us miracles.  The word for “graciously” there is the Greek work charizomai which means:

 

-to do something pleasant or agreeable (to one), to do a favor to, gratify

-to show one’s self gracious, kind, benevolent

-to grant forgiveness, to pardon

-to give graciously, give freely, bestow

 

God takes pleasure in miracles.  He won’t just give them to us, but He will show himself kind and benevolent, freely bestowing them upon us!  Lack and limiting thinking must go, and be replaced with a revelation of God’s favor toward us.  In this process of pondering how I need to change my thinking, God brought my attention to his bread-miracles in the Bible.  Think about what God did in the Old Testament—He caused a bread-like substance, manna, to appear six days out of every seven, with a double-portion on the sixth day, in sufficient quantity to feed every single human in an entire nation of people for forty years!  When Jesus was speaking, he caused bread to appear that fed 4,000 to 5,000 men, not including women and children besides.  We call that multiplication, but at some point the “multiplied” bread had to appear supernaturally.  Is it really any different?

 

God wants us to experience miracles.  He wants me to experience miracles.  And He wants the same for you.  It is time to expand our thinking, raise our expectations, and transition to a deeper belief in the goodness and extravagance of God.  As we do this, I believe that we will move a step closer to experiencing the miraculous on a daily basis.

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The Validity Of Witnesses

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I had a private discussion recently with another believer, and the nature of the discussion had to do with the scriptural validity of immortality through Jesus Christ.  The other person’s underlying question was essentially “if we were supposed to live forever, then wouldn’t someone already be doing it?”  There are a number of problems with this question, but one in particular deals with the validity of witnesses.

A common question, or rather objection, I hear about immortality is “who do you know who has done it?”  Well, I suppose that depends on what you are actually asking.  Are you actually asking do I know someone personally because if I did personally know them then you would believe?  Because if I were completely honest, I don’t think that’s what people are asking at all.  I think what they are really saying is a statement that sounds like a question, and the statement would be something like “It’s not actually possible, or it would be common, and you and I and everyone else would know people doing it and see it happen, so I’m simply going to ask you to show me the physical proof and when you aren’t able to, we can accept that I am correct in saying it isn’t possible.”

I remember once, years ago, when I was discussing the spiritual gift of praying in tongues.  The person I spoke with was a cessationist (who believes that ended a long time ago), and he basically asked the question “do you know anyone who does it?”  I answered in the affirmative, because while I didn’t at the time, I knew other people who did.  Well, unsurprisingly his answer was “well, that can’t be, it must be through a demonic spirit.”  He asked for witnesses, I informed him that I had witnesses, and he immediately invalidated their testimony.  What good is asking for a witness if you decide that anything he or she says has no validity?  The entire point of a witness is for them to share what they saw and heard.  If you don’t like what they saw and heard, it doesn’t alter its validity—it just makes you close-minded.

I recall Jesus telling a parable that touched on this very thing.  The story was about a rich man and a beggar named Lazarus.  The rich man ignored the teachings of Moses and the Prophets, and ended up in a place of torment.  In his request to have Lazarus go warn his family, the reply was, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” (Luke 16:31).

At some point in time we have to decide whether we are going to accept the testimony of the witnesses given us.  We actually have multiple witnesses of this very reality, that we can live and not die, but whether we will accept them or not remains to be seen.

Consider this:  The Bible states quite clearly that both Enoch and Elijah did not die.  Jesus died, but then came back to life, then after that proceeded to ascended to heaven still very-alive much like Elijah did.  These three witnesses alone should be sufficient to say “this is possible.”  If it is possible for some, then, it is possible .  James 5:17 says, “Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.”  While it might be far-fetched for some to accept that anyone can attain immortality, ascending to heaven without dying, if Elijah did it and the Scriptures are clear he was just like you or me, then we don’t have any excuses to keep us from accepting the possibility that we could as well.

Furthermore, there are others throughout history as well.  Possibly the most well-documented is that of the Maharishi of Mt. Kailash, a hermit who Sadhu Sundar Singh met sometime in the early 1900s; this man spent his time interceding for the world.  This man claimed to have been baptized by the nephew of Francis Xavier, a Catholic missionary who lived from 1506 to 1562 (Citation goes here).  In other words, using insanely conservative math the man was at least 340 years old, and in reality was probably around 400 years of age.  Either we believe the man who spoke to Sundar, or we don’t.  Keep in mind that this man was a hermit who lived in the middle of a mountain and had no interest in contact with most of humanity.  He gained nothing whether he lied or spoke the truth.  This man referenced others who also were hermits on Kailash as well, although I don’t believe the Sadhu ever met any of them (As a side note, Sundar was born in 1889 and was presumed to have died in in 1929, but that remains unconfirmed as no one ever actually saw his dead body, and considering he personally knew an immortal . . . ).  I once heard a story by a well-known charismatic preacher who was translocated by the Lord and met a Native American man who was over 200 years old.  I have heard other stories as well, but again, it all comes down to the validity of witnesses.  Are we willing to accept their testimony in spite of its rarity, or do we reject it because it isn’t common?

At the end of the day, isn’t that really what is on trial—whether or not God will do uncommon things?  The way I see it, if the Bible tells us something is in the promises of God for us, it doesn’t matter if it is a common experience or not. We are promised spiritual gifts, divine healing, raising the dead, and much more, but there are many who have never heard anyone pray in tongues, never experienced divine healing, and have never seen nor known anyone who was raised from the dead.  While some might dispute the validity of tongues for today, it is unarguable that divine healing and raising the dead are scriptural and are for us today.

In reality, the question we have to ask ourselves is “Am I going to let someone else’s experiences limit and dictate my encounters with God?”  Whether someone else is successful or not at living forever has literally nothing to do with:

1) Whether God has promised it for us
2) Whether God has prepared it for us
3) Whether the Bible supports this belief and
4) Whether I can access it through Jesus Christ.

It doesn’t matter if we don’t see it now, nor if we look foolish going after it.  1 Corinthians 1:27 says, “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.”  Looking foolish for pursuing the gospel is frustrating at times, but not enough to stop me from going after everything God has for me.  I don’t personally let anyone else’s success or failure dictate what I can experience in God—and neither should you!  That’s the part where we walk by faith and not by sight.  But here’s the cool thing: as we continue to walk in faith that “these signs will follow those who believe” and the evidence will eventually be there.

I discuss this and related topics in detail in my book “The Gospel of Life and Immortality,” available on both Kindle and in Print on Amazon.

 

 

 

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6 Keys To Seeing In The Spirit

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Seeing in the spirit is not as hard as people think.  The fact is that most people *already* see in the spirit, and simply don’t realize it.  Certainly there are those who have visions more than others, but it is a skill like any other, and anyone can learn how.  The following are ways I have found helpful to learn and grow in this area:  6 keys to seeing in the spirit.

 

1. Believe What You See

One of the most common things people do when they have a vision is doubt it—and doubt it immediately.  I do believe the demonic help with this by casting doubt into the situation, but when we think we see something, we have to give it a chance.  Everyone has those double-take moments where they look at something and look again because of what they *think they saw*.  Usually it ends up being something benign, like a person standing there on second glance is a coat hanging on a hook, or a strange looking animal is actually a gnarled tree stump.  Here’s a little secret:  whatever you thought you saw the first time, you *did* see—it was just a spiritual reality, so when you looked the second time, with your natural eyes, you didn’t see it anymore.  Whether a double-take or a vision in your mind’s eye, trust that you saw what you think you saw, and run with the revelation long enough to test it out and give it a chance.  If you do this, you will miss far less of what you are being shown.
– double-take for a reason, yes you actually saw it.  Confidence.

 

2. Look

In the book of Ezekiel, at the beginning of the book it often says “I looked and I saw. . . ”  Later on it has more “I saw”.  The key here is that he began by looking for things, and eventually he grew to a point where he would see whether he was looking or not.  It is possible to train yourself to see in the spirit, and trying to do so will generally yield better results more frequently.  Oftentimes people are waiting for visions to happen to them.  Go and happen to the vision.

 

3. Practice

Like any skill, practice makes one improve significantly.  When I first began to learn how to see in the spirit, I would take opportunities to practice this prophetic gift.  I would use almost any excuse to prophesy over people to practice getting visions, and I would spend time in worship and sitting in God’s presence simply to have more encounters.  Partly it was to enjoy Him, but another part of it was to hone my ability to see.  Find opportunities to practice seeing in the spirit, then go forward with expectation.

 

4. Engage The Power Of Testimonies

Talk to (and read about) encounters other people have had.  The Bible says that faith comes by hearing (Romans 10:17).  When we hear the stories of others and their encounters, often they can help activate the gifts inside us and stir our faith to expect to have our own encounters.

 

5. Have Expectation

Expect visions.  Expect supernatural encounters.  Nothing about anyone else is *more* special than you, so if it can happen to someone else, it *will* happen to you.  You simply need to expect that it will, and by doing so engage the power of faith.

 

6. Receive

Understand this is an innate ability inherent within your makeup.  Simply receive that truth.  Don’t get yourself all worked up, striving to try to earn or hunt for this gift.  I wish I had known this back when I first learned to see in the spirit.  I spent a lot of time and energy trying to hunt down this spiritual gift because I didn’t understand that *I already had it.* I realized years later that I have seen in the spirit almost my entire life, and just didn’t know it!  It can be helpful at times to have others help activate that gift, but the fact is that the Holy Spirit, the Giver of the gifts, already lives in you.  You already have whatever you need, and don’t need someone else to make it “work” for you.  Just receive this truth by faith, and walk it out with expectation!

 

 

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Staying The Course To Raise The Dead

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Some of you may be aware that a dear friend’s husband, Steve, died earlier this week.  She, being a woman of faith, didn’t wait and wonder what to do—she began mustering up an army of prayer warriors to stand with her in faith to raise her husband back to life through the resurrection power of Jesus Christ.  I have been part of that process, and have attempted to keep the Raise The Dead Initiative and DRT groups on Facebook, as well as my own social media thread, updated with where we stand.  At the time of writing this, he is not alive YET, so please continue to join us in prayer.

Last afternoon I found myself struggling with the situation, given that it’s been a day and a half and we have no clear results yet.  It doesn’t help that I am on the far opposite side of the United States from where my friend and her husband are, so as much as I would like to be more involved, that is made more difficult.  I found myself questioning whether it was “over” or not.

Truth be told, I was really struggling with this.  When I set my faith toward something, I am pretty forceful about pushing it forward in both prayer and action.  Finding myself at a point where I wasn’t sure if I should continue to pray or not was difficult, so I talked to my wife and a good friend both, to help me process what was going on inside me.  When all was said and done, I decided that not only is it not over, but I know a woman whose husband is supposed to return to life and remain by her side!!  I have a battle to fight!

We all go through periods of doubt when trying to raise the dead.  This is entirely normal, and I attribute it largely to the subtle whisperings of the enemy trying to derail our faith, encourage doubt, and get us wallowing in grief, self-pity, regret, and other negative emotions.  The key, I believe, is to recognize when these feelings arise, and then either entirely ignore them, shoving them aside until after the fact, or even acknowledge them, and prayerfully send them to the feet of Jesus.  2 Corinthians 10:5 says, “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.”  I believe that taking captive every though also includes taking captive our emotions.  If I let myself continue thinking that “it’s over”, then my emotions will eventually line up with my thoughts, and once I do that, I have no room for faith.

I spent an hour and a half on the phone with my friend the night her husband died, as we and some other men and women of faith prayed over the body.  I heard her crying at times, quite understandably, because the love of her life had just died.  Yet I also knew that if she wanted to stay in a place of faith, she couldn’t let herself be overcome by grief either, so as we continued to pray, I encouraged her in her faith as well, decreeing again and again the will of God for his life, which  is that he will live and not die.  As I did this, it encouraged her to keep pressing forward as well.  Don’t get me wrong—she isn’t weak of will by any means, but I cannot say I would fare any better if anything happened to my beautiful wife either.  I would both want and need friends of faith to stand with me as well.

Managing one’s emotional state in this kind of situation is of utmost importance.  Many people do not realize that emotions are actually tied into our ability to effectively release faith, as much if not more than our thoughts are.  When I want to engage faith for something, I literally stir up my emotions to engage what I am believing for in my thoughts, so that my heart and mind are unified in prayer.

In this situation, I have been trying to listen to the Lord on an ongoing basis to hear what He is saying to me, to receive guidance and wisdom on how to effectively walk this out.  All I keep hearing him say are things like “You’re doing great, Michael.  You’re doing an awesome job.”  When I woke up yesterday afternoon to get some chores done then head to work for the night, I wasn’t in that place, and it took a few hours to get my head settled on right.  Why?  I was having difficulty discerning what I was feeling.

When things get stressful, it can be hard to know whose voice we are listening to.  We have to separate the voices of God, the enemy, and ourselves, and that takes discernment—which in and of itself requires a bit of wisdom.  Fortunately, we have been given the Bible which is chock-full of verses that tell us how God works, what He thinks, and His will for us in such trying situations as this, and the more we understand how He thinks, the easier it is to use godly wisdom to discern who is speaking to us.

One of the things I keep reminding myself, and others, as we continue to pray for Steve to return to life, is this:

There is no plan B.

There are two possible outcomes in this situation:

Either my friend will bury her husband, or she will receive him back to life, raised by the power of God.

Obviously, we are aiming for the latter outcome, and the hard part is that only time will tell.  There is no special way to know what is going to happen, and it can be maddening to watch, wait, and pray.  Yet, that is our task—to pray for God’s kingdom to come and His will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven.

 

If this subject has touched you in some way, and you want to learn how you can engage God’s resurrection power for those in your life, check out the resources below.  I highly recommend six things:

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. Look for and actively engage opportunities to raise the dead in your area by reaching out to friends when you hear that someone has died.

 

 

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The Goodness in Resurrection

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I have noticed that the Lord tends to talk to me a lot about resurrection and immortality when I am praying for the dead to resurrect. It shouldn’t be surprising, I suppose, as God is interested in teaching us in any and every situation, but this particular time I was praying for an older chicken of ours who had died, God decided to speak to me about His nature, and how our perspective and understanding about God’s nature has EVERYTHING to do with success in consistently raising the dead.

Any follower of Jesus Christ can raise the dead; its not a special thing that only special people do. However, while anyone CAN raise the dead, few people will do it on a consistent, ongoing basis with any notable level of success. It comes down to our mindsets and beliefs primarily about God–who He is and what He is like. Hebrews 11:6 says, “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” It is of utmost importance to our faith that we believe God is a rewarder. Ultimately, this verse speaks about God’s nature, in that He gives good gifts. Matthew 7:11 juxtaposes that concept of God’s goodness with evil saying, “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” In other words, if evil people know how to give rewards and nice presents, then God who is imminently good is far better even than that! If we want to receive good things from God, then we need to believe that He is good!

The next thing the Lord showed me was about his kindness. Think about how absolutely, stunningly kind God is to allow us to raise the dead. Death is a horrible, terrible thing–and while there are streams of thought that talk about it as a transition and “passing through” to another phase of life, let’s be honest–death is horrible. There is often physical pain, not to mention regret, grief, loss, and heartache. There are a lot of terrible things that surround death, and it was never God’s plan for us to die to begin resurrection faith to raisethedead practicalkeys easter immortality abundantlifewith!! There’s a reason he told Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil–so they wouldn’t die. Death isn’t just a phase or a step or a bump or whatever. It is an abomination against God’s plan for us because God has plans for hope and a future and for long life and blessings (Jeremiah 29:11), not death–it’s not on HIS plan for our lives. On the other hand, this kind, good, gracious God gives us power over death to destroy it’s works and to bring those who have died back to life. When I thought about that–about God’s kindness, I was brought to tears. There simply aren’t words enough to describe how incredibly good God is. How kind God is. How loving He is toward us.

I asked God while he was showing me this how we go about raising the dead, and you know what He said to me? He said,

“Anyone who wants to learn how to raise the dead must first be convinced of my goodness.”

How can faith for resurrection be built on anything less? If we don’t believe God is good, and that He rewards us, then how can we expect to receive anything from Him? That is being double-minded, and as James 1:6-7 says, “But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.” We all have doubts, but God is trying to bring us to a place where we never doubt His goodness–because when we doubt, it’s not that God doesn’t want to give us anything any longer, but doubt is putting our faith in what God WON’T do–and what we believe and ask for, we can have. This is why we so often don’t receive what we think we are requesting because our doubt actually asks God NOT to give us what we want. As we become convinced in the deepest parts of our soul that God is kind, good, loving, and that “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” God isn’t good one moment and evil or hard or bad or angry or anything else the next. The Bible says that He gives good gifts, and is the Father of light, which is synonymous with all blessings and good things, and that He doesn’t change. If he doesn’t change, then evil and darkness and anything less than complete goodness simply doesn’t come from Him.

What’s more, in addition to being kind and good, our heavenly Father is all about life–and not just the kind where we just barely get by, but abundant life. If we can’t grasp even the vaguest of essence of understanding of God’s desire for us to live long, prosperous lives, do we really understand the good news that Jesus paid for our sins and defeated death so that we could live? John 3:16 [paraphrased] says, “God loved the world so much that he gave his only heir, his son Jesus, so that instead of dying we would live forever, immortal and unable for death to touch us.” God is passionate about life. He burns for it. He bled and died for it. For us. For you. God can’t be anything other than who HE is, and getting a revelation of His nature is the first step to raising the dead.

God has formed and purposed YOU to raise the dead. He has designed you to transform the world with your love and to step out in big and small ways without fear to remove the blight of darkness from this earth and instead to extend His light. You are the emissary that God has sent to be the solution to the darkness and pain in front of you. You are the solution to the deaths that happen around you. In fact, you may be the ONLY solution because many even in the church perish for lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6), not realizing that God can and will raise the dead. I’ve witnessed it happen. You are salt and light–you are the qualified resurrectionist and God wants to take you to a deeper level, where you are so convinced of His goodness that not even death can stand up in front of you. Go forward and be the game-changer you already are inside.

 

 

If you want to learn more about how you can be a resurrectionist, check out the resources below.     If you want to grow quickly in this area, I highly recommend five things:

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.  Tyler’s books are How to Raise the Dead and The Dead Are Raised, and be sure to check out Father Hebert’s book Saints Who Raised The Dead

3. Join the RDI on Facebook:  Raise the Dead Initiative   The Raise the Dead Initiative is a group I started to help grow the Body of Christ in this area, and I will eventually develop an RDI teaching curriculum to train believers to pray for and raise the dead.

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

5. Look at how you can host or attend a Resurrection School 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 Resurrection Schools 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.

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

 

 

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Faith To Raise The Dead — The Book Is Out!

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Hey Friends of Eden!

I am super-excited to announce the official launch of our new book Faith To Raise The Dead.  This book is designed to help the Body of Christ grow in our understanding of the abundant life Jesus purchased for us.  Of the 6 books I have written so far, I am the most excited about this one because I believe God is going to use it to renew hearts and minds to engage His goodness on a deeper level and to encourage faith to raise the dead, heal the sick, and much more!

We will also be doing a drawing for three Resurrection t-shirts on Friday, April 21st via Facebook Live at 6pm PST so be sure to follow along.  Just forward your confirmation email to:  faithtoraisethedead@gmail.com.  Your name will be added to the list and we will draw it Live on the
21st.  If anyone who does not win the drawing still wants a shirt, we will provide information on how to get one at that time.

The back cover of the book is as follows:  When Jesus walked the earth, he taught his disciples many things, but he only commanded them to do a few: Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons” (Matthew 10:8a). Raising the dead is a pivotal part of Christianity—without resurrection, it wouldn’t exist. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 15:20 that, “But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died” (New Living Translation).

This book answers the challenge to those commands and to raise up an army of believers—followers of Jesus who are ready to reap the great harvest of all who have died. Through scripture it lays a groundwork of understanding for this miracle, then follow up with practical steps and hard-earned wisdom. God doesn’t need someone special to raise the dead—He needs someone willing. And if this is you, then join the journey to reveal Faith To Raise The Dead.

US Paperback:  http://amzn.to/2nX3HHD

US Kindle:  http://amzn.to/2nXgdqm

UK:  https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06Y4CG9BF/

Canada:  https://www.amazon.ca/Faith-Raise-Dead-Abundant-Life-ebook/dp/B06Y4CG9BF/

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When The Pain Won’t Stop

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Last week my wife was trying to go to sleep and she had hip pain that was keeping her up.  In and of itself that is a problem, but she is a victim of long-term mercury poisoning, and suffers from a number of additional secondary medical problems as a result—thyroid problems, cognitive challenges that have worsened over time, and massive inflammation to name just a few of the many.  It is actually far more common than one might realize due to the use of amalgam fillings in teeth—the ones that look silvery.  Without going deep into the medical aspects of it, let me just say that if you have them in your mouth, they are poisoning you slowly whether you know it or not–and many other nations have banned that particular type of filling.  We have spent tens of thousands of dollars in the past few years on dental work to remove them so she can begin the process of removing the mercury from her cells, but it is slow going.

 

At any rate, last week as she lay in bed writhing in pain, nothing I did helped it go away—and I’m pretty good at making it stop.  Sometimes massage helps; other times using a chiropractic activator to realign her hips, sacrum, and low back does the job.  At times we do energy-work or inner healing prayer and the pain either goes away or at least lessens to a tolerable level so she can sleep.  Regardless of the method, that particular night was hellish because literally nothing worked.  No amount of massage, adjustments, energy work, or prayer seemed to do a single thing.  So we both just cried.

 

Those of you who know me well know that I am a staunch believer in both physical and inner healing via divine prayer–and that I get decent enough results praying for others to be healed.  The one serious difficulty I have had over the past many years, a problem echoed by many faith healers, is that we cannot seem to get our own spouse healed—and on some level it is maddening.  It is certainly upsetting, to say the least, and on this particular night it was horrendous.  I thank God that she was eventually able to fall asleep and that none of the flare-ups since have been as bad, but she is in constant pain every day, and has been for years.

 

I am in the middle of a fast that includes, among other things, praying for her complete healing, but there are times when the most we can do simply doesn’t seem like enough.  Why?  Because the pain still won’t stop.  No matter what we do it seems there is still one more problem or cramp or pain or issue that doesn’t get fixed, and it is frustrating.  I usually try not to let my wife see me upset about it, and often I think I push down my own emotions on the matter to avoid adding more stress to her (no wonder I’m having low back pain . . .), but it can be really difficult.  And because I don’t generally go around complaining about it, especially on social media, it’s something only our friends know–and even then they don’t know the extent to how bad it is at times.  Over the past many years I have reduced my own activity to more closely match her ability level because she simply cannot keep up with me between our pre-existing age difference and her gradually increasing joint pain.

 

I don’t share all this for pity, although if you say a prayer for her that would be nice.  I know there are many of you out there reading this who are either that one in pain or the family member of the one who is, and you wish there was something more you could do to make it all better.  When this sort of thing happens, there is really only one solution, because giving up is not really a choice.  We don’t really have the option of bowing out and quitting.  At the end of the day, giving up is the only thing guaranteed to make things worse because even if we give up, the problem hasn’t gone away.  The only solution is to continue to press forward and continue to believe in the goodness of God.

 

Due to a dream I had last week, Sunshine and I went to a meeting last night hosted by Precious Daughters, a local women’s ministry in the Portland area, who had invited Deborah Gliebe of FireGate Ministries International to speak.  What I heard greatly encouraged me, but I sensed that this held a theme many of you need to hear.

 

God is birthing something in you.  He isn’t doing it because He is testing you, but He is using all bad things to work them for good in your life.  God isn’t done with you, hasn’t given up on you, and is not withholding His goodness from you for any reason.  When the enemy comes in to steal, kill, and destroy, it is our job to continue to stand firm and hold up the shield of faith.  Ephesians 6:13 says, “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”  Sometimes all we can do is to continue to stand.  Sometimes that standing doesn’t look like it is doing a single blessed thing for the situation, but that doesn’t matter.  We don’t have a plan B and retreat is not an option.

shield of faith, angelic host, angels, Ephesians6, armorofGod

For every single one of you who is reading this and you are struggling, or you are the spouse of someone who is, continue to stand firm.  Gird yourself up with the armor of the spirit, buckling that shield of faith firmly in place.  You are strong in the Lord and in His mighty power (Eph. 6:10) and you cannot be moved.  He has sent His angels to surround you and lift you up, protect, and guide you.  God has set His Holy Spirit to dwell within you, and this same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is even now sending His life-giving flow into your body (Rom. 8:11).  God is still the Healer, still the Deliverer, and still the One who gives us hope when we have lost all hope.  God has not given up on you—don’t you give up either.  And in case you are wondering, no, it isn’t your fault, and no, God does not afflict us with disease.

 

God is here to minister to your broken heart-—because that is what many of us are experiencing.  Our hearts are broken because of the pain we have seen.  We have to continue to stand in the gap of intercession and lift up our voices in praise to destroy the powers of darkness when they are in our midst.  It is neither easy nor fun, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar, but there is grace to make it through, and we WILL make it through.  One way or another, we will ALL break through.  You are not alone, no matter how bleak it may feel right now.  Whatever the situation and whatever the problem, there is a way out.  There is a way up, and you will make it—you will live to tell of the goodness of God in the midst of your pain and problems.  Continue to stand strong and fight.  Continue to pray and pursue wholeness.  Continue to pursue because Jesus died to take your pain upon Himself.  Jesus literally handed his life over and laid it down to take your infirmity on Him so you would have it no longer.  God has never planned this problem for you, but He is standing right beside you and walking you through it.

 

I decree that even now, fresh hope is rising up in your heart.  Fresh grace is being released from Heaven to carry you forward and give you strength to stand.  I release the oil of gladness over you right now, flowing upon you even as you read these words.  God is binding up your broken heart and is bringing gladness in place of mourning and despair.  I command all sickness and disease to bow to the mighty name of Jesus, and I command you to go!  I rebuke every unclean spirit and everything that causes infirmity, pain, sickness, and disease and I command you to loose off of those reading this now!  I break every assignment of the enemy that is sent against you to destroy your hope and cut off your faith, and decree now that a fresh wind of the Holy Spirit is filling and strengthening you now.  I send a fresh fire to reignite the smoldering and extinguished flames within your heart.  And finally, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of the Father, and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all (2 Cor. 13:14).  Amen.

 

 

 

For those of you who want to know more about mercury poisoning and/or are unsure if you are experiencing this problem, this website is a good place to start.

If you are seeking emotional healing and don’t know where to start, you might begin with my blog “5 Steps to Emotional Healing” that outlines a series of things you can to do jump-start the process.

If you seek physical healing and nothing has worked yet, consider my lengthy but informative 9-part blog series Divine Healing That Works.  It should provide some keys on how to move forward when what you have tried is not getting the job done.

 

 

 

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Childlike Faith – Podcast Replay on Touched By Prayer

Hello Friends of Eden,

Come join us on Touched By Prayer as Lisa Palieri Perna and I discuss Childlike Faith. How do we live out our faith like children of God in a world full of doubts, uncertainty, and instability? And how can we believe God for the impossible?

Click here to listen to the message!

childlikefaith, miraclesfaithvisionhealingsupernaturalgrace, holyspiritlifeabundanceblessing, gemstonesoilmannajewelsfeathersgolddustfromheaven, immortalityidentitybeliefwisdomunderstandingdiscernmentdeliverance
Courtesy of Tomstuart.com

At the Crossroads of Wisdom and Faith

A friend on Facebook recently asked a question in the Immortality Initiative–a group I created to discuss, explore, and pursue immortality per Jesus’s many statements and promises on the subject. As regular followers know, I am pretty outspoken about this subject and post on it regularly. One topic I have considered many times, but haven’t ever written about, is the question my friend posted–about whether to keep a life insurance policy or to cash it out.

 

As a firm believer in both resurrection (raising the dead) and immortality (never dying), I am conflicted on this matter. Part of me says to operate in radical faith and do away with any sort of death-planning. After all, planning for death is the same as extending faith toward death, right? To some extent I believe this–that our decisions demonstrate what we actually believe, and our actions are part of how we extend our faith in any given situation. As a result, we need to make decisions that are in line with our expectations, and not divide our thinking. Having a backup plan is, on some level, the same as sowing doubt with an increased likelihood of reaping failure.

crossroads2

On the other hand, failure to plan is also planning to fail. If we don’t take into account the fact that even in Hebrews 11, the big Faith chapter, that many men and women believed in faith but didn’t see the promises come to pass (v39), then we are fools. Occasionally we need to use our heads and look with eyes wide open at potential outcomes and decide whether we need to take steps to mitigate risk, whether toward ourselves or others.

 

Let’s put these ideas into a scenario. If I didn’t have others to consider, I wouldn’t bother with any kind of insurance or “death-planning.” I strongly believe in resurrection and immortality, and whether it sounds prideful or not I find it highly unlikely that I, of all people, would fail in that endeavor. I tend toward engaging in faith-behaviors such as not having insurance as a faith-action toward my end goal. On the other hand, I am married and have a stepdaughter and grandkids, and we all live together. I am currently the only wage-earner between my wife and myself, as she is between jobs, and my stepdaughter is just returning to work after having been injured and recovering for the better part of a year. My wife is also a number of years older than I am and I will likely continue working long after she is retired. In other words, I have people that depend on me. If something were to happen to me right now, my wife would be in big financial trouble, and raising the grandkids would be much more of a struggle. She would most likely lose the house within a year or so unless she could sell, and would have a host of other problems, all piled on top of the fact that this is in the event that I am also dead. Do I have life insurance? You had better believe I do. Under this set of circumstances I think anything less is highly irresponsible–not to me, but to my family.

 

This tension between wisdom and faith is a difficult path to tread, and at various points in life those two ideals no longer travel parallel, but intersect at a crossroads, where you can only choose one or the other. Sometimes the faith-route is the best way, escaping certain peril, but at other times it is the path of wisdom leads to higher heights and beautiful scenery and faith leads into a dead-end desert canyon. There is no easy answer to this question, and it will likely vary from person to person and situation to situation, but I want to challenge you: What do you think? How does this apply to your life? What do you think is best for you . . . and WHY is it best?

The Key that Unlocks Doors

The more I go through life the more I am convinced that while we have been given a lot of spiritual tools in this life, the most important and influential one we have is our faith. With enough faith applied correctly we can accomplish anything. One evening as I was pondering about faith I suddenly had an awareness of the entire nursing unit I was on–a vague awareness for just a few moments. With that brief moment of awareness came a realization that all of it was within a domain that I could control–down to the very atoms themselves. If I wanted to I could literally reshape the fabric of the universe around me. I understood in that moment that I was only aware of what was possible, but that I lacked the ability at that moment to actually effect that kind of change on any kind of noticeable level because I lacked the faith necessary to accomplish it even though I have the right of access as a son of God.

 

Faith is the key that unlocks doors, and I believe that we as sons and daughters of God must learn to live in high levels of faith if we want to see even a fraction of the things God has promised us. The truth is that living in this level of faith is going to take sacrifice that I believe few have made to date, and it’s not because we are earning faith by our good works, but because faith is always in flux. Faith is like the ocean–constantly undulating up and down, occasionally hitting a high peak or a low trough, but usually staying in a relatively constant set of bounds. I think of those bounds as normal life.

 

In normal life we have a measure of things we are used to, and we get comfortable in that place. Sure, things in our house may break and we may have to get them fixed or replace them from time to time. An occasional trip to the doctor and a rare trip to the hospital is within reason–after all, we live in a fallen world. Sure, God blesses us in many ways, but the enemy also steals from time to time, and we live in a tension between blessing and attack. It happens. And unfortunately, that seems to be the normal life many of us get used to. I know I am guilty of it myself.

 

The problem with this is that we get so used to the level we are living at that we forget there are much higher levels that we COULD be living at. What if anytime something in our house broke we waved our hand at it and it was made whole? What if any sickness and disease was fixed in five minutes–or better yet, never graced the threshold of our doors? What if attacks from the enemy were highly uncommon because we were simply such a difficult target to attack? All of these things are possible and much more, but it starts with building faith. Faith-building starts with changing expectations. When we start to expect something different we make a requirement from our beliefs. Instead of just knowing God CAN do something, we start to expect it to happen, and then go from expectancy to outright commanding reality to change.

 

Changing our expectations has a lot to do with changing our external input–the things we allow into our minds. If we want to have crazy miracles happen, we need to turn off the news, sometimes even turn off social media, my iphone, and all of the other distractions, and we need to pray. We need to feed ourselves with miracle stories of God’s glory and goodness and meditate on God’s nature of love. We need to get healed of inner hurts that hold us back and take fierce captivity of our thoughts–our daydreams and ideas, that we only let those things that are fruitful take hold within our minds. None of these things are easy; all of them take time. They take a shift of focus that is not small. Movies may go out the window. Various other forms of entertainment may soon follow–not that entertainment is bad, but everything we look at, think upon, hear, see, all forms of contact play a part in our faith level. I am not saying we must shun the world, but on some level I am saying we must start to shun the systems of this world’s way of doing things. I have heard stories of such men of God as Smith Wigglesworth who wouldn’t even let a newspaper cross the threshold of their door, as they didn’t want to be tainted by the negativity and bad news contained therein.

electric brain

We don’t need to put our heads in the sand and hide; rather we must put our heads in the clouds–in heavenly places where Christ is seated and where we can rule and reign with him to administrate justice and mercy into the earth. There is a reason that we are transformed and metamorphosed when we renew our minds–because only mind-renewal and a birthing of new faith will bring about the transformation we truly desire–the Kingdom of God manifesting on the earth. Let us set our sights on a higher way of life and in so doing transform our world.

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