Belonging House

In the summer of 1988 God began doing a number of amazing things in my life. At that time I heard the Lord speaking to me for the first time. In that season, God called me to the ministry, first told me about the coming revival on the earth, and began to talk to me about the “generation of the sons of Eli.”

As you may recall, Eli was the high priest who raised the prophet Samuel. His sons took the best of every offering, and freely took advantage of the women who came to the Tabernacle. Eli refused to discipline them, and God cursed his family. They all died in one day. You can read the details in I Samuel 3 and 4. In the 21 years since 1988, God has spoken to me many times about the sons of Eli, and the generation of leaders who have chosen man’s ways over God’s. In 2008 God gave me a very detailed word about the coming few years. In it, the Lord told me that the generation of the sons of Eli were about to be destroyed, that a great shaking was coming, and that everything that can be shaken would be. The Lord gave me many details about the elections of last year, the diminishing importance of the Clintons, the emergence of a “black horse” in August, and the upheaval in the financial realm. The Lord said that the end of the generation of the sons of Eli would be the death of Edward Kennedy, and that his death would release something in Massachusetts and New England.

I have watched over the past year as these words have been fulfilled–Ted Kennedy’s illness was made public the day after I received this word.

Tuesday morning, as I was on the bus going into Boston, the Lord told me that he was going to give me a sign before bed that his promises are being fulfilled. God blessed me several ways on Tuesday, but I didn’t think anything was unusual. I went to bed wondering if I was crazy, hearing voices again. . .

Wednesday morning I was pouring my coffee when Lyn told me the news. 21 years is a long time to wait for something. I encourage you to pay attention, God is on the move and things are about to get interesting. You can read the whole word here.

Do not be surprised if other shifts begin happening in the coming weeks.

I always pay attention when something strange gets a lot of attention. Sometimes God is speaking through the news. A great example of this was the Titanic craze that swept the country in the late 1990’s. Not only was there the movie, but there was a (bad) broadway play, a traveling artifact exhibit, and numerous items that were auctioned off by the top houses in the country. The fact that this craze was over a very real tragedy that killed thousands, including some of the best and brightest of a generation, was really strange. In late 1999 I told a friend that something horrible was about to happen to this country, and this Titanic craze was a prophetic sign. My friend shrugged, and I wrote it in my journal. We all know what happened about 18 months later. It pays to pay attention.

On Easter weekend another unusual thing happened. An outwardly unimpressive woman stood before a pretty unsympathetic audience. To put it lightly, she “blew them away.” Personally, I hate these talent shows. I think most of the winners are second rate, and it’s more about salesmanship than ability. Most of the entertainment industry gave up on real talent a long time ago, and I lost interest. That is, until someone emailed me the video of Susan Boyle.

Last week there was a frenzy to get her on every major TV show on both sides of the Atlantic. Last Friday, during my morning prayer time, God gave me a download about Susan Boyle. I think she is another one of these peculiar signs that sometimes appear. Here is what the Lord said:

She is my Bride.
My bride has been the source of ridicule.
She has neglected her own needs while she cared for her dying mother, the church.
All the while, she has contained a hidden treasure.
She has a new song to sing.
She has dreamed a dream, and today she will burst forth.
All the earth will take notice and hang their heads in shame, because they judged by outward appearance.
Sing a new song my glorious one.
The world is prepared to say “YES” to you.
YES, YES, YES
Now is the time for the sound of dreams to come true.

I think we should stay tuned, because I think that the next 18 months are going to get really interesting.

***

On other things, here is a sign of something that I felt was pretty hopeful:

Newsweek interrupted it’s succession of Obama covers for this one during Holy Week. I don’t think that the timing was accidental, and probably intended to be insulting to Christians. Considering that the Department of Homeland Security also singled out those who were “pro-Life” and had an undefined “violent Christian Identity” as potential threats to national security later that same week, I think we are moving toward more fun for the church.

As Mark Twain once said, “reports of my death have been grossly exaggerated.” It reminds of me of another national magazine that did a story on the global decline of Christianity, complete with graphs and diagrams. I remember reading it, with my first hand knowledge of world missions and international ministry, and thinking “this is hogwash.” The writer created a piece based on the presuppositions of his training in a liberal journalism school.  He reinforced them with his own media groupthink. The truth was, and is, Christianity globally is experiencing explosive growth in Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America.

Well, I digress. This nasty Newsweek cover encouraged me a lot, because I think we are on the verge of one of the greatest spiritual Awakenings in history. How do I know? Because there are more people praying than I have ever seen, and more and more people are asking me questions about spiritual things (Just last week in the grocery store, a woman asked me if I thought if a lot of people were demonized. I said yes). A shift has taken place since the beginning of the year, and those who are anti-Christian have become bolder. This overreach has caused a lot of people to take notice. I think we are experiencing the last tired gasps of the Sixties radicals and their dull, worn out ideas. This isn’t the first time an anti-Christian wave has swept our nation. The period immediately after the American Revolution was also vehemently anti-Christian, with colleges sponsoring Bible burning parties, and drunkenness at epidemic proportions. By 1820 things had changed radically, after a series of Methodist flavored revivals swept the country bringing huge social and cultural reforms.

Yes, I think that is going to happen again. Yes, I think a lot of the garbage from the culture wars will be laid at the curb. Yes, I think this cover from Newsweek will be seen as a quaint and absurd remnant from a dim season in our nation’s history.

Get happy!

The other night I awoke with the same words repeating in my head. It was the voice of Sir Winston Churchill, speaking in 1940. The words I heard were, “This was their finest hour.” I have been praying about this, and believe that the Lord is speaking to us today. Church, this is your finest hour, and we must rise to the occasion in the face of a new onslaught of evil. God has given us the answers to every human problem. As the darkness around us deepens, we are going to be walking in greater light. As I listened to the speech, I have to confess I felt that it was timely. There are several versions of this on Youtube, but this is the only one that puts the text on the screen and plays at the correct speed. Please forgive the typos.

Our imagination is one of the most important parts of our mind. It gives us the ability to see the impossible. It helps us see the unseen. Through our imagination we are given the opportunity to be creative. This is something that reflects the personality of God more than any thing else.
Our imaginations are so important, that the imagination has become a major battle ground for the destruction of humanity. No other time in history has it been more possible to access visual images, sounds, music, or material that is negative or defiling to the imagination.
Pornography and violence probably do more damage to the imagination than anything else. Both of these things become limits on the soul. There are millions of people today who have stunted or deadened because of their exposure to this heightened form of ugliness.
The holy imagination becomes a place where God can interface with us. When we have a cleansed imagination, we can hear the things God tells us, about ourselves, about the world, and about himself, and we can receive. Not only that, we begin to discover that nothing is impossible with God. Our wildest imaginations can be come reality. There are no limits to what God can do if we yield ourselves to him. The Bible talks about taking every thought captive to the will of God. This is how we maintain our imaginations. Paul tells us that “no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind as ever conceived the glorious things that God has prepared for those who have believed.”
If you feel you have defiled your imagination, you can pray the following prayer:
Lord Jesus, I have looked on things that were unholy, and I have been defiled by them. I know that my imagination is the platform you use to change me, and change the world. I give me imagination to you, and I ask you, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to cleanse the imaginations of my heart.
(if images begin to appear, take your hand, and pull them out of your thoughts, keep doing this till no more appear.)
Thank you for healing my imagination, help me to hear, see, and do what you want me to do. Fill my imagination with a sense of the holy, the good, and the beautiful, in Jesus name. Amen.

Here is a continuation of what I shared in my last blog post. Go here to read the first part. It is an excerpt from my book, The Glory of a Wasted Life.

This is probably a good time to talk about the different ways God might speak to you. I have already mentioned the Bible, so I will not include this on the list.
An audible voice. Throughout scripture God spoke to men and women through an audible voice, including Moses, Samuel and Jesus. Although I have not had this experience, a few friends of mine have. This may be the rarest way God speaks.
An internal voice. In my experience, this has become the way God speaks most often. The internal voice is much like the “still small voice” that Elijah experienced after the confrontation with the prophets of Baal. When God speaks to you in this way, you may sense a thought or word form in your mind. Very often, God speaks in a conversation within the context of prayer. You pray, and God speaks. God speaks, and you pray. The goal is an ongoing conversation with God, where you are interacting with him, and he is guiding you. After praying for a house for six months, God spoke to me and showed me the house. It came to me as a thought that was clearly not my own: “This is the house you are praying for.”
A dream. God spoke to the patriarch Joseph in dreams, to Jacob, and to Joseph in the New Testament. God often speaks in dreams to people today, but many dismiss them or fail to remember them.
In the period when I was first consistently walking out of the homosexual lifestyle, I had a dream that I was walking down a city street late at night. I was walking through a cool neighborhood lined with cafes and nightclubs. On the corner was a very handsome man who was cruising, and who propositioned me. In the dream, I kept walking, and then glanced back. On the corner was a huge wolf with fangs, licking his chops. I then awoke, remembering the dream. God was showing me that some of the habits I had developed seemed outwardly innocent, but really were deadly for me.
Before bed I ask God for a spirit of wisdom and revelation, and I keep a notebook on my nightstand. If I am awakened by a particularly vivid dream, I try to write it down. God can speak to us while we sleep. I also pray for protection from evil dreams and nightmares in the night.
Visions. One day I was praying for my friend Alice. While I was praying for her, I saw a picture of her in a red dress, and she was beautiful. I could have dismissed the picture, but instead, I prayed into it. God was giving me insight into the desires of my friend’s heart. This was a vision.
There are two kinds of visions. The first is an internal picture, almost like a day dream where you might see something or imagine a picture in your mind. This happens to me often when I pray, or when I pray for others. It is one way that God speaks and guides your prayers.
The second, is an “open” vision. This is like the vision I had of heaven described in the first part of my book. Open visions are sometimes dramatic, and are used by God to give you clear revelation of his will or his direction. There are many times in scripture where men and women experienced visions. Two significant visions occurred in Acts. The first was when God wanted Peter to expand his ministry to the Gentiles in Acts 10:9-16. Paul had a vision in Acts 16:6-10 that directed him to go to Macedonia.
Visions are an important way that God speaks and clarifies other directions he gives to his people.
The Prophetic. In November 2005, three members of a prophetic ministry team prophesied that I was about to experience a great transition, that I needed to stock up on groceries, and that was about to start something big. This surprised me, but I knew that God had made promises to me about a future ministry that had not been fulfilled.
Often God speaks his word from one person to another. When he does this, it is called the prophetic. Usually, when a person has a prophetic word for you, it is confirmation or an expansion of what God has spoken to you in other ways. In looking over the past decades when God has spoken to me through others, I can think of possibly twice where the prophecy was something God had not already told me. Prophecy is rarely directive, but more often confirmation.
Unusual Circumstances or Signs. In 2004 I began finding pennies in odd places– really odd places, like balanced on their side on restaurant tables, on gas pumps, in my shoes, and on the ground outside my car door every time I opened it. It happens so often, that for a while I thought I was going a little crazy. It was not until the fall of 2006 that I heard Patricia King start talking about people who find pennies everywhere. She said that the pennies, “ONE CENT” were a sign of an apostolic calling—the Sent One. Since that time, the pennies no longer annoy me, but are a sign that God is encouraging the call he has placed on my life.
Unusual circumstances can be a way that God speaks. Any time something happens repeatedly, begin to ask God if he is trying to tell you something.

Whenever you begin to think God may be talking to you, write it down in your journal. Make the things that God is speaking to you a matter of your prayers. Ask God to give you confirmation in multiple ways. God can give you clarity, and help you have greater understanding of what he is saying. If God begins to give you direction, ask him how to obey the word that you have been given.

In terms of the red envelope idea, that came to me initially as a strong mental picture during my prayer time. As I prayed into it, I felt that my next step was to send my friends an email about it. It was not for about two weeks until I began to see the unusual response to the idea that I was sure that it was an idea from God.

In my next post, I would like to talk about how God uses the imagination.

John 10:27 says “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”
We have been in a period of history where hearing God’s voice has either been de-emphasized or actively discredited by the larger Christian community. There is no time in history where listening to God and doing what he tells you is more important. For the creative person, this is an even more important skill.
In the next few pages, I will describe the process I have walked through to learn to listen to God. I made mistakes along the way, but also have learned to recognize when I am listening to God, to my own human weakness, or a spiritual voice that is not from God—the devil.
When I was a student at Houghton, my German professor, Gudrun Stevenson, used to recite a proverb to us: “I would rather have a “C” student with “A” character than an “A” student with “C” character.” That is the core of learning to listen to God. If you make mistakes, but have a pure heart and desire to do God’s will, those mistakes will help you grow and actually become a better listener. If you hear God clearly, but your gift does not match your character, or if your heart is divided between God and some other agenda or thing—watch out! You will run into trouble. Your heart attitude is where listening to God begins.

Dr. Dennis Kinlaw once told me that God is speaking all the time, but it’s a miracle we hear anything. It is important to keep an open attitude about how and where God might speak to you. God speaks in many different ways: through thoughts, through visions and dreams, and through external circumstances.
Once you get these two basic principals down, you can start to begin the process of learning to listen to God.

Begin with finding a place of quiet where there is no distraction. Even if you get to a quiet place, it might be hard to find internal quiet. Sometimes my mind or emotions are going so fast that I need time to unwind before I can let God speak to me.
If this happens, I place my hand on my heart, and begin to acknowledge the Presence of Jesus in me. I pray the following prayer:
“Jesus, I believe that you are in me, and I am in you. You are in your Father, and your Father is in you. I am in your Father, and your Father is in me. Thank you Jesus for your Presence. Give rest to my soul and help me hear your voice.”
It may take some time, and I might need to take a few deep breaths and exhale. My goal is to be receptive to what God wants to say to me.
The second step after getting into a place of rest and receptivity, is to become full of the Holy Scriptures. A regular daily discipline of Bible reading is crucial. There are several reasons for this. First, it is important to know what God has said in the past, and to learn how God has spoken to people throughout time. If you think you hear God and he tells you something that is in violation of a clear word in Scripture, you know you are hearing another voice. The Bible creates the pathway in your soul for the ongoing conversation you can develop with God. Second, filling your mind with the Bible will help counteract the thoughts and attitudes you have learned as a fallen human being. This is part of letting your mind be renewed day by day. Third, the Bible is a living book, and beginning there is a great way for you to begin interacting with God. Daily structured Bible reading will help cause you to see the dynamic way God desires to interact with us.
For about twelve years I have been using a prayer book that has a one-year cycle of Bible readings. In a year I read about 85% of the Bible, and repeat most of the psalms several times a month. This has helped me make the Bible not only an informational book, but also the backbone of my life of prayer. Even after two degrees in Bible and theology, I am still learning new things everyday. This is a humbling and awe-inspiring process.
The next practical part of listening to God is keeping a journal. It is imperative that you begin writing the things you think God is telling you. In the beginning is might be simple. Many people I have taught over the years only hear a few words in the beginning. Often it is “I love you” or “Be not afraid.” God might give you insight into the Bible reading for that day, or insight into events that are happening around you.
In the beginning it is important to keep track of these things. Do not despise small beginnings or simple words. Sometimes they are the most significant. Often when I am about to face difficult situations, God will speak the same word over me: “You are my son, and I love you.” Since I struggle with being God’s son, this very simple word is often the comfort I need to make difficult decisions.

In my next post, I will describe the various ways that God speaks to us, and give some more practical thoughts.

Here is a bit of ministry time with Bob Jones at the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship. It was like a ten minute conference.

Paul Keith Davis shares how the spirit of death is assigned to prevent men and women from entering their destiny.  This is from Patricia King’s Extreme Prophetic program.