Sunday, February 12, 2012

BATTLE!

So, who wants to know more craziness? Sure! Why not! The Holy Spirit has really been showing me just how real the spiritual realm is. Here are some stories to prove it!

When we (the DTS) were in Portugal, I went into the sanctuary of the church to just sit and be in God's presence. I didn't start saying anything, but upon sitting down, I closed my eyes and I had this ringing in my left ear. I was kind of confused by this, but it has been quite normal for me. So I just leave it, yet the same ringing starts in my right ear too! Its a lot louder than the left one and I am just kind of like, "What the heck man! This is weird." So I just leave it and then I feel this tingling sensation running across my head, starting from the left side and the right side. It reaches the middle of my head and then it gets really intense, the tingling, and I really don't know what to think. I am bewildered and confused as to what is happening to me. I then hear the pastor's phone ring, so I answer it and God starts speaking to me! No, I'm just kidding, that didn't happen, would be cool, but I just took it to the pastor. I go back to the sanctuary and sit down again and upon closing my eyes I see this angel fly above my head and I hear it screech! A noise like nothing I have heard before! I was then asking God what the heck was going on. He replies, "The left ear was hearing hell shout and scream. The right ear was hearing heaven shout praises and scream 'AU! AU! AU!' When the tingling started, this is when both sides started rushing towards each other and they collided in a headlong battle. This battle is not over Jack." Those last words were quite powerful. Allann was preaching that night about evangelism and I knew that the spiritual realm was having a huge fight! So I knew warriors were going to be produced from that preaching and so it was! The funny thing is, is that those last words God spoke are still ringing true. "This battle is not over."

I have had such an honour of being pumped up and ready for war by one of the greatest war generals of all time! I was listening to "Oh, Sleeper" one morning in Portugal. The album is called "Son Of The Morning" which is another name for Satan. The album starts out with Satan challenging God calling Him a weak forgiver and wasting power on grace and things like this. Well the songs after that one are about God showing Himself to people and recruiting them into His army. The last song in the album is called "The Finisher." This is a kingdom song! This is God's answer to Satan's challenge. Wow! Its crazy! God says things like, "Your whisper may sway the weak, but when I speak it roars the seas." "Your challenge has been met and with a breath I can snap your neck." "I will sing to the world your storm is capturing; and the angels will join me. We will sing to a world reborn from suffering." "But mark my words! Cause if that tree keeps them from seeing me, I'll burn of your limbs, you'll never shade again!" "You'll bow at my feet, or I'll rip out your knees! And make of your face all the carnage you crave!" "I am the Finisher and I am forever!" "From the armories the angels sing. You will see them end this suffering. From the armories the angles sing. You will fear them when they lift their wings." Now this is where this story goes crazy! Right here, about when he (the lead singer) says, "From the armories..." I am just getting all this, I really don't know, but like this feeling of being excited and happy mixed with fury against hell and the powers of darkness! It was like I was getting prepared for battle! Right when he says this next line, "They will sing to a world reborn! They will sing..." I am just getting this feeling more and more intense throughout my entire body! He continues, "As I... Cut off your horns! I'll cut off your horns!" Boom! I just explode and raise my fist in the air! I felt like I was just drawing my sword and shouting at the top of my longs, ready to go slaughter some demons! It was a crazy experience. Also, if you look up the album art, you'll see that it resembles a pentagram except the top two points are gone. That is because the pentagram is the face of a goat; the bottom being the beard, the left and right being the ears, and the top being the horns. Since God ripped the horns off, so are they gone from the pentagram. So awesome!

Hopefully this has been the kind of thing you were looking for today! If not, well this is the kind of stuff that happens all around us and yet we are still a part of it. Its crazy and pretty darn cool at the same time! I shall be posting another update soon (I don't know when, but soon!) and I will have some more stories for you guys! Keep on keeping on! Drink some hot chocolate and eat some marshmallows! 








Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Roller Coaster of Insanity!

So I know that my last blog post was quite a long time ago, and that I was totally planning on having some more being up here, but that didn't really work out quite so well... So here is that one personal experience that you guys were all waiting for! Along with some others that were pretty crazy on my outreach!

Bram wanted to give us a time to try out some of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. He said he would go around to each of us and pray for the Holy Spirit to just fill us up more and more. While he was praying, we were to ask Him for the gift that we wanted to try out, one that we hadn't yet experienced or wanted to see happen. At first, I wanted to be able to speak tongues with an uncontrollable tongue because I think that would be really crazy cool! Maybe a little weird, but still quite cool. I then realized, that I have been able to do that before, so I started thinking about it and I came to the conclusion that I have never had the interpretation for the angel language. So I ask Him for that, and right when I do, Bram starts speaking in tongues and I instantly get an interpretation saying this, "Jack, you are my beloved son. I take great delight in you!" Hearing that directly from my Father was an unexplainable experience. I just start smiling and crying tears of joy! So then I went over to Allann who was going crazy with the angelic language and so I just stand beside him and I start getting the interpretation right away! He was prophesying over the entire outreach that we were going on and it was just a crazy experience! One other gift that I got to try out was that of knowledge. I went over and sat beside David and I just felt like I should pray for him. So I put my hand on him and I start a little prayer and I get this image from God about a part of David's past (I won't repeat it because I don't know if David wants me to reveal it or not). At first, I thought it was just one of my crazy little fantasies, but I thought, "What the heck! I might as well talk to him about it!" So I call over Natio for a translation and it turns out that it was a part of his past! Wow! That was pretty crazy to me! Yet it didn't quite stop there because God had only began opening the floodgates of heaven.

I have lots and lots of stories to tell, but I shall tell this one that goes along with the spirit realm. I have been asking God to train my spiritual senses because I just want to be able to experience that kind of stuff in a crazy way! So we were working with this one Assembly of God church and at one of their services, we went aside with the youth and Allann was sharing his testimony and just some other things and we would ask questions and that sort of jazz. Then Amélie piped up and said that she felt like she needed to share this part of her testimony. I can't remember exactly what it was about, but I do remember all of a sudden getting freezing cold, just a ridiculous amount of cold air was blown across my entire body and I shivering like crazy. I had the goosebumps and everything! Amélie is crying while sharing her testimony and I'm just thinking to myself, "Something crazy is going on in the spiritual realm right now!" Right after she had finished speaking, I had an overwhelming amount of comfortable heat run through my body. It was like receiving one of the best massages in the world! I then ask God, "What the heck just happened?" Well, He replies by saying, "We won, Jack! The demons were getting really pissed that Amélie was sharing about my love and so that is why you were so cold, but in the end, we won!" I knew this to be true right away because there was some new youth there that had never been in the church before we had arrived there and they were all so amazed by her testimony and I could tell that they had all been really touched by God's love at that moment. David also had a really crazy experience at that same time that I had mine. It was just such an awesome time!

I have many, many more stories to be sharing with you guys! They involve battle of the gruesomest of types, completely insane spiritual experiences and just some really awesome fun times! Strap yourselves in and get ready for a pretty crazy ride in the coming week!

Sunday, January 1, 2012

The energizer bunny? No, but close enough!

So you know what is kind of ridiculous? Me. Because I am sure that there are other stories that I can share because I was planning on having this be the last one before I go on my outreach, but thats okay! I shall share this one and if I think of any others then I shall post them! So here we go.

It was our last week of teaching and our teacher for that week was Bram. He was a really awesome teacher that was really there to get us all pumped (super pumped!) for our outreach. He came with many stories about really crazy stuff that God was doing. I was very excited throughout the entire week to go on my outreach after this week! Especially after I finished reading Matthew chapters 1-9 highlighting all the healing and cool stuff Jesus did. The crazy thing about all of His healing's is that they're all different! It basically does the same thing, but they are all done in different ways. This just goes to show how different God really is and how unprecedented He is in the way that He moves His hand. So basically Bram was teaching on the Holy Spirit and His gifts that He has for us. They are all super cool! I shall list them here: Wisdom, knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, performing of miracles, prophecy, distinguishing between spirits, different kinds of languages and interpretation of languages. All of that is found in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10. Now at first when I was reading this I want, "Huh?" Because some of them just don't really make much sense, like the one about faith. What?! How can 'faith' be a gifting? Well Bram gave us this story about Paul (Saul of Tarsus) when he goes to evangelize on the island of Malta (Acts 28:1-6) and how he goes out to gather some fire wood and a snake comes out and bites him on the hand and all he does is shake it off. What?! He doesn't start jumping around screaming like a madman to get the snake off? Because, I mean, that would be my first reaction! Another story for the gifting of faith is from my mentor Natio. His pastor was telling a story about how him and his friends were walking home and they saw a truck fall over and fall on top of a guy. They were all panicking and wondering what to do, when a little old lady comes back from church and sees this and just drops all of her stuff and goes over and lifts up the truck without a second thought or even a doubt and says, "Quick! Grab him!" They were awe struck and couldn't move! When they finally did, they moved the man and then she let the truck down. Crazy! Thats what the gift of faith is, having no fear to do anything, that the Holy Spirit just fills you with so much faith in God, that you just do it. Awesome!

Another gift that confused me was the performing of miracles. Wouldn't a gift of healing be a miracle? Well, Bram described a miracle as anything that goes against the laws we have on this earth. For example, if I were to throw a bottle of water up in the air, it would fall back down because of gravity. But if it were to keep floating up in the air, then that would be a miracle, for it would be defying an established law we have on earth. He gave us a story of this one evangelist that went to Mexico and went up into the hills. He was warned to make it back before the rain started, otherwise the river would fill up and overtake the road. He ended up staying back later than he should've and the river had overfilled and overtaken the road. Well, he hadn't gone to Mexico to not be able to go back to his family, that wasn't part of God's plans. So he tells the rest of the people that they can either get out and stay there or stay in the Jeep and tag along for a crazy ride because he was going to drive through the river. What?! A river?! You'd get swept away! Yeah, that's what I thought too. So he starts to go into the river and goes along the bottom and then comes back up on the other side. Everything is alright. Crazy! Now, that is also an example of how the gifts can work together, because that was a miracle, going against the law that the Jeep would go with the flow of the river and be swept away, but it was also the gift of faith because its not everyday that someone says to their self, "Looks like I'm just going to drive through this river that will most definitely kill me! Or at least do a very good job of trying to kill me!" Again, awesome!!

Now, I was going to share my own personal experience, but I am going to save that for the next blog post because this one is already getting pretty long and I don't want to have your guys eyeballs catch on fire from all of these letters and words and grammar and vocabulary and punctuation and rabbits! So tomorrow there shall be another blog post about my own personal experience and some other stuff about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Drink ice tea and I shall see you next time! (Not lemonade though, kay?)