A Third Level Approach To Ministry II : Twinklers

Prodded a little by Lydia Joy losing her grandfather I wanted to continue this summary of thoughts on how the 3rd level changes everything we ever thought we knew about ministry.Maurice Smith calls mature Christians twinklers (see my book list).While others may age less than gracefully, with a growing cynicism, twinklers twinkle more!! Their eyes just give the game away. And you just know. You know they know Him in whom they have believed.

Without a powerful experience of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, a Christian seems to take several decades to become a true twinkler. Whether Protestant or Catholic, they are people of prayer and the Word. The slight snag is by the time they are twinklers, it is nearly time to go home...and they are severely restricted by limitations of age, mobility and possibly other issues.

So Youth With a Mission, Morris Cerullo, and Rheinhardt Bonnke hit on another system. Give the people of God an experience...a powerful experience coupled with a lot of training on the life of faith...and send them out to turn the world upside down!! In a way this is what happened on April 6th 1972 to all of us in a little corner of Bucks,England. And it seemed for a while we did turn our corner of things in Amersham a little bit upside down.But here is a snag. Youth With A Mission, Morris Cerullo and Rheinhardt Bonnke call this making twinklers. (Well they don't...but they call this sending workers out into the harvest). It is and it isn't. Let's return later.

For New Frontiers and a whole host of other networks of new churches, this is insufficient, so they believe in yoking developing ministries to local church situations over months and years. Possibly sending people to a more formal type of Bible College, be it run by their family of churches or some other institution that holds an evangelical position. Unless these new ministries are exposed to a radical Holy Spirit anointing either directly, as in Rob Rufus'case, or through other ministries...the tendency is always to settle back into "sound teaching of the Bible" but with little power and little miraculous fruit.Both approaches I would call the twin sides of the second level.
So to recap:Firstlevellers, by dint of continuing in the faith, continuing in prayer, continuing in the Word, continuing with the ups and downs of fellowship life, may well after decades and decades ...if they don't duck out... find themselves twinkling.
Secondlevellers will experience a baptism in the Holy Spirit, be introduced to the reality that Christianity is in fact supernatural in manifestation, be then driven back into a hunger for the Word, and a fresh hunger to experience fellowship together with other Christians, but this time at this new supernatural level . The growth arc will probably be shorter than in the first case. But if our experiences in the UK are anything to go by, we are still talking somewhere between 1 and 3 decades even moving pretty quickly before anyone even approaches twinkler status. And again there is absolutely no certainty that people will press right through. For this reason Paul writes "Do not harden your hearts as the Israelites did in the days of rebellion in the wilderness."
Firstlevellers know how to get others into a born again experience.
Secondlevellers get people born again and baptized in the Spirit. As I have mentioned before, in the year of 1972, at the age of around 14(Christine is one year younger), both she and I in our respective areas of the UK were doing all this. Now this for many fellowships would mean we had arrived. Well, here we are at age 50, and we still haven't. Because you see there is a 3rd level of growth.Without a vision, the people perish. Without even a sketchy understanding that there are 3 distinct growth stages, people all over the world in the Body of Christ are floundering around. You've got people like Amy, (see Amy's blog) who have probably been compliant for years in their church system...thinking that that would amount to something, confusing 2nd level churches with the raw real deal of the anointed Living Body of Christ. Ofcourse in parts it is....but the 2nd level stuff contains other ingredients as dangerous and poisonous as the worst plant foods that you could ingest.So Youth With A Mission, Rheinhardt Bonnke, David Hathaway, Morris CerulloAlso New Frontiers, and all the other 70s and 80s like networks, be it under Terry Virgo, Alan Vincent, Gerald Coates,Barney Coombs and so on and so on....are all (probably unwittingly and out of anxiety to get the job done) doing the Body of Christ a huge disservice....Why?Because they are calling the 2nd level a mature ministry and as the world instinctively knows...it isn't.
Because they are not raising the people's sights and expectations to believe that Jesus is faithful to complete the work in us to make us fit and able fathers who reproduce after our kind.We either believe in the power of His Word to raise us up as fit ministers ....or we don't. And if we don't, we help God along a little with more programmes, and training procedures and conferences.....
when what people need to understand is
How Genesis 3:5 works
How Jesus came to destroy all the works of the Evil One
How He came to lay the axe to the root.

What root? The religious system? The 2-bit secondlevel structures the grace-bloggers are railing against? Terry Virgo? Nope Nope Nope The axe is laid against us? Every flipping last second of the day we are not living from the reality of what the Cross has won for us. We don't need to go around looking for others to single out.Every little second we catch ourselves living the Genesis 3:5 "Just independent me"lie...we needDan Bowen, Amy, Sheila, Lydia Joy,Matt Daelon,Jamie,Leonard...to prophesy back to us..."Hey you...you are now Christ you...you have no separate existence...to believe that is to fall back into sin again, and to give life again to something that since the Cross can never have life again...the old Adamic hubris life of the devil himself lived through mankind.The people I have listed as Missions and New churches above...the YWAMs etc they need to be preaching according to the models in scripture. And I have never, I repeat never, heard anyone of them preach according to these lines.

Model 1. Jesus For 30 whole years He did nothing apart from grow in the understanding of how life works. He grew in knowledge and wisdom. Carpentry. Just learning to believe who He was. By faith. No flash stuff.Then was baptised in water and the Holy Spirit. Had the quickest 2nd level in history in the testing in the wilderness. That's because his personal foundation in God as a normal person for 30 years meant He could skip most of what we've had to go through in the 2nd level. Then straight afterwards He began to operate in the 3rd level. Two fold: Declaring War on the Devil in the territory allotted Him by the Father:Israel. Secondly: to raise up father ministries like Himself in just 3 years. All this while also preaching and teaching the Kingdom to 1. outsiders 2.believers and closer disciples and 3. the 12 apostles to be.

Model 2: The 12 apostles They were Jews. They understood the 1st level basics. That God is sovereign. That we give our life over to Him, expressed first in water baptism. That He alone can forgive our sins and make us new. They entered into an early prototype 2nd level, where although not knowing a born again experience yet, nor a complete baptism in the Spirit....from pretty early on they were sent out to chase the devil off God's Earth with power to heal,deliver and forgive sins.This shows us that at one level Morris Cerullo, Terry Virgo,YWAM and all are correct. As long as there is at least one 3rd level ministry...not everyone needs to be a 3rdleveller before embarking on mission trips.(There was only one Graham Pulkingham , but many in the Fisherfolk team for example)It shows us also, as we found on 6th April 1972, and again in Lakeland Florida this yearThe Power of the Baptism in the Spirit is put in context: as a tool for preaching the GospelThis is absolutely Terry Virgo and Morris Cerullo territory. And is accurate.Secondly, if you want people to grow fast...you expose them from early on in doing the work of the Kingdom with power. Even if that carries a high risk tag...as we saw with Todd Bentley. I am so glad that Jesus - knowing all about how sinful I was - still allowed me to lay hands on folks at 14 and get them filled with the Holy Spirit.Jesus came at the disciples with love, but also slicing stuff off them with His prophetic use of the Word...such that in only 3 super intense years they were ready to launch the Kindom for real at Pentecost. But as I've taken time to point out again and again in these posts, in Acts 2, they'd already gone through their 2nd level...which almost left them totally devastated...so when the Spirit came in power, they were 3rd Levellers....fit and able to father the first ever church at Jerusalem.All ministries that I have grown up with are totally wrong in equating our entrance Baptism in the Spirit with Acts 2.Morris Cerullo is wrong if he implies that at the end of one of his Schools of Ministry, as wonderful and life transforming as they are.....if he equates that with what the disciples were put through over a 3 year period. Rheinhardt Bonnke is wrong. You can't quite level the same at New Frontiers....in fact if anything they are too slow by Jesus standards....or they again call maturity what is not maturity....not like Acts 2 at any rate.

Model 3. Paul As one untimely born. Filled with the Spirit from the word go. But NOT given Holy Spirit wings to then go off straight away and turn the world upside down. (Morris Cerullo take note)Praise God that everyone hated him, or was cautious about him. He might be converted, but he'd been responsible for many deaths...one was specifically named: Stephen, the martyr. So there was no way he was going straight out on the road. Norman says Paul spent 3 years in Arabia. Gene Edwards says he spent several years in the Antioch church. Two things happened. He received from heaven during this period his gospel. Everyone has to have their own gospel.Divine revelation from Jesus Himself. It's not so we all start our individual cults. There is only one Jesus. And only one gospel. But Jesus has to make it our gospel. He has to write it in us. So we become living letters read by men.After 36 years I have a gospel. As we start preaching the stuff that is actually in the New Testament , and not the 2 level stuff we've been preaching for years...there is no reason why we cannot (in Jesus) raise up local bodies that grow believers in similar time periods to Jesus. In fact we have something that Jesus never had: we have the Holy Ghost Growing Machine - The Body of Christ . So this was the second thing that happened to Paul : that which was now in him was being worked out and recognised by this early example of a Gentile Church. This Jesus will make Himself known to others in our surroundings through us. Our gifting will be perceived.

As we look out at many weary faces who have been faithfully attending charismatic churches now for 30 or 40 years....it is sad to now say, there is in fact no reason why it had to take this long. The good side of our history is that the Terry Virgos, the Gerald Coates rushed in to fill the vacancies to provide good, solid, faithful and sacrificial leadership. Listen, Terry actually came to minister to us in Amersham instead of being present at the birth of one of his children. People only get born once!!! How sacrificial was that!

On the bad side, virtually the entire leadership in our country never knew that a 3rd level existed, let alone how to minister it. So ofcourse as they hit us with verses from John 15-17 about bearing fruit, and unity, and as we all sink in condemnation, because largely these things are not so in our networks...........little did we know that none of these things are really possible til we hit the motherlode of the 3rd level. Think how disastrous the disciples were in their 1st three training years. Forget unity. Forget pure fruit. They were arguing who was the greatest. Who's DA BISHOP!

In this post I have not even covered the question of Bible Schools. The writing of Jesus gospel inside us so we become Living letters is such a profound work....that without a proper release of the Spirit can take a whole 7 decades as I began saying. There is no possible way apart from a wave of Holy Spirit Revival Power,Revelation, and supernatural deliverance , (which by the way, on many occasions has swept through Ed Miller's Bible schools)....ordinarily there is no way on God's earth that a Bible school be kitted out with what it takes to move a man or woman out of the deep deep delusions of selfhood into the 3rd level in the 2 or 3 years usually allotted for the task.
I believe, as a fulfilment of what Jean Darnall, and Harry Greenwood, and other renowned prophets prophesied into Emsworth, I believe I was a part of a prototype wave of ministry training as God will refine and hone in the future. I believe the Bible House model of training which came through Ed Miller and then Jorge Pradas, are much closer to the biblical model. Where everyone leaves everything to come together to:
seek God together
learn what it is to live and work as the Body of Christ together
to be dealt with at a very deep level

and to teach also the things it was not good at:
teaching us to minister in Power together as teams
teaching us Norman Grubb's insights as to the true nature of the human condition in Genesis
teaching us what it means to walk as Christ in our individual forms
and at this level of insight -how to live together in love and the Presence of God

So what is the difference between that and a monastery or nunnery?
It's more dynamic,prophetic. People come together until a specific work has been established amongst them. Like Paul and Barnabus they are recognised in ministry, called out by God, separated for specific tasks. It's all the things New Frontiers wanted to be, but never had the tools for. It's organic. Our Bible House began around a house church in new Brighton Rd Emsworth, but moved into 20 acres of property as the church vision grew. It's less programme based...more based around the expanding Word and gifting of some rather dead individuals.
That is , individuals who have so caught this thing about being dead in Christ, they themselves are the programme!!! Like Mother Basilea Schlink, Graham Pulkingham, Richard Wurmbrandt,Watchman Nee,Witness Lee....every time they open their mouth they cause irreparable damage to people's insides!!!
In short they have become Twinklers of the First order!

TheoCentric The stages of growth

Take a look at the new link

Wahoo-a-zowie! I get Myself Back!

Norman Grubb - Yes I am- Chapter25 "I Get Myself Back"
Now we move on to the surprising and glorious effects on us of this total relationship of replacement-union. The chief one is the paradox.A person might think that this inner consciousness of Christ in me, as me, would give me an enlarged consciousness of Him and an increased glorying in Him. It does... even though He has already been, for years, my precious Christ in the love relationship of the Song of Songs. But what becomes paradoxically new to me is a totally new self-acceptance. And here, at once, we move onto "dangerous ground" — not dangerous to us, but to onlookers like the daughters of Jerusalem in the Song! Because it seems to produce a newly inflated ego —I! It does. But of course, we who have entered in and are now in on the secret know the whole key — that it is a Satan-expressing ego which has first disappeared forever in His cross, before reappearing as our new Christ-expressing ego. But it is a total reappearing of the "I"! Why? Because it has been God's fixed plan of grace from before the foundation of the world that He was going to have a vast company of fully liberated sons — liberated fully to be themselves — by whom He would fully be Himself embodied in human forms. Yet in that paradoxical relationship, unintelligible to those not initiated into it, the human "I" is its full spontaneous self, and acting as such. That is why I often say there is no egoist in history equal to our Lord Jesus Christ! He was always, I.
I—"I am the door," "I am the living bread," "I am the light," "I am the way." Emphatic self. Yet we who know Him are also aware— look within Him! — that He was always saying "I do nothing by Myself, but only what I see My Father do," and "If you see Me, you see the Father."That is precisely what happens to us. Before we know our exchanged life, while still in the struggles and self-condemnation of Romans 7, we dislike and downgrade ourselves — "0 wretched man that I am!" We are compulsively negative about ourselves and deeply suspicious of what we think are our dangerous tendencies. So now it is an altogether new thing, and may take a little time to sink into us, that so far from downgrading ourselves, because He now accepts us, wenow accept ourselves as His precious vessel, branch, body member, bride. Every part of us — our physical appetites, our soulish emotions and reasoning powers — are beautiful and wholly valuable as His outer means of manifestation. It usually takes a little time to realize this, just because we've been so used to thinking the opposite about ourselves.So now we're free to be ourselves, because we now know weare wholly His human forms. We live with raised, not lowered heads! Sure, we're not unaware of the subtle misuse today bypsychologists and many others of a false "self-acceptance" and"self-liberation to be ourselves." Indeed, this is universal,because the deceived natural man assumes he has no self except himself, and his only remedy for his self problems is the fraudulent build-up of himself as "inherently good." But just because there is a wave of modern, false emphasis on the build-up of self, that must not inhibit us from boldly accepting and affirming ourselves — we who truly know who we truly are!One notable effect of this is also another kind of paradox —in that in our normal daily living, for most of the time, we forget who we are, and just function as ourselves. It is the same principle as in our professional lives. Once we are competent in our particular profession, as we've said before, whether a cook,teacher, carpenter, engineer, or whatever, we do not spend our hours reminding ourselves or others that we are this or that,but we just go ahead being it. We don't keep saying "I'm a teacher, I'm a teacher," but we just teach! So in precisely the same way, when we know that we are really He in us, we don't keep running around reminding ourselves or telling that to others. We just do our daily job. enter into our daily conversations, etc., totally forgetting that it is He in us by us —but it is only He, all the time. So we don't have to have special prayer times to "remind ourselves," though we love any chances we have for our secret inner-love tryst with Him. Nor do we have to come to the end of a busy day and condemn ourselves for not having thought more of Him. If we do that,He tells us not to be so foolish ... for our doings and talkings were His all the time.
Can I just interject here (Chris). In the mid to late 70s a lot of the London leaders were preaching similar stuff...under the banner of "being naturally Jesus". There was something not right about it in practice...and maybe I'll do more in another post. People were calling "Jesus in them" things that definitely weren't. So what's the safeguard? Well, in the end it's living it!
You've got the Galations 5:19-21 list of the works of the flesh as a checklist for a start. You've got behaviours listed in Matthew's Gospel(5:21ff.... 6:1-27 and 23:1-36 )basically we know in our spirits what isn't Jesus...and for our blind spots we have others alongside who are also living in the Spirit.The Body of Christ...which isn't quite the same as the church structure ,by the way! In meetings we learn how to live and move as Jesus as us. All we are doing now is taking the same inner believing outside of the meeting room walls. We are checking ourselves all the time...is this Christ doing stuff through me?..am I in faith?Am I defined who is living my life right now? Cos if there is any fuzzyness...we're already slipping back into "independant just me living again" And it is this stuff that Gerald Coates,George Tarleton, Dave Mansell,John Noble and the early 70's Maurice Smith were not preaching.They were not defined. And some horrible things happened.
You have to understand...3rd level is as real as 2nd level stuff in meetings. It's not pie in the sky. After a while of living this way, you're nolonger verbalizing stuff so much...the 3rd level realities have taken hold of you...you are not holding them!!! Then when you go back into 2nd level meetings...your praise...your authority ....your naturalness with Jesus is just in another place, because you have been living there.
Think about it. David always wrote psalms. From the time he was a shepherd lad!. But having had Saul chase him around in the wilderness, then fall in adultery, then crumple broken before the Lord in Psalm 51.After all this...when he then established Temple worship ....well it was so fantastic...the very glory of God filled the place!!!! And that's where we're going folks...as hundreds of thousands start to learn about the realities of 3rd level living.(Unfortunately Norman didn't live to see it)

He continues.....
I don't think my friend, Gloria, sister of former-President Carter, will mind me telling this story about her. About eight or more years ago we were together at a Faith at Workconference in Georgia, and during the weekend the Lord revealed to her the secret that she was really Christ in her formWhen she returned home to Plains, she found a card in the mail asking her to speak on herbs at her garden club. But she told me that she knew little about herbs, so she spent the next day or two studying up on them. Then, after having given her lecture and returned home, she talked to the Lord in her room and asked His forgiveness because she had forgotten about Him those days because of her herb preparations. The answer He gave her: "What are you apologizing to Me for? I was co-herbing with you. That was My lecture, not yours!"So we actually are free persons and learn to recognize ourselves as such — free to express our opinions, to make our judgments, to do our jobs, make our choices. Dangerous? It surely looks like that, and others would tell us it is—who don't know the spontaneity of the union. But no danger to us who know our unchangeable oneness. We know that all we do is He, and we live the "dangerous life" of believing .. .which is knowing and thus recognizing that it is all He. We live spontaneously. If we cook, it is He doing the cooking. If we do our job, it is He doing it. If we have conversation, it is He conversing. Union in the Spirit is actual, factual. Where He is,we are. Where we are. He is. No hairbreadth separation between us can ever be possible.

One of the Greatest 3rd Level mysteries of all time

is how come Wallace and Gromit : Project Zoo has been totally overlooked.



We have gameCube...but whatever the format...these can often be picked up in the bargain bins for £5 or $5. May I say, that if any of you are into Nick Park's creativity....he reminds me so much of the unrivalled creativity of the Christian children's authors Nick Butterworth and Mick Inkpen...who used to do great illustrations and design on the late 70s Fulness magazine.

Well if anyone illustrates God's creativity...then Nick Park does also. The best £5 we ever spent on family entertainment was this game. There are so many hidden features. It is a mixture of light and dark humor, like the films...in fact it is virtually a film in its own right. Why all the ever so cool games review magazines completely overlook this one...well that's just one of the big 3rd level mysteries of the universe.

Or perhaps people have a life.

Speakers on Al-Jazeera Channel

One of the Christian speakers John and Wendy heard in Chorleywood talked about an interesting programme on Al-Jazeera. Some Muslims were reporting happily on the advances into all the nations in the world.....except they kept avoiding Africa. The interviewer pressed for an answer 3 or 4 times. At last, and reluctantly it was announced that the fight for Africa was being lost, because Christians had found out how to raise people from the dead. !!!!

"Can't see the join"- email from John Stevens

Got this email from John - ex Exeter Uni

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Heaven's a wild place - like it.

Today's bread: was running with a friend this morning getting shockingly cold but he's inspired to use Sun a.m. runs to share his life and interrogate me about a statement I'd made about having 1 and a half encounters with angels. Anyway I started to remember what it was like as a child listening to NT stories about Jesus at school and at church and yet not knowing anyone who could point to the reality on earth until I met a fellow under age drinker who knew the Lord. No-one in my family ever spoke about Jesus so it was all a bit bewildering. Then into a charismatic church at home and Uni tentatively teaching and exploring, as you say, salvation/baptism in the Spirit. And then wanting to reproduce the teaching in my life in greater reality receiving more through the Wimber years and at Roffey. But at Roffey having another big jigsaw piece falling into place all about being crucified with Christ not I etc Gal 2v20 Prob said all this before.

The point is that telling my friend all this reawakened that initial thirst from childhood and I realised afresh this morning that I have a chance in this life to live the very life of Jesus and just how amazing that is. In fact there is no other life to live.

Eric Morecombe (a third Level comic!) got it about right looking closely at Ernie Wise through those oversize glasses 'Can't see the join'

John

Time for Testimony

Not just mine.Anybody's.
A few weeks ago I brought a prophetic word about God opening up a well of Testimony. And I mean a word too!. I mean it was short. One of these short type of prophecies with only one word or phrase in, that I mentioned in a previous post.

Today the worship team took a prophetic line with songs about Jesus being a strong tower or fortress. God spoke to me. What I thought was great was it was before we'd really got going on the fortress theme...so I knew it was all part of today's package.

In 1971 Jean Darnall and other prophets called Christians together to celebrate a Festival of Light. From the coast throughout the land the old fire beacons (for messaging)were lit on every hill top. Then later Christians gathered in London. The promise given was that a great light would come in London then scatter to all the towns and villages, where the light would grow in all these regions.

Through the awakening of Christians through the fresh experience of the Holy Spirit, both old denominational churches and new churches have been growing stronger and stronger in their relationship with the Living God. I felt God saying...along the lines of various coastal prophecies given many years ago, but now featuring just about every town in Britain....

That now the fortresses had been formed. They were bases of God's power. They were strongholds of the Name of Jesus. And as fortresses now was the time "for the righteous to run in and be safe/ saved." as the song and the scripture says. So this also dovetails in with the promise of Wells of Testimony. What God has done in believer's lives ,we can still in our incompleteness, confidently declare that He can do again...myriadfold for anyone in the same kind of fixes. The power of testimony being that it reproduces the anointing for the same thing to occur again.
Some weeks ago we had a seabaptism of most of our Havant youth group, and ex-drug addict recommitting his life properly, and two of our dear friends Jed and Yvette.
Unlike other more evangelistic souls, Christine and I are generally more cautious about pushing people into praying the commitment prayer. But on this Sunday, Christine felt this so strongly from the time we got up. So at an appropriate time in the meeting we encouraged our friend Jed to do the deal, and ask Jesus into his heart. He and Yvette were baptised the same day. You can make out from the stills the glory on their faces as they came out. Jed looked 10 years younger. Forget Botox. We need Jesus!!!.
Thing is, unbelievers have no clue about how things can change the very day that you just submit your life to Christ. See, it's Jesus that does it ! If He wasn't real...what a burden to appear all happy and "Christian" with those gleamy teethy smiles.....but the thing is He is real. All we have to do is submit to Him, accept Him as Lord, and ask Him to come in and take over. He does the rest. Yvette told me today that Jed has been a very different man from this day. When he gets in from work, he nolonger has the whole world on his shoulders. People have greater respect for his role at work. He speaks with more assurance and authority. And this is in little more than a month already. The other guy baptised went the very next day to a drug rehab near Birmingham, where early reports say he is doing very well.

You can see how brave everyone was in the cold English seas. Peter Stott's opening words are "I think we should do a risk assessment of this". Many fine stills were taken by Wendy Wilbraham, but this is the internet...and sadly we cannot show them. I hope these clips that remain are sufficiently vague concerning the actual kids. The film was on my Sony Cybershot and it nolonger seems compatible with Windows programmes...I've spent ages finding edit programmes that bridge the gap. The music is Phil Keaggy : It's Personal-The Poetry of Keith Moore. Track 7 The Blood.

Preach it Dan!

Preach it Dan!

• yes it does matter what we sing!


• we sing ourselves into things
  
• or out of things


• what we believe in our heart and confess with our lips happens!


• if you don't believe me look at the whole of Genesis chapter 1.


• How amazing that Spurgeon wrote all that!!

The Weller's and me, and praying with folk

In case I get lost with this one, the general gist is this. Yesterday I felt very strongly to pray with an older man for his healing . I met him in the course of hunting down pianos to sell.



Like so many of you out there reading this, I am at that tantalising stage of having experienced the electricity of God's anointing upon me and seeing people instantly healed, or subsequently healed thoroughly some time later. eg 10th April comment 21:32
Or at other times to feel absolutely nothing...and still see the power of God move, as in the 90 year old in a coma in France. I think this is also somewhere in Dan's Vaults.

But the rest of the time...it's like Todd Bentley's debut, or Bill Johnson. You pray.....and nothing appears to happen. These two guys prayed for a gazillion people each before they saw any flow in it all.
So like a lot of you in secular jobs, you see all these sick around and you are faced with a challenge. Dan Bowen (see link to Life on Wings)who works in a hospice for children is up against the cliff face continually. Before you experienced the anointing, things were simple. You adopted the standard UK position.....God doesn't heal today...leave it to the NHS (that's National Health Service). It's very simple in denominational Christianity. You're immature if you expect God to heal today. He probably wants to teach you something through you being sick. It's very Que Sera Sera in English church services. You bring the requests of the people to God and , if in 10% of cases some improvement occurs...well that's God blessing folk. If nothing happens or people get worse, well that's just the sovereign will of God. Quite simple really. And if challenged in their position, the vicar/priest/minister will simply adopt that patronising glare, and quietly assure you that it takes a lot more maturity to bear with the sick and see their skin waste away.

From a patience/people skills/loving service point of view they know this is almost impossible to challenge...and so for the last 100 years since the anointing for healing really became commonplace again in a worldwide if not sparsely scattered sense in the Body of Christ, there has been this Goliath versus Israel army stand-off. The Goliath in this case is the firm unyielding position that true maturity is to expect nothing...so you will never be disappointed. Just get on with mopping up the mess until the inevitable occurs.
The Israel army position in this example is to believe that healing is out there somewhere, but that Goliath Denominational traditional position does seem to have a point...and we just don't know how to get round him.

Then a David comes along armed with 5 stones! Just 5 stones. Something like....well my grandmother was virtually dead and she immediately got well. Or those three men I prayed for lost their symptoms immediately..... and armed with nothing more than the promise that God is a good God and has been faithful before....David tears down the Goliath arguments of non-faith which have been around for thousands of years. (Please understand I am not talking about me or any particular ministry , but a position we must adopt if we are to see any headway)

I don't know if I will ever know if the man I prayed with yesterday got healed. But I felt a definite inward prompt to pray. They were Jehovah's witnesses, but unlike many that I meet...they did not seem 100% locked in left-brain teachings. There was some love...some spiritual life there that went beyond treating the Bible as a textbook. And based on that , they warmly received my offer.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
If you are a piano tuner, and if you are any good...one part of your job is going to take you into stage work, or into the homes of famous musicians. You soon lose the starry eyed tendencies that celeb culture encourages. Because, other than serving these individuals to the best of your abilities.....the celeb bit means absolutely nothing. You're like a butler in somewhere like Chequers (the PMs UK Country home). You're there to do a job....and that's it. My website lists some of those I have tuned for.

From 1978 until around 1985 I lived exclusively in Christian Community. Our generation threw many many things aside to explore how this seeking of God thing worked. One thing we threw aside was TV and secular music. The good thing about that was that we experienced a clean break. We knew we were not dependant on any of the hooks that secular media plays your insides with!!! The bad thing about that was when I was called to Paul Weller's house, or more particularly his parents John and Ann's house....I had really no clue as to how important a guy he was. I discounted the whole punk thing as of the devil anyway. Listen....I wasn't even sure about Cliff Richard!!!! he used drums!!!! .......So forget Paul Weller!!
On the floor of the lounge was a mountain of letters. It was only where Paul's sister dealt with the entire Jam or Style Council fan club! Sometimes Paul was there visiting when I was tuning, but being pretty reclusive, I never saw him until one occasion. On that tuning, I chatted with him about the merits of his Dad's Yamaha Grand.
So here is some background to me and the Wellers.
I'm assuming I am the last to know....but if not, can I just say that Paul Weller has survived about 3 incarnations as a Jam band member, as part of a duo in Style Council, then since the late 80s out on his own....a total of 30+ years as a successful performing artist. Since my total ignorance of punk I have been catching up. I have also been listening attentively to Paul's stuff. While I was tuning for them he won the Ivor Novello award for Songwriting. If you've not heard his stuff you must listen to "WildWood","You Do Something To Me", and the rougher "A Town Called Malice" and "That's Entertainment". Also "Standing Out in The Universe"...well so many really..
His Dad was a rock. A manager with a lot of flair...but also a lot of will to succeed. see more here
and also here.
He reminded me of a shrewd London market trader. He had more faith for money in his little finger than I probably do now after having immersed myself in the Prosperity blessings of the Word. He was ALWAYS generous. He never once paid me what I charged him. It was always more. I enraged him once when he was looking to sell a little upright to me, and I wanted everything secure on my side of the deal. The point of business is that the one taking the risk should stand to make the greatest profit. As I've mentioned before in the episode with Rory and Wendy Alec....I can have the vision and faith of a gnat, sometimes. This intellectual UK approach to life, born out of a great education, that then as soon as possible plunges itself into the greatest possible security of a reasonably paid job in a bank, or the council, or an accountants'......well it's just the sort of middle-class narrow existence that Paul rails against in his songs. And pretty darned right! If we spend our life trying to avoid extending in faith and opportunity...all we're doing is burying our "talents" in the earth in case anything happens to them. And this aspect of Paul and his Dad ,being ones who are all about extension..... comes straight out of Kingdom thinking.....but they never knew that, because they'd all adopted the fixed atheist posture. And probably because any Christians they've ever met....have been pretty naff.

On the last occasion I tuned for them, his mum was pretty distressed. John was in hospital and was not doing well. I guess Paul was either in London or with John. I felt suddenly to go for it, so I asked Ann if we could pray. I felt to be really specific, and I looked at my watch and prayed that from that moment at 1 pm, John would get better.
I saw John and Ann a few weeks later in Bosham Walk near Chichester. John clearly did not want to know. I was ofcourse pleased because he was up and about. But without speaking how is anyone to know? You are all left with silly game-playing. He's probably thinking: that Christian twit probably thinks I am well again because he prayed for it.....when really the doctors managed to pull me through. Perhaps that is actually what happened. Or his improvement really was remarkable...but because God doesn't exist...he certainly doesn't want to do anything to fuel the mad beliefs of that twit Christian.
Who knows????????Perhaps someone who knows Paul can ask him.
John and Ann moved nearer to Paul after this, so I never did their piano again.
One thing is interesting. Paul has put some sort of track about God on his latest CD.
I hope that this post has expressed something else too. How much I hate Christianity in the UK.
Does it make it clearer in a larger size and with big letters?
How many other leading artists are to be condemned to a life of near atheism because you Oh England actually choose to run a Christianity that stinks..... want a verse for that ??? Rev 3:1"you have the name of being alive but you are dead"

The War Room : Salt Into Sugar

Christine has just returned from a Havant Church meeting. Sunday's evening meeting is called the War Room. This week they felt to pray at one of the natural Havant springs. There was a sense that they should take some salt. (Like when the prophet prayed over bitter water at Jericho,was it? to makethe waters sweet again) One member brought a whacking great salt container, so they agreed to empty some out and take a smaller quantity in a tupperware tub.

When they arrived and opened the pot, one of them thought the salt looked a little odd...so he tasted it...it was sweet. It was sugar. He went to the other member and said "You brought sugar by mistake". But when they were back at the church......on inspecting the great salt container...it was indeed salt.

The salt had been turned into sugar!!!! We're not that used to these sort of things yet. I think everyone's flabber was ghasted.
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My friend Michael cautioned me to clarify what I feel God is saying here. There are local resonances going on as described in Havant,Parchment ,Signing the Register.
I wrote to him"I think it is God saying...indeed I will bring sweetness to the streams...both natural and spiritual which nourish Havant."
My friend John wrote:
Interesting. The salt/sugar passage summarises my sketchy understanding of my role in preaching at my church. That's not to say that my church is bitter or that they re crying out to me as a miracle man. Just a private conviction and helps bring some shape to my role. I've only felt at liberty to mention this to one or two as it could cause offence! Lovely miracle you guys experienced - prob thinking about the salt is good. And just great to experience the sweet! I always find this - certainly up to now. When God speaks to me and I hear his word almost invariably it is sweet and reduces pressure and kicks anything like guilt or fear into touch. I still find the goodness and grace of God an unexpected thing. The normal christian life seems so abnormal until it 'happens' again then it is so obviously true and right and 'sweet'.

It's this simple...........Expansion pack.

In Thy Kingdom Come and The Land series of messages by Ern Baxter this is what we learned....

At the moment that Adam reached out for the fruit and Satan's spirit of falsehood entered, God reached down his hand and took from His chosen delegated authority of the Earth
the keys of the Kingdom
until One came that could handle God's authority in a space-time world....

His Name was Jesus.
Until that time how did God handle things? Ern said : Through His designated authorities in the earth
Prophets............. until Christ came.
Hebrews 3:1-6 tells us that ..... Christ is faithful as a son over God's house. And in Revelation 5:5
we learn there is only One who is worthy throughout the whole of heaven...the Lion/Lamb Jesus.
So back to Genesis 3:5 then. What exactly happened?
Psalm 24:1 tells us that
The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it;

Yet, nevertheless something happened.....as we see in verse 7.
Some gates were erected....some doors slammed shut.
God could nolonger just come and go among the people He had made.
Beginning with Adam and Eve hiding...through the Israelites hiding in terror at the bottom of Sinai.....there are now doors in the Earth that should not be there. Should never have been there.

Westerners have no concept of spiritual doors. In large part because of one large erected door. The door of the left-brain...the step by step understanding...the adherence to believing only what I can see,touch and intellectually get my head round. The advantage is a tremendous resistance to wide pursuit of the occult. The disadvantage is ignorance of the Kingdom of God and how it operates.

From whirling dervishes, to clearing your mind and creating passivity in Eastern meditation, to the practice of persistantly calling for your god of choice to come
whether as an African witch doctor
South American Shaman
Northern territorial Shamen in the Arctic circle
or spiritist mediums,
or the use of mind altering drugs.....there is always a calling on spiritual powers.

This is counterfeit. But it is a door opening!!!

We on the other hand as lovers of God, are invited to call upon the Name of the Lord,
to enter His Courts with praise, to lift up and bless the Name of the Lord Jesus.And He too comes amongst us by His Spirit. Sometimes with miraculous signs and wonders. Sometimes with a strong sense of His supernatural Presence. But this is all the same thing. Door opening!!! Only He is Holy. Anything else we may call upon as humans...we are told is not Holy. Even though it may appear to be holy. (The devil loves to manifest as a seducing angel of Light.)

1. A prophetic declaration has been made by Jesus.
2. We have been taught a principle by Jesus.
3. We have been given a prayer by Jesus.

He declared prophetically that "The Kingdom of God is at hand!". This message was passed onto his disciples and through them to us. The principle was that the Kingdom of God is near us...even in our mouth. The prayer is the "Our Father"

All these things are door opening things. Psalm 24 :7-10

Lift up your heads, O gates, And be lifted up, O ancient doors, That the King of glory may come in! 8Who is the King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, The LORD mighty in battle. 9Lift up your heads, O gates, And lift them up, O ancient doors, That the King of glory may come in! 10Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, He is the King of glory. Selah.

So we are all under the delusion that the Kingdom is far far away. But Jesus says: you lost it in the Garden. But you can have it back now! Legitimately. By calling on My Name. By making Me your King. In your hearts.The kingdom that you thought you were living in...the kingdom of you ,was never just you. It was the kingdom of Darkness. And if the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness. How big the deception. But now by making Me your King...You let Me live my Life through you. Just as before, in Darkness, you could not live independantly...though you thought you did, so now, you cannot live independantly...It is Me living through you.

That's why the Kingdom is near us...even in our mouths. We believe in our hearts. We confess with our mouths. and we are saved.
We believed the gospel of Darkness and accepted the Devil into our hearts...and were eternally lost...in the Garden. His gospel was you shall not die if you disobey God...but instead you will be like God able to be free...independent beings...able to choose between right and wrong....not telling us that instead the Kingdom Gates would close on us....and that at the same time we were accepting a virus spirit...an operating programme that was absolutely irremovable...and its death effects on us would continue even after we received the new gospel of Jesus Kingdom, 2000 years ago.
But Jesus'declaration was that we can drive out this spirit of Darkness, by accepting Jesus new Spirit of the Kingdom. By confessing it with our mouths. By praying this prayer right into every last molecule of our beings...into every recess of our spirits.

Our Father, our Eternal true Daddy...not like the false one who operated us before,
Holy oh so Holy is Your Name....make Your Name even more Holy through even me,
Your Kingdom Come....Your will be done...through me, as even now throughout heaven it is being done already.
Forgive my sins even as I forgive the things that are the fruit of my fellow humans' wrong believing....fruits of their belief in an independant self...which is really the devil expressing his own seducing lusts and desires through them. ( "Hereafter we see no man after the flesh")
Lead me not into testing and temptations....pulling on my "independant desires and whims" but deliver me from evil. Deliver me from my own "landing places". As Jesus Himself was described as after being tested in all things, by the end of John's gospel the devil could find nothing in Him...no landing places.John 14:30 AMP I will not talk with you much more, for the prince (evil genius, ruler) of the world is coming. And he has no claim on Me. [He has nothing in common with Me; there is nothing in Me that belongs to him, and he has no power over Me.]

By using the tools of the Kingdom....our heart believing...our mouth confession
that it is Christ living in us as us

We are literally opening up the Ancient Doors of Psalm 24...that the King of Glory may come in.
Adam was made a Living soul. Dust...powered by the spirit of God's own Life.
But now in 1 Cor 15 :45 the Christ in us becomes a Life giving Spirit.The Body of Christ a fit vessel of glory...anointing...heavenly blessing and natural earthly fulness. Blessing means "heavy packed to the rafters fulness" more than we can ask or think.

Beloved......the reason God had to give us the gift of tongues was so that we can speak into being the mysteries of heaven. But these mysteries...like for instance that
Christ wants to live out His Life in us as us....are concepts so high...so fraught with potential to divide Christians....so absolutely wonderful or plain freaky to a western world which lives almost entirely in the left-brain.....that God had to get us speaking all this out without us understanding a blooming word...so it stood a chance of ever being uttered at all...and not being filtered out by "us clever clogs".
SAY AMEN!!!!