Thoughtful in Selah
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Hearing from God
God did quite an amazing thing this night while I was at Church of the King. During the sermon, God had said, "Phillipians." I was just like... "Say what?" So I ignored it thinking that I just said it in my head rather than heard it. Well, a moment later, I hear "Phillipians." It just kept coming. So, by faith, I turned in my FireBible to Phillipians and I just happened to have a sticky note there with a verse marked: Phillipans 2:13.
"...for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose."
Simple verse, right? To you, maybe, but it applies to a much larger picture to me and the other guys from my circle of faith. See, lately we have been praying for purity in our daily lives in what we do - what we say, how we act, and even our thoughts. This is just one of those little reminders that God is still BIG and we are to be walking in His footsteps according to His plan. I guess I just can't effectively explain this one in words.
Shortly after this, God spoke to me a second time and said "Ezekiel." So now I'm thinking, alright, now this is cool. God is telling me some cool stuff here. So I flip to Ezekiel to find that there are 48 chapters there. I'm just thinking, 'how on Earth am I supposed to find what God wants to tell me out of 48 chapters?' So I prayed that God would give me a number. He pointed me to 20 so I turned to the second page of chapter 20 by happenstance to find a section title in bold letters: "Prophecy Against the South".
I don't want to spoil it for someone else but this is actually the answer to a dream from Cinnamon. (If you don't know the dream, than you'll have to ask her about it.) So anyway, I started reading this short little paragraph to see what it said.
"The Word of the Lord came to me: Son of man, set your face toward the south; preach against the south and prophesy against the forest of the southland. Say to the southern forest: 'Hear the word of the Lord. This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am about to set fire to you, and it will consume all your trees, both green and dry. The blazing flame will not be quenched, and every face from south to north will be scorched by it. Everyone will see that I the Lord have kindled it; it will not be quenhed.'" ~Ezekiel 20:45-48
Now time for the context: In this time pertaining to this particular passage, the people in this land worshipped idols. So basically God was not very happy and plans to destroy the land because of it. However, afterwards, everyone will return back to God and praise only Him. I believe that this is a shift in the nation that will begin soon.
I'm not the most philisophical person, but I'm going to put this passage to present times. I think that we can compare the fire to hurricane Katrina and the damage done to the south, mainly Louisiana. Obviously with Mardis Gras, and the things that take place down there, New Orleans is not a holy city by any means. Same thing in the days of Ezekiel. But the Bible says that they will turn back to God and like verse 47 says, "from south to north" I believe that a revival will start and begin sweeping up the nation when it starts. So Cinnamon has recieved a dream that has called us to pray for the south, and I don't mean to ruin it for anyone or lead a different interpretation here but I believe that we need to start a prayer initiative to begin interceeding over the south of the United States because things are going to begin to change and it will sweep to the North.
Why wouldn't God begin a change - a revival - in probably the most unholy city (other than Los Vegas) in the United States?
"...for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose."
Simple verse, right? To you, maybe, but it applies to a much larger picture to me and the other guys from my circle of faith. See, lately we have been praying for purity in our daily lives in what we do - what we say, how we act, and even our thoughts. This is just one of those little reminders that God is still BIG and we are to be walking in His footsteps according to His plan. I guess I just can't effectively explain this one in words.
Shortly after this, God spoke to me a second time and said "Ezekiel." So now I'm thinking, alright, now this is cool. God is telling me some cool stuff here. So I flip to Ezekiel to find that there are 48 chapters there. I'm just thinking, 'how on Earth am I supposed to find what God wants to tell me out of 48 chapters?' So I prayed that God would give me a number. He pointed me to 20 so I turned to the second page of chapter 20 by happenstance to find a section title in bold letters: "Prophecy Against the South".
I don't want to spoil it for someone else but this is actually the answer to a dream from Cinnamon. (If you don't know the dream, than you'll have to ask her about it.) So anyway, I started reading this short little paragraph to see what it said.
"The Word of the Lord came to me: Son of man, set your face toward the south; preach against the south and prophesy against the forest of the southland. Say to the southern forest: 'Hear the word of the Lord. This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am about to set fire to you, and it will consume all your trees, both green and dry. The blazing flame will not be quenched, and every face from south to north will be scorched by it. Everyone will see that I the Lord have kindled it; it will not be quenhed.'" ~Ezekiel 20:45-48
Now time for the context: In this time pertaining to this particular passage, the people in this land worshipped idols. So basically God was not very happy and plans to destroy the land because of it. However, afterwards, everyone will return back to God and praise only Him. I believe that this is a shift in the nation that will begin soon.
I'm not the most philisophical person, but I'm going to put this passage to present times. I think that we can compare the fire to hurricane Katrina and the damage done to the south, mainly Louisiana. Obviously with Mardis Gras, and the things that take place down there, New Orleans is not a holy city by any means. Same thing in the days of Ezekiel. But the Bible says that they will turn back to God and like verse 47 says, "from south to north" I believe that a revival will start and begin sweeping up the nation when it starts. So Cinnamon has recieved a dream that has called us to pray for the south, and I don't mean to ruin it for anyone or lead a different interpretation here but I believe that we need to start a prayer initiative to begin interceeding over the south of the United States because things are going to begin to change and it will sweep to the North.
Why wouldn't God begin a change - a revival - in probably the most unholy city (other than Los Vegas) in the United States?
Labels: Posts of my Faith
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Vision of Abortion
"In front of me sits a baby that is larger in size than me. Behind him is a large wooden door that stands wide open. As I slowly approach the door and lay my hand on it to move it, the door suddenly slams shut."
This is the first vision that I have ever had and honestly I don't know the true meaning. I have prayed about the 'translation' and I'm trusting that God will tell me soon. I really do believe that this was a movement - a transformation - to end abortion.
This is the first vision that I have ever had and honestly I don't know the true meaning. I have prayed about the 'translation' and I'm trusting that God will tell me soon. I really do believe that this was a movement - a transformation - to end abortion.
Labels: Posts of my Faith
God's Calling on My Life
Lately I have been praying that God would really begin to show me what he has in store and that He would give me multiple gifts of the Holy Spirit and supernatural abilities. How many of you know that God hears, and answers prayers, amen? YES!
Lately, I have not been able to stop praying in the Spirit. Even at work, whether or not I'm alone, I'll start praying in the Spirit. I feel that there are going to be powerful things happening when I begin praying.
About 20 minutes ago, I was working on my summer reading assignment just working away quitely on my laptop when I feel this urge placed on my heart. It just kept saying, "Call [AppleJacks] and pray with him." So, being an obedient servant of God, I call AppleJacks and say, "This is going to sound a little strange, but is something wrong?"
Sure enough, God had told me that there was something that needed to be prayed for and He called me to do it.
Lately, I have not been able to stop praying in the Spirit. Even at work, whether or not I'm alone, I'll start praying in the Spirit. I feel that there are going to be powerful things happening when I begin praying.
About 20 minutes ago, I was working on my summer reading assignment just working away quitely on my laptop when I feel this urge placed on my heart. It just kept saying, "Call [AppleJacks] and pray with him." So, being an obedient servant of God, I call AppleJacks and say, "This is going to sound a little strange, but is something wrong?"
Sure enough, God had told me that there was something that needed to be prayed for and He called me to do it.
Labels: Posts of my Faith
Sunday, August 17, 2008
My Testimony from TheCall 2008
God has done an amazing thing in my life and this is the praise report. I really wanted to share this testimony to everyone who reads it in hopes that they find it encouraging in their relationship with God and that they will see how awesome God is.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008 was a night that I will never forget. It was about 11:45 PM when I had just laid down to go to sleep. Somewhere around there, my roommate had made a comment how his shoulder had just spontaneously twitched. At that same instant, mine had done so too. This seemed a little eerie. I then felt the room begin to grow darker and something like a black cloud made its presence. I told my roommate, JD, that we needed to pray. We both sat up in bed and begin to break the spiritual forces that were there. We began casting out demons from the house and praying that blessings and peace from the Lord would take its place.
Two years ago, I had another experience with a spirit in this very room. It was the spirit of sexual temptation and immorality. I did not want that to come over my life again so JD began to pray over me that it would no longer exist.
We decided that we needed to wake up the other men in our group that were sleeping in another area of the house to come and join our intercession. The instant that the other two guys entered the room, both JD and myself began shivering and shaking like we were experiencing cold temperatures that not even an ice age could fathom. We continued to shatter demons and spirits with their grips of death wrapped around our necks and pray blessings over the home in which we were staying. Then, as God began to move, we began to repent of things that had taken place in our lives and prayed that God would start to move in our lives.
After about 15 or 20 minutes of this, we thought that our hearts we clear. The other guys went back to sleep, but I made a remark to my roommate that I just felt such a peace of God that the spirit was forced out. I said, "I wish that I could feel that peace too." I asked him if he would like to me pray over him or just wait until the morning since it was around midnight and we had to wake up early the next morning. He said that it could wait for another time but I said, "You can't wait with these things. If you wait, it is only going to get worse."
So once again we entered into intense prayer and I declared that the spirit of sexual immorality and temptations, "would be ripped out by the roots and never return." By this point, we began to break other chains in our lives. The chains of crude joking, the chains of impure thoughts, the chains of impure speech were all broken.
I believe that it has been over a year now since I have been praying for the baptism of the Holy Spirit and to receive the gift of Tongues. So somewhere around midnight on Thursday, August 14, AppleJacks (who we woke up a second time to come pray with us - God Bless him) and JD began praying over me for the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
I began pressing deeper and deeper into God that he would release it upon me. I could feel the power of God begin to fill the room as the other lifted their voices in Prayer Language. Soon my mouth began to go numb and soon it overtook my entire face. It traveled down my neck and into my arms. My trembling hands soon became heavy and I didn't have the strength to stand on my weakening legs. I was beginning to become overwhelmed with the present power that my body was just trembling before the Lord.
We then puts our arms around each other and continued to pray. JD said, "Just between me and Brice right now, God is giving you an embrace from Heaven." As JD put his arms around me, I felt such a power close in on my body. My body felt like it would fall like iron to the floor, but the arms of God were physically wrapped around me and I felt like a string puppet being suspended by His hand.
After close to an hour of praying for the baptism, we were approaching the one o'clock hour. JD and AppleJacks kept telling me to just open my mouth and God will move my lips. I knew I just had to speak what was on me heart but there was nothing there to let out. JD had looked over at the clock and actualy saw it change from 12:59 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. and said, "Brice, it is one o'clock and God is in this room and it is time that you are filled with Holy Spirit."
I felt something start to rise from my chest and into my mouth. The best was to descibe it is taht feeling like you are holding yourself back from throwing up - but this was a word. In that very instant - Thursday, August 14, 2008 at 1:00 a.m. I began to speak Tongues of the Holy Spirit. As I did, AppleJacks confirmed it, "Yep, you got it, that's it."
Keeping in mind that we were in the basement of a house with other sleeping guests upstair, we lifted an extremly quite shout of praise unto the Lord. The only thing I could do was lift my hands above me head and take as much effort as I had to clap without making any sound.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We went to the International Leadership Embassy conference at 6 p.m. on Thursday. During some intense worship, I was able to dip into the Holy Language about five times but only when I would begin to pray really fast. At this point, I could only say one syllable repeatedly. The next evening, during the second session of the Generating One conference, God began to teach me to say other words and He taught me how to pray in Tongues without first praying in English.
TheCall was on Saturday and I knew that it would be a life changing and spirit filling day. We arrived on the National Mall at 8:00 a.m. for the pre-worship service that led into TheCall. I began praying in Tongues and I couldn't stop until I fell asleep 16 hours later. TheCall was an intense 14 hour fast in which I was completly consumed with fire for the whole time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Even on the van ride home - a 9 hour drive - I was still enfilled with the Holy Spirit and could not help but randomly break out into Tongues. I'll tell you what, it makes the trip go so much faster when you are in your own personal sanctuary while listening to contemporary Christian music on an MP3 player and praying in the Spirit.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I still have not been able to fully withdraw from the Spirit but I say, "I don't want to lose this at all. I will not silence the Holy Spirit from speaking through me."
Once I got home from the trip I was chekcing all 40 of my emails when something came from God.tv. They had sent out a prayer request for one of their team members who had just suffered from marital seperation. Both him and his wife were in high positions at God.tv. Normally, like any other email, I would just think, 'oh that's sad and terrible' and I would delete the email and move on. But as I continued to read to small letter, I just began to speak out in Holy Tongues and I just lifted them up to God and asked Him to rebuild their marriage.
Now why am I telling all of you this? For the first time, God has increased my compassion for others and I believe He is beginning to reveal his plan for my life to me.
Another one happened when I was watching tv just a couple hours ago. An presidential candidacy ad for Barrack Obama came on and they were talking about all his plans that make him look like a good guy and I said out loud, "...but he doesn't care about the millions of murdered innocent souls that cannot cry out for themsleves" and I began to speak in Prayer Language again.
I believe that God is working on my heart to become a true prayer warrior for Him to show compassion and pray for those who are hurting and in need. I believe that God is going to begin giving me gifts of miracles and healing as I rise up and be an instrument that He would use.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008 was a night that I will never forget. It was about 11:45 PM when I had just laid down to go to sleep. Somewhere around there, my roommate had made a comment how his shoulder had just spontaneously twitched. At that same instant, mine had done so too. This seemed a little eerie. I then felt the room begin to grow darker and something like a black cloud made its presence. I told my roommate, JD, that we needed to pray. We both sat up in bed and begin to break the spiritual forces that were there. We began casting out demons from the house and praying that blessings and peace from the Lord would take its place.
Two years ago, I had another experience with a spirit in this very room. It was the spirit of sexual temptation and immorality. I did not want that to come over my life again so JD began to pray over me that it would no longer exist.
We decided that we needed to wake up the other men in our group that were sleeping in another area of the house to come and join our intercession. The instant that the other two guys entered the room, both JD and myself began shivering and shaking like we were experiencing cold temperatures that not even an ice age could fathom. We continued to shatter demons and spirits with their grips of death wrapped around our necks and pray blessings over the home in which we were staying. Then, as God began to move, we began to repent of things that had taken place in our lives and prayed that God would start to move in our lives.
After about 15 or 20 minutes of this, we thought that our hearts we clear. The other guys went back to sleep, but I made a remark to my roommate that I just felt such a peace of God that the spirit was forced out. I said, "I wish that I could feel that peace too." I asked him if he would like to me pray over him or just wait until the morning since it was around midnight and we had to wake up early the next morning. He said that it could wait for another time but I said, "You can't wait with these things. If you wait, it is only going to get worse."
So once again we entered into intense prayer and I declared that the spirit of sexual immorality and temptations, "would be ripped out by the roots and never return." By this point, we began to break other chains in our lives. The chains of crude joking, the chains of impure thoughts, the chains of impure speech were all broken.
I believe that it has been over a year now since I have been praying for the baptism of the Holy Spirit and to receive the gift of Tongues. So somewhere around midnight on Thursday, August 14, AppleJacks (who we woke up a second time to come pray with us - God Bless him) and JD began praying over me for the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
I began pressing deeper and deeper into God that he would release it upon me. I could feel the power of God begin to fill the room as the other lifted their voices in Prayer Language. Soon my mouth began to go numb and soon it overtook my entire face. It traveled down my neck and into my arms. My trembling hands soon became heavy and I didn't have the strength to stand on my weakening legs. I was beginning to become overwhelmed with the present power that my body was just trembling before the Lord.
We then puts our arms around each other and continued to pray. JD said, "Just between me and Brice right now, God is giving you an embrace from Heaven." As JD put his arms around me, I felt such a power close in on my body. My body felt like it would fall like iron to the floor, but the arms of God were physically wrapped around me and I felt like a string puppet being suspended by His hand.
After close to an hour of praying for the baptism, we were approaching the one o'clock hour. JD and AppleJacks kept telling me to just open my mouth and God will move my lips. I knew I just had to speak what was on me heart but there was nothing there to let out. JD had looked over at the clock and actualy saw it change from 12:59 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. and said, "Brice, it is one o'clock and God is in this room and it is time that you are filled with Holy Spirit."
I felt something start to rise from my chest and into my mouth. The best was to descibe it is taht feeling like you are holding yourself back from throwing up - but this was a word. In that very instant - Thursday, August 14, 2008 at 1:00 a.m. I began to speak Tongues of the Holy Spirit. As I did, AppleJacks confirmed it, "Yep, you got it, that's it."
Keeping in mind that we were in the basement of a house with other sleeping guests upstair, we lifted an extremly quite shout of praise unto the Lord. The only thing I could do was lift my hands above me head and take as much effort as I had to clap without making any sound.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We went to the International Leadership Embassy conference at 6 p.m. on Thursday. During some intense worship, I was able to dip into the Holy Language about five times but only when I would begin to pray really fast. At this point, I could only say one syllable repeatedly. The next evening, during the second session of the Generating One conference, God began to teach me to say other words and He taught me how to pray in Tongues without first praying in English.
TheCall was on Saturday and I knew that it would be a life changing and spirit filling day. We arrived on the National Mall at 8:00 a.m. for the pre-worship service that led into TheCall. I began praying in Tongues and I couldn't stop until I fell asleep 16 hours later. TheCall was an intense 14 hour fast in which I was completly consumed with fire for the whole time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Even on the van ride home - a 9 hour drive - I was still enfilled with the Holy Spirit and could not help but randomly break out into Tongues. I'll tell you what, it makes the trip go so much faster when you are in your own personal sanctuary while listening to contemporary Christian music on an MP3 player and praying in the Spirit.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I still have not been able to fully withdraw from the Spirit but I say, "I don't want to lose this at all. I will not silence the Holy Spirit from speaking through me."
Once I got home from the trip I was chekcing all 40 of my emails when something came from God.tv. They had sent out a prayer request for one of their team members who had just suffered from marital seperation. Both him and his wife were in high positions at God.tv. Normally, like any other email, I would just think, 'oh that's sad and terrible' and I would delete the email and move on. But as I continued to read to small letter, I just began to speak out in Holy Tongues and I just lifted them up to God and asked Him to rebuild their marriage.
Now why am I telling all of you this? For the first time, God has increased my compassion for others and I believe He is beginning to reveal his plan for my life to me.
Another one happened when I was watching tv just a couple hours ago. An presidential candidacy ad for Barrack Obama came on and they were talking about all his plans that make him look like a good guy and I said out loud, "...but he doesn't care about the millions of murdered innocent souls that cannot cry out for themsleves" and I began to speak in Prayer Language again.
I believe that God is working on my heart to become a true prayer warrior for Him to show compassion and pray for those who are hurting and in need. I believe that God is going to begin giving me gifts of miracles and healing as I rise up and be an instrument that He would use.
