Creative miracles are on the way!

Two weeks ago I had a dream and in the dream there were two creative miracles – one was an open wound that closed up in front of my eyes and the other was a foot that grew by 4-5 inches (it’s hard to measure in a dream ok!). On waking I felt ‘we’re moving into the time of creative miracles’ and I’ve been telling that to anyone who would stay still long enough to listen ever since.

Today we had a great story. A guy visiting Barton House (our Hostel run by King’s Arms project) had bitten off the tip of his tongue in an accident. His face was a mess and his speech effected. Because the tongue is a muscle the surgeon told him clearly that it would never grow back.

Some of our team prayed for him and one lady felt God prompt her to lay hands on him and pray for it to grow back – even though logically this made no sense.

Well, the guy came back recently and his tongue has now grown back! Come on!

We serve a mighty God and NOTHING is impossible for Him. We’ve seen a few healings but now is the time to see those extraordinary miracles that we’ve longed for – for the glory of His name!

Encountering the Fathers love

A week or so ago we held our second ever touching the fathers heart weekend with Peter Jackson. It was one of the most extraordinary times we’ve had as a church. I thought last years was good but this one blew the roof. Right from the very first meeting the sense of Gods presence was exceptional – and a friend of mine who’s been to more meetings than he cares to remember said that the Saturday night was the most incredible he’d been to in his life.
For those who don’t know peter, he travels the world teaching exclusively this message of the fathers love. It’s so grace filled, so powerful you just can’t describe it – you have to experience it. At the beginning of every session we had stories of what God had done in tfe previous session. They were breathtaking. One woman told for the first time EVER how she had been abused as a child but now this message had set her free. Another guy told of decades of brokenness and addictions lifted. The stories just kept coming. It was great also to hear some stories from last years conference with one woman who boldly proclaimed ‘I feared that I would to back to how I was before but it’s stuck!’

Some highlight statements to chew on
1. He loves you because he lives you because he loves you because he loves you

2. When you choose to believe you eventually come to believe. That’s your job – “believer – believe!”

3.Grace only flows through truth. When I’m not living in truth grace stops flowing. When I stop seeing you as god sees you I step out of truth and out of gods grace.

4.In this world it’s “I do therefore I am” which is also  “I did therefore I am”. Actually the truth is what HE did is who you are.

5. One of the biggest challenges for the Christian in our culture is to find comfort in God. If we get our comfort primarily from him we won’t be tempted to meet our need for comfort illegitimately elsewhere.

6. What’s your freedom worth? It’ll cost you your pride. Pride is unwillingness to be known for who you are. Instead you chose to be known for what you do.

7. They say at alcoholics annoymous “your problem is not alcohol it’s self pity”. It’s the lie – I’m going to comfort myself. I want what I want when I want it. Self pity is more interested in defending itself than looking for a solution. Confessing, repenting and breaking free from self pity is the path out of much addiction.

8. The Father’s whole focus is who you are in Christ.

9. Jesus says to us, “Follow me and hang around and see what it’s like to be a son.”

Five healed or improved on the streets of Kettering

Took part in our first hit the streets day today where we joined with other churches from the region to do some treasure hunt training and then go and do it. It was an awesome day with 150 people coming from across the region to take part. There were so many encounters with people during the day that we couldn’t record them all but as far as I know we had at least 5 unbelievers healed or significantly improved. It’s so wonderful to see Jesus mobilise his church and release them in courage and boldness to do the things he’s longed for his church to do. We only allow people 5 minutes to get ‘words’ from God before going out and it’s amazing to watch people come back after an hour and a half amazed that they really had heard God. One team saw two people with crutches significantly improved.

But what should you do?

So there’s five things that I’m not going to do – and here’s five to do

1. Press in to Jesus. I’ve found that learning to abide in him is the secret. As Jesus said himself, to abide in him and allow his words to abide (or come to life) in us is the source of all fruit. Learning to abide, to live, to dwell and not keep going in and out of him is my life long mission. It means to have the conscious awareness of his presence. To continually track his sunlight with my mirror and reflect him.

2. Set goals and pray them in. Strangely we’ve found that setting God inspired impossible goals is the key to breakthrough in any area. We’ve set goals for the numbers of miracles on the streets that we want to see and there’s something about naming a specific number that exposes fear and motivates prayer and boldness. (embarrasingly our goal of 30 miracles on the streets in 5 years is looking pitifully small now that weve seen 25 in 9 months – he is good!)

3. I’m going to try to keep pressing into Gods word and seeking with his help to raise the level of my experience to his word instead of bringing his word down to my experience. This standing in the gap calling heaven onto earth should be the posture of every believer. As peter Jackson says – “believer – that’s your job.”

4. Remind myself of the promises. I’m regularly reminding myself of the prophetic promises over my life and the life of our church. I recently reread one that was given to me 10 years ago and prophesied that we would see aids and cancer healed. It’s fueled me just to read those words again.

5. Pray for each one with the breakthrough in mind. When you pray for a few who aren’t healed it’s easy to stop praying. But even if you don’t do that you can start praying token prayers. Going through the motions but without any heart. It’s a deadly trap. I’ve found that I need to go into every situation as if every previous case had been healed. We learned this when prying for healing for carolines back. Every time we prayed or went for prayer we found we had to receive grace to go with soft hearts. And every time after we had to guard agaist disappointment and believe that God was at work. Even up to the meeting when her leg grew when Terry Virgo prayed for her we had no idea that this was going to be the day. We walked to the meeting with a mix of excitement battling fear. There’s something about that attitude of mind that we need to apply now to this season as I believe it the only way to live.

7 students healed at the freshers fair

Another move of God with multiple healing on the streets of Bedford- check out this from Tabo Huntley’s blog

“What an amazing day has Jesus touched the lives of 7 students in a powerful way for example – calf pain, ankle injury, knee ligaments healed. Please read on and be encouraged that Jesus loves to heal because it demonstrates his love.

I was asked along to the University of Bedfordshire Fair in Bedford to invite students along to the King’s Arms Church. In preparation for this event I had spent time seeking more of God in order to demonstrate his love for all – during this time I sensed in my spirit that I had to become more radical in my understanding of Jesus willingness to heal people and glorify me so that I glorify the Father. In the past I would allow the fear of man detract from what Jesus wanted to do in the lives of others and so prayed for boldness.

Entering the marquee was daunting as it was packed full of students and stalls offering everything from condoms to fire safety. As I arrived at the Kings Arms stall my heart sunk as it was a single table but God reminded that it wasn’t about the size of the presentation but his glory. Even though the environment seemed harsh my faith levels were high and so to every passerby I boasted about Jesus healing people in the streets, in the church and that he could heal them because he loved them. After a long while of persisting in asking people if they had pain in their body they wanted healed, a girl explained that she had very painful calves from a dance lesson the day before – she let me pray for her and the pain left and commented that the experience was weird. I explained that Jesus healed her but she really did not have a view which allowed her mind to conceptualise what had happened and walked off.

After the first healing we then had a steady flow of people now starting to be more inquisitive and not so shut down. The second encounter resulted in a footballer with an injured ankle getting healed and again reacting in shock – this was not on his radar. The third person that came along had a badly sprained finger and accepted prayer after hearing the testimonies. As we prayed for the guy the presence of God fell on him and sensing this, I said can you feel that, his face was an absolute picture of shock as the Holy Spirit moved through him – the pain in his finger got better but importantly he experienced the love of God and seemed very interested in coming to church.

The next person that came along had fibromyalgia a horrible disease that robs people of a good quality of life. I explained that I had prayed for 2 people previously with this debilitating disease who received healing and that we had seen 3 people already healed. I just wanted to bring the guy into a place of increased faith in Jesus willingness to heal. The guy accepted prayer from us and whilst he wasn’t totally healed, the pain eased and he was full of gratitude.

Importantly to know, in between these healings many did not show much interest and so I write this so that you know that persistence is required and keeping a firm gaze on Jesus and not let rejection take hold. One guy who had this arm in a sling from a dislocated shoulder refused prayer even after all the testimonies and me guaranteeing his healing – in fact I asked him if he wanted to stay in pain rather than get healed and he said yes.

Another fun encounter came as a fitness instructor was engaging with our team in conversation – I felt prompted to signal to one of our girls to ask her if she had pain in her body. She replayed that she had lower back pain and let us pray for her. As the team prayed I felt God give me a word of knowledge “that she had recently split up from a serious relationship” – when they finished I told her the word and in total shock she replied that she had just split up from an 11 year relationship. We just prayed into her broken heart and explained that Jesus had the most perfect love available to her – she welled up as the love of Jesus was demonstrated to her.

In our time there 2 other people got healed from knee ligaments and an injured wrist. Even the church next to us offered prayer to an injured girl on crutches as faith raised faith.”

We serve an awesome God!!

Things not to do when a wave dies down

This Sunday we had another salvation which means we’ve now had 5 or 6 in the last 5 weeks. That’s over our goal of one per week. I’m so encouraged that the greatest miracle of all is happening now weekly! Combined with that we’ve now seen another outbreak of healing amongst ubelievers – this time 6 students healed at the university freshers fair. It’s like a dream – things that I’ve longed for for decades are now happening on a weekly and sometimes daily basis! Im so in awe of our great God and humbled to be on this great adventure with him.

But mixed in with that were now not seeing as much healing during our Sunday meetings. Has the wave of healing died down? Have we done something wrong? Here’s 5 things NOT to do when things aren’t quite like they were

1. I’m not going to panic! Fear never brings the kingdom.

2. I’m not going to stop praying for the sick. When things don’t go as we like the natural temptation is to stop doing those things. It’s a big mistake. In recent months I’ve personally prayed for less people as I’ve been focussed on on hosting the ministry time. I’m going to change that and pray for more people. I don’t want to back off but instead press in.

3. The biggest barrier to revival in the uk is undealt with disappointment. I’ve spent a while dealing with disappointment in my heart and I’m going to try not to allow any to settle in now! I’ve found the way to do this is to give God thanks and praise for what he is doing and not focus on what he hasn’t done.

4. I’m not going to spend too long working out why. Often people at the end of a meeting love to tell me what I should or shouldn’t have done. To be honest though the more I do this the more I realise it’s not about technique!

5. I’m not going to get jealous. Another local church had 5 healed last sunday. I’ve learned that God requires me to rejoice with them as if it were our own breakthrough. It keeps my heart pure and reminds me that this is all about Jesus and his glory!

Next – 5 things we should do!