Saturday, February 5, 2011

MINISTRY UPDATE--FEBRUARY 2011

We were performing some worship songs—something the Lord has us doing more and more of lately—at a meeting of radio producers, and had a real visitation of the presence of God while we worshipped. This led to us leading some worship as well as speaking at a church, where again the Lord poured out His Spirit in power. Many people in this small Hispanic congregation testified of how the Lord met them in grace and power that day. The pastor was amazed at how heavily God poured out His power after what he saw as merely a straightforward evangelical message on God’s grace: “You weren’t screaming or yelling or jumping up and down or wearing a shiny expensive white suit or any of the things associated with Charismatic stuff I see usually, and yet we experienced this powerful and incredible outpouring of God’s power!”

Even more amazing though was a surprise move of the Spirit at the end of the day. After eating lunch at the pastor’s house and talking a while, we were getting ready to leave and saying a quick prayer for God’s traveling mercies before heading out the door. As our quick prayer was closing up, I felt led to lay my hand on a young woman who had showed up during the middle of lunch, so as I was quickly saying a few words, suddenly she was powerfully struck by the Spirit of God and collapsed down to her knees and began to cry out in tongues with the sound of languages from places like Greece and Macedonia, which began to reveal a mission call on her life. This time the pastor’s mind was really blown—all we were doing is saying a closing prayer and this unexpected outpouring again, now on this sister?

Paul's words again and again remind us of the importance of walking in the power of the Spirit as a central core to the Christian life not only for ourselves but to influence others to do the same. It is His words that tell us in Romans 8:14 to be led by the Spirit. When we do, exciting things can happen, and we can be naturally supernatural about it. It is also exciting to continue to pass on to others that glorious blessing.

CAR UPDATE

I shared about some car problems we were having a while back so here’s a little update: We were having a mechanic work on one of our vehicles, but ended up getting stuck at his place when we went to pick it up as it immediately failed again right when we started driving off. We were stuck at his place for quite some time while he tried to figure out what was going on. With nothing to do, we began to talk with him and he began to open up a little bit and share how he had first come to the Lord. As we talked to him some more, I began to feel we needed to pray for him, though we had no idea for what or how he would respond. He didn't seem terribly open but we went for it and laid hands on him and nothing really happened right away. It was a bit uncomfortable for a bit there, but as the Lord started to give us specific revelation about what to pray for, a tear came down his face and then another one and more and more to where finally like a river God was pouring His Spirit into him while his tears flowed out. God powerfully moved on his heart and he was touched deeply by God’s grace; he seemed like a different guy after that prayer.

Well, we were stoked just on what God did with that. The blessing continued when he called us and said, “I’m not going to charge for the first car and have torn up the check.” Praise God for a breakthrough there as we really needed it! The other broken car still needed repaired too though and needed a lot of parts but he did discount the labor charge on that one too. Praise God for the breakthroughs and the work of the Holy Spirit in this guy’s life which is incomparably more important than money—God can use even car problems for good!

The car warfare continued though—each time these car problems happened it was on the way to some ministry event. We were on our way to a home meeting where we’ve been seeing some people from backgrounds not really known as Charismatic get filled with the Spirit when the hood came loose and was looking like it would fly up into the windshield. We had to immediately get off the freeway and drive slowly on surface streets, which of course made us pretty late to the meeting. Didn’t stop God from doing awesome stuff though.

We were quoted about two hundred dollars for a repair for that hood. However, Mercedes was driving around town one day and felt the Lord leading her down a street and ended up at a junkyard, where she started talking to the guys there. They are probably not used to having pretty female visitors on a regular basis and thus they went out of their way to help her out—not my experience at junkyards at all! Well, they not only found the right part to fix the hood but gave it to her and installed it all free of charge! Praise God! It’s awesome how God can use even car problems for good!! Hallelujah!

Thank you for your prayers and support, as they keep us out there “doin’ the stuff” as John Wimber used to say, in all kinds of different situations and settings.

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