God even speaks to knuckleheads!!

This is really funny.

First, Sunday was so sweet! The word from Pastor Tony was right on time, then the baptisms ((from 15 people, to 17 , then 25, then 30 then 35! So cool.)). But the ministry service at 6 was the icing on the angel-food cake. So beautiful. God is so real, so close, so awesome.

And so we were just worshipping and I was really aware of what I want to let God do through me, and what I actually let God do through me, and you know feeling kinda humble, kinda weak, I guess just trying to be honest in God's presence. And I told God that "I am just such a knucklehead," and I think he first said, "Well, I have an opening for a knucklehead." And you know how people always say they felt God hug them, like Che Che Cruz (who colored SILVER) always says, or people say they felt him give them a holy kiss, or hold their hand . . . well I felt him "give me five" 'slap, slap' and I turned to Cheryl and shook her out of her worship and told her that I told God that I was a knucklehead and I think he just said 'Well I have an opening for a knucklehead,' and it was so weird that I had to ask her if she thought that it was really God, and she looked directly at me and so seriously said, "D E F I N I T E L Y !!!!" We laughed so hard.

God told us one day that He speaks to us the way we speak to others. He obviously uses our language, but he even uses our vocabulary and jargon sometimes. I have a friend, Ace Cruz (Che Che's sister and the one who drew SILVER) and God speaks to her sometimes in English and sometimes in Cantonese. Lately she said he's speaking more in Cantonese to her. Cool!

God speaks ALL THE TIME. He's got something to say for every moment of the day. He told me last night that George Lucas copied parts of The Battle Of Britain to make Star Wars, and he told my wife the other day not to put so much chilli powder in the fried rice (She stopped, said, That's not God! God won't talk to me about chilli powder!!, and went ahead and put the 3rd spoonful into the rice but sure enough .... it was new powder from India that we didn't use yet and it was about twice as strong as usual chilli powder and that 3rd spoon made the rice so awful we had to throw it all away..... God speaks to us about EVERYTHING, ALL THE TIME! It's so excellent. Jesus, why are you so cool?

I have a Muslim friend (well, ex-Muslim because he eventually got saved) but years before he did, he was riding his motorcycle really fast on a highway in Malaysia where he grew up, and he turned the corner and the whole road was GONE, it was under construction with no warning and he was going so fast he really thought he was going to DIE....but he heard a voice in his heart that called him 'son' and told him he was going to be alright, and to just put on the brakes but squeeze slowly, slowly, slowly . . . he stopped just before hitting all the road equipment.

A few months ago God said something like "How can people make doctrines about me when they don't even know me?" he showed me that he is LOVE and if you don't love with the Love from HIM, not selfish human love, but the Love from God himself, then you can't understand God enough to make any broad rules about what he does and does not do. I think God WANTS to be understood: Hezekiah wrote in Proverbs that "It is God's glory to hide things, but a King's glory to search them out." I think God is simple, even though he's so awesome. He's understandable, but not with the human faculties of logic and prejudice, only with HIS Spirit in us will we understand Him, thankfully that is exactly what he gave us! Thank you Jesus!

"I have a battle plan but no one can handle it" I think he means we need Compassion to hear, obey and accomplish his will

When we gathered in Discovery bay on May 26, 06, to pray for the new VINE extension meeting there, the Lord told me these things:

1. lay the foundation
2. living water
3. a well of water
4. Dream the biggest dream, why not?

This number 4 is similar to something he told us before, that when we pray we should dream unbound by reality, but have our hearts set on what it is possible for our father to do, our dreams should be based on who HE is, not on who WE ARE or what we can do. I'll post this prophetic teaching somewhere when I get around to it.

That next week, I was listening to the bible on MP3 and in the Gospels I heard James and John Zebedee ask Jesus, give us anything we ask, ok? And Jesus says ok, then they say, 'let us sit at your left and right in heaven." Jesus says no, but why? he said, "you do not understand what you are asking" and then I realized in Proverbs it says that "The LORD by wisdom founded the earth, By understanding He established the heavens." Pr 3:19. I realized they did not ask with understanding, but probably with selfish ambition, but we need to have wisdom that comes from God in our hearts to pray well.

All week the Lord was telling us that we need to have more wisdom for our ministry. So we've been trying to listen, and get HIS wisdom.

Then on June 2, the second night of DB prayer, I heard God say three things:
1. I have a battle plan, but no one is able to handle it yet.
2. Ask
3. Choose

Ask and choose I am ok with but the first thing is odd. Until I heard more. . .

The Lord was telling my wife about the need for QUALIFICATIONS to do his work. Basically, the Lord said to my wife that the qualification you need is to obey, follow GOD's ways, be willing to wait for GOD's plan, and then to follow it in Compassion. Compassion is like love in action, a personal love for others in need.
It is God's will that we act with compassion, not only acting in truth which can be used harshly, but to use his truth in grace/love/compassion. We have to let God flow through us, so we have to let our hearts move with compassion for the Lord to use us in the way he really wants to .... We have to have compassion on the mean, crazy, wounded, offensive people .... we have to listen and speak little.

That kind of qualification is not learned in man's institutions but only in a life in God.

This is the same thing as partnership: working together with God to achieve HIS goals. It is also a part of intimacy because it goes back and forth between you and God many times: we yield to knowing his will, he shows it to us, we try to do it in our flesh, and fail, and ask him to empower us in his spirit, he does, we act and achieve some success, but end up reacting to our success in the flesh, he corrects us, we do the same plan a second time, it fails, we search for his will, he shows us that it has changed, we obey it, in his strength, he blesses those we are ministering to and us for our obedience . . . . intimacy is a deeply personal, back and forth, moment by moment compromise of our obedience/self-will and His guidance/empowerment/perfect will.

Then while praying with pastor Tony and Dru and Cheryl, I realized that without Compassion we won't see God's plan. I think Tony even said that, "as our ambassadors [prayer walkers] walk through the high places, we pray that they have compassion." That's when it dawned on me.

I started to share this with Cheryl later on Tuesday and before I could tell her what I wanted to say she came out with, "God has been speaking to me about evangelism. True evangelism sets people free. So if people get upset when we evangelise them because we don't let them feel free, we are doing something wrong. What do the unbelievers think then they see what we do, if they only see religiousness, then we aren't showing them freedom. Our witness to them must make them relaxed, sigh with peace, feel free. You must have COMPASSION. Just remember how long it too YOU to get saved, and for how many years God chased YOU, and so give people some slack to be unbelievers for a year or two until they are RIPE. God didn't leave YOU when you waited, so don't now force people who are unripe"

So I realized part of what the LORD was saying when he said, "I have a battle plan but no one can handle it yet" probably means that we need to have compassion in our hearts as our primary motivator in ministry to be able to understand God's ways, to accept his plan/strategy, and especially to walk out or to fulfill his program. Without compassion we will not act like Jesus and so we will not able to walk God's plan, we won't be able to handle it. It is not only a matter of KNOWING what to do, but of BEING ABLE to do it. We feel that one person with compassion may understand God's plan, and tell the rest of us, but we still won't be able to DO IT, unless we can actually walk in True Compassion really empowered by the Holy Spirit.

So with compassion in our hearts we will search out and find God's ways, his battle plan, and then also be able to serve him in his will to bring his salvation to DB and everywhere else.

This is similar to something He told me last week that I already posted .... we don't see God with our eyes, and we don't see him with out minds, we can only "see" God with our hearts, with our spirits, our spirit understands God and "sees" him. (This has practical implications in how we seek God, how we pray and how we hear him speak to us.) And in this meaning seeing and hearing are the same, and they both suggest understanding, but as GOD IS ALWAYS TALKING WITH US, ALWAYS REVEALING HIMSELF TO US, understanding God is as much seeing and hearing as it is knowing.

--E

Revelations for Prayer Walk on June 3

Hey guys,

This is a reecord of the revelations God gave us during the VINE prayer walk on Saturday, June 3, 2006.

First God mentioned the scripture to me about the spies who went into the land of Canaan (Numbers 13-14). He revealed meaning from this scripture recently, but showed that there is much more that we don't understand yet in it!

Anyway, I stayed with the home team at the Vine center and was actually going to ignore that direction becuase it seems so general. . . until Dru who led the home team mentioned the same scripture!! Shane A. also gave me the verse from Joshua about Jericho, Joshua 5-6, which Dru also mentioned!!! So here’s what I can share from the Lord on this passage.

First, the back-story "Satan's Fortress" :
A few moths ago we were praying and took a forward stance in prayer about an area that we have struggled in for a long time. We knew there was a block in this area but never confronted it head on. When we did God revealed what we were up against.
Satan’s fortress.

Satan made me feel for so long that he was invincible in that area of my life, like he had some kind of great and mighty fortress and I would never have success in that area. But when God showed me Satan's “great fortress” it made me laugh so hard! It was only made out of sticks, held together with bits of twine, just like one I made when I was about 10 or 12 years old to play in, or like a kid’s tree-house. And it was so badly under-staffed that they only had ONE demon in his "great fortress," and for "weaponry," he only had a home-made spear with like a pointy rock tied to the end of a stick, and he was banging it on the floor chanting like he was some great warrior — oh man, I started laughing so hard when I saw that!! Picture a mon-chi-chi trying to sound and act like Aslan or something, I mean he just can't pull it off no matter how hard he tries to sound fierce.
And I heard the demon speak when I laughed at his "fortress" and he said, "But it was all I had to build with." He only has fear, doubt and lies, nothing of true substance, especially compared to God's WORD!
And the fortress was so badly made, but I had pumped myself up to fight a whole battle, I realized all I had to do was just wave my hand in the air and say something like, “No, you don’t exist. There’s nothing there to even think about,” and so we destroyed that stronghold with a wave of the hand becuase compared to God's power, it is not even worth talking about. I mean it would take as long to take out the trash as tear down this 'mighty fortres.' Then the demon ran away yelling, "Get back, get back, here they come!"

A day or two later Jesus spoke to Cheryl, my wife, directly and told her that this was how Joshua and Caleb saw the obstacles in Canaan, they saw the obstacles like I saw Satan’s fortress in that vision. This confirming the vision that perception, or what we "see" is one of the keys to our faith. And that we need to see Satan compared to God's power.

The Spies with Bad report were beign 'truthful' in a way
At this same time a few months ago we had other revelation about the spies who brought back the bad report from Canaan. They were basically telling the factual truth about what they saw. It was honest, practical and you could say ‘wise’ advice NOT to attack Canaan. But Joshua and Caleb said “their covering is gone” we can easily defeat them, because while they acknowledged the obstacles as being present, they combined it with FAITH that God could do what HE promised. They did not have a trust in their own strength as the 10 with the bad report did, but they had trust in GOD, who made them a PROMISE. They had an intimate relationship, a personal daily trust in God, and that’s the victory, not that God will empower us with natural strength as much as he only wants us to be an empty vessel that he can use.

OK, so, iF God gave me the scripture about the spies in Canaan he wants me to share that faith is faith in GOD, and his PROMISE, not faith in our abilities, or acting in our 'cautious wisdom' as we assess the FACTS a.k.a. acting in fear, doubt and unbelef.
So during our prayer time on June 3, 06, I also realized all we have to do is speak forth God’s word in the earth realm and get out of the way. We used to think we had to attack principalities and powers with our prayers, but now I don’t do this. Now I ask God what he wants me to pray for and I only do that. If he says nothing, which he almost never does, then I try to do nothing. But if he says to pray for a certain thing, I try to just speak forth his word on that issue, and let him do the fighting. I am trying to be an empty vessel in this regard. I pray his power over the situation, I speak to it and tell teh situation that JESUS is on his way and they’re gonna lose! And then I step back and let HIM do the fighting part. I am exploring this still and know sometimes I have to be more active in speaking forth his word into situations that bother me, but I still try to first find out what he wants me to deal with, and how, before I pray frommy fear, or wild guessing.
So on JUNE 3, when we prayed for the four teams that covered 1. the outlying islands ferry pier, 2. the Star Ferry, 3. IFC 2, 4. Wan Chai Convention center (the Handover building) and nearby pier, we were told that we were to speak repentance, blessings, and be joyfully expectant in this prayer walk. We were aligned against the old powers of the waterways, smuggling, drugs, and the pollution of sin symbolized by the pollution in the harbour.

We began to pray and
1. I saw what looked like two large demonic powers that looked like they were leaning very far over, ready to fall. They were undermined and did not have a strong foundation anymore.
2. I saw that we are the Voice of the Lord in the earth realm, that the LORD will speak through the mouth of his servants.
3. We are covered and we speak the covering of the Blood of Jesus, the lamb of God, of protection over us.
4. Jesus said, “They will hear my voice and they will flee” But also that they may “talk back” to us, or resist their destruction but the only have “empty words.”

We were then to speak blessing to all sinners in Hong Kong, forgiveness, redemption, joy, freedom, peace, love. Without compassion we will not know God’s plan. (more on this from the BD prayer time). We speak these blessings into Hong Kong to make it a place of blessings, to be a blessing to nations!!

1. SPIRITUAL Abundance;
2. a balance of priorities;
3. NOT STRENGTH but weakness, as YHWH’s foolishness is better than our wisdom!
4. A small number can do much because it is only in OUR WEAKNESS that God can SHOW HIMSELF STRONG through us.
I also realized:
5. We don’t see God with our eyes.
We don’t even see God with our minds! We see Him with our hearts, which means our Spirit, it is the very core of what we are, and in this we see God. We also don’t see our circumstances with our eyes, but with our minds, empowered by our imaginations. Fear and worry are products of our malfunctioning run-away negative imaginations.

6. The main hindrance to doing God’s will is
a. when we have a very clear idea of OUR OWN WILL, or PLAN, that we prefer and feel strongly comfortable about and
b. impatience to hear God’s will (see King Saul’s first big goof!).

So if we don’t have knowledge of His ways, or are not mature to be patient we miss his best will.
He says there are three levels of his will: good, acceptable and perfect. Which corresponds to level of our maturity, so a person in a lower level of intimacy with Christ/maturity is not able but also is not expected to act according to a higher level of God’s will. As we mature we become more open to his higher will, and able to walk in it. (See the DB Prayer thing.)

Any comments, I'd love to hear them.