a little Bosworth if you please

"The nine disciples had failed to deliver the epileptic boy mentioned in the gospels. Some theologian of that day, if he were like may of the theologians of these days, might have seized upon that failure. He might say, 'There, now we have the proof that it is not always God's will to heal.' But the father wanted the boy to be healed. The boy himself wanted to be healed. The disciples, divinely commissioned to cast out devils and heal the sick, wanted him to be healed. Under similar circumstances today someone would say because of such a failure, 'It is not God's will that such a one should be healed.' They would make a theology out of the failure. But Jesus came down from the mountain and delivered the boy. This proves it to be God's will to heal, even when His accredited representatives had failed to heal. Why not make theology out of this?"

After witnessing the miraculous healing of thousands, I am convinced that the proofs of healing are as bright and convincing as are the proofs of regeneration. Yet I do not base any doctrine on these answers to prayer. I, for one, will preach all the Gospel if I never see another man saved or healed as long as I live. I am determined to base my doctrines on the immutable Word of God, not on phenomena or human experince."

-an excerpt from Christ the Healer, by F.F. Bosworth.

http://product.half.ebay.com/Christ-the-Healer-by-F-F-Bosworth-Fred-Francis-Bosworth-2000-Paperback/1719721&tg=info

buy the book for $0.75. please. please please please. We need a revelation of "the Lord our healer" in the church.

and then He spoke

I saw a beach laid out before me, only sand as far as my eyes could see. Lying on the beach in a line in front of me were children, young people dressed as though from every nation of the earth. The line also went on as far as my eyes could see. Looking at them, I thought they were dead. They were unmoving, crumpled in awkward positions. Then, as I kept looking at them, the first one in front of me suddenly got up, smiling a huge smile with his mouth open. Throughout the line, all the children began to get up, all smiling with their mouths gaping open. I felt like the Lord said “They were dead, but I brought them back to life.”

Then I was on the beach inside the vision.

I felt warmth all around me and I felt like I was lying on sand. I stood up and I felt crowds and crowds of people all around me. There were so many people that they were pressing in on me. I felt like I heard them, and they were all praising God. They kept adoring Him, using all kinds of different praises. “Glorious, worthy, perfect, all-mighty, wonderful is the Lamb! We love Him. We love Him. He saved us and we love Him! He is ours forever! We will always love him. He is always kind! Always good! We will ever praise Him! Forever He is right.”

One pushed me in the back, saying, “Come. Come. All the upright give Him praise.” They spun me around and I started laughing and dancing and jumping as they shouted praises to the Lamb. I began shouting with them, “Wonderful! Perfect! You will always reign! No one will defeat You because You gave yourself up.” I started crying. “You’re worthy. The only One worthy. You are Worthy.” I fell to the ground. “We love you Jesus. We love your sacrifice. There is no one else that we will adore. You’re the only One worthy.” I laid facedown. “I cannot bring You the praise that You’re due, but all the honor, all the love, all the worship in my heart belongs to You. I will lavish myself on You, the righteous King. No one will usurp my love. I will guard it with all I have and give it only to You. Always to You. You are my only love.”

I felt His breath over me as I lay on the sand; it was hot, perfect, terrifying, and sweeter than I have ever known. Everything in me lined up with one reality, He was near me. He was close. His presence was altogether shocking, and all at once familiar. It was completely at home, and more distant than the farthest stars. Wilder than the most unsearched mountains, safer than the garden you have grown up next to, a burning fire that knows no hesitation, and a crashing wave that plummets you to the depths of the sea. I knew I was completely saved, yet I was sure I was utterly lost. How can one possibly recover from such a touch? How can there be any return? All faith is answered. All hope is gone. At the end of my understanding, He kept bringing me into His presence. His voice shook my dreams and questions, and it answered all my longings.

“Beloved. I am. You will be all that I have planned. You will love me with your whole heart, whole strength, whole mind. I will purify your heart, and you will give it all to Me. You will pour out your life for Me. As I have loved you, you will love Me. You will give Me all that you have. I will create in you a clean heart. I will fix your eyes on my face. You will see Me and be satisfied. You will see me and rejoice. All your longing will be answered. All your waiting will end. I am just and right. I will not leave you alone. I will come to you. I have not lied. I am only pure, always pure. You will know my righteousness. You will know my justice. You will see my indignation poured out on the earth and you will say ‘Perfect is the Lamb. Right are all His ways.’ I will teach you my love, beloved. I will teach you my ways. You don’t yet understand, but I will teach you. I will not leave you confused. You will know me. You will know me well. You’re caught in a whirlwind, beloved. I will not let you go. You will never be alone.”

perspective

There is a fire in my heart for you, my love. There is a fire in my heart for you. The lie that I don’t care about your sin is the same lie that says that I don’t want all of you. It’s the same lie that says that I don’t love you well or I don’t love all of you. But I do.
I love all of you there is to possibly love. I love you.

Do you know what jealousy is, beloved?
Jealousy means that nothing takes place over desire.
Every physical obstacle, every emotional barrier, every distraction, every earthly lust, every demonic torment is lesser than and subject to the higher reality of my jealousy.

Nothing gets past me.

And we know that all things work together for good
to those who love God
to those who are the called according to His purpose
But as for me, the nearness of God is my good
I have made the Lord God my refuge
that I may tell of all your works

I make it all work out for your good because I can’t bear anything pulling you away from my love. I’m not incompetent. I have contended for you and I never lost the fight.

My love, beloved, it came into your life and it won you.
I fought for you with all my heart and I won.

story time

recent events:

Tuesday night, after an amazing all-staff intercession at IHOP-atlanta (what is usually a brief healing prayer turned into a 30 min prophetic song about a healing revival, complete with words of knowledge regarding conditions in the room), Hazen and I went with Laure and two of her friends, Carlton and Destiny, to pray for a friend of theirs who was in the hospital for multiple medical conditions. We went to her room, and prayed for her healing, with no immediate results. On the way out of the hospital, we saw a man in a wheel chair headed for the escaltors. Promptly, Carlton began chasing him down, which in turn caused the rest of us to follow suit. We caught up to him and Carlton asked him what had happened and if it would be okay for us to pray for him to be healed. This man explained to us that seven years ago a wall had fallen on him, which had bent both of his ankles backwards, broken his tibia and fibia in both legs and caused lots of damage in his left ankle. Since then, he has had constant excruciating pain in his left ankle from when he wakes up in the morning till he sleeps. He told us that walking a simple hallway, would leave him feeling as if he had tryed to run a marathon. He was currently using a wheel chair because he had walked down to the cafeteria, and his ankle was now in so much pain that he didn't want to walk any more and had gotten a wheel chair to take his food back.

So we prayed for him. Carlton led it off, and then after prayer asked him if he could stand up and test out his ankle to see if it was still in pain. At first, the man seemed confused by the request. He told us that he would walk if it would make us happy, and that he definitely could, it would just hurt. We briefly explained that we believed that all the pain in his ankle might now be gone due to our prayer. He agreed to stand up and see how it felt. He stood up, turned to face us, and looked at us with wide eyes. "Are you serious?" was his first statement. Tears started welling up. What's going on? we asked. How does it feel? "I don't feel anything. It feels the same as my right ankle. There's no pain" Tears started running down his face, which he wiped up on his t-shirt.


Amazing. I love, I love, I love the healing power of the cross.

I would be doing you an injustice though if I didn't tell you the rest of this story. Following this amazing healing, we presented the Gospel to this man, telling him that the same power of God that healed his foot was present and available to heal his heart and give him a new life. After laying out this good news, this man refused to accept Jesus. He told us that he was thankful for the gift he had gotten of his healing, but that he wasn't going to ask for anything else. So the wonderful miracle was followed by a nightmare. We stood next to this man listening to his reasonings for not worrying about eternity, and I kept wanting to grab his shoulders, shake him hard, and tell him that he was wrong, and he was going to go to hell and would be forever in torment. I pray his life soon changes. He needs Jesus.

So we must pray. More. We must pray more.

We need power and clarity on the Gospel for the turning of hearts. James 5:16

seventy three, twenty eight.

"Everything in me lined up with one reality, He was near me. He was close. His presence was altogether shocking, and all at once familiar. It was completely at home, and more distant than the farthest stars. Wilder than the most unsearched mountains, safer than the garden you have grown up next to, a burning fire that knows no hesitation, and a crashing wave that plummets you to the depths of the sea. I knew I was completely saved, yet I was sure I was utterly lost. How can one possibly recover from such a touch? How can there be any return? All faith is answered. All hope is gone. At the end of my understanding, He kept bringing me into His presence. His voice shook my dreams and questions, and it answered all my longings."

thoughts, sights, and experiences

The Trial of Accusations:

I saw a platform type area, all covered in black fabric. As I kept looking, I could see that the platform went all the way around a small room and formed a sort of circular amphitheatre. It was full of seats, and each seat had a microphone at it and like a placemat in front of it. The seats were mostly full. As I saw this, I knew the seats were full of singers and that this was a court and the singers were trying or judging someone or something. The room had rows all the way up towards the ceiling and the thing on trial was at the bottom of the room on a small stage. I asked to go inside the vision and then I was sitting at one of the seats. There was like a desk cubby underneath the placemat in front of me and in it was a Bible, a pen, and a legal pad. Of all the singers, some were sitting on their chairs and some were passed out/curled up on the floor behind their chairs, and I knew they were encountering the Lord.

Different people were singing phrases from their encounters, and the things they were saying were the evidence trying what was on trial, which I felt like the Lord said was sin, disease, and death, but I also felt like what was on trial was “accusations” and looking at what was being tried, it was a dark creepy looking blob thing that was projecting outward. At first I thought it was accusations against the singers in the room and against each of their own hearts, but later I understood that it was also representing accusations against the Lord, and that it had first been called sin, disease, and death because those are all things in the world that accuse us of not really having a heavenly identity and accuse the Lord of not being who He says He is.

As the singers were all having encounters with the Lord, they would come out of their experiences and sing the things they had seen or experienced. They were all singing about the beauty of Jesus, and light was being produced in the room and fighting back the blob of accusations. As they were singing phrases about who the Lord really is, some of them were standing up declaring the truth emphatically.

Seeing this made me realize that declaring the reality of who the Lord is in worship is the only way to combat any accusation against Him or against yourself, because we have been born again in the Spirit of God(John 3:5-6) and accusations from the enemy can only really stand against our old nature, but when lies are being told to us about our new man, we have to answer from the reality of who Jesus is because that is the righteousness that we have now put on(Romans 3:21-22). I also realized that the only way to be able to declare this reality against the enemy is to encounter the Lord and allow Him to speak into your life, declaring who He is. Then you can take the knowledge of God that you have come face to face with and speak it out against the enemy.

At some point, I turned around and there was a bin inset into the wall behind each singer. In the bin there was a blanket and a pair of headphones. I asked the Lord and I felt like He said the headphones were for hearing the sounds of heaven, and I was confused because I didn’t understand why anyone would ever want to take them off, but I felt like He was saying it was too much to always hear. And I felt like the blanket was for either sleeping or for covering up with during the encounters.

At some point, I went outside and there was a table with clipboards on it, like what someone would have for sign-ups. I felt like the sign-up table was there to indicate that this reality of prophetic worship was available for anyone who is willing to say yes, or “sign up”.

graveside wedding

when I was still your enemy
You came for me
You've loved me so completely
and now my heart is set on You

You've never let me go
You've never let me down
You chased me before time
and You turned my life around

when I was still your enemy
You came for me
You've loved me so completely
and now my heart is set on You