His Heart

As many of you know, I have been going through some incredibly difficult times as of late. For privacy's sake (both mine and others'), I will not write here what happened. Most of you probably know already, and those of you who don't can ask and be told in a more fitting manner.

Regardless, the things that have been happening have had one positive, if heartbreaking, effect: a much, much deeper understanding on my part of the Love that God has for the wandering and the lost.

We, as Christians, have this ridiculous notion of the unsaved as the enemy, and backsliders as second-string Christians who just weren't up to the task. We have this way of looking at the same people in completely different ways so our perception fits our mood. If we're going to put on our evangelism hats, then loving the unloveable is great! It's just a part of our heroic duty as Super Christians. But in the privacy of our homes and our churches, we really know that they're scum and they're filth and we love it when things go wrong for them--it just serves them right.

What (and I think God will pardon my language here) the Hell, people? God, I am continually discovering, does not take joy in the failures of the lost. He doesn't shun them for leaving or think any less of them than He does of any of His other children. Our indifference toward the state of the unsaved and backslidden is travesty and an insult to the Heart that God has for them.

The unsaved are not the enemy. They are children without a parent; orphans, seeking everywhere for someone or something to call Daddy. They may be pesky street urchins, looking to steal your wallet the moment your back is turned, but they are orphans nonetheless, and as deserving of love and care as any child.

Just as much so, those who have wandered off are certainly not to be shunned or abandoned. God doesn't get angry with us when we leave. His heart breaks over the loss. It is, in every way, as though He had lost a child, and His Joy will be at our return. The loss of a child is devastating. To sit and watch as a son or daughter of God turns back to the world and do nothing is unthinkable! Our every moment should be spent in prayer and travailing until that child is returned to God. 

"What do you think? If any man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go and search for the one that is straying?" (Matthew 18:12)

God has shown me His Heart for the lost and the straying. I know the glimpse I have been given is a mere fraction of what He feels, and it still brings me to tears without fail. If we cannot show love to our brothers and sisters and feel anguish when they become lost; if the Kingdom toward which we are striving is less attractive than the fleeting "joys" of the world; if our first inclination is toward judgemental opinions rather than love and forgiveness, then something is fundamentally wrong with the way we are serving our Lord.

Jesus told us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. If we can do that, then how much easier should it be to cry out to God for the souls of those we know and love? I, for one, never want to see another soul lost to the Kingdom of God. I pray that God will reveal all of this to you as well, and that through each of you He can be glorified.

Soli Deo Gloria

I am so bad at updating this thing!

Read the book 'the Heavenly Man' so I don't have to reproduce the entire thing here for you in interpreted form. Granted, in a few chapters I probably won't be able to resist doing so anyway, but you should still read it.

Soli Deo Gloria

God is awesome, guys. Seriously.

God is awesome. Not just cliche 'God is good--all the time' call and response mindless rhetoric that is so ingrained in us that we don't even notice it when we hear it, either. I mean sick-healing, dead-raising, mountain-moving, soul-saving awesome. This is an awesome, my friends, that the mind cannot begin to comprehend. I can't explain it to you in words that will make near the impression on you that they should because it is an awesome that transcends language.

This is an awesome that goes way beyond even the word 'awesome'. Awe, shock, wonder, amazement--none of these words even begin to scratch the surface of that indescribable thing that God inspires.

And it's time to start acting like it. God is mind-blowingly awesome, so I'm going to sing some songs? God has done and is continuing to do things so amazing that my brain cannot begin to understand them, so I'm going to sit in a room full of people and listen to a man talk for an hour and then go drink coffee with smartly dressed people I see once a week? Does this not feel somehow wrong?

God is, as I have mentioned, awesome. So praise Him. I don't care how you do it. God certainly doesn't care how you do it. But praise Him.

Soli Deo Gloria

The Revival Hymn

Listen to this.
If you've already heard it, listen to it anyway.
If you find it boring, listen to it anyway.
If you don't have time, listen to it anyway.

And, once you've done that, listen to it again.

Soli Deo Gloria

Waken up, you sleepy Christians!

I see a long, narrow room, like a barracks, extending past the limits of my vision in to the left and to the right. The two walls that I can see are lined with beds, and an aisle runs down the middle. In each bed is a sleeping person. As I watch, one of the sleepers in the middle of the room (to my sight) awakens and begins to stir. As he stirs, the noise disturbs the sleep of those around him and they begin to stir as well. The first awakened man rises from his bed and turns on the light, agitating those around him even more. Soon they start to rise and turn on their own lights, thereby awakening those around them. Soon, every person from one end of the barracks to the other is awake and bustling with activity.

This speaks of things quite similar to my earlier vision: that the revival, which--as has been established--is very imminent, will not be contained. As the Spirit awakens within each of us, that awakening will spread to others, and to others around them, until there is not a single person left asleep.

This comes as an encouragement, yes, but also as a call to action. When the Spirit stirs in your heart, it's your job to get up and start moving. Don't just roll over and go back to sleep, or lay in bed staring at the ceiling while you wait for God to wake the guy next to you as well. If you do, those around you will remain asleep, and you will eventually fall asleep again as well.

To clarify, God has promised revival. That is all kinds of awesome that I couldn't even begin to put into words. However, God has done His part of the work. Now it's our turn to take action and actually lay hold of the things which He has set in place for us. The Bride comes out of the wilderness leaning on her Beloved (Song of Solomon 8:5), not being carried.

"And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen." Romans 16:20

Soli Deo Gloria

The first (and second) of many

Quick background:

I am currently living in Northern Ireland (for a year) and working with a church called King's Way in a suburb of Belfast called Dunmurry. Andrew Brown, a good friend of mine, has attended this church since he was born. He and I, for the past several months, have been meeting at 9:30 each morning for roughly an hour of prayer together. It is rockin' awesome. If I refer to Andrew, Doo, Dooboy, Shmandrew Frown, or anything like it, chances are I'm talking about Doo. If I refer to morning prayer, chances are I'm referring to morning prayer. Sweet.

Today at morning prayer (see?), much was awesome. Prayer was focused mainly on revival--a thing which God has clearly promised to King's Way/Dunmurry in a very short time--and the realization of gifts and annointings by the people in the church.

So there I am, eyes closed, pacing back and forth as I am wont to do during prayer, when I see three things quickly in series:

1. Pastor Steve (the pastor of King's Way Church of Dunmurry and a medical doctor) in an exam room praying over a patient and that patient being instantly healed.

2. Myself as a paramedic (the job I plan to have sometime within the next few years) laying a hand on an injured person on a stretcher and that person being healed immediately.

3. Iain Marshall (a friend of mine who is, or will soon be, a fireman) stepping into a burning building, presumably to rescue someone, and walking right through the flames as though they weren't there at all.

I don't know if those things will actually happen to those people in those circumstances--though I don't see why not--but God was saying that that's the way life is supposed to be. Those situations aren't freak occurrences that only happen once in a blue moon; they're what everyday Christianity is supposed to be. If--or, rather, when--people start to lay hold of God's promises (Matt. 17:20), miraculous healings, changes in weather, even raising the dead will be not only possible but commonplace. Try to tell yourself that's not awesome.

The next vision was just as cool, and was affirmed by the vision that Andrew had at about the same time (linked above for your viewing pleasure). I saw the Earth, and as I looked I saw a pinprick of light in the north of Ireland, right around the Belfast area. As I looked closer I realized that it wasn't just light, but flame, and that the fire was spreading out from that point and consuming everything it touched.

Now, Ireland, as you may know, is an island. When the fire reached the water it wasn't gonna' be able to go anywhere, and the fire would be contained within the boundaries of that island. However, even before the fire had covered all of Ulster, sparks started to fly from it and land on different parts of the globe--some in Africa, some in America, some in Eastern Europe--and when those sparks hit, the fire spread from them as well, until the entire planet was covered with consuming fire.

In the past when revivals have come, they've been confined to their little areas, but what God was showing me was the numerous strong connections that King's Way Church has in the rest of the world; in Africa, in America, in Macedonia. When revival comes, and it will, it won't be confined to Dunmurry, or even to Ireland, but it's gonna' explode from all directions. That, my friends, is something to be excited about.

Praise God!

Soli Deo Gloria

Greetings

Because Andrew Brown has one and everyone wants to be like Andrew Brown, I have decided to create a blog for the posting of my various visions, revelations, and otherwise rockin' things from the LORD.

I was going to say that I won't be posting as frequently as Andrew, but that wouldn't be exercising faith and, as such, I will say that you should expect me to post as much as Andrew does. So there. Anyway, I hope this brings as much blessing to y'alls as the content does/did to me.

P.S. The resemblance of (i.e. identical layout of) my blog to Andrew's is completely coincidental. Up until about eight seconds ago I had never actually seen his blog. Just thought y'all should know.