Laughter – its good for you

Last night we had our muso’s practice and sitting there in the church was a surprise – Elmo sat waiting for us to turn up and ready to turn our time together into a laugh-fest. Thats right -Elmo the short red furry monster Elmo, and boy did he make us laugh. But the adult in us prevailed in the end and we did get on with the practise eventually. Funny thing though, everyone there seemed to think Elmo reminded them of me. Now I definitely aren’t red and furry but when I get drunk in the Holy Spirit I have to admit the similarities are surprising.

One of the guys in the team said he had heard that young children laugh on average 400 times a day. Whether it is that much or not it is certainly still a lot more than we laugh as adults. It made me think when it was that I last laughed but then I remembered it was only a day or so  ago so I felt a bit better then. But it certainly wasn’t five minutes ago or five minutes before that and it certainly wasn’t 400 times yesterday.

How many days has it been since you laughed? The Bible says that a merry heart is as good as a dose of medicine for whatever ails you – okay thats my version but it does say that, in slightly more correct English, and it also tells us the Joy of the Lord is our strength. There is a divine exchange waiting for you today, His joy for your weakness, His joy for your despondency,or your depression. Father God wants to take upon himself and take away any heaviness you are carrying and in exchange give you His joy.

So if your strength is waning and you feel like you could do with a dose of good medicine check out this You tube clip and let Elmo and Father God cheer you up.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4x-VW_rCSE

Prophetic Fair…

Yesterday we held a Prophetic Fair at Pursuit Church here in Auckland. The emphasis was on the freedom and fun of the Kingdom of God. Well, it definitely was fun, there was freedom and it powerfully impacted the lives of those who attended. I’m sure some of you are wondering, “What on earth is a Prophetic Fair? And should the two words even be linked together like that?” No, we haven’t gone and treated the powerful gift of a prophetic word with disrespect, but we have taken it out of the realm of being super-spiritual.

It was a great morning of experiencing how the prophetic can be naturally supernatural and how we can use it in our everyday lives – at home, where we work, on the bus and in the mall. We looked at, modelled and experienced as a group the different ways God can give us revelation - like through objects, by highlighting a person to us, giving us mental images, and many ways prophetic words can be expressed – through poetry, song, story, art and even words of encouragement inside balloons.

I had a wonderful team working with me that included adults and children who I had great confidence in and knew were all accurate in hearing from God, and bold in stepping out, even when I put them on the spot. For some of them aspects of the morning were stretching but they all stepped up and God worked through them mightily to touch peoples’ lives. The congregation also got involved in giving prophetic words to each other and by the end of the morning (which went by so fast) everyone had been encouraged and strengthened in their walk with the Lord, and each had given and received several prophetic words.

One lady said to me at the end of the morning “You should do this everywhere, it’s much better than a sermon.” It was as powerful as any sermon, as God spoke to us all about how we have put the gifts of the Holy Spirit in a realm that is beyond most of us and only for the gifted few. By the end of the morning everyone in that room knew that they could hear from God and give a prophetic word to someone. And isn’t that what Church is about? – training the saints for their work of ministry. I think we definitely did that yesterday.

Who said the Kingdom of God had to be dull and boring? It’s not – it’s vibrant and full of life. Who said operating in the gifts of God had to be all serious and unnaturally super spiritual? The world doesn’t want to see an unreal church, they want the church to be real and really filled with the power of God; they want and need us to be who we are called to be – releasers of God’s love and power everywhere we go. When we step out it is a grand adventure with the Holy Spirit as our guide and teacher. What could be more fun than that! I think we’ve been lulled into believing a lie, somewhere along the way, regarding the super-spirituality of using the gifts, haven’t we.  Let’s deal with that lie and release people and equip them to go and release heaven into earth.

We did that yesterday – released a bit of heaven into earth, and had fun doing it.

Glory rains down in Christchurch

The presence and power of God is definitely being released in the South Island at the moment. We have just returned from holding a Glory School in Christchurch with ChCh North Elim. Stewart, Marilyn and the team there are hungry for God and are pressing through into the miracle realm and seeing Gods glory being released.

For those who don’t know a Glory School is where we teach what is legally and scripturally ours to access in the spiritual / heavenly realms. Its a time of being activated to see and experience those realms and to know how to access ongoing revelation from God when you go home from the school.

The power of God hit us in a big way and we had such fun especially in the Holy Spirit session where He showed up big time and I tried to teach it half drunk under the Holy Spirits power. Angels turned up and people saw them and felt their presence. People saw visions and had heavenly encounters with God as Father and Jesus. Some saw visions of themselves or were even transported in the spirit to other nations to share and decree Gods plans over peoples lives. I will include some testimonies with this report.

People came from as far as West Australia to attend and we even had some English tourists who heard about it and arranged the NZ leg of their trip around attending it and God did not disappoint them. All met God in very life changing ways.

Here are some of the testimonies

• I saw NZ as a sleeping creature – being awakened, one eye open then rising to its feet, then saw flames, getting smaller then taking up the whole screen of my imagination, they reminded me of the Australian bush fires. They seemed to be a long way off and then came very quickly.
• The Holy Spirit walked me up the staircase to the throne and Father. My Father was overjoyed to see me. He stood up and his arms were open wide, joy on his face and he said “Hello my child, I am so happy to see you” as he gave me a big bear hug and twirled me around.
• An angel touched a coal to my lips, I fell to the ground, Jesus came held out his hand and asked me to dance, I felt so loved, qualified, it was a beautiful time.
• I saw a huge lion carrying a sling in his mouth with a baby in it. He was so gentle and so kind. He padded slowly up to the Fathers throne. The father peeped in and beamed with delight. “She is perfect” he said. The lion of Judah agreed. Holy Spirit whispered in my ear “That baby my child is you.” Wow!
• One man said that he saw himself entering the throne room and the angels cheering because he was there.
• I was taken up to heaven through what looked like a ladder of DNA – my family DNA. I was greeted by family members already there – wonderful! Jesus got out the ‘Book of Life’.  Then he took me back down to earth to the roots of an enormous tree – my family tree. He handed me a spade and reminded me he had already given me a book of my family ancestors (hundreds of them) scattered all over the globe. Jesus re-commissioned me to rewrite my book ‘White Linen’, my testimony and send a copy to each person in the book. Wow!
• One woman, as she was getting ready for the second morning of the school, found herself suddenly on a plane talking and sharing with a man there about Jesus and God. She spent the whole flight telling him about God and his love for him, then suddenly she found herself back in her home. Later on that day God gave her a vision of the man meeting with his family and telling them about the white lady who told him all about God.

There are many more testimonies of Gods goodness and awe inspiring power but that will give you a taste of the weekend. The heavenly relams are real and accessible to us as Christians. God is opening that realm t people everywhere. Ask Him to open them up to you!

I’ll finish with one more testimony sent to me today by a lady – “My aunty of  92, unconnected with any church at the moment, was watching ‘Hour of Power’ in her resthome on Sunday, when God took her into the heavenlies (she called it a trance), and talked to her, basically about how she was trying to fix her family by herself. When she came to she was ’shaking like a leaf’ and didn’t know who to talk to about it except her sister, my mother. From being disillusioned and cynical, she is now believing for miracles! God is good!”

He sure is!

Awake sleeper awake!

A couple of weeks ago I was pondering on the state of the Church in our nation and these words began to flow within me. Obviously what I say does not apply to all within the Church in NZ but it does apply to a fair portion. I was forced to look at my response to her sleep and encouraged again to speak, to call her into her fullness. So, awake, sleeper awake! Come out of the cave where you have lain, asleep but not dead. Lazarus was dead and he was called forth, we will not let you lie down and die while we have breath to cry. Awake, sleeper awake. Come forth into your glory.

Asleep

I see her lying there

Asleep

Alive not dead

Stirring now and then

I think

She wakes

But then she settles

And turns again

to slumber

What she was

is not seen in what she is

asleep

and what she will become

lies yet to be revealed

when she awakes

But oh the promise

For she is powerful

If she but knew

Yet in slumber

She lies unknowing

Shall I call

awakening her

or hold my tongue

and let her sleep

face it

speak I must

or else

i like her

choose sleep

- Lyn Packer 2009

More God Encounters

Todd White on the street

You gotta check this video out – it’s inspiring!!

Inflame – School of Prophetic Worship 2010

Just thought you might like to know about a new school that is taking place in March – May of next year on Great Barrier Island. It is a live-in ’school of prophetic worship’ that will be run by Josh and Amberley Klinkenberg. These guys are a great young couple with a real heart for worship and to see the Church worship in spirit and truth.

There are some amazing teachers going to be teaching including Cindy Ruakere, David Garratt, Wayne & Libby Huirua, Rob & Lyn Packer and some overseas guest speakers as well. You can check out the details at the website www.inflameworshipschool.com

If you are serious about worship leading and want to be right up with where God is taking the Church worldwide in worship then you should check it out.

Angels – Gods messengers and ministers

We had a great day of ministry yesterday at Pursuit Church in the morning and Royal Oak Baptist in the evening. At both places there was a strong angelic presence as angels turned up to minister to those there in different ways. They brought joy, refreshing, healing, protection and breakthrough for people.

There is a definite increase of angelic activity happening in meetings lately. Or maybe the better thing to say would be that we’ve become more aware of their presence. While we definitely don’t focus on angels we are very aware that God uses them to minister to people and we need to acknowledge their activity and ministry. In both meetings those angels that were present were seen and felt by people there. I love it when angels turn up because they bring a real sense of the release of Gods presence and power, after all they have been in His presence for thousands of years so it makes sense that they carry his presence with them. They minister at Gods command so they also carry His power to get done what they need to do.

A friend of ours, Ian Johnson wrote a very good article on their work recently. Unfortunately it is too long to include in a blog entry but you can find it on his website, His Amazing Glory Ministries at the following link  http://www.hisamazinggloryministries.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=19:lift-up-your-heads-o-gates&catid=29:journal-a-writings&Itemid=50

I hope you enjoy reading Ian’s article, check out the rest of his website while you are at it, he has some great stuff on there.

Also you might want to view James Golls latest Extreme Prophetic tv episode – it’s also on the increase of angelic activity worldwide. http://www.xpmedia.com/quDTF7L37yf1

The power of thankfulness…when life whacks ya.

Thankfulness is something we don’t often think about much. We simply go about our day and live out of each moment as it presents itself. That’s okay up to a point but if that is our default setting we will be ruled by the emotions of the moment. My life circumstances as I grew up made for the very real possibility of living life as a victim and a someone who felt life owed them.In fact I spent many years feeling ‘hard done by’ and like life had dealt me a real bad set of cards.

One day I decided that if I wanted my life to be different I would have to be different; I would have to see it with new eyes. So I dialed up to mind some things and one was the memory of watching the film Pollyanna when I was small. Pollyanna was a girl who determined that she would find the good in every circumstance, even the difficult ones. So I determined I would find the good in every situation and turn my negatives into positives.

The key to doing this is gratitude; gratitude for everything you have, every day, every circumstance. The Bible puts it like this “In everything give thanks for this is God’s will for your life.”  Derek Prince, a well known Christian teacher once said “Anytime you cease to be thankful you are out of the will of God.” Ouch! That stings!

How can you be thankful or grateful in every circumstance? Its all in how you look at it. You see we will only ever be grateful if we decide beforehand that we are going to be, no matter what life dishes up. Otherwise if we leave it until the moment we will default to our normal way of looking at things. If we want to change the way we see things it will take perseverance, it probably won’t happen overnight. Keep at it, don’t give up and you will change the way you see.

A week or so ago I wrote a blog entry called “Sometimes life whacks ya”. If you read that you will be familiar with what I am facing right now, two family members fighting battles with cancer, my  Mum and a brother in law. Mum’s is too far advanced to be treated. Every day at the moment and sometimes many times during them I am having to fight feelings of despair and grief that wants at times to overwhelm. How am I fighting it? There are a couple of ways, one is prayer and stilling myself before God, letting Him fill me with His peace and the other is by choosing to be thankful for what I have now and have had in my relationship with my Mum.

Gratitude or thankfulness is such a powerful key to living a happy life no matter what life throws at you. Our happiness is so often dependent on happenings. If they are good we are happy, if they are bad we most certainly are not. But happiness is an emotion that we determine by our attitude of thankfulness in all circumstances. Why not decide now that you are going to be thankful ahead of time and determine to choose thankfulness in every situation – with God’s help of course.

I was sent this a while ago and it has some good insight in it.

A 92 yr olds take on life

A 92-year-old, small, well-poised and proud man, who is fully dressed each morning by eight o’clock, with his hair fashionably combed and shaved perfectly, even though he is legally blind, moved to a nursing home today. His wife of 70 years recently passed away, making the move necessary. After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, he smiled sweetly when told his room was ready. As he maneuvered his walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of his tiny room, including the eyelet sheets that had been hung on his window.

“I love it,” he stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having just been presented with a new puppy.

“Mr. Jones, you haven’t seen the room; just wait.”

“That doesn’t have anything to do with it,” he replied. “Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn’t depend on how the furniture is arranged … it’s how I arrange my mind. I already decided to love it. It’s a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice; I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do. Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open, I’ll focus on the new day and all the happy memories I’ve stored away, just for this time in my life.”

Life is like a bank account. You withdraw from it out of the account called ‘attitude,’ what you’ve put in. So, my advice to you would be to deposit a lot of thankfulness into it! Choose thankfulness now and when life brings difficult circumstances you will find you go through them easier than you would otherwise. You will still have to make the choices in the circumstances to see the ‘good’ but they will be easier to make because you have made a pathway of gratitude to walk on.

Roar Lion of Judah, roar!

There’s a roaring in the Spirit over this nation of New Zealand at this time. There’s a roaring of the Lion of the tribe of Judah – establishing his domain, setting forth His purposes. Roar Lion of Judah, roar! There’s a birthing of young lions in that roar, a birthing of apostolic destinies.

“There’s an apostolic mantle being released in the Spirit to send, to build, to establish my glory in this nation” says the Lord. “There’s a a waking up, a rising up taking place in the lives of many, there’s a cry being released that is reverberating in the spirit realm causing a power to be released that is of My Spirit” says the Lord. That power which is the power of the Holy Spirit will be the strength my people need to accomplish that which I am calling them to in this time. It is a time to rise up and roar, establish my dominion, establish your dominion over your territory. For there is a territory I have given you, there is a territory that is yours to take dominion over, seek me so I will show you where and what that territory is. There are new assignments being released in this time. Rise up young lions, rise up and roar with me in the Spirit over your destiny. ROAR!!!! ROAR!!! ROAR!!!! “says the Lord “and release my purposes.”

“There’s an apostolic mantle being released in the Spirit to send, to build, to establish my glory in this nation. Do not use that mantle to set up your kingdoms, do not use it to set up your purposes. It is to establish my glory in this nation” says the Lord. “Stay small in your own eyes so I may be big. No one man or woman can own what I will do in this nation, no one church will be able to take the credit for it, and there will be a coming together, a moving together, each honouring the other that will release and establish that which I have decreed in the spirit over New Zealand.”

‘PROPHESY”

We just had an amazing weekend running our first school of the prophetic called ‘Prophesy’. Although it was small in numbers it was not small in impact on the lives of those who attended it. Some came to refresh themselves in the basics of prophecy and others came because they wanted to learn how to move in the prophetic. All left at the end encouraged and challenged to step out in the prophetic in their everyday life and be the blessing God wants them to be to those around them.

The worship times led by Rob were rich in the manifest presence of God with prophetic revelation flowing in song and spoken form. At one point we sat in silence for 10 minutes as the presence of God washed over us in waves of peace and refreshing; other times were full of intercession for unsaved family and friends or rich worship for our God of wonders. The worship times were all varied and full of Gods presence. 

The teaching and activations were interspersed throughout the weekend although the bulk of the activations came on Sat afternoon and evening. The activations into the prophetic were a great time of stepping out in a place of safety and security. The favorite activation turned out to be the one where the people prophesying had no idea who they were prophesying over. They did so with their eyes shut so all the soul realm like sight, sound, touch etc was removed. The prophetic words were (as we expected) accurate which of course delighted both givers and receivers. One other fun activation included a bottle of pomegranate juice – and the prophetic words for the Church in NZ from that activation wore the theme of Gods heart, plans and purposes for the Church of NZ. All were very insightful and true words.

The weekend ended all too quickly and we could easily have spent much more time exploring the many other aspects of the prophetic but this is a school of the basics so maybe we can do another more in depth one later. In this we covered  things like - Understanding God’s heart & prophetic values; Hearing from God/discerning His voice; Judging and responding to prophecy; Working with God to see your prophetic words fulfilled; How to give prophetic words and lots of activation times and prayer for impartation and release into the gift of prophecy.

It was a great weekend and a time of seeing people released and encouraged to be a prophetic people not merely a people who believe in prophecy.