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

Todd White on the street

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

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.

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

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.

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.”

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.

Sometimes life whacks you ‘round the head and you feel yourself spinning. Everything suddenly looks upside down and round the wrong way. Then you take a deep breath and look again; and it’s what you do at that moment that determines everything else that will follow.

Just last week we learnt that my Mum has terminal lung cancer; the doctors say it is too far advanced to do anything and all they can do is make her end as easy as possible. Then today I learnt that one of my brother’s in law also has a tumor in his stomach. We don’t know more than that at the moment and are waiting for them to do more tests etc. I thought I was coping okay with Mum’s news but add today’s news to it and I feel now like my world has been definitely shaken. Neither of them are Christians so there is not just life but eternal life at stake here.

So the facts are screaming very loudly and I have to make a choice to allow or not allow the facts to set the tone for how I handle things. It would be very easy to give in to feelings and allow them to overwhelm me but I know now is the time to begin to war with the weapons of truth and praise. So what is the truth in this situation – what will be the decrees to come out of my mouth?

Will I get it right every minute and every day? Probably not, but I refuse to sit down and let the devil walk all over me and my family in this. He may have picked the fight and hoped the facts would cower me but I’m picking up the weapons of faith, decree and praise and He will be the one who wishes he’d never started this fight.

Maybe you’re facing something similar and you’re not sure how to get through it all. Why don’t you deliberately choose to pick up the weapons of faith, decree and praise. Face the facts, like Abraham did (Rom 4:19-21), but don’t let the devil steal your belief in God’s bigness and ability to bring you through this triumphantly.

Does ‘triumphant’ mean everything will turn out exactly how you want it to? No, I can’t guarantee that and God has not promised that but God will be with you through it all. God will not leave you or forsake you and He will prepare a table for you in the midst of your enemies, (Psa 23) a place of rest and trust; a place where you know His presence in ever increasing ways as you keep your heart and mind fixed on Him in the middle of the battle.

Below are some decrees based on the Word that I will be using and that may be a help to you, as well, in the situations you may be facing. Why not write your own set of decrees from Scriptures God gives you regarding your situation, because those are the ones that will cause faith to rise within you the most. Then begin to use them as a weapon of praise and decree and see yourself, like Abraham, grow strong in your faith as you give glory to God in the midst of the trial.

Decrees

• God is far bigger than this situation and He has not been caught by surprise by it. Rev1:8 Alpha & Omega Luke 1:37 For nothing is impossible with God
• If that is the case He already has a plan prepared for how to handle it all. Is 53:4-5  Matt8:17 He (Jesus) took our infirmities and carried our diseases, by His wounds we are healed
• He has a destiny, plans and purposes for both Mum and my brother in law’s lives and also for mine in this. Jer 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord, plans for good and not for evil to give you a future and a hope.
• He loves to heal both physically, emotionally and spiritually. Acts 10:38 Jesus – Who went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil.
• He is well able to heal and nothing is too far beyond His ability, even when the doctors say it is terminal. Jer 32:27 I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything to hard for me?
• God desires that no one perish but that they come to know Him. John 3:16,17 For God so loved the world he sent his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
• His promise is that I and my family will be saved. Acts 16:31 Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household
• In this situation I will triumph and grow in Christ as I keep in faith and keep my eyes on Him. Heb10:35-36 (Amp) Do not therefore fling away your fearless confidence, for it carries a great and glorious compensation of reward. For you have need of steadfast patience and endurance, so that you may perform and fully accomplish the will of God and thus receive and carry away (and enjoy to the full) what is promised

 2nd Glory School

Day 1 – Holy Spirit came powerfully to touch many and release them. Six more hearing problems of different sorts healed, about twenty baptized with the Holy Spirit and most of those spoke in tongues, many powerfully touched as the Holy Spirit fell upon the crowd. Some laughed, some shook, many cried as the Holy Spirit healed emotional wounds, some were set free. It was a good start. 

Rob did the faith session Thurs morning and felt in the Holy Spirit to really go for the whole area of offenses which he did. We believe it was a very timely and needed word in this nation as people will not deal with their offenses because of saving face and so all blame goes on the other person. Many saw or sensed angels during the day as well. The joy of the Lord broke out as well with many laughing- some for the first time ever in their life. Hard to believe but true!!! By the end of the school on Friday people had laughed, cried, been healed, been slain in the spirit, seen visions and had heavenly encounters. God is so good and we are so privileged to be a part of what he is doing.

Thurs night – We ministered tonight to some of the international workers here. It was a wonderful time of God refreshing them and thanking them for their service. There was a wonderful prophetic flow as Rob lead us in worship with him ministering so sensitively in prophetic song releasing the angelic and working of the Holy Spirit. I got into a prophetic flow and ended up prophesying over everyone there. It was a great night. The most precious part to me was two angels who came, one carrying a bowl and the other a towel. They were so excited to be sent to minister. They were excited because the Master had sent them to do as he did – to wash the disciples feet and bring refreshing to their walk. I cried as I saw them minister with such joy to each person there.

Day 3

We were waiting for the doors to the rooms we were using for the school to open and one of the ladies said she had a damaged ear and was due to have an operation soon to fix it. She had wanted to be prayed for yesterday when the other lady was, but got so excited by her healing she forgot to ask for prayer. The eardrum had been damaged and something severed, so it had caused about 70% deafness in her left ear, and she asked if we could pray for her. So there on the stairs I prayed and God healed her, and then she said “I can hear better with that ear than with my good ear,” so I prayed again and asked God to make her good ear as good as the healed one and He did. What I didn’t know was that her good ear had a bad middle ear infection and God totally healed it. She was buzzing!

After people from the day before had given testimonies as to what God had done, Rob felt there were people in the room with back problems and that God wanted to heal them. About twenty people responded. We could not possibly pray for them all so the school leader suggested that we pray for a couple and when they were healed they could pray for someone else, and when they were healed they pray for someone also. So we did a short teaching on how to pray for the sick and demonstrated, and God healed those people. Then the healed people each prayed for someone and God healed them etc then people with other complaints wanted them to pray for them and God healed them. So in the end just about everyone was either being prayed for or praying for someone until about 90% of those in the room had prayer and were healed. Wow!!!

A friend of one of the people at the school had heard about the healings taking place and slipped into the back of the room. The school leaders were quite concerned at first, because he came in uninvited, and for all they knew he could be a member of the police spying on them. One of the leaders went with the man into another room to find out why he was there, and he said he heard about what God was doing and wanted to be healed. He asked for healing of his back and shoulder problems, the leader prayed for him and he was instantly healed and was also filled with the Holy Spirit.

One man said that his brother in law had a serious kidney problem and asked if we could pray for him over the cell phone. His brother in law was okay with that so I prayed for him, with a school leader translating, and he felt strong heat on his kidney. I told him that was the power of Jesus healing him and that God would continue to heal him and we told him to go to the doctor and check it out.

The rest of the day was just as amazing as people had amazing heavenly encounters. I can’t remember what they all were but one was a girl saw rain that turned into pearls, and God told her that it was her tears and that they were that precious to Him, like pearls, and then she saw a lot of other things too. She had many amazing encounters this weekend from touching the scars of Jesus to swimming in the river of life in heaven.

Another lady saw herself as a baby being held and rocked in Father’s arms and she said she had never felt love like that before. Then in another encounter God showed her being dressed in a beautiful white bridal gown and she saw a huge feast prepared, and God told her it was her bridal feast and she was his bride. She said she has never felt this love and affirmation before. Wow! There were many other heavenly encounters too and we will try and get testimonies so we can share them with you.

An amazing feature of this school has been activating the people into being releasers of the presence and power of God, teaching them on the power of the testimony, how to pray for healing, and releasing them to do it. God is doing something wonderful and powerful in the precious people of this land.