I'm A Bapti-Costal!

This is dedicated to scared people of any demonination in any church that white knuckles their church services that prevents the free-flowing of the Spirit of God.

I used to be skeptical, afraid, and quite harshly judgemental of charismatic christians and healing, deliverance, etc.
"Now, I ARE one!" -Pastor Wayne Sanders
(I stole your line, Pastor Wayne)

Let me take you back to a personal encounter with the Holy Spirit that scared me silly! I was somewhere between 16-18 yrs of age, living with my parents, dating a girls from a Pentecostal church. I asked my dad about going to a pentecostal church service, and he said something to the effect of "check it out, tell me what you think." So, I went and there was a whole lot of stuff that was very outside of my neat little baptist expectation of what a church service should be. I tolerated it enough, thinking: "wow, these people are kooky!"

That was only the beginning! They cleared the chairs away for the prayer ministry time. I said to myself: "Whoa. What's going on here?" So the girl I was with got "slain" or whatever. Many things were going on, and I was basically shaking in my skater shoes, actively condemning everything around me and wondering when this weird stuff was going to be over! With all the good Pentecostals doing various things, I was left standing alone in the middle. Then, the minister looked at me directly in the eye and said,"Young man, the Lord has His hand on you!"

Well, at that point, my reaction was this: "If His hand is on me, then He can find me outside, because I'm outta here!" I spent the rest of the service outside.

Fast forward 11 years (thank God for His patience). My life had pretty much been a tailspin downward past that previous point. I moved out of my parent's home, got married, and I found out just WHAT was lurking in my soul that I had been suppressing with constant stimuli (media, TV, going everywhere, basically distracting myself from a broken and angry and hurting heart). Man, it was like taking a bunch of sleeping bees and kicking their nest! You can ask my wife and she'll tell you that our first few years together were hardly pleasant. I believe "hell on earth" was a popular phrase people use to describe situations less serious than what we went through. This is where my Christian upbringing with all the Bible that I knew and all the training that people had tried to instill in me came into play. I was basically running like the prophet Jonah and constantly seeing the inside of many, many whale stomachs. I am very thankful for my upbringing; I knew mentally that everything that I was doing was wrong and all the Scripture and prayer created sort of a bedrock in the darkness I was in so that I actually didn't go as deep into trouble as I could have.

I was so messed up that God had to get really creative to get my attention. He's a very creative Creator. A series of prophetic words directed straight at my heart cut through all of that darkness. My desire to be in control of my life had gotten me nowhere fast. The Holy Spirit began moving in me mightily, but only to the degree that I allowed Him to pry open my clenched fists. I gave Him what was killing me so He could give me what I was dying to receive.

Bringing us up to the present, the night I got baptised in the Holy Spirit the same way Acts 2 Christians did, I had an experience almost identical to the one I had run from so many years earlier; but I was at a place of brokenness and need and I KNEW I needed to go deeper than I was. For all the rules and theology and all the wonderful teachings of Christianity, they can't save you. Only the Author can. So, I allowed His hand to rest on me. It was an amazingly powerful experience. In less than a year, I've spoken in new tongues, broken curses, cast out demons, and experienced healings just like Mark 16:17 said should be the experience of every believer (no expiration date was given...it's not a cup of yogurt).

No matter where you're at in your experience with God, or if you're nowhere, just imagine a pool that goes from 3 inches deep to the bottom of the deepest trench in the ocean. Just know that you can always go deeper. Going deeper is sometimes scary, but that is where the "conforming to the image of Christ" really starts to shape you. Up in the "3 inches deep" area is where the crybabies who pee themselves play. The victory in Christ, all of the "meat" Scriptures, the blessings that are chock full in that book are all in the Deep End. I'm going down. Anybody else want to come?

Abba's Son, P.H.D.

There are those who try to explain a collective lack of faith. Theology sounds well-studied and I respect it and appreciate it. However, it does not make my failures hurt any less. My educated idiot box (my mind) agrees with theological stances. The problem is, though, that God is beyond anyone's mind. He cannot be explained. He cannot be manufactured, and any attempt to do so will leave me in a bad place in life. Though legally salvation is mine, and I am a child of God, I can live like an orphan; struggling through everything and going to man for my manna!

I declare to everyone the truth whenever I can! Our Father is better than any of us know. We are children of God! "Those who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God". There is a large difference between a "child" of God and a "son" of God. A child may know every theological truth that man has fashioned; though he is immature in actual, real miracle working faith! A "son" is led by the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead! Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever!

Don't get me wrong; sombody's salvation, or lack thereof, is a 100% consecrated issue. I never truly know. That's God's business, not mine. I try to pay little attention to the "weeds" ( tares among the wheat), and I spend my time planting "seeds" (the pure Word of God, unadulterated by man's thinking and tradition).

I am speaking now in definitions. A "believer" should believe. A "doubter" should doubt. We are believers! The Word of God states in James that "He who doubts should not expect anything from God." Faith and childlike trust is the only acceptable currency in the Kingdom of God. Theology is for grownups! We are called to become like little children, or we shall never see the Kingdom of God!

I have had relationship struggles with people for a long time. I've always been fiery and many people who oppose my stances do so dutifully, faithfully, and consistently. I can understand why, because the majority of my life I was burning for the wrong reason and fighting the wrong fights. I was blind and dumb as a box of rocks! But I've been changed! God has cleared my vision, and I burn only for Him now. The Holy Spirit is the One to tell me whether to "stoke" or to "choke" the flames.

The Lord has led me to speak now about King Asa of Judah (found in 2 Chronicles). King Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord because he tore down idols. However, in Asa's thirty-sixth year of reigning, the King of Israel went to war against him. He had the option of relying on the Lord or relying on the help of the king of Aram. He decided to bribe the king of Aram to help him. The story continues with a prophet: "At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him,'Because you relied on the king of Aram and not on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Aram as escaped from your hand. Were not the Cushites and Libyans a mighty army with great numbers of chariots and horsemen? Yet when you relied on the Lord, he delivered them into your hand. For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. You have done a foolish thing, and from now on you will be at war.'" The story then continues with Asa becoming ill: "In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa was afflicted with a disease in his feet. Though his disease was severe, even in his illness he did not seek help from the Lord, but only from the physicians. Then in the forty-first year of his reign Asa died and rested with his fathers."

If you are trusting God, that is all the insight you need. All other sight is outsight (not insight!) because it is outside of the will of God! Asa could have continued in a path of blessing, but he trusted too much in men. He trusted the king of Aram and not God. He trusted his physicians and not God. God is our deliverer and God is our healer.

I am Abba's son and P.H.D. stands for a "perfect and holy daddy", because that's what Abba is and I am His.

high functioning or overcoming?

I'm not going to pretend to know much about physical disorders and such, but i have come to know there is a distinction between high functioning and not.
Revelation 21:7 " He said to me, It is done, I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. To him who is thirsty , i will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.HE WHO OVERCOMES WILL INHERIT ALL OF THIS , and i will be his God ,and he will be my son (or daughter) . But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile , the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts (rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, so is manipulation) the idolaters and the liars-their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. "this is the second death"

Why is it always the list is longer on the ways you can miss the mark (sin) , than on how to do it right? I think Jesus knew our weak state, that we are made of dust, with hearts that are so easily deceived and led astray. "Prone to wander , Lord i feel it , prone to leave the God i love" I challenge anyone who calls Jesus "lord" to aim higher than what i have dubbed "sin management" I spent much of my life as a high functioning sinner, i had the whole routine worked out! I could talk a good talk (depending on who was around) I knew a lot of Bible , and could sound like i had it all figured out. Praise God he blew that false identity out of the water!

I encourage you, let the holy spirit speak to you personally about everything in your life, let him in to every detail. He has called us to be OVERCOMING SAINTS! Anything less than that, is a compromise with the world, the flesh , and the devil. In a war (spiritual ) we know that our God is absolutely right , and that any thing else that is not 100% holy, is most definitely Not from Him!

Let him call the shots , not you ! there are grey areas is the many arguments people raise about 1000's of issues, but there is no grey area with our heavenly father. It's either holy , or not!
Let him make you into an overcomer! Read the word for the many promises he makes to the overcomers. Any sacrifice you make now , in an effort to purify your life , will reap great rewards in walking in victory now, and eternally enjoying his presence as an overcomer!

Stand and Be Ready

Ephesians 6:10 says,"Finally, grow powerful in union with the Lord, in union with his mighty strength! Use all the armor and weaponry that God provides, so that you will be able to stand against the deceptive tactics of the Adversary. For we are not struggling against human beings, but against rulers, authorities and cosmic powers governing this darkness against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm. So take up every piece of war equipment God provides so that when the evil day comes you will be able to resist, and when the battle is won, you will still be standing. Therefore, stand!"

I know a lot about standing. I'm a machinist. I stand a lot. It's hard. I'd rather be on the move all the time. I'm still trying to figure out why God called me into this. But that's one solid thing I know. It requires a lot of standing.

When I speak about spiritual warfare, I would just love to tell you it's like Hollywood. Truth is, I can't explain it; I can try to share scriptures, and personal experience...that hardly makes me an expert. I know what I am. I'm a warrior! My parents said I was an angry baby. I've always had a sense that I was in a battle. This spiritual warfare thing is so cool. It simply draws the lines to show you the battle that you've always been a part of and you're left with a decision: choose a side! Stand! Keep standing...

To me, the most tedious part IS the standing. I like swinging swords! I like tearing things up! We're talking about our whole life here. Whether you want to talk about angels, or demons, or God, or Satan; whether we're young or old...all these things existed before us and will continue to exist after us. I'm simply trying to tell myself and anybody else listening that this could take some time. I'm extremely thankful for some revelation on this battle (we tend to call it life). It's actually much simpler to think about it in terms of a battle.

I don't want to burden anybody with thoughts that are too heavy, but I'll be going to work tomorrow and thinking about this. Every decision you come to, every word, thought, deed, action, and even intention of your heart will advance SOMEBODY'S kingdom. Bob Dylan can't sing, but he hit it on the head when he said,"You're going to have serve somebody. It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you're going to have to serve somebody." There you go! Think about that for a little bit.

Now Or Later

This blog is dedicated to Max Price, Leroy and Tommy Callison, and Maurice (plus any various crackheads and many temps from Recycled Fibers of Ohio).

Let me start with the previous mentioned parties (as you may not even remember me). Believe it or not, working with you guys left a lasting impression. (a good impression) Max, with your first day temp ticket in your briefcase and saying,"I wish I owned this place so I could drag you out in the street and beat you into a pulp and not have to fire myself!" You taught me how to work hard but work steady; to keep an eye out around me for others, which was a very fundamental lesson that somehow I escaped learning even though I grew up in the church. To 'safely' operate a tow motor in very dangerous conditions...

Leroy, you taught me a lot. Thanks for putting ends on the extension cord that I found in the trash pile. Thanks for keeping an eye on me and helping out with lots of stuff. You'd better be nice to Tommy because he's the best thing you ever produced!

Tommy, if you've not gotten out of this crazy place, or if you're actually telling the truth, and you ARE impervious to pornography, you may be the only man on the planet that is. If that is so, blessings! Stay! Tear men away from the PC mag pile unless they're looking for Bibles! Dude, you sowed into my life so much. Praise God for you. Keep looking after your family. If you haven't been walking with God, He's still there and you're not a whore (and even if you are, He loves you, too). Thanks, bro.

Maurice, MAINTAINING AND SUSTAINING WITH NO COMPLAININ'! Thanks for the line, you big whiner, and I'm far enough away from you now that you can't kick my butt. You're a really good foreman...one of the best I've ever had.

For the rest of you who have read this far, and are still reading, thank you! Allow me to explain: I worked for about a year at a paper recycling plant in Moraine, Ohio (Dayton area). So for any of you think I'm not 'go green'...phooey. It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it. The only reason I left the job is because I was trying to stay faithful to my wife to keep a promise I made to her and to obey the Lord. God led me out of there with my stinkin' perverse mind and my $8 per hour to a company who paid better, had better benefits, better working environment, and it was good foundational training for work I would do later. I'm now making $16 per hour with the best benefits available in America. I work for a man who loves the Lord more than anything. That in itself is testimony to where God has led me. Praise His holy name!

So, back to RFO (recycled fibers of ohio)...

We recycled cardboard, and all kinds of paper. Most of it was pretty harmless (except for the dead dogs and unexplainable garbage). There was one pit in particular that tended to get a lot of people in trouble. The PC mag pit. If I remember correctly, that's 'post consumer magazines'. The pen is truly mightier than the sword, and pictures are even stronger. So, given the type of paper, this pit contained primarily old bibles that didn't make the final publishing, and hard pornography.

Deuteronomy 30:19-20 says,"This day, I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life that you and your children may live. And you may love the Lord your God, listen to His voice and hold fast to Him. For the Lord is your life, and He will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."

Never in my life and never again have I seen such a dramatic example of blessings and curses in the same place. It was a very dark time in my life and my life was shot. I remember trying to be a good little baptist, singing praises to my God at sunrise. When the sun comes up, even over Moraine, it's beautiful. I remember singing in my tow motor "Holy, Holy, Holy". One of my problems at that time was that I was hip deep in pornography. I somehow managed to keep it hidden from my wife for about four months. That was the worst four months of my life. I finally got the guts (or she extracted it) to tell her the truth.

Let me take this moment to tell you the truth: You are naked before God. He sees everything you do, everything you think, and everything you watch, and everything you say. You will remember your life here for all of eternity, either in heaven or hell. Jesus is coming soon(He said 'soon' 2000 years ago and a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day to him). So let me say this first to me, and then to anybody who's listening...REPENT! FOR THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND! Wash your hands you sinners, and cleanse your hearts, you double minded. The judge of all the earth is standing at the door and you will have to give an account for everything you do in your life. That is the truth. Jesus Christ is Lord. He loves you, no matter how messed up you are. I'm sure you've heard the gospel a million times in America (we're just not very good at living it out). Thank you if you've read this far.

So, I made one promise to my wife that I actually kept. I told her if I kept falling into pornography I would quit my job. So I did. And God led me to much better places. I learned something there by what we produced. You take bulk paper, either in book form or magazine form, and you break it down into loose paper and feed it into a conveyor which feeds into a baler machine. So, then you ship bales of paper to the various paper mills where it is broken down to the core elements of the paper and then recycled. I wouldn't want any of you to actually see this, because it's rather disturbing, to see the precious word of God ignored and treated like trash right along side the nastiest filthiest porn that's available in the world.

God started speaking to me clearly about this time in my life. When I heard him speak, I tried to obey. He blessed me every step of the way. If you don't want to do the big study, I'll make it simple: trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey. The whole law of God and the prophets is to love God with everything you have and to love your neighbor as yourself. Pornography, in particular, loves no one. It treats human beings (men and women) as if they were animals. Pieces of meat for sale to feed a ravenous, disgusting, pack of dogs that are never satisfied. I'll tell you one thing I learned: if you care about your livestock (I'm a farmer), put down the wolf. If you care about your family, put down the filth. If you care about your soul, and your eternal standing with God, you need to picture the end of your life as that bale of paper, because whatever you produce in life is going to be put before God for His inspection.

"Only one life, and soon it will be past. Only what you've done for the Lord will last." -Christafari

A Different Take On 'Train Up Your Child'

We were having dinner at Wendy's tonight, and I saw a horrific display of disrespecting parents. There was a boy who looked about pre-teen age with his father and grandmother. The boy looked at his dad (who had a cast on his arm) and he said," I can't stand you; why don't you just shut up!" He continued to say 'shut up' many times. My wife saw the grandmother giggling. Well, me in all my country charm, just about offered to this man: "Obviously, one of your arms is healing and your boy needs a thrashing. Do you want me to take him out back?" Apparently, it's not polite to talk about that in public, so I didn't say anything, but you all are going to hear about it now.

Proverbs 22:6 says," Train your child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not turn from it."

Now, I'll admit: I like to play with words. The Word of God also says that there is power in words; both for life and death. So, I like to see what life I can eke out of them.

Let's picture training your kid as being a lot like making a place for a locomotive to go. This is going to be a challenge to all the parents (in fact it's challenging me even as I write it). Let's start at zero: picture a train with absolutely no track. It's big, it's powerful and it has the potential to do great things. But it can go nowhere. If it tries to go anywhere, it'll just tear up everything around it. This is not a good thing, especially as we refer back to training children. You have to start somewhere, even if you haven't done much of anything. You may say," I don't know how to teach." I tell you, if you're able to hold down a job, make a living, etc., you could teach them something, even if it doesn't seem like much to you.

So let's go back to the train analogy. Picture a locomotive with not enough track. It's got a full head of steam, making good progress, and it's really going somewhere. Somewhere along the line, it runs out of track. This is possibly worse than having no track at all. We've all seen what happens when trains come off the track. This is a challenge, again, to all the parents: don't ever give up! Don't give up on your marriage and don't ever give up on raising your kids, either. You've started a good thing, now finish what you've started.

I've got to believe that the best way to raise kids is with vision. Picture this: you've not only got them started and kept them going, but you've given them a vision that will far outlast you. You need to understand that the family is the most important thing that you'll ever do. You could give your whole life to some company or job and they'll forget you in six months. Your family will remember you for generations. Understand that you have a position of power and influence. There is no better 'track' to follow than God's Word. It will not only help you steer your own life right, but that will lay the foundation for the future generations of your family.

How To Be Blessed In A Dark World

Deuteronomy 30:19 says,"This day I have called heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live."

Time to talk about a subject that people don't like about. Preachers, pastors, psychologists, counselors, teachers, etc. try to explain away problems or throw pills at them. Have we forgotten we are spiritual beings? Have we forgotten that this is a war? Have we forgotten that what we do matters? Yes, we have forgotten! Now let us remember!

1 Corinthians 16:22 says," If anyone does not love the Lord, a curse be on him!" That's the Apostle Paul being led by the Holy Spirit. I wanted to throw that one in there for anyone who likes to disregard the Old Testament. Curses by godly men were spoken well past Jesus' time. I understand that we can't take the Word out of context, but you can't treat it like two books--it's one book with the same message throughout. I'll sum it up: We made a big mess and God needs to get us out of it!

So now let us talk about what messes we've gotten ourselves into. One thing that we do from time to time (but some of us are really good at) is DISOBEDIENCE. Disobedience brings a curse! REBELLION, DISRESPECT FOR AUTHORITY (whom God put there), ANY FORM OF OCCULT (horoscope, witchcraft, mind-altering drugs), NEGATIVE SPEECH, MORAL SINS, SINS OF OUR ANCESTORS, LEGALISM, CARNALITY, APOSTASY, THEFT, PURGERY, ROBBING GOD (tithe), SELF-IMPOSED CURSES (cursing oneself or one's own body), CURSES SPOKEN OVER US BY SERVANTS OF SATAN, etc. These are all things we deal with that muck up our lives and steal our freedom that Christ wants to give us.

Haggai 1:5 says,"This is what the Lord Almighty says,'give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill, you put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it." If any of you think I'm preaching too hard, I'll tell you personally that my life used to be like this verse. Now that God has shown me the mess I was in and how to get out, I literally have no need. I don't want to brag, but I'm a blessed man. We've been able to do things on my meager income that people don't normally do, and it's all God's blessing. If you feel that you're putting your money into a purse with holes in it, you probably are!

My desire for the people of God is to be blessed. This can not be done accidentally. It's easy to fall into a pit or a murky quagmire, but it takes a little bit more work to get out of it. Let me just say that I highly recommend that you read Derek Prince's book "Blessing and Curses: you can choose". I'm pulling a lot of this information straight from this book and it has helped us immensely to put an end to curses and to enter the blessings of God.

One important thing that I've learned is that forceful men take hold of the Kingdom of God. If you're just content to get stomped on by the world and kicked around by Satan, then that's exactly what you're going to get. But if you, as a son or daughter of God, rise up in Christ and have the boldness to say,"I am blessed, and I want nothing less," that forcefulness will see you through. This is not for the faint of heart. There's a certain truth in the saying,"Nothing's free"; true, God's grace is free for everybody, but it cost Christ everything. His grace is free to all, but His blessings are conditional; you cannot live the way you want to and expect to be blessed. He tells us clearly in the Word what He blesses and what He doesn't. See Deuteronomy 28. The cool thing about God's Word is that if you honor it, the blessings will overtake you. On the flipside, if you rebel against it, the same thing happens with the curses. Either way, God's Word is supreme and it has the power to rule all men.