Oh what POWER!!!

Onto more books!!

Last night I started I Believe in Visions by Kenneth E. Hagin which is an amazing book and a personal testimony. He had a miraculous childhood, living with a heart condition. Then when he was about 16 yrs old, he died. Then quickly came back to life. This happened 3 times within a short period of time and he was able to remember and retell his experiences. He wasn't a Christian and being saved from the agony of hell, he committed his life to Christ. He was also bedridden at the time and prayed, believed and received healing to walk again. Which he did.(which took a while as his muscles were very weak) He started attending a Full Gospel church that believed in miraculous healing, prophecy and speaking in tongues. He was then convinced that speaking in tongues was in scripture. He went to his pastor and asked that he pray over him that he would be baptised in the Holy Spirit/that he would speak in tongues. His pastor told him to wait, for he had to wait 3 and a half years before he spoke in tongues. He pointed to some scripture that showed no signs of waiting then they both prayed, he believed and received then spoke in tongues for an hour and a half.

I want to speak in tongues. Not because it sounds cool or because I want to be different. But because of what the bible says about it. All the gifts of the Spirit: wisdom, teaching/preaching, evangelism, prophecy, healing.....are for edification of the Body. All except speaking in tongues. Speaking in tongues is personal edification, its encouragement for the individual, its praising God in a language that has not been defiled, it recharges you, and can be evidence that you've been baptised in the Holy Spirit (as opposed to baptism in water or in the name of Jesus). I want to be encouraged and 'recharged'.
I've been learning a lot about the Holy Spirit lately: about that great power within us, about being filled and baptised in the Holy Spirit and how that's different from being baptised in water, about the work being done in me, through me and for me.
I stopped reading and prayed. I prayed that not only would I be filled with the Holy Spirit but that I would receive. I prayed that I would speak in tongues that my spirit would be recharged. I didn't speak in tongues. Immediately the enemy mocked me for trying. I simply have a lot of growing to do, which I'm okay with. But its so hard to ignore the enemy's doubts and discouraging words when you are trying to process things. I wondered what I had done wrong. Did I not pray the right words, were my intentions pure and God-glorifying, did I just need to wait? I don't know, I'm okay with not speaking in tongues for now. The enemy would really have to fight a lot harder than that for me to doubt God's word.


I decided that that book would need to be more for meditation and pondering....read a bit slower, so I took another book to work. Transforming Grace: Living Confidently in God's Unfailing Love by Jerry Bridges. Reading the first part of the first chapter caused me to think a bit more about last night and my efforts towards speaking in tongues. So far he's talked about how we perceive grace, that we see grace end at salvation and rely on our own efforts for the rest of our Christian walk. The first part is right, its by grace that we are saved. But its also by grace that we do this, that and everything else. I think about the difference between Christians who have been raised up in the Church and those who are recent 'converts'. I've always wanted to be one who hadn't grown up in the church because they always grasp the concept of grace. They've experienced what its like to be without Christ and have truly felt what its like to be saved...rescued. The rest of us, those who've grown up in the Church, are like spoiled children not realizing where they were headed without Christ. We are the ones who don't understand grace, we are the ones who think we don't have to rely on Christ for everything. But we do.....and I wonder if when I prayed to speak in tongues if I wasn't relying on Christ 100%. I wonder if I was saying to myself subconsciously, "Okay, I'm ready now, I'll do it." Of course I asked, but maybe my prayer was more asking permission instead of asking that He work in me, that He would take over.

I'm okay with continuing to grow and learn!!

Dang!!!

I was just about to post another blog when an error message appeared. It didn't go up....its gone....forever. It was really long too...and good, I don't want to write it again :(
Thanks to crappy internet, it will be shorter!

Wow!!! I look forward to that Day

I finally finished Safely Home....a truly amazing book. Though it was fiction it was filled with scripture and was challenging, encouraging, and motivating.

Since leaving off from the second to last post; Ben (the business man) came back to God while in China, his friend, Li Quan, was arrested for attending house churches and persecuted while in jail. Ben tried everything he could to help his friend but it was God's plan for both of them. Li Quan ended up dying in jail and the description of what happened was amazing!! Of course there was the traditional 'visiting family' after dying accompanied by someone....his guardian angel who fought for him day after day and comforted him when he felt alone. But the part I liked is what happened when he got to heaven. He saw lots of people he knew and met those he had only heard of, though they had never met they felt like family. Then they brought him before the King. When he approached the throne (as only His children could do, not angels) the King ran to embrace him. Since he was a martyr he recieved a white robe and a crown, the King whispered to him his new name and healed his wounds. All of this is amazing and something I look forward to, all of this is mentioned in the Word. But the amazing thing about Heaven is not the blessings or things we recieve, its spending eternity with God--our Creator, the One we've been longing for forever. Its hard to read Revelation and sense the joy and emotion that comes with entering heaven and seeing God face to face so it seems we replace it with the excitement of recieving things. The author did an amazing job describing emotions felt in the presence of God. Overwhelming fear as His eyes burned against His enemies, overwhelming peace and comfort when embraced by the King, and the sense of all your longings fulfilled. Will we ever stop longing and yearning? No, but when we do long and yearn for more---we will be filled over and over again. The book ends with Li Quan's son as the last martyr and the King declaring the time to rescue His people and destroy His enemies. The earth feels destruction and darkness as the heavens rejoice as those who have suffered are vindicated.

I can't wait to finally see our King face to face, to embrace Him and hopefully hear "Well done, good and faithful servant."

Blah!!

So, I guess I won't be writing over weekends. Not unless I get really bored, which is highly unlikely. Somehow I keep insanely busy and actually have to make a concious effort to escape to have time to myself and spend time with God.

I am completely out of work to do until 12:50 tomorrow or until someone gives me more work to do. Until then I guess I'll finish my book!!

I am wwwaaaaaaayyy too efficient

So I work in a research lab that is very quiet, cold and gloomy where I sit surrounded by cinderblock walls and no windows nearby. It's kinda lame but the worst part is I'm quickly running out of work to do. Most of my work depends on the work of others. Usually there's an enormous pile of gels to be run, as I've finished my other work, I've been running gels day after day. I look at the end of today and there are two left. If I stretch it, that's only 4 hours of work. What am I going to do next week?!?! I'm going to have to pray for more work. Or just read a new book everyday.

I really, really try not to complain because from every other point of view this would be the best job ever. But I can't stand sitting around all day. You are supposed to do work at a job and get paid for it. For now I'll shut up, stick it out and get paid for nothing.

Fight, Fight, Fight!!!

I'm about halfway through Safely Home now. Its probably 3 times as thick as the other books I had read, so I knew it would take longer. But I wanted to comment on a part I just read which reminded me of my previous post and the spiritual warefare book idea.

Ben--the now skeptical 'Christian' businessman was reading a book on the Dali Lama and when his friend Li Quan saw the book, he wanted it out of his home. Since Ben couldn't understand Li Quan's lack of "acceptance" of the book, Li Quan decided to take him to a Buddist temple. They didn't even go inside and could feel darkness. Two priests were standing in the doorway and Li Quan began quoting scripture which made the priests angry. A dark, deep, 'otherworldly' voice cried out, "Begone." which made Ben feel nauseous. One priest fled into the temple while the other's eyes became clouded and started making threats as if someone else was speaking through him. Li Quan continued to speak the name of Jesus and at one point the priest reached out and barely touched Ben's chest which made him fly backward about seven feet.

How awesome!!! It also mentioned that the priest who touched Ben couldn't get very close to Li Quan which reminds me of Nepal. The five of us girls were walking around town one night (probably not the best idea anyway) and came across a demon-possessed woman who started walking alongside us. We couldn't tell what she was saying but she kept reaching out to touch at least one of us and couldn't, all five of us got a sick feeling in our stomachs. Evil can't touch us!!!! The Holy Spirit is like a Holy forcefield or something.....way to amazing!!!

Its sad though that in America its so easy to forget that we are in the midst of a huge war, bigger than we can imagine!!

Why do we all want to write books?

I finished Dangerous Wonder yesterday and as I said it was good. It was kind of all about throwing caution to the wind and realizing the law was made for those who wonder off the trail. Childlike faith is important-- it was important to Jesus, yet we spend most of our time making up rules to follow and kicking the childlike-ness out of each other. The author challenges us to embrace childlike-ness, why shouldn't we? We are too afraid that we'll look weird compared to others. I don't remember comparing myself to others when I was 5 yrs old and the bible says we will look weird anyway.....we are supposed to be fools in the eyes of the world. If we don't are we doing something wrong. I would guess that just as we can't serve both God and money, we can't look 'cool' in both God's eyes and the eyes of the world.

Moving on, I'm now reading Safely Home by Randy Alcorn. This one is fiction and really good, I have a hard time putting it down when I finally have work to do. I'm only a fourth of the way through but so far its about two men. One man, Ben is a successful business man who went to Harvard, and went through a divorce losing his wife and two kids for further success. He was once a strong believer and now can't remember the last time he prayed. His friend, who he met in college and invited to a campus ministry, is Li Quan from China. Coming to America he found a relationship with Christ and earned a PhD in History. Moving back to China, he couldn't find a job since he was now a Christian and now works as a poor locksmith. Ben is visiting Li Quan on business to learn more about the culture.
Its basically a book on Christian persecution.


So in the middle of reading this book and thinking about spiritual warfare, I kinda thought of a cool fiction book to write, or really one idea for a possible book. (I'll probably never write a book. I'm too lazy and I hate writing)
So here's my idea kind of based off of Eph. 6:11- 17
Two friends find out about an underground spiritual warfare training thing that goes on at like 3am every morning. One has been a few times before the other thinks their friend is crazy. They both grab their bibles--their swords and head off down dark alleys until they find the place. Once inside the friend who has been there before starts telling the other friend how everything works. The bible is your sword and to use it you have to quote scripture. At first you have to visualize yourself with sword in hand ready to attack then quote some verses to finally get used to 'fighting.' Having only a handful of verses memorized the 'novice' friend gets discouraged but finally spouts out a long verse: Heb. 4:12, does a couple flicks of the wrist, spins into a kick and finishes with a couple jabs. In awe of the adrenaline rush and the power of the Word the friend gets even more excited.........

I'll leave that for someone else to write a book about.....that was too much writing and thinking for me. I think I'll just read!!!

I got a little hungry......

So within the past 2 weeks I've read about 4 books.  I was getting really bored at work and Facebook can only entertain you for so long.  I tried reading my Bible but sitting in silence, air conditioning, and randomly reading....well, lets just say I couldn't keep my eyes open.  

I searched for a book that I owned that I could read and found Freshman: The College Students Guide to Developing Wisdom by Mark Matlock.  I got it for free from NAVS.  It wasn't too bad, but wasn't incredibly gripping or relevant through all parts.  It was however a good guide for developing wisdom as an incoming freshman---what it was made for.  The last two chapters were what I found as the most important: a chapter on relationships and a chapter on mentors.  It was great that the book pointed out that college is not/should not be were you come to find the 'one', and if you do find someone godly qualities should be valued.  The other chapter emphasized the importance of finding someone to pour into your life.  I plan to give this book to my brother who just graduated high school.....let's hope he's still in the mood to read!!!

I moved on to And the Word Came With Power by Joanne Shetler.  I had read it once before the summer after my freshman year of college during Project Impact, but we had to read it in one day and I didn't remember much of it.  Though I do remember that it was amazing, and it still is!!  Its about a woman who surrenders her dreams of a normal life in a country home working as a nurse for an adventure with God.  She realizes she's supposed to be a missionary but fears that the people she speaks to (who will have probably never heard the gospel before) would only hear what she has to say.....which doesn't seem good enough.  She goes off with more schooling, becomes a nurse and falls in love with the need for translating the Word.  She 'signs up' and ends up in the Philippines as a full-time missionary, learning the language and translating God's word into a new language.  The people she lives with worship spirits for everything.  If someone is sick, they 'obviously' angered a spirit and must sacrifice an animal; if crops don't turn out well, they 'obviously' angered a spirit and again must sacrifice.  Half the time after they would sacrifice the spirits still wouldn't be pleased and would require more.  The people were truly enslaved.  They would come close to running out of food because they had to make so many sacrifices.  When Joanne showed up she didn't tolerate the animal sacrifices.  There was only one girl in the village who wouldn't give in and she lost her whole family.  Awesome events happen that are completely God and as the scriptures become translated into their language and the people read, their lives become transformed and they start living out the Church without much effort. 

This book gave me a deeper yearning to pray for people's passion for the Word of God.

I ran out of books, I had read all my new ones, and didn't want to read my old ones again.  I asked Chelsea if I could borrow some and the first I chose to read was The God Chasers: My Soul Follows Hard After Thee by Tommy Tenney.  It was amazing and I'll probably have to dedicate a whole other post to that book.  It talked a lot about revival: what it is, how we view it and how we should view it.  Basically revival is God's presence among us, it's repenting so He can come closer, it's hungering after God so much that your hearts yearns for more than that which satisfies.  He talked about how the presence of God is so heavy in a place that once someone enters, they immediately drop to their knees in repentance.  Then this is how numbers are added to the Church, God's presence--prayed for and brought on by His faithful and hungry followers will come and cause those who do not yet believe to cry out in repentance.  

Now I'm reading Dangerous Wonder: The Adventure of Childlike Faith by Michael Yaconelli.  It's very interesting and though I'm not on board with all of his thoughts and ideas, a lot of them are radical and can be life changing once application takes place.  It's interesting because he talks about how we train kids to behave by the worlds standards.  We kind of act like the Pharisees or disciples coming up with rules and laws while Jesus is breaking them down and freeing us from those snares.  I'm not done reading it yet but we'll see if it all comes together in the end, or if its mostly a strain of connected thoughts. 

Sometimes I wish I read faster, there's quite a few books that I'd like to read.  But then I would have to process faster---my brain might go crazy.

Get excited!!!

I've decided to start a blog....the only one I've done before was on myspace...and because I never signed on, well, I never wrote much. We shall see how this goes. I'm hardly consistent in journaling but I'm crossing my fingers that since this is online and I can access it from anywhere (without the need to remember to bring my journal every time I leave the house) I should be able to write something every day.

The biggest motivator for this blog would be the influence of others and the books I've been reading lately. I know several people who read books continuously and write about them.....its great because you don't really have to read the book to find out all the good stuff--then if there's a lot of good stuff, you're motivated to read it!!! I think that's what most of my 'entries' will be about...books that I've been reading and ideas that I've been processing and meditating on. And hopefully people will read this and be motivated to read the same books or others, or even contemplate the same ideas that I've been mulling over. Either way I'm hoping this sparks a hunger or interest in.....someone.