Preposterousness

When Heaven Invades Earth

Continuing from my post after the first session of Bill's conference, and some tweets about it being the most amazing 24 hours of my life, here's my attempt to put into words what this weekend meant to me : * I've often come back from conferences 'hyped' and ready to do stuff. Once the hype wears off, so does the desire to do stuff. There was no hype here. In fact, almost the opposite. DaySpring Church are probably one of the most old-school-yet-modern pentecostal churches in Sydney and flowing in extended free-worship, prophecy, healing, etc is normal for them, which is undoubtedly one of the reasons why Bill has taken on apostolic leadership for the church. Both Diane and I have come away from the weekend feeling a shift in our mindsets, a shift in our spirits, and completely unhyped. Just ready to move deeper into the mysteries of our wonderful God. Everyone else who has been there this weekend is feeling the same. * If you're not familiar, do some research on Bill and Beni Johnson (his wife) and their home church Bethel in Redding, CA. Their ministry has seen people raised from the dead, creative healings, countless other miracles, and all without any of the flashiness that can sometimes be part of these ministries. They are real people. They both had people in the conference congregation praying for them, laying on hands, etc. * David Crabtree, the pastor of DaySpring, gave a snippet of his awesome teaching series on grace. In short, grace doesn't just mean "unmerited favour" like so many of us think. Try some word substitution with some key verses and you'll soon see that "empowered presence" is really what God is getting at. * By far the majority of the sessions were designed to help us walk in authority when we pray, especially for healing or recreative needs. We weren't just receiving, we were doing. Practical workshops in any other context always leave me feeling "ugh", but this was so beautiful, natural and real that I soon realised this is how I need to live my whole life. One thing Bill said that really resonated with me was about why some are healed and some aren't, etc, etc. This is not a direct quote, not even close, but I'm going to put it on here as a quote...for effect, ya know.

Jesus came to earth, fully God and fuly human, yet stripped himself of His divinity in order to live as humans except that He was completely without sin. He was therefore totally reliant on the power of the Holy Spirit to "do" all the things He did (and remember, if all of that was written down, there would not be enough room in the entire planet to house it). When Jesus died for us, we too became blameless, sinless. He then sent the Holy Spirit to live in and with us. So from the day of pentecost onwards, we have had exactly the same "tools" at our disposal as Jesus did. The only thing which prevents us from being as effective in our lives as Jesus was is our self-imposed separation from the fullness of the Holy Spirit. In other words, our free-will. We have all we need, we just don't use it, or even realise it. The reason some are healed and some aren't is that I'm not aware of everything that is going on, I'm not in that place of total submission to the Holy Spirit.

And that was from just one minute of the hours of gold this ministry team brought. The way he explained this made so much sense. If I haven't made sense, and you wanna know more, leave a comment and I'll try to elaborate or simplify. That's all I can process for now. I do plan on doing another post with some more of the thoughts from our notes (actually, Diane is likely gathering some thoughts for that post - a guest post from my wife!), but we eventually stopped taking notes as we've ordered the CDs. There is just too much to take in all at once. I take comfort in knowing that I'm not the only one who thinks this way too, others who've heard Bill speak before didn't even start taking notes and just ordered the CDs before the conference even began...they were ahead of the game.

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Posterous theme by Cory Watilo.

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When Heaven Invades Earth