Finding An Unseen God
07/21/2009
Today, I have the great honor of reviewing a new book that is out by Alicia Chole. This book is a very honest and daring look at the life of Alicia, who at one time was a professing Athiest. She tells the miraculous story of her birth, and how her parents were pushed by the doctors to abort her. They did not, of course, but it was very much a real act of faith on their part to go through with the pregnancy. I was very enlightened by Alicia’s candid honesty, sometimes extreme, but yet very refreshing and courageous. I was forced to take a look at my own faith at times, as well as look inside myself at what was going on inside my own heart and mind. I would highly recommend this book to people who have wondered what it may be like to be an athiest; who have wondered what it may be like to walk a day in their shoes. But even more so, I would recommend this book to people who are not so sure about their own belief in God. It has been very enlightening for me to read about Alicia Chole’s life. It is such a great story of love and redemption, and coming home to what life is really supposed to be all about. A real God who is desperately in love with the people He created and wants to have a personal relationship with them.
Here are some more things about this book from the website:
Truth is dead.
God never lived.
Life is filled with pain.
Death is the end of life.
These beliefs formed Alicia Britt Chole’s worldview as a young woman. “I sincerely believed that there was no God,” she says. “As a young Atheist, I simply considered myself a realist who preferred unanswered questions over fairy tales.”
Then one day, without warning, Alicia’s Atheistic worldvew was shattered.
Creatively written, Finding an Unseen God opens a window into Alicia’s surprising spiritual journey. With warmth, intellect, and compassion, Alicia invites us to carefully consider what we believe and do not believe, while she paints a vivid portrait of a God who relentlessly pursues even those who deny him.
Jesus shows up at Disneyland!!!
07/11/2009
Ok, so here is the story. I am going to let it speak for itself. Not only that, but following it there are 4 videos that were shot that day and I have posted them below the written account of what happened at Disneyland. The 4th video has the clip of a girl named Courtney who gets healed of scoliosis and a sprained thumb. This testimony is posted on Bethel Church’s website located at http://ibethel.org
HEALINGS BREAK OUT AT DISNEYLAND
I went down to see my best friend, Jason Tax, in Los Angeles, just to visit for a week and hang out—and who knows what adventure the Holy Spirit might lead us into. Jay and I love to do street evangelism together. On the way down, I saw a Disneyland sign, and I remembered the times of lying on my bed dreaming with the Holy Spirit of revival inside the theme park. I thought, “Wow that would be cool if that ever happened for real.”
I had the privilege of speaking at my friend’s church on Wednesday night, and after the service, a lady asked me if I wanted a free ticket to Disneyland the following day. Yippie, Jesus. I thought, Wow! Those tickets are $94!
Jason Tax, Hanna Ford and I went to Disneyland to have a great day in the sun with the Son—and God set us up through one key miracle of a young man’s shoulder that was in a sling. We approached him and asked if we could pray for healing. Jesus instantly completely healed his shoulder and he removed his sing and began to test it out. He started crying from God’s goodness, and he told us how he could not raise it at all because of a fresh torn rotator cuff injury. He then started raising his arm over his head and moving it as freely as the other one. His friends explained how he is the star football player at their school and he would have had to take the entire year off from football after his scheduled surgery, so we explained the gospel of Jesus Christ and the miracles to the group of eight or so, and they all got saved and filled with the Holy Spirit, and two of them got healed—one of scoliosis. The other had Jesus grow out his leg as his friends all looked on.
They all started freaking out, and the heavenly momentum hit and it erupted into an all-out Holy Spirit healing miracle service in the Disneyland food court for four and a half hours as groups of young people got their friends and brought them back to us for healing. They would come to us and say, “Can you heal this?” as they would point to a lump on their knee or a bad ankle. We would answer something like, “We can not heal anything but Jesus can heal everything and that same Jesus is in you now, so everyone put your hand on this person and say, ‘Be healed in Jesus’ name! Now test it out.’” Really, that’s how we prayed: “Be healed! Now test it out.” Almost every healing was instant as the looks of shock appeared on the faces, then praise and cheers to Jesus would erupt from the crowd of youth!
Flat feet were healed as arches formed in front of everyone to witness. One girl was so scared as her friends dragged her up to us. She was almost crying from fear. We told her, “Hon, you have nothing to be afraid of. This is Jesus and He loves you very much.” She had extreme scoliosis and a dislocated thumb that was in a hand brace. She was still very much afraid so we told her, “We won’t even need to touch you because the glory is here. Just remove your brace and move your thumb around.” She did and her thumb was instantly healed. We asked her to touch her toes and then check her back out. She did and her friends lifted up the back of her shirt to check out her spine. They all screamed because it was now perfectly straight. Jesus! We asked her if she knew Jesus, and she said no. We told her it was Jesus who just healed her and asked her if she would like to know that Jesus? She said yes, so she got saved and then we explained to her about being filled with the Holy Spirit and she said she wanted Him, too! So we asked her to put her hands out in front of her and say, “Holy Spirit, come and fill me up. I give my life to you.” She started shaking under the power of God. God is soooo good!
We witnessed bone knots dissolve from knees, asthma healed, crooked knees straightened out, and eyes healed. Some protruding ribs were pulled back into the chest. Even gold dust showed up on many and three youths experienced supernatural weight loss as their once tight pants got looser and looser. Screams erupted as one man grew an inch taller while everyone looked on.
A super cool thing was how each kid got saved and then we prayed for them to be filled with the Holy Spirit and almost every kid felt a strong manifestation of the Holy Spirit like electricity, heat, tingling all over their bodies or a heavy, weighty presence.
They would then ask us questions like, “Can you make the sadness I feel leave the inside of me?” All their friends would say, “I feel that way, too,” so we started praying in large groups, commanding depression to leave them and joy to come. Kids were crying, laughing, yelling “Jesus,” saying things like, “I can’t believe this! This is way better than any ride here!” Those kids were getting set free. We prayed for healing for the first few kids only. Then we taught the youth that the same Spirit dwells in each of them, and then we watched Jesus heal through their hands! We witnessed around 120-140 healings, most of them instant and about 100 or so decisions for Christ, of which 50 or so were first-time decisions, asking Jesus to forgive them of their sins. Yea, Jesus! One young man came up to me and said, “I never knew that Jesus died for me,” and he yelled at the top of his lungs: “Jesus!”
Deception!
07/10/2009
O.k. I know that I have been posting a lot of videos lately, and I confess that I have developed quite an addiction to youtube. I am just a very visual person, and I think that I am able to get more out of things if I can see them as well as hear or read them.
Well, this particular video addresses an issue that I have been hearing the Holy Spirit stir my heart about lately. Here is what has happened. I began reading the Bible for myself quite some time ago. This began 10 years ago when I went through Rapha and got a taste of what walking with God was like. However, during the last 3 years I have been a lot more submerged in the word than the years previously, mostly since I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Basically, I have been seeing in the Bible a different gospel than the one that I hear a lot of people preaching today. There is a huge deception out there that says that if you pray some little prayer, or make an altar call that you basically are ’saved’ from that point on and you can basically just do whatever you want to do after that and you will make it into heaven when you die. THIS IS A BIG FAT LIE STRAIGHT FROM THE PITS OF HELL! This simply IS NOT how the apostles did evangelism and this is probably the hugest deception to hit the face of Christianity. I will only ask you to pray about this and see what God shows you. Please watch this video, I know that it is kinda long, but I promise it will be well worth your time. I would also ask you that if we get ’saved’ by just praying a prayer, then please explain that to me in light of the parable of the foolish virgins, John the Baptist telling everyone to ‘repent’, and Jesus saying:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Matthew 7:21
I think it is time that we quit watering down the gospel. It will cost you everything to follow Jesus. There are no shortcuts. It is a call to repent, turn from your sin, be baptized and be filled with the Holy Spirit. If you haven’t done these things, then you, my friend, probably are not ’saved’ at all. Without holiness nobody will see God. (Hebrews 12:14)
Jesus is Alive
07/06/2009
This is the video that I was telling you about… good stuff.
Do You Love Gay People?
06/26/2009
There is also another really amazing video on the ooze’s website. It is a different interview with Andrew Marin, and really sparked some thinking!!!
Rainbows of Color
06/12/2009
This is one of my all time favorite songs. It was done by a guy who calls himself Grooverider. I used to own the record set that was a 7 record, limited edition pressing. It was also released on CD, but the vinyl had more songs, and they were the extended mixes for D.J.’s to use. This was one of the most groundbreaking records, entitled ‘Mysteries of Funk’, it launched a new spectrum of dance music, fusing jazz funk with drum and bass and breakbeat rhythyms. Truly a masterpiece, and still very inspiring to me to hear today. I had never seen this video before, and I really like it as well.
I got this record while I was living in Nashville sometime around 1997-1998. I lived in a house with some people who owned a record store called Faith Records. This is where I originally learned to D.J. and got my first set of turntables. There were 3 sets of Technics 1200’s in the house, and so there were lots of places to practice and learn. I stayed in the basement, and had my own little studio inside a closet down there that used to be used for a darkroom. I can still remember standing over those turntables full of joy, not having a clue what I was doing, but just saturated in the satisfaction of finally having my own set. I would crank up the sounds, and there was nobody down there to complain. I had a lot of fun in that little room.
I am being reminded of how when I first started I had no clue what I was doing. But then, with practice and asking a lot of questions, I finally started to understand how the whole thing worked. Gradually, I moved further along the scale from being a newbie to actually being pretty good. This is reminding me of my walk with God, and how when we first start out we are babes. And gradually, through trial and error, we learn to be more Christlike in our behavior. As God changes us and ‘fixes’ us, we are constantly being made more like Jesus. And as he says, either you fall on the rock or the rock falls on you. Mrs Debbie says, it’s a hard place… but a good rock. Boy, does she got that right lol.
I heard a quote yesterday that I decided to keep:
“The funny thing about the walls of our limitations, is that they move.”
I love the quote that Jesus made in John 7:17
If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.
One thing is for certain… if you never try… you will never know.
New Reviews!
06/01/2009
The time has come for me to share about a book that I have been reading. It has been an amazing read, and very challenging and informative as well.
The book is titled “Christ in Y’all” and is written by Neil Carter. Neil is a schoolteacher in the Atlanta area, and is a member of a community church that was originally planted by Gene Edwards.
I must tell you that right from the very beginning I was captivated. In the very first chapter, Neil gives the reader a very thorough, yet easy to understand, run down on the basics of the Kingdom gospel – the Good News, if you will. The Good News that is the message that Jesus came to earth to deliver. Freedom for the captives, and a whole new mindset, which requires us to leave everything behind that we know, and enter into a new reality where Jesus is the King and Lord.
Neil reminds us that we were made for community. And he also paints us a picture to show the difference in the church as we know it now, with all of the programs, and organization verses the way church was supposed to be – free, organic, and transparent. Neil speaks of the freedom that we can experience when we let our guard down and dare to do church differently, where the Holy Spirit is the head, and the body is released to function as the body.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. -Colossians 3:16 (italics mine)
If Paul mentions that we are to teach and admonish one another, obviously he had more in mind than us just coming together and allowing one man to mediate our lessons for the day. When we “do church” as a community, we allow the Holy Spirit to work through each and every person to reveal what is on the heart of the Father, and this is exactly what Neil is suggesting that we do.
There is so much good information in this book. If you attend a community church, it would be a good read as there are lots of ideas that will spark new directions and activities for you to do together. If you have never even thought about the idea of community, or the concept is new to you, then I would suggest giving the book a whirl, and asking God to reveal his heart to you.
What an amazing book! It has been a very enjoyable read!
Here are some links for you to check out as well:
And there is a CD that I aquired from one of the members of Neil’s fellowship named DeDe. She is a singer/songwrited and her CD is an EP titled “From the Fields of Boaz” It is an incredible CD, and you can also listen to her music here:
http://www.myspace.com/dedemusic
and here: http://www.amcrex.com/music.php
I am so glad that I get a chance to review this CD! It is realy unique and DeDe has a really amazing voice! I was blown away by the passion that she has for the Lord, and it is a very uplifting and honest CD. My personal favorite song is “Wonderful” but the entire EP is truly a masterpiece. Very heartfelt and intimate, yet passionate and moving all at the same time! It is quickly becoming a personal favorite of mine! By all means, check it out!
There are more reviews on the way! I have a lot to read this month! Stay tuned!
Santa Cruz Glory
04/22/2009
John and Ben are moving to Santa Cruz!
Check it out!
04/14/2009
O.K. I know that there are lots of people awaiting a post about the awesomeness of New Ecstatics, and how the conference went. I am still recuperating from a lack of sleep, as the time change really threw me for a loop., not to mention the fact that we had SO MUCH fun that every night we barely made time TO sleep haha. I had my very good friends from Germany, Heiko and Susanne Schneider stay in the hotel with us, as well as my good friend Wes Crow. WE HAD A BLAST!!!
Heiko, A.J., Wes and Dickie.
The conference was BEYOND amazing. Just SO much glory! I have some videos posted on my youtube channel which you can get to here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/digitalnomad777
Please stop by and have a look at all of the videos. One series is 14 parts, and is Georgian Banov preaching one of the best sermons I have ever heard in my whole entire life! It was recorded at the grand finale of the conference. I have some more videos that are not posted yet, I am doing the best that I can to get them all uploaded… so check back to see if there are new additions!
For now, I will leave you with a special word from my very good friend Ellie Kutz from the Ukraine recorded at the event:
