Kiss Chasers.....

You thought I was going to bring some message about us being kiss chasers with God didn't you? Well, important as that is, I am going to acctually talk about a home group we began going to last night called "kiss chasers." It is led by second year students one whom I roomed with at our retreat week named Sam. We began by just going around the room sharing about ourselves and getting comfortable with each other. At the end the second year students began to pray and prophecy encouraging words over us, so that was fun. While Sam was prophecying over me he spoke a word that my time of being hidden in the cleft of the rock with God will end and I will be released to pour out into others in more powerful ways, also that he percieved that I had a passion for revelation through God's written word (which I do love) but that I should be prepared to hear and experience God in new ways with His Spirit and that I have a fathers heart for others, that I will raise up young believers to know God's love. I loved these words and when he said, "fathers heart" a memory flashed through my head of David Paluski months ago prophecying, "God is going to grow you up quickly because there are a lot of people He needs you to take care of"and also a man here named Frank spoke a word that I have a fathers heart a couple weeks ago! So, as Sam prayed I felt The Spirit impress on me, "Joel." I said, "What?" Then He said, "Ask Sam to laugh over you." So I asked Sam to laugh over me and he did so, violently and then he brushed my back saying, "I brush off all limitations, no limits!" and I felt things shift in my spirit and joy being released... it felt great. So I then asked about Joel, "I heard the name Joel, does that mean anything to you?" He started laughing again and said, "Yes, I've been looking at you all night thinking of how much you remind me of my good friend Joel back home (in England). So, all in all, it was a good night and I am feeling happy.

Re-Soiling My Heart

"As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience."

I read this passage recently and began to ask The Lord to give me a heart that is full of good soil; a heart that is pure and honest before my King. I have been looking back on my relationship with my Lord and all the goodness that I have found in Him and all the revelation that He has given me and have been realizing how much I have taken it all for granted. It seems that I am in a process of re-soiling my heart so God can spread the seeds of revelation again.
I remember the time that I realized God's desire for an intimate relationship with us and that He has empowered us to pursue Him and to find Him. I remember that God showed me how openley He spoke with His prophets and through them to His people and that today He has torn the veil so that the pathways of communion would be opened to us all through His Holy Spirit.
I received these revelations with an open and glad heart and experienced a change inside of me. There's an expression here at Bethel that says, "Revelation is meant to move us into encounter..." After my revelation I began to move into an encounter of the fruit of the revelation and through that was born a desire for intimacy. I was rocked with a desire to "know" God and experience His love and goodness as a friend, and for a time I reaped the fruits of the seed... "And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature."
I realized recentely that I didn't continue to cultivate my heart and keep the soil strong and fertile and I didn't continue to press into new depths of the revelations which would result in the maturing of the fruit (the encounter) of the revelation.
I also have had a revelation of why I was to not publicy lead worship but to pursue deeper levels of worship in private. Bill Johnson talks about spiritual inheritance and the principle behind it is that the celienge of generation past should become our floor today. But for generations that hasn't happened. So, what Bill is doing here is equiping the church and imparting all of the spiritual breakthrough that he has "contended" for to us to make into our floor. He says that it's easy to come under the anointing of others and "ride the wave" of their authority or power; that we should see almost immediate breakthrough for the things we are being equiped for only because we are "riding the wave." So, we must really press into the breakthroughs here and earn them in our private times with God. We must sacrifice something in order to take the breakthrough with us when we leave. Now, while I heard this being taught one time, I realized that back home I would lead worship in a group setting and the anointing and passion would fall easily upon me and out of that place I would worship God... but when I became alone (after a while of having an un-cultivated heart) I would not have the same experience and it bugged me. I was riding the wave of others passion for God and their desire to worship Him and because I didn't press into a spiritual breakthrough in private with God I wasn't able to carry it into those private times. So, I am re-cultivating my heart and pressing into spiritual breakthrough that I will have an authority to carry with me no matter where I go.