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Charles Finney’s Testimony of The Love of God

I did not get a chance to share this on Friday night.  The great evangelist Charles Finney was saved and filled with the Spirit of God in the early 1800’s.

Within hours of his receiving saving grace he had a powerful encounter with the love of God.  This infilling empowered him and propelled him to be among the great revivalists of all time.  Besides dismantling the faulty doctrine of Calvinism, Finney set a whole section of our country on fire for Jesus in the early 19th century.  Here is his account of his encounter with God the afternoon of his conversion.

There was no fire, and no light, in the room; nevertheless it appeared to me as if it were perfectly light. As I went in and shut the door after me, it seemed as if I met the Lord Jesus Christ face to face. It did not occur to me then, nor did it for some time afterward, that it was wholly a mental state. On the contrary it seemed to me that I saw him as I would see any other man. He said nothing, but looked at me in such a manner as to break me right down at his feet. I have always since regarded this as is most remarkable state of mind; for it seemed to me a reality, that he stood before me, and I fell down at his feet and poured out my soul to him. I wept aloud like a child, and made such confessions as I could with my choked utterance. It seemed to me that I bathed his feet with my tears; and yet I had no distinct impression that I touched him, that I recollect.

I must have continued in this state for a good while; but my mind was too much absorbed with the interview to recollect anything that I said. But I know, as soon as my mind became calm enough to break off from the interview, I returned to the front office, and found that the fire that I had made of large wood was nearly burned out. But as I turned and was about to take a seat by the fire, I received at mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost. Without any expectation of it, without ever having the thought in my mind that there was any such thing for me, without any recollection that I had ever heard the thing mentioned by any person in the world, the Holy Spirit descended upon me in as manner that seemed to go through me, body and soul. I could feel the impression, like a wave of electricity, going through and through me.

Indeed it seemed to come in waves and waves of liquid love; for I could not express it in any other way. It seemed like the very breath of God. I can recollect distinctly that it seemed to fan me, like immense wings.
No words can express the wonderful love that was shed abroad in my heart. I wept aloud with joy and love; and I do not know but I should say, I literally bellowed out unutterable gushings of my heart. These waves came over me, and over me, and over me, one after the other, until I recollect I cried out, “I shall die if these wavers continue to pass over me.” I said, “Lord, I cannot bear any more;” yet I had no fear of death.

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Tags: Charles Finney, Conversion, holy ghost

The Wooing of the Holy Spirit

The Lord has been talking to me this week.  I stated in The Mission newsletter that I am discerning a grace to receive healing and restoration for things things uncovered in our time of fasting.  It is as if God is calling us as a people to seek the very gift He is wanting to give.  There is an old term for this, it is the wooing of the Holy Spirit.

In the middle of the pivotal chapter of the book of Isaiah it reads,

Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near

There are times that God enables people to enter into a deeper relationship with Him by the person of the Holy Ghost.

While a full scale awakening is hard to dismiss, much of what the church has seen in the last century or so has been revival and renewal.  That does not make it a lesser move, just different.  But it does make it more difficult to discern what God is doing and we must be sure to “seek Him while He may be found and to call upon Him while He is near”.

I have a strong sense that the Lord is drawing in a special way.  Missionaries, while we are ending our 12 days of prayer and fasting, do not miss your day of visitation.

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Tags: fasting, holy ghost

Saturday Morning Musings

• <–peepin the super cool bullets
• I say this every week but the presence of God was unreal in the service
• While the guys were setting up I was lost in prayer
• Worship was really tight
• We added a new voice to the worship team and it really fills it out
• They never sounded better
• That new voice got saved in my living room and baptized in a little green inflatable pool
• God does not need a big budget to invade people’s lives
• I was face down on the ground half of worship
• At the end of the third song I knew in my spirit that we were supposed to sing Holy.  I said, “Lord, if that is you, you need to confirm that.”  Just then, one of the singers on the worship team started yelling “Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy” over and over again. I got off the ground, told Serg to sing Holy and went back to my position
• When we sung the song it was like He entered the room
• I had a bit of a hard time collecting myself after that
• Tracey did not know that she was doing the offering till she got on the stage.  She did a great job!
• God totally changed my message the afternoon of the meeting
• It’s His church so, whatever
• Truth be told: I had no idea where I was going half the night.  I was trying to follow God
• Bunch of people got saved.
• You know God is in the building when people get saved off a message on fasting!
• Had a guest get baptized in the Holy Ghost
• Another guest who was a family member got radically touched and came back to God.
• Podcast and pics up soon.

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Tags: holy ghost, Saturday Morning Musings

Highlights From 2008

If you are reading this in RSS you are missing the video.

I have been provoked by a friend to do my own list of highlights from 2008 for The Mission.   I knew that Jesus wanted to do a work in Delray Beach and without any financial support we started a work with 11 people in my living room.

I have no training in church planting, am not in a denomination or church planting network, have not been to a conference or anything else.  Fortunately the Holy Ghost was in our midst and we were smart enough to yield to Him.  The above video is our year in review.

Since I am going to do this with absolutely no forethought this list is neither complete or in any order.

1. A whole bunch of folks saved, baptized, filled with the Holy Ghost.
Here is our first baptism, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth

2. My family, marriage, and relationship with Jesus has flourished this year.

3. Worship.  I talked to Sergio about a year and a half ago about a new sound of worship.  It was just a vision.  God was leading Sergio in the same direction.  Check this out.  This is live, not a studio, not mastered.  We did not even have monitors.  It is just raw worship.  Who said you can’t lead worship with an MPC 1000?  YouTube.com

4. People are joined to the vision God has given me.

5. People are growing in the Lord.

6. Communion.  Both in service and in life.

7. 4th of July Cookout and The Christmas Party Lots of fun.

8. The Hatian church we had our first preview service in .  Wish it would have worked out there.  We have never met anywhere more hood than that.

9. Found our permanent location in August. No longer nomads.

10. Announced we are moving to Sunday last week.  Time for a new location.

In the end, this year was great because I saw Jesus do His thing in Delray Beach.  I have gotten lots of testimonies this year.  This is a sample of one.

Just wanted you to see how the Mission has changed lives… as if you didn’t already know.

The day after I met the living God, Jesus Christ, I went and wrote a 7 page journal entry about what I experienced that night. That was in June of 2oo8. With this new year just beginning, I went back and started to read that same journal, noticing the difference between the entries before I got saved and after. This is just a small part of that 7 page entry

“Even though I can try and fight it, for some reason, something changed last night. I felt something leave me… something lift off my skin, off my shoulders… off my heart and this tingling sensation came over my arms and my head, and my insides started to jump… then my hands and arms started shaking and the whole time, I was so confused as to what I was supposed to do. I wanted so badly to let go of myself, let go of my mind and be touched, but I was inhibited… by fear of what was happening and what I might see…
The power that God forced into me, it made me feel like I was going to fly. Like any second, I was going to rise up into the air and feel His grace upon my entire body… like nothing on this earth could hold me down and I was free to fly to Him and be in His arms…
From the moment we began worship, I felt my body tingling and I didn’t know what was going on with me. I didn’t know if it was my nerves. It felt like the blood in my body wasn’t reaching my brain and my arms were going numb… I remember stretching out my fingers, trying to regain feeling…
I want to go back, only this time, really let go and if my feet rise off the earth, I won’t care where I am going to land as long as I land with You and You are there to catch me… I started with you and I will end with you…
I went into that house expecting to cry and beg for forgiveness… expecting to ball and have the pastor put his hands on me and make me feel like I was forgiven. But I didn’t cry and he didn’t make me feel forgiven. Instead, I felt you. I felt you in my veins… I knew you were with me..

This is the reason why we do what we do.  This is why Missionaries invite their friends and family.  This is why we show up early to set up and stay late to tear down.  Lives changed for the Glory of God.

2009 is going to be increadible.  I just can’t wait!  We are scheduling our first baptism now and we are just going to keep reaping the harvest Jesus paid for with His blood!

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Tags: 2008, baptism, holy ghost, salvation, The Mission, worship