Video Journal: Maintaining the Power and Maintaining the Testimony

Yesterday morning God spoke to me and said:

"I so desire to bless you today, Thomas, so maintain the power and maintain the testimony..."

We had a quieter day yesterday.  Sometimes that's the hardest!  When there's nothing exciting going on ..that's when you need the Holy Spirit to keep you in God's presence.  That's when you need to have Jesus by your side continually.

Even when we aren't 'ministering' to anybody, even when we aren't 'doing' all sorts of cool stuff for Jesus, He still so desires to bless us.  And we allow Him to bless us by maintaining in our spirits the wonderful things He's done in the past. We stay uplifted this way!

"And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him."          Colossians 3:17

We need to do it all for the glory of God.  That's when we can be blessed in our coming in and blessed in our going out (Deuteronomy 28:6).

Sometimes it's easy to forget.  Sometimes we forget to draw near to God.  But He can keep us in a better place.  God wants us to always be maintaining in our minds and spirits His power and His testimonies--God doesn't want us to become so bogged down in the present that we forget about the past.

God so desires to bless us.  He wants to take us from glory to glory.

Uriel, God is My Light

"Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for those who are gracious and compassionate and righteous."                Psalm 112:4

"Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, and He will do it.  He will bring forth your righteousness as the light And your judgment as the noonday."               Psalm 37:5-6  

As followers of Jesus, we share in His light and His life.  We should have our lives modeled after Him.  We should in our lives display the light of the world.  People should look right through us and see Jesus in us, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27)--the light that saves the world.

"Of David. The LORD is my light and my salvation..."                Psalm 27:1

God is our light and our salvation.  And we are the light and the salvation of those who do not yet believe.  Until one comes to know God, the best thing they could have is you and I.  People should look at us and see love.  They should look in us and see something otherworldly.  They should recognize us by good fruit.  And what is this fruit?  That we love one another.

"By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

John 13:35

Do we have Love?  It's possible to not have it.  If we don't have God, we won't have Love.  If we know Him and belong to Him, then we will have His Love.  If we have His Love, then others will know it.  This is how we are supposed to be recognized!

God's Love is also His light.  Heaven is full of God; it is also full of light (Revelation 22:5).   And we can be full of His light too!  We can be built up from the inside out and shine brighter and brighter and brighter.  We need to realize that the light within us is greater than the darkness in the world      (1 John 4:4). We need to go from Glory to Glory--to let Him be our light and clothe us with His glory (2 Corinthians 3:18).   We need to let His light shine on our faces and even change our countenance. This is how we should minister.   This is how we should shine out into the world.

Confirmed:  Last Friday we were doing street ministry, and we stopped in at a Christian bookstore.  There was a biblical name book on sale, and we 'happened' to open it up to the name Uriel:  Hebrew-  "God is my light".  We all thought that was a fitting message for our street ministry.  We felt God was looking down and approving us--approving that we were ministering His light.

Later the next day, I oversaw a story on the news about a boy named Uriel.  I do not know the last time that I heard this name...God is so good with His confirmations.

Confirmed:  I was reading an excerpt on the Elijah List about Bob Jones.  It was all about God's light, His glory, and the importance of shining for Him in ministry.  It expanded on being the light of the world.  Bob also had a unique revelation on the presence of God's glory on this earth, which is worth a read if you have the time.  Below is a segment of this article; I bolded parts for emphasis.

Back in the early 70's wherever you walked, people would see you shining. I'm talking about those that were unsaved. They would see you shining. Sometimes they would just want to draw up close to you because they would say, "I've been so depressed. Can I sort of stand by you because when I stand by you I'm not depressed anymore? I don't know what it is but whatever you got I need."

Evangelism was that easy. It's God's glory! I don't see how you could do really good power evangelism without God's glory. And every one of these things is first and foremost in the name of the Son as He came to glorify the Father. So in the name of Jesus as we begin to move in these latter times we will see some of the greatest signs and wonders you ever seen. It's to glorify the Father.

So be excited in these times and get aboard the glory train. For that's the invitation of this. Get aboard that glory train and let's ride with Him in His glory as we glorify the Father. So in Jesus name these things I spoke, let it enter into your conscience, your spirit man to where you shine; an inner shining and inner glory that will shine in the darkest night that will never let darkness come in.

For you see; when light shines, darkness hides and you're the shining light. And this is what He's saying, "Shine! That's your glory! Don't put a bushel over your glory, but let your glory so shine so that man may see the glory and come to the knowledge and to salvation." In Jesus name. Amen.

Snapshot: Revival

A few days ago God spoke again started speaking to me about revival.  What is revival?  It is a work of God, towards a harvest of salvation, that He orchestrates through those willing to do the work that His son already set the template for.  Revival is a sweeping move of His Holy Spirit that brings conviction and healing to a group or place.

So God spoke to me about this.  Revival has to start within us.  We need to fully accept the Spirit that called us and saved us.  We need to live up to our calling.  God has called us to have joy unspeakable and be full of Glory.  That's what we can experience, what God wants us to experience.  But we have to live up to our calling.  Throughout the process of inner revival, we have to remain Jesus' best friend.

Will you follow Him to the cross?  Will you follow Him there, and then cry out, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit"?  (Acts 7:59)  This is where unchangeable peace is found.  This is where Jesus comes to our side and ministers with us.  This is where the climate of revival begins.

Confirmed:  This teaching about revival started just before I read an Elijahlist article on Spiritual acceleration.  Scroll down a little to see that post  ("Snapshot:  The Rocket").  Anyways, it struck me that this article was written by a "revivalist preacher".  Revival begins when God's greatly anointed are used by the Lord to bring Him glory.

Confirmed:  Later this same day, I was reading Psalm 80.

"Then we will not turn away from you; revive us, and we will call on your name."  Psalm 80:18

God is waiting to quicken us, to awaken us, and to revive us.  Then we are enabled to truly call on Him.  Revival starts within us.  When the Spirit has total control in one person, that love will flow into another.  When the Holy Spirit has total control, He can give us wisdom and insight into His ways.

If you have time, read this article on the Hebrides revival of 1949.  God started speaking to me about that Scottish revival late this past Spring.  At that time I sensed there was a significance to December.  He hadn't called me to go to Scotland, but He Himself has called me to usher in revival here.  It's been a faith builder to see Him bring the revival theme back again.  Inner work starts revival.  Prayer in that secret place is where we get intimate enough with our Lord to be His friend.  We become His friend, and we share His passions and His thoughts.

"I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you."  John 15:15

Can we say that we know what His business includes?  Can we say that we know just what He wants us to do?  If not, it's time to become friends with Jesus.  It's time to draw close to Him.  It's time to be revived so we can start the revival that at this moment is waiting in the wings.  It's time to become "Unstuck" (See previous post).

Let's make His life our own.  Let's live as a present-day manifestation of Jesus.  I'm not there yet.  But let's allow God to push us from strength to strength.  Let's be withholding nothing.  Let's want nothing more than Him.  Hallelujah!  Let's allow Him to touch us and then reach out by His Love and touch others.  Let's be revived.

Snapshot: A Heavenly House

Yesterday I was in church and there was a scripture reading on John 14.  Of course, this was made more personal for me because the disciple Thomas was talking with Jesus in that passage.  Thomas was concerned--He wanted to stay with Jesus, when Jesus was talking about a future paradigm with which the disciples felt very much out of concern.  But Jesus doesn't want our hearts to be troubled.

So God began laying some specific things on my heart.  He began reminding me about the house He's prepared for me in heaven.  He's prepared for us a holy house, a glorious house.  And He showed me I can get more than a foretaste now.

Can this life get better?  It can.

Will this life get better?  It will, but we need to aggressively seek the Lord.

He will not punish us for coming to close.  As long as we come through faith in Jesus, we don't need to be afraid.  We can live under an open heaven RIGHT NOW.  We can experience a taste of that Day today.  We can have our spirits set in high places at this very moment.

God wants to reward us.  He wants to lavish His love upon us.  He wants us to be full of Glory.  He wants us to count the cost for this, then gladly obey all.  You'd be surprised about just how much God wants to give to us.  I've been, at least.  No eye has seen, and no ear has heard, exactly how great our riches in Him will be (1 Corinthians 2:9).  And we can start receiving this now.  But we have to really want it.  We have to have Jesus as our mediator.  We have to follow Him all the way to the Father, and with every surmounted obstacle He will strip our sinful flesh away.


Confirmed:  Today I overheard a scripture lesson on Christian radio on John 14.  John 14:2 says, "In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?"  Jesus wants to take us to the very same place that He is going.

Snapshot: God's Grace Reflected

Recently I heard part of a quickened conversation where people were talking about window installation.  I heard the phrase, "a window of grace", and that was a recurring theme for a while after that.

Several days later, God opened my mind in this area.  I saw in a vision a room full of mirrors.  Sets of mirrors were facing each other, in pairs, and there were too many sets in this room to count.  Everything looked very pure and spotless, very clean.  The Lord allowed me to understand that this was a room of God's grace reflected.

When we are not as close to God as we should be, when we have become separated from Him due to sin, when we are doubting if we can again return, we look from far off at God's grace.  We look at it as something that cannot be achieved, as something we cannot earn back.  We are right...it can't be earned back, because it was never earned in the first place.  Jesus paid for it for us.  We can return to Him and His graciousness.  We can play out in our life the parable of the prodigal son.  Whenever we have stumbled, God gives us a window of grace.  By God's grace, we can look through that window and see Him again.

There is a more excellent way here.  We don't need to constantly be entering and losing the presence of His Grace.  We can do more than just be beckoned to it by a window of returning Grace.  Look at the early Church.

"From there they sailed to Antioch, from which they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had accomplished."  Acts 14:26

This is the better way.  We can continually commit to His Grace.  When we keep it in our awareness, we have entered in through that window.  We can know Him, and this knowledge of His grace will always lead us to not tempt or misuse it.  At that point, we discover the worth of knowing His love.  We discover that this precious grace is too good to draw from afar.

"But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit."  2 Corinthians 3:18

Our faces are unveiled within His Presence.  Only from the inside, and not the outside, of the window of Grace is where we become unveiled.  Our only response to God's window of Grace is to awaken and enter in.  From there, God reveals to us more and more of His Grace.  And it is His Grace that allows us to inherit His Glory.

God showed me through that vision that He desires us to live in a place where we personify His grace reflected.  His Grace should be evident in our lives.  We should be continually playing it out.  We should be committed to it, like the early believers were in the Book of Acts.  We should be aware when looking at our lives, that God's Grace has enabled us to be transformed into His Son, going from glory to glory.  He beckons us with grace and He transforms us with grace.  It is only though obedience to His graciousness that we can be continually with Him.  It's a shame to have to always be returning to God.  Why not stay with Him?