|
I had experience the 'word of knowledge' for the saved, but it didn’t really occur to me that much to be aware that the Holy Spirit would give them for the unsaved. After hearing some teaching tapes on prophetic evangelism, I met three young men hitch hiking. While telling them about Jesus, they looked at me totally uninterested. Then, as I looked, I just seemed to see prophetically that they had a bad tempered mother. So I asked them while sharing the gospel with them and they started shaking physically! And then they all prayed out the name of JESUS as they went from not wanting to know, to wanting to pray with me calling on the name of the LORD!
A hunger awakened in me for unsaved souls, so I prayed for one soul per week. To my surprise I started seeing one soul per day praying with me, and calling on the name of the LORD for salvation. The word of knowledge began to flow and it seemed when I released a word of knowledge they would go from arguing and resisting to being open and wanting to receive Jesus! People started crying, feeling the manifest presence of GOD.
I also began to see healing with the unsaved; it was like they had less baggage and resistance. I started seeing people getting healed and over the space of about three years about 350 people had prayed with me on the streets and at work.
At the time I was meeting more on a relationship level with one or two people through the week and not on a Sunday. It was like God had taken me out of the religious system to set me free to see the simplicity of the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit manifest in my life.
In my excitement I shared some experiences with old Christian friend and I got angry reactions because I wasn’t attending a church building on a Sunday morning. It left me stunned, having to evaluate whether the angry reaction was rooted in scripture or traditions that made the word of God of no effect. I realized that the Great Commission had become the great Sunday morning meeting.
I was eventually invited to preach every Sunday at a fellowship and did so for two years, but my values had changed. I realized the LORD's heart was for people more than tradition. There is a whole new generation here in the UK who haven’t heard the gospel once, and when they do hear it, with the power and work of the Spirit, they're shocked the want to be saved.
Compassion started awaking in me and when a ambulance would go by or a fire engine I would want to start weeping, and I'd be aware that an eternity in hell could be only seconds or minutes away from that dear lost soul in the ambulance. I struggled to understand why old Christian friends were upset when I shared testimonys because I wasn’t going to a Sunday morning church building. I became aware that the refreshing move of Spirit in the church was going somewhere, the Father was calling us back into first love and a fresh revelation of grace and the Holy Spirit was overflowing out to the rest of the world. While some got stuck in soaking and stayed there, I realized the awesome presence of GOD that was being felt while soaking in His presence, was bringing fruit of feeling the same compassion as the Father for the broken and hurting, the lonely and wounded, the unsaved generation in the uk that haven’t heard the gospel once.
I believe one of the reasons the power wasn't falling in the past was that the LORD wasn't bearing witness to selfish ambition for just having large church numbers. I think growth and multiplication is going to be birthed out of hearts that have been compelled by the heart that went to the cross; I realized that a revelation of hell and the shortness of time would help hearts awaken from petty childish concerns about church building on Sundays causing anger and offence to rise up was a result of blindness by tradition. The harvest is plentiful but finding labourers is the big problem. We will prepare hours for sermons that we're going to preach on a stage, but won't prepare ten minutes to sit down and ask the father to share his deep compassion for the unsaved people we walk past everyday.
|
