Month: March 2019
gglukensRevival in California and Five Generations of Tongue Talkers
Last week Tim and I were in California to take part in the Living Proof Crusade with Mario Murillo. Read about Mario’s visions, words, and descriptions of what happened there on his blog: https://mariomurilloministries.wordpress.com/2019/03/15/breaking-news-3/
In one of Mario’s messages he said that in the early days of Christianity, signs and wonders always accompanied the preaching of the gospel. A miracle stops the argument. The power of God is the Living Proof. Souls are still hungry; revival is happening.
Tim and I were deeply blessed to be part of it. People were being healed, set free and saved! Praise God. The meetings were held in a tent in the parking lot of a multi-church facility in Marysville, CA. Six meetings had been planned. By the end of the week, though, so many were coming, overflowing the tent, that it was decided to continue the meetings this week, in a bigger tent they will put up in a baseball field in Marysville.
Pray for workers for the harvest. Pray for us, too, “that praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel” Ephesians 6:18-19
We believe that the Lord has equipped us for this revival and has called us to take part as volunteers. We came home on Saturday with plans to purchase a better truck for pulling our trailer. We may look for a bigger trailer, too. We have made reservations for the Living Proof Conference in Reno in July, and we are getting ready to hit the road again, when the dates for the next tent meetings are announced. The next one is planned for Stockton.
Now here is the fun part:
Many years ago I sorted the letters that my family had saved while my grandparents were missionaries in China. Twenty-five years of letters have been saved. While I sorted through them, I found this:
Warren Collins was my great grandfather. He lived in Texas. He was a street evangelist. I remember stories my grandmother told me about him. (The notes on the side of the article were made by my mom when she transcribed all the letters into books for the family.)
I was so excited when I found this article—about his campaign in Bellingham! And I learned that my great grandfather had been baptized in the Holy Spirit, at least by the 1920’s! I shouted out to my family, “Look at this! There are five generations of tongue talkers in this family!”
The really exciting thing, though, is that my grandfather’s legacy has passed down through all these generations. Now, even his great, great, great grandchildren love the Lord, serve him with all their hearts, and yes, pray in tongues!
“Who Was Praying for You?”
Whenever I hear someone tell their story about how they came to faith in Jesus, I love to ask, “Who was praying for you?
They almost always know
It occurred to me to ask this question when one day I noticed at the end of the letter Paul wrote to the Romans, as he was sending greetings to everyone, he wrote, “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kin and fellow prisoners who are well known among the emissaries. They were in Messiah before me. Romans 16:7. Wow! I realized that some people in Paul’s family prayed for him while he was still persecuting the Christians! This is the power of prayer.
Over the years I have heard some great stories in answer to my question, “Who was praying for you?” I would like to tell you a couple of my favorites.
- A man I met while I selling MSM cream at the Puyallup Fair let me know that he had become a believer as an adult. “Who was praying for you?” I asked. He laughed and said, “Back in those days I worked for FedEx. I had a delivery to make to the Tacoma Dome. I found the room where I was to take the package. When I burst through the door, I found the room full of people with their heads down, praying. I apologized for interrupting them. They said, ‘No problem, come and join us. We are getting ready for the Billy Graham crusade.’ I stood back, pointed at the clock, said, ‘That’s the only god I serve’, and left.” Now we laughed together. “Guess who was praying for me?” he said. “Years later, after I had been a Christian for quite a while, the Lord reminded me of that scene.”
- Another man told this story. When he was a teenager, he couldn’t shake the drug and alcohol. He would vow that he would never do it again, then his friends would pick him up for a party. The next thing he knew he would be high, and drunk, again. Finding himself in this condition in the back seat of a moving car one day, he hung his head in despair. “I just don’t know what the answer is,” he said to himself. Just then, he looked up and saw a sign that said, “Jesus is the Answer.” Okay, he thought, if Jesus is the answer, then I want Jesus. He was immediately sober, and saved! He knew it was a miraculous act of God. “Who was praying for you?” I asked. “My young life leader,” he said. “I went to find him at his college dorm. When he answered the door I handed him the Bible that he had given me and said, “I don’t need this anymore. I’m a Christian now. You can give it to someone else.” We all know what happened next. The Young Life leader invited this young man into his room and began to disciple him.
I love it!
- Then this story: I heard a Muslim background believer tell her story. She had met Jesus in her bedroom when she was only four years old. She endured tremendous persecution from her family and community. Eventually she had to run for her life. She could not be persuaded to give up her faith in Jesus. “Who was praying for you?” I asked. She took time to look around in the room. Then she pointed her finger at each of us. “Someone I DON”T even know,” she said.
Recently I was reprimanded by the Lord because I stopped praying for someone in my family. I had a vivid dream about it. I shared the dream with my daughter and told her the story about how I had stopped praying for this person. My daughter said, “Mom, how would you like to get to heaven and have the Lord ask you why you stopped praying for her?”
My daughter told me that I need to get intentional about praying for her. She suggested that I use the number of the month she was born, and the date, as a time to set the alarm on my phone as a reminder to pray. I have done that. I wrote a prayer on the notepad on my phone. Every afternoon when my alarm goes off, I read this prayer out loud.
I pray that the eyes of her heart will be enlightened that the light of the glory of the gospel will shine in her heart, and she will know the hope of your calling, Lord. I pray that she will know the truth and the truth will set her free. You are the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except by you. Draw her to you, Lord; You who are able to do exceedingly and abundantly beyond all we can ask or think, to you will be the glory, before all time, now and forever. Amen.
Pray.
Jesus told us to pray.
Paul told us to pray:
In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak. Ephesians 6:16-20
Another Story From the Sign
A man came into our store one day and said, “How can you be so bold to put up the name of Jesus on your sign?”
“We run this business for Jesus. What do I have to lose by holding up his name?” I asked.
“Maybe some people won’t buy your stuff,” he said.
“Jesus runs this business. He will direct sales to us,” I answered. “My responsibility is to point people to him.”
The man mused for a moment. He then told me that he was a Christian; he even led Bible studies and home groups. We had a good discussion about the Lord. As he got ready to leave, he asked, “You are investing in gold, aren’t you?”
“What for?” I said, “You can’t eat gold.”
“Yes, but when the monetary system collapses, you are going to need gold.”
“You can’t eat gold,” I said again.
“You won’t be able to buy anything if you don’t have gold,” he said.
“You can’t eat gold. It won’t be worth anything. We are making food. Food will have value, give us something to trade, if it comes to that.”
His forehead crinkled as he looked intently at me.
“Well, you do have a CWP don’t you?”
“A what?”
“A permit to carry a concealed weapon?”
“You have got to be kidding me? Who would I shoot?”
“Things are going to get very bad. You are going to have to defend your property,” he said.
“I don’t agree,” I said. Then I gave him my perspective on guns, self-defense, and defense of my possessions.
“Let me tell you about one of my heroes” I said. “I met Dorothy Bennet, who was in her 80’s, in the donut shop in Lynden. She heard me and my mom talking about the Lord. She asked if she and her husband could join us. After introductions she told us that she had been doing radio broadcasts into Muslim countries, daily, for many, many years. She told us lots of stories. One of them was about a prayer meeting she and her husband, Richard, were holding in Africa. Genocide was going on in this part of Africa. People in that meeting had been attacked by neighboring, warring, tribes. Suddenly a man burst into the meeting. He was drunk. He had a machine gun. He threatened them all. He put the gun in Dorothy’s face and told her he was going to kill her. “Go ahead,” she said. “I’m going to heaven. Where are you going?” The man fell face down, on the floor, Richard kicked his gun away. When the man got up, he was sober and saved. Richard said the people who had been praying started singing a hymn of thanksgiving to God. He said it was the most beautiful worship he had ever been part of.
“I hope,” I told the man in my driveway, “that I will have that kind of courage if I am ever faced with that kind of threat.”
I went on to tell him that I had thought a lot about this. The worst-case scenario would be, in my opinion—someone is torturing a child. I have been given the power to stop it by denouncing Jesus. I hope that I would respond by commanding the perpetrator to stop, in the name of Jesus! If he didn’t, I would assume that this was the will of God. Then I would speak to the child, “This is temporary. Have faith. We will be out of here soon.”
I told him that I read Voice of the Martyrs magazine every month. Christians are having this kind of experience, right now, in many parts of the world. I hope I never have to go through such a thing, but if I do, I hope that I can be as steadfast as they are.
The man said not another word. He got in his car and drove away. As I watched him leave, I thought. “Isn’t that interesting. Here is a guy that says he’s a Christian, but he questioned my “boldness” to hold up Jesus’ name. Then he showed me that what he doesn’t trust the Lord. What he is really counting on, trusting in, are his gold and his guns.
This ad came in the mail a few days ago. Tim was about to throw it away, but I told him I would keep it. It helps to illustrate my point.
I am not a gun control advocate. But I wonder why so many Christians are running to gold and guns instead of trusting in the Lord. He told us not to love the world, nor the things of the world. He told us to seek the kingdom of God. He told us not to fear him who can kill the body but fear him who can send the soul to hell. He told us not to worry about what we are going to eat, or what we are going to wear. He told us not to worry at all!
Some men trust in horses, some men trust in chariots, but we will trust in the NAME of the Lord.
Faith Walking 