Exactly Which Chapter Are We In Now? by Dennis Lafayette

This past Saturday at Blazing Fire, I asked my good friend, Dennis, to share stories from his life (and that of his wife) who both walk in the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit on a daily basis like we read in the book of Acts. Oh, the stories he told! Deeply inspiring and challenging because each of us has the very same Holy Spirit with us. I asked Dennis to write this week's article, but you can listen to the stories here:

"Just Say Yes" Dennis Lafayette

EXACTLY WHICH CHAPTER ARE WE IN NOW? When Kathy and I first got saved we didn’t know anything about the bible or real Christianity for that matter. As we read the Bible we were stunned to come upon the Book of Acts. We had no idea that there was a roadmap included in the word of God. The “this is what it looks like” part amazed and thrilled us as we read the amazing stories. We reasoned that a movement that empowered people with the ability to proclaim the message of the Gospel with signs and wonders could not just vanish from the earth. Surely there must be a remnant, and so our search began. Within a short couple of years many of the miraculous stories had became part of our lives as well. We soon realized that we were called into this fellowship of His Disciples. Many people went all in at that time as well; this has been referred to as the Jesus Movement. There was no price we wouldn’t pay to live this life. Give all our passions to the poor? A bargain! Answer His call to spread the word? With pleasure! Deny yourself and take up your cross? Where do we sign up?! The miraculous was a daily occurrence—what a time to be alive! We were all very young and with few fathers to guide us. I was blessed to have some mentors come into my life at various times. I thought I had it all together. Then I met Corrie ten Boom.......she changed me forever. Her sense of God’s presence was unlike anything I’d ever seen. When we would talk, she would talk with me and Jesus in the same conversation. Every conversation—and I mean every—was the three of us: Me, Corrie and, of course, Jesus Himself in person taking part in our discourse. I had never been around someone like that. What I learned and willed to practice in my life: Father God loves me and nothing can change or diminish that, not even my own beliefs, feelings or actions. (Rom 8:38-39) Holy Spirit is given to help me, instruct me, comfort me, lead me, talk to me and much more. (Jn 16:7 and Heb 13:5) Our word for believe is a very poor translation of what it means to be a “believer”. We just don’t have a word for the Greek or Hebrew concept. The original thought for believing in Jesus and following Him actually goes something like this: Clinging to our Father, His Son and our Wonderful Holy Spirit like a nursing infant and mom, like two best friends together in warfare and like a Son of Adam with his God. Faith is like manna, we don’t store it, we must give it away everyday and we don’t get more until we use up what we’ve got today. Pray for everyone and about everything! (1 Thess 5:17-18) Vain repetitive prayer insults God’s character. He doesn’t need to be convinced to help us. He’s for us! (Matt 6:7 and Rom 8:31) Ask anything and everything in Jesus Name. (Jn: 14, 15 & 16, Col 3:17 and 1 Jn: 5) We are the next chapter of the Book of Acts if we’re willing to step out of the boat, take some risk and do what Holy Spirit asks us to do! “There is water in our lives waiting to be walked on” Bill Johnson. What are you waiting for? Go do it!

God's Invitation - Words Shared by Diane Jung and Bill Hernandez

Our times together with the Lord on Saturday nights continue to increase with the sweetness of His presence!  As we lingered together this past week, giving Holy Spirit space to interact, these two prophetic words in the form of an invitation from God came forth. You can listen to the entire message from that night (by Brent & Suzanne Lokker) or jump straight to hear these words spoken at the 1:22:20 mark:

Our Supernatural God

Diane Jung's word: The Lord was taking each petal from red roses and he was laying them on the ground in a romantic way.  And the fragrance of those roses was rising up and he was saying, “Come with me my beloved. Come with me and follow me—follow the rose petals and I will take you to places that you couldn’t have ever, ever thought of or dreamed of where the unexpected will become the expected, the impossible will become possible.   Come. Come with me. Enter my heart. Walk with me on this path, my beloved. Smell the incredible fragrance because that’s what you smell like to me. You are beautiful fragrances to me. And no matter what’s in your past. No matter the shame that you carry, the guilt that you carry—that doesn’t matter!  I don’t want you to take these disappointments with you! I want you to leave it with me and to come forward with me. Because this is how valuable you are to me! Every single one of you! You are my beloved! I so cherish you. Come. Come into my arms. Come into my heart right now! And all you will feel is peace and love and security. You don’t have to worry about anything anymore because I have taken care of all of it. It is all taken care of.   We thank you, Jesus!  Thank you that your presence is very strong here and it’s going to follow each person as they leave here. I pray a multiplication—even more, Holy Spirit, as they leave here. You’re going to surprise people this week, God. There’s going to be unexpected goodness coming along because of your love! Bill Hernandez's word: The Lord wanted me to pray for you about speaking to past time. Time has passed already—the stuff that happened in the past—that’s passed time. The Lord wants you to live today—in the moment—in today’s day. Not tomorrow, but today. In this new day. So Father, in Your name I break off the power of things that have happened in the past. Past—go to the past. Present—come forward. I bless your present time. I bless your present day. I bless the new day for each of you right now in Jesus’ name, to live in the present and in the Presence. Father, I ask that you would give each one the continued grace to release past time and past issues, to let them go. Give each one the ability, wisdom and  discernment more and more in how to live in today’s blessing—in today’s life—as well as to see You where You are today, Jesus, right now, in front of us. Thank you, Jesus!

The Lengths God Will Go by Pastor Brent Lokker

We’ve been moving slowly and steadily through the book of Acts over the past 9 months because the Lord instructed the Blazing Fire elders to do so as we were seeking Him together last January.  We’ve been longing for more of His sweet presence and also longing for more of the powerful encounters many of us have experienced through the years. However, our longing is not just to experience what we did before, but to experience even greater encounters with God! That longing to know and experience God more is something He has put into the heart, not only of every believer, but of every person who exists in every nation of the world! From one man, Adam, he made every man and woman and every race of humanity, and he spread us over all the earth. He sets the boundaries of people and nations, determining their appointed times in history. He has done this so that every person would long for God, feel their way to him, and find him—for he is the God who is easy to discover! (Acts 17:26-27)   The supernatural encounters aren’t just for the sake of experiencing the wonder and awe of God, but for the sake of drawing people who are searching and hungering for God to know He is real and that He cares about them as His children. God will go to any lengths to draw in His children everywhere. Obviously, the greatest length was the sacrificial death of Jesus for the sins of the entire world. But it doesn’t end there. God has also chosen to place His very Spirit—His Holy Spirit—right inside of us so we would join with Him in releasing His supernatural glory and power through miracles, signs and wonders—always with His heart of extravagant love. Last Saturday, I showed a powerful video of a new friend I made a week ago at a conference, Caleb Byerly. God gave Caleb a dream in the night about a people group in the Philippines that no one knew existed. In that dream, God gave Caleb detailed instructions about a musical instrument that no one outside of this tribe had ever seen or heard. This is a miraculous, supernatural story about how one person said yes to God and went on one of the wildest adventures you could imagine because of God’s desire to answer the heart cries of a tribe of people who were longing for Him. This story made me weep because of the kindness of God to go to any length to reach His children. Without giving away the astounding details, if you have 30 minutes to watch a video, this story will blow your mind!

Caleb Byerly--the Salimba story

Or you can listen to Caleb's story in the context of my message from Acts 17 last Saturday:

The Lengths God Will Go

Tonight at Blazing Fire, we will continue to experience God together (worship starts at 6 pm at 7485 Village Parkway, Dublin) and we are going to lean into our heavenly Father's heart even more in agreement with His supernatural ways for us to partner with Him in reaching out to the ones He loves so much—All of His children that we encounter every day of our lives! With Love, Brent