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

Tabitha and the Miraculous by Pastor Todd Lout

ACTS 9 :36 - 42 Now, there was a follower of Jesus who lived in Joppa. Her Aramaic name, Tabitha, means “gazelle.” She lived her life doing kind things for others and serving the poor. But then she became very ill and died. After the disciples prepared her body for burial, they laid her in an upstairs room. When the believers heard that Peter was nearby in Lydda, they sent two men with an urgent message for him to come without delay. So Peter went with them back to Joppa, and upon arriving they led him to the upper room. There were many widows standing next to Peter, weeping. One after another showed him the tunics and other garments that Tabitha had made to bless others. Peter made them all leave the room. Then he knelt down and prayed. Turning to the dead body, he said, “Tabitha, rise up!” At once she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up.  He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. Then he called for the believers and all the widows to come and see that she was alive! The news spread all over the city of Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.

We've been on a great journey through Acts this year. Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeey! This last Saturday night we dove into the story of Peter raising up this faithful woman, Tabitha, from the dead. Notice the confidence in which Peter simply tells her body to rise up.  Through his relationship with Jesus, Peter confidently tells her to come back to life, as though it was a matter of fact that she would. Is it possible that God is waiting for us, His kids, to have confidence in Him and His word like this? YES! We pray, "Your kingdom come and Your will be done here just like it's done in Heaven.", but it's so often still hard for us to truly believe that we can, "lay hands on the sick and they will recover." As time ticks on in this planet, there are millions of needs for what we call the miraculous.  God is willing.  In fact, it's not "the miraculous" in His world at all.  It's simply Him breathing, being Who He is and living where He does.  We get to have deep relationship with the most powerful entity that exists, because He desires it with us.  As His friends, as His kids, we not only have access to His world, but we carry it in us. He even promises us, in Romans 8:11, that the very same power that raised Jesus, Himself, from the dead is inside of us right now. Let's get confident about this!  God and His reality has never changed and He still lets us do what we call the miraculous. This truth is more common knowledge and action in third world countries today.  We have a harder time seeing it or believing it largely because we are just so comfortable here in the US.  But when there's a constant need to see God break through, the people will just assume He will, and He does! We really need to allow ourselves to be hungry for God and His world more.  Try meditating on things like Psalm 84, "How lovely are Your dwelling places. My soul LONGS for Your that world in me!" Saturday I shared a few personal testimonies about miracles happening in my own family. You can listen to that here:

Tabitha and the Miraculous, Saturday Oct. 26

Peter was a special guy, but so are you! (I mean, unless you're a girl...then you're a special girl) You have God's love, His power, His heart, His kingdom inside of you, right now, just waiting to be released into situations.  What a thing to praise God for! Let's go out and bring the miraculous as history is still being written today!

It's Time To Align by Pastor Brent Lokker

Last week when Jo Moody was with us, she had us stand before she preached and spoke a simple prayer… “Holy Spirit, come!”  Then she gave him time to move in and around and amongst our hearts, saying to us, “Wait for it…” In that moment, God’s Spirit was supernaturally shifting something in my brain—it felt physiological—causing me to clearly perceive from His vantage point what was true. Two things became crystal clear in that instant: (1) A huge revival, which will include a massive harvest of souls beyond anything history has ever seen, is most certainly coming; and (2) Alignment with God’s heart and His Kingdom order is essential! These things felt so real, like they had already happened, even though they are still to take place.

Faith celebrates as certain what hope visualizes as future. (Hebrews 11:1 in The Mirror Bible)

A huge revival is coming so it’s imperative that we align ourselves fully with God so that what’s important to Him becomes of utmost importance to us as well. What does alignment look like? Everything must begin with aligning our individual hearts to God’s heart We agree He is a good, good Father We agree we are His treasured sons and daughters We align our values with His. Values like kindness, love, forgiveness, mercy, generosity, honor and humility We give Jesus permission to show us things in our hearts that need to go. We repent, renounce and return to God’s ways. We repent of Judgments Unforgiveness Offense A critical spirit (towards others and ourselves!) Petty jealousy Apathy We yield and submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, which includes embracing His purposes for our lives. In so doing, we become His bright lights on the earth! We discover who we were meant to be and move in the power of the Holy Spirit with the gifts we’ve been given to demonstrate the beauty, glory and goodness of God! As we individually align our hearts to God’s heart and yield ourselves to His perfect purposes for our lives, we will also come into a beautifully orchestrated alignment with one another and with the entire body of Christ across the globe. Which is exactly the Father’s plan and precisely what’s needed for a huge harvest of sons and daughters who are coming into God’s family. We are alive for such a time as this! With Love, Brent

The Mystery of God's Realm In Us by Pastor Russ Fochler

“So don’t ever be afraid, dearest friends! Your loving Father joyously gives you his kingdom realm with all its promises!” Luke 12:33 The Passion Translation “The privilege of intimately knowing the mystery of God’s kingdom realm has been granted to you, but not to the others, where everything is revealed in parables." Mark 4:11 The Passion Translation

These passages stir my heart. We'll be happily exploring the extravagant gift of participating in our Father's Kingdom the rest of our current life and beyond. It all begins and is fulfilled in our intimate friendship with Jesus.  Those who just want to leverage a connection with Jesus for personal power/wealth/fame will miss the "intimate knowing of the mystery of God's kingdom realm". The ways of God's realm are a mystery to those who live only by basic impulses of greed and self-protection (what the Apostle Paul called "the flesh" or "sarx").  But, when we live in communion with the Holy Spirit, God's realm is welcomed and accessible. At the beginning of 2019, the elders of Blazing Fire felt drawn by God to focus upon Holy Spirit and the Book of Acts this year.  Last Saturday, I spoke from Acts 10.  It's the story of Cornelius, a Roman Centurion whose worship, prayers and gifts to the poor had come up like pleasing, aromatic incense before God.  Our Father's loving response was to send Peter and give Cornelius with his family and friends the good news about Jesus along with the experiential gift of the Holy Spirit.

"For the kingdom of God is not a matter of rules about food and drink, but is in the realm of the Holy Spirit, filled with righteousness, peace, and joy." Romans 14:17 The Passion Translation

For many years, I was taught and believed this "righteousness" is simply my legal status because of Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross for me.  Important sure, but how does this "righteousness" fully bring God's realm in me and through me? The Greek term translated "righteousness" commonly meant, "integrity, virtue, purity of life, uprightness, correctness in thinking, feeling, and acting".  Furthermore, The Passion Translation notes: "Righteousness means, both in the context and in the Hebraic mind-set, kindness in our relationships. Paul is speaking of putting others first and expressing goodness in having right relationships with others as well as right living." And when Paul wrote about "peace", he was thinking of the Hebrew word "shalom" which meant wholeness, completeness, soundness, health, safety and prosperity, carrying with it the implication of permanence. Joy comes when we experience someone happy to be with us and we are happy to be with them.  In God's presence is fullness of joy!  (Psalm 16). Holy Spirit, we're grateful all of these (righteousness, shalom, and joy) are experienced in you and we want more!

"So above all, constantly chase after the realm of God’s kingdom and the righteousness that proceeds from him. Then all these less important things will be given to you abundantly. Matthew 6:33 The Passion Translation

Seeking God's Kingdom first and His righteousness are inconceivable without Holy Spirit.  Even if we could "do and say the right things" on our own (hah!), we would be missing the wholeness, shalom, and joy Holy Spirit has. "Holy Spirit we greatly desire to be filled, saturated, led, and empowered by You.  By You we enjoy intimate friendship with Jesus.  By You we experience God as our loving father." With Joy and Hope, Pastor Russ

Making Room For Growth by Pastor Karena Lout

“Continue to grow and increase in God’s grace and intimacy with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.” 2 Peter 3:18

A few years ago, I found myself telling God all I thought He needed to do and how He should do it in my life. My original intent was to sit quietly and ask for His leading and direction in my life. After I stopped rambling, Jesus said to me, “If you don’t find yourself asking me questions, you might have to consider that you’re too comfortable already having all the answers.”

“Go ahead and make all the plans you want, but it’s the Lord who will ultimately direct your steps. We are all in love with our own opinions, convinced they’re correct. But the Lord is in the midst of us, testing and probing our every motive. Before you do anything, put your trust totally in God and not in yourself. Then every plan you make will succeed.”  Proverbs 16:1-3 (TPT)

I knew at the root of it all was that I didn’t fully trust God would come through for me. This is an area I’ve been growing in and it’s something I’ve had to make room for. What does it look like to make room for growth? For me, it means staying teachable. It’s welcoming correction in my life from healthy leaders and friends I trust. It looks like kicking pride, fear and control out of the driver’s seat and inviting vulnerability, surrender and healing in. There’s nothing passive about it.  Even though Saul had a life changing, supernatural encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, he still had a lot of maturing and healing that needed to happen after. Before he met Jesus, he was as legalistic as they came. He was born into a family of Pharisees. All of his identity was wrapped up in his intellect and religious beliefs. Acts 9:22 tells us, “Saul’s power INCREASED greatly as he became more and more proficient in proving Jesus was the Messiah.” There was a progression. His writings and first missionary journey were 14 years after his encounter, and later we know him as Paul the apostle.  He writes in Galatians 2:1 “I spoke privately with those who were viewed as senior leaders of the church. I wanted to make certain my my labor and ministry for the Messiah had not been based on a false understanding of the gospel.”  Paul completely submitted himself to Jesus because he didn’t want to misuse the power he was given. Unfortunately this happens when put in the hands of authority who are unwilling to look at their pain and invite Jesus’ healing. But Jesus shows us that He always uses His power to heal and to love us. God is more concerned with the condition of our hearts than He is with all of our abilities and gifts. Pride keeps growth and healing at a distance.  We can only embrace the process of growth in our lives when we understand all Jesus paid on the cross for our complete freedom. I pray for all the grace and courage to say yes to this journey in your own life. I pray that your story will be the light that will lead others out of darkness, just as Paul’s experience in Damascus became the spirit of prophecy for all those who heard his message. I pray that you would give yourself space to grow from your mistakes and that you would lean into Jesus’ strength in every place you feel weak.

Click here to listen to Karena's message from Saturday night.