HE is so powerful. So full of passion for us.
HE is alive and moving by the Spirit, HIS spirit is in me I am so consumed by it, I have seen His power in my life in many ways but this last week has been over the top! unbelievable,
-miraculous-
I said unbelievable, but everything I am about to tell you is true, verified by family friends doctors, and hundreds of eye witnesses!
I have some audio and video files of some of the miracles....
I just started carrying a video camera with me all the today, so I'll post those up as they come!
....I pray your faith is built by this...
so here I go-
Over the past few months I've seen God's power building!
Well My faith Building-
Stronger Stronger -everyday
I think mostly it's been faith in me that's been rising. (its all just trusting)
Now... We've seen a consistent presence of God in our youth meetings and in our everyday lives for 6 months. But the past two weeks have been
simply
miraculous.
It really started two weeks ago, on my way in to San Francisco. As we came into the city, I stopped and asked the Launch group (my interns) what they wanted to specifically see God working in them. They all had their various answers, and I told them something I had been praying for,
for a long time.
I'd been praying for God to use me with healing. Throughout that week in San Francisco, there was a lot of amazing things that happened, but I'll come back to that in another blog.
Fast-forward to Tuesday, April 20, 2009 (this past week)
I had been out of my youth group for two weeks, because of different events, and I was expecting to have to cheerlead my group into the presence of God. But from the first moment of service, there was a presence of God that we haven't experience. (and you must understand that there's always a thick presence of God in our youth ministry. For the past 6 months, there hasn't been a week gone by that there hasn't been salvation'sand students filled with the spirit. For the past six months, each week has grown numerically and Spiritually. God's power is always so evident)
But this was different,
there was a very real, very open sense of God's Spirit. I'd only felt this a couple of other times in my life. I told the students that they should continue to enter into worship, just as they were already, but that they should press in, because I felt that God wanted to give us a gift. I remember saying to them,
JUST ASK HIM!
By the time we got to our second song, I knew that it was going to be a special night. I looked over at one of my youth leaders Danny, who is one of our Launch interns, and I felt impressed to call him on stage and pray a double anointing over him. As soon as I touched him, there was a physical outflow - I felt it,
I really felt it.
It was incredible.
After I prayed for him, I sent him back out into the crowd and told him to pray for people. I told him that God was going to pour out His spirit through him. I called a few more of my leaders up that I felt impressed, and I prayed over them and felt the same flow of anointing (power) over them and sent them back out into the youth.
We continued on with worship and the next thing I remember is looking out over my youth ministry and seeing well over a hundred students, either on the floor, or in tears, or just lost in the presence of God.
Like, Every Student.
There was such an atmosphere of God's presence, it was awesome.
I felt very impressed that there was a student in the room with an issue with his tooth and jaw. I said it out loud and a student came forward, John Ulrich.
I told him that he was going to be healed, and I put my hand on his jaw, and I felt the same power flow. He said that as soon as I touched it, the pain instantly went away, and that he hadn't felt it gone for a few weeks.
GOD IS GOOD!
As soon as he said that, I felt impressed that there were some people experiencing migraines. When I said it, one of my leaders, who plays the guitar, and I went over and laid my hands on him and he was instantly healed. And his entire demeanor went from a painful demeanor to such a joyful demeanor. At that point I felt such a freedom of God's flowing power, that I told the students, whatever their needs are, whatever their sickness, God wanted to heal them. So, a bunch of students came and formed somewhat of a line, and for some reason, they were in two by two... kind of a gap in the middle of them. I felt like I should be anointing them with oil when I was praying for them, but I didn't have any, so I ran to the kitchen, searched through the cupboards, frantically. The only thing I could find was some Aerosol Cooking Spray, so I grabbed a plastic cup, and sprayed a bunch into it. I remember two of my youth leaders, who are just powerful woman of God, were already praying for the kids that came forward. I remember the first girl that they were praying for, I put my hand into the oil, and as soon as I touched her on the forehead, she crumbled into a puddle. And I remember that I wanted to pray for each student individually, asking what their needs were, but as soon as I would look at them and reach my hand out towards them, they would fall in the spirit (these kids were falling onto thin concrete, with a thin layer of carpet over it,) They seemed to have no care for their physical bodies, but no one was getting injured. They were just falling and collapsing and melting, and being blown back some of them.
There was about 30 students that had come forward for prayer.
I went back up on stage, I looked down from the stage and it looked like someone had taken 30 teenagers, stacked them up like domino's, and then tipped them all over.
(NOT A BAD IDEA FOR A YOUTH NIGHT GAME)
It made me laugh
Then I remember there was some of the, well, there was this group of students who come that are not very interactive... they come for social reasons, I'm not sure why they come.
But then I asked who in this room has not received the holy spirit yet, even though it seemed like the entire room was being moved, there was about 10 people who raised their hands. I remember from the stage, I told them to all raise their hands and begin to ask God for the Holy Spirit. I saw one guy recive it as soon as he put his hands in the air. And then, I felt impressed to wave my arms in their directing.
Kinda like I was trying to invoke a wave at a Superbowl.
When I did that, three of the students (which by the way had their eyes closed very tightly) were blown back like they got hit by a football player. they did not see me wave my arm, and no one can say I pushed them over, I was 15 feet away from them!
One hit in a sitting position of a chair and I thought it was going to fall back when he hit.
At this point, I was pretty much amazed. But then I looked over and saw this student who was there for first time, His name was Joey.
His legs seemed to me that they were glowing orange. Not wanting anyone to think I was on drugs, I didn't say anything about it. But I did go over and ask him if he was injured. He told me that his leg had been badly injured in a football game. And I could tell that his knee was swollen,and he kinda hobbled when he walked. I told him that Jesus could heal him, and I asked him if he believed, and he said that he did. So I got down on my knees, and put my hands tightly around his knee. I had a large number of my leaders around me, there were exactly 10 of us praying for that kid. We were all staring at his knee when the swelling started to go down. I felt it shrinking under my hands.
I jumped to my feet and I screamed
DID YOU FEEL THAT?!
He responded with a massive smile, laughing.
And then he took off running... he ran back and forth in front of the youth center.
When he got back, I gave him a big hug. Then I asked him if he knew Jesus. He said no. So I said, well, I think you should meet him, he's the one that just healed you. We said the sinners prayer together... but I felt like there was something else with this kid. And that's when he said
Can you pray for my ear? I've been deaf in my right ear since second grade.
I looked in his faith filled eyes and I said, 'Yes, we can pray, and God is going to hear you.' I didn't even doubt it for a second. I was so confident in the healing power of my Jesus, that I knew this kid was about to get his hearing back.
I felt that I should take my finger, and put anointing oil on it, and then stick it deep in his ear canal.
I was a bit nervous of being sued for this, so I asked him if it was ok.
He said - Oh ya, I don't care what you do, I just want my healing.
So I shoved my finger into his ear.
I paused a moment
then I shouted, EAR, in the name of Jesus Christ, in the name of His power and Strength, I command you to be opened!
And then I pulled my finger out.
There was a physical wind that came out of his ear. It even blew his hair a little bit. His eyes were so huge. He looked around at all of us, and then started jumping and saying,
I can hear! I can hear! - I haven't been able to hear anything out of that ear since second grade.
It was truly a beautiful moment. We all stood in amazement for a couple moments. Then we stood and watched as a couple of his old friends who had known him for a while ere checking him out... .they had gotten used to talking to him in his good ear. It was so awesome.
When I came back to reality, I ran over to a couple of my youth leaders, to tell them what happened. and When I got to the other side of the room, I saw that they were knelt down with a girl, and she was weeping.
My heart broke for this little girl.
Her name's Abby by the way.
I knelt down, and I said, "What's wrong Abby?" - The short story is she needed deliverence, she needed to be filled with the Spirit, she needed new life. And she's just a little girl.
I knelt down and I kinda cupped her face in my hands, and I whispered,
Holy Spirit come upon this little girl, my little sister.
She was filled with the Holy Spirit, and started speaking in tounges. Then she jumped up and grabbed my arms and she said
I feel so free! I feel so free!
But when I looked at her, I saw that her ear was glowing. I don't know how I knew it, but I just felt that God was telling me that it was an injury.
So I asked her what was wrong with her ear. This time it was the left ear.
She expained to me that she had lost 90% of hearing in that ear two years ago. She had been having problems with sinuses and she had gotten an infection. That infection destroyed the hearing in her left ear. Then she told me that she had set up an appointment with the specialist, to see what they could do to help her. She also told me that she had to sit in front of the class room to hear her teaching. I just laughed and said, not anymore, God's gonna heal you tonight.
By this time, the whole youth group had heard what had happened with Joey. And all attention was on me and Abby. This time I didn't even ask, I followed what I felt God was saying and I shoved my finger down into her ear.
I yelled out, in the name of Jesus Christ, in the name of his power and his stregth, I call out in the name of Jesus, This ear Hear!
I will never forget the look on her face.
She smiled so big, and then she whispered... almost afraid of breaking something....
I can hear. I can hear in my ear.
BUt then I looked over at her mom, who at this point was standing right next to her. She's a youth leader in our student ministries. She was smiling and crying.
Then I reached out to touch each of them on the cheek, and they both fell over in the Holy Spirit.
I just looked around at the group of people who had gathered around to watch, and we all just kinda laughed. We were all so amazed.
BY this time, we were running over our scheduled release time of 8:15, and parents were showing up to find their students, passed out on the floor, or totally drunk in the spirit, or totally overwhelmed by Him. I saw quite a few parents walk in, see what was going on, and not even try to take their students, they just started to enter in.
One of our students Dad, is a missionary, His name is Cliff Martin. I really like this guy.
His daughter was passed out on the floor.
As he walked in, I noticed he was limping, and he had a cane. Which is not typical of him, so I told him that God was healing people, and I asked if he wanted us to pray for him- he happily agreed to it.
So I went and grabbed my youth leaders and we began to pray for it. He told us that he felt warmth all around it. He said that the pain left immediately, and that it was healed.
We all continued on worshiping and basking in the presence of God for a long time.
I think we would have done it all night but at some point I started waking people up (They werent sleeping, they were just lost in the spirit of God).
I remmeber as the last students left, I sat on the steps of the stage, just thinking about everyhing that happened. It was almost too much.
And that's just the first day of a week that I will never forget.
Every single day, it felt like it just got better. More of his Power, more of his glory, more of his miracles.
Now it's just one hour from Tuesday of the next week, and as I think back over this week I am absolutely blown away.
So many healings, so many people set free. Deamons cast out, broken bones healed, blind eyes see, deaf ears opened, cancers shrinking, tumors falling off, spines straightening...
and above all, God's ultimate miracle,
Salvation!
It has truely been an astonishing week.
I'm gonna tell you all about it, but that's it for tonight. I need to get some rest.
The Lord told me that this Tuesday is going to be even better than last Tuesday. If that's true, I definately need to get some sleep.
I so wanna stay here and just tell you about what just happened a couple hours ago, but you'll just have to wait, cuz I have a whole week of stories before I even get to that.
It's my deepest prayer, that as you've read this, your faith has been ignighted.
Dear Jesus,
You're my closest friend. I pray you bless everyone who reads this. I pray you strengthen their faith. I pray that they would see in their lives, the amazing things that I am seeing in mine. I pray that Your Spirit would be rich upon them. Jesus give us Your eyes, Your hands, Your feet. I'm so completely overwhelmed by You. All I want to do is serve You.
Jesus, You know my heart, and You know that when I say I love You, it doesn't even do justice to the way that I feel.
Seeking to Serve
Joseph Rountree
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