Prison Joy, Prophetic Class, Power Evangelism, Power Healing,

Beware of the half truths, because you may have a hold of the wrong half.

Today while ministering in a local prison,

The Tractor and the Rattlesnake – Changing our Perspective – from my next book

This is part of chapter two of my next book that I’m currently writing and decided to share it with you today. 

This is a story that makes my wife Diane cringe, but it fits the introduction of this chapter, so I am going to share it.  About thirty years ago when we lived in Texas we had some friends who had a farm in another county outside of the Houston area, and we would go out to help with projects and other various tasks.  One time I was invited to come and help bale hay, and since I grew up with citrus groves in California but had no experience with actual farming procedures and harvesting of products that did not grow on trees, I thought, this should be fun.  I mean how, hard could it be?

So we set out to help, and the bales for the most part were all over the pasture, and several of us would be assigned to different tractors pulling larger flat wagons.  I soon found out that these bales of hay were not light.  After doing this for the better part of the afternoon, I was growing tired in the Texas heat and began to carry the especially heavier bales up against my body near the belt line.  That was a big mistake when one of the bales was full of fire ants.  I soon had more bites than I cared for, but fortunately over the years I had kind of become immune to ant bites due to the sheer number of them that I had experienced.

Every time the wagon would get full, we would all jump on and sit on the bales and ride back to the barn to unload the wagon.  On one particular trip, I decided to ride standing on the hitch between the tractor and the wagon and balanced myself by holding onto the shoulders of the driver of the tractor.

Now this is where God intervened.  You need to remember, that I have no farming experience at all, and so riding in this particular position could actually be very dangerous if you don’t know what you are doing, which I didn’t and no one warned me of one particular impending immediate danger. 

You see, when the tractor turns, then the place where the trailer hitches on the ball joint of the tractor also turns and I had my feet in a very narrow space that was fine when the tractor was going straight, but had my feet been left in that place when the tractor turned, my foot would have been crushed and I most likely would have fallen under the trailer too causing me great harm and pain.  But for some reason, and It can only be God, I looked down on the first hard turn and saw what was about to happen and simply lifted my foot up when the metal of the trailer moved tight against the ball joint.  And at every turn, I either lifted my right foot or my left to accommodate this action that was taking place. 

I learned something that day and it changed my perspective and so I am using that story to launch this chapter.  For you see, the word perspective actually relates to the science of optics, specifically vision and that of seeing something.  The word engages the thought of viewing objects that are in right relationships to other objects.  The definition goes on to promote two phrases with two identical words, yet in opposite arrangement.  They are “Lookout” and “Outlook”

Lookout serves to express the idea of having a way of doing or seeing something with the idea of carefully watching with anticipation.  And outlook is simply a way of thinking, dealing with an attitude or a point of view.  Often your outlook will override your lookout even though it is based on something you have not yet seen.  This can be true in a positive or negative way.  I see people move up to the altar area for prayer who are often in one of those two categories.  They come believing and expect to get well, while others come because someone dragged them there, and they felt compelled to do this when in reality they don’t believe anything could happen.  It has been interesting to observe for sure.   So in reality they have different perspectives on why they are there and what might happen.

Let me illustrate this.  I am guessing that if I was there in person with you right now and I asked you to tell me about some glorious sunrises or sunsets that you have seen in your lifetime that you could immediately jump into the conversation by sharing with me about the place where these spectacular events took place.  And if it really made an impression, you might also have some pictures that you could show me and share to help me see what you enjoyed at that moment.

But the truth of the matter is, and the reality of the situation is that you and I have never seen a beautiful sunset or sunrise in our entire lives, because the sun does not set nor does it rise.  The earth is spinning around the sun and so it appears to us as if it is rising and setting, but that is our perspective and in this case, our perspective is not really the truth or reality. 

Years ago when we lived in Dallas I was driving home one evening and it was dusk so you know that the amount of light is diminishing at those moments, and I saw what looked like a very large rattlesnake in the culvert on the side of the road, and apparently a couple of other people saw it too.  I quickly drove around the block and came to park my car a safe distance away from this snake and several others were staring at it too.  I got out of my car only to hear a warning from several people to stay back as this was a very big snake.  Every once in a while the snake would kind of raise up somehow.  I thought that this was a kind of unusual move for a snake, but then I am no expert and as far as I was concerned, the only good snake was a dead snake. 

I then took another step towards the snake and one lady yelled at me to be careful as she let me and everyone else know who had now stopped to observe this snake that she had called the animal control.

It appeared to me that the snake once again moved in an upward fashion but I noticed that this seemed to happen every time the wind would blow a little bit, which I thought was odd. And of course it was continuing to grow darker by the minute so if it became totally dark we would all lose sight of this snake before the animal control folks arrived.

Just then another wind gust came and there went that snake up in the air again, so I took a few more steps towards it and at this point I am now pretty close to it and even in the dim light I could see that this snake was an old orange and gold flannel shirt that was rolled up the gutter next to the culvert.  I laughed to myself and decided to head back to the car before the animal control folks got there and embarrassed everyone.

What happened?  My perspective and that of many others was obviously deceived and part of the problem was that darkness was developing and so our true vision of what the object was, positioned all of us to be deceived….

I may post more on this later, but it’s easy to get deceived, but if you move towards the light of Jesus and the Word of God, you have less and less chance of being deceived and more and more opportunities to encounter the truth.  May God Bless you this day with more truth! 

Testimony of Jesus is the spirit of Prophecy – This 2012 testimony can release words of knowledge for you to experience similar blessings

Way to go Jesus! 

 

Thank you everyone for your prayers, financial support, encouragement and friendship blessings.

 

One of the definitions of the word “testimony”  means, “do it again.”   Revelation 19:10 says that the Testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.  I have learned and taught that every testimony that is shared, can also release a prophetic word in that same category or in the same realm as the testimony itself.  In other words, a testimony becomes a word of knowledge with prophecy for those that hear the testimony so that the same thing can then happen to those who listen to the testimony releasing the power of God to do it again. 

114 Student Salvations Plus Other Ministry Manifestations

I had a great time in California ministering to several hundred high school students & 95% of them were Korean.  We really bonded and had so much fun.

Sixty-one of them received Jesus for the first time.  We had lots of prayer ministry and I stopped in the middle of one message and prayed for students in physical pain and 25 of them got well in three minutes.  Later many were on the floor laughing and they had never experienced anything like this before.  Some were experiencing manifestations for nearly three hours, and some either don’t go to church or have never been in a church that believes in the power of God for today.  I now have a new bunch of Korean friends on facebook.  One wrote to me to say his carpol tunnels syndrome is almost completely healed. 

These Koreans were a whole new culture to me and I just fell in love with them so fast – they huddled around me and talked and talked and asked questions about the Holy Spirit etc – they begged me not to leave and to return possibly in June – they were just so hungry for the anointing and the presence of God – they began to pray for one another and some of those got healed too – it was great.   A group of cheerleaders came up and asked for prayer as one had hurt her ankle and the Lord healed it in less than one minute.  Praise God! Many of the students have now become my friends on facebook.

And last week at Life Gate School I saw 42 Middle school students commit their lives to Jesus after a message about not going through the motions.  Then I went back there  this past Tuesday and as I got up before I actually presented my topic, I felt led to invite more students to get right with God, who had skipped it last week, but perhaps really wanted to, so before any sharing or teaching was done, eleven more students prayed with me committing their lives to Jesus. 

After that I had the students hold out there hands and pray asking God for the name of someone to pray for and all participated, and later one boy came up to me and said he was praying for another boy in the school who was not there today because he has been very sick, in and out of the hospital and having lots of medical issues, and after he prayed, that boy walked into the room.

So how about a big praise the Lord for all of these salvations and testimonies

From Pia Hugo – My Host in California-

Words cannot express my deep gratitude to Brother Jay (he does not like being called Pastor so I will call him “Brother”…actually I also like to call him Mr. G, you can ask him what the “G” stands for!).

 

 

Not only did all the students love him (they came from all different schools and churches in my area) but so did my adult intercessory team.  As some of you may know, I started a healing/prayer/deliverance team last year and this team was able to help Bro. Jay minister to the kids at the youth rally for two nights.  On Sat. morning, we had a private time with him and he prayed for all of us.  Everyone except for two, I think, got laid out in the Spirit in my living room floor. While on the carpet, I got a very important word I needed to hear, a few felt heat and then actually got healed, one woman who had been praying for the gift of tongues for 10 years finally got it!  Some wept, some shook in the power and some just had a fit of the holy laughter–it felt like old times except none of these people were with me 12 years ago when I first experienced the Toronto Revival and joined this New Wine Network. In fact, most of people in the group came from conservative backgrounds and we all go to my non-charismatic church (which Jay attended on Sunday).  This was their first experience for anything like this and they loved it!

 

 

Aside from all the ministry blessings, salvations and healings that went on with the adults and the students though, I am most grateful for having found a new friend and great brother in Christ!  For those of you who have never met him (my only experience with him prior to this weekend was through this New Wine Network), he is truly the real deal…very humble, very authentic and very anointed!  I have no doubt his real ministry work is just beginning and it will only get better as he continues to carry this current revival fire where ever God might call him.  God bless you, bro, and thanks again for everything!  I do hope you can return in June 🙂

 

 

Blessings and love,

 

 

Pia Hugo – My host