Date Night With Holy Spirit

Hot. It’s hot tonight. When we got to the Healing Rooms it was 95 degrees out and there was nobody outside. I thought to myself, “It’s going to be hard to pray for people if we can't find any people”. Don't underestimate what God can do. In about an hour we found, and prayed for 12 different people that were on our Treasure maps. All but two, were either going into or coming out of the bars and clubs.

As far as some of the clues (words of knowledge) Holy Spirit gave us, it was a very eclectic mix of names, initials, colors, what people were wearing, headlight, red car, mustache/dark blue shirt, bar, and a bunch of generally weird clues. Three different members of the team received the clue of "back pain". God put them all together and led us on a trail of people that He lined up for us all through a two block area of downtown Kennewick. At the end of about an hour, we looked back in awe at what Holy Spirit had done. He had us at just the right place at just the right time for the right person and we had the right clues for that person. I will always be amazed at how He arranges everything for us. All we have to do is GO and DO what He shows us. It's easy and fun and a bit scary.

The first treasure we found was a young man in his mid-20's about to go into a bar. He was wearing clothes that were "gray/blue". I stopped him before he went into the pub, told him he might be on my Treasure Map, and asked him to look at our other clues. We had the initials of his first and last name and he was suffering with back pain. He had worked construction and had hurt his back. He told me the pain never left - it was always there. From a scale of 1 - 10, I asked him to tell me what the pain level was right now. He said it was a level 5 and he was hurting. He gave me permission to lay my hand on his back and pray for him. I had him check his back and he said the pain had dropped to a level of 2. God was up to something. I prayed again, and the pain left completely. We had just had an encounter with the healing power of God on the sidewalk outside of a bar. Over the next 15 minute I shared the good news of Jesus with this young man. He had just encountered the power of LOVE because God is love.

We found a group of four young black men with the clues, "in the street", "dark skin", "white shirt", "white hat" "green/white", name that starts with "K", "shoulder pain", and an unusual "green" color. We had clues for all four of them and they all received prayer, a prophetic word, and heard about the love of Jesus. When we first approached them they were commenting about the good looking girls that were entering the Comedy Club across the street. When we were finished they had all bowed they head in prayer to the living God and I doubt they think they were thinking about the girls anymore.

Roger had a description of a bartender on his map and it took him about four bars, but he found and prayed for that bartender. He was digging for God's gold and he didn't stop until he found what Holy Spirit had showed him. God is going to reward his perseverance with more open doors and more power to release God’s kingdom.

Thursday nights have become our date night with Holy Spirit.

What would the Church look like, if?

We have decided that teaching the Gospel without demonstrating the Gospel is not enough. Good preaching, good doctrine, and being good people is not enough.

We have decided that having a good church club is not enough, good fellowship is not enough, and just being a member of that club is not enough.

We have decided that having good Bible studies is good, but not good enough, that just making it to heaven is not our goal, and that knowing about God without truly knowing and experiencing God is meaningless.

We have decided that having good programs is not enough; that change without transformation is intolerable, and that staying the same is not an option.

We have decided that gifting without character is futile.

We have decided that singing songs without worshiping is shallow and having meetings without God showing up is pointless.

We have decided that having faith without works is not enough and having works without love is not acceptable - that our function comes out of our relationship first with the Father and second with each other.

We have decided that reading about the book of Acts without living the book of Acts is unthinkable.

We have decided that confident faith is good and bold faith is better.

We have decided that hearing about the Holy Spirit without experiencing Him is silly, that believing in His presence without seeing It manifested in signs and wonders is hypocrisy, that believing in healing without seeing people healed is absurd, and that believing in deliverance without people being delivered is absolutely ridiculous.

We have decided to be Holy Spirit filled, Holy Spirit led, and Holy Spirit empowered - anything less doesn't work for us.

We have decided to be the ones telling the stories of God's power - not the ones hearing about them.

We have decided that living saved, but not supernatural is living below our privilege and short of what Christ died for.

We have decided that we are a battle ship not a cruise ship, an army, not an audience; Special forces not spectators, missionaries not club members.

We have decided to value both pioneers and settlers - pioneers to expand our territory and settlers to build on those territories - but we are not squatters - people who take up space others have fought for without improving it.

We have decided to be infectious instead of innocuous, contagious instead of quarantined, deadly instead of benign.

We have decided to be radical lovers and outrageous givers.

We have decided that we are a mission station and not a museum:
Therefore:
1. We honor the past - we don't live in it.
2. We live in the present with our eyes on the future.
3. We see past events - successes and failures - as stepping-stones not stop signs.
4. We pursue learning in order to be transformed, not learning in order to know.
5. We are people of engagement not observation.
6. We focus on what could be, not on what is or has been.
7. We are not limited to the four walls of this building. Our influence is not restricted by location - Not even the nations are out of bounds.
8. We are more concerned about how many we send out into the world than how many we convince to come into the building. This building is meant to be filled and it will be - but it will not be the measure of who we are or the measure of our effectiveness.
9. We raise up world changers - not tour guides. We train commandos, not committees.
10. We are a people of our destiny, not of our history.

We have decided that it is better to fail while reaching for the impossible that God has planned for us than succeed settling for less.

We have decided that nothing short of His Kingdom come, His will be done in our world as it is in Heaven will satisfy.

We have decided that we will not be satisfied until our world freaks out and cries out "Those who have turned the world upside down have come here too."

Decisions That Define Us © 2005 David B Crone