I want to pass on to you what I have experienced, a dynamic faith from a life committed to Christ. For over 60 years I have lived and live to fulfill the command of Romans 12:1, offering my life in 'reasonable service'.
Showing posts with label changed and transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label changed and transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Show all posts
My God is the greatest and most powerful God in all the world and He is about to work the greatest miracles of all time. Yes, we are about to write the sequel to the Acts of the Apostles - yes, we are about to see the fulfilment of the Book of Revelation. And let me shout this loud enough to wake even the dead and bring Elijah back - Jesus is coming soon! I want you to know that, as for me, I believe the Book - 'in the last days I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh says the Lord' - Joel 2:28. I personally am ready to go. I am fired up, filled up, powered up, on my feet, ticket and sword in my hand, ready to go now. No power on earth or from hell can stop me. I'm not too old, too poor, too tired, too weak or ready to quit! If God could use Moses, David, Elijah, He can use me. I have the same Holy Spirit power they had, I believe in the same God, and I am already filled with revival fire. No more waiting - the urgency of the crisis alone is call enough - I have already seen the power of God in action, received a ten-fold more powerful anointing, preached the Gospel, won the lost and dying, healed the sick...! We must get back to the authority of the Bible. When God answers, He does it by a miracle. The only real evidence of the reality of God that I find in my Bible is the miraculous.
In these last days God is saying to the church, NOW, "I am prepared to do something greater, bigger, more miraculous than anything that has ever been seen before in the earth, or in the church." God is about to do the greatest miracles the world has ever seen. He's going to raise up men like Elijah, men with an anointing to do the greater works than Jesus did! - John 14:12. Why? Because we are living in the days of the return of Christ, when we're going to see Revival Fire bursting on the church, until we are working and believing and moving into spiritual victory - all in the preparation for the glorious return of Jesus!
People will ask, "Has anybody ever seen or heard anything like this before?" God is moving today by the Holy Spirit, but we haven't yet seen the REAL Glory of God, what He CAN do, but it WILL come! Yes, before Christ comes, in my lifetime, God is going to reveal His Glory on earth! I'm determined to see it!
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When we give God everything, He fills us with His Spirit; it becomes a tangible presence in our lives. But to receive this anointing we have to surrender everything first, so that God can fill us with all His power and glory. When I was a child God didn't call me as an evangelist, pastor or missionary, He asked for everything, a life fully surrendered to His purposes. - God asks the same of you; will you surrender everything to God so that He can give you the gift of His Spirit?
God so impressed Romans 12:1 on me when I was a teenager: 'I beseech you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.' God is talking about normal service, nothing exceptional - for every believer - the norm. Today the churches are talking about being normal, taking care of yourself, not working too hard... But the challenge is 'reasonable service' - giving your whole life as a 'living sacrifice'! Everything! God didn't call me to be an 'evangelist' or a 'preacher' - He said He wanted ALL of me!
If you want to receive the fire of God, the point at which the fire falls is at the altar of sacrifice! In Leviticus 6 the command of God is, that when the priest lights the fire on the altar, that fire must never go out! What did the fire consume? Not just the wood, but the sacrifice! The way you keep the fire burning on the altar is by putting on more and more sacrifice! If we want to see the increase of the fire and the power and the glory of God in our lives, we've got to put more sacrifice on the altar! Then the fire will come!
We need to spend more time in prayer and seeking the Face of God in order to build that altar, then when we put ourselves on it, the fire of God will come down and consume our lives!
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The Baptism of the Holy Spirit is essential if we are to be effective in our Christian witness. When I was a child, I prayed 3 months without receiving the Spirit. But I knew that without the power, the fire, the anointing of God, I could never see men's lives converted. At Easter we used to have three Pentecostal Conventions in London. I determined to go and not leave until I had received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit! The preaching was so long in the morning, there was no time to pray for people to receive the Holy Spirit! As a 13-year old I went up to those great men of God on the platform and said, "I only came to receive the fire, pray for me!" They took me to a small room, laid their hands on me, but their minds were on their lunch! I did not receive the Holy Spirit.
I was searching for something which does not come from men, the real power of God. One of those pastors saw my heart, opened the Scripture to me, then when he prayed and laid hands on me, it was as if the roof came off the building, I saw the Glory of God and felt the fire! The fire of the Holy Ghost, the power of God and the Glory of God came into my life! Now I had to become an evangelist! I had to preach Christ, and see the Power! That baptism was only the beginning! - If you want to be effective in ministry, you MUST be filled with the Holy Spirit!
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My father, (a great man of God, converted in 1905 during the Welsh Revival, a great Bible teacher), taught me when I preached as a boy of 13 and no one repented, that Jesus said, "When the Holy Spirit is come, He will convict the world of sin and righteousness and of judgment to come!" He said, "Son, you haven't received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit yet!" It was a lesson which changed my life - because what I needed was the fire and the power of the Holy Spirit to bring conviction, conversion and a changed life when I preach! I asked my father to lay hands on me. He did, but I didn't receive the Holy Spirit. As a result, I spent the next three months in an agony, 13 years old, crying out to God, fasting and praying that God would give me FIRE and POWER through the Holy Spirit. When finally, I received the Holy Spirit just days before my 14th birthday, it totally revolutionised my life. From that moment God took control, things began to happen, people began to repent. But in order to receive, I had to be emptied of my self; God had to cleanse me and make me new. I needed to learn to submit to God, to seek Him, to desire His Spirit more than anything else. I spent months reading His Word, praying the Scriptures, desiring the Spirit. I was determined to receive the same Baptism that the disciples received at Pentecost! It's important to realise that the disciples spent weeks in prayer before the Spirit fell like flames of fire; you must be earnest in prayer too.
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'The Lord hears His people when they call to Him for help. He rescues them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; He rescues those who are crushed in spirit' (Psalm 34).
Whatever your problem, pray your way through! Whoever you are, Jesus will always hear your cry! Jesus gave His life to break the curse and bring healing. Call upon Him in your day of trouble - and He will deliver you!
You may be in a difficult situation right now, but God will answer. In Exodus 15, the Israelites had travelled three days without water, finally they came upon some, but it was bitter. Moses cried out to the Lord for help - and He answered! God showed Moses a branch which he took and threw into the water - this made the water sweet to drink.
My time in a communist prison was a 'bitter' experience. I tried to pray, so many times, but there was no answer. I prayed for food, and there was none; for help, and there there was none; when I prayed for deliverance, no one came. But yet God turned that 'bitter' time in to a sweet answer to prayer. He will do the same for you - the bitter will become sweet.
We need to be changed and transformed by the Holy Spirit. When I first travelled to Ukraine they used to get their milk delivered not in a carton, but in a large container on the back of a carriage. When the housewives saw the man in the street with the milk, they didn't take the first jug they saw in the kitchen which was half full of dirty water, no, they took out a clean empty jug. It is the same principle with the Holy Spirit. We need to be emptied of ourselves so that we can be filled with the Holy Spirit! Our prayer needs to be: 'Lord change me now, not in part but the whole, Jesus touch me once again, as Your Spirit flows over me.'
The revolution when you receive the Holy Spirit has to be life-transforming. In the Acts of the Apostles, the disciples received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, instantly they were no longer frightened and ineffective, but filled with boldness and fire! That's what we need today in our lives and in the church - a new boldness, a new authority, a new power.
This baptism is not just an anointing or a feeling or an emotional experience - it has to be a complete life-changing miracle: it will change your thinking, habits, relationships for the better; it is a complete physical and spiritual change.
'The Spirit of the Lord will come powerfully upon you, and you will prophesy with them; and you will be changed into a different person.' (1 Samuel 10:6, NIV)
Everyone wants the anointing, we all sit in prayer meetings, but few will make the sacrifice of a life devoted to God. There is a price to pay in service to God, there is a cross we have to carry. The Apostle Paul describes this sacrifice as 'reasonable' (Romans 12:1). Once God fills you with fire, it's your responsibility to keep it burning! The older I get, the more power I have, the more fire I have! I'm more on fire now than when I was first baptised in the Holy Spirit. That's how it should be! The fire shouldn't go out, it should burn brighter! How do we keep the fire burning? Sacrifice. The more sacrifice you put on God's altar the greater the fire of God in your life. What was God's command to the priests in the Temple? Don't let the fire go out! And how were they instructed to keep it burning? Sacrifice (Leviticus 6:13). It is the same in your life and mine.
Many believers are seeking a new anointing, a new power, something extra to what they already have, some new spiritual phenomena. I went to Jerusalem forty years ago without receiving a new anointing. Why? What I am seeking is already within me! I have it now, I am not waiting for a new anointing, I have all the power I need in my spirit now! How? 70 years ago I was seeking to be filled, baptised with the Holy Spirit. When I received, it was a manifestation of fire, of power, speaking with tongues like they did on the Day of Pentecost - and miracles soon began to follow. What a baptism of Power and of Fire I received that day! I received the Holy Spirit, all the mighty Power of God, everything. Now that powerful anointing which before had been outside of me, that third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, was now IN ME! There is only one Holy Spirit - HE is IN me! Not outside, I am not waiting for another Holy Spirit - HE, the Spirit who raised up Jesus from the dead, who was in Paul and Peter, that mighty, miracle-working power of the Great God I am boasting about, is in me now, and HE has been in me for over 70 years! I cannot receive any greater power than that I already have, in me now! That is why I do not seek a new experience and that is why the FIRE has not gone out for 70 years! Yes I am different now to what I was 70 years ago. But notice HE is not different, I am! During 70 years HE has cleaned out a lot of myself and pride, my own works, and because I am not perfect, He will continue to do so until I am raptured into glory.
We've got to be changed, transformed, by the fire and the power of the Holy Spirit! If you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit, if you want to be filled with the power of God, you have got to be emptied first; only then can God fill you with all His power, fire and glory! God baptised me with the Holy Ghost and fire! And I want to tell you that the fire and power is stronger now than it was 70 years ago! I often say that God gets more wonderful every day - but no, He doesn't change, I do! The reason God gets more wonderful and powerful is because each day He reveals Himself to me more and more - and every revelation shows the reality of who He is!
You and I have to reconsider what it means to be Baptised in the Holy Spirit. We need God to baptise us again WITH FIRE, TO PUT POWER BACK INTO US! TO PUT THE FIRE AND THE POWER BACK INTO THE CHURCH!
In the Old Testament, in Leviticus 6:9,12-13, God gave the command to the priests: when you bring the meat offering to the altar - you light a fire and it burns the sacrifice. But the command of God was that THE FIRE ON THE ALTAR MUST NEVER GO OUT! Today, if you want to receive this Fire from God, then your life needs to be the sacrifice on the altar of service to God, then I believe that the command given thousands of years ago still applies today, that fire must NOT go out. At the age of 13 years, I was baptised with the Holy Ghost and FIRE! I will not let that fire in me go out! I'm over 80 years old and this is the secret: what the priests had to do to keep the fire burning on the altar was to KEEP ADDING TO THE SACRIFICE! You've got to keep putting more sacrifice on your altar, more and more - that's what we need today! The tragedy today is that too many believers claim they are baptised in the Holy Ghost - but where is the evidence of the fire?!
I want to prophesy: what we are about to see over the coming weeks and months is the power of God as never before! But first we need to begin to pray and seek God; in response to our earnest intercession He will send the fire of the Holy Spirit!
