strike #2

Today, Josh Heymans and I took Jenny (Jenny Hinn, as I call her; as she is a budding super-evangelist) and Jessica Brown (who has one of the greatest servant hearts I have ever seen) out to the Pen Center for some good ole Mall Evangelism. Jessica and I walked around and talked to a few people; we got to pray for this chic who had sore hips (more from her later). We went back to the food court area to meet up with Josh and jenny, and we seen Jenny talking to a girl and Josh was not around. We meet up with Josh and then Jenny comes back with this awesome story:

Josh tells her to go over to this certain table and tell the girl sitting there about Jesus. So she goes over and asked her if she knows Jesus. The girl pretty much breaks down and is weeping saying that she had been asking God that if he was real, etc, that He would send someone to testify of His goodness, etc. So for about 10 minutes, Jenny totally gets to Gospelize her and speak words of life into her. What an awesome testimony; one of the best of the semester! You go God!

Then as we are all cruisin to get an Orange Julius, the security guard that kicked us out 2 mondays ago came up to me again and said that there were more complaints directed towards us and that we (once again) had to leave. She said that if it happens one more time we would be permanently banned from the Pen Center, Glory to God. I believe it was the girl who Jessica and I prayed over who complained to the security guard about us. We seen her talking to one of the store workers whom I credit our gettin kicked out last time to. Anyways, it sure was some good times. I have to try and find out in the St catharines by-laws what our rights are for Mall Evangelism. Things could get quite interesting.

E J Pace

FAITH WORKing through LOVE = HUMILITY?

As far as our relationship to Christ Jesus is concerned, it doesn't matter whether we are circumcised or not. But what matters is a faith that expresses itself through love. (Galatians 5:6 GWT) Indeed. I've been stuck on this verse for about 5 days now. I'm dissecting it. You see, my pastor wrote me an email and said that "the greater the calling of God on our lives, the greater the level of humility we must walk in to fulfill that calling." I agree. So that sent me off on a pursuit of what humility truly is. I think a lot of it is contained in the above scripture (Gal 5:6).



According to James, "faith by itself is dead if it doesn't cause you to do any good things."(2:17 GWT), and "You fool! Do you have to be shown that faith which does nothing is useless?"(2:20 GWT), and again "For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead."(2:26 NASB).



On the other hand, the Apostle Paul says, "If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing."(1Corinthians 13:2-3 NASB)


In retrospect, if your faith isn't expressed through works, it proves you don't have faith at all. And if your works aren't done in love then your works are proven useless as well. So we look back at Galatians 5:6(NASB) which says, "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love."



And now back to humility. I think I believe that expressing your "faith" through "love" which "works" is humility. But do I? I really believe that if we truly think that we actually know what humility is, then we aren't able to attain it. Believing we completely know what humility is disqualifies us from truly walking in it. It is wisdom to realize that for now, "Now we see a blurred image in a mirror. Then we will see very clearly. Now my knowledge is incomplete. Then I will have complete knowledge as God has complete knowledge of me."(1Corinthians 13:12 GWT). Humility is a journey that we must follow. It's destination is the Throneroom.

a day Most Holy / there's a fire in the house

Today may have been the best day of the school year. It started as a student appreciation breakfast, which was interrupted by the fire alarm randomly and uncharacteristically going off. So we all had to grab our plates of food and book it outside in the cold for about 15min (to make matters worse, I don't wear shoes in class so I was out in my socks!!!). When we went inside I seen 3 firemen walking around the kitchen looking for any trace of fire, but there was none. I joked with a couple of my classmates about how there was reports of fire at the Azusa St church back in the day, but when the fire dept got to the scene there was no fire. The Azusa St revival was one of the biggest events in the Church's history. Anyways, we finished our breakfast and went upstairs to do some worship. It was a day of prayer at CBC and it was filled with prayer and some preaching by Pastor Peter about where he believed Holy Spirit was directing NCC in the near future.

Near the end of the day, we all came up to the altar and had a time of 'drawing near' to God, which was followed by a time of ministering to each other. I was standing alone and Pastor George laid his hands on my shoulders from behind and started praying for me. Future aspirations were voiced and I broke down, realizing just how much of a broken vessel I am, and that to be regarded by God as fit for His service is a thing more humbling than any other.

There was a Spiritual shift today, and some entered, and some didn't. The Lord took my feet out from under me today, and here I sit still, looking up into the Glory of His Presence. It's a quiet place, one where words mean little.

Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.

Francis of Assisi (1182-1286)

"Answering a student's question, 'Will the heathen who have not heard the Gospel be saved?' thus, 'It is more a question with me whether we, who have the Gospel and fail to give it to those who have not, can be saved."

Charles Spurgeon(1834-1892)

'2hr 8min'

Peter & Julie, Kyle, Josh, and I gather after Pen Center evangelism friday night and we have a Holy Ghost prophecy party. It was pretty sweet. I mean, if the Apostle Paul says that we should earnestly desire to prophesy (1Corinthians 14:1), how else we gonna do it unless we step out and try? It's a good question. So Peter gets a 'word' for me (see video above) and this afternoon I decide to put it into practice. See, when we get a word of prophecy we can do one of two things: we can sit back and wait for God to bring it to pass (which He likely won't), or, we can take hold of that word and go get what God has promised us. I prefer the second option. So, like I was saying, this afternoon I got on my face and for a bit over 2hrs I sought the Lord for a new revelation of Himself. It was an interesting experience. In the 'natural', Jesus did not appear and knight me with a sword. But after the experience I got and called Him on it. I said, "Well Lord, I did my part." Dumb thing to say. I felt Him reply, "Are you so presumptuous to assume you did what you were supposed to do without Me doing what I was supposed to do?" C'mon Lord! A little grace please. Anyways, here's something that absolutely did happen:

About half an hour in, as I was lying on my back on the floor, I seen (in the spirit) a bouquet of dark flowers lying on the floor. An unseen hand picks them up and extends them towards me. "They're for you", a voice said. I took them and laid them on my chest; like what happens to a body in a casket. The voice said, "This is in commemoration of the death of your 'self'".

I'm ok with that. It's sweet because just yesterday I told Peter & Julie that I want to be accountable to them in the area of 'materialism'. Any purchases that I make have to be approved by them. I want all semblance of materialism driven out of me; the sooner the better. MATERIALISM- preoccupation with or emphasis on material objects, comforts, and considerations, with a disinterest in or rejection of spiritual, intellectual, or cultural values

an Ezekiel anointing?

Ezekiel 4?.................Nah. We did get to tell the Gospel to three youngsters who ended up with 3 New Testaments, and Kyle and I got to pray with the Catholic gentleman. Pretty good cosidering Josh and I got kicked out of this same place last monday for doing the same thing! And I also got some habenero hot sauce. Sweet!!

Intimacy with God: as seen through the life of Ezekiel

Last evening I taught at Kyle Laviolette and Jenny Brown's home group. I spoke on "Intimacy with God: as seen through the life of Ezekiel" (hence, the name of this post). It was a journey through the prophet's book, with examples that proved he led such a life of intimacy with God, that we, as New Covenant believers, should be envious! Ezekiel lived 600 yrs before Christ, before the fulfillment of the indwelling of Holy Spirit, yet he lived a life that is charactized by closeness with God that christians today seldom attain. There is something wrong with this picture. Anyways, here are my points I taught on (click on the scripture references to read):

1. Intimacy with God reveals the heavenly realm
1:1-28, 10; 37:1-14; 40-48; 43:1-5; 8:1-3

2. Intimacy recieves Divine revelation
16:49-50; 18:23, 32; 28:11-19; 44:19

3. Intimacy is a forerunner to radical obedience
3:17-21, 33:1-20; 12:1-11; 24:15-27; 36:6, 35:1-9; 4; 5:1; 20:45-49; 21:1-5

4. Intimacy hears God's heart (prophecy)
11:19-20, 36:25-27; 37:15-23; 33:33

As you can sort of tell, intimacy is a necessary part of our walk with God. In fact, you can argue that unless one walks in intimacy with God he does not even know Him. Hence, he has no assurance of even his own salvation. It's a hard saying. Intimacy can be defined as follows: feeling or atmosphere of closeness and openness towards someone else. Ezekiel portrays this as well as any other Old Testament figure.

kicked out of the Pen Center

So Josh Heymans and I get about 20 New Testaments today and we take a fellow Celebration Bible College student (Timothy from Nigeria) to the Pen Center to evangelize and give out some free bibles. Good idea, right? Apparently the people at the Pen Center didn't think so. About 30 minutes or so into our outreach, a security guard comes up to me and tells me that she was getting complaints about us and that we have to leave. Wow, it's a pretty sad state when you are handing out a book that leads to eternal bliss (as well as present day victorious living), and you get told that you're not wanted! Whatever! I think we're going back on friday, if not before. It was a rather slack time of evangelizing anyhow; people were just not into talking about Jesus today. What's up with that?! Could you think of a more interesting topic to talk about? Good luck.