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Prayers for Safe Travels and Breakthroughs

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Micah 2:13 The Breaker [the Messiah] will go up before them. They will break through, pass in through the gate and go out through it, and their King will pass on before them, the Lord at their head.

Kristy Whittington, our resident missionary, is returning from Africa this week and should be on American soil by February 28. Could you keep her in your prayers for safe travels?

Also, our mission team leadership has received the following emergency email from our director of missions on the ground in Nicaragua. She wrote: Dear Bethany Friends, The church that was going to sponsor your team to get into the country as a group has not been able to obtain their government paperwork. The government now requires churches and non-profits to register every two months!  It’s ridiculous bureaucracy that is hard for churches/organizations to achieve. Then, when they don’t have the proper paperwork, they are technically operating illegally and the government uses this reason to shut them down. We have another option that we are pursuing but we REALLY need prayers for this to happen quickly! Thank you, Naomi

Soooo, as you can see Kristy and our Nicaragua Mission Outreach desperately needs your prayers.

Thank you and have a great week.

Faith’s Enclosure

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The African impala can jump to a height of over 10 feet and cover a distance of greater than 30 feet. Yet these magnificent creatures can be kept in an enclosure in any zoo with a 3-foot wall. The animals will not jump if they cannot see where their feet will fall. Faith is the ability to trust what we cannot see, and with faith we are freed from the flimsy enclosures of life that only fear allows to entrap us.

We have discovered that self-centeredness, and fear act as enclosures in our lives limiting the heights we can attain through faith. When Jesus is drawing us to where He is in the dark – we have nothing but self-centeredness, and fear keeping our faith enclosed. Self-centeredness, and fear hold us to the ground of what we think we see and understand. We believe that the dark, unseen, unknown abyss we are being challenged to stretch our faith towards will only “reward” us with emptiness. Graham Cooke refers to this as the hiddenness of God. He states: So while manifestation takes place in our reality; hiddenness happens in His. And hiddenness is what draws us into a new place in the Spirit. Because of this, we all have to learn to walk by faith, not by sight. When God is manifested toward us, He is so in a tangible way. We can feel Him. We access Him emotionally. We laugh, we cry, we feel as His peace declares His heart and joy in us. His love often  overwhelms us, and we feel gratitude and praise as a tangible expression of our response to His Presence. Rejoicing, thanksgiving, praise, worship, and adoration—they are all physical indications that our emotions are fully engaged in blessing the Lord. That’s because God’s manifest Presence is both physical and emotional. It sets us free to experience God fully. However, when God is teaching us to walk by faith, not by what we feel, He withdraws from our emotions. He hides from our feelings. So instead, we have to take on trust that He is with us. In His hiddenness, we learn to believe that “God will never leave us or forsake us,” and we establish a pattern of simple faith that “He is with us always.” God has not left us — he has only withdrawn from our feelings for the purpose of establishing trust and simple faith. It’s a tough lesson initially, but also immensely rewarding. It is a key discipline to learn, and one that the Holy Spirit is so brilliant at teaching us. Perhaps the simplest way to explain it is to say that: Manifestation is a time of blessing, while hiddenness is a time of building.

Be encouraged that in the hiddenness of seeking Jesus outside the camp, pursuing for the unseen as if it is seen, that Jesus is simply building your faith. Like the impala you will never know how far you can jump until you take your eyes off of your enclosures and trust that God will meet you as you take that leap. What are your enclosures? Weariness, pain, tiredness, spiritual dryness, feeling distant from God, anger, unforgiveness, emotional hurt, or lack of feeling? Whatever the enclosure or limitation, build your faith by reaching past it. 1 Timothy 4:7-8 states: Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. Your enclosures, or perceived limitations, are actually opportunities to “exercise,” and train, your spirit man to be strong like Jesus.

Horseshoes and Hand Grenades

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John 14:9 Jesus replied, Have I been with all of you for so long a time, and do you not recognize and know Me yet, Philip? (AMPC)

You’ve heard the phrase, “Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades!” Horseshoes is a popular game where points are scored by tossing a horseshoe close to a stake 40 feet away. Grenades, when they detonate, send shrapnel into any object close-by. The clichéd phrase is often spoken by a bystander after listening to someone complain that he was not quite close enough to do something or win something. Philip was close to Jesus – but yet in his heart, so far. Imagine being that close to the Creator of the Universe – and still a stranger. Yet, this happens everyday. God draws near to us, whispering through all creation, circumstances, other believers, Scriptures, sermons and church worship services – and we snooze right through it. Many who claim to be born-again are so close to Jesus yet so far. They are like those who have gone looking for their car keys, or sun glasses only to discover they are right where they began their search (or on top of their head). Jesus is calling during this season but many are missing His call. They are so close yet still so far. Asleep in the light we fail to awaken from our slumber of comfort, and complacency continuing life as usual. We are under the spell of the satanic lullaby found in our Laodicean Church age. With our mouths we say one thing but our actions affirm that we think we are fine – just the way we are. We mouth the creed of the Laodicean Church, “We have no need.” Yet over the centuries God’s call has reached the hearts of those who became aware that something was missing. One of those awakened from the lullaby was a man by the name of John G. Lake. Lou Engle describes his awakening in the following excerpt:

John G. Lake operated in one of the most powerful and awe-inspiring gifts of healing that the world has ever seen. In a single ten-year span, Lake saw over 250,000 confirmed physical healings. In 1918, Spokane, WA, was declared the healthiest city in the U.S. because of Lake’s Healing Rooms. His congregation fondly called him “Dr. Lake” because he saw more people get healed than the local physicians.

Lake was saved at the age of 16, learned about sanctification around the age of 20, and then entered into a ministry of healing after experiencing the power of healing in his own family through the ministry of John Alexander Dowie in Chicago. Lake continued to operate in the gift of healing for the next 10 years and saw hundreds healed. 

At the end of those 10 years, Lake was more hungry for God than ever. Although he walked in the miraculous, he claimed that he had not yet experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He would often walk the streets and spontaneously cry out loud to God, surprising all those around him. Lake said, “It was the yearning passion of my soul, asking for God in a greater measure than I then knew. But my friends would say: ‘Mr. Lake, you have a beautiful baptism in the Holy Ghost.’ Yes, it was nice as far as it went, but it was not answering the cry of my heart. I was growing up into a larger understanding of God and my own soul’s need. My soul was demanding a greater entrance into God, His love, presence and power.”

Driven into the wilderness by his hunger for more of God, Lake fasted and prayed for 9 months, waiting on God. Several months into his fast, the Spirit spoke to Lake and said, “Be patient until autumn.” Lake was encouraged and kept going. He prayed, “God, if you will baptize me in the Holy Spirit, and give me the power of God, nothing shall be permitted to stand before me and a hundred-fold obedience.”

At the end of nine months, Lake was weary. He later recounted, “I prayed for the Baptism of the Holy Spirit for nine months, and if a man ever prayed honestly, and sincerely in the faith, I did. Finally one day I was ready to throw up my hands, and quit. I said, ‘Lord, it may be for others, but it is not for me. You just cannot give it to me.’ I did not blame God.” 

Shortly after this, a man named Pierce invited Lake to join him and a group of other believers at his house who had been praying for the past year for the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. None of them had yet received the Baptism. Lake accepted the invitation. Five minutes into prayer, Lake was overcome as “the light of God began to shine around me, I found myself in a center of an arc of light ten feet in diameter, the whitest light in all the universe. So white! Oh how it spoke of purity. The remembrance of that whiteness, that wonderful whiteness, has been the ideal that has stood before my soul, of the purity of the nature of God ever since.”

After this experience, Lake was invited to pray for a woman suffering from rheumatism and bound to a wheelchair. As he prayed with her, suddenly “the Spirit said, ‘I have heard your prayers, I have seen your tears. You are now Baptized in the Holy Spirit.’ Then currents of power began to rush through my being from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet. The shocks of power increased in rapidity, and voltage. As these currents of power would pass through me, they seemed to come upon my head, rush through my body, and through my feet into the floor… Even at this late date, the awe of that hour rests upon my soul. My experience has truly been as Jesus said that He shall be within you ‘a well of water, springing up into everlasting life.’ That never-ceasing fountain has flowed through my spirit, soul, and body day, and night, bringing salvation, and healing, and the Baptism of the Spirit in the power of God to multitudes.”

Lake sold all he had and entered into full-time ministry. God spoke to him that he would soon go to Africa.“One morning when I came down to breakfast, I found my appetite had disappeared. I could not eat. I went about my work as usual. At dinner I had no desire to eat, and no more in the evening. This went on till the third day. But toward the evening of the third day, an overwhelming desire to pray took possession of me. I wanted only to be alone to pray. Prayer flowed from my soul like a stream. I could not cease praying. As soon as it was possible to get to a place of seclusion, I would kneel to pour out my heart to God for hours. Whatever I was doing, that stream of prayer continued flowing from my soul… On the night of the sixth day of this fast, that the Lord had laid on me, while in the act of washing my hands, the Spirit said, ‘How long have you been praying to cast out demons?’ and I replied, ‘Lord, a long time.’ And the Spirit said, ‘From henceforth, thou shalt cast out demons.’ I arose and praised God.” 

Within a week, a violently insane man was brought to Lake. Lake commanded the demon to come out of him in the name of Jesus and the man was instantly delivered. Two days later that same man was released from the institution where he had been confined.

Within the next year, Lake and his family were called by God to South Africa. Over their next five years of ministry in South Africa, Lake saw over one million people give their lives to Jesus, 625 new churches planted, and 1,250 preachers raised up. By the time Lake returned to America, the work in South Africa continued through the hands of those Lake had trained. Lake’s five short years of ministry in South Africa were so impactful that Lake was given the title, “Apostle to Africa”. Gordon Lindsay stated that Lake was “engaged in a ministry which in some respects rivaled that of the Early Church.”

Lake always knew there was something more, but it was the keys of fasting and prayer that opened the door to satisfying his hunger for more of God. By giving up physical satisfaction and hungering in his flesh, he satisfied the hunger of his soul and the world was blessed by it.