George & Laurie Hull - RTF - Unforgettable Week revisited

This was a rather intense time of receiving deliverance and freedom. It really stirred up a lot of memories and brought some internal pain to the surface. I am so glad Jesus met me in those painful memories and showed me where he was and what he was doing when these events in my life were happening.

Some of the topics we covered were the forgiveness cross (vertical and horizontal), soul/spirit hurts, ungodly soul ties, deliverance, and replacing unGodly beliefs with Godly beliefs. What was amazing to me was that while listening to Laurie and George God was already speaking into my spirit Godly beliefs that I could receive in the place of the lies I had believed.

Forgiveness is such a powerfully freeing act both for the forgiver and the forgivee. It is the act of releasing others from the court room of your heart where you have past sentence upon them. It is letting go of the expectation of payment being owed to you. It is not denial of the hurt done to you or the injustice of what has happened, but the realization that you are not the judge of the universe and you have no right to hammer the gavel in your self-made court-room.

True heart forgiveness for me has been a process. When I think of certain people I am still surprised of the emotions that come up. Anger, lies, images played back in my mind some times pop up. Each time this happens I am learning to make it an opportunity for relationship with the Holy Spirit. Gradually I have noticed my heart becoming new. A lot of this has to do with perspective. If you focus on faults you will inevitability develop faulty thinking. If you make it a discipline to look for what is right, noble, gracious, and honorable in others you are giving a wide open invitation to the thoughts of God.

After renouncing and breaking agreement with lies, evil spirits, and my own personal sins, generational pre-dispositions to certain areas of sin, I was able to than break some ungodly soul ties and break free from demonic influence.

Forgiveness does not work in only one direction it is three directional. First receive forgiveness from God after confessing to him, then forgive yourself, and forgive the other person.

This was a great time of sharpening some of the tools I already had in my spiritual toolbox. I am so glad this couple came and invested over an hour with each one of us in personal ministry sessions. I will never forget the things Jesus showed to me and spoke to me in my session. Because of this time I am a much more whole and healthy human being.

If you have any questions I have provided a place for comments below.

Week 5 - Jeremy & Connie Sinnot - Worship As A Lifestyle

The first question you have to answer is what is worship to you? I can give you a definition but I believe it would be more valuable to you if you started to define one on your own. This brings me to my first point. Worship is a personal way of life. Have you ever been in a corporate setting where songs and music were being played and one person is laying on the floor weeping and another is shouting for joy. Where one person can barely stand up under the weighty Kabod of God's glory and another is striving to feel something desperately. My view on worship is very much in the context my own culture. It is very individualistic.

John 4:23 "Yet the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. Indeed, the Father is looking for people like that to worship him." Jeremy came with this message that worship is the highest calling of the bride of Jesus Christ. He pointed out that the great commandment came before the great commission. The Holy Spirit has recently been speaking to me about this. He asked how can you introduce people to me if you do not know me? It has got to look more like falling in love and less like learning about a person in a book. How can you live a lifestyle of love with out being in love?

I believe worship is a choice that becomes an addiction to God's presence. We each seem to fall out of thanksgiving and into complaining. This reminds me of the intentional way Connie, Jeremy's wife, changed her lifestyle. She decided to thank God for who He is every 10 minutes. She has found that by doing this, living in God's presence is easy.

If you want a life that thrives instead of stagnates, then become a lover. Lovers will always outperform employees. God is looking for lovers. He is looking for investors who will invest their lives into people. This too is worship. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind and love your neighbor at yourself. This is a good place to start. This journey called worship does not end here though, it grows deeper like strong roots of love in your heart. It enables you to love your enemies with a sincere heart. It compels you to know God for who He really is, so you can begin to see people for who they really are.

By simply being you are worship. I can feel the resistance to the simplicity of this already. We are taught from an early age that love is earned not inherent in our being. Jesus intentional used the analogy of being born again because a baby does not do anything to be loved. It is simply loved because he or she is in the family. Try reading Psalms 139 and ask God, how have you made me? why do you like me? what about me, causes you to smile?

Week 4- Steve Long - Healing

Steve started out his presentation on healing with this bold statement "God's will is to heal everyone, everywhere, all the time." If Jesus, who is our embodiment of God's will, never turned anyone away who was seeking healing why would we ever conclude that God does not want us healed. I liked this style of teaching because he was basically daring us to believe in God's goodness. He also said that when it comes to healing and the supernatural we have two sources to base our faith on, either on God's word or our experience.

The reality is that many of us have life experiences that cause us to scream the why question to God. Maybe you personally have never done this but I know I have. Different teachers have come up with different reasons for people not getting healed. Two of the most common reasons given are lack of faith and unforgiveness. Consider the possibility that God's own faithfulness can over-ride the lack of faith both of the person praying and the one receiving prayer. I love this possibility and many of us who practice praying for the sick, I am sure, can relate to it.

The first hurdle we need to get past are the lies that we have believed. Here is a list of common lies that people believe about God's will to heal

1. God is working on my character

2. God is teaching me a lesson through this sickness illness (while God can use all things do you really believe that this is the reason you are sick)

3. Everyone's got to die of something

4. It's not my time to be healed

5. I do not have enough faith

God desires to heal you. Step into this story. Matt 8:1-3 "Jesus came down the mountain with the cheers of the crowd still ringing in his ears. Then a leper appeared and went to his knees before Jesus, praying, "Master, if you want to, you can heal my body." Jesus reached out and touched him, saying, "I want to. Be clean." Then and there, all signs of the leprosy were gone.

Take notice that Jesus said he I want and then spoke to the leaper saying "Be Clean." Astonishing story eh?

I challenge you to see if any of these lies have influenced your life and relationship with God. If so ask God for the truths that will replaced these lies so you can get on living the abundant life Jesus promised you. (John 10:10)

Canadian Wilderness

And now for a taste of the beauty I have been surrounded by for the past 2 1/2 months!

Wilderness Photos

Week 4- Sarah Jackson - Dream Interpretation

A realization that I came to while listening to Sarah Jackson share on dreams from a biblical perspective was that dreams are more valuable than I thought. Often especially in our western culture we pass them off as something we ate last night or simply something that happened in the day or week before the dream. Mind you it is good to take into account whether you are on medication or what is going on in your heart and life, but also do not through out the possibility that there is more meaning in your dreams than meets the eye. For instance I find that most people can tend to take dreams literal instead of symbolic. This can often happen if you already have a specific desire in your heart.

Another important principle to remember is that using a dream dictionary or a specific method of interpretation is far from fool proof. We all need to realize that we all have unique dream language. A tiger in a dream may mean something different to an Indian from India than a little girl who had a terrifying experience at the zoo. Our dream language is developed over time by the environment and culture we are exposed to. Since God knows us, He knows are dream language and can communicate accordingly. I love that! God intricately knows the desires, thoughts, and meaning of different things in our lives and uses our time of sleep to communicate with us.

Some common reasons for dreams are warnings, directive, destiny, revealing your heart, literal i.e it happens right after you wake up, symbolic, and prophetic. It is important to keep in mind that dreams are like onions and there can be more than one interpretation or layer to anyone one dream. Also before making major life decisions based on a dream it is important to seek confirmation of your interpretation from at least three others and follow the peace of God.

Week 3 - George & Laurie Hull - Restoring The Foundations

This week was a rather rough one for me and if I took a survey of the rest of the students I believe they would all concur. I found out that I have believed a lot of lies about myself and others and still had some heart wounds that needed to be healed.

One thing that stood out during this week is that I had somewhat devalued how important it is to have your heart healed. This season of my life has seemed to have been a lot about observing and learning. God has really downloaded a lot since I have been up here in Canada. I am so glad that in that week and the following weeks I received so much freedom and deliverance.

Due to my own personal experience in knowing the truth (Jesus) and having Him set me free I will not start a ministry of any kind with out making room for the healing of the heart. This is something I believe this has been something that has not been emphasized enough in the body of Christ. If our hearts are not healed and we have hidden hurts, the enemy waits to poke that spoke and then we hurt others. It is often true hurt people hurt people.

I had a powerful ministry session where Jesus turned up in one of my childhood memories and removed the hurt and pain and spoke so much love and courage into my heart. I also received so many God beliefs from God to replace the lies that I believed and I am still declaring them until they become who I am. I covet your prayers for me in this process.