Spending my inheritance...

So over the last few months, I've heard this said:

There are three levels of life that we can experience. The first is the aspect of the curse (at the fall of man in Genesis). Living under the curse can be described as, no matter what you do, you can never seem to get it quite right. The next stage is the concept of sowing and reaping, or what goes around comes around. It's the idea that you get what you worked for. But the third stage is what really has caught my attention. It's the idea of inheritance, where someone else did the work, but you get the benefits.

I took this before God in prayer and started asking for my inheritance. At first glance it may seem like the Prodigal son asking for his inheritance and then running off and wasting it only to return to his family in a very depressed state.

But what I'm talking about is my spiritual inheritance in Jesus. When Jesus died, rose again and ascended into heaven, he did the work for me that I could never do. And then he commands us to go and do the things he did: healing the sick, cleansing the leper, driving out demons, binding up the broken hearted and yes, even raising the dead.

So this idea of my inheritance in Christ has been burning in me for a while. It's like it's been in a cocoon stage inside of me, morphing me from a caterpillar into a butterfly. If you've read this blog over the last 18 months, you can almost see the morphing going on. And now, dare I say it, it's bursting forth.

This past Wednesday to Saturday I was in Redding California at a prophetic conference with two others from my church. I must say, I thought at times that the conference was good at best. We were in the overflow room, which was nice, but when it came to prayer times we felt it was hard to be a part of what was happening one room away. We did get some prayer, and God showed up in some cool ways (a friend of mine broke her wrist a few years ago, and we prayed for the bones to be fully re-aligned, and they were!) so it was not a fruitless adventure at all. But my prayer through out the event was "God, I want to look back years from now, and see that after this conference, something radically shifted in our relationship." God heard me, I'm sure.

This past Sunday at church, I had a word about people feeling that some areas of their life are in death. Financial, emotional, even areas physically. I sensed that God was wanting to bring life when the verse came to mind that Jesus said "I have come so that you may have life, and life to the full." After second service, Ian got up and shared the word, and that if anyone wanted to hear from God, they should grab Dan or me because we've been to a prophetic conference. As I stood at the front of the sanctuary, I looked behind me and there was a line of about eight people waiting to talk to me. I thought "Lord Jesus, you gotta be with me, cause I can't do what you can." With that, I started to pray for people, and here's a rundown of some things that happened:

A friend of mine was in tears as God was restoring joy to her. God was saying that he saw every tear she shed, and that He was moving to bring the joy back to her life.

Another woman came for prayer and I asked her if she needed anything specific. She said no, so we prayed for God's blessing and inheritance over her life. As I was praying, I felt that God might be saying something about her heart, but not her physical heart. After asking if she had a broken heart she and the translator both were shocked. She did indeed have a broken heart, and God wanted to heal that. After prayers of healing and forgiveness she walked away with a huge smile on her face and new found freedom.

I had the opportunity to pray for two married couples. Both of those times were filled with encouragement, and I felt honored to be used by God to bless them and confirm some things that God was stirring in them.

But the most profound event was praying for a Spanish speaking woman. I asked her if there was anything specific she wanted prayer for, and she said she was hoping I could interpret some pictures that God had given her. The first one was of a flower blooming into life, The second was a volcano erupting and the last one I really didn't know how to describe it, so I set it aside in the faith that God would reveal it to her.

I thought that the first two sounded like they had to do with the life cycle. But more specifically, that God was wanting to bring in new life to some area over her life. We started praying about new life, and I got a weird sensation in my stomach. I asked if she had anything going on in her stomach or near there, and she said she had a tumor there and that it was cancerous. Over this past weekend, one of the speakers said that cancer is an inferior name to Jesus. So with that in mind, I started praying over the tumor and commanding it to go in Jesus name. The woman looked shocked, and started saying "it feels soft, it feels soft" after praying about three times over the tumor and the cancer, she said she felt no pain, and that it felt better than ever before. She also asked the translator and me if there was a man who was praying for her at any time, because she felt someone come up to her and lay hands on her back and pray "more Lord, more Lord" I told her that was God. I believe that God healed her then and there, but obviously I'm not a doctor. I asked her if she could go see the doctor this week and get it confirmed that the tumor is gone. I haven't heard from her yet, but I hope to see her again on Sunday :-)

God is amazing. And while I sit and type, I can say that not everything is sorted out in my life, but God is stirring up this inheritance that has been on my heart for years to see, and I believe it's not going to stop any time soon. I believe we're even going to see dead people coming back to life. It's a bold vision, but I believe that God is calling His people to be the hands and feet of Jesus, and as we go He is with us and we'll see that nothing is impossible with God.

Till next time,
~Paul