Way Too Many Coincidences Not To Be God

Listening to God is such a subjective thing.  I have found there is such a balance of being sure you yourself are ingesting a good amount of the word of God, keeping a consistant contact with God through all the avenues prayer has, listening to Godly men and women around you, as well as discerning circumstances you meet with every day.  Even with a balanced disciplined lifestyle listening to God is still subjective.
This is one of the reasons I believe we have the whole concept of confirmation.  We read it in Gods word, we sense the peace of God in going forward, Godly men and women affirm what God is saying gives us more confidence in our next step.  I think this is why the body of Christ is so important to our walk with God.  When we walk in community their is opportunity for confirmation of Gods will in our lives and many times opportunity for us to see when we are off base.


I have noticed this concept happening many times in our prayer gatherings recently.  A great example was Monday night.  15 minutes before corporate prayer each Monday night, our prayer intern, Matt Martin gathers a group around for intercessory prayer.  This group of intercessors prays for me as I lead.  Monday night one of our intercessors began to pray that God would touch brokeness in people.  You could tell it wasn't just a passing thought but something she had keyed in on and seemed to be strongly passionate about this night.  As she prayed, God got my attention that brokeness was an important aspect to pray for this night.  Well by "coincidence"  I had a young lady sharing at the end of prayer about how God given her a picture during prayer last week that helped her navigate some recent brokeness. (Look for another post this week with Lucys story).  After she shared, we prayed people who had experienced some kind of brokeness and needed hope.  We had probably 60 people stand who wanted to be prayed for.  

The next day I read a faebook post that said "WOW!!! GOD REALLY DOES ANSWER PRAYER!!!! I was reviewing over my journal tonight from earlier today and I was completely amazed at how exactly God answered the following prayer… () inserted after 

Forget myself tonight. May it be ALL ABOUT YOU. Don’t let the fires started in those 3100 people burn out. (I believe some fires were most certainly rekindled tonight!!!)MOVE IN THE MEETING PLACE TONIGHT. DRAW YOUR PEOPLE TO YOU AND MAY THEY GIVE YOU THEIR BURDENS AND BROKENESS. (HELLO!!! Main topic of what Lucy talked about!!!! God thing!!) Let EVERY SPEAKER speak YOUR WORDS with FLUENCY, BOLDNESS, COURAGE, AND CLARITY.(I do not recall anyone stuttering or speaking anything that didn’t mean something to someone) Thank you for the wonderful relationships you have established in front of me. (Simply by the youth laying hands on a fellow member literally in front of me) For those that are BUSILY PREPARING A TESTIMONY STOP THEM. GIVE THEM ASSURANCE THAT YOUR WORDS WILL COME IN YOUR TIMING. (I totally encountered someone that was doing this but then stopped!!! And with messages like those spoken who else could have said them? No man that’s for sure!) 

At Monday night prayer there continue to be so many that are encountering Gods presence in amazing ways.

This week we celebrated 273 people who were baptized this weekend, 28 first time commitments to Christ, and one young man healed of cancer.  Our God is making His name known in our day and in our time.
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 Elements that worked tonight

• Having Johnny Perez share about how God healed him of cancer in the middle of the worship set, stirred peoples hearts to give thanks and praise.
• Beginning the evening with stories of what God did for baptism.  We invited people to come to a mic and speak briefly about what God had done.
• Having people share what God had done for them toward the end, asking anyone to stand who was going through the same thing, and having that person pray over the whole group.