Gathered Around the Fire

In my growth group tonight we were talking about outreach and I received a fresh revelation of John 3:16. I have never heard it preached, I have never thought of before, but I believe it is an accurate assessment of the truth. We need to begin to see ourselves as sons of God and therefore ambassadors of Christ.   ( II Corinthians 5:18-21) This is the way we all learned and perhaps memorized John 3:16-17 16  For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.     17  For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. Some evangelists have suggested that a person alter it by inserting the their own name in place of the The world to make it a more personal message.  So lets take one more step and insert me and I instead of a first name.  16  For God so loved  (me)  that He gave His only begotten Son,  that if  (I)    belie

As you may know Bob Jones passed away last Friday, February 14 , 2014.   This is the content of his final prophetic word, a word for this year.  Vision of the Apple Tree While in a time of praise, Bob saw an apple tree in full bloom.  As he prayed for understanding the Lord revealed to him that many people have been in the bud.  They have been waiting on promises that go back many, many years .  Now the Lord is saying that before the apple tree blooms this spring, their buds shall bloom. Although some of them are ancient promises they will bloom in the spring before the apple tree does and they will begin producing the fruit of righteousness.    Peacemakers Bloom In the fruit of the spirit prophecy, the apple represents peace.  Therefore, this means that a lot of peacemakers shall bloom or come into their divine calling by this spring and they will bring forth the fruit that God has called them to bear.   So get ready for the peacemakers to come forth w

A radical idea of what could be...     A home for the homeless  in the church. Watch this short film about the work of London Churches Night Shelters Homelessness: Grace, Truth & Transformation Grove Books have recently published  ‘Homelessness: Grace, Truth and Transformation ‘ by John Kuhrt and Chris Ward. The booklet weaves together my reflections on working with homeless people, along with Chris’ own powerful personal story.   He writes about  roots  of homelessness, the  reality  of homelessness and his  recovery  from homelessness. The following excerpt written by Chris is taken from his section ‘The reality of homelessness’: “ I had been asked to leave the rehabilitation house which had been my home for seven months because I had started drinking once again over the Christmas period 2002. Within weeks, the people who had let me sofa-surf ran out of patience with my drinking and behaviour.   It was not long before I found myself with nowhere to sle

When Grace is not so Amazing Posted on January 30, 2014 by Jon Kuhrt Well Bono’s words about Karma and Grace have proved to be a bit popular.  In almost 3 years R&R has had 100,000 visits.  In just 4 days that more than doubled. But what is it about Bono’s words that so connected with people? What has led 90,000+ people to share it on facebook? The power of grace Some of it relates to the interest in what celebrities say.  Some of it is due the arresting combination of raw language and passionate conviction. But a key part is the subject matter itself: because the grace is at the heart of Christianity and Bono’s words captured something visceral and urgent about its relevance and power. Ethical problems And yet…doesn’t grace present ethical problems?  Isn’t Karma a lot more fair: you get what you deserve. Doesn’t all this talk of grace give people a free licence to do whatever they want?  If people are simply f

This bloke is spot on... Bono on the difference between Grace and Karma Posted on January 26, 2014 by Jon Kuhrt “It’s a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the Universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma… You see, at the centre of all religions is the idea of Karma.   You know, what you put out comes back to you; an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics – in physical laws – every action is met by an equal or opposite one.   Its clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the universe.  I’m absolutely sure of it.  Read More...

Tim Walz responds to my open letter To Congressman Timothy Walz  Message Subject:  The Expulsion Act of 1862  Message Text: On a recent FOX 12 news story your representative stated that you would be interested in reversing the law on the books, expulsion of the portions of the Sioux Nation from Minnesota.  Several of us here in Mankato are very interested in reversing the law as a sign of good faith to a people group that our federal government has treated in the past with contempt. Certain agents of that government were corrupt and treated this indigenous nation as second class Americans. They took their land, hunting grounds, means of livelihood, through treaties that later were broken.  They moved entire populations onto reservations. If the UN was established back in the 1860's and were looking in from the outside, these reservations would look similar to modern day  refugee camps. Hopelessness, extreme poverty, suicide, drug abuse and all kinds of social ills

 How many of the names of God can you remember without looking them up?   Fairest of 10,000, Bright and morning star, Emmanuel,Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God everlasting Fsther, Prince of Peace, Lamb of God, Mighty Warriior, Lion of the tirbe of Judah Well almost all of them could be inserted in to this song. We went through about a dozen of them during a spontaneous song on Thursday, CAPO II fret  Chorus F        G       C   G/B   Am  Oh Lord you are Glor- i-ous,  F           G            Am Majesty beyond compare F        G       C   G/B   Am         Fairest of  ten thou-ou-sand F               G          Am Bright and Morning Star. Verse 1 F              G                    C   G/B  Am Strong  Lion of  the tribe of Judah     F                  G              Am King  of   Kings   Lord of Lords    Chorus Verse 2 F       G     C  G/B  Am     Everlasting Fa-ah-ther         F       G   Am Prince of Peace F       G     C  G

Gap - February 13 - Lord you are glorious beyond compare.   We sang a chorus of Hallelu, written some 20 years ago by Lyndon Bartel.  and made declarations in that song. We probably sang it over for 10-15 minutes. I thought all the men were going to get up a dance, I even saw a picture of them rising and lifting their hands and then dancing a little. And some did rise up and lift their hands.  Hallelu by Lyndon Bartel circa 1993  You are Lord of the North,  You are Lord of the South You are Lord of the East You are Lord of the West You are Lord over BIG You are LORD over small You are Lord over Me And you are Lord over all.  Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelujah, to the Lord Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelujah, to the Lord Don read the first eight days' declarations from the booklet 40 Days to Ignite Faith - Steve Backlund We all repeated after him the declarations.  Different ones made a declaration of favor and We sang the prophetic song from last

A Spirit of Control and Accusation We see this same spirit affecting the atmosphere around David, even among his brothers... David's eldest brother Eliab was burned by the fact that David had been chosen over him by Samuel and anointed as the next king. He accused David of being an arrogant brat (your pride and the insolence of your heart) just minutes before David supernaturally kills Goliath.  8  Now Eliab his oldest brother heard when he spoke to the men; and Eliab’s anger was aroused against David, and he said, “Why did you come down here   And with whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your pride and the insolence* of your heart, for you have come down to see the battle.”   29  And David said, “What have I done now?  Is there not a cause?”  1 Samuel 17:8 * your pride and the  rude and disrespectful behavior of your heart July 31, 2000   Steve came to town took inventory of the congregation, at the request of our pastor, Jim. Partl

There seem to be several timelines that are all converging on this particular time, and I am not the only seeing the lines converging others have shown that lines that have run much longer than my 6 years, or 20 years, or even 26 years, Dr. Stephen Jones has patterns of years that are measured in centuries and even millennium. Several prophetic times lines confirm my little slice on it... that we are living on the edge of things we know so little of... perhaps the last great in-gathering. If I could I would create a timeline showing how all these prophetic things started at different times, in different places, some even generations ago, but they all point to an end of old things in this time frame. What would it have looked like in the days just before the angel visited Mary, would we have seen all the lines of history from ancient past converging on Bethlehem in a stable. It happened in his first coming what would it look like for His second coming? wouldn't all the prophecies

This is taken from the blog post of Dr. Stephen Jones regarding the prophetic parallel to the battle of Jericho.  Yet when I looked up the original Hebrew word used, I found that it was  yobel , the Hebrew word for Jubilee. We understand, of course, that the priests were blowing rams' horns, but this is not the term that is actually written in the passage. Literally speaking, the priests were  blowing the Jubilee . The Battle of Jericho In the summer of 1993, the Lord told us to move to Seattle and issue a “call to arms” to anyone wanting to actively participate in the Jubilee Prayer Campaign. We understood from the start that this was based upon the battle of Jericho, and we related the seven  days  of Joshua's battle to the seven  years  of our own warfare. As it turned out, we held a total of eight named prayer campaigns in the next six years (1993-1999). These were: Nov. 21-29, 1993—the Jubilee Prayer Campaign  Jan. 27-30, 1994—His Fullness June 4, 1995—Occu

This is part four of a story about the Marathon God told me I would be training to run. You may want to go back to parts 1-3 to get the full context. 1990-1993 For three years we stayed in our house, worked in the area but never again saw most of the people we had fellow-shipped with for up to 14 years. I went back to the church office, on a couple of occasions and tried to reconcile things, with the Pastor, by now that they had discovered that the other couple had been lying and that they were trying to create division. In the end, Bob moved away to the Denver area, and became a Baptist pastor, partially in reaction to all he saw in the charismatic movement. There were a small group who left the church right after they prayed me out. I hadn't planned on leaving, so I was surprised and really had no place to go for worship the next Sunday morning, or for that matter for the next season. I certainly didn't tell anybody to follow me out, but some of them wanted something

To go from, great joy and celebration when Goliath your arch enemy was killed to trying to pin David to the wall. How does this happen? With me my pastor was so surprised that God would send me to co-labor with him and now he was ready to send me off as well. Over the last three years my prophetic gift had become more visible, a new sense of the favor of the Lord, the words of my mouth becoming the means of blessing in my life. I had moved into a sales career during this period of time so it was literally the words of my mouth provide the prosperity and the blessing of the Lord. It was becoming more natural for me to flow in words of wisdom or knowledge especially during prayer for people. I enjoyed personal ministry and prayer times they seemed to be the most rich presence there. I had built friendships with the guys in my home church group and the guys who lead the home church groups. I felt connected to the prayer movement that was characteristic of  the elder-ship in the chu

Well last time I mentioned how Mark Chironna came into the house after the meeting and gave me a private word, which was connected I think, to the public word he gave me during the meeting. I have concluded that this Saul/David thing he prophesied has a long term rather than a short term application.  Particularly because I have experienced a series of experiences that line up with this word first given in October of 1987. The purpose of this blog post is to lay out the manifestation of this word that came to pass 3 weeks later in November of 1987. As I drove Mr. Chironna to his in-laws' house that night, my mind was swirling with all the words and the corresponding concepts that I had heard. Was I really in a David/Saul relationship?  What were the spears I was supposed to dodge? How do I keep from throwing them back?  Was I going to use my newly prophesied skills to negotiate? Was my boss going to try to kill me? physically? probably not emotionally? perhaps s

 I alluded to God directing me back to things he said 20 years ago in a previous post . This prophetic word was one of the things he directed me back to. In 1993  when I made the move to Mankato, I placed myself under a presbytery of leaders from the region, several leaders prophesied over my life, but one prophet from the region told me that God said,  "David, you have run the 100 yard dash,  You have run the 440,  You have run the mile, but God says, he is preparing you to run the marathon."    A Marathon is 24-26 miles historically, this is I believe prophetically a 26 year marathon. So I went back in my journals a little earlier and ended up in 1987. I received toe prophecies one month apart in the fall of 1987, one is listed below form a man from Delaware and the other one month earlier was given by a man from Kentucky. Oct 25, 1987  -  26   years ago  I received a prophetic word privately from the visiting speaker, who was a prophetic man,  I was invited over