Caveman

I guess I just expected people to figure this out. The statement was a response to a quote that I quoted from Bramble who said "Faith can be believed and lived." It = faith. I'd kind of hoped to get back to the topic, but it looks like I'm going to be gone for a while. I need to get ahead if schedule in my work because we are taking the week of the 16th off to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary.

Yes, sort of. What we need to focus on is trying to live it. If we are trying to prove it then we are walking in the flesh and not in the spirit. If we simply try to live it, it will prove itself. What I would hope to do here is to discuss with those who are willing to try to live it the means of doing so. At those times when determination exists.

We all have a flesh, and we get in it once in a while. If I or Jen-o or anybody else fails to walk in the spiritt from time to time, that is NOT Jesus' effect on us.

What is needed is that we work together to learn how to do what He has called us to do. Frustration.

Contempt breeds contempt in the best of us, and I guess I'm guilty too.

Isn't that a law in itself? I have seen this too. Maybe I am wrong to try to find answers, but what I read in the Bible is not what I find in the church, and I have a problem with that.

People get upset because they take stuff too personal

No, "demons."

Go away for a few days and look what happens It sounds like you may be a part of Bob Mathieson's ministry, http://www.outreachofgodsword.com/ I was for a while, but they are too far away. I neded to get involved with someone locally before I could raise up to my calling. Don't worry about it. I'm just trying to get their dander up. I've been successful.

I have a Todd Bentley CD from way back before the tattoos and the piercings, and it is awesome. It takes me into directly into the thrown room every time I listen to it. I was kind of hoping that you were going to tell me that you worked for him or something, because I think he needs to hear what I have to tell him, and I think he is real enough to listen to it. I'm pretty sure that his heart is with the Lord. Our church is a small independent, but we are similar in doctrine to Assembly of God, though quite different in structure. There is what the call the "River Movement" within the A-G. At first I was skeptical of this "River Movement" because it was so different from what I was taught, but later grew to like it. It helped me to feel the presence of the Lord I still have a problem with the statements of "The Holy Spirit showed up," and the like. I will ask questions like "Where was he before?" or "I thought he was omnipresent." There is a change, though that comes over an entire room and sometimes lingers in the building and you feel it as soon as you walk through the doors. I've wondered if it might be an angelic presence or what the OT called the glory of the Lord. Exd 40:34 Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. My pastor doesn't like the River Movement. He doesn't feel that they concentrate enough on the Scriptures. Maybe he is right, but I love to dive into the river. Our church allows a free movement of the Holy Spirit, and concentrates on the Scriptures as well. I like that, but it look weird to some people. Dave (my pastor) would talk about having a check in his spirit whenever somebody would say something that was off, even though he didn't know exactly where they were off at. I'd felt that check in my spirit when I'd heard about the Toronto Movement, (Like I said, I don't know much about it, and even less about Pensacola.) but I'd kind of wrote that off as something coming from the old twi mind set. I remember someone talking about how the Azusa Street people didn't like the Toronto Movement because it didn't look like what they did, and how that God doesn't follow the same pattern every time. Personally, I want to see the results. "I don't care about the delivery. I just want to see the baby." (if you don't mind my quoting vpw) A few years ago Raul Ries came to Eureka. He brought All Together Separate and Priesthood with him. People all around me had their hands raised to the Lord, and I felt this urge to do so also, but I withheld because I was taught in twi that such was a counterfeit. Then I looked over at my wife, and she had her hands raised to the Lord. The Lord showed me later that anything done as an act of worship is worship. Another time we went to a conference down in Sacramento. Sharon went up for prayer, and the next thing I know, she is laying on the floor. I went for prayer also because I had a really bad sinus cold. The person praying for me had her hand on my head and was pushing me backwards to the point where I was off balance. When I felt my knee buckle under me I stepped back to regain my balance. This person asked me why did I resist because there was a strong man behind me to catch me, but I'm like, "No, If I go down, it's going to be because God did it, not because you pushed me." Later my wife told me what she experienced, and it was completely different from what I experienced. I still have never experienced going down, but Sharon has several times since then. To me a real move of God will leave a wake of wheel chairs, crouches, hearing aids, white canes and back braces in the dumpsters, but I've looked at these other "movements" as heading in the right direction. I look for the results. When Bob Mathieson (second corps)http://www.outreachofgodsword.com/ first started studying demonology he went to a couple of meetings where people were trying to emulate Derek Prince. He said that all he saw there was manifestation after manifestation, but no deliverance. That is not to say that Derek Prince wasn't real, but he was maybe operating under a special anointing that the others didn't have (like Paul was in Acts 19:11ff) to do mass deliverance. Maybe they are counterfeits, but whether in pretense, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. (Phil 1:18) And And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to [his] purpose. (Rom 8:28) I'm not going to call it a counterfeit until I know what the genuine looks like. Moreover, I'm not going to call it a counterfeit unless I know that it is a counterfeit. I don't want to be stuck believing it is counterfeit if it is real, and I don't want to be stuck believing that it is real if it is counterfeit. Most of all, I don't want to be the counterfeit. Maybe it's a counterfeit, or maybe it's preparation for what is coming. What I see is people doing the best they know how to do. I believe that our church is real, though we may look odd to those who are more reserved. I believe also that God has much more to offer than what we've got so far.

I'm just trying to work it out in my own head. I've had all day to think about this now, and don't have time to type what I want to say right now, and I probably won't be back until Tuesday, but the bottom line is, maybe you are right.

jen-o, don't waste your time arguing with demons. Invisible Dan and Oakspear are only trying to get your dander up, and they have been successful.

I wonder if the "O ye of little faith" statements that Jesus made were just bantering.

My premise was too simply stated. There are way too many variables. Why would God heal somebody it they aren't going to do anything with that healing? There are people who got healed only to get sick again. Maybe this is because they never gave their testimony? Psa 66:18 If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear [me]: Isa 59:1 Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: 2 But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid [his] face from you, that he will not hear. Maybe if we all walked like Jesus did we wouldn't ever physically die, but we can't do that because we were born into sin.

Yet you know about familiar spirits

What is your opinion of Todd Bentley?.. or the Toronto & Pensacola movements, jen-o?

Moved text into above post

It's a matter of prospective, I guess. To me if I trust God, that is believing, however there is something different about it. When my broken arm was healed I had a totally different mindset than I normally do. I knew it was going to be healed, yet I was scared at the same time because I couldn't afford a broken arm. I talk about what I believe as if it were gospel, but the truth is that I don't have it figured out. I'm here to learn more. I believe that when we pray for healing, it should happen 100% of the time, and if it doesn't then something is wrong. Maybe it's a problem with the person being healed. Maybe it's a problem with the person praying. Maybe it's a problem with someone else in the room. Maybe it's a lack of "trust." Maybe it's some sin that one of us is hiding. Maybe it's some other thing. If there is an answer, I want to find it. When Peter and John healed the lame man at the temple in Acts 3, they didn't pray for him. If they did there is no record of it. They just told him to get up. What's up with that? That sounds like authority to me.

As a worship leader Todd Bentley was awesome. I was kind of disappointed in the little that I had seen of the revival in Lakeland Florida. It kind of had the air of being more about the show. I think he may have some producers pushing him. I don't really know much about the Toronto & Pensacola movements, but I am very into the "move of the Holy Spirit." It does not always look like what we expect it to. I'm a bit cautious at times because I have encountered counterfeits

What a beautiful car! I am an old car buff, but I don't think that's a 35. I think it's a 39 or maybe a 38. Here is a 1935 Buick Roadmaster.

The problem is that we were taught that faith was wrong. God does not allow himself to be manipulated, yet he stands by His Word. Healing belongs to us. (I Pet 2:24b) When we tell a broken arm to be healed, we are not manipulating God. What we are doing is exercising the power that God has given to us, that we can tell the devil to get lost. If we meet the conditions that God has proscribed in his Word, we will gain the promises that he has promised to us for meeting those conditions. But, if we try to believe for them without meeting the conditions, or if we try to believe for something that is not promised, that is witchcraft.There is a fine line in there. We need to search for it. That little goof guy is on the third page.

That's what I'm saying I look at the chastizment of the Lord as training. He does not give us the full extent of what we deserve. He teaches us. We have the choice to learn or rebell. Even in our rebellion, his grace abounds. He has been so very patient with me. I have rebelled and rebelled, yet he selcomes me back with open arms, and not only that -- He watches for my return.

But that's the general idea. Get their attention. I believe that God does that with us and sometimes it takes a hickory switch when the lighter attention getters just don't get our attention. Rebellion is written into the sin nature and when we are corrected we tend to look at as abuse even when it is not. I'm not saying, of course, that there is not much abuse going on, but not all correction is abuse.

I have. Questions are good. I think God intends for us to question. As long as we have questions we don't get into that know-it-all attitude we had so many years ago. Knowledge puffs up: Love edifies. Sounds like my second son. By withholding a blessing what I meant was to not give the keys to the family car because of the way he drives, or because he came home drunk the last time or not lettint a younger child go out to play when he did not do his chores.

That's part of the reason why I'm here. I know that there is lack in my "dogma" and I'm hoping that some of you guys can help me through it. I am, however, working from the prospective that God's Word is truth. (I'd rather have the Buick.)