Posted by Kathi on July 17, 2008
For those who don’t know, I’m a member and frequent reader of Rich Tatum’s Pneumasphere – a rather diverse collection of Pentecostal and charismatic bloggers. Rich also happens to be the guy who led me to Christ, away back in 2000. 
Rich has a great blog himself – he doesn’t get to update it too often due to work, family, and ministry, but any time he writes, you know it’s gotta be good.
Anyways, there’s a feed – usually updated daily – with this blog and maybe a hundred or so others. Some of them get my attention, and some don’t. One that I read without fail is Peter Kirk’s Gentle Wisdom blog.
Peter’s got a great post today about Todd Bentley coming back to Florida (and GodTV) tomorrow night. He cites Dan Curant’s blog, which has a transcript of Todd pleading with the audience to come to Christ (I was watching on GodTV that night – it’s powerful).
It turns out that Todd took less than a week off. He’s preaching in Louisville, Kentucky tonight, and will be back in Lakeland tomorrow night.
Considering the guy’s got a wife and kids who’ve (willingly) been uprooted and moved to Florida… it only makes sense that after 100 days he’d take a few days off. When we were there in May, he’d taken NO time off – 60+ days straight. It’s surely a move of God but sooner or later body and brain cry out, “There’s a human in here!”
I’m looking forward to the revival being back on TV. We’ve got the slowest version of DSL and the internet feed only works when it wants to… so we usually don’t bother. I do take in the daytime service when I’ve got time – less bandwidth being used!
Posted by Kathi on June 23, 2008
I’ve had a series of dreams, visions, and words from the Lord lately. I’ve been seeking God and also checking the imagery with prophetic people who have a lot more background in this than me.
I believe they speak to the revival and to the resulting division in the church.
#1 Nuclear War Dreams
I’ve had two dreams which are very similar – enough so that I think they’re God showing me the same thing in two different ways.
Backstory: When I was a child – 5th grade – I was more than a bit of a science geek. I became fascinated with nuclear weapons and, in me-typical fashion, I learned everything there was to know about the things. I could speak intelligently on everything from ballistic theory to bomb components to differences between our weapons and the Russians’… and also knew an awful lot about surviving a nuclear war. If the initial blast didn’t wipe me off the face of the earth, I had a plan. (I was just that sort of child) I haven’t really thought about any of that in years. I think God wanted to show me a megadisaster that I could understand so well.
In both dreams, I was in a public place with many other people – some family/friends/church folks and some who I did not know. in the first dream, we were in an office building in Washington, DC. In the second, we were in the control tower of the airport. The group became aware that nuclear war had broken out and that bombs were headed our way. Because of my knowledge in this area, I became a leader in both dreams. I began to warn people that we should retreat to (what would serve as) the fallout shelter. Some people came, but some didn’t. Those that didn’t remained outside, fussing at us for our stupidity and fussing at each other. There was quite a lot of drama about it.
In both dreams, we shut the door and sealed it. Too late, people wanted to get in… but we could not allow them in or the radiation would be able to come in also. In the first dream, this happened after the bombs fell and there was a great earthquake. In the second, it actually happened before the bombs fell, when I went out of the control tower to use the bathroom. The people wanted to get in, but we couldn’t let them in. At the time, I wasn’t sure why. (There’s a lot more to the dreams, they were incredibly detailed… but that’s the important bits.)
I always know a spiritual dream from a natural one – these were both spiritual dreams given to me to illustrate something to me. I thought at first that these were evangelism-related… but then I equated it to the five wise and five foolish virgin parable, then a couple other people did so, confirming it for me.
I think that’s what God is getting at. There’s a group of people who are waiting for His return (the church), and some are making ready, being sure there’s oil in their lamps… others are wasting time, they’re not going to be ready, they’re not going to care that there’s no oil in their lamps until they discover to their horror that they need it.
#2 Division in the Church
Saturday afternoon, I got a word from the Lord that much of the division in the church over the revival is God separating those who are hungry from those who are not. Those who want Him will begin seeking Him with their whole hearts, and those who do not will bite and devour and feud and holler. (I humbly refer you to Galatians 5)
Does that mean that everyone who loves God must embrace Todd Bentley and the goings-on at Lakeland? No. Not at all (God made that clear). Todd Bentley is not the litmus test. Jesus is. If you don’t like TB’s style, forget about him. Pursue God with a holy passion and let revival break out in you, and begin to take it to the world. God is no respecter of persons. If you desire Him, He will give of Himself to you. The Lord does not care about the method, the place, or the man… He cares about His bride and her preparation for His return to her.
Those who are truly His and truly about His business (occupy until I come) will pursue God to the limits of human capacity, with a singular laser-like focus on Him.
Those who are not will continue to bite and devour and feud and holler. Where will they be when Jesus comes? Biting and devouring and feuding and hollering… not desperate for His presence, not seeking him with a whole heart, not inflamed with passion for Him.
#3 “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of our God”
Last night at the revival, the worship leader sang this bit of Scripture. It’s from Psalm 46… “there is a river whose streams make glad the city of our God”. I had never really given the passage much thought before, but as I was singing it last night I had a vision of streams feeding into a great river leading to the city of God and to His throne. The streams were made up of revivals, past, present, and future, and of people hungry and passionate and pursuing God. People willing to die for Him. People willing to truly LIVE for Him. The streams were many different colors and the effect was quite visually stunning, because as they joined into the river they remained their own color – red, blue, purple, green, etc… but as they passed before God they became perfect, pure and clear.
There were other streams, choked with litter and corruption and pollution and not colorful at all. These streams tried to join the ones traveling to God, and even tried to impede the ones who were joining the river up ahead… but try as they might, they could not disrupt the flow. (those colorful streams were passionate and wanting to be in God’s presence) Some of these streams were the current anti-revival folks… some were movements of men that sought to bind others in Pharisaical shackles… some of them were streams that thought they could go their own way. None of those streams passed before the throne of God. They were diverted into another river which veered away from God and seemed to fall off the edge of a cliff. Where it went from there I did not see.
I think this bears repeating:
Todd Bentley is not the litmus test. Jesus is.
Pursue God with a holy passion and let revival break out in you, and begin to take it to the world. Those who are truly His .. will pursue God … with a singular laser-like focus on Him. Those who are not will … be … biting and devouring and feuding and hollering (when Jesus comes)…
Pursue God, or pursue man. The choice is yours.
Consider this, Bride of Christ… how are YOU preparing for His soon return? Are you spending your time focused on what others are doing? Are you criticizing? Are you gossiping? Are you seething with rage and spewing hate from your mouth? Do you bless God and curse men (James 3:9)?
Or are you spending your time preparing… making yourself lovely for Him… passionately pursuing Him to the exclusion of everything else? You don’t have to become a holy roller. You don’t have to become a charismatic. You don’t have to become part of the Lakeland revival. PURSUE GOD.
God is separating the streams into two rivers. There will be some on the outside, those who are not inflamed with passion for Him, those who chose not to pursue HIM, those whose streams are choked with litter and pollution…
This is why I said in an earlier post that not all division in the church is a bad thing. Sometimes, it’s a God thing. He exposes the motives and the heart, and those who are pure in heart will see God.
Shift your focus. Clear the junk out of your stream and be purified. Give your attention to Jehovah God.
Posted by Kathi on May 26, 2008
Todd had this to say about critics (emphasis is mine, to reflect what’s on the video):
“I can hear people saying, ‘you know what? I wouldn’t want to go into that meeting and act like that preacher in the pulpit right now.’
Well that’s why I’ll have a worldwide revival while you’re doing whatever you’re doing. ‘Cause I don’t care. I just want Jesus – I just want Jesus – I just want Jesus
- so sit there in your home, sit there in your little church, and judge and criticize, or come and be touched by the power of God.
And if that means there’s gonna be a little manifestation, I’m telling you, you can not have revival with a clean trough, the trough is gonna be messy. But I want Jesus more than I want the favor of man, I want Jesus more than I want the blessing and opinion of man. And I just don’t care what you think.
People are getting saved – people are getting healed – people are getting delivered – and we’re hungry for Jesus. “
Todd Bentley, Florida Healing Revival @ The Lakeland Convention Center, May 25, 2008
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/439517 — scroll forward to 2:12:38 for that clip (but the whole service is great)
Posted by Kathi on May 10, 2008
Todd mentioned another (now-dead-on-earth-but-forever-alive-with-Jesus) revivalist that I had no info about, so I looked him up: John G Lake. He’s got an interesting website.
Here’s what made me sit up and pay attention at 6 am…
“If you are ready to manifest His presence rather than just soak in it, JGLM is an effective way to make a difference in the real world.”
If you are ready to manifest His presence rather than just soak in it
Yes yes yes…
