Praying Medic's Blog, page 101
December 3, 2015
Which Report Will You Believe?
As most of you know, there was another mass killing yesterday. Bad things seem to be happening all around us. When you look at the headlines, you might think the world is getting worse, and some of you may be wondering if the end is near. There are those who would like you to believe that evil has the upper hand, and you’re free to believe that report if you choose.
Or you can chose not to believe it.
Ten years ago, it was almost unheard of to see someone healed or set free of a demon in a gas station or grocery store. A decade ago, miracles were mostly confined to revival meetings and crusades. They’re not exactly commonplace today, but they’re a lot more common than they once were. The increase of healing miracles is just one example of how God is it advancing His kingdom in the world today. He’s been training and equipping tens of thousands of saints to bring the battle to the enemy’s front door. We’re getting there, my friends. Slowly, but surely, we’re bringing the light of God’s kingdom into the dark places of the world.
I’m not buying the propaganda that says we’re losing this battle. Despite what the headlines say, the kingdom of God has more momentum right now than the kingdom of darkness. We’re moving that ol’ mountain, little by little. Yes, there are still bad things happening in the world. I’m not blind to what’s going on. I see the atrocities. But I’m choosing not to let them be my focus, because it’s only going to demoralize me. And that’s precisely what propaganda and terrorism are designed to do. They’re designed to demoralize us and rob us of hope.
Atrocities and terrorism will likely continue. That isn’t going to change. But you don’t have to focus on them if you don’t want to. And I would suggest it’s not healthy to dwell on them. It’s better to focus on what God is doing instead. There will always be two reports about the state of our battle—one good report and one bad report. You’ve now heard both. You’re free to believe whichever one you will.
Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.
November 30, 2015
Podcast 038: Del Hungerford – Healing Frequencies
To open in a new window click this link: podcast 038
Del Hungerford is a classically trained musician who has been experimenting with music tuned to 432 Hz with some interesting results. For those who are not familiar with this subject, there’s been much discussion in recent years about what is called 432 tuning. In this tuning, the A note above middle C, which has long been the keynote against which instruments are tuned, is set to vibrate at 432 cycles per second, (or Hertz) as opposed to the Western standard of 440 Hertz. Many musicians are convinced that this tuning has special properties—some have even called it “The God frequency.” Del discusses her personal experiences with this tuning and a whole lot more. (She has articles on her website that discuss these subjects in greater detail.)
Topics covered in this message:
Del’s background in music
Solfeggio frequencies
Schumann resonances
Entrainment to stronger frequencies
432 Hz and healing
How God inspires creative people
Being still and listening to God
How practice increases the effectiveness of spiritual senses
Going to heaven’s strategy room
The life of a forerunner
Resources
Accessing heaven’s strategy room (article)
But Words Will Never Hurt Me (Del’s book on surviving verbal abuse)
Listen or Subscribe
Past Episodes
November 28, 2015
Telling Your Story and Emotional Healing
I’ve been continuing to work with people who have identified their need to be healed of emotional trauma. One of the keys to emotional healing is the recognition by the person who needs healing that something is wrong and it needs to be addressed. I receive questions from people asking how they can help someone who doesn’t feel they need help. My answer is to pray for them to become aware that they need help, because until they sense something is wrong, there is no way to help them. I believe that as the Holy Spirit begins to work with someone He wants to heal, He stirs up their emotions and the uncomfortable feelings caused by emotionally traumatic events begin to surface more frequently. As these uncomfortable emotions come up, they may eventually seek help. At that point, they’re a perfect candidate for emotional healing.
The process I use for emotional healing is pretty straightforward. I have the person recall the most traumatic events they can remember one at a time. As they do, I ask them to identify the specific emotions they feel and we ask Jesus to take the emotions and heal the wound in their soul caused by them. The next step is to have them remember the event again. Again I ask them to identify any negative emotions they feel. Once more they give the emotions to Jesus and He heals the wound in their soul. We do this as often as needed until they can recall the event without feeling any negative emotions. The meme below speaks to the reality of emotional healing. When you can tell your story and it doesn’t make you cry, you know you have been healed. For many types of emotional trauma it really is that simple. If you’d like more information on healing emotional trauma, you might check out my e-book Emotional Healing in 3 Easy Steps.
November 25, 2015
Hearing God’s Voice Made Simple
Note: With my latest book, I hope hope to encourage believers to draw nearer to God by learning to hear His voice more clearly. But the truth is—the aim of this book is also to reach agnostics and atheists. In addition to providing many testimonies and illustrations of how God speaks, I also share how I went from being an atheist to a believer. If you know someone who believes they’ve never heard God speak, it’s my hope that this book will convince them they have and that He loves them. ~ PM
If we want to hear God’s voice we must come to expect that when we turn our attention toward Him, He will turn His attention toward us. One of the most difficult lessons of learning to hear His voice is getting past the bias we have that makes us think He doesn’t care about us. If your parents didn’t pay attention to you when were a child, you may have learned to expect rejection from those who are important to you. If you’ve ever lived with a spouse or a roommate who seldom spoke to you, you may have learned to expect silence from others. You might think that if the people you cared about had nothing to say to you, why on earth would the Creator of the universe be interested in speaking to you?
God isn’t like your grouchy spouse, your silent roommate, or your stoic parent who never had much to say. He isn’t hiding from you because He hates you. He wants to connect with you every day. It isn’t true that He has favorites, or that He doesn’t want to spend time with you. If there is anything preventing you from knowing God more intimately, it is on your side of the relationship, not His.
How do we learn to meet with God? Let’s take a lesson from someone who walked with Him daily:
By an act of faith, Enoch skipped death completely. “They looked all over and couldn’t find him because God had taken him.” We know on the basis of reliable testimony that before he was taken “he pleased God.” It’s impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him.
Heb. 11:5-6 (MSG)
To get your parents attention you may have had to do your chores or clean your room. Others may have expected you to do favors for them. People usually require us to jump through hoops in order to earn their favor. But that isn’t true of God. Enoch’s walk with God was simply a matter of faith. If you want to be intimately involved in God’s plans and want to know Him as a friend, the first step is to believe that He exists and that He cares enough to speak to you. For many of us, that means changing the way in which we think of Him.
The thing that prevented me from meeting with and hearing from God for the first 38 years of my life was unbelief and skepticism. I chose not to believe He existed, that He cared about me, or that I could know Him. That was a choice I made. But the moment I made a different choice—the choice to believe that He existed, that I could know Him, and that He could be heard—His voice was as easy to hear as that of anyone else. My choice to believe is what allowed me to draw near to Him.
This is an excerpt from my soon to be published book Hearing God’s Voice Made Simple. The paperback can be pre-ordered on Amazon by clicking this link or on the image below. Both Kindle and paperback versions will be available no later than December 8th.
November 22, 2015
The Dynamics of a Change Agent – Lance Wallnau
Lance Wallnau provides an insightful and humorous look the dynamics of changing society.
November 16, 2015
Podcast 037: The Kingdom of God Made Simple
To open in a new window click this link: podcast 037
In this episode, my friend Lisa Perna interviewed me for her radio show Touched by Prayer.
Topics covered in this message:
How my wife and I reach atheists and agnostics
The different ways in which God speaks to us
The different spiritual senses we have
Why Jesus is appearing to Muslims in dreams
Where my name came from
How to know if something is from God
Visits from the great cloud of witnesses
My plans to write a novel
Are we living a Pinocchio life? (Article link)
Resources
Divinity Code to Understanding Your Dreams and Visions
The Ultimate Guide to Understanding the Dreams You Dream
Listen or Subscribe
Past Episodes
November 13, 2015
The Orphan Spirit—A Dream
One afternoon my wife and I watched a Bethel video featuring Bill Johnson, who spoke on subject of the orphan spirit. It was a good message, but apparently the Holy Spirit wasn’t done speaking when I turned the video off. The message continued into my dreams. That night I had a dream in which Bill Johnson and his wife Beni were present, along with one of their sons. (I don’t know which one.) Their presence in the dream was mysterious. I didn’t see their physical bodies. They seemed to be there in the spirit. They had discerned that the orphan spirit was the greatest problem for the body of Christ at the present time. In the dream, I knew their son was in an area that was “locked down.” When I heard this term in the dream, I wasn’t sure what it meant, exactly.
My EMT partner was with me in the dream. We went to the area that was “locked down.” We were met by a young man who looked like a friend from work named Chris Maehren. He had a young woman with him. They were both very pleasant and dressed very nicely—but they were both wearing black clothing, which struck me as strange.
They accompanied me and my EMT partner as we went through a very large cavern. It seemed to be about 1/2 mile in length and it was very well-lit, for a cave. At the far end of the cave, we climbed up a sloping rock wall that led to a door. We went through the door and into a hallway which led to what looked like a mental hospital. Once we were inside, I saw patients walking the hallways.
The man who led us there was going to let us into a room to see a patient. There was no conversation between us during the dream. He simply led us to a room and opened the door.
At this point, I became aware that there were other people with me, besides my EMT partner. Again, it was an awareness I had that other people were with us, more than actually seeing or talking to them. I had a sense that I was leading a group on a mission.
As I thought about going through the open door, I became aware that what we were doing was against the rules of the facility. I felt we were going to get in trouble when we got caught, which seemed certain because the process took longer than it should have taken. It seemed as though we should have been able to get the person (or people) out of their room and leave quickly, but everything took longer than it should have. I decided not to go into the room. I felt like I didn’t need to. So when the door was opened, I just sat on a table in the hallway and waited.
Everyone in the room came out into the hallway. One person in particular seemed very happy that we came there. We talked for a few minutes until an employee showed up and began scolding us for being there. It came as no surprise to me that the employee seemed mentally ill himself, just like the patients. And his sour demeanor let me know that the party was now over.
I don’t recall how I got to the cave, but I had to drive my car home. As I drove, I became concerned that my wife would be mad because I was going to be home late. I looked at a map and determined it would take two to three hours to drive home. As I drove, I suddenly took a mysterious short cut, which I saw as my car driving quickly across a map. I arrived at home sooner than I expected, and found my wife curled up on the couch, watching TV with a group of children that were not my biological children. That was the end of the dream.
There is too much revelation in this dream to adequately cover in a blog post, but I’d like to share a couple of observations:
One of the main messages of the dream is that many of us have taken on a wrong sense of identity. The orphan spirit speaks of a mindset that does not truly believe God is our Father—at least not in the way He wants us to understand this reality. I know many people who say that God is their father, but they live as if He is not. I lived this way for many years, but I’m finally beginning to accept the full implications of what it means to be His son.
A second message is that we’re on a rescue mission to find those who have been held captive by this lie and set them free. When we arrived at the holding room, it wasn’t necessary for me to go into the room they were in. It wasn’t necessary for me to join them in their reality. They had to exercise their free will and leave their place of captivity—they had to believe in a different reality. For those who are being held captive by the orphan spirit, their freedom will come as they begin to understand who they truly are and what it means to be a son of God. They will join us and we will lead them out of darkness.
In the last scene, I was concerned that my wife would be left waiting for me, but God altered time so that I arrived home sooner than I should have. I spend an enormous amount of time writing about healing, the identity of the believer and getting free from religion. I also spend a lot of time praying with and encouraging people through social networks. I sometimes worry that I’m short-changing my wife by spending so much time doing these things. It seems God may be working behind the scenes to provide enough time for us to stay connected as husband and wife. And the fruit of our ministry is a small tribe of people who are learning with us as we take them along on our adventures.
If you have any observations on this dream, you’re welcome to share them in a comment below.
November 11, 2015
Obedience to God
Many of us have been told that the goal of our faith is that we would be made more obedient to God. Have you ever wondered what that means, exactly?
Every sermon I can recall hearing which addressed the topic of obeying God has equated it with obedience to a moral code of conduct. As much as new covenant teachers try to emphasize God’s grace, it seems we can’t get away from the tendency to observe our own moral conduct with concern.
As popular as the idea is that obedience to God is equivalent to obeying a moral code—I don’t think it can best be described this way. I believe it speaks to a deeper issue.
First, I’d like to propose that obedience to God is simply a matter of us coming into agreement with Him. But agreement over what?
God’s desire with Adam and Eve wasn’t their adherence to a moral code—it was to have a loving relationship with them. That plan hasn’t changed. He wants to have the same with us.
The relationship He had with Adam wasn’t lost because of disobedience. Consider for a moment what would have happened if Adam had eaten from the forbidden tree, but continued to embrace God as his loving Father. He would still have been guilty of disobeying a moral code, but it would not have destroyed his relationship with God. Their relationship was damaged not when Adam disobeyed, but when he forgot that he was God’s beloved son and hid from Him. The enemy’s chief tactic against us has always been to call into question God’s love for us and suggest that we are not loved, and not His sons.
The real trick the enemy pulled off that day was not convincing Adam to disobey God’s orders. It was convincing him that God did not love him anymore. Not surprisingly, the serpent tried to question the identity of the second Adam, but failed miserably, because Jesus knew exactly who He was and how much the Father loved Him.
How many of us have avoided drawing closer to God out of fear that He may not love us?
Sin is a real problem, but it results from our failure to understand who we are. It’s an identity problem. All our effort to avoid sin will not free us from it. But when we fully grasp the reality of our identity as beloved children of God—and when we begin to live from that reality—sin no longer has power over us.
Obedience to God is perhaps best understood as coming into full agreement with everything He says we are. It’s embracing our true identity and accepting the fact that we are unconditionally loved and completely accepted by our heavenly Father.
This reality should make obeying God a joy and not a chore.
November 7, 2015
Don’t Panic
When I feel inspired to write, I try to make the most of the opportunity, which is why I’m almost never without my laptop computer. Between calls, I can usually be found in the quietest part of the building, pecking away at a blog post or the chapter for a book. A few days ago, I pulled my laptop from its case, plugged it into a wall outlet in a hospital waiting room and hit the power switch.
Nothing happened.
All the little green and red diodes on the front panel remained dark. It took my mind about five hundredths of a second to process all the possible explanations. And for a moment, I was overcome with a sense of panic.
Don’t panic, I thought to myself. Maybe the outlet isn’t working. I unplugged the power cord from the wall and plugged it in to another outlet nearby.
Nothing.
I found a different room and tried plugging it into several outlets in that room and still there were no illuminated lights. The diodes remained completely dark. This was not good, but I had one more thought. Maybe the power cord itself was bad. I went to my ambulance and found the power cord for the computer we use to chart calls. It happens to use the same voltage as my computer. It was connected to our work laptop and it was working perfectly. I removed the plug from that computer and plugged it into mine.
Nothing.
So it wasn’t a lack of power and it wasn’t a bad cord. There was some internal problem with my laptop that was preventing it from powering up. The sense of panic returned. The laptop I own is a Panasonic Toughbook. These computers are used by the military, law enforcement and EMS because they’re nearly indestructible. I’ve had for five years, and although it’s suffered its share of abuse, it’s never failed me. It’s the best laptop I’ve ever owned. And now it was deader than dead. I was in the middle of writing a book and the hassle of getting a replacement laptop and transferring the files to another computer was not something I looked forward to.
And then another thought came to me.
Why don’t you just pray for it to be resurrected?
Yes, I thought. That’s the ticket. I need to pray for it. But first, I need a little breakfast and a cup of coffee.
I left the laptop in the ambulance and went inside the hospital. I found the cafeteria and ordered a breakfast sandwich and a cup of coffee, then took a seat at a table. I began recalling some of the dead electronic devices and broken cars I’d seen God heal over the last few years. As I thought about these testimonies, and the awesomeness of God, the panic I had felt earlier was gradually being replaced by faith. God had done it before. Why wouldn’t He do it again?
I finished the sandwich and walked back to the ambulance with my cup of coffee. I opened the side door and placed the dead laptop on the floor. I placed my hand on it and began making declarations. I said that that the computer would live and not die. It would be resurrected from the dead and it would work as it was supposed to. I felt even more faith (confidence in God) as I prayed, and after a couple of minutes, I felt as though it was done. I plugged the laptop’s power cord in to the outlet in the ambulance and the red diode for the battery charge indicator immediately came on. I hit the power switch. The hard drive hummed and the other diodes sprang to life. My beloved laptop had just been raised from the dead.
I took it back to the waiting area where this story began. I plugged it in and it charged without problems off the same outlet I had tried without success 30 minutes earlier.
My encouragement for you is to believe that God wants to do miracles for you—even miracles involving electronic devices. All things are possible for those who believe. So the next time something goes haywire, don’t panic. Think about the things God has already done, and by faith—expect Him to do the impossible again. You’ll have one more testimony you can share with the world about the incredible goodness of God.
The post Don’t Panic appeared first on Praying Medic.
November 2, 2015
Podcast 036: Todd Adams – God’s Percussionist
To open in a new window click on this link: podcast 036
In this message, my friend Todd Adams shares his experiences as a worship percussionist. Todd is not your typical musician. His approach to music and worship is rather unique. Here are a few of the topics we discuss:
The heartbeat of God
Why Todd uses aboriginal instruments
How different instruments imitate sounds in the spirit
How sounds trigger memories and transform us
How emotions can be expressed through music
How his music helped a man deal with chronic pain
Why music tuned to 432 Hz can bring healing
How worship can be used as warfare and what the goal of warfare is
Opening portals through worship
Resources
Todd’s Music
House on Liberty Street
Listen or Subscribe
Past Episodes
The post Podcast 036: Todd Adams – God’s Percussionist appeared first on Praying Medic.
