So we have John Arnott, Bill Johnson and Mike Bickle here, ministering together, blessing each other and what God is doing in Kansas City right now. At this morning’s meeting, there was a word spoken that, before the idea even came up to get Bill and John here, that God wanted to bring these three together. Think about it – Arnott, the “wine man” from 1994, father heart of God, healing of believer’s heart’s through the revelation of His love, and the joy (wine) of the Spirit. Then you’ve got Bill Johnson, the Holy Spirit healing guy. Then of course Mike, the bridal paradigm/End Times guy. All men of God, of highest intergrity, honorable, faithful servants. And now God is saying “I want to bring these three streams in to one River – My River of Life”. This from a prophetic lady on John Arnott’s team thata he says was one of the bigget reasons he changed his schedule around to be here now. Wow. So this is yet more of what we are seeing here, and what God is doing. God’s ways are so much higher than ours! If I said yesterday that this is going to another level, now I see it is way beyond that.
We’ve had the first meeting with Bill Johnson and John Arnott. It would be very conservative to say the spirit here has gone to another level. The place was packed, the energy was overwhelming and the Spirit of God is moving in an even mightier way here now. I came in not long ago for the 6:00 AM set in the prayer room and there were young people everywhere praying for each other, lying on the floor, laughing and having the biggest time. It’s getting to where it is pretty much non stop around here now, like no abatement in the outpouring on people’s hearts. And that is the point – this thing is really deeply impacting hearts, setting people free to receive the love of their Father. That is what it is all about. One guy gave a testimony the other night about being constantly depressed. He said, while laughing in the Spirit, “what about my depression God?”. He said God told him, “laughter makes the heart merry”. And the guy was free from his depression. Yes, this is real and deep, and getting more so by the day. Get on in here if you can. Who knows where we will be by the time we get to One Thing.
Man, the prayer room this morning is just a party! Jon Thurlow has gone about 2 and a half hours, and Tim Reimhurr has picked it right up. There is laughter, ministry and joy all over this place! And tonight, John Arnott and Bill Johnson are here. I can’t imagine what that will be like! It is obvious this is going to go on for a while, and probably increase in depth and strength. I confess, I didn’t think it would, but there you have it. I know my heart is more open to my Father than ever before, even in the face of blatant attempts to slime me by the enemy. This is bearing REAL fruit that will last. This is bringing forth a “happy” warrior in me, one who has a truly militant spirit about all that would touch or try to take that which my Father has given me, but all in the joy of knowing and eperiencing my Father’s love. Warring in love – more Lord!
For those that don’t already know from the IHOP website, Bill Johnson and John Arnott are coming to IHOP this coming Monday through Wednesday to teach and lead some of the ongoing Student Awakening meetings. I’m especially looking forward to hearing John Arnott. 15 years ago, my wife and I first got in on the “wine of the Spirit” when things broke out at his church in Toronto. With this current move, I’ve continued to feel encouraged that it is more of the same. This makes us a unique generation, in that we are part of the “last move” and well as the “current move”. We know from church history that most people from the “last” move of God tend to persecute and not accept the “current” move of God. In this case, we are all one and the same and I think this is very significant. The generations are coming together as one under Jesus, and having Arnott here as a new generation experiences the wine of the Spirit is big. I believe a greater unity between the generations will be released that will take this whole thing to another level.
If you can make it, try to be here this coming Monday night through Wednesday night. It should not only be uplifting, but historic.
We just heard a testimony at the 10:00 AM intercession meeting about a first year IHOPU student. He went home to Florida over the Thanksgiving break and was out with his mom at a Walgreens. He was getting some ice cream, and an emlpoyee there had been telling him what ice cream was the best. The young student then looked at the employee and told him Jesus and His love were better than the best ice cream. Apparently the Spirit of God fell, and the emlpoyee, in tears says yes to Jesus. About this time, the store manager comes up and says the student needs to stop, he is disrupting business. Another employee says no, I want to hear what this guy is saying about Jesus. He speaks to her, prays for her and she gets saved. By now he has a “captive” audience, and he hears someone else crying. It turns out to be two students from the University of Florida, and they are Baptists! Anyway, they want some of what God is handing out, and the first one falls out like a “dead man”, literally. The other says “what happened to him?” The IHOPU student says, “he is experiencing the love of God”. The other student gets prayer and he falls out too. All of this in a Walgreens in Gainesville, Florida. Corey Russell was just in Gainesville recently, as well as Jim Maher from here at IHOP, and they both saw God move strongly in the groups they spoke to. So pray for Gainesville and watch the news – something powerful could happen there soon!
This morning at the 8:30 FCF service, Lou Engle was speaking about his past experiences with renewal movements. One of the things he said that I had been sensing as well is that this is for the newer generation to get healed and washed in God’s love for them. They have a lot more coming down the pike as leaders that will require a healed, glad heart to endure.
At the end of the service, Lou called forward “Moms and Dads” who want to see their kids touched in this renewal. I went forward and lo and behold, I got touched. I say that because I have beleived from the beginning that I was here to primarily pray for others this go around. Ha! By the end of the ministry time, I couldn’t hardly talk straight. A guy from our home group who wanted me to meet his dad introduced me to him. That went okay, but I forgot to introduce my sons, and when I tried to, I couldn’t get any intelligible words out. Then I stated laughing. I turned to my 17 year old and asked him to drive us home. Later, I had another laughing fit in the car. All this after weeping at the altar. While I am really after this touching my heart, I guess sometimes some other things happen along with it. Yeah, I’d have to say the ”wine of the Spirit” is a real thing.
Wow, what a mystical title. It is mainly to say that after this weekend, the Holy Spirit wine meetings here at IHOP will go to a Wednesday through Saturday schedule, starting next week. For those of you contemplating coming, this is helpful information.
As to what is going on, it still is primarily an outpouring of God’s love, His all sufficient, life giving love. People are finding out the degree to which they have “other loves” in their lives that they have chosen to try and fill that place with in their hearts. We are designed to have God’s love fill us and sustain our lives, but most of us don’t to this, or “allow” it.
It is time to realize the days are gone of saying, “well, I’m not doing anything bad”. When need to stop looking for the “line” between “bad and good”, filling our lives and hearts with things that are “not bad”. We’ve got to see that none of us hunger only after God and His love for us, that none of us have arrived, or have enough of God. With the times that are coming, when need to take all He is offering and ask for more!
The below letter literally just came out. For all those who were wondering if this move would extend to One Thing, well, here is your answer.
Dear friends,
We stand at a critical juncture in our nation’s history. It is time to encounter God and to take action. The Holy Spirit is visiting His people with power. At the same time, the powers of darkness are raging against the moral fabric of our nation. The light is getting brighter as the darkness gets darker.
Many of you will have heard of the spiritual awakening at our Bible school. On Wednesday, November 11, the Spirit fell on a class for more than 15 hours. The word spread quickly and over 2,000 people spontaneously gathered in the auditorium from all over Kansas City, as deliverance and physical healings continued to increase. We canceled our classes for the next week so that each one of our 1,000 students and interns could receive from the Spirit in an extended way.
We decided to meet nightly from 6:00pm to midnight because His manifest presence continues to increase. Visitors are pouring in from many places across America to partake of this spiritual awakening.
We will continue these evening meetings until our onething conference, December 28–31, 2009, when we are expecting 20,000 young adults to gather for worship, teaching, and to participate in the supernatural ministry of the Spirit.
Last year, over 16,000 young adults attended this conference. We are still hearing testimonies of lives that were changed. This year, we are expecting to receive even more from the Spirit. We believe that this will be a historic and important conference, and encourage you to attend.
The theme for onething’09 is “What is the Spirit saying to the Church?” Our team will proclaim what we believe the Spirit is prophetically speaking to the Church in this hour. We will also share practical ways in which we can “adopt” high schools and colleges across our nation as we envision young people to impact each sphere of society with works of justice and acts of compassion. At the conference, we will have extended ministry times to receive healing, renewal, and impartation from the Spirit. We believe that the Spirit will release His power at this conference, as evidenced by what He is currently doing in our evening meetings.
Mark Anderson, a senior international leader in YWAM who also works closely with Campus Crusade for Christ, will host forums for leaders to discuss how we can systematically evangelize entire cities and campuses in partnership with the houses of prayer in their area. Mark has remarkable insight that comes from his 30 years of successful ministry in evangelism. The Lord has given him some bold new strategies for this hour.
The crisis in our nation is real. The serpentine stranglehold of abortion continues to squeeze the life out of over 4,000 wombs daily. Sexual immorality, both heterosexual and homosexual, are reaching epic heights of perversity. The number of women and children being trafficked into the dark underbelly of the sex industry in our cities is growing at an alarming rate. Entire school systems are giving way to darkness. The sanctity of marriage is under siege, threatening to destroy the moral foundations of our nation.
We will also address the growing crisis that is emerging in many churches across America. A new wave of confusion is systematically seducing many young adults into deception. Sincere young people whose hearts were once ablaze for Jesus are being allured into compromise on foundational biblical truths and practices, while at the same time they are increasing in works of compassion and justice. No amount of increased ministry activity can “balance out” their profound spiritual compromises. In the name of tolerance, they are settling for a humanistic and “politically correct” theology that trivializes the glory of Jesus. Many young adult ministries are falling prey to this as they are seeking “relevance” that dulls the razor’s edge of truth for the sake of man’s approval. It is not enough to mention Jesus’ name if they deny foundational truths about Him. Our works of justice must flow from deep allegiance to Jesus and the Scripture.
Our nation has never stood on such a precarious footing as today. The onslaught of spiritual darkness is increasing in our classrooms, boardrooms, courtrooms, and bedrooms. We must confront the confusion that is pouring forth from many pulpits as well as from the halls of Washington. It is time to draw a line in the sand. We must hear what the Spirit is saying and we must act on it. The Spirit will confirm the truth with demonstrations of power.
It is darkest before the dawn. Our hearts are full of faith. We know another historic “Great Awakening” is soon to sweep across our nation. We look with confidence to God’s promise: “In the last days . . . I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh (Acts 2:17-21). All nations will receive the witness of kingdom with power (Mt. 24:14; Rev. 7:9). What a privilege to live in this awesome hour of history.
At this very hour, Jesus is raising up young adults who are being mobilized to cry out in night and day prayer, win the lost, heal the sick, and do works of compassion and justice as they impact the very fabric of our society.
Please join us in Kansas City from December 28–31. The onething’09 conference is FREE. You can register at http://IHOP.org
With passion for Jesus,
Mike Bickle and Lou Engle
After praying for folks last night at the IHOP Student Awakening meeting, I realized how tiring it can be. I mean physically. You feel great while you are there, then you leave and it hits you, this is work! I thought of Bob Jones telling Mike that, when the “big” healing move comes, there will be no end to the lines. I now realize what that will be like in a small way. I have been given a grace to stand in the midst of this and pray for people, and I can see where this is going. Long ministry times, a need for stamina in the Lord, and wisdom to take times of rest. I thought of Wes Hall, and other leaders that are there 6 hours every night and I realized they too need rest – and prayer for wisdom. I’ve read about Evan Roberts and John Alexander Dowie and the lack of rest was their undoing. When you go without adequate rest for an extended period of time, you can be susceptible to all kinds of impressions and thoughts, leaving you vulnerable to being thrown way off track, as they were. I don’t know how long this will go, but pray for all of us working here, that we will take nights off, and choose to get enough sleep. The longer this goes, the more important this will be.
Okay, that’s a little corny, but there is a lot of it going here at IHOP right now. I’m sure many of you have seen and or heard about the current move of the Spirit going on at IHOP. It started a week ago last Thursday at the weekly IHOPU chapel and it has grown from there. Primarily focused amongst the sutdents, it is also touching some older folks who haven’t experienced some of what God is doing right now. What is that? Well, I see this as more of the wine movement started in 1994 at Toronto. It is mostly about God’s tremendous love for us, and the healing it brings to the human heart to encounter that in real Holy Spirit truth. Self hatred, depression, suicidal thoughts, and rejection are all being broken off of people. Women, young and some old, are telling of being free of shame from past memories for the first time. And people are confessing all kinds of sin perpetrated against them that has left them closed off from God and people, even as they look fine on the outside. There has also been an abundance of physical healings. You may have seen some of this on the webstream, which is free during this outpouring by the way. Best of all, 41 people were baptised Sunday night!
Personally, I had a major encounter with my Father’s love in the prayer room a few weeks ago. Out of that, I’ve felt a tremendous peace about this whole thing, feeling called to mostly pray for people during ministry times and have a blast watching God touch, heal and play with His children. So, tune in, come if you can, and pray for this move. We’d love to see it grow in length, breadth and the numbers impacted.
