Praying in tongues

The Gift of Tongues by Stephanie Isom
 

The Power of Prayer and Praying With Power



Click here to watch: My daughter and I talking about prayer with power from God.

 

Following Jesus: Loving our Enemies

 

     The question of how to follow Jesus in loving our enemies is in many ways a 3rd-culture issue.

     As God's adopted children, the Bible tells us our citizenship is in heaven (我們是天國人 --- literally: We are Kingdom-of-Heaven people). Christians are all mixed culture in the sense that our earthly ethnic culture is temporary in comparison to eternity, but for all who believe and follow Jesus, the eternal King of Kings and Lord of Lords, our "forever culture" is that of the Kingdom of Heaven.

     In many ways Bibilical Kingdom-of-Heaven culture is counter-culture and counter-intuitive to how so many of us have been brought up to perceive and respond to the world and to others.

     We are each in the process of learning how to live and walk in our heavenly identity, becoming more like Jesus as we spend time with Him in His Word and in His Presence, learning to be more and more like Him.

     (see Hebrews 希伯來書 11:9-16 & Philippians 腓立比書 3:20 。。。see also Romans 羅馬書 12:1-2)

     In a spiritual sense we are all 3rd-culture kids, learning to live by God's heavenly culture of "agape" love --- the brotherly self-sacrificing love of Jesus, learning to consider others first, like Jesus, with healthy heavenly boundaries. 

     (((Think about it: in coming to earth and experiencing human limitations and struggles, what Jesus experienced in this fallen world was so very different from life in heaven. The eternally pre-existent God, the Living Word who created all things, was born to a poor family in an occupied country, experiencing all the struggles and weaknesses that humankind experiences (see John 1:1-5, 14-16; Hebrews 4:15-16, 5:1-10; also 1 Corinthians 10:13; 2 Corinthians 12:9) --- this should give us all increasing hope in seeking God's help with our struggles and weaknesses, including the challenge of learning how to love our enemies)))

Encouraged in the Lord,
Mary Isom
(guest blogger for my awesome husband, Bruce Isom)

According to religious zeal I was faltless - Saul of Tarsus

    

     We can have religious zeal and still have fault in what we think and do. Saul of Tarsus thought he was doing the right thing by putting Christians into prison and killing them. Zeal and confidence are not a sign that someone is mature in the Lord or even walking in the truth. Even moving in gifts like healing or prophecy are not a sign of maturity.  This is not to judge people when they do stupid things but to understand that they still may need to mature in the Lord. It is not hard for some of us to make mistakes in life and sometimes the only way we can grow in the Lord is to try things out and make mistakes.

     I have heard some people say things like "He can't be a Christian he just did . . ." or something similar. To be a Christian is not to have everything in your life in order but to believe in Jesus Christ. On the other hand, God wants us to grow up to be mature Christians so we are walking more and more in the truth. The only way we can do that is by being taught by those that are more mature in the Lord than us and studying the Bible.

     Mankind has a way of lying to themselves and being zealous about living those lies out in their lives. There was a large group of people that followed Hitler and thought he was a great guy. They didn't even seem bothered that they were killing Jews. In our present day, there are many people that feel like abortion is okay but in God's eyes it isn't any different than killing Jews.

     Because Jesus said that He is the Truth, The Way, and the Life we need to get to know Him so we are not just calling ourselves Christians but are actually living the Christian life the way God wants us to.

Walled City Worship

    

 

     The Kowloon Walled City was a place in Hong Kong that China said was theirs and Hong Kong said was theirs but because of the legal conflict, neither had much control over the place. It became a place where gangsters, drug addiction, prostitution and gambling were a normal part of life. In 1966 in this neglected place, a lady named Jackie Pullinger started reaching out to the people. Twenty-some years later when we first came to Hong Kong, the work was already well established. Part of what I did working in that ministry was to go to the Walled City at least once a week to pray with drug addicts and also to help teach English.

 

     The Walled City had  a very special place in the midst of all the darkness there that was a church for people of the Walled City. The name of the church was "The Well" and one of my memories was of a waterfall from a broken drain pipe that fell into a large drain just outside the door. A tarp was hung over the doorway so the water wouldn't splash on anyone, but once you got inside the presence of God was awesome. Drug addicts were being prayed for by workers or ex-drug-users. There were times that people were set free from demons or received the Holy Spirit but the best part was the worship in Cantonese. The guys had a lot of joy and really could make a joyful noise to the Lord.

     Just last weekend I went to a Jubilee celebration at the place where the Walled City used to be. Now it is a park called the Walled City Park. The night we were there, I think there were around thousand people. It was good to see some of the guys that I used to work with. The main reason to get together was to have an extended time of worship and prayer. As we were worshiping there were times when we would pray for the sick. As we were praying for the sick, skilled musicians would play instruments right next to those who were sick and receiving prayer. People were receiving healing in the two hours we were there.

 

  If you want to know more about Jackie Pullinger's work, she has several books including: "Chasing the Dragon" and "Crack in the Wall."

What did those in the time of Christ FEEL!?

 

 

 

One of my main ministries here in Hong Kong is to pray for people for healing of the emotions. One of the first goals is to help people know what they are feeling. Lately, I have been thinking about what people felt in the New Testament times and how it relates to us in the modern age. Here are a few thoughts:

 

I wonder what Peter felt when he failed even when he tried so hard. Jesus rebuked Peter more than the other apostles. There were times when Jesus told Peter that he was a man of little faith, although the Greek says that Peter had undeveloped faith. In the end, Peter was a man of great faith even his shadow healed people as he walked by.

I wonder what John felt when he cuddled up to Jesus. John knew what relationship was. He knew Jesus' love. He even said he was the disciple that Jesus loved.

I wonder what the lady that wanted the demon cast out of her child felt when Jesus told her that He should not feed the dogs with the children’s bread. Knowing that Jesus is love, I realize that He was just speaking her language. He was just wanting to be her friend. In the end, the demon was cast out.

I wonder how the other disciples felt when Jesus took three of His disciples with Him and they had a mountian top experience but left the others behind. Everyone has a different relationship with Jesus and I guess it wasn't any different at that time.

How did Pilate feel when the Jews wanted to kill Jesus and He did not want to put Jesus to death. Even Pilate's wife had a warning dream not to lay a hand on Jesus. In the end, Pilate acted out of fear of the Jews but at the same time fulfilling prophecy and accomplishing God's will.

How did the soldiers feel when they were beating Jesus or did they feel anything? Most of the time when people have to do bad things to people or they have had bad things happen to them, they become frozen in their emotions. In the end, I'm not sure what happened to those guys but I hope they became Christians. They did experience the blood of Jesus.

What did Judas feel when he realized he had betrayed Jesus to His death. Most of the time, Judas was so interested in his own wants that Judas did not have a real relationship with Jesus. In the end, he couldn't go to Jesus for forgiveness so Judas died in his sorrow. It's sad when this happens because Jesus's loves never fails.

What did Mary feel when she saw Jesus being mistreated and hung on a cross? His mother watched as her hopes of prophecies spoken over Him went into the prophecy grave yard. In the end, she found out it was just a death of a vision and God raised Him up from the dead.

What did the disciples feel when they were cowards and ran when Jesus was in His darkest hour? Fear, shame, confusion, and depression? But after the Holy Spirit came, they turned into different men.

What did the leaders feel when their whole religious system and even their whole culture was being turned upside down？ Like many of us, when our world is being turned upside down, our feelings go crazy. In the end, they tried to destroy the very thing that would have given them life.

What did people feel after being healed after many years of sickness? Have you ever thought what it would be like to be healed after years of being sick? People that were deaf probably couldn't sleep because of the noise. Those who were blind may have been in vision overload because of regaining their sight.

Even though there is no way we can know what people felt at that time, I doubt that it was much different than we feel today. I'm sure that the ones that followed Jesus after He died had a fulfilled life. The encouraging thing is that if we go to Jesus we can have an amazing life, too.

 

Bruce Isom

There may be struggles in doing what God wants us to do

 

     Many times we think if God is really into what we are doing it will be easy and fruit will manifest instantly. We live in a world of instant everything. Fast food restaurants with food available instantly, shops where we can buy things right away if we have the money or the credit. There are few things in life that we have to wait for.  When we watch TV or movies we see people instantly fall in love and get married in a very short time. This sometimes happens in the Christian life but is rare.

 

     Jesus who said that we will have abundant life, also said that if we are to have fruit in our life we may also have struggles. In 2 Corinthians 11:23 - 28, Paul lists a bunch of problems that he had. His life was not easy and smooth. It definitely was not instant. He could hardly walk into some towns without someone trying to kill him. There were times he was hungry, fasting because he had no choice but to fast, in danger, no home, even at the point of death at times if not dead and raised back to life when people prayed for him. He also had many other problems in his life that are listed in this passage. Now this is about the life of a man who by his ministry and letters has been one of the most influential in shaping the church from his writings.

 

     Many times in the Church in richer parts of the world we have this instant mentality. If we have a few problems thrown at us it seems that our whole world falls apart. Many times we feel like God should have an instant fix to our problems. If Paul walked into many churches in these countries they would have him going through counseling, encouraging him to give more so he would be rich, and trying to figure out why he is always having so many problems. I've even heard people say that if Paul would live the way God wanted him to he would not have the problems that he had. But in 1 Corinthians 4:16 and 11:1 he said we were to imitate him which means that he knew that he was a person that we could learn from and to live our life like him. 

 

     The struggles Paul had probably had nothing to do with sin in his life. Most of the time it was warfare because he was advancing the "Kingdom of God" and invading the kingdom of darkness. Many times even when we are serious about growing in God we will start to experience warfare and problems. If we press into God when these things happen we will grow in the Lord. It seems to be part of the maturing process  (1 Peter 1:6-7; James 1:2-4).  Then at some point God will lead people into a ministry of some kind and many times there is warfare that we go through just from doing what God wants us to do.  Then when we are fruitful in that ministry there are seasons when problems keep coming all the time. By saying this I'm not saying to go out and look for problems. You don't need to expect something that God may not want you to go through.

     If we are not living the way that God wants us to live then we can also expect problems. These are not warfare for living a Godly life but God allowing problems so we will get our eyes on Him. If we are wanting to live the way that God wants us to, these kind of problems can either push us to God or literally suck the life out of us. Hebrews 5:8 tells us that even Jesus learned obedience by the things he suffered. It is also true in our life that God will use problems to push us to Himself and to use problems in our life to help us to live for Him.


     Sometimes we can also develop what is called a "victim mentality" and expect bad stuff to happen to the point that it happens just because we expect it to happen. I have known people that every time they get a new job the same bad things happen to them. These people have been very gifted and know their jobs well but always seem to have personality conflicts with coworkers. After having a few jobs where the same conflicts happen they start living in a victim mentality and soon lose their job. To break out of this Christians need to trust God to help them change their life and know that He wants the best for us. For some, they have had people say things to them that become a curse in their life. If they pray to break these off and can seek God to help them change and trust Him to change their situation there are times when they and their situation will change.

     Sometimes we have sin in our lives that causes us to have problems in our life. I have prayed with some people because they were sowing lies, unforgiveness, judgements, gossip and even curses by the words they spoke.  When we sow crap into the lives of others by the things we say about them or what we do to them it will definitely have an effect on our lives.  Most of the time it affects us more than the people we were speaking about.
 

     The main reason I wanted to write this is that I hear of people that have problems and they think that it is because God has it in for them. I know that I felt that way when I first became a Christian. As I grew in the Lord and God changed me I realized that some of the problems that happened in my life were from things that I was doing and not from God wanting to abuse me. I want to reassure people that if they are wanting to live Godly in Christ Jesus that there are times that difficult things happen but that does not mean you are not loved by God. I want to guarantee you that God loves you and because He is love, everything that He does in your life is because He loves you. But there are spiritual laws and if we break them, there are consequences, and bad stuff can happen in our lives.

    Now I have mentioned two different types of problems. Those that come from living a Godly life and those that come from not living the way that a Christian should. Some people have asked me how can you tell the difference between the two. I think that the best way to know is by what is in your heart and what comes out of your mouth. If you are sowing crap it will definitely be coming back at you. If you are sowing good God has your back and He will take care of you. If you are doing what God wants you to do and bad things happen, God always shows up and takes care of the problems even when it looks like nothing will work out. If you feel that you are living the way God wants you to live but nothing good ever seems to happen in your life then there may be some past sowing and reaping that is happening in your life. Keep living the way that God wants you to and there will be a time when your sowing good will reap a harvest. If you are doing things that aren't Godly pray that God will help you to stop doing those things. Sometimes you may even need to find someone to pray or even mentor you to get out of the problems.

     Keep up the good fight and don't give up. If you are going through problems it is important to pray so that you will know what God wants you to do about them.  I'm not writing this so that people will go into shame and blame but to understand why they may be going through problems. I'm sure there are other reasons for people to go through problems since mankind no longer lives in the Garden of Eden, so keep looking to Jesus to get your answers.