Q & A - God's answers to my questions...There are no questions intelligent or foolish, big or small to ask God. The Bible says, knock and it shall be opened unto you, seek and you shall find, ask and you shall receive. Knock on God's door and he will open and welcome you in...seek his wisdom and he will share it with you...ask him your questions, and he will answer you for your God is passionate about you!

Question: Once I travelled to a church to share a message that God had revealed while studying the Bible.On the way back home the thought that I had done it for personal gain, not monetary, but to hear kudos from the parishioners, started bothering me. Even though, my intent was purely for the glory of God, this thought started eating away at me all through the drive back home. I prayed...Lord, you are an omniscient God, one who knows the intents of a man's heart, hidden or otherwise, known or unknown to him. There is nothing Lord that is hidden from you, what man does in the cover of darkness is like in the broad daylight in your presence. Please God, search my heart and if there is any wrong intent in me, point it to me so that I may ask for forgiveness. After the prayer, my God answered me as following from the Bible scriptures...

Answer: Mathew 10:27 - What I tell you now in the darkness, shout abroad when daybreak comes. What I whisper in your ears, shout from the housetops for all to hear!

Question: I had been praying to God for him to use me for his Kingdom's work. I prayed that since he knew me, my strengths, my weaknesses, I asked that he would mold me in to a vessel that he deemed fit for His service. Following my meditation in the presence of God, the answer was...

Answer: Mathew 8:27 - But Jesus said, "Foxes have dens to live in, and birds have nest, but I, the Son of Man, have no house of my own, not even a place to lay my head." And I asked myself this question... Am I prepared to follow this master? Lord, help me...

 Question: I stood up to say a testimony in my church once. My testimony was a testimony and exhortation as I shared my experience of what I had gone through and how God dealt with me and how he strengthened me through His Word. As I was going through my testimony/exhortation in front of the church, the pastor interrupted me and asked me to cut it short and sit down, and I did.

{I have always stood up to say these testimonies when I feel a strong conviction from the Holy Spirit. Usually, prior to the point of my saying a testimony/exhortation, the Holy Spirit has led me in a journey thru the Bible, in that I mean, I go thru certain scriptures or books in the Bible without any planning of my own, and as I read amazing thoughts open up that I retain and write them in the margins . Then when the time of testimony comes, I become very restless until I stand to deliver it; then a power takes over (I have come to conclude it is the Lord's Holy Spirit)}.

There was the feeling of hurt, more than insult when the pastor interrupted because this was my home. I tried not to let it faze me!

That evening in my room, I sat down to pray hurting by what had happened. I prayed to God and asked why it had happened. I asked Him why it would happen if I was following the direction of the Holy Spirit. After prayer...

Answer: ...the answer came from the book of Isaiah, chapter 53:3 & 7 - 3) He was despised and rejected - a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way when he went by. He was despised, and we did not care. 7) He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth.

The thought filled my mind that if I was going to do Christ's work, THIS WAS MY MASTER'S LIFE! THIS WAS MY TEACHER'S LIFE!

God then pointed my attention to Mathew 10:24-25. 24) Jesus says, "A student is not greater than the teacher. A servant is not greater than the master. 25) The student shares the teacher's fate. The servant shares the master's fate. And since I, the master of the household, have been called the prince of demons, how much more will it happen to you, the members of the household!" I needed to get over my pride. Another lesson for his students and his servants...Hallelujah!

I've heard this preacher whom I admire preach quite often that if you do what God asks you to do, He will take full responsibility for the consequences.

My Two Shooting Stars

May 13th, 2008, 2:00AM Journal entry...

When God's children are in a quandary and need an honest answer, God will step in and speak to you whether through nature, scripture, or another total stranger. He knows your heart's desire and when it is aligned with His will for you, He will take away all your doubts.

On May 10th, 2008, the Saturday evening worship and the May 11th, Sunday worship at the church that I attend were really tremendous and spiritually uplifting. The Sunday worship especially was just tremendous for me personally as I experienced the power of the living God so greatly that I was worshiping at the top of my voice. While I experience this power, I become oblivious of my surrounding and it becomes a one on one experience (I quite literally during these times wish that the worship would just keep continuing.)

When the worship service ended and I was back to myself, my mind kicked into action...I started to wonder about what I had just experienced. I became very self conscious and wondered what others might have thought. Did I look like a fool? Were people annoyed? etc. Couple of days went by and I decided to ask someone more knowledgeable in these matters what he thought of such exuberant worship experiences. The answers I got created more questions in my mind and jestingly I said to him that he had used reverse psychology to answer my questions. He smiled and said that he enjoyed such worship.

My thoughts continued to make me uneasy and restless. I asked God why do others when they experience the power of the Holy Spirit, spoke in tongues while I experienced a surge of power that made me worship at the top of my voice forgetting my surroundings. At times during such worships, God's promises from the Bible come to mind with a strong conviction that it was for someone who needed to hear of those promises. From my experience I have learned that the Word ministers to our needs. Many a times I have noticed that these promises were confirmed (heard again) during the Psalm reading or during the ensuing sermon or testimonies. For whomsoever the message was intended, it's multiple confirmation. For me it was a confirmation that the one and same Spirit reveals the same thing to different people or uses different people to share the same thoughts. When you hear the same thoughts from different people, total strangers, who had no chance of having prior communication between them, it gives validity to what the Holy Spirit is revealing. (Romans 12:6 (NLT) says, "God has given each of us the ability to do certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out when you have faith that God is speaking through you.)

Having not found any convincing answers on how I would know the Holy Spirit's manifestation, I continued to mull over the questions in my mind. It was past mid-night and I decided to sit down to read the Bible, meditate on the Word and look for answers to my questions in the Bible. I was reading no particular book or chapter, but skimming through the pages and verses that I had highlighted during previous readings, looking for any information that would answer to the question on the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. I came across portions in the Bible that spoke of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Then somewhere in John and other books, I read that the Holy Spirit reveals, teaches, transports – as in the case of Philip and the eunuch, etc., but couldn't get a direct answer to my question. Finally, I closed the Bible and started praying and praising God. I have come to this conclusion that giving God praise is the most important thing in life – for everything.

As I prayed and praised God, I began to cry bitterly as my question – do I have the Holy Spirit in me? - weighed heavily on my mind. I asked God why I couldn't speak in tongues. I asked that he would give me this ability, give me the gifts of the Spirit as I read in the Bible and fill me with the power of the Holy Spirit. I must have spent quite some time crying out and praying to God to show me a sign as a confirmation to what I had come to believe was the manifestation of the Holy Spirit that takes away our shame and makes us worship the Almighty God with all our heart, our mind, our strength, and our spirit.

I had once heard Rev. Charles Stanley preach on the radio how his grandfather had asked God for a sign that He was calling him out to preach. His grandfather was not educated, could not read or write and was uncertain how he would be of use in the ministry speaking the Word and ministering to folks who were more educated than himself. He asked God on a clear, dark night to make a shooting star go across the sky as a confirmation of God's calling upon his life – and it did! His grandfather thought this to be too much of a coincidence and asked for one more shooting star to go across the night sky. And sure enough, there went another - a second shooting star! Charles Stanley in that message said that his grandfather never again doubted God's calling and he said that God would move the heavens and the earth for his children.

As I continued to pray through tears, I asked if God would give me a sign as he did for Rev. Stanley's grandfather. I said, “Please God, I will open up the blind to the window and gaze up at the night sky, would you send a shooting star across the sky as you did for Charles Stanley's grand father. Then the thought that testing God was a sin crossed my mind. I abandoned that idea and didn't look out the window. I asked God if I wasn't good enough, worthy enough, for an answer. (Even though, in the past – recent past, he had been answering my questions through his scripture.)

As I cried and prayed into the early morning hours, I started laughing, laughing so hard that you would have thought I had gone mad, because out of the blue there came this song that just blurted out of my mouth,

When the Spirit of the Lord moves upon my heart, I will shout like Joshua shouted...

Even though this is the third stanza of the song, this is where it started out of my mouth. The song goes something like this:

When the Spirit of he Lord moves upon my heart, I will sing like David sang... x (2)
I will sing...I will sing...I will sing like David sang... x(2)

When the Spirit of the Lord moves upon my heart, I will dance like David danced... x (2)
I will dance...I will dance...I will dance like David danced... x (2)

When the Spirit of the Lord moves upon my heart, I will shout like Joshua shouted... x(2)
I will shout...I will shout...I will shout like Joshua shouted... x (2)

When the Spirit of the Lord moves upon my heart, I will pray like Daniel prayed...
When the Spirit of the Lord moves upon my heart, I will love like Jesus loved... etc.

Here was the answer from my Father in heaven...I sang like David sang...I danced like David danced...I shouted like Joshua shouted! Here was my shooting star...

One thing is clear in my mind today, it is the Holy Spirit that decides how it manifests in whom...some speak and worship in tongues, others shout aloud and sing praises to the Almighty God without any shame. I will continue to worship my God, without shame and I pray for his continued grace...Hallelujah, Praise God!

Following morning, May 14th, 2008, my wife had her final exams for her nursing program from which she was graduating. I woke up at around 7am listening to the alarm go off with the radio coming on – 570 AM in New York City and Charles Stanley was preaching. The topic of his message was Praise Worship. As I lay in bed, half asleep, but still listening to his message, tears started flowing down my eyes...these were tears of joy. Here was God with my second shooting star answering my question on praise worship.

You can hear Rev. Stanley's complete three part message on Praise Worship starting with May 11-14, 2008 at www.Intouch.org.

PS: There are no coincidences with God. In his plan for you everything will fit just perfect. Regarding the Gifts of the Spirit, you may read what Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12:1-11; 28-31.

Hillsongs - This is our God

Fred Hammond - The Spirit of the Lord

Scandinavian Metal Praise - The Spirit of the Lord

When Doubt Creeps in...

On August 10, 2007, I attended a Friday night prayer at a friend's house. Men from my church would gather once a month in a member's house, worship and pray for several hours into the early Saturday morning for the members, friends, families, acquaintances, and any other matter that needed to be lifted up to God in prayer for a deliverance. I was just growing in my faith as a result of an incident in my life on February 25th, 2007 (see my post of October 24th - Amazing Grace). That night the prayer leader had put forth two pressing issues that needed God's intervention:

1. a Pastor from Virginia who had spent decades in the ministry was in a hospital, on a ventilator struggling for his life,
2. a 13 year old boy in New York was similarly on a ventilator suffering from meningitis that had affected his brain.

Both these issues had a very personal effect on me, and I took these two matters into prayer like they were my own. I had met this pastor some time ago and he left a favorable impression on me like a father figure. The thought of someone else making the decision on when to pull the plug on a servant of God's life, one who had worked for decades in the ministry was not acceptable to me. I pleaded with God that HE alone and not another should determine when his children leave this life on earth. The young boy's circumstance tore at my heart, as I was a father of a 10 year old girl and 4 year old boy. I couldn't bear the thought of the pain their families were undergoing to make whatever decisions they would have to eventually make.

As the group worshipped and fervent prayers were being offered, I experienced the mighty power of God, the Holy Spirit. I clearly saw a verse in my mind that All deliverance from death belonged to God and felt a strong compulsion to proclaim in the name of Jesus Christ that God was delivering both the pastor and the little boy from the ventilator and that they would not die. Another verse that the Holy Spirit gave me was - If you believe, you shall see the glory of God - and I proclaimed this too. I BELIEVED without a doubt in the name of Jesus they were healed.

The following Monday, I called a good friend in Virginia to share my experience of the first revelation/prophecy I've had while praying. He personally knew the pastor in Richmond, Virginia, who was being kept alive on a life support. I was amazed at my friend's response. It made my hair stand on my neck and gave me goosebumps. This was what he said - On Friday, the same Friday we were praying, the doctors had given up on the pastor's prognosis for a recovery and had asked his family to make a decision so as allow him to be taken off the ventilator and let him die peacefully. The family after agonizing over it made the decision to take him off the ventilator, but sometime during that Friday night or early next morning, when the medical staff went to disconnect the the ventilator, they saw signs of improvement in him. The same morning he was off the ventilator and speaking with his family members.

My friend and his family went to visit the pastor in the hospital on that Saturday morning as the pastor had asked to speak with him. The pastor ministered to him from the hospital bed. I praised God for what I was hearing and it increased my faith tremendously.

About a week or two later I heard the news that the pastor in Virginia had passed away as his health deteriorated few days after his coming off the ventilator. I felt completely deflated and shattered. A complete let down. Even though he was not a family member, I was saddened by the news. I felt like God had sold me a lemon as the revelation God gave me and I proclaimed in front of the prayer group seemed WRONG! The questions that weighed heavily on my mind where...Why did God have to embarrass me by compelling me to speak of a complete healing, only to have him come off the ventilator, live for a couple of weeks, speak with family and friends and then die? Why did God have to make a simple life, that was mine, complicated? Was it really a revelation? Was anything true? My faith headed south.

Doubt crept into me...BIG TIME! I felt miserable. I started falling back into my old habits of smoking and drinking alcohol. I shared this with my good friend from VA, and he shared his similar experience - a very close friend of his, a young lady, had passed away after a drawn out battle with breast cancer. He told me how fervently he had prayed for her recovery and how certain he felt that God was going to deliver her. After her death, he had struggled with his faith.

I was going through such a tug of war between my new found faith and doubt. I felt guilty about everything, but through it all I could not deny my experience of February 25th, 2007 when I first experienced the power of the Holy Spirit. (Little by little I started doubting even that.) It came to a point that I couldn't take it anymore. I took a couple of days off from work and sat down to pray. I cried out to God and prayed as I was hurt and embarrassed. I asked God to speak to me. I told Him that my faith was crumbling and I needed Him to intervene. I needed Him to tell me why things were the way they were. After praying, I opened the Bible and my eyes locked on the following scripture (I have heard Charles Stanley preach that the Holy Spirit brackets out the Word that God wants us to see and that's what HE did here for me):

Mathew 13:6 - "...and when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away."

Through this verse God was speaking to me, he was speaking directly to my situation. He was telling me that my root (faith) was not deep enough and that was why I was getting scorched. All I could do after reading the verse was cry out, pray and thank the Lord for pointing out what was wrong with me and my faith. I prayed to him to strengthen my faith and he continued to do that as I next read my regular scripture reading...Acts 12, which talks about Peter's imprisonment and how the angel of the Lord delivered him from the prison as the church prayed fervently and without ceasing for his safety and deliverance. I asked myself did I pray without ceasing for him, that's what the church did for Peter?

In Acts, chapter 12, we read that as the church prayed, the angel of the Lord appeared to Peter in the prison. He woke Peter up and instantly Peter's hand cuffs and leg restraints fell off, the prison door opened by itself, the 16 soldiers assigned to keep guard did not know of a thing that was happening and the angel walked Peter out of the prison and walked him to the outskirts of the town. As I was reading this scripture my mind started wandering to how Peter had died. He became blind and was crucified upside down. I wondered why a God who had delivered Peter out of a heavily guarded prison, let him die such a death. Wasn't the Lord who delivered Peter from prison not able to deliver him from an end suffering from blindness and death by crucifixion? This was clarified to me in John 21:19 - This spake he (Jesus), signifying by what death he (Peter) should glorify God. (Read earlier portions of this chapter in the Bible.)

These revelations from God put my heart at peace. I prayed for forgiveness for doubting God's intentions and prayed for God to strengthen my faith. I thanked him for speaking directly to my concerns, my doubts and for strengthening me by allowing my faith to grow stronger...Glory to God!

PS: Not everything is for us to understand. What we need to understand God reveals to us. The conclusion of it will always be to his glory. God brought the pastor back from death's grip for his intentions to be fulfilled...answered my prayer for God to take his child on God's terms for his glory. The young boy I heard recovered completely and lives a normal life. He came by our church once and testified of God's great deliverance on his life.

Hillsongs - Stronger

Amazing Grace that saved a wretch like me!

It was February 25th of 2007, a Sunday. I attended the morning worship as usual and a visiting preacher gave a message on that day. Though I don't recall all the specifics of that message, one thing he mentioned about a little boy suffering from Down's Syndrome struck a chord in me.  The preacher said that the boy during a sermon sat with his mouth wide open to the point that it was distracting the preacher. The preacher asked the boy why he would not close his mouth and the boy responded with gestures that he will answer at the end of the sermon. At the end of the sermon the preacher was curious to know the answer and asked why the child had his mouth so wide open all thru the sermon. The child responded that the preacher had started off the sermon with God's promise to Moses - the leader of the Israelites - who would stutter when speaking, "open your mouth wide and he would fill it." You see, God had called Moses to lead the Israelites from under the rule of the Pharoh in Egypt, but Moses kept dwelling on his shortcomings as to why he was not qualified for a task of such magnitude. The boy was doing his part by obeying God and waiting for God to do his part in him, for he could not speak properly.

When it came to worship and prayer, I was the type who sort of sat in the back of the room and did not like to draw any attention on myself. I was afraid of my shortcomings, but I would quite often pray the same prayer as this child - Lord you promised if I open my mouth wide, you would fill it. If I showed a willingness for you, you will do the rest. Following this particular sermon, the church started worshiping and the power of the Holy Spirit started working upon folks. People were experiencing the power of God and speaking in tongues. I sincerely told God in my heart of my desire to be filled with the Holy Spirit and enjoy the same joy others seemed to have. I prayed the same prayer of the little boy, Lord I will open my mouth wide, will you fill me with your Holy Spirit and allow me to worship you without the feeling of embarrassment and shame? I prayed for the same power others seemed to be experiencing. When I asked God for his Spirit, a quiet conversation took place between me and God. My questions and his answers paraphrased the incident noted in Mathew 15:21-28, when a mother of a sick child approached Christ and his disciples for healing for her daughter. The following was my conversation as the worship continued:

Me: God, please let me have the same experience these church folks seem to be having.
Answer: These blessings are food for my children and not for dogs.
Me: But God, even the dogs are permitted to live off the scraps of their master's table.

Immediately, the Holy Spirit (I realize this today as to who's prompting it was!) prompted me to raise my hand (something I would never do due to the embarrassment factor... not cool to do!) and I raised my hand. I cannot explain what happened next, but as following.  The moment I raised my hand, a tremendous power, that I can only equate to electricity, coursed through my body - head to toe - and it took away any inhibition of worship that was in me. I started worshiping God at the top of my voice. I had never worshiped in that manner ever in my life up to that point. It was like being at Shea stadium back in the 1980s and Daryl Strawberry would come up to bat at the bottom of the 9th inning with two outs and two strikes, and hits one of his monstrous home runs... Shea would just erupt in to this thunderous shouts of cheer from thousands of crazed fans!!!!

I did not care where I was standing. I did not care who was watching me. I did not care how uncool I may have looked. I knew I was in the presence of a mighty force, and all I wanted to do was be soaked in it. I just wanted to praise and worship this awesome God. With tears flowing down my face, my heart pounding, I was exhausted, but filled with a strange peace and joy that I couldn't explain. I couldn't believe what was happening, but I thank the Lord that it happened in my life. In his mercy he found it worthy to feed this dog with not just the scraps that fell off the table of his children, but with the food he gave his children.

My cousin was visiting the church for the first time and was sitting right beside me during this event. He knew me well and knew about my sinful/worldly life. He and I have hung out in the past. He knew I smoked, I drank alcohol and did all that any normal (!!) young man would do. I turned to him when the worship ended and said, " Dude, I don't know what just happened to me. I don't know how to explain what just happened." His answer was "You don't have to explain anything. Somethings just can't be explained. There was an awesome charge around you. I thought you were going to fall down." I wondered if he thought that I had just lost my mind. But, I thank the Lord for that experience changed me and changed my life's direction a 180 degrees around.

Following this experience, my desire for cigarettes and alcohol left me.  Things that I did to satisfy a lustful heart left me and a desire to read the Bible grew in me. Though smoking stopped overnight, a wholesome transformation was a process (that still continues to date) as I study the Bible. One other thing I would like to note here about my experience is that I had not prepared myself in any way for the power of the Lord to come into me. There was nothing special about me that day, but for the desire to experience the Lord and have him in my life.  Just the day before this experience, I had lived a life that was just ordinary. I remember getting into an argument with my dad, saying hurtful things to him, and after he left I was remorseful for what I had said. I sat on our home's front stoop, lit a cigarette, smoked it, went inside and prayed to God for forgiveness for my hurtful words to my dad. The experience with God that I write here was the following day. I have heard preachers preach on how one has to be prepared to receive God into his or her life, about holiness. Though I don't disagree with them, my message to you is to COME AS YOU ARE TODAY, THIS MOMENT, FOR THE NEXT MOMENT/DAY DOES NOT BELONG TO US!

We will never understand God's grace until we experience it!

Some verses that have ministered to me are quoted below from the KJV Bible:

• Isaiah 1:2-3 - I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.
• Isaiah 1:18-20 - Come now, let us reason together {he is a reasonable God} saith the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing {You have choice} and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land; but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.
• Isaiah 59:1-2 - Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.
• Jeremiah 3:12-14 - Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger for ever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity that thou has transgressed against the Lord thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the Lord. Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I am married unto you.
• Ezekiel 36:25-28 - Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you and a new Spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk within my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgements and do them... Ye shall be my people and I will be your God.
• James 4:8 - Draw nigh unto God, and he will draw nigh unto you.
• Acts 16:30-34 - Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.

I hope this is helpful to you and God will continue to give me the grace to post my journal on a regular basis. Remember, in Exodus 34, the Bible states that HE is a God who is passionate about his relationship with YOU. When one is passionate about anything, he/she pursues it at any cost. That's exactly what God Jehovah did for you and I through his son - Jesus Christ - on Calvary so that anyone who believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Would you give this GOD a chance, today? May God bless you!

Amazing Grace by 7 yr old Rhema

Amazing Grace by Wintley Phipps