The Work of the Holy Spirit

"But I tell you the truth: it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go I will send him to you." John 16:7

Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit as one who brings truth to all situations and circumstances-- He is the one who brings conviction. There are some very amazing promises that Jesus speaks to the disciples concerning the Holy Spirit becoming an active part of the life of followers of Christ.

Right before I left for my outreach I was given a personal word from the Lord saying that I would soon know His Holy Spirit as Comforter and Counselor. That word was confirmed when my mentor prayed for me one day and prayed the same thing.. From day one of my outreach to Japan I was in eager expectation of seeing the Holy Spirit become real to me in these two ways-- Counselor and Comforter.

Little did I know, that in order to be comforted you must be in pain. In order to be counseled, you have to go through tough situations where you NEED counsel. I did not know what it was going to take of me in order to see the fulfillment of this word from the Lord.

Being a leader is no easy thing. Much less, being a young leader. I am the leader of an outreach team in which every person on my team is older than me. All of them fall between the ages of 21-24. Some have gone through college, some have gone through some intense life experiences which I have little to no grid for.

Leading this outreach to the nation of Japan was the hardest thing I have ever done. Here are other dynamics that make leading my team a hard job:

-Each member of my team is what they call a 'natural leader' which means that are not the best followers. They often think THEY have the best course of action regardless of whether they do or not.

-In Japan there is a stronghold of fear of failure which is most destructive to it's leaders. Many Japanese business men (CEO's or board directors particularly), if they make ONE mistake, will kill themselves because the shame is too great.

-My team is naturally quick to criticize and slow to receive advice.

There are many other things as well, but I don't want to spend this blog point out faults in other people. I only share the difficulties and dynamics of my team so that you can have context for how I felt day in and day out.

Now, despite that I felt judged, hurt and under appreciated, I sought the Lord to be a man who speaks life and who continuously blesses. I felt the Lord challenge me to faithfully pray for my team two times a day: in the morning when I wake and in the evening before I sleep. I did as he directed, and even in the toughest time I was able to receive His heart for what we were doing and where we were headed.

We spent 2 weeks in Osaka, which was really a lot of busywork. We were able to see fruit of our relationships nonetheless- Many people told us they were blessed and challenged by us. One lady gave her life to the Lord the day after we left.

We also led worship several times, did some evangelistic concerts, we did construction, we helped with preschools and taught english to adults.

When we moved to Tokyo, there was a totally different dynamic. Instead of working with one church, we worked with several different ministries around Tokyo. It was in Tokyo that I really had the time to dig into my God times and seek the Lord on all that I felt Him speaking to me.

Every day in Tokyo felt like a battle. I was in a constant state of warfare for my team-- many were falling into depression, loneliness, bitterness amongst other things. Yet, we kept persevering, we kept serving and we kept worshiping Jesus.

One day in the second week, every single person in my outreach team had personal issues surface in their lives. It was like we were ambushed. I had to take a large portion of my day in intercession and worship for my team and in the evening I had to take over a large portion of the ministry so that we could keep persevering. I was without answers, to say the least, I had no clear view of where God wanted to go. But I persisted in my pursuit of Him, and stood on the promise He gave to me-- I was going to know Him as COUNSELOR.

Funny thing about His counsel-- Often rather than giving me words or a straight answer, He would reveal to me His heart for a person. Or He would show me His character. And then from being so close to His heart I knew in which way to approach an individual. I suddenly knew how to talk to people. It doesn't mean I was perfect, but I was listening to what the Spirit was saying and showing to me and acting on it as best as I knew how.

On that particular day, there were also personal issues that flared up in me: festering wounds from the past. Two people on my outreach team would say or do things that would bring up old memories of all sorts of lies and false emotions that the enemy had plagued me with when I was younger and my heart was breaking. Every night I pursued the Lord, asking Him to take away the pain and to help me.. I just worshiped.. I just prayed.. And often times, I didn't receive an answer. But I did receive His comfort. Most of the time His comfort came in the form of His presence-- He showed me that He cared because He was there. Twice He showed me a picture of His healing power that He was releasing into my heart. One day, I prayed out loud-- "Lord this pain is unbearable! Yet, I am so glad that I can know your love in the midst of my pain.. Thank you God.."

A few times His comfort came in the form of a joke. Or my personal favorite-- He would tell me to do something ridiculous. These things had me laughing for hours..

I saw that His comfort is different than my perception of comfort. The world's comfort often comes with a reassuring word, "It's okay." And then maybe a gift to make the pain go away.

God's comfort comes with His presence and His love. Nothing is more comforting than the Love of God. I felt safe with Him, I felt free with Him. But it is a process.

Now I am back in Australia and the things that used to decimate me and drive me to tears barely feel like a pin prick. His healing is so powerful. He told me once when I was asking Him to take me away from all of the pain, "You can avoid this healing now because of the pain.. But you will have to face this wound someday. Do you want your healing now, or would you rather live crippled?"

Sometimes, we get so comfortable with pain and trouble. We forget that our God is healer and comforter, and His desire is for us to live in freedom in our hearts.

This outreach was the hardest thing I have ever faced, but because of the Spirit of God, I am a freer man today than I was 5 weeks ago.

The Struggle Between Hope and Mystery

Hey everyone. I am in Japan right now leading an outreach of 6 individuals (including myself and a co-leader). We've been here for two and half weeks and have seen some awesome fruit and some really cool things happen. But this isn't going to be an update blog. I want to let you guys have a sneak peek into the heart and mind of an outreach team:

There are 6 of us here in Japan. There should be 8. 2 of our teammates, Roseleen Mead and Mikhail Laxton, are still in Australia waiting to see the money provided so that they can meet us on the DTS outreach. Now, there has been this unspoken vow of silence in my outreach team for a few weeks about this ordeal. We've prayed a few times corporately and still haven't seen much. Secretly, each of us are mystified and disappointed with God. Let me explain:

YWAM 101-- God Provides for His servants and His children. There are tons of scriptures that back this (Matthew 6:25-34, Luke 12:22-32, Matthew 7:7-11 to name a few).
In fact one thing my school leader, Leah, said over and over to the students was this statement, "Our YWAM base has never not sent a person on outreach because of a lack of funds." It's been this hope we've been clinging to--- That YWAM Brisbane's history has seen God provide again and again in the most unlikely of circumstances.
And yet, my outreach team has not seen this happen. We've even given to other outreach teams in the past 4 months when they were in need.. And yet, we boarded the plane with 6 people instead of 8. Incomplete.

A couple of nights ago it had been a really long day of ministry. It started early in the morning, went late to the night and we were all just tired. I was particularly exhausted. I had just gotten a very disheartening email from my school leader telling me the situation with Mikhail and Roseleen. Inside, I knew that I needed to pray and process.. But dang was I tired. And I thought my outreach team needed it too.. but they were tired. Sometimes, I think exhaustion can be one of the most effective hinderances to running to God. The irony of it is that He is faithful to renew and refresh those who are weary.. And yet we find it so hard to run to Him when we are exhausted, when we really need Him.
In the end, I decided to follow what I knew to be right-- I brought the topic up. The one thing we had been avoiding talking about as a team.
I handed out pieces of paper to the team and said, "I know all of you can discern God's voice. We are going to spend time praying over Mik and Roseleen, but I want to KNOW what God is doing. I want to know what His will is so we can join with Him in this and see it come to pass."
We spent 10-15 minutes praying and passing in the papers. I read them out loud-- there were varied responses. Some talked about surrender, some about responsibility and some about initiative. There was no clear yes or no.

Do you ever notice that God rarely gives the yes or no answer that we really desire? The more I walk with the Father the more I see that when I ask Him questions He answers me by revealing to me His character.
In any case, none of us had a clear idea of what was going on. I decided to be bold and honest at this point. I brought up some things I was sensing God saying about bad attitudes towards having our team mates come and some other things and opened it up for anyone to share what they were feeling. Each of them responded so honestly! Some confessed resentment, some confessed disappointment in God, some confessed that they didn't think our team mates were doing enough.
And after all of that was out there, what were we to do?

We had no clear idea of what God was doing, we were divided in our thoughts towards the situation and as a leader I have just heard several very clear, honest confessions about fear and doubts we had. I don't know what happened within me, but there was a surge of assurance as I opened my mouth and began to speak this out:
"Alright. This is what we're going to do. God is Father. God is Provider. We know this. We are going to stand on this and FIGHT to see our friends come here until we are told otherwise by the school leaders. We are going to believe in God and in our friends to see them come here. And if we don't see them come, then we will deal with that by seeking the Father and asking Him to show us what we are not seeing."

After that I started to pray and something was different in the group. The Spirit of God fell upon our outreach team in such a powerful way. Each person's prayer was that of confession to God of who He really is and of our fear and doubt. But in each prayer their was a promise, a resolve to trust in Him, to believe in Him. 

Some of us led out in asking for repentance for how we have treated our team members. 

At the end of the night, all of us had felt the Spirit of God move so heavily. We thanked Him, and we all felt sure of what we had prayed.

It's been a few days since then, and still no word from back home. This is something that we commonly experience as missionaries-- believing in God for who He is but having to submit to His will as it plays out differently then what we think or believe. I still have no answer for my team regarding what is happening, and why are team mates aren't here. But I am resolved in my spirit to know God as Father and as Provider despite what I see happening and despite how I feel. We are not dealing with unanswered prayer here.. He certainly has responded to my team's cry for help, but we are dealing with the struggle between hoping in what we know is entirely possible for God and in mystery in why He has not acted sooner. 

Yet, in all of this, I know that God is good. I know that He uses all things for the good of His perfect purposes. What is more, my heart believes what my head knows. And so I trust in Him and my outreach team as we are committed to Him and to His purposes for our lives and the lives of the people we encounter daily. 

I hope that through this you've tasted a bit of the struggle that my outreach team has and is still working through. It is through our struggles that God makes Himself so real to us-- He shows up as Comforter, Counselor, Provider, Lover. My prayer for all that read this is that they will look back on the times where they have seen 'unanswered prayer' and be able to see where God was standing with His answer for you. Maybe, it wasn't what you wanted to hear or see, but it was what was perfect for you in that moment. Just like my team received no final yes or no, but we did receive the Father's heart for how we saw our team mates. His answer to us was to adjust the way we saw the situation so that we could see through His eyes. 

Blessings,

Kelly A.

Evangelism in Japan.

Lately, I have been studying the 7 hebrew words for praise.
In our english translation of the bible we use the words, commend, extol, praise, give thanks.. and such things like this. Unfortunately, what is lost in translation is some very essential hebrew understanding of the principles of praise and attitudes of the heart that they created the words to describe. For example:
Halal, is the root word for Hallelujah. Halal means: to praise, to celebrate hilariously, to be clamorously foolish, to rave to boat, to make show.
Hallelujah is literally translated "Praise Yah", which means "Halal to Yaweh". We see an example of this word for praise in action and in attitude in 2 Samuel 6-- David dances so hard that his clothes fall off, and many see his nakedness. His response when confronted by this is, "I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humilated in my own eyes." (verse 22)

If we are not aware of the true meaning of some of the words that we use to worship God than we can lose some very important principles of giving true worship to God.
The word hebrew word Tehillah literally means 'to sing Halal.' It means: to spontaneously sing praise and adoration to the Father, to the point of looking foolish in the eyes of others. And so this brings to light this scripture in Psalm 100:4 "Enter his gates with thanksgiving (Towdah) and enter his courts with praise (Tehillah); give thanks to him and praise his name."

So the principle we see in this scripture, is that to give thanks is to enter his courts, and to praise (Tehillah, or to sing Halal) is to enter his courts. Spontaneous singing, spontaneous praise to God, is to enter his courts.

After spending time processing that, I decided to take this principle out on the streets. We went out to the train station as a team, and I just played some chords over and over and did some spontaneous singing to my style of music for 30-45 minutes. Now, we didn't see any miraculous salvations, but there were a few guys who told us, "We see many musicians playing on this corner, but we came to talk to you today because all of you were smiling." There is a distinct difference between a worshiper of God and a musician, even in countenance. As I sang over hundreds of people walking by, I felt the presence of the Lord so strongly! And it was as if each word, each melody and phrase of worship to God was piercing the hard hearts of the Japanese people despite whether they understood it or not. I felt a deep sense of appreciation for the Father for choosing to spread my worship of God over the hearts of the people passing by-- It gave him the opportunity to step into the lives of his lost children and start to soften their hearts towards his amazing gospel of peace and salvation.

Often times I don't realize how powerful worshiping God in the midst of darkness can be. But it only takes one small flame to start an enormous forest fire.

Byron Bay

Well, we had another powerful week at Byron Bay.
Let me explain Byron Bay.

Byron Bay is a beautiful place-- nice ocean, great weather, it has a lighthouse with a great mountainous view (small mountains), and is probably one of the most concentrated forms of Post-modernism and New Age practices in all of Australia, and possibly in the Southern Hemisphere.

1.75 million backpackers and travelers pass through Byron Bay each year and most become captivated by the environment.. A place where a person comes to 'seek the truth' or to 'find enlightenment.' Almost every known cult has some sort of representation in and around Byron Bay because of it's nature. It is a place to go for a good time-- drugs, pubs, good conversations, with people accepting of all and every idea.
It is truly a remarkable place.

Every time we send a team of YWAMers to this place, there is a wave of oppression that hits the group. Some get tired and annoyed, some get very cutting with their comments, some become lazy and some feel absolutely depressed. Without fail, every time we come to this place we have to do some level of spiritual warfare, declaring Jesus as Lord and choosing to walk in love, patience and faithfulness. It was the same this time.

I sat down to pray with my outreach team and we talked vaguely about things we wanted to see and pray about.. And then someone came out with this: "I don't really have anything to share about outreach right now.. But I feel like I need to tell you guys that I feel really depressed to the point that I don't want to go on with this DTS anymore. I just want to go home."
I felt a shift in what the Lord wanted to address in this time of prayer. I asked if anyone else felt similarly and each and every one of my team shared similar feels of depression, anger, and heaviness. After I let each share, I told them the reality of what was going on.. Something the Lord had shared with me in a morning quiet time: "All conflict will be heightened by the powers of darkness in the area." We stood and grabbed hands and each of us let out the prayer of our hearts-- a cry for freedom, a cry for a breakout of God's love to come into Byron and into our DTS. And as we begin to pray, each of us felt the Spirit moving so strongly! God began to work in each of us and start to take away the heaviness we had been feeling.
Then the verse came to mind, "Freely you have received, now freely give." And with that we began interceding for our whole school. Praying specifically for them to become overcomers in Christ-- to let Byron Bay be the training ground for the outreach we are all about to embark on.

That night we went into the city for evangelism. We gave out free pancakes and played some music and tons of us had incredible conversations. I spoke to man about the Lord-- He was a lukewarm christian to say the least. But after hearing his heart and where he was at, I encouraged him and following the leading of the Holy Spirit I prophesied to him.. Immediately after, I saw so much hope inspired into him and he received it so openly.

Praise the Lord! He is on the move in Byron Bay, and we were able to be apart of it with him.

Journal Entry #2- Fear of the Lord

Some of you may remember my testimony last May after coming home from YWAM and the main theme of it was the Fear of God. Here is a recent journal entry where I was processing more of what the Fear of God is and what it looks like. I hope and pray that the Lord will speak directly to YOU through this entry. Maybe you can relate with where I'm coming from. Here it is:

MY THOUGHTS:
-- Here is what I don't understand about the fear of God. I don't think your nature is to have your children motivated out of fear... fear is a dreadful thing-- it brings anxiety and nervousness. So what does it mean to fear you?

God's thoughts to me:

++ "My flesh trembles in fear of you; I stand in awe of your laws." Psalm 119:120
Fear of me does not bring anxiety or dread to your spirit or your soul, but to your flesh. As a follower of God, there is a constant battle between your spirit and your flesh. Your spirit is in tune with my Spirit but your flesh always seeks to control. A Holy fear of God brings trembling, dread and awe to the flesh that causes it to submit. Fear of Me, brings life to you because it makes room for my Spirit to work in and through you.
In this way your flesh becomes less and my Holy Spirit becomes greater within you. My fear is a key to walking in right relationship with me. A man who fears the Lord knows me intimately and I trust him. A man with no fear of the God is controlling, selfish and foolish-- he does not have in mind the things of God, but the things of man. "He must become greater; I must become less." (John 3:30)

My prayer after this revelation:
Oh, God bring me to that place of utter fear of the Lord! I want my flesh to become lesser that you may be greater and glorified! Lord, let me flesh tremble in fear of you and let your love so fill me that it be the one driving motivation of all that I do! Praise your Holy Name!

From my Journal.

This is a conversation I had with God on November 22nd, 2007:

MY PRAYER:
∞Today is a most beautiful day. The sweet sea breeze, the warm sun, the blue waters and the greenest grass. Thank you for this beautiful day.
Yesterday night it was revealed to me by You, that there is judgement in my mind and heart. There is such a fine line between discernment and judgement. How can I know when my flesh so subtly creeps into my perception? How do I stay away from judgement?
"Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against is brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgement on it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you-- who are you to judge your neighbor?" James 4:11,12

"I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me." 1 Corinthians 4:3,4

GOD SAID TO ME:
§ The discernment I give you will always be motivated out of a heart of love and compassion. As soon as you start coparing a person or sizing them up in a cutting way, you have stepped into judgement. Discernment is of the Spirit. Judgement is of the mind. Discernment is a knowing within you, but judgement seeks to type-cast a person.
You avoid judgement by looking to me for my word and my heart. When I reveal something to you, even if it is a negative thing, I do it for the sake of my love. It is our responsibility to seek me on how to operate in love when I show you something about another person's or your character.
Never seek to convict someone for my sake. Althought you may have a good heart, it is my place to convict. I may use you to rebuke but it will always be in my timing.
Learn my timing and you will see fruit from the things you sow into.

MY RESPONSE:
∞"Any time you compare yourself with others you lose. For either you
find you are not as good, which is a put down of the way God sees
you, or you are better, which is pride."-Ken Helser
Oh Lord Jesus, show me your ways, your pace, and your judgement. God, give me your heart for all of my friends, family, one-on-one and outreach team. I want to discern accordin to you!
I want to stop judging myself and others.. God I want to see you-- and when I see you, I will see me rightly and I will see others rightly. I want to see through your eyes and hear with your ears!
Thank you God.

Fear of the Lord

"There can be no intimacy without painful passion." -Ken Helser.

For those of you who heard my testimony, you may remember me talking about the Fear of the Lord. It was a lecture topic that changed my life and flipped my world upside down. Of course, it wasn't the lecture that changed my world, it was the One whom the lecture was about, Jesus Christ.

This last week's topic was the Fear of the Lord taught just as last time by my mentor, Nathan McGill. I was expecting to see break though-- I was expecting to see things happen. I think all of us on the staff team were. I think it's because when conviction comes two choices-- obedience or disobedience. And we were just aching to see conviction come to our school and to ourselves so that we could go beyond what we knew of God and into higher places and more intimacy with Him.
Nathan had 3 days. He always gets shorted because he's not an 'out-of-town' speaker.. But 3 days is enough. It was enough for God to move and alter my life completely, so why shouldn't I expect Him to do a similar thing in the lives if my students?

The first day was hardly a lecture. We all came, knees bowed, worshipping, crying out to God. Some entered in and some didn't. But the focus wasn't on that-- it was on Him. He called us to worship, so we worshipped. I remember Nathan was leading out in prayer much of the time and at one point, in tears he screamed out, "Oh God! I've never started a class like this! But I want so badly to have your will done, I will lay my agenda aside!"
I kinda laughed at that actually.. He didn't realize he was saying that out loud. ha.. anyway.

The second day we spent more time in notes and in defining what fear of the Lord is: to be in awe of Him who holds everything together.. and as a result of a revelation of that power and everlastingness, we submit to hate what he hates and love what he loves.

The third day we came to the thing that keeps us from fearing God most of all other things-- fear of man. We didn't finish the notes because the Spirit of God began to move and we wanted to co-operate with it. We put a chair up their and a microphone and began to repent of being motivated out of fear of man rather than God in all the different areas of our lives.. A student would repent and then we would gather around them and pray, prophesy and speak out what God was saying and doing. Most of us staff went to the chair and repented of being motivated by the fear of man (including myself) as well as 3/4 of the students.. and we began to see SO much breakthrough individually and corporately as we continued to worship God even as we ministered to one another.

3 days. God can change and transform you in a minute if you allow Him to. But so often, we hold on to that which is most dear, that which is comfortable to us. That sinful life of living in fear of man (which is pride) rather than allowing the fear of God to be the purpose and motivation of everything we do in our lives.

Oh God, thank you for moving in the lives of these students! Continue this work in our hearts God. But more importantly, to all who read this, meet them in such a way that all fear and shame will be chased out by your love, for your perfect love casts out all fear. Move them to repentance Lord that they may find more intimacy and that they may know You for who You are, not for what You do. Praise you Lord.

"Now all has been heard;
here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the whole duty of man." (Ecc. 12:13)