The Season for Planting ~ Sowing in the Atmosphere of Faith It is important that we know about seasons if we are going to sow and reap in the Kingdom of our God. “Then He also said to the multitudes, Whenever you see a cloud rising out of the west, immediately you say, A shower [...]
The Season for Planting ~
Sowing in the Atmosphere of Faith
It is important that we know about seasons if we are going to sow and reap in the Kingdom of our God.
“Then He also said to the multitudes, Whenever you see a cloud rising out of the west, immediately you say, A shower is coming; and so it is. And when you see the south wind blow, you say, There will be hot weather; and there is. Hypocrites! You can discern the face of the sky and of the earth, but how is it you do not discern this time?”
(Luke 12:54-56 NKJV)
It is not good for us to leave all the knowing to God when the knowing is given to us for our good. A good farmer knows about seasons. He will plow, he will sow, he will care for and he will reap a harvest from his land, according to the seasons. A Season speaks of an establishment of the atmosphere. We are always in some kind of atmosphere that surrounds us and has great influence on any seed that is planted. A good farmer does not plant seeds in the wrong season or climate.
To you and I the climate to sow in financially is that of faith. In so doing: “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.” (Hebrews 10:23 NKJV)
Because we do not want weeds and freeze to kill our seeds of finance we must not give in an atmosphere of sin: “. . . for whatever is not from faith is sin.” (Romans 14:23 NKJV)
Yet if we will create an atmosphere of faith to give into we will please God and His Kingdom will always react to the faith that we announce.
“But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” (Heb 11:6 NKJV)
That which you have given, for us to preach the gospel of God’s grace is a faith endeavor on your part. Rest assured that God the Father has placed into operation, the enlarging power of His Kingdom on your behalf. We are in faith by both receiving your bountiful gift and by believing God for an increase on your behalf.
When you are giving, give into an atmosphere that is charged with faith. If the atmosphere is not charged with faith then charge it! When you are sitting down to make out your check for your partnership giving, either to us or any other ministry, turn the music of God up loud, walk around the room and get into the high praises of God, and at the appropriate time, when faith has filled that room, and you believe God can do anything, then make out your check and send it off! You may say that this is crazy. But you will also say that it is crazy when you give and do not see a return and there is poverty and lack. These are issues of faith in God!
The Book: Financial Reformation by Wayne C. Anderson (Click to Purchase)
This past Sunday morning, December 6th, I ministered at Revival Outreach Center in Tampa Bay, Florida on the subject of boundaries and the growth of our hearts. The message is available in video and as an mp3 if you’d like to give it a listen. Click here to watch the video Get the Flash Player [...]
This past Sunday morning, December 6th, I ministered at Revival Outreach Center in Tampa Bay, Florida on the subject of boundaries and the growth of our hearts. The message is available in video and as an mp3 if you’d like to give it a listen.
Developing A Pure Heart by Wayne C. Anderson on MP3
“t’s a beautiful fall day in SW Idaho and I’m working with Irene on organizing our storage a bit and getting our Christmas decorations out.”
It’s a beautiful fall day in SW Idaho and I’m working with Irene on organizing our storage a bit and getting our Christmas decorations out. We are going to Seattle for Thanksgiving and I’ll be leaving for Florida as soon as we return so the Christmas goodies have to come out now.
They’ll sit in the garage until decorating week, (that’s while Im in Florida).
I’m learning how to work with Google wave, the new project management app from Google. I think that it might just work as a great apostolic and strategic planning theater for our teams.
With the first picture below you can see our home in the autumn. No more leaves on the trees.
I have a quick photo of my tractor, trailered on the back of my truck. It is on its way to the storage for winter.
I’m already looking forward to spring.
By the way, this is my first post from my iPhone. Spelling will be an issue when I post from the mobile but at least the info will be fresh… pictures are easy to insert at the end of the post…
“y passion for divine healing obviously started as a young child because I had hated the sickness that my mother was debilitated by. I still hate sickness. This too accounts for my interest in emergency medicine and involvement in the medical programs of the fire departments for which I worked in my early adult years.”
Introduction: A Testimony Of Why
“But to you who fear My name the sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in its wings; and you shall leap about like calves loosed from the stall.” (Malachi 4:2)
It is a new day! This is a day that is marked with righteousness. A righteousness that comes by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. For righteousness does not come by doing what is right or acting rightly. But the righteousness of God can come upon you like a clothing. The righteousness of God is revealed upon you when you believe the gospel of God’s grace through Jesus Christ. His mercy will heal and deliver you, if you will only believe on His mercy!
Now, I’d like to tell you why I believe in divine healing. It appears to many that our ministry is centered around divine healing.
When I was first born into the kingdom of God, I had a supernatural vision that was a call into the ministry of the gospel of Christ. I don’t believe that it is necessary to have such a vision to do the work of the ministry and most people are not called into the ministry this way. I think that it is more usual that people are called by their passion and desire. But perhaps I happened to be with such littleness of faith in the beginning that God gave me a supernatural vision.
I had been hearing the voice of God for several days in a row. He was saying that He wanted me to preach and proclaim this gospel that had so gloriously saved me. Yet, I was arguing with God about it. I knew no better. It was my assumption that He had too many Billy Graham’s in the world at that time and He didn’t need another one. Especially not me! I was a businessman and a firefighter. I liked it that way. I just loved Jesus. I was throwing myself into Jesus totally, I thought.
He would say, “I call upon you to preach this gospel.” I would say, “No.” I don’t remember how long this went on. All I know was that God had patience. I would never talk to Him in the manner in which I did then. He loves us past our rebellion.
On a particular sunny afternoon, while I was busy arguing with the Lord over this point of being a preacher, I was thinking that a nap would be in fine order for that portion of my day. I didn’t even get a chance to fall asleep when very suddenly, I had a multi-dimensional drama that went on in the air right in front of my face and it filled the entirety of the room where I was.
I saw my grandfather who had been dead for about 6 or 8 years at that time. He was a Southern Pentecostal man of God. He was a beautiful man. He used to tell me Bible stories when I was a child. I do so wish that I had listened to him with greater intent. He was gone before I was ever a Christian.
In this three-dimensional vision was my grandfather. He was standing at the window of his house that I easily recognized. He was looking out into the yard and as He gazed into the yard I saw what he was so intently looking toward. There I was as a little boy standing on an apple box that was laid down on the ground with another apple box up on its end in front of me like a little pulpit. In front of me were chairs in the yard set up in theater style and I recognized my cousins in their childhood days. I had a book on that little pulpit and I was preaching to them.
This vision was from a perspective that was controlled of God. My view was like that of a movie, whereby the cameral moved about and focused on different aspects of this scene as if it were important for me to see certain things.
First I was looking at my grandfather, standing in the window, overlooking the church service of children in the yard. There, on the little pulpit was a book that it appeared as if I was preaching out of instead of a Bible. It is a book and I can see it very clearly at all times, as this picture has been sort of burned into my soul. The book had a yellowish cover that says as its title, “God Will Heal You!” I could also see the faces of my cousins as I was preaching to them. As my viewpoint of this scene changed I could then see my grandfather standing “ bent over” and watching this backyard church scenario. I looked directly at him and could see that his face was intent. There were tears coming down from his eyes. They were tears of joy and expectancy. It was here that the end of the vision came.
It was at that point that I realized beyond the shadow of any doubt that my grandfather had called upon God, and interceded before God, and dedicated me unto the work of the Lord. For the service of God. From this vision I arose and answered the call of God and gave Him my life to His service.
It was probably a dozen years later, while I was telling this story in my church that it just so happened that my mother was sitting there in the audience. She listened to it for the first time and I noticed that she was visibly moved. I didn’t know exactly why except that I figured that it was because I was speaking of her late father.
She went home that afternoon and called me to her home and handed me a book; a book that had belonged to my grandfather. I had never seen that book to my knowledge.
When I was a little boy, my mother was very sick for a long time. I stayed a great deal with my grandparents. My grandfather had given my mother a book because of her illness. It was a book by Reverend A. A. Allen and its title was “God Will Heal You!”
This is the very book that my mother was showing to me and directly under the title on the front cover of this book was the reason that my mother had saved it. At some time when I was a little boy I had written with a pencil on its cover. Immediately under the title of “God Will Heal You,” I wrote the word “Mama.”
My mother gave me the book that was in the vision. “Will Heal You, Mama” by A. A. Allen, the cover on it says.
My wife and I were saved through healing of our son, Joel, as an infant. We ignorantly walked in a belief that caused healing to take place in our early days of life in Christ.
As the years passed, I became the seventh president of the Ministerial Fellowship of the USA, which was founded on the ministry of Dr. John G. Lake. I was five years the president of that organization. During my tenure I researched Lake’s ministry and became probably one of a very few living experts on the life and times of John G. Lake having edited much of what you know as the writings and sermons of Dr. John G. Lake. The reason for this was because of what God was going to do.
On the day that I became the President of that organization my wife and I left for some reason, I don’t even remember why we did it. Less than forty-eight hours, from the time I was made the President of that organization I was standing over John G. Lakes’ grave in Spokane, Washington. This is still a mystery to me as to how it all came about.
While at the grave sight our little girl, Lacey, and my wife, Irene, were out looking at the other graves as is usually done on one of those sunny day strolls through a scenic cemetery. As I was standing above Lake’s grave and leaning up against a tree right that is at his headstone I was contemplatively talking to God and I said, “God if it would at all be possible put even a portion of that man’s spirit upon my life.†An experience came upon me of which words do not do justice.
We returned home and, after some months later, I was editing some of the materials of John G. Lakes’ one evening. In the particular work that I was editing, he was preaching a sermon and was telling the story of going back to Zion City, the place of the ministry of John Alexander Dowey. He said that this the dear old man, though in the last years got off a bit, had the substance of divine healing in him to the place where he was told that even at his funeral people were healed.
And he said something like, “I got to preach in that great tabernacle and he said there were what he called the ‘implements of the devil,’ (as Dowey called them), hanging as decorations around that tabernacle.” Those decorations were wheelchairs and walkers and braces and crutches and pills and potions which men and women gave up, having no need for them because they were healed of their afflictions. These were “instruments of the devil†and they were hanging up as decorations in the tabernacle.
Lake continued his preaching by calling out a woman in that audience, by name, and another man whom he also names, telling how both of these were ridden with sickness and disease and went to John Alexander Dowry’s meetings and were touched by the Lord and healed and their testimonies were right there in the audience to which Lake spoke.
He told of how after preaching in that great tabernacle, “I had the opportunity of going to the graveside of Dowey.” And he said, “As I stood over that grave I cried out to God: ‘God, if it be possible put even a portion of this man’s spirit upon me.’”
And all of a sudden the lights went on in the darkness of my room where I was sitting and working on my computer. (For, there was only the light of the computer.) Yet the room lit up and I felt the same feeling that was upon me the day when I was standing over Lake’s grave! I realized that I had said precisely the same words. It was, in fact, very mysterious to me. This event caused me to try to understand the wonders of God’s anointing. In time I came to know that the anointing is inheritable.
My passion for divine healing obviously started as a young child because I had hated the sickness that my mother was debilitated by. I still hate sickness. This too accounts for my interest in emergency medicine and involvement in the medical programs of the fire departments for which I worked in my early adult years.
“Never listen to the person who describes the “facts†of another persons behavior. Listen to the person who says nothing. Jesus said nothing to support Himself against His accusers. The real Spirit filled person will say nothing like their Master.”
The following is part of what I taught in Issaquah, Washington at Y.O.U.R. Church Without Walls concerning the breaking of the orphan spirit:
Recently, I was asked to tell the testimony of how I came to Christ. This is something that is rarely asked of me and I don’t think I’ve told the story in a few years. However, it reminded me of some important principles that we all need to live by.
Our son was dying of some strain of spinal meningitis and was not expected to live more than a few hours. While staying by his side through that grueling time, Irene and I were terribly tired so a nurse came to us and said that she would take our place at his side so that we could go get a cup of coffee together. I remember so well how we were walking down the hallway of the hospital hand in hand and talking. One of us said, “Well, if he dies, we will simply thank God for the wonderful and joyous time that we were given to have him. If he is incapacitated by the disease and is unable to care for himself then God probably just has so many children for some purpose like that and we should have him because we have the love and abilities to care for him.”
At this point the weight of it all seemed to leave us both. We were not offended by our circumstances and we would meet with the future without any offense toward God. Please keep in mind that we were not even born again at this point. Yet, our feeling was that we had a future and a hope!
We would carry no offense! Our circumstances were not evidence that God was not doing His job and we were not questioning Him in any way.
That evening, as I lay on a couch outside our son’s room and Irene lay on a couch two floors above me, we both, without knowing what we were doing or without consulting the other, turned our lives over to Jesus Christ. Our son, just moments afterwards, awakened from a deep coma and a debilitating fever and was totally healed.
A few years ago, we were doing a conference in Seattle with Mahesh Chavda. Irene and I were driving to the hotel with Mahesh and he asked us how we came to Christ. We told the above story and he was particularly moved by it in that he then told us of a time when he and Bonnie had a son that was born premature. He had heard the voice of God telling him to go to Africa and yet was ready to cancel his trip due to the very grave condition of his newborn son, who’s life was hanging in the balance. They too, were not offended. Because they were not offended, God took them to new realms of the miraculous!
In our conversation with Mahesh, it was apparent that God was revealing the devastation that takes place when people are offended by their circumstances and do not allow for the full effects of life from God to lead us into our destinies! I believe that Mahesh, Irene and I were seeing something that was very important to us and our future in the wonderful works of Christ Jesus upon the earth.
It is my continual experience and observation, that people who are offended by their circumstances in life have the inner need to shift the blame off of their souls to someone else. It seems that their minds cannot stand the strain of dealing with the circumstances in faith so they must find someone who is wrong. Although this is an intricate problem of the heart it is all too common to mankind.
When this phenomenon comes into religion, it is ultimately God Who gets the blame. As Christians, people usually do not have the inner strength to realize that they are offended by God Who, in their mind, is supposed to control their circumstances and not allow anything bad to happen to them. They have somehow come to believe that God’s love toward them can be measured by the good things that happen, both to them and around them. Thus, when circumstances are increasingly bad, the easiest work is to shift the responsibility for those circumstances to the God who is supposed to make it all okay. He doesn’t, so now they are offended.
Of course it is impossible to openly admit, even to themselves, that they have a problem with God. So, they take a lower road in their minds and begin to blame God’s servants. You see God’s servants (pastors and Church leaders) represent Him and surely they are the ones at fault. It is like a new set of glasses that are now placed before the eyes of the offended. The eyes see inconsistencies where love used to cover those inconsistencies. Now, there is a remembered list of offenses. Now, there is trouble that brews and does not go away. There is no balm that will fix it.
Our relationships are of vital importance to lives but can often bring consternation and pain. Much of the pain is caused by misplaced agreement. We all have an inner need to have harmony and union but that agreement is not always a good thing. In fact it can be disastrous. Agreement is most dangerous to us when we must find accord with others in our hurts, pains and offenses. If we just want camaraderie and it doesn’t matter if we are right or wrong we can find a great bondage and deception awaiting us.
The old adage, “misery loves company” actually holds some truth here. Our supposed superior judgment of good and evil then assures us that we are always right. Oh we may humbly say different but we judge according to our assumption that we are right or at least more right than the other person. Now comes the spirit of deception. The accuser of the brethren touts the “facts” or the circumstances of the case. Love doesn’t take a stand so it gets run over by the “facts.” The offended thinks that love is weak. But then mercy and forgiveness are also weak to the offended.
Deception takes its place when we are offended and do not act positively in love. I have found that it does little good to quote the scripture since “it never applies,” so they say. When, “love does not take into account a wrong suffered,” is discussed you find a denial that there is anything but love for the person that is actually hated. The deception grows as the offended begins to practice deception and get agreement from others who at first are consolers and then confidants, but eventually co-laborers in the crusade to rid the world of the evil doers.
Gangs are an example of how we can degrade socially into a covenant agreement that warms our emotions and each gang member believes that they are right – the world is wrong! Yet, the gang is agreed upon hate and discontent and doing that which is evil instead of that which is good. They are orphans who are deceived.
Here is a great rule that you can live by victoriously: When you have a complaint about how you have been mistreated, do not talk to someone who will agree with you. That’s right, don’t share with someone that cannot reprove you. The last thing that you need when you have been wronged is agreement.
This is contrary to your desires. When you are offended by your circumstances, agreement is what you will want to seek. Agreement is a very powerful thing and should instead be used with faith to see the miracle works of Jesus Christ made manifest upon the earth.
Although offense is possible with even the most informed, it is what is done with that offense that separates the overcomer from the deceived. Those with faith in God and not their circumstances – know that no matter what happens, God is their ultimate rescue. These prominent people of faith will find those who agree with heaven and not with earth or their only agreement will be in heaven.
There is a higher wisdom that says, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.” Understanding this means that you will not find agreement with a true friend but reproof that will cause you to be thrust into a destiny of faith and trust in your glorious King.
The scripture shows us that Absalom had favor in the eyes of his father king David, yet he had agreement with others who were also offended by God’s lack of deserved acclaim. God had not been running the kingdom properly or they would have a better king. A king like Absalom would be so much greater, wiser and more compassionate toward the people.
David, upon the other hand, did not want to destroy the uprising of this rebellious group of deceived people. He instead relied up his God to either protect the kingdom that was given to David to oversee or remove him as its overseer. It was actually God’s kingdom anyway. He didn’t place himself as the king over God’s people and he wasn’t going to cause himself to remain the king. He was either there by God’s choice or he wasn’t. He left the outcome up to the Lord.
The coup d’état of the offended can not only arise in strength but it can cause people that have held your trust to be swept into believing a lie and seeing nothing but lies in every direction. Yet, the fall of the deceived is first felt when offenses go unanswered and the opportunity to listen to the reasoning of another offended person comes to the ears.
The answer is not so difficult. First of all, diligently care for your heart at all times and never give way to offenses. Do not ever think that you are above being offended. Settling these matters is a part of your deep abiding relationship with Jesus.
Next, teach it and keep teaching the matters of the heart as you equip the saints to do the work of the ministry. This teaching gives them a fighting chance against the accuser of the brethren and a relationship with Christ that will not be clouded by unrighteous judgments.
Then, never listen to the person who describes the “facts” of another persons behavior. Listen to the person who says nothing. Jesus said nothing to support Himself against His accusers. The real Spirit filled person will say nothing like their Master. Remember that the Pharisees gave all the evidence while Jesus worked the works of compassion – doing the works of the One Who sent Him.
Now offenses usually start when we allow ourselves the luxury of discouragement. Discouragement is simply pride, ego and vanity. Discouragement cannot exist unless circumstances are not going our way. When we don’t get our way we are offended and wallow in discouragement. To understand this and to accept this definition of discouragement is the beginning of victory in this battle.
