Ephesians 6:13-17 KJV
13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;
15 And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1q4Doxg1U8
I fasted and prayed for the meetings on this day when a Guest of the House [of Kensington Temple] visited us at the end of last November, and God did not disappoint.
I turned the Almased long-term programme into a fast [via multitasking, for it was originally meant to serve another purpose].
God used the speaker and delivered via his last meeting.
This meeting [which was also his last UK meeting last year] seemed [in a good but mysterious way] uncannily relatable, almost direct. It was God speaking directly to me.
Now, of course, there was a packed house, and when Holy Spirit speaks, He addresses everyone, individually. But this time there were words which seemed to target me in a very individual way, throughout the evening. Later, Holy Spirit told me that there were words of knowledge, and words of wisdom....throughout the meeting, and they were, in fact, addressing me and my particular circumstances. Also, they were the actual physical manifestation of the third part of a vision He had shown me in September 2012 which made it easily the best meeting in my entire lifetime. This helps me stand.
Years ago, when He told me to go under a US missionary pastor [who was also a prophet, and close to Kenneth E. Hagin due to his gift and calling], He told me to wait...until His further notice.
I had been in full-time ministry which I had embraced. God sent us a revival to a Bible Study. There was no Internet these days. The information spread via the word of the mouth. People came from different church backgrounds. I remember how one lady came from a state Lutheran church. She asked me after one session, "I understood everything, apart from what you told at the end in Hebrew..." - It wasn't Hebrew. These were the tongues. She received the baptism of the Holy Spirit then and there.
The other time, later on, I visited a local hospice where I prayed for an old lady who sat up immediately after that and exclaimed excitedly, demonstrating her tongues, "Look, what I've got!" - No one had instructed her, Holy Spirit fell on her and she just took off with it.
I received a vision of the hospice which was filled by old and frail people, receiving their end-of-life care, some fairly famous in their younger days. They were spending their days in their hospital beds, waiting for their death to come. I saw, instead, an untapped potential, an Army of people with unlimited time resources. They could pray and make a difference. It gave them a purpose for their latter end. The lady who received the baptism of the Holy Spirit without any introduction or instructions, she became one of their frontrunners, sharing what she had and inspiring the ones around her.
But as for me, God had spoken to my life audibly. I had a promise for my ministry future.
It was easy to run with this for the first twenty years. No matter how dark, His promise kept me up and going.
Then He fulfilled His earlier promise to reveal His thought behind His audible promise "to take me to many nations". That made it a bit challenging for me for His thought underlying it....was too big for my mind. It took me to a ground where I had a lifetime of negative faith due to a suicide attempt in my youth. I had succumbed to a dark thought which eventually pushed me to this extreme act, violating my nature which wanted to live.
I was a Lutheran these days. But I read a lot of Bible. Especially, the Revelation where I spotted all the places which spoke about us "being sealed with the Holy Spirit" and other similar verses which spoke of the Third Person of the Godhead. I did not see it yet, but I was en route somewhere, to a broader and higher place...
When I lied down, waiting for death to come....my formerly racing mind quieted down. And then I saw a vision. After this, I understood that the former happenings which had pushed me to doubt my value, were not my fault. I saw what was what. And this filled me with a desire to live.
I stood up, and as I had taken a lot of sleeping pills....I dared not sleep for three days and three nights. Then it felt safe again.
Life went on, but this highly unnatural act left its mark. In fact, it was about the dark thought which had pushed me to go against my nature. It left a trace.
I did not know what to do about it, and decided to ignore it, by pushing it to the remotest corner of my mind. Yet, it was there. It remained there, until Holy Spirit came to my rescue. One good day, He addressed it and just let me know what He was about to do. I heard it, and laughed at the idea which seemed preposterous at the time. But, He did as promised. The act of committing a suicide attempt due to coming into alignment with a dark thought in my mind...had left its trace, and every time I came even remotely close to thinking of going along a certain alleyway, it released in me a terror of death. What was natural for the others, was highly unnatural for me.
But Holy Spirit bypassed the terrifying part, and landed me in circumstances where I had to face my fear. It took a while, but bit by bit, darkness gave way to light...until there was no longer even a trace of fear left.
Kenneth E. Hagin wrote in his book "The Triumphant Church" how [I use the AI summary of his thought here, for otherwise it will take me awhile to find the exact paragraph in his relatively voluminous book] Christians often do not need "deliverance" from demons in the traditional sense, but rather need to exercise their authority and cease giving the devil access through agreement with wrong thoughts. [p. 260 Stick with the Word]
When my first UK church [The Bridge in Southampton, UK - which has merged today with another local church] arranged the Healing and Impartation ministry conference of Randy Clark, I met some ministers from Finland who were greatly into deliverance, and stated that one could not even be in ministry if there was something not fully healed in their soul. That was a yes and no statement. I had successfully navigated years in full-time ministry, and it had not been a hindrance. But then again, it took me to a place...where my "Achillean heel" provided the enemy an opening to launch an attack which....I would have withstood, but Holy Spirit told me to press on pause after that, and wait....until He was going to open the door He had audibly told me about.
I have come a long way since then. Half-way there, but as it includes relocation elsewhere, not quite there.
Kenneth E. Hagin taught how we can pray in tongues and help pave the way into our future. I put his teaching to a good use. There was an anointing to pray. It was over me for about seven years. At the end of the Millenium, my Scottish Professor friend invited me to Scotland. I already had some Scottish believing friends who had come to my Estonian church all the way from Dundee in Scotland, and one of them was a son of a Full Gospel minister. He had grown up in full-time ministry. So, I spent about ten days at his place. As the anointing to pray was over me, it took me to a place where I interceded for that land, most of the time when I lived in their ministry vehicle trailer home where his father had accommodated his ministry guests. So, I do trust that these prayers paved the way to taking me here, as something was birthed in the spirit realm then and there.
When God tells us to wait....it is not passive.
It would be delusional to think that we could become a professional in the world, without putting in some serious effort to learn the trade. The same principle applies to waiting on God.
Initially, when Holy Spirit told me to go under a US pastor in my original homeland, and told me about the next door He wanted me to enter, I thought that it was going to take Him 2-3 weeks, tops. I had been exposed to ministry day and night, for years, and it was hard to imagine a different kind of a life. Possibly, I had grown to a place where I tied my identity to ministry.
2.5 months passed. My pastor stopped at me during a prayer meeting, and spoke as if to himself, quizzically, "What has been troubling you? Holy Spirit has not revealed it to me..." - I was reluctant to let him know the real reason, and gave him quickly something else, which was a plausible reason. [I had been a pastor, and it was not the easiest task to find work outside the church world....so I told him that I needed work.]
God had although expanded my mind by telling me about waiting...that it was not so much me waiting on Him than He waiting on me....." and it revolutionised my thinking.
Nevertheless, He seemed to take His precious time with the next step. Took Him some twenty years until He moved. And then some thirteen plus years....until His next move, regarding His promise over my life. And I am yet...still not there. But I am a lot closer. Eventually, He has been the Alpha and Omega of His plan, and it is up to Him to move at His pace and in His way.
There are the doors which the humans open. And then there are the doors which are exclusively His to open. In my case, it has been the latter. But today, it is good to know that irrespective of my own wrong choices, and detours, and the passage of time....I have been right on His timeline, and I am right now right here in His perfect will. That means something too.
He has brought me to a church where the pastor is a wonderfully good bible teacher, and I take great pleasure in sitting under his ministry. Especially, as the Bible used to be in me [in my spirit] in another language. So, I can do all I can with what I have. [Quoting Lester Sumrall]
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