The Lord was doing a deep work in me on this trip. I had never felt closer to Him. But at the same time, I had never felt this much compassion and burden for the people He sent me to minister to.
I got to bed about 11 PM or so, and I was quite exhausted. I truly expected to sleep the entire night. But I woke up about 2 AM again. I began by worshipping and seeking God for His will and direction for the day.
But the faces of the people I had ministered to began to flash before my mind, and I found myself deep in intense intercession for them. Some of those faces had stories that went with them. For instance, there was a man named Victor who was from one of the English-speaking Gulf countries who felt led to come over as a missionary to India. He brought his family over and began to do ministry. But the funds soon dried up and there were nights when his son went to bed hungry because they could not afford to feed him. The ministry was going quite slow. The people he was working with were largely unresponsive to the gospel. His parents were criticizing him and telling him to come back home, get a paying job and take care of his family. His wife was not supporting him in the ministry at all, but constantly complaining about their living conditions. She did not want to be a missionary anymore, she just wanted to go home and have a comfortable life again. He was desperately seeking God's will -- did God want him to stay in India as a missionary or had this all been a mistake and he should just go home? He needed to hear clearly from God on this. It was a very difficult position for him. Victor really wanted me to prophesy God's will to him for this situation, but God told me not to. He said that Victor must hear God for himself and until he was able to do that, he would not be effective in ministry. If I gave him the answer, which is that God wanted him to stay and minister, he would not have been equipped to minister properly -- he had to hear God for himself and get God's direction step by step. He wasn't quite at that point of hearing God clearly yet. My heart really went out to him and I prayed that he'd get there soon.
Then there was the lady whose husband had been hit by a car and became crippled and could no longer support the family. They were falling into abject poverty and probably would have starved to death already if the church was not helping to feed them. This lady was clinging to her faith in the midst of extreme difficulty, but she could not understand why God had not come through for her. And there was the bible college student who had not yet been baptized because his family would disown him if he gets baptized. God had captured his heart in the Friday morning service and he had decided to serve Him at all costs and had scheduled to be baptized on Sunday. There were some people suffering physical infirmities that God had not healed. There were many other faces and many other stories.
I found myself moved to tears for these people and spent much of the night pleading with God and interceding for them. I like to think that I minister in love, but I had never felt this much compassion for the people that God sent me to. It was almost too overwhelming for me. I interceded until about 5:30 AM.
Then the Holy Spirit came heavily upon me and told me to worship. At first it was difficult to take my mind off of the people I'd been praying for and focus my attention on God and His glory. But as I listened to the worship music and felt the Lord's presence increase around me, I became more and more aware of Him until He consumed my thoughts.
At first He simply surrounded me with His goodness. Then the Holy Spirit spoke to me and told me that I'd been feeling His compassion for those people. He said that He wanted to meet them and transform their lives and thrust them into His victory. Then He began to give me instructions for the day. The theme for this day for the pastor's seminar was spiritual warfare, being aware of the enemy's tactics against people and gaining the victory over them. Then God told me to sit up and write again, and He gave me the outline for the evening teaching.
Then God allowed me to spend a bit more time in worship, and I again found myself crying out to Him to help me be a good servant and to represent Him accurately, saying only what He wanted to say and doing only what He wanted me to do. Our prayer time ended and it was time to get up for breakfast.
That morning at the pastor's training, I taught on the strategies of the enemy against pastors. I taught on three of them -- 1) discouragement, 2) inciting them to disobey God so that God's protective covering is lifted and the enemy can clobber them, and 3) undermining their leadership authority. I had taught this as a written lesson before, but I had never actually preached it. The Lord put a really strong anointing on me to preach it, and to act out the stories of Elijah, the prophet from Judah (1 Kings 13) and Moses. I was moving at a much higher lever of preaching ability than I had ever done before -- but it wasn't me or my talent, it was the Holy Spirit anointing this message because He wanted it preached and understood. As I preached, God gave me some new revelation about demonic strategies and how they are implemented. This was pretty powerful stuff and I was a bit amazed as the sermon unfolded. It was almost like I was listening to the sermon instead of preaching it, and God was doing the preaching.
Then it was time to minister. God began to break off the oppressions and attacks of the enemy against these pastors and bible women. Since they are actively spreading God's kingdom, the devil had been releasing a lot of his resources against them. I don't know how to explain it to you, but the Holy Spirit began to break off the discouragement and oppression and the men and women began to get free. You could visibly see the freedom on them... there was a change in their posture and there was a change in their expressions and they began to smile and their eyes started to sparkle and they stopped looking tired and worn out.
As they began experiencing God's liberty, I told them to cry out to God to empower them to be His witnesses. And they began to do that.
All of the sudden the Holy Spirit seemed to enter the room just as He had done in Acts chapter 2. The room was shaped like a long narrow rectangle and it had windows on both sides. Indian windows don't have glass in them, they have shutters that close and bars across the windows so people can't climb in. The room also had a front door and a side door on one of the two long walls. All of the sudden, as they cried out to God, this huge burst of wind entered the room, blowing our hair and blowing papers around. At the same instant, all of the doors and all of the shutters on the windows slammed closed, shaking the building. Then they burst open again.
I was strongly reminded of Acts 2:2-4 and Acts 4:31. Acts 2:2-4 says, "And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit..." The only thing we were missing was the tongues of fire. Acts 4:31 says, "And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness."
But I did not have time to think about it because the Holy Spirit broke out over the room and things got really wild. The Holy Spirit took over the meeting again, but I was starting to get used to that now. So I let Him have it until He was done and then we broke for lunch.
Sharath took the afternoon session and I took a much needed nap. I had not had much sleep on this trip, especially since God kept waking me up about 2:00 AM to talk to me and give me instructions for the day. God told me it was ok to take a nap, because He wanted me rested for the evening service. He had good things planned for it.
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