The second service ran late and we had a little pizza luncheon (a fundraiser for missions) so we only had less than 2 hours to rest at home between services that afternoon. Since none of us had slept the night before, we all took a short nap and we all woke up refreshed.
God's favor was on this last service in such a strong and tangible way. The same lady was sitting near me, so I moved away for worship. God came on me early in the worship and I felt "balls of fire and electricity" in both hands. God told me to stretch up my hands towards the heavens, so I did. It felt like lightenings were coming out of them towards the roof, but I could not see anything with my natural eyes. It did not matter, because God's presence was on me so strongly. God told me that I was ministering to the sky at that moment and not to worry about it. I had never heard Him use terminology like that before, and it sounded a bit weird to me. But I choose to trust Him and not worry about it.
(He did not explain it to me at that time, but He explained it to me later when the meeting was over. Apparently there was both angelic and demonic activity in the air over the church. God was preparing to release a strong revival anointing, and the enemy was resisting it, but the angels were working to clear an open Heaven above us. I don't understand what my role in all of this was, but apparently God wanted to release His thunder through my hands into what was going on in the sky above us.)
I did not need to know what was going on at that moment. I just worshipped Him and adored Him for a while. Soon I became so overcome by His nearness that I could barely stand. I asked the Lord if I could sit down or lay down. He asked me if I'd rather lay down on my back (face-up) or on my stomach (face-down). The style in my church is face-down, but the style from Toronto went I used to go there for renewal meetings was face-up. For some reason I felt like I'd like to do it the old Toronto-renewal style, so I told God "face-up." He said "Ok, lay down." So I did, right where I was standing.
His presence cam on me strongly and I was lost in Him. I was aware that I had my arms up in worship to Him. It felt like He was placing something in my hands. It felt like a very thick liquid that would pour slowly like molasses.
After a while God told me to open my eyes and look around. I obeyed Him, but remained laying down on the ground. Many people near me were now laying on their backs, just like I was. (As I said, normally we lay on or stomachs with our face in the carpet, as thought we'd fallen on our faces to worship Him.) It was interesting to see so many people near me laying the same way I was. I felt like I had somehow accidentally set a trend or something.
Since I had broken out of worship to look around, I started to relax my arms to the ground. That put my palms face down. God (or it might have been the ministry angel, whose voice sounds God's) said, "Teresa, you must keep your palms facing upwards. You must not allow what I put in your hands to spill to the ground. I realized that I'd already spilled a good portion of it out of one of my hands. God said, "Don't worry, I will cover you, but do your best not to spill it into the ground." I immediately turned my palms face upward. I literally felt a light pressure on my hands as God replaced what I had spilled.
During the rest of worship, each time I unconsciously started to turn my palms down, God reminded me not to spill it into the ground. I am sad to say that I had to be reminded several times, because I kept forgetting. God's timing was amazing--He would remind me just as I started to turn them, before any spilled out.
Worship was incredible and God's presence was all over the room. It lasted almost an hour and a half. When worship was over, I got up and went back to my seat, sitting next to Jim. They decided to do one more song because God's presence was so strong in the room. I was glad that worship wasn't over yet. Jim and I were stilling but everyone around us was still standing. Jim put has hand on top of my head and said, "An increase of angelic activity." The power of God hit me and I could not stop laughing.
When worship was over, Diane came back (she had also moved up to the area in front of the platform. She was really saturated in God's presence. When Jim got up to speak, I moved into his empty chair so that I could be next to Diane. There was some kind of knitting in the spirit and we seemed to both be tuned to the same thing in the spirit. The power of God would hit me, and I would cry out with a loud "whoa-a-a!" or "Ho-o-o!" It would hit her just a fraction of a second before me, and she would cry out just a tad before I did. The first time, it hit a little girl two rows back from us just after it hit me. It was like a 1-2-3 how we came in on the same "Ho-o-o." There is no way that could have been choreographed or done intentionally, but it was neat.
To tell you the truth, I did not mind it happening the first time but the second one (maybe 3 or 4 minutes later) was really loud and was in the middle of Jim trying to talk. I automatically slapped my hand over my mouth, trying to both muffle the sound and hide my embarrassment. A few people short of laughed like it was funny (watching me cover my mouth, surprised at how loud I had been.)
Then God told me not to cover my mouth any more. He said that when I give Him lordship and control, I just not act embarrassed at what He does through me. Also, Jim did not seem to mind at all. I think he is used to it, because the Holy Spirit hits Dianne that way a lot. I choose to obey God and not worry about it. Dianne and I remained connected in the Spirit and the Spirit cried out through us several times during the first part of the sermon.
After a while I got thirsty and started to unscrew the cover on my water bottle. "Teresa!" God said, "I told you to be careful not to spill what I put in your hands into the ground." I immediately stopped opening the lid and turned my palm up.
"I am so sorry Lord!" I had not realized that instruction carried on past the worship.
"Yes, My instructions are in effect until I change them." Then He told me that He had put the anointing in my hand for the Fire Tunnel at the end of service and I was not to turn my palm down until after the fire tunnel. Then God refilled my hand again, replacing the little bit that had spilled out when I tried to open the water bottle.
Jim told us to turn to a verse in the Psalms. My bible was in a zippered carrier, and I could not open it without spilling the anointing, so I had to skip following along in my bible and be careful to keep my palms turned up for the duration of the service. That is actually harder than it sounds, and God had to remind me two or three times when I was about to turn them down again.
Jim was speaking prophetically about revival in our area. He asked those of us who were hungry for a revival impartation to come forward. Of course, we all rushed to the front. Jim prayed over us as a group and Dianne prophesied over us. He told us that God was going to leave one of the angels who travel with Jim with us for a short while to help kick start us into revival. He also told us that the time when we begin to turn the world upside down and see unsaved people come in droves was only five years away, so we better get busy preparing for the increase and harvest. I am not sure we know what we need to do--probably to build bigger storehouses. But we need God to show us if that is in the spirit (such as training and equipping leaders) or if we need to build a bigger church building to contain the new coverts or what.
Then Jim asked Rodney to organize the fire tunnel. Rodney had those on staff and those who were heads of ministries to be in the tunnel and the others were told to line up and go through the tunnel three times. The first pass of the congregation was neat and God showed up, but it was not the full impact of what God wanted to do. When they started coming through the second time, things got really wild. The Holy Spirit was all over the people and most of them were really getting drunk in the Spirit. We saw God's power on some people who'd never manifested before, and they were shaking or getting slain in the spirit or being hit with laughter, etc. It was really wild by the third pass, but there was an atmosphere of joy and delight over the room. By the time they started coming through a fourth time, Jim and Dianne stopped praying and they went through the tunnel. About ten minutes after that, I decided that I was done praying and I went through the tunnel.
By the end of the tunnel, I was so blasted that I could not remain standing. I sort of staggered a few feet to a bare spot on the carpet and laid down. Then I opened my eyes and saw that I'd parked myself right next to Jim and Dianne. I reached out and took Dianne's and hand we were both mostly out in the spirit for a while. Then I felt led to prophesy briefly over Jim.
We had a good "carpet time" on the floor for a while, then Jim wanted to get home. He still had two more meetings to go (a private ministry time for church staff that afternoon, and a prophetic meeting that evening.)
Of course, God showed up bigtime at both of them as well and continued to do amazing things.
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