It Is Not What I Thought It Was – Encountering Grace

In 1989, I was pastoring a church and had been speaking on spiritual warfare. As a result of that sermon a person came in for prayer and for the first time, demons manifested and we were off and running. For the next two years, if something strange did not happen every week it was a very slow week. In fact, it was usually three or four strange things; and soon pastors, friends, and a therapist began sending us people to pray for. With no real clue about what we were doing, we just did it anyway by faith. Once, a therapist asked me to pray for someone who had Multiple Personality Disorder (now known as Dissociative Identity Disorder); so one Sunday afternoon, five of us gathered together with the client. As we communicated with her, she went to a little girl alter and took on the personality and vocabulary of a three-year-old. Suddenly she said, “Paul, do you want to see her totally healed; I realized the Lord was talking to me and I felt a ‘woosh’ as well as power on my head. God’s power hit the room, and here we were, all these American Baptists who hadn’t a clue about any of this stuff! I asked if everybody else felt that and, with eyes as big as saucers, they replied that they did. A bit later as I was getting ready for the evening service, I called my wife, Donna, who was home with sick children, and said, “Something has happened to me and I don’t know what it is.” Little did I know that was only the beginning!

Something new happened to me recently, which I want to share. My concern in doing so is that often, when you share things that happen spiritually it’s like trying to describe the taste of an orange. If I say that an orange tastes like an orange, then I haven’t really described how it actually tastes, and even if I say that it’s sweet, I haven’t done it justice. Sharing this spiritual experience is a bit like that, for while I want others to comprehend the sweetness of the experience it’s very difficult to put it into words. Listeners may have a sense of, “Well that’s nice for you, but it can’t (or doesn’t) happen to me;” or perhaps, either a sense that I am being arrogant or a who-do-you-think-you-are-? attitude. The truth is that I don’t know why, but something definitely has happened to me; and afterward I asked the Lord how this could be applied to everyone else because I don’t want things to happen only to me. I want all of us to be able to experience what has happened.

For most of us, our beliefs are based on personal experience, and I am no different. I have preached over 1,500 sermons and, prior to what recently happened, if I were to present a sermon about the power of grace, it would be an intellectual discussion about the Hebrew and Greek meanings of the word ‘grace’, a look at all the scriptures on grace along with a discussion of what they mean. It would all be about information; people would take copious notes and, for the most part, go away and forget what had just been learned and sooner or later, the notes would be thrown away. But, when you experience something you remember it! As a Baptist pastor, I preached on the gift of healing, but it was all theory; we debated gift of tongues, but after I started speaking in tongues (much later) I had this startling revelation that everything we truly believe is based on experience. You may say, “I don’t believe in tongues” or, “I don’t believe in healing”; and when asked why you don’t believe, the answer is usually you have not experienced it. As a left-brain, didactic, expositional preacher, I preached through the books of both the Old and New Testaments; but it was all just doling out information. Then I started having the ‘woosh’, the first of which was pretty dramatic; and then we had a seminar with Charles Kraft, who came from Fuller Seminary to spend a weekend teaching about spiritual warfare. Our secretary, had broken her ankle and the severity of the injury left her with a twisted ankle that had atrophied. The doctor had just told her it was going to have to be amputated but she came to that seminar. Charles Kraft had brought a prayer team from the Vineyard Church and my son, Brian, suggested that we ask those people pray for my secretary. I figured it wouldn’t hurt anything, so we laid hands on her, and her whole body started shaking; her ankle transformed right in front of all our eyes, and she was completely healed. All of a sudden, I believed in healing!

I realized that revelation is only information unless it is experienced; then it becomes a reality. As pastors, we give out lots and lots of information, but until the touch of Jesus is experienced, it’s just words. You go out witnessing, offering absolutely-true information about Jesus; some people will listen and walk away to forget, much like those intellectual sermons mentioned earlier. Often though, others will make an intellectual decision to accept Jesus, which and is a conversion, but they experience Jesus and all those words suddenly become a reality.

To review, my first ‘whoosh’ was in 1989. Later, around 1994, a young man came to our gigantic (5 or 6 kids!) youth group, and we were both talking about and experiencing things of the Spirit. The young man just sat there; and told me later that the entire time, he was trying to stop everything that I was doing in the Spirit because he was a fifth-generation Mormon and a practicing Buddhist who often practiced astral projection. He said, “Everything I did would not work against you”. After most people had left, we sat down together and I said “Tell me about Mormonism”, even while thinking that this conversation was going nowhere fast. Then I had an idea, and asked if I could try something; he agreed. Though I don’t often get a Word of Knowledge, I had a thought and said, “Anger come forth.” As his eyes rolled back in his head and he made a hissing sound, I called him by name and told him to come to the front. “What was that,” he asked. I replied, “That’s who’s controlling you,” to which he responded, “What do I do?” My answer, “You accept Jesus as your personal Savior,” which he did, and I felt the Holy Spirit come into him with a ‘woosh’, like filing a bag. Some days later we went through a knock-down deliverance, with five of us holding him down while he dragged us around the room. But you see, it had just been information until he experienced it.

To share my recent experience is a gigantic leap for me; and if I’d known in advance what would be required to get here I don’t think I would have done it.  But I am a changed person so, prayerfully, my story may give you hope that something can change in your life. On May 30, 2020, on Pentecost, we held an illegal meeting in the midst of Covid. The Lord had told us that we were to meet, and I remember sitting in my jacuzzi realizing I could go to jail for having this meeting. It was really a sobering moment as I thought, “I don’t think I want to go to jail, but I need to be obedient to the Lord.” If you remember Pentecost 2020, all the prophetic words floating around in the Christian prophetic circles indicated that this was to be a gigantic Pentecost; it was expected to be like the first Pentecost, complete with signs and wonders. A dozen or so people came, some from very far away, and all were ready for the light show to begin; but nothing happened, at least not for them. But a very prophetic friend was there, and she came over and said, “Is it okay if I stand in front of you?” I replied that it sounded all right to me; and then she said, “The Lord is going to do a deliverance on your DNA. The Power of God hit me so hard that I was thrown back in my seat, unable to move. Some people left very angry, accusing me of not doing what the Lord wanted, because there was supposed to be Power there. I said, “Well, I felt it! I’m stuck in the back of my chair and I can feel a deliverance coming off of me.”

Again, this is like trying to describe what an orange tastes like! When I first started doing deliverance, I felt, saw and heard nothing; I would sit down and people would manifest. That was my great gift! We’d have people all around the clients, and they would get words of knowledge and they began feeling things on their body. But nothing would happen to me at all, until a couple years later in 1991, when the church invited me to leave after a wonderful series of three congregational meetings. You see, Baptists love meetings; they love conflict and debate; they love a good fight, so bring it on! More people attended those business meetings than came to church regularly. In the end, I resigned from the church, after which I started feeling something on my head. From then on, I’d be driving along or just going about my business, and it would feel as if things were clapping on my head. The best description is that it was like a moving headache all the time; I knew it was evil, so I’d tell it to get off. Then, as I prayed for people the headache would return, and I understood that I was feeling the evil coming off of them.

Sometime around 1996, a friend called from Alaska and said, “Paul, I have this verse for you that says that with one word Jesus cast them out. Do you know what that means?” I was afraid I did, so I started saying the word and would lock into people in such a way that I could feel deliverance coming off of them; and sometimes it would go on for seventy-two hours—three days!—and it was 24/7. After a while, that changed and I would feel the deliverance only until I went to bed that night, which was still very difficult. Sometimes it was so dreadful that no one in the house could sleep because deliverance was ongoing; it was just terrible, and there were times that I’d literally be on the floor in pain. This is not a complaint; I’m just trying to set up what happened to me on that Pentecost evening, when my friend stood in front of me and said that the Lord was going to clean out my DNA. The next day I woke up and could feel a violent, moving headache coming off of me, realizing that I had been doing this for thirty years. Now, it continued for three, four, five and then six days; so when a friend who is an internationally known prophet called, I said, “This is not stopping.” He replied that it was going continue for fifty-four days. I disagreed, “Oh no, it’s not; I can tell you it’s not going to go on that long.” My thinking was that Daniel fasted for twenty-one days, so maybe three weeks would do it; but nope; twenty-one days passed. Surely then, it would not go past forty days; but forty days became fifty-four days, and Isaiah 54 became relevant.

The deliverance stopped for a few days as the Lord gave us new revelation; but then it started up again, and went on and on and on, weeks and weeks and weeks. During that time, Donna and I had two previously scheduled week-long vacations; and I thought, “Lord this is not fair; I’m on vacation but I wake up every morning feeling all this stuff coming off my head.” As my friend had initially prophesied, I could feel the Lord removing evil off my DNA and RNA; I could also feel ungodly thrones being removed, and the windows of the heavens being realigned. It was constant, and was wearing me out every day. Still doing ministry, the deliverance I felt was not the client’s but my own. I was trying to live a normal life with my wife, doing the everyday stuff we have to do; but it was very, very exhausting.

Meanwhile, the Lord gave us revelation about the mighty ones, the deep darkness, the kings and the firmament; and every time there was more revelation, there was also more deliverance. I really thought, “I cannot live like this anymore; will this ever end?” If this was how my life was now going to be, how could I even function?

July 1^st arrived, and I’d had a prophetic word that something was going to happen then. Suddenly, my deliverance stopped, but as I was driving around I could now feel deliverance coming off the land. I thought, “Here we go again; it’s not coming off me anymore, but it’s coming off the land.” Another friend had given me a word earlier, saying that there was something important about July 4^th being more than just the nation’s Independence Day. She was right, for on July 4^th there was a gigantic shift, and I felt a new sensation on the back of my head; it was grace; I was in both the Realm of the Firmament and the Realm of Grace. After that, when I prayed for people and someone else on the prayer team would complain about how bad it was, I’d be thinking, “It’s not that bad.” I’d finish the prayer session and immediately find myself back in the Realm of Grace.

Then I had the idea to determine how many days there were from May 30, 2020/Pentecost, to July 4, 2021/Independence Day, and discovered that it was four-hundred days. How significant, because 400 is a number that often signifies captivity; it is the number of years that Israel spent in Egypt. In comparison, praise God that my experience only lasted 400 days!

Later in July 2021, as Donna and I flew to Hawaii I discerned that we were in the Realm of  Grace. Then, as this message was preached there at Mountain View Community church in Kaneohe,[1] we were still in the Realm of Grace. You see, it is all about the power of grace; for grace is not only God’s riches at Christ’s expense, which is wonderful information; but grace is also a place of power, a place of “supernatural power.”

A night or two after my initial encounter in the Realm of Grace, I was lying in bed pondering grace and I was reminded of two verses:

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.^[2]

This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power.^[3]

I realized that grace is a power word, and I had to get up, turn on the light and get a Bible so I could look at 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, which is where Paul quoted Jesus’ words, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” As a Baptist, we’d talk about how that’s such a nice thought; and it is true, but you see it’s not to be only about information because it is the experience of a place where we can live in His grace. What kind of power is this? It’s an amazing power; it’s the power that enables me to not feel deliverance all the time; it’s God’s strength made perfect in our weakness enabling our testimony to be like Paul the Apostle’s as the verses continued:

“Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

When I am weak, I am strong because of the place of grace, the heavenly Realm of Grace. So I began studying some of the words, focusing first on the concept of grace being ‘sufficient’ or arkeo, which is a philosophical Greek word meaning contentment, a state of happiness and satisfaction; not information but experience. Aristotle believed that happiness involves a cognizant component of information, a philosophy that the Church seems to have adopted since it expertly doles out an abundance of information. Later philosophers emphasized disciplines of living that are supposed to enable us to dispel the things that bring unease to our lives. What a bunch of gobbledy-goop! Information alone will never produce relief, and while I do love discussing what the Word of God means, we need an experience in which one understands who one is, and recognizes and excels in respect to rightly ordering oneself. It’s time to experience the power of God!

I have developed a virtual friendship with a philosopher who taught philosophy at a Catholic university. He’s done some prayer sessions with me, and I have also done some discernment coaching with him. During the last session, he was experiencing power surges as we talked. As I was exploring this topic of grace and sufficiency, I called him and asked about the bottom-line purpose of philosophy. He quickly responded that it is to gain knowledge, so I asked what the emotional purpose of philosophy is. He became really quiet, and then said it’s contentment. You see, contentment is a state of rest and peace; it’s a place where I have no more need because His grace is sufficient where, despite the cares of the world, I am content.

I went through years and years of high anxiety before  entering into the place of God’s Rest; now, entering into this Realm of Grace, I find that it is sufficient, just as Jesus promised. If anyone is experiencing high levels of stress, anxiety or discontentment, be encouraged that there is a place of sweet abode near to the heart of God; it’s an experience that you can enjoy.

During my 400 days of deliverance, I could discern the windows of the heavens, as mentioned in Malachi 3:10. The New King James Version says that the Lord will open the windows of the heavens and pour out such blessings that there will not be room enough to receive it. The English Standard Version says, until there is no more need.” I realized at the end of the day on July 4^th that the windows were all now aligned.

I remember my first prophetic dream that Donna was in, sometime around 1990; she was a patient at the Montclair hospital, where she gave birth to a deformed child. A nurses’ cart was there, and I saw what looked like double mirrors with fractal images. (If you’ve ever seen a room with two mirrors, such as a bedroom, or barber/beauty shop, the mirror reflected in front of you appears to become smaller and smaller.) In the Spirit, I’d always thought they were spiritual mirrors, but I realize now that they are windows. In my dream, all of the windows were totally aligned, which is what I feel now, so that there is no more need. Also in the dream, something happened and the deformed baby was instantly healed and I heard,  “All the babies are healed; it’s sufficient and there is no more need; strength to the 7^th power,” which is God’s dunamis.^[4]

We’ve had a lot of amazing experiences in Hawaii, not the least of which occurred in 2014. On a Tuesday, as I was praying for a person who had come for ministry, I felt something very strongly and said, “I don’t know what this is, and I don’t think I am supposed to do anything right now.” The client then started vibrating under the power of God, and many wonderful things happened. Meanwhile, Hurricane Anna was approaching and we were getting ready for the storm. It was supposed to hit it on the west side of the islands, zeroing in at Waikiki; just imagine the storm surge that was expected to affect of all the hotels and devastate the beach. By Saturday night, water was everywhere, but all of a sudden, the storm started averting 120 miles off of Oahu. By Sunday morning, we were sitting in church with a wonderful light rain falling. The amazing thing is that Anna means grace, and it was clear that the Lord’s grace fell on us.

I called a prophetic friend and I said, “Something has happened to me.” She replied, “I see golden pipes on the back of your head.” So, look at Zachariah 4, which I have taught about for a long time, but there was a center section that we had only talked about but never experienced.

And the angel who talked with me came again and woke me, like a man who is awakened out of his sleep. And he said to me, “What do you see?” I said, “I see, and behold, a lampstand all of gold, with a bowl on the top of it, and seven lamps on it, with seven lips on each of the lamps that are on the top of it. And there are two olive trees by it, one on the right of the bowl and the other on its left.” And I said to the angel who talked with me, “What are these, my lord?” Then the angel who talked with me answered and said to me, “Do you not know what these are? I said, “No, my lord.” Then he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts. Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain. And he shall bring forward the top stone amid shouts of ‘Grace, grace to it!’”^[5]

I love that Jeremiah didn’t have a clue what that was, a lot like us! But moving down toward the end of the chapter:

Then I said to him, “What are these two olive trees on the right and the left of the lampstand?” And a second time I answered and said to him, “What are these two branches of the olive trees, which are beside the two golden pipes from which the golden oil is poured out?” He said to me, “Do you not know what these are?” I said, “No, my lord.” Then he said, “These are the two anointed ones who stand by the Lord of the whole earth.” ^[6]

This is exactly what I was feeling on the back of my head—two golden pipes that would boil with the oil, because the oil is the anointing of the Lord. This is, Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts…amid shouts of ‘Grace, grace to it! Grace, which means ‘favor’ is right there; it is about the power, not the information.

Evidence of the Power of Grace

For our fortieth anniversary, Donna and I went on a cruise in the Mediterranean Sea. I should have asked the Lord first though, because I had to fast for three of the ten days on the ship. Having to fast on a cruise should not be permitted or allowed! When we arrived at the port of Rome, we joined a bus tour that stopped at the cathedral of St Paul, the one stop of the day. Clearly, it was a very important stop as we all made a bee line to the bathrooms; and I was very annoyed because I had been fighting against evil the entire time since docking at the port, continually trying to cast it off. It was dreadful! But about halfway to the bathrooms, I hit a wall of power, and ‘woosh’, everything was gone. I was wondering, “What is this, at a Roman Catholic church no less?” I told Donna to check it out, asking, “What is this? What is all this power doing here?” Then I went into the cathedral and ran into the power again, still wondering what in the world was happening. Then I noticed a sign right there in front of me, “The burial place of the Apostle Paul,” and I thought, “He is really buried here, and the anointing remains,” and instantly I understood something. Paul wrote:

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. ^[7]

I get worked up about this, because we’ve made the Church all about talking, while refusing to engage in the power.

After resigning from the church, I began having many experiences with the power, though it was still quite a mystery to me. I’d become the interim pastor of a church around October 1991, and soon I found myself thrown to the ground under the power. I had no frame of reference for this! The power experiences in Toronto had not happened yet, and wouldn’t until 1994. I didn’t know anything about being slain in the Spirit; after all, I was an American Baptist for goodness sakes! When the power hit me, I was thrown to the floor while waves, and waves, and waves of power flowed over me for over an hour. It was like one of those rides in an amusement park where they spin you around and you’re forced back against the wall, unable to move. Visiting with a friend of mine, he walked into the power and we both hit the floor, blasted under the power of God. I said, “I don’t know what this is, but I like it.” Finally, I managed to get up and get in the car to go back to the place I was staying; I had a Vineyard tape playing, and I started worshipping when, ‘woosh’; and I thought, “Lord I have to drive here.” This has happened many times since those early days, so often that it doesn’t matter anymore as I’ve routinely flopped about on the floor under the power of God with many friends.

After we moved to the high desert, more adventures began. We were visiting a church where our friends led the worship. We didn’t know the pastor, and just went to watch. I sat down in the second row, and all of a sudden was plastered against the seat, thinking, “I don’t know what I am doing here.” I managed to go somewhere—I don’t know where!—for the entire service, and when it was over and I knew that I was supposed to pray for the pastor. I did know the associate pastor, so he went and found the pastor, who came over and I asked if I could pray for him. He agreed, so I laid hands on him, and he shot off like a rocket, right into a stroller. Everyone in the church was panicking, but he came for dinner the next night, bringing his wife and children, and we had a wonderful time. However, he never talked to or looked at me again.

Then I was invited to speak at another church that we were attending, and I started ‘cooking’ in the Spirit during that afternoon. I called the pastor and said, “Donna and I have to talk to you because I just want to warn you something might happen tonight.” He responded that he’d seen just about everything, so we went to the church. They were singing a worship song with the lyrics, “Lord, do with me whatever You want to do.” I thought, “Oh, don’t sing that; please do not sing that song.” The pastor then told me to just give my sermon and then he’d dismiss anyone who wanted to go, after which I could “do my thing.” We did that, and by the time it was over, his eyes were expressing without words, “I’ve never seen that before!” He never made eye contact again, so we left that church.

I spoke to another church in the area, and there was so much power that I was literally hanging onto the pulpit, but nothing happened afterwards. It seems that the Lord was ready to release His power in the high desert, but the churches weren’t willing to receive it.

My friend, Rich Marshall, has a television show God At Work on God TV, and I was in Florida where we were taping two shows for his program. While there, I met the pastor of a four-thousand-member church in a large city. He asked me to pray for him, and as I did we both ended up doing a little spin about ten times, and he went down on the ground. He then said, “I’m going to invite you to come to my church.” I thought, “That’s not going to happen,” but he did invite both Rich and I to come. I was to speak on Saturday to the business leaders in the church, and sixty to seventy people attended and we had a wonderful time. On Sunday morning Rich was speaking in two services. The worship was so amazing that Donna and  wanted to go back to the second service and experience it again. As we sat in the front row. I was just sitting there minding my own business when I discerned the arrival of the angel of the city. Angels are messengers and this one was no exception, so while I’d met the pastor and am a friend of Rich, I had no assigned part in this service so I went over and told Rich, “The angel of the city is here and has a tongue and a message.” He answered, “What are you going to do about that?” I reply, “I’m not going to do anything, because this is not my church nor my responsibility today and I’m just coming to let you know so you can decide if you want to do something about it.” I sat down, trying to behave myself, and the pastor introduced Rich, who went up front and stopped to talk with the pastor. I had this fear inside of me that they were talking about the angel, and then the pastor said, “Paul, would you like to tell the people what is happening right now?” Now, the sanctuary was packed with 1,500-1,700 people and I was thinking, “No, I do not want to say anything.” But, I went up onto the platform and said, “I believe the angel of your city is here and there is a tongue and a message.” The pastor did the unthinkable and said, “Let’s get the message.” Sitting down, I was thinking, “Oh no, please.” As one lady got up and began speaking, I said to Donna, “Nope, that’s not the message,” so when the lady finally finished, we were happy about that. Another lady stood and went off into a tongue, followed by the interpretation; and as power of God fell on that room, Rich, the pastor, and I were rolling around on the floor, and I zoned out. All around I heard screaming, and people were falling out into the isles. Pretty soon, the worship team got up and began singing and I heard the pastor say, “Paul, why don’t you come back,” so I dragged myself back to the seat and from there laid my hands on people. Bam! They’d go down, people were still screaming, and deliverance was taking place. Then the pastor said, “Everyone that wants to be saved come forward.” Remember, there’s been no sermon and no discussion, but over 12 people responded to receive the Lord. Church was now over and he dismissed everybody. They escorted Donna as I was dragged into another room. We have not heard from them since, so one can understand why I wasn’t enthused about the angel with the message!

It also happened in a church in Hawaii. I was to speak one night, and there were about 300 people present. I remember standing at the door thinking, “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” You always have the just-in-case talk ready, but my goal is to always simply follow the lead of the Spirit to do what the Father is doing. After the service began and someone from the front row said, “I see a golden lavar,” I realized the Tabernacle was there. I hadn’t taught about that for years, but here we were having a Bible study on the Tabernacle. Then I had the thought that we were to walk through the Tabernacle and discern the various furnishings, though we’d never done that before. I stationed the pastor’s wife at the Holy of Holies, and people walked through. There were power surges and people were falling everywhere. I watched, thinking that this was amazing. The next day, I found out that four young single men had come to service that night and had walked through the Tabernacle. One of them said, “I don’t know what happened in there but demons left me.” The next day, all four became Christians and then were baptized. The following Sunday, several leaders left the church, along with many of the members. You see, many do not want God coming to church: He just messes up the program and shakes people up. There is POWER in GRACE.

In January 2021, my son, Brian, and I were invited to the San Francisco Bay area by my first intern at Aslan’s Place, who is a school principal. We were to pray for, teach, and train a group of home-schooled elementary students. I was concerned because I had been discerning the Father’s power for two days, so I called my friend before we went and said, “I want to warn you; something may happen, and if you don’t want us to come we won’t, because I am done with churches that people don’t want the power. Don’t blame me later if you still want us there.” He replied that he did want us, so we got ready to leave, and on the morning we were to drive to Northern CA, I could still feel the Father’s power. I called my friend again and said, “I got these words, ‘Get ready, get ready, get ready.”  Do you still want me to come? Because if you don’t, I’m fine.” He reaffirmed we should come so off we went, eventually arriving at the old elementary school that they rent that is straight out of the 50’s. The plan was that we would meet first with the board and a couple of teachers, and later that Thursday evening with the parents and some of the kids; then, on Friday we’d be with the kids all day. As we sat there on Thursday, I got the phrase and asked the question, “Are you ready to become the landing strip for the Power of God? Because if you do not want this, I don’t care; I have nothing to prove here, and this is not my school.” We went on and everyone was talking, when Brian said, “You have not answered my dad’s question.” It became very quiet as they soberly considered, and then they all said yes. I said, “Do not blame me for what might happen because I don’t know what is going to happen. I’m not in charge here.” I proceeded to give a short talk to about fifty adults and kids, and then said, “I believe there is a gate of power here because I feel the Father’s power, and I believe that something is going to happen tonight; but if you as teachers and parents are not going to steward the power with these kids, then we will not continue.” I was very serious, but they agreed to proceed.

I felt a gate and a 10-year-old boy got up; I asked if he could feel the gate. He touched the gate and, bam, he was down on the floor in an open vision and I thought, “This might work!” We finally got him up and he walked through the gate, all-the-while screaming and carrying on under the power of God. Everyone else started walking through as well, and they were also screaming and carrying on. Eventually, I turned to my son and said, “I think this is getting out of control. What are we going to do here? They are all going off the rail—parents, teachers and kids.” I finally got everyone up and holding hands, and said, “We are going to need to learn to walk in the power.” The next day, we did some teachings on discernment from 9am to noon; and by the time the clock got to 12, the kids (who ranged from kindergarten to 6^th grade) were getting really squirrely, so along with a few adolescents and adults it was clearly time to break for lunch. But first the same 10 year old asked, “When are we going to walk thru the portal?” I hadn’t said anything about a portal!

When we came back, I felt the Holy Spirit as Wisdom and I realized that there was a gate of Wisdom. First, we talked about the Holy Spirit and about Wisdom and the first kid walked through and hit the ground again. Everyone walked through the gate and suddenly all these squirrelly kids are lying on the floor and we heard for the next 30 minutes was, “Aaahhh, aaahhh.” I realized that I had never seen such supernatural power in my life. Imagine, a group of elementary school children; you haven’t even touched them, yet they are quietly resting under the power of God in His presence, and experiencing open visions. Since then, their principal has been stewarding their gifts and the kids are growing in the Spirit. Watching in amazement as those kids laid there on the floor under God’s power for over a half hour, I thought, “Isn’t it ironic that all this happened in the San Francisco area?” The power of Grace.

Years earlier in the early 2000s, I had been in Zurich, Switzerland where we had a conference. The Pastor came up to me and said, “Paul, there’s talk in the town, and they do not want you here.” A sense of holy indignation rose up in me, and I became so angry in the Lord that I wrote a Declaration: [8]

I do not come to you with excellency of speech or with man’s wisdom to declare to you the testimony of God. For I’m determined not to know anything among you but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I come in weakness and fear, and in much trembling. My speech and my preaching are not with persuasive words, but in demonstration of the Spirit and power so that your faith will not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

I am determined to know Jesus Christ and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death.

I declare that the Kingdom of God is not a matter of talk, but of power.

I declare that we have this treasure of power in jars of clay to show this all-surpassing power is from God, and not from us.

I declare my goal is that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father Glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and the revelation of the knowledge of Him, and that the eyes of your understanding may be enlightened that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places.

According to the Word of God, I stand against all who have a form of godliness but deny its power.

I stand in the name of the Lord Jesus against every and all religious spirits that seek to confuse, disrupt or misinterpret what I say.

I declare that only the Lord God can create spiritual gifts. The enemy can only distort, twist, and pervert what God has already created.

I declare that it is time for the Church to take back all spiritual gifts stolen by the enemy, and allow the Holy Spirit to use them for the sake of the advancement of the Kingdom of God.

I declare that everything I do during our time together is in submission to the Lord Jesus Christ and the leadership of this conference (or church), and that I do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ whose blood was shed on the cross for us, and who rose from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

I declare that His is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen

Flying from CA to Hawaii, I heard the words, “This is a revolution,” but what is a revolution? It’s a revolt against the status quo, which is something that many of us agree is necessary. So then, what do we do, and where do we start? The Lord showed me it’s time to start a revolution, and gave me eight statements defining it as:

1. A revolt against complacency in the Church; in order to establish radical obedience to the Lord
2. A revolt against the Church’s order of service; in order to establish Holy Spirit directed worship
3. A revolt against doing what I want to do; and believing what I want to believe, in order to establish true submission to the commands of our God, as presented in the Word of God, the Bible
4. A revolt against fear and anxiety; in order to establish a declaration that I will remain on the Ancient Path, which is unwavering acknowledgment that I will trust in the Lord
5. A revolt against wavering opinions that lead to an unstable life; in order to establish a stable mind, which is always at rest
6. A revolt against constantly ignoring what the Lord wants to do; in order to establish a lifestyle that sees and hears what the Lord is doing, and is always ready to do what He wants to do
7. A revolt against a cultural belief that I have the right to get anything I want, need or expect; in order to exchange it for the biblical truth that I’m to deny myself, and to take up the cross and follow Him
8. A revolt against the belief that God has no power; in order to fully embrace in power of God to bring dynamic and dramatic change to us personally, to our marriages and families, to our cities, states and countries, and to our world

It is time for a power revolution; time to say to God, “We will no longer reject Your power in this place, in this city, in this state, in this country, in this world,” and then you don’t reject the power. We must agree that He is God, He can and will do what He wants to do, and He will have His way in His Church. Our part is to listen to Him, and we may go weeks and never see His power, but we will always be in obedience to what He is doing. We will always stop what we are doing to do what He is doing; that’s what it means to have discernment.

Someone said to me that my gift is really generational prayer, and I got really angry about that and replied, “That is not true! My gift is discernment, and the purpose of discernment is to know what the Father is doing.” So, our purpose is to be doing what the Father is doing no matter what we think about it, caring only what He thinks, while caring not at all what anyone else thinks about it. It is important that the leadership within any group of believers be in agreement that He has the right to do whatever He wants, no matter what it looks like, because when there is unity in the Spirit amazing things can happen. And, it really is time for something to happen so that lives are changed, people are saved and discipled so they can become all they were created to be. It’s time for each one to fulfill their purpose in Heaven and on the earth.

I was in Kingwood, Texas when the Lord gave me this phrase, “For the King and His Kingdom.” What do I live for? I live for the King and His Kingdom; everything I do is for the King and His Kingdom. It’s not my life anymore; I no longer belong to myself, and it’s not about me, what I want to do, or where I want to go; it is about the King and His Kingdom. That’s what it is all about, Realms of Grace, Peace and Rest, He is the One doing what He wants through us. It’s all about His power, the power for which they eventually crucified Jesus; but shortly before that happened, when Jesus was at Gethsemane when a cohort of 600-800 soldiers came to arrest him. They asked, “Are you Jesus?” He answered, “I am,” and they all fell to the ground.[9] It’s not a matter of talk or of perceived earthly authority; but it’s all about the power of God.  The power of Grace.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.[10]

[1] Sermon Link: https://soundcloud.com/user-923681474/august-01-2021?utm_source=www.mvcchawaii.org&utm_campaign=wtshare&utm_medium=widget&utm_content=https%253A%252F%252Fsoundcloud.com%252Fuser-923681474%252Faugust-01-2021

^[2] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Eph 2:8–10). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

^[3] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Eph 3:6–7). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

^[4] See Strong, J. (1995). Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon. Woodside Bible Fellowship.

^[5] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Zec 4:1–7). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

^[6] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Zec 4:11–14). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

^[7] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (1 Co 2:1–5). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

[8] Biblical references: 1 Corinthians 2:1-5, Philippians 3:10, 1 Corinthians 4:20, 2 Corinthians 4:7, 2 Timothy 3:5

[9] John 18:6

[10] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Romans 1:16). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.