A Few Notes From My Reading This Morning

I'm reading When Heaven Invades Earth by Bill Johnson.

I got it for Christmas from my wonderful Pastors Bryan and Becky. I'm just now reading it because I lost it for awhile. I looked for it several times, but I couldn't find it. Maybe it was for just a time as this.

I haven't read the stuff just for me yet, but here's a couple of things that jumped out at me:

*Bill Johnson was writing about how misconceptions of God affect those who need faith for their own miracle. He writes, "A woman who needed a miracle told me that she felt God had allowed her sickness for a purpose. I told her that if I treated my children that way I'd be arrested for child abuse. She agreed and eventually allowed me to pray for her. After truth came into her heart, her healing came minutes later."
Now, I don't struggle with this particular wrong thinking, but I've heard several people say this sort of thing before. I'm putting this statement in my memory bank so I can use it the next time someone thinks that God is making them sick so they can learn a lesson. I think it will bring freedom to someone.

*Another thing he wrote is titled Living In Denial. "Fear of apprearing to live in denial is what keeps many from faith. Why is what anyone thinks so important to you that you'd not be willing to risk all to trust God? The fear of man is very strongly associated with unbelief. Conversely, the fear of God and faith are very closely realated."
When I read that I thought of the Encounter service we had not too long ago, and I was instantly filled with embarrassement about how that all went down. The feelings actaully flushed my face as I remembered my declarations of Miles walking out of church in front of everyone. I remembered laying Miles down on the cold concrete floor and expecting God to perform a miracle. As I was sitting there and reminicing about my faith flop an unexpected thing happened. All the sudden I felt like the Lord was telling me that he was proud of me that day. My fear of God and what I believed he was telling me was bigger than my fear of man and what they would think of me if it didn't happen like I thought it would. He took away those feelings of embarrassement and replaced them with feelings of pleasing. That was great.