Thursday, June 22, 2006

Revolution – Eyes Wide Open (#2 of 9)

In 1990 after we had moved to St. Charles IL from ND we moved to Europe. For the next couple years we became involved with a good Pentecostal Church in Germany. I began to grasp the international face of the Pentecostal movement. The universal appeal of a life in the spirit to all peoples became clear.

Little did I realize the impact of change to come from the Pentecostal wave moving across the world. That within a few years from 1990 – 2006 there would be 1 in 10 people on planet earth would be speaking in tongues and living a miraculous life hearing the very voice of God. When I became part of all this in 1980 we were still on the outside looking in, now the tables are turned. The growth and movement in the body of Christ is all about those things of the spirit I had discovered just 10 years before.

The church body that had nurtured me right after I had received the Holy Ghost was instrumental in introducing me to a man of God who’s ministry changed my life and initiated a change in the body of Christ that is reverberating still. Rodney Howard-Browne from South Africa was conducting meetings at the ND Assembly of God Bible Camp in Devils Lake North Dakota. The meetings were held in what can only be described as a Quonset hut. My brother Steve and I went to the meeting. Rod Hall was there. Rod and I received what can only be described as a supernatural touch from God beyond anything I thought possible. I came face to face with a radical new depth of Faith in God I had never seen before.

After one of the meetings I talked with Rodney. He said something to me that changed my life forever. He said, “Gene, You can live like this”. I believed him.

He has proven to be absolutly right..

I am grateful to the men of God who encouraged me to come to this meeting. It changed me forevermore. Thank you Curt.

This experience only served to make me hungry for much more. I was ruined for anything less. I knew the fullness of the Glory of God was far less then I was experiencing to that point.

When Rodney said to me, “You can live like this” I took him at his word. I became abandoned to a lifestyle of a radical pursuit of the living God at any cost.

I’ve never turned back.

Thank God!

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