…just the webblog of another follower of Jesus. Someone who is trying to figure out, what it is like, to live in a vibrant relationship with our Heavenly Father. Actually, this blog is not about me. It is about my Dad in Heaven. Maybe I just haven’t said that clearly enough over the last couple of months. You know what? I love Him! He is just, well, great… I guess. I’m on the move, moving further and further away from the identy this world is trying to press upon me. Seeking to get rid of any fear of men whatsoever. It still is kinda scary though. I’m miles away from being perfect, and yet still He loves me so much! Everytime I fall, He is there to pick me up. He is there to tell me: “Get up quickly, don’t stay laying on the ground in self-pity, condeming yourself. Cause I am not condeming you! So why should you?” He always engourages me to run back into his arms.

It is just the fact that I seem to be so impatient sometimes. Impatient with myself, impatient with the way Dad unfolds His plan in my life. And every now and then I was just fed up with trying my own best to have fellowship with Him. And it is only then that I realised again, that I started strifing again, where there is no need for that?!

It is just weird, this whole thing. And I’m always returning to just being his son. Nothing more and nothing less. A brother of Jesus and a son of God. Not to say “the Son of God”, but one of His sons.

You know, I read so many of these books from Bill Johnson over the last couple of monts. And they kinda made me feel weird. They are challenging and motivating on one hand. But on the other I sometimes just sit there and inside of me I cry out: “Why do I have to go through alls this theory?” I know Bill’s books weren’t meant to be theoretic. And much what I found in there was actually really practical. But it was just not the way I expected it to be. I need somebody who takes me by the hand and shows me all the mysteries of God. Bit by bit, step by step. It is not going to be Bill, though. It is gonna be Daddy Himself.

I’m sick of fearing this and that and this again. I’m sick of thinking, thinking more then I’m actually doing. A little healing of a headache of a colleaque at work is not good enough anymore, while there are so many people out there dying from cancer, where they simply shouldn’t die from cancer at all.

Will you follow Jesus with me? Are you in for the adventure? It is more then a game and it is more then just another thought. Is Jesus the One we follow? Some kind of rolemodel? Okay, then let us first start with admitting, that it is actually possible for us to walk in the same anointing, power and authority that He walked in, while He was on this earth. How? By being in connection with his Heavenly Dad all the time. How did He do that? With the help of the Holy Spirit that came down upon Him. And also by submitting His priorities unto the ones of His Father.

Okay, I gotta go. I’m humbly learning …. AGAIN.

Tom

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In March 2006 I read at the shilohplace website:

In the last few months, some very credible people have brought us no less than six prophetic words or dreams that a great battle lay ahead for us but that God would win out and we would receive a greater revelation of His nature and power. This would increase the ministry of healing radically through our lives and out to the nations. With so many similar dreams and words of destiny spoken over us, we are assured that our mission to help facilitate an Agape Reformation in the church is only beginning and that indescribable wonders lie ahead for Trisha’s and my life and Shiloh Place.

quoted from “A Personal Letter from Jack & Trisha Frost; March 2, 2006″

So what? Why is he dead now? What is this? And one guy asked me: “Has anybody ever thought about raising Jack from the dead?” Well I did. And I prayed for it and I commanded it, but I’d be pretty sure it would have been on his website as soon as he would be alive. I know, that the Frosts didn’t have to mention every detail on their website, when they wrote about Jacks homegoing. Maybe they tried to raise him….. I don’t know.

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I’ve already posted the following text as a comment in Andrew’s Blog, but then I decided to post it here as well…

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To me the unfair thing here is the rising up of the gay community in such an evil way. And I talk about “the community”, not about the precious personalities in it. Let me explain that to you:

It doesn’t matter how I decide. If I say it was good, that Haggards actions where exposed, gay people will bash the church and us as christians for being such hypocrites and doing the same thing behind closed doors.

If I say it was wrong of Mike Jones to expose these things, then the gay community will bash us for being unfair, against them, having no acceptance and no love for them.

So what?

This makes me really angry. And this whole media crap makes me angry even more.

And it makes me also angry, that our Brother Ted had to hide all this for so long. What kind of church did he found there? What is this evangelical movement all about? Is it possible, that what you judge you become yourself? (any bible reference here?)

Well, talking about getting angry might be the wrong term. But there is something rising up in me about this. Like the roar of a lion. I would prefer to silence them all just for 24 hours. [Not talking about killing them….] So that they have time to THINK instead of what they do now.

I for myself try to ask God what comes next. I try my best to let God do through me, what He wants. If that means serving people, then I do that. And I have no problem with talking to sexually tangled people about their problems and their lives. Not at all. I have acceptance and love for the people behind all this sin stuff. But not for the sin in itself.

And I am glad I have friends and brothers and sisters to whom I could always talk about problems with pornography or anything like that. I can even talk about that in church. I can ask people for help and prayer and can confess things. That is so wonderful. I am thankful to all who support the ministry God is allowing me to do and still I can be honest.

This should be the atmosphere a christian church should have. Not this fear, shame and *whatever* atmosphere.

[Of course anyone who has a more intensive problem in this area should go and get some good counseling and treatment for him/herself. Not everything is about a “happy and smiling” christian life. If you need to force yourself to put on a mask, get yourself some help soon!]

Hope you guys get my point here. I’m german and my english might be irritating somehow.

Blessings!

Tom

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Foreword
At the 24th of September seminary has started again at New Life Seminary. That means that I as well go to school again day by day. We didn’t have the the same well ordered days that we are used to, because of some important events we had to prepare together with the ministers and coworkers of the New Life Missionscenter. Finally on the 3rd of October the great day began. We had many guests and I was working in the bookstore and selled a lot of books and other stuff. Beforehand I had to arrange the books anew and have a look over the condition of our store. Had to clean some stuff and put the new books on the presentation table. I also had to do 7 hours of service at the reception desk on Monday the 2nd of October. So this was a lot of work altogether.

Time with God
But in this whole time it became very important to me to take or seperate some extra time for my heavenly Daddy and me. Really just Him and me. Nobody else was allowed to my room and near me. I laid down in His presence, relaxed and enjoyed Him. I talked to Him, listened to Him and read in His word. To be honest I invested just a little bit of time, but I never rued this investment, cause I didn’t miss out even one minute of my schedule. Short after I began these special times with God I discovered, that my relationship with Him became a lot more intimate. And that is not the first time I discovered that. And right now I am happy that my own christian life is not that “rollercoaster type” anymore. Well, not as extrem as it used to be. But still the depth of my relationship to God was variable during the past few months.

The example of Jesus
Then I had a look on the behaviour of Jesus as it is described in the gospels and discovered very soon, that the personal time with His Fathers was one of the most, not to say the most important thing for Jesus. And He went into a lonely place to be with His father, even in situations where it seems not “proper” for the traditional reader of the bible. This time with God really was number one on Jesus “priority list” (if He had such a thing). And as you can read in the gospels, this intimate relationship with the Father always bore good fruit. New desciples, healing of the sick, deliverance, multiplication of food and much more. Sure Jesus has been persecuted and He told us, that we will not be taken out of that. But do I have to walk around depressiv because persecution could meet me someday or because I experienced a little persecution here and there? Do I really have to distract myself with other stuff just to prevent me from coming to close to following Jesus the hardcore way? No! Not anymore. The times with my heavenly Daddy is to precious to give them up.

Inspired by a message from Heidi Baker
During one of the past days I downloaded some videos from the TACF website. They recently had the “Soaking in God’s Glory Conference” going on there and I wanted to have those sessions on my computer. Heidi Baker was invited to speak, as well as other ministers. But I was most interested in her sermons, cause they always caused major changes in my life in the past. On of the things she said really confirmed my own opinion on one subject: I do not have to be a balanced christian. Christians do not need to be balanced. Not at all. I don’t have to keep the golden mean for every weird religious discussion or christian topic. I am not a buddhist, I am a child of the heavenly King. That means, I am in the condition in which God wants to use me and in which He continues to change me and my opinion and I tell you: I rebuke the weird behaviour to always think about what others could think about me and my actions. And when other will tell me, that I am out of my mind in some situations, then I can only say yes to that. I have the mind of Christ and I develop the mind of Christ at the same time. So I am out of my mind and God choose to dwell inside of me and use me as His temple. I try to recognize and discern what the Father is doing right now and to to the same as I “see” Him doing. That is an area where I am still learning and discover more and more insights. Sometimes I received those things very slowly. But I came to the conclusion, that I am allowed to act the same way as Jesus did. That doesn’t really work with being balanced.

What matters the most?
I think the highest priority here is the intimacy in the relationship and communication with God I already talked about in this post. Being close to Him (not a hard thing to do, when He lives inside of you), to listen to what He says, His Presence and His works among us and in my life and my own approval to some of these things. That is what I mean by being intimate with Him. More or less often I discover that God gives me duties, opens doors for me and friendly causes me to take over responsibility. Everything has its own time and season and of course their are special times where I have and want to set aside times to be together with God and only Him. And there are also times where it is simply important to intecrate the intimacy with God in my daily living, but it really has to be an integral part of it. That means, it is not enough to discover during your sunday service that you really wanted to take some time for God in the past week, but you didn’t make it.

Okay, you still don’t have to do that. But I challenge you (and myself) to do so, cause that will bear only good fruit in our lifes! So it is a good start to seperate some time for God. But then you should go over to being accustomed to God being the most important being in your everyday life and to ask for His advice in every little decision. Do discover, that I need to practice to communicate with Him and let Him talk to me. That I learn to wait for His answer (which sometimes comes during you walk on by faith) and then act upon His advice. That I learn to be connected with Him inside of me every second of my life.

That is what I had on my heart to tell you guys. I used a lot of words to explain it, but my heart is just full of it right now, that I wasn’t able to use less words describing it. I’d love to read your comments on this!

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