Friday, December 21, 2012

Notes from the fall term - #1

This fall, Anne and I have heard teaching from Bill Johnson, Beni Johnson, Kris Vallotton, Bernie Ooley, Dann Farrelly, Chris Overstreet, and others. Some of the speakers whisper, others bounce across the stage. All of them are passionate followers of Jesus who want to see revival around the world.



We usually get three or four hours of teaching each day. At points over the past four months I've felt like I was on the receiving end of a dump-truck's worth of revelation. It's going to take at least a week or two of downtime over Christmas to wrap my mind around everything that's happened. As a start, we're going to sift through our notes from the fall term and share some gems.

Here's the first batch:

You aren’t what you think you are. (No one has a perfect perspective of who they are). You aren’t what others think you are. You become what you think others think you are. As John Maxwell says, “You become what you think the most important person in your life thinks you are.” It’s really important what you think God thinks of you. [And God loves you - see John 3:16 and all of 1 John].    - Kris Vallotton

Our culture values concept over experience. You can go to business college and get taught by people who have never run a business. But what a person teaches he must be able to produce. If you can’t, then let people know you’re still in process. We have so much teaching in the church that has no experience to back it up. Jesus’ words became Spirit and things happened. Find all the places where doing and teaching are in the same phrase, like in Acts 1. Teaching concepts is important but it's supposed to lead to experience. Many people fall short of divine encounter because they are satisfied with good theology. Any revelation that doesn’t bring me into a divine encounter only makes me more religious.   - Bill Johnson

Salvation means not only forgiveness of sin but deliverance from torment and healing from disease. When someone is healed, it’s an expression of the Kingdom. Jesus illustrated what a man could do completely free of sin and empowered by the Holy Spirit. I’m forgiven of sin, so all that’s left is empowerment.    - BJ

Faith doesn’t come from striving, it comes from surrendering. Authority comes from the commission, power comes from the encounter.    - BJ

Faith isn’t blind, it sees the situation from a better pair of eyes. The bible is to be not only revelatory but relevant.   - Bernie Ooley


How we see God partly determines what we get from Him. If we think He's harsh, we’ll live in fear. When we don’t see Father God as always good, we misinterpret life. Matthew 7 - “Did I not cast out demons...” How can someone have power and authority and God says I didn’t even know you? They live life out of a religious mindset - they didn’t have intimacy. Everything they were doing was motivated out of trying to get something - to be famous or seen.

John 15:15. We need a servant heart with a friend’s mentality. So many have a servant heart with a slave mentality. Action doesn’t mean godlines. You can’t change your heart, but if you change what you believe it will change your heart.     - Mark Brookes



1 comment:

  1. Thanks for these gems! I look forward to reading more of them. Even these few would take me a while to process and digest so I can't imagine a whole terms'-worth!

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